The archetypal lost city

The original Chorazin was a splendid oasis in the heart of the Akali Desert, its people impregnable from attack by reason of the leagues of scalding black sand that surrounded them. Pipes deep beneath the desert brought water from the Delenda Mountains to fill the city's cisterns. But Chorazin was destroyed when a meteorite laid a pall of poisonous iridium across the mountains, polluting the water so that the inhabitants became mad and fled into the desert.

Now there are two Chorazins. One is the half-buried ruin where bands of eremen(desert folk) make their lair. The scholar Zaverchand has speculated that it may be in imitation of the crested helmets of the ancient murals that the male eremen's dorsal fins have grown so exuberently large. The other Chorazin is a twin of the original, cut off in its own pocket dimension at the time it was abandoned. This Chorazin is the destination of wizards seeking a place to meditate and expand their arcane knowledge.

The Akali Desert itself is an unwelcoming region whose jet black sand forms huge rolling dunes. Tors and crags of blinding white stone stand above the desert, blasted by the wind into baroque shapes. Who knows what ruins lies buried under the sand, or what creatures dwell in the interior of the desert? No explorer has ever gone there and returned to tell of it.

Shadow King

Having opened the Pandora's Box of material Jamie and Russ and I developed in our days at Eidos, I'm surprising myself with how much of it there is.

This is from Shadow King, which was originally conceived as a Max Payne-ish action-adventure game for the PC. A bullish Victorian adventurer travels in time and returns to a world completely devoid of people - or so it seems at first. In this timeline, Dracula has driven the few remaining humans into hiding. Our hero wanders through a deserted, half-overgrown London, defending himself from hunting vampires while trying to find a way to repair what has befallen his world. Russ pulled out quite a different style for this one.

After leaving Eidos, we pitched it to Flextech, who liked it except they wanted it completely changed, so out went the vampires and in came some sort of plot about the world suffering an apocalypse in the middle of a Big Brother eviction night, and all the survivors were the rejected TV contestants. Or something. (It was 2000 and every hip dude in television could think of nothing but Nasty Nick.) Needless to say, Jamie and I decided to forego the pleasure of working on their reinterpretation, figuring that one day we may do it properly as a comic or a novel.

This snippet of script gives you some idea of the flavor:

Through falling snowflakes, an aerial view of London. Not the city we know, but a sprawl of fantastic Gothic edifices that stand, dark and silent, over streets white with frost and a sprinkling of snow.

Down, to find a single figure in the whole vast empty city. He’s curled up in an alleyway under a few sacks. JOHN SANGRAIL is big man, well-fed and full featured. He wears the fine clothes of a Victorian gentleman, only now they’re shabby and torn.

We watch as he sleeps fitfully. Our point-of-view drifting like a detached retina as the snow swirls past. We might be God looking down on him, or a guardian angel. Or his tormentor.

He tosses and turns, talking in his sleep.

SANGRAIL (softly but urgently)
No, no. Something’s gone wrong.

CUT TO a ball in the early 19th century. A woman turns, looks across the ballroom at us, and reacts in horror –

SANGRAIL (V/O)
She could see me –

An overhead drifting view of Napoleonic soldiers slogging along through the mud. Desaturated colors. The way the soldiers are walking is strange, stiff. Late afternoon sunlight casts long shadows ahead of them.

SANGRAIL (V/O)
Something went wrong with the past.

Our POV tracks over the soldiers and down, turning so that we’re now facing the way they have come. An overcast sky and a long road stretching back to bleached-out sunset.

SANGAIL (V/O)
I know. I was there that day...

The column goes marching inexorably past us, away from the sunset. Their collars are turned up, faces downcast. We know there’s something sinister about them, but we can’t see enough to be sure...

SANGRAIL (V/O)
How could that be? I wasn’t born yet.

A figure appears in the middle distance, cresting the hill, striding confidently through the anonymous throng. His greatcoat flaps behind him in the wind. His peaked cap is like the one Napoleon wore. We can’t see his face yet, but he’s approaching at a swift relentless pace.

SANGRAIL (V/O)
It was the day he came back.

The figure looms towards us and into close-up. Closer, closer...

SANGRAIL (V/O)
The monster ... the loup-garou. The day he returned from hell.

And he lifts his head towards us and now we see the face under the peaked hat. A hollow-cheeked, sallow, dead white face with glistening fangs. SMASH CUT to

Sangrail sitting up, suddenly wide awake. For a instant, the vampire’s face lingers like an afterimage superimposed on Sangrail’s face.

In a panic, Sangrail slaps at his neck. He looks at his fingers - no blood. The vampires didn't find him in his sleep. Heart racing after the nightmare, he heaves a sigh and sits watching his breath steam in the cold air.

Abraxas: the Vadem Causeway

Now that I've started rooting around for Abraxas material, I'm amazed how much concept work we did. I've hardly even scratched the tip of the iceberg so far, what with the clothing and architecture for each city-state, the flora and fauna inspired by Dougal Dixon's book After Man, the adventure locations, history, NPCs, and on, and on.

Neill Blomkamp's written-off concept work for the aborted Halo movie apparently cost several million dollars, and although we didn't get anywhere near that figure, the principle of concepting in games is the same as in movies. It makes more sense to get these details worked out before you set 100 coders, modellers and animators working away on the thing.

The idea behind the Vadem Causeway was so that players in the MMOG could rapidly move between the main "safe" locations (the five cities) but, if they wanted to travel to smaller towns or go exploring off the beaten track, they would need to strike out on foot or get hold of a sky car.

The Vadem Causeway is not a physical road but a network of teleportation routes extending between archways close to each city. The Vadem gates consist of raised platforms with steps leading to a circular arch of ancient star-metal. Each gate transports the user to the next on the circuit, allowing rapid travel from city to city. A rapid burst of light is seen streaming away from the arch after a person steps through.

As the Vadem Causeway is a potential problem in wartime, each city has its own safeguards against an influx of enemy soldiers appearing outside its walls. Utesh is protected by the straits that cut it off from the mainland. Vertis has constructed a grille that can be dropped across the archways. Argistillum has a dam that, if opened, floods the vicinity of one archway; the other is kept dead in the sights of the city's one plasma cannon. Tamo Anchan has surrounded its archways with high walls with only a narrow gate out; Eibon relies on its own city walls and the fact that any invading army would have to endure the scouring desert winds.

Scales that glisten in the bark of trees

Not many people know this, but Russ Nicholson had a perfectly respectable career drawing strips for girls' weekly comics like Jackie before he became one of Britain's leading imagineers of fantasy, SF and horror. I came across these sample pages he did based on a New Knights of Camelot television script - a script slightly adapted here for the page, incidentally, because you can't leave as much to the actors when they're just drawings on a page.

A rare vintage

For a long while over on the Mirabilis main website, Leo Hartas and I were busy putting up whimsical vignettes about life in a lost year when a green comet caused fantasy and reality to merge. And while Mirabilis belongs to a whole other lineage of fantasy than the dragons and heroes of Fabled Lands, some FL enthusiasts might enjoy the Royal Mythological Society correspondence, much of it in the style of discourse over sherry in a Dweomer college. For instance:

To the Fellows of the Royal Mythological Society

I have a curious incident to relate for your archives. I am a junior officer aboard a ship lately assigned to lay new telegraph cable between the British Isles and North America. Last month, as we were returning towards Ireland in the last stage of our work, the sky turned dark as night; and the sea, previously as flat as a sheet of glass, began to churn with thirty-foot waves. I looked down and saw great shoals of fish tossed helplessly up to the surface, like the catch you may see tipped from any fisherman’s nets, but multiplied as though caught in the nets of a titan. And along with the fish were pebbles dredged up from the sea bed, and shells, and other debris impossible to identify - mere leaves on a storm raging hundreds of fathoms below.

The cause was, as I understood at once, a submarine earthquake, an event I had never before witnessed but which is not uncommon in that part of the Atlantic. I recall that I turned to shout a warning to some men who were attempting to cross from the other rail as a large wave came awash of the deck. The next moment, I was freezing cold and soaked to the skin, and I realized that I had gone over the side.

There was almost no time for fear – but panic, of course, requires no thought. I fought the urge to draw breath, knowing that it would only fill my lungs with salt water. Having no idea of up or down, I struck out in any case with all my strength. Objects buffeted me and I caught glimpses of them in the murky water. They looked like fragments of bone, pieces of classical pottery and glass, the dull glint of green-rusted armour… Strange things, artifacts that you would more expect to see washed up on the beach at Pompeii than far out in mid-ocean. Then I found myself holding a life preserver and was being hauled up, as bedraggled as the proverbial drowned rat, to the safety of the deck.

When I came to my senses some time later, my shipmates pointed to an object I had been clutching when I was rescued. I must have caught hold of it under the water, and I am told that in those minutes when shock had bereaved me of my wits I would suffer no man to take it from me. Gentlemen, it was a stone amphora that must have lain preserved in the sand for centuries, for its glazed design was still clear enough to make out images of a city of concentric walls, and men and women clad in an ancient style walking in gardens beside a peaceful harbour. There was also an inscription (of which I append a copy) but no scholar of Greek or Latin has been able to make any sense of it.

Now, all of the above is what I can tell you for your own records, and I am glad to help out with your scientific researches, but I would appreciate your advice on a personal question. I kept the bottle sealed for several weeks, but today I gave in to curiosity and broke it open. A glass of wine that I poured from it stands beside me on the desk as I write this. In the firelight it is as rich as the rubies of India, and the scent is almost overpowering in its evocation of sunlit groves, soil, sweet rain, fresh wind and growing green abundance. I sit looking at it now and I ask you. Should I drink?

Faithfully, Lt George Sterling, SS Star Treader, Milford Haven

Dr Clattercut replies: I have not yet been able to decipher the inscription you were kind enough to send, but it resembles an ur-form of Eteocretan, leading me to dare suggest – But no, it would be unprofessional to speculate at this stage…

Prof Bromfield: Oh, come out and say it, in Heaven’s name. A wine from Atlantis.

Dr Clattercut: Possibly, possibly. I cannot help but think of those lines of Mr Ambrose Bierce: “When mountains were stained as with wine by the dawning of Time, and as wine were the seas.” There is indeed a strong likelihood of it being a relic from the sunken continent.

Prof Bromfield: And the chap wants to know if he should knock it back. Well, Lieutenant Sterling, if you don’t want it –

Dr Clattercut: Wait, this is very rash advice. Lieutenant Sterling, think carefully before you taste so much as one drop. This is the rarest vintage from an island paradise that was the marvel of the ancient world. You might find no earthly thing has flavour afterwards. And where would you get more?

Prof Bromfield: But, Clattercut, you could say the same of life itself. There is no more, so savour every drop!

Incidentally, what is the word for a devotee of the Fabled Lands? A Fabler? A Fablander? Any suggestions..?

Days of glory

Jamie and were flattered last week to be invited to be part of bit-tech's Made in the UK Week. Editor Joe Martin has written a brilliant article about development of the Abraxas MMO and also conducted an in-depth interview that covers our early gamebooks, our Eidos days, and plans for future products from the Fabled Lands Studio. But go over and look at the other goodies Joe has on offer too. The survey of the UK's top games, for example, is a fabulous reminder of some of the great original content this country has produced - and still could, if the government would really get behind the games industry.

Btw, if you saw the Eurogamer review of Joe's article, I should probably just make it very clear that Jamie and I did not say that World of Warcraft swiped the Abraxas art style. How could they when they never saw it? And Joe didn't ever say we said that. The simple truth is that we were considering a bright, slightly cartoony look to the Abraxas characters - and that's where some fantasy games like WoW and Torchlight have gone since. Simple as. But not as sexy a story when put like that, is it?

Some fauna of Abraxas

Today we look at a few of the most dangerous creatures of the continent.

Munigant

A carnivore with a long proboscis, triangular membranous wings and strong kangaroo-like hind legs. The munigant lopes across the plains dragging its wings, which are fringed with long bristles like primitive plumage. Spying prey, it leaps aloft and snaps its wings out to the side, gliding forward at great speed while bringing its legs forward and extending its claws. If the prey fails to dodge it is seized with the wing-hooks while the strong clawed legs inflict a lethal wound. The munigant then injects a chemical that softens the bones and proceeds to suck them out, leaving only the skin to dry in the sun. (Abraxaens have a superstition that a person slain by a munigant becomes a ghost-skin that will slither under the door at night to wrap itself around the living.)

Derophyrs

Arboreal creatures with very powerful hind legs and smaller forelimbs used for grasping branches. The derophyr's torso slopes downwards from the hips to its heavily plated head, the forequarters being counterbalanced by a short flattened tail. The overall height of the creature (when standing, measured from feet to pelvis) is about four feet. Its distinctive rattling call - braap, braap, braap - which echoes for miles through the forest, is created by rapidly vibrating the face plate while blowing through the mouth and nose.

A derophyr's legs propel it vigorously through the trees. On the ground it has an ungainly gait, hopping and strutting awkwardly. During the mating season it is not uncommon to encounter derophyrs out of the trees, disorientated by a midair collision of heads which is the ritual of male competition for females.

Derophyrs subsist on a diet of leaves, berries, insects and small game. They are dangerous to humans not because they would normally tackle prey as large as a man, but because when gazing down from the trees they can mistake humans for smaller animals. Additional danger occurs in the mating season, when dazed male derophyrs will leap at and headbutt anything on two legs.

Elytrums

Creatures of primordial but earthly origin, elytrums are solitary hunters whose intelligence is not definable in human terms. They display forward-planning and a high degree of vicious cunning, but appear to have no ability to develop language or speculative thought.

Elytrums consist of a central soft body sac covered with globular eyes. From this extend many thin multiple-jointed limbs of varying lengths, resulting in a creature something like a spider.

The elytrum can hang in cover (above a door, in trees, etc) waiting to drop on prey that passes below. More commonly it forms its limbs into a framework structure, pumping them with fluid to hold the shape, and then weaves a thin waxy integument around this framework. The wax can be different colors, allowing the elytrum to impersonate inanimate objects, other creatures - even humans. They can also mimic sounds or simple phrases, making the disguise complete.

Two tell-tale signs may give warning of an elytrum in disguise. The creature cannot increase its weight, and at only 30 kilograms or so it is far lighter than a real adult human. Also, the waxy integument does not perspire, and over time is liable to harden and crack.