The setting for this game is "fantasy medieval." Characters will begin on the main street (in fact, the only street) of the market town of Braisfx in the continent-spanning Broad Empire. Of course, you are welcome to be a native of some other point in the empire ("just passing through").
The Empire is a fairly nice place, actually-- unemployment is low, starvation and disease happen mostly in history texts, and in living memory the only real fighting has occurred with bandits. The government's demands are light, though people still grumble when tax collectors come around. There is a distinct lack of secret police... as far as you know.
The Empire has a large amount of arable countryside (compare Medieval France), which fuels a primarily agrarian economy. Metal, wood, and stone are fairly common, though igneous rock is so rare as to be valued more highly than silver. The currency of the realm is silver, cheerfully supplemented with barter.
There are most species you find in our world, plus a few extras, but the overwhelming majority of the self-aware beings in the world are humans.
Much of this is the result of magic. The Broad Empire is one of those lucky places where, instead of learning to make lightning come out of the clouds and destroy their enemies, the first wizards learned to make rain come out of the clouds and water crops. Things went uphill from there to produce the idyllic world you now inhabit. Magic is a common part of life, but magic-users are fairly rare. One of the Broad's traveling wizards visits Brasifx every month or so to make sure everything is still working properly and that the crops will come in on time. A major city (of perhaps 50,000 souls) might have as many as 100 wizards, but more than that would have trouble finding work since most enchantments are low-key and long-lasting.
Magical ability comes from a mixture of innate talent and training/experience, not unlike basketball. Anyone can learn to do magic if they can find someone willing to teach them, but some people are naturally better than others with the same level of experience. Mages are required to register their locations with the Broad's local representatives, but it's more akin to physicians being "on call" than anything else.
And, of course, the apocalypse is coming and the world will soon end.
Frequently Asked Questions
That is, questions asked once.
Can I get more info on Magic? I understand that for the most part magic is low key and beneficial, but I was wondering how far the world has come in using magic in more practical applications, like combat.
The overwhelming majority of magic is enchantment-- you imbue power into an object to produce some effect on it or its surroundings. This can be quite dramatic-- the Broad sometimes delivers messages by sending them flying through the air recorded on "speaking crystals" which home in on the intended recipients.
Even in combat, the main representation of magic would be something like a magic sword, or tools to see in the dark, or a crossbow that shoots lightning, or other supporting mechanisms. There are "combat mages" who can throw around fireballs and earthquakes, but people tend to view them like nuclear power plants: If we really must have one somewhere, just don't put it in my back yard. Probably less than 5% of mages practice such things-- mostly because the money, the respect, and the comfortable lifestyle all go to the enchanters. The Broad employs some combat mages, of course.
Does magic require specifics, such as glyphs, components, or just a lot of hocus pocus and jibba jabba?
It varies. There are numerous ways that people perform magic-- incredibly elaborate ritual arrays, carved runes, carefully-trained hedges, rare unguents, ancient relics, etc. Some people chant spells (in their own language or in some "high tongue"). Some people meditate. Some people kill things, or have sex with them.
There's a school of thought with numerous scholarly adherents which claims that the key to performing magic is -believing- you can do magic-- that the only reason people require different techniques is because their teachers told them they did. It's one explanation for why so many different procedures can produce the same effects. On the other hand, none of those scholars has ever managed to teach someone magic without relying on one of the already-established techniques, so their credibility is low.
If you choose to play a mage of some kind, I'd be glad to help you with what your magic requires and what it's capable of.
Do you have any concepts of other nations/kingdoms and what is going on there, or do we have some liberty with these?
There are no other kingdoms, at least none people know about. Everyone living on the entire continent is a subject of the Broad Empire (at least nominally; down in the southwest they're pretty independent). If there are other continents somewhere beyond the ocean ringing the Empire, their existence has been kept a careful secret.
That said, the Broad Empire is... really big. Big enough that every player could make up an entire province and I'd still have room for everything I've designed so far. So you have almost unlimited liberty in describing your home region; I might tell you where on the continent it is so that all of the geography fits together, and there are some things that the Broad wouldn't tolerate anywhere (like unregistered mages), but other than that you have a free hand.
Can priests use miracles that aren't magic?
Some people pray and produce miracles. Some people pray and do not produce miracles. Very often, they pray to the same being.
There are all kinds of explanations for this. Some people say that only a few are favored; others say that those who pray are actually just invoking magic (see the "belief theory" above). There is no one who can reliably ask for miracles.
Your characters are welcome to pray, and welcome to believe that they can produce miracles of any sort a few times in their lives. It's worked before in this setting and it will probably work again. That said, do not be surprised if they try for a miracle and it does not work.
Days of Your Lives
And now, a word from the calendar.
The Broad Empire uses a solar calendar, with 24-hour days apportioned into hours, seconds, etc, pretty much the way we do.
Dates are normally written [Month] [Day] (i.e., Izcalli 3). Years vary wildly-- the most common system counts the years of the rule of the leader of the Empire. However, many other year counts are used-- religious calendars, the rule (or life) of a local lord, astrological sequences, or casual dating from some major event ("three years since the dam broke").
A year, regardless of what numbering system you use, is divided into eighteen months, each of which has 20 days. In order, they are:
18 months of 20 days each--
Izcalli
Atlcahualo
Tlacaxipehualiztli
Tozoztontli
Hueytozoztli
Toxcatl
Etzalcualiztli
Tecuilhuitontli
Hueytecuilhuitl
Tlaxochimaco
Xocotlhuetzi
Ochpaniztli
Teotleco
Hueypachtli
Quecholli
Panquetzaliztli
Atemoztli
Tititl
After Tititl 20, there are five more days, called the Nemontemi. It is important to note that a year has 360 days; the five days of Nemontemi are considered to lie outside the year.
System
For reasons of plot, any item-driven setting will not work well. We're currently running Risus (
http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm), which is free and borderline freeform.
We will play games over Skype on weeknights (hopefully once weekly, no one's objected so far); it gives us much more back-and-forth and improves the pacing. So far Friday is the most popular night, but list your top three picks for days and start times if you're interested-- this is all still somewhat nebulous.
Conceit
The main premise of this game is that each of your characters is told that the Apocalypse Is Nigh and you need to prevent it. You will have some instructions but not exhaustive ones. Every time you make the end of times inevitable, time will reset and you will try again. You do not need to be happy about it, but you will not stop reliving this timeline until you
do it.
This basically allows all of us to be a little reckless. If you run into something too strong for you, no sweat, you can try a different door next time. If I make a puzzle too complex and you all drown in sand, meh, you just respawn. It's the way a lot of people play RPGs, whether they admit it or not.
Contacts
So! If any or all of this appeals to you... If you want to try playing with a bunch of strangers... If you hope to immortalize yourself by getting added to the FAQ above... Drop me an rmail! We can talk about everything else there.
