The Jinn Saga, looking back

It has been one heck of an adventure since I began the Jinn story. I am excited to see how it was well received and played out with the game and the story itself. I am sad to see it over, at the same time I am relieved. It was a lot of work, often last minute for me. I wanted to take a moment and talk about the experience of writing the Jinn saga.

The idea for Jinn started back in February. Well, to be honest, a bit of the idea started back at Christmas, but I wasn’t clear yet how I wanted to work the Lore. So, lets go back to January: We had just gone through the Holiday season, which included four raids and a few tidbits of story. The new year was on us and we were all taking a breath from the craziness of the season. I realized we had nothing planned yet, so I had the idea of writing up a storyline involving Cupid, creating an event for Valentines day. The only request from Nick on the outset was to introduce a new NPC as an assistant to Nova, which gave us Chase.

As I wrote the story, I began to world build. As a novelist for most of my life, it’s hard not to

delve deeper and deeper into the creation of the story. I brought Santa Claus back into the story as well as Cupid. I didn’t want to introduce god-like figures without making them fit the Sci-Fi nature of Heroes Rising. Thus, the Vexillians were born. I had already begun their origins in my own Gargoyle story and decided they were a good people to use for the Mythics. However, do I make Cupid evil? Why do the heroes need to battle him in a raid? Do I make it humorous or serious? As I wrote the story, it became more serious. I realized I didn’t want Cupid to be a villain, so I would have to give him a reason to be acting like one. I needed a real villain. The Hooded Man was created. Who was he? Why was he doing this? What was his goal? To be honest, I didn’t know at first. I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to take this story. However, I knew I wanted this dark figure to play a long-term role in story.

After Cupid was defeated and restored, I realized I had created a monster. Not the Hooded Man, but a story that had so much potential it would take a lot of my focus. Two things happened next, St. Patrick's day was coming, and Covid showed up. The pandemic gave me time to create. I sat down and put together an idea. I first gave The Hooded Man an identity, only known to me at first. I then gave him a goal. Using these two bits of private info, I wrote the Leprechaun's story. This gave the players and Characters the first indication of what was truly happening. This was bigger than just a minor villain. But, still, his goals were hidden to everyone…except me.

When Easter rolled around, I decided to move the story in a

slightly different direction. I wanted a touch of humor while continuing both the plot and world building. Instead of another seasonal Mythic either being bad or corrupted, I created a comical Easter Bunny, (EB for short). Not only that, but I felt it only wise to make this overly excitable, slightly annoying, deeply kind creature extra fond of Nova. It may have seemed like a simple comedy choice, the odd couple; the stoic, hard nosed Nova and the flippant, high spirited bunny. This gave me a chance to focus the reader on Nova and begin to spin his unique story. He is more than you know. Easter came and went with a giant egg.

Next came the prequel. I wanted the reader to come to know Jinn, to understand who he was. I don’t like bad guys that are bland. I don’t want someone who is evil for evil's sake, who has no developed character. I already knew that Jinn was going to be a mythic who had been in trouble with his people before, and chose the identity of a magical Jinn from Arabian culture. This way I didn’t have to corrupt a beloved mythical figure, Jinn aren’t exactly the kindest figures of myth. I wrote the longest story at that point by writing Jinn’s backstory. Not only did it give me a chance to show you his fall into darkness, it also let me introduce Lord Dragon, Lady Phoenix, and Nova. Jinn’s backstory was the hardest to write, as I spent extra time paying attention to detail, studying at length the Ottoman Empire’s history and culture throughout the centuries Jinn was involved with them.

After that, I returned the story to the present. With Lord Dragon already introduced, I was able to move the story to Japan. Now the reader knows Jinn’s capacity for evil and scheming, the characters are aware there is something deeply troubling happening and must stop it. However, I STILL had not

revealed his ultimate plan, and that was on purpose. The Missing Mythic was a difficult story to write. I had left hints and clues throughout the stories that there was a Mythic who did not know it. The clues led to three people, Chase, Gar, and Nova. Of course we had a competition to see if you could guess and I was pleased to see my work was done well since I saw arguments for all three people. This story gave me a chance to show Jinn’s depth of evil, in that he kills not only his own mother, but Gar. This was with great care that I did this. Lady Phoenix is not to be trifled with, but she is a gentle and kind person. Gar is a strong, loyal hero, but he is also gentle, kind, and youthful. Killing both of them in the story hurt me, but it gave the reader deep reason to HATE Jinn, to want him to suffer for his callousness.

This brings us to the final story, The Reckoning. This story is the longest of the saga, (Not counting Gar's origin story). This one was easiest to write, but difficult to execute properly. I had to bring the story to its climax. I had dozens of characters, from NPC’s to player characters. I had a villain that required being beaten, but couldn’t be easy to defeat. Even with the Raid being a little on the quick

side, the reality was I had to make Jinn’s downfall epic and planned. He was too powerful to just defeat in battle, there had to be a method that would be clearly logical to his demise. I threaded a scheme throughout this last story of Leprechaun’s ploy. No one would know what he had in mind. Even those who were part of his plan weren’t clear on the fullness it would take. He would die, not only to get revenge for what Jinn did to him, but for his family. Jinn had murdered the last vestige of Leprechaun's family. There was no Deus Ex Machina to his fall, there was no bigger hero, what defeated Jinn was selflessness, a trait Jinn could never understand. The final chapter gave me a chance to wrap up the saga. The reader gets to see the aftermath of the battle while the characters get a chance to find fulfillment. Cupid and Santa regain the power stolen from them, Gar is returned from his death. It’s a happy ending everyone deserved.

Why bring back Gar? Yes, Gar is my own character. I created him long before I was part of this game. In fact, I wrote his story before I was hired in. But, this isn’t the reason behind his return. I

couldn’t leave the story with his loss. His sacrifice was senseless. In a way, Jinn’s ultimate defeat came the moment Gar woke from his death. Jinn’s terrible actions of murder for power were reversed. Why not Lady Phoenix? To be honest, her death was less senseless, Jinn had clear reason to hate his mother, she sealed his magic and reduced him to nothing. His was a deserved punishment, but not in his mind. Will she stay dead? I don’t know, this is a Comic Book universe, anything is possible. However, I do want to make this clear, she is not a real Phoenix, she is a Vexillian, a powerful alien that took on the image of the Phoenix. So, the attributes commonly accepted of the Phoenix are entirely true of her.

I really hope that a lot of people enjoyed this story. I would often be writing and editing into the night getting it ready. I am a novelist, so this kind of episodic short fiction is a little new to me. I attempted to keep parts short enough to hold your attention. This was difficult as the story progressed simply because I wanted to build the world better, put in more character interaction, and give you a full book. Of course, that would mean you wouldn’t be reading it until some time in 2021, so this worked out for the best. I did a LOT of research for each part. I studied culture, history, language, origins, myths, legends, geography, and more for every story. For every hour of writing, I studied three to five hours. I hope the effort shows.

I also did a lot of artwork to make sure we had story-appropriate pieces done in time. Not all of the art is mine, but there were a good number of pieces created to ensure it was ready. I give credit to the artist our art director hired for some pictures, especially Chase, and Lord Dragon (Loved the Lord Dragon Raid pic) I also reached out to a friend who is a newly graduated art major who helped me by designing the Leprechaun, gold coins, the Easter Bunny, and the Jinn Raid Picture.

How did players characters get into the story? Oh, I hope you’re asking that. First, let me say that there are a lot of players in this game and I simply cannot put ten thousand characters in every story. But, I will keep putting in real gamers' characters into the Lore. Some I picked out due to their involvement in the game. People who are active players who also are active community members who put a lot of effort in. Some players got into the story because they took an active interest in the story. One, Crimson Guardian, commented on the blog posts for each Lore installment. He put his character into the scene, in the background. He did so in such a simple and unintrusive way that I liked it and decided he would get more screen time. That doesn’t mean you have to do that, but it was how he got in. I want to include you...whoever is reading this. I will create another post at another time to go into detail on how I look for player characters to put into the game.

What comes next? To be completely honest, I am not sure. I do have ideas, I do have a plan, I am not completely in the dark, but I haven’t begun writing it yet. Often the story gains a life all its own and I am taken down the path I never intended, but love so much more.

I hope you enjoy my work and keep reading it. Tell new players to go and read the stories, they will remain in the Lore forever more. As for me, I will keep pounding away at the keyboard and hope the words make sense and entertain people along the way.

Chase and Gar say hi, and Nova says, “get back to work!”