Welcome to the FM Author Spotlight, a series of interviews that provides an exclusive peek into the world of fan mission creators. In this episode, we are talking to none other than Random_Taffer, a well-known and very prolific FM author who is currently working on the ambitious Broken Goddess campaign.
Aemanyl: Please introduce yourself and tell us how you discovered the Thief games.
Random_Taffer: My name is Rob and my first introduction to Thief was probably in 99 or 2000 at a family friend’s house. I used to babysit their kids for a little cash in the summer before I could drive. When it was nap time, I was free to use their PC to play games. They had a bunch that came with their computer and after I got tired of playing Civilization 2, I remember stumbling across Thief: The Dark Project and being instantly intrigued by the title alone. I didn’t get to play much of it while I was there, but remembered talking about it with the owners. They weren’t interested in the game and let me borrow it for a while. After I was done that summer they let me keep it as a gift. I didn’t even know about Thief 2 until later. I was playing RTS tournaments (Total Annihilation: Kingdoms) on Gamespy (RIP) and chose the Garrett avatar. Someone in the lobby asked me about my thoughts on Thief 2. I thought "There’s a Thief 2?!?!" and instantly went out to buy it. However, my family PC couldn’t run it, so I had to wait until after I started a job and earned enough to build my own PC in order to play it and then Deadly Shadows which came out a little while later.
Aemanyl: Do you have a favourite genre, style, or theme of fan missions?
Random_Taffer: As most can probably tell, I love city missions where you can explore by rooftop, but probably the most important part of a fan mission for me personally these days is the story. I really, really love the intrigue that comes with a dark and mysterious evolving story. But I am fine with just paying the rent as well.
Aemanyl: Your extensive collection of published fan missions includes several solo works as well as collaborations with other authors. Arguably, the most well-known and popular among these are the so-called "YanRanTan'' missions, created in partnership with Yandros and Tannar. How would you characterise your collaboration with these guys?
Random_Taffer: The YanRanTan days were really great for me. I learned a lot from Yandros who was already a seasoned author by the time we decided to collaborate. He is now one of my best friends and we talk all the time. Both Russ (Yandros) and Michael (Tannar) are always a joy to work with. Michael really brought a talent for language and story and I knew that if he thought something was good, then we were in excellent shape. We are all different people with different styles that compliment each other quite well. Though Michael has contributed his language skills to my current project, he has seemingly retired from Thief for the time being. Wherever he is and whatever he is doing, I wish him nothing but the best. Russ and I are still hammering away, of course.
Aemanyl: Your FMs, Godbreaker and Feast of Pilgrims, introduce a new protagonist named Conall. Could you provide some insight into his character and explain how he differs from Garrett?
Random_Taffer: Conall is based on William of Baskerville from Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose - specifically Sean Connery’s portrayal of him in the Annaud film. But it didn’t start out that way.
When I first began building what would become Godbreaker, I had intended for it to be a Garrett mission. But I wasn’t able to get what I needed for custom voice lines, so I decided to work with another very talented voice actor who could do a range of voices. The name came first- I was searching around for different names that I liked that would fit in the Thief world. I came across the name "Conall" and I believe the website said that the meaning of the name was something like "strong wolf" in Gaelic I believe. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but I thought that was perfect for a Thief character - maybe an older, more mature one. Since I love dark mysteries I thought it would be cool to play with an inspector Drept type character who possibly spent time among the Hammerites.
I asked Jim (MasterThief3) to try out a few different voices that he thought would work and I gave him the name. About 5 minutes later he sent me an audio file of him reading some of the briefing lines in the voice of Sean Connery as a joke. I laughed while listening but then I remembered William of Baskerville and it started to fall into place. A lot of people think it’s silly, but I don’t care - I love the character.
Aemanyl: You are presently engaged in creating an ambitious campaign titled The Broken Goddess, set to be the next installment in Conall's adventures. Rather than asking mundane questions about progress on the project, I will approach this from a different angle. Considering its expansive scale spanning over ten missions, what environments, themes, and design styles are you eager to explore with The Broken Goddess?
Random_Taffer: I’m eager to create two unique cityscapes that are different from the City we all know - that of Cyric and Bohn. I want you to instantly be able to tell where you are based on the architecture and general feel. I did not care for my first attempt at Bohn, so last year I began rebuilding it from scratch. I am nearly finished with it now and am very pleased with how it’s turned out.
I am also very excited to try my hand at more remote exotic locations. There are a lot of different environments I intend to try. Apart from that, I’m excited to try to implement more detective type elements as well as some sort of “co-op” things that were done in Mission X as well as Among Two Storms. We’ll see what I can convincingly pull off that doesn’t feel too gamey.
Aemanyl: What would be your proudest technical achievement in DromEd?
Random_Taffer: Yandros usually does most of the scripting for me now so I can focus on my strengths as a builder. But before we began to collaborate more I did do Captain of the Guard by myself and it was very difficult to pull off. So probably that.
Aemanyl: You are a musician and you've had one of your songs recently featured in The Black Parade. Could you elaborate more on this passion of yours and share where people can listen to your music?
Random_Taffer: I love telling stories through many different mediums. Thief is one way, but I also love to write stories as well as music. I’ve been in a number of musical projects over the years and my biggest musical passion is certainly singing. My current project which is gaining the most traction is definitely my band Marmot - which is the music featured in The Black Parade credits. I also wrote the intro track as well with my friend from a synth-wave project we started together called Citizen.
You can visit our social media pages as well as search for us on whatever streaming services you prefer. Our website should have links to whatever you’d like: https://www.marmotband.com/
You can find our EP we released last year as well as 3 more singles (Including “The Brand” from The Black Parade) on Bandcamp. All the main streaming services should be active as well, so whatever you use to listen to music- we should be there.
Aemanyl: Is there anything else you would like to add or share at the end?
Random_Taffer: Yeah, if any mappers out there want to try their hand at a Broken Goddess map, we could definitely use some more help. We could also use more artists interested in contributing to briefings and cut-scenes. People come and go, no hard feelings. Feel free to reach out to Yandros or myself. The only thing we do not need more of right now is audio people. We’ve got plenty of those.
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Thank you for reading! We hope that you've enjoyed this insightful interview with Random_Taffer. Every Friday you can look forward to a fresh interview with fan mission authors, featuring both the rising stars and the seasoned veterans of our beloved community.
Stay tuned and see you in the next issue of FM Author Spotlight series!
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