What is going on inside the heads of our favorite creators?
Bradley Anahua recently published the gonzo-historical epic; Galileo 2: Judgement Day with Lamentations of the Flame Princess (Available in the US here, the EU and Internationally here, and PDF here.) He graciously answers my questions for this interview with the kind of enthusiasm that only a new author can summon. I'm always fascinated by stories in life of people toiling away on their Great Work, which so often feels fruitless, only to have a chance occurrence turn an otherwise throwaway spark into a runaway inferno. After all, isn't good luck just the intersection of preparedness with opportunity? Let's find out.
Me: When did role playing games first come into your life? What was it like for you to discover this hobby?
BA: Grade two. A friend handed me photocopied sheets of weapons — just weapons — they were taken from some player’s handbook from a game I hadn’t heard of. It was just pictures of an arsenal, with swords, laser rifles, ninja gear, etc. We didn’t have player sheets or even dice.
For dice we just drew pieces of paper with numbers written on them from each other’s hands. I have no idea what game they came from, some modern or slightly futuristic ttrpg from the 80s or very early 90s. It may have had cyborgs and mutants in it. He described the game about as well as you could expect from an 8 year old, you fight bad guys and run missions. Then he told me to make up an adventure for him. I love how kids just jump in. I didn’t need any more explanation, apparently, because I started riffing. Uhh, okay, ninjas planted a bomb in an amusement park! You gotta find the bomb, kill the ninjas, and eat corndogs till you puke.
Actual D&D didn’t come onto my radar until my twenties, working in a video store. A coworker described the hobby to me as such, you pretend to be elves and go on adventures. It sounded hilarious and lame to me. Turns out another friend who worked there played, and they start sharing stories of their epic game moments, and by the time they’re done I’m jealous and want in.
Shortly after I rolled up my first elf and died in a spiked pit trap. That was 3rd Edition D&D. The switch to 4e killed the game for that group of friends, and 5e couldn’t revive it. It wasn’t until finding OSR and LotFP that I found something that reminded me of those fun early adventures where failure was almost guaranteed, and it was hilarious.
Me: What galvanized you to start being creative in the first place? Was there a certain moment, any early formative memory?
BA: I don’t think there was one specific moment, the desire to be creative was always there, and was nurtured by the cool bits of art I’d discover. I do remember one of the first times I explored a library, I was maybe five or six. I drifted out of the kids section to wander around, looking for scary books, and found Greek Mythology; the harpies and Medusa created a love of horror. Just the feeling of walking amongst all those shelves, filled with a sense of wonder at all those books and the worlds contained within, it gave me direction. I knew I wanted to write, and have my legacy on a shelf, too.
If I could go back in time and hand myself Galileo 2: Judgement Day, would I still chase that dream, or would I have left that library and immediately looked at trade school?
Me: Tell me about your recent start in TTRPG publishing? What was it like for you to get your foot in the door? How has it been since then?
BA: James Edward Raggi IV from Lamentations of the Flame Princess posted an open call for submissions for Green Devil Face, which is a compilation of mini adventures and articles. Write an adventure in 24 hours and submit it. Well, that’s how a 24 hour film festival works; write, shoot, and edit a short film the entire film in one day. You don’t sleep, you barely eat. Seeing Raggi post that challenge brought back memories, mostly bad, but I took it as a sign.
The challenge happened on the busiest day. I had only five hours, and most of that time was spent trying to think of an idea. This was my thought process:
Lamentations does weird fiction set in the 17th century, let's start there.
My wife and I were on our honeymoon in Florence in 2017… 2016?
I better get that right. Anyway, there we were in Florence eating lamprey meatballs and going to museums, looking at the sculpted butts of the Renaissance. We saw the Galileo Museum, and Galileo did his thing in the 17th century.
The museum was typical, you’d wander through looking at science instruments and info cards, until you reach Galileo’s severed finger on display in a bell jar.
One may ask, why is that here? Reliquaries are a part of Catholic tradition. A piece of a saint or martyr gets put into a reliquary then it becomes a holy relic for people to visit during a pilgrimage. However, Galileo wasn’t a saint, though you could stretch the definition of martyr if you include house arrest as a form of martyrdom, but that sets the bar a little low in my opinion. Now everyone wearing a home arrest anklet is a kind of martyr.I thought way too much about that macabre finger display. Anyway…
Down the street from the Galileo Museum is the birthplace of Pinnochio. Dots connect: Creepy puppet man, Galileo, it basically writes itself. I kept thinking of the scene from Terminator 2 where John Connor rides his dirt bike away from the semi, and then gets rescued by Schwarzennegger. For some reason I thought it was funny if Galileo was in the part of John Connor, and the players could chose to fill the role of Schwarzennegger.
That was my thought process, and somehow thinking ate up my time. I had 20 minutes left to submit. I wrote a bulletpoint list of all the things I would’ve included, then titled it “Galileo 2: Judgement Day”. You know that joke, The Aristocrats? It was like that. Submit nonsensical shit then give it an epic title, and hope the reader laughs.
Don’t get me wrong, I was disappointed I’d failed to live up to a great opportunity, but it was what it was. I didn’t wanna give up on it, there was something there that I was genuinely excited about, so I fleshed it out. No word came from Raggi, so every day I didn’t hear back I worked on it, until eventually it was ready for playtesting.
Two playtests later, then something happened. One morning James posted on Facebook about something called Galileo 2: Judgement Day. Based on the title alone, he hadn’t even read it, it was going in the book. At first I was elated but then had remembered he had nothing to read but a title. I flipped out, begged him not to read what I submitted and allow me to send the play tested piece. And here we are.
 |
| Galileo literally giving you the middle finger from beyond the grave. |
Since being published, not much externally has changed. Internally I feel more confident and have stopped trying to produce a masterpiece, working away for years on something to “get my foot in the door.” I’ve had a few opportunities come my way. I was invited to do a guest spot on a podcast called Tales Of The Manticore, a solo play D&D radio show. It’s actually a serious game, which is refreshing to see a game where players aren’t taking the piss out of it at every opportunity. The host and writer, John, is a great writer and I hope he tries writing fantasy someday.
Life has changed dramatically outside of writing and TTRPGs. We bought a duplex, it was a foreclosure on a hoarder house that was filled with wet garbage, cat shit, black mould, and bed bugs. We couldn’t afford contractors so it fell on my wife and I to fix it up. Thank god for Youtube tutorials.
Me: Who are some of your biggest creative influences?
BA: In terms of TTRPG designers who influenced me, two come to mind, Chris Perkins and James Edward Raggi IV. Chris Perkins for what he does live. He’s my favourite dungeon master to watch. He’s a master of emergent storytelling, the consequences at his table elevate the story and still devastate players, and he’s got a sense of pacing that makes his games feel like live-action storytelling. He made me want to learn how to do that. RIP Dice Camera Action.
James Edward Raggi IV. I’ll keep this brief because he takes compliments about as willingly as he takes cancelling. He’s an innovative game designer with the chops of a great horror writer.
For example, take the backstory for The God That Crawls; a saint gets kidnapped by pagans, is tortured, put through strange pagan rituals, buried alive, and is turned into an immortal flesh-eating blob of mucus. Somewhere inside that blob he’s still inside, still a Catholic saint, but his mind is wrecked from the trauma of his torture, transformation, and being buried alive.
The parishioners of his church eventually find him, too late, and place him in a labyrinth under a church to be worshipped. And when they sing hymns down the well, where he crawls, a vestige of a memory stirs, and he stops to sway gently to the music. The labyrinth isn’t just his prison, it’s a metaphor for him. He’s trapped within himself, his humanity wandering lost inside his gooey form, looking to come out but unable to escape. That’s not just a great back story for a gelatinous cube, it’s fucking awesome writing.
Me: What are some of the biggest illusions you had about the RPG industry that have been shattered?
BA: I didn’t have a lot of illusions about the RPG industry, except that maybe that I’d get in through hard work and not a stupid title. Working in the film and TV industry had already made me cynical and dispelled my illusions, namely the illusion that I’d enjoy working in film and TV.
Don’t take that too seriously, I enjoyed some of it, but I also worked on shit like… a movie about mini-tornadoes that freeze you, or a show about a guy who trains dogs to dance with their owners.
Funny enough I was cancelled while working in the entertainment industry, too, so it was basically training for a future at Lamentations. It wasn’t personally directed at me, It was just a show that took heat in a political way, and was protested both online and in person until it was cancelled - in both meanings of the word, not renewed and socially cancelled.
It was a one-sided argument that became a tsunami that just crushed us. It also pulled the chair out from under me, too, lost my job but had already missed the crewing up for all the other shows that season, and so I was left there with an excessive amount of time to ruminate on that weird internet pile-on. It was kind of the last straw and I left the industry.
Me: What do you hope to achieve through the work you are doing now Fortune? Infamy?
BA: Writing is the reward, but if there’s money to be made, I could use that.
Me: What do you think makes a great RPG book, what is it that elevates it above the others?
BA: Do I have to write a great RPG book first to answer that? Honestly, my bar is set low for what I look for in buying TTRPGs. I buy PDFs willy-nilly, and don’t expect to be whisked away into the Neverending Story. I’m happy with pretty art and a few good ideas.
But if we’re talking about what those really incredible books have in common, I guess they all have a strong and unique vision that makes you feel something.
Broodmother Skyfortress by Jeff Rients gives you that feeling that you walked into a comic book store and found treasure. Vornheim has that punk-meets-aristocratic aesthetic that only Zak Smith is able to do. The art is a huge part but he writes these things that stick in my head, kind of like that old cartoon Aeon Flux, immersive little details that fuck you up.
Same question for you, Graham. I’d love to know what books have made it into your TTRPG hall of fame.
Me: Mine mostly reflect my being raised by an old grognard, (who literally bought Chainmail when it came out) and game designer for ICE and other companies. I only stumbled across the online OSR scene in 2021. It was like coming out of one of those isolated tribes in the wilderness into so-called "civilization." Anyway a quick list, I don't want to distract from the main attraction.
- The Arduin Grimoires by Dave Hargrave.
- HPL’s Dreamlands by Sandy Peterson et al, Call of Cthulhu.
- Tegel Manor by Bob Bledsaw and Bob Owen, Judge’s Guild.
- Carcosa by Geoffrey Mckinney, LotFP.
- Dark Space by Monte Cooke, Rolemaster/Spacemaster.
- Hârnworld by N. Robin Crossby.
BA: Oh God, Rolemaster. I did play a MUD based on Rolemaster's system when I was a teenager. I only have the vaguest memories of wandering into scary places with my cleric and getting my leg ripped off by a wolf. Not sure if the limb damage system was in effect in the tabletop game but it was savage.
For the uninitiated, muds were text-based MMOs. I shudder to think of how much of my teenage life was spent in them.
Me: You're remembering right, those crit/fumble tables were evocatively brutal. Rolling a 66 almost always meant a hideously painful death. I had a character die from being dissolved in an acid loogie from a Drake once. They had to wash him off the deck of the raft with a bucket of water. As kids, my best friend dropped the World Emperor with a long distance arrow crit that severed his spinal column in the neck.
Anyway, moving on, are there any movies/TV shows that have stuck with you for years that have worked their way into your art?
BA: Terminator 2: Judgement Day might be too obvious to mention. I’m totally inspired by movies and TV, possibly to my detriment, I don’t know if I have a single original idea in my head.
I don’t know what’s an influence and what’s something I just love…I love Richard Linklater movies for the way he avoids tropes and cliche plots for stream of conscious conversation and exploring ideas. Stallone writing Rocky always was inspiring to me. He’s a role model for determination, especially to someone who doesn’t wanna be a bum.
Peter Chung, creator of Aeon Flux, and how he took inspiration from North and South Korea to tell this grotesque, Egon Schiele-looking body horror, set in a dystopian world of fascists versus dominatrixes. That cartoon was abstract, really strange, so obscure you’d have to watch it several times to understand it, and even then… I just admire how far he’d go to tell a story and the emotions he’d draw out. And those iconic voice actors…
Me: Tell me about your favorite book...
BA: Picking a favourite is hard for me. I prefer top ten lists. I’ve reread IT by Stephen King at least ten times, my first read being when I was the age of the kids in the Loser’s Club. I love that book.
A small town where bullying is silently condoned, to the point where adults will let the marginalized children be eaten by a clown in the sewer. The 90s made-for-TV movie is dated now but that’s my preferred version. It was shot all around the lower mainland of British Columbia, so Derry looks like home to me.
And Tim Curry really understood the assignment of playing Pennywise. Pennywise is a child-eating monster who poses as a clown to lure kids away into the sewer. It’s basically a con job, there’s the set up where he’s a goofy charming clown, then there’s the big gotcha where he gets the kid and eats them. I argue that the eating of children is not the scary part.
First, it’s never shown, you only see big sharp teeth then fade to black. All the tension is in the luring, and the luring relies on charisma to such a degree that you, the reader or viewer, are supposed to feel that “oh shit that kid is gonna go with the clown. Nonono, don’t go kid, it’s a trick.” Tim Curry had the range to be funny, goofy, charismatic, patient, and disarming before he’d turn it on and become all teeth and boogley eyes.
The remake cut that. No charisma, no game of cat and mouse, no disarming of a kid’s natural sense of stranger danger, Pennywise just went in being a scary freak, then he’d have to somehow crank it up to another level to get even scarier for the gotcha. Diminishing returns.
Sorry, I was supposed to talk about the book. The book has a lot of history included in it, since Pennywise shows up every 30 years. The book has stories from Pennywise in the roaring 20s, and the 1800s Pennywise. It built a mythos with these deep roots, not just about Pennwise but the town of Derry. It was like Derry was just the strands of a funnel web spider, and people subconsciously knew to play their part.
I mentioned Pennywise would say funny things too, which didn’t make him any less scary to me. It made him more scary, because he, or she I should say, isn’t human. This inhuman creature reads you like a book, sees your deepest fears and pains, and laughs at you for them. Keep in mind Pennywise has no interest in adults, so that cruelty is directed at children. Pennywise likes an easy target, just like the other bullies of Derry.
And there’s just something about Derry as a counterpart to Pennywise, a small town where everyone bullied is left to be eaten alive. Anyway, I like a good antagonist, is what I’m saying.
Me: So how has being published affected your life?
BA: I can’t eat in an Italian restaurant or buy a telescope without getting whacked. No change externally. No Hollywood party invites, or even invites to go sauna with James Edward Raggi IV. There were internal changes. Being seen by somebody I respected as an artist was really validating, and I felt like I wasn’t crazy for believing in myself.
Me: Do you think art in general or RPGs in particular, have any responsibilities in this day and age?
BA: As people we have responsibilities to each other, but as artists the responsibility is to the vision. That’s the answer I wish I listened to while never once giving in to internal pressures to self-censor. I was an aspiring comedy and horror writer for many years before Raggi published me. Fifteen years worth of short stories and screenplays are buried in my backyard somewhere, most of which were never publishable anyway, but some were buried out of my own fears of offending people.
My creative process kind of goes like this…
I’m in an infinite gourmet kitchen, surrounded by stainless steel and mountains of ingredients, I’ve got a recipe I’m thrilled about, and I’m wearing my cutest apron. It’s time to create.
Suddenly I’m paralyzed by a question: who am I cooking for?
I thought I was cooking for myself, but who’s in the front of this restaurant? Is it friends and family, or coworkers, how many are vegan? Oh God, I have no idea who this is going out to, and what if I cook something that will never be enjoyed by anyone but me?
I call for help and another cook comes in. She tells me she’s vegan before even saying hello, cuts the salt by half, and sprinkles in sunflower seeds. Hmm, it’s healthier, a little more bland, but somebody’s gotta like that.
I keep cooking until the next moment of doubt and hesitation. Again, I call for help. In walks another cook who argues passionately about why I need an entire rutabaga. He’s confident and has an Australian accent, so I wanna make him happy. In it goes.
More cooks come in, cooks I didn’t even ring for, until all I’m boxed out. Their hands go into my meal and change it in order to improve it for mass consumption. When I finally push through and grab my plate, I don’t even look at it, I just deliver it to the front and drop it on a big empty table.
The restaurant is entirely empty, so I sit and eat this freezer burned veggie burger from the 90s with a side of unsalted frozen fries. It’s not what I wanted and I had no fun making it.
I’m being self deprecating, but I guess what I’m getting at is picking your audience first then writing for their approval is a joy killer. You can’t win the approval of imaginary naysayers in your head.
Personal experience aside, applying social responsibility to art is a bit of a road to Hell paved with good intentions. And I definitely don’t want people assuming the responsibility of deciding what art I’ll see or not see. Apparently I have a lot to say on the issue. Anyway, uhh, just have fun. Thoughts, Graham, on whether there should or should not be a social responsibility in
creating art?
Me: Language like "should" or "should not" makes me want to throw the whole argument out the window. But in general I think we should be respectful and lean into empathy. Beyond that, everyone is free to make their own choices, and if you're putting it out there for the world, you relinquish control of its perception and its reflection on you.
All creative endeavors are a risk in that way. But what was the quote? "A coward dies a thousand times before his death?" Speaking of, what do you think is the most awful death you’ve encountered in a particular historical period?
BA: Recent atrocities spook me more than historical ones because we’re somehow supposed to be better than we used to be. The story of Hisashi Ouchi, or the most radioactive man in history, still haunts me if I dwell on it. The poor guy was exposed to the highest amount of radiation ever recorded on a living person, and it basically caused him to melt over the course of days or weeks, I don’t remember. Japanese doctors decided to try and save his life with experimental treatments.
One looked like it was gonna work, for about a day, but it didn’t work and he was doomed. Instead of going into palliative care, because he’s a human being who deserves to die with dignity, they tried more things with the full awareness that he was going to die regardless of what they did. And he died, as they knew he would. They revived him and restarted the process. More treatments, more agony, let’s try this, let’s prod him with that. He has to lay there in bed, denaturing by the minute, in more agony than can be described, until he dies a second time.
They revive him again, and each time he codes, they bring him back for more, and he doesn’t want it — any of it. He doesn’t want to live. They force him to revive, only to kill him again, on a loop, until there’s nothing left to revive, just mush dripping off of the bone.
You know, it reminds me a little of The God Who Crawls, or the the Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.
Me: Got any favorite RPG heirlooms? First set of dice? Prized first editions?
BA: I guess the heirloom would be whatever physical art and maps rise from the world my five year old daughter has inspired with her wild imagination. She tells me little stories, comes up with these incredible creatures and details that I just obsess over, so I’ve compiled them into a world that we can someday run adventures in.
Me: What is your dream TTRPG job? Does it even exist?
BA: I’m living the dream, sir. I just wanted to write books.
Me: So, what is THE RPG book you want to write? Your Great Work. The one that will change the world?
BA: I have a list of dream collaborations I’d love to make happen. Most of them are with LotFP authors, but there are many others I’d love to work with.
Me: What has been the hardest book for you to finish?
BA: Galileo 2 was given an impossible deadline, but for the best reasons. Gen Con was fast approaching and Raggi wanted Galileo 2 ready for it. It was a huge honour, I’d always dreamed of being published, and someone I respected as a writer wanted to publish me. Of course I wanna make the man happy.
The details are a little fuzzy because everything happened in a haze of sleep deprivation. The deadline was in two weeks, orders were basically write, work quickly, and get it back ASAP to go to layout. Yup, you bet, this is my shot and I’m not gonna fuck it up!
Two weeks passed before I heard from anyone again. Time’s up before I even get to write a single word. Dang. Then I get word my editor got an extension. Phew. But there’s no new deadline, so in my mind, every day was the new deadline.
Every night my wife and I would put the kids to bed at 8, I’d sit down to write until 4:30 AM, send off my notes, crash, wake up at 7:30 AM for dad life and work, and kept this up with manic Nic Cage energy until the book was done.
Tiger’s blood coursed through my veins, which is maybe not the best for a quiet activity like writing. When it was done and submitted, the only feedback I received was “maybe next time leave more time to edit.” A little digital pat on the back to take the piss out of the rookie.
By that point, my manic hyperfocus energy was gone, and my pendulum swung the other way with foggy-headed, hangover-like despair for two weeks.
I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
Me: Can you describe any odd aspects of your creative process?
BA: Sometimes I’ll write with a song on loop, rarely an entire album. Galileo 2’s soundtrack was Aindulmedir’s The Lunar Lexicon.
Me: What’s your personal favorite or least favorite work you’ve ever done?
BA: My favourite work I’ve ever done would be a series of short comedy scripts I wrote with my best friend, Jeff. We were in our 20s and hoping to build a portfolio. We’d go to Denny’s late at night, and take turns hacking out scenes on the laptop. Jeff would write, I’d read out loud what he wrote, laugh my ass off, then I’d take the next scene.
My least favourite work comes from my earliest work as an actor. We did a 48 hour film festival, I somehow landed the lead roll in a junior detective story, and totally ruined the entire thing.
The director asked me to do a Humphrey Bogart impression, which was just a bad note to give a 20 year old, and I couldn’t do it so I sound like a lobotomized Rainman. And I had to flirt with actresses, who had to pretend they were falling for this monotone dork in a fedora, and I’m fighting tough guys and they had to act like I’m beating them up and throwing themselves around for me. It was a little like a Make-A-Wish for this dying guy whose brain is leaking out his nose, and he wants to pretend he’s a junior detective.
Me: In the spirit of Fitzcarraldo, do you have any great failed projects?
BA: I have lots of failed projects but I’m not sure which would be elevated above the others to achieve true greatness for how it failed. That detective piece of shit, probably.
Or my reaction video for unboxing Galileo 2. I wanted to record it, throw it up on YouTube, it might help sell books because it’s a big moment for me, but you’d never be able to tell by my deadpan face.
This is my excited face.
I thought maybe seeing my first published book would cause me to jump up and scream like a contestant on the Price is Right, but nope, still introverted.
I hosted a D&D podcast that didn’t get a single listener. I don’t think it exists online anymore because I stopped paying for hosting. It failed to do what podcasts are supposed to do, which is get listeners, but I love the cast and we had so much fun making it that we recorded the full campaign — took just over a year.
Me: What's coming down the pike next from you? Project-wise? Galileo 3: Rise of the Robo-Papacy?
BA: Funny you should mention a sequel to Galileo 2.
Last summer I was cleaning cat crap out of a plastic Christmas tree, balking at my life and how I’d published this book then went straight to mining petrified cat poop out of a hoarder house, and the cats were somehow brilliant enough to decorate a Christmas tree with their own poop… when a song came on my Spotify and suddenly I was struck with a vision.
The sequel to Galileo 2… tentatively titled Father Figure.
First, you fill out a questionnaire, you pick your ideal characteristics for a father. Weird, right? Moving on.
The game begins with the opening cut scene. You’re all Catholic Priests and Swiss guards, living in the Vatican.
On this hellish morning, Pope Urban VIII relents and tries a sip of coffee. His first sip of the beverage he’d once called satanic, but he’s a forward thinker, and he allows himself to try it.
Big mistake.
Those coffee beans came straight from Hell. The Pope unknowingly invited the Devil in. The seal of holy protection around the Vatican is broken, leaving the gates swinging wide open for Hell to walk in.
Chaos comes, starting slowly, and building up to a climax of the legions of Hell roaring in to the Vatican.
What do you do? Protect the pope, fight the legions of Hell, or loot the riches of the Vatican and haul ass to the Mediterranean?
While the Vatican is being overrun, something unbelievable happens.
Crash! A figure erupts through the marble wall, looking like a Greek God. It’s the Automaton. He’s back, he’s full strength this time, and he’s here for you. Not to kill you, but to protect you (much to the chagrin of the Pope, who follows close behind, trying to assert control over his bodyguard).
The Automaton is your robot Dad, and he’s here to protect you all from the forces of Hell.
Father Figure. Cue the song by George Michael.
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