The halls of each of the Mappa Mundi Institutes stand as a repository of memory and a cradle of curiosity. Each is an archive of what was before and an empty store of what is to be found and discovered. Their Chroniclers are ready and eager to explore the world anew, to travel to the next valley or the other side of the world, and return with tales of what they have seen and stories of how such places have changed. For the world of Ecumene is a world that has changed. People once willingly travelled, making the long and sometimes difficult journeys from their homes to the other three continents and returned as living libraries of all they had experienced and all that they had seen. People, places, and Monsters and Creatures were learned about and from, and the stories shared and remembered, again and again. Then the Flux came and the world changed. Storms rose so big and so furious that travel became impossible. Rivers burst their banks and mountains were lost to fog so thick, it was as their very existence was greyed out. The Monsters and Creatures too changed. Before they had been studied and known, their behaviours and patterns respected, and some had even lived alongside and been protectors of the people, now some retreated into the Wilds, whilst others became aggressive, even monstrous… The nature of the Flux has long been debated, but now change has come again to the world of Ecumene. It is receding and people can begin to travel again. The Chroniclers can not only recover the stories of old, before the coming of the Flux, but observe anew and record stories of the world of Ecumene as it is now.
This is the set-up to
Mappa Mundi – An Exploration + Ecology RPG, a collaborative storytelling roleplaying game of exploration, discovery, and ecological change. Published by
Three Sails Studios following a successful
Kickstarter campaign, this is a roleplaying game with a firm emphasis on world building through play and a firm emphasis on non-violence to the extent that the roleplaying game does not actually have a combat system! Instead, the Chroniclers—as the Player Characters are known—having sworn an oath to ‘Do No Harm’, will explore new regions of the world, encounter new peoples, discover Monsters and Creatures, and interact with them, whilst their players are encouraged to ‘Shape’ the world around their Chroniclers, describing and adding detail to what they see, building upon what has been described before. The roleplaying game uses a deck of cards called the Journey Deck to create the story and the challenges the Chroniclers will need to overcome, all before coming face-to-face with the Monster or Creature they want to study and learn about. What they will not do, though, is discover what the Flux was—and perhaps still is—as that is not the point of the roleplaying game and the roleplaying game goes out of its way to not define it.
As a Chronicler, a Player Character will receive a Licence from the Mappa Mundi Institute, representing the training he has received. This is either Archivist, who specialises in recording folklore and separating it from the truth about Monsters and Creatures, and surveying new lands; Diviner, linked to Fate, who reads the signs in everything around him and the cards he draws and bones he rolls; Fixer, good at recognising social cues in both people and Monsters and Creatures, but also capable of jury-rigging tools, traps, and other helpful devices; and Guardian, who defends people from Monsters and Creatures, Monsters and Creatures from people, and also serves as a tracker and guide. A Chronicler has general Training in four Abilities— Traversal, Observation, Deduction, and Exploration—represented by ‘Bones’ or dice, the higher the better or more capable a Chronicler is. Mappa Mundi maps the Bone or die size to age and experience, the ‘Fate Bone’ or two-sided die represents childhood, the ‘Growth Bone’ or four-sided die represents young adulthood, the ‘Travel Bone’ or four-sided die represents the freedom of adulthood, the ‘Life Bone’ or eight-sided die represents experience and maturity, and the ‘Scholar’s Bone’ or twelve-sided die represents mastery and wisdom, but also deception. A Chronicler’s Licence determines where two of his Trainings are assigned, representing a strength and weakness, as well as the first Skills from the Licence’s Skill paths and then gives choices in terms of Interactions, how the Chronicler approaches the world.
In terms of development, all four Chronicler Licences can improve their Bones and possess extensive Skill trees that will see them be recognised for their Specialisations. For example, the Diviner can be recognised as a Cartomancer, Ossimancer, or an Augur, whilst a Guardian can be recognised as a Warden, Survivalist, or Trapper. It is also possible for a Chronicler to learn Skills from a Licence other than their own, and when a Chronicler gains two Specialisations or more, he will receive Endorsements. In general, it is faster to learn from failure than success.
Edmund
Licence: Archivist
ABILITIES
Traversal d4 Observation d6 Deduction d6 Exploration d4
SKILLSTraversal:
Observation: Behaviourist, Politics
Deduction: Folk Tradition
Exploration: Geography
INTERACTIONS
Diagnose, Study, Study
Mechanically,
Mappa Mundi is quite simple. Whenever the Narrator asks a player to make an Ability Check for his Chronicler, the player rolls the die appropriate to the Ability. If the roll is equal to or higher than the Target, the Chronicler succeeds. A player can choose to substitute an Ability with a Skill and if the Narrator agrees—and she does not have to—then she can allow the Chronicler to automatically succeed or the Target for the Ability roll be reduced. One oddity here is that
Mappa Mundi does not list set Target values, which initially is going to leave the Narrator and players at a loss. However,
Mappa Mundi does, a few pages later, explain that mechanically,
Mappa Mundi is intended to be adaptive and proportional. The difficult Target value for each of the four Abilities is determined by the average of the dice values assigned to each Ability for all Chroniclers and then values are set above and below for more or less challenging Targets. For a group of beginning Chroniclers, the average would be five, so the challenging Target would be six, an impossible Target set at eight, a standard Target at four, and an easy Target at two. The actual difficulty of a task depends on the context and some tasks will remain challenging no matter what the Chroniclers do.
In addition, a Chronicler can earn Fate Points for good play and good roleplaying. These can be spent on Fate Checks, with more challenging situations requiring more than one Fate Point. A Fate Check requires both the expenditure of Fate Points and the roll of the Fate Die, so even if the Chronicler has the Fate Points and his player wants to use them, success is not guaranteed. Lastly, Fate Points can be saved and used to unlock new Interactions.
Lastly, although
Mappa Mundi does not have a combat system and a Chronicler cannot die, he can still be hurt, whether that is from getting into a fight or getting too close to a Monster. In which case, he suffers one of four conditions—Minor, Major, Unconscious, or Transformative. Each of these will affect the Chronicler in some fashion, making it more difficult for him to succeed until he either recovers or adapts.
Whether played as a one-shot or a campaign—and it really is designed for long term play, The
Mappa Mundi – An Exploration + Ecology RPG is played in three phases. These are the Research, Journey, and Encounter phases. During the Research phase, the Chroniclers will investigate a region, interact with its inhabitants, and learn about what they know about the region’s Monsters and Creatures. In the Journey phase, the Chroniclers will strike out into the wilderness in search of where the Monster or Creature they are looking for is located, and then, in the Encounter phase, they will confront the Monster or Creature. This is not to defeat it or tame it, perhaps as you would in another roleplaying game, but instead to observe it, learn about it, and discover its Behaviours. This requires the use of the Journey Deck. This consists of seventy-one Tarot deck-sized cards. These depict terrain such as a Summit, Stream, and Tor, and Monsters and Creatures such as the Afrit, Tiamat, and Shoroon Khutgagh. As well as being presented in full colour, each has a name at the top whose orientation in play will affect the challenges that the Chroniclers will face and work to overcome.
Prior to the start of play, the Narrator sets up the Journey Deck for the trip the Chroniclers want to make and the Creature or Monster that they want to encounter and learn about. This does not use all of the cards from the Journey Deck, but only the one representing the Creature or Monster and those that represent the terrain that the Chroniclers will traverse. This Monster or Creature and this terrain can be one of the Narrator’s own creation, or the Narrator can set it up based on the regions, Monsters, and Creatures detailed in
Mappa Mundi. In response to the Chroniclers actions during the Research phase, the Narrator constructs the deck for the Journey phase. When added to this deck, a card can be placed ‘Rightwise’ or ‘Inverted’. ‘Rightwise’ if the Chroniclers encounter an NPC or learn a true fact during the Research phase, but ‘Inverted’ if they fail to find information, annoy an NPC, or so. During the Journey phase, reaching a location whose card is ‘Rightwise’ means that the travel is easier and more pleasant, and in game terms, the players have scope to ‘Shape’ the environment and narrative around their Chroniclers. Conversely, an ‘Inverted’ terrain card represents a challenge that the Chroniclers must overcome, but if they do, then they have the opportunity to again to ‘Shape’.
In the Encounter phase, the Chroniclers will come face-to-face with the Monster or Creature. Each Monster or Creature is defined by its Behaviours—eight for the Monster and four for the Creature—that are linked to and can be revealed by the Chroniclers’ Interactions, and Threads, which can either be Intact, Frayed, or Severed. These Threads require the Chroniclers to carefully handle them, and they can change according to the Chroniclers’ actions. Fail an Ability check and a Thread can go from Intact to Frayed and from Frayed to Severed, but where a Frayed Thread can be repaired to Intact, a Severed Thread cannot be repaired. Success means that a Chronicler can ultimately learn about a Behaviour and his player ‘Shape’ how it manifests. Overall success means learning about a Creature or Monster as much as the Chroniclers can and returning to the nearest Mappa Mundi Institute to share.
A Narrator is free to create her own regions and Monsters and Creatures, but almost two thirds of
Mappa Mundi – An Exploration + Ecology RPG is dedicated to ten regional guides and Monster and Creature descriptions found across Ecumene. These provide geographies, histories, cultures, and bestiaries to explore, examine, and enter into the records, backed up with ‘Tales of Interest’ that provide rumours and hooks that the Narrator can use to draw the players and Chroniclers in to investigate further. Every region’s bestiary includes three Monsters and a list of the more mundane Creatures complete Threads, Interaction, and ‘Shaping’ inspirations that the players can draw from to ‘Shape’ their Chroniclers’ interactions with them. Each Region is prefaced by a map that the Narrator can also draw from for inspiration in terms of the Terrain cards that she will use from the Journey Deck.
For the Narrator, there is advice and suggestions, not just on running the game, but also its tone and its key principles, to create a living world that will react to the actions of the Chroniclers. There is advice too on the Narrator creating her own Monsters and Creatures beyond those given in the book, and also a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ which addresses some of the enquiries already raised by Narrators.
Where
Mappa Mundi underwhelms is in terms of its reader friendliness and accessibility. For example, there is no mention of the use of the cards to drive a story until the Narrator’s section and the explanation of how Target difficulties are rolled by the player and how Target difficulties are rolled by the Narrator are separate. Similarly, there are terms mentioned, such as various aspects of a Chronicler, that the reader is left to wonder at until several pages later. Consequently, there is a slight sense of disconnection in reading the book. Some of this could have been addressed with the inclusion of an index or even just a glossary. Further, whilst the use of the cards to set-up a story through its three phases is far from poorly explained, an example of play, from set-up to the three phases, would have eased the reader into what the designers intended. To be clear, none of these problems are insurmountable or impede play, they just mean that
Mappa Mundi is just slightly harder to learn to play and harder to teach to play.
Physically,
Mappa Mundi – An Exploration + Ecology RPG comes in a sturdy box that also contains the cards of the Journey Deck. The art and cartography of the book and the art of the Journey Deck are lovely, the Monsters in particular, portraying new Monsters as well as new interpretations of old ones. The book itself is engagingly written, especially in the colour text. However, there are sections of italicised text after italicised text which is awkward on the eye.
Mappa Mundi – An Exploration + Ecology RPG is a storytelling game and so offers a different style of play in comparison to traditional roleplaying games. Its lack of combat rules in particular, force the players and Chroniclers to roleplay and interact with the world in a different way, searching for signs of recovery from the Flux and finding out what has changed and what has stayed the same, and sharing what they have learned. This will require some adjustment for players and Narrators more used to the traditional style of roleplaying games, whilst those with experience with storytelling games will require far less adjustment, if any. The lack of fuller explanations and examples of play is likely to mean that the roleplaying game is better suited to be run by a Narrator who has some experience of running storytelling games. Nevertheless, the absence of combat rules and the ecological theme, very much mark
Mappa Mundi out as a non-traditional roleplaying game and may open it up to a different audience. Overall,
Mappa Mundi – An Exploration + Ecology RPG is a beautiful game about hope, discovery, and telling the story of the world around the Chroniclers.
If there was an award for the most generically useful item released for Free RPG Day 2025, it would go to the Deck of Worlds Sampler Pack. Published by The Story Engine, this is an introduction to The Story Engine: Deck of World, a deck of cards designed to help users create worlds complete with cultures, geographies, histories, flora, and fauna, simply by drawing and combining cards. The Deck of Worlds Sampler Pack contains just thirty-five cards, little more than a tenth of the two-hundred-and-forty cards to be found in The Story Engine: Deck of World, all packed into a seven-by-seven centimetre box. Unlike previous offerings from The Story Engine, the Deck of Worlds Sampler Pack opens easily and then opens up fully and easily. When closed, the box holds the cards firmly in place, but when opened up, forms the instruction sheet, which takes the user through the process step-by-step.
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