SJKraus

Entertainment Director • Game Dev • Voice Actor

Hi! I’m SJ, a director of live entertainment and creative producer specializing in immersive, story-driven experiences.

I’m also an actor, something I brought behind the mic in recent years. In that space I’m known as SJ McKeen and have begun my journey in video games such as Showgunners and Ground Branch.

Game Development

Maps and Critters

World of Evindale

Expansive, multi-age tabletop role-playing game campaign setting

Creator, Creative Director
Rebels Rising Press | Lifetime project

I always wanted to know what was outside that dungeon. Do that for several decades and you wind up with a planet. Made all the maps. Tossed in a few creatures, too. Some festivals, people, cultures, and… you get the point.

Here’s a map of the continent of Erinnal in the multiverse known as Evindale.

It features:

Eight ages, from a time of elemental creation all the way to a brightpunk future
Three continents, 40+ developed countries
Language, lexicons, and dialects, oh my!
20+ original playable lineages
40+ deities in three pantheons
Regional, local, and adventure maps
Featured as the setting campaign setting for streamed actual play games, as well as a successful live-action role-playing game (LARP)

Evindale LIVE!

A live-action roleplaying game system framework

Creator, Creative Director
9 Worlds Press | 2016–2018

Challenge:

I wanted to create a live-action roleplaying experience where players could fully forget they were at a weekend event. No rules calls, no shouted abilities, no immersion-breaking mechanics. Combat needed to feel fast and dangerous—driven by trust and consequence, not statistics. Onboarding had to be near-instant, without numeric tracking. The system had to support evocative, folkloric horror without ever pulling players out of character. It had to be the best I could offer in story-first immersive entertainment.

Solution:
I developed a bespoke, ultra-light ruleset that eliminated hit points, class systems, and out-of-character language entirely. Every player began as a human—mechanically equal—with differentiation emerging through gear, tactics, and story. The “Bleed Out” mechanic replaced abstract death with a staged, dramatic collapse that deepened tension without relying on math. Even the manner of death would determine what horror you might return as. Magic and special abilities were performed through in-world gestures, whispered incantations, realistic props, costume choices, or symbolic actions—rarely by calling names or effects aloud. Armor was real. Wounds were location-based. And every encounter relied on mutual respect and immersive performance. New players could jump in within minutes, learn by watching, and contribute immediately to a high-trust, high-stakes world of survival, fear, and emotional consequence.

Results:
Evindale LIVE! was first playtested at a premium, small-scale weekend event in Vernon, NJ under the title SAGAS. Feedback from that experience helped refine the system into a finalized v1.0 ruleset. Players praised the immediate immersion, intuitive mechanics, and emotionally resonant character arcs. The system proved accessible to new players while delivering depth for returning ones. Evindale LIVE! became the foundation for Mütvia LARP, an immersive folkloric horror experience set in the 5th Age of Evindale, and marked a turning point in how I design live narrative systems: story first, systems second, and no apologies for leaning into trust, tension, and transformation.

Rise Against

Diceless tabletop role-playing game system

Developer, Writer
Rebels Rising Press | 2023

Challenge:
I wanted a quick and dirty RPG system that rewarded teamwork, was diceless, and fostered role-play over rules. Many TTRPG systems rely on mechanics and random generators to determine the action. Whatever was created had to capture the thrill, be snappy, and intuitive via player agency.

Solution:
Rise Against allows players to create a list of skills for their character with a set amount of dots assigned to each. The game runner would determine how many dots were needed to accomplish a particular task. If a character fell short, other characters could aid, lending them some of their dots.

Characters also advanced by keeping track of failures. After a certain amount, the character was assumed to have learned from their mistakes. Alas, failure became a way to succeed.

Rollout:
The result was proven in a highly successful actual play on Twitch. The setting of the game was in the 7th Age of Evindale, a grimdark future that focused on a band of rebels trying to survive.

Location descriptions

The Third Kingdom

Web3 metaverse

Lead Writer, Lore Master
Altered State Machine, Futureverse | 2022–2023

I was initially brought on to create the World of Alleriya, a metaverse platform built to house decentralized AI “brains.” Within weeks, I was promoted to Lead Writer and tasked with guiding the writing team through a complex unification process: combining five independently developed IPs into a single, internally coherent metaverse known as The Third Kingdom.

Challenge:
Each IP had been built in a silo. We had goblins, sentient robots, spider cults, bees, cars, rabbits, bears, and adorable mouthless things—and all of them needed to exist in the same universe. The bigger ask? Make it feel meaningful, not just mashed together, and ensure it could support blockchain utility tokens, evolving AI characters, and community-driven narrative.

Solution:
I approached the project like a decentralized mythology. Each IP was reinterpreted as embodying a unique worldview, origin, or function within the new setting—some served as messengers, others as philosophers, survivalists, or engineers. I used the metaphor of a mycelial dream-network to connect them all: a shared cognitive realm where different species emerged from human dreams and now lived independently. This allowed for narrative interoperability, player-driven discovery, and lore-based unlocks for history, artifacts, and AI-powered characters. It wasn’t just a setting—it was a system players could shape.

Results:
The Third Kingdom launched as Futureverse’s primary narrative framework, uniting five previously unrelated projects into a single playable world. The lore system I developed provided the backbone for marketing, UX writing, and world-based utility integration. My team delivered modular, interconnected lore, built with scalability in mind. Community members engaged directly through a Discord-based RPG that fed player decisions back into world evolution. The project helped position Futureverse as, in part, a story-driven platform for the new web3 space.

Muhammad Ali – The Next Legends

AI-powered metaverse boxing game

Lore Master / Preservation of IP
Altered State Machine

The Greatest’s attitude and philosophy needed to permeate every aspect of this game. Not only in how boxing could be represented, but also in Ali’s sense of racial and social activism.

One crucial aspect was the preservation of the IP. As Lore Master, I researched Ali’s life, followed strict adherence to ABG’s direction as holder of the IP, and provided guidance to ensure the game carried his legend properly.

Live Entertainment

Image Gallery

New York Renaissance Faire

One of the largest and oldest renaissance faires

Director, Improv Street Casts (Spendpenny Players & Journeyman Company)
Founder, Volunteer Actor Program
Renaissance Entertainment Productions | 2003–2012

I started as a volunteer hawker at the Drench-a-Wench game in 1992. Eleven years later, I was cast as Little John of the Merry Band and eventually promoted to direct both the paid street cast (the Spendpenny Players) and a newly revived volunteer troupe, the Journeyman Company. During that tenure, I founded and led the Volunteer Actor Program (VAP), which became the faire’s most successful longform training initiative.

Challenge:
Guests at NYRF often wanted to become part of the show, but access to the cast was limited to NYC-based auditions and typically required prior experience. At the same time, existing training didn’t reflect the real demands of the job: holding character for nine hours, building a flexible toolkit for live interaction, or adapting to guest energy in the moment. Newer performers often clung to scripted lines or clustered together, unsure how to carry scenes forward.

Solution:
As director, I rebuilt cast development from the ground up. Training became a hands-on, village-scale summer intensive focused on sustainable improvisation, character depth, and ensemble responsiveness. I introduced tools for creating relationship-based scenes and opened local access points for new talent outside the NYC circuit. The Spendpenny Players and VAP became fully integrated, co-creating a living world that felt both immersive and inclusive.

Results:
By 2012, the Journeyman Company had grown to over 40 active performers. The cast won two national awards for Best Street Cast, the only such honors in the faire’s history. Guests returned year after year to reconnect with beloved characters, and cast members often cited the VAP as the most meaningful artistic training of their season. What began as an experimental volunteer initiative became the faire’s official 34th Performance Company and a foundation of the guest experience.

Additional Contributions:
During this time, I also redesigned the faire’s paper program, transforming it from a bulky black-and-white booklet into a slim, full-color souvenir. I created annual t-shirt designs for cast and volunteers, wrote opening gate and stage scripts, supported marketing efforts, and helped reconfigure performance zones to improve traffic flow across 60 acres. Watching the faire thrive, both artistically and operationally, remains one of the most rewarding periods of my career.

Skáldvík Viking Village

Award-winning historical re-enactment edutainment facility

Founder / General Manager
Raven’s Head Productions, LLC
(2014-2022)

After ten years as a director at the New York Renaissance Faire, I went independent and requested a plot of land to create a historical encampment steeped in history and education.

Challenge:
The New York Renaissance Faire is a fantasy faire, mixing disparate timelines to create one fantastic story, i.e. Robin Hood, Queen Elizabeth, pirates, and fairies all lived in the same place. I wanted to create something that appealed to those seeking education and how people of a bygone era lived. I chose vikings, but with such a heavily romanticized fog of fiction surrounding them, what could I do?

Solution:
I pitched the idea of a live-in Viking encampment to ownership and was granted a plot of land on the grounds of the faire itself. I started a membership in the pre-season of 2014 whose membership fees would provide the startup capital needed for incorporation and initial expenses. Funded, we set to work. The village’s mission was established: if people of ancient Scandinavia were to land in New York, how would they live?

Six departments, each representing a facet of Viking Age life and fully manned with historically-accurate costumed members, would research their facets of this complex society and offer workshops, lectures, and demonstrations.

By 2022, the Village had become the second largest attraction on the 60-acre site, educating the faire’s 70,000 to 100,000 visitors annually.

Mütvia LARP

Creator / General Manager
Raven’s Head Productions, LLC
(2016-2018)

Before Evindale developed a true online fan base, a country within the setting became the home of a monthly, highly rated live action role-playing game.

My goals and how we did it:

Full immersion.
- 38 hours, non-stop game play over a weekend.
- Events took place on 1,100 acres at Camp Speers, Dingmans Ferry, PA
- WYSIWYG costuming and rules. No math.
- Creature workshop in body movement, vocal warmups, and makeup techniques.
- Live sound in cabins, woods, and on creatures. The entire place had a soundtrack.
- A cipher and phrase book. Players started to speak and write in Mütvian.
Players first.
- Players were empowered by the rules systems to become peer leaders if they wished. I created an in-depth crafting system that underpinned much of the economy, allowing those who invested in the in-game lore to act as quest-givers. This alleviated logistical overhead.
- Player effort was likewise empowered. Props and costuming were to be taken literally. Creatures wouldn’t go near them if they donned a particular amulet of specific design. I mechanized superstition and that made it all the more real.

Writing & Copy

Non-Linear Storytelling

WRITER, GAME MASTER, GRAPHIC DESIGN
Vox & Quill, Twitch

Decades in the TTRPG space have taught me how to design adventures and levels for balanced play. In a world of open design, optional scenarios could lend players a wonderful sense of agency over their experience.

Untimely Heroes ran in its full as an actual play on Twitch.

Marketing

Technical Brochure

WRITER, LAYOUT
AFP Imaging Corp., Elmsford, NY

FESTIVAL BROCHURE

COPYWRITER, LAYOUT
New York Renaissance Faire., Tuxedo Park, NY

Scripts

Live Theater

WRITER, DIRECTOR
New York Renaissance Faire, Tuxedo Park, NY

Renaissance Faires present a unique challenge rarely seen outside of the turkey leg and ale atmosphere. Trunk shows, known for their quick wit and snappy delivery, rely heavily on rapid-fire repartee and absurd humor. Three Monks & A Trunk is a prime example, drawing standing-room-only crowds with its energetic performance.

Opening gate scenes are meant to introduce important characters and the story arc of the faire’s season, but also of what shows they might see and any wares that might be found by those waiting to get in.

BROTHER BENEDICT

Hedonism. Debauchery. Outlandish behavior. Welcome to the faire.

[Increasingly impassioned.] My gentle friends, no doubt thou hast come here to feast, hear song and to be merry. This is, after all, what many of us seek in life, even we humble brothers.

However, we – the Friars of the Castigating Condemnation, or FCC — have discovered the truth behind these so-called revels.

The entertainment within these walls is disguised as fun BUT innocents such as thyselves are at risk for eternal damnation and therefore must be exposed!

[Stunned] Expose the evils. Not you.

SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM
[Enters. Spots LOXLEY] Captain, who is that?

FERRET, A GUARD
Robert Earl of Loxley, Lord Sheriff. He be not on the invitee list. Oh, and he gave us coin to pay for the peasants’ entry!

SHERIFF
Thank thee, Ferret. No floggings tonight for thee.

FERRET
[Visibly upset.] Damn.

SHERIFF
Good my Lord Robert. Welcome to Sterlingshire. Tell me,
what causes have you to pay for these…
[scans audience, disgusted]
… people?

Video Scripts

WRITER
Altered State Machine, Auckland

SCENE	AUDIO & VOICEOVER	VIDEO
1	MUSIC BED THROUGHOUT	TITLE CARD “Origins: Alleriya GENOME MINING Part I
2	Seekers, on a mission to investigate the Alleriyan metaverse, discovered a massive Tear between realities that radiated a mysterious form of energy. Near this Tear in space, a research vessel called The Intrepid drew their attention.	EXT. SPACE A tear in space in the distance, Seekers approach inquisitively.
3	Within, the Seekers noted a researcher, Professor Jenny Brian, who was studying the Tear and the particles it emitted. They also noticed a massive particle collection device the professor had created.	INT. PROF. JENNY BRIAN AT CONSOLE INSIDE THE INTREPID

Barks

WRITER
Sample

Short and informative, random or in response, NPC barks can be used to flavor the environment, provide information, establish culture, or even pass a mysterious clue along to help further the narrative.

(wary) “You’re armed and uninvited. We gonna have a problem?”

(haunted) “Are… are you real?”

(slowly taking inventory) “Let’s see. I’ve got a Bag of Infinite Potatoes, Boots of the Slippery Slope, ummmm, oh, an Accordion of Summoning. But, eh, no belt pouch. Sorry.”

(resignation) “Listen, sugar. If we’re going to do this, you’d better make sure people remember us.”

(warning) “STOP. If you touch that control one more time, we’re both getting spaced!”

(uncomfortable) “I’m telling you something smells funny. You sure we need to be here? Oh my gods, what did I just step in…”

(preaching) “The Void calls! Embrace the emptiness! Seek the wisdom from eternal silence!”

(fearful) “Wait… you’re not with them, are you? Please say you’re not. [beat] You are. Shit.”

(manic) “Oh, this should be fun! Soooooo? Which blaster you gonna use? PLEEEEEASE SAY THE MEGADUECE EXCELSIOR 2000! That thing blows holes in NEBULAS. [beat] Heh, “blows”.”

(feigning authority, then bragging) “We are from the Ecliptique Dynamique d’Harmonie Primordiale. [aside] Eh? Eh? Sounds good, right? Eh?“

(perceptive) “Nah, you ain’t no scavenger. Ain’t a place ’round here where you get boots like that. So who the fuck are you, huh?”

(proud) “This forge has stood for centuries. Only the best smiths have touched its surface. And now you’re one of them.”