Thank you so much for reading Forged in Magic! If you’re interested in learning more about the historical elements in this book, read on. At the end, I’ll talk a bit about why Nix and her deirfiúr are treasure hunters and how I try to make that fit with archaeology’s ethics (which don’t condone treasure hunting, as I’m sure you might have guessed).

Forged in Magic had several historical and mythological influences. The most obvious are the Greek myths in Nix’s first challenge. While I invented the mini-realms of each of the Greek gods, the characteristics of those realms borrowed directly from mythology. While Nestor the Twinkie loving sea turtle and the Stone of Synnaroe were pure fabrication, most of the rest was not. Some of my favorites that were taken directly from myth were Hades’s invisibility helmet, the river Acheron, Athena’s owl, and the Empusa.

The story of Medusa that I chose to use was from the Roman poet Ovid. There are actually a couple of versions of Medusa’s creation—I chose the one that gave Nix a morality test.

The primordial gods on Svalbard were invention, but the boat of the gods that took them to Svalbard was not. Skithblathnir was supposed to be the best of the ships in Norse Mythology. In mythology, it could be filed up and stored in the pocket. Snorri Sturluson wrote about the boat in his Prose Edda and Heimskringla. As I mentioned in the book, Snorri was a poet and historian in 13th century Iceland. For the departure point to Svalbard, I chose the name Heimskringla as a tribute to his work.

That’s it for the historical influences in Forged in Magic. However, one of the most important things about this book is how Nix and her deirfiúr treat artifacts and their business, Ancient Magic.

As I’m sure you know, archaeology isn’t quite like Indiana Jones (for which I’m both grateful and bitterly disappointed). Sure, it’s exciting and full of travel. However, booby-traps are not as common as I expected. Total number of booby-traps I have encountered in my career: zero. Still hoping, though.

When I chose to write a series about archaeology and treasure hunting, I knew I had a careful line to tread. There is a big difference between these two activities. As much as I value artifacts, they are not treasure. Not even the gold artifacts. They are pieces of our history that contain valuable information, and as such, they belong to all of us. Every artifact that is excavated should be properly conserved and stored in a museum so that everyone can have access to our history. No one single person can own history, and I believe very strongly that individuals should not own artifacts. Treasure hunting is the pursuit of artifacts for personal gain.

So why did I make Nix and her deirfiúr treasure hunters? I’d have loved to call them archaeologists, but nothing about their work is like archaeology. Archaeology is a very laborious, painstaking process—and it certainly doesn’t involve selling artifacts. That wouldn’t work for the fast-paced, adventurous series that I had planned for Dragon’s Gift. Not to mention the fact that dragons are famous for coveting treasure. Considering where the deirfiúr got their skills from, it just made sense to call them treasure hunters.

Even though I write urban fantasy, I strive for accuracy. The deirfiúr don’t engage in archaeological practices—therefore, I cannot call them archaeologists. I also have a duty as an archaeologist to properly represent my field and our goals—namely, to protect and share history. Treasure hunting doesn’t do this. One of the biggest battles that archaeology faces today is protecting cultural heritage from thieves.

I debated long and hard about not only what to call the heroines of this series, but also about how they would do their jobs. I wanted it to involve all the cool things we think about when we think about archaeology—namely, the Indiana Jones stuff, whether it’s real or not. But I didn’t know quite how to do that while still staying within the bounds of my own ethics. I can cut myself and other writers some slack because this is fiction, but I couldn’t go too far into smash and grab treasure hunting.

I consulted some of my archaeology colleagues to get their take, which was immensely helpful. Wayne Lusardi, the State Maritime Archaeologist for Michigan, and Douglas Inglis and Veronica Morris, both archaeologists for Interactive Heritage, were immensely helpful with ideas. My biggest problem was figuring out how to have the heroines steal artifacts from tombs and then sell them and still sleep at night. Everything I’ve just said is pretty counter to this, right?

That’s where the magic comes in. The heroines aren’t after the artifacts themselves (they put them back where they found them, if you recall)—they’re after the magic that the artifacts contain. They’re more like magic hunters than treasure hunters. That solved a big part of my problem. At least they were putting the artifacts back. Though that’s not proper archaeology, I could let it pass. At least it’s clear that they believe they shouldn’t keep the artifact or harm the site. But the SuperNerd in me said, “Well, that magic is part of the artifact’s context. It’s important to the artifact and shouldn’t be removed and sold.”

Now that was a problem. I couldn’t escape my SuperNerd self, so I was in a real conundrum. Fortunately, that’s where the immensely intelligent Wayne Lusardi came in. He suggested that the magic could have an expiration date. If the magic wasn’t used before it decayed, it could cause huge problems. Think explosions and tornado spells run amok. It could ruin the entire site, not to mention possibly cause injury and death. That would be very bad.

So now you see why Nix and her deirfiúr don’t just steal artifacts to sell them. Not only is selling the magic cooler, it’s also better from an ethical standpoint, especially if the magic was going to cause problems in the long run. These aren’t perfect solutions—the perfect solution would be sending in a team of archaeologists to carefully record the site and remove the dangerous magic—but that wouldn’t be a very fun book.

Thanks again for reading (especially if you got this far!).