//The drone rises high into the air, and, on the screen, for the first time you see the city in full. It is filled by – or perhaps itself is – a single building, labyrinthine and twisting. Passers-by walk the narrow paths between its walls, pass under arches and enter grassy courtyards surrounded on all sides by the same golden, sandy stone, while on its roof sit houses, rows of doors and windows staring out at the world with faces fixed in perpetual shock. “Look at the view!” they whisper, whenever a breeze ducks in through an open window and ruffles its curtains, or stretches out a finger to make a doorbell ping. “What a view!” they chatter. “What sky, what gardens, what stone!”//

//Even they, though, cannot see the full extent of the building. It seems to go on forever, curving and twining in and out of itself, the city on which the city above is built. From The Beginning – the centre – a vast, glass dome, full of ants in business suits, meeting-room sofas, and sky – it winds outwards, year after year, until reaching the outskirts, where the shelves stand empty, awaiting records still to be written of events that have not yet occurred. Here, there are no houses but gardens: bright flowers peep above the tops of the walls, and streams run down channels in the roofs crafted just for them. The entire space is covered in cheerful, well-kept grass; there’s even the odd tree, lustrous leaves offering oases of shade on sunny days. Bridges, delicate arches of metal and light, connect wall to wall at intervals along their lengths throughout the city; staircases spiral down between windows and spill into the streets, carrying those who live above down to the building for work. The city is not one, but two: dead and living, past and present. Now and then.// 

//A message appears on your screen: “Welcome to the Archive.”//

======Welcome!======

Welcome to //Chronicle,// an [[https://oxfordrpg.com/society_game.shtml|ORPGSoc Society Game]] starting in the Easter Vacation and running to the end of Trinity term, 
2026.

In //Chronicle,// players are collaborators in a worldwide project: the mysterious Head Archivist’s efforts to collect and preserve all the information that she can, scattered across a vast, beautiful globe. 

About once a season, characters will meet online to discuss their projects and their progress, reaching out and interacting despite all the barriers — both mundane and extraordinary — that distance and time have to offer.

Centring on themes of the past and future, connection, hope, beauty, and place, //Chronicle// will be a contemplative - albeit twisty - game, with room to explore themes both light and dark.

Note that this game will run over Discord, on alternate Saturdays from March to July 2026. For more information about when uptimes will occur, please see [[when_and_where|When and Where]].

//Chronicle// aims to particularly prioritise giving places to members of ORPGSoc who are no longer or not currently in Oxford, with this sense of connection across spatial distance one of its central themes. It will be running alongside three in-person Society Games, //[[https://labyrinth.oxfordlarp.com/start|Labyrinth]]// (run by [[https://www.oxfordlarp.com/|Oxford LARP Society]]), //Ex Nihilo// and //Palimpsest//. See our ballot information [link] for more details.

=====Getting Started=====
Firstly, a note that our wiki is //long// -- there is no need or expectation to read all of it! The most important points are highlighted below:

Before playing the game, please make sure you have read the [[style_and_tone|Style and Tone]] page for an overview of the game's core themes, and the [[cat_policy|Conduct and Acceptable Themes Policy]] for a complete list of themes that are permitted in the context of the game.

To learn more about the setting of //Chronicle,// see the pages in the Setting section of the sidebar. The main setting pages ([[the_archive|the Archive]], [[endring|Endring]], [[mayton_greynes|Mayton Greynes]], and [[the_nemeus_archipelago|the Nemeus Archipelago]]) give an overview of the various regions within the fictional [[the_world|world]]. [[internet|The Internet]] describes the game’s online setting. And the [[sources|Sources]] provide material from the Archive (stories, adverts, pottery shards) which add extra flavour to the cultures within each of these regions.

If you are new to Society Games, or roleplaying in general, the [[intro_wiki|Intro to the Wiki System]], [[uptime_sessions|Uptime and Sessions]], and [[downtime_emails_turnsheets|Downtime, Emails and Turnsheets]] pages may be useful. Check out the [[glossary|Glossary]] for useful terminology. Please note that //Chronicle// will have a slightly longer email period than in other Society Games. So, even if you are not new to Society Games, please see the above pages. If you are new to online games, please see the [[uptime_sessions|Uptime and Sessions]] page for an overview on how playing on Discord works. 

For creating your character, [[character_creation|Character Creation]], [[quirks|Quirks]] (the game's mechanics, which are tied into the world building) and [[crewing_and_crew_npcs|Crewing and Crew NPCs]] (for a different type of play) will be particularly useful.

The [[gms_and_npcs|GMs and NPCs]] page tells you about the people running the game, and the non-player characters they'll portray.

And finally, if after all this you're still wanting to play //Chronicle// (which will hopefully be the case!), then take a look at the [[ballot|ballot]] page in order to find out how to sign up to play.