 Hi there, I am Gary Irby. Welcome to our podcast. You are listening to Nordseks Storytime. You always wanted to know more about the stories behind Nordseks CTF? Well, our talented scenario designer, Éric Boivin, will tell you the story of Nordseks Toria. Hello, my name is Éric Boivin. I was approached a few years ago to bring my tabletop role-playing game experience for a unique role in the Nordseks CTF, being the scenario designer. All CTFs have a series of challenges, but what is interesting is when there is a surrounding team and a cohesive universe around it. My mission at Nordseks is to take the amazing technical challenges done by the challenge designer team and weave a story through them. During a series of capsules, I will share to you the lore of this year's Nordseks. Through its characters and challenges, you will see how we've been able to create a little world and give more dimension into this CTF. So for today, let me introduce you to Nordseks Toria. Nordseks Toria is a medieval town located on an island between two great rivers, the upstream and the downstream. It acts as a major port in the region. It was more or less modeled around Montreal, with its big mountain in the center, the King's Peak, its bustling downtown port area, and its quiet suburban villages. It has two main neighboring kingdoms, the Vale to the North and the Grand Duchy of Longaes to the South. Speaking of South, you might ask, is there a South sectoria? Well, this is a story for another time, my friends. Nordseks Toria is a kingdom ruled by a stern but benevolent king. At the time of the event, no name was given to the king. But what we know is that he is a respected ruler, but his feeling of power is slipping. You see, something special has happened to the kingdom and has shaken the forces of power already in place. The people of Nordseks Toria have access to fully functional computers, for some reason. Nobody really understands how they work, hence why everything technology related is simply named magic. These are the kind of creative things that we can create as a challenge designer in such a competition. Technology has impacted greatly the everyday life of both peasants and nobles. New tools and offerings that are now available are quickly changing how things are done. But in the end, Nordseks Toria is still a calm farming kingdom. Some people are adapting faster than others. Merchants, especially, are transitioning to this new way and are taking advantage and are taking advantage of the wonders that magic brings to the kingdom. It is in this world that the participants of the CTF are sent. A familiar world with medieval tropes mixed with things that are very modern to us. It is not a high fantasy world with fireballs and dragons and things like that. It is a world where people with very few education suddenly have access to extremely powerful technology that they don't really understand and where those that do understand can use to manipulate others. It is not a secret that the team is a metaphor of today's world where the peasants represent the general population. The oblivious nobles are the slow moving governments and the merchants are the technological elite. Technical illiteracy is one of the main teams of this year's Nordsek. But we still wanted to make it a grim world, but rather one of hope where the participants are here to make Nordseks Toria a better land for everybody. So this was a quick introduction to what this year's team was in Nordsek. During the series of capsules, I hope that you'll enjoy discovering this rich universe that we created and learn more about how we fleshed out the fascinating technical challenges created by our designers. So until next time, au revoir! Thank you so much Eric for sharing with us all that's behind the curtains of the CTF team. Stay tuned for the next episode!