Castle Zierath: the real world beginnings

Over the last two decades, I have been creating a world. It is a world of magic and mystery; of heroes and monsters; of idealized societies and the nasty falls from grace.

The first time I used the phrase 'Castle Zierath' was in connection to a tutoring group I had in 1992. I was looking for a theme for my group to create cohesion. It was my 3rd summer of working at the Upward Bound program, and while my groups the first two years were okay, they didn't have the closeness that I saw in some of the other groups.

I was in a new location for me that year. It was a corner in the library with lots of tables and study carols. Never being one to leave furniture where the powers-that-be put it, I shifted things around and created two walls out of the study carols. We started creating titles for ourselves - Lord Zierath, Countess Kuker, the Earl of Carlin, and the Duchess of Minger. We started having a lot of fun with the whole thing. I drew a little 'drawbridge control' on a 3x5 card with large red dots, and the words 'Up,' 'down,' 'locked,' and 'inside out' on it. The only time we hit the 'inside-out' button was when we tore apart our little Castle at the end of the summer. I have Paul Carlin and Angel (Kuker) Dietz to thank (or blame) for getting me started on Castle Zierath.

The idea of Castle Zierath bloomed, and I used it for many years. Usually, it helped with the cohesion of the group - although I did have a year where nothing I did built cohesion. The students were just way to different.

The ideas kept flowing. We created the ideal 'us' in the world, and made ourselves essentially immortal. We wrote down our adventures, and we added maps and more to the world. We even created a card game for Castle Z. We just kept having it grow.

Nick O'Hollearn was the one who asked me why I didn't start writing a book, and with his and Melanie Hoffner's urging, I did. For more information on that, you can take a look at my earlier blog commentary on my struggles with that.

The world has grown in complexity and history. The timeline is thousands of years old, and I have a writer's guidelines partially done. I'm also trying to get a Castle Zierath wikipage going; I have the site -i just need someone with wiki expertise to help me get going on that. I have incorporated many of the old games I played in high school and college into the world as well, adding more to that history.

I hope to continue working on the world, and really hope to introduce to more people who will love it and want to bring some of their own ideas to it, just as many of my students, friends, and family have. As I look back at my relationship with Kath, my wife, one of the things that really cemented our feelings for each other is when she and I co-created the history of the elves - or the Rhys - in the world, which led me then to the 'immortal humans' or Imrhys. Kath came up with the names of these characters.

Sometime this month, I'll also talk about the Zierath Alliance Creative Consortium - another dream that I have, but I have babbled on enough for this day. Thanks for reading!