I’m a fervent writer. I’ve published literary fiction, science fiction, poetry, articles in trade magazines, and academic research…my publications list is tacked on to the bottom of this post, if anybody is interested.
I recently invested some number of months working on the start to a fantasy novel, only to concede that the scope of the story I was crafting was wrong for that mode of storytelling. As a tale, it needs immersion in order to work and would, I believe, therefore come to life much more provocatively as an RPG.
What I am not, unfortunately, is someone who has the back-end understandings necessary to guide such a project to completion (although I did help develop and currently oversee a curriculum database for a major university).
So with that in mind, I’d be very interested in collaborating with any individual or group that IS experienced in bringing games from genesis to fruition, on equal terms (read as: complete co-ownership being the end result). And I stress that I’m interested in collaborating and reimagining, not in dictating ideas.
In addition to the story concept and experience in project design and completion, I do have the following resources: a Fatcow website that I am the sole owner of and which could be rebranded and renamed to support the final product, a broad musical ability (I play piano, guitar, concertina, and marimba, and used to engineer at a local recording studio for years, although I'd be very keen to have someone else's musical input on this project), and the ability to commit some small amount of money if needed.
In return for this, I’d be very happy to offer any writing services that may be desired for other projects you are working on (or to continue collaborating after this game is complete). And if a currently existing game development team is interesting in incorporating my talents and idea into an existing project list and team structure, I’d be happy to discuss that as an alternative to the offer above.
I found this community by accident while pursuing my options several weeks back, and it has struck me as near-to-bursting with creativity. I'm exceedingly hopeful that I will have a chance to be a part of it.
Please do reach out to me if you are interested in what I've shared below. I'd consider it an honor to be involved in such a passionate community.
The Concept
Background (the following is from the original outline, and as such is not in what I would describe as ‘story’ form)…
Alastair Corr lived in the shadow of a mystery.
Segovia Walled City’s impassive façade jutted up from the hills just north of his family’s home, standing like a stern and disappointed father over the capital’s energetic riverbed. Alastair’s father loved the wall. He called it majestic. He was even fond of declaring it the crown jewel of the empire in the same tone that someone might use to name their firstborn child.
Alastair didn’t know about that. The grey and silent sentinal of the city wall struck him as a cruel and lifeless thing…a canyon wall that time had smoothed all the ragged beauty out of. Or, perhaps, an obscenely large gravestone.
As a child, he’d been far more enamored of it. He’d studied it, memorizing what little there was to memorize. He'd even imagined that every unanswered question the world had ever asked had been forced away into one unopenable and enormous box, and set just outside of everybody's reach.
That kind of fanciful wondering wasn’t unique to him, of course. The Walled City’s permanence affected different people in different ways. For some, it became so familiar as to be rendered forgettable. For others (including Alastair himself), the effect was the opposite: it was the only thing about their dull and unremarkable lives that seemed to hold any excitment at all.
Segovia was a gift from a previous generation. The massive fortress ran for at least a mile in either direction, refusing to accommodate the ever-changing terrain in any way and sitting uphill from the swampy stretch of land that the Capitol had yawned to swallow. It's immaculate, silent span could be seen from anywhere within the city, like it or not.
Alastair had never been inside, of course. Nobody had, save for a select few...and even they only went during the overnight hours. Still, stories had passed down of the opulence and majesty that lived within. Segovia Walled City was the one true wonder of the world…built to repel a brutal invasion, then reworked to serve as a spiritual and economic mecca. A stone-faced weapon that had turned into the heart of a peaceful empire.
Segovia Walled City was the empire.
And although he'd be loathed to admit it to anybody who might ask, Alastair still like to gaze up at it sometimes and imagine that he could see the figure of a king's guard upon the parapets…or even one of the seven thousand inhabitants, come up for a survey of the kingdom they had no reason to visit.
It never hurt to allow yourself a snippet of dream.
A summary of the plot jumpstart…
The story begins with Alastair sneaking out to see the merchant train making its overnight run into the Walled City. As he watches, one man is arguing with a guard. His assistant was injured in an accident, leaving the merchant unable to properly man his wagons. While he watches, Alastair is caught by a guard. The merchant, not wanting to lose the lucrative run and thinking fast, bluffs that the boy is his nephew and that he had sent for him to take the injured man’s place. His history as a reliable member of the merchant train secures the journey.
As the group makes its way, escorted, towards the structure the man warns Alastair about how to behave and what to do if he wants to get out of this alive. Alastair is disappointed to learn that the merchant train never goes beyond an ornate trading post located just inside the main gates, and that they know little of what lies beyond. The merchant admits that he’s never seen any of the people living inside the fort… there’s a curfew…but that the gorgeous trading center must surely be a sign of what life is like inside.
The company reaches the trading post, where Alastair is surprised to find yet more guards. Shortly after they begin unloading supplies, however, a series of gunpowder bombs detonate. This is a terrorist act…one which kills or injures scores and sets whole sections of the trading post and wagon train aflame. Alastair is knocked semi-conscious. The last thing he hears, as he floats in and out of awareness, is the following discussion:
“Look at this one. He’s just a kid,” a gruff voice rasped. “Oh, hell. I think he’s alive.”
“Yeah?” came a response. “So’s that one, and that one, and that one. What’s your point?”
“He’s just a kid,” the first voice repeated, an edge coming into his words. “We can’t leave him here.”
This was met by a more derisive tone. “What are you going to do? Take him into the bloody wall with you?” The idea earned a snort. “He’s better off dead.”
“No. Not the wall.” The gruff voice sounded suddenly uncertain. “But…something.” Then came a sound notable for both its rarity and its raw vulnerability: naked masculine pleading. “If we leave him here, they’ll kill him.”
“If they do that, it’s on them. Not us.” But the other voice no longer sounded certain.
“There is no ‘if' and you know it,” came the response. For a long moment, all Alastair could hear was the crackling of the burning fires. “They’ll kill him,” the voice murmured again. “Now that he’s seen, they'll have to.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Johnathan,” a gloved hand grabbed Alastair’s face by the jaw and shook it back and forth. “You think I don’t know what this is? Look at him. Look! This. Is. Not. Daniel.” The hand released him, thunking his head carelessly against the ground. “I’m sorry,” the man whispered apologetically, “but it’s not Daniel. He’s gone. Now, let’s get out of here before it’s too late.”
“He’ll die.” The stubborn tone was hardening.
“We’ll all die, in a minute!” But this was said without panic, and followed by an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Put the little in the wagon. We’ll leave him in the Fifth...see if that makes you happy.”
“Where in the Fifth?” Whatever the Fifth was, it apparently was not answer enough for the brimstone-voiced speaker.
“I’m sure someone will take him in. Pelle Orrend. He lost his son a few months back, right? And he was about the same age, I think.” A grunt followed. “Now come on. I can already see torches coming down the path.”
No more words were spoken, and Alastair felt his body being lifted as he finally faded into nothingness complete.
Starting the Game Proper…
The setting for the rest of the story (the socially stratified, highly-variable madness that is the inside of the Walled City) was inspired by three real world sources:
- Kowloon Walled City, the lawless structure for which the palace was named. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insight-Kowloon-Walled-City.html, http://www.greggirard.com/work/kowloon-walled-city--13)
- North Korea’s internal propaganda systems during the late-20th century famine / China’s own system during the post-WWII famine, and the way each fought to maintain its “all is well” claims in the face of open famine and massive suffering.
- My own workplace. Don’t laugh. I work at the University of Washington’s Medical Center, which is the largest single university structure in the world. The ‘building’ exists as a massive series of mismatched, stylistically varied wings that were added on over a period of decades. It is 4.7 million cubic feet of corridor, classroom, office space, and inconsistent design (case in point: only floors 3 and 4 go from one end of the structure to the other).
What our character quickly discovers that this empire, now dwindling in its old age and fallen on harder times, can no longer successfully support something as enormous as the once-majestic Walled City. In spite of this dire reality, as the fortress remains the physical representation of the empire’s good standing, this information has been deemed “unsharable” by the king. Therefore, nobody is allowed in or out. And while the kingdom still sees the impeccable front face of the mysterious city (one of the only parts that is consistently kept up), life inside has devolved into a deeply chaotic swarm of “haves” and “have nots.”
The population has self-divided into “neighborhoods,” with some having access to resources and comfort (as well as the protection of the king’s guard) and others being near lawless, gang-riddled, and squalid. Worse still, the lack of available soldiers has meant that the unending nightmare of tunnels that make up the inside of the wall have long been abandoned. Some hidden regions of these crumbling and unsafe passageways have become home to a group that denounces both king and law, and is increasingly militant (see: the attack that begins the story).
Alastair begins the game by waking up in the home of a family that lives in a neighborhood known as The Fifth (jokingly named after a declaration once made on the king's behalf promising equality in the face of hardship, which began “There are four types of citizen that every king must serve…the heroic, the wise, the ambitious and the godly. Your king hears and remains dedicated to the safety of each one.”). He is trapped, lost, and desperate. He has also been dropped into a volcano that is on the verge of eruption.
There are a number of factions that can be involved: the rebellion that festers within the abandoned castle walls, the high officers who plot to acquire power, a growing tension amongst the various classes that must inevitably boil over into terrible violence, and the lawless gangs which run various subsections of the lawless Fifth.
My Publications List...
"Maintaining Learner Engagement," Learning Solutions Magazine, October, 2014
"Challenging Our Own Authority." English Teaching Professional, November, 2012
"Mirror Image: What the Accountability Debate Can Teach Us About Grades." AMLE's iNSIDER, November 2012 (Feature article)
"Survive!" Future Fire magazine, June, 2012
Currently available online at http://futurefire.net/2012.23/fiction/survive.html
"Incorporating Digital Literacies Through Station Work." The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language's Voices publication, May 2012
"Living Truth." Fine Lines literary journal, May 2012
"Triangle of the Sun." Flashquake magazine, December 2011
Currently available online at http://2012eng256.wikispaces.com/file/view/Flashquake_Winter_2011.pdf
"Proclivities." Fine Lines literary journal, December 2011
"Finding Opportunity in Co-Teacher Personality Conflicts." The Journal for the American Association of Special Education Professionals, February 2012
"Students as Experts: Supporting Writing Instruction." Middle Ground magazine, October 2011