Dialogue used in missions and cutscenes for multiple RTS titles
Dialogue used to give personality to AI players in skirmish or multiplayer matches on multiple RTS titles
Research and writing used for thousands of lines of history text for multiple RTS titles
Enitirely responsible for the 'Encyclopedia' in Age of Empires III - wrote (or managed the writing of) every entry, including handling the .xml files that made the information accessible within the game
Invented and expanded the Atlantean mythology for Age of Mythology: The Titans
"Tips from the Designer" for strategy guides on multiple RTS titles
Unpublished Writings
Completed two NaNoWriMo novels, one individually and one collaboratively
The NaNoWriMo Challenge: 50,000 words in 30 days (usually November)
The NaNoWriMo Motto: No Plot, No Problem! (the point is simply to write)
Run and play in a number of forum-based pen-and-paper RPGs
Writing Samples
Dialogue (Halo Wars, Mission 10 - Homecoming) In this mission the Spirit of Fire (your ship) is being drawn against her will into the belly of an alien planet. Several platoons of Marines are still deployed on the surface. The player has to clear the way for them to return before the Spirit is out of reach. There is a timer on screen indicating when the Spirit will lose touch with the surface.
Intro Cutscene - The characters Serina (the ship's AI) and Captain Cutter (the ship's Captain) set the stage for action!
SERINA
Three platoons inbound. Designating them Alpha, Bravo and Charlie.
CUTTER
Red Team?
SERINA
They're with Charlie, Sir. (sees the enemy) Uh, that could be a problem.
CUTTER
Serina, see if you can buy us more time. Sergeant, break through that line for our Pelicans.
CUTTER
We can't evac those trapped Marines until the air is clear. Let's be about it, people!
During gameplay -
Later on the characters discuss an energy field Serina has found.
SERINA
Captain, those pylons down there are generating the field we're in.
CUTTER
Can you shut them down?
SERINA
Way ahead of you, Sir. Forge, I'm sending you a new toy, a Gremlin. Drive it over to that pylon.
The Gremlin has an Elecro-magnetic Pulse attack which fires when the player puts it in position.
FORGE
Gremlin in position. EMP in 3, 2, 1.
Gremlin emits EMP blast near the pylon.
SERINA
Recalculating speed of descent... (lighthearted) carry the four, and... we might just make it!
Three of my favorites from the Age 3 Encyclopedia. This information is available from the Main Menu or from within the game if you have something selected. There were over 400 such entries. I wrote over 90% of the entries at a pace of 20-25 a week for around 3 months.
Capybara
Game Information:
This animal can be hunted for Food by a gatherer - Settlers, Coureur du Bois, Settler Wagons and Cree Coureurs.
About Capybara:
Scientific Name: Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris
Approx. Size: 4' long; about 80 pounds
Diet: grasses, bark and river plants
The name capybara is a Tupi-Guarani word translating to 'grass eater.' The capybara is the largest living rodent. It has sparse, bristly fur and partially webbed feet. They are excellent swimmers, able even to sleep underwater so long as their noses are above the surface. They live in herds that keep to riverbanks and water, hiding from predators by swimming away when they can. Catholic settlers to South America found the capybara and wondered if the strange water-loving animal was okay to eat during Lent (a time when no meat can be eaten, but fish is acceptable) and the Church, fearing the loss of such distant and endangered followers if they said no, classified the capybara as a fish, a decision that has never been reversed.
Carib
The Carib people are believed to have migrated from the rainforests of modern Venezuela to several of the more eastern and southern islands in the Caribbean, which takes its name from this tribe. They were skilled dugout canoe builders and had the use of sails. They were the fiercest warriors in the area, adept with the blowgun and bow and arrow. Unlike the more peaceful neighboring tribes they displaced, the Carib culture valued the exploits of warriors most highly. The Spanish tended to avoid Carib-controlled islands after a number of early skirmishes.
Carib cannibalism was reported by Columbus and other Spanish explorers, and may have been a part of their religious rituals and war practice. In 1503 Queen Isabella of Spain ruled that cannibals could be taken legally for slaves, providing an incentive to identify potential laborers as such.
By the seventeenth century other European nations wanted the Carib islands for sugar plantations and the local population was almost annihilated. In 1796 the British deported most of the remaining 5,000 Caribs to an island off Honduras. They spread from there into the mainland and survive today in Guatemala and on a reservation in Dominica. Words of Carib origin that remain in common use today include hammock, iguana, and hurricane.
Game Information:
The Surgeon is a unit that heals other units. It has a minimal hand attack, but may heal other units at a short range. Units cannot be healed if they are engaged in combat.
Surgeons are sent from Home City and cannot be trained in the New World. Units will regenerate their health on their own while they are idle, but Surgeons accelerate their recovery considerably. Surgeons may also construct a Field Hospital. The Hospital is a special building that swiftly heals nearby units.
About Surgeons:
Battlefield surgery in the Napoleonic era is some of the earliest modern surgery and was focused chiefly on amputating severely broken or damaged limbs. Some surgeons advocated immediate amputation to take advantage of the effects grievous wounds had on the body - numbness around the injury and the low blood pressure brought on by shock. Removing a limb required shutting off as much blood flow to the limb as possible by the application of tourniquets. A knife cut away the flesh in what would later become a stump. Arteries were then clamped off and a bone saw would make quick work of a femur or tibia. Arteries were then stitched closed, the wound bandaged, covered and left to heal.
Dominique Larrey was a pioneer in battlefield surgery, the first to use ambulances to bring first aid to soldiers in battle and the first to use triage in determining which wounded to evacuate. He participated in dozens of battles with the French armies and was eventually made a baron by Napoleon.
This is part of the intro post of a forum-based D&D game that I ran in the latter part of 2007 through the release of D&D 4th Edition in 2008. It introduces the NPC (Annya) who at the campaign’s start had joined the PCs in the guise of a mercenary employed by one of the PCs.
From THE BALESTAR RISES...
A cloaked figure moved along the battlements, wind-driven ice gathering in the folds of furs and wool. The figure carried no weapon, save a lantern against the dark, and moved with purpose between the guardsmen posted at their watches along the high cold wall of Blackstone Keep, Shield of Northron Lights. At the next posting the figure paused, the pair of guardsmen there straightened to attention, pausing in their patrol to meet the figure.
The cloaks and furs parted to reveal the slim figure of a woman, almost a girl, with long dark braids and large brown eyes. Annya, called the Doe, beloved youngest daughter of Lord Sterne of the Blackstone. Beloved for her compassion and care for the fighting men of Blackstone Keep. In addition to the lantern, Annya carried a heavy iron pot, swathed in woolens to better keep its heat. Inside was a concoction of watered kaff, butter, rum and spices. A relief she’d volunteered as a child to bring to the men on watch. Then, it had been a way to stay up beyond her bed time. Now, it was a tradition, one of many such, that endeared her to the men sworn to her father’s banner. She put down the lantern and held the pot out, eyes flicking briefly to the first guard.
He smiled and shook the ice from the metal cup at his hip as he held it out. She smiled in return, eyes dropping to the pot and the steaming brew she poured. So she did not see the black-fletched arrow strike the other guardsman, still watchful at his post. It took him in the throat. Other arrows flew, cracking against the stone. One struck the pot in her hand. Another, her chest. A red stain grew, spreading across the gray wool of her dress, blooding the white kriffins of her father’s crest. Annya, called the Doe, beloved youngest daughter of Lord Sterne of the Blackstone, cried out as she fell, her blood mixing with the kaff, quickly cooling, surrendering heat to the night.
The Lights were dancing above, and in the east, unblinking, the Balestar rose.
