The Wrath of the Primus

First off, hello everyone, and thank you again to everyone who has picked up The Templars of Alderath, left a review, messaged me, or just quietly read the book somewhere out there in the world. It’s still really cool to see it fully released and slowly making its way through Amazon and into people’s hands.

Now that Book 1 is finally out in the wild, I wanted to start talking more openly about Book 2, The Wrath of the Primus.

Which is funny, because originally there was never supposed to be a Book 2.

When I first started writing The Templars of Alderath, I intended it to be a standalone story. Beginning. Middle. End. Done. Simple. Then I started learning more about the Fantasy genre and kept hearing that readers strongly prefer series. At first, I honestly thought that was just one of those internet writing rumors people repeat to each other like medieval peasants discussing wolf sightings.

Turns out, no. It’s absolutely true.

One of the most common messages I received after people finished The Templars of Alderath was some variation of: “Alright, so when is the next one coming out?”

So this post is half announcement, half progress update as I start shifting gears from Book 1 into Book 2: The Wrath of the Primus.

What The Wrath of the Primus Is

Without wandering into spoiler territory and getting tackled by my own conscience, The Wrath of the Primus picks up in the aftermath of the Hawthornes’ conflict with Elayne and the Empire’s growing oppression within Metharadan. While Book 1 focused heavily on survival, discovery, and the Hawthornes beginning to understand what it actually means to be Templars, Book 2 shifts the lens outward.

The Primus is not the kind of man who simply accepts losing his grip on a kingdom and quietly moves on with his day.

This book explores his counterattack against Metharadan and the deeper reasons the kingdom matters so much to both the Empire and the Templars themselves. A lot of the history between the Templars and Metharadan only exists in fragments and old wounds in Book 1, but in this story we begin digging into that relationship far more directly, along with how that connects with Alderath and the forgotten history of how all this began. That also means learning much more about the Primus himself, the structure of the Empire, and some of the machinery turning behind the curtain to include the Arcane.

At the same time, the Hawthorne siblings are still trying to figure out how to exist in all of this without losing themselves in the process. They are Templars now, but they are also still people with relationships, fears, loyalties, and the occasional desire to not carry the weight of civilization on their backs for five consecutive minutes.

Which, unfortunately for them, the world is not especially interested in accommodating.

By the end, the conflict grows into something far larger than a border dispute or political struggle. The battle becomes one for the soul of Metharadan itself, while also uncovering more of the world’s forgotten history, Alderath, and the mysteries surrounding the True.

The Reality of Writing Book Two

Writing Book 2 has turned out to be a much stranger challenge than writing Book 1.

At a high level, The Wrath of the Primus really has two jobs. First, it has to continue the emotional and personal growth of each Hawthorne sibling. Second, it has to continue the larger story of the Templars fighting for survival against an Empire determined to erase them while also uncovering the deeper history of the world and why everything is the way it is.

Oddly enough, the character side has become the harder part.

Most hero’s journey stories take ordinary people and elevate them into heroes. The Templars of Alderath largely completed that transformation already. The Hawthornes discovered who they were, stepped into their calling, and gained powers that make normal people stare at them the way medieval villagers probably stared at someone carrying a flaming sword.

So where do you go from there?

I decided pretty early on that I did not want to just go “bigger.” That road leads dangerously close to the land of exploding sky beams, floating cities, and people punching moons in half. Once stories drift too far into that territory, I stop emotionally believing them no matter how spectacular they become.

Instead, I want the characters to grow horizontally rather than vertically. Not necessarily becoming more powerful, but becoming more mature, complete, and grounded people.

Because what does life actually look like for someone who carries divine power? Can they still have a normal relationship? Can they walk through a market without people expecting miracles? Are they allowed to simply exist, or does everyone around them slowly begin treating them like living weapons or symbols instead of human beings?

Elise became a particularly interesting challenge for me. In Book 1, much of her journey revolved around doubt and struggling with faith. Now she finds herself standing on the opposite side of that same argument. She is becoming a spiritual leader for the very thing she once questioned. Worse, many of the arguments against the Templars and the True are arguments she once partially agreed with herself.

That means her conflict in Book 2 is not simply “fight evil with glowing holy powers.” Although yes, there will still absolutely be moments where Templars do cool Templar things because I’m not a communist.

But her real struggle comes from facing an intelligent and persuasive antagonist who is trying to turn the hearts and minds of the people against the Templars and the True themselves. Not on a battlefield with swords, but on the battlefield of ideas, fear, politics, and persuasion.

And honestly, that feels far more dangerous to me.

It also forced me to think carefully about the tone of the series moving forward. It would be very easy to drift into superhero territory now that the Hawthornes possess divine abilities. But that is not the story I want to tell. I’m much more interested in the emotional and spiritual cost of carrying that kind of power. Many fantasy worlds, RPGs, and games have Paladins or holy warriors running around throwing radiant explosions at skeletons, but they rarely stop to examine what kind of person could actually hold onto a god’s favor long enough to wield those powers in the first place.

That is the part I find interesting.

An over-the-shoulder, shaky-cam look at what being a Paladin would emotionally cost a real person.

And honestly, that’s the fundamental difficulty with Book 2 as a whole. Book 1 had freedom. Book 2 has trajectory. I now have established characters, expectations, emotional promises, and themes that need to continue growing naturally. I cannot simply repeat the same formula from the first book with slightly bigger fights and louder speeches. I mean, technically I could, but that feels lazy, and laziness is one of the few things I genuinely hate as a writer.

At the same time, there’s also the very real challenge of balancing writing with the business side of publishing. Trying to get The Templars of Alderath visible has been a much slower process than I think many people realize. Some days I sit down intending to write and instead spend two hours staring at sales dashboards like a medieval peasant checking the horizon for rain that never comes.

Which brings us to...

Current Progress Update

At this point, most of the heavy lifting on the business and setup side of The Templars of Alderath is finally in motion. The Shadow of Arthan is also steadily swimming along in the background, which has freed up a lot more mental bandwidth for me to focus on what comes next.

Right now, The Wrath of the Primus is largely through the planning phase, alongside Book 3.

I decided fairly early that I wanted to plot both books side by side rather than treating each one as an isolated project. A huge part of that comes down to continuity and payoff. There are a lot of moving pieces involving the Primus, the deeper history of Alderath, and the world’s older mysteries, and I wanted the reveals and emotional moments to land as hard as possible when they finally arrive. Planning ahead lets me seed things naturally instead of duct taping lore onto the side of the story later.

Within the next several weeks, Book 2 should be ready to move fully into prose drafting. And honestly, now that I’ve survived the learning curve and setup process of Book 1, I expect the actual production pipeline to move much faster this time around. Assuming reality does not suddenly suplex me through a table, my goal is to have The Wrath of the Primus ready for beta reading within about six months.

I also plan to tackle the cover art much earlier this time. In fact, I already have a prototype version underway, so there’s a good chance I’ll be able to share an early look sometime in July.

Release Plans

One nice thing about surviving the release process for Book 1 is that I’ve now cleared a path through a lot of the chaos that comes with self-publishing. The first time around involved a great deal of learning, trial and error, and reminding me that software tools occasionally develop sentience purely out of spite.

Now that the pipeline is built, future releases should move much faster.

Once the final draft of The Wrath of the Primus is complete, it realistically should not take more than about a month for the book to hit Amazon in both ebook and paperback formats. I already have my layout tools, formatting process, and cover workflow set up, and I learned enough from creating Book 1’s cover that doing both versions side by side is no longer nearly as intimidating.

So assuming all goes according to plan, look for Book 2 sometime near the end of the year.

Although I reserve the right to remain slightly date-ambiguous in case I lose any future battles against wires, software, or trying to juggle seventeen creative tools at the same time like a hyper clown.

Conclusion

I’m genuinely looking forward to finishing this trilogy.

When I first started writing, all I really wanted to do was tell a single standalone story inspired by a vivid dream that refused to leave my head. That was it. One book. One complete adventure. But somewhere along the way, the world kept getting larger. The history deepened. The characters started feeling more like people than pieces on a board, and their relationships began creating questions and conflicts that could not realistically fit into a single story anymore.

What began as one fantasy novel slowly turned into something much broader. A story about family, faith, sacrifice, doubt, loyalty, and even the uncomfortable question of why God chooses to act in some moments while remaining silent in others.

Also, to be clear, there will still absolutely be armored holy warriors doing awesome things with divine powers because I’m not about to pretend I don’t enjoy writing that.

But underneath all of that, I do feel like I have something meaningful to say with this series, and I’m excited to keep building toward that finish line. Hopefully, by the end of it all, we’ll have something genuinely special to share together.

So goodbye for now, and I’ll see you in the next post.