Yudhishthira’s Dice

So, one of the projects I talked about coming out of the gender, race, and class discussions in the blog-o-sphere has gone public. It’s for Spirit of the Century by Evil Hat, will be written by Bruce Baugh, edited by my, myself, and I, and is called “New Horizons.”

Here is the promo blurb:

She is the strongest human being alive, her muscles super-charged by her own scientific processes. She’s fought dinosaurs barehanded and lived to tell the tale. But she can’t join any professional society for engineers, or even hold the patents for her inventions in her own name.

He is a supernaturally good poet. He can smell truth and lies from across the street. He’s saved the life of one president, two prime ministers, and a future pope. But if he goes out for a gourmet meal with friends, managers will insist he go in through the servants’ entrance.

Two men share a mystical union, pooling their health, knowledge, and magical essence. They bind demons and champion the falsely accused in courts on three continents. But if they ever once acknowledge the love they share along with their power, they’ll be disbarred and shunned by decent people everywhere.

The band of five fought in two wars for liberty, first against invading armies and then against tyrants at home. They free serfs, fight the architects of murder, and have twice stopped mad schemes of genocide. But they’re communists, and can’t even get visas to visit other heroes and scholars in the US.

Brother and sister are heirs to a millennia-old family tradition of serving justice and knowledge. Their ancestors commanded armies, delved into ancient tombs to lay ghosts—and worse things—to rest, taught the founders of new schools of philosophy and military strategy. But in the New World, he’s barely tolerated as a ditch digger—and she’ll be deported if she teaches English to other immigrants.

These are the other heroes, the ones who must fight for their dignity and liberty just as fiercely as they take on the challenges all pulp heroes face.

New Horizons is a new supplement for Spirit of the Century. Each chapter addresses a marginalized group from the pulps, kept outside by their sex, their race, their lifestyle, or their beliefs. In New Horizons you’ll find information about real-life heroic individuals and teams, the challenges they face and some of the solutions they find to the problems of dealing with 1920s society. You’ll also find heroes and villains ready for use, plot hooks, and ties to the mysteries around the Century Club. The life of heroes outside the mainstream may seem as strange as the secret language of Atlantis, but can be as exciting and powerful in play as a zeppelin armada.

New Horizons comes to you from veteran author and developer Bruce Baugh in collaboration with the minds behind Evil Hat Productions. We aim to show some of the real failings of the pulp era when it comes to fairness and justice in order to provide rich and vibrant new possibilities for adventure roleplaying in a bygone era. The real world is full of surprises—dense, weird, and just plain cool—and the bright light of Spirit’s optimistic pulp heroism can shine on some difficult realities just where they need it most.

New Horizons is about adding truth without sacrificing adventure — about bringing the real world together with the fantastic. Change your game. Change the world.