The Warrior, the Healer, and the Thief inspirations

So The Warrior, the Healer, and the Thief, started out as a simple idea. I wanted to write a poly story and I wanted the characters ‘roles’ to be based off of RPG/D&D character classes. To make it a bit more interesting, I wanted the characters to be useless in their class (i.e. a healer that cannot heal, a thief afraid of the dark, a non-typical warrior)

This is about where my idea ended. I tried different genders, different fantasy worlds, but nothing seemed to stick. Then Less Than Three Press put out a call for a western collection and I wondered if I could finally flesh out my idea. 

Thus was born the magical western lesbian polyamory romance.

When I created the world, naturally I needed to incorporate magic. (I mean, being inspired by D&D means this is a requirement) I wanted a variety of magical users whose classification wasn't entirely based on types of magic, but more like the culture and family they were born from. Mages and healers and witches and voodoo. I also wanted monsters but I didn't want to take entirely from European myth. So I started picking from Native American myth and American folklore.

Fun fact # 1: Speaking of mythical creatures featured in the novel, hodags are from Wisconsin and the legend started based on an old timey ‘photoshop’ picture of one. 

Also sharp tongues are my own mythical creation based on a short story you can read here.

I spent a long time agonizing over what sort of western setting I wanted to use. From the Oregon trail, to the transcontinental railroad, to cattle herding in Texas or frontier farming int he Dakotas. I watched all of Ken Burns The West and fell in love with all of them, haha.

I picked a typical Oregon trail setting, if only because it would be easier to bring different characters together. It was a time when the west was still relatively fresh and untouched by European influence and I had played the game, Oregon Trail, too much as a child.

Fun fact # 2; if I had used the transcontinental railroad someone would have definitely been a Chinese immigrant. Possibly Chase. Ahh, perhaps for a spin off…

Throughout the book I learned a lot of things. Not only what it means to write a poly romance, but also how writing three people falling in love is exponentially more complicated than two people. I'm also just not very good with more than two main characters, haha.

I'm hoping to one day get started on a sequel.