Bringing Barbecia To LIfe
Hello, Chroniclers! In his first blog post, Jeremy Blum, developer and co-writer of Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology RPG, talks about the process of bringing Barbecia, the first of ten regions to feature in the game, to life! Covering Monsters, the origins of the people of Barbecia, and some of the inspirations behind this setting, hear the tale straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth. Let’s get down to it!
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Barbecia is the first region we fleshed out for Mappa Mundi, and it was intended to serve as a starting point for folks unfamiliar with the game. For that reason, parts of it resemble what you could conceivably describe as a “traditional Western fantasy setting,” with rolling hills, green forests, and a shining capital ruled over by a queen. There have probably been millions of TTRPG campaigns in such a setting, and you don’t have to imagine a group of adventurers exiting the city of Moltiers, stepping off the beaten track, and running into an encounter with goblins where they have to roll initiative.
A map of Barbecia, the first of ten regions in Mappa Mundi - An Exploration + Ecology RPG
But! Mappa Mundi isn’t that sort of game. We do not have goblins, we do not have initiative, and while we intentionally chose a starting region that would be familiar to most English-speaking tabletop players, efforts were made to make it stand out while still offering up that cosy feeling of “Oh! I know what this is; I can relate to this.”
For instance, you might be able to tell from the names of all of the characters in Root and Branch: A Barbecian Adventure that Barbecia is roughly based off France, instead of the Britain-by-way-of-Tolkien that vaguely inspires many TTRPG fantasy settings. There’s some influence from Germany and the Low Countries west of the Rhine, but France is the star of the show, and the name “Barbecia” actually came from the French/Swiss folklore creature “barbegazi,” combined with the ending suffix of the kingdom of “Francia.” When thinking up the history of this nation, I considered the Gauls who had once inhabited France, and the animist beliefs they circulated with them. Animism was a definite influence when writing up descriptions of Barbecia’s earliest settlers, the Barics, and set the stage for much of what you see in the country in its modern incarnation, from Monster and Creature worship to the House of Fate’s belief that everyone has a role to play in Fate’s tapestry.
The rest of Barbecia was influenced by French mythology, as seen in our choice of the Helix Carcolh, subject of Root and Branch: A Barbecian Adventure. Originally, the main Monster of our playtest was supposed to be a giant turtle, but I was inspired by two months spent living in my sister-in-law’s place after moving to the UK from the US. During our morning walks, I’d just see snails all over the place, which was kind of a foreign sight for me. After George and I began plotting monsters for Mappa and Barbecia’s French roots were decided upon, I kept these snail observations in mind as we honed in on the legend of the Lou Carcolh and changed our turtle to a gastropod.
The Helix Carcolh, a giant gastropod with a stand of trees growing on its shell. Inspired by the Lou Carcolh from French mythology.
While the Lou Carcolh that inspired our Helix Carcolh is traditionally depicted as an aggressor that used its tentacles to harass the town of Hastingues in southwestern France, we decided to go a different route more full of wonder and perhaps a bit of whimsy, both of which are more in line with Mappa Mundi’s mission of presenting a world where the goal is to chronicle and perhaps be inspired by Monsters, rather than to draw one’s sword and declare initiative against ‘em.
Barbecia’s other main Monsters, the Merpeysk (inspired by the mermaid-esque Melusine), and the Tarasconus (the Latin name for the Tarasque, a foe most d20 TTRPG players will know), have yet to receive complete write-ups, but rest assured that in the final Mappa Mundi release, we’ll be drawing from a mixture of both classical folktales and our own fresh ideas in presenting these old-yet-new monsters in a new light. (Let’s just say that while our version of the Tarasconus might have “Hatred of Humanity” as one of its Behaviours, it’ll be very different from the impossible-to-kill boss that most fantasy tabletop fans know and love. Or hate, rather?) In a sense, that’s what our goal was with Barbecia, and with Mappa Mundi in general – to take the familiar but add depth and flavour to it, subverting player expectations in a way that’s fresh, fun, and memorable. A big snail with a forest on its back is way more intriguing than goblin mooks anyday, I say.
Until next time!
Jeremy, Mappa Mundi developer and co-writer
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