I first met Kelly Whyte when she messaged me on Discord asking if I wanted a copy of a press kit for her upcoming Lineages of the Long White Cloud, Volume 2 for my Weekly Wobble newsletter.
After reading through the press kit, I knew I wanted to interview Kelly. She is the author of several supplements and adventures for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, as well as a handful of indie titles.
Wobblerocket: So to get the ball rolling on this interview: what’s your background with games?
Kelly Whyte: Like most folks, I started out in D&D. 3.5 was hot off the presses at the time and my friends introduced me to the game during my school years. I became our forever DM almost immediately!
As a designer, I’m coming up on my third year of producing games that are a pretty odd mix. During that time I’ve made 11 titles, ranging from 1 pagers, to zines, to adventures, to supplements. D&D remains my main touchstone and the system I publish most for, but my works are a pretty eclectic mix depending on what inspires me.
Kelly Whyte’s Lost & Forgotten
Wobblerocket: What was the first TTRPG product you released? How did it go?
Kelly Whyte: It was called Lost & Forgotten.
It actually began as a Halloween adventure for our group, as COVID had forced our regular game online. It was a really complicated on to pull off, as it involves some extremely unreliable narration on the part of the GM and the players having to construct the story largely from environmental clues. Having put so much work into this, and it going so well when we played, I thought I’d share it with the world.
I released it for FATE and 5e, commissioned some excellent art from a friend. And I had no idea what this would lead to! It still remains one of my favorite published works, though I did an almost complete overhaul last year. Bringing all that I’d learn to redoing the writing, structure and layout over the two years since I’d released it.
Lineages of the Long White Cloud
Wobblerocket: In last quarter 2023, you ran a successful Kickstarter for Lineages of the Long White Cloud, which fully funded and hit two stretch goals. The book is a really interesting one that takes native New Zealand wildlife and transforms them into playable species for D&D 5th edition.
Where did the idea for Lineages of the Long White Cloud come from?
Kelly Whyte: Quite simply, someone wanted to play a kiwi. This was a discussion on the D&D Aotearoa Facebook page, with a member asking if anyone had seen a playable kiwi species. And naturally the comments turned to homebrewing one up for them, which I couldn’t resist joining in.
When I mentioned it to friends it became a bit of a joke, that people would also want to play kererū, kea, or other birds. Turns out they were right.The book began to take shape and it needed a guiding philosophy, which I decided to be that each of the species would try and reflect the real world characteristics of the critters in question. There’s some fantastical elements to be sure, and some license when anthropomorphizing their social structures.
But I wanted everyone to come out of this with a sense of what these creatures are actually like.
Wobblerocket: What kind of research went into that?
Kelly Whyte: A lot. It varied from species to species, the best known ones were generally the easiest. They were well-researched, extensively written about. Others not so much, a problem that particularly affected the insect species that were included.Probably the most difficult to research was the tuatara, as popular science had perpetuated… not myths exactly, but had overstated several features in a way that didn’t match the actual science (a shoutout to Professor Alison Cree’s excellent book Tuatara: Biology and Conservation of a Venerable Survivor, and my local library, for having a copy).
It led to a few times when I planned mechanics for a species, only to have it overturned by research or someone pointing out that it wasn’t quite how it worked.
Wobblerocket: Do you have any sort of academic background in animal sciences or biology or is this just something that caught your attention?
Kelly Whyte: I have a background in health sciences, humans only I’m afraid. I’ve always had a keen interest in conservation and volunteered for various organisations, mainly around native reforestation and predator control.
In Aotearoa, habitat loss has been one of the biggest drivers of species endangerment so reforestation is often with the long term goal of providing food, habitat, or reintroducing these native animals.
Wobblerocket: Yeah, when I was preparing some questions, I did some reading and realized that a lot of these creatures are endangered or threatened. TTRPGs are a fascinating medium to bring attention to that.
Kelly Whyte: If you were to pick native species at random, unfortunately most of them would be endangered. Lineages of the Long White Cloud is intended to be a celebration of these creatures, talk about what makes them special and interesting to us. If that helps people understand why it’s so important to keep them around, I’ll take that!
But it’s also so that New Zealanders can see themselves, their everyday, in a fantasy world. While the species might seem a bit exotic to other people, most of these are household names in Aotearoa.
Kickstarter: Lineages of the Long White Cloud, Volume 2
Wobblerocket: After the success of Lineages of the Long White Cloud, you’re launching a Kickstarter on February 11th to fund Lineages of the Long White Cloud Volume 2.
What content do you have planned for the new book?Kelly Whyte: Our focus is the same, bringing players character options based on native wildlife. We’ve got seven new species, with two more as stretch goals. We’re going to be bringing you every native mammal in the country, all two of them!
While there’s plenty of household names still, we’ve got some lesser known species this time. And some of their unique characteristics bring us into new design spaces, like how to design for a species with no mouths.
We have some creatures that will be appearing as monsters, such as the hura, our giant centipedes, and some of our giant carnivorous snails.
As a final, and ambitious, stretch goal, we hope to include a mini-adventure, to help you kickstart your own campaigns in land of the long white cloud.Wobblerocket: Giant carnivorous snails sounds like something tailor made for D&D. I can’t wait.
What are your takeaways from the first Kickstarter that have influenced the way you’re running the new Kickstarter for Lineages of the Long White Cloud, Volume 2? Anything you’re doing different this time around?Kelly Whyte: We played it very safe the first time around, this time we’re pushing ourselves to deliver higher quality design and to produce physical copies.
In the year since, we did release a print version of Volume 1 and that experience has made me confident we can do it within the Kickstarter this time. I’m glad I didn’t bite off too much for our first attempt at crowdfunding, but I think we can now do an even better campaign this time.
Wobblerocket: I’m a huge fan of physical TTRPG products, so I’m happy to hear that.
The Art of Kelly Whyte’s Lineages of the Long White Cloud
Wobblerocket: Let’s talk art real quick. Lineages of the Long White Cloud features really great illustrations by Yasheshwini Sharma and Chenielle Clark. How did you get connected with these artists and will they be signing on for Volume 2?
Kelly Whyte: Yasheshwini is a long time friend who I met through university. She’s also an amazing artist who I’ve been working with since Lost & Forgotten. She did the majority of the art for Volume 1 and is hasn’t gotten sick of me yet, she’ll be coming back for Volume 2.
Chenielle was our guest artist, who did our fantastic kererū. This time the guest spot is going to Lizzi (@spiritcrowart), who’s already done some beautiful work with New Zealand birds, we’re very lucky to have her join this project.
Wobblerocket: I think that’s all the questions I have. Anything else you want to add?
Kelly Whyte: Uhh… vote gravel maggot?
Wobblerocket: I love that they’re named after Sméagol from Lord of the Rings. 😂
Kelly Whyte: There’s also a hobbit psylid called psyla fordobagginsi!
More from Kelly Whyte
- Follow Kelly on Bluesky!
- Back the Lineages of the Long White Cloud, Volume 2 Kickstarter, which opens Tuesday!
- Find Kelly’s games on DriveThruRPG.
- Find even more of Kelly’s creations on Itch.io.
