Hi! I’m Zolon. I’ve been writing and creating worlds for the majority of my life, starting at an early age after being introduced to Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. (I was four, my first characters were Batman and Superman, don’t judge me!). Since then, I grew up with a love of drawing maps, creating people, places, and things, and assembling living worlds and scenes around them for others to interact with. I spent my later grade-school years creating RPG systems and testing them with oft-confused but interested friends, which evolved in high school into full blown world creation, where I could often be found drawing continental and regional maps in my spare time, then writing small stories or scenarios to define the places therein.
In my adult years, this interest was often focused on creating stories specifically for TTRPGs and online roleplaying games. In my 20s, I crafted an entire setting – Isentia – originally for D&D 3.5e but eventually used in a 5e campaign I ran until just short of when COVID started. I had also built a World of Darkness campaign set in a futuristic world where humanity had abandoned the Earth, that took place entirely on a giant space station. Finally, I constructed the beginnings of a new setting intended for online play in multiple campaigns and parties, known as the Tales of Lyr’andor, where I crafted a unique and interesting world, whose races and places were told to the players through small book, scroll, and lore excerpts that drove the imagination ever onward to explore the world around them. I look back and often cite Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls, and Diablo as some of my largest influences, helping to shape my idea of what a living, breathing fantasy world should become.
My most recent years have been devoted to creating stories and concepts for cinematic and animatic writing. I’ve written the scripts, created the storyboards, and directed the production of three 10+ minute animated lore videos, which I site as some of my proudest moments. The thrill of crafting a story, writing a script, working with voice staff, animators, editors, and sound designers every step of the way to produce something that provokes real emotion, even in myself, was an unexpected joy in my long journey. I hope to turn my attention once more to creating fantasy worlds as the years go on, with the dream of one day building something that others can truly walk in, navigate, and explore.
To the beauty of endless mystery, and to secrets never told, I shall further commit myself to.
