The Start of Something Bigger.

Harbingers of Ragnarok, and by extension, the world of Hymgard, have quickly become what I could call my life’s work, and amusingly started before I became a gamemaster. When I started writing it, there were many details and characters that were unrecognizable from where they are now.

When I started writing Harbingers of Ragnarok, I was working at a small mechanics workshop in Collingwood. When work was quiet, I would sit outside and write in a little school workbook I kept with me, it’s a shame there aren’t any photos, would make a great pic for my bio.

Looking back at the chicken scratch writing of that original book, the characters and story arcs that have changed, I feel I should cringe. But at the same time, that writing lay the foundation for the novel I am now sending to potential agents and a stepping stone in my writing journey.

It has been an incredible journey since that moment, and I am so glad that I took that step to start writing my novel, though I still question the decision to make it a series.

First Encounter with D&D…ignored

I was about fourteen when I was first introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, though ‘introduced’ may not be the correct word to use, it was when I first found out that D&D was a thing, not when I started playing it.

At the time, I was an avid video gamer, scifi and fantasy nerd and was still in the early stages of my writing, a perfect concoction for a D&D gamer, right? Apparently no.

The situation arose as I was helping a friend of mine, and her family, move house. While cleaning out his bookshelves, her father turned to me and said ‘you write, yeah?’ 

I said yes and he promptly handed me a pile of books the size of my torso. I didn’t know the significance of this at the time, but it was a full set of D&D 3rd edition books. 

Afterwards, my friend suggested that her father could run a game for us if I wanted, and though she explained the game to me in detail, for some reason, being a video gamer, I could not wrap my head around it and eventually gave up on the idea. 

To this day, I think about what could have been had I started my GM journey on that day, but I am still eternally grateful to both of them for helping me on my writing journey.

Early Writing

While I would be the first to admit my early writing was bad, I also feel a little impressed with myself, having seemingly stumbled onto an entire subgenre of writing without knowing such a thing existed. This would have been before the internet was really ‘a thing’ and definitely before any of the major Fanfiction sites were created. 

Yet here I was, not even not even ten years old, writing bad fanfiction about the video games I wanted to play but couldn’t due to my TV-less, hippy household. My portfolio included a gritty, action movie style Mario Brothers story, a Warhammer 40k knock-off, which I think I called ‘200,000KPH’, and a teenage Mortal Kombat-esque Martial arts tournament story where all the characters were named after Japanese foods. I am not making any of these up.

Though these were not stories worth digging up, they still stand in my mind as the first steps on a very interesting journey, and soon grew into my imminent decision to write a proper book.  

The Storytelling Chair

So I have been telling stories since I was able to talk, at least that's what my mother tells me. In fact, when I was about four or five, my parents bought me a Storytelling Chair. A very small, grey tweed armchair, bought specifically for me to sit in when I tell stories. We set it up next to the couch and my parents, mostly my amazingly supportive mother from memory, would sit and listen as I told my stories.

As I outgrew the chair, I soon started writing, and I started where many others did, with bad fanfiction.

To this day, I think about the storytelling chair, perhaps I will get a new one some day. But for now, the storytelling chair is whatever chair I happen to find myself in at the time.

Lets get things moving

Welp! here we go, first blog, exciting, scary, not sure. ANYWAY! Hi, I’m Dragyn, I am a writer, professional Game Master with Sword and scroll, and I have been telling stories since I was very young.

My current major project is a series of Novels: The Harbingers of Ragnarok series, the first book of which is currently in the late stages of editing and I hope to have it published in the not too distant future.

In Gaming news, I will be running a year long Spelljammer campaign over on Sword & Scroll which will be heavily based on the film and universe of Disney’s Treasure planet, feel free to check it out if you’re interested.

OK, not too bad for a first Blog, me thinks! Look forward to seeing what this brings!

Cheers Y’all.

Dragyn Jane