Bread, be it from wheat, barley, sorghum, millet or rye is a major staple. Short of a setting creating a whole new set of foodstuffs, a variety of breads should be available. Some of them might even be capable of something more than satisfying hunger.
1. The Brethren of the Lordly Prophet distribute alms-bread. These loaves have a portion of food baked into them, taken from the various offerings left at their monastery. Institutional catering and the vagaries of chance mean that this may not be always to the recipient's liking. (Roll 1d6; 1 = 'I really can't eat that!', 2-4 = Edible, 5 = Edible and fairly nice, 6 = 'Oh good! My favourite!' OR Find a low denomination coin in the bread.)
2. Mosstrooper's Bannocks. The Clayscrape Valleys are a notoriously rainy region. The local irregular troopers and reavers bake bannocks in the ashes of their fires, and have developed a method of banking them with a hard crust that keeps out the damp. One comic tale of a folk hero has him baking a particularly large bannock to float across a river, but such a feat is clearly implausible.
3. Whatever their reputation, the Forest Elves are not good bakers. An elf can learn to bake, but the elves of the deep forest are not agriculturists. The most conservative of them will not even eat mono-cultured grains. However, they see the need for a compact form of carbohydrate to feed their emissaries or warbands that leave the forests to find out what it is the younger folk are doing and tell them to stop it. Thus, they carry bags of 'Trail Powder'. This is a ground-down mix of starches and roots, which is mixed together with fresh edible leaves and a little water to form something like Bubble and Squeak - but with the texture of meringue.
4. Concord Loaves are provided at a reduced price by the cooperatives of the Popular Harmony League. These loaves are deliberately larger than is needed for the average human appetite, and the bread is of a soft sort that must be eaten promptly - therefore, the bread must be shared, or go to waste. The rumour that the League includes trace elements of a pacifying, relaxing narcotic in the bread has not effected the popularity of these loaves.
5. These flatbreads from the Sun River Kingdoms are easy to make, compact and tasty. However, traditionally they are used for pushing and scooping other foodstuffs and are generally consumed only by the greediest or the poorest; consuming them can leave create a very bad social impression.
6. Inferno Rolls are dense, with red-brown crusts and a sweet, slightly treacly taste. They have been baked over a ceaseless, fuel-less, blaze of hell-fire, but this has no especial impact on the rolls themselves - beyond a scent of sulphur on the breath of those who consume them. (Mock-Inferno Rolls, designed to reproduce the taste without the lingering scent are sold at triple the price for gastronomes.) Despite this, they remain popular and no long term ill-effects have been found in those who eat the rolls. It is quite another story for the bakers who must inhale the smoke and soot of hellfire and who sometimes exhibit an extreme piety.
7. Dwarf tuber bread is bulked out with root vegetables of various kinds, due to the limited arable land in the mountain realms. It is frequently baked with beer and is almost terrifyingly stodgy to anyone not a dwarf. Tuber bread keeps remarkably well, so long as it remains unexposed to sunlight.
8. Angel biscuits (not to be confused with Angel Wafers, which are a popular brand of sweetmeat printed with brief and often trite religious messages) are made with a mix of oatmeal derived from a miraculous growth of wild oats to a prophet in the wilderness and water from the sacred spring of a pious hermit. They are do not taste 'heavenly' as such, but eating one is generally sufficient. You have somehow eaten no more and no less food than you actually need. The feeling of fullness without being overstuffed is curious and sometimes disturbing. However, what is perhaps more remarkable is that the eater generally comes away with a strong sense of purpose and mission, as if they have just had a serious chat with Aslan.
9. It is generally accepted that one cannot stop fauns and satyrs from drinking to excess, even when such a thing would be very useful. The fauns of the Bear Coast groves, however, bake a spongey pancake using milk and various ground herbs. This slowly releases nourishing and analgesic properties that will blunt all but the worst hangovers, though it is time consuming to prepare and relatively expensive.
10. The Half-Giants of the Kuthan Highlands raise Cyclopian goats - goats standing as high as a horse, with one large eye in the centre of their foreheads and three horns. The marrow of these goats is mixed with cornmeal and baked into unleavened rounds. The resulting bread is edible for humans, but when moistened with a little vinegar, forms an excellent bait for many of the great cats of the highlands.
Saturday, 4 April 2020
Monday, 23 March 2020
Electric Bastionland: Worked Examples (2)
(Part One)
Deep Water: The Twining Sea
Currents
The Wick - swifter than expected; not as choppy as the other currents round the islands
Whale Lane - colder, deeper and clearer than other stretches of water.
Ungungstruk - draws silt from the coastal islets and deltas. A thick, dark current.
Features
A - Windshook: a rocky island dotted with high columns, seemingly natural (in fact partial ruins built of an abnormally smooth stone).
B - Vansittart Cluster: a number of little islands, with a few scattered houses. (A few sheep farms remain here, but the bulk of the population is currently a film crew).
C - Puffin Perch: a squarish black rock, covered in puffins (if the puffins leave, you may find the body of a nihilist, a straight razor and a cryptic letter)
D - Tescel: privately owned island, known for an artist's colony (many of the artists in question are past their prime; a lack of strong drink and narcotics has set some on edge).
E - Bruning's Knot: a tangle of weed and wreckage caught between the currents (a small family of wrecked sailors reside here and know the way through).
F - Three-Schilling: a watch station on an island (the station head does a good Black Market trade in Coast Guard supplies).
G - Angel's Plait: twining sandbanks, decorated with birds (pools of water between the banks can reveal stranded wildlife until the tides return).
Complications
Whale Lane, circling B: rough waves threaten to drive your vessel onto the rocks of Brensen, uppermost island of the Cluster.
Whale Lane, passing A: a giant squid, bearing the seal of a foreign power on its power harness. An eye swivels towards your vessel.
Whale Lane, far past D: in the distance, the shape of a vast albatross. It stoops and soars down to perch on your deck. About its neck - the corpse of a sailor. It begins to speak....
The Wick, past B: the missionary barge, the Heart of Skegness starts proselytising in morse code.
The Wick, approaching G: the sandbanks are covered by water - can you recall where they lay?
The Wick, in sight of C: a piratical submarine lurks in these waters and will surface and attack you purely for the opportunity of some fresh air and new faces.
Ungungstruk, skirting E: a strong wind draws you closer to the Knot.
Ungungstruk, circling D: a weather balloon appears to be following your ship.
Ungungstruk, in sight of F: the Coast Guard stage a surprise inspection. There has been a change the nautical licensing code.
The Underground: Deep Beneath the Hotel Messala
Rooms and Passages
A - Corroded Substation - an electricity substation; corroded, flaking fuses and rheostats between blank concrete walls. Arcs of electricity play off the depths of the substation, which sits in a sunken chamber at the junction.
B - Auto-Triage: a medical station with rows of examination coffers (someone placed in a coffer is categorised according to the severity of their wounds. Little or no medical assistance is offered by the automated systems).
C - Emergency District Information Hub - a small, well-equipped print shop and a formal room with a stage, pulpit and magic lantern projector (a hidden safe at the back of the printshop has partial details of civil defence regulations and the degrees of emergency law that may be imposed in time of war. You have not heard of any of the regulations involved, nor of some of the things they apparently ward against.).
D - Heliotrope Helix: a series of spiral tunnels, the ceilings of which gleam like the sun. (Intended so that people in the shelters could change environment and experience something like sunlight - but in a short space of time. Stay too long inside and you will get badly sunburnt).
E - Gaudy Street Seal: an internal gate in the emergency conduit, with a defensive bubble-turret. Named for the street above in chalked letters on the lintel. (Once closed, the gate will seal shut until the system detects that the gas attack has passed. The system is not in good working order.)
F - The Hive of Chains - a shaft, rising up into the regular basements of the Hotel. Chains, ready to lift or lower platforms hang down at every hand. (Some of the chains clatter ceaselessly; something below is shaking them.)
G - Automated Exchange: banks of enamelled stations, where telephone calls can be put through. But the wires are moving all by themselves. (The only calls being made are test calls between emergency stations, introduced by a unique piece of electronic music and a string of numbers).
H - The Discretionary Reception - a plush-carpeted room and four elevators. (An entrance to the hotel for guests desiring secrecy. Far larger than one would expect....)
I - Steel Cookhouse: two long metal counters, two stoves, two sinks. (Approach, and a number of unlabelled tins drop out of a chute. A voice will urge you to cook the best meal possible with these random ingredients.)
J - The Waste Disposal Offices - a dull door with a conspicuous nameplate. Inside, an office with several battered cupboards and a hatch. (This is where hotel employees gather to dispose of discarded luxuries, overlooked delicacies and other valuable items. There is a dumbwaiter directly from the kitchens.)
K - Guest Vault: A series of heavy metal doors, each with a code lock. Each door has a large sealed compartment through which objects may be passed. (You may find the guests inside, in one state or another).
L - The Cellar of Last Resort: the place where the rarest beverages for the hotel above are stored. They are hermetically sealed in individual caskets. (Discovering which casket is which requires knowledge of the symbols and abbreviations used by the caste of sommeliers).
Complications
A-B - A leaking pipe has spread water across the passage; this has been electrified.
B-C - As you pass down this corridor, the sensation of touch is completely absent from you. Even if you are clutching something tightly, you cannot feel it.
B-K - Several automated cleaning trolleys block passage. They are scouring the walls into harsh, acidic cleanliness.
C-D - Phosphoric primroses bloom from the iron of the floor grids. Do not tread on these.
C-K - Numerous jukeboxes begin playing music as you approach. Armed figures watch you approach; they do not react to this sound.
D-E - A fierce, disorientating buzzing intensifies as you approach E.
D-L - Birds sit in the passage; magpies, with wings of platinum and black iron. They eyes you in a hostile fashion.
E-H - Custodian Concierge: a respectful but very firm Concierge would like you to go no further away from H. Either go up, or go out.
F-I - Ahead of you, the floor begins to heat up. One more step, and you may fry.
I-C - The concrete slabs and iron grids of the floor fluctuate like the ripples of a pool.
I-J - A revolutionary cell is meeting here, and they do not wish to be disturbed or observed.
J-D - A turnstile bars your path. Several red lights blink into existence as you approach. Something is watching.
K-L - Clockwork scribes tick through here, trailing lists and inventories in their wake. Prepare to be stamped, inspected, briefed, debriefed and numbered.
L-H - Before you in the passage, a pepperpot-shaped automaton pushes a large barrel. It does not appear inclined to stop.
Stretches
B-F
1. Familiar as this passage is, the air around you becomes close. There is a constant shaking and the choking smell of engine exhaust. The winding of great tracks begins, only to stop at the sound of regular shrill plinking. A cannon roars.
2. Former foundations: vaults designed to support a structure that stood where the hotel now is stretch ahead of you. They are not always safe. Some are partially flooded.
3. Ahead of you the corridor is quite lightless. Nothing cuts through the darkness, though pale smoke can somehow still be seen in the air. From somewhere comes a great wind, and the walls no longer appear to be present.
4. Rubble ahead, the bitter scent of ash, and shrapnel fragments. But no bomb could pierce these cellars, surely? And no aerial raids have yet been spotted.
5. The piercing scent of bile is on the air. The tunnel narrows at the top, becoming the shape of an equilateral triangle in cross-section, walls covered in white and orange tiles. A hook-footed crab-like being clicks behind you along the corridor, oil oozing from its joints.
6. A white-painted corridor; coloured lines on the floor, with multiple dog-legs and a gentle slope. Deer of boiled leather and brass wire prance along it. If they come near you, they will entangle you in twining, tentacle like brass antlers.
Deep Water: The Twining Sea
Currents
The Wick - swifter than expected; not as choppy as the other currents round the islands
Whale Lane - colder, deeper and clearer than other stretches of water.
Ungungstruk - draws silt from the coastal islets and deltas. A thick, dark current.
Features
A - Windshook: a rocky island dotted with high columns, seemingly natural (in fact partial ruins built of an abnormally smooth stone).
B - Vansittart Cluster: a number of little islands, with a few scattered houses. (A few sheep farms remain here, but the bulk of the population is currently a film crew).
C - Puffin Perch: a squarish black rock, covered in puffins (if the puffins leave, you may find the body of a nihilist, a straight razor and a cryptic letter)
D - Tescel: privately owned island, known for an artist's colony (many of the artists in question are past their prime; a lack of strong drink and narcotics has set some on edge).
E - Bruning's Knot: a tangle of weed and wreckage caught between the currents (a small family of wrecked sailors reside here and know the way through).
F - Three-Schilling: a watch station on an island (the station head does a good Black Market trade in Coast Guard supplies).
G - Angel's Plait: twining sandbanks, decorated with birds (pools of water between the banks can reveal stranded wildlife until the tides return).
Complications
Whale Lane, circling B: rough waves threaten to drive your vessel onto the rocks of Brensen, uppermost island of the Cluster.
Whale Lane, passing A: a giant squid, bearing the seal of a foreign power on its power harness. An eye swivels towards your vessel.
Whale Lane, far past D: in the distance, the shape of a vast albatross. It stoops and soars down to perch on your deck. About its neck - the corpse of a sailor. It begins to speak....
The Wick, past B: the missionary barge, the Heart of Skegness starts proselytising in morse code.
The Wick, approaching G: the sandbanks are covered by water - can you recall where they lay?
The Wick, in sight of C: a piratical submarine lurks in these waters and will surface and attack you purely for the opportunity of some fresh air and new faces.
Ungungstruk, skirting E: a strong wind draws you closer to the Knot.
Ungungstruk, circling D: a weather balloon appears to be following your ship.
Ungungstruk, in sight of F: the Coast Guard stage a surprise inspection. There has been a change the nautical licensing code.
The Underground: Deep Beneath the Hotel Messala
Rooms and Passages
A - Corroded Substation - an electricity substation; corroded, flaking fuses and rheostats between blank concrete walls. Arcs of electricity play off the depths of the substation, which sits in a sunken chamber at the junction.
B - Auto-Triage: a medical station with rows of examination coffers (someone placed in a coffer is categorised according to the severity of their wounds. Little or no medical assistance is offered by the automated systems).
C - Emergency District Information Hub - a small, well-equipped print shop and a formal room with a stage, pulpit and magic lantern projector (a hidden safe at the back of the printshop has partial details of civil defence regulations and the degrees of emergency law that may be imposed in time of war. You have not heard of any of the regulations involved, nor of some of the things they apparently ward against.).
D - Heliotrope Helix: a series of spiral tunnels, the ceilings of which gleam like the sun. (Intended so that people in the shelters could change environment and experience something like sunlight - but in a short space of time. Stay too long inside and you will get badly sunburnt).
E - Gaudy Street Seal: an internal gate in the emergency conduit, with a defensive bubble-turret. Named for the street above in chalked letters on the lintel. (Once closed, the gate will seal shut until the system detects that the gas attack has passed. The system is not in good working order.)
F - The Hive of Chains - a shaft, rising up into the regular basements of the Hotel. Chains, ready to lift or lower platforms hang down at every hand. (Some of the chains clatter ceaselessly; something below is shaking them.)
G - Automated Exchange: banks of enamelled stations, where telephone calls can be put through. But the wires are moving all by themselves. (The only calls being made are test calls between emergency stations, introduced by a unique piece of electronic music and a string of numbers).
H - The Discretionary Reception - a plush-carpeted room and four elevators. (An entrance to the hotel for guests desiring secrecy. Far larger than one would expect....)
I - Steel Cookhouse: two long metal counters, two stoves, two sinks. (Approach, and a number of unlabelled tins drop out of a chute. A voice will urge you to cook the best meal possible with these random ingredients.)
J - The Waste Disposal Offices - a dull door with a conspicuous nameplate. Inside, an office with several battered cupboards and a hatch. (This is where hotel employees gather to dispose of discarded luxuries, overlooked delicacies and other valuable items. There is a dumbwaiter directly from the kitchens.)
K - Guest Vault: A series of heavy metal doors, each with a code lock. Each door has a large sealed compartment through which objects may be passed. (You may find the guests inside, in one state or another).
L - The Cellar of Last Resort: the place where the rarest beverages for the hotel above are stored. They are hermetically sealed in individual caskets. (Discovering which casket is which requires knowledge of the symbols and abbreviations used by the caste of sommeliers).
Complications
A-B - A leaking pipe has spread water across the passage; this has been electrified.
B-C - As you pass down this corridor, the sensation of touch is completely absent from you. Even if you are clutching something tightly, you cannot feel it.
B-K - Several automated cleaning trolleys block passage. They are scouring the walls into harsh, acidic cleanliness.
C-D - Phosphoric primroses bloom from the iron of the floor grids. Do not tread on these.
C-K - Numerous jukeboxes begin playing music as you approach. Armed figures watch you approach; they do not react to this sound.
D-E - A fierce, disorientating buzzing intensifies as you approach E.
D-L - Birds sit in the passage; magpies, with wings of platinum and black iron. They eyes you in a hostile fashion.
E-H - Custodian Concierge: a respectful but very firm Concierge would like you to go no further away from H. Either go up, or go out.
F-I - Ahead of you, the floor begins to heat up. One more step, and you may fry.
I-C - The concrete slabs and iron grids of the floor fluctuate like the ripples of a pool.
I-J - A revolutionary cell is meeting here, and they do not wish to be disturbed or observed.
J-D - A turnstile bars your path. Several red lights blink into existence as you approach. Something is watching.
K-L - Clockwork scribes tick through here, trailing lists and inventories in their wake. Prepare to be stamped, inspected, briefed, debriefed and numbered.
L-H - Before you in the passage, a pepperpot-shaped automaton pushes a large barrel. It does not appear inclined to stop.
Stretches
B-F
1. Familiar as this passage is, the air around you becomes close. There is a constant shaking and the choking smell of engine exhaust. The winding of great tracks begins, only to stop at the sound of regular shrill plinking. A cannon roars.
2. Former foundations: vaults designed to support a structure that stood where the hotel now is stretch ahead of you. They are not always safe. Some are partially flooded.
3. Ahead of you the corridor is quite lightless. Nothing cuts through the darkness, though pale smoke can somehow still be seen in the air. From somewhere comes a great wind, and the walls no longer appear to be present.
4. Rubble ahead, the bitter scent of ash, and shrapnel fragments. But no bomb could pierce these cellars, surely? And no aerial raids have yet been spotted.
5. The piercing scent of bile is on the air. The tunnel narrows at the top, becoming the shape of an equilateral triangle in cross-section, walls covered in white and orange tiles. A hook-footed crab-like being clicks behind you along the corridor, oil oozing from its joints.
6. A white-painted corridor; coloured lines on the floor, with multiple dog-legs and a gentle slope. Deer of boiled leather and brass wire prance along it. If they come near you, they will entangle you in twining, tentacle like brass antlers.
Lessons and Conclusions
You are meant to have all the notes on the page with the map - but A) that's not as such a blog-friendly format and B) I started drawing maps on A5 paper and so had to continue. So, draw your maps in an A5 space on an A4 sheet, I suppose.
It was a little difficult to establish a proper frame of reference on the currents on the Deep Water map for the complications - quite what a 'stretch of current' is isn't clear from the things on the map. Perhaps my 'Skirting Point X' or 'In Sight of Y' works.
I'm not China Miéville; it has been a little difficult to really put my mind to a living, breathing, self-contradicting metropolis. Bits of what I've done feel a little too much like a stage set, or an orrery Perhaps that makes this a useful thing to do again. Turning my Silent Quarter post into a borough of Bastion might be worthwhile..
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| (Like so) |
It was a little difficult to establish a proper frame of reference on the currents on the Deep Water map for the complications - quite what a 'stretch of current' is isn't clear from the things on the map. Perhaps my 'Skirting Point X' or 'In Sight of Y' works.
I'm not China Miéville; it has been a little difficult to really put my mind to a living, breathing, self-contradicting metropolis. Bits of what I've done feel a little too much like a stage set, or an orrery Perhaps that makes this a useful thing to do again. Turning my Silent Quarter post into a borough of Bastion might be worthwhile..
Thursday, 19 March 2020
Electric Bastionland: Worked Examples (1)
Using the Mapping pages from Electric Bastionland I have created several maps using the guidelines provided. There are two more to come...
Bastion: the Borough of Gideon's Blessing
Landmarks and Paths
A Praetor's Gate (Ceremonial gate for obsolete government post with three copper domes)
B Upper Bronpuhr Wharf (Former warehouses now covered market)
C Lower Bronpuhr Wharf (Nearby docks now a high-instensity fish-farm)
D Allingham Street (Saloons and gaming parlours - some once quite high-end)
E Secretary Park (Former residences of warehouse bosses and low-level officials)
F Hobson-Jobson Square (Former residences of warehouse workers)
G Winged-Iron Circus (Circular elevated walkway decorated with wings reaches over busy junction)
H Cannery Main Entrance (the fish is gutted and canned)
Complications
A-B: Another spell of maintenance work on the Gate. Scaffolding blocks large vehicles.
A-F: The long way round; chances are you will miss any appointments.
B-C: Dense crowds moving through the market; keen vendors likely to buttonhole you.
B-G: The elevated walkway removes you from the sight of the fish being gutted, but not all of the smell.
C-D: The trams always slow down by the dockside; the walkway is full of people who know this.
D-E: Clash as a religious procession meets a syndicalist demonstration. Definitely crowds, possibly violence
E-F: Secretary Park was once accessible to residents only. The gates have yet to betaken down and restrict traffic
E-H: A narrow walkway. Better hope nobody is trying to take a hand cart across.
G-H: Gangs doing a trade in odour-muffling face masks impregnated with a minor stimulant clash for territory on the cannery walkways.
Going off-grid
B-C: Maintenance access. Lots of delivery vans and technicians to dodge.
D-E: Back alleys and parallel streets slowly fill with police (uniformed or otherwise). Just monitoring the crowds, for now.
G-H: Through the Cannery. You aren't supposed to be here, and there's lots of industrial machinery to dodge around.
[B, C, D, E] - [G, H] - A dock full of fish to navigate through. Hope you know someone with a punt.
Deep Country: The Approach to the Joelite Range
Landmarks and Paths
A Second Nun Bend (A railway station largely dedicated to repairing the track dow to the river valley)
B Burn Reeving (A watch station is maintained at this point, despite the lack of river traffic or fishing trade)
C Pardoner's Crossing (The trains from the mines need to pass through here. That's all the importance it has.)
D Manciple Station (A former town, known for the cattle trade. Empty stockyards now inhabited by things other than cattle)
E Topaz Junction (Railway yard, with signal box and other buildings decorated with low-grade semi-precious stones from the mines)
F The Husband's Bath (By the junction of the rivers a large hole has been dug. Local stories claim a lazy husband was forcibly scrubbed there.)
G Barton Franklin (Once known for the quality of the waters; now known as the town you stop at one the way to the mines)
Complications
A-C Scree has blocked one of the rail lines
B-C A river toll levied at Pardoner's Crossing
C-E The signal station at Topaz Junction refuses to let anyone through. Desperate brigands hide there.
C-F The river is full of sharp rocks.
D-E Only one train in ten has any reason to stop at Manciple.
E-G The Prefecture Warden's deputies are conducting a search of the moors. You may be held at a way-station and interrogated.
Going Off-Route
Between A-C-F: Steep Slopes (Loose scree, dust, precipitous drops)
Between E-G: Damp Heath (hills, dense scrub, heather)
Downriver from F: Former Proving Grounds (Unexploded munitions, shell craters, barbed wire)
E-X: Out on the moors, a former hunting lodge can be seen. Behind it, something tall, covered in scaffolding.
F-X Across the river, the sandbag-clad bulk of an observation post.
G-X Below the railway cutting, a former sanatorium in heavily wooded grounds.
Part Two here.
Bastion: the Borough of Gideon's Blessing
Landmarks and Paths
A Praetor's Gate (Ceremonial gate for obsolete government post with three copper domes)
B Upper Bronpuhr Wharf (Former warehouses now covered market)
C Lower Bronpuhr Wharf (Nearby docks now a high-instensity fish-farm)
D Allingham Street (Saloons and gaming parlours - some once quite high-end)
E Secretary Park (Former residences of warehouse bosses and low-level officials)
F Hobson-Jobson Square (Former residences of warehouse workers)
G Winged-Iron Circus (Circular elevated walkway decorated with wings reaches over busy junction)
H Cannery Main Entrance (the fish is gutted and canned)
Complications
A-B: Another spell of maintenance work on the Gate. Scaffolding blocks large vehicles.
A-F: The long way round; chances are you will miss any appointments.
B-C: Dense crowds moving through the market; keen vendors likely to buttonhole you.
B-G: The elevated walkway removes you from the sight of the fish being gutted, but not all of the smell.
C-D: The trams always slow down by the dockside; the walkway is full of people who know this.
D-E: Clash as a religious procession meets a syndicalist demonstration. Definitely crowds, possibly violence
E-F: Secretary Park was once accessible to residents only. The gates have yet to betaken down and restrict traffic
E-H: A narrow walkway. Better hope nobody is trying to take a hand cart across.
G-H: Gangs doing a trade in odour-muffling face masks impregnated with a minor stimulant clash for territory on the cannery walkways.
Going off-grid
B-C: Maintenance access. Lots of delivery vans and technicians to dodge.
D-E: Back alleys and parallel streets slowly fill with police (uniformed or otherwise). Just monitoring the crowds, for now.
G-H: Through the Cannery. You aren't supposed to be here, and there's lots of industrial machinery to dodge around.
[B, C, D, E] - [G, H] - A dock full of fish to navigate through. Hope you know someone with a punt.
Deep Country: The Approach to the Joelite Range
Landmarks and Paths
A Second Nun Bend (A railway station largely dedicated to repairing the track dow to the river valley)
B Burn Reeving (A watch station is maintained at this point, despite the lack of river traffic or fishing trade)
C Pardoner's Crossing (The trains from the mines need to pass through here. That's all the importance it has.)
D Manciple Station (A former town, known for the cattle trade. Empty stockyards now inhabited by things other than cattle)
E Topaz Junction (Railway yard, with signal box and other buildings decorated with low-grade semi-precious stones from the mines)
F The Husband's Bath (By the junction of the rivers a large hole has been dug. Local stories claim a lazy husband was forcibly scrubbed there.)
G Barton Franklin (Once known for the quality of the waters; now known as the town you stop at one the way to the mines)
Complications
A-C Scree has blocked one of the rail lines
B-C A river toll levied at Pardoner's Crossing
C-E The signal station at Topaz Junction refuses to let anyone through. Desperate brigands hide there.
C-F The river is full of sharp rocks.
D-E Only one train in ten has any reason to stop at Manciple.
E-G The Prefecture Warden's deputies are conducting a search of the moors. You may be held at a way-station and interrogated.
Going Off-Route
Between A-C-F: Steep Slopes (Loose scree, dust, precipitous drops)
Between E-G: Damp Heath (hills, dense scrub, heather)
Downriver from F: Former Proving Grounds (Unexploded munitions, shell craters, barbed wire)
E-X: Out on the moors, a former hunting lodge can be seen. Behind it, something tall, covered in scaffolding.
F-X Across the river, the sandbag-clad bulk of an observation post.
G-X Below the railway cutting, a former sanatorium in heavily wooded grounds.
Part Two here.
Monday, 16 March 2020
Postcard Games: Improvised Playing Cards
In order to give your tabletop setting a little flavour, you might want to create a set of images or icons necessary to fuel, for instance, the symbols of the suits of playing cards, or the tiles of Mahjong or the signs of the Zodiac - or even the Loteria (thanks, Tim Powers). These aren't as such arbitrary, having their own heritage and meaning - but I would argue the way they are used can be and that any wider context for these (for instance, why the constellation of Capricorn is named as it is) rarely plays a part in their use.
I possess a (larger than necessary) collection of postcards purchased from Museums and Galleries over the years. These images would form the basis for the symbols involved. I decided to pick only the portrait orientated pictures - just as a real playing card. I excluded any repetitions or near-repetitions (for instance, Edward IV and Richard III, or two scenes of the Annunciation). I also excluded anything too close to an existing symbol (no fools or magicians), anything too modern or anything with an obvious literary root (a scene of HG Wells's Tripods, for instance).
The biggest grouping of symbols for fortune-telling, card games, aesthetic schemes &c, I thought to be the Tarot. So I drew three set of images:
4 Suits
3 Face cards
17 Major Picture cards (Major Arcana)
(This last figure was decided as being d12 + 10. That many unique images should serve most goals above. If putting a rule on this, I would say 1d6 suits, 1d4 face cards.)
So what did I get?
Well, we have our Suits:
Bears, Serpents, Rams and Owls. (I chose Serpent over Dragon to unify the suits as mundane beasts.)
Next, the face cards:
Huntsman, Syndic and Hierarch. Whoever these people may actually be, these are the names I am picking. Besides, 'The Hierarch of Rams' sounds rad.
And so, onto the picture cards:
The Flightless Bird, the Pyx and the Stylite.
The Charter, the Maiden of the Wilderness, the Battle
The Effigy, the Procession, the Mystic Rose [Cue TS Eliot]
The Companions, the Scholars, the Surgeon
The Glass, the Harper, the Hospitable Castellan
The Stairway, the Garden
[If you want to know where any of these come from, just ask and I'll post it in the comments.]
So, there it is. One pseudo-Tarot suitable for use in a constructed world at the tabletop, set aside from real iconography.
In-universe people might know and use the suits and face cards for games, but have no real knowledge of the picture cards. Your one fortune-teller or magician might know the meaning - and of course these meanings can be created in the course of play.
A method for creating sets of symbols - it could be used for artistic motifs or coats of arms or even street gangs (the South Side Mystic Roses?). Perhaps you don't even need postcards.....
I possess a (larger than necessary) collection of postcards purchased from Museums and Galleries over the years. These images would form the basis for the symbols involved. I decided to pick only the portrait orientated pictures - just as a real playing card. I excluded any repetitions or near-repetitions (for instance, Edward IV and Richard III, or two scenes of the Annunciation). I also excluded anything too close to an existing symbol (no fools or magicians), anything too modern or anything with an obvious literary root (a scene of HG Wells's Tripods, for instance).
The biggest grouping of symbols for fortune-telling, card games, aesthetic schemes &c, I thought to be the Tarot. So I drew three set of images:
4 Suits
3 Face cards
17 Major Picture cards (Major Arcana)
(This last figure was decided as being d12 + 10. That many unique images should serve most goals above. If putting a rule on this, I would say 1d6 suits, 1d4 face cards.)
So what did I get?
Well, we have our Suits:
Bears, Serpents, Rams and Owls. (I chose Serpent over Dragon to unify the suits as mundane beasts.)
Next, the face cards:
Huntsman, Syndic and Hierarch. Whoever these people may actually be, these are the names I am picking. Besides, 'The Hierarch of Rams' sounds rad.
And so, onto the picture cards:
The Flightless Bird, the Pyx and the Stylite.
The Charter, the Maiden of the Wilderness, the Battle
The Effigy, the Procession, the Mystic Rose [Cue TS Eliot]
The Companions, the Scholars, the Surgeon
The Glass, the Harper, the Hospitable Castellan
The Stairway, the Garden
[If you want to know where any of these come from, just ask and I'll post it in the comments.]
So, there it is. One pseudo-Tarot suitable for use in a constructed world at the tabletop, set aside from real iconography.
In-universe people might know and use the suits and face cards for games, but have no real knowledge of the picture cards. Your one fortune-teller or magician might know the meaning - and of course these meanings can be created in the course of play.
A method for creating sets of symbols - it could be used for artistic motifs or coats of arms or even street gangs (the South Side Mystic Roses?). Perhaps you don't even need postcards.....
Saturday, 14 March 2020
Electric Bastionland: First Thoughts
I put in a spot of money for the Electric Bastionland Kickstarter, and was duly rewarded with a PDF. So then, a few words on it, for the general discussion.
The book is roughly divided into three section: An Introduction with details of the Into the Odd rules, a list of character Failed Careers backgrounds and advice for play, involving details of the setting.
A presumed party of would-be adventurers automatically start with a debt and someone (or something) to whom they owe money. This skips neatly over the improbabilities of player characterisation and, frankly, allows a probable cause for the dangerous work of dungeon crawling in a city buzzing with money and possibility. Also, it adds an automatic contact - a mentor or benefactor, though also a predator. It's an elegant source of motivation.
This is bolstered by a list of Failed Careers and people you owe money to. It gives superb variety; there are about a hundred careers, each with unique items and skills attached. The city of Bastion, much like (for instance) Virconium or Gormenghast does not really have an official map or set of parameters. So the list of careers is the meat of the setting - setting up the main flavour of Bastionland. On top of that, the black and white art, full of blank faces and thin lines gives a very good impression of squalor, shabbiness, brash fashion and detached stylish opulence. There is a deliberate urban 'cool' to it in places.
Following this, as I said, is a set of advice for play. This is good, frankly. Neatly laid out, with bullet points grouped into threes. The advice for play and for the Conductor (GM or similar) seems sound - and, even if were you disagree with the philosophy, it is nearly laid out and comprehensible.
Electric Bastionland is not a toolkit for describing cities. Yes, as it says, Nobody's Bastion is incorrect, but Bastion is not a description of early-mid 20th century city life (and how to use that for tabletop RPGs). It is a more poetic rendering of the city, where the world is divided into Bastion, Deep Country, the Underground and the Living Stars. Other cities exist, but none can compete with Bastion. The City is moves and changes at astonishing rate - with nothing like a central authority, the Country is supremely hidebound, the Underground spectacularly dark.
One principles of the city boroughs of Bastion is that there is always a crowd; that if possible, a problem or obstacle should always be a human being. 'Mastery of People is Mastery of Bastion'. The city is always crowded, always living. Bastion has no business districts deserted at the weekend, no vibrant provincial towns with artistic colonies, no stifling domestic suburbs, no demands of a central government, no national spirit (nationalism within Bastion seems possible, but probably not of any simple type). Maybe I am thinking too much of the late twentieth century, mass communication and mass transit - but Metro-land and the Holloway of Diary of a Nobody certainly predate this.
It is a poetic cityscape, an archetype put into formal, almost ritualised terms for use on the tabletop. That isn't automatically bad - I've never felt that RPGs have to be simulations - but I like some of my wider context to be a little granular. It is so unremittingly urban-centric that I want to rejig my anti-urban setting to act as a mental counterweight. It works, and can work for a great many things.
I suppose I would square the circle by having Bastion as the metropole of a larger empire/alliance/federation &c, rather than the literal City beyond all Cities, even if it is that for all intents and purposes.
I like Electric Bastionland. I want to use Electric Bastionland. You may do so as well. I might post a few worked examples here. But remember what it is before you try to use the setting as it is on the page.
The book is roughly divided into three section: An Introduction with details of the Into the Odd rules, a list of character Failed Careers backgrounds and advice for play, involving details of the setting.
A presumed party of would-be adventurers automatically start with a debt and someone (or something) to whom they owe money. This skips neatly over the improbabilities of player characterisation and, frankly, allows a probable cause for the dangerous work of dungeon crawling in a city buzzing with money and possibility. Also, it adds an automatic contact - a mentor or benefactor, though also a predator. It's an elegant source of motivation.
This is bolstered by a list of Failed Careers and people you owe money to. It gives superb variety; there are about a hundred careers, each with unique items and skills attached. The city of Bastion, much like (for instance) Virconium or Gormenghast does not really have an official map or set of parameters. So the list of careers is the meat of the setting - setting up the main flavour of Bastionland. On top of that, the black and white art, full of blank faces and thin lines gives a very good impression of squalor, shabbiness, brash fashion and detached stylish opulence. There is a deliberate urban 'cool' to it in places.
Following this, as I said, is a set of advice for play. This is good, frankly. Neatly laid out, with bullet points grouped into threes. The advice for play and for the Conductor (GM or similar) seems sound - and, even if were you disagree with the philosophy, it is nearly laid out and comprehensible.
Electric Bastionland is not a toolkit for describing cities. Yes, as it says, Nobody's Bastion is incorrect, but Bastion is not a description of early-mid 20th century city life (and how to use that for tabletop RPGs). It is a more poetic rendering of the city, where the world is divided into Bastion, Deep Country, the Underground and the Living Stars. Other cities exist, but none can compete with Bastion. The City is moves and changes at astonishing rate - with nothing like a central authority, the Country is supremely hidebound, the Underground spectacularly dark.
One principles of the city boroughs of Bastion is that there is always a crowd; that if possible, a problem or obstacle should always be a human being. 'Mastery of People is Mastery of Bastion'. The city is always crowded, always living. Bastion has no business districts deserted at the weekend, no vibrant provincial towns with artistic colonies, no stifling domestic suburbs, no demands of a central government, no national spirit (nationalism within Bastion seems possible, but probably not of any simple type). Maybe I am thinking too much of the late twentieth century, mass communication and mass transit - but Metro-land and the Holloway of Diary of a Nobody certainly predate this.
It is a poetic cityscape, an archetype put into formal, almost ritualised terms for use on the tabletop. That isn't automatically bad - I've never felt that RPGs have to be simulations - but I like some of my wider context to be a little granular. It is so unremittingly urban-centric that I want to rejig my anti-urban setting to act as a mental counterweight. It works, and can work for a great many things.
I suppose I would square the circle by having Bastion as the metropole of a larger empire/alliance/federation &c, rather than the literal City beyond all Cities, even if it is that for all intents and purposes.
I like Electric Bastionland. I want to use Electric Bastionland. You may do so as well. I might post a few worked examples here. But remember what it is before you try to use the setting as it is on the page.
Saturday, 22 February 2020
Punth: An Interlude
The Primer: Chapters 1, 2, 3
Work on the land of Punth continues, albeit slowly. However, as I sketch out the next portion of the primer, I have been looking at setting and background.
In my one complete Punth hexcrawl I had laid out the complete background for Punth, the Qryth and so forth. I don't want to formally remove that from the Canon, but some of the questions of the setting should be left for interpretation.
People don't necessary pick up RPG books for a fully wrought adventure. I have no grand media empire to expect that anyone will be using all of Terrae Vertebrae. I'm not looking to fashion Lore. All worlds created in the course of gaming, I suspect, resemble Virconium more than they do Middle-Earth.
Of course, even a blank sheet of paper has limits, though one may draw whatever one wishes on it. The narrative in the hexcrawl post was fairly specific, but more about the past than the present. That narrative still holds fairly well to my image of Punth, but it is now the 'Lowest Common Denominator'. The story a scholar investigating Punth might most readily tell, based on generally accessible evidence. This is not the same as the absolute truth.
The Qryth are still green and four-armed; there was still a tower that fell, there are still deserts and sand-dunes.
But there are a few areas to decide for one's self:
- How sincere are the Qryth in their role as leaders - do they live by the Codes themselves?
- Can (and do) the Qryth communicate by other means than by the Codes?
- How competent are the Qryth? [Yes, stronger and faster than any human. But how well is Punth getting along?]
- What is the nature of the Ka-Punth's revolt against the Qryth? [Freedom fighters or terrorists?]
- If the Qryth were to die off, would the state of Punth maintain itself in roughly the same fashion?
- If the Qryth were to be contacted by their home planet, would they be welcomed home? Or have they been so thoroughly culture-warped and genefucked that they would never wish to?*
- What was the Sorcerer-King trying to accomplish?
- Can Punthites wield magic? Or must they rely on outsiders, willing or otherwise?
- Do the djinn have any genuine power, or are they only unquiet spirits?
- Do the djinn have any collective plan to regain their former power?
Anyway, the Primer rumbles slowly onwards. I might commission some art one of these days. An Appendix-N post might not be a bad idea.
*The Qryth's world presumably having developed along very different lines, so that a company of enlightened peaceable Star Trek-types could arrive to rescue a set of inbred maniac jarheads who have been playing the role of Colonel Kurtz with the natives - and react in horror.
Saturday, 15 February 2020
Alignment Embodiments
On the template establsihed by noisms:
Lawful Good - Aslan
Lawful Neutral - Judge Dredd
Lawful Evil - Mephistopheles
Neutral Good - Gandalf
True Neutral - Bartleby the Scrivener
Neutral Evil - King Casmir, Vance's Lyonesse
Chaotic Good - Asterix the Gaul
Chaotic Neutral - Conan the Barbarian
Chaotic Evil - The Un-Man from Perelandra
Any thoughts?
Lawful Good - Aslan
Lawful Neutral - Judge Dredd
Lawful Evil - Mephistopheles
Neutral Good - Gandalf
True Neutral - Bartleby the Scrivener
Neutral Evil - King Casmir, Vance's Lyonesse
Chaotic Good - Asterix the Gaul
Chaotic Neutral - Conan the Barbarian
Chaotic Evil - The Un-Man from Perelandra
Any thoughts?
Thursday, 13 February 2020
Rogue Trooper: Nightmare Machines, Endless War and the First Person
Rogue Trooper began life in the British comic 2000AD, the work of Gerry Findlay-Day and Dave Gibbons. The time? The future. The place is Nu-Earth, a paradise world at a hyperspace junction devastated by years of war between two great alliances, the Norts and the Southers. This planet is so poisoned by chemical weapons that in most places humans cannot survive without a sealed chemsuit.
Hence the Southers created the GIs - Genetic Infantrymen - who can survive the poison atmosphere with no mask. But in their first action they were betrayed by a Souther general and massacred. One survived to hunt down the traitor outside the military chain of command- the titular Rogue Trooper. He is accompanied by the remains of his friends, personalities implanted in biochips attached to his war-gear, still speaking to him as he roams the poison wastes.
Enough of the summary. This is inspired by a reread of the first omnibus volume put out by 2000AD. There's some of Dave Gibbons's characteristic black and white art in that link, and you may conjure his name in connection with another blue post-human.
The lone solider figure of Rogue is a familiar enough one, haunted literally and figuratively by his dead comrades - hoping not just to find the traitor, but to find new bodies for the biochips in his gear. His progress is told episodically, with miniature tale after miniature tale linked together - as one might expect from a weekly comic.
His own side, the Southers are rarely depicted in full view. We see odd units and the occasional glimpse of a distant (literally, on a satellite) command 'Millicom'.
(There is a constant interweaved future slang: Nu-Earth, the ruined city of Nu-Paree, with the Mitterrand Tower, 'Synth' applied to everything, the Nort exclamation of 'Nain!' or 'Stak!'. A bit goofy, maybe, but it gives a rolling gentle distinction to the language.)
Souther speech and habits look rather Anglophone; in time we would even see a Nort push into the 'Dix-i front'. Perhaps somebody had spotted the North-South angle. Either way, there is a sprinkling of American Civil War references: the cities of Memfizz and Nu Atlanta, the Georgia Volunteers, the song 'When the South goes marching in', the historic battle of Mek-Bull Run - even the port of Harpo's Ferry! [John Brown's body is a-rolling in it's grave...]
The Norts, however, are a far more interesting bunch. The Civil War angle is meant to perhaps imply some equivalence between the warring sides (in that both sides in a civil war are part of the same nation - they are kindred), though this is hardly how the Norts are portrayed. Inspired by the Nazis of Second World War comics (with a few Slavic overtones), they are by turns vicious and ugly, wearing full-face masks rather than the armoured astronaut-like Southers. Of course, we see far more of them. Rogue will walk into a firefight with some beleaguered Souther boys against an oncoming Nort force with superior weapons and help defeat them.
And such weapons! Guns, yes, but also vibro-daggers and lazookas. 'Decapitators' - hovering mines full of shrapnel. Automated sentry pillboxes. Drill-probes emerging from trench floors. Nort desert raiders riding genetically engineered 'Stammels'. Mountain troops on motorised snowboards. 'Blackmare' tanks the size of houses. The 'hard rain' of chem-suit piercing flechettes. Plantlike barbed wire, that traps and strangles its victims. Hallucinogen spraying tanks, that can appear as nightmarish vast spiders or snakes - or a float full of flowers and women. Laser-projected propaganda 'Holo-beam messages'. Poison saboteurs, nicknamed by the Southers 'Filth columnists'. The bizarre sight of the Sun Legions, Nort troopers apparently hang-gliding into battle from orbit (a notion so absurd they were later said to be extinct).
Well, what's the point of all this? Bizarre weapons and over-complex plans have some delight to them, to be sure. The need for a new hazard every few weeks also must have fuelled some creativity in the writers of the first run. But their is a sheer variety of complex industrial might levelled against the one lone trooper. It exudes a certain kind of atmosphere, found in a certain sub-genre.
The Protagonist has a weapon or two, and belongs to a nebulously defined organisation, often without clear ranks. The Antagonists are many, belong to a vast hierarchy and a equipped with startling variety. Not the Lone Wolf of Rogue Male, but something bigger, pulpier, set among the stars. Lone Space Wolf? [Sorry.] It's a matter I've considered before.
Of course, the Nort multiplicity of organisations (Army, Navy, Scum Marines, Sun Legion, Kashan Legions) is presumably meant to conjure up the different forces of Nazi Germany - the Wehrmacht, the SS, the SA, the Gestapo. Nonsense, in some ways - the Allies had quite as many different organisations and they could be just as characterful. A Gordon Highlander or Bengal lancer is a picturesque a sight as a soldier in full SS black.
Rogue Trooper has had a few spin-offs after the original run fell apart after the traitor general was found; Jaegir is perhaps the best, though it suckles from the teat of the grimdark rather. It tells the story of a Nort Kapitan-Inspector in the 'Office of Public Truth'.
It was made into a video game - a First Person Shooter, for which its narrative was almost perfectly suited. A lone soldier, the superior of any other, fighting hoards of enemies who can prove a challenge both in quality and quantity? Unfortunately, I am told by a relative who actually played it, that it was not much good. Duncan Jones is apparently adapting it for the screen - which will hopefully be better.
Speaking of FPSs, however, Rogue Trooper surely has a descendant in Killzone. I did not play them, but this brief series of games had a war between the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (boring, vaguely American) and the Helghast (cool name, gas mask, black armour, British accents, swastika-like emblem). I invite you to consider their respective wiki pages.
Hence the Southers created the GIs - Genetic Infantrymen - who can survive the poison atmosphere with no mask. But in their first action they were betrayed by a Souther general and massacred. One survived to hunt down the traitor outside the military chain of command- the titular Rogue Trooper. He is accompanied by the remains of his friends, personalities implanted in biochips attached to his war-gear, still speaking to him as he roams the poison wastes.
Enough of the summary. This is inspired by a reread of the first omnibus volume put out by 2000AD. There's some of Dave Gibbons's characteristic black and white art in that link, and you may conjure his name in connection with another blue post-human.
 |
| Originally found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/comics/2000adstrips/rogue/roguetrooper01.shtml Many thanks to the chaps at the BBC. |
The lone solider figure of Rogue is a familiar enough one, haunted literally and figuratively by his dead comrades - hoping not just to find the traitor, but to find new bodies for the biochips in his gear. His progress is told episodically, with miniature tale after miniature tale linked together - as one might expect from a weekly comic.
His own side, the Southers are rarely depicted in full view. We see odd units and the occasional glimpse of a distant (literally, on a satellite) command 'Millicom'.
(There is a constant interweaved future slang: Nu-Earth, the ruined city of Nu-Paree, with the Mitterrand Tower, 'Synth' applied to everything, the Nort exclamation of 'Nain!' or 'Stak!'. A bit goofy, maybe, but it gives a rolling gentle distinction to the language.)
Souther speech and habits look rather Anglophone; in time we would even see a Nort push into the 'Dix-i front'. Perhaps somebody had spotted the North-South angle. Either way, there is a sprinkling of American Civil War references: the cities of Memfizz and Nu Atlanta, the Georgia Volunteers, the song 'When the South goes marching in', the historic battle of Mek-Bull Run - even the port of Harpo's Ferry! [John Brown's body is a-rolling in it's grave...]
The Norts, however, are a far more interesting bunch. The Civil War angle is meant to perhaps imply some equivalence between the warring sides (in that both sides in a civil war are part of the same nation - they are kindred), though this is hardly how the Norts are portrayed. Inspired by the Nazis of Second World War comics (with a few Slavic overtones), they are by turns vicious and ugly, wearing full-face masks rather than the armoured astronaut-like Southers. Of course, we see far more of them. Rogue will walk into a firefight with some beleaguered Souther boys against an oncoming Nort force with superior weapons and help defeat them.
And such weapons! Guns, yes, but also vibro-daggers and lazookas. 'Decapitators' - hovering mines full of shrapnel. Automated sentry pillboxes. Drill-probes emerging from trench floors. Nort desert raiders riding genetically engineered 'Stammels'. Mountain troops on motorised snowboards. 'Blackmare' tanks the size of houses. The 'hard rain' of chem-suit piercing flechettes. Plantlike barbed wire, that traps and strangles its victims. Hallucinogen spraying tanks, that can appear as nightmarish vast spiders or snakes - or a float full of flowers and women. Laser-projected propaganda 'Holo-beam messages'. Poison saboteurs, nicknamed by the Southers 'Filth columnists'. The bizarre sight of the Sun Legions, Nort troopers apparently hang-gliding into battle from orbit (a notion so absurd they were later said to be extinct).
Well, what's the point of all this? Bizarre weapons and over-complex plans have some delight to them, to be sure. The need for a new hazard every few weeks also must have fuelled some creativity in the writers of the first run. But their is a sheer variety of complex industrial might levelled against the one lone trooper. It exudes a certain kind of atmosphere, found in a certain sub-genre.
The Protagonist has a weapon or two, and belongs to a nebulously defined organisation, often without clear ranks. The Antagonists are many, belong to a vast hierarchy and a equipped with startling variety. Not the Lone Wolf of Rogue Male, but something bigger, pulpier, set among the stars. Lone Space Wolf? [Sorry.] It's a matter I've considered before.
Of course, the Nort multiplicity of organisations (Army, Navy, Scum Marines, Sun Legion, Kashan Legions) is presumably meant to conjure up the different forces of Nazi Germany - the Wehrmacht, the SS, the SA, the Gestapo. Nonsense, in some ways - the Allies had quite as many different organisations and they could be just as characterful. A Gordon Highlander or Bengal lancer is a picturesque a sight as a soldier in full SS black.
Rogue Trooper has had a few spin-offs after the original run fell apart after the traitor general was found; Jaegir is perhaps the best, though it suckles from the teat of the grimdark rather. It tells the story of a Nort Kapitan-Inspector in the 'Office of Public Truth'.
 |
| Complete with traumatic memories of Nu-Earth and the protagonist of the original! From Jaegir: Circe, 2000AD Progs 1893-1899 |
It was made into a video game - a First Person Shooter, for which its narrative was almost perfectly suited. A lone soldier, the superior of any other, fighting hoards of enemies who can prove a challenge both in quality and quantity? Unfortunately, I am told by a relative who actually played it, that it was not much good. Duncan Jones is apparently adapting it for the screen - which will hopefully be better.
Speaking of FPSs, however, Rogue Trooper surely has a descendant in Killzone. I did not play them, but this brief series of games had a war between the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (boring, vaguely American) and the Helghast (cool name, gas mask, black armour, British accents, swastika-like emblem). I invite you to consider their respective wiki pages.
 |
| Quite what the difference is between a Shock Trooper and an Assault Infantryman, I should not like to say. Found here: https://killzone.fandom.com/wiki/Helghast_Army |
If the above does not suggest a Rogue Trooper parallel, perhaps the hazardous, polutted Helghan will.
It's an odd question - why not have well-defined Protagonist factions? Time is one factor - how long do you have to tell your audience about a place? A negative portrayal is probably quicker to rouse up than a positive one. The slow start of Peter Jackson's adaptation of Lord of the Rings allows for this, having to do quite a bit of heavy lifting for a presumed newcomer to Tolkien. Even here, of course, the portrayal is mixed: The Shire is innocent, but ignorant. Rivendell is the seat of wisdom, but lacking in the power it once had.
Why can I not get excited about the prospect of the ISA Constitution and Statue of Liberty? An ill-defined state can be whatever you want it to be, of course. Perhaps I'd rather have that than Gears of War with it's Coalition of Ordered Governments, created seemingly solely for the pun but giving obvious direction towards an authoritarian angle. Though the comparison between the Evil Empire (rules-based, governed, uniformed) and the Alliance of Freedom (anyone can pick up a gun and join) is one that may appeal to the libertarian. More than all this though, the lack of detail is sort of insulting - Shabby. Incomplete.
(The FPS antidote to the Lone Wolf may be early Call of Duty. As this chap lays out at length, each narrative gives a view of several units of ordinary men on several fronts. Call of Duty 3 may tread well-worn ground in Normandy and Western Europe, but does so switching between Americans, the British, the French Resistance, Canadians and Poles.)
Well, it all makes me appreciate tabletop wargames all the more. Each faction to be laid out with a variety of fascinating, characterful units; each to receive a ration of lore to back them. Rogue Trooper probably gave something to the feel of Warhammer 40,000; 2000AD was certainly an influence. I suppose this is what I enjoy in my war stories, or any story of great deeds. Multiple perspectives, variety, details, verisimilitude. I've been reading The Cruel Sea; Monserrat has some of these. Tom Clancy also, sometimes. I'm not sure that sort of story is always possible on film, however.
I have room for the mythic, indeterminate, bizarre or pulpy, and enjoy Rogue Trooper. There's something almost Passion-Play like about it. But it has some odd echoes elsewhere.
It's an odd question - why not have well-defined Protagonist factions? Time is one factor - how long do you have to tell your audience about a place? A negative portrayal is probably quicker to rouse up than a positive one. The slow start of Peter Jackson's adaptation of Lord of the Rings allows for this, having to do quite a bit of heavy lifting for a presumed newcomer to Tolkien. Even here, of course, the portrayal is mixed: The Shire is innocent, but ignorant. Rivendell is the seat of wisdom, but lacking in the power it once had.
Why can I not get excited about the prospect of the ISA Constitution and Statue of Liberty? An ill-defined state can be whatever you want it to be, of course. Perhaps I'd rather have that than Gears of War with it's Coalition of Ordered Governments, created seemingly solely for the pun but giving obvious direction towards an authoritarian angle. Though the comparison between the Evil Empire (rules-based, governed, uniformed) and the Alliance of Freedom (anyone can pick up a gun and join) is one that may appeal to the libertarian. More than all this though, the lack of detail is sort of insulting - Shabby. Incomplete.
(The FPS antidote to the Lone Wolf may be early Call of Duty. As this chap lays out at length, each narrative gives a view of several units of ordinary men on several fronts. Call of Duty 3 may tread well-worn ground in Normandy and Western Europe, but does so switching between Americans, the British, the French Resistance, Canadians and Poles.)
Well, it all makes me appreciate tabletop wargames all the more. Each faction to be laid out with a variety of fascinating, characterful units; each to receive a ration of lore to back them. Rogue Trooper probably gave something to the feel of Warhammer 40,000; 2000AD was certainly an influence. I suppose this is what I enjoy in my war stories, or any story of great deeds. Multiple perspectives, variety, details, verisimilitude. I've been reading The Cruel Sea; Monserrat has some of these. Tom Clancy also, sometimes. I'm not sure that sort of story is always possible on film, however.
I have room for the mythic, indeterminate, bizarre or pulpy, and enjoy Rogue Trooper. There's something almost Passion-Play like about it. But it has some odd echoes elsewhere.
Wednesday, 5 February 2020
Excalibur, Armour, Dragons
A recent viewing of the 1981 John Boorman film Excalibur made me think lightly about costume.
Two light points to begin with:
1) Happy, dancing matrons in blockish medieval headdresses is by no means a bad look.
2) Congratulations to Nicol Williamson for playing the mighty wizard Merlin 'Chromebonce'.
But more particularly, every scene is full of men wearing armour. Knights are almost perpetually in armour. Armour uncovered by tabards or paint or engraving. Obviously metal armour. It becomes almost part of their being. The knight is not determined by their weapon (other than Excalibur, everyone is quite happy to switch weapons every so often) or their personal heraldry (rarely in evidence, aside from flags - never focused on, really).
Before the coming of Arthur, this is crude, black iron armour, with conspicuous spikes or studs. There are prominent straps and jangling discs. Heavy masks cover the face. Pauldrons are weighty and asymmetric. Modred's rebels share this armour. There is something Orc-like in it, though this may be a Peter Jackson-inspired retrospective thought. At any rate, the message is clear: until Arthur comes, we are all orcs - and it is worth remembering that the knights of Camelot are the raiders and reavers that rode with Uther, or their sons.
At Camelot, however, armour is shinier, sleeker and symmetric. Better proportioned, cleaner. The effect is striking and doubtless intentional. When knights wearing the two different types of armour fight, it is as if a Space Marine of the 41st Millennium is fighting Captain America: the clear, colourful, human and heroic against the hulking, industrial and deliberately ugly. Or, indeed, like watching Darth Vader fight Luke Skywalker.
Modred himself, of course, wears gold armour with spiked edges, a sculpted breastplate and a helmet shaped like a human face. An imperial, trying-too-hard parody of a knight, perhaps. I suspect that this was in a different way what the costume designers were going for with Snoke in The Last Jedi, with his gold robe, bright throne room and elaborately armoured guards; no dull, vast machinery and black hood for him. A pity the look was not maintained for other antagonists.
The look of these armours is so uniform to imply a degree of unreality - could any set of armour be so perfectly in keeping with its peers? But that's no real problem in this film.
***
One of the odder little details of the film are the pseudo-Nature worship angle of Merlin and Morgan Le Fay's magic. It's rather a step away from the tomes-and-alchemy Merlin of The Once and Future King, for instance. But it isn't (quite) the Celtic pagan remnant associated with Marion Zimmer Bradley (though interestingly, there is a constant 'Celtic Christianity'* feel to the Christianity of the film - beards, strange tonsures, gestures of blessing with oak branches).
Instead, we get strange paens to the possibly amoral force of the land called the Dragon. Difficult to summon up, unconcerned much with individuals and if not omnipresent, then certainly extensive in its presence. If it has a morality, the big-picture political concerns of Merlin and the health of the land are the closest thing it has.
The Prophet class of The 52 Pages might form an agreeable fit for a Merlin-esque character, or 'Prophet of the Great Dragon'.
Spell Schools: Knowledge, Nature, Illusion
Motto: Unite the Land and Make it Healthy
Symbol: Coiling serpent
Weapon: Staff, Metal Skullcap
*Not that we really have a solid idea of what that looked like, hence the scare quotes.
Two light points to begin with:
1) Happy, dancing matrons in blockish medieval headdresses is by no means a bad look.
2) Congratulations to Nicol Williamson for playing the mighty wizard Merlin 'Chromebonce'.
But more particularly, every scene is full of men wearing armour. Knights are almost perpetually in armour. Armour uncovered by tabards or paint or engraving. Obviously metal armour. It becomes almost part of their being. The knight is not determined by their weapon (other than Excalibur, everyone is quite happy to switch weapons every so often) or their personal heraldry (rarely in evidence, aside from flags - never focused on, really).
Before the coming of Arthur, this is crude, black iron armour, with conspicuous spikes or studs. There are prominent straps and jangling discs. Heavy masks cover the face. Pauldrons are weighty and asymmetric. Modred's rebels share this armour. There is something Orc-like in it, though this may be a Peter Jackson-inspired retrospective thought. At any rate, the message is clear: until Arthur comes, we are all orcs - and it is worth remembering that the knights of Camelot are the raiders and reavers that rode with Uther, or their sons.
At Camelot, however, armour is shinier, sleeker and symmetric. Better proportioned, cleaner. The effect is striking and doubtless intentional. When knights wearing the two different types of armour fight, it is as if a Space Marine of the 41st Millennium is fighting Captain America: the clear, colourful, human and heroic against the hulking, industrial and deliberately ugly. Or, indeed, like watching Darth Vader fight Luke Skywalker.
Modred himself, of course, wears gold armour with spiked edges, a sculpted breastplate and a helmet shaped like a human face. An imperial, trying-too-hard parody of a knight, perhaps. I suspect that this was in a different way what the costume designers were going for with Snoke in The Last Jedi, with his gold robe, bright throne room and elaborately armoured guards; no dull, vast machinery and black hood for him. A pity the look was not maintained for other antagonists.
The look of these armours is so uniform to imply a degree of unreality - could any set of armour be so perfectly in keeping with its peers? But that's no real problem in this film.
***
One of the odder little details of the film are the pseudo-Nature worship angle of Merlin and Morgan Le Fay's magic. It's rather a step away from the tomes-and-alchemy Merlin of The Once and Future King, for instance. But it isn't (quite) the Celtic pagan remnant associated with Marion Zimmer Bradley (though interestingly, there is a constant 'Celtic Christianity'* feel to the Christianity of the film - beards, strange tonsures, gestures of blessing with oak branches).
Instead, we get strange paens to the possibly amoral force of the land called the Dragon. Difficult to summon up, unconcerned much with individuals and if not omnipresent, then certainly extensive in its presence. If it has a morality, the big-picture political concerns of Merlin and the health of the land are the closest thing it has.
The Prophet class of The 52 Pages might form an agreeable fit for a Merlin-esque character, or 'Prophet of the Great Dragon'.
Spell Schools: Knowledge, Nature, Illusion
Motto: Unite the Land and Make it Healthy
Symbol: Coiling serpent
Weapon: Staff, Metal Skullcap
*Not that we really have a solid idea of what that looked like, hence the scare quotes.
Tuesday, 28 January 2020
Fields of Light
Let us consider the 'big Empire' concept talked about by Joseph Manola in his (excellent) WFRP reviews. So we are on the same page, let's say that it can be expressed in the following way:
The Empire [or other generic Realm of Men] is big, but hollow. Between the cities are deep forests and mountains. There are few roads and fewer people; dark things lurk there. A fragile connection between towns and cites is maintained. The cities are full of people and wealth, protected by walls and cannon - but the a different darkness lurks there, in the sewers and slums and secret cult meetings.
Now, I realise that this could describe quite a few fantasy roleplaying settings. You can buy more things in cities, and the perils in them are likely to be different. But the Empire and the Old World will do best to illustrate this.
What if we deliberately invert this? I'll maintain (something like) the Mitteleuropean setting of Warhammer, for ease of reference.
***
We find ourselves in a world where the cities have been abandoned, with only high citadels enduring in the ruins of broken stone and crumbling houses. The plague took them, the famine took them - the rats took them. As the soldiers that still defend a few harbours and bridges might tell you, there is such a thing as Skaven.* Some brave or mad fools try and find wealth in the abandoned cities - a fruitless errand, for so little was left there.
Resettled, the countryside is full of wealth and well-populated. Population density is lesser than in cities, of course, but farmhouses are filled by extended families and household servants. There is no tiny isolated community as such; every village can produce a sufficient numbers of able-bodied workers or fighters.**
Trade goes on, but there are few places where merchants are permanently gathered. Rather, fairs are held at periodic times throughout the year in suitable locales. Even the grandest of these do not erect permanent structures to facilitate these. Merchants are not quite nomadic; they will rather store goods and coin in secure compounds in their own village.
The King? Only the greatest of local lords now, burdened with the expense of the royal progress. It would be unwise to tell him that, though. Besides, someone is expected to lead, or look like they are leading.
The great (though not sole) deity of these lands is Ypsilon, Lord of the Plough. Ypsilon of the Straight Furrow, Ypsilon of the Hedges, Ypsilon of the Silver Sickle. He is said to have been the first man to clear the fields and grow wheat - and then to defend those fields. His clergy make ritual journeys about the field boundaries, sanctifying the crop. The faithful are expected to pay a great deal of attention to the calendar, to set about their labours without complaint - and to take their spears with them to the field. The Harvest Festival is pretty hardcore. There are no cathedrals for the overseers of the faith - they sanctify the roads while the parish clergy bless the fields.
Learning is not found in the urban schools or universities, but in the independent monasteries set in fertile fields. High walls and full storerooms protect the libraries, as monks gather to dicsuss faith, magic and natural philosophy. Each monastery may evolve a particular speciality - alchemy, geometry, metallurgy, enchantment. Pilgrims wending their way between them carry books, ideas and devices. Each year, the world is further revealed.
Life in the country is good; a full day's work hopefully means a full belly, and the villages are safer by far than the towns. But despite this, there are whispers of rites in thorn-choked places, beyond the field edges. Worship of the gods of unbounded nature; the gods of unearned abundance, of choking rot, of hateful cold and of raw meat. Who knows what the villagers are hiding behind their hospitality? What lurks in the shadows of the orchard? What force could shatter a millstone?
I started with Early Modern Europe and I turned it into something like the Dark Ages: a loose net of civilisation, rather than points of light. A bit it of makes me think of 17th century Puritan New England, as well. Something far more focused on 'rural feudal' I suppose. But despite the bucolic edge makes a difference. Secret cults in creepy forests or isolated villages are perhaps expected; secret cults in hospitable taverns and village greens, perhaps not.
*Rather like Vermintide, I suppose. Not that I've ever played it.
**This isn't quite 'Tory Utopia'. But a certain form of agrarian conservatism would be at home in it.
The Empire [or other generic Realm of Men] is big, but hollow. Between the cities are deep forests and mountains. There are few roads and fewer people; dark things lurk there. A fragile connection between towns and cites is maintained. The cities are full of people and wealth, protected by walls and cannon - but the a different darkness lurks there, in the sewers and slums and secret cult meetings.
Now, I realise that this could describe quite a few fantasy roleplaying settings. You can buy more things in cities, and the perils in them are likely to be different. But the Empire and the Old World will do best to illustrate this.
What if we deliberately invert this? I'll maintain (something like) the Mitteleuropean setting of Warhammer, for ease of reference.
***
We find ourselves in a world where the cities have been abandoned, with only high citadels enduring in the ruins of broken stone and crumbling houses. The plague took them, the famine took them - the rats took them. As the soldiers that still defend a few harbours and bridges might tell you, there is such a thing as Skaven.* Some brave or mad fools try and find wealth in the abandoned cities - a fruitless errand, for so little was left there.
Resettled, the countryside is full of wealth and well-populated. Population density is lesser than in cities, of course, but farmhouses are filled by extended families and household servants. There is no tiny isolated community as such; every village can produce a sufficient numbers of able-bodied workers or fighters.**
Trade goes on, but there are few places where merchants are permanently gathered. Rather, fairs are held at periodic times throughout the year in suitable locales. Even the grandest of these do not erect permanent structures to facilitate these. Merchants are not quite nomadic; they will rather store goods and coin in secure compounds in their own village.
The King? Only the greatest of local lords now, burdened with the expense of the royal progress. It would be unwise to tell him that, though. Besides, someone is expected to lead, or look like they are leading.
The great (though not sole) deity of these lands is Ypsilon, Lord of the Plough. Ypsilon of the Straight Furrow, Ypsilon of the Hedges, Ypsilon of the Silver Sickle. He is said to have been the first man to clear the fields and grow wheat - and then to defend those fields. His clergy make ritual journeys about the field boundaries, sanctifying the crop. The faithful are expected to pay a great deal of attention to the calendar, to set about their labours without complaint - and to take their spears with them to the field. The Harvest Festival is pretty hardcore. There are no cathedrals for the overseers of the faith - they sanctify the roads while the parish clergy bless the fields.
Learning is not found in the urban schools or universities, but in the independent monasteries set in fertile fields. High walls and full storerooms protect the libraries, as monks gather to dicsuss faith, magic and natural philosophy. Each monastery may evolve a particular speciality - alchemy, geometry, metallurgy, enchantment. Pilgrims wending their way between them carry books, ideas and devices. Each year, the world is further revealed.
Life in the country is good; a full day's work hopefully means a full belly, and the villages are safer by far than the towns. But despite this, there are whispers of rites in thorn-choked places, beyond the field edges. Worship of the gods of unbounded nature; the gods of unearned abundance, of choking rot, of hateful cold and of raw meat. Who knows what the villagers are hiding behind their hospitality? What lurks in the shadows of the orchard? What force could shatter a millstone?
I started with Early Modern Europe and I turned it into something like the Dark Ages: a loose net of civilisation, rather than points of light. A bit it of makes me think of 17th century Puritan New England, as well. Something far more focused on 'rural feudal' I suppose. But despite the bucolic edge makes a difference. Secret cults in creepy forests or isolated villages are perhaps expected; secret cults in hospitable taverns and village greens, perhaps not.
*Rather like Vermintide, I suppose. Not that I've ever played it.
**This isn't quite 'Tory Utopia'. But a certain form of agrarian conservatism would be at home in it.
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