We use Every Part of the Dragon

So, you've killed yourself a dragon (Ahem). Or maybe it's a sphinx. Now, you are going to want to do something with the carcass. It is well known what happens when you roast a dragon's heart, but what about the rest of it?

Sigurd sucks his burnt thumb, while Reginn sleeps. 
Carvings from the Hylestad Stave Church, photographs by Wikipedia.

Conditions: you must be the first person to taste of the dragon's heart (or other organ). If a beast larger than an ear of wheat tastes even a little of it before you do, they gain the powers mentioned below. Only one person may gain such powers from the organ in question. It must be roasted over an open fire. 

No part of a dragon prepared thus is actively poisonous, but the consumption of large quantities of dragon will cause severe (not to say fiery) indigestion.

You roast and eat....	You can now...	You might learn about...	But generally in the form of....
The Dragon's Heart	Understand the speech of the birds	Threats to your life	A smooth, unhurried radio newsreader
The Dragon's Lungs	Understand the voices of the wind	Adverse weather conditions	Hymns with too many verses
The Dragon's Liver	Understand the distant booming of the earth and rocks	Civil engineering	Blank verse
The Dragon's Stomach	Understand the speech of mammals	Threats to your sanity	A precisely-worded sermon
The Dragon's Kidneys	Understand the songs of the rivers and streams	Direct routes downhill	Patter songs
The Dragon's Intestines	Understand the creaking chorus of the trees	Threats to the environment	A local government meeting
The Dragon's Brain	Understand the speech of Dragons	Gold prices	Light opera
The Dragon's Spleen	Understand the eternal dialogue of fish	Shipwrecks	Sardonic, quip-heavy remarks
The Dragon's Pancreas	Understand the sibilant speech of reptiles	Sources of information and fresh fruit	Compact, smug, maxims
The Dragon's Sparkgland	Understand the dry monologue of flame	Things around the fire that you can't see	A theatre review

The Gods do not smile upon mixed grills or kebabs. You eat one organ at a time. Do not add any sauces or seasoning to the cooked organ, other than perhaps a little salt. 

It is generally thought that anyone who can accomplish the feat of slaying a dragon will be able to procure a suitable set of butcher's knives to joint the beast with relative ease.

An image from the 2015 film Tale of Tales. 

Successful dragonslayers dispute the proper drink to accompany the dish: answers vary from 'Mead' to 'Fresh stream water'. Some suggest 'Two healing potions, one drunk quickly before you eat, the other sipped slowly afterwards'. Perhaps the most popular response is 'Anything you can get your hands on'.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Question of Antecedants

Premise

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

The State of the Art

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

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

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

Dealing with Antecedents

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

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

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

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

Implications

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

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

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

The Realms Beyond

Premise

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

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

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

The State of the Art

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

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

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

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

Planar Policy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Implications

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cover to Slumbering Ursine Dunes.

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Spell Schools

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

The spells quoted below are from The 52 Pages. 

Premise

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

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

The State of the Art

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

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

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

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

Opponents of the Teleotaxists

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

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

The Teleotaxists Divided

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

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

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

Implications

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

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

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

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

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

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

An obligatory reference to this part of Magical Industrial Revolution. 

The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Spell Levels

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

The spells quoted below are from The 52 Pages. 

Premise

Some spells are more complex, or have a greater effect, or a wider spread than others. Even the layman could tell that Fire Dart is doing less than Lesser Summon. Accordingly, magecraft has levels of skill and prowess involved. Even if a wizard is of journeyman status and presumably able to read wizard's script and work a spell, the initial spells they may work will be of a certain kind.  

The State of the Art

The wizardry of Calliste once worked this way: the spells your master gives you after serving your apprenticeship? Those are your 'first level spells'. 

Perhaps Arch-Proctor Sopespian feel that you should be taught Minor Summon before Unseen Servant in order to instruct you as to the unpredicatable nature of living magic - despite this being a more complex spell requiring greater reserves of your thaumic strength. 

Perhaps Restimar the Reticent feels that society at large is best served and mages are left unmolested when mischievous youngsters aren't taught Charm Person or Disguise. 

Perhaps Glozelle the Gamboge regards Translate as cheating, and that a young mage should get their grammar off by heart first before learning a useful short-cut for the field. 

Even beyond the Master-Pupil relationship, a Glozellian (or whoever) tradition ['Pointy gamboge hats will be worn on all formal occasions. If so desired, pupils may tuck ONE small flower into the hat-band.'] can develop over time, which ossifies the ruling on Translate above. 

Of course, wizarding traditions have matched and mingled sufficiently over the centuries. There are colleges of mages (and other institutions), in which the Restimari and the Glozellian can mix and compare notes. Some changes may have been wrought by this - but something still resembling the Glozellian tradition continues. And these changes are hardly universal: the Glozellians of Paviasse may have shifted their ban on Translate, but those in Malmery certainly haven't - and so the traditions proliferate. 

Enter the Tabulators. These are younger wizards who have decided to compose tables of spells, ranked by their cost in magical energies or complexity or some other objective factor than by what Glozelle (burnt to ashes fighting a dragon five centuries ago) or Restimar (emerges from his nacre crypt every four and sixty years to give cryptic advice, largely unrelated to the business of teaching) think. 

Opponents of the Tabulators

Those who stick to or recommend one tradition of magic are called Unicursalists. These are almost all 'Soft Unicursalists' - basically no-one but the most troglodyte would suggest that a wizard trained outside their tradition 'isn't doing magic' or 'isn't doing magic properly'. The Glozellian tradition is instead 'effective for these reasons' or 'particular relevant for these types of magic' or 'elegant' or  'tried and tested' or 'benevolent'.

Multicursalists are those who acknowledge there are many paths to teaching magic, each leading approximately the same place. They come from the newer formal magical institutions and colleges rather than isolated master-pupil relationships. A multicursalist might well acknowledge that the Tabualtors could accomplish their goal, but doesn't want to loose the perceived benefits of the evolved traditions. 

It is said scornfully by Tabulators that 'A unicursalist is only a multicursalist who can make up their mind.' No-one knows quite who first made the quip, and variations abound:  'A unicursalist is only a multicursalist with some pupils.' '...a multicursalist with an ego.' '...with a spine.' (&c.)

Tabulators will refer to unicursalists as 'mystogogues' and multicursalists as 'pædagogues'. Neither comparison is flattering. Tabulators in their turn are referred to as 'grocers' - that is, shelf-stockers and book-keepers. Their perceived naiveté and the style of the tables they get printed also won them the accolade 'Babes in the grid'. 

The Tabulators Divided

Among the Tabulators, two tendencies have developed. The first, the Naive school of thought, would (in theory) sell or make available the details of any spell to any wizard - as, basically, a matter of principle. Of course, if a twitchy young mage with bloodshot eyes, a serpent's-fang amulet and an obsidian ring shaped like a skull entered a Naive Tabulator's establishment, they may well think twice before selling or teaching them Lightning Bolt. 

Naturally, against the Naive are the Prudent Tabulators.  They are far more willing to set conditions on making a spell available, but will strive to make those conditions plain and transparent. The Naive regard this as rather too close to the multicursalists. 

Implications

As the reader may have gathered, the Tabulators are perhaps the closest thing to the disinterested magic shops appearing in video games, who apparently don't care about the potential problems involved in selling Acid Arrow to a scarred bloodstained stranger with too many weapons who pays you in strange coins that were last legal tender three centuries ago. 

This aside, there are other effects that the Tabulators' agenda would have on Calliste. Communities used to a certain set of wizarding behaviours would be disrupted as all sorts of spells are attempted by young mages. Economies used to a certain set of magical abilities being readily available would have to adjust quickly to the appearance of new services being offered and the dearth of previously relied-upon spells.

The stereotypical Tabulator institution is a shop with an attached training ground, not a school.  If the ideas of the Tabulators gain the upper hand, this may change. The old traditions with their named Primogenitors will diminish and new academies will take their places. A disruption to the supply of trained magicians is inevitable; princes and governors dislike this, but may be mollified by the prospect of more multi-purpose wizards. The apparent lawlessness of the Naive Tabulators makes them unappealing; several states may attempt to force them underground. 

Of course, the new status quo may be the wizarding shop, with its customer base of free-floating individualist wizards, without significant ties to schools or guilds.  Networks of patronage persist, as sources of occult power flow through new, informal channels.  Competition for sources of magic - spell catalogues and libraries, grimoires and eldritch idols - begins as the old order dies. Protection offered by the rich and powerful may become evermore appealing, and a new group of court magicians emerges.        

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

The Names of the Stars

I've used the geocentric or Ptolemaic model of the Solar System, (with the planets visible to the naked eye) as the basis for a few posts.  

This understanding of the cosmos is also employed, with variations, by C.S. Lewis, in one place or the other (Planet Narnia was a revelation). He's not alone. Dante models his Paradise after the Solar System, though this may be less well-remembered than the layers of the Inferno. Closer to home are the crystal spheres of Spelljammer. The classes of Sidereal Exalted derive from the visible planets and their associations; the list is completed by the Lunar and Solar Exalted. The esoteric panoply of astrological and alchemical symbols are a connected part of fantasy aesthetics; e.g, the cover of A Most Thoroughly Pernicious Pamphlet. 

While the Signs of the Zodiac as we know them seem to be out of the running, astrological conventions are not unknown in fantasy. To chose a fairly mainstream example, the Birthsigns of The Elder Scrolls series of video games (which strike me as, well, thuddingly obvious - 'You were born under the Sign of the Thief, guess what you're good at'). Where Capricorn, Scorpio et al appear it tends to be in the form of a somewhat arbitrary decision; see the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. They're a 'complete set' of images and can thus be used as an (uncontroversial?) artistic motif - as in the Wisconsin State Capitol, for one. The combination of completeness and variation associated with the Zodiac when taken as a whole perhaps explains their use on the dust jackets of The Reprint Society in the 1950s (see below), unconnected to the content of the book.

Image found here. Other variations on the theme are available.

But let's set all that aside. This isn't the time to discuss the planets - or the Zodiac, or indeed any given constellation. To give the bounds of my discussion, I am looking at the names of the stars that reach us out of the distant past. As interesting as the recent decisions of the IAU may be, I shall be considering the list of names below, found in an old copy of Norton's Star Atlas (the below being the 17th Edition from 1978).

The various naming conventions of star catalogues that give us, say, α Leonis, are useful but do not concern us here. 

Where, then, do the names of the stars appear? An obvious place to start is with science fiction. The (nominally) harder sort of science fiction uses them; witness the use of Rigel, Algol or Alnitak in Star Trek, Deneb in Blake's 7, Altair in Forbidden Planet, or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Of course, the rather looser Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will also happily refer to Barnard's Star, Betelgeuse or 'an Arcturan megadonkey'. 

The use of such names is perhaps to be expected in a future history of mankind among the stars - though, in the case of sentient alien life emerging on the planets of one of these stars, the question of what name is used to refer to it would be a matter of dispute. It would be a suitable characteristic for an expansionist human star empire to apply the old Terran names of the stars - whatever the native population or a breakaway human colony think of that. 

You would expect this to come up in Warhammer 40,000. It doesn't; on second thought unsurprisingly, given the years of decay and ruin. The names of the stars do appear but as part of the lexicon of history and myth from which authors can draw names of people, places, organisations, &c: Vega, Antares, Arcturus, Sirius, Polaris, Polaris (duplication should not surprise us). A number of planets have been named for stars: Algol, Deneb - can one witness a sunset if one is standing on a star? Altair VII - presumably the seventh planet to orbit Altair - is a pleasing exception. The Imperial Stars don't have much more that a name and a colour scheme, but if anyone is going to make an army of them, I think we have a few names they can use. [Edit: Oct 2022. In Rath's Assassinorum: Kingmaker, an assassin without any particular astronomical or artistic education recognises Ursa Major from the ceilings of cathedrals, portraying the sky as seen from Holy Terra. Of course the old constellations would be a religious-artistic motif.]

Star Wars is, of course, set in a galaxy far far away, but one can't help thinking that Alderaan and Aldebaran share a certain kinship as names. Besides this, the very nature of the names of the stars gives the model of proper names - the majority of planets in Star Wars appear to have these rather than codes or catalogue-type names; Yavin 4 being an honourable exception. 

To shift genres briefly, fantasy gives us an entirely different use of the names of the stars. A number of names in Harry Potter are taken directly from the above list: Sirius, Regulus, Bellatrix - all members of the same family (names derived from constellations are among the wider family as well: Cygnus, Orion, Andromeda, Draco). The Blacks are among the older and richer families of wizarding Britain: the aristocratic pretensions of stellar, Latinate names are presumably to be contrasted with earthier, more typical names - further, these snobby, prejudiced people with the strange names aren't a bit like us and the protagonists. This isn't the sole reasons for such names, of course: Sirius is the Dog Star and, if you did not know it already, you can guess what sort of animal Sirius Black can turn into.

Weird fiction has a number of uses of the names of the stars; Carcosa, famously, is among the Hyades. Lovecraft wrote a story called 'Polaris', featuring the remote gaze of the stars on an ancient polar civilisation (as well as the sort of racial prejudice that is absolutely text rather than sub-text). More pertinent is A Voyage to Arcturus. This describes Arcturus as a double star, but it is no such thing - though this is hardly the limt of the novel's strangeness. It almost needn't have been set on Arcturus at all. However, I would note that the use of the stars as ancient (hence the deliberate use of the older names) and distant is the point. 

Martian canals were being charted by Schiaperelli in 1877 and in 1897 H.G. Wells revealed to us that Martians were blood-sucking machine-using imperialists who are vulnerable to disease (that is to say, just like Human Beings). Edison conquered Mars soon after. Later sword-and-planet fantasies like A Princess of Mars (1912) or the Northwest Smith stories of C.L. Moore (1933 onward) don't just involve journies through space but time as well. Therefore, in order to get distant, alien Weird Fiction, David Lindsay has to portray an interstellar journey, not merely an interplanetary one. 

You may be aware that A Voyage to Arcturus was an inspiration for C.S. Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy - but that these take place on the planets of our own Solar System. In such this case, the nearness of Mars (Malacandra) to Earth (Thulcandra) is no handicap: it is part of the revelations of that series that space is by no means as dark and unfriendly as the denizens of fallen, sinful Earth - the titular Silent Planet - would believe. 

Speaking of Lewis, I have highlighted above the use of Medieval cosmology in his work. As for stars, I would note the astronomy lesson of the half-dwarf tutor Doctor Cornelius given to Prince Caspian (in Chapter Four of Prince Caspian). Here they watch as 'Tarva, the Lord of Victory, salutes Alambil, the Lady of Peace.' The epithets 'Lord of Victory' and 'Lady of Peace' seems more apt for planets than the stars ('Mars, the Bringer of War', 'Mercury, the Winged Messenger') but a planet is, after all, a wandering star. (This neglects the stars in human form like Coriakin or Ramandu encountered on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but neither are currently being a star so I shan't discuss them).

Tolkien would place among his Valar Varda, Queen of the Stars (the subject of all those Elven songs invoking Elbereth Gilthoniel). The stars of Middle-Earth come in to being before the Sun and Moon with dews of the Silver Tree Telperion (vitally, the Elves awaken under the stars) and form Constellations similar to our own. 'Wilwarin, Telumendil, Soronúmë and Anarríma' are named by the Silmarillion. 'Menelmacar with his shining belt' is presumably Orion. Valacirca, the Sickle of the Valar, is the Plough rotated ninety degrees. 'Carnil and Luinil, Nénar and Lumbar, Alcarinquë and Elemmírë' are named as individual stars, some with distinct colours. The Tolkien Gateway cites The History of Middle-Earth to indicate that these are the planets of the Solar System, but more named stars exist: Borgil, for one - which appears to be the Red Giant Aldebaran. 

The Valar have as their responsibility Middle-Earth and indeed are based there for many ages before Valinor is lifted from Arda. In this regard, Varda's stars are not (cosmically) distant and unfeeling, but rather visible and amiable markers. One might compare them to the weathercock atop a Church spire in a nearby village: you will never touch it, but in returning from a long journey you may see it and be comforted. 

Fritz Lieber has Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser directed as to timing by their wizardly patrons in 'The Bazaar of the Bizarre' using the green star Akul - which is apparently visible even in the night sky of Lankhmar, City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes. Perhaps it is made visible to the pair - the story does make use of wizardly enhancements of sight. 

That's been something of a digression, but I shall return to the subject at hand. Historical fiction will of course use the names of the stars, but one particular use stands out. This is the association of the people of Arabia with the stars. An early example is Lew Wallace's 1880 Ben-Hur (A Tale of the Christ). The horses of Sheik Ilderim (i.e, those used for the famous chariot race) are named for the stars: Mira, Sirius, Rigel, Antares, Aldebaran, Atair. The associations between the Arab World and astronomy can be as plain and superficial as the star and crescent symbol of Islam. A goodly number of the above names of the stars derive from Arabic - one thinks of Alnitak (al-nitaq), Megrez, or Algol (al-ghul) and the practice of Arab astronomy is witnessed by star catalogues like the Book of Fixed Stars. Ilderim in Ben-Hur explains this as the result of being in the desert at night, an explanation I recall from my schooldays (if with no firmer source than that). 

Of course, another explanation (also brought up by Ben-Hur) is the Magi of the Christmas Story, perhaps the most famous of astronomers royal. The Gospel of Matthew has them as 'wise men from the east' (μάγοι ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν) in its Second Chapter. The Persian origin of the word 'Magi' aside, they are clearly not of Judea and the Near East, but from further off - the Middle East.  Later tradition would bring in the 'Three Kings' portion (echoing Old Testament prophecy about Kings worshipping the Messiah) and give them names (Balthasar, Caspar, Melchior) and countries of origin. Despite the precise countries varying, they do seem to stay between Ethiopia and India (there's the occasional Greek). Balthasar appears in Ben-Hur as an Egyptian. 

I note that a title as mainstream as the first Assassin's Creed video game had its Arab protagonist named Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. The name Altair may be as much in reference to the Aquiline characteristics of the game's order of asssassins as the star α Aquilae - but Assassin's Creed was made by Ubisoft Montreal and had what appears to be a group of Canadian and American writers, artists and designers. It would not suprise me if one of them encountered the name of the star (and its derivation) first.

Aside from fiction, there are many military uses of the names of the stars. Ships take names like HMS Sirius, HMS Castor, USS Mizar, USS Bellatrix.  Italian military aviation units are named for Antares or Vega. Star names are safe, aspirational, classical, respectable - and pay homage to the connection between astronomy and seamanship (they aren't as in-your-face as HMS Venomous or HMS Antagonist). One sees why they were used in cases like that of the USS Mizar (see Merak and Tarazed) in wartime expansions of a fleet; preferred, I should imagine, to the names that were given to the Flower-Class corvettes and sloops. Consider also the Polaris missile, not only safe, aspirational, &c but also conveying ideas of pre-eminence (literally at the top of the world), coldness, leadership and perhaps polarisation. A perfect name for Cold War American hegemonic efforts. 

[I feel compelled to include the USS Cor Caroli. Cor Caroli was a relatively recent star to be catalogued, being most firmly mapped in England in 1673 and named 'Cor Caroli', the Heart of Charles -  Restoration loyalties praising the heart of Charles I, King Charles the Martyr (Cf. Georgium Sidus). The USS Cor Caroli was built and launched under similar conditions to the USS Mizar and I take it the name was chosen for similar reasons - but it is still a cause of amusement to think that a ship of the United States Navy in the twentieth century was cruising round called 'The Heart of Charles I'!]

That may conclude an eclectic survey. You might start further investigation here. My thoughts above may also answer the question What is it to use the Real-World Names of the Stars in my work?

[An absence of the Names of the Stars - any stars - that catches my eye is in the Stormcast Eternals of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. Sigmar himself might be God-King of the Celestial Realm, but this only seems to manifest in the ubiquitous comet and lightning motifs. The very names of the Eternals tend to the 'Lucius Skywalker' pattern - Latinate first name, second name noun-noun or adjective-noun (though there is some Punic representation in the shape of Hamilcar Bear-Eater). And yet the names of the stars make for great colourful High Fantasy names - as well as having a Warhammer-suitable thudding obviousness. Consider: Saiph Lionpuncher. Mizar Cometcrafter. Vindemiatrix Bronzehawk. Procyon Refeshingbeveragemaker.]

Two questions also occur: What is it to have named stars in your secondary world? What is it to have named stars be of consequence?

Well, Tolkien's named stars are right in the same mould as the stars of our world: they are named for similar reasons and organised in similar ways. Even if one imagines that the Elves when the world was young named and catalogued the stars in a very different fashion to the stargazers of (say) Bronze-Age Babylon. 

At any rate, it implies a measure of peace, security and scholarship to be able to track and name (say) around fifty stars - as well as, perhaps, permanent settlement. No doubt a nomadic people could recognise and track different stars, but the nature of star catalogues is such that I suspect they would be more likely to appear in a fixed community. (And if there aren't star catalogues but names of stars are acknowledged sufficiently widely, it means that this society is putting a quantity of work into transmitting those names). It also implies the preeminence of one set of star catalogues in a given culture: that red star is the Crimson Jewel, not the Scarlet Cross. Well, if everyone is speaking 'Common' no doubt they refer to the same stars and involve themselves in fewer disagreements over the names of nations.

What, then, is it for these stars to be of consequence? What if each School of Wizardry or Religious Figure or Blood-Oath Sorority of Magical Warriors is connected with a star? It's the difference between working in a office with ten people and working in an office of fifty. The dynamics and the feel of working and being in that group differ. A worshipper that has to answer to the various commands of the Twelve Olympians is someone with a different religious life to one answering the commands of the Fifty Star Archons (though that's still under Dunbar's Number). Those connotations of distance return once again.

I'm not certain those are very firm or very sound conclusions. And I've been in plenty of campaigns where I didn't have to refer to the stars at all to bring about the completion of a quest. But I hope this indicates some of the ways the Names of the Stars have enhanced or could enhance a work.

My thanks to the Three Mile Tree Brain Trust for their contributions in this matter. 

Something for Your Shelves: Fury

FURY. It's a somewhat abstract title; it has been apparently published under the title Destination: Infinity. Well, it was written by Henry Kuttner, first published in 1947 and re-issued by Gollancz for the Golden Age Masterworks collection in 2019. I found a copy of the latter kind second-hand.

Kuttner was born in 1915, lived in Los Angeles and died in 1958. He married the writer CL Moore (creator of Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith); husband and wife collaborated on a variety of stories under pseudonyms. He corresponded with Lovecraft and assisted Leigh Brackett in getting her first stories published. I'm not sure a biographical lens is the most useful with this book, but that gives you a measure of context.

It is several centuries in the future. Weapons of mass destruction have devastated Earth; humanity survives in sunken Keeps beneath the oceans of Venus. It has been at this long enough to lose any sense of real angst over having killed a planet and conditions in the domed Keeps are comfortable for enough people. The text describes it as 'stable but moribund'. Receding into the past are the names of mercenary groups that fought proxy wars - notably 'the Free Companions'. 

(Each Keep seems to be named for an American state - Delaware Keep, Montana Keep, Virginia Keep. The only exception I noticed was 'Canada Keep'; Wikipedia informs me that every Canadian province excepting the maritimes has a greater population than either Delaware or Montana. Did no-one else make it off Earth? Has the Soviet Union gone to the Red Planet? In the grim darkness of underwater Venus, there are only Yanks.

The vast majority of names, incidentally, are Anglophone.)

If this wasn't bad enough, several lineages of immortal mutants have risen to power within the Keeps (the Keeps themselves are formally democratic, but as the text notes: 'In the Keeps, the Immortals simply knew more than the non-Immortals. Psychologically a certain displacement became evident......Unconsciously the short-lived peoples of the Keeps began to look with dependence upon the Immortals....The Immortals, who knew what long, empty centuries were ahead of them, took pains to ensure that those centuries would not be so empty.'). 

The Immortals look entirely human, but live many centuries in reasonable health (they aren't sustained by constant medical intervention). An early book family gathering contains five generations of Immortals. One family of Immortals, perhaps the most influential are the Harkers.

Anyway, Fury is about a man called Sam Reed, born in Delaware Keep and coming to age in its slums. Anger and a focused, bitter drive propels him through the ranks of criminality to win a measure of prosperity and ability. This eventually leads him into contact with an Immortal called Robin Hale who plans to colonise the surface islands of Venus - against the long set policy of the majority of Immortals (who look to colonise the surface eventually, but not soon) - including the Harkers. A decades-long confrontation ensues.

Reed is a vindictive, energetic, unpleasant man. This is apparently just what is needed to drive the colonisation effort and enervate the society of the Keeps - including the Immortals.

***

Well, I shan't spoil the entire plot for you. But a number of things interested me about Fury. 

Firstly, the character of the Keeps and Sam Reed. The Keeps are dense urban constructs, full of paranoia about the native fauna and flora. Lots of narcotics use; enough crime to make people rich but not enough to endanger the system as a whole. Sullen, perhaps rather than squalid. Reed is the same way; remarkable but unpleasant; Byronic, perhaps. Both are somewhat more grimy than the Golden Age SF stereotype.

The exception might be the world of the Immortals. There's a careless ease to this, as well as a luxury. Couples lapse in and out of centuries long marriages. The wry, ironic, knowing strain in the Immortal character repeats itself; Reed occasionally connects them to Egypt - ancient, mysterious, wealthy.  This style of wealth strikes me as rather of the 1920s. Fury is not alone in this; reading about them, I thought back to Bester's The Stars my Destination (first published as Tiger, Tiger) and The Demolished Man. The future elites of all three do seem to share this Roaring Twenties-esque pattern to them (weren't we meant to be having one of those around now? I'd rather have the Charleston than NFTs).

 

The other obvious comparison for the long-lived of the future might be Heinlein's Methuselah's Children; but that space-faring road trip is an entirely different kettle of fish. The response of Heinlein's baseline humans to immortals is, of course, rather different to Kuttner's - but the destruction of Earth rather does change matters. 

The 1920s aside, the model of society in Fury has some obvious medieval overtones. The Keeps, for one. The aristocracy of the Immortals. The naming of a mercenary group as 'Free Companies'. The institution of a carnival, with the Immortals moving more freely in society. Religion is relatively muted, but there is the appearance of a 'Temple of Truth' with its Logicians that fills an interesting adjunct to the story. The 'moribund but stable' verdict echos a sort of traditional view of the Middle Ages. 

A medieval-inspired moribund post-apocalyptic humanity trapped in great imprisoning structures? Well, I didn't mention grim darkness for nothing. But it is a reminder that the novelty of cyberpunk was nothing to do with a class of tyrants in towers. 

The games of Immortal planning and intrigue - breeding a lineage of the short-lived as assassins for a certain Immortal target - is fascinating, but under-explored. Reed takes centre stage, so the hints of slow-grinding Immortal power, on-off marriages and careful manipulation remain just hints. The Immortals themselves seem more self-serving than villainous; their ills are echoed in Reed. 

Fury is not one of my new favourites. The prose is functional, but the plot just skips along where a few more heartfelt chapter breaks and a more formal structure could have done some good. Along with more Immortals. But it struck me by surprise, and got me to write a blog post on it. Something hooked me.

***

To add a final note of Bathos to proceedings, and in line with earlier references, I have recently been introduced to the following Twitter bot by a cunning gentleman. 

The Legacy of Horato

The city of Horato produced the Horatione Empire, which has shaped the languages, geopolitics and currency of Calliste for centuries since. If Loribides (and Malicarn thereafter) offer visions of the spiritual city, the model for worldly power and the acme of statecraft is Horato.

Therefore, here are some of the cultural legacies of Horato, which percolate through to modern Calliste in art and learning. 

Horato seems to have been founded by a combination of migration from one of the states near Loribides, mingling with a local population of herders. A congress of clan-chiefs gave way to an elected Prince attached to numerous assemblies. Following a series of costly victories which expanded Horatione territory at the cost of internal disruption, this became a 'Popular Despotate' which drifted into a Hereditary Despotate. Steady expansion of Horatione influence across southern and western Calliste eventually reached the point where hegemony became dominion and the title of Emperor was coined. Emperor succeeded Emperor (by fair means or foul) for three centuries, until the Horatione Empire fell, pressured by waves of migration and internal sclerosis. 

Horato was far from dogmatic on religious matters, an attitude which extended into its Empire. Worship in early Horato focused on the 'Old Protectors', a series of gods taken from the region of Loribides and variously augmented or melded with local deities. However, in the fourth decade of the Popular Despotate,  the magistrate Kallipyx the Elder, then Preceptor of the College of Priests declared that the prosperity and safety promised by the Old Protectors had been delivered. Horato had high walls and rich fields. Not every harvest was bound to be rich, but the foundations of comfort and safety were in place. Worship of the Old Protectors could (and would) dwindle - excluding certain occasions, sacrifices would take place only once in a fortnight. Foreign cults and temples, already present in a city with plenty of client states and close allies, began to flourish. Naturally, this included the Majestic Vision. While it was expected that a respectable citizen would attend the fortnightly worship and that the scions of the Horatione elite would learn the legends of the Old Protectors, the Horatione faith would never seriously revive. 

Horatione remains have produced a stereotype of its architecture. This is characterised by a series of round arches, each opening onto a space covered by a barrel vault. This model could provide both a template for street-level open-ended workshops and vendors, and for individual chambers coming off a central courtyard. At the monumental scale, four sides of such arcades could support a wider dome. The commonest building material was a form of flat brick, with dressed stone being used for floors, corners and arches. 

Frequent sculptural motifs were the Bull's Head, Garland and stylised Sun-Arc. The Bull's Head is more often connected with Princely Horato; the Sun-Arc came in later, with the Hereditary Despotate. Displaying the path of the sun from rising to setting, this was a conscious symbolic claim of broad dominion and more-than-earthly strength. The possible connotation that Horatione power would set even as the sun does was either undetected or carefully ignored. 

Unlike much of the rest of Calliste at the time, Horato did not take or keep slaves. Slavery was illegal for Horatione citizens; the keeping of slaves by resident foreigners was frowned upon - and only wealthy and influential foreigners could practically manage to keep and maintain a household of slaves in Horato. (Of course, by the time of the Emperors no foreigner would ever be as wealthy or influential as a Horatione). However, this form of exceptionalism aside, the rapid expansion of Horatione hegemony demanded workers. The 'labour tithe' was levelled on client states, protectorates and defeated enemies to provide corvée for Horato. Tithed workers were expected to spend several years in Horato and its domains, absorbing much of Horatione culture and mores in the process. This transfer of population, combined with the violent practices required by client states to provide the labour tithe, made Horatione practices quite as dislocating and exploitative as slavery. 

A feature of Horatione urban life was the municipal herald or 'Voice of the City'. This was a rhetor, dressed in a plain white robe and arm-wraps dusted with chalk. He (and it often was a He) would walk the streets of a district, arms spread, wearing a large full-face mask, lips modelled in such fashion as to amplify the voice. The Voice of the City was responsible for communicating edicts of the Prince, Despot or Emperor, bringing news of victories or defeats and announcing civic religious rites. 

Details of the Horatione military have been raised elsewhere; for now, it will suffice to say that the Magisterial Guard preceded the Imperial Corps of Intimates and that the early system of raising regiments based on civic and rural districts could not last in the changing environment of the Popular Despotate - in which social atmosphere the Siege Hands rose to fame.  

A certain privilege could be awarded to generals (principally those generals that never attempted to play the political game for their own sake) and decorated veterans. They would be kept after death as 'Sentinel Burials' on the city walls. Their bodies would be embalmed and wrapped in shrouds; shining white metal cases would be set around those portions of the body uncovered by armour. Propped up by spears and poles displaying their medallions and honour plaques, their death masks stare out beyond the city. The pole honours supporting them are strong and weatherproofed, but a Sentinel Burial can still slump or fall: this is, unsurprisingly, a bad omen. Either some dread foe is on its way to the city, or some milksop or traitor has, by action or inaction, betrayed it.

The psychological impact of the Sentinel Burials was noted even in their own time: only the boldest thief, it was thought, would scale the city walls where the vigilant dead waited. To Horatione defenders a standing army of their greatest soldiers was constantly on guard. Even those who note that it wasn't a literal army observed that the soldiers and armed citizens of a besieged Horato would never let their honoured dead fall into the hands of the enemy - or so the rhetoric went. Indeed, Annullina Perpetua (by her own account, an Imperial Sub-Secretary) in her Annals of a Pensionary bitterly notes that in the days of the final Emperor every single Sentinel Burial remained firmly upright.

Idleness and Paranoia

A recent (if November is recent) event of a game I am playing in saw my character ambushed in the course of carousing. While obviously, she wasn't carrying shield and sword, there was some debate about what how many coins she was carrying - as well as any expensive-looking personal items. 

I have no intention of re-inventing the wheel on this matter; we can make a rough guess at a character's civilian gear. Some charms, some money, a pocketknife. Exceptions for practiced thieves and tricksters, of course. Even if weapons may be openly carried, there is a distinction between the courtly small-sword and the claymore. One can imagine that wizards might be required to put a band around their spell-books, as a matter of security or courtesy. The same goes for their staffs; if it looks like it has an obviously magical function and Orvald the Orange is an outsider to the city of Zayana and can't claim it is mark of office, then it better not get brought out anywhere respectable.

But, of course, you wouldn't part an old man from his walking stick. Would you?

Enough on restrictions. This train of thought led me to the provision of non-encumbering items for two situations. These are not characterful or plot-enhancing, as Manola's (excellent) lists for different classes. They offer a modicum of roleplaying potential, but hopefully allow for unexpected uses of a relatively niche item. Carrying more than one would be unusual, and perhaps even uncomfortable. None are intended to be class-limited.

Firstly, let us consider 'hurry up and wait'. How many occasions will there be when a party of adventurers must wait, despite being largely ready to move on? Everyone's in their armour, with full packs - so no-one is actively relaxing - but still, the cleric needs to finish his prayers, the ranger is covering their tracks, the scholar is translating something on the cave walls. Small, portable amusements and pleasures. 

These are situated roughly as categories, rather than specifics. They all sit fairly closely in the pre-modern variety of settings that tend to characterise D&D (et al).

1. Dice or knucklebones. Not too ornate; probably not loaded. Will the testing of probabilities confuse oracular predictions?
2. Patience cards. Half the size of a regular pack, presumably less fancy, implies you know a few solo games. 
3. Prayer beads. Simple, easily pocketed. Can also be used to count steps. 
4. Counters (different designs on each side). Suitable for simple games like Noughts and Crosses or Nine Men's Morris. 
5. Blindfold. Privacy, easily obtained. A relatively fine piece of cloth. 
6. Compact musical instrument. A harmonica, a jaw harp, a tin whistle, a music box. Pocket-sized, not necessarily requiring any great talent, not a source of any real social cachet. If you play it and pass round the hat, you get coppers, not silver. Nothing loud enough to signal with, really.

The second category - as the title suggests - is hold-out items. Just in case. Nothing as impressive as a spy or practiced deceiver might carry, but present all the same. I have neglected to include the ever-popular boot knife. 

1. A lockpick. Only one, and hardly ideal for every lock, but concealable and useful.
2. A length of wire. A snare? A garrotte? Wraps neatly round the wrist; may be inside a piece of clothing.
3. Trade coin. The coin you never spend. A good weight of precious metal, valuable anywhere they like shiny things. It might even be a blank disc or gemstone. 
4. Marker stub. A small stick of material suitable for writing or marking most surfaces; chalk or wax pencil are possibilities. 
5. Treated handkerchief. Do not confuse with regular handkerchief. This piece of cloth has been treated so that you can breathe through it in foul air or poison gas. It can be moistened to create a seal of sorts over nose and mouth. It smells unpleasant.
6. Pocket mirror. A little larger than one square inch. Useful for signals, peering round corners and minor grooming.

All the above, of course, come from the school of equipment lists that is interested not so much in providing solutions for problems but in seeing what will happen when you give the players a new toy, no matter how small it is.

Rogue Movie & 2021

Recent viewing (well, as recently as last year) has been the 1976 Rogue Male. I've praised Geoffrey Household's 1939 novel on here before, and so happily picked up a BFI DVD (a dedicated set of notes on which is here) when I saw it. Made for the BBC, directed by Clive Donner, script by Frederic Raphael (who also did script work on that seasonal favourite, Eyes Wide Shut). 

Peter O'Toole plays the protagonist, unnamed - indeed, deliberately anonymous - in the original, but here given the name 'Sir Robert Hunter' allowing a normal flow of conversation; and for the credits to read 'HUNTER - Peter O'Toole'. Other characters played by Alastair Sims, John Standing, Michael Byrne and Harold Pinter (yes, that Harold Pinter). 

Rogue Male had been adapted before - by Fritz Lang, no less - under the name Man Hunt in 1941. This had altered the story rather and bore the weight of anti-Nazi propaganda efforts in 1941. 

Of course, Rogue Male is a suitable source for such a thing. The book features the nameless protagonist and narrator (an English aristocrat and hunter) taking aim at an unnamed dictator from a state that borders Poland. Well, Household was being relatively discreet in 1939, but the feel of the protagonist's torture, escape and pursuit through both the unnamed foreign power and Britain suggest Nazi Germany rather than the Soviet Union. Household would later confirm that he was thinking of Germany; to my mind the ambiguity of the framing narrative is part of the essence of the novel, but there is no real harm in knowing this. Naturally, the film would struggle to make an actor (and the set, and the costumes, and the spearcarriers....) look like either Hitler or Stalin. Maybe it could be done in some form of animation, but hardly live action. 

Va tacito e nascosto,
quand'avido è di preda,
l'astuto cacciator!

The narrator is caught and contends that he was only going to point his rifle at [Possibly Hitler]; it was a sporting stalk against the most dangerous game of all. Here is one of the major points of divergence between book and film: the text of the book has been written by the protagonist (even noting where he stopped work and started again). It takes time for him to admit - both to us, and seemingly, to himself, that he A) intended to kill [Possibly Hitler] and B) did it because of his love for a woman killed by the tyrannical regime. 

Of course, this slow-maturing portion of the novel cannot be reproduced in the film. Flashbacks, imagined sequences and montage make Sir Robert's motivation fairly clear. Further, other characters know of his romance, originally oddly concealed in an otherwise somewhat well-known man. 

Further, the film introduces Alastair Sim as a doddering Earl and government member to explain the delicate political situation of 1939 - things the book's protagonist could work out for himself. I can't find it in myself to complain about his presence, though the first name references to 'Neville' and 'Winston' are a bit much. Likewise, the plausibly Jewish lawyer of the book, Saul, is made definitely Jewish (Saul Abrahams, played by Harold Pinter). There is at least one piece of clearly framed British Union of Fascists graffiti shown on Sir Robert's return to London. The half-German adversary who uses the name 'Major Quive-Smith' is in the film no more than he appears - a Nazi sympathiser and English hunter, played by John Standing. 

So, the 1976 film is less veiled than the book, and is made with a dollop of hindsight. But it still captures the mood well; even if we cannot get so much technical information about Sir Robert's burrow or the surrounding farms, or miss his musings on British society, the impressions of his efforts in concealment, or the nature of his interactions with wider society are adequate. If O'Toole and Sim are perhaps sometimes over-arch or stereotyped (an escape through London is probably more compelling if Sir Robert knows how to ride the Underground!), well, it's all very finely done. Even if the protagonist's injuries are downplayed - who wants to cover up any leading man's face, let alone Peter O'Toole's? - we get a very strong impression of what has been done to him and the problems this causes. It all looks very good, as well. Strong, well-placed actors and settings. 

As ever, read the book first (or listen to the Michael Jayston reading). But I enjoyed this, certainly. 

***

I'm not given to reviews of the year, but 2021 did see at least one watershed for this blog with the launch of Punth: A Primer - bolstered by some kind words and good publicity. TRoAPW is the next such item on the agenda, but is still half-formed. My review of Magical Industrial Revolution was popular, and I may have to do a little more review work. 

In the meantime, enjoy the last days of Christmas and Epiphany, and let us see what 2022 brings.

[Postscript to say that this has got a lot of views for such a brief, commonplace post - perhaps more interesting is this other Rogue.]