Alternia Comics

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Biography

You could say that most of the worlds of Alternia came from my imagination. Indeed, I came up with the ideas for the World of Heroes, After the Collapse, Mystic Frontiers, and Crossworld, myself (while Karak created Ex Machina), as well as the idea to combine them all into the same multiverse.

However, I cannot, in good conscience, take the credit.

Much of Alternia Comics has been inspired by the people I share it with. The experience of role-playing or cooperative writing has brought out the very best of our material - for example, the idea to link the worlds can be traced back to a simple request by a friend to play a "superman-style superhero" in a tabletop RPG.

Thanks John.

Alternia Comics is where the meeting of many minds has created something extraordinary - a multi-genre setting where you can find almost anything you're looking for in science fiction or fantasy, and where you are free to create anything you can't find.

But I guess this section is about me ...

I've toyed with creative writing since I was ... eight? That sounds right. My first story was about a family of elves on a quest to defeat a horde of monsters. I admit, I never finished it - I barely got past their first encounter with them, in fact - but my vision was for an epic.

My first role-playing game was a freeform adventure I played with my dad in our backyard while we did yardwork. It evolved into a family passtime - something we did together on long drives and after dinner. Eventually we evolved to games like Hero Quest, Dragon Strike, and eventually the fabled Dungeons and Dragons. At the time, the name of that game with its rules and dice was something I whispered in awe, and when I recieved my first boxed set I took it up into the bedroom I was staying in and spent hours pouring over the rules. I ran a glorious adventure, again with family members, wherein our heroes escaped the salt mines of an evil wizard.

It has gone uphill from there.

To me, tabletop gaming is the height of the creative experience. It is where you can delve into any world you wish, and bring your friends with you. When played for the fun of the game, it brings people together and creates a shared experience of adventure, along with the pride of having made a fantastic story.

Storytelling is what makes those worlds. It gives them depth and character, filling them with people and places foreign, fantastical, and yet somehow familiar.

Together, this kind of creativity can show us our true face. Humanity is mirrored in its art, and if you can find something of yourself in the epic heroes of fiction, perhaps you can become a bit more like them - a little wiser, a little braver, a little stronger.

T know my own pursuit of self improvement can be traced back to a single moment: I had been a jerk to my mother, as many young kids are sometimes, and my dad came in to scold me. He ended with, "Why can't you be more like those heroes you write about?" At first, of course, I was furious. No one can be as brave or as pure as the heroes of fiction.

But soon after, I decided to try. I am by no means a hero, but in studying the good, brave people of history and fantasy, I have learned what a good person does, and how a hero acts, and try very hard to live by their examples.

Thus, our mission: to entertain and inspire.

I call myself Alarin. Welcome.

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Member for

2 years 47 weeks