The Five Hottest Clickbait Books of the Hill Cantons

I love the hell out of books and naturally my bibliomania pushes its way into the campaign. In fact my notebooks are sloppy with this kind of in-game artifacts and self-indulgence. Five best-selling examples from the campaign year 40214...

A Briefe and True Report of the Divers Land and Peoples of the Feral Shore

Author: Alojiza nad Hromon

Physical Appearance: Crimson pelgrane hide cover with a gorgeously-illuminated interior rendered in the ink of bisytsia (she-devil) tears. Pressed paper (disappointingly cheap and thin). 86 pages

Cost: 149 gold suns and 99 copper sags

The third best-selling release this year from the Guild of Potboilers, Ghost Writers, Scribes and Jakes Farmers. The book is “selling in the tens,” an astounding commercial hat trick for the guild, and relates the author's experiences having scandalously dressed in simple cloth and cut her exquisite curly main into a bob to pass as a common laborer in the little-known Kezmaroki crown colony called Karldeset (or King's Ten). Strangely the book is written in the form of random tables.

Choice Excerpts:

“5. The colonists of the Shore differ much in apparel from the Kežmarokis although little in indolence and deceitfulness.”

“38. The Lords of the Shore are coarse and low. Indeed they wallow in their base natures, self-describing their Company as the Nefarious Nine. Colony discipline is handled quite-literally by a clown who fear of curbs the excess of vice commonly found in an assemblage of drink-besotted laboring men. And the rest of the bizarre Nine number among them an oily grifter, a disturbing doctor of unknown academic acumen, a full-toothed handsome but shady royal pretender, a foppishly-attired cave dwarf, a vinegar-smelling half-giant, a drunken alien priest, and a clockwork midget.”

“59. It is an error to call those on the Shore heretically ultra-orthodox (as is the common way with Kežiamoors), the folk are true pagans raising a vast new temple—in between two villages inhabited only by monkeys--to the vanity of the dead many-faced gods of the Old Pahr.”

A Brief Relation of the World-Dungeon Unitary, As it Was Delivered to the Folk of Marlinko

Author: Son of Mulmak

Physical Appearance: Folded, continuous codex with pressed paper and printed by a cutting-edge “printing press”. 16 pages.

Cost: 20 gold suns

A provocative new pamphlet rocking the excitable (and riot-prone) academic world of the Cantons. The booklet theorizes that mirroring the surface of the world is a vast subterranean network of dank chambers, byzantine tunnels, tomb complexes, fiendish traps, treasure houses, and creatures fell.

That said “dungeons” combining those elements exist is a matter of consensus among scholars, but this new doctrine of pandungeonism that claims that all said murderholes are but the surface manifestations of a single world-dungeon has already drawn the ire of the ecumenical council of the Temple who have deemed it and its anonymous author “borderline heretical.”

The Altricious Cycle of Supernal Japery

Author: Third-Commander Jaasher, translation by Lady Szara

Physical Appearance: Compressed fingernail-clipping cover with scraped donkey-skin parchment.

48 pages

Cost: 250 gold suns

A cruelly satirical book of poetry written in Classical Eld Iambic pentameter now translated into the vernacular of Low Hyperborean by the famous society lady (and rumored strigoi) Lady Szara. The translated copy is subtitled “As Seen in the Slumbering Ursine Dunes” and sports a promotional blurb from Sir Eld: “The underdeveloped hairless ape mind cannot wrap its feeble brain capacity around the sheer joy and wonder of Jaasher's work. Still buy it if you must.”

Five Shades of Azure

Author: Captain Balazas

Physical Appearance: Sparse but functional leather-bound volume with standard vellum. Full-color erotic plates inside. 128 pages.

Cost: 300 gold suns

Choice Excerpt: “Contrary to the prejudices of the Rock [High Kežmarok] our Pahr subjects here on the Shore are not quite the uncouth louts they are made out to be in polite society. To the contrary, I have had many a pleasing—if such a word can be used when suffering the pains of court exile—moment here at Vygrot in their hearty bearded company laughing at their colorful tall tales, seeing the blush of the red-cheeked village maidens in their white linen and floral bodices...[long, racy and embarrassingly clumsy digression].

Lost Vlko and Romuilak the Lupine

Author: Unattributed but commissioned by “He Whose Howls Echo Among the Ages, His Fecundity, Tazrun, the Illuminous and Mighty Seneschal of All the Southlands.”

Physical Appearance: Embroidered leather cover strung with cat-gut and smelling vaguely of wet dog. 64 pages

Cost: 150 gold suns

Choice Excerpt: “For a people who had their origin in the horse-stunk nomad hordes of the Sea of Grass the Pahr people have been remarkably at home in the scrubby hills, rounded peaks, high valleys and crags of Zem. While many of the hill clans have long since been domesticated into the (slightly) more sedate lives of Overkingdom cantons, tales of the “lost kingdoms”, Old Pahr petty mountain kingdoms that dropped from the historical record centuries ago--and into the popular imagination of this day.

One such tale that looms large in the so-called Southern Cycle, that great collection of folk ballads and tall tales of how the Pahr came to migrate, conquer and be conquered in the post-Hyperborean era, is that of Vlko and its hirsute, half-wild founder, Romuilak the Lupine. Many a man of science would like to believe that Vlko still exists, nestled high in the Cerny mountains, with a people prospering by the simple, bellicose virtues of the Old Pahr hidden and secure from modernity.”

Also Rans
A Modest Survey of History High and Low in the Overkingdom's Late Modernity by the scandal-ridden Cantontonal historian Jiri Paveliak (whose elaborate backstory bedazzles all). 

The World-Dialectic: Is it For You? by Jarek the Nagsman.

On Sandboxes Growing Into Special Snowflakes

The debate around Special Snowflakery has taken some interesting turns. For one Courtney counterposes what I think is an over-narrow definition of the Special Snowflake setting (and lumps in the heavy-handed/railroady elements that I also dislike) to what he may think is my over-broad and likely murky definition. The principled disagreement is all fine and good, I learned things and got a chance to clarify my own thoughts. 

Strangely, a number of people both on these posts and on Google Plus seem to raise counter-points that I not only agree with whole-heartedly but have been central features of the six-plus years of the Hill Cantons campaign—and a re-occuring thread in the posts here about that play. Small is beautiful, less is more, and that play should drive what is vital in a setting world are all things that I have written about—not as abstract principle—but as part of my own observations about where the players and I where taking the sandbox campaign over the years.

Further the discussion made me think hard about whether or not my campaign world was itself a special snowflake. I mean sure in many ways its a very traditional D&D game: the mechanical baseline is a mostly untouched B/X clone and most all play revolves around micro-site underground exploration. All roads lead to the dungeon is a running and not inaccurate (and terribly funny) joke in the Hill Cantons.

But it has had any number of grand experiments (pointcrawls of all stripes, domain-level play, stupid player classes, etc) and it has grown up with a steady accumulation of highly personalized setting details—up to and including the hubris of actually inflicting that hubris on the world through publishing the Slumbering Ursine Dunes. It's hard to not admit in the end that it has very much evolved into the most special of snowflakes.

How a simple barebones sandbox grows into that whole other thing is an interesting open question and one tied to the zig-zagging actions of the players. Tazrun, a PC thief, dies and the party wants to raise him from the dead so they decide to break out of what has been the geographic delimited campaign zone and go to the big city. Then that big city, half-ruined Kezmarok in my case, becomes a whole new arena for the players—and then itself gets dropped for a wilderness clearing new phase. The world and its details start accreting.

I would hazard a guess that it mirrors other folks sure but steady building up from the ground floor (and yes this is your place to chime in about that experience).

Obviously I speak best to my own experience. Fortunately for me that experience rather well documented over the years here. Doubling back to my indexing project I can kill two birds with one stone.

The Road to Snowflake Perdition

Hill Cantons Setting and House Rules

I am tempted to skip right over this as vaguely embarrassing but it all started here, my very first post for a blog that was intended just to be a campaign clearinghouse. The campaign was nothing but a few terse setting dress lines. A skippable but relevant post. 

Playing Around with A Sandbox Campaign

Five sessions and a month in and I am already pushing at the limits of what I had intended to be a plotless West Marches. Still I apologize for worldbuilding impulses. The links here are wonderful, some classics in the thinking of sandbox campaigning in neo-old school circles of the time.

Introducing Mystery and Legend into a Sandbox Campaign, Part I and II

I try to have my West Marches cake and other quasi-plotted elements too by introducing hare-brained and baroque mechanics to keep me supposedly grounded. Some ideas I have kept with me, like the general dynamic of creating just-in-time mystery but most dropped.

Do Sandbox Campaigns Evolve in Distinct Patterns?

Musing on the campaign “stages of evolution” and wondering if it is part of a generalized pattern for all long-running sandbox campaigns. The comments are interesting (and a shame that the Google Plus side vibrant discussion is lost to the ether.)

Character-Based Sandbox Campaigns

Kicks off a series of articles about Top Secret networks and character-based sandboxes. The attempts to do this as part of a espionage part of the campaign were not found to be all that fun by several players (and it took the campaign too much away from site exploration for my own tastes) so it was quietly killed in the night.

Whither the West Marches?

I finally recognize that the WM like features of the campaign are long abandoned and wonder why the many other “West Marches” have disappeared.

The Proairetic Code and Player-Driven Mystery in the Sandbox

One of my favorite posts, I evoke the final season of Lost and a high-falutin' literary concept to return to talking about how mystery and worldbuilding are evolving in the campaign.

Elder Scrolls, In-Game Books and Player Info-Dump Opt-In (or Out)

Taking a cue from Morrowind I talk about how to introduce info dump as an optional experience. (Note I have been way too overwhelmed to do anything like this over the last year of the campaign).

Quick Addendum to Special Snowflakery

Somewhere in the middle of yesterday's discussion—and work day--I got a chance to sneak in two hours of cross-continental anarchy and laughter in Harald Wagener's Sylvan Realms online game.

While the game was straight-up, by-the-book Labyrinth Lord, it doesn't have a single standard player class. Instead we had a short-list array of thematically-linked classes: Forest Gnome, Witch, Warden, Enchantress and War Bear (do you have to even ask what I ended up playing). Each class had unique quirks and abilities. Marcy the witch (which subbed in for our first War Bear casualty) had her potions, Gnorman the gnome his weasel animal friend (which for a round my slain War Bear's spirit managed to possess).

Our opening information was pretty bare bones, a list of terse bullet points. But it like it instantly had a good deal of off-vanilla flavor a lot of nagging little mysteries: no human settlements, no real civilization other than the lost elves. Just a 30 mile by 50 mile section of wooded mythical wilderness, geographically isolated from whatever the hell the larger world is.

In other words, despite lacking an elaborate setting elaboration, it was most definitely a special snowflake setting. It was unique, interesting and in its hardwiring instantly signaled a particular flavor: dark fairy tale.

For see you don't have to have—and indeed it probably works better to not have at the get go—tome-like setting description, long sweeping historical accounts, continent-wide maps, etc. It can grow up bottom up from a simple, but personalized base through play and work outward to whatever it wants to be.

You don't need it to be achingly weird or be another one-up in the Gonzo arms race that FLAILSNAILS at times seemed to be in the Google Plus scene. You can even take rather staid and familiar elements like that of enchanted woods and fairy tale creatures—and then toss in a 30-foot blind essence-dreaming freakzoid from the Chtonic Codex and hit all my sweet spots (while scaring the piss out of me).

Tomorrow I defend the comfort food joys of Vanilla D&D fantasy for balance.  

Rehabilitating the Special Snowflake Setting

Tool around an old school/OSR forum, con or blog at the tail end of the last decade and one wouldn't have to go far before hearing the dismissive phrase “special snowflake” aimed with deadly force at fantasy worldbuilding or character backstory.

To be sure there seemed to be a good deal of antipathy to the idea of creating detailed, minutely fleshed-out imaginary worlds. A bit of defiance even: “no one cares about what color hats the burghers of Madeuptown wear or the burial customs of Whatthefuckistan.”

I understood and agreed to some extent with much of the impulse. Decades of Tolkien pastiche, awkwardly-executed exotic setting and paid-by-the-word splat had left behind reams of setting whoha. It was--and is--too much this steady accumulation of bad and failed imaginary worlds.

The ultra-terse settings of the Wilderlands and Greyhawk folio were often cited as counter-examples. This trend ran along for a while and culminates with the creations of (to borrow and madly mangle a phrase) "nega-settings" like the Isle of the Unknown. And then without much acknowledgment the phrase and the sentiment starts disappearing over the past few years.

I say good fucking riddance.

See a part of me always bristled at the notion. For I genuinely like robust worldbuilding. You can actually make me care about color those damned hats are or whether or not those sad Whatthefuckistans swaddle their dead or not.

And you don't need a random chart or oblique mechanical hiding of it, that can help, but really you just have to make it good. It needs to reach through the page or better the gaming table and grab me.

Look I dig the gamey aspects of well-aged D&D and its brethren: the micro-exploration and tactical choice of the dungeon, the emergent story (if any), the boardgame-like rise of zero-to-hero etc. But I also just want the rush and thrill of pretending to walk the streets of a deeply imagined city.

Concretely my favorite experiences as a player (and what a real joy having had a chance to play in as many divergent campaigns as I have thanks to the Google Plus boom) have all entailed at least a few sessions of “off-topic” just schlepping around interacting with other GM's worlds.

Meandering through dark alleys and salons in Jeremy Duncan's baroque Galbaruc only to have my scumbag/sailor character's spine get ripped out in a street boxing match. Taking a day job as a corrupt rookie cop in the Sword-and-Planet meets He-Man wildness of Robert Parker's Savage World of Krul. Hustling at a wine bar with my Apollo-the-demonic-snakegod-worshiping priest in the ancient astronauts meets ziggurated (not a word) ancient Mesopotamia of Evan Elkin's Uz (really he puts this kind of robustly world out every few months). Plying a magic caravan in the refracted real world of Michael Moscrip's Anglia.

And as a reader I want more of the compelling visuals, imaginative reach and clever little nooks of Trey Causey's fantasy 1930s Weird Adventures and the sweet-spot 70s space opera of his soon-to-be-released Strange Stars. More of the grotty and decidedly strange mythic underworld of Jason Sholtis’s Operation Unfathomable (the Hydra Collective's next big project yes, but I am a passionate fan). More of the science-fantasy strange gods and divergent magic of Gus L's clerics in HMS Apollyon. 

And more newer things like the pithy, baked-into-a-game charm of Chris McDowall's Into the Odd or the pointcrawled epic weirdness of Paolo Greco's underworld in the Chthonic Codex (along with Zak's Red and Pleasant Land the two most physically gorgeous game-related literature I have the pleasure of owning). The list goes just on and on looking through my bookmarked pages.

So bring that special snowflake. More please.