Arkiv
Once upon a time…
When I write my novels and shortstories, it is usually so that the main character appears and wants me to put her or his story into printed words. I write what they have experienced, even when it gets peculiar. Because ”that’s the way it was”.
Ursula LeGuin writes in Always Coming Home (one of her more philosophical books) about telling a story ”like it was” or ”as it was”. Different approaches to the closeness of reality and the nature of truth. I write only fiction about imaginary worlds because that opens the gates to the realms of ”like it was”. However, I always wonder how the readers will react to the tales I convey from the citizens of those never-never lands. Their life-stories fascinate me, otherwise they would not be able to keep my attention for all those months it takes to type a manuscript.
So far, I have gotten quite nice reviews from people in the sf/fantasy subculture, which is great because they are discerning readers well versed in the in’s and out’s of the genres. But the major book publishers have been reluctant, making me one of many self-published authors in the current PoD-revolution. One of the more interesting rejection slips I have received stated that my novel Spiran och Staven is written for hard-core fantasy readers, which are not a part of that company’s target audience. Well, that’s an honourable verdict indeed.
Currently I am handling Adèle von Rosen’s account for her dangerous attempt to reach the rugged interior of the arid Altimundo plateau in 1940 in the midst of the Republican Rebellion. Being a spy and a progressive republican, she is hunted by both the Imperial secret police (for what she knows about rebel activities) and a local aristocrat (whose anger she triggered by provocatively defying a gynophobic custom).
Four days later I stepped off a motor coach in Degauer Satna, soaked in sweat and with a rucksack on my back and trekker’s boots on my feet. Before leaving the Garða-rām I had also exchanged the old cap for a khaki slouch hat more suitable for a desert climate. To most native passengers I must have looked like a wealthy Erþayn youngster out to see the strange corners of the world. Some had tried to chat with me during boring hours on the road, but I knew none of the local languages and their knowledge of Mariþi had been too limited for meaningful conversations. The warm and stuffy nights that I had spent at roadside inns had been plagued by nightmares about strafing aircraft and pursuing dark-suited lithe men wielding gleaming knives.
I had now come to the end of the Road: it runs for almost seven hundred leagues up from Port Veronica at the coast and arrives here at one of its two inland termini, the other being next to Ariana more than a hundred leagues away. Degauer Satna is also at the edge of our world: east of the town the Central Escarpment rises steeply for thousands of feet. That dark mountain wall runs north and south as far as the eye can see. And up there, beyond a craggy rim that is half obscured by haze and dust, lies the Altimundo.
Peregrinus — the Roman traveller
Traveling in a pre-industrial society is a common matter in role-playing games. When I design such games, I usually insert text and tables that show what distance it is possible to cover during a day, depending on terrain. They are based on my experiences or hiking, sailing and canoeing in the Swedish wilderness.
The Romans were the infra-structure experts of the Iron Age and their roads and bridges served as major conduits of trade and transport for centuries after the fall of the Western Empire. A game designer has a lot to learn from those people. Here is a link to a clever piece of software on that subject.
Nytt om mina ”Parallel Worlds”-bidrag
Wolframfästet är klart för Parallel Worlds (PW) och ligger hos Tomas på Saga Games. Jag har bilderna från Nisse & Kove Lindström.
Okeanos är fortfarande under arbete. Mycket har kommit emellan den här våren. Men det är inga problem med anpassningen till PW. Vi har också hittat en bra illustratör.
Vidare har Tomas fått en expanderad PW-version av Oz Is Drowning, den australiska SF-undergångskampanj som jag fick publicerad i Fenix i höstas.
Summa summarum handlar det alltså om sex PW-kampanjer av min hand, utöver de ovanstående är det Knivblänk i Prag, Röd Sand och Roma Umbrarum.
Okeanos börjar fått sitt utseende
Tomas Arfert och jag har rekryterat Dennis Gustafsson som illustratör till Okeanos. Hans insatser i Fantasy! övertygade oss om att han har rätt stil för antikgrekisk havsfantasy. I helgen gjorde han ett par testbilder och jag bifogar en av dem här, en persisk äventyrare ombord på skeppet Keraunos. De flesta äventyren ytspelar sig i tropiska miljöer, så spelarrollerna tvingas anpassa sig till hettans krav. Rustning bär man bara när det är absolut nödvändigt. Stilmässigt är Dennis insprerad av den gamle sf-serietecknare Alex Raymond, fast lite mer gritty. Jag gillar det.
Persisk äventyrare
Framsteg för Okeanos
Det mesta pekar mot att Okeanos-projektet kommer att förverkligas som en kampanj för regelmotorn Parallel Worlds. Det är ett system som jag trivs bra med. Tomas Arfert är med på noterna. Dessutom ska Okeanos-kampanjen kryddas med lite specialregler för antikfantasy, t.ex. för Ödets inverkan.v
Ytterligare en ”Parallel Worlds”-kampanj klar
I förra veckan skrev jag klart Wolframfästet för Parallel Worlds, en regelmotor från Saga Games. Idag har jag epostat en omfattande expansion av Fenix-artikeln Oz Is Drowning till Saga Games. Den innehåller bland annat tre äventyrsförslag och flera PW-anpassningar.
Texten till Wolframfästet klar
Att åka gotlandsfärja är rätt så segt. Men därför har jag nu avslutat redigeringen av Wolframfästets text och skickat den till Tomas Arfert. Nästa steg blir att hämta hem illustrationerna från de två tecknarna.
Bilder till Wolframfästet
Nisse och Kove Lindström kommer att illustrera Wolframfästet. De har tidigare gjort samma sak åt Gondica Abyssos och Gondica Bestiarium.
Framsteg för Wolframfästet
Tomas Arfert och jag diskuterar för närvarande att göra Wolframfästet till en Parallel Worlds-kampanj. Det innebär att jag redigerar om existerande material och skriver ett regelavsnitt. Hyfsat enkelt och snabbt gjort.
The Experience of Being European (3)
About a month ago, I started writing about how being from a small country in northern Europe influences my writing. I enjoy creating alternate histories (uchronias) for the modern world in my games and stories. I start at some event in the past, let it have a radically different outcome than in reality and build a modified time line to an appropriate ”now”. Interestingly, I often ”delete” the American revolution of 1776, either by letting it not happen at all or by letting the rebels fail. This has not been any conscious anti-American strategy, but a handling of the flow of events in manner that I find plausible.
The rebellion in 1776 has been one of the most world-changing events — at least that I can imagine — in the past few centuries, because it led to the creation of a new continental state of the same magnitude as the far older Russia and China. This state has been able to handle macroeconomics in a far more constructive way than other two: its big population and enormous industrial base have influenced the course of modern world history significantly.
A North America without the United States would have been fragmented into several competing states or colonies with French, British, Spanish and Russian ties. None would have the ”immensity” or the ”go” of the United States. So when I posit alternate Earths, they tend to become more Europe-centered, more authoritarian and less advanced in technology than the original. Russia becomes a major benefactor in global politics, because it can exploit its hugeness better.
Whether it is fully realistic is hard to say, but to me it is at least plausible. The political ideas of 1776 influenced countries all over the world. The economic ”pushy spirit” in the US has lead to innovations in all fields of technology. And the material resources of this huge state enabled the Western democratic nations to survive and outlast three authoritarian adversaries during the 20th century.
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