Very unstructured post today. Just a bunch of stuff that’s been on my mind.

The Elves Are Strangers: I’d love to play a game where the elves aren’t the ancient custodians of nature, but rather are new arrivals, heralds of a change in the cosmic order of the world. Maybe they have arrived from another plane of existence, or their arrival in the mortal world was delayed by some divine accident. Elves arriving to a world already peopled by human kingdoms and cities, and dealing with that.

Arthurian, With A Twist: A campaign that leans much more into the Celtic roots of Arthurian legend, Chronicles of Prydain style. A game less about the militaristic chivalry of later medieval knighthood, and more about the local tensions of syncretic, communal cultures meditating on their place in the world rising from the ashes of the old imperial order – an order which they themselves partially embraced and partially rejected.

Schisms and Successions: A game set in a dual monarchy whose two constituent kingdoms follow different variants of the Faith. I’d like to play a game where questions of religion do not fall into the trap of making one side into pawns of fundamentalism, or that portrays religion as wholly poisonous. Something like The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay; a world where religion and dogma matters and is a point of tension, but without immediately resorting to exploring it through the ugliness of sectarian violence.

Among the Orcs: Orcs are used too little as PC’s in Burning Wheel games! I’d love to play a game that challenges and explores the somewhat stale idea of “orcs as Big Bad’s cannon fodder”; set among the orc clans on the edge of the human kingdoms, a disgraced human warlord?sorcerer?noble? arrives and tries to harness the fierce orcs to serve their cause. Existential hijinks, clan politics, and questions of “What is evil really, dude?” ensue. And probably a bunch of really cool fights.

Knights & Prejudice: Better pun needed for the title. Burning Wheel has, I think, untapped potential as a game with romance themes. A game of Jane Austen-esque romance in a chivalric court of love would be a lot of fun – Duels of Wit to seduce and flirt; Fight! for those highly emotional fencing spats; nail-biting Resource tests to secure that particular type of rose you know your crush adores.