Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 5

Remedial Ravenloft: Barovia

TL;DR Version - Hammer Horror.  Hammer Horror.  Specifically, The Horror of Dracula (1958) done up in D&D.

The Land - Spooky mountains with deep narrow valleys, dark forests full of wolves and bats.  Fast flowing, dark, cold rivers with frequent cascading waterfalls.  Dark caves behind every. Single. Waterfall.  Random crypts and ruins and very... thickly settled cemeteries which could not possibly be supported by the tiny, huddling villages between them.  If you are looking for a place that screams "landscaped by a vampire," well, congratulations.  Nights seem especially long here, and the moon seems not to stay up as long as it should.

The People - The product of a couple of generations of brutal war followed by a couple more of serious vampiric depredations.  Barovians have figured out the best way not to get fed on by a vampire is to act like you were just fed on by a vampire.  These are some grim and gloomy people, son, suspcious and superstitious as a 70's rock song.  Physically, they range from medium to light brown skin, dark straight hair, dark eyes and stocky builds.  They aren't very religious, though the church of Ezra (a.k.a. Ravenloft's ineffectual Christ analog) and the cult of the Morninglord have some adherents.  People speak Holló or Corb.  The Corb-speaking folks are mostly recently conquered Gundarakites, who get a lot of shit from the Holló-speaking majority.  Kacia traveling people are a sizable minority with relatively good treatment and protection from the count, which leads most other Barovians to believe that they are in cahoots with the count directly.

The Boring Stuff - The government is run by largely autonomous but high-attrition-rate suffering boyars and local mayors, all of whom serve the very distant, light-handed Count.  There's a small militia that the boyars maintain, but most of the apparent defense of the country is left to it's remote and rugged terrain, the adventuring clans that the Count has on his payroll and ALL THE MOTHERFUCKING VAMPIRES also skeletons.  Like everyone who dies in Barovia gets to serve in the skeleton legion, which Strahd has stashed here and there in the nation.  Barovia is kind of remote and fairly self-suficient.  The only thing it has enough of to export is bad booze and children of the night, the latter of which the Count is happy to export any time his neighbors annoy him.

What is a Man?  A Miserable Pile of Secrets! - Barovia was a little county in a little kingdom that had the distinction of being where the invading army of a much larger power decided to start their invasion.  Strahd, the heir to the county, was a young man and a warrior who fought and led soldiers against the invaders.  Then he was a slightly less young man.  Then less young, still.  And the invaders were still around.  Then some asshole left their grimoires of necromancy around for not-exactly-young Strahd to find.  Turns out that Strahd had the makings of a really good necromancer, and he gladly used every weapon at his disposal to repel the invaders.  It took him 30 years and it used him up, body and soul.

In the meantime, his 30 years younger, scholarly brother had met a lady.  His name was Sergei, hers was Tatyana, and to Strahd, they were the most important people in his world.  But neither of them could relate to him, who'd seen (and perpetrated - all in the name of the greater good, of course) so many horrors of war and the soul for so long.  He was also jealous of them being everything that he could have been, but for the war, and, if he was being honest with himself, kind of hot for Tatyana himself.  Strahd was used to finding solutions to his problems, and one of the places he liked to look was his captured grimoires.  He found something that he thought was going to restore his youth and vigor, but you know how well looking in necromantic grimoires for any nice things works out.  They are the reason we can't have them.  Well, they are the reason theat Barovia can't have nice things.  He tried this out on the eve of Sergei and Tatyana's wedding, because dramatic timing.  Thing was, it seemed to work, and Strahd went to his sister-in-law to be to tell her about it.  In doing so, he might have said some inappropriate things that upset her (being apparently much younger, red eyed and cold to the touch might have had something to do with it, too).  She mentioned this to Sergei, the next day before the wedding and so he went to confront his brother about the whole thing.

And Strahd learned that vampires have to drink blood.  And we all learned that some asshole bribed the wedding band to add "The Rains of Castamere" to the set list and a full crossbow section.  This asshole will become important in someone else's story, later, but for now, let's just say the wedding was sufficiently red.  Strahd had already eaten Sergei and Tatyana fell off the battlements of the mountain castle into the mists below, and Strahd either ate or did not eat the rest of the guests, servants and murder minstrels.  And then the mists cleared, and his castle was in slightly more rustic surroundings, a smaller, darker county, but it was Barovia so he still rules it.

The Darklord Could Be... Okay, it is Strahd Motherfucking Zarovich, King of the Motherfucking Vampires.  There are other domains where the ruler and Ruler aren't quite so obvious (and that's pretty much all of them), but to the extent that scholars get things right about the nature of the world they inhabit, it's based on information about Barovia and Strahd.  Strahd rules Barovia as its count, and Strahd is a motherfucking vampire.  Sure, there has been an unending line of confirmed bachelors mysteriously siring saturnine, yet compelling men who look exaclty like their father and take the county in their early 40s.  Certainly.  Strahd is distilled Christopher Lee as Dracula, menacing, magnetic and carnal.  He stalks, he broods, he raises the skeleton out of every poor bastard who dies in his county and turns pretty young people to the night at a kind of alarming rate.  It's worth noting that Strahd might be one of the most adept Darklords, when it comes to using his authority over his Domain, and is very aware of most of the things that happen, and is very good at manipulating the environment.

Why You Won't Be Rolling up to Castle Ravenloft to Shove a Stake so Far up Strahd's Ass, His Breath Smells Permanently of Splinters Any Time Soon - First of all, Strahd is  good to adventurers.  Seriously.  He has several clans on his payroll and he treats them pretty well.  Adventurers have a weird sort of legal protection in Barovia (and though it comes with a cost, there are enough native Barovians around who will obviously want to slit your throat that it starts feeling like a good idea to avail yourself to his hospitality).  A handful of these clans are pretty loyal to the Count himself, and will be paying attention to your movements when you come into his domain.  Second, Castle Ravenloft is... well, when Strahd lost his soul, it was the soul of an engineer.  A vampire needs very little space to brood and perform necromancy, so the rest of the castle has been transformed into a place where adventurers go to die, and then get ressurrected into the Count's skeletal army.  Third, is an estimated 650 vampires.  They are Strahd's progeny, sleeping in their crypts and hiding places because Strahd wills it.  If something were to happen to him, he wouldn't be able to will them to sleep.  650 vampires is a lot of vampires for a county of scarcely 30000.  Just saying.

Locking You In - When Strahd wants Barovia closed, Mist appears at the borders which turns you around and puts you back in the central region of the domain, usually near where the big gate is on the Old Svalich Road. Strahd can open and shut that gate at will, and will usually do so, just to fuck with you.

Momentarily Breaking the Silence for those Breaking their Fast

Eid mubarak, for those celebrating.

Anybody want a Reading?

Card reading, that is.
Online over Gchat/G+
Hangouts optional.
10 card spread: $20.
Your choice of 3 decks:
James R Eads
Light Grey Art Labs
DC Vertigo Tarot
Contact me:
e.amundsen@gmail.com

If not Myself, who can I Indulge?

Okay, so.  Spring!  It is spring, and I am going to try my damnedest to shake off winter sloth.  Winter sloths!  I imagine they would be adorable.  I want one.  No.  Stay on track.  Nope!  Not staying on track, don't care as long as my fingers are actually touching keys and making words.

What have I done since the end of January, when last I posted?  Fuck all.  I wrote nothing.  I did nothing.  I rode a little on a stationary recumbent in the back of my office with Animal Crossing to distract me from the fact that I was exercising.  I worked at work.  A lot.  Not having a manager makes for a lot more administrative work and busybodying into everyone else's stuff, which, fortunately, everyone is being very patient with that part.  I cannot wait for someone to take the job (it won't be me, they want a developer, which I am emphatically not).  There, we're up to speed.

I watched a lot of TV.  I'm current with Hannibal, which is glorious and terrifying.  I watched all of Pushing Daisies which was also glorious, though totally different (despite being the same showrunner) .  I watched a lot of Teen Wolf.  I fired Supernatural for it's utter sucking this season, and I think that's going to stick.  Unlike LOST, I don't hate Supernatural, but I think we should see other people.  I wish it well, really (it was the ghostfacers episode, which I found so clumsy and ham handed that I could no longer deal.)

Caught some of Dracula, which was... It was interesting.  Interesting.

I amuse my brain, mostly, by coming up with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-like assemblages of characters from the recent shows I like.  And because I have very little of use in my head right now, I'm going to share my lineup with you:

Will Graham (Hugh Dancey) Hannibal (2013-2014)
Annie Sawyer (Lenora Critchlow) Being Human (UK) (2008-2013)
Ned the Pie Maker (Lee Pace) Pushing Daisies (2007-2009)
Dean Fuck Mothering Winchester (Jensen Ackles) Super Fuck Mothering Natural (2005-2014)
Alison Argent (Crystal Reed) Teen Wolf (2011-2014) [Yeah, I know, Spoiler Spoiler]
Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) Elementary (2012-2014) [Haven't gotten to watching much of this yet, but I like Lucy Liu in this [and just about everything I have seen her in], and I want to underline the fact that BBC Sherlock is right out in this shared universe-in-my-fandoms).

Yes, all of this came from Dean Winchester stopping at the Pie Hole.  Because he would.

Which leads me to my weird relationship with Sherlock.  When I am watching it, I love it (it helps that I managed to miss the crappy episodes, apparently), but the rest of the time, I hate it.  I think Martin Freeman is obnoxious, and I am one of those dead-ender Trekkies who hates Englebert Humperdinck for being cast as Kahn (also, he comes off as a twit most of the time he's not in character and well, I have a Tumblr, so I see far too much of his face [like once for every 7 Tom Hiddlestons, TBH, but I don't mind Tom Hiddleston].  Also, he has a silly British name that I like to make fun of, apparently, because I am very mature.

So here we are writing things in a world where Fred Phelps is not but Lucius Shepard is also not, and well, there we are.

How to resist tyranny, exhibit no. 1 (via asakiyume again)

Originally posted by asakiyume at How to resist tyranny, exhibit no. 1





Pete Seeger before the House Committee on Un-American Affairs, August 18, 1955 (Thanks to wakanomori for this)

MR. TAVENNER: The Committee has information obtained in part from the Daily Worker indicating that, over a period of time, especially since December of 1945, you took part in numerous entertainment features. I have before me a photostatic copy of the June 20, 1947, issue of the Daily Worker. In a column entitled "What's On" appears this advertisement: "Tonight-Bronx, hear Peter Seeger and his guitar, at Allerton Section housewarming." May I ask you whether or not the Allerton Section was a section of the Communist Party?

MR. SEEGER: Sir, I refuse to answer that question whether it was a quote from the New York Times or the Vegetarian Journal.

MR. TAVENNER: I don't believe there is any more authoritative document in regard to the Communist Party than its official organ, the Daily Worker.

MR. SCHERER: He hasn't answered the question, and he merely said he wouldn't answer whether the article appeared in the New York Times or some other magazine. I ask you to direct the witness to answer the question.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: I direct you to answer.

MR. SEEGER: Sir, the whole line of questioning-

CHAIRMAN WALTER: You have only been asked one question, so far.

MR. SEEGER: I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.

. . .

MR. TAVENNER: I have before me a photostatic copy of the April 30, 1948, issue of the Daily Worker which carries under the same title of "What's On," an advertisement of a "May Day Rally: For Peace, Security and Democracy." The advertisement states: "Are you in a fighting mood? Then attend the May Day rally." Expert speakers are stated to be slated for the program, and then follows a statement, "Entertainment by Pete Seeger." At the bottom appears this: "Auspices Essex County Communist Party," and at the top, "Tonight, Newark, N.J." Did you lend your talent to the Essex County Communist Party on the occasion indicated by this article from the Daily Worker?

MR. SEEGER: Mr. Walter, I believe I have already answered this question, and the same answer.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: The same answer. In other words, you mean that you decline to answer because of the reasons stated before?

MR. SEEGER: I gave my answer, sir.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: What is your answer?

MR. SEEGER: You see, sir, I feel-

CHAIRMAN WALTER: What is your answer?

MR. SEEGER: I will tell you what my answer is.

(Witness consulted with counsel [Paul L. Ross].)

I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, or yours, Mr. Willis, or yours, Mr. Scherer, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I love my country very deeply, sir.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: Why don't you make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions?

MR. SEEGER: I feel that my whole life is a contribution. That is why I would like to tell you about it.

. . .

MR. TAVENNER: Did you hear Mr. George Hall's testimony yesterday in which he stated that, as an actor, the special contribution that he was expected to make to the Communist Party was to use his talents by entertaining at Communist Party functions? Did you hear that testimony?

MR. SEEGER: I didn't hear it, no.

MR. TAVENNER: It is a fact that he so testified. I want to know whether or not you were engaged in a similar type of service to the Communist Party in entertaining at these features.

(Witness consulted with counsel.)

MR. SEEGER: I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody. That is the only answer I can give along that line.

. . .

MR. SEEGER: Would you repeat the question? I don't even know what the last question was, and I thought I have answered all of them up to now.

MR. TAVENNER: What you stated was not in response to the question.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: Proceed with the questioning, Mr. Tavenner.

MR. TAVENNER: I believe, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I will have the question read to him. I think it should be put in exactly the same form.

(Whereupon the reporter read the pending question as above recorded.)

MR. SEEGER: "These features": what do you mean? Except for the answer I have already given you, I have no answer. The answer I gave you you have, don't you? That is, that I am proud that I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I have never refused to sing for anybody because I disagreed with their political opinion, and I am proud of the fact that my songs seem to cut across and find perhaps a unifying thing, basic humanity,and that is why I would love to be able to tell you about these songs, because I feel that you would agree with me more, sir. I know many beautiful songs from your home county, Carbon, and Monroe, and I hitchhiked through there and stayed in the homes of miners.

. . .

MR. TAVENNER: I hand you a photograph which was taken of the May Day parade in New York City in 1952, which shows the front rank of a group of individuals, and one is in a uniform with military cap and insignia, and carrying a placard entitled CENSORED. Will you examine it please and state whether or not that is a photograph of you?

(A document was handed to the witness.)

MR. SEEGER: It is like Jesus Christ when asked by Pontius Pilate, "Are you king of the Jews?"

CHAIRMAN WALTER: Stop that.

MR. SEEGER: Let someone else identify that picture.

MR. SCHERER: I ask that he be directed to answer the question.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: I direct you to answer the question.

MR. SEEGER: Do I identify this photograph?

CHAIRMAN WALTER: Yes.

MR. SEEGER: I say let someone else identify it.
Because Pete Seeger didn't take the fifth, he was found guilty of contempt for failing to answer the committee's questions and sentenced to a year in prison--a conviction that was overturned on appeal.

Source: peteseeger.net


asakiyume

Pete Seeger (via asakiyume)

Originally posted by asakiyume at Pete SeegerI'll miss you, Pete. Yours is one of the first singing voices I ever heard, and you were an all-around hero. Waving at you. I'll remember you. I'll be singing your songs.

Are you there Fun With Rope panel? It's me, Margaret.

So I have returned from Arisia with many things undone, a brain on fire and a body that needs another 19 hours of sleep, at least two hot showers and a mix of caffeine, exercise and heaven knows what else to be right.  At some point, soon, I will try mightily to fix some of the things I got in my head over the weekend, perhaps organize some of them, maybe even turn something into a Real Writing Project, but for now, snippets.

Parameters for the epic fantasy I want
1) No prophecies.  At all.  The protagonist isn't the only one who could do the thing, but one of the only ones (or one of the first, or just one) who did do the thing.
2) Where action doesn't have to be violent, but violence has to be emotionally processed, at some point.
3) Where the dead get mourned and are missed.
4) Aside from the stuff that should be obvious and that I've talked about before.


Things to pitch for Readercon (So I remember)
When Poets write Prose and Vice Versa - the actual panel was a blast, but from the point of view of the con, and the point of view of my plans, it did kind of wither on the vine (scheduled opposite the masquerade, the end of the dinner time block, on Sunday = no audience).  I think Readercon is a better place for that discussion than Arisia, but I am glad I got a chance to be part of it here.

Interactivity in Fiction - this was an unqualified success, I thought, and I was almost sad I wasn't in the audience for it, because there was more to learn than I could note down.  I think, at Readercon, we could do the other side of that one and get the more literary focus, perhaps have a person or two who know more about fanfic.  That said, being able to talk with a lot of smart people from the text-game side of things was excellent, and thank you so much shadesong , for putting that group together.

Plot Bunny Swap Meet - "Tell Me a Story I Couldn't Tell Myself" was a bit of an experiment, and if it gets a story about the Drowning of the Doves out of sovay , or any of the other challenges thrown at her or nineweaving , then it's going to have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.  Asking afterward about interest in the possibility to just meet and swap plot bunnies met with a really positive response, too, which was what I had originally in mind for the panel (later self-censored to what it was because I thought that just swapping plot bunnies was kind of self-indulgent and that everyone else would think so).  I think I might pitch this as a boardroom activity.  I wouldn't call it a workshop, since I don't really have any value to add (other than being awesome, clearly, but y'know).  On the other hand, there might be more to this than I thought. I just thought about the activity where they take a bunch of art supplies and a group and make a game in a set time.  Plot bunny chocobo breeding?  Hm...

Why horror poetry isn't that scary.
At least for me; I think I figured this one out.  I go to poetry expecting to feel changed, to get messed with.  I want to feel the itch and prick of feathers as the push through my skin in all the wrong directions.  I come to poetry like a cenobite to hell.  Also, I noticed that in setting out to write a scary poem (based on something teenybuffalo said), that the result (still in very first draft) isn't any scarier than my other work.  That's a thing.  Hopefully a draft will be available to show to people soon.

Arisia Schedule!

I AM MODDING ALL THE THINGS


424



Interactivity in Fiction
Faneuil
Literature
Sun 10:00 AM
01:15



Description Fiction has never been a static experience, but we've recently gained whole new vocabulary for talking about its interactive aspects, and a generation of readers are coming of age who have never not known explicitly interaction-centered entertainment in addition to more traditional fiction. What are some of the techniques creators in other media are using to put more and better narrative into their interactive works and what, if anything, can authors learn from their attempts and techniques?





461



Tell Me a Story (I Couldn't Tell Myself)
Faneuil
Literature
Sun 1:00 PM
01:15



Description Authors sometimes say that they started writing because they were looking for a story to read that they couldn't find. What happens when you can't find the story elsewhere and you can't make it either? What fragments do you have sitting around, ideas you wish someone would write for you and plot bunnies that plain up and died on you? Have you ever found something you wanted in a story in other media?






596



Spirituality in Fantasy and Science Fiction
Faneuil
Literature
Sun 5:30 PM
01:15



Description *The Chronicles of Narnia* are famous for, among other things, incorporating many of C.S. Lewis's Christian beliefs. But did it inspire its readers to be more religious? Are there fans of fantasy and science fiction who look to their favorite works in times of crisis or to inspire their faith (or, possibly, lack there of)? What works of literature have people in fandom, whether Christian, Wiccan, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic, or none (or all) of the above, found formative to their beliefs?







429



Found Families in Speculative Fiction
Faneuil
Literature
Sun 7:00 PM
01:15



Description A lot of fans find a home/family in fandom. Found families are also a common theme in specific, both written and in TV shows such as Farscape and Star Trek. What narrative and thematic purposes can found families serve? How does this trope resonate with other themes present in speculative fiction?






395



When Poets Write Prose and Vice Versa
Faneuil
Literature
Sun 8:30 PM
01:15



Description Writers often define themselves by their predominant mode of expression. Venturing beyond these favored boundaries is, for some of us, a rare occurrence; when a poet writes the occasional short story or a prose-writer the occasional poem, they may feel somewhat out of their depth when presenting the piece or preparing it for submission. In this panel, we'd like to discuss the experience of writing outside our comfort zones and how it serves to shape our experiences, development, and perception.

cucumberseed @ 2014-01-10T13:10:00

It's suddenly snowing very hard.  Huge flakes, falling quickly, renewing the shine on what's already fallen, creeping toward the eaves.  I am on the roof, and 3 floors down, I am frozen stiff and solid in my bed.

I'm finding it easy to balance, here; every so often I remember a riddle about a rooster at the very ridge line of the roof, laying an egg.  Which way does it fall?  I've remembered this a few times.  How many?  I can't say.  I am running out of memory.

When I look at the sky I think it must be dawn.  I keep doing this, and sometimes I remember I am looking southwest, and that the red in the sky doesn't seem to change, ever, it just filters into pink to white to blue to indigo.  None of these were my favorite color, but they are my favorite combination.

That's all I have for now.  Maybe there's more to this.

Stone Telling 10 cover and lineup!

Originally posted by shweta_narayan at Stone Telling 10 cover and lineup!Originally posted by rose_lemberg at Stone Telling 10 cover and lineup!Better late than never! After many delays, we are ready to post the cover and announce the lineup for Stone Telling 10. It is a double issue and a thing of great power.



Order of poems is subject to change!

Song - JT Stewart
Rep/ercussions (Carmina): Reflections on Obsession and Compulsion - Brittany Warman ( briarspell )
Turning to Stone - Ada Hoffmann ( ada_hoffmann )
His scent - Cindy Velasquez
For T. - Kelly Rose Pflug-Back
The Honey Times - Cathy Bryant
Long-Ear - Sofia Samatar
The Nerve Harp - Mat Joiner ( ashlyme )
Good Enough - Emily Jiang ( emily_jiang )
The City Inside Her - Sandi Leibowitz

Trance for Insomniacs - JC Runolfson ( seajules )
Trepanation - Alyza Taguilaso
A Bulgakov Headache - Sonya Taaffe ( sovay )
Teratoma Lullaby - Lisa M. Bradley ( cafenowhere )

Train in my veins - Dominik Parisien ( domparisien )
That Thief, Melancholy - Kathrin Köhler
Brother - Jaymee Goh ( fantasyecho )
Twin Sorrows - Vincen Gregory Y. Yu
Outside-in / Catalytic Exteriorization - Bogi Takács ( prezzey )
Bowl - Alex Dally MacFarlane ( alankria )
#003 - Hilda Weaver, Kristin Koester, Nicci Mechler, & Wendy Creekmore
Misery Is Not a Virtue - Malisha Dewalt
And I'll Dance With You Yet, My Darling - C.S.E Cooney ( csecooney )