world types (was: incorporating fairy tales)

[hengest]

This is an attempt to develop the system first introduced here and discussed in that thread.

The number is simply for ease of reference.  The scale is almost certainly not perfectly linear, but then, neither does it map things that are amenable to being described in a perfectly linear way.

The parenthetical description next to the number is not meant too literally.

The "magic" column refers to what we might call magic within a certain range in our imaginative fiction and tales.

The "skill" column refers to what we call skill. More specifically, the skill of manipulating something, as if outside of it, to a certain end.

The picture is merely meant to be suggestive. 

Throughout the table, no true and reliable correlation is meant with any time period in history.  

Level 0 is not intended by the author (hengest ) to be understood as God, heaven, nirvana, or any supernatural being, place, or mental state.  The extremes of the scale are there as unthinkable bookends.  The overall purpose of this table is as an aid to imagination and world-building, not as an imitation or promotion of any cosmogony, religion, or esoteric teaching.  Religious terminology (classical gods, saints) is not used to promote or mock any religion, only as reference.

Table not 100% consistent and coherent, am posting it as a current stage in a work in progress, rather than editing the life out of it first.

Further posts on this thread will explore this idea more.

Pictures to be added later.  

Number	Magic	Skill	Picture
0	Unimaginable. All things are perfectly present and nothing can be identified, dissected, understood, or even stood apart from. Subject and object indistingushible.	*
1 (dreamless sleep)	Intent, shape, distinction and meaning implicit rather than present.  The barest distinction between the seer and the seen.  What might be called magic is "merely" the boundless potential in everything that is invisibly present.	Nothing we can think of as skill. Nameless, barely felt movements of intent in the subject.
2 (mythical images)	Separate distinguishible images that cannot quite be understood as events, but each has its own character.  There is enough possibility of cause and effect that the images can almost be understood as implicit stories.	Only the skill and will necessary for the images to have meaning.  The sun is warm and light.  A dragon's claw is strong.
3 (deepest myths and unbreakably cyclical narratives)	The sweep of day turning into night, the moon being eaten and growing back again.  A serpent rises from the sea, is slain as she rises, falls back as she is slain.	Only the skill inherent in each cycle, the skill that directs the sun's rays and strikes the serpent.
4 (mythical and magical folktale, timeless or implicitly cyclical narratives)	Stories as we know them.  The characters are thin but the magic is strong and begins to have the feel of what we call magic.  The victim's bones become a fiddle and sing.  The queen's image in the mirror speaks to her.  There are resolutions: the scullery maid marries the prince.	Local skill to manipulate all things with care and strength, but only in the direction of the narrative.  Speaking to the mirror, crafting the fiddle.  Thinking and planning within the story, never outside.  The shape of a plan does not include contingencies, only a kind of will that pushes ahead.  There is no tree of possibilities.
5 (legend, the powers of the classical heroes and gods)	Inborn magic is far beyond the body.  For some, in this realm, the body is still little more than a marker.  But the magic is localized in and vulnerable in that body.  That is, the body is (apparently) the local focus of the magic and it is where the magic can be attacked.  This is in the same way a chess piece's moves extend from the square where it stands, but it is also liable to capture on that square.	Skill looks much like magic here, but can be accounted for by evidence that is accessible to the senses.  One can witness great skill in action.  There is the beginning of practicing, the use of skill only to increase skill.
6 (gaming)	Magic becomes fragmented into effects for specific purposes.  For some, magic is inborn, but for others, it is learned.  Yet all are restricted in their use.  Magic can and often does fail to live up to the user's will.  It is here that we can speak truthfully of "magic-users."	Skill is modified here by contingency planning, well-developed in some individuals.  Skill is quite individuated, as planning and as craft.  Holes and personal strong points are visible in the work of any craftsman.
7 (basic medieval consciousness)	Magic, as a non-physical cause of sensible effects, becomes unstable.  It is reliable enough to be practiced, but not reliable enough to be relied upon.  A master of magic cannot stand alone as a power.	Skill and strength in arms can still be fought with magic, but pound for pound, they are the greater power in this world. In the realm of cognition and planning, skill can acquire a Machiavellian flavor: a set of principles by which ideal behavior and communication for a given end can be approximated.
8 (early modern, the beginnings of a mind of metal and wheels)	Magic is reduced to family and community effects worked through an (apparent) combination of personal feeling and traditional ingredients.  What remains of workable magic cannot be bottled or sold away from its context.	Skill blossoms into more realms than can be counted.  No one can master all skills.  There is potential for infinite planning, infinitely branching possibilities, each one in principle fully understandable.
9 (modernity, all things for man to manipulate)	Magic is more local than local; it no longer has discernible effects beyond the individual.  The will can exert magical effects only over its own immediate domain, within the ever-more-individualized individual.  Such effects in destructive forms might be called psychological addiction or obsession.  Auto-ensorcellment can still be extremely powerful and, in rare cases, cause the development of saints  or their opposites.	Planning and skill themselves are almost too fine for the grain of the world.  They begin to break apart their objects when applied with the weight of governments and mass movements.
10 (post-human, humanity itself exists to be manipulated)	Magic a shadow of itself, even inside the individual.  There is just enough magic in the cracks between things to act as leaven and keep the world recognizable as a world.	Skill is turned even on itself, modifying itself in its quest for ever-greater control.  Direct modification of the nature, not the details, of humanity.
11	*	Limitless but pointless.  Skill in manipulation of all created things, but all things are without meaning. No cycles or renewal, only endless and vapid progress to nowhere.

[hengest]

Significantly adapted version of the ideas originally written up here.

The table above suggests different properties for worlds, land, cultures.  Several could be actively gameable on their own.  

But suppose that many co-exist in the same world.  Different places, different such "properties."

We may imagine this as a starting point: the nearer to 0 the land is, the more powerful but less controllable "magic" is. That is, when the number is low, power is there for the taking, but the effects wrought with it are very quickly channeled into the dominant theme or myth of that area. It is difficult or extremely difficult to "go against the flow." One can reach out and "grab" power at any moment, but is relatively quickly swept along in the current.  

The further from 0 the land is, the less powerful but more controllable and more localized magic is. That is, exactly what you want can be accomplished, but only at a limited level of power. To continue the analogy of grabbing hold of a torrent of water -- when the number is higher, you can more easily control and use the water (magic) for some limited purpose, but you cannot direct or be carried along by such tremendous power.  As numbers go up, visible magic becomes less and less useful.

As the number goes up, these things happen:

• magic becomes less powerful, less present
• narrative becomes less mythical and cyclical
• skill, which is the manipulation of things as if from a position truly outside and separate from those things, grows

So we have a scale of 0 through 11 where the extremes are unthinkable and unplayable.  In effect, then, a scale of 1 through 10.

[hengest]

We may safely say that fantasy RPGs are in the mid-range, around 6 on this scale. 

• This means there is strong power available, but godlike powers are extremely rare. Such power as can be gotten, however, is usually fairly well under the user's control. The "context" does not direct the use of that power.
• Personal and regional narratives tend toward legendary actions and pursuits, but can be disrupted easily.  They are not cyclical, or not so obviously cyclical as to be "imprisoning."
• skill is well-developed, but people are still largely "inside" their crafts, communities, families.  There is still a web of interconnections that prevent skill from becoming too refined or dominating.

This scale allows us to imagine gameable areas to either "side" of the usual 6 for fRPGs.

Suppose that for somewhat normal (gameable, imaginable) purposes, we can imagine part of the spectrum to one side of 6 and part of the spectrum to the other side.

A region with a lower number (≈4) would have significantly higher magical power levels and generally much greater magic present in everything. But events, particularly those connected with the "meaning" of the region, would be that much harder to resist using magical or other means.

A region with a higher number (≈6) would have lower power levels, but relatively good freedom to use them. Easier to use those lower power levels to affect events meaningfully, to disrupt and redirect narratives.

In one direction, greater powers are drawn more to the "flow" of events, stories, the local narrative-tending-towards-myth. In the other direction, lesser powers are more meaningfully responsible to the will of the ever-more-individualized user.

[hengest]

The posts above are the basic ideas. Below there follow some separate ideas that could be used in such a setting in a modular way (a la carte, ref's / worldbuilder's choice).

[hengest]

Transplants and Strangers

People from one region may end up in another. Travel to different regions should generally be more difficult when the difference between the regions is great, but there may be exceptions.

A strong personality from a lower-number region (a 4 person in 6 country) would carry relatively high native power that would be quite effective in the more "malleable" and less narratively controlled high-number area. Such people, where the power differential is really significant, might become the Merlin of their adopted land, or a figure of similar power. They may have great magical power (although the power may not always be understood as magic), but may lean towards trying to see and go with the "flow" of things, as is appropriate in their native land. Such people may be seen to have great strength tempered with wisdom.  What they do will not necessarily be to everyone's liking, of course.

In the other direction (a 7 person in 5 country) would have low personal power but relatively high inclination to learned skill and manipulation, in a neutral sense. Such a person might look neurotic and anxious in local eyes, as they are inclined to a degree of circumstance-manipulating behavior that is much more difficult in their present location. They want to do what cannot be done, or is much harder than they expect. Such people might end up as advisors to rulers, as they intuit that getting in on the ground floor of a new structure may allow them some ability to influence events as they wish. Surrounded by relatively greater power than they possess themselves, their efforts are turned to survival and ensconcing oneself in some relatively safe position.

[hengest]

Transplants and Strangers (note)

Those who move up in number (by moving from one place to another) are locuses of power, but are relatively disinclined to use it, or even unable to see how it might be used.

Those who move down in number are relatively empty spaces in terms of power, but are high on desire to effect change.

Two transplants, say from 4 and 6.5, working together in 5 country, might be a potent if unstable team.  

[hengest]

Transplants and Strangers (Courtship and Marriage, general thoughts)

A useful question: what happens to courtship and marriage when the parties are from different areas?

There are four combinations of difference across two sexes.  

1. Man is alien to locals, is lower in number
2. Man is alien to locals, is higher in number
3. Woman is alien to locals, is higher in number
4. Woman is alien to locals, is lower in number

Each of these possibilities will require further thought.  However, even in a campaign in which personal relationships are not a central matter, any of these could be significant in local legend, stories that act as adventure hooks, and so on.  Relationships that mix levels are inherently meaningful (to the world) and should not be used lightly.

1. "Out-of-towner," lone figure, amazingly attractive, perhaps aloof without meaning to be.  Can change the narrative without really meaning to, drawing all eyes to himself, but is expected to act on his own, almost paralyzing others by his unexpectedly mythical aura.  (Could be more like type 4 if the distance in number is great, see below)
2. The sneak, perhaps attractive for novelty, internally agitated, scheming.  His nature (relative to locals) makes him a failed interloper.  Just passing through.  He has difficulty penetrating the relatively tough local narratives.  His knowings are too fine and just slip through the cracks.  However, this type does not have to be a negative character.  This is only one possible outcome.  See below.
3. The travelling carny woman who stumbles into a valley out of time.  Brigadoon with the sexes reversed.  The shape of the relationship is not obvious here.  Like 2, her skills are too fine to have much grip on their own, but unlike 2, she is less interested in twisting a narrative to serve her.  She is more sufficient unto herself.  Perhaps more interested in drawing on the local power (taking a fairy child away with her) than in altering the landscape.
4. Although it takes place in her territory, so she is the local, Galadriel's relationship to the Fellowship is basically of this type.  Unapproachable fairy queen.  There, the difference is so great that she draws all eyes to herself (see 1) and inspires them to action of their own.  Apart from Lothlorien, an extreme example of this type is a vision of a female saint.  In terms of this concept for this thread, such would be interpreted as brief encounters between a 3.9 woman (a saint) and a 7.3 man (or woman, really).  Conscious contact at that distance will only be possible for exceptional individuals or in exceptional circumstances.  The words spoken by the lower-number person are hard to interpret across such a gap, but they have the ring of truth and may be seen to be true of more than one situation.  Of course, this is a kind of "courtly love" courtship, not likely to be consummated.  Such would be extremely strange if the difference is great.

[hengest]

Courtship (a little detail)

Developing ideas first mentioned here.

Courtship and relationships across the scale described in this thread are difficult.  Being difficult, but not impossible, they are full of potential.

Suppose a 6 PC ends up in a 4.2 area.  He is close enough to interact, but is at a loss to make any significant effect on the area.  The local stories, whatever they are, play themselves again and again, almost but not quite outside of time.  He is free to act here but the local narrative usually brushes him off.  For our punderstanding, we might say that it is like being a visitor in a house where people speak to you, but mostly have cyclical arguments with each other.  You cannot get a word in edgewise or have any effect on the outcome.

A very enterprising PC, however, might find a way.  This should be largely up to player skill, should the ref rule that it is possible.  

What might happen?  What might a visitor want from such a place where the grass is greener, the stories clearer, and every person is more perfectly suited to being themselves?

One might get attached to someone who comes to a bad end.  One might witness that kind of bad end more than once (perhaps in a 4.2 it is not quite literally the same person every time, but almost exactly the same story playing out over and over with different people).  Like visiting someone in prison, one might entertain thoughts of that person being out of prison.

So suppose that PC sees a young woman who seems to be fated to die like Pretty Polly, murdered by her lover (perhaps because she is pregnant).  A difficult task, chosen by the PC and not assigned by the ref, might be to get Polly on a different path.  Should this succeed and she return home to 6-country, she would be in effect a fairy wife to the PC.  If she was already pregnant, or later becomes pregnant by the PC, she might bear a fairy child. Her personal strength is great.  She feels distant but also more real than the shadowy, flimsy people around her.  But she is not inclined to live another narrative.  Her desires (to love, to live) are almost mythically strong, but were balanced by opposing forces in her narrative.  Such a person might

• become a legend in her own time, an almost saintly figure who nevertheless has wild, barely controlled bouts of desire and an unmatched vitality
• slowly learn to live in her adopted country, perhaps becoming a local ruler NPC (abbess, petty queen)
• compulsively "act out" the role she was born to play

This one possibility, examined in this post, has limitless possibilities at each stage: the PC's desires, the quest to "retrieve" the NPC, the return, the development of the character or her child in her new country.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

You are onto something here, these are great ideas.

[hengest]

Pilgrimage

Although the central concept is focused on accidental or unintentional travel between regions, there is also the possibility of deliberate regular or ritualized travel to 

• a border area
• a tiny "island" of a lower rating (preserved as an altar or something as large as Stonehenge)
• the "heart of the country," a wild and "elvish" area that serves as a place of spiritual refreshment for the locals who live in higher-rating country nearby

On the Border

The townsfolk look forward every year to the Floating Fair that comes by river, always on the first Saturday after All Saints' Day.  Folk colorful and drab, gay and sad, appear from upriver in their little boats laden with all kinds of goods.  The Fair is best known for its strangely tasty food: preserves, fruit, vegetables, herbs and meat, mostly of the known kinds, but somehow more desirable.  The prices asked are strange, often more or less than expected.  

Some of the sellers ask odd things in barter before they name a price in coin.  An old wooden spoon, a piece of glass, a useless trinket.  It is considered lucky to make such a trade, and the townsfolk smile at the sight of one of their own dashing home to get the thing asked. 

A very few ask for a lock of your hair.  To give it is considered quite bold.  If the buyer grants it, the Fair Folk seem all to know at once, shouting joyfully and showering the buyer with some of their own wares.  It is said that a young woman gave a lock of her hair to a pieman one year, and the next year, although she was betrothed, left with him, or one most like him, in his empty boat.  

(The townsfolk are 6 to 7 and the Floating Fair folk are 3.9.)

("Island" and "Heart of the Country" will be handled in the next two posts.)

[hengest]

mao this is the thread that represents my most current ideas for FT stuff. This is what I am going to try to work those character types into.

[mao]

Mar 21, 2021 10:42:25 GMT -5 hengest said:

mao this is the thread that represents my most current ideas for FT stuff. This is what I am going to try to work those character types into.

Will read today, Maiden fare is almost done and after that I am going to work on the big bad wolf, the only thing I have in mind for him, is he is not a werewof(i am working on a diff project for werewolves and I don't want to do a second one. I welcome your thought about the b b Wolf 

[hengest]

The Altar

As you approach the center of the temple, you notice that the adornments become fewer and less ornate, while the air itself seems to gain vitality.  Your eyes are drawn to the altar.  It is hard to look at anything else, although there is really nothing so remarkable there.  If you settle down, you find that the center of the place, the altar and the area around it, seem to be different in a way that you cannot describe.  It is as if there is a kind of hope there, a hope that is oriented not to the future but to the distant past or to the true and thoughtless self that you sometimes recognize in your dreams.  On reflection, it seems obvous to you that the table, altar, and temple were built around this very spot.  You cannot imagine what ritual could add anything to this, and you wish you could approach closer.

(The altar and immediately surrounding area are 3.4 which drop off rapidly over a matter of a few feet from the local 6 or 7.  At the very center of the holy table itself is an area of 2.2.)

[hengest]

The Heart of the Country

A map would show a kind of loose ring of villages and settlements.  The ring is not closed to the NNW for a mile or two.  Something drew the ancestors of these villagers here, and something also kept them from clearing or settling any further in.  The villagers do go into the interior of the ring.  But they do not live or spend the night there.  This area where they do not live is called "the heart of the country," or in some villages, "the heart of the world" (they use "world" in the obsolete sense "a country or region").

Those who stay on the outskirts may hunt game, gather kindling, or pick berries and mushrooms.  Some venture further in for the wood from fallen trees.  No living trees are cut.  The wood from deeper in the heart of the country is prized for cradles, pipes, and toys.  A ways into the heart of the country, all paths become strange.  No one is sure just how far they have been.

Still deeper in, where no trees fall, and where you have no cause to go, strange things will occur, things that most do live to tell about.  Some meet themselves coming down a path or speak to those long dead.  Some see little folk, small of stature, who never change.  A few have seen the king ride by, but it was no king they knew.  

Along these paths, there are places and things that become memories you cannot understand.  Somewhere there, an old woman hangs in the air a stone's throw from the path, talking and talking, but you cannot follow her words or tell whether she is facing you.  A pool where a white fish glides up to kiss your hand.  A spot where it is always sunrise.  

(The outskirts where people live are around 7.  The deepest area where people collect wood and hunt hovers around 5.  Farther in, values drop quickly but unevenly and the ground becomes patchy: there are areas well past 3 in the direction of 2, but beyond that, not even the ref knows.)

[Been cooking this for a bit and finished it today; dedicated to mao with best wishes]

[The Perilous Dreamer]

I love these ideas. You have the basis for dozens of fantasy novels to rival the best of the early stuff.

[hengest]

Mar 27, 2021 10:40:18 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

I love these ideas. You have the basis for dozens of fantasy novels to rival the best of the early stuff.

Thanks, PD. What do you mean by early stuff? Like Howard?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Mar 27, 2021 11:33:28 GMT -5 hengest said:

Mar 27, 2021 10:40:18 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

I love these ideas. You have the basis for dozens of fantasy novels to rival the best of the early stuff.

Thanks, PD. What do you mean by early stuff? Like Howard?

Whether you can write those novels, I don't know, but the seed ideas are there. The potential is there.

Yes, Howard would be one example, Lovecraft would be another. A lot of the pulp stuff in things magazines like Weird Tales, but also a lot of other fantasy stuff pre-1930, pre-1900.

Also things to rival these

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

The Voyages Extraordinaires novels by Jules Verne (1863 -1905)

The works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1949)

The works of H.G. Wells (1866-1946)

The works of Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902)

Phantasmion by Sara Coleridge (1837)

Phantastes by George MacDonald (1858) [this vied with The Princess and the Goblin for a place in the above list]

Erewhon by Samuel Butler (1872)

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (1883)

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard (1885) [his more famous work, but I included She instead as it has more overtly fantasy elements]

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)

A Houseboat on the Styx by John Kendrick Bangs (1895) [inspirer of the Bangsian fantasy sub-genre]

The Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit (1899)

Collectors and writers of fairy tales such as Andrew Lang, Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.

[hengest]

Phantastes is an incredible and unmatchable book. I'm sure it was somewhere in my mind as I worked on this thread. What a master.

[hengest]

It occurs to me that my idea for "PC" obtaining a fairy wife (spouse) is practically represented in folklore already.

Take the story of Tam Lin, or Tamlane as in More English Fairy Tales (read it here, short and sweet, and you can also hear the Fairport Convention recording here).

The basic story is this: Janet, a little headstrong, goes where she isn't supposed to go (to a haunted place nearby). She meets a young man there who has been enchanted by the fairies (in the text above, he was her fiance but then vanished, but in many version, she never knew him before now). She gets pregnant, leaves, and returns on discovering her condition (the text I linked to above is a bit briefer and different, same basic idea). She sees him again and he admits that, although the Queen of the Fairies seems to like him, he is pretty sure she is going to pay him as a "tithe to hell" (some sort of human sacrifice). He instructs Janet on how she can save him. She does so, observing the needs of the ritual, and although the Queen of the Fairies is really angry, she is defeated and Janet gets to keep Tam Lin as her husband.

You already see the idea. But the ballad version (as adapted by Fairport Convention) fits my thoughts even better:

It opens:

"I forbid you maidens all that wear gold in your hair
To travel to Carter Hall for young Tam Lin is there
None that go by Carter Hall but they leave him a pledge
Either their mantles of green or else their maidenhead"

(I suppose these lines are spoken by a local authority, perhaps Janet's father, but perhaps not. A blanket warning: don't go here, this is an enchanted place (implied) with a predictable narrative.)

So there is a place, nearby but forbidden. It is "different," there is an entity there who must be avoided. And as we learn, he is like this because he is under an enchantment. He always does the same thing with "visitors" (often resulting in their becoming pregnant). Janet runs off there and follows the narrative by becoming pregnant by Tam Lin, but also breaks his cyclical narrative by rescuing him (rather than simply being "another one" of the young women who have been deceived by this enchanted man).

In other words, Janet acts as a story-breaker, retrieving a man on a cyclical narrative from the fairy world and then returning with him. 

I have known this story for a long time but was not thinking of it consciously when I first thought of the fairy wife possibility. I have to wonder whether the sources (ancient, I assume) for this kind of story were in some way along the lines of what I was thinking: another "kind" of place, a world of fairies or monsters that exists in parallel to the normal world, having predictable effects on those who break the taboo and go there...but in this instance, someone goes there and "wins" against them. Without any guarantee, such a possibility is one of the main carrots for PCs in this fairy-world setup that I am working on (and in adventuring in general): do you risk everything in an incomprehensible place to gain something of great value? But here you are not fighting monsters but powerful stories and habits themselves. So it fits into the basic model of "adventure and possibly gain power" but uses different mechanisms in-game and out.  

(Recorded fragment of part of the story from Eddie Butcher, participant in the oral tradition, here. Hard to understand but worth it to hear the bit he sings at the end).

(Finally, an old and fairly detailed site about this story on the Internet Archive here with a list of related stories here, from which I may start a new thread.)

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Apr 30, 2021 21:55:52 GMT -5 hengest said:

It occurs to me that my idea for "PC" obtaining a fairy wife (spouse) is practically represented in folklore already.

Another place this is found is in the legends and stories about Selkies.

Legends of the Selkies, Hidden Gems of Sea Mythology

The Selkie-folk

The Legend of the Selkies

A Little Irish Lore: Shape-Shifting, Skin-Shedding Seals

[hengest]

May 1, 2021 0:33:59 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

Apr 30, 2021 21:55:52 GMT -5 hengest said:

It occurs to me that my idea for "PC" obtaining a fairy wife (spouse) is practically represented in folklore already.

Another place this is found is in the legends and stories about Selkies.

Legends of the Selkies, Hidden Gems of Sea Mythology

The Selkie-folk

The Legend of the Selkies

A Little Irish Lore: Shape-Shifting, Skin-Shedding Seals

Brillian, thank you, PD.  Had no idea this was so huge and well-developed in some cultures, shows what I know.  Fantastic info.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

May 1, 2021 20:40:26 GMT -5 hengest said:

May 1, 2021 0:33:59 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

Another place this is found is in the legends and stories about Selkies.

Legends of the Selkies, Hidden Gems of Sea Mythology

The Selkie-folk

The Legend of the Selkies

A Little Irish Lore: Shape-Shifting, Skin-Shedding Seals

Brillian, thank you, PD.  Had no idea this was so huge and well-developed in some cultures, shows what I know.  Fantastic info.

This is one that I remembered. I have read thousands of fairy tales and folk tales and I remember a little of it. There is a nearly infinite supply of things to mine.

[hengest]

A work in progress.

In addition to what I call "world-type" values, the central topic of this thread, we can have an optional spectrum, more likely useful above-ground, but possible anywhere.  I insert it here.

This is a feature I call Character. It determines not the immediacy of truth, myth, and subject affecting object, but the relative wholesomeness of the area.  Not good or evil, not quite, but something deeply tied both to life, meaningful organization, and what we call magic.  Negative values connote squalor, blastedness, dead-endedness, ruin, exhaustion. Positive values connote vibrancy, growth, flow, exchange, openness, process.  

Descriptions below are purely suggestive, as these values could be generated for forest, desert, town, tower, castle, even a character.

Coinflip for - or +, then average 2d10.

Number	Negative Value	Positive Value
1	A touch of autumn.	A sense of freshness.
2	A touch of autumn at midsummer.	The "pop" of recognition of the voice of a long-unseen friend.
3	A season of melancholy.	A great wedding day.
4	"The song of a poet who died in the gutter." (Bob Dylan)	An imperfect world striving for positive change without destruction.
5	The limits of apparently civilized squalor, physical or moral.	The limits of widespread sincere wholesomeness in an imperfect civilization.
6	"Welcome to the Machine" (Pink Floyd), but not a metaphor for the music industry.	"From the Morning" (Nick Drake).  A practical and sustainable balance between good intention and result.
7	The functional limits of addiction that has not completely consumed its "host."	A civilization that makes the most of human talents and creativity.
8	A torpor of unnatural size that takes the vitality from even basic vital functions.  Food without savor, speech without meaning.	The easy sense of improvised creation and "flow," but in nearly every aspect of life most of the time ("Diamond Day" by Vashti Bunyan)
9	A place almost empty of the possibility of change.	No impediments to life and learning, save the limitations that allow them to be defined.
10	A ruined and frozen scene of hopelessness, unutterably foul and vain.	All the paths, as if those dreamed of in childhood, are open for the taking and even seem to be taken at once.

Let's try rolling these and applying them to the same base place: forest. 1d2 will be 1 positive, 2 negative.

2d10: 10, 6 (avg. 8) (neg) = negative 8
2d10: 10, 10 (avg. 10) (pos) = positive 10
2d10: 5, 4 (avg. 4.5) (neg) = negative 4.5

-8 forest. The animals and plants themselves seem to be unhappy slaves to their functions and interactions. The squirrels disdain their nuts, the grass wobbles from exhaustion when there is no wind.

+10 forest. Every season is here at once, each sprouting without beginning from the last. The beauty of each is distinct but ever-blending with that of the others. The place is perfect choice without decision, perfect sight without regret.

-4.5 forest. A forest known for thieves with just a touch of honor among them.

***

Now take those and apply the older world-type values, generated the same way. 

-8 forest (5.5 WT). The animals and plants themselves seem to be unhappy slaves to their functions and interactions. The squirrels disdain their nuts, the grass wobbles from exhaustion when there is no wind. Everything radiates a touch of magic that is natural to itself, but the nature of the things is severely choked and unwell.

+10 forest (2.5 WT). Every season is here at once, each sprouting without beginning from the last. The beauty of each is distinct but ever-blending with that of the others. The place is perfect choice without decision, perfect sight without regret. The story of each creature is complete in itself, each oak is also an acorn again without changing.

-4.5 forest (3 WT). A forest known for thieves with just a memory of honor among them. Brother slaying brother in a loop of vengeance, forever.

Whether and when to combine Character and WT will require some thought and discretion.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Aug 8, 2021 7:43:54 GMT -5 hengest said:

A work in progress.

In addition to what I call "world-type" values, the central topic of this thread, we can have an optional spectrum, more likely useful above-ground, but possible anywhere.  I insert it here.

This is a feature I call Character. It determines not the immediacy of truth, myth, and subject affecting object, but the relative wholesomeness of the area.  Not good or evil, not quite, but something deeply tied both to life, meaningful organization, and what we call magic.  Negative values connote squalor, blastedness, dead-endedness, ruin, exhaustion. Positive values connote vibrancy, growth, flow, exchange, openness, process.  

Descriptions below are purely suggestive, as these values could be generated for forest, desert, town, tower, castle, even a character.

Coinflip for - or +, then average 2d10.

Number	Negative Value	Positive Value
1	A touch of autumn.	A sense of freshness.
2	A touch of autumn at midsummer.	The "pop" of recognition of the voice of a long-unseen friend.
3	A season of melancholy.	A great wedding day.
4	"The song of a poet who died in the gutter." (Bob Dylan)	An imperfect world striving for positive change without destruction.
5	The limits of apparently civilized squalor, physical or moral.	The limits of widespread sincere wholesomeness in an imperfect civilization.
6	"Welcome to the Machine" (Pink Floyd), but not a metaphor for the music industry.	"From the Morning" (Nick Drake).  A practical and sustainable balance between good intention and result.
7	The functional limits of addiction that has not completely consumed its "host."	A civilization that makes the most of human talents and creativity.
8	A torpor of unnatural size that takes the vitality from even basic vital functions.  Food without savor, speech without meaning.	The easy sense of improvised creation and "flow," but in nearly every aspect of life most of the time ("Diamond Day" by Vashti Bunyan)
9	A place almost empty of the possibility of change.	No impediments to life and learning, save the limitations that allow them to be defined.
10	A ruined and frozen scene of hopelessness, unutterably foul and vain.	All the paths, as if those dreamed of in childhood, are open for the taking and even seem to be taken at once.

Let's try rolling these and applying them to the same base place: forest. 1d2 will be 1 positive, 2 negative.

2d10: 10, 6 (avg. 8) (neg) = negative 8
2d10: 10, 10 (avg. 10) (pos) = positive 10
2d10: 5, 4 (avg. 4.5) (neg) = negative 4.5

-8 forest. The animals and plants themselves seem to be unhappy slaves to their functions and interactions. The squirrels disdain their nuts, the grass wobbles from exhaustion when there is no wind.

+10 forest. Every season is here at once, each sprouting without beginning from the last. The beauty of each is distinct but ever-blending with that of the others. The place is perfect choice without decision, perfect sight without regret.

-4.5 forest. A forest known for thieves with just a touch of honor among them.

***

Now take those and apply the older world-type values, generated the same way. 

-8 forest (5.5 WT). The animals and plants themselves seem to be unhappy slaves to their functions and interactions. The squirrels disdain their nuts, the grass wobbles from exhaustion when there is no wind. Everything radiates a touch of magic that is natural to itself, but the nature of the things is severely choked and unwell.

+10 forest (2.5 WT). Every season is here at once, each sprouting without beginning from the last. The beauty of each is distinct but ever-blending with that of the others. The place is perfect choice without decision, perfect sight without regret. The story of each creature is complete in itself, each oak is also an acorn again without changing.

-4.5 forest (3 WT). A forest known for thieves with just a memory of honor among them. Brother slaying brother in a loop of vengeance, forever.

Whether and when to combine Character and WT will require some thought and discretion.

Have an Exalt!

[hengest]

Wow, some nice stuff on this thread, if I do say so myself!

Need to read through all this again. This is plenty of world- and setting-generating material to play with for a while. Rather than posting more stuff like this, I want to actually use these a few times and see where the results take me. I can't say I feel especially inspired or energetic these days, but sometimes the best stuff comes out of nothing...

[El Borak]

Dec 5, 2021 11:02:53 GMT -5 hengest said:

Wow, some nice stuff on this thread, if I do say so myself!

Need to read through all this again. This is plenty of world- and setting-generating material to play with for a while. Rather than posting more stuff like this, I want to actually use these a few times and see where the results take me. I can't say I feel especially inspired or energetic these days, but sometimes the best stuff comes out of nothing...

I would encourage you to keep posting ideas as you have them, even while you are trying to use them. I must say starting with the OP, this is really good, really creative work and if Rob Kuntz was still hanging out here, he would wax poetic in his praise of this creative burst. This is really unique and I agree with PD, you could start from here and write a lot of fantasy books from fairy tales to fantasy novels.

[hengest]

Ha, thanks, El Borak . I should read this through from the beginning (I barely remember this stuff) and see what else it sparks, if anything...

[hengest]

Wow, what happened to the hengest of March 2021??

What on earth is all this? Like an insane but organized dream! This stuff is incredible! Yeah, too bad Rob Kuntz isn't around for it anymore, The Perilous Dreamer!

Okay...let's see if I can still do it.

Coinflip: tails (negative)
Character: -7.5 (7, 8)
WT: 5.5 (1, 10)

I am too fried. Wow. I remember this being easy! I'll try to come back to these values...

[The Semi-Retired Gamer]

Mar 17, 2021 15:35:35 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

You are onto something here, these are great ideas.

This is coming together NICELY!