WHAT IS "MODIPHIUS"?

Modiphius is the brainchild of gaming entrepreneur Chris Birch who founded the business in 2012 with his wife and co-founder Rita before launching the successful Achtung! Cthulhu RPG on Kickstarter in early 2013.

Modiphius Entertainment is now a UK-based global tabletop gaming publisher of RPGs (Star Trek Adventures, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, Fallout: The Roleplaying Game, Achtung! Cthulhu, Infinity, John Carter of Mars, Cohors Cthulhu, Dreams and Machines); miniatures games (The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms and Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, Five Parsecs From Home, Five Leagues From The Borderlands), and board games (The Elder Scrolls Skyrim: The Adventure Game, SPECTRE: The Board Game, Matt Leacock’s Thunderbirds and Agatha Christie’s Death on the Cards).

We created the 2d20 roleplaying game system to power our RPG releases and the 2d20 World Builders Community programme in partnership with DriveThruRPG to support creators in developing their own game worlds or writing for our in-house properties like Achtung! Cthulhu. We want to help nurture the next generation of creators and publishers.

Through our label ViaModiphius we can help other creators and publishers reach our global audience and get their products into retail stores. Some breakout hits have been the retail edition of Rangers of Shadow Deep, and Ivan Sorensen’s Five Parsecs From Home. We co-published Free League Publishing’s first game Mutant Year Zero, and they have now become one of the top RPG publishers in the world.

We aim to inspire those who read, play or encounter our work with tales of heroism, adventure and courage, and to play, together with friends, in your favourite worlds.

We have worked hard to build a reputation for excellent customer service and a strong family atmosphere in the company. Modiphius is built on strong principles of good business practice working fairly with freelancers and staff.

Our founders, Chris and Rita have a strong passion for helping combat human trafficking through their support for India's Vision Rescue. They recently launched RollvsEvil, a not-for-profit charitable fundraising effort for the tabletop community. RollvsEvil aims to combat real-world evils starting with frontline humanitarian aid support for the people of Ukraine; after all, why fight evil on the tabletop if you don’t fight it in the real world?

The founders also support groundbreaking frontline wildlife conservation charity National Parks Rescue, which is rebuilding the elephant population in a major Zimbabwe national park.

Our story
Our mission

WHAT DOES "MODIPHIUS" MEAN?

The word 'Modiphius' was the name of a solar system in one of Chris Birch’s early gaming worlds and came from the verb 'modified', which is defined as:

     1. Make partial or minor changes to (something), typically so as to improve it or to make it less extreme.
     2. Transform (a structure) from its original anatomical form during development or evolution.

CHRIS: I loved the idea of transformation - through inspiration we encourage people to transform, to evolve into something more. My life evolved in 2012 with my marriage to Margarita, the development of Modiphius together as co-founders and finally, the platform to develop the creative projects spinning around in my head.

I hope our worlds and stories inspire you, to create, to imagine to transform & to grow.

Chris Birch
Publisher, Modiphius

OUR FAMILY

Chris Birch

Publisher & Founder

Chris founded Modiphius after running video games fashion label Joystick Junkies for 13 years and before that working in the dance music industry managing bands, tours and clubnights.​

Chris first played D&D and Steve Jackson's OGRE aged 9 and grew up on a diet of RPG's, wargames and boardgames before writing Starblazer Adventures and founding Modiphius. 

Rita Birch

Finance & Operations Director

Our Commissar! Rita worked with the Chernobyl Project charity before training in finance and has acted as translator for the Kazakhstan Olympics team.​

Rita is often seen in her alter ego as Conan's 'Valerita' or in her army uniform for Achtung! Cthulhu!

Cameron Dicks

Managing Director

​Cameron joined the team as Managing Director to work across all the commercial activities of Modiphius. He brings a wealth of commercial, brand licensing and process knowledge to the company and will help drive us towards growth.

He dabbles with games, both video and tabletop, but he is more often seen armed with a spreadsheet or presentation.

Jon Webb

Head of Creative

Many moons ago, Jon’s interest in wargaming started after seeing what he thought was a “walking castle” (Imperator Titan) poster hanging on the walls of a Games Workshop. This spark was kindled when his cousin handed him a bag full of goblins and set him on the path that would lead him to landing his dream job with Modiphius, helping look after their Wargames department.

In his spare time he likes to paint miniatures and add to his pile of unpainted miniatures which he is convinced is buying him immortality (you cannot die until you paint your last miniature).

Samantha Webb

Head of Brand

Samantha started tabletop gaming as a teenager, starting with Warhammer 40k and moving onto Dungeons and Dragons in her last year at Drama School, where she trained to be a theatre director.

Samantha also coordinated live role play games, and her first event, Wasteland UK, began in September 2011 and the game quickly grew in popularity, attracting live roleplayers from a mix of backgrounds. She’s pretty much anywhere on the internet as RPGWebby, including Twitch and Twitter.

Sophie Williams

Head of Game Development

Games have been a lifelong passion for Sophie.

Her career has been deeply connected to the tabletop gaming industry for over 15 years where she has worked in retail, art management, IP archiving, licensing, game design and development, project management and studio management. Her diverse work history and ‘on the ground’ experience has positioned her to have a deep understanding of the game development life cycle as well as production and distribution.

Luc Woolfenden

Financial Controller

Luc is an experienced Sr. Management Accountant, with diverse capabilities in project & strategic management.

He has set up and led finance departments for a number of major projects for the Ministry of Justice, Cabinet Office & Department for International Trade both in the UK and overseas. 

On the side he co-runs Heliocentrism Pictures Ltd, does conceptual art, and is an avid Arsenal and Denver Broncos fan.

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