Simian Circle Design Blog #1

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had entered a game design contest put on by Simian Circle Games. Here's the first in my series of blogs detailing my design process.

According to the rules of the contest, there are three things that my game must include: Rules that use 10-sided dice, a theme from a provided list, as well as an illustration from a provided list. (There are other requirements, but these are the important ones right now.)

The theme that jumped out at me was "Born under a bad sign" in conjunction with one of the illustrations, showing an sad old man walking away from a rainbow in the background. Put them together and I got the idea of evil rainbows.

Of course, it's not that rainbows are evil, necessarily. Just that they are a bad omen of some sort. Being born under a rainbow is considered bad luck. The idea then evolved into a weather-based astrology. If you're born under a water sign, it's not Scorpio or Capricorn, but simply that it was raining when you were born. Each "weather sign" has their own associations. Rainbows are "evil" because they're a transition between two types of weather (rain and sun) and rather temporary (unlikely to last all day, as most weather does). So being born under the sign of Rainbow means that you're shiftless, unreliable, and unlikely to remain for long.

Things still to figure out: Since "Rainbow-signers" are traditional pariahs, they make perfect wandering adventurers, going everywhere, but belonging nowhere. But as the weather-astrology takes shape in my mind, I'm getting more understanding of the other "signs." Should I make them playable? Especially since I'm planning on giving rainbow-signers the ability to cause Change (basically a form of magic), should I try to balance the other astrological gifts with that? Or simply give them lower powered gifts and say "If you really want, you can play them."