The Celestial Coast

I'm becoming increasingly inspired and jealous by all of the amazing work I'm seeing in Zinequest 3. So I've decided I'm gently going to begin work on my fantasy heartbreaker RPG zine because, like that dumb scorpion on catching a ride on that even dumber frog, I can't help it - it is my nature. 

This has come from both a desire to explore a kind of fantasy world that I feel has a fairly untapped potential and as a natural extension of the Electric Bastionland/Ultraviolet Grasslands hack I’ve been running. Both those games can be described as OSR (or NSR or sword dream or art punk) but their tones are both somewhat different from the usual muddy and bloody grimdarkery. Like these two games that I’ve had so much great RPG times out of, I want to make something colourful, light and inclusive that is still perilous, weird and intriguing. 

A land of sun and sorcery, beauty and danger. Filled with pastel buildings, glamourous beaches, winding mountainous roads, sunkissed castles, political intrigue, decadent artists, exiled nobles and casinos filled with dangerous treasures. 

Inspired by my love of mediterranean history and landscapes, Italian & French folk stories, Roman & Greek mythology, the writings of Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges & Umberto Eco and the criminal capers of characters like Lupin the Third, Charlie Croker & Diabolik. 

And so to The Celestial Coast, a solarpunk pastel fantasy-riviera anticanon setting using a rules-light system inspired by Electric Bastionland/Into the Odd, Knave, Cairn, The Ultraviolet Grasslands, Magical Industrial Revolution and every other amazing RPG book I've read over the last year. 

The aim of this blog is to document the design process and my attempt to create a small zine that I will definitely not probably sell at a huge loss. Below are some of my original notes for the setting as well as a d10 table of wonders within the setting. If you’re reading this and have any feedback or ideas let me know as everything about this project still feels very malleable at the moment. Also none of this has yet been playtested so everything is very likely to change once it’s hit the table. 

Please ignore my awful map design. I'm still learning how not to be bad at this.  Please ignore my awful map design. I'm still learning how not to be bad at this.

Who knew heaven was so blue? Welcome to the Celestial Coast where the sun shines brighter, the food tastes better and the vices cut deeper.  Nestled between the borders of The Republic of Gualle, the Kingdom of Calegari and the newly independent Principality of Stello Astra lies the coast filled with glamour, mystique and extravagance.  Swim in the cosmic tides of Midnight Ocean where lemon coloured sand glitters under the astral light of the nocturnal sky.  Gamble with luminary artists, foreign dignitaries and industry leaders at the Nova Azure Casino, the fabulous monument to grandeur at the centre of Stello Astra. Hike along the sublime trails of the Lupine Mountains, filled with remarkable nature, serene villages and ancient marble ruins throughout the colossal stone landscape.  Marvel at the bleeding edge sun-ships powered by fallen stars fished from the bottom of the Midnight Ocean! But behind the glitz and the games hides secrets and shames.  In seaside resorts, outlaw princesses and hardened criminals conspire over opulent liqueur.  In stormy caves, masked Calegari spies whisper softly about public assassinations.  In crumbling forts, the solarmancers of Gualle experiments with volatile new magics.  Tensions are high but so are the tides. Rumours of war fill the salty air. Gualle and Calegari are running out of ways to show each other they’ve got nothing to lose. And when the cold war gets hot, where better to start fighting than a place where the climate is just right.  Who knew heaven was so blue? Welcome to the Celestial Coast.

D10 wonders of the Celestial coast

1. At night the Midnight Ocean gleams and sparkles with the cosmic light of thousands of fallen stars that have descended deep into the sky blue sea.
2. Painters, princes and provocateurs parade along the Promenade of Saints in the pastel city of Peaca. 
3. In a quiet valley within the Lupine Mountains sits the Coiled Tower, a mysterious colossal edifice that swivels and contorts daily in new and terrifying ways. 
4. Beneath the inky water that dominates the flooded streets of Vento, are waterlogged temples that tell an enigmatic and secret history of the sinking metropolis.
5. Olor, the city of a thousand smells, is named so because of the Vieux Port where the morning market is filled with peculiar sea critters, fresh cases of roewine and fragments of fallen stars fished from the bottom of the sea. 
6. Pious followers of the Lady of Perpetual Perforation make yearly pilgrimages to the Cochlea Abbey atop Mount Zittire to pray before the eternally bleeding ears of the saintly sculpture within the chapel.
7. The recently constructed Luminary Observatory’s sleek modernist design is testament to the grand machination of Gualle, built to track and study falling stars so that the republic may unlock the technological mysteries hidden within them.
8. Every spring the Fluorescent Beach is covered by chromatic jellyfish that glow and sing harmoniously along the pebbled shore.
9. Along sprawling roads ascending high into Lupine mountain villages are vine covered white dolmens built by the once great Marble Empire, rumoured to still be full of marvelous stone relics. 
10. In Monte Vega, the ostentation city at the heart of Stello Astra, is the Nova Azure Casino, a dazzling solar-powered complex built as a playground for the rich and powerful - beneath the sleek gaming rooms are impenetrable vaults holding the treasures of exiled kings and nefarious criminals.