Today, Ahu Tiiko releases worldwide. On the surface, it’s an expansion book for Coyote & Crow. A setting that allows players to tell multiple stories set within a small town in the Pacific Northwest. But it ended up being far more than just a book. And for me, it was far more than just a “SKU” or a “product” or something to help keep my company’s doors open.
Ahu Tiiko became a living breathing place to me almost five years ago. In the post-glow of Coyote & Crow’s success, everyone was asking me what was next. In the end, I chose more practical things like our dice game Naasii and our one-shot Story collaboration, Stories From The Free Lands. But Ahu Tiiko was already growing in mind.
I knew some of the themes I wanted to explore, and some of the mysteries. But I needed to get a feel for the actual place. And if you aren’t aware, Ahu Tiiko is based on a real geographic location. You can go there. And the book makes it possible to figure out where everything is, if you’re sleuthy enough.
I spent almost a week there; walking the water’s edge, exploring the forests, and in my little AirBNB, writing my ass off. I took hundreds of photos and hours of video, much of which appears in the book, our promotional videos, and in the hidden media, which I’ll talk more about soon.
As the stories and characters began to come together for Ahu Tiiko, I realized I wanted to do more with it. I spoke with folks about creating an in-world website for the town, something that felt like a cheesy municipal website – cheaply designed, rarely updated – but a place that also housed secrets and Easter eggs.
Then came the soundtrack. After having done some playtesting for the Alien RPG one-shot I wrote for Free League, where I’d created a full soundtrack and sound board for effects, I was thrilled by the idea of being able to assemble a group of tracks that could help set the stage for various characters and places.
But for me, the greatest pleasure was in creating the people that inhabit Ahu Tiiko, and the mysteries and rumors they carry. There’s a dark magic to small towns. On the one hand, it feels like you know everyone and they know you. On the other, there’s the reality, that we don’t actually know anyone as well as we think we do.
Small towns become petri dishes for secrets and lies. No one is immune to them and they can become a cancer. Ahu Tiiko is a village built on lies. And I decided to make that a core part of the actual book. Nothing within the pages of Ahu Tiiko can be trusted. When you first open the book, there’s a graphic that takes up the entire page that says:
This Book Tells Lies
And as soon as I hit on that, I knew what I had to do. Many resource books give gamemasters a set of information in a form that’s basically an encyclopedia. There are facts, statistics, rules and more. But I wanted Ahu Tiiko to flip that script for Storytellers. I wanted them to not be sure what exactly to believe.
Some of the mysteries have rules and stats, sure. But many of them lack answers to questions like ‘why’ or ‘who’. I created a random rumor table with 144 rumors, none of which are defined to be as either true or false or anything in between. I gave each character secrets – some about themselves, some about others. But those are secrets from that character’s point of view. Are they true? Distorted? Fabricated? I chose to never answer.
Throughout the book – even on the cover – there are cryptographic symbols. Who made them? How did they get in the book? What do they mean? I had so much fun not only creating those codes, but attaching them to the additional media that they pair with.
As I wrote more and more characters, I quickly began losing track of who connected who. I was becoming a Charlie Day meme. Thankfully, someone recommended me to Lucid Chart. There, I was able to create a sprawling diagram that helped me keep track of everyone and everything. Here’s an early iteration that is pretty much spoiler free:
This tool ramped up my ability to see connections behind connections and who might have real dirt on other characters. And the real beauty of this all was that the more these characters collected secrets, the more real they became. They had wants, fears, needs. These people see each other daily and they have every reason to help or betray the players who come into their village.
All of this came together in a way that I’m tremendously proud of. The mysteries of this game all have something to say, whether they are ‘solved’ or not. And these people hopefully feel as real to you as they do to me.
With all of that said, the book I’ve presented isn’t the book that I dreamed of prior to the Kickstarter. As with any project, things change along the way. My original intent had been to present Lushootseed spellings of character and place names throughout the book, to respect the real languages and cultures of the region. In addition, we wanted to create a free download that would teach Lushootseed pronunciation and cultural touchstones to add authenticity. But despite hitting that stretch goal and paying my consultant to do the work, he missed deadline after deadline and eventually backed out of the project under the guise of a number of excuses. That saddened me. I deeply respect the Indigenous nations of the Pacific Northwest, who have made me feel very welcome at powwows and events. Leaving that real world connection out wasn’t something I took lightly.
I originally only wanted one artist to do the whole book and all of the additional media . This was for two reasons. First, our core rule book has more than 30 artists as I wanted to show the breadth and depth of Indigenous artists across the Americas to help mirror the variety of locals, technology and culture found in the game. Ahu Tiiko was the opposite. As a singular place within Coyote & Crow, I wanted the art to feel unified, to give a sense of place and time.
Second was that with my time stretched thin, I wanted to work with a single artist to streamline my own workflow – administrative, contractual, art direction, all of it.
But as time ticked on, I think we bit off more than we could chew. In the end, we had to bring on three more artists to help get us across the finish line. They are all amazing artists though and I feel like we did an incredible job of setting a specific tone and vibe for the art throughout the book.
Despite these minor setbacks, I can’t help but beam when I look at a copy of Ahu Tiiko. I did what I set out to do and I created something that I feel doesn’t really have anything comparable in the RPG world: A source book full of mysteries and flawed, wonderful characters, where the answers to the mysteries aren’t easily presented or remain subjective, embedded cryptographic puzzles, additional hidden media, a soundtrack and even a partnership with Friday Afternoon Tea to create a in-world aja tea that players can enjoy around their game table.
I hope Ahu Tiiko brings you all hours of enjoyment and makes your game table an exciting place.
Best,
Kenna
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