New blog.

My blog is now at www.apolitical.info/teleleli. I'm going to keep this blogspot blog up, but I won't be posting here any more.

Blog problems.

Blogger deleted this blog for a brief period today. Obviously they've put it back, but I'm going to move the blog to my own server. I'll post the link when I've done so.

The City of Dignity

This forest settlement, despite its name, probably has no more than a few hundred inhabitants. It was founded by a group of young people from Karsh led by a man known as Uncle, which he uses as both name and title.

The 'city' is extremely secretive. Although it has few buildings, with most people sleeping in tents, it has a defensive wall that would be the envy of any great city. Some who have escaped say that there are hidden caches of weapons which are likewise of the highest quality.

The inhabitants of the city consist of the original founders, their children, and some of the local tribespeople, who entered the place due to starvation. Some say that the inhabitants of the city deliberately drove off game and poisoned water supplies to achieve this end, and that children were outright kidnapped.

It seems that everyone is effectively a slave of Uncle. It is said that sexual intercourse can only take place with Uncle's blessing, and that even talking without permission is a crime. Uncle is said to force the inhabitants to ingest various substances which render them more docile.

The stories of some escapees who made their way back to Karsh caused even the wicked people of Karsh to become outraged. Karsh thus sent an expedition to capture Uncle. However, true to their nature, the Karhsians accepted a deal which kept Uncle in power. The Karshians received a number of slaves, none of whom were the original colonists (although some may have been their children). It is also whispered that political prisoners of Karsh are sent to the City of Dignity, where they are tortured and subject to medical experimentation.

from the Odyssey

...the gods, in the likeness of strangers from far countries, put on all manner of shapes, and wander through the cities...

Homer.

The Planets of the Celestial Realm

The planets of the Celestial Realm differ from the world of Teleleli (and from our own Earth), in that almost all of them contain only one climate each. Not all of these climates have parallels in the world below: there are jungle planets and ice planets, but also planets made of diamond, living flesh, or pure sadness for example.

The Isle of Letters

The animals and plants of this isle all have the form of letters. Many valuable T trees grow there, but it is also home to dangerous Killer Bs, and the surrounding waters are filled with C Monsters.

from The Swords of Lankhmar

...into the dark, spacious, low-ceilinged pleasance of a subterranean rat-metropolis, lit by phosphorus, where robed and long-skirted rats whose hoods hid their long faces moved about mysteriously, where rat-swords clashed behind the next pillar and rat-money chinked, where lewd female rats danced in their fur for a fee, where masked rat-spies and rat-informers lurked, where everyone -- every-furry-one -- was cringingly conscious of the omniscient overlordship of a supernally powerful Council of Thirteen...

Fritz Leiber

Why Grognards Aren't Hipsters

Hipsters and grognards have completely different terrible beards.

Grognards aren't wearing their Transformers tshirt ironically.

Hipsters like the early albums, before they got commercial, not the early edition, before they got commercial.

Hipsters argue about stupid things like the definition of 'alternative'. Grognards argue about important things like the definition of 'old-school'.

Hipsters use pretentious French words like mis-en-scene and cinema verite. Grognards use pretentious French words like bec-de-corbin and glaive.

Hipsters are into irony, which is where you wear something even though you don't like it. Grognards are into nerd-rage, which is where you talk incessantly about something even though you don't like it.

Hipsters spend hours making themselves look like they just put on any old pair of clothes at random and didn't bother to do their hair. Grognards don't spend hours.

Hipsters write zines because their band fell apart. Grognards write blogs because their campaign fell apart.

Grognards know that what they're doing isn't impressing women.

(in response to this).

What I'm Going to Write Next

I've decided that I'm going to finish two poems that I'm in the middle of, one of which is A Princess of Mars, then work on a novel set mostly in Telelee. Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous post on this.

Fantasy-themed stamps from Australia Post

Australia Post recently put out this set of stamps, called Mythical Creatures. This is a bit of a pet subject of mine, but it reminded me how fantasy in general popular culture is quite different to fantasy as represented in role-playing. D&D and other games seem to have a lot more 'sex and violence', in the form of female nudity and concentration on weapons and armour, than you'd get in most representations of fantasy worlds (heavy metal album covers and the work of Frank Frazetta being obvious exceptions, and perhaps that's what a lot of D&D artists were inspired by). In this case the differences between new and old versions of D&D don't really matter.

The Soul-Sun

I have heard that in the Celestial Realm there is a certain sun, all of whose planets were inhabited. When a creature of one planet died  it was reborn on the next planet in, until at last it died on the innermost planet and became one with the sun. But the inhabitants of one planet invaded one nearer to the sun than themselves, and killed all the creatures thereof. Thus when they died there was no vessel for their rebirth, so they were reborn as rocks, and must stay in this form forever.