LeCraft: Species - On Variety

I'm going to start publishing my design notes for the different sapient species, but rather than have the appearance of each creature be definite, instead I want to keep a variety of imaginative descriptions that allow each player or games runner to effectively create the species as they see fit.

This is because I don't want to limit other's creative visions and instead tie them to how I think everyone should see each creature. Not least because I also think this helps develop the idea that magick has permeated through all things, such that each evolutionary channel for a species exists simultaneously.

So each species can have as many of the descriptive 'extras' that I will use, but they will always have certain core components that should probably be kept as this explains their species psychology. Note that I'm suggesting that appearance can and should be customised but that I feel the 'role' that each species psychology plays in the elucidation of the world view should be left as I have attempted to describe it. This is because, for me, each species is an aspect of abnormal psychology that greater describes the 'puzzle' of the story world, in that it is a mirror of human creativity, frustration and loss.

Let the player choose their own interpretation, some will want it to be defined for them and others will want to set their description wider. Give all approaches a chance. For the games runner their choices can affect the entire species or merely change individuals, as mentioned, both can be allowed. Ultimately what goes is left in the hands of the story teller and should be used to better develop their story/word.

D&D 'variety'

Foodie Fridays: Jamie's Clandestine Fish Pie

Jamie Oliver's Clandestine Fish Pie Recipe

Deleted from his own website and replaced by an inferior version, this is the original and best fish pie recipe.

1 kg potatoes (mashed)

1 x Carrot (grated)

2 x Celery sticks (finely diced)

1 x Red chilli (finely chopped)

Parsley (1 x 30g packet)

150g cheddar cheese (grated)

1 lemon juice and zest

Handful of spinach

2 x plum tomatoes

Fish pie pack, defrosted

King prawns, ditto

Olive oil, glug!

Seasoning, the usual suspects

In a big oven dish; grate the carrot and cheese, add the chopped celery, chilli, spinach, parsely and tomatoes, add the fish and prawns, zest the lemon and squeeze the juice, big glug of olive oil, season AND mix!

Top with mashed potato.

Bang into a pre-heated oven at 180c (fan) or 200c for 40-50 minutes.

Done.

Serve with (nice) bread and butter.

Quotes Worth Saving (31): Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure Kikigaki

Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai (meaning 'Hidden Leaves')
Translated by William Scott Wilson

Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day, when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears, and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day, without fail, one should consider himself as dead.

There is a saying of the elder's that goes, "step from under the eaves and you're a dead man. Leave the gate and the enemy is waiting." It is not a matter of being careful. It is to consider oneself dead beforehand.

p.164

I found this in an old notebook of mine, which had a selection of quotes showing that I've always been a cataloguer at heart. This must date from around 2004.

Melancholy Mondays: Archives of Pain

We are all the children of murderers, rapists and war criminals. To think any different is to ignore the guilt of the past.

We are also the children of altruists, iconoclasts and serene kind-hearted peace-lovers. To believe any different is to lose the hope for the future.

Any fool can regret yesterday, as the Manic Street Preacher correctly says.

The potential for pain is infinite.

The capacity of the sufferer is finite.

Thus, there will always be pain in the world.

An individual's ability to suffer is limited.

While there is being there is pain.

Only in death is there freedom from pain.

Death is the endless 'experience' of nothing.

Existence is the constant suffering of pain by degree.

Pain is infinite.

The sufferer is finite.

Alleviation can therefore only be partial or temporary.

The can be no final escape unless one believes in rebirth or existence post-death.

Pain is being within the world. It is an excess of contact.

Managing pain is control of the circumstances of the world.

Something that can never be total. Although it is the dream of every dictator.

Pain is the outcome of existence. It is the proof of the passage of time.

© Jenny Saville

Quotes Worth Saving (30): Slavoj Žižek, "all we have is our activity"

Slavoj Žižek
Trouble in Paradise
2015

And connected to earlier thoughts and usage of a quote from the same book.

Perhaps the Left should learn fully to assume the basic 'alienation' of the historical process: we cannot control the consequences of our acts - not because we are just puppets in the hands of some secret Master of Fate which pulls the strings, but for precisely the opposite reason: there is no big Other, no agent of total accountability that can take into account the consequences of our own acts. This acceptance of 'alienation' in no way entails a cynical distance; it implies a fully engaged position aware of the risks involved - there is no higher historical Necessity whose instruments we are and which guarantees the final outcome of our interventions. From this standpoint, our despair at the present deadlock appears in a new light: we have to renounce the very eschatological scheme which underlies our despair. There will never be a Left that magically transforms confused revolts and protests into one consistent Projection of Salvation; all we have is our activity, open to all the risks of contingent history.

P.129