The Scroll of Night

[Lmns Crn]

Soon the Torch-Bearer will crest the Eastern horizon at dusk. At the same time, the Wandering Sorcerer will cross out of the constellation of the Iron Brand, and will hold up the western end of the Spine. While this Celestial Conjunction lasts, vast power will be within grasp within the Sea of Sands. Driven by instinct or by the omens written on the Scroll of Night, mortals make their preparations, to seize destiny when the stars align.

...in a time before time, the defiant first-mortals resolve to banish the gods who created them, knowing that they seal their own fates...

...in an ancient age, a caste of magicians, long the servants of the throne, sharpen regicidal knives in secret to achieve eternal dominion...

...in an imperial regime, bands of dissidents journey to the palace to petition the council as their homelands tense for war...

...in a not-too-distant future, engineers sift through desert ruins, forging rubble into fortresses against the terrors of the coming night...

...in a time beyond time, the victorious library-cult prepares their only ritual, bloody hands trembling, watching the world's last sunset fade...

Across these aeons, few know (and none truly comprehend) the meaning of the Celestial Conjunction they intend to harness. Few realize they are converging not only upon the same place, but also upon the same fateful moment.

The Scroll of Night is a game set in a mystic desert kingdom across multiple time periods. The time-settings of the game are the seasons of the rare Celestial Conjunction, when chance and destiny align to create auspicious deeds, and when eras bleed and blend into each other, making it possible to communicate across the centuries and influence far-flung generations. Players take the roles of princes, viziers, brigands, spies, and sorcerers, building lasting kingdoms despite the threats of treachery, curses, wicked spirits, and the schemes of madmen from the past and future.

[Rose-of-Vellum]

Intriguing. Tell us more...

[Humabout]

This reminds me of how timelines blend together in Dark Souls. Tell me more, tell me more!

[Steerpike]

Brilliant premise.  The concept is incredibly ambitious for a roleplaying game, but would be glorious if pulled off, and still oodles of fun even if it turned into a sprawling metaphysical mess.

The converging timelines idea is fascinating.  It reminds me a bit of The Anubis Gates (in case you haven't read it, it's thoroughly worth looking into, especially for those interested in unusual fantasy time travel stories) but not in a derivative way.

[Seraph]

Yeah I am really curious to see what you have in mind for this too.  Is it functioning primarily as a way to have different eras interacting, or will the temporal strangeness be woven more deeply in?  Are the players playing characters belonging to ONE time period, or will they typically have multiple characters from multiple timelines that interact?

Will this be a mind-bending game with bizarre trains of causality, such as going back in time & creating the present, the future affecting the past, and so forth?

I really want to see more about how these different converging eras interact.

[Ghostman]

What if aspects of the same character could exist in each of those eras, kind of like Moorcock's Eternal Champion?

[SA]

I need to know all about this. I neeeeeeeeeeeed it.

[Weave]

I need to know all about this. I neeeeeeeeeeeed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA1mbZ_MMh8

But seriously, this is cool. I don't have any idea how I'd run it, but I'm interested in seeing what approach you'd take. GIVE ME MOAR.

[Lmns Crn]

the dark: uncertain and unformed potential, possibilities. fear (for many possible futures are fearful). choices yet to be made. the dark is a welcome portent as it speaks of an individual's taking control of their many possible futures, despite danger.

the stars: fixed points within the dark, sacrificed potential. choices that cannot be unmade, destinies that cannot be avoided. watchful eyes in the night. the stars are a fearful portent as they speak of inevitable fate and the grim surveillance of spirits.

the flower: opening, transfiguration, the release of sweet comforts. delicate impermanence, cycles of living and dying. thought, speech, and quiet reflection; conversation, culture, and discourse. the flower is a desired portent as it speaks of beauty and the mind.

the scroll: to an idea; stagnation, archival, and forgetting. to an individual; death, obituary, imprisonment of the soul. misrepresentation, forgery, the end of dialogue, the last word. the scroll is a dread portent as it speaks of stasis and imprisonment, last chances lost, and the denial of comfort to the dead.

the flame: insatiable, consuming change; urgent action. purification, transformation, and age. skill and bitter experience. passion, especially when it drives a person to their destruction. the flame is a powerful portent because it speaks of upheaval and the power to change the status quo (though this power hungers for its own momentum)

the moth: only a fool seeks this doomed sign

[Rose-of-Vellum]

Very beautiful.

Is the moon or sun associated with any portents?

[sparkletwist]

This is all rather interesting, but it's all rather vague, too.

At some point it would be nice to know what any of this actually is or means. :grin:

[Lmns Crn]

The world serves its masters: gods of fire and air, of secrets and craft, small gods and great who built a land to rule. Mortals are their playthings, who live and toil and die at their whim. Words are their playthings, whose shape and nuance twist thought and perception this way and that. Even the stars, wheeling erratically in the endless dark, are their playthings. Subjugation is neverending, because time does not flow here.

The portents of this age are the Scroll and the Dark, for the terrible choices made here will echo for the remainder of all things.

The first seeds of rebellion were written by the gods, in their own arrogance. Their mortal slaves began to understand the written alphabets of power, with which the gods wrote their whim upon reality. Experimenting in secret with stolen runes, humans learned to write the sigils of binding and command, to draw the labyrinths that slowly fill with trapped divinity, and to engrave the lines that cleave reality. Turning these tools on their oppressors, they carved the world in two-- a World of Spirit, where they bound their creators, and a World of Flesh, which they claimed as their realm.

This wound would continue to bleed and putrefy.

Before the Mortal Emperor led this rebellion, before the Mortal Sorcerer severed the world, existence lay frozen in a single moment. Mortal hubris shattered this crystalline moment, and time flowed forth. The World of Spirit remains a single moment, and those within neither change nor learn, but view all pasts and futures as points on a map. The World of Flesh drifts through time, and those within may act and choose... but they also must forget and decay and die.

For humanity, the reward for seizing control of their own destiny is that everything will change. For humanity, the cost of seizing control of their own destiny is that everything will change.

At the center of the World of Flesh, the Mortal Emperor built his palace, establishing a doomed bloodline that destiny would extinguish. At the center of the Imperial Palace, the Mortal Sorcerer tamed reckless stars and harnessed their first conjunction to bind the very gods humanity had once been bound by. It is said that the jewel in the Emperor's own crown now imprisons the Sorcerer, flickering in maddening timeless immortality.

Here, Imperial forces struggle to tame this new World of Flesh they have torn from the gods' grasp. The Mortal Emperor commands liberated legions to explore, conquer, and build in this realm, but not even the Binders of the Imperial Legion, with all the power stolen from their enslaved spirits of fire and air, of secrets and craft, can fight the inexorable decay of a World drifting through time.

The wind stirs the desert sands, gently erasing the footsteps of the first mortals. It doesn't blow hard; it doesn't have to. Everything falls apart eventually.

[Rose-of-Vellum]

Once again, twas beautiful. I like the dichotomization of Flesh & Spirit based on time. I look forward to reading more. What's next on your development agenda?

[Lmns Crn]

To finish writing out all the ideas I've got scrawled down in a notebook, and to put game mechanics to it somehow.

[Pareidollhouse]

At the center of the World of Flesh, the Mortal Emperor built his palace, establishing a doomed bloodline that destiny would extinguish. At the center of the Imperial Palace, the Mortal Sorcerer tamed reckless stars and harnessed their first conjunction to bind the very gods humanity had once been bound by. It is said that the jewel in the Emperor's own crown now imprisons the Sorcerer, flickering in maddening timeless immortality.

What are the gods and spirits compelled by the Emperor to do? Do they ever act themselves, or is their power only ever stolen and directed by other agents? Does this theft diminish them, or do they provide, by virtue of their separation from flesh, a limitless fuel? Could their essence be exhausted, so that they were never strong enough to repress humankind, so that rebellion was never necessary, so that spirit and flesh were never divided?

What else was wrested out of eternity and into time, so that the Emperor yet has need of legions? What other mortals exist here beside human beings, and do they love flesh's freedoms more than they resent the new inevitability of death?

Who first defined or divined the meaning of flames, flowers and stars, or did they always hold their meanings, even before there was a changeable world?