war in heaven: john milton's paradise lost
A Game of Tactical
Combat in the Upper Air
Thus Adam made request; and Raphael,
After short pause assenting, thus began.
High matter thou enjoinest me, O prime of men,
Sad task and hard: For how shall I relate
To human sense the invisible exploits
Of warring Spirits? how, without remorse,
The ruin of so many glorious once
And perfect while they stood? how last unfold
The secrets of another world, perhaps
Not lawful to reveal? yet for thy good
This is dispensed; and what surmounts the reach
Of human sense, I shall delineate so,
By likening spiritual to corporal forms,
As may express them best; though what if Earth
Be but a shadow of Heaven, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?
 War
in Heaven is a turn-based wargame in which counters representing
companies of angels are fielded on a map of Heaven as described
in John Milton's Paradise Lost. A grid of hexagons is superimposed
on the map and is used to regulate movement and ranged attacks.
Combat between two opposing players is resolved by rolling
a six-sided die and referring to a Combat Results Table.
War in Heaven is now available
as a virtual board game using the free VASSAL
engine by Rodney Kinney. VASSAL is a cross-platform
Java utility designed to create a virtual analogue of a
tabletop wargame. Players won't have any lengthy set up,
cats won't be able to disrupt the counters, and turns can
be taken at the players' leisure. Best of all, VASSAL allows
for remote and offline play.
How to install and play War in Heaven
(playtesting alpha released 12/25/2004):
- Make sure you have the latest Java
runtime environment installed. Automatic installation!
- Launch the VASSAL Engine from Vassalengine.org.
(If the site is unavailable, download a mirrored copy from
lucite.org. Vassalengine.org may have a more recent version,
however, so try there first.)
- Save war_in_heaven.mod to
disk and open the file with VASSAL (right-click and "save
target as...").
- You may wish to read War
in Heaven rules of play prior to play. The
War Rule will be especially useful when the rules are
actually complete.
Printable drafts of the components
and rules are also available (Adobe Acrobat Reader v.
5+ required, v. 6+ recommended). Once complete, the files
below will be designated with version numbers.
Extensions coming soon:
- Anatole France's "Revolt of the Angels"
- Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" (Longfellow)
- William Blake's "Milton"
- The Dead Sea Scrolls' "The War of the Sons of Light
Against the Sons of Darkness"
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