The Elephant & Macaw Banner is a series of fantastic tales born from the pen of Christopher Kastensmidt, winner of numerous international awards which, over time, has first become a book and then inspired a role-playing game, which is trying to make its way over the past few days on Kickstarter with an interesting project.
The author of the books…
Christopher Kastensmidt has a particular story. He traded a well-paid job in California with a penniless startup in southern Brazil called Southlogic Studios. He also swapped a nice house to sleep on the floor of a friend’s apartment. A decade later, Christopher became creative director and coordinator of Ubisoft Brazil. He worked on thirty published video games before exchanging corporate life for a writing career. He currently writes video games, animated series, literature, comics and role-playing games and teaches game design at UniRitter University. Christopher’s works have been published in dozens of languages; he has had the honor of being nominated for several awards, including the Nebula Award and the ENnies. Christopher founded the Hydra contest and co-founded the Fantastic Literature Odyssey, the largest convention in Brazil dedicated to fantastic fiction.
And the team behind the RpG The Elephant & Macaw Banner
Despite the great talent shown several times, Christopher is not alone in producing the game, but, indeed, he has been joined by a respectable team. In particular we can mention the editor, Lauren McManamon,
that we recently told you about in our article on Trophy; another notable personality is the project manager / translator , Thomas McGrenery, which boasts numerous citations in the credits of many role-playing games and many translations from Portuguese to English.
Details on the books…
The Elephant and Macaw Banner is a fantasy series, published in Brazil by Devir Livraria. This series tells the adventures of the Dutchman Gerard Van Oost and the African warrior Oludara in the 16th century in Brazil, during the colonial period. The story speaks of the natives and colonizers and the many relationships and conflicts between them; you can also meet the countless enchanted beings of Brazilian folklore, ranging from the thin Saci-Pererê to huge and apparently invincible beasts, such as Boitatá and Capelobo.
The series’ first adventure was published in April 2010 in the American magazine Realms of Fantasy, one of the most important in the fantasy genre, as “The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara“. In July 2015, the first three short stories in the series were published as digital books, and the first book in the series rose to the top of Amazon’s lists worldwide, during a promotion in which it was free for a week.
The first story received the best story of the year award when published in the magazine Realms of Fantasy, chosem by readers in 2011. In the same year, he was a finalist for the Nebula prize, one of the greatest prizes in fantastic literature. In 2015, the book was nominated for the AGES award: book of the year, in the Special category.
…and on the game!
In March 2015, the “Melhores do Mundo” website released the news that a role-playing game from the series was in production. The mechanics were developed by the same creator of the original world, Kastensmidt. Now it has landed on Kickstarter to become an international reality.
The manual will in color, 224 pages in A4 format, soft cover. It will consist of a first part of the player’s guide (character creation, system, combat). This section of the manual has already been published in PDF in 2019 and won the “Judges’ Spotlight” award at ENnies. It is also downloadable for free. Then a second part of the manual will focus on describing Brazil in 1576; the third part will be a guide for the narrator (here called mediator), followed by an introductory adventure and appendices.
If you want a preview of how it will be visually paginated look this video.
Simplifying, the game’s theme deals with the journey of characters from one place to another in Brazil, to help local populations to fight folklore monsters or villains. For this reason The Elephant & Macaw Banner is also known as “The Brasilian Witcher “.
The system is not based on attributes but only on skills, which can be developed on three levels. The bonus of these skills, together with the equipment and other modifiers, adds up to the result of 3d6 to overcome a difficulty threshold, generally 12 or more. There are also special skills, related to the setting; they bring into play the Christian religion of the colonizers, Brazilian shamanism and African healing and divination techniques.
The Elephant & Macaw Banner on Kickstarter
PDF format is available at around € 12 for those in financial difficulty, otherwise at € 18. The physical version, which also includes the PDF but not the shipping costs, instead costs 33 €. Higher pledges, starting at over € 200, include special rewards such as online sessions or personalized illustrations. Delivery is estimated around May 2020.
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