Forget Dungeons & Dragons – I can make up my own world

I have a hard time coming up with a good story for my latest flash fiction challenge. The challenge is to create a one thousand word piece with the main character being a curious dragonborn barbarian who is a member of a travelling band and is afraid of heights.

The reason I’m stuck is that I was told this was a Dungeons & Dragons character and I have no clue what D&D really is about. I spent almost two hours Google-ing and YouTube-ing facts about the game, but now I feel even more stuck than before.

D&D is a huge made-up world. Two hours is not enough time to figure it out. There’s no way my character would not be a fraud in there. I would make up things that would leave true D&D fans scratching their heads, or, even worse, wish for my poor character to just die already!

So, here’s what I decided: screw Dungeons & Dragons. My dragonborn barbarian is still a cool character who will get his own story. But that story has nothing to do with D&D. My story happens into a world I’ll make up myself.

P.S. The picture I chose for this post is a perfect example of a reaction my story would have gotten from a D&D player. I like Boromir and I think this picture is really funny, but that’s not how I want my readers to feel.