"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings..." --- Billy Shakespeare
As I told people during the Wildman campaign, Chris and I had talked about doing a Dungeon Siege novel way back during the development of DS I, and I'd even started writing a series of interlinked short stories called The Tales of the 10th Legion. Whenever I got hired full time as the Lead Designer at Rapid Eye Entertainment here in San Diego (all the work I'd done for DS was done long distance as a contractor), I didn't have time to do DS II or even to contemplate the book, so that project got set by the wayside (As it was, I was writing in the Everquest universe for two different games at the same time, so there were only so many stories I could tell all at once.
)
Whenever Chris and I started talking about Wildman, he proposed that I write a tie-in novel for the project which would be used as a basis for the game lore. That's what shifted me into novel-writting mode. I had already planned to spend a year creating the Wildman book, and when that project didn't fund, it didn't shut down the fact that I'd already started thinking about a long form narrative. I thought what the hell, why not get around to telling a story that I'd started work on twenty years ago? I knew the main character, I knew the basic idea of the story, I just needed the time to build the universe, create the new plot, then spend eight months banging the thing out. If nothing else it'd get the damn thing out of my dreams and I could concentrate on my numerous other creative projects. So thus, the current Kickstarter for "The Thief of Dreams."
I would LOVE to do the Dungeon Siege Legions novel that Chris and I talked about back in 2001, but unfortunately the IP is no longer in Gas Powered Games' hands. All I would have needed to have done with GPG was talk to Chris, we'd have signed some papers, and then off I would have gone. We have that kind of trust in each other, and that kind of a working relationship. But now that the rights are in the hands of Square, I can't really touch it without having to go
pay them for the rights to create a book in a universe I created. (Here is your warning for why working-for-hire sucks. You create stuff that you don't get to own, and it can get sold away from you.) So for the time being I either have to wait for Square to decide that they want me to write a novel in my own universe (not holding my breath), or something really catastrophic happens and the license somehow ends up in the hands of people who are willing to give me back the narrative keys to my universe. Neither is likely to happen anytime soon, if ever. It's just the dysfunctional way that corporations and IPs work.
All of this said, there are
elements of the tales of the Great Legion War that I'm working into the backhistory of Thief. If you look at the map of the Callendian Kingdoms, there's a mighty big hint regarding that. If all goes well and Thief is successful, I might go back and write the "prequel" novels that delve into that history, but first I have to, have to, HAVE to get "The Thief of Dreams" done. I really can't write another novel before this one. tToD has been waiting in the wings for 20 + years now, and I've got the clearest vision of what that story will be. And to be honest, I've got a much larger base of fans who know and love Betrayal at Krondor for the story because story was front in center in BAK. You couldn't miss it. You SAW every bit of the story I created for that game. Dungeon Siege was envisioned as a very different kind of title, and we were telling the story in a very stripped down, minimalistic way. It wasn't made for the same kind of players as BAK. If you paid attention, and put the pieces together, you COULD make out the deeper story, but the emphasis was placed on action. Kill lots and lots of monsters very fast, keep moving, keep pushing, keep doing whatever you're doing without stopping for long bits of narrative or dialogue. That's just what the ARPG genre is all about. It's RPGs for people with ADD. Now if I'd been able to stick with GPG, you'd eventually have seen the grand arc of what was told in the old DS bible. We were going to back to the Empire of the Stars. We were going to meet the mad Emperor. We were going to see the great War of the Legions. We were going to learn what the hell happened with the Seck and see how seeds of the violence in Ehb had been a very, very long time in coming. So many possibilities. Unfortunately before DS II went into production there was a significant time gap and GPG didn't have any work available for me for a bit. I needed a gig, so I took the Lead Designer gig at RE...and the rest is history.
In any case, I appreciate all the enthusiasm some of you have shown me over the years for my stories, and I'd really like the opportunity now to write the full-fledged novel that I've been building up to for literally two decades. I know the economy is crap -- it's tough for everyone right now -- so I'm not asking you to pledge if you don't have the dinars. If all you can do is share or tweet to your friends about the book, that's still a huge favor to me because your friends care more about why
you want to see the book than anything I have to say on the subject.
If somehow you've missed links to the campaign, here it is again, for your perusal.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nealhallford/the-thief-of-dreams-from-the-writer-of-betrayal-at
Thanks again,
Neal
You are doing it wrong, bro.
