Saturnalia (PBM)

Saturnalia (PBM)

Saturnalia was one of the first single-character sword and sorcery fantasy Play-by-Mail role-playing games run in the United Kingdom. The game started in 1984, being created by Neil Packer and Simon Letts and grew from its initial players at the University of Southampton up to over three thousand scattered across the United Kingdom and beyond. A company, Sloth Enterprises was formed, with many full-time GMs running Saturnalia from offices above a tyre/brakes/exhaust garage in the red-light district of Southampton.

In time, the company gradually faded away, with several former players taking on the role of GM to run either existing campaigns or to open up new areas. Most of these successors ran through the early 2000s (decade), and the Harlequin Games Exile campaign in the Southern Isles remains active.

The game was named for the Roman festival of Saturnalia, in that making the game, forming the rules and applying for the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, was total chaos. The word "Saturnalia" was one which turned up under the entry for "Chaos" in a thesaurus. Players took on the roles of adventurers. The game started on two sets of islands off the North and South coast of the continent, Erythria. This was named for no reason better than it sounded good. The Northern Isles included Faldeheim, Jorleheim and Tafkhim. The Southern Isles were Alagas, Krang and Ghan.