Covenant of the Faceless Knights: Beginnings (Novel)

Covenant of the Faceless Knights: Beginnings
Covenant of the Faceless Knights: Beginnings Reissue Book Cover, written by Gary F. Vanucci
Author(s)	Gary F. Vanucci
Publisher	Ashenclaw Studios
Publication date	July 14, 2011
Media type	eBook Paperback
Length	304 Pages
ISBN	978-1463417338 (Paperback)
ASIN	B0083ZDROA (eBook)

For other uses of the word Succubus, see Succubus (disambiguation).

Covenant of the Faceless Knights: Beginnings Original Book Cover, written by Gary F. Vanucci

Covenant of the Faceless Knights: Beginnings is a novel written by Gary F. Vanucci. It is a fantasy adventure story in which Succubi appear as threats to the main characters of the work.

Overview

• Title: Covenant of the Faceless Knights: Beginnings
• Author: Gary F. Vanucci
• Published By: Ashenclaw Studios
• Length: 304 Pages
• Format: eBook & Paperback
• ASIN: B0083ZDROA (eBook)
• ISBN-10: 1463417330 (Paperback)
• ISBN-13: 978-1463417338 (Paperback)
• Publishing Date: July 14, 2011

Plot Summary

Covenant of the Faceless Knights is a classic tale of good vs. evil set in a fantasy realm where a naive elf finds himself at a crossroads and faces returning to the life he once knew or accepting a life of unknown dangers. This story follows the lives and interactions of four very unique people at different stages of life and with very different motivations, that come together to stop an ancient artifact from falling into the hands of an ever-growing, malevolent force.

The story tells of how these four individuals interact, grow and overcome not only their enemies, but conflicting personalities as well in order to come together as an effective unit under dire circumstances. Each of them brings a desired skill set along with a handful of baggage from their past that they must overcome in order to accomplish their goal and ensure the safety of the Realm of Ashenclaw.

Succubi Information

General Description

This race of sentient, female half-demons, or cambions, can emit a pheromone that tends to bend the minds of their victims—man or woman—essentially seducing them into following them and doing their bidding. These victims are called thralls in the succubi world. Succubi can take the form of a beautiful, humanoid, albino female. Their true form is of a demonic nature with wings, sharp fangs, glowing eyes and solid claws. They can drain the life force from an individual, using the life force they steal in order to keep themselves alive and youthful. This is done usually with a prolonged touch or a kiss (preferably).

They are essentially immortal as long as they can employ their parasitic ability. They are all descendants of the Demon Queen of Pandemonium, Lilith. The direct offspring of Lilith lead the succubi and are referred to as Aspects. These Aspects are pure demons that are direct descendants of one particular demon lord and Lilith and their offspring are labeled their brood.

Notable Succubi Characters

Lilith: Demon Queen of Pandemonium

Phaera Sine: Phaera is a succubi warrior that when in her humanoid form exhibits amber eyes, long, white hair and milky-white skin. In her cambion form, she has a pair of curved horns that extend from her forehead, pointed ears, sharp claws on her fingers and bat wings that sprout from her back. She also has a tail that extends from her backside and her canines sharpen to a point. Succubi have great power in that they emit a pheromone of supernatural origin that can distort reality. They can make the words of the succubi seem so agreeable as to make the target want only to serve them without question. Succubi can also drain the life force from their victims in order to maintain their youth and alluring appearance. Phaera is also a trained warrior and fights with the traditional two weapons of the succubi: a long sword and a scourge, which is a light flail with several thongs or leather straps which end in metal tips.

She and all her succubi brood hail from the subterranean city known as Ulthon and the Aspect Nahemia Sine, her mother, is the head of the Daughters of Asmodai brood. Phaera is the eldest of four sisters from the same ‘father’, and were born in order with her being the eldest, then Hasna, Saamea and Hazelle being the youngest. They are the heiresses to the brood and reflect the chain of command based on age.

Book Review

The following review was originally published by Tera on her Blog, A Succubi's Tale on October 21, 2011

I think it is important that when an author starts any sort of work, and this includes myself, there are three things that matter. One is character. It doesn’t matter how good the rest of the story is if your characters, especially the main ones, are not interesting. The second is their motivation. It is not necessary to give the reader everything at once. They will wait for the truths to be revealed if the story is worth it. Lastly, at least to me, there needs to be something to battle against, or at least to overcome that makes the characters grow over time and the motivation in each of them come to make sense.

That’s not always an easy thing to do, especially when there are not a handful, but many, many characters that are needed to make the story ring true. It is a talent that I have not seen many writers manage that can have all sorts of characters with their goals clashing together and keep the reader interested in finding out what happens to each and every one of them.

I think this author managed that exceptionally well…

From the first page, it is obvious that the story is set in a rich universe of characters and settings. Moving from place to place in the book isn’t a simple info dump but instead is a well considered and thought out picture that the author draws in your mind. The same is true of the characters in the book. None of them are anything like a cardboard cutout which is a pleasant surprise. The same is true of the minor characters as well, they are not simply cannon fodder and have a purpose in the core of the story which makes their appearances important to note. I won’t spoil which ones are, but I will say that the ones that make their way through the entire story are, at the end of it, almost main characters in a way and their return in the next story I do look forward to.

While the lead up to the first meeting of the main characters of the story takes a little while, I didn’t see a fault in doing so. The time was well spent in giving the reader a look into this world, some of the dangers and pleasures that exist in it and it established the world really well. But again, this wasn’t an info dump. The story was told in a way that made it fit into what was happening to the characters and that gave the story life. I found that from the beginning I cared about what was happening to them all and I wanted to see what would happen next.

The mystery of this world is interesting as well. There are a lot of questions that occur as you make your way through the story, nut not all of them are answered. That’s a good thing as an air of mystery I think lends itself well to the overall theme.

There is an underlying tension in the book that appears not just in the characters, but in the world itself. It’s almost as if everyone is waiting for something to happen that will make the past history of this world a minor event in comparison… and that past history is violent and almost brought this world to its end.

The story is a quest of course. A quest to find something stolen from the side of the light which was keeping it safe from the forces of darkness. The interesting thing is that the heroes of the work don’t actually come in contact with the one who is constructing the threat, never discover who they are, and only know of the one quest they are undertaking. But as that quest unfolds, we see the threat building in parallel with the adventurers as they attempt to fulfill their goals and overcome very high odds of success. But then this is the first story of course and so there is world building to do and events to place into motion… all of which I am sure will be encountered as the overall story arc moves to the next part of the story when the next book in the series arrives.

It’s difficult to talk about the main characters of the story without revealing a lot of spoilers. I won’t do that but I will point out that each of them has a deep background story that explains why they have the drives they have, and also helps to being them together as a group. Each has a strength and a weakness that can make their lives difficult at times and when they must battle the forces placed against them, there is strife and argument among them. That makes them not perfect, not overpowered either. They must come to act together or they will perish alone. Setting up the connections here was well done and there wasn’t anything that I read that bothered me in their actions or the results of those actions.

There are, of course, succubi in this work, but they are not what I would call the traditional kind. The author has taken the idea of them and altered it slightly from being creatures that are purely demonic into a society with its own rules and explanations. The succubi live underground in a city they call Ulthon and the succubi are the descendants of Lilith. Beneath her, the children that she birthed with the help of other Demon Lords are known as Aspects and have demonic forms, that being wings, horns and other such tale tell signs. The children of the Aspects are cambions, half-demon beings that have some of the appearance of a demonic form, but not as severe as the Aspects, who are the pure demonic branch of the succubi in this world.

They do not consume souls, but instead they take life energy from their victims, which makes them age rapidly until they wither and die. They do so through contact with their victims, though they prefer kissing them until they fade away.

The cambions appear normally as beautiful albino women with long hair and amber eyes who, at least in the cases that we are shown, are vain about their looks and use their powers of suggestion in their voices and the pheromones that they produce, to alter and control the thoughts of others around them by making their victim’s reality alter to what the succubus wants it to be.

They have a demonic form that appears momentarily when they are feeding which have horns, pointed ears, sharp claws on their fingers and bat wings that sprout from their back. They also have a tail and their canines sharpen to sharp points that are similar to a vampire.

But what I think is slightly odd is that they are also warriors. Normally succubi in most stories do not fight, they seduce and control their targets. In this universe, they carry weaponry, a long sword and a scourge. It seems odd to me that they would use a scourge as it doesn’t seem like something that makes sense for them to use. Mind you, I prefer pitchforks myself and the occasional sword… I do wonder if the succubi here just have those weapons for their last defence and little more as there isn’t much in the way of fighting scenes for the succubi in this story.

It’s interesting to note that the succubi call their slaves “thralls” as well. They are beings of no will that obey commands given them with no thought even to the point of their certain death. More so that any thrall can be controlled by any succubus’ voice. This interests me as I can see this being a weapon that one succubus might use against another. They all seem to be in a competition with each other for a place of power and I wonder if that will come to haunt them later.

The main succubus character, Phaera, is the first daughter of the succubus queen in the book, Nahemia. She is very much a being that wants power and is willing to do whatever she needs to in order to be with that power… and she finds one. But that power, the force of evil in this world, isn’t affected by her powers and the question becomes as the story goes on, is it the lust for power that makes her act in the way she does, or is it something else?

I would have liked to have seen more of the succubi, but of course they are supporting characters in this work and that wasn’t likely to make them core characters. However Phaera makes her presence known throughout most of the story when the true evil being appears and I think that she will pop up again in the next book… I can see the hero that she would try to take control of already, again not going to spoil that, and I look forward to seeing what plans and traps she and her sisters will be planning in the future…

As for style, the author writes well, and I didn’t come across anything in the story that pulled me out of the world. I did have a moment wondering if the heroes would ever get to their goal for all of the problems that confronted them. I understand that this was necessary to make them all a cohesive fighting force and the climax of the story makes good use of that. I just wonder if perhaps one less battle sequence and one more reveal of the evil side would have been a better thought?

Otherwise, it’s a tight read, well edited and a pleasure to read…

I’m giving this work five pitchforks out of five.

An excellent read, wonderful characters and I did rather like the succubi that appeared in the story. I will be looking for the next book in the series and I hope that appears soon for there is so much to be still told…

External Links

• This work in Kindle Format at Amazon.com
• This work in Paperback Format at Amazon.com
• The official website of the series at Ashenclaw.com
• Covenant of the Faceless Knights at Facebook