a word about Dungeon Adventures

Howdy, all you Truly Adventurous Souls!

So we've finished up the last exciting episode of our Phantom Sleuth serial, which means we're going to have something new start up this week!  And aren't you anxious to find out what it is?  Of COURSE you are!  And you've come to right place, because that's what we're going to talk about today!

Well, in order to tell you about this, I have to recap the evolution of Mutant World, just in case ya missed it!

Anyway, Mutant World was a direct result of the art.  I discovered the characters created by Luigi Castellani over at Artikid Arts and was entranced by them. I wanted to write a story about these characters, and so I did.  Then I was inspired to write a few more, and have more bubbling on the back-burner even now.

While writing these stories, something occurred to me:

I also run Fantanomicon Press, which sells downloads of paper miniatures for D&D and other role-playing games.  I have several characters designed for different genres with no concept of who they are or what they're about.  So my epiphany was that I should be writing stories about them!


Seemed like a brilliant cross-promotional idea, so I set to work writing a story about some characters inspired by the figures.  The whole thing was a silly idea, and so I tried to write a silly story.  My thought was that the story was supposed to be the story being played out in a D&D-type RPG game.  Sorta like in "The Gamers" (a series of movies about a group playing D&D), except it's only the in-game stuff.

There are inherent differences between playing an RPG and writing a story, but I tried to get certain things across.  Like...having your character die-off mid-game and needing a replacement character.  There are a few other things, too; which I hope are humorous to folks that have played the game.  This is the start of...

This is...well, basically a catch-all series for miscellaneous stories inspired by D&D-type games.  This will allow me to try out different Tones And Styles, and you folks can tell me which ones you like.  

And it all starts THIS Saturday when we start our BRAND NEW serial:  Quest to the Kobold Caves!  It's the first serial to appear on the blog that has NEVER BEEN PUBLISHED BEFORE!  So don't forget to tune in this Saturday!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

The Creation of Aurivyn

Greetings to you Tremendously Astute Spirits!

So, I'm gonna tell you straight up:  I'm taking a little break from Mutant World.  Now, now, calm down.  Yes, there WILL be more Mutant World coming in the future.  But I'm taking a little break to write up a few episodes of another series called...

I won't lie about it, Aurivyn grew out of Dungeons and Dragons.  

I don't really remember when or how I first learned about Dungeons and Dragons, but I remember being completely enthralled with it once the concept was explained to me.  My sister had the Basic Set, and I got to look through it and formulate impressions that have pretty much lasted my lifetime.

Played a few one-shot adventures, and collected books, adventure modules and the BECMI boxed sets.  Of course, I moved up to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and 2nd Edition is the version that I played the most.  

  

Over the years, I created a fair few continents...not really complete worlds...but definitely big enough to house several campaigns.  Never really got to play them though.

Eventually I found the world of Mystara, and it quickly became one of my favorite published campaign worlds.   I collected as many products related to it as I could.

Someplace along the line we had moved to another state and I lost my gaming group.  Being socially awkward and the demented loner type in my younger years, I rarely tried to hook up with new players.  Eventually I grew out of the habit of playing, and looked at the material as inspiration for writing and drawing.

That's the preamble, now for the beginning of the actual story!

I was taking care of my Poor Old Mother (TM) and somehow it was decided that my oldest brother's two boys should get to visit Grandma on weekends.  We decided to take one at a time.

The younger of the two boys, my nephew Jason, came to visit for the weekend.  I'm afraid he probably spent most of that weekend fairly bored.  But he popped into my study to see what I was doing, and spotted my collection of D&D stuff, so he asked about it.  I told him it was a game and that there was no board, you use your imagination instead.  I told him some stuff about it and he decided he wanted to play.

So, I drew up a quick five-minute dungeon, we pulled out a sample character and a map from one the box sets and we played.  I don't really remember why, but I figured he would dislike it and never want to play again.

Boy was I wrong!

So when I took him home, it was all he talked about.  So of course his older brother--Richard--wanted to play, and I mus admit that I wondered how he would have handled the adventure.  So he picked out a sample character and I sent him on the same adventure.

What was the adventure?  Well, they lived in a rural town populated by a superstitious medieval people.  A small statuette was positioned on the edge of town as a ward against evil spirits, and one day it was missing.  Each of my nephews was sent off--separately and alone--to retrieve it.  The search led them to a secret dungeon in the nearby forest, where they faced monsters and traps, rescued the statuette and found the person that stole it.

They both loved the game and wanted to play some more.  So the next weekend, both came for a visit.  They decided to keep the same characters and I sent them on a brief published adventure.  Their third adventure was a watered-down version of yet another published adventure.  

But for their fourth adventure, they were returning to the village where the first adventure took place and suddenly I had a problem: which one of them retrieved the statuette?  They didn't go together.  Some villagers would swear that Jason returned the statuette, while others would insist it was Richard.  How could I fix this?

Suddenly it hit me:  I had two alternate realities overlapping!  The rest of the campaign was about them trying to fix this.

I've always wanted to write up these adventures, so I'm going to!  I'm adding in some other elements from some of the other homebrew worlds, partly for plot purposes, partly for legal reasons--to differentiate my story-world from the published game setting.

I have written a couple of stories that take place in what would eventually become Aurivyn.  The Saturday Serial story "The Crystal Cage" takes places there.  So does the story "Buy the Sword" currently available in "The Adventure Sampler", which is a free gift received by the folks who sign up for my newsletter.  But these were minor experiments while I was trying to hammer out the plot for the series.

I have the details worked out now, and I'm pleased to announce that I am working on the first installments of an Aurivyn story arc called "The Wrath of the Ancient Prisoner", and it all started on that weekend when my nephew wanted to play a fighter!  Little did we know what that began...

Well, I'd better get to work, so until next time I wish you...

Good Adventuring!

Timothy A. Sayell

My Latest Project...

Hello Explorers!  

So I think the time has come to talk about my latest project...

I am currently writing a series of stories that take place in a weird and wacky post-apocalyptic world.  Hey, what do you know, that totally ties in with my recent posts about the various post-apocalyptic movies and games that I've been writing about!  What an amazing and incredible coincidence!

I'm going to call the series Mutant World, and the series logo looks like this:

The series will follow the adventures of a post-apocalyptic human barbarian named Axel, a mutant girl with four arms named Smogara, and a humanoid badger called Biter.  

What was the great Calamity that ruined the world?  What caused all the weird mutations?  How did mankind survive?  What brought our band of adventurers together?  What are they questing for?  

I don't want to spoil too much right now, but I will be revealing more info about the story, the world, and the characters in upcoming posts.

What I can tell you right now...is that I'm planning to have a total of 9 stories in this series.  It will be available exclusively through Amazon, because I want to see how Kindle Unlimited works (from the writer's perspective).  I am expecting to have the first three installments ready and available to the public in February of 2020!

But that's not all!  Tune in next time and get a sneak peak at the cover art for the FIRST 3 stories!  So Tremble in Anxious Suspense and I'll see you next time!  Until then I wish you...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell