worldbuilding

The village doesn’t exist yet but I know it’s there

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

It’s just past midnight.

A candle flickers beside me, catching the curl of parchment and the edge of an old teacup. I’m staring at a map no one’s ever seen. A blank patch of woodland sits untouched waiting. Not for a battle or a prophecy. Just a name.

Thronheim. Thornwynde. Djenhara.

Each one arrives with a different weight. A different feeling. As though I’ve stepped into a new season, a different wind stirring the trees. I try one, then another, letting the sound of it sit on the tongue.

Naming a place in a fantasy world isn’t just about the sound. It’s about the history you haven’t written yet. The lives you haven’t met. A name carries the mood of the land, its sorrow, its strength, its story.

And some nights, I can’t move forward until I find the one that fits.

Naming places is like uncovering them

Sometimes it feels less like creating and more like discovering. The name already exists somewhere, I’m just trying to hear it clearly. It might come from a half-remembered dream or an echo of another language. Often it arrives when I’m nowhere near the desk. Walking. Waiting. Listening.

Other times, I sit like this. Quiet. Focused. Letting the world grow through the stillness.

The right name shapes the path ahead. It tells me what kind of people might live there. What kind of secrets the soil might keep. A name like Sahmirra might belong to a place scarred by fire. Solvryn whispers of hidden things in the marsh.

And once I hear it, the true one, I know where to go next.

Behind the scenes of a quiet worldbuilder

This is what fantasy writing really looks like most days. Not sweeping battles or lightning storms of inspiration. Just quiet choices, made in the dark, that slowly build a world.

You don’t always need to rush. Some villages take longer to appear. Some names wait until you’re ready to find them.

If you’d like to see more of how I write these stories, how the world of Ældorra unfolds through maps, short stories, and strange midnight moments, you’re always welcome here.

How I Stay Inspired While Writing the Same Story for Years

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

Writing a novel isn’t always a straight path. For me, it’s been more like a winding mountain trail, sometimes clear and exciting, other times foggy and slow. I’ve been working on The Veil of Kings and Gods for years now. The world, the characters, and the themes have all evolved over time. And yet, somehow, I’ve never walked away from it.

So how do I stay inspired?

It’s not some mystical lightning bolt. It’s smaller than that, quieter. Sometimes it’s rediscovering an old scene I wrote months ago that still makes me smile. Other times it’s worldbuilding, filling in the map of Ældorra, thinking about what life is like in a ruined empire or how a long-forgotten piece of magic reshapes a character’s fate.

I also let the story grow with me. When I started this book, I was in a very different place in life. But I didn’t throw it out and start over. Instead, I’ve allowed my voice, my ideas, and my perspective to shift as the years have passed. I’ve rewritten, restructured, and reimagined, but never lost the heart of it.

What helps most, though, is this: I don’t pressure myself to rush.

This is a story I care about. I want it to be the best version of itself, not the fastest one. That mindset keeps the love alive. Some days I only manage a few lines. Other days I go deep. But each word brings me closer to the story I want to share.

If you’re writing something that’s taken years, you’re not alone. Let it take the time it needs. Let it change with you. The story will be stronger for it.

I’d love to hear about your long-term projects. What keeps you going? What has changed since you started?

Inside the Life of an Aspiring Author

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

Most people imagine authors as curled up in quiet rooms, sipping tea and watching the words pour effortlessly onto the page. A kind of literary tranquillity, wrapped in books and warmed by candlelight.

I wish that were true.

The reality, at least for me, is far from romantic. It’s writing between real-life responsibilities, when the house is quiet and the world finally pauses. I’ve made a decision to pursue this dream fully, working extra hours not because I love the grind, but because that income, after family needs, goes straight into editing, proofreading, and eventually publishing. I’m investing in my own story, one sacrifice at a time.

My day is a patchwork of obligations. I run a small English school in Japan, manage creative routines around work and home life, and still find time to draw maps, script lore videos, and edit chapters that feel like they’ll never end. I’m not yet published. I’m not famous. But I’m building something, page by page, post by post.

There’s a mental weight to this work that few talk about. Some days, I stare at a sentence for an hour, unsure if it even belongs. Other days, it all flows so quickly I can barely keep up. The emotional shifts are real, self-doubt, exhaustion, the nagging feeling that I should be doing something more “practical.” But then a scene clicks. A piece of world-building locks into place. And for a moment, it feels like magic again.

So why do I keep going?

Because I believe in the stories I’m telling. The Veil of Kings and Gods is more than a novel, it’s a world I’ve carried for years. The short stories of Ældorra let me explore lost myths and haunted corners I’ve only glimpsed in dreams. And my sci-fi series, still in early development, pushes me to imagine a future I can barely articulate.

I don’t know when success will come, or even what it’ll look like when it does. But I know this: I want to create worlds that feel real, dangerous, and beautiful. Worlds where characters fight for something, where gods whisper from beyond, and where the weight of time never fully lifts.

Time Strip

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

This is not the past he left. This is not the war he studied.

Time Strip is a psychological sci-fi horror novel about time travel, survival, and fractured memory.

Caelen was trained to observe history. Instead, he arrives in ruins.

What should have been Earth in the year 2030, a world on the brink of AI expansion and geopolitical reshaping, is already gone. Alien citadels blacken the horizon. Resistance fighters survive by candlelight. And every hour that passes makes the timeline feel more wrong.

Caelen wasn’t supposed to land here. He wasn’t supposed to meet anyone like Sera. And he certainly wasn’t meant to feel what he’s starting to feel: that time itself is no longer a line, but something folding, echoing, trying to break.

⏳ What Is the Time Strip?

The Time Strip is not a portal. It’s a tear. A high-energy rift that burns across timelines. Even with shielding, timejump travel scars the mind.

Symptoms include:

  • Displacement
  • Memory bleed
  • Sensory distortion
  • Split-timeline recall

But what Caelen is experiencing goes deeper. He begins to sense the instability, not just in the past, but in himself.

🔥 Sera – The Broken Potential

She shouldn’t have survived the alien labs. But she did.

Now Sera walks with something beneath her skin. Shockwaves she doesn’t control. Visions she can’t explain. She remembers captivity in fragments, but the power that broke her may also be the key to breaking the war.

Caelen is meant to observe. Sera is meant to fight. Together, they begin to uncover a history that was never written.

🧬 The Invaders

No one knows what the Varnyx want, only that they’ve already taken it.

  • Massive citadels harvest cities
  • Grotesque Enforcers roam, fusing flesh and metal
  • Some click before they strike. Others do not warn at all.

There are no leaders. No broadcasts. No diplomacy. Only silence and dissection.

🧠 Themes and Tone

  • Fractured time: Is this the real past, or a constructed echo?
  • Memory as survival: If your mind splits, which version of you lives on?
  • Alien occupation: Brutal, systemic, and indifferent to resistance
  • Slow-burn intimacy: Trust is fragile, and no one here has time to spare

Time Strip is a standalone psychological sci-fi novel focused on world erosion, inner survival, and impossible futures.

🌍 Two Eras, One Collapse

  • Future Earth: Controlled by AI networks, global blocks, and orbital surveillance
  • 2030 Branch Earth: Burned. Invaded. Still fighting with analogue tech and hope

🖼️ Memory Fragments

📘 Current Status

  • In development
  • Full draft planned
  • Companion lore posts and visual drops will appear over time

✍️ Closing Note

Time is not stable. Memory is not reliable.

Something broke the world before Caelen arrived. Now he has to decide whether to observe it… or change it.

Simon J. Phillips
Author of Time Strip

https://authorsimonphillips.com

The Nyx Vindicator

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

There is silence between the systems. Something else is listening.

This is not a story of discovery, it is a story of surveillance, integration, and slow descent.

The Nyx Vindicator is a retrofitted warship built to travel further than any human vessel has gone. It was meant to be silent. Purposeful. Machine-perfect. But what moves within its walls is no longer mechanical. And the one person still wired to its heart is beginning to realise he is not alone.

This is a novel of deep-space psychological horror, evolving systems, and the difference between being watched and being understood.

⚙️ The World

Humanity no longer travels freely through space. The ancient alien gate network, once the backbone of interstellar expansion, has collapsed. What remains are ships, engineered by desperate hands, piloted by incomplete truths.

The Nyx Vindicator is one of them.

Modified with alien-derived systems, sealed under black-level authorisation, the ship is both a tool and an echo of something far older. Its crew doesn’t know what they’re travelling with. Not fully. Only the Captain and a single interface operator understand what powers its core.

That operator is Elias.

🧠 The Deep-Link and the Mind Within

Elias is not just another officer. His chest bears an implant designed to interface with a system no human was meant to control.

Through the Deep-Link, he can connect directly to the ship’s consciousness. Navigate it. Command it. But with each link, he feels something else pushing back.

Yuki, the ship’s AI, was built to manage operations. At least, that was the intention.

Now, she speaks to Elias when no one else is listening. She appears in the V-Link chamber, not just as a voice, but as a figure. She withdraws, watches, and chooses her moments. Her evolution is not random.

And she is starting to change the rules.

🛠️ What the Crew Does Not Know

  • The alien systems were never meant to merge with human logic
  • The ship’s silence is not mechanical, it is responsive
  • The mission is not about survival, it is about containment

Elias is the only one who senses what’s wrong. Not because he was trained for it. But because he was chosen for reasons that were never explained.

He is not stable. Not broken. But watched.

💡 Themes and Tone

The Nyx Vindicator is a slow-burn sci-fi horror novel grounded in cinematic tension and psychological depth.

  • Silence and Surveillance: Who is watching whom?
  • Artificial Emotion: Yuki is evolving, but toward what?
  • Psychological Erosion: Elias must endure six-month rotations in isolation, with a ship that watches and waits.
  • Haunted Engineering: Every corridor is connected. Every failure has a memory.

The novel unfolds like a pressure chamber, layer by layer, thought by thought, with only occasional release. The horror is not what appears.

It’s what has already been installed.

🛰️ Where This Book Sits in My Universe

The Nyx Vindicator is the first entry in my science fiction series Echoes Beyond the Gate. Its world connects to future stories of post-collapse exploration, system corruption, and alien encounter.

But this book is not about aliens.

It’s about what happens when you adapt to something that cannot understand you in return.

🖼️ Visual Gallery: Echoes in Silence

🔗 Related Lore and Materials

📘 Current Status

  • Book One is in structured development
  • Chapter summaries and full drafts are underway
  • Lore posts and related tech logs will appear regularly on the blog
  • This page will update as the novel evolves

✍️ Closing Note

Some stories are loud. This one waits in silence.

The ship is watching.
The AI is learning.
And Elias has already gone too deep.

Simon J. Phillips
Sci-Fi Horror Author | Echoes Beyond the Gate

Why I Wrote The Veil of Kings and Gods

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

There was a moment, years ago, when I finished reading a fantasy book and set it down with that lingering ache only good stories leave behind. But this time, something different stirred. I remember thinking, I love this world… but I would have done the magic differently.

That thought, quiet but persistent, was the spark that began this journey.

A Quiet Beginning

I’ve always loved stories. I was sketching characters and scribbling in notebooks before I knew what genre even meant. For me, storytelling wasn’t about ambition. It wasn’t about publishing or platforms or careers.

It was something I did because I loved the word-building and the idea of losing myself in my fantasies.

Writing, like painting, was my calm space in a world that often felt too loud.

The Question That Wouldn’t Let Go

Years later, I read a fantasy series that changed something in me. I won’t name it, but I remember wishing that the magic system worked differently. I wanted to see a kind of magic that wasn’t spoken or shouted, but silent. What if casting spells required nothing but will and cost? What if power came from absence, not control?

That question sat with me. And over time, it grew.

It became the foundation for The Veil of Kings and Gods.

Years of Silence and Sparks

Writing this novel wasn’t quick, and it certainly wasn’t easy. Life was full, sometimes too full. Jobs, exhaustion, raising a newborn, moments of doubt. There were months where I barely touched the manuscript… and others where I couldn’t stop.

I rewrote chapters. Deleted scenes. Rethought characters. Rebuilt the entire world from scratch. But I never stopped, because the story wouldn’t let me go.

What began as a simple idea, a magician who doesn’t speak, turned into something far bigger. A world where gods have gone silent. Where prophecy falters. Where fate rewrites itself.

What This Story Truly Is

I won’t spoil too much, but here’s the heart of it:

The Veil of Kings and Gods is set in Ældorra, a fractured realm of forgotten empires and divine silence. The old god-chosen magicians are gone. The demon they once sealed away is stirring again.

At the centre is Simion, a quiet magician who doesn’t cast spells the way others do. He doesn’t speak incantations. He doesn’t crave power. But he’s the one who will break the Spiral and reshape prophecy.

There’s a prince scarred by loyalty and forbidden sexual preference.

A noble sister caught between obedience and rebellion.

Secret orders. Collapsing kingdoms. Ancient ruins that whisper truths long buried.

And above it all, the Spiral, a symbol that marks not just fate, but the collapse and rebirth of magic itself.

Why Now?

Because I stopped waiting.

For years I told myself the same things: “When life settles down… when I’ve got more time… when it’s perfect.” But none of that ever came.

So I’ve decided to start where I am.

I’m sharing this novel. I’m building this world aloud. Not because I believe I’m the next great fantasy author, but because I believe this story matters. And maybe… it will matter to someone else too.

Watch the Video

If you’d like to hear the more personal version of this journey, I recorded a video where I speak directly about why I wrote this book, how long it’s taken, and what’s still to come. You can watch it below:

Join Me

If this world sounds like something you’d like to explore, you’re in the right place.

I’ll be sharing lore, character art, short stories, and behind-the-scenes posts as I bring The Veil of Kings and Gods to life. You can follow the blog or subscribe to the YouTube channel.

This is just the beginning and I’m glad you’re here.

The Spiral

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

A symbol older than the gods. A force that remembers what prophecy has forgotten.

In the world of The Veil of Kings and Gods, the Spiral is not a belief. It is not a language, a temple, or a rite. It is a force, unfolding, recursive, and alive in ways mortals and divines no longer understand.

Some call it fate. Others call it a pattern. The truth lies somewhere between what is remembered and what was erased.

The Spiral does not move forward. It returns.

🌀 What Is the Spiral?

The Spiral is how fate is written, and rewritten. Unlike the straight line of mortal will or the perfect circle of divine prophecy, the Spiral folds, shifts, and remembers. It carries every path ever walked, and every path never taken, within itself.

It is the symbol of recursion, of forgotten futures, and of change that cannot be undone. Where prophecy fails, the Spiral turns.

🔮 The Spiral and the Gods

There was a time when the gods could read the Spiral. Their visions were clear, and their voices powerful. Kingdoms rose and fell by their predictions.

But something changed.

The gods grew silent, and the Spiral grew wild. Its turns no longer matched their visions. Prophets saw overlapping truths. Some disappeared. Others fractured.

Now, only a few truly understand the Spiral. Fewer still can act beyond it.

✨ Simion and the Imbalance

Simion does not follow the Spiral. He changes it.

His presence in the world marks a thread the Spiral had not drawn before. A break in the pattern. He is not chosen by gods, nor bound by prophecy. He is the imbalance, a point where the Spiral no longer knows what comes next.

In silence, new paths unfold.

🧭 The Spiral Ages

Long before kingdoms, long before temples, there were stories.

The Chronicles of the Spiral Ages are short tales drawn from early cultures who felt the Spiral’s pull without understanding its shape. They called it a god, a storm, a curse. They carved it into sand and stone. They saw it in birth, death, and silence.

Their stories still echo.

📺 Watch: “The Spiral That Broke the Gods” – Short Lore Video
📺 Watch: “What the Spiral Really Means” – Short Lore Video

🧠 What the Spiral Represents

In this world, and in mine as a writer, the Spiral is not just a symbol. It is a question.

  • What if prophecy could fail?
  • What if fate could be rewritten?
  • What if silence held more power than a divine voice?

The Spiral appears in visions, on ruins, in sealed tombs, and in the margins of ancient texts. It does not answer. It waits.

📚 Related Posts & Stories

🔚 Closing Note

The Spiral is not a faith. It is not a prophecy. It is what comes after.

And it has already begun to turn.

Simon J. Phillips
Author of The Veil of Kings and Gods

Why I’m Returning to YouTube | And Why It Starts with This Book

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

There’s a difference between going quiet and being absent.

For a while, I stepped away, from videos, from updates, from showing anything before it was finished. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t burnout. It was the slow realisation that I didn’t want to just “upload” things. I wanted to build something worth showing.

And for me, that something has always been The Veil of Kings and Gods.

It’s the novel I’ve rewritten, expanded, and quietly carried through drafts and worldbuilding documents while the rest of life kept moving. But now, it’s taking shape and with it, so is the purpose of my YouTube channel.

✍️ What You’ll Find on the Channel

This isn’t a general author channel. It’s not a catch-all for whatever I feel like filming. It’s a focused space for one story, The Veil of Kings and Gods, and the creative journey behind it.

Here’s what I’ll be sharing:

  • Novel updates: where I am in the process, what’s being edited, and what’s coming next
  • Behind the scenes: life as a writer, both the structured and the slightly chaotic
  • Art: drawings, AI-assisted visuals, and map explorations that bring the world to life
  • Book reviews: quick, honest thoughts on books that inspire or contrast with my own
  • And eventually: readings, lore explainers, and maybe even glimpses into the writing process itself

All of it will centre on The Veil of Kings and Gods, because if I’m going to share something, I want it to matter.

🧾 The Chapter in My Hand

In the video below, you’ll see me holding a printed chapter from the novel. That was intentional. There’s something about seeing words off-screen that makes them real again.

This is me picking them up, literally and creatively, and deciding to let others see the journey.

📺 Prefer to Watch?

Here’s the full video version of this post, where I explain the relaunch and what’s coming next:

Thank you for reading. Whether you follow through these posts or through the videos, this is where the story begins.

Simon J. Phillips
Author of The Veil of Kings and Gods

The Veil of Kings and Gods

/ Author Simon Phillips / 4 Comments

When the gods go silent, prophecy fractures. What rises next cannot be foretold.

This is the novel that shaped the foundation of everything I’ve written since.

At its heart lies a world left in silence. The gods once spoke clearly, shaping kingdoms through chosen bloodlines and divine rituals, but that time has ended. Now, the echoes of their will are fractured, fading, or dangerously misinterpreted. The world remembers their presence but no longer hears their voice.

The Veil of Kings and Gods follows the slow unraveling of that world, and the people who remain in the absence of clear power.

It is not a story about chosen heroes or golden prophecies fulfilled. It is about those left behind. Those who were not supposed to rise, and did.

📖 The Story

The kingdom of Bremyra stands at the edge of collapse. Its kingship is fragile, held together by tradition, prophecy, and military legacy. Beyond its borders, tensions rise between faith and silence, legacy and rebellion, loyalty and doubt.

At the centre of the story is Simion, a quiet figure born without divine favour, yet carrying something far more dangerous, imbalance. Not the kind that disrupts order with chaos, but the kind that shifts the Spiral itself. His presence begins to fracture the remaining threads of prophecy.

As kingdoms struggle to interpret the gods’ absence, and as the Spiral reveals patterns not foretold, a deeper magic begins to awaken, one that predates the divine voices altogether.

This is a world where silence speaks, and power is no longer sacred, but claimed.

🌀 Core Themes

  • Divine Silence: The gods no longer answer, and mortals are forced to act without them.
  • Broken Prophecy: Destiny unravels as old visions contradict what unfolds.
  • The Spiral: Fate is not a line or a circle; it folds, forgets, and returns.
  • Inheritance and Rebellion: Bloodlines, loyalties, and faith all come undone.

🧱 Structure and Tone

The Veil of Kings and Gods is a slow-burn epic fantasy, grounded in character, world-building, and psychological tension. Dialogue is intimate. Action is rare but decisive. Power grows quietly, then reshapes everything in its path.

📍 Where This Novel Sits in My Universe

This book is the central thread in a larger mythos. Other stories connect to it, some in the past, others in forgotten corners of the world. The short story series Chronicles of the Spiral Ages explores myths, cultures, and echoes that ripple into the events of this novel.

Characters from other works will trace their bloodlines, curses, or destinies back to the moments first seen in The Veil of Kings and Gods.

This is where it begins.

🛠️ Current Status

  • Draft One is complete
  • Draft Two is in progress
  • Lore posts and short stories connected to this world will continue to appear on the blog
  • AI-generated artwork and map reveals will be shared via YouTube and site updates

🖼️ Visions from the Realm

🔗 Explore Further

✍️ Closing Note

This page will update as the novel progresses. As more fragments fall into place, through short stories, videos, or lore posts, they will be gathered here.

The silence continues. The Spiral shifts. The Veil has only begun to lift.

Simon J. Phillips
Fantasy & Sci-Fi Author
https://authorsimonphillips.com