Mount Zion Ryan

Three things for Wednesday:
1. Iceland Again?

Something (I’ll tell you in #2) set me thinking about one of my geographical obsessions: Iceland. In doing a little Googling I found the website chronicling a couple’s honeymoon in Iceland. They have taken some very nice pictures. Iceland is absolutely beautiful.

It’s landscape makes me think every fantasy cliche except “deep dark woods” TM.

2. Faery’s Tale

I now have a PDF of Faery’s Tale and I have been reading it voraciously. I love this game! It’s not just for kids, but what fun the kids will have.

As far as I know, only the spouse of one of my readers in a gamer, but this is too cool not to share. BTW, they’ve cleverly avoided any baggage associated with the term “role-playing game” by calling it an Interactive Storytelling Game.

The default setting is really geared towards kids and that’s what got me thinking about Iceland. I’d like to come up with a setting more appropriate to grown-up game-play than Brightwood. For some reason I keep coming back to a Norse setting. I’d make some new faery types. Great, another project.

3. Speaking of projects…

Many writer, especially in the fantasy genre, talk about the experience of feeling like a scribe recording what some other intelligence is sending. R.E. Howard said that the Conan stories popped into his head fully formed. Tolkien once wrote a friend that he didn’t know who this Strider chap was and where the hobbits would go after the Prancing Pony. Ursala K. LeGuin has written that many elements of Earthsea just fell into place and she knew they were right when she wrote them. I don’t think any sane writer believes they are merely recording the thoughts of another being, but it sure can feel that way sometimes.

Recently I’ve been working on a constructed world that has slowly formed in my imagination with almost no probing on my part. It is inspired, in part, by Paul Simon’s song “Boy in the Bubble” and by Natalie Merchant’s song “Carnival.” But that’s misleading. The songs both create picture in my mind that fits this new world. For convenience, I’m calling it Days of Miracle and Wonder, a line from Paul Simon.

I already know a little bit about the two cities I’ve been focusing on. The city in the Jungle is built near something like Iguazo Falls:

It is characterized by its wondrous and mysterious technology. It is built in a series of terraces right into a mountainside. It is ruled by a senate of representatives from each terrace and various religious, trade, and military groups.

The city in the desert is full of healers, magicians, and miracle workers. It looks a little like this:

It is down river from the City in the Jungle. It is ruled by a benevolent tyrant.

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