January '23 Miscellany

At time of writing, the Kickstarter for Yoon-Suin's second edition is still ongoing. But you probably knew that.

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The Dragon Waiting, by John M Ford. Another second-hand find, another Fantasy Masterworks edition. No introduction by Neil Gaiman, but he did apparently review it in 1985.

So, this one's a little troublesome. There's a tendency in this little corner of the Blogosphere to talk about that reaction a reader gets when they find some very D&D-esque moment in a book published before 1975. (For my money, early Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser is the place to go.) Well, this was published 1983.

To continue: It is 15th century Europe - or Ford's strange variation on it, where Julian the Apostate died far later in life, allowing the various classical religions to live on in an atmosphere of state secularism. Yet all the same, Edward IV, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Louis XI and other historical figures exist with roughly similar roles to those they possess in reality. There is no Cathedral in York, but there is a Pantheon. The Hagia Sophia is the Kyklos Sophia - 'Circle of Wisdom'. The Dragon Waiting is subtitled 'A Masque of History', and this is so - historical figures in a series of masks and guises. But there are traditional alternate history elements - a still-potent Byzantine Empire with territory in southern France, for instance. Oh, and magic is real.

The Masterworks edition, image found on Goodreads.

[The Masterworks edition errs heavily by describing it on the back as 'an alternate world in which Byzantium was not extinguished in 1453'. Yes, but that's not the point of divergence!]

Hence, then, my remarks about 'D&D-esque' - medieval characters (including a wizard and a fighter and a doctor...) apparently worshipping pagan deities but with odd analogues to Christian structures. It's probably a personal failing that I was lightly vexed by this at first: "Why do we get identical Medicis and a very similar Florence despite the point of divergence! It doesn't make any sense!", but you have to get your mind out of the 'What if Napoleon won the Battle of Leipzig?' mode. Ford tells you upfront: this is a Masque of History. A 'Historical Note' in the front matter points out that section heading quotations are from Shakespeare's Richard III - itself famously a masque of history. The list of real-world personages are set in a section called 'Shadows as they Pass'. Approach it more like Philip K Dick's Man in the High Castle and less like Robert Harris's Fatherland.

So, that's the attitude in which you should approach it. Is it in fact worth taking all that effort to read it? Frankly, the question will be how entertained you are by Ford's characters and the background. Pastiche (not that this is a pastiche) can feel a little cold, not losing itself to laugh-out-loud comedy (as parody) or a deliberate message (as satire). Ford is playful, but you might find it a trifle arch - "Dante Alighieri's Commedia dell'Uomo? Oho, well played, Mr Ford." (Cue sensible chuckle.)

But that's not all, I'm glad to say. There's a world ticking away under a thin mask, fully realised and interesting. The integration of magic feels quite naturalistic (no fireballs); the pressure of a Byzantine Empire that has preserved this great diversity of faiths yet seeks dominance is well-sketched. There's travel involved (Florence to London) that takes an appropriate amount of time, and apt limits to the power and reach of a pre-modern state. 

The religious elements are not outright fanciful, either. There's an interesting feature with men belonging to all-male Mithraic cults and women worshipping Cybele - a whole 'men's mysteries/women's mysteries' thing that feels out of place (and therefore fascinating) in a (quasi-) Renaissance context - the sort of thing that would be interesting in the implicit setting here. 

Aside from this, there are sort of two responses to Medieval figures worshipping classical deities. First is to associate it with the sort of (Occidentalist?) Japanese video game where (as it might be) Sir Percival, Joan of Arc, Miyamoto Mushashi and Ulysses S. Grant are all (secretly?) devotees of Athena and fight Siegfried, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Mary Queen of Scots and Isaac Newton, who are champions of Hades. That's not entirely wrong for a book in which Richard the Lionheart worshipped Apollo and Saladin was a Zoroastrian, but it's not exactly right either.

Second is to observe that the division of the Medieval world into Christian and Pagan is fairly artificial: the Nine Worthies included Hector and Alexander the Great, Chroniclers tracked the foundation of Britain back to Troy and Chaucer's Knight's Tale invokes Theseus and Saturn. This is leaving aside, for instance, the flowering of Classical subjects in art produced under the patronage of the aforementioned Lorenzo de Medici. Again - this is a Masque. There is no great distress if (when?) the costumes come off.

That I've written all the above is hopefully indicative that there's at least something to chew on here. People agree with me - hence the website Draco Concordance (read the book first!) which tracks certain story elements (and made writing this a lot easier). Gene Wolfe called it 'The best mingling of history with historical magic that I have ever seen,' and in my research for this I was unsurprised to learn that Ford enjoyed Wolfe's work. There's more I could write about this - which is a good sign.

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Baroque Dance Notation, more especially the Beauchamp-Feuillet notation: something an old friend introduced me to. I've been doing some reading on it since, from the odd place between supremely detailed art and academic history. Quite fascinating and beautiful, really. It would make a fascinating pattern for wall-paper. See here for more.

My avant-garde ideas on interior design aside, I imagine that there are a number of constructs or golems in TRoAP that use this as a pattern for motion. It has a likeness to the stuff in The Search for the Perfect Language that inspired the Polytaxists. Presumably the hyper-detialled Appendix P version of Inquisitor uses it. Or the Terpsichorean Sodality. 

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The Vikings in Clown Trousers idea, illustrated. Just try getting Hollywood A-Listers into some of those outfits.

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Lazarus & World of Lazarus

I reviewed World of Lazarus here and re-read bits of Lazarus in the process. I was arguably a little harsh to the latter in that post (though I left out my niche pointless Soleri gripe) - there's a decent techno-thriller element to them, with plenty of in-universe documents and messages and the like. Still, 'not always good' is more frustrating than 'definitely bad'.

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The Medici: Gangsters, Bankers, Popes

Speaking of feudalism, corporations and a family mentioned in The Dragon Waiting, another trio of Mike Walker's history plays was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. His dynastic history plays are going to get their own post soon, but these appeared in January 2023 and so get a mention here. 

World of Lazarus: Some Thoughts

Lazarus, come forth.

I have been repeatedly disappointed by Greg Rucka and Micheal Lark's Lazarus. It always seemed to skirt the edge of being good and ended up as, well, adequate. Well drawn (if a little too close visually to something that a high-end television studio might produce), fascinatingly detached in its depiction of violence, suggesting a great deal. It's been running on-off since 2013: Green Ronin applied it to its Modern AGE system in 2018, publishing World of Lazarus. That's where I come in.

The premise is this: the year is X + 65. In the year X, the sixteen wealthiest families in the world signed the Macau Accords and divided up the globe amongst themselves. Nation states broken or eroded by crises and catastrophe folded relatively easily. A new age of feudalism begins: there is Family, there are Serfs and there are Waste. 

Why is this setting called Lazarus? Well, each family has a champion, enhanced by the technology of the new era. They are stupendously capable in combat and may survive injuries that would be death in the unaugmented. Accordingly, if you want to kill a Lazarus, apparently you need to dismember them: therefore, each Lazarus carries a large sword, or something of the sort. A Lazarus is one of the Family, and is quite possibly a propaganda icon. The series focuses on Forever, Lazarus of House Carlyle. 

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At this point, some of you will be rolling your eyes. I sort of am myself. Would these amoral capitalists really set up a world where the term for their chief enforcers is Lazari? Is one of them also at work on the Icarus Project?

Allow me to suggest the following, springing in part from the 'Chimpanzees in Cambridge' debate. Most grand speculative settings have in them some key element that, simply, looks really cool to somebody regardless of how much sense it makes. There's exceptions here and there, I suppose - largely I should imagine alternate history, which occasionally produces literal histories of another world rather than a thriller set in another timeline - but the beautiful pearl is created by some speck of grit in the oyster. You can extend this further, if desired - how many historians writing detailed papers on barley production in Swabian monasteries got their start reading about Agincourt?

That's probably not too controversial a thesis. But I rather enjoy (and am not alone in enjoying) settings that hold together: where vast armies don't teleport, where horses need oats and curry-brushes and horseshoes, where rulers have to acknowledge laws and customs even if they wish to ignore or trample them. There's some tension with all that and wizards or dragons or psychics or laser swords or Lazari - and resolving that is an interesting problem! Likewise, not resolving it or failing to find an adequate fig-leaf is dissatisfying: some critiques of the latter seasons of Game of Thrones focused on this. 

And so this leads back to Lazarus. Sometimes it all clicks together and works wonderfully, sometimes it lapses into smallness - not quite the 'worst of all possible worlds' version of it this discussion in the LA Review posits, but still not great. It can dwell on the few members of a Family without much regard for the greater system around them (be they Serfs or other Families - Cf. treatments of House Tully or Tyrrell). Which is what engages me about the possibilities of an RPG for Lazarus. 

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So, some thoughts on World of Lazarus. 

• This isn't a review of the Modern AGE system from Green Ronin, but from what I can see it looks a touch unwieldy. Characters get Backgrounds, Professions, Drives, Specialisations and more - I'm used to something a little lighter. Where's the 52 Pages for assault rifles, smartphones and defibrillators?
• Various modes of play are suggested based on a group of Wastes, Serf or Family - survival, service and intrigue being the centre of each. 
• This said, the specimen Campaign seems rather railroad like, darting from Scene to Scene. Waste campaigns at least should have a rather more open form of play (A Hexcrawl through contested Morray/D'Souza territory in Columbia? Guerrilla operations against Vassalovka?), and Family constraints are limited (though subtle). 
• An Appendix contains notes for how to play as Lazari. The variant where a Lazarus is a shared PC sounds best, and most like the depictions of Lazari as military assets or political footballs. 
• There's a nice section on how an organisation a GM creates might grow and plot to advance itself. A component I can see myself using elsewhere. 
• The two major families in the former United States - Carlyle and Hock, divided by the Mississippi - receive the most development. This is in part due to their place in the comics, and the contrast between Carlyle's 'Longitudinal Capitalism' and what we might term Hock's pharmaceutically assisted juche is pronounced. 



All the same, one finds a use for this evergreen image.

• Sub-genre taxonomy enthusiasts! Worry not! World of Lazarus has you covered: Isn't this cyber punk? .... In cyberpunk, corporations are faceless, implacable......In Lazarus, the Families are anything but faceless. These sixteen dynasties make their political dramas and infighting aggressively personal.  
• Grumble One: Why do so many of the Families dress in business casual? What sort of Neo-Feudal future is this?
• Grumble Two: If you are including maps of a setting that is dynamically changing (EG, Rausling absorbing Bittner territory) those maps should be clearly dated. That those maps have the Americas at the centre is understandable (see above) if hardly comfortable.



Before the aforementioned absorption. 



• A nice touch of the worldbuildng contained in Lazarus is that not all the families grew from big obviously sinister tech or pharma companies: sugar processing, entertainment, insurance and 'Elfsaga video game cartridges' enabled some of them to get their start.
• There's some appropriate variations on the Family-Serf-Waste schemee in different territories: different terms used or attitudes taken. (EG, Carragher serfs refer to themselves as Workers and shun conspicuous consumption. This does not necessarily make their lives any less comfortable.)
• Inamura's intensive use of robotics for labour feels, if not stereotypical, then uninspired (Japan = Hi-Tech). One notes the problems of an ageing Japanese population in the present day, though this seems like it would be corrected by one means or the other in X + 65.
• Armitage is based in 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland-Made-One'; the head of Armitage eventually became the Duke of Lancaster and benefited by the marriage of his daughter into the Royal Family. The authors of World of Lazarus note: 'Armitage arguably benefited from a culture more readily familiar with its feudal roots and class system than almost any other Territory.' Hmmm.
• The Armitage Lazarus is a Bond pastiche named Sir Thomas Huston, complete with Idris Elba references.
• Minetta (apparently descended from a family associated with the Dutch East India Company) is described as 'the last true Capitalist power' for being more centred on trade than territorial dominance, and relatively laissez-faire internally. They are willing to work with 'local powers—be they warlords, junior signatories, religious leaders, or others', which explains how they've kept hold of Iran.
• The effects of climate change are felt in Lazarus: indeed, 'The vast majority of the Meyers-Qasimi Serf population live in idyllic, microclimate-controlled safety in cities such as such as Tel Aviv, Riffa, Cairo, and Dubai'.
• Speaking of which, a recurring security issue for Meyers-Qasimi is religious fundamentalism. The old world does not die so quietly.
• Vassalovka was once a Lesser House in service of Sidorov, the initial signatory. The vastness of their territory means they have given up on enforcing a shared culture and a great deal of autonomy is given to Lesser Houses.
• The impact of social media seems to be downplayed in Lazarus - perhaps unsurprisng in a setting dreamt up around 2012. Still, later material on Vassalovka does have a certain emphasis on Grief Farms and social media personalities. 

There's more I could note for your attention; I'm not certain it's super necessary to go over tech levels or what have you. Does World of Lazarus provide the information you'd need to write your own material in this setting? Yes. Do you really want to? Well, that's the question. I don't suppose I've sold it marvellously here. There's potential untapped. But I wouldn't tap it in this system.

 

Bandwagon: The Bloggies and the Rule of Five

Hope the New Year is treating you all well thus far. 

Anyway, a time-sensative (hah) post addressing other blogs.

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Prismatic Wasteland has proclaimed the Bloggies - 'Awards for some of the best OSR/Post-OSR blog posts to come out in 2022. There will be five awards: Best Theory Blogpost, Best Gameable Blogpost, Best Advice Blogpost, Best Review Blogpost, and, the biggest one, Best Blogpost.' Voting is, I understand, on Twitter. 

[I am not now on Twitter and have not been in the past, under this nom-de-plume or any others. The current moment would be an unlikely one to join.]

Now, this may be of interest to you as a reader of this blog. It crossed my path when I found out I was on the list for my review of Demon Bone Sarcophagus. I suspect that this made the list because it was a fairly prompt, timely review that made it onto The Glatistant. I'm not certain this was my best piece for this blog*, and it's certainly not better than some of the competition, which includes False Machine and Against the Wicked City. Anyway, here's hoping this persists. I quite like these whole blog arrangement.

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Thought I'd try applying the Rule of Five discussed here to The Rest of All Possible Worlds. I suspect that this is better suited to smaller regions than Calliste, but let's give it a try anyway.

Five Quincentenaries Ago: [.....millennia seems like too much.]

• Procophon has the Majestic Vision.
• The City of Horato begins to flourish.
• Some of the first known grimoires are received into the Library of the Supreme Satrap.

Five Centuries Ago:

• The Kingdom of Pavaisse takes on something like its present boundaries (plus the Prizelands, but minus Joachimsland).
• The School of Malicarn institutes the role of the Overseer.
• Lhulache of Laldiel pens her Great Rule and Compromise, which becomes the popularly accepted model for colleges of magic thereafter.
• Lictors in Datresse storm the Guildhall and throw fifty alderman into the river.

Five Generations Ago: [Generation = 30 years. Seems a better unit of time than Score for this]

• The Printing Press becomes viable and widespread in Calliste.
• Serious competitors emerge to the School of Malicarn, with their own interpretations of the Majestic Vision.
• Sailors reach what will one day be the Buccaneers' Archipelago and (more importantly) decide to return next year.

Five Decades Ago:

• Emperor Boniface II marries Beatrice von Dottore.
• The first Anti-Grimorean pamphlets are published.
• The Armies of the Sublime Prince retreat from the Arpadhian plain.

Five Weeks Ago: (but you might only be learning of these now)

• The Governor of Transmontane Tsymric is recalled on charges of corruption.
• A second permanent Malmeric factory is granted land by a Prince of the Alamgir Empire.
• The first Manual of Nematism is issued by the Grand Academy of Caspianstadt.
• Tabulators set up the 'Society of Elevated Grocers' in Datresse.

Go forth into Calliste, and perhaps beyond!

Speaking of The Rest of All Possible Worlds, I have elected to update the Mechanics and Gazette post with details of the various magical debates.

*Not that I have any definite idea what actually is, of course. Suggestions in the comments, I guess.