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Nobilis RPG Character Development

  
  

Page: 12(3)4

 
 
grant
00:45 / 20.12.06
Something worth pointing out: Ponchartrain has been badly polluted by oil drilling/refining; in fact, New Orleans is the only city I've visited where everyone had office-style water coolers in their homes (because they didn't trust the drinking water -- and this was in the 1990s).
 
 
Ticker
15:29 / 21.12.06
my character's only friend I think
 
 
Blake Head
16:32 / 21.12.06
Literally or figuratively? It would be possible for any character that so desired to describe the ecosystem that operates in their part of the Chancel, or given that a couple of people have mentioned it, have either part or the whole of the Chancel devoted to various gardens/insects (optional). Would be a nice way to illustrate how certain Powers interact though.

I heard the water quality of the lake was even worse now.
 
 
grant
17:33 / 21.12.06
Unspeakable. The lake is unspeakable.

Those are cool moths; I remember reading about an early explorer who found a similar breed that fed on blood.
 
 
Ticker
18:32 / 21.12.06
I like the idea of shared gardens.
 
 
iconoplast
21:36 / 21.12.06
I like the idea of strange hybrids of gardens and libraries. Bookshelves that flower and bear fruit and overstuffed chairs outdoors, rugs whose patterns blossom and change with the season, but somehow at the same time feeling like a gormenghast of a decaying old estate.

And a hedge maze. Possibly made out of books and maybe with a blind librarian.
 
 
grant
00:15 / 23.12.06
yes!
 
 
Blake Head
14:24 / 08.01.07
Be assured, recent silence notwithstanding, thoughts have still been ongoing regarding the game.

If anyone has further thoughts on the setting (chancel/imperator) now’s the time to get them out there, and I’ll just devise something from the various threads of thoughts going. If anyone has any major objections to New Orleans as being linked to the setting then now’s the time to say. The more you say now the more you shape what we all end up with.

Right, below should be the last bit of the character creation. It’s the less central stuff, so it’s not necessary for it to be fully completed, and ALL this stuff should be flexible enough to accommodate more development once the game’s started, which I think we should do sooner rather than later. But it would be nice if everyone had the basics down, even if they’re not fully fleshed out (some people are there already, which is great). Ok:

Anchors

Spirit represents the numbers of Anchors that you can have in the world, plus one. You don’t have to fill the slots for the sake of it. The requirement in bonding an Anchor is fundamentally that the Noble must love or hate the Anchor in question, and act appropriately – if your beloved Anchor is about to lose their job, at the least you’d be expected to be sympathetic, and possibly do something about it. In return you get to interrupt their lives at various points. What I’d be looking for in a description of an Anchor is 1) The Noble’s attitude towards them, 2) Their attitude to the Noble, 3) A short biography/list covering at least name, age, gender, profession, and location. That’s it.

Bonds

Bonds are a simple way of thinking about what the character finds important. Anyone attacking the noble is most likely to do so through their bonds, which might and often will include the sanctity of their Estate, and/or specific functions associated with the estate (like personally learning more secrets), Affiliation, Anchors, their Chancel or parts of it, other loved ones, relationships or principles. You don’t know have to use those, and it would be interesting to go beyond them. Anyway, you should divide 20 points into values for each concept you pick. If you don’t make it up to 20, then leave it and you can add to it as you get a grip on the character.

Handicaps

Handicaps don’t add to your character points at the start of the game. They do add to your miracle points mid-game. Once you realise all the things you can’t do without expending miracle points, it will become clear firstly how important it is not to spend them needlessly, and secondly how important it is to have a method of speedily replenishing them. Ones that add to your stock of replenished miracle points at the start of each new story will for this game also add to your starting miracle points.

Limits adversely affect your basic traits, like Aspect, and add miracle points to the trait of your choice at the start of each story (not session).

Restrictions affect the Powers in more general ways, and generally add miracle points to the trait of your choice as and when they come up during the game. Being chased by multiple Excrucian-shards towards the river but can’t cross running water? Have some miracle points. They might help you avert your fate.

Virtues Not every character will have these. These are virtues which the Power does not just have, but which is an actively miraculous force in their character. If a character is loyal, then nothing can force that character to break their bonds of loyalty, or be tricked into doing so, and they will intuitively know which actions will be in accordance with their virtue. If they have been charged with protecting the entrance to their chancel by their Imperator, they will do so even in the face of certain death, and when the best course of action might be to “tactically withdraw” and regroup. Which less loyal characters might do, leaving those less flexible in their loyalty on their lonesome. In which case they will be rewarded with a miracle point. Note that Virtues can also be negative virtues, like secretive, cruelty or greed.

Affiliation All characters have these. High service to the principles of one's affiliation gain you miracle points, disservice loses you them. This will mainly be by following the codes of each Affiliation in the book, though you're free to choose personal codes as well.

Designs

Trickier to do in text perhaps, and pretty much optional. The Nobilis each take to themselves a floral design which represents their Estate and their Affiliation, which consists of two twined flowers (occasionally incorporating Tarot or other symbols) on a background. It’s up to you if you want to put these into play, it’s maybe more pertinent to understand that flowers are a central conceit of the Nobles worlds, and assume that each one has a specific design. Of course if we’re going to have a garden chancel you might want to specify that the garden of heartache is filled with flowers of a specific meaning; there’s tons of info in the book, but I’ll leave this one mainly up to you.
 
 
Quantum
17:48 / 08.01.07
Let's have a brief description of our heraldry at least. Mine will be Ipomoea alba, moonflower, entwined with Datura inoxia, white angel's trumpet because they are both white night blooming vines that grow in the southern US, with interesting properties. Although I think I'll check the Nobilis associations just in case they mean 'cars' and 'bong water' or something.
 
 
Blake Head
16:09 / 10.01.07
Cool.

Today I’ve mainly been looking at insects. You wouldn’t believe how much hunting through different arthropods on Wikipedia would make you itch. Asian Cockroaches… brrrrrr.

Anyway, after a bit of trouble trying to think about the shape and the inhabitants of the chancel, the idea of gardens is growing on me. More particularly the idea of entomophilous flower gardens as insect habitats, with each Power taking on an insect family or families that it identifies with and that being incorporated into their part of the Chancel. Now, to be clear, this would be optional, so it’s up to you with how closely or explicitly you want to be identified with that, if it’s not for you that’s fine, but I’m looking at the symbiotic relationship between flowers and insects and it just fits perfectly inside my head. The relationship could be integral, or largely symbolic, or whatever, but let me know if it works. Which is another way of saying I’ve been looking this up all day, so the right answer is without a doubt “What a great idea Blake Head!”, but it’s fairly freaky I suppose so let me know if you think it sucks.

I’m thinking of a society which is geared towards looking after these insects to the point where they themselves understand that the insects/gardens are more important than their own lives. The might well resent that let’s say. We could tie this into a spiritual appreciation of the Imperator (and the Powers) as one who was venerated through the insects or alternatively the Imperator as an incipient messiah seen as redemption from drone-like servitude to them. If it’s the Powers responsibility to ensure that the Gardens are maintained, then the human inhabitants could perceive them as the false lords of the world and (to tie in the Lovecraftian themes) have a cult-like folk-belief in redeeming insect gods. I quite like that option. Needless to say, the human society doesn’t necessarily have to have much clue as to the real nature of things, and they may not be particularly respected by the powers in turn. I don’t have a particular desire to make the garden insects sentient, but it would only be a small Realm divination to talk to them on their own terms.

As to the society of the Chancel, I’m thinking of a town-sized population where there are enough people for multiple ritual roles to be fulfilled and to form a small, self-sustaining, pre-industrial economy, but with not a lot of social flexibility. I’m imagining various noble houses each associated with one of the gardens/insects, perhaps each house could have a “quarter” where they reside, and where beyond the communal professions (like say: the banker, the poet, the baker and their two assistants) there would be an honoured profession unique to each house. These “Gardeners” would have a separate residence and their vocation would be understood as the highest calling they could aspire to, possibly like a form of priesthood; the only option for those who were not skilled enough to achieve a specific social role would be to choose between peasantry and joining the (human) Chancel militia. The Chancel’s actual Borderguard? Two words: Giant Bugs. I’m also imagining a house/family that is tied to the actual civil governing of the Chancel, from which the Erus is drawn, and which spends most of its time squabbling and plotting, and a personage (to be revealed) who’ll take charge (of the militia) in Chancel military matters.

The Gardeners would each have tasks associated with the Garden that they served, ensuring that the insect population has enough sources of food, making sure the gardens respect their borders (though I can see some overlap), including specialised tasks like harvesting anything the insects produce (depending on the insect obviously) or the flowers they pollinate or something. I really do rather like the idea of gnarled outdoor bookcases filled with budding stories, that you can’t pick until they’re ripe. I could see one of the tasks for the chancel being a continual book harvest and organisation. With a blind librarian directing it. With organic flower rugs. God I love Nobilis.

So far we’ve got xk’s Tiger Moths, and grant has indicated an insect he’d be associated with in his character description. One of the things about adopting insects is their cropping up in things like cryptozoology, and their links to religion and mythology. Ideas for the rest of you if this appeals:

Iconoplast: you haven’t be any chance read the roaches have no king – Daniel Weiss have you? It’s a novel about sentient cockroaches (it gets better) living in a New York apartment who feed from (mainly the paper and book glue), and incubate their eggs in, the books of the owner. So all the roaches end up taking on the names and personalities of the books they were born in/ingested at birth. You don’t have to do this by any means, but it would be kinda neat. Or how about the particularly southern Palmetto?. Or just for fun . Or booklice maybe?

Gridley: Because you didn’t put anything in Realm (which is fine) I’m seeing your character as not having or not keeping a well established garden. I still think you could be associated with insects, what struck me was the idea of ingesting poisonous insects for psychedelic effect, or insects that are incorporated in those effects. The difference might be that when you are in the Chancel you’re largely going to have to venture out into the wasteland/swampland that borders the gardens to collect insects/plants for use in any intoxicants ritual. If you want to that is. This is a page on the effects of DMT that covers the recurring appearance of mantids, but has links to reports on other intoxicant/insect phenomena like Insects are the blind keepers of secrets on this earth.

When I’m not so busy I think I might start a band called intoxicant/insect phenomena. We could be post-New Rave.

Anyway. There’s also a good general page here on the various ways in which insects (ground up and otherwise) have been used for various intoxicating effects.

Quantum: if we could broaden our idea of insects and go with creepy crawlies, then I’d suggest spiders, even if it is a bit obvious, or something else poisonous to suggest the harm secrets do. Or, from another page, Night moths:

Night moths typify the secret wisdom, because they are hard to discover and are concealed by the darkness (ignorance). Some are emblems of death, as Acherontia atropos, the death's-head moth, which has a marking on its body somewhat like a human skull.

If you like the death’s head moth idea specifically it would fit in with ideas I have about the relationship between masks and secrets.

It would be possible to incorporate one’s chosen insect in your Design. So far my ideas for the Power of Masks is of two intertwined flowers with a heavily patterned Goliath Beetle gnawing on the stem.

All of this is also giving me more ideas about the Imperator, who I suspect will be of the Wild, and a mixture of the urbane and creepily insect/alien. More stats and things soon if this goes down well and I’m not ploughing a lonely furrow here.
 
 
Quantum
16:24 / 10.01.07
Camouflage + Preying Mantis =


+ Flower =


Cool.
 
 
Quantum
16:29 / 10.01.07
Can we have some of the garden underwater? Check this white mantis shrimp out;

  
 
grant
17:35 / 10.01.07
Blake Head, did you ever read the Arthur Blake project on here? Because it's weirdly parallel.

Anyway, yes, silkworm for me, plus, naturally, mulberry flowers -- Morus alba, related to breadfruit, figs and other useful plants.

Wasn't there something on here somewhere about the miraculous properties of figs and symbiotic wasps?

By the way, Datura is a natural divine intoxicant, and nowadays many varieties are known as Brugmansia or Brunfelsia. Renamed, I mean.
 
 
Ticker
18:36 / 10.01.07
I'm digging the garden idea. I'm still feeling a bit shaky on some of it and will have to read more.
 
 
Blake Head
15:50 / 11.01.07
xk, you can PM me anytime if there’s anything not hanging together for you.

Glad people seem to like the garden/insects vibe. An underwater garden or flooded garden that increasingly gives way to being underwater/being a lake, would be groovy, and is giving me ideas for the geography of the place. I’m not sure how much I want to get bogged down in describing it now rather than making it part of an initial “this is the setting” post, so: thoughts welcome, but in their absence I’ll write it up and leave space for further development in your own time. On the same theme, pretty much have my idea of the Imperator down, but it might be better to read just as a description at the start of the story. Suffice it to say that, while being no big mystery, it incorporates cocoons and rebirth and divinity and alien-ness, and fit into the setting above quite well…



Grant: I did stumble across the Arthur Blake blog a while back, through the Barbeblogs, and felt extremely sorry for the poor sod and from the last entries assumed he was one of those unfortunates that had been lost to the board that nobody wanted to talk about anymore. So mission accomplished really. Funnily enough it was just last week that I realised what it actually was, and I’ve had a read through of it now:

And I used to work in a butterfly museum, preparing specimens. I can talk the talk.

Good stuff. You can keep me right on all things lepidoptery.
 
 
iconoplast
18:56 / 11.01.07
sentient cockroaches...who feed from (mainly the paper and book glue), and incubate their eggs in, the books of the owner. ...

Mmm... I dig the idea of Paper Wasps, consuming and regurgitating books, custodians of a hexagonal library whose walls and shelves are pages and pictures.

Flower-wise, Virgin's Bower is the flower of Artifice, Bugloss is Falsehood and Virgin Tulip is supposed to be for a Literary Debut.

However, Virgin Tulip may not actually exist, since I can't find a picture of it anywhere.

I'm working on Bonds & don't think I have any Anchors.
 
 
Blake Head
14:16 / 15.01.07
After a fair bit of pondering, I’ve written up the Chancel and Imperator properties that I think would fit the game. If you’re all happy, then it’s just up to people to finish their characters if they’re still going on with that and then we can start, hopefully before people start to lose interest. Ok:

Chancel Properties:
Starting Realm points -7
Erus (Extra Landlord) - True King -4
Popularity – Hated -3
Technology Barrier 1
Spirit Gateway 1
Magical Inhabitants (Many) 2
Accessibility (Convenient) 2
Borderguard 6
Defender’s Blessing 2

What this will mean, broadly, is that, as discussed above, the human inhabitants of the chancel will defer to the Powers, but will resent their authority. There is no immediate threat of out and out rebellion, but the Powers will need to exert time and energy to making sure that remains the case. The Erus will be a “Lesser Lord” charged by the Imperator to defend the Realm, and that will always be their main priority, they’ll handle a lot of the chancel’s mundane bureaucracy, but they too will have only grudging respect for those players with a decent tally in Realm, and very little for those without.

The Magical Inhabitants property covers the multitude of semi-sentient insects that perform specific functions in the Chancel, whether that’s giant armoured bugs who will physically defend the chancel (think The Dark Crystal) to the armies of spiders and roaches that collect information on the goings on within the realm. Quantum, you might want to have a think about what inhabitants (if you are going with mantids as your representative insect) collect information for you personally, if they do indeed, in your likely capacity as the chancel’s chief intelligencer and spymaster. Both Borderguard and Defender’s Blessing are similar sorts of defensive properties for the chancel, it will resist damage/change to some degree and the magical inhabitants and actual Borderguard will be able to automatically signal the Powers/Erus in case of attack. As previously mentioned there will be a gateway to another chancel, and I’ve taken the accessibility property even though to start with I’m probably going to limit the entrances/exits of the chancel to around New Orleans, with new doorways gradually spreading out again into the world (possibly as part of a later story).

Oh, and Technology Barrier. Not a strict everything made after 1923 doesn’t work in the chancel, but more a general inclination towards non-modern forms of technology. I should probably say now that my idea of the chancel has it having existed in various forms over the years, while retaining its basic character, so the gardens might once have been precision engineered with futuristic botany skills at one point, but that recently the Imperator has folded back the development of the chancel to a pre-heavy industrial era. That should allow for some incongruities in the level of technology, with some areas more advanced than others compared to our own timeline. I think I like that idea. It fits in with my idea of Secrets having an indexed library of books rather than an electronic database, Divine Intoxication having to grind up various substances himself rather than having a lab do it – but if anyone has a previously unmentioned need for modern technology then do say.

Imperator Properties

These were tricky, as some of the disadvantages seriously distort the way the game would have to be played. I tried just to pick a couple of each that fitted without being overcomplicated, so see what you think.

Cruel -1
Granted Handicap -1
Advising Imperator 1
Soul-Twisted 1

Cruel does not imply that the Imperator is out to get you. I think it’s a good way of signalling that the Imperator isn’t very human, and on some things fails to understand the limits/needs of the Powers. That said, I opted for the Advising property as well: mainly because I think it will be useful for me as a way of counselling against any bad choices that might pop up, but hopefully it balances the idea reasonably well that the Imperator is well disposed towards you but doesn’t necessarily understand you that well. Soul-Twisted continues the theme of a Wild Imperator who isn’t that coherent, and makes its Powers less discernible as Nobles, and easier for them to avoid being found lying. The Granted Handicap is really following on from the technology barrier – the Imperator, and the Powers, struggle to use modern technology outside the Chancel. They understand it, to a basic degree, but there’s a basic lack of aptitude that makes it feel awkward and well, wrong. Because that’s quite major, what I’d be probably be doing with that is suggesting that modern technology is unreliable around the Powers. You will be able to use a laptop, you understand the basic process, but after the eighth time that the hard drive inexplicably formatted itself you probably began to just carry a notebook. You can pick up and use a modern revolver, and the bullets will fire, but there’s a much greater propensity for it to jam at the wrong moment. You might find it easier and unexpectedly more reliable to arm yourself with a sturdy flintlock pistol instead. So, most things, however modern, that run on fairly basic principles, are accessible to the Powers. Taking a cab or using a biro shouldn’t present too many problems. Using a jet fighter or night vision goggles or a PDA are probably out. I also think this way of doing it ties in quite nicely with the idea of inexplicable phenomena like gremlins interfering with the machines’ spirits. You will get miracle points as normal when using a handy modern device would be extremely convenient for you to do so and you can't make it work.

Right, hope that all makes sense. Let me know if any of it doesn’t work.
 
 
Blake Head
11:57 / 18.01.07
There is a Google Group for Nobilis which as far as I can tell has just started. Most usefully, there is a collection of links to past Nobilis games, might be edifying reading to anyone not quite sure what the game will be like.

No quick thoughts on the above at all?
 
 
Ticker
13:37 / 18.01.07
sorry... it all sounds fabulous!

Thanks for those links I think it will help me a bit.
 
 
grant
15:06 / 18.01.07
It all sounds good to me. I need to figure out how ultimate aims are executed. Like, OK, defend against the nihilist bad guys, good, using miracle points, uh OK, but how it all happens... game transcripts will help.
 
 
Quantum
15:10 / 18.01.07
"The word mantis derives from the Greek word mantis for prophet or fortune teller. Praying mantids have the ability to adapt their color to their surroundings"

I think flying camouflage bugs would make excellent spies. If necessary they can bully some spiders and flies into helping, maybe a moth or cricket for audio since mantids don't hear too well.
 
 
Quantum
15:11 / 18.01.07
it is not uncommon for larger mantids to consume small reptiles and even small mammals or birds.

Hee hee hee...
 
 
Blake Head
16:04 / 18.01.07
Like this you mean?



A Grizzled Mantis or Gonatista grisea.

This Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii is also pretty interesting:



Both pics courtesy of whatsthatbug.com.

The wings are mainly a threatening display, though after several moltings some Mantids are able to fly, so predatory flying camouflage bugs go really. Absolutely made-up, extinct or forgotten insects would also be perfectly fine, and there are probably a few species buzzing around the gardens - Nobles' concepts of time/reality being a bit fluid anyway.

Incidentally, I was thinking of the chancel as being mainly birdless. Birds would be the insect population's most natural predators (apart from each other) so it sort of makes sense to me that it would be one of the Gardeners roles to help keep the chancel bird-free, and it might help in adding to that weird sort of not the real world feeling the chancel should have. I'm sure some fly in on occasion though. Poor things.
 
 
Quantum
16:43 / 18.01.07
when feeling threatened, the goliath bird-eater is capable of making a pretty loud hissing noise by rubbing bristles on its legs together. Called stridulation, it can be loud enough to be heard up to 15 feet away!



I thought the realm guards could be web-making bird-eating spiders the size of an Ox on down to the usual dinner-plate. They could stridulate to warn of intruders, keep the chancel bird-free, have poisonous bites and sticky entangling webbing to catch hostiles. Also scare the crap out of any unwary visitors, and we could ride them like giant spider cavalry if we ever get into a big battle...

  
 
Ticker
19:42 / 24.01.07
I've been reading more of the play examples and feel a bit better about it.
I figure I should have my flowers sorted out tonight as well.

I'm excited!

Though HG, you are going to have to wrangle me a lot.
 
 
Blake Head
19:53 / 24.01.07
... wrangle you?
 
 
Ticker
11:48 / 25.01.07
wrangle, you know, I'll be trying to use a Miracle to vaporize someone's butt at some point and you'll have to sigh and compassionately tell me no, I don't have enough points and that's not how my Domain works anyhow.

yeah.

Anyhow...
Flowers... Acanthus, Aloe, Lily, Cherry Blossom.

My and my Moth Louis are ready!
 
 
gridley
12:47 / 25.01.07
Sorry, I've been away from this thread a bit. I guess my flower would be peyote flowers:



and my insect would be scarab beetles (used in Egyptian rituals and also as a hallucinogen):

  
 
gridley
15:07 / 25.01.07
Gridley: Because you didn’t put anything in Realm (which is fine) I’m seeing your character as not having or not keeping a well established garden.

yeah, the way I'm picturing things, Lazlo has been avoiding the Chancel for years, maybe even decades. He primarilly walks the Earth as a slightly enlightened human.
 
 
Blake Head
19:33 / 25.01.07
That’s great gridley – great to have you back. Interestingly, the Goliath beetle is also within the Scarab family.



There will be realm guards of all shapes and sizes.

So far I have xk as a newly noble Noble, gridley wandering in an enlightened fashion since the sixties, and I got a vaguely stylish but sleazy seventies/eighties vibe from Quantum (though I may be wrong, but it would work), and nothing that’s stuck on grant and iconoplast. So, could you tell me, if you haven’t already, when your character was made a Noble, as it would help me work out some of the history of the group/Chancel.

I’m not worried about wrangling too much, I suspect when it all goes to hell there will be a sudden upsurge in exploding hearts and ball lightning anyhow. But before you destroy my carefully nuanced dreams, I have a (voluntary) little task, if you have the time. Because the Powers are tied to a concept, there’s usually a lot a scope for what purpose they use that concept for (which is tied mainly to affiliation) but there’s also their personal, unique understanding of what that concept means. So: so far my understanding of Heartache is pretty much deep sorrow, which I know is different from more general forms of unhappiness; I don’t know if I could put it into a worded definition, I just have a sense of what that feeling is. If you want to put it more explicitly XK, now’s your chance. Similarly, so far my shorthand on Story is narrative, although I was originally thinking about this in relation to Secrets. The way I see it, secrets aren’t just information that is hidden, it’s specifically private information, exclusive to the owner – there’s no such thing as a secret that everybody’s forgotten, or that has become public knowledge. Which is quite different, although related to, understanding Mysticism as hidden spiritual knowledge. So, your task is, group, is to individually explain, in one sentence, your specific understanding of your chosen concept; what it applies to, and if necessary what it doesn’t. If you don’t want to put it in a sentence, fair enough, but this is your chance to define your Esate if you do.

Incidentally grant, did you decide on Unexpected Events, Improbable Happenings, Anomalous Phenomena, Incongruent Stuff, or whatever it is we were weighing up? This might be a good point to narrow down exactly what it is that makes it fall under your Domain, is it events that aren’t expected, or explainable, or unlikely, or do you want to focus on more explicitly Fortean things (I didn’t think you did I’m just asking).

Some more brainstorming to do and then hopefully more tomorrow.
 
 
Ticker
20:03 / 25.01.07
I'll get to the one sentence task but right to hand Heartache is a bit more that deep sorrow, which would in my mind be Grief. Heartache is specificly a longing wrapped up with desire for something which is lost to you and yet still affects you.

Your heart might ache at the sight of a mountain range at dawn as your entire being is moved by the sheer beauty of something you can no longer name. It is the feeling slipping over your skin when a door closes with you on one side and a now ex lover on the other. It is in a gentler form the feeling a parent has when their child grows up, a perfect evening comes to an end, or a beloved song falls to silence.

To contrast, Grief is focused on the loss, Heartache often on the remaining connection whatever it might be. In some ways, to me, Grief is kinder because it does not always hold out a whisper of hope for reunion. Heartache comes with the secret knowledge that who you are will always include a space exactly the size and shape of what it is you long for.
 
 
grant
20:13 / 25.01.07
So, could you tell me, if you haven’t already, when your character was made a Noble

Tripped over the wrong tree root at the moment the Chancel was pinched off a couple hundred years ago. Who would have thought?

Physical appearance: short fellow, balding, with a long mustache & bushy beard, likes sweater vests, baggy jackets and keeps scratching his left ear.


..individually explain, in one sentence, your specific understanding of your chosen concept; what it applies to, and if necessary what it doesn’t. ... grant, did you decide on Unexpected Events, Improbable Happenings, Anomalous Phenomena, Incongruent Stuff, or whatever it is we were weighing up?

Anomalies is as good a word as any, I suppose.

Sometimes things don't go exactly as you expect; sometimes the predictable, tightly woven laws of nature suddenly reveal unexpected loopholes. This is the domain of sideshow freaks and Fortean phenomena, of Bigfoot and clairvoyant flashes. It's not necessarily involved with reversals of fortune, but it's specifically centered on strange events -- things that inspire awe, wonder and the eerie feeling of the sublime ("an agreeable kind of horror").

Sorry, that's three sentences, two of which are compound.
 
 
Blake Head
19:51 / 26.01.07
XK: Heartache is specifically a longing wrapped up with desire for something which is lost to you and yet still affects you.

I think you got it the first time. I think there’s some scope for you being able to create that feeling, which I thought you described perfectly, without there being a need to articulate what that longing is for, but no, the above is great! Thanks!

Grant: I thought your description was good too. So if I’ve got you right, it’s not phenomena that necessarily contradicts nature (that might be covered by concepts of the unnatural), nor is it just something unpredictable or statistically unlikely, but things which are exceptions to the norm within the laws of nature (or not covered by current human understanding of those laws) and/or which elicit a certain feeling of strangeness. Yes?

I’m quite interested in your perspective on the “recuperation” in the passage below:

There are many phenomena in Fort's works which have now been partially or entirely "recuperated" by mainstream science — ball lightning, for example, was largely rejected as impossible by the scientific consensus of Fort's day, but is now generally recognized as a genuine phenomenon.

Apologies if I’m splitting hairs, but I’m trying to get a sense of the technical underpinnings of the Estate. For example, as you were asking about the dynamics of how the game works above, one of the ways it might go is that objects within your Estate might be threatened, so it’s good if I can understand what sorts of things threaten your conception of it. So if the Power of Frogs made a rain of frogs a predictable or common occurrence, then that would diminish your estate (in a small way) because a phenomenon highly symbolic to your estate had ceased to be anomalous. Following that, if human scientists discovered definitive proof of what ball lightning actually was, as knowledge of the proof became popularised, would ball lighting as a concept retreat from your domain because it had become explicable, or would it remain while it continued to exert a feeling of experiencing something out of the ordinary, in the sense that it doesn’t happen to people that often and it’s fairly spooky? Do you see what I mean? Is it something anomalous or not yet understood in scientific terms, or anomalous to lived experience? No reason it can’t be both if course. Thoughts?
 
 
grant
20:06 / 26.01.07
Well, I'm not sure I buy that much of a division between "science" and "lived experience" -- the main thing I'm thinking of is that feeling of "Isn't THAT strange!".

So, while science knows that giant squid exist, having one pop up beside your boat is remarkable, and having one the size of an aircraft carrier loop a tentacle over your deck and drag you under is stretching the limits of credibility.

That's exactly where my domain would be. Ball lightning in the lab is well and good (and they've actually got that now, did you know? I suppose you must), but until it becomes unremarkable, I still have a stake in it.

I suppose a planet-killing asteroid would be just as much part of the estate, as well. We know they're there, but collisions happen so very rarely as to be disregarded as a possibility.

That's the part of the game I have trouble wrapping my head around. I can't see a categorical difference between an apparition of the Point Pleasant Mothman and an asteroid crash large enough to extinctify the dinosaurs. Both seem equally improbable & surprising, but possible.
 
 
Blake Head
20:39 / 26.01.07
I think I’ve got you. It was mainly to rule out giant squids that ignored gravity, or something. If a snake has two heads, that’s fine, it’s scientifically plausible but it’s a bit strange - but if it has two heads and three heads at the same time, or it otherwise doesn’t interact with immutable physical laws normally, it’s impossible. That’s why I liked your line about “loopholes”, it’s not that the phenomena we’re talking about actually break the rules, they just use different rules to the ones we’re used to, and which we might not yet generally understand. I actually wouldn’t see giant asteroids as part of that Estate, because even though they’re statistically unlikely to hit us, as far as I understand it it wouldn’t require a divergence from our understanding of physics for it to happen, and in some sense it’s at least foreseeable that it could happen, if not predictable. A small meteorite that crashes into a Mid-West farm and makes the local cattle glow a funny colour might operate under perfectly standard scientific principles, but it’s far from expected, and accordingly there’s going to be a period where it both inspires observers with a sense of both its strangeness and an uncertainty about how it works. The territory of scientific relativism is interesting, but for the game I think a personal lack of expectation about such phenomena might be the way to go, and I think that making the Estate be about a very personal feeling rather than a strict definition would be a strong foundation. I’m not getting the same feeling about things which are just statistically unlikely, but that are in some sense “familiar” and not actively “out of sorts” with how we as individuals understand the world.
 
  

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