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Following on from last week’s session of the tabletop roleplaying game I am running at the local library, I reminded the players that the current “term” ends on 30 April 2026–three weeks hence. I also revisited the question from last week of why so many roleplaying games continue to employ ambiguously (neo-)medievalist settings, such that doing so is the dominant model of the genre. That is, there are tabletop roleplaying games that get away from the (neo-)medievalist–Deadlands and Traveller come to mind as examples–but most have operated and continue to operate with the base assumption of a vaguely feudally stratified society (with interestingly poly- or henotheistic tendencies); why this would be so was the focus of the brief preliminary discussion at the table. Such concerns, speaking to genre-features and -histories, as well as to some philosophical considerations, allowed the stated need for overtly educational content to be addressed well enough, I think.
Pretty typical. Photo by London Aaga Bits – LAB on Pexels.com
As far as play goes, the players continue to fall into a common trap: overthinking. It’s a natural enough thing to do, of course; access to information within a game is limited by narration, so asking many questions to elicit additional information is a good and useful thing. But, like most things, it can be overdone, and easily. Take, for example, an exchange from a previous game, in which one player’s character repeatedly investigated a small altar because “there has to be a button.” Given the context, the character was unable to find such a button and was told as much in more or less those words; failing a check when one is present and succeeding at one when it is not will yield the same result. That there was not such a button present flatly did not occur to the player; only reluctantly did that player move on to the next thing, and even then, the player was certain there was something to find.
In this week’s session, there was another example of such. The party, still second-level characters, faced a gelatinous cube. One of the players sought to have another player’s character, bolstered by magic, pass through the cube to see if it could be bypassed rather than engaged, thinking to use a rope to pull other characters along. The thought process was that the available magic would allow moving through what is, in essence, a sliding open stomach without injury and without it pursuing the party–none of which was evidenced by the creature’s behavior, and all of which ran counter to actions taken up to that point, including by the player’s own character. Dungeon crawls do, admittedly, constrain action, such that they provoke thinking of ways to get around things, but there is often no way but through.
There is some amusement in watching such things happen, of course. Players do it to themselves with very little prompting; I know this well, having often been a player, myself, and not seldom having fallen into such traps both in games and in “real life.” It does make for ease in planning out games, too, as things will take longer than might well have been anticipated–and there is no telling what will prompt such zeal. And it can open other narrative avenues, to boot; what players take interest in is ripe for expansion and development into future games…if there are future games. In such situations as the present, with a seemingly clear end looming, it’s not quite so good, even if it is seemingly inevitable.
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Once again, the time is rushing by; I can’t stop it, and I shouldn’t try. It ever moves on, Each new moment is gone, Slipping by me; how much I could cry!
Tick. Tock. Photo by u16dfu16deu16a8u16dau16b9 u16a8u16b1u16b2u16dfu16beu16cau16b2u16c1 on Pexels.com
One third being gone means two-thirds still remain, and I’ve still got more to give you!
Read the previous entry in the serieshere. Read the next entry in the seriessoon.
Comments from Bee’s journal about her journal and her reaction to the Fool reading it preface “Vivacia‘s Voyage.” The chapter follows Bee and her companions as the Vivacia bears them away from the ruin of Clerres, the liveship communing with her briefly. More survivors of the dragons’ attack, including Althea, are recovered, and Bee marks the shift in how others relate to the Fool-as-Amber. She also muses on her own multiplicity of names and identities.
I need to do more of this, myself. Photo by betu00fcl nur akyu00fcrek on Pexels.com
As the voyage continues, Perseverance tends to Bee, and she spends much time sleeping. This occasions concern among her companions, but Bee is reticent in discussing what befell her. Perseverance relates as much of his own story and Fitz’s to her as he can, and Bee is comforted by the knowledge of her father’s love.
Later, the liveship summons Bee to her foredeck, where Brashen and Althea watch their son suffer. After some discussion, Bee works another Skill-healing on their son, mending many of his injuries. Amber arrives at the foredeck with warnings, and Bee reluctantly accedes to them. As she begins to recover from the experience, Amber and the liveship argue briefly, and Amber later confers with Bee about her abilities. Bee turns the conversation to the love between Fitz and the Fool, and the Fool attempts to turn it to her training as a White Prophet. Bee vents her resentment at the Fool, lying to him about Fitz’s words.
I do note with some pride having gotten to half a thousand entries in my rereading series. I do not expect at this point that nearly so many remain–but I have as much expectation about the days I have lived and will live, so I suppose that’s not something out of line. In both cases, there is still a fair bit for me to do, and I do look forward to getting at least some of it done. (Not that I expect something to happen that would prevent it, mind, but the possibility always exists.) There are many somedays.
Part of me wants to find the way time moves in the present chapter to be overly rushed. Some of that, much of it, is simply that I want to spend more time with the characters, my affective-reading self being as it is; I’ve spent a long time with Hobb’s work, invested much in it (though not so much as some, certainly), and it’s a familiar comfort that I don’t think I’m entirely out of line for wanting to keep hold of for a little longer. In terms of narrative structure, however, it makes sense; the voyage away from Clerres is not, itself, a focal point, but simply transit between focal points, a hastening towards a denouement over which there is no need to linger. It needs done, and there are a few items of interest along the way, but this is an instance where the destination matters far more than the journey. (That I have gotten sucked into rereading at length as I have written this is also a factor; I know what carries me away.)
To continue on with the affective reading: I’ve commented more than once about the ways in which my experiences correspond with Fitz’s, particularly as regards his interactions with Bee, and I find that the present chapter shows Bee growing in some ways I see my own daughter moving. She’s not got much trouble with people trying to stand in loco parentis with her, which is good, but she does have a way with words, and when she decides she will be sharp with them, I find swiftly where I am quite tender, indeed.
Then again, if I cannot be tender with my daughter…
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I ate too much cheese yesterday;
How now I am obliged to pay–
Not in coin or with check,
But my belly is wrecked!
Will I learn from this lesson? O, nay!
Pictured: An assortment of my jokes Photo by Emre Uu011furlar on Pexels.com
I’ve got more in me; get some of it while it lasts!
Read the previous entry in the serieshere. Read the next entry in the serieshere.
A brief adage from Chalced precedes “Warm Water.” As the chapter itself begins, Nighteyes complains of boredom as he is obliged to wait with Fitz for death to come. Fitz notes being surprised to still live, rehearsing his situation in some detail. He and Nighteyes confer internally, the wolf urging him to make a decision and act upon it rather than simply waiting, and Fitz searches what he can reach for some tool to help him. He encounters the titular warm water and is surprised again, attempting to determine its source. Belatedly, he realizes it is a bit of Elderling magic, and he settles into reverie and self-pity for which the wolf rebukes him.
Fitz soon finds out, the hard way, that Chade’s exploding powder can detonate underwater, spurred by the Elderling magic, and the Silver that he had carried splashes all over him. Nighteyes reminds him afterward that the Silver has afforded Verity and the Fool abilities to reshape and rework objects, and Fitz applies himself to reshaping his surroundings to permit his escape. So freed, Fitz slowly pushes forward in an attempt to reunite with the Fool and Bee, and he recognizes the impact his exercise of magic has had upon his body.
At length, Fitz emerges into open air and sees the ruin of Clerres. He also sees the Vivacia pulling away, and he attempts without success to Skill to Bee. Fitz further spies Motley, and Nighteyes remarks that the crow has seen him. He and the crow confer brokenly, and the crow delivers food to him. Drinking from a spring afterward, Fitz encounters Prilkop, who shares food with him amid an awkward conversation. Fitz learns much of recent events from it, and Prilkop mourns what good there had been in Clerres that has been lost with its destruction.
The two part with respect but not friendship, and Fitz finds Capra in the night. An assassin yet, he takes fatal vengeance for the Fool and for Bee, then departs.
The brief prefatory comments put me in mind of JC 2.2.34-35, the comment that “Cowards die many times before their deaths; / the valiant never taste of death but once.” I’ve written before about Shakespearean correspondences in Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings corpus, if with a different focus and a narrow scope due both to the structures of conference papers and the fact that fewer of works existed in the corpus at the time; it is, again, perhaps another scholarly someday that I would return to and expand upon said conference paper with the fuller works in place. That there should be such evocations is unsurprising; there is a reason that so much ink is spilled across so much time about how Shakespeare pops up after himself, and given the privileged position Shakespeare’s works continue to occupy in such conceptions of English-language literary canons that persist, that Hobb would make use of such resonances, consciously or not, is almost inevitable.
The latter parts of the chapter command some attention. The ending, with its comment about the half-chicken Fitz purloins from the slain Capra, strikes me as particularly funny. There’s something about the juxtaposition of the simple pleasure in tasty food and the grim, magically-enhanced work for which Fitz has long been trained and in which he has been reportedly adept that prompted laughter from me–although I admit to being primed for such things, having been steeped in Jenkinsian lore and having written a paper I wish had been published but that led to some useful tutorial materials, at least. And perhaps it is the case that such bits of humor point towards expectations about primary audiences, as well, another in a long series of scholarly somedays.
I am taken, too, by Prilkop’s near-fawning over Capra in the wake of the destruction of Clerres. That Prilkop prizes parts of his ancient home has been clear for several chapters, and he is not in error to point out that there were many in Clerres who could not rightly be held accountable for the many heinous misdeeds done by the Servants, their chosen Prophets, and the cult surrounding both. But for him not only to take delight in people surviving the dragons, but also to lionize Capra’s assumption of unitary leadership and to believe her promise of return to older ways (716), strikes me as…naïve, at best. Given the color dynamics at work (and acknowledging the ways in which earlier portions of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus), I find myself in mind of Uncles Tom and Ruckus, and it’s a markedly uncomfortable line of thought for me. That it is presented as a negative helps to some degree, but that there is still the invocation of such a stereotype…as I note, it’s not comfortable reading for me.
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I know that I should have been there, For, although she knows that I care, I’m not often found; I’m seldom around, And there’s ever less time I can spare.
A body can only wait so long… Photo by u00d6zgu00fcr Avu015far on Pexels.com
There’s more to come. Maybe some of it can be for you?
Getting crabs: that, I do not regret, Since it never was really a threat Given how I have acted; I have never transacted Such as would incur that kind of debt.
It’ll do in a pinch… Photo by Karvanth 16 on Pexels.com
Don’t be left standing on the sand; get your writing well in hand!
Elliott RWI 