J.B. Norman's Blog, page 361
December 4, 2020
Encyclopedia Realmgardica: Quintus Marcellinus Styracosaurus
The aforementioned Elf with a Beard, Quintus Marcellinus Styracosaurus is known in the history of Realmgard as a great hero and famous warrior, and remains admired and revered by the Elves of Realmgard even more than a thousand years later.
Active in the period of the Seventeen Kingdoms that culminated in the establishment of a unified Elven empire, Styracosaurus was a leading general in the kingdom of Hastatus and played a major role in many pivotal battles.
His military successes brought him fame throughout the kingdom, leading to many high-ranking nobles adopting similar facial hair. The popularity of beards among the Elves eventually waned, but did not completely disappear.
In addition to his full beard, Styracosaurus could always be identified by his personal armour, which was adorned with images of his two beloved horses.
Following the end of his military career, Styracosaurus retired to a turnip farm.
December 3, 2020
Recommendation: Fire Emblem(s)
I’m getting ready to put the finishing touches on my Sharks of Realmgard, and I’ve decided to take a break from posting art for another recommendation.
Nintendo has been around since 1889. Yes, really. Obviously, they weren’t making video games back then. That didn’t happen until the 1970s.
Nevertheless, Nintendo has had plenty of time to get good at what it does.
[image error]From Nintendo Co., Ltd. Image via Wikipedia.
Some Nintendo franchises, like Mario and Pokémon, have become ludicrously, stupendously popular all around the world — in fact, Mario and Pokémon are 1 and 2 on the list of bestselling video game series. And the wider Pokémon franchise (including the anime, the merch, and the card game and other stuff) is the single highest-grossing media franchise of all time. Which is especially impressive because Pokémon has surpassed iconic franchises that have existed for decades longer than it has.
Some Nintendo franchises, though, have been notably more successful in North America than Japan. This has historically been the case for Zelda and Metroid. On the other hand, some of their franchises have done the opposite and proven much more popular in Japan.
Of course, this is at least occasionally the result of not being released outside of Japan.
Famously, fans are still campaigning to get Nintendo to localise Mother 3.
For a long time, it seemed like Fire Emblem was destined to be one of those franchises. Luckily for those of us outside Japan, Fire Emblem has managed to break out of Japan and settle itself into a comfortable little niche among Nintendo’s long-running franchises.
[image error]Four (of sixteen) Fire Emblems.
Fire Emblem: Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. Images via Fire Emblem Wiki.
The series goes back to 1990, with the release of Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. Six subsequent games were released exclusively in Japan before the series made its worldwide debut with Blazing Blade in 2003.
Outside of Japan, it was basically treated as the first entry of a new series, to the point of being released as just Fire Emblem. Since then, the series has remained something of a cult classic, especially compared to Nintendo’s other major franchises.
Several Fire Emblem games have still never been release outside Japan, though characters from these games have begun appearing with updated designs and English voice acting in the mobile Fire Emblem Heroes, which is sort of like Fire Emblem’s equivalent of an All-Star Game.
Fire Emblem has also proven itself something of a cause of consternation for Smash Bros. fans, given the abundance of playable Fire Emblem characters making their way into the series, especially relative to the series’ comparative obscurity to Nintendo’s heavy hitters.
This one, for example. Make note of the Like:Dislike ratio.
I probably can’t be counted as a “real” Fire Emblem fan, because my first exposure to the series was through Marth and Roy in Smash Bros. Melee and the first game in the series I played to any meaningful degree was Awakening in 2013. The same applies to a lot of other people.
Awakening was responsible for a renaissance of the series and a major influx of new players.
Of course, if you ask many of the fans of the earlier games, it’s also the game that ruined the series forever, but that’s neither here nor there.
So, what is Fire Emblem?
When my parents asked me that very question, I floundered around for a minute, before managing to stammer “It’s like Dungeons & Dragons! Sort of. Not really.”
On a fundamental level, that’s true. It’s a Fantasy strategy game that plays out in alternating turns that involves moving your dudes around a grid. The comparison falls apart under closer scrutiny, but it works to explain the series in general terms.
[image error]Eh, close enough.
Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com
I don’t want to get into too much detail describing the individual games in the series (I might do that later as a follow-up), but here’s some thoughts on the ones I’ve played:
Awakening is a good entry point into the series and seems to have been designed as such on purpose, it’s pretty intuitive, not especially difficult on the default difficulty level, and gives the option to turn off the series’ infamous Permadeath mechanic.
The plot is nothing special (“There’s a evil dragon who wants to eat the world, kill it” — pretty standard for a Fire Emblem game), but the characters are all pretty fun and are all voiced by actors that range from good to excellent. I also really enjoyed the ability to make my characters fall in love and get married. A lesser man would pair up his characters to ruthlessly maximise the effectiveness of their children. That is incorrect. As far as I’m concerned, the proper way to play a Fire Emblem game with this sort of support mechanic is “cutest couple wins.”
Fates is a lot like Awakening with several gameplay tweaks and quality-of-life improvements, but was criticised pretty widely by the fanbase. It has three separate plotlines that were released as three separate games (not unlike Pokémon).
It also became infamous as “the one where you can marry your sister.” Except none of them are actually your biological sister, a development which was extensively mocked in its own right. And the plot as a whole was criticised for being largely dependent on contrived plot twists that came out of nowhere.
On the other hand, Fates‘ art direction and especially its soundtrack were widely praised, and several individual levels are remembered fondly for making use of some novel gameplay mechanics.
For the record, I liked Fates a lot more than the fanbase at large did. But, then, I’m pretty easily-entertained. I especially like the relationship between the two main characters: Corrin (your character) and Azura (basically, a combination of a Han Solo and Princess Leia to your Luke Skywalker). Azura’s voice acting, and especially her singing (which is a major element of her character; her class is even called “Songstress”) is phenomenal.
Echoes is a weird one. It’s a remake of the NES (technically, Famicom, as it was never released outside of Japan) era Fire Emblem Gaiden. It carries over a lot of the old-school mechanics, particularly concerning how magic and character classes work, which can feel jarring and even daunting coming to it after playing one of the newer games. It also has dungeon exploration segments that are like nothing else in the other games in the series.
On a more positive note, it looks very pretty. In particular, the character designs are about infinity times better in the Echoes remake than in the original Gaiden. Take a gander over at the Wiki and compare what Alm and Celica looked like in the original game (i.e. like total dorks) to what they look like now (i.e. not like total dorks). The in-game cinematics are excellent. The music is very good. And the dialogue of the game is fully-voiced, which is a welcome change of pace from the earlier games.
I’ve mentioned Fire Emblem Warriors already. There’s not really anything to add that I haven’t already said. It’s a pretty good game which is also fully-voiced, which I feel elevates the overall experience.
That brings us to the most recent Fire Emblem, last year’s Three Houses.
Three Houses is a masterpiece.
The gameplay is probably the best and purest distillation of the traditions of the series, combining elements from both the older and newer games. The story, like in Fates, is divided into multiple routes, but delivered in a single game (plus a DLC side-story, which is unconnected to the main game, but not without charms of its own), and the story is probably the most intelligent and mature a Fire Emblem story has ever been.
The simplest way to describe it is that it’s Fire Emblem‘s version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Fittingly, Three Houses was a co-production with Koei Tecmo, the company behind Dynasty Warriors and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy games.
[image error]This is brilliant …
Romance of the Three Kingdoms XII: Koei Tecmo. Images via Koei Wiki.
Like in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, none of the three factions are clear bad guys or good guys (the non-playable faction that are bad guys are the bad guys for everybody else), and most of the emotion of the story comes from people who used to be friends coming into conflict to realise their ambitions for the world.
The decision of who to side with is supposed to be hard, but it should tell you something about where my allegiances lie that I’ve done Edelgard’s route four times and I can’t stop accidentally calling Claude “Clive” — incidentally, there is a Fire Emblem character named Clive.
[image error]… But I like this.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo, and Nintendo.
Images via Fire Emblem Wiki.
The cast of characters is small enough that all of the characters get enough screentime that nobody ends up feeling entirely irrelevant and they all get enough opportunities to let their personalities shine. The voice acting is very good, the soundtrack is very good, including several songs that are what I believe the Cool Kids refer to as “bangers”.
If there’s one criticism to be levelled against Three Houses, it’s that you can’t marry Indisputable Best Girl Anna.
Honestly, if Three Houses is going to be the foundation for the games going forward, I’m thrilled to see where the series is going in the future.
Especially if they let me marry Anna again.
[image error]Pictured: Indisputable Best Girl.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo, and Nintendo.
Image via Fire Emblem Wiki.
December 2, 2020
Putting in the Work, Part 2
As a companion to my big ol’ pile of rough drafts, here’s a big ol’ pile of rough drawings, including my forthcoming Sharks of Realmgard.
Once again, Princess Peach provided for scale.
December 1, 2020
Work in Progess: Sharks of Realmgard, Part 2
The initial artwork of each of my sharks is now done (yay!). The final version of the whole thing will stay take a while, but I have another thing to show.
Therefore, I present to you, the most fearsome creature to swim the seas of Realmgard: the Cat Shark.
[image error]
Notably, it’s not, in fact, a shark at all. It’s a cat wearing a fin.
November 30, 2020
Work in Progress: Sharks of Realmgard
Work on my Sharks of Realmgard pictures is going well. I think I’m done the preliminary sketches, so I’ve finally out something to share.
I’ll start with two real-world sharks that I’ve decided also exist in Realmgard: the Goblin Shark and the Great White. Mostly, I just wanted an excuse to draw a Goblin Shark. They are wonderfully weird-looking.
As an aside, I’ve been using Latin for the Elven language in Realmgard and it has the same role as Latin did in real life as the universal language of academia and high-brow pursuits.
Due to “shark” being derived either from the Mayan language or from Late Medieval/Early Modern German, Latin doesn’t really have a word for “shark” specifically, and most of the Latin words that can be translated as “shark” really mean something the lines of “nonspecific large fish including sharks”. “Squalus” is one of these words, and is used in real-life taxonomic nomenclature for certain kinds of sharks. Mostly, though, I chose it for the Realmgard word for “shark” because out of all the possibilities, it’s the one I most like the sound of.
November 29, 2020
RealmgART: An Elf With a Beard
Much as all Dwarves, including the women, are (wrongly) assumed to have long, luxuriant beards, it is commonly and (wrongly) believed that Elves cannot grow beards of their own.
While it is true that there are few bearded Elves, this is not a result of their biology. Elves are able to grow beards, but Elven fashion and tradition have historically displayed an aversion towards wearing beards, considering facial hair to be inelegant and undignified.
Even so, there have been numerous historically-notable Elves known to have worn full beards. Among these is the Elven war hero Quintus Marcellinus Styracosaurus, depicted above.
November 28, 2020
A Stern Warning of Things to Come
Coming soon: The Sharks of Realmgard.
For now: The Sharks of Earth. Also, the Sharks of San Jose.
November 27, 2020
A Thought I Had
Wherein the (Greatest Living) Author muses on Dungeons & Dragons.
Given that I enjoy dungeoning the odd Dragon here and there, and that I write a fairly Dungeons & Dragons-esque Fantasy world (once again: that world is called Terrace; Realmgard a continent on that world), I do a lot of (over-)thinking about the peculiarities of Dungeons & Dragons. And recently, I realised something about life in this kind of world.
And that thing is as follows:
[image error]Uh, no. That’s not it.
The Simpsons: Disney and Gracie Films. Via Frinkiac.
Basically, I’ve come to the conclusion that even in the world(s — D&D has a multiverse that would put Marvel and DC to shame) of Dungeons & Dragons, they would still have a game like Dungeons & Dragons.
[image error]It’s basically the same picture, no matter what world you’re in.
Photo by Will Wright on Pexels.com
Hear me out, here.
Just because the people living in a Dungeons & Dragons world live in a world where epic heroes fight epic battles doesn’t mean everyone in that world would be an epic hero fighting epic battles. There would still be boring people living boring lives.
Just like in real life.
And, of course, those people would want to break up the drudgery of their lives by living vicariously through facsimiles of exciting people.
Just like in real life.
Look at it this way. We might not live in a world with dungeons to explore or Dragons to slay, but we do live in a world of professional sports played by high-level athletes. But that doesn’t mean everyone gets to be a pro athlete.
Basically, in real life, only John Elway gets to be John Elway.
And in lieu of getting to actually be one of the greatest football guys of all time, we’ve created novel ways to live vicariously and pretend to be great football guys.
And clearly, there’s an obvious appeal to doing so. According to Wikipedia, the Madden video games have sold 130 million copies (that’s slightly more than the entire population of Japan) and have made $4 billion.
So, when your world’s equivalent of the NFL is adventuring, why wouldn’t the people who don’t get to go on real adventures create a way to adventure vicariously?
Well, that, or they’d do the opposite of what happens in the real world. In our world, mid-level office works play games where they pretend to be Elves and Wizards.
So, I guess in a world of Elves and Wizards … they’d play a game about being mid-level office workers.?
And it might go a little something like this:
[image error]
Pretty clever and stupendously insightful, right?
[image error]Quiet, you.
Photo by Robert Nagy on Pexels.com
November 26, 2020
Happy American Thanksgiving
Photo by ASHISH SHARMA on Pexels.com
To all of my American followers, fans, and miscellaneous well-wishers: Happy Thanksgiving.
To my fellow citizens of the Commonwealth and subjects of Her Majesty the Queen: Happy Thursday the 26th.
Also, you should know me well enough by now to know where I’m going with this:
November 25, 2020
Good News at Last
I finally have a slightly more solid sense of how the final edits of my next story are progressing. And it’s looking like I’ll be able to have it submitted for publication before Christmas. Unfortunately, it may not be live for purchase in time for Christmas.
So why not buy one of the other fine Realmgard stories while you’re waiting? I mean, what reason could you possibly have not to?
[image error]Yeah, man. I don’t know, either.
Photo by Robert Nagy on Pexels.com
