It's Wednesday so you know that means: IT'S WORDPRESS TRANSFER DAY! The first transfer is a post describing what Aren Chronicles is and how it came into existence.
Enjoy everyone!
Aren Chronicles, is the name given to the series of roleplayed stories on the old site Last Arena. It was a way for myself and a friend to create a new world with new characters. We invited other friends to it and we ended up having a short stint of collaborative writing. Eventually, he ended up being to busy with deployment to be able to actively do it which left me with the whole thing.
That was when it was called “Last Arena RolePlay” or as we jokingly called it LARP. It was a play on our Final Dungeon RolePlay or FDRP which had gotten completely consumed by everyone wanting to be a Saiyan. It wasn’t a negative experience but it wasn’t what we were after and it kept getting more and more overfilled with varying Saiyans and power ups.
I was one of the few to refuse the use Super Saiyan for anyone until we had a reason to actually need it. We used to edit pictures and such for it and I didn’t care if people had the hair style but I wasn’t giving them the power. FDRP was coming off an RP series of everyone being overpowered with it just being handed to them like candy. Nothing felt earned and nothing felt fair, hence the creation of FDRP.
When FDRP got overrun with over compensation power levels, the two of us set off to make something different with our own ideas. This is where I picked up after he left. He played Tenkai and I waited on his word to see what would happen. Eventually I ran it by him to have his character get taken away by a Sand Snake until he could return to it. We agreed and I took over the series for the most part.
Amane was created for this roleplay series and as time went on it became the story of Amane because I kept having to push the story forward feeling as if I had no help. During the beginning I had a bit of help getting through sections with Silverwind’s RPer, Silverwind is now known as Teo in the novel. We made it through a good portion of Quadrant One on our own to keep the story alive. Eventually we added another person who had originally declined but decided to come on for something different. He would eventually RP both Yasu and Toshiro. Toshiro was in a joint ownership from where he left for a bit but it was just with myself so I could progress him when necessary. The three of us finished up Quadrant One together, Amane, Teo/Silverwind, Yasu, and Toshiro.
Amane, Toshiro, and Silverwind moved onto Quadrant Two where we added my real life girlfriend at the time to the mix. She would go on to play the Elven Princess Kyra. Amane and Kyra had a magnetic tie to each other because of us and it is still prevalent in the novel.
We added more characters to the mix as time went on to keep it interesting. Eventually we lost Silverwind’s RPer due to a busy schedule as well. We left the character in a spot he could easily return to the group when the time was right.
With help from the three of them we finished off Sorcerer’s Tome. There was a casualty though, Amane died for me. Amane’s main reason to die was to give me a break because I had to push things along so much I didn’t feel like being a character as well. This led to Demon’s Reign.
Demon’s Reign, was my break for the most part. This story focused on Kyra’s mental state and desire to get Amane back against the wishes of others. Kyra had Toshiro on her side for it and we introduced his wife, Kitanni. (No Spoilers on this story, just moving on lol.)
More stories followed: Meltdown/Perilous Giants, Hilt of the Gods, Children of the Zodiac and Trials: Heroes and Villains. Come the Zodiac story, Tenkai was back for this tournament style battle and homage to the Dark Tournament of Yu Yu Hakusho, (Love that anime!). Eventually, we finished that one up and I tried finding other things to do with the characters but I didn’t have much left in me alone…depression set in during this period.
I started working on Ascension: End of a Legacy. It was going to be the final story in the series that followed Amane as he tried one last time to save the world from the power of the Underworld. Except he was older, much older, and powerless. He was alone without Kyra and felt that way. From there everything takes a dip downward with lots of death for his loved ones and his own. Depression is a terrible thing.
That probably didn’t answer your question about the new one though. I got you. The back story was necessary to understand what it was about though.
What is the new AREN CHRONICLES?
The new Aren Chronicles is a retelling of the story. This new story follows some of the main beats of the original but brings characters together quick that could have been there from beginning except the RPer wasn’t available. This new version is adding more detail to the original worlds by expanding upon interactions and events.A couple characters are from the RP universe specifically. With them as witnesses to the last series I have characters who know previous events and I can use that to my knowledge. It makes for an interesting dynamic, to me at least, that I have a character who can judge the events on a scale of what she’s seen before.
Anyway, back to my actual point lol, the series originally had a big things with characters using abilities from other shows or things we liked. Shaman King, Rurouni Kenshin, Yu-Gi-Oh, and probably others. This novel is being used to greatly expand upon the story that was there and remove most of the references to make its own things. It’s one thing to make written references, in my opinion, but not I’m not a big fan of writing actual pieces of other stories into one story. I did my best to keep the characters similar enough to their counterparts in the RP Universe while giving them a new life in the novel.
Nothing about this Aren Chronicles is meant to be quick or simple, outside of my simplistic style. It’s supposed to be expanded and more detail added to have us like characters. To give these characters more emotion and more connection to each other.
To quote one of my friends who has read it: “I really like the way you wrote, Teo. He’s relatable and like a big brother to them.” Which is how I personally always viewed him but its hard to get that across in RP sometimes when people aren’t around to play their characters. The characters now are a bit more consistent in their personality types and skills.
In this series, you’ll really be able to tell how close Amane and Teo really are through out it. One change I can point out is this: in the RP after the Dragon Fight, Amane was resting in Lei’s shop and Silverwind (Teo) left him there lol. This was done to keep the story progressing so we could add our next character to it. The thing is that looking back at it, he wouldn’t have left him there. In a strange world that wasn’t his own, I don’t see him walking away from the one person he knows to find another person. He would have waited and that’s what I’ve written in the novel.
To reiterate, this first book is only the FIRST QUADRANT. It is a greatly expanded and enhanced version of Quadrant One with a lot of new things added to it because I wanted it to be more than it was. This is not a one off book but the first book in a series.
I really hope I can get the continued support as I finish up this first part and move to planning book 2. I’m also hoping that this long novel of a blog post was enough to get across the love and emotion I have for this series as an RP first and novel second.
Bud Gaines/notBUDGing
Author of Aren Chronicles.
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