The Raven's Apprentice - Afterword

Once again, I thank you for joining me for another Wyrd Tale, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Raven's Apprentice has a lot of history behind it. 

Gwen was my first serious Sims character. She started out as a teenage witch and changeling, living in Willow Creek with Doug and Lilian Brown. Her romantic relationship with premade Cassandra Goth came as a total shock to me but the two fell madly in love at first sight. I've actually played through several iterations of Gwen and Cassie meeting, falling in love, growing up and living their lives... starting new games but always playing versions of these same, now beloved, characters... before the playthrough that resulted in Wyrd Girls. 

A while ago now, I was having a lot of trouble with my Sims game being very glitchy. I was concerned that I was going to have to abandon my long running save, which would have meant losing Miranda and her world. Not wanting to give up on writing, I considered starting a new game and returning to Gwen and Cassie's teen years. Fortunately, I was able to resolve my issues and keep Miranda's story going, but the idea of returning to Gwen and Cassie's teen years stuck in my mind.

So, when I finally decided to write Raven's Apprentice I had a bunch of established material in my head. Ari's (Gwen's mom) habit of going back to university every few generations was actually something that I had an immortal Cassandra do in an earlier playthrough.

At the same time, since those first games, I had developed new ideas and there were new game expansions to play with.

Carmilla and Molly both came into being out of new expansions. I decided that, since I was working on a teen story, I would finally break down and get the High School Years expansion. Molly is a premade Sim from that expansion. Carmilla was a "child" of the Goth Galore clothing pack. Cas, after all, needed some friends. So were the current iteration of the Weird Girls of Buckingham High born. 

The inclusion of ghosts and séances goes back to the earliest versions of Gwen and Cas's story. Paranormal Stuff was one of the first expansions I picked up. Cas and Mortimer as mediums dealing with haunted houses was one of the first things I ever did with them. Bringing the other Weird Girls into the story was a natural progression.

The idea of the Goth family butler came out of another expansion, though since I don't like the way it handles butlers, I just made and played my own. So, Edwards came into being. After much thought about how "clued in" he might be to the whole supernatural and secret agent worlds I decided that Edwards wasn't a spy or a magical being. He is just simply the butler... which means naturally he knows everything about what's going on and supports his family with grace and dignity.

After a long time refusing to include Aliens in the Wyrd'verse (because I didn't want to get Science Fiction in my Fantasy) I came up with a way that worked in my own mind (thanks in part to a short story by Jim Butcher). Gwen sees the aliens as svartalves, creatures of magic and artifice, and the aliens see Gwen and the other witches as psychokinetic actives. The truth of either view ultimately being a matter of perspective (though I personally favor Gwen's point of view). Once I decided to include aliens, the character of Doctor Key and his sinister plans concerning Portals came pretty easily and Raven's Apprentice was the perfect place to explore them.

This story was also a chance to explore Bella Goth and redeem her in my own mind. I had long ago decided that she was Cas's stepmom because their Sim ages (Young Adult and Teen) were too close for me to reconcile Cas as her biological daughter.  Beyond that, I confess, my original take on Bella was in line with teen Cas's originally less charitable view... that she was a big chested, gold-digging bimbo who was taking advantage of Mortimer. However, digging around in old Sims lore I came across the idea that Bella was an alien abductee... and since I was bringing aliens into the story, I started exploring that. Connecting her to Doctor Key was immediately obvious. The result was a much more interesting Bella Goth... alien hybrid, secret agent and redeemed villainous minion... who I really enjoyed writing. 

Finally, I'd like to mention a very special character - Lucius Tempest. Lucius has probably the longest history of all my characters in this story. He started many, many years ago as my own character in an Ars Magica tabletop roleplaying game. That Lucius Tempestus was a scholarly wizard who specialized in weather magic. Sadly, that game ended long ago but Lucius's memory endured, not the least because I used his name as a username for email accounts and gaming forums... including the Sims forum, where my username is luciusstorm. When I got active in that forum, I made a "Sim-self" (a Sim version of myself) to be my forum avatar and naturally named him Lucius. With Raven's Apprentice I finally decided to really incorporate him into my Wyrd'verse. In doing so, I also answered a nagging question - who was Gwen's real father? I am, naturally. 

I wove together all of these elements with the established backstories and lore from earlier Wyrd Tales and so was born Raven's Apprentice. 

I really enjoyed the process.

With Raven's Apprentice finished, I'm once again going to take a little break, play the Sims and contemplate my next story.

Wyrd Tales should return on August 28th, 2024. 

I hope you will join us.

PS - Oh, the epilogue? We'll talk more about that later. :)