About The Forge!
The Forge and its Very Terrific Team
"The Forge" (The Forge VTT inc. / La Forge TJV inc.) is a tabletop game company founded in 2020 by Youness Alaoui, also known as KaKaRoTo.
The Forge is the first and only fully integrated, turn-key, high-availability hosting solution for Foundry VTT games. Its mission is to make it painless for game masters to host and manage games, so that they can focus on the story and gameplay, rather than to mess around with servers, network equipment and configuration, security, bandwidth and latency, etc. The Forge provides all the necessary tools for GMs to create immersive tabletop gaming experiences for their players, without going insane and becoming a lich.
The company is headquartered in the frozen lands of Montréal, Canada, where KaKaRoTo's office is located. The rest of the team is based in Canada and throughout the world.
The Team
Youness
Before creating the Forge, Youness (a.k.a. "KaKaRoTo") has spent decades laboring in the coal mines of the Free & Open-Source software industry, whether through the aMSN project, his various projects for the PS3 hacking scene, 3D printing software, and reverse engineering CPUs. Due to some mysterious circumstances, he discovered Dungeons and Dragons only in 2018, started playing, then wrote Beyond20, joined the Foundry community (around the time FVTT 0.3.0 was released), then wrote multiple popular modules for Foundry, before creating the Forge because he has an insatiable hunger for solving complicated challenges and creating infinite problems for himself.
Website // GitHub // Twitter // Twitch // Patreon
Leon
Leon (a.k.a. "DestinyGrey"), is the Forge's executive assistant and general administrative solution seeker. It is said he achieved level 20 as a moderator of FoundryVTT and then just retired that character to try a new adventure with the Forge. He dispels our knee-jerk reactions and channels them into magically diplomatic messages. Like every gamer, he drinks energy drinks while backseat gaming his teammates in online shooters.
Bruno
Bruno (a.k.a. Varstahl) is a jack of all trades bard. When he's not streaming D&D with his friends, he's hacking stuff. If the stuff does not want to get hacked, he hits it with a hammer. It's the law. Rumors say he was near our servers and codebase, nobody knows why, although everything seems to run smoother and faster now. Master of the Speak with Electronics ritual, he sings and inspires from the cold shadows of a server room with a +12 modifier on IT Handling ability checks.
GitHub // Twitter // Twitch // LinkedIn
Michael
Michael (a.k.a. IronMonk) lives on the West Coast of Canada, in beautiful Victoria BC, close to Professor X's mansion. He tried applying for the X-men, but was disappointed to learn that sitting in front of a computer for ridiculously long periods of time is not in fact a super power… and also it wasn't actually Professor X's mansion. He's been passionate about RPGs since Advanced D&D and has been actively creating modules for Foundry for a while now.
Rikus
Rikus (a.k.a. Phi) lives in a small apartment with a growing number of houseplants in a Hive City in the heart of the Netherlands. When not taking advantage of the exceptional cycling infrastructure, coding, or squashing bugs with an Imperial Autocannon, Phi likes to prep and play tabletop games, learn new languages, and mess around with Unity.
Matthew
Matthew (a.k.a. Eranziel) lives near Saskatoon under the broad skies of Saskatchewan. After spending years automating industrial machinery, he decided automating tabletop games would be more fun. Creator of the Lancer system for Foundry (which he maintains with the help of many wonderful contributors), Matthew has deeply enjoyed TTRPGs for years. Currently, that involves stomping around in mechs or fantastical samurai intrigue. When he isn't writing software or playing tabletop games, he is busy herding cats and playing strategy video games.
Zlatan
Zlatan (aka zgrimshell), the company's Project Manager, is an open source software and hardware tinkerer. Hailing from the Alps, he got blessed with a good view and big dreams. Sometimes, but only sometimes, when he has free time, he uses it for working on technological sovereignty for communities, reading books and walking his dog (increasing his bonus points in agility).
Ilijana
Ilijana (a.k.a. Jana), the company's community manager, kept her cool, despite having worked in the banking sector for years. While studying economics, she became very interested in and loved marketing. Jana really likes to spend time on social networks. When time permits, she indulges in music, imagining herself as a rock star.
Nicolas
Nicolas (a.k.a dererk) Vitulli is the resident DevOps engineer, taking control of The Forge's servers from his home in beautiful Buenos Aires. A charming amalgamation of Monty Python's absurdity, an outdoor enthusiast and vigilant observer of free and open source wonders. A rollercoaster ride of hilarity, exploration, and a dash of nerdiness as you dive into the worlds of crazy Dererkland, where comedy, nature, and the boundless realms of technology converge in an uproariously entertaining fusion. He never forgets his promises and sometimes he even keeps them.
Vaibhav
Vaibhav (a.k.a. vabs) lives in Greater Montreal Area. Working in Canada's FinTech industry for almost 7+ years has now decided to explore gaming industry, converting his passion into work environment. He loves coding and make applications to automate his daily workflow. When not coding he loves reading books and solve calculus questions.
Denise
Denise (a.k.a. loki_giggles) lives on the beautiful west coast of Canada with her two cats Sugarbeet & Morty (Interdimensional Cable anyone?).
As a Quality Analyst and Strategist, she’s always been curious since a child about how things work, taking things apart only to try to put them back together again. She has always aspired to be the “guy in the chair” like Ned in Spiderman. “You can take the guy out of the chair, but you can’t take the chair out of the guy”
Antoni
Antoni (a.k.a Rughalt) has been coding since he got a book about Turbo Pascal 6.0 when he was six. Now a seasoned developer hailing from Warsaw, he loves tackling complex problems, writing adventures, and playing games. If you see him overworked, remind him that it is OK to get a break, and don't be disheartened when he ignores your advice.
GitHub // LinkedIn // Adventures
