A hippo bite as a portal
Jason falls into the fantasy world of Lyrian after being swallowed by a hippopotamus at his zoo job. The mundane opening deliberately drops an ordinary teen into a high-stakes magical land.
A World Without Heroes (Beyonders Book 1)
4 ideas
A magic word that unmakes a tyrant
The quest centers on collecting the syllables of a single Word that, once spoken, can destroy the emperor-wizard Maldor. Power in Lyrian is bound up in language kept deliberately scattered and hidden.
Two outsiders forced into a quest
Jason teams with Rachel, another displaced teen from our world, to gather the Word across a hostile kingdom. Their partnership of strangers carries the emotional core of the adventure.
The heroic quest may be a designed trap
The book seeds doubt that the emperor's enemies and the quest itself are what they claim. It teaches young readers to question whether a story's given mission is trustworthy.