Inspiration

The inspiration of the Astarnian Legendarium comes from many sources. While I try to not steal and make everything as unique as possible, I draw inspiration from many different genres and find myself rejecting some for not being unique enough. They say every story has been written and every work is a variation on the same theme. So I want my variation to stand out, but I'd be lying if I were to say that all of this is 100% in all way shape and form original.

No one is. J.R.R. Tolkien borrowed from a lot of Norse mythologies (Gandalf was based on Odin.)   G.R.R Martin borrowed from a lot of European History (the Red Wedding of A Storm of Swords was inspired by the Black Dinner) and Warhammer borrowed from Tolkien. The trick is to make your own story, especially out of what you borrow, because as I said, every story has been written.

LEGOs
So it begins of course with LEGOs.

Suzetta Kernohan
Suzetta underwent the most change of any other character. The idea for writing a thief/assassin character came from my World of Warcraft Rogue, who is a blood elf named Suzette. Suzette is a pointy-eared, glowy-green eyed character with her brown hair decorated with a head band (not the hideous pompadour headband, the other one.)  And she of course, belongs to WoW and Azeroth, not Astarnia.

When I added Suzette to the story, I hadn't decided she'd be a protagonist, though I had some ideas in mind in that direction. In the early brainstorms, she was an elf and she still wore a headband, but her eyes were blue and didn't glow and her ears are pointed, but not to the ludicrous extreme of the elves of Azeroth. However I decided I wanted her and Taeryn, a human, to be romantically involved and I decided there'd be no interspecies sex. That raised too many questions so I axed the idea of hybrids all together.

Suzette became a human. Furthermore, she was now a Darincedonian, rather than an Illyaran or a Paerian (I forget which.)  The headband disappeared as well. I started thinking, why is she a thief? So I gave her a sad story. She was an orphan fending for herself, and with her skills, she found herself in the Syndicate. Now I had a start on the character, I knew where I wanted to go with her.

And finally, I decided Iiked the name better with an 'a' at the end, so she became Suzetta.

Trystan
Trystan was inspired by Conan the Barbarian. He's a completely different character, different personality, different world, but like Conan, Trystan goes about on many independent adventures. Stories can be read in any particular order and they'll always, for the most part, make sense, as no one story will have any real effect on another. Trystan, like Conan, travels the world, going from one adventure to the next.