Verktøyene for å forbanne en trollmann.

Our protagonist has a problem. To solve it, we need to know something about the way curses work, and especially something about what sorcerous types can do about it.

For starters, let's break down what a curse is. A curse is harming someone somewhere with magic. In our case, it's harming someone very far away (probably) with magic. What does that require? Is magic normally limited by line of sight? What would it take to make something which cannot be counter-spelled?

And obviously there's the cosmetic aspect to think about. What does it sound like? Does it leave tracer-effects in the air, so you can see its passage? Can it be sensed, or do even wizards have to rely on mortal senses?

Tough stuff, all of these questions, but let's tackle that last one first.

Magic isn't something wizards, even high wizards, really have. They merely sense it, and can sense the way their mind is manipulating it. Even non-wizards can curse someone -- they just won't know about it, and couldn't repeat it. That's why such curses never gain any particular power -- they're clumsy and accidentally formed.

Think of a blind man who walks into a room filled with various buckets of paint, who opens them up and starts splashing around. He may, by chance, make something that looks aesthetically pleasing -- but he's unlikely to know how, exactly, he did it, or what colors which parts of it are. Contrast him to someone with sight, who has all the same abilities, but can see which colors are which.

Mortal spellcasters exist. They're clumsy, and comparatively weak, and they have to study incredibly hard for what little magic they have. They grope around in the dark until they find something that works, record that, and move on. They never understand why it worked in the first place, and are thus limited.

That being said -- yes, a wizard can sense magic. That means that for curses to be effective, they must take place exceedingly quickly. So they probably do.

What all does this imply? Well, Graham must have exceedingly good reflexes -- I may not have sufficiently explained that one yet. You'll see eventually.

But because it's sensory-based, it's most likely either line-of-sight or local area-limited.

As to the other question: It would need to be something so complicated, or so powerfully charged, that it cannot be safely undone. I had an idea about magic flowing through runes like a sort of selectively-frictionless liquid. Does that make sense? No. Am I going to explain it? Nope. We'll not need to know why it works, I don't think.

It probably only makes physically observable effects when the spell is made to do so -- this implies, by the way, that mortal spellcasters would probably have quite a bit of visual components built into their spells to give them feedback on whether the spell is being cast correctly.

All this is very well and good, but what about those characters? What about that story?

Hvor Du Er

Society can be approximated as the sum of the actions of a large group of individuals -- which are, after all, what composes it. Unfortunately, the individuals work differently, each their own way. A noble, for example, is unlikely to purchase a wheelbarrow. A farmer is unlikely to own a sword. And so on.

The fact that wheelbarrows and swords both have a market doesn't have to tell us much about the society which makes it. Nowadays, for example, the wealthy are unlikely to have swords, and more likely to own a wheelbarrow than the poor are. (Depending on your definition of poor, perhaps. But go with me here.)

Claghen Provence is a coastal region on the extreme east coast of a larger continent, bordered to the west by an unfriendly wilderness. The westernmost point to which it is safe to travel is Cawfur's Peak, named for the explorer who first scaled it. An old forest, (mostly beech trees, lessened ground cover) spreads from the base of Cawfur's Peak to within five miles of the seaside, except where cleared for city-building purposes.

There are six major cities in Claghen Provence. The county seat, where Count Claghen lived a hundred-odd years ago, and where the Vines have recently taken up residence, is Dorkarle, an old word meaning River-bed. This is a city of nearly a million souls, and is the largest city on the continent.

This is also the city closest to the residence of one recently-assaulted wizard.

There are seven rivers, three worthy of note -- two (Brightwater, ) well up near Cawfur's. The third is merely an offshoot of the Brightwater, and was named Corrush, a word meaning "steady", because it never significantly floods downstream (floodwaters instead cause it to flow into its old riverbeds further upstream) and flows by Dorkarle, which is why we care about it at all.

Graham lives in a small tower built into an exposed hillside (he Stoneshaped himself one -- took almost a month for him to manage, too.) about four miles from the furthest outskirts of Dorkarle. He's well-known to the locals, as he often makes grocery runs (Being a wizard, he does have a cold-room, so he doesn't make the journey every day -- but still. He is a mostly solitary soul, having given up on human society as a whole some years ago in a fit of bad temper.




That he hasn't been terribly involved with the world around him recently tells us something too -- the attacker could be impersonating him because he's sufficiently not-well-known to where nobody remembers what actions would be in character for him. Or to prevent him from reacting to something. Or it could be an old grudge.

I suppose we'll have to keep learning things about this world, huh?

Vi Faen Oss Gjennom Passivitet

Starting out, the villain is very happy. This, of course, implies that Graham is very unhappy.

The wizard's foe begins hostile machinations which require, for maximum effect, Graham's death. We don't know why, but we can assume they're hostile because he/she is trying to kill him. His initial survival is immediately obvious (we can't assume his foe would be foolish enough to use a fire-and-forget attack, so therefore we should assume the foe knows he's survived) which means he has to next dodge contingency plans.

All this effort shows that Graham's death is important, and all this redundancy means his enemy is clever. So we're learning things already.

With all that in mind, I started rolling dice and asking questions, like the witch off "Stardust".

"Is Graham's death meant to mask an impersonation?" -- "Partly."

Interesting.

"Will his continued survival make the impersonation impossible?" -- "No."

"Once the antagonist's plans are in motion, will they require maintenance?" -- "No."

...and suchlike.

I determined that the antagonist has a great Objective of some sort, which requires Graham dead or disabled for maximum effect but is still doable if Graham is otherwise occupied trying to stay alive. The scheme involves a brief impersonation of Graham (which is still possible if he is elsewhere and prevented from contacting whoever it concerns). Additionally, the plot must be worth the risk of antagonizing a powerful wizard.


Additional questions regarding the manner of mischief which would be done to Graham revealed that the baddie is going to make deals with Powers-in-the-world in exchange for favors (which Graham will be liable for). For maximum horribleness, one of these is starting a war.

Additionally I determined that arcane archers, malignant spirits, and remote curses will be the sort of things Graham has to defend himself against.

That seems like progress to me.

Further, I figured out how we're going to handle combat. Some time ago, a friend of mine wrote a combat generator that takes some characters with various stats and pits them against one another randomly, giving detailed results including damage type (for example, did you get pierced in the vitals or pierced through the hand?).

I've also been a DM for several years. So I'm going to make an unholy hybrid and use that when I don't have any idea what to do in terms of interesting combat. (For those of you who are interested, he's a 10th level mixed class Focused Divination 5/ Sorcerer 3/ Wizard 2. I know it's weird, but it's going to be okay.)

And I sketched up a map, which I will recreate digitally and post at a later point, when I know something about the world.

Skriving Av Tomten - Fra Kaos; Også, Den Mektige Darlough

Randomization.

There is a beauty in emergent complexity from simple rules and random inputs that I have always found captivating -- it's bordered upon obsession for years. In counterpoint, there has always been a tedium in the sketching of graphs -- but today I find myself sketching graphs for fun.

The method is imprecise and complicated, and involves graphs I can't currently photograph, so I will pass up that aspect of the process in favor of a less graphical explanation.

Our story opens with our hero in a state of contentment, which rapidly declines to anger, then panic. We're not surprised by this -- it makes perfect sense. The surprising bit is what comes next. Graham begins a rapid up-and-down pattern that lasts for at least the next four scenes, alternating between extreme depression and joy again and again -- four times. He seems to plateau briefly at a state of serene peace for a moment, but then becomes enraged and loses it.

That would be interesting enough, but there's more.

For the sake of convenience  I will break this into twenty-five sections. This is the story arc. (and, apparently, our story ends on a good note, if we limit ourselves to twenty-five sections. We shall see.)

The story starts on a low note, with the speed of the plot rising precipitously. If I had to guess (and I do, because there's nobody who knows the answer) the plot starts with the cursing of Graham.

And then it gets confusing immediately. Because the next scene (which is the same tone, emotionally) directly influences the outcome of two other scenes (five and eleven). I don't even know. This is like playing Tetris with algebraic expressions.

I've been trying to make sense of this for days, and I think I've got it licked, to some extent. I'll post the twenty-five sections' outline format later, though.

For now, we have a new character to introduce. Darlough.

mannen alene kan gå i dagevis
og trenger ingen mann å følge
inne i hodet hans dusinvis
danse på visjonen sin galge

(The man alone can walk for days
With no-one near to follow
His fellows dear in dozens
In memories dance the gallows)

I wanted to write a poem, but I didn't want to do it in english since I've been doing that quite a bit lately. So, being in love with randomization and liking the look of Norwegian, I decided to try to write a rhyming stanza to see whether I could do it. Eventually, I managed to get something that looked legit enough (and rhymed) -- and the translation made me think of a character concept, which was the whole idea. And almost rhymed.

Forty years ago, a group of robbers were captured, sentenced to death, and hanged. By chance, one of their number was using the restroom when they were set upon, and managed to hide, watching from a distance as they were sent, one by one, to the gallows.

They were his family. Moreover, their posessions were all he had. He was left alone and penniless.

But, frightened and grief-stricken, he was unwilling to turn back to banditry, and instead planned to become a singer, as it was the other travelling profession with which he was familliar and he wasn't sure how to take up a trade.

It turned out he didn't need to -- as he taught himself to sing, he gradually found the world around him changing in response. He was a wizard -- a powerful one. Since, he has ascended to the throne of the northern isles, where his mastery of the wind and waves provides a safe harbor in the formerly-unclaimed (and uninhabitable) crags and fjords.

He has also made something of a name for himself with regards to curses, which he generously bestows on anyone he finds irritating. It is unlikely, though, that he was behind this particular one -- his strengths do not lie in fire.

Den Dødelige Forbannelsen

The question of what the curse, which is the only major plot driver we've yet discovered, does is really a very important thing to address. If the curse makes him physically weak, for example, he may well find himself growing despondent merely as a side-effect of the tie between mood and health. Alternatively, I came up with an interesting idea where the curse is sketching a forbidden rune into his flesh which, when complete, will utterly destroy him (beyond the ability to resurrect, which his friends might otherwise be able to do) -- and he has to cast and maintain a time-stop spell on the curse, crippling his personal magic to only a fraction of his previous power.

I really like that, actually. But in the interests of making it harder on the protagonist, we might decide that maintaining a spell for too long leads to casting fatigue. Alternatively, there's the problem that (assuming the time-stop requires constant attention) sleep is out of the question for as long as it takes to find the malicious individual behind his curse. And possibly the searing pain from having a rune burnt into his flesh would similarly impair sleep.

From this, incidentally, we've discovered that death is only an inconvenience -- to the sufficiently powerful, or wealthy, it is impermanent. This would logically have a host of implications. First, culturally -- death and the afterlife would be of less importance. Wizards might well hold religions in contempt, trusting their own power over that of the gods. This seems silly, but it's something that can be pictured without too much work, and assuming that people would do it requires only that they be blinded by pride, which is a very realistic assumption.

But it also means the more powerful people would reproduce less often, probably. Over-population is much less likely to be a problem in a society which has magic, but if there's a feudal system of some kind there will be some level of poverty, and poverty breeds ignorance and suspicion of anything complicated -- magic would almost certainly fall into the list of things peasants don't trust. Any sort of foothold in the hearts and minds of the ignorant masses would appeal to a certain sort of religious leader, so at least one major religion (to get the peasants on its side) would declare magic to be inherently evil. This would mean that magical food is less likely to be a solution than it otherwise could have been -- ignorant suspicion always gets between people and things that would have made their lives better.

Let's say that resurrection is ridiculously expensive to pull off, but possible -- and that there are perma-death methods available, or war would be even more hideous than it already is, with solders resurrected and throwing themselves at one another again and again endlessly. Which would be horrifying.

Of course, we still have to figure out from how great a distance such a curse can be cast. What materials or sacred sites are required for such a ritual. What manner of forbidden knowledge must have been found to make the spell possible -- and what must be done for Graham to discover it, so he can learn to undo it. Whether it can be traced back to its caster (probably not) and if such a trail could be muddied. Are there experts in the anti-curse field? Of course. Where are they, what do they cost, can Graham afford it?

So many questions. Next up, we introduce Darlough, the answer-man.

Forråde Forventning

There's a  lot of comfort to be found in predictability. You can pick up a good book, one you're already familiar with, and know that you're going to enjoy it. I can appreciate that. The typical narrative structure of mundanity to call-to-arms to mentor to acceptance-of-heroic-destiny to independence to victory to the-return -- these are successful story elements that you can find anywhere because they work. Becuase people like them. On the other hand, sometimes you just have to mix things up a bit, do something unexpected.

 Yorlain (Bi'iyolñ) is a street magician. He is one of the have-nots who carries a chip on his shoulder, convinced that anything he doesn't have isn't worth having. He is a normal mortal without any magic to speak of, doing stage magic to prove that the workers-in-the-Power aren't any better than normal folks. He is a revolutionary without a mob, a fanatic without a clearly defined cause, and a very stressed, dissatisfied man. He lives an unfulfilled life, scraping by on a meager wage, and sometimes at night he realizes that he makes a fool out of himself every day, in public, on purpose, so he can have enough money to eat. And when he realizes this, he is ashamed. Sometimes he slacks his shame in liquor. Sometimes he just has bad dreams.

Yorlain doesn't know it, but he has a destiny, and it's tangled up with a wizard. Why did I decide this? I can't recall, but it's tied up with one of the principles of writing that I read once. Apparently, all good writers are thieves. They're supposed to take something they like, figure out why they liked it, and do that from then on. Now, this isn't "steal the setting" as much as it is "oh. That character was flawed, and they didn't arbitrarily ignore the flaw every time it was inconvenient." or "that setting had self-consistency" or something. The basic idea is that good writers are supposed to see when other writers do something right, and revise their behavior.

And I had one of those moments reading "Evil for Evil" -- something about inverting expectations. So Yorlain is a street magician who will have to tag along with a real magician. In a normal person, this would evoke shame -- it'd be like me calling myself a gymnast and teaching children how to do cartwheels (I could) and then hanging out with the guy who invented parkour. I would be so out of my league.

But Yorlain doesn't have that problem, and we're going to exploit that for drama. You see, Yorlain is an envious have-not, so good at self-delusion that he believes his own press -- he thinks the Wizards are faking it. He just isn't sure how. And he's going to undergo character growth, probably. Or die. It's always nice to have a character it's okay to kill, right?

Hastigheten Av Historien

In real life, the interesting bits are far outnumbered by the boring. Intense emotions are less common than their more apathetic cousins. In a good story, though, we aren't looking for boring parts. Because they're boring. If a story can't be told without being boring, tell a different story. The point is entertainment -- for me, writing is to entertain me. If I expect someone to read it, the goal is now to entertain them.

So there must be intensity -- without melodrama. I specify this because melodrama is also boring, because whenever something's so overblown that I can't take it seriously, I don't. Graham is going to be going through a tough time -- we know this because he's cursed, and dying. That's fine. And he's going to have tough moral decisions thrust upon him, and that's fine too. That he'll have the decisions means he'll likely end up with a measure of responsibility. Also great.

But we can't make him whiny, so he's going to have to be very calm. Calm can come from acceptance, emotional distance, or self control, among other things. We can't have acceptance, because he has to "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." and fight to survive. We can't have emotional distance because that's inhuman and we couldn't identify with him. So it'll have to be self-control, which makes sense for a wizard anyway. We can't have him be all "The primal forces of the universe are my playthings." and be constantly chasing his every whim. He'd be a monster.

I will get around to religion and society, but it will have to be later, because that's going to require some charts.

Målet Tomten

There's something really nice about displacement stories -- the ones where a hero is torn from his world and thrust into a foreign environment where he must not only handle all the plot can throw at him but also the consequences for his limited knowledge. They are one of the few types of plot entrance that allows the hero to be both dignified and knowledgeable -- competent, even -- without having the foggiest clue as to what's going on around him, giving an author an excuse for exposition.

This will not be one of those stories, though. We know this because we've already established that Graham is a wizard, and by implication is knowledgeable about very many aspects of his world. There remains the problem of sharing the details of the world with the reader while following Graham around, though, so I shall adopt a format of exposition that looks something like a textbook entry. This will be easiest, because I already write like that half the time.

Now, on to the world. We're not operating on a displacement story template, so we can build the world based on what we know of our characters. Claghen Provence, therefore, has the following things we already know:

It's a monarchy. We know that because there's a king, and that's normally where kings come from. Furthermore, we know that in at least some superficial aspects the king interacts in a fairly classic fashion with his people. We have evidence that he bestows noble titles because of the Viscount, we see that there's a king's forest, which implies that the king hunts, probably with his nobles. We also learned that one has to be noble to leave the city after midnight, which implies special privileges for the nobility. Standard stuff.

Claghen city is walled, and owned by His Lord the Viscount. Does this matter? Maybe. We don't know whether wizards are particularly interested in politics, or whether they're subject to special laws. We do know that workers-in-the-Power are a recognized type of person, presumably their own social class -- but whether that class has any need to follow the laws governing nobles or commoners is up for discussion.
Since it could be argued either way, I rolled for it, and got a three. I choose to believe that is a no, which means wizards follow their own law.

So now we must figure out the law systems for nobles, wizards, and commoners. To do that, we need to know a bit more about the culture's religion and ethical structure. That'll be next.

Trollmannen Og Hans Forbannelser

Wizards are widely known to be subtle and quick to anger. Popular knowledge is, as in most cases, completely missing the point without being completely inaccurate. The difference lies in definitions, specifically, that having to do with subtlety. Most people consider subtlety in this case to refer to the temperament of the wizards, and it does -- but only partly.

Wizards are not like warriors. They are not like archers, though they may cast spells to cross distances, and they are not like poisoners, though they may lay a lingering hex. They are not even like sorcerers, who summon demons to devour their opponents. Wizards are much more like electricians.

A warrior can whip out a sword at a moment's notice and cut your arm off. An archer can whip out an arrow. A poisoner can drip poison in a goblet, and a sorcerer can shout a summoning. A wizard must draw lines, and circles, and graphically demonstrate the path the spell is to travel. A wizard must prepare. The counterpoint is that a wizard can do nearly anything he can understand the mechanics behind, with sufficient preparation, and wizards, who long ago conquered their own mortality, understand a lot.

Wizards know the secret of preserving velocity without preserving momentum during a shape-change. That means a wizard could throw a bit of gravel at you, then allow it to shift size into a boulder -- without its speed changing.Wizards know the secrets of teleportation. And, though it seems less impressive, wizards know the secrets of biochemistry, psychology, and calculus.

The end result of all this is that wizards are subtle -- they are both devious and sneaky. More, they are aware of their limits in a way that most mortals, who will never approach their age, can be -- if a wizard is unprepared, he is acutely aware of it and unlikely to start confrontation. In counterpoint, if a wizard is prepared in vain he will be acutely frustrated from the wasted time he spent.

So yes, wizards are subtle and quick to anger. Just not the way that most would think. Graham is a good example. Graham, whose high-tongue name is not known, was born to power, seventh son of a seventh son. He was speaking before he was able to walk. He permanently turned the wash-woman into a snake on his seventh birthday completely by accident and had to be rushed in a carriage to the nearest worker-in-the-Power before he finished turning himself into a lizard.

Graham's mentor was a cold, calculating man who coveted the King's crown -- and was beheaded before he could complete Graham's training in the arts. His successor wandered in vain through the apartments in the tower for weeks before giving in and leaving, never to return -- such were the enchantments that Graham had laid on his master's room that it was never found again, save by him.

Graham achieved apotheosis, if that is the word -- immortality, perhaps -- at the age of twenty-five, and though the process burned ten years from his form he still is considered remarkably well-preserved, for a wizard. Quite the charmer, in some circles.

Nowadays, Graham has settled himself to a quiet life as a metal-smith -- though he spends much more of his time experimenting with molten metal than actually making anything. He's known to be fey, but most don't suspect him of being anything more than moderately gifted at some more minor magic. How wrong they are.
It is fortunate for the world that his talents will not have been wasted, and that some foolish caster placed a curse on him, forcing him out into the world once more.

Navnekonvensjoner, Og Et Tegn

In some historic societies, a man would choose his name upon achieving adulthood. In some microcosms nowadays, a man's teammates choose his call-sign  Elsewhere, the parents designate the name for their offspring before ever knowing him, before his birth, dooming him to whatever social norms accompany his name.

We don't think about it much, but our names define something about us. The reason we don't think about it much is that it doesn't define much about us. Characters in written works, however, are merely constructs of imagination -- their name is one of the only things they have. So, though there are any number of ways a name can be chosen for a character, or a character be chosen for a name -- care (or at least consistency) can't possibly be a bad thing.

I, however, have a long-standing love affair with random numbers, so we'll be generating randomly instead, using a website. We like random numbers around here -- this won't be the last time I'll skip doing things the right way for the random way.

Now, on to character creation. Obviously the world should be coming first -- but what's a world without people? It's easier to define a society that would have produced a character you'd be willing to read about than it is to define a society that would generate characters you'd be willing to read about. (That is, if you make the society to fit the character, rather than the other way around, you'll get better results.)

Let's introduce Jeb, named in high-tongue "Lewë". No, I will not share my name generation template. You can make your own. I will tell you that his high-tongue name indicates that he is destined for great things.

Jeb is a sentinel, a tower-top guard, and he is exhausted. It is only two-to-midnight, but Jeb works three jobs. In a more enlightened age, Jeb would be diagnosed as a depressive, as shown by his unwillingness, nearly pathological, to be idle, which led to his employment situation. In a less enlightened society, he would have already been set up with some nice, if reluctant, miller's daughter whose family desired to better their social situation, and would have been cheered thereby. But, in this age of women's liberation, a man born with such naturally brutal features is out of luck.

So he works. By day, he is the doorkeeper for His Lord the Viscount Belrûst Leman. By night, he is sentinel of the western gate's leftmost tower, which post mainly requires that he stay awake until midnight, spread pitch on the rooftops, and be prepared to wake up at all hours to open the portcullis for any late-night wandering nobility, or the night watch.

When he visits his cousins, he is one of the King's foresters. He doesn't know it, but Jeb is a very dangerous man, with very good connections for a common soldier. Were he less depressed, he might even realize it.

From Jeb, we have learned a few valuable pieces of information, foremost among them that there is a King, a Viscount, women's lib, and a high-tongue, which I knew but you didn't. We're going to go places if we keep this up.

En Mystisk Fiende

Every good story has an hero -- the character with whom the reader is meant to identify. Some of our favorite sorts of stories also have villains. The best sort have deliciously tricky villains whose motives are obscure, actions indistinct, and minds labyrinthine. Unfortunately, for this to be one of those sorts of stories, I'm going to have to outsmart myself. Like playing a single-player game of chess, I will have to deviously plot for either hand, depending on my faulty memory for my fog of war.

Every good villain is two things, though. Fully-fleshed, even off-screen. Thought-out and colorful, with motives and character traits, he prevents the heroes interactions with him from being dull and brings tension and conflict to the external interactions of the hero with the world even as the hero's character traits may bring internal tension to the scene. And he is a threat.

Without a challenge, there is no story. No need for heroism. A non-threatening nemesis is unworthy of the name, a disappointment at best, a side character.

This having been said, now we must figure out why the antagonist is doing what he's doing, how, and why it matters to the hero. For that, we need a hero. And for that, we need a world.

Kunnskap Er Makt

Knowledge is power. Trite and oft-repeated, we've heard this a thousand times. This makes it no less true. Knowledge of physical allowed man to walk the pebbled lunar surface, and to swim the crushing oceanic depths. Were these men better than any others? More personally powerful, intelligent, physically resilient? No?

They reaped the benefits from the applied knowledge of thousands before them. A man with a gun could almost certainly not formulate the black powder, temper the steel, rifle the barrel, or even accurately describe all the parts -- in fact, I'm pretty sure it's not black anymore, but grey -- but he doesn't need to to do something inhumanly difficult, and accelerate a small chunk of metal to near the speed of sound.

Was Alexander the Great more knowledgeable than any other man of his day, or did he stand on the shoulders of giants, lead the massed armies of his fore-bearers, and use the combination of Greek tactical knowledge, Macedonian military technology, and a political climate with could help propagate his culture as he rose to power? His personal charisma may have been formidable, be he was only successful because he know his world, and applied his knowledge.

Nobody wants a story about a hero who has no power, and no intellect. Those are short, sad, soulless, and boring. Therefore, Graham must know things. As an avatar of wisdom, he may as well be a "wise lord" -- a wizard.

One of the most basic human frustrations is the discrepancy between imagination and reality. We can imagine flight, but when we try it, we inevitably fail. We can imagine ourselves rich, or strong, or just an inch taller -- but that's not how reality works. So we invented magic.

Anything that does not fall into the category of the possible is magic. It is the human longing for a shortcut conceptualized.

Stories are also about transcending the human limitation of being able to understand only what we experience -- it's a side effect of only being able to live one life. We understand others by simulating parts of their lives in our minds, and so broaden our horizons. Since magic is a broadening beyond that which is even possible in reality, stories are the only place for it, and therefore are the perfect place for a magical character. So Graham will be a wizard.

Livet Er En Rett

In many ways there can be no more fundamental right than that of continued life, if it may be called a right at all, because without continued life the remaining 'rights' lose a certain amount of value. A life is the single most valuable possession we have, because it cannot be replaced, and because it empowers all others. What good is property if we're dead? Dead men, whether they believe they own something or not, cannot use or keep it -- inheritance is a right of living relatives, not of dead original owners -- so we can say the right to life takes precedence.

So now a hard question. If one were meant to live forever, could he be reasonably accurate to think his life was more valuable than another's? His opportunity cost, if you could call it that, for losing his life would be greater, certainly. He'll live longer, after all, if nothing goes wrong.

Related to that is the question of whether, in a kill or be killed situation, it can be said for certain which should survive -- except that from behind his eyes, he believes himself the more valuable. I cannot say whether he'd be right in believing that, either.

Does the right to life he has trump the right to life of another? It is easy to think so -- but does such a selfish judgement now devalue him, making the other one more valuable in comparison after all?

It is an interesting question -- and interesting questions deserve due diligence, and exploration. Graham, therefore, must face this decision at some point during the storyline.

Moralsk Voldgift

Past a certain point, human moral judgements are arbitrary. When we consider it, the majority of real-world situations are less than black and white -- some value calls must be made to be an ethical human being, and as any judgement may be in error there is a certain degree of uncertainty in the system.

 For instance: the greatest thing a man can do is widely seen to be to sacrifice himself for another -- but where did one get the idea that that other was worth as much as he? An argument could be made that any individual who would willingly give up his most precious possession, his life, for another's gain is worth more than the average of his fellows, and thus should probably instead remain alive for the improvement of those still living, because unless the person being saved is worth saving (is as good or better than the savior) the death of the savior is too high a cost for the outcome, and is wasted.

And the waste of our most precious possession is abhorrent to us. Perhaps we cannot say that common understanding is in error -- self-sacrifice is likely the most moral thing to do in many situations. The point, though, is that sometimes blind acceptance of memorized moral absolutes seems unwise.

Morality contains an element of grey. An element of background calculation impossible to derive through mere top-layer observation. This element -- the judgement whether one's children's orphaned state would be worth the life of a stranger -- hard decisions are where character is thrown sharply into relief. Such moments illumine the soul.

For our purposes, we will use random chance to determine which of a pair of alternatives, both of which could be rationalized, should be taken if there is doubt. Not merely for Graham, but for all characters.

En Begynnelse

Everyone can recognize a good story. Perhaps not why it was good, or whether it was better than another good story -- but they are able to distinguish a spark of creativity, a moment of humor, a genuinely good idea or modicum of sensible thinking they'd never seen before. Stories are how we make sense of the world around us. We see a chair and tell ourselves a story about trees being cut down, sawed to bits, and carefully assembled. We see a brick wall and tell ourselves a story about a bricklayer with a trowel carefully mortaring them in place. And how are we to know whether we are right?

The stories we tell ourselves are normally wrong in most, if not all, particulars. The carpenter who made the chair may have been beardless, unlike the one in our heads. The bricks may have been assembled by machine and shipped to the construction site in panels, or they may be a facade.

We are especially dangerous when we attempt to ascribe motives to other people's actions. Those stories are the most dangerous ones of all, because we can't look out their eyes and know their thoughts -- and without the thoughts, why would we think we know the purpose of the deeds? A simple gesture may be coldly calculated -- or spontaneous. And it changes the flavor of the deed in its entirety.

So there is a recognition of action as distinct from motivation. But why does it all matter?

The crux of a good story is the conflict, and its resolution. Without something unknown, and the desire for it to be known, a revelation is unnecessary. Without a dragon, there is no need for a Knight Valiant. Without a reason, there is no story.

So actions, with motives, are the parts of a story, and their interactions cause -- and require conflict. But all actions require a reality to take place, or can they be said to have taken place at all? And if they did not, how could they conflict? So actions need a world as a thought needs a thinker, and the world must be made first of all.

And then there can be a story.

Our first world will be called "Claghen Provence", and our first story will hinge on the actions and motives of a short, grizzled fellow named Graham, who is dying.