tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31339325128645465612024-03-29T10:59:07.510+00:00World Building and WoolgatheringSolomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.comBlogger258125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-90430075297843225512024-03-12T20:00:00.001+00:002024-03-12T20:00:23.469+00:00Conquistadors of Tartarus <p><b><i>There was a great wind, and darkness on the face of the sea. Then the proud ships vanished.</i></b></p><p>In 1571, the Holy League was fighting the Ottoman Empire. Their ships met in the Gulf of Patras, atop the Peloponnese. Spaniards, Savoyards, Venetians and Tuscans all fought the forces of Selim II from an assortment of ships. </p><p>And then they didn't. They disappeared, on the cusp of victory. A great enchantment fell upon them, and they were sent below.</p><p>Rumours abound: some say the spell was cast by a Turkish wizard. Others, that it was a disaffected Christian, a Transylvanian woman with a fixed grin. Some set the blame on a wizened Egyptian. One piece of esoteric gossip places the blame on a blank-faced boy North-East of Babylon. One utterly discredited suggestion suggests the culprit was a disgraced German academic. </p><p>What happened to them? Where did that battling knot of warring ships end up?</p><p>They went below.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" src="https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/343579/731549/main-image" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="395" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tantalus, by Hendrick Goltzius</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The ships fell. And then they slipped into the Styx. Thousands of confused, bloodthirsty knights and marines and sailors thrust into Hades. They found there sulphur and charcoal, and lead from fetters - and so there was gunpowder and shot. And there were allies among the Shades of the Dead, and the heroes of legend: Alexander and Pompey and Agamemnon. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="391" src="https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/343582/731552/main-image" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ixion, by Hendrick Goltzius</td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>So there are fiefdoms in the underworld, and rivalries - at first good natured, but developing swiftly. And there is struggle, against giants or beasts or furies or demons. </p><p>Some of the Holy Alliance, driven by Renaissance ideals of the Classical World have banded together with the 'Virtuous Pagans' to create a New Rome. Yes, another one. </p><p>Those Turks that were taken down into the Underworld have formed their own enclaves, and follow the old patterns of trade and conflict with the Christians. </p><p>Set against both are the hardliners and restorationists, dedicated to crawling out of the shadowy pit they find themselves in. </p><p>They all find themselves, it must be said, in a world where <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes#1566_to_1580:_Military_service_and_captivity">Cervantes</a> is allying with the Giants to destroy dark Satanic mills.....</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="469" src="https://militarymaps.rct.uk/sites/default/files/styles/rctr-scale-1300-500/public/collection-online/a/9/953056-1579602854.jpg?itok=iBcv4-rA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Matteo Perez D'Aleccio's Engravings of the Siege of Malta.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>SO, WHAT IS THIS?</p><p>Conquistadors in the Classical Underworld of the Renaissance. Mannerist in style, muscular and elaborate. Ghost-fighting Spanish <i>tercios</i> supported by centaur squadrons and led by Julius Caesar. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Captain of Infantry, Hendrick Goltzius (Netherlandish, Mühlbracht 1558–1617 Haarlem), Engraving " class="artwork__image js-artwork__image gtm__artwork__image" height="640" id="artwork__image" itemprop="contentUrl" src="https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/359978/771615/main-image" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="456" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/359978">This guy</a>'s probably there. He got that sash for cutting one of Cerberus's Heads off. </td></tr></tbody></table><p>Alchemy and diabolism. Penitent brotherhoods in conical fire-proof robes. Jesuits arguing with the shade of Heraclitus. Achilles getting into arm-wrestling contests with landsknechts. Stray Protestants keeping very quiet. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="undefined" class="mw-mmv-final-image jpg mw-mmv-dialog-is-open" crossorigin="anonymous" height="283" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Semana_Santa_La_Laguna_52_%28cropped%29.jpg/1920px-Semana_Santa_La_Laguna_52_%28cropped%29.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Imagine these guys lobbing rocks at descending Furies. </td></tr></tbody></table><p><i><b>Inspirational Media:</b></i></p><p>Dante's <i>Inferno</i>.</p><p>I guess some of the guys from <i>The Faerie Queene</i> are there. </p><p>16th Century depictions of Classical Antiquity. </p><p><br /></p><p>[This post written after trying to figure out where the River Acheron was said to emerge on the west coastline of Greece, and a hazy memory of Lepanto being in the area.]</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-7584983134872905752024-03-05T18:00:00.002+00:002024-03-05T22:20:34.739+00:00Coffin Nails: "Oh, so you like Feudal Weirdness, Solomon? How about you smoke the Entire Pack."<p><b>It should have happened the other way round.</b></p><p>Last Saturday I saw Part Two of Dennis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's <i>Dune</i>. I enjoyed myself, and think I shall do so if I rewatch it. Regarding adaptation, it goes deep in some places rather than shallow all over, to its credit. A decent enough picture.</p><p><i>However...</i></p><p>It goes quite hard on the minimalism. That works well for Arrakis, well for the acquisitive mania and pared-down souls of the Harkonnen, but not for everything. The first part had scenes that mystified and captivated more. The arrival of the herald (shown <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_TuEO6Mttw">here</a>) had me squinting up at the screen, examining the crowds of courtiers. What are they wearing? Why are they wearing it? What does it convey? Where did they find a carpet that long? Are those helmets functional or symbolic? See also the meme-spawning introduction of the Sarduakar. </p><p>Spoilers of a mild kind - but the Imperial Court, as shown in <i>Part Two,</i> should share twin elements of both those scenes and doesn't quite. It looks a little spa-like. Which is a proper comparison with Arrakis (created by God to test the faithful) but still a little disappointing. Though there would be something interesting in an Imperial Court which wasn't full of Rococo decadence or Feudal display but full of athletic, highly religious, pleasingly-natured types. Everyone in it a superb physical, social and mental specimen, for good or ill. We've not had a really good Shaddam IV yet, in any of the three Dune screen adaptations. Not that it's necessarily a plum role, mind you. </p><p>But before last Saturday, I had read Vladimir Sorokin's <i>Telluria</i>. </p><p><img alt="Telluria by Vladimir Sorokin" height="400" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1626324312l/58559133.jpg" width="250" /></p><p>This was picked as part of an ongoing reading group I tie into, so I read this in tandem with other people and their thoughts online. </p><p>I will reproduce the back-cover summary of the above edition (New York Review Books). Written 2013, translated 2022.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Telluria is set in the future, when a devastating Holy War between Europe and Islam has succeeded in returning the world to the Middle Ages. Europe, China and Russia have all broken up. The people of the world now live in an array of little nations that are like puzzle pieces, each cultivating its own ideology or identity, a neo-feudal world of fads and feuds, in which no one power dominates. What does, however, is the appetite for the special substance tellurium. A spike of tellurium, driven into the brain by an expert hand, offers a transforming experience of death; incorrectly administered, it means death.</p></blockquote><p>***</p><p>Well, what to say of this?</p><p><i>Telluria </i>is deliberately lush. It colours feasts of a reborn Knights Templar, drugged indulgences by starving Bohemian artists, woodland rural scenes, entranced Russian peasants. Tailormade as a counter to Villeneuve's <i>Dune</i>? Not quite, but the contrast is stark. </p><p>There is no main character: barely any ongoing narrative. There are fifty chapters, and perhaps forty-four stories. </p><p>An early thought of mine was to compare it to Neal Stephenson's<i> The Diamond Age</i>. A book that hit me at just the right age, I think. There's an obvious comparison between the teaming phyles of <i>The Diamond Age </i>(Chinese, Japanese, Anglo-American Victorian, Boer, Zulu, Ashanti, Mormon, Maoist-Gonzoloist....) and the new feudal states of <i>Telluria</i>. Aside from a range of set dressing and interesting technologies bespoke crafted for the new states, a historical or geopolitical interpretation reveals itself: Stephenson writes 'after the end of history': <i>The Diamond Age </i>is a 1995 work, looking to the end of nation-states and the rise of distributed republics. But it sees the surpassing (in symbolic plot terms) of free-wheeling cyberpunk anarchist types and is a thematic (and possibly literal) sequel to <i>Snow Crash</i>. <i>Telluria</i> doesn't see the end of history, but does see the collapse of the great powers. There is the repeat of the Crusades, even as there is the repeat of the Boxer Rebellion. There are long stretches of <i>Telluria </i>discussing the fall of Russia, its post-imperial nature, its rapacity. Travel in <i>The Diamond Age</i> is rapid and frequent; in <i>Telluria</i>, rare, difficult and often reserved for the rich - cue reference to climate change, even if this is unmentioned in the text. <i>The Diamond Age</i> looks beyond (from the American zenith of the mid-90s) to the collapse of states in a world of slickly manoeuvring corporations to the rebirth of state-like entities. <i>Telluria</i> looks beyond the final collapse of Russia, after the Tsar and after the Soviet Union (in a Russian moment of buttressed decline) to a variety of new polities.</p><p>Enough of the ripped-from-the-headlines material. That's not quite adequate for our purposes, anyway. I should also say that neither <i>The Diamond Age </i>nor <i>Telluria</i> are meant to be viewed as Eutopia or Dystopia. But I suspect Sorokin experiences higher highs and lower lows in his vision of <i>Telluria</i> than Stephenson for <i>The Diamond Age</i>. Some bits of <i>Telluria</i> would definitely look preferable to the present day to Chesterton or Tolkien, but by no means all of it. A deified Stalin (among other things) sees to that. </p><p><i>Telluria</i> is also thoroughly fleshly. I said lush above: there are some moments straight from Jonathan Swift, detailing the various horrors of human bodies and appetites. Orwell's essay on <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> is worth reading for detail and comparison. My mind also goes to Anthony Burgess - see his 'eschatological spy novel' <i>Tremor of Intent</i> or the lurid dystopia <i>The Wanting Seed</i> (that flips fascinatingly on its axis part way through). There are also some moments that seem as if they needs must come from a world that has had a time to saturate in widely available pornography, thanks to the internet. That's not that were Sorokin writing ten years earlier it would have been sexless, or even that I think <i>Telluria</i> too sexy for the Middle Ages! But the tone of variety, explicitness, repetition and niche appeal suggest a particular background influence. <i>Gulliver</i> is also worth mentioning because of the post-human appearances: Lilliputians, ogres, centaurs, cynocephaloi and more: engineered as toys or slaves. There is a thorough-going range of grotesques - all enjoying some of the same appetites and pleasures of baseline humanity. Which is as unmoored and adrift as the various polities of this new age.</p><p>Then there's Telluria itself. The shining nails. It's possible, tempting even, to see this as some sort of symbol for the Past's Inspiration (I resist the term nostalgia). Hazardous, intrusive, captivating, capable of inspiring love and courage and great deeds. That seems too simple - it is a way of accessing dreams, of achieving a fresh vision. It may be the fault of the age that so many of its dreams are so terrible. There's some portions that make it look redemptive, mind you, including some Ginsburg pastiche in the penultimate chapter than perhaps reframe earlier portions. Is the coward who 'bangs a nail into his head before battle' really an absolute coward, if his dreams of courage can be manifested? Of course, Telluria itself comes from a post-Russian republic in the Altai mountains. This is led by a remarkable <i>caudillo</i>, a former French soldier - and an 'Alpha Male' two short steps from being tongue-in-cheek (Cf. <i>The Eiger Sanction</i>?). It's difficult on to imagine that his policy with the nails is definitively good or redemptive (contra some interpretations), however red-blooded and life-affirming (a blasted slippery term) his chapter seems.</p><p>There is an awful lot of meditation and consideration - by foreigners and natives alike - of dead Russia, the scattered remnants of its culture, the appetites and drives and genius of the Slavic Soul. It doesn't actually conclude much about it, mind you. I'm almost certain missing one element or another of all this, thanks to reading this outside that cultural context. </p><p>That said, Sorokin feels willing to dart around Europe (with some exceptions - the British Isles, Italy, only a sideways look at the Balkans and Scandinavia). There a variety of languages used in such cases to offer the proper tone for that locale. This is something of a polyglot work. There is no common language or culture - even the looser culture of international liberalism. </p><p>Throughout there are smartphone like devices and AI assistants. It's unclear to what degree these are plugged in to something like our internet, but they certainly seem to be capable of an awful lot. Traditional literacy seems to have slipped out the window with their arrival - another link back to the Middle Ages. Or <i>The Diamond Age</i>. At any rate, they appear largely benign - and are unlinked to any one set of norms of cultures, which makes them a trifle more charming that the Alexas of this world. </p><p>In the end, though, a frustrating piece. Theoretically, <i>Telluria</i> should be like walking through a room at the museum: <i>Room 43, Art of The Low Countries, 16-17th C. </i>Some of the paintings are religious scenes, some still-lifes, some group portraits - maybe there's one or two busts or cabinets with painted panels. But it should all be of a kind, share a family resemblance. I'm not sure <i>Telluria</i> really does always. In any case, in a gallery I can keep half an eye on other paintings as I examine one particular pieces, have an awareness of things. No such luck with<i> Telluria</i>: no sooner than you take your eye off it, it vanishes. </p><p>For a contrast, I direct you to Patrick Stewart's review, to be found <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6275744715">here</a>.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpjyInXABw7JZx9Lqiyzz23TkIvy8LK8OEIGqx80fPZ2opBCeu_YPdQ9povtD6_9EhPkxu-SAfFUEXpN-xhAMMCJOz_PYoM6h2z_Mo7qlhLGuOVUtWuBHdv_7JwKPuY6G1yO-VidBHd7zkGn3bSvH2vqnimOlsUtQyyylLV6eImpuE5XkvYqrpBoZy0TTZ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="680" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpjyInXABw7JZx9Lqiyzz23TkIvy8LK8OEIGqx80fPZ2opBCeu_YPdQ9povtD6_9EhPkxu-SAfFUEXpN-xhAMMCJOz_PYoM6h2z_Mo7qlhLGuOVUtWuBHdv_7JwKPuY6G1yO-VidBHd7zkGn3bSvH2vqnimOlsUtQyyylLV6eImpuE5XkvYqrpBoZy0TTZ=w507-h640" width="507" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And to this recent relevant <a href="https://pjamesstuart.substack.com/p/i-made-this">image of his</a>. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-32575296839433030302024-02-15T21:03:00.004+00:002024-02-15T21:07:49.446+00:00Early February 2024 Miscellany <p>A little less highbrow than other iterations, but perhaps of use all the same.</p><p>***</p><p>Are you in need of a random background table for your next Character? Get out three d1000 and roll them in any order.</p><p>Using the United States Department of Labour's <i><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060410080202/http://www.oalj.dol.gov/libdot.htm">Dictionary of Occupational Titles</a> </i>we have a wealth of material! This was published between the <a href=" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_Occupational_Titles">1930s and 1990</a>s, and clearly has roots in that style of mid-century managerialism and compromise between state and corporation. Flipping through entries brings to mind all manner of stereotypes about vast sprawling heartless bureaucracies - but you shouldn't spurn it for this reason. In its precision (or, rather, precise tone) and comprehensive overview, it can suggest a possibilities of focus one never contemplated otherwise. </p><p><b><u>Example</u></b>: You roll: 231 - 503 - 034</p><p>There's no exact match, but we have something either side.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>230.687-010 ADVERTISING-MATERIAL DISTRIBUTOR (any industry) alternate titles: distributor, advertising material</i></p><p> Distributes advertising material, such as merchandise samples, handbills, and coupons, from house to house, to business establishments, or to persons on street, following oral instructions, street maps, or address lists. May be designated according to type of advertising material distributed as Handbill Distributor (any industry); Pamphlet Distributor (any industry); Sample Distributor (any industry).</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>GOE: 07.07.02 STRENGTH: L GED: R1 M1 L1 SVP: 2 DLU: 77</p></blockquote><p>and</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>235.132-010 CENTRAL-OFFICE-OPERATOR SUPERVISOR (tel. & tel.)</i></p><p> Supervises and coordinates activities of CENTRAL-OFFICE OPERATORS (tel. & tel.) engaged in operating telephone switchboards: Conducts on-the-job training for inexperienced operators. Assists operators in placing unusual types of calls. May discuss service problems directly with customers. Performs other duties as described under SUPERVISOR (clerical) Master Title.</p><p>GOE: 07.04.06 STRENGTH: L GED: R4 M2 L3 SVP: 6 DLU: 77</p></blockquote><p>Round up or down, according to choice. </p><p>Not enough for you? Well, lets get out of the clerical and sales section.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>689.387-010 CLOTH GRADER (textile) alternate titles: cloth classer; hand inspector; seconds grader; seconds inspector; table inspector</i></p><p> Classifies cloth into grades according to number of defects: Examines cloth for defects marked in previous inspection and determines whether corrections can be made to restore cloth to standard quality. Cuts defects from cloth with scissors or routes cloth to mending, dyeing, or refinishing department for reprocessing. Classifies cloth that cannot be restored to first quality according to standards for various grades. Records disposition of cloth rehandled. May inform weaving room of repeated imperfections requiring loom adjustments.</p><p>GOE: 06.03.01 STRENGTH: L GED: R3 M1 L2 SVP: 5 DLU: 77</p></blockquote><p>--</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>550.685-010 BATCH MIXER (soap & rel.)</i></p><p> Tends mixer that compounds cleaning powder: Opens valves to admit specified quantities of ingredients into mixer or weighs and dumps ingredients into mixer, using scale. Presses button or moves lever to activate mixer that blends ingredients for designated time. Stops machine and opens valve to discharge cleaning powder into storage bins. May draw sample of blended ingredients for laboratory analysis. May keep production log.</p><p>GOE: 06.04.19 STRENGTH: M GED: R2 M1 L1 SVP: 3 DLU: 77</p></blockquote><p>--</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>613.362-018 ROUGHER (steel & rel.) alternate titles: bulldogger</i></p><p> Operates roughing mill roll stands to reduce steel billets, blooms, and slabs to specified dimensions, using knowledge of rolling practices and steel properties: Reads rolling order to determine setup specifications. Installs rolling equipment, such as roll stands, guides, bar turners, and repeaters on rolling line, using handtools, bars, levers, and sledges. Moves controls to set specified draft between rolls at each stand. Observes color of heated steel to determine rolling temperature and starts roughing stands. Examines product passing through mill for surface defects, such as scratches and cracks. Verifies specified gauge of product after each pass, using calipers. Gives directions to mill crew in readjusting roll draft and realigning guides. May set up and monitor computerized roughing roll stands. May be designated according to type of mill operated as Rougher, Bar Mill (steel & rel.); Rougher, Hot-Strip Mill (steel & rel.); Rougher, Merchant Mill (steel & rel.).</p><p>GOE: 06.02.02 STRENGTH: L GED: R3 M3 L3 SVP: 7 DLU: 78</p></blockquote><p>--</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>737.387-010 DROP TESTER (ordnance)</i></p><p> Tests cartridge primers for sensitivity to impact by dropping weight onto sample primers from measured heights: Secures primer or primed cartridge case in test fixture and positions firing pin over primer. Raises steel ball in electromagnetic holder to specified height on calibrated column. Presses switch to cut power from electromagnet which drops ball onto firing pin in test fixture to detonate primer. Tests groups of primers from same production sample at several specified drop-heights, and records percentage of fires and misfires at each height. May plot test results on graph to develop primer sensitivity curve, or apply standardized statistical formulas to estimate sensitivity characteristics of entire production lot of primers.</p><p>GOE: 06.03.01 STRENGTH: L GED: R3 M3 L2 SVP: 3 DLU: 77</p></blockquote><p>--</p><p><b>[Obligatory snigger.]</b></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><i>825.361-014 VIBRATOR-EQUIPMENT TESTER (machinery mfg.) alternate titles: tester, vibrator equipment; top-lift and automatic-window repairer</i></p><p> Tests electrical and mechanical vibrator feeders and conveyors for conformance to specifications: Clips cable of test board to electric vibrator equipment. Turns dials and observes meters to operate electric vibrator equipment at specified cycle, voltage, and amperage levels. Holds end of scale against vibrator equipment to pick up vibration. Reads scale mark that shows distinct double image and determines vibrating frequency on conversion chart. Starts motor of mechanical vibrator equipment and verifies vibrating frequency. Advises ASSEMBLER (machinery mfg.) to add or remove vibrator bars from electrical vibrator equipment or weights from drive shaft of mechanical vibrator equipment, to correct vibrating deficiencies. May inspect vibrator equipment for loose bearings and bolts, using stethoscope. Records test data.</p><p>GOE: 06.01.05 STRENGTH: L GED: R3 M3 L3 SVP: 6 DLU: 77</p></blockquote><p>-- </p><p>I find some of these quietly fascinating. "Did you know that XYZ was a job? Do you reckon it still is?" (Which presumably says something a little unflattering about a desk worker as myself.) Anyway, one to use for <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/03/electric-bastionland-first-thoughts.html">Electric Bastionland</a></i>?</p><p>***</p><p>Does Heraldry seem too mainstream for your new campaign? Do you spurn <i>mon </i>that you may ward off the label 'Nipponophile'? Perhaps you can consider <a href="https://www.theheraldrysociety.com/articles/the-heraldry-of-horse-racing/">horse-racing colours</a>!</p><p>***</p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sargeant_Jagger">Charles Sargeant Jagger</a>: a British sculptor, whose most prominent work is the Royal Artillery Memorial in London. The clearly-lined central howitzer is certainly eye-catching (Wikipedia calls it Phallic). The artillerymen round the edge are fascinating pieces of realism - the gunner's harness full of shells and exposed, bulging forearms are noteworthy.</p><p>(Said shells are definitely not ones meant to go in the howitzer - which is a breech-loading 9.2 inch howitzer, firing an eye-watering 290lb shell.)</p><p>His work in less specifically historical pieces have an more distinct Art Deco line - as, perhaps, this image of <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sculptures_by_Charles_Sargeant_Jagger#/media/File:Brimington_War_Memorial_3.JPG">Britannia</a>, or <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Nieuport_Memorial#/media/File:British_Nieuport_Memorial_10.JPG">these</a> <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Nieuport_Memorial#/media/File:Nieuport_Memorial_R03.jpg">lions</a>. He died in 1934, but this all looks like it would fit in quite well to something in the 50s - as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_Star#/media/File:Festival_of_Britain.JPG">Festival of Britain logo</a>. </p><p>To return to an <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/06/fallout-britain-and-1950s-apocalypse.html">old punching-bag</a>, it's something <i>Fallout: London</i> might have found of use. Returning to that soon-to-be-completed project, incidentally, there are a few signs of something a trifle less stereotypical - as the use <a href="https://youtu.be/8PuzpblWpVM?t=363">here</a> of '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_and_Survive">Protect and Survive</a>' iconography. Still a bit <a href="https://fallout4london.com/?page_id=20">less than focused</a>, though. ('Constable Cruel' indeed!)</p><p>***</p><p>A recent find: <i>Urgent Copy</i>, a 1968 collection of literary essays and reviews by Anthony Burgess. I have found that I prefer Burgess's non-fiction to his fiction (if you want a flavour of both, try <i>1985</i>), so was delighted to find this. Burgess is clear in his introduction that this is journalism (hence the title) - but I think it a rung or two above that. A good review, which hasn't been written with too many refereences to that year's fashions or people or debates can help you pin down your own views by acting as a fixed point. </p><p>A certain amount of it, therefore, is given to decades-old literary debates. I have little objection to this; I find Burgess's style fairly readable and have enough assorted background knowledge to skate through pieces on things I've never read. It's not like this is homework, though I suspect the sheer number of authors mean that <i>Urgent Copy</i> could profitably be used in an intense course surveying English literature. </p><p>Further, there is a use in reading over old literary debates - aside from the fact that you may find a faction to your liking. If you know how this stuff has sintered out in the past, there's an extent to which you won't get bent out of shape by it when it crops up again. Cf. <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/07/july-miscellany-and-noisy-sheep-shearing.html">These discussions</a> of Milton.</p><p>Burgess's subjects include: Milton, Kipling, Dickens, Joyce, Shaw, Saul Bellow, Waugh, Greene, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bagehot, Marlowe, The Brothers Grimm. The pieces sometimes relate to a new book or a new edition of some work (as the first volume of Waugh's autobiography, or Robert Graves's 1967 translation of <i>The Rubaiyat</i> - inevitable comparison with Fitzgerald). </p><p>There is also a few pieces dealing with censorship and cultural shifts - 'What is Pornography?' is a fascinating essay to look back on. </p><p>More diverting is Burgess's review 'The Democracy of Prejudice' of <i>Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without</i> by Brophy, Levey and Osborne. It steps away from the discussion of an author's work or influence, and instead looks at a contemporary piece of popular criticism. Burgess is in an entertaining and vitriolic mode. It's curiously familiar, modern-feeling both for a 'Digital Era' spiky, combative style and 'Who stays in the canon' content and/or discussion. I know next to nothing about <i>Fifty Works...</i> other than what I have read of it. <a href="https://johnpistelli.com/2016/05/25/brigid-brophy-et-al-fifty-works-of-english-literature-we-could-do-without/">Here</a> and <a href="https://timesflowstemmed.com/2015/12/08/fifty-works-of-english-literature-we-could-do-without-by-brophy-levey-and-osborne/">here</a> are two modern reviews. I note in passing that I have read perhaps half of the Fifty Works mentioned (often without the urging of a schoolmaster, <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/05/marchbanks-at-breakfast-table.html">sometimes</a> <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/04/fading-suns-passion-play.html">even</a> on this blog!) before ever hearing of Brigid Brophy, Michael Levey or Jonathan Osborne. </p><p>[If you wish to review the contents for yourself, check the first exterior link.]</p><p>You may wish to compare this to Burgess's own <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-nine_Novels">Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939 — A Personal Choice</a> </i>(An occasionally eclectic list, Cf. <a href="https://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-hidden-genre-canon.html">PJS-led</a> discussions of the <a href="https://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-hive-mind-on-hidden-genre-canon.html">Hidden Genre Canon</a>). The International Anthony Burgess Foundation has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCYRFb8ZbLXA11J5qUoPeCV6Jz1o_gFPq">a podcast</a> centred around these - I've not found the few I've listened to terribly interesting so far, but you may differ. </p><p>***</p><p>There has been a second series of the radio series <i><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001gz6c/episodes/player">Medici</a></i>, subtitled 'The Inheritors'. The first series was discussed as part of <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/02/dynasties-history-plays-of-mike-walker.html">this post</a>, along with much other of Mike Walker's work. The inheritors in question are Alessandro de Medici and Catherine de Medici.</p><p>Alessandro I hadn't heard of - granted, he died fairly quickly in an assassination attempt as part of a sexual encounter. Catherine Johnson wrote his episode, which dwells on his reputed Moorish ancestry. I've only made a brief survey of the field, but this appears to be at least somewhat disputed by historians. Certainly, he was nicknamed 'The Moor' and the rumour that his mother was a slave was repeated after his death. His portraits certainly show a man with darker skin and tight curly hair - though obviously in the same costume and context as other wealthy Italian men. </p><p>Johnson writes Alessandro's episode as if his Moorish background was basically true....with some caveats. Firstly, the narrator is Alessandro himself - who feels the sting of these insults, as he might either if they were true or if he felt they indicated some truth about him and how he would never be accepted in Florence (&c, &c.) There are some scenes with his mother, who appears as a beggar - but no-one other than Alessandro seems to speak with her, and he downplays the encounters. Could he be hallucinating? It's an interesting approach, and one that I think can be deployed fairly well on Radio. </p><p>I'd heard of Catherine, of course - as a noteworthy personality of Early Modern France. Her presence as an outsider is emphasised across two episodes (Alessandro gets just the one). The net of personages - King, Heir, Queen, Mistress, Catholics, Huguenots - is an impressive feature of the two episodes, and I would call it a good primer on the mood of Early Modern Europe before the Thirty Years War. One to contemplate for would-be <a href="https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2018/08/bringing-down-hammer-warhammer-fantasy.html">WFRP games</a>?</p><p>No Anton Lesser, sad to say. There may be repercussions...</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8NvMQC0yH3JX2iYHSDpwJy82OUmhbdzNlcxeWFmPl4MpZG6hurufpz7yaCmRNYfBUzpRUeqcqqSrQzTYhAP0vkpMAiCrGB9DiC7RVI5qq_wTKGYRoX6kpQiENSiz81jg7IPmoAwAxCr7AaQZ-59_ra9_y0_qo8hObmyAoNH3XGuuBuInOwLftowXxLl2/s900/Council%20of%20Lessers.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="900" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8NvMQC0yH3JX2iYHSDpwJy82OUmhbdzNlcxeWFmPl4MpZG6hurufpz7yaCmRNYfBUzpRUeqcqqSrQzTYhAP0vkpMAiCrGB9DiC7RVI5qq_wTKGYRoX6kpQiENSiz81jg7IPmoAwAxCr7AaQZ-59_ra9_y0_qo8hObmyAoNH3XGuuBuInOwLftowXxLl2/w640-h269/Council%20of%20Lessers.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Gentlemen - the Medici have spurned us for the last time!"</td></tr></tbody></table><p>***</p><p>So, apparently principal photography has concluded on the <i>Rogue Trooper</i> movie. Which I rather thought might have withered on the vine. Website <a href="https://roguetrooper.com/">here</a>; if you wish to gen up on the Genetic Infantryman in advance of the film and - <i>doubtless</i> - become the envy of your friends and co-workers, you may read an old blog post on it <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/02/rogue-trooper-nightmare-machines.html">here</a>. </p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-15589872372988239592024-02-10T15:12:00.001+00:002024-02-10T15:19:29.827+00:00Faufreluches: Where are the Inquisitors?<p style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Because </i><u>I</u> <i>definitely expected the Imperial Inquisition.</i></b></p><p>To begin: I've spent a month on-off <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/12/december-23-miscellany.html">ruminating on</a> and <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-cape-of-four-pleasances.html">writing for</a> <i><a href="https://grandcommodore.itch.io/investigating-censor">Investigating Censor</a></i>. One of the things I praised that for is its titular Player Characters.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">Players are the titular Censors. It's a wonderfully evocative set of ideas - the mix of legal, customary and religious authority could be quite heady. The very title of 'Censor' throws you into a different set of social expectations and ideas. This is a strength of Dave Greggs, I would say - the Investigating Censor, the detectives of Starling and Shrike. It's reminiscent of 40k's Inquisitors or Rogue Traders, and rather more successful than </span><i style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">Mass Effect</i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">'s Spectres.</span></span></p></blockquote><p>Starling and Shrike is a sort of mercenary burgher republic described <a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2020/11/starling-shrike-inspector-character.html">here</a> in a little more depth (with a discussion of the inspiration in the comments <a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2021/05/artpunk-aperitif-leonoct-lane.html">here</a>). This is something I should sort of dislike - the same way 'Adventurers' Guilds' rub me up the wrong way. The notion of a free-roaming highly-trusted <i>professional hero</i> who apparently can dictate the legitimate use of force...it doesn't work most of the time. </p><p>Where is does (as above), it's submerged in maximalist settings - self-proclaimed in the case of Starling and Shrike, self-evident in the case of 40k. The Jedi of <i>Star Wars</i> also sort of work - however toned down the setting details is versus 40k, the operatic characters and emotions of those Space Operas sort of fulfil a comparable function. The Emperor's Questing Knights in <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/04/fading-suns-passion-play.html">Fading Suns</a></i> likewise, in part because of the all-but explicitly Arthurian angle. </p><p>To speak on where is doesn't necessarily - the <a href="https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Spectres?so=search">Spectre Rank</a> in the <i>Mass Effect</i> games. Although the strong presence of Jennifer Hale's Commander Shepherd rather stopped this from dragging things down, the rank of Spectre with its self-consciously tough name and roughly sketched presence looked rather like an excuse to get Shepherd out into the Galaxy. 'First Human Spectre' could readily be replaced by 'First Human Alliance Marshal' or 'First Human Investigative Magistrate'. That the iconography of the games settled on the <a href="https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/N7">N7</a> rating code is no surprise.</p><p>Likewise, the notion of the 00-Rating in the MI6 of James Bond: sensical (if sensational) when it is merely a Field Agent who can kill in the course of duty, strange and stretched when they turn into Spies and Commandos alike - as in the opening of <i>Goldeneye</i> (a film that leaves me rather cold, even by the standards of the Bond flicks). </p><p style="text-align: center;">+++</p><p>So where are the Inquisitors in <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/04/faufreluches-thousand-day-regency.html">The Thousand-Day Regency</a>? (Hereafter <i>Faufreluches</i> to refer to the setting rather than the setting-defining polity). I admit that <i>Faufreluches </i>was written with one eye squarely on its relative position to 40k - so where are the Rogue Traders?</p><p>My response is this: everywhere.</p><p>Read enough 40k material and it becomes apparent that at a certain level of authority, Adepts and Commanders and so forth possess, are entrusted with or can acquire not only highly-trained personal protection and a bunch of assorted legbreakers and enforcers, but legally-sanctioned, armed (do I repeat myself?) savvy investigators or their own pack of ultra-loyal black-ops hardcases. This includes the administrative, commercial and navigational authorities, and even if the various system governors don't get the cream of the crop, they can still muster all the above.</p><p>[Is this crazy? Well, A) '<b>Only the insane have strength enough to prosper. Only those who prosper may truly judge what is sane.</b>' and B) It's an exaggeration of overlapping spheres of legal authority in the Middle Ages; compare <a href="https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2016/02/fantasy-aztecs-in-future-or-scorpion.html">legal pluralism and scorpion men</a>.]</p><p>If you have to give any meaningful thought to or act on matters outside your planetary system, you probably have many of the powers of an Inquisitor. Thus, the Magnates in <i>Faufreluches</i>.</p><div>But that's not how any of this works, is it? The attraction of the Feudal Future of 40k is both for simpler Faufreluches-style reasons as sketched <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/04/faufreluches-feudal-future.html">here</a> and also for <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-hobbesian-theory-of-tabletop-war.html">Hobbesian</a> complex-web of influence reasons. The adventures of <b>Inquisitor Tewt'nphonheem</b> are the spark to which fuel is brought - the ridiculous grit thrust into the rational oyster to make the pearl of art (which is cast before swine....). We're right back to the question of whether or not <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/03/diplomacy-protagonists-macbeth-tully.html">GLORIOUS TULLY HEGEMONY</a> is possible.*</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">+++</div><div><br /></div><div>Setting that aside, here's a model of how <i>Faufreluches</i> (or something comparable) could string these together. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are <b>Champions</b>, <b>Retainers</b> and <b>Scum**</b>.<br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">[The Faufreluches-adjacent <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/01/world-of-lazarus-some-thoughts.html">Lazarus</a></i> has the similar Waste, Serfs and Family, but let's draw away from that.]</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><b>Champions </b>are setting-defining larger-than-life sorts, who presumably leap tall buildings in a single bound. Individual Characters have a great deal of strength, autonomy and potential (rises are swifter, falls greater). In <i>Faufreluches</i>, see Paladins and the Janissariat, despite their different tones - the one being Arthurian and the other Homeric/Wagnerian.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Retainers</b> are bound into a wider system, giving them an awareness of the world around them, if not the power to change it. This is where the intrigue and politicking happens - firstly because of the number of factions that are involved, secondly because you might actually need to persuade, petition or bully people to get what you need. In <i>Faufreluches</i> - the Magnates and the Seven Pillars. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Scum</b> are trying to survive. By law or choice or circumstance, they are in the midst of struggle for survival, against the foe or wild beasts or the elements - without major greater awareness or assistance from on high. Resources are limited, true friends or even reliable business partners are few. <i>Faufreluches</i> has some of these outlined on <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/05/faufreluches-vorontsov-at-bay.html">Zhiv-Moroz</a>, and they likely exist elsewhere.</div><div><br /></div><div>EXAMPLES. Zelazny's <i>Lord of Light</i> is Champion. <i>The Metabarons</i> is Champion. <i>Emphyrio</i> is ... Scum who get lucky? <i>A Song of Ice and Fire</i> is big enough to have strands of all three. <i>Ancillary Justice</i> is Retainer. <i>The Empire Strikes Back </i>is Champion, <i>Rogue One</i> is Retainer. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, for 40k: Abnett's<i> Eisenhorn</i> is Retainer, tending to Champion. Abnett's <i>Ravenor</i> is more purely Retainer. Feheravi's <i>Dark Coil </i>is Scum, occasionally reaching a strange Retainer status for metaphysical-supernatural reasons. Farrer's <i>Enforcer </i>is Retainer. Wraight's <i>Vaults of Terra</i> is Retainer, tending to Scum. Anything focused on a Space Marine is probably Champion. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Macbeth</i> and other Tragedies are likely Champion. <i>The Henriad</i> and other history plays are likely Retainer. </div><div><i>The Guns of Navarone</i> is a Scum narrative. <i>Where Eagles Dare</i> is Retainer.</div><div><i>The Maltese Falcon</i> is Retainer, <i>Chinatown</i> is Retainer with a tragic close. </div><div><i>Robinson Crusoe</i> is an introspective Scum narrative (it's not all battles in the mud). </div><div><i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2019/10/something-for-your-shelves-mythago-wood.html">Mythago Wood</a></i> is dreamy Scum. <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/10/something-for-your-shelves-well-of.html">The Well of the Unicorn</a></i> is Retainer. <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/02/something-for-your-shelves-fury.html">Fury</a></i> is embittered Champion. <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2018/12/something-for-your-shelves-john-jamess.html">Votan</a></i> is Retainer frequently out of his depth. <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2019/09/something-for-your-shelves-doctor-syn.html">Dr Syn</a> </i>is antagonistic Retainer (at least, in that first book).</div><div><br /></div><div>One shouldn't push this model too far, but that probably helps you calibrate things. </div><div><br /></div><div>NOTES. These categories may characterise an episode, or an entire narrative. Something chronicle-like may pass between them. Thus, <i>Dune</i> passes from Retainer-category among the Atreides (Is an heir a sort of Retainer? Close enough for these purposes.) to Champion-category with the Kwasitz Haderach. <i>Gaunt's Ghosts</i> sees the regiment of the Tanith 1st go from Scum to Retainers (if not evenly so: see the Gereon mission).</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>This doesn't precisely match onto Social Class - but we are talking 'Feudal Future': it is impossible to avoid. Yet a protagonist from the Upper Crust can be thrust into a Scum Narrative - as the nameless hunter of <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/01/rogue-movie-2021.html">Rogue Male</a></i>, who is in the midst of a pretty Scummy episode. The aristocratic Gaunt of <i>Gaunt's Ghosts</i> is a useful window to demonstrate the predicament of the regiment when in Scum-category: he can get answers - polite answers, even - just not results. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nor is this meant to correspond to a levelling system.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">+++</div><div>So, if this model is useful, the next step would presumably be to sketch out Champion and Scum narratives, even as <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/05/faufreluches-vorontsov-at-bay.html">Vorontsov at Bay</a> was (roughly?) a Retainer narrative. </div><div><br /></div><div>And in the meantime, if you need to know who the Inquisitors in <i>Faufreluches</i> are:</div><div><br /></div><div>Pastorate Witchfinders and Wardens, Mint Auditors, Secretariat Assessors, The Mews Long-Range Security Detachment, Schematician Troubleshooters, Division 5 of the Maioral Guard, Siegneuria Heralds, the Vorontsov Office of Occluded Defence, the Salammboan Green Veil Circle, Stadtholder Circuit-Riders......</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Per Bret Devereux, it's <a href="https://acoup.blog/2019/05/20/new-acquisitions-elective-monarchy-and-the-future-of-westeros/">perhaps desirable</a> - see the section titled 'Other Problems'.</div><div>**'Footsloggers' would be more dignified and as accurate. The single syllable of Scum has more impact.</div>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-73361482084078091202024-01-26T19:46:00.004+00:002024-01-30T06:39:10.200+00:00The Cape of Four Pleasances<p><i>As suggested </i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/12/december-23-miscellany.html" style="font-style: italic;">last time</a><i>, here's some material put together for </i><a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2023/12/investigating-censor.html">Investigating Censor</a><i>. I have tied this to some of my own </i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Rest%20of%20All%20Possible%20Worlds">Rest of All Possible Worlds</a><i> - I quite liked the idea of newcomers to the region, and this was a way to do it. A deliberate sort-of expansion pack. The two aren't supposed to be drawn too tightly together, so I haven't been too specific about (say) a newcomer being from this bit of Malmery or that bit of Tsymric. Anyway, off to.....</i></p><p>***</p><p><b>The Cape of Four Pleasances</b> is quite a way from High Dreaming Citadel, on the South-Westerly tip of the coastline. Largely flat, but still full of plant life, it hooks round to provide ample shelter for ships from the winds. It was once home to four villa complexes, the sea-side getaways of landowning families from the farming valleys deeper inland; a place to send invalids or troublesome younger sons - or to escape plague. Stables, bathhouses and colonnades welcomed guests; gardens, pavilions and gaming terraces entertained them; wall-hangings, scented breezes and palisades surrounded them. </p><p>Those families have now all been killed, or exiled, or subdued. The Cape of Four Pleasances should be the haunt of pirates, turning well-appointed chambers into sprawling plunder-pits or airy courtyards into open-air debauches. But somehow, it isn't: the estates remain empty, slowly decaying in the absence of gardeners, scullions and builders. </p><p>Any successful strike against the Cult of Protection should be welcome news to an Investigating Censor - or so one would imagine. Then, from traders and travellers comes report of newcomers: strangely dressed, heavily armed and highly inquisitive. They are the ones who have driven the pirates back, and created an orbit of relative peace.</p><p><b><u>The Hub</u> Port Houndsfair</b></p><p>Port Houndsfair was named for a regular gathering to sell hunting beasts to bored nobles. It nudged a fishing village into a full-blown port town, accommodating the Four Pleasances. There has been no-one to sell scent-hounds or other luxuries to for quite a while, and so Port Houndsfair was slowly decaying, and gradually earning that unfair nickname - 'Muttstown'. So it went, until a few years ago.</p><p>There are three principal areas one could divide Port Houndsfair into.</p><p><i>The Harbourside Narrows of the Old Town</i></p><p>Shacks and wharfs and slipways, and smokehouses, and nets in the sun - until you get close, and see the carefully varnished timbers of the buildings, the rows of pink and gilt tide-charms or pale wooden nereid bells hanging from the balconies, the fold-away street booths and the painted sunscreens of taut canvas. </p><p>Most of the Port's well-off families are elsewhere, but there are a few reasons to keep them coming into town - including an increasingly perfunctory set of civic rituals and the annual regatta.</p><p><i>The South-East Processional</i></p><p>Warehouses face each other along a straight new road, with walled gardens and large houses behind them. The new trade has meant that traders of Houndsfair have re-established themselves, to accommodate new volumes of goods going out to Fort Baculum and to house their increasingly prosperous families and retinues. </p><p>This is the place to find both a dozen cartloads of Musth and those dealers in it flaunting their new finery, and gossiping, and thinking of ways to embarrass one another at the next Cartel Assembly. Every two hundred yards of road was paid for by a different merchant, who attempt to outdo one another with elaborately carved man-high milestones, conspicuous scarlet roadside shines or numerous bright flags. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>There is no formal Centre of Gravity to the merchant class of Houndsfair: the Chair of Cartel Meetings is always a carefully chosen second-stringer. However, many individual merchants might show themselves as <u>Key Personalities</u>.</p><p>The <u>armed portions</u> of a Merchant's retinue typically carry Man-catchers, Whips, Throwing Clubs and Dirks. Several of them will carry <i>Cur-pipes</i>: lightly enchanted bone flutes that produce a wince-inducing shriek, designed to make crowds clear the road, slinking and cringing into alleys and gutters. </p><p>At night, perhaps one in four will be given <i>Tether Lamps</i><b>. </b>The retainer wears a large flat pectoral amulet, which attaches to him and sustains (through his heartbeat) a glowing paper lantern hovering several feet above. (It takes a small act of magical will, generally clutching the amulet in the right hand, to oblige the lantern to lower itself to go through an archway.)</p></blockquote><p><i>The Blue Light District</i></p><p>Trade of a different kind. Small by the standards of the pirate coast, the Blue Light District is at present dominated by a band of cutthroats who call themselves - with desperate, leaden gaiety - the <b>Elephants who Trample Care</b>. </p><p>Their boss is generally called <b>Trunk</b>, and is a <u>Centre of Gravity</u> in his own right. He owns a bludgeon made of ivory, terminating in a metal spike tip. This looks very impressive but he only recently acquired it and hasn't <span style="font-family: inherit;">yet had to use it in anger.</span></p><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acuity: d10</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Archery: d4</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fetches and Fetishes: d6</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gambling: d6</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Poetry: d4</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prowess: d10</span></div><p><b><u>The Old Power</u> </b><b>The Temple of Suspended Heads</b></p><p>Set down the cape, between the abandoned Pleasances (which it predates), there is a temple complex. This is dedicated to a figure called the Mother of Cormorants and a collection of sea-spirits called the Parliament of Tides. However, this is fairly far down the list of things people remember about the temple, for one very good reason.</p><p>From the broad eaves of the temples in the centre of the complex hang upside-down human heads. These are made of every material imaginable - stone, wood, wickerwork, metal, leather, ivory. These are decorated in as wide a set of styles with paint or chalk or gilding or carving, though the heads are all still recognisably human. These are suspended by a variety of chains, rope and cords.</p><p>The influence of the heads makes the Temple precincts within the ritual line of the ceremonial gate a sort of magical blind spot. Confused by the myriad symbols of dislocated and inverted sight, auguries fail, scrying produces an absolute blank and witchsight just gives wizards a headache. </p><p>This has made the Temple very popular over the years with people wanting to escape magical detection - and likewise with those who want to conceal themselves from divine attention as well. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">(Which is to say, the Temple is a resting place between sins rather than a place wonderfully suited for one to commit them. The Three-Precinct Master and the temple brethren drive out the more obvious Blue Light types of vice and would be aghast at cold-blooded murder. <br />[Hot pursuit is bothersome and unpleasant, but only a minor problem.])</p></blockquote><p>Consequently, The Temple of Suspended Heads wields a great deal of relatively subtle power on the Cape, as well as owning a broad estate in its own right. And it has wielded this a long time: twisting the arms of visiting nobles, sprinkling a dust of ritual propriety and moral rectitude over the grasping merchants and truculent fisherfolk of Houndsfair, and baffling Pirate Warlords into a rough semblance of good manners. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Young Men from Port Houndsfair volunteer (by custom) as wardens at the Temple of Suspended Heads. They spend several non-consecutive seasons in this role, and are expected to live temperately in this time. They wear Lovat green tunics, brass lozenge-shaped ornaments and dull crimson head wraps; they are armed with long poles with a sharply curved blade on the end. From these they take their name - the <i>Pruning-Hook Serjeants</i>.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">They are not usually called upon to do more than break up fights or chase off intruders, but will use deadly force in the event someone fails to back down. A Serjeant who decapitates someone in the course of his duties will dine out on the story for the rest of his life.</p></blockquote><p></p><p><i>Centre of Gravity</i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> The Three-Precinct Master</span></p><p>The Arch-Priest of the Temple of Suspended Heads. A deliberately inscrutable and taciturn man, who allows his subordinates to bear the brunt of daily administration and boring meetings. He concentrates on the cycle of Temple ritual, and on what he terms the 'higher mysteries'. Decades of sermons, spiritual tutelage and formal authority give him an aura of power enhanced by the tricolour chequerboard robes he wears.</p><p>He possesses the <i>Twenty Cormorant Rosary</i>, a string of jet beads that allow him to dive and glide like a seabird and breath underwater for a surprisingly long time. In the Master's Chambers he also possesses the sinuous enchanted glaive <i>Immortal's Expectorate. </i>This rests on the wall of his chamber and looks like an unused decorative piece - an impression prompted by several ornate nacre panels. In fact, the Three-Precinct Master practices with it daily. </p><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acuity: d12</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fetches and Fetishes: d6</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Poetry: d10</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prophecy: d12</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prowess: d10</span></div><p><i>Key Personality </i> <b>The Vernal Provost</b></p><p><span>As the name suggests, the Vernal Provost is appointed every spring. No-one holds the position for consecutive years. He acts as the daily overseer of the business of the Temple, and is usually an elder of the brethren. The Provost exercises control over the central temple buildings, the lodging and feeding of the priests and acolytes and minor infractions between them. The Pruning-Hook Serjeants report to him.</span></p><p>The current Provost has been in the post four times previously, and is secretly rather exasperated by the need to put all his projects into the hands of another priest. He would happily prolong his term of office in the case of a 'state of emergency'. He would also happily become Three-Precinct Master, though is (at heart) aware that the position of Master would thrust him into the sort of context where his concerns as Provost would immediately dwindle or shift.</p><p><i>Key Personality </i> <b>Head Usher</b></p><p>Overseer of the Visitors' Lodge in the Temple. Harried by his duties, he has slipped into a mental and social rut of repetitive cheerful cliche, which is dropped only and shockingly when he must upbraid an underling. A careful tender of power relations and niceties in the mixed surroundings of the lodge.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>The Young Power</u><span> The Whetstone Pundit</span></b></p><p><span>Thirty years ago, a scholar from an obscure cadet branch of a wealthy family moved into one of the Pleasances. He began to teach, providing an elite education for those that could afford it along the coast. </span></p><p><span>Twenty years ago, they began calling him the Whetstone Pundit - though whether this is in honour of his flat, stony features, his rasping voice or his ability to bring a degree of keenness to even the bluntest young minds is open to dispute. </span></p><p><span>He has become prosperous beyond the prospects of his birth. He is in his 51st year, and could happily retire now and live on his accumulated wealth and the products of his estate. He will not do so, because he is also highly respected. The Cartel in Houndsfair frequently consult him on all matters not linked to personal profit. Indeed, on almost all matters not related to public religion or wholesale commerce, he has managed to enact his ideals for public policy across the Cape. Further, he has managed to do so while retaining the image of a scholar pottering within the bounds of his own (flourishing!) walled garden.</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span>Naturally, he is not alone. The <b>Whetstone Estate</b> has perhaps a score of young students each with a body servant staying there, as well as a household staff and a village of workers. This was intended as a model of harmonious, mannerly rule, and is a charming blend of parkland and agriculture. However successful this presently is, the extent to which it is all a façade has varied from year to year. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The Pundit also has a trained band of <b>Guards</b>, who have been trained as loyal, ferocious huscarls but largely find themselves acting as night-watchmen and lodgekeepers. They would need sometime to gear up into near-equals of anyone in Fort Baculum. </p></blockquote><p><i>Centre of Gravity</i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> The Whetstone Pundit</span></p><p>Never strictly vigorous, the Pundit has remained active in his maturity - including some of the martial skills necessary for a noble. He does not openly embrace the minor magics of Fetishes and Fetches, but will make use of them.</p><p>His library would be immensely valuable to someone in Fort Baculum.</p><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acuity: d12</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Alchemy: d6</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Archery: d8</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fetches and Fetishes: d6</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flute: d12</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gambling: d4</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Poetry: d12</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prowess: d4</span></div><p><i>Key Personality </i> <b>Millrace</b></p><p>Millrace is the Pundit's Bailiff and has been busy with the practical application of his principles for decades. She is a squat, tireless woman in her middle years, typically clad in a set of blue-green robes. A common remark by the Pundit's servants is that she is the Iron Hand that allows him to wear Silk Gloves. She is also one of the main conduits of the Pundit's will to the outside world and really enjoys the occasional moments when she gets to browbeat someone far richer than herself.</p><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acuity: d12</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gambling: d10</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Poetry: d4</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prowess: d6</span></div><p><i>Key Personality </i> <b>Head Disciple</b></p><p>The Pundit's head scribe, secretary and sounding board. He actually regards him as wonderful, but distant from the practicalities of instructing aristocratic adolescents. This manifests as grousing, rather than resentment. Changing this way of life at his age would be a costly process, though it would not be so very hard to set up himself up as a tutor or similar riding on the Pundit's reputation.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><u>The New Power</u> Fort Baculum</b></p><p>Strange visitors from another land live here. They arrived in the face of piratical opposition, but fought it off in spectacular fashion, at what they now call the <i>Battle of Journey's End</i>. Revealing themselves to be traders, they acquired land across from Port Houndsfair where they set up a fortified compound - a secure anchorage for themselves, stores for their goods and a battery to ward off pirate raids. Their new goods have enriched the merchants of Houndsfair, as has their willingness to fight in defence of the Cape. </p><p>The residents of Fort Baculum are from Calliste. They represents an assortment of nations and peoples, gathered into a company of merchant venturers based in Datresse. They have an outlandish religion (or, depending on the individual, an outlandish irreligion) that makes them poor targets for the persuasive arts of an Investigating Censor. They have telescopes, coffee, tobacco and remarkable weapons, called fire-arms.</p><p><span style="text-align: center;">(Unless you'd rather they didn't, in which case they have highly advanced crossbows. There's precedent for that.)</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Buy Darkest Dungeon®: The Musketeer - Xbox Store Checker" height="360" src="https://xbox-store-checker.com/assets/upload/game/2019/09/optimize/c04z7cxdxhjp-background.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://64.media.tumblr.com/5dfbdaf876a779c51f8083af515aab44/57f4e40c47f13cc9-2b/s2048x3072/f7f5fe314c47fdcb2f5d90fab931b6b3e27587ea.jpg">Musketeer and Arbalest</a>, <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/sicklizardman/654093573311053824">of</a> <i>Darkest Dungeon</i>.</td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><p><img alt="Arbalest - Darkest Dungeon Guide - IGN" height="362" src="https://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/apis.ign.com/darkest-dungeon/a/aa/Darkest-Dungeon-117758.jpg" width="640" /></p><p>Several trade runs have now gone from Fort Baculum back to Datresse. It is showing a profit, and Fort Baculum is slowly gearing up for the long haul. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The Fort itself is a square, boxy affair - with a small stream fifty yards off for water. It has a battery at the tip of the Cape, a hundred yards off as the crow flies, but far further to walk up the series of switchbacks and curves that allowed the Callistans to haul their cannon up to the top. Someone sufficiently active could scramble up quicker, but probably not in armour.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">No-one at Fort Baculum can play the Flute, and their poetry is far too elaborate and fanciful.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The Sailors, Marines and Armed Labourers at the Fort carry Boarding Axes, Marlinspikes and Messers - as well as Muskets. Some officers carry long, slim swords - an oddity on the Cape. Their instinct, if attacked, is to stick to prepared defences - the ramparts, stashes of powder and shot, the ditches, the switchbacks up to the battery. They can be remarkable effective in these prepared positions. If overwhelmed they go into <b>No-quarter-asked-or-given</b> mode, and become particularly paranoid and dangerous. </p></blockquote><p></p><p><i>Centre of Gravity </i><b>Warrant-Holder</b><span></span></p><p>Licensed to deal in strange foreign goods, and defend his ships while doing so. Merchant, mariner, fighter, amateur linguist - and here for the long haul. He has people he owes, as well as interested officials that call on him whenever he steps back into port. The only way to get out of this is to make his packet. Then he can settle down and reminisce about the taste of the local hooch and the bizarre shellfish-based cuisine and the erotic frescos. A stable and steady man - until it pays not to be.</p><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acuity: d12</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Archery: d8</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Poetry: d4</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prowess: d12</span></div><p><i>Key Personality</i> <b>Wizarding Matross</b></p><p>You can either pay through the nose for Wizard College, or bugger off to the ends of the earth to dodge the debt collectors. Somehow, she did both. The Matross is a key component of the Fort Baculum battery, speeding cannonballs into pirate vessels with uncanny accuracy. The trouble is, there is only one Matross in Fort Baculum. She spends most of her freetime on a rough cot in a shack near by the guns. </p><p>The Matross has no desire to visit the Blue Light District and cut loose, no time to engage with the local culture and no immediate prospect of going home. The Warrant-Holder still feels the Cape is not yet secure against pirate raids. </p><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Acuity: d12</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Alchemy: d6</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Archery: d20</span></div><p><i>Key Personality</i> <b>Second-Son Scholar</b></p><p>One officer of the Fort nurses a set of ambitions - to apply his scraps of magical knowledge to this new world, starting importing to Calliste fetishes and fetches - or making them himself. This could make money. This could build prestige. This could make a name in the lecture halls and <i>wunderkammern</i> and salons of Calliste.</p><p>Except, of course, that for the Warrant-Holder, it is already huge. No need to push the envelope too far when we barely know the language and are making quite enough money already. The Warrant-Holder, naturally, has more shares apportioned to him of the Fort's trade. </p><p>Still, the Second-Son is trying. He probably has less of natural gift for languages than the Warrant-Holder, but he's using his in so many more different new contexts - and gradually building a far better cultural understanding of the region. Apparently. </p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: inherit;">Acuity: d10<br /></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: inherit;">Archery: d4<br /></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76);">Fetches and Fetishes: d4<br /></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: inherit;">Poetry: d4<br /></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: inherit;">Prowess: d8</span></p><p><b><u>The Empty Pleasances</u></b></p><p>These are now haunts of wild beasts, desperate beggars and bandits. Anything valuable was sold or removed long ago. There is one notable exception, however.</p><p>A Pirate Intelligencer has arrived and is making slowly gathering news of the Cape and Fort Baculum. This is generally accomplished through prompt payments of large amounts of hard cash or interesting new drugs, and the Intelligencer needs somewhere to store these. The Intelligencer has chosen a Pleasance to do this*, for their remoteness and ill-repute. Any beasts or itinerants were driven out and the crumbling manse has been rigged with numerous traps. </p><p>In theory, one of the Pleasances would be the first choice as an operating base for a Pirate assault on the Cape, but the Intelligencer has not got anywhere near making this a reality. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>*<u style="font-style: italic;">Possible Variant</u>: Hide the Lady. The Intelligencer is in one of the old Pleasances, but has booby-trapped all three.....</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-69214326843581007042023-12-28T22:23:00.001+00:002023-12-29T11:45:43.922+00:00December '23 Miscellany <p>The same form of miscellany post as ever - nothing immediately festive, though I hope you have feasted.</p><p>***</p><p>I watched a film: <i>Danger Close</i> - about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Long_Tan">battle of Long Tan</a>, this being a prominent event in the Australian experience of the Vietnam War. </p><p>The film is (in the nicest possible way) unexceptional. An interesting event, to be sure, and appealing in the way that films from outside Hollywood are - you've never seen any of these actors before, and can't attach stereotypes or type casting to them. And, of course, it's Vietnam shorn of the accumulated imagery and emotion of the American experience. Further, <i>Danger Close</i> has an utterly explicable but still faintly funny trait, in that it is a film from, for and by an English-speaking country about the Vietnam War that shows more Viet Cong faces than American ones. </p><p>So why am I talking about it here? Well, it has some very fine procedural elements: we see the actions and reactions of platoons, of D Company (6th Battalion, Royal Australian Rifles), of the battalion's Lieutenant Colonel, of the task-force commander at Nui Dat. As well as the actions of artillery sections, fire control officers and air force liaisons. Communication, for artillery barrages, ammunition resupply and airstrikes - to say nothing of simple reports - is a running feature. Hence, the title: <i>Danger Close</i>. </p><p>Communication - accurate, timely, swift and clear communication - of this kind is a challenge. Is this one that should be worked into tabletop play more? 'Roll a d20 to blow the correct notes on your bugle'? Well, that's less satisfying. And I'm not sure the presence of (say) harmonicas or mobile phone keyboards at the table would be terribly pleasing either. </p><p>One point of comparison is the video game <i><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/871530/Radio_Commander/">Radio Commander</a></i>, a strategy in which you keep track of units (once again in Vietnam) via conversations. Though the pre-recorded selectable responses there are a little dissatisfying when all else is raw and comparatively grounded.</p><p>I dare say this is the sort of thing that the more traditional sort of wargaming has worked out somewhere. More research needed.</p><p>***</p><p>The degree of 'punk' in Steampunk is a perennial discussion <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/10/punk-cities-and-detectives.html#comment-form">here</a> and on associated <a href="http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2021/10/magicpunk.html">other blogs</a>. Generally, I've held that '__punk' is an artefact as a label and that Retrofuturist is a more helpful designation. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SFEFWl67fLA" width="320" youtube-src-id="SFEFWl67fLA"></iframe></div><br />Well, here's a gentleman tracing the history of Steampunk and making the case for punkishness. You might compare it with some of the ideas discussed in my <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/04/faufreluches-feudal-future.html">Faufreluches</a> posts. I can't say that I necessarily agree with the conclusions in the last part, but otherwise it's rather good. <p></p><p>***</p><p>I found a second-hand Penguin edition of the <i>Lais</i> of <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11417/pg11417-images.html">Marie de France</a>. They're pretty short, authentically of their time and nicely spiky. A useful reference point for Medieval Europe, as well as full of assorted supernatural happenings and vengeances. Read a couple over lunch.</p><p>***</p><p><i><a href="https://grandcommodore.itch.io/investigating-censor">Investigating Censor</a></i> is a work on Itch.io by Dave Greggs - AKA HCK, the chap behind <a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com" style="font-style: italic;">Grand Commadore</a>, whose <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/05/of-faith-and-fences-visit-to-saxherm.html">work</a> may be known to readers of <a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2020/11/how-i-picture-my-favorite-osr-bloggers.html">this blog</a>. You'll find a few samples over at <i>Grand Commodore</i> if you want to go over those before taking the plunge.</p><p>Anyway, '<i>Investigating Censor</i> is a dark rules-light RPG wargame set amidst a campaign by oracular warrior monks to eliminate a sect of human-sacrificing pirates.' For more first impressions, here's <a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2023/12/new-art-for-investigating-censor.html#comment-form">some art.</a> </p><p>It's been interesting interacting with a piece of Greggs's work as a PDF rather than a blog post. Things have a little more room to breathe. Greggs writes a lot - and I like it! But I do sometimes idly wonder what would happen if a seven-foot hairy-chested Editor with a pick handle and a set of brass knuckles sat behind him as he wrote. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="640" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Herakles_Farnese_MAN_Napoli_Inv6001_n01.jpg/800px-Herakles_Farnese_MAN_Napoli_Inv6001_n01.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: zoom-in; display: block; margin: auto;" width="365" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"So, Dave, what are you working on this morning?"</td></tr></tbody></table><p>A few things I like about <i>Investigating Censor</i>:</p><p><b>Player Characters Organisation</b> - Players are the titular Censors. It's a wonderfully evocative set of ideas - the mix of legal, customary and religious authority could be quite heady. The very title of 'Censor' throws you into a different set of social expectations and ideas. This is a strength of Dave Greggs, I would say - the Investigating Censor, the detectives of Starling and Shrike. It's reminiscent of 40k's Inquisitors or Rogue Traders, and rather more successful than <i>Mass Effect</i>'s Spectres.</p><p><b>Setting </b>- A febrile coastal region, recently gone through regime change and approaching some measure of equilibrium. I suppose I associate it largely with South-East Asia, but it's clearly not a neat one-to-one comparison. Appendix N of IC urges readers to make and share regions for IC, so I may have to do just that! </p><p>(I also quite like Appendix P's tonal variants.)</p><p><b>Framing</b> - The various districts you move into are described socially with 'Centres of Gravity' and 'Key Personalities'. I quite like this encounter framing: whether the local magnate is Young and Feckless or Old, Careworn and Senile or a vigorous Capital-S Schemer to rival Iago, there's still an awful lot that has to go on around them. Whether the planet is volcanic or stable, it is a planet and the moons better recognise that.</p><p><b>Layers </b>- Every level of social encounter has a variety of motivations proposed, with further reaching in as needed. Naturally, a Vice District has its own set of power struggles and problems and obsessions - but then there are region-wide political plays, or secret societies trying to accumulate clout and leverage - or just run-of-the-mill psychopaths. <br /> Add to this the various tendencies of your NPC Allies, who do not have your monastic background. Antipathy, opportunity, infatuation, addiction, social pressure can all make them crack. (Maybe you could treat this like <i>Darkest Dungeon</i>'s afflictions. The Investigating Censor sending out another expedition is not unlike the Heir sending out another band....)</p><p><b>Alchemy, Fetches and Fetishes</b> - This is a world rich with low-level magics and wonders, without falling into the video game-esque problem of brigands carrying Claymores that shoot Ball Lightning. The presence of Alchemy and various charms enhances this, and feels apt. IC<i> </i>is about a prosperous land ill-used, rather than a blasted heath. This wealth finding its way into narcotics and easing nostrums works better than some potions in RPGs.</p><p>I disliked nothing immediately in <i>Investigating Censor. </i>Some worked examples might be good, but one has been released on <i><a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2023/12/seven-leopards.html">Grand Commodore</a></i>. I might care for a little more unifying detail for the Cult of Protection, though it's not strictly speaking a bad choice to keep them loosely sketched against the strong presences of the Censors themselves. (In any case, too strict a 'Pirate Code' will make them sound altogether too Blackbeard-Caribbean).</p><p>If the above wasn't quite clear, this may be considered a recommendation. </p><p><br /></p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-52014624380952233972023-12-22T17:52:00.002+00:002024-01-24T13:19:25.338+00:00The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Civic Constellations<p>I've had this in mind for a while. There are those states of Calliste chosen as exemplars for TRoAPW, described in the Gazette <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-rest-of-all-possible-worlds.html">here</a>. Anyway, there's a way to quickly illustrate my point in that post with simple diagrams. These aren't pointcrawls, and if they're maps, they're pretty highly abstracted ones (you could probably leave off any of the identifying letters and they would still communicate something about the state in question). If you will, they are as like to a map as the constellation of Cassiopeia is to the figure of an enthroned queen.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqA7Xl9giJM15DXIYDcf9e53eJDDwFbkBHByCKLeDhBHR1rn6cKYxZDAvd9NeVyWHj1A3VdfFvXICDwQ78QtCv8v1oH1fDwveNaNXnMqTzynkDxHqNRrkOfiCLeSrd88jjPjgcD5_chbKSawvow5nJLYUz0f-fp-QGIUJqbhEPb35-XvdVULkc6AaY98Ed/s2518/IMG_20231222_171455188.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2518" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqA7Xl9giJM15DXIYDcf9e53eJDDwFbkBHByCKLeDhBHR1rn6cKYxZDAvd9NeVyWHj1A3VdfFvXICDwQ78QtCv8v1oH1fDwveNaNXnMqTzynkDxHqNRrkOfiCLeSrd88jjPjgcD5_chbKSawvow5nJLYUz0f-fp-QGIUJqbhEPb35-XvdVULkc6AaY98Ed/w389-h400/IMG_20231222_171455188.jpg" width="389" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Majestic Pavaisse!</b></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Blue circles for regions listed in the Gazette; crossed circle for the capital. Blue lines for major internal arteries* - there are most likely other roads or rivers or passes, just none that make sense with a wagon train or a laden barge. Red lines for major trade links. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJPssBM0LSyVYXKIfmW6nZD3uOQ2F-h9P6Fp-ZAvcSZQjH4oTveCvmrncNIpRFcUhT44A0ihYXUSBCkoGbCoD46JPH61M5t3msrKtTF-rWWCaiAPihhyR8hFJ4p5HF4gtT4hyphenhyphenmWYwuMZhrV-ipoTxQsSKjsGWTl8vXYQu_FM5EdIf2an6exa8qAJxlOlw/s2680/IMG_20231222_171429281.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2680" data-original-width="2250" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJPssBM0LSyVYXKIfmW6nZD3uOQ2F-h9P6Fp-ZAvcSZQjH4oTveCvmrncNIpRFcUhT44A0ihYXUSBCkoGbCoD46JPH61M5t3msrKtTF-rWWCaiAPihhyR8hFJ4p5HF4gtT4hyphenhyphenmWYwuMZhrV-ipoTxQsSKjsGWTl8vXYQu_FM5EdIf2an6exa8qAJxlOlw/w336-h400/IMG_20231222_171429281.jpg" width="336" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Sea-girt Malmery!</b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8mnOdZBikzX_TzNZlqPXfVBHmUZ9pMpXlSi2MaqNLTL4JNuFMoLy6lxN7C11Q75Rbio2ktW-_2CFYWMbX24a9yyfyrViM67lA-EZuTT_DIpsTnux7BNL9aWIgy7F3HoWnPYaRwH68d5w3wJPFeatwHip8cuNi1MFgm7Ag5SJrk25pvlG8erotWuxp-jEk/s2672/IMG_20231222_171440970.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2672" data-original-width="2088" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8mnOdZBikzX_TzNZlqPXfVBHmUZ9pMpXlSi2MaqNLTL4JNuFMoLy6lxN7C11Q75Rbio2ktW-_2CFYWMbX24a9yyfyrViM67lA-EZuTT_DIpsTnux7BNL9aWIgy7F3HoWnPYaRwH68d5w3wJPFeatwHip8cuNi1MFgm7Ag5SJrk25pvlG8erotWuxp-jEk/w313-h400/IMG_20231222_171440970.jpg" width="313" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Bustling Datravia!</b></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Sharp-eyed readers will have noted that there are some places hitherto unmentioned for Datravia. Of course, Datresse is still the central point of that fair land, but there are some outskirts. Think of them as the region of Veneto to <i>La Serenissima</i>. Anyway, these are....</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Uitbrig</i>, the ancient town with its long-established academies and seminaries.</li><li><i>Ghaivera</i>, Datresse's granary.</li><li><i>Noysdam</i>, known as <i>The Citadel of Noysdam</i> or <i>The Noysdam</i>. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannheim#/media/File:Mannheim_1758.jpg">rationally</a>-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmanova">planned</a> recently built fortress city covering the main approach to the centre of Datravia.</li></ul>Anyway, I hope these go some way to focusing on the ideas presented in the Gazette.<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuyUCjW9lerWUR3b07Uae0sikr3A5G6FdnNLfOLExxEU_DGqwsKN88zOAVaSHoIQQzZ7YSZg8pLY30IU1yRNc9g-kOX6dzHQ06Q79wE1IL5TU51Fpq37Ddl0qGilwtPlCOtrC-i4G0TVKQTMlxX_1b7dGKHc-Wb4rtN9b4XzbZqsyRpsHJqT6utjv6VOM/s2734/IMG_20231222_171506045.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2166" data-original-width="2734" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuyUCjW9lerWUR3b07Uae0sikr3A5G6FdnNLfOLExxEU_DGqwsKN88zOAVaSHoIQQzZ7YSZg8pLY30IU1yRNc9g-kOX6dzHQ06Q79wE1IL5TU51Fpq37Ddl0qGilwtPlCOtrC-i4G0TVKQTMlxX_1b7dGKHc-Wb4rtN9b4XzbZqsyRpsHJqT6utjv6VOM/w400-h318/IMG_20231222_171506045.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Far-reaching Tsymric!</b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p>*Internal in the sense that we are concentrating on these polities and seeing how they link together internally. If you were to tell me that the road from Purlitz to Loughdaine was built centuries back by the <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-legacy-of-horato.html">Horatione Cohorts</a> and leads directly to Horato crossing five different principalities to do so, it would make complete sense.</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-45337989312293784382023-12-12T17:46:00.000+00:002023-12-12T17:46:06.410+00:00How to Read the False Machine <p>TO REVEAL AN ANSWER: The piece of writing at the end of the last post was derived, basically, from some fairly negative and somewhat fantastical feelings about the experience of reading the Horus Heresy books. With a little element of the <i>King in Yellow</i> mixed in.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><b>Roboute Guilliman: </b>You, brother, should remove your armour.</p><p><b>Horus:</b> Indeed?</p><p><b>Rogal Dorn:</b> Indeed, it is time. We have all set aside our pauldrons except you.</p><p><b>Horus:</b> I wear no pauldrons.</p><p><b>Roboute: </b>[aside, to Rogal] No pauldrons? No pauldrons!</p></blockquote><p>And on that revelation, trailing corposant, I move to another lurid book.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrYKFg-UZWjwaSQLnbF8hslqjYvo39yMwyjcMsFtBHsMarNJTCUSUdJapcwlaJyzoviMb-xhdy7OfWUt7KQH-UodvUOeLwnJHIhPwPezOs32-J7WcQfdAsgUDFnXLFjMnb_Py19tAx_wZX5HXwjGE9kSykXS_iYZp7xAm_kiXGv-W3WlannKU7RGffK32h/s3264/IMG_20231211_191921358.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrYKFg-UZWjwaSQLnbF8hslqjYvo39yMwyjcMsFtBHsMarNJTCUSUdJapcwlaJyzoviMb-xhdy7OfWUt7KQH-UodvUOeLwnJHIhPwPezOs32-J7WcQfdAsgUDFnXLFjMnb_Py19tAx_wZX5HXwjGE9kSykXS_iYZp7xAm_kiXGv-W3WlannKU7RGffK32h/w480-h640/IMG_20231211_191921358.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>CONTEXT: P J Stuart, author of the blog <i>False Machine</i>, a version of <i>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight </i>and several interesting RPG products ran a <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gawain/speak-false-machine">Kickstarter</a> to take a majority of that blog material and preserve it in a weighty tome. Behold, the above. It is as larger as many editions of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, if a little lighter. (Quite a pleasing weight, really.) The cover is a distinct orange, with letters that seem to shift as you read them. That might just be a faulty bedside lamp, or fatigue on the part of Yr. Hmbl. Crrspndt., but I wouldn't put it past Patrick to have hexed it somehow. Illustrations from several artists, often former collaborators with PJS. Fascinating set of marbled end papers by Scrap Princess.</p><p><i>....but</i> I don't need this. I've read a bunch of the original posts, even commented on them. (Some comments are reproduced in the text of the book above. It's remotely possibly I'm there, I haven't checked thoroughly yet. Full Disclosure, &c, &c.)</p><p>Anyway, if a charming visitor to my snug garret were to ask over a glass of Oloroso 'My dear, what is that <i>fascinating</i> book on your shelves?', how would I answer them?</p><p>[QUICK NOTE: the Blog is <i>False Machine</i>. The Book is <i>Speak, False Machine</i>, whatever it says on the cover. Occasionally, I'm going to need to compare the two so they need different names.]</p><p>MOVING ON: On one level, everything in <i>False Machine </i>is either an RPG product or fuel for RPGs. Patrick Stuart is a man who will read and review works of fantasy - EG, <i>Gormenghast </i>or <i>The Worm Ouroborous</i>, or histories of the sort of period that have inspired fantasy fiction, as <i>A Distant Mirror </i> - as readily as a work on the <i>Psychoanalysis of Fire</i>. This isn't to posit this work as merely fuel for the capital-P <i style="font-weight: bold;">Product</i>, but it is to indicate that there is a final aim in place for much of the work in here, a set of objectives. </p><p>Now, most of the stuff that went into the actual books isn't in <i>Speak, False Machine</i>. The posts for <i>Veins of the Earth </i>became <i>Veins of the Earth</i>. Good thing too. But this references character and action on the part of the author. So, a newcomer should think on that.</p><p>The various articles have been changed slightly. Spelling mistakes and ungainly turns of phrase have not been corrected, we are assured. But other things have changed. Some comments are included, many are not. Illustrations that offer context have gone. See for instance the <a href="https://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2014/03/five-four-three-two-one.html">post</a> called on <i>False Machine </i>'Five.. Four... Three.. Two... ONE!' It must be shorn of the referential images that indicate the origins of the work without interrupting the flow of the fiction, or the end table that lays out the similarities in several works. It must rely on the title alone, which may be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71ED-EGBWXo">reference enough</a>. </p><p>Of course, one understands why such images are not included, but something may be lost. To refer back to my own work at the top of the page - how clear was that little mystery?</p><p>The material is not only presented in a reduced form, it is also framed differently. Blog posts that may have been weeks or months apart can now be put side by side, and there is benefit in this. Now we can read all about the Horus Heresy back to back (Hoorah?).</p><p>Back to back, and also in two columns. This sounds silly to make into a point in a new paragraph, but if you're used to a post being in one column, with a predictable set of links and gadgets at the side, it is a little strange to see it in two columns, and have the experience of your eye wandering across.</p><p>TO CONTINUE: It is very online. Sometimes that phrase is used as an insult: in this case, it is basically descriptive. <i>False Machine</i> was and is a <u style="font-weight: bold;">web-log</u>. It should not surprise a reader that <i>Speak, False Machine </i>bears the hallmarks of the internet.</p><p>There's a freedom of tone. <i>Speak, False Machine</i> has a good number of reviews. There is also a great deal of flippancy, plenty of cursing and a pool of references deriving from online cultures (hence a section titled 'Weebery'.) As good as these reviews may be, they would not appear in this way in the pages of a high-brow weekly. Certainly not at this length: word limits online are a very different thing to those in print. Quotes can be longer, explorations more discursive.</p><p>Thus, the rough set of points or ideas expressed by the (hilarious) 'WWII - Written and Directed by JJ Abrams' could be expressed by the sort of less strait-laced weekly magazine, but would probably not take that form or be expressed to that degree and so would be X degrees of magnitude less memorable. Now, do I prefer the rough-hewn original of that post on <i>False Machine</i>, or the smoother-formatted version in <i>Speak, False Machine</i>? The former has my fondness as the original, but the latter is superior. The evenness of the columns and text allow the wit to shine that much more.</p><p>To speak also on something I have kept at arm's length - there is also a portion of interpersonal drama. <i>False Machine </i>allowed for others to comment on it: it is a social medium of a kind. Further, Patrick Stuart has and has had long-term collaborators. It was honest and correct to include it - certainly, I might have been tempted to leave it out. </p><p>So, a mix of material. Review, essay, fiction, comment, verse. Sometimes niche, sometimes universal, usually interesting. </p><p><i><b>But is it any good?</b></i></p><p>Yes. Some of it was probably more interesting to live than to read about, but this is not a Curate's Egg. </p><p><i><b>Is it a book you would have lying around your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?</b></i></p><p>Well, I have no wife, but should a paramour in the midst of a certain charming entanglement of limbs and digits start talking about the Dover Beach Expanded Universe - well, my heart's beating would doubtless reach a furious tempo.</p><p><b><i>Can you not give us any real criticisms?</i></b></p><p>I suppose it's a little odd to be holding a weighty tome full of stuff that has the internet aura of disposability, but to that's more an issue with context than content. In any case, this is less offensive in that regard than some books of Current Events I've seen reproducing an activists social media posts.</p><p><b><i>I see. Thank you, Mr, umm, ... -</i></b></p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-44539888236192398502023-12-02T19:09:00.001+00:002023-12-02T22:54:31.781+00:00A Milestone and A Millstone<p></p><div>You blink, and then it turns out you've hit Two Hundred and Fifty posts. I'm not certain that there's a really good way to mark this (though the suggestion of 250 paragraphs of 250 words each on 250 topics was advanced). Well, instead I have compiled the following list: 250 artworks, topics, images and so forth discussed by this blog. If the entry is in bold, there's probably most of a post devoted to it. That's at least one way to review the changing character of the blog.</div><div><br /></div><div>To make this more than a list, please see also a little piece of writing afterwards. There is an extent to which the former is a clue to the latter, but I shall say no more.</div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Jack Vance's <i>Dying Earth</i></li><li>Goblin Market</li><li>Wolfe's <i>The Wizard Knight</i></li><li>The Song of Roland</li><li>The Kalevala</li><li>The Stress of Her Regard</li><li>The Cosmic Trilogy</li><li>The Banner Saga</li><li>Procopius</li><li>Count Belisarius</li><li>Marco Polo in the Court of Kublai Khan</li><li>The Pillow Book</li><li><b>The Book of the New Sun</b></li><li>Gormenghast</li><li>Virconium</li><li>Julie Taymor's Titus</li><li><b>Richard Holmes's The Age of Wonder</b></li><li><b>Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 11px;"> </span></b></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gulliver's Travels</span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Chronicles of Narnia</span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Van Dyck</span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The 52 Pages</span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">King Solomon's Mines</span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The Pilgrim's Regress</b></span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Pilgrim's Progress</span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">John Ruskin</span></span></li><li><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser</b></span></span></li><li><b><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Mignola-illustrated </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #333333;">Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser</span></b></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Macbeth</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Coriolanus</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Othello</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">MR James</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Where Eagles Dare</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Ice Cold in Alex</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Shadowrun</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>Tim Powers's Declare</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Ill-Made Knight</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Anathem</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Mass Effect</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Last of the Mohicans</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Castle of the Otter</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Aguirre, The Wrath of God</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Mad Max</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Anabasis</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Yoon-Suin</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Thousand and One Nights</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Snow Crash</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Tower of Babel</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Barsoom</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Cyclopean architecture</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Ruritania</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Appendix N</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>Popski's Private Army</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Evelyn Waugh's <i>Sword of Honour</i></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Mughal Empire</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Henry the Navigator</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Dune</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Fallout </span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Difference Engine</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Napoleon of Notting Hill</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Shada</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Discworld</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">John Wyndham</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Quatermass Experiment</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Dan Dare</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Prisoner</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Elric</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Strontium Dog</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Judge Dredd</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>Rogue Trooper</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>The Children of Men</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Neverwhere</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">A Canticle for Liebowitz</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>The Saga of Recluce</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>Silverberg's Majipoor</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Third Man</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>Erast Fandorin</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Rendezvous with Rama</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Star Trek</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Culture</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Firefly</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>The Blazing World</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Lamentations of the Flame Princess</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><b>Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey</b></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Blake's image of Urizen in The Ancient of Days</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Man who would be King</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">William Morris</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Poetic Edda</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">J R R Tolkien</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">A Sing of Ice and Fire</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Tom Holt</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Mere Christianity</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Isaac Watts</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>Isle of the Unknown</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Winter's Tale</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Aeneid</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Twelfth Night</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;">The Tempestuous Voyage of Hopewell Shakespeare</span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Pygmalion and Galatea</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Steel Bonnets</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>The Dark Tower (CS Lewis)</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Riddley Walker</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Puck of Pook's Hill</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Nathan J Anderson's Malacandra illustrations</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Castle of Days</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><b>The Rivan Codex</b></span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Mysteries of Udolpho</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Mausoleum of Thoedoric</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Maria Lack Abbey</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Trier Cathedral</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The Book of the Long Sun</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">A Voyage to Arcturus</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Nebulous</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Iain Moncrieffe and Don Pottinger's <i>Simple Heraldry - Cheerfully Illustrated</i></span></span></li><li><b><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Clark Ashton Smith in </span></span>the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks edition <i>The Emperor of Dreams</i> </b></li><li>The Monk</li><li>The Castle of Otranto</li><li>Ivanhoe</li><li>Arms and the Man</li><li>Flashman</li><li>The Mask of Demitrios</li><li>Barry Lyndon</li><li>Veins of the Earth</li><li>All Saints, Margaret Street</li><li><b>Edward Bulwer-Lytton's <i>The Coming Race</i></b></li><li>Journey to the Centre of the Earth</li><li><b>The Gardens of Ynn</b></li><li>The Talos Principle</li><li>The Critias</li><li>The Timaeus</li><li>Journey to the West</li><li>Equestrian Portraits of Charles I</li><li>St Mary Le Strand</li><li>Raiders of the Lost Ark</li><li>The Diamond Age</li><li><b>The architecture of John Outram</b></li><li>The Ishtar Gate</li><li><b>Age of Mythology</b></li><li>St Peter and St Paul's Church, Pickering</li><li>Seeing Like a State</li><li>Reflections on the Revolution in France</li><li><b>'Catapaulta' by Edward Poynter</b></li><li><b>The Stygian Library</b></li><li>The Name of the Rose</li><li>Roger Corman's 1964 film of <i>The Masque of the Red Death</i></li><li>Paul Kidby's Discworld illustrations</li><li><b>Votan</b></li><li><b>Not For All the Gold in Ireland</b></li><li><i>The Ancient Greece of Odysseus</i></li><li><b>Marian and Trinitarian columns</b></li><li><b>Ilium and Olympos</b></li><li>Thackeray’s <i>History of Henry Esmond </i></li><li>Thomas Pynchon’s <i>Mason & Dixon</i></li><li>A Song of Ice and Fire</li><li><b>The art of William Nicholson and James Pryde</b></li><li><b>Silent Titans</b></li><li>Seven Pillars of Wisdom</li><li><b>Shardik</b></li><li><b>Vita Sackville-West, <i>The Eagle & The Dove</i></b></li><li><b>An Atlas of the Soviet Union</b></li><li><b>Doctor Syn</b></li><li><b>Mythago Wood</b></li><li>Stardust</li><li><b>Rogue Male</b></li><li>The Day of the Jackal</li><li><b>HCK's Maximalist City-State World</b></li><li>The Fall of the House of Usher</li><li>The House on the Borderlands </li><li>HMS Apollyon</li><li><b>Excalibur</b></li><li>The Cruel Sea</li><li><b>Electric Bastionland</b></li><li>Francis Spufford's Red Plenty</li><li><b>Mistress of Mistresses</b></li><li><b>Tip & Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa</b></li><li>The Vorrh Trilogy</li><li><b>Tumanbey</b></li><li><b>The Well of the Unicorn</b></li><li>Joseph Wright of Derby, 'A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery', 1766</li><li><b>Appian's Roman History</b></li><li><b>Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's <i>Monday Starts on Saturday</i></b></li><li><b>Garth Nix's 'Down to the Scum Quarter'</b></li><li>Fallen Empire</li><li>The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch</li><li>A Tale of Two Cities</li><li>Costumes from the 1883 Cambridge Greek Play production of <i>The Birds</i></li><li><b>Fading Suns</b></li><li><b>Passion Plays</b></li><li>Richard III (1995)</li><li>Candide</li><li><b>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</b></li><li><b>Magical Industrial Revolution</b></li><li>Tales from the Mausoleum Club</li><li>Max Beerbohms's <i>Seven Men and Two Others</i></li><li><b>Henry Kuttner, <i>Fury</i></b></li><li>Northwest Smith</li><li><b>Fever-Dreaming Marlinko</b> and <b>Slumbering Ursine Dunes</b></li><li>The Bas-Lag Cycle</li><li>The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China </li><li><b>State of Emergency</b></li><li>The Taheiki</li><li>Anvil of Ice</li><li>The <i>Cthonic Codex </i>of Paolo Greco</li><li>Thomas Hobbes, <i>Leviathan</i></li><li>Warhammer Fantasy</li><li>A Very British Civil War</li><li>Conquest: the Last Argument of Kings</li><li><b>Demon Bone Sarcophagus</b></li><li>Time Bandits</li><li>John Dryden</li><li>Hic Sunt Myrmeleones</li><li>Spanish-suited playing cards</li><li>They Were Defeated</li><li><b><i>Lazarus</i> and <i>World of Lazarus</i></b></li><li>The Dragon Waiting</li><li><b>The history plays of Mike Walker</b></li><li>The Dream of the Red Chamber</li><li>Jack Vance's <i>Emphyrio</i></li><li><i>The Metabarons </i>& <i>The Incal</i></li><li>Pilgrim (not the radio plays)</li><li>Layer Cake</li><li>The Search for the Perfect Language</li><li>Dr Zhivago</li><li>The Ring Cycle</li><li>The High Crusade</li><li>Giulio Cesare in Egitto</li><li>Lord of Light</li><li>Dorothy L Sayers</li><li>The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks</li><li>The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table</li><li><b>The Knight in Panther Skin</b></li><li>The Last Coin</li><li>Tales of the Alhambra</li><li><b>Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game</b></li><li><b>Mouse or Rat?</b></li><li><i>An Instance of the Fingerpost</i>, Iain Pears</li><li>Conan the Barbarian</li><li>Diplomacy</li><li>Holinshed's Chronicles</li><li>Tales of Hoffman</li><li>Indo-Saracenic architecture</li><li>Ely Cathedral</li><li>Ronald Blythe's <i>Akenfield</i></li><li>Towers of Trebizond</li><li>Evelyn Waugh's <i>Helena</i></li><li><b>Troika!</b></li></ol><b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>***</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>So, you've probably been cursed.</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div></b><div>You opened the book. You touched the little statue in the dark alcove. It was something like that, surely. Now you see things.</div><div><span> </span>There's a world beyond this one. A world of constant violence, of struggle. You see men there, or things very like men. They fight and they talk: they talk about fighting, they fight about talking, they fight about fighting, they talk about talking. It's riveting, but it shouldn't be a surprise to you. The ancients, after all, could enjoy rhetoric and wrestling both.</div><div><span> </span>For a time - for a few times still - you walk the pavements, you sit at your desk, you sway in the train carriage, and there's a thrill to it. You know what's waiting for you when you close your eyes. There a world beyond this one, and there's always something happening there, monumental in every moment. The details flash into your head: place, costume, mannerisms, scene, weapons, names, faces, deeds. </div><div><span> </span>And then you concentrate a little, and you see a little more. There's someone telling you all this. Even if there's no narrator's voice, there's a choice in what you see, what you hear. So you think about them, and maybe there isn't only one. Or maybe there wasn't ever any more. But you are locked into the deciphering process. When you sleep, when you speak, when you drink, part of you is working away at it. Work is fun: don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Labouring away at something you love is rewarding and satisfying and occasionally beautiful, and now you can do it all the time. </div><div><span> Really, you're quite lucky.</span><br /></div><div><span><span> But anyway, that part of it all aside, you also reflect on the events playing out. The characters - who fold and refold on one another, archetypes or commentaries or variations upon a source. If the things you see didn't vary so wildly in its people and moments or appear on so vast a scale, you might become dizzy with the degrees of sameness. And this too is a mystery, and thus an amusement. The ticking of your brain, as familiar and as alien as your heartbeat, or the music of the spheres, is slowly changing its rhythms to match.</span><br /></span></div><div><span><span><span> Then there's a slight change in the visions. It started with a slowing, an approach to the sort of crescendo you expect. It didn't quite stay that slow, and it didn't quite ever stop being that slow. There's an oddness to it. Figures - men - beasts - demigods - angels - circle you, warring and declaiming and crying out and beating their breasts. They clash and reset: swing, address, return. The motion round you is faster and faster, the figures ever more solid, ever better-defined in detail, ever more ready to spring to life. It is like staring at a circle of monoliths, framed gloriously against the sun, and knowing at the deepest conceivable level that these rocks will leap, will blur into sudden, astounding motion - and perhaps they did, and perhaps they did. </span></span></span></div><div><span><span><span><span> Again, you think again. You dip your head in cold water. You stretch. You ease your body. There are those sorts of problems that you need to step away from occasionally. Again, you think, again.</span><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span><span><span><span><span> It isn't like it was - well, of course it isn't! Never could be: some processes change you. Not something to lament overlong. But maybe you can capture a glimpse of what it was, once in a while. </span></span></span></span></span></div><div> Perhaps you might talk it over with someone. But this isn't really the sort of thing for polite conversation. Too much finicky background to lay out. Too much violence, too much religion, too much politics. Other people must know of it, though, mustn't they? </div><div><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span>You can't recall who gave you the book. If it was a book. The picture. The play. The mezzotint. But it had to have come from somewhere. The world - this world - is not so strange that such things can creep up on you all on there own. There was a chain of cause and effect. Somebody gave you the book, long ago.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span><span><span><span><span><span> </span>So you search, and you do not search in vain. There are people who have seen something of what you've seen. But they won't talk about it, or they'll talk about all the wrong bits in tedious detail and in obvious ignorance of all the most vital points. The process is fruitless, and you get some very scathing looks into the bargain. </span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span><span><span><span><span><span> That doesn't matter, though. You've got work before you, and a handful of social ties to cultivate and maintain, and at the end of it all, a whole other world to go back to. </span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span><span><span><span><span><span><span> So you do. There's something coming, you can feel it. Something terrible and thrilling and revelatory, so literally apocalyptic, in its content and implications. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span> And then it's not there. Not there at all. Neither climax nor anticlimax, but still it persists. Believe it or not. The stone gathers neither moss nor speed, but it does keep rolling. There's a hint of tedium in the air, like the fug of men trapped too long indoors. Hell's bells, but it's dull. Still, you have to dig in. The initiate into new knowledge undergoes several trials, remember. </span></div><div><span><span> </span>There is a biting of the bottom lip, a gnawing of fingernails, a wanness of countenance. Has someone commented on it? Vanity: most people you know have far better things to do than comment on your appearance. Whether or not they are, you apply nose to grindstone for a solid fortnight. They might call you a boring So-and-So now, but that's probably preferable than remarks about bloodshot eyes.</span></div><div><span><span> You go back. You think things have changed. Perhaps they even have. Things move slowly, like a cinema reel put into a slide projector. There's a whirring from somewhere, and the sight of dust motes in a beam of light. The image is changing, slowly, resolving before your eye into what you always knew it would be. There should be comfort in that.</span></span></div><div><span><span><span> The day is overcast. It is cool, but not chill. Your lunch hour is almost over. You pick up the little book from the bench, and slip it into your pocket. You'll be going back soon. </span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span><span>***</span></span></span></div>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-18217523062452485312023-11-22T20:44:00.002+00:002023-11-23T07:08:47.721+00:00Troika: Some Thoughts <p>I hadn't read <i><a href="https://www.melsonia.com/troika-17-p.asp">Troika</a></i> when it first came out, and made a splash. I saw on sale as a PDF, and acquired it. Now, some thoughts.</p><p>***</p><p><i>Troika</i>: you may know - but I'm going to restate it anyway - who this is by. 'Written by Daniel Sell. Illustrated by Jeremy Duncan, Dirk Detweiler Leichty, Sam Mameli, and Andrew Walter.' These chaps are attached to the Melsonian Arts Council. </p><p><br /></p><p><i>What's it attempting to do? </i>Time for a quote.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>Here is <i><b>Troika!</b></i>: a science-fantasy RPG in which players travel by eldritch portal and non-euclidean labyrinth and golden-sailed barge between the uncountable crystal Spheres strung delicately across the hump-backed sky. </p><p>What you encounter on those Spheres and in those liminal places is anybody’s guess — I wouldn’t presume to tell you, though inside this book you will find people and artefacts from these worlds which will suggest the shape of things. The adventure and wonder are in the gaps; your game is defined by the ways in which you fill them.</p></blockquote><p> </p><p><i>Does it achieve this? </i>Hmm. Apologies, this is going to get into the sub-genre weeds. Now, to my mind Science Fantasy is something like CL Moore's Northwest Smith or Leigh Brackett's Eric John Stark. A twinning of Science Fiction and the Fantastical, something a touch more <i>out there </i>than the use of Barsoom for two-fisted adventures. </p><p>I might suggest tentatively that Sword-and-Planet involves (whatever the mysteries required by the plot) a grasp of essential skills and understanding of the world: John Carter is of the profession of arms, and may apply himself to his chosen trade on Earth or Mars. Science Fantasy involves moving from the familiar to the strange by the characters: from the world of space flight and blasters to psychic aliens and time shifts. Cf. <i>Star Wars</i>: the mechanically-skilled farm boy enters not merely into a galactic war, but a journey with a spiritual dimension. <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/04/faufreluches-feudal-future.html?sc=1683570145327#c1525460523539002956">Feudal Futures</a> (or a category including Feudal Future) involve starting and staying in an unfamiliar place. </p><p>But, of course, the most obvious influence on <i>Troika!</i> is Gene Wolfe's <i>The Book of the New Sun</i>. If you've read both, this isn't news. Reference to Cacogens, Clavigers, Alzabo, the Phoenix Throne, a familiarly phrased 'Journeyman of the Guild of Sharp Corners', Notules, golden-sailed space-faring ships....all due respect to the author, but this path of influence is fairly clear. Besides, the blatant isn't always bad: here are some tools for the Wolfe-like, use them as you will. </p><p>Anyway, in some ways all I've written there is merely surface. The underlying meat is the mixture of science and magic, in less than clear-cut ways. In some media, the mixture or confusion is benign, and comprehensible: see the invocation of Clarke's Third Law in Marvel films, for instance, or the various magi-tech urban settings of some RPGs. In others, it is horrifying - whether one of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones is merely a incomprehensibly vast working-out of natural laws or a staggering violation of those laws, it barely matters, given the results. </p><p>In <i>The Book of the New Sun</i>, it is dismaying to see such ruin as has resulted in a great confusion of science and magic, but not as such baleful. In Vance's <i>Dying Earth</i>, it is awe-inspiring (if still ruinous). If the melding or conflusion is thorough enough, we speak of the Weird, the uncanny. If I say New Weird, some minds will instantly move to Miéville's Bas-Lag. To my mind this is a less pure example than (say) Steph Swainson's <i>The Year of Our War</i>.</p><p>All this is to indicate, if I may, that <i>Troika!</i> reads as sufficiently immersed in its world to be more like New Weird and Feudal Future than Science Fantasy as I read it. It lacks a foot in the familiar. This probably suits its purposes, and is bolstered by the presentation. </p><p>An example, if you will pardon me.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0dx75NvQjDPZb7vdfea2bVgUIJGb7cbG-leC4Wm4W_Ru1V48COUwgkE9LoJkNv-8u5yzY_N4YRczMOIcHJicAywKfq6rElLo423Ft0b_N118YSu7N3Z6MSYSQY3AOWdnp1eBacTZsk07l3l9w6b2tgKh0J-DYZp-5IU4AqZEf0K81J98jja5cG0LF535/s263/Chaos%20Champion%20for%20Blog.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="253" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0dx75NvQjDPZb7vdfea2bVgUIJGb7cbG-leC4Wm4W_Ru1V48COUwgkE9LoJkNv-8u5yzY_N4YRczMOIcHJicAywKfq6rElLo423Ft0b_N118YSu7N3Z6MSYSQY3AOWdnp1eBacTZsk07l3l9w6b2tgKh0J-DYZp-5IU4AqZEf0K81J98jja5cG0LF535/s1600/Chaos%20Champion%20for%20Blog.tiff" width="253" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Troika</i>, P.7, Character Creation</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>This is one of the pre-generated characters you can roll into. Now, what does this suggest to you? A retired reaver? Dad-bod Elric? Frank Frazetta's <i>King of the Hill</i>?</p><p>Well, here is how Dirk Detweiler Leichty chose to illustrate that entry:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOqu8HmR7yBV0e-u0wGb4GDpTdFoogxYTzXXjo28TwFxvmyucrjJb-thSzWKYdRPdIYvPImF7qDXDDHM62jO0QwxcS5vVVe1VM3YUC8CN36sHfkJz3akGRGfBoRmBgbayTwAYq5cF0FreVcVU1FkUYbhcEN694-aAvrBaE0JJY1iAx3_MkyNFo4DjgyDjW/s429/Chaos%20Champion%20Illo.tiff" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="429" data-original-width="221" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOqu8HmR7yBV0e-u0wGb4GDpTdFoogxYTzXXjo28TwFxvmyucrjJb-thSzWKYdRPdIYvPImF7qDXDDHM62jO0QwxcS5vVVe1VM3YUC8CN36sHfkJz3akGRGfBoRmBgbayTwAYq5cF0FreVcVU1FkUYbhcEN694-aAvrBaE0JJY1iAx3_MkyNFo4DjgyDjW/s320/Chaos%20Champion%20Illo.tiff" width="165" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There is a hammer, but not a <i>Warhammer</i>.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Now, Detweiler Leichty will be quite tightly linked in my mind to the <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/07/wrecked-heptarchy-bocage-puritans-stumps.html#comment-form">grand decay</a> and meshing of mechanical and biological and otherworldly shown in <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2019/08/silent-titans-manmade-and-liminal.html">Silent Titans</a></i>. Is this true for the bulk of <i>Troika</i>'s intended audience? Perhaps. Either way, the restricted but vivid colour, the geometric slashes, the dense lines, the hints of a roiling interior, '<a href="https://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2022/11/spinter-giants-and-dirk-detweiler.html">the interlacing of the imagined organic/personal with the imagined space</a>', indicate a distinction from the familiar lines of fantasy art - the thousand variations on Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn on paperback covers, or <a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/910VuOUMrkL.jpg">the older technicolour depictions</a> of the '<a href="https://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2014/12/off-shelf-fantasy-worlds.html">cod-archaism of a Renaissance faire</a>'. Either way, this is a deliberate indication of something distinct: a suggestion of several moods rather than one set icon. </p><p>So, <i>Troika</i> steps out boldly in a new direction. And doesn't trip over its shoelaces. </p><p><br /></p><p><i>Would I use it?</i> You're talking to the wrong fellow, but I'll take a stab. <i>Troika</i>'s a chunkier beast than the W-B&W-G-backed <a href="https://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2016/03/new-edition-of-52-pages.html" style="font-style: italic;">52 Pages</a>, but then it is seeking to indicate a mood and world definitely not D&D. Call it a hundred pages, minus the included adventure. </p><p>The d66 system - simple enough once your head's in the right place. Luck as a stat always rings a little off to me - <i>pace Fallout</i> - but when other stats have been pared down so far or amalgamated into Skill and Stamina, I can see why you would want a nebulous 'significance' stat to move around a focus as desired. Thinking on it, a (relative) resignation to (or acknowledgement of) the whims of fortune or the workings of fate does seem fitting for the intended genre.</p><p>A few more words on how Advanced Skills are meant to be distributed in one's own Backgrounds would be preferable. There's some obvious models, but a step-by-step somewhere would be good.</p><p>The notion of a stack of items to indicate turns is all very well, but could be troublesome on the table -where does the stack live, who can see it, &c.</p><p>Pinch of salt to the above: this is all speculative. </p><p><br /></p><p><i>Gleanings: </i>Things to pull out and use.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Witch-hair ropes 'immune to manipulation via magical means.'</li><li>'Salt is the poor man's silver'.</li><li>Brittle Twigs is an impressively folk-lorish spell.</li><li>This description, from the spell <u>Iron Hand </u>- 'The common man does not appreciate exactly how close flesh and iron are when considered relative to, say, flesh and the smell of hot tea.'</li><li>The Donestre: strange deadly melancholy many-headed lions.</li><li>I think more settings can find room for Lamassu and Rhino-men.</li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefsteak_Club">Beef and Liberty</a> is apparently one of those perennial human obsessions.</li><li>Pocket Gods seem an interesting extension on Lord Dunsany's various <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keEfv-yyBnQ">small deities</a>. </li></ul><p></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>Conclusions: </i>Well, I'm not certain that <i>Troika</i> hits a level of <a href="http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/11/conceptual-density-or-what-are-rpg.html">Conceptual Density</a> for me. But then, I've read a bunch of Wolfe already, and even written something inspired <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/10/punth-primer-appendix-n.html">in good part by him</a>. So it might do something for you, and I cannot really regret flipping through <i>Troika</i> all that much. <b><i>Modified rapture</i></b>.</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-51778699139628095042023-11-13T19:29:00.007+00:002023-11-14T17:24:22.089+00:00Manners Maketh ___? <p><i>Blame <a href="http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-city-of-drift.html#comment-form">Montefeltro</a>. A post like this is from time to time quite fun, and real life has been in the way lately. Something meatier soon.</i></p><p><b><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/04/february-march-23-miscellany.html">Thriller of Manners</a>: </b><i>Crime's like anything else, really. It has rules - quite strict ones, with lots of people who'll be shocked if you break them - right up until it doesn't. </i></p><p><b>Robinsonade of Manners: </b>Trapped on a desolate isle and forced to contemplate his own isolation and the course of his life thus far, a castaway is obliged to fabricate an all-encompassing etiquette manual from scratch in order to rebuild his life and enable him to re-enter Society when rescue finally comes.</p><p><b>Urban Fantasy of Manners:</b> I learnt it the hard way - when on your first date with that vampire with the tousled hair and the leather jacket and the beauty spot, don't order the steak tartare.</p><p><b>Bedroom Farce of Manners:</b> "Gentlemen, now we have found ourselves all in the same lady's wardrobe, how exactly are we to pass the time? There is the signal possibility that we will be here for a while."</p><p><b>Solarpunk of Manners: </b>In the pastel-shaded environmentally-friendly egalitarian neo-tribal future, is there a polite way to say that the neighbour's hollyhocks are overshadowing your solar panels?</p><p><b>Ostern of Manners: </b>In the remote reaches of Pseudobaninsky Oblast, there's a band of <b>desperate men</b>: Tsarist <b>lickspittles</b>, <i><u>quarrelsome</u></i> <i><u>treacherous</u></i> <i style="text-decoration: underline;">profit-seeking</i> capitalists, <i>long</i>-winded <i>long</i>-bearded priests - with minds as tangled as their whiskers. Then there's the man who has come to show them a new way to live. </p><p><b>Submarine Film of Manners:</b> "Cursing like a sailor? Lady, when you are obliged to spend life in close proximity with a double-dozen of your fellows in a tin can built for ten, I assure you that you will develop a very delicate set of customs."</p><p><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ontario_Gothic">Southern Ontario Gothic</a> of Manners:</b> In the worn Victorian residential quarter of Roxburghe, ON, we are supported - or perhaps impaled - by three pillars. Our British legacy, the frigid Northern weather and the continually twined sight of squalor and prosperity across the border. Nursing these delightful wounds, my fellow <i>petite Roxbourgeoisie</i> have produced a certain strain of propriety suited for scab-picking on Sunday afternoons.....</p><p><i>What else is there? Contributions welcome.</i></p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-76357274125624113142023-09-28T11:10:00.000+01:002023-09-28T11:10:04.356+01:00Lost By Translation<p>Before you venture into the <i><b>Dreadful Dungeon</b></i>, it would be wise to acquire a map, or some record of those dreadful tunnels. But the only scraps of information you can find on the subject have been <i><b>translated</b></i> - either from a form of the Common Tongue so old as to be unrecognisable, or from the writings of another culture. </p><p>Such translations are rarely exact, of course.</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><u>Distances</u> As it turns out, the Dwarven Foot is a little shorter than the Human Foot. Who knew? This is probably fine in Five Foot corridors, but when assessing longer distances, the difference will add up.</li><li><u>Similar, but not Identical</u> Perhaps as a result of 'False Friends', or some other linguistic custom, the difference between varieties of Goblinoid are not well marked in the language this guide was written in. One cannot readily tell whether these tunnels are infested with Goblins or Orcs.</li><li><u>Genre</u> The translator of this text describes a frieze depicting 'A Curious Static Dance, with Masks'. He appears to have no notion of stage drama.</li><li><u>Zealotry</u> The translator of this text renders 'Highly Potent Idols of the Spider God' as 'Ferocious Idols of the Spider God'. It seems that he does not believe that anything connected to the Spider God could be more than a Paper Tiger. </li><li><u>Biology</u> The original text was written by a <a href="https://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2014/10/nonhuman-vision.html">Dwarf</a> (or possibly an Elf). They refer to <i>Vinth</i> and <i>Aggal </i>(or <i>Ulvian</i> and <i>Briolant*</i>) features on a tiled floor. The translator has not rendered this into a form humans can understand - possibly from a desire to remain literally accurate, possibly from a lack of knowledge concerning the tiles in question. At any rate, some of the tiles are trapped. </li><li><u>Idiom</u> According to this translation, within a certain high-ceilinged suite of the Dungeon, Felids and Canids will descend to rule over you. </li><li><u>Prudery</u> Be it a personal or cultural peculiarity, the translator has declined to uncover certain terms. The precise bodily features of a certain statue that must be pressed to open a secret door will remain a mystery.</li><li><u>Poetry</u> The original had it that in a certain room, witchfire would burst in thin but intense columns from a dozen sculpted ram's head. The translation merely refers to many ram's heads and much fire.</li></ol><p>***</p><p>This quick little post is the result of being partway through Umberto Eco's <i>Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation.</i> First published 2003 - there is a description of the use of translation software it would be interesting to follow back on two decades later. I found <i>Mouse or Rat?</i> quite readable, but it helped to have read a few of Eco's own works beforehand: he references the translations that were made of those on several occasions. </p><p>Having written all this, I do realise that this is effectively a Rumour Table with extra steps. But sometimes those extra steps do add flavour to an adventure - there is a difference between getting your faulty information from (variously) the Soaks propping up the Bar in the Local Tavern, the Few Scraps High Command has been able to Piece Together or a Crumbling Tome of Eldritch and Forgotten Lore. </p><p><br /></p>*To say nothing of <i>Jale</i>, <i>Ulfire</i> and <i>Dolm</i>.<p></p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-10274616343134210622023-09-13T16:41:00.002+01:002023-09-14T08:48:16.262+01:00Humanity's Elementals: Necessary for the Life of Men<p>The principal things for the whole use of man's life are water, fire, iron, and salt, flour of wheat, honey, milk, and the blood of the grape, and oil, and clothing.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Ecclesiasticus 39.26</i>, Authorised Version*. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>(The Book of <i>Ecclesiasticus </i>is to be found in the Apocrypha and is also known as the <i>Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach</i>.)</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Water</u></b></p><p><b><i>Appearance</i></b> Not the water of the deeps, not water of the torrent, not the water of the hillside spring, not the water of the life-giving rain. Man's water. Five legs, made of pipes, bottles, jars and jugs support a large sphere of water. Within the sphere is a curious face, with the fluid features of a brush-and-ink work.</p><p><b><i>Assorted Sense Data</i></b> Strong light through the elemental's body casts a strange glimmering pattern on the ground. It has a voice like water chugging through a borehole. </p><p><b><i>The Subtly Supernatural Wake this Elemental can Produce</i> </b>A scatter of droplets - either refreshingly cool or startlingly cold.</p><p><b><i>Disposition</i></b> Serious-minded, slow-moving, lucid.</p><p><b><i>Threats and Assorted Offensive Capabilities</i> </b>Kicks from five legs, jets of high-pressure water.</p><p><b><i>Gifts the Elemental may Offer</i></b> A small stone carved with the elemental's face. This can purify a tun of water.</p><p><b><i>Trophies gained Once the Elemental is Dispelled</i></b> Five small stones that will each reduce a tun of water to a fine grey powder.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Fire</u></b></p><p><b><i>Appearance</i></b> Not the wild fire, not the elemental fire, not the sorcerous fire, not the heavenly fire. Man's fire. Picture a being like a goat. This goat has a stone hearth for a torso, two fire pots for protruding eyes, two candelabra for horns, a clay oil lamp for a brief tail. A mouth of curiously unconsumed hot coals. Each leg is an iron poker, terminating in a human hand made of four fire-strikers and a pointed flint thumb.</p><p><b><i>Sense Data</i> </b>Walking over stone the elemental makes little clicks. A small trail of smoke follows the elemental, growing thicker in moments of conflict or stress. The elemental speaks in the voice of a furnace. A faintly caprine furnace.</p><p><b><i>Wake</i></b> A startled elemental can create a great cloud of sparks. </p><p><b><i>Disposition</i></b> Hungry - ravenous, even - but curiously affectionate, not to say clingy. </p><p><b><i>Threats</i> </b>Flame, Iron-shod knees, two big horns, sparks, four sharp thumbs, a mouthful of burning coals.</p><p><b><i>Gifts</i></b> The elemental coughs up an ember. This is perpetually just shy of bursting into flame, needing only a good strong puff and may be extinguished only by magic. Storing it? That's your problem. </p><p><b><i>Trophies</i></b> Twelve of said embers, but they all hate you.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Iron</u></b></p><p><b><i>Appearance</i></b> A tottering pile of iron plates, gathered around a handful of iron spits that rise up like a thick neck. About this, two overlapping slopes of plates descend to two ingot-like feet. Two sets of tongs protrude from left and right about the midriff.</p><p><b><i>Sense Data</i></b> A voice like tuneless chimes, as of metal on metal. Thumping heavy footsteps.</p><p><b><i>Wake</i></b> A strange cold sensation in the air, and a subtle oiliness.</p><p><i><b>Disposition</b> </i>Stubborn, inflexible, cold and reassuringly firm.<br />[Iron and Salt were once lovers. Or siblings, possibly twins. It's a little difficult to tell. They had an affair of alarming torridity and concerning intensity. Or a family quarrel over the supramundane equivalent of father's pocket watch. Either way, whenever Iron encounters Salt, the elemental goes a strange reddish-brown colour.]</p><p><b><i>Threats</i> </b>An iron-hard body. If provoked, the elemental can also make a noise like all <a href="https://youtu.be/4EYW49Ru_F4?t=4345">the hammers</a> of <a href="https://youtu.be/l4UuU8HlRL8?t=174">the Nibelungs</a>, except so loud you can feel it like the mother of all migraines. </p><p><b><i>Gifts</i></b> The elemental gives little, but will reshape metal implements as desired. The elemental can also get just about any Fairy junior to Oberon to shove off. </p><p><b><i>Trophies</i></b> As much iron as you can carry.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Salt</u></b></p><p><b><i>Appearance</i></b> Imagine the armour of a hoplite, but make it white, crystalline and translucent. Fill it with rock salt in the shape of a department store mannequin. </p><p><b><i>Sense Data</i></b> A soft white trail on the floor. A briny scent in the air. A voice like somebody taking rasping, softly crunching steps in fresh snow.</p><p><b><i>Wake</i></b> Out of the air, something begins clinging to you, coating you, causing little tensions on your skin.</p><p><b><i>Disposition</i></b> Melancholy but interesting. Occasionally florid, never insipid. <br />[Iron and Salt were once lovers. Or siblings, possibly twins. It's a little difficult to tell. They had an affair of alarming torridity and concerning intensity. Or a family quarrel over the supramundane equivalent of father's pocket watch. Either way, whenever Salt encounters Iron, the elemental becomes highly flakey.]</p><p><b><i>Threats </i></b>Ever been in a sandstorm that hated you? Plus two salty fists.</p><p><b><i>Gifts</i></b> The elemental can also get just about any fell spirit junior to Mammon to shove off.</p><p><b><i>Trophies</i></b> A pile of white powder. If you shove your hand it, it comes out covered in razor-sharp flakes. They will not cut you, and they will not come off readily.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Flour of Wheat</u></b></p><p><b><i>Appearance</i></b> Shaped as a human, wearing a skirt or apron that reaches to cover the feet. The wedge of the lower body appears to practically hover over the ground. The surface of the elemental's body is dusted in fine flour: if you wipe this away, it reveals a body of plain dough. Cutting into the body reveals a sticky, over-watered dough. Much like hair, a golden sheaf of wheat sprouts from the elemental's head. A set of facial features and muscle-mimicing details are formed by scores much like the top of a country loaf.</p><p><i><b>Sense Data</b> </i>If burnt by sorcerous fire, the elemental may begin to cook and give off the smell of fresh bread. The speech of the elemental is like wind through a wheat field. Divots in the body of the elemental are easily made and easily smoothed out. </p><p><b><i>Wake</i></b> The flour on the surface of the elemental can be shaken into a concealing cloud. </p><p><b><i>Disposition</i></b> Placid as a pig; graceful as a deer.</p><p><b><i>Threats</i></b> Two big doughy fists. An engulfing body. </p><p><b><i>Gifts</i></b> A pie-crust containing fine white flour. The flour may be used to create high-end baked goods; the pie-crust may be refilled with something more interesting to create a delicious pie. </p><p><b><i>Trophies</i></b> The flesh of the elemental taken without permission is a tasteless toxic paste.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Honey</u></b></p><p><b><i>Appearance</i></b> A camel, the colour of brass, bearing on its back in the place of humps a hive and a large clay pot. The camel's eyes and hooves are hexagonal. </p><p><b><i>Sense Data</i></b> A tuneful but inescapable buzzing. A sweet scent on the air. The voice of the elemental has a certain sweet clarity.</p><p><b><i>Wake</i></b> A sudden swarm of bees.</p><p><i><b>Disposition</b> </i>Charming, Optimistic.</p><p><b><i>Threats</i> </b>Hooves, angry and focused bees. </p><p><b><i>Gifts</i></b> A wax ampoule containing honey: a taste will sate any human hunger, a dressing of it will cure most wounds.</p><p><i><b>Trophies</b> </i>A vast pot of honey - which will attract ten times the amount of flies even the sweetest vinegar does.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Milk</u></b></p><p><i><b>Appearance</b> </i>A floating <i>vesica piscis</i> or pointed oval, apparently made of a hundred pats of butter shaped like rose petals. Milk flows perpetually from a spot near the centre. </p><p><i><b>Sense Data</b> </i>The sound of dripping. The voice of the elemental is smooth, its diction unhurried. </p><p><b><i>Wake</i></b> You have the horrible, almost overwhelming sensation that something is wrong and it will not be fixed. </p><p><i><b>Disposition</b> </i>Irritable, but mercurial. The mood will not last. </p><p><b><i>Threats </i></b>A bombardment of cream. Lots of it. Enough to clot in your throat. </p><p><i><b>Gifts</b> </i>How much milk would you like?</p><p><i><b>Trophies</b> </i>A puddle of clarified butter, contaminated with whatever detritus was on the floor at the time. This makes an excellent - nigh-on supernaturally effective - grease.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Blood of the Grape</u></b></p><p><b><i>Appearance</i></b> A voluptuous but androgynous humanoid form, the colour of red wine. It wears a crown of vines and had green eyes. Cutting into the body spills wine: if this is not drunk, it clots into a black scab (which tastes strongly of raisins).</p><p><b><i>Sense Data</i></b> Songs pass the elementals lips at almost all times. It has a deep-throated voice. </p><p><i><b>Wake</b> </i>The smell of brandy worms into your nostrils, bringing you to the point of giddiness.</p><p><b><i>Disposition</i></b> A jovial host, by turns caring and attentive or wildly exuberant.</p><p><b><i>Threats</i> </b>Intoxication, the possibility of choking on wine, two fists each with the weight of a hogshead behind them.</p><p><b><i>Gifts</i></b> The elemental sets a silver spigot into a finger tip and pours out some of the best claret you've ever drunk. </p><p><b><i>Trophies</i></b> A skeleton, soaked in what appears to be Malmsey. It's even in the marrow.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Oil</u></b></p><p><i><b>Appearance</b> </i>A hooded figure, with numerous folds in the cloth of its voluminous garment. The folds have the static quality of sculpture. The hood and cloak have the colour of dull gold. The cloak seems to cling at the ground. </p><p><b><i>Sense Data</i></b> Glistening traces of oil on plant matter where the elemental has passed. The voice of the elemental hisses and fizzes like oil in the skillet. </p><p><b><i>Wake</i></b> The air becomes startling humid. Movement in armour becomes tiresome. </p><p><b><i>Disposition</i></b> Ingratiating at first, but easily nettled. </p><p><b><i>Threats</i> </b>The floor below you becomes suddenly frictionless. Your sword-hand coated in a glaze of lard, the pages of your grimoire stuck together. Life becomes very difficult, even before your mouth is stopped by a glistening hand. </p><p><i><b>Gifts</b> </i>An unguent that comforts and speeds the healing of a great many wounds and infections. </p><p><i><b>Trophies</b> </i>A vast tarpaulin - that is, an Oilskin. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Clothing</u></b></p><p><b><i>Appearance </i></b>As an octopus made of several bolts of cloth knotted together into a central mass which is bounded about with a broad leather belt. </p><p><b><i>Sense Data</i></b> An octopus made of cloth makes very little noise unless it wishes to. Naturally, the only odour from the cloth is a slight smell of cedar shavings. It has a voice like a shuttle being drawn through a loom. </p><p><b><i>Wake</i></b> The feeling of a dozen loose threads in your clothes, tickling and twining in inconvenient places. It becomes difficult to concentrate.</p><p><b><i>Disposition</i></b> Fussy, detail-oriented, perfectionist. </p><p><b><i>Threats</i> </b>Eight ensnaring tentacles and a great resilient head with which to butt.</p><p><b><i>Gifts</i></b> A beautiful and nearly indestructible ribbon. </p><p><b><i>Trophies</i></b> Eight bolts of fine but fragile cloth, prone to ripping. </p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p>
<p>*Cf. Douay-Rheims: <i>The principal things necessary for the life of men, are water, fire, and iron, salt, milk, and bread of flour, and honey, and the cluster of the grape, and oil, and clothing</i><br />and the Revised Standard Version: <i>Basic to all the needs of man's life are water and fire and iron and salt and wheat flour and milk and honey, the blood of the grape, and oil and clothing. </i>I think the Authorised Version has the most fantastic possibilities with that pairing of iron and salt, and the 'principal things... of man's life' phrase. </p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-53572266732283191272023-08-30T15:28:00.014+01:002024-03-08T11:35:57.258+00:00Faufreluches: A Thousand Days of Noise<p>Among the recent post series Faufreluches was my introductory post to the future feudal star empire, the <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/04/faufreluches-thousand-day-regency.html">Thousand Day Regency</a>. Here is a recording of the central element to that post, 'The What' - largely becuase I wanted to see how the rhythm of the piece would develop. </p>
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<p>Enjoy.</p>
Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-33043292699049357102023-08-25T11:39:00.000+01:002023-08-25T11:39:32.088+01:00August '23 Miscellany - and a Notion Entertained <p>A few things to flag up for you, largely unrelated to recent posts - as well as brief section once again <i>Entertaining a Notion</i>.</p><p>***</p><p><b>A Return to Saxherm:</b> if you hadn't already encountered it, HCK over at <i>Grand Commodore</i> has recently posted <a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-thoughts-of-dead-places.html#comment-form">an audio version</a> of his story 'The Crimes of Jack Daw', set in my own <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/05/of-faith-and-fences-visit-to-saxherm.html">Saxherm</a>, which was created using his <a href="https://grandcommodore.blogspot.com/2021/05/maximalist-city-state-and-culture.html">city-state creator</a>. (Check the comments of that post for a series of people drawing up their own cities, and perhaps make your own!)</p><p>***</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ljJkbfYouudEJw8TiC-bvfcM-QYKIcDiFoAueeiKfNUk62u__KmaqPkcaowQ05Q_ImAPVTDRIJqay5JGr1dM8Lb9KHhhU9R6JEOq6EMertlW3Gnf6wbVQGkd0z8YGDevSgzjLaf1p5X-Z_944rCxbyMyWuuF_Qpl0l-kABts5D8RxYThASzRNb9IW1a6/s3264/IMG_20230823_212441854.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ljJkbfYouudEJw8TiC-bvfcM-QYKIcDiFoAueeiKfNUk62u__KmaqPkcaowQ05Q_ImAPVTDRIJqay5JGr1dM8Lb9KHhhU9R6JEOq6EMertlW3Gnf6wbVQGkd0z8YGDevSgzjLaf1p5X-Z_944rCxbyMyWuuF_Qpl0l-kABts5D8RxYThASzRNb9IW1a6/w300-h400/IMG_20230823_212441854.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>I enjoy the work of Tim Powers, and so when I saw a paperback by his fellow Ashbless scholar James P. Blaylock, I decided to pick it up. That was <i>The Stone Giant</i>, and it rather left me cold. The obliviousness of its main character mixed oddly with the very directly fantastical elements. </p><p>But seeing a copy of <i>The Last Coin</i>, I decided to try again.</p><p>This is more like his pal Powers. Set in Seal Beach, California (part of the greater Los Angeles area; I assumed reading it that it was a pastiche of somewhere rather than a real place), contemporary with the book's publication (1988) it is about the assembly of the Thirty Pieces of Silver paid to Judas Iscariot by an old man called Pennyman. But most of it is told from the point of view of Andrew Vanbergan, who is trying to open an inn, and deal with aged relatives, and get the right kind of breakfast cereal, and...</p><p>There is the perennial comment about how stupid people in horror films are, how they ought long ago to have gone down to the basement, and sat there with a shotgun pointed at the door. Vanbergan is, like the lead of <i>The Stone Giant</i>, oblivious and fussy and caught up with his own mundane troubles - and this is exactly as he should be. It is a wild leap for a man in 1988 to work out that someone is gathering thirty very particular pieces of silver, even if we know it from the prologue or the blurb. Watching someone not quite notice and not quite understand what is going on is exactly how this should be going. </p><p>The grubby, furtive - petty, even - Vanbergan is an unlikely paladin (not that he ever really becomes one). Compare Indiana Jones, who is supposed to be somewhat ruthless and morally compromised, another unlikely saviour - but who has a handsome jawline and good suits and a winning smile, and eventually becomes another Hollywood icon. Obviously this man rescues <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/09/of-chalices-and-choices.html">the Holy Grail</a>: that's just what he does. (Cf. Bond: 4/5 of his assignments were meant to be run of the mill, and lots of the books start with him grousing about paperwork. Fleming even intended his name to be boring! But a decade or so of movies and...) Anyway, Blaylock gets a portion of Grade-A kudos for maintaining the unlikeliness of his unlikely hero. </p><p>The best book of its kind I've read? By no means. But the midpoint mix of obscure signs and obliviousness, mundanity and creeping horror is quite good. If I knew more about David Lynch, perhaps I'd call it Lynchian.</p><p>***</p><p>The <i>Pantographia</i> of Edmund Fry. A 1799 work collecting as many alphabets, scripts and writing systems as the author could get his hands on. It may be found <a href="https://archive.org/details/Pantographia/page/n45/mode/2up">here</a> at the Internet Archive.</p><p>Rather lovely in its broad sweep and unique collection of printed scripts. Good to flip through, even if online. Fry does not quite distinguish continually between a script and an alphabet (e.g, on one page we have both the Gothic script found in High Medieval manuscripts and the alphabet of the Goths); likewise Danish is produced in the Latin Alphabet. Things like the Philosophic language of John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester are included - Cf. <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-rest-of-all-possible-worlds.html">The Search for the Perfect Language</a></i>, Umberto Eco. (<i>Pantographia </i>is at least of the spirit of TRoAPW).</p><p>Using it as a reference, it would irritate me that <i>English</i> and <i>Saxon</i> are distinguished - especially when one entry under English reproduces something by Alfred the Great. See also the entries for both High Dutch and German, or Ancient British and Celtic. The <i>Pantographia</i> reproduces languages from across the globe, some of them from quite far off and quite recent discoveries to Fry and his audience: see entries under 'Nootka Sound' or 'Friendly Isles'.</p><p>The colonial and imperial aspects are baked in, of course: the entry for New England (sandwiched between [pre-Rosetta Stone] Egyptian and English) does not appear to be in a dialect of the Pilgrims, but is possibly Wampanoag (see also Virginia and New Zealand). This practice is not consistent - see <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esselen_language">Ecclemach</a></i>. The specimen text for many languages is the Lord's Prayer, be it Siamic, Orcadian, Formosan or Mohawk.</p><p>Terms are also unfamiliar - <i>Esthonian</i>, <i>Esquimaux</i>, <i>Ethiopic</i>, <i>Sclavonian</i>, <i>Manks</i>, <i>Saracen</i> (as well as Arabic), <i>Servian</i>, <i>Thibetan</i>. I am unable so far to identify 'Molqueeren'; it looks like Dutch and is perhaps a sort of Frisian. </p><p>Fry also introduces as <i>Welch</i> the '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelbren_y_Beirdd">Bardic Alphabet</a>' of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iolo_Morganwg">Edward Williams</a>. There's something of a collision in this between the Romanticism (and Nationalism) of the late 18th and 19th centuries and the (mid-18th) Enlightenment project of encyclopaedias and catalogues: see also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossian">Ossian</a>. It's tempting to view this as a narrative of Romantic-Nationalist passions and obsessions colliding with Enlightenment naïve benevolence - but that's perhaps a little too neat. Cf. the 'alphabet of Charlemagne'.</p><p>Anyway, <i>none of those last few paragraphs should prevent you from at least leafing through this online</i>. An interesting work and I would very much like to see an annotated version.</p><p>***</p><p><i>Tales of the Alhambra</i>: a collection of stories and essays by Washington Irving of Sleepy Hollow and <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20656/20656-h/20656-h.htm">Old Christmas</a> fame, written while mixing travel and diplomatic work in Europe, published in 1832. It is set in and around (surprisingly) the palace of the Alhambra in Granada. This was a chance find and an interesting one. My edition was enhanced by a variety of colour plates: the publisher has not identified the artists, and the internet is little help. I have <a href="https://www.alamy.com/spain-andalusia-granada-view-of-the-patio-and-fountain-of-the-lions-alhambra-palace-engraving-las-glorias-nacionales-1853-image561317788.html?imageid=7EB2858F-7044-4603-BD31-C82879B52057&p=552963&pn=1&searchId=e3c385533f222aaa26882b8d38a49aa6&searchtype=0">identified</a> <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/1070415/lewiss-sketches-and-drawings-of-the-alhambra-made-during-a-residence-in-granada">some</a>, but <a href="https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-xix-century-engraving-of-the-hall-of-the-abencerrajes-in-the-alhambra-137348856.html?imageid=552D50FB-1104-4E54-9B57-B0ECD3D9E835&p=181784&pn=1&searchId=e3c385533f222aaa26882b8d38a49aa6&searchtype=0">others</a> are made more troublesome to find, especially when they appear mirrored and differently coloured on image sites. (And yet still they lack the name of an artist! Pah!)</p><p><i>Tales</i> is in part a description of the Alhambra and the countryside around it, together with sketches of its inhabitants. It is not as such uncharitable, but it is through the lens of a Protestant republican American observing the customs of a Catholic kingdom in the Old World. I would call it benignly disposed next to <i>The Monk</i> or Browning's '<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bells_and_Pomegranates,_First_Series/Cloister_(Spanish)">Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister</a>', but they share certain elements. </p><p>Anyway, Irving's Alhambra is full of earthy peasants, genteel poverty, Royal officials, guitars being played, chaperoned maidens in <i>mantilla</i> and <i>basquiña</i>, muleteers, maimed veterans and roguish <i>contrabandistas</i>. It's a more colourful account than that <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2019/07/go-sackville-west-young-man.html">Sackville-West</a> gives - in part perhaps because of the relative climates of Avila and Granada.</p><p>The other portion of <i>Tales</i> is stories, dealing either with the distant past or the present inhabitants of the Alhambra. In many of these, the presence of Moorish Spain makes itself felt - though of course Irving has already spent much time describing the architecture of the Alhambra . Sometimes honest peasants are shown the way to stashes of buried treasure in the ruins, or enchanted caves. This is frequently the work of ghosts. In others, the story is set during the Middle Ages and the conflict of the Emirate of Granada and the Kingdom of Castille. Some of this, with the presence of astrologers, gallant princes, talking birds and flying carpets shows the hand of the <i>Thousand and One Nights</i>. </p><p>Other pieces, such as the chapter 'Mementos of Boabdil' (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_XII_of_Granada">Muhammed XII</a>), display a more grounded approach, with Irving ruminating on the history of the Moors in Spain towards the end of the Reconquista. This is, of course, not colourless: 'the splendid drama of the Moslem domination in Spain', 'if it be a true representation of the man, he may have been wavering and uncertain, but there is nothing of cruelty or unkindness in his aspect'. Likewise, there are some stories of intrigues between the Governor of the Alhambra and the Captain-General of Granada.</p><p>[That is, Captain-General of the Kingdom of Granada: united with much of modern Spain under the Crown of Castile but <i>de jure</i> separate until the 19th century. English Wikipedia will guide you inevitably towards the Captains-General of the Spanish Empire in the New World or modern high-ranking officers.]</p><p><b><u>All that aside</u>, </b>reading this made me entertain a certain notion. I have <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/08/gws-jacksons-tolkiens-middle-earth.html">of late</a> been marinading in Tolkien. My mind went to a great citadel, of the country and yet not of the culture, once a chief stronghold of the enemy, ruined and upon a time glorious, in strange relation to its neighbours...</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://tolkiengateway.net/w/images/f/ff/Ted_Nasmith_-_The_Tower_of_the_Moon.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; display: block; margin: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Tower of the Moon" by Ted Nasmith</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Let us look to Minas Morgul.</p><p>Once Minas Ithil, tower of the moon, renamed after its conquest to the tower of sorcery. Counterpart to Minas Tirith. Aragon II, King of Gondor and Arnor, commanded that it would be destroyed and that none would dwell there (<i>The Return of the King</i>, Ch. 15, 'The Steward and the King'). Ithilien, the land East of the Anduin that was once its territory became the domain of Faramir, Prince of Ithilien.</p><p>But even King Elessar would in time die, and pass the crown to his heirs: likewise the children of Faramir and Eowyn would take up the title of Prince. And how readily may a city be utterly erased? Minas Morgul would endure a time.</p><p>Generations on, none is meant to dwell in the ruins of Minas Morgul. But a watch is kept on the land once called Mordor, and this means that a guard must be kept in the Morgul Vale, as a principal pass through the Mountains of Shadow. So there is a garrison in Minas Morgul. And where there are soldiers, there must be armourers, and farriers, and cooks. And with settled non-combatants, there are families. And all must be fed, so suppliers and procurators and traders come and go.</p><p>But they must not dwell there: all say, and all are told, that they will one day leave and never return. However, in the meantime there they pause, and tell tales of the ancient decorated halls: of stashes of coin and precious gems found in the walls, of ancient yet keen-edged weapons of strange make, of charms and enchantments in flowing scripts. </p><p>Yet it is firm law that Minas Morgul will not be occupied: if any go there, it is by the King's authority alone. So the Castellan of the Morgul Vale is directly appointed, unlike his near neighbour the Prince of Ithilien, who inherited his title. But even if Prince and Castellan get along quite happily, the men under each will clash, and claims of jurisdiction must be judged. Furthermore, any Castellan would rather be the Castellan of Minas Ithil, rather than bear the infamous name of <i>Morgul </i>- though any Prince would have none of it. </p><p>Who comes and - pauses - in Minas Morgul, in the ruins from which all shadows have been chased? The regular soldiery of Minas Tirith. Detachments from the Fiefdoms, serving their term: archers of the Blackroot Vale, hillmen from Lamedon, Lossarnach fighters with great axes. Men of Dol Amroth, who wished to leave their homes, but would not be sailors. Work crews, that must one day be road menders or masons and one day be sappers and eidoloclasts. The Castellan, and such of his household as he cared to take into Morgul. Couriers and rangers of the Prince of Ithilien. Opportunistic traders of Near Harad, or from the Kingdom of Dale and the Lonely Mountain. Elves from the Gardens in Ithilien (see Appendix A of LotR).</p><p>Anyway, were I forced to create a Tolkien-derived fantasy dungeon, that's perhaps what it would look like.</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-72932801382235260472023-08-18T12:45:00.002+01:002023-08-19T21:29:03.997+01:00A Trio of Chimerae<p>The Susvul, females of which are known as Sauvixen, partake of both the fox and the wild pig. They have the swine's distressing likeness to humanity, with the cunning of the fox. The torso of the Susvul is as that of a heavily haired pig - a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamworth_pig">red</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Sandy_and_Black">sandy</a>-coloured pig, though it has the legs and clawed feet of a fox. The tail is more like a fox's brush than the curled pigtail; the face is that of a thin-snouted hog, albeit with the ears and eyes of a fox.</p><p>All this might be outlandish enough. But from vulpine wit or porcine humanity, the Susvul somehow manages to make the sounds of human speech from its maw. It speaks, and if it attempts to converse, it will attempt to gain A) Food and B) Prestige. It is rare that a Susvul can negotiate human social structures with sufficient aplomb to obtain either, but this will not stop them from trying.</p><p>***</p><p>The Ippopolemos is a roughly equine beast, if larger than almost all horses: reddish in hue, with a human skull for a head and armoured forelegs. It is a horse as suited for battle as the hippopotamus is suited to the river. </p><p>There are two legends of the Ippopolemos. Firstly, that it is the steed of the Great God of Battles - a fitting steed for the deity of the clash, and that it is full of yet more wrath than the rider. The Great God of Battles therefore carries not only shield and sword, but also the Adamant Bridle to restrain and direct the Ippopolemos. </p><p>Therefore, if you see the Ippopolemos alone, there are two options. Firstly, that the Great God of Battles has let him off the rein - let him wander through the world of men. A terrifying enough prospect. Secondly, that it is one of the Ippopolemos's progeny; as almost all divine beings, he is dramatically fecund - and not even the Great God of Battles would be able to geld him. These are perhaps less potent than their forebear, but less used to the bridle.</p><p>The second legend is that the Ippopolemos bears on his back not the Great God of Battles, but one of the many men who have thought that they might be able to control War, to steer and ride it to the place they desire. Those fools borne away by the Ippopolemos are rarely ever seen intact again.</p><p>***</p><p>Thanks to a very literal wizard, the lion has finally lain down with the lamb. The result was the <i>Agneleon</i>.</p><p>Having the head of a sheep and the body of a lion, it has all the appetites, drives and social inclinations of a herd ruminant with the physical might and range of an apex predator. The Agneleon laughs at fences, drystone walls and sheepdogs. It will cross many miles to find new pastures. If threatened, an Agneleon may run and pounce upon you, attempting to slash with its claws and butt with its horns. (Thanks to some quirk of enchantment, the Agneleon is more prone that most sheep to producing irregular numbers and shapes of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_Loaghtan#/media/File:Manx_loaghtan.jpg">horns</a>).</p><p>The gold-ish fleece of the Agneleon can be used to produce wool, which is sold for a significant sum to a particular type of aristocrat. Actually sheering an Agneleon is, of course, rather troublesome. Their flesh tastes not quite like lamb (or hogget, or mutton) - it is also notably tougher. </p><p>Agneleon Prideflocks are sometimes followed by very confused hyenas. </p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p><i>The Ippopolemos originated <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/05/faufreluches-vorontsov-at-bay.html">here</a>.</i></p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-76415558341707120102023-08-08T08:39:00.005+01:002023-12-02T23:11:01.228+00:00GW's Jackson's Tolkien's Middle-Earth <div class="separator"></div><p>In <a href="https://tales-of-the-lunar-lands.blogspot.com/2023/06/visions-of-tolkiens-world.html">a post</a> over at <i>Tales of the Lunar Lands</i> I threatened to put together a grouchy nostalgia-fuelled comparison of Middle-Earth designs made by Games Workshop. Well, this is it - although I don't want this blog to become my Bespoke Whinge Manufactory. So the aim here is, if you'll pardon the phrase, <i>ad astra per nostalgia</i>. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>A note on my relationship with Tolkien: I am of an age to have seen and enjoyed the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films during their first release into cinemas. However, even then I was in a position to recognise the problems of adaptation. I had read <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>, and portions of <i>The Silmarillion</i>. I had leafed pretty thoroughly through a copy of David Day's <i>Tolkien Dictionary</i> and seen the variety of illustrations there - Ian Miller, Jaroslav Bradac, Victor Ambrus and others. I had also found, in the local library, a copy of the BBC Radio adaptation of <i>Lord of the Ring</i>s on CD (Ian Holm as Frodo, Bill Nighy as Samwise, John Le Mesurier as Bilbo. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWBecwqNGkM&list=PL-7u3XQNrs5KSyQPkyHjcTV2BQr1EtCM_&index=5">Music</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9xeVF-AJ90">composed</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL-TpGJoucQ">by</a> Stephen Oliver).</p><p>All that is to say that I was capable (as a callow youth) of recognising the defiances of and gaps in Jackson's films - beyond the simple 'They left out Tom Bombadil!' approach. The use as broad comic relief of Merry, Pippin and Gimli. A skateboarding Legolas (however briefly). There was something off, to my youthful image of the Medieval world, for the armies of Minas Tirith to be clad in complete plate armour.</p><p>But they still had something to recommend them. And I am inclined to believe this still: they could have been considerably worse. A few years on, 'Good with Distinctive Flaws' seems like a near miracle.</p><p>I saw <i>The Hobbit</i> films. Even for research into this post, I have chosen not to see them again. If you are reading this blog, it is more than likely that you have seen them yourselves and have well-developed opinions on them.</p><p>At the same time as the Jackson LoTR films were being released, Games Workshop started putting out a range of miniatures and rules for the <i>Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game</i>. There was cooperation with Jackson and New Line for this: the GW LoTR SBG Frodo looks like Elijah Wood, their Urak-Hai are painted with the purply-red skin tones of the films. Designers Alan Perry, Michael Perry and Alessio Cavatore got cameos in <i>The Return of the King</i> as Rohirrim. My friend group got interested, as did I. We were apparently not alone - <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/rjab56/interesting_tidbit_from_the_latest_white_dwarf/">according to White Dwarf</a>, the Fighting Urak-Hai box outsold Space Marine Tactical Squads that year. </p><p>The production of miniatures is easier than that of cinema. So GW delved deeper into Tolkien's world than the films could. Here we return to my initial post in the Lunar Lands - accordingly, there are designs from GW that would later be contradicted by <i>The Hobbit</i> films. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="339" src="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6a/df/cb/6adfcb641560b614a011a228adb2db61.jpg" width="400" /></p></div><p>So, on the left is GW's Radagast. Perhaps a bit basic, a rather simple 'nature wizard' - but quite logical as an explicitly rustic, nature-orientated version of Ian McKellan's Gandalf. On the right is a model of Radagast as portrayed by Sylvester McCoy. I rather think there is something off about portraying an Istari with Ragged Trousers.</p><p>Here, into the bargain is an interior illustration from <i>Shadow and Flame</i> showing Radagast.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ6rxvcWcZ-hCx0anxPqix1Mo-HA1BttorwR91djqLcO0QbPeJqIdsv29kn96iJUAfbLD-FhDcaUXhJiUibDiMw_bKTiudasyCSWLgzgY-MIeDoVOh7ZovsZmbYUPWU7_2OK7AePtXjcBfX1UQMC3EGGgDl-qxOMld7O2WEBeimJm5khzmjpMUnIZOPIMy/s3264/IMG_20230807_124509376.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ6rxvcWcZ-hCx0anxPqix1Mo-HA1BttorwR91djqLcO0QbPeJqIdsv29kn96iJUAfbLD-FhDcaUXhJiUibDiMw_bKTiudasyCSWLgzgY-MIeDoVOh7ZovsZmbYUPWU7_2OK7AePtXjcBfX1UQMC3EGGgDl-qxOMld7O2WEBeimJm5khzmjpMUnIZOPIMy/w480-h640/IMG_20230807_124509376.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who looks like he wants you to get off not just his lawn, <br />but his entire damn forest. <span style="text-align: left;">Perhaps he could be played by Clint Eastwood?</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>This is Thranduil, looking nothing like Lee Pace. I'm not terribly fond of the miniature - sword and bow and staff looks a trifle indecisive, but the background inspiration of 'regal, mature version of Orlando Bloom's Legolas' makes sense.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="400" src="https://miniset.net/files/styles/set_preview_500_box/public/set/gw-99061463043.jpg?itok=Rjm418K5" width="400" /></p></div><p>The Elves of Mirkwood are in evidence as well: <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Wood-Elf-Warriors-2018">these</a> were <a href="http://www.solegends.com/citcat2010/c2010p0502-01.htm">designed as Wood Elf troops to go with Thranduil</a>, along with <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/wood-elf-sentinels-2021">these musical sentinels</a>. Compare the stripped-down, sparse look - Jackson LoTR elves minus the armour - with <i>The Hobbit</i>-derived <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Mirkwood-Rangers-2018">rangers</a> and <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Palace-Guards-2018">household guard</a>. </p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>By the way, I'm not intending to list every such point of comparison. You may peruse a catalogue from before <i>The Hobbit</i> films <a href="http://www.solegends.com/citcat2010/index.htm">here</a>. In a quick overview <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_Strategy_Battle_Game#History_and_overview_of_rulesets">Wikipedia</a> lists the material published - including rules for Tom Bombadil, the <a href="http://www.solegends.com/citcat2005us/c2005usp0640-01.htm">Scouring of the Shire</a>, an extended Harad. But there are a few more things I want to touch on. </p><p>Incidentally, the memorable characters of <i>Lord of the Rings</i> and recognisable actors in the Jackson films means that there are a great many character models for the Strategy Battle Game - as displayed to greatest effect in <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/i0to21/finally_got_the_band_of_the_white_hand_together/">this post</a>.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Gondor's fiefdoms would get attention from GW that the Jackson films could never offer. Firstly, in the form of <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/10dcend/i_couldnt_find_this_article_posted_so_hopefully/">an article</a> detailing suggested conversions, and then in miniatures for <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Prince-Imrahil-of-Dol-Amroth-Foot-and-Mounted">Prince Imrahil</a> of Dol Amroth (Middle-Earth's resident Lohengrin impersonator and the <i>real</i> hero behind the Defence of Minas Tirith) and <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Knights-Of-Dol-amroth-2018">his</a> <a href="https://miniset.net/sets/gw-99801464036">men</a>. I'm not too fond of <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warriors-of-the-Fiefdoms-2019">these Clansmen of Lamedon</a> ('Clans? Mountains? They must be Highland Scots, give them kilts and claymores.')</p><p>Better is Arnor, which would get their own short-lived range, who strike me as a sort of 'Arthurian Gondor' with their <a href="https://miniset.net/sets/gw-99061464116">helmet torses</a> and <a href="https://miniset.net/sets/gw-99061464115">green, fringed, banners</a>. See also <a href="https://miniset.net/sets/gw-99061464117-1">King Arvedui's</a> fur-trimmed robe and general affect. </p><p>The <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Middle-earth?N=803593788+3770274325&Nr=AND%28sku.siteId%3AGB_gw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_GB_gw%29&Nrs=collection%28%29%2Frecord%5Bproduct.startDate+%3C%3D+1691414580000+and+product.endDate+%3E%3D+1691414580000%5D">Variags of Khand</a> are Mongols with Axes and Sometimes Chariots - linking them to the Wainriders defeated by Gondor in the Third Age. (That's a lot of Central Asian peoples GW has skipped over: as ever, <a href="http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/search/label/Central%20Asia">The Wicked City</a> is a blessed alternative). Easterlings are all of the scale-armoured exotic look shown in <i>The Two Towers </i>film, but I have some appreciation for <a href="https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/the-dragon-emperor-of-rhun-2022">the palanquin</a>. </p><p>Some of the Haradrim expansions are sensible enough: cavalry and <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Serpent-Guard">an elite guard</a> (who look as if they've stepped right out of the Hyperborean Age). The appearance of <a href="https://miniset.net/sets/gw-99061464065">assassins</a>, <a href="https://miniset.net/sets/gw-99061464134">desert ninjas</a> and (for want of a better term) thickset <a href="https://miniset.net/sets/gw-99061464166">Harem wardens</a> we will pass over swiftly. From Far Harad, we have Mahud camelry.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" src="https://miniset.net/files/set/gw-99111464218.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: zoom-in; display: block; margin: auto;" width="387" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who make me ask <b>vexed questions </b>about the price of ivory south of Gondor.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>In addition to the strange 'mounted Maasai' look, I am reminded of <a href="http://middenmurk.blogspot.com/2015/09/body-armour.html">a comment</a> by Fitzgerald of <i>Middenmurk</i> about how 'the Osprey Men-at-Arms series of books will interpret everything in the fightingest way possible'.</p><p>Speaking of the Kingdoms of Men, GW would eventually produce unique models for the Nazgul. These were first produced as the <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Nazgûl">black-robed spectres</a> of <i>The Fellowship of the Ring</i>: in time, the Witch-King and Khamûl the Easterling (the only ones that Tolkien identifies, if I recall correctly) would receive models. The <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Ringwraiths-Of-The-Fallen-Realms-2019">rest</a> <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Ringwraiths-Of-The-Lost-Kingdoms-2019">followed</a>. </p><p><img height="640" src="https://www.warhammer.com/app/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99111466047_MERingwraithsofTheFallenRealms01.jpg?fm=webp&w=920&h=948" width="619" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>I don't care for the names ('The Betrayer', 'The Shadow Lord', 'The Dark Marshall') but I prefer these relatively mild designs to the <a href="https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/The-Nazgul-Of-Dol-Guldur-2019">inhuman animate armours</a> of Dol Guldur shown in <i>The Hobbit</i> films (here's a longer break-down <a href="http://eyes-of-the-snake.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-forge-world-nazgul-of-dol-guldur.html">by another chap</a>). GW also did a 'Sauron as the Necromancer' <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Sauron-the-Necromancer">model</a> before <i>The Hobbit</i> films, which works well as an 'incorporeal presence' Dark Lord.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>All this aside, there is one productive comparison I think can be made between GW's Middle-Earth and Jackson's. Let us look to the Dwarves. </p><p>In the Jackson LoTR films, we don't really see the Dwarves. We get Gimli and the other members of the Dwarven delegation at Rivendell, the desiccated remains in Moria, the 'Dwarf kings' of the opening sequence. The Dwarves were one of the first principally-designed-by-GW factions in 2003's <i>Shadow and Flame</i>. </p><p>So: GW had relatively limited room to work. The Dwarves have to look like part of the world shown by the Jackson films. The Dwarves also can't look too like the Dwarfs of <i>Warhammer Fantasy </i>(I don't know that Cavatore or either Perry or someone actually stood up and ever said or wrote that, but I think that has to have been on their minds). It's an interesting set of limitations on a creative project, and an almost comic situation - we made a wargame with significant reference to Tolkien, now we have to make a Tolkien wargame without diluting either of these products.</p><p>I think they accomplished this. Here are the <a href="http://www.solegends.com/citcat2005us/c2005usp0632-01.htm">first few miniatures</a> of LoTR-Dwarves; here are <a href="https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Category:Dwarfs_miniatures">several images</a> of WHF-Dwarfs. Aside from the obvious differences - ranks of square-based miniatures vs scattered round-based, no helicopters, no gunpowder, no crossbows, no mohawks - there's a few deliberate touches. Less ornament and figurative designs on the LoTR-Dwarves, smaller axes (frequently skeletonised), more exposed areas of cloth. No cartoonish touches - as the WHF-Dwarf Miners, or horned helmets, or vast runes. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://miniset.net/files/styles/set_preview_500_box/public/set/gw-99061465012.jpg?itok=1O5Q_uj4" width="320" /></p><p>We have Dwarven heroes not shown by the films: Dain Ironfoot and Balin (<i>Shadow and Flame</i> contained a series of scenarios set during the reclamation of Moria). Dain looks like an ornamented version of John Rhys-Davies's Gimli, in a commanding static pose. <a href="https://botwt.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/balin3.jpg">Balin</a> has a different approach - he is pointing onward, inward and wears a sort of crown with angular cheekpieces which looks (in a fashion) very Dwarven. 'He's so much a Dwarf that he has armour-plated his cheekbones.'</p><p>Later LoTR-Dwarf miniatures follow in this line. A more extensive range of Dwarf Warriors - shown <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Dwarf-Warriors-2018">painted with plain wooden shields</a>, quite unlike any WHF-Dwarfs. <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Dwarf-Rangers-2018">The Rangers</a> would make a good base for Thorin <i>et al</i> in <i>The Hobbit </i>and are an excellent contrast to WHF-Dwarfs in their lack of ironmongery. </p><p>(If I say 'war games need more civilians' it will sound terribly strange, but I rather think that there should be some designs in miniature war gaming that refer to civilian life, rather than ONLY WAR. The profession of arms is not necessarily a common one, even if it has a distinctive costume - a pre-modern state should have few if any walking tanks. Anyway, the Rangers linked above look like they could have been working in the smithy half an hour ago.)</p><p><a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Dwarf-Iron-Guard">The Iron Guard</a> are slightly ludicrous - how does dual-wielding help you protect trade routes? - but aren't out of place among their peers. <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Dwarf-Vault-Warden-Team">The Vault Warden</a> team seems to have derived solely from that cave troll wielding a trident in the film of <i>The Fellowship of the Ring</i>. Given that they must fight underground, direct fire is of more use than indirect, so LoTR-Dwarves have <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Dwarf-Ballista">a ballista</a> not a catapult. It hurls stones, which is at least fitting.</p><p>I trust you get the point: GW managed to balance things out fairly well. A variety of new Dwarven units in new but not unfitting designs. Then came along <i>The Hobbit</i> movies. <a href="https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Dain-Ironfoot-Lord-of-the-Iron-Hills-FW-2020">Dain</a> and <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/threeSixty/99121499039_ThorinOakenshieldAndCompany3360/01.jpg">Balin</a> receive brand new designs. We see whole regiments of Dwarves pouring out of the Iron Hills or fighting at Azanulbizar. And they aren't remotely the same as those that have come before. </p><p>Jackson and the team filming <i>The Hobbit</i> did not (of course) feel bound to copy GW's designs. Nor do I think they should have been compelled to do so - there is a difference in tone between <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>, there is a difference in forms between a tabletop miniature and a costume for a film, and in any case I would prefer to err on the side of artistic freedom rather than constraint. None of this means I like the armies of Dwarves shown in <i>The Hobbit</i> films.</p><p>Designs become more <a href="https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/07/06/middle-earth-faction-focus-iron-hills-dwarves/">complex and aggressive</a>. There are greater layers of armour, to a dehumanising degree. There is an unmistakably industrial look to it all - where the LoTR films fairly obviously pointed towards an anti-industrial theme. <a href="https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/iron-hills-dwarf-warrior-warband-with-mattocks-2023">These chaps</a> with mattocks aren't too bad, but seem to be entirely clad in oily-looking gun-metal grey armour. GW has shown masked Dwarves from the beginning, but these chaps are practically identical next to the <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/khazad-guard-2022">Khazad Guard</a>. Perhaps it would help if the beards were different colours. Likewise, contrast these <a href="https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warriors-Of-Erebor-2018">Warriors</a> with the Rangers. Why do they all have the same colour jerkin? I'm also not quite certain about those flanges below the spearhead - which in any case is suddenly quite large. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" src="https://www.warhammer.com/app/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99551465014_IronHillCrossbowDwarves01.jpg?fm=webp&w=920&h=948" style="text-align: start;" width="387" /></p><p>I'm equally less than enchanted by <a href="https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Iron-Hills-Dwarf-Crossbows-2017">these</a> crossbow-carrying Dwarves. How the hell is that supposed to work? Where's the string? Moreover, it is so stripped down and vicious it looks like something an Orc would carry. Had we forgotten - 'Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones.' As I recall, the only ones in the LoTR films with crossbows are the Uruk-Hai.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>You take my point. Dwarves go from being akin to the other folk of Middle-Earth to suddenly and dramatically different. There's a few things I would suggest this illustrates.</p><p>Firstly, the change in what the LoTR films did to what <i>The Hobbit</i> films did. A different look, a different impression. There is the problem of the success of the LoTR films: battle scenes had to be equalled, martial ingenuity matched. Perhaps there is the effect of success: entering production of the first films with trepidation and the second set of films with swaggering confidence.</p><p>I don't know enough about the use of CGI to meaningfully compare the LoTR films and <i>The Hobbit </i>films, but the latter struck me as that much more egregious. Not merely bulking out battle scenes, but creating them. I know this will sound terribly rose-tinted (<i>The films from my youth got it right! The films of the same series from my maturity got it wrong!</i>) but I am going to stand by it. CGI is very useful for when you don't have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_(1970_film)">thousands of Soviet troops</a> to dress up as redcoats and grognards, but shouldn't dictate your art, in the same fashion that one doesn't plan a meal of any great worth around the capabilities of the microwave. </p><p>I also invite a comparison between the audience receiving (and the people making) the LoTR films in the early 2000s and the <i>The Hobbit</i> films in the early 2010s. How many artists and designers in the 2010s had a set of cues from internet nerddom; from complex digital art, from video games? The Neal Stephenson novel <i>Reamde</i> refers to a conflict in a MMORPG between groups of players: the Forces of Brightness set against the Earthtone Coalition. Designs in <i>The Hobbit</i> films are hardly literally as bright as a <i>World of Warcraft</i> avatar, but if one adjusts for a notion of 'conceptual brightness', it applies. I don't know how life changed at (say) Weta Workshop between those two times, but it would be interesting to know. How many of them had encountered GW products, or things inspired by GW products? It's at least tempting to make the <b><i>poetic</i></b> <u>suggestion</u> that GW's success in one set of products utterly and unpredictably warped another set of their products.</p><p>Be this true or not, we see the strange intertwined and distorting nature of these franchise juggernauts. There's something unpleasant - even presuming a lack of malevolence on the part of all involved - of designing a piece of (near-original) art only to have it memory-holed not a generation later.</p><p>So, yes: Bennett of <i>the Lunar Lands </i>has it correct. There should be many, many interpretations of Tolkien's work at your fingertips. Even if I like or liked the consistency of GW's extension to Jackson's vision of Middle-Earth, Jackson's Middle-Earth should not be the only starting point. </p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-31090207880121887252023-07-27T21:05:00.002+01:002024-01-18T14:07:33.035+00:00Wrecked Heptarchy: Bocage, Puritans, Stumps<p>I've <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2019/08/silent-titans-manmade-and-liminal.html">written before</a> about <i>Silent Titans</i>, and chances are you've heard of it anyway. You might even have an opinion on whether it's <a href="http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2019/06/silent-titans-what-did-and-didnt-work.html">workable</a>, or any good, or anything else. If not....see <a href="http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2019/04/silent-titans-now-on-drivethrurpg.html">here</a>.</p><p>However, what I'm really here for is the section <i>Beyond Wir-Heal</i>, specifically the sub-set 'Your Own Wrecked Heptarchy'. I don't suppose I'm the first one to write something like this, even setting aside the pre-existing <a href="http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2022/12/i-read-ithot3bw.html">Land of Rushes</a> (to be found <i><a href="https://www.noismsgames.com/creations/in-the-hall-of-the-third-blue-wizard-issue-1-print">In the Hall of the Third Blue Wizard</a></i>). All the same, this stuff's been brewing at the back of my mind for a while. It's probably not going to turn into anything substantial, but I might as well share it. So here we go...</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; margin: 0px; position: relative;"><a href="http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2019/04/silent-titans-now-on-drivethrurpg.html">It’s History.</a></h3><div style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><br /></div><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, "palatino linotype", palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><i>Silent Titans</i> is set in a world wracked by time spasms and dimensional collapse. In its geography, society, environments and characters are warped or alternate versions of the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. Driven through this like needles through skin, are terrifying shards of a distant, ruined, high-technology reality whose broken weapons and poisonous ontological waste has been dumped and hidden in its own past. It has both sword fights and robots</span></p></blockquote><p>Of course, I don't know the Wirral. That's difference one. As an effete Southron, this is going to be about inner East Anglia (largely). Let's call the region Estengle (for now?). </p><p>The nature of the <i>wreckage</i> is different in this portion of the Heptarchy. No Titans, silent or otherwise. That's difference two. No terrifying shards, no peninsula girt by the tides of time. There's likely a drip-feed of displaced history, but it would be less flotsam and jetsam and more .... strangers riding into town? A ghostly train? </p><p>***</p><p>Estengle. What's it like? A blend: market towns, dense bocage, the rolling fields of drained marsh, planned planed business parks, thorn-choked dykes, the lurking survivals of the old fens, chalk pits, golf courses, race tracks, abandoned airfields. The weather: aching, pitiless sun, sullen rain or oppressive grey cloud.</p><p><b>The people in Estengle:</b></p><p><i>Alchemy Puritans:</i> clean shaven, simply dressed, well-read, soft-spoken. Keen enthusiasts for Better Living Through Chemistry. Probably taking some sort of mood-alterer, sense-enchancer, suppressant or relaxant. There is a sophisticated colour coding system to indicate this - different coloured badges, different coloured streaks in the hair, different jewelled studs along the cheek bone, different stripes of make-up spiralling away from the eyelids. </p><p>They would be insulted to be call lotus-eaters. They know exactly what they are taking, how much, and when they will stop. Everyone requires some measure of pharmaceutical support; they're just being systematic and rational about it. </p><p>Aiming to strike out into the Fens and bring them into order for the growth of cash crops. </p><p><i>Fen Tygers: </i>Want the Fens back for their own. Grubby and rustic; much more given to occasional excesses than the Puritans. Have somehow acquired several noisy motorcars and a pack of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyger_(heraldry)">heraldic tygers</a>.</p><p><i>Ferrymen:</i> merchants, dealbrokers, expansionist middlemen.</p><p><i>Fane-raisers:</i> raisers of great monuments, architects, devotees of order, ritualists, hierarchs, dwindling fraternities.</p><p><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/02/terpsichorean-sodality-of-bird-people.html"><i>Aviscaputs:</i></a> Could there be some of these around?</p><p><b>Dungeons:</b></p><p>The most obvious thing to point to, the most Titan-like would be the restless bones of Gog and Magog: thorn-tunnels in the spinney lead to actual tunnels in the earth lead to rib-caverns and femur-passages. </p><p>There would be the vast heaven-seeking towers made by the predecessors of the Fane-raisers. Empty, chill - poisoned? Ruined?</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="undefined" class="mw-mmv-final-image jpg mw-mmv-dialog-is-open" crossorigin="anonymous" height="640" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Boston_Church%2C_Lincolnshire_by_James_Harrison.jpg/800px-Boston_Church%2C_Lincolnshire_by_James_Harrison.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="524" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inspired by the likes of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Botolph%27s_Church,_Boston">St Botolph's, Boston</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_James%27_Church,_Louth">St James's, Louth </a>and other <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool_church">wool churches</a> - to say nothing of Ely Cathedral, the 'Ship of the Fens'.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>***</p><p>As above, I'm not sure that there are any plans to work this up any further. Certainly, I would need to do some further reading - the late <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Blythe">Ronald Blythe</a>, for instance. There is at least one piece in Anglo-Norman I'm currently working my way through. Anyway, I hope this has been of some interest.</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-38611032750065567092023-07-22T20:57:00.001+01:002023-07-22T20:57:54.222+01:00The Rest of All Possible Worlds: The Wrong End of the Staff<p>There are two things that prompted the writing of this. <i>The first thing</i> is a <a href="http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/07/what-is-most-important-thing-in-life.html">few</a> recent <a href="http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/06/on-thinness-of-fantasy-thinking.html">posts</a> by noisms on the problems of writing from the point of view of humans in a fantasy - or even pre-Englightenment - setting. Of course, TRoAPW is specifically an Enlightenment or Enlightenment-equivalent setting. So, how does one avoid writing a setting in which everyone sounds.....suspiciously reasonable and modern?</p><p>First of all, of course, our own age is post-Englightenment. Quite when it became 'post' varies, I think, with how you judge such things. In literature, the ideas of Modernism post-Great War suggests a world where the settled march of scientific knowledge and Whig history is interrupted by the death and devastation of the Western Front. Of course, nobody told the architects: witness the square, 'rational' designs and 'machines for living' of Le Corbusier. This is to say nothing of the grand schemes of the post-war 1940s: social democracy, the centrally-planned welfare state and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - all of which must, I think, count the Enlightenment among their forebears. Still, there is a sense of distance between us and the Enlightenment that would make the magical Enlightenment of TRoAPW as if not more distant.</p><p>Secondly, change does not occur equally. TRoAPW positions its Enlightenment as taking place mainly on one continent: Calliste. Even there, it might be centred around a few states or a few cities or a few social groups. My mind goes to Manola's <i><a href="https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2018/10/bringing-down-hammer-part-12-my-own.html">Own Private WFRP</a> </i>(see Points One and Two): </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">'There's a Renaissance in progress! The cities are growing. The economy is booming. The tax receipts are up. .... The progress celebrated by the elites is real, but it has been purchased at a terrifying price in social dislocation and human suffering.' </p></blockquote><p>Even in the compact and politically active <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/02/motorcycle-leathers-of-united-provinces.html">Datravia</a>, not everyone is going to be up-to-date and alert and with it (whatever <i>it</i> may be). I've written enough about <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-rest-of-all-possible-worlds.html">the</a> <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-majestic-vision.html">Majestic</a> <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/10/four-moderately-bizarre-musket-balls.html">Vision</a> to suggest that it is still a meaningful force in Calliste. </p><p><i>The second thing</i> is that TRoAPW was in part suggested by the idea of being wrong about things - hence '<i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-majestic-vision.html">White-Hot Sparks</a> from the <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/08/mariners-of-malmery-and-rest-of-all.html">Crucible of the Enlightenment</a></i>'. Are you a brief speck of light and heat, or are you part of the final product? When we're talking about a process occurring across an entire continent, you might well be going down one of the dead ends of the maze. </p><p>The suggestion of Voltaire's over-optimistic Pangloss in the title is no error! You might be going as far wrong as he is in <i>Candide</i>. Indeed, if <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/09/magical-industrial-revolution-some.html">Valentine Sims and <i>Principia Arcana</i> </a>are the most influential and important product of Calliste's Enlightenment (they <i>quite specifically</i> are not!) it should be possible for <b><i>Our Heroes</i></b> to encounter 'That irritating little squirt Sims who's always barking up the wrong tree' and get written into the popular history books two centuries later as narrow-minded dunderheaded hidebound reactionaries! I've written it before: <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-eighteenth-century-and.html">It's all the discarded ideas and first efforts and groundwork that contributed, bundled up and dressed in a periwig</a></i>.</p><p>Indeed, when building up the ideas for TRoAPW and the magical debates ongoing in Calliste I did contemplate writing in a few Red Herrings. Eventually, I decided this wasn't necessary. Firstly, some schools of thought (e.g, <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-rest-of-all-possible-worlds-anti.html">Ante-Grimoireans</a>) are wilder than others anyway and can act as potential implausible explanations. </p><p>Secondly, a number of the debates I was writing up weren't about anything as solid as (say) the orbit of the planets or the circulatory system - how one <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-rest-of-all-possible-worlds-spell.html">divides up Spells for use by human wizards</a> isn't something one can answer in a mathematically correct manner. This isn't to say that a GM can't say that in <i>their</i> Calliste (to take a side at random) the Polycameralists have it mostly right and their opponents are wrong, but I have no wish to put that rule in place.</p><p>Thirdly, in my experience RPG players are quite good at picking the wrong end of the stick all by themselves. When it's something as open as TRoAPW rather than a mystery solving game like <i>Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective</i>, perhaps best not to through additional obstacles into their way. </p><p>In addition to Pangloss, of course, there's meant to be a sense of possibility in TRoAPW. The Bastille has been stormed - now the future of France is wide open, and you are right there in the heart of Paris! You are a participant, not a tourist - Cf. <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/04/faufreluches-feudal-future.html">Faufreluches</a> - and unlike the rulers of <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/06/states-and-emergence-could-you-govern.html">Lakoto</a>, you can make some bloody stupid decisions. </p><p>Fine, some conclusions:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Even setting magic aside, the TRoAPW point of view should be in almost equal parts as like and as unlike to a modern PoV. There might even be an 'Uncanny Valley' effect - the reformers of Calliste trying so hard to be capital-M <i><u>modern</u></i> without succeeding that they end up becoming somehow repellant.</li><li>Players coming up with half-baked schemes is right in the spirit of TRoAPW. Players getting it utterly wrong is right in the spirit of TRoAPW.</li><li>You might be part of a movement with some overall positive effects - that doesn't mean you're a paragon of virtue.<br /> Likewise, that Calliste is presently free of Thirty Years War-style religious conflict does not mean it is free of strife. </li></ol><p></p><p><br /></p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-29198709905577730432023-07-14T13:41:00.001+01:002023-07-14T14:45:47.382+01:00"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee....."<div class="separator"></div><p>There have been more deaths in Abermawr. These have been <a href="https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-phenomenology-of-death-in-d.html">discussed</a> and <a href="https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/03/analysis-of-causes-of-pc-death-in-osr.html">analysed</a> sufficiently in the past, and I see no reason to add to any previous <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/11/arborcrawling-in-27th-century.html">memorials</a>.</p><p>But the adventuring doesn't slow down. New characters are rolled up, backstories compiled, adventurers take over empty rooms in the slowly accumulated compound. The newcomers pick up the notes of the previous party and pick up where they left off.</p><p>Who is briefing them? The domestic staff? Magical familiars? Friends and family? How would they come to know all this? A little unlikely. (Not that that this quite matches the Three Mile Tree scenario at present.)</p><p>A thought crossed my mind: what if one escaped? Maimed, injured beyond the level of fighting-fit, but possessed of all the knowledge needed to set up a new party of adventurers. If an <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-rest-of-all-possible-worlds.html">agreeable trajectory</a> for players is full-blown establishment and possibly even retirement, it should be no surprise that someone becomes a manager.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoJ0vG4RNg4qzryhe5BGfQz0cHIo-f_6ZpcpHEqHkO3fwPYjwcYrYi77JFRrJ69W6XQlV0A-rgW0bxyH-ALDrjEX1WqbnNd7k7B5IqrUv6_opL88SAieIUumQ8EKd-B5lXsd5kG5MJA0K2UHtArBlP4zhgeLoRyy68e8YOI15Y16rKWXUGUBCY5E3Q0v6/s3264/IMG_20230714_110321968.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoJ0vG4RNg4qzryhe5BGfQz0cHIo-f_6ZpcpHEqHkO3fwPYjwcYrYi77JFRrJ69W6XQlV0A-rgW0bxyH-ALDrjEX1WqbnNd7k7B5IqrUv6_opL88SAieIUumQ8EKd-B5lXsd5kG5MJA0K2UHtArBlP4zhgeLoRyy68e8YOI15Y16rKWXUGUBCY5E3Q0v6/w400-h300/IMG_20230714_110321968.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The most ghastly fate of all.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The process is thus: TPK. GM taps Player A on the shoulder, asks her if she wouldn't mind having Character X stick around via a tiny little Retcon as M to a pack of 007s*. (The less flattering comparison is presumably the maimed recruiting sergeant in <i>Starship Troopers</i>). Player A says Yes; off-screen Character X crawls out of the dungeon minus left hand, right leg and fearfully scarred over the left eye. Character X takes over HQ duties, including bringing the newcomers up to speed.</p><p>Does this appeal? Certainly, if this was a new season of a television serial or Book Five of the <i>Chronicles of XYZ</i>, the reappearance of Star-Captain Fletcher Irving or Lady Steelheart might delight an audience. <i>Master Bernardus escaped from the Platinum Immortals of the Supreme Syndic and has undergone a change in appearance, mannerism and motivation</i>....allowing his actor to display a greater range.</p><p>Would such a thing work at the tabletop? Well, recurring figures in campaigns can delight the players. If your mysterious employer in the concealing cowl turns out to be our old friend Ajax Barjazid, it could do likewise. If cleared with Player A, who has fond memories of Ajax's STR 18 and CON 17, and doesn't appreciate this shabby resurrection. </p><p>But cue the seeking of magical solutions: <i>Get Barjazid a healing miracle! Get him a <a href="https://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2014/07/d-meets-literary-bigtime.html">magical iron hand</a>! Tear it off a god! Let's Corum that beautiful bastard Barjazid! </i>That might even be an interesting quest, but this is all in some sense the same as bringing them back from the dead.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="400" src="https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/corum_1981.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="356" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike Mignola's Corum. <br />(Looking less than delighted by the Eye of Rhynn and Hand of Kwll.). </td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>Anyway, if the Adventuring Party is in the sort of frequent deaths-no resurrections arrangement, I at least like the image of a scarred veteran directing the next generation (though perhaps a surviving NPC is better). But this is the sort of thing where tastes will differ, and there's probably something I missed. </p><p><br /></p><p>*Or whatever the collective noun is. A martini of 007s? An Aston? An innuendo?</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-61338829602094111842023-07-07T16:10:00.003+01:002023-07-29T13:17:30.400+01:00Six Strange Rivers<p><i>All these rivers resemble and behave like water. Most of the time. Sometimes it's murky water, luminescent water, weed-choked water, &c, but still water. Each river has a single course: there are no or few tributaries. Some may have gates, dams, cataracts and the like.</i></p><p><b><u>The Styx*</u></b></p><p><b>Flows Into:</b> The Underworld.</p><p><b>Is the River of:</b> Unbreakable Vows, Supernatural Boundaries.</p><p><b>One may cross it or travel it by means of:</b> A dark, low, boat.</p><p><b>Piloted by:</b> A grim, greasy, bearded ferryman.** </p><p><b>At a charge of:</b> A Coin, held in the mouth.</p><p><b>A Child dipped in the River:</b> becomes Invulnerable.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Charon_and_Psyche.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; display: block; margin: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Charon and Psyche</i>, 1883, John Stanhope<h1 class="firstHeading mw-first-heading" id="firstHeading" style="border: 0px; flex-grow: 1; font-family: "Linux Libertine", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 1.8em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.375; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: start; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="mw-page-title-main"></span></h1><h1 class="firstHeading mw-first-heading" id="firstHeading" style="border: 0px; flex-grow: 1; font-family: "Linux Libertine", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 1.8em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.375; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-align: start; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="mw-page-title-main"></span></h1></td></tr></tbody></table><p><b><u>The Bhallduin </u></b></p><p><b>Flows Into:</b> The Celestial Realm.</p><p><b>Is the River of:</b> The Course of the Sun, Day and Night.</p><p><b>One may cross it or travel it by means of:</b> A floating palace of mirrors and mosaics.</p><p><b>Piloted by: </b>The Signs of the Zodiac, commanded by a Solar Hierophant.</p><p><b>At a charge of:</b> The recitation of a litany from approved scripture.</p><p><b>A Child dipped in the River: </b>Will never suffer the loss of his or her senses, other than by outright mutilation.</p><p><b><u>The Izonn</u></b></p><p><b>Flows Into:</b> The Realm of the Forms.</p><p><b>Is the River of:</b> Supernal Order.</p><p><b>One may cross it on:</b> A giant bearded snake, with the voice of every single one of your schoolteachers speaking at once.</p><p><b>Piloted by: </b>The snake decides where to go.</p><p><b>At a charge of:</b> You must argue <i>why</i> you should get to ride the Snake in a dialogue <i>with</i> the Snake. </p><p><b>A Child dipped in the River: </b>Will always know what time it is, where they are and what is around them.</p><p><b><u>The Novar</u></b></p><p><b>Flows Into:</b> The Prelapsarian Garden.</p><p><b>Is the River of:</b> New Souls, the UnBorn, Virgil's Fourth Ecologue</p><p><b>One may cross it on:</b> A canopied litter wreathed with plants carried by muscular tritons.</p><p><b>Piloted by: </b>a pearl-white Pelican perched on the front of the litter.</p><p><b>At a charge of:</b> One pomegranate per triton. (It is considered good manners to offer the pelican a fish.)</p><p><b>A Child dipped in the River: </b>will be 'bonny and blithe and good and gay'.</p><div><p><b><u>The Thyrss</u></b></p><p><b>Flows Into:</b> The Land of Cockaigne.</p><p><b>Is the River of:</b> Intoxication, Second Helpings.</p><p><b>One may cross it on:</b> A polychrome barge with numerous pavilions.</p><p><b>Piloted by: </b>A mob of Maenads.</p><p><b>At a charge of:</b> All the booze on your person.</p><p><b>A Child dipped in the River: </b>will never suffer a hangover, or gout, or indigestion, or food poisoning.</p></div><div><p><b><u>The Sennus</u></b></p><p><b>Flows Into:</b> The Dying Earth, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man">Age of Rust</a>, the Æon of the Red Sun, the Slow Ragnarok.</p><p><b>Is the River of:</b> Bitter Resolve, Leaden Darkness.</p><p><b>One may cross it on:</b> A floating chariot decorated with Baroque statuettes pulled by moth-eaten mer-lions.</p><p><b>Piloted by: </b>An old wounded soldier in a worn uniform.</p><p><b>At a charge of:</b> A small bowl of your blood, mixed with myrrh.</p><p><b>A Child dipped in the River: </b>will only die in battle.</p><div></div></div><div><p><b><u>The </u></b><b><u>Eilex</u></b></p><p><b>Flows Into:</b> The Blessed Lake and the Isle of Crowns.</p><p><b>Is the River of:</b> Healing Rest, Useful Dreams.</p><p><b>One may cross it on:</b> A carrack with an elaborate crenellated fo'c's'le. </p><p><b>Piloted by: </b>Twenty Assorted Medieval Kings under the command of a beautiful Damsel.</p><p><b>At a charge of:</b> You must throw away all your weapons. Especially the magical ones.</p><p><b>A Child dipped in the River: </b>will become a judge, a priest or a captain - if perhaps not literally, and in accordance with the circumstances they grow up in. </p></div><div><div><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>***</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>You may decide for yourself what surrounds the river, and where in the realms of men it emerges. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The cost of the ferryman's fee may be low, but actually making it as far as the ferry is hard. </i></div><div><i>It is assumed that none of the various ferrymen below will drop you into the river </i>accidentally<i>.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>This post is rather in the vein of<i> <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/11/rheingold-et-al.html">Rheingold, et al</a> </i>- but somewhat less focused. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>* </i>There's a bit of both Acheron and Styx here, admittedly. </div><div>**<i>Aeniad</i>, 6.300</div><div></div></div>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-9348031764443855442023-06-01T17:35:00.007+01:002024-03-08T11:35:10.412+00:00The Seven Principles of Governance<p><i>The Book of the New Sun</i> is (rightly) a moderately famous bit of speculative fiction - the sort of thing brought up by the kind of book-reading type who blew right past Asimov, Tolkien and Le Guin long ago. I have to include myself in that - I've mentioned Wolfe's works enough times on here before. </p><p>Anyway, of all the images or ideas or characters from <i>The Book of the New Sun </i>that get referred to or are popularly circulated, there's one that seems a trifle neglected: a passage on 'The Seven Principles of Governance'. This is found in Chapter XXXIII from<i> The Shadow of the Torturer</i> - and it is reproduced below.</p>
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<p>I appreciate the Scholastic tone, reminiscent in its tone and form of Aristotelian Medieval thought - but clearly referential of systems of government we would not call Medieval. Which is, in a fashion, a perfect summation of a <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2023/04/faufreluches-feudal-future.html">Feudal Future</a>; though if one must put Wolfe's <i>New Sun</i> in a sub-genre, Dying Earth comes first. The drift into theology and mystical experience is also quietly fitting, and indicates the eventual direction of the quartet of novels. Not to chide unduly - but I hope the reader of the <i>New Sun</i> recalls the Seven Principles of Governance as clearly as Terminus Est.</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-15176879970927948022023-05-24T20:53:00.001+01:002023-05-24T20:53:51.127+01:00Panther Skins and Golden Fleeces<p>I have, in the past, showed <a href="https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-deep-and-wondrous-complexity-of.html">some</a> <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/09/black-city-wicked-city.html">interest</a> in the Caucuses. I recently finished reading a copy of <i>The Knight in Panther Skin</i>, the Medieval Georgian epic. Here's some assorted thoughts.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Vepkhist'q'aosani</i> ('</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Kn</span>ight in Panther Skin') was written by Shota Rustaveli in the twelfth century, during Georgia's Golden Age under Queen Thamar. I read the 1977 translation by Katharine Vivian published by the Folio Society (as pictured below); the Marjory Wardrop translation from 1912 is <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Panther%27s_Skin">available online</a>. Vivian attempts a freer, prose translation than Wardrop; neither is in the rhymed quatrains of Rustaveli. The name of the text is given variously as<i> The Knight in the Panther's Skin</i>, <i>The Man in the Panther's Skin</i>, <i>The Knight in Panther Skin </i>(these differences are not unique to English: 1889 saw <i>Der Mann im Tigerfelle </i>and 1975 <i>Der Ritter im Pantherfell</i>).<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPXnBb459sV5eh78ZGFX07I5h8E07uAE9pIXR-iWUnDk8TbTU_7u1XnJbeyjqEzZchbGoAoBNdIuSRvI5uOTZVmvLPQdvfm6ubP5VNteVudneP1j7i8Fh-5zl4LKN7rVq5mfujlwzhCqjCF7Uavf4kjktzzIW_ikDSvJNa2pXMSuReCN4xuSN2j5v1ig/s3264/IMG_20230524_155739688.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPXnBb459sV5eh78ZGFX07I5h8E07uAE9pIXR-iWUnDk8TbTU_7u1XnJbeyjqEzZchbGoAoBNdIuSRvI5uOTZVmvLPQdvfm6ubP5VNteVudneP1j7i8Fh-5zl4LKN7rVq5mfujlwzhCqjCF7Uavf4kjktzzIW_ikDSvJNa2pXMSuReCN4xuSN2j5v1ig/s320/IMG_20230524_155739688.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><p>What's it about? Rostevan, King of Arabia has no sons, but one daughter, Tinatin. Avtandil is the son of his commander-in-chief and dear to him; Avtandil wishes to marry - and must go about this carefully. When out hunting with Avtandil, Rostevan witnesses a knight in a panther's skin crying by a river - who refuses human contact and attacks those sent to greet him. Rostevan sends searchers after the Knight - eventually including Avtandil. </p><p>That's enough summary to work with for the time being. Why is this an interesting work? What's distinctive about it? Well, without dipping into the Boosterism one sees on the Wikipedia entry or the introduction to the 1977 text, it's neatly structured, with the stories of Avtandil and the Knight (eventually revealed to go by the name Tariel) mirroring each other neatly. There's a great deal of tension between social bonds - the bond of Knightly comradeship, the bond of lovers, the bond of King and Subject, the bond of parent and child, the bond of servant and master. The careful resolving of the plot without breaking these bonds is interesting to watch. </p><p>Beyond that, this is clearly a book from a well-connected society. That the protagonist is an Arab rather than a Georgian is telling; Tariel, it is discovered, is an Indian prince. Characters from 'Khateati' - that is, Cathay - that is, China - appear. There is reference to Egyptians, Greeks, Franks, Russians, Persians - as well as African slaves and sorcerers. Rustaveli's own prologue indicates that this is a 'Persian tale I found in the Georgian tongue' that he has set in verse. One gets a sense of travel and the exotic: it would be reductive but not precisely wrong to refer to it as a mix of Chivalric Romance and the <i>Thousand and One Nights</i>.</p><p>It should be noted that Rustaveli's Arabia and India are not depictions of his own time. No particular depiction of the desert appears in his Arabia. India apparently has mullahs who recite the Koran, but who are unmentioned in Arabia. Likewise, the coronation of Princess Tinatin with crown, sceptre and mantle by her father is clearly European. The Epilogue calls these 'strange stories of kings of a far-off ancient time' - so don't obsess overmuch over such details. </p><p>Vivian's introduction paints the poem as Universal in spirit: it does not sit in one tradition or overarching culture. The characters are not explicitly Christian - even if King David and the Apostles are mentioned, there are no prayers to Christ or the Blessed Virgin (apparently the poem was later attacked by the Georgian clergy). Neither are they heathens: a spirit of general monotheism suffuses things, with the sun as a symbol of the one God. Avtandil finds himself praying to the seven stars of the medieval heavens. Twelfth-century Georgia (which had been Christian before there even formally was a Georgia) had expanded under David IV (Great-grandfather of Thamar) to stretch from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea at Baku - capturing much land that had previously been Islamic, including the present-day capital, Tbilisi. It is not a stretch to associate Rustaveli with knowledge of a variety of religious traditions.</p><p>Speaking of Thamar, there are a number of redoubtable princesses in <i>The Knight with the Panther Skin</i>. More than in any work of courtly love? Perhaps not, but Tinatin's aforementioned coronation is a clear reference to female royal power and position (however devoted she may be to her father). Together with passages in the prologue and epilogue, the shadow of Thamar lies heavy on this work.</p><p>Enough of that. A few things I wish to glean from all this.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZZO7jkPma6ipkQjc1jwi6BeSFspOAEz-Rx3bFAkmiLHqfHQyWb8Ai8qc70wEscIHw2HaLqhIr9I3uXfJPOoSpTJmikCozHfsCW_60lHCCFwON9XpxVovtL5rzuXkTO_u_e-H3yf8LuFpucTIJX7O4Yq2Nh0faEIDan7lF4UeNIRByoAXek3M66vvafA/s3264/IMG_20230524_170451274.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZZO7jkPma6ipkQjc1jwi6BeSFspOAEz-Rx3bFAkmiLHqfHQyWb8Ai8qc70wEscIHw2HaLqhIr9I3uXfJPOoSpTJmikCozHfsCW_60lHCCFwON9XpxVovtL5rzuXkTO_u_e-H3yf8LuFpucTIJX7O4Yq2Nh0faEIDan7lF4UeNIRByoAXek3M66vvafA/w300-h400/IMG_20230524_170451274.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shota Rustaveli, apparently.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>***</p><p>I've been interested before in <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/06/alternate-planets.html">historical or alternate names</a> for the planets which can be used for a bit of <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-orrery-of-golems.html">quick worldbuilding</a> when you can't really be asked to make up an entire new solar system. As I said above, Avtandil finds himself invoking the seven heavens of medieval cosmology (the planets as far as Saturn, plus the moon and sun).</p><p>Anyway these are named below, together with a brief extract from Vivian's text. The same section from the Wardrop translation is <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Panther%27s_Skin/Chapter_26">here</a>.</p><p>Zual<i>, whose nature is calamity</i> - <b>Saturn</b><br />Mushtar<i>, supreme judge and arbitrator between heart and heart </i>- <b>Jupiter</b><br />Marikh<i> the warrior and avenger</i> - <b>Mars</b><br />Aspiroz<i> the fair</i> - <b>Venus</b> (<a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/06/alternate-planets.html">Hesperus</a>)<br />Otarid - <b>Mercury</b></p><p>***</p><p>The <i><a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/search/label/Terrae%20Vertebrae">Terrae Vertebrae</a></i> setting from which <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2021/01/punth-pdf.html">Punth</a> was spawned had as a premise that each state in Vertebraea would be based on some medieval epic. I think I've said before that I wouldn't mind introducing some sort of mountain kingdom along with the rest of Punth's neighbours. Well, here's an obvious opportunity.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><u>Marikylo, the Kingdom of the Eight Vales</u></p><p>In the mountains of the Spine of the World, there are the dwarfholds, the great peaks and plateaus only occupied by that stubborn, hardy and independent folk. But in the densest region of the mountain range, there are a string of valleys that have been the home of an ancient folk, who migrated there centuries before the Nirvanite empire ever rose. Marikylo.</p><p>Eight high but sunny valleys are joined by passes worn by centuries of use. At each of the handful of passes, a fortress lies: the High Keeps. These are in the gift of the King of Marikylo. Most of the nobility hold a position in their own right, as head of a clan or possessors of valuable estates - but the rank of Castellan indicates a greater trust, to say nothing of greater powers and privileges. Of course, not all High Keeps are alike. Some connection regions in the vales so long settled and so long loyal that the Castellan has very little in the way of active duties: these are regarded as a next to a sinecure. </p><p>Others abut restive regions or passes to the outside world or are the sites of contact with the High Mountain Dwarves - these require a surer hand. The principal division among the elites, then, is between those families that rely on Royal patronage and the profession of arms - the Panthers - and the stockrearers and farmers - the Rams. Naturally, ancient history and memory of autonomy as a petty kingdom animate a number of other interesting feuds.</p><p>How do the Mariklyne live? From the mountain herds of sheep - known for producing a very fine cloth - they take wool, milk and meat. In the sheltered, warm valleys they have citrus groves and vineyards. The Dwarves are glad to have an agricultural trade partner on hand and produce ironware for Marikylo. There is trade and carriage of items across the mountains - and here the Mariklyne prosper.</p><p>Marikylo lies between Nirvanite and Talliz and Punth: it has connections to Kapelleron lords and Ka-Punth tribes, to Fahflund merchant houses, to Talliz Boyar families. If you need to get something across the mountains in a hurry, you will be dealing with Marikylo. The necessity of trade and the security of their surroundings has produced a welcoming culture - so long as the High Keeps stand. It is said that Marikylo produces three things in abundance - Mountaineers, Middlemen and Masters (that is, scholars).</p><p>Of course, other things can be found in the mountains than Dwarves. Witches - Dragons - the bleached skeletons of ancient armies that still clutch antique swords. There are places where even the hardiest shepherd will not take his flocks. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-18184283051671699132023-05-16T11:05:00.008+01:002024-03-08T11:36:30.192+00:00Salopian Youth <p>Stepping forward from the last such post, I mentioned Dorothy L Sayers. I suspect it is in the climax of one of her novels (<i>Strong Poison</i>) that I first heard and remembered a line from Housman's <i>Shropshire Lad</i>. This time, it did make it into the BBC Radio version - but I shall try to avoid sounding too much like Ian Carmichael. </p>
<p>I've picked out two entries from <i>A Shropshire Lad</i>: XXXIV and LXII. XXXIV is shorter and, not just in subject matter, perhaps the most Kiplingesque. LXII's combination of classical reference, melancholy, bitter humour and rustic boozing is particularly memorable. </p>
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<p>Enjoy.</p>
Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133932512864546561.post-35769353890299117882023-05-09T13:14:00.001+01:002023-05-09T13:14:46.237+01:00Marchbanks at the Breakfast-Table<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Recent reading has included </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, by Robertson Davies (1913- 1995) and </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> by Oliver Wendell Holmes* (1809 - 1894). Both are the reported (comic) speech or writings of a slightly overbearing man of letters in their specific locale. Both were initially published in newspapers or periodicals; </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Autocrat</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> in </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Atlantic Monthly</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (as it then was) in 1857-58 and </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Marchbanks</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> in the </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Peterborough Examiner </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">(Peterborough in the Province of Ontario) in 1942. Holmes merely wrote for </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Atlantic</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">; Davies</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> held various positions at the </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Examiner - </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">both authors seem to have realised the possibilities of collection into a book fairly promptly.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Robertson_Davies_%28Canadian_author_and_journalist%29.jpg/800px-Robertson_Davies_%28Canadian_author_and_journalist%29.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: zoom-in; display: block; margin: auto;" width="232" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robertson Davies, 1982, according to Wikipedia.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">A word on format and content: <i>The Autocrat </i>is a series of monthly columns collected into a volume. <i>The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks </i>(1986)<i> </i>contains <i>The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks</i> (1947, compiling weekly diary material from 1945-46), <i>The Table-Talk of Samuel Marchbanks</i> (1949, collecting observations of Marchbanks organised as if they were all uttered at a seven-course formal dinner) and <i>Marchbanks' Garland </i>(1986, made up from material in <i>Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack</i>, 1967, which was apparently organised by signs of the Zodiac. The <i>Garland</i> contains letters and diary entries alike). Davies has continued the metafictional game in <i>Papers</i> by presenting himself as editor, making extensive footnotes contextualising or commenting on material from the 1940s and even preparing an introduction with an aged but still unmistakable Marchbanks. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 22px;">This isn't quite a review, of course, merely a collection of thoughts. Still, I shall say that while I enjoy both, they work in different ways. They are commenting on different times with different mores. A different tone, of course: the unmistakably Yankee voice of Holmes is different to the Canadian Davies (as to which sort of Canadian - "</span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: 22px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am the usual Canadian cocktail: Welsh, Scots, quite a bit of Dutch, a dash of Red Indian, but no English. And all, of course, dominated by the old Empire Loyalist bias." From </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Paris Review</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">'s Art of Fiction interview series, No. 107, published Spring 1989). The poetic Holmes is distinct from the playwright and novelist Davies; the audience of the Autocrat are </span>largely<span style="font-family: inherit;"> more gracious than those </span>confronted<span style="font-family: inherit;"> by the spiky Marchbanks - who is cantankerous and a little fogeyish, where the Autocrat is domineering but gracious.</span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Sr_c1879.jpg/800px-Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Sr_c1879.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: zoom-in; display: block; margin: auto; text-indent: 0px;" width="253" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: 22px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am reading both from books, of course, though <i>The </i></span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Autocrat</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> may be found </span><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Autocrat_of_the_Breakfast-Table" style="font-family: inherit;">online</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. It would be interesting to see both in their original periodical context. If no-one has done so already, a coffee-table book of high quality pictures of chapters of (say) </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">David Copperfield</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> or </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Three Musketeers</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> as </span>originally<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>serialised<span style="font-family: inherit;"> and presented next to adverts or columns on goodness knows what else would be a fine thing. </span></p><p>Rating or scoring either <i>The Autocrat</i> or <i>The Papers</i> is fairly pointless, to my mind, but I have taken to reading a chapter of <i>The Autocrat </i>in the early afternoon and a dozen pages of Marchbanks before bed. Davies was more the journalist. Indeed, he does seem to have played to the crowd more - a frequent theme of <i>The Diary</i> (later Marchbanks deals with slightly more literary material) is the struggles of Marchbanks with his stove and snow-shovelling - something with which, I take it, householders of Ontario in the 1940s could sympathise. </p><p>Indeed, Davies does seem to have used Marchbanks as a means to vent. Marchbanks is more independent and pricklier than I think he could have been, either as editor of the Examiner or as Master of Massey College (discussed previously <a href="https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2022/07/july-miscellany-and-noisy-sheep-shearing.html">here</a>). Of course, Marchbanks has a set of experiences and background roughly identical to Davies. Wish fulfilment? Well, Marchbanks doesn't have a beautiful wife, or a series of elaborate affairs (could one have even eluded to such in the <i>Peterborough Examiner</i>?) or a sumptuous lifestyle. But perhaps. </p><p>It's interesting seeing Davies's footnotes to Marchbanks's material in <i>The Papers</i>. This was in 1986; Davies was in his seventies. Some elements are toned down, some are made more explicit. His introduction even discusses an outlandish fetish enjoyed by Marchbanks. But there's a definitely fogeyish element to it, particularly in Davies commenting on a proclamation of Marchbanks frequently to the effect of 'This has, of course, only continued and become more so, such that...." </p><p>Has the cosmopolitan, loosely liberal Davies been suborned by his grouchy alter ego? You will find people saying that this happened to Evelyn Waugh, as if to say: 'How dare the author of <i>Vile Bodies</i> become a Catholic and try to live as a country squire!' Well, I believe that Waugh was probably more embittered and splenetic than Davies, but even Waugh had some self-awareness - witness his later novel, <i>The Ordeal of Gilbert Penfold</i>, dealing with the hallucinations and paranoia of an elderly writer following a BBC interview (written not so long after Waugh's own BBC interview....). So I shall say that Davies is probably being a little indulgent, but I am not sure that this is a literary demerit. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7azFFMh32i_aYjnN1o-P59-CWieBAR_F2_wOnYyDQq_KvJCiRcEtxje8ZUUoV2TymcLhfUBSAhoV5frhaEECAMwIgOEZ_5No-aQYaEwXbbODyy2ffd1q3nJgV9KbvsBNP5vv9DgdxV1IZFeNnxKBoNEfEUkhz9yHF9PtcyYKeApDIHIiZD9LX1QUD2g/s3264/IMG_20230503_082411424.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7azFFMh32i_aYjnN1o-P59-CWieBAR_F2_wOnYyDQq_KvJCiRcEtxje8ZUUoV2TymcLhfUBSAhoV5frhaEECAMwIgOEZ_5No-aQYaEwXbbODyy2ffd1q3nJgV9KbvsBNP5vv9DgdxV1IZFeNnxKBoNEfEUkhz9yHF9PtcyYKeApDIHIiZD9LX1QUD2g/w300-h400/IMG_20230503_082411424.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>It occurs to me in writing this that columns of this kind have vanished - as far as I know from newspapers and periodicals. Humorous columns and comment remain, but generally at least nominally about something. If the desire for this sort of humour persists - and I think it does - where did it go? Into comedy as an independent entity, I suppose - the sitcom and the panel show.<i> Ed Reardon's Week </i>springs to mind. More specifically, I suspect that the most exact parallel to the Autocrat and Marchbanks might be online. The Blogger working under a <i>nom-de-plume</i> is a familiar enough presence. But the comic twists, the colourful griping, the conversations with fictional correspondents or sparring partners**, the chance to present yourself or an alter ego as rather neater and wittier - and dominating more conversations than you actually are - surely this is familiar? "<i>In the future, we will all be The Autocrat for fifteen minutes</i>." Of course, I suspect there is more self-discipline involved in creating and sustaining something like <i>The Autocrat</i> or <i>Marchbanks</i> than the common or garden Twitter account, which makes them worth revisiting. </p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway, a few items gleaned from <i>The Autocrat </i>and<i> The Papers</i> for your use and enjoyment.</p><p>Names of Samuel Marchbanks' correspondents include:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Haubergeon Hydra</li><li>Raymond Cataplasm, MD, FRCP</li><li>Minerva Hawser</li><li>Amyas Pilgarlic</li><li>Cicero Forcemeat</li><li>Mrs Kedijah Scissorbill</li><li>The Rev'd Simon Goaste</li><li>Apollo Fishhorn</li><li>Nancy Frisgig</li><li>Richard 'Dick' Dandiprat</li></ol>Assorted encounters from the Breakfast-Table:<p></p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Frontiersman and woodsmen have taken to using knives patterned in replica of the short swords of an ancient empire. What could this portend?</li><li>A woman on a street-corner with a permanent lob-sided smile holds forth on the difference between the Albino Blonde and the Leonine Blonde.</li><li>You can hear the ticking of your own brain, the constant whirring of the human clockwork. What will make this stop? What will deafen the noise? Who has done this to you?</li><li>A group of pasty scholars have set up a sparring ring on the common. Their efforts to advance themselves in the Sweet Science appear sincere, but pitifully inexpert.</li><li>A wild-eyed gentleman starts explaining the process of divine revelation to you in terms of the pearly spiralling chambers of an infinite nautilus shell. It is unclear whether you are going in to the centre of the shell (and the heart of all things) or out into progressively larger and more wondrous spaces. Perhaps both.</li><li>Addressing an Assembly meeting, a veteran recently elected Consul stumbles over his words and uses some less than statesman-like expressions. His audience react with muted distaste to this, but are clearly willing to forgive him much on account of his scars. </li></ol><p></p><p><br /></p><p>*Not to be confused with his son, the legal scholar and judge Oliver Wendell "You sure as shootin' better not be shouting <i>fire</i> in a crowded theatre down there," Holmes Jr.</p><p>**Who may not necessarily be Strawmen or Steelmen or what have you.</p>Solomon VKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11763252777153908412noreply@blogger.com2