I like how Dark Souls used inventory to evoke a sense of setting, conveying details within details.
-Thick tapestry armour (light), tinderbox (pyrites), hunting crossbow, ten steel bolts, carved ceramic shiv, tattered black skirts.
-Steel flanged helmet, steel bardiche, stained crimson cloak, steel cuisses and stomach-plate (light), diamond-pattern hose.
-Leather jacket (light), scuffed blue jeans, high-top sneakers, flick knife, preserved fairie corpse, salt-shaker, iron horseshoe, small bell.
-Grey cowl, plucked celestial feathers, dried third eye, bulls-eye lantern, censor with spices, pamphlet of forbidden behaviors, pinfire revolver (five shots).
-Radio-attuned headset, wavelength-specific goggles, jaw-wrap, hand-crank portable generator, leather harness, screwdriver shiv.
-Compromised NBC suit (light), clogged gas mask, sealed glove full of mycoidal spores cultivating on hand, assault rifle (twelve bullets), military rations, cyanide capsule.
-Leather pantaloons, iron stomach-plate (light), loose silk sleeve with a trained serpent inside (D4 Pit Viper, Cobra, Copperhead, Grass Snake), oil-lamp, rope noose.
-Wild boar skins (light), psychotropic fungus clump, antibacterial fungus clump, bone needle and sinew thread, steel hand ax.
-Rabbit mask, crowbar, bottle of celebratory soda, duct tape, photo of someone important.
-Eyes of another (D4 Cat, Goat, Beholder, best friend), Colt 1911 pistol (seven bullets), trenchcoat, wellington boots, handful of small coinage.
-Steel crescent ax, empty notebook, pens and pencils, mother's sweater (light), maglight.
-Whalebone-and-leather corselet (light), embroidered black dress, silk shawl, poison-containing ring, matchlock pistol, five paper cartridges, ceramic-painted cat mask.
-Rusted brass trident, herringbone jacket, ragged trousers, sapient sea star headpiece, wicker cuisses (light).
-Mossy bark chestpiece, cloak of woven rose petals and silver rings (light), brass scimitar, jawbone of a human adult with a 'beard' of human fingerbones, elbow gloves of human skin.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Mythological Origins
After a while purely scientific statements of genetic and genealogical origin point grow somewhat dreary, no? In any case, these less factual ideas might inform some kind of cultural perception, perhaps even a religion of sorts.
Origins, or Otherwise
1- From deep unground, in warm pools of primordial water heavy with silt and life, did the physical forms of these people grow. And when they grew too large to fit, and felt their bodies ache with stillness, did they claw at the earth above and drag themselves to the dusty surface to be burned by the suns.
2- Upon the strings of the still universe did the God play the first song, a perfect one that echoed in every space until the God heard it a hundred-thousand times over. And when it heard its own song, it found revisions could be made—but had since forgotten how to play; so the second song had a new ending, which caught at itself and lit the stars and ripped open the emptiness between. This displeased the God, who attempted again; so the second song was played backwards, which jarred at the echoes and sent small stones around the stars. The third song, played in a low key, awoke the stones and their inhabitants. The fourth song, played in a high key, set time in motion with its last notes. And so the God crafts the fifth song to perfect the mistakes.
3- When the last of the Old Ones died at the core of the world, their servants took the corpses and threw them inside vast ovens for fuel. Upon those ovens cook-pots were placed and filled, and the servants cut themselves and each other to pieces for the vast meal to take place. But the cook-pots were far too hot, and many of the pieces leapt out from the core of the world to cool as new beings.
4- And in the space before time all were gods in that purified world. And since all were gods, some thought themselves greater than all else, and took condemnation and subjugation upon those others who did not contest them. Conflict sundered the purity of that world: those subjugated gods fell to lesser planes like scorching stars as the foundations crumbled under their feet, and those condemning gods clung to rotting, ethereal cliffsides.
5- '...Being a species of replicants brought back from literal extinction by recorded genomes of our predecessor humans, we are not technically human ourselves: more akin to children, or else an elaborate attempt for the humans to continue their lineage. It is a terrible shame that their efforts failed to come to fruition, and we must keep eternal vigil to prevent any of the offworlder abhumans to assault their holdings and contaminate their greatest and last work...'
6- We have always been on this ship: it is our light, it is our life, and the High Navigator tells that the waves have been lapping at the sides of the hull for as long as they have been aware. We are pulled by hooks and ropes from the stinking bilge and cracked out of rotten holding cases as infants, in batches of one or two, of all kinds and all places, now equal on the ship.
7- Fragmented and heretical are the words that they speak, for theirs is the language of the lesser, warped and mangled to mock the language of the greater and isolate themselves as individual beings. At their heresy they were cast into deep stone darkness, but returned with pale fire and brackish water and knowledge upon leaving the caves. Though far from enlightened, they took upon to at least preserve the greater's tongue even as they drowned and desecrated everything in their path that was not them.
Origins, or Otherwise
1- From deep unground, in warm pools of primordial water heavy with silt and life, did the physical forms of these people grow. And when they grew too large to fit, and felt their bodies ache with stillness, did they claw at the earth above and drag themselves to the dusty surface to be burned by the suns.
2- Upon the strings of the still universe did the God play the first song, a perfect one that echoed in every space until the God heard it a hundred-thousand times over. And when it heard its own song, it found revisions could be made—but had since forgotten how to play; so the second song had a new ending, which caught at itself and lit the stars and ripped open the emptiness between. This displeased the God, who attempted again; so the second song was played backwards, which jarred at the echoes and sent small stones around the stars. The third song, played in a low key, awoke the stones and their inhabitants. The fourth song, played in a high key, set time in motion with its last notes. And so the God crafts the fifth song to perfect the mistakes.
3- When the last of the Old Ones died at the core of the world, their servants took the corpses and threw them inside vast ovens for fuel. Upon those ovens cook-pots were placed and filled, and the servants cut themselves and each other to pieces for the vast meal to take place. But the cook-pots were far too hot, and many of the pieces leapt out from the core of the world to cool as new beings.
4- And in the space before time all were gods in that purified world. And since all were gods, some thought themselves greater than all else, and took condemnation and subjugation upon those others who did not contest them. Conflict sundered the purity of that world: those subjugated gods fell to lesser planes like scorching stars as the foundations crumbled under their feet, and those condemning gods clung to rotting, ethereal cliffsides.
5- '...Being a species of replicants brought back from literal extinction by recorded genomes of our predecessor humans, we are not technically human ourselves: more akin to children, or else an elaborate attempt for the humans to continue their lineage. It is a terrible shame that their efforts failed to come to fruition, and we must keep eternal vigil to prevent any of the offworlder abhumans to assault their holdings and contaminate their greatest and last work...'
6- We have always been on this ship: it is our light, it is our life, and the High Navigator tells that the waves have been lapping at the sides of the hull for as long as they have been aware. We are pulled by hooks and ropes from the stinking bilge and cracked out of rotten holding cases as infants, in batches of one or two, of all kinds and all places, now equal on the ship.
7- Fragmented and heretical are the words that they speak, for theirs is the language of the lesser, warped and mangled to mock the language of the greater and isolate themselves as individual beings. At their heresy they were cast into deep stone darkness, but returned with pale fire and brackish water and knowledge upon leaving the caves. Though far from enlightened, they took upon to at least preserve the greater's tongue even as they drowned and desecrated everything in their path that was not them.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Introductory Post
Since at some point I had some intention to blog and bring my thoughts to at least some kind of wider audience beyond that of the mercurial reaches of microblogging and the vast electronic plains of the internet, I might as well begin at this time and place.
Likely I shall blog about tabletop gaming. Perhaps art. Perhaps writing. Perhaps even both, if the mindset strikes.
And so it begins.
Likely I shall blog about tabletop gaming. Perhaps art. Perhaps writing. Perhaps even both, if the mindset strikes.
And so it begins.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)