Club Ninja Presents: A Humble Survey

I have a notorious tendency to try and do too many projects at once, which sucks when you're just trying to focus and get one thing done. One of my most glaring offenses, for example, comes from the realm of writing. I've been known to flesh out an entire concept, start working on it, only to drop it shortly afterwards to pursue another. Well no more, I say! I'm putting the power into the hands of you, my humble fans (yes, both of you)! YOU tell ME what to continue on, and I'll do it! And dammit all, I'll even try to finish it at some point!

I've narrowed the field down to a couple of stories that I've begun work on already, but have yet to further pursue. Included below is a little blurb on each, followed by a few links to The Library for your reading pleasure. Let the experiment in democracy begin!

The Candidates

The Riddle of Dark
"There is a fine threshold between fear, and of passion. Both exhibit that all-consuming grasp over the senses, bringing about the most animalistic of responses from within."

I've been anxious to revisit the world of Realmwalkers for some time now, and a while back I began a follow-up to one of Natalie's major plot points, that being the presence of one Kaiser Dark. Back in the day, my old running buddy Prometheus and I were set to collaborate on a few chapters as our next plot hook, but due to the demise of the group, it never really came to pass. My secondary plan was to deal with Kaiser Dark, a mysterious entity that had made his presence known in an earlier chapter, and currently wanted for questioning due to a rash of strange murders that had been taking place around New Malstron. His last appearance saw him saving Natalie from the wrath of the K'Yrrel, one of Haven's native races responsible for a guerilla attack on the city. This led to my concept of The Riddle of Dark, a much-darker storyline that seeks to explain exactly who Kaiser Dark is, and his relation to Natalie and the city of New Malstron

    Chapter 1: Primal

Freelancers
“5000 gold? I think I have to check both sides of my pants now, but I should be fine.”

A follow-up to The Traveler Chronicles, one of the first large-scale stories I wrote back in high school, and still woefully absent from Club Ninja. Freelancers follows the journey of several heroes of the battle with Lord Paradox, who assemble to investigate a new menace by the name of Xantathus. A self-proclaimed seer, Xantathus is gathering quite the following amongst the disenfranchised populous of Second Realm, claiming to have direct means of traveling to the new Haven colony. I decided to go for the official tie-in with the whole Realmwalkers mythology, and this would actually bridge the gap between the two storylines. Action/Adventure, with a bit of humor thrown in for good measure (see the Lodoss War-Inspired Interludes).

    Chapter 1 | Interlude 
    Chapter 2 | Interlude

 

Rahn D'um
“Long time no see. Please don’t give me a reason to stick an arrow in your face.”

In order to deal with a rather nasty bout of Writer's Block some time ago, I decided to throw together a computer program to generate some fantasy-style characters by randomly selecting a few attributes and quirks, and challenged myself to put them in a story and make it work. This was the result. Or rather, this was the beginning. This was the start of an introduction to a world and a few quirky characters. Our trio of heroes (Brock, Kado, and Raine) are members of the Edge Keepers, special agents of the King charged with escorting the daughter of a well-known scholar back home. It seems that her family has been pioneering some sort of new steam-based technology, and quite a few individuals have taken an interest in obtaining it. It's high-fantasy comedy and mayhem in the spirit of The Slayers.

    Chapter 1

 

The FUTURE
"We are The FUTURE. And without us, you don't have one."

Humans, mutants, secret government organizations, and a cast of villains worthy of an episode of The Tick. The whole concept came about as a joke a while back, and this introductory chapter was written on a whim. I haven't had a chance to flesh things out totally, but there are many (and I mean MANY) ideas floating around in regards to the direction to take this in. I'd be going for a more episodic approach to this one, with a series of self-contained chapters based around the various members of this secret organization that no one really believes exists. Sure, the MiB's handle things on an extraterrestrial scale, but these guys get to deal with all of the random crap that's already on this planet.

    Chapter 00: What is The FUTURE?

Final Thoughts

So, what's it going to be? Will I revisit the world of Realmwalkers? Continue with Freelancers? Explore the possibilities of Rahn D'um? Will we look towards The FUTURE? Or, should I write on something else altogether? Maybe there's something else you'd like to see a follow-up on, or perhaps have a suggestion for a new project entirely. I'm open to suggestions, so let them fly!

-- Mani