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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5405193" data-attributes="member: 59082">Like many of the above, it was a combination of things. My mother went through a big specfic craze when I was little, and has always loved myths and fairy stories. The first series I read on my own was the Chronicles of Prydain. It was based upon those works that I started drawing my own (highly derivative) maps of fantasy worlds.Not long after--this must be around '81 or '82--that some friends of my older brother gifted me with four intriguing hardcover books: the 1st edition DMG, PHB, MM, and Deities & Demigods (evidently they had lost interest in D&D when they discovered computer games...their loss, my gain!). Game over for me.Other fantasy series' solidified my interest in the genre - the Dragonlance Chronicles, the Belgariad, the Shannara books - and some movies as well, Star Wars, Star Trek (especially Wrath of Khan), Dragonslayer, and most of all, Excalibur - still one of my all-time favorite movies.But then I discovered Tolkien. I devoured The Silmarillion at age 12 and there was no looking back for me at that point. The pure joy of exploring fantasy (and science fiction) worlds, in various forms and contexts, has been a focus all of my life and manifests in different forms. I am still working on a long fantasy series that I hope to finish and publish some day; I have been role-playing--mainly D&D--on and off for the last almost 30 years; I just started teaching a class on World Building at a small private high school - the kids are loving it!So to speak of getting "hooked into the genre" is really a misnomer, a reduction of something much more important and vital than mere interest in a hobby (as I expect it is for many here). It is a discovery of my passion - most primarily for the imagination, and the worlds that the imagination can explore and create. I may not be playing D&D in twenty years (although who knows!) but I will certainly be exploring and creating imaginary worlds.</blockquote>

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