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[S/lay] Oracle of the Moon

Started by Eero Tuovinen, January 03, 2016, 10:44:12 AM

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Eero Tuovinen

Tommi came to visit again from Berlin, so we continued our S/lay w/ Me campaign for another session. It's been two years since our last session, but thorough documentation (basically, play reports here on Ron's forum) made it easy to get back into it. As this weird campaign apparently refuses to go into the gentle night in the usual way of things, I better write up documentation about this session as well in case Tommi comes back again at some point. Should probably scan the paper notes, too, in case Tommi comes knocking in 2020 or something for another round.

For the sake of context I'll note that I've played only a single session of S/lay since our last session with Tommi, I think, and Tommi hasn't played since the last time I think, so we were both starting relatively "distant" from the game in terms of recent experience. As we know, though, roleplaying is like riding the bicycle, and we were soon on top of things here.

This was the fourth session of our campaign, the second session in which I was "You" and Tommi was "I". Here are the reports from the earlier sessions, for reference:
In the Refugium (feat. Kiuru)
Fear of Death Crystallized (feat. Maru)
The Sunken City of Ys (feat. Kiuru)

The common thread that enjoins the stories of both characters is that the setting is some sort of a jumbled up pre-historical, mythical age of the Earth - basically like Howard's Hyperborea before geeks got their hands onto it and productized a fantasy setting out of it. Perhaps my single favourite element of the whole thing is the implicit juxtaposition of the two protagonists: Tommi's character, Kiuru, is a Fenno-Ugric-Celtic minstrel, while my character Maru is from the ancient Mashriq - so as the two characters travel towards "Europe", which both are doing in their own metaphorical ways, they form an allegory of sorts for the grand outline of the anthropological history of post-glacial continental colonization :D

The hero of the day was Maru, last seen in "Fear of Death Crystallized":

Quote from: MaruI am myself. I am canny, brutal, experienced. I laugh at the gods. I delight in life. My foes meet death swiftly. I am a young vagabond, defiantly following the dream of my father.

My weapon Moonsickle is singular upon this world, for she was bestowed upon me by the Moon; I am lethal in an entirely unique manner while wielding it, and such is known to all lands bordering the white desert. I am infamous as the instigator of the Crystal Troubles, even if I did not benefit of the upheaval myself.

I am small for a man, young-faced, unwashed and brazen, challenging any who dare cross my dream. I dress in ill-used linens and wear sandals, as is the way in Ur the ancient.

I didn't have any strong idea for where Maru would be heading after his last adventure, but I knew what he would want: after his dissatisfying encounter with rulership in the crystal city Maru would turn back to the issue of his patrimony - Maru's mother was a slave who claimed that he was the son of the fearsome nomad chief "Marumaru", which has been important for the boy throughout his life because of how it distinguishes him from all the other rejects and outcasts of Ur the Ancient.

Anyway, Maru headed for "The lichen-covered ruins of the Lunar Citadel", because that sounded like a likely target for the moon-touched boy-man:

Quote from: MaruAfter being rebuffed by the decrepit ways of the Crystal Court, I threw myself into raiding and patrolling among the petty towns of the Amorites, ultimately amassing several heads of cattle for my troubles. Hearing rumours of the moon-oracles of the sunless sea, I was quick to trade the cattle in for baubles, as well as passage on one of the galleys of the sea princes - I would be certain to learn the truth about my father and my destiny once at the Lunar Citadel!

Tommi imagined the Moon Citadel as a rather interesting place; namely, it exists beyond the warm and familiar seas out in the far ocean, in a region shadowed by the bulk of the Earth such that the Sun never shines upon this day-bereft place. Therein, among the black waves glinting in the light of the moon, lies the broken islet, remnant of some unspoken past, upon which juts the Lunar Citadel with its holy oracles.

As for the meat of the issue, here's what Tommi had for us:

Lover (2): Captain Nyfer is a passionate pirate queen, the self-made ruler of the sunless sea, a woman who never saw the sunlit lands. She is lonely and open-hearted, ready for the wanton love and knowledgeable in the ways of men. Nyfer is quick to judge, demanding of others and savage in her brutal calling, making her fundamentally a rather lonely person.

Monster (5): The old astrologist Lysaina inhabits the Tower of the Moon, the most intact part of the Citadel, and the purpose of its existence. As a respected anchoress trapped in the benighted tower, aware of the extent of the astral wreath yet disallowed her own life, she has become embittered towards the foibles of men; Lysaina uses the foolishness of men to lead them to their doom, vanquishing them slowly and with deceit, yet always most properly and with utmost civility towards her visitors. While Lysaina is alone apart from her servant-guardians, she occasionally plots with outside actors to make sure of the doom of her client.

So yeah, a contrast of women young and old. (Also, we've now managed to have four "monsters" in a row that are all technically human beings - I wonder what the record is...)

Looking at this in hindsight, captain Nyfer seems technically rather cookie-cut in the pirate queen tradition, but I didn't really have time to poke fun at it during actual play, because as it happened Maru struck it off very, very powerfully with her right from the start. I'd developed a certain sense of the bitter young man in the throes of an existential crisis, and the way Tommi fronted Nyfer as the most annoying foil to his angst was just the thing Maru craved, it seems - he rose to the challenge of the obnoxious pirate queen admirably, and grew as a person as a result. The two mostly spent their mutual time bitching at each other, which was quite entertaining as a social dynamic.

Incidentally, I've commented before on melancholy as a quintessentially Finnish theme that tends to crop up in our dramatic efforts a lot. I can totally see how Maru was developing towards stoic melancholy at the beginning of this session, psychologically speaking, despite my not realizing that this was what I was doing with him. Just now, writing this, I realized that Nyfer's contribution to his psycho-social situation could be interpreted as that of a manic pixie dream girl, if a particularly brutal one. I'm somewhat chastised by the realization, really, as that's one particular thematic trap that I usually consider something of a dead horse :D

The session took a bit over 4 hours altogether, which was about right in hindsight; we were aware of Tommi's travel schedule to a degree (he had a plane to catch afterwards), but I don't think either of us really had to cut our material short to any meaningful degree. The pace was leisurely and even expansive, and I have to echo my sentiments from last time we played - we've got a pretty good handle on this game at this point, I feel, in terms of storytelling.

Two observations about the narratology before I tell a bit more about the events of the story:

The goes were longer than they've tended to be before. I have no particular idea why, except that reading old play reports, we've apparently abandoned the notion of counting dialogue as a back-and-forth of goes - instead the given player's go would constitute something almost similar to a theatrical scene. One player would introduce a complication, and the other would resolve it plus declare further direction of play before passing the go back. This trend wouldn't work if we hadn't improved in our mutual communication compared to our starting point in earlier sessions - as we've communicating better, it's more feasible to have the turns be pretty long without having the back-and-forth disassociate into mere conch-passing storytelling.

I was particularly happy with how much adventure story material we incorporated in the storytelling this time around; usually I've felt that my play of S/lay has been somewhat biased towards psychological storytelling and fantastic imagery, while action imagery has taken second place. This time around we had plenty of dynamic fight choreography and such, which makes for a much more "authentic" pulp fantasy offering. I might say that instead of a late-'80s Moorcock muddle what we did here was basically Howardian in terms of how the "pulse-pounding action" paces the story and provides atmosphere. (And yes, I'm still amused by how BĂȘlit-like the Lover was - I guess you don't need to read Howard to do pirate queens.)

Insofar as the story goes, we opened on the sunless sea, on the galley of the sea prince Kariman, who was bringing merchandise to the forlorn Moon Citadel; Maru was there as a passenger (and occasional oars-man, despite his scrawny stature). The pirates attacked the ship as it neared the Citadel, rousing Maru out of his expectant brooding over his patrimony. The sea-bred sailors proved hesitant to oppose the pirates, but Maru instigated in them a fighting spirit, leading to a merry chase and ferocious banter with the pirates and their fearsome captain Nyfer.

Maru proved himself a dangerous man despite the dim gloom to which the pirates were well accustomed; his bizarre weapon Moonsickle took a heavy toll in the near-darkness of the constant moon-light, being almost impossible to see in its uncanny movements. The sailors of the sea prince were made of lesser stuff, however, and the pirate queen was merciless and bold in pressing them with threats and cajoling. Maru ultimately abandoned ship, disgusted with the cowards and somewhat knife-bitten and just the teeny bit desperate, as he jumped overboard to try and swim to the shore.

This was all introductory, by the way - he Match only started afterwards.

On the islet itself Maru discovered the gloomy Moon Citadel in its grey, mossy and mushroomy setting. Surprisingly the denizens were relatively friendly and commiserant over Maru's difficulties. Their habit was that of moon-people, with helms and arms remindful of the pale mistress, so naturally Moonsickle drew some attention among these people. Despite Maru having lost the votary gifts to the pirates, the locals encouraged him to go meet with the oracle, who would surely be interested in meeting such an extraordinary outsider.

The tower of the oracle proved to be an impressive edifice with no entrance whatsoever, the only window up so high that the only way to engage with it was to climb a second tower set well apart; from thence a supplicant could converse with the holy and segregated sky oracle window-to-window, learning all answers from the ever-captive priestess. Maru was game for this sort of thing, and he was well impressed by the buffoonery involved in addressing the oracle. It developed that Lysaina, the oracle, promised to help him discover his patrimony, yet she could not do this unless he would bring her a magical pearl from the dark lagoon in front of the fortress.

This was of course the first move of the monster - Maru was completely sold on the mystic demands, and constantly apologetic about losing his votary gifts to the pirates, so as far as he was concerned he was completely clueless about the plot being sewn against him.

This interaction with Lysaina set the pattern for the rest of the story: Maru would haplessly quest for her, ending up in peril, while she stringed him along with promises of learning the hidden wisdom of the stars. Maru barely survived a shark attack (ah, classic pulp fantasy imagery) while fetching the pearls, and he was thoroughly discombobulated by the poisonous spiders in the cave of the Moonshroom the oracle demanded of him next. The dwellers of the Citadel were impressed by Maru's heroism, but it was pretty clear that he was trodding on a path to his doom.

As it happened, other forces were in action beyond Maru's ken: the moon oracle had contracted Nyfer's pirates to entrap the dangerous foreigner while he was on his tasks for the moon tower - yet Nyfer, acting upon her own volition, faced and tested the hapless Maru, and ultimately saved him from the poisonous spiders; it was pretty clear that Nyfer was rather despairing and frustrated by the lack of boldness (willingness to step outside societal norms, to be exact) in the men of her world, so this all hinged on the complex impression Maru gave her in their encounters.

As Nyfer's mind turned favourable to Maru, she decided to recruit him for the heist of her true desire, the looting of the Moon Tower; she was quite vitriolic towards the old woman-spider nesting therein, and the way she twisted the peoples of the sunless archipelago around her fingers. Maru was quite enthusiastic about this coup once Nyfer revealed to him that the oracle had been plotting his demise all along, paying Nyfer herself in gold to set lethal obstacles in his way. (Characteristic of the one-upmanship in their relationship, Maru wasn't particularly perturbed by this.)

The Climax: Maru returned to the Moon Tower seemingly triumphant, yet hiding a rope and a grappling hook that he planned to use in scaling the tower. Meanwhile the pirates would assault the tower's hidden entrance outside the citadel, the means by which the denizens effected escape as mood took them. The dice had, as usual, been kind to me, so Maru had two picks plus triumph for his goal (seeking his patrimony) to achieve. My choices were for safety from injury and to ensure that the pirates would also survive the heist uninjured. Not much pressure in choosing here, really, as the Moon oracle cult hadn't raised my ire particularly, and therefore it was an easy choice to allow them to survive the climax without major damage.

As an interesting detail in the climax narration, as Maru successfully surprised the effeminate tower-denizens and threatened the old Lysaina with bodily harm to force her to disgorge her secrets - as he was just about to hear what the oracle truly knew beyond vague hints and theatrics, Maru managed to actually close his ears to the actual truth. It was a pretty intricate scene having to do with earlier discussions with Nyfer, Maru's own fears of revelation and the bitter, spiteful things Lysaina said about him; the outcome was that Maru decided on the brink of revelation to abandon the oracle to her shame, storming out of the room in mid-sentence, just as Tommi was about to drop his big reveal about Maru's parentage and whatnot. Maru had apparently achieved the classic existential awakening, the realization that his patrimony matters not for someone willing to make what they will of their own life :D

As the story had developed in such classical pulp adventure lines so far, it wasn't surprising that the pirates caused havoc in the tower and discovered quite satisfying treasures on the way. Maru had no difficulty joining the pirates in escaping the looted tower now that he had cast aside his pretensions of great birth and destiny. As the adventure log would have it in the post-game phase, as per the back-handed success of my Goal:

Quote from: MaruAfter our triumph over the decrepit scholars of the Moon Citadel, word of my notoriety spread among the seafaring peoples, for the fabled treasures of the moon oracles now filled the holds of Nyfer's sailing ships.

Ironically the events that helped Maru come to a peace with himself would also cast Nyfer and her pirates adrift on the seas of fate: as a parochial denizen of the sunless archipelago, time would tell whether she could adapt to the necessity of escaping to the sunlit lands after this great heist, leaving behind everything she knew. Lands with true colours and sharp daylight that hides not lies nor blemishes, how would she adapt to that?

Ron Edwards

I don't think you get more Howardian than this. It's like a cross between Valley of the Worm with Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood. I also think the game is doing exactly what I wanted as the designer, to see the grim iron-grey melancholy get lit up by romantic frenzy, however embarrassing in retrospect.

You're right about the human monsters. It's a neat trend, although I hope you don't force it (for or against) in later play.

Tommi Horttana

Are monsters usually, well, monsters?

It feels very natural to me to make the antagonists humans. I guess they could be some kind of thinking non-humans too but I haven't really seen any need for that.

Ron Edwards

Hi Tommi,

There's no guidance in the rulebook for how to conceive of monsters, so however you do it is exactly what you should do. I've seen plenty of "monstrous humans" of the kind that you and Eero are using, but I've seen lots of others too. My own monsters tend to be a bit surreal and cover a wide range of concepts, but I really like the approach you're taking.

I think the most important principle, for others reading this, is to stay in the moment for every adventure and not try to make any agreements about this or any other issue.