Beggarstaffs, Ruin and the Great Outdoors

A recent exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, near me in Cambridge occasioned a visit. This set out some of the work of William Nicholson and James Pryde. The two are most famous for cooperating to create posters - as 'Beggarstaffs' - but the exhibition dealt with more than this. Portraiture, illustrations and other scenes from both artists were on display.

Among these were a series of gloomy city scenes by Pryde, generally focusing on an archway as an overriding feature.

The Slum, 1916
Image found here: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-slum-142570

The Monument
You'd never guess these were made around the First World War, would you?
Image found here: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-monument-29078

I don't want to give the impression these all involved arches. I think this one involved Venice.

Anyway, the combination of ruins, deprivation and the miserable inhabitants of heroic scale monumental architecture produced one notable response in me: OSR Aesthetics of Ruin. I know, I've written about this before (beware the man of only one blog post!). But Pryde may be worth adding to the index of artists for such material.

***

That might have been where the post finished, but no. My reading of late has taken in The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlene, as well as Patrick Stuart's Silent Titans (which I might write a dedicated response to later on). Either way, my mind has been homing in on landscapes.

Does the the corner of tabletop roleplaying I am interested in have much scope for the large, the slow - the geological? Hexcrawls abound, but they have a tendency to seem a little unnatural - oddly curated. Perhaps it is the GM's jobs to smooth the discrete hexes into the flow of a realistic landscape.  Enclosed spaces: Dungeons, Cities, Mazes, Caves - these are the places in which the most impressive work has been done. Even if the scale is inflated it is still an enclosed, finite space. Puzzle-box environments, full of mechanisms.

Could this be done in a natural (or largely natural environment)? The Gardens of Ynn are rather too managed (or, formerly managed) for this to take place, and the Wir-Heal of Silent Titans has been so comprehensively fractured on the dimensional level I'm not sure either count. The video game Fallout: New Vegas had Zion National Park, with its maze of canyons and possibilities for verticality, which comes pretty close to this.

However, thinking of the sweep of the landscape one encounters on walks: in which each spur seems to promise the tip of the headland, where long empty skies change the system of thought, where the terrain under foot changes your whole mode of walking (try going from a sandy beach to a pebble beach).  The scale of landscapes seen from above in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, bare and vast. T. E. Lawrence, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, writes about how dramatic a change of rock was to campaigning in the desert, because of what it meant for vehicles or beasts of burden. Reading about this made it seem as dramatic as a minefield or an obstacle like an enemy bunker, because of the hostility of the desert (Lawrence is good when writing about rocks).

Perhaps the small-party-of-adventurers is the wrong unit for a game to talk about landscapes. Even mounted, they don't necessarily move quickly enough to take it in. Joseph Manola's Against the Wicked City is good about discussing the sweep of Central Asia, but passes over much of the countryside proper (see the comments in that last link). This is hardly blameworthy; Manola wishes to make Against the Wicked City, not Steppe Simulator Five.

Perhaps the place to look is to vehicle combat as a central gameplay feature. Mad Max is the touchstone - not in terms of the internal combustion engine, the post-apocalyptic or Australia, but in terms of speed, the importance of relative position, the possibilities of open space, the consequences of terrain (not that you can't traverse something, but what it will do to you as you traverse it).

This may merit further research, as well as mooting a series of simple settings suitable for this kind of combat.

Sans-culottes, but not sans Style

Tell me, how do you picture the dress of those in Revolutionary France? Ragged members of the mob? Jacobins in torn shirts? Cold-eyed Robespierre imitators in eyeglasses and tight coats? The Scarlet Pimpernel in disguise?

Perhaps you are right. But the French Revolution saw a change of many things, in line with rational principles. A new calendar, free of the names of the past. The metric system, the same system of measures across France. The Rights of Man.

Behold then, the rationally dressed man.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

This is the costume of a member of the Council of Ancients as formed by the Constitution of the Year Three. This was the Upper House; the Council of Five Hundred, the lower, didn't look dissimilar. Take in the heavy, tall hat with its plume; the immense sash, the red pseudo-Grecian cloak. It really is something.

Bonaparte's Coup of the 18 Brumaire. Slightly less detail here.

Whilst the Constitution does not per se go into details of the costume, it is clear that a legislators uniform will be worn.

Article 165:

The members of the Directory, when engaged in the exercise of their functions, whether upon the outside or within the interior of their residences, can appear only in the costume which is appropriate for them.

Article 369: 

The members of the legislative body and all the public functionaries wear in the discharge of their functions the costume or symbol of the authority with which they are invested: the law determines the form thereof.

The picture of revolutionary fervour.

I have made mock, but this was a serious issue: an invocation of a new way of life for lawmakers, an obvious sign of their position - a clear break also with the fashions of the old regime. There will be no display of status by legislators, for they will all be dressed alike.

There was even conflict over the uniform: I understand from this chap that the uniforms were meant to be of purely French manufacture. When it emerges that some were not, they were seized by a local governor.

I'm not sure these uniforms were ever that prevalent (even given the changes wrought to the French Republic by Napoleon). They don't seem to have worked their way into the popular consciousness or the elite self-image of the legislators themselves.

Nevertheless, the above is worth considering. If depicting a Revolution in surroundings or with features like that of 1789, Che Guevara-style 'men of the people' in drab khaki or boiler suits may not be the image that should come to mind. There's no reason the new order can't look good.

Wear, Tear and Repair of Magic Wands, Staffs &c

Swords must be sharpened, or they lose their edge. Armour must be leaned and oiled, or it will rust. If you find an old battle-axe, it will be indeed of restoration before use. Magic wands and staffs are no different in that they must be maintained, but of course, the problems and the solutions are rather different.

This article will be discussing magical items that are used to cast spells. This is treated as distinct from, say, a sword that magically bursts into flame. IE, Sting glows blue when orcs are about - but this is part of the nature of Sting. Power is not directed through it in the same way as, say, a wand in Harry Potter. I've used wands or staffs as the example - but, for instance, an athame or amulet could suffer similar problems. 

This assumes a semi-Vancian magic - a wand is 'loaded' with spells, but may only be able to take one form of spell (like a relatively specialist gun and ammunition). Said wand may draw upon magic as a whole to recharge itself. The below is hopefully flexible enough to be applied across systems.

1. Permanently Submerged
How does it happen? What effects does it have? A magic wand or similar is submerged in water for longer than a day. It begins to take on the nature of the water and gains a permanently damp and slick surface, producing a substance called Thaumoleum, the colour of corroded bronze (this can be used as a base for low-quality potions, though the hands of those who handle it can be permanently marked). Handling said wand now becomes much more difficult.
How to fix it? Dry it off and keep it dry. Then place it in an oven lit or sustained by magical flames for a day.

2. Breaks the Law of Gravity
How does it happen? What effects does it have? The wand has slipped away from its mooring in this world. It begins to defy weight, though it still possesses mass. This is not cumbersome, initially. In time, it will slip your hand and disappear into orbit. It is thought that this may be down to a spell-caster's arrogance.
How to fix it? Stop using it. Perhaps permanently. If this is not an option, tethers are recommended.

3. Murmuration and tintinnabulation
How does it happen? What effects does it have? Wands, if unused, may store a great deal of potential magic within them. An unused wand, thus, if struck, dropped or touched, may sound like a bell or cymbal. The fabric of the wand has become as resonant as the metal of a bell.
How to fix it? Use it as much as possible in a short space of time. You must discharge every spell and leave it empty.

4. Reduced scope
How does it happen? What effects does it have? Eroded, abraded or lessened by physical means: if these happen to a wand, but the wand itself is still largely intact, it will function, but not nearly as well. A fireball will fly less far; an illusion cannot be cast at the same distance - and may be less convincing, expressing less of the sorcerer's intentions.
How to fix it? Painstaking craftsman's work to repair the physical elements of the wand without replacing any undamaged portions. Certain varnishes can be used, for instance - but their making is costly, and those with the knowhow are rare.

5. Back to Nature
How does it happen? What effects does it have? The wand has had its magical centre knocked askew and the material of the wand seeks to return to the natural state of it's substance. A wooden staff will start to grow shoots and leaves; a leather item will take on the texture of living skin; a metal rod will morph into a polished rod of ore, with vein of stone.
How to fix it? Isolate the wand from all magic using a lead casket, having first discharged every spell. Keep it within said casket at least for a day, far away from all wielded magics. Lead studs, pushed into the wood of a staff can also dissipate this effect - whilst making said staff much more unstable.

[At least one magician has cultivated this quality, producing a staff with a branch protruding from it that grows a single apple each day.]

6. Exothermic
How does it happen? What effects does it have? If a magic wand does not produce sound or light by its spells, it will grow in temperature slowly but surely. This will not alter the form of the wand - a metal wand will not melt or glow - but it can still scorch flesh if not dealt with.
How to fix it? Use the wand to light a fire in a quiet place. It must burn for at least an hour - and you must watch it burn. As the fire burns, the wand will reduce its temperature.

I may write a few more of these.