Short Story Poll (May #1)

Hi everybody, I hope you enjoyed Riel's short story for April (DAMN it I should have titled it Your Lie in April... because there's a lot of lying in it...never mind)!

I just wanted to pop in and ask you all something! Riel's story was something like the 22nd short story we've done for this Patreon, woo-hoo! We are about halfway through doing a "second round" of the major characters, but the problem is, I don't think I have enough material for some of them to do a second round! (Like Caine. I know he's a bad example, being twelve, but what I mean to say is, although things have happened in their lives beyond the short stories, not a lot of it is going to be good short story material as we go on.) So I just thought I'd check in with you and see what you think about the direction of these short stories!

We can go in a couple different directions:

Direction 1: start doing mission-based short stories or fun shorts focusing on multiple characters during the time that the game is progressing (aka, the modern day). For example, what were Chase and Trouble up to when the team was at Heth Macoll? What if Blade and Red had to investigate a murder together while MC was away in Lockwood? That kind of thing.

Caveats: In order to reserve my creative energies for the main story chapters, it's likely I'd have to publish these stories in a serial manner--AKA, one or two chapters at a time every month. This would result in novella or novel-length side stories for the characters, but it also means that said stories wouldn't be done for several months--so each month you may be reading about the same set of characters and their continued adventures rather than a new character every month.

I would give readers a handful of ideas to vote on at the start of each serialization, of course. These options would range widely in both character groups, tone, and atmosphere. It would look like:

• Chase, Briony, and MC's recruit Justyn pursue a serial arsonist in Ambryn.
• Caine, Shery, and Halek struggle to throw a surprise party for Blade's birthday.
• Riel and Trouble prepare for a law tribunal to save a Shepherd officer for being persecuted by the Inquisitors.

There may even be AU ideas thrown in there, or a few may be told in an interactive format if the mood strikes me.

Direction 2: start branching out the short stories to other characters, such as the Autarch, her sons, Mimir, Prihine, Moonsilk, MC's recruits, others. This one pretty much speaks for itself!

Direction 3: continue with the current second round of short stories focusing on the main characters and their pasts, and figure things out when the round ends.

I very much look forward to your input! Of course, if one direction wins for now, that doesn't mean we can't use other directions in the future! Thank you for voting and have a great day!