Name: Andrew St. Croix (Drew)

First Appearance: Natalie 7

Role: Everyday, Average Earthling

CoTW was created for guys like this.

Even if you are familiar with Natalie's exploits in Realmwalkers, you still probably don't know who this guy is. Andrew St. Croix (or Drew, as he prefers), is an unfortunate Earthling that finds himself and a large group of his peers hijacked upon arrival on Haven by a group of slavers, and consequently ended up in the possession of Dark Dance. They probably would have ended up being sold as slaves/eventual food to the Ophidians ("There are worse things than [being sold to the Ophidians]", Mani commented. "Just not many."), had there not been intervention by Natalie and company. Long story short is that our intrepid heroes hijack one of Dark Dance's airships and head to New Malstron, with Drew and his fellow Earthlings as cargo.

Drew's purpose in the scheme of things in Natalie's chapters was to serve as that normal guy in a world of extraordinary individuals. Whereas everyone else in the RPG was a mage, had ungodly technology at their disposal, or was just a complete and utter badass, Drew was just some kid from Florida that happens to like wrestling, and who has a knack for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was deliberately average in a world of titans; Drew more than likely would have ended up traveling with Natalie and company down the line, and I would have loved to have seen some of his insights into the things that they considered everyday occurrences.

Random Sidenote: When working on the sketch for Drew, I actually contemplated drawing him with his back turned to the audience. That way, you could have imagined him looking any way that you'd want. The bottom line with Drew is that he's just some normal kid that doesn't stick out by any stretch of the imagination. I opted to go for the wild hair look later on, figuring that if you spent some time wandering lost in a forest and almost getting sold to slavers, you'd probably look pretty wild too.

The Future: Don't worry about Drew... he'll have a place in any Realmwalkers project that I work on. Actually, he's currently on loan to my friend Prometheus (another RW writer), who plans on using him in some of his own stuff. Drew's the kind of guy that if you look hard enough, you'll more than likely see him somewhere in the crowd. He'll be around for a while.