Shattered Realm, Shattered Tower

Tonight was the fifth session of our Everway game, and the session started with the PCs arriving in a sphere with a mysterious red and gold comet (with moving parts; perhaps an orrery?) in the night sky, as well as a full moon.

The environment was fresh, wet, flat. Green, even in the darkness, with frog and cricket sounds.

The PCs spotted a large, city-sized object in the distance, sort of a bowl below, with a dome overhead. The approach. Human figures dart out of the way, and stay evasive.

The dome is made of a purplish-white material: porcelain. The PCs find a set of gates; the knock. A gatekeeper answers the door, invites them in.

Part of the porcelain dome has cracked, and fallen into the Purple City [this is where Whiskers said he hailed from]. This disaster happened in the last day. The gatekeeper says that the city is dangerous; a rebellion against the Cat Lords is underway. Barricades have formed. Humans have rebelled against their cat masters.

The party encounters a group of rebels, and clamber over the barricades to one of their headquarters. This group of rebels is led by a bloody-handed human named Blood; this is a new name. The rebel humans have renamed themselves that day. 

The rebels have have books and scrolls that have been plundered from various wizards towers of the cats of the Purple City. There are a number of charm and illusion scrolls among the books. One text appears to be about the architecture of the city and its towers, but as Pahoeho spends time with this book, he suspects that it is a magical text about Air magic and teleportation. He later confirms that this text is also about gate magic, specifically air gates. Jumping off towers is one way to spherewalk. At one point the rebels also mention that there are winged cats in the city; some have feathery wings while other have leathery ones.

None of the locals have heard of Everway. Farming is a new concept to them. Pahoeho and Tom strongly suggest they learn how to farm. The Purple City was surrounded by deserts just a day ago, before the comet arrived. Conditions are good for farming now; the surrounding lands are lush. How did the city get food in the past, the PCs ask: from sludge grown below the city, and mushrooms and other fungi. The food is flavored with imported spices from across the desert. It is just OK.

Percy decides to use spirit magic to search for the human No Whiskers. He looks for a low Air person. There are a LOT of them around in the cats' towers. There are still cats in the city. Instead, he searches for other groups of humans who are high Air. Percy finds a group in one of the cat towers. 

The PCs go to that tower. Osbert's magical sword Demonsbane begins pointing the way to the tower - an omen of things to come. The tower gate is closed and no one within responds to Pahoeho's knocking. Tom uses his magic to summon a rebac, and plays a rebel song that stirs up the crowd to bash in the tower gate. 

Detail from "Virgin among Virgins" (1509), by Gerard David

The PCs go in, and ascend the tower. Up, up, up, to a room where a summoning ritual is underway. In the center of the ritual space is a chiming, pulsating mass from which spikes push out in all directions: a demon! Osbert charges the demon with his sword. He strikes well, but the demon is stronger: Osbert takes a wound from the demon's dark energies while his sword, Demonsbane is stuck in the demon. 

Tom uses his musical magic to disrupt the demon's song. Pahoehoe taps on the shoulder of one of the summoners to distract them and hopefully weaken the summoning. Osbert plunges his sword even further into the flesh of the demon, as its pulsating mass forms numerous delightful lips to tempt and distract him. The sword plunges completely through the demon's mass, and into a wall on the opposite side of the tower wall.

Meanwhile, Pahoeho uses his Forge of Earth magic to reshape and ignite some of the stone flooring into a giant flaming glob of Earth. Pahoeho is immune to fire. He hurls the flaming stone glob at the demon, which explodes UP, blowing the top off the tower. Everyone flees.

Osbert heroically saves one of the summoners, pulling them to safety, and leaving Demonsbane behind. The heroes reassemble outside the tower, Tom performs a song about Bad Ideas - like summoning demons as anti-Cat Lord weapons of mass destruction. Such tactics can ruin revolutions. Tom uses Star River magic to teleport Demonsbane out of the tower and back into Osbert's hands.

Osbert discovers that the sword has a new pictograph on it: one which resembles the demon. It is hot to the touch. Apparently Demonsbane has a memory! New information for Osbert!

Osbert relates the story of his order of warriors, and its matriarchal rules of sword inheritance.

There is a BOOM from the outskirts of the city dome, and a huge chunk of porcelain wall comes flying in. Many are injured by flying porcelain shards. Pahoeho uses his healing magic to save many, transforming porcelain into flesh.

In march the dog-warriors, and an uncertain occupation begins. 

Will the adventures of our heroes continue? 

***

A couple of the inspirations for this, and the previous session include the Cat Lords of the Violet City, from Luka Rejec's The Ultraviolet Grasslands, and the magical porcelain dome from Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett's delightful novel, Havemercy.

 

The Stepwise

Art by Hereticwerks

 

Tonight's game took place entirely within the Library of All Worlds, and took a really bold turn. The action picked up where it left off last time, with Percy talking with some scribes about his home sphere, while Tom was in deep conversation with another scribe about music, and the Library's collections. 

Pahoeho, meanwhile, was in the Library gift shop. He browsed the various wares there, and soon noticed another odd shopper. 

https://toyhou.se/4295348.crescent

Her appearance is rather odd. She either has extreme pallor, or her makeup is really caked on. It's probably the latter, as some tattoos are just visible on her face under the white. And then there's her amber eyes...

He greets Pahoeho, and flirts a bit. She calls him handsome, and asks if he's a Spherewalker. He says yes, having most recently visited Fire's Wall, and brags of being immune to flames. The young woman snaps her fingers, and a flame appears. She touches it to his hand and Pahoeho doesn't flinch a bit.

The Scratch sales clerk quickly says: "No open flames in the Library." 

The young lady snaps her fingers again, and the flame goes out.

Pahoeho asks her name, and what she's doing in the Library. 

The young lady's name is Shattered Tower. (Pahoeho internalizes this as Crashed Tower; that's what he calls her later in the game.) Pahoeho recognizes Tower as the last name of an Everwayan family, introduces himself as Pahoeho Sun (another Everwayan family). Shattered Tower gestures toward the hand drawn handbills she is leaving in a few places in the gift shop. The handbills invite people to attend the Woke Forum tonight, when the drumming starts at the Wattle and Dub, one of the wattle and daub dwellings in Strangerside.

Isn't the Woke Forum the group supporting the whole Year King initiative? Pahoeho asks Shattered what she thinks of the whole Year King thing. She rejoins that "It's better than being ruled forever by the Emeralds." Pahoeho replies: "Isn't the Year King an Emerald?" Shattered Tower says "Kind of, but not really."

Shattered Tower hands Pahoeho one of the handbills: "You should come."

Pahoeho decides to leave the gift shop after seeing Shattered Tower shoplift some reading glasses. She goes deeper into the Library. He goes out to a wine bar in eyeshot of the Library. He'll keep a lookout for her when she leaves. [Later, he does see Shattered Tower leave, with quite the stack of books. Generally speaking, removing books from the Library is #NotPermitted.]

Meanwhile Percy wants to find out where the cat Whiskers, and his human, No Whiskers, went. The young warrior, Osbert Haukmune, goes along with Percy. They go up a few levels in the library, and find a quiet place near some grandiose, well-guarded doors. Percy does some spirit scrying and goes into a trance. 

There are a lot of spirits here; there is a spirit on practically every shelf in the Library. Percy can hear their intonations, their recitations of favorite texts. (These are Shelf-Bound Spirits.) 

Percy scries for the cat, but picks up another disturbance: one of the Shelf-Bound Spirits, a few stacks away, has begin shouting the records it guards: census records, names of Everwayans long past. The disturbance spreads: the guards leave the grandiose doorway they were guarding. There are other sounds: tearing, grinding of paper. Munching sounds. Falling books, book chains rattling, scroll cases clattering onto the Library's tiled flooring.

Whiskers and No Whiskers are at the grandiose doorway. The doors gear open. They step through. The doors close and gears click and whirr and lock in place.

Percy calls for help. A librarian comes, begins to shout for help himself. More guards come. The guards all fall with gruesome, terrible wounds. The tearing, grinding sounds continue, as Osbert draws his sword and approaches the noise. Books open themselves in mid air, scrolls unfurl. Pages disappear in chunks. Munching, grinding. 

More guards arrive, and a Librarian-Sorcerer (some badass from the Acquisitions, no doubt) begins casting a spell. Terrible creatures suddenly materialize. Big, blind silvery bugs are consuming the books and scrolls. One bug begins chanting and gesticulating, and a rough-edged chiming oval gateway appears. 

The chiming disturbs Tom, who has been deep in the Music galleries of the library (poetry; musical theory; recorded music on scrolls, playable on special lecterns; countless musical instruments from the Million Spheres). The player-lecterns resonate from the gateway's chiming and the alarums of the shelf-bound spirits. Tom pursues the source of the sound, and discovers his friends.

The Thysanurians have escaped through the ovoid gate. The only remaining trace of their gate is a fissure suspended in midair. The dust of consumed books and scrolls mixes with the fallen guards' blood on the tile floors. Osbert helps with the clean-up. Ape-like creatures emerge from service doors and remove the bodies. 

Eventually all of the party comes together by the grandiose, gear-locked doors. The twin Librarian Administrator-Scribes, Spiral Scratch and Circular Scratch, attend to the party. The PCs ask how the doors can be opened? "It requires a key" the Scratch brothers say. "Who has the key?" the PCs ask. "There are three keys: one is in the possession of the High Pontifex of the Chamber Platinum, one with the Emerald King, and one with the High Priest of Lord Hermanubis. None are available at the moment."

Tom uses his magic to summon a musical instrument. He summons a clavicembalo and begins to play. 

The gearing turns and moves, and the doors open. Beyond the doors it is dark, illuminated only by a shaft of moonlight and by stars. (It is daytime.) 

The PCs enter the chamber beyond the door. It is a small round space. The doors close. it remains dark except for the moonlight which illuminates the cast iron staircase which ascends up the tower.

Pahoeho takes the lead, followed by Tom, then Percy, and finally Osbert. Flashes of heat lightning far above, the smell of ozone as they ascend, flashes of Fortunes as they ascend the steps. 

Each step is a grating. Looking down through the slats, the staircase goes down infinitely. And so it also goes up. 

Pahoeho Sun, a son of Everway, recalls the legend of the Stepwise, a royal staircase that one must ascend in order to become King.

There are three great flashes of lighting and three Fortunes ring out with thunder:

THE USURPER

THE HERMIT

SUMMER  

Then,

A CAT'S MIAO.

And the PCs are in another world.

Thysanurians were created by Jim and Jody Garrison of Hereticwerks, and are used with their permission. Thysanurian image by Jim Garrison.

Playing The Serpent

 

The Serpent

That evening in Strangerside, Tom summoned and then played The Serpent. Its sound made it impossible for Percy three floors up in The Salt Mill to continue his efforts toward sleep. Percy through on a nightrobe and descended to the main floor where Tom was performing. Pahoeho forms a conga line, there is more drinking, and Percy, Tom, and Pahoehe retire late.

Percy sleeps surprisingly well, but our Spherewalkers have hangovers. Tom, Pahoeho, and Percy order the Strangerside equivalent of Bloody Marys with breakfast. Then they head to the Walker's Pyramid to see the sights, and learn what they can about this whole Year King thing.

The Walker's Pyramid is huge. The steps of this step pyramid are too large and far apart for a human, but there is a scaffolding on one side of the Walker's Pyramid that humans can climb.

Tom is a people watcher and takes an interest first in a dark skinned acrobat and dancer, whose routine includes tumbles off the side of the Walker's Pyramid, and conjuring coins behind kids' ears in the crowds that gather to watch him. He notices another dark skinned young man with lots of rings and an earcuff. He is holding an golden-eyed black cat, and curiously the young man has similar golden eyes.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/456552480981699946/

Using the Pisces Zodiac Force of his Star River magic, Tom channels a spirit cat to speak with the cat that the man carries. The cat's name is Whiskers. The young man's name is No Whiskers. The cat is from a faraway Sphere that reportedly no one from Everway has ever visited. 

What's Whisker's favorite realm? Merryflag, where humans delight in getting into bloody duels and vendettas over trivial slights. 

Where are the best fish? The realm of Shallowsea, where my human can wade out into the water with a trident or a net and catch a feast.

No Whiskers is his human.  Tom's spirit cat attempts to communicate with the human, but there isn't much Air there. What gives?

Pahoeho Sun finds this strange: he belongs to an Everwayan family and knows that there is no slavery in Everway. Well, maybe there is among recent immigrants in Strangerside; but any slave who sets foot within the city walls of Everway becomes a free person. 

The party observes a procession comin from the direction of the Council House and Palace down Walker's Way to the Pyramid. Bright Mask, the priest of Osiris that Pahoehoe chatted up on the golden barge performs a bridal ceremony. The young Year King, Younger Wood, is wed to a heavily scarred Emerald woman who is missing a left eye, but has an unusual eye glyph tattooed on the palm of her right hand. Is she a mystic? A sorceress? Her name is Righteye Emerald.

Next comes a visit to an office of the Sun family located near the west side of the Walker's Pyramid, and adjacent to the Gold family house. Pahoeho wants to collect his allowance, and fortunately, it's one of the uncles who likes him who is running the office that day. Uncle gives Pahoeho a string of cash. 

Local gossip that Uncle Three Sun shares: the Gold family (practically next door) is debating a name change to Jewell, or possibly to Jade. Pahoeho's uncle Three Sun speculates that the name change might invalidate some contracts that the Sun family has with the Gold family, which would be a great way to get out of some debt!

Pahoeho, Tom, and Percy ask Three Sun what he knows about the whole Year King situation. Uncle confirms that there hasn't been a Year King in Everway for hundreds or maybe thousands of years. The whole thing seems strange: one day, Great King Horizon Emerald is officiating at ceremonies, and the picture of health, and the next he is dead. Then, seemingly out of the blue, Year King project is pushed forward, and several rural Emeralds from the Emeraldcloak Forest of all places seem at the center of the project. For example, Righteye Emerald: who even heard of her before today. And the new Year King, who used to be Younger Wood (and now is supposedly Younger Emerald - for a year!) - he is from an obscure, unimportant offshoot of the Emerald family from the same area.

Three Sun shares his suspicion that all this has something to do with the trouble that Prince Woke, a recent arrival in Strangerside has been stirring up. He has been pointing to the refugee problem, the collapsing spheres, the stagnation of Everwayan culture, and the need for new leadership and civic renewal.  Three Sun has heard a lot about his so-called Woke Forum in Strangerside. This Righteye Emerald is no stranger there! Someone needs to look into this Prince Woke, Three Sun says.

Three Sun also asks which spheres Tom and Percy come from, and offers that the Sun family is always looking for local partners among the spheres, since the family business is leading pilgrims to shrines among the spheres.

The party agrees that maybe someone should look into this Prince Woke (maybe indeed, us!), and Pahoeho wishes his uncle well. They head out, but first let's get lunch. "No more fish, please" pleads Percy, and Pahoeho suggests pasta instead. He knows a second story pasta and tomato sauce place nearby, just the thing, a heavy filling pasta place that everybody who matters knows: The Red Brick. It's not far from the Sun business office so they go there. A good filling meal and wine, consumed in moderation.

The party was going to head to Strangerside next, and look for this Prince Woke. But Percy and Tom are still thinking about Whiskers and No Whiskers. What is Whiskers up to and where is he going?

Percy uses his Water Magic to search the city for a human with very low Air. The GM draws Failing to See the Diamond, Reversed, a propitious draw. Interpretation: Percy spots No Whiskers, just as Whiskers and No Whiskers pass through the wards at the entrance to the Library of All Worlds. They pass through the leftmost archway into the Library.

The party decides to head right there and figure out what Whiskers is doing.

Pecuniary Scratch is waiting for them right at the entrance. He demands an inducement in exchange for entry. 

Mosa Pijade (Self-Portrait)

Tom says he is at the Library to learn about Song. [You can almost feel the Platonic ideal form behind that capital "S".] Song, as in the mechanical vs. spiritual aspects of Song, as well as connections between Song and Magic.

Percy makes the practical offer with respect to inducements: knowledge about his Sphere, which appears to be unknown to the people of Everway. The party are welcomed into the Chamber of Welcoming Visitors from the Million Spheres [speculation here that its decor is as plunderous as that of the British Museum], and library staff bring out long rectangular Spherepath Scrolls which note details of individual spheres, and the gate connections between them.

Percy references knowing about Water Gates, which the Library's scribes and scholars dismiss with feigned disinterest (there is no credible record of gates tied to elements other than Earth!). Meanwhile, Pahoeho is browsing Library's gift shop, and about to get into trouble...

A Fish Dinner in Strangerside

 

A Golden Barge

In tonight's second session of our new Everway campaign, Bob was able to join us, and introduce his new character, the spherewalking musician "Tom". During the questions phase, I asked: "Is he Tom like a tomcat, like Tom Bombadil, or like a tomtom?  Bob answered "I think like a tomcat, because he can find food in garbage and sleep wherever." He has the ability to summon musical instruments (but can't control which ones come) and has a 3 in Star River Magic, with the constellations Pisces, Gemini, Aquarius (I think). (Another player, Eric also modeled his more powerful Fire-inflected mage on Star River Magic, using Ares, Leo, and Capricorn. So we'll see how this new magic system works!)

Tom emerged from the Emeraldcloak Forest, after exiting the gate from Granite, close on the heels of a rather noisy party tromping southwards through the forest toward the western bridge over the Susnset River. The party was bearing a golden palanquin and escorted by soldiers. Tom hails from another Sphere, so he didn't the soldiers' livery as rustic Emerald family, but Pahoeho Sun, who is a native Everwayn (sort of did). 

Here is the unpleasant and bossy chief soldier:

Leonardo da Vinci's Profilo di capitano antico, also known as il Condottiero, 1480.

On the bridge, waiting for a river barge to Everway, are Percy, Osbert, and Pahoeho. A barge appears, but not from further upriver. This one is huge, and being rowed upriver by banks of oars. It must have come up river from Everway. The barge has a solid gold exterior, and all sorts of outlandish Outsiders and Strangers on deck - along with a few Everwayans.

Pahoeho has never seen a barge like this in Everway: not even a royal barge belonging to King Horizon Emerald. The barge has three tiers above the main deck. There is a party going on with powders, smokables, drink and food on the enormous aft deck. The forest party boards the deck and the palanquin and all the soldiers go below deck. They aren't seen again until the barge reaches the city some three hours later.

Pahoeho jumps on board and is welcomed. He joins the party. Tom goes aboard and offers to perform some music. He is escorted to the pilot station on the top tier of the barge, and summons an instrument: something percussive, like a sistrum. He performs.

Osbert boards and Percy grudgingly boards. Percy doesn't like the pretentious, social climber types he sees on this barge. 

The barge docks at the Mercy bridge and the passengers disembark on the Everyway Proper side of the river. Pahoeho hears the phase "The Year King" used a couple of times during the river journey, and learns from one of the party goers, a unlikely priest of Osiris named Bright Mask, that while Pahoeho was off in Fire's Wall, King Horizon Emerald passed beyond and been put back upon the Wheel of Karma. The other likely Emerald heirs who might contend for the throne are all off among the spheres at the moment, so the Council invoked an ancient law (?) / ritual (?) from Everway's distant past. 

Bright Mask embellishes the age of the ancient law: 

Before the Emerald ruled Everway

Before the Tower

Towered here 

Before Whiteoars clashed and contended 

May their name be cursed and forgotten forever.

The soldiers and the palanquin disembark from the barge in a procession with flowers, rice, and coins cast about as crowds gather. The gold palanquin has embossed images of the Walker's Pyramid, and of a tree from which a man hangs upside down. The procession seems to head towards the Walker's Pyramid.

The party decides to head over to Strangerside - the really interesting half of these twin cities. Pahoeho observes that Strangerside is even more packed than ever. Every possible quality of dwelling can be found here, from prosperous estates to shanties all the way down into the mud on the southern bank of the Sunset River. 

They enter a marketplace and find a place serving fresh fish and turtles. (The PCs did not engage with the far travelling Fourth Doctor, as seen on the upper left. Also, the character in blue and white with the turtle is one of my favorite Everway images!)

Marketplace by Rudy Rauben (Roger Raupp) - Vision Card #506

They sit down to eat fish, and Pahoehoe recommends consuming some of the raw ones that are potentially poisonous. Most of the party order raw. The Fortune Deck pull is favorable: the Priestess, Understanding Mysteries. Percy, hailing from a rules-bound realm as he does, orders something cooked: a fish sandwich. It's still potentially poisonous, so I drew a Fortune Card for him as well. 

His draw: the Usurper.

The fish head animates. Percy sees a ghost fish. So does Tom. Percy doesn't react; Tom uses Star River Magic to call the ghost fish to him. The ghost fish swims over and begins making utterances. It chants the names of several Year Kings from over a thousand years ago. It intimates that the blood of ancient Year Kings still soaks the platform at the top of the Walker's Pyramid. Percy banishes the ghost fish, which disappears with a *PLOP*.

There is some discussion with Pahoeho of the Walker's Pyramid. Are there people there? Lots. There is the Pyramid Cult, a mystery sect of Outsiders, Strangers and some native Everwayans (but not typically priests of the Moondance family).  Pilgrims come to the Walker's Pyramid from hundreds of spheres. There are numerous booths where hucksters and cultists alike sell votive bricks with images from the Fortune Deck, astrological symbols, or other symbols of the god or pf the Ineffable and the Mysterious. You can buy figurines of the Walker, and effigies and amulets of the Walker's Pyramid.

Dusk is approaching and Percy wants to get settled somewhere unassuming and quiet, while Tom wants to make sure they hole up in an inn that has an "open mike" stage for performances. Pahoeho recommends The Salt Mill, a place which Osbert soon notes is near Avenue the First.

First Session of the New Everway Campaign

 

Snip from "Fire Dance" Vision Card by Janine Johnston

With three characters ready for play (and one more on the way next week), we set out to play Everway. While I have run a few in-person Everway one-shots, all of my previous campaigns as a GM or player have been play-by-post games. So it is great to play my favorite game again after a number of years, this time for my regular Thursday night gaming group!

The action started with Pahoeho Sun, a fire mage, seeking to find what is on the other side of the firewall in the great ocean of Fire's Wall. Too much steam, and turbulent seas, and Pahoeho swims back to his iron dinghy, and goes back aboard the local's much larger wooden fishing boat.

From the deck, the spirit mage Perceives That Which Others Do Not (Percy for short), gazes into the sky and sees an armored figure falling from far above into the sea. The figure goes into the depths, and Percy summons a water spirit to "push" the young warrior up towards the surface. Pahoeho dog paddles back to where the warrior now bobs on the surface, while fishermen follow in the iron boat. Together they pull the warrior, who they soon learn is one Osbert Haukmune, to safety and back to their big fishing boat.

Pahoeho's question to Osbert: "What did you see on the other side of the fire wall?" His answer was unclear [ahem].

The odd thing was that it looked like Osbert fell from a flying mount, but no one saw the mount. In fact, Osbert had lost a flying mount some time ago, and was on his way to Everway to see if he could learn more about how this might happen. One of the PCs had a definite impression that something in the air had been snatched by a fire spirit, just before Osbert fell. Osbert's memory was of taking the "normal" Earth gate route between spheres, but perhaps somehow he fell through an air gate upon arrival at Fire's Wall.

From there, back ashore Pahoeho commences a debauch in the beach bars on the firewall-facing western shore of the island, Nearest the Fire. The island is kind of a tourist trap, since the nighttime view of the firewall is astonishing, and in the daytime, this is the point of departure for boats taking people for a closer look at the firewall.

Everyone is drinking rum, even Osbert has some even though he seems unaccustomed to carousing. As the night goes by, there is some boasting between members of the party, and Pahoeho uses his earth magic to create a "grave" in the beach sand. The party and a number of the locals go out to look in the resulting pit. There are a lot of mussels there. The locals collect them for a clambake!

But suddenly Osbert's sword Demonbane is out of its sheath and pointing at a man carrying a bucket of mussels to the fire. He sets the bucket down. The sword points toward the bucket. The PCs open and inspect the clams. One has a Black Pearl inside. Demonbane is all eyes for it!

The Black Pearl morphs into a dragon, which starts out the size of a large shark, but gradually grows. This dragon is aquamarine. Osbert is "all-in" with trying to kill this thing immediately with Demonbane! Percy summons a spirit of calm to try and cool Osbert's spirits, as well as the dragon's.

Percy hears draconic speech. The dragon speaks its own language, not the Tongue. How odd! He wracks his brain for dragon lore from his studious past, on his rules-bound home realm. He remembers stories that dragons once challenged the gods, made war on them to displace them as the rulers of creation, and were defeated. But are dragons inherently evil? Demonsbane seems to think so. And the priests and scholars of Percy's native realm certainly thought so. One dragon above others, deceitful Alurax, certainly was evil. But Percy's knowledge of the lore of other realms suggests that dragons are viewed with more nuance elsewhere:

• Dragon knots are often found in the designs of clothing and textiles
• Some view dragons as incredibly wise
• Others know of dragons as rare beings who sleep long enough to become mountains

The dragon unfurls butterfly wings, begins to hover like a hummingbird, and begins to rise. 

The spirit of calm loses its grip on Osbert. He (or is it Demonsbane?) lunges, and chops off one of the dragon's paws. 

The dragon quickly rises and flies away to the west. It passes through the firewall, or at least seems to do so. Pahoeho is intrigued: what IS on the other side of the firewall? Could one ride a dragon through the fire? 

After the battle, Osbert is a bit pissed. Maybe embarassed. He doesn't want to be known as the Dragon Wounder... hopefully nobody starts calling him Osbert Dragonscratch! But that evening the PCs are celebrated as heroes. Osbert primly rejects amorous overtures from several locals. More drinking ensues.  

In the bleary morning our heroes arise, and seek out one of the ships of the Sea Traders. They want to go to Everway and seek answers to questions about dragons and missing mounts. 

Art by Jenny Dolfen

There is a long sea journey to a Sea Trader city. In the temple on the hill there is a gate maze, and soon they pass through a gate to the realm of Roundwander. 

[They emerge at gate #22 on the new map of Roundwander in Everway Silver Anniversary Edition Book 1: Players.]

To the north they see the huge orange-red tower mountain that is Phoenix Rock. The gate Keepers inform them that a barge will be along within a couple of hours. They can stretch their legs for a bit and wait for it.

Map by Richard Thames Rowan

Deconstruction Flakes Whirlwind

My friend Boris and I used to joke that my Mage (etc.) campaigns of the 1990s were made of "deconstruction flakes." He never seemed to mind this, but Lord Quetzalcoatl knows, plenty of other players used to find my games confusing and disconcerting. I've even had people quit over it. 

I have seen players quit other good GMs' campaigns too, over equally cryptic approaches to setting creation and storytelling. This was especially hard when as a player I felt like I had an intuitive sense of where the GM was going, even if I didn't get all the references. 

Well, except for that one time I really misread the GM's cue: my wereraven proceeded to step outside of a magical circle, and was shortly edited out of the rebooted universe, once the circle closed. Period.

Sometimes you do play the feathered wise fool.

But bottom line: not everyone can follow the mystic thread; not all clues are obvious; and not everyone enjoys gaming-as-mystery. It's important to figure out ways to get players the information they need and get them into the action. That will be more fun for them than spending forever exploring a realm and trying to figure out where the adventure really is.

That is one good piece of advice from the new Book 2 - Gamemasters for Everway: Silver Anniversary Edition.

Nevertheless, here are a few of the "deconstruction flakes" swirling around in my head for the current campaign. Some of these will make it into the game. Others, maybe not.

-Brittle Sand

-Pebble

-Bubble

-The Crossbow Monks

-The House of Oars

-Arcsand

-The Gleaming Pit

-Midway

-The Bridgehouse

Character Generation

 

Everway's Silver Anniversary Edition offers two ways to access the images that drive the game: there will be actual cards for the Vision Deck, Season Deck (a new feature), and Fortune Deck, and a huge chunk of Book 1 - Player's Book also reproduces the Fortune Deck and the Vision Deck (which includes more images than found in the original Everway boxed set). 

Since I am running my new campaign using the Silver Anniversary Edition, and we are playing online, I was pretty worried about how character generation was going to go. We play online in two hour sessions, weekly. Would that be enough time to generate characters? Would the players be able to understand the basics of setting and mood for such a visually oriented and reflective game in the virtual environment?

I decided to run in Zoom, rather than our usual home on Discord, because video quality is better. (Or at least I have more confidence in that platform with respect to screensharing and video interaction.)

One of my four players DOES have the original edition of the game (which he purchased online recently), so not surprisingly he got the furthest with character generation last night. For the Vision stage of character creation he was able to use his own set of Vision cards to select five that resonated with him for creating a character. He did the same with selecting his Virtue, Fault, and Fate using the Fortune Deck.

For the other players, I did a screenshare of the Vision Card chapter of the new Player's Book, so that they could see all the cards - and the questions associated with each Vision card. I also walked players through  the setting chapters of the Player's Book to give them a sense of the game environment: the much expanded map of Roundwander, the City of Everway, and various images in the book. This helped the players to "get" the mood of the game: mythic fantasy. I also showed players the cards in the Fortune Deck, and the various images of deities that are included in the deck. This was a useful anchor as well. 

As we began character generation we also explored a Premise for the campaign, which the new edition brings into stronger focus. What brings the characters together? What kind of group are they?

The players decided that their Spherewalkers have come to Everway after learning that they have a shared ancestor - some relation has invited them to visit the City of Everway. I thought this was a great idea. We agreed that this might be come kind of crazy uncle. When I explained the matriarchal-matrilineal family structure of Everway, they speculated that their relative might be a "crazy aunt" instead!

The visually rich review copy to which I have access gives me confidence that GMs will be able to create an authentic Everway experience online. The range of Vision card images did what they always do: they gave the players some ideas about other cherished card collections that they might raid for the Vision stage of character development! That was another "win" for the session, and very consistent with my experience running the RPG face-to-face and play-by-post in the past.

We did about two hours of discussion and exploration, the players will do a bit of image selection sessions, and will finish characters and begin the campaign in the next session.

While Everway doesn't have character classes or levels (the original of course came in a white box, so comparisons to D&D are both inevitable and illuminating), but the characters emerging seem to fall into the following categories:

• A wizard who is a spirit medium/channeler
• A bard
• A fighter
• A cleric (pretty sure)

So this promises to be a well-rounded party. I am looking forward to their adventures together!

Starting A New Everway Campaign!

After I bought the first edition of Everway, I dropped it off at my friend Amon's house. I came back later, after I had purchased some dinner, and saw that he had filled a dining room table with Vision Cards from the box set. It was such a splendid array, and he was quite impressed to see Ogun on one of the Fortune Deck cards, as back in the early 1990s, there were still relatively few depictions of characters or beings of African descent in RPGs! Everway was probably the first truly multicultural and inclusive RPG in that respect!

Twenty five or so years later, I am so thrilled to be beginning a new campaign for Everway with the new Everway Silver Anniversary Edition which is about to go on Kickstarter. Tonight we will step into character generation, which feels like returning to the source!

To learn more about what's going on with the Silver Anniversary Edition, you can join the Everway Facebook group here. To get notified about the launch of the Kickstarter, you can sign-up here.

The Everwayan blog was created to celebrate everything Everway, so expect updates about how character generation and the campaign are going!

It Always Snows In Neverwinter

Fort Amsterdam Post Card

The last time I played D&D with my friend Boris, he was GMing AD&D 2e. A science lab on the Cornell campus was the scene for his medieval Russian campaign. (Back in the '90s, I also gamed quite a bit in classrooms at the University of Rochester. This was before our universities became as secure as prisons.)

But last night, Boris began a new 5e campaign for a mostly new group of players. One of the other guys had been in his medieval Russia campaign back in the day. Fun reuniting with a couple of folks for gaming some 20 years on!

The action started in the city of Neverwinter during winter. In fact, the action started with a snowstorm. When you read Neverwinter, think "New Amsterdam"; the place names in this campaign are going to have a very loose relationship to the geography of the Forgotten Realms.

The setting is similar to 17th C. North America. The racialization is humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings are immigrants and colonists. There was a bloody war with indigenous peoples, mainly orcs and goblins, though there are other races such as gnolls (in the nearby town of Claymore, there is a gnoll street sweeper with a reverse coat color pattern: black fur, yellow spots; he's a quite abject fellow). My character, the Half-Orc Enkidu, is the only character with indigenous heritage.

Of course, this kind of set-up already gets us into very dangerous territory with respect to race in gaming and D&D specifically; there's no doubt about that. But read on.

The fur trade is everything here. There is a trading Company that controls the fur trade, which of course relies on the indigenous people to do the trapping. I read William Cronin's Changes in the Land a number of years ago, and more recently read Mary Lethert Wingerd's North Country: The Making of Minnesota so I know this conceptual territory very well.

I grew up in Western New York, which was central to the early fur trade, and now live in what was originally the Fort Snelling Military Reserve in the Minnesota Territory: a frontier fort and surrounding land reserve set up to regulate the fur trade, and deter rapid immigration into the territory.

Think about how lucrative that trade must have been that the U.S. government set up a fort to slow down the theft of land from Indians.

It should be interesting to see where this goes.