My professional writing career and one of my favourite hobbies are inextricably and weirdly intertwined. My first two books were written for Wizards of the Coast (under their short-lived Mirrorstone imprint). While I had always been interested in D&D (it’s so very, very me), I had never actually played the world’s most popular role playing game until they asked me to investigate writing a young adult (YA) novel that featured Dungeons and Dragons. So, I joined a D&D Meetup group in London and started playing in 2010. While that novel never went beyond an outline and 3 chapters, I’ve never stopped playing. In fact, many of the best friends I’ve made since moving to the UK are D&D people (they ARE my people: odd, creative, and readily willing to embarrass themselves in public for the sake of the story).
Since then, I have fully immersed myself, playing campaigns that go on for literal YEARS but also writing table top role playing game (TTRPG) scenarios and adventures. Here are just a sampling of some I have worked on:
I provided a kid-friendly setting for Tiny Dungeon: The Hatchling Edition from Gallant Knight Games. This was a lot of fun to work on especially as making D&D (and writing!) accessible for younger players/writers is a particular passion of mine. After all, playing D&D is basically a living story that players create along with their Game Master (GM).
This is something I’ve even written about for BookTrust: Fantasy, Escape and Roleplaying Games: Why Kimberly Pauley loves Dungeons and Dragons.
I’ve also done some other scenario work for Outland Entertainment, including Rogues: A Blackguards RPG Powered by Alan Bahr’s Tombpunk and Nicolas R. Giacondino’s Chronicles of the Long Night: A Nightfell RPG. It’s always really interesting to step foot into someone else’s world to make a contribution. I feel like I learn something every time I do!
One large project I worked on was Eldermancy / GhostFire Gaming’s The Seeker’s Guide to Twisted Taverns. I wrote up three of the taverns for that one: The Treetop, The Rail-Away, and The Wildaback. It’s billed as a 5th Edition supplement filled with fantastical pre-made taverns, inspiring story hooks, and lovable NPC’s. I can also tell you it was just as fun to write as it is to play (and you should totally play it).
Most recently, I was one of the writers for their 5E Sunken Isles adventure campaign, which is currently on Kickstarter (and was funded in 35 minutes!). I’m not a slow writer, but this project was very challenging — I wrote nearly 90K words in less than 3 months! I also had the opportunity to help design three new playable races (you can get a glimpse of the Kia’i in the image below). I highly recommend you back it if you like intense campaigns.
And I’m very excited to announce (more details coming soon) that I’m starting work on a D&D 5E supplement of my own — something very near and dear to my heart, incorporating fairy tales into a TTRPG setting.
