Winds of Change: The Start
Every story, big or small, has a beginning. A simple statement, however, that beginning can be difficult to pinpoint.
I would say that the Winds of Change started as far back as 2015. After completing The Basic School (TBS) as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, I was in a follow on Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) School. (My second MOS school since TBS due to an injury.) During this school I found myself in possession of quite a bit of time and not much to do. As most of us do, I explored the internet for some kind of content to consume.
I stumbled upon a curious video of Vin Diesel playing D&D with a group of professional voice actors. It was on Youtube and I was enthralled by it. The Dungeon Master (DM) sucked you in, and the players fed off the creative world to bring life to the words. No miniatures, only a few dice rolls, just the players and their imagination. Was it the best story? Maybe not. But I was all about it.
So, I looked up the DM. Matthew Mercer, a voice actor that I had heard in many of the english dubbed anime I watched in college. It turned out this DM had a main story that had been airing for a short time called Critical Role. A show where a group of nerdy ass voice actors sit down and play Dungeons and Dragons. I found the show on Youtube and Twitch, and worked hard to catch up to the live stream. After catching up, I subscribed to the Twitch channel and for the most part since 2015 have kept up with the stream, only falling behind a few times.
Life happened and I went on my first deployment in 2017. Critical Role was among the top things to wait for during the week, along with football and the many Facetime calls with my wife. During the deployment I purchased all the D&D books and spoke to my friends and family about playing as soon as I got back. It took maybe a month or two after returning to the U.S before I started playing D&D over Skype.
It was the first time I played, but it was awesome. My cousin DM’d and we got lost in the starter pack with our characters. Various schedules and limited availability for all the players forced the game to pitter out without us completing it.
This first experience started us on the current homebrew campaign my cousins and friends finished only recently. (Level 3-13) We started writing brief summaries of what happened each session so we wouldn't forget. I have written most of it, but my cousin has provided good DM oversight to the summary.
I enjoy playing my Ranger/Rogue/Cleric Zan Duskbow, but I really enjoyed all the times I was able to DM. Each time I did, it was to give my cousin a break and let him play as a character. I had to write out one shots, come up with non player characters (NPCs), and drive a story with a unique cast of player characters that I had no control over.
My mind raced through all the untold stories, so I started writing notes for my own homebrew. I made characters and concepts, phases, storylines and hooks. I thought of ways players could or would react and tried to anticipate the many turns of the story. Then, one day, I wrote a cool concept based around a place called Fallwood.
Fallwood was ruled by Lord Alain Shieldson, and the party would receive their first quest from him. It would lead down a crazy storyline, and eventually the party would ally with Alain and he would become a main NPC of the campaign. It was such an interesting concept to me and I started writing a cool introduction. I decided to try a simple sword fight.
My two characters, Cid and Clayborn (later changed to Bjorn) fought off a group of bandits while in the woods. I grabbed a sword in my house and went through the motions of the fight, making sure it made sense. I finished the fight, and sat on it for a few months.
Later, more D&D was played and my cousin told me about his book he had been working on. It was based on the homebrew campaign we were playing and he had been using us as guinea pigs in his world. I loved it, I wanted to help and told him I too had been inspired to write some during this journey. We spoke at length about the stories we were telling.
March 2019, getting ready to leave California and go to my next duty station, I opened up my computer and started to flesh out my fight I had written so long ago. I wrote about 6-10 pages and then sent it to my dad. I asked him what he thought.
He said something to the effect of, “I like the idea. It reads like a D&D game a bit, but it’s cool. Is there a main story?”
I told him there was, that it was loosely based on a campaign idea I had.
He said, “Finish it. See where it goes.”
Now here we are, the book has gone through multiple edits, has had many family and friends who have read it, been looked at by a professional editor, cover is purchased and I have the proof copy coming in for the paperback. I’m running out of excuses to publish.
The start was not simple, but man has it been a hell of a ride. I hope those who decide to read my book enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
