Credits

Inspiration for the Ten Queendoms begins with the Tantric "Mahavidyas" -- the ten "demon goddesses" of Tantra, known not for their maternal or feminine qualities but as hard, even brutal dispensers of wisdom. Having been adopted by these Goddesses, I began to playfully honor them in the imagining of a land where they rule supreme. The first stories to arise out of that imagination became the lore and background of the world as it is today.

Public domain image, available via Wikimedia.

First, and probably best known amongst the Mahavidyas is the Goddess Kali, whose name means "Time", the ultimate destroyer. Nothing about the Ten Queendoms has any historical antecedent or cultural precedent, and nothing about the world of the Ten Queendoms is intended to be morally or spiritually instructive. I'll leave that to the Goddesses themselves, although "moral instruction" is not one of their areas of interest.

Let's talk about the art. All the maps are by yours truly. Illustrative art, except where noted, is modified and adapted from "AI" art program Midjourney. My process is to take a fairly intensive round of iterative prompting and refinement with the application, and then adding layers and modifications via ProCreate for IOs. Some images have more adaptation than others. I realize some people do not consider this a valid or appropriate approach to illustration. I look forward to the time when there is enough interest in the 10 Queendoms to support my artist friends!

Although the Ten Queendoms began as an exercise of the imagination, and then a world for storytelling, it is currently most robustly created as an environment for role playing, and to that I am grateful to the many players who have undertaken their own journeys through the Ten Queendoms.

This website, for better or worse, is entirely created by myself.

~~ Blunt Jackson.