Every Great Journey....
beings with a passion, and Cutter Mountain is no different. What started as a simple hobby has transformed into several businesses for us. Cutter Mountain is our newest and most personal endeavor into the hobby gaming world.
The Backstory
Scott and I met in late 2015 at a coffee shop, watched Stargate, played a bunch of Sherlock Holmes games, and got married in 2018. Scott had been an avid hobby game enthusiast since childhood, (thanks in part to his mother, who worked at ToysRUs,) and I was an equally avid video gamer. Our union came with a large group of Scott’s closest gaming buddies, and among them were writer & editor John K. Webb and artist Michael Andrews.
Vault of Wonders LLC
In 2019, Scott was approached by a 3rd party creator to design a hobby gaming book series, launched by a string of Kickstarters. Scott agreed to do the work, and not long afterwards, I was brought on board to handle the company’s physical fulfillment and logistics, a field I had been specializing in for over a decade as an independent contractor.
In 2021, while continuing to contract with this 3rd party creator, Scott and I decided to form the parent company, Vault of Wonders LLC, in order to establish ourselves as a separate entity from the 3rd party creator for which we had been providing services as independent contractors.
Over the course of our work for this creator, Scott and I found that there was a misconception about what an independent contractor is, or how contractors are freelance agents offering services to clients, rather than employees working for a “boss”. We felt that the vagaries of contract work left us open to a host of exceptionally high demands, but without any of the compensations, basic rights, benefits, or workplace guarantees that we would receive as employees. With the incorporation of Vault of Wonders LLC, we drew a hard line in the sand about what could be expected of us.
While the formation of our LLC provided us with some protections, we were saddened to see that many of our colleagues and close friends in the independent collaborator community were still facing unfair workplace conditions. Further, while our work with 3rd party creators offered us some creativity, we ultimately had no say in the quality of the content that was present in the products we produced.
Cutter Mountain Simulations
Enter: Cutter Mountain Simulations. At the core of CMS lies the vision of creating high quality products while providing our collaborators and independents with the awesome conditions and acknowledgement they deserve. We believe in the power of collaboration and consider ourselves fortunate to work with such a talented group of friends. As a business, we place immense value on treating our collabs with the utmost respect, recognizing their contributions as integral to our business. The joy of crafting interesting experiences for our gaming community drives us, and collaboration is a cornerstone of our work with CMS.
Cutter Mountain Fabrication
Feeling the exhilaration of working on games with our friends for CMS ultimately opened the door to another passion of ours. So many tabletop gaming sessions lack the level of immersion that might be achieved if only there were access to the unique and high quality terrain and miniatures that are needed to bring a table to life. Painting terrain and minis is one of the many great aspects of hobby gaming – but it’s easy to feel limited with so many of the ready-made items lacking the options for creating specific scenarios. Identifying this need led us to purchase a small print farm and form Cutter Mountain Fabrication. CMF is a division of Cutter Mountain that specializes in 3D printing high quality, custom terrain and miniatures from some of the best independent designers in the world, many of whom are mostly undiscovered.
The Future
Looking ahead, we are excited to continue exploring the convergence of high quality gaming content, original collaborative adventures, and amazing custom 3D printed terrain and miniatures for hobby gamers with Cutter Mountain. Fueled by our love of gaming and this community, we offer our dedication, perseverance, and our lifelong commitment to independence. We hope you’ll come along for the ride.
Best Regards,
Jennifer Craig
