If you have not done so already, check out my previous interview with Mod Ash!
Enjoy this candid Q&A.
TGN: Do you have any pets?
MA: No, I’ve never had any pets.
TGN: What was your favorite film during your childhood, and what is your favorite film now?
MA: Stretching “childhood” slightly to include 18, that’ll be ‘The Mummy Returns’.
Just now, ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’
TGN: Do you ever listen to music while working, if so, what do you normally listen to?
MA: Always, if possible. Unfortunately my work these days involves so many meetings that I can’t work through an album like I used to.
I listen to a lot of Philip Glass, especially his piano etudes and dances. Minimalist music like that is extremely good for the background while working.
TGN: I have seen you play the violin. How long have you played and can you play any other instruments?
MA: Just over 40 years now. I can also play the piano a little, but mostly for improvising rather than playing off written music. Also, last autumn, I filled in for a church organist during his vacation, and even taught myself to use the pedals a bit. The congregation didn’t need to know that the voluntary pieces I played at the end of services were arrangements of RuneScape music!
TGN: If time travel were possible, what era in history would you like to visit, or who in past history would you like to meet?
MA: If permitted to bring a big stick with me, I’d like to travel back to the 1930s, meet Hitler, and hit him a lot with the stick. But if that weren’t permitted, I’d pick December 1808, and attend the concert where Beethoven premiered his iconic 5th symphony along with many other brilliant works.
TGN: Do you have any phobias?
MA: Spiders.
TGN: What is your favorite book?
MA: ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’, by Umberto Eco. The opening paragraph, in which the narrator reflects on the sight of the Pendulum, is a batshit crazy torrent of verbiage that spirals eloquently up its own backside, and this sets the scene perfectly for what follows.
TGN: Do you have any hobbies?
MA: Playing the violin with local orchestras, mostly. I can be seen in the 1st violins in this video: [LINK]
Also some singing – I’m one of the basses in this song, written by a friend of mine: [LINK]
TGN: What model of car do you drive?
MA: I don’t have one.
TGN: Do you have a favorite “Easter Egg”, hidden reference, or inside joke within RuneScape?
MA: It’s not hidden, but it’s a rather bizarre and unexpected reference…
There are different variants of the Nylocas monsters in RuneScape, including the Nylocas Hagios, Nylocas Ischyros and Nylocas Athanatos. The words “hagios”, “ischyros” and “athanatos” are Greek, taken from an old Christian prayer for Good Friday that hails God as holy, strong and immortal (the Improperia). My choir had been rehearsing a musical setting of the prayer around the time I was making those Nylocas, and I guess the words had stuck in my mind enough to connect them with the mystic Nylocas (“hagios”), the berserker melee Nylocas (“ischyros”) and the tank Nylocas (“athanatos”) that I was creating.
It amuses me to have something like that as a cultural reference in the game!
Thanks again, Mod Ash! Always a pleasure.
TheGameNarrative 