Coyote & Crow

A while back, I heard about the game Coyote & Crow, a TTRPG made by indigenous creators. The game sounded interesting to me, so I decided to check it out. 

I opened the preview on drivethru rpg and found within it a section with messages for potential players of the game. One section was addressed to native american players, and it encouraged them to bring elements of their culture into the game. The other section, addressed to non-native american players, asked that they stick to the materials in the book. This idea struck me as antithetical to the hobby, it annoyed me, 'one of the great things about rpgs', I reasoned, 'is that they are customizable. No game designer knows my table like I do, but the people who designed this book seem to think they have covered all of the bases. The hubris. The gall.'

I did not buy the book then, justifying my decision with the thought that $25 was too much for a pdf that I would never use, but I kept thinking about it. I spent some time rolling the thoughts around in my brain. The pages I read annoyed me, made me kind of mad, I imagined explaining my problem with the text to somebody else, and who might agree with me. That made me feel uncomfortable, and a little embarresed, which annoyed me further.

At this point I knew it wasn't about creative control, the thought felt slimier than that, grosser, and reactionary, but I didn't delve too deep into it, I didn't want to, didn't want to see myself in that light or to look into the shadier parts of me. I ignored it, and the thing that spurred it, turning back to the warmer sections of a hobby filled with people like me, making products for me.

Some time has passed since that first encounter, and the world is different and I am different too, in small ways that can be difficult to articulate, or even notice. Shaped subtly by the erosive forces of time and mundanity, and it was this new self with the old name that came back to Coyote & Crow. 

As it approached, it regarded both the subject that annoyed and the object that was annoyed, and the link that existed between them. Both subject and object were consequnces, both existed, but in different ways.

The object existed in the world, they were born in it, from it, and the world exsisted within them too, on a molecular level, inextricably, and without their consent.

The subject existed in the mind, and in the hypothetical futures that grow there, ones that were burned by the world before they could take root, and paved over with new realities. 

The object was born of that fire, it sprouted from the pavement, it would not exist without either, but the world sings it lullabies to dampen its thoughts and now, when the object smells the smoke and is shown the ashes of different futures, it is reminded of its bones and its molecules and its world, kept separate from all the others, and in opposition to them, and there is blood on its hands and ashes in its mouth and they are its inheritance.

The object is defined by what it lacks, 'you are not the subject', the world sings, and the voice is seductive and distorted. There are other words that hide within the margins of the world song, and they tell the object of the goodness of its inheritance, and of its purpose, and though they do not call it kindling, they stoke the fire within, and allow it to burn, pointing to horizons lit by burning bodies and they sing 'glory' until the object is drunk, but still dying of thirst, and they bid it to march towards another future to burn.

This object was lucky. It smelled water, and the great, and bitter thirst, which had always existed within it, came clawing up from the deepest reaches to scratch the back of its throat and swell its tongue, and the object cursed the pain, even as it craved sustenance, and waded, gingerly at first, then desperately into the sea.

The waves battered its fragile body, and the salt bit at its open wounds and its seared throat, but the water cooled the flames, that now retreated into the object, and grew defensive. The object drank deeply from the sea, which had always been there, though the object had been warned to never drink from it, and as it drank, its thirst grew and its vision broadened to include the infinite horizon which birthed the object and everything else, and the songs of the world were drowned out by the crashing waves, their rhythm adding context and exposing the lies of the fire.

The object is still thirsty, though the flames have died down to a smolder, and the object is alone at sea because it fears what others will say about its withered form, what they will do to it. It wants desperately to heal and be well and without pain, like all that have come before it, but it has grown angry at the world, which now appears small, and fearful, and incomplete for having set the fires. 

It hears voices on the wind. Some are burned and broken like its own, some are much worse. The object does its best to swim towards them, but it is weak and its body and mind still fail it. They form a chorus that the object hopes to join, when its strength and its courage return, many voices, becoming one voice, all singing for rain.