A Sublime Chaos

So yes, this is correct. The entire Harry Potter series has 1,084,170 words. 2Ha is... wait for it....

1.6 million words (in Chinese I believe, which is a more succinct language than English).

This is less than the Chinese version, which is really strange to me because the Chinese is so concise compared to the English? So I may need to check what exactly is the statistic tool doing.

Sending Wishes to the Faraway Mountains & Rivers 《遥寄山河》 [½]

夙愿未成，是非由己衡，劫火了此生

long-cherished wishes left unfulfilled, right or wrong is a matter of personal judgement, let the punitive fire put an end to my life

“But how,” said Charles, who was close to tears, “how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?”

Henry lit a cigarette. “I prefer to think of it,” he had said, “as redistribution of matter.”

Story time: I started a book about 23 hours ago and just finished it. Also in that time I slept for 10 hours, spent time with family, was at work, etc. Anyway, I enjoyed the book (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda). But it felt like it flew by, so after I finished I looked up the word count because what are pages? Pages are meaningless. I only function in word counts anymore.

The estimate I found was 58,580. My immediate reaction was “oh, that’s why. That’s nothing!” But what a shitty response. Because no. That’s not nothing. That’s a whole. Damn. Book. An entire novel! And Fic authors regularly bust out 30k, 50k, 100k, 150k words. AND THEY DO IT FOR FREE. WHILE WORKING AND LIVING THEIR LIVES.

30k fic = Animal Farm by George Orwell

50k fic = The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

75k fic = Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

100k fic = To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

150k fic = The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien

200k fic = Moby Dick by Herman Melville

250k fic = Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

300k fic = A Feast for Crows by George RR Martin

350k fic = Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

So if you’re feeling a bit downcast because you can’t write that 50 chapter epic or your latest WIP is “only” 2k and it still took you ages - that’s amazing. Seriously. Not everyone is naturally wordy or prolific. And you can say a ton with just a few hundred or thousand words.

Ancestry & Culture: An alternative to Race in 5e

I just got my physical copy of this wonderful tome by Arcanist Press! It has a great introduction that explains why the use of the term “Race” in our beloved role-playing games is so problematic, and then offers a great solution for it that fits right in-between existing 5e rules.

We’ve been looking for a good alternative to “Race” for the character options we publish on our patreon, and we’re now going to do some tests to see if this model is something we could use.

I highly recommend you check it out! The free preview on DiveThruRPG includes the introduction & full rules for alternate character creation.

Why “Race”, as used in Role-Playing Games, is bad.

Most role-playing games explicitly combine a person’s physical traits with their morality into one package at character creation, usually presented as “Race”. By doing this, these games (often unwittingly) support the idea that a person’s genetics decide a person’s morality and worth.

This is a bad thing because there are people who play these games – black people, disabled people, women, just to name a few – who have been told their entire lives they are lesser than others because of the way they were born; because of the way they look. For them, this kind of bigotry is a painful, every day reality. No-one should have to experience that in a game.

This is also why just renaming “Race” as it is presented in role-playing games to something like “Species” doesn’t help as much as you’d think. It doesn’t address the problem at it’s root – the false idea that a person’s genetics determines their worth (or: their traits).

Why I think “Ancestry” and “Culture” is a good alternative.

By splitting Ancestry – the physical traits inherited from one’s parents, and Culture – the traits taught to you by your parents & community, the game mechanics no longer explicitly imply a person’s genetics (or: appearance) determine their morality and perceived worth. In this updated system, Bad Tieflings can still exist. Evil dark elves can still exist. Bigoted people who believe all Tieflings and all Dark Elves are evil can still exist.

But those things are no longer assumed to be true at character creation.

Why I’m excited to start using the Ancestry & Culture method.

The world all of our games take place in, Hemelin, has various diverse cultures dotted around the place. I have often struggled to express this well using the existing mould of “Race”, but before I discovered the “Ancestry & Culture” method, I didn’t understand what was causing this struggle.

I find that using separate Ancestries and Cultures provides much more robust framework for us to design player options for our world with. I’m excited at the prospect of being able to present various cultures that players can identify with without needing to also be of a certain ancestry! I’m excited to empower our players to create more diverse characters that reflect our game world!!

A final note.

The book “Ancestry & Culture, an alternative to Race in 5e” explains all of these concepts way better than I can. I urge you to read it, even if it’s just the free preview.

Photo 1: the cover showing a half-orc princess knighting a person wearing heavy armor.

Photo 2: detailing halfling ancestral traits and cultural traits.