Following on from the excellent example in Rock Paper Shotgun, Priyan, Adam, Sam, Tom and I have started a game of Solium Infernum. This is a turn-based, play-by-email game from an independent developer, and is more of an electronic boardgame than anything else really, with the advantage that being unable to see what everyone else is scheming means that you’re in for some big surprises a lot of the time.

The premise is as follows: old Lucifer has gone AWOL, leaving behind a collection of angry, power-hungry, despotic, back-stabbing, cloth-eared, swivel-eyed, fornicating little gits to scrap over the spoils. However, Hell turns out to be a somewhat more structured place than the land up above, in that you can’t just go invading someone’s country without a good reason – you must earn the permission from the Infernal Conclave to follow up a diplomatic snub or insult. At this point you’ve entered into a Vendetta and pretty much anything goes.

Now at the moment the game is still ongoing, and I can’t go into much detail about anything because I’m sure that anything I say will be taken down and used against me (coughknickerscough), but I can introduce you to my character, Dr Monoculus.

Name: Dr Desmond Olivier Octavius Monoculus
Job Title: Duke of Hell (soon to be upgraded to Ruler, of course)

Likes: Snappy clothes, pulling the legs off spiders, arranging the skulls of his vanquished foes in alphabetical order.
Dislikes: Mess, short people, rain (so he’s in a bad mood at the moment)

Now, unfortunately, I have to remain silent until things finish, but in the mean time I’ll be preparing a series of battle reports to release once it’s all over…