Five or So Questions on Mysthea

Today I have an interview with Jay Iles on Mysthea: Legends From the Borderlands, which is currently on Kickstarter! It plays into some of the thoughts I’ve been having about what happens after rebellion.

Art for Mysthea is by Travis Anderson.

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The Mysthea cover with a red crystalline feature like a castle in the background with a cliff in the foreground. The cliff has trees winding around and framing the image, and on the right near a group of trees, a person wearing a cape and holding a red and gold scepter or staff of some kind in the shape of a half-sun stands, looking out toward the red crystalline structure.

Tell me a little about Mysthea: Legends From the Borderlands. What excites you about it?

So! Mysthea: Legends From the Borderlands is a game of post-war rebuilding and divided loyalties in a geomantic fantasy world. It’s set in a city that’s in territory contested by two major powers, and now those powers are at war. The war front has passed over this city and is now a distant rumble, and the city is free again – though much worse for wear. Each player creates a faction active in the city, whether they’re an ancient order, a new organisation dedicated to refugee support, or sent by one of the great powers to rebuild the city and pursue their patron’s agenda. You’ll make a viewpoint character from your faction, dive into the politics and struggles of the wounded city, and see how it changes from flashpoint to flashpoint.

I’m excited about:

  • Telling a zoomed-in story: your group will find out how a single city grows and how its people change over the span of a few decades. You’ll craft this city and get to know its districts, its politics, its festivals.
  • A dive into weird fantasy: Mysthea is a world defined by the crystals scattered over it by a prehistoric impact. These crystals warp the environment and its creatures, but also resonate with human thought. What does a society look like where everyone has limited telekinesis, and can use these crystals to build, fight, control beasts, craft prosthetics, etc? I’m interested in finding out!
  • A game of empire and liberation. At least some of the player factions will be coming into the city as liberators, having ousted the previous occupiers. But the ousting wasn’t clean, and the faction’s patrons aren’t altruists. As you play you’ll deal with what happens after liberation, as each faction must reckon with their obligations to their patrons, the city, and each other. We’re hoping the fantasy setting will provide the needed distance to really dig into this thorny topics, and have hired cultural consultants to try and ensure we do so respectfully.
A group of people of various types who have crylstalline features look up through a city towards a shop in the sky that is emitting lighting. One individual raises their sword toward it in the foreground.

I like this zoomed in look, and I’m curious about the flashpoints! What does it feel like in play to go from moment to moment in this world, and how is that represented in the game?

A flashpoint starts with you defining its core issue: why have we decided to pick up this city’s story here? Maybe a battalion of soldiers has arrived at the city and demanded supplies? Perhaps a shower of crystal meteors have hit the city, causing destruction and warped the area? Or maybe one of the player factions has decided they’ve had enough, and is going to try and seize control of the city?

So – you’ve set up this flashpoint. To play through it, you’ll jump between the actions of Houses (slow, ponderous, and vast) and Heroes – agile and dynamic, but with their own priorities. We’ve designed the two layers to feel very different in play. House actions add new elements to the map and reshape the city’s balance of power, but use up a limited pool of Decrees. The hero phase feels more like standard PbtA, something like Monster of the Week. Your group of characters have a mission to deal with, and as you play out the moment-to-moment drama of that conflict you’ll test your bonds with your fellows and discover new truths about the world. The two phases flow into each other. Your Houses’ actions set up threats and opportunities for your Heroes to deal with, while your Heroes’ on-the-ground experience of this city and its people can completely change your Houses’ priorities and goals.

In a copse of trees, two of which are growing together with a golden orb shining between them, a small turtle-crab creature, a speckled black bird, a tall deer-like creature with spines on its back, and a long-legged lizard creature gather around a glowing book on a pedastal.

How do you approach the idea of consent and agency in a world where people can control things with their mind, able to break rules with a thought?

One of the interesting things about magic in Mysthea is that it adds agency, and its most powerful effects need close friends working together on a common goal. It’s a link between the mental and the material and has been used in-setting to craft crystal prostheses amputees can telekinetically control, and literally give agency to constructed beings of stone and crystal.

There’s the other element too – consent and agency. One person acting on their own can only perform a few tricks with crystal shards and boost their normal actions – to do more, you need to work together. By calling on the aid of those who have strong bonds with you you add their wisdom to yours, letting you work together to go beyond human limits, evoke world-warping auras and more.

The fact that magical potency comes from close bonds and common goals instead of years of arcane research and expensive components is really interesting! What sort of society does that lead to? How does that change how minority groups organise and lobby for their rights? How do autocrats maintain their power, knowing what power lies in their subject’s hands if they work together? I’m interested to find out!

A large muscular monster stands with other monsters, and the monster is green and reddish pink with large thick legs and shorter arms, a massive head with multiple horns, spider-like eyes, and a huge mouth with big chunky teeth that are fully bared.
I didn’t ask questions about the monsters but this thing is RAD.

I was just asking people about making games that happen after the liberation! What do you think are the challenges in designing a game with this focus, and what’s exciting about them?

One challenge is definitely the messy complexity of these situations. You can’t turn back the clock – the occupation happened, and it and your ‘liberation’ left scars on this place. Among the city’s citizens you’ll have those who want to restore the old ways, and those who suffered under that regime and want to keep moving forward. Among the liberators, you’ll have isolationists wanting to minimise investment and occupiers trying to claim this city permanently.

That’s a really interesting social situation to drop players into, but it’s vital to keep the difference between dogma and the true situation clear. Part of our solution is to make sure the game prioritises humanity over ideology. We want to humanise all parties involved, though that definitely doesn’t mean presenting all positions as valid.

Finally, we’re aware of the limits of our own perspectives, and have hired consultants to make sure we treat sensitive matters with the appropriate degree of tact and care.

A woman with wildly waving short hair in strappy, torn clothing that has gens in the leg straps growing down into stilts that are part of her feet. She holds large geometric golden blades in a defensive stance while a diamond shaped, golden item floats behind her head, emitting a bright light and three long, red tentacles.

What are some of the more complex aspects of designing a game focused on a whole city, rather than just a few characters?

First, you have to treat the city as a character in its own right, and give it a presence at the table. The map of the city is central to the game: you begin by placing down its districts and landmarks, and as you play you’ll introduce factors to it representing people, places and events crucial to the current flashpoint.

It’s also important to maintain the link between people and their community – to the extent that one of the GM’s principles is ‘name everyone, and know who backs them’. There’s no lone wolves in Legends From the Borderlands, and no faceless mooks – everyone has their own identity, and their own place in the city’s cultural fabric.

Of course, the easiest way to make something feel alive is to have it change. The timeskips between flashpoints are here to establish that, letting the city grow physically and culturally – each time you jump ahead, you’ll describe ways the city’s appearance has changed, and a new festival that’s sprung up to remember the previous flashpoint.

An illustration of large crystalline creatures with crystal weapons leaping and running towards the viewer.

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Thank you to Jay for the interview! I hope you all enjoyed the interview and that you’ll check out Mysthea: Legends From the Borderlands on Kickstarter today!