The Phenomenon Crew
Pheno's Journey will be brought to you through the tireless contributions of the organisers and writers!
Buy them lots of drinks at post-con drinkies.
Daniel Ryan (President)
Stephen Justice (Vice President, Writer Wrangler)
John Machin (Secretary)
Wes Nicholson (Treasurer)
Matthew Bailey
Stu Barrow
Registration system by Elissa Feit
Website by Andrew Smith.
If you are interested in becoming a Red Sash Volunteer at Phenomenon 2022 please contact us.
We're happy to have arrived with these fine writers.
Game: A Little Magic
Game: The Edge of the World
Daniel started writing in the early 90s for rpgs, His focus has been table top roleplaying space and mostly using the Hero System. Daniel was exposed to Freeform when he moved to Australia in 2000 and has loved it ever since. He has co-GMed for the Age Of Aquarius Freeform which ran for about 2 years in Sydney and ran Co-GMed Slayercon and Holiday at the World’s end at Phenomenon. Also, he has been roleplaying for just over 40 years, so you can say he has a little experience. :)
Game: Wheel in the Sky
Eliza started writing and running dinner murder mysteries in 2008 for her friends as a way to keep in touch with people after school. She then forgot about everything for a while until the theatre kids at uni drafted her into being their GM for a dungeons and dragons game in 2014 after their GM finished uni. Since then, she’s introduced a number of people to the world of tabletop and dinner murder mystery games. While her credentials as a criminologist are real, she swears that all the murders she writes are fake.
Game: Mysteries of Atalantum — Airship of Death
John Hughes has been active on the Australian convention circuit as a writer, con organiser, publisher and wild-eyed dreamer since the world's first freeforms in 1983, and is a pioneer of the Australian systemless and thematic tradition. He has produced over fifty modules for publication or convention play, writes game material and fiction for a variety of games, and dabbles in 3D illustration. John worked closely with Greg Stafford on detailing the Orlanthi of Glorantha (Thunder Rebels, Storm Tribe, etc). He holds one twelth of a Silver Ennie (Terror Australis). John's recent Pheno modules include Panic!, Sorry Business, Turn of Midnight Waters, Gaze, Xenomorph, and Dark.
John’s roleplaying website is http://myth-o-logic.org
Pip Hughes has been playing and writing roleplaying games for more than thirty years. She started reading science fiction when, at the age of ten, her father tossed her an Isaac Asimov novel. Pip then tried to write her own, but at that age you have the attention span of a newt. She found, however, that building a story with other people is both far easier and far more enjoyable. Ah, roleplaying… she hasn't stopped since. Pip's recent Pheno games include Panic!, Sorry Business, Turn of Midnight Waters, Kwaidan, Gaze, Xenomorph, and Dark.
Game: Blood on Black Wattle
To say that Babylon 5 has influenced Gavin's life is something of an understatement, and not just in his love of mandarin collared shirts. His longest running joke with his wife references the show and an excerpt from it was read at his wedding. He's taking a break from his usual silliness to run this game and is hoping to G'Quan it works.
He lives for the One, and would die for the One. (And in Purple, he's stunning.)
Game: Babylon 5: In Valen’s Name
Games: Paper Jubilee and Flotsam's Children
Kell is a business analyst who lives in Sydney, Australia, and has been writing convention games for years. Under the name Kell Shaw, she's developing the Vestige World urban fantasy setting for role-playing games, stories and more. Check it out at https://kellshaw.com.
Game: Two Thousand Years After
Game: A Song of the Transfigured
Game: Ravenloft: Before the Avalanche
Game: LOVE LOVE LOVECRAFT!
Evan is a 52 year old lifelong gamer. Micah (his son!) is a 10 year old lifelong gamer.
Game: Not on the Spectrum
Wren Weatherwax is a new games writer trialing their first convention game. Wren has grown up around many awesome people who like role-playing, and they’ve finally decided it’s time to dip their toes into the community. They like horror, fantasy and the supernatural. Outside of role-playing, they like art and crochet, making custom doll designs modelled after characters from their favourite media and ones they’ve designed themselves.
Game: Five
Xole (that's pronounced 'Kole') Karman and Andrew Smith have written games for Pheno since the 90s. Xole's last tabletop was 'Caryatides' in 2016, and Andrew's was 'Red King Yellow King' in 2018. They co-wrote the freeform 'A Game of Suns' in 2013. They prefer systems-lite or narrative games that focus on character choices.
Game: A Fair Bonny Crew (of Pirates)
Game: Chrysalis
Jason Cebalo has now been role-playing for over three quarters of his life and is still loving it. When not gaming he’s a philosophy student at University of New England.
Game: Balance of Power
Game: A Familiar Tale
Penny has been writing and running larps and freeforms for over 10 years, including several at Phenomenon. She specialises in player-driven political and trading larps with simple mechanics. Her previous games include Vampire: The Art of Politics (with Jason Chappel), Changeling: Goblin Market, the Phenomenon Tryptich freeform Inner Space (with Jason Chappel), Farscape: The Nebari Who Sold the World and Threefold Blessings—A Changeling the Dreaming larp in the Nordic style (with Jason Chappel). She is one of the three founders of Immersio Larp Studio, an Australian larp company bringing immersive Nordic-Blockbuster-style larp to Australia.
Game: Moonshine
Charlie never thought she would be foolish enough to be a LARP organizer. Unfortunately, after an angry dwarf told her that she never could, as her ego was many times bigger than her brain, she was forced to prove him wrong. After running "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Sudenburg" in 2018 and proving that both her brain and ego are inhumanly oversized, she was hooked, and has been writing and running her own LARPs ever since. Charlie loves setting up the players of her games to indulge in all the mad chaos their hearts might desire. She mostly worked on the transgender and queer elements of Moonshine.
Game: Moonshine
For the times when the writer's ambition exceeds their capacity for time travel and teleportation. When a freeform is just too big or there are more players than sessions. When that happens, GMs call in the cavalry.
Pheno thanks these heroic individuals!