GMBC ep45 GMBC ep45 - Crows, Convergence, and Chaos: Roleplaying in 'Black Sun'
Rebecca Roanhorse
Black Sun
Speaker A
00:00:06.080 - 00:01:50.190
Welcome to the Game Master's Book Club where great fiction becomes your next great tabletop role playing experience.
Today we journey to the holy city of Toba in the world of Rebecca Roanhorse's Fevered Star series.
In the book Black Sun, Karen Form, Epadiah Ravachol and Roger Alex Boudou discuss uniting divided parties, adventuring in non European lands and a bunch of great books.
Let's get into the conversation.
This is Eric Jackson and welcome to the Game Masters Book Club where we take great fiction and turn it into your next great tabletop role playing experience.
I'm here with some fabulous game masters, some of whom you've heard from before, some of whom you haven't, but it doesn't matter because they're all amazing and we're going to be talking about an amazing book, Black sun by Rebecca Roanhorse.
That's the first book in the Fevered Star series.
On to introducing other game masters who are the the most awesome people in the world.
We've been trying to get these folks together for as long as it takes for the for the solstice to occur and another solar eclipse.
Much like this book, we are finally succeeded.
The stars have aligned and here we are ready to talk about how we might turn this book into your next great role playing experience.
One of the things that happens in this book is there's multiple points of view, which means it was just sort of like having multiple parties that are all trying to get to the same place.
And I thought it would be great to ask our game masters how they may have handled that in the past.
Folks, have you ever had a time where you had multiple parties all converging into the same space?
I'm going to start with Karen.
Karen, introduce yourself, give everybody a little, a little hi ho and what's your gaming experience and then tell them about your multiple party convergent experience.
Speaker B
00:01:50.590 - 00:02:50.490
Hi ho, I'm Karen.
I've been role playing since the early 90s and GMing since probably the mid to late 90s.
Yes.
Old and as far as my combining parties and I will ask EPI who will introduce himself after to maybe like hop in here because he was in this game.
I have been running sort of this on and off campaign in our we switch GMs every four weeks group for the past 20 years.
And I run this game called Burger Murders which is sort of a classic British cozy mystery series where everybody's, you know, got their British village characters.
And then last year around Christmas time I kind of derailed it and said okay, we're gonna kind of run a Doctor who in the middle of it because I'd also run a game with these same people where they were all Doctor who companions having an adventure.
So they got to choose whether to be either their 1930s mystery solving character or their Doctor who companion or both.
And I believe Epi, I think you were both, actually.
Speaker C
00:02:50.890 - 00:02:51.690
Yeah, I was.
Speaker B
00:02:52.170 - 00:02:56.650
I believe EPI played both the.
I don't know if you want to talk about your characters.
Speaker D
00:02:57.460 - 00:03:52.200
Yeah, my 1930s birder murder was a US transplant in England, a pulp writer by the name of Manly Man, Tiger Man, I think is.
And my Doctor who character was a lost companion to the first Doctor who was like kind of a rough and tumble butler that followed him around when he was young.
When the first Doctor was young.
Anyways, it was a delight, specifically playing the pulp writer who is like, encountering literal time travel and space aliens and just being oblivious about it.
That was delight.
One of my favorite things about this, because it was like kind of a throwaway.
Well, not throwaway, but like, you know, it was a holiday special.
That's how we were viewing it.
But it's bled over into the actual birder.
Speaker A
00:03:52.200 - 00:03:52.880
Birders.
Speaker D
00:03:53.120 - 00:04:15.440
Because one of the characters, Nan, keeps chickens.
And I don't even remember who did it.
It might have been the Rani uplifted some of the chickens so they could talk.
And so now Nan has talking chickens in this otherwise perfectly normal cozy murder mystery setting.
It's a delight.
Speaker A
00:04:15.900 - 00:04:25.420
That's amazing.
That's absolutely amazing.
Why don't you continue and tell folks about.
Keep going and tell us about you and tell us about your converging experience besides this one.
Speaker D
00:04:25.740 - 00:04:42.150
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm Epadiah Ravachol.
I write and publish role playing games.
If you've heard of any of mine, you've heard of Dread.
That was my first one.
Mine's gonna go back to the early 90s.
So, like, Karen, I'm old.
Speaker B
00:04:42.710 - 00:04:43.990
I think we're the same age.
Speaker C
00:04:44.230 - 00:04:45.110
Yeah, we are.
Speaker D
00:04:45.110 - 00:04:51.590
We are.
This was foolish.
I had a lot of fun, but I was running gurps.
Speaker B
00:04:51.670 - 00:04:52.550
Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker D
00:04:52.710 - 00:06:45.610
Yeah, with their Wild Card supplement.
So it was like a superhero kind of thing.
Wildcards, if you aren't familiar, is it was like a anthology series done by a bunch of like, sci fi fantasy writers who had like.
Some of them had actually played like a superhero role playing game together.
And so they started writing books set in that world with those characters.
And I don't know of all of them played in that game, but it has close ties to the hobby.
I was a big fan of it back in the day.
And so I ran this game for my friends at school, but I could only handle like three or four players at a time.
So I was like, I'm going to run it this weekend.
Half of you are coming on Saturday and the other half is coming on Sunday.
And we played through each weekend.
We played through the exact same day in like this New York, this superhero infested New York.
And you could swap which group you were in.
You just had to let me know ahead of time.
And basically the people who played on Sunday would often like just miss the people who are what their characters from Saturday had been doing even because they're both happening on the exact same day.
Right.
Like it was.
And I did that for over a year.
And then towards the end of the school year, a friend of mine had a birthday party and what he really wanted was to play with everyone together.
And this had grown.
I don't know the total number, but it was something like probably a dozen players.
And I just, I ran for like five, six hours.
I ran Curve Supers for a dozen players.
And then I stopped running role playing games for like four years.
A little bit of a bird out there, but it was good.
It was good.
Speaker A
00:06:45.930 - 00:06:50.890
Roger, why don't you introduce yourself and tell people about your game Convergence Story.
Speaker C
00:06:51.210 - 00:07:18.240
Great.
Hi everyone.
I'm Roger.
Alex Godro.
I have been playing role playing games since 1980 or 81.
I forget exactly when I was, you know, eighth grade, monkeying around with.
I got the red box as a gift from my parents.
And then immediately a group of friends made me be the DM and, and I did some really weird and crazy stuff And I remember five PCs fighting 20 Orcs and fireballing each other in a 10 by 10 room and it was glorious.
Speaker D
00:07:18.480 - 00:07:18.960
Yes.
Speaker C
00:07:19.840 - 00:09:12.670
Yeah.
And you know, I epi, I had no idea you wrote Dread.
Honestly, like, I bought Jenga because I saw a Dread demo at a, at a convention and you know, have love that, Love it, don't get to play it as much as I would like.
The Convergence Story So there was a period in my life when I was running two D&D campaigns simultaneously for two disjoint sets of friends.
And they were in my homebrew world where I had these two different civilizations on opposite sides of an inland sea, kind of like the Mediterranean, you know, where if you had like northern Africa on the southern side and you know, Greece and Europe and so on and so forth on the, on the northern side.
And I was playing with cosmic entities and really bringing Cthulhu into D and D, because everybody does that at some point right in their.
In their GM development.
And I couldn't see any reason that cosmic entities who wished to destroy the world would limit their.
The scope of their activities to one campaign group or another.
And so the players in each group were vaguely aware that this other group elsewhere in the world was also running around doing things.
And they would sometimes sort of influence each other, like something one group did would change what happened for the other group.
And they essentially each chased down a different major lieutenant of the final Big Bad.
And in the course of doing that, discovered what was secretly behind everything.
And then the two groups had to team up to go through the final adventure and then, you know, send that Big Bad packing for a time, because you can never really kill those things.
And it was a glorious experience.
Speaker A
00:09:13.630 - 00:09:14.670
That's fantastic.
Speaker D
00:09:14.670 - 00:09:15.230
Awesome.
Speaker A
00:09:15.390 - 00:10:25.280
That is great.
Hi, my name is Eric Jackson, and I've been playing since the Pleistocene.
And I've actually never accomplished this particular meetup.
But I did come close.
I ran two games at a con.
I ran it at Total Con.
And I had two groups and I had a Bard group which took place during a music competition.
And the first group of Bards was there, and they stole the prize because they were the bad guy Bards.
And they stole the prize and took off.
And so they set the.
However they decided the heist was going to go was how the second group had to figure.
The second group had to figure out how they did it and where they went from there and then eventually confront them.
We actually ran out of time before the two.
They got to the.
They got to the.
They figured out the plot, they figured out where they were.
They got through the traps that I had set up for them, and they were just about to meet the other party when we.
We just ran out of time.
So there was the possibility that although the players wouldn't have been there, the two parties would have met.
And that's about as close as I've ever come.
But I really did enjoy that one, especially since it was A2 all Bard games, which was a ton of fun.
Speaker B
00:10:25.360 - 00:10:28.760
That kind of sounds like a gem.
And the holograms versus the misfits kind of.
Speaker D
00:10:28.760 - 00:10:29.120
Right.
Speaker B
00:10:29.440 - 00:10:31.120
Role playing scenario.
It's amazing.
Speaker A
00:10:31.600 - 00:11:56.310
That was the year I ran all Bard games.
And that was the.
The third game I ran was a Starfinder game where the characters are huge fans of.
Of Josie and the Pussycats, and they had to go rescue them from the space goblins as We've already said this book is got a at least has three different points of view.
This is Black Sun.
It is the first book of the Fevered Star series which which is set in a pre Columbian inspired fantasy world.
Written by Rebecca Roanhorse, the novel explores many parts of that world through multiple character viewpoints as we've already said to show us the range of the indigenous settings and mythologies as all the characters converge on the holy city of Tova at the w solstice and solar eclipse.
At this propitious time the play the balance of power among the gods may shift away from the powerful classist sun priests back towards the Crow God whose worshipers the sun priest slaughtered on the night of Knives.
Roan Horse story has magic, politics, social unrest and all combined with like really well developed characters and interesting world building that rivals any European based fantasy series.
Especially far as I'm concerned learning themes about this book that you were like that I didn't cover here that you really want to mention.
Speaker B
00:11:56.310 - 00:12:39.680
I just really like this.
I like any sort of non Western European centered fantasy because that's obviously what was like in our zeitgeist for so long and especially anything that gets me so excited that I'm literally googling images of all the different sort of items of clothing that I didn't know the names for.
If you've listened to previous episodes, you know I work in the fashion industry so that is super exciting for me.
And I also want to mention that Roan Horse really has such an amazing ability to get you to like love or hate a character the minute they step on the page.
Like the minute Abba showed up, I wanted to fucking punch her in the face.
She was the worst.
And spoiler.
Give you two seconds.
Her death was not nearly bloody enough for me.
Like I needed her to really fucking suffer more.
She was awful.
Speaker A
00:12:40.640 - 00:12:42.280
Roger, anything to add?
Speaker C
00:12:42.280 - 00:13:18.640
I'll echo the whole non European thing.
I've become a big fan of a number of different fantasy series.
You know, Shannon Chakraborty's Daevabad trilogy comes to mind as one such the I think I as a writer of fantasy to some degree regret that I did not grow up in one of these cultures because any attempt I make to do justice to any of these cultures will just be an utter failure.
So I can only, you know, love these stories from afar and think about what I can learn from them to bring into my own.
Into my own art.
Speaker A
00:13:18.640 - 00:14:12.900
No, that is.
That is a difficult thing I have.
My current homebrew world is all based around in a number of different African cultures.
And it does make it very difficult because I'm a white guy and so it's kind of difficult for me to be like, well this, you know, this isn't my piece.
But much like when I was much younger and I didn't know anything about like Celtic mythology or.
Or Celtic or, you know, or history or the history of the.
Of Europe, I learned.
I learned almost all of my.
From prepping for role playing games.
I spent my.
My one history class because I'm a science major, so I only had to take the one history class.
The one history class I went in and I was, you know, the.
We would talk about.
It was an ancient history class and we'd talk about stuff and like hey, Hanging gardens.
Like, yep, I totally know about that because I put that in a game somewhere, you know, like.
And professor's like, how do you know all this stuff?
I'm like, well, I'm obsessed.
Speaker B
00:14:14.230 - 00:14:14.790
Civilization.
Speaker A
00:14:15.110 - 00:14:24.310
Oh, civilization too.
Yes, yes.
Civilization also helps.
Yes, that actually 100% epidiah.
Anything you want to add to our discussion of the book itself?
Speaker D
00:14:24.470 - 00:14:56.330
I just wanted to highlight the first chapter.
It was just such a banger.
Like it really.
I'm a fan of stopping a book if it's not, you know, like I get books out of the library and I read.
If I hit a point where I'm like, it's not really.
I like let myself off the hook and whatever.
But this first one had me from the get go.
I just really, really enjoyed the.
She sat there, everything that happened in it.
I was like, what is happening?
Speaker C
00:14:56.330 - 00:14:56.690
What?
Speaker D
00:14:57.090 - 00:15:01.570
You know, like gave me the energy to go through the rest.
Not that I needed energy to get through the rest.
Speaker A
00:15:01.570 - 00:15:21.230
It definitely sets itself up pretty quickly.
There isn't a.
There is a long intro tale, as it were.
You know, like, there's not a lot of build.
It's like we're there, we're in this right at the beginning.
I in fact felt a little dropped in a little too quickly and.
And I'm not a horror guy.
So like some of that first chapter stuff was a little.
Speaker D
00:15:21.230 - 00:15:21.710
Oh yeah.
Speaker A
00:15:21.710 - 00:15:26.709
I was like, oh, I don't know if I can keep going.
But it was definitely.
It would.
It definitely dropped you right in there.
Speaker B
00:15:26.709 - 00:15:29.750
I get very grossed out by anything involving like eyeballs but still.
Speaker A
00:15:29.910 - 00:15:30.630
Eyeballs.
Speaker D
00:15:30.710 - 00:15:31.150
Yeah.
Speaker C
00:15:31.150 - 00:15:36.150
I'm a big fan of prophecy.
So you know that.
That hooked me because now you got to know.
Speaker A
00:15:36.150 - 00:15:38.510
You got to know how.
How does it happen?
Doesn't it?
Speaker B
00:15:38.510 - 00:15:38.750
Yeah.
Speaker A
00:15:38.750 - 00:15:39.670
Is this what's going on.
Speaker C
00:15:40.510 - 00:15:40.910
Yep.
Speaker A
00:15:41.870 - 00:16:17.130
So now that we've got this book, this book sort of discussed, at least from its literary merits, let's get to what the people are here for, which is to talk about how we could represent this very interesting, detailed prophecy based world prophecy, you know, prophecies and cool mythologies and all kinds of great stuff.
What mechanic could we possibly use?
What system is best going to express what we can get in this?
And I'm going to have Karen start us off.
Karen, do you want to talk to us about what you think would be the best role playing game to set this in?
Speaker B
00:16:17.130 - 00:17:52.180
Yeah.
So actually I have a story that goes along with this because in our giant interim of like rescheduling this a thousand times, I actually went to bookcon at the end of April and I was able to get to meet Rebecca Roanhorse and get her to sign up to be a Black Sun.
And I was totally pimping the podcast.
I was like, oh my God, I just read this and I'm gonna be on Game Masters Book Club, blah, blah, blah.
And she was like, okay.
She's like, this is kind of like not open to the public yet, but sometime this summer we are going to be announcing there's going to be like a Kickstarter or some sort of like crowdfunded thing for an RPG in this universe.
And I actually just looked it up and they just announced it that it's going to be launching in September.
And I'm also glad that like we kind of waited so long because part of me was like, oh, should I say this?
If it's proprietary information, but it's not anymore because it's on the Internet.
But that being said, before I knew that the system that I would 100% run this in now before this new game comes out, is the Dune RPG by Modiphius that is so set up to have like a million different factions, which works great for Black sun because you've got the priesthood, all the different aspects within the priesthood.
The sky made clans, the merchant lords, the sailors, the Maw, the underworld, and the Maw, which comes into play more.
More in the second two books.
Dune has that sort of social combat mechanism which works so, so perfectly here.
And then this game also gives you the opportunity to build your own factions, like your beliefs in fighting, out fighting, etc.
So you can sort of fill in all those gaps.
And the whole purpose is like jockeying for power and influence and vengeance, which is 100% what this whole series is.
Speaker D
00:17:52.180 - 00:17:52.580
Absolutely.
Speaker A
00:17:52.580 - 00:17:58.390
Wow, that sounds like it's Going to match up pretty darn well.
Roger, do you want to go ahead and give us your mechanic?
Speaker B
00:17:58.620 - 00:17:58.820
Sure.
Speaker C
00:17:58.820 - 00:19:12.030
So I will add I too when doing some research found this soon to be in the Zeitgeist book.
You know the game, it's going to be called Between Earth and Sky and Monte Cook Games is going to be the one producing it.
And I'm a big fan of all things Monte Cook.
So I'm already signing up for a reminder for the Kickstarter because I'm going to get that book and then I'm going to love it and I'm going to look at it and probably never play it like the 20 other shelves.
Yep, a couple of options.
As I said, like I'm a fan of all things Monte Cook.
So of course thinking about the cipher system but in particular they have a setting called the Gods of the Fall where the players are basically represent mortals who take on divine sparks because the gods are dead.
And so the given, you know, the sort of rebirth of the crow.
Spoiler alert.
The rebirth of the crow God right in this book.
Sort of that focusing on that aspect of the story.
I think Gods of the Fall would be one way to do it.
Another I think would be fun is I wasn't aware of this until about a week ago, so I haven't played it, but I would love to at some point.
There's a game that was released in 2022 called Coyote and Crow.
Speaker D
00:19:12.590 - 00:19:13.230
Oh yeah.
Speaker C
00:19:13.230 - 00:19:54.640
And it's a science.
Yeah, it's a science fantasy role playing game set in like in an America where Columbus never landed.
Right.
And so it is all.
It's got the culture, it's all the.
All of the sort of Central American cultures projected into a current day or a future day as though they were allowed to develop on their own over time.
And so I would though obviously it's a science fantasy game so it's a little more futuristic than the setting in the book.
I would love to play that game as an exploration of all those aspects of the cultural foundation of the book.
That, that would be a lot of fun I think to play in.
Speaker A
00:19:54.800 - 00:19:59.440
Absolutely.
That does sound like fun.
Epidia, what is the mechanic that you're thinking about?
Speaker D
00:19:59.520 - 00:21:49.170
Well, okay, so I have two answers.
I don't know if either one of them is going to be helpful.
First one, I was just saw my notes in the little discord here where Fly by Night K N I G H T this is a supplement for qurps, the world's easiest role playing system.
It's something I saw When I was a kid and I was like, I always wanted to play a knight on the back of a giant bird.
That's a thing that happens.
Maybe not at night, but there are definitely people who ride the crows here.
And I was like, yeah, I definitely want to do that.
But that system is like, I think you have one stat and it's strength and that's it.
And it's fun.
But the other one is actually.
The game is called Mortal Skein, but it's not out yet.
A friend of mine is designing it and it does the whole prophecy thing.
Like, in this one, you.
Each player plays a sword and sorcery hero that has like a prophecy that either they're driving towards or trying to avoid.
Right?
Like, and it does the same thing that this game or this book does where you, like, you're not.
You don't all start off in the same spot like you.
You flip from character story to character story, character story, and have them travel the world until they, like, reach the point of having to deal with their.
Their prophecy.
And one of the things that I just really kind of enjoy about what that game does is that it is almost entirely diceless.
So it feels like you're.
You're basically like moving tokens around on your character sheet or whatever, but it definitely feels like you're like, fighting against your own fate.
And then like, the only time dice come up is when you actually directly oppose that.
That prophecy.
And then that's in question, which is great.
I think that's fun.
Speaker A
00:21:49.170 - 00:23:47.280
Yeah, no, those sound great.
I'm going to continue with the trend because I also have two things that I would like to mention.
The first thing I want to mention is something from way back in 2012.
There is a indie role playing game called Edrigore, which is a mostly Native American, though there are some other cultures that are represented outside of Native America.
And it was designed by Alan Turner, who is black, Lakota and Irish.
And it is designed as a survival horror game.
The reason why I thought this was really.
This would really work is one, it's based on the fate system, which is really malleable.
And then the other thing is that it has these 12 levels of power that are on there and some of our character, and it basically gives you rules on how to deal with, like, I'm a regular person, this person's a God.
How do I deal with that?
And there are big power differences between some of the characters in this book.
So I was like, okay, this would help.
Plus, it's got the Right.
Kind of background.
The other game that I thought would work out really here by one role engine is the game Rain, which is specifically billed as a non Eurocentric, non Tolkienian.
It's got wonderful dice pools actually completely separate from the book, but just because I think it's a great way of doing it.
The dice pools are based around the.
The quality of the roll depends on how high they are, but the number of success successes are based on the matches.
So lower matches mean you succeed, but not as well.
And more matches mean.
It's, it's.
It's a really.
It's an interesting way to combine the two concepts there.
I thought that was great.
The one thing that this also does is it focuses more on like company play as opposed to an individual character.
So you're really playing more like the Carrion crows or the Sun Priest as opposed to playing like Serapio or Naranpa or something like one of the individual characters.
Speaker B
00:23:47.280 - 00:23:47.880
Interesting.
Speaker A
00:23:47.880 - 00:24:40.110
So you could play more as a.
As part of the cult there.
And it's again billed as this non Eurocentric game.
So it's probably got a lot of really good mechanics and it's going to be able to recognize some of those really cool things that we're probably going to talk about in just a second when we talk about the stuff that's portable from this game.
So that is where we're headed to next.
This is a really detailed world that is built out.
One of the things I've read other.
I've read Roan Horse's other books.
Her worlds are always well built and just really interesting things in them.
What is it that you might like to take from this?
I'm going to.
I'm going to pick on Epidiah and say Epidia.
Why don't you.
Why don't you tell us if you're going to take something and put it, drop it directly into your current campaign from.
From Black Sun.
What would it be and why?
Speaker D
00:24:40.110 - 00:25:44.970
Okay, so one of the things that I like about this and the thing that I kind of brave in role playing games is the way that like the different cultures.
Magic is not like a monolith in this game.
Right.
Like almost.
I'm hesitant to even be like they have different kinds of magic systems because it doesn't even feel like that.
It's just they interact with the world in different ways that happened to, you know, manifest in different ways.
And I just really, really like that.
It just feels more magical to me if, if like it's not the same, but maybe with different names.
Or just the same, but deals with different.
You know, like this one covers fire and that.
And this one will affect the weather.
Like, that's fine.
But like the fact that this one affects the weather and it's all about songs, and that's where it starts to interest me.
Right.
And this one over here is more based on the astrology or what's happening in the stars at the time.
Yeah, I really dig that kind of stuff.
Speaker A
00:25:45.050 - 00:26:37.310
I think that really highlights the culture and the different cultures that are there and that there's really cultural conflict.
One of the things I really.
That's one of the things I really like about it, and I think that's one of the traps that we can very often fall into when we're running regular role playing games is because we, we.
We live in this milieu, at least here in the west of, of this giant western culture that stretches, that seems to encompass everything.
Right.
And, and with its, with its.
Whether you think the tendrils are evil or not doesn't matter.
Like, Holly, between Hollywood and, and economics and all the things, like, it can feel like, well, everything's just kind of standard and everything works on the same system.
And it's really cool when we kind of look.
When we look at it and go, no, this, this works for this, and this works over here.
I think that's awesome.
Karen, do you want to pick up the torch and tell us about your portable?
Speaker B
00:26:37.310 - 00:27:35.780
Yeah.
I really like the whole idea of being the living avatar for a God.
It is such a fun concept that you could work with, like, existing pantheons or ones your group, like, creates for itself.
You can do so many things with it.
You can, like, have a character who's the living embodiment of a God, obviously, or just one in the party who's the chosen one on a deal and you have to help them save the world or save them from themselves and their destiny or.
You're funny, you know, fighting against someone who's an avatar of the living God.
Like, there's so many ways you can take that.
And also, just because I'm like, a huge nerd about animals and everything, I loved everything with the crows.
I love corvids so much because they're so, like, smart and funny and everything in real life.
Every little, like, chapter intro where they talk about behavior of crows, I was like, mm, I knew that.
They're so cool.
It's amazing.
And everybody else knows it.
So anyway, anything that I could pour it in about super awesome, super smart crows that will hunt down your enemies for you if you leave food out for them enough, like, so down with it.
Speaker A
00:27:36.260 - 00:28:06.040
That's awesome.
Fun fact.
In my current campaign, that is in fact what I am doing.
My current monk is an avatar of one of the gods in Eberron and there's some sort of big convergence that's happening.
And the, the.
I think it's the nine and then there's like the six Dark Ones and we're trying to.
There's going to be some conflict there and.
And I can't wait to see what my DM does with it.
Roger, why don't you tell us about the stuff that you think would be amazing to take from Black Sun?
Speaker C
00:28:06.040 - 00:29:25.440
Yeah, so a couple things.
So first off, I love the idea of cacao as money.
I like anything that departs from the usual, like copper, silver, gold coins.
Because that's like every, every game does either that or like completely abstracts it away.
And like you just roll a skill check to see if you can afford a thing.
And though, like D and D and stuff, they also have gems and what have you.
I just love the idea of some valuable resource as currency with some degree of negotiation about it.
That just brings a flavor.
Of course, obviously, you know, if you're.
That's.
That's a fundamental campaign element that's gotta be kind of baked in.
The other thing is the, the church politics.
So I loved how the priests of the sun have this outward appearance of uniformity and harmony and, oh, isn't everything all hunky dory?
And then inside it's literal backstabbing and internecine betrayal and so on.
And I just, I love the idea of a player character or an entire group, like, working to get into an organization because they have this perception from the outside.
And then they get in and they're like, dear God, what have we done?
And things have just gotten so much worse.
So I definitely want to do that sometime.
Speaker A
00:29:25.920 - 00:30:32.740
That does sound great.
Mine's very short and it's already been mentioned a little bit, but I'm just going to come straight out and say anytime I can ride a flying bird into combat is where I want to be.
I would almost feel like I needed a specific game with aerial combat.
That would be the other thing I would add in.
Like, we'd have to have aerial combat roles because I am playing giant crows and somebody else is going to be flying like a giant vulture or something, and that's.
And we're going to have bird fights and people are going to fall and there's going to be catches and it's.
And there's going to be magic feathers.
I'm on board.
I am just completely ready for all that to happen.
That is beginning to sound a little bit more like I am starting my own fanfic about this book.
But there are other fictions out there that can give us the same kinds of feelings that have the same vibes as Rebecca Roanhorse's fantastic book.
And I'm hoping you guys can help our listeners find those.
So I'm going to jump right back to Roger.
Roger, do you want to talk to the folks about any media that you think would be of the same ilk as Black Sun?
Speaker C
00:30:33.140 - 00:32:04.080
Yeah, I've got a few recommendations.
The first would be the Jade trilogy by Fonda Lee, starting with Jade City.
I absolutely love that entire trilogy.
I think I devoured it in a week.
It is a great non European setting.
One of the things we're talking about here, it's got an interesting magic system, but it's got this crime family conflict.
You've got all these crime families vying for superiority and that's reminiscent of the conflict between the houses, I think, in Black Sun.
Another one would be Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno Garcia that has that same sort of Native, not Native American, my apologies, sort of Central American.
It's in the set in the Mayan, in the Mayan Empire.
So it's got that whole, that same Central American cultural influence and inspiration working all the way through that.
And then the last one that comes to mind that I found is the trilogy Obsidian and Blood by Elliot de Bodard.
I've read a bunch of her stuff and I just love it.
And then this one, this Obsidian in Blood is set in the Aztec Empire.
So again we've got, and it's, you know, it's human sacrifice and the gods are walking the earth and you know, all the all the same sort of divine prophecy and vengeance and power and stuff that we find in Black Sun.
Speaker A
00:32:04.160 - 00:32:08.940
Those are great.
Karen, do you want to go forth and give us media recommendations?
Speaker B
00:32:09.170 - 00:34:35.010
Yeah, I've got like 3 million as usual.
First, as Roger actually mentioned before, the daevabad Trilogy by S.A. chakraborty.
If you want to learn more about it, see episode 25 of this very podcast.
It's got my full love and thoughts on this, one of my favorite favorite trilogies.
And then also if you're really into the seafaring part of Black sun, you can also read her book.
And I think a second one just came out of the Adventures of Amina El Sarafi might scratch that itch as well.
Also the Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden, which I also have suggested before.
But it is also an amazing non Western European fantasy series.
It's Eastern European.
It's set in medieval Russia.
It had me looking up fashion and Russian deities and things like giant stoves that people used to actually sleep on in Russia.
Look it up.
It's actually a real thing.
But this explores similar themes.
It's got human hatred of the other, insecurities and prejudices.
Main character who, like everyone around her, is trying to make her be what she isn't.
Many things thinking her just existing as evil.
Ancient battles with godlike entities.
It's got everything.
Also fantasy series with like similar themes.
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.
I know this is Western fantasy, but this is my very first, like epic fantasy.
Love it has that theme of how it really sucks to be the chosen one, especially when you know that you need to die.
Like, that's your whole vibe.
It's got the ruling class slash priesthood figures scrabbling for power when they really should be kind of like helping the world not end.
And also Xiala and her teak power super duper remind me of the seafolk and the way that they use their channeling and seamanship in this.
So yes, it's like a 14 book series.
Yes, it gets a bit wonky after Robert Jordan died and Sanderson took over, but it is 100% still worth it.
Also, the city we became by NK Jemisin.
It's essentially about becoming avatars for a God.
But it is set in New York City where the whole VI like the whole kind of plot is that every certain amount of years a human is sort of becomes the avatar for a particular city.
And because New York City is the way it is, we actually get five for each of the boroughs.
And it is so interesting and amazing, especially if you are a New York City resident.
And finally, just for Vibes, there's the webcomic Asura.
It's got the same kind of themes about identity destinies forced on you by your parents, redefining your own narrative.
Colonialism, classism.
And I don't know, it's.
It just kind of spoke to me as something that is very similar.
Speaker A
00:34:35.170 - 00:36:28.870
I'm going to jump in here and talk about.
Just because you mentioned it, Karen, you talked about the seafaring folk.
There's a really great series by Caroline Stavemer called Demon Drums, which is about a bunch of different Polynesian cultures and their conflict.
And so that reminds.
That's Sort of the Polynesian version of this.
It's a little bit older, but it does definitely holds up and it's pretty cool.
Also on the.
Hey, would you like to listen to a previous episode of this show?
I would recommend episode 35 to shape a Dragon's Breath by Monoclo Black Goose, which is a little bit more if the col.
The colonizers are there.
It does talk a lot about first first people culture and how they are, how it differs from that European culture.
But the absolute top level, bestest thing that I can think of that you could read to go with this is Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead, the first book in the craft sequence.
This is very much set in a corporatized Central American, but the corporate and advanced technology is magic and everything is dealt with.
All the gods that are there and all the people who are there and all the cultures that are there are like.
It's like, like post where this book is.
If you took.
If you continued with the magic and if magic progress, if your knowledge of magic progressed like your knowledge of technology, this would be like our black sun would be like the Industrial Revolution and then the craft sequence would be like modern day.
It really does have a lot of really great cultural bits to it.
It's set in that same sort of area and I would totally recommend it as more inspiration.
And there are a number of books in that series, so if you like the first one, keep going.
Epidia, do you want to wrap it up for us and tell us about your book choices?
I'm sorry, not just book, media.
Media choices.
Speaker D
00:36:28.870 - 00:36:49.870
Oh, well, I was going to go with a couple books here.
I'm going on a little bit of a tangent.
The thing that I'm focusing on here is exceptional mortals dealing with immortal nonsense.
And the.
The two books that.
That I wanted to recommend are Night's Master and Death's Master by Tanith Lee, which are from the late 70s.
Speaker B
00:36:50.110 - 00:36:51.950
I expect nothing less from you, Epi.
Speaker D
00:36:51.950 - 00:37:19.020
Yeah, exactly.
There are a bunch of different characters.
Like you get a bunch of different stories.
They're a little disparate like that.
Like a bunch of almost like short stories that are all tied together.
And I think the first one, like it's not a God, but it's a devil that like just suddenly gets enamored with some mortals and then they have to.
Everybody has to figure out ways to deal with it.
Yeah, I just really enjoyed them and I was thinking about them recently and in the context of this book, that's what popped into my head.
Speaker A
00:37:19.020 - 00:37:49.470
All right.
So we've talked about the book, we've talked about the mechanics, and we've talked about great stuff we want to steal from it.
And we've even given folks a chance to find new stuff based on this book.
But let's get back to you guys.
You've been so awesome so far on this podcast.
Let's give folks a chance to hear if there's something that that's out there in this world that you think is important that they should know.
So I'll start off with you, Roger.
Roger, do you have anything you want to tell the people about yourself and or any projects you're working on?
Speaker C
00:37:50.190 - 00:38:09.510
I am lucky enough to actually have something to say this time.
I have been fortunate enough to have a few of my short stories published with Opal Kingdom Press.
They have a series called Extraordinary Beasts where they have themed anthologies focusing on mythological beasts that maybe don't get as.
Speaker D
00:38:09.510 - 00:38:10.740
Much love as they should.
Speaker C
00:38:11.130 - 00:38:40.980
And so their most recent book, Hooves and Horns, is an anthology set on sort of horse themed mythological creatures.
And so I have a novelette in that book coming out at the end of August or by this time this comes out, it will, it will already be out.
It's a story entitled Winter Wager from the perspective of Sleipnir, who must pull the sun chariot of the Greek gods by himself in order to settle a bet between Odin and Apollo.
Fun little story.
Speaker A
00:38:40.980 - 00:38:43.260
That sounds amazing.
Everybody go check that out.
Speaker D
00:38:43.420 - 00:38:44.060
That's fun.
Speaker A
00:38:44.300 - 00:38:48.220
Awesome.
Epidiah, do you have anything that you want to tell the folks?
Sure.
Speaker D
00:38:48.220 - 00:40:18.240
I just finished my part in putting together Swords Without Master.
That's my latest game.
It's also a game that has been out for a while.
We're doing what we're calling a fix up, which is the game was originally published in a sword and sorcery magazine in the 2000 and tens.
And then we have have taken it out of there and I've done like a bunch of hacks for it and whatnot.
And we're just putting them all together in one big kind of anthology of games called Swords Without Master.
It's a sword and sorcery role playing game that cares more about the tone of your narration than it does whether or not you succeed or fail at things.
So when you play the game, you roll two dice.
One is glum, the other is jovial.
And that's the tone of how you should narrate what your character is doing in the game.
It was a huge endeavor.
We have like dozens of artists part of the game to make characters is that you have to have like what are called eidolons, which are things of our world that remind you of what your character is like or makes you think of your character.
Easiest example of that would be like some sort of fantasy illustration.
So we paid a bunch of fantasy artists to make these and so we have like a tarot size deck of really awesome sword and sorcery art that goes along with it.
You can go to www.soddswithoutmaster.com and Swords is plural, master is singular.
Speaker A
00:40:18.400 - 00:40:25.120
All right, that sounds awesome, Karen.
I know you have something to tune the folks into, so tell us what it is.
Speaker B
00:40:25.280 - 00:41:10.890
So if you're new to this podcast, I am a volunteer as an advocate for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence with the Crime Victims Treatment center in New York.
It's an amazing organization.
It is a nonprofit and it's got so many great services for these type of survivors, from counseling to legal help, the aforementioned advocacy and everything is free if you want to donate or help.
We're actually now I think they're taking applications for New advocates by the time this comes out.
You can pre sign up for next year's Applications for New Advocates hits.
It's an amazing organization so I would love if somehow you contributed.
You can go to www.cvtcnyc.org and my.
Speaker A
00:41:10.890 - 00:41:26.790
Big thing is I want to thank all of you guys for being here.
Roger, Epidia, Karen, thank you so much for coming on the show.
You guys always have the best ideas and the best ways of looking at stuff.
It makes makes the podcast really great.
So thank you so much.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker B
00:41:27.190 - 00:41:28.070
I love doing this.
Speaker D
00:41:28.230 - 00:41:30.150
Thank you.
Yeah, this is a joy.
Speaker C
00:41:30.230 - 00:41:31.110
Thanks for having me.
Speaker A
00:41:31.430 - 00:42:43.890
And that was Black sun, the first book in the Fevered Star series by Rebecca Roanhorse.
Thanks again to Roger, Karen and Epidia for all their awesome ideas.
May your local crow murder bestow many shiny objects upon you.
Tune in next time when we discuss the Lost Daughter of Sparta by Felicia Day who makes an appearance on the show.
It's gonna be great.
You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our podcasts@k-squareproductions.com GMBC.
You can learn about upcoming episodes on our social media on bluesky@gmbookclub.bluesky social on Facebook at Gamemasters Book Club, on Mastodon at gamemastersbookclub and on Instagram at Gamemasters Book Club.
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You've been listening to the Game Masters Book Club brought to you by me, Eric Jackson and K Square Productions.
Continued praise and thanks to John Corbett for the podcast artwork and Otis Galloway for our music.
Later, gamers, and to paraphrase the great Terry Pratchett, always try to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.