We here at Apotheosis Studios have a deep love for the many other creators doing great work in the world of TTRPGs. In this detailed biopic of Legacy of Mana’s creator, we can learn where a new and ambitious project began. Make your pledges to Legacy of Mana right here.

While most youths focused on their schoolwork, Thomas Gofton was creating a world. Written into the margins of his homework were stories of flying elves, anti-magic empires, time manipulation, and destiny. So began the world of Legacy of Mana, and a journey that would span several decades of inspiration, challenges, and accomplishment.

A Legacy All Its Own

The world of Imaria started as a short story written in 1990 and evolved over the next few years as more characters and plots were added. It was then that Gofton was introduced to what seemed the perfect outlet for the narratives jumbled around in his brain, Dungeons & Dragons. With dice, books, and friends in tow, the seed of Imaria took root and flourished at the gaming table. So much so, that Gofton got his first job working in the local game store so he could be closer to telling the stories he loved. When the store was forced to close down, however, he made a vow to restore this type of community to the world again.

One decade and a university graduation later, Gofton involved himself in the world of film where he continued to excise his passion for storytelling. During this time in 2011, Gofton set about finally bringing Imaria to the world with the first published Legacy of Mana book for Savage Worlds, Pathfinder, and D&D 4E. While Gofton was pleased with this first excursion, he always felt he could do more with the world if he had more resources.

Soon after, Gofton ventured into boardgame design as a side hobby on a dare from a friend, which ended up leading to his next major outlet. Designing boardgames went from side hobby to full business as more and more games were published under the banner of Lynnvander Studios. From there, it was only a matter of time before the Round Table boardgame café was opened in Gofton’s home town of Guelph, Canada.

With years of boardgame design and a dedicated team, Gofton looked to revamp his world in 2017 with the new 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Though there were many trials and tribulations, which led to a finished yet dissatisfying product, the book was published and Gofton believed that was the end of Legacy of Mana. Until the pandemic offered one last chance to do things right.

So it was that work began on the final version of Legacy of Mana in 2020, with a team comprised of both new and old faces. Meeting each week afterhours at the Round Table, the design started with defining the cosmos around the world to the cities and people who live upon it. Many debates, arguments, and profound epiphanies occurred until the Legacy of Mana setting had been re-invented in a fresh and unique way. The heart and soul of Gofton’s original ideas so many years ago are still there, but accentuating them are new distinctive game mechanics looking to re-invent the experience of playing Dungeons & Dragons as well as rich lore providing a modern take on old-school ideas.

With such energetic and passionate people working with him on his lifelong dream, Gofton started his next big venture with Six Sides of Gaming. After years of the constant joke that they should get into streaming with longtime Round Table patron, Adrian Kemp, Gofton saw the pandemic as the perfect time to explore this new idea. Together with his design team, Gofton brought the stories of Legacy of Mana to the public eye in several streamed D&D campaigns. Now the stage was set, and everything started falling into place.

Designing the World of Mana

For Gofton, the immersion and theme of this project was paramount, and being a professional game designer, he understood the value of balance and blend of theme. He wanted to ensure the mechanics could fit into a game of D&D 5e, yet feel unlike any other world he'd played in.

Working alongside Gofton to create his world are longtime Round Table patrons and veteran Dungeon Masters Kyle VanDyke and Devin Wilson. All three of them passionate gamers and storytellers, they sought to explore design spaces they felt were underutilized by the mainstream and push the boundaries of what their beloved game could do. Starting with a unique concept for a character or story moment, the team would strive to bring profound and exciting new ways to experience that concept.

Of specific interest to Gofton is the concept of chronomancy. As someone whose whole life is about living for the present moment and knowing that it's finite, being able to manipulate time and bend it to one’s will is an attractive power. When discussing his obsession with time, Gofton often references a perceived curse of parallelism in his mind’s eye that constantly reminds him of amazing times prior and hopes for a crazy executed future. He doesn't live in regret, and is not afraid of the future, so he constantly puts himself out there and tries crazy things, even when he makes mistakes.

Chronomancy is a huge theme in Legacy of Mana, and something the design team has worked hard to emulate in a way that feels engaging as a player yet streamlined for a dungeon master. Some examples include fluctuating time to modify initiative mid-combat, witnessing the past of a person or object, or dividing their turn up throughout a round.

These sorts of unconventional abilities are what mechanics designer Kyle VanDyke and the rest of the Legacy of Mana team thrive on, and what they hope players in their setting will be able to really enjoy. Aside from chronomancy, the team were also tasked with designing interesting and unique monsters, knights capable of absorbing magic, black powder firearms, and modular ships as well as several new races, class archetypes, magic items, and feats.

The main thematic elements presented in Legacy of Mana are inspired by classics such as the Arthurian legends and Conan the Barbarian, but with added contemporary influences like Highlander and Final Fantasy. This mixture of old and new combined with each member of the design team’s own vision has led to a dense world filled with both cosmic and high fantasy, as well as steampunk sci-fi. The most modern media property to loan its themes to Legacy of Mana is one that has actually been officially integrated into the setting, that of the Mexican video game, Greak: Memories of Azur. Their world fit so well within the lore of Imaria that both Gofton and the game’s developer, Navegante Entertainment, knew they had to collaborate.

Brought to life by the combined writing talents of Devin Wilson and Jaym Gates, the world of Imaria is ripe with storytelling potential. Their challenge of combining different elements such as invading lunar aliens, kaleidoscopic dreamscapes, magical airship armadas, and gritty medieval empires has resulted in many rewrites and retcons but their dedication to ensuring the world feels as real and immersive as possible shines through.

When the time came to procure art for the setting, Gofton chose Ryan Valle as the lead illustrator, whom he’d worked with on other projects in the past. The intensity of Valle’s depictions seemed to make Gofton’s childhood imagination leap out at him from the page. Confident with this new art direction, Gofton brought in his trusted boardgame designer Josh Derksen to stylize the book’s layout and formatting, as well as several maps to include in the accompanying map book. This map book allowed the team to really add tone and color to the world's atmosphere, showing the vibrant and unique environments found within Imaria. Derksen’s long experience with boardgames has led to truly professional designs that look just as at home on the gaming shelf as any other book.

Knowing that this would likely be his last chance to share his world the way he knows they’re meant to be, Gofton also hired prolific fantasy author Josh Vogt to write his stories in novel form. This novel serves as the canon pinnacle for everything to begin with. Where the novel ends, the setting guide begins. A perfect introduction to the story. Together, the mechanics, maps and story steeped together to become the definitive Legacy of Mana experience.

Welcome to Imaria

Imaria is a land where mana dreams. Lush, wild, and filled with powerful beings, it is a world of dreams and nightmares. A place for grand stories, mythic heroes, and daring exploits. It is a world unlike any other. A planar barrier known as the Veil wraps around the world, preventing gods and the extraplanar beings of the Lunar Hordes from meddling in the affairs of sentient beings. Vast continents float through the sky while massive caverns and tunnels cut through the earth. Airships ply the wind streams as their marine cousins ply the waves and deep-sea currents. Societies rise and fall, powers wax and wane, and even the great dragons fade away.

Mana flows into Imaria from the twin suns themselves, stars of pure magical energy. This energy is absorbed by the world and gathered in the core where it bursts forth in the form of leylines, serving as the lifeblood for the land itself. These incredibly potent streams of pure energy surge from an underground volcano in the heart of Thalagrant known as the Mana Well. Everything from the growth of plants to the weather, from the birth of certain magical creatures to the fostering of societies, is shaped by the flow of mana. Throughout the ages, it has been the one constant in this chaotic world.

Mana has many ways of manifesting across the world. The niimals of Tensire, mana-infused beasts given sentience and humanoid form. The zayanku bloodlines that rule the human lands, wielding strange powers and great gifts granted to them long ago in a forgotten age. Even the monstrous creatures that hunt deep in the woods. All are aspects of mana. Some creatures, such as elves and dragonborn are nearly mana incarnate, their blood laden with potent magical potential. Others feed on it, consuming mana to fuel their own life. Mana fuels weapons, airships, and empires.

Some places, however, like the separated subcontinents of Phaelan’s Republic, lack the bountiful mana the rest of the world thrives on. As such, they have been forced to rely on other means such as science and technology. Black powder firearms, steamships, biomechanical enhancements, and psionic might allow their people to keep up with the magic of the world.

But in all the ages, few events have shaped the world like the rise of the Iltherians. Ruthless warriors capable of destroying mana itself, cancelling out the powers of wizards, sorcerers, and others with their mana-devouring renik steel. They rolled across the land, a scourge against all those who were different, all who would not fall into the ranks of the glorious future.

The world is beset with inequality. The falling Iltherian Empire ruled harshly, trampling all those they deemed unworthy beneath their boots, and killing anyone who used magic or even bore it within their veins. Slavery, genocide, and oppression have thrown Imaria into disarray, and though there are many working to right the world, there are also many who seek to profit from chaos, or to sow yet more.

Because the world was once a highly magical place but has been stripped of much of that magic, supernatural monsters are fading away. Many of the surviving magical monsters are starving, rabid, afraid, and desperate. Guardians and champions may find themselves in the position of healing and aiding these monsters, who are so much a part of balanced ecosystem. Others must simply be put out of their misery, too dangerous to be allowed to survive.

Currents of power long stagnant are shifting wildly, leaving some used to power gasping in its sudden dearth, others drowning in newly found possibilities. The world is in need now, more than ever, of heroes, of someone to make sense of this great change.

Welcome to Imaria, you will never find anywhere like it.