Spell Thief
Stack your Deck. Climb the Gaia Tower. Defeat it's Guardians.
Almost half a century has passed since prison ships en route to Australia discovered the mysterious Tower rising out of the Indian Ocean, known as Gaia. Monarchies, republics, and trading giants came together to build a city around it, and contain the monsters spilling out of the rune-covered structure.
The few that dared enter and climb it learned the magic of Gaia's runic cards.
Now, most people enter the tower seeking fame, fortune, or power. Not Diya Sen. He climbs hoping to find clues about his missing brother and to solve Gaia's mysteries. However, the warring noble houses stand in his way.
His mission won't be easy. Many sources of power are outside his reach as an ordinary man. But if the direct approach doesn't help Diya achieve his goals, perhaps the talents of a Spell Thief will.
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J. Pal
Before he became known for conjuring soul-space solar systems and brutal multiverse arenas, J. Pal spent his days navigating the heat and rhythm of a professional kitchen. For seven years, writing was a private ritual, snatched between shifts, scribbled in notebooks, or tucked into digital folders labeled someday. That “someday” arrived with the pandemic, when the world stood still and his stories finally surged forward.
J. Pal’s fiction lives at the intersection of game logic and emotional stakes. Whether it's The Houndsman series with its fortress building and frontier grit, or the arcane experiments of Department of Dungeon Studies, his work balances clever systems with the kind of character arcs that make you care deeply before the next boss fight. His style is lean but textured, humorous without breaking tension, and consistently grounded in clear rules, whether the magic is fueled by mana, memory, or madness.
Tower of Cards
In a world where magic isn’t cast, but drawn, shuffled, and played, power comes not from birthright or blood, but from the deck you build and the hand fate deals you.
Tower of Cards isn’t about saving the world. It’s about surviving it, one strategic choice at a time. Set in a crumbling realm where ancient arcana and twisted logic rule the battlefield, the series follows a spellcaster who crafts spells from a living deck of cards. Each card is a memory, a weapon, a curse. Every battle reshuffles the odds, and every victory cuts deeper than the last.
Tower of Cards consists of two books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
