Andril Anthologies
Sharing My Worlds
I have always had an active imagination.Sometimes my mind just will not stop thinking about things.
I am a repository of useless information.
I'll just write some of this stuff down, no one's going to read it.
Oh my, well hello there. I guess there is! Yes, I sometimes refer to the collection of diverse things I have internally collected over the years as my repository of useless information. I also like to be entertained. Sometimes I even like to be the one entertaining others, but not usually. I am a people person and a hermit, paradoxically, though I have not concluded yet which of these pastimes makes me suffer the least. I am also a single dad, yay! A divorced guy, yay! With two great kids, yay! And bills to pay, well three out of four ain't half bad. But mundane things like this only take up a quarter of my attention because you are here. You are here because I write stuff and it has piqued your interest. That's cool. That's scary. That's why the Andril Anthologies and Andril Chronicles exist. The Andril Anthologies is the tag-line I came up with for my novelizations, stories, and all authory-like stuff taking place in the world of Andril and the Five Realms. If you like my work and don't care so much about the RPG stuff then this is what you want to stick to. No stats, no game mechanics, all things are 100% on the serious literary side of the equation. The Andril Chronicles is my attempt at taking the dreams of my 10-year-old self and sharing them with other people as a pastime through tabletop role-playing. Plus I find it neat to try to interconnect this long-running campaign with novel canon both as a form of appreciation to those I game with and a way to add life to my virtual monster. Those who look at my literary work as mere backstory and bard tales for their own characters, this is your place. Andril: noun 1. a place in the Five Realms. 2. a fictitious world created by the imaginings of a Canadian guy who sometimes thinks he can write and other times believes he is a repository of useless information. 3. a remote usually idyllic hideaway. Anthology: noun, plural anthologies. 1. a book or other collection of selected writings by various authors, usually in the same literary form, of the same period, or on the same subject. 2. a collection of selected writings by one author.
Clearly, the Andril Anthologies are for sure a collection of hidden away writings from a bunch of people about guys in Canada. Or is it the other way around?The first time I seriously began to think about authoring a novel was in 2014. I always wrote things, crafted and created things, but to determinedly sit down and pound out a narrative story was something I believed I would do "when I got older". At 42 I knew that I had something that would not let go of me until I could let it out in the real world. Then it found a mate. It had kids. Its kids had kids. The grandkids started calling to borrow money for a spring break trip to take with their cousins who had adopted a whole line of other kids. I then killed 90% of those kids and started over again. The result is a narrative series based on the world I began crafting as a 10-year-old boy after getting a box with the picture of a red scaled dragon atop its horde of coins, gems, and loot. The surprised creature was being assaulted by a blonde torch-bearing wizard with a tacky goatee and a goofy hat wearing, sparkly blue wand waving attitude matched only by the seriousness of his fully armored knight friend who for some reason had his shield strapped to his back and his sword still in its scabbard at his waist as he was about to fire an arrow from his bow at the ferociously surprised dragon. I was hooked. I was also 10 and had no idea what this game was or how to play it. It took me the better part of a year to figure it out but by summer I and my pals were playing Dungeons & Dragons. It was 1983. Fast forward a decade and I was settling in with my future ex-wife playing a session that would end the constant weekly development of the world and slow the pace to that of a monthly or yearly event with whoever remained from the old crew. In a twist of irony, for the first time in forever my imagined world grew slower than the real one. Fast forward another decade and two great kids later and I am closing my computer store and consulting business as I set off on the wonderful world of being a single dad. The experiences were many, the growth was not just around my midsection and I found the construction of my imagined world had halted entirely. It was bleak times in the realms. Then in 2012 I started to write again. Less than a year later my nephew coerced me into playing 3.5, breaking my vow to never play a version of D&D beyond 2nd edition. What's more there was Roll20. My curiosity captured I set off again into that imagined world, lucky for me I left behind copious notes and linkages to refresh older me on the creative genious, raw though it was, of younger me. By 2014 I had sent in my opinions on Next and fully embraced 5th edition as the best mix yet of the old style D&D feel with a more modern Tabletop RPG. It was the type of play I had hoped would have been released as 3rd edition back in the day but that is a story for another time. Long summer days now fully free of wives and girlfriends brought with it new beginings for me and my old world. I began to compile what I had into a more presentable form for my online game sessions and began outlining my fantasy novel passion projects. I was even fortunate enough to meet a few childhood heroes at Fan Expo Toronto that year and was one of the guys lucky enough to DM the Epics game Corruption in Kryptgarden. Since then its been surviving and proudly raising my son on a weekly diet of D&D homebrew sessions while remaining proud of my beautiful, smart, and independent daughter who now holds my entire collection of AD&D and 2nd Edition books (a not small repository may I add). I have developed my novels to the point I am almost ready to set them free upon the world but not quite yet, and I came across World Anvil at the perfect time to help further refine and develop my three decades long exercize in world building. Thank you for your interest. I hope you find my muddled mad mind much to your liking. Enjoy!
