When my son came home from the navy he moved in with me to get a fresh start, He told me all about a role playing game he played on board his ship with his friends to pass their little leisure time. He played D&D. He decided to make up his own world to travel in at that time. He started but never finished it.
It sounded fascinating and I was writing at the time so we worked on it together. I got to know the world of StrongArm as well as I know the US. We worked together to populate the world with goblins, troglodytes, dwarfs, elf's, dragons, and on and on. Once we had it fairly well populated with all the different tribes and animals, and with humans, kings queens, and other dictators of course. We started working out a story line.
We made many story lines from this wonderful fantasy world we created. The very first one was Hildeguard's story.
Hildeguard lived in the Black Swamp in an ancient oak tree. She was a famous female wizard. Most wizard's are male but we thought we had to give women a chance so we made Hildeguard. She lived in the upper stories of this oak tree. There was a dragon that lived in the basement, a friendly dragon that grew to protect Hilde and the Oak from attack. Hilde had her own security guards, the goblin tribe led by Gorgon.
There was only one way into the black swamp and that was by way of the troll bridge, run of course by the resident troll family. This family was the first line of defence against friend or foe.
It was rumored that Hildeguard was in possession of an ancient magical scroll and many wandering adventures would try to do battle trying to capture this scroll, there was a Kings ransom for anyone who managed to get this artifact.
My son and I collaborated on these story's and it was our escape from the trials of day to day life. We would sit and talk about this place like it was our hometown, one time in a coffee shop we were discussing a minor point in the story and some friends came in and wondered who we were talking about. It was that real for us.
My son moved away, I lived in New York State at the time and he was moving to Florida with his new family. He had gotten married and had 3 children. He gave me all the rights to StrongArm and stories and wondered if someday they would be published. I still have the stories but never tried to publish them.
My son is gone now, he died a horrible tragic death 3 years ago. In honor of him and in remembrance of him, I have kept Hildeguard alive in this small way. Hildeguard is as much a part of me as my own name, maybe more so.
That is how my shop got its name. Lair means home, not built by man, a natural home built by nature. And so Hildeguard is still alive today and inhabits HildeguardsLair.
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4 comments:
Hildeguard--thank you so much for sharing your story! The worlds we make with our dear ones are the best retreats of all, I think. I'm sure your son is still there in some way when you visit Strongarm.
Thank you for sharing your name's story! I am so sorry for your loss! It is wonderful how you are keeping the stories alive with your shop, it's sweet (: I would really love to read some of these stories, if you'd like to share!
I'm sorry for your loss, but you are not at total loss by keeping this alive through this name. Thanks for sharing this. I hope that one day those stories will be published. Because I love to read and Fantasy stuff is just one of my faves to read. Along with romance lol. But when I read the first part I was so into it. You have a good nature for telling a good story. Flow with that.
Hugs to you.
I LOVE that you wrote a story with your grownup son.
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