All characters depicted
herein are the creation and property of D. Gregory ©1994, 1999.
Any similarity to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Do not reproduce this story or any contents of these pages in any form without
express consent.
A few notes about Cal's Tale...
Every now and then, you might (if you're so inclined) watch a B-Minus grade fantasy flick, wherein you might find yourself thinking.. "cripes. this is like a bad D&D scenario."
well. you know how it goes. heh. ^.^;;;
At any rate, Cal started off life as an NPC in a game I played in in college. When I graduated, and ran my own game for a while, he graduated to player character. To this day, he remains one of my favorite characters ever created for RPG, IF, or just plain storytelling.
That's why, in 1994, I started to write him. Looking back at the story.. there are some parts I don't like, that I'd change if I had the energy or the time.. but there are parts, too, that have held up pretty well. Parts that, for me, at least, still carry the same emotional impact as they did when I first started keying them in on my blasted old AST 486. And that makes me happy ^o^ v
[I later reinvented him for an Interactive Fiction called "Someplace to be Flying".. it's currently an Inactive Interactive Fiction (^.~) but the archives are still available at Delphi if you're interested in perusing them.. there were some very talented folks involved in it. I have a tendency to recycle characters I like.. as can be seen by the amount of times Toshi shows up in other works. ^.^;;;;]
As far as the D&D goes, no, I don't play anymore.. people have moved away, moved on... and that's ok. ^.^ Doing RPGs was a wonderful way to test myself as a storyteller.. to create worlds and characters.. and to get a room full of people to voluntarily immerse themselves in it for one afternoon every couple of weeks was a joy.
Before anyone asks. No. I never played in the sewers or sacrificed chickens to satan because of the unhealthy influences of the game. so there. nyah. >.<
It may be just a wave of nostalgia that prompted me to put this up, but I hope, that if you take the time to read it, it turns out to be time well spent for you.
-Jo, 12/99