The Daylight War: Forum RPG
Posted by Karen
Hey everyone! Fun fact of the day, I used to run an online RPG forum. For two years I moderated posts filled with all sorts of fantastical creatures and blocked trolls of the internet kind (the other sort was fine).
Imagine my nostalgic glee when I recently stumbled across a game inspired by The Demon Cycle!
Game Name: Prison Colony Krakengard – The Daylight War
System: Pathfinder
Deadline for Application: (not set yet, I will let you all know when I do, but it will be at least 3 weeks from the day this is posted)
Expected Post Rate: About 3 quality posts per week.
Theme: Survival in and escape from a prison colony on floating islands
Flavor: Sandbox with some plot. Night is bad. At night, the nasties come out to play, and you aren’t the opponent, you’re the ball and punching bag.
Sound interesting? You can check it out here! The host site is RPG crossing where you can find all sorts of RPGs going on, from Star Wars to Gurps. Prison Colony Krakengard is going to be played with Pathfinder.
I got in touch with the GM (Game Master) of Prison Colony Krakengard and managed to get some insight into their inspiration for the game:
The general idea of running a game around the original premise of “The Painted Man” has been in my head for a long time now. Basically, I really liked the concept of night being bad and everyone cowering inside as soon as darkness comes. I figured as a game, it would have a great horror/survival feel, and after contemplating a few options I decided I liked it best as an exploration-style game. There’s a few safe havens in the world that you desperately want to return to before darkness falls…because otherwise you are basically dead.
So I’d say what I took from “The Demon Cycle” is the general feel and flavor of the world. Most people who inhabit the world would never think to go out and explore, let alone try to fight back, but there are a few heroes who will, if they can find the means to do so. In my game, my players will take on the role of those few brave enough to go out and risk exploration, though it will be up to the players what exactly motivates them.
In the end, I merged this game idea with some other ideas I had floating around. Both the concept of this taking place on a floating island and in a prison colony seemed like great ideas, because they limit the geography and make it realistic that significant portions of the ‘world’ are reachable or almost reachable from the few safe havens that exist.
A limited scope of the world is a big bonus for a game played on a play-by-post forum because by their very nature these games will progress slowly. If the world is too big from the get go, your players are unlikely to experience it all and they’ll miss out on some of the cool things you want them to find. Of course, if the world is too small, you have to find some other way to make exploration hard for them. Incredibly strong creatures that come out at night and spell a death sentence to anyone caught outside certainly qualify.
Ideally, I’ll be able to install both the fear most of the population in “The Demon Cycle” feels as well as the heroes’ desire to do something to fight back in my players. I’m really excited and looking forward to this game, I think over two years might have passed from the first time I started taking notes about this game idea and finally starting to recruit players so as to actually get the game under way!
…I’m definitely excited for this game, and the world and atmosphere created by Peter V. Brett’s book series is a big part of that. I doubt this game would exist if I’d never read “The Demon Cycle” — Inem
Thanks so much, Inem, for sharing your thoughts with us! As a fellow GM (Homebrew via D&D 3.5), I think it’s wicked cool to see other people’s creative process while creating a game. This one seems like it’s going to be a blast! Once again, if you’d like to apply to be a part of this game, you can head over to its official page on RPG Crossing for more information.
You can order your copy of The Daylight War here!