rust

The problem is the meaning of the term "romance" like many other terms has changed over the years.

It is equally confusing over here.

In German "Roman" simply means "novel", which implies that every novel is a kind of romance.

This leads to the typical "German English" with sentences like "She went to bed with a criminal

roman" ("Kriminalroman" = "detective story").

Then we had our "Romantik", a literature movement that emphasized strong emotions and had

a fantastic streak that led to the "Schwarze Romantik" with novels that are somewhat similar to

what Poe or Byron wrote.

A famous example is "Die Elixiere des Teufels" by E.T.A. Hoffmann, which is the kind of "fantas-

tic horror romance" I was thinking of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Elixiere_des_Teufels

However, the word "Romanze" is hardly ever used in literature, it means a "love affair", usually

in a slightly derogatory sense, and "Romantisch" (= "romantic") can be a beautiful rural scene-

ry, a candle light dinner or a love poem.

Thus a "fantasy horror romance" seems like an odd combination, although a gothic novel might count ...

I am not sure whether "romance" has exactly the same meaning in our languages, but as it is

used over here, Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" could come very close to a "fantasy hor-

ror romance".

By the way, Conrad, your Smallpokss posts are about as funny as a traffic accident.

Are all these supposed genres just catch-phrases thrown out willy nilly by marketing people? Why do books stores put some books in the 'fiction' section and others in the 'literature' section? How do 'serious analysts' categorize things, and if their way is better why hasn't the market caught on?

In my experience most terms for genres were created by critics who were looking for a word

to describe what certain books have in common, followed closely by publishers who wanted

to connect a newly published book to a previous bestseller by claiming that the new book was

"of the same kind". The academic discussion is lively, but has only minimal impact on the book

market, the few exceptions being academics who are also respected critics.

The "serious analysts" have failed to agree on any comprehensive system of literature catego-

ries / genres, mainly because the authors do not follow any easily recognized and described

pattern.

Quite the contrary, many authors intentionally try to write something fresh and original that

does not fit into any established category, forcing the "serious analysts" to return to the dra-

wing board and attempt to come up with a new system of genres.

[Some good luck ... my PC had only a minor problem ... ]

In my view the categories are useful for people who talk about books, but mostly useless for

those who write and read the books.

If one wants to compare different books, it helps to have a terminology to describe their con-

tent in a simplified "short hand" way , because otherwise one would have to tell much of a

book's story to find out where the books are similar or completely different - categories save

time, although at the price that they rarely fit well.

In the end, each book - and especially each original book - is a unique creature, one of a kind.

If it could easily be pigeon holed, it would most probably only tell a story that has been told be-

fore, and used to define the "pigeon holes".

I think the two kinds of "Fiktion" were mostly a social phenomenon. Those educated in the "sci-

ences" preferred "Zukunftsromane" that discussed how their fields of interest might change and

develop in the future, those educated in the "arts" preferred "Phantastik" that discussed new or

different human experiences.

"Crossovers" between the two "cultures" were somewhat rare and appeared rather late, and

the term used for them was "Social Fiction", the description of the consequences future deve-

lopments in science and technology might have for individuals and society - Dick's novels would

fall into this category, I think.

Fantasy was almost nonexistent, the only examples were more like historical fiction, so there

was no category for Space Fantasy, and the Space Ranger Shaman would have caused heated

debates - if it would have been written at all.

When this kind of novels were translated into German, we also began to use the categories of

"fantasy" and "science fiction", probably because our own categories were unable to handle

this kind of literature well.

Edit.: My PC needs repair, so I will be offline for a couple of days.

Over here the categories used to be somewhat different, although today most people use the

categories common in the English speaking world.

All literature that described something that does not exist in the real world was "Fiktion" ("fic-

tion").

If the laws of nature were different from those in the real world (e.g. magic existed), it was

"Phantastik" (roughly "fantasy", but also including parts of the horror genre like "gothic novels",

etc.).

If the novel was set in the future, it was a "Zukunftsroman" ("novel about the future", as all ear-

ly science fiction was called over here).

Most "Zukunftsromane" used extrapolated real world science, many were written by scientists

who speculated about the - in their view - foreseeable future developments of science and tech-

nology.

"Phantastik", on the other hand, usually avoided scientific themes and concentrated on human

experiences with the supernatural.

As Wikipedia puts it:

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both.[1][2] The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science Fiction.[3][4][5] The complementary term soft science fiction (formed by analogy to "hard science fiction"[6]) first appeared in the late 1970s as a way of describing science fiction in which science is not featured, or violates the scientific understanding at the time of writing.

The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences. Neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy—instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful. The categorization "hard SF" represents a position on a scale from "softer" to "harder", not a binary classification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_SF

As a matter of interest, the reason why I was asking was because I was thinking of writing a SciFi monograph or supplement and I was wondering whether it could be a general one of whether it should be tailored for one of the categories.

Most settings do not fall neatly into one of the categories, and I would consider it a bad idea to

restrict your imagination by writing specifically for one of the categories. Some of the best set-

tings, of literature as well as roleplaying, are "crossovers" that use "typical" elements of diffe-

rent categories. So, in my view you should write whatever you think is a good setting or adven-

ture, ignoring the categories until it is completed.

However, it would be nice if you would describe the monograph or supplement in terms of the

categories once you have finished it and are satisfied with it. This helps to understand what to

expect of it, and to decide whether to buy it or not.

By the way, I should probably have used "touchy" or "sensitive" rather than "anal", but over here in the UK "anal" is seen as a mild slang term for "anally retentive", meaning "very uptight". Sorry if I offended anyone.

Well, I have to admit that "anal" did indeed irritate me, over here it would have been an inten-

tional insult. However, since you are not the kind of user that aims to insult others, I took it as

"a British thing".

Drive Thru RPG lists the sub-genres of science fiction and fantasy.

It has five sub-genres of Science Fiction:

Cyberpunk

Hard Sci-Fi

Mecha

Postapokalyptisch

Space Opera

And eight sub-genres of Fantasy:

Asiatische/Wuxia Fantasy

Dark Fantasy

High Fantasy

Historische Fantasy

Klassisch

Romantic Fantasy

Steampunk

Sword and Sorcery

You don't get fantasy fans splitting hairs about different types of fantasy ...

Of course they do, just ask fans of D&D (Classic Fantasy), Mars (Space Fantasy) and Shadow-

run (Urban Fantasy).

Isn't it a bit contradictory ?

Not necessarily, because some settings may have other means to increase characteristics than

research or training, for example magical or technical means.

'Fallen Flower', harlotry, 'woman of easy virtue' or some other nonsense would work for a certain profession of the Old West.

Also "soiled dove" or "horizontal singer", according to GURPS Old West.

For me it would be The Green.

Is there anyone here who's played through the scenario?

Yes, although I had changed it somewhat to make it fit better into my campaign. It played very

well, without any problems, and the players really liked it.

Shades of Trail/Curse Of Tsathogghua ...

After you mentioned this, I downloaded the PDF from Drive Thru RPG to take a look at it and

see whether I could borrow some ideas. I was quite surprised to see that it is indeed almost

exactly the plot I had in mind, I only have to change some details and move it from Green-

land to Asornok to be able to use much of the material.

So for your setting I'd recommend the Lee-Enfield SMLE Mk III as the basic rifle for your North West Mounted Police.

Thank you very much indeed.

The Lee-Enfield SMLE fits in very well, especially because there are game stats for that rifle

in the Call of Cthulhu rules.

Working on my Asornok setting, I have run into two small problems concerning firearms,

and would welcome the advice of some of the experts here on the forum:

1) I was unable to find out exactly which rifle the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used in

the years around 1925. I think it was the Lee-Metford Rifle, but I am not certain, because

some sources also mention the Winchester Model 1894.

2) My Asor need a hunting rifle that is comparatively cheap, easy to handle even under

arctic conditions, and has enough range and power to hunt caribou, seal and walrus.

I was thinking of the Martini-Enfield Rifle, but this may well be a bad idea.

Thank you for any help with this.

In any case, I don't think the word can be trademarked, because D&D uses it.

Tolkien took the Old English word "Orc" from the Beowulf, where it probably means "demon"

or "things related to demons".

Thank you very much.

I have now begun to design the introductory adventure for the Asornok setting, an adventure for

a group of Asor or a mixed group of Asor and Southerners.

The professions available for Asor characters are Anganoka (female shaman), Craftsman and

two varieties of Hunter, one for Asor who hunt on land (caribou, musk oxen, etc.) and one for

those who fish and hunt along the coast and at sea (seals, small whales, etc.).

Southerner characters have some more options, for example Hudson's Bay Company Factor, Je-

suit Missionary and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer.

Here is the basic idea of the adventure:

The Gift of Janus

Germany has been a pariah of international politics since the Great War and the Treaty of Ver-

sailles. This year, 1926, the German government wants to join the League of Nations, and it is

looking for potential friends and supporters among the smaller nations that remained neutral

during the Great War.

One of the targets of this foreign policy initiative is Asornok. The German government has deci-

ded to send Asornok a small herd of yaks from Berlin's zoo as a gift of state, with the idea that

yaks might well be able to survive the extreme climate of Asornok and become the Asor's first

domestic food animals, a potentially most important addition to the economy of Asornok.

Since the Asor are unlikely to be able to handle the yaks and to know how to breed and to use

them, some German zoologists and animal handlers will accompany the animals and stay with

them for a while to teach the Asor.

The British government mistrusts the German intentions, but to prevent this gift would alienate

the Asor and also not go down well in Britain, so the British Political Agent in Nan Asor was told

to keep an eye on the Germans' actions, and he in turn asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Po-

lice to watch the events closely.

The Anganoka welcomes the gift, but she is also not convinced of the altruism of the German

government. She has decided that the animals and the German experts will have to stay on Re-

solution Island off the coast of Asornok itself, officially because she wants to make sure that the

animals and the Southerners do not introduce any disease to Asornok.

The British and the Anganoka are of course right. While the German government really wants

to make friends, the people who proposed the gift and some of the people who accompany the

animals have other plans. Like the god Janus, Germany currently has two faces, one looking to-

wards democracy and peace, the other towards totalitarianism and war, and both movements

are involved in this operation.

The Reichswehr, Germany's military, is already secretly preparing for the next war. It wants a

meteorological station in Asornok, which would be most useful for naval operations. It has the-

refore instructed the zoologists to sabotage the training of the Asor, making it necessary to es-

tablish a permanent base with a German team in Asornok "until the Asor have understood the

concept of animal husbandry", and this team will include some navy meteorologists posing as

unimportant support personnel, for example the team's cook.

Far more dangerous is the second group that hides behind the gift, the Thule Order, an extre-

me right wing group of occultists that is convinced that Asornok hides ancient secrets of the Ur-

Aryans who once inhabited the far north, secrets that could be used to lead the Aryan Race to

greatness again.

Unfortunately these madmen have learned of the Anganoka's library, where the Asor keep hun-

dreds of scrolls written in Asor glyphs on leather, beginning with the White Book of An Madol

written by the Anganoka White Cloud Walking around 800 AD, and including treasures like the

Book of Freydis Styrkarsdottir from around 1290 AD, which describes the life of the Norse sett-

lers in Greenland. However, the library does not contain any material about Ur-Aryans, which

of course never existed on Asornok.

The library is kept on Nuk Hurom, where the Anganoka and her small staff of less than 50 fe-

male Asor live, so the library is almost unguarded, and the Germans' ship - crewed mostly by

members and hirelings of the Thule Order - could take them there within a few days, enabling

them to raid the library and kill all witnesses before the return voyage to Germany.

The death of the Anganoka and the theft of the library would be a lethal blow to the culture of

the Asor, beheading their political and religious structure and deleting their history.

To avoid this desaster, the characters have to find out whether some of the Germans who ac-

company the yaks really have hidden motives and plans, what these plans are, and then to put

an end to those plans - preferably without causing a diplomatic crisis, especially because the

yaks really could prove most valuable for the Asor.

Well, so far the basic idea of the adventure.

And here is a plan of Nan Asor, the capital of Asornok:

I will use the Mythos very sparingly, and I will definitely not use the Sanity rules, but there will

of course be some nasty creatures.

The "Ice Demons" worshipped by the tribe of "Demon Worshippers" when the Asor arrived on

the island do still exist. They are Voormis, descendants of the proto-human inhabitants of the

region, semi-intelligent creatures very similar to Yetis or the big, white, carnivorous apes de-

picted in some fantasy games. The Voormis inhabit the remote mountain regions of Asornok,

but they occasionally come to the coast to attack lone travellers or even to raid Asor camps.

Since the Asor are mostly a coastal and maritime culture, hunting seals and small whales, the

other "monsters" are aquatic ones: A kind of giant crab that inhabits the shallow waters along

the coast and a kind of aquatic dinosaur / giant sea turtle that lives further out to sea. Both are

very rare, but also very dangerous for those who have the bad luck to encounter them.

I will perhaps introduce other creatures later on, but I think for a start this is sufficient.

As for magic, the Anganoka know some few spells useful for healing, for visiting the spirit realm

Inguanok and for calling, taming and commanding some types of animals, especially their totem

animals Owl and Wolf. Some of the experienced hunters also know a few spells useful for hun-

ting.

These spells are only comparatively weak ones, their results could easily be explained with the

skillful use of herbs and psychology for healing, with the shamanistic trance or with a truly ex-

cellent knowledge of the native wildlife. They are not "flash-bang" and cannot be used in com-

bat, but they give some credibility to the religion, folklore and beliefs of the Asor.

The spirit realm Inguanok, the home of animal and totem spirits as well as the other nature spi-

rits and the spirits of the Asor's ancestors, is a specific region of the Dreamlands of Earth. It is

much like a fantasy version of Asornok, with talking animals, clans of the dead Asor wandering

and hunting, and all that.

The Anganoka use trance, drugs and spells to enable their own spirits to visit this realm in or-

der to communicate with the various spirits and ask them for informations, advice or help. If

necessary, an experienced Anganoka can also take the spirits of others with her to Inguanok,

which gives me the option to locate fantastic adventures there.

Talking of options, I think I will also design some few truly Cthulhoid locations for Asornok, for

example old Hyperborean temples of Tsathoggua, where the Voormis still celebrate their rites,

and where the characters could have to deal with some really powerful Mythos creatures.

But this will be a climax of a long campaign, for example the final and decisive battle to end the

"Demon Worship" of the Voormis and turn the Voormis into creatures that can be left alone in

their mountain habitats because they are no longer more dangerous than the normal wildlife,

for example the polar bears.

"Today" (ca. 1926) Asornok is a semi-independent nation still ruled by the Anganoka shamans

and the Clan Elders, but with a British Political Agent as their "adviser".

Most Asor still live as semi-nomadic hunters, wandering in summer and living in settlements

during the winter. Three such settlements grew into permanently inhabited small towns, one

of them is the nation's capital Nan Asor, where the British Political Agent resides, the Hudson's

Bay Company has its trade post, and the Jesuits run a school and a small hospital.

Christianity did not win the hearts and minds of the Asor, mainly because of their very strong

cultural taboo against any kind of cannibalism and the missionaries' early blunder to explain

the "wine to blood and bread to flesh thing" during Christian ceremonies.

Therefore Asornok's true power is still the Asor's highest Anganoka, who lives on the island of

Nuk Hurom at the nation's only permanent temple. The "Southerners", as all Europeans are

called by the Asor, consider the High Anganoka as either the Queen of Asornok or a kind of

heathen witch, but all who had to deal with the Asor are well aware that she makes all the im-

portant decisions.

However, she is also known to delegate her power wisely. When conflicts between the Asor and

the Southerners became a serious problem, because the Southerners refused to accept Asor

law and Asor justice, the High Anganoka negotiated a treaty with the newly established Domini-

on of Canada, and now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has an outpost at Nan Asor and is

responsible for all legal dealings with Southerners.

All in all, Asornok is a country with a low technology level, but a technology that is perfectly sui-

ted for the environment (the Southerners even copy parkas and kayaks ...), and a highly deve-

loped social organization based upon the shared power of the female shamans and the usually

male clan elders.

Oh, and like all my fictional nations it has a flag, depicting the Owl, one of the Asor's totem

animals - the Asor call themselves the People of Owl and Wolf.

Over the last few days I have converted my Asornok setting from a medieval pseudohistoric

setting into one for the classical Call of Cthulhu period.

The Asor are a tribe of thirteen clans of arctic hunters, somewhat similar to Inuit. They live

on Baffin Island, which they call Asornok, "Land of the Asor".

According to their legends, the Asor originally lived in the border region between China and

Siberia, from where they migrated to the American arctic region about 4,000 years ago. Af-

ter many years of wandering they finally arrived on Baffin Island, which they conquered in

a long and bitter war against the "Demon Worshippers", probably either a remnant of the Hy-

perborean civilization or a tribe of Inuit that had learned the worship of Tsathoggua from the

last Hyperboreans.

The culture of the Asor remained unchanged while they slowly expanded across the more than

500,000 square kilometers of their new homeland, the first major changes came when Norse

settlers came to Greenland.

After a series of often quite brutal conflicts the two cultures finally settled into an almost

friendly relationship, and even began to learn from each other. The Norse learned how to

survive better in the arctic environment, the Asor became familiar with the European's metal

based technology and medieval scientific thought. When the Norse colony failed around 1350,

some of the last surviving Greenlanders even joined the Asor and married into their clans.

For the next about 200 years until Frobisher's expedition to search the Northwest Passage the

contacts between Asor and Europeans remained rare, but with the European conquest of North

America came French Jesuit missionaries and the British traders of the Hudson's Bay Company.

The Anganoka, the female shamans who rule the Asor, managed to negotiate treaties with the

Europeans, who were interested in the narwhale and walrus ivory and the furs the Asor had to

offer, but unwilling to govern the remote frozen island.

Asornok finally became a semi-autonomous British protectorate, and with the Great War and

the decline of the British Empire came the opportunity to gain even some more autonomy, so

Asornok signed treaties with the United States and joined the Leagua of Nations in 1926.

I will try to be there.

Thank you very much.