For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a worldbuilder. Ever since I first glimpsed the map of Dragon Pass in RuneQuest (2e), the magic of imagining new worlds has followed me. From the mountains of Mykovnia, which I dreamt as a teen, through to Fellmyr where we currently adventure, secondary worlds have been my joy.

This weekend, I have been exploring new worlds through the lens of Foundations, a game from Tom Ana published by Leyline Press. Utilising the Foundations Card Deck, on Christmas Eve we discovered the realm of Althaea and today I raised the foundations of Ylanthys.

The game is simple: you draw a card and follow the instructions; then you draw another card. You can play with just the booklet and a standard deck of playing cards but I am grateful for the specialised Foundations deck. This tool places the instructions on the card and saves flipping the pages of the booklet.

What I enjoy is the way in which each suit of the deck represents a separate era in the formation of your world. Beginning with the Spades, this covers the millennia of formation leading to the rise of life on the world. As you reach epochal moments, the others suits of cards are added and the game progresses through layers of civilisation.

There is a weird mix of anthropology and evolutionary theory alongside a mythic sensibility that I find compelling and engaging. Magic is woven into the game as an option utilising the court cards and I’ve enjoyed – for Ylanthys – pre-selecting some of those cards so that my flavour of magic is distinct.

Although my latest world is not complete, retaining the card deck for a second session has proven trivial and offers the chance to return later in the week. What is interesting is the emergent story of the world – born as it was Ulanthys as a single continent, now fragmented in the wake of several huge transformative events.

I want to visit this world in more depth. Perhaps I will take a trip down onto one of the continents and visit the people who live there. The great gift of roleplaying games means that I can imagine my way down to a region and explore it through further play with another set of rules. There is excitement in building on these foundations.

All in all, I recommend Tom Ana’s game – they have created something distinct and intriguing yet easy to access and play.

Game on!