Xan's Menagerie Reblogs

Magic at the Masthead

You are the new first lieutenant on the MNS Meredith, a neat, fast little frigate in the Measarrean Navy. Officially, your orders are to get out there and harass the enemy. In fact, Measarrean naval intelligence has tasked you with finding out if there is any truth to the rumours that your enemies, the Oriolenn, have developed a weapon powerful enough to manipulate the fundamental laws of nature. It’s a mission that will take you into the heart of enemy territory, and challenge your crew to the utmost. And if you can find, or even claim, this weapon, what then? Will you allow it to transform the world forever? Claim it for yourself? Or attempt to destroy it?

Play as cis or trans; male (he/him), female (she/her), nonbinary (they/them), agender (e/em), or set your own pronouns; gay, straight, bisexual, asexual and/or aromantic with alternative ‘particular friend’ paths available for platonic intimacy.

Focus on naval prowess and hone your crew into a fighting force that can win any battle - with your tactical genius, of course.

Focus on naval intelligence and gain as much information as possible on the enemy’s plans - while using your skill and guile to sew sedition in their ranks.

Focus on natural philosophy, and become a world expert on magic and all the ways it can - or can’t - be harnessed.

Survive attacks from magical creatures and miasmic magical storms. Build diplomatic relationships with mer people. Build a happy and efficient ship - or let it become lubberly and mutinous.

Use your influence over your fellow officers to shape them into very different possible versions of themselves.

Map of the archipelagic world of the game

You

You are a newly qualified lieutenant in the Measarrean navy. You first went to sea at 14, so this has been your life for a long time. You’re now in your mid twenties, and your new captain has promoted you over the heads of your more senior new colleagues into the role of first lieutenant - second in command of the ship. You’re adept at the major skills needed for a sailor. But in the Measarrean navy, all command officers also have a second specialism, and you chose to be either a ship’s navigator, surgeon, or bard (something between a ship’s counsellor, a master of revels, and a cultural consultant). You also have some unique abilities that got you recruited for this secret mission in the first place.

Main NPCs

The following characters are available for romance, or to become particular friends (depending on how things play out - they might hate you!)

You will also have a high level of influence over the kinds of people they become by the end of the game, and what happens to them. They are all pansexual.

NOTE: I have used they/them/theirs throughout, but all genders are variable as detailed above.

Second Lieutenant (and navigator) Ferhan Ahmet [25, Measarrean Kuz-Kusi]. Dashing, intelligent, ruthless. Beloved by the crew for their daring and tactical innovation, they are also deeply ambitious, far more interested in their own professional progress than the good of the service. They are bold and forthright, and give short shrift to those they consider intellectually beneath them, but they take their responsibility to the people under their command very seriously, sacrificing their safety for their crew’s without a thought, and are passionately loyal to the small group of people they consider friends.

Third Lieutenant (and bard) Celyn Davies [24, White Maesarrean]. Celyn is very observant about things that interest them. Those things are magic, and people. They are a capable officer when they remember to be, but they come alive when engaging with their passions. They’ll spend hours on deck, wrapped in a cloak, studying the patterns of magical light on the surface of the water, or making extensive notes on the magical creatures that sometimes break from its depths. They get completely wrapped up in their intellectual passions, potentially to the extent of neglecting their duties. But they notice people, and are well loved among the crew for their quiet compassion.

Fourth Lieutenant (and Surgeon) Ellis Evans [27, Measarrean Malimbean]. Sweet, earnest, honorable. Tender hearted Ellis never wanted to go to sea, but it was the wish of their two very forceful diplomat parents, and they had no choice. Their true calling is as a doctor, and they are very good at it. They are trusting, tender hearted, and have an unfortunate hatred of violence. They think war is fundamentally A Bad Thing.

Magic (please note that you might have more fun inferring all this from the game than having it laid out for you here)

In this world, magic is a natural force, like the winds, or gravity, or the sun. It can be harnessed, but not controlled. There are three main elements to it. Here is how they are understood by the people of the world:

Magic heals and purifies. If you leave barrels of seawater out on deck, the salt will gradually sink to the bottom, leaving pure drinking water on top. If a person has an autoimmune disorder, their symptoms will be vastly improved at sea, where most of the magic is. If a person is trans, and they wish it, the magic will cause a Sea Change, in which their outer form comes to resemble their inner self.

Magic hates injustice. Try to take a group of people prisoner and transport them across the sea, and your ship’s wooden hull will petrify and break, the sails will molder, the food will spoil. Vengeful magical storms will assault the ship from above, and magical creatures will attack from below. The ship will sink before you’ve gone five miles. Try to invade a nation by sea, and you’d better be stealthy. If your intended victims spot you, the magic of the oceans will rise up in their defence, and your ships will suffer the same fate before they can reach the dock. Try to go to sea with a largely conscripted crew, and you’ll have a very hard time of it.

Magic is especially powerful at sea. All hospitals are on ships for this reason.

As it happens, the people of this pre-technology world have got quite a lot of this wrong. Maybe you’ll find out what’s really going on.

Do you like overthinking? Wordlbuilding? Obsessively managing fictional communities? Then you might enjoy my newsletter!

Content Warnings

This game is set on a tall ship during a war between nations with no technology and limited medical knowledge, so you should expect genre-typical content. The following things can happen:

Death of unnamed members of your crew in battle or through battle or starvation or sickness or accident.

Death of named tertiary characters through some of the above.

Mutilation or injury in battle.

Amputation without anesthetic.

Pre-technology naval medical care generally (blood, gore etc.)

The symptoms of scurvy, which can include old scars opening up.

The MC getting a chronic injury that never fully heals.

Violence with cutlasses, boarding axes and pistols.

Murder.

Drunkenness and alcohol consumption.

Drowning.

Classism.

Things that will not happen:

There will be no…

…transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, racism, sexism, ablism, ageism etc. Prejudice does exist in this world, but it is based around social class. The MC is middle class, so does not come in for this personally.

…sex scenes. There is romance, but everything fades to black beyond the level of heavy petting.

Feedback

I love feedback! I am deliberately putting up this demo very early in the process so the game can benefit from your insights as much as possible.

Please tell me:

What you loved (this really is very useful to know)

What didn’t work for you

Suggestions for changes

Hopes for what will happen later in the story

General comments

Sailing/ships/historical inaccuracies or inconsistencies (it is set in a fantasy world, but the ships are the same)

Anything about gender and sexuality that isn’t sitting right with you (especially if are LGBTQ+ - I am queer myself but obviously we are a diverse bunch!)

Requests for things you would like to see

Bug fixes

Points where you were confused

Spelling mistakes/Britishisms/weird grammar etc.

Genre cliches/suggestions. CYOA is a new passion for me, so please tell me if I am missing cool tricks, or putting in things that are old hat

Literally anything else you can think of. I have been writing for a long time, and I’m used to having maybe a handful of readers pre-release. The idea of an audience that can just literally tell you what they want before you actually finish something is VERY EXCITING!

Links

My Choice of Games WIP page. 

If you like worldbuilding and/or history, you might enjoy my new newsletter. It’s called Wheat Googling: speeding up your research one fanatical deep dive at a time. Right now, it’s all background detail for this game, so expect lots of chat about ships and how to blend history with magical worldbuilding.

My website, if you’d like to see what else I get up to.

You’re a party of exceptions. Most adventurers are Villagers or Guards, common destinies that don’t always find a place within a town or village that have so many of each already. There are days you report for a mission, and you’re offered a blacksmith’s job on the spot just because of the mark on your arm.

Kent is a landless Lord. There’s a story there, you know, but it’s not one he’s ever volunteered. You can see his destiny pull at him in the remote reaches of the Kingdom, where no Lord has laid roots and the monsters run roughshod across the barren soil. Nights where you’re too far from civilization find him gazing up into the stars, his fingers curled like claws into the earth. The look on his face then is so hungry that the first time you saw it, you offered him provisions from your own pack. He’d shaken his head wryly, his scarred frown twisting, and walked off into the night by himself, only returning in the morning light.

Sella is a Guardian without anyone to look after. You knew her story before she told it to you, whispering it like a bedtime story before the end of the world. She was part of a traveling theater group. She looked after them, feeding them and retrieving those with wanderlust from their journeys before curtain call. When a monster siege led by a Demon King fell upon the city they were performing in, the Lord called his people into his castle and locked the doors.

The troupe were not his people. But they were Sella’s.

Until they weren’t.

You drag your battle hammer up and over your shoulder. Conveniently, the dragon fire has burned away the wet viscera that had been clinging to it. The metal is dark with soot, but undamaged.

The things you smith can’t be melted by any fire except your own.

The skeletal trees make the scene of this final battle oddly silent. Ash drifts from the sky, carried by a wind too high to feel. You can hear your party sniping at each other behind you and the gentle gurgle of the beast’s body settling comfortably into death.

The red dragon is beautiful. Its scales gleam and sparkle like rubies in the late afternoon sun and its talons shine like obsidian. Each part of the creature could make an average family rich for a month. You consider it from an arm’s reach away. You chew your bottom lip as you think. Your adventures have taken you across the continent from the southern coast you call your home, to the western land of rivers, to the northern desert and then here, to the eastern dry lands. After all your travels, you find yourself still thinking of home often. Crab is a delicacy where you’re from despite being so close to the water. The preparation can be tedious which makes it a dish reserved from significant occasions. Cracking the shell was always your job…

“Oh,” Sella says faintly. She makes an attempt to rise and nearly tips over in the process. If it weren’t for her bow, she’d be on the ground. Her knees shake as she uses a combination of a tree and her bow to pull herself up. “Mande, rest first! In an hour I can help you—”

You bring your hammer down on the jaw of the dragon. The bone shatters after just two blows. It’s best not to think about how beautiful it looked flying overhead or the intelligence in its eyes. You’ve always had a single-minded focus and you rely on that now.

“Leave her to her dismantling,” Kent grumbles. He’s now curled up on the ground is if in his sleeping roll, hands tucked neatly under his chin. It can’t be a comfortable position given his full suit of armor no matter how peaceful his expression. “If she’s got the energy for it, who are we to argue? Just keep the ribs intact. That’s what the client wants.”

Smash!

“It’s our turn to do the dismantling,” Sella says. She glares down at Kent. “Mande already did last week’s gryphon and the hydra. Get up!”

Smash!

“I’m an old man who needs his nap time.”

“You’re an irresponsible leader who needs to do his part.”

Smash!

“Once Mande stops swinging that thing around, I will.”

“She won’t hit you—”

“She hit me last week!”

“And I apologized for that,” you say through gritted teeth. You let your hammer fall by your feet. Your last blow sent tremors through your arms. The dragon’s jaw is like glass compared to its skull. “Sincerely.”

Sella makes a gagging sound when you fall to your knees next to the cracked skull. “Mande, don’t put your hand in there, that’s – oh, that’s so gross.”

“The book I read said it’d be…aha!” Your fingers graze something cool and metallic. You abruptly feel like crying. It’s been seven months. Seven long months of endless missions and danger and being away from home. This entire dragon is priceless, but you’ve forfeited your share for this. You blink rapidly to keep your tears at bay. You aren’t going to cry. Not until you’re sure that you’ve really found it. “Quick, hand me my waterskin.”

Your urgency gets even Kent up and bustling towards the dragon’s corpse. With trembling fingers you accept the water from Stella, pulling out your prize. It’s smaller than you thought, only about the length of your arm or a third the length of the dragon’s skull.

With bated breath, you gently trickle water over the length of it. Your party kneels beside you, watching just as raptly.

“What is it?” Sella breathes.

Kent is wide-eyed as, inch by inch, your treasure reveals itself.

“A dragon’s silver wit,” you say. The silver is mottled by the dragon’s black blood and grey brain matter. “The last ingredient I need for a Hero’s Sword.”

-----.

“You can’t just make a Hero’s Sword,” Kent is still saying a week later. He throws his hands up to the sky. “Heroes make them from air and magic and righteousness. Blacksmiths just repair them!”

You didn’t ask for Sella or Kent to follow you home. In fact, you assumed they wouldn’t. The slaying of the red dragon marked the end of your time in the Adventurer’s Guild. Now you’re ready to return to your position as the southern port’s best blacksmith and you thought they’d be ready to return to the best two adventurers the Capital Guild had.

“I’ve heard legends about it,” Sella says. She’s walking backward. You’ve already warned her that the roads this far away from Capital aren’t as smooth, but she’d scoffed at your concern. Now it’s pure stubbornness to prove you wrong that has her continuing to walk backwards despite nearly tripping twice already. “Excalibur was manmade.”

“The legend of Hero Arthur is manmade,” Kent retorts.

“If you believe that,” you say, “you really don’t need to come home with me.”

Kent blinks. “Well,” he says slowly, “on the off chance it’s not a fairytale, I desperately want to see it.”

“Then shut up and follow Mande,” Sella says. She elbows him and mutters under her breath. “Or else she might not let us stay at her house.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m sure the dragon fetched enough coin for the both of you to get your own rooms at the inn.”

“Sure,” Kent agrees. He grins wickedly and the expression makes him look ten years younger. “But we’re not going to do that, are we Sella?”

“Nope,” Sella chirps. She loops an arm through yours before you can protest and squints at the horizon. “Is that your hometown over there?”

A hazy line of blue and white roofs is barely distinguishable in the fading light of day. Sella has better vision than you. You’re sure she can see the masts of ships in port, the green and yellow flag waving over the chief’s house, maybe even the orchard that creeps right up to the edge of the bluffs.

You can’t wait to see it yourself.

You aren’t sure how long you’ve been smiling, but your face hurts by the time you find your voice. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

----------.

Mom hurls a loaf of bread at your head when you walk through the front door, Kent and Sella in tow.

Kent catches it an inch from your face. “Whoa, whoa!” He waves the bread as if unsure whether he should drop it or throw it back. “It’s your daughter! Mande! Put down the bread basket!”

“Mande and friends,” Sella says cheerfully. She waves at your Mom, Dad, and little brother. “Hello! I’m Sella.”

“I threw it because I know who it is,” your mom says. The grey streaks on either side of her temple are wider. Her round, kind face is pale with anger. “We thought you were dead.”

“We got your letters,” your dad says before you can ask. His hair hasn’t changed; he’s bald. He’s wearing his leather apron from the forge at the table. He takes a bite of soup. “All three of them.”

“Not nearly enough,” Mom snaps. Then, “And they could have been forgeries.”

“Who would forge a blacksmith’s letters home?” you ask in exasperation. Is that why she never replied? “Mom, please.”

“Don’t giveme that when you’ve been dead for seven months,” she says. She stands abruptly. “Three of you? Sit down. I don’t have enough soup, but bread will fill anyone’s stomach.”

“I’m Kent,” Kent blurts out before Sella can push him into a chair. He sits with a thud. “Sella, it’s rude to sit before introducing yourself!”

“Ruder than not knocking or coming for dinner without an invitation?” Sella hisses at him. She turns a charming smile on your little brother. “Sorry to intrude. You must be Axton. A pleasure to meet you.”

Axton doesn’t return her greetings. His eyes are fixed to the package strapped to your back. “Is that…?”

You swallow hard as your family’s eyes turn to you. You carefully pull the cloth-wrapped rod from your back. Your little brother isn’t so little anymore. You can see he’s taller than you as he stands in unison with Dad to clear a spot on the table. His long, thin hands make quick work of the ties.

There’s complete silence as the burlap falls away to reveal gleaming silver.

Axton’s throat bobs. He’s barely eighteen with the soft look of a fawn hovering around the edges of his jaw and cheekbones. Mom and Dad have done a good job feeding him while you’ve been gone. Seven months ago your brother looked like a wraith, all the light taken from him as if it all came from his hero’s sword.

“You’re going to make me a sword,” Axton says at last.

You’ve thought about this moment for seven months. You imagined you would say something like it’s okay now or maybe big sister fixed it. When his hero’s sword was taken from him, you thought about all sorts of things. It took a month for you to set out on this quest rather than one of revenge. It wouldn’t have helped Axton if you’d forged a hundred weapons of war to punish those who’d hurt him. It wouldn’t help Axton to pretend you fixed anything.

So instead you tell the truth.

“It won’t be the same,” you say. “It won’t work the way you want it to. Not right away. You’ll need to train with it and learn it as you would any other weapon. Your instincts won’t help you. But…it won’t break when I’m done. It won’t bend or chip. It won’t melt. It will serve you, Axton, until the exact moment you don’t need it anymore.”

Axton flies around the table to throw his arms around you. It’s amazing you came from the same parents. Where you are short and stocky, he’s really like a deer. His long arms could encircle you twice as he lifts you with a hero’s strength. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

And then you’re being hugged all around. Your dad’s strong, Blacksmith arms are crushing you to your brother, your mother’s soft cheek is against your shoulder, and there’s plate mail digging into your spleen while a sharp elbow digs into your spine.

You manage to turn your head just enough to see Kent hugging your from behind and Sella hugging him from behind. It’s her elbow that’s jabbing you.

“This is sweet,” she says. Her voice is a little muffled from how her face is pressed against Kent’s back. “We should hug more.”

“Does this make your brother a Hero?” Kent asks.

“This is a family hug,” you say.

“Duh,” Sella says. “That’s why we joined.”

You really can’t argue with that.

-

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