NMCF 2 - Lore to Know

Articles to Read

by pikisuperstar

These articles will give you a solid base for GoT, especially if you haven’t been here from the beginning or if you need a refresher.

Character Creation FAQ

A Guide to Joining the Roleplay in the Game of Tomes

The Iron Tome

The Tome is an NPC created and managed by Sable. Anything to do with it should be cleared with her.
It can't be opened by the Night Monarch unless they win. Though, a few times, it has opened and "spoken" via making words appear on the page. It did this when Shy was Night Monarch. When she tried to touch it to be sure it really was talking, the book slammed shut.

The Undead

Being undead is treated as a mental illness - to make it easier for people to handle on both sides (and work toward forgiveness and trust after the event).

undead_popcorn
UNDEAD DRIVE/HUNGER: You're playing the villain. Your character might have the best of intentions, but even if they do, they are doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and the ends do not justify the means.

The hunger is real. You can deal with that in a silly way if you want to, but it’s important to not forget it. If you don't honour that, you undermine the whole universe and most of the characters and their motivations.

Not just focusing on Literomancers: Some NMs have tried to avoid hurting the innocent, by focusing on Literomancers only. However, collateral damage must happen by "accident" anyway at some point. If it doesn’t:

The populace will rightfully start burning the literomancers at the stake.

The characters' motivations don't make sense.

Some of the characters will conclude, rightfully, that literomancy itself is the problem, and that will also lead to consequences.

Tome Knights and Literomancy in the Word Wars

Why haven’t the populace come for the Literomancers with the torches already?
Behind the scenes Lore that the Game Master knows but the rest of the world doesn’t is that they thought about it. After the 1st Word War, the public flocked to the Tome Knights' banner for protection, because these were people who seemed to understand this supernatural stuff and had supernatural powers of their own.
But after the 2nd Word War, the Tome Knights learned more about how the Night Monarch stuff works... and then GoT News started a slander campaign. They were going after the Voiders, and Sable in particular, because of a lawsuit, but they were also going after literomancers in general.
But in Lore, the 3rd Word War and that catastrophe and tragedy resulted in the production of two in-world documentaries - How the Rabbit Runs, which was about the fall of the Woodlanders, and Dreamfall, which was about Ailurus in the fall of Chiroptera.
And the tide of the public turned. They realized that the literomancers were victims of circumstance too, and were genuinely doing their best to protect the public, and suffered and experienced loss as much as they did. The Battle of Mt. Mitchell was publicly broadcast on OneWorld News, which showed them more of the same and showed them Tome Knights fighting for the world in real time.
...But if the undead attack only literomancers, it won't take long for the public to say, "Hey, take your quarrels away from us! We have a nice isolated island you could live on."
Some characters have suffered greatly at the hands of the undead in previous seasons or their backstories. Trusting the undead, and people who choose to become undead, may be nearly impossible for them. Some characters have to believe that undead are not entirely in control of their actions... or they would simply never speak or interact with anyone who has ever been undead again.

by via Freepik

People who choose to be undead create a greater quandry, because they've got to know those consequences. Dealing with that might feel personally hurtful, but it’s not personal. Try to look at it as part of the fuel for storytelling. And you should rightfully expect that players will find excuses to help you overcome those difficulties that make sense to their character, because it would really suck if you were “punished” forever for doing us all a favor and making the game fun. It might take time and active writing or roleplay with them, however.

Great Houses

Conditions of the basic treaty that forms the Great Houses alliance is that the Great Houses immediately share any information relevant to the Night Monarchs or the Undead Horde. So expect the House Leaders to pass on information about what you (as the NM) are doing to other House Leaders in the process of game play.

Views

Religious views

The long and the short of it is that religious worldviews cannot affect another's character agency, though they could "believe" it.
Frith has a lot of parallels with the Christian God. Sable believes in Frith. Ru describes her character as "a priestess of the Lady." Meles is leaning into Norse cultural practices, which have strong spiritual overlap. Lady Wynter has been establishing some sea-based animism as Molluscan Lore.
In short, just because something looks like the practice of a religion, doesn't mean that it is. We don't want to overcorrect in the direction of pseudo-Paganism either, just because Christianesque practices are more broadly known. But it’s a delicate line. Be careful. If you’re not sure, ask for opinions from the other House Leaders and Sable.

World Reset

Plan both ways for if the Horde wins and if it doesn’t.

We expect a world reset where everyone is alive / not undead again.

by Freepik

Thinking about it: literary tropes are magical laws in the GoTverse, and in anime - which is the current trope (for Nov 2025) - all often goes back to normal in the end with little effort. And in fairytales, which was the previous trope, things often magically get fixed, too.
— Sable