Empire lrp is not the game for me. Iterated PvP, over months, years, and in some cases over a decade, actual, real brain required to navigate a situation designed to be complex?
I can get that at work.
But I am sage sufficient to know that even though it’s not for me, it’s not only perfect for many folk but a marvellous home for many, many, more who want their characters live in an astonishingly rich and beautifully realised world.
And I like being one of them, and I love holding the coats while the folk who *do* love “Vampire in the mud” or “Totally Immersive World, or whatever. You know, the actual Game.
And last event I got a the heaviest dose of story that I’ve had for years.
Most of it was because Andy Raff wrote this
For those who don’t know, the “Winds of Fortune” are a stack of situations that work something like the bits of motivation a Nordic character brief would give you. A story articulated in in-game fiction that says what’s happened to someone, and a set of consequences that may impact your character.
Go read it.
This one was 4832 words long. There were 35 of them. 160k words ono in total.
That does not include 5876 words describing the Empire’s military campaigns, and roughy the same as an interlude describing the evolving situation between the last two events. Another 12k words.
In all, that weighs in somewhere between the Grapes of Wrath at 169k words, and the Fellowship of the Ring at 177k, written in three months, based on the character actions of last event and priming possibilities for that.
Its also way more than the 38k words in the Heart of Darkness. Remember that bit.
Honestly, I don’t read them often .But every now and then, one resonates and if the rest are as good as those ones… They’re worth the effort, gargantuan as it is. It was *that good*.
The story was, one of the Empire’s armies had got itself lost in a swamp, in a plotline somewhere between Apocalypse Now, Southern Comfort and Annihilation inspired in part by the actions of players who’d cast a great big Night magic ritual on the territory – in and of itself, an impressive acheivement.
My character has a military unit, which has followed that army, the Drakes, every season, for over a decade, through triumph, defeat, one notable surfing holiday…. And now this.
The Wind contained some suggestions for how you might act as a result of this, and what might be done to find them…
So as well as doing my civil service duties as a member of the crew, I got to…
Find someone who could help my specific military unit go *back* into the swamp and find the army – specifically, what magic might help and who could cast it for him.
Roleplay the impact of an excess of Night magic – surfacing a possible change into the lineage of Naga – hissing, and other trappings
Roleplay the impact of a general confusion over what I’d done for the last three months and how awful it had been – essentially, filking lines from Apocalypse Now. “Every time, I think I’m gonna wake up back in the swamp. When I was in Anvil, it’s worse. I wake up and there’s nothing. Now I’m here, I want to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back here.”… ” I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn’t even know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a riverlets that snaked through the swamp like a line of powdered mana plugged straight into the heart of darkness. There were multi-coloured heralds of the Night, changing from three-tailed cat, to meddlesome octopus, to dodo bird. We poled a punt to stay clear of the surreptitious alligators. There were the Cal twins at the bow; 50, but they could still use a war bow. Freddy* in the middle; got a bit crazy and started loosing shafts into the trees. And Lottie; the spear woman – we called her Lance.”* I’d forgotten Laurence Fishburne was the actor, otherwise I’d have done some awful pun there too.
Or staring over someone’s right shoulder when you’re talking to them, which is a lot harder than in sounds.
And getting magical and spiritual help with *that*.
It was simply a whole lot of really enjoyable play.
And it gave me an excuse to go perform…
One of the Things That Could Be Done was ask the nation of Navarr to help find the missing Marcher army. Something made harder by some stirring about the Marchers wanting one of the ancestral Navarr territories…
This next bit is just a story about me, so if you came looking for discussion about Empire in the wide – that’s done now.
The Navarr have a tradition called Songs and Stories – they gather round a fire, open mic-style, and it’s just *astonishing* The best singers and storytellers are professional-quality, often because they *are* professional, and the inclusion of folk who – like me – very much aren’t is so generous.
John of Meade felt a little in-person diplomacy might help, so between work and Gin Spire on Saturday, he rocked up to S&S to tell a tale. Which went something like this,
“I have been a poor guest at this fire, for I have come twice, and told a tale of a Dawnish, a tale of a Marcher, and never a tale of the Navarr.
But how can a Marcher tell one of your stories? They are yours, not ours…
So I will tell a tale about the Navarr, with not a single Navarri in it…
How will I do that?
Well….
When I found I was to become a father, I found a new Ambition; to take the field with my child, in a Marcher bill block, where enemies fall like wheat before the scythe.
And when they became a citizen, they joined Urizen. Because “That’s where the best mages are”.
So in order to achieve my ambition and take the field with them, I had to buy a mercenary banner.
I prepared for us both, bought enchantments and tonics to tip the odds on our survival. It’d take us more than a half hour to bleed to death. We prepared march against the Jotun, enchanted mage armour for us both, a shield for him, a staff for me. He’d earned a fortune writing books; I spent it all.
And then the military council said we were to fight the Druj.
So in order to take the field best prepared for their impaling arrows and spears, I borrowed and bought heavy armour and a bill for me, sighed, and laid the mage armour and staff to one side. In debt.
We marched into the dark wood, alongside the Scarlet Guard of Urizen.
My child fought in the front rank, Marcher-born, alongside his new nation. At one point, he was cut down, I pushed through the ranks, fought to his side, and called on him to stay with me. I have never been prouder.
But, inevitably, there came the time when the line wast stretched, where we few faced many Druj.
But something rustled in the woods, I looked to the left, then straight, and said to them “The Navarr are coming.”
Their eyes flicked right.
I looked left again. Again looked the Druj straight in the eyes and said “The painted folk are coming, through the trees they come, your doom is coming.”
They looked right, looked for shadows in the trees, but saw none, no matter now hard they looked. Shaken, they stared back to me, shuffling, confident no longer.
A third time, I spoke, this time I shouted “With scorpions’ sting and barbed spear, they come, your doom comes, silent and hidden in the trees the Navarr come to bring you your death!”
And. Then. They. Ran!
And this is my story about the Navarri, without a single Navarr in it! For you…
Were. Never. There.
I do not know where on that field you were, if indeed you were there at all, but when I told the Druj you were coming, they fled!
Your name is a killing word! Your name brings the fear that shakes the Empire’s foes! Navarr! Navarr! Navarr!
Now neither John of Meade, nor Harry, credit that with a single Navarr reinforcement to the search for the Drakes. But it was fun, and folk enjoyed it.
And it’s a story – most of which is at least partly true true – that I’ve been looking to tell for a while, and it was nice to have an IC excuse.
A meme that will mean nothing to folk who don’t play Empire, little to thousands of those who do, and a lot to maybe 200 people.
it’s a very, very big game.
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