Zephyr: An Anarchist Roleplaying Game Of Fleeting Identities

Update #13 - Kings & Clans Preview!
over 1 year ago – Sat, Apr 01, 2023 at 10:30:11 PM

Hi kinfolk!

A quick one today, but one I had been working on for a while :) I made the writeup on Kings and Clans for the book, and exported it as a preview so folk can take a look, specially those of you who went for the higher tiers and gotta pick a clan for featured characters!

Next up I'll be continuing with the Patterns and finishing the character creation comics. These are coming up nicely :) 

Given the current rhythm, I'm starting to ponder on when it's likely the game will be finished. I'm kinda thinking that at a relaxed pace, July sounds like a good point to aim for the PDF release.

As usual, I'll get back to y'all around the end of the month. I'm also about to pin down the shipping rates so it's likely I'll send out surveys soon - in which case you'll get a notification through these updates and through Backerkit.

Remember too that if you wanna chat Zephyr, Nibiru, or anything on games art or whatever, we got the discord set up!

Best wishes,

Federico

Update #12 - Mid March Update!
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 11:14:24 PM

Hi kinfolk!

I wanted to reach out earlier than I said because I had stuff I wanted to share :) the past few weeks have been very tumultuous, I moved to Tokyo but my visa application got rejected, and went into a big scramble to be able to reapply and have enough time to leave if needed. It was a very traumatic event but fortunately I'm in good company and working in Zephyr, as always with my work in RPGs, signifies an escape that always makes my days brighter. The past two weeks I basically finished the assets that will fill the whole Patterns section of the book :)

 With those finished, I started to write up the remaining Patterns and lay them on the book. I'm still mulling them over, generally I tend to give myself plenty of time for the best ideas to filter out when writing these, so with the spread assets done I'm comfy in knowing that this chapter is more or less done!

After that, I started to write the fifth story for the character creation comic :) it's a myth about the origin of the sun. I think folk will really like it.

Lately, what I'm doing is to finish the spreads for the Clans, and make each clan's writeup. I wanna do this now particularly because, for those of y'all that went for the higher rewards, you'll want to know the differences between each clan so you can choose for your character accordingly! I'm very happy with how these pieces are shaping up. 

Wind Clan:

Frontier Clan:

Moon Clan:

And the Earthenfolk one, which is a work in progress and will take a couple of days since there's a loot of detail in depicting the Bowing Citadel:

Some details:

Once those are set with their clan writeups (which is... all but the Earthenfolk spread) I will reach out to those who got the bigger rewards so we can start creating your characters :)

That's all for the day! I'll get back to you around the end of the month. Also, by the way, the game is now open for preorder so if you had friends that wanted in, that chance is open again!

Many thanks, and best wishes,

Federico

Zephyr Update #11 - On Kings
almost 2 years ago – Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 06:14:11 AM

Hey kinfolk!

This week is a big one for me since I'm moving moved to Tokyo and I'm on the soul crushing wait to know if I'll get my visa accepted or not to stay in the country, but even then I didn't want to stop writing this update this weekend since I really like the topic at hand, it allows me to nerd out about anthropology and talk about the kings of the Windfolk!

It may sound counterintuitive at first, but kingship as a concept has coexisted within the framework of egalitarian societies as much as hierarchical ones, specially if we remove ourselves from the European context. But... what are kings? Essentially, they are entities with authoritative power, which have a social role but sit outside of society--isolated and unable to form bonds with members of Windfolk society. In Zephyr, this takes a very extreme form: Kings of the Windfolk are taken into deep mountain tunnels, forced to drink ammonium (the strange substance that make things grow unnaturally large), and chained to huge prison-thrones. Over years, consumption of ammonium stretches their tissue, breaking the sentimental fabric of Zephyr and turning them into half-dead colossi of uncanny demeanor.

Kings have two distinct functions for the Windfolk. First, their flesh--rid of the historicity and sentimental weight of Zephyr, turned into pale, empty husks of ammonium, can be carved to give shape to the crystals that are found in the chest of every Windfolk. In this way, the King is seen partly as a source of life--with each clan being bound in this manner to their monarch. 

The Wind clan claims descendance from the Marooned King--from whom they said they learned the gift of gliding. The Moon clan claims descendence from the Formless King--the oldest of them all, a monarch that has grown so large from centuries of ammonium consumption, its body has bled into miles of underground rivers, crystalizing into entire caves as well as having part of their body carved into the foundations of the citadel at Hollowpeak. The Frontier clan claims descendence from the Stolen king, which was sacralized through the body of one of the first lords of the Salt States--a sort of vengeance for the attrocities committed by them Salt Lords. And then the Earthenfolk who, well, don't have a fixed king. They in fact have had many, since their customs tend to emphasize the "disposable" nature of kings, and so they are constantly seeking for new ones.

The second use for kings is a bit more nuanced. Basically, they play a very particular part in that they are the ones who decide over the kind of life and death matters that could threaten the very fabric of society. If anyone else, a Windfolk, were to be forced of making said choices--say, who should be given a limited dose of a medicine during a plague, or any such terrible choices--, they would be not only charged with an unsurmountable amount of guilt, but also would be forced to showcase all their allegiances, their secrets and desires in public. This is a violence the Windfolk wish to spare anyone who partakes in society, and so delegating that to a de-socialized being like the King is their solution.

That's basically it! While this week has been very hard to do anything due to everything happening in my life, I was working on a new illustration for an Earthenfolk King, I'm having a lot of fun with it:

Next week, things should be back to normal so I can return to my usual illustration rhythm :) also, just to clarify since I had several people asking: I will indeed be offering my previous game, Nibiru, to purchase with the upcoming pledge manager stage--so folk who want both games don't have to pay to ship twice.

Hope you have a nice week! I'll be back soon, probably during the last week of March (like in my previous projects, I tend to stick to a routine of updating at the end of every month!)

Take care,

Fede 

Zephyr Update #10 - The Campaign is Over!
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Feb 20, 2023 at 03:28:44 PM

Hi Kinfolk!

The campaign is now officially over and we are on our way to make Zephyr real! YAY! Thanks for all your support these past few weeks, and for your comments : D I feel like over the years, Araukana has been steady in creating a small but really passionate audience that really enjoys these worlds, the way they are communicated through design and art, and have been really supportive throughout the way. I'm glad I can continue to live off of my passion and be excited about the stuff I'm making!

I wanted to talk briefly about the current state of the project and the future. At the moment, I'm finishing the character creation comics so that I can playtest this last bit, making sure character creation is crisp. I', 4 out of 6 on these, so they should be done soon. On the side, I keep on working on some spreads - here are a couple of them (one for the Frontier Clan section, another, a quadriptych for the locations section). I don't tend to have a strict, step-by-step approach regarding illustrations, I work in the order of what I feel like finishing first the most :P so what I'll do is, once a piece is done that allows me to lay out and upload a new chapter, I will do so! Like with my previous projects, you'll be able to check out the chapters as I knock them out through these updates - so if you are among them who have been reading the uploaded material and are waiting for more, stay tune to these updates!

I don't have much more to say today, since I'm getting ready to move to Tokyo now, and wish to rest for a bit - but I'll be back on the weekend as usual to unveil more about the setting and the game :) see you then, and once again, many thanks for helping make Zephyr real : D

Best wishes,

Federico

Zephyr Update #9 - FUNDED! & The Four Step Ladder
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Feb 18, 2023 at 06:28:34 PM

WE DID IT!

Zephyr is going to be real!

This game funding means a lot to me. Mentally and creatively I've lived in the land of Ophoi for so long now. Back in 2020 I was finishing writing Xanadu and I recall escaping into Zephyr writing so I could write about trees and meadows and fresh air, I conceived of one world as a place of rest from the cold of my previous fantasy world. Materially speaking, most of the work for Zephyr was done the last two years while living on a long term, non-renewable visa, without full knowledge if I'd be able to finally settle here and allow myself to continue living off of my passion. Now that we are funded, if all goes well this month, I might be able to finally set up the company in Japan and get a renewable visa! 

I wanted to tell you all this because often I think the conditions on which we make games are blurred and so everything that transpires and intersects with the process of making games doesn't get much airtime. These struggles are as much part of the game as the themes I've chosen to tackle, and thanks to your contribution I'm much closer to having a more stable life that can continue to pursue this passion :)

So once again, thank you kindly, muchisimas gracias, 誠にありがとうございます!

Back to the game then! I want to talk a bit about the Salt States, the main antagonists of the game, what role they play, the rules that concern them, and a sneak peak of things to come :)

The Salt States originated in an isolated tract of land that was subsumed into the creeping shadow of two mountain ranges, one from the Cyan Plaque, and one from the Magenta Plaque. The communities of this region depended on using salt to preserve foodstuffs through the prolonged winters of the bowing season, and so used it as a medium of exchange between them. At some point though, a particularly long winter saw a few groups turn to attacking others, stealing food reserves from others. The victims of such raids sought refuge in the south, clumping together and finding themselves suddenly in the company of strangers. It was in this context that salt - which used to be a medium of trade strictly used outside of the community, to be exchanged with those in he outside - turned into everyday tender.  

The reduction of everything in the sphere of consumption and creation to a measure of weighted salt created the conditions for the debt society of the Salt States. Although the story is longer, the end result was that a new order based on extraction of salt settled in the Grand Valley at the epicenter of Ophoi. These societies started fashioning masks, and thus reproducing life itself through the medium of salt. Because of this, you could say life itself developed a fixed, accountable value, and thus the ultimate transformation of these communities into extractivist societies was finalized.

Today's Salt States are a group of statelets, each with their Salt Lord commanding legions of "newloans" (the newborn state subjects, which are conceived as living debts from birth, and need to repay their very life with years of toil within Ophoi's entrails mining salt) as well as thousands of enslaved Windfolk working the wheatfields beyond the walls of the central urban sprawl. Subjects under the yoke of a Salt Lord remain nameless until they can repay their own life debt, moment in which they can finally purchase a name for themselves and start their life as a freelancer. 

The belief that unites most people under the Salt States is that of the Four Step Ladder. The symbol is taken from the upper part of the meagre wooden ladders used to descend into the innards of Ophoi in search for salt, and signifies the possibility of social ascendance, and the need to fight for one's own lord and their primacy above the rest. The Four Step Ladder is addressed when praying for the Final Jubilee - the moment in which one's own lord will ascend over the rest as owner of all life, and will then cancel all debts and set everyone free. The yearning for this utopian vision is what drives many to fight for their lord in blind belief that - once they do claim property right over everyone in existence - they will proceed with magnanimity in abolishing the very system everything is built upon.

There is much more to talk about the interaction between Salt States and the shatterzone, and how Windfolk regard the States. The one thing I want to zoom into a bit is two bits of rules that tie into what happens when you run into a Hero of the Salt States.

Mechanics-wise, Windfolk need to make sure they can get away from Heroes as quickly and safely as possible. Narrators take a number of random tokens in their hand equal to the Courage of the Hero they are facing. 

Then, the group must present between 1 to 4 tokens, all of different colors, to face off against the Hero. These tokens can come both from their Windfolks' Constitution  (signifying that they are pushing themselves physically to escape) or from their Region (signifying the use of the environment to escape). Then, the Narrator reveals one of the tokens they grabbed before. If the color coincides with the color of one of the tokens offered by the players, they narrate the first sequence of their escape, and continue onwards until no Courage tokens are left.

If at any point the players fail to match one of the Courage tokens, one or several of them is bound to suffer Heroic Violence. This is one of the main reasons why you'll almost always want to escape from Heroes: the way violence works is different from normal, natural violence in which you just lose tokens from your Constitution.

Heroic Violence is systematic. It comes from a system of beliefs, its is dealt methodically and with intent, and so it has a completely different mechanical implementation in the game:

That's where I'm leaving it at today! Once again, thank you so much for helping make the project real. I'll be making one more update before the campaign ends or right after it does, and then continue in a more spaced out manner as with my previous projects. Feel free to ask any questions, and to partake in our discord server if you want to (and promote the KS before it ends if you feel like it!)

Best wishes,

Fede