Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Introducing: Blazing Spear


High time to pull back the curtain, I think.

Blazing Spear is the tentative name for an original bronze age weird fantasy setting I and two others have been working on since early 2011. There are numerous influences (from 300 to Fringe), but a particular handful best capture the kind of stories we'd like our world to help tell. Fullmetal Alchemist. Avatar: The Last Airbender. Matthew Woodring Stover's bronze age fantasy trilogy. Girl Genius. A relatively obscure new comic called Black Fire. And above all else, Princess Mononoke.

These are stories of badass individuals caught up in the physical & ideological confrontations of different cultures, and in the goals of colorful power players whose means far exceed those available to "mere mortals."

These are stories in a world that is changing and evolving, where there is no option to maintain a “status quo”.

These are stories where numerous other characters are just as badass, just as competent- and not just among those fighting on both sides of the conflict, but also those "underfoot" who are just trying to get by. The crucial factor that distinguishes the player characters isn't superior strength, or even necessarily virtue; it's their role as individuals, as people who involve themselves in the conflict without cleaving to any the goals of any one faction that's involved.

I'm as busy as ever, but I'll do my best to share more about this world we've made (and perhaps some original game mechanics to go with it). My goal is to update on at least a weekly basis; I'm terrible as I've always been at posting into a vacuum, so any honest feedback & commentary you can offer will be a huge help. Have I gotten your attention so far?

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