The frigid wind from the north whispers of rumours, gossips and half-truth stories, and the ships it usually carried are the chancels of Imperators dealing with misinformation, lies, conspiracies, satirical art and politics. From the south comes a scorching wind, and it screams of primal rage, uncontrolled anger, bitter criticisms and damning accusations. Ships bore forth by the South Wind are usually chancels of quarrels, untempered violence, disharmony, primal urges and never-ending feuds.

The wind from the east is much more soothing. It talks of the wild unknown, the untasted fruits and urge the desire to go for those things. Its wind bore forth ships which are the chancel of Imperators whose domain could be summed up as exploration, curiosity, tabloids and being unrestrained.

And finally there is a wind from west. It is a wind of contridaction, urging reality to be unmade and then redefined (again and again), of changes and of being freed, even if freed from creation. Upon this wind sail a chancel, where its estates are that of escapism, games, abstraction, physics, war and the freedom to choose.

Freedom to choose is a contraction, for one must be free to choose, but once chosen, you are not free. Physics is a foundation of reality – it sails upon this ship so precisely it could be unmade and redefined – and each time it does so, mortal folk think they understand Physics more. Poor souls – it just have been remade by the whims of the Wild Lord. Escapism and abstraction urge the mundane to be freed from Creation, to go beyond the Weridling Wall, where the Wild Lords once came from and now are trapped. War is a choice due to conflict and it was said it is the result of the other three winds mixing together. Men go to wars for al sort of absurd reasons, but the thing is they chose to war.

Other chancels that sail upon this wind include Imperators who govern dreams (dreams are unreal, yet they are the mirror of a human’s soul), madness (for they have escaped from the mundane way of thinking), philosophy (one may say anything about reality yet none can disprove him), paradox, jail-breaks and chaos.

I have the Big White Book for years, but never had a chance to form a group to play it. I am excited, but at the same time, afraid. The rules are lite enough but the fluff is thick. There’s so many concepts to impart to a new player without the rules, and the game is not a ‘you stroll into the inn and the bartender tells you about a horde of Orc plaguing the area”.

Here are just some of the problems I am planning to tackle:

The Fluff: Sure, the writing in Nobilis is cool and all that, but sometimes I think you need a minor in philosophy to grasp all of it. Not just that, there are plenty of things to consider – the Laws of the Nobilis, the factions (Wild, Light, Angels, Infernals), Lord Entropy, what is a chancel, the great war, Ash, Proasic Earth, Realm…arggh! For a run of the mill fantasy game, sometimes you don’t even need to now who is the king of the realm. For Nobilis, the things you need to know (especially the Windflower Law) boggle.

Eh…campaign?: As the GM, I have to come up with a roster of interesting NPCs for the PCs to cross swords with. I need to come up with an interesting plot. Raiding dungeons to kill an orge overlord? Meh, that won’t cut it. I could go for a simple approach, like you know, global warming! But that’s kind of too obivious. Then there would be players who wants action. I guess I just send them off to Mythic Earth first.

And you guys meet in…eh…a tavern! Getting the players to gel together is also probelmatic. Sure, there’s a chancel, but I rather create one for them first considering they are new to the game. What keeping the group together? They don’t need treasure; they don’t need knowledge. They probably have a couple of enemies, but this means lots of backstory.

This is it. I guess I will just toss them into Mythic Earth, let them wield their powers a little bit, see how it affects Proasic Earth and then have the group adopted by an Imperator who guides them before they all get out of hands. Now I need a meta-plot. How does those new nobles come about? What’s the immediate threat? (I don’t want to sic the Destroyers on them so fast).

Any ideas for my first game of Nobilis? Please advise!