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[Let's Read] Nidal, Land of Shadows
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<blockquote data-quote="Tristissima" data-source="post: 7873805" data-attributes="member: 6162"><p>Let’s Reads rarely have much to say about tables of contents, and I doubt this one will really buck that trend. The credits list no names I recognize as involved in this particular book, and I’ve already mentioned the two names I found most aesthetically interesting (Liane Merciel and Kiki Moch Rizky), though I do enjoy a few bits of names scattered throughout ~ one of the Interior Artists is named Federico and another has the last name Pajaron, while one of the cartographers carries the surname Mammoliti (note to self re: the Omnipresent Inspiration Hypothesis ~ the Most Serene Republic of Mammoli, a pseudo-Italian Renaissance city-state inhabited by loxodons (is there a Pathfinder equivalent?) called the mammoliti, perhaps based on Genoa or San Marino). The rest of the credits are the standard list of Paizo’s general team.</p><p></p><p>It does list the Starfinder design lead and the Starfinder Society developer, which I find somewhat surprising. I do appreciate Paizo listing as many folks as they do, down to the data entry clerk and the warehouse team. It’s nice to see the workers in the less-glamorous parts of the company getting relatively equal credit.</p><p></p><p>The chapters seem pretty standard:</p><p>Living in Shadow</p><p>Gazetteer</p><p>Threats in the Gloom</p><p>Bestiary</p><p></p><p>There’s a sizeable content note with specific trigger warnings around what is to be found within the book that will benefit from explicit consent for inclusion. It also includes a sentence driving home that a single person not wanting or having the spoons to play with these themes is a reason to do something else with your game and a pointer to a deeper discussion of consent and horror in Horror Adventures. That discussion, while excellent, sadly doesn’t provide any technologies to negotiate prior consent and monitor ongoing consent, like the system of Lines, Veils, and X and O cards so favored in the storygame scene. I really wish it did. I like how up-front this content notice is, non-apologetic but also sensitive to the realities of players’ various experiences. It does still read very “No Means No” and I prefer to come from a “Yes Means Yes” consent culture. I’m not sure how to put that well in an RPG content note, however, as saying something like “Only play this if everyone at the table is excited to play with these themes” feels a little too close to inviting edgelordiness….</p><p></p><p>Other than the standard OGL notice, there’s only the standard Pathfinder reference section, listing what are presumably the most commonly-referenced books in the text and giving them little superscript abbreviations to ease reading. Anything not on this list will be spelled out in full when being referenced. Listed are the Advanced Class, Player’s, and Race Guides (cuz duh), Bestiaries 2 through 6 (including 5, which is my favoritest), Occult Adventures (yay! I simply adore what Paizo did with the occult classes), and Ultimate Magic. This is all a very good sign for what is to come.</p><p></p><p>The next page includes half of a gorgeous blue-hued two-page header image featuring a standardly gorgeous woman with interesting hair looking out over a suitably Gothic-medieval Brutalist city. There seems to be smoke floating through the air, which lends a very atmospheric obscuration to the city but also, well, obscures it a bit. Also, the city is dotted with what might be termite-hills or very large tents, conical spire things that curve out to a slightly wider base than would be expected; what are those? I am jealous of her dress, ridiculously thin as it is (some of the back flourishes appear to be painted on). I would so wear that. She has a bracelet that seems to float at some distance from her wrist ~ I’m going to interpret that as being composed of thin spiky needly things cuz worshipper of the pain god ~ and the blue tone allows the red liquid in and spilling around her wineglass to really pop. There’s nothing in the picture to resolve the question of whether it’s claret or blood, which seems just exactly the right artistic choice.</p><p></p><p>As the title page for the Living in Shadow chapter, the only text here is the name and an excerpt from the “traditional Festival of Night’s Return sermon”. This is the kind of thing I just eat up; I love it. These little bits of religious microfiction can go a long way to expressing both the grand theological elements of a setting and the social history/people’s history/psychosociology of describing the nitty-gritty details of how the average fantasy-world person views the world.</p><p></p><p>Two things jump out at me in this sermon, which I love. One is the sentence “Death came to hunt us, and Zon-Kuthon taught us its leash.” The Nidalese are not a people who see themselves as having escaped death, but as having gained the ability to give it orders, to turn it into their cute pet who slobbers up excitedly to greet them when they come home from work. The other is that most of the sermon prides the Nidalese people on surviving Earthfall. These are not empty-headed conquerers-for-conquest’s-sake, like the Necromongers they take so much inspiration from. Though this understanding of themselves can easily provide a pretext for seeking military domination, it is deeper and more self-possessed than that, and can easily be built upon to reach a perspective that can be considered “good” by fantasy RPG standards.</p><p></p><p>It helps that the sermon reminds me of a Radical Fairy song that I’ve always assumed goes back to the 90s, when AIDS was wreaking havoc in our community (I am too young in both breath and the Radical Fairies to remember those times, but I’ve often listened to my elders who were there for it):</p><p>We walked and we walked and we walked and we walked</p><p>And the echoes of our cries</p><p>Brought us to the other side</p><p>We almost died…..</p><p>But now we thrive</p><p></p><p>That is, I think, something I forgot to praise about Nidal ~ while its culture is obviously one built upon and predisposed toward evil, very little of their society and psychology is reducible to evil, allowing players to create believably Nidalese good characters without having to make them Do’Urdenites who unrealistically reject everything about the memescape which formed their understanding of the world.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tristissima, post: 7873805, member: 6162"] Let’s Reads rarely have much to say about tables of contents, and I doubt this one will really buck that trend. The credits list no names I recognize as involved in this particular book, and I’ve already mentioned the two names I found most aesthetically interesting (Liane Merciel and Kiki Moch Rizky), though I do enjoy a few bits of names scattered throughout ~ one of the Interior Artists is named Federico and another has the last name Pajaron, while one of the cartographers carries the surname Mammoliti (note to self re: the Omnipresent Inspiration Hypothesis ~ the Most Serene Republic of Mammoli, a pseudo-Italian Renaissance city-state inhabited by loxodons (is there a Pathfinder equivalent?) called the mammoliti, perhaps based on Genoa or San Marino). The rest of the credits are the standard list of Paizo’s general team. It does list the Starfinder design lead and the Starfinder Society developer, which I find somewhat surprising. I do appreciate Paizo listing as many folks as they do, down to the data entry clerk and the warehouse team. It’s nice to see the workers in the less-glamorous parts of the company getting relatively equal credit. The chapters seem pretty standard: Living in Shadow Gazetteer Threats in the Gloom Bestiary There’s a sizeable content note with specific trigger warnings around what is to be found within the book that will benefit from explicit consent for inclusion. It also includes a sentence driving home that a single person not wanting or having the spoons to play with these themes is a reason to do something else with your game and a pointer to a deeper discussion of consent and horror in Horror Adventures. That discussion, while excellent, sadly doesn’t provide any technologies to negotiate prior consent and monitor ongoing consent, like the system of Lines, Veils, and X and O cards so favored in the storygame scene. I really wish it did. I like how up-front this content notice is, non-apologetic but also sensitive to the realities of players’ various experiences. It does still read very “No Means No” and I prefer to come from a “Yes Means Yes” consent culture. I’m not sure how to put that well in an RPG content note, however, as saying something like “Only play this if everyone at the table is excited to play with these themes” feels a little too close to inviting edgelordiness…. Other than the standard OGL notice, there’s only the standard Pathfinder reference section, listing what are presumably the most commonly-referenced books in the text and giving them little superscript abbreviations to ease reading. Anything not on this list will be spelled out in full when being referenced. Listed are the Advanced Class, Player’s, and Race Guides (cuz duh), Bestiaries 2 through 6 (including 5, which is my favoritest), Occult Adventures (yay! I simply adore what Paizo did with the occult classes), and Ultimate Magic. This is all a very good sign for what is to come. The next page includes half of a gorgeous blue-hued two-page header image featuring a standardly gorgeous woman with interesting hair looking out over a suitably Gothic-medieval Brutalist city. There seems to be smoke floating through the air, which lends a very atmospheric obscuration to the city but also, well, obscures it a bit. Also, the city is dotted with what might be termite-hills or very large tents, conical spire things that curve out to a slightly wider base than would be expected; what are those? I am jealous of her dress, ridiculously thin as it is (some of the back flourishes appear to be painted on). I would so wear that. She has a bracelet that seems to float at some distance from her wrist ~ I’m going to interpret that as being composed of thin spiky needly things cuz worshipper of the pain god ~ and the blue tone allows the red liquid in and spilling around her wineglass to really pop. There’s nothing in the picture to resolve the question of whether it’s claret or blood, which seems just exactly the right artistic choice. As the title page for the Living in Shadow chapter, the only text here is the name and an excerpt from the “traditional Festival of Night’s Return sermon”. This is the kind of thing I just eat up; I love it. These little bits of religious microfiction can go a long way to expressing both the grand theological elements of a setting and the social history/people’s history/psychosociology of describing the nitty-gritty details of how the average fantasy-world person views the world. Two things jump out at me in this sermon, which I love. One is the sentence “Death came to hunt us, and Zon-Kuthon taught us its leash.” The Nidalese are not a people who see themselves as having escaped death, but as having gained the ability to give it orders, to turn it into their cute pet who slobbers up excitedly to greet them when they come home from work. The other is that most of the sermon prides the Nidalese people on surviving Earthfall. These are not empty-headed conquerers-for-conquest’s-sake, like the Necromongers they take so much inspiration from. Though this understanding of themselves can easily provide a pretext for seeking military domination, it is deeper and more self-possessed than that, and can easily be built upon to reach a perspective that can be considered “good” by fantasy RPG standards. It helps that the sermon reminds me of a Radical Fairy song that I’ve always assumed goes back to the 90s, when AIDS was wreaking havoc in our community (I am too young in both breath and the Radical Fairies to remember those times, but I’ve often listened to my elders who were there for it): We walked and we walked and we walked and we walked And the echoes of our cries Brought us to the other side We almost died….. But now we thrive That is, I think, something I forgot to praise about Nidal ~ while its culture is obviously one built upon and predisposed toward evil, very little of their society and psychology is reducible to evil, allowing players to create believably Nidalese good characters without having to make them Do’Urdenites who unrealistically reject everything about the memescape which formed their understanding of the world. [/QUOTE]
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[Let's Read] Nidal, Land of Shadows
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