When The Maps Are Imaginary
Formal greeting! You are reading the TEETH newsletter, written and compiled by curled toes Jim Rossignol and wrung hands Marsh Davies. This is a newsletter about table-top role-playing games: our own—that we’re publishing over here and also here —as well as interviews, links, and general noodling. Want us to see your work? Get in touch!
Hello, you
LINKS!
An Imaginary Atlas Of Imagined Atlases
Hello, you
Ah, what a pleasant vista this is!
The TEETH Kickstarter is half way along its journey. As we noted last time, the project was funded almost immediately, and continued to pile on the pledges. There are 684 backers at the time of writing, and we’re amazed by the generosity of everyone involved. Thank you, so much!
We’ve been cracking on with the additional materials promised by the stretch goals, and Marsh has already begun the task of illustrating the new words, with a delightful portrait of Tattler Pickfat, the mutated magistrate…
And a view of Ebith College, one of the locations from the book that we’ll be delving into in more detail.
I, meanwhile, have been grubbing about in a world of cursed objects as I begin to describe Mandeville’s Cursed Inventory. It should certain raise an eyebrow/smile once it’s done.
If you are still somehow ravening for more, there’s been some lovely coverage of the Kickstarter, with an interview over on Bloody Disgusting, and a chat with Jim coming up in the next Wyrd Science newsletter, so keep an eye out for that.
Oh and I forgot to link the special Jim & Marsh Crate & Crowbar podcast last time, so here it is.
-jim
--
LINKS!
A couple of people asked me if we intended to do more on solo-RPGs and the answer is nooooooooo… well, maaaaybe. Maybe. BUT perhaps there is no reason for us to do so! As Patrick Buechner’s The Soloist now exists. This handsome newsletter has a whole bunch of coverage of solo and single-player RPG stuff, and I am very impressed with the whole vibe so far. Go sign up!
I like the look of Psykers.
Prisoners Of The Elf King explores what might happen when a bunch of dwarves escape imprisonment by a cranky elf king. Nothing good, by the sounds of it.
Not sure how I previously missed out on twin card game Desperation, but it now has my full attention. “Gothic storytelling experiences steeped in actual history, Dead House and The Isabel are dark, lyrical games about people pushed far past their limits.” With beautiful art!
I rather enjoyed this group of CRPG designers at GDC — Josh Sawyer, Mike Laidlaw, Strix Beltran, Paweł Sasko, and Lis Moberly — that PC Gamer corralled together to talk about their craft. It’s one of the things that trad media like PCG still manage to orchestrate with aplomb, long may it continue.
Cosplay and RPGs go hand in hand, of course, but some of them could be said to be getting /out of hand/ so to speak. Because look at this! Costume creator Isa provides detailed tutorials on how she creates her stuff, but this one is really going to blow some minds, as it has mine. Incredible work.
Oh gosh, we’ve gone a bit digital in this newsletter, sorry, but we expect some of you might get some mileage out of If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travellers. And it’s free! (Somehow.)
In research this week I’ve been reading about Pier Gerlofs Donia, a vengeful 16th century pirate who apparently wielded a 7-foot great sword with which he could dispatch heads from multiple enemies in a single blow.
—
An Imaginary Atlas Of Imagined Atlases
I own a surprising number of atlases. Some are straightforward atlases. You know the sort: large-format hardback books containing maps of the world. Others, like The Times Atlas Of World History, which I somehow own multiple editions of, are also grand acts of generalised erudition: formidable slabs of publishing achievement that have been iterated over decades of republishing to explain something with maps. In this case, the general history of the human race.
Hell, I would say those inky buggers give more life and meaning to most accounts of our real and actual history than half the books I’ve read or lessons sat through. There is a degree to which I regard these as essential tomes: foundation stones of reading which you should solemnly hand to your son or daughter only to have them roll their eyes and turn back to watching makeup tutorials on Youtube.
Other atlases in my collection are more quirky, such as The Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will, which delivers very much what the title describes, or the unforgettably meta The Atlas Of Atlases. If humankind produces enough of these and it will be atlases all the way down.
Some atlases are not entirely about accuracy or eruditon, of course. The Phantom Atlas is about the times in history when people just made up what the world looked like and whacked it in a map. I really love this book: the idea of a medieval cartographer being tasked with providing a map of Africa and managing the map-equivalent of those medieval artists to tried to draw elephants without ever having seen one.
Of course, the majority of the atlases I own, somewhat less surprisingly, perhaps, are depictions of entirely imaginary places.
It is fair to say that, as a teenager, I was, from the moment that the incoming wave of D&D broke over the Sword Coast of my imagination, awash in fantasy maps. I was the kind of nerd who not only pinned up the large maps of the Forgotten Realms that came with the box set, but even had the big, multipart Waterdeep map.
And, let me tell you, the ceiling of my teenage bedroom was too low to get that pointlessly huge motherfucker on the wall, and I have never forgiven that wall, or the universe which created it. The image here is the best I could find, as my own version was sadly lost or destroyed, via Wayne’s Books. Please forgive me for this borrowing, Wayne. Readers: please visit Wayne’s site and admire his many books. Oh shit, I have just noticed he HAS the damned Waterdeep box set for $109 dollars… I HAVE $109 DOLLARS! (Not for long! - Ed.)
Anyway, I have said a good number of things about fantasy maps over the years, but I happened to pick up The Atlas Of Pern the other day, and while I have no significant love for the Pern series (Yeah, I read them, but they all seemed a bit 70s prog rock to a 1990s Jim Rossignol) I nevertheless was inspired to write this note on fantasy atlases, which really serves as eulogy for the book’s author, Karen Wynn Fonstad, the peerless titan of fantasy atlas creation.
I mean, look at this.
Wynn Fonstad’s books were, in a sense, The Times Atlas Of World History of these fantasy universes. They mapped the places, but also the events of various books. The events of Lord Of The Rings were meticulously mapped, scene by scene, in a way that is basically unneccessary in any reasonable sense of the word, and must therefore be understood as an act of love.
Of course they were invaluable sourcebooks for RPGing, too, and my copy of her The Atlas Of The Forgotten Realms was so beloved by me as a D&Ding DM that it now looks like it has been through a war.
Thinking back: I remember the extent to which my D&Ding as a youth was improvisational and based on not much more than having this atlas and a Monster Manual to hand, and let the players wander. They simply explored the maps, heading for unfamiliar forests and deserts. And wow, I suddenly feel deeply motivated to do that again. Perhaps I shall.
On this final note: while writing this I was picking through the incredible atlas of Numenera, Maps Of The Ninth World, and noted that every single regional map has both annotated and bare versions.
This is absolutely how to do it! It allows the players explore, lets them place their discoveries on the map, to have a sense of where they want to go while allowing for adventure and discovery. Modern VTTs are absolutely amazing for this, too! Hell, I almost want to run a pure exploration Numenera game just to use these maps.
Anyway. I am simply rambling now.
Did I mention there are loads of maps in our new book? It’s being Kickstarted, you know.
--
More soon! x