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canmom · 9 hours

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What is the book for? - part 3

Here we go, the next part of the investigation.

[here's an intro where I talk about the three hour video essay that inspired me to do this]

[here's the first part where I argue that there's a big difference between the actual thing you do in an RPG and the book that tells you how you're allegedly supposed to be doing it]

[here's the second part where I describe some of the purposes that RPG books claim to serve in the creation of the game, and make some comments on the storygames milieu]

First up a comment! @zendoe writes...

One thing I've only seen in Jenna Moran's books, though I'm sure exists elsewhere, is that the book itself is a piece of art that is entertaining or interesting or moving in its own right. Chuubo is very funny, I read Glitch basically cover to cover and cried when I got to the end, and Wisher Theurge Fatalist is arguably meant to be read much more than it is to be played. You might even include games that are basically proofs-of-concept, hacks to prove you can put x setting into y system, etc. I'm sure a lot of games made in the heyday of /tg/ have never actually been played, and were basically just made on a lark Tangentially, this is something that often gets to me when people moralize against strong "you must/cannot do x" language in a given rulebook. I would never deny that many designers have a gross "saving the players from themselves" mentality, but at the end of the day, the only part of play a designer actually has power over is the book itself. So (assuming they're not ABA freaks) why shouldn't they use strong language if that makes the book a more interesting product?

Love this comment. You're absolutely right, one of the purposes of an RPG-book can be to just be an objet d'art in itself (I say with maximum pretentiousness), using the format of 'RPG book' to guide you to imagine a game that might exist even if it's not practical to play.

For example @xrafstar and @ramheadedgirl made a great little zine-sized book called Blood Sugar: Sweet Ambition. I doubt I'll ever actually get to play this (but never say never...), and as written it's kind of a nebulous state where it suggests stats for a D&D-like game but leaves the details vague... but it's using the format of an RPG book with its stat blocks and illustrations to tell a compelling story and provide a frame for Alco's gorgeous illustrations.

A similar example (which @lapinaraofperdition told me about) exists in Vermis I, an OSR-milieu artbook which assumes the format of a manual for an old CRPG. There is no such CRPG but it's all about the vibes. The book's on to its eighth printing now so people are well into this kinda thing.

This leads me on to one other function of RPG books worth discussing. This tends to be less of an explicitly advertised thing, but I think it's a huge part of things - amateur-anthropologist hat on...

An excuse to make up a story together - RPG book as seal of permission

Suppose I got a group of people together who had never played a TTRPG, and asked them to come to my house every week to make up stories about vikings. I think most people would find this a rather strange idea, and it would be quite a hard sell.

Suppose I got a group of people together who have at least heard of the TTRPG subculture. I have a book which says Sagas of the Icelanders on it, which looks like someone has put a lot of effort into putting it together, and costs some money. I tell them it's a cool new indie game I heard about that I want to try. Even easier if it's a game they've heard about like D&D.

This sort of overlaps with the 'auteur experience' category in the previous post, but it's sort of aimed on a different level.

When I was a child, I would make up stories on every long car journey - before that, my parents would do the same. It's normal to tell stories to children, and for children to play and make up stories through that. Now, adult life still revolves around fictional storytelling to a huge degree: in just about every society on Earth, we put tremendous resources into making and displaying films, distributing books, putting on plays.

But in modern adult life in the countries I know about, making up a fictional story is a very individual activity, and very much tied to the dynamics of publishing. If you're writing a novel, it's expected that you might think of trying to sell it one day. It is something that you specialise in. If you're good enough, it can be your job.

Playing games also gets codified and locked down: you go and join a basketball club, say, in which you are expected to learn the rules of basketball. Or play a computer game, where the rules are set by the game binary, which packages it up with other elements like music and images.

Only a few contexts give you permission to just tell a story. For example, if you're sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories. Or if the story is framed as something that really happened (whether or not it did). A joke is the major one, relying on the promise of a punchline.

If you want to tell a longer, collaborative story... well, it's lucky that someone invented a hobby called 'tabletop roleplaying', with its attendant books, magazines, forums and other subcultural trappings. You can point to that and say, hey don't worry guys! It's a done thing!

I mentioned earlier the 'conceptual inertia' of D&D. All these trappings are part of that inertia, continually performing and reinforcing the idea that 'D&D is real'.

In this case, the function of the RPG book with its glossy cover and brand name and slightly corny introduction to roleplaying at the front - and notably, its price tag - is mostly a tool to unlock this special social context where you're allowed to pretend to be an elf without it being, like, weird.

You don't need a book for that, not remotely - roleplaying has taken place on forums, in chatrooms, in MUDs, in MMOs, etc. etc. for nearly as long as we've had TTRPGs - but it is a useful tool to help you unlock the door, as it were.

In this it seems (thanks @play-now-my-lord!) that I am following in the footsteps of Roger Callilois, who offered the following definition of 'play':

it is free, or not obligatory

it is separate from the routine of life, occupying its own time and space

it is uncertain, so that the results of play cannot be pre-determined and the player's initiative is involved

it is unproductive in that it creates no wealth, and ends as it begins economically speaking

it is governed by rules that suspend ordinary laws and behaviours and that must be followed by players

it involves imagined realities that may be set against 'real life'.

Nothing about that implies that it needs a book to define its special 'circle', but elements like a subculture and book do help to bring it into existence.

On that front, let's also mention...

A way to unify the subculture - RPG book as common reference

Let's go back to reproducibility. It's not just about having something to sell.

A friend mentions playing in 'a Curse of Strahd campaign'. Curse of Strahd is an official 'adventure' for first AD&D 2e and later D&D 5e. Like most 'adventures', the book acts as a reference for a series of places and characters, and instructions for how to use them, advice on how to create a horror atmosphere, and so on. Some areas are mapped in detail, others have brief prose descriptions.

If your group has played Curse of Strahd, it probably hasn't had the exact same experience as another group. Much of the book is open to interpretation in all the ways we discussed. But, there's a good chance that you have had some experiences in common. Much like you can talk about the different areas you encounter in a computer game, or the memorable scenes in a film, you can talk to someone else who played the same adventure. 'How did your group handle the mimic door?' 'Oh it ate the rogue and we all had to form a chain and pull her out.' (This didn't happen, I've never played this adventure.)

The same also goes for more general setting elements and the game itself. An RPG lore book is something you can become an expert in. RPG rules are something you can get skilled in manipulating. And even if two D&D games take place in totally different settings, you have enough shared context to be able to know what it means for a Beholder to show up.

This is just as true of story games as it is for trad games and OSR, just with different emphases. Wanna be an expert in something? Perhaps you know the Apocalypse World principles like the back of your hand so you can give advice on how to MC it, or always know the perfect indie game for anyone's taste. And since indie games are often quite specific, two people who played the same indie game are likely to have something to talk about. Or maybe you just like to have long theoretical discussions about game design principles (*sheepishly raises hand*).

You don't remotely have to strictly follow what's in the book to take advantage of this feature. Players will constantly be recommending house rules, arguing about balance, criticising and modifying the game. That's part of the fun.

As the first post discussed, the process of defining the subculture takes place outside of the books too. In conversations, blogs, webcomics, forums, we continually hash out what this hobby that brings us together actually is. But, given that everyone's group is different, 'we probably looked at the same book' is one of the few guarantees you can make when you meet someone and learn they're into a TTRPG. Small as it is, it's a powerful starting point.

So what do we do with all this?

Well, it kinda depends which hat we're wearing, right?

For a designer, the important point to bear in mind is that an RPG book is only a prompt. You're not a computer game dev - you can't really be an engineer of a precisely tuned system where all the moving parts work together in precise harmony. You're writing a message to someone else through a noisy channel, and to my mind, they get the larger creative role anyway.

And it's not just that they'll take what they like and discard what they don't - they'll probably forget things that you put in the book, or read things in a way you didn't intend, or get caught up in the moment and fall back on familiar habits. For their part, though, they're probably not even looking for you to tell them exactly what to do and how to do it, in detail.

I tend to find many of the best moments in RPGs don't involve any looking at rulebooks. You're caught up in the story you're telling! You're feeling that feedback loop of mutual inspiration! That's what I'm personally looking for - the thing in the book is just a runway to get us towards that point.

So what are they looking for?

One view is that your job is to give them what they can't easily provide themselves 'in the moment'. There's a good article from 2016 on an OSR blog Against The Wicked City that describes it this way: if you improvise, you will likely come up with something that is either painfully generic or overly wacky. An RPG book, by contrast, ought to give you something novel, which someone has taken the time to flesh out properly. For this reason, it must avoid cliché, because it's easy to spin clichés and you don't need a book for that.

In Vi Huntsman's video, they criticise Root: The RPG for acting rather like a dictionary, attempting to clarify the trigger condition for each 'move' (a rules-construct from Apocalypse World, more on that soon) with exhaustive, repetitive elaborations. This is a fascinating corruption to me, since it seems rather opposite the ethos of earlier story games, which would much rather give you something vague and cryptic and refuse to explain. (...OK, I'm having trouble finding really good examples of that, but I definitely recall one-page games that consisted mostly of lists of evocative names and phrases). The players can be relied on to provide interpretations of whatever a Frost Shepherd might be.

The challenge to me here is to create something that gives your player enough that it's there when you need it, but still doesn't feel closed-off and is amenable to putting their own spin on it. This is rather a matter of taste.

Prose goes

On another, more abstract level, the aim of an RPG book is the same as any art: to make people feel shit and see things in a new way. This is getting back to the territory of Zendoe's comment above.

So let's get into it: why is Apocalypse World memorable, when so many derivative games borrow most of its mechanics and yet end up forgettable? Why would I love to play Chuubo's Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine even though I don't really understand how it works at all? Why do I still think about what Unknown Armies has to say about fighting? Why do I find most of Avery Alder's games offputting even if the design is novel and interesting? (y'know, beyond personal reasons that she was a cunt to my friends.)

If a TTRPG book is a device to conjure up a usable idea of 'the game' in your mind, the experience of reading it becomes really important. A huge part of what makes those games come alive in your head is that their authors can really write.

But it's not enough to just make a book that reads well, is it? The player needs the confidence to extemporise in the vein indicated by the book.

Jenna Moran's games fascinate me - but they're also rather intimidating. Her books are full of quirky asides and little jokes and stylistic flourishes. How do you play a game in a Jenna Moran way? I think if I got a suitable on-ramp like an existing group I could get up to speed, but it's definitely the kind of game which really highlights the complicated relationship between book and game to me. Which is to say I have the book but I don't feel like I could run this thing, and while I could closely read it cover to cover and rotate its ideas in my head, it would be way more helpful to join someone else's game and see how they do it.

On the other hand, Apocalypse World adopts a very conversational style of prose. It asks you to 'barf forth apocalyptica', it titles chapters things like 'advanced fuckery' and suggests you motivate NPCs with their 'clits and dicks'. It rather obtusely introduces the idea of 'moves' with 'to do it, do it' - meaning that you invoke the rules text iff a condition is met in the fiction of the game. It's stupid but in a really fun way. Apocalypse World the book has the feeling of someone sitting down with you and enthusiastically explaining the game.

Nobody taught me to play Apocalypse World - I read about it online (on the story games forums maybe?), which instilled an idea of 'what Apocalypse World looks like', got the book, liked what I saw; I ran it based on my interpretation of the book and what I'd seen online. On some level the whole process 'worked': a game was, perhaps imperfectly, reproduced in another group of people.

Something about Apocalypse World, then, got me feeling 'yeah I could do this!'. But did that have to be a game with a name and such? Could Vincent and Meguey had written the MC chapter of Apocalypse World as a series of blog posts giving system-agnostic GM advice? Perhaps, but I doubt it would have led to a whole breakout movement in the same way. It's useful to have a name to anchor things to. (Of course, there's more to Apocalypse World than that, like the whole 'moves' system which dovetails with its specified approach to GMing.)

I once ran a different PbtA game called Night Witches, about a real all-female unit of Soviet aeroplane pilots who fought in the second world war. It was a great premise for a game and was solidly designed as PbtA games go. Where I stumbled was the ability to improvise - usually something I enjoy a lot, but here I felt an urge to try and achieve historical fidelity on questions like 'what does a Soviet airwoman eat' and 'what's a plausible name for a nearby airfield' (I fucking looked at maps! such a fool). I don't speak Russian, so I would draw a blank when coming up with a name.

Clearly I should have dispensed with being historical here - it's not expected, not like my players knew better. But equally, this is where a longer list of concrete bits of random 'life in the USSR air force' flavour info would have been quite useful. The game gives you a reasonable amount of historical info, but I still felt out of my depth. Fantasy is much easier!

Running a game requires you to project a lot of confidence. You don't have to say you know all the answers, indeed I quite like to make my reasoning at least a little explicit - 'oh! what if we have this happen..?' - but you are setting the tone for the game. Confidence and enthusiasm will vary with each player to encounter the book and the experiences they bring, and it's often beyond the designer's control, but you can definitely frame your game in a way that's more or less amenable to picking up and running with it.

In the next post... a few options, hmm. We could examine the idea of 'moves' in Apocalypse World more closely - they're a bundle of a few different things, and perhaps we should evaluate how well that works, and what makes for a good move-based system. Or maybe we could revisit some of my previous game design efforts, like the RPG duels post - did I go astray?

#roleplaying games #ttrpg #tabletop roleplaying #story games #i'll collate this series on canmom.art for easier reading soon

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itsmoonphobic · 4 years

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✞︎𝕯𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖘 𝕻𝖎𝖓𝖐

"𝑯𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒔,𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆,𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒌𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅."

𝐎𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚/𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐛𝐲 @chandelier-s-notebook :) 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭!𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐨 𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬! 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡,𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐭.

❗TW:𝗗𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 | 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘀 & 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 | 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱 Long text below☟︎︎ "𝔗𝔥𝔞𝔱'𝔰 𝔥𝔦𝔪!𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔭𝔦𝔫𝔨 𝔥𝔞𝔦𝔯 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔶𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔦𝔰 𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔞𝔟𝔬𝔲𝔱!"

"𝔜𝔬𝔲 𝔪𝔢𝔞𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔷 𝔠𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔗𝔢𝔠𝔥𝔫𝔬𝔟𝔩𝔞𝔡𝔢?"

"ℑ 𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔡 𝔭𝔢𝔬𝔭𝔩𝔢 𝔯𝔢𝔣𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔬 𝔥𝔦𝔪 𝔞𝔰 𝔱𝔥𝔢 '𝔅𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔡 𝔤𝔬𝔡' 𝔞 𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔶 𝔡𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔰 𝔪𝔞𝔫."

"This is your fault you know?You made him this way Calvin." "So I created a monster huh?Let's see how far he comes."

He was known as ruthless.

He was described as somebody relentless and triumphant. A bloody minded killer with a grand sense of pride.

Wholesale and ambitious.A monster that leaves behind a trace of deep,red crimson liquid everywhere it goes.

Rascal and unattainable,he was confident.Powerful and dominant,somebody who seemed to have no trouble intimidating others around him.

The Blood god.He didn't even remember when people started calling him that.But that name had always belonged to him,didn't it?

He was a god afterall wasn't he? He had always been one. That title belonged to him in the first place,he was chosen to be the holder of that name.It was destined for him.

"Phil!Phil!Can you tell us the story again,please?" A boy with pale blue eyes questioned his older brother in curiosity and high expectancy for a satisfying answer.The older man,who seemed to be getting ready for sleep himself,tiredly ruffled his pale blond hair.He was about to blow out the lantern placed next to the excited twins comfortably positioned in their shared bed.He smiled gently in a amused manner at the childish behavior coming from his younger siblings,they were eight afterall what else was he supposed to expect from them?Phil carefully put aside the lit up,metal object he just picked up,and gingerly shuffled on the beige,slightly dirty looking sheets until he found a comfy position.His olive eyes were droopy and half lidded as he struggled to keep himself awake for long enough to finish telling the story,cringing slightly at the thought of falling asleep in the middle of his storytelling.

"Again you two?I told you this story so many times before, shouldn't you be bored of it?" Phil asked with interest.His green eyes meeting shocked sapphire ones and confused ocean ones.The older twin,Tubbo,hugged his bee plushie closer to his chest,looking as if he was thinking of the right words ro say.Tommy on the other hand blurted out: "How could we ever get bored of Techno?!He's the most amazing person ever!When I grow up I wanna be just like him,right Tubbo?" The younger boy side glanced his twin,intensely waiting for his response.Tubbo nodded,his hazel locks falling over his glistening eyes: "Yeah,what he said!" He clutched the soft,black and yellow stuffie in his hands tighter,now moving on to hysterically nodding his head, wildly messing up his brown hair in the process.

Phil chuckled,shaking his head in faux disappointment. "You two are such a hand full!" He exclaimed,lovingly pinching both of their noses.The two young boys whined in annoyance and discomfort at the gesture they received. Phil changed his sitting position once more tonight and finally settled on crossing his legs.Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a happy glance between eachother,unable to contain their excitement.The two brothers,that looked and acted nothing alike,dragged the warm blankets closer to their necks,wanting nothing more than pure comfort.

"Once upon a time..."

There once was a boy who lived away in the far lands,you could call his home the outskirts of Bladestrom,the kingdom he and his rather large family resided in.They didn't have much,not that they necessarily required big wealth and power.He and his family owned a potato farm. He loved tagging along with his dad,helping him out wherever and whenever he could in the out stretching and seemingly neverending green fields.The dirt,sweat and unbearable heats got his adrenaline flowing,he loved the feeling of a cool,summer breeze gliding over his sticky and bruised skin.He loved all the scratches littering his pale fingers,the prickling in his fingertips coming from the big amount of harvesting.The way he collapsed onto his bed after an exhausting day of hard work,his mom's homemade pumpkin soup always returned back the strenght and stamina he spent outside on the fields.He felt happy,most kids his age would hate the idea of helping out their parents,when they could instead be playing carelessly with their friends.He felt free,like he could run for hours and never run low on his energy.Like he could get away with everything he did and nobody would be able to catch up to him.He felt alive,like he had a purpose.Yes,maybe potato farming didn't seem like a highly spectacular or interesting purpose in ones life but for this certain boy it was the most greatest opportunity he ever received.

On the days he wasn't at school he would be outside from daybreak to nightfall,nonstop digging around in the wet soil of the yet to be farmed crops.Doing this for most of his life made him pretty much imune to the fear or disgust of such things like insects or mice.He saw many creatures,some smaller and weaker others bigger and tougher,boars had to be his favorite out of all the critters he cought sight of.Not only did the farming calm him down and bring him happiness in his somewhat dull life,but it distracted him. Distracted him from the horrible days he has to spend at school.A place where you are meant to be respectful towards eachother and take care of one another,and not a place where you get blamed for inconsequential actions. Actions he never did and never would think of doing.He got framed for things he never did,behavior he never showed. The farm boy got punished for many different things,he was told many times that he is a problem.He was told that he was in the wrong,he was told that he wouldn't amount to a productive member of society.

He was told that he is dangerous,somebody people could never love,becouse his soul seeks blood.

The boy never knew what gruesome crime he commited for people to throw those types of phrases at him.He didn't understand many of the meanings behind messages he received from both his teachers and fellow students.Thus he began to pile up the questions in his head,questions if all of those venomous words directed at him were true?

With all of that reinforcement,was it really a surprise when that's what he became? Somebody dangerous? A problem?

Every four months,the young boy would travel along with his father to the port,so they got the opportunity to sell and distribute their potatoes.He loved traveling to the town center,there were many harbors and coasts,shores and beaches lining the outer city walls.The seagulls were usually pretty annoying and loud during the time his father an he arrived at port,considering the fact that this wasn't his first time on the port he managed to block out the pesky noises with time and experience.Though he had to recall the time when he threw a rock at one of the white ravens and his dad scolded him for doing so.He didn't like birds that much,they seemed to provoke him every time he payed attention to them.With their weightless feathers and their noisy chirping.He envied them in a way.They could just fly away whenever they felt like it,start a new life,a new beginning in places he will never be able to explore. Dragons on the other hand,fascinated him.Sure the similarities between them and the feathery nuisances were countless but the flying reptiles were far more interesting. Instead of having the feeling that the beasts provoke him, he feels as if they follow him and keep him under control. He always loved watching them soar high up behind the clouds,somewhere they could be themselves,be free.

The boy would gladly help his father load the stock from their carts onto the ships.Some of the sacks were more heavier so his father needed to lend him a hand so that they would be able to transfer all of them before the deadline.Port wasn't a long trip.It's only half an afternoon's trip from their farm with the horses.There are rarely moments where the two family members get stuck in some sort of clumsy situation,such as an accident.But they always stayed the weekend,the boy couldn't really complain about that,it only reminded him that he is able to spend more time by the docks which made him smile.To give the horses a reprise and give his father a chance to catch up with his old friends.He didn't mind their company, most of his dad's mates brought him caramel candy,which was his absolute favorite type of snack.Plus,easily got invested into their conversations.One of his dad's friends, Noah,owned a fencing club just a little to the south outside of the capital city.The boy would always perk his slightly unnatural pointy ears up in interest and curiosity when they brought up the mysterious club he only keeps hearing stories about.

On one such trip,the father and son duo finally payed a visit to the local fecing club.The small boy couldn't hide his nervousness and excitement from his father,his foot was constantly tapping in impatience.His eyes were darting all over the place,as if he was expecting the building to be located behind every possible corner they passed by.His father himself,couldn't contain the love filled smile that started to creep up onto his lips.The club was a nice place. The red-eyed boy could immediately point out that he is going to feel good here,it's as if he decided his safe space. There were many sorts of weapons,the majority of them being swords with different forged blades.From wood to diamond,there was no material or ore that went unused. His was allowed to explore the setting by himself,the sudden,unexpected confidence boost he felt running through his blood must have been caused by the club's atmosphere and vibes.He came across many faces,some greeted him kindly while others payed him no mind and continued with their training,completely unbothered by the pink haired boy's presence walking around them.

He stopped infront of one particular door.It was an old spruce door with old,rusty iron handles.The room wasn't closed,he could pick up the sound of metal clashing against metal,probably a practice fight.He could identify two very unlike voices,one was smoother and more cocky, while the other one came across as more timid and sly.The farm boy peeked his head through the small crack that was left open,his bright pink hair instantly making itself visible. His blood red eyes watched the scene intensely,just like he predicted from the noises and sounds it was indeed a fight. Two boys,about five or six years older then him were both trying to get the upper hand,their silver blades dancing with eachother in destructive harmony.One of them had a large cut across his left cheek,probably a stupid mistake,if he had the right strategies and methods something like a cut that could make you go blind shouldn't happen.The farm boy eyed the other boy,without the wound,closely.

He fought in a way he had never seen before.He made it looks so simple and easy,yet so professionally complicated. He came across too confident for his own good,but at the same time he managed to cover that confidence up with sheer knowledge and intelligence.A smirk that screemed victory ghosted his lips,his nose ever so slightly scrunching up when his fighting partner came close to gracing his tanned skin.In a split second,which almost went unseen by the pink haired boy,the dark skinned boy had his opponent on the ground,sharp and shimmering blade carefully poking his tender flesh around his chin.Red eyes widened in awe and shock,when did he manage to-?

"How long were you watchin' kid?" The pink haired boy tensed up,it was the familiar voice of the curly haired boy that he was just observing with amazement.He didn't even lay his eyes on the farm boy but still cought him in the rather uncomfortable act,he wouldn't like it himself if people just creepily watched from a distance in a corner. He slowly emerged behind the wooden door and shyly made eye contact with the defeated boy on the floor.

"Go on,speak up.Don't think I didn't catch your sneaky glances." The winner held out his hand towards his fallen friend,retrieving his sharp sword away from his face.The farm boy didn't say anything,watching as the loser happily accepted the stretched out hand and pulled himself up.He dusted of his pants from the impact they made with the dust covered ground,the grey particles flowing through the air.

"Don't like to talk much huh?" The dark eyed boy figured, sternly locking his eyes with deep red ones.Almost taken a back by the dangerous crimson orbs the dark skinned boy felt a chill run up his spine when he caught a glimpse of something terrifying swimming in the eyes that were the color of pure blood.The small,pink haired boy didn't know about his scary aura,the experienced boy could clearly tell. But there was something unsettling in the eyes of the innocent boy standing infront of him,something unsettling. Pushing aside the unnerving thought he hoped that the strange boy didn't notice his confused appearance.

Finally,the pink haired boy spoke up:"I'm sorry,I didn't mean to interrupt anything,or make you feel uncomfortable." The way his voice laced itself with hidden,deadly poison was another thing the dark eyed boy noticed.The statement on it's own didn't come across as anything threatening,but there was something horrifying lurking inside it.This little boy,who looked to be around the age of nine,couldn't possibly do these actions on purpose,he probably had no clue that people around him see him like this.

"It's fine kid,don't worry about it.Just get going,the exit is back down the hall." The older boy wanted him gone,the dangerous aura of the pink haired boy strated to grow and he felt like it was suffocating him with how intense it was. The younger individual nodded,he was about to step away and make his way back to his dad and call it a day but he changed his mind mid walk and turned around one more time:"One more thing-",he began "you're really good with a sword that big!" A wide grin grew on his chapped lips.

"What's your name kid?" The swordfighter in training asked. The farm boy answered him calmy: My name is Techno, what's yours?" The older boy,for a moment ignoring the highly questionable presence,huffed quietly:"The name's Calvin,nice to meet ya' kid." Techno's grin spread out,his dimples crawling out. "Nice to meet you too Calvin!"

[Part 2 coming out next week Friday,25th of September]

;)

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