List of Easter Eggs in Scribes’ Descent
–Chrono Trigger: in Chapter 21 (The Voice), Boxer scratches his back against a rock wall and says, “Ah, this is the stuff! Secret scratching spot revealed.” I got this idea from my favorite video game of all time: Chrono Trigger 
By scratching a Nu in one city in the game, you learn his “scratch-point.” This lets you scratch another Nu in a different city later on and get a special item.
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–Doter Registration Card: in Chapter 5 (Looking for Bodies), Mallory reminisces about her father: “I got my doter registration card, so I’m allowed to dote on you,” he’d say whenever she refused his torrent of hugs. This comes from my own life. When my daughter refuses my hugs, this is what I say to her. Where did I get this phrase? My own silly brain. 
–Heat Exchanger Efficiency Equation: in Chapter 9 (Fire Eem), Mallory says, “You realize the cold air in Virsai will raise efficiency even more. The heat transfer formula for conduction says efficiency rises in proportion to the temperature drop across a given material.” I learned this in Navy Nuclear Power School back in 2000. Here’s the formula:
Q̇ = UA ΔT
Q̇ is heat flow through a heat exchanger
U is the heat transfer coefficient of the metal that heat is transferring through divided by the metal’s thickness
A is surface area of the metallic surface conducting heat
ΔT is the difference in temperature between the hot and cold sides of the heat exchanger.
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–Scribes: the heroes of the Scribes Series are language experts because of my love for foreign languages. I’ve studied about 29 languages for the past 30 years (but I’m not fluent in all of them–not even close.) Here’s a list: Albanian, Amharic, Arabic (Egyptian, Levantine, and MSA dialects), Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian, Pashto, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese.
Of these, my best ones are Mandarin and Spanish because they’re the ones I’ve used most in real life. I visited my wife’s family in Taiwan where I spoke nothing but Chinese for a full month. That was after attending Chinese churches and bible studies for several years. And after studying Spanish for 3 years in high school, I went on some missions trips where I got to speak it. I’ve also spoken some Arabic in the UAE and in Bahrain, some Greek in Rhodes, Greece, and some Portuguese in Lisbon, Portugal.
My favorite language learning materials are Pimsleur audio lessons because they focus on conversation. I’m currently studying Farsi (Persian) using a podcast called Chai and Conversation. Just wanted you to know that the author of the Scribes Series is himself fanatical about languages. So when Mallory notices Boxer’s glottal stops when he speaks Daishonic around her for the first time, I know what those are because I use them in Arabic. And when Mallory appreciates Rain’s authentic pronunciation of vowels not found in their native language, I know from personal experience how much of a struggle those can be to get right.
Have you found what you think are Easter Eggs in Scribes’ Descent that aren’t listed here? Reply to this email and let me know! I’ll be sharing even more next month.
Writing update: Scribes Aflame is almost completely formatted. In another day or two, I should be uploading the cover and inner page pdfs to KDP (Amazon) where I’ll order a proof copy. In about 2 weeks, that should arrive at my front door. If it looks good, I’ll click the big publish button on Amazon! Thanks to all my beta readers who provided feedback. It was most helpful 
If you want a preview of the book, you can read the first 6 chapters on my website: https://
See you next month