Sorcerer and Steam
Erik Weissengruber:
I will be using a collage exercise I have used when getting theatre productions off of the ground to get us on the same creative page for the creation of a 1-sheet.
There will be a large piece of bristol board, a pile of cut out quotes, and a pile of images. Participants will select an image and a quotation inspired by our "steampunk and sorcery" starting place. We provisionally place them, add more images and create a large collage. We then refer to it when working on colour, the rituals, PCs and NPC, etc. I don't think we need to refer to it during play, but who knows.
The images are from a variety of sources (history books, RPGs, Google).
The quotations are all taken from Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Here are some of my faves:
"He was no longer an ordinary man like me, but the Man of the Sea, the Spirit of the Waters" (367)
"May the contemplation of so many wonders extinguish in him the spirit of revenge! May the judge disappear and the scientist continue his peaceful exploration of the seas! However strange his destiny may be, it is also sublime!" (371)
" 'I am the law and justice! I am the oppressed, and there is the oppressor! It is through him I lost everything I ever loved, cherished or worshiped -- my country, wife, children, father, mother! I saw them all perish! Everything I hate is there! Now shut your mouth!' " (360)
"When we get back on land ... after seeing such wonders of nature, what will we think of those miserable continents and the tiny things produced by the hand of man? No, civilization is no longer worthy of us!" (310)
"It's magnificient, even though it makes me furious to have to admit it! I've never seen anything like it. But this sight could cost us our necks. And to be frank, I feel as if we're looking at things God didn't intend for the eyes of man!" (310)
" '[E]ven though it's impossible, let's say that Captain Nemo offered you your freedom today. Would you accept it?'
'I don't know,' I replied.
'And if he added that the offer wound never be renewed, would you accept then?'
I did not answer. " (225)
"He still felt that the commander of the Nautilus was merely one of those unrecognized scientists full of contempt for a world which has treated them with such indifference. He still thought of him as a misunderstood genius who had been deceived by life on earth and therefore taken refuge in an inaccessible region where his instincts could have free play. But to my way of thinking, this theory only explained one side of Captain Nemo." (178)
http://www.archive.org/details/CollageImagesForSorcererDemo
Erik Weissengruber:
The internet archive doesn't take photos.
Here is a link:
http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/aa253/epweissengruber/Hobbies/SorcererCollageImages/
Erik Weissengruber:
The "phantasmagorical" seems to be part of the aesthetic of the authors of 19thc. fiction and retro-Steampunk aesthetics. Some ideas to throw around.
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/esharp/issues/14winter2009imaginationandinnovation/abstracts/#d.en.138654
The aim of this article is to examine a particular type of imaginative vision, one that is specifically 'phantasmagorical' and characterised by rapidly transforming collections of imaginary and fantastic forms. The attraction of the monstrous, the grotesque and the strangely beautiful is at the heart of this phantasmagorical imagination and it produces an aesthetic based on collections of oddities and exotica. However, in different periods this aesthetic is viewed in markedly different ways. This article examines two eras with contrasting views of this same imaginative 'taste' - the eighteenth century and the fin-de-siècle. In the eighteenth century the phantasmagorical aesthetic is tied to the contemporary fashionability of curiosity. From fashionable collections of curiosities and 'curious' travel accounts there evolved an aesthetic based on wonder, peculiarity and spectacle. Contemporary accounts, though, show a tendency to criticise this aesthetic, labelling it as superficial and immoral, an attitude that can be seen clearly in satiric descriptions of collectors or curiosi such as Sir Nicholas Gimcrack in Thomas Shadwell's The Virtuoso. By contrast, fin-de-siècle writers such as Lord Dunsany, Oscar Wilde and J. K. Huysmans liberate the phantasmagorical imagination from the moral dubiousness it possessed during the eighteenth century. These writers have a propensity to celebrate their imaginative strangeness and excesses because of its obvious departure from bland normality. The phantasmagorical imagination is often depicted as an imagination that rebels against the common and the everyday and substitutes a more intense and more vital imaginative experience.
Erik Weissengruber:
Quote from: epweissengruber on July 13, 2010, 09:09:40 AM
The "phantasmagorical" seems to be part of the aesthetic of the authors of 19thc. fiction and retro-Steampunk aesthetics. Some ideas to throw around.
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/esharp/issues/14winter2009imaginationandinnovation/abstracts/#d.en.138654
The aim of this article is to examine a particular type of imaginative vision, one that is specifically 'phantasmagorical' and characterised by rapidly transforming collections of imaginary and fantastic forms. The attraction of the monstrous, the grotesque and the strangely beautiful is at the heart of this phantasmagorical imagination and it produces an aesthetic based on collections of oddities and exotica. However, in different periods this aesthetic is viewed in markedly different ways. This article examines two eras with contrasting views of this same imaginative 'taste' - the eighteenth century and the fin-de-siècle. In the eighteenth century the phantasmagorical aesthetic is tied to the contemporary fashionability of curiosity. From fashionable collections of curiosities and 'curious' travel accounts there evolved an aesthetic based on wonder, peculiarity and spectacle. Contemporary accounts, though, show a tendency to criticise this aesthetic, labelling it as superficial and immoral, an attitude that can be seen clearly in satiric descriptions of collectors or curiosi such as Sir Nicholas Gimcrack in Thomas Shadwell's The Virtuoso. By contrast, fin-de-siècle writers such as Lord Dunsany, Oscar Wilde and J. K. Huysmans liberate the phantasmagorical imagination from the moral dubiousness it possessed during the eighteenth century. These writers have a propensity to celebrate their imaginative strangeness and excesses because of its obvious departure from bland normality. The phantasmagorical imagination is often depicted as an imagination that rebels against the common and the everyday and substitutes a more intense and more vital imaginative experience.
Lessons learned
1) These things are attractive
- monsters
- the grotesque
- the strangely beautiful
2) The collection of these oddities is key to the aesthetic, not their mere appearance
3) The 20th and the 21st centuries add 2 more takes on the phantasmagoric (and I must not forget that a late-18th century Gothic is at work in later recursions)
4) The rebellion of a morally irresponsible phantasmagoric imagination against a bland normality (a gesture that Alan Moore et. al still make) loses a great deal of it's potency in a cultural environment swimming in phantasmagoria pumped out by T.V.'s, computers, portable gaming units, CGI movies, etc.)
5) Curiosity
- as personality trait
- a cabinet of curios
- curios voyages
Erik Weissengruber:
Anyone interested in the results of my little experiment can dig this Wiki
http://sorcererandsteamsetting.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Initial prep as discussed on these pages got me jazzed. And the collage elements got the participants going. But my initial ideas were subjected to some ruthless and the whole project took on a new direction. But a new direction I am happy with.
Beginning with colour really helps in the decision-making process. The following questions were all answered by players pointing to images or quotes on the collage:
- "What does sorcery look like?"
- "What's an example of someone losing humanity?"
- "Who is gaining humanity?"
- "What kind of sorcerers do we have?"
- "What kind of demons do we have?"
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