Nonlinear (parallel) pandemonium - self-organizing systems
  . Nonlinear narrative
  . Heterarchical social structure
  . Ahistorical (nontemporal order)
  . Market logic in culture & nature

  History & Identity - Ebbs & Flows
  . Nonindividual, generational trends
  . Extra-human Darwinian & economic organization

  Historical-regional settings
  . Frederick the Great's vagabond & mercenaries transformed into a clockwork armies
  . Mercantilism
  . Feudalism/shogunate
  . Crusader's Holy War

Encryption (security, privacy, cryptocurrency)
Speculation (financialization, algorithms, emergence)
Relativity (networks)
Multiplicity (individual devaluation)
Post-human biology (viruses, monsoons, self-organization, hyperobjects)

Layered heirarchies of subjectivity, perspective sclaes.
Nonindividual or objectual protagonist (re: historical narratives transcnending
single empires) contrasted with physical emphases, eg body violence.

. Factual characters eg matrices of characteristics positioned against each other
& enacted on by Forces
. Advanced sexuality eg master & slave, princess & peasant, mishima masochism
. Ancient or advanced networks of communication, trade etc
. Gamic camera ('fixed camera, RTS 'god' POV, TBS/grand strat geogrpahical)

Domesticated animals, humans extropolated into super cities together.
New nonindividual domestic modes

Tension aruond promethianism, subject/object, anthropocentrism
Abstracted layers of control: hyperobjects, player, algorithm
Complex identification with 'people' as subjects as well as animals, plants,
machinery, geology (re: ANT)
Displacement & alienation of player facing larger, incomprehensible flows of
climate, geology, hyperobjects, deep time
Player guided fenciles with randomized psuedo-organic algorithmic design
Networks, logic modes

  Nonlinear series
- The desert
- Western Spanish Italian
 - Place of Dead Roads, Don Quixote, Capitalism and Material Life, 1000 Years of Nonlinear History,
- German medieval gothic romantic
 - Bonaventura, Wallenstein, Bartok, Cosmology of a French peasant

Exploration of space, light, architecture/urbanism, history
Narrative touring: aesthetic histories, evocation of arcane archetypes/tropes.
Limited gamicness.
Player invested by supreme-arbitrary power - a gun in hand.

A hired gun. Perform work. Acquire covetable goods - boots, guns, hat, holster. The step of your walk, the weight in your hands, the shadow you cast. Smoke a cigarette, unload your gun.
A port in the Middle East. The casualties of history, great Islam. The lofty mathematics and alchemies, the orchestration of the court, the decadence of aristocracy, the great bloodshed of war, the stupidity of serfs, the wonders of the market, the rot of the sex and slave trade.
A great state. A disciplined army. A proud middle-class. A tragic underclass.
We take a caravan inland. They trade spice and virgins. Islam gains power in the desert. Occult traditions thrive. A wordless tribe makes home in the ruins of a lost city. Follow the river. Shade of a palm tree. A Mughal fort, a village wedding.

A great ship powered by 120 Africans below deck. Hidden by the bay, surrounded by sedimented hills, the town is all-white to deflect the sun. An octopus smashed against a rock.

Limit gamicness. Movement through space. Experience is yours. Power to kill. The NPCs orate, die. Anti-collecting - Money is mostly arbitrary, acquired in denominations of thousands - get a new gun, new boots - or run around collecting change to buy cigarettes for pennies. Or an apple.

Travel between villages, towns and the city.
The city? Why go from one to the other? Maybe an accumulation of rank... From maverick peasant to
rogue, wanderer, legend, spirit.
Gather petty change in your village, invest in an expedition. Must be dynamic. Weekly caravans come through, when you can purchase goods, and join, eventually. They'll take you to the city.

Blackbeard with his four wives weighed down by jewelry.
The night forest. Goblin who steal children and men who turn into wolves. Work for a lumberjack.

Characters
. Cultural subcategories, ie hermit
. Narrative stances, ie Age of Medici's old man disgruntled by mercantilism
. Interesting Archetypes
 - the hermit recluse (Vittorio)
 - tortured/tested prodigy (Andrei Rublev's bellsmith)
 - inspired creative (AR's opening)
 - paranoid tyrant (Ivan the Terrible)
 - wily orphan (S. the S.'s Salim)
 - exploited woman (S. the S.'s Jodha)
 - conniving woman (S. the S.'s Jodha)
 - beloved princess/fallen prince (Arabian Nights' 3 Dervishes)

Fantasy conventions
. Gold currency
. Forest dweller, creek
. Mountain hermit
. Lumberjack, water mill
. Cobbler, blacksmith
. Castle ruins, dungeon
Mountain, forest, hills, desert; coast, city. West - East

Basilisk
White wolf
Cave troll
Arachnid
Golden bear
Goblin
Forest people

Sword:
Brittleness
Sharpness
Durability
Length
Balance

Damage (steel quality):
The more sharp it is, the more damage it does. The more brittle the steel, the more sharpening increases its rate of erosion (durability) through use. The lower the durability, the less damage.
The longer the reach, the worse steel quality for the price.
Better balance (craft expertise), faster attack.

Sword hierarchy based on steel quality and craftsmanship.
Boil down steel.

--

FPS
Tensions around body physicality and digitality: screen & keyboard
Guns & cars: extensions of the body
Bombs & Drones: detachment, disembodiment
Teams combine within cars, bodily extropation
Individual dissolved into Multiplicity
Nations/teams amorphous, blur and assimilate. Modulating goals?
TK, power control zones, shifting boundaries in context of larger war
Intensified violence, ambiguous hostilities, surrounding threat
Minimap topology mimick network, deinvidualized.
Human/AI blurred, respawn directly into bot soldiers


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