All Comments on 'Bard's Tale 03 - Miriel'

Great story that just keeps getting better.

For those who suspect, I will confirm the suspicion that these particular adventures are novelizations of rpg gaming. The Landers family is a special case, and I readily admit to some bias and affection for them.

Mikel Landers, the patriarch, was one of my first characters in another campaign (1975 till around 1978), and I had fun adventuring with him. Yeah. My friend the DM had gone to Nebraska, and after a year of partying, dropped out and game home, bearing a copy of the original whitebox DnD game, quickly followed by Eldritch Magic and Gods, Demigods, and Heroes a year later. In 1978, he added David Hargraves' Arduin trilogy to his reference books.

In those days, we were allowed to run more than one character at a time, as the death rate tended to be high. Thus, Mikel, Frínulas, and Charmain were created. Mikel was a Philosopher class - essentially a multi-classed human fighter, mage, and priest due to his high ability scores. Once the Arduin books arrived, he had a new interest in playing again. The DM had me roll a six-sided die, and I got a six, which meant I got two rolls on the special ability tables. He grumbled about the first roll - spell competent, one extra bonus spell per level. The second one, he teased me about. Mikel suddenly became a sexual athlete - "never get enough, and can go on forever," and based on the DM's cryptic "length" table, was decently well-endowed. In his young male mind, that was important stuff. So for convenience, Mikel's two adventuring companions became his bed-mates as well.

The DM, though, after a year, decided to quit playing, and declared that his world had blown up. Well, if Jor-El could do it, why not Mikel and his two companions? So the refugees safely escaped the destruction and landed in my own Skyra campaign (I started it the year after I learned to play, and it's been almost in continuous play since 1976). Charmain the mage, though, became Charmain the witch during the transition; I had been reading Andre Norton's Witch World series at the time. Galamindöl, Morgan, and Renenet soon joined them, they all got married, and settled down to raising a huge family together.

Around 2002, I met the Reison's human player. I'd been having a lull in gaming, being focused on work, single after nearly twelve years, and determined on mastering Red Alert, Starcraft, Civilization, and other PC games. Reison's human player was almost my same age, and was back living with his mother, recovering from a serious injury. While in a crosswalk, a semi-truck hit him. He managed to avoid getting crushed by grabbing the bumper, but after a few hundred yards, his legs were a mess; it was more than 21 operations and about three years before he was able to put away the wheelchair. His mother was my supervisor, knew of my past gaming, and she asked me as a personal favor to help keep her son distracted from his injuries and onto something else. So I took the challenge. And never regretted it.

He was my only human player at the time. While I do believe in making modifications to dice rolls based on the overall story, I also try to run a somewhat realistic campaign. A single character without companions is going to have a tough if not impossible time surviving. That meant I had to provide NPCs to help Reison survive. I searched through my boxes and lists, and stumbled upon Mikel's brood, and realized how close they were to the wood elven kingdom that Reison was starting from. Looking at the family tree, the three sisters popped into my head almost fully formed, and it felt important that it was those three. I saw that Tia had a twin, and thought, why not make it four sisters? No, I heard myself thinking, Tia's younger twin sister Theodonra is happily married, has been for decades, and lives in Sharaton where she's a judge. And yeah, Reison's human player was entranced with Mindal as his goal was to become a bard, but he also answered Tia the way it happened in the story.

I had literally known that Lysandra was important to Tahna years ago; I didn't know the details of how important until I began Bard's Tale 01, and the story unfolded before me. I went, wow.

Having characters appear almost fully formed - sometimes that's how it happens with me. The story "Anya Surprised" happened after Reison and his wives had been married for a few years. Anya came visiting, and the dice roll indicated she was upset and needed to talk to Tia. Why was she upset? I wondered. And like that, it all came to me. Anya had good reasons. If you are curious, it's all there. Check it out.

There are times that I feel like I'm not a writer so much as an archeologist, uncovering records of a lost civilization and the fascinating people who actually lived on that world at the edge of the universe.

Or I could just have an overactive imagination. You get to decide. Slainté

I actually am trying to decide if Bard's Tale 4 is next (tentatively titled 'Holly Wood' at this point), or if I should do another installment on one of the older series.

Since this is free, your this is reward for sleepless nights while the muse pesters me until the story is done. Slainté

MelanPonca is correct. There is so much invested in character development and there are so many unanswered questions and unresolved conflict, it would be a shame to not follow through to some sort of resolution. However. I personally want to see Reison complete Tia and Tahna's songs.

This is an amazing tale, with so much room to continue! I really hope you do. I'm a huge starlight fan too. So I'm wishing you awesome health and inspired thoughts to keep both stories going! Thank you so much!

Should be up soon. About 40 pages into Starlight Gleaming 18 now...

bravo, i love this story. I cant wait to read more of this story and your other stories.... thank you for some good reading...

Another oops moment. Urthel is a high elf, not grey. I was surprised to read that in the text, checked the character card, and there it was. That's what I get for trying to depend upon my memory, or rather, what little remains. Ah well. Struggling but persevering with chapter 5, Westward Ho!

Excellent story!