Ok, so time to get this moving. The first of Philip Pullman's "his Dark Materials" books, The Northern Lights, known in the US as The Golden Compass.
The backstory behind the trilogy is that of the existance of parallel universes, which states that there is no such thing as a Universe, but a Multiverse, an infinite number of parallel universes, coexisting. Anyone with a little knowledge in math knows that, no matter HOW LOW the probability of a certain outcome is, given an infinite universe, it WILL happen, and infinite times, at that. So, there are worlds very similar to ours in those parallel universes. In some of them, you don't exist. In others, you're of a different sex. In others, you're gay. In others, you have a twin. So on, so forth.
So, our story begins on a parallel version of our world, a peculiar world where people's souls are OUTSIDE their body, and they take the form of an animal, generically called a daemon. Children's daemon changes freely between forms and colors, until as they grow old, their form "settle", and they then go on without changing, until their death. Because of their nature, daemons can't be far away from humans, since they're "linked" by an invisible force. Also because of this, a human that loses their daemon (a severe pull on the link, for instance, or even if the daemon get's killed) will also die, since it won't have a soul anymore.
Let me try to Cliff's Notes the story as much as possible, then, to get this started.
The Golden Compass starts as Lyra Belacqua, a girl living in Jordan College, in Oxford, witnesses as her uncle, Lord Asriel, shows some photograms of the Aurora Boreal to the Scholars, and they can see a CITY in it, yes, a city on another world! He also mentions Dust, which are particles that cling to human beings, more to grownups than to children. He sets out to the North to explore the phenomenon, and Lyra is left behind. At the same time, rumors tell about the Gobblers, people linked to the so called Oblation Board who are kidnapping children everywhere, although no one knows for sure why. When one of those kidnapped kids turns out to be Roger Parslow, Lyra's best friend, she decides to set out and look for him.
At the same time, a strange female explorer comes to Oxford, called Marisa Coulter, with a golden monkey for a daemon that strikes fear in everyone around it, and asks Lyra to leave Oxford with her, to go North.
Before leaving,
the Master of Jordan calls Lyra and gives her an alethiometer, a kind of Golden Compass that is said to tell the truth, although he says that she'll have to figure out by herself how to read it.
After quite a while being stalled by Mrs. Coulter, Lyra finds out she's a member of the Oblation Board (the head, actually), the Gobblers, and decides to
escape.
She is found by the gyptians, who take her in, and then finds out the cruel truth: Marisa Coulter is her mother, and Lord Asriel is her father. She also learns Lord Asriel is being kept prisoner by the panserbjorne, the Armored Bears of Svalbard, a race on intelligent and fierce bear-warriors, armed with almost-impenetrable armor, that can talk, have opposable thumbs and are great blacksmiths.
She and the gyptians decide to head North and to try and find the missing children, while she also learns by reading the alethiometer (something she's getting better every day at) that she's supposed to go to Lord Asriel and bring him something (which she thinks is the alethiometer itself).
On her journey she meets Iorek Byrnison, the armored bear who was supposed to be king but was kicked out of his country by the current king, Iofur Raknison, and becomes friends with him.
After saving the children from the facility called Bolvangar (where they separated children from their daemons as a means to try and "fight" Dust, which is linked by the Church to original sin), with the help from the witches who inhabit the land (and which daemons can go really far away from them), Lyra sets out with Roger (now rescued) and Iorek in Lee Scoresby (a texan) balloon to Svalbard, to try and help Lord Asriel.
She manages to restore Iorek to the throne, and then sets out to find her father, only to learn what she was supposed to bring him was... Roger.
Lord Asriel sacrifices Roger as a means of generating a powerful surge of energy, and splits open the fabric of space, creating a bridge to the other world in the Aurora.
Lyra follows after him to try and learn more about Dust, and if it's really evil as the Church says.
Whew, ok, that's as short as I can make it.
So, first things first, in order for this to work, let's see what rules will be tampered with.
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Protagonist:
There is no such thing as The One Ring, so the Ring-bearer will be replaced by a character with the keyword
protagonist. Having this keyword means two things:
1 - That this character can be played for no cost, prior to starting the game (only 1 such character can be played this way).
2 - If the chosen protagonist for that game dies or is corrupted, the game is over. If the protagonist survives until the end of the
regroup phase at site 9, the FP's player won the game. Since they're not there to toss a Ring into a volcano, just surviving the skirmish phase won't cut it.
-Companion order:
Companions must be played one at a time, and be placed on the table ALWAYS to the right of the last played companion. This is to make it easier to know which
protagonist was chosen for that game, and ALSO to know in which order the companions were played (some cards will reference that). If a companion dies, the other companions to his right should be slided over to the left, maintaining the order in which the remaining ones were played unaltered.
-Resistance and vitality:
Whenever a card references one of those attributes, it'll take in consideration PRINTED values only, which means that a 4-vitality companion with a condition that reads vitality+1 has 5 vitality. If he has 3 wounds on him, he has 5-vitality still, but has three wounds. Same goes for resistance and burdens.
Burdens:
EVERY companion with a resistance number CAN take burdens. Any card that simply says "add a burden" gives that card's owner the choice as to which character the burden goes. The same way as "wound" is used as a game verb, "burden" will, as well, so expect stuff that says "burden a companion".
Spent:
Any character (except the chosen protagonist) with a number of burdens equal to or higher than their Resistance becomes SPENT. They must be tapped, and they'll keep adding twilight, but the FP's player can't assign them to a skirmish anymore (although the Shadow player HAS to assign at least one left-over minion to a spent character if there is any). Spent characters cannot participate in archery fire, and they lose all their game text (and the game text of any card attached to them) until they die or become UNSPENT (by removing burdens). Cards can still be played on it normally, and any card with a triggered ability upon being played WILL still trigger.
Daemons:
Daemon is a new card type. More on this will come later. Suffice to say that a character bearing a non-unique daemon CAN have the daemon replaced, but ONLY by a unique daemon (with the non-unique daemon being discarded). Unique daemons can't be replaced. If a card kills or discards a daemon, then that character is killed instantly.
Sanctuaries:
At a sanctuary, aside from 5 wounds, the FP's player can ALSO remove 3 burdens.
Set sizes:
Set's will be slightly larger than usual, as to make for more beck-building possibilites.
Unique names:
Due to the nature of the set, the same culture will spawn both minions and companions and yes, you guessed it, some characters will have both versions. Due to this, the rules were twisted a little, and you can't have two active unique cards with the same name CONTROLLED BY THE SAME PLAYER in play at any time. So, a companion CAN fight it's minion counterpart. I don't know, consider it a matter of "internal struggle".
Ok, I think that covers it for now. I'll post a small breakdown by culture in a jiffy.
Topic: His Dark Materials, Book I: The Golden Compass (Read 17975 times)
