Real Historical Figures Turned into Fantasy Characters
One of the great joys of writing the Desolate Empire series has been fictionalizing real people. There are some huge benefits to this approach. I can turn about half of them into women and/or I can slander them egregiously. It’s a win-win!
Since Rise of the Storm came out, I’ve had a few people ask me who some of the main characters are based on. Some of them I’ve already covered in this blog, but I still have a lot more to do, and some I won’t cover at all. So here’s a list for the story so far. Those with links have their own blog entries or at least get a mention in one..
Kendryk– Frederick V, Count-Elector Palatine
General Ensden- Count Tilly
Edric Landrus- Martin Luther
Count Faris- Christian of Anhalt
General Barela- Ambrogio Spinola
Alarys Zelenka- Maximilian of Bavaria
Zofya- Anne of Austria
Raysa- Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg
Trystan Martinek– Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar
Franca Dura- Gottfried von Pappenheim
There will be more, especially as the kids grow up, and the next book- Hammer of the Gods- will see a number of fake Swedish generals come on board. I keep all of these posts on the “character profiles” tab and the “historical background” tab under The Desolate Empire Series drop-down menu.
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I think the one I was really curious about was Edric. I just needed to know if that was, indeed, Martin Luther. I think I was trying to set the time frame in my head.
I’ve had a few folks wonder about Teodora and Kendryk as well. Unfortunately for timeframe accuracy, I make a real mess of squishing two centuries together. 😀 Though for general purposes I’m sticking with the 17th century. Luther is the only anomaly.