“The best thing is sharing what you’ve created and seeing others respond positively to it, whether that’s art that I’ve created that really captures people’s attention or an adventure that I’ve written in, and it really gets the players engrossed and you can tell that they want to keep going, they don’t want to leave the table.”
DEREK MATTHEWS, CREATOR OF THE TE’VEL GAME
et’s imagine a place where humans and animal folk coexist in perfect harmony. And now imagine a game where you can play in lush jungles, hot sand dunes or freezing, icy lands. And just when you think you’ve got it all figured out. BAM! In today’s episode, you’ll meet Derek Matthews, the artist, storyteller, and creator of the world of Te’Vel. It’s a series of adventure games filled with puzzles, a fascinating narrative, and a world of unique characters.
Let’s follow Derek as he leads us on a journey through the enchanting world of Te’Vel, uncovering its secrets all along the way.
Derek: Hello? BOOM. BOOM, can you hear me? Come in, BOOM.
Derek: Hang on. Let me clean up your signal just a little bit.
Derek: All right, you’re coming in clear now. Oh, hi. Yes, yes. Thank you for inviting me. I’m very excited to be here.
Derek: No, no, BOOM. Not a ray, a superhero, or any other variety. No. It was something far more dramatic. I became a father. Bum, bum, bum. After I got over my initial reaction of being terrified, I actually got really excited thinking about all that I could teach my child. And so, I think it was a couple of months into my wife’s first pregnancy, she sent me to Costco to pick up the usual stuff, you know, paper towels and toilet paper and dog food. And I came home holding a stack of curriculum books that I had found in the books section. And I think it was from pre-K all the way up to 6th grade or something like that. And my wife told me that our child wasn’t even born yet, so I was being kind of silly buying all these curriculum books. And I told her, well, look, you need your things to feel like you’re prepared. You need the nursery, you need the crib, you need the bags, you need all this stuff. This, as I clutched my curriculum books, this is what I need to feel prepared. And that was really the start of a journey for me, looking into education. What were the available options out there? What kind of curriculums are out there? And my wife and I, we had long ago decided that if we had children, that we would homeschool them. So, I started doing all I could to get prepared for that. Also, it made me think about my own experience with education growing up. The things that worked for me personally, the things that didn’t, and how my experience was in general going to public school. There were a lot of things that I would say wasn’t a good experience, wasn’t a positive experience, but I knew that I wanted to give my children a positive experience when it came to their education. I also have a very long established love for tabletop role playing games, and that’s something too I was excited to share with my children. So marrying those two things and finally adding to that my experience as an artist and as a designer and, well, that’s when Te’Vel was born.
Derek: Ah, yes, my terrible burden. There are many out there who I know will sympathize with this, but basically my love for tabletop role playing games surpassed that of all my friends, of everyone that I knew. So, while I love to play and I would jump at a chance to play as a character in someone else’s game, basically 99% of the time I’m the one who’s organizing the game, I’m inviting others to play. And that involves a lot. It involves finding a place to play, which usually ends up being my place. It involves communicating with everyone to set up times to play. And, of course, it means that I actually have to be the game master, the one who is running the game. When you’re the game master or dungeon master, it’s called in other games you are playing, but you’re not a player, so you don’t get to have a character, because basically you’re responsible to play the part of everyone else, everyone that the players meet in these fantasy worlds. You’re also responsible for the things that the players encounter, for coming up with interesting responses to the actions that the players take, the very, very interesting decisions that the players make. And, of course, really you’re in a large way responsible for making sure that everybody has fun. So it’s a big responsibility. It takes a lot of preparation, a lot of dedication, and I like to joke that it’s a burden, but really, I love it. And of course, more than 20 years playing tabletop role playing games and taking on this role as the game master primarily, it’s taught me a lot about how to run a game in a way that everyone enjoys and really about what the job of a game master truly is. For example, one of the main things is that while the game master has to present the players with interesting challenges, come up with interesting stories and things for the players to investigate, or that they’ll have to face, it’s not the game master’s job to come up with the solution to those situations and then expect the players to find their solution to the problem. No, the players are responsible for coming up with the solutions. And as a game master, you have to allow them that freedom to find their own way. And not every plan that your players come up with is going to be a winner. But how can you take a failure, if it’s even an individual, or even the whole group of players, how can you take a failure and turn that into a kind of success? What I’m trying to say is, maybe they aren’t able to accomplish what they set out to do, but something comes out of the effort that they put into it, something that moves the story along in an interesting way. And how can failing be fun? What value is it in that failure? And where can you find the humor in it? And that’s actually a valuable lesson that I think role playing games are very good at teaching. So these are all lessons that I’ve incorporated, and many other things, I’ve incorporated into the tips and suggestions in the opening part of my book for those who take on the role of narrator, which is Te’Vel’s version of a game master.
Derek: Oh, yeah, I’m glad you asked that. The early games by Cyan Worlds, they really made a big impression on me. And as a fan of those classic Myst series of games, I can say that the new Riven is great, by the way, I did have a chance to test it, so that was really nice, really good experience. But in those games, the aesthetic of kind of a Victorian Edwardian time period and also a corresponding level of technology that was both more primitive in its design, while at the same time being more advanced in its capabilities than anything that we have in reality. And of course, all of those things looking like they are a work of art themselves, made by some kind of artisan. All of that, it left a big impression on me. And all of that is very much the case of the technology found in the world that I created, the world of Te’Vel. One thing that I also remember quite fondly was that my original boxed copy of Myst came with a journal, a blank journal. And it was there, so that you could make your own journal of your journey in Myst. And I filled that notebook with the clues that I found. I drew detailed sketches of all the puzzle mechanisms and marked their solutions. And man, that made the experience so engrossing that it’s probably the first time that I felt the urge to actually be in another world, to look around at the things that you couldn’t click to get any closer to. That’s a feeling that I really enjoy and I’ve had a few times since when there’s a work of fiction that is really really compelling. Another genre that really meant a lot to me growing up were the point and click adventure games on PC, especially the King’s Quest and the Space Quest games by Sierra. The mix of puzzle solving and story with humor. I spent many, many hours enjoying those games and I still do when I have the chance. Also at a young age, I guess as an early teen I stumbled across the book Dinotopia by James Gurney. And that has probably been the most influential book on me as an artist. And really that’s the work that inspired me to create my own worlds. Again, similar to the Myst games in the kind of time period it’s set in and it also has a limited technology but with the same kind of aesthetic. But the depth, the detail of the world that Gurney created basically set the standard for me. I would study the illustrations in that book of places like Waterfall City or Canyon City or Treetown and I’d make my own maps. I’d pick a window in one of the buildings and that was my house in that city. I would design its interior and the world it felt so real that it just felt natural for me to do that. And of course, the gorgeous artwork in that series of books has really helped me over the years to want to keep improving in my own art. Something else that both the Myst and Dinotopia works have in common is that they’re not violent and there’s no magic and there’s no mysticism, which that really appealed to me and to the values that I was raised with. And all of that is true of Te’Vel as well. And finally, I would say that I owe my sense of whimsy and silliness to the works of, well, people like Theodor Geisel or Doctor Seuss, Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain and the works of Shel Silverstein like Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree.
Derek: Oh, yes. There are robots players in Te’Vel take on the role of Guardians. And one of the first characters new guardians meet in Te’Vel is Otto, the Historian’s robotic assistant. He’s very loyal and very helpful, but we’re pretty sure his sense of humor module was lost during his creation. Either that or he removed it himself and hid it somewhere. But there are also animators, mysterious machines that have begun popping up all around Te’Vel. They use the large tuning forks mounted in their heads to manipulate and animate objects around them, turning something like a stack of books and scrolls into a ten foot tall hulking library sentinel. Nobody’s sure what it is that they’re after, but they always seem to be in the Guardians way as they explore Te’Vel and seek to help its inhabitants. That’s one of the many mysteries that the Guardians can help to uncover.
Derek: The best thing is sharing what you’ve created and seeing others respond positively to it, whether that’s art that I’ve created that really captures people’s attention or an adventure that I’ve written in, and it really gets the players engrossed and you can tell that they want to keep going, they don’t want to leave the table. When what I’ve designed does what it’s intended to do, which is to bring joy to others, to inspire them, and to create great memories together, that is what I love the most, and that’s what motivates me to keep going.
Derek: Oof. That’s a big question. And there’s more than one answer to that. I guess one easy answer is that the base mechanic when you play Te’Vel is to roll a die and add modifiers and then compare your total to a target number to see if you succeeded or not, what you’re attempting to do. Now, that’s very common in tabletop role playing games to roll dice. But I’ve designed a system that is very simple. It only uses one die. It’s a custom die that I designed, which is called a Te’Vel die and the modifiers that you add or subtract are very simple. And it’s all based on a mathematical concept called subitizing. Now, subitizing, which is something that I did a lot of research on, is basically the ability to instantly recognize the number of objects in small groups without having to count them. Essentially, the numbers from one to five. And numbers that are bigger than that, if you can subitize, you instinctively break them down into those smaller, recognizable quantities. The main goal is to improve number sense and to help someone to recognize quantities very quickly, which is a foundational skill in math. It helps you when you move on to more complicated mathematical ideas, and it can really help a person have a more intrinsic understanding of math. So all the systems in Te’Vel, its die and the other accessories, they’re all built around that foundational mathematical skill. Other than that, there’s a reason that Te’Vel is a whole world. I really wanted to leave it open so that you could teach anything. For example, I have puzzles in the adventures that are included in the first book, of which there are three adventures in that book, that teach about reading a clock or about learning the directions on a compass and following those directions. There’s a constraint logic puzzle. There’s a tetromino tiling puzzle, for example. But there’s also things like a family tree that you have to help a band of traveling meerkats to fill out. There’s at least three recipes printed in the book for cultural dishes that are prepared by the different Te’Velans that you encounter. So, you can get in the kitchen, you can actually start cooking, tasting what the folks in Te’Vel eat. There’s sheet music in the book for four pieces of music that I composed for it. There’s pieces for piano, there’s pieces for guitar, even for ocarina. And all of that, that’s just really scratching the surface. Also, when you travel through Te’Vel, the environment you travel through, I made it a point to list exactly what kind of biome that the different regions represent. So as your players travel through the shady valley, you can show them real pictures of temperate rainforests. Or if they are traveling through the regal ravine, you can show them pictures of a mesophytic rainforest, basically so that they can learn about what they’re seeing, what their characters are seeing, and what these biomes are really like in reality. Throughout the text of the adventures, there are notes to direct parents and educators to the real world inspirations for the folk and the places that they are encountering, so that players can do more research on anything they are encountering in Te’Vel that interests them, what they can learn about it in the real world. And really, that’s the target audience. It’s meant for parents and educators to play with children. And children as young as five, the adventures are meant to be welcoming to them and to give them opportunities to learn about cultures and biomes, to learn through cooking, through playing music, through solving puzzles. But there’s ways to tune up the difficulty of puzzles if needed, for older players. And really, none of that is getting into what can be learned through the social aspects of interacting with and helping the characters that they encounter in the story.
Derek: Te’Vel is a peaceful land. As a matter of fact, it only has one law, and that is that no person will cause physical harm to another. Now, that’s not to say that Te’Vel doesn’t have its crises and its challenges, which could be environmental challenges, disasters, maybe a village is trying to combat the spread of an illness. Or sometimes there might be tensions between folk in Te’Vel due to misunderstandings or differing objectives. But for the most part, Te’Vel is peaceful. And the folk in it are kind, they’re generous, they’re welcoming and that’s because Te’Velan choose to be that way. That is their culture. While each of the folk in Te’Vel, and in Te’Vel, there’s a mix of both humans and anthropomorphic animals that are called folk. While each of these folk have their own culture, there is an overriding culture of all of Te’Vel. There’s no borders in Te’Vel. There’s nothing to divide the folk, but instead, they all appreciate each other and each other’s cultures, and they view each other as part of a larger family. And that, to me, is what I most want to share in the world of Te’Vel. A culture of choosing always to do what is good for those around you. As far as money, they don’t actually use money in Te’Vel. They don’t have any form of currency. So some things are done through bartering. Communities might maintain a cache of resources that everyone can contribute to, but then also, everyone can take from that cash when they need it. There’s also in Te’Vel the custom of having feats, which are like these outdoor festivals where everyone comes and they share what they have. So you can imagine, like a farmer’s market, but after everyone sets up their stalls, they walk away from them and they go around these festivals, picking from other stalls whatever they like. And in this way, everyone brings what they’ve gathered and everyone shares what they have. So there’s a strong culture of generosity in Te’Vel. For example, after negotiating an exchange, if there’s two parties that are bartering, the custom is that both parties will throw in something extra on top of what they negotiated for. Oh, and even the traditional greetings in Te’Vel reflect this idea of welcoming and a friendship. I can teach the greeting to you now, if you like.
Derek: Okay, so when you meet someone, you place your right fist on your heart, and you cross your left arm over your belly. You bow slightly while opening your fist and sweeping your left hand from right to left. And as you do so, you say, “With an open heart, I greet a new friend.” So that’s a traditional greeting. When you say farewell, again you place your right fist to your heart, but this time, you support the fist on your open left hand, and you extend your hands to the one you’re bidding farewell to. Now they’ll do the opposite. They’ll take their fist supported by their hand, place it against yours, and bring them back to their heart. And as you’re doing this, you say, “My friendship, carry it in your heart until it brings us together again.” So, those are the traditional greetings and farewell of Te’Vel and to me, these were really beautiful gestures that I made sure to include and illustrate in the book, make them part of the story that really reflect the way that I want to treat others around me.
Derek: Oh, BOOM. May your words come true. It is fabulous, so far. It’s still a work in progress. As far as my development process, I have a couple of habits that help me always to be creating and refining. The first is that I’m always in constant conversation with myself. I’m always speaking with myself, but speaking to the characters in my story, or I’m creating dialogues between them. And this really helps me to flesh them out as real characters that you can encounter, which I just said unironically, even though they are fictional characters, they’ve become very real to me, very close to my heart. As my characters get deeper, so do their backstories, their environments. Other characters are conceived of to support them, but then those characters take on a life of their own. So, I’m always talking to myself about Te’Vel, and that’s a habit that I’ve carried from past projects as well. As a matter of fact, as an example of this, I was sitting in a restaurant, and I was playing out a scene with a character who has an intentionally ridiculous name. I knew that he needed a ridiculous name that he basically named himself, because this character is kind of a rascal. He likes to play with others in a way to kind of exasperate them and his name is one of those things to try to get them to say his name. So I just, I was sitting there, and I was quietly speaking to myself, I was going through these gibberish names. Well, I finally blurted out this gibberish name, but when it came out, it literally made me laugh out loud. And the other people in the restaurant, they’re waiting for their orders., they probably thought that I was, well, I don’t know what they thought. But anyway, after that, I knew that I had found this character’s name, and so that’s the name he has to this day. The other habit that I have, is that I always have a spiral bound notebook of grid paper that I carry around with me and a mechanical pencil. And in my notebooks, I jot down notes, I make sketches. Basically, it’s scratch space for my brain. And I literally have, going back through my notebooks, a record of each of my ideas, from their earliest concept, all the way to their finished form in these notebooks as they develop over time. At this point, I literally have dozens of these notebooks on my shelf, full from back to front with sketches and notes. Some of them I have are probably 20 years old, but it’s a system that works for me. I really love it. I enjoy it. And the things that begin their lives as sketches in these notebooks, they get taken to my computer, to my graphics tablet, to Blender, to SketchUp, to Photoshop, to my publishing software, and from there, I put all that I’ve got into them to do them justice. And if I need to learn a new skill or a new tool to get the job done, well, that’s what I do. And that’s how I’ve continued to grow as an artist, as an author, as a creator throughout my career. It’s always been to serve the needs of the thing that I’m creating, that I pick up new knowledge and skills. That’s my process.
Derek: That would have to be Princess Vahla. She’s the last member remaining in Te’Vel of the royal family after a mysterious calamity befalls Te’Vel. And she’s young, she’s, like, 16, when the characters encounter her. But she’s very steadfast in carrying on her family’s legacy. She’s basically been on her own for about ten years at this point, with only her faithful horse, Traxis, to keep her company. But in all that time, she’s shown resilience, she’s shown resourcefulness. She really becomes a central reoccurring character in the story of Te’Vel. She’s very brave. I would even say courageous. And she’s selfless. Basically, she learned from her mother and father to put the needs of the folk of Te’Vel before her own. She’s also there to support and travel with the players in their role as Guardians whenever they need her. So I really admire her, Princess Vahla, as a person, and I’m proud of her as a person and as a character that I’ve created. So that’s who I would choose to have dinner with or maybe a picnic, and hopefully Traxis would be invited to.
Derek: Well, I guess I’ll speak about role playing games. The first time that a person plays a tabletop role playing game, it’s like a revelation. And you can see their eyes open wide as they realize that they can do anything they want. They’re playing a part in this story, and it’s all down to their creativity, their ideas. If their character wants to attempt it, they can attempt it. And that is really thrilling and amazing. Things end up happening and you’ll end up telling these stories for years and years to come. And it’s not the story of the game per se, the story that the narrator or the game master is laying out, but rather you end up remembering and telling the stories of what you did as players and the amazing, crazy, hilarious, impossible to make up stuff that just manifests when you play these kinds of games. Just one example, it’s a simple one, but for a certain group of my friends, this is basically a legend. We were playing the d20 Star Wars Roleplaying Game, and there was one player that wanted to create a character that was an Ewok. And, okay, the game master wasn’t too happy about it, but he allowed it. And this player, he really got into character as an Ewok. At one point, our group crash lands our ship on this planet, and we come out from the crash, and the first thing this Ewok does is go up to the first bush that he sees on this world and he declares he’s going to search the bush. And the game master was like, okay, go ahead, I guess. So the Ewok player, he rolls his check search or whatever skill he was using, and he rolls really high, but the game master says, “It’s still just a bush, so I don’t know, you find muck and weeds”, and the player says, “Sweet!”, and he begins writing down muck and weeds in his inventory on his character sheet. At this point, all of us around the table, we’re like shaking our heads, like, what are we watching? It was too surreal. Right. Well, not five minutes later, we’re told by the game master that an imperial ship is landing and that stormtroopers start fanning out, searching the crash site. And all the players, we all start scrambling, trying to hide. And the game master is telling us that we have to roll stealth checks to see if we can hide from the stormtroopers. So, when it comes to the ewok, his turn to hide, he declares, I smear myself with muck and weeds. And of course, he got a bonus to his stealth check. And when that happened, the table, it just exploded. We were dying laughing. And that was actually my very first session of a tabletop role playing game that I ever played. And to this day, must be, let’s see, 22 years later, all you have to do is just mention “muck and weeds” amongst this group and we lose it all over again. So, that makes it so engaging to play these kinds of games, to have those kinds of stories, or even you could say memes that you form, playing them with the people you play with. And it’s something that I’m looking forward to having to sharing those kinds of stories with my own children from playing the games that I’m creating with them.
Derek: Well, aside from role playing games, I like games that have good stories, cooperative games where players work together instead of against each other. I enjoy worker placement board games, and I enjoy deck builder games where you start with a limited number of cards, and you use those to purchase more and stronger cards, and your deck gets bigger and more powerful over the course of the game. I’ve completed a deck building card game based on the places and characters in Te’Vel, and I call it Te’Vel Treasures. I actually did a small production run, and I’ve been showing it off and selling it at some of the local game stores here in Spokane, Washington, where I’m located, as well as just a couple of weeks ago, I showed it off at the Lilac City Comic Con here in Spokane. And it went really well. Those that are playing it are really enjoying it, and I’m very happy with how it came out. And it’s nice to have something of Te’Vel that’s out there and actually finished, and people are already able to purchase it and enjoy it.
Derek: I’d have to say it would be a whirlwind wonder whip, 1001 scoops, each a different flavor, all the sweetest saltiest and tiniest flavors, all whipped into one tremendous tower. It’s an exciting challenge making something like Te’Vel, but it’s also been very daunting because this project is so many things. 1001 flavors, you could say. There’s the art, story, game design, product design, web design, publishing, layout, playtesting, marketing. Just a lot of things. When I get tired of the bit I’m working on, then I am able to jump on something else, so, there’s a lot of variety there. So that’s an advantage. But it can also sometimes feel like balancing a teetering tower of ice cream scoops. And you gotta keep it from melting and dripping all over the place, one lick at a time.
Derek: Don’t be shy. Don’t let your inhibitions hold you back. Really put your heart into playing and don’t worry about winning, because it’s not a competition. If you can come away from your time playing Te’Vel with shared stories of your adventures that you’ll be able to tell for years to come. If you’ve spent the time playing with your friends or your children, and the adventures in the core book, the three adventures, they provide at least 30 hours of story to play through. If you spent that amount of time with your friends, or even better, with your children, and in playing, you’ve had the chance to see how qualities like courage, kindness, generosity, loyalty, and, yes, even love, in the sense of truly giving your best for those around you. And you’re inspired to apply those qualities to live that way in your real life. Well, then you will come away from Te’Vel a winner, and so will your friends and your children that you take on this adventure with you.
Derek: I’ve been working on Te’Vel for about three years at this point, and a lot of that time has been dedicated to the art. So I’m the artist. I’ve worked as a digital artist and illustrator for about 25 years, basically right out of high school. I have a pretty varied process, really. It depends on the piece that I’m making. Many of them start as sketches in my notebook, and I will photograph that, and then I’ll refine it digitally. But many times I’ll just start with a blank canvas in Photoshop. Start sketching sometimes depending on if the subject is more mechanical in nature or it’s very organic and I want to have some more guidance for the lighting, I’ll actually start by creating a 3d model using something like Blender or SketchUp, or even I’ll sculpt it in clay and take some photographs, so that basically, those things serve as the initial sketch that I finish up digitally. Because I’ve always allowed myself the time to explore and to learn new techniques over the course of my 25 year career, I got a pretty varied skill set to draw from at this point. The art style of Te’Vel is kind of a bohemian art nouveau that I affectionately call “beau nouveau”. The idea is everything in Te’Vel, the buildings, the ruins, the items that the folk use, even the clothes that they wear, they’re all painstakingly made by skilled artisans. Everything that you find in Te’Vel is a thing of beauty, but also has a patina of wear on it. Everything’s a little scratched, a little weathered, a little oxidized or frayed or overgrown. That makes the world feel really real. It makes it feel lived in. And I want people to be able to see the history of the things in the world from the textures that they see on them. And I want players to feel free to wade through the rivers, to crawl through the caves, or to wrestle with that slobbering swamp gomper they found. It’s okay. This is a world where folk aren’t afraid to get dirty to get their work done. And if they have to, they patch their clothes when they’re done. The players in Te’Vel take on the role of Guardians, and the style for the Guardians in particular was something that I had fun developing. I call it ‘artisanal adventurecore’. Basically, it’s a kind of meld of Renaissance and Edwardian and modern hiking and outdoor apparel aesthetics. But everything is made with these bohemian textiles, and they all have these well worn art nouveau embellishments of filigree and embroidery. I think that it really helps get you excited to travel through the world of Te’Vel decked out in this artisanal adventurecore style. I actually helped my daughter to put together a Guardian outfit that she wore for the children’s cosplay competition at the Lilac City Comic Con. So that was a lot of fun.
Derek: Oh, it’s amazing. Getting to show Te’Vel to a huge number of people. And, you know, they’ve all come to these conventions looking to discover something new, and I’ve got it, I’ve got something new to share with them. I have a world map of Te’Vel. It’s five foot by four foot. I hang that up, and that gets a lot of attention. And I put the games on the table, the role playing game and the card game, Te’Vel treasures. And I’m very happy to talk with the people who stopped by to tell them what Te’Vel is. And, and I really love when they have a moment to sit down. I set up a table in my booth where we can sit down and play, actually play, and teach people how to play the two different games. And it’s all pretty fast. You just have a few minutes with each person. But it’s incredibly exciting. And I’ve had nothing but really great responses to the art and to the gameplay. It’s great too, at conventions to speak with other people who are exhibiting there in one way or the other, other game designers, other authors, other artists. And everyone is very happy to share their experience, to share suggestions to help each other succeed. And everyone’s really interested and eager to see how they can help to promote your product, whether that’s in collaborating with you somehow or sending the right people your way, people that they think would be interested in your project or have something to share with it. Basically, everyone there showing at the conventions is there to share their own passion and so they understand where you’re coming from. You’re there to share yours, and they are very happy to help you to do that, so it’s just a really, really positive, really enjoyable experience.
Derek: Well, BOOM, I’m pretty fortunate in that inspiration comes easily to me. I’m a dreamer and a storyteller by nature, but it’s, it’s kind of a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I’ve got lots of exciting stories and material to share. On the other, it takes a lot to determine what is going to go into this volume and what has to wait until a future one. And while I don’t have to struggle too much to come up with interesting stories, they can also pop into my head in the middle of the night and of course, I can’t sleep until I get up and at least get an outline of these new ideas down on paper. But, if I ever feel like things just aren’t flowing, then usually I just let myself walk away from it. Usually I’ll tell myself that I’m going to take a break for one week or so. Something like this. Okay, in one week’s time, I’ll get back to this. I like to take my family to Manito Park or not too far from us right across the border is Coeur d’Alene, the, the lake there, and there’s some parks surrounding the lake. And, you know, take walks. Those are two really peaceful, beautiful spots near us. And usually by the second or third day of these, quote, unquote, week long breaks, I’m back to talking to myself again, and I’m ready to get back to writing and to painting.
Derek: Well, there’s a bit of me in all of them, and I’ll admit that I am social media challenged. Really, it’s just that I’m always working creatively, and it’s really hard for me to take the time to do social media. But, let me see. Let me ask a few of them. Let me ask Ramsted. He’s an ibex folk and Te’Vel’s most famous mountaineer. What would you post Ramstead on social media? Hmm? I don’t do social, and I don’t like media. Okay, well, looks like we’re not gonna get anything out of Ramstead. Oh, but you know what? Maybe. Maybe Tarn, the meerkat folk acrobat. What would you post Tarn? Ladies and gentlemen, folk and families, treat yourself to a display of masterful meerkat maneuvering, the likes of which you’ve never seen. The spectacular spinning, fantastic flipping, and triumphant twisting of the tremendous tumbling tarn. Coming to a village near you. And remember, the more you tip, the higher I flip. Wow. Um, thanks, Tarn. I’ll be sure to catch your show. Oh, and you know who might have something important to say is the Historian. Let’s see what he would share. Come in. Can you hear me? Come in, Te’Vel. Ten long years have passed since our peace was shattered by the calamity. But we now have much needed help in the form of the Guardians. All Te’Velan who require assistance should seek them out. With their help, we can rebuild our world, and Te’Vel can be born anew. Wow. Thanks, Historian. That actually sounds like the plot of a really interesting story. Well, yeah, maybe I better not ask anyone else. I think that’s enough social media posting for now.
Derek: Yes, yes, the journey continues. I am currently preparing a larger production run of the deck building card game Te’Vel Treasures. So that should become more widely available soon. I may be doing some pre-sales pre-sales for that sometime soon. The book, Te’Vel is, is, I would say, it’s about 90% complete. The content is complete, and I’m refining the layout of the book itself and working away at my list of illustrations that I still need to complete. So I’m looking to release that near the end of this year, 2024. And I’m also making arrangements to attend some more conventions to show off Te’Vel and Te’Vel Treasures. So I’m looking into some future comic cons, some board and role playing game conventions here in the Pacific Northwest. And I’m also looking into doing some homeschooling conventions here in the Pacific Northwest, and maybe Oregon, California as well, and maybe heading east a little bit to Idaho, Montana. Those are all places that I know I’ll meet people that really appreciate Te’Vel. So it’s exciting times. This is the culmination of about three years of work at this point, and there’s work to do, but I but it’s exciting finally, finally getting there.
Derek: I want to thank my family, my very supportive wife, and my very enthusiastic children, aged four and seven, who are Te’Vel’s first players, first fans and first supporters. And while they live in this world, they are the first Te’Velans. I also want to send a shout out to Samuel Cody, another local author here in Spokane who has worked with me on Te’Vel for the past few months, and to Dennis and Susan Matthews, who have also been great support in Te’Vel’s continuing development.
Derek: The best place to find me is at my website, tevelgame.com. That’s t-e-v-e-l-g-a-m-e.com and from there you can find links to pages on Te’Vel Treasures, video tutorial on how to play. You can find more art and information about Te’Vel, the role playing game, and that can link to my YouTube and I’ll have links to any other websites or services I have hooked up in the future. Tevelgame.com.
Derek: I think that the best way to improve the world is to improve yourself. So always do good for others. Be generous with what you have. Remember that people are more important than things, and spend as much time as you possibly can with your children, so that you can teach them all of these things, so that they can grow up to be truly happy people.
Derek: Thank you, BOOM. It’s been a real pleasure. And as they say in Te’Vel, my friendship, may you carry it in your heart until it brings us together again.
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