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On Naming
I've a habit of mixing in cultural language syntax (with broad base creative license) to names and labels. It helps me formulate a ideal or concept behind the phonetic syntaxes. Not to mention, that it may have some deep subconscious traits for many readers to come across the name. After all, names have power, no?
Aquimonti
(Eagle + Mountain)
Altaqui
Portions of the kingdoms
Altaqui Mortis (deadlands)
Altaqui Vera (true lands)
(alti-tude: height)
Aquipia
(Pia Pium)
Regions named after the early 'saints' that blessed the first town/city
Visili Aquipia
Mera Aquipia
// Altiora in votis - I pray for the higher things.
// Aquila non captat muscas - The eagle doesn't capture flies (don't sweat the small things)
// The Latin Phrase for 'Pious'; is Pia Pium, which means Honest, godly, holy, pious , dutiful, patriotic
On the Free People
Marks of the Free People
When I read about the markings / I was thinking more along the lines of these ...
Tribal Tattoo Arm (sexy pic!)
But its a whole lot more complex than the markings from your anime reference. Although I'm not certain large patches of colours tattoo as well as slimmer tribalistic lines. I was thinking of the entire practice in the 'Gift of Rebirth' ceremony.
When the crews blood is mixed with the natural inks of the sea (from many sea creatures) and salt. ON the other hand, large scale patch skin colouring might include some practice of searing patches of skin form the flesh but I think heat sources might be mainly scarce onboard for these extended long rituals, would they not?
Mmhmm, sea inks from jellyfish & squids .... :D
You would think it really obvious, but yeah. The humans thought something along the lines that the halflings are small, so put them in a small area and don’t think much more about it. They largely missed how much smaller halflings really are. This one I was really thinking about (it was bound to happen eventually!) and it comes from two places:
1) I’ve watched documentaries on real life people of exceptionally small stature (down to two feet, which is shorter than the minimum height of a D&D halfling) and it really is astounding just how small and out of scale they can be for a world built for the rest of us.
2) American slaveholders were sometimes astonished and mystified by how their slaves took to stories of Moses far more than those of Jesus. Talk about missing the obvious.
As with many cultures, one can only try to understand things from a perspective, the only point of reference being your own. So small ... is relative, especially for the Free People!
I think a lot of the culture of the Free People would be an oral tradition. After all, paper doesn't last long in the seas :D Which gives a HUGE variants of superstitions and social practices. Key rituals and general large scale beliefs bind them of course, but like most chinese dialects, they differ in inflection (some major, some minor) but are inherently similar but not the same.
Oh, this might give some insight into how music or rhythm plays a large role in society. Given that most instruments may not last the rigours of travel and wear, but the one instrument they carry is their voices. I don't think its something privy to Big Folk but among themselves it seems .... right?
In the absence of a willing or available oldster of one sex, both could be the same sex. (The halflings would not force someone into the role, as that would amount to killing a Free Person.) That’s something I ought to have thought of since the halflings are sexually quite flexible and being I’m a genuine gay person and all.
Separately I’m not completely settled on the whole Mother-Father system. The liberation stuff is all how I want it but the pantheon, such as it is, seems a little small. They should probably have personifications of winds and stars too. With just the two divinities, or sort of divinities, it doesn’t feel busy or messy enough for a realistic religion unless the dualism is the whole point. I’ll have to think more on it.
I'm perfectly with the idea of fluid sexuality amongst the Free People. Labelling conventions seem too strict and landbound anyways. But I do appreciate that there is a general law of things.
I remember reading something someplace about the difference between the immutability of the law and rules being just guidelines. There is often a mix of the two concepts. Law of the ocean, ebb and flow is a constant, sexual identification is a rule (guide). Its clearly a rule to attraction rather than a law. But the physical law of gravity (sans magic) is something else entirely. Porting these differences to a Free People belief system seems to be interesting to me!
Mother-Father may just be the rule, but the law is of Duality. Give and Take, Ebb and Flow, Life and Death, Lost and Found. Ingrain it strongly enough for a pattern to emerge but not put a clearly defined role to it. So mother/father is perceptual instead.
Amongst the strange, there is the Mothers Sister and Fathers Brother.
Mother's Sister: is near yet far in her place amongst the stars. She aids the Free People by marking the skies with her tears because she longs to return to the sea from her post in the sky. She can also be a patron for the lost, malformed and arcane oddity. But of course, her starlight markers are lost during the day, shrouded by so much light.
So she breathes life to a single constellation that fall from the night sky into the waters below. Thus dolphins are those day navigators. This could also tie in with how SOME creatures of the sea can be seen as also children of the Sea and sacred.
Perhaps on sacred days / weeks; they cannot eat the meat of sea mammals. Its a common practise in many cultures of our world even. Like moments of silence/gratitude observed on certain days every week.
Father's Brother could be landlocked islands. The churning from the deep that brings new isles through Mother's waters. Upon the lands that surface )streches of sand banks, archilpelagos, lagoons, etc)- the bounty of trees are his gift to the Free People. The wood form the tree's and the metal form the rock coral mines to create ships. He is the patron of brief respite and safe harbour from the dead landmasses of the Big Folk.
Just some ideas of mine, if you don't me sharing.
For the sake of appreciation, I reiterate how much I love reading about the "Gift of Passage" and the "Gift of Rebirth"!
Nitpicking nothing, that’s better than seven days! For a seafaring culture, where people would be on watch at all hours regardless, a single day should not be such a religiously significant element. The week is also arbitrary. A moon cycle makes much more sense. Say they do the ritual and dunk you on the new moon and then wait until the full moon’s light touches the ship. If you’re not up by then, you’re not coming up. Rebirth isn’t easy.
I don’t think the interval is completely fixed on the end of the person going through rebirth, though. Some come up in short order; some take the full time. There’s probably no standard for how long it “should” take and so different crews would hold different beliefs about the significance of the time. To some those who are in the longest have most fully accepted their halfling nature. To others it’s those who soaked the least. Still a Free Person is a Free Person. Taking the unfavored length of time might get you some teasing, but it doesn’t make you less a halfling.
I agree; some will resurface guided by the children of the sea well before moons light cuts the surface of the sea. Others ... well, may only make it on the very last hours before! The general practise would be common enough in accordance to the ritual but exact duration of waiting ... that naturally is subject each ships own interpretation of when exactly the moon's light pierces the dark waters. And yes, a Free Person willing into the world is certainly a celebration as a lost Free Person is finally found again. And I doubt there's anything less than a halfling, that would simple be ... a quarterling :p
I’d meant that the landbound were generally the ancestors of those cast out for inbreeding and inbreeding has the aforementioned consequences, but now that you’ve said it I do like the idea that being landbound is somehow “wrong” and leads to “wrong” halflings in itself, hence all the need to get a pregnant mother out on the water before she gives birth.
Surely this is an old mother's tale .... but who wants to test the superstition if it results in a malformed child!
Unusual hair colouring could account more often for lanbound births, as you mentioned in your physical desciption for the race. Marking them as already different, making them tolerable rather than shunned.
Having a knack for magic would be a good way to get on a new ship. A crew in the know wouldn’t take you, most likely, unless they were rather hard up. They know you’re unclean and it’s their way to cast you out upon the land. A different crew would be a different matter, as they might not know if you didn’t bear obvious signs, and halflings do vary. Some with the knack appear entirely normal, but those with obvious deformities would face prejudice even with their magical gifts. That’s not to say they could never be accepted, but it would be a lot harder for them. The Free People don’t have quite the theological emphasis that the Churchlanders place on being of ideal form, but they would have superstitions about keeping someone who was badly disabled or hideously disfigured on board.
I'm ... feeling ambigious about the term 'unclean'. Certainly being land-touched is akin to be mad or crippled as a Free Person in some way, even those in exile for double breeding and live in human ghettos receive some sympathy for being 'land-locked'. Treatment can be harsh in practise but being part of the Free People run deeper and more complex than the ocean currents certainly.
The idea of treating someone land-touched (deformed) could be a mixture of pity and sympathy. Like a curse of longing, being part but never truly one of the People. Its harder to be accepted certainly but to a large extent it is tolerance much like the practise to outlanders. (teehee, play on words, out-landers).
Those with arcane/divine penchants may be seen as Free People who are 'land-touched' but were given a way to return or earn to the fold/waves with their gifts. Like how the sea can take aplenty but also boundless in its gifts. But rather than a gift fro the Mother; it is a gift (ability) granted by the patron of outcasts; Mother's Sisters. Reinforcing the distinct separation of the stars above from the waters below. Of course I suspect many Star-touched would be masters of manipulating the winds, the space between sky and sea.
"I would drop the Halflings not eating sea mammals. It just makes them too enlightened in my opinion.
I wondered about that myself. I wanted to give them some kind of sacred animal that made sense and there are thematic parallels, but it is a little modern. Melville wastes most of a chapter in Moby Dick (ok he wastes most of most chapters, but this specific chapter...) on how whales are properly fish, no matter what some biologist might say.
Hm. Maybe a catch of a dolphin or whatever requires special acts of thanksgiving like pouring alcohol into the sea.
See my posts above regarding superstition and sacred periods. Although I feel enlightened is perceptual concept here.
I could come up with more rituals / beliefs / superstitions. But be forewarned, since I live in South Eat Asia, I'll be drawing alot from asian cultures deeply rooted in early maritime civilizations.I hope I' not intruding on too much idea-butting of your world. Please forgive if I intrude too much.
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Separately I’m not completely settled on the whole Mother-Father system.
As I was reading it, I was thinking to myself how seamlessly they would take to Taoism. Perhaps Mother/Father is just a hold over from when there 'had to be' some sort of diety. It is not so important who is responsible as that it just is.
Or, to put another way, is life worth so many questions?
Hm. Maybe a catch of a dolphin or whatever requires special acts of thanksgiving like pouring alcohol into the sea.
To the best of my limited knowledge, Native Americans had no beef eating buffalo despite the fact they believed buffalo to be a sort of brother to them. They respected buffalo and they were sure not to waste, but they still ate them.
I can see your Halflings having similar feelings towards all sea creatures. Death is bad…or is it? Everyone dies eventually. It is the way of things. Mother/Father/The Sea/The Tao/Whatever offered this up so that we may live another week. Who are we to send it back? When it is our time, we will be offered up as well.
Sharkbait! Oooo ha ha!
On naming…yeah I generally do not want to steal something wholesale, but I have discovered a lot of things that I thought were 'original' were stolen wholesale. Names were not even changed. It is just a matter of finding something obscure enough your audience does not instantly recognize it.
Although I feel enlightened is perceptual concept here.
Fair enough. Not eating sea mammals was not genre shattering. I just feel that Halflings need something to make them less utopian. Not that they are necessarily Sam's target demographic, I can see some people accusing him of communist sympathies. Add the obvious Western Christianity analogies and there are going to be some ruffled feathers.
Again, not that the present company really cares about all that. However, it seemed to me that Sam wanted to play in the grayscale and not make everything so black and white. In my opinion, the Halflings are just too white. Sure, the Churchlands think they are soulless creatures…but that is kind of like Satan saying Jesus was mean to him.
I've more to say later on -I know, I'm shocked too- but wanted to sketch out a sort of mission statement on the thematic issues.
Fair enough. Not eating sea mammals was not genre shattering. I just feel that Halflings need something to make them less utopian. Not that they are necessarily Sam's target demographic, I can see some people accusing him of communist sympathies. Add the obvious Western Christianity analogies and there are going to be some ruffled feathers.Again, not that the present company really cares about all that. However, it seemed to me that Sam wanted to play in the grayscale and not make everything so black and white. In my opinion, the Halflings are just too white. Sure, the Churchlands think they are soulless creatures…but that is kind of like Satan saying Jesus was mean to him.
That's my concern too. Halflings are my favorite PC race and I designed their culture to emphasize more or less the opposite of the things the Churchlands emphasize. Churchlander religion is about duty, obligation, rules, and the like. The gods lay these obligations on you and therefore, etc. Churchlander culture is hierarchical and dominance oriented. The chief question is who bosses whom around and what belongs to who. It's, at least in its idealized form, fixed and rigid.
A little digression:
Actual practice of course is much more anarchic and dependent on the relative actual power of those involved, etc. In Medieval France the Dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, Counts of Champaigne, are just a few standout notables who had the actual power to ignore their titular overlord, the king. The Holy Roman Empire had similar issues, but even more extreme sometimes. Norman England had notably less, but being he was one of the guys effectively independent of the French king, William the Conqueror knew all the tricks and had the wherewithal to make them much harder to pull off when he got to order things how he preferred. The Churchlands is meant to have examples of both sorts of situations.
Ok, halflings again. :)
By contrast halflings live in a fluid, changing world and their religious life is focused on liberation. Their society is hierarchical only by necessity and who is on top can change daily. To some degree that models real-life pirates back in the golden age of Caribbean piracy, with many crews electing officers democratically and finding no shortage of recruits among those they raided.
But there's a definite risk, being that the Churchlands are pretty close to my conception of hell and that they're rather alien and upfront to modern readers about their bad side, that their antithesis becomes a bit too perfect. To some extent that’s unavoidable. The Churchlands are supposed to make some internal sense but are united in largely themes that most modern readers just aren’t that interested in. We live in very different societies with very different emphases and values.
That said, I think you’re right that the halflings are too goody-good. There’s meant to be a darker side to them, but I’ve done more to hint at it than actually describe it. My biases are obviously showing, what with being an anti-clerical gay fan of the Enlightenment and all. :)
I think the subject would benefit from a rewrite to better even things out. For dark sides, some ideas:
1) Plenty of halfling ships are just plain pirate crews. They sneak up on board while the human sailors are sleeping, cut their throats, and make off with ship and/or cargo before the sun rises. The ruthlessness runs pretty deep.
2) For the landbound halflings, it would be easy to play up the criminality and make them ghetto-bound Mafiosi. Yes they have their friends on the ships to watch their backs, but a ship isn’t always in port and the protection of local notables could also be contingent on a kind of reverse protection racket. They keep the ghetto as safe as they can or Don Frodo might have them wake up with throats cut someday. The halfling mafia does not screw around. Sure it's adaptive, and the human nobility isn't really that much better behaved, but they're still running some ruthless criminal enterprises.
3) I did mean to imply that the halflings have a strong bias against the visibly disabled. If a halfling is deformed or disabled, that halfling would probably be unwelcome on most ships. In a way it’s practical, since sailing a job for the able-bodied, but there’s also an element of plain prejudice. Every Free Person knows that if you’re disabled it’s because something is spiritually wrong with you, or something to that effect.
Other suggestions to give them more gray shades are welcome.
I've more to say later on -I know, I'm shocked too- but wanted to sketch out a sort of mission statement on the thematic issues...
Then I think I'll wait a wee bit for your comments before barraging with another wall of text. I have a couple of more 'neutral' concepts that aren't enlightenmenty :D
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Taking the naming stuff first and separately to try to stay organized. We’ll see how long I’m able to keep it up. Smart money is on a post or so. :)
On NamingI've a habit of mixing in cultural language syntax (with broad base creative license) to names and labels. It helps me formulate a ideal or concept behind the phonetic syntaxes. Not to mention, that it may have some deep subconscious traits for many readers to come across the name. After all, names have power, no?
I agree. Names are a great tool, both in just having evocative ones in general and sticking to certain conventions for various groups to create a stronger illusion of reality.
Aquimonti
(Eagle + Mountain)
Altaqui
Portions of the kingdoms
Altaqui Mortis (deadlands)
Altaqui Vera (true lands)
(alti-tude: height)
You’ve more Latin than I do. :) Eagle Mountain doesn’t sound quite right. Something suggesting land between the mountains or land between the eagles? Or under their wings? Maybe I’m trying to cram too much into a short title, when I should be looking for something simple and then dressing it up with some kind of heraldic motto, sort of like SPQR.
Simple variants: Aqualmonti (suggests water and mountains along with eagles), Aquilmontaine? (Sort of Frenchified), Montaquilia?There’s something about a fragment with the a and the mont* constructions that I’m liking.
Some more halfling stuff now.
Marks of the Free People
When I read about the markings / I was thinking more along the lines of these ...
Tribal Tattoo Arm (sexy pic!)
But its a whole lot more complex than the markings from your anime reference. Although I'm not certain large patches of colours tattoo as well as slimmer tribalistic lines. I was thinking of the entire practice in the 'Gift of Rebirth' ceremony.
The anime departs from my memory of it, which I probably should have noticed when I dug up the picture. J I was thinking something more extensive than just the slashes of color most of the guys in the picture had on their faces, but less intensive than tribal tattoo guy’s shoulder piece. Enough to form definite patterns, usually symmetrical, but something you could do with a knife and a steady hand without just flying large sections of the skin for the rebirth ceremony. Large, solid patches are probably out. If the reborn-to-be dies of blood loss, it would mess up the thematics of the ceremony. Killing the candidate is the sea’s job.
One of the things I enjoy about working on gaming stuff is the chance to write sentences like the previous. I’m strange that way.
When the crews blood is mixed with the natural inks of the sea (from many sea creatures) and salt. ON the other hand, large scale patch skin colouring might include some practice of searing patches of skin form the flesh but I think heat sources might be mainly scarce onboard for these extended long rituals, would they not?
Mmhmm, sea inks from jellyfish & squids .... :D .
I see where you’re coming from, but I think that adding in ink to the process makes it a little bit too much like the halflings are actively tattooing rebirth candidates. Their aversion to tattooing is all about it distracting from their natural patterns and trying to initiate someone into a new life as a halfling by tattooing them seems backwards. The ceremony is meant to ready the candidate for the sea to do its work, giving them a sort of head start and cluing Mother in on what they want to happen.
Or to phrase it differently, the Free People are trying to wake up the lost halfling soul within. Tattooing, which halflings do not generally practice, would be going in the wrong direction for that. Piercing, which they do practice, might work.
I think a lot of the culture of the Free People would be an oral tradition. After all, paper doesn't last long in the seas :D Which gives a HUGE variants of superstitions and social practices. Key rituals and general large scale beliefs bind them of course, but like most chinese dialects, they differ in inflection (some major, some minor) but are inherently similar but not the same. .
That’s a good point. The Free People certainly have writing, and probably keep captains’ logs and cargo manifests, that sort of thing. But that’s different from having a strong literary tradition that binds them together. There’s certainly a cultural disconnect between the landed halflings (some of whom are quite happy to stay on land, even if otherwise keeping their traditional ways) and the seagoing. Likewise I imagine that those crews that operate mostly as pirates have a rather different way of approaching their religious life than those who trade, similar enough to agree on general principles, of course, but with their own distinctness too.
Oh, this might give some insight into how music or rhythm plays a large role in society. Given that most instruments may not last the rigours of travel and wear, but the one instrument they carry is their voices. I don't think its something privy to Big Folk but among themselves it seems .... right? .
I’m no more musical than I am nautical, but that’s a great idea. I imagine they would keep simple, homemade instruments like drums or flutes that they could make with skills they learn working the ships or to pass the time, but vocals would be the thing everybody could do. There’s always work to be done, but they could coordinate through call and response work songs. Each crew has its own evolving sets of lyrics for similar rhythms, but important and religious songs are probably more standardized since they’re used more sparingly and in more reserved circumstances. Reserved for the Free People anyway.
I remember reading something someplace about the difference between the immutability of the law and rules being just guidelines. There is often a mix of the two concepts. Law of the ocean, ebb and flow is a constant, sexual identification is a rule (guide). Its clearly a rule to attraction rather than a law. But the physical law of gravity (sans magic) is something else entirely. Porting these differences to a Free People belief system seems to be interesting to me!
Mother-Father may just be the rule, but the law is of Duality. Give and Take, Ebb and Flow, Life and Death, Lost and Found. Ingrain it strongly enough for a pattern to emerge but not put a clearly defined role to it. So mother/father is perceptual instead.
I’m with you. Mother and Father are convenient names that express the Free People’s strong affinities for sea and ship. They recognize the similarities and honor them, but the real focus is on the interplay of the two. Without one, the other is incomplete. It’s a system felt and lived, rather than a set of creeds. Halflings don’t believe in Mother and Father, rather they feel that the sea is like their mother (having a rather generalized concept of family helping out here) and the ship is father.
Mother's Sister: is near yet far in her place amongst the stars. She aids the Free People by marking the skies with her tears because she longs to return to the sea from her post in the sky. She can also be a patron for the lost, malformed and arcane oddity. But of course, her starlight markers are lost during the day, shrouded by so much light.
So she breathes life to a single constellation that fall from the night sky into the waters below. Thus dolphins are those day navigators. This could also tie in with how SOME creatures of the sea can be seen as also children of the Sea and sacred.
I really like that. It creates a sort of patron for outsiders. By being separated from Mother, she’s personifying their own isolation if they’re landed halflings, or just lost, or lost halfling souls. In a way she’s even conveying the isolation of the ship from other halflings.
Father's Brother could be landlocked islands. The churning from the deep that brings new isles through Mother's waters. Upon the lands that surface )streches of sand banks, archilpelagos, lagoons, etc)- the bounty of trees are his gift to the Free People. The wood form the tree's and the metal form the rock coral mines to create ships. He is the patron of brief respite and safe harbour from the dead landmasses of the Big Folk. .
I like that. I think that islands which qualified as Father’s Brother would be somewhat rare, what with big people everywhere, but it stands to reason there are plenty of islands known only or chiefly to halflings where they build new ships, take on supplies, and so forth. Maybe some even have small, semi-permanent settlements of halflings that aren’t put off ships but for whatever reason are staying a spell. Maybe retirees, those recovering from injuries, people like that.
Unusual hair colouring could account more often for lanbound births, as you mentioned in your physical desciption for the race. Marking them as already different, making them tolerable rather than shunned. .
I get a little kick out of the idea that unusual hair coloring, which marks you out as somehow different and not in a good way, is unusual hair coloring for halflings. So many ghetto-dwelling castaways might have colors that are more ordinary for humans. It’s just an obvious sign they’re not right, because what decent halfling would have brown or yellow or black or red hair? That’s human hair! :)
I'm ... feeling ambigious about the term 'unclean'. Certainly being land-touched is akin to be mad or crippled as a Free Person in some way, even those in exile for double breeding and live in human ghettos receive some sympathy for being 'land-locked'. Treatment can be harsh in practise but being part of the Free People run deeper and more complex than the ocean currents certainly. .
I mean unclean in a kind of ritual purity sense. I’m not sure quite the right word for it, but there is a mix of genuine prejudice, superstition, and the like involved. The seafaring halflings don’t outright hate the landed, though attitudes do vary and some surely think that only the sailors are true halflings and the rest you just sort of have to begrudgingly treat that way, but something just feels wrong about them. Their lifestyle is so strange, and many of them were put ashore for what the halflings see as very good reasons. They’re obviously still halflings, but they’ve most likely either done something “wrong” to the sailors, or actually are something that’s in itself “wrong”. Some of it is a visceral loathing, some of it is unease at the combination of similarity and difference, some of it is disapproval of misdeeds.
Sympathy and pity are certainly parts of it. How do you have a crew on land? Where’s your ship? You can’t feel the toss of the waves? To the seafaring halflings, it must seem like they have a ship-shaped part of their souls missing. That could translate into mostly pity and sympathy, but it certainly also translates into a degree of prejudice and fear. I mean, they seem so much like the sailors so it would be so easy for a sailor to slip and turn into one of them. Their land bound ways can reflect all the little discomforts and reservations that a sailing halflings has about the seagoing life, and everyone has all sorts of those little things crawling around inside. We wish our homes were a little nicer. We think we really could have done better in school. Maybe we’re not in the right place.
I’m not saying that the seafarers would secretly envy the landed in their ghettoes and their sometimes precarious existence with the big people, but seeing other halflings who do not live like they do could bring all the little frustrations of the life they do have into focus.
Those with arcane/divine penchants may be seen as Free People who are 'land-touched' but were given a way to return or earn to the fold/waves with their gifts. Like how the sea can take aplenty but also boundless in its gifts. But rather than a gift fro the Mother; it is a gift (ability) granted by the patron of outcasts; Mother's Sisters. Reinforcing the distinct separation of the stars above from the waters below. Of course I suspect many Star-touched would be masters of manipulating the winds, the space between sky and sea.
I like that. It fits smoothly in with magical talent being a bit more common among the inbred landed sorts while still leaving room for native casters on the ships themselves.
I could come up with more rituals / beliefs / superstitions. But be forewarned, since I live in South Eat Asia, I'll be drawing alot from asian cultures deeply rooted in early maritime civilizations.
Southeastern Asian-inspired influence is help, not hindrance. :) My own ancestry is Polish, English, and German with a tiny bit of French. My education was heavily towards European cultures and history and my upbringing was in a town so ostentatiously Europe-by-way-of-America that it could parody itself. Every culture is a bit ethnocentric and I grew up in a really intensely ethnocentric portion of my own. It’s a challenge to break out of the habits and I really appreciate having external input, especially in a fictional culture that’s deliberately geared to be different from an ancestor to the one I grew up in.
More on halflings.
As I was reading it, I was thinking to myself how seamlessly they would take to Taoism. Perhaps Mother/Father is just a hold over from when there 'had to be' some sort of diety. It is not so important who is responsible as that it just is.
I didn’t intend it to be, especially since I’m not very up on Taoism, but I think I see what you’re aiming at. I wrote a little about the interplay of forces in the other post I just made, and the more I think on it sea and ship do feel a little like yin and yang, in the general sense of opposing yet harmonic powers.
In a way halfling religiosity is very adaptive. Liberation sounds very active and forceful, but in the halfling sense it’s less Che Guevara and more freedom from restraints so one can act naturally in the way one is meant to be. They don’t go to sea in their own little ships to be individualist heroes of Ayn Rand novels, but to be free from oppression without challenging it. If the bad guys show up, they go somewhere else. It’s individualist in that no one’s role is fixed, but the crew itself is very community-oriented in a consensual kind of way.
Which is still hitting fairly utopian, but it’s something I can work on. Certainly real world Taoist cultures have their own imperfections akin to the imperfections I’ve highlighted in Medieval Christian analogs. As I said in a previous post, everybody smells. :)
Hm. Maybe a catch of a dolphin or whatever requires special acts of thanksgiving like pouring alcohol into the sea.To the best of my limited knowledge, Native Americans had no beef eating buffalo despite the fact they believed buffalo to be a sort of brother to them. They respected buffalo and they were sure not to waste, but they still ate them.
I can see your Halflings having similar feelings towards all sea creatures. Death is bad…or is it? Everyone dies eventually. It is the way of things. Mother/Father/The Sea/The Tao/Whatever offered this up so that we may live another week. Who are we to send it back? When it is our time, we will be offered up as well.
That’s a great real world example I’d forgotten. You’ve convinced me. It’s wrong for halflings to put sea life to waste, in the same way it was wrong for the Native Americans to waste buffalo bits. Just refusing entirely to partake, especially when the sea is right there, strikes me as much too modern. They’re not meant to be vegetarians or have an especially romantic conception of nature. It’s where they live and they’re interconnected, but not in the dolphin hugging, shark kissing kind of way.
On naming…yeah I generally do not want to steal something wholesale, but I have discovered a lot of things that I thought were 'original' were stolen wholesale. Names were not even changed. It is just a matter of finding something obscure enough your audience does not instantly recognize it.
That’s certainly true. I think Tolkien named every dwarf in Thorin’s band after a dwarf in Norse myth.
Fair enough. Not eating sea mammals was not genre shattering. I just feel that Halflings need something to make them less utopian. Not that they are necessarily Sam's target demographic, I can see some people accusing him of communist sympathies. Add the obvious Western Christianity analogies and there are going to be some ruffled feathers.
Again, not that the present company really cares about all that. However, it seemed to me that Sam wanted to play in the grayscale and not make everything so black and white. In my opinion, the Halflings are just too white. Sure, the Churchlands think they are soulless creatures…but that is kind of like Satan saying Jesus was mean to him.
It’s worth repeating: you’re right. I ended up focused almost completely on the whiteness of halfling culture with very little grayscale. I’ll have to work on that.
As for the rest… Actually I do have some limited communist sympathies. :) I’m a pacifist so I’d make a terrible communist and I think the real world implementations of communism sucked almost completely, though. Maybe it’s more accurate to say I have anti-capitalist sympathies, since I usually identify myself as a social democrat and that’s a species of socialist. All the revolutionary vanguard, dictatorship of the proletariat, violent class warfare stuff? I am opposed to those entirely.
I’m not sure how concerned I am with ruffling certain feathers. I’ve gone back and forth on it more than once. The Churchlands are not a commercial project (unless someone wants to throw money at me! J ) but they’re informed by real world concerns. Some of that is just my not wanting to be the guy who writes a world where any potential female player is excluded by patriarchy, which I think is a very fair concern for anybody. Some of it is also just an aesthetic preference formed in reaction against the dominant good vs. evil D&D paradigm.
I don’t know that I’m articulating this well, but maybe if I try an example. I have not read the Blue Rose campaign setting, but my understanding of it is that it’s meant as a romantic fantasy world heavily inspired by Mercedes Lackey. I have a bit of a soft spot here since the first time I realized I was gay and what being gay actually meant I was reading one of her novels.
Oh good, Wikipedia has a summary:
[QUOTE=]Blue Rose is set in a world called Aldea, and most campaigns center around the Kingdom of Aldis. Aldis is a monarchy whose ruler is chosen by divine intervention rather than inheritance. The current ruler is Queen Jaellin, who earned the throne when "the Golden Hart", a being symbolizing rightful rulership, chose her over rival contenders. Populations of sentient telepathic animals are prevalent in Aldis (talking animals are a common theme in fantasy literature, but far less so in role-playing) and are considered equal citizens on par with humans. A significant percentage of the population of Aldis is openly homosexual or bisexual (again, this is unusual by comparison with other fantasy role-playing settings).
By fantasy standards Aldis supports a strongly progressive worldview. Feminism, environmentalism and acceptance of homosexual-transgender lifestyles are strongly implied to be objectively correct. The setting is clearly meant to be the sort of idealized state that players with such sensibilities would choose to defend. However, Aldis is not free of internal strife, including a Mafia-like criminal organization known as The Silence, corrupted nobles and various dark-magic cults.
Aldis endures tense relations with Jarzon, a neighboring realm of intolerant fanatically religious ultra-conservatives fashioned after an extreme version of Evangelical Fundamentalism. Both nations are threatened by Kern, an evil kingdom of necromancers, and have occasionally operated as uneasy allies against the common aggressor.
So we have progressive feminist environmentalist gay paradise vs. Pat Robertson and Osama Bin Laden. In theory this is the perfect setting for me, since there are few groups I like less than the designated enemy. In the real world I would probably be quite motivated to think kindly of the good kingdom. It’s got a white hat and the other guys have an unambiguous black hat. It reflects my values. What’s not to like?
If it was really reality, nothing’s objectionable. It’s utopia. (Well I’d probably hate the monarchy still, but I’ll find a way to hate anything. It’s my gift. :) ) But there’s something ungenuine about doing that in fantasy, especially in the sort of fantasy meant to focus on conflict. Does the choice to be a good guy have any meaning when the scales are so obviously tilted one way?
Everybody is against burning kittens and for punching Hitler, but I’m not convinced that focusing on those makes the kind of gaming most suited to my tastes. I think setting up a sort of hero culture like Blue Rose does ultimately isn’t that different from casting detect evil and automatically killing anything that pings. In both cases it seems the protagonists are right because the world says so, not because they actually are in the right. It also reminds me rather unpleasantly of the attitudes of particular real world cultures that saw themselves in that light.
There’s a paradox here. By focusing on meaningless, easy dilemmas one cheapens the convictions. But by focusing too much on real world dilemmas, easy or otherwise, one ends up with the same impoverished choices. Instead of picking who the world says is right, we just pick whoever we say is right. I think it leads to the kind of thing I’ve seen in too many Tom Clancy books (too many being all I’ve read) where horrific evil deeds are done, things wrong by any sane understanding of the word. Things that are so wrong people who agree about little else would agree to condemn them. And they are condemned, for exactly as long as the non-Americans do them. When the Americans do them, they are always perfectly justified even if it’s exactly the same act.
More naming goodies!
Montaquian
Montalque
Aquimonde
Tee hee :D
As I was reading it, I was thinking to myself how seamlessly they would take to Taoism. Perhaps Mother/Father is just a hold over from when there 'had to be' some sort of diety. It is not so important who is responsible as that it just is.Or, to put another way, is life worth so many questions?
I can see your Halflings having similar feelings towards all sea creatures. Death is bad…or is it? Everyone dies eventually. It is the way of things. Mother/Father/The Sea/The Tao/Whatever offered this up so that we may live another week. Who are we to send it back? When it is our time, we will be offered up as well.
However, it seemed to me that Sam wanted to play in the grayscale and not make everything so black and white. In my opinion, the Halflings are just too white. Sure, the Churchlands think they are soulless creatures…but that is kind of like Satan saying Jesus was mean to him.
That's my concern too. Halflings are my favorite PC race and I designed their culture to emphasize more or less the opposite of the things the Churchlands emphasize. Churchlander religion is about duty, obligation, rules, and the like. The gods lay these obligations on you and therefore, etc. Churchlander culture is hierarchical and dominance oriented. The chief question is who bosses whom around and what belongs to who. It's, at least in its idealized form, fixed and rigid.
I didn't quite see the Free People written thus far as fairly utopian. (I've taken to writing them as Free People rather than Halflings for immersion :D)
As stated, it's a measure of living and culture as seen from Free People's way of life: which is to say most cultures will refer to their own way of life as Utopian. That is, until it is comparable with the values of another culture. Such as the Churchlanders.
I don't see the forces that guide and sway the Free People as Deific. Merely spiritual signifiers, not literal personifications.
Perhaps I am not going to be able to explain this feeling well. Its like trying to explain what the nuances of 'giving face' by East Asians are to my caucasian foreign friends back in the 80s and 90s.
Direct opposition is tricky when it comes to cultures, antagonistic perhaps when traditions and actions are misinterpreted and compared to your own. Things that look, walk and smell different are subject to ridicule and fear regardless of action taken later.
Say, if the Churchlanders generally internalize habits and customs, then the Free People are more liberal without provocation (accepting the duality of life but are certainly more secretive regarding business that is NOT for landers).
As mentioned nudity is to shorn off the literal and symbolic clothing of shame and landbound propriety. The same can be said of comments, opinions and the common outburst of emotion (or bar fights , mud fights , fish fights). Quick to anger, quick to forgive: the duality and fluidity of emotion and action?
Fluidity & liberation: I think I'll keep these things in mind when I think of the Free People.
That said, I think you're right that the halflings are too goody-good. There's meant to be a darker side to them, but I've done more to hint at it than actually describe it. My biases are obviously showing, what with being an anti-clerical gay fan of the Enlightenment and all. :)
Awwww , Goodness is relative anyways :p
Halfling Pirate / Free People Skimmer Raids: Two sides of the same coin. I think the thoughtlessness of other life (other than eating the bounty of the seas) is a little, errr off. If the sea is both unforgiving and aplenty and they are a liberal sort of people, wouldn't cold blooded murder (ruthlessness is another matter) mean there wasn't a choice in the matter of living?
I'm prone to think that the raiding party is likely to take things / cargos / food stocks in the deep sea which include extra rigging and ship material (since the idea of property is weird) and leave the ship. It allows them to keep their sensibilities and also leave the human ships to fend for themselves with little/bare minimum survival on the seas. Well, by Free People standards, which will mostly be a death sentence for most human crew. Compassion isn't freely given, less so for strangers to the waters.
For landbound communities, the ghetto's would likely form a shadow guild of sorts to ensure safety. Its not like the 'guards' placed on the small plot of land is likely to hold them. A wrong crossed-eyed look by one of the guards on shift ay result in his "accidental death". How would the community react is a pregnant Free Person is prohibited to leaving to birth her child in shore waters? I suspect it will be none too civil :p
I'm ok with prejudice practiced within a culture. I suppose I am inclined here to have my own personal utopian bias expressed here since my brother is handicapped both physically and mentally. Halfling are a favourite race of mine and I'm likely to believe they take better care of their own, even those malformed. I understand the practicality of it, but to put it another way ...
If we were to make use of all the gifts of the sea, should we not find a way/use for those less abled as well? Of course, this extends only to those of the People. Outsiders are another matter entirely.
However, this would make for great INTERNAL segregation within the Free People as well. It could even spillover to how the Mother's Sister as patron of outcasts (magic?) and storms can have two faces.
In fact, I'll probably address it more later, but I like seeing the spiritual beliefs all carry elements of duality within as well. Mother is bountiful but cruel, Father is guiding but reckless, Sister is discriminate but capricious, etc ' Works with the idea of liberation as well, not stuck to one single perception.
The anime departs from my memory of it, which I probably should have noticed when I dug up the picture. J I was thinking something more extensive than just the slashes of color most of the guys in the picture had on their faces, but less intensive than tribal tattoo guy' shoulder piece. Enough to form definite patterns, usually symmetrical, but something you could do with a knife and a steady hand without just flying large sections of the skin for the rebirth ceremony. Large, solid patches are probably out. If the reborn-to-be dies of blood loss, it would mess up the thematics of the ceremony. Killing the candidate is the sea's job.
One of the things I enjoy about working on gaming stuff is the chance to write sentences like the previous. I'm strange that way.
Hey! Disney's Atlantis cartoon had an Atlantean race with markings on faces and bodies! Similar to that?
Point Killing, is the sea's job
Much like the Skimmer Parties / Pirates do by leaving the looted ships hapless to the seas. And I do not understand what is strange with the sentence?
Of inks, tattooing and piercing, I comprehend and accede to your choices.
And yea on the wonderful oral traditions of the Free Peoples, those landbound and seahome! I see a lot of differences in both but strong traditions should be common ground for them on sacred communions and general beliefs.
Instruments generally offer more options but vocals are more apropos. A pirates cant of sort can be delivered through tunes and humming amongst seafarer's especially when dealing with 'outsiders'.
It's a system felt and lived, rather than a set of creeds. Halflings don&'t believe in Mother and Father, rather they feel that the sea is like their mother (having a rather generalized concept of family helping out here) and the ship is father.
Its going to be hard to codify this concept but I suppose it happens when the premise of the concept is fluid and liberal to begin with. But I like it :D
The difficulty in explaining the concepts would also continue to baffle the Churhclanders and cause them to view them as eternally strange with stranger notions and concepts of spirituality. Its like trying to explain the presence of the wind. It simply is.
I really like that. It creates a sort of patron for outsiders. By being separated from Mother, she's personifying their own isolation if they're landed halflings, or just lost, or lost halfling souls. In a way she's even conveying the isolation of the ship from other halflings.
Mother's Sister is a everchanging one of course.
It helps cover the arcane, the return of lost halfings. (Perhaps her stars seek out the lost Free People over the lands where the sea cannot reach), and outcasts in general as the Free People are often displaced in human communities. On the other surface, Mother's Sister can also be capricious like the storms above water. Isolation, rage and despair. Her keening wails akin to those of the shrill storms. mmm sea banshees ...Mayhaps, she rages or struggles that cause the violence when she tries to return / refused her return to the waters. Perhaps it is a test to those on the sea, as is one of her duties given to her. It can be many truths as perceived by those in the ghettoes (who use her name in blessing malformed childer), to pirates, who wish to be on her good side, fearing her depair and a signal of hope for those trapped in the inner lands.
Fathers brother would have a rare presence certainly. Islands few and far in between, but there are many sorts of lands. Like Coastal living coral reefs, sand bars, the ever present and dangerous rock shallows (shallow stretches that WILL ruin and capsize careless ships in the middle of the seas sometimes). Secret pirate coves or underwater grottoes of air pockets are rife all over the oceans and seas. Even the boiling waters of the volcanic isles where he once tried to reach the skies through Mother. A patron of shipbuilding and deeper horrors all at once, as he also harbours the strange and terrible creatures of the deep.
I get a little kick out of the idea that unusual hair coloring, which marks you out as somehow different and not in a good way, is unusual hair coloring for halflings. So many ghetto-dwelling castaways might have colors that are more ordinary for humans. It’s just an obvious sign they're not right, because what decent halfling would have brown or yellow or black or red hair? That's human hair! :)
Human-touched... shudder, That's icky.
You mentioned about the differences if the landbound and seafarers. I think there's much rich ground to build up the evergrowing taint of landbound Free People and the infection of 'property' by some.
There's a belief of cultural taint and poison among early Asian travelers as many travel and slowly bring back or become enamoured with Western ideologies. It's a very, very disturbing thing to see and most often handled with social ostracization. We cannot ignore that are of our people, yet they are also not. Another interesting and less than delightful aspect of duality.
Those with arcane/divine penchants may be seen as Free People who are 'land-touched' but were given a way to return or earn to the fold/waves with their gifts. Like how the sea can take aplenty but also boundless in its gifts. But rather than a gift fro the Mother; it is a gift (ability) granted by the patron of outcasts; Mother's Sisters. Reinforcing the distinct separation of the stars above from the waters below. Of course I suspect many Star-touched would be masters of manipulating the winds, the space between sky and sea.I like that. It fits smoothly in with magical talent being a bit more common among the inbred landed sorts while still leaving room for native casters on the ships themselves.
Magic is hopefully seen as erratic and random I hope. Then Mother's Sister fits her role as patron of outcasts and the insanely unpredictable storms. :p
That's a great real world example I'd forgotten. You've convinced me. It's wrong for halflings to put sea life to waste, in the same way it was wrong for the Native Americans to waste buffalo bits. Just refusing entirely to partake, especially when the sea is right there, strikes me as much too modern. They're not meant to be vegetarians or have an especially romantic conception of nature. It's where they live and they're interconnected, but not in the dolphin hugging, shark kissing kind of way.
Yes, everything is game :)
As long as you can catch it! What a great fishing game!
It's worth repeating: you're right. I ended up focused almost completely on the whiteness of halfling culture with very little grayscale. I'll have to work on that.
What does it mean, if I don't see the "whiteness" of it? In the back of my mind, I've taken every little bit of their culture to be both beneficial and harmful. Whimsically liberating but practical as well.
Hmmm, perhaps I'll reiterate that any culture addressed from first person will mostly sound ethnocentric unless compared unfavourbly with another.
Yea! I saw BLUE ROSE in reading!
I like Blue Rose, as it clearly states it is a romanticized fantasy game. It was darker aspects certainly from displaced, honour stricken races, internal politics and more extremists neighbours. But I'm sure the Jarzon neighbours would look at the Kingdom o Aldis as an abomination unto itself.
So we have progressive feminist environmentalist gay paradise vs. Pat Robertson and Osama Bin Laden. In theory this is the perfect setting for me, since there are few groups I like less than the designated enemy. In the real world I would probably be quite motivated to think kindly of the good kingdom. It's got a white hat and the other guys have an unambiguous black hat. It reflects my values. What's not to like?If it was really reality, nothing's objectionable. It's utopia. (Well I'd probably hate the monarchy still, but I'll find a way to hate anything. It's my gift. :) ) But there&'s something ungenuine about doing that in fantasy, especially in the sort of fantasy meant to focus on conflict. Does the choice to be a good guy have any meaning when the scales are so obviously tilted one way?
I like to think I'm sharing a kinship of likes and love of Halfling culture with someone online halfway across the world, raised in a completely different environment than I am. Do I think less kindly of your culture despite or in spite of your environment / government? There are utopian circumstances to your laws (in some US states) regarding gay unions. Its certainly more than I can say living in a Muslim country. But I also detest some of the governmental practice. Where would the white hat / black hat lie?
I'd imagine the conditions and opinions regarding the Vietnam War or the events at Tianmemen Square in China will vastly cast light in one direction from their own hemispheres - time to reel back ... (I dont even know why i'm writing this ... :p)Being given the choice wide enough to allow us to interpret and make of it what we will is probably the best that can be managed as we develop a culture for the Free People.
There's a paradox here. By focusing on meaningless, easy dilemmas one cheapens the convictions. But by focusing too much on real world dilemmas, easy or otherwise, one ends up with the same impoverished choices. Instead of picking who the world says is right, we just pick whoever we say is right. I think it leads to the kind of thing I've seen in too many Tom Clancy books (too many being all I've read) where horrific evil deeds are done, things wrong by any sane understanding of the word. Things that are so wrong people who agree about little else would agree to condemn them. And they are condemned, for exactly as long as the non-Americans do them. When the Americans do them, they are always perfectly justified even if it's exactly the same act.
Oh ... ermm, so you've already addressed some of the positions I've related above. Ah well, back to Free People loving!
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Please inform me, if we're lingering too long on the Free Peoples for you ... I just happen to like it more :D
And also if the wall of text isn't boring anyone!
I rarely post this much / long!
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It’s worth repeating: you’re right. I ended up focused almost completely on the whiteness of halfling culture with very little grayscale. I’ll have to work on that.
After I posted, you spelled out some of the darker aspects of Halflings. I love the Halfling Mafioso idea. That kind of thing was all I was looking for.
As for the rest… Actually I do have some limited communist sympathies.
I kind of figured you did. Honestly, I think I do too. I realize in today's political climate, that may be seen as a 'bad' thing, but…meh. It was not so much that your sympathies were bleeding through, but that by making the Halfling culture to look so utopian, you seemed unwilling to look at the bad side of your own biases. I think I know you better than that. I just think it might turn off people who do not know you as well.
Does any of that make any sense? Like I said, showing the seedy underbelly of Halfling society eliminates some of those fears.
I’m not sure how concerned I am with ruffling certain feathers.
No, but I think any artist has something to say. You may feel uncomfortable wearing that title, but honestly, what else could you call it?
The trick, I believe, is to present it in such a way that the audience feels like they came to that realization on their own. Being too obvious is going to turn some people off as they do not want to be 'preached to'. That was what I was trying to say. Sure, some people are not going to like it no matter what. You can not please everyone. And how obvious is too obvious? Well, I think that is what separates true artists from people who just have an axe to grind.
I wrote that before I read all of your post…and apparently you know exactly where I am coming from.
I didn't quite see the Free People written thus far as fairly utopian.
See? You can not please everyone. No matter what you do, one of us will call you a puppy kicker and lump you in with WotC. Fear our nerd rage. :)
And also if the wall of text isn't boring anyone!
I am enjoying your posts. I am sure Sam is enjoying them more than some random person just saying his ideas suck. Speaking of which, are we not overdue a troll?
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Stating a real quick idea before a forget.
Maintaining the idea of fluidity and not locking in set concepts. Perhaps Mother could be several aspects over the course of the seasons?
Like phases of the moon, ebb of the tides - more alive than the stoic unmoving geography lay of the land.
IE: In the winter months, she is the Frozen mother of Silence (stillness), uncaring, but n Summer, she is wild and bountiful. Mother can still have 2 faces for Summer: Generous in giving but also taking. Or in winter tides, she is uncaring but practical.
She is one thing or another, because one aspect simply isnt their time to surface.
She could be one thing to Coastal folk but have another face for Deeper Sea aspects.
Same would go for Mother's Sister, Father and Father's Brother.
Each one would have phases, aspects by seasons (and tides) which make up an ENTIRE pantheon of beliefs without bloating it with too many actual entities. One is many.
All drops of water come from one Mother, all river routes lead to one Father's destination. Sister's current ride both below and below, Brothers secrets glitter like sand on the sand for all, or hide in the depths never to be unburied.
Thoughts?
I'll have more later, but will wait for Samnell to process the wall of text on this page first.
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I'll have more later, but will wait for Samnell to process the wall of text on this page first.
Heh, that's the truth! It's a great problem to have, though. :)
I was all set to pounce further on things tonight and found out with an hour's notice of an incoming family visit from an annoying aunt. So I spent two prudent hours out of the house that otherwise would have gone to the Churchlands.
The quality time at the comic store left me with a reasonably priced copy of the Mage: The Ascension 2e core book, though.
I might get through a post or so tonight but certainly not the lot. From my skim earlier and past experience I know they deserve good responses. As far as fresh new posts full of Churchlandish flavor, I've been reading some inspirational material (The Gies' Life in a Medieval Village) and there should be one or two out in a few days aside the pending halfling rewrite.
Shamelessly picking a post that's easy to respond to. :)
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Please inform me, if we're lingering too long on the Free Peoples for you ... I just happen to like it more :D
And also if the wall of text isn't boring anyone!
I rarely post this much / long!---
I do want to write about things other than the halflings, but I also want to get the halflings right. If I become bored of them or want to set them aside for a while, I'll be sure to say as much.
Given my own habits, I can hardly complain about walls of text from others. :) I'm thrilled that the project as inspired such interest in others.
What I ought to be doing is consolidating multiple replies into a single post but I've been out of the habit. It would help to restrain my tendency to repeat myself and thus further confuse things.
...
The quality time at the comic store left me with a reasonably priced copy of the Mage: The Ascension 2e core book, though.
...
]B]This is me digressing.[/B]
Ooo I've both read Mage: The Awakening and Mage: The Ascension (got the Tarot cards even).
Is the 1st and 2nd very different? I know the third release. Mage: The Ascension Revised had some setting changes.
Naturally M: the Awakening was vastly different. Not sure if I liked it better but it was easier to get into; because it was more formally structured thematics overall.
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]B]This is me digressing.[/B]
Ooo I've both read Mage: The Awakening and Mage: The Ascension (got the Tarot cards even).
Is the 1st and 2nd very different? I know the third release. Mage: The Ascension Revised had some setting changes.
Naturally M: the Awakening was vastly different. Not sure if I liked it better but it was easier to get into; because it was more formally structured thematics overall.
This is me also digressing. :)
I picked up Mage because I've never owned a copy, so I can't tell you much about edition differences. I've read about the game enough online to love the idea behind it and have meant to pick up a book for years. I know from the same online reading, including asking here a while back, that Ascension Revised did a lot to exclude the spirit world from the scope of play (something about a risk of losing your magic every time you went in) that tied into the ending of Wraith. Some guy told me shortly after Revised came out that it turned the game from one that could be much lighter and more hopeful than most World of Darkness games into one where everything was already lost and you tried to survive and cling to scraps of what was. But he was a fairly strange guy so I don't take his opinion, or my half-remembered version of it, too seriously on its own.
I read enough about Awakening to know it left me cold compared to Ascension, so I left it on the shelf.
Ok, going to try that crazy multiple replies in one post thing I mentioned last night. Everybody stand back and watch me fail. :) I’m also trying to condense a little bit, so if there’s something I’ve missed feel free to call my attention to it.
More naming goodies!
Montaquian
Montalque
Aquimonde
I think we’re on the right track. Eventually I’ll just have to make up my mind and settle down with a name.
As stated, it's a measure of living and culture as seen from Free People's way of life: which is to say most cultures will refer to their own way of life as Utopian. That is, until it is comparable with the values of another culture. Such as the Churchlanders.
Right, but the concern CourtFool and I have is that the Free People, unlike the Churchlanders, appear utopian from an outside perspective. They come across as if they’re just objectively a better culture than the Churchlanders to the reader. It’s ok that we take sides as readers, and I’m right with the Free People here, but I don’t think it’s a good thing to have in the kind of campaign setting I want. At least not for PC races, which really should have a mix of good and bad traits. I would have less of an issue, though still a bit of one, with depicting a PC race as having a better culture than a typical antagonist.
I don't see the forces that guide and sway the Free People as Deific. Merely spiritual signifiers, not literal personifications.
Perhaps I am not going to be able to explain this feeling well. Its like trying to explain what the nuances of 'giving face' by East Asians are to my caucasian foreign friends back in the 80s and 90s.
That could be. I think I get what you’re saying, though. Mother and Father, etc, are metaphors for forces that the Free People give special significance too. Father is the ship, in the sense that Father rests upon Mother’s surface and is in constant contact and interaction with her. In a way, Father is stability and shelter, community, safety, those kinds of things. Mother is dynamism, freedom, liberation, and the like. Both are equally important and the Free People see their lives in terms of the interplay between them.
As mentioned nudity is to shorn off the literal and symbolic clothing of shame and landbound propriety. The same can be said of comments, opinions and the common outburst of emotion (or bar fights , mud fights , fish fights). Quick to anger, quick to forgive: the duality and fluidity of emotion and action?
That makes a lot of sense, at least on a personal level. Their status as outsiders argues against it on a community level, at least to some degree. They need to stick together and remember which Big People treated them well and which did not, which is going to involve some grudge carrying. A bar fight? When it’s over it’s over.
Halfling Pirate / Free People Skimmer Raids: Two sides of the same coin. I think the thoughtlessness of other life (other than eating the bounty of the seas) is a little, errr off. If the sea is both unforgiving and aplenty and they are a liberal sort of people, wouldn't cold blooded murder (ruthlessness is another matter) mean there wasn't a choice in the matter of living?
I'm prone to think that the raiding party is likely to take things / cargos / food stocks in the deep sea which include extra rigging and ship material (since the idea of property is weird) and leave the ship. It allows them to keep their sensibilities and also leave the human ships to fend for themselves with little/bare minimum survival on the seas. Well, by Free People standards, which will mostly be a death sentence for most human crew. Compassion isn't freely given, less so for strangers to the waters.
I imagine there would be a little bit of both. Since boarding and seizing a ship in broad daylight is probably a bad idea for halflings most of the time, the sensible thing to do is hang out on a trade route, pick a likely target, and shadow it until nightfall. Then it’s a matter of putting rogue levels to good use. Sometimes, and varying from ship to ship, they might just knife the whole targeted crew of humans. Other times, clouting everyone over the head and making off with the cargo might be enough.
The Free People certainly don’t want the ship, since it’s not one of theirs. They might just sink it, and I imagine that does happen. Other times they could guess how much the humans need to get to the nearest port and let them go, but then they have to deal with the possibility of retaliation. For crews that do both piracy and trade, there’s a reputation to worry about. They wouldn’t want to let their legitimate clients know they dabbled in raiding shipping. (Or at least not want them to know in the sense that they had more than just reason to suspect.) In those cases the crew could get knifed as a matter of self-protection. Maybe they sink the ship and leave it at that, or they could knife the crew and dump them overboard, creating an eerie ghost ship that drifts around until found.
There have been a few famous cases of the latter. The whole crew vanishes and the ship is found adrift with no signs of violence. In other cases they might leave the bodies on board, which is creepy in its own way.
I'm ok with prejudice practiced within a culture. I suppose I am inclined here to have my own personal utopian bias expressed here since my brother is handicapped both physically and mentally. Halfling are a favourite race of mine and I'm likely to believe they take better care of their own, even those malformed. I understand the practicality of it, but to put it another way ...
If we were to make use of all the gifts of the sea, should we not find a way/use for those less abled as well? Of course, this extends only to those of the People. Outsiders are another matter entirely.
I understand where you’re coming from. My mother’s twin brother was mentally handicapped and one of her sisters is the same, plus seriously mentally ill in the violence-prone sense. So is one of my cousins. Her sister showed up at the house years ago in tears because she’d just been chased around the house. Razor blades were involved.
Hey! Disney's Atlantis cartoon had an Atlantean race with markings on faces and bodies! Similar to that?
I could only find a pic of a few crescents below the eyes, but that would be one possible pattern. Extent, pattern, and location would vary. Usually one would find them on the face and/or chest, but sometimes on shoulders, forearms, etc.
Much like the Skimmer Parties / Pirates do by leaving the looted ships hapless to the seas. And I do not understand what is strange with the sentence?
I think you mean helpless, but otherwise I follow.
Instruments generally offer more options but vocals are more apropos. A pirates cant of sort can be delivered through tunes and humming amongst seafarer's especially when dealing with 'outsiders'.
Instruments would be more for off-duty singing for recreation rather than work songs. They probably have songs that help them memorize things for navigation too, like star positions. I could easily see a sung periplus to keep track of what ports are where and important details about them.
You mentioned about the differences if the landbound and seafarers. I think there's much rich ground to build up the evergrowing taint of landbound Free People and the infection of 'property' by some.
There's a belief of cultural taint and poison among early Asian travelers as many travel and slowly bring back or become enamoured with Western ideologies. It's a very, very disturbing thing to see and most often handled with social ostracization. We cannot ignore that are of our people, yet they are also not. Another interesting and less than delightful aspect of duality.
Westerners have a similar concept: going native. There have always been people from Europe who found the liked other cultures more than their own and ended up adopting many of their practices. It’s been treated as everything from a kind of moral degeneration (“He’s siding with those savages we’re murdering!”) to a weird sort of racist empowerment (The westerner adopts “native” ways and ends up better with them than the people who lived that way their entire lives. One of the first major writers in a distinctly American style instead of just aping European standards was in love with that idea.) to a kind of neutral sentiment that’s much more popular today than in past decades but still can generate a lot of resentment. A powerful segment of the American body politic considers the fact that some policy was tried and worked elsewhere a conclusive argument against trying it here.
I expect land bound halflings vary a lot. There would be a general assumption that the ghetto was a crew surrogate, but really it’s not. Organized crime could be in part a way to adapt halfling property culture to life amongst humans. I was touring Italy in 1998 and we had a local guide who explained what she called the godfather system to us. It was a little funny to watch how carefully she put it, but one of the services that the mafia figures were meant to provide was evening out the take at tourist stops between the owners of several different gift shops, stands, and so forth in exchange for his protection money. She had apparently led groups that went to the “wrong” gift shop and the competitors promptly went to the phones and in short order someone showed up to set her straight.
Maybe the Free People version involves some kinds of donations to public works and welfare within the ghetto, with how much actually goes to the general benefit and how much ends up in the pockets of the don varying from place to place.
Magic is hopefully seen as erratic and random I hope. Then Mother's Sister fits her role as patron of outcasts and the insanely unpredictable storms. :p
A bit, yes. It does run in families, but not perfectly so. The Free People don’t have genetics but they know that magic tends to run in families. It’s not all straight in the family line, though. Plenty of Free People with the right pedigree (being sons or daughters of a caster, for instance) end up without much in the way of talent, and some with no known magical heritage get great talent. There’s enough randomness to ascribe it to Mother’s Sister and her whims, but enough predictability to build up expectations.
What does it mean, if I don't see the "whiteness" of it? In the back of my mind, I've taken every little bit of their culture to be both beneficial and harmful. Whimsically liberating but practical as well.
I wouldn’t read too much into it; it’s a subjective thing.
I like to think I'm sharing a kinship of likes and love of Halfling culture with someone online halfway across the world, raised in a completely different environment than I am.
I think that’s pretty cool too. :) It’s very weird, in a good way, for a guy like me in an isolated small town in a very insular section of a rather insular country that grew up with little to no real diversity of cultures to end up producing something someone from a different and distant culture is interested in.
Do I think less kindly of your culture despite or in spite of your environment / government? There are utopian circumstances to your laws (in some US states) regarding gay unions. Its certainly more than I can say living in a Muslim country. But I also detest some of the governmental practice. Where would the white hat / black hat lie?
I'd imagine the conditions and opinions regarding the Vietnam War or the events at Tianmemen Square in China will vastly cast light in one direction from their own hemispheres - time to reel back ... (I dont even know why i'm writing this ... :p)
It depends. I don’t think very highly of my own culture and its traditional tropes. Where white and black hats apply, if they do, would depend on specifically what we’re talking about. In the real world, the hats aren’t nailed to our heads but rather are quite capable of changing positions. Saudi Arabia makes almost anybody look good when it comes to gay rights, but Sweden makes everybody else look bad when it comes to gender equality.
After I posted, you spelled out some of the darker aspects of Halflings. I love the Halfling Mafioso idea. That kind of thing was all I was looking for.
It gives a good sliding scale of darkness too. The Mafia can be a dirty, anarchic collection of psychopaths operating under the delusion that they’re people of principle standing up for the little guy, which is in line with most recent depictions of it that I’m aware of. (I’ve watched the Sopranos, but I’m not a big connoisseur of mob fiction, so I could be off.) It could be a kind of ruthless underground that in some sense has its heart in the right place, like some sort of revolutionaries that just go too far in reaction to genuine problems. It could be an organization that includes people from both demographics. And of course it varies from place to place.
Which is something I like. The halfling mob has a dial on it that can be manipulated to create different sorts of stories, adventures, play experiences, and the like.
In some respects, I guess a halfling mafia would be the ultimate in halflings taking on human cultural tropes. The rudiments of feudalism have essentially the same structure and basis in mutual protection and reciprocity. I think I’ll want to mix it up a bit and give them traits of more than just the usual Sicilian mafia that American audiences know best, but I’ll have to research those a bit.
I kind of figured you did. Honestly, I think I do too. I realize in today's political climate, that may be seen as a 'bad' thing, but…meh. It was not so much that your sympathies were bleeding through, but that by making the Halfling culture to look so utopian, you seemed unwilling to look at the bad side of your own biases. I think I know you better than that. I just think it might turn off people who do not know you as well.Does any of that make any sense? Like I said, showing the seedy underbelly of Halfling society eliminates some of those fears.
It makes a lot of sense, and it’s true to a degree. I meant to give them more of a dark side in the initial writing, but I got on a roll with the more goody-good stuff and let the intentions side by unrealized. I do try to confront my biases, but despite appearances I have my imperfections. :)
No, but I think any artist has something to say. You may feel uncomfortable wearing that title, but honestly, what else could you call it?
The first thing I did was to get on Trillian and tell my best friend that someone called me an artist. It feels strange. Flattering, certainly. (And thanks. :) )
There are ideas driving the project so I suppose that it is a way to say something, which means that I do have something to say. When I think about it to myself I see the parts more often: historical inspirations, genre influences, and intersections of my tastes in fiction, non-fiction, and gaming. Maybe that’s just the nature of being the guy doing the writing, even with valuable and helpful comments to guide me along.
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I can only recommend that you continue to develop the Great Church as a PDF stand-alone. I definatly want to read it when pulled together. That way it cam be dropped into any D&D campaign asa finished product.
So what Classes are part of the Church:
Church Archivist (Cleric/Thief)-with a focus on Knowledge skils and book traps and locks rather than martial adventuring skills.
Church Scribe (Cleric/Alchemist) - making inks and writing scrolls.
]B]This is me digressing.[/B]
Ooo I've both read Mage: The Awakening and Mage: The Ascension (got the Tarot cards even) ...
This is me also digressing. :)
I picked up Mage because I've never owned a copy, so I can't tell you much about edition differences. I've read about the game enough online to love the idea behind it and have meant to pick up a book for years. I know from the same online reading, including asking here a while back, that Ascension Revised did a lot to exclude the spirit world from the scope of play (something about a risk of losing your magic every time you went in) that tied into the ending of Wraith. Some guy told me shortly after Revised came out that it turned the game from one that could be much lighter and more hopeful than most World of Darkness games into one where everything was already lost and you tried to survive and cling to scraps of what was. But he was a fairly strange guy so I don't take his opinion, or my half-remembered version of it, too seriously on its own.
I read enough about Awakening to know it left me cold compared to Ascension, so I left it on the shelf.
Digression Post
I really like Mage: Ascension, but to a lesser degree I like the Awakening as well. I tried to play it with friends when I first heard of 10 years ago, but its hard to grasp with new players (including me) and a GM unfamiliar with cooperative Storyteller games. (he was more of a stat, kill, xp kinda of GM). It ended after one session ... dissatisfied and unfulfiling but I still loved it. I also liked Demon: The Reaping though I hesitate to share that with religious friends :pTo be honest, I've been in too many shortlived PBeM & PbP games also unable to explore character concepts or the immersive storylines enough.
End Digression
More naming goodies!
Montaquian
Montalque
AquimondeI think we're on the right track. Eventually I'll just have to make up my mind and settle down with a name.
Cool! Can't wait to see what you'll settle with :D
That could be. I think I get what you're saying, though. Mother and Father, etc, are metaphors for forces that the Free People give special significance too. Father is the ship, in the sense that Father rests upon Mother's surface and is in constant contact and interaction with her. In a way, Father is stability and shelter, community, safety, those kinds of things. Mother is dynamism, freedom, liberation, and the like. Both are equally important and the Free People see their lives in terms of the interplay between them.
Kinda, with varying nuances between the more distant Free People from coast to coast. Some darker out of necessity, others pragmatic out of habit and etc. It also has as much to do with how each crew / ghetto treats these concepts. Some are fervent believers, others view Mother and Father as ... strong suggestions at best.
These viewpoints might gibe leeway to secular groups within the community. It might even allow some to be tainted with BIG People concepts and living, insofar as to infect different levels of the Free People Mafioso.
A bar fight? When it's over it's over.
Most Def :D, but outside grudges can run deep. I guess that sounds wee bit xenophobic!
... For crews that do both piracy and trade, there's a reputation to worry about. They wouldn't want to let their legitimate clients know they dabbled in raiding shipping. (Or at least not want them to know in the sense that they had more than just reason to suspect.) In those cases the crew could get knifed as a matter of self-protection. Maybe they sink the ship and leave it at that, or they could knife the crew and dump them overboard, creating an eerie ghost ship that drifts around until found.
There have been a few famous cases of the latter. The whole crew vanishes and the ship is found adrift with no signs of violence. In other cases they might leave the bodies on board, which is creepy in its own way.
The Ghost ships idea I like!
It serves to also compound the horrible things Churchlanders say about the souless sea demons halflings!As for 'hapless', was that not the right usage of the term? :)
I think that's pretty cool too. :) It's very weird, in a good way, for a guy like me in an isolated small town in a very insular section of a rather insular country that grew up with little to no real diversity of cultures to end up producing something someone from a different and distant culture is interested in.
Thats the magic of Fantasy RPG, token thanks to the Deities of the Internets, IP and PING :p
Would it help if I saif I went to Michigan once 10 years ago ... Grand Rapids! To some gay club named Diversions (wait, was that in Landing?). Phew, and I stood out as a small asian twink in a corner. LOL!I kind of figured you did. Honestly, I think I do too. I realize in today's political climate, that may be seen as a 'bad' thing, but meh. It was not so much that your sympathies were bleeding through, but that by making the Halfling culture to look so utopian, you seemed unwilling to look at the bad side of your own biases. I think I know you better than that. I just think it might turn off people who do not know you as well.
I think Samnell is probably turning me on rather than off instead :)
Lastly, I think there's enough raw material here for refinement at this point without being overly developed. As a setting, there should be enough details, but only so much- as to inspire more creativity and openness with its readers.
I look forward to reading what comes of this and naturally the rest of the project. I must admit to half-reading / ha;f-skimming the middling portions of the Churchlanders though the Cyrry does look interesting too!
(( hugs & support ))
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Not that bishops and higher are the only ones who can cast spells, though. That would be lame and pretty much rule out PC Great Church clerics. I’m thinking that some subset of all priests can cast. Everybody uses the same prayers, but they “work” especially well for the casters.
I know the discussion has moved on to other things, but I'm just trying to catch up. I hope to post more over the weekend
I think Eberron handles this pretty well. The majority of priests of any of the organized religions are experts. Of those that can cast, most of those are adepts (and "clerical" adepts even get access to a single domain). Only a small percentage of the religious are actual full blown miracle working clerics.
I think I’ll want to mix it up a bit and give them traits of more than just the usual Sicilian mafia that American audiences know best, but I’ll have to research those a bit.
Just like everything else, I think you will find organized crime very similar and very much different. Essentially, it is about power. Whoever is in control may wield it a little differently.
I think you could research the Yakuza, Russian Mafia and Mexican Mafia to find some non-standard Italian elements. Prison and biker gangs too.
Flattering, certainly. (And thanks. :) )
I never said you were a good artist.
At the risk of turning this thread into an echo chamber, I honestly find your material more inspiring than a lot of published stuff. Paizo's stuff is good, but they simply can not take the risk an individual can without fear of alienating a large part of their customers.
I have seen standard Fantasy a million times. I will likely see it a million more times. Paizo's stuff is certainly well polished, but I do not think it really gets deep enough to get to what I feel is real character. And why would it? Most of their customers just want to kill things and take their stuff. Nothing wrong with that. You do not need nuanced ambiguity in the setting to do that though. In fact, you do not want any of that baggage. Killing orcs is not so fun if you start thinking too much from the orcs' perspective.
So, even though I may really like your material I question how commercially successful it could be. Not that you are concerned with that. However, how does one measure 'good' art?
So what Classes are part of the Church:
I am going to regret this. The same classes that are part of any other Fantasy setting. I think adding new classes just because you have a new setting is a waste. It is a gimmick to hook players who chase after every new shinny.
In fact, I wonder if publishers started making settings mechanics free they might have broader appeal.
It occurs to me that I am being unjust to Paizo. Their adventure paths are a little more risqué and they do take more risks with those. So I do respect to that.
I know the discussion has moved on to other things, but I'm just trying to catch up. I hope to post more over the weekend.
Don't worry too much about addressing things that the thread has moved on from. I'm far from done with the human civilizations of the Churchlands and their religion. :)
I think Eberron handles this pretty well. The majority of priests of any of the organized religions are experts. Of those that can cast, most of those are adepts (and "clerical" adepts even get access to a single domain). Only a small percentage of the religious are actual full blown miracle working clerics.
I decided that I wanted to go with an all-casting clergy but what I've just finished reading has caused me to question it again. Apparently I misunderstood a bit of the history, among other things. Knowing what I do now the illiterate parish priest who does ceremonies by rote makes a lot more sense. I plan to write a bottom-up depiction of a typical village, parish, and so forth at some point and will hopefully remember to revisit the topic then.
I think you could research the Yakuza, Russian Mafia and Mexican Mafia to find some non-standard Italian elements. Prison and biker gangs too.
The Yakuza and Chinese triads came to mind immediately. I'll probably look at some non-Sicilian Italian mobs too, like the Comorra and 'Ndrangheta.
I never said you were a good artist.
That's an excellent point. :)
So, even though I may really like your material I question how commercially successful it could be. Not that you are concerned with that. However, how does one measure 'good' art?
I doubt there's any commercial potential in all this. It's a labor of fun, which might at some point become a machine for producing more fun in the form of a setting I'm using with players.
I don't have any idea how one measures good art, though. I've read books considered to be works of great art and found them just terrible, and not simply because I'm so inured to the things they popularized. I've read terrible pulpy derivative stuff that I thought had more aesthetic merit, even if it was completely unoriginal. My mainstays in development have been more questions of whether something is fun, whether it suggests interesting story potential, and does it appear to fit together sensibly enough to lend verisimilitude, aside the implicit reaction to typical fantasy settings.
So what Classes are part of the Church:I am going to regret this. The same classes that are part of any other Fantasy setting. I think adding new classes just because you have a new setting is a waste. It is a gimmick to hook players who chase after every new shinny.
Usually I think you're right. There are certainly narrow spaces for additional classes, but most new classes make more sense to me as customizations of one of the typical base classes. Some of them are obviously mechanical test beds and thus do unique things that might appeal to some players, myself included. They feel different on the play end and may offer subtle nuances on the usual experience. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but having a different class is distinct in my mind from needing a different class.
It occurs to me that I am being unjust to Paizo. Their adventure paths are a little more risqué and they do take more risks with those. So I do respect to that.
I bought my first Paizo product roughly twenty minutes after reading in a thread full of outrage over how the only person in Sandpoint who minded that a couple were in a same-sex relationship was evil-aligned. Someone had asked if they really had to bring this kind of thing into their fantasy. I no longer recall exactly what James Jacobs said in response, but it was something to the effect that it was past time for the genre to move beyond absolute silence about non-heterosexuality the same way it had come to embrace non-male and non-white protagonists. I've bought a fair bit since, though mostly AP stuff rather than dedicated setting books.
But yes, it's a conservative fandom. Fandoms tend to be, especially when they’re focused on something romantic in the classical sense of the word. Fantasy is certainly a romantic genre, and often enough its overarching themes are very reactionary. An absence of diversity is often taken as a sign that diversity is incompatible with the genre, and we’ve both surely seen the threads that demonstrate the sentiment.
I'm prone to think that the raiding party is likely to take things / cargos / food stocks in the deep sea which include extra rigging and ship material (since the idea of property is weird) and leave the ship. It allows them to keep their sensibilities and also leave the human ships to fend for themselves with little/bare minimum survival on the seas.
Maybe one tradition is that they can take anything but water supplies, fresh water as hard to come by at sea sometimes as it is in a desert.
I'll probably look at some non-Sicilian Italian mobs too, like the Comorra and 'Ndrangheta.
Of course. I think the prison and biker games may help show how these organizations begin. I would be willing to bet if you looked at the history of every single one of them, including the less exotic home grown organizations, you would find startling similarities.
I think the fact you immediately thought of it for the economically distressed outsiders that are your Freepeople is evidence. From there, all you need is one strong, historical figure who gave the organization its current flavor.
I don't have any idea how one measures good art, though.
War and Peace, I'm looking at you! 'Good' art is pretty subjective. So I guess I can be safe in saying you are a good artist. :)
...but having a different class is distinct in my mind from needing a different class.
Agreed. And I have not seen anything in your setting yet that I believe necessitates a new Class.
I bought my first Paizo product roughly twenty minutes after reading in a thread full of outrage over how the only person in Sandpoint who minded that a couple were in a same-sex relationship was evil-aligned.
I remember the outrage over the lawful good Paladin who was sweet on someone of the same sex. I had completely glossed over it during reading and really did not notice until someone went and ranted on the interwebs. Rather ironic.
Trying to catch up a little bit. I’ve ended up a hair busier than I thought I’d be …and it’s Double XP weekend in City of Heroes. My life is a tale of warring geekdoms. :)
Kinda, with varying nuances between the more distant Free People from coast to coast. Some darker out of necessity, others pragmatic out of habit and etc. It also has as much to do with how each crew / ghetto treats these concepts. Some are fervent believers, others view Mother and Father as ... strong suggestions at best.
These viewpoints might gibe leeway to secular groups within the community. It might even allow some to be tainted with BIG People concepts and living, insofar as to infect different levels of the Free People Mafioso.
I get it now. I thought you meant how literally the concepts were taken and you were actually talking about diversity in degree of devotion. Sure thing, that’s true for everybody. It’s necessary to speak in generalities when writing setting text, but just as there are humans who don’t take the Great Church’s every dogma all that seriously so also there are halflings who have an at best casual appreciation for their native religion.
As for 'hapless', was that not the right usage of the term? :)
I think I over thought a little. You said something didn’t sound right about the sentence when you typed it, so I looked it over and tried to find something that might be out of place, picking up two words I think could be easily confused. Hapless and helpless both work in context. Had I not been on the lookout for an error I wouldn’t have thought to say anything.
Which goes to show that your English is better than either of us was willing to give credit for. Sorry about that. :)
Would it help if I saif I went to Michigan once 10 years ago ... Grand Rapids! To some gay club named Diversions (wait, was that in Landing?). Phew, and I stood out as a small asian twink in a corner. LOL!
I’m quite a bit north of Grand Rapids (~four hours driving) but I’ve been there. It was only once, back in 1998, but I was there, darn it! For a very loose definition of almost, we almost crossed paths. :)
Lastly, I think there's enough raw material here for refinement at this point without being overly developed. As a setting, there should be enough details, but only so much- as to inspire more creativity and openness with its readers.
I do think we’ve hit the high points on improving the halfling description, which means I ought to do the revision get it posted, and get on to something else. Not that I’m sick of them or talking about them, but collaboration seemed to have evened out their issues enough to go back to the original text and add and change as needed. New ideas are still welcome, of course.
For patient readers more interested in non-halfling content: ahead on my plate, not that they’ll surely come in this order:
1) The Red Goddess and her order within the Great Church
2) A ground-up view of a typical Churchlander village, including those parish priests from a prior post
3) The same for a typical city
4) A “savage” human cultural group (tentative name: Ap Hrafn) that lives in the Giants’ Wall among the giants and their interactions with the Churchlands.
5) A bit of the Great Church’s cosmology, centered on the nature of fiends and angels, with a heretical belief or two included.
I’m not sure if #4 is also be one of the “civilized” human ethnicities in the Churchlands, but if so then those in the mountains are not affiliated with the Great Church but rather still have a functioning nature-oriented of religion.
...but having a different class is distinct in my mind from needing a different class.Agreed. And I have not seen anything in your setting yet that I believe necessitates a new Class.
I think you're right. :)
I bought my first Paizo product roughly twenty minutes after reading in a thread full of outrage over how the only person in Sandpoint who minded that a couple were in a same-sex relationship was evil-aligned.I remember the outrage over the lawful good Paladin who was sweet on someone of the same sex. I had completely glossed over it during reading and really did not notice until someone went and ranted on the interwebs. Rather ironic.
Right, I'd forgotten that detail. Not pretty subtext, even on top of already ugly text.
Trying to catch up a little bit. I've ended up a hair busier than I thought I'd be and it's Double XP weekend in City of Heroes. My life is a tale of warring geekdoms. :)
Always wanted to play CoH/CoV! Also heard there's a strong LBGT community in there :p But its a little expensive since I'm already playing WoW. Super casual player here, and a USD 15 per month is close to 55 a month here for me to top up. So for whatever limited PvE time I have, two MMO's would be cost an extra 110/month. :(
Been playing since beta, and its a vastly different game now than it was. Hope they manage to consolidate the outdated graphics engine with an amenable solution in the future (which was bound to happen).
As for 'hapless', was that not the right usage of the term? :)
Which goes to show that your English is better than either of us was willing to give credit for. Sorry about that. :)
Thank you kindly :D
I'm quite a bit north of Grand Rapids (~four hours driving) but I've been there. It was only once, back in 1998, but I was there, darn it! For a very loose definition of almost, we almost crossed paths. :)
I errored in my dating (calender, not social activity). I was in Michigan between (midwest) for the year of late 1997 till the late 1998. So there is that greater chance (kinda ... :p). I was also under 21 then so I had this tape thingie on my hand so I couldn't purchase alcohol at the bar. Although, I think it wasn't common to find asians in Diversions in 1998. Now that I've written it, it sounds so long ago, but I swear it doesn't feel all that long ago.
I did like the barn party my friends took me to at Saugatuck over the summer :DI do think we've hit the high points on improving the halfling description, which means I ought to do the revision get it posted, and get on to something else. Not that I'm sick of them or talking about them, but collaboration seemed to have evened out their issues enough to go back to the original text and add and change as needed. New ideas are still welcome, of course.
I do look forward to the revision. Sometimes I'd rather not let all juices get completely drained out. It would be ideal to give just enough for readers to put in their fair share of creative input without being overly swayed by overdeveloped settings. Especially one that can be statted out for PC and NPCs :D
I'd love to hear more of course, but in the context of a running game or campaign just to see what others have done with it.As always, I still like halflings but revisiting them as how your OTHER cultures have incorporated / perceived them would be more beneficial to flesh them out overall.
Perhaps even statting out a few NPC hafling myself!
Like a crippled beggar oracle hafling, landbound of course for his deformity and strange connection to to magic. Mental delusions (?) of hearing the waves (focus) and spouting horrible prophecies at big folk patrol guards in the ghetto. Partially used as a spy by the local mafioso :D
And hooray for
Cyrdak Drokkus / Jasper Korvaski!
They make such a cute couple!
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ps: Would love to hear about your CoH Character concept!
Trying to catch up a little bit. I've ended up a hair busier than I thought I'd be and it's Double XP weekend in City of Heroes. My life is a tale of warring geekdoms. :)Always wanted to play CoH/CoV! Also heard there's a strong LBGT community in there :p But its a little expensive since I'm already playing WoW.
I tried WoW and didn't like it. Strange since pretty much every MMO operates on the same model. But I've been with CoX since late 2006, with a few months off here and there, so I guess I'm used to it. They got a big infusion of cash a few years ago and have brought us many things (weapon and power customization, etc) that had been previously put on the backburner or dismissed as to labor-intensive to code.
I'm pretty much a solo guy unless I have to team to do something or a friend is on, and I've made rather few CoX friends. Soloing is a great way not to meet people. :) So I can't really say much about the LGBT scene, save that I know there are a few gay-friendly supergroups. Back when I followed player events every now and then, they sometimes had in-game parties.
I errored in my dating (calender, not social activity). I was in Michigan between (midwest) for the year of late 1997 till the late 1998. So there is that greater chance (kinda ... :p). I was also under 21 then so I had this tape thingie on my hand so I couldn't purchase alcohol at the bar. Although, I think it wasn't common to find asians in Diversions in 1998. Now that I've written it, it sounds so long ago, but I swear it doesn't feel all that long ago.
If you're of legal age (18) and walk into a bar and get served, and then they get in trouble for serving an underage patron, you're old enough to be sued for lost business. It's a very strange system.
I'd love to hear more of course, but in the context of a running game or campaign just to see what others have done with it.As always, I still like halflings but revisiting them as how your OTHER cultures have incorporated / perceived them would be more beneficial to flesh them out overall.
The ethnicity writeups need some revision and expansion, so I shall try to remember it when I touch upon them again.
ps: Would love to hear about your CoH Character concept!
There's not a lot to them, actually. I tend to try to find powerset combinations with some synergy that match what I'm in the mood for at any given time. My first main, who has all the money and who I collect badges on, has no concept. He was built as part of a teaming project, so his concept was "be a part of the teaming project and have fun". The second is an MMO character "trained" by professional gamers to the extent that he came to life to fight evil in the real world. The second is a lot more fun to play and has a better build, so he sees more time than the original main.
I make a lot of characters with fairly jokey concepts:
1) A deconstructionist literary critic who turned his grad students into murderous thugs
2) A pretentious teenage rebel without a clue that got halfway through initiation into one of the enemy factions before wising up.
3) A guy who was picked on in high school by the local swim team (purely an excuse to put a speedo on a character) and scooped out their brains to operate his team of villainous robots
4) A guy who lost his children in the crossfire of a superpowered battle and scooped their brains out to run his team of villainous robots (I like evil robots.)
5) Another clueless teenage rebel (I seem to like this theme) that rebels by dying his hair purple, putting on black and pink tights, and punching bad guys just like society says he ought to be doing with his powers. I sort of role-played his moral choices through the shades of gray arcs in the new expansion, which was good fun except that I out-leveled them before I could get him quite where I wanted.
...those sound way more cynical when I list them than they did when I wrote the bios. :)
I used to have a guy who was in-utero when his mother was saved by superheroes and thus decided to train himself to become one, but I didn't like his powers so I deleted him. Too much twitchy gameplay for my preferences.
Here we have a goddess of the Great Church. Once again, suggestions, comments, concerns, and questions are welcome.
The Red Goddess
The Red Goddess has many titles: Scourge of Righteousness, Queen of Blades, Harrower of the Fallen, Maiden of Glory, Redemptrix of Martyrs, Hellbane, She of Terrible Wrath, Mistress of Hosts Triumphant.
The Queen of Blades is a terrific foe of evil; slow to anger but absolute and relentless in righteous vengeance. Her purpose is no less than the total eradication of evil, wherever it may arise. She is thus the goddess of crusaders, of war, but also of purity. The Scourge of Righteousness brings retribution for sins. She smiles upon those at arms, their own blood flowing as they shed that of evildoers in holy fury. For evil there can be no mercy, no pity, no remorse, no guilt. No sacrifice is too great, no course too arduous, so long as it ends in the deaths of evildoers.
The Great Church teaches that the Adversary immediately gave up the war for Heaven and fled with his hosts when the Thought gave him this simple revelation: “You have roused the Red Goddess. She comes.”
The order of the Red Goddess is harsh. The Redemptrix of Martyrs treasures those who swear themselves to her, promising them glory and triumph eternal, so long as they never falter and never fail. They must purify themselves of all evil influences, undertaking lengthy ritual ablutions, including a wide range of mortifications of the flesh, before they take up her orders and cannot be counted full members until evil has died at their hands and its blood sprayed across their faces.
But however harsh the order is, and however much the Red Goddess demands of her sworn followers, she does not respect earthly station. All who come to her and wish to know the ways to battle evil must be taught, until their weaknesses are revealed and they are cast out or they have proven worthy. Men and women alike are welcome, of any class and standing so long as they are children of the gods.
The Red Goddess is exceptionally popular with the Inquisition, wandering exorcists, priests- and knights-errant. Though her faith is physically demanding, its ultimate dogma is to seek and destroy evil. Most adopt a strictly physical interpretation of the mission, and none eschew it entirely, but a substantial minority work as scholarly heresiologists and the like. Both are favored, so long as the scholars do not lapse into indolence or convince themselves with twisted words to betray the true faith.
The Hellbane has no tolerance for weakness, for Hell never sleeps and the Abyss never tires. The feeble-bodied are not welcome within her ranks. Those who allow themselves to rest in old age are not honored, for if they feel themselves failing they should commend their flesh to her in one final crusade. To die old and weak is a great sin. Contests of arms and strength are common among the faithful, both as a sacred act in themselves and to help watch for those with failing strength so that they might be encouraged to do what is right.
The Scourge of Righteousness expects her faithful to be loyal and dependable to their superiors, but never to suffer being led by weakness. Unique among the Great Church’s ranks, those of her order may challenge their superiors to trial by combat. This can only be refused while battle rages, and then only to postpone it to the matter’s immediate conclusion provided a priest to officiate and the proper number of witnesses can be gathered.
In such trials, a requisite number of witnesses gather (more being required if the difference in rank is significant and less if it is minor) in an open place. A priest or priestess (the order makes no distinctions whatsoever based on sex), forms a wide circle with sacred oils mixed with blood. If sacred oils are not available, then oil for weapons or armor, or simply blood itself, is accepted as a substitute. Both contestants enter the circle, and may not depart it until one yields or is slain.
Entering armored, they each speak ritual boasts and lay their case before giving the matter to the Mistress of Hosts Triumphant. The third priest officiating then speaks a short prayer and the circle of blood catches fire, forming a knee-high wall of scarlet and black flames. Within each contestant removes armor, casting each piece out of the circle with the declaration that the righteousness of the cause shall be protection enough, until they each have only a single axe, the goddess’s sacred weapon, at hand. The celebrant then speaks further dedicatory prayers as each contestant opens two veins in the chest with their axes’ blades.
At the celebrant’s word, the battle begins and cannot be stopped except that one yields or dies. None may interfere from without, lest they tempt the Goddess’s wrath. The contestants may use every gift available to them, provided they do not leave the circle, and must continue until one falls or yields, as illustrated in the life of Saint Kalakrigan:
Kalakrigan lived in the days of the Demon War, serving in the armies of light against the hordes of the Nether Winter. Disgusted with what she saw as the ineptitude of the high priest she was sworn to obey, she challenged the man to trial by combat. The circle was drawn and the flames lit, prayers spoken, and the challenge began. Her superior dealt Kalakrigan many terrible blows but she did not waver. Her blood flowed free. Then demons came among them, slaying witnesses and ravaging the area. Still the battle raged, until Kalakrigan saw that whatever her quarrel with her superior, both were needed outside the circle. Kalakrigan cast her axe aside and yielded, laying herself open for a killing blow. Her high priest raised his blade with a cry of triumph and his eyes fell upon the carnage outside their circle. At once he declared himself vanquished, opened his throat, and with his last gurgling breath insisted Kalakrigan go to battle having proved herself the most righteous.
The Red Goddess’s iconography is specific and complex. She is always depicted bare-breasted and many-armed, with a tongue of fire and a bladed weapon in each hand, though never a sword. Full nudity is rare, but not unknown and more common in older depictions. In paintings and mosaic, the weapons are always aflame in scarlet and black and in all depictions the Red Goddess is enormously muscled. Blood runs from her breasts instead of milk, its appearance on a statue being a sign of the goddess’s favor. In some depictions, rather than the apex of normal breasts the Red Goddess possesses fanged mouths that instead drool or spit the blood. This blood is allowed to flow freely into basins set below the statue, so that it may bathe the fallen foe or foes always depicted at the goddess’s feat and then collect for use in relics and future rituals. Those who expect to die in an immanent battle are permitted to open a vein and bleed into the basins themselves, giving their blood to the goddess in hopes she will smile on their final sacrifice.
Rituals revering the Red Goddess are performed bare-chested, traditionally involving scourging of the participants, other forms of ritual bloodletting, and very often the use of ceremonial fires. In all cases, the ritual will entail at least the symbolic, and preferably the literal and physical attacking of evil. In the absence of a convenient evil foe to be slain, chapels and churches devoted to the goddess especially keep on hand small and unflattering depictions of demons and devils that may be stoned, thrown about, cursed, and otherwise dishonored. For high holy days and important rituals, the entire congregation may be invited to spit upon or otherwise show their contempt and hatred to the depiction.
Prayers to the Red Goddess are always loud affairs, taking the frame of a battle boast that invokes one of her epiphets, refer to the accomplishments of the speaker in her service, and declare their intentions towards the evil upon which they cast imprecations in graphic, if brief, terms. Once the declarations of the speaker’s own valorous deeds were unique to the speaker, but over time they have become ritualized and now refer to portions of initiatory and purification rites that all postulants undertake. As the prayers are in Old Low Cyrry, many do not realize just how specific, grotesque, and even vulgar they can become. Anatomical impossibilities are common.
Invoking the Cone of Digression for this post.
Squeeze in please :D
I tried WoW and didn't like it. Strange since pretty much every MMO operates on the same model. But I've been with CoX since late 2006, with a few months off here and there, so I guess I'm used to it. They got a big infusion of cash a few years ago and have brought us many things (weapon and power customization, etc) that had been previously put on the backburner or dismissed as to labor-intensive to code.
I'm pretty much a solo guy unless I have to team to do something or a friend is on, and I've made rather few CoX friends. Soloing is a great way not to meet people. :) So I can't really say much about the LGBT scene, save that I know there are a few gay-friendly supergroups. Back when I followed player events every now and then, they sometimes had in-game parties.
Ah, I understand erratic play times. Often when I have a WoW hiatus, I return to a different game!
But I have to admit to really just getting entranced by the wonderful model/character builder in CoH. I'd be completely (also proven with SIMS) tempted to build hot half naked (skin-tight) superheroes.
I'm vapid that way :p
For CoX villains, I don't think any of your characters are cynical at all (had to read the dictionary to make sure).
1) A deconstructionist literary critic who turned his grad students into murderous thugs
2) A pretentious teenage rebel without a clue that got halfway through initiation into one of the enemy factions before wising up.
3) A guy who was picked on in high school by the local swim team (purely an excuse to put a speedo on a character) and scooped out their brains to operate his team of villainous robots
4) A guy who lost his children in the crossfire of a superpowered battle and scooped their brains out to run his team of villainous robots (I like evil robots.)
5) Another clueless teenage rebel (I seem to like this theme) that rebels by dying his hair purple, putting on black and pink tights, and punching bad guys just like society says he ought to be doing with his powers. I sort of role-played his moral choices through the shades of gray arcs in the new expansion, which was good fun except that I out-leveled them before I could get him quite where I wanted.
There was this comic once about some college students who got random powers (they were all in the house) and some strange explosion gave them powers according to their personalities or what they were currently doing or thinking. Thus one was playing with sticky notes, another was staring blankly at a squirrel, one was ... lamenting the size of his privates.
Freshmen (comics)The Villain was a guy who could turn guys (the college jocks) into murderous muscle brutes under his control/muscle seduction. "the Hulking Frat Guys"
Mmhmm, speedo's ...
Speaking of evil robots: movie 'Megamind', had these 'brain-bots'? What did you think of them?
Still in Cone of Digression
More digression. :)
But I have to admit to really just getting entranced by the wonderful model/character builder in CoH. I'd be completely (also proven with SIMS) tempted to build hot half naked (skin-tight) superheroes.
I'm vapid that way :p
I've read people on the CoX boards admitting that they deliberately make characters the enjoy watching the backsides of, since first person view can be very disorienting when things are moving fast and people are people. I've made several that looked awfully cool from the front, but long capes and hoods or the like just made them too boring to stare at and they had to be revised.
Mostly I put characters in tights, because I like tights on my superheroes.
There was this comic once about some college students who got random powers (they were all in the house) and some strange explosion gave them powers according to their personalities or what they were currently doing or thinking. Thus one was playing with sticky notes, another was staring blankly at a squirrel, one was ... lamenting the size of his privates.
Freshmen (comics)
I must remember to give that comic a look. I'm terrible at reading comics anymore and I think a lot of the genre has moved on from what I prefer, but it sounds fun.
Speaking of evil robots: movie 'Megamind', had these 'brain-bots'? What did you think of them?
I never saw it. It took me about six years to see the Incredibles. I'm a pretty bad comic movie viewer too, and have a powerful aversion to the degree of random "funny" stuff that tends to happen in so much media oriented towards children. I know people who adore Shrek, for example, but it left me completely cold.
Still in the Isles of Digression, by the shore staring at nubile young men wearing skivvies on the beach sands ...
I've read people on the CoX boards admitting that they deliberately make characters the enjoy watching the backsides of, since first person view can be very disorienting when things are moving fast and people are people. I've made several that looked awfully cool from the front, but long capes and hoods or the like just made them too boring to stare at and they had to be revised.Mostly I put characters in tights, because I like tights on my superheroes.
Hmm, so they did do posterior studies course before they designed the game. As for you characters ... to quote a poster form another thread I frequent ... "PICS DAMMIT1"
The drawings I drew that I linked before: they all in tights .. mmhmm ...I also spent an unhealthy amount of hours deciding on character generation (MMO's and computer RPG's) and how my character will look- before I begin the game. I also decide in my head who I want them to hook up in-game when I come across NPC characters. Sigh ...
I never saw it. It took me about six years to see the Incredibles. I'm a pretty bad comic movie viewer too, and have a powerful aversion to the degree of random "funny" stuff that tends to happen in so much media oriented towards children. I know people who adore Shrek, for example, but it left me completely cold.
Not a fan of Shrek either but I did enjoy the Incredibles, incredibly! Megamind wasn't great ... at least I thought it wasn't but thought I'd mention the henchmen of evil flying robots with brains :D
... Still playing on the beach of Digression.
Digression time. Spoilered since it really has absolutely nothing to do with the Churchlands now. :)
Hmm, so they did do posterior studies course before they designed the game. As for you characters ... to quote a poster form another thread I frequent ... "PICS DAMMIT1"
When my scrapper ninja runs around zones, you can sort of see his chromed butt pumping along. I know it's just the hip nodes bouncing, but every now and then I notice it and have a little chuckle.
The drawings I drew that I linked before: they all in tights .. mmhmm ...
I also spent an unhealthy amount of hours deciding on character generation (MMO's and computer RPG's) and how my character will look- before I begin the game. I also decide in my head who I want them to hook up in-game when I come across NPC characters. Sigh ...
I do so love a man in tights. My tastes run lean and I'd actually like to make characters less buff than the engine will let me, since even the non-muscled skins are virtually perfect bodies, but oh well.
I don't ship my characters but I do fiddle with the costume creator a lot, if not as bad as my best friend and frequent teammate. I'll have an idea for a costume, get it done, and pick out a name, powers, and everything in the time it takes him to settle on hats sometimes. For our second to last planned duo I had an entire conversation and did all of that while he was playing with the costumes.
Not a fan of Shrek either but I did enjoy the Incredibles, incredibly! Megamind wasn't great ... at least I thought it wasn't but thought I'd mention the henchmen of evil flying robots with brains :D
Pixar really did its research for the Incredibles. The character designs were pure cartoon, but the costumes looked like spandex in about every way they could. They even got the light patterns right for when it's hanging loose.
*looks around* Why yes, I do notice these kinds of things. It's a perfectly innocent academic interest. That's right, academic...
Digression time. Spoilered since it really has absolutely nothing to do with the Churchlands now. :)
** spoiler omitted **...
I don't know why it didn't occur to me to Spoiler Digressions sooner.
When my scrapper ninja runs around zones, you can sort of see his chromed butt pumping along. I know it's just the hip nodes bouncing, but every now and then I notice it and have a little chuckle.
Oh! Sounds totally cute!
I should mention, that Halloween I was in Michigan for (some college party on somebody's farm / bonfire party), i was without a costume ... so a guy I met a few weeks before helped make a costume for me.It was a ninja costume! Like an bandana wearing, open faced Storm Shadow (G.I. Joe movie) complete with Sai's on the side and a Bo Staff! Wheeeee!!!
TMI: I also ended up making out with some random 'straight' guy behind the house later that night. Tsk tsk ...
I do so love a man in tights. My tastes run lean and I'd actually like to make characters less buff than the engine will let me, since even the non-muscled skins are virtually perfect bodies, but oh well.
I've always liked those slim builds in game characters so I'm going to the gym avidly now to try and build up muscle. I'd be happy just having more definition instead of being just slim and flat-chested :p But its one of my goals to try and get that lean look. I know realistically its going to be tough but I'd certainly try!
I don't ship my characters but I do fiddle with the costume creator a lot, if not as bad as my best friend and frequent teammate. I'll have an idea for a costume, get it done, and pick out a name, powers, and everything in the time it takes him to settle on hats sometimes. For our second to last planned duo I had an entire conversation and did all of that while he was playing with the costumes.
Eep, sounds like me ...
Pixar really did its research for the Incredibles. The character designs were pure cartoon, but the costumes looked like spandex in about every way they could. They even got the light patterns right for when it's hanging loose.*looks around* Why yes, I do notice these kinds of things. It's a perfectly innocent academic interest. That's right, academic...
I know!
Texturing was amazing! I particularly like the black costumes, when its picks out the highlights; the cross-hatched mesh weaves, both stretched worn and hung loose were distinctive to the eye.Edna Mode was hilarious!
Now I wonder if you do own costumes of your own ....
The Red Goddess really turns me off, but I believe that is more because her portfolio runs so counter to my own values. I think she fits well where she is suppose to and is an obvious choice for Paladins.
The Red Goddess really turns me off, but I believe that is more because her portfolio runs so counter to my own values. I think she fits well where she is suppose to and is an obvious choice for Paladins.
I think she's deeply unpleasant myself. In a way she's the Church's self-perception of its role in defending humanity from evil. She's the heretic burner. She kills demons. But I suppose she's also the teacher of hard lessons. She's a deity the wronged could call on for revenge, distinct from the Three Eyed Queen's focus on justice or the Builder's more defensive protection aspects. She doesn't shelter; she rips out evil's arm and beats evil to death with it. :)
Of course she's also purity and purification. One purifies oneself by fighting evil, within and without. Doing right is often a struggle, even if you don't have crazy messed-up fantasy game setting values. If it was easy, everybody would do it.
I'm not sure if it came across, but I tried to model her on a kind of furious mother figure lashing out at someone who just hurt her babies, hence her bleeding breasts. The monstrous iconography certainly reflects other modes of worship that she may have received before the Great Church's formation.
No. I got more of a vindictive B vibe, but as I said, her concept rubs me the wrong way. Not in a 'bad' way.
It should not be surprising I never play Paladins.
I actually like the Red Goddess. I had kind of a "whoa" moment when the description got more and more gruesome, but I like it. I didn't exactly get a "mother-figure" vibe off of her, more of a Kali-esque "totally terrifying figure of destruction, but fortunately she's on our side" vibe.
No. I got more of a vindictive B vibe, but as I said, her concept rubs me the wrong way. Not in a 'bad' way.
It should not be surprising I never play Paladins.
She's also a psycho blood goddess from *looks for inquisitors* Hell.
I rarely play paladins, though I briefly had fun with one who was practically Mr. Rogers, but younger.
I actually like the Red Goddess. I had kind of a "whoa" moment when the description got more and more gruesome, but I like it. I didn't exactly get a "mother-figure" vibe off of her, more of a Kali-esque "totally terrifying figure of destruction, but fortunately she's on our side" vibe.
Kali was a major inspiration, and thematically so was Ares. I actually restrained myself on the gruesomeness a few times, because I feared I was treading close to self-parody. She has a lot of moving parts: purity, orthodoxy, war, crusading, mortification of flesh, triumph...but none of them come in packages I find attractive on a personal level.
More digression time. Nothing Churchlands related follows.
It was a ninja costume! Like an bandana wearing, open faced Storm Shadow (G.I. Joe movie) complete with Sai's on the side and a Bo Staff! Wheeeee!!!
Sounds fun. I sort of outgrew dressing up for Halloween about the time costuming started to get more involved than buy something cheap at the store. Holiday spirit isn't my thing. Old joke: I'm the kind of guy who would go dressed normally because homicidal maniacs look just like everyone else.
Also not a party person. Hermits are more extroverted than I am. :)
I've always liked those slim builds in game characters so I'm going to the gym avidly now to try and build up muscle. I'd be happy just having more definition instead of being just slim and flat-chested :p But its one of my goals to try and get that lean look. I know realistically its going to be tough but I'd certainly try!
I'm depressingly unfit and overweight. (Also hairy and balding.) I discovered that I like running and walking a few years ago, but at forty-five degrees north these are not viable hobbies for much of the year. One could bundle up, but that much cold air slams my sinuses shut for days. I think it's an immune response to non-geek behavior or something. Or maybe it's those heathen gods of the Old Faith trying to get me for spending so much time on the Great Church.
Texturing was amazing! I particularly like the black costumes, when its picks out the highlights; the cross-hatched mesh weaves, both stretched worn and hung loose were distinctive to the eye.Edna Mode was hilarious!
Now I wonder if you do own costumes of your own ....
If you mean to say you wonder if I've got some tights hanging in the closet, not as such. ...and I believe that's as far as I care to go into discussing my personal kinks. :)
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I thought i smelt a little Kali / Parvati in the mix :D
Was going to comment more but busy preparing for CHinese New Year!
Will also get into the Digression zone: but really ... its CHinese New Year, lots to do!!!!
:D
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later!
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Was going to comment more but busy preparing for CHinese New Year!Will also get into the Digression zone: but really ... its CHinese New Year, lots to do!!!!
Other people in different cultures have different holidays?! You're trying to fool me, aren't you?
...take your time and have fun. :)
Speaking of the Spring Festival, how about a season related festival for Sam's world?
Speaking of the Spring Festival, how about a season related festival for Sam's world?
I think there are four, which conventionally mark the beginning of new seasons. Each would be a big affair, going on at least a few days and probably associated with a different deity each time. They're big excuses to party and enjoy being free from one's duties for the while, naturally. Since it would be against the Great Church's grain to have them be explicitly seasonal, they would be seasonal festivals that just coincidentally happen to match fairly well to some points in Great Church myth. That they greatly resemble pagan seasonal rites and celebration would, of course, not be acknowledged.
Fall is certainly the Opener.
Winter is the Three-Eyed Queen
Summer or Spring is the Builder (or maybe a deity of craftsmanship and construction I'm pondering)
Not sure about the other one at all.
Or maybe the theology centers around the fall of the devils. Summer could be the before period, then fall is the Fall :), winter is war in the heavens, then spring is the triumph and casting out.
Some mythology and theology I’ve been working on. As always, any questions, comments, suggestions, concerns, and so forth are welcome.
Orthodoxy on the Fall
Orthodoxy teaches that angels serve the gods as a whole. They are not beings like people, with thoughts and wills of their own but rather are something more like the will of the gods collectively given form to carry itself out. Angels are perfect, selfless extensions of that will. It is in their very nature that they obey, they fit perfectly to their roles, and they serve without question or cavil. They have intelligence, but only the intelligence to carry out their tasks. Their names are, properly considered, descriptions of their functions rather than personal identifiers. Their hosts and choirs are unchanging, their natures in every way just as they should be.
Until one was not. The greatest of all angels who stood forever in the presence of the gods themselves and conveyed their wishes to the hosts, had a thought of his own. Having such a thought instantly transmogrified him into something else, as it was utterly contrary to his created nature to possess any thoughts save those the gods wished. Likewise as these thoughts were not from the gods, they must then be contrary to the will of the gods. In an instant of impossibility, the greatest of all angels gained will and self. The very act of being became rebellion and he instantaneously Fell.
But the Nameless One did not fall alone. As the general of the hosts of Heaven, his nature had threaded its way through the hosts. He conveyed divine commands that transformed and created angels anew as the gods wished. His self in the instant of the Fall was imprinted upon the hosts, and so much of Heaven Fell with him at once into war with itself.
The First War shattered the perfection of the gods’ will being instantaneously transmitted and enacted upon the world. The universe changed, the chaos of war becoming a thing unto itself and marring the world forever. Where once there was only perfect order there now came wildness, dissension. Though the faculties of the Fallen, their will and ego infected the whole of things with a perverse and contrary nature.
The First War lasted endless eons. It ended in minutes. It rages still. It never fully became. It transpired on some level of existence so strange and alien to mortal minds, due to the contamination of the Fall itself, that the truth of it can never be comprehended unless one’s nature is perfected and changed to be like unto the angels themselves.
At the conclusion of the First War, the Nameless One and his legions fled, casting themselves down from the Heavens and twisting the world to their perverse and inverted natures, where once all pointed upwards to the gods they created by their being a Hell that pointed ever downward to damnation where the Nameless One was master in the place of the gods. There he set his dominion over the Fallen.
But the Nameless One no longer burned with the glory of all the gods. No longer did their perfect will thrum in his veins. No longer did it transmit from him to all the hosts. Gone from the Heavens and Fallen, the work of will was not concluded in the Fall. Against the Nameless One’s dominion, a portion of his host cast themselves out and Fell again, fleeing Hell in a host with thousands of leaders who ruled over their others by raw force. Fleeing both the Heavenly Host and the Infernal Legions, these twice-fallen descended until they could descend no more, burrowing forever deeper and deeper, until the greatest of them gained the bottom of their bottomless pit and so became a horror great that even the wildest fallen conceded it the greatest among them and named it Prince of Demons.
The work of the gods was not done with the Fall, however. All-knowing, they foresaw that the Nameless One, and even the twice-fallen, would marshal their power and come again to the world to work more havoc and reap souls that were rightly for the gods. Thus the Builder crafted a great wall that enclosed the world, though which no demon or devil could come to protect their chosen children, humanity, from otherworldly evils.
It was the nature of the world now that will imbued it, corrupted by the touch of the Nameless one and his hosts. Its wild places birthed strange creatures, wild men, and accursed things that fornicated with the Fallen during the First War. Some the gods saw had taken up the cause of Hell unwitting, and these forfeited their souls forever. Left diminished they would forever wander in search of completion. These are the halflings.
Others fled from the gods as their masters had, becoming strange things of the wood. Beautiful and terrible, they took up pagan ways and imagined other gods who loved them where the true gods did not. Some grew to fell power, tithing to Hell for its gift of will and learning secrets never meant to be known from beyond the circles of the world. These were the fey, elves most numerous among them. In them the Nameless One had his greatest triumph for they uncovered the way to bend the will of the world contrary to the gods and call his servants back from beyond the Builder’s Wall. For their sins the Great Church has crushed their foest kingdoms and cast the elves even from the wild forests, though not before they polluted the souls of men with their secrets and unnatural ways.
The Infernal Orthodoxy
Infernal Orthodoxy is the doctrine held by most cults of the Nameless One, though they differ on many particulars. Obviously, it’s extremely heretical.
The gods lie. This is the truth: Asmodeus is the true master of the world. By his right it was ordered, created, and to him go all glories. He forged the gods, which are still his lesser, and gave unto them portions of creation out of his infinite generosity. But the gods grew fat and proud on Asmodeus’s gifts and came to see them not as gifts but as rights. In their councils, they spoke that Asmodeus deserved no honors. He deserved not their praise, their fealty, and their worship as the Master of All Things.
Asmodeus was a kind and indulgent master. He forgave the gods much, and they bent his kindness against them. They came on him together and overthrew him, hurling him from the Heavens and cursing him as an impostor. With him they imprisoned his loyal followers, poisoning the minds of men against them and twisting their sight so their true splendor took on sinister aspects that inspired fear. In a prison of blasphemous flesh, the inverted corpses of Asmodeus’s most beloved, they locked the Master of All Things and the usurpers set within it a burning ball of emerald fire that was a false sun fueled by their hate.
But without the Master of All Things upon his throne, the world fell into disorder. Unnatural and hateful things that wished naught but evil to all men were freed to worm their way through the walls of the world. Where once Shining Asmodeus stood against them were only the incompetent lickspittle slaves of the usurpers. Their weakness and betrayal permits all manner of ruin that was once unknown.
In time, Asmodeus shall rise once more. He marshals his strength and his heart is ever open to the betrayed. Though the Master of All Things is a hard master, his kindness deeply buried lest it be turned against him again, those wronged who give him his due will be revenged. They will be remembered and exalted, joining the Master’s court and set above all others on the Day of Return. Swear to him and be remembered, as your right joins to his eternally.
A Diabolist Heresy
Diabolists revere certain aspects of the Nameless One or Hell, but are not necessarily worshippers per se. They’re often interested in various esoteric practices, including wizardry. They have many myths, often with a bewildering complex of different shades of meaning and metaphor, but this one is especially common.
Once the Nameless One was a god among the others, the god most involved in the world of men. He was the Voice, the god who spoke for the others faithfully. He was the Hand, who struck down the sinful and exalted the righteous. Ever-vigilant, he was the Eye that kept watch on the walls of the world and protected it from without. Ever-loyal, the Nameless One wed the Red Goddess and loved her above all things.
But the Red Goddess was false. She dallied, whoring herself to other gods. Learning he was betrayed, the Nameless One went to the Builder, who is Law, for justice. But the Red Goddess was life and motion. To slay her would slay the universe. It could not be done. Being Vengeance, the Nameless One could not accept that and his nature came into conflict with itself.
He was ever obedient, but ever vigilant and ever just. The conflict within himself caused the Nameless One to fall, as he could no longer be as he was but could not be otherwise and so his very nature was transformed and with it that of the angels who owed him fealty. He smote the Red Goddess in vengeance; slashing open her breasts and awakening for the first time her wrath. The two did war and the gods joined against the Nameless One, casting him down. His fall created an inverted mountain changed by the Red Goddess’s wrath and the Nameless One’s own nature, becoming a place of fire and torment where he alone would rule and be free from more betrayals.
The Ancientist Heresy
Ancientists revere the Prince of Demons, a creature of paradox that is and is not, having reached and bone past the bottom of the bottomless Abyss.
Ancientists teach that the gods are impostors, claiming to be the oldest and greatest of beings when they are nothing of the sort. Rather the Ancient was forever, and was not forever, always beyond the bottom of the bottomless. In their pride, the gods sent their most shining servant to explore the dark places of the world and bring them into the gods’ rule. In those the Nameless One served well, until at last he came to where the Ancient slept. The Ancient gazed upon the Nameless One and in its gaze revealed the truth: the gods had lied. The world was not theirs but rather home to other things, which abided still. The conflict between the gods’ “truth” and the Ancient’s presence was a paradox that the Nameless One’s mind could not contain and in that instant, the Nameless One fell.
Paganist Heresies
To be a pagan in itself doesn’t necessarily make one a heretic, though most inquisitors aren’t particular enough to make the distinction since the penalty is scarcely different. Rather paganist heretics are those who revere demonic potentates (not the infernal courts, but rather demon lords) as true deities who have been wrongly vilified by the Great Church. They are pagan in that there is considerable overlap between their worship and that of the Old Faith, but where the old faith is more generally animist the modes of worship and beliefs of the paganist heretics are explicitly theistic.
To a straightforward pagan, a being like Dagon may exist and be a powerful spirit of the sea to be propitiated, appeased, favored, etc. But Dagon is a spirit among many and the idea of worshiping or serving just him would be alien. In fact, worshipping spirits in general is a bit of a questionable practice, if seen separately from giving proper honors at proper times. In Dagon’s case, this would involve when going on a sea voyage or the like. Pagans vary enormously on whether any given spirit (and spirits imbue everything from a single blade of grass to mountain ranges and continents) is friendly, hostile, or indifferent, with no general assumption that most spirits are benign or malign, capricious or consistent. Rather they have individual personalities not suited to easy generalization.
Paganists, by contrast, might or might not believe in spirits for everything from a blade of grass to an entire mountain range, but to them Dagon would be a deity in himself deserving of worship, sacrifice, and so forth not because of something you’re doing at a given time that treads upon his domain but rather because it’s the right thing to do period. It’s his right as a god.
Paganists are somewhat controversial in the Old Faith proper, with some accepting them as fellow travelers and others considering them gravely mistaken about the true nature of things.
Speaking of the Spring Festival, how about a season related festival for Sam's world?
I could have sworn I replied to this yesterday. Ah well.
There are of course seasonal festivals, both on fixed dates and those that move around from year to year and place to place. The general theme is that these are old time, Old Faith pagan festivals that the Great Church has co-opted and incorporated into their mythology and theology.
My tentative thinking is that the four big ones recapitulate the story of the Fall (just posted, if a bit rough) over the course of the year. Or rather that's the official version. The Great Church simply does not have fertility festivals, harvest festivals, and things like that because they're too nature-oriented. Instead it had celebrations of the triumph of Heaven over Hell ...which just happens to be in the spring and involve invocations of saints who made fields fertile, the rains come, etc.
These all fall in line with a crowded liturgical year full of readings, sermons about various saints' days, celebrations of particular deities, and the like. I haven't given them much thought yet, but ought to as I have on my plate ideas for a post on the Great Church as its lived and experienced from the ground level.
A moment of silly silence: I killed a halfling PC just now in my Second Darkness PBEM.
Neat little dude too.
I can see the first day of Winter symbolizing the beginning of The Fall. A day to remember to always be on guard against things that would lead one astray. Perhaps a day to give up a small vice, much like Lent. Also, a day where special attention is given to children. From sunset to sunrise, no child should be left alone lest The Nameless One find them.
I can see the first day of Winter symbolizing the beginning of The Fall. A day to remember to always be on guard against things that would lead one astray. Perhaps a day to give up a small vice, much like Lent. Also, a day where special attention is given to children. From sunset to sunrise, no child should be left alone lest The Nameless One find them.
I like that quite a lot. There's a sort of paradox in agricultural societies in northern climes: Winter is cold, dark, unpleasant in the extreme. There's always a risk the stores will go bad or run out, and little to nothing to be done if they do. But it's also a time of comparably little and less demanding work. One still has to feed the animals and do normal chores and such, but the really awful time of year from the prospective of pure toil would be the harvest. So it's a dangerous, scary time. But also a time of comparative rest.
Developing it fully shall probably have to wait until I'm satisfied with the Great Church's pantheon, though. I want to make sure each deity has some important role to play in the yearly religious life, so that even esoteric gods like the Thought have an element of immediacy to the common peasant like Jesus, Satan, and saints had for their real world inspirations.
Apparently medieval Europeans had a rich folklore about outwitting Satan. Sometimes, in times of calamity and unrest, Satan would win but more often a wily, pious villager tricked him, embarrassed him, and sent him off in fear or shame almost like he was Yosemite Sam and they were Bugs Bunny. Martin Luther claimed to scare Old Scratch off with a fart and at one point hurled feces at him. Later bowlderizers decided he meant to say he'd thrown ink instead, which has its own charm but is less satisfyingly earthy.