Today, I'm pleased to have author Rhonda Parrish discuss her love of gaming and how that led to the creation of her fantasy fiction world in her new fantasy release--Aphanasian Stories. Be sure to check the bottom of this post for a chance to win a copy!
Similarities between Gaming and Fantasy Fiction Worldbuilding
by Rhonda Parrish
I love gaming.
Especially role-playing games that allow me to immerse myself in another world
and take over one of the characters within it. I started playing Dungeons and
Dragons when I was in junior high (I may have played it too much) and I've also been playing RPG (role playing game) video
games for as long as I've known they existed. It started with The Legend of
Zelda and Dragon Warrior and just went on from there. Then, when the internet
came into existence (showing my age a little bit there, aren't I? LOL) I
discovered MMORPGs. That stands for Massively multiplayer online role-playing
game. I played The 4th Coming for several years and was even a GM (Game Master)
for a while. Then I moved on to Asheron's Call: Dark Majesty for a while.
All of those games
were good and I enjoyed the time I spent playing them, but none of them had
*it*. The thing I was looking for. The ability to just become completely lost
in the world, in a character.
So I decided to
develop my own game.
I created a whole
world: races, maps, characters, quests, a history, magic system, deities, mythology. You name it. Then I gathered a
team together: artists, designers, programmers, and we got to work.
Long story short? The
game never got made but there I was with this world, these characters, these
stories in my head which were never going to get played.
That world was
Aphanasia and I couldn't let it go to waste and so I started writing. This way
I get to share the world with, well, the world, and introduce readers to some
of the characters.
When you think about
it, a good role-playing game isn't so different from a good book so it wasn't
much of a leap for me to make. I'm sharing some of the stories in Aphanasian
Stories, but there are a great many more still in my brain fighting for their
chance to be told. Ahh, if only there were a few more hours in the day…
*~*~*
Aphanasian Stories
Rhonda Parrish
Rhonda Parrish
Genre: Fantasy
ISBN:
978-1481249478
Number of pages:
182
Word Count: About
56,000
Cover Artist: Darek
Zabrocki
Book Description:
Three of Rhonda Parrish’s beloved
Aphanasian stories brought together in one collection for the first time!A Love Story: Z’thandra, a swamp elf living with the Reptar, discovers a human near the village. When she falls in love with him, she faces the most difficult choice of her life, a decision that will affect the Reptar for generations.
Lost and Found: Xavier, the escaped subject of a madman’s experiments, and Colby, a young lady on a mission to save her brother, must combine their efforts to elude capture and recover the magical artifact that will save Colby’s brother before it’s too late.
Sister Margaret: A vampire hunter and a half-incubus swordsman are hired by a priestess to kill the undead pimp that is extorting, torturing and murdering vulnerable girls.
Short Excerpt:
Z'thandra
stepped forward and lifting her chin proudly, met the gaze of the lead
councilor.
"Yes,
Sirs?" she prompted, hoping the disdain she held toward them didn't leach,
too obviously, into her voice.
"Z'thandra,"
he intoned solemnly. "This council has no choice but to find you guilty of
recklessly endangering one of the village and causing him to fall into a pit
and break his arm. It is our judgment you receive five stones. May Phrake have
mercy on you and prompt your heart to sincere repentance for your deeds."
Z'thandra
heard Ulda and Eerna both gasp at the severity of her punishment, but the
sounds came as to her as though from a long way away. Her knees went weak and
her entire body began to tremble. She reached out blindly for something to hold
herself up with and sagged thankfully against Ulda as the woman thrust herself
under Z'thandra's arm.
"You
can't be serious?" Ulda exclaimed pointing a scaly green finger at the
councilors. "Five stones? Criminals, real criminals,
get less than that."
Five
stones. Z'thandra didn't hear the council's response, or Ulda's if she made
one. She was lost in her thoughts. Five stones. She'd seen it done before,
once. After that one time, the punishment was so brutal she'd made whatever
excuse she could to never attend a stoning again.
Five
stones.
At dusk,
right before the magic moment when the last ray of the day's sunlight slipped
into memory she would be brought, her hands bound behind her, to the sacred
clearing. There she would be made to kneel, in the center of a circle comprised
of all the members of the village who were able-bodied enough to make the short
downhill trek. All those who wanted to be included in the draw to be tossers
would throw their mark into the high councilor's hat and he would draw out the
allotted number – in her case, five. The tossers would have a few short moments
to pick their stones from those scattered around the clearing and then, in the
instant the sun slipped below the horizon, pulling its last tendrils of light
down with it, they would throw them.
People,
reptar, were occasionally stoned to death, but with a sentence of five stones
the tossers would not chose rocks they thought would cause that – they would
aim to hurt, not to kill. Those people who'd been stoned in the past were easy
to recognize around the village, they were invariably scarred, disfigured and
broken. Their hearts, their spirits and their bodies.
Five stones.
About the Author:
When she isn't
being crafty, playing video games or procrastinating, Rhonda writes fantasy, YA
and horror stories and poems. Also, she loves sushi.
1 comments:
Thank you for hosting me here today :)
Post a Comment