Dragon Stone is my lifestone story. It's about the price of resurrection and the hopelessness of the Fourth Great War.  It's the first story I wrote in a barbarian city. I enjoyed writing about the barbarian culture. They will never give up. Their resistance gave the west the time it needed to let the evil army and its leaders, Draaien and Ciglio, become complacent and eventually turn on each other. That kind of determination, the refusal to take no for an answer, saved the west from annihilation.

Lifestones are deeply rooted in the foundation of the Depths of Peril world. In the story, Depths of Peril, you can see how the desire for bigger and bigger lifestones led to the discovery of long forgotten enemies.

The human kingdoms don't remember the reasons for their taboo culture against using the stones. But there was a reason. Perhaps it had something to do with the lost Kingdom of Rimround.

Barbarians keep the knowledge of their use of lifestones a secret from the other races. They don't use them the same as others have in the past. Bypassing the huge and extremely expensive stones, they use small ones, just enough to support one covenant. If any of their well protected lifestones are destroyed, it won't kill off a significant portion of the population. Can you imagine Draaien and Ciglio's confusion? They practically had a cake walk decimating the humans, sade, elves and teratai. Then they get to the barbarians and can't seem to defeat them.

Delilah Rehm