#wanted to make an updated reference for the dragons and flesh out their base design more

[hitwiththetmnt]

Dragon turnaround’s for their base design + a height comparison

[evilelitest2]

Warhammer Paper

I wrote this for a history class on Warhammer Fantasy, some people have asked me for it so here you go 

Neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire: Warhammer Fantasy’s Imagination of the Empire

A note on terminology.  Warhammer is the larger brand that all of the following games fall under, with a specific aesthetic, culture, and identity in the larger fantasy space.  The property is divided into two types of games, and two “settings”.  Warhammer Battle, a wargame, which players take armies of miniatures. Warhammer Roleplay, is a table-top roleplaying game ala Dungeons and Dragons set in the Warhammer world.  These games are split between two settings, an imagined world where the action of the games are supposed to take place, so the battles between the Ogre and Daemon armies are given a context within the world of the fantasy.  The settings include the original Warhammer Fantasy, and it's far more popular science fiction equivalent Warhammer 40000 (usually known as 40k).  This work will look primarily at Warhammer Fantasy and not 40K,  specifically its depiction of the Holy ROman Empire in its fantastical equivalent, the Empire of Man.  Warhammer Fantasy draws heavily upon early modern history for inspiration, down to its own world map.  

The world of Warhammer Fantasy, in contrast to works like as Lord of the Rings, draws primarily upon historical influences to populate its world.  The Kingdom of Bretonnia is obviously inspired by France, the Empire of Cathay and Nippon aren’t even hiding that they are based on China and Japan.  And the core part of  the setting where most of the action is set, is the Empire of Man, inspired by the Holy Roman Empire, with its Emperor elected by a series of Elector-Counts ruling over a deepy decentralized state.  While Warhammer Fantasy is a somewhat comedic game, it is worth studying how it depicts the Holy Roman Empire, because that is how much of its Anglophile audience is going to first learn about its real life equivalent. 

The subject of this paper is Warhammer Fantasy (WF), the series that started the Warhammer franchise.  This setting encompasses both the games of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFR) and Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB), and I will be using the books from those games interchangeably because, while they are different games, the setting and the lore is the same,.   Warhammer Fantasy is set in “The Old World”, a fantasy world under constant threat by supernatural forces.  While the world is populated by a variety of fantasy creatures like Ogres, Dwarves and Elves under threats of “Daemons”, the main focus of the world are the human kingdoms, roughly modelled after real life historical societies.  While the entire world is loosely sketched out, most of the action of the game is set in “The Empire of Man”, located in the middle of a fantastic version of early modern Europe.

The franchise of Warhammer is wargaming, where player enact battles with an army of miniatures on a board.  These miniatures must be purchased from Games Workshop and prices can run as high as over $100 dollars for a monster miniature, meaning the game is limited to an affluent fanbase.   Players don’t simply buy the minaturse, they also paint them, the miniatures when purchased as black and white pewter figurines which the player paints with brushes and paints also provided by Games Workshop.  The games website has recommended colors for each type of figure but players may customize their mainatures as they choose, giving players a personal connection to their own collection.  While players may purchase as many miniature as they wish, officially each set of minaturse is organized into different “armies”.  Each army has a theme and unique design, and units from a particular army is only supposed to work within its own army.  So for example, the High Elf Army are the only units who employ High Elf Mages.  The Knights of Bretonnia cannot be used in the armies of the Empire.  These armies each have a unique play style and most players can only afford to play with a few armies, generally leading to players committing to a single army they identify with.  In addition to buying miniatures and paints, players must also buy the rules for play. In addition to the general rule book must be bought by all the players, each specific army also has a special rule book known as a codex.  The codex does not only contain the specific rules for each army but also the story line, character descriptions and society of each faction.  For example the empire codex contains not only the specific rules for each unit but also the personalities of the individual important figures, the history and culture of the empire and the character of the empire as as a whole, complete with pictures.  

In game design terminology, the is the divide between what is called mechanics and story (or fluff).  Mechanics covers the actual game play such as how much damage each each unit deals and what special attacks they have, while the story covers the specific character of each unit.  Warhammer Fantasy was started in 1983 and has gone through 8 editions until the game eventually ended in 2010.  The first two editions were actually nothing but armies with no story with them at all beyond a few sentence, it wasn’t until third edition came about in 1987 that the actual setting was created and the Empire of Man existed as anything more than “The human faction”.   And from every edition since third, new codex have come with update the story, introduce new factions, or change the state of the world.  

The variant game Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay ues entirely different mechanics but the same story.   The experience of a tabletop game, modelled off Dungeons and Dragons, a form of interactive storytelling, consisting of several players sitting around a table.  One player is called the Game Master (GM) who creates the story and maintains the rules.  Each of the other players creates a single character who they control.  Each character has a set of powers and the characters can take actions which are determined by dice rolls.  So if one players wants theri character to attack a goblin, they roll dice to see if he is successful.   The characters work together to try to overcome the challenges the GM throws at them.  Rather than vast battles, the mechanics of roleplay tends to have a greater emphasis on character interaction, the day to day living of the characters, and small scale combat.  So mechanics exist not only for combat but also for socializing, stealth, and crafting objects, and these rules are laid out in large hard copies called Gamebooks.  For the game to be played one person in the groups must have the Core Rulebook, but supplementary rulebooks exist covering other aspects of the world and the game.  Each rule book contains both mechanics and story, however the story in these games is far more in depth and detailed than the Wargaming counterpart.  For example, the primary source for this paper is Heirs of Sigmar, a supplement book designed to flesh out the culture and history of Empire.  It contains some specific rules, but the vast majority of the book is simply story, which does not contradict the story of the Wargame.  Thus both games share the same story even as their mechanics are entirely different.   The fact that two games with entirely different mechanics can have the same story shows that the mechanics don’t contribute to the story, which is known in ludology as “Ludonarrative dissonance”.   

  Ludonarrative means ‘play narrative’ and refers to when a game’s narrative is expressed via its play.  To use an example from video games, in acclaimed horror game Silent Hill 2, the ending of the game changes depending on how the player acts in game.  Should the player use reckless tactics, rarely heal, and avoid stealth options, then the protagonist, James Sunderland, will commit suicide at the end of the game.  If the player is cautions and explores the area, they will leave the town to make a new life.  Ludonarrative dissonance is when the narrative of the play is in direct contrast to the narrative of the story itself.  In both games, the mechanics of Warhammer fantasy are largely disconnected from its themes and story.  All this to say, this essay will not be looking at the actual gameplay or mechanics, which have very little to do with its understanding of the empire.  The focus of this essay will be solely on the story content provided in the game books, thus little engagement will be made with ludology of the game, which could be the subject for a future paper.  As this franchise has been around since 1987, I will be drawing primarily upon the WFR book Heirs of Sigmar a guide to the Empire, and the 6th, 7th, and 8th Empire codexes, which go into the most detail about story rather than rules.    

The Empire is 2532 years old when the book is set, and its history is told through a series of epochs.  Humanity lives as primitive tribesmen until they discover the gift of iron, which leads to a time of barbarism and war. This ends only when a great warrior, Sigmar, unifies them though faith in his wolf god,and force of arms.  Sigmar ruled wisely and justly, setting up most of the institutions of the later empire, and upon his retirement, the 12 great Counts instituted the Elector system.  For a thousand years the empire goes through a prosperous golden age, expanding across the continent and becoming the greatest military force in human history, referred too as “The Birth of Nations”.  This time of wonder ends with the age of decadence, as the upper classes gave up their concerns for the state to enjoy affairs, fine foods, and frivolous spending (much of it on art and fashion).   Emperor Ludgiw II Honenbach “The Fat” makes his halfling cook an Elector, and the cult of Sigmar into the official state religion of the empire before “died in bad a short while later-smothered to death by his own neck fat”.  This period of luxury eventually ends with a great plague, and civil war, Boris Hohenbach “the Incompetent”, is so corrupt he effectively cedes all control to the feudal lords rather than the Empire.  It is the decentralization of the empire that marks its decline, known as the “Time of Judgement”.  It wasn’t until  the election of the martial Emperor Mandred I, whose reign brought stability if not prosperity to the realm, and his even more marshal successor Magnus who unified the Empire through “sheer force of will and belief” that this time of instability came to an end..  

The games presentation of history is standard for the fantasy genre, and is both simplistic and rather conservative.   Every event in the Empire’s history has a single cause, whole centuries can be summed up with rough generalization, and history is moved by individual men.  And it is always men, during the first 1750 years of history only 3 women are mentioned, a nameless priestess to the goddess of diplomacy, a frivolous vain noblewoman, and a failed usurper, each with half a sentence of description.    The lack of female representation is a consistent pattern across the Warhammer franchise.  The good rulers are universally military commanders whose reigns last decades, as prosperous as they are vague.  The Empire has an astronomical time frame but largely does not change except in the way of technology, it is always Germanic, decentralized, highly militant, and worshiping the same gods.  The Empire is largely timeless, only changing when an in-game event requires it.  

The effect is a state that is largely timeless, an eternal stereotype that simply exists with only slight variations, a deterministic view of society that fits many fantasy settings.  Fantasy tends to imagine the past as one of stasis, the states that exist have done so for a long time and will continue to do so unless something truly cataclysmic occurs.  Within that existence, they will stay largely the same across there history, if changes occur it will be due to a specific ruler or a major event.  Fantasy imagines time as a stalled machine, awaiting a radical push to make it move slightly ahead before stalling out.  If fantasy serves as one introduction to historical societies, it can give the impression that the Empire was a static entity, existing for centuries largely unchanged.  This can very easily move into essentialism, one can simply dismiss the empire as a thousand years of stagnation and its people effectively the same.  We see this essentialist approach later when the book describes the specific provinces, all of which have been largely the same for 2500 years, as having a specific character that defines them, even at some point implying it is due to bloodline.  

At their worst, Nordlanders are churlish, uncouth, and thoughtless speakers. Even the merchants of Nordland have this blunt approach, though they seem to be fine with double dealing. Indeed, they have found that shouting the final price of something loudly and repeatedly has a profound effect upon merchants used to the subtleties of barter and negotiation. Many provinces point out that this is because of their mongrel Was Jutone, Teutogen, and Norscan bloodlines. This mixed heritage has been a source of Nordlander shame. Modern Imperials look on Norscans with a mixture of admiration and fear, seeing them both as powerful warriors and wild, uncivilised barbarians, not to be trusted around one’s daughters or sheep. A popular Imperial saying runs “Character is in the blood,” meaning that ancestry determines character. Thus Nordlanders, though of the Empire, are often regarded as “not quite one of us,” rougher and more uncouth even than the wild and hairy Middenlanders.

It effectively buys into primordialist narratives of human society, that when human beings first emerged they have characteristics that stay with them across all of time, like French Nationalist narratives claiming the Gauls and modern French share similar values and disposition.  This is a common trope in fantasy, but by tying it to a real life historical entity, it gives the impression that this has some relation to German history.  

As to what the Empire’s essential qualities are, Warhammer seems to been written with Voltaire’s misunderstood condemnation in mind.  The Empire is deeply incompetent, disorganized, corrupt, and maddingly complicated. As Warhammer Fantasy was originally a comedy game, the section on the political structure of the empire was originally presented as a joke at the expense of the Empire.  

But while the rhetoric around the empire is mocking contempt for its decentralization and overlapping spheres of influence, the Empire of Man in fact is not that complicated.  While it is a decentralized feudal state with an elected monarch, and overlapping legal systems, it is actually less complicated than the real Holy Roman Empire.  The Vatican is located within the Empire, the royal family has no international element to it, there is no equivalent to the Spanish Habsburgs or the American Colonies, no crownlands or Greater Hungary, and of course the empire has one language.  In fact, the Holy Empire seems far more like a unified Nation-State than its real life counterpart..  One of the most notable changes made is that it doesn’t have an equivalent to the Hapsburgs, the Emperor is simply elected from among the Electors rather than from an Imperial family, and so one of the greatest elements of internationality has been removed. The fact that the empire is so much more cohesive and yet is mocked by its creators for its instability indicates just how much the ide of the nation-state has become normalized that a state not being utterly centralized is seen as strange.

Where this simplification and disinterest in the empire gets interesting is its approach to nationality or rather lack of one, as the Holy Empire is entirely German.  The word German never appears in the books of course (though the term Teutonic certainly does) but the culture of the Empire is clearly German, the Emperor is named Karl Franz, its greatest warrior is named Lugwig Schwarzhelm, and the Reiksmarshal is named Kurt Helborg.  The capital city is Altdorf (Vienna), and one of its famed military units are known as the Landsknecht.  However the empire has no stand in for Hungary, Bohemia, Slovenian, Slovakia, or Poland, the culture is almost entirely German.  The only exception is the semi-independent province of Sylvania, which is loosely based on Romania, though its depiction owes more to Bram Stoker than historical reality, ruled as it is by the vampire counts, and clearly based on Transylvania but with a Romanian cultural influence.  

This Germanization shouldn’t be surprising considering that Games Workshop is a British company whose audience is overwhelmingly American and Canadian.  None of the major designers are historians or have any expertise in the region nor do any of them mention any central European heritage.  The Anglo-American world and the fantasy genre is not particularly well informed about Eastern/Central Europe, to the point that The Witcher, a Polish inspired fantasy game was released, it was praised for bringing attention to an unappreciated region.  Germany is far more familiar, as is Romania thanks to Dracula, but as there are no major fantasy works featuring any of the other components of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus the Empire becomes a Germanic one, simply decentralized, with no Slavic, Magyar or Ottoman cultural influences to be found within its defined borders.  This general ignorance of the region also explains the rather reductive embrace of Western dismissals of the Holy Roman Empire.  In fact compared to most fantasy narratives, Warhammer is almost orientalist in its approach to German culture, the book presents German culture as exotic and strange, an the art work empathises the Gothic architecture and black armor much like similar fantasy exoticizes fantastical depictions of Japan.  

Ironically, this ignorance of the region means that the Empire avoids many of most common troubled narratives of the empire, by reimagining the Empire as fully German, it reject a Nationalist critique of the Empire.  For all its faults, the Empire isn’t oppressing ethnic groups yearning to be free, nor do any of its weaknesses come from diversity or lack of linguistic unity.  Though the Empire slogan is “Let Us Take Strength From our Diversity”  In a similar vein, Warhammer also unintentionally rejects the Clash of Civilization narrative, by the lack of an Ottoman presence.  While there is a fantasy Islamic empire (The Araby Caliphate) it is both Arabic and largely irrelevant to the events of the main story.  While the Empire does claim legitimacy by being the protectors of the true faith and the defenders of civilization, it’s rival are inhuman Daemons rather an exoticized oriental potentate. In fact while the empire considers itself the supreme cultural power, they do not seem particularly hostile towards any of their humans neighbours, nor do they have an enmity towards the Islamic inspired nations.

In fact the Empire’s relationship to religion is complicated.  Like most fantasy works, the state religion has the aesthetic, organization, and place in society as the Catholic Church, with grand cathedrals and hierarchy of priests, complete with its own Pope, the Grand Theogonist.  However the actual faith is polytheistic, with a pantheon of deities each of whom governs an aspect of reality. Its chief god used to be the wolf god Ulric, whose chosen Sigmar founded the empire, but  the Cult of Sigmar has since become the state sect of the Empire.  These gods exist in opposition to the Chaos Gods, whose Daemonic armies serve as the primary antagonists of the setting.   Each god has its own organized church, but all of them are ultimately lead by the Cult of Sigmar, whose main job seems to be the maintenance of the inquisition.  In Warhammer, the Inquisition, employs Witch Hunters and Templars in order to hunt down renegade spell casters and worshipers of Chaos, who purged via fire.  In the world of Warhammer, the world is under attack by the forces of Chaos, divine cosmic forces of destruction and corruption.  While they openly invade the empire from the north with their great Daemon armies, within the empire the lords of Chaos attempt to spread their influence through Chaos Cults.  Individuals join for magical power and pledge their souls to Daemon overlords, eventually twisting their minds and body into combinations, and are instructed to try to overthrow the empire.  The main obstacle to these cults are the inquisition, who can hunt down these secretive groups and destroy them through fire.   The game evokes the imagery of the inquisition and witch hunts, but in this fantastical setting, the actions of the church are largely justified as chaos cults are legitimately threaten the world.  In the universe of Warhammer, torture, mass execution and the constant repression of the citizenry is shown to be a justified necessary evil to prevent the empire from falling to chaos.  Since Chaos often spreads through the reading of forbidden tombs and hedonistic ‘pleasure cults”, sexual puritanism and limiting freedom of information are shown to be entirely justified.   Effectively Warhammer has created a world where the Inquisition isn’t not just necessarily but just in its actions, while doing most of the same activities as its real life counterpart.  

This approach towards religion is common in fantasy, likely do to wanting to mix the excitement of Greek mythology with the familiar structures of Catholicism, or simply because the norms of Christianity are so normal to the writers that they struggle to imagine religion differently.  For example, in Dungeons and Dragons, the pantheon of gods who exist within the world are clearly polytheistic in nature, however each god has a very Catholic inspired temple with an organized church hierarchy, using the imagery of christianity in a non Christian context.  With the Inquisition hunting down and destroying hidden heretics within the empire, the game’s trappings are mimicking that of the Protestant reformation, but the role of Protestants is being played by Chaos Cultists, and the Inquisition is actually hunting witches.  This means that the Empire losses much of its ideological nuances, one is left with the impression that faith in the empire is mostly a practical tool to battle Chaos, and the church is universally made up of corrupt hypocrites or zealous fanatics. 

The game makes a point of mocking the Holy Roman Empire for its needless complexity, but the society is reduced on every level, which makes it easier to simply dismiss.  This approach extends to almost all other aspects of the Empire, almost everything within it is defined in extremely broad strokes without much attention to detail.  The Empire has a strict class system, with an aristocracy characterized as decadent, selfish, and vain ruling over a mass of peasants who are shown as ignorant, superstitious and xenophobic.  The history is vast but sparse on details, and tends to fall into patterns, as periods of decline are ended when a warrior emperor drives back an external invader. This approach to world building is rather typical of most fantasy, as it generally hopes to work within broad archetypes rather than specific narratives.  

All this is only worth considering because the larger Warhammer franchise has come under much discussion regarding nationalist themes in its work, though mostly focusing on its far more popular 40k franchise.  The series enduring popularity with White Natioanlist and Trump supporters has been well documented, Trump’s official reddit page /thedonald regularly refers to “God Emperor Trump” a reference to 40k universe.   The 40k universe has been accused its embrace of militarism, authoritarianism and xenophobic narratives, expressed through its protagonists being the dictatorial human supremacist “Imperium of Man”.  Very little has been written about the original Warhammer Fantasy due to its relatively unpopularity compared to its spinoff, but it is worth considering from a nationalist narrative.  The Empire of Man’s embrace of German culture and folklore is telling, in particular a blond warrior unifying the forest tribes to create an Empire via war.  All of the good emperors are marshall, and the bad are defined as decedent and corrupt, with women confined to marginal roles.  The Inquisition is shown as a necessary evil and the empire has a primordialism attitude towards the tribes that make up its ranks.  A nationalist reading isn’t necessarily intentional, but it is possible, though not the traditional narratives associated with Central Europe.  Rather it is more likely some of the long standing conservative sentiments that have long been associated with the fantasy genre.  

First released in 1983, Warhammer is among the oldest and most popular fantasy properties in the gaming space, and it is one of the few fantasy franchises which plays a major part in changing the pop mersculture landscape rather than being fully insulated within the fantasy sub-culture.  Warhammer 40K is the most popular wargame in history and the label has more than 50 video game spinoffs, Warcraft famously was originally planned to be Warhammer game before they lost the license and made their own universe.  In fact most fantasy wargames owe their legacy in some way to Warhammer, which can be found in hobby shops across Europe and North America, though Games Workshop does not own the shops directly.   It is almost impossible to be within fantasy gamer culture without at least passible familiarity with the Warhammer franchise, and so to many people, Warhammer Fantasy is their first real introduction to the Holy Roman Empire, albeit in a bastardized fantasy form.  

In his influential 1936 essay, Beowulf: The Monsters and and the Critics, J.R.R. Tolkien lays out his understanding of the fantasy genre.  At the time, Beowulf was valued primarily as a historical work and not a literary, a trend Tolkien argued against, making the argument that fantasy should be appreciated as stories within their own context rather than simply reflections of our reality.  This approach is empathised in  Lord of the Rings, where the emotional stakes within the confines of the fantasy universe.  The reader hopes Frodo will succeed not because he represents something external to the story, but because we value the character and want what is best for him.   Tolkien, in his prelude to Fellowship of the Ring, famously said he despised allegory and didn’t wish his work to be read with real life parallels.  Most fantasy follows in Tolkien’s footsteps, Fantasy has long expected stories to be understood within their own context but that standard becomes confusing when real life elements are consciousnessly moved into the fantastical space.  So when Warhammer Fantasy features a society obviously inspired by the Holy Roman Empire, the audience is expected to engage with the empire within the framework of its world, our investment in its success depending on our investment with its characters and setting.  However we can’t ignore the fact that it is obviously inspired by a real life society, and that the game is unintentionally setting the groundwork for its players engagement with the historiography surrounding the empire.  And so, while it is clear that the designers didn’t have any intention to make a statement about the historiography, instead using the Empire to give their game a unique aesthetic and stand apart from other fantasy properties, Warhammer does unintentionally make a statement about history.  The stereotypes of the empire as incompetent and needlessly complicated, the view of history as largely static, that history is to be understood as mostly driven by great men, and that the decline of empires is inexorably tied to its embrace of luxury.  The game enforces the notion of the Nation-State as normal and the Empire as abnormal for departing from said model.  The game presents many institutions of the empire without contextualizing them, and doesn’t acknowledge the actual complexities of the real empire.  Ultimately while this is the only prominent fantasy work which asks the players to imagine things from the Empire’s perspective, it very much enforces many of the same stereotypes that Habsburg historians have been trying to escape from, while also endorsing many false views of history itself.  The games understanding of history is just close enough to reality that the uninformed player might take it as fact, without realizing just how essentialist Warhammer fantasy actually is.  Much more attention needs to be paid to how history is understood via fantasy, because many people get their knowledge and interest in history from fantasy, and many concepts long since debunked in history, continue to live on in fantasy uninterrupted.  

Sources 

Ragan, Anthony, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Heirs of Sigmar: A Guide to the Empire, Fantasy Flight Games, Green Ronin Publishing, 2005

Pramas, Chris, Warhammer Fantasy Core Rulebook, A Grim World of Perilous Adventure, Fantasy Flight Games, Green Ronin Publishing, 2005

Schwalb, Robert J, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Tome of Salvation: Priests of the Old World, Fantasy Flight Gaming, Green Ronin Publishing, 2007

Straufer, Marijan von, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Realms of Sorcery, black Industries, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries Publishing, 2005

Schwalb, Robert J, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Tome of Corruption: Secrets from the Realm of Chaos, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries Publishing 2006

Chart, David, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Knights of the Grail: A guide to Bretonnia, Fantasy Flight Games, Black Industries, Green Ronin Publishing, 2006

Cruddace, Robin, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (8th Edition), Games Workshop Publishing, 2010

McNeill, Graham, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (7th Edition), Games Workshop Publishing, 2007

Cavatore, Alessio, Warhammer Armies: The Empire (6th Edition), Games worship Publishing, 2000

Tolkien, J.R.R, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1936

Tolkien, J.R.R., Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Del Rey, Reissue edition, 1986

[stormcloudrising]

Waking in a Winter Wonderland: An Analysis of ACOK Jon III and ASOS Sansa VII Magical Winter Scenes—Updated!

March 30, 2018

This is an excerpt from a longer 5-PART ESSAY that breaks down my theory about the identity of the historical Azor Ahai and Nissa Nissa, the importance of the Vale to the overall story and what it means for Sansa and Jon.  In this excerpt from part 5, I show how Jon’s crystal forest scene and Sansa’s winter wonderland in the Eyrie don’t just mirror each other but indeed the latter can be considered a continuation of the first.  In it, I also show some of the hints in the story that Jon will end up in the Vale when he returns from the dead in TWOW. The excerpt has been fleshed out from the original.

He woke to the sight of his own breath misting in the cold morning air. When he moved, his bones ached. Ghost was gone, the fire burnt out. Jon reached to pull aside the cloak he’d hung over the rock, and found it stiff and frozen.  He crept beneath it and stood up in a forest turned to crystal.

The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond.  Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen . Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.

So there is magic beyond the Wall after all.  He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he’d dreamed of them last night.  Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.

“Lord Snow?” he heard. Soft and meek. He turned.

A Clash of Kings - Jon III

And here is Sansa entering a similar representation of the realm of the dead as Jon in the haunted forest.  Notice how she views it exactly as Jon thinks she would but unlike in Jon’s vision, she goes a step further and enters the realm.

When she opened the door to the garden, it was so lovely that she held her breath unwilling to disturb such perfect beauty.  The snow drifted down and down, all in ghostly silence, and lay thick and unbroken on the ground.  All color had fled the world outside.  It was a place of whites and blacks and greys.  White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees and dark grey sky above.  A pure world, Sansa thought.  I do not belong here.

Yet she stepped out all the same.  Her boots tore ankle deep holes into the smooth white surface of the snow, yet made no sound.  Sansa drifted past frosted shrubs and thin dark trees, and wondered if she was still dreaming.

Drifting snowflakes brushed her face as light as lover’s kisses, and melted on her cheeks.  At the center of the garden, beside the statue of the weeping woman that lay broken and half-buried on the ground, she turned her face up to the sky and closed her eyes.  She could feel the snow on her lashes, taste it on her lips. It was the taste of Winterfell.  The taste of innocence. The taste of dreams.

ASOS Sansa VII, Chapter 80

As he does with so much of their character arcs, GRRM wrote this Sansa scene to echo Jon’s from the haunted forest.  In a way, it’s a continuation of that scene because where Jon stopped short of seeing Sansa enter the death realm, here she steps out into it.  Both of them wake from having dreams of their family.  We don’t learn much of either dream except that both included Arya. We’re told that Jon’s dream included Sansa as well and so we’re left wondering whether her’s also included him or even if possibly the two were of the same event. We also know that for both of them, it is a dream of home.  

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya.But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home.

Note that while dawn has come for Jon when he awakes, it has not yet for Sansa. This makes sense as Jon is positioned as the one who brings the dawn and as we will touch upon again later, he will probably at some point be the bearer of the famous sword Dawn, as the new Sword of the Morning. Sansa awakes before the arrival of dawn and it is interesting how Martin writes the sentence. It is not “the dawn had not yet come.” Instead, George gives it a human quality. “Dawn had not yet come.” It is symbolically as if Sansa is awaiting someone and later in the chapter, we see that Dawn does indeed arrive.

Jon describes the icy forest as magical while for Sansa; the snowy Eyrie scene is pure.  Like with Jon’s in the haunted forest, it’s pre-dawn in the Eyrie and most everyone is still asleep except for Sansa.  In Jon’s scene, the sky is described as having shades of pink while in Sansa’s there is almost a total absence of color with black trees and black shadows.

There are multiple meanings that one can take from Martin using the black shadow metaphor in this scene one of which is that it symbolizes the Night’s Watchmen who are often compared to black shadows.  Jon even describes himself as a black shadow in a scene or two.

Jon blew out the taper he carried, preferring not to risk an open flame amidst so much old dry paper. Instead he followed the light, wending his way down the narrow aisles beneath barrel-vaulted ceilings. All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye. Black moleskin gloves covered his hands; the right because it was burned, the left because a man felt half a fool wearing only one glove.

A Clash of Kings - Jon I

And here again as Jon, Qhorin and their fellow Night’s Watch brothers stalk the wildings in the Frostfang mountains.

The black brothers moved through black shadows amidst black rocks, working their way up a steep, twisting trail as their breath frosted in the black air. Jon felt almost naked without his mail, but he did not miss its weight. This was hard going, and slow. To hurry here was to risk a broken ankle or worse. Stonesnake seemed to know where to put his feet as if by instinct, but Jon needed to be more careful on the broken, uneven ground.

And later in the same scene…

Up they went, and up, and up, black shadows creeping across the moonlit wall of rock. Anyone down on the floor of the pass could have seen them easily, but the mountain hid them from the view of the wildlings by their fire.

A Clash of Kings - Jon VI

Here is another reference...

The first watch is mine, brother." Qhorin seated himself on the sand, his back to a wall, no more than a vague black shadow in the gloom of the cave. Over the rush of falling waters, Jon heard a soft sound of steel on leather that could only mean that the Halfhand had drawn his sword.

A Clash of Kings - Jon VIII

I included the four excerpts above to show that the Night’s Watch being compared to shadows is not a one off thing. These are four instances but it  occurs several times throughout the story

The black trees casting their black shadows are like sentinels guarding the garden just as Jon and his black brothers are sentinels who guard the realm of men.  The Night Watch brothers are even called sentinels as we find out when Bran tells the Reeds the story of the seventy-nine brothers who attempted to desert their watch.

"There are ghosts here," Bran said. Hodor had heard all the stories before, but Jojen might not have. "Old ghosts, from before the Old King, even before Aegon the Dragon, seventy-nine deserters who went south to be outlaws. One was Lord Ryswell's youngest son, so when they reached the barrowlands they sought shelter at his castle, but Lord Ryswell took them captive and returned them to the Nightfort. The Lord Commander had holes hewn in the top of the Wall and he put the deserters in them and sealed them up alive in the ice. They have spears and horns and they all face north. The seventy-nine sentinels, they're called. They left their posts in life, so in death their watch goes on forever. Years later, when Lord Ryswell was old and dying, he had himself carried to the Nightfort so he could take the black and stand beside his son. He'd sent him back to the Wall for honor's sake, but he loved him still, so he came to share his watch."

And so you can see that both the black trees and the black shadows are symbolic of Jon and so in a metaphorical sense, he is in the scene with Sansa, which I think is another hint from Martin that he will be in the Vale.

Sansa does not feel very hopeful in her scene, which is understandable based on the events she’s been through, the uncertainty of her future and the dastardly villains around her in the Vale.  Her scene is also very symbolic of the past Long Night and the probable oncoming of a new one when the light of the sun will be block from planetos and everything will be dark.

However, all is not lost because the sky is only a dark grey.  It is not yet totally black because some light is still being reflected down from the sun and so not all color has gone from the world.  This hope is echoed in Jon’s scene with the pale pink light of dawn shining through.  It’s pale because the light is not strong but it is just enough to make the sky above Sansa a dark grey instead of all black.  Anyone who has seen the rise of the sun on a cold winter morning or on an overcast or rainy day, knows that the grey hue of the sky is often times interspersed with hints of pink.  Grey and pink are complementary colors in nature.  It’s why designers and artists use them together so much in their creations.

In Jon’s scene, he wakes, notes that Ghost is gone from besides him and then pulls back his cloak (a symbolic door) to go outside.  Jon is a Christ like figure in the story and so the cloak is also symbolic of the stone that sealed Jesus in his tomb, which of course will take on additional meaning later when Jon is killed and returns to the land of the living.  Sansa on the other hand, opens a real door to enter the garden and is greeted by a ghostly silence as the snow falls. GRRM’s brilliance shines though here as he ties the two scenes together as soon as Sansa enters the garden.

Ghost is the silent direwolf who never makes a sound.  In fact, ghost and silent appears together in 21 paragraphs in the various books and each time, the reference is to Jon’s direwolf.  And so Martin connects Jon’s frozen forest scene with Sansa’s winter wonderland by making it seem as if Ghost has symbolically left Jon’s side to be at Sansa’s.  But Ghost is not just a direwolf, he’s Jon as well and he brings the snow with him, which brushes her face as soft as a lover’s kiss.

When he finally put the quill down, the room was dim and chilly, and he could feel its walls closing in. Perched above the window, the Old Bear’s raven peered down at him with shrewd black eyes. My last friend, Jon thought ruefully. And I had best outlive you, or you’ll eat my face as well. Ghost did not count. Ghost was closer than a friend. Ghost was part of him.

A Dance with Dragons - Jon III

This symbolism of Ghost being a part of Jon, and a protector of Sansa was echoed in the TV show with his speech about the north as well as him leaving his direwolf behind to watch over her. The show of course edited out the Ghost scene but we know it was filmed as a result of the DVD commentaries.

The falling snow also foreshadows the future event when Jon Snow literally falls and dies in the snow and for all intents and purposes, becomes a ghost. In fact, he probably becomes Ghost for a time as his spirit enters his direwolf upon his death. And so, Ghost Jon will at some point leave the Wall and the North and will end up in the Vale.  I don’t expect him to stay long but it will be just enough time to steal Sansa away and head back north.  I expect that he will head through the mountains and take a ship from the Sisters to White Harbor just as his father did when he went home to call the Banners at the start of Robert’s Rebellion.

Jon thinks that Sansa would cry at the beauty of the scene in the forests and she may have in the past but right now there is nothing but darkness around her and while she can see the beauty, she can’t cry over it in appreciation because it’s all she can do not to shed tears at her painful circumstances.  Like Alyssa Arryn, she can find no tears to shed but there will be coming as is suggested by the melting snow on her cheeks as she symbolically cries for Jon.  Both her and Jon have much tears to shed.

Others have discounted my theory but these two Jon and Sansa scenes along with her descent from the Eyrie when she thought the wind sounded like “the howl of a ghost wolf”, suggests that when he returns from the other side, Jon will end up in the Vale.  And as I broke down HERE, her sexual dreams of Ilyn Payne also points to Jon being in the Vale.  

As every past important event is replaying in some manner, I think that this will be Martin’s way of reenacting the Tourneys at Harrenhal and Ashford Meadows as there are subtle hints to both in the Alayne TWOW preview chapter.  I also think that the character from the past that Jon represents and who I will discuss in a future essay was in the Vale when things blew up and so it makes sense for him to be there this time around as well.

Another hint that Jon will be in the Vale is of course this scene as Sansa descends from the Eyrie.

"Ser Sweetrobin," Lord Robert said, and Alayne knew that she dare not wait for Mya to return. She helped the boy dismount, and hand in hand they walked out onto the bare stone saddle, their cloaks snapping and flapping behind them. All around was empty air and sky, the ground falling away sharply to either side. There was ice underfoot, and broken stones just waiting to turn an ankle, and the wind was howling fiercely. It sounds like a wolf, thought Sansa. A ghost wolf, big as mountains.

A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

I was discussing this scene with some people on another site recently and someone actually said that the ghost wolf Sansa thinks of is Bran and Summer or possibly Lady and all I could think was “jigga what!” 

The interesting thing is that this discussion was with theorists whose theories and opinions on ASOIAF I generally admire and so I was kind of surprised to hear that they thought the scene had nothing to do with Jon—an opinion of which I totally disagree.  I am sometimes truly amazed at how some fans go out of their way to discount anything in the story that connects Jon to Sansa but to think that “ghost wolf” represents Bran/Summer or Lady/Sansa to me makes no sense.

Their reasoning was that there is a scene where the words ghost and wolf are mentioned in Bran’s chapters that refers to Summer.  This is the scene in question that occurs after Summer is hurt and Bran is kicked out of their link.

And then Bran was back abed in his lonely tower room, tangled in his blankets, his breath coming hard. "Summer," he cried aloud. "Summer." His shoulder seemed to ache, as if he had fallen on it, but he knew it was only the ghost of what the wolf was feeling. Jojen told it true. I am a beastling.

A Clash of Kings - Bran VI

Now upon reading this scene when ACOK was first published, one would not have thought it had anything to do with Jon.  However, with the knowledge gain after reading ADWD that he wargs into Ghost when he is killed, one can look back on this scene in hindsight and see that it also relates to Jon and how his personality will be changed upon his return.  This scene tips to how Jon will take on some of Ghost’s personality and will need to be tempered.

Also Summer may die in the books as he did on the show but at the time of Sansa’s descent from the Eyrie, he is very much alive. And so why would Sansa be viewing him as a ghost wolf.  Her descent from the Eyrie occurs around the same time Jon is killed and so the “ghost wolf” scene is about two things—her sensing Jon’s death and also a hint that he will be in the Vale.

When Martin reference a ghost wolf, he wants you to think of Jon and Ghost. There are no ifs, ands or buts about that fact.  The scene above was part of the slight evidence put forth to support their theory.  The other scene being when Theon thinks of the collective wolves or ghost of Winterfell who are haunting him. Before Theon thinks of the Winterfell ghosts Bran reaches out to him via the weirwood tree and so I guess to them this means that Bran is now the “Ghost.”  Oy! However, if you want to discuss evidence, here is some.  

The words ghost and wolf are used in the same sentence or paragraph 55 times in the series so far.  And in 53 of them, including Sansa’s and the above referenced Bran scene, they are obviously about Jon and Ghost.  The Theon scene is about the ghosts (plural) haunting him because of his crimes.  And the only other scene with the wording is when Brant thinks of warging Summer to escape the ghosts of the Nightfort. 

In regards to the “ghost wolf” being lady—well, that is also a no.  Lady is a shade. Yes, it means the same as ghost but in this instance, Martin wants you to think of Jon and his direwolf as Ghost and Sansa and Lady as Shade.

Summer's howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog's were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady's Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together?

A Clash of Kings - Bran I

Martin is very deliberate in everything he does and if he wanted the reader to think of Lady as a ghost, he would have used that word instead of shade.  Lady is Shade with a capital “s” and I will go into the importance of this distinction in a future essay.

In addition to the symbolic hints I listed that tips to Ghost Jon being in the Vale, we also get this a little later in Sansa’s scene as she builds her snow castle.

Dawn stole into her garden like a thief. The grey of the sky grew lighter still, and the trees and shrubs turned a dark green beneath their stoles of snow.

A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

Here again we see that George has assigned human qualities to dawn.  It’s a thief that has snuck into Sansa’s garden. The Night’s Watch, as stated in their oath are “the light that brings the dawn,” and this is specifically personified in Jon. He will be the wielder of sword of the morning to bring the dawn.  He is the sword and so in a way, he is also symbolically Dawn. And so one can say that Martin is suggesting that he will symbolically sneak into Sansa’s garden and steal her away.

Many fans have written about Sansa’s arc in the Vale and how she takes on the bastard identity of Alayne Stone, which echoes Jon’s path throughout the entire series.  She even acknowledges this change of circumstances to herself as she descends from the Eyrie.

She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again. But of course that could never be. Alayne Stone had no brothers, baseborn or otherwise.

A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

The interesting thing is that there is another similarity between them that can be found in the meaning of Sansa’s new name.  Alayne is another spelling of Elayne (French), which is also spelled as Elaine (Celtic origin) or Elena (Spanish) in different parts of the world.  All the various spellings of the name are ultimately derived from Ancient Greek and Helene, which finds its origin in Helios.  Helios is of course the Greek God of the sun and so if you look up the meaning of Alayne, you will find that it is suggestive of a sunbeam or a ray of light.  And so it is highly interesting Martin has written Sansa as taking on a name that is so synonymous with the morning just as is the case with Jon in his role as a Night’s Watchman and probable future bearer of Arthur Dane’s famous sword who will lead the battle for the dawn. 

There is a running theme in the Jon and Ygritte storyline where she thinks he stole her.  This belief of men stealing women to be their mates is part of the Wilding culture.  

So many stars, he thought as he trudged up the slope through pines and firs and ash. Maester Luwin had taught him his stars as a boy in Winterfell; he had learned the names of the twelve houses of heaven and the rulers of each; he could find the seven wanderers sacred to the Faith; he was old friends with the Ice Dragon, the Shadowcat, the Moonmaid, and the Sword of the Morning. All those he shared with Ygritte, but not some of the others. We look up at the same stars, and see such different things. The King's Crown was the Cradle, to hear her tell it; the Stallion was the Horned Lord; the red wanderer that septons preached was sacred to their Smith up here was called the Thief. And when the Thief was in the Moonmaid, that was a propitious time for a man to steal a woman, Ygritte insisted. "Like the night you stole me. The Thief was bright that night."

"I never meant to steal you," he said. "I never knew you were a girl until my knife was at your throat."

A Storm of Swords - Jon III

Jon didn’t understand her meaning and so consistently told Ygrittte, he didn’t steal her.  He later came to understand the implications of this Wilding practice and even considered stealing Val when Stannis offered her to him as a bride before deciding against the idea.  However, with the importance Martin places on Jon stealing a mate, you know that at some point, he will do just that.  And there in the excerpt I posted above, you get a suggestion of just who the Sword of the Morning will steal.

Steal of course has a negative connotation as in taking something that does not belong to you.  However, if you look up the definition in the dictionary, you will see that it also has a romantic meaning as in stealing a kiss or another’s heart.  And there are several instances in the books where it is used in just such a manner in scenes involving Sansa.  No, the verb is not always associated with her but it seems like George’s way of saying, stealing or stole can be used in a romantic manner as well.

In analyzing Sansa’s scene, one must also consider the literary practice of symbolically comparing a woman to a garden.  Many great authors including Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood have used a garden and flowers to symbolize a woman’s innocence and her wakening sexuality as well as her ability to be fertile and bring forth life. The line, “Dawn stole into her garden like a thief,” then metaphorically suggests that a man, who I think is Jon will soon be awakening Sansa sexually.  

A stole is also a protective covering worn by a woman and as it is her garden, she is symbolically the trees and shrubs covered by the snowy stole. This suggests that Jon may also play this protective role for Sansa.

There is also another bit of interesting symbolism in Jon’s crystal forest scene. The “pale light of dawn” shines on the branches (Bran and the weirwood tree), leaf (Leaf of the COF) and stone.  The latter could of course be symbolically representative of petrified wood and as such also indicative of the weirwood trees but that is already suggested by the reference to branches.  I propose that it possibly could be a tip to the fact that Sansa, aka Alayne Stone may have some part to play in the endgame battle for the dawn.  We already know that Bran and the COF are important to the final endgame but this metaphor from Jon’s scene seems to indicate that Sansa has a role to play as well. 

Gardens are used to symbolize death as well and this aspect is also there in the scene with the description of the trees and evocative shadows.  Sansa stepping out into the death realm echoes what Persephone must have felt when Hades first took her to the underworld.   However, even though she thinks she doesn’t belong, she powers on, as Persephone also must have done as she came to love her husband and ruled the underworld jointly with him.  Jon is the lord of this death realm as is suggested when Gilly calls him Lord Snow at the end. And Sansa makes herself the Lady of the realm when very she builds her icy version of Winterfell.  

At the center of the garden in the Eyrie, is the broken statue of Alyssa Arryn, the ancient queen bee of the Eyrie, and itself a symbol of death.  It was here by the statue that Bronn slew Ser Egen in defense of Tyrion.  It was during this duel that the statue was broken when Bronn knocked it over on to Ser Egen and it became even further associated with death.  And it is next to this statue; in the heart of the Eyrie and all its symbolism that moon maiden Alayne Stone aka Sansa Stark, with the blood of Winterfell running through her veins, makes the icy death realm her own?  It is here, that very Night Queen like, she builds her icy knights and a reproduction of Winterfell, the Stark’s holdfast in the north and source of their greatest strength.  It is also here that Dawn finds her.

And it is here next to the symbolic Winterfell that Sansa Stark begins the long journey back to reclaim her identity, her heritage and her destiny.

ETA on 7/27/18 to include a discussion on black shadows and a certain ghost wolf.

[fancyfishgames]

Aground Developer Interviews Pt. 3 - Sound Bytes (Chase Bethea)

Welcome to part three of the Aground developer interview series!

This week we have Chase Bethea, Aground’s Los Angeles based composer and sound designer.

Chase has been creating mesmerizing soundscapes for games and other media since 2011, and has been an integral part of the Fancy Fish Games team since their first collaboration (I Can’t Escape) in 2013.

What do you do? Give me details on your role and responsibilities, and everything you do to bring Aground to life.

**Chase: **I am the music composer and sound designer for Fancy Fish Games. My responsibilities include making the best ear candy for the game projects.

When I write the music, my first goal is to make sure it fits the game in every aspect. It needs to be subconscious but not invisible, enjoyable and not monotonous.

When I do the sound design, I try to make things unique but still appropriate for the action. I also find implementing and balancing the overall sound and music is quite important. Anything too loud can pull you out of the collaborative artform experience and anything soft can not pull you in enough. This leaves the player disengaged no matter the direction. Implementation is king with audio, as it is the last puzzle piece to ensure it fits with the game mechanics, art, story and tone of the game.

What would you say to someone interested in becoming a composer/sound designer for games?

**Chase: **I have and will always continue to say: play games. Play all types of video games, board games, card games, VR games etc.

Playing the games allows you to get a better sense of the work you are doing. Those play experiences will come in handy when you need to have references or bring a certain sound that is being asked of you to the table. Do not come up with the excuse of not having time to play games. Make the time. It can only help, not hurt.

What are your inspirations for your work on Aground?

**Chase: **Some of my main inspirations are from Crusader of Centy on Sega developed by Atlus. It was supposed to be a rival to The Legend of Zelda on the Super Nintendo.

How do you stay motivated over the course of a longer (1 yr +) project like Aground?

**Chase: **I stay motivated by taking some breaks away from a piece of music or sound design and working on something else.

Breaks allow my ears to rest, and sometimes I objectively look at the bigger picture of what direction of the project is going in and what I believe is missing that will add some interesting elements.

Also, having the community feedback and positive comments about Aground have been keeping me greatly motivated, especially when I receive shout-outs about the music.

Check out Chase’s Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/chase-bethea-1/no-boundaries

What is your workflow like? How do you move from an idea to final in-game form?

**Chase: **Some musical ideas I have had for Aground have come from melodies I have dreamed of.

Some other sound ideas have come from mishearing a cool sound in a retro-game I was playing.

For Aground I have a sound instrument palette I made from the first theme “No Sky Limit” and “No Boundaries.” This is so I have some sound consistency for the soundtrack. Occasionally, I will add some new instruments in to fill out an idea I have (i.e. “Dance with Dragons”).

After the new work session is made in my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), I try to come up with a name and to do that, I read the game design document and/or play the game. Then, I begin fleshing out the ideas I had by coming up with a drum rhythm or deciding which instrument will carry the melody for the corresponding area for Aground.

If I get stuck writing, I take a break or I play the game for a long time. I do not rush the creativity because if I am not feeling it, then the final result comes out half-done. I jump back and forth from the piano to the DAW to solidify my ideas. A lot of experimentation occurs, such as putting reverbs, delays and distortions on rhythmic patterns or instruments that I have not before. I tend to think of orchestration techniques with synths, so I will try doublings on some basses or stacking textures, entries, and exits with the music; treating it as if it was a conversation but also extending a feeling.

Two years ago, I adopted what I call the Alfred Hitchcock method. In an interview, Alfred was asked about being the master of the unexpected. Part of his response was “They’re saying to me ‘show us’ and ‘I know what’s coming next’… and I say, ‘Do you?’"

Every time I write music, I think about what I (and others) have done before too many times, and I go deliberately in a different direction. Some things do not change for the sake of form and project consistency. However, other things such as modulations, transitions, some chord progressions, melodic contour, orchestration, rests, time signatures and rhythmic patterns I do a little different every single time.

When the composition is done, since I mostly mix while I write, I check the mix in Mono and do a little compression. Then, I monitor (mix check referencing) on other mediums such as headphones, phone speakers and car speakers.

Lastly, I ask David, Natalie, and Aaron for feedback. If it’s all good, I render the track, edit it for loop format and deliver it.

For sound design, the process is a bit different. I play around with a lot of musical intervals, plugin effects and sequences to achieve the sound effects. I think about the phrasing of the sound. I try to make the sound with my mouth and realize it in the DAW. Unless it is straightforward like swords, chainsaws and flesh sounds, then I layer and manipulate recorded sounds I have in a library or that I recorded myself and mix it all together.

What is your favorite thing about working on this project?

**Chase: **Having the community give their feedback so fast to the updates we release is my favorite thing about working on the project. As a team it allows us to see what works and what does not work. In addition, it allows us to grow and make more cool things that we believe the players will enjoy and come back to discover.

Bonus: what’s the most adventurous or bravest thing you’ve ever done?

I went kayaking in the ocean last year with my girlfriend. I had never been in the ocean or kayaking before. I was terrified but after 30 minutes I learned to like it.

Want to play Aground?

You can get the game on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/876650/Aground/

Or, try the free demo of Aground: https://fancyfishgames.com/Aground/play/

Check out Chase’s website: http://chasebethea.com/

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/chasebethea

Hey, look! He’s got a YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/cbest08/videos

[murasaki-murasame]

I wasn’t initially going to summon on this banner since the idea of a Nefaria alt didn’t interest me much, but then we found out that she’s a flame wand, AND Gala Elly got put on rate-up, who I’ve been waiting like nine goddamn months for another chance to get, so at that point I figured that this banner was more tempting to me than the idea of the anniversary gala giving us, like, Gala Zena or whatever, lol.

Also I may as well use this as an excuse to talk about the upcoming changes to crafting and storage that we’re getting for the anniversary.

Even after summoning for Gala Thor like two weeks ago, I managed to get back up to around 270 summons going into this gala, and this is what I got from spending like 230 of that, lol.

Dupes:

-Sakuya and Long Long [I already had MUB copies of both of them so now they’re just sitting in my inventory as extras. I could sell them, but I know we’re getting updates to how dragons get upgraded soon so I want to hold onto them]

-Liger [I think he’s at 3UB now]

-Andromeda x2 [yes I got two copies of her, lol. Now she’s at 2UB]

-Summer Celliera [why do I keep getting so many summer units from galas, lol]

-I might have gotten another dupe adventurer but I can’t remember

And anyway the new stuff I got was:

-Gala Elly x2 [!!!!!! I’ve waited so long for ths, and now I dunno if I’ll even actually use her, lol. But I’m glad I got her. I probably should have stopped after getting the first copy of her after like 150 summons, but I wanted the Nefaria alt]

-Incognito Nefaria [it took nearly all of my stash but I finally got her. I know she’s not even a limited unit and I could just dream summon her later, but I don’t regret chasing her now. Especially since she seems designed for these kinds of wave-based events, and I’m already having fun using her for it]

-Summer Mikoto [Like I said, I just keep getting summer units for some reason. I felt kinda bad about skipping his banner when he came out, and he was actually my main dream summon candidate before this, so I’m really happy I got him. This also makes up for me getting spooked by a Summer Cleo dupe in the last gala, lol]

-Horus [I have like four or five different MUB 5-star flame dragons so I’m never actually gonna use him, but he’s nice to have. I hope they make more attack rate dragons like him for other elements]

-Hastur [the less said about this dude, the better]

I could have just stopped after getting Gala Elly [especially since I’d already pulled Horus and Summer Mikoto by that point], but I really like Incognito Nefaria as a unit, so I’m glad I got her. I also read OG Nefaria and Nadine’s adventurer stories recently to prepare for this event, and it made me really like both of them, so there’s that. I’m really glad I managed to get Nadine a while ago even after skipping her banner, since now I can use her and Nefaria in my flame team together. I honestly think that if I didn’t have Nadine already I might not have been as compelled to chase Nefaria here, so I guess that’s a bit of a double-edged sword, but I’m happy about how it turned out, lol.

At the moment I’m also running Naveed and Verica in my flame team with them, since I saw someone point out that you can now make a full flame team with PoC characters, and I just think that’s neat. And they actually work really well together for an event like this.

I feel kinda bad about more or less benching my Xania, but I hadn’t used her in ages after she started to fall out of the meta, so there’s that. Wands are one of my favourite weapon types, though, and I’ve been waiting for a new good flame wand for ages, so that also made me excited about Nefaria. I know Student Maribelle’s actually pretty good now for various reasons, but I don’t like her as much, lol.

I do appreciate that she and Nefaria aren’t actually as identical as they seemed at first glance. I mean, they’re still really similar in a lot of ways, but I think S-Maribelle works better in single-enemy boss fights, while Nefaria is designed more for wave-based content.

Nefaria’s also just a surprisingly neat character in terms of how she plays, specifically because she’s designed for wave-based content. Both of her skills feel really unique in how they function, and it feels like you really have to think about your positioning and movement in order to maximize her damage, with how her S1 creates a zone that sucks in enemies, and her S2 locks her into a super long casting animation and makes her move really slowly until you successfully set it off.

Her getting stuck in a nearly six second long casting animation for her S2 that also makes her move super slowly is kinda annoying, but I like that it forces you to be careful about when you do it so that you don’t get knocked out of the animation before it ends. And honestly I just think it’s really cool that she does a full-on spell chant, and you see a magic circle slowly expand under her as she charges up her big nuke spell. It’s extremely satisfying, lol. Especially since even with a 0UB Agito wand, I can easily hit like 500k+ damage with it by using it on a big crowd, so that’s just really cool.

It’s also really convenient that if your S2 gets canceled, you can immediately start it again after you recover, so you don’t have to charge it up again. It makes it feel a lot less punishing when you get hit during the animation, but it’s still enough of an issue that you’re motivated to avoid having it happen. Also, even though her skills are really powerful, their SP costs are pretty low [almost identical to Xania’s, for reference]. It also makes it easy to get into a pattern of using your S1 twice before you use your S2, which is enough to make sure your S2 is energized since you get three energy stacks from each S1. 

All in all, I just think she has a really cool kit that all fits together with itself really nicely, and it’s super satisfying to use her in wave-based events like this. In spite of her new modern-day outfit, she actually feels like a fairly old-school caster type of character, with big crowd-control skills and long, dramatic spell chants and magic circles and stuff, which I really love.

Sadly I think she’s probably kinda bad for stuff like Volk and maybe even HMS, but I really like using her.

Also, I do really like her new outfit, and how well she fits with Nadine. It’s just really cute. Not to mention her having a shareable skill where she takes a selfie with her, lol. This recent trend of characters getting shareable skills with really cute or funny animations that you can see other characters do if you equip the shared skill on them is really great. Apparently if you use that shared skill on Nadine, it changes it so that the animation has Incognito Nefaria show up to take a selfie with her, which is a cute touch.

And even though I hope they make some new maps for these events soon, I really like how they’re using these defense/onslaught events to focus on existing gacha characters and flesh out their stories while also showing how they interact with unrelated characters.

I do feel kinda bad about how Nadine got her own whole story connected to an OG 5-star, and a whole new event based around it just a few months after she got introduced, while Linnea had to go back to her home planet or something, lol. At least she gets to hang out with Laranoa and Linus in Wyrmprint Land [tm].

Anyway, all that aside, we also recently got a glimpse of what the upcoming weapon/crafting/inventory system overhaul is gonna entail, since they had to make a separate alert in advance about how it’s going to impact microtransaction stuff, and how they’re gonna reimburse people for that.

Basically it sounds like weapons and wyrmprints are gonna get changed so that we can only have one copy of each one, but through some sort of upgrading process we’ll be able to equip one weapon/wyrmprint on multiple people in the same team. Which sounds like a really convenient change that’ll remove so much clutter from my inventory. It’ll also make it a lot easier to use multiple characters of the same weapon type on a team together, since usually the hassle of dealing with how they use similar weapons and wyrmprints just makes me never want to bother. I dunno how often I’ll actually use units like this together after this update, but it should be convenient for characters who have the same weapon type but different roles [like how Gala Elly and Tobias are buff units with weapon types mostly used for DPS units, or how Heinwald is a hybrid DPS/healer while Grace is a dedicated defense/shield buff unit].

It also sounds like they’re going to straight up remove some weapons and wyrmprints from the game to go with this change, which probably at least refers to the 2-star ones that nobody uses for anything. If we can only hold one copy of them at a time, they’d be even more useless as experience fodder than they are now, so there wouldn’t really be any reason to keep them around other than as weapon skins. I’m still hoping they also remove some of the really niche and useless void weapons, though, and just keep them as optional weapon skins.

My main worry about this system is that we don’t know exactly what the process of upgrading a weapon or wyrmprint to let you equip it to multiple characters will be like, and how many resources it might take. Considering how many solo team comps involve using multiple copies of stuff like Odd Sparrows or punisher prints, veteran players should be able to do those upgrades pretty much immediately so they can get back to normal.

There’s also the whole topic of how facility events want you to get a full team of event prints as soon as possible to make the grind easier, so that’s another example of why it hopefully won’t be a very expensive system. And on that note, I guess they’ll be fundamentally changing how we obtain prints, especially from stuff like facility events. But we’ll see how it goes.

It’ll at least be interesting to see if the new system leads to us using more or less eldwater than we currently do on prints. 

I also have a feeling that since we’ll only be able to have one copy of each weapon and wyrmprint after this, and since they seem to be removing the storage limit on them, they’re probably also going to completely remove the ability to dismantle weapons [and maybe to sell wyrmprints], since you won’t have to worry about things like cleaning out your inventory anymore. They did also mention recently that one big problem with the crafting system was how dismantling has always been a huge pain, so I could see them just removing it, lol. The current main endgame weapons can’t be dismantled already anyway, so it wouldn’t change much, and it’d at least remove the possibility of accidentally selling or dismantling something you didn’t want to.

Either way, this seems like a way more drastic change than I expected it to be [even if it’s more of a quality of life type of thing], and now I can see why it’s been in the works for so long, lol. I’m really happy that they’re willing to make these sorts of updates to make the whole UI as streamlined and convenient as possible, though.

I’ve been trying to get into Granblue Fantasy for months now, but one of the main things that keeps me from ever getting really into it is just how godawful the entire UI of that game is, especially when it comes to inventory management. I know some people get bored with constant quality of life updates, but it’s so much better than the alternative, lol.

[waynekelton]

Essential RPGs on Android & iOS

The best RPGs are ones that offer unique environments, well-rounded/written characters, and unusual, original plots. Some of these games are more action-oriented while others are strictly turn-based, but they all have distinct, immersive visions in which the player might find their own ego subsumed, for a time, as deeply as is desired.

Bored of RPGs? How about some board games instead?

Below is not only a collection of great games, but they're also paragons of the genre and represent ‘role-play’ at its finest whether you're playing on Android or iOS.

Community Favourites

Our readers have their own wishlists of top RPGs they'd want to celebrate. We can't we'll be able to rotate them into the main list, but that doesn't mean their voices can't be heard. If you're looking to widen your RPG net, these recommendations from other PTers might fit the bill:

7 Mages

Severed

Monster Hunter Stories

Avernum series

The Quest HD

Aurum Blade

Dungeon Chronicle

Partia 3: Knights of Partia

Demon's Rise 2, Shieldwall Chronicles & Strike Team Hydra

Battle Chasters: Nighwar (Review)

Developer: Handy Games Platform: iOS Universal, Android Price: $9.99

It took as a while to get a review of this out the door, but it was well worth the wait. This indie darling has proven very popular amongst the PC crowd, and with it's slick performance, engaging turn-based tactical mechanics and engaging narrative, it's no surprise it was a hit with us as well. It's a little on the pricier side of but well worth your money if you're looking for a fully-fleshed out RPG experience with all the trimmings.

Not much more to say about it beyond that - you can check out Brittany's review for a more comprehensive verdict but this is a pretty good RPG that's been expertly ported to mobile, and we're all the better for it.

Star Traders: Frontiers (Review)

Developer: Trese Brothers Platform: iOS Universal, Android Price: $6.99

One of 2019's best releases so far and an excellent addition to the RPG roster, STF is the culmination of nearly a decade's worth of effort making quality premium games on mobile. You customise your captains and your crew and sail amongst stars trying to eek out a living in a hostile universe. Trade, go on missions, fight pirates and aliens... this is a very diverse sandbox RPG in space, and an excellent port of the original PC version.

The only thing to keep in mind when jumping into Frontiers is that there's a lot to consider all at once, and the openness is almost intimidating. There are some tool tips and an initial main quest that will teach you some ropes, but beyond that one criticism is that its not very good at explaining itself. Still, trial and error is not the worst thing and the more you learn, the more fun you'll have as you explore all the different play-styles and gameplay options. On top of that, the developers are constantly updating the game with free content, so you'll be well served in the future.

Barbearian (Review)

Developer: Kimmo Lahtinen Platform: iOS Universal Price: $8.99

Nick sums up our thoughts perfectly on Barbearian in his review: 

Barbearian is a real-time action/RPG that features frenetic combat full of huge hits against vast hordes of enemies. The constant motion, explosive hits, and overwhelming odds of it reminds us of running around Diablo III maps looking for more things to kill. It looks great, is loaded with smashy goodness and visceral feel, and is a ton of fun to play. It offers plenty of challenge without nearing the rage-quit-and-never-look-at-the-game-again reaction some similar games seem to elicit. The ability to micromanage the difficulty and completely control the UI layout is just icing on the cake.

An easy one to recommend to RPG fans and definitely GOTY material.

Demons' Rise

Developer: Wave Light Games Platform: iOS Universal, Android Price: $7.99

This dark fantasy, turn-based RPG is a favourite amongst PT staffers, and the sequel reviewed very well when it came out. Even three years later, it still manages to draw new players with its deep approach to tactical combat, and it's D&D-style treatment of the game world. While there's an argument to be made that Demon's Rise 2 should also be on this list (either in addition to, or instead of), which one you end up picking up you're not going to regret your choice.

Fans of tactical RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons, and MMO-style combat will really take to the campaign and won't regret adding this game to their collection.

Also look out for: Wave Light have recently released another fantasy-themed tactical RPG called Shieldwall Chronicles. We quite liked it, although whether it's better than Demon's Rise is a matter for debate (we think probably not). Still, if you've already checked out DR and are looking for a new challenge, Shieldwall would be a good place to start.

Planescape Torment: Enhanced Edition (Review)

Developer: Overhaul Games Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $9.99

Planescape is strange and idiosyncratic, its characters ranging from a chaotic fire-lord whose passion is simple, total consumption and destruction of the world around him to a cherub from the Brothel for Slaking Intellectual Lusts. Its take on a D&D system isn’t particularly balanced, for the stats and character builds favor wisdom above all, both in terms of raw bonus experience and the extra interactions and dialogue options. But the story is to die for. 

The multiplanar quest of an immortal, tormented, amnesiac main character to know thyself is at once alien and deeply human. Enjoying this pre-millennium classic before its enhanced edition debut last year meant overlooking a multitude of practical shortcomings; the non-scalable and at times grainy graphics, to say nothing of bugs and lost content. Now one can meet the protagonist and experience his joys and sorrows with ease, if not comfort. The game’s peccadillos are entirely the point, its strange, singular vision undimmed by age.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

Developer: Aspyr Platforms:  iOS, Android Price: $9.99

In a galaxy far, far away, in a distant time immemorial, the Sith and Jedi wore very different masks. To make something as nostalgic and cherished as Star Wars new again, BioWare and LucasArts flung their players millennia into the past and pitted them against Darth Malak in a struggle for the fate of the galaxy.

The characters remain iconic and memorable to this day (HK-47 as a murderous, seemingly punctilious droid, for example), and the now-standard paragon-neutral-renegade trifecta of alignment-based decision rubric for RPGs was a natural fit for the Star Wars mythos. Choose light or dark, good or evil: these archetypes resonate because they work, as does the class- and skill-systems which were tweaked from the paper RPG baseline.

Legend of Grimrock (Review)

Developer: Almost Human Platform: iOS Price: $4.99

What is Grimrock? Four prisoners marked for death are flung into the heart of an ancient mountain to see trial by the elements. By delving deeper as a party, defeating the enemies and unravelling the riddles, you will overturn your sentence and start afresh. The mysteries of the game’s titular dungeon, whose design indicates was intended a prison for a multitude of strange beings, mount with each level until the mother-horror is finally met on the deepest level. An old-school game with grid-based real-time combat, riddles, puzzles, traps and hand-crafted (read: non-procedural, non-roguelike) levels. Good looking and thoughtfully made, its battle pace and minimal input requirements make it a natural fit for mobile.

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (Review)

Developer: Overhaul Games Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: $9.99

D&D spent a long time banished to the corners of a select few lives, shining for hours at a time in small gatherings held regularly among the elect. There have been many implementations of the various settings and rule systems of the original grand-daddy of pen-and-paper RPGs, but Baldur’s Gate is perhaps the most significant and enduring of them all. (Sorry, Temple of Elemental Evil and friends, close but no cigar).

Chrono Trigger

Developer: Square Enix Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: $9.99 

A journey for the ages, with a motley crew visiting each era to repair the mistakes of the past and break other timelines, zig-zagging across character arcs and plot holes with aplomb. The RPG elements are just as great as the story, both of them equally...timeless. And the soundtrack is nuanced and varied, with mysterious, mournful threnodies as well as rousing boss-battle hymns. The game keeps popping up everywhere, and for good reason, for its characters, music and story both exemplify the JRPG genre and somehow transcend it. Chrono Trigger is Chrono Trigger; to play it involves learning about RPG conventions and mechanics but to experience it is so much more, a different creature altogether.

Titan Quest (Review)

Developer: THQ Nordic Platforms: iOS Univeral, Android Price: $6.99, $8.99 

A diabolic, pan-Hellenic action-RPG whose loot system and mythic references have earned its place in the pantheon. See the world, from the Aegean to Bosphorus, to the Nile, slay its beasts of prominence. At the time of its release in 2006, the game seemed redundant and derivative; now it shines in a mobile market where a premium game with fascinating, nay, compelling, rich pool of random loot, none of it locked behind premium currency or lootboxes, is something of a rara avis. Serviceable combat, shiny loot, excellent pacing and nice controls: this is good simple fun.

Transistor

Developer: Supergiant Games Platforms:  iOS Universal Price: $4.99

The world is falling apart, being destroyed from without while society crumbles and the citizens of Cloudbank panic and retreat from their formerly comfortable lives. Transistor’s pace has only one setting, relentlessly pushing the player to new areas while a narrator overdubs the scenery and battles with evocative, if florid, prose. Transistor’s techno-utopia has clearly gone wrong at some point, and the whole city is flooded with swarms of the Process, a monochrome enemy whose various forms eerily mimic lifeforms.

The modular battle system with its flexible customization options is fun and satisfying, for any program you acquire can be equipped either as a primary (active) ability, a modifier boosting another active, or as a passive. The relative small number of programs means that this mix-and-match is always interesting, never burdensome. The combat itself is real time with the special ability to ‘pause’ the game and plan out actions.

Final Fantasy IX

Developer: Square Enix Platforms: iOS Universal, Android Price: $20.99

Nick once considered this the best of all of Square's Final Fantasy ports, so now that we're officially adding JRPGs to the list (for the moment, might spin them off to their own list-ED), we thought we'd pay homage to the grand-daddy of all JRPGs with their finest mobile offering. FF9 was released at the turn of the millennium, and moved the series forward with new mechanics whilst also paying homage to the classical games.

As far as the mobile version is concerned, you couldn't ask for more. Officially it's a remaster of the original game with features such as HD movies and in-game graphics, and they added in an auto-save feature which is essential for the drop-in/drop-out nature of mobile gaming. The only downside of this and any of Square's FF ports is the pricing - at £20 full price, which is far more than what most mobile gamers are willing to pay.

Final Fantasy-like Alternatives

Once upon a time, we posted a feature of Final Fantasy alternatives. We're trying to consolidate a bit, so we're migrating that information here for your convenience. We'll expand on this section during a future update, but for the moment, here's a shortlist of Nick's recommendations if you're looking for a FF like game, but don't want to pay the price of admission:

Doom & Destiny

Doom & Destiny Advanced

Symphony of the Origin

Revenant Dogma

Dragon Quest

Dragon Fantasy

Phantasy Star II Classic

Hall of Fame

These games graced the list in a previous life, but have since past on into legend. Here's a reminder, in case we forget:

The World Ends with You

Avadon: The Black Fortress

Shadowrun Returns

What would your list of the best mobile RPGs look like? Let us know in the comments!

Essential RPGs on Android & iOS published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/