Introduction to Pen, Sword, Scepter!

Fantasy for dreamers

Hi! I’m Liz, the creator of Pen, Sword, Scepter. PSS is a space for all lovers of fantasy fiction, speculative fiction, and more, created by writers and readers. Here, I classify anything with magical elements as fantasy, from magical realism like the short story “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” by Gabriel García Márquez; to supernatural and gothic fiction like “Dracula” by Bram Stokes; to high fantasy such as Tolkien’s legendarium. This broad definition is in order to create a space for anyone who might be interested in exploring the fantasy genre. Fantasy is for the people who are dreamers— who wonder if there might be a magical world behind the doorway when they enter an old builiding, if that amulet their grandmother gave them really might be haunted, or if there really might actually be fairies living in their backyard. Fantasy is for the daydreamers, the creatives, and the people who still carry their inner child with them. It is for those who believe that maybe, in some way, all the stories are true.

So, what will Pen, Sword, Scepter look like, and why should you join us? PSS aims to embrace our love of fantasy together, as a community. The PSS substack will serve as a blog. We will include posts for writers about how to worldbuild and create meaninful character interactions, and posts for readers about new trends in fantasy, book reccomendations, and more. We’ll also be featuring posts on general fantasy-related topics, like Dungeons and Dragons, and writing-related topics, like National Novel Writing Month in December. Additionally, we hope to feature guest writers to write posts based on their experiences and interests.

Pen, Sword, Scepter also has a Discord server, where you can talk about any and all fantasy with people who will geek out right along with you. We also want the PSS

server to become a space for fantasy writers to share tips, talk about their characters and magic systems, and write together. Our server has a sprinting bot where you and your fellow writing friends can write together in short writing ‘sprints’, and make writing a social activity. PSS will also hold a monthly book club, both on Substack and on Discord, and discuss the book we have chosen together. While PSS gets started, we will choose these books for the first few months, but in the future, we will host polls for the monthly book for our book club.

Currently, Pen, Sword, Scepter is an idea. But in the future, I hope that this concept will become a community— a space for indie authors, a hub for readers, and a center for inspiration in this vast online landscape. Thank you for being a part of the journey.

-Liz