The wrong side of the river

That right there is why I couldn't be doing with The Lord of the Rings. I grew up in England's stockbroker belt, and far too many of our neighbours were smugly insular like those hobbits -- gossip-loving, distrustful of outsiders, and appalled by people who didn't live the way they did. The hobbits of the Shire would all have voted Tory -- or probably Fascist if they got the chance. I didn't mind if Sauron did invade and shake up their lives.

It's what Andy Serkis was trying to say in the recent interview that has caused such an uproar in Guardian-reading circles: "The Shire feels very, very much like a very, a very white, you know..." Mr Serkis mumbled, probably sensing the Damoclean threat of cancellation above his head. "They’re not very concerned about what goes on beyond the borders of the Shire, but they know they don’t want people coming in."

And he's right. That casual xenophobia is what I disliked about the damned hobbits, but it is at the heart of Tolkien's story. If the Shire and every other region of Middle-Earth featured the same multi-ethnic mix as 21st century California then it would be a very different place (quite likely better) and you'd have a different story (quite likely more boring) to tell.

Ten years back, Jamie and I had a TV show that we were developing for the BBC when a partner absconded with all the BBC development money, scuttling our production partnership with Andy Serkis's company. (Small world; Mr Serkis's involvement was just a coincidence.) We needed to come up with a new show in a hurry, and Young Asgard was born. Wanting to give decent opportunities to today's actors, we had a different ethnicity for each realm: Asgard, Jotunheim, Alfheim, and so on. What we didn't do was make every realm the same racial mix, because that would suggest a universe without borders, and therefore free of fixed cultural attitudes and the perpetual knife-edge of conflict.

Personally I want to live in the 23rd century of Gene Roddenberry, not the 21st century of people like Victor Orbán. And I guarantee you Andy Serkis feels the same way. He didn't present us with an ethnically homogenous Shire because he's a nasty old racist. He did it because that's true to the story, and he didn't want to infantilize his movie just to pander to America's pathological issues regarding race. (Though he needn't have made the hobbits white; they could just as well all have been Hausa, or Han, or Inuit, or Tuareg, or Tamil.)

I won't be going to see the movie because I don't give a fig for Gollum or any of those narrow-minded hobbits. But movie-goers aren't interested in seeing Roddenberry's utopian, colour-blind vision of society any more, so I guess we're stuck with endless Tolkien spin-offs.

"Minions of the King" (a scenario set in Legend)

A guest post today by Steve Foster, my co-umpire of the Tekumel campaigns that brought together many of the RPG and gamebook authors and editors of the 1980s and '90s. This scenario, though, was from our Legend campaign and has appeared previously in Annwn magazine.

I only included orcs in the original Dragon Warriors rules under sufferance. They were staple fantasy creatures back then, and I had to assume players coming cold to the game might want to include them. The world of Legend had yet to properly take shape, so the setting of early DW was not a lot different from other fantasy RPGs like D&D.

Later I ignored orcs entirely. They had no place in my Legend; neither faerie nor devil nor of any mortal nation, there was nowhere I could see to fit them in anyway. To me they were specific to Tolkien's world. But Steve found another take on the idea.

Minions of the King

by Steve Foster

I ran this scenario pretty much from these notes to give Tim Harford a break in his long stint as referee of our Legend campaign. The player-characters were staying at a minor castle between the lands of Montombre and Aldred. The castle’s lord was Eustace, one of Aldred’s men. A man named Gwylas had just turned up, an important aide to the local bishop. The adventure begins shortly after his arrival and would take the party west across Ellesland to the desolate moorland under the Shriven Hills.

Dramatis Personae

• Brother Theodoric -- a too-curious friar.
• Canon Gwylas -- an assistant to Bishop Daniford of Trewyn, and an honoured guest.
• Sir Hrognar -- companion and bodyguard to Gwylas.
• Father Damien (Damgharn) -- a spectacularly ugly, though equally holy, priest.
• Father Alric -- a missionary; still hale, even in his 70s.
• Sir Cerewyn (Kurwan) -- a pugnacious knight.
• Freydwina -- a distraught mother.
• Krazkul -- an aged orcish leader; grandfather of Damgharn.

Plus assorted men-at-arms, peasants, orcs and demons.

The history of Ogsmoor

Ogsmoor is a small village set on a small, high moor of the same name on the edge of the Bleaks. For many years, the moor was shunned for its evil reputation. Folk nearby said that it was the abode of devils and goblins. Strange lights and drums were seen and heard from its misty summit and the surrounding farms were often attacked or raided in the night. Yet, no one in those days talked of a village on the moor.

More than forty years ago, Herolaut, the grandfather of Montombre, put an end to the troubles by taking a sizeable troop and his sorcerer, Broden through Ogsmoor. His journals say that he fought more than one pitched battle, but his well-trained and well-armed troops were in little danger. He built a pyre from the bodies of the orcs that he massacred, and declared the area safe. A few years later, a young priest arrived at Herolaut’s court and asked permission to build a chapel on Ogsmoor. Herolaut, on his deathbed and fearing that his sinful life had doomed his soul, not only granted permission but also money and favours. A few years later, the tithes and taxes began to flow in. No one questioned the sudden springing up of a new village high in the moors, particularly one that paid its taxes.

An untimely death

It is early morning on the second day of Gwylas’s visit. A guard has seen a horse wandering on the edge of the forest. When it is brought in, the load it bears is seen to be the dead body of Brother Theodoric. The dead man has a massive head wound, caused by a stone axe, though it looks like he lived long enough to escape his attackers. There is no sign of the two men-at-arms who would have accompanied him. Perhaps they held off the attackers until Theodoric could flee?

Gwylas knows the unfortunate man. Theodoric had been charged by the bishop with maintenance of tithe records and travelled around various parts of the see. He was also a learned man who brought back records of interesting locations that he had found. A quick search indeed reveals a blood-stained parchment, stuck to his horses neck by the dried blood from his own wound. The parchment bears the words "The Stones at Ogsmoor" and has several marks arranged in part of a circle, a small numeral by each. Theodoric’s blood and brains obliterate the rest of the circle. A guard may have heard of Ogsmoor: "Ugly as an Ogsmoor wife, my dad used to say."

Unless the players react so first, Gwylas will be affronted by the death and request that Eustace dispatch a party to investigate.

An ugly priest

While on the road to Ogsmoor, the party encounter an unfortunate priest whose donkey has thrown a shoe (perhaps in protest at the absurdly heavy load of chests and boxes that it bears). The priest is a singularly ugly man -- jutting jaw, large nose, prominent brow ridges, small and deep-set eyes, greasy hair, bow legs, long arms, barrel torso -- though also well groomed and scrupulously clean. He introduces himself in a pleasant but slightly grating voice as Damien, a recently appointed priest.

Damien explains that he is on his way back to his home village, Ogsmoor, to see his mentor, Fr. Alric and his grandfather. Thanks to Alric’s influence, Damien has been able to study in Chaubrette at the famous Chaunterle Abbey. He has been absent from Ogsmoor for some fifteen years since the age of 10, though he has corresponded regularly with Alric. Damien is something of a scholar. As well as being fluent in several languages and having an excellent familiarity with religious books and doctrines he is also a trained healer. However, he has been away from Ogsmoor for a long time and is unfamiliar with recent events. In all but one aspect, Damien is the mild, pious, educated priest that he seems.

In Ogsmoor

Ogsmoor is set in the middle of the often misty moor. There is a fine chapel, but only a curiously small graveyard. The houses are small and rude but well-maintained. A circle of standing stones can be seen looming in the mist, a short distance off.

The people of Ogsmoor are of a similar appearance to Damien -- squat and ugly, yet exceedingly well groomed and clean. For the most part they are also mild-mannered and courteous. They are delighted to see Damien and greet him warmly and devoutly - they clearly are proud that he is now a priest -- yet they are shy and nervous in the presence of the strangers. One woman, less ugly than most, peers at them from a doorway. She is Freydwina.

While the greetings take place, Alric arrives. He is a lean, silver-haired priest. Clearly in his early seventies, he shows no signs of physical or mental frailty. He wears a crucifix around his neck and the observant will see that there is also a second chain carrying another sign -- a small oblong stone. Alric passes this off as a good-luck charm, a memento from his early days here.

Alric insists on a service of welcome and invites Damien to lead it. Alric steps in to lead some of the prayers, which seem familiar until one additional proclamation and response is added. "Give unto God that which is God’s," says Alric. "And to the King that which is the King’s" respond the congregation. Moreover, a small child begins to say, "For the minions of the King are countless…" but is quickly silenced by those around him. Alric seems unconcerned but Damien’s brow is furrowed.

As the party leave the church, they see the woman Freydwina talking to a knight some distance off. The knight pushes her roughly to the ground and storms off. He is Sir Cerewyn, and he has several men-at-arms with him.

Freydwina says of this incident only that she sought help to find her missing child and that Cerewyn refused. Cerewyn, a short-tempered and brutish man, will only say that the brat was forever running off and could "damn well find himself".

Asking about Theodoric

Alric says that Theodoric and his men left before dawn a few days ago. He is saddened to hear of their disappearance.

Cerewyn says that he doesn’t care what happened and that the men-at-arms probably slew Theodoric for his gold and then fled.

Freydwina will get very upset at the question. She will give several different stories, then just say, "The Minions of the King are Countless," and "They will render unto the King! Oh Sweet God, How could you take my child away!"

Damien’s grandfather

At some point, a player may observe Damien and Alric heading off into the moor. If followed, they will come to a cave, in a low, bramble covered cliff. There is the light of a fire deep in the cave and smoke. On entering, the players will see Damien, Alric and a woman from the village around a litter on the floor. Surrounding the litter are various orcish totems: skulls and animal skins. On the litter lies an ancient orc, Krazkul, too old and near death to be any trouble. It is clear from his features what the secret of the village is. Damien, Freydwina, Cerewyn, all except Alric have the characteristic features of orcs which, cleaned and groomed, can almost pass for human. Alric is clearly respectful of the aged orc. If the players stop to overhear, they may catch something along these lines:

"Pah! It is bad enough that I let a priest overrun my tribe, now my own grandson is a shaven-headed shaman too! Changed your name too, eh, boy! What’s wrong with Damgharn? A good orcish name!"

"Grandfather, you must not talk like that. I’ve come to show you that we can change. I am accepted by men. I am a priest of their god -- no, of my God. You will be accepted too if only you will convert to the True Faith."

"Pah! Though shalt not kill! Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt bathe! What sort of life is that for an orc? Damn you Alric! You have destroyed my tribe."

"And if I had not, Herolaut would have done the job forty years ago. Save my people, you said, and I have done, in more ways than one. They are God-fearing folk, now, for the most part, and have souls for the saving. Your own could be saved too if you’d agree to the baptism."

"Kurwan. Now there’s a good orcish name too."

"Perhaps too good. I believe that he still worships the King. I cannot prove it, but I believe he killed the friar for breaking the taboo, for counting the minions. I believe he has taken Freydwina’s child and will sacrifice him. I believe he is trying to revive the old orcish ways, and if he does then Montombre’s men will raze Ogsmoor to the ground."

From these conversations, it should not be too difficult to fathom what has happened. Alric came here shortly after Herolaut’s massacres. He found a beaten, demoralised people in fear of their lives. Moreover, he realised that these orcs were somehow very similar to men. He educated them and cleaned them up so that they’d pass for men then, bit by bit, converted them to the True Faith. However, he has had to make a few compromises by allowing some of the pieces of the orcs’ old religion to remain -- the worship of the King. Kurwan wants to bring back the old religion and the old orcish ways, and he plans to do so by sacrificing Freydwina’s child to the King.

The King and his Minions

The players will discover Kurwan and his henchmen at the stones. No doubt a fight will ensue and blood will be spilt on the stones, be that the child’s or Kurwan’s. This blood sacrifice is enough to call up the King and his Minions -- a number of stone-skinned orcish ghosts. They are terrible opponents whose skin is almost impermeable. However, their strength depends upon the belief of the people. If only Krazkul, the last unbaptised orc, could be converted to the True Faith before he dies…

How it played

I ran this scenario back in early 1997. I created the blood-stained map as a prop, and people soon wanted to go to Ogsmoor without much prompting. However, we were a bit short of players that week so Hrognar became a useful NPC. Things pretty much followed the route here, though no one attempted to get Krazkul to convert. This was a shame, as I’d planned that the Minions would actually be impervious to normal weapons until that happened. In the end, to avoid a massacre I just gave them a very high armour rating that halved when Krazkul "spontaneously" converted. Of course, a little party blood had to be spilt before this happened.

Steve was inspired to run the scenario by thinking about what happened to Neanderthals. There's no place for multiple hominin species in the history of Legend, of course, where mortals fell from grace after being created by God and where there's no principle of evolution or genetics, but the point is that orcs in this telling became a brutish offshoot of mortal men who could be saved by faith. Steve brilliantly wove them into the world of Dragon Warriors where I'd treated them like a fart not to be acknowledged. Perhaps it helped that, like Tolkien, Steve was raised under Catholicism, and so gnarly questions of belief and salvation are at least familiar to him as concepts to be considered, whereas I have no priors for that kind of thinking outside of fantasy fiction.

Tolkien supposedly derived the word "orc" from a few lines in Beowulf:

þanon untydras ealle onwocon
eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas
swylce gigantas þa wið gode wunnon
lange þrage he him ðæs lean forgeald

There is nothing in the Beowulf poem to say that Grendel and his mother are "orcs" (which seems to mean something like draugr) but we are told that they are descendants of Cain, along with those other creatures mentioned (eotenas = ettins, ylfe = elf). Tolkien couldn't use Cain's lineage as explanation of his orcs as there had been no Old Testament in the Midgard of The Lord of the Rings. But then, we are happy to use words like ettin and elf in our own fantasies -- the elves of Dragon Warriors are not descendants of Cain, for example. Tolkien was merely upholding the honourable tradition of authors as coiners.

Just to prove I've made my peace with orcs in DW, here is the description from Book One:

Orcs are the archetypal henchthings of evil, and have been found in service to many masters: Sorcerers mad and mighty, undead knights, dark demons, priests of chaos. Orcs care not what or who they fight, so long as they are given ample opportunity to indulge their violent ways. The harsh brutality of orcs gives them a slight edge over the average human fighter, but they are too ill-disciplined to properly hone their combat skills. Some orc warriors and chieftains may have the combat abilities of a Barbarian, but they never rise beyond 4th rank.

Orcs see well in darkness, but they hate and fear bright light. If forced to fight in sunlight, an orc must subtract 1 from his ATTACK and DEFENCE scores. Orcs often live below ground, so dwarves are particularly hated enemies. The stats for a typical orc-at-arms are as follows: 

ATTACK 12     Damage depends on weapon used
DEFENCE 5     Armour Factor depends on type worn
MAGICAL DEFENCE 3    Movement: 10m(20m) 
EVASION 3
Health Points 1d6 + 3         Rank-equivalent: 1st

The picture at the top is from the Natural History Museum and is  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

The Poughkeepsie problem

It turns out I need to set the record straight about my attitude to The Lord of the Rings. As I confessed in an earlier post, I haven’t read it. When I tried the first book, back in my mid-teens, the cosy Little England prose style didn’t grab me. I was more into Elric and Conan and the whole sword-&-sorcery side of fantasy. It might be different now, but the intervening years have made the plot so familiar that I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it.

All of that doesn’t mean I don’t respect Tolkien’s craft. I’m sure he knew what he was doing, and he did it with imagination and elegance. It’s much like my opinion of the Earthsea and Discworld books. I’ve dipped into them, I can see they’re done well, I admire the authors; the books just aren’t for me. And that’s a very different thing from disdaining them.

This cropped up recently when a friend told me he was planning a roleplaying campaign about defiance and resistance in the face of political repression. “There’ll be difficult compromises and harsh moral choices,” he promised. “And it’s all set in a brutalist industrial landscape.”

Sounded intriguing. I was almost hooked. But then he added: “And it’s got elves!”

Instant heartsink. "Oh," I said. "You had me until the elves.”

“It’s a long way from traditional D&D,” he protested. “The elves aren’t the Tolkien kind. It’s mysterious. It's dark and gritty urban fantasy.”

Imagine you were an HBO exec in 2016, you'd just heard Jesse Armstrong's story pitch for Succession, and then he'd concluded with: "And they're all orcs!" 

I'm against torture, but...

So -- disgust, obviously. But what really gave me pause was that my friend must have got the impression I despise Tolkien’s use of elves. Not a bit of it. From what I’ve seen, Tolkien put a lot of thought into them, and given that he was attempting a European (indeed, British) flavour of fantasy their presence makes sense. It’s worlds always from a recent bestselling fantasy polylogy I had the misfortune to come across, which had elves with guns and mobile phones in a Middle-Earth meets Blade Runner setting. Why elves? The author might as well have called them Romulans or Vikings or Cossacks, all equally out of place in an urban fantasy environment. This is using the surface styling of a fantasy trope without any of the context that forms its roots. It’s cosplay masquerading as storytelling. Ursula K Le Guin would have plenty to say about it -- and did, in her essay “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie”:

"The lords of Elfland are true lords, the only true lords, the kind that do not exist on this earth; their lordship is the outward sign or symbol of real inward greatness."

Le Guin is not talking about moral greatness, by the way. The elves she refers to aren’t angels. In at least one of her examples the elf is being petty – but grandly petty, gloriously self-centred, whining as only a silver-tongued immortal can.

Talking of the stir-it-all-in approach, the modern mangling of myth, she says:

“It is not fantasy, for all its equipment of heroes and wizards […] A writer may deploy acres of sagebrush and rimrock without achieving a real Western. He may use spaceships and strains of mutant bacteria all he pleases, and never be anywhere near real science fiction.”

Le Guin recognized that Tolkien had the genuine fantasy touch. When I say that I haven’t read The Lord of the Rings, that’s not a judgement on the quality of the work. I could have mentioned Dune, another series I never got into only because it doesn’t happen to chime with me. That doesn’t mean it isn’t good. There are plenty of absolute stinkers in the fantasy & SF genres (Sturgeon’s Law tells us that) but also some gems, and those gems are worth celebrating, so I just wanted to be clear where I stand.

More about elves next time. The proper kind of elves, I mean.

I'm with Moorcock

"There's a tone to [Tolkien's writing] that pretty much all English children's fiction has. It feels to me, as an English person who grew up with Children's Hour on the BBC, which always had that tone, that they were basically trying to ease me into [...] being a good kid. And I didn't like stuff that asked me to be a good kid. [...] And I don't like children, or indeed hobbits, as the protagonists. I've never been able to get on with kids as protagonists. I like grown-ups as protagonists even if they're not really grown-ups -- like Conan."

That's Michael Moorcock talking to Hoi and Jeff on the Appendix N Book Club podcast. I feel exactly the same way. Although I'm too young to have listened to Children's Hour, that was my reaction to The Lord of the Rings, which I tried reading in my mid-teens but to this day haven't finished, having got no further than the encounter with the wights. Tom Bombadil was such a deus ex machina that I just couldn't be bothered after that. (Here's the Breakfast in the Ruins podcast making that very point.)

Probably I should give it another go. I also abandoned Titus Groan in my early twenties, only to rediscover it a few years ago and now it's one of my all-time favourite fantasy books. On the other hand, I never got beyond the first LotR movie -- so it can't just be the prose style that put me off. Maybe I'm just too familiar with SPI's War of the Ring boardgame, which I played so often that I know the story anyway. (And I don't think Bombadil is in the boardgame, which must have helped.)

Is there any popular fantasy or SF classic that just doesn't click with you? The comments are open.

Elves as cosplay

“My name is Eildonas of Hulda Hoo,” I tell him as we walk. 

“I take you to be one of the Grey Elves,” he says with a sidelong glance, provoking in me a short laugh, since such categories have meaning only to mortals.

I recently quoted that (a line from the elf’s story in Heroquest book one, The Fellowship of Four) when somebody was telling me about their game: "The other players assume my character's an imp, which is funny because actually I'm playing a sprite."

It’s the sort of distinction that probably makes sense in a D&D campaign, where the Monster Manual is treated as a diegetic text. (“It’s a ghoul.” “No it’s not; it’s a shade. Ghouls have red fingernails and regenerate.” Something like that, anyway.) It would make no sense in Legend, the setting of the Dragon Warriors and Jewelspider RPGs, where the peasant warning you about that damned thing out on the moors might call it an imp, pixie, sprite, goblin, redcap or elf all in the same breath.

Another gamer I know, after reading the blog post in which I elaborate on that theme, singled out this line:

“The point is: you don’t need player-character elves or dwarves.”

He asked the other players in his campaign:

“What's your take on the tendency to play 'furries'? I include the Dragonborn (half man, half dragon playable creatures in D&D) and the Tieflings (humans tainted by demonic heritage in D&D) in this. I think it's the same impulse. It's a very millennial thing, perhaps? How does everyone feel about playing nonhumans? Does it appeal? What's the appeal? Does it repel? Could there be a race that would be enticing to play? What would that be like?”

By the way, the faerie folk in Legend never say “human” or “nonhuman”. It’s a bit too Desmond Morris, that. They say “mortal”, stressing their own point of superiority but perhaps also betraying their envy of the part they don’t share, the immortal soul.

Naturally, like for anything else in roleplaying, everyone's mileage is different. For me, those elves and dwarves and trolls aren't “races” in the D&D sense. They are the very embodiment of the Other. So it makes no sense in a Legend game to have player-character elves or whatever. Elves don't have souls, nor goals that we could ever relate to. There's nothing about them that's human except in the glamour that clothes them in a form we can perceive.

But lots of people like playing exotic aliens and races, and if that's the style of fantasy they enjoy then why not. I guess it's a kind of role-cosplaying. They do then get tied in terrible knots over issues like “Drow -- oh dear, are they racist?” Well, maybe, if you're interpreting them as another Homo racial line, ie a sort of mutant humankind. But if they are simply manifestations of how we conceive these debased and residual spirits called faerie folk, then no.

One of my gaming friends likened it to picking avatars in computer games. Avatars (and an avatar is clearly not the player; think Gordon Freeman or Geralt) must have influenced players’ choice of character types over the last few decades. I notice that players very often refer to their characters in third person these days, as though they were avatars that the player controlled rather than personas that they put on. Roleplaying has become the middle-aged man's version of playing with dolls. But as for those dolls being nonhuman, there were plenty of halfling thieves scampering about in D&D games back in the ‘70s, so maybe the trend was set by Tolkien rather than by World of Warcraft. 

I also discourage players in my Tekumel games from taking nonhumans, even though those are simply alien species and not mythical beings. The reason for that is they always end up bring played as stereotypes, extreme versions of human types. Then the game almost becomes an allegory with characters standing for Aggressiveness, Greed, Pedantry, etc. Now if a player could portray a truly alien mindset then I'd be intrigued to see them explore that, but it would have to be a lot more out there than the likes of Worf or Spock.

David Kajganikh, creator of The Terror, said he wanted to appeal to the viewers “who would watch the show if it didn’t have monsters”. That’s where my hand goes up. Unfortunately, Mr Kajganikh meant those who would watch whether or not it had monsters. For me, there’s a fascinating story of ambition, egotism, stupidity, bravery and resourcefulness in the Franklin expedition. It’s not only quite unnecessary to tart it up with Eskimo demons, it’s an insult.

Eliot believed that “anything that can be said as well in prose can be said better in prose.” He wasn’t against poetry (obviously), nor am I am against fantasy when I say that whatever can be done as well with human characters is better done using human characters. Legend is a low-fantasy world not because I want to sweep fantasy under the carpet, but because fantasy is a powder worth keeping dry. That way it counts for something when you do use it. High fantasy adventure is a different style, and in a long-running campaign it leads to diminishing returns; eventually even mainlining the pure stuff isn’t going to give you a kick.

But now I’m mixing metaphors, so perhaps it’s time to wrap up and hand over this over for discussion. Let's close with a typically thought-provoking line by Ursula K Le Guin:

“Fantasy is the language of the inner self.”

At its best, fantasy isn't taking us out of ourselves into dressing-up and escapism. It's taking us deep into our dreams where logic cannot go.

Choose your universe

"What will determine the [online virtual worlds] that we want to invest our time in?" asks SF writer Damien Walter. "That we want to be immersed in? That we want to live lives within? Story. Story is what's going to determine which unreal worlds we choose. That's why I think it's very likely, despite the disappointing track record of Lord of the Rings games, that because Tolkien's storytelling has been so important to us, that we will choose to participate in the digital Middle Earth."

What Mr Walter has to say in this podcast is interesting, and I urge you to listen to the whole thing. [ADDENDUM 27/01/24: If you can find it online; the video has been deleted.] But I'm not convinced about Middle Earth being such a shoo-in as a leading virtual world. It may well have a cracking story, but it's not the story you'll be getting in the online virtual version. It's the scenery. The world-building. And the problem with Middle Earth, through no fault of Tolkien's, is that it looks pretty much like every medieval-ish European-ish fantasy world created since: The Witcher, D&D, Skyrim, Game of Thrones, whatever.

Middle Earth is not (these days) brandably distinct. It is just a primogenitor of the medieval imaginary. Anything with elves and dwarves probably swiped its act from Tolkien, but they've overploughed that ground so much by now that the original uniqueness is lost.

I think the design of virtual worlds will no more be driven by story than cinema as an art form was driven by literature and theatre. Which is to say, maybe a little bit, but most of it will be something else. We're going to want the virtual equivalent of exciting tourist destinations.

"The author can only say that he enjoys societies which are not simply reruns of the usual Graeco-Roman or Mediaeval fantasy mythos, but which present something really different; something akin to stepping off an airplane in Bhutan or Medina, rather than in familiar old London or Paris."

That's Professor M A R Barker justifying his exotic world of Tekumel. Nobody could mistake Tekumel for any other world. It has multiple influences, but it's impossible to say "it's the Maya" or "it's ancient Egypt" or "it's India" the way you can pin most fantasy down to Europe in the Middle Ages. That might not make for stories that the average punter can relate to the way they lap up cowboys-in-space or intrigues in Westeros, but virtual worlds aren't about the stories. What matters is the originality and quality of the world-building. And there Tekumel is in a class of its own.

"Winter Bites" (a solstitial scenario set in 10th century Iceland)

"Where is the horse gone, where the young rider? Where now the giver of gifts? Where are the seats at the feasting gone? Where are the merry sounds in the hall? Alas, the bright goblet! Alas, the knight and his hauberk! Alas, the glory of the king! How that hour has departed, dark under the shadow of night, as had it never been."

We used Sagas of the Icelanders for this adventure, and such game mechanics as it needs are given in those terms, but other options are GURPS Vikings and Vikings. Regardless of the system, you will certainly find the Icelandic Saga Map useful.

If you're running the adventure as the lead-in to a campaign then the characters are young (15-19 years) and begin with two relationships instead of the usual four. 

Overview

Thorkill Whalerider lives at Kolbeinsvik up in the Strands in north-west Iceland. In his youth he was a renowned trader and raider, now he owns much of the land from Arness to Kaldbak and is the big man in the district. The characters are sent by their family in the far south to trade goods with Thorkill, but a complication requires them to spend the winter with him.

Daylight

At this time of year the sun rises at 10:00 and sets at 14:00, with three hours of twilight either side. So it’s full dark from 5pm till 7am.

Arrival

The characters are bringing spices and furs, which their father is trading with his old shipmate Thorkill for wood (mostly driftwood that fetches up along the coast). Thorkill has agreed to send them back with men and mules to carry the wood, which takes more space than the goods they’ve brought.

It's sunset and the characters have been travelling all day in freezing fog. They're cold, they're tired. Coming down off the Thorskafjord Moor, they see a big man who seems to have a bloody burden on each shoulder. He lumbers up and tells them he’s Ulkar No-Name, “so now you can tell everyone you met nobody on the road.” He doesn’t smile. “I’m bringing these two sheep for the feast.” Wouldn’t it have been easier to herd them back and slaughter them at the house? “I didn’t think of it.”

But there’s a snag

Thorkill hasn’t yet got the wood together to send back, and so he says the characters must stay for the frost festival Þorrablót”) when a sacrifice is made in honour of Frost and Snow, the sons of Jokul the Giant in mythology.

The characters can sit about the house as guests, or they can join in chores if they choose to. If they volunteer to do that, it’s an opportunity to meet Audun Haldorson the foreman who says that the wall needs mending on his farm. It’s not actually for Thorkill, but it would help indirectly as it would free up Audun’s time.

If so they might meet Audun’s headstrong son Bakki, who is their age and will surely propose a swimming contest (in the sea, freezing) or a wrestling or drinking match, or a dice game (use wyrd). Bakki usually tries to get them to do this instead of work, and is likely to be derisive if they refuse, so there’s opportunity for Honour to be questioned.

About half the wood has so far been made ready, including a pine tree trunk that would make a magnificent mast for a ship. Thorkill’s brothers pause each day to look at it and say what a hardship it would be to part with that, maybe the characters can make do with some driftwood roots instead, etc, etc. It’s just a wind-up.

The household

• Thorkill (38)
• Asdis (wife, 26)
• Ongul (brother, 35)
• Skeggi (brother, 34)
• Ulkar (illegitimate brother, very strong, 39)
• Senuna (a beautiful Irish thrall, 19)

Rumours include:

“Ulkar is Thorkill’s half-brother, but he’ll never acknowledge him. He gets seated at meals like a labourer and never gets included in family decisions.”

“When will Thorkill have your goods packed to send back? In his own good time, like everything else.”

“Thorkill went raiding in his youth to prove himself as bold as his father, but Kar Drangson was as fierce a man as any of us will meet in this life, and with his sword given him by the Danish king he was a match for any three warriors of these days.”

“The bandit called Thorn has worried his way into Thorkill’s side since last winter. He preys on those crossing the moors and he’s been tracked as far as Ymir’s Tooth Mountain, but nobody knows where he has his lair.”

“You’ve been invited to the frost festival?” Sucks his teeth. “You know it involves a sacrifice, don’t you?” (This is just locals winding up some young outsiders.)

Characters could use Look into someone’s heart to figure out if a rumour is true or just the locals getting a rise out of them.

Audun the foreman

Thorkill’s foreman is Audun Haldorson (35) a free man with his own farm at Kaldbakvik. Thorkill has bought up every other farm in the district that his family didn’t already own because of the haunting of Kar the Old, who died twelve years ago and whose ghost is said to walk the shores.

The bandit

Thorn and his four men are outlaws who hide out in the mountain and watch for traders they can rob. Their lair is in a tunnel that runs right through the mountain.

Towards sunset it’s as though the day peels back, so that already you can see stars while there is still a glimmer of pale blue, orange and red along the horizon. At such a time character might, looking up at the mountain, see the blood-red light of the dying day somehow mirrored in a pinprick gleam in the middle of the black cliff.

Unless you know the way up, it is a hard climb to the caves where the bandits live. For the last twenty feet it’s likely their lookout will have spotted you, too, so there’ll be a barrage of rocks raining down on you before you reach them. [When you tempt fate for the climb; ideally Berserker or Fight with many against many for the fight at the top.]

The barrow

At night you can see a pale green light billowing around the headland. This comes from Kar the Old’s barrow. (When would they see that? Probably when going outside to empty their bladders.)

Audun: “That’s why people are in a hurry to get home before sunset at this time of year. No one wants to meet Kar walking on the shore. When Kar was buried, Thorkill was in Norway. He took it hard, not for love but because Kar had much of his wealth buried beside him in the barrow. But Kar’s ghost has enriched Thorkill anyway, by terrorizing people into selling him their farms.”

If they enter the barrow: it takes most of the day to dig down to the rafters. Then if they enter (a drop of twelve feet) their torch goes out because of the foul air. They won't be able to get a torch or candle to stay alight, and that's -1 ongoing for darkness.

The interior chamber is narrow, only room for one at a time. They feel around until they find horse bones, then their feet slither on silver coins and they blunder into the back of a carved chair. It’s heavy, though. It doesn’t give when they push it. Wait – there’s somebody sitting in it…

In fact: Ulkar is prone to narcolepsy and wanders off in a daze by night, either wandering the shore or entering the barrow by means of a tunnel that emerges a hundred yards along the beach. So they will have quite a fight with him – that’s Accept a physical challenge at -1 ongoing for darkness; in the cramped conditions it’s not possible for another character to assist by spending bonds. It will go better for them later if they don’t kill Ulkar.

The treasure includes the short sword Kar used to wield, which is the finest weapon any of them have ever seen. Its blade looks blue in daylight and in torchlight almost seems to reflect the blood it’s thirsty to spill. Thorkill will not part with this: “You must do something worthy of fame before I give you the sword, for I myself could never get it from my father as long as he lived.”

The festival

At the feast they are given strong drink, then the youngest is bound with silk ribbons and carried out to the bonfire. [A character could Consider an uneasy situation if concerned.] He is shown to the flames and the men say, “Now this one will sacrifice to you, sons of the ice.” He’s then carried to a hut to lie with Senuna, the thrall; the only sacrifice, his virginity.

If somebody wants to essay a poem or song, so much the better. Our Icelanders campaign is historical, so there's no magic, but you'll want a numinous moment to evoke the solstice spirit, so how about giving the characters a spectacular view of the northern lights "like the hem of Odin's cloak brushing middle-earth".

*  *  *

The opening quotation is from J.R.R. Tolkien's translation of "The Wanderer". The pictures are by the acclaimed illustrator John Vernon Lord, whose grandson happens to be one of our players. John coincidentally grew up in the same Derbyshire town as my dad. Much of the story has been swiped from Grettir's Saga, and I urge you to read that before running it. May the High One grant you peat for your fire, mead for your cup, and boon companions to share the long evenings of storytelling and merrymaking with.

Shrouded in glory

It's convention season again. This year I was invited to be a guest of honour at Sentieri Tolkieniani in Turin. The cognoscenti of this blog will perhaps raise their eyebrows at that, as they'll be aware I've never read The Lord of the Rings, but I was assured by the convention organizers that no specialist knowledge of Middle Earth was required so long as I was willing to join a couple of panels on roleplaying.

Well, I'm always happy to talk about roleplaying, and the convention is set in the beautiful Osasco Castle, and it would have given me the opportunity to visit Turin, of which Calvino wrote: "It is a city which entices a writer towards vigor, linearity, style. It encourages logic, and through logic it opens the way towards madness."

Sadly, I was already booked up for a family gathering here in the UK, so I had to turn it down. But if you're interested in some hobbity chat and gaming, the convention takes place on June 1 and 2 and they might still have some tickets.

Four ways into fantasy

This is the text of a talk I gave at a role-playing convention in Coventry in the late '80s. I'd been sweet-talked into doing it by Gail Baker and Paul Mason. I thought what I'd do was throw out something contentious and then get a debate going. In those days I was quite combative about good fantasy. Ah, but you say 'good' is an elite word? All right, then!

There are a number of qualitatively different ways in which the fantasy element can be incorporated into a fantasy role-playing campaign. These different “registers” are built into the game world.

At one end of the spectrum, worlds such as Tekumel or Jorune are essentially Realist fantasies, in that all aspects of the world are viewed as logical and internally consistent. Such worlds are “absolute sub-creations”, to use Tolkien’s phrase. Tolkien’s words on the successful sub-creator apply equally to the referee of a Realist fantasy:

“He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it while you are, as it were, inside.”

Obviously the magic of Tekumel or Jorune is not rationally feasible in true scientific terms, but it is treated as logical within the framework of the fantasy. We are asked only to believe that in these worlds there exists a natural phenomenon that is indistinguishable from magic. The day-to-day logic of a Realist fantasy world is as close as possible to that of the real world. This is not to say that characters in the world will be like modern individuals, but their understanding of their world will ride on the same logic as ours. Nations go to war for political reasons, and people in the world resist convenient categorization as “good”, “evil”, “chaotic” or whatever. On Tekumel, Baron Ald of Yan Kor is prosecuting a war against his southern neighbors, the Tsolyani, because an expansionist policy is the only way to unify the fragmented Yan Koryani political structure. The war has become more bitter for certain acts perpetrated by the Tsolyani, most notably the massacre at the fortress of Ke’er. For their part, the Tsolyani regard Ald as a renegade – he was formerly a foreign mercenary in their army. When the whole situation is studied it is rather difficult to say who is in the right, and this is what one would expect of any Realist fantasy.

The most common environment in games and fiction is the Pseudo-Real fantasy. The mark of an Pseudo-Real fantasy is that it shows the roots of its creation. Most are based on medieval Europe and usually make no bones about this. The setting for RuneQuest 3 is overtly called Fantasy Europe, and Legend from Dragon Warriors is but a thinly disguised evocation of the medieval world as medieval people believed it to be. Other Pseudo-Real settings are possible (for instance Bushido’s Nippon) but all share the same heritage: they swipe much of their scenery from things we are all familiar with, on an intellectual and/or emotional level. Such a world cannot be utterly accepted as real, as it will contain elements which the players cannot avoid recognizing as fantastical. A Realist fantasy can fool your subconscious with the semblance of internal logic – it is the viable “Secondary World” Tolkien speaks of. But the only approach to a Pseudo-Real world is the temporary suspension of disbelief. Tolkien seems to be addressing us on this, too:

“But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make believe.”

This would make the Pseudo-Real world seem like a pretty poor thing in comparison to Realist fantasy. In fact, I would say (using reasoning much like Tolkien’s) that it can never quite match up as a game setting. It does, however, have its interesting features. It allows the players to explore the re-creation of legendary themes and imaginative landscapes we all share. Certainly it is easier to enter the half-familiar territory of a Pseudo-Real campaign, especially if you’re not playing frequently with a group of intensely committed gamers, than it is to key in to the fully reshaped tropes of a Realist campaign.

A step further from the real world is the Semi-Mythic fantasy. There is no longer any need for events to follow a “real” pattern, and the world cannot be accepted on an intellectual level. You must enter it as a make-believe. Rather than lurking as a half-glimpsed shadowy force that occasionally impinges on the world (as in a Pseudo-Real setting), the power of magic in the Semi-Mythic universe is great enough to affect world events. Often such a world is “kind of” medieval Europe, but with an overlay of dark lords, barbarian hordes of chaos, and taverns full of drunken dwarves. People wage war because they are Evil with a capital e, and are opposed by other people who are therefore Good. At its very worst this kind of environment is the stereotypical DnD cod-medieval world, and is to be encountered all too wearisomely often in fantastic fiction. But if handled expertly it can be very powerful indeed, tapping into tremendous emotional sources. It can be approached through the channels of dream, and the great Semi-Mythic achievements are perhaps Glorantha and Tolkien’s own Middle Earth.

Perhaps it is misleading to look at these various kinds of fantasy in a linear sequence depending on the amount of “myth” in the mixture. That is one categorization, but it is also worth considering the way in which the fantasy must be approached and experienced. With the final category, the Mythic fantasy, we have come almost full-circle. Such a world is not accessible on a realistic level, but the player (or reader) must shift his own role to one where his perception of the world is “real-like”. A Mythic fantasy is one where archetypal figures and landscapes are directly represented in the world. There will be no complex social setups; the world seems dark, passionate and primeval. Characters are apt to be hall-heroes full of human foibles but capable of great glory: Dark Age gangs à la Beowulf. Players thus see this world through different eyes. It is not realistic from our modern standpoint, but to the player-characters no other world is conceivable. The suspension of disbelief is no longer a problem, no longer grates against the player’s imagination, because the primal nature of the Mythic environment is so raw and primally strong that reason is lulled into submission. In such a world a hero might learn from a wise woman that if he swims the Rymchild Sea with a silver coin in his mouth, he will come to the Land of the Dead. If he rides far enough north he might come to an endless wall, beyond whose gate lies Faerie. Emotion, poetry and dream act with the force of natural law.

Player-characters in a Mythic world can be expected to adopt a dramatic rather than a pragmatic attitude, as they are almost conscious that the events of their lives are not real and immediate, but are in some sense outside of time. A riddling contest may be accepted and entered into with gusto, seen by the character as the proper way to deal with a challenge. A taboo such as is common in folktales (not to wander from the path, not to ask a specific question, etc) will be understood by the character to apply with a force greater than the intellect can grasp – whereas a character on a Realist world like Tekumel would surely require a more logical basis for his actions.

I know of no pure Mythic world in fantasy gaming, though I’m sure they are out there. Pendragon comes the closest of the games I’ve played, as it deliberately sets out to create an obviously unreal time and place, spurring players towards an immersion in the character-attitudes appropriate to that. A campaign based on the adventures of the Norse gods or Grimm's fairy tales would be even nearer to the mark.

Such are the categories. Now, what use are they? There are several lessons to be learned by considering the different categories of fantasy. First, it pays never to mix the approach of one category with the setting of another. As a very simple example, very few people in real life make a definite decision to act in a particular way simply because they see it as “good” or “evil”. In a Realist world it would be inappropriate for characters to talk in those terms. They might say, “We can’t do this; it isn’t right.” But they certainly would not say, “We can’t do that, we’d be acting like we’re chaotic-evil.” Yet in a universe where Chaos is widely accepted as a physical force (as in a teenager’s bedroom), although not realistic, it is credible for characters to take account of it in their discussions.

The other error lies in mixing elements of two categories. Both are usually devalued in the process. In the context of Jorune, it is perfectly reasonable to give the history, habits and social structure of an alien race like the thriddle. They are simply a group of intelligent nonhumans, and can be presented factually just as Larry Niven portrays his kzin, puppeteers, and so on. In the context of a Pseudo-Real or Semi-Mythic fantasy, it is not reasonable to do the same thing for dwarves and elves. Elves represent more than just the outer image; in a science fiction game, people with pointy ears are called Vulcans and we can be told all about them. But in fantasy, elves stand for something in relation to humanity; their soullessness and mystery stirs something in our imagination, and means that they have some bearing on what we are. They have a myth-value which is debased if they are treated as just a nonhuman race. See Robert Dale’s review of the Mayfair sourcebooks in White Dwarf 57 for a more extensive tirade on this theme.

A corollary to this is the use of elves, dwarves, etc, as player-characters. While that might be an interesting experiment for a good role-player over a single evening’s gaming, it can only have a negative effect in the long term. With the best will in the world, if I am playing an elf and adventuring for some reason with a bunch of humans, how long will the music of Faerie hang about me? How long before we reach the crass dungeoneering approach of “Elf at the back with his bow ready, the front rank hits the door...”? If you are trying to play the part of an elf, you must ask yourself a lot of rather mundane questions. Do elves sit in taverns and get drunk? Do they belch and have hangovers? Do they pick their noses, crap and get colds? These are questions that not only should never be answered, they should never be asked.

To focus upon a myth-figure with such boorish scrutiny is to strip away the fragile tissue of suspended disbelief on which it rests. You enter what Michael Polling calls the Cycle of Taxonomic Reduction. Elves cease to be viable myth-images, so (since even the most dedicated aficionado of pulp high fantasy must possess a vestigial imagination) it soon becomes clear one must create something else to fulfill their function in the fantasy environment. Searching a bit deeper into folklore to replace the now unmysterious elf, one might find drow, or spriggans, or bogles. But as soon as these are duly written up and codified, they too are devalued and the desperate slide continues. It is possible to apply a few game-safeguards (“this race is for NPCs only” or “the GM may choose from the following facts about the race, some of which may be only half-truths”) but these do not stop the rot entirely. A close look at any game’s monster listings usually turns up several valiant attempts at remythologisation. I have just flipped through the Fiend Folio, where the meenlock and revenant are good examples. But on the barren soil of rules and stats they can never be more than a pale after-image of the original myths.

This is more important now than ever before because we have a lot of new blood entering the fantasy role-playing hobby. Giving newcomers tips on how to role-play or design good scenarios should not come before warnings on how to preserve the wildness and power of their fantasy. Someone whose induction to fantasy role-playing gets mired in the compatibility of human-orc genetics and contemplating the lifecycle of trolls is on a downward spiral of diminishing imaginative returns. I think we shall not have done our duty by the hobby if we fail to take a stand against that.



Recommended reading
Tree and Leaf by J.R.R.Tolkien
The Language of the Night by Ursula LeGuin (especially the essay “From Elfland to Ploughkeepsie”)
Red as Blood by Tanith Lee
Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn

There are of course no definite boundaries between the fantasy categories I have defined here (categories should always be taken with a pinch of salt in any case), but the following are good fantasy works that illustrate the point:

The Man of Gold by M.A.R.Barker (Realist)
Lyonesse by Jack Vance (Pseudo-Real)
Night’s Master by Tanith Lee (Semi-Mythic)
The Penguin Book of the Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland (Mythic)

I want to live like common people

Think of the central characters in the two great high fantasy novels of the twentieth century. Steerpike and Frodo, both working class guys. Oh, okay, Frodo is as bourgeois as they come, but compared to the likes of Aragorn and Boromir he's a mud-caked serf. The point is, it’s only in also-ran fantasy works that dispossessed lords or brave rebel princesses get to be the heroes. Which perhaps is the inspiration behind J M Perkins’ Kickstarter campaign to fund a “how to play a commoner” RPG book.

For a rewarding role-playing game you need a deep, consistent world and the possibility of conflict, among other things. Social class helps provide both. Of course, it’s not enough just to have low-class characters. That only makes sense if there are higher classes to interact with, whether other players or NPCs.

A low-class character can be more imaginative and flexible than their social betters, because they have less to gain from sticking to society’s rules. That was my thinking when I created working-class hero Jack Ember for Mirabilis: Year of Wonders. The postwar fiction of the "Angry Young Men" was full of clever commoners like Arthur Seaton and Jim Dixon - or, even earlier, look at the examples of Kipling's "Tommy" and Twain's Huck Finn.

For an aristocratic character, strait-jacketed by social rules, it can be handy to have a commoner to take care of the grubby side of problems. Maybe the cardinal’s high-born daughter can’t countenance plain murder, however ruthless she is, but a word to her guttersnipe servant – “I hope I never see that man again” – may be enough to put her enemy in the Tiber with a wide red smile. The master-and-servant relationship is such a staple of drama that Keith Johnstone devoted more than half of his book Impro to it. Think of Blackadder and Baldrick. Wooster and Jeeves. Fogg and Passepartout. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Especially mature readers might even remember Mr Stabs and Luko:

Of course, servant-and-master is only going to work in an RPG if players stick to their social roles. You can’t chummily forget about status differences when it suits you. I was lucky enough to play in a campaign where Jamie was an aristocratic army officer and Patrick Brady was his sergeant. The relationship between them was pitch perfect even when (especially when) Patrick’s character was bending the letter of his orders as far as he could.

Fun though these examples from fiction and gaming are, they're all essentially romps. Yet in real life there's a heavy burden to being at the bottom of society's heap, a burden that many are overwhelmed by. Dig a bit deeper and the challenges and conflicts of being a commoner prove a lot harsher than the entertaining high jinks of Passepartout or Panza. Take a look at Mulk Raj Anand's classic novel Untouchable, an angry, desperate, tragic and ennobling account of those who are spurned as the dregs of society. Or consider the struggle of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, who suffers the double misfortune of being poor and a woman in nineteenth century England. Those are great stories to visit, but you wouldn't want to live them for real.

If you only read YA fiction you'd think that all these put-upon peasants needed was an uprising, but that's rarely an option in reality. The truth is always more interesting. Social class is hard to pull off but, like any attempt to take roleplaying seriously rather than as a make-believe send-up, it pays dividends in terms of the places it will take you.

Salvaging treasures from the sunken continent

I've been looking through our material for the world of Abraxas recently. This, if you've just joined us, is the science fantasy setting that Jamie and I created for a massively-multiplayer online game we were developing at Eidos about a decade ago. No orcs, no goblins, no elves... Instead we had psionics, flyers, prehistoric civilizations, alien foes and vril-powered rifles. It would have been different from the usual crop of CRPGs, you have to give us that.

Fortunately, when Jamie and I left Eidos, we had the foresight to get them to cede rights in the aborted design for the game, including ownership of the wonderful concept sketches and maps that Russ Nicholson and Darren Horley had done for the game. So now I'm looking for a way to get that material out into the world. But it needs to be in a form that will encourage people to use it, sticking something up for free on the internet being a quick way to consign it to the contempt of over-familiarity.

Abraxas is available as a Kindle book but you don't have to splash out $1.99 because it's also available right here on the FL blog. I've been thinking of publishing it as a paper-and-pencil role-playing game, adapting the Tirikelu rules that I originally designed for the paragon of science fantasy - and indeed of fantasy world-building in general - namely Professor M.A.R. Barker's magnificent creation Tekumel. But would today's gamers be interested in a setting that lacked all those cherished tropes (see orcs, above) that have been enshrined in fantasy by descent from Tolkien via Tad Williams and then Dungeons and Dragons and finally gamebooks? I guess there's only one way to find out.