In which Agabus, Tump, and I make our fiction debut
Dear Agabus,
You exist because of the role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).
You’ve been in existence since June 2017. Six years next month. Wow.
You exist because as one adventuring group fizzled out a new one started. One made up entirely of elves, half-elves, and humans. And because I joined a two or three sessions after everyone had started playing and I decided I wanted to play something different.
We started that campaign in 2nd Edition (2e) and, if I’m remembering correctly, the gnome race only paired up with a handful of classes. I chose fighter. We rolled stats soon after that. Your most endearing qualities: you are old and your Wisdom trait is low.
On June 20th, 2017, my friend and Dungeon Master sent me a text with a short backstory on why you were traveling–you were were looking for your father originally. Most likely due to your age, we changed it to your brother 🙂
You debuted in the adventuring group in the Caves of Chaos, literally through the walls of the cave, accidentally becoming a rock gnome, declaring yourself to the very suspicious priest, “I’m a gnome!” and thereby giving yourself a tagline for the remainder of that campaign. In that same campaign, you slayed a minotaur, befriended a blind cleric named Orpheus, met one of your best friends Shrundelaar, and infiltrated an evil magician/wizard/sorcerer’s camp.
Since then, you found a knife that let’s you poof to places (it’s legit!). You have a llama that you can ride around on. You love owlbears are convinced if you could raise one from a baby, it would be harmless and love you forever. (See where that low Wisdom Stat comes into play? haha) You’ve traveled so many D&D worlds, going on crazy adventures, making so many friends, always still looking for your brother, Tump. Fun fact: we didn’t have a name for him until…2018 when the word “tump” showed up as dictionary.com’s Word of the Day.
March 2020
And then one day, quite by accident, you find him. Or a piece of him, rather. You find some sort of special lock with his name specially carved into the back of it. This has been years coming. I honestly never though it would happen. It lined up serendipitously with me wanting to take a break from D&D. There is no line where Agabus ends and I, Tracy the human begin really, at least at the time. I wanted to try other races and classes out, but I needed some kind of reason for you to be…busy, doing other things.
And so, after traveling deep into a magical forest as far as you could without putting your life in danger anymore, you set back to town, to that shop where you bought the lock. It was closed and you were determined to sit and wait until Tump showed up or the shopkeeper opened the store, whichever came first.
Tump and his construct Peabody showed up first and it was a great reunion. I was proud of how far you and I had come and that we had found your brother.
I was ready for my break.
And then lockdowns hit and we weren’t really seeing anyone or going anywhere. (That was such a weird year.)
But I still thought about you and the adventures you were on with Tump.
I’ve always known I’d write stories about you. In fact, I have a work-in-progress of you and a young half-elf named Rill that I need to revisit.
But this is how we got here, to Havok, to our fiction debut in “The Queen of Oz”.
We still have many stories to tell, my dear. I’m so thankful story exists in many forms and I get to continue yours in the written form.
I’m so excited to share this with the Havok horde, friends and family, and to any reader who comes across it.
Here’s to another adventure. Cheers!
Love, Tracy
For readers who are interested in reading “The Queen of Oz”, you can find the story here, on Havok’s main page. It is apart of the larger season theme, World Tour, written to the Oceania Theme/setting.
Available all day today, Monday, May 22nd, 2023, for free. After today, it’ll be available when I’m ready to share it in another form. If you are a member of Havok, then sign into your account and read it anytime you have a couple minutes to spare.
Reading, sharing, and commenting are some of the best ways to support writers. I’d really appreciate it 🙂 and I promise you, Agabus and Tump are worth it.
Happy reading!
This story is dedicated to:
Anthony,
who championed me being very contrary and picking a race no one else was playing. You also helped read the very first draft of “The Queen” and spent countless minutes brainstorming with me. We talked the magic to death so it wouldn’t sound too DnD-y. You also get credit for naming Agabus’s goddess, Ilenya. I love you to the moon and back.
Ryan,
friend and DM who helped bring Agabus into being. You’re incredible and I love your creativity and storytelling. Thank you for always reading my stories and asking how my writing is going. It’s really simple, but it means the world to me. If I’m the real life Agabus, you’re the real life Tump. Love you human.
Brit (Annoneth, Big One, Fidget), Rob (most recently Donatello), Laurisa (Laurisa Shadowmoon, Grawp), and Nick (Neckaluga and Drogna), Ant (Henri, Orpheus, Lox, Grommomir, Lox), Ryan (as Timil Deeps, Shrundelaar, the OG Tump, Margay and Brumble, and all the NPCs ever),
The best adventuring party! It has been an honor to create stories and play pranks and fight Medusas and minotaurs, shambling mounds and gelatinous cubes with you all by rolling a bunch of pretty dice. I look forward to the day we can play around the same table again. I love you all.
To Mom, Dad, Kady, and Silas-in-law,
For always cheering on my writing dreams. I hope you enjoy the story. Love you fam =D
This story was made possible by deadlines, the Havok Mystery Monday editors’ feedback (what a great experience), D&D, Agabus, the part-time daycare schedule I work so that I can write stories.
For my fellow writers, do you have a character you adore and love writing about? Do they have a story they want told?
Writing Process Notes:
5/21/23 // 8:31pm-10:10pm. Dining room table, writing by lamplight so Ant can sleep well to go into work reeallllyyyy early tomorrow morning. Crickets and the whole house fan noises. Kinda distracted by instagram at one point, but put it away and focused and i wrote it, included pictures, and scheduled it for early o’clock tomorrow morning =D
Mrs. Writer 