Saturday 22 September 2012

if they are corrupt, everything beyond them is also corrupt

I tracked down more of that analysis of the weird 'River Of Shadows' game made by my alternate self from a parallel world. yet again, it fails provide any meaningful answers and just creates more questions. I feel bad about Jervis, at least he is alive here. But I hear Richard Burton and Peter Cushing are still big over there, so whatevs I suppose.

"The Milus/Coppla 40k script.

The artistic influence of John Blanche on the 1st edition is obvious and has formed part of the 'ROS' style ever since.



It is not known by many that Blanche's services would have been unaffordable without the disastrous implosion of the Milus/Coppla/Chambers '40K' film production.

After the astonishing worldwide success of Flash Gordon, producer Dino DeLaurentiis, seeking an original property to exploit, met with Andy Chambers, a prime mover in the Games Workshop company. Games Workshop had secured the lions share of the work of John Blanche and Blanches twisted dreamscapes played a major part in persuading De Lauentiis to make Chambers '40K' screenplay his next project.

Rumoured to be set in a dystopian future, Chambers screenplay, Blanche's artwork and De Laurentiis's capital, secured the attentions of John Milus and Francis Ford Coppla as screenwriter and director respectively.

The swift ejection of Chambers, the disastrous production, the accidental partial lobotomisation of Max Von Sydow during and accident with a misfiring 'Bolter' prop, the millions lost and the suicide of Jervis Johnson have all become the stuff of Hollywood legend.

It is unlikely that Stuart was able to view any of the remaining rushes. However he may have seen Terry Gilliams controversial 'making of' documentary 'Tears of The Emporer' in the brief week of its release before being permanently withdrawn from theatres under the threat of legal action from Von Sydow's estate.

Nevertheless, it was in the wake of this disaster that Blanche did some of his most notable work for 'River Of Shadows', earning himself a narrow, but deeply regarded reputation in the field of RPG's.

The 'Games Workshop' company folded in a debt helix and has never been heard from since.



The Collected Poems of Wisława Symborska.


'I knock at the stones front door.
It's only me, let me come in.
I don't seek refuge for eternity.
I'm not unhappy.
I'm not homeless.
My world is worth returning to.
I'll enter and exit empty-handed.
And my proof I was there
will be only words
which no one will believe.”'

The linkages should be are obvious and direct to any reader. Despite several examples of obvious and uncredited theft on Stuarts part, Symborska has refused to take any legal action, though no reason has been given for this. She has denied any allegations of a relationship between the two.



There is, in the game, an alignment system, running roughly parallel to Dungeons and Dragons, which, in the 1st edition features only two choices. Most observers have assumed that the un-named alignments are simply Law and Chaos, taken, as with D&D, from the works of Michael Moorecock. However, I have traced the original typewritten alignment descriptions to these two passages in the Muqaddimah, a 15th century Arabic text by Ibn Khaldun.


The first paragraph describes alignment A, the second alignment B.

Human souls are of three kinds. One is by nature too weak to arrive at spiritual perception. Therefore it is satisfied to move downward towards the perception of the senses and imagination and the formation of ideas with the help of the power of memory and the estimative power, according to limited rules and special order. In this manner, people acquire perceptive and apperceptive knowledge, which is the product of thinking in the body. All this is (the result of the power of) imagination and is limited in extent, since from the way it starts it can reach the primary (intelligibilia) but cannot go beyond them. Also, if they are corrupt, everything beyond them is also corrupt. This, as a rule, is the extent of human corporeal perception. It is the goal of the perception of scholars. It is in it that scholars are firmly grounded.

A (second) kind (of soul), through thinking, moves in the direction of spiritual intellection and (a type of) perception that does not need the organs of the body, because of its innate preparedness for it. The perceptions of this kind of soul extend beyond the primary (intelligibilia) to which primary human perception is restricted, and cover the ground of inward observations, which are all intuitive. They are unlimited as to their beginning and their end. They are the perceptions of saints, of men of mystical learning and divine knowledge. The blessed obtain them after death, in Purgatory.”

It should be noted that Stuart did not choose to include the third paragraph, describing prophetic souls, until the controversial 3rd edition."

1 comment:

  1. Sir, hate to write that, but "Wystawa" is "exposition" in Polish; it's not the same as Wisława, which is Szymborska's name.

    And your alternate self writes cool games, by the way.

    ReplyDelete