Phoendon and Rabenwolf
At my cousin Arlene's baby shower yesterday I told my brother Rich (Phoendon) and my cousin Mike (Rabenwolf) about my ideas on writing a fantasy novel based on our D&D campaign. The primary reason I told them this early was that since they played those characters and since those characters would appear in the story, I wanted their inputs on some of my ideas of how their characters would have fared 40-50 years after the time we had played them.
They liked and were enthusiastic about the novel. Rich suggested their characters should be in their 60s, which suggests the story will be about 40 years from the time they played their characters. Mike suggested the motivation for his character to be living away from civilization: as a ranger he would not be comfortable living in an urban environment, that he would have felt the pull of the wild.
Since in the novel Phoendon would be suffering from psionic psychosis I asked Mike if Rabenwolf would be looking after Phoendon - Mike said he would. I had planned for the protagonist to meet both of these characters, so Mike's confirmation makes a particular scene "realistic".
Mike also reminded me that, due to a bad draw from a Deck of Many Things (TM), Rabenwolf has a demon after him. I told him that by the time of the novel Rabenwolf would have dealt with it. Reviewing my DM notes, since his confrontation with the demon was postponed, I "upgraded" the threat to be the arch-devil Ercanis (I created Ercanis for campaign purposes). Ercanis had the Orb of Control and was in a parallel world where he had destroyed that world and ruled from a rebuilt M'Raketh (capital of the Caron Empire). So I have to figure out how Rabenwolf dealt with Ercanis. Additional notes:
- Moon crystals are lethal to Ercanis, but he has a 90% chance of detecting moon crystals if any are nearby.
- Ercanis is at odds with Mephistopheles (an arch-devil defined in D&D literature). Perhaps Rabenwolf and Mephistopheles worked together to defeat Ercanis - the implied deal with a devil would be an interesting story in itself!
- Prometheus might also be able to assist Rabenwolf.
- Defeating Ercanis implies the Orb of Good was used to annihilate the Orb of Control. The Orb of Good was in the center of the danger zone and kept the vast majority of "monsters" from overrunning the rest of the planet (perhaps by providing water and "manna from heaven"). If both orbs are gone...
I haven't mentioned the novel to Ron (Mercurius Augustius) yet - I'm not yet sure what to do with Mercurius Augustius, though I think he will not be with Phoendon and Rabenwolf. It may make an interesting and personally satisfying subplot for the three adventurers to reunite. (Trivia note: Reviewing my DungeonMaster notes, I often abbreviated references to them as RPM.)
From Microsoft Encarta dictionary:
psy/cho/sis - noun - loss of contact with reality: a psychiatric disorder such as schizophrenia or mania that is marked by delusions, hallucinations, incoherence, and distorted perceptions of reality
Meph/i/stoph/e/les or Me/phis/to - noun - subordinate of Satan: in medieval mythology, a subordinate to the Devil, one of the seven archangels cast out of heaven, to whom Faust sold his soul
Pro/me/the/us - noun - Titan who gave fire to humankind: in Greek mythology, a Titan who became a hero to humankind because he stole fire from the gods and gave it to them. His eternal punishment was to be chained to a rock and have an eagle eat his liver, which would grow in the night only to be eaten again.