Ata's Tale: Worldbuilding For Wargaming Part 1

 Aristophanes had loved me.  I was young and callow then and couldn't see his forbearance or the subtle esteem he held in my small accomplishments.  He, the greatest practitioner of a greater age lost.  The prefects had found me kindling detritus in Serrid's low quarter with my first reedy proto song and nearly consigned me to the flame but, He had intervened and  I entered into his tutelage.  Old Ari was a peerless teacher.  He loved knowledge, living for the moment of wonder in a pupil's eye.  Yet, there was always a caution. The gift was a devil's bargain, trucking in power beyond the pale, and we the practitioners were moths to an otherworldly flame.  I was nearly a man grown, or so I had thought when he cast me out and sent me to the harbour.  

Long had the shadow of the Pale Host loomed but the most outlandish tales were nothing in the face of the terrible truth.  A writhing, wall of flesh on the horizon for as far as the eye could see.  A refugee I watched from the taffrail as the practitioners bought our passage with the art and their lives.  Every miracle in our defence consigned another magician to memory.  Leviathan swords of flame and hungry spears of light burned thousands but, they were without number.  Perhaps it was Aristophanes himself who had undertaken that last great working.  Resigned to the fate or aggrieved by loss was he willing to pay any price?  I swear the walls of reality groaned in protest as a solitary incandescent light bloomed to envelope Everything.  When vision returned, my eyes still watered from the reek of sulphur.  From the foothills, through the gates of Serrid, Fulcrum of the World, to the edge to the last ships diminishing wake.  All was rough albaster, a vast plain of salt marked the grave of the the World that Was.       

Old maps with cool pics suck me into this sort of thing.

I've been thinking a lot recently about wargaming campaigns and as a consequence have revisited world building.  It's more an activity I associated with roleplaying but up to this point I had been satisfied gaming in worlds of other peoples invention.  I'm not saying that I can do better than the creators whose work I already enjoy but, I'm hoping to enjoy an exercise in storytelling I haven't partaken in quite some time.  The story fragment I opened the article with is an amalgam of the story seeds I've plundered to use as a basis for my world building project.  Narratives are what draw me to hobby.  When I paint miniatures, I'm creating characters, when I play games with them I am telling their stories.  Creating a campaign or world setting is an extension of the same passion. 

Tony Bath at play in his Hyperborean Campaign.

What got me thinking about this was reading Tony Bath's Setting Up a Wargames Campaign.  The book was written in 1973 and lays out his ideas for organizing a wargame campaign in preferably, a fictional world.  His hypothesis is that in an imaginary world wargamers have the most latitude in building and enjoying their imaginary wars.   He describes this as the most desirous scenario as recreations of historical, and quasi historical reinterpretations have more rigid parameters and I couldn't agree more.  I think the best argument he makes is the promise of an organic world shaped by actions on the tabletop which inevitably take on lives of their own as legacies of these rivalries forge a mythical history.  Bath adopted Robert E Howard's Hyperborea for his gaming groups campaigns but spoiled by a deluge of talented writers I found myself in the enviable position of not being able to choose just one.  This isn't to say there were no other great fantasy writers at the time.  Bath suggests a variety of authors a perspective campaigner might build their world around.  It seems he was just more decisive.  While I find some of the processes too mechanical and dated as a result his ideas themselves are brilliant and provide food for thought for a prospective campaign builder.

A scattered blueprint and the consequence of hoarding.

I'm in the process of shaking the dust from my old campaign world.  While I never got around to playing there (Can you see a pattern?) it occupies a stash of papers and notebooks that have continued to grow over the years.  While there have been name changes and revisions brought on by exposure to external sources the "big ideas" have remained largely consistent.  At this point in the world building it's really a matter of examining the, "big ideas" that will set the tone of the fantasy setting.  I find it helpful to establish some style guidelines for myself that will remain (mostly) consistent throughout the project.  My choices aren't better than the others but whatever style your world has coherent elements will keep it believable regardless of how fantastic it might be.

This woodcut's summoning might depict the limits of low fantasy magic.

Low Fantasy:  I have always preferred low magic in my fantasy settings.  There is a place for magic in fantasy yet, it shouldn't threaten to completely overwhelm the mundane elements in the world.  In RPGs magic that allowed players to ignore significant consequences of their actions or circumvent reasonable challenges frustrated me.  In a wargaming context high magic is potentially the contemporary weapon of mass destruction that invalidates armies.  With these in mind I played around with the concept of aberration.  The basic premise is that the working of magic while fantastic is governed by laws of quasi science.  The further a magical event deviates from natural law the greater the risk of some consequence.  The proverbial, "For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction".  In Ata's tale his first use of magic was burning garbage to stay warm.  An untrained magician was cause for concern to the prefects but, the act itself was of minor consequence.  Conversely the practitioners attempting to defend Serrid from the Pale Host result in a paradox of cataclysmic proportion.  For the time being this is an abstraction but I'm curious how rules of magic in wargaming  might represent this.  It would be interesting to have "safe" magic then the possibility of more dangerous forms that might reward, or horribly punish the bold.       

Real world history as a basis for a fantasy setting.

Historical:  Historical events have resonance.  Using them as, and as a basis for events in a fantasy setting serve me two purposes.  Precedent is a powerful tool in law and storytelling.  Joseph Campbell wrote of the monomyth that permeates most civilizations.  The primal tales that live in all of humanity's dreams regardless of colour or creed.  I'd add to myth the weight of historical events from ancient to current.  Introducing these elements to works of fiction gives them life and a sense of realism that strengthen the imaginary setting.  Serrid, Fulcrum of the world could be Rome sacked by the barbarians and ushering in the Dark Ages, or Byzantium falling to the Ottomans.  I've adopted these events before intending to adapt them to the Frostgrave setting.  While Ptolomea will be Serrid this time around I still like oligarchical Anshur, and it might still make an appearance.  In the case of Serrid her apocalyptic ending by magical forces also echoes the biblical ending of Sodom and Gomorrah.   

Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean were a conflux of diverse cultures.

European:  There has been a great deal of criticism by fantasy pundits for utilizing this particular trope.  The world would be a better place if more stories were set in magical North or South America.  These criticisms are typically levelled at worlds specifically enframed in a Western Eurocentric context.  When viewing greater Europe I think it one of the best models for a fantastic world because it a tapestry of diverse cultures that extends well beyond white knights.  For what it was worth my education was primarily in Western European history and literature.  If I were to build a setting around South America it would be with trepidation.  My ignorance would be more likely to produce an offensive, stereotypical contrivance.  I feel that Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean are an excellent model for a fantasy world.  This Cosmopolitan region was a center of trade routes extending across Europe, Asia and Africa.  At the time there was no crossroads of culture to rival it. 

Fantastical races in woodcuts were figures of wonder and mystery.

Elves, Dwarves and Others:  One of the major decisions surrounding this campaign was the inclusion of fantastic elements.  Right up there with the presence of magic were the other races including the atypical friends of man and monsters from goblins to dragons.  In roleplaying games my preference for their inclusion is as near to the their roots in folklore as possible in keeping with a low fantasy feel.  When kingdoms of men so readily opposed each other it seemed strange, "others" like elves and dwarves would so readily homogenize into human cultures.  Likely because they were attractive human or short ones that liked gold a little too much.  Last month in The Grave Digger's Boy I shared my interpretations and inspirations for my take on elves.  In all cases I feel there is a need to remove fantastic races from the influence of humanity.  The distinctiveness of their character, their alien qualities are what made them lasting figures in folklore.

More intimidating than any other blank page

This constitutes my "style book" for the setting.  I hope to revisit the subject in a series of articles examining possible game systems, campaign and magical mechanics.  Even if I don't settle to the task of rules creation I still intend to chip away at detailing the world examining cartography, cultures, and supernatural phenomena.  This article is even more of an odd duck than many I have posted to the blog so I'd be very interested in hearing what readers make of it.