All of my AD&D books, notes and paraphernalia have been buried in a large satchel in the back of a closet for years. I recently had need of the satchel, so I dug it out. While transferring these things to a storage box, I leafed through them for old times sake. And I found
her.Back in 2003, I was living in a small town in Arkansas and got involved in Greyhawk campaigning. This was more than 10 years before I even suspected I might be trans. I had a regular male character that I was running; but after stumbling onto the art of Luis Royo, one of his figures captured my imagination. It took some searching, but I found a cropped version of his original painting which nevertheless shows her in full, and I've put the link below.
I was crazy about this image, and developed a long and complex backstory for her. I bought a miniature and asked someone to paint it for me, intending to play her. As I was reading through the story I had concocted for this character, it was clear that she was an "alter ego"; I didn't want to simply play her, I wanted to
be her.
From what I've read in posts by a number of trans women over the last two years, running female characters is a common thing for us. I never got to run "Alia"; I wish I'd had the chance. Who knows? I might have learned about myself sooner than I did.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.luisroyo.com%2Fassets%2Fimg%2Fbooks%2Fdarkl%2F3.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.luisroyo.com%2Fen%2Fbooks%2F&docid=nC3fJ2_24yTO2M&tbnid=Bq-NxgN9QXjIbM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjElK2yksrgAhU6FjQIHbPJByAQMwjXAShfMF8..i&w=250&h=333&bih=663&biw=1360&q=luis%20royo&ved=0ahUKEwjElK2yksrgAhU6FjQIHbPJByAQMwjXAShfMF8&iact=mrc&uact=8#h=333&imgdii=ngWS_qfJsZAboM:&vet=10ahUKEwjElK2yksrgAhU6FjQIHbPJByAQMwjXAShfMF8..i&w=250
