Age of dust
Looking forward...
ﾟ･:*｡ Age of Dust ~｡*:･ﾟ
Generations after the eruption of the Volcano, three communities meet around the discovery of a mysterious mineral: the Dust. As an essential source of energy, sacred healing powers, and geological warning, what messages and hopes does the Dust carry? When different belief systems meet, how to find a common ground? How will their encounter shape the world of tomorrow? The Age of Dust is a transformative journey, in which participants play out social and somatic dynamics to resist conventional narrative tropes and think beyond anthropocentrism while experimenting with collaborative storytelling.
The Setting
Generations ago, an extraordinary eruption of the Volcano destroyed most of the world's life. The Creatures of the Crater survived. They are the offspring of volcanologists, native beings of the Volcano who were able to predict the event by combining their scientific and spiritual knowledge and therefore found refuge in time. They tried to warn others but were ignored. Every month during the new moon, when the sky is the darkest, the symbiotic community comes together for a ritual to commemorate all the lives taken by the lava and announce their predictions for the new cycle. During the ritual, they enter into communication with the Magma Spirits that inhabit and constitute the Volcano, which can sometimes confirm their predictions. The Magma Spirits are one and multiple, witnesses of deeeeeeep time, they hold a wonderful power of creation and destruction.
Further away from the Volcano, another community survived: the Sourcers, survivalist techno witches that had hidden from the doomsday, underground in scattered burrows. It was said that Magma Spirits at night, during their sleep, had whispered in the ears of some Sourcers that the eruption was coming. All Sourcers were connected to each other through a techno-magical network that allows them to share information, archive history, and organize their survival, although they are not physically together.
After the eruption, the landscape was dark and hostile, but it soon became the grounds for luscious bushes, strong trees that blossomed flowers, and fruits. The Creatures of the Crater reintroduced native species from seeds and cuttings they had preserved. Life started anew around the resting Volcano, but started growing hybrid, patchworked from different materials, the ground, trees, plants, stones, would sprout minerals, metals, sometimes gems...
Popping out of the peaceful black ground, some mysterious lava stones were found to be emitting a strange glow in the moonlight. Raising curiosity and wonder, the shining stones would sporadically puff up a red powder when the moon was at its fullest. The powder was called "the Dust" and it would magically disappear into the air with a sigh of relief, creating a soothing echo around the volcano. Among the Creatures of the Crater, some saw the blasts as messages, omens, or warnings from the underground, and were dedicated to understanding them. They developed rituals around them.
On their side of the world, Sourcers had also discovered the glowing stones and their Dust, but their presence was quite rare around the shelters. They found a way to capture the Dust before its disappearance and found it to be a rare and precious resource they could rely on for their survival. It was an alternative to the solar power that was becoming harder to source. They needed the Dust to survive and would need to find more of it.
Lately, the Dust phenomenon has changed behavior. Bursting more than before, breaking the cycle of the moon, the stones have been springing out, the Dust does not disappear into a shimmery sigh anymore, and little piles of Dust remain on the ground, leaving everyone wondering. It was as if the geological process was broken. The balance has been disturbed.
A group of Sourcers got on its way to the volcano for the first time ever, breaking the perimeter of safety they had been living by for decades.
The Sourcers and the Creatures of the Crater are unaware of each other's existence, but the Magma Spirits can appear to both of them.
The three communities are about to meet and bond around the mysterious Dust and find ways to organize their lives with a resource essential to both for different reasons. Only the Maga Spirits know the true nature of the Dust, and they can only hope everyone will come together to restore balance...
Rules & Disclaimers
Gender: Characters can be human or non-human. You can decide and share what pronouns you would like to go by. By default, we will use they/them for anyone, whether human or not, unless specified otherwise by a player.
Violence/tropes: This shared moment is thought of as an experience of wishful storytelling. The story can take many forms, and we make it together. Avoid bringing violence of any kind into the shared story, and try to resist falling into narrative tropes and archetypes. This is not the story of a hero's journey or a narrative about good vs. bad. Let's instead play with the understanding that everyone is intrinsically good and that everyone fights their tendencies to reproduce violent normative patriarchal systems. Let's practice dismantling!
It's important that everyone feels ownership over their character and the story.
The basis of the story will be set out, and you will be guided through it. But you are welcome and encouraged to make it yours, add to it, and invent new parts … You are invited to make this world, and expand it together!
It's fine that things happen in parallel, you can have parallel discussions, and regroup when you need to take decisions as a group.
Let your mind go to unexpected places. You are not expected to do anything. The play adapts to where you are taking the story.
Be mindful of the space you take and leave room for others to express themselves too. In the game we are trying to rehearse mindful and caring ways of behaving. Let's try this in everything we do during this time and hopefully afterward as well!
More than our story making perfect sense, it is important that we all have a great experience!
Triggering spots > define altogether
3 types of characters (presented in printed character sheets):
Creatures of the Crater:
- Community > symbiotic beings - living with and around the Volcano - humans/non-humans evolution of volcanologists and native lives
- Time perception > follow the moon cycles
- Power > measure things and see omens in everything: they make predictions
- Behavior > communicate with magma spirits at specific times
- Fate > discover what Dust is
- Action > can make 2 predictions of their choice (as a group) that must become true in the story
Sourcers/Fossorials:
- Community > solar punk techno witches survivalists - humans/non-humans - living underground
- Time perception > blurred
- Power > connected with each other through a techno-magical network
- Behavior > superstitious > DIY > commoning knowledge
- Fate > survive and maintain their network
- Action > can use 2 techno-magical solutions throughout the game that can solve anything (as a group)
Magma Spirits:
- Community > spirits living in the Volcano - one and multiple - non-physical
- Time perception > deep - geological
- Power > channelling/ apparition
- Behavior > deliver cryptic messages to creatures of crater, only interact at specific times
- Fate > help physical beings to be liberated
- Action > reveal their secret throughout the game (to be discussed with GM)
The Age of Dust is a world-building workshop and live-action role-play first imagined in the context of Lava Lines, a group exhibition and public program curated by Leila Arenou and Naïmé Perrette at Biblioteka in London, UK. The project further evolves in the context of Hackers & Designers 2023 program "Hopepunk: Reknitting Collective Infrastructures."
The Age of Dust will be activated during the H&D Summer Camp 2023. The next iteration will take place at Constant Association of Art and Media in Brussels on the 15, 16, and 17th of September 2023. The role-playing part is reworked together with Susan Ploetz. The technical aspects of the play are developed in close collaboration with H&D (Loes Bogers, Heerko van der Kooij) and Emma Pareschi.
https://constantvzw.org/site/Open-call-L-age-de-la-poussiere.html
https://hackersanddesigners.nl/p/The_Age_of_Dust