Neslan Dormenor is the Crimson League’s scholar. If I’m honest, he’s probably the character who most resembles me in temperament and interests.
He’s twenty-five or so and loves history, literature, poetry, and myth. He’s extremely book smart, and I’d think he has a rich interior life.
I feel really bad for him, because he finds himself stuck fighting in a resistance movement against a sorcerer, a peer of his he’s known all his life but never knew could work magic.
That’s not Neslan’s place. He’s not a soldier or a fighter. In fact, he’s extremely conflict avoidant by nature. War is not where he would EVER feel he belongs, fits in, or has any possibility of success.
And yet, he’s absolutely in the Crimson League for a reason. He contributes things no other member of the League could ever contribute.
I love that, in a subtle way that’s not explicitly brought out but still tangible, Neslan is more or less the complete opposite of villain Zalski Forzythe.
Neslan and Zalski have similar backgrounds, but they choose very different paths.
- they are both eldest children, sons of dukes. Zalski’s father was the Duke of Lanceton. Neslan’s is the Duke of Crescenton.
- they’re both intelligent, and both strategizers
- they were both close to and favored by the royal family
- Neslan has no magic, true, but when Zalski executes his coup two years the novel starts and kills the royals, Neslan chooses to fight against him rather than join him to save himself.
Where Zalski betrays his friends and family in pursuit of power and ambition, Neslan remains humbly faithful to his loved ones-even when he has absolutely nothing to gain from it, and everything to lose.
If hard times test character, then Neslan passes that test.
David and Jonathan
I love the example David and Jonathan provide of true friendship in the Bible. I think it definitely influenced, in an unconscious way, the friendship of Lanokas and Neslan.
Neslan is the Jonathan in this analogy in some ways. In other ways, he’s the David (primarily his love of poetry). I think Neslan’s more the Jonathan, though: the less flashy one, the less prominent one, the more humble one.
Like Jonathan, he’s okay with that.
Neslan subjectively understands that while his role is one of support, that role is critical, and he doesn’t resent it or have ambitions to be something more than what he knows he is called to be.
The prequel
I hope, after eventually publishing books 2 and 3 of my trilogy again in second editions, to publish the prequel I’ve written in recent years.
Neslan features prominently in it, which I didn’t understand would happen when I started writing. I love that that’s the case, though. I love that I got to know him better and really got to see him shine.
The prequel brought out a different side of him, a protector side, a leader side. I had so much fun with it, and I just can’t wait (if the trilogy does well enough, starting with book one) to share more of Neslan with the world!
The Crimson League: The Fight for Hope is available now on Amazon (Kindle and paperback). Check out a great editorial review here, or the book’s website. There are also a number of excerpts available on the blog.
Creative Writing with the Crimson League 
Leave a comment