4+ Years in Praetoria

After more than four years writing the story of the Splinterlands, I'm stepping away. I gave my notice about two weeks ago, and Wednesday, May 20 is my last day. I wanted to write a proper goodbye here, where so much of the community lives and thinks out loud.

When I came on, Praetoria was little more than a coastline, the outline of a continent and not much else. Everything inside was still a blank. My job was to breathe life into it, to draw the inside of that outline and the characters that populated it and the lives and stories they lived. I built history that happened and would keep happening, I created names that meant something, and I'm damn proud of it.

Worldbuilding for a card game is a strange craft. Most of what you write, people meet sideways. A player opens a pack, glances at a card, and the lore is two paragraphs they may or may not read after the stats. You learn to write for that, to put a whole life into a few paragraphs or even a few lines, because that's all you get.

Conflicts were their own discipline, an epic story summed up in a short video or a couple paragraphs. Kingdoms, empires, politics, rivalries, heroes, antiheroes, villains, and the gods and goddesses all wove together in a mad tapestry of my design, along with the final battle everything has been building up to since Chaos Legion released. Some of it has shipped. Some of it is still in the wings. All of it was a privilege to build.

Most writers don't get to watch their work land in real time, but I did. You theorize about the Secret of Praetoria and Uul and the rifts. You wonder what Silus's endgame really is. You got to know the characters, got attached to them, and, dare I hope, fell in love with some of them. Enough of you did it, often enough, that I never once felt like I was writing into a void. That is a rare gift for a writer, and you gave it to me.

The story of Praetoria is not finished. There is a great deal still ahead, and I hope you get to experience all of it. A world is bigger than any one writer. This one will keep going without me, as it should. Praetoria was always meant to be yours more than mine. I just got to write some of it down first.

Thank you for letting me build this world with you. It's been an honor. Take care of Praetoria. From here on out, I'll be reading from the cheap seats.

Joey
Breakingbenjamin