Returning to the Veins of the Earth

Patrick Stuart of the False Machine has announced a remastering of Veins of the Earth. I imagine most readers already know what this is; for those who don't - well, it's a vision of the 'Underdark' of D&D fame as examined and remodelled through the lenses of A) Real world caving expeditions, B) Geological time and C) Nightmares, possibly relating to the above.

If you haven't read it, then I can recommend it. If you want someone else, then here's the Questing Beast review. 

Anyway, I've been rereading it over the last week and a half, with an eye towards the remaster - and here are some thoughts.

The Pariahs of the Earth: It's almost impossible to imagine any worthwhile changes to this bestiary. The nature of the various monsters, the art, the assorted off-putting or unsettling or downright mystifying descriptions rather makes Veins. Are they difficult to use versus a pack of level one Goblins? Of course, but one rather has to push the boundaries a little if a work is to stand out at all. (To say nothing of the all-important conceptual density.) Cluttering this up with a low-level goblin / rat / other substitute to carve your way through would be a mistake.

Some of the entries have Treasure or Trophy paragraphs (as, say, the Scissor Fish or Fossil Vampire) - I would like to see these appear for every entry. Not that every entry needs them, but it would be a way to say 'These are here, look out for them'. To point to something of mine for a moment - the Gifts and Trophies entries for Humanity's Elementals is a model I like.

I would also like to know how some of these beasts climb and navigate. Sometimes that's in the text, sometimes it can be clearly derived from descriptions (the salamander-men have two legs and two arms and will climb more like human beings that snakes).

Cultures in the Veins: Likewise, it is very difficult indeed to imagine changing these. Things like the Dvargir are so very emblematic of Veins that changing them would be a mistake. (The dErO are charming, as always.) The Gnonmen don't quite strike the same note, but we have had a hint at a potential remodelling in the form of the RayMen, whose J.B.S Haldane-influenced society strikes the right note of alienness demanded by the Veins.

What would be useful is a separate table appended to these entries of other items from that cultural - EG, the Dvargir Carbide Lamp. The index goes a certain way to do this, but could be broken down more - X, X items, X locations and so forth. If adding or shoring up these entries, some other general purpose details might be good (that the Dvargir capital is City 1A is good, and interesting to learn through a treasure table - but what is the general pattern of Dvargir settlements?). I admit, that too many details of some entries may be less of a boon than hoped for.

Likewise, I suppose - how does Culture XYZ use the light and the darkness?

Generating the Veins: The bit that strangles me a little here is the Large Scale Maps. The overall principle makes sense once explained, but I would be interested in an extra part in the worked example in the Appendices. One more page, explaining 'This is how I decided that this section here is an Eight Mile Waterfall' (or a series of cascades, or...). As with the rest of Veins, no-one has to act make the same decisions, but knowing how someone else has made those decisions is useful. (I may have to do a worked example here!)

Some other, less general points:

• The Gegenschein - how many moths are going to appear in your work, Patrick? (The trilobites are different, I know that.)
• In Appendix III there's talk of a settlement generator in the sequel. I know that this isn't quite a sequel, but some settlement or trading post details would be good. What food and lumes are traded? What games and forms of entertainment are shared in the Veins? What card game would a dErO, an Ælf-Adal and a Substratal all enjoy playing?
• Are the Zombie Coral building anything?
• When the current font is in bold, some of the detail of serifs is lost and takes a moment to identify - see especially As and Ms. 

***

I'm not certain that I'm necessarily the best person to answer the question of what to do with Veins - I've not tried to run it, and I've had it in my headspace for too long. But I am interested in seeing what comes of it, and look forward to seeing it remastered.

The Vril and the Veins of the Earth

I have had the joy to have read Patrick Stuart's Veins of the Earth.

I have recently finished the Edward Bulwer-Lytton Victorian Science fiction novel The Coming Race - the origin of the Vril.

This bears some further explanation, both as to what the Vril are and the wider significance of this little and  - whilst perfectly serviceable - not outstanding work.

Either nip over to Wikipedia, or read on. I am working from the 2007 Hesperus edition. (The text may also be found over at Project Gutenberg; it is not a long read).

A man - a mining engineer of wealthy extraction - goes deep into the bowels of the earth, in search of something a friend saw. His rope snaps and he falls, and is rescued by an unheard of civilisation. These are the Vril.

At this point I am going to crib from the introduction from my edition, by Matthew Sweet (as heard on BBC Radio).

'From the evidence of their language, the visitor concludes that the Vril-ya are of Aryan descent. Physically, they resemble Native Americans. Their civilisation offers a life of serene indolence for adults and frantic industry for children. Junior Vril-ya serve in the army, staff the shops and fend off the underworld's native population of carnivorous lizards. Vril-ya parents, however, loll about in well-appointed villas eating fruit and listening to the twittering of caged birds. Crime, adultery and literature have all died away in this civilisation. Feminism*, vegetarianism and choral music flourish. Artificial sunlight beams down, fearsome weapons keep the barbarians of the lower regions at bay, machines perform menial tasks. And the power that motivates this society - the mastery of Vril - is a genetic inheritance: thick bunches of nerves in the hands allow the Vril-ya to control its flow, to channel its power in acts of creation or destruction, and to fly through the vast recesses of their world on mechanical wings.'

[*Of course, a Victorian, male-authored feminism. As any set of political beliefs of another age, likely to be frustrating or bewildering; Cf. Christine de Pizan.]

The trouble is, people took the whole business rather seriously. Some people asserted (and, as Sweet says in his Introduction, some folk still assert) that this was a real thing. Bulwar-Lytton denied it: this did not stop folk from trying to create or summon up the powers of the Vril into men. Arthur Lovell was one such man. These notions may not have taken off, but the term Vril persisted, into the fiction (either explicit fictions, or the lunatic fringe) of Nazi esotericism. Vril persisted in one other notable place - the meaty spread Bovril [Bovine+Vril; energy from beef!].

This has very little bearing on the topic at hand, but it is a marvellous image. Whatever
we might say about advertisements in our own time, I wonder if anything of this nature would be produced today.

I should like to point out how bloody silly this all is. But this has not stopped similar things happening: witness the Jedi census phenomenon. Apparently digging into Taoist works (or any of the other real world inspirations) wasn't enough: there had to be laser swords as well.

A little harsh, you might say. A different kettle of fish to the Vril, you might say. True enough. To continue to take Star Wars as an example, imagine a world, some century and a half from the present day. The Jedi path was embraced by the fringes of a totalitarian ideology, even if it barely ever got enough serious adherents together to rent a Village Hall, let alone form a temple. The films themselves have been long neglected by the majority of the viewing public. One mainstream remnant of it is the popularity of 'The Force' anti-bacterial spray (the nozzle of the canister it comes is meant to be faintly reminiscent of a lightsabre).

Yes, this is a baffling picture. Yes, it may even be a funny one.

***

"That's all very well, old chap, but what does any of this have to do with Veins of the Earth?"


First of all, The Coming Race is part of the Underdark canon, if canon is the right term here.

There's an Appendix N for Veins of the Earth here, but while I would acknowledge the importance of all those books to Patrick Stuart, there is a wider body of literature to examine. The Coming Race, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Shadow People, The Silver Chair. Some of it dovetails quite well with Veins (think of Axel in Journey to the Centre of the Earth dying of thirst in a lightless passage). All grist for the mill.

The Vril-ya themselves, however, are perhaps not the best fit for the twisted, specialised societies of Veins. Even if one does not see them as representing a utopia, they have a stability, plenty and sanity quite unlike other inhabitants of the Veins.

Further, the sheer power of the Vril (even if one happens to have brought a few beefy mages down below with you) is rather difficult to contend with. No, one doesn't have to fight everything in the Veins. Yes, one might end up doing so. (The Vril-ya might well shoot first when confronting the average band of murderhobos).

Of course, the history of The Coming Race itself may be a source of inspiration. The business of Vril energy and crackpot schemers or despots lends itself to the dErO. The placidity and indolent perfection of the Vril-ya might recall the AElf-Adal in repose.

"Brown?
Was the spread brown? Was it?
Where have you hidden the spread?"

Putting the Vril-ya as is straight into Veins would be troublesome, as stated. Of course, the twist in the tale would be entirely in OSR tradition. A Utopia can always be fuel for a Dystopia; The Coming Race's (not uncontested) treatment of democracy does not even make this terribly hard. Doubly so when it emerges from such an unfashionable century as the Nineteenth.*

To quote Sweet's introduction again, consider that 'serene indolence for adults and frantic industry for children.' It certainly could be construed as something like a prettier version of the Knotsmen.

The Vril itself will always produce questions, when considered by the RPG-driven mind. From where does this power derive? How many points must one expand to wield it? Who gives it to you? The answers may not be comforting ones. ("It was [Beelzebub, Nyarlathotep, Tiamut, &c.] all along!")

Of course, the Veins have enough room to make something like the Vril-ya proper appear - but only, one suspects, briefly or in small numbers. There could be no going back to them; only the jurney forward: perhaps to reach the surface - or to perish.





*Though I cannot quite conceive how one makes a very concrete dystopia out of Morris's News from Nowhere.