MADHORSE
The setting draws on Europe and the Mediterranean in 812 AD. Across three peoples and the neutral zone, inherited rank determines a person’s place. Courts, roads, storehouses and markets connect their lives.
Land, duty and military service bind a hierarchy of families and dependants. A road can become a supply line; a levy can decide whether a village has enough left to eat.
The planned conflicts centre on war taxes, succession and control of roads. Work at a castle can change how its court relies on those who act, while hereditary titles remain with the world’s characters.
Authority survives through institutions, ceremony and negotiation. A new ruler may reach the throne, then close the same route by securing succession for his son.
Customs, favours and the legitimacy of administrators shape local pressures. Warehouses, markets and courts offer places where procedure can protect an order or prevent a necessary change.
Routes carry goods and news between distant cities. Knowledge, translation and credit sustain exchange; controlling a passage can give one interest power over an entire community.
Monopolies and interrupted flows of goods create the pressure behind local work. Talent can earn a position, yet that position remains something authority can withdraw.
A volcanic landscape between the three peoples, where authority is fragmented and agreements must be negotiated. Traders, fugitives and intermediaries cross the same roads.
The Weavers gather in a secret underground temple. Elsewhere, outside a market town, an ancient arena serves as a slaughterhouse and livestock market: the setting for the planned Shambles. Neither place is a player-owned settlement.
Help a place recover, challenge a court’s choices or keep a trade route open. The shared-world design connects your work to other players’ contributions, so you can encounter the consequences of their actions without sharing a live session.
Watch an opponent’s posture, manage your breath and choose when to attack, defend or withdraw. Combat is designed around decisions and learned skill. A charged Impulse can evade a lethal blow, leaving you to judge whether to stay or escape.
Develop an Entail through the deeds it takes part in, choosing changes to how it handles. Its chronicle can continue under another wielder, while your own skills and achievements remain yours: a shared history with distinct contributions.
The two ritual holes are in the blade.
A need in the world opens work with a stated objective and accepted evidence. When that evidence is validated, the player can see both the personal result and the contribution to the common effort. The eventual crisis outcome is recorded separately. That separation is meant to recognise useful work even when the wider effort fails, and to make the next change in the place understandable.
An Entail keeps its identity across rituals and changes of hand. The chronicle records validated facts and distinguishes the weapon’s participation from the wielder’s merit. Its present techniques and drift describe what it can do now. A later owner receives that weapon and its record, while learning to use it through their own character. Corrections remain visible in the record.
The dialogue design separates what an NPC is allowed to know from how it speaks. The service can express memory, personality and information that has reached that character. Concrete commitments use defined cards, accepted by the player and checked by the server. The conversation cannot grant an item, invent a completed deed or silently create a new rule.
The world journal and return summary are planned to connect changes to their causes. A player should be able to distinguish a reward already earned, a contribution awaiting resolution and an outcome that happened while they were away. Temporary opportunities can expire, but an absence does not erase possessions or personal history. This is part of testing the game as something that fits around a life.