Book One: The Dragonrider
Our tale begins with a man. A man known by many aliases; The Beardman, Beardy, Shirraco, That One Video Gamer, The Completionist but, he is most known as Jirard Khalil, the Dragonrider! His family hails from the Middle-Earth, where they rode many of those mythical beasts.
However, reader, we know he does not dwell there now, for on the fifth day after his first name day he took upon his mighty dragon, named Raftina, and flew into the West, the land once new and having many mythical names but it’s most recent incarnation it has been dubbed “‘Murica!”, a name that must always be shouted to the heavens, to a town only known for the abbreviation of L.A.
His journey to L.A. was most perilous, the Sun beating upon his brow made him see visions of men of meat who threw themselves into walls only to rebound and bounce onto a higher ledge, ever leaping at his heels. His nights fared no better, as his dreams where filled with the constant temptations of the harlot demon known as Kat-herine, The Dragonrider would question his dreams, his motives, though Raftina was always there for him as they flew closer to ‘Murica, always telling him “Yes, you can. Yes, you will make it.”
Once set foot in the land of L.A., the Beardman was stranded, for dragons cannot sustain themselves for long in ‘Murica and Raftina had to return back to her family in the heavens. But the Completionist was still young, and had much to learn and this is where we find his Beard Brother, Alex Faciane the All-Knowing, the coily Proofist!
Book Two: The Beard Brothers
The Dragonrider spent many of his younger years in the Higher Seats of learning, however unbeknownst to him, his fellow Beard Brother, Alex, was in the very same building learning similar skills but it wasn’t for many years later before they would unite under the Banner of the Beard and make us all the wiser.
The Learned One spent much of his life rearing and raising dangerous monsters found in the tall grasslands surrounding his Uncle Blaine’s house of the coast on the Isle of Cinabar, pitting them against wild beasts that would threaten his and his family’s home. But he grew thirsty for knowledge and lyrical tones, passed the baton to another to defend his ancestral home and joined Shirraco in the Great Library of Learning, studying the under bards and the technomagi to astound all, but what stood out about the Great Thinker was his ability for research and his penmanship, later keeping a public journal of his escapades into the infamous digital world via the forgotten routes that only a few independents remember, much feared by the larger houses such as the Electrotium Assinorum and the mysterious Ubiquitus Software.
His career as a bard is somewhat unique, playing in part with others in a group named after the Cephalopods of the order Teuthida. Now, reader, I am afraid I know very little of his life as a bard, but his life as a Scholar, sharing the history and techniques is raising the beasts he had when he was but a lad, with the aid of his partner that simply goes by the name of Kellz.
When the Learned One and the Dragonrider first started making their work known amongst the many other Ell-Peers on the underground train network called Yew, as it grew in popularity it wasn’t long before another joined them in their struggle to create media to entertain the masses.
Book Three: Deluxe!
No one really knows where the creature called ‘Greg’ came from, it is often speculated that he may have sprung up from a hole in the ground, born with chin down alopecia as a defence mechanism to look less threatening.
More-so, it is said that he may have been mentally scarred by some form of bear, or some say a large purple feline, and this explains his exclamations of “BEARS” and “BIG THE CAT,” much to the annoyance of The Completionist.
Despite this though, Greg, often called The Mediocre-ist, has been lauded for his voice, having a quality that made this young man able to form up with another group of bards that call themselves “Long Black Shadows.” However, his ability to edit together vox recordings of them all has long since gained him prestige amongst the Proofist and Completionist, his antics bringing smiles to their faces and ours.
Book Four: The Struggle
Now, dear reader, these three gentlemen have entertained us for nearly a year, at the time of writing, and hopefully many more to come. They have taken us on journeys through a land where one constantly moves at the speed of sound, into the stars with anthropomorphic bipedal space jet pilots, into an ancient time in the Wild West where guns are outlawed and monsters roam the land. They were given a tour through a vast land of plumbing pipes and mushrooms by an honorary Beard Brother named Davis.
This land of pipes was not let alone for long, as they started following a group of heroes led by a ‘Marree-Oh.’ We have returned to the stars once again, to a planet filled with strange xenos creatures following a female bounty hunter in a suit of incredible, and upgradable, power armour! We’ve seen them through a chapter where they followed a young cyborg child that rained death upon others of its ilk, and most recently... We’ve seen The Completionist, Proofist and Mediocre-ist struggle on an isle name Kong, where they aid an ape named after an ass in the retrieval of his lost horde of bananas.
These are the stories they find for us, create for us, so far. They let us experience what they see and feel and we gain some knowledge in the process. It’s been almost a year, and reader, I truly mean it when I say I happily yearn for what is to come next.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jirard ‘Dragonrider’ Khalil the Completionist, Alex, nephew of Blaine, the Proofist and Greg. This is just a small fraction of their tale, with many exciting adventures to come yet.