Mysteries of the City of Kalus: An Interview with the Author of a Massive RPG Campaign

The massive urban RPG campaign Mysteries of the City of Kalus, which will keep you entertained for at least 30 game sessions, was released this year by our publishing house Mytago. In this interview, author Sparkle reveals the specifics of the campaign and the effort that went into its creation.

What was the impulse for writing this RPG campaign?

I originally started a home campaign in Kalus with my gaming group. Brief facts about the city of Kalus had already appeared in my first RPG manual Restless Tauril, and I always wanted to run something in that city. I enjoyed the campaign so much that I decided to try writing it down. Many years have passed since then, along with many more playtest runs, and not a stone of the original concept remained in the final version.

Why? Was the first version not good? How did the need to change so much arise?

You simply evolve over the years. Once it was decided that the campaign would be published as a book, I started doing proper research by reading foreign works. I adopted new ways of storytelling and writing from them, but my taste naturally shifted as well. From Tolkien-esque fantasy more towards weird and experimental. That is also why Kalus shifted in style from Restless Tauril, moving from classic fantasy more towards postmodern.

How exactly do the Mysteries of the City of Kalus deviate from classic fantasy?

There are several things. The first is the aesthetics and the social level of the city—while its non-magical technology is roughly at a medieval level, many things have been solved with magic, so we have magical inventions and conveniences that sometimes even surpass our 21st century. This is also reflected in the city's culture, where we can encounter phenomena evoking modern times—for example, a popular wizard who lets a magical crystal float around him to take pictures of him—essentially a fantasy variant of a selfie influencer.

The second thing is the themes the campaign generally addresses and the type of plots it tells. It is not a black-and-white fantasy that would shy away from serious and adult topics. NPCs here deal with, for example, mental illness, addiction, family rejection, and the like. I am not afraid to go deep with these things.

Do these elements stem from your personal life?

Definitely, and also from what I see around me, among my friends and acquaintances, what I read, and what I see in the media. The main inspiration for the campaign for me was not any fantasy work, but real life.

How can one person handle such a massive work?

I had a lot of helpers, consultants, and beta readers. I wouldn't have made it without them. Someone checked and commented on every idea that appeared in the text. I learned a lot from them, and then I started watching out for similar mistakes myself.

Each of those collaborators emphasized something different; one focused on stylistics, another on the conciseness of the entry, a third on logic… I tried to have at least one consultant for every aspect of writing the manual who understood the given subject.

Did their advice ever contradict each other?

Yes, absolutely. That was always very exhausting, but that is part of it. If there was no consensus on something (for example, the ordering of chapters was complicated), I tried to discuss it with other people, or I had no choice but to rely on my own intuition and make a decision.

What are you most proud of in the campaign?

My NPCs. I love inventing elaborate NPCs, and I think I succeeded. The beta players reacted very favorably to them, so hopefully, it is not just in my head. I am also happy that I managed to make it very sandbox-oriented, where players are not pushed into plots by arbitrary story points, yet strong plots remain.

And what, on the contrary, did not turn out as you wished?

Mainly the finances. Such a campaign costs a lot of money to produce, and the Czech community is unfortunately not large enough for such a project to easily turn a profit. I had to subsidize it from my own pocket, and a lot of work was done by volunteers for free. We had to save a lot, especially on graphics. Fortunately, the situation was slightly better than it was back then with Restless Tauril, so there is some positive progress, but it is still far from ideal.

Do you have any wishes for the future of this project?

I would like as many people as possible to read and play the campaign. I think we managed to create something truly playable—that is, something that is not just for reading and putting on a shelf, but really for playing. During the playtests, both I and the players enjoyed it a lot, and I believe the campaign will offer that same joy to many other players.

author Karel Krajča