If you are a long-time reader of this blog, or have spent some time in the archives, you will have encounter my posts on the land of Punth and the Primer, detailing how that distant society operates.
Well, that series has now reached its conclusion. I have taken those posts, tidied them up a little and laid all out in a PDF. The content is much the same as what you will find here - indeed, I have cut out a certain amount of superfluous material, and neither the post on Postmodern Architecture nor the discussion of who draws the best Green Martian will appear (end of this post).
However, the PDF A) draws these posts all into one place, B) lays everything out neatly on the page and C) makes the scattering of posts into something like an actual Primer - a single introductory resource. I have labelled it as a 'mechanically-guided setting', which seems correct. I don't know how much use you might have for my details of a fictional totalitarian state, but the Codes provide a novel way to interact with the setting and communicate something of the land of Punth.
You will find the PDF available at Itch.io, with a pay-what-you-want system attached to it. In future I may release a Revised Edition, or something of the kind - but for now I have no other plans for Punth.
However, I have spoken for too long, and shall usher you in the direction of Punth: A Primer.
I can only hope that some of those who read the Primer find it useful or interesting.
ReplyDeletePunth: A Primer now has a review by David McGrogan over at Monsters & Manuals:
ReplyDeletehttp://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/08/review-punth-primer.html
Further review-like material here: https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2022/11/signal-boosts-111.html
DeleteLet all who hear, attend: the best line in the PDF is truthfully "An expatriate of the Civic Etiquette lapses into the Codes as he talks to his pet cat, surprising the feline."
ReplyDeleteAlso, a few editing opportunities present themselves; the one I can find at the moment is on page 34: "Merchants and Factors of the Empire and the League have decided to pool their wine stocks. Everyone involves this is a very good idea, and worthy of a drink." -> "Everyone involved thinks this is a very good idea"?
ReplyDeleteThat's one for the Revised Edition!
DeleteAll that pass here must halt. All that halt must read.
ReplyDelete[This is an interesting setting, I'm happy I took the time to read through the Primer].
There must be two for creation, but many for rearing. A mind is honed by the Codes as a blade on a stone.
[Have you run a game in Punth? How did it go? I've run and played in games with all kinds of language-tricks, but this one seems *exceptionally* restrictive.]
Sad to say, Terrae Vertabrae never quite got to the stage where players reached Punth. Punth was (to some degree) the great enemy over the mountains - a Mordor of sorts. But deliberately distant from either (say) Attila the Hun or the Ottoman Empire.
DeleteSo the original notion had elements of a problem to be solved, a code to be cracked. In which case restrictive elements made sense. But when writing up the Primer, I deliberately decided to allow for the possibility of an all-Punth campaign.
I suspect an all-Punth game would benefit from being run by a fairly forgiving GM and an experienced group.