The Game of Shadows is the major cosmic system that has structured events on the A.D.A. axis since 1784: twelve zodiacal platforms, each kept active by a guardian, around a vacant thirteenth throne. Whoever defeats a guardian activates the next platform and becomes its new guardian.
| Type | Concept (cosmic system) |
| World | Antiterra |
| Supervisor | the Cakravartin |
| Installed | 1784 A.D.A. |
| Spanish entry | El Juego de las Sombras |
Mechanism
Each of the twelve platforms corresponds to one of the twelve zodiac signs and has an assigned guardian (cosmological, mortal, demonic or mixed) whose function is to keep it active. Adventurers who defeat a guardian activate the next platform of the cycle and, through the Dual Corruption, become the new guardians.
The Dual Corruption is the defining clause: the victor becomes the vanquished and inherits the guard, with no option to refuse. Tenures vary from centuries to weeks. The most recent guardians, installed by the Regulators when they defeated their predecessors, are the most unstable, because they keep mortal memory of having been adventurers.
Doctrine
- Platforms are concretions of energy based on an abstract concept, divided according to the cosmic numerical base (BCN) of their universe; the zodiacal set is “a dual universe of BCN=12”.
- Abstract axes called columns cross all dimensions, each the essence of a concept such as violence or vanity: constant in concept, variable in style. The violence of Aries appears as war in medieval settings, administrative fury in the Belle Époque and inner storm in dream.
- “The platform is the guardian’s prison.” Whoever defeats a guardian does not free him but replaces him.
- The 13 zodiacal platforms determine the facets of the gods of the postmodern pantheon, framed by the duality of good and evil embodied in the guardians.
The Central Black Throne
Above the twelve platforms is a thirteenth seat, the Central Black Throne. It is a throne, not a platform, and is vacant, “in attesa del Tredicesimo” (“awaiting the Thirteenth”). It corresponds to the sign the ancients erased from the wheel, Ophiuchus, the Serpent-bearer. The chronicles of Les Libertateurs speak of “twelve double hosts” and “twelve platforms”; the count of thirteen arises only when the throne is added.
Supervision
The Game is supervised from Atlantis, the pre-submerged one at the bottom of the Atlantic, never wholly lost. Its declared supervisor is the Cakravartin, Atlantean king, who does not take part but arbitrates.
History
- 1717: the cycle opens when the first platform rises in the square of Notre Dame in Paris after the double invocation (the weeping angel and Death-as-guillotine).
- 1784 A.D.A.: the cycle closes in the New York of 1784 with the caged black butterfly. This closure is the reinstallation of the modern system. The year coincides in Antiterra with the end of the first uchronic era. The installation is attributed to agents who no longer act openly, whose identities survive in Atlantean archives under partial names. The system has not been uninstalled.
- 1888 A.D.A.: the Regulators and the Deep Ones find the system already active. The first documented platform, Aries (the Ram), activates on 21 March; the Regulators faced it with the guidance of Gabriel. Before then the Game operated unnamed. Taurus was the second activated, with Aldebaran as its stellar referent.
- 1888–1901 A.D.A.: successive activations of the final cycle; platforms remain active at the close of 1901.
- Present cycle: the system is in force; the Central Black Throne is still vacant.
Inscriptions
A diagram of the system bears Italian inscriptions with archaic and Venetian words: “Le Dodici Piattaforme Zodiacali”, “I Dodici Guardiani”, “Meccanismo Primordiale”, “La Tredicesima Piattaforma”. Its avvertenza inicia (first warning) reads: “Whoever learns to read the platforms is already playing. Whoever learns to play already has a seat waiting. The only way not to be a guardian is not to understand this warning.”
Conflicting accounts
- The system was first dated to an original installation in 1784; the chronicles of Les Libertateurs refine this: 1717 opens the cycle, 1784 closes it and reinstalls the machine.
- Candidates for the expected Thirteenth: Paulus himself; the Cakravartin; or an entity not yet manifested. All three have textual support; none is confirmed.
Open questions
- Who installed the system.
- Who the Thirteenth is.
- Whether Washingstorm is a guardian (a hypothesis).
- Whether Sigil is an axis mundi outside the system.