The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Names, Planes and Alternate Realms

Noisms of Monster and Manuals has a Kickstarter up for a zine called In the Hall of the Third Blue Wizard. Being a discerning sort, you may very well wish to back it. Now, back to our scheduled programming.

This is another 'problem post' detailing debates and questions confronting the community of magic-users in TRoAPW. 

This is arguably a late-game problem to confront players; if not a 'theory of everything' then at least one that unifies a great many other questions. 

The student of magic - not of spellcraft, but the full scope of magic - eventually realises two things. Firstly, that magic is otherworldly, it is unnatural - or rather perhaps, it is as natural as a lightning strike or the eruption of a geyser. Secondly, that it is taught. Spells are not created by accident. To realise the existence of such things without aid is unthinkable. 

Two questions, therefore. Who taught mankind magic? Where do they come from?

The Question of Antecedants

Premise

As the Schoolmen will tell you, mankind has been visited by otherworldly beings before. Mages, generally speaking, hold themselves a little distant from the Schools - and so therefore, it is a shock for wizards to learn the truth of matters: that the oldest colleges and unbroken traditions of magic have ongoing relations with- and perhaps even absolute obligations to - otherworldly things. A mage will tend to be deep into the 'journeyman' stage of their careers before they learn this to be so, and some may never learn it at all. They had thought that the image of the diabolic compact was something purely from moralising dramas. 

The State of the Art

Those mages that are admitted to the deepest secrets of one of the old colleges are either so advanced that they have to know or are pursuing a particular line of research. Many had thought that the business of initiations and secret orders was beyond them - or, at least, would proceed in a fairly predictable fashion. There are hidden and obscure chambers even in the airy halls of magical sects and in these places, communion is had with alien entities. That this is less viscerally foul than popular dramatists would have you believe is not necessarily much comfort. 

Quite what that entity is will vary between institutions of magic. It may be something deeply squamous and non-Euclidian that should only be interacted with fleetingly. It may be one of the old folk, the eldar beings of grove and barrow who shun mankind, with their cold iron and their cold sun. It may be that the horror stories are true, and that brimstone-scented demons glower at the contracts made by long-dead archmages with their true names. Some traditions may have traffic with the potent dead, the Eidolons spoken of by the Words of Procophon - what would the Primus of Malicarn say to that? 

Other options are whispered of: the old, shrunken Gods of Horato, shining celestial Star Archons, the ancient sentient forces called Elementals, the bird-headed apkallu, the monstrous Elder Beasts, kings or princes of their respective kinds - even the mysterious masters of the Dreamlands called oneirocrats, who claim to have once been humans. 

Dealing with Antecedents

While the Question of Antecedents is unlike the other wizarding debates in Calliste in that disruptive innovators and revolutionaries have by and large been kept out of the circles that actually discover the truth of the origins of Callistan magic, there is still quiet but fierce debate on how best to engage with Antecedents. 

The old methods repeat the actions of the first masters of a tradition. Similar forms of etiquette, summoning rituals and offerings are repeated as they have been throughout the centuries. Those who stick to these in their original form are known as Ritualists.

There are then those who suggest gentle changes to ritual and negotiating technique. Surely different offerings are apt for different requests? What does an Antecedant want? No doubt it must be something, or why would they be in contact with human magic-users. Let us find out, and use that to our advantage.  The proponents of such a view are known as Realists.

Finally - and perhaps most controversially - there are those who propose dealing with Antecedants (though probably not the demons) as part of a grand moral compact. An Antecedant can communicate, after a fashion, therefore can be educated and brought to a proper state of understanding regarding mortals. Mutual advantage, respect and equality will spring from this. Those who assert this are known as Idealists.*

Implications

The Ritualists hope to keep everything running smoothly. A steady drip of magical knowledge inspiring generation after generation of new magic-users. Even those outside their particular tradition are playing their part by producing new spells in their happy ignorance. 

The Realists and Idealists, in their respective fashions, want to create a new wave of magic to radically transform the lot of man and produce a brave new extraordinary world. There are those who say that this has already happened. 

Of course, all the above relies on everything going to plan. That nobody interrupts the rituals or negotiations. That an Antecedent doesn't have a change of heart. That an Antecedant's fellows don't object to the noise.

The Realms Beyond

Premise

Antecedants have to come from somewhere. Wizards can summon beasts to do their bidding - they have to come from somewhere. Wizards can step into pocket dimensions to hide from their foes - where are they going?

So there are Realms, planes of existence beyond this one. There are existing gates between them and the right magic-user can make new breaches all of their own. 

Not that this would necessarily surprise anyone in Calliste. Wizardry is commonly known to have contact with the extraordinary, and the Schoolmen suggest a world of possibility through the teachings of the Majestic Vision. 

The State of the Art

Now, the mage that focuses on planar spells - whether they call themselves a Conjurer or a Master of Gates - is a relatively rare beast. Summons can be difficult to control, or unnerving - as can inter-dimensional travel. Still, there are enough of them to have discovered that magic is quite literally otherworldly. It is not merely 'an unseen arm' that levitates the stone, it is an intruding and unnatural force. 

This force is not produced by mages, but used by them - a wizard is not a man running across a field, he is a man holding a sail out to catch the wind to propel himself. In either case, effort is required, as is technique - but the source of power differs. Further, spells are living things - or at least as lifelike in their actions as a pennant or kite that moves like a living thing in the wind. Therefore, spells must have a medium in which to exist and exert themselves. 

The most obvious entry point of an otherworldly power is the very gates and breaches made by or known of by wizards. Few would dispute that other unknown portals must exist, but there are also those who claim that there are myriad 'pinprick breaches' through which magic enters the world. Either way, a current of magic moves through the world, with sufficient regularity to allow mages to cast reliably - but still with enough fluctuation to allow for concentrations of magic.

Quite what is in these other realms is suggested by the nature of some Antecedents above, but some may be places very like Calliste. 

Planar Policy

Having established to their own satisfaction that magic requires portals of some kind, several options present themselves to those mages who know and care. 

Firstly, to leave well alone. You may drink from the river, but do not think to drain or divert it. Most magic-users inhabit this position by default. Such mages are known as Pastorals, for their (perceived) rustic simplicity and humbleness. (A Pastoral can still live, of course, in a sapphire pagoda with platinum wheels pulled by manticores. Wizarding humility is a strange thing.)

Secondly, to plug every breach and drain magic from the world. Even if this is possible (and those who assert the existence of 'pinprick breaches' do not think it is), no wizard wants to do this. 

Thirdly, to make (eventually) as many breaches as possible and let magic rush through every corner of the world. Let there be intercourse with every realm! Wealth, beauty and novelty await! A strange and brilliant new world! For their willingness to connect, those who hold this position are known as Conjuncts.** 

Fourthly (and finally), to establish a state of being in which there are as few breaches and portals as possible (to as few realms as possible) while maintaining a given flow of magic. Those who long for such a thing are called Autarks. The very danger of summoning and planar magic makes this a desirable position. 

A devout follower of the Majestic Vision might well be an Autark, looking to restrict portals other than to the Hereafter. It may even be that humanity could come into full ownership of a certain small number of realms, freeing it completely from the control or influence of demons and eldritch things. Those Autarks who hold to this last point are deeply interested in those Antecedents called oneirocrats.

Implications

Neither Conjuncts nor Autarks have advanced their plans very far yet, of course. The Autark model is more appealing to wizard-friendly magically inclined princes and ministers: fewer risks involved, more chances to control trade. The loop of worlds described by Patrick Stuart's Great Fold is something like what Autarks might produce - though naturally, all involved would rather not link in the realm of terrifying mega-fauna. 

Conjuncts quite like the idea of Planescape's Sigil. The more sober might acknowledge that most lands will not become a grand inter-dimensional freeport, but rather take their place in a layer of one of many realms bound together like a quire of paper. In this case, some of the descriptions of commerce between realms in Stuart's Great Fold describe backwaters, while wizards surf the tide of magical energy flowing between worlds. New mage-tyrants will arise, reshaping the world as they see fit, fighting their competitors and outside invaders. 

This could very easily turn into Kenneth Hite's Qelong.  While the archmages turn into the main characters from Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. And you can't tell if your land is being invaded by the pike-and-shot regiments of your terrestrial neighbour, the world where the Horatione Empire never fell and now has zeppelins and mechanical walkers (but no gunpowder), the Legions of Hell, the frost giants or King Arthur - and it might not even matter. 

Comments, nitpicks, &c welcome - I'd rather work out the problems now than later.

*The actions of Dr Faustus have something of the Ritualist in them; the Government of New Crobuzon in Perdido Street Station are something like Realists in their dealings with Hell and the Weavers; and some of the later dealings of the protagonists in His Dark Materials form an image of the Idealist school of thought. 

** The malevolent Conjunct probably looks (or at least, acts) rather like the cultists of Lovecraftian fiction. A benevolent Conjunct owes something more instead to Ursula Le Guin and the later entries in her Earthsea series. If they aren't Heraclitan all-is-flux types.

Two Outings to the Hill Cantons: Some thoughts on Marlinko and the Ursine Dunes

 In between stodgy slices of TRoAPW, a brief change of tone. A weekend citybreak, if you will. A visit to Fever-Dreaming Marlinko and to the Slumbering Ursine Dunes.  Both are written by Chris Kutalik, for his Hill Cantons setting. 

Both Fever-Dreaming Marlinko and Slumbering Ursine Dunes are available as PDFs and in solid form. I'm working from the PDFs in this case. 

The cover to Fever-Dreaming Marlinko.
Feverish? Maybe. Dreamy? Maybe not.

***

I'm approaching this having read a bit of the background material provided on the Hill Cantons blog, and having picked up the Misty Isles of the Eld in a bundle a while back. But I'm treating this as my first visit to the Hill Cantons proper; the Misty Isles are, well, an isle - suitable to be slotted into a number of settings off the coast. 

With that context out of the way, let's examine what we have. 

Slumbering Ursine Dunes (hereafter SUD) is a pointcrawl in the titular dunes. It is a pointcrawl rather than a hexcrawl not because of the great distances covered, as in Ultraviolet Grasslands with its cross-continental trade caravans, but because of the steep dunes with 'exterior dune faces precipitously rising up to 300-350 feet in height at dizzying 45-50 degree angles.' These are basically impossible to climb, certainly so by the low-ish level parties suggested by Kutalik. 

There are other elements to touch on, but the most striking feature of SUD is the environment players find themselves in. The scale of the dunes themselves I've mentioned, but this is paired with the Persimmon Sea, which 'with its sickly-sweet scent wraps around the Dunes to the south and west'. The eternal spring of the region adds to the strangeness. Both SUD and Fever-Dreaming Marlinko (hereafter FDM) refer to 'acid fantasy' in their online blurbs - the key element of any 'acid' sub-genre (Wikipedia refers to Acid Jazz and the Acid Western, among others) apparently being psychedelia. Well, my experience of acid-[anything] basically extends as far as listening to a few of the songs of actor and musician Matt Berry. At any rate, the dream-like state of the dunes (as if one were Slumbering) offers a certain psychedelic note, which the strangeness of the vast dunes and the sweet-tasting sea only adds to. The colour palette of the cover to FDM above captures this slightly better than the amber-and-indigo sunset of SUD's cover (see below). The soldier bears (hence Ursine dunes) only add to this: we know a bear shouldn't carry a polearm! - but, as with the gorilla with the uzi, nobody's going to tell him that. 

Between the dunes, however, are the actual encounters and adventures that Our Heroes are to meet with. SUD sees both very local encounters in the shape of monsters and hermits - and a larger set of powers that sink their tendrils into the region. These are explicitly divided into Good (Lawful and Chaotic) and Evil (Lawful and Chaotic).  This comes across as less ham-fisted than that sounds out of context, if for no other reason than the sheer character of each faction, either as a group or a personified as an individual. The Eld buck either the Mordor or Mephistopheles characterisations of Lawful Evil types by being a set of slim, fey 'exaggerated space-opera villains'. Of course, merely because something looks a trifle campy doesn't mean it can't kill you horribly. Likewise, the wereshark Ondrj is memorably unpleasant. Even the most apparently normal faction leader, Jaromir the Old Smith is a rather interesting working-out of the setting's greater cosmology. 

The interactions of all the above, plus assorted followers contribute to the Chaos Event Index: things can become very strange indeed in the Dunes. Reinforcements for the other-worldly Eld, eclipses, rains of blood and stronger spell effects are all on the menu. 

The cover to Slumbering Ursine Dunes.

***

FDM, by contrast, is a 'city adventure supplement' within the four contradas of the city of Marlinko. Marlinko, as the Ursine Dunes, is within the Borderlands of the Overkingdom and thus closer to pockets of the weird - like the Dunes or the Misty Isles. So FDM and SUD share that, at least. 

They also share the same Slavic-inspired setting. Names like Ondrej, Kaja, Svetlana, Adela, Janos, Pavol, Casimir, Malinka, Bohimir and Hedviga unite the two.  Reference to Rusalkas and Strigoi strengthen this. A beer in Marlinko is named for Radegost. Further, we learn in FDM that 'two of the major food groups of the Cantons [are] dumplings and halushky'. Both are accompanied by a substance called White Gravy. This flippant bit of delivery (compare: 'two of the major food groups in Britain are suet puddings and kedgeree') is a nice compact effective bit of worldbuilding that drags the setting away from the omnipresent viscous brown stew of some fantasy works, memorably mocked by Diana Wynne Jones in her Tough Guide to Fantasyland.  

(Writers have been mocked for their long descriptions of meals - George RR Martin springs to mind - but actually sitting down and working out where a meal comes from and digging into the agricultural requirements of it all is an interesting exercise - even if you don't need to show your working on the page. Starting with a staple like bread - or dumplings - is a suitable place to begin.)

Marlinko is still, food aside, a city of the Borderlands; indeed, like the Dunes, it has a Chaos Index. There is a lackadaisical air about it, far as it is from the orderly, predictable, focused core. Justice is lax. We are told that 'soft fraudulent crimes are so widespread as to meet tacit cultural approval'. There's something of Lankhmar in it all - a sense heightened by the Town Gods:

'Marlinko was built around the squat, black bulk of the Tomb of the Town Gods, a structure that predates the rest of the city by an interminably long period of time. The ominous edifice sitting in its wide, cobblestoned, circular plaza has retained its position as the dead (no pun intended) center of the city. Four wide avenues radiate from it at the cardinal points and divide the city into four contradas, or quarters. '

A read of 'Lean Times in Lankhmar' will only add to this, as will the discovery of a Black Toga on a list of items and the use of the adjective 'Marlankh'. 

All this aside, Marlinko seethes with social perils as much as any dungeon does with mortal peril. Each contrada has its own character and street life to negotiate, but Bravos, Pedants, Grifters, Drug Addicts and Children form some of the busy throng. A number of well-sketched NPCs with memorable descriptions and personalities offer points of reference in all this. The utterly honest but 'extremely racist' merchant Fraža the Freakishly Honest Curio Dealer stands out as an example. 

Two adventure sites are provided for Marlinko. Lady Szara's House is memorably horrible, but while the form of 'the Catacombs of the Church of the Blood Jesus' makes some sense for Marlinko (an underground cult stronghold), the details of a cult apparently formed by 'an alcoholic, time-misplaced, Irish cleric' are a little out of line with FDM as a whole. I confess that I would be tempted to increase the syncretic elements a little further in order to dilute the real-world influence. 

Another lack (it strikes me) is the absence of chariot rules for the inter-contrada Black Race. A more natural role for the PCs might be sabotage and other shenanigans, but a few points on what they should be sabotaging would be good. But if they prefer a bout of Tiger Wrestling, that's covered.

For all those gripes, FDM does the 'wretched hive' bit of city adventures without throwing the populace into a state of constant gang warfare. Both it and SUD deserve their status as works with 'Conceptual Density' and I'm glad to have read them. 

The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Spell Schools

Another 'problem post' detailing debates and questions confronting the community of magic-users in TRoAPW. 

The spells quoted below are from The 52 Pages. 

Premise

That spells do different things is so obvious as to be not worth mentioning. That different spells sometimes work in very similar fashions is less readily apparent. Fire Dart and Flame Sphere have an obvious affinity, as do Detect Auras and Detect Magic. But despite the similarity between Create Rock and Conjure Wind, the precise nature and underlying logic of these spells is disputed. And given that different mages create and use different spells with very similar effects (Restimar's Instant Boulder against Belisar's Manifestation of Granite), the disputation gets even more troublesome. 

The categories spells are placed into are referred to schools. This conveys both that these spells are of a kind or group, that they are of a custom - a school of thought or use of magic - and that to manifest the features of this school, spell formulae and use must be taught.  

The State of the Art

Aside from the most obvious examples - as Fire Dart and Flame Sphere above - there has always been dispute over how to categorise spells. Wizard disputes with wizard, academy with academy, tradition with tradition. The growth of magical colleges that merge wizards of different traditions has made this ever more apparent. Where one stands on a theoretical position becomes ever more important and may dictate a course of study, the growth of magical talent or entry into a particular circle of mages. 

Pragmatic picking and choosing is still prevalent outside the (sometimes literal) ivory tower - but is now influenced by the ever-wider theoretical grounding given by masters to apprentices. Indeed, many wizards may not consciously identify with any given classification system at all. 

The disruption of older methods (by the Tabulators, or the Anti-Grimoireans) has created new ground for a grand division - not just between whether Dancing Lights is Illusion or Evocation, but if one should categorise on what a spell effects or uses or on what process a spell brings about. 

Thus, once the majority of spell catalogues in Calliste categorised their spells in the first fashion referring to 'The Lore of Shadows' or a 'Master of Gates'. Newer catalogues refer instead to 'the School of Illusion' or a 'Conjurer'. Those who adopt the newer method of categorising are known as Teleotaxists. 

Opponents of the Teleotaxists

Teleotaxists are most obviously opposed by Ontotaxists. By definition, these are a dedicated group of wizards with adequate free time and theoretical knowledge - rather than a hodge-podge coalition. The easiest way to tell a Teleotaxist from an Ontotaxist is to look at the titles they sport: does this wizard refer to herself as a 'Master of Winds' or a 'Ventilating Thaumaturge'?

An Ontotaxist model of the argument refers to Ontotaxists as 'Masons' and Teleotaxists as 'Millers'. The former is working with a medium, can perform both functional or artistic purposes - and more respected than a Miller. Whatever the relative wealth of a miller, they are far more commonly encountered and lack the cachet of a mason. Teleotaxists, for their part have more or less taken on the term Miller happily, employing bucolic imagery (maliciously whistling from morn till night), and gleefully referring to Ontotaxists as 'grist'. ("Your stony obduracy, oh mason, will be ground to the finest of powders by our ever-turning mill!")

The Teleotaxists Divided

Of the Teleotaxists, there are those that recognise that the division between Ontotaxists and Teleotaxists is less than useful. Noting the employment of nouns by one side and verbs by the other, they have attempted to to bridge the divide using gerunds. This has made them very unpopular and the Gerundists are very rarely heard from. 

The Polytaxists attempt to use both the Ontotaxist and Teleotaxist systems at once. This results in spells being referred to by long code strings, as 'BC/𝝭𝝘/7' or 'Leb - 2314 - p - 2477 - pf' or ever-growing combinations of arbitrary syllables as 'DivBanMiCha' - or strange blocky characters from constructed languages that are basically illegible  even to wizards, and troublesome to produce in freehand in one's grimoire. Polytaxists are derided as making a language fit only for golems, and thus speaking a language fit for golems - and thus jests abound that they are, in fact, golems. 

More successful than both are the Cryptotaxists. Such mages attempt to classify spells by using additional descriptors to hint at a mysterious source that cannot yet be detected or adequately defined. Some refer to a set of strange colours: 'This is a Blue spell'; 'This enchantment draws from the pool of Green magic'. Other modifiers are sometimes used : 'Of the Celestial School', 'A Perfumed incantation'. Still more Cryptotaxists refer to adjectives deriving from proper nouns, however derived: 'a glyph Telmarine'; 'an incantation Archenlandoise'.  Cryptotaxists are regarded as being somewhat pretentious, but they are still better received than the Polytaxists. 

Implications

Spell classification, of course, doesn't change the nature of the spells being cast. What the division between Ontotaxists and Teleotaxists does is change what spells are taught and by whom. The pyromancer is only subtlety different from the evoker, but if mages professes an expertise in both Transmutation and Divination rather than Change-Spells and Knowledge-Spells, there will be even less overlap. 

And the root structures of spells begin to change as well. As noted above, spell formulae have always differed. Therefore, a spell formulated with the firm belief that it is of one school rather than another will differ as well - if you have been used to one classification, moving to another may be difficult. Not impossible, but with that added layer of re-learning involved. 

Perhaps in time this might literally wall off Ontotaxists from Teleotaxists. All known spells (written or otherwise) have both 'noun elements and effects' - and 'verb elements and effects'. It would be near impossible for a spell to not do so. But as nounal Ontotaxists split from verbal Teleotaxists, so might spell formulation techniques. In time, even if all parties involved are using the same magical language, the same scripts for their grimoires - an Ontotaxist might be completely unable to parse a Teleotaxist-written spell, even a simple one. 

Does anything stand in the way of a great divide in Callistan magecraft? Well, non-magical patrons tend to look on the spell school debate as a wizard's pastime. Not terribly useful, but part of the cost of having spellcasters around. Of course, if an academy of wizards is in the service of the King for a particular purpose and the debate is preventing them from achieving that purpose, then there will be an intervention.

Less prominently, the mass of working journeyman mages who must and will use whatever spells they can get their hands on are a safeguard of sorts against divergence. Ad-hoc techniques to parse and align spells will be drafted every day by those at the coalface. But with growing interest in the uses of magic to address broad problems across society, and with growing efforts to promote magical understanding, starting with the academies, who knows if the one phenomenon will keep pace with the other?

Comments, nitpicks, &c welcome - I'd rather work out the problems now than later.

An obligatory reference to this part of Magical Industrial Revolution.