THOSE WERE TIMES OF MIGHT AND COURAGE...
Many years have passed since the first edition of Arcani Mundi came around,
in the 1992.
I still remember the first setting: It was a generic fantasy one, supposedly with
a bit of that demential style own of many japanese fantasy manga stories.
With the second edition, in the same year, the setting started to be a little more
specific, thus the name Techno Master.
But it was with the 3rd edition, in the 1993, that the game took its classic name
and eventually me and some roleplayer friends started to play at it.
We were in Aterös, during the II Age, one of transition, a classic medieval one,
but with its quirks and peculiarities, clearly to blossom in the very special setting
that is the actual one.
In the 1994, the rule system moved from the one borrowed from a famous
published rpg to my personal one, and Salvo Bengasi, in absolute the first
player of the setting and one of the famous Six Heroes, gave a tremendous
help in the development of a new magic system.
For two years we travelled on quests for adventure in the II Age, while the
system was always under refinement.
In the end of the 1997, after almost one year of no play, an experimental night
session brought new life to the game with the so-called No Dice rulesystem,
tenderly known to the group of players of that session as Freeplay, due to a
misspelling of the freeform way of playing.
In that session, after one year of thinking and tinkering in the spare time, the
III Age officially started and Arcani Mundi was never to be again like before.
In one year the game gained a little more stability in the rules, not
anymore diceless, but still quite lite, with the Quick Dice rulesystem.
Tinkering still went on, never ending, and a lot of ideas has been bred by the
players, enthusiastic and willing to actively partecipate to the growth of a
special world such as Aterös.
Thanks to Viviana the Catling culture has developed in a peculiar way, for
example.
Now the hopes are to be able to finish a revised, more complete ninth edition
with a finally steady, working magic system but also a more mature, organized
overall product.
Only strange note is, after years from the decision of a change of the game
name, lot of names has been scrutinized by the players and me (the game was
even played for a session under the new, tentative name of Arcano Grace,
before going back to the former one), but at nowadays no one has seemed to
qualify as a dignified successor, and everybody, affectionately, continues to
address the game with his classical, in a kind of unknown-cult-thing way, name:
Arcani Mundi.
Well, my fellows, new shadows are being cast on the dark Aterös,
and like Tergex, one dark and stormy night, said:
"Innkeeper! A mug of Iolk milk"...
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