What Is The Last Days of Solomon

 There are no stars above the city of Solomon, only a thick and hazy mist. There are no roads that lead from the city of Solomon, only a black and reflective moat guarded by a serpent larger than the Royal Palace. There are no farms in the city of Solomon, for all food is distributed by parades of ghostly spirits that march through the streets, leaving gifts at the door of each household. Even if they could cross the moat, there are no armies that will invade the city of Solomon, for the world outside the city is consumed by the flames of apocalypse. There is nothing to want for in the city of Solomon, for all is provided by our Queen and the pacts she forged with three ancient Demon Princes, a century ago. The city is safe, under the righteous authority of the Noble Houses, and for as long as there is a Queen on the throne of Solomon, the city will stand eternal... 

So, if you follow me on my twitter or talk to me with any frequency in real life, you've probably heard me talk a lot about The Last Days of Solomon. The Last Days of Solomon (or Solomon, which is what we've nicknamed the system as a whole) has been described at various points as:

• A forum roleplay.
• An online LARP.
• A computer game.
• A political intrigue soap opera.

The basic structure of it is that there are about 10-20 players (currently 10 active players, but our goal for our next playtest is 20 active players to see the limits of the system) who are all members of a Discord channel. In that channel, they roleplay with each other (both in the open, or covertly) as the heads of a particular noble house and that house's court. They can also roleplay with NPCs controlled by the GMs (me and my friend Abe). 

At 11:59 on Wednesday, players need to submit their set of Actions, which determine how that noble house has influenced the rest of the city. The GMs then spend Thursday and Friday frantically figuring out how that's changed the world, and then release a newspaper at the start of the new week detailing everything that's changed. 

These are some of the features that make the game really interesting to me, and why it's the thing I'm most proud of that I haven't yet shown you.

The Mechanics. The system itself is a really cool union of narrative and mechanical. Pretty much everything has both a cool story impact, and a cool mechanical one - from things like throwing a party, to dueling someone in single combat, to assassinating your friend's nobles. There are four stats (Decadence, Might, Will, and Covert) which are all single-digit numbers that you commit during a week - which is very handy for a game that's entirely online. 

The Court System. One of the coolest parts of the game is the way a single person can control as many different characters as they'd please. Each player has their court of character cards, each with their own life story and connection to the court, all of whom can have their own personal lives and drama outside of your character. It allows for really multifaceted roleplaying opportunities (say two heads of house hate each other, but two of their court cards are in love! That way the same two players get to explore two different stories with each other)

The World. The setting of The Last Days of Solomon is one of the coolest ones I've ever been a part of.  From swan-headed Far Merchants selling rotting boar's heads and assassins trapped in paintings, to a giant songbird that lives in the sky and feasts on dead bodies, to an army of clockwork soldiers with music-box mouths, to street gangs that use dire wolves instead of motorcycles, the setting is strange, dark, and over-the-top. 

Collaborative Backstabbing. When we designed Solomon, we were expecting people to be absolutely ruthless with each other. While there have been a fair share of murder and destruction, there's also been a really incredible community that's started to blossom up. People are working together to determine how best to betray each other, and it's a really incredible atmosphere. In the next playtest, we're going to be working even harder to create a really strong community, where everyone can trust each other to tell good stories.

Expansive Universe. The world of Solomon, in addition to being awesome, is huge. Both in terms of NPCs (there's about 50 named NPCs who exist at the start of game, before the players create any of their own, and we're planning to expand that number to 100) and in terms of the constant influx of new things (10 players each take 5 actions each which change different portions of the world in different ways...) That might sound like a drawback, but to me it's a plus - players are able to each do what interests them, interacting with the parts of the setting that grab them, and allowing the world to spiral around them. It reminds me of that feeling when you're in a huge LARP, and there's a billion things at once, and the universe feels alive.

I'm currently holding a lot of pieces of Solomon very close to my heart, as Abe and I want to make sure that it's first public debut is of a finished product - and trust me, there's a long way to go. We're in talks about designing a computer game to support it! If there's interest, however, we'd love to show people some components of Solomon, to give folks an idea of what I've been up to these past four months. 

I've been really nervous about showing off Solomon to people, because it's something very near to me and I feel like "Online Political Text RPs" is kinda a weird genre to be writing 50k+ words for, but also the majority of people who have played have talked about having truly incredible experiences, and it legitimately feels like a huge new thing.