It is said that many forgotten secrets lie hidden among the trees. One such secret is the unassuming portal to the Fairyshire, hidden in plain sight in the center of a ring of mushrooms near the waterfall.

Aside from the fairies and the occasional giant, no civilized species call the forest their home. They are wise not to: if the increased monster aggression over the previous few decades wasn’t enough of a deterrent, the forest is also said to be the home of a terrifying, bloodthirsty demon. Legend has it that, while the demon sleeps now, it is ready to wake any day.

Since he’s unable to speak the Common language (and he’s not eager to discuss his past), no one knows where he came from or how he ended up in the nearby Wyldebush Forest in the first place. All that matters, however, is that he’s dedicated to helping Marty — and the rest of the party — one feat of testicular fortitude at a time.

While it receives few visitors outside the occasional party of Adventurers, its exports, however, are widely renowned: a talented blacksmith forges weapons and tools out of ore mind from the nearby Dragonhorn Mountains; exceptional farmers and ranchers sell their crops to distributors throughout the region; and the local Witch crafts coveted potions that even the wealthiest city dwellers clamor for.

But, one day, fate intervenes: Marty finds himself forced to become an Adventurer who goes on Quests to make money, bringing him one step closer to becoming the Hero the villagers have always expected him to be.

Then, I didn’t return to it for another couple more years.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it still didn’t have je ne sais quoi. It wasn’t until about 2024 that I realized that, in order to capitalize on my love of video games, the story should be a LitRPG. I began reading LitRPGs like crazy at the time for research – including Dungeon Crawler Carl before it became a phenomenon. That helped bring the project closer to what it is today… but it was still missing something.

Then, with the help of my step brother, I discovered Kiwi. After I threw Marty’s tanuki companion into the mix, I was off to the races. The chapters started flowing and a story started to take shape.

After a couple of years of writing and editing, I’ve finally got something I want to share. That, more or less, brings us up to today.

I’ll skip the parts about the early mornings, writer’s blocks, and hours straining my eyes in front of a computer screen. Nobody wants to hear about that. But I will mention that there were many, many times during the fifteen-ish years of developing this story that I lost faith in the project. It lived in my head like a ghost, occasionally wailing and rattling its chains. But, while I considered it a curse during the years that it was dormant, I’m grateful that it never left me.

So, if you have something that takes up room in your mind, demanding to come out, I hope that you find the big-balled tanuki you need to finally let it come to life.

— slanderoid

At this point, I had decided to call it “The Stone Prophecy”. (I’m not sure if the title was intended to be an homage to Ravenloft: Stone Prophet or if I accidentally aped the title… One thing’s for sure: I’m not digging around through my memories to find out.) In the months that followed, I managed to write and type up an entire book. Soon after that, I somehow wrote a second book in the span of a month and a half.

But, life has a funny way of getting in the way of these things, and these, too, ended up collecting dust. This time, the project sat untouched for nearly a decade. Luckily, I managed to hold on to both of these books. The first is still sitting in my ancient Dropbox right now, waiting to be used for something or to be discarded. The second is still around here somewhere, handwritten on legal pad sheets.

Of course, I’m skipping most of the boring details. (And I only really half-remember the details I’ve shared here, anyway…) But that brings us up to the current era of the story.

To be continued…

When I was a kid, I spent most of my time reading books and playing video games like some kind of nerd. As an only child that often played games and relied on his parents to occasionally provide him with new ones, I tended to seek out titles that provided the biggest bang-to-buck ratio. So, from a pretty early age, I learned to love JRPGs more than most other genres.

At some point, one of my former English teachers planted a bug in my head about writing. I don’t know if he intended to seal my fate that day or not, but I’ve never been able to shake the notion of becoming some kind of writer in the future. (He specifically mentioned journalism. I tried it in college, but it wasn’t really my thing.)

Fast forward a bit to my mid-twenties, some time in the early 2010s. I still had the same habits of reading and playing video games, but I also through mind-altering substances into the mix.

One day, after a night spent [redacted] and waking up still under the influence, I sat down to play a few hours of Monster Hunter Tri. As my character wandered the forest, gathering spider webs and looking for dragons to slay, I started to wonder what his backstory was. It wasn’t long before my monster hunter, Marty, began to have a storied history (at least, in my mind) that I felt compelled to put down on paper.

Before long, I had come up with a short story, a couple of small games, and grand ambitions for the project’s future.

To be continued…

Until then, I’ll be making some posts sharing the history of this book and some introductory materials. This story has been about fifteen years in the making, so it’s a bit of a dream come true for it to finally be released into the wilderness!

Anyway, stay tuned! There’s much more to come

Thanks again,

slanderoid