[Today we sit down for Five Question with Edward Rathke. An author and game developer, Rathke here discusses his new roleplaying game, Briar Bay; the mythology and folklore that went into its creation; and his future projects.]

Forests Haunted by Holiness: How did you get into designing roleplaying games? And do you have any advice for others who are interested in doing the same?

Edward Rathke: I’ve always wanted to make games. Even going way back to childhood, I wanted to make videogames like Final Fantasy VI or Dragon Quest III (back then we called it Dragon Warrior!), but I really didn’t know how to even begin to walk towards that kind of path so the idea of making games became more of a dull ache. Didn’t have the skills or collaborators required so I spent most of my life writing fiction and nonfiction instead, under the mistaken illusion that maybe that would be a way into videogames. 

Probably the most unusual thing about this current venture is that I didn’t grow up playing RPGs. In fact, I’d never even played one until I was in my mid-20s, and even then I was only able to play sporadically. My friends are not RPG gamers and so when I could convince some to do it, I would end up being the GM by default. And then having an elementary school aged kid, I started playing some games with him as the DM, which led to some adjustment and fumbling around with the rules a bit. But these were good lessons for me, in terms of learning how a game works, what makes it fun, and how centrally important the player is to the whole endeavor, whereas the reader isn’t necessarily a concern for me when I’m writing fiction or nonfiction.

But to come back and answer the question properly: I don’t know that I’d really call myself a game designer. This is my first attempt at designing game material that’s meant for someone else to actually play. My hope is that it all goes well and people enjoy it! And so my advice is related to this: just try it. Just go for it. If it sounds fun to you, take a crack at it!

I’m primarily a writer and I could sit around and wait for opportunity to come knocking for my fiction, or I could just start throwing it out into the world. I typically choose the latter, in part because I’m impatient but also because why not? The worst that can happen is people ignore your work. But if you never put it out into the world, they’ll never even be given the choice to ignore it or not. So if you’re interested in making a game, or any art form, really, just start chipping away at it. Take it seriously. Engage with it like both work and play. Be curious and interested. Play a lot of games. Start interrogating why games you like work, why games you dislike don’t work. Eventually you’ll develop taste and once you’ve developed taste, you’ll start sorting out what you actually want to do with your own designs and even what you think is capable with games, or what’s missing from the market.
I started writing fiction in part because the books I wanted to read didn’t exist. I think that’s just about the best motivation for any art: create something that couldn’t exist without you.

FHBH: You are currently running a kickstarter for Briar Bay, an rpg that draws on the dark fairy tales and folklore of the world. What sort of research went into Briar Bay? Big stacks of books? Long discussions with scholars and gamers?

ER: In a sense, I did no research. In another sense, I’ve been researching fairy tales and folklore my whole life. I’ve always loved fairy tales, folklore, mythology, and on and on. I love the regionalism of it. I love the strange echoes of it, the darkness hidden in so much of it.  

So no specific research went into this. The game really came out of Morktober, which is a yearly gamejam of sorts where people use daily prompts to make assets for the RPG Mork Borg. It’s a big community thing, sprawling and gnarly, that leads to a lot of weird and wild art. I asked Tony Tran, the illustrator for my novel Horus & Motherfucker, if he’d be interested in doing it together. So every day, he sent me an image based on the prompt. Since I wasn’t really a game designer, instead of making that into a game asset, like a monster with stats or whatever, I wrote a poem. These are all available on my website, where I was publishing them as we put them together. But in writing these poems based on illustrations based on prompts led to the creation of a world, of sorts, with its own tales and songs, its folk characters and mythologies.

FHBH: Without spoiling too much, could you give us an example of how you worked a particular fairy tale into Briar Bay?

ER: There’s no one to one real world fairy tale in Briar Bay, but part of the motivation in designing this zine was to hand people a toolkit. I’ve created a framework for this place and for narrative, but I’ve also given the DMs a host of tools to make this setting their own. The Briar Bay zine is less of a narrative, in this way, and more an instruction set on how to make your own narratives and adventures. Ideally, players will see the many breadcrumbs I’ve placed in the setting, in the tables and descriptions, in order to fill this map with whatever they and their players want. The flavor of the place will hopefully remind them of the strangeness of Grimm’s Fairy Tales or the uncanny dread you feel in the middle of a forest in the darkest hour of night, where just about anything seems possible, where you’re primed to believe in monsters and fairies, in unearthly magic.

But if I was going to suggest a genre of fairytale that I think would be well suited to Briar Bay, people should look at folk beliefs about fairies or trolls or other mythical creatures stealing babies and replacing them with a changeling. Might even be a good adventure to add for a stretch goal!

FHBH: Who are the Lord and Lady of Briar Bay? What sources did you draw upon to create them, and what role do they play in the adventure?

ER: Ah, well, that’s a good question! Once again, I didn’t draw on any specific source or even tradition to bring them to life. They sort of spilled out of the process of writing one of the poems. Because of the nature of Morktober, I wasn’t exactly putting a lot of thought into the who and what and where, but instead following rhythm and meter and the image. So they arose naturally, unexpectedly, more to fill space and give shape to the poem, but this Lord of Light and Lady of Shade kept coming back to me. Like a thin sliver of glass, they pierced my skull and got stuck there and eventually blossomed.

They’re rulers of this wyrd forest called Briarwood and they reside in the palace Briartress, deep in the Briarwood. Immortal and distant, they may seem like gods or only whispered rumors, and there are those in Briarwood who seek their thrones, or want, at least, to shrug off their influence. 

But I would say they’re inspired as much by Louis from Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire as they are by Galadriel from The Lord of the Rings, and, perhaps, a bit of Sauron and Lucifer and Lilith and Rumpelstiltskin, too.

FHBH: What other projects are you working on? And where can gamers and readers find your work?

ER: I’ve been tinkering with a boardgame design inspired by the now sadly out of print Shadows Over Camelot, which is one of my favorite games. But I’m leaning more into the Malory of it all so that the game would be asymmetric and competitive, with each player picking a knight who sets out to complete quests, duel other knights, and win glory. I’ve also long had an idea about turning childhood into a boardgame. It’s something I tinker with every now and then, but the goal is for it to be competitive yet highly cooperative, in that to achieve goals you need to work with other players. Sometimes only one. Sometimes maybe all of them. It would have a tight resource economy and a lot of trading. It’s been in my head for nearly a decade but I just can’t quite crack it. With regard to RPGs specifically, we’re still tinkering with the finer points of Briar Bay. If the crowdfunding campaign is successful, I’ll likely get to work on some more material for it. It’s a fun little playground!

I’m primarily a writer and that’s where a lot of my focus is. I’m gearing up for a crowdfunding campaign for an omnibus edition of my cyberpunk sword & sorcery series. At the same time, I’m serializing an epic fantasy novel as a bit of a publishing experiment. New chapters daily until September, when I’ll be crowdfunding physical editions of the series. If you sign up to follow along at that campaign, you also get a free sword & sorcery novella.

I’m not much for social media, so if you want to find more of me or keep up with what I’m working on, my website is the best place to do that.