The Monarchies of God

High Fantasy series by Irish author Paul Kearney.

Known for the relavitely short page count of individual books in the series in a genre where Doorstoppers are the norm, and its general Crapsack World.

The series consists of

 * 1) Hawkwood's Voyage (1995)
 * 2) The Heretic Kings(1996)
 * 3) The Iron Wars (1999)
 * 4) The Second Empire (2000)
 * 5) Ships from the West (2002, rereleased in 2010 with a revised ending)

Definately Needs More Love.


 * Aristocrats Are Evil: Not so much the actual royalty, but the nobility are almost without exception greedy, vain, egotistical and more loyal to their own inflated sense of worth than their respective nations.
 * Big Bad:
 * The Chessmaster: lots of people want to be this, but the only ones who are very good at it are
 * Cold Iron: to the Shifters - the iron need not be cold, but the trope is otherwise played straight.
 * Corrupt Church: The Ramusian church becomes one under
 * Crystal Dragon Jesus: St Ramusio.
 * Determinator: so many, but Richard Harkwood, Albrec and Corfe Cear-Inaf are the standouts.
 * Face Heel Turn:
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: the classic Medieval Europe and Arabia version, albeit with a more nuanced presentation of the latter than is common.
 * Fantasy Gun Control: avoids this one, with primitive guns and swords coexisting seamlessly. The guns are based on the earliest rifles - they are only able to be fired twice a minute (three times if the soldier is particularly well trained) and have a limited range, so arrows of various sorts are still useful, and traditional cavalry and infantry are the bulk of forces - although some characters have forebodings that guns will change the nature of war forever.
 * Good Shepherd: Pontiff Macrobius.
 * The Heretic:
 * Kill It with Fire: the purge of the Dweomerfolk.
 * Knight Templar: The Inceptine Order.
 * Left Justified Fantasy Map
 * Mad Oracle: St Honorius
 * Malignant Plot Tumor: pretty much anything involving the mysterious Western Continent.
 * Memetic Badass: an in-universe example Corfe Cear-Inaf becomes one over the course of the story.
 * Ocean Punk
 * Our Homunculi Are Different: Homonculi are familiars grown without Ur Blood; they mature faster than Imps, but they have bad eating habits and are Exclusively Evil.
 * Our Werewolves Are Different
 * Preacher Man: Albrec becomes this.
 * Rape as Drama:
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Definitely on the cynical end.
 * Turbulent Priest: Albrec and Avila, although Avila tends to follow Albrec's lead.
 * Two Lines, No Waiting: at any given point, there are at least five major plot threads going on.
 * Wooden Ships and Iron Men
 * Wooden Ships and Iron Men