Lady Fortuna and the Cost of Offending Luck
Most people have a relationship with luck. They may call it good, bad, stubborn, absent-minded, or something less printable when the train leaves early. It is usually a distant relationship. Luck does not write letters. It does not hold grudges. It certainly does not look at you across a crowded room and decide that you have become a matter of personal interest.
In Speglara, things are a little less reassuring.
Chimera lives by luck. The city knows its fortunes have a source, that small successes are not always as accidental as they appear, and that the world can be persuaded to behave when the right old arrangements are maintained. But an arrangement is not the same thing as a guarantee. Magic has its own manners, and those manners are often worse than advertised.
Lady Fortuna stands at the edge of this idea: not a convenient answer to every mystery, but a reminder that luck can have weight, history and consequences. To offend luck is not merely to have an unlucky afternoon. It is to discover that chance, which everyone assumed was neutral, may have been taking notes.
Gibberish has a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This alone would be enough to make a man uneasy around the subject. But the trouble with Gibberish is that mishap rarely remains a private matter. A cracked paving stone becomes a detour. A detour becomes a meeting. A meeting becomes a royal quest. Before long, a person begins to suspect that the universe is not simply unhelpful; it may be trying to make a point.
Speglara treats luck as a source of humour, danger and genuine mystery. A fortunate break can save a life. A bad turn can reveal character. And a city that relies on good fortune must face a difficult question when that fortune starts to fail: what do you do when the force that has always helped you is no longer inclined to help?
The answer is not simple. It involves Chimera, the Holy Banana, a royal mission, and a hero whose qualifications remain under active review.
Lady Fortuna’s role is best discovered in the story itself. For now, it is enough to say that in Chimera, luck is never just luck. Read the opening sample and step into a city where even a coincidence may have an opinion.