First, I hope everyone enjoyed the August Interviews.  I had a long month without much activity on social media.  The heat and kid being home left me drained.  I still am, so it might be a while before I recover.  All of my energy will be going toward the new project, which is why I don’t have a Tuesday Teaser.  With luck, I’ll have one next week that reveals the city of Nevra Coil.

Second, I’m really sorry to all the body who volunteered to help and have been waiting and/or forgot they volunteered.  Next time, I’ll be getting volunteers after I get everything and probably even after the release.  Other projects got big, time ran away from us, and it’s just been one of those years.  Hopefully when I get everything and send out the email, I don’t get a bunch of confused responses.  Now on to the real post:

Project Phoenix . . . Ducks the rotten fruit hurling

This is my W.I.P. albatross.  I can’t get it to work, but I can’t let it go.  So many characters and stories in here.  It is about superheroes and used to be its own world, which I called Super Earth.  Now it’s part of Windemere and these superheroes are known as Mylrixians who mysteriously disappeared.  They get a mention in one of the Legends of Windemere books, so I’m dedicated to the storyline where they’re revived.  The only problem is how to do it and carry the story.

The problem is that this is a huge cast and multiple stories, which have enveloped others over time.  I won’t waste time listing it.  The best examples are that it’s been in the form of a 19 book series and an unconnected set of books during its evolution.  One thing that has always been consistent is that I focused predominantly on the group and every hero got his/her own adventure.  The current thought process is that I might have been stretching myself too thin.  What if I choose one hero and had everything revolve around their actions?  Who would I choose out of the army of superheroes?

Heroes Unlimited from Palladium

My mind immediately went to a character who came out of a college project called Mutant Wrestling Federation.  My roommate, Tom, and I made this for our college’s first role-playing convention using a system called Heroes Unlimited.  The test run was a disaster, so we developed more rules and teamed up with another friend, Matt.  Each of us had our signature characters and Matt was one called Savior who was based on a wrestler named Hurricane Helms.  Matt played this character so amazingly well that we kept wanting him to do it.  Then I gave Savior a book and made him a new hero in a city overrun by villains.  He became tech-based and used a suit to manipulate gravity, which he figured out as he went along.  I’d already made an X-Men and Avengers type of series, so this was my Spider-Man level.  That’s kind of where Savior stayed when he wasn’t wrestling until I had him get absorbed by Project Phoenix.  Suddenly, an interesting evolution began with other people taking up the mantle at times.  There was even a future one with the Savior League, which acted like the Green Lanterns and Nova Corps.  Even when I brought him over to Windemere, the only thing that changed was that Savior became a gnome.  The suit, stumbling onto it in a city of villains, and the desire to save others stayed the same.  His Rogues Gallery is pretty immense too from superpowered thieves to assassins and even a corrupt Judge/Crime Lord who takes on the role of arch-enemy.

Now, how can Savior the street level hero be the focus of something much bigger than his city?  I haven’t figured that out.  Sacrifices might have to be made.  The Mylrixians might even end up debuting in a second book after Savior establishes himself and gets involved in their revival.  Maybe they’re back and he dons the suit to figure out what’s going on, but that goes back to focusing on them.  After that, he could be called to their team or they could be supporting cast in his adventures.  The alien bounty hunter is another who can get a book with Savior, but that’s fairly easy to do.  I’ll be doing a lot of chopping and maybe spread out his enemies.  Unlike other Windemere heroes, Savior will be taking his opponents alive so that will be an extra challenge.

What if I have the Mylrixians show up in a later book?  As I hinted, there are several people who take up the mantle of Savior.  I won’t say what happened to the original, but he is called the ‘First Savior’ for a reason.  Maybe his time ends with the revival of the Mylrixians and a new one steps up for a bit to keep the legend going.  I wanted to do a ‘Battle for the Name’ storyline with multiple Saviors running around to prove they’re worthy to be the only one.  That might have to be how a third one shows up though and my head is spinning.

People who read this far might see the issue.  I don’t know how to fit the Mylrixians into the Savior mythos.  Him into their world is easy, but this would be like fitting the Avengers into Spider-Man’s stories.  It’s been confusing to say the least even though it feels like the right move.  Maybe I’ll take out all of the smaller Mylrixians and put them in earlier, so it’s only the heavy hitters that make their appearance like Samson, Eryx, and Gearhead Princess.  I’m still looking at a huge cast though.  Tomorrow might be the day I sit down and try to write all of the characters that I remember.  Whoever I have to look up will be tossed aside unless it’s only a name check.  It’s entirely possible that I can categorize the baddies into debut book and then the one where Savior is more established.  Be nice if I can drop this from over 20 books to even 10.

Sorry about the rambling post.  Didn’t realize it went for that long.