The Shadow People (Margaret St.Clair) - Appendix N and Beyond

     In Gary Gygax's The Dungeon Master's Guide, one of the core rule books of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game (now generally referred to as 1st edition D&D), there was an appendix, Appendix N to be precise, which listed inspirational authors and books - that is, authors and books that were cited as direct inspirations to the Dungeons and Dragons game.

     Appendix N was a fascinating list, in many ways. It was reflective of the zeigeist of the 1970s and was far more reflective of so-called "weird fiction" than pure fantasy. I mean, yes, Tolkien is on the list, but so was H.P. Lovecraft. When people think of D&D today, they think, "Oh, like that Tolkien stuff!" They do not necessarily think of Lovecraft. Or Margaret St.Clair. For that reason (among many others), a lot of "old school" players of D&D (and related games) feel that the game has lost its way.

     Another interesting phenomenon is what is being called the "Old School Renaissance" - a rebirth of interest in the origins of the hobby. A lot of people are going "back to basics," and in many cases, that means an exploration of the Appendix N materials. Probably the single best outgrowth of this movement, in my view, is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role-Playing Game (DCC RPG). The creators of the DCC RPG really do have the sensibilities of the Appendix N literature deeply ingrained in them, and let those sensibilities drip from every page of their materials. It is good stuff, entertaining stuff, weird stuff . . . and I highly recommend it!

     I have been trying to get back to reading the Appendix N texts (and other texts with the same kind of flavor or resonance). This is not an easy hobby to undertake; many of the materials are now out of print or difficult to find. But I want to explore these kinds of books and write a bit about them in a project I am calling "Appendix N and Beyond" (because although my goal was inspired by Appendix N, I intend to go beyond the original list to look at books that did not exist at the time, but that I believe would be on the list if it were made today - like the "Black Company" books by Glen Cook).

     I started with Margaret St.Clair's 1969 novel The Shadow People. It is an odd work of weird fiction - part science fiction, part fantasy, an odd blend of ideas. It seems to be out of print, but I was able to find an old used copy that was in decent shape on Amazon. The Shadow People features a world not so different from the world in which it was written (the United States of America of 1969), though a bit darker and dystopian, and features extensive adventures in a secret underground world (referred to by the term "Underearth"), apparently a forerunner of the concept of the "Underdark" in Dungeons and Dragons lore.

     At this point I should mention that I have already found my project causes a bit of mental recursion. I am reading the books that inspired the oldest iterations of the game, and see the ideas reflected in the game concepts they inspired, which therefore become the ideas that most attract my notice, which causes me to focus on the game concepts they inspired, and so on . . .

So here are some of the ideas I find in The Shadow People that I find relevant to the RPG hobby:
* The Underdark (the "Underearth" in the novel)
* The Dark Elves (Drow) - there are people living in the "Underearth" - they are referred to as "elves," and behave much like drow in some respects. They once interbred with humans, and raid the surface for humans to consume as food (much like D&D drow raid for slaves). They have creatures referred to as 'orcs" and "ettins," though these are not directly seen in the novel
* An underground race of people living a life of constant hallucination (at least in part from consuming corn meal tainted with hallucinogenic fungus, called "atter-corn" in the novel) - this is essentially the plot of the module B4 - The Lost City, with its population of Cynideceans living underground in a constant dreamlike state of hallucinations.

* A long journey into the Underdark/"Underearth" which seems like it must have at least partially inspired modules D1-2 - Descent into the Depths of the Earth

* There is the idea of other planes of existence - called the "Macrocosmos" or "Overworld" in the novel - that seems to prefigure certain concepts of the planes in D&D
* There is an intelligent sword - referred to as the "Sword of Merlin" in the book - that seems to prefigure some of the rules for intelligent weapons in D&D

     There was probably more that I am not remembering or considering right now, but to me those were the salient influences. Anyway, if you're a fan of old-school D&D, and are looking for some enjoyable Appendix N reading, I definitely recommend it, especially if you don't insist on pure medieval fantasy. It has a very readable (and, I think, enjoyable) prose style, and is both a quick and easy read . . . if you can find it. Why is this no longer in print? Anyway, good luck, and happy gaming!

It's beginning to look a lot like Saturnalia . . .

The image and poem were taken from the "Saturnalia Advent Calendar" at http://lonestar.texas.net/~robison/Sat_cal12.html

Confusing Pain and Evil (Stoicism and Emotion)

On the matter of confusing pain with evil (from Margaret R. Graver's Stoicism and Emotion):

This alternative (and philosophically preferable) explanation is expressed in the passage just quoted, in connection with the confusion between pain and the destruction of our nature. Pain, says Cicero, is thought to be an evil both because of its sharpness and because it is seen to accompany (videtur sequi) destructions of our nature; i.e., instances of harm to our natural constitution." Being injured is not at all the same thing as being in pain, yet because pain does regularly accompany injury, it is easy for the undeveloped mind to assume that it is the pain itself that is to be avoided. Hence the difficulty of persuading a child to accept some necessary but painful medical treatment. With greater experience of the world, the child may come to realize that there are two object types to be kept straight, those which cause pain and those which harm the body, and to regard these things in different ways. Until then, the frequency with which these co-occur will be misleading. Likewise pleasure comes to be understood as a distinct object type from that which promotes health, and good or bad reputation as distinct from reputable or disreputable conduct. Even life itself-that is, the mere continuance of one's existence as an animate organism-is to be distinguished from a proper object, the preservation of one's natural state or (as we might say it) of one's wholeness as a person. A mature person does not necessarily believe that death is to be avoided at all costs.

Margaret R. Graver. Stoicism and Emotion (pp. 160-161). Kindle Edition.

Today's Stoic reading - Reflections of Stoic Ethics at Work

     My Stoic reading for today was an article in "The Stoic Philosopher: A Quarterly EJournal Published by the Marcus Aurelius School of the College of Stoic Philosophers." The article was entitled "Some Reflections about Stoic Ethics at Work." The title could potentially be misleading, by "at work," the author did not mean "in practice" (since every Stoic should be a practical rather than merely theoretical philosopher), but rather "in the workplace." Here is the link to the article by Manolo Trueba:

http://stoicscollege.com/PDF/eJournal07.pdf

     I found the article very interesting, especially in its emphasis on the Stoic as a part of multiple communities, including a work community. I tend to find that modern Stoics spend much more time thinking about themselves, their own emotional states, their own practice, and so forth, and not as much time thinking about this communal aspect of philosophical living. I think it's definitely worth thinking about!

Stoic Ween Evening Text for Reflection - Day 7

Evening Text for Reflection:

'I travel along Nature's Way until the day arrives for me to fall down and take my rest, yielding my last breath to the air from which I draw daily, falling onto that earth which gave my father his seed, my mother her blood...the earth which for so many years has fed and watered me day by day; the earth which bears me as I tread it under foot and which I make use of in a thousand ways.'

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.4.

Stoic Week Lunchtime Exercises (The View From Above) - Day 7

From the Stoic Week Handbook:

Today’s Lunchtime Exercise: The View from Above

On our final day we turn to think about our place within Nature as a whole:

A fine reflection from Plato. One who would converse about human beings should look on all things earthly as though from some point far above, upon herds, armies, and agriculture, marriages and divorces, births and deaths, the clamour of law courts, deserted wastes, alien peoples of every kind, festivals, lamentations, and markets, this intermixture of everything and ordered combination of opposites.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.48

The ‘View from Above’ is a guided visualization that is aimed at instilling a sense of the ‘bigger picture’, and of understanding your role in wider community of humankind. You can download a recording of the View from Above from the main Stoic Week 2013 page:

http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/stoic-week-2013/

Anyone who reads the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is bound to notice a recurring theme that involves contemplating the vastness of the universe, of space and time, the multitude of stars, and also the smallness of life on Earth when viewed from above. The French scholar Pierre Hadot called the deliberate effort to mentally visualise human affairs from high overhead “The View from Above”, and he found references to it throughout ancient literature, particularly in Stoic writings.

In a sense, these passages invite us to think like an ancient natural philosopher and simply to contemplate cosmology, the nature of the universe as a whole, in a detached manner. However, the Stoics clearly believed that doing so had profound “therapeutic” value and, as Marcus put it, can purge us of our over-attachment to trivial things by expanding our minds beyond their habitual, narrow perspective. We’re less upset about things when we literally picture them as occurring in a tiny corner of the cosmos: as a grain of sand in cosmic space, and the mere turn of a screw in terms of cosmic time. Why should we picture things in this way? First of all, for the Stoics, totality is reality. It’s a form of self-deception to ignore the wider context and it helps create the illusion that the events we face are somehow more important than they actually are. Second, the ancient Stoics sought to emulate the divine, and the View from Above happens to be the perspective of Zeus. We can even think of it as the Olympian perspective, what Zeus might have been thought to see when looking down upon human affairs from high atop Mount Olympus. If that seems too mythological, then for a more philosophical theology, the perspective of Zeus was perhaps that of omniscience, contemplating the whole of space and time in a single timeless vision. Again, the Stoics and other ancient philosophers aspired to glimpse that vision, and thereby to step into the shoes of Zeus for a moment.

This exercise appears to weave together many different threads within Stoic philosophy. That’s something that may become clearer to you if you practice it regularly. You don’t need to listen to an elaborate guided meditation, though. Just reading the passages from Marcus Aurelius may be enough to inspire you to close your eyes and contemplate things from a more “cosmological” perspective, in this way. Don’t worry if you find it tricky to literally visualise the whole of space and time – that’s normal. Just picture things that evoke the concept for you symbolically. You could draw a circle on a piece of paper, symbolising the totality of space and time, and imagine your whole life as an infinitesimally tiny dot in the middle. The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus, who was influenced by the Stoics to some extent, describes a contemplative exercise that involves visualising the whole of space and time as if encapsulated in a glass sphere, like a kind of cosmic snowglobe. Take your time. Allow these images to interact with your wider understanding of Stoic philosophy and practices. Try to take away some piece of learning or sense of change from each meditation of this kind.

Complete the Post-Week Questionnaires

As this is the final day, it is now time to complete the online scales that you filled in before the week, using the same name (email or pseudonym) as before.  Visit the main Stoic Week 2103 page for the links:

http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/stoic-week-2013/

Stoic Week Morning Text for Reflection - Day 7

Morning Text for Reflection:

The works of the gods are full of providence. The works of Fortune are not independent of Nature or the spinning and weaving together of the threads governed by Providence. All things flow from that world: and further factors are necessity and the benefit of the whole universe, of which you are a part. Now every part of nature benefits from that which is brought by the nature of the Whole and all which preserves that nature: and the order of the universe is preserved equally by the changes in the elements and changes in their compounds.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.3