Goodreads asked Nicholas McIntire:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Nicholas McIntire I have a katana blade that my grandfather brought back from Japan after WW2. He was an incredibly discerning man, so he wouldn't have brought back just anything. In fact, he only brought back 3 things from Japan: a robe, a vase, and a sword blade. (Note that I said "blade" because it was kept in a shirasaya, a bamboo storage element for a blade.) Multiple people told me it was probably just a Guntō, which were mass-manufactured during WW2 for Japanese soldiers. However, the blade is marked in kanji along the tang (the bit that gets locked into the handle, which basically means it's likely really old. Blades have been marked in Latin characters for centuries, and it's also been clearly cut down to have a shorter hilt, which would reflect the style changes from the 16th century to the 19th. It also has a hamon (that wavy line you see in katanas today, though most of them look like a sine wave with acid. This looks more like mist above mountains. I have no idea where this blade came from. Mr grandfather was an OB-GYN and I have records of where he went and what he did to a degree. But if I could, I'd love to go back in time and find out where this blade came from, how old it is, and what, if anything, it meant to my grandfather. He passed away in 1995, so all I have are historical records to go on. But once I learn the true history of this blade (at least as much as is possible) and what, if anything, it meant, I'd love to construct the narrative backward and tell the story of the blade. It'll still 100% make an appearance in The Archanium Codex, but it's a much more personal story that I'd like to investigate :)

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