Demon Mages Timeline #0: RPGM2K (Patreon)

This one's for your eyes only, Patrons!

August 1st, 2001: After a month or so of messing around with an English patch of RPG Maker 2000 on PC, I had built up enough of a map and scenario with a old story I'd written in high school.  

But, I needed sub-bosses.  I had placeholder enemy sprites from the base game, but while playing with the scripting to have dialogue banners... the characters started to take on life of their own.  One was serious.  The middle one was flamboyant.  The last one was the tiny upstart.  I figured overwrought and fanciful names would be great for flunky bosses; "Kakziga", "Laharis" & "Tesryon."

Then, I decided to build up a side map for them, showing what they were doing while the heroes had their adventure.   And their map, a cozy little castle was where the extra-hard boss would arrive.  And as playables, they were cute generic NPC girls instead of monsters...  From their silly monster names came their cuter "real" names --

"Ziggy, Ari & Tess", their first story was tongue-planted-solidly-in-cheek RPG parody.
Three bad but-not-that-evil girls, out to get their precious castle lair back, and maybe prove themselves worthy of their name:  "The Demon Mages."

And there was a bigger story to tell...