The Nentir Vale seems a decent starting area for most Dungeons & Dragons adventures in 4th edition. But it’s only a smaller part of a larger world, most of which is undocumented. In order to expand beyond the Vale, a little groundwork needs to be laid. As I start considering where my current party will go from here, and where other players may start their own adventures (this weekend, for instance?), there are a few things that need to be taken into account.
Climate
The Nentir Vale is a northern portion of whatever continent it’s on, but it’s not covered in snow like the northern content of Northrend in Azeroth. Reaches beyond the Vale are colder and more stereotypically “northern”, while south of the Vale are lands that are more temperate. When mapping out the rest of the shore, if not the world, it will behoove a DM to keep in mind that the Nentir Vale is similar, at least in part, to a land like Canada or the Ukraine. It should fit into any maps accordingly.
Culture
Evidence exists of some sort of kingdom or empire south of the Vale. Some history is given in the material available to DMs of 4th edition, but that can of course be mined or even ignored if it benefits the story and campaign. To me, having a more structured if somewhat oppressive authority to the south while the north remains wild and untamed will not only lend the world a necessary dimension of diversity, but will also lead to…
Conflict
There are only so many delves a party can enter without being connected to a larger world. As much fun as it is to enter a forgotten tomb or horrors or track a dragon down to their lair, games like Dragon Age and Fable lend weight and memorability to their stories by pulling the player into a large world outside themselves, one with politics, history and the threat of war. In order to engender this atmosphere in a D&D campaign, work must be done to establish the background, relationships and points of contention between the extant powers that be. The players can choose one side or another to support, or they can upset both sides to carve their own place in the world.
A good DM remembers that the players are the stars. When it comes to decisions outside of mechanics, they should be allowed to make those decisions even if the consequences are negative. Failing to roll the right number to hit should be the extent of out-and-out “punishments” the DM hands down. Maybe slaying the potentate of a land will have a different outcome than the players intend, but it isn’t the place of the DM to talk them out of it because of what it’d do to their story. Instead, such an occurrence should be seen as an opportunity to allow growth in the world, exploration of the player’s characters and the basis for new adventures.
With the right foundations, a new world can be built any number of ways.
The fine Canadian comedians of Loading Ready Run have taken to the road once more. In a manner of speaking. The 4th Annual Desert Bus For Hope, I believe subtitled “A New Hope”, is underway. They’ve already been playing the world’s most boring video game for 9 hours as of this writing.
For those of you who don’t know, this annual event is similar to the Extra Life challenge, in that intrepid gamers take on a marathon session for charity. Desert Bus, however, lasts much longer than 24 hours. It lasts as long as the donations do. And the crew at Loading Ready Run play only one game: Desert Bus, an unreleased game on Sega CD that was part of Penn & Teller’s Smoke & Mirrors. You drive a bus from Tuscon to Las Vegas. There’s no traffic, very little scenery and the bus occasionally veers a bit to the right, so you can’t tape down a button to do something else in order to complete the journey.
Sound like fun? It isn’t.
Last year they raised over $140,000 for the Child’s Play charity, which benefits children’s hospitals with donations of toys, games, books and cash. This year I’d love to see them break the $200,000 mark. That means they’d be playing Desert Bus for at least a week straight.
Visit their site or the special feature over at the Escapist. Give what you can. Check out the things they do to amuse themselves while they play this tedious excuse for a video game. There are auctions, special guests and more than a few surprises.
When I was studying English at university, I came across a revelation. It was a place full of distractions that could sap the time and energy of the unwary student, and deadlines do not often change based on a hangover or waking up in an unfamiliar place. However, it is possible, under those circumstances, to produce a paper that seems to have been adequately researched even if it was not. I, however, never made the grand assertion that anything I threw together at the 11th hour contained information that was entirely factual. That sort of claim is best left to other authors. Like Dan Brown, for instance. It’s something overshadowing all of his books, as well as the two adaptations of novels to films as of this writing — The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons.
Of the two, Angels and Demons is better. I didn’t hate it. That would require interest and energy that the movie doesn’t really deserve or earn.
At the Large Hadron Collider, an experiment to harvest antimatter goes exceedingly well, resulting in three clear Pringles cans that magically contain the annihilating substance. One of them is stolen. Meanwhile, in Vatican City, the Pope has died and the cardinals of the Catholic Church are gathering for Conclave, the sealed conference in which they choose the new head of the Church. However, four of the favorites for the throne of St. Peter have been kidnapped. The only clue anyone has is a strange image that seems to be a word – “Illuminati.” Shown the antimatter container’s dying battery and given a ticking clock, the Church turns to someone they know who can unravel the mystery – Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon.
Shedding the embarrassing mullet he sported in his first outing as Langdon, Tom Hanks gives the protagonist his particular form of everyman charm. He places the professor squarely between the quiet earnestness of Ewan MacGregor and the rather seething menace of Stellan Skarsgaard. In general, the performances in Angels & Demons don’t go over the top and do what they can to lend some much needed plausibility to the plot. I do have to say that I was initially disappointed that Audrey Tautou wouldn’t be joining us this time around, but when I saw how superfluous the role of ‘the girl’ was I was glad she didn’t waste her time.
The Catholics definitely know how to liven up a congregational meeting.
Director Ron Howard shoots this movie and frames his scenes rather well. The action is clean, the actors sincere and the dialog uncontrived, save for the occasional spiral into false fact. Dan Brown, from what I understand, is a practicioner of what I will call “shock schlock” – writing that is mediocre at best framed in devices like bad research or a flimsy reinterpretation of classic horror creatures. The marked difference between what the audience knows or expects and what appears in the book is meant to stir up controversy and thus raise interest in the book, thus increasing sales. It’s entirely possible Brown had this purpose in mind when he claimed all the historical “facts” he cites to be “true.” The problem is, they’re not. A quick Google search clears up the inconsistencies that, for me, pretty much ruin the narrative.
Take Galileo, for example. In the film, Langdon tells us that his assertion that the Earth moves around the Sun caused the Church to bully him into recanting his works and releasing books that retracted his earlier writings, only he also released a book in secret that contained “the Truth” and founded the Illuminati. The implication of this Truth’s existence isn’t as damning of the Church as it is in the DaVinci Code and nobody tries to kill Langdon over heliocentricity the way they did over the idea of Christ having a child. The Church has only a limited number of assassins, you see. Anyway, it was a glaring error that threw me for a loop. Let me explain.
Painting by Cristiano Banti, 1857
Galileo Galilei was called before a papal court in 1633 on suspicion of heresey. When Galileo, a devout Catholic, discussed his work with Pope Urban VIII, His Holiness told Galileo to go ahead and write out the arguments for and against heliocentrism, but not to advocate it. Instead, he framed the argument as a narrative definitely in favor of the Earth’s movement and gave the view of the Pope through a character taken by his audience to be a simpleton. In light of this unintended slight, the Inquisition demanded Galileo recant his advocacy. He didn’t. For this he was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life, his books were banned and publication of further works forbidden, and he died alone, penniless and blind. Oh, and the Illuminati? Not founded until 1776.
This is just one example, but it permeates both this work and The DaVinci Code so deliberately and thoroughly that I can’t help but feel Brown is being systematic in his use (or abuse) of history. I do try to judge a film on its own merits regardless of its source material, but there’s so much heavy-handedness in these works it might well have been typed out by someone wearing medieval plate gauntlets. Just as Stephenie Meyer uses defanged vampires and sullen, lackluster werewolves to teach her audience about abstinence and the righteousness of traditional marriage, Brown uses falsified and mis-interpreted historical documentation to elevate science to a sort of divinity while demonizing people of faith. Any faith. But especially Catholicism. He’s one strained metaphor and misquoted date away from having Langdon sparkle in the sunlight.
“THIS IS THE SKIN OF A BOOKWORM, BELLA.”
While Dan Brown seems to be doing his utmost to drive a wedge between science and the Catholic Church, even after the big reveal at the end, the movie doesn’t seem interested in choosing a side. It presents the conflict and depicts the lengths to which the Church may go to defend itself, albeit in a much less heavy-handed manner than The DaVinci Code. Ron Howard’s aim appears to be balancing things out so that the film, on its own narrative, doesn’t declare one side good and the other evil. There’s a truth in that, as while Angels and Demons follows the trend of Brown’s work in using intellectualism to undercut the tenants of faith, Langdon’s presence ends up protecting the very faith he struggles to accept. Not for himself, mind you. He still seems to scoff at anybody who’d even consider the idea of a divine presence, let alone an invisible man controlling every aspect of creation, a viable one. And considering the nature of the work, that’s Brown’s sarcastic, “oh you’re such a child” smirk we’re seeing, not Langdon’s.
To their credit, the screenwriters, actors and director of Angels & Demons manage to keep the messages of the movie from overriding the narrative. The problem with this is, without the deliberately inflammatory nature of the sentiment running under Brown’s prose, there isn’t much here. It feels far too mediocre to illicit the sort of reaction Brown was likely going for. I’m not certain if Brown is deliberately trying to pull people away from the church by painting them as a cadre of supervillains or if his aims are just to make a quick buck with some “shock schlock,” but Howard and his cast completely destroy whatever aim he had by rendering the story of his first Langdon adventure entirely without teeth, power or even much energy. It limps along for its 150 minute run-time, never really rising above the mire of its source material yet treating that material like it’s an embarrassment. Which, let’s face it, it kind of is. Angels and Demons, for all of its star power and bestseller basis, simply can’t be arsed to care enough to tell a good story.
And if it can’t be arsed to care, I can’t be either.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
It’s been a very busy week so far for me, and while my writerly focus is shifting for the time being from Citizen in the Wilds to shorter works both written and unwritten, Scrivener is still a toolbox full of potential. Once you understand the basics of the program and experience it in action, it becomes clear that it can be a boon to endeavours beyond novel or screenplay construction. With a little work and creative thinking, Scrivener can become a hub for activies both productive and entertaining.
For example, a little transcription of notes, or the taking of them directly into Scrivener can transform the program from a writing platform to a study aid. Writing a leading question or key phrase in a note’s synopsis and then going into the Corkboard view is a good way to review for an exam. Rearrange the notecards, review your terms and perpare yourself for the questions ahead. It also can help in the construction of papers, with access not only to notes but also to downloaded or transcribed research, all in one place.
Another possibility has nothing to do with either academia or publication. With it’s division of material, ability to import just about anything and power as a text editor, Scrivener can be used to create new advetures and campaigns for tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons. Location notes, creature statistics, NPC dialog and maps can all be brought into Scrivener, divided up and rearranged at the Dungeon Master’s whim, and for those actually writing in the industry, a final product can be exported like the draft of a manuscript, ready to be transformed into a PDF and sold on DriveThruRPG. I imagine it would take a lot of the frustration or confusion out of the process, since you won’t have as hard a time finding a particular encounter, map or statistic.
At this point these permutations of Scrivener seem somewhat theorhetical. What other ways might you think Scrivener can assist the creative mind?
Due to time & dayjob constraints, I’m unable to continue my series on Scrivener today. However, Scrivener is still on my mind. I added this to the Citizen in the Wilds project, and before I put it aside, interested parties may want to check this out.
Spoiler-tagged for your protection.
Spoiler
Asherian zan Alwred’s defining characteristic is that he’s intelligent. He’s not brave or willfully charming, nor is he arrogant or rude. He’s a bookworm, focused entirely on his magic and how it benefits him. Being thrown into the Wilds makes him apply his intelligence in different ways. Even then, he doesn’t begin really questioning who he is or the nature of his home until Danae is shot.
His sister needs to be downplayed. The loneliness and alien nature of the Wilds loses a lot when he’s in nigh-constant contact with her. The killing the seers subplot is also superfluous. Mention her, give Ash the means to ‘mind-meld’ with Danae somewhere in his notes, but don’t put them in actual contact until maybe halfway through the book. The change in Ash from shy, polite bookworm to someone determined to find answers and uncover the hidden nature of the world should be jarring to his sister.
The Cities need more initial presentation. The conversations among Ash’s classmates need to underscore that the way the Cities do things – the control of the Council of Elders, the sanitization of history and exterior cultures, the use and abuse of non-Citizens – is normal. Emphasize that Justinian allegedly founded the Cities as a haven for the study and protection of magic, which to Citizens is an essential part of the nature, the lattice upon which the world is built. By mastering it, they master the world, and without them it would run rampant.
Consider adjusting Harren’s motivations & attitude. He may be bitter and disillusioned with the Cities since they never came for him. When he finds out someone IS coming for Ash, perhaps through a whisper in his brother’s dreams (NOT A FULL-BLOWN CONVERSATION), he’s simultaneously jealous of this and willing to help his brother stay alive long enough to get rescued. Danae’s wound and Ash’s reaction to heal her pisses him off because it is, to him, a delay in getting back. When the truth comes out, he’s even more dumb-struck than Ash.
Danae’s fine, save that she should be conscious when Ash goes after her memory. After witnessing it, Danae’s in contact with Ash’s mind and knows he recognizes the guns. This means she’ll be less inclined to speak to him or flirt with him on their way to the dwarves. It’s only after days of contemplation and observation that she realizes Ash really had no idea of how his work would be used.
