This is a collection of short stories set in the Fantasy World. They aren't part of the main novel Rising Wind and Thunder — instead, they're pieces that grew up alongside it: scenes I sketched while writing the novel, or vignettes that surfaced while I was building out factions for the Fantasy World game. To me they feel like rows of glass jars on a shelf — some hold a single night's light, some hold a minor character who only brushes past in a single chapter of the novel, some hold nothing more than a sudden idea I didn't want to let go of.
Some of these stories began as scenes I had to cut from the novel. It happens often while writing: a passage finds its own voice halfway through, but keeping it in would disrupt the main pacing. Rather than throw it away, I move it aside and let it become its own piece, so it has room to breathe.
Others come from building game lore. After I finish writing a sect's history, martial arts, and organizational structure, a question almost always follows: what does an ordinary disciple's day look like? Who are the small people in this sect — the errand-runner, the messenger, the old master tucked away in a side hall — and what is their story? Those questions often turn into short stories.
So what you'll find here are deliberately non-protagonist points of view. The lowest-ranking "Shadow Runner" of the Kaga Clan, tracing his day from the Hour of the Tiger to the Hour of the Rat. A Shushan Punishment Hall disciple caught between sect rules and personal loyalty. A long-forgotten friendship that quietly shaped the main novel's protagonist. Each story stands on its own — you don't need to have read the novel first. But if you have, these pieces fill in the corners the main book never had time to dwell on.
More will be added over time. Whenever I hit a wall in the novel, or whenever some minor character knocks on the door asking to come out, another jar joins the shelf. To me these aren't appendices — they belong with the novel and the game, all of them slowly thickening the outline of the Fantasy World until it feels lived-in.
Pick any story below to begin. Each one is its own small world.