The Book That Is The World

So, one day my players were investigating an abandoned village. They looked through every room and wardrobe and asked what they found there. It was a few coins here and there, but mostly personal effects (to give the impression they just suddenly vanished). A locket, some amateur paintings of birds, a flower pressed between the pages of a book, a...

Player: What's the book?

Me: Oh, uh, it's a popular romance novel

Player: Cool! I want to read it, what does it say?

Me: Uh... Just then you hear a banging coming from the room down the hall! No time to read now, time to fight a rocktopus!

However, the player who kept the book kept coming back to wanting to read the story. So I had no choice but to pull something out of nowhere, and had to make it up as I went along. I incidentally found out that this was a great way to give a potted lore dump of the rest of my world (in case the players felt like going off anywhere else), and I have subsequently reused the book in other campaigns (but this time being prepared with the plot I half remember), as players always seem to want to know the story of the book they found. Plus, it is a nice "unreliable narrator" where anything could be going on, but an idea of how someone saw each of these places gives a tone.

Regula Sancti Benedicti, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

The Romance of Rhomarra

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Old Rhomarth where we set our scene ancient grudge breaks to new mutiny and civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. [Look, I am a Shakespearean actor in real life, and the prologue is really easy to remember]. Iullus and Rhomarra, scions of the two warring factions of Old Rhomarth, first see each other from balconies overlooking the great river that runs through the ancient city. For many nights Iullus would brave the treacherous waters of the flood to visit Rhomarra by moonlight. 

Much of the first part of the book is split between the romance of the lovers, and a sort of paean to Rhomarth as a city and neglected jewel of the world. Once the seat of Empire and the Church, now abandoned in a futile rush towards novelty; these chapters have a lot of recriminating invective about the move of the Papacy from Rhomarth to Stonechurch. The war in the streets between the families grows to fever pitch, and when the lovers realise they will never be able to be together they stage an elaborate plan involving sleeping draughts and suicide. 

 

Fleeing Rhomarth in the wake of their feigned death they move to Fiammecitta; a city on a volcano famed for its glass and metalworking. The strange thing is that the city is ruled by a dog, and many silly interludes are concluded in which the couple realise that the foolish citizens will never realise the folly of making a dog their lord. This is probably a joke on "Doge" (the ruler's title in that city), the constant infighting of factions, the curious obsession with hound racing and dog fighting, and a general jibe at the inhabitants of the city being more credulous than their sophisticated neighbors to the south. After this they continue their journey north, with the idea to see the world. They cross the Teeth of Alphetus, it seems a very ham handed segue as there is a famous Dragon Road that passes by Vincenzia, however the author's grandmother was from a village in a Helvetican canton called "Han's Holdfast" and that is included as a matter of familial pride. This is also an excuse to work in mountain adventure stories of hardship and fortitude. 

 

The couple end up in Vasserbec, the Capital of the Holy Empire, where they impress the Imperator so with their wit in a riddling contest (which was the style at the time) that they are made a favourites of the Imperial court. Whilst Iullus is intoxicated by luxury, Rhomarra  discovers that there is a family that resents the couples' swift advancement, the Estrellens. The Imperial Court is represented as a nest of vipers, full of complex plots and schemes far removed from the honour and gentility of old. When an attempt is made upon the lives, despite foiling the plot and having the Imperator bring the perpetrators to justice, the couple decide to flee to the west. 

 

They pass through Mittenburg where all people are obsessed with building a clockwork ruler, since none of the local nobility are held to be worthy of the honour. The whole thing seems to be a further criticism against novelty, but implies that the city is indeed one of Clockpunk futurism. They continue on to the court of the King of Frankia; a large Kingdom of fruitful lands, full of noble Knights and Paladins. Iullus becomes a Paladin of the court of the King due to his shining nobility and courtly manners. The Paladins are heroes of incorruptible virtue, however there is a strong thread of satire running though this section and the paladins often seem credulous and foolish (although never corrupt or evil, simply naïve). This section of the novel digresses into more unconnected short stories of courtly knights and ladies, the slaying of Orges and jousting of wicked knights for the honour of ladies of the court.

 

There is one notable asides here where Iullus and Rhomarra journey to the northern isles of Loegria and Eire. Loegria being embroiled in a civil war for the Crown between great houses all of equal moral turpitude. This seems to be a comment on the character of Loegrian peoples, as well as a chance to throw the upright virtue of the Frankian Paladins into stark relief, as many of the despicable Loegrian nobles are both sharp and pragmatic. Eire, by contrast, being the island nation on the edge of the world is almost half there. A world of the fantastic populated by beings of myth and a primeval magic that has long ago faded from the rest of the world. Rhomarra and Iullus are even feasted in the Fey court, and it seems they may be taken away to fairy land, only to trick their way out at the last minute.

 

Back in the court of Frankia Rhomarra befriends a princess of the lands of Al Andalus and the couple is tasked with escorting her home. Al Andalus forms yet another shift in style of the narrative, and there is more of a focus on romanticism about freedom. It is a wild and lawless place of large arid plains under a hot sun. Independent towns far from centres of power, a great open frontier yet to be tamed, and a place for heroes to stand tall. After saving such a village from a villainous black clad bandit chief, and being awarded the rank of shire reeves in the town, the couple decide to relocate to the frontier. 

 

Upon traveling to one of the port cities of Al Andalus, which is connected to the great trade lanes of the Mare Nostrum, they become curious about the distant Golden Empire, and follow a ship to visit the palace of the Empress. It is an Ancient state, wealthy, decadent, and now in decline. At this point in their adventures Iullus and Rhomarra are renowned as noble adventurers due to their powerful friends and wide ranging travels, and are welcomed into the Imperial circles. Much is made of the Byzantine nature of the Golden Empire, and how mired in the past it is, making a stark contrast to the criticism of novelty which marked the first chapters. Rhomarra is appointed ambassador to the Imperial court, due to her experience there, but as the two set off their ship is attacked by pirates, and although they fight them off they find themselves driven ashore in the lands of Strygia. These are provinces in the East of the Holy Empire, a great shadow lours over the land, full of haunted forests, forbidding ruined keeps, ghouls, ghosts, vampires and werewolves. The tale takes a darker and more gothic tone, focusing on the elements of horror that the couple must face. Each adventure seems to sap their resources further, and a sort of terrible spiral ensues that ends with the couple certain to die chased down by a great pack of werewolves, until a great thundering is heard: the winged hussars! 

 

The couple find themselves in the Far Kingdom. The bulwark against the East and the people of the steppe a place of nobility and valour, famous for the winged hussars into whose ranks Iullus is inducted due to his innate nobility (there is a long passage where the Hussars discuss Iullus' appearance in not always flattering terms, but always concluding that such physical features are the stamp of noble families of the region). The couple eventually venture further north to the Duchy of Kievan Rus, Home of the Lord of Winter. They are honoured guests, but the new wife of the Lord of Winter is a member of the Estrellen family who have neither forgotten nor forgiven the upstart couple. In a rather dramatic turn, the Lady of Winter has Rhomarra poisoned. The crime is discovered and many catspaws punished, the Lady of Winter is never connected to the crime being outwardly mournful and caring (only whispering a taunting confession in Rhomarra's ear).

 

In an attempt to save her life Iullus takes Rhomarra through Mesopotamia, to Meggido: The Holy Land in the hopes that they might find a cure for her fatal poisoning. It is a place of miracles and mystery, and this section of the book seems more like a travel guide. Many famous places, sights, attractions, and buildings are described in detail, but very little happens of plot significance. Rhomarra continues to fade and on a bright sunny morning, looking out of the window, says that she wished she could see the streets of Rhomarth one last time. She dies as the sun rises.

Iullus is devastated, bereft of all hope. However he hears that in the land of Ægyptus, the Ancient land of lost Empire, within the Black Pyramid of the Lich King there lies a terrible dread machine that it is said can defeat death itself. Iullus struggles though many travails, bringing the corpse of his love with him, and fights his way into the depths of the terrible structure to find the forbidden machine. When he comes at last to its dark altar, he discovers that he can revive Rhomarra to life, but only at the cost of his own. Faced with the choice of sacrificing himself that she might live alone, living his life forever without his love, or joining her in death, he looks across the Nile as the sun rises, and makes his choice...

 

The ending was deliberately ambiguous, and my original group argued about what the decision of Iullus might be and what was the right choice for a good forty minutes. 

 

I think, now that I have much of the information consolidated in one place (partly I've written it down here as I thought it was a nice little trick, but mostly to remind myself of a lot of the names that I had for places), I would in future split the narrative up into separate parts. Occasionally sprinkling volumes throughout the world, and having NPC characters be fans of the work allowing player knowledge of the books be a way to get closer with NPCs and make them more receptive and friendly. Hopefully get them into the headspace of collecting them all. Every new town, village, and hamlet inspected for a bookstore. Every dungeon bookcase ransacked in order to find the elusive missing volumes of this story.

Or maybe they wouldn't bother, who knows!