I have two new cats.

Each with their favorite toy.

They are Doom (big) and Scatha (little), and the old cat hates them both.

 

Something something something that rhymes with Pig.

When did Alex become a poster? This is outrageous! This is an outrage! I am outraged! This rage is an I’m out!

So, about this pig. It doesn’t actually begin with the pig. In fact, it begins with every game you’ve ever played, but especially the RPGs. Excessively the RPGs. It begins with every side-quest anyone has exacted of your character, especially if that side-quest itself leads to some side-quest; I’ve found the source of it all, the Ur-Side-Quest.

It begins with Culhwch, a prince whose mother dies after a difficult childbirth. His father remarries eventually, and this new queen, in an effort to ensure her lineage and power, attempts to marry her daughter to the prince. The prince rejects the girl, and queen becomes furious. If her daughter is not good enough, may no one be but Olwen, the daughter of the chief of the giants, Ysbaddaden Pencawr.

So off Culhwch sets, first to find his kinsmen, no one other than the legendary king Arthur, to whom his father is related. When Arthur hears about this quest, he thinks it’ll be jolly good fun, and elects six of his best warriors to accompany the lad. After much searching, they can find out nothing about this Ysbaddaden Pencawr or the land in which he dwells, until they wander into it by accident and luck. The real story is, of course, much more expansive on all of these points than I have space to be, and often quite interesting and imaginative. They discover they are in the domain of the giant lord when they come across a couple who turn out to be further relatives of Culhwch, a shepherd and his wife, who happens to be the most powerful woman in the world, capable of crushing trees with a single hand. This has no further significance in the story.

This couple arranges for our seven, and their twenty-third (I believe) son, to meet with the king, Ysbaddaden Pencawr, after first meeting Olwen, who comes to a spring nearby to bathe. Culhwch is at once stricken with love for the woman, whom he vows to marry, though she warns him it is unlikely, for a prophecy was made that on the day she marries, her father must die, and so Ysbaddaden has forbid her to marry.

As regards the treacherous king and our now eight heroes, I strongly suggest reading the text itself, their interaction is amusing, up until the very last day of their audience, when at last the king concedes on conditions for her marriage, and this, my friends, is what I was first on about.

Most of these sorts of stories may involve quests, or a single quest sectioned into phases. And just about always, the number 3 is involved, a number of some significance in theology and mysticism. Three-by-thirteen, thiry-nine quests, are what Ysbaddaden Pencawr lays on young Culhwch, many of them built upon the backs of the other. This requires that, which requires that, which requires the hounds of X, which can only be leashed by the leather of Y, but furthermore requires chains of Z to hold them, who are owned by Thisguy, who would never surrender them, but can only be killed by Thatweapon, which is owned by Thatguy, and it goes on.

A pause here for poetry. I read something saying the Spoils of Annwn have either their inspiration in this part of the legend, or else just cite it in places. Supposedly it details somewhat the performing of some of the 39 quests. I read the poem a long time ago and liked it immensely, and was delighted to find this story related to it, even if neither truly increase my understanding of the either. Anyway,

I praise a prince, lord of king’s country,
Over shores of the world widens his sovereignty.
Impeccable prison had Gweir in Caer Siddi,
As the story relates of Pwyll and Pryderi.
Prior to him, there went to it nobody,
To the heavy grey chain that trussed a true laddie.
Because of the spoils of Annwn he sang bitterly.
It shall last till Doomsday, our own prayer and poetry.
Three shiploads of Prydwen we went on that journey.
Seven alone returned from Caer Siddi.

I make splendid fame, my song they heard it
In the rotating fortress, four-turreted.
It was of the cauldron my first word was uttered.
With breath of nine maidens its fire was lighted.
Head of Annwn owned the cauldron. What nature has it?
Dark round the rim, and pearl-encrusted,
Its destiny is, no coward’s food cooks in it.
The flashing sword of Lleawg was thrust in it.
In the hand of Lleminawg they left it
And before Hell’s gate a lamp was lighted.
When we went with Arthur, bright and ill-fated,
Seven alone came back from Caer Feddwid.

I make splendid fame, my song is heard more
In the four-turreted for, isle of the radiant door,
Where jet black and noonday are mingled together.
Bright wine with their retinue they had for liquor.
Three shiploads in Prydwen we put off from shore.
Seven alone returned from Cear Rigor.

Thankfully, only a few of these tasks are related in the story, but I’m here mostly to discuss the final task. This one task comprises about a third of the total tale. It is to hunt the Lord of the Otherworld boars, Twyrch Trwyrth. In many of the prior 38 quests, several of Arthur’s champions join and leave the adventuring party, with few casualties. When the time comes to hunt the Boar Lord, all of Arthur’s host is marshaled, and the king himself heads them.

When they arrive in the land where Twyrch Trwyrth lives, they find five kingdoms, and all of them willing to lend their men to the war party. Apparently, the boar is nothing but trouble. With this now doubled host, they assail the demon boar, who has seven sons, and are utterly repelled. Worse, in the battle, one of the five kingdoms is utterly annihilated. Twice more this happens, as Arthur and his allies attempt different tactics, and two more realms are devastated in the wake of Twyrch Trwyrth and his Seven, and Arthur decides maybe he should do some homework and read up on the lore of his new foe, maybe visit Otherworldwiki for boss killing strats.

He discovers the boar was once a king, the most powerful in the land by far, and the gods felt he was too proud and too mighty. For punishment, he was transformed into this monster, and his seven princes with him. Reasoning that since he was once a king, he should be open to negotations, Arthur sends a retinue to treat with the Boar Lord and ask for the items he seeks by diplomacy.

And here’s the kicker. Twyrch Trwyrth will not, not because he is a monster and can’t reason or parley, he can if he wants to, but because he’s insulted. He sends one of his sons to answer, and his answer is this: Maybe if he had been asked first, sure, he would consider it. But they had to start some shit, so now it’s on. Except more Celticky (read: with more Y’s and W’s). And now it’s open war.

The remainder of the story details the eventual routing and killing of the seven boar princes, and ultimately the obtaining of the comb and shears, but not the death of the Boar King. He escapes, to rest until such time as he’s destined to awake and resume tearing shit up. The fulfilling of the quest does not, however, occur before at least a hundred of Arthur’s champions are killed, all five kingdoms of the original hunting grounds are laid waste to, a completely new location is reached, whose kingdoms are also obliterated, and a great wizard is made ill for the rest of his days because he came in contact with the Boar’s virulent spittle.

It bears mentioning that King Arthur is all about this shit. The man loves a quest. From the moment Culhwych returns to his court and details the 39 tasks he must fulfill, Arthur is described as “delighted”. At no time does he even consider perhaps not continuing to hunt this Boar God from the Otherworld. I’m a bit reminded of that old WoW video, an Alliance raid killing Thrall, and when some people in the party die, and when someone complains, the leader’s response is “They didn’t push it to the limit.”

I felt physically tired after reading the entire story, but I thoroughly enjoyed. And in the end, everyone lives happily ever after. Except the five or six nations that suffered extinction. But hey, they should’a pushed it to the limit.

 

Nostalgia: Secret of Mana.

I played and beat Secret of Mana again recently. It’s a tremendously fun game, as much as it was the first time I played it, if not more, because I notice how silly some things are now. AI and pathing are as dumb as I remember them being, and towards the end of the game, many bosses can be beaten with the time-tested strategy of beginning a new spell before the last has finished animating, so the enemy has no time to act between them. The best armor that can be bought in the game is very poor defense against the final slough of enemies, however the random item drops in the Mana Fortress have anywhere from 60-100% more defense on them than those buyable best. It isn’t too difficult to win enough items to deck out the team, but there’s no fast escape from the Fortress either, which means either a long trek to the exit to save and restock, or just gambling it all and pushing on to the end of the game. I did the latter because I’m a man’s man.

To get to the point, what impressed me about the replay was how depressing the ending is. I didn’t give it a second look as a kid. The boy learns he has a mother and father, but the father was the ghost he met at the beginning. His mother, the Mana Tree, is blasted to dust shortly after their meeting. The girl, who has been looking for her love, Dyluck, the whole game in order to save him, has to watch him kill himself so that Thanatos cannot possess his body, as he would then presumably be too powerful to defeat. And the Sprite is removed from the mortal world, and must now contend with the fact that he’s part of a dying race. The whole world is throwing a party during the credits, but man, do the heroes ever get the shaft.

 

Oh, hi, I didn’t see you there! I’m award-winning Blog Poster Grammaticus. You may remember me from such posts as Porn Month.

This post contains two entirely unrelated topics. The first is kung fu, in the form of this video of an excellently choreographed amateur performance.

The second is a question about video games. This question is asked with RPGs in mind, but there is no reason it cannot apply to other genres. What games do you feel have done a good job of making towns and cities interesting, memorable, or believable places, and why? Most games, it seems to me, pay very little detail to the character and atmosphere of their non-central locations, and most central locations are given their mood by ambience and overt details (dark or otherwise eldritch lighting, bones on the floor, immense, impressive architecture, etc.). Most towns or cities, especially in RPGs, are passover country, bland, uninteresting hamlets that you have to visit in order to take care of some small issue in a bigger quest, and have no value, either to the story ultimately, or to the world in which they reside by virtue of adding nuance and character.

 

And it’s the underdog, taking the lead!

Is it too late for me to bet in Dodger’s standings?

Here are a handful of dance videos that are more deserving of their own day.