Welcome to realmgard.com, featuring All-Ages Fantasy & Sci Fiction I’ve written under the name J.B. Norman, and brought to you by Emona Literary Services.™

New story-based content from my Fantasy and Sci Fi series will go live on the official Emona Literary Services™ Patreon page to paid subscribers before becoming available anywhere else. However, all new stories will eventually be published here — along with the original version of the first three Realmgard stories featuring the Sisters Darkstone are available to read online below.

Realmgard-related news and posts are available on the Realmgard blog and I also use my Substack as my more general author blog and a place to publish non-Realmgard fiction.

The first three Sisters Darkstone Stories

These are the first three Realmgard stories, as they were originally published. I refer to these as the “Classic” versions of those stories. Although I decided to update and revise these first three stories to better represent my growth as an author and my better understanding of my world and characters, the Classic versions of these stories will remain available to readers as artifacts of historical import Realmgard’s past.

Fryte’s Gold — The story that started it all

Kat Darkstone knows to expect trouble. It happens when you’re Dunstana Darkstone’s big sister.

But when Dunstana and Kat stumble upon the long-lost hiding place of the legendary treasure of the equally-legendary Captain Fryte, they may be in for more trouble than Kat ever imagined. Even after a hundred years, Captain Fryte will not be easily parted from his treasure.

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The Treasure of Oake Island — The awkward middle child of the ‘Sisters Darkstone’ trilogy

The Sisters Darkstone return for another adventure.

With treasure map in hand, and an archaeologist uncle and genius cousin in tow, Kat and Dunstana set their sights on Oake Island to find the hiding place of the legendary pirate William Newgate’s lost treasure. But the Darkstones will soon learn that they aren’t the only ones with their sights on Oake Island. The ambitious young captain of the Red Wolf Pirates has a map of her own and she won’t take kindly to anyone else laying claim to the treasure she believes is rightly hers.

Read the second Realmgard adventure as the Sisters Darkstone find themselves on a collision course with the Red Wolves!

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The Bandits of Goldharbour — The Author’s favourite story

Kat Darkstone is looking forward to a nice, quiet vacation in the beautiful seaside city of Goldharbour. Amara Valda is looking forward to showing her best friend around all of Goldharbour’s most happening places. Dunstana Darkstone is looking forward to meeting the living legends of the Brotherhood of the Coasts at their annual assembly.

Dirk Broadsword and Alison Steel, the most-wanted bandits in Realmgard are looking forward to continuing their legendary crime spree.

As Dunstana crosses paths with Realmgard’s best and brightest pirates, Kat and Amara find themselves crossing paths with the infamous Bandits of Goldharbour.

Does Dunstana have what it takes to make a name for herself among her fellow pirates? Does Kat have what it takes to protect her mother and best friend from the ruthless, greedy Bandits of Goldharbour?

Is Amara wearing the right shoes for an encounter with bandits?

Open up the latest Realmgard story and find out!

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Coming Soon: An All-New Sci Fi Universe from Emona Literary Services™

I am pleased to report that I’m in the process of developing a Sci Fi companion series to Realmgard. I’ll have more news to share as I get closer to being able to release the first full story in that series.

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And more on the way!

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If you’ve enjoyed my content, please consider supporting me through Ko-fi or Patreon, or through Paypal by scanning the QR code below:

Follow Realmgard and other publications of Emona Literary Services™ below:

Subscribe to the Emona Literary Services™ Substack newsletter here.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.

All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.

The realmgard.com Privacy Policy can be viewed here.

Realmgard is published by Emona Literary Services^TM

First things first, Realmgard is the continent — not the world (that’s Terrace) — where my all-ages Fantasy series takes place, and is in the turn what this website is named after.

Originally, this website was only home to the Realmgard stories themselves — plus an author blog. Now, I’m branching out into some Realmgard-adjacent Sci Fi that reimagines the basic premise of Realmgard taking place among the stars.

It’s sort of a Warhammer Fantasy/Warhammer 40K thing, though significantly less grimdark…

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And now, a little about me:

My name isn’t actually J.B. Norman, but I decided to cut my readers some slack and use a name they could actually spell and pronounce. Realmgard has existed since 2017, when I published the first version of the first Realmgard story, Fryte’s Gold — which you can still read online right here.

On the whole, there have been some big changes in how Realmgard operates, especially since I started Emona Literary Services™ under my real name to serve as the umbrella under which I publish and promote Realmgard, and all my other content.

For the most part, this website has pivoted towards focusing more on the Fantasy and Sci Fi stories themselves and the supplementary materials that help flesh out the worlds of those stories.

Under the Emona Literary banner, I’ve also started a Substack, which is now my primary author blog and a Patreon, which is where most of my first-run publications will be available to subscribers before eventually becoming available elsewhere.

If you’ve enjoyed my content, please consider supporting me through Ko-fi or Patreon, or through Paypal by scanning the QR code below:

Follow Realmgard and other publications of Emona Literary Services™ below:

Subscribe to the Emona Literary Services™ Substack newsletter here.

Realmgard is a publication of Emona Literary Services.™ For any questions about Realmgard or the other publications from Emona Literary Services™, reach out to info@emonaliterary.com.

If you’ll permit me a moment of self-indulgence, this is the introduction to myself and my business that I use on the Emona Literary Services™ frontpage:

My name is Joel Balkovec. I do words good.

I do words very good, and I have since I was a kid.

Which is why I offer web writing and content creation services to small business and non-profits, along with providing various kinds of literary editing for authors.

I am an Ottawa, Ontario-based writer and editor with a lifelong passion for literature, a decade of post-secondary education, extensive professional experience, and an unmatched knowledge base — whether it’s Scipio Africanus’ finest hour at Zama, the biological mechanism by which sharks detect electricity, or debating whether Balrogs have wings, I’m always eager to discuss my interests.

Since 2020, I have been involved with Renaissance Press, a small-press publishing house based in the National Capital Region. I am passionate about advocating for and promoting Canadian writers. It has been my honour to provide editing services for some of Canada’s finest emerging literary voices.

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Emona Literary Services™ was registered in October 2024 both as a means to consolidate and improve my own publishing process, but also as a professional writing and editing business with the stated goal of supporting other Canadian authors, creatives, and small businesses. If you think I can assist you in your writing or entrepreneurial journey, you can find a full list of my services here.

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If you’re interested in supporting Emona Literary Services™ and its publications, please consider signing up to my Substack page and subscribing to my Patreon page at either the free or paid tiers, and you can find my various other platforms on my Linktree page.

Also, as a final housekeeping note, please be aware of the Realmgard privacy policy, which you can read in full here.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.

All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.

The realmgard.com Privacy Policy can be viewed here.

Realmgard is published by Emona Literary Services^TM