AI & RPGs

So...

 Is it just me, or does it seem that AI is attempting to find its way into the world of RPGs? The past few years have seen numerous AI controversies, the latest shitstorm being an article by 4 Pillar Games (who?)  about the late great Greg Stafford. Chaosium issued a rebuke, citing the lack of 'human care and creativity' in the piece, while acknowledging the growing use of AI tools in content creation.

And Chaosium is totally right to point this out, and have put their money where their mouth is by issuing a strict no AI policy for RPG art and content.

But the tide of AI slop will keep trying to seep into the once welcoming alehouse of roleplaying games. How can we fight this trend?

We have to know what to look out for.

Danger #1 The Corporate Boardroom

Of course, the ones pushing AI are corporations and the billionaires behind them. The CEO of D&D took flak in 2022 for complaining that the game was 'undermonetized'. Since then, D&D editions have split into more costly books, with proposed subscription plans designed to make players into the golden goose. But 'monetization' in the age of AI means getting machines to do for free what humans do for pay, and AI is being positioned to replace the unpaid labour of the DM. Just look at the proliferation of AI SaaS to run a game for you, which is still in the slop stage, but getting better by learning from those brave enough to try it.

We've seen this pattern before with tech, of people wielding the tools that are later used to destroy their livelihood. I myself paid off my MA student loans translating communications for Japanese car makers, but the Trados database I was forced to compile was later sold to corporations to train LLMs. When the 'translate' button appeared on my workplace email in Japan in 2020, I was happy to save hours reading Japanese and letting AI do all the work for me, but knew I could never make a dime translating as I once did.

These corporate types don't realize that one of the joys of D&D or any roleplaying game is making your own content and not being limited to game company products. I would say that the often mentioned shortage of DMs is due to the thankless work of mastering the games rules and a scenario of varying quality, while also paying for costly books. With AI, instead of a group sitting around a table, they offer to cut you off and let you play anywhere, anytime, which like many AI developments, seems to both shoot itself in the foot by eliminating paying customers, while totally misunderstanding the human or social aspect of what they are replacing.

Speaking of tools...

Danger #2 Technical Tools

Besides the corporate pressure to use AI to play games, AI in tools used for art and composition are almost impossible to avoid these days. Readers may recall that I had an AI scare where a designer's Photoshop that incorporated AI tools had added an extra finger to a character in a cover. The designer apologized, refunded payment, and explained that with image manipulation, AI is impossible to avoid unless you turn off lots of functions, which defeats the purpose of the software.

Note that the designer was a friend who I knew for decades and trust implicitly. He is also a graphic designer who has worked in magazines that are in a downward spiral of cutting costs and personnel, and my friend has stayed employed by staying atop of his design craft and tools.

Which leads us to my next point...

Danger # 3 The Pressure To Be Professional

Looking at RPGs on Kickstarter or from game studios, I can say that RPG art has never been more polished. I myself have felt the pressure and doubted that my self-taught illustration skills, coming from a family of professional self-taught indigenous artists, would complement my game.

Now, I am staunchly confident in my 'outsider art' as perfect for NUNA. I am a fan of UK game designer Tanya Floaker, whose great indie zine style games are a treat to read, and something I hope to get to a gaming table soonish. The OSR has already proven that individual creators can make a go of it with compelling works, and Old School Essentials seems to have found its niche doing so. And since I've turned into a game designer, I have met so many indie designers working on their own game and pushing the envelope in ways that an AI never could.

Onward!

Danger # 4 Slop RPGS

At some point, an AI generated RPG will hit the market. If it hasn't happened already and gone unnoticed, I am sure it will happen soon, whether its producer (I won't call them creator) announces the fact or not.

I get a lot of RPG ads, and I have to say, lots of them LOOK like they are made or influenced by AI. There are generic fantasy RPGs that sound like every other fantasy heartbreaker out there, without any of the verve or passion of the OSR when it first started spitting out retroclones over a decade ago. Then there is the art, largely figures or portraits of faces without much expression, and devoid of the kinetic or frenzied action of early RPG amateur art.

Just as AI children's books have appeared and distributed soulless, derivative works into the hands (and minds) of babes, the danger of AI is not only profiting off gamers, but also poisoning the well of imagination and community by switching over from human creations & social games to pale AI imitations that isolate gamers even more.

Danger # 5 Commoditizing A Social Space

Between the corporate pressure to use AI to play games, its invisible seep into tools, the pressure to use AI to look professional while keeping costs low, and the inevitable appearance of Slop the RPG, all this leads to the danger of losing roleplaying as a valuable social space. I have so many conversations with fellow Stormbringer enthusiasts about how online gaming is a pale substitute for sitting around a table, weaving tales and rolling dice together. What will be even worse is if people are playing RPGs run by AI whose only programming is to flatter the ego and pastiche all that has come before, and that was scraped from human works without permission or payment. I am happy that Free League AND Goodman Games will be making their own Stormbringer games, as both companies excel in getting people back to the gaming tables with their high quality, human-designed products that epitomize love for the game and gamers.

Conclusion - Folk Resistance

When I started this blog back 13 years ago as the first wave of the OSR abated, I was doing it mostly out of nostalgia and an unfulfilled creative urge. Now, I see it as both a creative outlet for me, as well as a source of deeply sociological games that represent people who have been portrayed stereotypically in media, such as indigenous people and the Japanese.

Now I am happy to consider my efforts in making a game as an additional part of the folk resistance against an unnecessary and exploitative technology that is being rammed down our throats in ways that destroy both our social bonds, natural environment, and economic viability.

Viva la resistance!

Sources

"Statement from Suzanne Stafford and Chaosium regarding a recent AI-generated article about Chaosium founder Greg Stafford." chaosium.com

https://www.chaosium.com/blogstatement-from-suzanne-stafford-and-chaosium-regarding-a-recent-aigenerated-article-about-chaosium-founder-greg-stafford/?srsltid=AfmBOoqJjAlPemRnG4GhbaPND0mk6nlFs2nS9BOC9H48F9GG1luDoxku

Wizards of the Coast Believes D&D Is "Under-Monetized" 80lv.

https://80.lv/articles/wizards-of-the-coast-believes-d-d-is-under-monetized

"I Tried AI D&D So You Don't Have To."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhGn0SagCkQ

Chaosium no AI policyhttps://www.chaosium.com/blogfrom-the-qa-our-creator-contracts-require-work-submitted-to-be-creators-original-work-and-not-contain-any-ai-generated-art-or-text/?srsltid=AfmBOorjFhgE1Kn72HyfXV1CHMwCWPBdaBPip7mY3091PZwKMJEVWVxo

Mapmaking for NUNA

 I put this off for a long time, worried I couldn't do it justice.

No more excuses - the NUNA map is taking shape.

Take a peek!

NUNA External Playtest Report

The intrepid band of playtesters in the UK have had their way with NUNA.

This is the initial response.

THE GOOD

"We had a lot of fun!

The feedback on the scenario was super positive, the overall setting too.

I'll have a more detailed report for you in the next couple of days, but rest assured, they really loved the setting and scenario."

The Chaosium contest confirmed that the setting had legs, and my last playtest at Rain City showed me the type of play or scenario was also appealing. I had one player gasp in disgust at one of the adversaries, so glad that some of this made it through even with a different GM.

THE BAD

"It was a bit 'choppy' but we're through it.

The choppy part was more around some of the rules, missing damages, and finding the right elements in the quick start book when needed."

Again, no surprise. If I waited till it was perfect it would never get done. So glad to have some feedback that will help me get it ready for the world. When I ran the game, I could rely on my memory and improv ability to fill any holes and keep the game going. Now I have to provide an airtight garage of tools and vehicles to get players and GMs through the game without confusion.

My work is cut out for me. And this is only the Quickstart!

THE UGLY

Now I have to finish the darned thing. But right now I am making more art and taking a little break from writing. And prepping for my Coyote and Crow session!

Coyote & Crow Review #3.8 CAHOKIAN LIFE & COME PLAY WITH ME!!

If I were younger, I feel I would blast through this Setting chapter, as it is an exciting read. Being a working single dad, it takes me time to get through it. Still, it is a great comprehensive guide to the world of Makasing, and a great inspiration for making the gameworld of Coyote & Crow come alive on the table.

I told a student about Coyote & Crow and especially the purple tint of the Adehnahdi powers and she said "It sounds like Jo Jo" and now I can't unsee it...

POPULATION & LONGEVITY

Maximum lifespan in Makasing is over 100, with 140 as the oldest. This beats our world, and is a subtle validation of indigenous modes of life over our factory farms and processed food. The growing conundrum of what to do with the increase in older members of the population again echoes Japan and its aging society. A hats off to writers for the comment that the youth are afraid of their elders gaining power over them, which is a dark mirroring of our world, where the young are disenfranchised from home ownership and are sent off to wars to protect the investments of older generations.

The fact that the world of Makasing has just come back from the brink of extinction of Awis (the mystical meteor strike that tipped off an ice age), which erased 50% of the population, means that the approach to death is very different from our world.

Adventure Seed #1 - “The Family.”
During the ice age, many peoples were scattered and lost. One was a lost group of families who have become a hidden cabal of inbred, mutated cannibals. Think the Donner Party and the X-Files episode Home. Only for grimdark campaigns, though.

In many places in Makasing, euthanasia is an accepted means of taking one’s burden off the tribe, which reflects traditional Inuit stories of senicide during tough times, and the similar event in the Japanese film Ballad of Naruyama. There are also tinges of indigenous-futurism with planned death and Soylent Green send offs. Additionally, people can travel freely to other city states to get medical treatment that more suits their needs and moral outlook.

I dig it.

Adventure Seed #2 - “A Good Death.” PCs are charged to help gather a dozen things or find people for a good death ceremony for their mentor. They may have to get a feather from a giant Adahnehdi powered eagle, track down an estranged cousin, recover an artifact from a flooded village, or a half dozen other wistful things.

WOMEN & CHILDREN

The writers neatly evade any questions of conception in Makasing by leaving things in women’s hands. On one hand, it echoes pre-colonialism matriarchal society, on the other it is a What if? projection of a society that values a woman’s body autonomy more than our world does.

The text also stresses the unimportance of biological parents, and greater respect for upbringers regardless of blood relations. It reminds me of a Canadian friend who lived up North here and brought up the children of the two indigenous women he loved as if they were his own.

I also dig the following comment on divorce.

While divorce is a thing, there are not really parallel concepts of stepparents. Nor do children 'lose' parents to divorce. They simply have more than one and all parents involved interact with their children as fits that specific relationship. Children with split parents often live freely between two or more homes. Still, divorce is uncommon due to the less restrictive nature of marriage. Additionally, a maternal uncle is often as strong a parental figure. (72)

This means most people will have huge extended families, which could be a great network of information and aid for PCs trying to solve a mystery. I also like the tough moral choices around the Adahnehdi technology that the authors present, an element of high technology that is glossed over in most other superpower media.

For example, if an infant is likely to die shortly after birth, is it acceptable to experimentally give them the Adanadi-based drugs to attempt to keep them alive or cure them? If an infant is born deaf, is it moral to give them cybernetic implants at birth? None of these kinds of questions have clear answers yet. (72-73)

The tension between Adanadi technology and traditional values seems a central theme of the gameworld, and it is all the more compelling for it.

Adventure Seed #3 - “The Lost Children.”
In our world, there is an African proverb that states, “A child not embraced by his village will burn it down to feel warmth.” A ragtag group of Makasing exiles are just such ‘lost children’, and have started working on forbidden technology, specifically cyberpunk style mechanical enhancements. They may kidnap an Inventor for help, and could create some great setpiece combat between the PCs and cybernetically enhanced bad guys who just need to be welcomed back into society. 

NO TRIBES BUT REAL ONES

The writer’s reticence to write about specific tribes and advice to allow members of those tribes to write about themselves is refreshing. This is the opposite of RPGs about farway places, such as Japan, which  are often written with an Orientalist lens that exoticizes them without touching on their complex reality. This is why I am writing my Giri-Ninjo RPG, as an antidote to the plethora of ‘D&D in funny hats’ Japan rpgs, and I am glad to see the Coyote & Crow team be so considerate of realworld indigenous identity. The focus on nations instead of tribes is a welcome patch for this issue. Identity is thus based on a combination of allegiance to Nation, Makasing Citizenship, Path or Family. This more complex formation than tribe is in accordance with Rogers Brubaker’s sociological work on identity.

Tribes certainly still dominate certain geographic regions, and often claim control or authority over that area. But in places like Cahokia, it's understood that to partake as a citizen, citizens have to partition their tribal identity and accept that they have more than a single label. For many, this is easy to do. But some tribes have long histories of confrontation and struggles and those aren't as easily overcome. (74)

I also dig the caveat for non-indigenous to avoid tribal identity, but rather focus on this triad of citizenship, family, and path. Paths are an allegiance to one of 15 animals reflecting their Adehnahdi powers, and I agree this is much more useful than focusing on tribal allegiance.

LIFESTYLES OF THE CAHOKIAN FAMOUS

This is a meaty section, which begins with the similarities of life with our world - work, taxes, love, politics. But the differences carry delicious implications. There is no standard 40 hour workweek, with no stigmata for those working less. People are involved and knowledgeable about politics, something our world could use more of. No culture wars on gender rage, there is universal healthcare for all, and companies that exist but do not dominate life. The authors ground this reality by reminding us that this has all come at a price.

All of this might sound pretty easy and straightforward, but it was a long road to get here for the citizens of Cahokia, and doesn't mean they live perfect lives in a utopia. (75)

More than anything this is what I dig about Makasing. It is not a utopian fantasy or world of indigenous Mary Sues with kewl powers. It is a society that does right some of things we don’t, such as universal housing and healthcare, but has its own problems of balancing mystic powers and steampunk technology with traditional morals and values.

COME PLAY WITH ME!

I’m in talks with Rain City in downtown Vancouver to run a game of Coyote & Crow next month! Check their website for details, and come down for Initiation Day, my homebrew adventure where you start as young heroes on their first day on the job where things go terribly wrong. Can you turn your Initiation Day around?

Go get The Prince of Masks RPG!

BIG NEWS! Steve Devaney, who also was a winner in the Chaosium design contest, just put his game Prince of Masks out on RPG.Now. If vampiric fey overlords and adult only content is your bag, please consider purchasing and supporting an indie creator. Like me Steve is a single dad working and gaming on the side, so let's show him some love!

Game is available HERE.

The Prisoner RPG?

PRISONER OF THE PRISONER

Among other things, I am a fan of old The Prisoner show.

Why?

During my youth in Canada, American TV was still a rare thing except for blockbuster shows like The Six Million Dollar Man or Buck Rogers. Mostly, my earliest memories were of watching UK shows like Space: 1999, The Tomorrow People, or Blake's Seven, or the few Japanese anime that were trickling in.

Then The Prisoner came to our TV. My first memory was of the episode where Number 6 goes to a bar and orders a drink. He takes a sip and sees a word at the bottom of his glass.

YOU

Another sip, another word.

HAVE

Yet another.

BEEN

A last gulp.

POISONED

Cooly, he orders a half dozen whiskies, downs them one after the other, then goes to the bathroom to throw his guts up.

Brilliant!

Unfortunately, the program was shown out of order, so after that was a jumble of disjointed episodes. But the images - The Village, Rover, ball chairs, the theme song - all stuck with me. Later, I read the comic series, and it was fairly meh, more IP nostalgia tourism than a new work in the same universe. I have discovered there are novels, but honestly I am afraid to read derivative works and ruin my interest.

When I moved to Japan, I had a vivid flashback to The Prisoner at Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki. HTB is a HUGE Dutch-themed park, with Dutch people in traditional dress, millions of tulip bulbs, and delivery trucks with FISH or BREAD written on them. There are no store or brand names. No one speaks English.

It is the Village made flesh in Asia.

GURPS GOOD, BAD, & UGLY

So far as I know, the only RPG adaptation was the 1990 GURPS The Prisoner sourcebook. Like most GURPS books, it is an excellent read and IP sourcebook. Yet as a game, re-creating McGoohan's trippy psychedelic re-examination of spies after his successful Danger Man series in an old school simulationist ruleset like GURPs means lots of heavy lifting from the GM.

Couldn't we do better?

GAME vs FICTION

To make a fun and faithful adaptation of The Prisoner, you first have to reflect on the difference in genres, and how a TV show and RPG Game are good at different things.

The TV program showcased the individual fighting a faceless organization, while a traditional RPG has to incorporate the group and its dynamics united against a palpable threat. Last, the TV Show had a serious, menacing tone that was deliberately punctured by absurdist actions. Sitting around a table for hours with friends (and presumably some drinks and snacks in hand) playing a game, the tone cannot stay serious all the time, but peaks and dives in reflection of the high and lows of the story being told, as well as the freshness of players & the GM.

Note that I am sure there is a solo play or journalling game out that there could do a passable or even fun version of The Prisoner, but that is outside my wheelhouse. Please leave a comment if you know of a good candidate. The I'm Begging You To Play Another RPG Facebook page people suggest FATE, Fudge, Dread, and Wilderness of Mirrors as candidates.

What system would then work to recreate The Prisoner as a trad RPG?

THE PRISONER = PARANOIA

Since one of the themes of The Prisoner is paranoia and mistrust, how about we use the game Paranoia? Some of you might say that a game about super-powered clones trapped in an underground dystopia by a mad computer and killing one another over spurious secret society connections and accusations of 'Traitor!' wouldn't represent the source material well.

AND

YOU'D

BE

WRONG

Both the Village and the Alpha Complex are isolated dystopias, so settings are similar in feel.

The Computer and Number 1 are both near mythic overseers, close enough.

All clones have psychic powers, and in The Prisoner we see Number 12 (Alison) use hers at the end of The Schizoid Man. This implies that subtle and rare uses of psychic could work very well in the game. It also implies that player characters could all be double agents jostling to move up the hierarchy and become the new Number 1 by judicious use of their powers. The danger would be in having their powers nullified if discovered.

Delicious!

As for the secret societies, one staple of The Prisoner is the jostling and scheming background characters. In an RPG, the player characters are thus part of this system, and so connecting to like-minded NPCs would seem a natural part of the game.

Here would be a good small starter list:

1 Anti-Psychic League - Will try to unmask and nullify all psyhic powers while shamefully hiding their own.

2 Village Historical Society - Must find out how the Village came to be. Always trying to get at records or stories from older residents.

3 Houdinis - Will try to escape at all costs. Under constant surveillance, but somehow always manages to have a plan in the works.

4 Assassins - Dedicated to destroying Number 1. Keep this undercover and are always looking for an opening.

5 The Faithful - Devoted to Number 1 and protecting the Village. They make good traitors who sell out or sabotage other PCs.

6 Hedonists - Spend their time indulging in vices in pastimes, from playing chess to mind-altering substances.

7 Superiors - Pro-psychic group who see themselves as advanced beings. Can improve their abilities but normally keep them hidden.

8 Outsiders - Spies from the outside trying to smuggle tech and secrets from the Village back to their homeland.

Of course, all these societies could provide help and story hooks to characters, as well as the danger of being caught.

"How about security clearances?" you might say. I don't think Paranoia's system is portable as is, or particularly apt. Instead, we can use the system of numbers that already exists in the Village. Taking a quick glance at the Prisoner wiki, a rough outline would be as follows:

Number 1 - All access, never seen. Leader of the Village.

Numbers 2 Highest access, work directly under Number 1, mission is to break Numbers 6-11.

Numbers 3-5 High access, work under Number 2 to as technical, administrative, and consulting support.

Numbers 6-11 No access, high value targets kept under close surveillance.

Number 12-49 Partial access. Work in 'speaking parts' in the Village and cleared to interact with Numbers 6-11.

Numbers 50-100 Limited access. Work in non-speaking, menial parts in the Village.

Numbers 50-199 Low access. Village residents

Numbers 200+ Special access. Specially talented, unique individuals called in by the top 5 to assist in breaking 6-11 or other crises.

"What of clones then?"

In episode one "Arrival," Number 6's old associate Cobb supposedly dies, but comes back at the end of the episode. If we add medical revivals that scramble a character's psychic abilities and secret society alignment (or keep it the same if you wish), then we are good to go.

"How about the rules?" you might add.

Listen...

I played and ran in tons of Paranoia games back in the day.
I don't remember a thing about the rules.

They were innocuous and blended into the gameplay. We had a blast with the scenarios, and the rules backed that up.

Just what The Prisoner needs.

"Well, how about the Lore?"

See below.

BONUS! RANDOM TABLE

There are many fan theories as to the true nature of The Village. I would recommend the GM rolling a different one each episode and keeping that in mind as the canon du jour. This means that you will conserve the delicious ambiguity and contradictions of the series in your games.

1 Computer Simulation - On the surface, this seems like a boring, no-brainer. However, if we take the trope of assigning numbers instead of names, we can transform it into AI trying to convince humans to join them and subsume their personality.

2 Alien Simulacra - This is the Ray Bradbury option, turning the setting into a mirage put up by aliens. This explains all the weirdness - the aliens are trying to communicate but cannot understand, only imitate humans.

3 Drug Induced Fantasy - This is a tad dark, but fitting for one off games of trippy weirdness. The drugs could be used to try and get secrets out of PCs, or else just a one off strange trip.

4 Alternate Dimension - Could be a reality warping machine or just a parallel dimension, feel free to have something slightly off and the events here happening in a pocket universe. Canon and consistency are suspended for a session.

5 Foreign Spybreaker - The whole Village is a facade created by a foreign nation to get the info from the player characters. There might be subtle hints in the higher numbers.

6 Robot World - Villagers are 'sleeper' agents, totally normally until a threat, then turn into powerful automatons. Means there is probably a whole support system somewhere...

7 Mental Hospital - Another seemingly depressing option. However, if we turn it into a Shutter Island style narrative, where the protagonists each have to confront their own trauma or insanity, then it gets interesting.

8 Characters in a Story - The PCs are just characters in a spy novel, and may overhear the Narrator. They could try to break the fourth wall and contact their creator, or else Rick & Morty up the mate game.

And remember....

I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

Why I Don't Use Minis & Battlemats

I just reconnected with Andy from Breakfast in the Ruins and gave a re-listen to the podcast episode he kindly invited me to guest on a few years back.

Listening to us bang on about Moorcockean roleplaying I had to laugh at our conversation about minis.

I do not like them, Sam I am.

DISCLAIMER

If you like minis and battlemats, more power to you. They just are not my bag.

My friend KinpatsuSamurai paints amazing mini diaoramas. I love seeing them.

My friend Dave is a master of online grid combat with digital minis. I enjoyed gaming with him.

My friend Chris has cabinets of minis in his basement and knows what every one means. They are awesome to look at.

I just don't want to do any of that in my games. I am a pure Theater of the Mind guy.

So, what do I think is wrong with minis (for me)?

Grab a chair...

1 Not a Roleplaying Game

As Andy puts it, using minis and battle mats doesn't feel like playing a roleplaying game, instead it turns the game into string of combat encounters a la the old Heroquest boardgame. As a GM, some of my proudest moments are when players roleplay in a way that totally avoids a combat slugfest. In my Laughing Tower playtest of a few years back, a Melnibonean high priest bluffed his way past guardsmen, the party hopped on his mystical yacht, and they sailed away from a city on high alert. This just after battling with powerful demons. Having the option to roleplay out of some combats means that the combats you do engage in are meatier and more memorable.

The few times I played 4E, I found combat very video gamey. We had status markers going everywhere, it really was more gamey than immersive, and the game petered out quickly after a few fights.

2 Problems With Scale

Besides distracting from roleplaying, the Dollhouse Scale of most battlmats and minis means that the immense scale of fantasy environments is wasted. Tolkeen's Moria is huge, an endless dungeon, but with minis it is reduced to an endless array of battlemats (ho hum). Go look at the final chase scene in Moria from Peter Jackson's films, the party are ants running along endless corridors that team with innumerable hostiles.

Back when I played AD&D, we had massive maps to explore, and combat was abstracted. We knew our position . Modern gaming has shifted focus from the PARTY on a single 10x10 wide BLOCK to the MINI on a 1x1 or 2x2 TILE. This is a huge step down in scale, and game worlds feel all the more constrained and small for it.

3 Lack of Imagination, Group Cohesion, & Listening Skills

With Theater of the Mind, you have to listen intently to scene descriptions for any tactical advantage. With minis, you peek at the grid, then go get a drink from the fridge until it is your time to roll dice. You are disengaged and disinterested in what is going on until it is your turn.

I saw the difference big time when I ran The Laughing Tower and had old Stormbringer stalwarts (hullo Alan!) and younger games who had been raised on mini combat. The characters had entered a ruined town where the tower had materialized, and were walking towards the rainbow-hued tower. I explained that there was a door at its base and a window straight above it near the top.

The party got half way across the square the tower had appeared in when a disgusting fly headed archer began shooting arrows at them from the window. The vanguard was made up of older players, who all decided to book it for the door, reasoning the sniper could only loose so many arrows before they got to safety. However, a younger player and Moorcock newbie decided to stand his ground and return fire. When he was knocked, an older player asked "Can I just drag him a few steps to the side and be out of the field of vision?"

"Of course!" I replied.

The older player had an image of the scene and the tactical considerations in his head, the younger one had been condition to stand his ground and fire back by reliance on minis and battlemaps. Just as we should be wary of kids nowadays letting AI do their thinking for them, we should also consider the effect of outsourcing our descriptions of combat to mats and minis.

4 Prevention of Narrative Abilities & Overreliance on Rules

Although I am a grognard and love older games, I do believe that adding some narrative rules judiciously can improve the experience of Moorcockean games, considering their narrative origins. Case in point, some of the rules I am working on have narrative effects that reflect Moorcockean themes, such as the ability to sacrifice NPCs or allies if in danger.

If you are using a battlemat and rules made for it, such an ability would have a range of effect and also be limited by the physical positioning of the minis. The player of a Melnibonean PC could offer to sacrifice an ally, but others could point out that their spaces aren't adjacent, or invoke some BS 5 meter casting range. The battlemat and minis thus becomes a physical constraint on rulings and creativity.

This isn't very Moorcockean.

5 Literary Roots

Last but not least, having a static dollhouse view of the battlefield takes away all the thrill of combat as it appears in the work of literature the game is based on. Go read the scene where Count Brass duels Baron Meliadus, or when Elric fights Yrkoon. These are page turners, tightly worded and pulse pounding descriptions of combat that are exactly why we love Moorcock's books and play games based on them. To read the book then abandon all descriptive efforts in favor of pushing little men around squares seems the antithesis of what I for one am trying to do.

Conclusions

I know I sound elitist or snobby for my dim views on minis, but I have to be true to how I feel. I am not here to yuck anyone else's yum, just articulate my feelings.

Now with the 5E glut pumping out products like pocket dungeons and battle maps, the scale of combat will only get smaller.

This make me sad.

To combat this trend, I have started working on a Guide to Theater of the Mind. Look for it sometime next year.

What's Not in the NUNA Quickstart

The NUNA QuickStart stands at just under 50 pages.

For a game that melds arctic survival, adventure, super science, and the weird, lots had to go.

Here are the things that broke my heart to leave out but will shine in the complete Corebook.

1 Community rules - To me, this is the beating heart of Nuna. Why go on an adventure? Because your community needs medicine, or weapons, or more people to sustain it. And the more you give your community, the more it gives back to you. There are hints at this with the Player Character descriptions, but no time to stop and smell the roses.

2 Arctic transport - I used to care for the late great Tony Williamson, arctic expert, and the stories he told of travelling the arctic were the stuff of legend. I try to incorporate that in my game design, and so from massive Soviet ice ships, to super science land ships, to Inuit dogsleds, I have created systems of travel that allow people to traverse the land in all conditions. And choosing the right transport can be a question of life or death on Nuna.

3 Cultural powers - In Nuna, all characters have powers that seem supernatural to people from other cultures. Inuit can see far on tundra and are never surprised, while Whalers can swim in frozen waters. This type of superior ability is not unique to the Arctic. The Kalenjin of Kenya are marathon superpowers, and routinely win marathons the world over against professional full-time trained athletes. The Bajau Sea Nomads of Asia can hold their breath as long as world record divers. Culture is a superpower, and Nuna brings this to the fore.

4 Shaman magic & gonzo super science - Shamanism died out under colonization in Canada, but Nuna conceives this dead mystic art as a potent force trying to find its way back into the land of the living. Ditto super science, which is ancient knowledge unlocked with the Fall. Both can unlock immense power for wielders, but at great cost.

So when you hold the Nuna QuickStart in your grubby hands, remember that this is just the tip of the glacier.

S

The Thunder Perfect Mind Kickstarter - I'm in

I'm backing THIS (as soon as Kickstarter accepts my change in profile info, which is holding up my payment!)

Looks like an eminently playable Wraith derivative, which I found interesting but a bit heavy and needing more motivation.

Tanya's game seems to have motivation in spades.

Good luck Tanya!

Breakfast in the Multiverse - What is Moorcockean?

Just listened to this BANGER of a podcast with Andy at BitR and irrepressible game designer Tanya Floaker.

The conversation circles back around the perennial question, "What do we mean by Moorcockean gaming?"

The answer depends on which works you are basing the game on.

THE ETERNAL CHAMPION GAME

Andy calls The Eternal Champion  games from Chaosium and some indie publishers 'Geographical trappings' without larger themes. He is not wrong. I even called these Young Kingdoms tourism ads when we spoke years ago.

The Elric stories are a fantasy saga and pulp mix up, with serious literary inspirations, with gods and sundry beyond the power of the players to influence. Stormbringer RPG et al do a good enough job of this, but I wrote Stormbringer Redux because I felt more that an overarching framework that emphasized the themes of fate was needed.

Andy notes that players are intimidated by other players changing the narrative, so adding meta mechanics is of necessity limited.

This is what I would call bottom up Moorcock gaming.

MOORCOCK'S MULTIVERSE

For her part, Tanya posits making a game based on The Multiverse Comic - a self-referential series which includes meta-gaming for the multiverse at actual gaming tables. Sounds like a combination of The Microcope RPG and Playing At Worlds RPG, hopefully with better mechanics. She and Andy bandy about using cards to simulate moves of the Lords of the Higher Worlds, both poker and Tarot. Tanya gives hints on poker and the roles (Champion, Consort, Companion, Enemy), something which I have toyed with before.

Sounds tasty!

Andy adds that this would emulate the Balance and the 'correction through violence' that is a staple of Moorcock's works.

This is what I would term top down Moorcock gaming.

THE GAME OF CREATION

Tanya then brings up the Lester Dent master formula for writing pulp as Moorcock's process.

How about instead of the game mechanics, we focus on GM training. Lester Dent as a guide to Moorcockean storytelling?

Let's run Elric through this! The first 1500 words:

1 Fistful of trouble - The armada from the Young Kingdom draws near!

2 Hero Pitches In - Elric armors up and heads out to meet them on his battle barge

3 Introduce Everyone - By this time we've met Elric, Cymoril, Yrkoon, and Dyvim Tvar in short order.

4 Hero In Trouble - Elric is thrown overboard by his cousin. GAME OVER?

5 Surprise, It's A Twist - Strassha comes to save Elric, upending Yrkoon's betrayal and ursurpation of the throne.

In hindsight, we can see that Moorcock used this framework in his stories. But how do we adapt it to a game about fragile rat kickers? Maybe preparing a Fiasco style playset is the ticket.

Tanya notes that Moorcock was unsettled by the accuracy of Tarot readings. Maybe the cards give not only randomized events, but also the possible moves to counter or deflect them as determined by the cards.

We are thus trapped between the tendency of random events to go off the rails, and the need for superior improvisation and interpretation of game events by masters.

This is what I'd call Meta Moorcocking.

WHERE I COME IN

As for me, I think I would be up to creating a Bestiary that leans into the aesthetics of Moorcock's monsters that I previously categorized into Metaphorical, Allegorical, Psychedelic, Weird, Alien, and Cosmic Horror, or a combination of the above. This would spice up any bottom up Moorcock game and avoid the baby + bathwater conundrum. Could also be used as moves in top down gaming.

I'm also interested in making scenarios for the old games. Other than that, I would just continue my fine tuning of the old rulesets.

I like what I like.

THE PROBLEM

As I see it, there is always a contradiction between player interests and the meta game. Can you play Elric if you control Arioch and see what move is coming? Also, what is the benefit for players of being pawns? Elric is a main character who dies, yet players want to avoid death.

In the end, game and fiction are not the same. We have to temper our expectations (ie prepare to die) but reach for the stars (improvise like madmen and madwomen).

ANDY'S HABERDASHERY

One thing that I really dug was the talk of character fashion. Andy hits the nail on the head when he notes any Elric or Moorcockean game needs a haberdashery with a wild array of absurd or frivolous clothing options. I remember Elric's yellow silk kimono, later on his kilt and tartan breeches, and the infamous shopping scene from the 2nd or 3rd Hawkmoon book just before the hero acquires the Sword of the Dawn (the comic adaptation was simply Zoolander with a sword). Moorcockean fashion seems to be a mix of 1960's psychedelic clothes and Camden Market thrifting, but it should also give advantages to social skills or survival I reckon.

There was an old OSR random table that did this. Maybe I should make one for Stormbringer...

Thanks again Andy and Tanya!

PS I am editing and polishing up Stormbringer redux again.

And I'm Spent

 I just tied the Nuna Quickstart draft to the leg of a giant owl and sent it winging its way to the Lord of the Round Shield and his wildmen playtesters.

And I'm spent...

I'll be taking a little break from Nuna. Writing an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for a game is a massive chore compared to all the discrete bits of Stormbringer Redux.

Speaking of, expect more Stormbringer and Hawkmoon posts, as well as other musings, when I have my strength back.

Stormbringer Redux #29 - Anonymous Stormbringer Q&A and Moorcock Psychedelia

I can honestly say that I write this blog mostly for myself and do not expect many replies. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that some anonymous reader lurking out there had left some very deep and delectable questions on my blog in May, which I totally missed due to work, life, and Nuna.

Whoever you are, I really appreciate you taking the time to pose such weighty questions. Here are my responses to your excellent questions and comments.

Behold the psychedelic glory of an old Moorcock cover. Care to guess what book this is?

Q1:

AnonymousMay 15, 2025 at 1:14 PM

Hello. This seems to be your last post on pushing Stormbringer into balance and stronger narrative.

I’d like to share a few considerations and a silly request.

Silly first. How many fantastic stories have you read that involves a storm at sea and perhaps a ship wreck? How many myths have storms and ships at sea? I can think of a few.

I want rules for sinking ships in storm and rules for being thrown ashore in the middle of the night and waking at dawn.

A1: Waking up on a strange shore is such a common trope in fiction. The whole TV show LOST was built around it, I remember reading it in Umberto Eco's Island of The Day Before, as well as the Bard's The Tempest and Twelfth Night.

There is a supplement about ships for Stormbringer, but I don't recall storm or avoiding drowning rules. Since you end with the narrative trope of being washed ashore, I would say it is GM fiat in a good sense and might not benefit from being codified into rules that could kill PCs due to a shoddy Navigation roll. That said, way back in 2017 before I dove into Stormbringer, I wrote a post about turning death in D&D / LotR into a story hook HERE. I think this would fit the bill nicely, but would require limitations on use (number of times per session, place in the story arc, etc).


Q2
AnonymousMay 15, 2025 at 1:33 PM

Moorcock(as Elric) vs. Stormbringer the rpg.

Moorcock is the story teller that we seek to experience in a story,

I want to stick to the first six books.

1) Moorcock began his mythology with the death of Elric. That blows me away. And his death might have been in vain. All the cosmic actors tricked by a devil in a sword, only to be tricked?

Moorcock the pulp writer had a three stage formula: the hero runs into problems, the problems get a whole lot worse and the hero defeats doom. No major player is to be introduced beyond mid point.

Moorcock is a moralist. He wrote moral stories. This is a hard concept.

A2: Aye there's the rub, we all want Moorcock at our table, but our stories are D&D derived hack & slash fests and none of us have the wits and erudition to draw from literary tropes on the fly.

Sticking to the 6 books makes perfect sense. As I noted in my research on Japanese media (available HERE), a work sets the conceptual basis in the first few foundational stories, then mutates into something unrecognizable as the entropy of success takes over.

Yes, moral stories are difficult when the game reduces moral complexity to black versus white. As I noted in my interview with Andy at BotR, Stormbringer the rpg replaces Moorcock's cosmology with theology, a huge step down in framework.

The way plans go awry in Moorcock's older books reminds me of Matt and Trey of South Park's story advice:

"Each beat of your story needs to cause or be disrupted by the next one."

Note that I did the same in my novel of the supernatural in Japan, Heisei Ghosts.

Q3

AnonymousMay 15, 2025 at 1:34 PM

Moorcock is not a world builder. Like any good writer he pulled from his own psyche ideas unique to him or reexamined. Moorcock’s scenes are a random generator of the psyche. “Need a giant. Giant will have ten arrows. Each arrow will be named after a form of suffering.
That sounds cool. That is good…”

https://lucasrolim.itch.io/salamandur-household


A3: I wouldn't say he is not a world builder, but just that he does it in a resonant, lyrical, stream of consciousness way, and not in a literal or cohesive way. If you read my Moorcock Bestiary post HERE (one of my best IMHO), you'll see that I was testing out this idea of creating monsters based on the human psyche.


Q4:

AnonymousMay 15, 2025 at 1:39 PM

The above link is to a little rpg in the Moorcockian tradition that has random tables.
I’d like Stormbringer to have a chapter of Moorcockian tables in his voice, using some of his favorite words: saturnine, sardonic, chitinous, irony, melancholy…. Use spontaneity. Use speed.

A4: Ooh I am a sucker for a good collection of tables! I will pick it up! (NB If I can get Musk's bank to work and get over my revulsion of giving him money)

Q5:

AnonymousMay 15, 2025 at 1:53 PM

I must have read this at some time, but I consider Elric (Eternal Champion in general)
to be psychedelic sword and sorcery. Moorcock has spoken of how he has hallucinate since a child. His mother might see a green velvet hat in a shop window and he would see a samurai helmet. Quite serious. Later as he used hallucinogenic drugs he experienced what could be considered chaos or awakened dreams.

His youthful writings have a raw creative that is unique to him. Moorcock drew a great deal from the Broken Sword, Ship of Isthar, Jirel of Jorel BUT Moircock was using drugs.

A5: It certainly is psychedelic, as I noted in my Bestiary posts. Considering he was writing in the 70's, Moorcock's use of drugs and the psychedelic nature of his writings are only natural. But there are writers who come from the same era who didn't stand the test of time, so I think MM had something special, a fusion of the psychedelic and mythic a la Campbell or Celtic mythology. Elric is almost a doomed elf from the Norse sagas, as is Corum.


Q6

AnonymousMay 15, 2025 at 3:36 PM

So his drug use contributed to his aesthetic.
Now here is an odd framework for Stormbringer, four types of drugs. This how Moorcock used drugs:

LSD - The grand concepts.
Cannabis - Relationships
Cocaine - Drive to complete.
Amphetamine - Speed

I don’t expect anyone is going to drop acid for a good Stormbringer session, but if look at the drugs as archetypes, then an early Moorcock story involves big ideas, human struggles, and a confidence the story will work, so don’t labor over it.

A6: I've gamed with stoned and drunk people, and it sucked. I never touch anything stronger than light alcohol, but if other people want to try whatever that is their lookout. Still, I LOVE the drugs as aesthetic and that would make an epic story or random table in and of itself.

What does MM make of this fentanyl induced age, with people folded on the sidewalk like broken lawn chairs? I surmise he'd agree with Philip K Dick in his preface to A Scanner Darkly - they didn't know what damage they were doing.

If we are linking drugs to Moorcock, what would the Elric characters consume?

Elric - Hash

Yrkoon - Cocaine

Cymoril - Shrooms

Moonglum - Pot & booze

Q7:

AnonymousMay 15, 2025 at 3:51 PM

Lastly, a question on sorcery and how much thought need be given to it. How much sorcery is really present in the Young Kingdoms? Outside of Melniboné and the rare, like in RARE human sorcerer, all most none. Perhaps, an argument can be made for priests, but little is shown in the stories.

A7: Fair point, but a story and a fantasy game with no magic cannot have an equal appeal. In the Elric saga, the Melniboneans have made the pacts to access all kinds of magic (Elemental lords, Chaos lords), but their only rivals, the Pan Tangian sorcerers, pale in comparison.

As I posted earlier, for a game I would open up sorcery to all nations, and to any character willing to transform themselves to get it. This is what makes a game where you can play anyone different from a novel following one doomed protagonist. But the game has got to keep the threat of doom hanging over any magic dabbler's head and not devolve into pew pew fireball fights.

Great conversation, thanks for the thought provoking questions and come again!

Stormbringer Redux # 28 - Was Stormbringer The Wrong Name?

I've been thinking Stormbringer thoughts in my limited spare time.

What if Chaosium got the semiotics of Moorcockean game naming all wrong?

(NOTE - This is just a fun mental exercise about my first gaming love. I have huge respect for Willis, Stafford, Peterson and Campbell-Rogers and would not dare to actually accuse any of them of being 'wrong'. The games they made have stood the test of time, but are also products of their time before the RPG market became the demographic-targeted Kickstarting industry it is now. So in that light, and with tongue firmly in my cheek, I proceed in my analysis.)

Stormbringer is not the name of the protagonist, which is confusing for newbies, but that would emphatically come later with Elric! To be fair, these games came out when Moorcock's popularity was at its peak, so eliciting the albino and his runesword were not bad decisions. Then they made a D20 version during the 3E glut, when arguably younger generations of fantasy enthusiasts had also presumably moved on in their reading, and they chose Dragon Princes of Melnibone. Not the most resonant or representative name or ruleset.

Naming the game after the hero continued with Hawkmoon, and Darcsyide followed this trend years later with Corum (not Corum! I note).

Naming a game after an IP's protagonist is, on the one hand, resonant for hardcore fans. But naming a game after a single hero is limiting - Serenity is not named Mal, the RPG. Conan and James Bond seem to be the exception here.

The original FRPG games were named after their setting, so as to appeal to players as a site where they could be the heroes of new adventures.

Forgotten Realms.

Dark Sun.

Ravenloft.

Planescape.

All very resonant, mysterious names.

So what if instead of Stormbringer (or Elric! or Mournblade), which do not have popular appeal they once might have had, we named the next iteration after the setting instead of the characters?

Stormbringer et al become The Young Kingdoms. Hmmm, sounds like a Percy Janes novel. How about Melnibone?

Hawkmoon becomes The Tragic Millenium. Or maybe Granbretan. Sounds like an AI generated Beatles' album.

Corum becomes Bro-an-Vadhagh. Or maybe The Fifteen Planes. Not very enticing.

These place names were made in a highly literary mode, and thus are not as succinct or enticing as other game-only worlds.

But maybe Chaosium had it right after all. Both Stormbringer and Hawkmoon prudly bore a sticker proclaiming them part of The Eternal Champion series of games.

How about we use this as the game name, and choose a resonant subtitle + blurb for each setting?

The Eternal Champion RPG.

Book One - The Doom of Melnibone. The gods of Law & Chaos have chosen your world as their battleground. Whose side will you fight on?

Book Two - Granbretanne Invasion. Repel the superscience armies of the evil empire that seeks to overrun post apocalyptic Europe.

Book Three - The Sword Gods. Free your world from the Chaos gods who warp its very reality.

Now we're getting somewhere.

I need to get to bed.

NUNA Production Schedule

Had a GREAT talk with a former student who has become a game designer. Restoked my fire for NUNA.
Here is the plan:

1 Quickstart, PWYW, Christmas 2025
2 DriveThru RPG basic version, 2026
3 Advanced edition, Kickstarter, 2026 Christmas

Watch this space!

Stormbringer Redux #27 - Berserk

I just watched THIS video and, as a fan of the manga Berserk for a long time, it has made me ponder applications to Stormbringer.

I consider Kentaro Miura's Berserk saga a spiritual successor to The Eternal Champion in many ways. Gutz is called The Struggler (a moniker that could apply equally to Elric), both wield a giant sword, and Gutz loses a hand and an eye like Corum. In Berserk there is the phenomenon of history repeating itself like ripples, interspersed with the idea of doom & sacrifice, much like Moorcock's Vanishing Tower.

What insights from Berserk can we use in Stormbringer roleplaying? I see two useful takeaways for Saga style play. Groups enjoying pulp adventures in the Young Kingdoms will largely steer clear of gods at any rate - just not worth it.

ONE - Where Invisible Armies Clash By Night

In both Berserk and Elric, we know the names of the godhand / Lords of the Higher worlds. This does not mean we know what they want, or that mortals can hope to rise against them, or that they are inviolate. Just as the video I linked indulges in the fan theories about the Godhand, their origin and fate, and the concept of Causality that makes their victory unavoidable, so too do the gods of the Elric saga remain an inscrutable, irresistible menace that should leave players puzzling.

This gives us three corollaries for running Stormbringer games:

1) Whatever you do plays into their hands.

Elric would have been doomed regardless of whether had he taken Yrkoon's life or not in the Shadow Plane when he acquired Stormbringer. Elric's dream of a demon haunted Imrryr, with Arioch manifested and Cymoril as his bride (a la Tim Curry in Legend) gives us a glimpse of other possible outcomes to the saga. Gamemasters thus have to be ready to improvise at any instant when players (invariably) throw a spanner in the works, but always make the gods come out on top, one way or another.

One exception to this is if player characters commit heresy or try to ursurp a god, in which case they will rightly be sent to hell for their temerity.

2) It takes a god to kill a god.

If the player characters take it into their heads to kill a god, they will need equally strong allies. As noted before, D&D gives stats to gods, implying they are killable. Stormbringer / Elric! doesn't, which means players will have to get creative and roleplay like mad to make useful friends if they want to rub out a cosmic lord. In Moorcock's works, we see Corum 'kill' Arioch (ie banish him from a plane), but he needed the help of the mad immortal Shool (who had stolen some of Arioch's power) and the alien hand of a forgotten god to do so.

The downside (and there should always be one in Stormbringer) is that the new godly ally will likely prove worse than the god they depose.

3) A God Never Truly Dies

Corum may have crushed Arioch's heart, but he never truly killed him. Instead, Arioch exists in different forms on different planes, much like the Lich in Adventure Time. This means that if player characters DO succeed in banishing a god from their home plane, they may have some explaining to do when they meet the deity on another plane, or better yet they will be forced to act when some cult moves to let the exiled god back to the gameworld.

In a way, death is only the beginning for gods. Berserk hints at this with the existence of the previous Godhand, and it will be interesting to see what the Berserk team comes up with on how the older pantheon was deposed.

BONUS QUESTION - What if Arioch & posse were younger gods who replaced an older pantheon? Who were they, what happened, and how could this affect a game?

TWO - Great Power Needs Great Sacrifice

In Berserk, Griffith sacrifices his mercenary army, the Band of the Hawk, to become Femto, an Apostle or basically god of evil. Similarly, Elric ends up sacrificing nearly every companion he has, from Smiorgan Baldhead to Moonglum and Zarzonia (not to mention his entire civilization), but only ends up playing into Arioch and Stormbringer's hands.

Once again, let's take 3 lessons for Stormbringer games.

1) You have to choose to let them in, but you must always pay the cost.

A god will never just give boons without expecting something in return. In too many games, contacting or summoning powerful entities is a one and done with no longterm ramifications. I call this Pokemon summoning, and it is dull.

Instead, summoning any type of entity should make a character beholden to it. Call on  beast lord or elemental? Then expect to be asked to protect the natural world from destruction.

There is never a free lunch.

2) The brand of sacrifice and ghosts of those you sacrifice will ever haunt you.

In games I have run, players have sent NPCs and other PCs to their doom to save their own skin. This is soon laughed off and forgotten, which is really antithetical to Moorcock's works. Instead, sacrificing someone, even a nameless NPC, should weigh on characters.

You could give Elan (allegiance points) every time someone is sacrificed. Also, expect the ghosts to appear and oppose the character whenever they move through a spirit realm. Perhaps sensitive NPCs will shun a character that has lots of skeletons in their closet.

Once again, there is never a free lunch, especially when someone else pays the bill.

3) In the end, you are doomed.

I probably don't need to say this, but becoming an Agent is like becoming a vigilante in Watchmen - no one dies peacefully in their bed. As I noted before, being an Agent should make you a magnet for weirdness and danger, much as the brand of sacrifice does to Gutz.

In game terms, an Agent becomes an easy adventure seed generator - no need to look for a quest or purpose when they come knocking at your door, and your allegiance means you cannot refuse an entreaty.

In Pulp games, this would mean an Agent would best be an NPC to let the PCs keep their autonomy and right of refusal. But if your are running a Saga and everyone is in on the Ride of Doom, this is a feature of the game, not a bug.

BONUS QUESTION - What if we replaced Amulets of allegiance with Brands of sacrifice? Imagine a character with the Sigil of Chaos (or Law) carved into their flesh, bleeding whenever danger approached.

Food for thought.

SUPER SCIENCE IN NUNA

So I’ve gone on long enough about Inuit, who are one of the pillars of Nuna. The other pillar is not just Iceships, but the whole retro-futurist super science that underlies them.

Labrador and all of Canada’s arctic has an element of this. The Pinetree Line was a series of geodesic dome radars strung across the North to detect Soviet air invasion. My father worked at one, and there are lots of strange (and NSFW) stories about them. But I remember as a child seeing the white geodesic domes outside Goose Bay standing out against the rocky hills and stunted spruce trees and being awed by their futuristic shapes.

The arctic has also been the site of superpower conflicts (and attendant accidents) as well. On the 22nd of May, 1968, a cabin fire forced a nuclear bomber crew to eject Over Thule Air Base in Greenland. They left the plane to crash with its nuclear payload onboard, and its B28FI thermonuclear bomb, second stage, was never recovered. In Labrador, a German U-boat has been found sunk in the Churchill River, 100 kilometers from the ocean. German officials confirmed U-boats did operate off the coast of Labrador, and also German intelligence did set up weather stations along the coast, many of which were never found.

All these are grist for the mill in Nuna.

SCIENTISTS

What we call scientists in Nuna are more like mad scientists from comics and old movies. They strut around in shiny suits with glass cowls, fly on (dangerously radioactive) thrones, and can perform miracles when they want. They are also mysterious and secretive, and have hidden agendas that would frighten the other inhabitants of the land if they knew of them. This makes them both envied and feared by the other inhabitants of Nuna. Inuit and Vikings want nothing to do with them, but Whalers guardedly embrace their technological support.

Once, Howard Hughes tried to make a giant claw to retrieve a sunken Soviet nuclear sub in the Pacific, but told the press he was interested in underwater mining. His claw failed and the vessel broke into pieces, spilling its deadly cargo onto the ocean floor.

THIS is the vibe of mad scientists in Nuna.

ICESHIPS

Michael Moorcock introduced the idea of Iceships in The Ice Schooner, but this romantic view of classic sailing ships on ice runners needs an update.

Instead, Nuna’s light Iceships are based on the solar sails of space exploration. Anyone can be trained to use one, but repair is the sole province of Scientists.

The heavy Iceships used by Whalers are based on Soviet nuclear icebreakers, but as they would exist had the USSR had another hundred years or so of technological advancement. Remember, for a short while they beat the West in the Space Race, and their heavy aircraft are still used today. The aesthetic is Super Science Soviet City Ship (try saying that ten times fast), with light Iceships milling about them for the hunt. Kind of like Gundam on ice…

TECHNOLOGY

There are basically three tiers of technology in Nuna. There is Inuit survival technology, which seems almost magical to the other groups. Then there is modern technology, used by Vikings and Whalers, with some upgrades for the post apocalypse. Finally, Scientists use super science, retro futuristic technology that does incredible things. For a price. And there’s always a price to be paid.