Apt142’s Blog

For a long time, my hobby was running a role playing game. I say ‘was’ only because I no longer have a group or time to run one. A result of this is that I came up with a lot of story ideas and plot devices. One of those never got to see play. Years ago, I decided it would be nice to start putting the idea to use. I could no longer use it as a RPG. So, it got a second life as a game.

This idea hit me while I was playing in someone else’s RPG. I prefer the swords and sorcery games. This was one of them.

The basic premise was that the world’s mana, the powering force of magic, was being corrupted. Spell casting had for a long time been a fairly safe practice. After the tainting started into it, certain spells started triggering ill effects on the magic users of the world. Those that used their magic for evil or even just destructive purposes were hit hardest. Combat wizards, necromancers and others like them found themselves hearing voices, losing touch with reality and going generally insane. While those that used magic for purely altruistic or constructive reasons suffered little to no effect. Individuals who suffered from the taint found themselves addicted to using the very magic that was corrupting them.

I usually have magic take a deep and intrinsic role in the nature of how the world works. And in this case I made no exceptions. The players would find that the taint had seeped into locations, artifacts, and creatures. I had the intention of giving it an apocalyptic feel. The world was falling to the taint and the main characters would have no alternative but to live through it. Some would even fall to it just trying to survive.

I would still like to run a game with this setting. Or even write a module for an existing system for it.

Meanwhile, I wrote a game. Or more correctly, started writing a game. There is a ton of work still to do and what I have is working only by the strictest terms of that definition. The main struggle in the game is over land control. Individuals in the game have a balance level. They can be very good to very evil. Those player balance levels sway the ground the individuals reside on. They also sway what spells are available to individuals in the game. The idea was that individuals in the light and dark would fight each other for control of the map.

If you’re interested in taking a walk around, you can.
The game is here: http://www.apartment142.com/darkmana
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