Hi everyone,
We’re hoping to be able to soon announce the dates for Werewar Chapter Three and the 25th Classic College of Wizardry. Things are coming together nicely, and we have some amazingly fun stuff planned. And something new, too.
But while we wait for that to land I’d like to grab the opportunity to talk a little bit about some other stuff we’re working on that will hopefully have an impact on how you approach and interact with the Witchards universe.
Ever since the Indiegogo campaign it was always the intention to reshape College of Wizardry and Witchards into something of a communal project. There are a lot of stories to tell in this universe – many more than we are capable of just by ourselves.
Since the very first College of Wizardry ran there has been a lot of interest in running spin-offs in the Witchards universe. However we had no formal process in place to work from. Moving forward we’re changing that and The Northcott Gala was the first “approved” spin-off to run under this new Spin-off Framework. Working with Mila Müller and Andrew Russell has been incredibly helpful for us in finding a decent balance between creative freedom, a consistent lore and universe, while still protecting the backbone IP. I want to thank them for their patience and input in making this a reality.
You can read more about what we’ve hammered out here: https://witchards.com/spinoffs/
It is my firm belief that to create a fun and playable world that is easy to navigate for players, some sort of vision and creative direction for what it should look like needs to exist. Presently I am shaping that vision along with our Head of Story Karolina Fairfax.
The ultimate goal is to create a game world where players don’t have to edit their experiences from previous games, because hopefully (knock on wood) all games will be canonical and part of the lore. Yes, that means that sometimes someone will initially be told no when they pitch a spin-off, but it also means that we on the Witchards team will work with you to frame your stories so they fit and become a part of the whole.
To support this, and make sure that our lore is easily accessible and available we’re expanding our website to include the Witchards Encyclopedia. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be copying all the current lore we have into the Encyclopedia, which will become a living repository of all canonical lore. We will also use this opportunity to update and tweak the lore, rewriting certain parts and sections, to make our universe even more playable.
One of the really harsh lessons learned from Dziobak was the confusing morass of who owned what, who had written what and all the hurt that arose from that chaos. To make sure we don’t repeat history we’ve come up with the Community Content License; a license designed to protect everyone’s rights while still ensuring that there’s room for creative freedom. You can read the license here: https://witchards.com/community-content-license/
All of this is a massive endeavor, though, and if you want to help us out, either by submitting new content (maybe there’s a conflux in your character background that you feel belongs, or you want to write an encyclopedia article about a magical creature, or something else entirely) or by helping us move existing content into the Encyclopedia please do not hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected].
As always, questions, thoughts and constructive comments are always welcome. Feel free to use the comments here, or shoot us an email at [email protected] if it’s something you’d prefer to discuss in private.
Sincerely,
Thomas, Karolina, Laura and the rest of the Witchards team
