To make a long story short(pun intended), I'm involved in a Pathfinder tabletop game set in the much-feared Ravenloft world. For those of you who are tabletop noobs(or otherwise unfamiliar with gaming lore), Ravenloft is kind of a mashup between multiple fantasy nations with a decidedly gothic horror flavor. Picture what would happen if Sauron-ruled Middle Earth, Dracula's Transylvania, a medieval Nazi Germany, Switzerland with a resident Dr. Frankenstein, and several other similarly dark-and-troubled nations all existed right next to one another, and were plagued by all manners of unearthly horrors, and you kind of have a good idea of what Ravenloft is like. Evil is damn near omnipresent, but because of that good is all the more heroic when it exists. I could go into much more detail, but Wikipedia does a good job of summarizing(Ravenloft) so I'll instead move on to the point of this entry.
This particular tabletop game provided me with the opportunity to dust off my very first tabletop character concept, the wise-cracking, hard-fighting, and hard-partying swordsman Kai, and the different direction I've taken him in has been really enjoyable: that of a young warrior with a cruel, horrific past trying to escape from it all and just enjoy life for what it is. An oft-used concept, but one I've personally never tried out before.
Much as the interplay between characters is what gets me hooked on a story, the interactions between party members is usually my raison d'etre when it comes to tabletop RPGs. And this one has been no exception - it'd be hard for me to name a gaming group that generates more entertaining moments than this one. The only real down side is that I've joined the game fairly late, and as such have had not nearly as much story development as the others have together. This has led to a number of things, such as the "Kai-Wiki," as our Game Master put it, that I've been using to give a little bit of insight into my character's past and personality. The most recent result, though, has been the first short story I've produced in quite some time, since middle school in fact.
The really laughable part is that I didn't even realize I had written a short story until putting the final touches on the first copy. I had written similar pieces for tabletop games in the past, but they were always little more than a compilation of notes, or some other such work. This was the first time I had produced a work of fiction that I felt I could honestly call an actual story from one of my games. And lemme say, it felt good. Really good.
As such, I felt that a fitting next move would be to make this story available to anyone who wishes to give it a read. I'll be posting it on a Ravenloft fan site soon enough, but I felt it prudent to place it here, too, as this is supposed to be a blog dedicated to the antics of a prospective author, after all. But, seeing as how I've yet to post any piece of fiction on said blog, it may be a little while before I find a format that's easy to deal with. So please bear with me, y'all.
A few final things to note: the story was originally written for my gaming group, who are pretty familiar with the Ravenloft settings, so there are some terms that most people probably won't recognize. I'll summarize a few of those below:
- The Talons are the elite military formation of Falkovnia, the most brutally militaristic nation in the setting. As the Special Forces, they are directly under the command of the nation's crazed dictator, and have a well-deserved reputation for being merciless, sadistic, and unswervingly loyal.
- Barovia is the nation in Ravenloft that is based on 16th-17th century Romania. It also suffers from a serious infestation of bat monsters. Remember when I mentioned Dracula's Transylvania? Yeah...
- Ezra is a goddess whose faith revolves around spreading good and confronting evil. As one of the major religions of the Ravenloft setting, Ezran priests are notable for traveling around and taking the fight to many of the horrors that plague the peoples of their nations.
- As Ravenloft has a mixture of cultural influences, it also has a multitude of different languages. Falkovnians speak what basically amounts to German, Barovians speak Romanian, etc. As such, I've left several words here and there untranslated, to help convey a little of that. Don't worry, they're usually easy enough to infer(or look up).
That's it for the time being. As I think of other things that need explaining, I'll add 'em onto this list. Hopefully, though, the rest of the story should be self-explanatory, with the exception of a little tidbit here and there that's left purposefully vague. So, you know that means you should totally give this story a read, since that's what all the cool people are doing. Just sayin'.
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