Spanish company Burning Games have a reputation for great quality, not to mention good looking, games. They have been nominated for ENnies for two years running (Best Production Values in 2017, and winning a Silver ENnie for Best Free Product in 2016), were Golden Geek Game of the Year Runners Up with Faith: A Garden in Hell in 2016, as well as multiple nominations in other awards. This year they are gearing up to relaunch their Dragons Conquer America RPG Kickstarter, set in 1519 as two worlds collide, with the Spanish arriving in the Americas. We catch up with writer and designer, JC Obal, to find out his inspiration behind the game.
Could you explain to our readers what Dragons Conquer America is about? What are the main themes behind the game?
Dragons Conquer America (DCA) is a classic fantasy roleplaying game, with high adventure, monsters and the epic struggle between the mortal and supernatural world. As other fantasy settings, the struggle between human kingdoms plays an important part, too; however, this particular setting veers away from the typical anglo-saxon medieval environment to explore a much less known world: the culture and mythology of pre-conquest Mesoamerica.
As opposed to other Mesoamerica-based RPGs – some of them quite recent – we didn’t build our setting with fictitious places or ‘lookalike’ cultures; the game is supposed to take place on our world, on historic Mesoamerica during the European invasion. We slapped some dragons and magic weapons on it – well, a lot of them – but it’s supposed to be the real world.
The main theme, however, is still speculative; our goal is still to offer a ‘what if’. In this case, ‘what if’ the Mexica, Maya and other tribes had magic and divine spirits to counter the Spanish invasion and maybe, just maybe, change history, or even turn it around?
So, you may interpret DCA as a fantasy RPG with pyramids and feathered serpents, or as a historical fiction RPG where you have the chance to kick the conquistadors back to Europe with badass magic. Either way’s fine.
What are your goals, as writer? What do you hope people will get out of this game?
My focus has been on developing a somewhat honest and accurate depiction of the Mesoamerican world, which has been tragically lacking in pop culture fantasy, and even in serious History studies.
Once I achieved that – to whatever degree I could – I focused on giving a fantasy/ action/ thriller twist to that world.
This means this fantasy world cannot be ‘D&D but with chaneques instead of elves’, or ‘LOTR but with jaguar warriors instead of rangers’, because chaneques and Mesoamerican spirits had a very different role to the ‘humanoid’ races in anglo-saxon fantasy, and Mexica jaguar warriors were a different social class, with different social functions, to the knight orders of feudal Europe. I had to build a fantasy world out of what Mesoamerican mythology meant to the Mesoamerican people, not to its European revisionists or to the European standard by which we have learned to measure and build classic fantasy.
That’s what I expect people will get out of this game.
What kind of adventures can players expect in the core book? What kind of places will they be able to see? What types of monsters will they be able to hunt down?
The core book contains only one adventure, where players take the roles of a mixed party of mercenaries from both the Spanish and Mexica armies, looking for a lost temple rumoured to hold a gigantic gem. It starts out as your classic trap-filled ‘Aztec pyramid’ scenario, having to outrace both the fanatic priests and the greedy conquistadors, but then it twists in a different direction. You’ll see.
The book also gives tools to build your own adventures and places, which are exactly as varied as in any fantasy setting you’ve seen before. You can play Mexica heroes out to protect their land from European invaders; Tlaxcalteca rebels out to protect their land from Mexica conquerors; a group of Maya explorers looking for the ancient secrets of a spirit cave; a band of intrepid conquistadors, lost in the jungle and surrounded by hostile tribes; the agents of a rich pochteca merchant-spy, out to learn the secrets of a rival city-state through intrigue and dark magic; or a mixed group where every player comes from a different Mesoamerican – or European – tribe, with equally disparate goals and backgrounds.
What are your favourite aspects of this new setting?
The conquistador nuns that ride catholic dragons into battle. No, seriously.
That, and what I already said; the fact that the setting is based, not on anglo-saxon structures and European narratives ‘but with Aztecs’, but on actual Mesoamerican tropes and myths, developing its fantasy and epic elements from there.
How did you approach the research for the various cultures and myths of the game?
Thoroughly.
I’ve read hundreds of pages of papers and studies by the best Mexican Historians, Conquest-era chronicles, language books, mythology books, religion books – everything I could find.
My approach was very critical; I took everything with a grain of salt, even – or especially – our own native sources, because Mesoamerican history and lore was not only muddled by the ravages of the Spanish Church, but also by the conflicting interests, mixed heritage and outright lies of the locals. I treated any indigenous, honest sources I could find as a treasure, because they are exceedingly rare, and even these contradicted, far more than they confirmed each, other.
Could you share with us one cool historical or mythological bit you've encountered so far?
I was very engaged by the story of two characters, one on each side of the conflict, which probably decided the war – and thus world history – at different moments, on different circumstances, and almost unnoticed by History. At least I was unaware of their importance until I did this research.
The first was prince Ixtlilxóchitl, half-brother of the king of Tetzcoco, by far the strongest ally of the Aztecs. Most modern Mexicans don’t know who Ixtlilxóchitl was, and those we do are taught that he was a footnote, some local noble that kinda betrayed the Aztecs and sided with the conquistadors in exchange for power. But the fact is, Ixtlilxóchitl was one of the few local lords that wanted to attack the Conquistadors, establish a common front against them and kick them back to Europe; most of his peers preferred to appease the invaders and dissuade them from war with gifts and bribes. And yes, Ixtlilxóchitl ended up siding with the conquistadors, but it was mostly an ironic twist.
You see, Ixtlilxóchitl was the rightful ruler of Tetzcoco, but Aztec interests had forced him to abdicate in favour of his brother Cacamac, who was easier to control. Tetzcoco became a divided state, with half the cities accepting Cacamac’s rule and the other half siding with Ixtlilxóchitl; when the Spanish arrived, civil war was about to erupt. Ixtlilxóchitl wanted to rally all Tetzcoco under his banner and against the Spanish, but again the Aztecs blocked his campaign. So, when Cortés arrived and offered Ixtlilxóchitl the rule of Tetzcoco if he turned coat, he didn’t see it as a betrayal but as the best deal for his people, which he had spent years trying to liberate from Cacamac and Aztec rule. If the Aztec Empire had allowed Ixtlilxóchitl to rule Tetzcoco, the Spanish would have never reached Tenochtitlan alive.
The other character I discovered was Francisco de Montejo, one of the most important captains of Cortés’ expedition, who seems to be nothing special at first glance, but if you examine his story and deeds, he comes out as a shrewd manipulator, and perhaps the very orchestrator of the actual colonisation of Mexico.
In 1514, when the ‘New World’ was nothing but a few islands in the Caribbean, Montejo was a rich Spanish hacendado and a close friend of the governor of Cuba, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. At this stage, Montejo used his money and influence to promote the exploration of the mainland; in fact, he took part on, and financed, the first two expeditions to mainland America in History. He took good care never to be the leader of these expeditions, and I firmly believe it was to avoid the social consequences of the risk of failure. He also avoided a spotlight in History, but when Hernández de Córdoba mounted the third expedition under Cortés’ command, Montejo was there too.
It’s a well-known historical fact that Hernández de Córdoba changed his mind about the expedition and tried to stop Cortés; it’s less well known that Montejo seemed to be very influential on said decision. It is also known that, after Cortés rebelled and left for the mainland anyway, he kept Montejo by his side, despite knowing his friendship to Hernández de Córdoba; he even named Montejo as co-ruler of Vera Cruz, the first European city founded in America. What is not at all known is why Cortés trusted Montejo so much.
History also tells us that, after his first victories, Cortés sent a ship to the kings of Spain with one of his most trusted men, pleading for the kings to accept Cortés’ rule and override Hernández de Córdoba. The expedition had strict orders not to stop at Cuba or warn its governor in any way.
Well, guess who was on that ship. Montejo. And he wasted no time commandeering the expedition, stopping at Cuba, waning the governor, and then sabotaging Cortés’ message to the Spanish crown. Cortés’ other messenger died in jail, while Montejo returned to America as a governor in the name of Spain, with the first actual, official permit to settle the Americas for the Crown.
He was named the ruler of Yucatán – the first land the Europeans had found in the mainland – and led the subjugation of the Maya people, which went on 300 years after his death.
The main street of Yucatán’s main city still bears Montejo’s name.
How does DCA fit into the cultural appropriation issue?
Well, since we're white men making a game about an extinct indigenous culture, we have to come out and say that yes, DCA is indeed cultural appropriation.
I could say it is a honest, respectful work, made by a Mexican - me - and a group of madly talented people, who are genuinely interested in discovering, understanding, and bringing the actual, mostly unknown, Mesoamerican culture to mainstream pop culture. That's true.
Also, as I said earlier, we're not trying to fit Mesoamerican cultures to the European standard and criteria so they'll work as a D&D campaign; we have actually bothered to ask how Mesoamerica really was, how its people really thought, and developed our setting from those questions. Plus, half my grandparents were pure-bred indigenous Mexicans from Nahua tribes, and I learned the culture as I grew up, so there's that.
The problem is, Mexico's indigenous population has been oppressed and discriminated from the very moment the Spanish landed, and remains so today, 500 years later. Most of the non-white descendants of the culture we're honouring and homaging from our white-man standpoint will be unable to access, let alone afford, our game. That's what makes this endeavour a complex subject, and that's why we must call it what it is - yes. cultural appropriation - despite our respectful approach, our good intentions and my somewhat-indigenous upbringing. As long as social circumstances don't improve for abused ethnicites all over the world, the best we can do as members of the privileged demographic is act as a voice, even if it's an unauthorised one, say 'this is their world, their culture, their situation', and share it with whoever we can reach. And respect it as best we can, which is what I'm trying to do.
-----------------
JC Obal was first professionally published in 2001 in Dungeon Magazine, going on to write some articles for Dragon Magazine before becoming a staff writer at Mongoose Publishing for a year. He largely left the RPG business to become a full-time storyboard artist, although kept his hand in with sporadic freelance work, including an adventure for Wizards of the Coast when 5e came out. JC Orbal lives in Mexico and is the main writer of Dragons Conquer America.
You can download a free, 110-page, introductory PDF, Dragons Conquer America: The Coatli Stone Quickstart, on DriveThruRPG.
Could you explain to our readers what Dragons Conquer America is about? What are the main themes behind the game?
Dragons Conquer America (DCA) is a classic fantasy roleplaying game, with high adventure, monsters and the epic struggle between the mortal and supernatural world. As other fantasy settings, the struggle between human kingdoms plays an important part, too; however, this particular setting veers away from the typical anglo-saxon medieval environment to explore a much less known world: the culture and mythology of pre-conquest Mesoamerica.
As opposed to other Mesoamerica-based RPGs – some of them quite recent – we didn’t build our setting with fictitious places or ‘lookalike’ cultures; the game is supposed to take place on our world, on historic Mesoamerica during the European invasion. We slapped some dragons and magic weapons on it – well, a lot of them – but it’s supposed to be the real world.
The main theme, however, is still speculative; our goal is still to offer a ‘what if’. In this case, ‘what if’ the Mexica, Maya and other tribes had magic and divine spirits to counter the Spanish invasion and maybe, just maybe, change history, or even turn it around?
So, you may interpret DCA as a fantasy RPG with pyramids and feathered serpents, or as a historical fiction RPG where you have the chance to kick the conquistadors back to Europe with badass magic. Either way’s fine.
What are your goals, as writer? What do you hope people will get out of this game?
My focus has been on developing a somewhat honest and accurate depiction of the Mesoamerican world, which has been tragically lacking in pop culture fantasy, and even in serious History studies.
Once I achieved that – to whatever degree I could – I focused on giving a fantasy/ action/ thriller twist to that world.
This means this fantasy world cannot be ‘D&D but with chaneques instead of elves’, or ‘LOTR but with jaguar warriors instead of rangers’, because chaneques and Mesoamerican spirits had a very different role to the ‘humanoid’ races in anglo-saxon fantasy, and Mexica jaguar warriors were a different social class, with different social functions, to the knight orders of feudal Europe. I had to build a fantasy world out of what Mesoamerican mythology meant to the Mesoamerican people, not to its European revisionists or to the European standard by which we have learned to measure and build classic fantasy.
That’s what I expect people will get out of this game.
What kind of adventures can players expect in the core book? What kind of places will they be able to see? What types of monsters will they be able to hunt down?
The core book contains only one adventure, where players take the roles of a mixed party of mercenaries from both the Spanish and Mexica armies, looking for a lost temple rumoured to hold a gigantic gem. It starts out as your classic trap-filled ‘Aztec pyramid’ scenario, having to outrace both the fanatic priests and the greedy conquistadors, but then it twists in a different direction. You’ll see.
The book also gives tools to build your own adventures and places, which are exactly as varied as in any fantasy setting you’ve seen before. You can play Mexica heroes out to protect their land from European invaders; Tlaxcalteca rebels out to protect their land from Mexica conquerors; a group of Maya explorers looking for the ancient secrets of a spirit cave; a band of intrepid conquistadors, lost in the jungle and surrounded by hostile tribes; the agents of a rich pochteca merchant-spy, out to learn the secrets of a rival city-state through intrigue and dark magic; or a mixed group where every player comes from a different Mesoamerican – or European – tribe, with equally disparate goals and backgrounds.
What are your favourite aspects of this new setting?
The conquistador nuns that ride catholic dragons into battle. No, seriously.
That, and what I already said; the fact that the setting is based, not on anglo-saxon structures and European narratives ‘but with Aztecs’, but on actual Mesoamerican tropes and myths, developing its fantasy and epic elements from there.
How did you approach the research for the various cultures and myths of the game?
Thoroughly.
I’ve read hundreds of pages of papers and studies by the best Mexican Historians, Conquest-era chronicles, language books, mythology books, religion books – everything I could find.
My approach was very critical; I took everything with a grain of salt, even – or especially – our own native sources, because Mesoamerican history and lore was not only muddled by the ravages of the Spanish Church, but also by the conflicting interests, mixed heritage and outright lies of the locals. I treated any indigenous, honest sources I could find as a treasure, because they are exceedingly rare, and even these contradicted, far more than they confirmed each, other.
Could you share with us one cool historical or mythological bit you've encountered so far?
I was very engaged by the story of two characters, one on each side of the conflict, which probably decided the war – and thus world history – at different moments, on different circumstances, and almost unnoticed by History. At least I was unaware of their importance until I did this research.
The first was prince Ixtlilxóchitl, half-brother of the king of Tetzcoco, by far the strongest ally of the Aztecs. Most modern Mexicans don’t know who Ixtlilxóchitl was, and those we do are taught that he was a footnote, some local noble that kinda betrayed the Aztecs and sided with the conquistadors in exchange for power. But the fact is, Ixtlilxóchitl was one of the few local lords that wanted to attack the Conquistadors, establish a common front against them and kick them back to Europe; most of his peers preferred to appease the invaders and dissuade them from war with gifts and bribes. And yes, Ixtlilxóchitl ended up siding with the conquistadors, but it was mostly an ironic twist.
You see, Ixtlilxóchitl was the rightful ruler of Tetzcoco, but Aztec interests had forced him to abdicate in favour of his brother Cacamac, who was easier to control. Tetzcoco became a divided state, with half the cities accepting Cacamac’s rule and the other half siding with Ixtlilxóchitl; when the Spanish arrived, civil war was about to erupt. Ixtlilxóchitl wanted to rally all Tetzcoco under his banner and against the Spanish, but again the Aztecs blocked his campaign. So, when Cortés arrived and offered Ixtlilxóchitl the rule of Tetzcoco if he turned coat, he didn’t see it as a betrayal but as the best deal for his people, which he had spent years trying to liberate from Cacamac and Aztec rule. If the Aztec Empire had allowed Ixtlilxóchitl to rule Tetzcoco, the Spanish would have never reached Tenochtitlan alive.
The other character I discovered was Francisco de Montejo, one of the most important captains of Cortés’ expedition, who seems to be nothing special at first glance, but if you examine his story and deeds, he comes out as a shrewd manipulator, and perhaps the very orchestrator of the actual colonisation of Mexico.
In 1514, when the ‘New World’ was nothing but a few islands in the Caribbean, Montejo was a rich Spanish hacendado and a close friend of the governor of Cuba, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. At this stage, Montejo used his money and influence to promote the exploration of the mainland; in fact, he took part on, and financed, the first two expeditions to mainland America in History. He took good care never to be the leader of these expeditions, and I firmly believe it was to avoid the social consequences of the risk of failure. He also avoided a spotlight in History, but when Hernández de Córdoba mounted the third expedition under Cortés’ command, Montejo was there too.
It’s a well-known historical fact that Hernández de Córdoba changed his mind about the expedition and tried to stop Cortés; it’s less well known that Montejo seemed to be very influential on said decision. It is also known that, after Cortés rebelled and left for the mainland anyway, he kept Montejo by his side, despite knowing his friendship to Hernández de Córdoba; he even named Montejo as co-ruler of Vera Cruz, the first European city founded in America. What is not at all known is why Cortés trusted Montejo so much.
History also tells us that, after his first victories, Cortés sent a ship to the kings of Spain with one of his most trusted men, pleading for the kings to accept Cortés’ rule and override Hernández de Córdoba. The expedition had strict orders not to stop at Cuba or warn its governor in any way.
Well, guess who was on that ship. Montejo. And he wasted no time commandeering the expedition, stopping at Cuba, waning the governor, and then sabotaging Cortés’ message to the Spanish crown. Cortés’ other messenger died in jail, while Montejo returned to America as a governor in the name of Spain, with the first actual, official permit to settle the Americas for the Crown.
He was named the ruler of Yucatán – the first land the Europeans had found in the mainland – and led the subjugation of the Maya people, which went on 300 years after his death.
The main street of Yucatán’s main city still bears Montejo’s name.
How does DCA fit into the cultural appropriation issue?
Well, since we're white men making a game about an extinct indigenous culture, we have to come out and say that yes, DCA is indeed cultural appropriation.
I could say it is a honest, respectful work, made by a Mexican - me - and a group of madly talented people, who are genuinely interested in discovering, understanding, and bringing the actual, mostly unknown, Mesoamerican culture to mainstream pop culture. That's true.
Also, as I said earlier, we're not trying to fit Mesoamerican cultures to the European standard and criteria so they'll work as a D&D campaign; we have actually bothered to ask how Mesoamerica really was, how its people really thought, and developed our setting from those questions. Plus, half my grandparents were pure-bred indigenous Mexicans from Nahua tribes, and I learned the culture as I grew up, so there's that.
The problem is, Mexico's indigenous population has been oppressed and discriminated from the very moment the Spanish landed, and remains so today, 500 years later. Most of the non-white descendants of the culture we're honouring and homaging from our white-man standpoint will be unable to access, let alone afford, our game. That's what makes this endeavour a complex subject, and that's why we must call it what it is - yes. cultural appropriation - despite our respectful approach, our good intentions and my somewhat-indigenous upbringing. As long as social circumstances don't improve for abused ethnicites all over the world, the best we can do as members of the privileged demographic is act as a voice, even if it's an unauthorised one, say 'this is their world, their culture, their situation', and share it with whoever we can reach. And respect it as best we can, which is what I'm trying to do.
-----------------
JC Obal was first professionally published in 2001 in Dungeon Magazine, going on to write some articles for Dragon Magazine before becoming a staff writer at Mongoose Publishing for a year. He largely left the RPG business to become a full-time storyboard artist, although kept his hand in with sporadic freelance work, including an adventure for Wizards of the Coast when 5e came out. JC Orbal lives in Mexico and is the main writer of Dragons Conquer America.
You can download a free, 110-page, introductory PDF, Dragons Conquer America: The Coatli Stone Quickstart, on DriveThruRPG.
