thread: 2005-11-14 : Dangerousness
On 2005-11-18, Kip Manley wrote:
Okay, fine, so I was mostly making a joke with that postscript, but I'm finding I do need to hash this stuff out, and in public's as good a place as any, right?
Particulars:
The game is Ars Magica, except all we really use is the kernel of the Order and the noun-verb magic system. The character is my mage, Perdix.
What was known before:
M124 (the 124th mage in House Manere, our Tremere/Tytalus analog) is the student of M72, who also taught the named magi Ostyea (M103) and Familicus Lupus (M128a). M72 teaches at Bethelion, the university covenant in the city of Evasendia. M124 was the loreat (valedictorian) of the class of 413, and did not join a covenant upon graduation, but remained a "hermit" in the city of Evasendia, becoming the nucleus of an urbane circle of magi and students known as the New Cosmopolitans. —All that was already noted in the various notecards and histories that have gone into the database of magi.
I also knew I was creating a character who'd end up moving to Gaetan, the southernmost back-of-beyond, to help a rather motley band of magi rebuild an ancient covenant overlooking a simmering former warzone.
And I knew I wanted to play something of a tragic figure, or at least tragicomic; I settled on twins, one a mage, one not, and the horrible accident that happened when the mage tried to do something never done before, and bond another person, their twin, as their familiar, leaving them as one personality, one sentience, with two bodies.
(Actually, that's sort of backwards: I knew I was creating someone for a game outlined in point two; I had point three in mind; I found point one by combing the mage lists looking for the right combination of age, smarts, and background. So.)
In terms of the rules and structure of our game, I'd followed them by selecting a "node," a specific entry in the mage lists, and doing my best to fit my concept to it without violating what was already known—and doing some explaining and fleshing out along the way. (Naming M72, for instance, and figuring out a bit about her character and place in Order and House politics, which helped with the two previously named background mages, rippling und so weiter.)
Also, in terms of the rules and structure of our game, I'd made a stab at figuring out where my mage stood in terms of the various intellectual and political currents swirling through the Order here and now. This isn't nearly so quantified or quantifiable as picking a node. Because Perdix was the instigator of the New Cosmopolitans, urbane, fond of intellectual salons, I decided politically they fell in with the plenilunials: liberal, egalitarian, etc.; magically, they were conservative: in the essentialist tradition (our term for anyone who studies the five verbs; like elementalist, for anyone who studies the five elements). (Also, that their sigil would be the sound of bells: when they cast magic, somehow, somewhere, a bell rings.) —Because of the urbanity and the parties and the love unversity-types have for epatering le bourgeois, I figured Perdix would be into Dawnish style: lovely vaguely Middle Eastern stuff from the sophisticated but diabolic trading cities to the north. But I figured the accident would have left them confused and muddled (of course) and clinging to the redemptive grace of the church.
(You can perhaps see a theme. Still not entirely sure where the living-in-a-dollhouse thing comes in, though. Actually, I've got a pretty good idea, but let's leave that alone for now.)
The last thing I needed to begin play was a voice; it's not so much that I speak in funny accents (though I do, sometimes) as it is that I need to be able to feel how the character speaks so I can put myself there and, well. For Perdix: druggy, distracted, prone to fluster, with shifts from one set of vocal chords to the other, and the occasional gestures at overlapping and interrupting dialogue.
What I didn't have: hard numbers as to their scores in the 5 verbs and 10 nouns, or a list of spells known.
After a couple of sessions, I did want to have a better idea of what they'd studied, and when—I knew they knew enough to have created an apartment in a steamer trunk that shrinks anyone who steps inside to about a foot high; I knew they'd enchanted a clapperless bell and a pair of farspeaking mirrors as an apprentice. So I sat down with the (4th ed.) book and did a year-by-year approach to apprenticeship, figuring out how much a brilliant theory-mad student would have learned who could slack off on learning spells by fudging spontaneous effects. But I haven't carried the year-by-year past graduation, to figure out what they've learned in the 12 years since. But I did figure out something more important: the underlying metaphor of how their magic works: they have to in some small way open up to or surrender to or take in part of something to then be able to affect it. (Metaphorically. More an approach or a style than at all or ever a mechanic.)
—A side note: Charles proposed picking other people to "run" your magic; another player supplying the effects you're trying to cause; another specific person to ratify or block your fiat. We haven't systematized it to that extent—no one's explicitly picked anyone else to always play that role for them, but we are a little more conscious of doing that sort of thing when magic's in play.
But! Here's the thing. What's been done so far has been fine as far as it goes. But I still don't have a clear idea of how, exactly, being this steeped in magic theory affects what they do from day to day. (They don't travel in clouds of birds, say.) They've been in a depressed funk most of the time, lounging about stoned, obsessively fiddling with their toy castle, getting into political arguments, and somehow collecting a lapsed local and a dangerously troublesome apprentice—okay, they've been busy, but they haven't been trying to be busy. Playing the lexicon game (a side game, in which we're writing up the books in the covenant's library) has helped me build up more of an idea of the literary and philosophical world they're moving in, so that's good as far as it goes.
But here's the real thing, the specific trigger: they've acquired an apprentice almost entirely by accident, and this apprentice comes with all sorts of nasty baggage, including an all-powerful Monkey-antagonist who only (so far) appears in dreams. (The apprentice, Ilba, is played by Dylan; the Monkey, by Barry.)
- Barry wants to play an imposing, frightening figure, not easily dismissed or blocked;
- Dylan wants to learn the group and the game, invest in the situation, prepare for her own mage character, and torment Perdix;
- I want to (slowly) draw Perdix out of the shell they've been in since the incident.
So when the Monkey appears in Perdix' dreams, and draws Ilba in, for a "conversation," what happens?
The Monkey appears first in the dreams of Perdix' lapsed henchman, played by Charles, and demonstrates his power in an off-hand fashion by taking the henchman out of play. He then appears in Perdix' dreams, asking me what they're dreaming and then inserting himself into the flow, then summoning Ilba. Perdix and Ilba are sleeping in the trunk-apartment, which is warded, and, it's been established, against dream-intrusions; Barry deals with this with a compliment from the Monkey as to how hard it was to get in. I point out that Perdix is very strong with rego, which is what you need to kick things out; in an earlier session, they rather off-handedly banished a large incursion of the local shadow monsters (irritated, still half-asleep). Charles immediately counters with yeah, but Perdix is no good with dreamstuff.
Which gives me pause.
I tipped my hand to the group: here's my plan of action, anyone see a problem? Charles flatly countered with fiat: ain't gonna. I don't recall having established that point directly myself, being crap at dreams, but a) it's not impossible that I said something like that in passing; dream-magic is a rare and esoteric art, but one we've dealt with a bit recently, since the last main story involved a visit from a group of magi that includes an authority on dreaming. Or b) it's entirely possible that in my reactions to the dreamstuff, I gave the impression of being a noob at that end of the magic spectrum. Being good with dreams is something you decidedly are, not something you might have picked up on the side, and Perdix ain't that. And it puts a nice spin on the bravado they exhibited on the last jaunt into dreamstuff, with the aforementioned guide, confronting a weak shade of the Monkey—all prelude to this encounter now, which renders that bravado false and hollow in this reading. So that's all to the good.
So I assent, but believe me, most of the analysis above happened after-the-fact. I proposed; I was blocked assertively; I folded without contesting, since I had nothing to back my play. No numbers. No clear idea of the character's history in this particular regard. No dogs left to throw into the fight.
What was left was conversation and negotiation, which, to a certain extent, I think Barry wanted, but which me and Perdix aren't ready for. I want them to slowly be drawn from their shell, back into dealing with the world; acquiring a henchman and an apprentice are major steps which haven't been explored much yet. Testing them to the breaking point now makes no sense and doesn't feel right.
But that analysis came after-the-fact, too. What I knew then was this Monkey was in my head and my apprentice's head and he was asking questions and while I could not answer them my apprentice couldn't. So I said, Perdix does everything they can to wake up now, and Barry allowed as how they could, and I said bells start ringing all around the covenant, since that's Perdix' sigil, and some little magical energy had been expended to snap out of the dreamstate. Only the Monkey's still there: they hadn't woken fully. Barry again acknowledges Perdix' power with a compliment, and says as how he doesn't want to fight; Perdix says the Monkey wants something they don't want to give him (they don't know what it is, but he wants something, and whatever it is, they don't want to give it to him), so they will fight, and—scene.
What's bugging me? Immediately, I'd thought it was not having the knowledge for sure whether I could have blocked him with sheer power or not. Kicking myself for not having worked out the numbers. For not having the pieces to back my play. —Of course, I might not have had the numbers. In which case I wouldn't have tried the play.
But there was still a crucial piece of negotiation in having tried it, and I did figure some stuff out. Key being that while the interaction with the Monkey is a nice encapsulation of a lot of things about Perdix' contradictions (yes, I'm seeing the situation through their eyes and from their perspective, there's a lot there for Dylan's character and Barry too, I'm sure, but I'm just selfish that way), it's too much too soon: I need to establish the relationship between Perdix and Ilba (who've launched a fifteen-year commitment on an almost criminal whim, and it's been, what, three weeks? Four?) before that relationship is significantly tested. It's not a bad thing this happened, not at all: foreshadowing, hallmark of great literature, etc. But an equilibrium needs rapidly to be reached that does not involve too much compromise yet, the better to feed the dynamic with end-game interactions so that, later, down the line, when it blows up, it will blow the fuck up.
TV-wise? The Big Bad just got revealed at the end of episode two. After that, the Big Bad fades a bit, only to pop out for a sweeps stunt or two, shift the plot at the second act hook, and then bide some seriously menacing time until the finale. —Of this particular season of the Perdix show, mind. Remember there's also the Calvus show and the Sonata show and the Gi show and the Ishta show and the Murry show and the Nil show and and and. And the seasons don't all synch up. And we're channel-surfing. And there's the Big Crossover Events.
To thoroughly mix metaphors.
Okay, so, actually, I think I have a better idea now of what it is I want and why I was so stymied by that particular interaction. I just need to make sure can synch what I want with what everyone else wants, and we're good.
But I should really figure out the magicstuff. No excuse for that.
