In this episode it’s the turn of a|state co-creator Malcolm Craig to answer Jon’s infeasibly rambling and self-referential lines of questioning. This is a long-form chat between creatives, so expect rambling and opinions!
Something untoward is occurring at Folly Hills Dog Track. Unfancied hounds are winning races… Competitive dogs are going to the pot… The turnstiles are no longer thick with punters…
What has cast a shadow over the once-thriving Track?
Explore the cutthroat world of the dog track, the home of avaricious betting syndicates, vicious organised crime groups, disgruntled dog owners, and many bemused punters.
This supplement for a|state presents the Folly Hills Dog Track, a location teeming with trouble and opportunity that can become part of your game in many different ways.
The most straightforward way to use the Track is as an interesting location in The City, sitting alongside those described in the a|state book. Like those locations it is a source of inspiration and ideas, a potential place for troublemakers to visit, and an additional glimpse of the rhythms of life in The City. As with all those locations you can use it as presented, or strip this whole resource for parts to make your own version of the Dog Track.
The Track is presented so you can weave it into your struggle. The large number of people who converge on the Track, and the number of different interests that collide here, provide many opportunities to link it to your troublemakers. In the text following you will find many specific suggestions for ways to tie the Folly Hills Dog Track to the characters and conflicts at the heart of your game.
It is also possible to use it as your corner. Gone to the Dogs presents everything you need to build an exciting game of a|state with the Folly Hills Dog Track as the focus. If you and your group like the idea of getting into a game fast without having to build your corner from scratch, this will give you everything you need.
However you use the Folly Hills Dog Track, you will find that it gives you a robust starting point. The people, schemes, events, and rumours detailed here can branch off in infinite ways, depending on the actions and reactions of the troublemakers.
Gone to the Dogs will be heading out to backers of a|state second edition early next week. It will shortly thereafter go on sale to everyone at DrivethruRPG.
a|state second edition is making its physical presence felt as copies make their way to backers, late pledgers, and pre-orderers around the world. (Our friends in the US will need to be the most patient, since your books need to complete their sea voyage).
Of course in the mean time the PDF is out, and looking great! All pre-orders come with a free copy of the PDF.
With a|state books on hand, and backer copies heading out right now, orders for all the accessories from the a|state second edition campaign will open very soon!
Let’s take a look at the a|state coins, made by our friends at Campaign Coins.
These are ideal to use in a game of The Three Coins, which is the story telling RPG played within The City, the setting of a|state. Games within games!
If you’re an a|state backer then you’ll already have read in Friday’s update that a|state books have arrived! As have the limited edition books and the Table Tower. Check out the video to see more.
Our fulfilment partners are now working as fast as possible to get copies dispatched. Naturally copies heading further afield will take a little longer than copies sent to UK addresses!
We’ll also be adding more a|state items to our web store now that we have the books on hand.
In Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland, the witches are defined by their masks. They begin the story with two masks, each of which allows them to do a thing well. The witches can trade masks among their number as needed, making them highly fluid and otherworldly as characters.
You’d be forgiven for wondering, as the sharp-minded person you are, if the things the witches are good at are defined solely by their masks, and they can swap masks with one another, who then are they? What is their inner character? Who is the person under the mask?
There are three possible answers.
The first is that that is something you will discover through play. How did your character become a Maskwitch? What was their training and what events shaped them into the person they are in this story?
The second is that the witches entirely believe in a self-creation story that we see in many so-called “shamanic” (see the reader’s notes in Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland for more on our approach to the difficulties surrounding the terms shaman and shamanism) or, more appropriately, “folkloric” tales. That they were created when a normal person was visited by a spirit, often in the form of a bird, which removed and substituted their eyes and possibly bones and internal organs with magical replacements, usually made from a material like copper or flint. This often happens at the bottom of the sea or a lake. Or at the peak of an unscalable witchmountain. Whoever they were before is forgotten, like a snake leaves behind its skin each year, or an elk leaves behind its antlers. A witch might have their own tale of this kind, they believe it, and for all intents and purposes it is true.
Or perhaps the secret truth is that the maskwitches themselves are as “real” as the spirits they are fighting. The spirits embody the problems of the community and must be dealt with ritualistically to resolve them. The witches are the personification of the community’s desire to heal. They are not people at all. ThIs does not stop a maskwitch from acting exactly like a real person, with feelings, hopes for the future, and relationships with the past. They are made from the very stuff of humanity: a care for others and an ambition for things to be better. Exploring this can make for deeply affecting tales.
Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland is a standalone storytelling RPG coming to Kickstarter as a week-long campaign this month. Sign up to be notified and don’t miss out!
We took delivery of a prototype Maskwitches book. In this video Jon takes a look through the prototype which we filled with full page Doggerland art, in advance of the final text being ready. And after a lot of rambling about the various aspects of this setting and the art we’ve been making, there’s a surprise delivery!
You can sign up to be notified of the launch of the Maskwitches campaign here:
Some fabrics from Forgotten Doggerland. And a witchbag. Also a stranger from under the sea. It’s not real though. It’s just the psychic embodiment of the community’s lack of concern for the rising brine. So that’s fine, right? What harm could it do?
Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland will be an art book and sourcebook for a psychedelic Mesolithic setting for The Silver Road (as well as being a fine sourcebook for other RPGs). It’s coming to Kickstarter soon for a week long Quickstarter campaign!
a|state The THREE COINS with free PDF£12.00
a|state second edition with free PDF£39.99
a|state: The Abandoned Shipyard A3 Poster Limited EditionOriginal price was: £24.99.£18.99Current price is: £18.99.
