The Spine-Chilling Adventures Of An Ordinary Author
A Gayaverse Quest
The Great Albian Union, Artemis, The 4th of December, 1910
Since you were young, you
loved stories.
The obsession started well before you could read and when you learned to do so at the tender age of five, it only grew even
more intense. You went to far off places, fought fantastical foes, battled in ancient Remean Wars, learned forgotten secrets. Whole worlds existed within your families personal library. Countless and beautiful, things of leather and paper and ink and
imagination! Something that exists not only in the physical but beyond that, living in the hearts and minds of everyone who has ever read those stories. That's what you loved about them.
Books were your escape from the humdrum timidity of your comfortable life in The Albian Union and when you learned that you could make your own stories, that in fact, people would
publish them for you?
You knew what you wanted to do with your life.
You're going to be a famous Author! You want your stories to inspire, to make people feel alive in new ways, to give respite from an often bleak and hard world. To do
everything they did for you, for everyone else.
You believe your stories can change the world.
You are a...
[ ] Man
[X] Woman
[ ] Author*
You've just recently moved from your family estate to a townhouse (A moving out gift from Mother and Father, their last little bird to leave the nest) in the city of Artemis, to be closer to your publisher
C. H. Page Publishing Company, as your first novel so far was a headache of slow moving letters rife with edits, revisions and the occasional argument on direction. But you suppose you can't blame Miss Heathcliff for being a harsh mistress with her editing pen, (the bright red ink imported from
Ganjay from all places.) It is her tough love that helped shape your story into something fit for publication. It's been the hard work of months, almost a year, delayed by the speed of post and in your hands, you hold the final chapter of your first Novel!
And now that you were in Artemis itself, you could deliver it to Miss Heathcliff yourself, cutting out weeks of anticipation and greatly speed bringing your works to the masses!
What is your Genre?
[ ] Two Fisted Adventure! Tales of Daring Do! Your stories are filled with excitement and the mystical dangers of far off lands!
Your classic Indiana Jones type Pulp, brave and good going against mustache twirling evil, larger than life Heroes that you wish you could be.
[X] Spine-Chilling Horror, Tales of Gothic Woe. Your stories are filled with all manner of monster, human and otherwise.
Be a less racist Lovecraft, beat Not!Merry Shelley at her own game, be a Goth in 1910
[ ] Astounding Science Fiction, Tales of the Human Ingenuity. Your stories are filled with the impossible made possible and a burning hope for the Future.
HG Wells, Juels Verne, and others! Predict the Future and argue with nerds about the viability of going to the moon and what kind of life is on Mars.
You've always hated crowds, and there are so many in Artemis. The hot press of bodies and the stench of industrial fog and sweat is almost overwhelming. But you brave it for the sake of your novel, as your childhood heroes would have braved even greater dangers. Winter this year was blessedly mild at least. Though as always, you wish there was less rain. Nonetheless, you press on! Into the tubes you go, carefully avoiding eye contact with everyone sharing the train with you.
After two trains on the Underground, you walk your way up, out and finally to the tall, old, narrow green building of the
C. H. Page Publishing Company sticking out of the ground at just a slight angle, a side effect of being an old building in the marshy, soft earth of Artemis, they sink into the ground a little bit, every few years, without proper maintenance. Miss Heathcliff called it "charming" in her letters, but it is so often hard to read sarcasm into words on paper.
You approached the door and walked into Reception, Final Chapter in hand. You glance around, a flight of stairs to one side of the room, and a lift set into the wall with slightly tarnished brass doors on the other.
"Name Please?" says the Receptionist, a quite out of place a tall Caledonian man with the tight and clean haircut cut of former military somehow merging into positively massive muttonchops and a well fitted, if slightly well worn suit asked in a calm but rumbling canter.
You start, jumping slightly and flushing with embarrassment for missing the man. "O-oh so I'm so terribly sorry...my name is..."
[X] Ellen Alena Doe
The Caledonian smiles warmly, clearly recognizing your name. "It's quite alright," he says, using an arm to help lift himself from behind his desk to stand, holding out his other hand to shake, which you oblige as he talks. "So good to finally meet ye in person, I'm Mortimer Kane, Miss Heathcliff calls yer work 'Promising' which is bloody high praise from her, waiting fer that final chapter for a week now." He leans in with a conspiratorial whisper "Don't tell her I said this, but she's quite excited." Still shaking your hand,
goodness he has a firm grip. "Take th' lift to the top floor, her office is down the hall, door on th' left." Releasing your now thoroughly shook hand and with a careful motion sat back in his chair. "Lemme know how it goes, Eh? Maybe I show ye the town, ol' Mooky knows his way round the best Pubs in all of Artemis!" he calls after you, the metal curtain of the lift closing after you.
Its not long before you're before door that reads
Helena Heathcliff, Head of Publishing.
Well. Here goes nothing. You take a deep breath and remind yourself.
Your stories are going to change the world.
You knock.
Welcome one and all to yet another big gay quest on that wonderful gay earth that @open_sketchbook is responsible for.
First, this is gonna be some narrative fun. No Dice, no Stress, no stats, just a Queer Introverted novelist.
Second, Genre is Important because it will effect your Fantasies. You have always been an imaginative sort, and you've a tendency to day dream, it's gonna be part of the fun of this little story.
Get ready kid, you're gonna be famous and all that comes with it.
Because well, your stories are going to change the world.
* if you choose this option, You're lucky enough to be from a wealthy family, and are considered eccentric for your enbiness, but harmless. A word of warning: this might change if you use your influence to go further and rock the boat. 
