Cup of Crimson Wonder

I got into Dungeons & Dragons in the late 70s at college. At that time, I was listening to a lot of progressive rock, which was a broad category which included bands like Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, and in particular Jethro Tull. Tull had done albums like Aqualung, Warchild, Minstrel in the Gallery, and Thick as a Brick (one sone over two sides of an LP - you really should take the time to give it a listen). And in 1977 they released Songs from the Wood, which was the first of a series of "Folk Rock" albums. And I listened to it a lot, and it influenced my some of my writing, world-building, and game design.

And one of the songs was "Cup of Wonder", which leaned heavy on medieval mystical themes with a lot of synthesizer. And as one does, I wrote up the cup described of the song as a D&D magical item. 

(Now, looking back at the song, there was a LOT I missed at the time - namely, that the song was very much a "Hey, let's go out into the wheatfield and have sex" sort of song, and that a lot of the mystic references had earthier meanings and feminine euphemisms. )

But anyway,

I wrote the first cup description in 1977 in the wake of the album's release, but never really found the place to unleash it on my players. I considered it as a "Miscellaneous Magic" item, which was sort of a catch-all category for things that didn't really fit in one of the other columns. Now, by 1976 Eldritch Wizardry had come out and we had already started to talk about Artifacts and Relics as vastly powerful magic items with powers and malevolent effects unknown to the players. Below, I've revised my notes to fit the formatting and font of the original little brown box books of original D&D:

MISCELLANEOUS MAGIC

Cup of Wonders: This golden chalice can create a Healing potion that can repair one six-sided die, plus one, (2-7) points of damage, once per day. Once per week it can create a draught that will Neutralize Poison. The draughts must be imbibed directly from the cup to be effective.

 

It was a pretty straight-forward description of the item. Given the brutal nature of early D&D (your party's cleric did not even get a Cure Light Wounds spell until 2nd level), this was a suitable item to help the group survive. I put it in my random magic tables, but I never really found the opportunity to put into my player's hands. 

A few years later, I found my original notes, and upgraded the Cup of Wonders to full artifact status. Both Eldritch Wizardry and the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide left the abilities lines blank to let the DM fill in what he could, choosing from a master list, but I made those choices for my versions of the items. Here's what I ended up with: 

TABLE (III.E3) SPECIAL

Cup of Crimson Wonder: This ornate chalice of beaten red-gold with silver filigree of forest creatures was brought from the Isles of the Furthest West by the Green Man as a gift to the Great Druid at the founding of his order. The Green Man often rescinds this gift for his personal use, and abandons it when he has completed his tasks. Upon speaking the Green Man’s name, the cup fills with blood, which then grants the positive effects of this item. In the hands of the Great Druid or one of the three Archdruids the cup may cast Resurrection once per day without having to rest and are immune to the Cup’s major and minor malevolent effects. Druid initiates of lower levels and non-druids may use the following powers/effects when possessing the cup:

4 × I: Create food and water – 1 time/day  

 Cure light wounds – 7 times/week  

 Know alignment when held and ordered – 1 time/day  

 Possessor immune to disease

2 × II: Heal – 1 time/day  

  Regenerate 2 h.p./turn (but not if killed)

2 × III: Possessor’s hair turns white  

   Saving throws versus magic are at -1

1 × IV: User takes double damage from steel and iron weapons.

1 × IV: Summon 1 of each type of elemental, 16 hit dice each, no need for control – 1 time/week 

There is a lot more going on here than in the first draft, in that I'm adding a lot of abilities and keying in on giving the druids something unique and cool as well. There's more background color for the AD&D versions, something that will increase as we go along, and is sort of a "shadow worldbuilding" in that it hints at larger things with the campaign world. I kept to the list provided at the time, with the exception of the Major Malevolent Effect (Table IV), which I felt was to overpowering, but instead grabbed something that would fit with its Druidic attempt.

Looking through the changes from the original D&D magic item to a 1st Edition AD&D artifact, I'm kind of curious to see how the design would change, and weather it would come closer to the original song or stray off into the fields and forest on its own. I'll take a look at later editions, and if it works out, I'll post here. Otherwise...

More later,

Essays: Young Jorge Borges

 A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges, Translated by Norman Thomas Giovanni, E.P. Dutton, 1979, Original publication 1935.

Provenance: From Sacnoth's library by odd happenstance. The company that helped put together miku, and the gods, is putting together another show called She Devil of the China Seas, about the Pirate Ching Shi*. I had brushed up against this legendary figure a number times in my life - including as model for an unpublished character for Crucible.. I mentioned it to Sacnoth at one of new post-Covid gatherings, and he plucked this book off the shelf, which contains a short essay by the renowned Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges on the subject. 

Review: Jorge Luis Borges is sort of that distant relative to most fantasy  gameplayers thkat they have heard of, maybe see at weddings, but never really had a good talk with. People may have read "The Library of Babel" or "The Book of Imaginary Beings". but Borges was not one to follow the traditional fantasy quest traditions, so gets overlooked by our rank and file. He is a founder of the school of Magical Realism, which is thought to be installing fantasy elements into traditional settings and writing, but has revolved over the years into a genre that means Elves as London Coppers. 

The book is a collection of essays and short works that break down into three categories. First there are fictionalized biographies of particular villains of the past - Bill the Kid, Monk Eastman of the Gangs of New York, and the aforementioned Widow Ching. As a hinge in the presentation there's a short story written in first person about young urban punks, and then finishes up with a collection of "Etcetera" - short parables, for lack of a better word. The biographies are more eloquent, less factual, Wikipedia entries, and the Etcetera are short enough to merit a multi-entry Twitter chain. Indeed, if Borges' medium was the net and not the printed form, these would have been lost to the ever-widening electronic gyre of Facebook. It was good he was writing when he did.

These essays are from early in Borges career, yet immediately set himself out as a master teller of tales, his work based philosophically in their underlying morals. They can be a great underlying foundation for a campaign setting or adventure, but lack the deep exposition, quest-like plotting native to our sub genre. What they do have is a lyricism and magic that sweeps the reader along to a brief resolution. The are as eloquent as they are brief. Magical realism, indeed. 

The originals are in Spanish, and the English translations (in Borges own opinion) are excellent. Still, in reading foreign translations, it feels like attending a play and standing in the lobby, while a stream of people come out and tell you what's on the stage. Yet even in translation it is worth it to hunt this down and read it, if nothing else as to indicate philosophical underpinnings to potential settings. And because it is a darned engaging set of reads. So need to go down to my library and pick up the Borges Collected Fictions that I have had on the shelf for a while.

More, later,

*An incredibly famous female pirate you've never heard of, Ching Shi (also known as Zheng Yi Sao, Shi Yang, and Shi Xianggu, all of which translate as "Wife of Ching" or "Widow of Ching") inherited her pirates from he husband, and built the family business up to an armada that terrorized the mainland. The fact that we name her in the shadow of her less-successful husband is telling.

Plague Books: Magic City

Passing Strange by Ellen Klages, TOR Books, 2017

Provenance: This was in the big box of books I got from someone at TOR. I told that story here, when I reviewed Network Effect, so I won't go into the who rigamarole on that. But I still had a pile of books, and I picked this one off the top. It is the sort of book I might pick on recommendation or based on a review, but in all honesty it was on the top of the pile, and had an odd title and it was short.

Review: Wow, this is a gem.

This is one of those books totally make it worth the risk of reading an author you've never read before. Magical, mystical, and sweet.

The novel opens with an elderly Asian woman diagnosed with a terminal condition, putting her affairs in order. On the final days of her life, she rescues original piece of pulp art from its hiding place in the basement of a building she owns. It is the last piece of a legendary pulp artist, and she sells it to a rather repellent dealer for a great deal of money. Then she goes home and takes an overdose.

But that's not the story. Actually we go back to 1940 in San Francisco, and into queer subculture of the era and tell the story of the artwork. The artist is question, Haskel, has been midgendered by time - she is a woman drawing sensational pulp covers. She has a collection of friends, about half-a-coven, that include a scientist and her girlfriend, who has a bit of mystical ability in folding maps. The Asian woman in question, Helen, is there, who is both a lawyer and a dancer at a local tourist restaurant that caters to racial stereotypes near Chinatown. Into their orbit falls Emily, a young woman, newly arrived from back East with a wonderful voice and a talent for cross-dressing as a man named Spike. The artist, Haskel, falls hard for Emily. It is a love story cast against the background of San Francisco in the shadow of the war.

And the writing is wonderful. Klages makes San Francisco come alive. David Dodge gave us a collection of street names and called it San Francisco, but, Klages brings entire neighborhoods alive. You get a sense of wonder and delight, and yes, magic, that only belongs to certain places in certain times with certain people. It lifts you up and carries you forward and makes you really care about the characters.

Her writing about San Francisco sparked whole sequence of pleasant memories for me.. I am on the record of being neutral about LA, but San Francisco is one of those cities that I visited and said "yeah, I could live here." I remember visits and conventions and just wandering through this city and visiting friends and relatives in the Bay Area. San Francisco has always been magical and chimerical. It is Nova Albion and Emperor Norton and Sam Spade and Vertigo and the Cliff House and Tony Bennett. I have gone on record as being LA-Neutral, but San Francisco holds a particular charm for me, its own magic.

But there is darkness in the magic as well, as shown in the book. The local lesbian club, Mona's, solely exists by being a tourist stop for moralizing mid westerners, on the barest fringe of acceptability. The cops are crooked and the law is stacked against them.. Both the artist Haskel and the dancer Helen cater to public trafficking in racial stereotypes to make their living. Women in general, and lesbians in particular, are either invisible to the greater world or targeted by it. They are both integral to the world and outsiders to it.

The heart is the romance between Haskel and Emily. It is not just a slow burn. It smolders like exotic spice in a brazier. The fantastic elements of the tale are hinted at early, but actually arrive only towards the end of the book. In the meantime, we get a sweet, sweeping romance in the shadows, mature in a positive sense in that we are dealing with grown-ups and real feelings and all the messiness that that involves.

Passing Strange is one of those books that I want to press into the hands of others, because I think they will enjoy it. It has been out for a while, so it can be probably found easily. Treat yourself to it.

More later,

Big Pile of Books: Lovecrafting

Have I mentioned I have a big pile of books on the end of my desk? Yeah, I have a big pile of books at the end of my desk. Here are some reviews;

Johannes Cabal: the Fear Institute, by Jonathan L. Howard, Thomas Dunne Books, 2011

Provenance: A friend lent me the audio version of Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day, a collection of short stories featuring a particularly sardonic,erudite, and irritated necromancer who keeps having things get in the way of his quest for eternal life. They were fun, and when I was in New York last year I picked up a copy of The Fear Institute at the Strand (a highly-recommended bookstore, but I will give the edge to Powell's in Portland).

Review: What attracted me to this particular book (as opposed to others in the series) was the fact it was set in Lovecraft's Dreamlands. The Dreamlands were mostly part of Lovecraft's work in poetry, where he is influenced by Lord Dunsany, and is the more fantastic setting of his mythos. A lot of the same players and characters fit in, but it the Dreamlands are more aesthetic than horrific, which causes some interesting interplay between his view of this world and the land of Dreams.

Other authors have played in this space, so it is interesting to see how this other Howard takes it on.

And it's all right. The writing is solid and engaging, and has the proper level of bounce and snap. But I think I like the other authors' take on Lovecraft's fantasy world better. This adventure really doesn't need to be in the Dreamlands, and could be in Oz or the Forgotten Realms save for a couple solid name-checks. Cabal's sardonic commentary applies to fantasy worlds in general as opposed to prying up the underlying nature of Lovecraft's universe. There is a dualogy between Lovecraft's worlds - his Dreamlands tend to more romantic, awe-inspired, and positive, while his mythos works set in our world tend to be more horrific, nihilistic, and terrible. Both settings have living gods, but those gods are more active in the Dreamlands and the characters who toil in their shadows more empowered.

Anyway, the plot. Cabal is hired by a trio of individuals who intend to go to the Dreamlands and defeat Fear, Fear being the worst bane of human civilization. Despite himself, Cabal goes along as the official guide. There are adventures with Zoogs and Men of Leng, and I think he really nails the Men of Leng for the first time that I've read. The amusingly selfish Cabal verges on being heroic because of the nature of the universe he is cast in. Elder gods are confronted. Time paradoxes are invoked. It wraps up with a strong lead into the NEXT volume.

It's OK. Cabal as reluctant hero gets him away from him from merely whining about his state, and reasons are given as things progress. But I don't get the feel of the Dreamlands from this tome in the same fashion as I did the other versions. Howard doesn't add to the mythos (again, with the exception of the Men of Leng), but instead it functions as a mostly-understood backdrop for Cabal's ongoing frustrations with reality, both his own and that of alternate planes.

Its worth a read, and in the proper hands, would be good series on NetFlix. But it remains OK.

More later,

Pouring A Horse From A Bottle

The Four Accomplishments (SAM site)

This past weekend the Lovely Bride and I went to the SAM (Seattle Art Museum) to catch the last day of the Luminous exhibit of SAM's Asian Art. As many exhibits, it gave me a lot to think and reflect about, but for this essay I want to point out one piece in particular. This is a four-panel screen called "The Four Accomplishments" by Kanō Takanobu (Full screens shown right).

Now, you will notice that it is a four-panel screen. And it is called "The Four Accomplishments", and the text to the left of the art piece states that the four accomplishments are an imported idea from China to Japan of the period that defined a gentleman. The four accomplishments were calligraphy, playing go, playing the zither, and painting.

So your have four panels describing four accomplishments, you'd think there were one accomplishment to a panel. Right? And on the first panel I see caligraphy tools (ink stick, ink stone, burner, reeds, etc.) before a gentleman as a small child climbs around the furnishings behind him. The second panel has two men playing go, while a woodcutter pauses from his tasks and a woman sets out the tea. The third panel has a family patriarch playing the zither for his family (who have varied levels of interest).

Source: Susan A. Cole/SAM

And the last one has a man pouring a horse out of a bottle (see left).

OK, that's odd. You start at the left again. Calligraphy, go, zither, and pouring a horse out of a bottle. Go back and re-read the explanation for a clue. Look again. OK, there is a painting on the reed screen behind the calligrapher, so you have two accomplishments on one panel, and  the one-to-one connection is not there. Now it is calligraphy/painting, go, zither, and pouring a horse out of a bottle. It is odd that a four-screen panel would not use each panel for a work titled (later, probably not at the time) "The Four Accomplishments".

Am I looking at magic? Is spell-casting a mysterious "Fifth Accomplishment"? It is a very realistic-looking horse. Was I having one of those weird Cthulhu moments, where an item in the museum kicks off a slow descent into madness?

And as I was watching, a young lady was explaining to her date about the piece. She seemed knowledgeable, so I asked her about it. She tossed out the idea that it was someone doing stage magic Indeed, the gentleman is pouring out the miniature horse for a small child. Another couple joined it, and expressed their confusion as well.

And I thought about it, and instead of stage magic, suggested puppetry. What we thought was a bottle was really a paddle for control of a lifelike horse. Still no mention of a fifth accomplishment, but it sounded like something that a gentleman would do when he is not playing go or operating the zither.

And these I do the research and this figure is described as "A Taoist Deity". Which takes me back a bit, because a) everything else in the piece seems mundane, and b) Most Taoist Deities (or "Taoist Deities") have particular icons attached to him, much like Western Saints (Catherine has her wheel, Chang Kuo-lao rides backwards on an ass). So if this is a Taoist Deity, which one pours a horse out of a bottle?

I'm going to go back to the puppetry explanation, but part of me really likes the "friendly wizard" idea.

More later,

Update:  Ask the Internet and it shall respond. Josh Reyer writes in:

Regarding the "Four Accomplishments" painting.  In Japanese the title
is better translated as "Zither, Go, Calligraphy, Painting, Sennin".
Sennin, called xianren in Chinese, were not deities per se, but
hermits who'd found the secrets of magic and immortality by esoteric
Daoist training in remote mountains.  Basically, wizards. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sennin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_(Taoism)

So there we have it - the translated title sets us off in the wrong direction. And it is magic that we are looking at in that last panel. The Lovely Bride had a theory that the "Taoist Deity" mentioned was a the horse, and you have to pour him out of the bottle because you don't want a Taoist Deity drinking all your good liquor.

Thanks to Josh for the info!

Indistinguishable

So I'm standing here at the corner of Gygax and Clarke, and thinking about Clarke's Third Law and how so many people hear it, nod, and go off in the wrong direction.

Here's how it goes - you've heard it before:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

As laws go, its pretty succinct, and from a writing standpoint, it frees you from dragging the reader into the nuts-and-bolts of explaining your stardrive unless said stardrive has a purpose within the plot as opposed to getting your characters from A to B. And it provides a nice point of us dumb cavemen trying to understand the sippystraw technology of the advanced aliens.

But the thing is, indistinguishable is not identical. There may be a way to determine the difference between the two, but you just don't have it at hand, or haven't had the chance to examine it. We can breed an orange to be indistinguishable from an apple, but it doesn't make it an apple.

And the problem is that once we think indistinguishable = identical, then if science = magic, then magic = science. And there the fun begins, as we attempt to classify magic, and in doing so, ground it into some framework of reality. I'm more guilty of this as anyone else on the planet.

D&D is partially responsible for this domestication of magic, but it is by no means the only culprit. Writers and game designers are comfortable with the concept of "If you do A, then you should always get B". It is safe, dependable, and fair. But magic is traditionally portrayed as an art, which means that the incantations and enchantments don't always work the way you expect them to. That can create some interesting stories if the stories are about how magic is tricksy. If you want it a component for a larger tapestry, and a dependable component, then it has to be tamed, and follow laws.

A good example of these laws is the Vancian Magic System embraced and expanded by D&D - spells of particular power levels, loaded into the brain like bullets in a gun, using a magical energy field through particular verbal, material, and somatic components. Its a bit of a sprawl, but has served very well for years. But it is a set of rules, and one that tames the wild fires of spellcasting to make it fair for the players.

But once comprehended, magic can expanded and utilized and taken in unintended directions. The fact you have a teleport spell opens the door to teleporation devices which results in the abandonment of roads for magical power. If detect lie is readily available, your magical mystery novel has to dodge that particular bullet in order to succeed. I've said in the past that the Realms is more like the year 1870 than 1370, in that we understand the principles of magic and are starting to use them for our own ends - Arcanapunk, if you will, where the magic meets the street.

But magic does not have to be that way - it can be closer to art than to component technology. Where, when you start the incantation, you are not quite sure where you will end up. Tolkienesque magic feels that way - rare and misunderstood and never there when you need it. By the time we get to Harry Potter, we have schools and ministries on the subject, trying to boil it down into easily-understood components, a variant of advanced technology. But magic is not technology, and to treat it as such we may be diminishing it.

But that's just a thought for a rainy Seattle evening.

More later,