Merry Fathers’ Day to all you dads for yesterday.
I am going to take a moment this Monday
arvo to answer some of the lingering questions. I do not think I will get all of them but I hope this handful will cut it for those interested persons.
To start, a few of Mr
giantfan’s many inquiries:
“As asked a while ago I was wondering about the religions…”
Hmm, religions and spirituality in the
Hc is the big, little explored frontier in my thinking. My understandings as a Christian certainly informs my ideas and I very much look to
Messers Tolkien and Lewis for guidance when it comes to the esoteric in a secondary world – how one satisfies ones own beliefs without preaching. I most definitely do not intend
MBT as some kind of allegory – I too dislike it when I detect it, yet the problem of the universal ideas of the religious, the philosophical, the soulful, of what people believe, of right ways and wrong ways of thinking need to be considered, tackled, delineated, even if only for my own ellucidation. Certainly there are the
falsegods, those massive,
mis-
shapen, deep-ocean dwelling monsters who once ruled whole peoples and wrestled with men and the
urchin-lords (the
nimuines) until they were driven from the land into the deeps. Other monsters too have probably been lionized and adored and sacrificed to over the centuries – I can see some wicked
brodchin-beast terrorizing some remote, backward community, satisfied by some sacrifice of tender young flesh (
ick!) Then there is
universalism – the idea of a godless, clockwork cosmos and the supremacy of human thought.
Then there is the hardest concept for me, that of the actual origin of the
Alltgird, the world of which the Half-Continent is but a part: How did it get there? Why is there good and evil in the world? Where do the monsters come from? Why are there good the bad and the indifferent? And many such notions. I am still puzzling it all out – all a part of the fun of secondary world invention, and you get to watch me do it. The
Hc and its surrounds are certainly not a complete idea, there is still so much work needed to make it function, so many gaps yet to fill.
“I'd also like to check on if that expanded map may come out with this book whether poster that you bye separate or with the book? Or whether the publishers are still sitting on the idea?”I think that publishers these days struggle with the idea of posters (they just are not the fad they once were when I was a lad) and the next best solution is that website I keep promising. As with so much to do with the
Hc, the gap betwixt my wishes and the practicalities of implementation rarely correlate. I truly hope a poster of the map is published one day: the full thing measures 1 metre x 800 mm and looks great framed (yes, I have one on my wall – a very useful tool for reference) – which is why it has not reproduced as well as I would have liked in the books. What was I thinking making it that big and hard to produce!?!?
“Were is southern Verid Litus could you give us a picture or something? (Note to self check to see if there are pics in book)”The southern
Verid Litus can be easily found on the existing map – it is quite simply the southern half of the
Verid Litus (which means lit. “eastern
coastlands”) consisting of such lands as the
Verd Antique,
the Laurent,
Five Drains,
Nought,
Dice and
Attica of old – to name a few. Essentially it is all the lands south of the mystic river
Ix and north of the river
Stivenrot. You’ll find it on Map 4 at the back of
Foundling (p 429 I think) though it is – I confess – not easy to read all of the names there.
“Could we have a bit more info on The path of the Signal Stars?”By this I am assuming you mean the
Navigationals, the
Signals of Paths used by canny folks to find their way about at night. You’ll have to wait for more info on this I am afraid – time has run out.
He would also like a preview of
Book 2:
“I think you’ve been asked this a few times and I know that publishers get first and last say on but how bout it?”No previews of
Book 2, sorry – I may get back to you on this but do not hold your breath.
Nina said... “I just finished Book One and enjoyed it immensely. I think it would make a fantastic campaign setting for a role playing game (RPG). There's got to be some money in it - you could ask your publisher. Check out Iron Kingdoms from Privateer Press. Their milieu is similar in some ways (pistoleers) to the HC but quite different in others (nothing like the fulghars). Have you considered and RPG addition to the franchise?”An excellent question. Though I do not really
rp any more, I did once, even going as far as producing 3 different
rp systems and settings. Indeed,
fulgars and
skolds are (in an altered form) leftovers from those heady early years; the
Hc has some of its roots very much in my
rp-
ing days. Consequently, it is in some small part my intention in with
explicariums at the back of each
MBT to give enough information to those determined enough to use as source material for a campaign setting in whatever rule system they like. I kinda want people to play around with the concepts whether
rp-
ing, writing, drawing – I have discovered one piece of
fan fic for
MBT, which was an odd experience. I do have, as part of the debris of those former years, a rudimentary
rp system but do not plan on developing it into a fully realized game.
Indeed, I do not think my publishers are in the role-playing way of thinking anyways. Sorry about this, though I do hope the
explicariums in
Lamplighter (currently about as long as the
explicarium in
Foundling) and Book 3 will provide enough info for any campaigning needs. A little while ago I actually had a brief trade of emails with a fellow from Privateer Press
Iron Kingdoms – a pleasant exchange (and apologies for I have forgotten his name… =/) – and would very much like to play a round or two of the game.
I find steam-punk very appealing and the way it is handled in
Iron Kingdoms very tasty indeed, but I must confess that I do not see the
Hc as a steam-punk world, and certainly there is no magic in the typical,
D&D sense; I have actually been somewhat deliberate in steering away from the genre some, though overlap has been unavoidable. Yet my use of
tricorns and flintlocks comes more from my enjoyment of Nelson’s navy and such inventions as
gastrines and seltzer lamps and
potives and
fulgars are all a part of my attempts to define a distinct notion. Never-the-less comparison is a part of the process of assimilation and I share many of the same inspirational sources as the fine fellows over at Privateer Press.
Originality is a difficult and flighty bird, but I do strive to achieve as fresh a combination of the things that inspire as best I can, working and reworking and rethinking as much as I can to produce my own version of the vision.
I am currently about a third of the way through
notebook 30, for those who want to know, and at the moment I am really puzzling through where to take Book 3. One of my more recent entries in
nb#30 is about how coaches in the
Hc do not have glass in their windows “… as this shatters too easily” – or so I wrote – “& so poses a risk to the occupants. Instead lights (by which I mean windows) of a carriage are shuttered with various slides and blinds an
movable, lockable grilles…” I have also been puzzling over the whole creation story of the
Hc, of the why of men v monsters and the divisions in the monsters themselves. This is a neat segue to the following picture...
This is the
Spider Queen – also known as the
Duchess of Spiders,
the Arean Dutrix, the
Spinnerling – a monster-lord known as a
petchinin (or
tlephathine), mighty creatures who are ambivalent about mankind, seeking neither the harm nor help but simply wanting nothing to do with
everymen. Yet even in this ambivalence their wrath is terrible should they perceive a threat to their demesne – then they take on the nature of the cousin
wretchin-lords, vengeful and swift in their cruelty. The Spider Queen rules from the
Spinningwood in the
Undermeer on the south-eastern banks of
Slithermeer Swamp, keeping hidden in the forest deeps, protected by the thorny woods and frightful whispers of her unseen threat.
Today I will not tell you what I had for breakfast, just to mix things up a bit.
Here at last a solution to
madbomber’s poser in – Half-Continent synonyms for real-world terms #010
editor = I came up with a neat term when addressing Celia
Jellet (my most excellent editor here in
Ozland, and Mister
Travaglini (in the
ol’ US of A) calling them
verbemenders (“word
alterers”) but that does not quite fit the bill I think – too obvious to my thinking. So I sat and thought and dug about and pulled out old note books and have begun to devise a whole hierarchy for the publishing “industry” in the
Hc. So you have
literarians, who publish serious works, and
gazeteers, who provide the thinner works, such as the pamphlets
Rossamünd enjoys. Now either of these might work on their own or be a part of a
pressing house, which is essentially a publisher and printer in one establishment. Whether
gazeteer or
literarian, you will find
emenders or
formators (or
formatrix for the girls) and these are your editors. Of these there will be a
master formator, with two or three
emenders and several
under-formators in his/her charge; there are even freelancers known as
emenders-at-large. Working the presses are the
master plateman who has rule over the
pressplates,
under-platemen and the printing presses themselves. In more
historied times the fore-runners of the
literarian/
emender was known as a
glossapract, a publisher and editor in one, originally in Imperial employ to publish the bulls and banns of Imperial edict. Indeed, such fellows still exist as do such bulls and banns.
See what a helpful thing your word challenges are! (Well, I think they are anyways…)
And quickly, to
Andre: it was my privilege to offer support - indeed, I am rather chuffed I could actually prove to helpful to another. Wonders will never cease.
This will be, from now until I change it I suppose, is to be my new profile image (along with a new title graphic too, it seems). It looks more like me than the previous illo - and it also happens to be a sneek peek into Book 2.