Among The Living

Among The Living is the sixth short story in the series of works inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, this time taking place some time before the events of Here's To Life. The focus of the story is on the well-traveled and well-educated Ravana, a half-orc who has devoted his life to studying any forms of magic that he can, searching a small, out-of-the-way city in the sprawling nation-state of Occiden Empire for a specific tome that will further boost his knowledge. While studying its contents, however, he comes across a familiar presence, one that he hasn't seen in many years; any goodwill from before, however, quickly turns to animosity as the two realise how different their lives have become since their last ill-fated meeting.

Among The Living can be read right here.

The above image is an image that has remained in my wallpapers folder for many years now; unfortunately, I have been unable to locate its original artist or their portfolio, but I certainly hope that I can find that information one day. I remember wanting to use it as a basis for a character in a tabletop RPG for many years, so it's interesting to finally make it happen.

Among The Living was named after the Anthrax song of the same name; the original draft of this story was called Hollow after the Pantera song, so I chose to keep the same genre of music for the new title (alongside giving a small reference by referring to Ravana's target book as "Hollow Fantasia"). Ravana himself was originally to be named "Szandor" after the middle name of Anton LaVey, but with the abundance of names that started with a soft S sound (Silifrey, Saeros, Soryn, and a few other characters) and wanting to find a less "obvious" reference, I elected to name him after the antagonist from the Ramayana, an important text in the Hindu faith. The literary Ravana acts as the main villain of the Ramayana, having stolen the protagonist's love interest and usurped his own brother to control his kingdom, but he is noted to be surprisingly intelligent and cultured, being skilled in combat and holding numerous scholarly interests; this mix of attributes seemed fitting for my own Ravana.

Ravana was my first attempt to create a truly evil character (for reference, Saeros, Soryn, and Korari are intended to be in the "good" alignment, while Silifrey and Katalia are closer to the "neutral" alignment) one purely driven by self-preservation and self-interest, but also willing to work with others if it furthers his own goals. It was a fun challenge, and I look forward to eventually playing as him if the opportunity ever presents itself.

As an aside note, Ravana was initially intended to be a gnome, per my dice rolls, but I accidentally reversed his race with another character's in the midst of working on his character sheet. I found the inadvertent mix-up an interesting change of pace, so Ravana became a half-orc wizard. Of all characters created for this series, Ravana is also the tallest, at 78 inches (the second tallest being Saeros, at 76 inches). As for the gnome... well, we'll be seeing them soon enough.

Hollow was notably a completely different work from Among The Living. While Ravana was featured, it instead focused on his interactions with Ione Anhera as they prepared and eventually succeeded in a mission to start a rebellion in Seelago (as previously touched upon in both Falling For You and Here's to Life). After realising what she had done, Ione would've fled after fighting off Ravana before transforming herself into Korari in the woods. As this was the halfway point of the series (6 of 12 stories), Hollow notably would've featured cameos from both Katalia and Saeros, alongside an orphan named Sally that would've given a possible backstory for Silifrey. Ultimately, the story was scrapped for numerous reasons; outside of arguably revealing too much backstory all at once, it also seemed too focused on Ione instead of Ravana, especially as I decided to scrap the idea of Korari unquestionably being Ione to making it ambiguous. Furthermore, the finalised rough draft exceeded 20 pages, being almost twice as long as Holidays In The Sun (the longest story of all the instalments), making it far too cumbersome to read for my tastes. I may release Hollow one day as a draft, but I no longer consider it canon.