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Emotional Journey
The Weapons We’re Born With is an epic fantasy about breaking free from inherited identities and forging one’s own destiny. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I had written several books throughout my life that I shelved after not being quite satisfied with the final result, giving myself time to just work on my craft and my prose so that I could properly convey the stories I had in my head on the page. Coming into 2026, I felt my writing was much more polished and promised to give everything I had into actually taking a real shot at becoming an author.
I have played TTRPG’s for years and created a ton of nations and cultures for use in my games that laid the foundation for the world of Solara. I had done so much world-building over my years of DMing that I knew I could utilize a lot of that as inspiration for my novel setting.
My main inspiration for this story itself actually came from another TTRPG source, the Critical Role mini-series Calamity. I was so pulled in by the epic scale, powerful characters, and world-changing cataclysmic events that took place that I thought that could be an extremely cool take on Epic Fantasy, which historically features a more rags-to-riches type cast instead of characters. I wanted to explore the extreme pressure put on the “heroes” of each side of an epic conflict like that.
How do you think Shara, Marysa, Callum, and EM4022 each represent different aspects of identity and self-discovery?
I’ve always felt great characters will stand above great plots everytime so I approach my writing with a ton of the focus on the characters and their arcs. I wanted to craft distinct, interesting characters that dealt with true human emotions readers could relate to, so those emotional journeys are the first thing I truly hammered out and tried my best to make compelling. Theme for me often comes up naturally, and it’s something that you can highlight as it develops, and that’s what I did here, which helped to connect each character to each other with similar threads such as identity and self-discovery, as you mentioned. As I saw that appearing in each of their arcs, I leaned into it and tried to highlight it where possible to show that pretty much everyone can go through that type of journey while dealing with very different things, but internally and externally.
How did you balance the more intimate character moments with the larger-scale fantasy conflict?
I mentioned before, but I always think great characters are much more important than a great plot. I say that because I think a plot can come together more easily as long as the emotional stakes and character arcs are there beside it. I distinctly outlined what I believed to be a compelling and exciting plot, but once I had that mapped out, my focus shifted largely to the characters and their emotional arcs for much of the writing. If you have a character whom you feel emotionally attached to and want to succeed in their emotional journey, how will it not be exciting if they start engaging in epic battles? Whereas, if you have a character you don’t feel connected to, it doesn’t matter how epic the plot is – it will feel dull.
Can you give us a glimpse inside the second book in the Currents of War series? Where will it take readers?
The second book is well underway and will take place a year after the conclusion of The Weapons We’re Born With, as both sides of the conflict scramble to gain ground in the aftermath of Book 1. The world and cast will be expanded, as the story takes on a grander scale, which naturally occurs after many of the main characters ended in separate locations and with separate immediate goals.
Marysa navigates motherhood as she tries to escape an inescapable war. Callum struggles to maintain his cover with the Nightshades while secretly helping the Resistance. Ronin faces a new level to their choices as killing everyone associated with the Nightshades starts to feel wrong. Nikolai travels with a band of Ironborn as he tries to right the wrongs of his past and free their kind from enslavement.
Several new POVs enter the fold as well, including Kymus, Captain Mallory from the Grove, Jacinda the High Magus, and Aggie, who has been rising the Nightshade ranks.
A preview chapter for Book 2 is available at the end of The Weapons We’re Born With in all formats.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
Fifteen years ago, the Nightshade Empire launched a brutal campaign to eradicate all but a select few magic users, plunging the world into an all-consuming war. Now, the fate of all who draw on the Current hangs by a thread.
Marysa and Nikolai serve in the Sunburst Legion, the Resistance’s most elite strike force. They are among the only people capable of turning the tide—if their own secrets and doubts don’t destroy them first.
Darian Blackburn, general of the Nightshade Army, seeks more than just victory. He has a vision of a new world—and will sacrifice anything to see it through.
Meanwhile, three unlikely souls fight to survive the chaos: Shara, an orphan whose power to wield the Current makes her very existence a crime; Callum, a bitter outcast chasing revenge and riches; and EM4022, a killing machine realizing they may be more than just a weapon.
The Weapons We’re Born With is just the start of an epic dark fantasy saga chronicling the emotional aftermath of war on everyone from generals to orphans. Though the battlefield is sure to shape Solara’s future, the wars raging within can change its course just as easily…
The Weapons We’re Born With
Brett O’Brien’s The Weapons We’re Born With, the first book in the Currents of War series, is an ambitious epic fantasy about people discovering that the identities assigned to them don’t have to determine the lives they lead. The story unfolds across a world being consumed by imperial conquest, magical warfare, political ambition, and rapid technological change. Its many viewpoint characters initially seem to occupy separate stories: Shara is a street child whose forbidden magical ability forces her into hiding, Marysa is a Resistance fighter struggling with leadership and grief, Callum is an artificer trapped inside the imperial war machine, and EM4022 is a manufactured soldier beginning to develop a conscience. Their paths gradually converge around a conflict involving the Current, an authoritarian order of Nightshades, ancient powers, experimental weapons, and a dragon whose captivity has consequences for the entire world.
The novel’s greatest strength is its cast. O’Brien gives each major character a personal struggle that reflects the book’s larger questions about freedom and responsibility. Shara wants safety and belonging, but her natural connection to the Current makes an ordinary life impossible. Callum has spent years helping the Empire function, and his story asks what resistance looks like when someone realizes that their talent has been serving a cruel system. Marysa is physically formidable, yet her most meaningful battles involve trust, loss, and the pressure of leading others. EM4022’s transformation is especially compelling. Its early chapters use cold designations and tactical calculations, but small acts of compassion gradually break through its conditioning. Watching EM4022 become Ronin turns the familiar artificial-being-seeks-humanity storyline into one of the book’s most emotionally satisfying arcs.
The world is large, colorful, and full of ideas. Different nations, faiths, magical traditions, military ranks, spirits, machines, and political factions give the setting a sense of history beyond the immediate plot. The Current works particularly well because it’s both a source of power and a reflection of character. People draw from it differently, and their abilities often reveal how they understand themselves. O’Brien also combines fantasy and technology with confidence. Swords, spirits, airships, artificial soldiers, fission weapons, and industrial machinery all belong to the same world without feeling randomly assembled. The final sequence beneath Mount Pyra brings these elements together in a chaotic, cinematic climax involving collapsing tunnels, divided loyalties, desperate sacrifices, and the release of a dragon. The action is easy to picture, but it remains grounded in the characters’ choices.
Readers of Brandon Sanderson, particularly those who enjoyed Mistborn, will recognize some appealing similarities. Both stories center on resistance to an oppressive empire, feature carefully structured supernatural powers, and follow characters from very different social positions as they become part of a larger rebellion. O’Brien also shares Sanderson’s fondness for intersecting plots and explosive finales. His approach, though, feels more openly influenced by modern ensemble storytelling. The viewpoint shifts are frequent, and the book sometimes reads like a season of prestige fantasy television, cutting between soldiers, rebels, rulers, scientists, and fugitives as a crisis builds. That scale gives the story energy, though the number of characters and unfamiliar terms can make the early chapters demanding. Once the connections become clearer, the broad structure starts to feel purposeful.
The Weapons We’re Born With is ultimately a story about choosing what to do with power, whether that power comes from magic, knowledge, authority, physical strength, or the ability to create life. Its title becomes more meaningful as the characters confront the difference between what they were made for and what they decide to become. The ending resolves the Mount Pyra conflict while leaving the war, the dragon, and several personal reckonings in motion, so it works as both a climax and a clear beginning to a larger saga. O’Brien has built a crowded but engaging world populated by people worth following, and the novel’s strongest moments come when spectacle gives way to compassion, grief, or quiet defiance. It’s a bold opening volume with the momentum and emotional foundation to support a much bigger story.
Pages: 566 | ASIN : B0H8Y8H18M
