Mythras, A Canticle For Leibowitz, and Solo Roleplaying
The new year has brought the return of the regular 5e game I play in, as well as the semi-regular DCC game I run, and I've found as a result that I'm a bit burnt out on D20 systems. I'm sure this won't last, as the OSR has my heart, and I'm still quite excited about the Borg games, but in a less immediate way. All this to say my solo OSE game is going on a little hiatus, I think. I like where it's going, and it's taught me a great deal about how solo RPing works, but I need to do something fresh.
Enter Mythras.
I first saw Mythras on the shelves when it was RuneQuest 6e on a trip to the comic shop when I was an undergraduate. This was almost certainly ten years ago, in 2015. I remember seeing the cover and thinking wow she looks badass but being disappointed when I googled the game, because the group I DMed for back in that time period was never going to grok a game that crunchy. We had a great time with Fate and our Monster of the Week oneshot is still one of my favorite game-related stories, but RuneQuest 6 would never fly.
I never forgot Mythras, though. See, one of my two undergraduate degrees is in Religious Studies. Ironic, perhaps, as I'm not particularly religious myself, but I guess I have a special interest when it comes to spiritual experiences and cultural rituals and such. Plus, I got to take 3 semesters of Biblical Hebrew, which was neat. Now, for those who don't follow RPGs obsessively, RuneQuest is a game with a long history and a long association with the setting of Glorantha - a sort of fantasy bronze age setting that has become increasingly detailed over the decades. Mythras, which is owned by different company than the current license-holders of RuneQuest, is essentially a modified version of RuneQuest 6 with any of the bits that tied to Glorantha or the Runes of the Glorantha setting removed. Both games have an emphasis on religion, cultural ties, and community and familial responsibilities.
Having discovered solo-roleplaying late last year, I started to think of Mythras again. Mythras has a myriad of settings, official and unofficial. There's Mythic Britain, a dark ages Britain setting where druids and Christians and invading Vikings clash, which I do have some interest in, along with other Mythic Earth settings (Rome, Constantinople, Babylon, etc). There's also the third party M-Space, which is a Traveller-esque outer space sandbox, which I have also acquired.
Originally I expected to run M-Space solo first, because I've been on a big sci-fi kick recently, listening to the audiobooks of the Expanse novels. But something happened while reading the Mythras Core rules last night that has changed my immediate trajectory, so to speak. You see, tied with my love of learning about religion is my love of fiction that explores religion. Some of my favorite books include The Taqwacores, My Name is Asher Lev, and - most important for this post - A Canticle For Leibowitz.
A Canticle For Leibowitz is a wonderfully bizarre little novel. Published in the late 50s, it's a very early example of post-apocalyptic fiction (though I would argue it's more post-post-apocalyptic, but my other degree is in English and I may be being pedantic). The premise is this: the bombs were dropped, the survivors entered a period of chaos and darkness, and re-emerged as a pre-industrial society full of superstition and with no real connection to the past beyond religion. Yes, the one tether that survived was the Catholic church. Sort of. The novel, which is a fixup of 3 separate stories, follows various members of the clergy of this church and explores the landscape of this new world where Fallout is a mythical demon and the Pope is American.
My favorite portion of this fixup is the first portion, Fiat Homo, which follows the short and brutal life of Brother Francis, a young monk on a mission to canonize Saint Leibowitz, an ancient-to-them scientist who lived in the era when the bombs were dropped.
All this to say, while reading Mythras I started thinking of A Canticle For Leibowitz, and how I might stat a character like Brother Francis. And my mind began to wander. What if I created my own post-post-apocalyptic setting? But instead of Utah, perhaps Appalachia. And then I could make my own monk, perhaps combining aspects of the Priest and the Scholar. And the gears in my brain started turning. I couldn't sleep. I was excited to wake up and write this blog post.
I hope reading this, you're excited too. Part of the Solo-RP ethos is "prep is play" and I imagine I'll be doing a lot of prep for this setting, even on the fly as I get into playing it. I want to let the world emerge as organically as I can, but I think it's safe to say the following:
Instead of a nuclear apocalypse, I'm considering a plague-based apocalypse. Walter M. Miller Jr. was working with the fears of the atomic age when he wrote his book, and I think it fits to work with the current fear zeitgeist of the post-lockdown, COVID era.
My first character in this world will be a young monk, like Brother Francis.
I think for a geographical starting point I'll use the Alleghenies in Northern Appalachia. I have a lot of love for the region, and I know Northern Appalachia well. It will be an interesting thought experiment for me. And it will place our beginning characters between the Great Lakes region and the South. So lots of opportunity for adventuring. And lots of opportunity for weather. Pennsylvania has some aggressive seasons. Appalachia also already has a historic tradition of Folk Magic, which fits in well with Mythras and its magic systems.
The focus of the campaign will be one part exploration-survival, one part political/religious intrigue, and one part combat. I don't want to fall into old habits and overly emphasize combat like I would in, say, my OSR game. I really want to engage with the systems Mythras has to offer in regards to skills and social engagements, passions and incremental growth.
This will, ideally, be a slow and steady campaign, though no less perilous than a dungeon delve. I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you are, too.