Interviews

(4/17/2020) Interview with the Editor of "Tales From the Crucible" (5 of 5)

Compiled by Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

Today's article marks the end of an adventure. The past couple of weeks, reaching back to the end of March, we've brought you insight directly from the authors of Tales From the Crucible about the upcoming anthology. We've heard about the many inhabitants of the Crucible: from the Demons and Imps of Dis to the maniacal Martians in Nova Hellas. Today we end our series with an interview with the editor of the anthology to tie it all together. I'll also give my take on the tales you'll only find in this book!

Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology catalogs nine exciting stories set in the Keyforge world, highlighting many aspects of life on the Crucible. If you haven't seen our previous entries in this series, be sure to scroll down this page for even MORE insight into this exciting anthology! On to the interview!

- From this point on, beware of potential spoilers for Tales From the Crucible and other Keyforge works. -

On our site, The Epic Quest, we would love to share some insight with the Keyforge world regarding your work with the Tales From the Crucible anthology! We are a new Keyforge blog focusing on competitive Keyforge play as well as the creative side of Keyforge players, creating a space and a platform for them to share their creative works. We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! In addition to the questions for the authors, we had some general questions for the project that we felt were better answered as an overview, rather than on an author-by-author basis.

How were the stories decided for the anthology? Did the authors work together to formulate common ground/lore?

When Marc (Aconyte’s publisher) and I decided that we’d like to do a KeyForge anthology, we first came up with a set of guidelines and ideas for what the stories could or couldn’t include – things like plot, characters and what we were looking for. They were quite loose, because we really wanted authors to find parts of the setting that they were interested in exploring and stories they wanted to tell.

After that, we chatted to authors individually and asked them to pitch story ideas. From there I worked with them to help choose and refine their ideas, so that we had stories that would give us a great look at the setting and explore different aspects. We wanted a mixture of different themes, characters and types of story – from bold action adventures, to more nuanced character studies and explorations. The Crucible is such an interesting place and we wanted to make sure our anthology reflected that.

How much was the story-writing process informed by the cards and the other pieces published by Fantasy Flight Games?

We used the Genesys Keyforge RPG sourcebook (due out in June) for reference – both for authors and for myself while editing, because it’s got a lot of background material. I know some of the authors drew inspiration from the cards, while some were more inspired by different aspects of pop-culture and genre. C L Werner’s story draws very much on kaiju movies, while David Guymer’s story is more of a love letter to LARPing. Sometimes it’s just a case of “what if?”, which M.K. Hutchins does when she imagines what might happen if a quiet librarian becomes the leader of a Brobnar clan!

However, life on the Crucible is so vast and varied, that it allowed our authors to create little pieces of their own and I loved seeing what they’d imagined.

How connected was this project with the game design team? Any chance we’ll see original ideas or characters from the stories show up on the cards?

We’re not connected to the game design team; we’re just inspired by what they’ve created. It would be cool to see some of these characters show up as cards though!


Did you have access to the Genesys: Secrets of the Crucible RPG sourcebook while writing to use as reference? If so, was that used as a tool to develop these stories?

We were very lucky to have early access to the sourcebook, which was very helpful for providing more in-depth details on some of the locations, houses and how life on the Crucible functions!


Huge thank you to Lottie and all the authors for taking the time to answer all these questions for us, and to Anjuli, the Marketing and Publicity Manager at Aconyte Books, for helping make these interviews happen!

Nicol Bolas, Dragon God - From MTG's War of the Spark

A Review of "Tales From the Crucible"

From the moment I heard that we would be having a collection of stories set in the Keyforge world I was ecstatic. Prior to my time with Keyforge, I played a lot of the Pokémon Trading Card Game and Magic the Gathering. While Pokémon has essentially no story or lore behind their card game sets (except for the entire digital game franchise), Magic the Gathering is very story-driven. Each major character in the game has a story behind it, with them even culminating their major story arc around Nicol Bolas (the big baddie) in an "Endgame" fashion last year.

The short stories released at the beginning of Keyforge were great- but that was back in 2018. And while our Worlds Collide set was slightly story-driven, what with the rise of Anomalies and the arrival of the Saurian Republic and the Grand Star Alliance, I was looking for more.

Then almost all at once it seemed, Tales From the Crucible as well as Secrets of the Crucible were revealed. The announcements were part of what pushed me to launch this site- I wanted to help promote authors, artists, and other creative works in the Crucible by our talented community in addition to the competitive and critical analysis players come to expect from a Keyforge blog.

And I couldn't have been happier with the result.

With the opportunity to interview the authors also came the opportunity to preview the anthology. I often hear players say things about their matches like, "Woah this is why I love Keyforge." followed by, "That was such a Keyforge-y game!" or with, "This deck is is so Keyforge-y". We as a community (or at least with the folks in the Pacific Northwest I tend to have games with) use "Keyforge-y" to describe an interaction, board state, or really really weird situation that just feels right. It feels unique to Keyforge as a game and the crazy interactions that come with playing the game.

Tales From the Crucible captures the "Keyforge-y-ness" perfectly. Each story develops its characters well- with realistic and understandable stakes- and delivers an intriguing investigation to how things work on the Crucible. They capture the feeling of a Keyforge game in an Archon's battle in an exciting race to forge keys. They turn a boring day job or a school assignment into an adventure all the while weaving in references and creating new advancements the card game hasn't seen. The stories are fun and the characters have noticeable inspiration from the cards and factions in our game. It was easy to read through the anthology and picture the characters using references from the card game if you could take a moment from getting sucked in to the story.

I enjoyed hearing about characters from all different houses. From a prideful Saurian to a Svarr finding their place in the world to those crazy Martians- the authors delivered. It was particularly interesting to hear about species we don't know much about yet, like the Krxix and Sylicates, since these stories are able to breathe life into them before we get a chance to play games with them!

Whether you are a new player trying to get into the game or a player since Call of the Archons, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Tales From the Crucible. The world of the Crucible is rich with crazy things at every turn and this anthology only begins to uncover them- but those it does, it uncovers well.

With our upcoming set, we'll learn more about our beloved Crucible. While I have no idea if the authors at Aconyte had any part in writing the lore for Mass Mutation, I hope this isn't the last we hear from them. Keyforge needs authors willing to dive in to the chaos and make it back from the adventure with stories to tell; and that's something they each do with skill.

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That wraps up our series focusing on the upcoming Tales From the Crucible Keyforge Anthology. What are you most excited to read about? Did one of the interviews inspire you to write a Keyforge short story of your own? (I sure hope so!)

I want to again thank the team behind this anthology for taking the time to respond to my questions about their stories. It has been fantastic reading the responses and hearing what everyone has to say! Thank YOU as well for following along with this series. Do you like having an article series? Or prefer more one-off articles? If you haven't caught up on all our Aconyte Books interviews, you can find all the other interviews below- right here on this page!

To purchase Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology, be sure to check out your preferred site for books, or get it from your local bookstore when it releases September 1st, 2020!

Amazon Link

Barnes & Noble Link

Here's what the publisher, Aconyte Books, has to say about Tales From the Crucible:

Take a whirlwind tour to the incredible planet of a million fantasy races, the Crucible, in this wild science fantasy anthology from the hit new game, KeyForge.
Welcome to the Crucible – an artificial planet larger than our sun – an ever-growing patchwork of countless other worlds, filled with creatures, sentient beings and societies stolen from across the universe by the mythical Architects. Across this dizzying juxtaposition of alien biospheres, the enigmatic and godlike Archons seek to unlock the secrets at the heart of the Crucible. Everyone else is just trying to survive… Explore nine tales of adventure in a realm where science and magic team up, of discovery and culture clash, featuring mad Martian scientists, cybernetic surgeons, battle reenactors, elven thieves, private investigators, goblins, saurian monsters, and the newly arrived human Star Alliance.

You can check out their article announcing the anthology here:

Anything is Possible on an Impossible World: KeyForge – Tales of the Crucible edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

That's all from me today! To keep up to date on the adventures cataloged on The Epic Quest, you can find me on Twitter as @TheEpicQuestKF, and on Discord as TheRealPlayerOne#7724. Come on back next week for an article about Adaptive and our first story-time in awhile! In the meantime, be sure to check out our other articles and stories:

Portland Prime Tournament Report

Hock: An Alternate-Art Keyforge Story

Seattle Vault Tour: A Retrospective Report

The Silver VaultWarrior

Mass Mutation: Keyforge Set 4 Revealed!

Deck-Warping Cards: Epic Quest

Cheers and may your Aember always shine bright,

-Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

(4/10/2020) Interview with the Authors of "Tales From the Crucible" (4 of 5)

Compiled by Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

Welcome back to The Epic Quest site and our series covering our interviews with the wonderful authors of Tales From the Crucible, the first official Keyforge book releasing to the community! In today's article, we'll cover our interviews with the last two authors of the anthology and hear their thoughts about their stories. We'll be hearing from them about their work, their process, and their ideas.

Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology catalogs nine exciting stories set in the Keyforge world, highlighting many aspects of life on the Crucible. In this exclusive series, we continue to bring to you interviews with the authors regarding their inspirations and their part in the anthology. If you haven't seen our previous entries in this series, be sure to scroll down this page for even MORE insight into this exciting anthology! For next week's article we'll have an interview with the editor of the anthology to wrap up this series, so be sure to check back next week!

- From this point on, beware of potential spoilers for Tales From the Crucible and other Keyforge works. -

On our site, The Epic Quest, we would love to share some insight with the Keyforge world regarding your work with the Tales From the Crucible anthology! We are a new Keyforge blog focusing on competitive Keyforge play as well as the creative side of Keyforge players, creating a space and a platform for them to share their creative works. We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! To that end, the Archons of The Epic Quest have some questions to learn more about you and your work!

First, about you!

What is your name and how long have you been writing stories? What other projects have you worked on prior to Tales from the Crucible?

I write science fiction as M. Darusha Wehm and mainstream books as Darusha Wehm. My first science fiction novel was published in 2007 and since then I’ve published seven more science fiction books, five mainstream books, and a bunch of short stories. In 2018 my interactive fiction game The Martian Job was published by Choice of Games, and was a finalist for the first Nebula Award for Game Writing.


What is your favorite Keyforge House? Why?

As an old-school goth and cyberpunk fan, cyborg demons are 100% my aesthetic. So how could I possibly pick anything but Dis?


Have you played the Keyforge card game? If so, do you have a favorite deck? Favorite card?

I’ve only played with a couple of different decks, so I don’t have a favourite yet. But I am quite fond of the, um, subtlety of a Giant called “Smaaash.”

Why did you decide to work on a story for this project? What interested you in the world of Keyforge?

Keyforge had me with the cyborg demons, but the more I dove into the world of the Crucible, I fell in love with the incredible range of characters and settings. I was particularly interested in how beings who are so different from each other, with competing goals and concerns, can interact—and even work together.


Next up, we have some questions about your experience writing your story for the anthology.

With a world as diverse, open-ended, and complex as the Crucible, how did you come to focus on the character(s) and story you chose?

The characters of Wibble and Pplimz came to me nearly fully-formed, and having them act as detectives seemed like a great way to show off their strange partnership while exploring the seamy side of Hub City.


In comparison to your past works, was there anything that felt different or special while working with the Keyforge world?

I tend to write science fiction that is on the harder side, so getting to play in a world where pretty much anything can happen was a fun challenge.

Was there a particular aspect of the Crucible you were hoping to encapsulate with your story? What was it?

Many of the beings of the Crucible can be seen as archetypal, and I wanted to explore how assumptions can be flawed. Looks can be deceiving, and it pays to remember that every being has their own agenda.


What advice do you have for authors in the Keyforge community looking to create their own stories based in the Crucible?

Start with the characters and settings that grab you the most, but don’t be afraid to think about how the other beings and places might affect your favourites. The interplay between all the different elements is what make the Crucible so interesting.


That about wraps up our questionnaire. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some insight with the Keyforge community! Since we are “The Epic Quest” blog, we have one last question for you:

What is your quest?

Exploring worlds real and imagined.


That concludes our interview with M. Darusha Wehm. Next up, we hear from David Guymer:

We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! To that end, the Archons of The Epic Quest have some questions to learn more about you and your work!

First, about you!

What is your name and how long have you been writing stories?

My name is David Guymer and I’ve been writing stories professionally for seven or eight years and full-time for about two.


What other projects have you worked on prior to Tales from the Crucible?

I’ve written a lot of stories for Warhammer and Warhammer 40000, and I’ve also been lucky enough to work on a few other projects tied to those properties like the Age of Sigmar Roleplaying Game and the Realm War video game.


What is your favorite Keyforge House? Why?

I love the Dis. I love their terrifying nature, their inability to communicate, and the wonderfully Keyforge possibility that they’re not really horrible gribbly fear-devouring demons at all… just misunderstood.


Have you played the Keyforge card game? If so, do you have a favorite deck? Favorite card?

I haven’t. I feel quite learned now in Keyforge lore and yet I know almost nothing about the mechanics of the game. I was hoping to get the opportunity to give it a try at the Vault Tour UK expo in Birmingham but, alas, it wasn’t to be.

Why did you decide to work on a story for this project? What interested you in the world of Keyforge?

I’m accustomed to writing in settings so grimdark they are widely acknowledged to have coined the term. By comparison Keyforge is so zany and fun. You have all these alien races who, for all their differences, have little choice but to rub along and make the best of it and telling a story that had absolutely nothing to do with warfare was a big draw.


Next up, we have some questions about your experience writing your story for the anthology.

With a world as diverse, open-ended, and complex as the Crucible, how did you come to focus on the character(s) and story you chose?

Reading the various source books gave me a few ideas. Ok, a few more than a few. But the idea of a group of Hub City LARPers getting themselves mixed up with a pair of real life Archons just tickled me and I’m glad that was the story I got to write.

Without an established body of lore for Keyforge, what challenges did you encounter while writing your piece? What innovations did you make?

Working in a less established setting is as much an opportunity as a problem and a big part of my wanting to write stories for Keyforge. The mood and the flavor of the Crucible is all there in the available lore, and that’s really all you need to tell a story in a shared world. That said, I loved all the off-hand references to the Crucible’s people and places that I was able to work in. It’s the Tolkien nerd in me, I think!


Were there any cards in particular that inspired you? Or any aspects of the houses and world?

I’d like to say yes.

But no.

As I mentioned, I’ve not yet had the chance to try the game.


In comparison to your past works, was there anything that felt different or special while working with the Keyforge world?

The people of the Crucible, even the weird ones with two arms and two legs, feel quite similar and relatable to people in our world, and it was strangely enjoyable to write about a group of characters who have mundane jobs and drink in bars. It was also a chance to be humorous, which I’m coming to realize is where most of my meager talents lie.

Was there a particular aspect of the Crucible you were hoping to encapsulate with your story? What was it?

I was interested in the way that Vault Battles were perceived on the Crucible in the same way as major sporting events on Earth and the way fans will follow the fortunes of their favorite Archon in Vaultheads magazine as we do sports teams. Some of us, of course, take it more seriously than others (guilty…) and I wanted to explore the lives of a group of people who take their hobby very seriously indeed.


Describe your story in one word.

Fun


If you could explore the Crucible again, what story would you want to tell?

If not the aforementioned Dis then it would have to be something about Star Alliance. I’m such a massive Trekker, I wouldn’t be able to resist.


What advice do you have for authors in the Keyforge community looking to create their own stories based in the Crucible?

Keep it light, keep it fun, and remember to be creative – on the Crucible almost anything can happen.

That about wraps up our questionnaire. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some insight with the Keyforge community! Since we are “The Epic Quest” blog, we have one last question for you:

What is your quest?

My quest is a survival horror.

That wraps up our interviews for today! I want to take a moment to thank all the authors of this anthology for taking the time to respond to my questions about their stories. It has been fantastic reading the responses and hearing what everyone has to say! Next week we'll finish off this series with our interview with the editor of the anthology. You can find all the other interviews below- right here on this page!

To purchase Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology, be sure to check out your preferred site for books, or get it from your local bookstore when it releases September 1st, 2020!

Amazon Link

Barnes & Noble Link

Here's what the publisher, Aconyte Books, has to say about Tales From the Crucible:

Take a whirlwind tour to the incredible planet of a million fantasy races, the Crucible, in this wild science fantasy anthology from the hit new game, KeyForge.
Welcome to the Crucible – an artificial planet larger than our sun – an ever-growing patchwork of countless other worlds, filled with creatures, sentient beings and societies stolen from across the universe by the mythical Architects. Across this dizzying juxtaposition of alien biospheres, the enigmatic and godlike Archons seek to unlock the secrets at the heart of the Crucible. Everyone else is just trying to survive… Explore nine tales of adventure in a realm where science and magic team up, of discovery and culture clash, featuring mad Martian scientists, cybernetic surgeons, battle reenactors, elven thieves, private investigators, goblins, saurian monsters, and the newly arrived human Star Alliance.

You can check out their article announcing the anthology here:

Anything is Possible on an Impossible World: KeyForge – Tales of the Crucible edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

That's all from me today! To keep up to date on the adventures cataloged on The Epic Quest, you can find me on Twitter as @TheEpicQuestKF, and on Discord as TheRealPlayerOne#7724. In the meantime, be sure to check out our other articles and stories:

Portland Prime Tournament Report

Hock: An Alternate-Art Keyforge Story

Seattle Vault Tour: A Retrospective Report

The Silver VaultWarrior

Mass Mutation: Keyforge Set 4 Revealed!

Deck-Warping Cards: Epic Quest

Cheers and may your Aember always shine bright,

-Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

(4/3/2020) Interview with the Authors of "Tales From the Crucible" (3 of 5)

Compiled by Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

With the world we live in as crazy and ever-changing as The Crucible itself these days, it's easy to get wrapped up in the news and negativity out there. We hope here at The Epic Quest that our site and the many others in the Keyforge Community can bring a little bit of light and a reprieve from the world while it's facing uncertainty; for it is in uncertainty and randomness that our beloved Keyforge game is born. While we may not have story time today, we do have some insight into the first book set on The Crucible, Tales From the Crucible, directly from some of the authors of its stories. We'll be talking with them about their work, their process, and their ideas.

Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology catalogs nine exciting stories set in the Keyforge world, highlighting many aspects of life on the Crucible. In this exclusive series, we continue to bring to you interviews with the authors regarding their inspirations and their part in the anthology. If you haven't seen our previous entries in this series, be sure to scroll down this page for even MORE insight into this exciting anthology! Today, we have the responses from two more of the amazing authors- with two more posts to come! Stay tuned!

- From this point on, beware of potential spoilers for Tales From the Crucible and other Keyforge works. -

On our site, The Epic Quest, we would love to share some insight with the Keyforge world regarding your work with the Tales From the Crucible anthology! We are a new Keyforge blog focusing on competitive Keyforge play as well as the creative side of Keyforge players, creating a space and a platform for them to share their creative works. We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! To that end, the Archons of The Epic Quest have some questions to learn more about you and your work!

First, about you!

What is your name and how long have you been writing stories?

My name is Thomas Parrott. Writing stories is an interesting question. Professionally, I got my break in 2018. As an amateur I have been writing stories since I learned to write around 5 years old.


What other projects have you worked on prior to Tales from the Crucible?

I have done multiple shorts stories for Black Library, along with a few long form projects. My most recent releases have been “The Test of Faith”, an eShort for their Advent calendar, and the novella Isha’s Lament.


What is your favorite Keyforge House? Why?

Shadows. Gotta rep my girl Nalea. The Æmber isn’t yours, you see. They’re just letting you hold it for a minute.

Have you played the Keyforge card game? If so, do you have a favorite deck? Favorite card?

I have not! I do my research about any property I work with, however, and you’ll see a variety of things pop up that you might recognize. Ring of Invisibility might be my favorite for the art, but there’s another ‘card’ that could be said to be the key to the whole story… I won’t tell you which one though. Spoilers!


Why did you decide to work on a story for this project? What interested you in the world of Keyforge?

Truthfully, as a Baby Writer™ I am largely eager to get my name out there and work with any property. That said, I love the old pulp stories and adventure stories and a sense of fun, and Keyforge melds all those things together.


Next up, we have some questions about your experience writing your story for the anthology.

With a world as diverse, open-ended, and complex as the Crucible, how did you come to focus on the character(s) and story you chose?

I actually tend to build stories from the opposite direction. I don’t worry about all the vastness of the setting -- the character is what matters. In this case, Nalea, notorious thief! Once I knew I wanted to tell a ‘thief’ story, I worried about the where (Hub City) and the what (top sekrit).


Without an established body of lore for Keyforge, what challenges did you encounter while writing your piece? What innovations did you make?

We were provided with a certain amount of information, but it was definitely interesting working with such a relatively blank slate. In this case, I largely had the shape of my setting given to me, I just had to breathe life into the particulars. What is a Councilor of Hub City like? How do people get around the city? How do people live here? That kind of thing.


Were there any cards in particular that inspired you? Or any aspects of the houses and world?

Oh man! Tons of ‘em. Key of Darkness. Masterplan. Safe Place. The aforementioned Ring of Invisiblity. And I definitely let the ‘creatures’ of the Shadows faction inspire some of my characters.

In comparison to your past works, was there anything that felt different or special while working with the Keyforge world?

Absolutely. My previous works are very grim and dark. KeyForge is fun. Even when things get dangerous, it’s an adventure at the heart of it.


Was there a particular aspect of the Crucible you were hoping to encapsulate with your story? What was it?

I just wanted to take all this wild variety, and show a snapshot of how it fits together. Just a juncture point of some of the zaniness.


Describe your story in one word.

Intrigue.


If you could explore the Crucible again, what story would you want to tell?

Mum’s the word! It’s like magicians explaining their tricks. Never waste a good pitch when you might still get to tell it!

What advice do you have for authors in the Keyforge community looking to create their own stories based in the Crucible?

The Crucible is a wild, expansive place. Don’t try to capture all of it in one story. Pick a spot, pick a character. Focus. What matters to this one person? What is this one place like? That’s the heart of your story.


That about wraps up our questionnaire. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some insight with the Keyforge community! Since we are “The Epic Quest” blog, we have one last question for you:

What is your quest?

To write damn good stories.


That concludes our interview with Thomas Parrott. Next up, we hear from C. L. Werner:

We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! To that end, the Archons of The Epic Quest have some questions to learn more about you and your work!

First, about you!

What is your name and how long have you been writing stories?

I'm C. L. Werner and I've been writing stories, in a professional capacity, since 1999. My first book was Blood Money, released in 2003. Since then I've had over thirty novels and about twice as many short stories published.


What other projects have you worked on prior to Tales from the Crucible?

While I've largely worked for The Black Library with the Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, and Age of Sigmar settings, I've also worked in the Iron Kingdoms from Privateer Press, Mantic's Kings of War setting, Beyond the Gates of Antares, Wild West Exodus, Call of Cthulhu, AE-WWII, and even a pastiche with Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane. I write my own fiction as well, typically in the genres of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. Of particular note might be my tales of Shintaro Oba, a demon-hunting samurai who has appeared in several different anthologies and magazines.

What is your favorite Keyforge House? Why?

Has to be the Martians. They just really hit that old-fashioned pulp sci-fi itch. If I had to pick a favorite genre of movie, it would be Japanese kaiju eiga. But if I had to pick a second... well that would be the golden age of horror with the likes of King Kong and the Universal Monsters, but my third focus is certainly 1950s sci-fi movies. The Martians in Keyforge are really an amalgamation of all the great parts of things like Earth vs the Flying Saucers and The Angry Red Planet. They also evoke things like the old EC comic books, like Weird Science and all the bug-eyed monsters that infested the pop culture of that era.


Have you played the Keyforge card game? If so, do you have a favorite deck? Favorite card?

Sadly I haven't played Keyforge, so I fear on this subject I have to confess ignorance. I like the setting and the wide variety of the assorted houses, but I think I stray more into the miniature-gaming side of things than I do CCGs.


Why did you decide to work on a story for this project? What interested you in the world of Keyforge?

I'd say it really comes down to the absolute scope of the setting. Anything can and could appear on the Crucible. That level of mystery and unknown is always fascinating. Now, when I really came to grips with the Martians, I knew they'd lend themselves to a good story. Often times that's the deciding factor for me: can I tell a good story. I'll be arrogant enough to presume I did, but that's up to the reader to decide on their own.

Next up, we have some questions about your experience writing your story for the anthology.

With a world as diverse, open-ended, and complex as the Crucible, how did you come to focus on the character(s) and story you chose?

I probably already answered this, but the Martians just really appealed to me. The more I delved into the facets of their culture and society the more I was hooked. Again, that 1950s alien invaders feel was too tempting to let go of.


Without an established body of lore for Keyforge, what challenges did you encounter while writing your piece? What innovations did you make?

I think the big challenge was wrapping my head around exactly how the Crucible itself works. Now I will say that I cheated in my story by keeping the action pretty localized. That way I was able to fixate entirely on Nova Hellas and how this transplanted chunk of Mars functions. I did play with things like how the low gravity and thin atmosphere work and the way the red dust of Mars buffers the region. I think for those looking at Nova Hellas from the outside, the place must appear like a permanent haboob.

Were there any cards in particular that inspired you? Or any aspects of the houses and world?

I'd say that it was the Martian aspect of on the one hand these obsessive efforts to prove themselves important to their society on an individual level while at the same time this kind of total capitualtion of the self to the demands and discipline of said society. That made a wild contrast, Martians striving their utmost to advance their own prestige and worrying about the failures that could bring them crashing down, while at the same time utterly resigned to the consequences of such failure. They're complex, and I liked that. It was fun digging around in their heads and really trying to express what makes them tick.


In comparison to your past works, was there anything that felt different or special while working with the Keyforge world?

There's a certain light-heartedness to Keyforge that is widely at odds with the other settings I write in, so that was a very nice change of pace for me. You can get a little bit overwhelmed by 'grimdark' all the time, as it were.

Was there a particular aspect of the Crucible you were hoping to encapsulate with your story? What was it?

In 'The Perfect Organism' I was really trying to draw out the feel of Nova Hellas. How not only the Martians but this chunk of abducted Red Planet works. If I was able to bring that out in a way that's vivid and engaging, then that's how I know I succeeded.


Describe your story in one word.

Monstrous.


If you could explore the Crucible again, what story would you want to tell?

For another story, I think I'd like to either look into how the Martains fare when away from their home turf, or maybe look into how some other faction reacts to the challenges of sneaking into Nova Hellas. Either would really be a neat story to tell.

What advice do you have for authors in the Keyforge community looking to create their own stories based in the Crucible?

Largely it would depend if they're looking at a novel or a short story. If you're looking at a short story, I'd say plot out exactly what aspects of the Crucible you're going to explore. The setting is so broad and has so much going on that you really have to narrow your scope. When you look at your plot and it seems to have too much going on or you're explaining too much to the reader, then step back and see if you might benefit from going for a less expansive narrative.


That about wraps up our questionnaire. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some insight with the Keyforge community! Since we are “The Epic Quest” blog, we have one last question for you:

What is your quest?

I'd say to tell people stories that they enjoy and if possible help nudge others to write stories of their own.

And with that, our next set of interviews comes to a close. Thanks for following along with this series! If you haven't been following along, there are many more thoughts and great insights below in our first and second interviews!

To purchase Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology, be sure to check out your preferred site for books, or get it from your local bookstore when it releases September 1st, 2020!

Amazon Link

Barnes & Noble Link

Here's what the publisher, Aconyte Books, has to say about Tales From the Crucible:

Take a whirlwind tour to the incredible planet of a million fantasy races, the Crucible, in this wild science fantasy anthology from the hit new game, KeyForge.
Welcome to the Crucible – an artificial planet larger than our sun – an ever-growing patchwork of countless other worlds, filled with creatures, sentient beings and societies stolen from across the universe by the mythical Architects. Across this dizzying juxtaposition of alien biospheres, the enigmatic and godlike Archons seek to unlock the secrets at the heart of the Crucible. Everyone else is just trying to survive… Explore nine tales of adventure in a realm where science and magic team up, of discovery and culture clash, featuring mad Martian scientists, cybernetic surgeons, battle reenactors, elven thieves, private investigators, goblins, saurian monsters, and the newly arrived human Star Alliance.

You can check out their article announcing the anthology here:

Anything is Possible on an Impossible World: KeyForge – Tales of the Crucible edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

That's all from me today! To keep up to date on the adventures cataloged on The Epic Quest, you can find me on Twitter as @TheEpicQuestKF, and on Discord as TheRealPlayerOne#7724. In the meantime, be sure to check out our other articles and stories:

Portland Prime Tournament Report

Hock: An Alternate-Art Keyforge Story

Seattle Vault Tour: A Retrospective Report

The Silver VaultWarrior

Mass Mutation: Keyforge Set 4 Revealed!

Deck-Warping Cards: Epic Quest

Cheers and may your Aember always shine bright,

-Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

(3/27/2020) Interview with the Authors of "Tales From the Crucible" (2 of 5)

Compiled by Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

Welcome back! Hopefully while you were away, you had many battles and adventures in the Crucible! Today we're continuing our series covering the interviews with the authors behind the Keyforge Community's first book in our crazy world, Tales From the Crucible, about their work, their process, and their ideas.

Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology catalogs nine exciting stories set in the Keyforge world, highlighting many aspects of life on the Crucible. In this exclusive series, we continue to bring to you interviews with the authors regarding their inspirations and their part in the anthology. Today, we have the responses from two more of the amazing authors- with more to come soon! Stay tuned!

- From this point on, beware of potential spoilers for Tales From the Crucible and other Keyforge works. -

On our site, The Epic Quest, we would love to share some insight with the Keyforge world regarding your work with the Tales From the Crucible anthology! We are a new Keyforge blog focusing on competitive Keyforge play as well as the creative side of Keyforge players, creating a space and a platform for them to share their creative works. We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! To that end, the Archons of The Epic Quest have some questions to learn more about you and your work!

First, about you!

What is your name and how long have you been writing stories?

Hello! I’m Robbie MacNiven, and I’ve been writing stories for, well, as long as I can remember. I started thinking ‘seriously’ about wanting to be a writer around the age of 13, and had my first story published when I was 18 – a science fantasy e-short that earned me a couple of dollars. I got the break writing professionally just a few weeks after turning 23, five years ago.


What other projects have you worked on prior to Tales from the Crucible?

I’ve written a lot for Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop – as of just now, seven novels, one novella, two audio dramas and nine short stories. Outside of BL I wrote the narrative and script for the mobile game SMITE: Blitz, and I’m currently writing a number of books for Osprey Publishing, two of them covering military history, the other two both top-secret (for now). As for Aconyte, I have a Descent: Journeys in the Dark novel coming out later this year that I’m super stoked for, plus other future projects in the pipeline.


What is your favorite Keyforge House? Why?

Mars. As you can possibly tell from my story, I love their Saturday morning cartoon villain vibe. As a student of military history, and someone who writes combat fiction almost exclusively, getting to portray a society that was militarized and warlike but also incredibly goofy and full of bouts of comedy incompetence was a great change of pace.

Have you played the Keyforge card game? If so, do you have a favorite deck? Favorite card?

I haven’t unfortunately, though I knew of it prior to writing Extermination Examination. I do intend to start at some point, it looks like one of the best card games going at the moment, the sheer scope of it is incredible.


Why did you decide to work on a story for this project? What interested you in the world of Keyforge?

I actually caught wind of the formation of Aconyte Books via Twitter. Authors today always need to be on the lookout for new work, and it seemed like they were setting up something really special. I discussed the various IPs they were hoping to write for, and KeyForge was one of the ones that instantly leapt out at me. The contrast with what I was working on at the time was huge – from gritty grimdark to humorous, bonkers sci-fantasy. The world of KeyForge is painted with big, vibrant (possibly neon) brushstrokes, and that came as a welcome change.

Next up, we have some questions about your experience writing your story for the anthology.

With a world as diverse, open-ended, and complex as the Crucible, how did you come to focus on the character(s) and story you chose?


It was really tricky! I pared it right down to the first thing that really grabbed my attention – the Martians – and the sort of story I’d wanted to tell for a while, namely some University high jinx. I’m currently just in the process of finishing a PhD at Edinburgh Uni, and I’ve been in higher education for over nine years. I guess I’m writing what I know! Splicing some of those experiences from what has been a very enjoyable decade into a sci-fi setting was a lot of fun.


Without an established body of lore for Keyforge, what challenges did you encounter while writing your piece? What innovations did you make?

I was lucky enough to get a sneak peak of the new Fantasy Flight KeyForge RPG, which is absolutely rammed full of great material. There’s so, so much lore potential in there that it could take decades of writing just to flesh out what’s been mentioned so far! I focused in on specific aspects that interested me, most of them Martian-related. For example, I was intrigued by mention of the Martian rogue elements outside of the control of Nova Hellas – how did such a famously xenophobic species interact with outsiders once they’re no longer part of the formal Martian hierarchy. In that sense, beyond all the fun and games, there’s a lot of serious worldbuilding to be done within the KeyForge setting. I feel like we’ve only just scraped the surface.

Were there any cards in particular that inspired you? Or any aspects of the houses and world?

Besides the War of the Worlds vibes the Martians give off (my fav card was the Martian Hounds) I love the Pinhead aesthetics of Dis. I also enjoy that they fulfill the roles of demons in the setting, but they’re not portrayed as out-and-out unknowable evil. They’re their own fully-fledged culture, with generally similar nuances of the good and bad present in all groups. But they’re also a spooky bunch, and I like that.


In comparison to your past works, was there anything that felt different or special while working with the Keyforge world?

Cutting loose with the zany, colorful setting made the whole project feel pretty special. It isn’t often you get a setting to work in where you can have a spider-girl and her space-elf roommate being set on an assignment by a cyborg professor to study a group of rogue Martians!


Was there a particular aspect of the Crucible you were hoping to encapsulate with your story? What was it?

Martian culture – just how ridiculous it can seem to outsiders, but serious it is when you get caught on the inside. That and a little hint of life in Hub City, a place that really seems to encapsulate all the diversity of the setting.

Describe your story in one word.

Banter.


If you could explore the Crucible again, what story would you want to tell?

One of my earlier pitches was about the driver of a hover-taxi in Hub City getting wrapped up in an Archon’s adventures. If I don’t revisit that though, I’d certainly like to carry on the academic misadventures of Nal’ai and Kolli – I feel like I’ve only just begun to tell their story.


What advice do you have for authors in the Keyforge community looking to create their own stories based in the Crucible?

Write what you enjoy. That will shine through in your work, and also help you get it over the finishing line! Don’t lose sight of the fun involved in writing, and don’t be disheartened if you don’t receive instant recognition. Above all, tell your stories, because the Crucible is crying out for them!


That about wraps up our questionnaire. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some insight with the Keyforge community! Since we are “The Epic Quest” blog, we have one last question for you:

What is your quest?

To keep telling stories that I enjoy, that people enjoy, and hopefully keep making a living from it!


That concludes our interview with Robbie MacNiven. Next up, we hear from M.K. Hutchins:

We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! To that end, the Archons of The Epic Quest have some questions to learn more about you and your work!

First, about you!

What is your name and how long have you been writing stories?

Hi! I’m Megan; I write under M.K. Hutchins. I’ve been writing since I was old enough to steal paper.


What other projects have you worked on prior to Tales from the Crucible?

I have two novels out, Drift, and The Redwood Palace. I’ve also published a heap of short fiction at a lot of different magazines -- Podcastle, Analog, Strange Horizons, Fireside, etc.


What is your favorite Keyforge House? Why?

As someone who loves growing food and being outside, I have a soft spot for the Untamed.


Have you played the Keyforge card game? If so, do you have a favorite deck? Favorite card?

Yes! My brother and sister-in-law introduced me to Keyforge not long after it came out. The Ember Imp would have to be my favorite card. It is delightfully annoying to play against someone. I also spent a LOT of time looking at it while working on one of my stories, and now I can’t help but think of it as adorable.

Why did you decide to work on a story for this project? What interested you in the world of Keyforge?

The genre-mashing in Keyforge is immensely fun, and I was also drawn by the dynamic, eye-popping, color-saturated art. Art is definitely something that gets me thinking about stories I want to write.


Next up, we have some questions about your experience writing your story for the anthology.


With a world as diverse, open-ended, and complex as the Crucible, how did you come to focus on the character(s) and story you chose?

I actually didn’t have to. I pitched a bunch of stories to Lottie, the fantastic editor for the anthology, and she came back and told me, “write these two.” I have a document somewhere that’s just a long list of Keyforge story ideas.


How much was the story-writing process informed by the cards and the other pieces published by Fantasy Flight Games?

I read all the cards, the Genesys sourcebook, the Inka the Spider Stories, etc. Some things in my stories I invented, some I took from these sources, but I always wanted to make sure that I was keeping my writing in line with the feel of the Keyforge world.

Without an established body of lore for Keyforge, what challenges did you encounter while writing your piece? What innovations did you make?

Oh, this was tricky. I kept wondering what other writers were doing, if I was inadvertently going to contradict someone, etc. With “Useful Parasites”, I needed more plants and animals than exist in the Genesys sourcebook, and with “The Librarian’s Duel”, I needed to invent districts in Hub City. Then again, it’s Keyforge, and just about anything goes.

My favorite thing I added were aemberflowers -- flowers that turn towards the nearest source of aember in the same way sunflowers turn toward the sun. I think that’s the only thing I put in both stories.


Did you have access to the Genesys: Secrets of the Crucible RPG sourcebook while writing to use as reference? If so, was that used as a tool to develop these stories?

I pitched and outlined “Useful Parasites” based on the cards alone, and then got access to the sourcebook, which I absolutely used to help flesh out the story -- picking the Lesser Uncanny Forest specifically as the setting, adding creatures from the book, etc.

“The Librarian’s Duel” was sparked by reading the sourcebook. There’s a line in there about how leadership in a Brobnar clan is often determined by a duel in the Champion’s Ring. I immediately began thinking of who’d be more inconvenienced by a raucous clan of Brobnar following them.

Were there any cards in particular that inspired you? Or any aspects of the houses and world?

With “Useful Parasites”, absolutely that Ember Imp. I kept thinking about how Dis can suck away emotions. How could that be helpful? How could that go wrong?

For “The Librarian’s Duel”, I spent a lot of time looking at the art on the Brobnar cards to create my own motley crew.


In comparison to your past works, was there anything that felt different or special while working with the Keyforge world?

No one story could encapsulate all of the strange things happening on the Crucible. I love that. I had immense fun looking at interesting ways two different aspects of this world could intersect. For “Useful Parasites”, that was a Untamed healer and a Dis imp. In “The Librarian’s Duel”, that’s a librarian, her phase-shifted daughter, and a clan of Brobnar.

If you could explore the Crucible again, what story would you want to tell?

Did I mention I have a whole long list? Off the top of my head, I’d love to do a Skyborn adventure, an Inspired quest, write about Saurians (because dinosaurs!), and any kind of archaeological dig.


That about wraps up our questionnaire. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some insight with the Keyforge community! Since we are “The Epic Quest” blog, we have one last question for you:

What is your quest?

To live without regrets.

That concludes our interviews for today! Hopefully you're back from the first article! If so, thanks for following along with this exciting series; if not, be sure to read the first of this series below!

To purchase Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology, be sure to check out your preferred site for books, or get it from your local bookstore when it releases September 1st, 2020!

Amazon Link

Barnes & Noble Link

Here's what the publisher, Aconyte Books, has to say about Tales From the Crucible:

Take a whirlwind tour to the incredible planet of a million fantasy races, the Crucible, in this wild science fantasy anthology from the hit new game, KeyForge.
Welcome to the Crucible – an artificial planet larger than our sun – an ever-growing patchwork of countless other worlds, filled with creatures, sentient beings and societies stolen from across the universe by the mythical Architects. Across this dizzying juxtaposition of alien biospheres, the enigmatic and godlike Archons seek to unlock the secrets at the heart of the Crucible. Everyone else is just trying to survive… Explore nine tales of adventure in a realm where science and magic team up, of discovery and culture clash, featuring mad Martian scientists, cybernetic surgeons, battle reenactors, elven thieves, private investigators, goblins, saurian monsters, and the newly arrived human Star Alliance.

You can check out their article announcing the anthology here:

Anything is Possible on an Impossible World: KeyForge – Tales of the Crucible edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

That's all from me today! To keep up to date on the adventures cataloged on The Epic Quest, you can find me on Twitter as @TheEpicQuestKF, and on Discord as TheRealPlayerOne#7724. In the meantime, be sure to check out our other articles and stories:

Portland Prime Tournament Report

Hock: An Alternate-Art Keyforge Story

Seattle Vault Tour: A Retrospective Report

The Silver VaultWarrior

Mass Mutation: Keyforge Set 4 Revealed!

Deck-Warping Cards: Epic Quest

Cheers and may your Aember always shine bright,

-Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

(3/20/2020) Interview with the Authors of "Tales From the Crucible" (1 of 5)

Compiled by Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer

Recently, here at The Epic Quest, we got the wonderful opportunity to inquire the minds behind the Keyforge Community's first full-fledged literature, Tales From the Crucible, about their work, their process, and their ideas. Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology catalogs nine exciting stories set in the Keyforge world, highlighting many aspects of life on the Crucible. In this exclusive series, we'll bring to you interviews with the authors regarding their inspirations and their part in the anthology. Today, we have the responses from two of the amazing authors- with more to come soon! Stay tuned!

- From this point on, beware of potential spoilers for Tales From the Crucible and other Keyforge works. -

On our site, The Epic Quest, we would love to share some insight with the Keyforge world regarding your work with the Tales From the Crucible anthology! We are a new Keyforge blog focusing on competitive Keyforge play as well as the creative side of Keyforge players, creating a space and a platform for them to share their creative works. We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! To that end, the Archons of The Epic Quest have some questions to learn more about you and your work!

First, about you!

What is your name and how long have you been writing stories?

I’m Tristan Palmgren and I’ve been writing stories since the fourth grade, both in my universes and in others.


What other projects have you worked on prior to Tales from the Crucible?

My debut novel Quietus, a science fiction novel about a transdimensional anthropologist visiting our world during the Black Death, was published in spring of 2018, and its sequel, Terminus came that fall. Both were published by Angry Robot Books.


What is your favorite Keyforge House? Why?

Star Alliance! They’re the newest faction to arrive on the Crucible, and the one that serves most often as our audience surrogate viewpoint faction. They’re discovering every new thing on Crucible alongside us - and their flavor text treats the Crucible like the strange, alien new place that it is to players, too. Plus, I’ve always been a hopeless Star Trek nerd.

Have you played the Keyforge card game? If so, do you have a favorite deck? Favorite card?

I have a handful of decks, but no one in my area to play against. Yet.

Star Alliance may be my favorite house, but the Crucible wouldn’t be the same without the demons of Dis. The house of nightmares. And the house that’s most allowed to break the rules. The flavor text on the Lash of Broken Dreams* - combined with that art - is a masterclass in flavor text writing, and how to communicate a lot with very little.

*“‘At first, I thought that nothing could harm an Archon.’ - Captain Val Jericho.” Combined with the art of the lash whipping toward the view, almost out of the card frame.


Why did you decide to work on a story for this project? What interested you in the world of Keyforge?

The expansiveness of the setting. I love enormous, wide-open worlds - the bigger, the better. The first tabletop gaming setting I fell in love with was D&D’s Planescape, a place of infinite worlds and variety and creatures and philosophies stacked up atop each other, and the Crucible replicates that feeling in a way that absolutely delights me. The only constant on the Crucible is that you will come into contact with something new to you, every day.

Next up, we have some questions about your experience writing your story for the anthology.

With a world as diverse, open-ended, and complex as the Crucible, how did you come to focus on the character(s) and story you chose?

I knew right away that I wanted both the demons of Dis and the Archons to play a role in my first KeyForge story. They’re both deeply enigmatic, unknowable forces that figure a great deal into day-to-day life on the Crucible. Everybody is affected by them, directly or otherwise, but nobody understands them. How do you live so near something you don’t understand?

Then came my question: If you’re new to the Crucible, how do you decide what your place in it is going to be? How does your society survive? Does it survive?

Mash those two ideas together, and Contract emerges.


Without an established body of lore for Keyforge, what challenges did you encounter while writing your piece? What innovations did you make?

The Crucible is such a wide-open, diverse world that I felt that the best way to capture it was to cram as many wild, off-beat worldbuilding details into every nook and cranny of my story as I could. Everywhere I could fit something new or thought-provoking about the Crucible, I got it in. Constructing those details was the funnest part of writing this story (though writing the action scenes was a close second). Finding places to put all of them was a significant pacing challenge.


Were there any cards in particular that inspired you? Or any aspects of the houses and world?

The aforementioned Lash of Broken Dreams communicates the menace of the Dis very effectively. It’s hard to look away from the demons.

The biggest influence on my rendering of the world was Fantasy Flight Games’s forthcoming RPG sourcebook Secrets of the Crucible. It has a wealth of information on the tools, technologies, peoples, and civilizations of the Crucible, and I recommend it not only for people with an interested tabletop group, but also as casual reading.

In comparison to your past works, was there anything that felt different or special while working with the Keyforge world?

The chance to go off on mad tangents. In my debut novels, I was trying to write a historically real-feeling novel set during a well-studied moment of history. While the Crucible runs by rules and has set personalities and factions, it’s also a wide-open invitation to make things up in the margins. The Crucible is beyond mortal reckoning, and an invitation to be inventive. I loved stuffing whatever new details I could into whatever places would hold them.


Was there a particular aspect of the Crucible you were hoping to encapsulate with your story? What was it?

The size, scope, and scale of it. There’s more going on in any one slice of the Crucible than we could understand in a lifetime of study. The diversity and wildly divergent philosophies of the Crucible’s inhabitants touch on every part of it.


Describe your story in one word.

Transformation.

If you could explore the Crucible again, what story would you want to tell?

I would love to write the novel of Captain Val Jericho and the Star Alliance’s arrival on the Crucible. Theirs would be an amazing perspective from which to explore the world of Crucible, perfect for bringing new players into it, and I love space exploration tropes.


What advice do you have for authors in the Keyforge community looking to create their own stories based in the Crucible?

Make it your own. The Crucible is a universe into itself - and maybe even more than one universe. There’s more land, beings, and civilizations there than even the largest sourcebook can list. Chase your wild thoughts, because there’s almost certainly room for them in the Crucible.


That wraps up our interview with Tristan Palmgren. Next up, we hear from Cath Lauria:

We want to highlight your efforts and get players excited to learn more about the world they think they know! To that end, the Archons of The Epic Quest have some questions to learn more about you and your work!

First, about you!

What is your name and how long have you been writing stories?

Hi there! My name is Cath Lauria, and I’ve been writing and publishing stories for over a decade. Most of that has been done under a pen name, however.


What other projects have you worked on prior to Tales from the Crucible?

This is my first time writing for a project with established worldbuilding like Keyforge, and working within those guidelines has been a fascinating experience. It definitely hasn’t been confining, though—Keyforge exists in a world so vast and full of potential that almost anything can happen.


What is your favorite Keyforge House? Why?

Oooh, it’s probably a tie between Untamed and Shadows! They both have a lot of depth and versatility, and can work well with others or be just fine and dandy on their own, thanks so much.

Have you played the Keyforge card game? If so, do you have a favorite deck? Favorite card?

Not yet!


Why did you decide to work on a story for this project? What interested you in the world of Keyforge?

I loved the idea of writing science fiction that could be fun and lighthearted while still intriguing. To quote my favorite doctor: “Space is disease and death wrapped in darkness and silence,” but with Keyforge it doesn’t have to be.


Next up, we have some questions about your experience writing your story for the anthology.

With a world as diverse, open-ended, and complex as the Crucible, how did you come to focus on the character(s) and story you chose?

There are so many epic options in the world of Keyforge, with creatures of immense power or intelligence who can figure out how to do almost anything. Figuring that route would be popular, I decided to go the opposite direction and focus on an apprentice mechanic, someone small with comparatively small concerns that are nevertheless matters of life and death to her. That’s part of the beauty of Keyforge—anybody can be interesting because there’s so much world to play with.

Without an established body of lore for Keyforge, what challenges did you encounter while writing your piece? What innovations did you make?

I actually loved that there wasn’t a lot of established lore for Keyforge—it’s nice to get the chance to be part of the establishment, in that way, and I didn’t have to do a lot of catch-up reading to make sure I was canon compliant. I researched locations that I thought were interesting and narrowed down the sort of character and plot dynamics I wanted, then put together a pitch. I had to make some adjustments to ensure my characters weren’t OOC with regards to their species, but that was the only real challenge I encountered.


Were there any cards in particular that inspired you? Or any aspects of the houses and world?

Here I’ve gone and said my favorite houses are Untamed and Shadows, but I ended up honing in on Brobnar for casting some of my heroine’s enemies. I mean, who but a Looter Goblin is going to live in a giant, mysterious, incredibly dangerous trash heap? You know, apart from the cyber rats.


In comparison to your past works, was there anything that felt different or special while working with the Keyforge world?

I loved getting a little guidance as far as setting and character, actually. This is my first time writing for an established world, but I definitely hope it isn’t my last.

Was there a particular aspect of the Crucible you were hoping to encapsulate with your story? What was it?

I wanted to show an echelon of the Keyforge world that most players wouldn’t see. Archons, vault battles, aember, adventurers—all of that is amazing, but there’s potential for drama in everything, and with The Apprentice, I wanted to focus on the drama of a girl on the cusp of independence, who has that independence suddenly threatened.


Describe your story in one word.

Self-reliance!


If you could explore the Crucible again, what story would you want to tell?

How am I supposed to pick just one? I’d love to take a person or group of people on an adventure to some of the more remote areas of Keyforge, searching for knowledge or treasure—or both! Both is good!

What advice do you have for authors in the Keyforge community looking to create their own stories based in the Crucible?

The sky is the limit! There are so many fascinating options in the Keyforge world, no matter what dynamic you want to create, there’s the background and worldbuilding there to back you up.


That about wraps up our questionnaire. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some insight with the Keyforge community! Since we are “The Epic Quest” blog, we have one last question for you:


What is your quest?

I seek to create, to entertain, and to keep up with a toddler!

That concludes our interviews for today!

To purchase Keyforge: Tales From the Crucible, A Keyforge Anthology, be sure to check out your preferred site for books, or get it from your local bookstore when it releases September 1st, 2020!

Amazon Link

Barnes & Noble Link

Here's what the publisher, Aconyte Books, has to say about Tales From the Crucible:

Take a whirlwind tour to the incredible planet of a million fantasy races, the Crucible, in this wild science fantasy anthology from the hit new game, KeyForge.
Welcome to the Crucible – an artificial planet larger than our sun – an ever-growing patchwork of countless other worlds, filled with creatures, sentient beings and societies stolen from across the universe by the mythical Architects. Across this dizzying juxtaposition of alien biospheres, the enigmatic and godlike Archons seek to unlock the secrets at the heart of the Crucible. Everyone else is just trying to survive… Explore nine tales of adventure in a realm where science and magic team up, of discovery and culture clash, featuring mad Martian scientists, cybernetic surgeons, battle reenactors, elven thieves, private investigators, goblins, saurian monsters, and the newly arrived human Star Alliance.

You can check out their article announcing the anthology here:

Anything is Possible on an Impossible World: KeyForge – Tales of the Crucible edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

That's all from me today! To keep up to date on the adventures cataloged on The Epic Quest, you can find me on Twitter as @TheEpicQuestKF, and on Discord as TheRealPlayerOne#7724. In the meantime, be sure to check out our other articles and stories:

Portland Prime Tournament Report

Hock: An Alternate-Art Keyforge Story

Seattle Vault Tour: A Retrospective Report

The Silver VaultWarrior

Mass Mutation: Keyforge Set 4 Revealed!

Deck-Warping Cards: Epic Quest

Cheers and may your Aember always shine bright,

-Austin "RealPlayerOne", Questing Cartographer