The mice arrived at the party rather late, as mice usually do. In fact, I'm not entirely sure just exactly when the idea surfaced for them.

Actually, the dire hares came first. And by first, I mean well before the first iteration of Meynardo wandered through my mind. Pretty sure the mice evolved from expanding that snippet.

Originally, Jack was to be scouting the bandit camp and have one of the hares start gnawing on his leg.

The earliest notes I can find regarding the mice date back to January of '22, and concern the mindspeak aspect of their evolution. I was obviously working on them earlier than that, probably as far back as October of '21, if not earlier.

They weren't originally supposed to be as large a part of the story as they ended up being. Just a short side quest and done.

But again, as it so often is with mice, once they'd arrived, they showed no desire to leave.

Eventually, they came to be part of Rosaluna's story. That's hinted at in chapter 40, when Luciandro calls Tiarraluna 'Lady Luna,' and steps aside when she gives her name.

The mice were never meant to be cute or funny, although, like anybody else, they have their humorous side. They are constructs. Chimaera, unique in all the world, and created by a high ranked wizard/enchanter more than half a century in the past, because he'd grown weary of creating giants.

They were the crowning achievement of his life. A self-sustaining population that once numbered in the thousands, with whole cities built within the environs of Castle Scarpwatch. Until the castle fell to the forces of the demon lord, and they were forced to flee. Some deep into the dungeons beneath the castle, some to the outside, where they slowly wandered farther and farther east, dwindling in number as the perils of the world ate away at their number (in many cases, literally).

Until, at the last, when Jack arrives, they're down to fifty or so individuals, all of whom know that they're doomed. They've lost their ability to make the poison which allows their arrows to be even marginally effective against larger predators, their population is no longer large enough to sustain genetic diversity, and they're exhausted. And, given they're considered monsters, there's no one they can go to for help. At least, no one who's likely to help them. Not, at least, until Meynardo stumbles across Jack.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Even as they developed in my mind and in the story, I played them completely straight. They're tragic figures, not comedy relief. They're not cute, they're just small. Okay, maybe they're also cute, but they're not cutesy. Try and imagine Meynardo as 'cutesy' while he's sawing through a dying bandit's jugular with his itty bitty knife.

Both Meynardo and Luciandro, at least, are forces to be reckoned with under normal circumstances.

Meynardo, being at the cusp of losing mindspeak and becoming entirely verbal, became a handy device for Jack to use in interacting with others than Tiarraluna, and so his part grew. He's sort of the fledgling hero of his people. He got younger and more capable as the story progressed. Originally, he was much older, much higher ranked, and much more tragic. He'd originally lost his wife and children when the castle fell. That was a little too dark even for me, though. He was intended to be the sole survivor of the village's warriors. I couldn't resist Osmando's introduction, though. Sue me. The other warriors just wandered out of the weeds at some point.

Luciandro, being a rank 30 generalist wizard was also handy for the purpose of explaining the rules of magic to Jack, where Tiarraluna hadn't really managed. The 'learn language' spell came after I realized he'd no way of doing that without an interpreter, which would slow things down too much.

His story, as it eventually developed, although much of it was created over a fairly short stretch, fairly early on is this:

He's been a mage for going on seventy years, since he was first foolish/lucky enough to befriend the Master of Scarpwatch as a curious, but otherwise normal mouse. He's the only one of the first generation left (that we know of), and was there for the whole of it, gradually evolving/morphing into a creature part mouse, part dog, part human, part... well, parts of many things, some of them extra-dimensional. Somewhere, I've got the original notes of what parts of what creatures the mice contain, but damned if I can find it.

His brain was grafted to a cloned bit of the master's, though. That is clear. And the majority of it exists outside of corporeal reality. He's got the same size brain, with the same or greater complexity as a human. Same goes for the rest of them, with the exception that only Luciandro's contains part of the master's brain.

If they, as a race, are to survive, somebody is going to have to delve into the ruins of Scarpwatch and find the master's documentation regarding their creation. And somebody will have to duplicate his work.

Their story isn't remotely over, They may play a lesser part in future books. Or, they may not. I haven't decided.