Addendum to Merankea

With no published setting or historical evidence of a society such as Merankea, I was free to improvise whatever details I desired. This will no doubt thrill Jeremy to no end - he's a stalwart believer that all the best RPG sessions occur from minimal GM prep.

Let's just not tell him that it's not really true to say there was no prep work. I'd been walking to work every morning since Sarah was in school. It was a 25-30 minute walk, often through weather that begged for distractions, so a lot of time was spent thinking about the game. I'd put the archery-thing in his Yet all the way back in Groeg Ydy Abar, so I'd had plenty of time to dream up the culture and it's incredible woven towers. In summation, the Merankeans are a conservative, mechanistic culture, secretly manipulated by Antedesertium. My hooks into the culture were big well-groomed beards, a totally sexist male-dominated society, unparalleled woodworking skills, an Archer caste, foreign slaves, and little masonic aprons. They were a prime part of the Hunt of the Sun, and a chance to play up on that Continuum sub-theme of "technologically advanced ancient cultures that vanished from the historical record." By making everything out of wood, they could have massive cities that would burn down or rot away over the 7,000 year gap before recorded history of Europe really got rolling.

Everything else could be improvised. Jeremy's attendance was at times spotty, so I didn't think it was worth ginning up a big codified version of the place and times. If he didn't show, it'd be a waste. Don't tell him I said that, either, though again I'm sure he'd be happy to know that I didn't do a bunch of extra work for him.

I went into the session knowing that I had the option of giving Jeremy his moment in the spotlight. He showed up, he read the writing on the woven walls, and his character Aaron spent a year amongst their culture. I gave him a ton of archery, and some odd madeup skills. He grew a beard and adopted a more "manly" cultural bearing. It was a very interesting bit of character development.