20030317

City of Ten Thousand Years

Walking around the city as the light fades
(Is it all, that you remain?)
I’m thinking about each promise that I have ever made
But I know what they will never say,
I know what they will never say,
Century after century they remain ...

Idlewild, 'Century after Century'

I have been having an idea recently. As some people are aware, I like fantasy literature of a fairly specific kind. I don't much like Feist, Eddings, Jordan, Wurts, Hobb etc. I do like Leiber, Vance, Wolfe, Moorcock, Le Guin and Harrison. Anyway, I have this relatively vague and undeveloped thought of running a game that incorporates some of the ideas brought out in my favourite authors, a game with rules based on the existing Ars Magica mechanics.

Some flavour text:

It is Amec Sasleb, the City of Ten Thousand Years, the centre of civilization, learning and life. It is an edifice of the new, built on the old, built on the ancient. From the hill of the Old City the Inner Walls look down upon the Span of Kings, stretching out across the sparkling canals to the New City.

It is a city of people. They are:

  • the Cypherists, keepers of the lore of the millenial machines that manufacture ceaselessly for the people. Only they know the codes that cause the great machines to function correctly.

  • the thaumaturges, studying the white arts by day, and the black arts by night. They travel the Spirit World in dreams and reality, and summon chugs and sandestins, the essence creatures of the two planes, to their service in magical rites.

  • the Visitors, recent arrivals from over the ocean. Silent, dispassionate traders, they emerge at dusk from their Raft Embassy to strike bargains with the mercantile leaders of Sasleb.

  • the Patriarchs and their army of clergymen, on the one hand praying to a host of gods that no longer respond, on the other clinging to temporal power and always manoeuvring for more.

  • the nobles of the old houses, full of pride and desperation, who send their sons to the academies to learn the secrets, in the hope of protecting their power.

  • the Guilders, craftsmen who intend to use their new money to challenge the old order.

  • the kobolds, servants of humans in every walk of life, midget dog-headed cowards who are no less able than humans but never seem likely to challenge their subjugation by the rest.


Gangs, supporters of different factions, roam the streets. Drunken Guildsmen assault lone nobles in the public squares. People appear and disappear mysteriously. Disputes are solved by duel more often than by law, but the law when applied is either swift and brutal, or slow, and brutal. Assassins, thieves, poisoners and food tasters are rarely out of a job.


Oh well, getting a bit bored with this expository rant. However, I am actually planning on running a game, set in an approximately 18th-century technological era, with all or some of the elements described above. If and when a little more is developed, I'll put out a call for three or four players. Drop me a line if you're interested.

20030316

Unbending

Will you come knocking on my door?
Pull me, pick me up from the floor?
I might need something to get me through it,
Feel it, one time ...
IT ROLLS!

Sleater-Kinney, 'Step Aside'

Am sitting in Rob's study as I update this, waiting for someone else to wake up and notice that I exist, and then possibly offer to give me a lift back to civilisation. Or should that be back to barbarism? Got very drunk again last night, although not as drunk as the previous night at Vicki and Ann's birthday (twin hard-drinking friends of Max's). That was a top party, which involved a lot of Bailey's, Tequila, and liberated cans of beer, and jamming absurd numbers of people into a spa. Last night was more in the relaxing, barbecue with spontaneous pool-dip, sit-around-listening-to-Tarantino-soundtracks vein. Which I really needed to uncrick my battered body after six hours spent crammed into the boot of Max's parents' Pulsar.

I'm not going to be allowed to take the additional unit that I wanted to take in order to be full time this semester, due to a university regulation that disallows studying units that aren't necessary for the completion of one's degree. Hence I will not be full time. Hence I will not be covered by my folks' Medibank Private health insurance policy. Somewhat unnerving, particularly as my teeth have recently started indicating their willingness to consider a trial separation from my gums. Must see a dentist.

I had my first actual project-related meeting with my supervisor yesterday, which was brief but relatively constructive. Given the newfound ultra-streamlined character of my university commitments, I'm hoping to spend a lot of time on my project early in the year. It'd be really nice to get something resembling a two-thirds completed document online by the end of the mid-year break, so I'll start scheduling to try and reach that goal. Bizarre to think of how little I have left to do in order to finish university for once and for all. Almost for as long as I can remember, university has stretched out before me like a cracked, fading but endless yellow brick road. Looks like I'll actually get to meet the wizard soon. Hmm, web-log entry appears to be devolving into lame literary-allusional extended metaphor, in vein of self-inflated moron. Wh-ever.

Anita and Anil got back from Europe a few days ago, laden with fascinating anecdotes about their honeymoon, many of which seem to revolve around the cheapness of contraband over there ($1 cigarettes, $1 pints of Stella Artois, everything costs $1 in this magical paradise). Great to see them again, and it sounds like they had a top time, by and large.

My social life seems full at the moment. Somewhat overfull in many ways. Although I've deeply enjoyed the past couple of nights, I also need to find a bit more downtime. My family have started cracking semi-snide jokes about the fact that I'm never around and disappear for one and two days at a time completely unannounced. Perhaps I could solve that communication problem by getting a mobile. Also, getting drunk is expensive. I've spent about $50 on booze in the last two nights, which is getting a bit out of hand. Next weekend is shaping as another possible big one, with the Massive Attack gig on Saturday night. That should be sweet. Am mildly miffed by my decision to save instead of splashing out on a ticket to Eclectic, which actually had four or five acts I would've really liked to see, including Badly Drawn Boy, Teenage Fanclub, the Avalanches, the Panics, and Machine Translations. That's almost a little music festival to call my own. Perhaps I should've gone.

People have had a number of conversations with me about future employment lately. It's a topic of some concern to many people studying IT, given the exceedingly well-reported and sharp downturn in the corresponding job sector over the last couple of years. Despite this, I don't fear the possibility of a long stretch of unemployment whilst looking for work. I just don't think it will happen to me. Still, I might have to go to Melbourne or somewhere else over east to get a decent job. I've just had the bright idea of trying for summer employment with some Melbourne IT companies at the end of the year. Since most of my extended family lives in Melbourne, acquiring temporary accommodation wouldn't be a problem at all, and if I could get something it might be cooler, and better paid, than what I could expect in Perth. Also, it'd be a nice break from the isolated stagnation that is here. Living in Perth sometimes feels like being trapped dancing with the fairies around the standing stones, never to return from Tyr Na nOg to the world where actions matter. And according to popular myth, Melbourne is the next best place in Australia to live after Perth. Nicer than Sydney, anyway.

I'm going to go and see if I can find Rob and get him to drive me to Claremont now.