Vineyard RPG: Director's Blog #1
Aisling Rovehnna, the crime boss origins
I entered the scene in 2020 as an open call performer to a D&D show. 6 months later: I was putting together an actual play show. I was freshly out of the military and had GM’d a single AP one shot a Candlekeep Mysteries adventure the same week the book released. I read the adventure at midnight and prepared for my first on camera GMing experience about 18 hours later.
When I first started getting involved in the channel I was eager to learn more. I found myself gravitating toward more managerial duties, production, etc. A lot of my inclination was to take everything very “seriously” because I very much was in love with the idea of theater once again being in my life. It was such a free-spirited place to exist after over a decade of regimented behavior, expectations, and gender.
I enjoyed mentorship, community, camaraderie - all of that - in the military. There was something uniquely different about it in the creative industry I was entering, though. It was just plain weird interacting with people “normally”. I remember weeping in my bed for hours because I’d misgendered a coworker. I wanted so badly to be accepted in this new group - a new community for me that might accept me for who I was.
I was not out yet. I didn’t plan on coming out. I didn’t really know. Then I saw and heard more trans stories. I kept saying “I can relate” often. Wait - why do I relate to all these trans people? Oooooh. Right.
When I came out to my wife she rolled away from me, asked me not to touch her, and we weren’t intimate ever again after that. Coming out to my wife and being rejected, then my father and being denied my identity, then ostracized by some people I thought were my friends in the Marines - 2021 was a lot.
It was around that time when I was developing that AP show and crafting this story I built of a city split into different districts. They were ruled by their respective merchant oligarchs with the law enforced by mercenaries. I included The Vineyard as a “cool idea” I hadn’t thought about too much other than: undead crime mob. There were some other factions, too.
While I retreated into playing various fem forms I had developed Aisling Rovehnna, a gender fluid crime boss. They were everything I wish I could be, wrapped up into a neat mysterious package. The AP party only encountered her once; Aisling warned the party not to take sides with a rival of theirs.
Our artists: Yorsy, Matt and Elaine (artist and Art Director) have done such a fantastic job recreating the intensity of Aisling. There’s something different from each interpretation that you’ll find in the paintings done by the artists. A new perspective on the same enigmatic figure.
I think it is important to say intentionally and meaningfully: I developed Aisling as I was introduced to queerness. For me, Aisling is a vessel for purity of purpose. They are absolutely devoted to themselves, who they are, and they’re selfish. He absolutely believes he deserves it, whatever it is. She is comfortable in every sort of presentation, masc or fem. Something I wish for myself someday.
They’re also a terrible corporate ghoul, but you know, everyone has a toxic trait.
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