Portalarium seem to really be favouring Ten Ton Hammer as their main gaming media outlet; TTH has gotten a number of first-looks at the game in its various stages, and even managed to score an exclusive interview with story designer Tracy Hickman. Therein, the Dragonlance author explains his intention in crafting the story in Blade of the Avatar:

Ricoxg: One thing Richard is known for is his unique way of making you face yourself and ask big questions about morality and bigotry. You also are known for a similar depth with your extraordinarily complex characters. Is this something we should expect in Blade as well?

Hickman: Oh absolutely! One of the central themes in Blade of the Avatar, at least for me, is that our main character is essentially a Nazi. He’s a captain in the military of what amounts to an evil empire, and one that’s attempting to take over the world. They’re so typically evil, even to the point where they’re wearing awesome-looking black armor, which is the quintessential trademark of bad guys. He discovers this ancient sword of ultimate good, a relic of the past that he alone can wield. So to have this character from the evil empire holding this sword of ultimate good, the dichotomy of that just has you questioning what really is good and what really is evil. How can’t this bad guy hold this good relic, and how come the good guys can’t hold the relic? That really forces you into taking a look at what is good and what is evil, and thinking about it.

Ricoxg: Only you and Richard would manage to write a story about virtue and then have people confused on good and evil. Where in the world do you manage to come up with this sort of stuff?

Hickman: That’s just a really central point to this story that we decided we’d like to tell. We want to take a very careful look at these labels that we very easily put on people. For us all, I think that’s a central question and I think that’s why these stories connect so well with people, because we’re all faced with that every day. What is good and evil, and what are our motivations in that? Understanding what the motivations in others are is part of the central question we’re addressing in this novel. Trying to get outside your own perspective and take a look at people from a different angle.

As well, Ten Ton was able to get a second interview, this time with both Hickman and Richard Garriott, the subject of which was the history and origins of the races that populate New Britannia. Hickman also gives an idea of when Blade of the Avatar is set, relative to the story that will be told in Shroud of the Avatar:

Tracy Hickman tells me, “The story we’re telling in Blade of the Avatar takes place centuries before the contemporary era of the game, so we’re essentially writing the legends of Shroud of the Avatar.” He goes on to remark that he’s a fan of the inclusion of clock-work technology in the game because it gives a sense of progression to the over-all story of the in-game world. “One of the things that concerns me with the verisimilitude of a fantasy world is that centuries will go by and people are still wearing the same clothes, that there hasn’t been very much advancement in culture or magic,” he remarks. That’s something they’re making a point to address in SotA.

“We’re going to see a progression not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of magic,” Hickman says. In Blade of the Avatar they’re dealing with the foundations of magic in the world. The wizards in Blade don’t really know what’s going on yet. As they piece together the new laws of magic through experimentation, “a lot of it goes wrong.” Tracy Hickman also points out that we often think of sorcerers in fantasy societies as if they’ve already discovered all there is to know about magic and that there’s nothing new to be done, “when in fact in this particular story the repercussions and permutations of what they’re doing is still very new to them.”

Contra Britannia in Ultima (well, Ultima 4 onward, at least), there are more than just humans comprising the sapient population of the world in Shroud of the Avatar:

As readers of Blade of the Avatar will no doubt be realizing by now, for the first time since Ultima III, Richard Garriott has once again made an effort to include non-human races in his game. In my conversation with Tracy Hickman I learned that the more exotic inhabitants of the world are the results of experimentation during the reign of the Obsidian Empire. Originally developed by the alchemical and magical researchers for the imperial war machine, many of these creations escape into the wild, or outlive their creators, to eventually create enclaves and develop into their own unique societies.

Richard says that they had decided to make the effort to include more races of humanoids and Tracy points out that it all started with the deceptively simple question, “where did they come from?” He continues, “We decided to explain this sudden explosion of diversity as the product of early magic. The Obsidians, the wizards of the ancient empire, were struggling to form that budding empire and at the same time were struggling to understand magic. As a result they started experimenting with shape shifting, essentially the genetic manipulation of creatures through their magic. We suddenly had a reason for them to develop elves or satyrs for military purposes.”

As one would expect from any game with the hand of Richard Garriott on it, he’s injected his twisted sense of humor by forcing players to deal with really big issues. “If you were going to create a new life form on purpose, you might start with some other life form. You might animate something that was inanimate or perhaps by devolving a human.” It’s a deeper issue than it might appear on the surface, especially as our own society debates the aspects of cloning and genetic manipulation.

I’ve only just started reading through Blade of the Avatar myself, but what little of its story I’ve gone through has been pretty good; if the story of Shroud of the Avatar is of a similar quality, it will be an enjoyable game to adventure through, for sure. At the very least, there’s a lot of thought and imagination being put into the story — and backstory — of Shroud of the Avatar. Let us hope that the execution thereof will be of a similar high quality.