Sophomore, Ninth Week, Winter Quarter

Altclair is Naomi's campaign, set at the college of Altclair, which is somewhere in Minnesota, although modeled on the University of Chicago between the years 1987 and 1993. Think Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, GURPS Illuminati IOU, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Other source material (that Naomi's not familiar with) might include Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon and most of Charles de Lint. Players are me (Justin Thorne) and Josh (Michael Conoway). Manny (Jim Gaffney) dropped out, and Beth (Diometra) lives in Chicago, and is only an occasional player.

Naomi moved to Chicago, but I'm a year behind in my write ups, and she hopes to run a few more adventures via phone, email, and visits before I have exhausted my supply of material.

Stuff that didn't make Justin's journal:

Michael threw Justin a surprise party for the morning of his eighteenth birthday, February 17, which occurs around 6th or 7th week of Winter Quarter. This made Justin nervous, as he's been trying to keep a real low profile about turning eighteen, so as not to attract negative attention from the gods (on general principles), the mundane authorities (as Ken is technically guilty of statutory rape by sleeping with Justin -- Ken joked that they'd be fine now, so long as they stayed out of Georgia), or his mother (who once threatened to pull him out of Altclair if he didn't live a little more safely -- Ken reminded Justin that, 18 or not, his mother still controlled the purse strings). Despite his nervousness, Justin enjoyed the party, and got a little drunk.

Everyone wandered off to classes. In his first class, Justin found himself making butterflies. Drunken butterflies, who couldn't fly very well. Feeling guilty about this, Justin carefully put the butterflies in his shirt pocket, and doodled in the margins for the rest of the class so that he wouldn't make more drunken butterflies. When class ended, he brought the butterflies over to the forge, and put them on a table to sober up, next to some honey.

From the Desk of Justin Thorne:

9th Week, Winter Quarter, Sophomore Year

Dramatis Personae

• Michael Conoway: my best friend, member of the US Olympics fencing team, mage, land king of Burnham County
• Sarah Lacey: my half-sister, land queen of Burnham County
• Delilah Morgan: Michael's lover, who may not realize how stressful a summer she's let herself in for
• Ash Wednesday: Michael's teacher of magic, one of the more powerful mages I've met
• Jennifer Wednesday: Ash's wife, mage
• Jido: Jennifer's adopted son
• Marcel Tobriani: mage, maker, and stage magician, another of Ash's students
• Antoine Tobriani: Marcel's son
• Matt Denkla: mage and stage magician, also far too perceptive when it comes to detecting bad news
• Justin Thorne: far too curious about dragons for my own good
• Ken Maravitch: my lover, considering an unusual suggestion of Michael's
• Steve Schwartz: my director, amazingly calm SOB

And I thought things would get dull without the gargoyles.

At the beginning of seventh week, Michael felt something heavy on the land. I called Sarah, but there was no answer. We went over to her house and found her curled up on the couch, shaking. Delilah joined us, and we drove to where Michael and Sarah thought the heaviness might be coping from, although by now, they said, the land seemed to be accepting it.

The center was a hill which Michael sledded down when he was a child. We could learn nothing more, so we went home.

Jennifer went out the next day with Jido. He panicked completely and wouldn't talk about why. Michael called my mother and brought her up to date, telling her everything he thought she needed to know. Unfortunately, I'd been successful at keeping my mouth shut for a change, so he wound up in hot water with Jennifer. (1) Then he demanded a list of everything I hadn't told my mother by the end of the week--the same week Steve's play went up! (2)

The play went well, and Steve was disgustingly calm throughout. Matt says it's because he drives other people crazy. That doesn't seem to work for me. (3)

At his cast party, Sarah, Michael, Delilah, Ken, and I decided to go out to the hill again. Sarah and Michael tried to give it an order. I gather it refused, somewhat malevolently. The land feels less solid to them--like an emptiness, I think, and Michael realized that they hadn't felt it last year either. We called it a night.

The next day, I took a picture of the hill. It looked just like a hill to me. Michael saw a dragon, as did Sarah. A very large dragon.

Michael and I brought the picture with us when we went to visit Ash. Marcel Tobriani was there, as was his son, Antoine. Jido thinks they're both too much grown ups but insists that Michael and I aren't. He's probably right about that. (4)

Marcel may be the person Dicey mentioned who could create things out of pure magic. I gather he's part mage and part maker. He spotted the dragon at once, saying it was his business to spot hidden things and to hide things in plain sight.

He also told us that Matt's suspicions are correct: Ash is dying. He has cancer, something we officially don't know. If he spends part of his time on Michael's land, especially in high summer, it will probably be less painful, especially if he drinks the water Michael brought back with him, but that's the best we can hope for. (5)

Sarah intends to deal with the dragon permanently, and probably fatally. I seem to be the only one who thinks it might not be hostile, and I'm probably wrong. I asked about interviewing the dragon, but Michael doesn't want me waking it.

I need to figure out what I'll be doing over the summer. Sarah made it clear that, while I will not be expected to father another child for her, she makes no other promises if I stay while Michael is away. Michael wants me to work on the farm, but not to sleep with my sister. I finally managed to explain that he could have one or the other but not both. So he'll get someone else to work on the farm. (6)

I pointed out that Sarah was still going to be sleeping with someone and might well make sure Michael walked in on this. Michael came up with an interesting solution to a different problem.

Sarah is going to want another child. She won't survive carrying Michael's, and he's trying to break out of, or at least redefine the cycle. Michael suggested that Ken be the father, reasoning that Sarah might be just as glad if someone else raised this child.

It's a logical suggestion with a certain aesthetic balance to it. Of course, there are several complicating factors. I'm trying to make sure that I'm not one of them while Ken thinks about it. Michael made it clear that he's not trying to manage anyone's life; he's just pointing out an obvious opportunity. Ken is not yet convinced that it is an opportunity, and it may not be. But if it is, he's not likely to get another chance. The fact that he'll be spending the summer in San Francisco helps too--he wouldn't be in range if Michael gets irrational for a while. But none of this addresses the question of what Sarah will do during the summer or what will happen as a result.

Footnotes

(1) That is, Michael assumed Justin told his mother that Jido can turn into a dragon. Justin hadn't.

(2) Justin was stage managing the play. Despite this, he made the list for Michael, who'd been half joking, I think.

Michael: Justin, did it ever occur to you not to do what I asked?

Justin (chagrined): No!

Michael: Hmm... (looks speculatively at Delilah)

Delilah: Don't you get any ideas!

(3) Justin has the driving other people crazy bit down pat, but it doesn't help him stay calm.

(4) Justin first met Antoine while building another snow fortress at Ash's, and he instantly, and as far as I can tell, correctly, filed him under both "good-looking" and "This one is trouble".

(5) The water Michael brought back from Hades in Justin's ever-refilling waterskin came from Demeter's bower.

(6) Justin had a list of people to check with about sleeping with Sarah over the summer, and I think he was hoping one of them would veto the idea so that he wouldn't have to figure out his own opinion on this one. Michael had first veto right on the grounds that he was the one who might get annoyed enough to hurt Justin because of it--despite Michael's problems with homosexuality, his clashes with Justin tend to occur when Justin is sleeping with a woman. Then again, I think Michael considers homosexuality less troubling than incest.

Justin came up with a long extended metaphor about why Michael got first veto on Justin sleeping with Sarah. It's like wanting to eat the last piece of strawberry cheesecake. There are many reasons not to do it, including the calories and the fact that one's kid sister really wants that piece of cake. However, if one happens to be diabetic, this reason comes up first and is sufficient to keep one from eating the cake.

Justin never did explain all of this, as potential victims, er, listeners, cut him off quickly. Even Ken explained that an analogy was demonstrably, i.e., mathematically provably, inferior to straightforward explanation.

Justin: Nobody likes strawberry cheesecake.

Note that, while Justin likes strawberry cheesecake, I do not like any variety of cheesecake, despite numerous attempts to convince myself otherwise.

Natter

Comments to Lee Gold

As for having reasons for NPCs not to join the party, what if there is no party per se? How many folks are in games with no "party"? To a degree, there is no such thing in Altclair, and I tried to resist the concept in cthpk. In cases without a party, "Have plausible reasons for not becoming party members" becomes "Have plausible reasons not to hang around with PCs". Fr'ex, in Altclair, after they graduated, Matt and Daniel had no particular reason to stay in the neighborhood. Currently (some time after the write ups), they're in West Virginia.

But there's a corollary as well, I discovered, as Naomi got bogged down by the PCs' habit of calling for help when they need it: GM mouthpieces and other NPCs should have plausible reasons for not helping or not being able to help PCs when the GM doesn't want them to. GMs may feel that the presence of particular NPCs will result in PCs having too easy a time, PCs being superfluous, or GMs getting a headache from having too many NPCs of which too keep track.

re:yourself re:players not being upset at players' loss of control over PCs' -physical- setting: This depends. During the Altclair Halloween hunt, Naomi had me roll, and my fumble resulted in Justin accidentally setting the labyrinth under the pyramid on fire. If she had made a fiat decision without the roll, I might have been annoyed. I suspect that if I'd made the roll, someone else, one of the NPCs, would have tripped and started the fire. I doubt I would have minded, but I could see a player objecting to this kind of environmental manipulation. As for powerful NPCs, I don't tend to get upset if they seem innocuous but turn out to have great power. I get annoyed if they constantly sprout new abilities--the Spock syndrome--making the players/PCs feel that they are incompetent, not that they cannot safely tyrannize NPCs. I don't think that PCs should be able to mistreat folks with impunity, but this stems from the types of games I prefer.

Comment to Patrick Riley

I agree very much about not preaching to players. GMs should not make their players feel stupid, unethical, or under attack--I'd consider this 1a. of my own Don'ts. Naomi was very good about not making the players feel stupid about their PCs' decision not to report Rashid to the authorities. Similarly, when Daniel chews out Justin for being stupid, it is generally clear that the PC, not the player, is being chewed out, although I suspect that one reason Sarah is my favorite Altclair GM mouthpiece is that, while less benevolent than Daniel, she is also less likely to say "God, you're stupid."

Where Naomi falls down, I think, is not on ethics or philosophy, but on wanting PCs to take into account different factors at different times. If this sounds confusing, it is because I'm trying to frame the general problem, and the GMs I play with, including Naomi, thankfully do not give me enough data to make an easy study of it.

At one point, Naomi reminded me that one of her NPCs, Iris does not like another, Madeleine, and never has. I heard this as the GM telling me that I should take this into account, even though Justin really had no evidence that it was a factor in the current situation and at least one piece of evidence against it. I probably should have stuck to my guns and ignored the comment, despite Naomi's emphasis and repetition. Instead, I had Justin mention Iris' dislike for Madeleine to a third NPC, Jennifer, who insisted that it wasn't a factor. This may have been due to bias on Jennifer's part. Justin did not feel stupid. He had not acted on the GM hint beyond basic fact checking, and he had not messed anything up.

I, however, felt stupid. Worse, I felt that I had been manipulated into playing Justin as stupid in an out of character way. I'd acted based on what seemed a clear GM hint only, it seemed, to be told that I should have known better. I'm not quite sure what to call this. Note that the original impetus was not a GM mouthpiece NPC, but the GM herself saying, "Iris never liked Madeleine."

Comments to Simon Reeve

re:traitor/enemy of one's country: For Justin, it wasn't that simple. Rashid never lied to or misled Justin about his intentions, and his actions were directed against Israel, not the USA. Thus, there was no personal betrayal, nor betrayal of or action against Justin's own country. re:Sarah: She was doomed because she was carrying, effectively, the child of a solar god. Why did this doom her? I'm not sure; it may have had to do with the combination of it being a god's child and Sarah being 1/4 Siren. re:butterflies: As Michael pointed out, they represent excess, unused creative energy. If Justin sheds butterflies while acting, he's not focusing and he's being lazy or falling into a rut.

Comment to Matt Stevens

Good point re:religion vs. mythology. Cthpk had little religion and much mythology. Altclair is an exception to the general rule, I think. Michael does worry about Hell. He once told Justin that he believed his father went to Hell when he died, as the man died unshriven and had nearly beaten a pregnant woman to death. This may have been partly due to panic, as she'd magically moved him back three steps, and it may gave been due to thinking she was a threat to Michael. Justin asked if Michael were certain of what the state of his father's mind and soul were when he died. Michael wasn't, of course, and Justin advised him to hold on to that uncertainty.

Both Michael and Justin are concerned about the interest Hell takes in Michelle. Justin figures that if he winds up in Hell, it will be for murder and/or stupidity, not because of whom he slept with. However, he has some vague ideas about hedging his bets in the afterlife since he learned that the Good Folk are sort of "on the staff" of Hades. When Michael went to bring Sarah back from Hades, one reason Justin figured he had a better shot was that as a Christian, Michael knew he didn't belong in Hades. Justin worships the Greek gods and fully expects to wind up there unless his vague ideas lead to something.

Delilah has long been struggling with her ideas about Judaism. As I understand it, she is a secular Jew who feels that she should be religious. There is also a Moslem woman NPC who tried to convince her mentor/protector to kill her when she felt that she had been defiled. She had not done anything that we would be likely to consider even risque, but she came from a real world 20th century culture where women can be killed for dining in public with a man who is not their husband or a relative.

Comment to Eugene Reynolds

re:advantages and limitations of honor and similar virtues: Justin is still a poor liar, and this has both advantages and disadvantages for him. His natural bent is for honesty, and that's very useful. As Naomi says, if he delivers good news or reassurances, they are believed. His bedside manner sucks, however, and he cannot really give false comfort even if he wants to. Michael's honor functions similarly, IIRC. Have you read any Cabell, particularly The Silver Stallion and "Letter to Sir Galahad"?