The Temple of the Exploding Head

As the LoE Universe has expanded, Carahil has become one of my more popular characters. Smiling and affable, his pure soul and innocent spirit just tends to make people happy.

Carahil and his family, by Felipe Montecinos

I did a show in Cleveland last year. A question that kept coming up: “Do you have anything for kids?” Of course, the answer to that question was a resounding “NO!” As the rest of the day progressed I thought about it and, slowly, ideas entered my head.

A children’s story?

Should such a thing exist, the clear candidate for such a story immediately presented himself: Carahil, as he is basically a big kid himself. I had written in a small sub-story in the Temple Trilogy about Carahil, that he had taken up with Mabsornath, the Cat Goddess , and that Mabs was pregnant. I decided to develop Carahil and Mabs’ children, coming up with seven of them. In a sort of Lady and the Tramp, moment, all of their sons are seal-type creatures and all of their daughters are cats, except for one: Atha. I saw Atha in my head as the youngest of the group and the most chaotic. Of all of them she is the only one who prefers to appear as a goggle-wearing human child instead of in their usual animal shapes. In the novels, Atha is a seductive, rather unpredictable siren, for the children’s book, she is simply an innocent, precocious kid who, unlike her brothers and sisters, isn’t afraid to make use of her goddess-like power.

For the first book, Carahil’s Busy Morning, Chilean artist Felipe Montecinos will be doing the drawing. It should be ready by June, 2013

copyright 2012, Ren Garcia