I placed an order via Lulu for all three books, but they are experiencing production and shipping delays. Hoping to fill my spare pandemic time with Doskvol stories and lore soon. Thanks @anarion for saying the first book is a good read - excited!
Just got Copper & Salt in the mail! Now I only have to read all of them. 
Mentioning Locke Lamora is high praise, so far, I’m a few chapters into the first book and it’s a different feeling, but I’m digging the very much BitD feeling. You can truly picture the characters as RPG characters.
I’ve started National Novel Writing Month, and here’s the first chapter heading for this month’s novel. It’s always a challenge to start a book off by introducing the reader to what makes this world distinctive; this is the first impression of the story, getting them oriented to how it is here. I enjoy the puzzle.
From private correspondence, Captain Dell Zahvi writing to his son
You want to study “the humanities”? There is more humanity in electroplasm than there is in any sonnet or painting. Human nature is to expand, extract, and contain. That is our defining core, that is where our imagination soars.
When the Gates of Death broke and flooded the world with ghosts, humanity did not survive by writing a play. We faced the dead as they surged to dangerous levels. We learned to contain them, and we extracted fuel from their threat to power our defenses and ships. Then we expanded our territory. The ephemeral threat now provides raw material to further human enterprise. Look to that ingenuity for inspiration, not to some pretentious fiction.
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From “Progressive Technologies and the Human Spirit” by Professor Elyis Gutavia
The limmer tradition is steeped in corruption, which is why it is now illegal. Even the word ‘limmer’ is a corruption of ‘limber’, based on the act of cutting limbs off the trunk of a fallen tree.
Before the lightning walls, before electroplasm, the people needed protection against the clouds of starving ghosts. The strongest thing out there? Leviathans, the immortal god-demons of the Void Sea.
Insane priests figured out they could attract the Leviathans with enough death. They ritualistically slaughtered dozens of people at a time, luring and intoxicating the Leviathans so they would beach. Then the priests would go to work, harvesting limbs, blood, hide, bone; whatever they could get before the Leviathan would wriggle back into the sea.
The priests painted standing stones with undying Leviathan blood and refreshed the patterns with human sacrifice. They made weapons out of the parts they stole from demons and they fought death itself. They ripped power off demons, and that power changed them. How could it not?
These days we protect ourselves by avoiding contact. We harvest the blood, distill the electroplasm, and burn it for fuel through a series of incorruptible machines.
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–From “Treason at Dusk: Sedition in Doskvol” by Minister Prell Rizajan
The Barrowcleft district has the most spacious lands within the lightning wall, and while its estates may not be the most impressive, they are the least crowded. Privacy was essential for the founders.
Their motto was “Throne to Tomb to Throne.” The motto referenced the Barrow Kings, who ruled in life and then were interred in lavish tombs. When the Gates of Death shattered, the Kings rose from their slumber and caused some real problems before the Immortal Emperor destroyed some and drove the rest back. Centuries later, the Immortal King outmaneuvered a coup led by some prominent noble houses in the Capitol.
A number of the survivors relocated as far from the Capitol as they could go, which at the time was the port city of Doskvol. They established themselves at the edge of the city. Even as it grew around them, they invested in radiant fields and eeleries so other development wouldn’t nestle too close.
They identified with the Barrow Kings, because they too had seen their futures slain. But they planned to rise again from their shattered barrows, to once again challenge the Immortal Emperor. As many times as necessary, until the Emperor was no longer Immortal.
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From “Integral Economics of the Interstinctive Customs Delineating Extralegal Castes” by Doctor Cannamount Wallnyver Eggsetunt
The single element distinguishing a crew from a gang is the capacity to trade in Coin.
While silver currency (“slugs” or “scales”) is now minted by the Empire and distributed to quantify purchasing power, in the early centuries of the age, resource allocation was dominated by nobles. Ultimately, everything belonged to a noble, though it may be made or used by their subjects. To trade goods and services, the nobles used heavy gold coins featuring the Emperor. Coins were, and are, symbolic units representing a commitment of resources, service, and expertise to a cooperative venture.
Only nobles may exchange this currency, even today. However, with the daring rise of criminal syndicates, a measure of their power is their ability to intrude into this quiet and forceful economy of influence. When lawbreakers from outside the noble class gain enough influence to have the use of Coin as currency, then they become a proper crew rather than a gang. An individual or gang who acquires a Coin will not find trading partners who accept it as payment in good faith; without a reputation and history to back the Coin, it’s just a piece of metal.
Once a crew trades in Coin, it demonstrates its ability to operate outside the confines of law. Their range of motion is only constrained by the other factions surrounding them.
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From Lord Dalishar’s comments before the City Council in defense of Measure 428: Reinforcement of Manse Privacies (defeated in 712)
The earliest spirit hunters wore masks. They entered a world of different rules, where your name could anchor a curse and the taste of your blood could betray your whole family to a vengeful ghost. For their most famed successors, the Spirit Wardens, the vulnerability extends into the realm of politics and temporal corruption now.
Spirit Wardens erase every trace of their identity. They are scrupulously anonymous. They answer to the Immortal Emperor, not any authority in Doskvol. Titles and roles are assigned, but their disguises, both physical and ritual, make it impossible to know whether the same person is behind the name and the mask when next you meet.
Where we see no vulnerability, we can place no trust. The Spirit Wardens do what they must to protect themselves in their dangerous work–so be it. We must protect ourselves as well, so we will do what we must to hinder those who refuse accountability.
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I hope nanorimo is going well 
I love seeing these pop up in my notifications. Even if our visions for the city don’t always match up, it’s a constant joy to see them and mine them for inspiration.
I loved the first book, especially the Duskvol expletives like “blood and bones” and “inky hell” (the latter might have been John actually). I’ve purchased the next two of your books and I can’t wait to read them, but ironically much of my downtime is taken up with prepping or playing the game!
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From “A Layman’s Guide to Curated Recidivism” by Prof. Canwick Dunslough
It was always about extracting value from the mud. After the Great Deluge in 223 drowned a pile of miners and filled up the works, the town’s future was in question. Best believe when one suckhole fills up, another one yawns open; the torrential flooding washed some sparkly rock fragments into view.
Enterprising rich people checked upstream and realized that the haunted valley, inland to the east between the port and the river, was actually an overgrown impact crater. All that murderous water had uncovered fragments from a Celestial Body that crashed down in ancient times. It hit hard enough to crack the Mirror there, and in that clay bog there were treasures. Precious ores, jewels, strange stuff; some of it grew like crystals where the Mirror fractured and the quicksilver behind it seeped into our world.
The site was poisonous and haunted, and pretty soon the Dunslough family couldn’t get workers onsite for any wage. Also, enterprising profiteers immediately understood it was easier to get the valuables from the camp rather than from the Mire.
The Dunsloughs solved both problems by dragging together a stone and iron fortress prison they called Ironhook. The courts supplied convict laborers who built the damned place. Then it housed two treasures: the rocks reclaimed from the Mire, and the labor forced to carry out the work.
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From “Scrying Upon the Future: Ruminations on Post-Unity Skovic Options” by Craliegh Stant
North Port, as a name, represents a series of moves to push the Skovs out of their own settlement. The district was built around the original Skov port named Doskovol, literally “the Skov’s coal.” The Skovic king’s coal mine motivated construction of a port, to ship the coal home.
The Imperial Navy’s cartographers called the settlement North Hook, due to its positioning as a launch point towards Tycheros. The name didn’t catch on, because the Akorosian nobles who retreated to Doskovol fleeing tensions in the Capitol refused to be defined by an Imperial naval designation. Under the weight of the confusion and partisan signalling, both Doskovol and North Hook were corrupted in common usage, splitting into “Doskvol” and “North Port.”
The Akorosians imported all the resources they needed to take over and push the Skov founders out of all decision making, and almost all profit. The port’s new masters kept the local Skovs on to do the work.
In the sixth century, as protective sorceries faded, the Immortal Emperor ordered his cities to build lightning barriers. Doskvol had spread north and east, and the city reflected its masters’ architecture and greed. As a final insult, a final denial of their debt to the Skovic people, the Akorosian nobles cut North Port out of their barriers and left it abandoned. It was drained of value, emptied, and they discarded it.
This history does not bode well for Skovlan’s future as the newest forcibly acquired state under the Imperium’s rule.
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From “The Haunted Recesses” by Professor Eril Funarabat
Early Spirit Wardens learned secrets that lured them away from this world into the brightness beyond it. They made secret pacts with the Deathseeker crows.
First they cooperated to locate corpses within civilization’s defenses. The Spirit Wardens follow the crows to sear the bodies and prevent the mind’s echoes in dead flesh from becoming haunts. The first Spirit Wardens crafted the Bellweather Crematorium bells that toll in the Ghost Field, to amplify the reverberation when a death plucks at the Mirror’s surface like a fly struggling in a spider’s web.
The Deathseeker crows find the deceased, and the Spirit Wardens follow. But the crows may seek more than the dead, and the Spirit Wardens may follow them to stranger places than you can yet imagine.
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I am still enjoying the occasional exploration of how a district was named.
From “Considerations and Precedent for Countering Corruption”
by Minister Fygus Crotool
In the 340s, the Immortal Emperor conducted a bloody “re-alignment” of Doskvol. He arrived with his army and broke the growing power of the dissenter nobles scheming against him.
His forces gathered and fortified an island off the coast using his profound powers and the seemingly limitless resources of his empire. Victorious, he commissioned the Sanctorium in Brightstone, to keep his wayward subjects connected to their enlightenment. He laid the groundwork for the Master Warden’s Estate, with its unique ritual protections. He chose which bloodlines would survive and ascend as recognized Founding Families of the city.
Influential rebels were executed by the Immortal Emperor himself. Crowds gathered to receive truth, and part of that truth was imparted in blinding light that burned the flesh from the skulls of his foes.
The Imperial bulwark hosting these executions was given the macabre name “Whitecrown” as an unsubtle reminder. The traitors who sought the Immortal Emperor’s Crown of Isles received a lethal crown of bone instead. Ever after, the island has remained the site where the Immortal Emperor’s rewarded servants establish themselves.
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From “A Concise Review of Necessary Legal Reforms”
by Lady Menia Urubask
There is a cynically utilitarian aspect to punishing crimes in Doskvol. The goal is clearly not rehabilitation, or even punishment, but instead domination of those who step out of line. If you are sent to Ironhook, you can be used as slave labor or leverage against people who care about you. Once your allies have paid off the right officials (or criminals) you can be released.
For some stubborn cases, or instances where the authorities need to make a point, the transgressor is not imprisoned or executed. Banishment is not common, but it is cruel; the transgressor is sent outside the lightning walls, exiled to attempt survival in the Deathlands among ghost storms and nameless horrors. Banishment markings are ritually inked on the back of both hands to assure they cannot hide their shame.
There is only one way to secure a pardon and return to the city. Pay the penance tax and secure the patronage of a sponsor. The only eligible sponsors are certified noble houses, and the Spirit Wardens. Your sponsor is then responsible for your behavior (and motivated to keep you in line.) The banishment markings are erased.
The flaw in this system is human ingenuity. The Deathlanders reclaimed old limmer traditions to survive, they banded together. The exiles are outnumbered by Deathlanders born outside the walls and volunteer members.
The Ministry created a tough band of disaffected and capable survivors outside the reach of the law. Outside their view. In retrospect, that may not have been utilitarian after all.
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I like this whole thing, but I need to trim it down. I’ll share it here in its full glory.
From “An Examination of the Symbolic Figures of the Dusk’s Lore”
By Captain Niea Wuldar
Six Towers was built after the Imperial Realignment. The Immortal Emperor declared loyalist houses the “Founding Families” and gave them resources to erect magnificent ancestral palaces.
Doskvol needed to rebuild its tattered identity in the wake of the strife, and a focal effort was the embellished legacy of Doskvol’s first Lord Governor, Lady Devera. She was the eponymous “Weeping Lady” famed for her generosity as a champion of the poor. Conveniently, she had been dead for centuries, so her legacy was in the hands of the living. Her legend provides a cipher to understand the city and your place in it.
The Weeping Lady is promoted as a charity, with a ritualistic element of religion accumulated around its work. Most people believe the Weeping Lady predates the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh, and lacks its Imperial scope, as it honors a local hero.
The seat of the tradition is currently the Arms of the Weeping Lady, a former opera house converted to distribute subsistence food and shelter. This conversion was no accident. The decaying grandeur stands at the border between Six Towers and Charterhall, clearly showing both where and how the districts meet.
The Weeping Lady is a tradition designed by aristocrats, for aristocrats. All noble children are quietly shaped by Lady Devera’s wisdom, when they are ready. Devera cautioned her fellow nobles: “Let them see your tears. Your charitable pity will blunt their demands for your sweat or your blood.”
To date, the lower classes have failed to agitate sufficient support to demand a share of the city’s wealth because those in power have expertly combined charity and sympathetic sentiments to placate those below them. They fence in their hoard with castoffs, leftovers, and pretty speeches. They are cautioned that if they appear indifferent or amused by the plight of the governed, resentment will kindle rage. They pay for your sacrifices with crumbs and prayer. They know you suffer, and they care for you–one bowl of thin gruel at a time. In return you are expected to thank them for their benevolence.
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Here is the short version.
From “An Examination of the Symbolic Figures of the Dusk’s Lore”
By Captain Niea Wuldar
The Weeping Lady is a charitable tradition based on the legend of Lady Devara, the first Lord Governor of Doskvol, famed as a champion of the poor. The tradition’s public focus is emulating Devara’s compassion and empathy. For the ruling class, there is more practical wisdom.
All noble children are quietly shaped by Lady Devera’s sage advice, when they are ready. Devera cautioned her fellow nobles: “Let them see your tears. Charitable pity will blunt their demands for your sweat or your blood.”
Heirs are taught that if they appear indifferent or amused by the plight of the governed, smoldering resentment will ignite to rage. They inherit a tradition that fences in their hoard with castoffs, leftovers, and pretty speeches.
Your masters pay for your sacrifices with crumbs and prayer. They know you suffer, and they care for you–one bowl of thin gruel at a time. In return you are expected to be grateful that you are allowed to live. You must thank them for their benevolence.
To date, the lower classes have failed to agitate sufficient support to demand a share of the city’s wealth because those in power have expertly combined charity and sympathetic sentiments to placate those below them. Should the tears ever thin out, the aristocracy will face the unpleasant choice between giving up sweat…or blood.
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From “Forgotten No More: Tracing the Paths of the Gods”
by Professor Kenton Wastrik
The first known worship of the Shrouded Queen was among convicts. In the sixth century, Biter Nell became a priestess of the Shrouded Queen. Her first converts were the guards who secured her solitary cell where she wailed day and night. She went insane, gnawing at her hands and feet, sending joints of her fingers and toes out with her food tray. When she quieted, they thought she died. Maybe she did.
She was returned to the general population, and she spread a message. Anything you sacrificed to her Shrouded Queen, you did not lose. You created room in yourself by removing flesh. The sockets and scars left behind filled with Her vitality and essence. You anchored yourself in the eternal, and the eternal was anchored in you.
Due to the popularity of the Shrouded Queen at that time, the Ministry halted the practice of punishing thieves by removing hands, and escapees by removing feet. Too many convicts screamed praises during the punishment.
Biter Nell took Iron Hook over completely in 522 and ruled it for a bloody two year span before the military finally breached the fortress and killed every maniac inside.
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From “Occult Experiments in Industry”
By Sir Oren Dyluria
The district was named Charhollow, trying to attract investment by promising inexpensive fuel and an inexhaustible workforce. The industrialists tamed the bogs, channeling the water for the mills; it seemed reasonable to tame the workers next.
Occultists tried tearing the spirits out of the condemned, or volunteers who were hollowed in exchange for clearing their debts. Competitive ghosts inhabited the hollows, working the flesh to death in an effort to outdo each others’ productivity.
In the end, the masters gave up on their dream of a hollow industry. Turns out it is cheaper, easier, and safer to make sure your working population is so desperate they will accept your terms no matter how predatory.
The masters control the price and availability of fuel, food, water, and shelter. Then they match the wages they offer to be the thinnest margin more, curating the illusion you can prosper in those conditions. I suggest greed is more effective than rituals, when it comes to swapping out a living spirit for a merciless ghost in flesh.
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From “Deviations in Social Contracts: The Living and the Dead”
By Lord Castor Filk
How are we bound together? Our first names are often ties to those our parents admire, our last names identify our people. We bond with those who live near us, from a neighborhood to a district to a city to an empire. We study faces, looking for features like our own. We have the same kind of relationships and experiences, giving us common ground to find connection.
Spirit Wardens are stripped of all these bonds. They are masked, their senses honed to wallow in the unnatural. Only foreign-born are recruited. They give up their names and local allegiances. They are anonymous, only forming relationships within their ranks–or not at all. The Immortal Emperor created elite monster hunters that are untethered from those they ostensibly serve.
What sort of social experience shapes these elites who wield practically unrestricted authority as agents of the empire? I do believe they have bonds we do not know about, connections that are indeed powerful enough to form them in community. Otherwise the Spirit Wardens would constantly go mad, layering regrettable precedents until public acceptance collapsed under the weight of tragedy. I suspect there are very good reasons the answers to these questions remain secret.
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Signed up here to say that these chapter headers are great and remind me of some of the collaborative threads about Thief on the old Looking Glass forums.
Is there an audio book version of them?
“Breath and Burns” is complete. I wrote a novel of 84,000 words in 27 days. That’s pretty great! I plan to have it available by March 2021.
I now resume work on Raining Sideways, which was almost 2/3 done before I paused it for NaNoWriMo.
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