Literature / Tales From Verania

The Tales of Verania series is a fantasy romantic-comedy adventure series by TJ Klune.

As of this writing, the series has been split into two story arcs, with the second one ongoing.

The first four books follow Sam Haversford, the wizard-apprentice to Morgan of Shadows, the wizard advisor to the king.

Born in the slums of the City of Lockes and discovered by Morgan at the age of eleven, the now twenty-year-old Sam struggles to make his mentor proud and ready himself to the Wizard Trials— the initiation all apprentices must go through if they want to ear the title of true wizard. This shouldn't be too much of a problem, because despite his strange behavior and cheerful disposition, Sam is potentially the most powerful (apprentice) wizard in the world. Along with him on his adventures are Tiggy the half-giant and Gary, the hornless gay unicorn.

What starts as a simple romantic comedy with Knights In Shining Armor, rescuing a Jerkass prince from a horny dragon, and trying to woo the man of his dreams grows into a Chosen One story featuring really irritating prophecies, equally irritating gods, insane fangirls, evil wizards, graphic sex, death, betrayal, and lots of dragons.

The books in the series are:

1. The Lightning Struck Heart (2015)
2. A Destiny of Dragons (2017)
3. The Consumption of Magic (2017)
4. A Wish Upon The Stars (2018)
5. The Damning Stone (2022)

As well as the short story collection, Fairytales from Verania (2021)

---

Provides examples of:

• The Archmage: Randall is the oldest and most respected Wizard in the world. He is the one who oversees the Wizard Trials that determines if an apprentice is ready to become a full fledged wizard. Before Sam Took a Level in Badass, Randall was widely regarded to be the most powerful wizard on the planet.
• Arranged Marriage:
  • The threat of an arranged marriage is what causes Ryan and Justin to become engaged in the first novel. Justin was told that if he wasn't married by the age of 25, his father would pick for him. So though he wasn't in love with Ryan, at least it was a choice he was making.
  • Shows up again in the fifth book where Dylan of Yennbridge arrives with a contract signed by the queen of Verania before her death, promising her son's hand in marriage to the king to Yennbridge.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Though Justin starts off as one of the central antagonists of the first book, as the series progresses, and as Sam becomes enamored with the idea of the two becoming "best friends 5eva," he develops into more of a Knight in Sour Armor, only admitting he cares about Sam when the situation seems especially dangerous and the threat of Sam not returning is high.
• Awesome Mc Cool Name: Invoked by Zero Ravyn Moonfire, who is an emo teenager and thought that name was much cooler than Jekhipe, the name the people of the desert gave him.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Sam, Tiggy, and Gary. Tiggy is the brawny half-giant who's main directive is to smash. The Beauty and Brains roles switch between Sam and Gary depending on whether or not the situation they're in is relevant to the main plot. If it's a side event, then Gary is the brains, concocting plans and directing the others, while Sam is the pretty thing getting kidnapped. If the event is central to the main conflict, then Sam becomes the decision maker and Gary is the beautiful unicorn sidekick.
• The Big Guy: Tiggy, who is a half-giant.
• Brought Down to Normal: Sam of Dragons attempts this on his own. He winds up keeping his magic, but losing his extended wizard lifespan.
• Cast Fullof Gay: By the time The Damning Stone comes around, just about every named character except Sam's parents are gay or bisexual, as well as most of the knights who witness Justin's "exercise routine."
• Came Back Wrong: One of the issues with resurrection that Randall brings up, though Sam never gets the opportunity to test the theory out.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The first book is a lighthearted adventure where the main conflict is whether or not Sam will get the cute knight boyfriend and rescue the jerkass prince from the horny dragon. The next three books follow a much more serious plot with an actual threat in the form of an evil wizard who can, will, and does murder named characters and seeks to destroy both Sam and Verania. There's still plenty of humor, but the tone drastically shifts whenever Myrin is involved, and though Sam's arc appears to end happily, we find out in The Damning Stone that he is still traumatized by the events of the first four books. Conversely though, the fifth book (told from Justin's point of view) goes back to a more lighthearted romance story, with lower stakes and more silly humor. The trend is called out in-story by Gary.
• The Chosen One: Sam, much to his irritation and his grandmother's disappointment.
• Court Mage: Sam and Morgan. Most kingdoms who are able to afford/attract a mage wind up having a "King's Wizard." Morgan is the wizard and advisor to the current king, and Sam is slated to be the advisor and wizard for the next one. Much of the conflict from the first novel centers around the fact that, though Sam is loyal to the crown and takes his duty seriously, the prince he's supposed to be stuck with is a complete asshole who is dating the man Sam has a crush on. In The Damning Stone we see a king of a neighboring kingdom and his Court Magician— a man who didn't have enough magic to pass the wizard trials, but managed to grow his power enough to find a place in Yennbridge.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each dragon and the connection between them and Sam has a color.
  • Kevin's connection is black.
  • Pam and Leslie's connection is blue.
  • Zero's connection is red.
  • The Great White Dragon's is white.
  • Sam's own magic is frequently described as green and gold.
• Deadpan Snarker: All of the characters have their snark (with Sam admiring their sass in the narration), but Justin gets the trophy for the most deadpan, and Gary gets it for being the snarkiest overall.
• Defrosting The Ice King: In a platonic way, after the events of the first book, Sam is determined to become Justin's best friend "5eva" and jokes that he will make Justin experience the power of friendship. The phrase is nearly spoken verbatim in The Damning Stone: Justin's nickname in the press is the "Ice Prince" and when he and Dylan of Yennbridge are bound together for a month, people assume this is what's happening.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Sam does this so regularly in the face of powerful god-like dragons and actual gods that Ryan has a specific fear-squeak for it.
• Dragons Prefer Princes: The adventure plot of the first book begins when the dragon, Kevin, steals away Prince Justin. Kevin makes many lecherous comments and explicitly says he's taken Justin because he's attractive, though when Sam and company show up later, nothing untoward has happened.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: In general, one of the dangers of magic is that without proper grounding (either an experienced and ethical mentor to guide the way or a Cornerstone to help settle the magic as it grows), one can fall into using dark magic for selfish, if seemingly innocuous, reasons. Each time becomes easier than the last, until the wizard winds up rotting from the inside out, their magic corrupted and the wizard gone Laughing Mad in the extreme cases.
• Eccentric Mentor: At first, Randall seems like a straight classic archmage who is far more serious than Sam or Morgan. However when Sam is forced to spend more time with him, it becomes clear that he is was ridiculous as the rest of the cast in his youth.
• Evil Feels Good: One of the reasons why there are so many dark wizards kicking around.
• Evil Gloating: All villains monologue. Every time one starts, Sam and the others are quick to call them out on it, and every time a villain tries to appear more significant than other villains Sam has come across, they inevitably fall to monologuing. At one point Sam is infiltrates a dark wizard base, the dark wizards themselves tell Sam to monologue to prove that he's actually evil.
• Face–Heel Turn: Ruv, Vadoma's wolf and Sam's potential Cornerstone.
• First Boy Wins: Sam has a crush on Ryan, who is engaged to Justin. What Sam doesn't realize until late in the first book is that he'd met Ryan before, back when they were both children in the slums. Ryan is actually the alias for Nox, the older boy who had been chasing Sam, who Sam had turned into stone. Nox/Ryan has been carrying a torch for Sam ever since, and says Sam is what inspired him to try to make more out of his life and leave the slums.
• Flat "What": All the characters do this at least once in the series, though Ryan, Justin, and Randall are prone to drop one whenever one of Sam's plans is more ludicrous than usual.
  Sam: Inflection is a thing.
• The Fool: Sam of Wilds. He was born with an unheard of level of magical power that baffles and concerns his mentors. For some reason, every villain he meets wants to kidnap him, fuck him, and murder him (not always in that order) to the point where other characters point out how weird it is. For much of the series, he's cheerful, careless, and reckless, and able to talk his way out of numerous bad situations — much to the chagrin of others in the group who wish he'd actually have a plan, rather than rely on luck.
• Fountain of Youth: One of the unintended side-effects of the Damning Stone's malfunction. Half the cast are transformed into children and stay that way until the Sash's ritual is complete.
• Given Name Reveal: in The Damning Stone, the King casually refers to Justin by his given and surname, causing Sam to realize that he had never actually known the royal family's surname. He pesters an irritated and bewildered Justin into telling him his middle name as well.
• Gentle Giant: Tiggy, almost literally. He is a half giant, and while Sam mentions that many people are intimidated by his appearance, Tiggy is the calmest, most compassionate, and slowest to anger out of the main trio.
• Genre Savvy: Most of the cast are some level of genre savvy. Sam in particular notes how villains monologue, and at one point a group of villains use monologuing as a litmus test to determine if someone is actually evil or not. One-off jokes are made where characters point out common tropes, like referring to two minor characters as "ancillary characters who will never appear again" and getting angry when characters ask What Could Possibly Go Wrong??
• Harmless Villain: The majority of Dark wizards seen are completely ineffectual and are usually as idiotic or ridiculous as Sam, Gary, and Tiggy are. It's not until a supremely powerful evil wizard arrives and unites them that they actually become a force to be reckoned with.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: After his vision from Vadoma, Sam suddenly realizes that no matter what happens, he will someday watch Ryan die, regardless how the current danger unfolds. Even if Sam keeps him safe and they all survive Myrin, Sam will still outlive him by hundreds of years. After that, becoming mortal and having a normal human lifespan becomes one of his goals, second only to saving the kingdom and protecting his friends/family.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Randall. Sam is convinced for much of the series that Randall hates him, and that's why he behaves as coldly as he does. It's not until the later book that we see Randall ''does'' care about Sam, and that he is legitimately trying to help save the world the best way he knows how.
  • Justin. He experiences some character development through the first four books that redeems his actions in the first novel, but it's not until The Damning Stone that we see how far that character development has gone.
  • The Great White Dragon. His first appearance in the series is to tell Sam that he isn't ready to fulfill the prophecy. His next appearance is to try and kill Sam and Kevin. Before this, we find out that he hates the notion of cornerstones and abandoned his apprentice, Randall, when he allowed himself to fall in love and gain a cornerstone. Despite all this, he still shows up to help Sam when he needs him, both in Sam's novels and in the climax of The Damning Stone.
• Magic Eater: The main villain of books two-four is an evil wizard with the ability to consume other wizards' magic, an act that kills the victim and increases the villain's power.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: The Great White Dragon trained Randall, who trained Morgan of Shadows, who trained Sam of Wilds.Though Morgan is his official mentor, due to Sam's unique circumstances (unheard of power limit, a prophecy, an evil wizard terrorizing the nation), he winds up getting trained by all three links of the chain in turn.
• Meaningful Rename: A wizard gets two meaningful renames in their career, their first apprentice title after their mentor gauges their abilities and temperament, and then their official wizard title after passing the trials.
  • Sam Haversford's apprentice name is Sam of Wilds, for his adventurous nature, affinity for the Dark Wood, and his ability to make companions out of "wild" things. He gets his wizard name after going with The Great White Dragon into the hidden world in the Dark Wood, and becomes Sam of Dragons.
  • For as long as he's known him, Sam has only known the eldest wizard, Randall, by his given name. It is revealed that being just Randall was the meaningful rename, and he stripped away his own wizard title after the fallout with Myrin, thus losing the name Randall of Dragons.
• The Mentor: Every wizard gets a mentor to teach them the ways of magic.
  • Morgan of Shadows is the mentor to Sam. Their relationship is build off love: Sam adores Morgan and the role he played in getting Sam and his family out of the slums, and Morgan reciprocates, seeing Sam as a son-figure. Randall is the oldest living wizard, and was mentor to Morgan. Though Morgan is Sam's main mentor, a few years before his Wizard Trials, he's expected to live and study with Randall.
  • The Great White Dragon was Randall's mentor, but cut off contact after Randall disagreed with him regarding the importance of Cornerstones. He also mentors Sam for a year in the Dark Wood, forcing his magic to grow exponentially and forging him into a weapon against Myrin.
• Mentor in Sour Armor:
  • Randall, who is a grouchy old man that Sam is certain must hate him. Randall is cynical and pessimistic and strict— the complete inversion of his former apprentice, Morgan. We learn that his temperament is likely due to Myrin's corruption and betrayal, and the Great White Dragon's abandonment.
  • The Great White Dragon, Randall's former mentor. He is a misanthrope who sees humans as weak and prone to corruption, and considers cornerstones to be a detriment. He is revealed to be this way because His former apprentice, Randall, fell for Myrin rather than heed GW's warning against him, thus setting off the events of the novel and putting the well-being of the entire world at stake.
• Motor Mouth: Sam. He's always been talkative, even in the flashbacks featuring his childhood, but as the series progresses, multiple characters cotton on to the fact that Sam's motor mouth is a defense mechanism he uses when he wants to distract people from broaching subjects he doesn't want to discuss.
• Moral Event Horizon: Brought up in-story.
  • Sam considers using his resurrection ability on a human to be this, as it would inevitably end with the deaths of hundreds of plants, animals, and people around him. Much of his internal conflict involves him struggling with what he would actually do if his loved ones died, and whether or not he would be strong enough to resist trying to bring them back.
  • The dark wizard Myrin crosses this when he eats the magic and life force out of Morgan. Up until that point, there had been some talk of hopefully redeeming him. All such talks ends after that event, and the characters admit that there's no turning back after that line was crossed.
• Morality Chain: Wizards need another person to be their "Cornerstone." This can be a romantic or platonic connection, and is usually between a wizard and a non-magical person. Cornerstones provide grounding to their wizard, and are described as being a key component in how a wizard's magic will grow. Without a Cornerstone, a wizard's power is likely to develop in chaotic and unhealthy ways until the wizard becomes irrevocably corrupt. Because wizards life for hundreds and hundreds of years, most don't need to worry about getting a Cornerstone until well into their first or second century. It is also possible for an individual to have many potential Cornerstones, provided there is a level of magical compatibility and intent.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons in this world aren't born, they come into existence when the universe deems that one is needed. They are made of magic, and each have unique powers. Their blood is a powerful ingredient in many magic potions and spells, leading to most dragons having a very poor opinion of wizards, who had hunted them in the past.They have no uniform appearance; Verania has five dragons total that range from being mountain-sized Physical Gods as old as the planet itself, to being house-sized flying lizards who hoards random junk, to being a winged snake that sleeps 99 years out of a hundred. Dragons typically cannot communicate with the rest of the world, and one of Sam's latent abilities is acting as a living Babel Fish that allows dragons to speak Veranian (or allows Veranians to speak dragon).
• Our Elves Are Different: Elves exist, but have, for the most part, retreated into their own quasi-dimension and very rarely visit Verania. What little Sam knows of them present them as being powerful, capricious, and borderline sociopathic. The one elf we see is Moishe, who Mama's brothel as her bodyguard and assistant. He is professional, bloodthirsty, and greatly desires "tasting" Sam's magic.
• Our Fairies Are Different: Fairies are six inches tall humanoids with wings that live in the Dark Wood and serve the Great White Dragon. Their king, Dimitri, is obsessed with Sam and has tried on more than one occasion to marry him.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Dylan says his late parents were this way. Their ideal relationship is why he is willing to give the arranged marriage a shot, seeing as how it turned out so well for them.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Sam of Dragons, after GW's training prematurely over-fills him with magic.
  "I may be a little. . . volatile."
• Pet the Dog: After serving as one of the central antagonists throughout the entirety of The Lightning-Struck Heart, Justin gets a small one in the epilogue that flips Sam from despising him to trying to become his best friend "5eva." Specifically, he tells Dimitri that he wouldn't have Sam assassinated no matter how difficult he makes Justin's life. Sam is his wizard, and they're going to be stuck with one another for the rest of Justin's life.
• Physical God: The Great White Dragon. He's a being of near limitless magical power, has been around since the creation of the planet,and is on speaking terms with the celestial dragon-god, David's Dragon.
• Precocious Crush: Sam first sees Ryan when he's fifteen and the latter is twenty.
  "Fifteen-year-old Sam had seen twenty-year-old Ryan for the first time and had immediately run upstairs and jerked off. It had been a revolutionary and enlightening experience that essentially answered the question that yes, I was indeed very, very gay."
• Portmanteau Couple Name: "Rystin" for in-story fangirls who ship Ryan and Justin, and "HaveHeart" for people who ship Ryan and Sam. In Mashallaha, the people who ship Sam with Ruv call it HaveWolf.
• Power Trio: From the normal cast, Sam, Tiggy, and Gary. When the wizards are the focus, it's Sam, Morgan, and Randall.
• Power Nullifier: Unfortunately for Sam, there are plenty of ways to nullify magic and trap adventurous or unlucky wizards.
  • Bindings made of valerian root are a particularly common way for Sam to get captured. Other methods for trapping wizards include circles made of dragon blood and fairy-rings.
  • The titular Damning Stone of the 5th book is a magic nullifier. Unlike the other methods, it only works if the magical entity in question consents to having their magic suppressed, and it's intended to be used during negotiations as a sign of trust between parties.
• Rags to Riches: Sam's backstory. He was born and raised in the slums until he was eleven years old, when he came to the attention of the King's Wizard by turning a gang of miscreants into stone. After that, he and his family were adopted into the royal household and moved into the castle, with Sam becoming Morgan's apprentice and the future magical advisor to the future king.
• Red Herring: Ramos the Pure and Kieth the stalker in The Damning Stone.
• Ritual Magic: Normally, magic works with a special series of incantations and gestures, with only the most experiences wizards able to do magic non-verbally by thinking the words in their head. Part of the issue with Sam's magic is that when he or his friends are in immediate danger, he can bypass the ritual elements entirely, casting magic without thought, just intent.
• Releasing from the Promise: Justin only releases Ryan from their marriage pact when the latter actually asks for it..
• Romani: Sam is half Romani on his mother's side. Rather than being nomads, they are citizens of a highly insular desert city that doesn't approve of Sam for his mixed heritage and doesn't approve of his mother for marrying a white northerner. Sam's tumultuous relationship with his Romani grandmother and her role in the prophecy he's become part of serves as a source of conflict in the second book. The first four books freely refer to them as "Gypsies," though in the fifth book (published several years after the fourth) Gary lampshades the modern understanding of the word as a slur and the book stops using it.
• Running Gag: Numerous.
  • When Sam was a child, he spread around a rumor that wizards can explode people's nipples. As an adult, Sam is thrilled each time someone thinks he will explode their nipples, proud that his rumor has spread so far and lasted so long.
  • Randall and Justin threatening Sam when he gets his "hugging face." Each time, the threats get more elaborate. Usually, Sam ignores them and insists that hugs need to last at least a few minutes.
  • Gary and Kevin using bakery metaphors to refer to their graphic sexual encounters.
  • "Sam" being one of Gary's safewords.
  • Tiggy and Kevin collecting brooms, first part of Kevin's dragon hoard, then Tiggy's own collection.
  • Characters capitalizing verbal declarations, and others commenting that 1. they can sense it being capitalized and 2. now that the statement has been capitalized, it's true.
• Secret Handshake: Sam likes secret friendship handshakes. After deciding that he and Justin should be friends "5eva," Sam insists on trying to get the prince to learn a secret handshake— with little success.
• Self-Applied Nickname:
  • Sam tries repeatedly through the novels to give himself cool nicknames, but nobody ever pays him any attention.
  • Kevin tries to give himself nicknames ranging from grandiose titles from when he was pretending to be a god, to "Master of Winds," to his old standby "Beast from the East."
• Self-Deprecating Humor: after the dramatically high stakes of the fourth book, the fifth book brings back the low-stakes, lighthearted romantic comedy aspect of the early books. As Gary says:
  Ryan (reassuring Sam): Magic or no magic, you’re still my Sam, and I’ll love you forever. I got my wish, remember? Because when I looked upon the stars, there was nothing I wished for more than—
  Gary: Yawn. Been there, done that, and read the overblown, self-serious sequels. Stop trying to make this about the pair of you. Four times was enough. Even I’m fine with taking on a reduced role.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • In Verania, there are literal fanclubs dedicated to Ryan that obsess over who he should end up with. There are "Rystin" fans who support Ryan and Justin, and there are HaveHeart fans for Sam. Tina DeSilva and her crew are particularly obsessive fangirls of Rystin.
  • In Mashallaha, the people there ship Sam and Vadoma's second in command, or "Wolf," Ruv. They call the pairing Have Wolf.
• Special Person, Normal Name: The powerful dragons Sam encounters almost all have dreadfully boring names, much to Sam's continual disappointment.
• Straight Man: Ryan to Sam, Tiggy, and Gary. If Justin is around too, then Ryan becomes as ridiculous as the rest of the group and Justin is relegated to straight man.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Played for laughs with Sam, who is head over heels in love with Ryan and joined an obsessive Ryan fanclub.
  • Played for drama with Kieth, the council member in The Damning Stone.
• Tailor-Made Prison: The shadow realm where Morgan and Randall locked away the evil wizard Myrin.
• Take a Third Option: after Vadoma's vision of Ryan's death, Sam becomes determined to find a way to live a normal human lifespan. When he asks David's Dragon and the Great White Dragon to make him mortal, they refuse. So Sam surprised everyone by making himself mortal, something that would not have been possible without GW's intensive training.
• Take That!: Tina De Silva is a lampoon against creepy and overly obsessive fangirls who get irrationally angry when the people they ship don't wind up together and take it out on the parties involved (in this case, Sam, as opposed to a voice actor or author).
• The Three Faces of Adam: Sam of Wilds, Morgan of Shadows, and Randall.
  • Sam is the Hunter, continuously going out on adventures in the early books, and then striving to get his destiny over with in the later ones.
  • Morgan of Shadows can be considered a heroic Lord. He is the respected and well-loved Royal Wizard and his main concern is protecting Sam from the evils he's not yet prepared for.
  • Randall is the Prophet. He's the oldest of living wizards and tries, cantankerously, to educate Sam. While at first, Sam considers his continued existence as living out of spite, the truth is that he is deeply concerned as to what will happen if he is gone and his corrupted former Cornerstone, Myrin, returns.
  • Myrin, Morgan's older brother and former Cornerstone of Randall is a villainous version of the Lord. He is pragmatic and cruel, though defines himself as "more morally gray," and is the only thing that makes the Dark wizards any kind of legitimate threat.
• Three Plus Two: What happens when Ryan and Justin/Kevin join Sam, Tiggy, and Gary on their adventures in the later books.
• Took a Level in Badass: Sam, after returning from the Dark Wood and studying with "GW." He was already powerful before, with magically-sensitive characters commenting frequently how expansive his magic was, but after his return, he is doing complex feats with power and precision that shouldn't be possible.
• Unicorns Are Sacred: Despite the fact that Gary has a hair-trigger temper, a propensity for violence, and a history of sexual deviancy a mile long (incestual inter-species orgies being the least concerning of his exploits), unicorns are still intensely magical beings with pure and benevolent magic, and the fact someone attacked him and took his horn is considered an unspeakable evil.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Gary and Sam snipe at each other constantly, with Gary explaining that he's there to keep Sam's ego in check. They will argue nonsensically about fictional situations, insult each other's (mostly Sam's) appearance, and will have page-long, non-sequitur arguments in the middle of confronting villains and in dangerous situations, often disarming those around them with sheer confusion. The two often make up as quickly as they started fighting, usually by becoming distracted by some other tangential thought and then behaving as though the argument never happened.
  • After the events of the first book, Sam thinks he and Justin are like this, putting Justin's unfriendly demeanor, glares, insults, and threats of execution down as him playing stoic and hiding his adoration of Sam to save face. After some character development, it becomes clear that Justin ''does'' care, but he still acts sour most of the time.
• What You Are in the Dark: Sam's major crises come not from using his magic, but from abstaining from it.
  • Sam has resurrected the dead once in his life, when he was seventeen. The act brought back the creature he wanted to save (a small bird), but it burned the life out of the forest around him, and that part of the forest remained dead forever after. If resurrecting a small bird cost that much life, then it's reasoned that resurrecting a human would cost significantly more, potentially wiping out anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity. Several times Sam is severely tempted to bring back loved ones he loses, even at the cost of every other living being around him. Ultimately, he abstains from killing everyone at Morgan's funeral to save his mentor, and he refuses to kill all the dark wizards to save Ryan. The latter is particularly meaningful, as at that point, the innocent people left in the city had been rescued. Even if the only people to die would have reasonably deserved it, the act of genocide would have broken Sam had he done it.
  • In Wish Upon Stars, Sam is given the opportunity to absorb the power of all of Verania's dragons. For a moment, he gets Drunk on the Dark Side and almost doesn't give it back, tempted to absorb their magic permanently into himself, transforming him into a Physical God. The only thing that stops him is Ryan's timely return. The fact that he came so close several times to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope is what drives his mental turmoil in The Damning Stone.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: At the end of the first novel, Dimitri asks Justin why he never had Sam killed if he hates him so much.