Beyond the Western Deep

One of the best things about telling a long form story like Beyond the Western Deep is that we can introduce characters and revisit them at different phases of their lives and learn a bit about them–how they tick, what motivates them, and most important: how they change our protagonists.

Crim began his life as a foil for Quinlan–essentially just a way to show off how talented Quinlan was in the ways of Tesque. He wasn’t a character in his own right, he existed to serve a function in Quinlan’s own story. That’s not to say every character you create will have the same depth as your protagonists/antagonists/etc by any means, but as a formative character for Quinlan, I think we all felt he deserved to be handled better than in the before-times scripts we’d generated pre-2011.

The beefy tamian became something of a childhood bully for Quinlan, though it’s never explicitly stated it is heavily implied. There’s a lot to unpack there, of course–especially that Caldus seems more disappointed that his grandson wouldn’t stand up to Crim than that he’d been beaten up in a tesque match.

But Crim has aspirations of his own. We learn from Quinlan in the Land’s End Tavern that it was Crim who wanted to become captain after Caldus passed away–and was probably vastly more suited to the role–but it was only through nepotism that Quinlan secured the role. This of course led to Crim attempting to humiliate the new captain in front of his tesque trainees.

That right there could have been the end of Crim’s story, but I always wanted to pull him back into the story, to show how characters change and grow–even the ones we hate (or love to hate).

Welcome back to the story, Crim!

WINTERSDAWN IS COMING TO STEAM ON PC!

As you know, we’re staggering page releases a bit thanks to holiday season shenanigans. But we’re still working on all sorts of things!

For example, our first “snackable” Beyond the Western Deep adventure game “Wintersdawn in the Deep” is going to be releasing on Steam for Windows/PC on December 2nd!

This version (which launches for $2.99–though there will be a launch discount!) features some really cool extras, too! I’ve added a whole bonus art section that you unlock by finding special keys hidden throughout the environment. Finding all the keys unlocks over 20 pieces of art that chronicle the history of the Western Deep series.

You can Wishlist the game right now, by heading to https://store.steampowered.com/app/2197130/Wintersdawn_in_the_Deep/

We’d really appreciate your support to make the launch as great as possible.

THAT’S IT FOR NOW…

But there’ll be more to come as we inch closer to our next Kickstarter (Volume Three, here we come)!

Have a great week, everyone!