TAG Talk Tuesdays – Billy/Fenerio

Published by Mel on May 2, 2025May 2, 2025

Welcome back everyone! It is Mat here once again talking to Billy McGinnis to learn a bit more about his character Fenerio!

Thank you again, for taking time out of your day to meet with us to discuss your character and LARPing experience! 

No problem, I am quite the talker so I enjoy having the opportunity to talk a bit more about my character and LARPing history!

*laughs* Well that’s great to hear! So I think the first thing I got to ask, and the most important thing; with the new event only two weeks away (at the time of this interview), how excited are you to kick off the 2025 Odyssey Season!

I am extremely excited to start the season. I feel last year everyone was kinda just getting their feet wet in the game. People were still feeling out their characters and trying to understand the system and the world. In my humble opinion, this is our first real LARPing season. I loved where things started last year, but I am even more excited where we are going to go this year!

That is great to hear! And I agree with you about kinda feeling out the game the first year. I didn’t really have much more than a basic blueprint for my own character last year and ran with it as I tried to learn more about the game and system. I have a much more cohesive idea for my character this year and am excited to really play a character and not just myself as a character.

Anyway, last time you talked to Mel you made mention of a figure you call, The Muse. Can you expand on that a bit. Are they a god? Some other manifestation? Or just some hallucination that Fenerio had?

So Fenerio doesn’t actually know WHAT the Muse is. His story goes that he was on a task for his father and at some point during his journey he was attacked and essentially killed. While drifting off to a final sleep, he heard someone or something reciting poetry and song to him and he eventually awakened from his slumber. Fully healed and most importantly alive. One of the last things he heard before he awakened was someone stating that he was to “let there be songs to fill the air.” Fenerio doesn’t know if they are some sort of spirit or what, but he has decided to take on the request of the Muse and has dedicated his life to telling the stories of the Muse in either poetry or song. I decided to make the true identity of the Muse very open ended as I would love to see how plot would interrupt it and it gives it room to grow. Whether they decide it was a god, spirit, or something else is wholly up to them.

So do you have any hopes for the Muse, or does Fenerio?

One of Fenerio’s main long term goals is actually to start the Temple of the Muse. And one of my personal goals is to help expand the in game universe. How this all comes to fruition I am unsure, but I am excited. For the coming year I hope to expand the idea of the Muse and have a better idea of what it is. In ways it is sort of like the Sower of Seeds in that it is growth and birth, but there is also a beautiful chaos and strangeness in music which is antithesis to the Sower. I would love to eventually see other players picking up on the Muse naturally and they begin asking questions of him or helping me expand on their story. I think that would be really cool!

That is extremely interesting and I am so excited to learn more about the Muse. Dr. Cyrus, my character, is very much against the gods currently as none of them promote knowledge and learning, so maybe at some point he will have to have a vision to help establish his own religious sect dedicated to these ideas!

So let’s move on to talk a bit more about the game mechanics. From what I understand, Fenerio is a very support-based character. Do you feel the game mechanics have made this a viable and exciting option for you? Do you feel valuable?

Oh yeah 100% a support character! As for my usefulness, I think I am useful. There may be some balancing issues currently that need to be navigated, like the skill Energizing Performance didn’t work the way I hoped? Usually either players used their own Stamina Recovery including myself so it was not needed, or everyone needed it, but like them I was also out of Stamina. Not sure how to correct it, but didn’t feel right. The bane of a game that is still in its infancy and learning its way around new concepts I guess. But I have had a blast every time I have played and I think that is the most important thing. I think a lot of that is due to the game’s willingness to allow you to be creative and talk and solve things without combat. Also with the low numbers just being able to throw cantrips I feel like I am contributing to combat in a meaningful way. At the same time, if I am ever alone in combat, I am going to run!

Speaking of people that are actually good in combat, or so the legend goes, can you please expand on the Legend of the True-Sword. Your character seems to enjoy writing epic poetry and this was one that I absolutely loved. Was this just a fun little thing you came up with, or was there some truth to the entire poem.

Oh no, the words in that poem are largely true! Sure I made everything a bit more flowery and expanded on things some to make them a bit more epic, but by and large, that is what happened. Our party did get attacked by orcs, our mage did accidentally blow us all up when a spell packet got stuck on his costume, and the True-Sword, Dave Spencer’s character, did pretty much single handedly save all our lives. Poetic license for sure, but yeah that is pretty much exactly how it happened.

So one last question. You mentioned how you would like to see plot work with you on developing the Muse. So what are your thoughts on the plot team developing a plot that is specific for a single player? Some in the past felt this was just another form of favoritism and catering to a player, while others like the opportunity to have their own character fleshed out.

That is an interesting question. Not only do I feel that running players backstories is a good thing, I feel it is a necessary agreement that you make with the plot runners that if you make a backstory and put all this time into it, then something should come of it, else why write it. And it doesn’t need to be the head plot that takes on this burden, but any player should just pick up someone’s backstory. Now obviously there can be issues if you are only force feeding a single player plot, but if everyone has their personal backstories written out, then everyone should have a chance to explore their backstories in game. To not give this opportunity to all players is a disservice to the players for the work they put into the game. And in this way it is also not catering as everyone is getting the opportunity. At my former LARP I never actually wrote a backstory, and my opinion is if you are not invested enough to take the time to write one and submit it, then you are missing out on this opportunity so you can’t be upset if others you are playing with are getting these opportunities you are missing out on.

Do you have any recommendations for writing a character backstory you would like to share?

When writing it, you need to keep things open ended. I can’t run something for you if you have everything already wrapped up and there is no place to explore, at the very least it is very difficult. Make it so there is some challenge that needs to be resolved or a mystery that needs solved. Allow the plot runners the freedom to create for you, otherwise you are only writing a book and not taking yourself on an adventure.

And that is it folks! This will be my last interview until after our first event, so I just want to wish everyone the best of luck this season and can’t wait to see everyone! But don’t forget, before our first game we will be back again next week with Mel interviewing Gena and learning a bit more about the mothwoman Zephyr! 

Billy told us about one of his major goals for this upcoming year, but what is something you also hope to accomplish this year? Establish a trade route, killing a certain Lady of Coin, maybe even challenging a Kraken to a duel. We would love to hear from our gracious readers below about what you hope to accomplish!