Exploration of Fallen Pt.1

The Impetus

Fallen was first penned a while ago. An opportunity to exercise my take on writing a fantasy game. It remained little more than that, an extrapolation of the word, fallen, and I wanted to practice layout, and I had also decided to place a flag on the skills side of the field.

I am a solo player; in fact my only group play is the handful of times leading my young kid through some one page dungeons and a simple hexcrawl. I appreciate the game Ironsworn, a brilliant system built on the the PbtA model, but developed into a full scale solo campaigning machine. But, I missed some of the color written into so many of my zines and old-school retro-clone books. The strange bestiaries, the quirky magic and items, the occasional zaniness. Ironsworn firmly sits in a gritty, low-fantasy realism. I love this about it too, but kept bouncing back and forth. I modified the Ironsworn sheet to accommodate some old-school options, basically utilizing the former’s excellent travel mechanics and the latter’s combat, so that I could use the fun “toys” like +1 rings and cursed swords. But, in practice, that balancing of two became awkward at times.

So, fast forward a bit, rewind some, timelines are a bit muddled, but I wrote Fallen. I based it on the two systems that I seem to keep returning to. The first, Cairn, authored by Yochai Gal, is a forest-fantasy fairy tale hack of Into the Odd by Chris McDowell. I actually missed the original ItO, but Cairn just resonated with me. Simple, elegant, direct. The second, Ironsworn, hit the market just about when I first got into tabletop playing. As described above, but also know that it has many interlocking mechanics for tripping effects, timed happenings, tracking progress. It has a massive, passionate following for a reason. Shawn Tomkin’s game has given (and continues to) voice and power to many isolated players during a time of mass isolation. But it has real staying power too, as illustrated by the super-successful Kickstarter campaign for the science fiction variation, Starforged. These two games, New School Cairn, and robust solo Ironsworn, have perhaps the largest influence on my fledgling gaming life.

For me, another source of gaming joy, is zines. I love them. I have a pretty rad collection of them. I use them, I read them, I have written about them. Simple, clean, creative as hell; they are products of passion. I want to make one! Fallen would be such a thing, a small format convergence of the ideas I currently most appreciate.

Now I have a game text, birthed from strong impressions taken from the aforementioned texts. An attempt by an amateur to realize these impressions in a slightly new context. But the narrative component of the game is something else. Originally placed in the substratum of fantasy, I still wanted the game to have nods to my personal interests. Its development lagged. There was a disconnect for me in the writing and the fulfillment of the game’s purpose. It sat on the pixelated shelf, so to speak. Then, one day I went on a field trip with my family. In a two hour period, I recognized the change that would galvanize my semi-casual interest in the project into an all hand’s on project that I now need to realize. This may seem silly to some, but my imagination was stoked by a museum visit…

The Field Trip

This was no typical museum, but my favorite kind. An early American, pioneer village, with numerous “faithful” reconstructions of early buildings (themselves already quite old). Over twenty of them! Nestled into a wood-surrounded meadow, divided by an idyllic creek. There was a large mill, residences, community building, a stable works. There were old signs hanging over doorways, proclaiming in carved and painted letters, various commercial establishments. But, what stoked my imagination into full steam, was the signage describing the stage coach that was a major part of the original early community. The path I was standing on, the sign said, was the site of the original road, and it swept away and up through the woods to its next destination. And as I looked up to follow the route, I saw the tavern sign. That was it. Fallen’s world instantly became something else. Rogues in long coats, tricorne hats, sabers and pistols, masked raiders and coaches. Instead of kobolds and owlbears, it became headless horseman, mothman, demon boars and witches. Venturing forth from the moated palace of the local governor into the wild lands, with contract in hand, to dispatch the vicious rumors of a wolf-man terrorizing the local population. Rain, mud, mist, dark forests and forgotten towers.

The Existence

This world is actually not so removed from traditional fantasy settings. It is the violent severance away from the medieval world by the modern world. The maturation of one era’s offspring. But as with its human precedent, the youth carries forth all that it knows from its elders, and while exorcising the grip of the past and seething for the future, there is a purgatory period. Fallen lives in this liminal space. There remains fear of gods and monsters. Superstition is rampant. Medicine is only beginning its departure from older, filthier practice. There is desire for political and religious independence; a need for education; universal progress is an ideal - and yet, it is a world haunted by specters and ghosts, nature is capable of violent retaliation, perceived darkness is actually misunderstood nature.

This is the world I am exploring with Fallen. Wandering mystics sowing apple orchards, proselytizing the writings of far-off mystics. Sashes of color marking your stature, coaches rumbling through the gloam, mist swirling over cobbles and through cemeteries, large estate parks terrorized by a carnivorous darkness. Psychedelic dreams turn the grey of mud and field into the nightmare of kaleidoscopic visions. Fairy tales are real, and mad scientists have indeed achieved horrific miracles. And yet, for all its belief in sophistication, the roots of the other side grab and pull from the darkened corners of a woodland shroud. The poor yet suffer under tyranny. Justice remains not universal. Fallen explores the Light and Dark of a world on the cusp of dynamic change. I think its makes for fascinating discovery. I think players can throw many references into building it. Fallen is near at hand.