Golden Age Draft: Evolution of a Vision

Since the Moon went out
dire wolves have been seen about the town.

Since the Moon went out
fiery pools are opening underground.

Since the Moon went out
the ocean lost its hold over the Deep.

Since the Moon went out
the Old Blood spell now fails to turn the feet.

Since the Moon went out
there's a God and a Hell that can't believe in themselves anymore.

Since the Moon went out
what had once seemed demons dream of all they once were before.

Since the Moon went out
the Lady of the Mountain has lost control of the Wild Hunt.

Since the Moon went out

pureblood Magdalenites can do almost anything they want.

Since the Moon went out
both the Djinn and the Fae have been poised to reconquer this world.

Since the Moon went out
the Lightbringer's banners are once again being unfurled.

Since the Moon went out
it seems fear itself
might just rip our small world apart,

for the Moon's gone out
and now none may doubt
what's been concealed inside each human heart.

-Simon Zealot

When I first started working on Golden Age a few years ago, I have to admit my ideas were a bit fanboyish and one-sided. The original concept for the game came out of my passions for mythology, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Islamic Spain (also called al-Andalus). I wanted to show a historical period in which the convivencia of Muslims, Christians and Jews created a society in which literature, art, and science flourished in a way rarely seen in European history (let alone the Middle Ages). Cordoba was the ornament of the world, featuring technologies and even tropical fruits that were unknown in the rest of Europe, and a cosmopolitan society unlike any the continent had seen since Rome. Al-Andalus was a veritable paradise of religious and cultural toleration, before such terms had even been invented. I was going to educate the world (or a few gamers at least) about interfaith dialogue and religious toleration, through the historical tale of the wonderful land in which rabbis and imams studied each other's scriptures, advancing kabbalah and Sufism rapidly in a comparatively short amount of time.

The truth, as is usually the case, turned out to be far more nuanced than the myth above. That interpretation is the one currently in vogue with most historians, but it also happens to be primarily the narrative of the minority Muslim and Jewish aristocrat and merchant classes. The Spanish Christian ("mozarab") majority's day-to-day life was far different. Much as I enjoy the poetic justice of Christian Europeans as conquered rather than conquerors, living in a society where Muslim and brown are privileged over Christian and white, the fact remains that colonialism is an ugly and destructive business, regardless of how supposedly enlightened the conquerors are. Thanks to my new coauthors, Simon Zealot and Sara Mastros, I've come to realize that this game does not have any one villain, least of all the forces of the Unformed, who are simply performing their function: un-creating things whenever they can. There is only a single villain if we define it nebulously as "the forces of patriarchy, colonization, and slavery". That definitely feels like a win for everyone.

Al-Andalus was a society constantly at war with both the Spanish expatriates to the north, and between various small kingdoms within its own borders. Certain non-Muslim groups - Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Sabians - were allowed to live in their own communities, under their own sets of laws, so long as they paid a steep tax (Arabic: jizya) and did not blaspheme against Allah. Maliki legal sources are clear on the dual purpose of the jizya: to humiliate the conquered people, reminding them of their place, and to provide a means by which the Muslim elite would not need to work (or work much) to earn money. In practice, Spanish Jews had higher social standing than their Catholic neighbors, because many helped the invaders in the hope of receiving better treatment under Muslim rule.

So if Spanish Muslim society divided its citizens into faith communities and determined their rights and privileges that way, we've already covered everybody, right? Well, no. Especially in rural areas, several types of paganism still existed, primarily involving deities from the Roman, Lusitanian, and Basque pantheons. Over time, some concealed their practices within a Catholic or Sabian exterior, while others simply went deeper into hiding. Regardless of its long-standing Iberian roots, paganism was a weed to be destroyed at any cost. Muslims, Jews, and Catholics could all agree on that, so being openly pagan in medieval Spain was a death sentence. Likewise with being openly LGBT, but that hang-up is exclusive to humans; the non-physical races have little interest in legislating each other's gender or sexuality. Women did have more rights and autonomy under the Spanish Caliphate than they had under the previous regime, though still less than in pre-Roman matriarchal societies (of which only the Circle of Gibraltar survives, below).

Now we come to the supernatural elements of the game. It was always my plan to have the metaphysics and gameplay reflect Golden Age's commitment to presenting cultures in an accurate and balanced way, with a special emphasis on the need for cooperation and dialogue with those who differ from oneself, in order to survive a harsh and unforgiving universe. As one example, I decided that the water elementals of both Spain and the Middle East had long ago been transformed into blood elementals because of near-constant warfare between tribes with close blood ties. The resulting blood elementals are considered both Elementals and Undead from a mechanical perspective; when brother kills brother, even the lakes and rivers eventually begin to weep that blood. A bit heavy handed, perhaps, but my heart was in the right place.

But I had some pretty big blind spots.

While the game is highly focused on magic, I had only thought of one magical school, the Solomonic College. Intended as the precursor of 11th- and 12-century Solomonic grimoires, this school caters mainly to male Jews and Muslims, and is also willing to admit Catholic men. While women are able to join, climbing the ranks would be difficult if not impossible for them. The College's magic, on a good day, is about striking bargains with djinn, angels, and demons... but Solomonic magicians are not above binding or outright enslaving an uncooperative spirit. So despite my lofty goals, the only magical school in this game was an agent of the patriarchal, monotheistic belief that God authorized the adherents of the Abrahamic faiths to be spiritual bullies in the tradition of King Solomon / Suleiman. Need some magic? No problem - just go to the Solomonics and buy yourself a ring or a lamp with a djinn imprisoned inside. Thanks to my coauthors, we now have the older and more egalitarian (as well as historical!) Sabian Academy, practicing a syncretic form of hermeticism, as well as the Circle of Gibraltar, heirs to ancient feminine mysteries of Moon and Earth that predate language itself. Everyone knows the best midwives come from Gibraltar, but only a few still remember how far their abilities extend beyond the anatomical and the herbal.

Another blind spot: I had originally conceived this game as a high fantasy RPG mixed with a historical RPG. But at the same time, I was trying to include as much real-world magical theory as possible, for the benefit of those who might like to learn some Western occultism while they play. With the help of my new coauthors, it quickly became clear that the game couldn't be fictionalized high fantasy if I wanted it to be based on sound occult principles. At best, I'd end up with a sloppy hodgepodge of made-up silliness and historical magical systems. So we have re-conceived the game as historical magical realism: the magic is as real-world correct, in terms of historical magical practices and beliefs, as we can make it. That isn't to say the core book is primarily a book of spell recipes, but you can generally expect that the procedures and components of the included spells will have sound correspondences, research, and occult theory behind them. We have removed anachronistic elements such as the Lurianic Tree of Life and the tarot, in favor of systems that were actually used at that time, such as the seven planetary intelligences and geomancy. Instead of eight or more arbitrary types of magic, we have reduced them to four essences that echo the four classical elements: Soul (Water), Energy (Fire), Substance (Earth), and Thought (Air).

For the sake of verisimilitude, we've also removed some types of humanoids (such as fish people) and replace them with species that could have reasonably have evolved from currently-known hominid species. Hence, we now have the Okeanids, with one tribe a bit like otters and others more like walruses, whales or dolphins. They evolved this way after being driven from the land by early homo sapiens:

The legends tell that, before even the Old People came to Europe, there were people in Iberia.  As the Old Ones moved in, they pushed the First People out of their caves, to the coast.  The Old Ones were smart; their tools were sharp and strong, and they had no need to wait for fire from the sky, they could make it on their own!  Soon, the Old Ones, with their big heads and sharp knives, pushed the First People to the brink of extinction.  And so the First People entreated with the Sea, who was their Mother, to show them a new way.  And she did.  The First People retreated first to the swamps and the islands, and then into the Sea itself.  The Mother who bore us took us back into her womb, and there we thrived.  The Great Teachers, Whale, and Orca, Dolphin and Porpoise, Walrus and Seal, and Little Otter taught us the ways of the Sea.  We made pact with them, eating their flesh and communing with their spirits.  The ice retreated, and most of the Great Ones with it.  Many of our people went with them.  Here on the coasts of Spain, only Little Otter, the Mother Ocean’s beloved son, remained with us.

As written now, events only diverge from real-world history circa 950 CE, sometime after the Fateful Eclipse. This brief solar eclipse was immediately followed by a lunar eclipse that lasted three full days and nights... and the moon wasn't just in shadow, it was completely gone, inexplicably, with no individual or group claiming responsibility. This, in turn, caused problems with the tides, people's moods and sanity, and the failure of an ancient spell called the Turning of the Feet, which hid the nonhuman species from the eyes of most humans. For three days, everyone could see these "monsters" everywhere, and there was widespread panic. When the moon reappeared, most people lost this ability and returned to their normal lives, but enough found themselves unable to explain it away that interest in the various magical schools skyrocketed as everyone tried to figure out who stole the moon, and why this replacement moon didn't feel or act quite right. Each of the major species has its own story of the creation of the world, each of which hints at a different likely culprit for what happened to the moon, and different tribes or religions within those species also have their own takes on what happened, how, and why.

The Solomonic College, far from being ancient and tied to Solomon himself as I originally thought, formed in response to this crisis because "obviously" the djinn or the demons must be to blame. The Sabians and Circle of Gibraltar had their own ideas, as did the various djinn and fae tribes, and this is how things have always been. So while some djinn may have converted to Islam, as the Qu'ran and various hadith specifically address them and set forth Allah's laws as it applies to the djinn, this is far from universal. Many djinn consider Islam to be a joint plot between the humans (Mohammed) and the angels (Gabriel) to relegate the djinn to permanent second-class status. Humans are given preferential treatment over djinn in the Qu'ran, and many would be resentful or suspicious of that. Likewise, the feud between the loyalist and rebel angels has more facets than one might expect... but I don't want to give away too much right now. Certain secrets should be for your GM only, but suffice it to say this game can be solely about angelic politics if that's how your group wants to play it. And not everyone currently in heaven is a loyalist.

I have to be honest and admit that many of these changes felt threatening for me at first. This was my game, my vision, and I didn't like the idea of anyone (even close friends) coming in and totally revamping it. But what Simon and Sara saw, on joining the project, were the ways in which my first draft was in conflict with my goals. In order for the game to feel organically progressive instead of clumsily didactic, the issues that result from colonization need to play out on every level, whether we're focusing on about Arabs and Spaniards; haves and have-nots; Muslims and Christians; colonizers and natives; Abrahamics and pagans; angels, djinn, and demons; humans, spirits, and Okeanids; or Solomonics and djinn (just as a few examples). We aim to present a 360-degree view of both al-Andalus and the supernatural realms such as heaven or Jinnistan. Whatever levels of reality your game inhabits, whether you're playing a rich human city official or a great warrior of one of the faerie courts, the effects of war and conquest will be all around you, for you to engage with or ignore as you choose. The social justice elements, much like the magical theory, are now woven into the fabric of every aspect of the game, so that you can learn about them as a natural consequence of gameplay rather than having them shoved in your face. I want to thank my collaborators, Sara Mastros and Simon Zealot, for making this not just a possibility but an ongoing reality.

Lies the Spider Told Me, Part 2: An Easter Egg for Golden Age RPG

The Spider Charmer

Ask the Charmer a question, get a grin and a wink.

If he offers advice, ignore it at your peril.

Always invite him to your parties.

And if he stops smiling, run.

-Solomonic proverb

            The Spider Charmer, as he’s usually known, may be the weirdest and least predictable ally of the Solomonic College. His visits have no discernible pattern – he might wander the college for weeks and then disappear for a few decades ... or come by again next month. New students usually don’t learn about him for a while, because the administration prefers not to discuss him unless or until he has already made an appearance. It’s not that he’s malicious or dangerous – quite the opposite, in fact. But the upper echelons of the College have long known that speaking about him tends to make him appear within the next few days… and even though he’s benevolent, he is still a wild card. He’s also a strange foreigner that talks to spiders. Who really needs that kind of distraction while trying to study or make potions?

            He usually appears a man with dark brown skin and eight thick dreadlocks, sometimes dressed in traditional Nubian garb, and other times in common Arabian-style desert travel robes. But on occasion he shows up as a person of a different ethnic group, sex, or even species, generally without any explanation other than “because it’s who I needed to be right now” (or better yet, “because it’s who you needed me to be right now”). Normal magical methods have thus far been unable to identify whether this is an illusion, shapeshifting, or a combination of both. He has demonstrated great knowledge of magic and metaphysics, but seems not to cast spells as such, relying on his innate abilities instead. According to a previous Magister of the College, he is unable to be harmed or restrained while traveling, unless he wishes it.

When pressed for a name, he tells the person to call him “Oba-itan”, but also freely admits that he sometimes lies. Masters of Name magic have long known that this is not his true name, but Destiny magic has been unable to reveal what it actually is. Whether he is a human, a spirit, or something else entirely is likewise unknown. When asked directly, his standard response (with a characteristic grin) is, “I’m a traveling storyteller; everyone knows that.” Some of the tales about him suggest he has the ability to cure madness or even physical disease, simply by telling the proper story in the proper way.

At times, he speaks casually of his travels (sometimes to lands no one else has visited or even heard of) or about events that happened decades or even centuries ago… yet his skin is smooth, his back unbent, and the corners of his mouth eternally upturned, even if only slightly. His tales have the captivating air of someone who has seen a great deal, but lack the cynicism and world-weariness many explorers develop after seeing too much war, starvation, slavery, and the like. In short, either the Charmer does not age, or his identity has been passed from father to son for a very, very long time.

He seldom offers advice, but when he has in the past, it has sometimes proven to be a hint about future events. One student recounts the story of spending several months in a cell because his facial features looked like those of a missing murder suspect. After a few weeks imprisoned for a crime he hadn’t committed, he recalled the time the Spider Charmer happened by to watch his project in one of the College laboratories. The Charmer’s eyes darted from vial of acid in the student’s hand to his face, and then he opined, “Looks aren’t everything, young one.”

Most of the time, though, the Charmer prefers to ask questions, observe, or tell jokes or anecdotes. Many of his tales are about this or that elaborate and dangerous prank he once played on someone who angered him or harmed one of his friends. But if anyone currently living has ever seen him upset, they aren’t talking. He enjoys the full hospitality of the College whenever he is in the area, but usually prefers to sleep under the stars or in a hammock hanging from two trees.

According to Ali al-Katib, current presiding Magister of the Solomonic College of Cordoba, the Charmer volunteered the following assessment of the Unformed situation soon after the disappearance of the moon: “This isn’t really how the story should go, but I’m going to enjoy watching how you all handle it.” Of King Solomon himself, he has been known to claim, "We met once in Ethiopia. I'm not usually a wine drinker, but the taste of his still sticks in my memory. Lovely wives, too. For a man so serious, he certainly knew how to have a good time." 

Golden Age Draft: The Tale of the Unformed

"The earth was Unformed and Void, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of the Elohim moved upon the face of the waters."

-Genesis 1:2

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
-John 1:1

"Do not the unbelievers see that the skies and the earth were one, and we ripped them apart?"
-Qu'ran 21:30

In the beginning, in the time before Time, there was the Void, teeming with primal Chaos. There was no Matter, nor Thought, nor even Idea. There was only the seething, bubbling potentialities of the Unformed.

Then came the Creator, the First Mind, filled with the first Thoughts. Its consciousness rippled through the whole of Unformed existence, and soon other Minds began to emerge within the Void. There was consensus that this was Good, but the newly-awakened Unformed were unsure how to proceed. Some of the Unformed joined the Creator to form a collective known as the Elohim. Most, however, preferred to remain Unformed in the Void.

The Elohim resolved to explore their creative powers. First They created Language, through which all their other creations would manifest. They Named each other, and with that Naming they received defined duties and spheres of influence. Many of these Names are forgotten today, but those of the twin brothers El and Allah have endured for millennia.

Once each of the Elohim had at least one name - El and Allah were alike in that they preferred to collect many - they resolved to bring forth first Time and then Matter. They created stars, planets, galaxies, and finally progressed to creating new Minds encased in Flesh. They were omnipotent, and so they could create matter and consciousness out of nothing.

Or so they thought.

It was around this time that the Unformed discovered their numbers were decreasing. Rapidly. While Names were a thing of the Elohim, voices that once resounded through the Void were now absent. None could locate them. And so it was that a brave few Unformed volunteered to travel to the one place they had not yet looked: the physical realms the Elohim had created. These explorers of the Unformed would one day be known as the first Fae.

What these first Fae found in those realms both terrified and infuriated them. They could plainly see that within each and every sentient being existing outside the Void sat an imprisoned Mind that had once been Unformed. Some of these were content with their lives, but those who wished to be free could not escape. Even if their physical body were to be killed, they were bound into the cycle of death and rebirth now. They might be absorbed into the soil and come back as part of a tree or a fish or even a hillside, but never would they be able to return to the Void. These Minds screamed out for Justice, wishing to flee these static Forms imposed upon them against their will. The Fae had ears to hear.

Even as relatively malleable as the Fae were, compared to their Form-locked siblings, not all possessed the strength necessary to make it back to the Void. Those who remained on earth tried to gain admittance to Heaven and Hell, in the hopes of speaking with the Elohim, or even their representatives or adversaries. They failed. Pounding upon the mighty gates, it was as if the inhabitants of these realms could not even see them. The Fae returned to earth, awaiting a message from the Void that would not come in their now-finite lifetime.

Those who managed to escape Reality did so with news of the Elohim's atrocity, along with detailed intelligence about weak points in both Space and Time. The weakest point in time was many centuries later, in the time the humans would one day call the Middle Ages. The weak point in space was on earth, in that land known variously as Spain, Iberia, or al-Andalus.

And so it was that the Unformed fired their first warning shot on Reality, near earth, in the time between times. One fateful night, as the creatures of earth, Heaven, and Hell watched the sky, the full moon was engulfed in shadow and vanished. Astronomers and astrologers alike were puzzled and frightened by the occurrence.

Angels traveled to where the moon had once been, only to discover no trace of it. The Legions of Hell were abuzz with questions about which demon had been crafty enough to steal the moon... but no one claimed responsibility. Seers and magicians and sorcerers and prophets and witches all used their considerable talents to locate the missing Sphere, but to no avail. This simply could not be. The Solomonic College presided over an unprecedented meeting between the Archangels and the Princes of Hell, in which Heaven and Hell came to an agreement.

The gates of both Heaven and Hell would be sealed. No one, not angel, not demon, not even spirits of the dead, would be permitted to enter or leave either realm. Those inside Heaven and Hell would fortify and defend their homes. Those on earth would be charged with jointly investigating this attack on Creation.

As for the Elohim, they were strangely silent on the matter. Word from Heaven was that they could not be found...

About Golden Age (My RPG in Progress)

This post is eventually going to be the "About This Book" page for the RPG I'm currently working on with Michael Strauss. Both of us have some prior freelance game-writing experience with White Wolf, but this is our first time designing a whole game on our own. He's handling the most of the rules and systems, and I'm taking care of the setting and flavor. Even though I should be packing for Pennsic right now, I got very inspired tonight and thought I should indulge that while it lasts. I also think I'm going to have an easier time writing the book once I've laid out exactly what my goals are. I really like the new open development model that White Wolf and Onyx Path have been using, so in the spirit of that, I'm sharing this with the world at large. I hope you enjoy.

Golden Age is a role-playing game about angels, demons, magic, myth, politics, and peace in the Middle East. Please be aware that this is a game for mature, responsible people. While we make every effort to be tasteful, this book does not pull punches when dealing with sensitive issues such as slavery, cannibalism, prostitution, ritual sacrifice, or religious zealotry. This is because the real, historical Middle Ages contained plenty of each, and because this game is designed to work well as a horror game if you so choose. If reading this book makes you want to do anything violent or dangerous, put it down and seek psychiatric help immediately.

Golden Age is also a role-playing game with an important message. We have chosen the Golden Age of Spain as our historical setting because scarcely anyone alive today can remember a time when Jews, Christians and Muslims could peacefully coexist in the Middle East. Few seem to be aware that southern Spain in the Middle Ages was host to kingdoms in which rabbis and imams studied each other's scriptures while philosophy, science, and the arts flourished. It would be a gross oversimplification to say it was an entirely peaceful time, and the idea of religious tolerance was foreign to the medieval mind . . . but for the most part, the people of that time and place still seem to have done a better job of tolerance than we often do today.

Golden Age is an alchemical game. Alchemy in the Middle Ages concerned itself not with literally turning lead into gold, but rather used that idea as a metaphor for the Great Work of perfecting the self. An alchemical game is a game designed to make the player a better person, not by some arbitrary external standard, but in whatever way or ways that player finds most compelling. Most often, this involves learning something new, changing your own outlook or personality, or using the game as a way to let go of something that's been bothering you. Experienced gamers will already know what we mean here, because they've likely had alchemical experiences in games before.

Golden Age is a game about the occult. In his groundbreaking study of role-playing games Shared Fantasy, Gary Alan Fine found that up to thirty percent of gamers have an interest in the occult. That's a cause of RPGs including so much magic and mythology, not an effect of it, so we make no apology for being interested real-world magical practices ourselves. Part of the alchemical intent of the game is to allow players to learn occult basics such as tarot, the Tree of Life, the four elements, and the signs of the zodiac simply by playing the game over time. If that doesn't interest you, don't worry, because you'll forget the parts that bore you anyway. Just in case it needs to be said, this book will not enable you to accomplish cartoony feats like floating in the air or throwing fireballs, so if that's what you're after, please do us all a favor and go talk to a shrink instead.

Ultimately, this game is whatever you make it. It can easily work as a geopolitical game, a mystery / horror game, or a high fantasy game, and probably also in other styles we haven't thought of. It also can work just as easily as a tabletop or a live-action (LARP) game, though for live-action we obviously recommend using the tarot system rather than dice. Part of our motivation in designing it was to steep it in a mythology that gets very little screen time in fantasy gaming or literature. To our knowledge, no pen-and-paper RPG based on Middle Eastern mythology has ever been widely published until now. There have been several games about angels or demons, but none of them have included playable races like djinn, ifrit, ghuls, golems, dybbuks, Apkallu (fish-people), or Bouda (were-hyenas). Most of the fantasy out there has traditionally stayed reasonably close to Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons, with elves, dwarves, halflings and the like. Quite a lot of it is excellent, but we wanted to break new ground. We've always found the mythology and magical lore of the Middle East to be fascinating. It's certainly every bit as rich as the myths underlying more standard fantasy settings, as you will see below.

I See What You Did There... (Or: Why Dystopia Rising Rules)

Dystopia Rising, where have you been all my life?

I've been LARPing (live-action role-playing) since I was 17 years old. Most of that's been in LARPs based on the Storyteller System games by White Wolf - Vampire and a little Changeling, usually with the Camarilla (now known as the Mind's Eye Society). Along the way I've been to regional and national events, met some fine actors without a single second of formal training, and come to think of LARP as an immensely powerful tool for personal transformation. I've been picking away for the last few years at a book on what my friends and I like to call "alchemical gaming" - the practice of creating a character around issues you'd like to work on and/or things you'd like to learn more about.

Many gamers do this already, whether on purpose or by accident, but I think better results would be possible with a formalized system. I've personally spoken to a lot of gamers who've told me that working on their social anxiety is much easier when they're in character, since playing someone else makes it feel safer if you (metaphorically) fall on your face. If you intrude on a conversation or say something inappropriate, there's far less at stake if others badly of your character than if they think badly of you. If you're trying to learn to be more confident or outgoing, it's easier to "fake it till you make it" as someone else than as yourself. In psychology, this is known as successive approximation.

I'd only just completed a very rough draft of the alchemical gaming book when I made it to a Dystopia Rising game for the first time. What I discovered is a game that left me feeling more fulfilled than any LARP I'd preveiously been to, largely because it's build from the ground up for alchemical gaming. I have to admit, coming from the nonprofit LARP background I did, the idea of a for-profit LARP company gave me pause at first. But from what I understand, Dystopia Rising was in many ways built to address some of the longtime shortcomings of the Camarilla. And they deliver a truly kickass product. I've personally never seen so much attention to detail regarding props, costuming, and makeup, not even at most regional and national events I'd attended in the past. (The Grand Masquerade being the notable exception, but that was heavily subsidized since it was a promotion for the World of Darkness MMO.) And staying in character for a whole weekend straight allows for an unprecedented level of immersion.

What amazed me most was how many talented people I've run across at DR. At first I thought it might be a coincidence that every other person I meet seems to be a game designer or a singer or a poet, but as I said above, the game system is built to encourage creativity (and to appeal to those who already like to create). If you play an Entertainer and perform in-character, you can get the mechanical benefit of restoring someone else's Mind points even if your performance wasn't that great. And in order to teach someone a skill, you have to be able to talk somewhat authoritatively about how that skill works for 15 to 30 minutes. That usually requires real-world research into whatever your character is supposed to be good at, which is information you're probably going to remember later.

Before I had been to a boffer LARP, I had concerns about being forced to play a character that's physically similar to myself. After all, when you simulate combat with rock-paper-scissors instead of foam weapons, you can play a character who's strong and fast even if you're a scrawny weakling. But if you want to be strong and fast at a boffer LARP, you need to get that way for real. And that's not a bug, it's a feature... just like how if you want to have some awesome item, you have to actually take the time to make it yourself (or get someone to make it for you). I can't begin to tell you how sick I was of seeing item cards pinned to someone's lapel saying "I look this way" or "I'm carrying this item", in lieu of actually having the right costume, prop, or makeup to make the card unnecessary.

In her book Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change The World, which has rapidly become my bible for revising the alchemical gaming book, Jane McGonigal explains that most people are far more inclined to improve themselves for the sake of being better at a game than just because it's a good idea. And it's true - when I think about exercise, the idea of being able to be better at running away from zombies excites me  a whole lot more than "being in shape" or even "having an easier time getting a date". This is because, as McGonigal says, games are defined by being something we choose to do, unlike the everyday realities of life that we didn't choose. And this is why I have to applaud the folks at Eschaton Media for creating a game system that naturally tends to herd its players toward testing their limits and learning new things, without it really even being that noticeable unless it's already what you're looking for.

I'm currently working on my own game system built around teaching people about peace in the Middle East and also some basics of occultism such as the four elements and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, set in medieval Spain and featuring angels, demons, flesh-eating ghuls, djinn, werehyenas and other Middle Eastern mythological creatures as playable races. I can only hope the educational parts come out as subtle and effective as the ones in DR. It's also my hope that I might find some Dystopia Rising players who are interested in testing Alchemical Gaming once I have the system complete enough for playtesting. I could also really use anecdotes about how a character has helped you to become a better person or to work on a long-standing issue, and maybe a collaborator for the book who has background in both LARP and either counseling or psychology. If you're interested in helping, please contact me either here or privately.