Søren Keis Thustrup, Author of the Circle of Rites adventure.

Over the next three days I will be posting a 3 part interview I did with Søren Keis Thustrup. Siobharek on the AE forums, author of the Circle of Rites adventure. (I am also hoping to finish an AE monster this week and post it as well).

1. Could you please provide a brief bio about yourself, you gaming habits, and your professional work.
I was introduced to D&D in 1984 through a colleague of my mom (which proves that sometimes teenagers should listen to their parents), and I haven't looked back since. I'm a proud member of the Council of Magisters for Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, and I honestly think my first trip to Gen Con in 2004 was the best thing that happened to him—after meeting my wife and becoming a father. I've authored and co-authored several Arcana Evolved scenarios. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, with my wife, my five-year old daughter, and the usual collection of comics, DVDs, RPG books, and minis. I have a M.A. in English with a minor in TV and Film analysis. Professionally, I'm a copywriter at a small business-to-business agency, where I write English and Danish copy.

2. Could you please sum up Circle of Rites in a sentence or three?
The Circle of Rites is my way of proving that you can indeed make a RPG murder mystery while giving players access to all the neat spells (well most of them). It concerns the murder of a well-loved giant, and while the identity of the killer may soon become apparent there's more to the story than that.

3. How did you first become interested in creating Circle of Rites?
I was lucky enough to be asked by Fiery Dragon Publishing to write an adventure. But for the life of me, I can't remember how it became a murder mystery, other than I'd tossed the idea of Ceremoniums (a pretty important location in the adventure) around at Gen Con 04.

4. Could you list some of your major influences in the creation of the adventure?
A night-time discussion with Bill Collins (Varianor on Monte's boards) gave birth to the idea of Ceremoniums. I think I wanted to do something that wasn't a hunt for a doodad, a battle against a villain and his minions, or a travel adventure. So at the time, I pretty much felt it left the murder mystery. Arcana Evolved and Legacy of the Dragons were two other influences, but really, it was just my fetid imagination,

5. Did Circle of Rites have other working titles? How did you settle on the final name?
Nope. I envisioned the Ceremonium early on as a circular compound, and I liked the name to be evocative but not give anything away.

6. What are the strengths of Circle of Rites over other adventures?
Pandering to my modesty here, eh? The most common praise the module has received was that I'd taken magic into account and provided answers. In the original manuscript, I had several Loresight readings, because I'd always read the spell to be able to "go back in time" and find out about the second-most recent owner, etc., but that was taken out of the module.

7. Describe your best moment working on Circle of Rites.?
Definitely seeing Claudio Pozas' drawings and Ed Bourelle's map, I know it's not part of *my* design process as such, but it was awesome. Bear in mind that I write for a living, so the rush you feel when everything falls into place, while great, isn't that new to me.

But puzzling out the clues was fun, I'll admit!

8. What do you feel was the most ingenious part of Circle of Rites that you devised?
I wouldn't call the adventure ingenuous as such. I pretty much feel I took existing elements (from the game, I mean), and shook them together. But I had almost too much fun devising the ways Kadaran tries dissuading the adventurers to back off (conjured energy creatures down a chimney? That's just mean!)

9. What specific design choice are you most happy with, and why?
I liked the interplay and background of Kadaran and how his feelings for Vi-Taran changed as the sibeccai Evolved. And I enjoyed writing the akashic memory scene. I thought it might be taken out in editing for being too gruesome and too unlike how the akashic record is supposed to work, but it stayed in.

10. Which design element was the hardest to figure out, and why?
The overall trail of clues was hard to work out. I still worry about it being too complicated.

11. What did you learn about adventure design and especially murder mystery adventures?
Honestly, not that much. I'm a fairly introverted guy, and I learn the best from discussing with others. I'm afraid I don't dwell enough on what I've done to learn something from it! Working with Monte Cook on "Vault of the Iron Overlord" (we each wrote half) was much more of a learning experience.

Continue to Part 2