Wizards of the Coast owns the general concept of Dungeons and Dragons, even if they sold out 3.5 in order to make Warcraft on Paper. I mean, Fourth Edition. However, the New World and its kingdoms, concepts, and characters are all mine.

A couple of years back, I sat down and wrote Orcish Vise. It as supposed to be about the humans stuck between a pair of warring orcish tribes, with a pair of rangers and the local villagers taking precedence.

Libor and Oleksandr put an end to that idea. It's the only thing they've ever collaborated on.

The funny thing was how the orcs came to life as I wrote, demanding more and more time from the humans that were supposed to be the main characters. In the end, the orcs of the Khairathi Mountains had come alive, telling me of their culture and their bravery. Finally, they decided that if I was to write stories, it would be about their glorious deeds and their mighty battles against the cowardly, unscarred races around them. My wife supported their idea; her favorite characters from Orcish Vise happened to be the orcs.

And so, after over a year of toying with the ideas, of carefully examining the tribes and at times losing my way among other stories, games I've run and played, I've come to find a more sustained writing interest in my orcs. Hopefully, the orcs of the Khairathi Mountains will give better form to the vagaries of the Monster Manual and show them as a true culture. Perhaps there ill not be as much combat as one would expect from a novel dealing with orcs, but my ultimately failed attempt at Diablo fanfiction has shown me that sometimes, if the characters are good enough, combat is not the end all of fantasy novels. Sometimes the true interest can fall on the characters themselves, and the combat, while fun, is more of an afterthought.

In the end, Libor will tell me if I'm right or wrong. And if I'm right, maybe some day I will be professionally published….