I happened upon a lovely Facebook post on the Pannithor Lore and Wiki (wiki wah-wah, biggity biggity yo-yo-yo all da Kings fam in da house say yo!) asking which historical period corresponds best to the Kings of War settings and technology?
Well, looking at the themes, cultures and technology of Pannithor….. it’s a bit of a bloody mess isn’t it? With Empire of Dust displaying a very obvious ancient Egyptian theme going all the way through to the Ratkin gas masks and crude tanks evoking themes of World War One. With the exception of the last 100 years, the Kings of War background has thousands of years of human history and culture to pick and choose from.
Well, I hate to say it, but Pannithor isn’t real. Bubble burst, not a real place. It’s all made up, but ANYTHING made up has to have some some reference to the human experience in order for us to quantify it. The most enduring stories are the ones that people can relate to or understand. Star Wars undoubtedly did well because there were bars and everyone was a bit scruffy, far from the ultra clean science fiction of the 60’s.
You can’t explain the unexplainable. You have to give it a reference. Even the Bible refers to an unknowable God as ‘Him’.
‘Is there a rough technological outline for the setting or are the writers just tossing in whatever they feel like?’
This was asked in the post and as one of the writers tasked with helping to build the fabulous world of Pannithor, I thought I’d share my reasoning on this because its something I’ve thought about a lot. How do you build a world? How complex does it have to be? Who will be interested? What are we building it for? How far can we go? How far should we go?
It all comes back to what I originally stated and it also answers the Facebook question. Anything I write has to have some reference, some connection to the human experience for us to comprehend it.
Take the word Alien. It means from another country or another world, a foreigner or extraterrestrial. It could describe something disturbing or distasteful. Just saying the word might evoke a mental image of a little green man in a flying saucer, if you’ve been watching a lot of X-Files on repeat it might be grey spindly humanoids, only mysteriously seen in flashes.
To me it immediately evokes an image of the xenomorph from the Alien movies. I’ve watched them repeatedly from a young age. Way too young in fact but don’t tell my mother. At the age of 12 I had to run home in the dark convinced that one was going to jump out of a darkened driveway. I once was going so fast I skidded over and skinned my knee! That childhood horror turned to fascination as I got older and added to my incredibly healthy obsession with fantasy, science fiction and the macabre.
The Alien franchise has lost some of the horror of the first movie simply because our human experience of it has changed. When it first came to the screens it was a revelation. Not just the shock horror of a regular horror movie, it had themes that cut to the very core of human emotion. H.R Giger’s creature was unlike anything seen before. Something new and unknown. Giger’s art has many sexual tones, and sex is where we are at our most naked and vulnerable and that perhaps some of the genius of the horror. It attacks us at out most primal stripped selves. And it doesn’t stop there. The method of reproduction, a suffocating mouth rape by a spider, impregnating you with a monster that then tears out of your chest is hideous on so many levels I can’t even. There is the lonely silence of space, the hopelessness of having all that technology and yet no weapons that work and even if you do hurt it, it’s blood will eat through the hull. Or you. And then there is the android, a blasphemousperversion of the human image…. I could write an entire essay on why this film is scary and still stands up after 40 plus years. But why am I saying all this? It’s my human experience. Those themes in the film were all familiar to us because we had sympathy with the characters in those situations, even though the actual events were alien to us. (Is that a pun? I’m trying to be serious so not this time. I’ll make a bottom joke later). As the films progressed into a long franchise, it never quite hit the same mark horror wise again. Nearly, but not quite, because we’d already experienced the horror and were more prepared for it. Our frame of reference for alien movies now included spider face huggers etc…. The unknown had become known. So my perception of the word Alien comes with all this extra baggage.
So how does this ramble of mine relate to Pannithor? Well that all depends on how much you already know. What’s an Orc in your head? The comical bright green fungus the bogeyman Citadel Minatures orcs of the 80’s? Or the snarling huge jawed fungoid gorilla brutes of the current style? Are they the mismatched chimp-walk, rubber mask orcs of Lord of the Rings movies? Or perhaps the childhood memory of the ancient Lord of the Rings cartoon-fuzzy dark shapes with glowing red eyes? Maybe the cultured ogre-like orc of World of Warcraft? Or the green human with tusks of Skyrim? So with all those mental images in your head…… WHAT IS AN ORC?!?!?!?!? And more importantly, what are the Orcs of Pannithor like? Do we just rip off another orc culture? Do we make up an entirely new orc culture that is unlike any other orc ever? Would people like that? Where is the balance line between plagiarism, a homage, a nod to, or totally dismissing what has gone before. At some point when we write about orcs we have to acknowledge the previous human experience of what they expect an orc to look like and how it behaves.
So much of the cultures and technologies of human history have found a place in the cultures of Pannithor simply so we can identify with them on some level. Their clothing, weapons, way of fighting social structures all mimic humanity on some level. Some are obvious, some are subtle. Some have completely contrasting levels of technology in the same army. Ratkin have rifles AND slaves. Ogres use giants crossbows AND black powder weapons. Does the level of technology matter? Not so much. The English long bow of the Hundred years war didn’t have a competitor for rate of fire until the 19th century. That’s 600 years. And a blade will gut you just as well, be it a roman gladius, A medieval longsword, a civil war cavalry sabre. There has to be a wide range stylistically to keep things interesting and a difference between races.
As we borrow from history, we also borrow aspects from other fantasy worlds so the reader can feel comfortable with their previous experiences of that race. The elves of Pannithor may follow a lot of similar themes to the High elves of Warhammer and the Elves of Lord of the Rings, but at no point was an Elven mage freed to go on a dungeon saga quest because Master gave Wizzy a sock. There has to be a limit.
Somehow we have to bring these races and cultures to life. Sometimes the perceptions and expectations of the reader flows along with the themes, sometimes it may be in direct opposition. Sometime there might be one tiny little fact about a race that you find really, really annoying and can’t get over-there has probably been a car park brawl at some point over the anatomical differences between a wyvern and a dragon. Fu*king nerds.
The more generic the setting, the more freedom you have to fill it with your own expectations. The more background and stories Mantic produce often conflicts with your own perceptions. It’s a minefield of personal tastes. Some will love it, some won’t mind and some will whine about it on Facebook and start an argument. I do love a good argument.
So yes, the writers can toss in whatever they want, so long as it makes sense. So long as there is some grounding in human reality, so long as it fits the themes and stories….. but we don’t just toss in everything. We try and select what is believable for the setting, what is cool and entertaining and as always we hold it to the light of human experience to look at it before we show it to anyone. Sometime we get it wrong (flying butthole worm with a castle on its back is wrong) and sometimes we get it right (troll lawnmower with a halfling on top is Nobel prize territory). Someone, somewhere along the line will rein in anything too wild or stupid. No socks for Wizzy.
I’m getting near to the end of my first draft of ‘Rage and Grace’. It’s pretty much the big battle at the end left to write. I constantly read over what I’ve done and ask myself if it’s realistic, if it fits in Pannithor. I’m currently reading Natures Knight and see if I have to go back and re-write anything because I got it slightly different to the other writers.
There’s lots of little things I have to consider. Lots of human sayings and terms that wouldn’t exist in Pannithor, what other races they would have interacted with based on geography, how food, commerce and social standing alter character perceptions.
As an example I have a Twilight kin character who is incredibly self absorbed, clever, but also insane and depraved. Saying someone is depraved is one thing. But how do you actually show depravity? To a certain historical period flashing an ankle is depraved. At the other end of the scale some of the jolly things that the Emperor Caligula got up to would make even the Marquis de Sade blush. So where do I go on that depravity line? Brandon, the fabulous editor at Winged Hussar Publishing has to read it and he is notoriously nice, so my depravity level might not get past the censors…. but it might. I tried to keep it relevant to the character and the story. Depravity for depravity’s sake is just depravity. My earlier words come back to me. How far can we go? How far should we go?
Well that was all a lot of chit chat wasn’t it? And I should probably finish on that bottom joke I promised, but my writers imagination is now fixated on if an alien face hugger attacked the bumhole instead of the mouth, would it still work the same? Answers on a torn and bloody scrap of flesh to the usual address……x
Get older. Don't grow up. 