Causality

The void stares back. I give it a wink and it blushes. The void is my boyfriend.

[oliman]

We really do be doing it ourselves

Listen, I'm not trying to rag on any writers here, just the people who put undue pressure on writers and other creatives... So basically all executives. Fuck you, executives.

I like a lot of different things, and this is probably gonna mean this post is gonna be absolutely dripping with tags, but something I've observed about myself and others is that, when a piece of media gets so butchered or so screwed up (usually in the finale), a huge number of people keep that fandom alive. And they don't do it by excusing whatever was done that disappointed others. THEY'RE disappointed too. No, what they do is find ways to ask "what if".

My prime example is Game of Thrones. That show got done SO dirty by a couple of hacks who were given the reins for no other reason than that they were the most useful patsies. As far as I can tell, those guys were for most of the show's lifespan in charge of making the show marketable, not good. Maybe there's some nuance I don't know about, but the fact remains that the finale was a huge let-down.

So what did people do (myself included)? We went onto games like Crusader Kings and tried our hand at giving the show a better ending. In most cases, people built their dynasties from scratch and just went with the flow of George R.R. Martin's writing. They got invested in the world even more than they would have if they'd just stopped with the show or even all the books, and it ended up giving the entire world more attention through youtube or streaming than it would have without their efforts.

Another obvious one for me is World of Warcraft. Ever since all the way back to the Cataclysm expansion, WoW fans have been making something of their misgivings with the game rather than just grumbling in a corner. They revolutionized the idea of private servers and custom realms where people could play, usually for free, and enjoy the better parts of the game they love without having to deal with the sometimes-unwanted overhauls or shady business practices behind the scenes.

People have gotten so good at making private servers now that they can fully diverge from the direction Blizzard took and make their own storylines, their own classes, and even put in enough new content to for all intents and purposes be their own expansions! More freeform servers like Project Ascension breathe life into the game that feels just... so loving and faithful. It's at the point that, even if the retail servers were to shut down someday, WoW would never be gone. There's really no deleting it, now, no matter what Blizzard or any soulless corporation tries to do about it.

Just think of City of Heroes/Villains! Their private servers have long outlived the game's original run, and they're slowly adding content to this day, keeping a now more than twenty-year-old game alive and available for everyone. The same's happening with so many other beloved games that were axed just because they didn't quite meet a quarterly earnings report. Wildstar... I'm waiting to meet you again, my love...

And then you have one of the most recent examples in the Amazing Digital Circus. I watched the finale within 30 minutes of it dropping, avoided spoilers from people who went to see it in theatres like the plague, and I was left with this sort of inexpressible... blegh about it when I was done. I couldn't quite name why it felt not quite right, and even after watching the umpteenth analysis video saying it was good, bad, or just mediocre, I can say only one part really sticks out to me as being unlikeable.

Too much Jax. Jax is a good character. He reflects a lot of different things, and one thing I haven't seen analyzed is the possibility that all of the human characters' brain scans reflect them at precisely the point they were scanned. Jax was in the worst place, thus that's why I think he was unable to avoid what ended up happening to him. I like to think this, because I personally believe that people shouldn't be judged by their worst moments. Sure, something truly awful warrants punishment, but so few people choose to enter bad situations willingly, and calling them evil for how they react to unfortunate circumstances is a judgement no one has the authority to make.

But enough of that tangent. We're talking about funny youtube show starring clown girl. I think Gooseworx did her best when put under an amount of pressure she couldn't have ever imagined being under, and she should be lauded for keeping her vision as close to what SHE wanted as possible, even with GLITCH breathing down her neck, not to mention the broken-brained bullies who were harassing her and the cast. And never have I heard any compelling criticism of HOW a character was portrayed; only ever that there was too much or not enough of them.

What I've seen following the finale hasn't been some period of revulsion followed by disavowing the last episode as having ever existed. No. The fans have kept writing their fan fictions, making their fan art, and exploring everything the show was, and all the things that were mentioned or implied, but just didn't fit the time constraints. That might be one of my favourite kind of "do-it-yourself" fandom: making things as a love letter to something that's ended rather than an act of spite for it letting you down.

As a fan of so many things, I know I'm going to be let down by either new projects or the endings of current ones. I'm going to miss things when they're finished and I'm going to feel robbed of what could have been, but the next time I smile at that series or that particular work, it's going to be while I'm enjoying something someone else made, completely unprompted. There is no such thing as the death of a show, a game, or a story. Not when people care enough to carry it through to its next life.

[oliman]

Hey, so I got sick recently and, during my delirium, I thought to myself "Didn't I post that?" Turns out, I didn't. Fully forgot to make a post about one of my stories since I assumed I already had. No time like the present!

My short story "And the Hero Arrived" is on Academy of the Heart and Mind. I wrote it some time ago, but I'm still proud of the overall story if not the actual prose. I've definitely learned some more tricks since then. If anyone wants to check it out, feel free!

And the Hero Arrived

By Oliver Hickman And the Hero arrived, galloping through the gates on a golden-maned mare. It was a dark place he entered, snuffed torches

One thing forgetting to show this off until now helps with is filling dead air while I work on my bigger project. About two thirds of the way done with that, and I'm plenty excited to finally put it out there! I've also got another story awaiting release that I submitted in a writing contest! I'll make a post about that when it comes out.

[oliman]

Been waiting a while to say this, but Issue 16 of Wishbone Words is out, and it's got one of MY stories, The Last Abbot, included in it!

I'll be real, The Last Abbot touches on some political themes that are important to me. Only read on if you're comfortable with that.

If you've ever felt like things are going nowhere because we're all running through the same revolving door of people from one disappointing leadership to the next, The Last Abbot touches on that. It's a story about how, even if there were the few diamonds in the rough through a country's worst administrations, cabinets, or whatever you want to call them, that doesn't give those people the right to dictate your next four or even fifty years from the shadows or front and centre. We deserve better than the least worst.

A million thank yous to Wishbone Words! https://wishbonewords.com/magazine/issue-16

[oliman]

Those orcs deserved better than this

I really feel for the writers who've contributed to World of Warcraft over the years. I've been working on a Warcraft-themed campaign and going through all the lore has given me this feeling similar to watching a good movie with a Weinstein credit. I know they didn't mean to have that black spot on the project they put so much work into, and it kinda makes me want to play WoW even more.

One thing I like in particular are the origins of the races.

With the orcs, for instance, they're the descendants of a stone giant named Grond, and when I say giant, I mean enormous. Like, almost continent-sized. And Grond had kids who were called the Colossals, and the Colossals made the gronn, who then evolved into the ogron, then the ogres, then finally the orcs. They're literally just elementals who grew skin!

Then there's the trolls:

The trolls evolved around this huge magic fountain the size of a lake called the Well of Eternity, and all of Azeroth's (the main world's) magic initially pooled there like the centre of all leylines. Once, the world was only raw elements, but the Well created the first organisms, and soon after those organisms became the trolls! But that's not the end of it.

The trolls who stayed closest to the Well evolved again and became the elves! And the dwarves were around back then as well, but they weren't actually a flesh and blood race like the others. They were Titan-forged, which basically meant they were a race of stone and occasionally iron golems who the Titans (the main gods) put on Azeroth to essentially terraform it. They wanted Azeroth to be a Titan outpost because it allowed them to contain these cosmic horrors, the Old Gods, deep underground in a sort of Tartarus-type situation. But the Old Gods broke containment partially and cursed the Titan-forged with the Curse of Flesh.

If you think about it, basically every race is either the result of some sort of Promethean earth-to-flesh transformation, or magic-assisted evolution! I think that's pretty neat, as far as origins go. No one's there because they're meant to be. Every race has been meddled with, every origin thanks to someone experimenting or interfering with the natural order.

The Warcraft universe is one giant petri dish that got out of hand, and nothing about existence is going as planned. There is no pre-destined order to things, and even the most powerful entities are just improvising. It's a very interesting way of doing things, and it's that kind of creativity that makes me able to overlook (but not forget) bad figures like Bobby Kotick (absolute piece of shit) or other people in gaming or just in general who deserve to be cast out and left to rot.

What I'm trying to say, in a nutshell, is that I really hope the artists who had the misfortune of being a part of projects connected to these shitty people know that I love them for their work. Pieces of shit like pretty much every CEO will always disappoint us, but I refuse to let them taint the art which they had next to no hand in making.

So yeah, I'm gonna go hop on a private WoW server so I don't end up giving Blizzard a dime, and I'm gonna enjoy myself.

[tumblr]

tumblr tuesday: year of the horse

happy lunar new year to all who celebrate! here is some good horse art to mark the year of the horse. here's hoping it’s a good one <3

@phlavours:

@jdebbiel:

@randomaj:

@aurora-brn:

@sokolversus:

@jessdrawz:

@jun-hug:

@going-ghast:

@mochiwei:

@kimherbst:

@roseblooms:

@hiimrock1:

@tohakumaru:

@elbarkla:

@blakekathryn:

@silentmight:

@nking02:

@moonchu-art:

@aueua:

@guavadreamgurl:

@therainbowfishy:

[oliman]

The Paperkin

Once, there was a pair of magic scissors. Plenty of magic people had used them to do magical things, from trimming tassels on magic carpets to clipping twigs from wooden boys. But the scissors were now old and bent, and their edges now dull and chipped. So, they sat at the bottom of a drawer, waiting for years to be used.

The last person to own them was an old inventor, and they passed away before they could fix the scissors. So, the scissors were packed up and sold to a trinket shop, where they were then bought by a mother for her little daughter. The daughter was a creative type, and loved old and storied things – especially shiny ones – so the scissors made a perfect birthday present.

The daughter loved her dolls and would use the scissors to style their hair and snip up their clothes to fit the latest fashions. But then, her little brother – littler even than her – got a hold of the scissors and did some cutting of his own. He rampaged through the house, snipping as he went, until he came upon a piece of paper he'd covered in scribbles the day before. That paper, he cut into the shape of a person.

"Why?" you may ask. Well, for no particular reason.

But cut they did, and a person's shape, they did make. And then, as the daughter wrested the scissors from her brother's hand, the paper came to life. Scribbled and scuffed, stained and crinkled, the paperkin stood up and asked the obvious question:

What am I?

"My new doll!" the daughter replied, and she scooped up the paperkin in her arms and dumped it out into her favourite dollhouse.

Even though the paperkin was covered in scribbles, the daughter tried her best to write over them. She wanted the best parts of all her dolls to be on the paperkin, so she drew on it the best clothes she could imagine and the happiest face with the rosiest cheeks. Then, she introduced it to the rest of her beloved dolls.

With the scissors in hand, the daughter tapped all her dolls on the head and brought them to life just like the paperkin. The dolls all played with each other happily, frolicking and tea-partying, but the paperkin didn't dance their jaunty dances or drink their imaginary teas. It looked at the patterns on its paper body and puzzled over them, wondering what they were. In its head, it saw many more patterns, each of them colourful, but none of them particularly pretty.

The little brother's scrawls, it seemed, were not just paper-deep. They made the poor paperkin's thoughts come in not-so-clear, and made the other dolls look at them and know the paperkin was different. The dolls wore polka dots and stripes, and others wore tartan or plaid. Some dressed in leopard print, others in lace, but they knew all these things were by design, while what was different about the paperkin was more of a mistake.

Not only did the dolls notice, but so did the daughter, and she worried the paperkin would be left out, so she took the scissors again – as well as some paints – and got to work making everything better. But her idea of better was not what the paperkin hoped, as she trimmed off its corners and painted over her little brother's mess. Snip, snip, snip.

Over top of the scribbles, she drew more presentable things, turning smears into stripes and stains into squares. She looked at her work and was satisfied by what she saw, and she popped the paperkin back into the dollhouse where everything could at last be normal.

The dolls treated the paperkin better, like it was one of them, but the paperkin didn't feel better; only trimmed. Even though its colours now matched and its shape was neater, it could always feel what was now overwritten, and what had been cut. But from then on, when the paperkin wrinkled or its smile faded, the daughter took it from the dolls and made it tidy again. Snip, snip, snip.

When the daughter grew up, the dolls grew up, too, and when they and the paperkin outgrew the dollhouse, they left and found places to call their own. When they stepped from the daughter's doorstep – with a twinkle and a flash – each doll of porcelain, plastic, and paper, turned into skin and bone. They stayed in touch, for the most part, but the paperkin left; to places where no one knew of once-paper people or of dolls that were easier to love.

And whenever the paperkin felt like too many people were staring – like too many people could tell it was different – it did as it had been taught and took out a pair of scissors. Snip, snip, snip.

[nomohmoss]

messenger bina

[oliman]

I'm currently writing a collection of short horror stories. They're all going to be themed around plants, animals, and other organisms on the verge of being cryptids. I want each story to sound like it's been collected by some kind of naturalist like Charles Darwin, who goes around investigating them.

It's for that reason I want to entitle the collection "Murder Darwin". It sounds like a good fit to me; eye-catching, memorable, and it serves the through-line that each entry would have likely killed the actual Darwin. Another thing I'm looking to impart is that each of these horror "villains" is just something that evolved supernaturally.

The one thing that keeps me revisiting the name is that it sounds good to me but I have no clue what would actually catch the attention of a reader.

Any feedback from anybody at all would be amazing.

[oliman]

Siamorph: Dictate, Dignify, De Jure

Of all the deities in the Forgotten Realms canon, one of the more interesting and potentially nuanced ones is Siamorph, AKA the demipower of Divine Right to Rule.

Siamorph presides over the very concept of kings, queens, and the noble class, requiring only that their followers act in a distinguished manner above the other classes. They are the demipower of classism and decorum, making sure that monarchies run smoothly and without corruption or tyranny; but, in demanding so little, they leave certain openings in their church.

Chief amongst Siamorph's faithful are many advisors and regents of monarchs, since they can be trusted neither to betray their ruler nor covet the throne for themselves. This means that these advisors, and by extension Siamorph themself, always have the ear of the heads of great kingdoms and sprawling empires. Siamorph oversees the transition of power, as well as the education of future rulers, which certainly makes them Lawful Good, right?

But not once have I mentioned that they will step in if kingdoms go to war with each other, nor have I mentioned anything about what they view as the proper treatment of the serfs, the plebes, or the working classes. That's because there is no set framework for what to do beside what is just, and the reason for that is because Siamorph is just as their name applies: they're morphic.

Siamorph is a demipower, and demipowers have different rules compared to true gods. One of Siamorph's particular rules is that they take a physical form in the Material Plane, usually taking over the body of a high noble who died unexpectedly, but under circumstances that were particularly noble. They can be any gender, any race, so long as that race has a noble class. But that also means they change based on the standards of a kingdom's nobility.

Siamorphe's influence in a country concerned with good and charity will enforce that good and charity, and instill it in coming generations of rulers, but they will just as easily enforce inequality and decadence. The norm is what Siamorph maintains, not the ideal, and thus they will not intervene until kings and queens become tyrants and despots. Up until that point, they will allow any extent of colonization, imperialism, and persecution, so long as that fits into what is considered to be rightful and just by the aristocracy.

And if a kind, respectful king should be overthrown by self-serving nobles, all consumed by greed which that king stifled, Siamorph will not step in, no; they will give legitimacy to whomever is installed as the new king. If the nobles will it, then it is right. And if it is right for one kingdom to attack another, a kingdom also advised by Siamorph, then those two kingdoms will go to war, with both their rulers being simultaneously told by Siamorph that they are in the right, up until some procedural rule is violated at which point Siamorph will instantly abandon one of them.

This is just my interpretation, don't think I speak with any final authority on matters of Dungeons and Dragons lore, but I find it a compelling part of the fiction to consider.

I have a few ideas for how Siamorph could be a part of an adventure, or the focus of a whole campaign.

One idea is that they could be unintentionally pitting two kingdoms against each other, gradually convincing both of them that the other one is evil and that it is their duty to conquer them. The presence of Siamorph in one kingdom could be entirely different to the other because of cultural differences, and every step made at the advice of one of Siamorph's advisors could be seen as a direct provocation by the other.

An adventure like this would likely end up being a question of who's right in the end. A party could be swayed by either side, or they could realize early on that the war is entirely pointless and will leave both kingdoms worse off than before. Maybe the party will learn the truth much to late to avert disaster. Perhaps, as things escalate, a once-good kingdom could start on a dark path. They could try ousting Siamorph's advisors to relieve tensions, or they could trick one of the rulers into breaking a rule and losing their whole support structure.

My other idea is of a school, like some sort of Barbie princess academy. Princes and princesses from across the land, the party members included, could attend the school to learn diplomacy and etiquette. Noble scions from across the world could be there, each of them sorted into various houses based on the style of ruling favoured in their homelands or the standards the upper class is held to there. There could be great halls decked out in the heraldry of a thousand noble houses. Next door could be massive ballrooms that are treated as sports arenas where the best charmers and socializers come away with gilded trophies. Outside one might find magnificent gardens where some students may very well encounter their future husband or wife, be it by choice, or by careful arrangement by their parents.

I dunno, I think it's a neat thought.

[oliman]

Anybody working on dnd campaigns in any of the main-line properties like the Forgotten Realms, I so heavily encourage you to look at the old stuff from 3rd Edition and the revision.

Listen, there's some absolutely amazing stuff in there. Even if you weren't even alive when they came out, read some of the books. The picture above is of a Red Vampiric Dragon... A RED VAMPIRIC DRAGON. If I don't end up using a vampire dragon as a villain at some point I'm gonna haunt someone.

If you want that particular stat block, whether it be for inspiration or converting to 5e or any other game system, check it out in the Draconomicon (it's on the internet archive). That same book also has the Styx Dragon, and I'm gonna need to put a picture of that one in here, too.

It's literally a dragon who's immune to the River Styx, which is deadly pretty much anywhere you find it. They're apex predators for full-on demons, and they can make their victims lose all their intelligence. Added on to that: y'know Achilles and the whole myth that he was nearly unkillable because his mother dipped him in the River Styx as a baby? Same principle. These guys swim in invincibility juice their entire lives and then eat their weight in campaign-ending bosses. Styx Dragons, like with all dragons, are much weaker when they're young, but I don't think either of us is thinking of using a young one rn.

There's one more thing that I can't not mention: the Ur-Priest. Not many good pictures of them, so use your imagination, but they're essentially god parasites. They take divine spells that clerics usually get and use them (usually) for evil. They're in the books "Complete Divine" and "The Book of Vile Darkness" as prestige classes, and I'm completely smitten with them as potential antagonists. They'd be perfectly good for an evil campaign or an anti-hero one, but I love the idea of having a villain or minion who can perfectly pass as a cleric of the nicest, most trustworthy deity you can think of, and nobody ever questions them because they can cast the same exact spells.

That's really why I love all of these: the surprise. Having your players unaware that any of these things could even exist makes it all the cooler for them when they run into the vampire dragon, or the intelligence-draining dragon, or the pretender priest who's pulled the wool over everyone's eyes. And those are just THREE examples I took from only TWO BOOKS out of the over 80 others.

They're not all winners, but I challenge you not to find something that stirs your mind in at least one of them.

[oliman]

I love Fable 3.

It's probably the least acclaimed of the Fable games, but I really can't choose any other as my favourite.

I love it for the same reason people love the other entries in the series - it's the one I grew up playing. Fable 1 is appreciated for how refreshing it was in the gaming landscape of its time, Fable 2 for being innovative in its own right, yet Fable 3 doesn't get nearly the same treatment, and I know why.

Gaming journalists are old.

Not too old - they're not congressmen - but old enough that they've dug in their heels when it comes to what is best. When it comes to childhood games, they can't judge what's best because they can't go back to that time. They can conjure it, namely by playing the games of their childhoods, but they can't put themselves back in that headspace of perfect readiness to enjoy something new to them. We lose that as we get older, that openness. Instead, we hold everything we see up to what we saw first. We compare.

And that's where Fable 3 really wins out for me. It had elements of hack-and-slash action games, of RPGs, adventure games, and even a touch of simulation and management games. You could be a hero or a villain, but being a hero meant being smart while being a villain meant taking the easy way and suffering down the line for it. You could shape the course of the game with your decisions. You could even be gay! (Very rare for back then.)

And none of those things are forced on the player. It usually takes more than one playthrough to get the best ending because the game doesn't railroad you towards the good choices. It tells you that you can make them, but it never goes past a tutorial. There's next to nothing forcing you to be really good or really evil, not outside of the binary story choices you'll encounter, but even those don't decide how well things go for you as a whole. The game makes you take it on your own initiative to make Albion a haven or a hellscape, and it gives you the freedom necessary to see where you can improve, which is such a rare thing for children's and teenager's games nowadays.

I credit Fable 3 with pointing me to every game I play today, but not just that. As a person, I am shaped by the simple morals of that game. After all, it was a big part of my childhood. It's what's helped me build my idea of right and wrong, and helped me see who I can be. I imagine parts of my earlier life that have coloured my present, and I can see so much of me in this game. For the rest of my life, I will see it all around me, in my tastes, in my hobbies, and in who I choose to love. I see Fable 3 in them, not because it forced me, but because I wanted to do them, and giving me the option was all I needed.

Oh, and if anyone wants to try the game for themselves, it's not available on PC anymore outside of overpriced Steam keys on third-party scalper websites. It's on Xbox, but ew. So, if you really, really want it... the answer is crime.

[oliman]

Do you think the Cars universe disappears when nascar drivers wake up like with eldritch gods?

[oliman]

I've been converting lots of dnd 4e monsters to current edition lately, and I've got to say, it's a lot like going from pc to mac, then back to pc. Pretty sure the official guidelines for converting between them is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[oliman]

I fully support asking long-haired blonde men where they were when the Westfold fell.

[oliman]

I really want to start saying "Pan!" instead of "Bye!" (bi) because it would apply to everyone in a location at once but I know nobody would have any idea what I was talking about.

They'd probably duck thinking I was about to throw a cast iron skillet at them.

[oliman]

I've had another short story published! Check it out on page 20. I really enjoyed writing the comedic aspects. I spent a lot of my childhood playing British-made adventure games, RPG's, and the like, and they really captured a kind of comedy that no one has managed to replicate in modern games. I hope I was able to capture some of that Fable and Black & White charm with Alberix.

Big thanks to The Gilded Dragon!

The Gilded Gazette - May Issue

Welcome to the May issue of The Gilded Gazette!It's hard to believe the second edition of our little magazine has come around! With so many

[oliman]

You can't make an omelette without making a dehumanizing metaphor involving cracking eggs.