Hey Man, well this is Babylon

This week I met with three new players to start up a new Burning Wheel campaign. This one is based in a micro-setting I’ve had kicking around in my head for some time now, originally established for a game that never actually started. I’ll try and give it to you in a sentence: “In a near-industrial fantasy world where most everyone lives in massive isolated city-states, wars are fought not by armies, but by godlike warriors who duel with the powers of the heavens.” Each city-state has its chosen Proxy, and when conflicts arise, the Proxies duel it out to determine a victor.

This core paradigm extends all the way down into the deepest dregs of society, where even the most petty legal disputes are resolved by official bouts between representative warrior-proxies. While the Magnificantes themselves may be chosen chosen by the gods (at least, that’s what most of the peasantry and the new budding labor class believes), the proxies further down the scale are just top class warriors with official recognition, lawyers who represent by power of combat skill alone.

Torch is one such city-state, and within the dirtiest of its wrought-iron-encrusted streets is where our story begins. They’re all part of the underworld surrounding the lowest rungs of the Proxy fights, either directly involved with the shady dealings that pervade these bouts, or directly affected (victimized?) by them.

It’s kind of like The Wire meets The Lies of Locke Lamora meets Robot Jox. Read more

Yesterday I proposed a new game idea to my group: Let’s build a city, populate it together, then play in it. My basic idea was a city called Torch, with a very flame-focused motif in the common nomenclature of the city and its populace. The idea took hold, and we all threw some ideas around to give it more life. Here’s what we have so far: Read more