Time now for our next urban fantasy faction – the Players.
They have been among us throughout history. Competitors who play a cosmic game with rules only they know about and understand. The ultimate winner of this game is granted a prize unmatched by anything in this world.
Yep, this is Highlander with the serial numbers filed off and a few little twists of my own.
The Players are effectively immortal, in that they don’t age past thirty. They can be killed, or even maimed, but unless something dire happens to them, they aren’t going to die by natural causes. They don’t get ‘killed’ and then become players. They are just born that way. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason on who is born a player. Gender doesn’t matter either.
Players will recognize other players on an instinctual level. They will know when another player is within a several mile radius. Like magnets they will be drawn to each other. They could run from the fight and not engage but where’s the fun in that?
Fights are one-on-one, mainly because it is easy to determine the winner that way. Mystical forces like easy transfers, not trying to figure out which percentage goes to which combatant.
If it weren’t for the transfer of mystical power, the fights could be broadcast, like mixed martial arts fights. Given the transfer, which would draw attention, the fights are usually held out of the limelight. Maybe there are those who know about the grand game who stage fights between players for their own entertainment?
They fight each other. When one fighter defeats the other a mystical force is transferred from the loser to the winner. I’m thinking at that point the loser is out of the game, and starts aging normally until they eventually die of old age (barring any unfortunate incidents like above). Not sure I’ll go that way and may change this. Maybe the loser can still defeat others and regain some of their mystic power. Maybe two opponents who have fought before can’t fight each other again?
They do not have to fight to the death and behead each other to claim the power of their opponents. Defeating their opponent by knockout is all that is needed. Their battles are more martial arts competitions rather than sword duels. Yes, I’m avoiding the whole ‘how do you carry a sword around all the time and not get caught’ issue of the original source material. You always have your body with you and can always engage in a martial arts competition. That’s not to say that there are opponents who don’t mind killing off the losers in their fights. Whether it is because the winner doesn’t want any further competition or just because they are excessively mean and sadistic, just because you lose the fight doesn’t mean you might be able to walk away from it.
The ultimate prize is that the last player standing gets to reshape reality to their liking. Whatever their vision of the world is, is what the world becomes. You’d want somebody who has a good moral center to win in that case, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t want the winner who believes every other person in the world is only for fighting, fscking, or enslaving. The entire world would be an adolescent alpha male fantasy made real. There are plenty of other versions of reality that wouldn’t be desirable either. Then again, a lot of people wouldn’t be happy with a world of fairness and justice and other good qualities being dominant.
What do you think would be a good version of reality, my Hordeling? Hit reply and let me know.
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