Q: What is "Kilima – School of the Beasts"?
A: For the most part, it is a Isekai novel. This means, it tells the story of ordinary human people who are drawn to a strange world by a mysterious event. They are forced to adapt to a new life, while trying their best to survive and solve the mystery of the incident. To spice things up, all people are turned into anthropomorphic (human-like) animals. Common named as Furries. 

Q: Can you explain more about the title of the story?
A: The center of the story is a modern boarding school with the name "Kilima" in the county of West Yorkshire, England. The name originates from the Swahili word for hill. "Beasts" are the people populating this world. All the former human people are getting turned into Beasts. 

Q: Why an English school?
A:  I chose an English school because I'm (a bit) familiar with the English culture. I would have liked to have chosen a school from a country like Spain or Poland. Simply answer though: I would have butchered these cultures due to the lack of experience.

Q: What is the age rating for the book?
A: I hope I can publish it PG-13.

Q: When does the story takes place?
A: Second half of 2021. 

Q: What is the name of the world to which the former humans are transported?
A: Nyika. It's another word from the Swahili language and means wilderness.

Q: You drew heavy inspiration from the Swahili language?
A: Only for the purpose of naming things like locations, rivers and even food. I can't really remember why I chose to go this way. I wanted to name things in an exotic way ("exotic" for people like the Western audience). And Swahili was just the language I was looking for. 

Q: Who is the main character of your story?
A: There is no simple answer for that, because there is no real main character. Instead, I decided to give a couple of people a place in the spotlight. The story mainly focuses on twelve students, pushing the plot forward. Some of them have an bigger impact on the story like the character of Jordan Donovan or Zoey Evans and some have some sort of supporting role like Lindsay Mac Cullen or Derek Mitchel. Whenever I found it fitting, I swapped perspective between characters. And not only between these twelve youngsters. But that's all I want to spoil at this point.

Q: Is there romance in the story?
A: The characters are good friends. Some of them are really good friends, if you know what I mean. But that's basically it.

Q: From where drew you inspiration to write this novel?
A: I always had a good time with pen and paper. And I love a good fantasy story. However, nothing thrilled me more than stories about extraordinary schools. I can go back to the point when I was seven years old and watched Police Academy for the first time. I loved that. And the list goes on: The Garden from Final Fantasy VIII, Duel Academy from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Ranger schools from the Pokémon Ranger games or The Xavier's School for Gifted Children from the X-Men comics. The more exotic, the better. I wrote a Pokémon Fanfiction about a school a while ago. And I had a blast. Now, I wanted to create something unique, a new universe.

Q: A school story about human people being turned into animals sound mediocre creative. Is there more to it?
A: Yes, way more. Not only look the former humans like animals, their minds are now pulled into two different directions: the logical driven human side and the instinctively controlled animal side with magic-like powers. Think about it like there's a wild animal living inside you, rattling at a cage trying to break out. Keeping the balance between these two sides is one of the biggest challenges the former humans have to deal with, while still trying to survive and adapt to the new world of Nyika and the exotic Beast-culture. Balance, actually, is one of the major things in the world of Nyika and the whole story. But enough of that for now. 

Q: You mentioned "magic-like powers". What do you mean by that exactly?
A: Beasts are divided into four categories: Fur, Feather, Chitin and Scale. Each category comes with an element they can harvest, which is also part of the balance system of Nyika. From my humble beginnings with this story I wanted to go this way, making the characters and the story even more interesting. How will a calm and rather shy person like Amy Bloomberg use the earth element? How the rather unrestrained and destructive character of Lindsay Mac Cullen? It was a ton of fun to mix these powers into the personality of the characters.

Q: It sounds almost like a video game.
A: Yes, it does. In fact: The whole idea of this story originates from a gamer's perspective. Right after I summarized the basic plot of the story on about three pages, I wrote like 50 pages about how this would work as a turn-based RPG: More characters, skills, skill trees, mechanics… The list goes on. Maybe some day …

Q: Any other sources of inspiration or motivation?
A: Let's make one very clear at this point, and I'm not to shy or arrogant to admit it: I took heavy inspiration from different media. Games like Golden Sun, Guild Wars or the previously mentioned Final Fantasy VIII had a huge impact on this story. But there is more. Much, much more. I referenced real life or fictional events and myths and quoted many of my favorite franchises such as Star Trek or make allusions to movies, books, TV shows and theater. I referenced real life and also fictional events. You will even find a character and a scene which are both heavily inspired by Star Trek Deep Space Nine. And like I said before: I'm not to arrogant to admit it.

Q: How long is the story?
A: Including prologue and epilogue: 65 chapters. Almost 300,000 (German) words written. 

Q: You writing this in German? Why? And why promoting it on English?
A: I'm a native German-speaker. And this is mostly a one-man project, and my resources are limited. I don't have any problems to admit it: I'm not good enough to write a novel like this in a foreign language. But I hope I find enough support and interest to publish it in both, German and English language, and maybe even other languages. That's why I'm trying to reach an international audience. The more positive attention I can find, the easier it gets convincing publishers to translate it.

Q: Any plans on publishing it as a web novel?
A: No. I'd like to take a classic approach. At least for now.

Q: How long are you working on this project?
A: Since November 2021.

Q: Who is the artist behind the artwork?
A: Banner, branding and concept art were designed by the Italian artist Ariakey.

Q: What does this picture show?
A: It's the brand of the novel: The initial letters of the story representing the four Beast categories: Scale, Feather, Chitin and Fur (School Of The Beasts).

Q: Any AI usages?
A: No artificial intelligence was used to create the novel or the art. The translation tool Deepl helped me a bit with the translation from German to English. But that's it. 

Q: Can you tell us more about the Beast culture?
A: I plan to create a site about the world of Nyika, Kilima and the Beasts. Here's a brief introduction: Nyika is populated by Beasts: anthropomorphic, bipedal, intelligent animals that have founded communities with a manageable number of members scattered all over the continent and mostly live in simple dwellings made of wood, straw, clay or simple stone in balance with nature. They practiced agriculture and mining. Their technological level is comparable to the early Renaissance period in the human world.

Q: Anything about the antagonists of the story?
A: Beasts are living in a symbiotic relationship to creatures called Pori (Swahili for wild). You can imagine them as savage animals. They are the counterweight on the scales of balance. Beasts and Pori are seeing and treating each other as prey. However, I never wanted them to be the actual antagonists of the novel. They are more like a threat of nature. More stays a secret.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about you?
A: Born in 1988 in Germany. Hobby author since I'm 16. Freelancer author for a local German newspaper. Gamer. Mostly interested in RPG's, strategy games and a bit of survival horror. I am a tax consultant by profession. But I was always a writer by heart.

Q: Are you a furry?
A: I don't see myself as a furry. But it depends how you look at it. I like anthropomorphic animals. When playing video games and I can avoid playing as a human, I will most likely take advantage of that. I like (SFW) furry art and the warm, kind furry community. If this makes you a furry, then I might be one. I don't know. And to be honest: I don't really care either.

Q: Is there a specific reason you chose to write about anthropomorphic animals?
A: Well, like I mentioned before, I adore school stories. But it's hard to create something unique. Hell, even a story about animal-like characters living a school live is nothing that special. I wanted to keep my distance from the Harry Potter franchise as much as possible. However, I was afraid that a school history alone could lead to similarities. That's why I spiced things up with animal characters and elements. Maybe some furry games and a furry streamer I followed on Twitch had an impact of making this decision as well. 

Q: Have you published anything yet?
A: Only in form of newspaper articles. Besides that, no. I've written a couple of Fanfictions (mostly related to Pokémon and Guild Wars 2). I basically wrote a sequel for Ori and the Will of the Wisps in form of a game script. But that's it. "Kilima – School of the Beasts" is my first big project, completely created from scratch. And to make my dream a reality I need all the help I can get.

Q: How can I support this project?
A: Talk about it, like the content I make and share it. As I mentioned before: The more support I get, the easier the publishing process will be. I might take a crowd-funding approach for proof-reading and even translation in the near future. Only time will tell.