On Hardcore, Handsome and Hapless Heroes

Very much of my writing time is taken up with the wonderful grim and dark worlds of Warhammer 40k. This is all fine and groovy, because as I observed a while back, I love Space Marines. There’s a lot of pleasure to be had in writing stories about such heroic individuals, particularly when they can frequently be on the knife edge between being heroic and basically being completely mental.

There’s other kinds of heroes that I enjoy writing about. My Star Wars: The Old Republic Jedi Knight, for example, has a series of little stories attached to him and he’s always a pleasure to write for. He has this fun kind of innocence and idealism that means he’s just ripe for throwing Bad Things at. He’s a big lad (see evidence in following picture). He can take it all in his stride. But the joy of roleplaying a Jedi…