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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


      What do you think? <http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88>

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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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