Immaterial Contest

Synopsis

Immaterial Contest is a story about futuristic gladiators fighting in the arenas of future humanity. It is a story of death overcoming immortality, a deeply flawed reiteration of the Iron Age among the stars, a narrative of divine origins and the always pre-existing cultures that give texture to life.

Somewhere in this fine line, brutal exhibitions call our protagonists to obliterate both fantastical and real, to prove their strength and to win the Contest.

Futuristic city-states, barbarian kingdom-planets and theocracies of a star faring humanity it its remade Iron-Age are represented by Contestants and Claimants in the Immaterial Contest. Divine narratives, political decisions and culture at both the microcosm of the human as well as the macrocosm of society are influenced by the outcomes of these matches.

Varhas, a Claimant, finds Jorj his Contestant and match by match, the two form uneasy, as well as true bonds that bring them deeper into the Contest. A team forms and intrigue flows into boundless spectacle as new Claimants, Contestants, corporate sponsors and even divine influences join the team.

More details

Aesthetics: Kenophobic, Maximalist, New Iron Age, Industrial, Techno, Black metal, Unreal Tournament 99

Magic: There is a magic system in place that measures the abilities of Claimants in the story and allows them to control machines. This happens mainly in the Inverse Dream when the machines can support such battles of magic, with rare influences of this system in reality. Regarding this "magical" abstraction of controlling the logic of machines and measuring whose will is stronger then the other's, there is a deliberate lack of definition. Instead, for the magic system I've tried to define it only via who the characters are. For example, the two sea witches use water magic in the Inverse Dream. This makes sense only aesthetically, without clear definition in text, carried mainly by magical realism and stylistic prose instead of outright definition.

In other words, the complete extent of this magic system is not defined, but it instead hinted at by the heavy, or strange prose that only makes sense when the Claimants dive deeper into their fantasies.

Magic takes eight forms, mixed and matched depending on the Claimant's abilities, training and character. Four basic elemental paths of magic. Fire, water, air, earth and four sorceries. Death, life, astral, blood.

Glossary:
Commoners. The everyman.

Claimants. A group of humans characterized by their ability to enter Inverse Dream.

Inverse Dream. Cybernetic space that controls machines, gives shape to fantasies so that they may become real and measures the superiority of one Claimant versus another.

Pantokrator. Ruler of a planet, source of that specific culture and power. A Pantokrator is to a Claimant what a Claimant is to a Commoner.

The Contest. Violent, public exhibitions of arena violence. Comprised by many different types of games and events.

Announcement of Colours. Ladder announcement for the final brackets. Each team is assigned colours respective to their racial/ cultural/ corporate/ circumstantial characteristics.