Altabella, a Diver Losing Her Humanity - Telling Sad Stories with Kurt Refling (Thousand Year Old Vampire)

Hello friends welcome to characters without stories it TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm Star.

This episode I'm joined by Kurt Refling. He is a designer, writer and artist based in Ottawa, Canada. Kurt has published GM less tabletop role playing games including Knots in the Sky, This Spells Trouble, and Faewater. In his spare time, Kurt writes poems, plays the ukulele, and cooks for his friends. Kurt springing a character built for a game called Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings, and I'm excited to talk more about this game, which I have never played before. Thanks for joining me on the podcast, Kurt.

Thanks, Celeste. It's great to be here.

So I will give you a chance to plug your projects at the end. But do you want to tell listeners a little bit about yourself?

I would love to yeah. So hi, everyone. My name is Kurt. The bio is pretty accurate. But I'm a longtime lover of tabletop role playing games, and more recently treading my waters into the artsy world of LARP. Which is so fascinating and a whole tangent of its own. But yeah, I like to make role playing games. I love to play role playing games. And I spend a lot of time just looking at everything that comes through itch.io, which is a wonderful mecca of innovation in the indie world. And I would strongly recommend you check it out if you haven't yet.

I bought a couple of those bundles. I think I have over 1000 games from itch.

Oh, they're huge bundles just enormous. I contributed a game to a bundle a little while ago. And then after the fact I thought to myself now I'm part of the problem. One of the games.

That's amazing. So tell me who are you bringing to the table today?

This character's name is Altabella. Altabella is about to be a vampire. And that's sort of where her story where her story starts is where the game would have begun. But could not. She is see silk harvester living in Italy in the 11th century. And I feel like there's some context that would need to happen on sea silk. Because it's strange.

I saw I actually saw a little documentary video about it. But yeah, please tell the listeners what it is because I think it's fascinating.

Yeah, to the extent that I'm able, mind you. So see silk is this miraculous, and extremely rare substance which is harvested. It's a beard, essentially that grows on a mussel. The sea silk in particular is from the gland in the foot of pen shells. I believe the scientific name is pinna nobilis. And essentially, it's what attaches the clam to the rock that it would sit on the bed of the sea. And so see silk is is often harvested by these divers who would go down to get these pen shells and then delicately and so carefully harvest this will be fabric, currently, fiber, and then turn it into these garments, which have a sort of golden color when treated with acidity, generally lemon juice. I feel like this is kind of a huge tangent, but it's also essential to the character because the whole reason the reason that this is the idea behind the character is we needed someone who could have an excuse to be in the high class world but do sort of lower brow work, looking to explore the story of someone whose life crossed with the extravagant but was in some ways quite grounded. And that's how I stumbled on the backstory of Altabella. Right.

Why did you decide you wanted to explore that contrast?

To talk about that it might be necessary to speak a little bit about Thousand Year Old Vampire as a game.

Tell me more about Thousand Year Old Vampire.

Sure. So Thousand Year Old Vampire is as a result of this on campaign. The my favorite game I've never played Thousand Year Old Vampire is a wonderfully composed generally solo role playing game developed by Tim Hutchings. Tim Hutchings is an incredibly creative mind in the tabletop role playing game space. But the game itself is is a sad, lonely kind of story about the long, troubled lives and lives of vampires of normal people who at the very start of the game become a vampire and about how they they grow and change through the centuries and forget things that once mattered to them, which is pretty heavy stuff. But the kind of stories that it tells goes through little prompts in the book that lead you to answer questions are so evocative. It's just, it's an extremely cool system. And the reason that I didn't play it, what's stopping you currently, you're one person. It's a solo role playing game. I was I was going to play this game with with a friend as a letter writing game, sometimes called an epistolary game, he, he was a friend who lived locally, he was in the same city as me. And then right before the start of all the fun things from the past couple of years, he moved over to New York City. And so we were far away, and we wanted to keep something going. So we thought maybe we would do one of these campaigns as a as a letter writing duet, the relationships between the vampires acting as a kind of interchange. And then dun duh da dun, we didn't.

That is a pretty common story, I think. TTRPG community, the campaign or game that falls apart before it can get started.

I feel like part of it's tricky, because letters are so wonderful to receive. But in some sense, it's such a chore to write. I think you can get immersed into the craft of it, you can enjoy it, but you really have to start pushing that boulder uphill, if you will, like it's, it's a genuine, concerted moment of isolated activity. You know, it takes it takes concentration and your writing with your real life hand. When was the last time you wrote a letter, Celeste?

Oh, my goodness, it's been a very long time. I I'm a terrible letter writer, I have to say I'm very bad at that kind of correspondence. But I have to say that when I have received a letter, it is felt very special just because I know how much effort goes into it. Yeah,

they're special, I think. And that's kind of what makes the idea so magical.

Can you tell me how in Thousand Year Old Vampire do you approach creating characters? What does that process like?

I think it's extremely cool. The whole system's built in a fascinating way. And to get into it, essentially, you start off with, with a few starting experiences. This summarizes your whole your character's whole life right up to becoming a vampire, when suddenly their life stretches out in eons in front of them that they could never have imagined before. So to create the character, the first thing you do is pick a place and an era and then start to imagine what the lives of the people there would be like, and it's called Thousand Year Old Vampire. So you often start something like 1000 years ago from now, that's not written in stone, but it is pretty standard. And what that means is that often games Thousand Year Old Vampire start with just like enormous Wikipedia, rabbit holes. And I swear to you, I read, probably, I probably did 10 to 20 hours of research on the history of Italy from zero to 1000 BCE, and then never ended up using any of it. is a sin. Yeah, yeah, you do all this research? And then you don't have to do okay, let me be clear, Tim has been candid that like the research is part of the fun. Part of the magic of this sort of research driven game is that while you can use as much as you want to take inspiration, you can also not right, especially in a solo game, where it's, it's just you, you're free to imagine whatever you want to. And I love the way that many games including both Tim's and other designers, like Jason Morningstar, his work, allow you the freedom to imagine things but don't constrain you to history, because it is ultimately an act of creation and vampires aren't real. Right, sorry to break anyone's heart. So you need a few experiences that describe their starting life. And then you need a couple other things. The most favorite of mine, being a mark. A mark is something that gives away their their existence is a vampire. It could be things of some sort, it could be my favorite example in the book is dark halo hidden by a tall hat. I love that. You sketch out the character and then everything after that in the game is exploring their experiences, except for one last thing, which is before the game formally begins. You do need to have a vampire transformation experience where you meet a vampire and then they turn you.

So going off of what you just said, What was Altabella's first experience being turned into a vampire?

This is the big turning point in her story. One day, when she was when she was diving, a man washes ashore, not even ashore washes into the reef. And being someone with a heart, with kindness with, with a hope to save him, she she brings him ashore. And as it turns out, this man is a vampire. And he would have drowned, except for the fact that he doesn't need to breathe. So she saves him what would otherwise have been no longer and alive person and perhaps he never was, because to thank her in a sort of twisted sense, he takes her over to the dark side.

How did Altabella feel about that?

It's very confusing, being turned because on one hand, there's this sense of, of power, of change of opportunity, and her life was going to change dramatically, because she suddenly had the means to reach much grander than her standing was throughout most of her life. And the peculiar nature of this particular campaign meant that in the dream for the future of her story, she was going to meet up with the mysterious unnamed other character that my friend would be playing, he was going to be a sort of religious character, who was turned by the same vampire. And their connection was going to be the way that they found each other, a sort of undercurrent that that connected them both brought together by this vampiric source, this vampire parent, if you will. And so she would have been alone, and had a much harder thing to navigate, if not for this other never to be named character who was going through the same thing that she was.

Yeah, interesting. So she was harvesting sea silk before she was turned, correct?

Right. Yeah, a lot of her life was dedicated to learning this craft. I don't know how the history of sea silk harvesting in Italy. And generally, I suppose the Roman Empire preceding it fits in with the current dwindling art of sea silk harvesting. But for her, it was a sort of matriarchal tradition passed down from one to the next to the next, both harvesting and weaving the threads and then also talking to the people in power, who would be able to afford the rare commodity.

You mentioned this kind of high low, creating a character who could kind of cross those boundaries of social standing, and that becoming a vampire allowed Altabella to gain higher standing. Why are you interested in exploring that?

Part of it was practicality, to be connecting with the character in the church to be connecting with a character who would have been this vampire on this ship already presumed to be in a position of power. That meant that it would be useful to have a conduit reason to connect these lower and higher elements of the, I suppose cast analog of what would become Italy at that time. But I also found some of the most interesting pieces of the human experience happened at a much more humble level. I feel like so much of history chronicles powerful people and their big important actions and their lineages and their honor, and I just don't feel like that's as compelling a human experience. It's hard to connect with someone whose life is nobility, and heirs. And while I wanted to be able to dabble in the world of big and powerful changes to society, I also wanted to have someone who understood a life that more people would lead a life that was reflective of the human experience more broadly at that time.

The history is written by the kings and the lords it's not written by the common people but the common people are changing and changing history just as much as the lords and kings

Damn straight.

So Altabella, it's been a long time since I took Italian but that means tall, beautiful.

I do not speak a lick of Italian. And I'm just casually googling right now to see, to see what we're gonna find out about the name that I chose. It's hard. English says tall. English says tall, leave that in the final cut. Everyone needs to know I said English says tall.

Was that part of the reason that you chose that name?

Yeah, well, part of it is that I felt reasonably confident I could pronounce it. Part of it is that I liked the idea of having this really saintly, beautiful name for someone who was going to be this figure of lonely darkness. I find the juxtaposition of that really compelling.

I know that this game takes a very particular approach to building characters. And you've mentioned that you play a lot of indie TTRPG. He's, is there a way that you like to approach building characters that that maybe spans across genre or across system?

Yeah, and I am extremely fortunate in that it is rising into vogue as a way that games offer character creation today, which is I love a good leading question. Ooh, I love it so much. When a game asks you a question which forces you into a certain way of answering and you have to get creative with that constraint. I think that's just the bee's knees and just just a great way to live. It's just for me such a compelling way to give me something to work with and iterate off of so that I end up with something I never could have picked on my own.

Yeah, I do love that approach, because it gives you so much room for creativity. But yes, the leading question, giving you kind of boundaries to that space that I feel is so important to creativity. This is not a game that involves any sort of character building, but I just played Cozy Town last night. And it is like, like many of these games that are kind of a prompt based system.

Yeah, yeah. And I, part of what I love about Thousand Year Old Vampire is part of what I think is so compelling about Cozy Town, which is that they leave artifacts of play. Cozy Town, if I'm not mistaken, has you all sort of doodling a map together?

Yes.

I love that anything which leaves something behind I think is just a wonderful thing to do. I think it's just really compelling.

Why don't you tell me a little bit about Altabella, for example. How old is she? I know that she is now an ageless vampire. But what at what age was she turned? What does she look like?

I imagined her is young enough that she wouldn't have been alone, that she might have a mother that she still works with a family that cares about her, but old enough that she would have a chance to actually have to conduct some of the ceremonial delivery of materials, perhaps some of the negotiations on price speaking with nobles, something that would give her a little bit of time to have garnered experience in the two worlds that were positioning her between. So I don't know what that would practically be in the life of of a sea sea silk diver. But I probably imagined her as being in her late 20s. So in spite of the era that I chose to explore the life of Altabella, there was still some interesting different forces that were acting on the region that would become Italy. There was the influence of continental Europe. And to the south of Italy, you had a lot of interchange with what would then have been referred to as Arabia. It was just a fascinating sort of cultural melting pot. So in spite of how we might imagine Europe, it was always a place in flux, always between regions. And I think as a result, we can imagine any number of origin points for our Altabella. I always imagined her a little closer to the south of Italy. But could that be true? Vis a vis where clams where the pen shells actually live? I don't know. So she lives where convenient. I will be honest with you. I researched a long, long time to pick what city what region that I wanted her to be from, and I never decided I never figured it out. It turns out that the Encyclopedia Britannica article for Italy is about 100,000 years long.

So what does Altabella look like?

I imagined her appropriately a little bit tall with a sort of modest garb, which I think contrasts a little bit with the fact that she's selling this wickedly expensive fabric, this this unbelievably expensive and treasured material. There's something about being simply dressed that really puts into perspective the contrast. She has long hair that she I think often wears sort of tied at, tied at the nape of her neck, in a low sort of ponytail, kept out of her hair when she needs to dive. I've imagined her with darker hair, darker eyes, and a kind of kind of soft voice. I I've always thought she was more of a soft spoken character.

I was doing a little bit of research into Thousand Year Old Vampire. And one of the things that I thought was notable was the way that the game deals with memory. And so one of the questions that I ask people is about their family, and how they grew up. And it's interesting to me that in the course of this game, you could forget all of that.

You really might. That's part of what's so compelling about the design. I love how Tim Hutchings has positioned everything so that over time, anything can fade, I believe right down to the name of your vampire, forgetting their own identity. So while I may have said Altabella many times during this conversation, there would perhaps come a day when she no longer could.

Do you think that there's anything that's so important to her that she would hold on to it with all of her might?

Oof. That's a special question. I feel like deeply rooted to her family and the traditions there. But the great tragedy of the whole game is that no matter how hard, you want to hang on to things, they go away, and I feel like over time, it's totally possible to have been consumed by this world of vampirism, such that the memories she held with her were not those of her family that she would always imagine she treasured. But of the moment she turns or have this other vampire, she had a strange connection with her and at the same time as her losing the sense of self in place of what she might imagine, as a nexus point, as a point of normality, but even that tainted by this transformation.

Yeah, that's, that's very poetic. So how do you think Altabella changes as she becomes a vampire?

So this is my greatest unfortunate news. I don't have a record of what I picked us her mark. Which sucks because when I made it, I remember thinking that's it. That's the one. I feel like as present tense Kurt, reimagining this character, I feel like what she should have is her skin taking on the sort of same shimmering golden quality as the sea silk has had, as the sea silk presents when it's treated. I think there's a nice sort of comeuppance there. So in spite of everything she's lost, at least she does carry this very visible marker this this ironic or fitting documentation on her own body of who she used to be and what she used to do. I think that's how she physically changes not fangs, not a pallor for any of the other frankly, wonderful things to him suggests. But perhaps this this just quality of the skin and I know, I know, I'm tapping into Twilight town here, but I don't care. I think that's what it is.

I actually think that's, that's quite beautiful as visual image and, and very meaningful, especially what we were just saying about memory and trying to preserve your roots and where you came from. That said, even if she forgets she still has this mark of where she came from. So I know in pop culture and our myth and legend, do we have some very kind of stereotypical or concrete examples of what a vampire is? And it seems like within this game, that that is more open. Yeah. How do you define a vampire in this game?

In my opinion, I feel like one of the most important elements of vampirism other than the necessary elements of immortality is, is that it's a fundamentally predatory condition. I think that part of what's so interesting about vampires to us what makes them so, so particularly compelling is that they've got this aspect of weaponization of turning into something that can only exist by subsisting on, on others. And I think, from some perspectives that comes from like a truly human reimagining of the cruelties of the circle of life and the food chain, the way that we rely on animals or plants just to keep being alive, we must take energy we must take, we must take from life to continue living. And I think the vampirism being this strange contortion of that is just just so that that's what makes it matter to people. That's what makes it big because like we are, we are vampires. We do rely on life, we we have to get by with with a sacrifice. And this is just an extension of that. Now what form the vampire takes in this particular game. There were many things that could have happened. I know that I felt it would mean that people died. I know that I felt it would mean, clandestine activities, hiding oneself. I don't know if it would have meant no sunlight. I don't know if it would have meant vulnerability to garlic. But yeah, I think the core of the vampire is always going to be there. It's that it's that strange needing of sacrifice.

Yeah, no, I think that that really strikes true. I it would be difficult for an Italian vampire to be weak against garlic. I think.

Just a cruel life. The fact that I've set this in Italy at all, maybe that's just mean.

Just in the way that the game is set up, you are going to play a vampire. There's no question there. It is setting you up to make some very questionable moral decisions and to make decisions that as a player, you would probably abhor, at least, I would hope you would.

Oh, all the time. Yeah. It's just a carousel of tragedy out there.

Yeah, so I think it's interesting. The game seems to have a very tragic tone. It's a game that you play alone. So it's a very lonely game. It's a game where there's kind of an inevitable decline. And so I'm curious why you were drawn to play a game like that.

I'm mean, let's just start with the biggest truth, which is that I am an absolute sucker for a beautiful prompt. I love when a game gives me just a little bit of evocative, almost poetry to work with. I think that that's, oh, it's just so good. You get to do you get to take someone else's little kernel of an idea and pop it into a big old popcorn. And that's just the whole game. Is that right? It'll, it'll give you some kind of cool question that you respond to. I'm going to flip up to a random one here. It says that you your body is ancient, a mark, which is that sort of thing that shows you're a vampire, a mark becomes disabling. You must seek mortal assistance, create a mortal character who is especially capable of helping you and like that just gives you so many cool things you can do with it. And I think that's part of what makes solo games test just so great. They did. They're always full of these super cool prompts. I shouldn't say that some solo games are sort of resource management. Some are asking you to solve almost an optimization puzzle. And those are amazing too. But when a when a game is just pure. What do you think of this? Imagine something? Ah, I love it. And then Thousand Year Old Vampire isn't the first game to do something like this, right? So Thousand Year Old Vampire isn't the only game of course to offer you kind of unsettling prompts and make you do things that you'd never want to do. Nor is it the only solo game nor is it the only solo journaling game. One of my favorite most compelling designs again, one that has still haven't played as a game called The Beast and The Beast is this story about your relationship your very intimate relationship with this alien and inhuman creature and you're writing this awful diary describing your encounters. I won't say much more, but it's just, there's a whole world out there of uncomfortable and unethical in tone, obviously not in play games, which just asked you to examine darker themes and chronicle from a place of sin and imperfection and in darkness.

And why would you say that you enjoy that? Is that something that you seek out? Is that just more of like you appreciate the design and the tone is incidental, or?

I appreciate that question. But the honest truth is that I'm a sucker for a sad story, especially if it's my fault. When I'm watching a really sad movie, I find it compelling I, I moved I I love the art that they've made. But sometimes it's almost too much for me, I find myself getting a little overwhelmed. And there's a level of control that you have when you're in the driver's seat, so to speak, that allows you to explore these sad themes, while also setting the boundary of how dark you're willing to go. And I like when I'm playing games with friends. And then one of them says something that's just really sad. And it oh, I don't know how to describe the emotion because it seems so strange to say out loud, but they'll say it and you go, Oh, that's really good. Oh, that's bad. That's sad. It's you're almost you just have to revel in the something, something about just bringing forward that emotional response. And having it brought out to you, it feels personal and intimate. It's this huge hack to make your stories feel big and important and dramatic. And I wish more people wouldn't be shy about exploring tragedy. It's so powerful. It's so cool. And it can be a really useful tool for exploring how emotion is a part of your own lives and your own experiences. I know a lot of games are about dungeon crawling and adventuring parties. But there's something special about taking a moment to be a little bit sad about something. I just think it's special.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that I mean, even within games, like Dungeons and Dragons that are built around these kind of war game kind of systems. I think my favorite experiences in those games has often been these kinds of tragic moments.

Well, that's what you'll always remember, right? If one of the characters has something really awful happened to them, you know, the table might spend time in this moment of mourning in this, they might have a ritual that they follow. If someone is lost from the party, there's a reason that that's part of the game. You know, that's the reason that you can die in these games is because it matters. And something mattering is one of the most precious things we can have. You want your life and your stories to matter. And that's means being a little sad sometimes.

Yeah, that's, that's a really wonderful way to put it. I think that, that is the magic of tabletop role playing games, is that we can enter a room, even if it's just with ourselves or with other people, and that we can tell a story that makes us feel something that connects us with our selves and the world around us.

I mean, I couldn't agree more. That's the kind of game that I like to play. That's the kind of game that I like to make. Just there. It's Oh, I love it. And it's hard to explain sometimes, but there it is. Yeah.

So this is a potentially a solo game which you are planning to play with a friend. Are you thinking about playing it alone now that it didn't work out with your friend? Are you saving this character for a potential future game?

You know, that's a great question. And I have thought about going back to Thousand Year Old Vampire and finally just doing the thing, you know, I confess that I like I really geared up to play this I made a really overproduced spreadsheet to play Thousand Year Old Vampire with so that I could track everything and I like illustrated the spreadsheet because I'm that kind of person. And so I have this tool that's set up in front of me and I know that at any point I could just, you know, finally use it. I could, I could do it. And I haven't and I don't know what to say about that. I just, I feel like there's an infinite amount of games out there. And every day I find something new that makes me go. This is amazing. And I love that. And I love that I get to live in that world. But it does mean that sometimes those who I should really get back to this, you know, maybe you don't. And I want to explore Altabella's story. But oh, and then there's this element of like, well, what if my friend reaches out and is like, I think it's finally time. We're going to Italy and I've a five already used Altabella on my own little story. I mean, I could do it again. Her life would be totally different the second time around? Dang it. Maybe I should Celeste maybe?

Yeah, I think we are definitely blessed with an abundance of wonderful games to try and I to feel the you know, the kind of disappointment of knowing that you'll never be able to try all the ones that even all the ones that I already have purchased. Altabella, where do you feel safe?

Well, the place that I've always felt safest has been. It sounds crazy, but it's under those waves. There's a silence to the ocean that's just always felt protective. To me. It's like I'm being held. It's like I'm being held by a mother. I have my mother. This is a different one. bigger one. And one who's always been a mother to my mother and her mother and her mother before her. And when I'm down there underneath the waves. I could stay there forever.

I love that. That's a wonderful answer. I am surprised that you were able to come up with that on the spot honestly.

Like a good leading question. I really do.

Thank you, Kurt. It was so wonderful getting to talk to you and learning about Altabella and learning about Thousand Year Old Vampire. I think you had some really profound things to say about gaming. And I'm so glad we had this conversation.

Thank you for having me. It's it's been a joy to talk to you.

So how can people find you? What kind of projects would you like to share?

Sure, I can be found at a couple of places. The first is I have mentioned earlier I do make games. I am a game designer. And if you like the sound of games that sometimes make you feel wistful or special or lonely or sad. I do have a little bit of that undercurrent running through my work. I published games at asmoulderinglighthouse.itch.io. And because that's darn near unGoogleable, man, I recommend you search for the RPG Knots in the Sky, which is probably my best known game, a surrealist piece about a traveler and a labyrinth that have waited so long to meet each other. Right now I am about to finally finally kickstart my game about abandoned theme parks and the bittersweet nostalgia of growing up. It's called Here We Used to Fly. It's going to be launching on Kickstarter on October 25. I am joined by my co designer Ian Howard. We have a wonderful artists working on the cover and guest authors like Caro Assertion, Alex Roberts, and Moe Meadows, who are also contributing elements to it. I am so excited to bring this one. So please check it out. Those are my big plugs. You can also catch me on Twitter at Kurt Refling.

Your game sounds so much fun. I love abandoned theme parks. There's something very melancholy about them.

I mean, we love them too.

You can find me on Tik Tok at starmamac. You can also listen on YouTube just search for characters without stories. Please Like Subscribe rate review, share with your friends share with grandma. Every little bit helps. I'm currently accepting submissions, particularly for non d&d characters. So if you'd like to share your character, you can go to the submission form at characters without stories.com Thanks for listening and may all your characters find their stories