Giveaway: ‘Rebirth: A LitRPG Progression Fantasy’ by Luke Chmilenko
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GIVEAWAY TIME!
Ready to level up your TBR? We’re giving away 5 physical copies of Rebirth/Aetherforged (LitRPG)!
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Giveaway begins November 18th and ends November 25th!
Born in 1987, Luke Chmilenko grew up in the city of Mississauga, Ontario spending the majority of his life within the city. Always a fan of writing and storytelling, Luke continuously wrote small short stories over the years, but never embarked on writing a full novel until much later in life, thinking it was something beyond his ability.
With his interesting in writing waxing and waning as the years passed, Luke focused on his studies, eventually finding a job in the field of IT Security and working between various jobs for several years. It wasn't until after he was married and with his wife's encouragement that he finally decided to try writing a novel, this time deciding to focus on a new genre that he had just discovered called LitRPG.
Diving into his work, Luke wrote his first book over the course of several months, releasing the book as a web serial chapter by chapter for free online, garnering valuable feedback and confidence from his readers. By the time Luke finished his first book and published it on amazon, he already had a hungry audience waiting for next installation, to which he immediately threw himself into working tirelessly at his newfound passion.
Today, Luke now writes full time with his wife and two cats in their Burlington home, working away on his next issue of his Ascend Online series and a brand new science fiction series named Starfall.
Synopsis
The discovery of an enchanted heirloom sends a poor farm boy on a journey to master magic and vanquish evil in this epic LitRPG fantasy series.
Eighteen-year-old Callum Stross never asked to become a hero. Struggling through a brutal harvest alongside his father, he's more concerned with surviving the season than reliving ancient wars.
But when a devastating aetherstorm strikes, Callum is forced to seek shelter in a cursed manor, where he discovers a dormant Aethercore tied to the bloodline of the legendary Demonslayer. The core fuses with his soul, awakening latent power and binding him to Fen, a mana-bound fox who claims Callum is the Reborn Heir meant to finish what his ancestor started.
With demonic aetherbeasts rising once more and warlocks spreading corruption through forbidden Demoncores, Callum must travel to New Albion to uncover the truths hidden in the Archive of Destiny. There, in the capital's elite Great College, nobles train to manipulate mana, fuse shards, and wield legendary Powercores. But even they are unprepared for the impending storm.
To survive, Callum must rise through the ranks of a complex system, deepen his bond with Fen, and unlock the secrets buried in his bloodline. Because the Second Demonswar is coming—and this time, no one's ready.
INTERVIEW WITH LUKE Luke Chmilenko
How did you divide creative responsibilities? Was one of you more systems-focused while the other drove character arcs, or did you both tackle everything together?
Aetherforged was a collective project right from the beginning, with both of us building off of the other’s ideas, which was fantastic, as Harmon and I are both heavy planners and outliners when it comes to our stories.
When we first started talking about partnering on a project, both of us came to the table with a bunch of fragmented concepts and ideas of things that we’d seen and loved from other books and video games, but for whatever reason hadn’t yet been mashed together into something for all of us to enjoy. Then, the more we talked about it, the more we realized that we had something new in our hands, which resulted in me pitching the initial concept that would become Aetherforged to Harmon (one that, at the start, we named Deck of Destiny).
Once Harmon had that concept in hand, he put his own spin on everything and sent it back to me, which as we continued to shoot back and forth, had us planning out not only the system mechanics of the series, but completely outlined everything in its entirety, from characters, to the plot, to a few secret surprises that neither of us would have come up with on our own.
Aetherforged introduces some really intricate mechanics. What part of the progression system changed the most from your first draft?
The shards! Originally, when Harmon and I started to draft the idea of Aetherforged, we wanted it to fall into the Deckbuilding sub-genre of LitRPG, which to this day typically focuses on actual ‘cards’ as being the source of magic and power progression. But as the concept grew and we got into the meat of the story, we realized that we wanted to have more flexibility in our magic system as well as a way to ‘brand’ it as our own. Hence, the shard system was born! This allowed us to move away from simply copying other stories ‘card element’ and instead replace it with something more suitable in-world while still retaining that ‘Deckbuilding’ flavour.
How do you both keep the balance between crunchier LitRPG stats and maintaining narrative flow, especially for new readers jumping into the genre?
By always leaning into the fantasy of the world whenever possible.
The reason why Harmon and I worked so well together is that we shared the same view that while the numbers and crunch of the story are important, having them be cohesive and, most importantly, supportive of the overall narrative is the most critical aspect of delivering a good story to the readers. As we developed Aetherforged, we wanted to make sure that the overall fantasy of the world came through first to the reader to allow them to immerse themselves in the magic (pun intended) of it all, rather than needing to lean on the numbers to do so. As veteran authors in the genre, we know that not all readers enjoy being bombarded with numbers, especially audiobook listeners, so we took a very minimalist approach in our numbers, stats, and so on, ensuring that whenever we did use them, they were presented with care and in a lore-building way that suited the context. Rather than simply including crunch for the sake of crunch.
If you could pick one mechanic from the book to have in real life, which one would you choose and why?
Oh, without a doubt, a shard that would give us the ability to heal or wipe away exhaustion. Ooh, or maybe one that would keep us from needing to sleep and eat? I mean, how else are Harmon and I supposed to keep writing all these books of ours? There isn’t enough time unless we start giving up sleep! Or…unless we get access to time magic…
How do you approach writing stakes in a world where characters can evolve, respawn, and power up? What keeps danger feeling real?
By killing off beloved characters unexpectedly. I mean, by leaning as close as we can into the fantasy of the world and making sure that we treat the characters as honestly as we can to who they are and how they fit into the overall story. We want the readers to feel that all characters, no matter how major or minor they are, feel in line with ‘who’ they are. In Aetherforged, we lean as close as we can to a traditional fantasy world, one without second chances, respawns, or meddling powers. This, in turn, allows Harmon and me to keep the story moving quickly, with plenty of twists and surprises to keep the story feeling authentic and exciting.
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