Musings of the Magi: conception of execution

JibbaJibba: So in the words of the great lost sage Ao Oa "do you mind not washing your socks in that sink, my penguin sleeps there.”

DamberVance: Nice little Ao oA quote by the way, though note the proper spelling of his name, Need I remind you of the example he set with the famous historian, Quinx of Purpurp, who once clumsily misquoted him. 1'm told the people of Purpurp would miss their mascot, the green spotty 'Quinx' bunny, after it has been with them so long.

Apparently a Quinx reappeared on the 56th day of the tri-annual feast of Tzeseth, in the small rural hamlet of Loon. Unfortunately, it's gralek petals were becoming tainted and so it proceeded to eat the chief Burgher, before it was chased off by several large chaps waving Keel Sticks I must say that this information did come to me via a second hand source and so it could have been some other Quinx I suppose...

JibbaJibba: As a matter of interest the Selicorse people still refer to him as Ao Oa; this happens to be a very amusing pun in their language that has something to do with vegetables, whereas Ao oA means something totally different.

Would this be the same Seficorse people that were recently visited by a certain Mr. Adolfus Orelly, Orator and Alchemist, a mysterious purveyor of wonderful elixirs? For it is said that since Adolfus provided the customary twelve vats of Ussky the villagers drink every other Jumping Day, none of them make any reference at all to Ao oA, whether this is because they have learnt the wisdom of their ways or whether their now large furry blue tongues actually prevent them from speaking is hard to say. 

So it began. A conversation between two old school friends who ended up working in the IT department of one of the world’s most powerful investment banks. The email exchange became an amusing distraction between real life that carried on for three years. The characters became condensed into JibbaJibba the arrogant, supercilious patrician leader of The Long Staves and DamberVance the arrogant, supercilious, populist leader of the Grinning Fellows.

These two wizards, trapped in the world of vastly powerful mages vying for popularity through petty insults, fashion faux pas, grammatical minutia, bribery and put downs, became a presence, three years in the conversation was close to 300 pages. The discussion wandered through observatories, robes, battle aardvarks, and even occasionally discussed charms, dweomers and enchantments.

When DamberVance, or Darren as he goes by in typical conversation suggested we trun 300 pages of rambling nonsense into a boardgame I was .. sceptical. He really wanted to focus on stories and on this weird idea he had about each players powers being about their brain so a picture he found somewhere that suggested different parts the brain gave rise to different mental facilities, Memory, Imagination etc ... I said I would think about it. A week later I had the base game worked out and the first set of playtest cards.

The game would focus round a story mechanic that would be a bit like playing tricks in whist with players winning a round of the story. They would need to be able to build stuff, hire lackies and breed battle-worthy anteaters, obviously ...

The game oddly kind of worked. The secret was that the turns were all short and punchy. One action only. None of the 20 minute turns that have become so common in certain card games. And more importantly none of it would matter. The stuff, the tomes of magical lore, the Legions of Flying Monkeys, none of it would matter because the whole game was decided on a single vote. Of course all of that stuff would make you more popular, more powerful, enable you to bribe the other NPC wizards that would be in the Conclave and let you weaken your opponent.

We iterated and tweaked it but the basic shape is much as it was although we dumped the board that would have sat in the middle of the table being a bit bored. Now its ready for the work to see we just need to work out how to make the next step and get it published. Self-Publish, kick-starter find a publisher, who knows but we are open to offers.