So, what does trigger the beginning of an idea for a campaign…a story…or a book?
For me, it can me almost anything. A passing sign or street name, which catches my eye and causes my mind to seek ways to turn or shift it into something that evokes a sense of…well…something.
I picked up a beer, the other day, and snapped a quick pic of it to a chat group, with the thought that “it was worth a try.” On the container (it was a pair of cans in a cardboard box, stacked such that it looked almost like a bottle in a protective sleeve) the image of a robed and skeletal figure.
Of course, what got me was the reference to it being a “whisky barrel aged imperial stout.” Yeah, that will ALWAYS be worth a try.
In the discussion that followed, though, a comment was made that they (the two beers within said sleeve) were my traveling companions on the rest of the drive home.
To which my imagination immediately replied (semi-silently) “Always, they follow me.” Yes, I had been working on a story with a dark character that could fit that bill, but, in the end, this changed into “Always, they are with me…” and a short story was born, in the course of that weekend, wherein a warrior suffers from what he believes are spirits that pursue him from battle to battle.
Which, of course, leads to the creation of said character as someone that could…someday…be encountered in a city, or on a battlefield, somewhere within Mynochral, should a band of players happen into the right situation….