Stewart Douglas Wieck (May 10, 1968 June 22, 2017) was one of the founders of the publishing company,

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

He was also one of the original writers of

Mage: The Ascension ''Mage: The Ascension'' is a role-playing game based in the World of Darkness, and was published by White Wolf Game Studio in 1993. The characters portrayed in the game are referred to as mages, and are capable of feats of magic. Magic in ''Ma ...

Career

Stewart Wieck was born in

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

in 1968. He and his brother Steve Wieck 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-playi ...

'' from FGU. Later that same year, while they were still in high school, 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-Chr ...

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

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

, with Stewart Wieck and

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

as co-owners. While Stewart was on the road 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 ...

, 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 Apoca ...

and devised much of the mythology central to ''Vampire'', but his most personal game design was ''

'' (1993). With Rein-Hagen working on White Wolf's games, administering the business side of things fell to Stewart Wieck until he made his brother Steve the CEO of White Wolf in 1993. Stewart stepped down as editor of ''White Wolf Magazine'' in 1992. The company encountered economic problems in 1995–1996, which caused a falling out between Rein-Hagen and the Wiecks, resulting in Rein-Hagen leaving White Wolf. Stewart designed the game ''Long Live the King'' (2006). Stewart stayed with White Wolf when Steve left in 2007 to take a seat on CCP's board of directors. Stewart resigned from White Wolf in 2010, immediately founding the company Nocturnal Games, which picked up White Wolf's rights to ''

Pendragon Pendragon or ( wlm, pen dreic, ''pen dragon''; composed of Welsh , 'head, chief, top' and / ''dragon'', 'dragon; warrior'; borrowed from the Latin word , plural , 'dragon , br, Penn Aerouant) literally means 'chief dragon' or 'head dragon', but ...

''. 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 Mage: The Ascension Role-playing game designers White Wolf game designers