In darkness, a hint of light.

So, I've been at my new school for a month.

Rural school, high indigenous population, lots of problems, but they're not easy problems. There is institutionalised long-term racism here, it's been internalised by frustrated indigenous kids who are looking for a way to move forward but only see the same pitfalls that generations before them have encountered, there's a deep seated mistrust toward authority figures, even if those figures are trying to help. They've been betrayed so many times that it's hard for them to see beyond this. The country kids are divided into farmers and townies, there's tension between them, but they all stand firm against the blow-ins from the cities.

There's an underlying sense that something is wrong, but no understanding about how to fix it.

This is totally what I've wanted to approach in both my games, Walkabout and Familiar. I'm starting to get a good feel for the issues, and now it's a case of trying to get that feeling into words and mechanisms of narrative that can explain the situations to those who haven't directly encountered the issues.

I think that there is defnitely going to be potential here for an urban magic version of Familiar, and a rural magic version of the game. It would be really interesting to get insight from other communities around the world who might explain the struggles of the underdog from their own perspectives. The way that Familiar is currently set up, we can get some very different feels for various parts of the world by offering specific sources of magical energy, and making specific magical words more commonly available than others (by varying the accessiblity of different texts). Outsiders might find their sources of power are less common, or less easily available in places where they aren't familiar, but those willing to adapt to local ways might bring something powerful from outside, perhaps something that will tip the local balance of power. But the steps toward adopting local customs and integrating them become an important story in their own right... confronting the underlying prejudices of the local population, exploring their own preconceived notions, digging for truths that have been hidden for a reason. These are certainly not going to be murderhobo games.