Wrecked Heptarchy: Bocage, Puritans, Stumps

I've written before about Silent Titans, and chances are you've heard of it anyway. You might even have an opinion on whether it's workable, or any good, or anything else. If not....see here.

However, what I'm really here for is the section Beyond Wir-Heal, specifically the sub-set 'Your Own Wrecked Heptarchy'. I don't suppose I'm the first one to write something like this, even setting aside the pre-existing Land of Rushes (to be found In the Hall of the Third Blue Wizard). All the same, this stuff's been brewing at the back of my mind for a while. It's probably not going to turn into anything substantial, but I might as well share it. So here we go...

It’s History.

Silent Titans is set in a world wracked by time spasms and dimensional collapse. In its geography, society, environments and characters are warped or alternate versions of the Wirral Peninsula in North West England. Driven through this like needles through skin, are terrifying shards of a distant, ruined, high-technology reality whose broken weapons and poisonous ontological waste has been dumped and hidden in its own past. It has both sword fights and robots

Of course, I don't know the Wirral. That's difference one. As an effete Southron, this is going to be about inner East Anglia (largely). Let's call the region Estengle (for now?). 

The nature of the wreckage is different in this portion of the Heptarchy. No Titans, silent or otherwise. That's difference two. No terrifying shards, no peninsula girt by the tides of time. There's likely a drip-feed of displaced history, but it would be less flotsam and jetsam and more .... strangers riding into town? A ghostly train? 

***

Estengle. What's it like? A blend: market towns, dense bocage, the rolling fields of drained marsh, planned planed business parks, thorn-choked dykes, the lurking survivals of the old fens, chalk pits, golf courses, race tracks, abandoned airfields. The weather: aching, pitiless sun, sullen rain or oppressive grey cloud.

The people in Estengle:

Alchemy Puritans: clean shaven, simply dressed, well-read, soft-spoken. Keen enthusiasts for Better Living Through Chemistry. Probably taking some sort of mood-alterer, sense-enchancer, suppressant or relaxant. There is a sophisticated colour coding system to indicate this - different coloured badges, different coloured streaks in the hair, different jewelled studs along the cheek bone, different stripes of make-up spiralling away from the eyelids. 

They would be insulted to be call lotus-eaters. They know exactly what they are taking, how much, and when they will stop. Everyone requires some measure of pharmaceutical support; they're just being systematic and rational about it. 

Aiming to strike out into the Fens and bring them into order for the growth of cash crops. 

Fen Tygers: Want the Fens back for their own. Grubby and rustic; much more given to occasional excesses than the Puritans. Have somehow acquired several noisy motorcars and a pack of heraldic tygers.

Ferrymen: merchants, dealbrokers, expansionist middlemen.

Fane-raisers: raisers of great monuments, architects, devotees of order, ritualists, hierarchs, dwindling fraternities.

Aviscaputs: Could there be some of these around?

Dungeons:

The most obvious thing to point to, the most Titan-like would be the restless bones of Gog and Magog: thorn-tunnels in the spinney lead to actual tunnels in the earth lead to rib-caverns and femur-passages. 

There would be the vast heaven-seeking towers made by the predecessors of the Fane-raisers. Empty, chill - poisoned? Ruined?

Inspired by the likes of St Botolph's, Boston, St James's, Louth and other wool churches - to say nothing of Ely Cathedral, the 'Ship of the Fens'.

***

As above, I'm not sure that there are any plans to work this up any further. Certainly, I would need to do some further reading - the late Ronald Blythe, for instance. There is at least one piece in Anglo-Norman I'm currently working my way through. Anyway, I hope this has been of some interest.

The Rest of All Possible Worlds: The Wrong End of the Staff

There are two things that prompted the writing of this. The first thing is a few recent posts by noisms on the problems of writing from the point of view of humans in a fantasy - or even pre-Englightenment - setting. Of course,  TRoAPW is specifically an Enlightenment or Enlightenment-equivalent setting. So, how does one avoid writing a setting in which everyone sounds.....suspiciously reasonable and modern?

First of all, of course, our own age is post-Englightenment. Quite when it became 'post' varies, I think, with how you judge such things. In literature, the ideas of Modernism post-Great War suggests a world where the settled march of scientific knowledge and Whig history is interrupted by the death and devastation of the Western Front. Of course, nobody told the architects: witness the square, 'rational' designs and 'machines for living' of Le Corbusier. This is to say nothing of the grand schemes of the post-war 1940s: social democracy, the centrally-planned welfare state and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - all of which must, I think, count the Enlightenment among their forebears. Still, there is a sense of distance between us and the Enlightenment that would make the magical Enlightenment of TRoAPW as if not more distant.

Secondly, change does not occur equally. TRoAPW positions its Enlightenment as taking place mainly on one continent: Calliste. Even there, it might be centred around a few states or a few cities or a few social groups. My mind goes to Manola's Own Private WFRP (see Points One and Two): 

'There's a Renaissance in progress! The cities are growing. The economy is booming. The tax receipts are up. .... The progress celebrated by the elites is real, but it has been purchased at a terrifying price in social dislocation and human suffering.' 

Even in the compact and politically active Datravia, not everyone is going to be up-to-date and alert and with it (whatever it may be). I've written enough about the Majestic Vision to suggest that it is still a meaningful force in Calliste. 

The second thing is that TRoAPW was in part suggested by the idea of being wrong about things - hence 'White-Hot Sparks from the Crucible of the Enlightenment'. Are you a brief speck of light and heat, or are you part of the final product? When we're talking about a process occurring across an entire continent, you might well be going down one of the dead ends of the maze. 

The suggestion of Voltaire's over-optimistic Pangloss in the title is no error! You might be going as far wrong as he is in Candide. Indeed, if Valentine Sims and Principia Arcana are the most influential and important product of Calliste's Enlightenment (they quite specifically are not!) it should be possible for Our Heroes to encounter 'That irritating little squirt Sims who's always barking up the wrong tree' and get written into the popular history books two centuries later as narrow-minded dunderheaded hidebound reactionaries! I've written it before: It's all the discarded ideas and first efforts and groundwork that contributed, bundled up and dressed in a periwig.

Indeed, when building up the ideas for TRoAPW and the magical debates ongoing in Calliste I did contemplate writing in a few Red Herrings. Eventually, I decided this wasn't necessary. Firstly, some schools of thought (e.g, Ante-Grimoireans) are wilder than others anyway and can act as potential implausible explanations. 

Secondly, a number of the debates I was writing up weren't about anything as solid as (say) the orbit of the planets or the circulatory system - how one divides up Spells for use by human wizards isn't something one can answer in a mathematically correct manner. This isn't to say that a GM can't say that in their Calliste (to take a side at random) the Polycameralists have it mostly right and their opponents are wrong, but I have no wish to put that rule in place.

Thirdly, in my experience RPG players are quite good at picking the wrong end of the stick all by themselves. When it's something as open as TRoAPW rather than a mystery solving game like Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, perhaps best not to through additional obstacles into their way. 

In addition to Pangloss, of course, there's meant to be a sense of possibility in TRoAPW. The Bastille has been stormed - now the future of France is wide open, and you are right there in the heart of Paris! You are a participant, not a tourist - Cf. Faufreluches - and unlike the rulers of Lakoto, you can make some bloody stupid decisions. 

Fine, some conclusions:

1. Even setting magic aside, the TRoAPW point of view should be in almost equal parts as like and as unlike to a modern PoV. There might even be an 'Uncanny Valley' effect - the reformers of Calliste trying so hard to be capital-M modern without succeeding that they end up becoming somehow repellant.
2. Players coming up with half-baked schemes is right in the spirit of TRoAPW. Players getting it utterly wrong is right in the spirit of TRoAPW.
3. You might be part of a movement with some overall positive effects - that doesn't mean you're a paragon of virtue.
     Likewise, that Calliste is presently free of Thirty Years War-style religious conflict does not mean it is free of strife. 

"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee....."

There have been more deaths in Abermawr. These have been discussed and analysed sufficiently in the past, and I see no reason to add to any previous memorials.

But the adventuring doesn't slow down. New characters are rolled up, backstories compiled, adventurers take over empty rooms in the slowly accumulated compound. The newcomers pick up the notes of the previous party and pick up where they left off.

Who is briefing them? The domestic staff? Magical familiars? Friends and family? How would they come to know all this? A little unlikely. (Not that that this quite matches the Three Mile Tree scenario at present.)

A thought crossed my mind: what if one escaped? Maimed, injured beyond the level of fighting-fit, but possessed of all the knowledge needed to set up a new party of adventurers. If an agreeable trajectory for players is full-blown establishment and possibly even retirement, it should be no surprise that someone becomes a manager.

The most ghastly fate of all.

The process is thus: TPK. GM taps Player A on the shoulder, asks her if she wouldn't mind having Character X stick around via a tiny little Retcon as M to a pack of 007s*. (The less flattering comparison is presumably the maimed recruiting sergeant in Starship Troopers). Player A says Yes; off-screen Character X crawls out of the dungeon minus left hand, right leg and fearfully scarred over the left eye. Character X takes over HQ duties, including bringing the newcomers up to speed.

Does this appeal? Certainly, if this was a new season of a television serial or Book Five of the Chronicles of XYZ, the reappearance of Star-Captain Fletcher Irving or Lady Steelheart might delight an audience. Master Bernardus escaped from the Platinum Immortals of the Supreme Syndic and has undergone a change in appearance, mannerism and motivation....allowing his actor to display a greater range.

Would such a thing work at the tabletop? Well, recurring figures in campaigns can delight the players. If your mysterious employer in the concealing cowl turns out to be our old friend Ajax Barjazid, it could do likewise. If cleared with Player A, who has fond memories of Ajax's STR 18 and CON 17, and doesn't appreciate this shabby resurrection. 

But cue the seeking of magical solutions: Get Barjazid a healing miracle! Get him a magical iron hand! Tear it off a god! Let's Corum that beautiful bastard Barjazid! That might even be an interesting quest, but this is all in some sense the same as bringing them back from the dead.

Mike Mignola's Corum.
(Looking less than delighted by the Eye of Rhynn and Hand of Kwll.). 

Anyway, if the Adventuring Party is in the sort of frequent deaths-no resurrections arrangement, I at least like the image of a scarred veteran directing the next generation (though perhaps a surviving NPC is better). But this is the sort of thing where tastes will differ, and there's probably something I missed. 

*Or whatever the collective noun is. A martini of 007s? An Aston? An innuendo?

Six Strange Rivers

All these rivers resemble and behave like water. Most of the time. Sometimes it's murky water, luminescent water, weed-choked water, &c, but still water. Each river has a single course: there are no or few tributaries. Some may have gates, dams, cataracts and the like.

The Styx*

Flows Into: The Underworld.

Is the River of: Unbreakable Vows, Supernatural Boundaries.

One may cross it or travel it by means of: A dark, low, boat.

Piloted by: A grim, greasy, bearded ferryman.** 

At a charge of: A Coin, held in the mouth.

A Child dipped in the River: becomes Invulnerable.

Charon and Psyche, 1883, John Stanhope

The Bhallduin 

Flows Into: The Celestial Realm.

Is the River of: The Course of the Sun, Day and Night.

One may cross it or travel it by means of: A floating palace of mirrors and mosaics.

Piloted by: The Signs of the Zodiac, commanded by a Solar Hierophant.

At a charge of: The recitation of a litany from approved scripture.

A Child dipped in the River: Will never suffer the loss of his or her senses, other than by outright mutilation.

The Izonn

Flows Into: The Realm of the Forms.

Is the River of: Supernal Order.

One may cross it on: A giant bearded snake, with the voice of every single one of your schoolteachers speaking at once.

Piloted by: The snake decides where to go.

At a charge of: You must argue why you should get to ride the Snake in a dialogue with the Snake. 

A Child dipped in the River: Will always know what time it is, where they are and what is around them.

The Novar

Flows Into: The Prelapsarian Garden.

Is the River of: New Souls, the UnBorn, Virgil's Fourth Ecologue

One may cross it on: A canopied litter wreathed with plants carried by muscular tritons.

Piloted by: a pearl-white Pelican perched on the front of the litter.

At a charge of: One pomegranate per triton. (It is considered good manners to offer the pelican a fish.)

A Child dipped in the River: will be 'bonny and blithe and good and gay'.

The Thyrss

Flows Into: The Land of Cockaigne.

Is the River of: Intoxication, Second Helpings.

One may cross it on: A polychrome barge with numerous pavilions.

Piloted by: A mob of Maenads.

At a charge of: All the booze on your person.

A Child dipped in the River: will never suffer a hangover, or gout, or indigestion, or food poisoning.

The Sennus

Flows Into: The Dying Earth, the Age of Rust, the Æon of the Red Sun, the Slow Ragnarok.

Is the River of: Bitter Resolve, Leaden Darkness.

One may cross it on: A floating chariot decorated with Baroque statuettes pulled by moth-eaten mer-lions.

Piloted by: An old wounded soldier in a worn uniform.

At a charge of: A small bowl of your blood, mixed with myrrh.

A Child dipped in the River: will only die in battle.

The Eilex

Flows Into: The Blessed Lake and the Isle of Crowns.

Is the River of: Healing Rest, Useful Dreams.

One may cross it on: A carrack with an elaborate crenellated fo'c's'le. 

Piloted by: Twenty Assorted Medieval Kings under the command of a beautiful Damsel.

At a charge of: You must throw away all your weapons. Especially the magical ones.

A Child dipped in the River: will become a judge, a priest or a captain - if perhaps not literally, and in accordance with the circumstances they grow up in. 

***

You may decide for yourself what surrounds the river, and where in the realms of men it emerges. 

The cost of the ferryman's fee may be low, but actually making it as far as the ferry is hard. 

It is assumed that none of the various ferrymen below will drop you into the river accidentally.

This post is rather in the vein of Rheingold, et al - but somewhat less focused. 

* There's a bit of both Acheron and Styx here, admittedly. 

**Aeniad, 6.300