The Halflands
The Halflands is a fantasy setting for stories and role-playing games that I have been creating for a decade or two; one that is built on earlier worlds used for fantasy, science fiction and superhero role-playing games for another two or three decades before that.
It is called “the Halflands” because rather than being a world or realm of its own, it's what TV Tropes calls a “Portal Crossroad World”, like C.S. Lewis’s “Wood between the Worlds”, “the Neitherlands” in Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, the “World between Worlds” of Star Wars Rebels and the like. It’s a place where the paths between worlds intersect.
The Halflands is unlike these other places between worlds in that it has a fairly extensive geography, history and population of its own. It is a setting in which many stories can be told. Moreover, a number of other realms or otherworldly lands border on it, places like the Faerie Summerlands; Jinnistan, home of the Jinn; and Patala, the land of the Naga serpent-folk. As mentioned, for those who know how to find and walk them, there are paths—the Witch Paths—leading through the Halflands, taking travelers between worlds.
For a tour of the main regions of the Halflands, visit this Guide.
Halflands fiction
I’ve written a number of stories set in the Halflands, including two novels, a couple of comic book stories, and a short story. Two more novels and a children’s book are all in the works. The first story whose main setting is the Halflands themselves—Aunt Jenny—will be published in November. My first novel, The Demon Priest—published in 2021—has chapters set in the Halflands, but is set largely in a version of Earth, the same Earth that is the setting for the stories published by G-Man Comics.
Aunt Jenny and the Delayed Quest is a bit of a twist on the classic epic High Fantasy hero’s journey. Right from the first chapter, Jenny and her companions find themselves on a quest and a journey through the Halflands. If you’d like to learn more about it, you can, by clicking on the Aunt Jenny button in the menu bar, the link in this paragraph or the poster at the top of the page.
The next is the tale of the Demon Priest, set in a world of pulp adventure and superheroes. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope that my readers will have fun as well. Unsurprisingly, the main theme is “What the devil is a ‘Demon Priest’ and how could he come to be?” To be honest, he started as a slip of the tongue that the philosophy major and the novelist in me just couldn’t let be. I suppose I could say “the devil made me do it”, because, like Aunt Jenny, he was a character who just insisted that his story be told.
The Demon Priest novel itself was published in December of 2021, and can be found in Kindle eBook, paperback and hardcover formats on Amazon.com.
It also has its own page here on Halflands.com, and pages on the G-Man Comics website.
Finally, there is a comic book-format teaser preview at IndyPlanet that includes an 8-page adaptation of the first two chapters of the book, the text of those two chapters and “Who’s Who”-style profile pages of several of the major characters.
Beyond the Demon Priest Preview, the Halflands has shown up in G-Man’s regular comics. Halflands Harry, the Energist, Sgt. Flag, and Agent Squires have all traveled to or through the Halflands. The Demon Priest and his fellow Fallen Angel, Red Halo, have been featured in the comics. Soaring Bear, Guardian of the Sixth Realm, was born on the Witch Paths that connect Earth and the Halflands.
Halflands map
The map of the Halflands shown to the right was drawn for me by Karl Vesterberg. He based it upon sketches and descriptions from my works in progress. Karl specializes in old-style cartography, which can be found at the “Traditional Maps” Web, Instagram and Facebook sites.