Let me tell you a story of a teenage boy who just happened to wander into a small, out-of-the-way, bookstore deep in rural New Zealand during the winter months of 1992. Imagine – if you can – that same boy, sandy haired, freckled and gangly, running his eyes across the somewhat dire bookshelf of roleplaying games in that very same store. Here he glances past the abundance of 2nd edition D&D supplements, the smattering of West End Games books and FASA product, hoping beyond hope that the game that had intrigued him so much on his last visit still remained somewhere among this aging collection of books, magazines and games. After a moment of panic, his fears are allayed and there, half hidden in a dusty corner, was the book he was looking for; a different type of RPG, one whose cover – complete with armed adventurers and terrifying zombies – promised a something fascinating and new at the gaming table!
That teen, of course, was me and little did I know, as I scraped the last few dollars from my holiday bank account to buy this amazing game, that it would lead me on a lifetime of creativity and adventure. Adventures that could have never even be contemplated if our guest hadn’t taken up the assignment to write the most interesting RPG to ever hit our gaming shelves – Dark Conspiracy!
It is therefore with the greatest of pleasure that I present an interview with the one and only Lester Smith (https://lestersmith.com/) – the man who was not only the creative mind behind Dark Conspiracy, but also a true legend in the roleplaying industry and a pioneer in gaming circles. If you’re a fan of Dark Conspiracy then you’ll know Lester’s name already, but even if you are only a casual gamer then you should at least know him for his time at TSR and his award winning ‘Dragon Dice’ game…
But what am I doing… we have the gentleman himself here to tell us about his life, gaming experiences and, most importantly, his time creating Dark Conspiracy. Welcome Lester, I’m so happy that you agreed to do this interview… I can’t believe it took me so long to get around to asking you to do this!
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Set in the immediate aftermath of the events detailed in A Gathering Evil, Evil Ascending continues the adventures of Tycho Caine (now known by many names, including Michael Loring and Coyote) in the fight against his old master, the Dark Lord Fiddleback. Having successfully thwarted the Dark One’s plan to use the Phoenix Transport Loop as a dimensional doorway into Earth’s reality, Caine and his allies now look to strike back at Fiddleback in any way they can. To achieve this goal, new allies will be discovered, and new enemies revealed, in a mixing pot of stories that sees the novel span the world – from Arizona to Tibet, and finally to Tokyo, Japan.
