RPG Review Cooperative, Inc.

Welcome to issue 2 of Mimesis!

This year is already one of rapid growth for our association. Following on from our successful Junta! party (with Paddy Bollinger, allegedly a novice, earning his gold bars as the most successful Latin American dictator), and our Terra Australia's SF video day, Mimesis has been very active in the opening months of 1998. Apart from the production and release of this journal, we were also involved in the successful advocacy for a community Internet grant for the Melbourne/Yarra region, attendence at GloranthaCon Down Under (see review this issue), Conquest (next issue), Sydcon (next issue), and Swancon (next issue), where we presented our History of the Middle Ages simulation game.

Speaking of which, this product is developing in leaps in bounds. This is a (currently unnamed) year-by-year simulation of medieval europe, a little like Civilization, but with much greater detail and dynamism. For the past ten months a small but dedicated bunch of mimetic entities have been conducting a table-top playtest of a model initially developed by Jay Patterson. This year we've begun programming under the direction of Matt Castles, formally of Beam Software, with the objective of producing an education-orientated CD-ROM simulation game, with alpha version ready by the end of the year. A little less than a week after we began programming the Gippsland Regional Ecology and Economy Network contacted us through the Monash University Centre for Technology and Business expressing interest in our project.

As would be expected the details of this arrangement are far from finalised. The next issue of Mimesis will, however, contain a number of articles relating to the gameÕs development and history. For this issue it is worth mentioning, for entertainment purposes, some of the unusual changes to history that have occured in our playtest.

• The most powerful empire is the Muslim Caliphate of Cordova, stretching from Spain to Arabia, including all of Italy.
• A Celtic Catholic heresy broke out in Wales and Ireland. There has also been heresy established in Bavaria (the Illuminati!), a Church of Serenity in Verona, a nationalistic Volhynian Orthodox Church, and a millenium-evangelical Orthdox Kiev. Rome, being Muslim, has meant that the Catholic Church has moved it's base to Champagne.
• Iceland is Muslim, as are most of the Balkans. The Baltics however are very pagan, as are some of the Finnish lands. However, Antioch and Jerusalem are very Hellenic and very Orthodox.

A further spinoff from this simulation has been a character-level RPG campaign, which combines the prosletysing of the Celtic Catholic heresy by a group of Elves and Half-Elves (who are, incidentially, on a search for Annwyvyn, the elvish homeland). This of course has led to a reconsideration of the powers of the various dieties presented in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the creatures used, and the power of magic in the campaign (as in, greatly reduced). These features are all part of an article in the next issue of the journal.

Having spent some time mentioning what is going to be in the next issue, some consideration should be given to what is in this issue. Our theme is psychology & roleplaying, which is well served by two generic articles by Lev Lafayette, one by John Simpson, a Star Trek psychoanalysis by Peter Caffin, and a RuneQuest article by Darius West. In the same theme is an excellent Amber campaign by Claire Coleman, a Space 1889 pbem campaign by Dorian Davis, and an Over The Edge campaign. This is apart from articles relating to new products, desigmnerÕs notes for Dark Realms, and fraternal exchanges with the Chaos Society of Australia and SVEROK, a Swedish roleplaying federation, whom Australian gamerÕs should take some examples from!.

The theme of the next issue of Mimesis is 'Technology'. After that is 'Conspiracy Theories' (oooh!). If you have articles or comments on either of those themes, please send them in. We love getting mail.

Yours,

The Mimesis Committee of Management