Living With a Compromise

Our next series of word comes from Brittany Balcom. This is the kind of set that I really anticipated being a problem. They aren't instantly evocative, they don't make good names, and they tend to function better on the personal scale than the setting scale.

Coordination, manufacture, insubordination, envy, solace, fecundity, compromise

Given that Brittany is a huge GoT fan, and I haven't done epic fantasy yet, I decided to give it a go. Given the vast array of D&D worlds and fantasy novels out there, epic fantasy also has a really deep well to draw from, which gave me a bit of a crutch when dealing with a tricky set.

It turns out to have been far too effective of a crutch. After a slow start, I had all seven words incorporated at the macro level of the setting. There still wasn't enough setting to really play in. I had races and gods, but very little for characters to interact with. So I doubled down on the challenge. I kept the macro level, gave myself another 24 hours, and used the same set of words to build the micro level.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, though it still needs more fleshing out and much better organization.

The Wheel in the Sky Keeps Turning

My lovely friend Liz clearly looked at her bookshelf to generate this list of words. As such, it's a fabulous list for our purposes:

Dune, game, code, hunger, wheel, wizard, stranger

I'm trying to avoid pulling any of the original titles in as inspiration, which is harder than you might think. The obvious answer is to go for a super-shiny sci-fi setting, like you'd frequently see in the 80s, but still avoid Dune. Fortunately, "game" took me to a different bit of 80s fiction, and I totally stole a piece that I love from Piers Anthony's Apprentice Adept series.

Again and Again

This was a decidedly challenging set, primarily because it was a sentence rather than a group of words:

The Devil went down to Georgia ...again

A couple of these are easy (Devil and Georgia). A couple are really hard (I still don't like what I had to do to make "went" and "down" work). But once I saw "...again" I knew I had to pull out the time travel trope. Especially as we've been watching Timeless and Time After Time recently.

The Hellebore Society

And back to the final set from my kith, when he finally stopped screwing with me. And so we get a set of proper words, that are wonderfully, instantly evocative:

Blonde, hellebore, melee, nervy, rising, drinking, tink

I don't know about you guys, but I went immediately to a stylistic 1920's adventure vibe, that could lean either noir or pulp. It was Tink, though, that brought that touch of magic.

Three is a Magic Number

Today we're getting away from the really weird sets of words and back to the kind of set I was expecting. We have:

Contemplate, poison, triangle, outrage, perplexed, resilient, allegiance

For an RPG setting, there are a couple of easy words there. "Perplexed" gave me some trouble, as it doesn't lend itself well to the kind of macro level interaction you need in a setting. But it was "triangle" that really kicked off the core conceit.

Sharing is Caring, Always

I mentioned in my last post that I got a couple really terrible sets of words from my kith. Today's post is the second of these.

I, sharing, oh, you, always, warning, PETA

This is considerably better than yesterday's batch. There are only two pronouns and one interjection. I can't use the same device for "I" that I did yesterday, because that would be cheating. Fortunately, I came up with a different solution, balancing off PETA. "You" was incredibly difficult, though. I still feel like I kind of flubbed that one.

The inclusion of PETA makes me want to make it a modern setting. I haven't done an urban fantasy yet, and I love those. (Fair cop, I cribbed a bit of this from another urban fantasy setting I've been poking at.) And "always" kicked off the thought process...

This Land is My Land

So my loving kith chose to hit me up with a couple really annoying sets of words. This is where I really noticed that I should have been more specific in my request.

I, my, he, such, um, yes, daw!

How the heck am I supposed to craft a setting around a bunch of pronouns? Sure, I could tweak a couple of them by making them acronyms. But what am I supposed to do, create a guy who goes by "I"?

Hey, wait. That gives me an idea for a Lewis Carroll/Neil Gaiman type of setting. I can work with this...

Scraping By on the Belt

Sean Gugler treated me with: progress striking unscrewed heinous kilt free sunshine

For an RPG setting, there are some very simple words to work with here. Oddly, "free" is a tricky one, because it's overused in so many settings. The combination of "kilt" and "striking" suggested immigrant labo, probably in a colonial setting. But it was working on the odd inclusion of "unscrewed" that made things start to click.

And I really want to dive so deep into this setting.

The Land of Tannir

Adam Tannir gave me the kind of mess of obscure words I was expecting out of this challenge: pelagic, ruffian, underwear, niveous, coffee, elk, riparian. Due to a bit of a snafu with his submission, I have the option of trading out riparian for green, but I love the word riparian.

Of all of those, underwear gave me the most trouble. Go figure.

After a couple days of apocalyptic visions, let us go now to the dawn of civilization. A gentler time, with gentler people. Until things change just a bit, of course.

Every Silver Lining has a Cloud

Crickett Hutchinson gave me: ostrich, June, purple, octopus, cellular, daffodil, banner

Given that collection, I naturally thought cyberpunk. No? Well, I did. I may also still be in a bit of an apocalyptic mood from yesterday. As such, the bright and shiny world of 2045 suffered The June Events.

Do Not Go Gently

Jason Roop provided me with the seven words: "A man, a plan, a canal. Panama."

Canals suggest one of three things: Panama (which I wanted to avoid for being a bit too on the nose), Venice, and Mars of the old science fiction epics (e.g., Barsoom, Out of the Silent Planet). I chose to start with the latter.

Challenge accepted!

So, in another place, in another time, and under another name I made a boast. I claimed to be something of a wizard at setting creation. I claimed that I could sit down and create a new setting out of whole cloth in less than a day. Not in extensive detail, obviously, but with enough of a framework that players could get character ideas sparking and a GM with some improv skills could just start running with it.

It has always itched the back of my brain that I have made this boast, but never actually proven it one way or the other. I dislike idle bragging. So, now I'm going to put it to the test.

One of the variants of the concept was doing a sort of Game Chef competition, but solely with the setting rather than a whole game. Given a set of "secret ingredients" and a restricted time period, I would generate a setting. It would need to be coherent, interesting, and gameable. I would like to do a dedicate four-hour period, but that's not really viable with my general schedule. So I figured I would give myself 24 hours, with time in there for work, sleep, and other necessities.

Giving myself secret ingredients isn't really a workable idea. So I need input from others. To that end, I posted this to my Facebook:

So I'm going to try a writing exercise. Specifically, I made a boast a few years back, and I want to see if I can actually live up to it. It's an Iron Chef sort of thing. I'm not going to go into more details, because I don't want to skew the input.
What I need from you fine people are sets of seven words. These seven words will be keywords in the output. You can enter multiple times if you'd like. Each entry must be seven words (or short phrases), though.
Go.

I nearly instantly discovered a couple of things. First, I have some friends who really like to screw with me. Second, I should have specified "nouns, adjectives, or verbs" and not merely words. I have a LOT of articles, prepositions, and especially pronouns in the results. That's going to make this, to say the least, difficult. And, as you can see from the very first submission, I should have specified seven different words.

So now I have 13 sets of words. Four of them I already know are going to be ridiculously difficult. But I will do my best. If they aren't difficult, it's not really a challenge, right?

• A man a plan a canal Panama.
• ostrich June purple cellular octopus daffodil banner
• Pelagic ruffian underwear niveous coffee elk riparian 
• progress striking unscrewed heinous kilt free sunshine
• frustrating, angry, remote, forever, freezing, beyond, control
• I yes um my he such daw!
• sharing oh always I you warning PETA
• Contemplate poison triangle outrage perplexed resilient allegiance
• blond(e)*, hellebore, melee, nervy, rising, drinking, tink
• the devil went down to Georgia. ..again 
• Dune Game Code Hunger Wheel Stranger Wizard
• Coordination, manufacture, insubordination, envy, solace, fecundity, compromise.
• Couplet haiku quatrain limerick sonnet villanelle sestina

(That last one is the most likely to defeat me. Coming up with a setting based on seven different forms of poetry? Ouch.)

 Look for the results over the next two weeks. There are a few of these that are going to be very difficult.