Mattandia was born in 2003. I was 9 years old, in Grade 3 at Park Lawn Junior Middle School. Although I don't remember specifically, I think Mrs. Ross gave us an assignment where we had to make our own country. My creative abilities weren't quite as developed as they've become, so I simply named my country 'Mattandia'. I drew a flag, made a map, and began to imagine what the world I had created was like.
Long after the assignment was done, Mattandia was still on my mind. I remember in church during the boring grown-up announcements I would borrow paper and a pen from my parents and draw stuff from my world. I made my own alphabet, named cities, and eventually began to come up with a history for it. Seeing as it was my country, I decided that I would have to be the King. This is how the first history of Mattandia took form, but it wasn't the only history by a long shot.
In the 'First History', I was originally born in England in Ancient Times, long before the rise of Rome. Myself, my cousin Orius, and a group of other Englishmen built a ship strong enough to sail across the Atlantic. I was unaware that at this point in time England was not a country. Nor did I find it particularly questionable that a group of sailors living thousands of years before Christ were able to sail across the Atlantic. It must not even have crossed my mind that they would have had to sail around the Americas to get to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where I had decided Mattandia was located. Anyway, after miraculously sailing across the Atlantic, around the Americas and into the heart of the Pacific, a storm destroyed my ship, leaving only myself and my cousin Orius alive. We washed up on a beach, and made our way inland until we came across a stream. I knelt down to drink from the water, which instantly made me immortal. Orius was not so lucky, as a band of Elainian archers shot him before he could drink. We'll talk more about the Elainians in a minute. I killed the archers, and eventually found this place that was inhabited by farmers who had been under Elainian oppression for years.
The Elainians were a cruel and bloodthirsty people. This had nothing to do with the fact that my sister's name was Elaina, of course. Pure coincidence. Regardless, I decided to put a stop to this oppression, so I rallied the farmers together and made an army. With the army I drove the Elainians from Mattandia's shore, and sunk Queen Elaina - again, merely, coincidence - as she fled on a boat. Mattandia was founded, and I grew as king.
One day when I had been an old man for some time, I woke up to find myself with a child's body again. For whatever reason, that was how the magic of the river worked. I continued to rule Mattandia in this manner for thousands of years, until for some reason I can't remember, I decided to live in Canada with Fred and Chris Werenich. This explained how I was King of a faraway country while still being a third grade kid in Etobicoke.
The 'Second History' took shape in Grade 6 and 7. My parents split up in August 2006, and when my mom moved into an apartment building, circumstances led to me having an Internet-free computer in my room. There I began writing the first comprehensive history, detailing Mattandia's greatest events over time. By this point I had dropped the idea of myself as an immortal King, and found a far more eloquent explanation for how I was connected to this world.
A man named Matthew - but not me - and his brother or cousin Orius - I can't remember which - were shipwrecked. Orius died and Matthew helped the peaceful farmers to victory against the wicked Elainians. Once King, Matthew proclaimed that each King henceforth must be named Matthew.
Much happened over the thousands of years that passed. There was the Dragon Island Rebellion, the return of the Elainians, and the Pirate Era to name a handful of the events that I described in this history. As this concept of Mattandia took place on Earth, things got interesting after the Industrial Revolution. Not only did the Mattandians send troops to fight for the Allies in World War I, but in World War II Hitler secretly launched an invasion on Mattandia to secure the Pacific for himself.
According to this history, in 2003 a man in a black suit came to Park Lawn and gave me a briefcase before promptly leaving. Inside the briefcase was information about Mattandia as well as a letter from the aging King. The King told me that he was dying and had no direct heir. The law stated that his next closest relative named Matthew was the heir to the throne, and by a very thin and almost forgotten thread, that heir was me. Now, strictly speaking this shouldn't have worked. Unless the Mattandians followed genealogies by mothers instead of fathers (which I never discussed but is unlikely), the closest relative would have to be Matt Werenich, the son of my grandfather's brother. He's older than me and thus would be the rightful heir. However, I'm not sure I even knew he existed at this point, so we'll cut my 12 year old self some slack.
This is where I wrote my first actual novel based in Mattandia. It was called 'The Genius Cave'. It was set in the year 2018, which meant I was 24 years old in the book and King of Mattandia. Coincidentally, according to that book I took the throne in 2014, but today is December 8th, 2015, and I have yet to be picked up by the Mattandian government. Anyway, a key part of the novel was the concept that there are two universes; the real and imaginary universe. In the imaginary universe is literally anything you can imagine.
The 'Third History' became official in grade 10 when I started writing 'The Dawn'. In this history, Mattandia was not on Earth but in a world of its own. The imaginary universe still existed, and due to natural phenomena the two universes sometimes connected. This resulted in Elves, Dragons, and other mythical creatures to populate the country. Matthew and Orius still shipwrecked on Mattandia, Orius still died, and Matthew became King. However, there were several other differences worth mentioning. In previous histories, 'The Joelian Empire' was a nation just south of Mattandia that helped Matthew defeat Elaina. Now the Joelian Empire was simply 'Joelia' and was a nation of mythical creatures, not humans. Before 'The Dawn', Mattandians worshipped a polytheistic group of gods before converting to Christianity once contact with Europeans was made. Now there was only one God named Loa. Most thankfully, the law about Kings having to be named Matthew was erased. Yet in most other aspects, the general idea was the same. Matthew still killed Queen Elaina.
'Fire and Water' is based on the 'Fourth History', and this is hopefully more or less the final history. Although certain changes will undoubtedly be made, the Fourth History laid out a general idea of a plot that begins long before the foundation of Mattandia and ends long after its fall. In this history, no one has yet been named Matthew. It was Thamas and Orius who shipwrecked on Mattandia, and they defeated Queen Naliea with the help of the Aernans, not the Joelian Empire. 'The Genius Cave' is no longer official canon, and will need a complete overhaul and re-write before I can put it back.
Mattandia has essentially been my life's work, considering that I've been working on it for over a decade. While little remains of the original story, I think I've managed to keep the spirit of Mattandia consistent. It's always been important to me that the world of Mattandia keeps that simple sense of adventure that it had when I first created it, which is largely why I haven't changed the name of the country itself despite the fact that it has part of my name in it. It's not because I'm ridiculously conceited (although that's always a possibility), it's because one question I ask myself a lot is "would my 9 year old self like this story?". The answer has always been yes for a few reasons. Firstly, Mattandia has always been a mysterious place. I hesitate to say 'magical' because I don't like unexplainable magic for the most part (and I know that the stories are filled with magic, but I've tried to explain as much of it as I can), but there has definitely always been a supernatural quality to the adventures that take place there. In every Mattandian story I've thought up, the characters were always learning that the impossible was often achieved in surprising was. Secondly, Mattandia has always been a big place. I always pictured Mattandia as a huge, massive landscape, teeming with the opportunity for danger and adventure. And while I've put more and more into the country, it seems to have more space, not less. Thirdly, Mattandia has and always will be my place. It's a place I'd love to go. It's a place that I've created; that I've forged with my own hands. Well, really only one hand sometimes. When I write in pen I only use my left hand. Anyway, it's somewhere that is wholly mine. No one else has a claim to it. It's my country, and anything I want can happen in it.
Of those three reasons, the third is the one that I'd actually like to change. As much as I love owning Mattandia, almost nothing would make me happier than to share it. It's not perfect, and it's not yet the story I'd like it to be, but I'd love to get it out into the world when the time is right. Then someone else would get to do what I've been doing: look at a world thousands of years old, filled with stories and excitement, danger and beauty.
Mattandia's always been changing since it was conceived, and I expect it to keep changing until I've finally finished telling its story. I just hope that this 'Fourth History' will be the one that sticks, because I'm sick of rewriting the entire legend.
Click here to begin your journey into Mattandia.