By Kayla Matt

It’s interesting that this charming, friendly halfling thief became such an integral part to my series.  I hate to say this about the little guy, but he is rather cliche.  Yet, there is something mysterious and dangerous about him that comes to the surface as the series goes on.  Nimby kind of snuck up the ranks of favored characters when I thought he was just becoming obnoxious.  It was probably the third editing session of Beginning of a Hero where I realized how often Nimby appeared and that he was more responsible for pushing the plot than Luke.  So, Nimby soon became the unsung hero and agent of destiny in the book.  Most people who have read the first book don’t give him a second thought, which I guess says a lot about his talent as a thief in hiding.  I have to say that as time moves on, I really want to see how he deals with the challenges that I put in his way.

The true Nimby was played by my second college roommate whose name will be withheld to protect the innocent.  Unless Dave demands attention and I’m forced . . . oops.  I have to say that out of the original crew of the game, Nimby was the character who was obviously there for comedy and fun.  It didn’t matter what was going on because Nimby would always find a way to be positive and funny.  This set the mindset of most of my halflings who all possess Nimby’s optimism and an odd sense of innocence.  Unfortunately, the group splintered after the first adventure and Nimby became one of the lost characters in the game.  One session he was there stealing apples and the next Luke found a good-bye message in his bag.  It was an odd parting that Luke accepted by rationalizing that Nimby might have been killed in the adventure, so it was better for his friend to be safe.  It also left me with a halfling thief who was integral to the first book and the beginning of the second book, so I had to rewrite Nimby to allow him to continue on in the book.  With him, I took an interesting approach because he was a thief.  He retained the original persona, but I started having incidents where a darker, more cunning Nimby would rear his head.  It was like he had a switch in his head that he would flick if he needed to turn off his moral compass.  It was a surprising change in character that Nimby seemed to take to with an unsettling amount of ease.

New Addition– This was really lacking since I wrote the original a month before Beginning of a Hero came out.  At the time, I didn’t have much else to say because I knew Nimby was going to leave the main cast fairly quickly.  Having him return throughout the series helped give him a path that stayed in the shadows.  I liked that he was the one character that I was never sure if he’d show up as a friend or foe.  Really happy that I got to draw him into the finale as well.  Due to the game drama, I was always worried that Nimby would get cast aside and disappear.  Thankfully, he taught me how to separate a character from his role in one medium (game) and change it for another (book) without altering the whole plot.