The Oaken Heart seats the Horned King who watches over all. The Raven Queen Judges, and the Circle Gods prepare for the end.
~Death Prayer of Rael
The Nine Worlds of Crenhu Thaor (The World Tree), are held in the boughs that connect the realms of the Nine. These include many from the Lands of the Dead, to the mysterious Far Dreamings. Each world has its own place in the greater metaverse connected by the Oaken Heart that creates the crossroads.
Building an Inter-Connected Meta
Many authors create different series that are either somehow connected in some way. Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere is all set in the same universe, where as other books take place on the world entirely. The Oak Cross is the central means of how the Nine are all connected. Some say that a great ancient wiseman dwells at the center of the Oaken Heart of Crenhu Thaor. Others devise that Oberon himself sits upon the throne of Time with his wife Titania. Whho knows. Part of the fun about an interconnected metaverse is telling bits of an overarching story through many different points of view.
A mention of an ancient Gods War might occur in a book whre only glimpses are seen. A person might then have dreams of a parallel universe. All of this is part of the ongoing work I hope to produce in the coming years as the Oak Cross is expanded.
Primary Connections
The primary means of which all the Nine are connected is the existence of magic. All magic somehow filters from the world of Legends, Altear, and then back into the lands colonized by the Fae. In Agaera (earth), magic is only available to a select few who carry the bloodlines of the God-Kings. Whereas Land in the Stars lacks any magic at all forcing a massive mutation of a nfew form of “magical psionsis known as Genics”.
Really the way how all of this connects is through a simple concept I created long ago, Legends are made flesh. The gods we once knew did exist. There was really a Hercules, there were really Centaurs and Amazones. In some works such as Far Dreaming (where my first novel is set), there is no ythical. Rather mythical stories are re-interpreted on a realistic scale. The “gods” they see are through dreams and visions (hence the name Far Dreaming). While the connections to the strange world of Loakz’ala are even harder to piece together (clue its linked to magic somehow).
Many of my worlds are linked simply through the multi-faceted realm known as the Lands of the Dead. A series of worlds within a major overarching multi-layered universe. Basically the Lands of the Dead are a collection of Tarduses that each feature a particular “heaven”, “hell”, or “spiritworld” relating to various mythologies, and beliefs of the other eight worlds. Again the magic of Altear plays directly into the Lands of the Dead, but how so has yet to be revealed.
The Over-Arching Struggle
I will not go into detail, but the story presented in Altear deals a lot with similar tropes scattered throughout my stories. One of the biggest being identity, and how that theme alone interacts with various factors. Arrow Child is about ethnic identity, and how thte world sees you. Altear’s stories are about the myth behind the legend, and how some things really happened. In other ways it is me attempting to sculpt independent identities out of mythological characters from glorious ancient Cycles.
The primary struggle of the Oak Cross began with the legends of Lord Fire, and Lady Ice. A story called Far Quest which I hope to eventually publish after I complete the works of Arrow Child. Both individuals are part of a band of ancient gods known as the “Primordials” who shaped the very fabric of time, and space. Think big bang with a brain. There is much more to the struggle, but a lot of it has yet to be fully fleshed out. I can say however, that it is far more than “Good guys kill bad guys”, and deals a lot with a philosophy I’ve come to develop over years of studying various ideologies.
Central Characters
Finally there is one other aspect that connects all these stories, and that is a pairing of central characters I created recently that are found across all the Nine. They are known as the “Tricksters”, and they are a common trope found in all my books. Some are minor characters, some are quite dangerous. Look for them, and you’ll pick up on some of the greater meta-plotting going on in the various books, and short stories that are coming down the pipe.