WHAT IS "MODIPHIUS"?
Modiphius is a British Entertainment publisher partnering with global creative talent to develop unique creative properties.
We publish roleplaying games, boardgames, miniatures, novels, cool accessories and more. Our aim is to inspire those who read, play or encounter our work with tales of heroism, adventure and courage. As well as our own IP: Achtung! Cthulhu, Modiphius has also published other major licensed properties from Star Trek Adventures the roleplaying game, the forthcoming Fallout Wasteland Warfare wargame, Free League's Tales From The Loop and the DUST Adventures RPG based on Paolo Parente’s DUST universe, to Thunderbirds and the introductory Airfix Battles Wargame. Modiphius is built on strong principles of good business practice working fairly with freelancers and staff. Modiphius is the brainchild of gaming entrepreneur Chris Birch who founded the business in 2012 with his wife Rita before launching the successful Achtung! Cthulhu gaming universe via Kickstarter in early 2013. Chris and Rita are well known for personally leading their projects and have worked hard to build a great reputation for excellent customer service and a strong family atmosphere in the company. Modiphius is built on strong principles of good business practice working fairly with freelancers and staff. Chris and Rita's personal goal is to raise awareness of child trafficking through their support for India's Vision Rescue (see below) SUBMISSIONSWe are always looking for new writers, creators or artists to work with on our own projects or to help publish their own writing. Please contact us if you would like to find out about working with us. Please include links to examples of your work.
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WHAT DOES "MODIPHIUS" MEAN?The word 'Modiphius' was the name of a solar system in a world that Chris Birch worked on with long time collaborator Stuart Newman (they co-wrote FATE Sci-fi game Starblazer Adventures together) and came from the verb 'modified' which is defined as:
CHRIS: I loved the idea of transformation - through inspiration we encourage people to transform, to evolve into something more. My own life evolved in 2012 with my marriage to Margarita, the development of Modiphius and finally the platform to develop the creative projects spinning around in my head. I've always been a fan of Greek Myth, and those epic tales of Odysseus, Perseus and others weren't just great action stories but meant to educate, to inspire and teach the young men and women of Greek times. So that old star system name popped into my head when I was dreaming up a name for our venture and I suddenly imagined this old warrior, his bones aching from the years, resting in the sunshine on the steps of a crumbling temple whilst the children pleaded for just one more story. "Wait wait wait!" Modiphius' laughed as the children sitting around him on the crumbling steps screamed for this story or that story, already told a hundred times but never tired in their minds. He gripped the old battered spear leaning against the pillar and levered himself up into a more comfortable position. Arched his back, stretched his arms and took in a breath of the sea air. Still more little minds burning hot with anticipation joined the crowd and the voices grew to a crescendo. He smacked the tip of the spear against the ruined wall three times and then all was quiet, for they knew this meant a new story... His gravelly voice echoed around the fallen temple, "I was once sent on a perilous quest, against a foe that threatened to consume our world, the task so fraught with danger that none who went before had returned..." The looks on their faces, eyes agog, imaginations spinning more than made up for the aches and pains of old age, for he could see in each and every one of them a seed of greatness. To my wonder, a new friend, Elias from Greece, saw this story and told me about the "Argyraspides" (in Greek:"ΑΡΓΥΡΑΣΠΙΔΕΣ") or 'Silvershields', where the name for our community team came from. Not so much is known about them, they were veterans of Alexander III's Great Army who were over sixty years old (imagine their training, experience & formidability), who were held in high honour by him. So you see perhaps there was a Modiphius living in Ancient Greece, or perhaps they'll be a Modiphius a million years in our future sitting amongst the ruins of our world, but I know he would enjoy telling every single story to inspire those around him. I hope our worlds and stories inspire you, to create, to imagine to transform & to grow. Chris Birch Publisher, Modiphius |
OUR FAMILY
Chris Birch - Publisher & Founder
Chris founded Modiphius after running video games fashion label Joystick Junkies for 13 years and before that working in the dance music industry managing bands, tours and clubnights.
Chris first played D&D and Steve Jackson's OGRE aged 9 and grew up on a diet of RPG's, wargames and boardgames before writing Starblazer Adventures and founding Modiphius. Rob Harris - Head of Development
Rob Harris was called in to help with the development of the Modiphius card and boardgames line.
A veteran of a thousand playtests as founder of Playtest UK, a national games designer community. He is a fan of all types of games from real-world pervasive games to ameritrash and eurogames. Sam Webb - Head of RPGs
Sam started tabletop gaming as a teenager, starting with Warhammer 40k and moving onto Dungeons and Dragons in his last year at Drama School, where he trained to be a theatre director. Sam also coordinated live role play games, and his first event, Wasteland UK, began in September 2011 and the game quickly grew in popularity, attracting live roleplayers from a mix of backgrounds. He’s pretty much anywhere on the internet as RPGWebby, including Twitch and Twitter.
Lloyd Gyan - Customer Services Manager
From community support, to finance administration, to picking the station for the office radio, Lloyd’s versatility and ‘can-do’ attitude acts as a foundation from which Modiphius will rise to new heights. Which is great, because Lloyd is also the person in charge of writing his own By-line for this blurb.
Benn Beaton - Data Analyst & Line Manager Infinity, 2d20 Editor
Injured on the playground at five, Benn was exposed to Redbox DnD an early age and never really stood a chance. After solid stints on the battlefields of Financial reporting, Benn joined Modiphius in the early days of 2d20 development. Now largely built out of Excel and Irritability this reformed power gamer has been neck deep in most of the 2d20 products including; Conan, Dust adventures, John Carter, Mutant Chronicles 3E and has been the line manager of Infinity since late 2017.
John Houlihan - Line Editor Achtung! Cthulhu, Webstore Manager, Mailing lists
John used to run Computer & Video Games.com, but he now runs Modiphius web store. He's a sci-fi, fantasy and horror lover, writer of the Seraph Chronicles series, author of the Trellborg Monstrosities adventure, editor of Dark Tales and now heads up Modiphius' Achtung! Cthulhu line. For latest news and scribblings see www.john-houlihan.net
Chris Webb - Graphic Designer
Jonny La Trobe-Lewis - Lead 3D Artist
Jonny is Lead 3d Artist and Staff American at Modiphius, originating from the wilds of Montana. A lifelong gamer and industry veteran specialising in manufactured miniatures, he has spent years creating gaming products in the Halo, Dystopian, and Firestorm universes at Spartan Games. Joining Modiphius in 2016, Jonny now coordinates an international team of some of the world’s finest minis sculptors, and continues to love sculpting minis himself.
Matt Timm - Assistant Line Manager
Matt assists in the development of the Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition, Robert E. Howard's Conan lines, and upcoming projects. He's been an avid role-player for most of his life, and has participated in the organization of role-playing events in his native Argentina.
Chris 'Chrispy' Peacey - Senior 3D Artist
Chrispy has 10+ years of experience making all things miniature. Juggling multiple software packages, he enjoys both digitally sculpting figures and creating hard-surface assets such as vehicles and scenery. His top 3 favourite things to do are play video-games, build stuff and indulge in anything Sci-Fi. He has also been accused in the past of having a slight obsession with the Fallout universe ...
Aled Lawlor - Studio Production Assistant
Aled came to the Wargames team but has expanded his role into pre-production and contributes to our weekly RPG and painting streams.
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Rita Birch - Finance & Operations Director
Our Commissar! Rita worked with the Chernobyl Project charity before training in finance and has acted as translator for the Kazakhstan Olympics team.
Rita is often seen in her alter ego as Conan's 'Valerita' or in her Soviet army uniform for Achtung! Cthulhu! Michal Cross - Head of Graphics Design
Michal was the first team member to join Modiphius all the way back in 2013 whilst he was selling computers for a living. Now, as well as design work, he helps guide the ever-growing graphics team through the tangled labyrinth of Modiphius projects.
He is also an accomplished games designer. He helped conceive the 2d20 system with Chris Birch & Benn Beaton and has designed many roleplaying, board and card games. Steve Daldry - Head of Video, Product & Production Manager
Steve got given The D&D Red Box and a copy of Heroquest when he was a kid, and things inevitably escalated from there. He’s joined Modiphius to manage the production and planning of upcoming releases as well as to do some digital marketing, engaging video and website jiggery-pokery.
Nathan Dowdell - 2d20 Developer
Nathan Dowdell is a reclusive and easily-startled creature, emerging from his lair only occasionally to game and gather supplies. In the past, he contributed to Fantasy Flight Games' Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay games, but since joining Modiphius, he has been heavily involved in developing 2D20 System games, including Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition, Infinity, and Conan, and redesigned the system for Star Trek Adventures, which he was very excited about.
James Sheahan - Designer: Fallout
After working in video games for 12 years, James has been a games consultant since 2009 for companies such as Google.
James has loved playing board games and role-playing games for almost 40 years. He reviewed board games on his Metagames blog, and claims to have had the world’s highest meeple at 5,416 metres (5,418 if you include holding it above his head). James Barry - Line Manager Fallout & Kung Fu Panda
James is a veteran gamer, and has been playing wargames for over 20 years. He's worked in all aspects of gaming, from retail management in a FLGS to QA for computer games, and from event production to wargames design and development. As such, he's become slightly allergic to 'the outdoors'.
Trained as a writer and theatre producer, he's joined the Modiphius team to help with games development and production, with a specific focus on wargames. Richard Gale - Graphic Designer/Editor
Editor of Fallout: Wasteland Warfare and Achtung! Cthulhu Skirmish, Richard has worked in hobby publishing for almost 25 years. Former graphic designer at Spartan Games (Dystopian Legions, Planetfall), occasional NFL columnist for The American, and a keen Blood Bowl player, his first love is roleplaying. Or possibly waistcoats. Rich’s primary task with Modiphius is browbeating text and tables into submission.
Katya Thomas- Assistant Art Director
Katya is the Assistant Art Director of the RPG department, she has worked on John Carter, Star Trek and Conan. She is also currently juggling the artwork of our other (secret!) roleplaying projects. Growing up she had a keen interest in art and design, motivating her to study Fine Art. She always wanted to get into a creative industry and having grown up around roleplayers, going into the gaming industry felt like a natural progression. She is also the other half of the duo that describe themselves as 'strong independant women who don't need no jeddak'
Shaun Hocking - Customer Support
Shaun does customer support stuff at Modiphius HQ and has been playing and running RPGs and tabletop games for 35 years. I know, right! He doesn’t look old enough! How does he stay so youthful? What’s his secret? He’ll never tell, but some/none/all of the following are true: he has often been described as ‘strange’ and ‘aloof’, he lives in a tower overlooking a forest of the dead, he was a club DJ for many years, he was almost arrested while dressed as a scarecrow, and Marc Almond once stepped on his foot.
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Cameron Dicks- Managing Director
Cameron joined the team as Managing Director to work across all the commercial activities of Modiphius. He brings a wealth of commercial, brand licensing and process knowledge to the company and will help drive us towards growth.
He dabbles with games, both video and tabletop, but he is more often seen armed with a spreadsheet or presentation. Jon Webb - Head of Wargames
Many moons ago, Jon’s interest in wargaming started after seeing what he thought was a “walking castle” (Imperator Titan) poster hanging on the walls of a Games Workshop.
This spark was kindled when his cousin handed him a bag full of goblins and set him on the path that would lead him to landing his dream job with Modiphius, helping look after their Wargames department. In his spare time he likes to paint miniatures for competition, organise his annual convention (BonesCon!) and add to his pile of unpainted miniatures which he is convinced is buying him immortality (you cannot die until you paint your last miniature). Gavin Dady - Senior Line Manager
Gavin Dady joins Modiphius as a Senior Line manager for the wargames team. He is responsible for the delivery of selected Modiphius narrative wargame lines and brings extensive business process and management experience to the team.
Gavin is an veteran project and programme manager, with over 25 years’ experience in the IT and telecommunications industries. He has PRINCE 2 Practitioner qualification, ITIL Foundation and postgraduate qualifications in project management from the Open University. As well as business and management experience, Gavin also has an extensive gaming background and has been playing boardgames, roleplaying games, wargames and computer games for well over 35 years. He began his gaming career with the iconic TSR red box Dungeons and Dragons set and a 25p miniature made of actual lead. In his spare time Gavin enjoys Astronomy, Archery. Gaming and world domination, on a strictly amateur basis. Salwa Azar - Social Media Manager/ Product Photographer
Salwa is Modiphius' social media manager as well as the in-house product, portrait and minis photographer. Hailing from a games & tech background but new to the world of tabletop, she is keen to adventure into the unknown as a fan of myth and legend, space and exploration...
Panayiotis Lines - PR/Social Manager
Panayiotis is our friendly PR Manager, also featuring regularly in our Twitch streams. He is an avid games designer and is a regular at industry gatherings.
Federico Sohns - Assistant Line Manager
RPG & LCG fan, owns 400 plastic ratmen that are currently hiding in a closet. Has neat handwriting and a love of intercom comedy voiceovers.
Virginia Page - Assistant Line Manager
Virginia is assistant line manager for the RPG department, working on Star Trek Adventures, John Carter and other upcoming projects. Aside from being a GM and board gamer she also has training as a sound engineer. She is one half of the duo that describe themselves as ‘strong independent women who don’t need no jeddak’.
Peter Grochulski - Production & Logistics Manager
anPeter is our Production and Logistics Manager, dealing with 3rd parties and ensuring factory quality control of our products.
Cole Leadon - Assistant Sales Manager
Cole is our Assistant Sales Manager, working hard to get your product into stores around the world.
Rhys Knight- Sales and Marketing Manager
Rhys is an industry veteran having worked at Games Workshop, Esdevium and more. He is also a respected regular on our miniature painting stream!
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Our Extended Family
Dim Martin - Artist
Dim was the original artist on the Achtung! Cthulhu books giving them the great looking graphic novel style.
Javier Angeriz-Caburrasi - Assistant Developer
Freelance Assistant Developer Javier Angeriz-Caburrasi started working with Modiphius in 2017. He's now been involved in several projects with us but most of them are top secret and if he told you, we'd have to kill him.
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Sarah Newton - Writer
Writer of Achtung! Cthulhu - Zero Point Campaign including Three Kings & Heroes of the Sea
Sarah is the creator of the Mindjammer RPG games line Chris Lites - Line Manager
Chris writes full-time in the gaming industry along with line managing. He previously wrote for sites like Slate and The Week. He’s written for Mōdiphiüs since 2013, resulting in hundreds of thousands of words at least six of which were pretty good.
Stefano Guerriero- Assistant Developer
Stefano is another Freelance Assistant Developer working on making the games as tight and road-worthy as they can be.
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Jason Durall - Conan Line Manager
Jason is a longtime game writer and designer, working as a freelancer in the pen-and-paper industry for more than 20 years. He has been primarily in the computer game industry for the past 16 years. He started working with Modphius in 2014 with Assault on the Mountains of Madness, and is the line developer of Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of.
Juan Echenique - Assistant Developer
Freelance Assistant Developer Juan Echenique started off his life as a gamer just a couple of years after he learned how to read. Back then, RPG books looked considerably bigger, but that's just because he was just a child, and his hands were quite small. Since then, he's become a published writer, an actor, and an overall jack of all trades. He organises a bimonthly film festival in London, and is one of the two people behind the largest science fiction theatre festival in the UK. His hands are now of a normal size, too.
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Modiphius works with a very large pool of creative talent including artists, writers, designers and editors who contribute to our many games.
If you would like to join our team please contact us with examples of your work
Modiphius has chosen to support Vision Rescue through a number of different projects. Our goal is to raise $20,000 for a Vision Rescue Bus (see below). Mumbai is one of four major metropolitan cities within India and has a population of twenty four million people. There are currently 300,000 children living on the streets of Mumbai and even with all the provided help it is estimated that only 15,000 of these children receive any kind of attention and care.
Vision Rescue is a registered non-profit charity involved in feeding, providing non-formal education, medical help, skills training and other kinds of assistance to the addicted and abused street children. The charity aims to provide food and to give non-formal education to the street children in Mumbai. They provide counseling for young addicted adults offering rehabilitation, skills training and assistance into employment for as many as we can. They aim to encourage and motivate them to live a life of fulfillment and dignity. You can see a video about their work here.
WE ARE COMMITTED TO VISION RESCUE
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Vision Rescue has four main goals:
1. Rescue kids This project focuses upon providing education and food to street children who may or may not be part of a family unit. The aim of this project is also to bring about transformation in the lives of the children who are provided for within our day care centre run for children of commercial sex workers. This project also focuses on redirecting children's energy through sports education. 2. Rescue the Trafficked and the Addicted This project primarily reaches abused, both men and women, who are trafficked and living a life of substance abuse. The outreach teams make frequent visits to offer counseling, love and hope. 3. Rescue the Sick This project aims to provide free health services to the poor and needy where access to public health services is not possible due to high costs and poor standards. This project networks with other like-minded groups working within the health sector. 4. Rescue the Underprivileged This project aims at reaching out the marginalized sections in the community and empower them economically by helping to form self help groups, providing skill training. |
Vision Rescue Buses
One of the key tools is the buses - old school buses re-licensed to bring food and education to kids in the worst slums, those most at risk of ending up in crime, trafficking or worse. Each Bus caters to 225 Children at 3 locations minimum from Mon to Friday. Each Location we will have
Reaches out 12 locations with Four Buses
Modiphius Entertainment has committed to help Vision Rescue secure another second hand school bus at a cost of $20,000. |