You only have a few more days to go to back Phoenix Outlaw’s Kickstarter, Smoke & Glass, a campaign setting for Fate Core. It’s a very interesting setting with a unique spin on steampunk and it examines many social issues. I had a chance to interview Shoshana Kessock, the Project Manager and Art Director for Smoke & Glass to find out more about the setting and the Kickstarter itself.
What makes Smoke & Glass different than other campaign settings?Smoke and Glass is a campaign setting that mixes the best of fantasy worlds with the contemporary intrigue and modernity of a steampunk-industrial age world. It brings the magic and mystery of a fantasy world and then breaks it down into ruins, and builds a new civilization on top of it that’s brimming with new ideas and new technology. Meridia is a country working its way out of the past and the bright, industrial world is full of magic-fueled technology, social intrigue and ancient feuds – all coming together under the smoke-filled skies of Kroy. Very few settings I know of take that fairytale, fantasy world and then see what happens when they take that next step into the industrial, technological future, but Meridia does. It also takes the darker elements of industrialization and puts them front and center. This is a setting that’s rooted in a well thought out political and social system that allows players to explore social issues while having fantastic adventures. So really, it’s that mix of the fantastical and the grounded, the magical and the industrial, that makes Smoke and Glass unique.
Why did you choose Fate Core over other game systems?
When Abigail Corfman came to us with Smoke and Glass, she had already decided on Fate Core as the system. Fate Core is a very versatile system, built for telling great stories with great characters who get to do great things. And above all, Smoke and Glass really is a character-driven setting, where each player gets to create a unique person navigating this complicated world. It’s also a very narrative driven setting, and Fate Core is the perfect system to make telling fantastic stories fluid and simple right off the bat.
Your magic system for Smoke and Glass looks interesting and dangerous. Can you provide a little more detail on how magic works in Smoke & Glass?
The magic system featured in Smoke & Glass illustrates the risk and danger that go hand in hand with the wonder of the arcane arts. Magic in Kroy tends to fit into one of three main types: Wandwork, the simple but brutally effective art of projecting force from a magical focus; Enchantment, the creation of mystic artifacts; and Sympathetic Magic, the practice of blessing and cursing a target. Each style of magic has a distinctive mechanical feel: Enchantment is more permissive and allows for creativity in invented objects, while Wandwork is forceful and direct, capable of inflicting unparalleled raw damage with its effects. As with most Fate creations, there’s some room for players to innovate within the boundaries of the setting. The magic system also lines up with twin Fate Core economies: in Kroy, magic, like most things, has a steep cost. Characters pay with Fate Points or with their own blood by taking stress. This interaction with Fate Core’s storytelling engines is designed to echo the Smoke & Glass sense of magic as an illicit transaction, a subtle and secret art.
Based on the art, it looks like the setting is a cross between Victorian Era steampunk and Renaissance-era dress and armor, making something very unique. What led to this design style?
I’m glad you asked about the art – we’re very excited about the art that’s been done and the aesthetic being developed with Smoke and Glass. We’re firm believers at Phoenix Outlaw that fantasy really does mean that – fantastical and allowing for flights of fancy and wide-open creation. So when we introduced artist Jonathan Wyke to the world of Smoke and Glass, we gave him a lot of free room to make aesthetic choices based on the text provided. What he brought back was a vision for a very unique style that I hadn’t seen before, taking styles from numerous different eras. On the one hand there was glass armor that was traditional helms and breastplates, while the gun wands were more flintlock in design. I even saw a little of Soviet era long coats and hats, and then very traditional steampunk looks. Nicole Cardiff, another artist whose work you see in the Kickstarter video, was right on the money too with her take on the pieces she did for us. All in all, we wanted to create a look that was all our own for this game that didn’t prescribe to traditional steampunk norms and I think we got it.
Your company, Phoenix Outlaw has not attempted a Kickstarter before. What challenges have you faced getting your Kickstarter ready, and how has the feedback been from the community?
The feedback has been fantastic! We’ve been very lucky to start our journey as a company with the help and advice of a ton of amazing people in the industry. We have gone to conventions, sought people out on social media, and done our research before going into this Kickstarter in the first place. A lot of time and careful thinking and planning went into setting up this Kickstarter, plus talking with folks who have done Kickstarters before. The challenges we’ve faced was just that – getting all that set up in advance so we’d minimize delays along the way. And you know, you learn all sorts of new things when you’re actually running the Kickstarter so the learning process is never over. But overall, I’d say that thanks to a lot of preparation and the help of some wonderful people in the gaming world, it’s been a fantastic start. We’ve got other projects planned in the future too, so this is just the beginning for us, and we want to make sure it’s a great beginning.
Thanks, Shoshana! Be sure to go back this great Kickstarter. It ends in only a few days, and they’re already funded, so now they’re pushing into stretch goals!
