A SPECULATIVE FANTASY SERIES IN DEVELOPMENT
Welcome to the World of Pillar
The Pillar is a plateau roughly a thousand miles across, rising seven miles above the surrounding land. Below its surface lies Bolster Heart, a cavern large enough to hold a nation. And then there’s Smoke, which means something very different here than it does around a campfire.
The books
Both novels are works in progress.
BOOK ONE
The Gunslinger and the Beast
BOOK TWO
The Scholar and the Dog
THE ARTIST’S SKETCHBOOK
Character and creature sketches
Drawings by Chad Watson.
AI-GENERATED CONCEPT ART
Scenes from the world of Pillar
The plateau illustration above and the four images in this gallery were generated with ChatGPT from D. Michl Lowe’s descriptions. They’re here to show how he pictures the world as he writes it and give readers another way to explore it. They’re not official book illustrations.
Inside the worldbuilding
Start with the story behind the map. The deeper lore links are here for readers who don’t mind learning a few of the world’s secrets ahead of time.
A cheap map and some crayons
I used an ordinary map of the eastern United States as a starting point for Pillar’s geography. Coloring it by hand helped me work out where people could travel and how long it might take.
Go deeper
Crafting Fantasy — How two ideas grew into one world. This older essay reflects an earlier stage of the series, including working titles.
Smoke, Magic, and Books — Notes on Smoke and the strange books that use it. Contains lore spoilers.
A Brief History of Pillar and the Genetic Wars — A closer look at the world’s past. Contains lore spoilers.
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