The Other Avatar

Before Cameron's blockbuster, there was Avatar: The Last Airbender, an award-winning Asian-flavored, fantasy cartoon on Nickelodeon.  It ran for 3 seasons between 2005-2008, and is soon to be a live-action motion picture. Avatar was one of the best things to come out of American animation in some time--a bona fide fantasy epic in a well-realized world.

The titular last airbender is Aang, a young boy who is the last survivor of the Air Nomads (think Tibetian monks--with flying, six-legged bison mounts), frozen Captain America-style in ice. Aang is found by two young members of the South Polar Water Tribe (Inuit, perhaps)--the last survivors of their people, as well. The three embark on a quest across the world to help Aang fulfill his destiny. Aang is the latest incarnation of the avatar, the bridge between the Spirit World and mankind--the only human able to master all four elements.

While the writing and characterization on Avatar set it apart from most kids' cartoons, perhaps its freshest trait is the amount of world-building that went into it. Each of the four primary cultures centered around one of the classical elements--Air Nomads, Water Tribe, Fire Nation, and Earth Kingdom--have their own distinctive styles of clothing, architecture, and martial arts based around the use ("bending") or their element. These are drawn mostly from East Asian models, though there are Native American influences among the Water Tribe, and some minor cultures within several lands. There is a coherency uncommon in genre TV for adults, much less children's animation. The recently published artbook for the animated series not only highlights the detail that went into costuming and character design, but also reveals how they employed an instructor of martial arts to help develop the distinct styles of each elemental culture, and an expert in Chinese calligraphy to design all the written documents that appear in the series.

Avatar's strongly categorized world and evocative visuals make it good inspiration for gaming. Bob over at Vargold gave us Barbarians of Lemuria stats for Sokka, one of the main characters, and I've seen Mutants & Mastermind stats, as well. It's too bad there hasn't been any official rpg, though, perhaps one aimed at younger audiences.

M. Night Shyamalan's live action The Last Airbender is coming in July. While the trailers certainly look visually exciting, I have some concerns about the casting, and question whether Shyamalan was right for the material. Still, the animated series will be out there, no matter what, and well worth checking out.

Short People, Big Worm

The first known people from Ealderde, the Old World, to arrive in the environs of what is now the City, were the Dwerg-folk of Gulden. Though of human stock, the Dwergen are pygmies--the males less than five feet tall, and the women even shorter. Perhaps because of their unimposing stature, they devoted themselves to becaming wealthy through trade, and became a far-ranging mercantile people.

Over three hundred years ago, they struck a deal with the natives of the New World allowing them to build a fort and trading post that would one day grow into the City. The Dwergen were eventually outnumbered by immigrants from other lands, but people of Dwerg descent make up most of the "old money" families of the City. Today, they're generally of normal height, due to interbreeding with newer arrivals, but there's occasionally a throwback to the old blood.

The people of Gulden were never great wizards, and neither are their descendants. Historically, they lived in fear of the White Women--those born among them with the taint of witch-blood. These pale-skinned, ice-blue eyed, overwhelmingly female, infants were left exposed in the wilderness, where they were generally found and taken in by a sabbat of White Women. The White Women were said to torment isolate Dwergen, particularly males, and often visited curses upon rural villages that didn't pay them adequate tribute. Though the birth of a White Woman among modern Dwergen or their relatives in the New World isn't viewed with the superstitious dread it once was, it's still considered ill-omened and a source of family shame. Among the most conservative families, such children are still sent away or hidden from public view.

Despite their lack of aptitude with sorcery, and perhaps because of their conflict with the White Women, Dwergen traditionally were knowledgeable in regard protective circles, charms, and sigils. They also worked hard at perfecting alchemical arts--particular in the realm of the development of alchemical brewing and the thaumaturgically assisted growth of mushrooms with unusual properties. Unfortunately, these arts are mostly lost among those of Dwergen descent in the City, who tend exhibit only the shrewd-dealing traits of their ancestors.

Another reputed relic of the Old Dwerg days of the City, is the ancient wurm. The wurm is a dragon-like serpent, which dwelled in the streams and fens of the main isle of what is now the City, receiving the fearful deference of the natives. By draining the wetlands, and diverting many of the streams underground the Dwergen sapped the strength of the creature and drove it from the surface. City folklore holds that it still lives, nursing a grudge against the City that prospered in the wake of its defeat. It particularly yearns for vengeance against those of the old Dwerg blood, and devours all those that fall into its clutches. Rumor holds that the downtrodden and disenfranchised of the City--often recent immigrants--sometimes worship the wurm with hidden, and primitive rites, hoping to gain its favor by helping it in its vengeance and eventual return to the surface.

Bug Powder

Bill: What do you mean, "it's a literary high"?

Joan: It's a Kafka high. You feel like a bug.

- Naked Lunch (1991)

Bug Powder is a strange magical substance found in the City, and its world, and possibly elsewhere. It generally appears as pale yellowish powder, and its official use is as a professional-grade insecticide. It can be found in containers from several different and mysterious suppliers--"Benway Chymical", and "Voke & Veech", are prominent examples. Bug powder will indeed serve as an insecticide, but if nasally insufflated (snorted), or injected intravenously in small doses it has euphoric and mild hallucinogenic properties.

Long-term use generally leads to dependence, but also, like use of a large single dose, seems to open a doorway to another plane. Users report travel to an exotic, desert world under two reddish moons, were lies a sprawling pennisular city called Interzone, on the quivering banks of a gelatinous sea. The swarthy inhabitants of Interzone appear human in all respects, but have undefinable and unsettling air of strangeness about them. In addition to the natives, humans from many time periods and worlds, as well as alien beings, can be found sweating in Interzone, perusing their own agendas. There is a great deal of political intrigue in the city-state, and several different political factions--but the goals of these groups and the reasons for their conflicts often seem contradictory, if not outright nonsensical.

Mystics and planar scholars believe Interzone to be an interstitial realm acting as a gate or "customs station" between the material world and the inner planes. Supporting this view is the presence of soldiers the Hell Syndicates, as well as miracleworking street-preachers and holy hermits professing the varied and conflicting "ultimate truths" of the Seven Heavens. A slight variation on this view, is that Interzone is not so much a part of the astral plane, but more an extension of Slumberland, the Dream-World, located in some seedy Delirium ghetto. Further exploration will be needed to determine this for certain.

This exploration isn't without dangers. While physical dependence comes from the bug powder's use, the thinning of the psychic barriers between the material world and Interzone serve to cause a person to involuntarily shift between the two. This tends to generate feelings of paranoia--and perhaps rightly so, as the more time one spends in Interzone, the more likely one is to become an agent (perhaps unwittingly) of one of its factions, and fall prey to its byzantine intrigues.

One final interesting bit of Interzone lower is that the natives hold that their city-state, was actually once six cities of very different mystic character, physically indistinct and loosely co-spatial, but still spiritually differentiated. The names of theses putative cities when uttered with the proper ritual, are said to be a powerful spell, though sources disagree as to what purpose.