Just to let everyone know. I posited an opinion on a thread in open about what licences we would like to do. I mentioned Gormenghast.

Well, i'm currently developing a system that will take the idea behind those books, shake it up, give it hallucinations and generally make the 'enclosed castle' a new genre, if you like.

I'm already in the 10k words mark and things are going well. We have 92 different castle features contained on a master feature table. The feature entries will serve the function of character creation, character advancement, as well as creating a snapshot of the castle and its inhabitants. Politics, Problems and NPCs can then be created for each location, creating a thriving community within the Stone Horizons.

Draft Introductory Text:

There is the castle and there is outside. They are one and the same.

The beautiful forest is home to a hunter’s lodge and close by its stone foundations, a deep river flows. It meanders between both the trees of the forest and the lofty stone gazebos, open-air temples and the wide metal ducts that poke up periodically from the loam of the forest floor. When it reaches the forest’s edge, the river encounters only walls of stone; gothic archways in the walls lead to corridors, and then more passageways and yet more. The river plunges down one such passage until the vista changes to that of a subterranean river, lit only by torches placed at irregular intervals on the walls that frame its progress. More archways and passageways lead from the river channel, small landing areas are dotted about it, walkways sway above, bustling with denizens. Bobbing along its course is a primitive raft crafted from small bits of flotsam that have been lashed together. A dozen pairs of eyes stare from the junk at the people on the riverbank. The river next enters a large courtyard, splitting it in two. Each side of the courtyard is riddled with opening and passageways and above the waterway is storey upon storey of walkways and openings, leading to yet more passageways, and then, yet more. The river then enters a narrow tunnel, and the only company it has are the spindly beings that cling to the walls, coming and going into tiny apertures in the wall and barking excitedly at the men on the raft. The river finally emerges once more into sunlight and a rocky channel carved into a mountainside by millennia of erosion. To each side of the channel, the castle rears again; gargoyles peer at the travellers from tall towers that dot the skyline for as far as the eye can see. Maidens watch the raft pass by wistfully, wishing to be taken away to new climes. Eventually, the flotsam raft passes from their view. Framed by the cyclopean buildings to each side; carved, raised and covering a hundred mountains in a never ending sea of worked stone and rooftops, the river and its raft pass beyond the stone horizon…To be confronted with yet another vista of all encompassing stonework buildings; clinging to the earth like limpets and shading it from the sun. Desert, jungle, grassy plains, icy wastes; they have all been smothered by the castle and nestle within it’s bowels. Rare gems of land, clear of the castle, pass by swiftly and are swallowed by the stone once more.
   
The river passes beyond these Stone Horizons on a journey that few take, to dump its waters into the sea. Boats dot the water here and trade, hunting and piracy take place here much like any other ocean. There is one difference though. If you can find the right ship captain at the right time in a suitable state of inebriation, he will tell you, “Across the ocean? The castle is there matey. It hems in the water. Only the mouth of the occasional river splits the gargantuan walls of stone. Beaches? Have to sail into the grottos under the castle to see those, lad! The castle is everywhere and the castle is everything. Let’s hope whoever built it never wants it back eh?”

Welcome to Stone Horizons, where the castle is everywhere and the castle is everything!

Here's a draft of a single feature that can be found within the Stone Horizons:

01Sculleries

The overseer loomed, sneering at the cowering serving lad at his feet, “I hate you kitchen boy. My hate burns with the fire of a thousand candles. How many times have I told you not to spill the wine?” Raising his balled fist, the overseer catches the lad a stinging blow to the top of his head, causing the youth to whelp in pain.

After a moment of shuffling, the overseer grunts, “What have you got there boy? Here, hand it over.” Pulling the concealed knife from the folds of his tunic the lad lunges at the cruel overseer, plunging the blade into his throat. “I resign,” the boy mutters.

Player Character Information
Stat Mods: Manual Dexterity +1, Pragmatism +1
Skills: Prepare food 2, Portage 1, knives & cleavers 1, Prepare/identify poisons 1
Special Abilities: Organise 3
Status: 1

Scullery Accoutrements: A hearty meal (an evenings work or 2 pennies), Crockery (2 bits), Knives & cleavers (5 bits), aprons and work clothes (1 bit), 1 day of preserved foods (5 pennies), vermin poisons, lesser (3 bits), baskets & packs (1 bit), heat resistant gloves (1 bit), 1 days supply of chopped wood  (3 pennies), coals, bag (1 bit), heat stone, 10% chance, see special features (20 crowns), mesh gloves, butchery (4 bits)

Description
A scullery is where food is prepared on a large scale and they are normally attached to buildings or households of some substance. These kitchens may serve anywhere from 20 to several hundred people at a single sitting. Some sculleries are like vaulted cathedrals, their ceilings receding into an unknown distance above, where vermin and the occasional Rafter nest can be found. Others are cramped affairs where the fires of the ovens cast a hellish red glare over every one and everything. Huge loft spaces at the top of soaring towers, narrow channels within Wall crawler tunnels, a barge’s storage hold, or a workshop’s canteen, that holds hundreds, all serve as sculleries. Many buildings found within the Stone Horizons have sculleries and the differences between them can be staggering. You are urged to use your imagination when placing a scullery. However, soon, the amazing can become commonplace, so don’t make them all weird and wonderful. Just spice things up every now and then!

When travelling through the castle, you are probably never further than a couple of hundred yards away from a scullery of some description, meaning that thousands find work in this manner in countless stone horizons.

A Day in the Life

The lowly scullion is not well thought of by his neighbours. This type of work is considered to be nothing short of slavery by many. Scullions eat, live and sleep in the kitchens, unless they are tasked with getting supplies from local amenities. His work is never over. When others are tucked into their beds, he is banking the fires or getting the ovens ready for the morning bread. When he does finally get a chance to rest, he curls up under the worktops (getting a blanket if he is lucky) and sleeps the sleep of the exhausted. Due to the chaotic nature of the role, scullions rarely, if ever, get any leisure time, although all but the most hardened of scullery overseers normally grants each scullion one half day off every ten days. Illness is another matter. Sick scullions are sent to the apothecaries as quickly as possible and are not expected to work until they are fully recovered. They must make up the time they lost to the sickness, in most cases. Most scullions are never short of food either, whether it is the scraps from the worktables or leftovers from the eating hall, he is generally well fed, if criminally overworked.

Local features
Roll once on the master feature chart to determine which feature the scullery serves.

Once you know the feature that the scullery serves, roll 3 times on the master feature chart to design the immediate environment. Interconnect them with covered corridors, courtyards and linked buildings or move upwards to create multiple storeys of a single large building contained within the castle. This will create a small community for players to interact with and inform their advancement opportunities when creating their characters.

GM Information - Problems, Politics & NPCs

Roll once on the Problems & Politics table, and then roll on any sub charts indicated. Roll once on the Authority figure NPC table and twice on the general NPC table, again, rolling on any subsequent tables, as indicated. Ideas should then flow as to the politics and problems of the Scullery. The information gained in this section can then be interweaved with other local features to gain a microcosmic community within the castle.

Draft Environment explanation:

Hanging Around

It is perfectly possible to play a game of Stone Horizons without your feet ever touching the ground. Some of the buildings are so tall, that the rafters that hold up the roof are hidden in gloom thousands of feet above the ground. There is also horizon upon horizon of rooftops to clamber across and towers to scale, where that rarity to some residents; the sun, shines on your endeavours. Like most other environments, communities have grown up around these features to exploit their unique resources or to avoid overcrowding below. Features that take advantage of this niche are Rafter Nests, Duct Crew Balloons, Aviary Towers, Hammock Clusters, Eyries, Bell Towers, Wall-Crawler Hollows and Tower-Top Observatories. Chances are that if you have chosen (or rolled) one of these starting features, then your game will be primarily based on the rooftops and in the shrouded rafters of titanic buildings. However, this needn’t necessarily be the case; it is relatively easy to place a normal feature or two below these lofty rooftop features that characters can visit and interact with. Another option, if you are playing a fantasy game, is to place a Levitation Shaft or some Moving Stairs nearby to grant greater access to the ground.

The lofty features of a rooftop game result in two considerations for the players. The first is survival. Resources are scarce in the high places, although birds and vermin can be found (the latter taste horrible), to get a large variety of foodstuffs, roof-toppers must visit other features to purchase or steal them. Residents of Eyries have come up with gliders that clip to their backs and use them to soar down to the ground or swoop over the rooftops to collect supplies when the local source has run short. The return journey is much more perilous and climbing skills are a must for a rooftop game. The second consideration for a rooftop game is that of exploration. Some features are uniquely qualified to aid trailblazing. Eyrie gliders, Duct Crew Balloons (who keep the giant ducts found in the largest buildings free of vermin and in good working order) and Aviary Towers all have the tools to reach far off horizons and communicate with the locals, get into fights, squabble and all the other things that player characters are likely to do. Given these two considerations, local politics and problems can become unwelcome distractions, but people being people, still occur. This gives rooftop games an undercurrent of desperation with folks trying to better their lot and scrambling over anyone in the way. Hammock Cluster folk have a particularly bad reputation in this regard. Then again, anyone who lives in a canvas hammock precariously perched thousands of feet above the ground can justifiably feel cranky.

Games in which shrouded ceiling spaces, lofty towers and the rooftops feature will need to strike a fine balance between the fight for survival and the spirit of exploration. It can prove to be an unusual experience for those who want to play in this environment.


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This is all that i am going to post here about this project, but i will be after proofreaders, editors and playtesters, in the fullness of time.

If you would be interested in playtesting this product, then please send me a PM and we can discuss how to take things forward. I would like to start playtesting in 3 months time, so you have plenty of time to get organised!

Edit: I've edited the sample feature description to an updated version.

This is great, Dan.  As I stated in the other thread, Gormenghast is a game waiting to happen.  Two memories leap to mind.

Years ago, long before Gormenghast was even published, a friend used a similar idea in a game of Tunnels & Trolls.  We took a wrong turn through a magical door and wound up in a seemingly endless manor that had halls and rooms that led to all sorts of strangely unimaginable places.  It was fantastic.

Not so many years ago, one of the most under-used and only partially developed ideas in Unknown Armies was the House of Renunciation.  The general concept was an endless house that you'd reach via a magical door, but you'd only be able to visit the one room that was intended for you.

I'll add another memory: the Sarah Winchester mansion.  If you're not familiar with the story, Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester firearms fortune, developed a mania that compelled her to just keep building onto her mansion, often building features that served no purpose -- stairs that led up to thin air, doors that opened onto solid walls, etc.  It's a weird place.  Magnify it a hundredfold, or simply make it limitless, and I'd never need to visit another dungeon again.

Go, man, go.

!i!

For some reason this also makes me think of The Book of the New Sun - with it's huge, sprawling buildings that inlcude libraries that go on seemingly forever...

It's not quite the same, but it made me think of it...

Nice work Dan - I'll be interested to see how it works out for you...

Rock On!

Quote from: James J SkachFor some reason this also makes me think of The Book of the New Sun - with it's huge, sprawling buildings that inlcude libraries that go on seemingly forever...

It's not quite the same, but it made me think of it...

Nice work Dan - I'll be interested to see how it works out for you...

Rock On!

That's one inspiration actually.

There are prison complexes and Interrogators rooms and libraries and...well, about 90 other things.

This sounds great - I have often wanted to play a Gormenghast-style game.

Can't wait to see SH in its finished glory - I wish I could spare the time to playtest it.

I don't even know what Gormenghast is... but this does have a New Sun vibe to it, I did play & love that old CoC module inspired by the Winchester house, and your write-up is amazing. Very focused & intense idea.

Seconded, Simon.  If only I had a group.  I'd make the time for something that sounds this interesting!

Bill? Keith? Pete?  I'll host?

Quote from: Pierce InverarityI don't even know what Gormenghast is...

Very...odd novels.  Very good novels.

!i!

Thanks. Wow. That one goes right into the old shopping cart.

I know it's not strictly genre fiction, but Kafka's Castle is worth looking at in this connection.

No worries guys. If you don't have the time, you don't have the time. I'll just have to go....elsewhere.

I'll post an announcement in this thread when i'm in a position to start the first playtest, but as i mentioned above, i don't see that happening for another 3 months yet.

Quote from: One Horse TownNo worries guys. If you don't have the time, you don't have the time. I'll just have to go....elsewhere.

I'll post an announcement in this thread when i'm in a position to start the first playtest, but as i mentioned above, i don't see that happening for another 3 months yet.

That gives me three months to make the time. :cool:

Quote from: Simon WThat gives me three months to make the time. :cool:

Exactly!

In which case, do you guys want me to skip the middleman and send you a PM (or e-mail if you want to provide me with one) when i'm in a position to progress?

I want to feel out (get your mind out of the gutter) Keith and Bill and Pete and others to see if I can get a group of folks interested.  If that goes well, I'll let you know!