Cover Art by Alison Hunt

Of course, Lost is essential to War of Nytefall: Lost since her name is the title. This is a character who I’ve been wanting to introduce for a long time, but I came up with an idea that forced me to delay her.  This worked out because it means she can shine brightly at the beginning and then calm down a bit.  Only reason I say this is because she can be a fairly difficult character to write for too long.

Let me give you a brief description of Lost and then I’ll explain where she came from.  She is a silver-haired girl of about 16 who wears pajamas with no shoes or socks.  In fact, she’s terrified of socks and gets violent at the sight of them, especially if she’s already under stress.  I made her a half-elf even though she was full human first, but none of that is truly important outside of spoilers.  Lost carries around a ‘stuffed’ bunny that doubles as her storage device.  She basically crams things into it.  Is the bunny alive or dead?  Nobody is really sure because it flies around and follows her orders as well as protecting her when she’s in danger.  Yeah, her weapon of choice is a bunny.  This is where I ask people to stop scratching their heads and hear me out on this because here’s the origin.

My first summer break from college saw me bringing a friend home and we ran a ‘Vampire: The Masquerade’ game.  My younger sister loved vampires and wanted to give the game a chance.  What did she make?  Lost . . . and she teamed up with Clyde.  Imagine a force of destruction teaming up with a force of chaos.  Lost was from a vampire clan that was known for insanity and my sister didn’t skimp on the crazy.  She gave her a sock phobia because it seemed like something to do at the time.  She loved the rabbit from ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ and even had a plushie of it, so that’s where the psychotic bunny comes from.  She wanted to wear pajamas, be a computer hacker, and have silver hair.  At some point, you just kind of nod your head and simply wonder where things are going to go.  Well, we got Lost who treated the rules of vampire society like guidelines, which she forgot to read.  Apparently, she was innocent in her delivery to get in trouble too.

Now, this being my sister’s one and only role-playing game character that I know of, I had to do something special.  Lost was a mad inventor in the early versions of this series and she could give the Windemere gnomes a run for their money.  For example, a motorcycle with sidecar strapped to a jet engine and armed with a machine gun that she forgot to load the one time she used the thing.  Just random stuff would come out of this character, but I toned her down for Windemere.  I couldn’t do computer hacking, so I gave her the ability to mind hack, which is basically all-purpose telepathy.  The real trick was figuring out how to introduce her to the story since she didn’t fit the concept of Clyde’s gang anymore.  She was far too innocent and didn’t possess anything that would make her a viable thief or mercenary.

That’s when the womb-born idea came about.  War of Nytefall: Lost revolves around the emergence of these Dawn Fangs who were born through sex.  It seems Dawn Fangs are capable of getting pregnant, which is news to them.  Nobody knew this was possible until 16-year-old Lost comes bounding into the world in search of her father.  You might be wondering how this is possible, so I’ll do the quick answer.  Dawn Fangs are born without a heartbeat and need even one drop of blood to eventually get the organs going.  So, those who gave birth assumed it was a stillbirth and abandoned the ‘corpse’.  This is what caused the big problem that is about to hit Windemere and Lost is at the center of the whole epic mess.  All in search of her father who will remain nameless because that’s totally a spoiler.

This is where I’d tell a funny story about the character during the gaming times.  There’s just so much to choose from with Lost:

• Asking the were-panther warrior for a piggyback ride . . . and getting one!
• Getting kidnapped by the main villain, biting him in the limo, getting angry that he tastes back, and casually walking out of the moving car.
• Fending off a bum who tried to hurt her bunny by using the bunny as a weapon.
• Hacking a computer, spotting socks on a website, and sprinting out of the safe house. I believe she hid in the trunk of a car, which happened to be owned by the villain.
• Game version had a slingshot with ammo that was chewed bubblegum covered in toothpicks and pushpins.  Only one shot was memorable.  The final challenge was an ancient vampire or demon emerging from its slumber.  First blow to land was Lost shooting it in the eye with bubblegum.  Needless to say, it took offense and was thoroughly confused.

2023 Additions– I really don’t know what to add here.  Lost became one of the favorites of War of Nytefall and a lot of fun to write.  I still couldn’t have her be in a scene for too long due to her attention span and chaotic nature.  She did get better over the course of the series though.  There was a level of maturity that she hit even without losing her child-like spark.  I think a big part was being recruited into the Vengeance Hounds, who started acting like her older brothers.  Lost was probably all about the relationships and humanity of the Dawn Fangs.  Being the first womb-born, she held a very important role in their overall society.  Clyde saw her as a symbol of the future too.  That was why I enjoyed writing Savagery since it had the two of them working together.  Out of all of the characters, Lost is probably the one I wouldn’t change a thing about if I had to do a rewrite.  She evolved perfectly for what I wanted and carried her part of the stories without problems.  Even when I spontaneously gave her a rival in Anarchy, she adapted to that last minute change and the entire finale improved because of it.  This is why I really want to use her in a cameo at some point.  She’s not an easy character to do this with, so I have to be careful.  Maybe I just want Lost, the child-like Dawn Fang, to meet up with Darwin Slepsnor, the child-like Slumberlord.  Not sure Windemere would survive that chaotic team-up.