Icor's RP 201 - A Bombastic Analysis of the Aabahran Narrative

[Volgathras]

A Bombastic Analysis of the Aabahran Narrative (i.e., RP Essay 201)

By Icor

INTRO

Coming from a player of Heralds, I thought it would be appropriately arrogant of me to write about this. Aabahran’s history, appearance, and nature are somehow very mysterious, despite the fact that everything about it is made exclusively by informative, written word. Even if this mystique was the original authors’ intent, I find myself constantly digging for facets and truths universally acceptable in the game to use as props when playing characters, and I know for certain that I am not the only one that does this.

They key point of this essay is not, however, to do some thorough dissection, but only to give support to the idea that The Forsaken Lands is very much about characters. The little plot holes, big politics, and anti-sciences of it all ultimately do not matter. No one cares about how plausible a Cloud Kingdom is, or that there is an arbitrary, oversized factory dedicated to the slaughtering and packaging of ducks next to a city full of lizards. To unify the universe under some mantle of complete logic and sense would be to gut almost every area in the game and rewrite countless pages of information. The areas in the game now build an adequate scale for characters to recognize the context of their situation. When standing in Gear, they can feel the splendor, anticipation, and danger of it, but only because they know how safe and unintimidating places like Ofcol are.

So, with generous intent and an explorative heart, I will now proceed into a wall of text musing the grandness of Aabahran and fleshing out all its little points for, potentially, a splendid story discussion, with emphasis on these points’ relevance to playing characters.

THE BEGINNING

Since philosophers, scientists, and even mathematicians argue about the origin of the real world today, it is hardly fair to talk about the beginning of Aabahran’s planet (once rampantly known as Thera -- evidently this is no longer the case). I will leave you with the primary theory, originally written by Crypticant, which is that some kind of space-faring machine, or a black hole, called a “Chaos Machine”, spewed the planet, some primordial living elements, magic, the star which the planet orbits, and the three moons into existence. It then left to consume other planetary realms or stars to, in turn, recycle them (or whatever).

There is very little else to discuss here that is not talked about inside documentation written about the game. Characters by and large are oblivious to the origin, but more importantly than that, do not care. In this way, characters in Aabahran are diametrically opposed to humans in the real world, who are ceaselessly asking, “why am I here”, “what purpose does my life hold”, and “where do I go when I die”? The presence of a verifiable poly-theology in the game’s narrative, since the beginning of all life, has alleviated these concerns entirely, and curiosity, suffering, and joy are found in completely different places.

THE MODE

One of the most complex and freeing facets of Aabahran is that it is simply a continent pinched by two massive oceans which are thus far thought to be too maddening or mazelike to cross. It does not follow, however, that distant lands do not exist or that they are not habitable, or indeed, inhabited. Players can invent just about any measure of foreign worlds they desire, and have done so with the restring option thousands of times over.

What this tells me is that the narrative of FL is about Aabahran in specific; meaning, there is something to be told about this land that is special, or unique to it that puts the balance of the globe, or perhaps even the entire solar system, in its grip. What logically follows is that FL is not about those other places. You will likely say, “but of course Icor, that we all knew”, but the implications there lead to a slew of pertinent questions that could make or break a character. One question in particular strikes at the core of my curiosity.

Who are these people?

Who are the player-characters? Is there a way to categorize them inside the grand scheme of things, or are they simply too diverse?

The answer to the latter is almost self-evident. Player characters are obviously something more to the story than NPCs, which necessarily puts them in a category. What if that category can be further defined though? I ask because players have tried to do it many times even if they weren’t aware of it, and usually they are successful for a reason. Here is a unifying claim that I can back up with a little bit of elaboration:

Player characters are heroes of the Forsaken Lands narrative, who are given the enigmatic privilege of one of the many elusive guilds.

Player characters can kill Zha’rek. They can kill the Space Horror. They can cause or prevent Cataclysms. What this means to me is that they have a core responsibility to the story of things that Immortals, to their honor, have sacrificed to make the game better on the next level up. Player characters have such an incredible influence over the events of life and the world that they simply must have a descriptive, story-relevant category that I have not found in the game’s documentation (thus my elaboration here).

This unifying outlook ties good aligned characters to evil aligned characters in such a way that purpose is not robbed. I also must use the word “hero” with caution, since in a classical sense, a hero is pitted along a journey where some conflict is resolved, and in FL, the good guy simply does not always win -- in fact, the good guy is not always the good guy. This is why Tribunal, in spite of my preferred personal path, is easily my favorite Cabal ever implanted into the Aabahran universe. I digress.

By taking this mentality into each character, you can know that, at level one, there is some sort of purpose there to be met, even if the character sputters off and runs out of fuel somewhere along the road. It is imperative that I discuss this because Cabals dominate for a reason, which is that they always supersede guilds when it comes to the character’s “who” question. This is good enough to play the toon out enjoyably in most cases. Cabals do not, however, answer the “what” and “when” questions: what intrinsically is the character, and where did it come from? These root problems crop up later and rob characters of meaning when they cannot be solved.

LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION

This must be addressed, in lieu of the startling deep pit it can lead to, since it holds such a potent vice on the way events and characters unfold. The majority of the FL players speak English -- and no, this is not a dissertation on language, only a small dip into the pool of madness.

A few select mobs and story blips here and there inside the game include fantasy-esque foreign language. These things are highly disjointed, and it really isn’t very important, but one thing must be absolutely clear: since we speak English, the world of Aabahran speaks English. In the story, one can call it the “common tongue”, or “the first tongue” -- whatever you want. The point here is that in the history of the story somewhere, communication unified and ideas became crystalized into an agreed set of semiotics.

It is not absurd to say that the small band left after the first Cataclysm coined the language and all of its complexities as a means of survival. Micro-evolutionary effects have taken hold of the common tongue language as we know it today, but have only diversified its dialects and never its heart.

The social subject looms overhead like a tidal wave now, but I will try to break it with a single-paragraph seawall of sufficiency by simply saying that because the world has a single unifying language, all wars are effectively civil wars, and all agreements are effectively presupposed. What do I mean by this?

I mean that at one point, life was threatened by death (automations of the Nameless, Virigoth’s swarms, and demons which tempt the living to commit suicide), and that was it. Since then, mortals (oft known as player characters) have grown to such incredible influential power over the story that they can reasonably side with death without, in fact, being mindless automations of the likes that were swarming after the Cataclysm. Those characters, though, are still necessarily the descendants of those few survivors who have inherited power from somewhere else (Immortals are the exception, being extra-planar; thus the aptly named abode “Higher Planes of Existence”). These mortal heroes will say, even to their enemies, that they are tied by fate, when in truth, they are arguably tied by ancient nepotism. I would not likely be chased out of the room of dialogue if I said that war and peace agreements (specifically) in FL are forged on a fundamental level of obligation, and a superficial level of desire. Duty first, pleasure later. What drives Cabal politics, then, is a result of who is in the Cabals, even in regards to fixed Cabals like Knight and Nexus.

I must struggle to move on, since language and communication are not the same thing. The subject of tells, prayer, and group chat requires stressing. Asked to stay in character while speaking inside these modes begs to question what in-character devices that are actually being utilized. You could invent just about any theory you want, but I consistently see hesitation over these channels in the onset. These hesitations break down as the suspension of disbelief is established (captivating dialogue being the fuel of this), but it always remerges when another new discussion is started.

There are two options that can be taken here, and both work well in their own ways. One would need some “narrative implementation”, and the other is established and in the narrative system already. That way needing implementation would be that there is some device, or telepathy, that heroes can use to communicate with one another over vast distances instantaneously. Perhaps something developed by the guilds, a seal or something, allows this; an ancient coven, or some hoo-hah. The way that is already in effect is that communication over vast distances happens, and is just a colorful, stylistic method of the story on a higher explanatory level; meaning, it is an intrinsic element, and heroes simply accept that, as long as they are awake (in most cases anyway), they are free to talk with other heroes, regardless of their geographical location. They would know that this method of communication was safe, and that spells do not work over it.

And so, we’ve swayed into the subject of spell languages now. So and so utters the words ‘gpabraswzhar’. So and so utters the words, ‘qahijf gsgrul’. Perhaps these are hand-me-downs from older builds of the mud, but to me, they could be powerful props. Story plots that have touched on the Prime have sometimes been endeavored, as I know from first hand involvement, and the point of it all in the end is that “no one knows”.

Someone must. How would the heroes learn the spells in order to speak those words? Is this Harry Potter, where you spout some rubbish out of your mouth, and things just happen? Well, why not? Does it interfere with the character story? Of course not! Emotions fly rampant and amazing tales are told anyway! See if that stops my dissection, mwahaha.

My theory, of course, is that the guilds have, over time, perverted these ancient word’s historical validation to serve their own worship or purposes, when in reality, every single uttered spell is a communication with one or all of the moons (i.e., the Prime). It is fascinating to me that the sub and ultra-sonic electromagnetic sounds of Jupiter and other planets in our own solar system are terrifying in nature, so haunting that they’re simultaneously threatening and beautiful to listen to -- point being, sound is more than vibrations in the air in the same way light is more than a particle or a wave, and this is far truer in the world of Aabahran than in our own. A spell, in the classic sense, is a spoken string, but it is true in Aabahran that wands and unspoken things can still modify physical reality. In some advanced character cases, minds are alterable as well. If the Prime sits higher than observable, physical law, then asking it for help could be something even an Immortal could do (and, of course, they have. Check some RP logs out).

Prayer can be summed up for communing classes as simple requests to real Immortals for more strength. Sacrifices, as well, “magically” destroy objects, meaning that with or without the Immortal player consent, their characters are doing things. This must be a troublesome burden to be reminded of, but again, they make this sacrifice for our sakes.

TIME, DEATH, FUTURE

By and large, history in FL is used as a means to some other end, and is not necessarily very important in its own right. Characters who leave some kind of mark typically are tokenized and made into mini-idols, which is exactly how it would happen in any fantasy world. So and so has a statue here, or a plaque there. The images are meant to invoke a person that proceeded an event and give that event solidity inside the rather transparent timeline of the overall story. To us, it says, “see how players have sculpted this game”. To characters in the game, it says, “see how limitless one’s fame can be”.

As time moves on, the knowledge, care, and understanding of those events and characters fades away in both our minds and in characters’ minds. Writing about the history of the game has nothing to do with, in the long run, some fleeting interest in “preserving truth”, or “keeping the record straight”. It is about creating props that can be misread, destroyed, idolized, forgotten, or cherished to drive the character story on a day by day premise. FL is and always has been about the now.

You can get into a mess of chronological issues, where characters will repeatedly murder the same figurehead, like the Ice Baron or the Adeptus Mechanus. This discussion of time loops and the retelling of various events where one must pick and choose the actual canon does not yield anything. There is a disjoint between how some areas stagnate while others continue to evolve, but what has been systematized automatically to account for these things is that inter-character communication is key to the evolution of a story. Areas repopulate. It is just something that happens inside the narrative of the story, and characters can postulate countless fictional axioms to explain these things, but they don’t. When faced with the crushing incomprehensibility of time, none of the ideas really work for whatever plethora of reasons there certainly are, and characters simply accept that the way of the world is that dangerous foes return.

We begin to see the mesh of that curtain between players and their characters. It is a mesh that filters, but also one that allows certain things through.

It is safest only to say that death in FL occurs on a much deeper level than what we normally think of (i.e., physical death). This is true for heroes as well, who are “given that second chance”, and the mighty hammer of materialism swings hard upon the consciousness of characters as a result. In no case yet, however, have I seen one player drive another player’s character to con-death without feeling respect and remorse. Not once. It always comes with something profound, like, “he’s finally gone... I don’t believe it”, or “he was a worthy foe”, or even “we learned much from one another”. This screams to me of the civil war and ancient nepotism arguments I brought up earlier in the essay -- that is, as in-character devices which interlock naturally with our player, human behaviors.

The con of this understanding is that it puts a terrible clamp on expectations and what the future can hold. The more that “things just happen”, the less one can prospect on events to come. Essentially, you can plan and scheme and try to come up with a desired outcome in your head, but the future for characters in FL is bleak and cloudy. Plotting implies that there is desired outcome, and formulates an expectation that, when unmet, causes upset.

The solution is to internalize hopes and remove all extrinsic goals. What do I mean by that? I mean that the player’s desires for the purpose of a character need to be about the character they play, and not the world around them. By presupposing that a plot can, say, “change the world”, they are bull-charging into an intangible, deadly smoke-storm of plot holes, contradiction, and frustrating misery. It is not impossible to change Cabal politics, areas, or game mechanics, but they will not typically be changed from a standpoint of consistency and logic, but rather on stylization, color, and mood. Allow me to illustrate with a simple question: what do the people of Miruvhor think about the people of Val Miran? They are both extremely close neighbors and distant foreigners (by way of teleportation gates), but agreeably on opposite ends of the moral spectrum. Does anyone even know? The only way to change vacuous space to something is to add input -- the word is create.

This is the point: you can really dig in and dissect these things if you wanted to, and I am sure it would make for a great discussion at the end of the day, but to do so would be to broaden a list of tools, not create a rulebook for character behavior. As much as FL is in fact descriptive, detailed, and rich, it is not in fact about those things. Those things give a stage for the characters, who stand upright and are illuminated by the lights around. Characters can pick up any number of those props, and then are encouraged to make them whatever they desire them to be. This is enormously intimidating, but enormously freeing at the same time, since there is honestly no wrong way to go about a creative pursuit, insofar as that pursuit does not jump a character off the stage.

THE END

Hopefully this has given courage to those who’ve read it who are struggling to find a way to make a character more interesting, or indeed, start up a new one from scratch. If such courage has brewed, then I accomplished what I had desired to here.

Thank you for reading!