A Realm Forgotten

When I was barely a teenager, my family moved to Puerto Rico for a job opportunity. My mother, despite asking us for approvals, had felt guilty about uprooting us from our home in South Florida. So when I arrived on the island I had Playstation with a copy of Legend of Legaia waiting in my new room. It was her way of helping me transition to the change of a new life, and one that really began to shape my future.

They say you always remember your first, and it was my first time really playing a RPG. It was complex, the story was extensive and everything about it itched a certain part of my brain. I loved games like Legend of Zelda and platformers but this was different. Next I would save up money to get games like Lunar, Wild Arms, Final Fantasy and Legend of Dragoon. I became obsessed.

After awhile, I learned about games on PC and we bought a desktop to put in my room. Mind you, my last experience with a computer was when I was 8 on a Windows 3.1 desktop. I really wanted to play a detective game and deleted the System 32 folder to make space. I was ridiculed by my family, another experience that would shape my persona.

I became determined to know everything about a computer, I read the manual and would look up tips & tricks in magazines. Once we got dial-up I would research how to clean the computer and ensure I always had enough space to install a game. I even took the computer apart and reassembled it just to make sure I could fix it if something went wrong. My parents were always mortified when I tinkered, fearing for the money they invested, but they allowed it so they wouldn't stifle my curiosity. Over time I would become the tech support of the family, a role that has followed me to this day.

Getting this computer though was a big purchase, one that would set me back a bit so I found clever ways to get games on it. Emulating SNES and NES games and discovering RPGs I missed as I was growing up such as Chrono Trigger and Earthbound. Eventually I got a game called Neverwinter Nights, a game that was a little complicated for me back then. I attempted to play it several times, and never found my groove with it. But I read the manual front to back and started learning about these huge fantasy worlds.

By this point, two years have passed and my parents have noticed that I was playing a lot of games. So my mom made a deal with me, read a book and get a game. She had no idea how much I already enjoyed reading, so all I asked was if I got to choose the genre. I did.

I started reading fantasy novels like the Sword of Truth and the Wheel of Time. Venturing into these worlds gave me a new appreciation for fantasy stories and I quickly became enamored with the setting. I quickly went through several novels all centered around dragons and magic. I would continue to read these types of books and continue my love for RPGs until I returned to Florida.

In high school, by recommendation of a friend, I would pick up the Legend of Drizzt series by RA Salvatore. This series would lead me into MMOs like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI Online. I wanted to experience the journey of the hero first hand, and it was a golden age for the fantasy genre. I kept hearing about tabletop games, but I never had the courage to explore pen & paper RPGs in high school. It was something that was always explained as "Once you play D&D you're a new kind of nerd. The worst kind of nerd." So I could never find others who were willing to try it.

I was so happy to finally find a group of people to play tabletop games with. And excited to continue my journey into new words. But when I decided to pick up a starter set, I was shocked to find out that the world of D&D was with me for over a decade. I consider myself rather savvy, but I tend to forget small details over time like anyone else. Reading through 10 books of the Drizzt series, it never dawned on me that it was connected to Neverwinter Nights. Let alone that both series were based in the Forgotten Realms, a Dungeons & Dragons world.

I studied the lore and rules for weeks, I wanted to create a fantastic experience when we decided to play for the first time. Our first few sessions were met with a little confusion as we learned. I ended up buying the starter set for Fifth Edition soon after that and we migrated our characters to the newly released content and off we went to our first campaign.

After a year of being the designated Dungeon Master, I wanted to keep improving our immersion with music and maps. I tried buying candles to set the tone but was met with lackluster scents or terrible quality products. So after a few campaigns, I came up with the idea of tabletop themed candles to enhance immersion. But not only good smelling scents, but peculiar ones too like dirt, grass and seedy locations. The idea was to sell them online to help pay for our ever growing D&D addiction. And that is how Aromas of Adventure was born.