Magic is a Heady Wine: unsorted ideas for a Regency letter-writing RPG

Anna & Elena Balbusso

Had some ideas over quarantine for a letter-writing RPG in a Jonathan Strange + Mr Norrell-type setting. You play as Regency-era occultists. None of the play happens in meatspace, it's all play-by-post. Literal post, as in tree-corpses letters. Each turn takes a month. You can write multiple letters in a turn, to the GM and other players.

The world is split into three Realms:

• Society. Regency England: glittering lights, letter-writing, fox hunting, political intrigue
• The War. The battlefields of Europe: artillery, naval combat, mud and smoke and blood
• The Other Side. Faerie: brambles, heady wine, summer madness and magic

Things that happen in one Realm affect the other two. New developments in the War will change Society gossip; happenings in Society affect the Other Side (because of meddling occultists, and also because Faerie is strangely fascinated by the human world); Faerie politics change the battlefields of the War in strange ways.

By default, players can only influence Society at the start of the game. It's a big deal to send letters to the other two Realms.

Maybe there's like a Gazette or something, written by the GM? All the players get the latest issue every three turns. It's full of updates on what's happened in the three Realms since the last dispatch.