An Initial Taste

Playtesting has been going on a bit for Quest, and it looks positive. The rules as written will need an overhaul, but that'll probably happen a couple times more still. A few people across the Internet have access to the print-and-play playtest files, and I've been sharing the game with more friends and acquaintances at the local game store. If you're interested in helping out with playtesting, shoot me an e-mail! (fissionessence at hotmail dot com)

But in addition to making sure the game plays well, one of the elements I've been focusing on recently is figuring more out about the setting. The playtest edition of the game has Land, Air, and Sea Encounters with enemies ranging from Squirrels to Electric Sharks to Forest Fires to Mermaids' Riddles. But while the intellectual property of the setting won't have a huge impact on actual gameplay, I do want the illustrations and card designs to resonate flavorfully—and for that to happen, there needs to be a resonant, flavorful world.

I can't guarantee that all of this will make it through to the final version of the story—especially names of people and places—but I'm pretty happy with what I have so far. Here's a verbal sketch of the setting.

Quest: Awakening of Melior

Melior wasn't a peaceful world, but its wars were waged with swords and crossbows—with catapults and wrought towers—with steel, wood, and flesh. Its denizens knew magic only in fairy tale and legend; no gods watched over the land, and the only great lizards weren't firebreathing, gold-hoarding dragons, but simple dinosaurs. But about a hundred years ago was the first sighting of the strange lights that began appearing in the sky. Some of them fell to the earth, crystalline meteorites of varying sizes. Some people spoke of an intelligence beyond Melior, of people who lived out among the stars, whose eyes were the lights in the sky. Such talk was derided socially . . . but whispered of in curses and in frightful stories. But still, Melior knew no magic.

That is . . . until only a few years ago. On a dark night—so dark even the foreign lights were dim—a huge glowing mass appeared in the sky. It descends the horizon as day breaks, and it rises at the night's fall, but day or night, its presence can be felt across Melior. The crystals hum and glow, and the world has been beset by storms of chaotic, alien energy. People, animals, and places alike have been touched and twisted by the world's new wild magic, creating abominations, havens, dangerous phenomenon, and people with strange new powers.

And there are rumors of dark, shadowy caves—you may turn a corner and find yourself among them, their labyrinthine sinews taking you endlessly in any direction, but with no exit. Some have found escape to tell the tale, but others may be lost, still wandering.