Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the nineteenth edition of the alcarin.com newsletter.
There is an archive of the previous newsletters in the Townhall and the columns are added to the Town Square, so you can always read it again.
University kept me quite busy this month and I've been working on a rpg mission I'm going to run soon with my friends, so I haven't had the time to do much work on the site this month. There were only few submissions as well. Nevertheless, I did manage to work on a new piece of Elfstone material: a geography page of the city of Arquen.
Enjoy reading.

This letter's content:
1. What's New
2. Coming Up Soon
3. Close-Up
4. Column: Men with a Mission

-------
WHAT'S NEW:

30/05/2002 - new character in the School: Snikch Quickpaw

23/05/2002 - added neigborhood descriptions to City of Arquen legend (Elfstone Campaign Setting) to the School

10/05/2002 - added legend to map of Arquen: Geography: City of Arquen (Elfstone Campaign Setting) to the School

03/05/2002 - new link in The Gate

Visit http://www.alcarin.com/townhall/updates.htm for the latest updates.

-------
COMING UP:

The Geography page of Arquen is there, but it still needs a lot of work. For now, we've got a general intro, the map with the legend and descriptions of the neighborhoods. I'm going to work on descriptions of specific locations, powergroups, important persons and background information (military, underworld, some history). When this is finished, I'll create Geography pages for Alcarin and Cemen and add them to a separate Geography section. I'm also working on some custom rule sets and when they are finished I'll put those online as well.
Further new additions next month will largely depend on submissions (and there will probably be a few of them).

-------
CLOSE-UP:

Lord of the Seven Vales (Temple: Poetry & Songs)

Preview:
"An unborn star now rising,
still thinking life's enticing.
Silent death yet to become,
No name yet to be undone.

Banner's rising in the sky,
knight has heft his head up high.
Brave steed, charging down, it rears,
but still enters vale of fears.

Shadows lurking, coming soon,
to evaporate child's boon.
Dark shapes hover on the rim,
making hero's hope grow dim."

These are the first three verses of the Epic-Gothic poem "Lord of the Seven Vales". It was written half way May and published shortly after. It contains seven verses of four lines, each containing seven syllables.
The poem is partly (every other verse, starting with the second verse) written as an epic story of a brave hero on a quest. The other verses of the poem are a more common type of poetry. They describe the story of the story and the true feelings and problems, encountered by the hero during his quest. Both parts of the poem, but especially the story parts, use Fantasy as a way of expression.
The hero's quest is a simple concept, but one that can contain a vast world of meaning. Fantasy works quite well in describing fears, problems and other emotions, because Fantasy itself is everyday life, projected in a whole different world. In doing so it outlines the true problems in life; turning vague fears and uncertainties into monsters. But still, it hides the true meaning in a shroud of mystery and it puts the imagination to work even more than do other types of stories. And so the hero travels, encountering much difficulty and suffering, like the journey of life itself.

Read the entire poem in the Temple: http://www.alcarin.com/temple

-------
COLUMN: MEN WITH A MISSION
A column by Wouter vd Zandschulp; wouter@alcarin.com

"Urge to live"

Ever since we are born we have been role-playing. Well, maybe not since day 1, but pretty soon. Small children mostly are terrific role-players.
The reason? Well how should I know? Hmm... I am writing this column... okay... I'll think of something.
Err... well... they are small. Real small. As such, they do not know what they should do. Because, well, they do not know anything yet. All you know or do must come from somewhere.
So you go and watch and copy that. Your parents do stuff, like dishes. So you think: "Wow! Those guys that are irritatingly hanging around me all the time can do all they want! They can walk and talk and all! And they, whom can do all they want, go and put dishes in water and than they take it out and go over it with some sort of cloth. Daddy mostly does that after mommy threatened to hurt him... Well, than that must be really cool!"
So they want to do the dishes. But they may not. They mostly aren't allowed until they don't like it anymore and realize that grown-ups mostly do things they don't like, instead of something they do like, while they are old enough to do what they like. One of life's weird things.
So what do they do? They do as if they are doing dishes instead of really doing it, and find out that is at least as much fun. And so also bit of cooking, playing father and mother, but that's not all. There is another force in the house to learn and copy from: the TV. There they learn all kind of violent stuff. Thanks to the warnings (this program contains violence and stuff) they exactly know which show to watch. And to avoid problems with parents, all kind of violent kids series are produced also! And there they go and play cops and robbers and slay-the-monster and all.
So they do that because they want to do something they may not do. So they pretend they do it anyway.
Later on, we still know this urge, I believe. We still fantasize all we can. We all want to be heroes. But we can't.
But wait! We can! We just make a party only consisting of heroes!
Brilliantly found, of course. If we examine the role-playing more closely, we see what it all contains.
The fantasy-world is more wide and free. Because it is all still so strange to us, like normal life was when we were kids, it all is exciting and surprising. And it is not for real of all that serious. Since we are all kind of cowards, this also means a great deal. Now it is not for real we lose a great restriction; the fear of all going wrong forever! Losing this restrictions also brings us to, most of the times without even knowing it, showing what we really want and even doing this.
Okay, there are some restrictions to make it workable, a DM for instance, but as long as you are stronger than he is, you can easily cope with this.
The role-playing also can provide us with monsters we can beat. In real life, we meet irritating people we have to stay nice to, big and strong people that manipulate us, and our dentist. Monsters we can't beat. Problems we can't solve. In role-playing we meet monsters we can beat and problems we can solve.
And so we see it's all symbolic. We make our own, better world and do all to make it as real as possible, despite the fact we know it isn't. Just because we really want it to be real. First we make up how we would want it, and than we build on it and build on it. Fantasy-creatures get real names, families, histories and all. And that until no one in his/her right mind could keep saying it isn't for real. Yes, I do believe this urge stays. You may bury it, but it will stay with you some place. This urge to let the thing buried deep in our hearts by all those many restrictions and barricades secretly come out in a world where this is possible. A world so far from the one we know, that we dare to bring it closer. All can be revealed in the symbolic fantasy setting, were it is safe to come out.
As our Alcarin.com webmaster, Arjan Wardekker, showed in the close-up: all deep problems can be put on paper when taken in comparison of a fantasy hero on his quest.
And well, if you don't believe me I will kick your... ehm... I meant... you just listen to yourself when you try to explain something you feel or believe to another. You will soon find yourself automatically going in comparisons. Well, the bigger those are worked out, the more you can express to one another and yourself.
So to sum up what I mean in two words: Fantasy rules!
So I will conclude (really, I will!) by advising you to look at what you're fantasizing; look at what you really, really want. And try to take away the burdens, also in real life, try to take a chance there too!
I mean, if it all goes wrong you can always start making bitter and sarcastic jokes, so you can't lose, really.
Okay, than that was it for this time, please react if you want, you only have to click on my name.

-------
Well, that's it for this month's newsletter. I hope you enjoyed it.
Lord Gildor
"May the stars guide you on your journeys"
http://www.alcarin.com

Back to the Notice Board

Home | Submit content | Contact | Legal info | Top of page

This website © Copyright 1999-2008, Arjan Wardekker.
All rights reserved.
All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.