Quick Shot on By Aecer’s Light!

Today’s quick shot is with Mad Jay Brown on the project By Aecer’s Light!, a setting zine on Kickstarter now! Check it out!

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A black man with a beard in a black shirt with blue art on it sits in front of a character sheet, dice, and minis.

What is By Aecer’s Light!, both as a product and as your vision?

By Aecer’s Light! is me ‘small scale testing’ a creative project on my ‘someday-maybe’ list of creative projects. I’ve done a few freelancer-for-hire projects and wondered what would a ‘By Mad Jay’ project look like. This Kickstarter is the result of me crafting and running a series of one-shot con sessions using some of the unusual pieces of fantasy, Burning Wheel fantasy in particular. The Roden, which are rat-folk. Wolfen, think fantasy bipedal wolves and a Rakshasi, but jaguar instead of tiger and the absence of a great Elven presence. Wild success for me would be that folks are happy with the zines they backed and find them useful. I break even (at least) and getting to work with fantastic folks like Julia Ellingboe, Kurt Komoda, Johnstone Metzger, Nathan Paoletta and the father of Roden, Peter Tierney.

All of those sound very cool! You talk about your awesome collaborations, but first I want to know, what are you doing in your setting design that is something you see as truly your dream brought to light?

I’m a sucker for outsider stories. The X-Men, Samurai Champloo, Farscape, these are stories about outsider groups. The Roden(Rat folk), Wolfen, the Dark(Spite) Elf, and the Rakshashi are all outsiders. There aren’t many, if any, iconic characters or stories about these fantasy peoples. We’re free to explore and collaboratively make our own.

A rodent person in armor, carrying a halberd, sketched in sepia tones.
By Kurt Komoda.

What can backers expect in the By Aecer’s Light! release and what does it bring hope for in the future?

In the By Aecer’s Light! release players will have a starter setting to begin playing in and Roden and Wolfen as playable ‘races’. There will be immediate conflicts ready to go and room for the players to grow, define, make their own outsider stories. Hopefully, the future brings more playable lore in this ‘after the Elves’ setting.

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Thanks so much to Mad Jay for the interview! I hope you’ll check out By Aecer’s Light! on Kickstarter today!