It's Ceremonial

Girls wave to a kamikaze pilot before he departs on his mission

cer·e·mo·ny   [ser-uh-moh-nee]  noun, plural -nies.

1. the formal activities conducted on some solemn or important public or state occasion: the coronation ceremony.

2. a formal religious or sacred observance; a solemn rite: a marriage ceremony.

3. formal observances or gestures collectively; ceremonial  observances: The breathless messenger had no time for ceremony.

4. any formal act or observance, especially a meaningless one: His low bow was mere ceremony.

5. a gesture or act of politeness or civility: the ceremony of a handshake.

I've been thinking a lot about ceremony lately. In the past two months, I have been to three weddings, several birthdays, floated around the periphery of the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, and as my arguably warped mind is wont to do, thought about how such events can be applied to a fictional world like a D&D campaign setting, video game or novel.

Specifically, I have been thinking about how to use ceremony to breathe life into a part of my game world's pantheon that I find really dull--the lawful-good church that worships Heironeous, god of chivalry and valor. The D&D rulebooks present Heironeous in a way that resembles the medieval Christian church, but without all the dark, interesting bits. He is the god of knights and heroes and slaying of dragons. Always brave, with a strong arm and cleft chin. To me, this deity feels like he has the personality of a main character in a Shakespearean comedy, or -to use a more contemporary analogue- a popular kid at school (i.e. he is dull and intended to get by on looks alone)

Unfortunately, this particular stick-in-the-mud is hovering over the center of my current campaign. The kingdom that my players are trying to save consists of some of the god's most devoted followers, so I am forced to deal with the religion and turn it into something more interesting than a cub scout meeting with swords (which actually sounds really interesting, now that I think about it.) and I have come to the conclusion that ceremony is key to adding a sense of depth to an otherwise one-dimensional message of "do good all the time."

The September 11th anniversary manifests an odd phenomenon that could easily be applied to the shiny Heironean faith and which actually seems pretty perverse when you separate yourself from the emotional context: The human desire to sanctify horrific events. Why do we do this? Ground Zero is actually the site of a mass murder, and yet we often refer to it as "sacred ground" as though it were a church. Perhaps it is part of our coping mechanism when faced with human evil and mortality? Perhaps, by focusing on the selfless acts committed by those who were ultimately victims of murder, or attempted murder, we are able to wrestle control of that narrative? Examples of this sort of positive-spin symbolism are everywhere in human history, from the hallowing of Pearl Harbor, to the Crucifixion of Jesus (Easter is a celebration of ritual torture, execution and a missing body!), to countless tales of martyrdom in numerous religions. These events supply a comforting meaning to an otherwise horrible tragedy. "I'm sorry this happened, but your brother died a hero." One could easily use such events as an example to create fictional ceremonies and or beliefs for a faith like that of Heironeous. Perhaps his worshippers celebrate a 300-esque last stand, or have constructed a cathedral on the site of a mighty victory. While one could argue that such deeds were brave and good, hallowing such conflicts begs the question, what about the other side? Why was there conflict in the first place?

Memorials to conflict are not the only way to add shades of gray to an otherwise black and white belief. While thinking about Heironean ceremony, I also stumbled across the notion of putting on a public display of bravery in the face of pants-wetting danger and worry. A book I am reading for work talks about NASA's tradition of having the astronauts' spouses meet their spacefaring significant others at the launch site a few days prior to launch. It is a big press event intended to send the message "we are sending representatives of the wholesome American Dream into the cosmos!" Everyone smiles and waves and looks excited/unconcerned. What is not publicly shown is that the astronauts and their spouses often have tearful goodbyes prior to the launch, full of conversations of "just in case I don't come back". The spouses are even assigned a NASA handler to make travel arrangements for them, but also to act as a casualty liaison for the family should something go wrong. As I read about this ceremony, I immediately envisioned a procession of soldiers parading in front of their wives before going to battle.

These examples reveal something that can make a Dudley-do-Right religion seem much more dramatic and rich from a storytelling standpoint. Exploring the difference between a public show of bravery and meaning, and the inner worries and thoughts secretly harbored by individual members of the faith, opens up a world of plot seeds and rich storytelling possibilities.

V is for Verisimilitude

 
Verisimilitude -or "truthiness" to the unwashed layperson- refers to a sense of realism or believability.

So why would someone working in a high-fantasy motif be concerned with believability? I personally think that achieving verisimilitude is as important (if not moreso) in fantasy as it is in otherwise more "realistic" settings. Making sure the fantastic elements or even the mundane aspects of a fantasy world interact in a believable way helps add a sense of reality to an otherwise unreal environment.

I really started thinking about the verisimilitude of my game world while reading some of my favorite blogs, which deal with the ways that access to fantastic things like magic would affect a universe. If you haven't seen them already, I highly recommend Martin Ralya's post on world-changing spells over at Gnome Stew. I also feel obliged to plug one of my absolute favorite blog series, the Architect DM over at Critical Hits. Both blogs have excellent ideas for game-masters and fantasy writers alike.

Today, I would like to focus on one particular aspect of verisimilitude -building believable conflict and believable villains. To be more specific, I would like to focus on conflict that involves people vs. people as opposed to a person vs. nature or the guy who wants to build and eat the world's biggest ham sandwich.


I find that coming up with believable interpersonal conflict is incredibly challenging even though I think I logically know what makes for exciting and believable conflict. For me, believable conflict occurs when both sides genuinely believe they are doing the right thing. This is why Eric Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto from the X-Men is a far more compelling villain to me than someone like the Joker from Batman. As a child, Lensherr survived the Holocaust only to later find that he had mutant powers. When he saw non-mutant society beginning to single out other mutants as dangerous and undesirable, he took actions, seen by others as evil, to prevent another Holocaust, this time inflicted on mutants. This is a far more compelling backstory than that of the Joker... who went crazy after falling in toxic waste.

Actors who have portrayed villains often mention the necessity for finding something to love about their character. Believable villains do not perpetrate evil acts because they want to do evil, they perpetrate evil acts because they believe those things are actually good!

Unfortunately, many high fantasy worlds suffer from moustache twirler's syndrome. Their villains know they are evil and embrace that fact. In Harry Potter, Voldemort's followers happily fall in line behind someone they call "The Dark Lord"... no matter how much you agree that wizards are superior to muggles, I find it hard to believe that anyone would label the being they revere as "the Dark Lord" especially when it is clear that the term holds the same connotation of evil as it does in real-world "Western" society. Even Tolkien suffers from this evil for evil's sake mentality with Sauron and the orcs. Why are they waging war against the people of Middle Earth? Their evil...that's what they do. Granted, in both of the above examples, access to power is said to be the driving force behind characters' decisions to side with evil. The trouble is, they recognize that what they are doing is evil rather than seeing their pursuit of power as fighting the good fight.

As a side note, if you are interested in this sort of thing, I highly recommend you check out Kiril Eskov's The Last Ringbearer. This retelling of the Lord of the Rings shows events from Mordor's perspective and recasts Sauron's actions as a struggle for technological progress against the technophobic elves and men who want things to remain the same.

Of course, there is a flip-side to the always wanting to do the right thing, which is that the right thing is not always clear, or even existent. To start, people in conflict are emotional beings who often do not want to acknowledge that their truth might not be the whole truth. They find a viewpoint that subjectively makes sense to them and run with it. They refuse or can't acknowledge other points of view believing their own to be correct. Humans, and particularly Americans seem to recoil from moral ambiguity. It scares us. We feel compelled to split things into right and wrong without acknowledging that both sides might be partially right and partially wrong, or that there might not be any right answer. Though our minds can technically grasp such a situation, our hearts and guts revolt against it.

When I am writing, I often have a hard time factoring in these complimentary aspects (desire to do right and resistance to moral ambiguity) that sit at the heart of interpersonal conflict. As the creator of the situation, I can see all sides, by definition. This makes it very difficult to work my way down to the emotionally driven, subjective viewpoint of the characters on either side. And try as I might, someone often comes out of it twirling a mustache.


Anyway, all this brings me to my main point -coming up with a reference that will guide me into the emotional mindset of characters in conflict in an effort to make both sides believable. I find that drawing elements from the news, or from real-world history can help fuel conflict scenarios that feel much truer, and to me, more engrossing. To that end, I have set up a page on this blog, which I have titled "The Plot Garden" which I hope to populate with "The seeds of conflict" (I know, it's cheesy!)... In plain terms, if I get an idea for something that might make for a rich or believable cause for conflict, I will add it to the little list growing on the page. Hopefully, this will prove useful for me and anyone else who stops by looking for inspiration for their next diabolical villain.