Welcome to Zatara: a low-fantasy city in one of five sibling states (called Magnancies, ruled by Magnates), in the overarching country of Izuora, a land detached and isolated from any possible form of civilization.
You play as an orphan, now an adult, who has had to claw their way to stability in a society designed to keep the working class – the chattel – at the bottom of the social ladder. While you don’t have much in the way of possessions or wealth, you do have an established way of life, and you know what to expect from the time you wake up, to the time you go to sleep.
Then, when the ruler of your fair city dies prematurely, you are placed among the candidates for her replacement.
In this game, you will personally experience the discrepancies between how the two extremes of the classes live, navigate your way through newfound skills, influence the very structure of the society you hold dear – or that seeks to punish you at every turn. Uncover your past, forge your future, find your One True Love, or maybe a couple of them. Your city, like those of the other Magnancies, is cutthroat, and will tear apart anyone who deviates from the values established by the Founders. Tread carefully, because for every ally your choices make you, there are another three enemies.
https://dashingdon.com/play/mismallark/zatara/mygame/
This is the first half of chapter 1, sitting at about 7,600 words. There will be three “arcs”, with probably 10 chapters total. I’ve been tinkering with this world for a couple months now, and I have an absurd amount of collected information, from censuses, to the amount of land actually settled, to the entire story of the ‘Founders’. Not all of it will have a place in this novel, however.
Got any questions? Think I screwed somethin’ fierce? Let me know, because I don’t think I know what I’m doing!
Update: 12/25/16
In addition to continuing the second/last part of this chapter, I went back and made a handful of revisions as per those initial suggestions. Thanks to anyone who caught typos, and especially to @Sovereign2Lilith and @idonotlikeusernames for your suggestions. I hope the changes I’ve made are what you had in mind.
Another couple fun additions I’ve made are images!!! I am by no means an artist. I’m much better with words than lines and colors. I put a good amount of effort, however, into a rough coverart and country map (not quite ready in demo, for reasons I haven’t quite figured out). I’ve never toyed with *image before, and I was definitely not intending on using it for this project, but since I had a sketch in my big notebook of the country, I figured it might be good for players to have a rough idea of where everything is. Neither image is finished, of course, and I’ll be working on them as I go.