Gary Kloster's page

Rysky- I didn't think your post was rude at all. While it would be nice if everything I wrote was universally loved by everyone everywhere, I don't actually think that's possible. Everyone has different tastes, likes and dislikes, which is good because that means there's a wide variety of stuff out there for us to try. I'm just glad you liked some of it- as a bog standard neurotic writer, when someone says "Yeah, didn't really like this, but those parts were ok" I actually perk up and let myself think that maybe some of it was actually half-decent.

As for Jiri- Like I said, you guys were more imaginative than me. On paper, she's a standard druid- not even jungle, though I was might tempted, but I needed to have her get wildshape at 4th level. She actually has the ash sub-domain from the player's handbook, instead of fire, but they're almost exactly the same. I thought ash just fit a bit better with her background. Plus it gives her disintegrate, which I envision as forcing someone to spontaneously combust, then fall apart into ashes, so that's cool. And also a long way off.

So what about the random stuff catching on fire when Jiri's upset thing? That was her (involuntarily) using the fire bolt power from her domain list. Which meant I had to keep track and make sure that between fights and losing control she never spent more then her allotment per day.

Occult Adventures actually came out around the same time as Firesoul, so I never got to see it until after I'd written the book. But I get where you're coming from, Darkborn. When I looked through it, I was going "Y'know, this kind of fits..." a lot, which was fun.

I never formally statted out All-in-Ashes, since Jiri & Co. never had to go toe-to-toe with him. Which is good, it would not have gone well. My informal sketch was an outsider with excellent flight, a permanent Fiery Body (the spell from Player's Handbook) and the ability to cast a powered-up version of Firestorm way too many times a day to be healthy. The kindi trick that got poor Shani stuck in his mess I thought of as a (heavlily) modified magic jar spell, with the kindi acting as the crystal.

Hope this was helpful!

Darkborn- Yeah, the nice thing about writing the story, as opposed to playing out a campaign, is that you can make it go the way you want it to. I've occasionally made similar scenarios work out in a game, but I've also tried it only to blow some critical roll and have the pursuing monster catch up- usually right while my character is in front of the other bad guy.

Glad you liked it! There may be more in the works...

No problems holding back. Well, except you folks will probably come up with something a lot cooler than what I did...

I picked the Expanse for two main reasons- first, because there hasn't been a lot done with it, so it was wide open for stories. Second, dinosaurs.

I used the Serpent's Skull adventure path as research for Firesoul, and it was really helpful, but now that means I can't really play it, which is too bad since it's pretty cool.

Liane- Your scent project is really interesting. Details like that really help develop setting and characters. I have to admit, I didn't think about perfumes. I wonder if the ancient Egyptian trick of putting perfumed wax in their hair to slowly melt would work? I mean, it would certainly melt, but would the humidity make it into a sticky mess?

Also, I'm fairly sure dwarves perfume themselves with their favorite beers and ales, liberally applied to their beards.

Hey there! It's great to see people talking about Firesoul. And kind of weird- this is my first book, so it's still bizarre to realize that there are all these people out in the world, reading this thing that I plunked out in my fabulous office/walk-in closet.

Are you curious about how I put Jiri together? No meaning to be coy, I just don't want to ruin it if you're having fun puzzling it out.