I'm going to tell you about a bunch of games by Jenna Moran!

FOR FANTASY FANS: These are games with complex symbolic landscapes, a million little glimpses into larger stories, and they're literally designed for building OCs with strong personal aesthetics.

FOR TTRPG FANS: These games are largely diceless, with strong narrative infrastructure, and plenty of fuel for drama that can't be simply be solved through combat

You WILL have extended philosophical debates during play. This is a significant appeal for my particular circles.

Nobilis and Glitch

In Nobilis, you play as Nobles, the servants of Creation lifted up from among its people. You have divine power, yes, but also obligations: to your Imperator, the living law of the world who exalted you; to your Estate, the principle or element that answers your commands; and to the World Ash itself, besieged by invaders from the void without. All things have limits, but you must never accept yours.

Your individual capabilities include:

Superhuman feats of strength, speed, and grace

Authority over the phenomena of your Estate, to create, to destroy, to stir to movement

Authority over the mythic logic of your Estate, to declare that something is Like or Not Like, and in which ways

Claiming people or things that are important to you, and awakening them to wondrous abilities

...and other, stranger quirks of nature or destiny

The current edition of Nobilis can be bought at DriveThruRPG, but the Kickstarter for the next edition is approaching soon...

For more, check out the Chancel Aleph fansite!

In Glitch, you play as the lost royalty of the void who once rode forth to break the world... except, that's behind you now. You couldn't keep it up, or you're trying to quit. The world is still wrong for you, but, you have to live regardless.

Your uncanny abilities include:

Asserting your self-concept, your identity and role; and treating the world as your stage

Claiming the things of Creation, and awakening their hidden wonders

Hunting and binding the things of the Not; and calling forth their power

Working destruction upon the world, and healing your brokenness in the lands beyond

...and other unique personal truths. You also need to choose how well you can function in everyday life, but this does not come naturally to you.

Glitch can be bought at DriveThruRPG. For more adventures with enemies of the world, try the webcomic Chibi-Ex!

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, and the Far Roofs

Once the Sun was shot from the sky, once the King of Evil was slain, but those stories are over and gone. Instead, Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine is about Town and its people. People with peaceful lives, people with exciting ones, people with sparks of divinity, people who are completely ordinary, people who turn into giant snakes (which is never a good idea!), and people whose wishes come true.

Unlike most TTRPGs, Chuubo's highlights a strong core cast of pregenerated characters to play with. You can make your own original characters for it (and please do!), but that core cast are the lens for in-text examples, setting material, and eventually the Glass-Maker's Dragon campaign (one of the best campaigns in TTRPGs imo).

This core cast is an important anchor, because Chuubo's is extremely versatile, supporting a build-your-own-campaign playstyle that might be intimidating before you see it in action. Campaign genres include...

Slow-paced slice of life

Erratic drama that spirals into obsession and isolation

Getting caught up in magic and mystery

Leaning into stylized, "meta" takes on fantasy

The katabasis, the descent into travail and hardship

Fables of fate and transformation

Deeds out of a heroic epic

Tales of struggle and overcoming fear

...and additionally, the choice of whether your player characters are fundamentally mundane or if there truly is something miraculous about them.

Chuubo's can be bought at DriveThruRPG, along with the Glass-Maker's Dragon campaign. For a "demo" that hones in on a specific genre instead of all eight, I can recommend the Techno Player's Guide.

Two novels take place in the setting of Chuubo's: Fable of the Swan, featuring one Jasmine Apocynum, and The Night-Bird's Feather, featuring the stories of Valentina Sosunova.

Also check out the Glass-Maker's Archive fansite and Karma Chameleon's extensive archive of Chuubo's fanart!

In The Far Roofs, you'll find the Fortitude Rats, heroes all. They climb the roofs to confront the monstrous and divine. If you find them in Town, or in your own hometown, they'll treat you courteously (I hope), and then hurry on their way to whatever great quest they've dedicated themselves to. But if you find them in Town, or in your own hometown, and ask them to take you with them, tell them that you just can't let this go... then, you can climb the roofs yourself, and with you own hands and heart, confront the monstrous and divine.

It's a portal fantasy with an above-average number of talking heroic rats, and imo, the strongest narrative mechanics yet, all packaged together with premade campaign material. I've saved my favorite for last.

This one uses dice! And playing cards. And alphabet tiles. If you get the chance to play it in-person, it's a very tactile experience, if you play it online, you're really going to want a specially designed VTT to make things easier.

On the Roofs, you might meet...

Goblin, petty and sadistic

Harpy, preparing to return from death

Hedge the Fang, who shapes the sea and endless sky, and steals away your second Name

Hoop Snake, who picks up its tail in its mouth and rolls away

King Death, who woke the rats to knowledge and of their own mortality

Malambruno, the dreamer, the infection, the betrayal sleeping within you

Typhon, who tempts you to glory or smites you for your trespass

Unicorn, never seen but in its moment of ascension, whose glory burns you away in the moment you catch it

...and Leucrotta, and the King of Shadows, and Gorgon, and countless other Mysteries, and rats upon rats upon rats

Free community copies of the Far Roofs can be found on Itch.io, while print-on-demand physical editions can be ordered at DriveThruRPG. Standard digital editions can be purchased at either.

When assembling your party, try the Fortitude Rat dollmaker from, once again, Karma Chameleon.

The Community

The Apocynum Press Itch collection gathers homebrew and fan materials that get posted to Itch.

Karma Chameleon is a pillar of the community. As well as their lovely art, they've made the Quest Set builder for managing Chuubo's and Glitch quests, and an interactive overview of recurring miraculous traits.

Here on Dreamwidth, we have the Jennafans Community!. On Discord, there's the Ninuan fan server.

Jenna Moran herself can be found at her personal site, Tumblr; and on Patreon, where she sometimes posts draft or preview material for the games mentioned. Her older fiction can be found at the Hitherby Dragons wiki

Finally, The Flood is not set in any of these worlds. It's a game about something else entirely (poetry farming). But it does feature its own version of the recurring Arcs scaffolding, so it may be worth a look.