A few years ago, in 2016, I began to end a home-spun comic that I had "written" since as long as I could remember. I had always drawn those comics and it was really a saddening time for me to end them and move on.

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But while those comics were breathing their last breathes, little did I know it would not truly be the end for my drawing and story-writing days...

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In the final comic book for the series, a brief cameo of a dragon was featured in the ending (even though it wasn't a main character!) I've always liked reptiles, so I tried my hand at sketching a detailed dragon claw to see if I could. Through trial and error, my attempt was successful; thus beginning a long thread of what would evolve to be Dragod Origins!

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After a few more claw sketches, I decided it was time to create a full dragon. I took great care in creating this marvelous beast, naming and classifying it as the Alibrar (al-uh-briar) dragon. The dragon was a very basic one; with four legs, a mouthful of razor-sharp fangs and a tail, but no wings. My fascination of dragons, plus my desire to draw these fantastic beasts grew greatly, which lead to hundreds (yes, you read that right!) of others, which I'd later dub the "Dragon Quest" series. 

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At its creation, "Dragon Quest" had no story; it was just a huge hoard of dragon drawings. Everyday I wanted to improve upon my drawings; my fascination growing as I continued. In turn, the amount of drawings multiplied very quickly. With my ever-growing plethora of dragons, I reasoned that certain dragons would be separated into different kingdoms where they "lived". This then ultimately lead to another greater detail in the Dragon Quest series; far from what I would've expected before! The creation of these kingdoms lead soon to the creation of Nuwaniqa, the world in which those kingdoms ruled and my dragons lived. One question then arose, "Since I created Nuwaniqa , why wouldn't it be filled with bad guys?"

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Every story has to have a bad guy, right? And a super bad bunch of evil bad guys is even better, right? Enter the Muroconi; the most slimiest, evil, twisted beings to have entered into the world of Nuwaniqa. After the inception, creation and introduction of the Muroconi to Nuwaniqa, plus the enormous amount of ferocious dragons I had, I knew that I had a good story, no less a decent book in my hands; so then I began writing, with the first Dragon Quest "book" on its way.

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A month of writing later, the first "Dragon Quest" book was complete; merely a super rough, unedited, crammed together blob of story, hand-written on folded copy paper that was stapled together (I had no computer; so improvisation and resourcefulness was key!). The story was directly based upon the Nuwaqian universe; with the dragons, the kingdoms and the Muroconi; but lacked much composition and was rather short (more like an extremely short novella!), not to mention, chock-full of spelling and grammatical errors. I continued on anyways, completing the first "book", then venturing onto a second and third, all of which were never released to the public. 

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Fast forward two years to 2020; the pandemic has already hit, shutting down my work temporally and leaving me at home with nothing to do. It had been 4 years since I began the "Dragon Quest" series and I was still creating dragons at the time, adding more Muroconi and growing Nuwaniqa's lands. With so much more time on my hands, I remembered back to the original "books" that I wrote and pondered another idea. 

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Curiosity drew to me to an in-depth research about book-publishing, the processes and how one could publish their own book to the public. The processes are extensive, dedication is necessary and hard work couldn't take a backseat; but I always like a good challenge to undertake. After much thinking and more research, I made the decision; I couldn't keep the "books" to myself, it was time to write for real and publish officially!

 

The "Dragon Quest" name was originally considered for the newly planned book; but unfortunately, due to name ownership and copyright laws, it could not be used. This lead to a pickle; what would a good book name (that could be taken more seriously and be unique)? Running through many name possibilities and mixing around titles (like Dragon Wars, The Beginning of All Wars), Dragod Origins was officially chosen and adopted as the book's title.

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Many new characters, specially-commissioned artwork, many backstories and a whirlwind of writing have been completed for Dragod Origins, the story growing everyday, just like those childhood comics I drew years ago. In some ways, it's like I've never really stopped my adventures from those humble "comic books" and stories!

 

In light of everything, thank you for reading this entire page and be looking forward to the action and adventure in "Dragod Origins; Rising Blood". I do highly recommend connecting on Instagram or Facebook; so that you stay the most up-to-date on all things Dragod Origins and Shadow Beast Publishing, which are all updates straight from myself. 

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Happy reading!

Evander Wiggins (soon-to-be published author of Dragod Origins; Rising Blood)

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