Saturnalia (PBM)

Importance

Saturnalia was one of the first and certainly one of the largest PBM games run in the United Kingdom. It inspired numerous other games and was important in the initiation of game pub-meets. The game has, in various forms, remained in existence for since 1984.

Whilst there is no direct link between Saturnalia and online role-playing games, PBM games were their early forerunners. If it were not for PBM games showing the way, there would be no online role-playing games.

Campaign Regions

The campaign regions of Erythria have included:

At one time in the late 1980s the campaign regions were designated by colour:

Character Statistics

Characters were defined by the following statistics:

On initial start-up in the game, a player had 250 points to allocate between these statistics, with none given less than twenty points and none more than a hundred.

Each turn, the Games Master would award the player bonus points to be allocated between these statistics. Points could also be lost (in most games) by injury or by using MP to cast magical spells. Bonus points would be awarded depending on how well a character performed during a turn, but also on how well the player wrote the instructions. This could be entirely subjective and at the whim of the GM.

A character would begin as a very lowly adventurer, gaining in ability as points were added to their statistics. Their actions in the game would result in gaining renown as Fame and Infamy; the former would be awarded for positive actions and the latter for negative actions. These defined the character as Good or Evil, with an accumulation of major good or evil acts required to gain a double figure Fame or Infamy. This was the Saturnalia equivalent of Dungeons & Dragons Alignment.

To prevent character death resulting in the loss of a player, Saturnalia included a Karma system so that in the unfortunate event of a character dying, the player could create a new character using the standard number of points, plus a bonus derived from their dead character's points, Fame and Infamy. This meant that the paying player did not lose their entire investment in playing the game. Saturnalia was the first single character RPG and the Karma system was a way of ensuring that players who lost their character did not lose everything they had invested.

Setting

The game was set on and around Erythria, a massive continent approximately two thousand miles east-west and four thousand north-south, plus the island chains to the north and south. Different regions of the continent and surrounding islands were divided between different Games Masters, with geographical features separating the various regions. This permitted Saturnalia to become one of the earliest shared world building fantasy campaigns utilising a common framework of in-game religions and early history, whilst permitting the different regions to co-exist with minimal cross-campaign interference. Player characters could, under exceptional circumstances move from one campaign region to another, but only with great persistence and luck, or with the agreement of the relevant Games Masters.

Geography

The major geographical features of Erythria included:

History

The recorded history of Erthyria begins with the invasion of the Northmen of the Northern Isles, with their greatest leader being Erik the Forger. Their tide of conquest swept over the continent, clashing with the native tribes and defeating the nomads of the Great Plains, breaking the power of the Ocean King, the overlord of the tribes of the sea of grass. Reaching the Great Divide, the Northmen extended their conquest by sea, ultimately dominating the entire continent and uniting it under the rule of the Empire. In the far south the Northmen conquered the civilised Sahmen worshipping Mordish, driving them to the southern coast of Erythyria and across the ocean to the Southern Isles.

Erik and his descendants were so pivotal to the history of Erythria that his name was used in the dating system: AE, After Erik.

In time the Empire fragmented, and the resurgent nomads broke many of the successor states dotted across the Northern Plains, until all that remained were isolated city states, mostly on the coast. In the south the Empire endured until it too was smashed by wars with the desert nomads.

After the fall of the Empire in the north, for a time the banner of the Ocean King was uncontested, but after leaving the inland cities as ruins his domain dissolved into many different tribes, awaiting the raising of his standard again. The remaining cities dwindled into fractious city-states, often pursuing religious conflicts between themselves.

Campaign Dating

The game dating system was derived from AE 901 in 1984, and incremented annually, so 2009 relates to AE 925.

Common Themes

One of the common themes shared by the different regional campaigns was the quest for the fourteen swords of power, each dedicated to a deity of the Saturnalia game world.

These swords had been created by dwarven master runesmiths during the second century of the expansion of Erik's Empire. The swords served as the motive for quests and struggles between the player character heroes attempting to become a champion of one of the gods. Other, less powerful magical weapons appeared across the campaigns.

Currency

All of the Saturnalia games used a common currency. The whole currency system was based around the crucial facts that:

Pantheon

The Saturnalia campaigns shared a common pantheon: