Thursday, February 9, 2012

Dungeonspiration: Genealogy


Not Gunter.

Shortly after I moved to Hollywood, I met a German tourist named Gunter who had a penchant for wearing a green and purple track suit that made him look like Barney the Dinosuar.  We spend hours discussing the true meaning of "Fahrvergnügen" and the Hitler's involvement in the creation of Volkswagon.  But I'll never forget that the second we met, he locked eyes with me and said excitedly 'I know your people!'

Gunter had done a lot of travelling through East German after the Wall fell, and had just came from another such trip to the US.  He said that I looked just like the people around East Berlin.  He had seen my face reflected in the streets there.

I didn't know quite what to think of that, but I filed the bit of data away for future use.

Fast-forward two decades and a friend is helping me with my family's genealogy.  Research in the area has always been difficult since the family isn't one to remember back far or talk to relatives much.  But with my friend's help, we were suddenly getting a lot of hits on Ancestory.com that helped to trace many branches back further than I had ever hoped.

Apparently they have water in Strausberg.
A lady named Margaret stood out.  I had never heard of her - my great-great-great-grandmother.  She had been born in Strausberg, Germany in 1811 and had come over to Texas at some point.  The name of the city sounded vaguely familiar, so I googled it.

Strausberg is a city 30 kilometers east of Berlin.

Wow.  Gunter was right.

It still boggles my mind.  I have 16 great-great-great-grandmothers, most from many places other than Germany.  The fact that Margaret's facial genetics have passed down to me - and held on so strongly - that some guy strolling down Santa Monica Boulevard could identify my genetic homeland - 200 years past - within a range of what - 18 miles - wow.

And here I thought I might look Irish, which is funny because so far, I can't find a lick of Irish in the family tree – despite what I had always been told by family members.

What I can find is Scots-Irish - something differently entirely.

Socks and sweaters anyone?
My patronym is contained in a group called the Little Scottish Cluster.  This is a group of families who share a recent Y-DNA genetic relationship.  The group centers on a common ancestor who existed around 900 -1100 AD and who lived in the vicinity of Stirlingshire, Scotland.  Moving forward to 1618, my ancestors are living in Argyllshire (which is apparently a mountain or two away from Stirlingshire.)  They decide - or are chosen - to be colonist.  Not in the New World - but Ireland.

I had thought that my family was of the oppressed Irish.  All I can find, however, is us being the oppressors.  Londonderry was the first planned English city in Ireland, and my ancestors were inhabitants.  Apparently, we were all good Protestants, but not the right kind of Protestants (Presbyterians,) and so logically, the best place for us was in to be in Ireland, setting an example to the godless Catholics on how to be proper subjects of the crown.

The Irish are still pissed off about the whole thing.
For 100 years the Irish tried to wipe Londonderry off the map.  Understandably so, of course.   The history gets very confusing, but at least one of my ancestors survived the countless wars and political upheavals - doing so well against the Irish that everyone in Londonderry was exempt from taxes (a legality which lasted apparently until the Revolutionary War.)

In 1718, my ancestors yet again decided to be colonist as the town Londonderry created it's own colony in the New World.  They built the unimaginatively named Londonderry in New Hampshire, and brought my patronym to this new continent on which I sit.  While the migration appeared to be economic in origin, it was probably more about religion and the anti-Puritan feelings going on at the time.  Supposedly, all of their neighbors thought the Londonderry colonist were Catholic Irish, which irritated the settlers to now end.  They were proper Puritan Scots, dammit.  A century in Ireland hadn't taken their kilts or haggis away!

So what the heck does all of that have to do with Dungeons and Dragons and inspiring gaming?

Well, what DOESN'T it have to do with it.  My little amateurish delve into genealogy and history has jump-started my brain something fierce.  There is so much I've learned that can go into world building.  It's taught me a few things (or merely reinforced them.)

1) Some families just plain don't move for hundreds or thousands of years, while others are vagabonds.
2) Oral history can be atrociously wrong.
3) Entire groups of people are often used as pawns and made to feel really good about it.
4) Mountain people can be a very mule-headed, stubborn bunch.
5) The amount of history I don't know about my own culture is staggering.
6) Reading histories written by Presbyterian ministers in 1850 can make your eyes bleed.
7) Dominant genetics are far more . . . dominant . . . than I thought.

So eventually, my patronymic family continued to migrate, with my great-great-great grandfather operating a ship out of New Orleans and running guns to the Anglo colonist during the Texas Revolution.  After the war he was apparently loaded and helped build a new town in Texas, then married the German genetic powerhouse of a woman - Margaret of Strausberg.

I swear - these people really inspire me.  I had no idea that my family could be such a great source of gaming idea.  Why not go peruse your own family history, and see how it inspires you?

- Ark

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Outsourced Game Report and Sketchdump

The Boy ran his Labyrinth Lord game last week.  It was a good old fashioned Holmesian-B/X style dungeon.  The party was made up entirely of gnomes.  Okay - Kaye played a half gnome/half orc.  I'm not sure what gnomish zeitgeist was in the air - but it worked.

The game started normally in a tavern, and turned strangely Salvador Dali-esque as my son's brain spewed forth with the imagination that only an 11 year old can wield.  He far exceeded my meager attempts at being a DM when I was the same age.  I had a lot of fun.

Crazy-Ass Tim has a wonderful report on our shared lucid dreaming session, which I suggest you check out.  I don't think I could have described it any better.

Meanwhile - please enjoy the sketchdump below:






- Ark

Monday, February 6, 2012

North Texas RPG Con 2012

I just registered the Boy and I for the North Texas RPG Con.  I'm pumped.  Last year was very cool.

It's happening in June, from the 7th till the 10th.

The line-up of special guests so far is:

Sandy Petersen, Tim Kask, Jennell Jaquays, Erol Otus, James M. Ward, Frank Mentzer, Jason Braun, Rob Kuntz, Steve Marsh, Steve Winter, Dennis Sustare, Jeff Dee, Jack Herman, Pete Kerestan, Zeb Cook, and Diesel LaForce.

I'm particularly excited about the awesome artists in that list.  Some of you may have noticed I've been on a drawing kick as of late.  :)

The first thing I guess I should do is apologize to Zeb Cook.  I've been bad-mouthing second edition for decades - but now I regularly play it and am enjoying it.  Ooops.  Sorry Zeb.  Musta beena brain fart or something.

- Ark

Thursday, February 2, 2012

A Night At The Tavern


Well, after a few month drawing my head off, I'm not completely disgusted by what I'm spitting out.  I'm still 10 light years from what I consider competent - and 5,000 light years from where I want to be - but that seems to be the nature of art and artists.

Shortly after posting the Betty picture, I was approached by an old friend that I hadn't talked to in a long while.  He's a pretty prolific author and he's working on a trilogy at the moment - a trilogy that needs cover art - and he wanted to see if I would do them.  Life is kind of odd, yanno?

:)

- Ark

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Betty

Okay, so not game related, but I finally had the nerve to try and draw Betty Page.  Maybe Betty could attack a pack of PCs from atop a dragon.  Yeah.  That's the ticket.  But for right now, she's just chillin.

Betty has been bikini-ed for your protection.  For those of you who are feeling brave and NSFW, hop on over to my deviantArt gallery for the un-bikini-ing. :)

- Ark

Friday, January 27, 2012

New DM Advice

The Boy has decided to take the plunge and run a one shot Labyrinth Lord game next week.  Two years ago, he referreed a game of Savage Worlds - doing very well I might add, but has not been back to that side of the screen since then.

He's eleven years old now, which was the same age that I started DMing.  However, he has four years of experience playing rpgs, so he has a huge leg up, and I anticipate that his first game will be about 17 bazillion times better than mine.

The Boy is a bit apprehensive about the prospect of DMing, and the advice his old man has given him probably hasn't calmed his nerves any.  I can be somewhat of a morose, haphazard, lazy, doom-and-gloom style game planner.  (Just try to kill them - all - horribly - with random monsters and traps far tougher than them.  A lot.  It's easy! Story?  Pffft!)  Works for me - but maybe not anyone else.

So, The Boy would gladly appreciate any advice from OTHER PEOPLE on how to DM, pull a one shot together, etc.

Thanks in advance. :)

- Ark

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Dungeonspiration: Type IV


As we stand uncomfortably at the windswept gravesite watching the coffin of Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons being slowly lowered into the ground, I feel the desire to toss in a white lily.  The lily is a symbol of innocence that has been restored to a soul once departed.  It expresses purity, majesty, and sympathy.

I owe a lot to Fourth Edition.  It had been years since I had played a role playing game when I heard that a new version of D&D was coming out.  All of the things that had kept me away from the table - moving around from town to town like a refugee, dating, marriage, college, birthin' a baby, being laid off after 9/11 - all of those things had settled to the point of manageability.  I had some time for me again, and here was a fresh new D&D, peeking it's head around the corner.

How could I resist?

Fourth edition finally gave me the impetus to sit down and really read, understand, and implement the entirety of a gaming system.  Before, it was enough to get a gist of a game and then fly be the seat of my pants.  Type IV begged - demanded - to be understood before played - it being so different and all.

I met a lot of people, played a lot of games, and have friends I never would have because of Fourth Edition.  Back in 2007, it was a great rallying point for those of us whom life had whisked away from gaming and were coming back to the fold.

I got to play with minis.  I had always wanted to incorporate  minis in my games, but beyond using them as a marker for marching order, I'd never gotten to use them.  Again, 4th edition demanded their use, and I gladly tossed wads of money to keep myself swimming in little plastic toys.

Fourth Edition was the first role playing game my son ever played, and he loved it.  It introduced him to doing math on the fly, use of spatial thinking and strategy, and cooperating with a group of people to complete a complicated task.  The game also helped us bond together as father and son in the same way that others bond together with baseball or football or some-such thing.

In the end, however, Fourth Edition D&D never gave me the warm fuzzies that Basic or Advanced Dungeons and Dragons had given me in my youth.  At first I thought it was just me, but after a lot of trying and tinkering, it became clear that Type IV wasn't designed to provide what I was looking for.  It took a journey into the OSR for me to remember - and rediscover - what I had been looking for all along.

My long, loud break-up with Fourth Edition is well documented on this blog, including embarrassing rants and name-calling, so I don't feel the need to repeat any of it.  Let's just say I fell out of love and hired a mean and vindictive lawyer.

This column is about inspiration - and inspiring other.  Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons inspired me to get back into role-play.  It inspired me to get out and meet new people.  It has even helped to inspire my son and I to form a closer bond.  It even brought me back to the very roots of my gaming career.  In those regards, Fourth Edition was far from a failure - but a raging success.

The innocence I once came to Fourth Edition with has been restored by it's death.  So yes, I'll gladly toss that lily into the grave.

Fifth Edition is now peeking its head over the horizon.  I wonder - what will it inspire?

- Ark