Guests of Honour

Mike Pohjola

Mike Pohjola is a game designer, author and transmedia guru. His works includeTurun koulukunnan manifesti (eng. The Manifesto of the Turku School, 2000) that shocked the finnish LARP scene. He is also the author of several roleplaying games: Myrskyn aika (eng. Time of the Storm, 2003), Star Wreck(2006), Tähti (eng. Star, 2006), and Myrskyn sankarit, (eng. Heroes of the Storm, 2013). Heroes of Storm was a succesfully crowdfunded project, which was also publised in English under the name Age of the Tempest. Mike's first novelKadonneet kyyneleet (eng. Lost Tears) was published 2008 and his second novel Ihmisen poika (Son of Man) came out in 2011. While Ihmisen Poika is mainly an autobiography, is also includes some aspects related to roleplaying games. Mike's next project, scheduled to be released next year, is a work focused on the historical Great Fire of Turku, and will be titled 1827 Inferno.

Mike spent this summer touring the countries of the Baltic Sea with his LARP campaign, aimed for spreading knowledge on the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. He is currently screenwriting a full-length movie about live action roleplayers. Mike has won the Prix Europa-award and received an Emmy, a finnish award for childrens books. In 2010 he recieved a lifetime award for long-term achievements in the field of roleplaying, the Golden Dragon-award granted by the Ropecon association.

Previously a resident of Finland's old capital Turku, Mike nowadays lives in Helsinki with his family.

Miska Fredman

Miska Fredman is a game designer. Together with Samuli Ahokas, he heads the game publisher house Ironspine. Miska's first publication was a science fiction roleplaying gameTribes, which came out in 2006. This has been followed by ENOC - Operation Heisenberg (2009) and Generia's legends - Lightbringers (2011). Most recently Miska crowdfunded and published a family friendly roleplaying game Astraterra (2014). Miska's connections to Ironswine Games and to other games such as Fly are controversial and remain unconfimed.

Currently Miska is developing Astraterra further. In addition he is working on a sequel to Tribes called Hyperstorm. Miska is also employed by digital game studio Colossal Order. The rumors on such future games as Sotakarjut (eng. Warhogs) by the Ironswine Games are still unconfirmed.

Miska lives in Nokia with his family.