In Lemuria

9 of Wands

The section on Atlantis is now 100% written. Lemuria, though, is dreamlike, and its inhabitants think in songs and verse and dance. I decided to do something different with Lemuria. Lemuria's section is written as a poem. Here's some of it.

So I made a game

So I made a game where the point is altruism. Seriously, your character is a demigod, doomed, yes, but unable to be beaten. There's no point in self-actualisation; your character is already about as far as you can go on that road. No, the struggle, and the point, is in making a difference in a larger sense. It lies in freeing the slaves, standing as an accusation against the horrendous human sin we call “empire” and getting people off the land when it sinks, when the bombs fall and the meteorites hit and the land breaks in two. You fight a harder battle. Heroism is in who you save, because the lot of your hero is, as is the way of heroes, to conquer the armies of the world and to die in the end of the age.

And I made a game where there are no monsters. There are only fallible people and animals following their nature. Sure, some of the greater villains might even call themselves monsters, but one thing I've learned is that when you call yourself a monster, you only use it as a perverse badge of pride, as a way to hide from the true banality of your failings. Because the greatest crimes – empires, institutionalised slavery, genocides – they're a function of smallness. They're failures of imagination, failures to be better. You can be better. Here: you know what's going to happen, you know when you're going to die; what will you do with this?

VII.CHA.BE.CHA 

Chalidocean, City of the Golden Gates, Dream of Empire

XVI. The Tower

Important piece of lore today. Today's post isn't in the current draft but will be in the new version I'm uploading Friday, which you can get hold of early if you support Chariot at http://igg.me/at/ChariotRoleplay.VII.CHA.BE.CHA

Why the Black Sun is Winning

XVII. The Star.

The Chariot Crowdfunder continues apace and would love you to support it.

In the meantime, here is an assessment of where Atlantis is going at its end.

Cercenes, City of the Vine

Five of Cups, Five of Wounds: A Cercenian citizen.

We still have over seven weeks left in the Chariot funding campaign and we're still reaching, straining towards our stretch goals, the first of which is a suite of supporting cast as written by the inestimable Malcolm Sheppard.

Tomorrow, I'm going to talk about why the Black Sun is winning, but for now, here is another of the stranger creations of my private Atlantis, the city of Cercenes.

In the last days...

Just to say that I've got a piece up today on RPG news site Flames Rising about Chariot and its origins.

Numea by the Inland Sea

A story: so my son Dave, ten years old, is talented as hell and politically engaged, and he draws maps. He's really good at it. I asked him to draw me a map. I said, two continents joined by a land bridge, five big islands. The rest, all yours.

So he drew me a beautiful map. He's the reason Mentis is an island rather than, as I originally imagined, coastal. And he drew me an inland sea. And it's thanks to him that I put this story to one of the Atlantea cities I had names for. This one I wrote for Dave, passionate for Wales and its hopes for independence, for the Welsh language, and for justice. I'm proud of that kid.