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      Wind in the Flowers: Re-inventing a Game

    Art Notes

*R. Sean Borgstrom*

February 27, 2002

James Wallis had promised a significant amount of cool art for the new

edition, with well-respected artists from both inside and outside the

gaming world. This meant working out what I actually wanted everything

in the world to look like. I'm not a very visual person, and my

imagination is mostly full of abstractions and words, so this was an

interesting challenge.

I'm not going to discuss the art itself, because, hm. Because it is

wonderful and amazing and it makes me huddle over the pictures and say,

"/This/ was drawn for /my/ book." But it's not /my/ work, and I don't

think I can get 10-20 artists together to write a column for me. I just

contributed the stuff below, so that's what I'll write about.

Not all of my art notes actually reached the artists. James ultimately

decided that 9,000 words of art suggestions might daze, restrict, or

even offend some of the artists we had on board. So he trimmed them down

somewhat. I'm going to discuss the original document, however, since it

wound up establishing some subtle things about the setting that either

worked back into the text of the book or influenced the canon for future

supplements. I think that's a very interesting process, even when it

didn't affect the art.

One of the key design principles for *Nobilis* is empowerment. I do not

mean that it's a high-powered setting. It is, but that's not the point.

I mean that it's very much a game about allowing the player's picture of

their character to drive that character's destiny.

When applying this to the art notes, one of my primary concerns was a

tendency in gaming art to depict females in submissive and exaggeratedly

sexualized poses. Such images of women, when common in a book or game

line, implicitly categorize female characters as weak or sexual, which

is bloody rare in the *Nobilis* setting. This led to an immediate

secondary concern: I didn't want men depicted in submissive or

exaggeratedly sexualized poses, either. Any such image, basically,

detracts from the overall thematic point of empowering both players and

characters. This led to frequent comments of the sort "no breasts bigger

than the woman's head", "no underdressed nymphlets if you can help it",

"all nudity should be artistic and justifiable", and, most importantly,

"The Nobilis, the main characters of the game, almost invariably give an

impression of power and competence." I don't know just how many of these

James relayed, but the art turned out well in this respect. Go us.

Another fundamental idea in *Nobilis*---probably the most

fundamental---is that of an animistic world. My personal motto for the

game, not currently appearing in any ad copy, is "every concept has a

human face." Cars have spirits. Storms have spirits. Even massive ideals

like Time have spirits. You can interact with almost everything as a

person.

The principal characters of *Nobilis*, though born mortal, have a piece

of the divine embedded in their soul. This is an elemental piece of

reality---Fire, Maps, Automobiles, Trees, Waves, or somesuch thing. This

is what makes them "Noble" or "of the Nobilis". As the centerpiece of

the game, they needed both their animistic nature and their empowerment

front and center in the art as well.

Defining their basic appearance from here was pretty straightforward. As

humans touched by the divine, they should never look ordinary. They

could be rugged, handsome, or pretty. Some would be interestingly ugly.

The rest, though plain, should be fascinating in some way unrelated to

attractiveness, perhaps possessing a profoundly honest face, an

inscrutably bland demeanor, or phenomenal grace in motion. Simply

ordinary Nobles would undermine the idea that they represent natural

forces, and it also suggests a more mundane environment than I wanted

for the game.

Most Nobles have an appearance reflecting their Estate---that elemental

piece of reality I mentioned earlier. The Noble governing Shadows (the

Power of Shadows) might have obscured features and elongated fingers.

Static might crackle in the Power of Television's eyes. The Power of

Mazes might lounge on an Escherian throne. A few pictures used

distinctly supernatural elements for this. Most of the artists instead

captured the elemental nature of the Nobilis through clothing, setting,

and pose. Both worked awfully well.

The art notes are the first place I established what the Nobilis

actually wear. I'll be covering the topic in more depth in *A Society of

Flowers*, an early supplement, but it boils down to three styles. Two

reflect opposite ends of empowerment.

First, the most important part of a Noble's duties is defending reality

from a pretty vicious enemy. This leads to workmanlike, casual,

loose-fitting, tough, and respectable clothes. They don't have to look

hot, and they don't have to look professional, because they /don't have

to care/ what people who look at them think.

Second, there are occasions for regalia, a classic sign of power:

gorgeous, amazing, ornate clothing, possibly including face-painting and

equally impressive headwear. In addition, as animistic representatives

of their Estate, some should be drawn with clothing that reflects it:

the Power of Water might have flowing garments, and the Power of Time

almost certainly has a conspicuous pocketwatch. Examples of all three

styles appear in the book.

Other creatures of note in the game include Imperators, creatures wholly

divine. Where a Noble has a piece of reality in their soul, Imperators

/are/ pieces of reality. One Imperator defines and embodies Words,

Doorways, and Bronze; another Parasites, Passivity, Mistrust, and

Growth. They are creatures of what the game calls /spiritus Dei/, the

divine breath, the first and uncaused cause that makes other things to be.

One of my mistakes here was defining the appearance of the Imperial

"True Gods", the deities more of Earth's primordial soup than of

humanity. The true gods exist in the setting to capture a certain

element of inhumanity in the divine. Of the seven forms of Imperator

discussed in *Nobilis*, four resemble humanity in general appearance.

These are the Angels, the Fallen, the Magisters of the Light, and the

Magisters of the Dark. The Aaron's Serpents, children of the Ash that

holds worlds in its branches, are unsurprisingly, ophidian.

I didn't want the divine to be /too/ anthropomorphic, however, so there

are the Magisters of the Wild, capturing a certain essence of mental

inhumanity, and the true gods, inhuman in all ways. I described them for

the artists as glorious monsters, amorphous and nightmarish but not

bestial. They are not icky, but rather majestically awful. They are

horrid /things/, but they induce more awe than revulsion.

No one drew one. Possibly James just left this bit out, but on

reflection, /I/ wouldn't want to try and draw something from that

description, even if I were a living god with the pencil and the pen.

To close the column on a high note, I'll talk a little bit about

locations. Although I didn't expect anyone to draw them for the main

book, I wanted the art suggestions to stick around as a supplement

bible, so I had to work out what Heaven, Hell, and the World Ash looked

like. It's not that the characters regularly visit Heaven or Hell, but

it's an established feature of the setting that the angels' work in

Heaven constantly rains new glories down on every world. Conversely,

corruption seeps ever upwards out of Hell. As for the World Ash, you

pretty much need to climb it to get anywhere but Earth, so I do expect

fairly regular visits. These are all important places.

Thinking about how to describe them led me to a peculiar realization:

Heaven and Hell are easily as fundamental as the angels. The World Ash

is as real as the Serpents that are its children. One of the most

important things to understand when drawing them is that they are more

than places---they are things of /spiritus Dei/, and therefore concepts

as well as places. Heaven is not beautiful; it is Beauty. Hell is not a

place of suffering; it /is/ corruption and suffering. I am not entirely

certain what the World Ash that spans between them is; I think it may be

Life. That's perhaps the strongest case of art suggestions influencing

my perspective on the written setting, and so I stop there.

R. Sean

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 Topics 	Author  	Date 	Latest Reply

 James and the Small Caps

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=81&t=81> (2) new 	Kibo 

08-20-2002 16:29  	02-10-2003 01:23 new

 Art <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=77&t=77> (1) new 	Lxndr 

04-26-2002 07:36  	04-26-2002 07:36 new

 The Original Nobilis Club

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=76&t=76> (3) new 	Bret Gillan 

04-17-2002 11:28  	03-17-2003 17:48 new

 Questions & Thoughts

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=64&t=64> (3) new 	Pyske 

03-20-2002 18:31  	05-01-2003 13:03 new

 Noble Buddhism?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=61&t=61> (9) new 	Tlaloc 

03-20-2002 12:17  	12-10-2004 01:20 new

 Noble Suicide <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=58&t=58> (9) new

Eric Christian Berg  	03-20-2002 07:43  	01-18-2005 16:27 new

 Art Notes <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=54&t=54> (4) new 	R.

Sean Borgstrom  	03-14-2002 16:31  	03-21-2002 03:44 new

 Ack...you just lost my sale

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=45&t=45> (10) new 	SteveD 

03-14-2002 04:06  	03-15-2002 06:29 new

 Onomastikon working URL

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=36&t=36> (4) new 	Jorge

Hernández  	03-06-2002 12:51  	08-20-2002 16:10 new

 Why do angels change names ?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=33&t=33> (10) new 	philippe

tromeur  	03-06-2002 10:13  	12-10-2004 01:34 new

 R. Sean, some examples?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=32&t=32> (3) new 	Arref 

03-05-2002 08:17  	03-13-2002 20:28 new

 Sounds great, BUT...

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=28&t=28> (2) new 	Kane 

02-27-2002 16:43  	02-27-2002 17:30 new

 Sort of backwards?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=21&t=21> (8) new 	Eric Finley 

02-20-2002 14:25  	02-28-2002 09:35 new

 Programmer nature slips out!

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=20&t=20> (2) new 	Sean

McCarthy  	02-20-2002 13:18  	02-21-2002 10:30 new

 Object Lesson Damage

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=15&t=15> (1) new 	Darren

Miguez  	02-13-2002 12:45  	02-13-2002 12:45 new

 How about this?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=12&t=12> (2) new 	Kristian

Lund  	02-13-2002 11:30  	02-14-2002 01:17 new

 Now, this was strange!

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=9&t=9> (7) new 	access.denied 

02-13-2002 07:44  	02-16-2002 21:44 new

 Briefs on the other two?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=5&t=5> (5) new 	Eric Finley 

01-31-2002 18:39  	02-13-2002 10:36 new

 Forum now works <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=4&t=4> (1) new

Sandy Antunes  	01-31-2002 17:36  	01-31-2002 17:36 new

 limited series <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=1&t=1> (2) new

Sandy Antunes  	01-21-2002 17:41  	01-31-2002 17:36 new

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------------------------------------------------------------------------

    * Editing, Development, and Production

      </news+reviews/columns/wind27mar02.html>

      March 27, 2002

    * Affiliations </news+reviews/columns/wind20mar02.html>

      March 20, 2002

    * How to be a Hollyhock God </news+reviews/columns/wind13mar02.html>

      March 13, 2002

    * Naming Conventions </news+reviews/columns/wind06mar02.html>

      March 6, 2002

    * Art Notes </news+reviews/columns/wind27feb02.html>

      February 27, 2002

    * Dynamic Nobilis </news+reviews/columns/wind20feb02.html>

      February 20, 2002

    * Systems Change </news+reviews/columns/wind13feb02.html>

      February 13, 2002

    * Treachery </news+reviews/columns/wind06feb02.html>

      February 6, 2002

    * The Emperor to Come </news+reviews/columns/wind31jan02.html>

      January 31, 2002

    * The Changing of the Guard </news+reviews/columns/wind21jan02.html>

      January 21, 2002 

      Other columns </news+reviews/columns.html> at RPGnet

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