Interview with Clinton J. Boomer (PART 5)

Welcome to Part 5 of a 5 part interview with the designer of Coliseum Morpheuon The Damnation Epoch, Clinton J. Boomer; You can find part 1 HERE, part 2 HERE part 3HERE and Part 4 HERE

41. What are your recommendations for making Coliseum Morpheuon relevant in an existing campaign (Pathfinder, 3.5, AE game or hybrid)? My hope is to make the Coliseum Morpheuon sort of a mini-setting; like the City of Brass in the Plane of Fire, it's a living, breathing place with a lot of stuff going on under the surface, that players could explore again and again, even from one campaign to the next. There's more than one story to be told here, but I think that GMs will find the Damnation Epoch a perfect introduction to the place - and then can do with it as they see fit.

42. How do magic and the supernatural affects of the plane of dreams affect the culture and ecology of your mini-setting? The plane of Dreams is highly 'morphic' - that's, honestly, one of the reasons that I chose the name 'Morpheuon', along with the connection to Morpheus in classical (and pop!) literature. My intention is to make the Coliseum a realistic place - realistic, here, meaning that it borrows a lot from my own subconscious and from really interesting fiction which deals heavily with the subconscious, like Neil Gaiman's Sandman or Sam Keith's The Maxx, a lot of Lovecraft's & Steven King's work (like the Dark Tower), the film Waking Life and the much-beloved Pschonauts game. The ecology, of course, will be the easy part: there's no real sunlight here, but weird plants may grow along the banks of rivers thick with multi-eyed squid, their tattoed leaves fed by the flashing ghost-lights of sleepwalking children passing in and out of Dream. In short, anything goes. The culture, however, is going to be the really challenging and fun part: in short, it all comes down to the Khan. The Khan of Nightmares and his servitor race have to be usable to GMs even if they've never run a Jade Oath-style game before, although of course his inspiration comes from kung fu films. During my chats with Steve, I've started thinking of him almost as The Mayor from Season 4 of Buffy, or like Leland Gaunt from King's Needful Things - a sort of of "Affable Evil", or "Evil with Calculated & Pleasant Tendencies". The Khan is a manipulator and a collector, so the Coliseum has to be a hodge-podge of civilizations, some of them lost to time or existing only in the minds of particularly potent dreamers. Part of the Coliseum will be almost like a slummy, shifting Casablanca - it's where people with nowhere else to go find themselves; yet, other parts are the 'public face' of the Khan, more like a dreamy Exit to Eden where the Kahn entertains visitors.

43. How do you feel about working with Jonathan Roberts as your cartographer?

I fell in love with his work a while ago, and I think that we're going to be a great team - his style is pretty much EXACTLY how I would draw if I could. Of course, I don't have even the barest modicum of drawing talent, so seeing what he's capable of gives me goosebumps.

44. How do you feel about Ashton Sperry joining up to do ColiseumMorpheuon Paper-Minis? I'm not JUST a huge fan of Ashton's work - I'm also a friend! In short, I would have petitioned Steve to get Ashton on board if I had thought of it first; the fact that Steve snagged such a cool and talented guy to be a part of this project with me makes me even more proud to be working on this team.

45. Patron Question: Any newly released (or soon to be released) products you are excited about? Well, I'm obviously excited to see the fan-reaction of the Pathfinder RPG, but I'm even more juiced to finally get my hands on the Pathfinder Bestiary - it's been a long time since I've gotten giddy about a book of monsters, but I know how good the team is! The next year also promises to unleash a whole slew of Pathfinder RPG-liscensced products from other companies, and I'm really excited to see what pops up.

46. Patron Question: What other projects are you working on currently? Since you didn't specify "gaming" projects, several of which I'm not really at liberty to discuss at the moment, I'll talk a little about some of my other writing: I'm right now in the editing phase on a second, expanded edition of my short-story collection, I'm working on two comic books tentatively titled "Tale of the Empty Hand" & "Soapscum Unlimited" and a young adult novel called "The Brand New Knockdown"; I'm also finishing up the Pathfinder fan-novel "Road to Varno", and although we're on summer-hiatus from working on more PSAs, there's plenty of CreativeJuices stuff that I've got my hand in at the moment. As for specific gaming material that I can talk about right now, I'm always looking out for new projects that spark my interest - for the moment, however, I'm focusing all of my energy on Coliseum Morpheuon!

47. Patron Question: What will the bibliography of Coliseum Morpheuon look like? Bibliography, eh? You mean, like, what other texts will I be referencing? I suppose, upon further consideration (and a note from Steve - thanks, Steve!), that you mean, like, what literary works influenced the brainstorming on Coliseum Morpheuon. Well, I've already gone over some of the well-springs that I keep going back to: Lovecraft, including his Dreamlands stuff (I'm love to have a couple of Men from Leng show up!), a certain Bruce Lee film called "Enter the Dragon" that I quite like, and the complex political maneuvering that I've found works well in Vampire: the Masquerade or Unknown Armies. If you mean what OGL gaming supplements I'm most likely to reference, especially for adaptation into the new Pathfinder Chronicles RPG, there's a soft spot in my heart for the Advanced Bestiary by Matt Sernett (from Green Ronin) - I'll be really surprised if there aren't a few monsters cobbled together from that book snuck in there!

48. What's your dream-project, if you got to work on ANYTHING? There's a fun old game that I like to play with other gamers & writers - it's called "What's the weirdest Intellectual Property you'd be willing to adapt to gaming?"

There's a "Wuthering Heights" game availible online that probably spawned from that sort of brainstorming:

... and although I aparently can't find it now, there's a fun D20 Modern variant/campaign setting that uses the universe from NBA Jam & psychic super-powers. I feel, in a lot of ways, that I really DO get to work on anything - if I had brought, for example, a "Transformers vs. Ninja Gaiden vs. Harry Potter - the RPG!" concept to Steve, I have a feeling that he would have at the very least taken it seriously. My "dream project", then, is just to get to work on stuff like this!

49. Is there anything else the world should know about you? I'm a giant, giant nerd - I love Buffy and Green Lantern and Akira Kurosawa and the movie "The Mummy" and vampires and D&D in the most unironic way possible. And I can't wait to get a chance to nerd-out with my patrons!

50. Is there anything else the world should know about ColiseumMorpheuon The Damnation Epoch?

It's going to to be your project as much as it is mine - by which I mean that it'll have everything I love, and everything you love!

This ends our interview with Clinton J Boomer about Coliseum Moprheuon the Damanation Epoch. I wanted to thank him for taking the time to do this, and all the patrons who submitted questions. We will be releasing a podcast we did with him next week (Unfettered Development #002) You can learn more and/or sign up to join us as a patron on thiis project HERE