Ancient Combat vs. Medieval Combat

The Way of the Earth is set in a dark and mythic version of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Although it is a fictional setting with wildly dramatized elements, it nevertheless roughly approximates cultures and levels of technology that existed in the historical 9th to 7th centuries BC. This is significantly different from the common medieval European backdrop that is the classical default for many fantasy settings. With a time difference of 1500-2000 years, and an incalculable difference in philosophies and worldviews, it is important when creating an ancient setting like the one in the Way of the Earth to take several opportunities to clearly differentiate it from what people might explicitly or implicitly expect out of a fantasy setting. Many of these differences will be communicated in upcoming lore and fiction entries, which will discuss aspects of The Way of the Earth’s cultures and technologies in some detail. But for this weekly update, as I am actively working on the game mechanics related to conflicts and combat, I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss three ways that the Way of the Earth makes the difference between the ancient and the medieval time periods visible in its combat mechanics.

1. Melee Weapons are Disposable

Although the Iron Age had been in full swing for several hundred years by the 9th to 7th century BC in the ancient Near East, the massive expense of iron working infrastructure and technologies combined with the difficulty in mining and extracting the ore in the eastern Mediterranean, led to it being a somewhat uncommon occurrence on ancient battlefields. When it did appear in any significant amount, it was a dominating force in combat. Unlike in the medieval period where iron and steel formed the bulk of weapons and armor, in the ancient period, bronze was the most common material seen in martial equipment. Bronze’s constituent elements were much easier to work and less costly to shape and maintain, and while bronze could be made to form a lethal edge, the relative softness of the metal meant that it could easily blunt and chip in sustained combat. This weakness was exacerbated on contact with iron which was all together superior for martial purposes. Iron blades could cleave bronze and leather armor in two, turning what would have been wounding blows into killing ones. Iron spears could puncture straight through bronze shields, tearing holes in shielded formations with a thrust. Iron shields repelled bronze tipped arrows effortlessly, and bronze weapons could shatter when put against them. This led to an arms race, as competing empires fought to lay claim to as much iron technology as possible. It was an arms race that the biblical Israelites almost always lost, leading to immense difficulties in their military ventures.

The Way of the Earth captures these historical realities in a few ways. First, martial equipment of common quality is extremely disposable. Common quality weapons and shields can be broken with a single roll; either a bad roll where an item is broken accidentally, or a good roll where an opponent’s item is destroyed in a maneuver. Superior quality items are immune to this danger, and have better offensive and defensive attributes across the board, but are relatively difficult to find and expensive to acquire.

Second, while nothing is more iconic for traditional fantasy than a knight in shining plate armor wielding a long sword, metals in general were much more rare in ancient times. The spear was therefore a much more common weapon, as it required less metal, less smithing expertise, and less training to wield effectively. There are few sword-like weapons in The Way of the Earth, while there are a variety of spear type weapons. Heavy metal armors are present, but again, they are exorbitantly expensive and difficult to come by.

Third, as a way of helping players adapt to the disposability of weaponry, weapons in The Way of the Earth receive various bonuses when fighting against certain types of enemies; bonuses against unarmored opponents, or shield using opponents, or opponents with short weapons, or opponents who are slow, or opponents who are wounded, etc. This encourages players to be more utilitarian about their weapon choices, bringing a few with them and choosing which to use on the basis of the job at hand, and helping players to not feel overly attached to any one in their possession. Many role-playing games encourage players to equip themselves with one or two signature weapons that they use for every occasion, but The Way of the Earth treats weapons as tools best used for specific purposes.

Fourth, and continuing on from the theme of the third, weapons and shields are relatively easy to disarm and pickup in comparison to other role-playing games. If a player’s weapon breaks, they can disarm their opponents to be on equal footing, or steal an adversary’s and turn it against them. In one skirmishing playtest, a player with nothing but a meager short sword was facing down a mounted soldier armed with a shield and spear. With a single roll, the player grabbed hold of the soldier’s spear, threw him from horseback, split the soldier’s shield in two at the cost of his own short sword, and stole away the spear. The drastic reversal in equipment is characteristic of the vicious combat in The Way of the Earth and the general disposability of weaponry that it adopts as a historical theme.

Fifth and finally, The Way of the Earth’s ancient setting allows a few other less common weapons to shine. The sling, for example, plays practically no role in games based on medieval forms of combat, but is a strong contender in The Way of the Earth. Having a range on par with longbows, and being one of the few ranged weapons that can be used with a shield, the sling has a niche where it can excel in combat. There are legendary stories of what slingers could accomplish with their weapons, and records from across the ancient Near East contain references to units of expert slingers deployed with great success in war. Short swords and knives are also weapons that sometimes get pushed into the backdrop of fantasy settings, in deference to the larger and more exciting looking long swords. But light infantry dual wielding short swords or knives could be powerful forces on ancient battlefields, especially when deployed against spearmen. Although spears can thrust from range, the two short swords allows a combatant to parry a spear thrust in either direction, then move in close where a spear loses all effectiveness for the kill. The concealability of short swords also allows them to be used in assassination, something the vaishineph player characters in The Way of the Earth’s setting will likely find themselves attempting. The biblical story of Ehud’s assassination of King Eglan, described so vividly in Judges 3, dramatizes such an incident.

2. Chariots are King on Land

The chariot was an ancient super weapon. The immense cost of fielding chariots combined with the devastation they could cause in charges and as mobile archery platforms, led them to be the premier tool of warfare in much of the ancient Near East. Chariots were considered so invincible that accounts like Judges 1 indicate that without divine intervention, they would be impossible to overcome. The actual effectiveness of chariots in ancient warfare is somewhat less glamorous. Chariots could only be used on a limited amount of terrain and were susceptible to all sorts of maintenance issues, but their psychological value was unparalleled even if their actual value left something to be desired.

The Way of the Earth places chariots on a pedestal, less because of their historical power, and more because of the mythic hold they had on the ancient imagination. Chariots are, in a mechanical sense, intentionally overpowered in The Way of the Earth, not because they were actually invincible in the ancient world, but because they had the feel of invincibility to many soldiers who fought against them. Chariots are in The Way of the Earth are the smallest epic damage unit in the game. Epic damage is a type of damage typically dealt and received by entire armies, naval ships, siege engines, and the most powerful magical Whispers and supernal creatures. It is a type of damage an entire order of magnitude above the more common lethal and bashing damage dealt by weapons. Epic damage units cannot normally be harmed by lethal and bashing damage, and a single point of epic damage counts as ten points of lethal damage when applied to a mere mortal. This makes chariots tank-like in The Way of the Earth’s combat mechanics, and forces players who try to bring them down to employ cautious and creative strategies.

3. Naval Combat is Close and Personal

When someone thinks of pre-modern naval combat they likely think of broadside cannon fire on the high seas. But The Way of the Earth’s historical setting takes place thousands of years before such technology would be prevalent. The ancient world still had furious naval combat, especially in the Mediterranean Sea, which was absolutely essential for ancient economies and aspiring empires. But naval combat had a very different look and feel than the pirate ships and man-o-wars of the 17th -18th centuries. In ancient times, naval combat was up close and personal. The ram rather than the cannon was the primary weapon of war making vessels. Bireme vessels, with doubled layers of oarsman rowing with all their strength, propelled massive ships of wood and metal through the water like a spear. Naval combat was all about positioning, maneuverability, judging distance and the waves, and lining up ramming runs aimed at the sides of enemy ships. A clean shot could cut a vessel in half, while grazing blows might cripple a ship’s structure or kill enough of its oarsman to put it dead in the water. Large scale naval warfare turned into a dizzying dance of darting ships, as enemy forces tried time and again to skewer one another on the raging seas.

Ramming was assisted by onboard archers, firing both conventional arrows and ones of an incendiary variety, to fell oarsman and commanders and set fire to wood, rigging, and sails. Small catapults, and arrow launchers that preceded the roman ballistae, also provided covering fire and could be used to siege cities near the sea. Grappling hooks and spiked bridges could be thrown out once ships drew near one another for boarding, at which point the fighting turned to close quarters combat with the fate of both vessels on the line. Not many role-playing games attempt to do naval combat, but The Way of the Earth makes it a key part of its historical lore and its gameplay, and attempts to bring the unique, visceral experience of ramming ships to the table with care and historical fidelity.

Wrapping Up

Those are just a few ways that The Way of the Earth tries to bring the look, feel, and historical realities of the ancient world to life its combat mechanics.

See something you like here? Let me know! See something you think is missing? Let me know and I'll get it put in :)

- ABH

Adapting Biblical Prophets for a Dark Fantasy Setting

In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan appears before King David in his royal court and tells him a story. Nathan explains that there was a rich man who stole a precious sheep from a poor man, so that he did not have to slaughter any of his own sheep to feed his guests. Nathan explains in heart wrenching detail how much the poor man had cared for his sheep, feeding it and sleeping with it as if it were a member of his own family. Nathan asks the king to pass judgment on the situation, as was the king’s duty. David is enraged that such an injustice could take place in his land and he demands that the rich man pay fourfold for the harm that he has caused. Nathan, no doubt with a grim smile on his face, tells David that he is in fact the man. Nathan says that David did the same thing when he stole the beloved wife of one of his most elite and trusted soldiers, and then had the soldier killed unceremoniously to cover up their affair and resulting pregnancy. Nathan pronounces a reversal of the Davidic promise that was given only a few chapters before. Instead of a divine promise that one of David’s heirs will sit on the throne in Jerusalem forever, Nathan says that it will be strife and violence that will plague the king’s house forever. Readers familiar with the rest of David’s life know that his judgement on the rich man, a fourfold punishment, will in fact befall him. Internal discord, incestuous rape, revenge killings, and civil war mark the rest of David’s days, and he loses four of his sons in the tide of bloodshed.

This tense dynamic, between a singular prophet on the one hand, and a king at the height of his power on the other, is one of the most interesting and dangerous dynamics in the Hebrew Bible. For much of the biblical text however this dynamic did not exist. In the earliest parts of the Bible the civil and military leader of Israel was also the prophetic leader. That is to say, the one who led the people and its armies was also the one who had privileged access to the divine will. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, all the many judges, and Samuel himself, are all examples of these two offices being united in one person. But in 1st Samuel 8, these two offices are permanently sundered. Israel asks for a king to lead them, and, reluctantly, God is said to agree. Thereafter the civil and military leader will be the king, but the one who has privileged access to the divine will is someone else. This latter figure is usually a prophet, a single person who roams the land dispensing the word of God and performing miracles. But the prophets words and their miracles are almost always antagonistic toward the king, chiding him for this or that failure. Further complicating this relationship is that there is still a priesthood and a large number of professional court prophets, all loyal to the king, who are all supposed to speak for the divine. Yet it is the prophet rather than the official institutional devotees who are consistently shown to have real divine authority on their side.

The relationship between prophet and state often manifests as persecution and violence but also as one of competition. One of the most dramatic examples of this can be found in 1 Kings 22, where the prophet Micaiah is called before the kings of both southern Judah and northern Israel to bless their joint military venture. The king of Israel explains that his hundreds of professional court prophets have already expressed full confidence in the campaign but asks what Micaiah has to say. Micaiah goes on to say something very interesting. He says that not only is the military campaign doomed to failure, but he has had a vision that the king’s professional prophets have all been deceived by a lying spirit sent by God to mislead the king into going to his death in battle. The king is furious and throws Micaiah in prison. The king then departs to engage in his military campaign, but not without taking extra precautions to keep himself safe in the battles to follow. Regardless, true to Micaiah’s word, the king is killed by a stray arrow. The story illustrates not only how powerless the professional prophets are, but also how the deity they thought they were prophesying for had actually intentionally misled them to kill off their king.

The conflict between the renegade prophet and the state cult was the primary inspiration for The Way of the Earth, and for the vaishineph characters that players create and roleplay. The vaishineph are resurrected by divine beings that the royal cults say are illegitimate and impotent. The vaishineph commune with these beings and are directed by them to undermine the ideological and military power of the five great kingdoms and their royal cults. The royal cults insist that it is they who have true access to the divine, and that when they speak it is the divine will that speaks through them. The royal cults bolster their claims of authority with apparently miraculous powers and mysterious relics. True to biblical form, the relationship between the royal cults and the vaishineph is marked by violence and persecution. The royal cults are massive, wealthy, and organized. The royal cults have the nobility in their pockets and the common folk under their domination. But also true to biblical form, the vaishineph have powers of their own, and though they are vastly outnumbered and overpowered at every turn, the spark of the divine they carry is authentic and cannot be easily extinguished. In a dark fantasy setting, the tension between kings and prophets becomes all the more horrific, desperate, and fantastical. The royal cults contract with demons, employ mercenary sorcerers, exploit the poor and the powerless, and unleash devastating relics in an attempt to annihilate the vaishineph and their unique claim to a divine relationship. The vaishineph have to draw upon all of their resources and their divinely gifted powers in order to fight back.

The magic of the vaishineph is called Whispering. Where the royal cults proclaim and declare the word of their gods, the vaishineph whisper with a small but powerful voice. Whispering can produce a wide variety of effects. Practically every biblical miracle, from smiting enemies to splitting seas, from darkening skies to summoning plagues, can be achieved with the right combination of Whispers. But the defining power of the vaishineph is foresight. Like the biblical prophets, the vaishineph have a limited ability to see possible futures and they can use this insight to gain unparalleled control over the present. Since actual foresight would be difficult to fake in the context of a roleplaying game, the vaishineph’s signature power happens a bit differently in terms of game mechanics. When a vaishineph Whispers the power of foresight, it allows them to perform actions in the past, as though they saw the current present ahead of time and prepared for it. Through foresight, a vaishineph can equip themselves with weapons or tools in the present by explaining that they saw the need for it beforehand. Through foresight, a vaishineph can cast defensive Whispers over themselves and their allies in the present by explaining that they saw some emerging threat beforehand. Through foresight, a vaishineph can retry failed persuasion attempts in the present by explaining that they saw the best approach beforehand. Foresight is a powerful tool in the vaishineph’s arsenal, and one that comes directly from the stories of biblical prophets that inspired The Way of the Earth’s dark fantasy world.

- ABH

Social Constructs as Social Weapons

In an honor and shame culture, shame can be as sharp of a weapon as anything forged from iron. Shame can kill a person’s social face and standing. Shame can drive a person from their community and out into a dangerous wilderness. Shame can revoke a person’s legal protection and expose them to justified violence and capital punishment. Shame can force a person to draw a weapon and seek recompense through combat. The social world of the ancient Near East is built on a foundation of honor and shame which occupy opposite ends of a single spectrum. Varying degrees of honor are necessarily varying degrees of shame when compared to one another, for anything less honorable is also more shameful. Giving honor to one’s countrymen, to a masculine ideal, or to elder nobility, necessarily involves a degree of shame for the foreigner, for the less masculine and more feminine, or for the youthful poor.

A complex hierarchy of social identities, always shifting with the currents of context, structures every interaction and every relationship in the ancient Near East. One of the major design elements of TWE was finding a way to make this honor and shame culture, so prominent in the biblical world, felt in the mechanics of TWE. Simultaneously, I wanted to provide opportunities for the rigidity and oppressive potential of an honor and shame system to be undermined by creative players. Below, I will discuss three aspects of adapting these complex social realities from the biblical world for the social conflict mechanics of TWE.

1. The Weapon Analogy

In order to understand how these social elements work in TWE, it can be helpful to understand how weapons work in TWE. Social identities, called scripts, function exactly the same as weapons, but for social conflicts and persuasion. Weapons are categorized by size and by range. The sizes are light, full, and heavy, and the ranges are melee and ranged. All weapons of the same size deal the same amount of damage. There are other, small differences between the sizes. Light weapons can be drawn and used in the same action, and can be dual wielded. Medium weapons can be used in one hand or two. Heavy weapons cannot be used while mounted and have a small penalty applied to their use. Melee weapons gain bonuses when attacking, reflecting their ease of use, and they can be used with any of the contested ends, which are TWE's strategic options, things like disarming opponents, knocking people down, cornering opponents, etc. Ranged weapons do not gain a bonus to attack, but can strike from a distance, and targets of ranged attacks cannot counterattack their attackers. Ranged weapons can be used with a limited number of contested ends, since it makes little sense to grapple or knock someone around with an arrow or slung stone.

Scripts are categorized by role and by centrality. The roles are ethnicity, gender, and class, which act like light, full, and heavy weapons. Scripts are also either dominant or marginal, which act like ranged or melee weapons. Although all scripts can be used against anyone within earshot (and so range is not really a concern), the dominant scripts cannot be counter attacked, like ranged weapons, reflecting the impossibility of directly opposing their air of authority. The dominant scripts are also less flexible, and can only be used with some of the contested ends. The marginal scripts gain bonuses when attacking with them, like melee weapons, and have access to the full range of contested ends because of their increased nuance and subversiveness.

There are six basic scripts total, one for each role/centrality combination. The ethnic scripts are high familiar (dominant) and low familiar (marginal). The gender scripts are high masculine (dominant) and low masculine (marginal). The class scripts are high wealth (dominant) and low wealth (marginal). A character in TWE can only use a script at any given time that accurately reflects their identity, but depending on the context in which they are acting, which scripts they can use will change. For example, depending on the kind of characters they are speaking to or the geographic location of where they are speaking, a character's ethnic role will change. While in one's country of birth, a character might use the high familiar script, but while travelling abroad, the low familiar script would be more accurate. Rather than the gender script being masculine and feminine, as one might expect, the script is either high masculine or low masculine. The gender script a character uses is relative to the gender presentation of those around them. A male character with a more traditionally masculine profession or personality would use the high masculine script when speaking to characters with less masculine traits, even if they are of the male gender. Female characters will often use low masculine script when speaking to male characters, but even this might change in certain situations. When several female characters converse, one of them may claim a high masculine script by taking on conventionally masculine social roles or styles of speaking. The class script too is relative, depending on the comparative wealth and status of the characters in conversation.

For example, here is how a couple weapons and scripts might look next to one another...

Soshae Long Knife
Light Melee / Damage: 4 Lethal / Attack Bonus: +2

Low Familiar Script
Marginal Ethnic / Damage: 4 Shaming / Attack Bonus: +2

Atrian War Bow
Heavy Ranged (Far) / Damage: 8 Lethal / Attack Bonus: -1

High Wealth Script
Dominant Class / Damage: 8 Shaming / Attack Bonus: -1

Players will need to carefully consider which of the six scripts they are allowed to use in any given situation, and then which one script they want to use for any given social action. A social script does not dictate everything that a character might say, but something within a character's comments should reflect the social script they are currently wielding. A character who appeals to another on the basis of kinship might use the high familiar script, while a character who bribes another might use the high wealth script, and still another character uses a gendered insult might use the appropriate corresponding gender script. Social attacks work much the same as physical attacks do, with the script in question determining bonuses to attack, the possibility of a counter attack, the amount of damage dealt, and the strategic options available to the wielder. TWE's conflict system is the same for both martial and social conflicts, and so characters exchange social attacks in an attempt to manipulate and persuade one another. Short term changes can be caused with single rolls, while long term changes require a character's control points to be fully depleted by social attacks, at which point more lasting influence can be achieved. TWE's system encourages players to see the social identities as tools to accomplishing these changes, and to be ready and willing to embrace their fluidity as a means of gaining advantage over their social opponents.

2. The "Heavy" Class

I debated for a long time which social roles would constitute the light, full, and heavy weapon analogies. The social roles determine the amount of shaming damage dealt by social attacks. With weapons, the larger and more powerful the weapon, the more damage it deals. With social roles, the connection is a bit less obvious, and a decision needed to be made about which social role went where. For quite a while, the "heavy" weapon analog was gender. My rationale was that, biblically speaking, gender is a powerful dividing line between people, both culturally and religiously. There are also a number of places in the biblical text where gender is used as a weapon of shame and manipulation, whether it was stories of seduction (like Tamar's seduction of her father-in-law), or sexual violence (like Absolom's public rape of his father's harem), or subversive reversals of gender (like Jael's assassination of Sisera).

Ultimately I decided on social class being the "heavy" weapon analog. One motivation was faithfulness to a running biblical theme, and another motivation was game play. The first motivation was to pay respect to the biblical prophets' constant cries for social justice and their harsh criticisms of greed and wealth inequality. Since TWE's vaishineph are roughly equivalent to the biblical prophets, and since the vaishineph are otherwise on the side of the poor and the oppressed in the war torn land of Chaesharin, it made sense of social class to have a profound impact on the way characters socialize and attempt to persuade one another. The second reason, the game play reason, was simply that I imagined the vaishineph player characters to not have much in the way of traditional wealth, and so to often find themselves on the marginal side of social class. While it is entirely possible for a vaishineph to accumulate a degree of wealth, vaishineph characters are not really socially positioned to be truly rich. This means that, if vaishineph characters wish to use their class based script in social conflicts, more often than not, they will be siding with the poor as they do so.

3. The Power of Marginality and Diversity

Life in Chaesharin is highly stratified and segregated, much like the biblical world. People of different kinds, classes, and genders do not routinely interact with one another in most of the five great kingdoms. The vaishineph and the rebel cults they form are in stark contrast to this. Vaishineph are called from every place and every walk of life and resurrected to work alongside one another in tightly knit groups. Vaishineph can have lingering prejudices deeply ingrained in their bones, and overcoming these prejudices in order to build strategic and emotional chemistry with their allies can become a challenge all its own.

TWE's social conflict system and scripts actually encourage diversity of characters. The greater the diversity of identities represented among the players' group, the more social scripts the group collectively has access to at any given time, and therefore, the more social strategies the group can employ. A group of hyper rich and hyper masculine characters will actually find themselves at a great disadvantage in many social scenes, for example.

Hopefully, this short piece gives the reader some insight into the goals and motivations underlying TWE's social conflict system and the way that social identities are put to use in the game's setting and mechanics. In many RPGs, differences in social identity are simply role played, and while there is nothing wrong with that, I wanted to formalize a way for these important elements of life to come to the fore and be supported by the game's mechanics. Role playing can still happen on top of this, certainly, but part of creating a game's mechanics is lifting up an aspect of the world for the player's serious consideration, and I wanted to make sure that social identity was one of those things.

- ABH

Biblical Ethnicity and Fantasy Race

We are not quite as racist as we used to be. There is still plenty of racism, both personal and systemic, both overt and implicit, both imperial and domestic. But even at our most racist today in the postmodern West, we cannot quite manage the sheer, concentrated xenophobia of the ancient world. As much as we might see those different from us as other, centuries of globalization and civil rights movements no longer permit us to view each other as truly and categorically alien. We might be able to convince ourselves that some people are less human, less valuable, less worthy, but we cannot quite convince ourselves anymore that some people are genuinely inhuman. At least, not on a collective cultural level. Not in a way where everyone will nod their heads without blinking an eye. There are still racist horrors aplenty in the present world, and some new forms of racism we have only recently invented, but some of the old forms we used to employ thousands of years ago have passed out of our imaginations. Some of these old forms are present in the biblical narratives, and so anyone grappling with these stories finds themselves face to face with forms of racism that no longer make quite the sense they used to.

When adapting the biblical world for TWE, I struggled with ways to evocatively communicate the absolute depth of the xenophobia occasionally expressed in those texts. To say that someone is of a different race, that they are strange or foreign, simply does not hold the same sharp and bitter bite that it used to. Moreover, some insults, like the Israelite slur of "uncircumcised" that they threw at the Philistines, no longer seems like something even worth commenting on, let alone a vicious, racialized attack, full of disgust and the curious fetishistic focus that accompanies it. So if the present world analogs of race and circumcision misfire, and no longer evoke the original world feelings, how best then to evoke those same feelings with different analogs?

Fortunately, the fantasy genre already has a ready made answer to this question: meta-human races. From Tolkien's elves, dwarves, orcs, and hobbits, to Dungeons and Dragon's gnomes and half orcs, Drow and Tiefling, the fantasy genre and its many games and settings have long incarnated differences in human ethnicities in the form of fantastical and sentient humanoid creatures. When a human being from a slightly different place with a slightly different language and skin color fails to have the desired punch of racial difference, try instead a humanoid being with an entirely different biology, psychology, lifespan, and culture. These meta-human races are often close enough to human that they share basic human needs, motivations, and physical and intellectual capabilities, but also different enough that their race is dramatically manifest as something otherworldly and truly non-human.

It was this train of thought that led me to include the different races, called kinds, in TWE. The Isstiliphi, the TWE equivalent of the Philistines, was the first kind I wrote. How do you evoke the feeling of a genital slur, like the one the Israelites used for the Philistines? By creating a humanoid race with a completely different anatomy. The Isstiliphi are serpent-like, tall and powerfully built, with soft scales in place of body hair, vertical black bars in place of irises, and skin in varying shades of olive. The Isstiliphi also reproduce orally, and have no genitals between their legs. Their men and women both wear veils over their mouths to protect their modesty, but feel no compunction about going otherwise nude, much to the combined disgust and fascination of the other kinds. The Deiyen, the TWE equivalent of southern Judah, call the Isstiliphi "paikusi," which means "mouth-breeder" in their language. Here, the slur can have its appropriate alien feel. How strange that these paikusi reproduce this way? How do they do it exactly? Is it not gross? These sorts of questions arise from Isstiliphi anatomy for the modern reader and player of TWE, just as they would have arisen from the Israelites as they confronted the Philistines.

Fantasy races can also be used to downplay or mitigate racial hostilities in other places as well. The Biblical Israelites conceived of themselves as categorically different in ethnicity and religious practice from the various Canaanite tribes and city states they came to displace, yet modern biblical scholars of a sociological inclination have long concluded that there was practically no difference in ethnicity between the Israelites and Canaanites at all. The difference is almost entirely artificial, a product of the religious imagination of the Israelite elite and scribal class, and even then, largely only in long, historical retrospect. Fantasy races could be used to create vast differences between the TWE Deiyen and Nacannit, and yet in this case, I have chosen to make them of roughly the same kind, with the only physical difference between them being eye color, the Deiyen having eyes in dark shades, and the Nacannit in light. This difference is trivial to the modern reader and player, and so when Deiyen and Nacannit characters express naked hostility toward one another on the basis of eye color, it feels appropriately strange and trivial.

A third thing that fantasy races could do in adapting the biblical material is make characters of mixed race obvious. Each of the kinds in TWE have distinctive physical differences from one another. Atrians have colorful feathers, the Deiyen have black manes and subtle striping in their skin color, the Lisraii have fiery hair colors and pointed ears, Isstiliphi have their serpentine attributes, and the Lockan have their curved horns. When children are born of mixed pairings these defining features mesh together and become exaggerated. This not only allows players to create inventive and exciting combinations of traits if they so desire, but it also makes it easy for gamemasters to quickly communicate complex racial differences between non-player characters.

It would have been simple to make the differences between the kinds in TWE more "realistic," but because we no longer perceive race and ethnicity in the same sorts of ways that ancient people did, this seems like a better alternative for capturing some of those alien themes and feelings, and provides some unique advantages for telling interesting stories in a fantasy setting.

- ABH