GARETH HANRAHAN

Meet the roleplaying gaMe designer behind Gutter Prayer

Tell us about your protagonists.

Carillon’s the last survivor of a once-great family of Guerdon, who sent her away to the countryside shortly before they were murdered. Spar’s the son of a firebrand dissident; a Stone Man dying of a magical plague. Rat’s a ghoul, an eater of the dead.

How does magic work in this world?

The gods are creatures of magic – “self-sustaining thaumic constructs”, as an academic might put it. Humans must risk physical or psychic backlash (sorcery) or use the inherent magic in various rare substances (alchemy). Or channel the power of the gods, as a saint. None of these options is safe.

What sparked the idea?

Wondering about magical surveillance systems. And the BBC’s Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World.

Is Guerdon inspired by any real-life cities?

Architecturally, Edinburgh. A little bit of New York in attitude and scale. And a lot of my home town, Cork – the harbour, the university, the secret ghoul tunnels... Wait, I’ve said too much.

How long did it take to write?

About a year. I wrote the first 20,000 words in a daze, then spent the next 100,000 working out what was actually going on… Then it was mostly a straight run to the finish – apart from one character who shoved her way in and refused to be written out, no matter how hard I tried! IB

Gutter Prayer is published on 17 January.