Falling For You

 

Falling For You is a short story that acts as the fourth installment for the series of works inspired by Dungeons & Dragons. Continuing the trend started in the previous two works, Falling For You again stars the elven fighter Saeros Elendil, this time finding himself in the carved halls of Stonehaven, a part of the Dwarven Empire, many years since the events of Holidays In The Sun, but still before the events of Bring The Night On or Late Night People. Only able to pass the time by traveling the land and playing cards, he comes across a chance encounter with a youth named Soryn Cyanos, a far traveler like himself who also appears surprisingly knowledgeable about Saeros and his past. Following an encounter with a local gang, Saeros himself discovers more about Soryn's own chequered past than he expects, as well as a common link between the two from many years ago.

Falling For You can be read right here. It's about 7000 words long.

The above image was drawn by Lin+, whose art can be found here. Like before, while the figure above lacks some elvish features, I liked the design enough to want to use it to represent Soryn the half-elf.

Some author's notes can be found after the jump.

By the time I had finished writing Holidays In The Sun, I decided to take on the challenge of constructing a series of 12 stories, each for a different character class in Dungeons & Dragons, with the order of these classes and several of their own traits decided upon purely by rolling dice. With three classes already decided, the die rolls caused me to go with a half-elf warlock for the next story. From there, Soryn Cyanos was created to interact with Saeros Elendil. Expect to see Soryn one more time in the next tale.

Owing to the somewhat depressing tones of the previous three works, alongside some light ribbing from a friend, Falling For You was intended to be a bit more hopeful in tone compared to before, coupled with Soryn's rather outgoing and cheery disposition compared to the stoic Silifrey, brooding Katalia, and withdrawn Saeros; this also compares to the warlock my friend plays in the real-life campaign I'm part of (as noted in the author's notes for Holidays In The Sun), with Soryn partially intended as a foil compared to him. As a further in-joke to this, Falling For You was named after the song by pop punk band Student Rick, though as noted by this friend, it also matches the name of another song by alternative band Weezer. Of note is that the above image was actually a second choice for Soryn, with the first (by a sadly unknown artist) being rejected for looking too serious to be Soryn.

In order to reference Katalia's surname, Rhoeas, Soryn's surname was taken from the common cornflower, Centaruea cyanus, which is France's own symbol of World War I remembrance, akin to the common poppy for the United Kingdom. "Soryn" was also intended to be Saeros's given name, though it was later changed to a "proper" Elvish name to distinguish him from the comparatively ordinary Catherine and Elizabeth Rahom; Soryn's flame-based powers were also intended to contrast him with Katalia's ice-based powers. The reason for making Soryn a friend of Katalia came about as one of the backstory options for the Folk Hero background: "I wish my childhood sweetheart had come with me to pursue my destiny."

At the present, Soryn Cyanos has yet to be featured in an actual campaign, as the current campaign already features a warlock and I was interested in playing a unique class. We'll see what happens, though.

As one final note, the characters of Leland and Garland were taken directly from the real-life campaign I'm part of, while The Catseye is actually a character one of my friends is currently roleplaying as (her true identity is Kerry Darvin, a gnomish, swashbuckling rogue from a noble family). In said real-life campaign, Grimstone has been vanquished, with the Catseye electing to travel the land with the rest of the party to learn the skills of artificing and help a few more people out along the way.