Hello, hello! As big as the compliment is, no, I did not grow up bilingual (I am way far from being bilingual, trust me), but I studied English from a very early age :)
On the point of tropeyness, some personal anecdote: I've ben DMing pen and paper rpgs now for more than 10 years, and when it comes to building settings, it's always good to start with something familiar that people can attach to, and then giving it a twist to make it new and interesting. Funnily enough, some prep I was doing *before* I knew about Warcrow or the Lindwurm setting involved an expansionist federation/hegemony featuring scientific progress and suprisingly open-minded ideals, as well as grotesque body-horror beings that are actually the remains of some kind of old empire (not elves though). I find it pretty funny how ideas and fantasy tropes can converge in similiar directions from completely seperate starting points (marketable miniature game vs homebrew DnD campaign). Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about Embersig and Scions!
