given by

Stewart A. Wilson

Bloody hell, has it really been two years?

Of course, to me two years seems like a hell of a long time. I was first roped into this job as a peon writer struggling to make ends meet and wanting to try my hand at writing some Wraith related material. I got handed the material they had then on Stygia.com and was told to basically get on with it. That was in February. Unfortunately, due to a breakdown in communications, the project was put on the back burner through the semester, and my exam period, and through my move to Germany. The Project looked like it hadn't seen any attention in ages, as the front page from April was still up. I thought that the Project had gone the way of Wraith itself, and become but a memory and a lingering Fetter.

Then the call went out to the mailing lists and to the White Wolf forums. Turns out that there was life in the old dog yet. Eight months after I'd originally said 'yeah, I'll give it a go', the Project got a new lease of life. I mentioned that the going on Stygia.com was slow, and sent in the first piece featuring my errant PI, Dick Cassidy. I've never looked back. Through the course of the months, I've come up with five Cassidy pieces, a couple of pieces of unrelated fiction, three articles on running and playing certain parts of Wraith, one partway finished netbook and am currently writing the first GuildNovel.

Once I got started, there was no looking back. I've bought, borrowed stolen and cajoled people to buy me every book relevant to Wraith but four (soon to be but one), and devoured them all. Though I'm crap with deadlines (the first chapter of the GuildNovel was supposed to be done mid-December. Damn writer's block), I still turn things in roughly in time to make the deadline. Along with our erstwhile webmaster, I'm one of two people the Project can count on to provide something every month, no matter the month. I'm a staff writer, and loving every minute of it.

But what does the project offer? What's the point of me and all of the others writing all of this crap if it offers nothing for you?

Simple. We're keeping the game going.

The fiction hopefully sparks the imagination of people that would otherwise have left the book to decay on the shelf. The articles offer new ideas and refresh old ones in the hopes that people will get some spark that they can use in their games. The ongoing netbooks are free supplements written in the same manner as the actual printed supplements (with maybe more punctuation in the bits Rich has written :)), so you can pick and choose what you use just as you would any normal sourcebook. The GuildNovels are our attempt to provide a metaplot for our view of the game. The universe and continuity that we use when we write our supplements. That doesn't mean that they're unusable for your games. You can take as much as you like from them and ignore the metaplot entirely. It's your choice, just as it is with any of White Wolf's stuff.

Some people might not think that what we write holds any water. After all, we're just a group of lame fanboys (and fangirls. I don't want Spooky annoyed at me) cooking stuff up. To them, I can't really change their minds. After all, they're the ones that usually don't dare use anything from any source than an official White Wolf book, no matter how much it screws their own game. This site is not for them. This Project is dedicated to giving its readers ideas. We're not trying to replace the Wolf's books, we're not saying that our metaplot is the only way to have things. We're here to give you lot ideas. Like them or loathe them, you don't have to use them. Just like with the 'real' books.

Sure, we're not sanctioned, and we don't have the license for Wraith. We do, on the other hand, love the game. That's why we write things for it. And I hope our readers gain some inspiration from what we write.

Okay, end of long boring rambly bit. Time for me to stop waxing poetic about the Project and point out some things that have changed since I joined.

First off, the submissions policy has changed. This is a good thing. The old one made it seem like there was some kind of draconian approval system that you had to go through, but all you really have to do is spellcheck and grammar check and it should be okay. Anyone can do that, and StarOffice is still a free download so you don't even have to blow cash on a decent word processor.

Secondly, we now have monthly updates. These have given us a structure, and a set of deadlines (which I try to make... honest!) as well as a theme for each month. This means that people reading the site know that if they come back once a month, they'll find something new. That in turn leads to a readership, which is always a good thing.

Thirdly, we have a metaplot. Depending on whether you think that these are bad or good, you have to admit that they give the game a sense of continuity. With White Wolf putting Wraith on indefinite hiatus, they gave us free rein to do what we wanted with it, and they can carry it on whenever they want. Until then, however, we're providing a setting for the game where our netbooks won't contradict each other and make us seem like a band of talentless morons who aren't reading the same script. Another good thing.

Still. Here's to another year.

Stewart Wilson works in the basement of a large company in Germany, surrounded by enough computing power to make a small A.I., and it's all his. In between consuming prodigious amounts of caffeine and nicotine, he has been known to actually write things.

Outside of work, he can usually be found in a rented hovel he calls home, sampling illegal narcotics and training an army of rats with which he hopes to take over the world. He claims to have a skin condition requiring him to wear black clothes.


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