Dekmos

The Novel

Dekmos is a world that came to a standstill. Six cities lived in an imposed peace that kept the population safe. But in the city of Noviss, the urge for change is growing stronger. In this time of upheaval, one person is wavering: Haren, the prodigal son of the unconscious alderman feared his city and his origins.

Haren is our protagonist, whom we follow through the world of Dekmos. As you may have noticed, this is a heroic story: Haren leaves his surroundings to grow himself and then return with renewed strength. But no man is perfect, not even Haren. He lacks a sense of security.

This is also the theme of the novel "The still King": security: one of the basic human needs. Security can be given by several factors like wealth, power, family or knowledge.

I give a lot of thought to the need for security, especially in what situations I feel insecure, which is why this theme emerged from the middle of the novel and also became the theme of the book.

And in a world with fire people, sun worshippers and sandworm storms - the characters face their own insecurities. The story uses different scenes to show the different aspects of safety and how the characters react to it as they learn about Dekmos and try to survive. This is all influenced by my previous experience.

The Writing

In the beginning I defined my main character and gave him characteristics, hobbies and a story. Then I added the secondary characters and finally the world in which the whole thing takes place. That was quite a mess and I just started writing. At that time I didn't know what I was writing, I just wrote.

Later I learned that there are basically two types of writers: The plotters, who plan every scene in every chapter, and the pantsers, who build the world as they write, not knowing where the journey is going. A typical pantser is Stephen King, who never writes an outline. A well-known plotter is Robert Lawrence Stine. Of course, those are the two extremes and, for example, J.K. Rowling is about in the middle. She wrote a rough outline of Harry Potter, but filled in the missing blanks as she wrote.

I started as a pantser and wrote about 50 pages, but I noticed that I often had writer's block and wrote long descriptions of the setting. Because of this, the novel was rescheduled with an outline to see if that suited me better or if I simply had no feel for writing.

After more than a year, I definitely consider myself a plotter because I've described pretty much every scene in the novel beforehand. Before I even started writing, I knew how it would end.
br> I first defined the target word count -> so 85,000 words that's a paperback of 260 pages. I then divided that into chapters and the chapters in turn into scenes.
The 280 pages, became 20 chapters and each chapter in turn has 4-6 scenes and a scene has 2-3 pages. Each scene was then described with the following points:

• Who is the POV character?
• What does he want to achieve?
• Why does he want to achieve it?
• What stands in the way? No he can't make it because or Yes he can make it but.

Here is the description for the 11 scene. Here is written scene that also describes my first sentences in a more figurative language: So then I started to describe the 90 scenes and fished my way from scene to scene until finally it became a chapter and then a novel.

And this close connection between the individual scenes excites me. To look at this even smaller: The possibility of giving 1-3 sentences so much meaning that the whole content of the book can be traced back to them is very fascinating. And so I tried to give every little thing a meaning and a reason. What didn't have a reasonable basis was discarded.

In total, with the novel, backstory, character developments, outline, and peoples' stories, about 800 pages were written. Of those, 400 pages were written for the novel and of those, 240 pages made it into the novel after revisions and rounds of feedback. 240 pages is 80,000 words and is a little below the average for previously published young adult fantasy and novels. However, the number of words and pages depends very much on the publisher.

As well as the book cover depends on the publisher and the market: I got in touch with publishers like Hanse, Blanvalet or Heyne to learn more about book covers and to make first contacts. I think many have already noticed the similarity between book covers of the same genre, especially in the fantasy genre: typical for are swords, horses, castles, silhouettes or dragons. But still you have the possibility to put your own twist on the cover with small details.

The Cover

At the beginning I defined the genre and the target audience, as well as the size of the book, the number of pages and the material: the cover is very much based on the content of the book, and a scene from the book was gradually built up.

An important element of the cover is the connection between the game and the novel. The cover is the bridge between the two mediums and conjures up images, adventures and feelings on the game board. There are many small details that should become clear to you after reading the book. For example, the colors, the perspective, the horse-drawn carriage, the burning fields, the fleeing crowds, the protagonist, and a few more. But the tone I wanted to hit should be: gritty, optimistic, self-doubting, medieval and epic.

The book is the adventure to go and the board game is the adventure to experience.

The Game

The board game "Schtale" is as old as Dekmos itself and everyone in Dekmos knows and plays it. Which is why the design of the game carries this feature. Granite and basalt: worked, cleaned and polished. The stone has a pleasant weight and feels good in the hand.

Initially, hammer and chisel was used to split the massive stone: I needed about 30-80 blows for this. One should note that the stone is always struck on the same line and it should be wet. Then you hit the stone regularly with strong blows. It depends on how the pattern of the stone goes. Because if you know the lines and structure of the stone better, then it is easier to separate because you hit the stone on the right side.

After that, I had my stone pieces and started cutting in the shapes. For this, I used a Dremel and a diamond-tipped saw blade. I destroyed three such saw blades or rather they became dull after a few hours until cracks formed and it can already be dangerous with splinters. With further blows and cuts I separated piece by piece the stone and freed the form from the stone.

The forms are still half in the stone, which shows on the one hand, in which places cities were built in the past and on the other hand, picks up the theme of powerlessness / immobility in the book.

These three shapes are platonic bodies:

• Pyramid -> which stands for fire and determination
• Cube -> which stands for earth and constancy
• Dodecahedron -> which stands for divinity and the energy of life

The shape of the board is round, which stands for unity, wholeness and infinity. A slate stone was used for the nobility, which is also an ancient type of rock like basalt and granite. The dark slate stone addresses the current location of the book and builds a connection with the book cover. Using a diamond-tipped cutter head, I dug the lines of the pitch into the stone. It should be noted that the slate stone has a weight of a good 8kg and is therefore very stable and radiates power.

On the edge there are 4 symbols, three of them can be found on the map: These are the symbols of the three different magics that exist in Dekmos and are based on Danish runic characters. The fourth symbol should be understood if you have read the book.

The people, on the other hand, have a leather pouch containing their own 3 tokens. Due to the constant movement and wandering, the stones are constantly abraded and show how far you have wandered. The leather bag is tied with 2 leather straps, symbolizing the number of players, and on it is a small scroll for the game instructions. The more experienced players should have already burned it.

The leather bag has a diameter of 40 centimeters on which the grid was burned with the help of a soldering iron. Depending on the nature of the leather, a temperature of 320-360 °C is required. Then holes were pierced on the edge for the leather cords. Finally, the leather was sandpapered to achieve a worn style.

The grid is 5x5, which when multiplied gives the number 25. 25 is the number for change and represents relationships, friendship and freedom. Which again picks up themes from the book. But the goal of the game was for anyone to be able to recreate and play it themselves. It should be affordable for everyone. It is the people's game. And together with the book, Dekmos becomes more alive, it is not limited to the reader's mind, but the story comes to life in one's own home.