Flotsam is a tabletop roleplaying series about rats with fragmented memories of being… something else… surviving in a mysterious sinking city.
In the game, an unlikely trio – smooth-talking hustler Vern (Jay Britton), mischievous old lady Enid (Amelia Tyler), and earnest tinkerer Reg (Chris Payne) - explore a strange city where rats live as if they were humans. Ian Thomas narrates everything that happens and plays all the other characters.
Flotsam is an original setting dreamed up by Ian. The roleplaying game system is very simple, based on rolling a ten-sided dice and on skills that the rats can recall from their forgotten pasts.
As we all live in different areas of the UK we sat down to record the game remotely over a long weekend. Then we cut it up, added sound effects and music… and this is the result!
We hope you enjoy exploring Flotsam with us. If you do, please let other people know!
Jay Britton as Vern
Jay is an award-winning actor and full performance capture artist in games and animation. He is one of the most prolific video game voices in the UK with over 300 credits to his name in titles such as Total War: Warhammer 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Frostpunk, Spellforce 3, Elite Dangerous, The Spectrum Retreat and Forgotton Anne.
Amelia Tyler as Enid
Amelia is a voice and full performance capture actor, specialising in videogames. Recent roles include Malady in Divinity Original Sin 2, Nyrissa in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Cooper in The Spectrum Retreat, plus multiple roles in Battlefield V, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Star Wars Battlefront II, Elite Dangerous, Forgotton Anne, and We Happy Few.
Chris Payne as Reg
Chris Payne has worked as a games programmer since 1996, at studios such as EA, Intelligent Games and TT Games. He spent several years applying his love of cinematography to developing camera systems for the LEGO games. He's now founder of Quantum Soup Studios and creating his own cinematic games.
Ian Thomas as the Rest of the World
Ian is a writer, programmer, and games developer who's handled interactivity and storytelling for a living for over two decades. He's worked in interactive television, education, puppet-making, film, publishing, and the games industry, and has contributed code, writing, or design to more than fifty games, including franchises from LittleBigPlanet to LEGO. He's written action movies, children's books about Cthulhu, interactive fiction, LARP, and pulp novels. Most of his time is spent running Talespinners, a story-for-games company that helps games studios deliver their narrative.
| Vern | Jay Britton |
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| Enid | Amelia Tyler |
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| Reg | Chris Payne |
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| Rest of the World | Ian Thomas |
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| Setting | Ian Thomas |
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| Editing | Ian Thomas, Chris Payne |
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| Music | Ian Thomas |
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| Art | Ian Thomas |
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Sound effects were put together by Ian using Creative Commons licensed sounds available from Freesound.org. A full list of sounds and their creators is available here.
The memory-based skills idea for the game system was inspired by James Wallis's RPG Alas Vegas. Although, for those who know the game's background... what's going on in Flotsam is entirely different.
Ian wrote the music for the podcast, and some other associated tracks for the setting which we haven't used yet...
It's available on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube Music, or right here:
Flotsam: A Guide to the City of Ember
A Flotsam city source book now available! Written by Ian, it contains 90 pages of guide to the city of Flotsam, and 2 pages of roleplaying rules, as used in the series.
It's available as a PDF, as a Kindle book for tablets, or as a physical book! Get it here:
