A ROLEPLAYING GAME · THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE DIE

COUNCIL

strive and pay, or be given — but keep hope, whatever the weather
by Sir Landis Fishman

Council is a game of knowing, choosing, and consequence. When a table sets down the dice, it loses the old gift they gave — a way to learn what no one thought to ask. Council hands that gift back. Every answer comes one of two ways: seized at a price, or given as grace. Behind every locked door wait three clues, so no soul is ever truly stuck. It is built to reward hope — it can wound you, and grieve you, but it breaks only the one who stops hoping.

THE WORK SO FAR ▾
FROSTED-MUG.COM · FUCKINPHILOSOPHERS.COM · THE HANDBOOK · THE ARCHIVE · COUNCIL OF UN
THE LOG · WHAT HAS BEEN BUILT

The work so far

Council was made a piece at a time. Here is the log — where the game has been, where it stands now, and what comes next. The finished rules gather in The Handbook; the whole workshop behind them lives in The Archive.

Council Website Council of Un
Jun 2026

The insight engine

DONE

The first question — what a table loses when it sets down the dice — is answered in the Silver Surfer papers: every answer comes seized at a price, or given as grace.

The Archive →
Jul 2026

Council becomes a system

DONE

The design plan turns a table's habit into a portable game. Early 'earned-grace' drafts are tried and set aside; the reward of cleverness is settled as 'Slack.'

The Archive →
Jul 2026

The five Books settled

DONE

Foundations and Books Two through Five, plus the Quick Guide, reach their current form. The default table is set narrow; the fiction is named 'the weave.'

The Archive →
Jul 2026

The Handbook, bound

DONE

The five Books are packaged for reading — a browsable hub for the screen, and a continuous edition built for print and the reMarkable.

The Archive →
Jul 6

Onto the domain

DONE

fuckinphilosophers.com goes live — a Nix-built site published to GitHub Pages, with the landing page as its first face.

Jul 7

The site takes shape

DONE

The site is rebuilt on Zola: the landing, the Handbook workspace, and the Council of Un corner are each framed in and ready to grow.

Jul 7

The margin review → Handbook v3

DONE

The Handbook is printed and marked up by hand; the notes become a Review Edition, a 41-comment editorial pass, and the clean cut of v3 — with the tagline settled ('The pen is mightier than the die') and the byline made canon: by Sir Landis Fishman.

The Archive →The Handbook →
Jul 8

The first table kit (MVP)

DONE

Not the final copy to be played with, but a moment worth keeping: the Standing Orders player binder, the Works play cards, and the keeper's sealed booklet — the system first in hand at the table.

The Archive →
Jul 9

The whole book, on the web

DONE

The Handbook goes live to read in the browser — How to Play and Books I–V as native chapters at /rules/ — and the bound Print Edition is swapped in beside it. The provisional 'Words of the Table' glossary is retired, its terms now carried by the Eight Timbers.

The Handbook →
Jul 9

The site bound to match

DONE

The website is re-set in the printed Handbook's own black-on-white book type — serif headers, hairline rules, rubricated emphasis — invertible to a true-black night reading mode. The landing sun turns to a moon and dissolves the whole page between the two.

Now

The designer's pass

ACTIVE

The bound edition is current and the whole book reads on the web; next it goes to a designer for a full typographic pass, after which the print PDF is replaced with the finished setting.

The Handbook →
Later

Council of Un — table tools

PLANNED

Interactive tools for the campaign corner, on their own track and kept separate from the system itself.

Council of Un →
FROSTED-MUG.COM · FUCKINPHILOSOPHERS.COM · THE HANDBOOK · THE ARCHIVE · COUNCIL OF UN