Two and a half years ago, I set out to play a character I'd been daydreaming about for years. Although I had for a long time toyed with the idea of the character, I really only had some broad strokes of who she really was. I knew she was a con artist, that she was very crafty and clever, and that she went through life pretending to be a host of characters that would benefit her in most situations. I named her Asp because the asp--a type of venomous snake--has venom that I read was actually enjoyable to experience even as the person bitten died. I felt like she'd leave her victims that way--happy about their encounter with her (so charismatic and charming was she) that they didn't register their loss until it was too late. I knew one of her character was a diplomat, which would allow her to use pretend governmental powers to talk people into and out of things. At the time, I felt this was a pretty complete sketch of the character, and when my dear friend (who you may have read about as the player of characters like Carric, Beor, and Brokk in my campaigns) let me know he was running a campaign which I was invited into, I knew it was time for Asp to leap into action.
The thing was, though, that once we started playing, I actually had very little idea how to play Asp. She was a con artist, true, but that didn't inform her personality or decision-making. In her first intro session, Asp was just responding to conversation and hiding her identity, and she chafed at people's suggestions that helping people was worth it. In a later into session, she decided to antagonize a guard and got mixed up in trying to find some missing children. Our first few sessions as a group were messy--Asp was willing to help do good things like track down the missing children, but mostly because she felt it would let her call in favors. But this was a good-aligned campaign, and Asp soon began to grate on the other party members, who were more unequivocally inclined to helping people. I started pushing Asp to put aside her selfishness for the good of the party and campaign, but I didn't know how I felt about letting her existing characterization go. I was in trouble as a player, and I needed to figure out who she really was, and quickly.
So I decided to write a short story about her. I took her back to her home city, the capital of halflings in our DM's world. In the story, she developed a reporter character to defend herself from being arrested, only to be turned in by her mother and having to flee the city. It was fun to write, and I suddenly had a better idea of her--she was more an opportunist with an eye on the future, which was consistent with her behavior in the party but I hadn't been able to articulate. I also got some real pain out of her--having to leave everything behind because of the betrayal by her mother was something that helped me to understand her more. But I felt like the short story only raised more questions and didn't offer enough answers, so I decided to follow that story up with another that would continue the tale. After that story, I had the same feeling. I decided I would write five stories as a little introduction in her backstory so I could better understand and play her.
By the time I finished those five stories, I realized I was actually making something much larger. I told my DM, who had read those stories as I'd written them, that I thought that they were actually the first five chapters in a novel. I spent a few weeks frantically writing and ended up with a book I called "Nobody Knows Me," which was a complete telling of how Asp had gone from solo criminal in the halfling capital to a member of a gang in diverse metropolis to a solo criminal in the elven lands where the campaign began. All of this was written with editorial direction and worldbuilding information from my DM, who read every words of that novel as I went, cheering me along the whole way. It felt great to finish, and we'd only played maybe two sessions since I'd begun writing, and suddenly, Asp was the most complete, detailed, and realistic character I'd ever made and very much the emotional heart and leader of the party. I was cautious to not make the campaign about Asp, but my rich backstory meant that I could draw on lots of inspiration, and my DM could give really fun personalized storylines to Asp. It was the best experience I ever had as a player.
But I wasn't done writing about Asp. I agreed with my DM to write a novelization of the campaign when it was complete, which would take another year and change to happen. In the meantime, I realized I had started Nobody Knows Me around Asp's thirtieth birthday and had plenty of room for a prequel. In a mad dash, I wrote that prequel--Two Different Things Can Just Be Different--which went from Asp as a troubled five-year-old to the exact moment that Nobody Knows Me Began. I started writing short stories that filled in moments between gaps in both novels, and when the campaign ended, I worked feverishly with my DM to turn it into its own novel. That book, You Changed Too, stretched from Asp's intro session to five years after the end of the campaign. And reader, you may not be surprised to hear that even that wasn't enough--I started work shortly thereafter on what would be the final book in the series, a tale of my character as an older woman that has her revisit everywhere she'd caused trouble as a younger woman in an effort to make things right. As of this writing, I'm only a few chapters from finishing it. And when it's done, I've decided it's time to properly share those stories.
At a few points since I started writing all these stories, I've had them posted here on this site for free. I decided, however, that Asp's story is something I believe in. I tried conventional publishing but was told the saga was too unconventional--publishers want something similar to big-selling books, stories that are not radically different from the ones already succeeding. I kept trying for a while before giving up after dozens of rejections and reposted the stories here. But recently, I've realized that I'd rather try self-publishing these stories than simply take a "no" from publishers, and so I've taken the stories down on this site. Below, I'll post links to where you can affordably get these stories through the Kindle Marketplace once they're ready.
But I do want to say that writing these stories has made Asp a crucial part of my heart, mind, and soul, and I think she will always be my favorite character I've gotten the opportunity to play. She's as real to me as a flesh and blood friend or family member, and that never would have been possible if I had taken the time to really invest in making her that way. And without spoiling anything about the series, the person she becomes being a part of me is a wonderful thing--her voice is invaluable to me, and I am grateful to my DM for the chance to turn a one-dimensional con artist into a truly complex person I will always carry with me.
Please enjoy reading these stories. I'm truly proud of them, and I hope they touch you as they've touched me.
You can find Nobody Knows Me, the first book in the series, here!
You can find Two Different Things Can Just Be Different, the prequel to Nobody Knows Me, here!
You can find You Changed Too, the sequel to Nobody Knows Me and the novelization of the campaign, here!
You can find the final story in the series here!
And you can find the short stories that fill in spaces between chapters in the novels here!
Back to the homepage (where you can find everything!)
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