Travis Vengroff

Vengroff was born in Centerport, New York, in 1987 to Harvey and Carol Vengroff, with the family moving to Sarasota, Florida, when Travis was three-years old.^[1][2] He had four siblings.^[3] Harvey was the founder and owner of Vengroff Williams Inc., a housing company, for over 50 years, and also worked at a debt collection agency.^[3]

As a child, Vengroff liked to listen to audiobooks, something he credits to eventually leading him to podcasts.^[4] In 2006–2009, Travis Vengroff studied music at the Allegro Music Academy, game design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, acting at the New York Film Academy, and business management at the University of South Florida.^[5]

Travis and his brother Mark worked at Vengroff Williams Inc. in 2011.^[6] From 2013 to 2019, he also worked with his father and brother in real estate in Sarasota, Bradenton, Orlando, and Memphis.^[7][8][9]

In 2005, Vengroff, under the stage name Careless, was a founding member of the band Random Encounter, specialized in covers of video game music and original music inspired by video games. He mainly played the accordion, while also performing vocals and the glockenspiel.^[10] The band was voted by readers of Orlando Weekly as the Best Folk Act in Central Florida (2011), the Best Indie Act in Central Florida (2012) and the Best Rock Act in Central Florida (2013).^[11][12][13]

In 2006, Vengroff directed a Resident Evil fan-made short film titled Resident Evil: Operation Mad Jackal, together with Kit Pennebaker. The film featured over 60 actors, and the crew received permission from the city of Sarasota to shut down part of the city's Main Street to film a scene. Vengroff stated in July 2006 that the film would premiere at a convention the following October.^[14][15]

In 2010, he completed Liberty: Defiance, a comic book he wrote based on the science fiction Liberty fictional universe he had developed over the previous years; he had hoped to turn it into a full comic book series, but was unsuccessful in selling it to any publisher.^[16][17]

Vengross, still using the name Careless, founded a second band in 2011, Careless Juja, together with fellow video game music cover artist The Great Juja.^[10] The band took part in the Dwelling of Duels internet music competition and won five awards from 2011 to 2019.^[18] They would release several albums, and are still currently active.

Among Random Encounter's releases during his time with them were studio album Unavenged in 2011 and Let Me Tell You a Story in 2013. On October 3, 2015, Random Encounter performed a show in Orlando titled "Farewell Careless / 10 Year Anniversary Concert", acting as both a celebration of the band's first ten years and the farewell show of Careless, who was leaving the band.^[19]

In 2015, Vengroff and his romantic partner (later wife) Kaitlin Statz decided to venture into audio fiction, creating the company Fool and Scholar Productions to produce fiction podcasts. Their first release later the same year was Liberty: Critical Research, a return to Vengroff's science fiction Liberty fictional universe; in the style the two would follow in their future podcasts, Vengroff directed, produced, edited and sound designed the podcast while Statz was the writer; Vengroff also voiced one of the main characters, Officer Severous Ljqvist. The series was an unexpected success, and led to the development of Liberty into a multimedia franchise.^[20][21][22]

In addition to two more seasons of Critical Research, two more Liberty podcasts were produced: Liberty: Tales From the Tower, a horror anthology podcast that run from four seasons from 2016 and 2021, and Liberty: Vigilance, a one-season actual play podcast made in 2018 using Liberty: A.F.T.E.R, a tabletop role-playing game designed by Vengroff and released the same year.^{[23][24][25][26][27]} It also lead to the release of two more Liberty comic books written by Vengroff, including the serialized Liberty: Deception, and two Liberty picture books co-authored by Vengroff and Statz.^{[28][17][29][30][31][32][33]} The first volume was released at New York Comic Con in October 2016.^{[34][35][36][37][38][25][39][40][41][42][43]}

In 2017, Fool and Scholar Productions released their first Liberty-unrelated work found footage horror podcast The White Vault, about a group of individuals sent to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to investigate a remote outpost gone radio silent after sending a distress signal. The show lasted for a five seasons-run completed in 2022, and was accompanied by several spin-off shows set in the same universe, released between 2018 and 2023.^{[44][45][46][47][48]}

Dark Dice, a horror-dark fantasy actual play podcast, premiered in 2018, with Vengroff acting as gamemaster.^{[49][50][51][52]} It emphasized the potential deaths of all player characters, with campaigns including, among others, Statz (who joined Vengroff as co-gamemaster from season 3 onwards), Jeff Goldblum, Eric Nelsen, LilyPichu, and many voice actors featured in other works of Fool and Scholar Productions; it is still ongoing.^[53][54] Vengroff also contributed as a composer and musician, directed an orchestra, a 40-person choir, and more than 30 medieval instruments for the soundtrack of the Dark Dice podcast.^[55] The tabletop role-playing game Domain of the Nameless God, designed by Vengroff and based on the universe of Dark Dice, was released on 2023 by Dungeon Masters Guild.^[56]

Vengroff and Statz also published VAST Horizon, a three-season science fiction story released from 2019 to 2021 about the passenger of a spaceship who awakens from stasis to find the spaceship empty and failing, and must survive and investigate with the help of the ship's artificial intelligence.^[57] Don't Mind: Cruxmont, a mystery story intended to be the first season of a Don't Mind anthology series made of stand-alone seasons, was released in 2022, starring Adjoa Andoh and Marcus Bentley as two strangers who meet on their way to the small elusive town of Cruxmont, both in search of answers.^[58] It was followed by The Boar Knight, a 15-episode family-friendly fantasy series released bi-monthly from October 2022 to June 2023.^[59][60]

From 2013 to 2018, Vengroff was a regular contributor to the Russian science fiction and fantasy magazine Mir Fantastiki.^[61][5] Since 2018, several adventures for Dungeons & Dragons on the DM's Guild became Platinum bestsellers.^[62]

Vengroff married frequent collaborator Kaitlin Statz on October 2, 2016.^[65] As of 2020, the couple resided in Portland, Oregon, with their adopted dog Eezo.^[8][9][5] In August 2021, the couple moved to Germany.^[66]

Vengroff's father Harvey died on October 11, 2018, at age 77.^[3]

• Travis Vengroff at IMDb
• Official website
• Fool and Scholar Productions website