Welcome to Twilight Press Inc. home of Ember Twilight Role Playing.  This section gives a brief statement as to what we're trying to accomplish with our game as well as our objectives in supporting our products.

Ember Twilight is the realization of a dream that began back in 1996.  For seven years Troy Costisick, Peter Evan, John Gordon, and Brian Hagerty worked to bring this dream to life.  In 1999, Frank Rausch was added to the team to head up the EmberWorld project.  His work has been invaluable, and his zeal propelled the EmberWorld concept from just a map and a few sketches to the engrossing campaign setting it is today.

Ember Twilight will begin as a Fantasy RPG. Depending on our success, we plan to branch out into other genres as well. Fantasy is our favorite genre and in our opinion is where the heart of the market still is. With our game, we wanted to create "platforms" on which players and narrators are given a greater degree of control over the game than what one may be used to. To help accomplish this, we did several specific things.

First, we split the system from the setting. We are releasing two books simultaneously- The Ember Twilight Core Rules of Fantasy Role Playing and the EmberWorld campaign setting. The Core Rules is 256 pages long, hardbound, full color cover, black and white interior. EmberWorld is 288 pages long, hardboud, full color cover, b&w interior.

The Core Rules is a system only book. However, it has a great deal of features that deal with metagame and setting creation. Large sections of the book were devoted to creating and designing one's own campaign setting. Guidelines and suggestions for creating one's own people, cultures, geography and so on are included to empower narrators and players to exercise their own creativity in customizing a world to their tastes. The Core Rules does not impose a world on anyone and therefore is not limited by a world in its scope (it is limited by its genre, but that was our intent. We didn't want a "universal" type game).

Second, we created the Core Rules with the principle in mind that we wanted players to have as complete control over their character's development as possible. Therefore, very few restrictions as possible were put on character generation and advancement. Players can create whatever kind of character they want with any skill they want within the material provided. They also can advance just about any aspect of the character they want. We also wanted narrators to have as much control as feasible over the system and how it works. Consequently, we included chapters on customization and changing resolution mechanics. For instance, the standard format of Ember Twilight is a system in which there exist levels and professions. However, a narrator is empowered to and given details on how to change the standard format into a leveless or classless system. Levels and professions are very loose in Ember Twilight anyway, so changing them is a snap. The conversions are very simple and easy to employ. In short, Ember Twilight has levels and classes for those who like them, and is also leveless and classes for those who don't. In addition, we also give ways of adjusting the system to quicken or slow the pace of character advancement, combat, and so on.

Further options and updates are posted on our website.  The Core Rules contains eleven races and thirteen professions- a total of 143 different possible combinations.  The website offers players eleven more races and five more professions.  That brings the total different possibilities up to 396.  Further additions and options will be added periodically and many will come from player suggestions given through online feedback.

Third, we created EmberWorld with a philosophy similar to the Core Rules. Just as the Core Rules is a system uninhibited by a world, EmberWorld is a setting uninhibited by a system. The text that deals directly with describing the known world and its peoples is written "in character" by a historian of the setting named Anlin Rafterson. In the source section, you will not find a single reference to any game mechanic or rule. It's written as if Anlin published this book in EmberWorld and made it available on the marketplace. His biases, personality, and admitted ignorance of certain subjects all show through and add a great deal of color to the world. There are supplemental rules inside the EmberWorld book that give new player and narrator options, but they are kept in a completely separate section. Even the layout is radically different.

What this accomplishes, or at least we hope it does, is several things: 1) any system is compatible with EmberWorld because none of our rules get in the way of telling about the world, 2) it allows for greater narrator control and customization. Anlin could very well be wrong about things, and it would be impossible for him to know everything. Therefore, the GM is not constrained by what is "cannon" and what is not. 3) it makes the source section more enjoyable to read with bits of humor and passion mixed throughout, 4) the book itself becomes a resource that the narrator can give the player(s) so that he/she can read it and educate themselves about their setting, 5) by purposefully leaving certain things vague, the GM and the players can develop their own explanations and backstories for why things are the way they are.

EmberWorld is set in a Renaissance/Age of Exploration and spans several continents, but not the entire globe. Plenty of room was intentionally left for narrators and players to explore. The time period of the setting allows for great campaigns involving political intrigue, guild wars, exploration, rebellion, duels with swords or pistols, or even ethical/moral struggles. We included a section in the rules portion of the book on how one might run such campaigns and where in EmberWorld various campaigns may be best supported.

This is only a brief summary and it would be impossible to relate every aspect of our game without printing large sections of it on the website.  If you have any further questions, please visit our FAQ page or contact us on our feedback form.  We look forward to assisting you in any way.

Safe journeys!

Twilight Press Inc.

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Troy Costisick hails from Columbus Indiana.  He first started designing settings of the fantasy genre from early childhood but never got the chance to play RPGs until high school.  He was first introduced to RPGs by Peter Evan.  Within a year, Troy and Peter realized that the games currently on the market just didn't offer them the freedom they wanted.  Beginning in 1996, Peter, Troy, John Gordon, and Brian Hagerty began work on Ember Twilight.  Troy went on to earn his teaching license from Campbellsville University and is now happily teaching in his hometown.  Bringing Ember Twilight to life has been a lifetime goal for Troy and he feels very lucky to have achieved it so early in life.

Peter Evan was born in 1979 and is a native of nowhere in particular.  In 2000 he received the only degree in Medieval Literature ever awarded by Indiana University.  This proved to be so useless on the job market that he spent the last three years in Japan working for the Japanese government and studying music.  His accent is almost incomprehensible and his language skills have deteriorated noticeably, but he still manages to serve as the textural editor for Twilight Press.  Although Peter contributed in the development of the game´s basic concepts, his main task has been preparing the raw book texts for general consumption. He spends most of his spare time reading classic fantasy and magic realism, and playing Swedish and Japanese folk music.  He is now studying medieval history at Hogwarts.

John Gordon, born in 1978, is a native of Columbus, Indiana.  He studied at Indiana University where he received a Bachelor's of Science in Psychology.  He is currently continuing his studies at West Virginia University where he is seeking a Master's in Social Work.  In helping develop the Ember Twilight system John primarily worked to hammer the ideas of the other group member's into usable shapes.  However, he did generate large portions of the work in regards to skills, weapons, and tactics.  Somewhat of a rules lawyer, John has proved adept at twisting, bending, stretching, and otherwise abusing system rules.  This quality as made him invaluable as a playtester.  John is also responsible for the layout of the Core Rules book and part of the EmberWorld book, the covers for both books, as well as many of the sketches on the interior of the books.  Currently within Twilight Press, John heads up layout and design of new products and supplements as well as development and maintenance of the Twilight Press Inc. website.

Brian Hagerty was born in 1980 in Columbus, Indiana. He studied Mathematics and Philosophy at Bucknell University earning a Bachelor's in each.  He is continuing his studies in Amsterdam working on his Master's in Logic.  Brian's creativity is responsible for many of the concepts within the Core Rules, and within Twilight Press, Brian has learned all the legalese necessary for this type of venture. Brian enjoys spending hours reading various tax documents to keep the IRS happy and prides himself on his versatility, creativity, and rigor.

Frank Rausch, born in 1978, is a native of Plainfield, Indiana.  He studied at Indiana university, earning a Bachelor's of Arts in History and East Asian studies.  He continued his studies there, earning a Master's in East Asian studies with a thesis on the contextualization of Catholicism in Korea.  He worked as a middle school teacher at a Catholic school in New Jersey until illness forced him to resign after only a month.  Having recovered, he is currently enrolled at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada where he is in the doctoral program for Asian studies.  His primary interest is in pre-modern Korean religious history, though he is also interested in the history of Japan and Korea, especially in regards to Catholicism, Confucianism, and the role of religion in daily life.  He work on EmberWorld has been heavily influenced by his Asian studies, as well as by his love of the heroic and the romantic, especially in the works of G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien.  His work can be easily identified in our products by his extremely long and convoluted style of writing, feared by editors everywhere

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