WORLD BIBLE

TELL YOUR STORY

 WORLD BIBLE
Written by
Ben Dobyns

Additional Writing by
Satyros Phil Brucato
Dr. Susan K. Rowan-Nelson
Dr. Eric Nelson
A. G. Quinn

Edited by
Dr. Susan K. Rowan-Nelson

Cover & Interior Design

Todd Downing

Art Direction
L. Gabriel Gonda

Original Strowlers Photos by

Dawndra Budd
Reagan McStravic
David Richards
Ana Jones Do Carmo

Proofreading
Emilie Rommel Shimkus
 Strowlers Story Team (USA) Original Worldbuilding Playtesting
Elizabeth Armancas Matt Vancil Greg Rubin
Lindy Boustedt Sarah Rubin
Satyros Phil Brucato Additional Worldbuilding Phil Lacefield
Heather Conti Kat Ogden Calye Lacefield
Lisa Coronado Kaleen Mills Willow Brugh
Ben Dobyns Juliet Shapiro Edward Gibbs
Abie Ekenezar Don Thacker Norita Dobyns
L. Gabriel Gonda Ron Richardson Shannon Gisselberg
Elizabeth Heffron Aaron Rosenberg Joseph Brassey
Samara Lerman Joanna Gaskell Nathan Rice
A. G. Quinn Sarah Corn Chris Davis
Nicole Pouchet Skuba Ben Rapson Scott C. Brown

Creative Consultants Additional Thanks

Strowlers Story Team (Mongolia) Robin Hobb Washington Filmworks
Aminaa Batmunkh Steven Brust Designworks
Tsengel Davaasambuu Will Shetterly Imagos Films
Amalia Rubin Emma Bull Kevin K Wiley
Usukhbayar Batsaikhan Larry Dixon Cornelia Moore
Munkhtuya Mercedes Lackey Larry Estes
Minister Faust Kairos Productions
Strowlers Story Team (Australia) Brad Roberts
Jessica Hutchinson Strowlers Historical Consultants (USA) Rennie Araucto
Darryl Brown Dr. Eric Nelson Elizabeth Heile
Dr. Susan K. Rowan-Nelson Chris Ode
Strowlers Story Team (Ireland)
Alicia McArdle Special Thanks Original Songs by
Gordon McArdle Amanda Cook S.J. Tucker
Brian Cook
Strowlers World Bible is copyright ©2018 Strowlers LLC and is released under the terms of Strowlers Shared Cinematic Universe
License and Agreement.
Attribution: This work is based on Strowlers, copyright ©2018 Zombie Orpheus Entertainment.
Share-alike: You are free to use, remix, and transform this work in the creation of your original Strowlers stories and projects, subject to
the Strowlers Shared Cinematic Universe License & Agreement. Learn more at http://www.strowlers.com and on Page 74.
Strowlers Canon: Strowlers World Bible has been approved as an official part of the Strowlers Shared Cinematic Universe story.
Published by: Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, LLC
Dobyns, Ben 2018 – Strowlers World Bible
ISBN: 978-1-944217-08-2
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
1.Fiction 2. Fantasy
First Edition

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 contents
Foreword—S.J. Tucker.................................................. page ix
introduction.....................................................................page 01
Tell Your Story.................................................................page 05
A Macical World.............................................................page 13
The Alternate Now.........................................................page 19
World History..................................................................page 29
arcanology in the United States..........................page 35
a Strowler Perspective................................................Page 43
What is a Strowler.........................................................page 46
Hidden Histories.............................................................page 48
Pepper Jones & The Changing Lands.....................page 57
Empire and Magic.............................................................page 63
Guide For Filmmakers....................................................page 68
The Strowlers License..................................................page 74
Acknowledgements........................................................page 78
Glossary................................................................................page 80
Strowlers Glyphs............................................................page 82

illustrations & photos

iv - "Secret" Johannes Plenio (CC0) • vii - "Cat Scroll" Standard scroll book (1876) • viii -Photo by Regan McStravic • x - "Labyrinth" by Ana Jones De Carmo
xii - Illustration by Designworks • 2/10 - John Dickson Batten • 3 - Photo by Dawndra Budd • 5 - Photo by Max Felner on Unsplash • 7 - Frame by Sam Graydon
11 - Frame by Sam Graydon & Torrance Hurd • 12 - Frame by Sam Graydon • 14 - Photo by Austin Ban on Unsplash • 17 - "Outdoors" J Lloa (CC0)
18 - Photo by Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash • 21 - Photo by Talgat Baizrahmanov on Unsplash • 23 - Photo by Regan McStravic • 25 - Photo by Drew Graham on
Unsplash • 27 - Photo by John T on Unsplash • 28 - Painting by Ch. Solongo • 31 - The Press Photographic Agency (The Wellcome Collection CC-BY 4.0)
33 - Photo by Jordy Meow on Unsplash • 34 - Photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash • 36 - Photo by Dawndra Budd • 38 - Photo by Regan McStravic
39 – Frame by Sam Graydon • 41 - Photo by Dawndra Budd • 42 - Frame by Sam Graydon • 45 - Photo by Dan Carlson on Unsplash
47 - “Occupational portrait of a peddler” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-4161 • 49 - Photo by Regan McStravic
51 - Painting by Arthur Rachkam, Rip Van Winkle, 1919 • 53 - Painting by Elise Mesnard • 55 - Frame by Regan McStravic • 56 - Photo by Dawndra Budd
59 - ARthus Rackham, Irish fairy tales, 1920 • 62 - Photo by Sindre Aalberg on Unsplash • 65 - Photo by Đức Mạnh on Unsplash • 67 - Frame by Ben Dobyns
Photo by Louis Amal on Unsplash • 70/71 - Photo by Ben Dobyns • 72 - Photo by Sebastian Pociecha on Unsplash • 78 - Photo by Regan McStravic
81 - Illustration by Gustave Dóre • 83 - Photo by Dawndra Budd • 84 - Photo by Dawndra Budd

Special thanks to the photographers, artists, and illustrators who participate in open culture by contributing their works to the public domain,
as well as to the institutions that scan, photograph, and preserve out-of-copyright works for future generations, especially oldbookillustrations.com.

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Looked at as a series of delusions, magic is distasteful to the modern mind, which, once
satisfied of its practical futility, is apt to discard it as folly unworthy of further notice.
— EDWARD BURNETT TYLOR
“Magic,” The Encyclopedia Britannica, 1883

Don’t tell me magic isn’t real. I just ate a macaroon that was covered with Nutella.
— @VTB80
Twitter, April 2018

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 In memory of G. Valmont Thomas

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viii
 FOREWORD
By S. J. Tucker, June 2018

F or me, magic is both what you use to change your own piece of the world for the better and the results of those efforts, whether
they involve supporting yourself or helping others. However, magic isn’t always an overt, visible thing. It can be ephemeral or
emotional, as real when subtle as it is when blatant. Sometimes magic happens in a quiet conversation between friends. Sometimes
it happens in front of a microphone or bullhorn, or in the streets. Sometimes it begins when you’re all alone, creating art that you
don’t, at first, intend to share with anyone else. But, even very small and intensely personal creative acts can set change in motion.
I came to the Strowlers world through live performance, and then through songwriting and recording, all thanks to some amazing
friends who believe in what I do. My best buddies and I, in our scrappy and witchy little corner of a vast and varied worldwide
music scene, call ourselves Mythpunks—a term that we borrowed from author Catherynne M. Valente, who had, herself, borrowed
it from an RPG. My bunch believes in the power of stories, and in the value of telling old stories and fairy tales in new ways. In
public, our outsides invariably match our insides, and so we may seem offbeat (or suspicious, or just strange) to people who don’t
know us. However, from personal experience, we all know that when we don’t dance to our own tune, as corny as that may sound,
we get deeply uncomfortable. We’d rather live in the magic and the music than outside of them. Sometimes this makes others un-
comfortable, but at other times, it changes hearts and minds, and even stands a chance of making someone else’s day a little brighter.

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I try to approach my job as an entertainer with mindfulness of the emotions and needs of my audience, and with an awareness of
my responsibility as a performer. I do this, in part, because some of the people who see me perform or hear my work consider what
I do to be magic. So, every time that I perform in public, as I step up to a microphone to sing and play, I tell myself to remember
the magic. For some people, I am a healer. I am a priestess. I am a shape-shifter. I am a teacher. I know that I am worth their time,
because they have put both their imagination and their emotional well-being into my hands for the hour or two that we’re togeth-
er. So naturally, I want to give them at least a glimpse of something magical and wonderful, if and when I can. This is exactly what
the Strowlers world is about for me.

What makes the Strowlers world, as well as this approach to both stories and storytelling, unique is that my friends and colleagues
who are putting their own magic into building the Strowlers world want to invite you and me, and all of us, to do the same. This
world is open to everyone who has a creative heart. The sign on the gate says, “Please come and play! Show us who you are! Show
us what you can do!” And it’s not a trick. It’s genuine. These words that you’re looking at and this book that you’re reading are the
proof. Just as there is room here for the existing stories of the Strowlers world, and room for both my definition of magic and my
stories, there is room for your stories. The Strowlers team encourages us all to tap into and share our own stories, and our own hy-
perlocal experience of magic—the tiny sparks of the fantastic that wait to be discovered in our own family histories, varied cultures,
and cities or towns. And it’s time for us to tell these stories, because no one is going to tell them for us. And, honestly, would we
want them to?

If creating art or stories or music or costumery purely for yourself is what you need the most, I strongly believe you should do exactly
that. But, this community enjoys cheering others on as much as we enjoy hearing others cheering for us. Sharing our magic and
our stories, while they may be too big and bright for some people, can become part of what keeps other people going. So, take the
chance! It’s worth it.

We’re all storytellers, dreaming out loud to pass the time.

So get in here.

Show me what you can do.

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 INTRODUCTION

Tell your story.

Change the world.

W elcome to the Strowlerverse. Magic is real. Adventure lies just around the corner. And everyday heroes are about to set off
down a forgotten pathway into the dark forest, wherein they will be changed forever.

This is a sandbox: just remember to share with others!

This is a world: one that we’re creating together through the stories that we tell—from Seattle to West Cork to Ulaanbaatar to Mel-
bourne and beyond. And every story that we tell has consequences for reality.
This is an invitation: come and play!
Strowlers is a shared cinematic universe to which everyone is invited. Create fan fiction. Sell novels. Crowdfund and produce your
own movies. Make art. Sing songs. Design games. Construct killer steampunk robots. We believe that culture is created through
dialogue, and that your voice matters.
Strowlers isn’t locked behind traditional copyright restrictions. Instead, we all play by a set of simple, shared rules. Every work is re-
leased under our Strowlers Shared Cinematic Universe License & Agreement (page 71), allowing broad rights to remix, imagine
anew, and play. Do what you want with your creation, and then get excited about how others remix it into one big, collaborative
story.
We place only one small restriction on your imagination: If you want to create a work that is deemed “Canon”—that is, an official
part of the story—you’ll need approval from our story and worldbuilding team. They’ll help make sure that your brilliance fits into
the overall narrative. We’ll also ask you to help support the work of the Story Team through either an upfront contribution or a
small share of your profits. That way the team can grow organically with the world!
Basically, anyone is welcome at the table, as long as they’re not trying to flip the table over, set it on fire, or exclude others from
telling their stories. (Want more background? Research “the paradox of tolerance.”) What does this mean practically? Our license
doesn’t extend to works that are illegal. Beyond that, if you cast yourself as a villain don’t be surprised if the story treats you as one.
Why allow such broad rights? Because culture is about exchanging ideas. Stories grow richer when we retell them. And traditional
copyright has locked cultural dialogue behind a firewall for decades, leaving too many 20th-century works to molder and be for-
gotten.
What stories have been retold, over and over again, for the last eighty years? The ones in the public domain, like The Wizard of Oz,
Alice in Wonderland, Grimms’ fairy tales, the works of Shakespeare, and the Greek myths. We shouldn’t have to wait decades for
stories to become a part of our culture. Within the Strowlerverse, you don’t have to wait at all.

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That’s why this book exists: to empower you with the information that you need to tell stories, play games, and invent within the
Strowlerverse. Because it is a living world, the text of this book is also available and evolving on our wiki, where you are invited to
contribute!

This is the Season One World Bible. It represents the Strowlerverse as it exists when our story begins. Any stories that you tell
based on this volume will fall under the Season 1 heading, whether you’re writing in 2018 or 2038. At the end of each season, we
will introduce an event that changes the world. So, for example, a story that takes place after the Season 1 finale will be considered
part of Season 2, regardless of when you create it. And so on.
The Strowlers wiki will always contain the most up-to-date information, but this book and the Strowlers pilot include everything
that you need to become a Strowler yourself.
And what is a Strowler, anyway? Check out a few definitions on page 44. Or create your own. I believe that Strowlers are the people
whose imaginations are bigger than reality—and who possess the courage and passion to turn what they imagine into reality.
I am a Strowler. And if you’re still reading, you probably are one, too.
Tell your story.
Change the world.

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 ABOUT THIS BOOK

S trowlers is a worldwide collaborative story about everyday heroes in a magical world. And the one constant about stories is that
they change in their telling. Our perspective influences our reality.
So how do we know which voices to trust?
In this book, you’ll have to decide that for yourself. Maybe you’ll fall on the side of the arcanologists, the government-sanctioned
magic-users who keep society safe. Maybe you’ll side with the Strowlers, who believe that magic should be nurtured, not controlled.
Maybe you’ll think that the freedom/security debate is hopelessly marred by binary logic.
Regardless, the chapters below will introduce you to how various major and minor players view their reality. Expect contradictions.
Expect opinions presented as if they’re facts. And remember that, in the words of Josiah, “something doesn’t need to be real to be
true.”

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

This book is a guide to telling your own stories, and to making your own creations within the Strowlerverse. From film to the
written word, from tabletop roleplaying games to paintings and music, you are free to explore wherever your imagination takes you.
If you can’t find the answers to your questions within, feel free to search the collaborative world wiki (available at http://wiki.zom-
bieorpheus.com), to consult with the Story Team, or even to add your own answers. If we like them, we’ll make them Canon: an
official part of the world!

“MAGIC” AND A WORLDWIDE PERSPECTIVE

This book presents magic in a fictional setting, primarily through an American lens. Because Strowlers is a worldwide project with
collaborators from many traditions and cultures, however, what magic is and how it works can and should shift in meaning, de-
pending on the storyteller. The word “magic” itself contains its own interpretive lens, which may not translate accurately to and
from other languages and/or reflect how “magic” is experienced in other cultures. We also want to emphasize that, while the Strowl-
ers universe uses a fictionalized interpretation of magic, in many cultures, magic is not fiction. The appearance of magic in Strowlers
projects is not intended to make real-world claims about actual magical practices.
The way that you use the word “magic,” and what it means to you, adds to the richness and complexity of a pluralist, modern,
shared storytelling universe—one in which we are constantly engaged in a search for meaning, connection, and understanding. In
other words, the way that we create in the Strowlerverse is collaborative, not competitive, even when our fundamental definitions
and understandings appear to be contradictory. If the meanings associated with the word “magic” in this book don’t work for you,
change them!

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EVERYDAY HEROES

S trowlers stories take place in your own backyard, or in the alley behind your house, or through the blackberry bramble by the
hill, or maybe in that abandoned factory down the way, or in a decaying schoolyard, or while sitting on the bus next to a Focused
woman with unsettling eyes. They are personal and hyperlocal, and they feature people like you and me. They feature everyday
heroes.
Look around your town. What makes it unique? What makes it magical? What kinds of stories could happen only there? What’s
the town’s history? Or your family history? Whatever your answers, you can take them, twist them, and shape them via a warped
mirror to reflect a new perspective on what you’ve known and taken for granted for your entire life.
Are there local legends about Folk Under The Hill? Or a haunted house? Maybe a mysterious disappearance? Where does every-
body know not to go, although nobody dares name it?
Ask yourself how a fantasy creature that you want to feature might survive in our modern world. How will it hide from the scrutiny
of governments that will kill it on sight? How will it find sustenance? Will it prey on humans or seek out allies among them? From
dragons in the sewers to elf clans on the run, invisibility and deniability are often the keys to survival. But, everyone and everything
needs help eventually. Where will they seek it?
Maybe you’re writing about a child with Talent—one who is forced underground, or one who has been collared and is attending
a boarding school for arcanologists-in-training. Why not a story about a man whose sister was Focused, and who is desperately
trying to keep their family from falling apart? Is a local business-owner selling mysterious artifacts under the counter? How would
technology corporations that rely on arcanological drones spy on their rivals? Who’s demanding rights for the “Burned”? Who’s
threatening purges and calling them inhuman monsters?
Strowlers is designed to make creating your own stories as accessible as possible. You don’t need anything more than imagination
and an idea to come and play!

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STORYTELLING PRINCIPLES

W hile the Strowlerverse is designed for an infinite number of every kind of story, certain key principles ground all Canon
Strowlers works.

Strowlers stories are local.

Strowlers stories take place in a world already familiar to viewers. They are just around the corner in a creepy empty lot, in an under-
ground rave, or in that strange old man’s garden. They are in the back of a police cruiser, in an alley grown over with weeds that never
stay the same length, or through a doorway in a brick wall that didn’t exist a minute ago. They take place among communities on the
fringe—Gnostic mystery cults, acrobatics schools, fire-spinning collectives, burners, makers, gamers, indie journalists, nocturnal
urban gardeners, anarchist collectives, halfway houses for Somali immigrants, community advocacy groups, clusters of homeless
teenage punks, unlicensed poetry slams, genderqueer robotics meet-ups, darknet truther forums, or among your weird extended
family. Perhaps even among that clan of gnomes that fell through a twist in reality and into your basement.

Strowlers stories are personal.

These are tales of the fantastic told on a personal scale. Strowlers is about individual and community transformation during difficult
times. It asks how people survive when forces outside of their control—political, social, environmental, economic, and magical—
collide with their lives. What do you do when your world goes sideways?
A Strowler would answer that hope in hopeless situations comes from how we work together; from the ways that we care for, and
about, one another; and from using stories and the arts, with intention and imagination, to share our experiences, emotions, and
struggles. We can accomplish more together than we can separately, regardless of whether we’re funding an independent television
series or sending a terrified community representative to negotiate a truce with a local werewolf gang.

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Strowlers stories take place on the fringe of everyday life.
Strowlers tells the story of an authoritarian crackdown on society’s nonconformists. People living on the fringes are the most likely
to experience events outside the realm of “normal”—that arbitrary standard that has become, stealthily and steadily, ever more
deeply embedded in modern society. Those on the edges are also more likely to be persecuted by the state, if they dare to mention
these anomalous experiences.
Strowlers stories happen to the people who are the most willing to step outside of their expectations, and to acknowledge that the
impossible can happen, that the official story may not be true, or that their neighbor won’t receive any help unless they themselves
offer it. Such stories are about unusual connections—the unlikely alliance of a rideshare driver and a mysterious midnight passenger,
or a little girl and her imaginary friend who becomes real, or an itinerant storyteller and a laid-off paralegal. They’re about taking
that first step into a world where you will be transformed, and where you will travel into the dark woods and back again. They are
fairy tales, replete with wonder and horror.

Strowlers stories ask us to question our assumptions.

Not all fairy tales have happy endings. Not all witches are evil. Not all princes want to rescue a princess, and not all princesses want
to be rescued. Anyone could have an adventure waiting for them, if they dare to take it. And they’ll have a better chance of survival
if they play well with others, help strangers who cross their paths, and keep their promises.

Strowlers stories are a small part of a larger narrative.

While Strowlers stories are personal, they take place in a world that is dramatically changing, often for the worse. Over the course
of each season, events will occur that affect the entire world. How your creations react, and how these world events intersect with
their lives, will be up to you.

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CONFLICT
Conflict within Strowlers tales might assume any and all of the classic forms:
• Character vs. Character, in which the primary character struggles against other characters with competing views. These sorts of
conflicts can erupt between any characters whose needs and desires challenge, or conflict with, one another. Anytime a charac-
ter wants something that another character also wants, and/or does not want the other character to get or to have, this type of
conflict is involved.
• Character vs. Environment, in which the primary character struggles against their social and/or elemental surroundings. In social
terms, the primary conflict involves the Strowlers striving to live their lives, assert their freedoms, and enjoy their magic in a
world that’s terrified of, and/or hostile towards, them—a world in which the arcanologists (epitomized in the United States by
ARC: the Anomaly Response Corps) strive to contain their magic, and to direct—or possibly end—their lives.
• Character vs. Self, in which a character finds herself at odds with her own fears, beliefs, preconceptions, or identity, and possibly
with her physical, social, and/or psychological limitations. A character who’s terrified of his magical abilities, and who’s keeping
them secret from the rest of the world, is in conflict with himself.
Most stories involve a mixture of these conflicts. A protagonist who’s having problems with his boyfriend—due to his (completely
reasonable) fear that his boyfriend will report him to ARC if his secret magical abilities become obvious—is struggling with all three
conflicts at once.

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 A MAGICAL WORLD

Welcome to the woods, where all fairy tales take place—even those that don’t.
—BILL WALLINGHAM, Fables, The Deluxe Edition, Volume 1, 2009

MAGIC

I n the Strowlerverse, the laws of nature are the same as those in our own universe, with one glaring exception: almost everybody
believes that magic, in one form or another, is real. While modern arcanologists would argue that magic is nothing more than
another branch of the sciences—psychodynamics, as they call it—stories from the social and cultural fringe claim that arcanology
is a single facet of something bigger, weirder, and more apt to break or expand the physical laws of nature.
The official story, however, is that “magic,” as traditionally defined, does not exist, and that “magical beasts” are merely constructs
or illusions created by arcanological accidents.

Focusing and “Burning”

The development of modern arcanology began with England’s Royal Society in the 1700s, and was systemized formally during and
after World War II—a titanic global conflict in which a fusion of occult practices and scientific procedures allowed arcanologists to,
first, split subatomic bonds and, then, to create the weaponized psychodynamics that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
An arcanologist who channels pure psychodynamic energy, without specifically defining and determining where and how that ener-
gy should manifest at a molecular level, risks having her subconscious mind affect the overflow power. For example, a supernatural
being is nothing more than a physical projection of some subconscious inhibition or obsession. For this reason, arcanologists are
not allowed to practice their powers until they have been Focused: a process that theoretically separates their reason from both their
emotions and their physical urges, and so allows them to practice high-level arcanology without the risk of creating something that
a layperson would call a “monster” or a “magical creature.”
An unfortunate, but necessary, element of Focusing involves stripping away the subject’s emotional expression, resulting in a person
who has an aura of clinical, dispassionate, and often unnerving coldness. In certain subjects, especially those of a highly-emotional
nature, Focusing results in a sort of emotional, and often cognitive, lobotomy. The subject becomes hyper-focused on singular tasks,
but uninterested in anything or anyone else. Due to the radical changes in personality and relationships in which this procedure
results, it tends to be known unofficially as Burning.

The Source of Power

An arcanologist can manifest psychodynamic effects by using either of two key methodologies: transformation and manifestation.
The first, transformation, uses her connection to The Source—an unlimited supply of psychodynamic power—in order to exert
force on existing physical elements, from large-scale to the sub-atomic. For example, she might push a chair across a room or com-
bine elements present in the immediate environment at an atomic level to create a small explosion.

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The second, manifestation, draws raw power from The Source and
and creates, or manifests, new matter and/or energy. This second
method is far more dangerous, powerful, and difficult. An arcanol-
ogist trained in manifestation can create anything that he can imag-
S imilar to the Richter Scale, the power-rating of an arcanol-
ogist is determined from the logarithm of the amplitude of
waves of force pulsed by an arcanologist to a one-kilogram steel
ine—or worse, that his subconscious mind can imagine. cylinder that rests on a scale. An arcanologist who can consistent-
ly control the amplitude and amount of her force will achieve a
Discussing The Source is typically forbidden among low-level ar- higher rating than one who, for example, applies massive force
canologists. They are taught how to draw on it, but not how or why it erratically or minimal force with precision.
works. According to upper-tier psychodynamics theory—the study
Because of the logarithmic basis of the scale, each whole-num-
of which demands both a high security clearance and having under-
ber-increase in magnitude represents a tenfold-increase in mea-
gone the Focusing process—The Source is rooted in the psychic ener-
sured amplitude; in terms of energy, each whole-number-in-
gy that is generated by the human Id. As postulated by Freud (whose crease corresponds to an increase of about 15.3 times the amount
psychoanalysis methodologies provided the foundation of psychody- of energy released, and each increase of 0.2 corresponds to a dou-
namics studies), the Id is the primal, undisciplined, libidinous force bling of the energy released. [Wikipedia: Arcanology]
of human potential unfettered by reason or discipline. The Focus-
ing process directs the Ego and Super-Ego to tame and channel that An individual who creates power waves with magnitudes greater
than 4 is considered to have a power-rating worthy of arcanolog-
undisciplined force, directing the vast potential of psychic energies
ical training. Conversely, because power-ratings below 4 are also
toward more stable, rational, and socially-productive purposes.
below the level of human-detectable effects, individuals with
Certain unorthodox/heretical arcanologists (and the extremely rare those ratings are not typically considered to have Talent.
people who begin their work with arcanological theories and then The vast majority of arcanologists have ratings between 4.0 and
break away from the sanctioned arcanology organizations) posit that 5.8. Ratings higher than 6.0 are extremely rare. Anyone rated
The Source originates within the Collective Unconscious, as it was from 7.0 to 8.0 is registered as a valuable national security asset.
theorized by Freud’s student and rival Carl Jung. This explanation, 1 - No measurable ability (brain damaged)
they claim, reveals why the potential power of psychodynamics is far 2 - Minor sensitivity to psychodynamic effects (base-
greater than the energies contained within a single human mind—as line human)
well as why those energies typically manifest in symbolically-signif- 3 - Tiny ability to affect personal environment (lucky)
icant, elemental phenomena like winds, water, fire, forests, caverns, 4 - Can control and channel tiny amounts of power
strange entities, and so forth. On this view, then, Focusing would be from The Source
understood as the process by which a person’s link to the Collective 5 - Can achieve basic transformational effects on a
Unconscious is completely and permanently severed. Following the human-discernible scale
procedure, while the person could, at least in theory, still manifest 6 - Can learn and achieve complicated transforma-
her own strong, but now tightly-restricted and severely-limited, ener- tional effects on a molecular scale
gies, she could never again participate in, or have access to, either the 7 - Can achieve transformational effects on a subato-
mic scale; can manifest raw power from The Source
rich diversity of collective, human emotions or the power of com-
8+ - Not officially recognized; unofficially, appears to
bined human energies. break the laws of arcanology. More research needed,
Popular fiction and superstitious belief, on the other hand, assert preferably in secluded and secret government facili-
that The Source originates from any number of implausible scenar- ties.
ios—like aliens, mad science, or the heart of dying stars—and they Most unregistered “magic-users” disregard the power-rating
have even suggested that it’s a human-generated power drawn vam- chart entirely, preferring, instead, to hone their powers by using
pirically from recruits during Focusing, and stored in secret batteries. individually-unique, non-standardized methodologies that may
These stories, while popular in fiction and movies, are rarely given be idiosyncratically their own.
real-world credence. No serious scientist would risk her career by
claiming that popular conspiracy theories are true. 15
WHO HAS MAGIC?

I n the Strowlerverse, magic—generally referred to as Talent—is not hereditary. It can’t be bred for; it has no genetic basis; and
nobody can claim special access to its powers because of who their parents were.
(People have fought wars over every statement in the prior paragraph, but that doesn’t mean that their beliefs were correct, only that
people were willing to both kill and die for them.)
The truth is that everybody contains some measure of magical Talent. Most ability, however, falls below measurable thresholds. For
practical purposes, their Talent isn’t strong enough to matter.
For most of the 19th century, Talent manifested only in ways that were fairly small, and that were easily explained either by “strange
quirks of fate” or by cultural beliefs and practices that were dismissed by “rational men of science.”
In the early 1900s, however—possibly due to the radical increase in Western occultist practices, or to the psychic upheavals of the
Colonial Era and the Industrial Revolution, or to a metaphysical foreshadowing of the coming conflicts, or to the energetic currents
caused by centuries of imperial genocide and slavery, or, most likely, to a combination of them all—stronger Talents manifested
among a few proto-arcanologists. And every generation since has seen the number of people with Talent increase. However, because
they represent only a fraction of the wider population, people with a power rating of 4 or higher remain a tiny minority.
Demographers and census workers note that a slow-but-steady increase in the percentage of children with Talent has trended for the
last thirty or forty years. Yet, because no connection has ever been drawn between Talent and specific genetic markers, some people
have begun to quietly speculate that being around adults practicing psychodynamics is the primary trigger for a child’s own latent
abilities. Nonetheless, during these same years, some of the strongest individual Talents were manifested by children who were
raised near misty hills and forgotten forests, rather than closer to population centers. So, no one has an official answer to the ques-
tion of whether coincidence or causation is at the core of the relationship between Talent and exposure to psychodynamic power.
Even the theory itself, however—that exposure to arcanology increases its emergence in local populations—is politically fraught.
Most governments do not want to believe, or to be faced with the accusation, that their troops in the war against unlicensed arcanol-
ogy, by their mere presence alone, actually increase both the likelihood and the threat of flare-ups.

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 THE ALTERNATE NOW

The Dark Wood spills out before us, its shadows thrown by cathode tubes and LEDs.
—SATYROS PHIL BRUCATO, Deliria: Fairie Tales for a New Millenium, 2003

T he Strowlerverse takes place in an alternate Now. The same historical events occurred there that took place in our reality, and
often involved the same people, but for warped-mirror reasons. For example, in the Strowlerverse, the bombs dropped to end
World War II were literally arcanologists who drew on The Source as they jumped from the airplane, breaking the subatomic bonds
within their own bodies, and self-immolating in a psychodynamic chain reaction that destroyed cities and left haunt-ridden waste-
lands behind. As the explosion consumed everything in its path, the horror-filled last seconds of those with Talent manifested as
“monsters” that took years to eradicate—and that still, in the form of monstrous beings popularized in kaiju media and other horror
stories, haunt the popular imagination today.
The same parallel logic can be applied to adapt most major world events to the Strowlerverse: The players and outcomes were most-
ly the same as they were in our history, but within a world where magic is as dangerous, and as highly-regulated, as nuclear power.
So, as you prepare to write your own Strowlers stories, think about how historical events might have played out, and how their out-
comes, consequences, and influences might have been different, both globally and in your own backyard. You have an entire world
with which to play, and we encourage you​to write and adapt from what you already know.
Generally, demographics, population distribution, urban centers, and nation states mirror those in our own world. Australia, for
example, occupies the same place on the maps, elects the same politicians, and sends the same child refugees to prison camps on
isolated islands. But perhaps their human-rights abuses in the Strowlerverse are the direct result of their need to test everyone who
arrives on their continent for powers. Or perhaps this scenario is nothing more than an excuse that provides them with plausible
deniability of, or maybe even justification for, these abuses. The choice is yours. Stories can go wherever your imagination and
background take them.
The Strowlerverse is our world, with minor differences. For example, your phone stays charged for a week, because you leased the
model that an arcanological drone imbued with power from The Source. The climate is doing a little bit better, although large-scale,
arcanological, energy projects don’t get approved very often—or, at least they haven’t since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. But
the small extra boost to renewables provided by the existence of arcanology has resulted in less environmental devastation.
Magic and its effects are not limited to traditional fairy tale settings. While psychodynamic phenomena may be encountered any-
where, they’re more likely to manifest around large population centers, especially ones in which large numbers of arcanologists
already practice.
Besides the official government story, of course, folk wisdom and the word on the street have created alternate mythologies. Al-
though never confirmed, for example, stories flourish about creatures who exist in the cracks at the edges of human perception,
whether they’ve adapted to life in the city or have sought out more traditional haunts in the wilderness. Ask around a bit, and that
homeless guy on the corner will tell you about the time that pixies stole his tent; the punks skateboarding in the alley will swear

19
that a vampire has been preying on them; and a grizzled cowpoke might insist that the Fairy Folk demand tiny gifts in exchange for
keeping his herd safe during grazing season. And sure, they could all report to ARC, but if they do, ARC is going to look closely
for unregistered Talents among their community. The fearful middle class may welcome that kind of scrutiny, but when you live on
the street or have to rely on your wits and relationships to keep you alive, you don’t call the people who have the authority to arrest
and collar you, throw you into a government camp, and ultimately burn everything good and real out of you. You just deal with the
damn pixies yourself.

RACES

O fficially, humans are the only sentient race on the planet, and they became human through the natural process of evolution.
However, every school child has heard legends of a time when magical creatures walked the world: in Greek myths, German
fairy tales, Arabic epics, Indian sutras, and all throughout the world, there are stories of a legendary, magical past. A past that may
be far closer to our reality than we believe...
Western historians split into two major camps regarding the question of non-human sentient life. The first suggests that all his-
torical stories of magic and mythological creatures originated in untrained individuals with Talent, who drew on The Source and
accidentally manifested their own subconscious fears. As humanity grew up, however, Talented individuals learned how to control
these powers, and manifestations ended on a broad scale with the adoption of the scientific method, and with control mechanisms
for people with Talent, whether through collaring them, burning them, or killing them.
The second camp suggests that magical and mythological creatures were all real, but, as civilization pushed them out, they retreated
to the far corners of the earth, and then disappeared entirely during 19th-century colonization and empire-building.
Nowadays, while some people continue to claim that they’ve encountered genuine supernatural creatures, well-funded public edu-
cation campaigns have trained the public to see non-humans as psychodynamic manifestations and to report them to government
officials for containment and disposal.
In the United States, the Anomaly Response Corps (ARC) manages these duties. Essentially, these brave reality cops are the
“witch-hunters” and “dragon-slayers” of the Strowlers world. ARC agents contain rogue manifestations, protect innocent lives, re-
move dangerous people from the public sphere, and get them the training and Focusing that they need in order to return to society
without putting themselves and the people around them at risk.
Some “monsters” attempt to mislead ARC agents, claiming that they are real, sentient, and deserve legal rights. These renegades
are eliminated quickly, before their lies corrupt or confuse the officers who are risking their lives to protect the civilian population.
ARC not only tracks down and neutralizes “monsters,” but it also seeks out and apprehends the individuals or groups who allowed
such creatures to become hazards in the first place: typically either children first manifesting Talent or adults who attempted to
keep their Talent a secret, but who eventually lost control. These individuals are taken for mandatory collaring and training as
arcanologists for the safety of society. Most are eventually Focused, whereupon they go to work for the benefit of society at a level
befitting their power-rating.

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JUSTICE

T he Strowlerverse is just as backwards, regressive, and systematically-oppressive as is our real world. If an injustice exists here,
it exists there, as well—although perhaps there, injustices are affected by magic's warped mirror. The Strowlerverse has not
evolved beyond racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, or any of the other systematic exclusions that humans use to classify their
enemies as the “other,” as sub-human, or as a danger to society.
Similarly, in the Strowlerverse, as in our world, the arc of the moral universe proceeds inexorably—although infinitesimally, at
times—towards justice, led by the visionaries who abhor pain, suffering, inequality, and injustice, and who demand that society
direct its energies towards the good for all.

TECHNOLOGY

W ith a few key exceptions, in outward appearance technology in the modern Strowlerverse is indistinguishable in both form
and function from technology in our world. The engineering may differ, especially when technology has been crafted using
arcanology or is powered by the “magic blue smoke” that’s manifested and injected by Level-4 arcanologists on a factory assembly
line. (In order to keep media productions accessible, and production budgets manageable, assume that the same brands, functions,
and industries exist as do in our own world.)
When it comes to arcanology itself, however, the technology that exists outside of the public eye may include anything that you can
imagine, from robots that manufacture inhibition collars to psychodynamic testing rooms to half-conscious, hybrid devices that are
the products of science infused with magic.
Similarly, history is full of unusual and exciting opportunities: early arcanologists could well have used psychodynamic energies to
power steampunk monstrosities, airships, and seance machines!

HOW MAINSTREAM SOCIETY TREATS MAGIC

S ociety reacts to magic in the Strowlerverse exactly the same way that it does in our own world: most people in the Western in-
dustrialized world deny that it exists. The notion that magic could be real is ludicrous to anyone with a rudimentary scientific
education. Arcanology is science, not some silly, mythological, magic-stuff.
Of course, just as in our world, you’ll find people outside of the mainstream with very different beliefs.
Similarly, a limited degree of magical practice is sometimes acceptable to people with a cultural heritage of magic and spiritual
power. An Appalachian witch may brew up viable potions, and a Hindu yogi may employ siddhi to levitate or slip through a wall.
Neither person, though, is likely to be throwing lightning bolts around without garnering a lot of hostile attention, and neither is
likely to attract the attention of the authorities.
Just as in our universe, some religions view anything magical as the hand of Satan in the world, marking magic-users as the enemy’s
troops in an endless supernatural war. People from those creeds, then, are just as likely to view arcanology as a tool of Satan as they
are to call it a gift from God. Science (and magic) are held subservient to their spiritual reality. For example, some Christian denom-
inational sects would have moved past saying “magic is the devil” as their doctrine was modernized.

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But look back into history, and beneath the surface you’ll find inquisitions, witch-burnings, cults, and both fear and demonization
of the magical and supernatural. Many non-denominational Christian organizations are still fighting these battles, as are some
Christian denominational sects, although rarely on the scale, or as openly, or to the degree that they once did.
Secret societies have engaged with “magic” for centuries: Osiris cults, Freemasons, Knights Templar, and on and on. Perhaps some
of these societies actually tapped into something real. Perhaps they did so in our world, as well. What do you believe? Draw on the
tensions inherent in questions such as these to construct compelling stories!
Governments react to magic based on factors as complicated as those in our world. For example, in 20th-century Mongolia, the
Soviet Union worked hard to demonize and stamp out traditional shamanic magic. In centuries prior, Buddhists did the same thing,
killing shamans in great numbers. In the modern day, however, shamans have begun to bring their practices and rituals back into the
mainstream. Even so, fear and distrust among the populace continue. In fact, for the shamans who worked with our team to create a
short Strowlers film, the project was simultaneously a fantasy film and an exercise in cultural biography. The film reflects their lived
experience of efforts by the Soviet government to stamp out everything about their faith and their magic. Likewise, it shows how
new generations struggle when the ancestor spirits unexpectedly demand attention.
It’s worth noting that even in societies where magic is an accepted part of cultural beliefs, people who display magical Talent and
behave in overtly-magical ways tend to be hunted down by the people who do not. A local wise woman might be consulted by
her neighbors when they need her, but find herself dragged to death behind a car if they become suspicious of her intentions or
activities. All around the world, people fear what they cannot control. Those with no discernible Talent may turn, with little or no
warning, against people who display it.
For your own stories, look at the real-world government of the place where your story is set. How does it treat magic? Science?
Indigenous cultures? Counter-cultural prophets? Drug users? Comedians? Fiction? As long as you remember that most countries
in the Strowlerverse will be run by modern, scientifically-educated politicians, you can anticipate how their governments would
respond to children who manifest Talent, people who try to hide their abilities, and stories that undermine the official narrative.
Real magic will most often be found on the fringes and will bear scant resemblance to appropriated and commercialized narratives.
Folk tales, urban legends, fairy tales, Internet hoaxes, alien sightings, and ghost stories are all potential entry points for Strowlers to
sit down around the campfire and spin a magical yarn that might or might not be true.
In the United States and similar countries, people who feel safest when conforming to the mainstream culture won’t have much use
for magic. But they might have a lot to say about arcanology. Because any child can manifest arcanological Talent, every family will
have a personal story to tell, at least about a friend of a friend whose child was collared, sent off for special training, and eventually
Focused. And any city with a healthy tech industry will have a relationship with the Focused. Although they are technically gov-
ernment employees—think of manifesting Talent as an instant draft selection—Focused individuals with low-level arcanological
Talent are often loaned out by the government to private corporations. Bereft of emotion and facial affect, they commute by the
busload to software companies, manufacturers, and any kind of corporation where a drone-like focus on repetitive tasks benefits
their employer’s bottom line.
The Focused frequently experience discrimination, and they are both feared and misunderstood—and they experience all of these
things, at least for the most part, because they don’t respond to emotional or social cues in ways that the mainstream can understand.
The Focused, who were full of life and energy pre-Focusing, will just stare blankly if you ask how they feel. They’re cheap to house,

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cheap to hire, and reliable workers. Most families eventually stop trying to maintain relationships with relatives who were Focused.
The transition is awkward and often painful, but, of course, it’s better than watching them destroy themselves with uncontrolled
magic. No parent wants to be killed by a “monster” that a child summons in a fit of passion. Because of these factors, Focused indi-
viduals often end up segregated from the rest of the society, sometimes even living in shoebox apartments on the campuses of their
corporations. News stories about Focused individuals found beaten in alleys are all too common. Most of the time, they don’t even
bother to fight back.
Naturally, there are activists who protest against people being collared, trained, Focused, and then used as (in their words) slave
labor. But most of society would rather be safe than let unfocused Talent roam free. Then, too, terror attacks by pro-freedom groups
often harm their cause among the fearful public, due to the wild and unpredictable effects of untrained Talent acting and reacting
in anger or in fear. It only takes one encounter with a poorly-managed or out-of-control Manifestation to convince even the most
sympathetic liberals that they never again want to experience that kind of reality-threatening danger. At least these Manifestations
are merely the result of, and limited to, the subconscious horrors that humans carry in their collective psyche. If these monsters were
real, society would likely dissolve into panic, fear, and mobs of witch-hunters. The system works. Better not to mess with it.
In a world where terrorism is an ever-present threat, where the media preaches fear every night, and where politicians exploit both
to win and to wield power, a strong police force like the ARC is viewed as a social benefit. And if some people feel otherwise, they
probably don’t express it too loudly—at least not since 9/11.
Liberal or conservative, the War on Terror continues, even if the “Terror” in question is a frightened child who doesn’t understand
that his imagination set fire to his neighbor’s house.

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 WORLD HISTORY
As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into histo-
ry can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history
itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claw.
— ELIZABETH KOSTOVA, The Historian, 2005

ANTIQUITY

W ritten history appears to begin with the Sumerians, and with their records of debts owed and taxes collected. Before then,
pictographs on cave walls feature strange creatures and a world suffused with magic and wonder. From the earliest records
onward, we find written and pictorial evidence of gods, monsters, supernatural helpers, and nature spirits. Every civilization that
rises and falls worships, fears, works with, or tries to eliminate, the non-human. But none deny its existence.
The history of the Strowlerverse is our own history. Greek heroes battle witches, sea monsters, and enchanted bulls as they try to
survive the attention of their gods. Empires battle for dominance, bringing their gods with them, and destroying the temples of
conquered deities. Whether we are discussing Odysseus tricking a cyclops, or Enkidu offending the gods, or Daniel surviving the
fire, or Monkey on his journey to the West, we are talking about stories…and stories emerge from truth. And what we believe doesn’t
need to be real to be true.
Every culture has its stories and legends, and rarely do they draw a firm line between “reality” and “fantasy.” The two are inextricably
mixed, from the earliest oral narratives until the appearance of modern-style, materialist rationalism: a very, very new concept in
terms of human history—one that was never universal and probably never will be.
Of course, it’s human nature to question information that threatens the stories that we believe. It’s easy to suggest, for example, that
Xenophon made up his more outlandish adventures, especially if you’re trying to rule an unruly kingdom. Empire will always try
to control the official narrative, even if that means sending a Roman legion out to defeat a Germanic dragon that shouldn’t exist.
Conflict between royal realities and folk tales is common. It’s also political. While epics generally tell stories that uphold both the
power structures in place at the time and the rightful dominion of the upper classes, fairy tales subvert those same structures. Both
kinds of stories may be based on truth, but Strowlers stories are all about everyday heroes. Whatever historical or mythological
period interests you, look for the stories that resist oppression. Like the rabbinic parables that slyly undermined the authority of the
Roman Empire, and the stories in which trickster Raven spirits sought to steal the sun from a chief ’s longhouse, the Strowlers stories
that we’re looking for are the tales told around the fire and hearth, after the overseer has gone to sleep.
Belief in a story is more important than whether or not it actually happened, because belief shapes behavior.

THE WORLD EVOLVES

H istory in the Strowlerverse begins to diverge from our own during several key eras. In western Europe, the Catholic Inquisitions,
the Protestant Reformation, and the resulting Counter-Reformation touched off a series of religious wars and witch-hunt hys-
terias that—especially when combined with a number of titanic plagues—wiped out large portions of Europe’s populations before
rationalism took hold in the early 1700s. This “Enlightenment” appears to have triggered a large-scale rejection of fantastic beliefs.

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In the 700s in the Middle East, the spread of Islam and a taboo against representational images pushed back both the magical and
the mythological. China’s relationship with the supernatural ebbed and flowed with the priorities of its successive dynasties. Many
cultures, however, from nomadic tribes to vast empires, preserved their stories of, and belief in, supernatural beings and magics to
the present day.
As the seeds of the Scientific Revolution were planted, first in the Arabic academic world and then in pre-Renaissance Italy, as
modern empires pushed the blank areas of maps further from civilization, as pantheistic religions were overtaken by monotheistic
ones that featured distant, unknowable gods, and as industrialized cultures crushed their rivals beneath tides of guns, germs and
steel, overt magic retreated from public view. Those who practiced magical arts were shamed, discredited, hunted, converted, and
often killed.
But it took one massive event to sound the death-knell for traditional magic: the largest explosion in human history.
Most Strowlerverse historians place the beginning of the modern era—and the end of “magical thinking”—around the eruption of
Mount Tambora in 1815.
It was the worst volcanic eruption in recorded history, with a blast heard over two-thousand miles away. Responsible for 1816 being
termed the global “year without a summer,” the aerosols that Tambora blasted into the atmosphere had an extraordinary effect on
human civilization. The darkened skies inspired the works of Lord Byron and Mary Shelley; land speculation in America led to that
country’s first real estate bubble; the Arctic melted enough to inspire the search for the Northwest Passage; cholera spread around
the globe; and so many horses died that Baron Karl von Drais invented the first bicycle in protest.
For several years of famine, darkened skies, and military and economic conflict, survival took precedence over all else. And after-
wards, few questioned the near total disappearance of magical creatures and powers from the world—as magic's influence had
already waned from daily encounters to half-forgotten fairy tales—except for the magic-users.
Just as every culture has their stories of a Great Flood, after Tambora so did stories of magic’s death make their way across the globe,
from shamans to hedge witches to alchemists to occult researchers. Their power dropped precipitously and then was gone...and
none knew why. For those who still believed, magic became an oral tradition, rather than an active practice. Few genuine practi-
cioners managed to preserve its practical application beyond a single generation.
However, even as magic powers waned and disappeared—and despite the growing power of industrial production and mass-pro-
duced rationalist “education”—mystical beliefs and practices prospered and multiplied. Often referred to as “the occult under-
ground,” secret societies merged ancient traditions with cultural fusions or preserved ancient practices intact behind a facade of “ra-
tional” behavior. Throughout the 1800s, a growing network of magical societies crisscrossed the world, bringing Indian yogis to the
United States, and Russian socialites to the temples of Tibet. Even when counting the disreputable artists and renegade libertines
who formed the backbone of the evolving Strowler cultures, however, genuine magical pursuits were known only to the initiated
few. Actual Talent was rare and subtle, with overt magic more talked-about than seen or experienced.
As the Victorian and Edwardian eras gave way to the carnage of World War I, this occultism assumed a higher profile by way of
the Spiritualism and Theosophical movements, American Christian Fundamentalism, and European Neopaganism. Still, despite
the appearance of popular Tarot cards and the seances intended to unite dead souls with living loved ones, “magic” remained a bad
word—quaint superstition, perhaps, but nothing that truly “modern” people spoke of openly.

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THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

T o the modern mindset in 1900, magic lay dormant, disregarded as a trick practiced primarily by the frauds and charlatans who
had commercialized outdated old stories. However, scientists seeking a systematic and methodologically-rigorous framework
that would allow them to understand minor psychodynamic effects slowly began to coax modern arcanology into existence. Draw-
ing on what they called “The Source”, they began to develop a set of functional arcanological theories and technologies.
World War I dramatically changed the science’s trajectory. Ordered to the trenches by governments desperate to gain an edge against
their enemies, the first arcanologists let loose horrors. Unconstrained by repression collars and mentally unfocused, the nightmares
of modern warfare channeled through their minds, and were transmuted by their dreams into uncontrolled and monstrous beings
who stalked the chemical fog in search of victims, with no regard for factions or sides. The monsters of war merely feasted. Pistons
and steam, flesh-eating gasses, machine guns, and fiery cluster bombs were all nightmare-fuel made flesh.
By the end of the “War to End All Wars,” Europe was exhausted, Northern Africa was partitioned, and the survivors demanded im-
mediate respite from arcanologists and their horrors. Humbled by their uncontrolled excesses, arcanologists returned to the control
procedures developed by the Royal Society, and modernized them. The massive technological leaps made during the war, combined
with the science that was developing and growing around Freud’s psychoanalysis, became the foundation of the Focusing process.
For logically, if nightmares caused the greatest problems, it was past time to eliminate them from people with power.
Ironically, while psychotherapists unlocked the secrets of the subconscious mind, and Dadaism evolved into Surrealism, the ar-
canologists now sought to unfetter the brain from its human frailty. Experimenting on the mentally ill and criminally insane, they
systematically lobotomized patients in search of the keys to emotional and sexual urges. The breakthrough finally arrived when a
particularly well-controlled arcanologist and physician was able to channel his own power through electrodes during a crude elec-
troshock treatment, editing his subject’s brain in real time. According to his published papers, he believed that he had succeeded in
disconnecting the rational mind from its base emotions and sexual distractions.
Ten years later, several hundred arcanologists had been Focused, just in time for World War II. Contrasted with the counter-ra-
tionalist mythic occultism favored by the Third Reich, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan—an occultism which inspired malevolent
technologies and breathtaking atrocity—the Allied arcanologists assumed a stance of moral, as well as rational, superiority. The fact
that their own technologies also bred atrocities didn’t appear to shake that stance at all.
By the end of the war, arcanologists—funded by the Allied governments—had broken the atom, unlocked the techniques necessary
to reliably Focus any individual with talent, and created the first functional suppression collars. Initially used to suppress the Talent
of captured German and Japanese arcanologists, these scientists quickly realized that modified forms of the collars could help chil-
dren control and manage their abilities during their education. And they were just in time.
After the war, Talent exploded in new generations. Even though these Talented individuals represented a tiny percentage of the
population, the U.S. Congress nonetheless felt threatened by tens of thousands of people with newly-classified Talent. In the Unit-
ed States, where arcanologists from around the world had participated in a secret program called the Manhattan Project, an equally
secret congressional committee voted unanimously to create and fund new agencies that were meant to control and regulate these
powers for the safety of the American people. These agencies eventually evolved into the modern Department of Arcanology.
At the same time, from the 1940s onward, a covert alliance of secular corporate interests and Christian fundamentalists established

32
a pact to override scientific materialism with a movement toward religious capitalism. Sanctioned technology, created and man-
aged by a reliable establishment, could be counted on to provide prosperity with a solid moral foundation. Malcontents rebelling
against this system, then, would be setting themselves against God, Country, and Progress itself—and so, for the good of the nation,
they would be either converted and Focused or crushed.
Other countries were fast to catch up and, as the secrets of arcanology spread around the world, magical non-proliferation became a
major international issue. Any individual who could destroy a city if she lost self-control didn’t get to choose her fate: she was both
a national security threat and a national security asset, and so she could either give her obedience to her country or be imprisoned.

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 ARCANOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES
every country in our world also exists in the Strowlerverse. The Strowlers Story Team encourages you
to explore and invent your nation’s alternative history!
There are many ways to commercially manipulate standard forms of supernatural belief in the
interest of marketing and selling merchandise, even to the point of commoditizing magic itself.
—LINDA DÉGH, American Folklore and the Mass Media, 1994

W hether in our reality or in the Strowlerverse, there’s always more than one story. Is the United States a shining city on the
hill, a beacon of freedom for peoples around the world? Or is it a corrupt superpower responsible for enacting a policy of
genocide against native populations, the willing beneficiary of oppressions built on a legacy of four-hundred years of enslavement
and torture, and the enabler of corporate-mandated austerity? Characters within the world will hold very different and often in-
compatible perspectives on almost every issue. Which political party is evil incarnate, and which represents “The One True Hope”
to save a perpetually sinking ship? Who is to blame for the problems in their lives? Which is more important, freedom or security?
Is the official narrative reliable or a massive coverup?
These tensions can and should inform stories in the Strowlerverse. Heroes and villains are more likely to emerge from the shades-
of-gray choices made by individuals than they are from a simple story about brave Strowlers resisting an evil arcanological empire.
Regardless of their affiliation, most people believe that they are acting in the service of a good cause, be it surviving paycheck-to-pay-
check, rescuing a child from ARC agents, or protecting a neighborhood from psychodynamic horrors. True evil can emerge from
any faction, seducing people to its narrative by appealing both to people’s hopes and to their fears.
Nevertheless, certain facts about the United States in the Strowlerverse are generally accepted as true by most of the population.
National borders face increased scrutiny. The Border Patrol extends its presence inside the borders as well, stopping people at
random checkpoints to confirm their citizenship. Undocumented immigrants form the backbone of modern food production,
and yet risk both violence and deportation from the same forces who benefit from their cheap labor. Legal immigration is difficult
and takes many years. An immigrant with Talent, regardless of their legal status or citizenship, will be collared just like anyone else
who manifests powers, although some countries maintain arcanological extradition treaties with the U.S. that require citizens who
manifest abroad to be shipped home. Nations are protective of their resources!
More generally, race and class have a strong effect on how children with Talent are taken and trained. The less power a population
holds, the less restraint ARC will exercise when taking them.
Theoretically, all individuals with Talent receive an equal opportunity to excel in their academic careers after they’ve been taken
and collared. In practice, however, wealth and connections bias the entire system. Exclusive private schools teach the principles of
arcanology to their students, preparing children for when they might manifest Talent, testing them regularly, and helping ease any
children who do manifest into the upper echelons of the training system run by the Department of Arcanology. The public schools
don’t have that kind of time or funding, especially those that aren’t subsidized by property taxes in rich neighborhoods. A poor
child who manifests his Talent will enter the DOA education system with significant disadvantages, and to catch up academically
he must work far harder than his peers, assuming that he even manages to test into a good school to begin with.

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 Unfortunately, race and gender also play roles in how ARC neu-
tralizes and collars children who manifest. For example, mul-
tiple studies have shown that physicians often subconsciously
disregard pain reported by women and people of color. A police
T he First Nations and indigenous populations who original-
ly settled North America face unique risks and challenges.
First devastated by disease, genocide, and displacement, then
officer, similarly, may consciously believe that she serves all peo- exoticized by popular media while being forced to attend gov-
ple equally, but may still suffer from an unconscious bias that ernment schools intended to destroy their culture and lan-
escalates her encounters with people of color towards violence. guage, subjected to unfair and frequently broken treaties, and
And some people who hold institutional power are simply, and crammed into tiny, underfunded reservations, they were also a
even unabashedly, racist or sexist. ARC agents are as susceptible particular target for arcanologists.
to both personal and institutional fears and biases as is anyone
Viewed as cultures that often continued to practice what out-
else. Yet, the combination of these fears and biases with racist
siders would sometimes call “native magic”—and regardless
and/or sexist attitudes, and/or with the influence of both his-
of the veracity of those outsider claims—throughout the 20th
torical and media narratives that portray people of color as more
century, their reservations were frequently swept by govern-
“magical” than caucasians, and women as more “emotional” than
ment arcanologists, who sought out and incarcerated both
men, places some children at significantly increased danger
adults and children with Talent. Institutionally racist in their
when they manifest.
perspective, ARC viewed native peoples as simultaneously less
Arcanology’s dirty secret is that Talent alone isn’t enough to civilized and more inherently magical than whites.
guarantee success. When the system determines that an individ-
The combination of these biases, prejudices, and preconcep-
ual has reached the limit of their education, they are Focused
tions with the actions that they motivated had a particularly
at that level, with no future opportunity for growth. A basic
pernicious, destructive, and long-lasting effect on all of the
arcanological education qualifies a child only for basic Focus-
tribes and nations. For, when a large percentage of children are
ing when they graduate. These people become the drones most
taken from a smaller population that lacks legal recourse—and
commonly associated with the Focused, or “Burned,” as they’re
when the the dominant culture holds racially-biased fears and
called colloquially: the placid, affect-free workers who perform
beliefs—the resulting social impact is devastating. While some
menial and repetitive tasks, typically for private industry. A stu-
tribes and nations have recently won symbolic apologies for
dent who moves on to an undergraduate degree will get Focused
crimes committed against them, many native traditions and be-
at a higher level, with more interesting opportunities available to
liefs remain lost or driven deep underground. New generations
them. Students who earn Masters degrees or PhDs, or who go on
seeking cultural revitalization face extraordinary challenges
to postdoctoral studies, all have commensurately better chances
reconnecting with their histories, traditions, languages, and
for advancement when they are Focused. Some individuals, in
stories.
fact, remain collared and unfocused for their entire lives, as they
shift into careers teaching other students. The DOA has deter- While some creators may wish to tell Strowlers stories about
mined that educators who retain emotional acuity and empathy these peoples, we strongly encourage non-indigenous authors
are an important component of an effective education system, to cede the telling of these stories to First Nations authors.
thus allowing a small percentage of collared individuals to retain Whoever you are and wherever you’re from, you have a story
their emotions and other urges. The bottom line, however, is to tell, and we ask that you tell your story, not someone else’s.
that the children who enter the system with the best educational If you feel strongly about telling stories from a cultural point of
and social backgrounds generally become the ones who emerge view that isn’t yours, use your energies to listen to and support
from it into positions of power, with the freedom to shape both storytellers from within those communities.
the program and its priorities for the next generation. Yet, they

37
are often unaware of the systemic biases that afforded them extra advantages, and so they are unable to understand why others are
complaining about unequal treatment.
One other major factor in shaping an education system that many have called unjust is the collar. A technological marvel developed
in the 20th century, the collar is arcanology’s greatest tool when it comes to managing unfocused Talent.
Collars range from brute-force solutions for immediate field
containment to custom-crafted works of art that are finely
tuned to an individual’s powers. The better the collar, the
less it interferes with natural intelligence, drive, and passion,
whereas a field-licensed collar can knock a child uncon-
scious and potentially cause permanent brain damage. Cus-
tom-built collars are an extraordinary expense that wealthy
families are far more likely than others to be able to afford.
After all, a high-level arcanologist in the family is a political
asset, even if she makes Thanksgiving dinner immensely un-
comfortable.
The DOA has struggled for years to manage the strongest
young talents. When a child’s power-rating is off the charts,
her training requires specialized resources: specialized facil-
ities far from civilization, ultra-high-level arcanologists, and
dedicated failsafes should containment fail. No more than a
half-dozen children per year can enter that secret program,
with preference given to children with cooperative attitudes
and with families that are willing to subsidize the exorbitant
cost. To their regret, and in violation of numerous laws, the
DOA has been forced by budget limitations to send any
additional children with such power-ratings straight to Fo-
cusing. These children lack even the rudimentary training
required to rewrite their own brains, as recruits must do
during the Focusing procedure, and so they typically emerge
from the procedure in a permanent vegetative state. Lobot-
omizing children makes for bad public relations and angry
congressional inquiries, however, so this practice remains
one of the DOA’s dirty little secrets. Prematurely Focused
children disappear into the system, leaving behind frustrated
parents, who receive nothing but excuses in response to their
inquiries regarding the status of their children. Many turn to
message boards full of conspiracy theories, which are some-
times closer to the truth than the DOA would like to admit.

38
When a recruit has qualified for Focusing, the procedure itself is difficult, painful, and dangerous. The operating room is centered
on a restraining chair and a massive headset. The recruit sits; her collar is removed; an arcanologist, who must have a stronger power
rating than the recruit, contains the sudden outburst of uncontrolled energy; and a strong electric current is directed through her
brain. Despite the intense pain, the recruit must use her training to focus the flow of energy inside her own head, so that it burns the
connections between her mind, her emotions, and her libido. It is the moment that defines the rest of her life. The more effectively
she edits her own brain, the more power she will be able to access after the procedure. Hearing that she had failed to achieve her
desired goal, and so was destined to be sent to loan-outs, would be devastating—if she had any emotions left.
Loan-outs have become an integral component of the DOA’s methodology. Corporations pay the government huge sums in order
to access arcanological Talent, from top-level Adepts to the more common drones. These subsidies have allowed the Arcanology
Response Corps (ARC) to purchase improved weapons, the Arcanological Education Department (AED) to build bigger schools,
and PR specialists within the DOA itself to improve public relations. While all Focused individuals are considered government
employees, bonuses are sometimes offered directly to Focused individuals who excel in private industry. The Focused are poor con-
sumers, however, and as those bonuses rarely lead to public spending and economic benefit, they have fallen out of favor.

39
One particular category of arcanologist is never loaned out: sociopaths, who have become integral to public relations for the DOA.
Individuals who did not possess neurotypical human empathy or emotions prior to burning—but who could convincingly mimic
those emotions as an affect or tool—often retain the ability to pass as emotionally-intact people post-Focusing. They become the
friendly faces of arcanology. These arcanologists are often employed as press liaisons, media personalities, and recruitment officers.
If you meet a friendly arcanologist who appears to recognize and relate to your emotions, you’ve encountered one of the DOA’s
specially-trained sociopaths.
Public relations have proved crucial to managing the role of the
Focused within American society. As much good as they do for
society at large, in person, the Focused still feel creepy as hell
W hile the internal DOA debate about their reliability
never ends, one key factor assuages most concerns
about sociopaths: the Focusing process in the United States
to most civilians. Advocates for outlawing the Focusing pro- also induces unbreakable national loyalty in all Focused ar-
cess insist that it destroys an essential part of people’s human- canologists.
ity. When questioned directly, however, the Focused counter
that they have become more perfect, which many people also AFocused arcanologist cannot betray her country. Although
find threatening or offensive. Yet, several factors that work in induced loyalty is controversial in some smaller and more
favor of the Focusing process continue to shape public opinion: liberal countries, no modern nation states appear willing to
horrific terrorist attacks, portrayals of loyal and heroic arcanol- risk the danger of empowering an arcanologist who could
ogists on television and in the movies, and direct encounters choose to go rogue. It only took a few defections during the
by the public with children who manifest Talent in explosive Cold War to convince Congress that an enforced loyalty pro-
or dangerous ways. Even the strongest human rights advocates gram was necessary, and it hasn’t been questioned seriously
may struggle to explain how letting Talent go untrained bene- since. All arcanologists in the United States, whether they
fits anyone. So, while they are fully aware that enslaving chil- began as neuro-normative or not, are given loyalty impera-
dren is horrific, they are, nonetheless, willing to accept its only tives during Focusing.
ethical justification: it is for the greatest social good.
Among communities who create their own culture, rather than conforming with the mainstream, stories and legends about unli-
censed magic-users circulate more freely. While the details vary widely, common claims suggest that arcanology is only one way to
practice magic; that arcanological techniques and propaganda make children more susceptible to uncontrolled magical accidents;
that various shamanic, pagan, and indigenous cultures around the world have retained methods to train and direct magical ability
without Focusing; and even that underground networks exist in the United States to help Talented individuals escape from ARC.
These same communities often tell stories with a straight face about more implausible claims, like alien abductions or demonic
possessions, and so they are rarely taken seriously. However, for someone who came into their Talent late, or who was already on
the run for non-magical crimes, the hope offered by these stories is often enough to send them out to find someone who can help.
Like the Strowlers.

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 “THE RIGHT STORY CAN CHANGE THE WORLD”
A STROWLER PERSPECTIVE
People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.
Stories exist independently of their players… and their very existence overlays a
faint but insistent pattern on the chaos that is history.
— TERRY PRATCHETT, Witches Abroad, 1991

S o, you’ve heard the official story by now. All that mealy-mouthed bullcrap about shades of gray, the tension between freedom
and security, and the dangers of a supernatural-yet-also-scientific force with which humanity lived for thousands of years before
a couple of upstarts got it into their head to change the narrative. I’m here to tell you that everything you think you know is a lie—
including some of what I’m about to spill, but you’ll have to sort that out for yourself.
First, magic is real. Get over it. Doesn’t matter what the authorities call it—arcanology or whatever the Fed's new focus-group-test-
ed buzzword might be—what’s out there is still bigger and weirder than anything they can imagine.
Magic has been around forever. It probably precedes humanity. You think we’re the first thinking beings on Earth? Think again.
Scientists have never been able to pin down consciousness, yet they want to tell you how it works? You’re a mind, a spirit, a sentience,
trapped in a meat bag that also happens to make you who you are. Other consciousnesses aren’t bound by flesh as we know it. Some
of them aren’t even bound to this plane of reality,
You’ve heard about the Fäe, yeah? They’re a great example. They live in another reality, a shadow’s breath away from our own. Or
maybe we’re both living in reflections of another reality altogether. Maybe once their world and ours were so mingled you couldn’t
tell them apart. But they existed then and they exist now. They just don’t visit much, for reasons we’ll get into later.
There are plenty of other creatures like the Fäe out there. Most of the legends are true in some aspect or another. And yeah, they
change with the times and with culture, same way people change when the television news tells them what to be afraid of this year.
Culture slips both directions. The Fäe adopt our fashion and we adopt their music, or at least the more fractured minds among us
give it a go until it burns them out. Our belief gives gods power, until it wanes and they wane with it. Then, they become no more
than pale wraiths, seeking new believers to help them emerge from god purgatory. Dragons swim in the rivers, phase-shifted to
avoid detection. Probably. Nobody has ever seen one. But if enough of us believe that they do…well, anything could happen.
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Our stories shape the supernatural world and that world turns around and shapes our stories in
return. The scary old woman who lives in the woods may have begun as a harmless recluse, but the stories that children told about
her attracted familiars who granted her powers. Maybe. Maybe not. But, it doesn’t matter, does it? The point is that stories become
belief, and belief is stronger than reality. That’s why it’s important that we tell the best stories we can. That’s how we change the
world. And that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?
“The right story can change the world.” It’s like a mantra among us. Because this world needs some changing. Nature cries out for
relief from the destruction that we wreak upon her. The poor, the helpless, the forgotten, the oppressed, the misfits, the wanderers,
the nonconformists—they’re all begging for a better world, too. If you’re not a member of the elite, there’s not much hope left. Just
myths that we believe because they’re better than facing the truth. You can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps…if you ignore

43
the boot stomping on your face forever, that is. Here’s a secret: the stories that the elites tell you aren’t there to help you join them.
They’re there to keep you from tearing down the walls of their enclaves and demanding justice. They’re convenient lies to keep you
docile.
We tell a different kind of story, one about what the world is supposed to be. Not that there was ever some golden age. We’ve always
been pretty rotten to each other. But you know how we pull our heads out of our asses? You guessed it. By telling stories about how
maybe it would be easier to drag that dead bear home and eat it if we worked together, rather than fighting over who gets the carcass.
Point is, stories are magic, the kind that arcanologists can’t comprehend. Story magic—the way it should have happened—can
change reality from the inside out. Hell, our brains do it to us all the time. We rewrite our own memories of the past without even
realizing that we’re doing it, and then we wonder why we can’t agree about anything. So why not imagine that something went
down in a way that tells a better story? I guarantee that people will repeat that version. They’ll learn from it. They’ll be inspired by
it. And then they’ll act on it.
Maybe we’re not that different from the elites after all. We’re all peddling a different narrative, and you have to choose which one
speaks the truth, regardless of how real it is. It’s a war for humanity’s soul, fought in memes, tweets, sound bites, jokes, and tall tales.
Stories also grow in their telling. Nobody can predict the meaning that each new creator will bring to them. Even the words printed
on this page are already outdated, because your imagination has already made them into something new.
Take religion. Someone tells a story so compelling that millions of other people get on board with a new metaphysical reality. The
people who founded religions were master storytellers. Here’s an example: “Turn the other cheek.” Further down the historical road,
King James, or the Pope, or some other asshole, comes along and claims that this means Jesus wants his downtrodden followers to
accept whatever abuse the elites heap on them. But they’re missing context. See, in occupied Israel, you backhanded an inferior and
saved open-palmed slaps for social equals. So let’s say some Roman colonizer backhands you. You’re not going to win if you fight
back. They’ll stomp you into the dust. So you stand up, turn the other cheek, and invite him to hit you again. Well guess what? If
that Roman wants to keep on beating you, his hand is going to hit palm-side forward. You just forced him to treat you as an equal,
rather than an inferior. The tables are turned. You’ve reclaimed dignity and humanity in the eyes of your oppressor. Chances are that
he won’t even hit you again. Four tiny words, easy to repeat, and they empower everyone who understands them to stand up. “Turn
the other cheek,” and you turn the oppressor’s game on its head. Power to the people!
That’s a goddamn story.
That’s story magic.
Understand how to craft a story that gives people power and you can eventually take down any oppressor. That’s what we do.
Some of us can also make buildings explode with nothing but our minds. That’s pretty cool too.
It’s not like we’re organized or anything. We each do as we please, where we please, and then swap stories around the campfire when
we meet fellow travelers. You thought this was a movement? Find anyone who claims to be a Strowler and they’ll tell you that I’m
full of crap. But trust me, those idiots wouldn’t know up from down, if I weren’t there to shake their feet at the sky.

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 WHAT IS A STROWLER?

n. Vagabonds, Itinerants, Men of no settled Abode, of a precarious

Life, Wanderers of Fortune, such as Gypsies, Beggars, Pedlars, Hawkers,
Mountebanks, Fidlers, Country-Players, Rope-dancers, Jugglers,
Tumblers, Shewers of Tricks, and Raree-show-men.
— A Dictionary of Thieving Slang, 1737

The word “strowlers” was defined in print in 1737. It’s what English thieves called the people who weren’t thieves but moved in the
same disreputable circles. Wanderers, entertainers, puppeteers, musicians, circus performers, tinkers, beggars, you name it. We’re the
ones who said “to hell with society,” and set out to do our own thing.
You already know if you’re a Strowler. You just didn’t know there was a name for it until now. If my words strike something deep
inside you—an urge to create, to connect, to make your own art, music, culture, performance, community—you get it. You know
that what we create together will always be more powerful than the watered-down garbage that the rich and powerful want us to
consume, eating crisps and watching reality television until we rot.
Or maybe one of these explanations speaks to you:
“Strowlers are those that see beyond the allure of the flag and the lust for money. They hear ancient songs upon the
wind, and read mysteries in the patterns shadows make as they fall from the trees. They know truths of the world
that others choose to ignore and they dream of a world that transcends far beyond the insecurities and desires of the
powerful. This is what makes them dangerous: they see beyond the illusions and the lies, their minds are not trapped
by the twisting corridors built by the few who have stolen power from the many.” – Cayce
“Strowlers are exceptional individuals whose defining interests, vocations, and avocations lay outside of the
mainstream. We choose a “path less traveled” because it is true to the individual’s soul, despite the consequences of
differing from default society.
We are the tellers of stories, and the folk of whom stories are told.
We stand apart or we lead by example; outcasts or trendsetters or both.
We make our own way, defining for ourselves what we are supposed to do and what we are supposed to not.
In essence, Strowlers are folks who find or create their own answers to the common questions of life, instead of accept-
ing the default solutions defined by mainstream society. In a romantic sense, Strowlers actively reach to manifest their
idealized dreams where others would merely dream of the pursuit.” - Angela Smith & K Wiley

46
“People say there is power in stories and in telling tales. That by sharing it, and giving it little bits of belief can make
it real. Some take that at face value, but others wonder if it was the telling of the story that gave it power, or if the
power was already there, waiting for a teller. All I know is I heard it once, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my
head since.” - Chad Long
“A strowler is one who carries the stories of the world within themselves so that the stories become a part of them.
They tell and retell the stories, and sometimes, sometimes, they can reach out and change the stories. But this is not
something done lightly, and a wise strowler knows this. For the easiest story to change is your own, and it is an act of
arrogance to change someone else’s without their permission.” - Hollis McCray

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 HIDDEN HISTORIES

That myths survived is an indicator of their power[...] The mysteries that

surround their moment of creation add to their power—as we lose certainty
of their authorship and motivation, the aura of possibility grows brighter.
— PAUL LEVITZ, The Absolute Sandman: Volume 1, Introduction, 2006

H istory is the world’s biggest lie. It’s what the winners agree happened. So let’s set the record straight!

First, this “arcanology” crap. Here these guys are—and back then they were 99% guys, because, well, patriarchy—parading around
daytime 1670’s England wearing funny hats and talking about how they’re advancing the cause of science by drinking mercury to
cure their gout. But you know what they’re up to once the sun goes down? Straight up magical tinkering. They’re nothing more
than souped-up alchemists, but with a few more successes under their belts. Amongst all of the hoaxes, lies, and crap that make up
the bulk of magical research, they hit on a few procedures that work, assume that they’ve discovered first principles, and construct
an entire intellectual edifice based on two percent of the truth.
They’d like you to believe that their explorations ended with their published research. It’s a lie. Arcanology is the crap that they
taught to the outer circle. The inner circle kept investigating. They summoned creatures. They ventured into the Changing Lands.
And they realized that humanity was vastly outclassed by the beings waiting in the deepest, darkest parts of the primeval forest. So
they set out to protect the world. It took them over a hundred years, a mission passed along to multiple generations of an exclusive
secret society that eventually spanned the globe, and they ultimately cast the greatest single work of magic that the world has ever
known. The aftermath killed tens of thousands of people. Only five of the sorcerers who cast the spell survived. But they succeeded
and the age of science began. Humanity would finally be free to pursue its own destiny, unencumbered by ambiguity, uncertainty,
or magical thinking.
That last sentence is an example of the sophisticated literary technique called “irony.”
Turns out that humans are about as rational as jellyfish.
When modern arcanology evolved out of the swamp of 19th-century spiritualism, scientific mysticism, and select notes from the
old Royal Society, it managed, first, to get everything wrong, and, second, to tap into a massive and seemingly unlimited source of
magical power. “The Source,” they called it, because the imaginations of arcanologists are sad and shriveled things.
You know how the rest of it goes. What you don’t know is that some of us never gave up on the old ways. Knowledge and wisdom
were passed down through, you guessed it, stories. And some of us Strowlers are pretty smart, too. We get around, often into places
we’re not supposed to know about.

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So here are some truth bombs for you:
• Magic never disappeared, it just went underground. • Arcanology wasn’t accidentally discovered in a lab; it was giv-
en to scientists by scratch out text with a pen
• Magic is far more common than they want you to believe.
• Some conspiracies actually succeeded.
• Magic doesn’t summon monsters; untrained idiots summon
monsters. • Anyone who claims more and more power for themselves in
the name of public good does not serve the public good.
• Some monsters are real.
• Trickle-down economics destroyed the middle class.
• Everything has a price.
Okay, that last one doesn’t have anything to do with arcanology, but it has a whole lot to do with stories. The belief that riches are
waiting just around the corner, and that someday soon you, too, could be benefiting from tax breaks designed exclusively for the
wealthy, is so potent that it’s fooled generations of Americans into supporting policies that destroyed their lives far more potently
than NAFTA ever could. Or maybe this is a story I’m telling you to obfuscate another truth, that trickle-down would work if prac-
ticed in its purest form. We just haven’t done it well enough yet.
Which story do you believe? Congratulations, now you’re that story’s loyal subject, spreading the gospel to believers and shunning
non-believers. And this is where, if you’re gonna be a Strowler, we have to talk about responsibility.

THE STORIES THAT YOU TELL MATTER.

I’m not going to claim some great moral authority here. Some of us are assholes, thieves, and even “freedom fighters.” (That’s a
euphemism, if you didn’t catch the subtext.) But we do try to remain true to one key principle: we don’t tell stories that we know
shouldn’t be true.
This isn’t just some moral thing. It’s self-preservation. Stories have power, and they can shape our reality. The more we tell a lie, the
more we risk it becoming true, and the more power we give it over us. The lie can consume us.
Of course, it’s perfectly okay to tell a story about what could become true. (Technically this is also a lie, until it isn't.) But we have to
be ready to live in that reality. If the purpose of a lie is to deceive others and benefit from their deception, you’re going to be screwed
when the lie claims you. The hell you create for your enemies wants nothing more than to trap you forever.
Story magic is subtle and tricky, and it will change you into something different when you’re not watching. So stay alert, understand
your stories, and live the myths in which you’d be willing to get trapped in any role. You’ll find that your perspective changes radi-
cally when you realize that you don’t want the villain’s punishment to fall on your own shoulders.
I know, you’re not listening. You think that the rules don’t apply to you. Maybe you’ll be the lucky one, and you’ll get to be the boss
of whatever twisted and oppressive reality you create for the people who follow your stories. Or maybe you’ll get caught in a hotel
room smoking meth with a male prostitute, and your gay-hating megachurch will fire you from the ministry. And next year, we’ll
tell the story of your fate around the campfire. Story magic loves irony.

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THE BÍSPELL

I guess that we should talk about the Bíspel cards. That’s a fancy Old English word for a harmless child’s game that some Strowlers
enjoy on a casual basis. It’s nothing important, but worth a few words, just in case you want to get all social-like.
First off, no, this isn’t some Tarot rip-off. We generally don’t care about divining the future. Tarot is the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle in story form. We change what we tell. Future-telling is a recursive trap, more self-fulfilling prophecy than prediction.
Rather, the Bíspel decks are about understanding narrative, about making sense of what is happening now or what already happened.
Second, there’s nothing magical about Bíspel. They’re just cards. Sometimes very old cards. They’re so harmless, in fact, that most
governments don’t ban them. In the United States, major publishers even create their own. There’s big money in collectible card
games.
Truth is, the cards have been around for at least a thousand years. A wide range of games are possible with the deck, from simple
children’s games that resemble Go Fish to complex trick-taking games similar to Bridge. A modern deck holds four numbered suits
of 14 cards each. There are rumors among the Strowlers of a fifth numbered suit—a mystical one—that has been lost, suppressed,
or both, but those rumors are pretty much crap.
In addition to the regular cards in the standard Bíspel deck (called the Dæl), many players collect Rún cards. These are non-suited
character and archetype cards and thousands of them exist. No two Rún decks will be the same, as they are made up of whichever
cards an individual player has collected. Some people spend huge amounts of money to create and print Rún cards based on them-
selves, but their cards rarely circulate beyond immediate friends and family—unless the individual depicted somehow captures the
imagination of the public.
These extended decks are used to play Walk the Labyrinth, a storytelling game. Each player constructs a narrative using the cards
that they are dealt. Players may choose to work together to tell cooperative tales or compete to help or hinder the characters within
a shared story. The Dæl functions as anything from simple luck tokens to the randomization system for complex, roleplaying-style
game mechanics. The Rún introduces Archetypes: anything from The Fool to The Dark Forest to The Skyscraper to The Soccer
Mom. When these are drawn, the storyteller must work them into the story, either literally, figuratively, or symbolically. The best
cards carry multitudes within them—meanings and symbols that can shift with context and the needs of the story. Many Strowlers
identify with certain Rún cards in the deck, and may construct their own identities and personal narratives around their interpreta-
tion of that card and its journey through the labyrinth.
Now, some people will claim that beneath the obvious “imaginary play” element, this game features hidden levels of magical teach-
ing and political intrigue. Others tell legends about Rún decks sequenced with specific messages or meanings, left by one Strowler
for another to find, or of magical story warfare fought over a campfire and through oral histories of the past as the players seek to
define a certain reality as “Canon.” These are typically crap. The past is clearly fixed, immutable, and unchanging. Anyone who’s
visited it will tell you that. ( Joking, joking!) And why sequence a deck when you could write a note? It’s absurd.
Of course, if there were secret oral traditions and specialized uses for the Bíspell decks, you wouldn’t very well find them published
in a book, would you?
I told you that I’d be lying to you. Or “telling a story.” But you can sleep quietly at night knowing that what I’ve shared should be
true, even if it technically isn’t. Feel reassured yet?

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THE LABYRINTH

U nlike the Bíspel cards, the Labyrinth pisses off authority. Governments around the world attempt to ban or suppress its use. Or
they mock it. Think about anarchists spraying their symbol of resistance on alley walls. Or the “V” from the comic book by
that English magician. It’s like that.
We probably take the Labyrinth too seriously. Maybe it would be better if we laughed at it, too. But the damn thing actually has
power. It’s a story in visual form—a pathway, a guide, a maze, and both end and beginning.
It’s also not technically a labyrinth, which isn’t important. Well, maybe it is. Depends on who you ask. See, traditional labyrinths are
unicursal. They have one path leading to the middle and out again. They also typically contain geometric or topological symmetry.
Our labyrinth is unicursal, too, but asymmetrically so. Probably none of that matters at all, unless its lack of rotational symmetry
means something horrifically dire. We spend far too much time arguing about this. And by “we,” I mean math nerds, archetypal
psychologists, and armchair theorists. Those of us who have actually walked the labyrinth have other things on our minds. Typically,
survival.
Every fairytale has a center. You leave the home that you know, travel deep into the dark woods, transform yourself when you reach
the middle, then unwind your way back, arriving at your village carrying new knowledge, a new sense of self, or untold riches. The
labyrinth walks you through every beat of your story. The Hero’s Journey, if you’ve read Joe Campbell’s work. Or more likely, espe-
cially if you’re some Hollywood hack, you read Vogler and called it Campbell.
You know, this isn’t a bad time to review. Campbell doesn’t tell the only kind of story, but it’s worth understanding one of the mythic
structures that have captured popular culture.
We begin in the Ordinary World. The story hasn’t started yet. We’re outside the labyrinth. Our hero is just living her regular, hum-
drum life, but something big is wrong. She or her world is flawed. Then BAM, the Call to Adventure comes knocking. Could be a
physical threat, an emotional one, or something as simple as running out of that lovely green tea, but now her safe world (or “Bad
Peace”) is out of order. So she does what any of us would do in that situation. She says “Hell No!” and Refuses the Call.
Sadly, the bad situation persists and, hooray for story structure, she Meets the Mentor, a person who can help train her in what she
needs to take action. This is where many of us who are in tune with American reality give up and laugh. A mentor? Who the hell
is cool enough to warrant a mentor? Pick up your own bootstraps, kid, and either heed the call or get out of the way. Also, mentors
have a habit of dying, merely as a cheap way to motivate the hero. Don’t be a mentor.
Don’t get fridged by your own story, either. It happens more often than you’d think.
Now the hero thinks she’s ready, and Crosses the Threshold. This is where we enter the Labyrinth. We leave our familiar world
behind and go somewhere new, whether it’s the Changing Lands or an off-brand coffee shop. She’s committed now. You don’t turn
around once you’ve entered the Labyrinth. Not easily.
Along the path, she’ll meet Tests, Allies, and Enemies. She’s going to be tested real good, that’s right. And the damn path keeps
turning back on itself. New twists reveal themselves, allies become enemies, enemies become allies, cats and dogs buy a nice duplex
together, until finally the Labyrinth leads her on the final Approach to the Inmost Cave. This is the center of the Labyrinth. Will
she continue? Does she dare enter that scary old tree? Of course she dares!

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Time for the Ordeal. Every experience, every skill, every hard-won lesson must all be complete for the hero to survive. And to do
so, some old part of her needs to die. Nothing will ever again be as it once was. But if she survives the center of the Labyrinth, she
wins the Reward. Chances are she’s going to need this in order to make it back out of the Labyrinth. In the right context, a spool of
thread is the best reward that a girl or boy can win. True story.
Then, here comes The Road Back. Strangely, it looks a lot like the road inward, in reverse. Labyrinth, remember? It’s unicursal. (But
is a symmetric?) Turn around and pick your way back to reality from the magical center. Everything is great now, right? Hell no.
Here comes the Climax, sometimes called the Resurrection in particularly literal stories. Pass this test or everyone is going to suffer,
especially you. But if you do pass it, congrats, you’ve achieved the Twelfth Step: “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of
these steps, we [...] carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” Oh, sorry, that’s AA. Ironically,
the Twelfth Step is sometimes called Return with the Elixir. Damn, AA. This “hero’s journey” thing is everywhere. Irony.
Our hero exits the Labyrinth. She’s changed, sometimes beyond recognition. She brings A New Hope for the people who stayed at
home. She’s back where she began, but the journey inside the Labyrinth has wrought changes that will stay with us forever.
That’s the Labyrinth, or one interpretation: an image on which you can meditate, a symbol for transformation and renewal, a jour-
ney into the dark forest, and perhaps even something more.
It’s the deepest magic that we know. And for some of us, it’s a literal passage to another reality.

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 Elves appear to have deteriorated generally since the coming of humans. If you meet Elves, expect to have
to listen for hours while they tell you about this—many Elves are great bores on the subject—and about
what glories there were in ancient days.
—DIANNA WYNNE JONES, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, 1998

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 PEPPER JONES
Anyone paying attention will guess that Pepper Jones is more than the head librarian. But, how far does
her subterfuge go? One of the advantages of working for an agency like scribble out answer is that they go into such deep cover, and
for so long, that co-workers like Whit have never noticed Pepper’s little secret: she’s barely aged since the 1940s. Pepper has seen
more than any of them, she knows where the bodies are buried, and she has her own network of connections around the world. The
only question now is: whose side is Pepper on?

This section contains major spoilers for the Strowlerverse. If you want to avoid knowledge
of upcoming surprises and reveals, jump ahead to EMPIRE AND MAGIC on page 63.

THE CHANGING LANDS

I first heard about the Changing Lands back in the 1950s. Modern arcanology was less than ten years old, and scientists from
around the world had immersed themselves in the quest to unlock its mysteries. Reason ruled, following the path laid down by
Isaac Newton and the rest of the Royal Society. If I hadn’t run afoul of the old magic, I’d have been working in Seattle with my par-
ents and their friends, laughing at superstitious nonsense about magical beasts, fairy queens, and sad, angry gods. Instead, I learned
a very different lesson.
Here’s the story as I understand it.
As far as we know, humans have always organized themselves into cultures that attempted to understand and order reality—mostly
to eliminate the fear of a chaotic and random universe. But, some explanations require that others be denied—even destroyed—and,
when this happened to magic, both as an explanation and as a practice, it was forced to the edges of what we consider the known
world, delineated in rigid lines on maps and enforced by armies and education. And magic supposedly became a shadow of itself.
More often than not, however, it retreated across secret borders, and threw up walls behind itself. And on the other side of those
walls lay what evolved into the Changing Lands.
Realms formed by what their inhabitants could imagine, rather than by the laws of physical reality, the Changing Lands became first
a home and a refuge, then a prison, for the supernatural and the non-human. What was once part and parcel of the world we know
separated, split, and often vanished entirely. The gods and spirits and beings who had shared the land with us faded from memory,
following a path laid eons ago by beings long-since discarded: bearded Assyrian tyrant gods, Greek river spirits, Nordic trolls, Irish
Fae, African tricksters. One-by-one they stepped into the shadows and disappeared.
Some lingered among us longer than others, of course, but by the early 19th century, they all seemed to be gone. Sometimes they
were barely missed. Yet, some cultures continued to call on, or worship, them as if nothing had happened. But even to believers, as
generations passed, the supernatural became more symbols than manifest powers—powers who had ascended to a plane higher
than mere mortals could access, and one from which the powers could not escape.
Well, not very often, anyway.

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Take the failure of the potato crop in Ireland, 1836, after one of the coldest summers in half a century. It happened because a wise
woman thought that the powers had departed forever, and so didn’t complete her scheduled ritual offering, thereby allowing the
Sidhe an unchecked night to ravage the Irish countryside. (Guess who made the same offering in 2016? That’s right. Long story, to
be told another day.) Where did the Sidhe come from that night? The Changing Lands.
At the heart of The Labyrinth is The Twist. The Twist can be traversed. Humans who use the Labyrinth as a focus for their art can,
if they are daring, travel its entire length, and enter the Changing Lands through the center. Those who do often see the Lands
through the lens of their expectations, superstitions, or faith: a priest, for example, might believe himself in hell, while a conspiracy
theorist might see herself as the victim of an alien abduction, and a pagan might project himself into the land of the Fäe. The powers
in the Lands, if they choose, can affect these visions as they wish. A visiting human is an opportunity—to feed, to learn, to recruit,
or to destroy, depending on the whims and powers of she who finds and claims the trespasser.
While humans might once have traveled there as welcome guests, those days have long departed. To go there by accident is rare, and
by intention is even rarer. But once you do, everything that you think you know changes.
The Changing Lands are now a prison for the supernatural, all unwillingly thrust together without rhyme or reason, and fighting
tooth and nail to preserve what is theirs within ever-shrinking borders. Fairie, Valhalla, Mt. Meru, the Fifth World, Numberland’s
Lands from Beyond the Border. And they’re all starving. So, beings with greater power prey on, and consume, those with less, but
there is never enough to go around. Creatures that once rarely strayed from the company of their own kind are forced to find new
alliances, strike back against new enemies, or go deep into hiding. Only the strong and the ruthless thrive there now.
It’s not chaos, however. When magic defines your reality, you quickly learn to make unbreakable rules of conduct and comportment.
Think of the old fairy stories, if you were lucky enough to find and read some that haven’t been banned. “Always help strangers. Be
a good guest. Treat injured creatures with care and compassion. Don’t miss a step in the great dance.” These rules are how battles
for dominance are fought. To attack your host directly in her home, even if she is your greatest enemy, would break the rules and
destroy you instead. But if you can drive her to break a rule? Now you have gained the upper hand. Or have you? Sometimes, what
you intend may matter more than what you accomplish.
To that end, politeness and good behavior are valued highly in the Changing Lands. Any human who strays into that realm is unlike-
ly to survive for long if she cannot quickly learn and abide by rules that typically take lifetimes to master. Stay on your toes, because
the kind stranger who stops to help won’t hesitate to consume you, if you stray from the path.
As for what the Lands look like? They beggar the imagination: castles in the air, underground mines, rivers full of dragons, walls
made of endless steps that descend into darkness, fires and winds and rain and rocks—all of the elements, reshaped by the will of
whomever rules where you stand. In the Changing Lands, the old adage that “anything is possible” is the essential truth of the realm.
That said, the Lands tend to favor timeless woodlands, rugged wilderness, and an implacable vastness that reflects the world before
humans believed that they were in control of nature.
Meanwhile, the march of human progress continues. Modern arcanologists have lost any knowledge that the magical realm exists
as a physical place. For them, the notion of a separate reality is absurd. Those who encounter its forces view them as manifestations
of “the morphic field dynamic-spectrum effect” or SFEs (Spectrum-Field Effects). People who remember the old stories, however,
recognize the Changing Lands for what they are: a sea of unformed potential shaped by observation and the strength of will of its
inhabitants. True to their name, the Changing Lands have no set definitions or form; instead, they change from day to day, place
to place, and witness to witness.

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Do the Changing Lands and their denizens explain all paranormal phenomena? Faeries, dragons, and monsters of all descriptions
find homes in this shifting land of infinite realms, but what of the veil between the living and the dead? The truth is that the Chang-
ing Lands don’t have any more information to give us about what happens after death than does the world that we inhabit. But that
doesn’t mean that the spectral mist you saw in the church yard isn’t something from the Changing Lands. It is certainly possible that
some creature from beyond The Twist could choose to take a form that is familiar to you in order to play on your fears or hopes. It
is equally likely that your brain is interpreting the information of your senses in a way that shapes that creature’s energy...perception
is a two way street, after all! Of course, that ghost could be something else entirely, and ultimately it’s up to you to decide what your
reality includes.
I find that answers are often more dangerous than questions.

THE OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES

H ere’s the thing about magic: it forces you to hold multiple, contradictory ideas simultaneously. It’s both a strictly defined
branch of the hard sciences and a supernatural force subject to neither rhyme nor reason. Yet, it is also something far too subtle
and nuanced to be captured in terms of a contradiction—something that, in fact, challenges the distinction between the two poles,
at least as that distinction is commonly understood and described. But, if there’s one thing that authority can’t abide, it’s nuance.
Because I’ve worked for the United States government in various capacities since the end of World War II, I’ve had the unusual
privilege of watching bureaucrats attempt to fit magic into strictly-defined boxes. When faced with paradox and contradiction, they
react in one of two ways: refuse the data until (a) it’s delivered in something that accords with their limited concept of a rational
structure or (b) they excise the logical impossibilities themselves. Thanks to that kind of attitude, by the time a report reaches Con-
gress, any truth contained therein is hopelessly adulterated by preconception and prejudice. And of course, the DOA is then forced
to work within that definition of reality.
Back during World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) got into arcanology early. Magic and espionage were a great fit
for each other. (Plus, the Germans were collecting supernatural artifacts, so there was a bit of an arms race.) That’s when the OSS
recruited me. Long story.
I was still working for them when Truman signed Executive Order 9621, which officially terminated the agency. You’ve read else-
where how the Department of Arcanology evolved, which is dandy, but what we’ve kept secret for decades is that a small core of

60
OSS agents, those of us who had specialized in arcanological research and protection, reached out to an obscure congressional
committee and landed black budget funding to keep ourselves in business.
Our group goes under a different name now, but our lineage has been unbroken for over six decades. We’re off the books, doing the
jobs that the DOA and ARC cannot. In other words, we’re not bound by the official story in the official reports, which means that
we can fight the kinds of threats in which the ARC refuses to believe. We know that magic is real. Many of us use it ourselves, in
some form or another. And yes, we get to fight real-life, supernatural monsters. The Big Bads, if you will.
What we are not is political. Slide in, do the job, and slide out again, ideally before ARC shows up on the scene. Everyday manifes-
tations, children with Talent, basic police work: these aren’t our mandate. We can’t interfere. Well, we shouldn’t. Officially.
Because we’re not political, we can work with other groups that might technically be classified as “criminals” or “terrorists.” Yes,
I mean the Strowlers. Not that they know who we actually are. They
don’t need to know. I’ve spent decades building relationships with key
leaders in the magical underground. Despite ideological differences,
protecting humanity from the horrors trapped in the Changing Lands
is a great unifier. I’ll take my allies where I can find them!
The other advantage of working for an agency like Scribble out answer
is that we go into such deep cover, and for so long, that my co-workers
never noticed my own little secret: that I’ve barely aged since the 1940s.
I’ve seen more than any of them, I know where the bodies are buried,
and I have my own network of connections around the world. Not bad
for a harmless librarian!

OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

T he world contains more secret societies, NGOs, non-profits, re-

search agencies, corporations, and loosely-affiliated activist groups
than are worth listing here. I’ve worked for many of them as part of my
cover over the years. None of them are important. Well, none of them
are important to my mission. I’m sure they’re all doing fine work in
pursuit of their various agendas.
My job is to protect humanity from the threats that would destroy the
world as we know it. Extinction-level stuff. Genocide. The total collapse of modern civilization. Generations of enslavement. And
I’ll work with whomever, or whatever, is necessary in pursuit of that mission.
You hear what I’m getting at? Yes, yet another secret organization. If the OSS is merely off the books, this one took the books,
burned them, baked their ashes into bread, fed the bread to civets, then made coffee. Yes, I’m a member. No, you don’t get to know
any more than that.
But when the world changes beyond recognition, I’ll be there to make sure that humanity survives, no matter the cost.

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 EMPIRE AND MAGIC

S ince at least the third millennium BCE, the unregulated use of magic has been viewed with suspicion by civilizations and their
institutions—civic, religious, military, and cultural. Religions have persecuted magic-users, kings have beheaded them, and civic
administrators have blamed them for natural disasters and disease. But why? Wouldn’t the king’s court benefit from the service of a
court magician? Couldn’t a witch help the local priest cure a plague? Why not use magic to fulfill the will of the gods? Or to protect
a bank from thieves?
With rare exceptions, magic and empire operate from fundamentally oppositional principles. To retain and spread their influence,
empires seek to homogenize and control the people inhabiting areas under their control. They tame wildness through assimilation;
they create social organizing structures through urbanization; and they eradicate what can’t be domesticated and cultivated. Em-
pire’s organizing myths normalize empire’s culture, then demand social compliance within that culture.
Unlike empire, which demands growth and tribute, magic practice is typically hyperlocal and idiosyncratic. It resists assimilation,
differing from village to village and from group to group, growing from and affected by immigration, migration, displacement, and
especially the new and unusual stories told by the wanderers who cross tribal boundaries.
Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Qin dynasty, the Vedic Aryans, the Angkor Khmer...all
engaged in a battle with magical and supernatural countercultures, which told stories that undermined empire’s official narrative
among the wild underbellies and peripheries of “civilizing” institutions, not to mention among the peoples they conquered and
attempted to assimilate. The fact that the “civilizing institutions” in question employed their own magical practices and magic-users
in civic capacities—Chinese court wizards, Persian and Arab viziers, Kabbalist rabbis, wise-women and Merlin-style sorcerers allied
with the ruling government, and so forth—merely underscores the irony of government-sanctioned magic-users protecting that
government from somebody else’s magic.
For millennia, empire and “common” magic existed in tension, neither able to gain a definitive advantage over the other. But then
three major historical innovations helped empire go global, and catalyzed the formation of a modern world, one where magic’s
influence was nearly extinguished.
The first was the triumph of militant monotheistic religions, in conjunction with civilizations in the Near East and West. At various
periods in history, orthodoxy in religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam called for the demonization and eradication of ev-
erything magical that fell outside of that religion’s control. Some gained enough power to extend this practice from single imperial
civilizations to multiple competing or cooperating structures over an increasing amount of the globe. For example, as Christianity
spread in Europe, the homogenizing of belief, magic, and spellwork was a bloody process that spawned wars, inquisitions, crusades,
and purges. Heresies would be eliminated by any means necessary.
The second force was the Age of Enlightenment, which demanded a single, rational, and scientifically-verifiable explanation for
everything in the universe. This belief system relegated magic and religion to “primitive” stages in humanity’s development. Well,
except for magics that could be explained and utilized as scientific or materialist effects (like alchemy or herbology), which were
then co-opted in support of scientific progress.
Thus, by religion and faith, or by reason and experience, all of humanity, human experience, and nature were expected to conform
to a single story about the nature of reality. It became dangerous for magic-users to tell alternative stories, ones that could under-
mine empire’s narrative.

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(Ironically, many occultists—especially from the 1600s onward—sought equally authoritarian governance through magical means;
postulated “Ascended Masters,” who truly governed the world through their mystic arts; and presumed to unite humanity under
their own “benevolent leadership,” by way of titanic magical workings, syncratic practices, and well-placed conspiracies. Such iro-
nies, of course, are the sort of thing of which all history is made.)
These oppressive (to magic-users) imperial meta-narratives were already significant forces, which inspired the colonizing empires
of the 16th and 17th centuries, but after the Mount Tambora eruption, the forces of empire and colonization quickly adopted a
third homogenizing innovation: the Industrial Revolution. Replication and standardization—of belief, of thought, of process and
production, and (if it was to survive in any form) of magic—became a global obsession of the predominant cultures that harnessed
the power of industrialization and science. Everything from widgets to human beings could be organized into predictable and
standardized cogs in a machine. Why not standardize magic as well? Rules were made to be discovered and followed, not broken.
That is the underlying structure upon which the arcanologists’ assumptions and project evolved into today’s systems of registration,
control, and obedience.
All three of these systems succeed when they achieve dominance. And it is only when they subjugate and control the entire globe—
every open and hidden place—that their project is complete. Every imperial and colonial endeavor is in competition with every
other imperial and colonial endeavor within this world. But, every empire (be it financial, political, or religious) agrees that the
alternative story told by Strowlers is a threat and anathema to them all, just as it has been since the fourth millennium BCE.
And, of course, the arcanologists serve these three forces. Bound by magically-wrought loyalty, they can no more work against the
wishes of their masters than they can conceive of alternative magical practices. Not that many would want to. After all, the historical
evidence supports their claim that magic is a scientific force, bound to predictable rules as tightly as are the arcanologists themselves.
However, the “historical evidence” cited by homogenizing systems and arcanologists is also misleading and subject to confirmation
bias. Empire in its many forms has always insisted on documentation—texts and records—as a part of both new projects and the
stories that it tells about the past. There is no genuine narrative without these bits of evidence. Any contradictory, non-documented
story is nothing more than superstition.
What evidence remains for the official understanding of magic, then, comes from such physical records—clay, or papyrus, or paper,
or stone, or folded gold and leather tablets, or (now) digital signatures—which either conform to the desire of empire to propagate
itself (institutional prayers, laws, records of miracles, debts) or to empire’s efforts to demonize and destroy that which threatens it
(curse tablets, registers of renegade mystery religions, etc.). It’s no wonder that arcanology views history as a continual struggle to
harness and tame what they see manifested as dangerous and illicit—and still demonic— powers.
Despite official claims to the contrary, these dangerous and untamable magical powers do exist. They are far more complex (by
turns beneficial, neutral, or malevolent) than the arcanologists realize, because they see them all through the myopic lens of their
own history and beliefs.
Similarly, the magical creatures forced back into the Changing Lands exist in a prison of this human project, and the Stowlers exist
as liminal figures between these worlds, who explore and utilize their alternate capabilities and realities—not only outside of ar-
canology’s control, but also beyond its comprehension. This makes Strowlers, their experiences, and their stories a more dangerous
threat to the entire system than is the magic that the arcanologists seek to subdue and harness.
This is also why anyone who creates their own culture, rather than adopting mainstream practices and beliefs, might call themselves
a Strowler. The makers, the acrobats, the revolutionaries, the mystics, the heretics, the witches, the gamers, and folk musicians are
the wanderers who spread stories that could change the world.

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MAGICAL OPPRESSION AS CULTURAL OPPRESSION

F or much of this book, the discussion has focused on the impact that systems designed to control and oppress magic have on
individuals. If you are from a country that views magic as something separate from reality, for example, and are forced to register
your Talent, you will likely have your freedom, choices, and future affected in negative ways. In such a case, you may experience
individual oppression.
However, “magic,” as the term is being used here, is based on a Euro-centric idea that separates the world into two distinct realms:
one that can be defined and understood via rational, predictable methods, and, the other, a mysterious realm of supernatural powers
that can’t be quantified (and that may not even exist).
The regulation of magic as a metaphor for oppression changes dramatically, however, when we consider countries, peoples, and
traditions that view magic as an integrated part of a single worldview, rather than as something separate. For example, many in-
digenous peoples in the cultures and nations that were colonized by Western invaders would have experienced the prohibition or
regulation of magic as cultural oppression, because what the colonizers saw as separate and apart was, for the natives, integrated and
essential. Indeed, prohibitions or regulations against the practice of what the invaders defined as “magic” would have caused wide-
spread damage to the cultures themselves, rather than only to certain individuals living within them, because to prohibit what the
invaders called “magic” was to undermine or eliminate elements of cultural cohesion and power that were part of a unified cultural
framework.
With this in mind, we expect that Strowlers stories that take place outside of a Euro-centric approach to magic will likely reflect very
different perspectives from those presented in this book. Individuals who come into their powers in these contexts may face not
only individual government sanctions or registration, but also the challenge of reclaiming lost knowledge and practices. This po-
tentially makes the quest to end magical oppression among colonized and occupied peoples as much about participating in broader
cultural revitalization as it is about individual empowerment.
To add more complexity, the intersection of colonizers and colonized often created new, hybrid perspectives on magic, from which
new categories of magical practice could evolve, especially in places that experienced multiple generations of occupation. While in-
vaders often imposed on the locals their own definition and interpretation of “native magic”—as a force that they alternately feared,
mocked, and found captivating—they were also affected by the experiences, beliefs, and reasoning of the locals just as strongly as
the locals were affected by the programs imposed on them.
Similarly, the meanings that storytellers from around the world bring to Strowlers will be informed by their perspectives, experienc-
es, and histories. Your task, then, is to speak your truth as you tell your story, rather than to conform to the rules and interpretations
presented in this book. When you tell your story, you help the Strowlerverse grow in richness, complexity, and meaning.

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 GUIDE FOR FILMMAKERS

S o you want to make your own Strowlers movie. Fantastic!

Your job now is to write a story unique to your experience and perspective, one that you can shoot where you are, with the resources
that you have. Keep it small and manageable. Rather than non-stop CGI, if you need to show something magical, imply as much as
possible, then use a single effect, be it practical or digital.
Make small, targeted changes to your existing environment. Create one monster rather than an army. Focus on a child with magic in
Peoria, rather than constructing an entirely new city. Make the local police deal with a threat because no arcanologists are stationed
nearby. Or if they are, add a single sign to one building on a busy street. Ask yourself what tiny changes will evoke a mysterious world
of scientific sorcerers, magic-users on the run, and supernatural creatures hiding in the shadows. Remain small in scope, accessible,
and focused on the everyday people who are called to become heroes for their friends and neighbors.
Our own team uses the following guidelines internally when developing Strowlers scripts:
1. Utilize existing locations
2. Avoid large-scale construction or manufacturing
3. Feature a small cast
4. Limit special effects — one fantastic practical effect is better than 20 mediocre CGI ones
5. Focus on stories that are personal and character driven
Also, filmmaking is hard. Our original team has been making movies together since 1998, and we’ve made countless mistakes along
the way. Even when you plan perfectly, everything can still go wrong. It takes time to build the necessary skills, connections, and
audience.
This book is not intended to provide a comprehensive guide to filmmaking, but luckily, countless free resources exist on the Internet
to help new filmmakers learn the craft. Take advantage of them!
And remember that sometimes the best way to learn and grow is through failure: it’s an opportunity to assess what worked, what
didn’t, and to improve the next project.
Experienced filmmakers may also feel that low-budget, high-quality work is nearly impossible to achieve. In order to put our meth-
ods to the test, we developed and produced a twenty-minute Strowlers film set in Ireland. While the final product is not perfect,
the following case study illustrates how $5,000 (including flights, food, and lodging!) was enough to create a period piece in an
extraordinary location.

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CASE STUDY: STROWLERS IRELAND

A fter shooting the Strowlers pilot in Seattle, we wanted to prove that a Strowers film could be created with minimal resources,
using off-the-shelf gear. We also wanted to show how location could bring a magical story alive. Thanks to friends in West Cork,
Ireland, we were able to do both.
The project began with selecting a region where we had friends who could host a team of four: Ben Dobyns, Samara Lerman, and
Lisa and Tony Coronado. Our friends scouted locations around their neighborhood, sent photos and video, and shared their stories,
local legends, and experiences. We also drew on our own family histories and a deep study of regional Irish myths. Then we crafted
a fairy tale around the locations we knew were available: ruined castles, treacherous cliffs, haunted lakes, and a four-thousand-year-
old portal tomb. We also kept complexity low by featuring only two characters.
Samara and Lisa sourced and created costumes and props, while I put together a micro-filmmaking package that could fit into a
single carry-on backpack. When we departed for Ireland, everything that we needed fit into luggage that met the airline’s size and
weight requirements.
Upon arriving in Dublin, we rented a car, purchased a few consumables at a local camera shop, and then drove west.
After spending an evening recovering from our travels, we took the next day to scout our locations in person, then returned to our
hosts, and created a revised shooting schedule. The shoot began the next day.
Samara and Lisa applied their wardrobe and makeup at our host’s house, while I packed my backpack for the day’s shoot, and Tony
filled his bag with lunches, snacks, rain gear, changes of clothes, and other necessities.
Upon arriving at each location (either by car or on foot), Tony would stage a small base camp from his pack while Samara, Lisa, and

70
I blocked the scene. With a low daily page count, we took time to build the action into the environment, to plan for the movement
of the sun, and to minimize the need for shots that would require lighting support beyond the scope of our gear.
Following the blocking, I would unpack and assemble the gear while Samara and Lisa rehearsed. The gear backpack included:
• A Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera • Two lav mics with onboard SD cards, • A laptop with an internal SD card reader
which ran continuously
• Two prime lenses and one zoom • A basic consumer tripod
• A five-way expandable bounce for mini-
• An external power supply • Bags and tape for building rain hoods
mal light management

In order to acquire beautiful images, we used our secret weapon: time. Shots were timed to the position of the sun, the movement
of clouds across the sky, and blocking designed to maximize the value of both. In some cases, we had to wait an hour for lighting for
a particular shot to be perfect.
We let the locations and the performances tell the rest of the story.
We also took reference video with an iPhone 6S, which often could be pushed to record images almost as pretty as the Blackmagic
camera could offer.
While an unusual way to shoot a film, we wanted to show that a cast and crew of four people with a backpack full of borrowed gear
could tell a complete, magical story, set in both the 1950s and the present day. By writing to available resources and taking our time,
we not only succeeded in making a cool Irish time-travel fairy tale, but we also proved that a micro-crew could play in the world of
the Strowlers. You can tell a magical story with a smartphone, a mic, and a few friends.

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72
NAMING CONVENTIONS

W ith so many potential Strowlers projects, a standard way to organize and name them is crucial. In order to keep your stories
organized and accessible to audiences who are discovering Strowlers for the first time, please use this format:
[Show Title] [S#] - [Series/Character] [E#]: [“Episode Title”] [(Location, Country, Year)]
1. [Show Title] - In this case, Strowlers. (Other shared cinematic universes on The Fantasy Network have their own titles, but share
this naming convention.)
2. [Season Number] - This book is the authoritative guide to Strowlers Season One. At the end of this season an event will take
place that affects the entire world. As the show progresses, creators telling stories in the Strowlerverse will indicate approximately
when their story takes place by designating the season. So, for example, when the show is in its fourth season, you may decide to
jump back in time and tell a Season Two story. Stories preceding the beginning of Season One are considered Histories.
3. [Series/Character] - This is the unique title that sets your film or series apart from every other Strowlers film or series.
4. [Episode Number] - This represents the episodes of your film or series. Begin with Episode 1 and proceed from there. Episode
numbering will typically reset for each new season, but that choice is up to you.
5. [Episode Title] - Episode titles are optional, but encouraged.
6. [Location, Country] - Your story reflects your unique point-of-view. It’s exciting to see where the story takes place!
7. [Year] An optional designation for Strowlers Histories.

EXAMPLE: Strowlers Histories - Pepper E1: “The Traveler” (West Cork, Ireland, 2016)
EXAMPLE: Strowlers S1 - Amaaji E1: “The Box” (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia)
EXAMPLE: Strowlers S1 - World Bible (USA)

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 REGARDING
THE STROWLERS LICENSE
EXISTING CHARACTERS
It is inevitable that some
T here are a few official rules that every Strowlers creation must follow. They represent
our best effort to balance freedom, collaboration, and the values of the Strowlers: that
the best projects are the ones worth doing together and that the right stories can change the
third-party creators will want to
world.
tell Strowlers stories that feature
existing characters. For the writ- We want Strowlers to grow into something larger than we can imagine. We want you to have
ten word, this poses no problem the freedom to engage in storytelling dialogue and worldbuilding with people from every
whatsoever, but film, of course, country imaginable.
requires actors!
We also want to support the incredible Strowlers Story Team, which has spent years preparing
Should the circumstance arise to help you tell Canon Strowlers stories. And we want that support to help them manage the
where a filmmaker is asking, for daunting task of keeping Canon Strowlers stories within official continuity, which is why
example, to cast Trin Miller to we ask for a reasonable hourly rate if you want to work directly with Strowlers Story Team
play Amanda Darrow in their members to develop your Canon stories.
own Strowlers show, as a general
rule we will: a) require that that Also, as disappointing as it might be not to acquire Canon status, some stories may never work
show go through the Canon ap- officially within the framework of the narrative that we are telling for the Strowlerverse. (For
proval process; and b) expect the example, stories featuring visitors from an alternate Earth, aliens from outer space, or similar
film’s producer to make an offer world-breaking elements won’t be approved.) The Story Team and Strowlers super-fans will
to the actor in question (or their do their very best to help you overcome these challenges!
agent), whose decision to partic-
Regardless of Canon status, however, we encourage you to tell the stories that bring you joy,
ipate or not is entirely their own.
share them, and let them grow in the telling. Make a roleplaying game. Paint a mural. Com-
Additionally, third-party works pose a symphony. Start a wilderness commune. Perform an aerial acrobatics act. Shoot a mov-
featuring existing characters ie. The possibilities are endless!
from the core Strowlers storyline
Strowlers is our gift to open culture.
who are played by recast actors
We hope that it inspires you, brings
may face additional hurdles
together a global community, and
from the Strowlers Story Team if
evolves into forms that we can’t begin
seeking Canon status. We would
to imagine.
strongly prefer not to have multi-
ple people playing the same roles And with your help, it will!
in Canon works, unless they are
significantly younger or older, Here are the basic guidelines that we
and can plausibly be played by a expect creators of Strowlers works to
new actor. follow, but be sure to check out the
following complete license as well!

74
THE GUIDELINES
1. You may tell any story set in the Strowlerverse that you want, in any medium, as long as it doesn’t break the law. You may call it
a Strowlers story. You may sell it, give it away, or lock it in a time capsule for the next eighty-seven years. It’s your story! (Com-
mercial Rights)
2. Any of your creations that you put the “Strowlers” name on are available for other people to use as inspiration for their own works,
under the same Strowlers License. (Share-Alike)
3. You can’t just copy someone else’s work and label or resell it as your own. Remixes must be transformative, as determined in cases
of conflict by the Strowlers Story Team, whose decisions are final. (Transformation)
4. You must, to the best of your ability, credit and link to the works of any other Strowlers creator or creators that appear in your
own creation and must always link to the official Strowlers website. (Attribution)
5. OPTIONAL: If you want your work to be labeled “Canon” (that is, an official part of the story universe), you need to work with
our Story Team to make sure it fits the overall narrative. If your Canon work generates any profits, you agree to dedicate a small
percentage of those profits towards supporting the overall Strowlers project. Only the Strowlers Story Team can declare a work
“Canon” and the use of the “Strowlers Canon” logo is protected. (Continuity)

75
 Strowlers Shared Cinematic Universe License & Agreement 1.0
THE PREMISES
A. The STROWLERS series of programs were first produced and put out into the Universe in 2010 by Zombie Orpheus Enter-
tainment LLC (“ZOE”).
B. ZOE created Strowlers from scratch. As creator, ZOE owns the copyrights to Strowlers and its creative elements.
C. ZOE welcomes viewers, of course. The more STROWLERS viewers, the better. Expand the community. Tell your friends.
D. ZOE, quite unusually, welcomes community members to create their own original variations, adaptations, and spin-offs of
STROWLERS, provided that the new creators agree to all of the following terms.
THE TERMS
1. You affirm your understanding that ZOE owns the copyright to all the STROWLERS episodes that ZOE has already created
or will create. That includes the stories, scripts, characters, dialogue, designs, costumes, make-up, props, cinematography, music
and everything else that goes into any motion picture.
2. ZOE grants you a conditional, free, non-exclusive license to make and distribute your own variations, adaptations or spin-offs
of STROWLERS. Really. You own the copyright to your creation, as a derivative work based on STROWLERS. This explicitly
includes video, the written word, live theater, music, the visual arts, and dramatic entertainments.
3. BUT, “Share-Alike” applies. It’s a condition of your license. You must expressly allow other folks to make free use of whatever
you create for further variations, adaptations or spin-offs of STROWLERS including use of whatever new elements you create.
That means that you must include or link to this license and state explicitly that your work is released under the terms of the
Strowlers Shared Cinematic Universe License & Agreement. If you don’t “Share-Alike,” you lose your license.
4. “Attribution” also applies. It’s a condition of your license. You have to give prominent credit to ZOE, to STROWLERS, and to
the creators of any subsequent work you use to make your work. And you have to give prominent on-line links to the STROWL-
ERS web-site and to the web-sites of any other works that you used to make your work. Crediting third-party works is by ne-
cessity a good faith effort—as more works by more creators are created using this license, it is possible that tracing originating
works may become difficult. Keep an online record of the credits for your work that can updated as necessary with missing
third-party credits. (The Strowlers Wiki is a good place to list your project and credited works.) If you don’t give “Attribution,”
you lose your license.
5. “Transformation” counts too. It’s a condition of your license. You can’t just copy all or parts of STROWLERS or someone else’s
work. You have to create something original. In other words, we welcome you to create a transformative work, that uses but is
not a mere copy of STROWLERS or someone else’s work.
6. “Integrity” is required. It’s a condition of your license. Be careful and smart when you create your work. The license from ZOE
doesn’t mean that all new elements you use are OK. Don’t rip off anyone! For example, if you add new characters, or you add
music, or you use a new story line, or you use someone else’s trademarks, artworks or words in your work, be sure they are orig-
inal or that you get written permission from the copyright owners of those new elements. You agree to be solely responsible for
claims and damages if you don’t have the integrity to do this right, and that includes indemnifying others who thereafter use any
of your elements to create their own new works.

76
7. “Keep It Clean.” It’s a condition of your license. If ZOE perceives your derivative work to be hateful, racist, or misogynist, ZOE
reserves the right to void your license and you agree that, among other remedies, ZOE can compel the immediate removal of the
Strowlers name from your work or (in extreme cases) the immediate removal of the work from distribution.
8. “STROWLERS CANON STATUS” – If you’d like your creation to be recognized as part of the official STROWLERS Canon,
you must acquire approval from ZOE’s Strowlers Story Team before, during, or after you create your work. STROWLERS Can-
on Status will be granted at ZOE’s discretion based on its Story Team’s determination that your completed work fits creatively
within the overall narrative of the STROWLERS universe as conceived by ZOE. Yes, this is vague—but we can’t make it more
specific. It’s at ZOE’s discretion. The advantage of receiving STROWLERS Canon Status is you can use the STROWLERS
Canon logo on your work and be an official part of the story. If you generate any profits from your STROWLERS Canon work
you agree to give ZOE 10% of your net profits to be used by ZOE solely to support this experiment in the creation of collective
art. Your accounting and payments should be done as revenue comes in but let’s face it, ZOE is not likely to sue you if you haven’t
paid a hundred dollars. You are becoming a member of a community and we rely upon you to do the right thing for the commu-
nity. If you seem to be cheating, ZOE can at its discretion revoke your Canon Status.
9. “Limits on Re-use.” It’s a condition of your license. This license does not grant you the right to use or license any Strowlers footage,
other than what is wholly original with or created by you, for broadcast television, cable television, theatrical exhibitions (except
at conventions and festivals), subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services, “over the top” delivery services (e.g. Netflix,
Hulu, Amazon), without getting explicit written permission from all the copyright holders. Violation of this obligation will re-
voke your license and you will be responsible for any claims arising from your violation, including without limitation any claims
from any entertainment industry union or guild.
10. Your attribution must take the following form:

Strowlers London: The Plague Years is copyright ©2018 John Doe and is released under the terms of Strowlers Shared
Cinematic Universe License and Agreement:
Attribution: This work is based on Strowlers, copyright ©2018 Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, and reuses content from
Strowlers: Melbourne, copyright @2018 Jane Doe.
Share-alike: You are free to use, remix, and transform this work in the creation of your original Strowlers stories and proj-
ects, subject to the Strowlers Shared Cinematic Universe License & Agreement

Learn more at http://www.strowlers.com.

(And, if approved by the Strowlers Story Team)

STROWLERS CANON: Strowlers London: The Plague Years has been approved as an official part of the Strowlers
Shared Cinematic Universe story.

Printed works must also reproduce this complete license in their text.
This is an effort at a plain-English agreement but don’t misunderstand. This is a contract. If you don’t understand what is said, get
professional advice. If you agree to all the terms and conditions set forth above, then show your acceptance by printing and emailing
a signed and dated copy of this license agreement to [email protected].

77
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
T he Strowlers project has been a worldwide collaboration. Its seeds were planted on a plane ride back from the 2004 Origins
Game Fair, where Chris Duppenthaler (Mark, The Gamers) had purchased a new roleplaying game called Deliria: Fairy Tales
for a New Millenium. Written by Phil Brucato, who oversees worldbuilding on the Strowlers Story Team, Deliria broke my brain
open. I mean, fairy tales are pretty cheesy, right?
But…instead what I found was a world where everyday heroes stepped into the dark forest and underwent a process of personal
transformation, faced magic and wonder head on, and emerged back into normal life changed forever. What could be more appro-
priate for these times than stories that reflected our personal experiences and lives, and that left magic open for more than super
heroes and epic elites? These were stories for all of us!
Inspired by Deliria, Phil and I spent several years working on a screenplay called Crossroads, which ultimately was too expensive
to produce. Around that time, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising was finally released to the public—and our Hollywood distributor
refused to pay the money that they owed us. Fed up with traditional fundraising and distribution, I returned to business develop-
ment, determined to throw out the rules and create something new, something that would allow us to tell a modern-day fairy tale,
something inspired by the magic of stories.
I spent two years building the business plan that would become Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE). I raised a small amount of
seed money to fund the development of a show called Cascadia. Kat Ogden pushed me to pursue the dream, and then joined ZOE
as a co-founder to make it a reality. Matt Vancil came on board to create the Cascadia world bible and characters. There we were, in
2010 and ready to produce our epic modern fairy tale.

78
And at the last minute we pivoted and produced JourneyQuest instead.
It was the right decision. Cascadia was still too ambitious, too personal. Plus, JourneyQuest was fun and accessible. However, con-
currently with the development and production of JourneyQuest, our team continued to design Cascadia. Creative input from Sarah
Corn, Juliet Shapiro, Kaleen Mills, Peaceful Dawn, and Amanda Cook grew the world in exciting ways!
During this time we also discovered “strowlers” in an old dictionary. This was us! This was what the show was about! That’s when
SJ Tucker and Kevin “K” Wiley stepped in and decided to run three “Strowlers Nights” events: in Seattle, Boston, and St. Louis.
Featuring the steampunk iconography of the original Cascadia concept, these shows brought together incredible performers—mu-
sicians, fire spinners, storytellers, and artists—to celebrate Strowler culture. This little concept that we had developed had the power
to inspire hundreds of people to show up and celebrate our shared identity. All of this from a poster and a definition.
But meanwhile, JourneyQuest had become a success of its own. We put Strowlers on ice and produced two more seasons of Journey-
Quest, along with several new Gamers films, Dark Dungeons, Attacking the Darkness, Rude Mechanical, and more.
Not willing to give up on this project, I decided to run the first Strowlers script as a roleplaying game. Willow Brugh, Joseph Brassey,
Sarah and Greg Rubin, Nathan Rice, Edward Gibbs, Calye and Phil Lacefield, Norita Dobyns, Shannon Gisselberg, Scott C. Brown,
Chris Davis, and more spent over a year playing and developing these stories and characters. While the story was different, the heart
of the world remained the same. This process also brought Whit, Amanda, and the Preceptor to life for the first time. (And who
knows, perhaps some day Tallis, Jimmy Cadence, and the others will find their way back into this world…or another!)
Then nothing happened. And kept not happening, for far too long, until Samara Lerman and Gabriel Gonda sat me down and gave
me permission to pursue the entire reason I wanted to create ZOE in the first place: Strowlers.
So we put together a new writers room and got to work! Elizabeth Armancas, Lindy Boustedt, Satyros Phil Brucato, Heather Conti,
Lisa Coronado, Abie Ekenezar, L. Gabriel Gonda, Elizabeth Heffron, Samara Lerman, A. G. Quinn, and Nicole Pouchet Skuba
brought their lives, experiences, and passions to the table and delivered more than I could have imagined.

You hold the result of our collaboration in your hands, along with the opportunity to view our first three films:
Strowlers S1 - Strowlers E1: “Pilot” (Seattle, USA)
Strowlers Histories - Pepper E1: “The Traveler” (West Cork, Ireland)
Strowlers S1 - Amaaji E1: “The Box” (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia)
This project is the culmination of a decade of effort from dozens of immensely talented creators. What better way to end this book
than with recognition and thanks for the privilege of getting to work with so many brilliant people—and with excitement for what
you may create in our world next!
Thank you to everyone who’s joined for part or all of this journey: the storytellers, crew, cast, writers, musicians, performers, makers,
fans, crowdfunders, and especially, my partner, Norita, who believed in Strowlers every step of the way, and my daughter, Katy, who
slept soundly through so many loud gaming sessions when she was an infant. This will all make sense eventually, kid, I promise.
Ben Dobyns, May 2018

79
 GLOSSARY sult, their use in an educational setting is reserved for those who
can pay for it, or—very rarely—for extremely lucky and gifted
individuals who qualify for a scholarship. Collars are issued and
Advanced Psychodynamics Application Council (ADPAC) maintained by the Psychoanomaly Control Division as part of
The federal group responsible for oversight of use of psychody- the licensing process for Talents on the higher education track
namic innovations in the private sector. prior to their eventual Focusing.
Advanced Reality Physics A field of study regarding the fre- Focusing Focusing is a complex and still-evolving process that
quency waves of sublime energy, which govern the equilibrium creates permanent patterns of thought and behavior in the sub-
between entropy and inertia. In plain English, adjusting the ra- ject’s brain, in order to control and guide their use of psychody-
dio dial of possibility. What Arcanologists call magic. namic energies.
Anomaly Response Corps (ARC) The federal law enforcement There are three levels of Focusing dependent on the subject’s
division responsible for the policing of Unlicensed Talents and Messermann Test score: third-degree Focusing is Access, sec-
Psychodynamic Anomaly Threats. ond-degree Focusing is Enhancement, and first-degree Focus-
ing is Attainment. Side effects of the Focusing process include
Arkie(s) Derogatory slang for an arcanologist. Has broad usage a diminished emotional connection to others, diminished in-
across groups. terest in sex, and a reduction in the ability to think creatively.
Arcanology and Arcanologist The academic study of the fun- These side effects vary in type and severity, and most members
damental forces that shape reality. This discipline grew out of of the establishment downplay their importance.
the study of alchemy, but has more in common with quantum Interdiction Interdiction is a punitive control of Talent with
physics than the search for the philosopher’s stone. Officially an three degrees of severity. First-degree Interdiction is Impedi-
arcanologist is a federally licensed Talent, who has completed ment, where an individual’s Talent is rendered temporarily inac-
their degree and taken the AACT (Arcanological Application cessible by use of a collar or in-patient electrochemical therapy.
Competency Test), the arcanological equivalent of a bar exam. Second-degree Interdiction is Correction, where the subject
The field is divided into theoretical and practical arcanology. is committed to a treatment center, and endures conditional
Burning and The Burned This is a derogatory term for Fo- Focusing that leaves their Talent active, but accessible only in
cusing, and for those who have been Focused, respectively. It is certain prescribed circumstances. Third-degree Interdiction is
most often applied to punitive Focusing, officially called Inter- Erasure, colloquially known as “Burning.” This level prevents all
diction. future use of Talent by an individual, and renders them docile.

Collar A collar is a device that uses psychodynamic forces in Lice or Nits Derogatory terms for Unlicensed Talents, mostly
combination with micro-circuitry to monitor and control abil- used by Law Enforcement amongst themselves.
ities in the wearer. There are a handful of different models of Practical Arcanologist In the United States, Practical Arcanol-
collar, the strongest of which is used by law enforcement to ren- ogists are fully-Focused Talents, who act as policy-makers and
der an Unlicensed Talent docile and unable to use their abilities. government agents working with ARC to control unlicensed
Collars are also used in educational settings, so that students can Talents. They also consult in the private sector with companies
learn to use and control their abilities before their Talents are that want to use psychodynamic discoveries in innovative, new
locked in at a specific level by the Focusing process. The tech- technologies. The duties of Practical Arcanologists in other
nology to build and maintain a collar is expensive and, as a re- countries vary somewhat, depending on the policies of their

80
respective governments regarding arcanology, and on the struc- logical abilities at all. These individuals often find themselves in
tures of the governments themselves. administration and management positions, as they are consid-
ered less risky for leadership roles than those with Talent.
Psychoanomaly Control Division (The PCD) The federal
department responsible for the licensing and monitoring of Tal- Witchhunter Colloquial term for any law enforcement officer
ents on U.S. soil. engaged in policing the Unlicensed, in particular the ARC. This
term is most often used by Strowlers, but some ARC officers of
Psychodynamics The field of arcanology concerned with the a particularly nasty type consider the term a badge of honor.
practical use of Advanced Reality Physics.
Psychodynamic Anomaly or Psychoanomaly An official
term for suspected Unlicensed Talents. (Psychs is an abbrevia-
tion often used in a derogatory way)
Strowler For every culture, there are those who live outside
and in opposition to it, defining themselves as “other”: artists,
musicians, makers, misfits, and innovators in every field, who
shine brightly on the edge of discovery, and who create worlds
of their own, rather than accepting the status quo. They have
been called many names over the years; in this generation, those
iconoclasts are the Strowlers. This term was initially applied in
a derogatory way by the talking heads that represent the dom-
inant culture, but gradually it was adopted as a badge of pride
by the same people it was meant to insult. Not all people who
might be called Strowlers describe themselves as such, however,
and there is no central Strowler movement. The most that can
be said is that there is a loosely-connected network of friends
and associates, and if you gain the trust of the right person, you
will probably be able to find everything that you’re looking for.
Not all Strowlers are magic-users; in fact, most of them are not.
But, they do usually share a belief that the current system is un-
just and that the time for change is upon us.
Talent or The Talented A Talent or one of the Talented refers
to an individual with Psychodynamic Ability.
Theoretical Arcanologist Theoretical Arcanologists work in
the Universities pushing the boundaries of the field of psycho-
dynamics. Depending on their educational track and level of
ability, theoretical arcanologists may not be fully-Focused and
may instead have their abilities monitored and controlled by the
use of a collar. Some theoretical arcanologists have no arcano-

81
 STROWLERS GLYPHS

AVOID BURNING BURNED DEFEND WITCHFINDER

People here will hide you/ be ready to defend
help you avoid authorities yourself

GET OUT NOT SAFE POWER STROWLERS

Escape from here Place of magic Allies may be found here
immediately

CAMP SECRET TEACHER STORY

Safe place to camp Hiding, be wary Tell a good story
to get help

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