A Revolution needs a revolutionary new calendar.

Autumn:

• Vendémiaire - The month of grape harvesting
• Brumaire - the month of mist
• Frimaire - the month of frost

Winter:

• Nivôse - the month of snow
• Pluviôse - the month of rain
• Ventôse - the month of wind

Spring:

• Germinal - the month of germination
• Floréal - the month of flowers
• Prairial - the month of meadows

Summer:

• Messidor - the month of harvest
• Thermidor - the month of summer heat
• Fructidor - The month of fruit

Each game cycle will be an in-game month.

I'm in the process of putting the finishing touches on the character sheets, so expect to see them soon. While I'm working on that, though, I thought it would be a good idea to let you see some of the stats and variables that you'll be seeing in the game. For example, every character has a financial state and a reputation, and their scales work like this:

• Finances: (bankrupt!, deep in debt, begging, poor, getting by, secure, rich, wealthy, legendary!)
• Reputation: (despised!, reviled, dishonored, indifferent, respected, honored, revered!)

Your character's access to money and resources may, of course, change over the course of the game. And their popularity will almost certainly wax and wane.

The nation as a whole has some stats as well:

The National Army…

• Loyalty to: the Revolution (strong, wavering, none)
• Morale: (Spirited, Steadfast, Moderate, Shaken, Broken)
• Material: (Well-supplied, Adequate, Low, Poor, Desperate)
• Attributes: (list of additional adjectives describing it)

National treasury: (bankrupt!, deep in debt, begging, poor, getting by, secure, rich, wealthy, legendary!)

The National Assembly…

• Political Balance: Balanced (0) or X faction is in power
• Currently debating: …
• Major political factions: …

These will change too, and there will be an announcement once per cycle updating you on where the nation is as a whole.

Previous Callisto games that I've run have included a reading list or some influences that I drew from when I was putting the game together. They should be taken as inspiration, not as absolute guides: I deliberately don't do painfully detailed historical research because the game isn't about recreating history. So I've deliberately included some anachronistic sources here.

For this game, the reading list has consisted of, in rough order of influence:

• The Revolutions podcast (for the history which I put in a blender and turned up to 'pulverize')
• Les Miserables (wrong French uprising, but the sprawling cast of interconnected characters is totally right)
• The Three Musketeers (even more wrong time period, but also has convoluted action plots. And swashbuckling!)
• First Draft of the Revolution by Emily Short and Liza Daly
• A Tale of Two Cities (Which takes a British perspective, of course)
• The Scarlet Pimpernel (Which also takes a British perspective, and a particularly aristocratic one at that)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which is even more wrong, time-wise, but you get some great descriptions)
• Steven Brust's The Phoenix Guards
• China Miéville's Iron Council, which is the last novel I read and happens to include sufficient revolutions to be relevant.

Of course, none of these are at all required reading. And if you think of another novel or film that seems relevant, please do mention it.

I've also been doing a bunch of research into games that operate in a somewhat similar space, particularly The Quiet Year and the megagame Watch the Skies.

While we're waiting for this game to start, perhaps you'd like to take a look at what some previous games of Callisto were like?

Colony of Callisto

This document is the record of one of those games, set in a newly-settled iron-age Mediterranean colony. You can read along and watch how the innocuous details spread across the entire colony, how a misunderstanding about a draft lead to a shortage of beer, where giant carnivorous birds come from, and what happens when your philosopher uses the wrong stimulants.

Tower of Callisto

Set on the Silk Road in a time of change, the players navigated the dangers of the desert, lost love, stolen knives, and the mysterious tower. Set on an epic map, with cycles that lasted for a season and some of the experimental rules that have been greatly refined for Revolution, Tower of Callisto is a sprawling tale. (A bit too sprawling: that's one reason why I reined in the design for Revolution.)

Welcome to Revolution of Callisto

The king is imprisoned! The Republic has been proclaimed! All are equal: no longer are there nobles or peasants. Now we are all citizens.

Everyone is participating. The palaces have been nationalized and opened to the public. The cafés are abuzz with revolutionary ideas and stories of new scientific discoveries.

But not everyone is happy: the Republic is surrounded by monarchies, threatened by these new ideas. The former nobility scheme to reclaim their titles. There are even those who secretly desire a return to the Old Ways.

The Republic is a grand experiment. For the first time, our destiny is in our own hands, to shape as we will. What will we build on this foundation?

Want to join the game?

Just send an email to towerofcallisto@gmail.com or sign up on the form here.

About Callisto

Callisto is a play-by-email epistolary storytelling game that draws on both the oldest and newest forms of roleplaying. Every player gets to play a vital part in what happens.

You can read more about Calliso here.

Also available: a map of the capital city and a map of the nation.