Author Topic: Exilian Interviews: Stormwell!  (Read 3758 times)

Jubal

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Exilian Interviews: Stormwell!
« on: April 17, 2019, 03:56:52 PM »
A Conversation With: Stormwell!
Your Interviewer: Jubal


Stormwell (besides being second in Exilian's "most topics started" stats at 189) is a designer and writer of tabletop gaming supplements - in particular Frozen Skies. This dieselpunk setting for the Savage Worlds RPG takes players into the frozen northern land of Aleyska, flown over by planes and huge airships, with great wealth to find but great risk, weird tech, and terrifying monster along the way. We sent Jubal up over the barren cold waste in the Exilicopter, to hunt Stormwell down on his sky pirate vessel and ask him a few questions...


Frozen Skies from Utherwald Press
Jubal: First, tell us about yourself a bit - how did you first get into tabletop RPGs? And what made you decide to take the jump into founding Utherwald Press and designing primers and settings?

Stormwell: Well, I’m a born and raised Sci-Fi geek. During my childhood I regularly watched Doctor Who, Star Trek, Red Dwarf, Babylon 5, UFO, Space 1999 and more obscure series such as Space Precinct. Star Wars also got a look in, as did later series like Stargate SG-1, Firefly and countless films. Fantasy for me during this time was lucky to get a look in once a blue moon, being limited to a handful of extracts from The Hobbit and some films. It wasn’t until high school that I developed an interest in reading, particularly when I first came across the late, great Terry Pratchett’s most wonderful Discworld series. It was at roughly this time that I became aware of tabletop games, chiefly Warhammer 40K when one day I saw a friend looking at some 40K models on the computer. It was a work colleague a couple of years after leaving school who actually got me started with 40K.

(OK, I’m beginning to ramble here, but it is bit of a complex web when it comes to my gaming background, and I hope to be done within another ten paragraphs...)

Right, where was I… ah, yes. What has probably had the biggest impact for my gaming habits is computer games. I’d first cut my gaming teeth on my dad’s 1980s Amstrad computer and later went onto the Sega Megadrive and then the first Playstation. Possibly recognising where my interests laid, or just thought I might be interested by it, my parents brought me a magazine mainly focused on card games such as Magic the Gathering. The thing that caught my attention was an ad for a computer game due out the following year called Arcanum; Of Magick and Steamworks Obscura. This game has probably had the biggest impact upon me of any I’ve played; I still play it from time to time some 18 years after its release. The world of Arcanum is your typical Tolkienesque fantasy thrown headlong into the Industrial Revolution, sitting under the banner of what I would later know as Steampunk. The game saw my first forays into internet based play-by-post roleplaying and developed my initial interest in Steampunk, which probably also owed a bit amount to my earlier passion for trains (which I admit was a factor in me picking up the game as it had a train on the cover). Arcanum also prompted me to start buying PC Gamer magazine on a regular basis after it did a review of the game, which would prove fortunate as the magazine also saw me buy the Crimson Skies and the first two Fallout games after it did articles on those. With my growing interest in Steampunk I also read the works of H.G. Wells and the novel The Difference Engine, developing a desire to write my own book.

I’d been playing 40K for a while when I finally got introduced to tabletop RPGs, there was a group that regularly met where we played wargames and included a couple of people I knew. Curious, I asked about it and then got invited to join a game of the grandfather of RPGs; Dungeons & Dragons. After a handful of games of D&D I wanted to run my own games and had, by that point, been introduced to the Iron Kingdoms/Warmachine setting which I bought the books for and ran. My desire to write a book evolved into a desire to create my own setting, influenced by my interest in Steampunk at the time, which would be the genesis for what became Frozen Skies and the world of Darmonica.

Over time I grew increasingly dissatisfied with the D&D system, prompting me to try out different games and other systems. It was when I was playing a Rogue Trader RPG campaign that Savage Worlds came to my attention, the GM had brought a copy with him and I fell in love with what I saw when I flipped through the book. Frozen Skies had begun to mature as a setting by that point and I had considered publishing it as a system agnostic setting, but saw that Savage Worlds had a licencee programme for other publishers and so decided to adapt Frozen Skies to that system!


Jubal: A few questions on your Darmonica setting and especially your book Frozen Skies. Firstly, what inspired you to go for a snow and ice themed setting specifically for your book, out of all the different options that Darmonica might include?

Stormwell: Ironically, Star Wars.

The Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back and a couple of maps from the original Battlefront games appealed to me. So did a world from the TV series Firefly. There's just something about an ice-bound frontier that really stands out to me. I suppose the hazards and challenges imposed by an arctic environment helped reinforce my vision of a frontier setting with a true "edge of civilisation and the world" feeling to it.


Jubal: Alongside humans in your world you have at least a couple of other species, the mysterious wyndryders and genchi. What do you think the importance of these other peoples is in an otherwise quite human dominated setting, and what inspired you to include them?

Stormwell: In all honesty I was in two minds about including them, torn between making the setting full dieselpunk or include some fantasy. I think including them helps make Frozen Skies stand out as a setting and enriches its background lore.

People have done some interesting things with the traditional Tolkien races, ranging from the Steampunk Arcanum through to the futuristic Shadowrun. Though I feel theres only so much you can do with dwarves, elves and orcs before you start running out of ways to reinvent the wheel. At least with the genchi and their Windryder cousins I have more wiggle room to explore different concepts regarding them.


Jubal: Your setting is a fantasy, but it’s one with a lot of quite modern elements due to the dieselpunk style. Do you think this creates any particular challenges to think about for you that medieval fantasy authors don’t have to worry about? Can more modern fantasy settings end up feeling “too close to home” with problems the real world has had?

Stormwell: I think the biggest challenge has been being aware how nations work and how they interact with one another. In a medieval setting people, as a general rule, don’t normally travel much further than the next village over and would be vaguely aware of who ruled over them. Frozen Skies is much closer to the 1930s/40s of our world, meaning more integration on the national level, greater mobility of people and better access to things that a medieval peasant could only dream of. Have I managed this? Well, more than one person have commented how ‘real’ the nations in the setting are.

It all depends on how it’s approached. The best example I can think of is Pratchett with the dwarves and trolls in his Discworld setting. He used these two races to tackle both racism and extremism in a way that appealed to people and made them think about it.


Jubal: A lighter one now - what’s your favourite character that you’ve created in the setting, and why?

Stormwell: Hmm, favourite character, eh?

Hands down it has to be an Andrei, a character that has featured in the Frozen Skies campaign I’ve been running. He’s what called a ‘keeper of secrets’ or information broker, effectively the guy everybody goes to for information - if they’ve got the money! Certainly has been a character that my players have taken seriously, and he still has plenty of secrets of his own left...


Jubal: Are there any particular books, or authors, or other fictional worlds, that particularly inspired you when creating your Darmonica setting that users of your book could go to for inspiration?

Stormwell: The computer games Arcanum and Crimson Skies spring to mind right away, both have certainly left their mark on Frozen Skies. Others that deserve a mention include Indiana Jones, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Firefly, the webcomic Alpha Shade and the Brendan Fraser Mummy films.

Jubal: A few questions on technical and rules-driven stuff now. You write for Savage Worlds as a system – what attracts you to that ruleset in particular and why do you feel it works well for the adventures you want to create?

Stormwell: What attracted me to the system was its free-form character creation and advancement, it felt like a refreshing change to the rigid class system of D&D. Having run the system as a GM I really like how it feels so much easier to do things on the fly, come up with new NPCs in an instant compared to the hours that could be spent doing the same thing in D&D. It feels so much more flexible and a better laid-out toolkit for the GM.

Jubal: Recently, Savage Worlds has been releasing its Adventurers’ Edition, SWADE – how have you found the rules changes from that? Do you have a favourite improvement or change they’ve made?

Stormwell: I’ll echo what others have said; it’s still Savage Worlds under the hood.

SWADE feels like a refinement and upgrade with plenty of new options, some of which I’ve incorporated into my game current with great success. The changes to character creation and advancement give more options, though at the same you have to think more particularly with assigning skill points.

The new Chase rules are my most favourite thing about SWADE, when I first read ‘em I like them over the previous version. Plus I’ve really grown on me since I’ve used them a couple of times, just need to find more opportunities to use ‘em.


Jubal: What events or scenes do you find the biggest challenge for you to simulate for your players with the base Savage Worlds rules, and how do you cope with this as a GM and/or a setting designer?

Stormwell: Generally most things that I ask Savage Worlds to do it does it well, heck I used the Social Conflict rules for a trial and it worked extremely well. The only thing that I can think of that’s challenging is making combat interesting and engaging for the players, though that’s more on me as a GM remembering to use the various tools that Savage Worlds gives you for this. If I use stuff for NPCs in combat, usually the players will start using them as well. SWADE gives a few more options, too, especially with the new status states.


A windryder, one of the stranger inhabitants of the Aleyskan north...
Jubal: Writing fiction is obviously a strong part of designing a setting like the world of Darmonica. How closely integrated is that with your processes of designing the rules – do stories you produce give you ideas for the primer and rules tweaks, or are they more something that comes at the end of the process for you?

Stormwell: Considering how a fair bit of Frozen Skies was already written before I even considered using Savage Worlds, certainly have to say that story normally comes first. Of course there are exceptions where rules, character abilities or even artwork will prompt story.

Jubal: And, as someone who’s now done the whole process, what advice would you give to anyone interested in publishing their own RPG books?

Stormwell: The biggest one which a lot of other people also say: know the system you’re writing for.

Tying into that would be to start off small by writing adventures or creating characters, particularly as these will help you understand the system. 'Course there are also programmes like the Savage Worlds Adventurer’s Guild (SWAG) and the Dungeon Master’s Guild (DMG) where you can create and sell content without going down the licensed publisher route. Those will help with your portfolio and will allow you to see what bits of your work people like.


Jubal: Finally, what’s coming up next for you and your work? Any conventions people should catch you at or releases to keep an eye out for?

Stormwell: Unfortunately it's looking to be bit of a quiet year, though there is a few things of note.

Granted, it’ll be finished by the time this interview gets published, but a Frozen Skies game was run at SavageCon which is the UK’s Savage Worlds convention. I provided some prize support and hope to be able to attend next year. UK Games Expo is another convention that I hope to do, again it’ll probably be next year when I go again. On a more positive note, I’m back at Diceni in Norwich, at the Forum on Monday 6th May. This is awesome as, save for the past couple of years, I’ve usually had a stand since this event started. NorCon is another event in Norwich that I hope to do, but cannot say whether I will. Frozen Skies has also been submitted to this year's ENnie awards, so keep an eye out there.

Releases-wise, it’ll probably be the SWADE version of Frozen Skies before I work on a follow-on book called Skies of Crimson that focuses more on the sky pirates of the setting. I also have some other settings in the works, plus I’ve released an adventure through SWAG called Operation Thule. The adventure is Weird Wars inspired and is set during the 1982 Falklands Conflict, guest-starring a creature out of South American folklore. I'm hoping this will garner interest for a much larger project called Cold War Skirmishes...


Jubal: From cold skies to cold war! Looking forward to seeing the results, and thankyou for talking to us.

Stormwell: Thanks for having me.
 

You can get Stormwell's Frozen Skies supplement for Savage Worlds here, and do also take a look at regular blogposts on the Utherwald Press website here, as well as Exilian's Utherwald Press Forum.
 




Got more things to ask Stormwell? Please tell us in the comments below! And let us know what you thought of Jubal's choice of questions.

As ever, please do also check the guidelines and send in any articles you'd like to write for the Exilian Articles section, we'd love to hear from you!
« Last Edit: August 28, 2022, 05:37:32 PM by Jubal »
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