Poems from the Park

A small collection of poems I wrote today, inspired my visit to South Korea

Yongsan Poems

It is oft said that hell is other people
But this I find unfair
Much of the time they are at worst a purgatory
But a soul in purgatory will sometimes dream
Of the heaven above, of a paradise

So for a while, I take my leave of purgatory
And go in search of heaven
I am borne there not by no choir of angels
No Valkyrie carries my there on horseback
Instead, I take a train to Ichon Station
And disembark for Yongsan Family Park

Today, for me, heaven is a bench, a biro and a notebook
And the raw matter of words

Here in Korea, I study Taekwondo
I hone my body, strengthen and sharpen it
So that flesh and muscle become as potent and focused
As the very best of blades

Here on my bench, in my tiny heaven
I hone my mind
I find paradise with a pen
Nirvana with a notebook

For an hour, I scribe my heaven
Write my enlightenment
Pen my zen
With the gnosis of a biro, some paper
And the raw beauty of unshaped words

Electric Rivers

 These streets
Come night
Go live

Neon Flares lights glare
Headlamps pump amps
Photons fly through air

Wide streets between buildings alight
Signs, streetlamps, cars, neon aglow
Seoul city’s streets blaze with electric fire

Phosphor-water flowing between gravestones
Glowing rivers of artificial light
Broken by concrete and glass
Rapids of sweeping headlamps dammed by crimson

By day, this heaving life is dimmed
Cars drive through these tarmac riverbeds
Lit sometimes by sun, more often by grey cloud
The lustre of the buildings is gone in daylight
Seoul’s face for the day flatters none

But

These streets
Come night
Go live

And Seoul becomes beautiful
In the glow of electric rivers

Korean Mountains

 

Imagine if
You slept
So long
So deep
So quiet
That the world around you changed forever

Your hair was now a shag of trees
Your flesh now changed to soil and dirt
Here and there, erosion-worn to the bone
Calcium ossific with time

And a thousand animals call you home
And tiny people raise buildings and paths
And trek across you day by day

Imagine if
You grew
So Tall
So wide
So huge
That you changed the world around you forever

When I see the mountains of Korea
I see people in those slopes and crags and peaks
Deep in slumber, gentle stone gods snoring silently
What were to happen if they woke?
What were to happen, if eyes of  rheumy marble opened?
What would they make of us?
Us scurrying, tiny things
Reaching for but never achieving
Such heights as held by them

Perhaps they would be bemused
Perhaps they would laugh
Perhaps they would be indifferent
Turn over to slumber once more

Imagine if
You slept
So long
So tall
So deep
So wide
So quiet
So huge
That you became part of the world and the world became part of you

The Two Brothers

I see the two brothers under a pagoda of stone
Lying at its base, watching all who go by
Twin lions, keeping eternal vigil
One seems dour, but the other playful
Smiling, welcoming, teasing of his twin
The small plaque before them lists no sculptor
And so I can never be sure
Whether he carved them so, or whether weather,
Erosion, wind, rain and entropy
Bestowed such countenances upon them
And if all that I see just comes from my mind,
Patterns spotted on clouds of carven stone

The Artists

The artists face one another
And consider for a moment what art they shall create
Plan a result to this antagonistic collaboration

They set to work
Kick block punch dodge
They separate, appraising the artwork
Their contribution, that of their foe

And move
Strike counter spin
Their canvas is a sparring ring
Their brushes their bodies
Their paint is violence
Violence refined
Violence distilled
Violence controlled

So that from an evil comes aesthetic
From the last resort comes beauty
And that artists reforge violence
Into the pure form of art

Characters on book covers, and why it annoys me

There’s been a bit of a trend in publishing in recent years that’s irritated me ever since I first saw it and irritates me to this day; the act of putting a picture of the main character, or more than one member of the cast, on the front covers of books. It’s annoyed me for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never been able to work out why. However, I’ve finally figured it out, and for the sake of a blog post, I’m inflicting my opinions upon all you hapless readers. Have fun!

What the annoyance boils down to, for me, at least, is the factor of interactivity. I enjoy books for the same reason that I enjoy video games, that reason being that I like to be able to interact with the storytelling media I consume; after video games, I’d say that books and written works are probably the most interactive type of storytelling medium  around at the moment.

It sounds an odd thing to say, that we ‘interact’ with a book, but when you think about, reading a book can take a surprising amount of effort and work from the reader. You are merely given the words, and it’s up to you, (with the assistance of the author, of course) to shape these words into characters, settings, sounds, sights, smells and tastes that exist only in your imagination. Reading a story can become a highly personal experience, unique to each and every reader; while the author can say that a character has a deep voice and red hair, how I imagine how deep their voice is, and what haircut their red hair is styled in, will most likely be different to how other reader visualise it.

I’m personally of the school of thought that an author should try and have only the barest details of what something looks like on the page, and that unless its appearance is particularly striking or is key to the plot, an absolute minimum of description should be used. It’s something I certainly try and avoid; I might mention that a character has brown hair, or that they’re black, but unless it’s vital I’ll leave the rest of their appearance up to the reader.

This interactivity is why I find books and video games so much more engaging and compelling than any other medium, even if their methods of interactivity are so different; unless it’s really good I just can’t ‘click’ with a television show or a film, as it’s all there. As an audience member, I have to work my imagination in order to enjoy something, and with films/TV, I’m often left with little to do so my mind wanders.

Getting back on the subject, however, what annoys me about the picture of the main character on the cover is that that interactivity and that personal element, one of things I enjoy the most about books, is taken away from me. Their appearance is plonked down in front of me and made into an irrefutable, objective fact, and I just don’t have the mental flexibility to shake that image and rethink it once it’s there. The personal aspect of the novel, one of its best aspects, is taken away from me; something that is mine suddenly has someone else’s idea shoved into it. Even the most detailed of descriptions will require the reader to fill in at least some of the gaps, but with a picture I’m left with nothing of my own to do. It’s the same reason why I find it so hard for me to enjoy movie adaptations as much as the novel itself; all personalisation is gone.

Of course, this is just my opinion and while, should the stars align and planets be in the right formation, I will make it explicitly clear to my agent/publisher that the characters will not appear on the covers of my books end of story, I’m interested to hear from anyone who does like it. Why does such a thing push your happy buttons? Why do you prefer to see the author’s vision of the protagonist over your own? Leave a comment, let me know; I’d be intrigued to hear your reasons.

The God of the Forgotten City – A short story

This is something I put together today as a quick break from my current large writing project. Not all that much to say about it, really, other than it’s a short piece set in a collaboratively created fantasy universe whose community I’m part of. However, you don’t need to be at all familiar with the world that this piece is set in, as the established universe isn’t really that important to the plot aside from one or two passing mentions.

Enjoy!

The City of the Forgotten God

A dying moon and fading stars shone upon the empty streets of Tzetchilan.

The worn sandstone was shaded white with the light or stained dark by crazes of shadow. Some of these shadows were regular in shape and form, but many were random in their formation, cast by tumbled rubble or the growth of plants.

There were two shadows in the main thoroughfare of this lost metropolis that cast a shape that might be recognisable as humanoid. One of them was a statue of a long dead concubine-king of the city, face carved as a mask of the sun, a wide, flat tongue protruding from its lips and flowing down the chin in a violent grimace. One hand held a carved club, studded with chunks of jewellery and the other hand was held before him, palm up in a gesture that demanded supplication and obeisance from all who passed.

The silhouette cast by the other figure was humanoid from the waist down, but from above it two large protrusions marred it, throwing it off into something almost impossible to recognise.

The one who cast the shadow could never be mistaken for something approaching human. His shape was that of a man, but there was no flesh upon him; instead, rubbish, litter and pieces of detritus gave him body, a breastplate of battered and rusted metal shaped from hammered tin cans protecting his chest. At his belt was a mace, made from nails and shards of scrap driven into the end of discarded stick, and over his left hand was a shield of wood and leather, split down the middle from an axe blow. Mounted on his back were wings, the pinions made from patched rags and scraps of old paper, around a skeleton of old wood and rusted nails.

His name was Yuluman, Angel of Forgotten and Lost Things, and he was here in this ruined city to see an old friend.

He took a moment longer to contemplate the statue, and then continued on his way. Around him, on either side of the thoroughfare, ziggurats lounged, the once splendid palaces and temples now indolent in their decay, swaddled in vines and plant life like immense infants of stone. Yuluman passed a stone fresco depicting warriors in animal hides parading with clubs, slings and spears in hand, followed by a train of loot and slaves from some long-forgotten war.

His goal loomed before him, an immense ziggurat that was less a building and more a mountain wrought by human hands. The road he walked on now had, in times gone by, been walked by priests, worshippers and sacrifices alike, all flocking to the base of the temple. Yuluman passed through an archway in the wall surrounding the huge building, the wooden gates long ago rotted to nothing, and began to ascend the row of steps that ran up the pyramid’s sides towards it peak. Even after centuries of abandonment, the stones were still stained crimson.

At the pyramid’s top was another structure, a large house or mansion, its own impressive dimensions dwarfed by the monolithic edifice atop which it perched. At its threshold, Yuluman took a moment to look behind him, at the sweeping, plant-choked ruins Tzetchilan. Only the stone heart of the city remained, the palaces, temples and the houses of nobles, the wood and reed houses of the poor long since consumed by the patient encroachment of the rainforest. Weed-choked canals lay stagnant, or had broken free of their bounds to flow as streams, erosion slowly eating away at the buildings around them, and the paving stones of roads and pathways were cracked open by roots and plants. Places that the rich and holy had once made their homes were now dens for animals and nothing more.

He stepped through, into the dark confines of the manse. It had only one room, for a single occupant, and what had once been a luxurious place, decorated with silks, artwork and finery, was now bare stone. Now its only adornments were the crushed bones of animals.

Yuluman looked at the large window on the eastern side of the room, one that would admit the light of the dawn sun once it rose. Already, he could see the first rays feathering the horizon like the brush of a celestial artist, and nodded in satisfaction. Now would be the ideal time to greet his old acquaintance.

On a crumbling pedestal was a knife. It was a razor edge, carved from obsidian, still sharp despite the years, and Yuluman drew its blade across his palm. From the wound, pearlescent celestial blood dripped, falling into a channel on a floor and trickling down into a bowl set into the stone. In the old days, the jugular of a slave, a young man or woman in their prime, would have been slit and the viscera would have pulsed and poured free of the wound to fill the vessel to its brim, but all Yuluman offered was a mere trickle.

“Tzetchil,” he said, voice soft. “An old friend is here.”

In the darkness, something stirred. There was a shifting, a sniffing as nostrils scented the blood in the air, and a long, sinuous tongue reached out. In a few swift motions, it lapped at the insignificant offering, scraping the bowl clean of the iridescent vitae and slid back into the shadow. In the blackness, an eye the colour of polished emerald winked open.

“Yuluman,” Tzetchil said, supporting herself on taloned feet to drag her form into the light. “It has been quite some time.”

Tzetchil’s serpentine muzzle leant forwards towards Yuluman, blunt-snouted head bowed low in greeting, displaying the frill of blue and turquoise feathers behind it. At her shoulder where her long neck terminated were two taloned feet and a pair of wings, and behind that stretched a long, serpentine body. Green feathers gleamed in the faint, pre-dawn light, and the thin lips that covered Tzetchil’s teeth curled back in a smile that revealed long, yellowed fangs.

In reply to the gesture of greeting, Yuluman bowed, straightening up as Tzetchil coiled into a more comfortable position. Twisting her long body over herself, the feathered dragon rested her arms and wings on her tail and leaned towards her visitor.

“So, my old friend,” she said. “What news is there of the outside world? Any empires risen? Any others fallen?”

“The usual,” Yuluman said. “Wars are declared by nobles and the common people die in them, the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. There’s rumoured to be a civil war brewing in Connlaoth, and a necromancer tried to take over Serendipity, but he was defeated. Aside from that, however, little news of major note.”

“Then it leaves me wondering why you bothered to pay a visit,” Tzetchil said. “You know I like news.”

“I feared you would be getting lonely,” Yuluman said. At this Tzetchil nodded.

“I do lack for company,” she admitted. “Jungle creatures generally make for poor conversation, and the last person to wander into this city did so more than fifty years ago. I think I would go mad if it weren’t for your visits.”

“There is a world beyond this jungle, you know,” Yuluman pointed out. There was a hint of admonishment to his voice.

Tzetchil sighed and slid towards the window, where the sun was beginning to rise over the ruins of the city where she had once ruled as a living goddess, fed by the blood of daily sacrifices. The orange light turned the stone of its buildings a deep umber, the greens of the plants growing vibrant. Here and there, she could see splashes of colour where flowers bloomed.

“There is indeed,” she said, turning back to Yuluman. “But it is not my world. Do the people beyond it even know of Tzetchilan?”

“There are a few old legends and half-forgotten myths of the people who live nearby, but nothing else,” Yuluman said.

“A pity,” Tzetchil said. “But you say there are people who live nearby?”

“Perhaps a hundred miles to the south of here is a group of small villages, by the name of Matlal,” Yuluman said. “They’re ruled over by a snake-man who calls himself a king, who made his palace in an old temple.”

“They call it Matlal now?”  Tzetchil asked. “I remember when those buildings were first built; Kazuitli was so proud of how successful his little outpost turned out to be. Perhaps I’ll pay that upstart town a visit someday soon.”

She saw Yuluman’s head was tilted in a expression of puzzlement, and added; “Kazuitl was one of my concubine-kings. He always dreamed of expanding the bounds of our little queendom, and I indulged him a little. Conquests brought me sacrifices, after all.”

Turning away from the window, Tzetchil slithered back to her place.

“Did you ever see Tzetchilan in its prime, Yuluman?” she asked.

“I had business there, on occasion,” he said. “I don’t think I have ever seen a city more obsessed with killing in all of my days.”

Tzetchil’s lips slithered back in a toothy smile.

“Well, that’s what you get when you have a vampiric dragon as the head of your pantheon,” she said. “Ah, I remember when I had the blood of a slave as both breakfast and dinner, and all I had to do was a little weather manipulation to make sure the rain fell on time. Those were the days.”

“What happened to them?” Yuluman asked.

“We grew too large for our own good,” Tzetchil said. She gestured to the wall of greenery beyond the remnants of Tzetchilan. “All of that jungle out there soaked up most of the rainfall in the wet season, but once we cut too much of it away the water had nowhere to go but into the city. Nobody wanted to live in a city that flooded as badly as Tzetchilan did. So one by one, they left. After a few generations there was nobody here but me.”

“I thought you said you controlled the weather,” Yuluman said.

Tzetchil chuckled at that.

“It’s far easier to make it rain in a monsoon season than it is to stop it from raining,” she said. “None of my people ever really realised that, though I wasn’t going to disillusion them any time soon, and I kept the knowledge of weather magic to myself so I would always be needed. In many ways, I suppose I’ve got nobody to blame for my downfall but myself.”

She glanced over at Yuluman.

“So, Angel of Lost and Forgotten Things,” she said. “What does the future hold for you?”

“Much of the same,” Yuluman said. “Making sure things that should be lost stay lost, hiding that which need to be hidden.”

“Of course,” Tzetchil said. “How is Mad Hettie, by the way?”

“She is well,” Yuluman answered. “Still quite deranged, though.”

“As I thought. Still, be sure to give her my regards the next time you see her, one forgotten god to another, that sort of thing.”

“Of course I shall,” Yuluman said. “You know, you do possess wings of your own. I can’t help but think it would be good for you to leave this place for a while. Brush off some of memory’s dust. You’re powerful enough to look after yourself, after all.”

The joints of Tzetchil’s wings brushed the ceiling as she shrugged.

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “I just enjoy the good memories, that’s all.”

“If you say so,” Yuluman conceded. He bowed low. “I must be gone, Tzetchil. Until we meet again.”

Tzetchil nodded her great feathered head in farewell, and Yuluman stepped out of door of her home. With a beat of his patchwork wings, the angel was gone, a single scrap of paper all that marked his presence.

For a few minutes, Tzetchil reclined in her chamber, one eye half-open as she watched the sun trek upwards into the sky. She mulled over her conversation for a while, and she had to concede that she missed talking to people. She missed feeding on them, too; wild animals may have been nutritious enough to sustain her, but sentient beings had a much richer taste to them. Something about self-awareness gave blood a flavour that mere animals could not match.

Tucking her wings in close, Tzetchil half-crawled, half-slithered out of the doorway of her home. Rearing up on her tail, she spread her wings wide, feeling the wind ruffle her feathers. She twisted, facing towards the south, and with a beat that send a small gale blasting across the top of the ziggurat, she powered herself up into the air.

She would go south, she decided, and see what had become of Matlal and the civilised world beyond her dead and empty city.

The Shrouded Continent – A Pathfinder Campaign Setting

A while back I ran a brief, abortive Pathfinder campaign with some long-time friends of mine. We played a couple of sessions, had a good time but called it quits there due to the fact that we couldn’t meet up regularly (we played the games whilst staying with one of my friends who lives in Leeds, a good 2-hour train journey from my hometown of London) and the fact that I would be travelling for a few months not long afterwards.

The campaign we played was a homebrew one, and I decided to capitalise on the fact that we’re all fans of Westerns by mixing up Pathfinder’s typical high fantasy trappings with those of the Old West. The campaign was called off, but I liked the setting and it never quite left the back of my mind; it was fun, characterful and had cowboys, and everybody loves cowboys. But I figured that there might be a Pathfinder GM with more time on their hands and a group with a similar fondness for gunslingers and vaqueroes as well as for dragons, magic and sword-wielding heroes, so I thought I’d post up the setting outline in the hopes that somebody out there might have a use for it.

So without further ado, I present to you:

TERNIS – THE SHROUDED CONTINENT

 

Setting Outline

For all of recorded history, the continent of Ternis has lain behind a veil. Even in the memory of the oldest of gods, dragons and spirits, Ternis has been surrounded by a wall of storms, thunder and lightning, which in turn circled an arcane barrier, preventing entry to the continent through means both arcane and mundane. Those that tried to breach these barriers to see what lay beyond were invariably killed or lost at sea, and for much of the world, the storms were nothing more than some bizarre oddity left over from a bygone age.

A century ago, that changed.

Without warning, the storms dissipated, the arcane barriers flickered out of existence and a new land, untapped, untamed and untouched by any sentient peoples. The first explorers who landed there found an arid continent, much of it desert and scrubby, arid wilderness, but a wilderness that was rich in resources including gold, iron and mithril. Within five years of these trailblazers arriving, people came to make a living off the bounties of the new world; a century later, dozens of towns and even a few large cities now exist on Ternis, linked by road and railway lines but little else. No one nation lays claim to Ternis, it is not regulated by government beyond a regional level and aside from the Order of the Shield and Star there is no law enforcement that spans the continent.

Much of Ternis’ civilisation lies on its coasts, and the mercilessly hot and dry heart of the continent still remains largely unexplored, and those few souls who are brave and foolhardy enough to attempt it have not returned. Near the bigger cities, affairs are orderly, but once things move into the smaller towns and the less inhabited wilderness the only law is that that comes from the barrel of a gun and the blade of a sword.

Terrain and wildlife

Much of Ternis is semi-temperate desert and arid grasslands, often interspersed with dramatic rock formations, with farmland in the more arable areas. Typically, monsters found on Ternis are drawn from the Desert (Temperate) List and the Desert (Warm) List. On its eastern coast, Ternis has several mountain ranges; none of these are particularly prominent in height, but are easily visible from afar.

Notable Locations

Before anyone asks, I haven’t got a map; I don’t the money spare to spend on mapping software, and I don’t have a way to scan a hand-drawn map into my computer at the moment.

Austis – The largest city in all of Ternis, the port of Austis lies on the northernmost coast of the continent. The wealthiest city on the continent, it gained most of its dollars from importing and exporting goods. Austis boasts several notable features; Austis Station, which connects to just about every major trans-continental railway line on Ternis, the headquarters of the Order of the Shield and Star and the head office of Crazamar Railroads. As a port city, Austis’ population is a melting pot of different races, but about half of its inhabitants are humans, with halflings and dwarves making up a notable proportion of the remainder.

New Khazad – A small mining town that bloomed with wealth after quite literally striking gold, New Khazad is the largest dwarf city on Ternis. Built into the side of a mountain range, many of the native dwarves living in former mining tunnels that have been adapted to become homes, and it looks to become a subterranean hold in the typical dwarven tradition. While there are a small minority of other races, the overwhelming majority of New Khazad’s population are dwarves.

Perpetua – The headquarters of Crazamar Railroads Inc., Perpetua is a rolling town that constantly follows the railway lines being laid down as the company pursues its goal of circling the continent in steel. Perpetua is a rowdy town of gambling halls, taverns and brothels that exists to cater for the rail workers, and every few months, once the workers and the end of the line move too far away, the inhabitants will uproot and move closer to the end of the line; many of the buildings are actually on treads, wheels, runners or legs in order to make moving them easier.

Roachwood – A sprawling and lawless place, Roachwood is the home of gamblers, outlaws, rogue mages and even less savoury types. The McAfferty Clan operate primarily in Roachwood, all but ruling the place, the halfling-controlled crime cartel using Roachwood as a base for their smuggling and racketeering operations. In terms of numbers, Roachwood has no one dominant race, though halflings, gnomes and humans are the most common to be seen on its streets.

Yular – A city populated primarily by elven immigrants, Yular is famous for its graceful architecture, its university (one of the only two on Ternis, the other being in Austis) and its unwavering belief in its superiority over all the other cities on the continent.

Wyrdstones – Though not one single location, Ternis is scattered by large, mysterious crystals that are referred to by the inhabitants as Wyrdstones. Though they seem to be magically inert according to all inspections made of them, the areas around Wyrdstones always appear to be under a pall, where little grows or lives, and anyone that attempts to live near one rarely stays for long.

Factions

The Order of the Shield and Star – An elite group of Paladins, Inquisitors, Clerics and Rangers, the Order of the Shield and Star are the closest thing Ternis has to universal law-enforcement. Though small, each member of the Order is highly trained and well equipped, and are veterans of fights with outlaws and monsters, and the presence of a single Shield and Star Marshall can be enough to deter all but the most desperate of outlaws. Typically, a medium-sized town will have a marshal from the Order who lives there as law enforcement, keeping the peace along with deputies who are drawn locally; these deputies are often picked for their potential as recruits for the Order.

Crazamar Railroads – Easily the largest railroad company on the continent, Crazamar Railroads is a family business, run by the dwarf Thurin Crazamar and his extensive clan. The company’s train lines start in New Khazad and link Ternis, Yular, Roachwood and dozens of towns in between, with the eventual goal of looping around Ternis’ perimeter back to New Khazad. Immensely wealthy, Crazamar Railroads has a great care for its profit margins and not much concern for anything else.

Murlag’s Marauders – Fifty years ago, the Orc warlord Murlag Gutswallower lead an immense armada of ships to Ternis, each one packed with orc and goblin warriors, in the hopes of conquering the continent. While the invasion force was defeated, in no small part thanks to the Order of the Shield and Star, the invaders were not wiped out and instead scattered into small warbands across the continent. Along with desperadoes and outlaws, Murlag’s Marauders remain a terror throughout Ternis, raiding towns, trains and stagecoaches.

Making the setting a Western

While Ternis might work well as a fantasy setting, there are several things that can be done to give it an authentic Wild West feel to it.

Fan that hammer, cowboy!

The iconic image of the duster-wearing gunslinger is incomplete without their trusty six-shooter at their belt or a repeater across their back. With this in mind, a campaign in Ternis should ideally have firearms being Commonplace; they count as Martial Weapons, early firearms and their ammunition cost 25% of the amounts listed in the book, but advanced firearms and their ammunitions still cost full price.

An age of machines as well as magic

Technology levels have reached roughly the same levels as those of post-Industrial Revolution Frontier America. The steam engine is no longer a technological marvel and is instead mundane, railroads are the preferred method of transportation, telegram wires have replaced Sendings as a cheaper method of communication and the telephone and typewriter are available for the wealthiest. Spells are certainly useful, but the power of the arcane is now beginning to be matched by that of the technological, and occult-technologists who have combined the two disciplines have made marvels such as the Difference Engine and the Steam Golem.

For a fistful of GP

With the advent of the printing press, money could be made lighter and easier to carry than heavy pouches of coins and jewels. On Ternis, people prefer using dollar bills to pay for things.

Campaigns set on Ternis can have Cents replace CP, Nickels replace SP, Dollars replace GP and Bullion Bars (small gold bars) replace PP.

Our hats are grey round these parts

One thing to consider is an alternative morality system, outside from Pathfinder’s usual Lawful, Chaotic, Good, Evil and Netural alignments. Fitting with the typical ‘Civilisation versus Barbarism’ themes of Westerns, an alternate alignment system can be used for campaigns set on Ternis, more fitting with the fluid morality of the Wild West.

	Compassionate	Indifferent	Brutal
Civiliser	Protect the weak, uphold the law, no matter the cost to yourself	Follow the law and look after your own; other folks’ problems are theirs	Submit to my authority or taste a bullet
Survivor	Help folks out whenever you can	I need to live, that’s the most important thing	I’ll take what I need to live, regardless of who gets hurt in the process
Anarchist	I might care for people, but I don’t care too much for rules or lawmakers	I’m out for me and me alone, and anyone who tries to stop me’s a dead man	I’ll take what whatever I want, from whoever I want, and if I feel like killing ’em, I’ll kill ’em.

While this table may be good for roleplaying purposes, this can have an effect on a number of powers, so it should be implemented with care (you hardly want a player with a Paladin to constantly be quizzing you on whether Smite Evil will work on this or that enemy, after all).

Well howdy there, stranger!

If you don’t make your NPCs talk with Southern accents, you’re Game Mastering wrong and should be ashamed of yourself.

Campaign/Adventure Ideas

One of the best sources of material to draw upon for a campaign in Ternis is from Western novels, films and video games; a quest for revenge against a vicious outlaw, the PCs pulling off or thwarting a daring train heist, perhaps a plot to milk a small town riven by bitter rivalries for every dollar it’s worth. Of course, a good angle to explore is the reasons why the continent was once shrouded in storms, and what the deal with all these mysterious Wyrdstones is. What you choose to make of it as DM is up to you.

Well, that’s everything for now. I hope I might have given you some ideas for your own campaigns, or at least an interesting read. Happy trails, stranger!

 

 

The Gathering of the Lost by Helen Lowe – A Review

It’s really good, but I would have liked it if there was more Honour Captain Asantir in it.

 

 

What? You want a full review of this? Fine, fine, here’s a full review.

The sequel to Helen Lowe’s novel, Heir of Night, the Gathering of the Lost takes place five years after the events of Heir of Night. After Malian’s disappearance, it’s becoming apparent that there are sinister designs being made upon the southern areas of the novels’ world, and the main characters must unravel a plot by the darkswarm that threatens to plunge the southern lands into chaos and undermine the Derai wall that keeps them at bay.

Unlike The Heir of Night, The Gathering of the Lost hardly even bothers with a glimpse at the Derai Wall, and instead focuses on the southern parts of Haarth, the world the novels are set in. I was somewhat curious about these places when they were mentioned in the first book, and so I enjoyed the in-depth exploration of these places that Lowe undertook throughout the novel.

What’s also notable is the handling of character perspectives, which were a radical departure from what I had expected; the first parts of the novel are focussed exclusively on Jehane Mor and Tarathan of Ar, the two Heralds from Heir of Night, and the second on a completely new character. It may seem a bit incongruous at first, but Jehane and Tarathan are interesting enough in their own right to carry their segments of the novel with ease, and the business with the new character ends up tying into the novels’ overall story arc quite neatly and cleverly.

As expected, the second book introduces several new characters, and as I’ve also come to expect from Helen Lowe’s work, they’re all interesting, particularly the mercenary/knight Ser Raven. The darkswarm are expanded on some more and gain some extra depth, the intrigue is layered on thick and the plot twists are clever, tricky to see coming and actually add to the story. My one gripe with the previous novel wherein dangerous situations were remedied by the sudden intervention of a third party is no longer an issue and with that, it leaves me with a novel that gets just about everything right. Except for the lack of Captain Asantir. That had me a bit annoyed.

Once again, while The Gathering of the Lost may not break any new ground in regards to traditional high fantasy writing, it still writes really, really well. It may be the fantasy equivalent of pasta and tomato sauce, but the sauce has been cooked to perfection and the pasta isn’t actually pasta, but gnocchi. Even if it’s basic, that’s a damn fine meal in its own right.

Kindle Freebie – Brian Jacques’s “Redwall.”

Time for some nostalgia. So much sweet, delicious nostalgia…

Bibliotropic

The Kindle edition of Brian Jacques’s fantasy novel, “Redwall,” (the first book of the Redwall series) is currently free on Amazon. Grab it while you can, if you’ve ever been curious about this series. I read this one myself, years and years back, and remembered enjoying it then, so maybe it’s a good time to take a trip down nostalgia lane and see if it holds up to a reread, too.

View original post

Dawn Over China – A Poem

I hammered this thing out in about 20 minutes on my flight between London and Beijing whilst rather knackered from a long flight and then promptly forgot about it. It was mainly an exercise in stringing words together in a way that makes the words look pretty and me look like a pretentious wanker, but I like to think it turned out OK. Enjoy.

 

Dawn over China

I return from the airplane toilet on infant-weak legs, atrophied from seating.
I stumble-walk along the aisle, headrests crutches, and here it is I sit
As I do so, I open the window.

The outside is a line, deep blue grey below the horizon, deep blue above
But there is a line, burning in heraldic glory of the sun’s arrival
Orange paints a road in cloud, calligrapher’s brush of brilliance and light
In regal purple-red are clad the clouds from where dawn shall come

Below, clouds and mountaintops cannot be distinguished
Scudding white may be vapour, may be snow upon stone
Distance and dimness render them unreal

Above, blue, the blue of relentless July haze-days
Days where the copperplate sun is a whip of heat
No clouds are here to protect from solar glare

At the base of the red light, the first edge of the sun’s light is visible
A rising crown, it tickles the cloud, teasing the day with promise

In predawn light, I fancy for a moment that the plane is much lower than it is
I see coasts and hills in distant cumulus
A cove of white rendered grey through illumination-starvation

I stare out of the window, at the altitude of gods
My eye sees nothing below
Cloud, land, is meaningless to me
One may be other, I could never tell

I wait for illumination
I wait for sun’s clarification
I wait for sight of the land below
I wait for dawn over China

I can’t think of a pun on its title, but here’s a review of The Heir of Night anyway

I really feel like I ought to hate this book. I generally find most medieval fantasy to be a tiring and repetitive genre for me, one where I’ve seen it all before, and with Heir of Night, I’ve got to say this: I’ve seen it all before.

There’s a giant wall in the north holding a supernatural enemy away from a largely oblivious world in a stalemate, garrisoned by a noble house (well, houses) slowly slipping into decline. The heir to the rulership of this is rebellious and headstrong and she’s struggling to connect with her distant, duty-driven father. There’s a prophecy that marks her as The Chosen One, and she manifests powers inherent in her bloodline which were thought to be lost. That sparks a quest to master these powers and at the same time causes the nascent threat of the supernatural enemy to rise in strength once more and threaten to overwhelm the known world (which just suggests to me that they could have done this before but have just sat around procrastinating). Oh, and at one point the characters have to flee pursuing enemies by running to a dangerous landscape influenced by a mysterious supernatural power and gamble on it dealing with their enemies whilst not turning on them.

At least it doesn’t have elves.

The Heir of Night contains all of these things. Aside from one or two small things, it has no original ideas. Damn near every single thing in it is something I’ve read or played somewhere else. I should hate this book. I should despise it. I should loathe, curse it and Helen Lowe’s lack of originality, dismiss it as clichéd trash and throw it out. And yet I really, really liked it.

The thing is, while The Heir of Night does absolutely nothing with the fantasy genre, what it does do is done really well. The characters are all well-rounded, engaging and interesting. The actions scenes are intense and consistently keep the protagonists in an underdog position, which make them that much more exciting. The worldbuilding, while not mind-blowingly original, is well-done and the lore is deep, interesting and has some cool details behind it. The writing is crisp, sharp and enjoyable, the dialogue feels natural and not simply there for exposition and the plot is compelling.

The novel does deserve special mention, I feel, for the female characters within it. It has a large cast, which is evenly split at about 50/50 between men and women, and unlike in some fantasy novels where it’s only the guys who get the glory and do all the fighting, most of these women are in positions of authority, are key to the storyline and are more than capable of taking arse and kicking names. And as well as being tough, they manage to actually be feminine instead of the usual ‘strong female character’ shtick of basically being a macho guy with boobs and a girly name. Malian, one of the novel’s two leads, may be young and inexperienced at the start, but even so she’s still capable, brave, clever and perfectly willing to take the situation into her own hands. The other two characters who ended up in my top three favourites for the novel were both women as well, one of them being the herald Jehane Mor and the other being Honour Captain Asantir, a character so incredibly awesome and badass I ended up nicknaming her Kickassantir, because I’m an awful human being like that.

There’s only really one gripe I have with the novel, but even then this is a pretty minor one; the fight scenes always have the protagonists in an underdog position (by no means a bad thing, don’t get me wrong) and things seem to be on the  brink of defeat before they’re rescued by the surprise intervention of a third party. This is something I’m generally fine with if it happens once, but the fact that this happens in just about every single time the protagonists face off against the bad guys, and that half of the time this rescue come out of nowhere and just feels incongruous. A lot of the time my reaction to such scenes’ conclusions was a simple “…really?”.

In conclusion, whilst The Heir of Night doesn’t do anything new, it takes ideas that are old and proves that, with a thick layer of well-applied polish, they can still make a novel that shines.

 

P.S. Also, I’m slightly amazed that I managed to get over 500 words of review for a book which I thought I didn’t have much to say on other than ‘this is really good’.

Theirs to Reason Why- A Reviewer’s Duty

A pun on the title. Very droll, I’m certain.

I’m kicking off Female Writers’ Month a month early. Why? Because I’m already away, I already have the books and you know what I say to the prospect of holding off from reading books for an entire month just to conform to an arbitrary deadline? Fuck that, that’s what.

Also, it’s going to be two months, because that’s how long I’m away. And it’s still called Female Writers’ Month. Deal wid it.

The first novel I’ve read is Theirs Not To Reason Why – A Soldier’s Duty (or possibly, A Soldier’s Duty – Theirs Not to Reason Why. I’m honestly not certain), a Military Sci-Fi novel by Jean Johnson. Overall, I had a pretty good time reading the novel, but with some reservations.

The initial idea for the novel is an interesting one; Ia, an inhabitant of a backwater planet in a universe where the human race has spread to the stars, is hit by sudden, nightmarish visions of an apocalyptic war that is to occur in four hundred years time. Using her precognitive abilities, Ia resolves that the only way for humankind to win this war is for her to join the Space Force Marine Corp and carve out a reputation so formidable that when crunch time rolls around it will be used as inspiration by the human race to win in the fight against extinction.

The book has a lot of good points going for it; it’s packed with fine details that give it a good grounding in realism, the alien races we see are interesting and are based on some cool ideas and the side characters are fun and have lots of personality. Johnson gets a lot of stuff right and even though the universe was your standard Military Sci-Fi schtick of the USA in Spaaaaaaace! it was engaging nonetheless.

The problem is that, for every good thing A Soldier’s Duty has going for it, there’s something in it that just doesn’t work for me. The main issue with the novel is, I feel, Ia herself; the novel kind of shoots itself in the foot due to the fact that her precognitive abilities are key to the novel, but then mean that she has little room for flaws or growth. She’s just too perfect a character, one who’s prepared for everything in advance and who never seems to be fazed by any development. Her mission of carving out this reputation as the ultimate soldier is obviously the most important drive in her life, but it never really feels like she’s driven by it; aside from one scene in the earlier parts of the novel that stands out, I couldn’t get the sense that Ia is ever really bothered by anything. The whole visions business could have worked if Ia was given maybe some kind of sense of desperation over the issue, but that’s never a problem for her. Combined with the fact that she seems to think everything through so logically, so calmly and so analytically all of the time, and she ends up as a protagonist who’s just too distant and aloof to ever become truly engaging.

The other serious problem with Ia is that she just seems to be, for want of a better word, special. There always seems to be some kind of exception or circumstance that makes her better than everyone else, or the perfect person for the job, or she just so happens to be the only one who comes up with the idea that saves the day. Some of it makes sense and is explained early on, such as the fact that Ia’s has greater strength and faster reflexes than most people due to being a  ‘heavyworlder’, somebody born and raised on a high gravity homeworld (in fact, this was one of the worldbuiding details that I really liked). At other times, her abilities just seem to have been pulled out of nowhere when convenient; at one point late in the novel she’s suddenly able to manipulate heat and light, and then out of nowhere, I kid you not, nowhere, she gets a sword made out some kind of invulnerable, psychically-attuned metal that only she can use.

There are other small isuses as well; the novel also hits one of my pet peeve buttons with its over-usage of the of the word ‘literally’, and it does that usual annoying military sci-fi thing of having the motivations of most of the protagonists basically boil down to ‘they’re so. Very. Heroic!’ As well as this, there are a fair few times when the novel has chunks of exposition or description that go on for several pages, which were a pretty big annoyance for me.

Like I said, there’s a lot of stuff in Theirs Not to Reason Why that’s done well, but at the same time it pushes a lot of buttons that just don’t seem to work for me. In all, it passed a good chunk of the time in a ten hour flight between London and Beijing, and it’s engaging enough that I’m planning on reading its sequel, An Officer’s Duty, but the little things were a persistent enough nag at the back of my mind for it to not quite hit the ‘fantastic’ mark.