This One Epic I Know

                       It has occurred to me that if people *cough*AuntVivi*cough* want to get to know me through my writing, I should probably spend some time talking about Ironheart.  You see, about four and a half years ago, while I was still attending College of St. Benedict in Minnesota, I started looking for online Dungeons & Dragons games to join.  I had been introduced to the game by a college friend, but no one on campus (that I knew of) had the time and motivation to run one.  So I turned to play-by-post internet forums, hoping to gain enough experience with the system that I might be comfortable running a game myself.  As it turned out, I did find and join a number of short-lived play-by-post D&D games online.  I also found Escape from Ironheart.
                       Escape from Ironheart was a free-form role-playing game, loosely placed in a D&D setting, but with no dice rolls and a much higher emphasis on characterization and storytelling.  It had already been running for six months, but due to several players dropping out, the DM, or storyteller, was looking for fresh meat  players to round out the group.  The concept was that Ironheart was the name of a prison, and all the players were prisoners attempting to Escape from Ironheart.  I submitted a character, Pyrene the Temptress, and was accepted into the game.
                       Little did I know, I was embarking on a literary journey that would last for years, meeting people who would become good friends despite, in most cases, never knowing each-other's real names.  There was Umber, one of the seven original vampires on a mission to save the love of his life.  Little Mar, an amnesiatic archangel trapped in a child's body.  Tare, the thief with a heart of gold and hidden powers.  Korram, a revolutionary who gave up his own arm for the power to oppose an evil ruler.  Ander, a holy paladin the gods returned from beyond the grave to cleanse the corrupt church.  And Sohssal, a mage who's search for immortality lead him to steal power from demons.
                       Together we wrote our way through Escape from Ironheart, and discovered that we had actually completed only the first part of a trilogy in the mind of Inspectre, the masterful storyteller who had woven our disparate tales together.  Invested as we were by then in the characters and the overarching plot, we all chose to continue.  As of this writing, we have completed the second part of the trilogy, Flight from Ironheart, and are a few months into the final installment, Return to Ironheart.  Other players have joined us, some only to fall away again, others staying for the long haul.  Those of us who have continued together have become a family of sorts, supporting each other through life events big and small, good and bad.
                       I have enormous respect for Inspectre and all my fellow players.  Every one of them has awed and inspired me with their writing.  Knowing them has challenged me to keep pushing the boundaries of my own ability, and for that I will be forever grateful.