Ahoy! Thank you so much for doing this Q&A on Tall Tales!! This was ma favorite part of the Anniversary Update, loving all the lore they brought and all the new mechanics they introduced to the game. Tall Tales introduced in-game a few characters from the extended universe like Briggsy or Captain Slate but also Tribute Peak. Was the way to introduce these characters planned when the book was written, or did it come after that? I hope Larinna is doing well and I can’t wait to see Mercia introduced into the game! What is the mechanism introduced by the Tales that you prefer the most? I was also wondering if you had any inspiration about the Tales stories? Wild Rose is probably my favorite, so emotional and the music is exceptional. Are there any that are based on real stories? Tall Tales have introduced many new mechanisms and tools into the game, could these be reused to improve the regular voyages of Trading Companies? I love the enchanted compass!! Shores of Gold suggests that there is more than one island, does that mean Tribute Peak is not the only island in this mysterious region? I have so many questions… 😁

MIKE

All the Tall Tales begun as stories that focused on specific emotions, such as a ‘Tale of Love’ (Wild Rose) ‘Tale of Wonder’ (Legendary Storyteller), ‘Tale of Revenge’ (Revenge of the Morningstar) etc.

We started with the most ambitious idea we could, which was telling a love story in a pirate game, and that is where the story of Wild Rose began before the wider Shores of Gold story was created around it.

So many of the mechanics are ideas we’ve wanted to do for a while — enchanted compass, spyglass, lantern etc. I’m particularly fond of the Enchanted Spyglass as the idea of using the stars to navigate was such a romantic notion, especially with players being able to look up and know what a collection of stars meant, even without using the spyglass. This is why we used the constellations to the North, South, East and West for the medallions on Shores of Gold as it would make sense if you’d made the journey through the nine tales.

All of the stories were fictional and chosen to flesh out the world and existing characters. The original brief for the ten tales (that became nine) were written during one week where I just stayed at home and worked at the kitchen table surrounded by post-it notes. Quite an exhausting process and clearly the real work was just beginning as then we had to go make them and fully flesh them out.

Really keen to unlock the quest variety in Tall Tales as part of standard voyages!