PART ONE: THE ARCHIVIST'S RECORD
[ARCHIVIST RECORD | VEHL'S REACH | LORE DROP]
Every child in Vehl's Reach learns Lifts and Falls.
Every board is drawn by hand, so no two look alike. Every board is built the same way: three layers, the Base, the Span and the Crest. Lines go up. Lines go down.
Land on a Lift and you rise. Land on a Fall and you drop.
The board is the same wherever you play it. The setup is not.
On Skyside, you play for the Lifts. You take every one and you avoid every Fall. The aim is to win the board and control the city.
On Shadowside, nobody plays to win more points or rule the board. You play to survive. Every Shadowsider knows that the more risks you take, the smaller your chance of surviving.
Whatever token you play, you take whatever you land on. A Lift or a Fall, you take it.
One token breaks that rule.
It is called Ash. Only the Twilight-born play it. Ash can skip a Lift or a Fall, and its player decides whether to take it.
No one explains why.
[Archivist's Footnote: A rule that applies to everyone except one kind of player is a message about that player.]
PART TWO: FROM R.R. PANWAR
The Lore Dump Conundrum
Vehl's Reach has two decks, a wall that decides who counts, and a set of rules that change depending on who you are.
I could have explained all of that in a paragraph. Readers would have skimmed it.
So I gave the city and the novel a game.
Why a Game
Folk games are never neutral. A society builds them around what it wants its children to learn.
Take Snakes and Ladders. In India it began as Moksha Patam, a game that taught children moral conduct. Ladders sat on virtues like faith, generosity and knowledge. Snakes sat on vices like theft, lying, greed and pride. There were more snakes than ladders, a quiet reminder that the path of good is harder to walk than the path of sin.
When the game reached Victorian England, the board stayed the same physically while the lessons changed. The virtues became Thrift, Industry, Penitence, and others. The vices became Indulgence, Disobedience and Indolence. The snakes and ladders were even in number, so the game turned more forgiving. Same board, and a different society telling its children what to be.
Monopoly has an even stranger history. Lizzie Magie patented its ancestor in 1903 to teach a single land tax, and there were two sets of rules defined for it. In one, everyone prospered together as land developed. In the other, you won by bankrupting your neighbors. She meant the second as a warning. The version that reached the shelves kept only that one.
A game is how a society hands down the values and systems it has decided will help, and children take them in as play. That is why the same game can come with different rules in different places.
Vehl's Reach works the same way. Skyside and Shadowside play on one board, and each side sets it up differently. The setup teaches its children what the city expects of them.
Lifts and Falls follows the ‘Same Board, Different Setup’.
I wanted the game to reflect the cultural values that the Skyside and the Shadowside valued. As a mechanism to provide insights to the readers on the world and its societies.
A Skyside child plays for control. For a Shadowsider, the game is survival, and taking risks lowers the odds. So a Shadowside child learns to read the board before every move. And Skyside believes in changing the boards as often as possible.
There are different tokens that the players can use. Stone is heavy. It moves fewer spaces, and Shadowsiders favor it to minimize risks.
Glass moves farther and takes Lifts easily. Naturally, Skysiders favor it.
Ash is played only by the Twilight-born. It can skip a Lift or a Fall, and its player decides whether to take it. Everyone else has to take what they land on.
The Rule Execption
In a city built on mandatory rules, I wanted one token that could refuse.
Every choice costs someone in this world, and Ash is no exception. The Twilight-born are the only players who get to decide what the board does to them. The book asks what that costs.
In the Book
Kael's favorite game is Lifts and Falls, and his piece is Ash.
Rhea reaches a point in Book 1 where she realizes she cannot see the whole board. In Lifts and Falls, you can see every Lift and every Fall, even as the board changes. In her investigation, she is playing blind.
The Question
Which token would you pick: Stone, Glass or Ash? And if you held Ash, would you skip the Lift or the Fall? Reply and tell me. I read every one.
R.R. Panwar
Here is this week’s recommendation from my end.
New Earth Prequel is a complete three-chapter short story and the prequel to the Dead Cell series.
This three-chapter, complete short story is a prequel for the Dead Cell series.
Synopsis:
Tani'na and the few half-breed descendants of First and Second Waves of colonists are infected with Chromata, a sentient lifeform native to New Earth. But it isn't the enemy.
First Wave, sent a century prior, made peace with the inhabitants. Some of Second Wave joined them when they arrived decades later. Most remain loyal to the Thyterion empire which is destined to arrive as the third and final wave. Emperor Riscerman wants the planet cleansed for their arrival. Tani'na wants revenge for the death of her mother and sister among thousands of others who perished in the Silacia settlement bombing.
Commander Worton must pay for following such heinous orders. Tani'na and her Father's First Wave army storm the city and the state-building to retake control. Tani'na knows what must be done, and she's the only one who can do it.
If it hooks you, the Dead Cell series runs on from there, from Catalyst to Misfit Guardians.
BEFORE YOU GO
The Archivist publishes free, most Tuesdays.
The Infection Protocol, Book 1 of The Parasite Wars, launches publicly November 7. Eleven days.
The Amazon listing is live now, so you can claim your copy before launch day.
Until then: the board does not care who you are. It remembers who taught you.
- Eshal & R.R. Panwar
THE ARCHIVIST | Free. Weekly, most Tuesdays.
Records of worlds the city would prefer you didn't find.
