Title

The short version? It’s an archive of stories I’ve written about my characters in tabletop roleplaying games, both player characters and non-player characters from the game I dungeon master for. There’s a lot to read because I have a problem. Enjoy! the long version As I mention in my sidebar, my name is Alex Whalen, and I write too much. A big part of the appeal of playing tabletop roleplaying games for me is the potential to really invest in a character. I have a love/hate relationship with backstory. In games where I play with other people face-to-face, my inclination to write full-length stories about my character’s life up to then kind of sucks. Short of printing a copy for every person there’s no good way to share my work. Fortunately, I play most of my games online these days, which means I found a group of fantastic weirdos from across the United States who similarly invest in characters, and I have a lot more options for getting stories about our games into their hands. As all of our games are text-based, writing is encouraged for everyone to some extent. This is when I love backstory. I look forward to chances to explore my characters’ pasts for a small audience who invest in them, and can access my work easily. Well, mostly easily. I usually post in the forums of Roll20, the website we use to play games, but due to formatting issues and “reasonable” character limits on forum posts, it’s getting harder for me to put my work there. There’s also the issue of potential work loss due to games ending or site issues. I’ve always kept backups on my hard drive, but I began to think recently it was kind of a shame old stories weren’t as accessible anymore, either due to the games ending and being deleted or just getting lost under new games. So, I’ve decided to archive all of the stories I’ve written for my TTRPG characters here. Over the years I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to rewrite them into original works, where the context of the game they were part isn’t necessary, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’d rather let go of that and put them out to be seen and enjoyed again, potentially by a wider audience, than have them gathering dust in my files. I hope you enjoy! navigating the archive There are a lot of different ways to attack what’s here. The home page displays posts from newest to oldest if you want to just dive in. In the sidebar you can find links to sort the stories by length based on their calculated reading time– only have five minutes? I’ve got a few things you can read in that time. Below this list you’ll also find a search function if you’re looking for a specific keyword. If you want to know who you’re going to be reading about before you start, I recommend visiting the Characters page, where you can read a brief biography, see some art, and then be directed to their tag for stories. Lastly, there’s a comprehensive Index to be found in the menu at the top of the site. From there you can see the stories on the site sorted by any number of categories: alphabetically, by the game system they involved, by their general genre, and so on. get in touch If you have a question about something, or just want to chat about my work, feel free to hit me up on Roll20 where I’m Nikomedes, on Instagram @n1komedes, or by email at awhalen@gmx.com.