About Us

 

Josh
Name: Josh Demaree
Occupation: Software Developer
Preferred Gaming Medium:  Pathfinder RPG, Playstation, Board Games
Favorite FACT:  “I ain’t been there much long.”
Short bio:  I am the producer of the show. I have a Masters in Music Technology with $65,000 in student loans to produce a free podcast. I have been playing video games and board games since I was 5 or 6 with Monopoly being one of my first board games. I also started with the NES and my brother and I traded consoles from my parents’ purchases until, while in college, I bought the PS3. That was my first personal console and have been a Sony fan ever since. Thanks to Mike and Don, I joined in with the role-playing game circuit around age 19 and have loved it ever since. I am pleased to have my lovely wife gaming with me as well as our lovely daughter Margaret.
Dr Deb
Name: Dr. Deb Demaree
Occupation:  Family Medicine Physician
Preferred Gaming Medium:  Pathfinder RPG, Nintendo Wii, Board Games
Favorite FACT:  episode 30, “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness, bind them, in the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”
Short bio:  I’ve played video games since the original Nintendo existed and always loved to play board games with my family.  Wasn’t into RPG’s until I was dragged (somewhat kicking and screaming) into my first D&D 3.5 game run by Big Don Marter.  Since then, I’ve been hooked on RPG’s as well.  Love strategy games including war games, Nintendo Wii is my favorite console gaming system and I love geeky shows including, but not limited to, LOTR, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, Sherlock, and Once Upon a Time.
Lance
Name: Lance / QuinnHarle
Occupation:  Military Retiree/Full-time Dad
Preferred Gaming Medium:  Miss Cleo & her Psychic Hotline…oh wait, not THAT kind of medium?
Favorite FACT: “In the eye of the beholder, you are good or evil, but remember…the Beholder has many eyes!”
Short bio:  I grew up playing chess with my father. He wanted to share his love for the game, but made sure he never let me win. “That way,” he’d say, “you never expect to win, but it means more when you do.”
My first cooperative game was a Mech Warrior game with my high school bully (turns out he was just lonely) in the early 1990’s. That was followed by AD&D (playing clerics & fighters) and Rifts (a juicer) with my co-workers at a small $1 theater in Greenwood, IN around 1995. I was part of my first LARP, a Vampire game from Mind’s Eye Theater in 1997 (a Gangrel/Werewolf abomination) and from then on, I really identified as a “gamer.”
I went on to play tabletop fantasy RPGs – mostly D&D 3rd Ed. – before, during, and after my 10 year military career. You will most often find me playing Neutral Good characters and speculating if the monsters in a given dungeon were sitting down to have a nice, quiet dinner just before the adventure party runs in and starts killing everything.
Ragaar
Name: Ragaar (pronounced rag-gaar) Ashnod
Occupation:  Solution Architect, and Entrepreneur
Preferred Gaming Medium:  PC gaming
Favorite FACT: “I ain’t been there much long.”
Short bio:  If you ever see a problem that you don’t know how to solve try clapping your hands, wiggling your fingers in the direction of the problem. I will do my best to bless you and heal your technological ailments. I am our resident Technomancer, Ninja, and avid PC gamer.
Ragaar
Name: Donald Marter aka. Big Don
Occupation:  Package Handler at FedEx Express
Preferred Gaming Medium:  Table Top
Favorite FACT: “#1- House rules allow you to cheat, legally. (It was the start of it all.)”
Short bio:  I grew up in a household that played a huge variety of games. The first video game that I had the opportunity to play was an original pong arcade console. We upgraded to an Atari 7800 and it was all history from there. My grandmothers were huge on playing games at family gatherings, so a love for games has literally been a part of my life from the beginning. I mark much of my gaming life with milestones that I experienced as I have grown in my passion, drive, and experience with gaming. A couple of the most memorable are the day my grandmother taught me how to play Euchre, it’s an Indiana thing, you wouldn’t understand. Then there is the day my best friend taught me to play Magic: the Gathering for the first time. Finally, the first time I sat down at a table with my dad and some friends to roll my first d20 in a 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons game. I have had the blessing to help bring new gamers into this hobby and I am so happy to do so. Games open a whole new level of friendship and relationship with complete strangers, and the best games can get you so emotionally invested that the death of a character or campaign can bring you to tears. That is what is so awesome with this hobby.
Alumni
Tony
Name: Anton ‘Tony’ Swartz
Occupation: PHP Developer/Systems Admin
Preferred Gaming Medium: PC/Pen and paper
Favorite Quote or FACT: “The opposite of war isn’t peace… It’s creation!”
Short Bio: Started playing games on my IBM PS/2 and Nintendo Entertainment System (Original NES). Got into building games in the summer of 95′ when i came across a web game called Shilla II: The Dark Times. Got into D&D because of Josh taking me to a D&D game at Danielle’s place.
Universal Story Telling
Name: Derek Knutsen
Occupation: Senior SQL Developer at Stonegate Mortgage
Preferred Gaming Medium: Tabletop RPG – Pathfinder or Universal Storytelling System. Universal Fighting System trading card game
Favorite Quote or FACT: “Fear the Con is the best three gays in daming” and “Chuupa, Chuupa, Chuupa”
Short Bio: The non-native Indianan.
I started my RPG life in a Vampire Mind’s Eye Theater LARP.  Then I proceeded into an evil D&D 3E game.  From there, my gamer life turned around and I played a good character in Living Greyhawk.  A couple of years of being a player turned into writing five modules for the campaign.
Towards the tail end of 3.5, I started a yearly Gen Con campaign called Lost Religion Found, which brought me in contact with Josh and Anton.  They convinced me to move to Indiana and I became a regular GM for their group.  We have since moved to Pathfinder as our primary system, but I have run other systems for the group (Savage Worlds, QAGS) and hope to run systems none of us has played as one-shots.
Now I have returned to writing with my company, Palegain Press.  The first sellable product I created was Universal Storytelling System.  The future will hold novels and a campaign setting writeup for Palegain.  Board games and other products will also be coming out.

6 thoughts on “About Us

  1. COLLECTOR CON debuts in Owensboro, KY- Halloween Weekend!!!

    Join us October 31-November 2 at the brand new Owensboro Convention Center for Collector Con…a Pop Culture Experience! This event will include toys, comics, collectibles, games and so much more. This is also a chance to meet with our panel of celebrities including Dan Haggerty- Star of Grizzley Adams, Aron Eisenberg “Nog”- Star Trek, Joyce Dewitt “Janet Wood”- Three’s Company, Honky Tonk Man- WWE Professional Wrestling Icon, Scot Shaw- Cartoonist for Flinstones, Sonic and The Simpsons, Robert Z’Dar- Maniac Cop and Tango & Cash, Jim Cornette- Legendary WWE Manager and more to come!

    On Friday, Halloween Night, make sure to join us for the Witches and Wizards Costume Ball upstairs in the Convention Center Ballroom. This party will include a live band, a video DJ, a $1,500 costume contest with celebrity judges and so much more! For more information on the Collector Con or Witches and Wizard Costume Ball, visit http://www.collectorcon.com.

  2. Anton ‘Tony’ Swartz If you read this I used to play as Warwax on Shilla more than once, was also Dark_Imperial_Dragon at one time may have had a few other names but those were definitely my two main ones. I played at least three different iterations of that game the first one starting in like 1998 I think? and recently went to check on it, someone has recreated the login screen but you can’t register for it. Looking for information on it and who has it now if nothing else just to reminisce because I spent hours and hours on dial up internet (and otherwise in later years) playing that game and had a great time. My email is included but if you are actually trying to reach me hit me on “Line” app id is AzrielLightbringer. Emails put in websites tend to get a crap ton of spam so I don’t check that one much. I actually started making a game like this of my own accord at one point but I didn’t know crap about security and didn’t get very far lol I managed to create a registration page (totally insecure) on a local laptop and you could login with your character/password and had some basic movement (north east south west) going on and random encounters etc, I think I was up to the point you could fight and defeat a monster tracking quests was a pain due to the inefficient (i’m sure) way I was doing it lol. Anyway hit me up curious if you ever made anything, or if there is a new Shilla out.

  3. Nice bios, but…why don’t you have pics next to your names? Might help people identify you in the real world. Or are you all part of a witness protection program. So curious. 😉

  4. hello, I played Starfinder at Gencon2020 with most of you. Glad to find your podcast. I had a blast playing Android Zed. Take care!

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