Editing Christian Vanover (section)

=== "Creativity" [https://web.archive.org/web/20140226134007/http://might-and-magic.ubi.com/universe/en-GB/news/news/details-news.aspx?c=tcm%3A21-129528&ct=tcm%3A6-231-32] ===

I had already done many maps for Heroes III, as I had done for Heroes I and II, including all the writing and flavor text that players would encounter as they played. The tales of [[Xanthor]] that were posted on our community forums were also my creation, and it was a lot of fun to be able to craft each new chapter and see the immediate responses that it would generate.
 
So when the Design Lead, [[Greg Fulton]], told me he wanted to hand off another design task, I jumped at the chance without question. It turned out to be two requests, actually:
 
# Come up with names for the eight leaders of [[Erathia]].
# Write a short bio / backstory for each hero. Each of the one hundred and twenty eight heroes.
 
<nowiki>*Gulp*</nowiki>
 
Deep breaths, Christian, you can do this. But I wasn't panicked for the reason you might think. See, when it comes to writing, I can go on and on. But when it comes to names, I'm hopeless. They are my collective Achilles Heel. My own pen-and-paper character names are terrible, and it carried over to the video games that I play: a Diablo Barbarian named Smaash, who was later reborn as my Rock Band drummer. A SWTOR Bounty Hunter named Guido. I used the name Widowmaker because I was a fan of Glen Cook's excellent Black Company series. At one point I even started naming personal characters after Might & Magic characters, including [[Xanthor]], [[Korbac]], and yes, the hated Spaz Maticus (my Bothan Teras Kasi in Star Wars Galaxies).
 
What I'm getting at is that, when presented with the two tasks by [[Gregory Fulton|Greg]], I very calmly said to him, "You need to know that I'll come up with 128 character bios before I come up with 8 good names." He laughed, but not as much as he did when I had finished the bios, but still needed two more leader names. I think he took pity on me by allowing me to change the names of one of the Knight characters to [[Sir Christian]] - my most unoriginal name ever, but I wouldn't have it any other way!