Liminal is April's Featured Contributor!

by **Liminal** on April 1st, 2015, 2:10 am

Attention Mizahar!

As is tradition the Founders and RS's have come together and chosen an amazing individual as this Month's Featured Contributor. For reasons best known to themselves – which may possibly have had something to do with the fact that he’s not very good at chiming in during these discussions – the other Founders and RS’s have decreed that for April, the Featured Contributor is that most melancholy of hedgehogs, Liminal. Conducting the actual interview was delegated to me, so I sat down with Liminal to ask him a few questions.

- So, what’s your deal?

I’m sorry, come again?

- I guess it’s sort of a broad question. What’s your deal with Mizahar? What do you actually do? And, if I can be blunt, what former quasi-glories are you coasting on?

Ah, well that’s a bit easier to answer. At the moment, I’m the storyteller for Abura, which is more or less up and running now. I also respond to the occasional Help Desk ticket, answer questions, and delete spam threads.

Back in the day, I was the storyteller for Zeltiva and Sunberth, which is where most of the better storytelling in the game I’ve done took place. And, even farther back in the day, I helped with the initial creation of Mizahar.

- Talk a little bit about that. You’re a Founder – what did you actually…um…found?

I did the initial development of Zeltiva, Sunberth, Abura, Darva, and Rockward Island. I also did the basic initial sketches for Lisnar and Novallas, although those ones haven’t been fleshed out yet. I developed Qalaya and did some secondary development on the Dreamwalkers. I wrote the story of Kenabelle Wright, and I created the Akvatari.

- Ah, the butterseals. We know they look like something out of the most depressing psychedelic experience ever. Tell us something we might not know about them.

During the initial development, I’d written up that half-Akvatari would either have wings and no tail or a tail and no wings. However, when I ran it past the rest of the Founders, Gossamer pointed out that I’d inadvertently created human-sized Fairies, which didn’t really fit with our motto of “everything should be original.” She was right, so I took that part out – which I actually like better, because now the half-Akvatari are even more depressing.

- What’s your previous RP experience like? Besides depressing, I mean.

Mizahar is technically the third forum-based RPG I’ve been a part of, although I didn’t spend very much time in one of them. I started playing back in 2003, partly just out of curiosity, and partly because I was feeling a lot of writer’s block at the time and wanted something that would make me practice.

I’ve never actually done any other kind of RPing, strangely enough. I’ve never done chat-based RPs or LARPing, and although I’d love to try someday, I’ve never even done any tabletop gaming.

- It’s an old truism that good writers read. What do you read?

Books, mostly, but also articles, the news, and the occasional magazine.

- Are you really going to be difficult like that?

Sorry!

- Apology accepted. Anyway, back to the question?

As part of my day job, I read a ton of children’s fiction and nonfiction in order to review it. At home, I read a lot of nonfiction – I enjoy reading about natural history, unnatural history, just plain history, science, psychology, and music. I like a lot of modernist and postmodernist fiction – Kafka, Calvino, Eco, that sort of thing. I like classics, and I like poetry. I used to read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but I actually haven’t read much of it in years that isn’t being marketed to fourth-graders.

- I just looked at your Goodreads list, and six of the last eleven books you say you’ve read are about hedgehogs.

Possibly.

- No, factually. At any rate, it seems like you really like hedgehogs. Tell us about that.

I adore hedgehogs. I have two pet African pygmy hedgehogs, Senator Harriet J. Hedgington, Esq., and Ambassador Charlotte R. Hedgington. I have a fairly extensive library of books about hedgehogs, which I’m reading my way through, as you mentioned. I also have hedgehog t-shirts, hedgehog stickers, hedgehog jewelry, and I’m going to the Eastern States Hedgehog Convention next month. When my wife and I got married, we told our friends that, instead of giving us presents, they should donate to the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, though I don’t know if anyone actually took us up on it. I love their looks and their personalities, and I think of them as emblematic of many of the qualities (patience, quiet helpfulness, a connection with nature) that I’d like to develop in myself.

- Aside from geeking out about hedgehogs, what else do you enjoy doing?

I write, draw, play and write music, play computer games, and hike. And Mizahar. I do like Mizahar-ing.

- What do you like best about Mizahar?

It was honestly an amazing experience working on the development of the game. I got to see it develop from a vague idea to a rich, breathing, three-dimensional world with thousands upon thousands of words of lore. Having the opportunity to watch Gossamer, Tarot, Gillar, Colombina, and Cayenne in action as they created this world was genuinely awe-inspiring.

Since then, it’s been a joy to watch the players and storytellers take that lore and setting and make it their own, spinning rich, emotional stories of their own. It’s a tapestry I’m proud to be a part of, and I can’t say enough good things about the people who’ve helped make it that way.

- Anything else you’d like to say before I take your microphone away?

Pretty much just thanks. Thanks to the entire community, past, present, and future. Thanks for letting me see and experience and be a small part of your stories.

- That’ll do, hedgehog. That’ll do.

by **Matthew** on April 1st, 2015, 2:17 am

That was a very interesting and informative interview. Thank you, and congrats.

Also, to all those who make it down here and wonder the same thing I did, the answer is yes. He did just interview himself.