Another quick update rounding up some of the cool stuff I’ve been working on in my role as “loremaster” (not my official title) on the Asmodee Franchise Development team, this time focusing on Legend of the Five Rings!

At Gen Con this year, I spent four days working at the Legend of the Five Rings booth helping Palindrome Interactive show off the combat demo of the first-ever L5R video game, Shadowveil. You can watch the reveal trailer and learn more on the game’s Steam page, and if you weren’t able to try it out in person you can get a basic walkthrough of the demo at LegendoftheFiveRings.com. Over on Facebook, I interviewed game director Filip Andersson about the title’s design and development so far, and I also asked some fans about what they thought of the demo. I’m really proud of the work the Palindrome team has put into the game so far, both in terms of making something that’s great fun to play as well as capturing the essence of Legend of the Five Rings and the Crab Clan specifically. I hope you’ll check it out!

Also at Gen Con, Office Dog showed off the very first L5R Eurogame, River of Gold. Having played it several times, I think it’s a fun, lightweight, quick-and-easy play that will appeal to fans of euros more generally, not just Legend of the Five Rings fans. I also had the opportunity to talk to the game’s designer, Keith Piggott, about his work on the game and some of its design inspirations and goals. To help promote the game in the weeks leading up to its launch, I worked closely alongside Aconyte Books and author Robert Denton III as they created a series of short stories that brings the ports and markets along the River of Gold to life and introduces readers to four of the clan patrons included in the game. The short story series also included the first online story choice offered to L5R players since 2021. You can check out part one of the series here and either read or listen to it—Heather Jinmaku did a fabulous job narrating these stories and bringing the characters to life.

Over at L5R.com, we also shared updates on the upcoming Clan Wars novels and comics, roleplaying game supplements, board games, and more!

At Gen Con this year, I appeared with my company Asmodee to promote the return of Legend of the Five Rings in a big way. We announced new board games, novels, comic books, and the very first L5R video game, all of which I get to support in my work on the Franchise Development Team. (We also launched a brand-new website for L5R, featuring lots of lore to introduce new and returning fans to the setting.)

My colleagues and I had the opportunity to chat with Trevor Cuba from the Court Games Podcast (which I’ve appeared on in the past) all about the upcoming products and the return of the beloved Clan Wars storyline for Legend of the Five Rings. If you want to know more about the future of the franchise, listen to the episode below or find the Court Games podcast on your preferred podcast-listening app.

Image Source: Legend of the Five Rings Facebook Page

I recently had the opportunity to appear on Dice in Mind, a weekly/biweekly podcast hosted by Brad and Jason in which they explore the meaning of life through the lens of RPGs! We got to chat about my work as an editor and writer of tie-in fiction based on board and card games, as well as my work as a worldbuilder for sci-fi and cyberpunk settings such as Fantasy Flight Games’ Android Universe. If you’d like a peek behind the curtain of developing stories and settings for existing IP, give it a listen!

In my role as Creative Director of Story & Setting for Fantasy Flight Games, I had the opportunity to talk along with designer MJ Newman to NPR’s James Perkins Mastromarino about the ways Arkham Horror differs from “pure Lovecraftian” horror, as well as the recently released The Scarlet Keys campaign expansion for the card game. Working to make the game world one where everyone can have fun and feel included hasn’t been without its challenges, but I’m so proud of the team and grateful to our cultural and sensitivity consultants for making The Scarlet Keys so special.

You can read the interview “How ‘Arkham Horror’ games take the nihilism and racism out of Lovecraft” on WBUR’s website.

I recently had the opportunity to appear as a guest on the 80th episode of The Last Province Podcast, which features a behind-the-scenes look at my novella, Ice and Snow. I talked with hosts Daniel Tickle, George Maney, and Robert Denton about my writing process and how the idea for Doji Hotaru’s coming-of-age story came about. We also discuss the centrality of romance to the plot, the challenges of writing fight scenes, and why I felt it was so important for “the Crane Clan novella” to feature the other Great Clans. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or on the web.