AMA with Bruce R Cordell (The Strange, D&D, Monte Cook Games)

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

Hi Bruce,
1. How has technology impacted the way you design products now as opposed to when you first started?

2. What do you see as the origin of consciousness?

3. Who had the vision to make the Anubis like figures in Aredyn?

 

[BruceRCordell]

Hi Bruce,
1. How has technology impacted the way you design products now as opposed to when you first started?

2. What do you see as the origin of consciousness?

3. Who had the vision to make the Anubis like figures in Aredyn?

1) When I FIRST started, I didn't own a laptop, so I had to write everything long-hand, then go find the computer lab, enter it, print it out, and send it via mail. However I acquired one of those early Macintoshes not to long after that. Of course access to easy research is wonderful. But access to easy distraction is terrible. Most writers I know use devices that force them to stay off the internet for periods of time. It's the only way to be sure.

2) Consciousness lies along a continuum. The more we learn about animal behavior, the more we learn how they are more and more like all of us self-professed conscious beings. They have a level consciousness; it's just different than ours. So I guess the first nerve cell is the origin of consciousness.

3) That would be me. The qephilim, servitors of the Incarnations. During the Age of Myth, qephilim were semi- divine in their own right, and builders of the first civilizations in Ardeyn. Anyhow, I worked very closely with Matt Stawicki, the Lead Artist for The Strange, until we got the look just right

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

1) When I FIRST started, I didn't own a laptop, so I had to write everything long-hand, then go find the computer lab, enter it, print it out, and send it via mail. However I acquired one of those early Macintoshes not to long after that. Of course access to easy research is wonderful. But access to easy distraction is terrible. Most writers I know use devices that force them to stay off the internet for periods of time. It's the only way to be sure.

2) Consciousness lies along a continuum. The more we learn about animal behavior, the more we learn how they are more and more like all of us self-professed conscious beings. They have a level consciousness; it's just different than ours. So I guess the first nerve cell is the origin of consciousness.

3) That would be me. The qephilim, servitors of the Incarnations. During the Age of Myth, qephilim were semi- divine in their own right, and builders of the first civilizations in Ardeyn. Anyhow, I worked very closely with Matt Stawicki, the Lead Artist for The Strange, until we got the look just right

Thanks Bruce. I love the qephilim, and have been trying for a while now to get a custom mask done

 

[Connorsrpg]

Re the qephilim - I actually wanted to ask about them too. I cannot find an actual physical description of what they look like, other than have a shining light. I could not tell whether those Anubis heads were helmets and others look to have other animal heads - is this the case?

The monster entry does not describe what they actually look like. There is a little under Ardyn, but still not really clear to me.