Nothing but crazy talk in this post. For one thing, it’s back to that strange little collection of games about religion. I’ve added their updated forms as attachments if you don’t mind never getting back the hour or two of reading them. For another, the particular game is Daemon Lover which is overflowing with unconstructed narration, shifting authorities, soft mechanics, and absurdly high TMI, not to mention a cornucopia of objectification, or at least it looks like it must be.
It’s designed for multi-session play so a single session like this one can only be a sort of “poke poke” test to see if it has any traction, not a real playtest in the sense of seeing whether the whole thing works. I am especially uncertain whether the overall “story of the tribe” will actually work in the long run, as there is probably at least one way to work around or strategize out of the constraints that are supposed to allow various but inevitable means of coming to an end. I won’t be able to address that until I actually get to play through a bunch of Episodes.
I’ve always conceived of it as using miniatures, so the appearance of HeroForge in the interim is a nice addition to the design. You’re looking at Shkaiyaan, my character from play. Our tribe worshipped the Blood Goddess, with the wildcat as our totem, and this particular session (or Episode as it’s called in play) was set during winter. Therefore the characters were a bit more bundled up in clothes than they prefer to be during most of the year; that’s why the figure is somewhat bare under her fur cloak but also garbed practically enough for a running fight in the snow.
Anyway, click if you dare. The game turned out frighteningly well in play, much better than a very early and untried design of mine typically does.
2 responses to “Scantily clad under our furs”
The rule about the demon
The rule about the demon lover being the player is striking. The character has a relationship with other characters and the fantasy world, but also with the player! This is a reflection of reality that I don't think is ever articulated. This casts me back to my early days as a teen, when I often felt very attached to my characters — in a sense I had an intense relationship with the character outside of play.
It does remind me of that.
It does remind me of that. Perhaps it's a way of transforming that teen or adolescent relationship into an adult form, especially the particularly adult form of breaking the social contract by engaging in the relationship.
One thing I wish I'd made clear in the video is that the intimate activity cannot be something that is otherwise deemed wrong. It can't be murder or inappropriate-age interactions, and it cannot harm anyone except insofar as they would feel hurt or betrayed because you did it and therefore damaged the image they have of you. It has to be taboo because it is taboo, and although perceived as something "central to our social identity," it does not in fact damage or negate some concrete aspect of the amazons' lifestyle, although it might symbolically defy it..