Paragon Forgotten by J.M. Robison
Cohthel should have visited Father's grave sooner. Because now it's missing.
His mother makes excuses for the absent grave, which Cohthel accepts, but his best friend won’t. He convinces Cohthel his father must still be alive, and Cohthel runs away from school, family, and friends to find the truth. He needs the truth because Mother won’t remarry and without a father’s guidance Cohthel fears he’ll never choose an apprenticeship, will live with Mother the rest of his life, won’t fully grasp manhood, and all his friends will succeed in life and leave him behind.
While away, Cohthel hears corrupting rumors that humans are breaking alliances to force the other eight races to worship humans as gods. He returns home to not only having found the truth about his once-thought-dead father, but that he now must choose: join the humans’ war for godhood and erase his culture, identity, and humanity, or oppose the war and be forced to kill the only thing he’s ever wanted: a father. An ageless human lurks behind the fabric of the universe, and she gives Cohthel a third impossible choice: stop the war. But he must find a way to live forever, first.
How Scribe Forge's tools helped:
I was querying this novel to agents, and an agent sent a rejection telling me the worldbuilding was lacking. So I bought and used Scribe Forge's The Essential Worldbuilding Blueprint and Workbook and completely re-wrote Paragon Forgotten's world using this workbook.
After I'd completed, I sent Paragon Forgotten to beta readers, and one beta readers returned saying "I highly enjoyed the world you've created. The races, the lore, the magic, the history. Your world feels as real as Middle-Earth, so congratulations! Even though this is not my preferred genre, I did really enjoy so much from the worldbuilding to the realistic characters to your prose."
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