I was talking about the books with some people at a single's dance and one of them asked how I came up with ideas for the characters and creatures in my books. One of the group was also a writer and tried to explain that dryads and many of the other creatures in my books were established in fantasy. Someone else asked me yesterday if my books were about the Lord of the Rings because one of them has Mythrindell in the title. With all this confusion, I thought it might serve my readers if I explained a bit about which creatures and places and things are new and which ones have existed before I began writing.
Ok, first and probably most important, no, my books are not a take off on J. R. R. Tolkien's work. Mythril is one of those established items. It is a metal that, when woven into a cloth, cannot be pierced. Tolkien may have been the first person to create it. I mean he wrote the Hobbit before I was born and I have grandchildren who have read it. But none the less, it existed before I began writing. In my books, Mythrindell is a place where the most ancient of all elves originated. It happens also to be a place where Mythril is mined.
Most people recognize that elves, gnomes, dwarves, dragons and creatures like gnolls, orcs and trolls are established. But you may not know that so are treants, voadkin and dryads. Voadkin are a race of giant elves that live in and truly love the wood. They are not just large elves. They are giants, but are closely related to the elves just not as magical. Dryads however are almost all magic.
In very ancient woods the two of the creatures who care for the wood are treants and Dryads. Treants are creatures that look as if they are very large and very old trees. Most folk never see them or at least never know they have seen them because unless they speak to you, you could walk right through a forest of treants and never realize it. Dryads, also live in the wood but differently.
Dryads live in the hearts of ancient trees. Yes actually in the trees, not in the hollow centers. They meld with the wood and become part of the tree. In usual circumstances, no woman ever sees a dryad and usually only handsome or careless young men do. Dryads are only women and they usually only step from their trees to take mates of handsome men who wander alone too close to their trees. Or they take slaves of men who have done something to destroy a part of their wood. The legend of dryads go back to the times of the druids. Some thought the legend was created just to keep ruffians from chopping down the woods for spite. Others believe that dryads were real and some even believe that they still exists in the oldest woods in some parts of the world.
As for what creatures are new and out of my imagination? Well, as the books were being written, I kept careful records of every spell, magical item, map and creature that were created. Believe it or not, there is an entire volume that will be available titled The Magic & Maps of Thordon that will eventually be available with the other books. Since we had begun the books based on role playing game ideas, we thought others might want to have the stats and racial details of newly created beings from the books so they could also play them. I apologize that it will be a while before it is available. When it was written, it was done on an OLD word processor and printed in dot matrix. I have to retype the entire thing and update illustrations before I can publish it. It will be the hardest of all the books to get ready. If I can get them done, it will include illustrations of many if not all of the major characters of all of the books as well. All I can say is thank goodness for photoshop and my art degree.
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