This week, I have been dreaming and imagining my true fantasy world for roleplaying inspired by the conversations I have been enjoying with Daniel Jones and others from the community.

The other day I was able to pen some initial thoughts, impressions gleaned from the first inklings of that place. I thought I would share them, a personal invitation for anyone who has interest in exploring the concept of otherworld-immersion that Daniel and I have been talking about.

I am slowly and steadily assembling the materials I need to play this game. I am open to receiving player interest, to begin the process of discussing my roleplaying goals and seeing if anyone else’s goals are compatible with this place of adventure. If you want in, get in touch – I’ll stick the usual channels at the end.

Mykovnia is the Otherworld.

It is a realm of fantasy that feels more real than any that I have visited in all my fantastic travels through 40 or more years of reading, writing, gaming, and daydreaming. Mykovnia is a dreamland, to coin the Lovecraftian term, and a place that inhabits the deepest recesses of my imaginative self.

There are mountains there and forests. There is a primal quality to those lands of Mykovnia, something quite Other than the tamed and civilised world that we know and experience here in the twenty-first century.

This is a land of fantastic splendour. It is not the pixelated artistry of the video game, nor the already-rendered display of film or television fantasy. Mykovnia inhabits a space and time quite other to our own conception of such things.

This is a place of death.

People die all the time in Mykovnia, they are grieved and missed. But death is a reality and not something driven to the periphery of our attention as we hope to ignore it, as if it might simply go away.

This is not the realm of the video game’s respawning character. It is not a place where you can simply grab another clone of your last persona and re-enter the tale, largely untouched by the loss of your protagonist. Neither is it a place where the contrivance of the Game Master will shepherd you through some pre-determined sequence of events to arrive, battered and entertained but essentially unharmed, and the heroic conclusion.

Anything can happen in Mykovnia, if you allow for it to be. Yet, you shall face death and you shall see horror, especially if you go looking for it.

Mykovnia is a realm of survival.

The People, as they call themselves, live in small communities wherein they can tame the land enough to subsist. There is risk in going hunting or foraging, so the People don’t travel alone. They don’t leave the village unless they have good reason. They know that Dark Things lurk in the wild places. Evil things. Horrifying things. Things of danger and brutal hunger.

This is not the realm of some imagined class of Adventurers who wander the lands in search of gold and powerful magical items. Mykovnia has treasures to behold, certainly, but they are not the cheap rewards of the video game, no things to find at convenient moments to give you enough power to make it through to the next point in the story’s plot. Mykovnia is alive. It is visceral. You need to learn how to survive.

Mykovnia is magickal.

There is Magick. But not the thinly-veiled “technology we just don’t quite understand” variety of magic that pervades the modern mind. Not some invocation of power that allows your super-heroic alter-ego to blast down another horde of faceless and meaningless foes. The Magick is dark, foreboding, subtle, and almost invisible.

The People know that Magick is real but they fear it. When they see it, most folk run from Magick. It is the doorway to the Demonic or a channel opened by the Gods to toy with the realms of humanity. Magick is the thing of the Underworld, that realm of the dead and the damned. It is not merely a power-up on your character sheet. Magick is real. And Mykovnia is magickal indeed.

Want to come and play?

You can contact Game Master Che Webster on the usual channels:

• Voice Message: anchor.fm/rpgrescue/message
• Email: hello@rpgrescue.com
• Patreon: patreon.com/rpgrescue
• MeWe Group: mewe.com/join/roleplayrescue (or search “Roleplay Rescue”)
• Facebook Page: facebook.com/roleplayrescue (or search “Roleplay Rescue”)
• Twitter: @ubiquitousrat

Game on!