The Birth of Zzzodd

How a Dream‑Realm Grew from Sleepless Nights, Fatherhood, and Quarantine

Every mythos begins with a moment… sometimes a lightning bolt, sometimes a slow, shimmering drift of inspiration. For me, the world of Zzzodd began in the quiet hours of early fatherhood, long before it ever became a game, a novel, or the creative heartbeat of Influenced Chaos Publications.

In October 2019, my twins were born, the youngest of five. Their arrival reshaped my world in ways I could never have predicted. Only a few months later, COVID‑19 swept across the globe, and like so many families, ours was thrust into a strange new reality. My wife and I had just swapped roles: she stepped into full‑time healthcare work, and I became a stay‑at‑home, homeschool dad… after years of working 60‑hour weeks. She then spent the first nine months of the pandemic in a self‑imposed quarantine to protect our newborns, leaving me to navigate the beautiful, bewildering chaos of raising five children in isolation.

Those days were exhausting, surreal, and unexpectedly magical. When you’re running on little sleep, juggling diapers, lesson plans, and the emotional weight of a global crisis, your mind starts to wander into strange places. Mine wandered into dreams.

From those dreams, Zzzodd began to take shape.

A Dream‑Realm Born from Real‑World Chaos

Before Zzzodd ever had a name, it existed as a feeling: a blend of wonder, fear, imagination, and the strange logic of dreams. I had spent years as a Dungeon Master, weaving stories behind a well‑worn screen, guiding adventurers through perilous quests in Dungeons & Dragons and Changeling. Those years sharpened my instincts for world‑building and narrative play.

But this time, the storytelling wasn’t happening at a table. It was happening in the living room: on the floor, between bottles and homeschool worksheets. My older kids needed an outlet. I needed one too. So, we created one together.

We started inventing bedtime stories: tales of sentient toys, mischievous monsters, and dream‑logic landscapes stitched together from the imaginations of children. Those stories became the earliest seeds of what would eventually grow into the fractured dreamworld now known as Zzzodd, a place where childhood dreams and dangerous nightmares coexist, and where imagination itself shapes reality.

From Playtime Experiments to a Family‑Built Mythos

As the pandemic stretched on, these stories evolved into something more structured. My kids and I began shaping them into a roleplaying game; one designed specifically for younger children, because during COVID I discovered just how few RPGs were accessible to them. That realization sparked a quest of my own: if the game we needed didn’t exist, we would build it ourselves.

Those early sessions were chaotic, hilarious, and wildly creative. Rules were invented and discarded on the fly. Characters were born from stuffed animals, snack foods, and whatever happened to be lying on the floor. But something special was happening: we weren’t just passing time… we were building a world together.

That world was Zzzodd.

When a Game Became a Novel

Eventually, the stories we created: those improvised adventures, bizarre encounters, and triumphant moments began to pile up. They formed a kind of dream‑sediment, layers of imagination pressed together until they resembled something bigger. Something book‑shaped.

That’s when I began writing Defenders of Zzzodd: Dreamers Return, the first novel set in this dream‑realm. It follows Leah (originally ten and based upon my middle child), a fifteen‑year‑old girl pulled into Zzzodd by the monster under her bed, where she discovers a world shaped by imagination and threatened by an ancient horror known as the Fragmented Master.

What began as a coping mechanism: a way to stay sane, stay connected, and stay creative during the most uncertain period of my life, became a mythos. A family-built universe. A place where dreams don’t just reflect reality… they create it.

Why Zzzodd Still Matters

Zzzodd is more than a setting. It’s a reminder of what imagination can do when the world feels overwhelming. It’s a testament to the resilience of children, the power of play, and the strange beauty that can emerge from difficult times.

It was born from sleepless nights, pandemic isolation, and the messy, joyful chaos of raising five kids. Today it continues to grow through stories, games, art, and the shared creativity of everyone who steps into its dream‑stitched world.