Codex of the EL4DEV Confederation – Generation Z Torreblanca – Paul Elvere DELSART ‘s book Analysis
This book by Paul Elvere Valérien DELSART presents itself as a dialogued fiction set in Torreblanca, Castellón, Spain, where ten young people from Generation Z are invited to a mysterious meeting by two enigmatic local figures: Carmen ORTIZ, the mayor, and Laura BODIS. Under the guise of an initiatory tale, the text gradually unveils the principles of a vast fictional and social project: the Live Action Role-Playing Game in Alternate Reality called The Green Empire of the East and the West, also known as the EL4DEV Confederation.
The book thus acts simultaneously as a foundational mythological narrative introducing characters, symbols, and settings; as a book of rules and doctrine defining the game’s mechanisms, ethics, and objectives; and as a manifesto of living utopia, inviting the reader to become a player that is, an active participant in the world.
1. An initiatory fiction with mythic value
The first chapter stages a ritual of foundation. The town hall of Torreblanca becomes a temple of imagination, a place of collective awakening. The ten young people, symbols of emerging global consciousness, embody the archetypes of the creator-player: the cosplayer, the game designer, the environmental activist, the storyteller, the graphic artist, and so on. Each represents a facet of the future world to be built. Carmen and Laura play the roles of game masters: they set the rules, orchestrate the dialogues, and initiate the transformation of reality into a playful space.
The myth of the “Original Gathering” is established from the very first pages. The meeting in Torreblanca reenacts, in a modern form, the founding moment of myths: a small group assembled around a cosmic vision. The text draws both from the initiatory novel and cosmogony, describing the birth of a universe: “something was awakening… a promise, perhaps.” The narrative unfolds like a collective awakening ritual, where speech itself brings the world into being.
From the second chapter onward, the fiction shifts into metareflection: the characters define what a “Live Action Role-Playing Game in Alternate Reality” truly is. The novel becomes self-referential; it speaks about the game while simultaneously being a game in progress. The reader witnesses the transformation of fiction into a system.
2. A rulebook disguised as a literary work
The dialogues in Chapter 2 function as a genuine game design manual. The concepts they explore (narrative ecology, universe-centered convention, cooperative Alternate Reality) are presented as gameplay mechanisms. The text thus creates a metalanguage of rules, but in the form of a philosophical dialogue, as if the game manual were written as a Socratic conversation.
Chapters 3 to 6 then present the sub-programs of the game-world: the EL4DEV participatory engineering program, the LE PAPILLON SOURCE vegetal cities, the THE MUNICIPALITIES COUNTER-ATTACK intermunicipal network, and the Vegetal Calderas. Each element has both a narrative equivalent, belonging to fiction, and a functional equivalent, belonging to the system of rules. The reader learns how to participate in this world. The text behaves like a universe-book, both poetic and technical, a narrative rulebook comparable to a transreal Role-Playing Game bible. The following chapters detail the moral philosophy of the game: the Good, the Light, Chivalry, and the Natural Laws. These are the behavioral rules of the citizen-player of the Green Empire: respect for life, service to the community, rejection of personal enrichment, mastery of emotions inspired by the JEDI code. The narrative thus becomes an ethical charter. The character is no longer merely fictional; they become a model of attitude for the reader-player. The player’s character sheet is their conscience.
3. An aesthetics of transmedia and total play
The work extends beyond literature. It describes a system that encompasses the novel, art, play, ecology, and diplomacy. It is a world-work in expansion, a transmedia universe connecting fiction and real-world action. Paul Elvere DELSART adopts a performative fiction approach: to write is already to build the world he describes.
The oracular and ritual tone reinforces this impression. The vocabulary is symbolic, repetitive, sometimes incantatory: “The Green Empire does not impose; it reveals.” Each dialogue acts as a rule-formula, an axiom of the game. The work reads like a liturgy of Live-Action play, a sacred text for initiated players.
The reader gradually becomes a player. As they progress, they move from the role of spectator to that of potential participant. The Codex acts as a call to incarnation; it invites readers to replay the world, to transform society through play. This dynamic is typical of immersive Role-Playing Games, where the boundary between fiction and life becomes porous.
4. Symbolism and intertextuality
Philosophical references abound. One finds Plato and the figure of the philosopher-king, Manichaeism and Sufism with their duality of Light and Darkness, medieval chivalry as an ethical model, and humanist science fiction in the manner of Herbert, Le Guin, or Saint-Exupéry. The text weaves a syncretic culture where ancient wisdom and futuristic speculation unite.
Two symbols dominate: the forest and the light. The forest represents the regeneration of life and universal cooperation; the light symbolizes consciousness and truth. These motifs connect the poetic dimension and the game’s mechanics: the player is the one who “plants the light” in society.
The characters themselves embody ludic archetypes. Carmen and Laura are the game masters; the ten young people represent the classes of the world: the artist, the builder, the storyteller, the philosopher, the activist. The text transposes game roles into a metaphysical framework, giving the novel the structure of a first collective play session.
5. Dual reading: fiction and game rules
The Codex can be read on two levels. On the surface, it is an initiatory narrative: young people gathered in Torreblanca discover a mysterious project under the guidance of two mentors. In depth, it is a Live Action Role-Playing manual: each scene corresponds to a rule, each line of dialogue to a commandment. Carmen and Laura’s conversations are game-master tutorials, explaining the principles of Alternate Reality.
The Green Empire of the East and the West becomes the game-world to be inhabited and expanded. The Knights of the Living are the character classes; the LE PAPILLON SOURCE cities are the physical sites of play; and the moral code serves as the ethical framework for participants.
Thus, the text stands midway between a founding myth and a Live-Action rulebook: it is not only meant to be read, but to be activated. Each reader is invited to cross the boundary between fiction and reality and become a player of the world.
Conclusion
This book transcends traditional categories. Beneath its form as a work of speculative fiction, it conceals the charter of a world-game: a manual of collective transformation where the player becomes a creator of civilization. The work merges fiction, as an initiatory narrative with mystical tones; rules, as the codification of social and ecological action; and philosophy, as a call to planetary consciousness.
In sum, Paul Elvere DELSART invents a new genre: the Alternate Reality Codex-Novel, where the text is simultaneously story, manifesto, and rulebook. To read this book is already to begin playing and to play is already to begin building the Green Empire.
Back cover of the book
Codex of the EL4DEV Confederation – Generation Z Torreblanca
Subtitle: Founding mythology of the Empire
One winter morning, inside the town hall of a small coastal municipality in Castellón, Spain, ten members of Generation Z gather around two visionary young women from the community: Carmen ORTIZ, the dynamic mayor, and Laura BODIS, the talented one.
Their backgrounds could not be more different: a cosplayer, a game designer, an environmental activist, a game master, a fanfiction writer, a graphic artist, a specialist in medieval history and political utopias…
All of them have received the same enigmatic message, signed with an unfamiliar name: “The Green Emperor of the East and the West.”
What they are about to discover goes far beyond anything they could have imagined: a parallel universe crossing into reality, a secret society of builders, a global project where art, science, ecology, architecture, politics, and spirituality unite to transform the Earth. It is the EL4DEV Confederation, a visionary and enterprising organization that dreams of uniting humanity to collectively build a regenerated planet.
In Torreblanca, the boundary between game and life fades away. Their mission begins; and perhaps, so does the rebirth of the world. The future is not something to predict. It is something to build, by the young generations.