Back when we started this whole thing, our entire game world was built around the city of Khora. Micah and his writing team came up with a bunch of other names–The Immortal City, City Prime, the Beginning of all Beginnings, the End of All Endings, etc–but I’ve always called it Khora. There’s plenty of lore posted in our Discord channel (if you haven’t joined, please do) about the life of Khorics, detailing their immortal existences and how they keep themselves sane through the unending eons.
I envisioned Khorics as near-humans cursed with immortality. They can die in a physical sense (and they often do) but they always return to Khora, reborn through the Coalescent. Immortality is their prison. It drives them insane, even as they attempt to lose themselves in unchecked hedonism.
Play Keeps Khorics Sane
Of course hedonism has many forms, and Khorics tried it all before settling on play. Play offers a distraction from immortality because play can be structured to mirror what Khorics miss most of all: the ability to permanently die. Play offers a discrete beginning, middle, and end.
Play used to be what made videogames so much fun. Death used to matter in videogames but when games became what they are now, death didn’t matter. Endless lives, endless save points, endless grinding–we players became immortal. And immortality became our curse, just like the Khorics.
So play is the only thing that keeps Khorics sane and they build their existence around it. The city of Khora is their playground. We hope it becomes yours.
Enter the Arena Perilous
Pompeii had the Amphitheater, Rome had the Coliseum, London has the O2, Ahmedabad has the Motera Stadium, and Khora has the Arena Perilous.
Every important game is held in the Arena Perilous, including our first game FASTER. The Arena is a mutable space capable of housing any type of game at any scale, from a single field to a self-contained sea to a vast urban landscape spanning hundreds of square miles. FASTER uses a track that weaves through the city of Khora. The Arena Perilous in this instance has knit itself to the Khorics streets, proof of its limitless forms.
Brooks Brown
CEO, Consortium9