Ectheon and Yam

Ectheon is a collection of systems haphazardly connected together to produce interesting stories. You play by arranging cards in a tarrot-like way to create original stories that you then play through using a barebones conflict resolution system.

Ectheon is a lot of ideas that finally congealed into one. It's part the wizard game: I have defaced several of its cards, or as I like to say “They might still be lands, but they're definitely not basic!”. It's part love letter to RPGs, particularly indie ones. It's also part tribute to and evolution of Jerry's Map. I urge you to look for that project, Jerry's Map, it helped me put a lot of ideas into physical form. Ectheon in its essence is a narrative tool for filling in a fictional world created by a mix of procgen art techniques (collage, markers, watercolours and more) and outsider art non-principles. Free association, apophenia and pareidolia and a variety of other processes are welcome and encouraged in this framework. On one level, a world is generated and on another it is filled and animated by stories generated through the interplay of physical objects, art and playful storytelling.

The system that generates the world is called Yam (short for Yet Another Multiverse) and it is meant to be the mindscape of a collectively created neuroqueer deity. The stories created and played through in Ectheon are this deity's dreams and thoughts. So I use this interplay of systems as a tool for art generation that also creates a world as a fortunate, creative byproduct of playing through stories.

This is in no way a commercial or even fully functional system. Ectheon and Yam are meant to act like barely functioning vehicles that carry you forward creatively, but are falling apart and demand fixing as you are driving them. Fun!

This is a continuation of some of my other work: LMNL, Neuqu Tiweir and Tend

By downloading this you get Ectheon's cardlist (and it's version tracking), my extensive design notes on the project and photos of the creative results.

Released under CC0 license.