About My Journey

Whenever I talk about the origins of my storytelling, I always start with Tolkien. For me, reading The Lord of the Rings as a boy was a transformative experience, vital to my journey. I doubt I’ll ever forget the moment, one evening not long after I’d read the trilogy, my dad solemnly handed me an issue of Time magazine, folded open to the page with Tolkien’s obituary. “Sorry, Champ,” was all he said. He hadn’t been a fan but he knew I was. He also knew I was waiting for more, and it looked like there wouldn’t be any (who could’ve known, right?).  

Tolkien’s Torch

Something was born in that moment. It wasn’t quite clear to that 12 year old version of me, but I came to realize I felt that a torch had been passed to me. I wasn’t sure how or when, but I knew I had to carry on with something Tolkien had begun. Sure, it was a distant dream, but it felt like a spiritual calling—one that I hadn’t been seeking but that my soul readily accepted.

Of course life has a tendency to get in the way of the dreams of a 12 year old, even when those dreams feel like spiritual callings. By the time I got through college and entered the workaday world, the idea of me carrying a storytelling torch had faded to fond reminiscence. But even the dreams we talk ourselves out of pursuing have a funny way of lurking in the shadows, waiting for the chance to seize us anew. In my case, the chance came as the result of a series of life-changing events.

Reawakening

It started in my fortieth year on this earth. Shortly after the milestone was reached, tragedy struck in the form of 9/11. The attack was such a shock. For me it felt like a warning of sorts, that nothing could truly be considered routine anymore. There was no such thing as “someday I’ll…” Not anymore. Just a few months later, the calling found a new way to speak up—this time more loudly and pointedly. I came in the form of a film release. In December, on its opening day, I went to see The Fellowship of the Ring—the first edition of Peter Jackson’s cinematic take on the story that had first lit the torch.

The combination caused what felt like a reawakening. It reminded me that I’d broken a vow I’d made to myself, which apparently didn’t sit so well with my subconscious. An internal restlessness was born.

All of that coincided with a series of losses in our family. My wife and I both became restive in our roles as managing partners in our business. Two short years after my 40th birthday, we sold the business and moved to our beloved Michigan hideaway.

At the time of our life-change, the question loomed: how do I go about creating something that might quell my restlessness? In what way might I possibly advance the torch as I felt I had been asked to back in 1973? At the onset I simply had no idea. It was a question that went unanswered for some years. I spent those years dabbling in carpentry and grappling with my fears. Fears like: who was I to think I could fashion a story worth anyone’s time? Let alone carrying on any sort of tradition in storytelling. How could I start something so utterly new and different so late in life?

I still occasionally have my doubts, but I’ve come to see that carrying the torch is more about striving than it is about making an impact. By diligently carrying the torch, I’ve learned that it’s about the love of keeping aglow. You have to carry it for yourself before anyone else might ever behold its light.

A Gothic Foundation

Thankfully, the calling won out over the fear, and I quietly began the research that finally incited my start. Somewhere in the recesses of memory, I recalled talking with my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Raymond—who had bought my first LOTR boxed set, with money from his own pocket (I wrote an essay on the subject)—about the Riders of Rohan. I was fascinated by the Rohirrim, and Mr. Raymond speculated that their service as fighters to Gondor may have been based on the mercenary relationships that Rome often formed with neighboring ethnic nations such as the Goths. I clung to the thought, and my interest only grew as I saw how the Goths seemed only to be cited as the barbarians who first sacked Rome. It felt like a disparaging footnote.

My research on the Goths led me to Alaric and the Battle of Frigidus. In 394 AD, Alaric committed his 20,000 Gothic warriors to the Roman campaign of Emperor Theodosius against the usurper Eugenius. At the onset of the battle, Theodosius deployed Alaric and his Goths at the fore without hesitation or caution. Though the Goths fought voraciously and the battle ended in victory for Theodosius, the Goths’ casualties are reported to have been as high as 10,000 men—half of their force. The Goths felt they had been used callously, in order to cushion the blow to Roman troops. The story goes that years afterward, when Alaric first marched on Rome, he went to demand payment for the Goths’ service (and sacrifice), which had been long promised and not forthcoming. With the Goths enroute, the emperor and his court fled the capital. Alaric laid siege, still hoping for payment, and only ordered the sacking as a last resort. I was blown away by the tale, and my research shifted into overdrive.  

So many of the epic fantasy stories I love featured the vanished glory of the some vague and distant past, and it felt like I was hot on the trail of finding that distant past. I began to recognize how right the pursuit felt. I was on the path to finding my calling—my way of carrying the torch.

So many of the elements of my storytelling spring from those early days, delving into Gothic history. The rune rings, the futhark swords, the inclusion of the Skolani, the alt-historical Black Sea region setting—they all flow from the fount of a passing remark made fifty years ago, speculating about Tolkien’s Rohirrim. Whether or not there was ever a wisp of truth to the speculation, Mr. Raymond’s gift provided a monumental and enduring blessing.

Carrying the Torch, Hoping to Pass It

A part of me has now dwelled in Dania and Pontea for nearly two decades. I have come to know dozens of characters better than most of the actual people I have encountered in this life. They have taught me so very much about myself and about the human condition. The journey has made me a better man.

As these stories have unspooled on the page, it’s always felt like striving to fulfill that fifty-year-old vow, seeking to heed the call, to carry the torch. No matter what comes of the stories themselves, the pursuit has provided me with a sense of achievement and gratitude. The time I have spent carrying the torch has imparted the glow of serenity.

Because my journey been so providential, I find myself believing that these characters and their stories will somehow find their way to the readers who need them most. And who can know? Maybe among them is someone who is meant to carry the torch on. Maybe—just maybe—that reader is you.

As it shall be,

Vaughn