| Internal Memos (1) |
[Oct. 24th, 2006|07:24 pm] |
What if the thing that binds all the heroes together is their participation in The Hunting of the Sun, either as hunters or as those trying to protect the great bird from those who would shoot it down? That could be the Troy-equivilent for the people of the Four Nations, like the hunting of the White Stag (Narnia) or the hunt of the Caledonian Boar. But also something with relevance in East Asian myth, with Hou Yi's shooting of the nine suns.
I kinda wish it could be something equally mythic and nutzo, but less violent, just to break with the roleplaying tradition. But I'm hard-pressed to come up with something with the same gut-wrenching power as the Hunt of the Sun.
I also wonder if we need an odd number of heroes. Like 2-3 for each nation (giving us 8 or 12) and then one who is not a member of any nation and "neither of the living nor the dead." I have no idea what such a hero would look like, but there are some cool options players could choose from. They could be a dream, for instance, or a being from the City on the Moon. That would also let us refer to the heroes as the "Eight Plus One" or "Twelve Plus One" which is kinda awesome.
Just some ideas.
Jonathan
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There is an Aztec myth of the god Nanahuatzin, who perpetually dies in fire so that the sun should continue to shine.
That's what I thought of when you said, 'less violent'; maybe slaying the sun is a kind of mythic necessity which enables the world to continue, rather than a hand upraised in rebellion against the natural order.
Shreyas
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That could work. I was also thinking that, if the sun has been slain, maybe you're supposed to play the game at night, with the lights off, using candles or lamplight or a very dim electric lamp. That might enhance the ritual feel and get us accused of being a cult.
Another random thought: there are no animals in the Four Nations, only escaped dreams that have gained independence and interbred. So maybe you have wild and domesticated creatures, but they are all highly individualized. Perhaps there are clear species, based on thematic associations (like Pokemon!), but the offspring of a given union may not necessarily look anything like their parent dreams. This could let Shreyas get his monster hunter thing on with the dream people.
Also, I just found this amazing book of Yi ethnography called "The Age of Wild Ghosts," so I think The Dead are going to be modelled on the Yi. Perhaps the language and general cultural trappings (dress, some myths, design style, etc.) of each nation could be modeled on a different lesser known Asian people? Like a sub-national people, an ethnic group (historial or modern) without a nation-state of their own. I can think of dozens of cool possibilities off the top of my head, just within China, and I'm sure South and Southeast Asia have a ton as well, not to mention the Pacific Islands.
I can definitely see the Fate people having a linguistic situation like the Papuan languages, where you have 800 semi-related languages and speakers just wade through the patterns that connect them together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papuan_languages
Jonathan
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> On Dream Animals
This is cool. I am not sure like how on-board everyone would be with it, but I am happy with basically any iteration of "dream animals exist", ranging from "some animals are dream animals and are therefore sort of odd" to the more extreme version you descrive above.
> On Cultures
This is cool.
It will also allow me to play anthropologist and be like, "What would this culture look like after five thousand years of being the most populous people in the world", which is sweet.
Ainu for me.
(We should definitely like talk about these different cultures you can think of at great length when opportunity allows.)
Shreyas
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I like the hunting of the sun idea a lot. Maybe it could be part of a a long ritual cycle that takes up a week or longer, including a bit at the end where the sun gets revived somehow.
I'm not sure I like the idea of ALL animals being escaped dreams. I guess it's because it makes the dreamers kind of way more important than everyone else in terms of creating the ecosystem of the world. And the idea of a world that started out entirely humans kinda weirds me out. :)
> On Cultures
That does sound pretty cool, although I'm not sure how much research I'll be able to do. Is there a Wikipedia category for "obscure Asian cultures"? :)
Selene
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Well, Shreyas wanted my opinions on this as well, so here are a bunch:
BIG MOMMA LINKS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ethnic_groups_in_Asia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Indigenous_peoples_of_Asia
MORE SPECIFIC LINKS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aborigines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_peoples
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyedic_peoples
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_peoples
Jonathan |
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