As a child I was a keen to put my ideas down on paper, not just write them down but back then more likely draw them. Put physical images to the images and ideas in my mind. From the age of Ten to Twelve I would spend almost every Saturday down at Tilbury or Chadwell St Mary library. There I would read, look at pictures and learn.
My goal was one project a weekend and to that end I would read one factual book and one fiction book each visit. I would also take with me a pencil case, note book and sketch pad usually bought from Paper Caper the stationary shop in my home town of Tilbury in the 80s and 90s.
I was quite creative and I enjoyed been creative. I enjoyed living in a world filled with mythical beasts, dinosaurs, robots and the people of my imagination.
As I got older I found Table Top Role Play in the form of Fighting Fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons and with them my mind was opened up to all kinds of possibilities. I created my very own game aged 10 called Goblin Quest. It was set on the world of Questar and was the result of a crashed space ark partially terraforming a planet on which life had ceased to exist thousands of years before.
I used Britian Knights, Battle Beasts and my vast Dinosaur collection to bring to life my adventures using stats based on Fighting Fantasy but using percentage dice instead of d6.
Today I still use locations and aspects of Questar in my games and I have with the help of some of my friends started to add more colour to the world which I created as a child. However more often than not I use those ideas to add colour and detail to my role-paly campaigns and the stories I tell my children.
Fig 1. Map of the area around Verge a boarder town from my
Goblin Quest Campaign 1984. It has been digitally enhanced
by Fiona Dann
What I have kept on doing is illustrating my adventures. I love drawing out dungeon maps for my players and make a point of each birthday sending them bespoke maps which I have created for them with a suggestion of adventure attached. Some are modified maps from on line but more often than not they are taken from my own mind and created with the person in question in mind.
Fig. 2 I am obsessed with the Cthulhu Mythos
and it comes up time and time again in my writing
and drawings
The maps and the images are often inspired by other peoples creations. As I sate with Fig.2 I love the Cthulhu Mythos and will delve into any product that touches on this subject. I am particularly interested in Serpent People, Ghouls, and the various books of the Mythos. I try and include them in my maps and imaginings as well as creating my very own.
Fig 3. This young Lady is the guardian of a set of standing
stones hidden in Albion. she is in fact the daughter of the
Lord of Portals and can appear as an innocent child or a
creature of nightmares and chaos
I have always felt that my drawings whilst not the best in the world add an extra dimension to my stories and games. They allow people to catch a glimpse of how I see the world and to allow us to visualise the same locations, foes and treasures. It is perhaps the best way I can share what goes on in my mind with others.
Combined with my story telling skills it means I can give my friends and family as well as my players a more detailed glimpse at the stories I am telling and the adventures we are sharing. At the end of the day what started as a child hood means of making my dreams and imaginings that little bit more real has now become a way for me to enhance my tall tales and keep a more detailed record of those far away places I visit in my mind and dreams.
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