Ruin Mist Reclaimed Series
Before the Legends, Before the War – The Birth of Ruin Mist
By Robert Stanek
There’s something sacred about the first time you imagine a world that’s entirely your own. For me, that world was Ruin Mist.
It didn’t come all at once. It unfolded over years—decades, really. Piece by piece. Character by character. Long before I ever put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, I carried Ruin Mist with me. It was there during sleepless nights in war zones. It was there in quiet moments after publishing another thousand-page tech manual. It was there when I needed to believe in something bigger than myself.
When I finally began to write it down, I didn’t know it would change everything.
Why I Had to Tell This Story
Fantasy has always been a home for outsiders. The dreamers. The misfits. The ones who imagine worlds different from the one they were handed. But by the late 1990s, fantasy publishing had started to feel like a gated kingdom. You could enter, sure—but only if you told the “right kind” of story.
That wasn’t Ruin Mist.
Ruin Mist was too layered. Too political. Too real. It had a princess who wasn’t waiting to be saved—Adrina wanted to run, to break free, to think for herself. It had an elf in exile named Seth, torn between loyalty and truth. And it had Vilmos, a boy with power the world feared—because the world had outlawed magic itself.
I didn’t want to write the next Tolkien or Martin. I wanted to write my story. A story about identity, and power, and loss. About finding light when the world insists on shadows. About choosing who you become, even when fate says otherwise.
The World Behind the Pages
Ruin Mist isn’t just a setting. It’s a history. A culture. A memory of things forgotten.
I designed the world the way I experienced the real one: layered, fractured, and full of contradiction. Different characters remember the same events differently. Propaganda and history blur. Alliances form and fall apart based not on good vs. evil, but on power, betrayal, and fear.
- Elves and humans aren’t allies—they’re enemies.
- Magic is forbidden. Books are banned.
- The old orders—the Twelve Clans, the Red Guard—have vanished into myth.
- The people who can save this world are the ones it tried to silence.
I didn’t know then that Ruin Mist would become a reflection of what was happening in my own life.
When the Gatekeepers Said “No”
When I first tried to bring Ruin Mist to traditional publishers, I was already a successful author. Writing as William R. Stanek, I’d published hundreds of books on systems, servers, and code. I’d written over a million words a year for Microsoft, helped thousands understand complex technologies.
But fiction? Fantasy?
Suddenly, I was “too indie.” Too different. Too unmarketable.
So I made a decision that changed everything: I self-published The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches in 2001—before the Kindle, before indie publishing was cool, before there was even a name for what I was doing.
It was terrifying. And it was the best decision I ever made.
A Story the World Couldn’t Kill
The book took off. It hit the top of Amazon’s fantasy charts. The audiobooks hit the top of Audible. It was added to school reading lists. Translated. Passed from parent to child. From teacher to student. Readers found something in it that spoke to them—and they made sure others found it too.
But the more it succeeded, the harder others worked to erase it.
That part of the story? We’ll get to that. The lies. The smears. The silent blacklists. The fake reviews. But first, I want you to remember how it began.
It began with a world called Ruin Mist. A story with three broken heroes.
And a writer who refused to stay silent.