Whisp's Tale

This is the last of the Paragon Path tales that I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Enjoy!

The journey back to Fjornik was a quiet one, everyone wrapped up in their own thoughts. Only the rhythmic beat of the horses’ hooves disturbed the silence, a silence which had been hard won.

Faces flashed before her eyes. Maran. Ena. Doe. Even Vile, she thought with a snort. He was a bastard, but he didn’t deserve to die like that. The last weeks weighed heavily on her, and she knew the others were feeling it too.

“We won, didn’t we? We’re heroes.” she said aloud, more to herself than anything else. 

Toofi looked round. “It doesn’t feel like it, though,” she said quietly.

Whisp nodded and fixed her eyes back on the road. Then why do I feel so insignificant?

Gods. Demons. And she just a human. She narrowed her eyes. It was clear that the monsters of this land were too vast to be easily hunted, cornered and slain.

Ostardva's Tale

This is one of the Paragon Path tales I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. As a bit of back story to this one, we left Ostardva's story hanging at the point when Tiamat, the evil dragon goddess, had offered him a place as her paladin. We kept the suspense up until the very end of Heroic Tier about whether his Paragon path would be as an evil paladin or as a righteous one, or turning his back on the path of a paladin altogether. Enjoy!

“No.”

The word echoed around the cavernous chamber. Ostardva, stood on one of Tiamat’s long, sinuous necks, stared defiantly at the five immense dragon heads, arrayed in front of him.

The central one, the red one, started backwards a little, as if surprised.

“No? Just like that? You disappoint me, child of Arkhosia.” The five heads spoke as one, a woman’s voice but with a hint of growling bass in it. The sound was like a hammer-blow, every word a storm to be weathered.

“Just like that,” Ostardva said, holding the red head’s gaze.

“I offer you power.”

“I don’t need power.” Ostardva felt a small flame kindle in his chest.

“I offer you privilege.”

“Privilege must be earned.” The flame grew brighter, and Ostardva began to remember how it felt to be righteous.

The heads began to move closer in unison. “I offer you the respect of your companions. As an arbiter of a god, they would see the worth in you.”

“You offer me nothing that I cannot gain on my own.”

Futch's Tale

This is one of the Paragon Path tales I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Enjoy!

Futch frowned as he walked away from the others. No-one seemed in a particularly celebratory mood; they had won the war, beaten the Lich, but at a high cost. Hundreds had died, thousands perhaps. Ostardva, Gieve, the others on the airship.

Maran.

He gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, fighting the surge of frustration that threatened to boil over. To have been so far away, and not able to do anything, or even know about it... It wasn’t fair. He wandered through the streets, barely aware of the direction his feet were taking him, lost in thought.

Finally he stood in front of the southern gate, looking out over the plains. The gently sloping path that lead to Varikause and beyond lay in front of him and, with one backwards glance at Fjornik, he shifted.

Faster than the wind, faster than thought, he ran, and as he ran he allowed the sheer joy of it to carry away his anger and sadness. They can never know this, he thought to himself, never see the world through scent and hear the smallest sound, never run through the wilds on four paws like this.

Kali's Tale

This is one of the Paragon Path stories I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Enjoy!

Kali stood in the confusion of the city. In a way, ruined as it was, it felt more comfortable to her; instead of stone formed into buildings and walls, it was more like the hillsides of her childhood, rough and unformed.

She rubbed her shoulders at that thought, feeling the roughness of her own skin. It was still odd to her; she’d grown used to the small slices and nicks, the little pieces of skin that grew back harder than scars should, but the final battle against the Lich had been devastating in more ways than one. Hundreds had died, an entire city fallen into a pit, friends and travelling companions blasted into nothingness. In the darkness and heat of the cavern under Ortmund, revealed at last, they had battled the Lich and emerged victorious. She flexed her hands, remembering the freezing cold and biting pain that had stung them as she had grabbed at whatever was inside its armour, holding it in place so that Toofi could deliver the death blow. The backlash of energy had flayed her torso open, revealing a rougher layer beneath the skin that ached still.

She wandered out of the city. A few children waved at her in passing, and she smiled and waved back. The road sloped gently downwards towards the grassy plain to the south of Fjornik, and Kali lengthened her stride. As she walked, she scanned the horizon.

“Aunty Moonie,” she whispered to herself. “If you’re out here, I could really use some help.”

Toofi's Tale

This is one of the Paragon Path stories I wrote for my Dungeons and Dragons group. Enjoy!

The bar was loud, uncomfortably so, but Toofi had found a quiet corner in which to sip her mug of ale. Fjornik was coming back to life, more so now that the threat of the undead horde was gone, and it was good to not have to watch her back all the time.

The events of the last few weeks were still large in her mind, though. Memories rose unbidden; fabulous journeys into other realms, the weird feeling of controlling a body much larger than hers, and a grinning face pressed up against crystal.

Ilneval.

Toofi’s mouth twisted in distaste. Who was the demon (was he even a demon?) going to take his revenge on? Who were the descendants of Ragnus? Had they settled one problem only to free another, greater threat?

Slapping a couple of coppers down onto the table, Toofi stood up. Hanging around in taverns worked for trying to track down killers and thieves, but finding out about the first men who walked the earth was going to require something a little more definite.

Projects on top of projects!

I'm making a lot of work for myself and should probably clear some of it off. In no particular order of importance:

1. I've planned out, and just need to write, Noctis Point. It's the new and improved psych-based story that I think will work really well. I just need a bit of discipline and actually get writing it. Go go fake NaNoWriMo time, perhaps!
2. Dungeons and Dragons! Ok, so I've got normal planning to do, and also a little bit of a special project that I can't share until after Sunday. I don't think any of the people who play actually follow this blog, which is sad times, but even if word gets back to them I don't want it spoiled. Lets just say that I should have a few days of updates on here next week that I'm queueing up now.
3. Pocket Fiction! It's going to be a real thing soon. I've actually recorded five now, but they're in varying degrees of quality and I really need to confirm which recording method works for me. I'm also trying to get hold of a royalty-free fire-in-a-fireplace video that I can set the stories to, so that people have something to look at. I'm going for that 'cosy story in front of the fireplace' feel to it, but Sue pointed out that it could easily double for 'everything you love is burning to a cinder', or words to that effect.
4. NomCake! Not sure I've ever talked about that here, but we do cakes to order. I love baking and don't do it enough. NomCake is my way of making sure I do some at least. Reasonable prices, any cake to order within reason.
5. Working with Patrice Aggs! I'm very lucky to be working on a project with awesome illustrator Patrice Aggs on a project that I don't think I can talk about yet. But it will be awesome, and you can bet I'll talk about it a bunch when it happens.
6. Work for which I get paid! Or not at the moment. But I do need to do some actual planning for next term. I've done some, it's just a matter of getting down to it.

Two of those are fairly quick to finish; NomCake's deadline is a week on Saturday, and D&D's deadline is this Sunday coming. Pocket Fiction is an ongoing project. Noctis Point is a long-term project, at least a month without much else going on. The others are open-ended, so I guess that prioritises things!

Writing for D&D

I do a lot of writing that never sees the light of day to the big wide world. It's consumed on an almost weekly basis by five people instead. I DM a group for a Fourth Edition D&D game, set in the world of Poisonroot but borrowing a lot of things from proper D&D (like races, dragons, magic, gods, planes...) We've been playing for over a year now, coming up on 18 months on and off. We can't meet every week; it's staggering that six busy professionals can get together anything like regularly, really. But we get together enough to see a story.

I love doing it. I really enjoy telling stories and being part of a bigger story makes me happy; I hope it makes the players happy too. Early on in the game I decided it would be useful to have a database that the players and I could add to, building up a picture of the world. It works for me in my writing as well; I can draw on some of the ideas and concepts used by the players.

Anyway, it's all there, free for everyone to read. Going on for eighty pages now, and I'm trying to add one every day or so to keep it up to date. I'm hoping that, as it's fleshed out, the players might add or change bits.

It's available here.

Dungeons and Dragons

I go through phases of writing and not writing. I like to call these 'terms'. I have yet to find a way to properly integrate my work life (primary school teacher) with that of being a writer, and it bugs me. I need to make more effort.

What DOES keep me going week to week is writing D&D adventures for the party to tackle. Last time (about three weeks ago unfortunately) was a real doozy for them; someone in their party, an NPC, turned out to be in the employ of a bad guy and also lying to them the whole time; the actual bad guy is in jail; then, zombies. Lots of zombies. It was like 'zoooooooooooombiiiiiiiiiies' for a while.

We left them lying on a bridge after a tide of zombies left them. What delights will I have in store for them this Sunday?

Well, it involves a pair of miniatures I've purchased specially. That's all I'm saying.

In a way it's one of the most frustrating things; I can write D&D but I can't talk about it to any of the people involved. It would give them meta-game knowledge. So that's my wife, my flatmate and four of my best friends out of the equation. Even though one of those friends doesn't play, she's going out with (and living with) one of the players.

It's just something I have to put up with, and, so far at least, the work has not been in vain; things are continuing apace and everyone is enjoying themselves. Well, let's see if that's still the case after Sunday!