diff -r 3164c82ac16e -r bdef1afd1170 draft/wind27feb02.txt --- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/draft/wind27feb02.txt Wed Aug 30 21:32:44 2006 -0400 @@ -0,0 +1,274 @@ +RPGnet + +_/Advertise with RPGnet/_ + + + Reviews Forums +News & Press Columns & +Info RPG Wiki + RPG Shop + + + + 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? + +Go to forum! + Go to Top | New Topic + | View Threads + | Search + + + Topics Author Date Latest Reply + James and the Small Caps + (2) new Kibo +08-20-2002 16:29 02-10-2003 01:23 new + Art (1) new Lxndr +04-26-2002 07:36 04-26-2002 07:36 new + The Original Nobilis Club + (3) new Bret Gillan +04-17-2002 11:28 03-17-2003 17:48 new + Questions & Thoughts + (3) new Pyske +03-20-2002 18:31 05-01-2003 13:03 new + Noble Buddhism? + (9) new Tlaloc +03-20-2002 12:17 12-10-2004 01:20 new + Noble Suicide (9) new +Eric Christian Berg 03-20-2002 07:43 01-18-2005 16:27 new + Art Notes (4) new R. +Sean Borgstrom 03-14-2002 16:31 03-21-2002 03:44 new + Ack...you just lost my sale + (10) new SteveD +03-14-2002 04:06 03-15-2002 06:29 new + Onomastikon working URL + (4) new Jorge +Hernández 03-06-2002 12:51 08-20-2002 16:10 new + Why do angels change names ? + (10) new philippe +tromeur 03-06-2002 10:13 12-10-2004 01:34 new + R. Sean, some examples? + (3) new Arref +03-05-2002 08:17 03-13-2002 20:28 new + Sounds great, BUT... + (2) new Kane +02-27-2002 16:43 02-27-2002 17:30 new + Sort of backwards? + (8) new Eric Finley +02-20-2002 14:25 02-28-2002 09:35 new + Programmer nature slips out! + (2) new Sean +McCarthy 02-20-2002 13:18 02-21-2002 10:30 new + Object Lesson Damage + (1) new Darren +Miguez 02-13-2002 12:45 02-13-2002 12:45 new + How about this? + (2) new Kristian +Lund 02-13-2002 11:30 02-14-2002 01:17 new + Now, this was strange! + (7) new access.denied +02-13-2002 07:44 02-16-2002 21:44 new + Briefs on the other two? + (5) new Eric Finley +01-31-2002 18:39 02-13-2002 10:36 new + Forum now works (1) new +Sandy Antunes 01-31-2002 17:36 01-31-2002 17:36 new + limited series (2) new +Sandy Antunes 01-21-2002 17:41 01-31-2002 17:36 new + + Go to Top | New Topic + | View Threads + | Search + + + Newer Messages + | Older Messages + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + * Editing, Development, and Production + + March 27, 2002 + * Affiliations + March 20, 2002 + * How to be a Hollyhock God + March 13, 2002 + * Naming Conventions + March 6, 2002 + * Art Notes + February 27, 2002 + * Dynamic Nobilis + February 20, 2002 + * Systems Change + February 13, 2002 + * Treachery + February 6, 2002 + * The Emperor to Come + January 31, 2002 + * The Changing of the Guard + January 21, 2002 + + + Other columns at RPGnet + +[ Read FAQ | Subscribe to RSS + | Contact Us | +Advertise with Us ] + +Copyright © 1996-2006 RPGnet & individual authors, All Rights Reserved +RPGnet® is a registered trademark of Skotos Tech Inc., all rights reserved. +