If I were younger, I feel I would blast through this Setting chapter, as it is an exciting read. Being a working single dad, it takes me time to get through it. Still, it is a great comprehensive guide to the world of Makasing, and a great inspiration for making the gameworld of Coyote & Crow come alive on the table.
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| I told a student about Coyote & Crow and especially the purple tint of the Adehnahdi powers and she said "It sounds like Jo Jo" and now I can't unsee it... |
POPULATION & LONGEVITY
Maximum lifespan in Makasing is over 100, with 140 as the oldest. This beats our world, and is a subtle validation of indigenous modes of life over our factory farms and processed food. The growing conundrum of what to do with the increase in older members of the population again echoes Japan and its aging society. A hats off to writers for the comment that the youth are afraid of their elders gaining power over them, which is a dark mirroring of our world, where the young are disenfranchised from home ownership and are sent off to wars to protect the investments of older generations.
The fact that the world of Makasing has just come back from the brink of extinction of Awis (the mystical meteor strike that tipped off an ice age), which erased 50% of the population, means that the approach to death is very different from our world.
Adventure Seed #1 - “The Family.”
During the ice age, many peoples were scattered and lost. One was a lost group of families who have become a hidden cabal of inbred, mutated cannibals. Think the Donner Party and the X-Files episode Home. Only for grimdark campaigns, though.
In many places in Makasing, euthanasia is an accepted means of taking one’s burden off the tribe, which reflects traditional Inuit stories of senicide during tough times, and the similar event in the Japanese film Ballad of Naruyama. There are also tinges of indigenous-futurism with planned death and Soylent Green send offs. Additionally, people can travel freely to other city states to get medical treatment that more suits their needs and moral outlook.
I dig it.
Adventure Seed #2 - “A Good Death.” PCs are charged to help gather a dozen things or find people for a good death ceremony for their mentor. They may have to get a feather from a giant Adahnehdi powered eagle, track down an estranged cousin, recover an artifact from a flooded village, or a half dozen other wistful things.
WOMEN & CHILDREN
The writers neatly evade any questions of conception in Makasing by leaving things in women’s hands. On one hand, it echoes pre-colonialism matriarchal society, on the other it is a What if? projection of a society that values a woman’s body autonomy more than our world does.
The text also stresses the unimportance of biological parents, and greater respect for upbringers regardless of blood relations. It reminds me of a Canadian friend who lived up North here and brought up the children of the two indigenous women he loved as if they were his own.
I also dig the following comment on divorce.
While divorce is a thing, there are not really parallel concepts of stepparents. Nor do children 'lose' parents to divorce. They simply have more than one and all parents involved interact with their children as fits that specific relationship. Children with split parents often live freely between two or more homes. Still, divorce is uncommon due to the less restrictive nature of marriage. Additionally, a maternal uncle is often as strong a parental figure. (72)
This means most people will have huge extended families, which could be a great network of information and aid for PCs trying to solve a mystery. I also like the tough moral choices around the Adahnehdi technology that the authors present, an element of high technology that is glossed over in most other superpower media.
For example, if an infant is likely to die shortly after birth, is it acceptable to experimentally give them the Adanadi-based drugs to attempt to keep them alive or cure them? If an infant is born deaf, is it moral to give them cybernetic implants at birth? None of these kinds of questions have clear answers yet. (72-73)
The tension between Adanadi technology and traditional values seems a central theme of the gameworld, and it is all the more compelling for it.
Adventure Seed #3 - “The Lost Children.”
In our world, there is an African proverb that states, “A child not embraced by his village will burn it down to feel warmth.” A ragtag group of Makasing exiles are just such ‘lost children’, and have started working on forbidden technology, specifically cyberpunk style mechanical enhancements. They may kidnap an Inventor for help, and could create some great setpiece combat between the PCs and cybernetically enhanced bad guys who just need to be welcomed back into society.
NO TRIBES BUT REAL ONES
The writer’s reticence to write about specific tribes and advice to allow members of those tribes to write about themselves is refreshing. This is the opposite of RPGs about farway places, such as Japan, which are often written with an Orientalist lens that exoticizes them without touching on their complex reality. This is why I am writing my Giri-Ninjo RPG, as an antidote to the plethora of ‘D&D in funny hats’ Japan rpgs, and I am glad to see the Coyote & Crow team be so considerate of realworld indigenous identity. The focus on nations instead of tribes is a welcome patch for this issue. Identity is thus based on a combination of allegiance to Nation, Makasing Citizenship, Path or Family. This more complex formation than tribe is in accordance with Rogers Brubaker’s sociological work on identity.
Tribes certainly still dominate certain geographic regions, and often claim control or authority over that area. But in places like Cahokia, it's understood that to partake as a citizen, citizens have to partition their tribal identity and accept that they have more than a single label. For many, this is easy to do. But some tribes have long histories of confrontation and struggles and those aren't as easily overcome. (74)
I also dig the caveat for non-indigenous to avoid tribal identity, but rather focus on this triad of citizenship, family, and path. Paths are an allegiance to one of 15 animals reflecting their Adehnahdi powers, and I agree this is much more useful than focusing on tribal allegiance.
LIFESTYLES OF THE CAHOKIAN FAMOUS
This is a meaty section, which begins with the similarities of life with our world - work, taxes, love, politics. But the differences carry delicious implications. There is no standard 40 hour workweek, with no stigmata for those working less. People are involved and knowledgeable about politics, something our world could use more of. No culture wars on gender rage, there is universal healthcare for all, and companies that exist but do not dominate life. The authors ground this reality by reminding us that this has all come at a price.
All of this might sound pretty easy and straightforward, but it was a long road to get here for the citizens of Cahokia, and doesn't mean they live perfect lives in a utopia. (75)
More than anything this is what I dig about Makasing. It is not a utopian fantasy or world of indigenous Mary Sues with kewl powers. It is a society that does right some of things we don’t, such as universal housing and healthcare, but has its own problems of balancing mystic powers and steampunk technology with traditional morals and values.
COME PLAY WITH ME!
I’m in talks with Rain City in downtown Vancouver to run a game of Coyote & Crow next month! Check their website for details, and come down for Initiation Day, my homebrew adventure where you start as young heroes on their first day on the job where things go terribly wrong. Can you turn your Initiation Day around?
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