Stewart Douglas Wieck (May 10, 1968 – June 22, 2017) was one of the founders of the publishing company, White Wolf, Inc. He was also one of the original writers of Mage: The Ascension.

Career

Stewart Wieck was born in

Freeport, Illinois Freeport is the largest city in Stephenson County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. The population was 23,973 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, and the mayor of Freeport is Jodi Miller, elected in 2017. Freeport is k ...

, in 1968. He and his brother

Steve Wieck Steve Wieck (also credited as Stephan Wieck) is best known as one of the founders of the publishing company White Wolf, Inc. He is also one of the original writers of '' Mage: The Ascension''. Wieck is a co-founder of DriveThruRPG which later me ...

had their first published work in 1986 with the adventure ''The Secret in the Swamp'' for ''

Villains & Vigilantes ''Villains and Vigilantes'' (abbreviated as ''V&V'') is a superhero-themed role-playing game which competed primarily with '' Champions'' and ''Superworld'' in the early to mid-1980s. Origin ''Villains and Vigilantes'' was the first role-playin ...

'' from Fantasy Games Unlimited. Later that same year, while they were still in high school in Georgia, the brothers began self-publishing their own magazine, ''Arcanum''; Stewart soon retitled the magazine as '' White Wolf'', publishing the first issue in August 1986. The Wiecks were fans of Elric, and named their magazine after him. The Wiecks had befriended the company

Lion Rampant The lion is a common charge in heraldry. It traditionally symbolises courage, nobility, royalty, strength, stateliness and valour, because historically the lion has been regarded as the "king of beasts". The lion also carries Judeo-Christi ...

, and when that company encountered financial trouble, White Wolf and Lion Rampant made the decision to merge into the new

White Wolf Game Studio White Wolf Entertainment AB, formerly White Wolf Publishing, was an American roleplaying game and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant

, with Stewart Wieck and

Mark Rein-Hagen Mark Rein-Hagen, stylized as Mark Rein•Hagen (born 1964), is an American role-playing game, role-playing, card game, card, video game, video and board game designer best known as the creator of ''Vampire: The Masquerade'' and its associated '' ...

as its co-owners. While Stewart was on a road trip to GenCon 23 in 1990 with Rein-Hagen and

Lisa Stevens Lisa Stevens is an American editor, CEO and founder of Paizo Publishing, and COO of Goblinworks. She began her career in games in the 1980s, working with Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein-Hagen to help produce the tabletop roleplaying game ''Ars Mag ...

, Rein-Hagen envisioned '' Vampire: The Masquerade'', which the new company published in 1991. Stewart co-created the

World of Darkness ''World of Darkness'' is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with ''Vampire: The Masquerade'', ''Werewolf: The Apocaly ...

and devised much of the mythology central to ''Vampire'', but his most personal game design was '' Mage: The Ascension'' (1993). Rein-Hagen was working on games for White Wolf, so Stewart Wieck took care of the business side of the company until he made his brother Steve the new CEO of White Wolf in 1993. Stewart left his position as ''White Wolf Magazine'' editor in 1992. The company encountered economic problems in 1995–1996, which resulted in Rein-Hagen and the Wiecks having a falling out, with Rein-Hagen leaving White Wolf. Stewart designed the game ''Long Live the King'' (2006). Stewart remained at White Wolf when Steve left in 2007 to take a seat on the board of directors of CCP Games. Stewart resigned from White Wolf in 2010, and created the company Nocturnal Games, which obtained the rights to '' Pendragon'' that White Wolf held. He co-designed the fantasy board game ''Darkling Plain'', which uses 3D graphics created on smartphones. It was announced in 2013 by Nocturnal Media. He co-edited the 1998 book ''The Essential World of Darkness'', a collection of novels. Wieck is also an author of several novels and a number of short stories. Wieck died June 22, 2017, at the age of 49.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wieck, Stewart 1968 births 2017 deaths American role-playing designers Mage: The Ascension People from Freeport, Illinois White Wolf game designers