Release date: 2024

A drought plagues the city of Uruk, and Nerguiin, a gala priestess tasked with speaking to the god Anu, hears no answer in the wind. When a bard, a ruthless thief, and an energetic lady break into her chambers in the White Temple, she strikes a deal with them: they’ll be given the sacred Tablets of Ascension, the texts providing the steps needed to reach the netherworld, but only if the thieves kidnap her. Before she knows it, she finds herself recruited into the greatest heist of their time: stealing rain from Ereshkigal, the Goddess of Death.

This story is recommended for those who wish to enjoy a light-hearted adventure romp with a sense of childlike discovery. If you are looking for a fable like in the best fairytales, look no further; Nerguiin has you covered.

Additional material

Click the maps for higher resolution. The spoiler free artwork comes first, spoilery images later under their own heading.

Maps & artwork (no spoilers)

Art by Jesse Kaukonen

My map of Sumer in 3000 BCE, in the Jemdet Nasr period, no doubt contains historical inaccuracies. One of the challenges was deciding which cities & towns to add, as many maps made of Sumer often focus on the Ur period, almost 1000 years later. What I found particularly interesting was the location of the Persian Gulf, which in this time was almost 200 kilometers further inland. Go look at Google Earth and search for the Great Ziggurat of Ur - it's so far from the coast now!

Art by Jesse Kaukonen

A challenge with this map was deciding how to represent a city the size of modern Tokyo. Ultimately I settled for abstracting everything to just the circles, as it was obvious trying to detail anything at this scale was doomed to failure on low resolution eink devices.

One of the fun puzzles that made me create a city of such design began with a mathematical puzzle: how does one calculate the total circumference of seven nested circles? Originally, I used an Archimedes spiral, but decided to go for rings as the gates made little sense in a spiral. And it just wasn't very practical if one wanted to walk from the 1st gate to the 7th in minimum time. In the earliest outlines of the story the thieves climbed over the walls due to the spiral design. If you're the mathy type, here's my solution.

Art by Jesse Kaukonen

Please don't hurt your neck with this one.

Music

Sheet music for Lament for Inanna's Passing composed by Dillan Schmitz from King Aurorus Music