2210 - This Week in Hobby
The Big Ideas of Anathema, Age of Sigmar new releases, and Old-School Essentials has a boxed set.
The Big Ideas of Anathema
I've been talking about Anathema for a couple weeks now, but I never explained the backstory. Whoops. That's my bad. I got so excited.
Here's what I sent my alpha test players to describe what they were getting into.
It has been a thousand years since the prophesied messiah came. The war happened. Good lost. Each of the Seven Profane Powers has secured a kingdom, and though they snap at each other's heels, none can unseat the other.
Heroic Ethos are reborn only to be hunted down by the Seven time and time again. Elemental priests divine the future from individual strands on the Loom of Fate to be present at the exact moment of Apotheosis. To cut short the hero's thread before it has a chance to be woven.
Into this world you will be born, or, reborn. The life you knew gone in the flash of radiant glory that marks your Apotheosis. The agents of the Seven are coming. You can feel their eyes on your back even now. Your only chance to survive is to run. To hide. In time, to find others.
Others like you. Anathema.
There's a few big ideas that set Anathema apart.
Idea #1: player character power is granted, not earned. That power exists independent of the characters. In D&D, a Bard is a Bard because they've studied to be one. They've learned skills and have a connection to the magic. In Anathema a Bard is a Bard because the heroic Ethos of a Bard, the spirit, has chosen them.
The moment of choosing, their Apotheosis, they became more than whatever they were. They may have been a street performer, a barkeep, or any number of mundane professions. Now they're chosen, empowered. They're Anathema.
Idea #2: being a hero is bad. Not that heroes are bad, this isn't Suicide Squad. It's a world that distrusts the Player Characters. If the wrong person sees the characters using their abilities, that's going to lead to trouble. The bad guys control the narrative, and they want to keep it that way.
Idea #3: the big climactic battle against good and evil happened long ago. Nobody remembers it. The world is littered with remnants of that battle. Weapons, armor, and magic items of every sort.
The setting is post apocalyptic, but not grimdark. After the apocalypse people got back to the business of living their lives, as people do. The bad guys continue to claw at each other for power and position. Jim, the barkeep down the street, is more worried about the ale he's brewing.
For there to be stakes, for anything to matter, players need to be able to connect with the NPCs. They need to be able to care. If everything is terrible all the time, that's both unrealistic and depressing. I don't want to run that kind of game. Most people don't want to play that kind of game. Things aren't wholesale terrible for everyone forever. There must be light for the darkness to mean anything.
So maybe the tax collectors come through once a year and rough everyone up. Maybe it's mandatory to celebrate an overlord who nobody has heard from in mortal memory. Maybe every home has a picture of Glorious Leader on the mantle. One must acknowledge the powers that be, but there are businesses to run. Fields to harvest. Children to raise. Joy to be found.
Art imitates life. There are things I have to do every day to be a person in the world. I don't thrill over running errands. Life goes on. Human beings are resilient. To presume fictional characters would be any less so is disingenuous.
To quote Dr. Ian Malcolm, "life uh... finds a way."
Hey, Check This Out!
Battletomes for the Idoneth Deepkin and Fyreslayers land Saturday. They're accompanied by the usual dice and warscroll cards. Fyreslayers also see the solo launch of magmadroths, for the true lizard aficionado.
Warhammer Quest: Cursed City returns for a two week made to order relaunch. Launched in April 2021, it sold out in a matter of hours. A full relaunch will be due later this year, with more expansions to follow.
TTRPGs
A love letter to early editions of D&D, Old-School Essentials brings the dungeon crawl flavor that kids crave. To really capture the zest of the era, they're releasing two boxed sets of hard-bound books in A5 format. If you miss the days when armor class counted down and traps were trying to kill you, this set is for you.
Programming Notes
This week will mark the last essay about Anathema for a while. I don't want to delve too far into the weeds and risk spoiling the campaign for my alpha testers. If it sounds like something you want to play, let me know! I'm likely to run more test games in the future.