I have been briefly digging back into Plato. The Timaeus and the Critias are those dialogue where we first have a mention of Atlantis, for those who are interested (there's a lot more to it, naturally, but Atlantis is there).
Put out of your mind the ocean, the bridges, the viaducts, the canals, the sunken land. Consider in isolation the following:
There were bulls who had the range of the temple of Poseidon; and the ten kings, being left alone in the temple, after they had offered prayers to the god that they might secure a sacrifice which was acceptable to him, hunted the bulls, with clubs and nooses but no metal weapon; and the bull which they caught they led up to the pillar and cut its throat* over the top of it so that the blood over the inscription. Now on the pillar, besides the laws, there was inscribed an oath invoking mighty curses on the disobedient. When therefore, after slaying the bull in the accustomed manner, they had burnt its limbs, they filled a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood for each of them; the rest of the victim they put in the fire, after having purified the column all round. Then they drew from the bowl in golden cups and pouring a libation on the fire, they swore that they would judge according to the laws on the pillar, and would punish him who in any point had already transgressed them, and that for the future they would not, if they could help, offend against the writing on the pillar, and would neither command others, nor obey any ruler who commanded them, to act otherwise than according to the laws of their father Poseidon. This was the prayer which each of them-offered up for himself and for his descendants, at the same time drinking and dedicating the cup out of which he drank in the temple of the god; and after they had supped and satisfied their needs, when darkness came on, and the fire about the sacrifice was cool, all of them put on most beautiful blue robes, and, sitting on the ground, at night, over the embers of the sacrifices by which they had sworn, and extinguishing all the fire about the temple, they received and gave judgment, if any of them had an accusation to bring against any one; and when they given judgment, at daybreak they wrote down their sentences on a golden tablet, and dedicated it together with their robes to be a memorial.
[Translation from Wikisource/Desmond Lee in the Penguin Classics edition]
(*I can only imagine with a knife of hard wood or stone or bone.)
There is an almost Mesopotamian air about this: the violence of the hunt, the robes, the inscriptions. Part of me almost wishes them to don the blue robes in the sacrifice, so that memorials are of robes stained with blood and ash. The whole thing has the air of ritual and magic, with the primality of animal sacrifice and the antiquity of wooden weapons. If you were to tell me the barbarians of the Chaos Wastes got up to this sort of thing on high days and holidays, it would not surprise me. For Plato, it is so unexpectedly...metal (if you will).
No wider point here, even if I might use this in something sometime. Just thought I'd share it.
Monday, 23 April 2018
Sunday, 22 April 2018
The Gardens of Ynn: Some Thoughts
It is perhaps a minor mark of my descent and status that I have spent a certain amount of time wandering around parklands attached to stately homes, or about botanical gardens. There is a certain odd feel to this; something a little unsettling about bright sunshine and places built to take advantage of that. It is not an environment untouched by human hands, or one shaped for a specific function, like a ploughed field (which still retains certain characteristics of landscape and place). Such gardens are larger than any mansion: they are not enclosed by a ceiling; even a greenhouse is in some sense open to the sky. If such a place is well-kept and tended, it takes on a feel of its own, quite unlike other sub-urban gardens, carefully kept in line with their homesteads, or the minor cultivation of a village green.
The process of walking through them, as an outsider, need not be off-putting (though the carefully planned village and grounds of Portmeirion was used as the set for that classic of television The Prisoner for a reason). But it is quite different from many other such interactions. A few things come close: exploring some of the sites of Classical Greece and Rome - my mind goes more towards Olympia and Epidaurus than Pompeii or Mycenae (bits of the video game The Talos Principle get close to this) I think a long time spent in the rows of a vineyard might come close. A garden centre or nursery might also be like this, in a distant and diminished way (the commercial aspect is distracting - archeological sites and stately homes only try and sell you something in the gift shop).
All this may well be by way of saying that Emmy Allen is mining a promising seam, if she wishes the Gardens of Ynn to truly be, as the subtitle has it, gardens 'of surreal delights'. What is more, I suspect that the garden element resonates a little stronger in this work than any element of the inspirations she cites - however clear the signs of Wonderland, Narnia or Ghibli are in the paths of this enchanted place.
I shall note, by way of ending this segment, that Gene Wolfe knew what he was doing in putting temporal distortions and unrealities in the Botanic Gardens in the city of Nessus (The Book of the New Sun, The Shadow of the Torturer) - and also that if you plan to run The Gardens of Ynn, it would be worth spending a few hours in a set of gardens yourself, acquiring the grammar of horticulture before attempting dialectic or rhetoric (consider also this interview with Jacob Hurst; spend some time with a flower catalogue or some other source of botanical vocabulary).
***
Of the Gardens of Ynn, then, what may be said? They are a set of gardens, in a 'perpendicular world', accessed by supernatural -if worryingly simple - means. But this once luxurious place has been devastated: it is in ruins, with the machinery that once sustained it erratic or broken. The creators are dead, fled or debased. That which destroys it lingers still - as do many of the inhabitants. [More aesthetics of ruin?]
The environment it invokes is both marvellous and pitiful: think of an abandoned or neglected greenhouse, the plants within grown too large, pushing dusty panes of glass out of shabby frames. I have emphasised above the strangeness of a well-maintained and vast garden (vast in terms of size, but sub-divided many times into discreet areas: walled gardens, hothouses, firing ranges, hedge mazes - few, if any, rolling fields). Allen provides a decent collection of ways in which it may be very much not well-maintained. My instinct would be to allow the early stages of exploration to be in relatively well-preserved and uninhabited parts of the Gardens. The exploration system leans towards this, though it would not ensure it. Perhaps Layer Zero (that closest to the point of ingress) could have a few sub-divisions explorers wander through as a kind of overture to set the mood of the piece, though it would be likely contrary to the feel of Gardens or OSR principles of design to have this continue for long.
Those ruined locations are naturally teeming with danger. Ancient devices and magics abound - often of a genteel, tough hardly less than perilous disposition. The location details table offers a double layer of variation to all this (and could again be left of for Layer Zero). The parasite table is, naturally enough, teeming with all the horror things that grow or crawl can produce.
On top of these, the beasts and inhabitants that still roam the gardens have the same air of distorted purposes and reduced natures: golem gardeners or those decorative raptors, the peahawks. Here especially Allen shows her influences in the form of living chess sets and piscine or batrachian servants (and, yes, The Jabberwock). The presence of vast Ambulatory Puddings is inexplicable (does one make or consume puddings in the garden?) but very welcome indeed. There are twenty puddings and they are all super; I may have to make a few of my own.
All this is without considering the dreams, or mysterious musics that provide insight through 'synesthetic psychedelia'. Likewise, without considering that which devastated the Gardens, or what those Gardens become in their furthest extremities. I shall not venture to say much on either. Both are in keeping with the air of the Gardens, but there is no perfect end or final act to The Gardens of Ynn. This is quite proper: it is an interlude, a stroll in the gardens - not a forced march, an epic trek or a cavalry charge. This might be smaller, but it is not lesser, or shabbier. Besides, you are warned going in that it is for lower-level (if not lowest level) parties.
Give it a try, by all means. But it may be something that needs easing into: a tone must be evoked and set by a conscientious GM - just like any other adventure, perhaps. But certainly the case in this tight and enclosed place of magic and artifice.
See here for Emmy Allen's blog and here for a place to purchase The Gardens of Ynn.
The process of walking through them, as an outsider, need not be off-putting (though the carefully planned village and grounds of Portmeirion was used as the set for that classic of television The Prisoner for a reason). But it is quite different from many other such interactions. A few things come close: exploring some of the sites of Classical Greece and Rome - my mind goes more towards Olympia and Epidaurus than Pompeii or Mycenae (bits of the video game The Talos Principle get close to this) I think a long time spent in the rows of a vineyard might come close. A garden centre or nursery might also be like this, in a distant and diminished way (the commercial aspect is distracting - archeological sites and stately homes only try and sell you something in the gift shop).
All this may well be by way of saying that Emmy Allen is mining a promising seam, if she wishes the Gardens of Ynn to truly be, as the subtitle has it, gardens 'of surreal delights'. What is more, I suspect that the garden element resonates a little stronger in this work than any element of the inspirations she cites - however clear the signs of Wonderland, Narnia or Ghibli are in the paths of this enchanted place.
I shall note, by way of ending this segment, that Gene Wolfe knew what he was doing in putting temporal distortions and unrealities in the Botanic Gardens in the city of Nessus (The Book of the New Sun, The Shadow of the Torturer) - and also that if you plan to run The Gardens of Ynn, it would be worth spending a few hours in a set of gardens yourself, acquiring the grammar of horticulture before attempting dialectic or rhetoric (consider also this interview with Jacob Hurst; spend some time with a flower catalogue or some other source of botanical vocabulary).
***
Of the Gardens of Ynn, then, what may be said? They are a set of gardens, in a 'perpendicular world', accessed by supernatural -if worryingly simple - means. But this once luxurious place has been devastated: it is in ruins, with the machinery that once sustained it erratic or broken. The creators are dead, fled or debased. That which destroys it lingers still - as do many of the inhabitants. [More aesthetics of ruin?]
The environment it invokes is both marvellous and pitiful: think of an abandoned or neglected greenhouse, the plants within grown too large, pushing dusty panes of glass out of shabby frames. I have emphasised above the strangeness of a well-maintained and vast garden (vast in terms of size, but sub-divided many times into discreet areas: walled gardens, hothouses, firing ranges, hedge mazes - few, if any, rolling fields). Allen provides a decent collection of ways in which it may be very much not well-maintained. My instinct would be to allow the early stages of exploration to be in relatively well-preserved and uninhabited parts of the Gardens. The exploration system leans towards this, though it would not ensure it. Perhaps Layer Zero (that closest to the point of ingress) could have a few sub-divisions explorers wander through as a kind of overture to set the mood of the piece, though it would be likely contrary to the feel of Gardens or OSR principles of design to have this continue for long.
Those ruined locations are naturally teeming with danger. Ancient devices and magics abound - often of a genteel, tough hardly less than perilous disposition. The location details table offers a double layer of variation to all this (and could again be left of for Layer Zero). The parasite table is, naturally enough, teeming with all the horror things that grow or crawl can produce.
On top of these, the beasts and inhabitants that still roam the gardens have the same air of distorted purposes and reduced natures: golem gardeners or those decorative raptors, the peahawks. Here especially Allen shows her influences in the form of living chess sets and piscine or batrachian servants (and, yes, The Jabberwock). The presence of vast Ambulatory Puddings is inexplicable (does one make or consume puddings in the garden?) but very welcome indeed. There are twenty puddings and they are all super; I may have to make a few of my own.
All this is without considering the dreams, or mysterious musics that provide insight through 'synesthetic psychedelia'. Likewise, without considering that which devastated the Gardens, or what those Gardens become in their furthest extremities. I shall not venture to say much on either. Both are in keeping with the air of the Gardens, but there is no perfect end or final act to The Gardens of Ynn. This is quite proper: it is an interlude, a stroll in the gardens - not a forced march, an epic trek or a cavalry charge. This might be smaller, but it is not lesser, or shabbier. Besides, you are warned going in that it is for lower-level (if not lowest level) parties.
Give it a try, by all means. But it may be something that needs easing into: a tone must be evoked and set by a conscientious GM - just like any other adventure, perhaps. But certainly the case in this tight and enclosed place of magic and artifice.
See here for Emmy Allen's blog and here for a place to purchase The Gardens of Ynn.
Wednesday, 18 April 2018
The Vril and the Veins of the Earth
I have had the joy to have read Patrick Stuart's Veins of the Earth.
I have recently finished the Edward Bulwer-Lytton Victorian Science fiction novel The Coming Race - the origin of the Vril.
This bears some further explanation, both as to what the Vril are and the wider significance of this little and - whilst perfectly serviceable - not outstanding work.
Either nip over to Wikipedia, or read on. I am working from the 2007 Hesperus edition. (The text may also be found over at Project Gutenberg; it is not a long read).
A man - a mining engineer of wealthy extraction - goes deep into the bowels of the earth, in search of something a friend saw. His rope snaps and he falls, and is rescued by an unheard of civilisation. These are the Vril.
At this point I am going to crib from the introduction from my edition, by Matthew Sweet (as heard on BBC Radio).
'From the evidence of their language, the visitor concludes that the Vril-ya are of Aryan descent. Physically, they resemble Native Americans. Their civilisation offers a life of serene indolence for adults and frantic industry for children. Junior Vril-ya serve in the army, staff the shops and fend off the underworld's native population of carnivorous lizards. Vril-ya parents, however, loll about in well-appointed villas eating fruit and listening to the twittering of caged birds. Crime, adultery and literature have all died away in this civilisation. Feminism*, vegetarianism and choral music flourish. Artificial sunlight beams down, fearsome weapons keep the barbarians of the lower regions at bay, machines perform menial tasks. And the power that motivates this society - the mastery of Vril - is a genetic inheritance: thick bunches of nerves in the hands allow the Vril-ya to control its flow, to channel its power in acts of creation or destruction, and to fly through the vast recesses of their world on mechanical wings.'
[*Of course, a Victorian, male-authored feminism. As any set of political beliefs of another age, likely to be frustrating or bewildering; Cf. Christine de Pizan.]
The trouble is, people took the whole business rather seriously. Some people asserted (and, as Sweet says in his Introduction, some folk still assert) that this was a real thing. Bulwar-Lytton denied it: this did not stop folk from trying to create or summon up the powers of the Vril into men. Arthur Lovell was one such man. These notions may not have taken off, but the term Vril persisted, into the fiction (either explicit fictions, or the lunatic fringe) of Nazi esotericism. Vril persisted in one other notable place - the meaty spread Bovril [Bovine+Vril; energy from beef!].
I should like to point out how bloody silly this all is. But this has not stopped similar things happening: witness the Jedi census phenomenon. Apparently digging into Taoist works (or any of the other real world inspirations) wasn't enough: there had to be laser swords as well.
A little harsh, you might say. A different kettle of fish to the Vril, you might say. True enough. To continue to take Star Wars as an example, imagine a world, some century and a half from the present day. The Jedi path was embraced by the fringes of a totalitarian ideology, even if it barely ever got enough serious adherents together to rent a Village Hall, let alone form a temple. The films themselves have been long neglected by the majority of the viewing public. One mainstream remnant of it is the popularity of 'The Force' anti-bacterial spray (the nozzle of the canister it comes is meant to be faintly reminiscent of a lightsabre).
Yes, this is a baffling picture. Yes, it may even be a funny one.
***
"That's all very well, old chap, but what does any of this have to do with Veins of the Earth?"
First of all, The Coming Race is part of the Underdark canon, if canon is the right term here.
There's an Appendix N for Veins of the Earth here, but while I would acknowledge the importance of all those books to Patrick Stuart, there is a wider body of literature to examine. The Coming Race, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Shadow People, The Silver Chair. Some of it dovetails quite well with Veins (think of Axel in Journey to the Centre of the Earth dying of thirst in a lightless passage). All grist for the mill.
The Vril-ya themselves, however, are perhaps not the best fit for the twisted, specialised societies of Veins. Even if one does not see them as representing a utopia, they have a stability, plenty and sanity quite unlike other inhabitants of the Veins.
Further, the sheer power of the Vril (even if one happens to have brought a few beefy mages down below with you) is rather difficult to contend with. No, one doesn't have to fight everything in the Veins. Yes, one might end up doing so. (The Vril-ya might well shoot first when confronting the average band of murderhobos).
Of course, the history of The Coming Race itself may be a source of inspiration. The business of Vril energy and crackpot schemers or despots lends itself to the dErO. The placidity and indolent perfection of the Vril-ya might recall the AElf-Adal in repose.
Putting the Vril-ya as is straight into Veins would be troublesome, as stated. Of course, the twist in the tale would be entirely in OSR tradition. A Utopia can always be fuel for a Dystopia; The Coming Race's (not uncontested) treatment of democracy does not even make this terribly hard. Doubly so when it emerges from such an unfashionable century as the Nineteenth.*
To quote Sweet's introduction again, consider that 'serene indolence for adults and frantic industry for children.' It certainly could be construed as something like a prettier version of the Knotsmen.
The Vril itself will always produce questions, when considered by the RPG-driven mind. From where does this power derive? How many points must one expand to wield it? Who gives it to you? The answers may not be comforting ones. ("It was [Beelzebub, Nyarlathotep, Tiamut, &c.] all along!")
Of course, the Veins have enough room to make something like the Vril-ya proper appear - but only, one suspects, briefly or in small numbers. There could be no going back to them; only the jurney forward: perhaps to reach the surface - or to perish.
*Though I cannot quite conceive how one makes a very concrete dystopia out of Morris's News from Nowhere.
I have recently finished the Edward Bulwer-Lytton Victorian Science fiction novel The Coming Race - the origin of the Vril.
This bears some further explanation, both as to what the Vril are and the wider significance of this little and - whilst perfectly serviceable - not outstanding work.
Either nip over to Wikipedia, or read on. I am working from the 2007 Hesperus edition. (The text may also be found over at Project Gutenberg; it is not a long read).
A man - a mining engineer of wealthy extraction - goes deep into the bowels of the earth, in search of something a friend saw. His rope snaps and he falls, and is rescued by an unheard of civilisation. These are the Vril.
At this point I am going to crib from the introduction from my edition, by Matthew Sweet (as heard on BBC Radio).
'From the evidence of their language, the visitor concludes that the Vril-ya are of Aryan descent. Physically, they resemble Native Americans. Their civilisation offers a life of serene indolence for adults and frantic industry for children. Junior Vril-ya serve in the army, staff the shops and fend off the underworld's native population of carnivorous lizards. Vril-ya parents, however, loll about in well-appointed villas eating fruit and listening to the twittering of caged birds. Crime, adultery and literature have all died away in this civilisation. Feminism*, vegetarianism and choral music flourish. Artificial sunlight beams down, fearsome weapons keep the barbarians of the lower regions at bay, machines perform menial tasks. And the power that motivates this society - the mastery of Vril - is a genetic inheritance: thick bunches of nerves in the hands allow the Vril-ya to control its flow, to channel its power in acts of creation or destruction, and to fly through the vast recesses of their world on mechanical wings.'
[*Of course, a Victorian, male-authored feminism. As any set of political beliefs of another age, likely to be frustrating or bewildering; Cf. Christine de Pizan.]
The trouble is, people took the whole business rather seriously. Some people asserted (and, as Sweet says in his Introduction, some folk still assert) that this was a real thing. Bulwar-Lytton denied it: this did not stop folk from trying to create or summon up the powers of the Vril into men. Arthur Lovell was one such man. These notions may not have taken off, but the term Vril persisted, into the fiction (either explicit fictions, or the lunatic fringe) of Nazi esotericism. Vril persisted in one other notable place - the meaty spread Bovril [Bovine+Vril; energy from beef!].
 |
| This has very little bearing on the topic at hand, but it is a marvellous image. Whatever we might say about advertisements in our own time, I wonder if anything of this nature would be produced today. |
I should like to point out how bloody silly this all is. But this has not stopped similar things happening: witness the Jedi census phenomenon. Apparently digging into Taoist works (or any of the other real world inspirations) wasn't enough: there had to be laser swords as well.
A little harsh, you might say. A different kettle of fish to the Vril, you might say. True enough. To continue to take Star Wars as an example, imagine a world, some century and a half from the present day. The Jedi path was embraced by the fringes of a totalitarian ideology, even if it barely ever got enough serious adherents together to rent a Village Hall, let alone form a temple. The films themselves have been long neglected by the majority of the viewing public. One mainstream remnant of it is the popularity of 'The Force' anti-bacterial spray (the nozzle of the canister it comes is meant to be faintly reminiscent of a lightsabre).
Yes, this is a baffling picture. Yes, it may even be a funny one.
***
"That's all very well, old chap, but what does any of this have to do with Veins of the Earth?"
First of all, The Coming Race is part of the Underdark canon, if canon is the right term here.
There's an Appendix N for Veins of the Earth here, but while I would acknowledge the importance of all those books to Patrick Stuart, there is a wider body of literature to examine. The Coming Race, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Shadow People, The Silver Chair. Some of it dovetails quite well with Veins (think of Axel in Journey to the Centre of the Earth dying of thirst in a lightless passage). All grist for the mill.
The Vril-ya themselves, however, are perhaps not the best fit for the twisted, specialised societies of Veins. Even if one does not see them as representing a utopia, they have a stability, plenty and sanity quite unlike other inhabitants of the Veins.
Further, the sheer power of the Vril (even if one happens to have brought a few beefy mages down below with you) is rather difficult to contend with. No, one doesn't have to fight everything in the Veins. Yes, one might end up doing so. (The Vril-ya might well shoot first when confronting the average band of murderhobos).
Of course, the history of The Coming Race itself may be a source of inspiration. The business of Vril energy and crackpot schemers or despots lends itself to the dErO. The placidity and indolent perfection of the Vril-ya might recall the AElf-Adal in repose.
 |
| "Brown? Was the spread brown? Was it? Where have you hidden the spread?" |
To quote Sweet's introduction again, consider that 'serene indolence for adults and frantic industry for children.' It certainly could be construed as something like a prettier version of the Knotsmen.
The Vril itself will always produce questions, when considered by the RPG-driven mind. From where does this power derive? How many points must one expand to wield it? Who gives it to you? The answers may not be comforting ones. ("It was [Beelzebub, Nyarlathotep, Tiamut, &c.] all along!")
Of course, the Veins have enough room to make something like the Vril-ya proper appear - but only, one suspects, briefly or in small numbers. There could be no going back to them; only the jurney forward: perhaps to reach the surface - or to perish.
*Though I cannot quite conceive how one makes a very concrete dystopia out of Morris's News from Nowhere.
Saturday, 14 April 2018
Social Cues and Character Classes
Premise: Social interaction in RPGs can be influenced by what character class you play. This is obvious, after a fashion: folk treat priests differently to soldiers. Therefore, when you play a character class you can emphasise the social traits of that class or not.
A mechanical notion: the maintenance of the social traits can be put into the hands of the player, not the GM or similar. First, this is because the player needs to play the character - is the fighter a stoic, loyal, soldier or a raging, homeless, barbarian? Secondly, the mechanical aspect of remembering to keep the social traits or cues present is useful, in that the player must maintain this status as an act of will.
These very mechanics are flexible, but a character's weekly schedule might include some time set aside to the cultivation of those traits. Aside from any choices they might make regarding items: if the cleric puts on a pagan amulet, regardless of the benefits (+4 to XYZ)), even if it has no real supernatural downsides - is going to look odd.
As any aspect of a society, these are going to be differences between settings. I am going to employ the European Medievalism of Terrae Vertebrae, paired with the system I know best: The 52 Pages.
Fighter: making it clear to the world at large that you are a fighter is not hard - just carry a sword and armour. However, there are certain specialities needed to gain the 'Fighter Social Trait Bonus'. First, do not wear any armour, clothes or other accoutrements with the symbols of a king or lord or other power structure. It is acceptable to have dwarf hallmarks from the smith on your helm; it is not acceptable if the helm is covered with the war-runes of the Dwarf Kingdom of the Bronze Chasm.
Second, you may wear a symbol - but only a voided symbol: a plain, blank black shield. (A quick look at this post may be relevant for unaffiliated men-at-arms - though that is a very regulated mercenary world). This cannot be concealed.
Rogue: the mind goes instantly to gang colours or pirate flags or thieves' cant. But would one really wish to indicate that one was a Rogue? The class title is what it is and need not have any given interaction with the world of crime. Does a rogue even have a social status?
The answer (or my answer) is to say: like the fighter, but with more looseness, more swagger. It is not necessary, either to refrain from wearing symbols: it is necessary to defend yourself from those coming after you for wearing them. Likewise, there is an exhibition of successes: wear your loot! This is a distinction: a fighter is methodical; a rogue is intuitive. However, you must refrain from interaction with the more prominent criminal gangs.
Wizard: the staff is traditional. But the thing that really proofs you as a wizard is a license. The wizard must proof their abilities and that they can use them safely. Therefore, the main social cue that comforts folk around a wizard is a license, or diploma. This is generally carried in a dedicated scroll case in an accessible place on the wizards body (a belt pouch, or across the shoulder). The display of a single scroll case, for many, is a good enough indicator in and off itself of being a socially benign wizard.
Prophet: the class is called prophet, not cleric. No-one insists on you wearing liturgical vestments in the dungeon - still less a dog-collar. Therefore, I would opt for another aspect of religious practice: the tonsure. The connection to monastic life sets it aside from the secular clergy and the Church hierarchy. As above, not wearing pagan amulets is entirely necessary. Wearing a symbol of the Faith of the Eight or appropriate Saint's icon is - if for no other reason than Van Helsing vampire repellant ones.
Dwarf: don't trim the beard. Keep all hair braided carefully. Humans can grow facial hair; only dwarves care for and properly maintain a beard (or braid; I've never jumped one way or the other on female dwarves and beards).
Elves: don't conceal the ears. Terrae Vertebrae elves tend to have a link or association with a place and community in that place; those wandering will carry something to carry on the link. This is probably not a pot plant, but more a locket contraption perhaps - at least, for woodland elves. A phial of seawater for the insular elven communities.
Caprines: very much as in the link. Don't conceal the horns or the hooves.
Hereafter, Next 52 specialities.
Bard: the musical instrument must be on display. Colourful attire - at least, hat and scarf or other peripheral attire.
Militant: a mix of fighter and prophet. Don't display symbols - excepting religious ones. Tonsure or equivalent advised but not compulsory.
Mystic: as wizard and prophet - display both of license-scroll case and religous symbol. Avoid pagan amulets; tonsure or equivalent advised but not compulsory.
Mountebank: as rogue, but more colourful and flamboyant (as Bard).
Whether or not a character wishes to be known as an especially Dwarven dwarf, or wishes to conceal themselves, or simply wants to dress in a certain way is up to them. But if you want to trade on your position without any other kind of references or letters of introduction or preceding reputation, this is the way to do it.
A mechanical notion: the maintenance of the social traits can be put into the hands of the player, not the GM or similar. First, this is because the player needs to play the character - is the fighter a stoic, loyal, soldier or a raging, homeless, barbarian? Secondly, the mechanical aspect of remembering to keep the social traits or cues present is useful, in that the player must maintain this status as an act of will.
These very mechanics are flexible, but a character's weekly schedule might include some time set aside to the cultivation of those traits. Aside from any choices they might make regarding items: if the cleric puts on a pagan amulet, regardless of the benefits (+4 to XYZ)), even if it has no real supernatural downsides - is going to look odd.
As any aspect of a society, these are going to be differences between settings. I am going to employ the European Medievalism of Terrae Vertebrae, paired with the system I know best: The 52 Pages.
Fighter: making it clear to the world at large that you are a fighter is not hard - just carry a sword and armour. However, there are certain specialities needed to gain the 'Fighter Social Trait Bonus'. First, do not wear any armour, clothes or other accoutrements with the symbols of a king or lord or other power structure. It is acceptable to have dwarf hallmarks from the smith on your helm; it is not acceptable if the helm is covered with the war-runes of the Dwarf Kingdom of the Bronze Chasm.
Second, you may wear a symbol - but only a voided symbol: a plain, blank black shield. (A quick look at this post may be relevant for unaffiliated men-at-arms - though that is a very regulated mercenary world). This cannot be concealed.
Rogue: the mind goes instantly to gang colours or pirate flags or thieves' cant. But would one really wish to indicate that one was a Rogue? The class title is what it is and need not have any given interaction with the world of crime. Does a rogue even have a social status?
The answer (or my answer) is to say: like the fighter, but with more looseness, more swagger. It is not necessary, either to refrain from wearing symbols: it is necessary to defend yourself from those coming after you for wearing them. Likewise, there is an exhibition of successes: wear your loot! This is a distinction: a fighter is methodical; a rogue is intuitive. However, you must refrain from interaction with the more prominent criminal gangs.
Wizard: the staff is traditional. But the thing that really proofs you as a wizard is a license. The wizard must proof their abilities and that they can use them safely. Therefore, the main social cue that comforts folk around a wizard is a license, or diploma. This is generally carried in a dedicated scroll case in an accessible place on the wizards body (a belt pouch, or across the shoulder). The display of a single scroll case, for many, is a good enough indicator in and off itself of being a socially benign wizard.
Prophet: the class is called prophet, not cleric. No-one insists on you wearing liturgical vestments in the dungeon - still less a dog-collar. Therefore, I would opt for another aspect of religious practice: the tonsure. The connection to monastic life sets it aside from the secular clergy and the Church hierarchy. As above, not wearing pagan amulets is entirely necessary. Wearing a symbol of the Faith of the Eight or appropriate Saint's icon is - if for no other reason than Van Helsing vampire repellant ones.
Dwarf: don't trim the beard. Keep all hair braided carefully. Humans can grow facial hair; only dwarves care for and properly maintain a beard (or braid; I've never jumped one way or the other on female dwarves and beards).
Elves: don't conceal the ears. Terrae Vertebrae elves tend to have a link or association with a place and community in that place; those wandering will carry something to carry on the link. This is probably not a pot plant, but more a locket contraption perhaps - at least, for woodland elves. A phial of seawater for the insular elven communities.
Caprines: very much as in the link. Don't conceal the horns or the hooves.
Hereafter, Next 52 specialities.
Bard: the musical instrument must be on display. Colourful attire - at least, hat and scarf or other peripheral attire.
Militant: a mix of fighter and prophet. Don't display symbols - excepting religious ones. Tonsure or equivalent advised but not compulsory.
Mystic: as wizard and prophet - display both of license-scroll case and religous symbol. Avoid pagan amulets; tonsure or equivalent advised but not compulsory.
Mountebank: as rogue, but more colourful and flamboyant (as Bard).
Whether or not a character wishes to be known as an especially Dwarven dwarf, or wishes to conceal themselves, or simply wants to dress in a certain way is up to them. But if you want to trade on your position without any other kind of references or letters of introduction or preceding reputation, this is the way to do it.
Sunday, 8 April 2018
State of Play 2,018
A drop in posts over Easter, but I am still about. Further, somehow this little Blog with a mealy-mouthed name has garnered over 2,018 views. Many thanks! A slightly arbitrary number to commemorate, but not entirely unfitting.
Points about the Blog I am mulling over:
A few things for the near future:
-I might have said I was done with Terrae Vertebrae for a bit, but I have at least one thing of that setting I should like to put before you. Given Terrae Vertebrae's somewhat generic status, this should be easy enough to tailor to fit other settings. It started in my mind as (North) Western European Medieval, but elements of it could fit in quite nicely with what I know of Tang Dynasty China (for instance).
-That said, I should like to put the Land of Punth, the Qryth and some of the surroundings in a separate category (A new label will be affixed to posts). Besides it having an explicit different flavour to the rest of Terrae Vertebrae, it would be an easy 'unit of setting' for somebody to drop into a game un-tailored. Though I should like to flesh it out a little more first. A few random encounter tables, another hexcrawl perhaps, a partial list of the Codes and a few access points to Punth (Austergate being an example).
-Progress grinds slowly on the 18th Century setting (referenced initially here, hinted at elsewhere), which probably would be (sub-) titled White Hot Sparks from the Crucible of the Enlightenment. I have some moderately fleshed-out World-Building stuff so I have named cities or gulfs or kingdoms. But the trick with this seems rather to be a feeling of magic that participates in the nature of the Enlightenment and that systematising of knowledge. I might post a reading list of things I've been looking at.
-In mock-tribute to this post over at Monsters and Manuals, and with an eye kept on this, there will likely be further C.S. Lewis posts. (Though I can't say the same for Terry Goodkind or some others on that list).
-I should like to put Fallout: Home Counties in some sort of finished state, though any serious work on it is unlikely until I can ground myself well in a system that might support it.
-A few more reviews might accumulate.
***
Finally, to ensure this post isn't purely self-regarding and inward-looking, have a d8 list of encounters based on a collection of beer caps I recently saw.
1. A thistle half the height of a man. A red eye stares balefully from its centre. Its leaves rustle, even when there is no wind.
2. Crescent hounds, backs twisted into the curve of the moon scamper across the moor, yapping and snapping at anything crossing their path. How are these dog's backs bent into that cruel shape? No-one knows, or no-one tells.
3. The skull of a drowned mariner, still wreathed in seaweed. Who took it so far from the coast?
4. An elongated badger seeks something in the ground. There must be something in the beast to stretch it's body so - or to bring it out during the day.
5. A harp all of black - soundboard, pegs, strings, column. What kind of music does it make?
6. On a rock, the mark of a red hand. There is nothing out here to point towards; surely nothing to be avoided. Who spent time cutting and staining the stone?
7. Leaves grow through a red, demonic skull. Vines entwine barbed crimson limbs. Is this a possessed dryad or an ensnared devil?
8. Could that be a windmill on the horizon? What else would stand so tall - or wave its arms so?
***
Any thoughts would, as ever, be appreciated.
Points about the Blog I am mulling over:
- An explicitly international audience, though the quantity of views apparently coming from Algeria is somewhat baffling. The bulk of readers seem to be Anglosphere.
- A lack of comments. If you have a pertinent remark, I should be interested to hear it.
- The 'default orange' look of the site. I might spruce things up at some point.
- The most popular posts are: Azoth, Fifty Religious Processions, Majipoor and both Sphinxes.
A few things for the near future:
-I might have said I was done with Terrae Vertebrae for a bit, but I have at least one thing of that setting I should like to put before you. Given Terrae Vertebrae's somewhat generic status, this should be easy enough to tailor to fit other settings. It started in my mind as (North) Western European Medieval, but elements of it could fit in quite nicely with what I know of Tang Dynasty China (for instance).
-That said, I should like to put the Land of Punth, the Qryth and some of the surroundings in a separate category (A new label will be affixed to posts). Besides it having an explicit different flavour to the rest of Terrae Vertebrae, it would be an easy 'unit of setting' for somebody to drop into a game un-tailored. Though I should like to flesh it out a little more first. A few random encounter tables, another hexcrawl perhaps, a partial list of the Codes and a few access points to Punth (Austergate being an example).
-Progress grinds slowly on the 18th Century setting (referenced initially here, hinted at elsewhere), which probably would be (sub-) titled White Hot Sparks from the Crucible of the Enlightenment. I have some moderately fleshed-out World-Building stuff so I have named cities or gulfs or kingdoms. But the trick with this seems rather to be a feeling of magic that participates in the nature of the Enlightenment and that systematising of knowledge. I might post a reading list of things I've been looking at.
-In mock-tribute to this post over at Monsters and Manuals, and with an eye kept on this, there will likely be further C.S. Lewis posts. (Though I can't say the same for Terry Goodkind or some others on that list).
-I should like to put Fallout: Home Counties in some sort of finished state, though any serious work on it is unlikely until I can ground myself well in a system that might support it.
-A few more reviews might accumulate.
***
Finally, to ensure this post isn't purely self-regarding and inward-looking, have a d8 list of encounters based on a collection of beer caps I recently saw.
1. A thistle half the height of a man. A red eye stares balefully from its centre. Its leaves rustle, even when there is no wind.
2. Crescent hounds, backs twisted into the curve of the moon scamper across the moor, yapping and snapping at anything crossing their path. How are these dog's backs bent into that cruel shape? No-one knows, or no-one tells.
3. The skull of a drowned mariner, still wreathed in seaweed. Who took it so far from the coast?
4. An elongated badger seeks something in the ground. There must be something in the beast to stretch it's body so - or to bring it out during the day.
5. A harp all of black - soundboard, pegs, strings, column. What kind of music does it make?
6. On a rock, the mark of a red hand. There is nothing out here to point towards; surely nothing to be avoided. Who spent time cutting and staining the stone?
7. Leaves grow through a red, demonic skull. Vines entwine barbed crimson limbs. Is this a possessed dryad or an ensnared devil?
8. Could that be a windmill on the horizon? What else would stand so tall - or wave its arms so?
***
Any thoughts would, as ever, be appreciated.