This month, March, marks eight years now that Mistsparrow has been worldbuilding the setting of Avaria! Congrats on the anniversary, Mistsparrow!
Today is also the day that I want to make an announcement about Mysteries and Imagination!
This game world is imaginary! It's Mistsparrow's brainchild. While it does have many analogous features with the real world, it is a fantasy world. And thus, there are many things that players can use their imagination about, too.
The problem (sometimes) with player imagination is this... players will invent things that counter established lore. I've seen what happens when a player uses their amazing imagination and makes up some admittedly-very-cool lore, but then the game's lorewizard is like -- "That doesn't fit". It's incredibly disappointing. It's tough for the player who ends up having to retcon something, or deal with in-game consequences, or just be sad and wrong-about-how-things-work. And, it's tough for the worldbuilder who put in the effort to build the world and then has to knock over other people's sandcastles in order to maintain the structure of their own sandcastle.
I'm making this announcement now, hopefully to circumvent the eventuality of anyone needing to face that kind of disappointment.
Here are a few points...
You cannot invent:
- magical metaphysics,
- example: Blood has power, so I will bleed my enemy over a kaiostauros and that will cure the hex that a witch has laid on me. If it doesn't, I'm going to be really upset OOC.
- world religions,
- example: Azadi believe that spitting over their left shoulder will ward off evil spirits.
- large-scale geopolitical issues,
- example: When I was a child, a great famine swept through Irzal due to the Kalentoi Empire cutting off trade routes north of Rahoum.
- culture-wide traditions
- example: All Salawi merchant vessels are marked with a red-and-black half-moon on a white jib.
- important organizations,
- example: There was a tribal leader in Saramat who negotiated the unity of all the tribes, named Bonobo Jim, and he was my mentor.
You can invent:
- small village politics,
- example: Our tribal leader used to be something of a trouble magnet, but she was such a great healer and so charismatic and wise that everyone listened to her anyway.
- family heirarchies and traditions,
- example: Every evening, my father would say a small prayer when he lit the candles.
- your own religious practices,
- example: I spit when I'm feeling superstitious about evil spirits.
- your character's personal conceptions about magical metaphysics,
- example: I think blood has power, and maybe if I bleed my enemy over a kaiostauros, that will cure the hex the witch laid on me. If it doesn't, well I guess maybe that's not how things actually work. My character can totally believe this without it being true at all.
- small background organizations
- example: I was part of a disbanded gang twenty years ago as a teenager, called the Sandstorm Shrikes, and we were basically pickpockets who roamed the dockyards.
Our imagination as players isn't happening in a vacuum -- it's happening within this setting, and this metaphysical reality. Mistsparrow has spent a lot of time and effort worldbuilding to make a cohesive magic system, and the rules of how this magic work are like laws of physics in this imaginary world.
Further, everything that exists in the world is genuinely a part of the world, with deep roots in oft-undocumented background lore. We can't (or perhaps it's better to say that we won't) retcon the carefully-wrought work of nearly a decade in order to make player imagination 'correct'. What we can do (and Mistsparrow does) is strive to find ways for player imagination to fit within the established metaphysics.
What I mean to say is that this isn't stuff that player imagination can change, really: magic actually works in specific ways. These mysteries aren't documented on the wiki because they're meant to be puzzles to solve in-character, and development for characters to embark on through the course of their stories!
Some characters already have hooks into these stories, but players need to understand that no matter how cool their hooks may be, or how amazing and fun their imagination is (and some of you have incredible imaginations) -- theories about how magic works are just that: theories. They are not entitled to become 'reality', because 'reality' is already built out. No character starts out the game with magic, and we have only triggered a single magical skill on one person so far, and not even this means 'this person has magic now'. It's meant to be a slow process of discovery and in-character learning that follows that character's story.
If you do have a really cool idea that you'd like to run past us and make sure will fit into the metaphysics, by all means! Please OOCMail Mistsparrow.
Trust us that the world as it is -- is actually super cool. In-character investigation is what you need to develop magic! Imagination is great, and it could lead you on a really fun trial-and-error mode of discovery, but please don't think that the fabric of the game world will warp to accommodate anybody's imagination. Even Mistsparrow spends literal weeks sometimes thinking about something in order to decide how precisely it might fit into the established lore.
We're trying to make as cohesive a setting as possible, and hope that our players will appreciate this and understand.
Three cheers for Avaria!
Hip hip! Hooray!
Hooray for Avaria!
