Right now’s visitor put up is delivered to us by the Eren Chronicles, the staff behind the grim folkloric realm of ZAMANORA: Ballad of the Witch.
Final time, in our exploration of the fables of yore, we established how basic tales present a well-known framework that we are able to tinker with. However how will we transfer past mere recognition of already established concepts to create one thing that resonates with a recent viewers? That’s the place the second a part of our strategy comes into play: rekindling the magic.
Rekindle the Magic
When creating TTRPGs content material, particularly for number-crunchy methods like 5e, there’s a tendency to elucidate all the pieces by means of clear, almost-scientific formulae and chains of cause-and-effect. “The enemy wizard casts time cease, then makes use of her 3 turns to blast you with a fireball, forged nondetection on herself, and teleport away”.
This sort of logic is typically required when coping with a desk of powergaming rascals attempting to damage their GM’s plans at each flip — a state of affairs all-too-familiar to us. It’s not, nevertheless, how folklore operates. In folks tales, the forces the heroes face are mysterious and inscrutable, which makes them rather more terrifying.
Let’s take the above instance in that path: “The wizard scatters a pinch of sand in entrance of her in an arc. Out of the blue, you’re feeling your knees buckle, sweat pour from each pore in your physique. If you lookup, she is gone, and your detecting compass is spinning wildly”.
What occurred? What did the wizard do to us? Are we sick, cursed, or damage? Is she far-off or lurking close to? These open questions purpose to recreate the sense of surprise evoked when listening to a fairy story for the primary time, the rising worry when realising that “grandma’s ears are too pointed and her enamel are too sharp”.
So, our humble solutions to anybody worldbuilding with folklore on the base are to recollect to maintain to the roots, and retain the thriller of fairy tales. However after all, like all good conventional recipe, there’s a secret ingredient: comparative evaluation.
Comparative Evaluation
Stunning, we all know. On this theoretical mess of “protecting the magic alive” and “pruning the branches to feed the roots”, what does comparative evaluation should do with something? Properly, folklore is a residing factor. The tales that make it up propagate orally, they cross borders and shift type with every new retelling.
For that motive, the identical tropes and archetypes are discovered in numerous cultures, with completely different names and shapes. Within the instance of Slavic and Balkan folklore, whereas researching for Zamanora we found that the “bożątko”, the small home spirit that impressed the Witcher’s “godling”, is definitely the Polish iteration of the Russian “domovoy”, regardless of the 2 spirits trying and infrequently behaving very otherwise of their respective tales.
On the similar time, the Kievan Rus’ description of the World Tree that helps the realms of Heaven, Earth and the Underworld, bears putting similarity to the Norse Yggdrasil, cradle of the 9 Realms.
It is a crucial a part of writing folkloric fantasy to see these connections, determine which ideas to unite and which to separate, in an effort to respect the unique materials whereas avoiding pointless repetition and confusion.
Imagining Bigger Realities
For those who’ve reached this far, you’ll be able to most likely inform that utilizing folklore as a supply of inspiration is much extra of an artwork than a science, and no clear guidelines could be set in stone. Adhering the phrases of Ursula Le Guin, “[writers of fantasy fiction]… are the realists of bigger realities’.
By way of the tales we create and the morals we want to deliver to the forefront by means of them, we’re all basically penning what might as properly be seen as “folklore” by those who come after us; inspiring them to think about how the world “may” be, somewhat than the way it merely “is”. Very like artwork, the outcomes of such an strategy could be nothing however subjective, due to this fact we’re free to find our inventive voices unbound by notions equivalent to proper or incorrect.
Fortunately, you’ll be able to see how we on the Eren Chronicles applied these concepts in exacting element, by trying out ZAMANORA: Ballad of the Witch. Within the 400+ pages of the 2 books, you’ll be able to expertise how we translated the tales of the Slavic and Balkan peoples right into a realm stuffed with magical and horrible creatures, individuals and their communities, mystical relics and locations of energy. All of this and extra, was made into playable content material for each D&D 5e and 2024, and the much-anticipated Legend within the Mist RPG.
The consequence (we imagine) is a respectful homage to those stunning mythologies, and may be our greatest guide but. We urge you to test it out and again it, and we fervently hope it should encourage you to create, play and luxuriate in these tales!
Till we meet once more, might you all the time Think about Bigger Realities!
The Eren Chronicles
