User Summary: Game Chef 2010 Design Competition Submission
Author Blurb:
The Book of Sands: A Story of Our People (hereafter, The Book) is a role-playing and storytelling game for four people about the mythical history of a fantasy culture. It is intended to be played in three four to six hour sessions. In the game the players tell the story of four heroes who are the potential progenitors of titular People. The story goes through a number of fixed steps, and at various points a hero will drop out of the story, leaving only one hero standing at the end.
This story begins in the desert with the Tribe of Not-People. This tribe is composed of beings like humans, but in place of skin, they have the feather, fur or scales of animals. The heroes begin as part of this tribe, but at some point they loose their outer coverings to reveal the human skin beneath, at which point the tribe deserts them.
The heroes then find themselves wandering in the desert, where they face the tribulations of the journey. When it seems as if the can go no further, a voice is heard from the heavens, the voice of the God of the People, who urges the heroes onward to the site of the first city, the city that they are destined to build, but the path to the city is fraught with easier temptations that the heroes must struggle to resist.
Finally, the heroes make it to the site of the future city where they find themselves competing for allies and resources, with one hero arising as patriarch of the First People.