I’ll get right to the point - have you wishlisted our game? If you’ve reached our 8th dev log entry and you still haven’t done so, then clearly either you or I are doing something wrong. If you are really determined not to wishlist, why not send us some feedback letting us know how we can win you over?
With that out of the way, let’s take some time today to discuss a topic near and dear to my heart. I’m Harry Tuffs, the Narrative Lead of Tributary Games. When we first started work on this little game, one of my first tasks was to create the game’s setting.
Everybody loves a bit of worldbuilding, right? So let’s discuss the design philosophy behind Celest Ath, the world in which our lovably dysfunctional Kingdom can be found.
Guiding Principles
I had three principles I wanted to stick to.
First, I wanted this to be a world where magic was uncommon, but not unheard of. The principal characters of the game would be scheming Nobles whose only superpowers were wealth and prestige, so magic couldn’t be front and centre. But magic was still interesting, because it was a force in the world that the Monarch and the Nobles couldn’t control, no matter their privilege.
Secondly, I also wanted to avoid the typical D&D world of elves, orcs, and dwarves. Sorry, but I find all that stuff deeply boring except in very specific contexts. Also, given the game’s themes, it felt like we should be invoking comparisons to George R.R. Martin rather than J.R.R. Tolkien.
Thirdly, and most importantly, I wanted a world where various common fantasy tropes were present, but with enough original elements to put an original spin on the formula. I’ve created settings before that tried to avoid cliche completely - check out my other game, A House of Many Doors, if you don’t believe me - but in this case, given that this KIng of the Castle is a relatively casual game where players would be dropping in and out, we have to lean on some common tropes to get players up to speed as quickly as possible. But this didn’t mean we had to follow these tropes straightforwardly!
So, with these three principles in mind, I sat down and started work on…
The Setting Bible
The 'Setting Bible' is our fancy name for a Google Doc featuring over 70 pages and over 16,000 words of Celest Ath lore. It touches on topics as varied and delightful as the religion of trolls and the stone curse of Aatesh. The seeds of many of the game’s stories are contained in this document.
We’ve amended it and added to it over the last year of development, but it hasn’t actually changed that much since its inception.
The Setting Bible is a great way to get our guest writers up to speed on the setting. And if the internal team of writers has any questions about the lore, we can consult it - and if there’s no answer therein, we can make a call, and then add that to the corpus. The Setting Bible allows us to maintain a world that’s self-consistent, which is the most crucial aspect of any fantasy setting.
One of the most important aspects of the Setting Bible is that it’s where I originally laid out the guiding information for the five different regions of the Kingdom. For example, here’s an example snippet discussing the fashion of the Patricians of the Coast:
vii. Fashion
The most important element of Patrician fashion is the mask. For a Patrician, the mask is a status symbol so important that to be seen outside without one would be highly embarrassing - most Patricians would much rather forget their pantaloons. Each bloodline has their own highly specific kind of mask, so that other Patricians can recognize each other at a glance, and if a lowly merchant has managed to claw together enough wealth to join the Patricians’ exalted ranks, being permitted to commission themselves a mask from the Masquers’ Guild is the first and only sign that they’ve ‘made it.’
The Masquers’ Guild charges intentionally exorbitant prices per mask. A single mask can take months to sculpt and will cost more than a ship or a house. The expense is considered another, very necessary, barrier to entry that ensures only the most wealthy can become Patricians.
There are several legends surrounding the origins of the masking tradition. The most commonly accepted is that one of the Archdukes of a Coastal city-state republic was targeted for assassination by a shadowy consortium of rival traders. After narrowly surviving six consecutive attempts on his life, the Archduke ordered, on pain of death, that all the nobles of the city should wear identical masks to confuse potential attackers. Meanwhile, he would stay with a different random Noble every few weeks to throw off his enemies.
This state of affairs continued for two years, during which many of the Nobles introduced subtle variations to their masks so they could tell each other apart at a glance. The masks became notably more ostentatious in their differences, as Nobles tried to out-compete each other. Finally, the Archduke was assassinated - presumably, his killers identified him as the last Nobleman wearing a bland, unmodified mask. After this, the fashionability of the masks only reached new heights - why, it seemed as if bland masks could be bad for one’s health - and the fashion spread to the other cities of the Coast.
In addition to their masks, Patricians will wear vibrant, colourful silks and flashy gold jewellery. The more expensive and dazzling their outfit, the better.
The Setting Bible discusses the history, culture, military, religion, foods and laws of each region in the Kingdom, as well as some notable geographical features and real-world historical parallels. Did you know that the March’s biggest export are furs and hides? Or that the deserts of the South hide a vast, sandswept Necropolis that’s riddled with undead? The Setting Bible is full of lore details like that, only some of which we’ve explored in-game (so far).
The details about the regions are especially important. To encourage friendly competition between the Nobles, we wanted to facilitate immersion and roleplaying as much as possible. So each region needed to have a strong identity - culturally distinct, with a unique history and flavour.
Keeping It Classy
I’ve touched on this in previous devlogs, but one aspect of the setting that was especially important to us was avoiding depictions of homophobia, racism or sexism. These are rife in plenty of medieval-era games, but not ours. Celest Ath is a fantasy setting, after all - you can debate the merits of ‘historical accuracy’ as much as you like, but that doesn’t apply here.
We felt that, while single-player games can explore these subjects with nuance and grace, a multiplayer party game was not the right way to do so. Furthermore, one of our core tenets was that anyone should be able to join a game with a customized Noble avatar - and we wanted people to be free to represent themselves in-game, with their proper pronouns.
That’s not to say we don’t tackle some big issues in King of the Castle, however. This silly game is hiding a sticky-sweet black core of satire, especially when it comes to class warfare. The Nobles, and their relationship to the ‘peasants’ of the Kingdom, is intentionally fraught to the point of absurdity - the commonfolk get hideously mistreated at times, but they can certainly bite back, and more than one Monarch has been ripped apart by an angry (and perhaps justified?) mob.
King of the Castle allows you to roleplay the nobility, but also shows how the very concept of aristocrats making decisions on their subjects’ behalf is, well, absurd. After all, this is a game where scheming and personal enrichment often trump good decision-making. Any resemblance to real-life politics is not entirely coincidental!