The Magician's Nephew's Goose-Gold

I recently read over the proto-design document for Patrick Stuart’s Goose-Gold and Goblins (see here). There were elements in it that put me in mind of CS Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew (first chronologically, sixth in publication order of the Chronicles of Narnia). I said I would outline how to apply it. More obvious sources of inspiration are Studio Ghibli films (hence the Shintobox elements) and fairy tales, but I think that The Magician’s Nephew specifically would be good to consider. I shall begin with the second paragraph:

(Chances are if you‘re reading this Blog you’ve read The Magician’s Nephew [hereafter TMN] anyway, but if you haven’t, do so).

In those days Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you were a boy you had to wear a stiff Eton collar every day, and schools were usually nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and as for sweets, I won’t tell you how cheap and good they were, because it would only make you mouth water in vain. And in those days there lived in London a girl called Polly Plummer.

So: the real world elements of Narnia are here drawn from the past – the late Victorian era – rather than the 1940s and 50s of other Chronicles. This is not idealised (think of the later reaction of the Cabby and his horse to arriving in Narnia), but it is clearly thinking of a Britain (indeed, a London) before two world wars and Rationing. 

Goose-Gold and Goblins (hereafter GG&G) looks to give XP for Food, but there is something more in this. The implication of distant or neutral government (comparative with Wartime Britain or a post-war Welfare State) is fitting. Monsters like cruel teachers are also cited by GG&G.

Polly and Digory are our protagonists, and are both children (GG&G would have your characters either be quite young or quite old). Their families’ London houses are connected by the attic; so they meet and explore together.

It is wonderful how much exploring you can do with a stub of candle in a big house, or row of houses. 

The urban setting (for now!) isn’t quite right for GG&G, but the exploration of your local area (and the implicit decay of exploring a house with empty or unused rooms) is right.

Digory and Polly encounter his Uncle Andrew, who turns out to be an amateur magician. However, he’s not a kindly man (“Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours is a high and lonely destiny.”). He spirits Polly away to unknown parts, and this is shocking – not just in the sense of being magic, but in its suddenness and violence. 

It was so sudden and so terribly unlike anything that had ever happened to Digory even in a nightmare, that he let out a scream.

Uncle Andrew turns out to inherited artefacts of Atlantis (so he believes) from a fairy godmother, who does not appear to have been terribly pleasant. A secluded, conceited, foolish, vain and seemingly rather lazy figure, he sits within two elements of GG&G – the unemployed Uncle of the ‘Pets’ section and the sinister but knowledgeable Well-Dweller of the player’s house. 

It’s notable that the magic Uncle Andrew can employ actually has fairly limited uses (he also doesn’t really know what he’s playing with). The rings he has made shift the wearer between dimensions, but little more. This seems to be in line with how GG&G would have magic appear. 

Digory’s mother is ill; his father is far and away in India. Both illness and absence are key motivations for adventuring in GG&G. Now, the Ketterly household does not appear to be impoverished (they can afford at least one servant and Uncle Andrew doesn’t appear to bring in any money). But the emotional consequences on Digory are present throughout TMN.

Playing on Digory’s young and uncertain courtesy, Uncle Andrew manipulates him into going after Polly. The place between worlds turns out to be a calm wood, rather than some kind of hallucinatory abyss.

From the illustrations to TMN by Pauline Baynes.
Both children are just in their street clothes, rather than festooned with gear and weapons.

They find themselves in the dead world of Charn and awaken the Witch-Queen Jadis. From the start she’s fairly unpleasant (and reveals herself to have gone in for MAD via terrible magic [Queen Jadis, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Deplorable Word]). However, there’s an element of mercy in Digory and Polly’s treatment of her – they aren’t murderhobos and you don’t leave a woman all alone in a dead world or a mystical wood. Ultimately, of course, she forces them to take her across dimension, but they don’t make up their minds to murder her out of hand.

Jadis’s rampage through London has little aesthetic bearing on GG&G, but the disputation of an established system may be thematically apt. Certainly, the confrontation between the amateur magician and the unpredictable evil they produce has some bearing on the potential for pacts with dark forces that GG&G contains. 

From the illustrations to TMN by Pauline Baynes. 
The only way to travel when in the Metropolis.

(Compare with Nesbit’s Story of the Amulet, in which an Assyrian queen rampages through Victorian London. And in which we visit the future utopia made by The Fabian Society). 

By means of magic rings, they all end up in Narnia at the moment of its creation by Aslan. The vitality of the new world suggests a cure for his mother to Digory. I don’t suppose I need comment on the natural and pastoral elements of Narnia, but I would note that this is a protean Narnia. The multiple terrains and spirits of the Shintobox are not really in evidence. 

This said, what we do have to grapple with are talking animals. Uncle Andrew reacts badly to them. The various logics of the bulldogs, bears, badgers, elephants, &c for dealing with him has something of the spirits about it. They do not quite know how to deal with the old wretch properly and they are quite strong enough to deal with him as they choose. However, we are stepping quite far away from the mute-but-ferocious Geese of GG&G.

Uncle Andrew’s unreasoning panic aside, Digory and Polly are in something of a bind themselves. Apart from intruding uninvited on the birth of a world, they have brought the witch Jadis into Narnia. As noted, they are both courteous youths and jump at Aslan’s offer to make amends. This is to be accomplished by the retrieval of an apple from a tree.

They are dispatched to do this without arms or weapons – no talking leopard is sent to assist them, only the winged horse Fledge (who would not be out of place in the list of Pets). This causes a rapider pace of travel than GG&G I think suggests, but that the main piece of assistance they are given is transport and shelter seems quite suitable for GG&G – see the Useful Things and Magic Things.

From the illustrations to TMN by Pauline Baynes. 
Another use for a winged horse. 

The Garden where Digory must retrieve the Apple is noted as ‘a place which was so obviously private. You could see at a glance that it belonged to someone else.’ I see no immediate parallel in GG&G, but the logic of personal significance and magic strikes me as appropriate. 

Digory’s confrontation with Jadis (who has eaten of the fruit and become somehow of Narnia) has something of the magical spirits in GG&G and would be a direct match with the ‘Scheme Queen’ of the (loosely sketched) religion. Her temptations, half-truths and (temporary) sweetness of manner are right for a manipulative spirit in GG&G. Digory has no chance to defeat her by force of arms, but defies her all the same. 

The conclusion of TMN cannot be compared too closely to an open-ended RPG like GG&G, but the ceremony and opportunity for the exercise of Courtesy are noteworthy. Digory’s mother is (of course) cured; his father is soon given the chance to return (for good) from India. 

I’ve focused on TMN (out of all the Chronicles of Narnia) for its lack of armed violence and brevity of adventure (no untold years spent as Kings and Queens of Narnia). Beyond that, the invocation of a sick parent was an obvious spur to direct me to TMN. I’m not sure that GG&G will take a particularly Lewisian path, but some elements of sylvan Narnia full of satyrs, nymphs and talking beasts seems apt for it.

Twenty-Four Pieces of a Failed Schema

These were intended for use with Terrae Vertebrae as Zodiac-cum-Tarot-cum-Pseudo-Jungian-archetypes - nominally the remnants of a defanged Paganism, kept alive by fortune-tellers, occultists, artists and (here and there) the odd fairy, sprite or demon (allowing for latter-day pagan clerics).

[Having written that, I quite like the idea that some of said clerics would effectively be play-acting - and then Oberon or Robin Goodfellow pops up and grants them a few powers, then as they commit to the role a few more....]  

In hindsight, I'm not sure these would have worked. The descriptions below, however vivid they may be, don't really communicate the simple, immediate impression of an archetype or a Pagan deity. I wrote up very dressy, colourful descriptions that work for those who can in fact afford luxury playing cards or illuminated manuscripts. Even if these are meant to be the most complete, up-market depictions there should be a way to make a simpler description - cheap, three-colour illustrations or scratched, angular, constellation-like symbols.  

It's the sort of thing I would return to with improvised playing cards - to better effect, I think. A folk-saint variant of the Heavenly Jury or Half-Giant Ancestor Spirits might have worked. Either way, presented for you below are twenty-four pieces of a failed schema. 

The Face

A Blank, mask-like face stares out of a black background. One corner of the mouth turns up; the other down. There is only a suggestion of hairline or neck. The eyes are both open and nothing shines through them.

The Casement

A window looks out onto the world. The frame of the window is old stone, pale with a slight green tinge to it. Through the window we see towns, farmland, a river, perhaps in the distance the sea. One the right edge of the window, we see a small, pale, right hand stretching out from the outside of the picture.

The Lion

A great lion, in his prime. A magnificent golden mane, sleek and smooth. The lion stands atop a rock and looks down upon a valley, detailed with many woods and plains.

The Wolf

A grey wolf, thin and lean, goes through the pine covered hills. Above is a crescent moon and a smattering of stars. The wolf is surrounded by darkness. He moves not as if he owns all that he surrounds, but he is not timid or cowed either.

The Fox

From behind a hedge, we see the brush of a fox, burnt-orange against the brown and green of the country. In the background, a sunset. 

The Collar

A narrow collar made of some black, relatively inflexible substance. It rests on a sheet of blue velvet. It makes noticeable furrows in the soft fabric that run to the edge of the picture.

The Hood

A man wearing a cloak and hood rides through a gate. We cannot see the man’s face, nor the faces of the guards. Outside the gate is the dark countryside; inside the lights and shadows of the city at night.

The Throne

An empty throne stands on a dais. Around it fall motes of dust. The throne is of dark wood, gilded and trimmed with precious metals and stone. Above the throne, matching its high, pointed back is a vaulted ceiling.

The Bridge

 A stone bridge, with ornate balustrades rests over a deep sided, fast flowing river. There is no traffic on the bridge and a cold sky rises above it.

The Marriage

In the foreground, a book and a hand raised in benediction. At the centre, a man and women, one in black, one in white, soon to be husband and wife hold hands. Behind them, a hall full of people, one half in black, the other in white stand under a high-vaulted gothic ceiling.

The Labourer

A man, dressed only in a loin cloth and sweating freely stands bent over between two classical columns on a stone base. Above him, his straining back helps bear the weight of a heavy white marble ceiling.

The King

A man on a great horse. He wears finely made clothing, but it is not ostentatious. He bears a sword at his hip and on his head, a crown. Behind him, we see a distant castle in the midst of many woods.

The Queen

A women in a glittering ballroom, surrounded by people. Each of her hands is taken in dance. She wears a richly embroidered medieval dress, with long flowing sleeves and has a crown on her head. Her black hair is braided into a thick, whirling plait with a gold ring in the end. The floor beneath her is a chequerboard of black and white flags.

The Mouth

A great bronze trumpet, its wide end in the shape of a snarling lion, blares its voice at a bright blue sky. A crimson pennant drifts from one end.

The Tree

A tall, broad oak lifts its green head to the sun in a meadow. We can see the shadow streaking off into the foreground and the gnarled roots reaching into the earth. Birds and cattle wonder lazily in the sky and meadow.

The Dragon

A great scaled beast soars between the bare peaks of a mountain. We see red light in its nose and nostrils. Beneath it, a coiling, writhing tail swishes. The sun sets in the background, great and sanguine.

The Serpent

In the cold earth, a green, pale serpent crawls like a great worm. Its head pokes out into the world and coils round the heel of a man.

The Hearth

A fire burns in the grate and suffuses the room with a ruddy hue. The room is full of the things of home; a great chest, a wooden table, a wine barrel and a pipe that still smoulders.

The Helm

A helmet of silver-white, which covers the entire face. It glistens and shines strongly on a background of pure sable.

The Blossom

A small tree, in a copse. It is spring and the air is fresh. The tree has brought forth creamy blossoms that litter the green earth around it. Small flowers cover the wold. The sun shines gently on the whole scene. 

The Outsider

A man, in a smoky-hued purple cloak with a stiff, pointed beard walks through a drab stone gate. The crowd around him leave him and his horse, which has an embroidered blanket over the back rather than a saddle, a wide berth.

The Threshold

A stone doorway frames the picture. It is divided down the middle. On the left we see a warm, fire lit room with ceramic tiles. On the right we see a sprawling countryside in the twilight, lit all in blues and greys. The double doors of the Threshold are open.

The Bull

A ruddy maroon beast, with terrible sweeping horns of ivory. It lowers.  It is tangibly muscled. The hooves of the great beast have scrapped the ground into great ruts. The sky above is a stark, masculine blue.

The Skein

A great cloth of rolling white fills the image. Around it, the faces of five different beautiful women with their right arms tangled in it. Their left hands are seen, holding a gold chain, a ring, a mirror, a distaff and a knife.