Ou Lu Khen and the Beautiful Madwoman

A couple of months ago, I found a copy of Ou Lu Khen and the Beautiful Madwoman (1985) by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. I missed out on reading this work in the 1980s. Now, I've been fond of Jessica's other works from back then for decades: especially the Tomoe Gozen trilogy, the singleton novel, The Swordswoman, as well as her two Amazons anthologies. Each of these for me served as a companion piece to Lee Gold's classic and magnificent samurai RPG Land of the Rising Sun - but the value goes even deeper.

With its overtly LGBTQ characters, Tomoe Gozen was also a kindred spirit to the classic RPG works Deeds of the Ever-Glorious and the Tekumel Sourcebook by M.A.R. Barker. It might be an exaggeration to say that these works are the reason I am alive today. All I can say with any certainty is that they were among the very few things that sustained me in the days when I was struggling to come out. Back then positive representations of LGBTQ persons were few and far between - in both SF&F and gaming.

But Ou Lu Khen and the Beautiful Madwoman (there, I typed the title for the first time without writing "Beautiful Swordswoman"!) is very different from the other Salmonson novels that I'very read. The other novels are written in the terse style familiar to readers of swords & sorcery. Ou Lu Khen's style is more meditative, reflective, lyrical, and descriptive.

It takes its time going places.

But it does go places, and that's not always something that happens (for me) in stories about unrequited (or almost-unrequited) love. The novel is very intentionally an exploration of human suffering. It takes the form of a quest - really, five different characters' quests - or three journeys along the same path.

On these journeys, we encounter a river serpent, a giant frog monster, a winged demon that calls itself Garuda, a weretiger, a Naga, and an incarnation of Ganesh. We wander inside a vast, iconic ancient-ruined-city-as-dungeon. In a moment of transformation, we meet a bodhisattva, a place in which the novel reminded me of another enlightenment occurring long after (and long before) the novel was written.

People interested in Buddhism and fans of Hmong forest tales are in for a treat.

La Compania for Free RPG Day

I ran two games for Free RPG Day. The first was "Slugfest," using Lamentations of the Flame Princess. This was my first time running Lamentations, which is a pretty crisp little retroclone. The PCs were members of La Compania, a private mercenary company in the pay of the Viceroy of New Spain.

I was pretty proud of the PCs that I created for the game (eight created, five used), which included one based on Lance Hendrickson's "Bishop", another based on the notorious historical figure Malinche (didn't get played), and another a member of the von Bek family (I often have a von Bek or another of the Moorcockian-Hal Duncanian lines of Champions in my games).

They PCs entered a Smoking Mirror Engine beneath an ancient shrine to an ur-Lord Tezcatlipoca in the long-abandoned city of Teotihuacan, and proceeded though a series of Engine gate links to alien worlds. First they were surprised coming out of a gate by Octovoidal Transvectors, and later had an encounter with some Achernarians investigating a crashed starship module.

The mood shifted from grim SF to goofy Slugfest shortly thereafter. The slug minis up above are Garganta-Slugs from the Hereticwerks blog, as were the Octovoidal Transvectors and the Achernarians, who have been recurrent characters in a number of my Fate, Dr Who, and old school SF games.

The Slugs sourcebook for Free RPG Day has great illustration (with typical, not-for-children LoTFP flourishes). But I don't really see the "gaming revolution" promised in its introduction and the re-release hype. There's a difference between revolution and revolt, which is why both punk and metal were ultimately dead ends, but persist as simulacra. I'll leave it there.

More on Tomoe Gozen

I am not sure whether it was Lee Gold's Land of the Rising Sun RPG, or Jessica Amanda Salmonson's novel Tomoe Gozen where I first learned of the rapid draw-strike-sheathe sword art of iaijutsu, but the novel ends with a moving dueling scene as ably depicted above by Wendy Adrian Shultz. (I love her illustration, and I believe she also illustrated Phyllis Ann Karr's Wildwraith's Last Battle).

It's a moving scene - particularly the aftermath of the duel.

Prior to the Epilog, which is where the duel occurs, the third part of the book deals with a mishap at sea, and adventures on a mysterious island. There is a memorable sex scene (among many other things). So I am not sure how I had forgotten this part of the book entirely.

Or had I?

You see, in our recent Ryuutama RPG games, I had created a setting called The Sinking Lands, which served as an alternate setting which allowed Rachel to play from time-to-time rather than GM. I had thought that this setting was more influenced (if anything) by the swampy landscape in C.J. Cherryh's Gate of Ivrel but now that I have re-read the third part of Tomoe Gozen, I notice a couple of supernatural similarities (for clues, seek the Labels to this post).

There's no failed marriage though.

Tomoe Gozen

Jessica Amanda Salmonson is our Guest of Honor at this year's Diversicon 24, July 29-31. Right now I am re-reading her first novel, Tomoe Gozen, for the first time since I read it the year of its publication in 1981. It tells the story of Tomoe Gozen, a female samurai who is mentioned in the Tale of the Heike, the epic poem of the struggle between the Taira and Minamoto clans in 12th Century Japan.

This may have been the first novel I read that had openly LGBTQ characters, but at any rate it was definitely the first novel (for me) that did not make a "big deal" out of same sex attraction. This was just a few short years before I came out. My first reading of Tomoe Gozen was at roughly the same time that I was reading Death's Master and Night's Master by Tanith Lee, as well as Runequest 2nd edition.

The early 1980s was a good time for fantasy.

I'm about two thirds of the way through Tomoe Gozen, the first novel of a trilogy about the character. The novel has held up very well in the 35 years since its original publication. One of the things that is very striking upon re-reading it is how much the novel also touches on the hero's sense of her own madness/sanity as she has terrible and wonderful experiences across the landscape of fantastic medieval Japan.

After I finish Tomoe Gozen, I am going to read for the first time Salmonson's novel set in fantastic China, Ou Lu Khen and the Beautiful Madwoman (1985). My goal is to complete reading that novel before the Second Foundation reading group meeting on June 12, 2-4 PM at Parkway Pizza in South Minneapolis. Our topic will be the works of Jessica Amanda Salmonson - advance reading for the convention.

My itinerary after the reading group meeting will be to complete Tomoe Gozen trilogy, re-read The Swordswoman (Jessica's only ostensibly SFnal novel), and then read Anthony Shriek (her horror novel). I'll also be preparing a Ryuutama game for the convention, taking at least a little inspiration from her novels.

"I am a petty god at the moment."

"You will find me more lordly and benign when I achieve the position of a greater god."

Those are the words of the immortal sorcerer, Prince Shool. Today I noticed that the phrase "petty god" was used in Michael Moorcock's first Corum novel, The Knight of the Swords. The term is deployed in both senses of the term, designating both a lesser god and a god with a propensity for pettiness. The novel is filled with petty gods in fact: Pilproth, the Gorged God; inadvertent organ donor deities, Kwll and Rhynn; and the sad deity who accompanies Serwde, the Brown Man of Laahr; perhaps the Dog and the Bear as well.

There's also just a suggestion of an association between giants and gods, which reminds me of another blogger's recent question of why there wasn't more interest in giants as a monster type...

Over the last week, petty gods have come up in a couple of other ways too. At last weekend's Fate of Tekumel game at Con of the North, I had a chance to use the Tzitzimine Star Demons minions and the non-canonical Eyes that I wrote for Petty Gods.

In fact, the Eye a player selected for her character was none other than the Eye of Petty Theogony! An ordinary sellsword was elevated for a good chunk of the session into a petty god in his own right, taking on the mien of a minor god of war. When I wrote up that Eye, I never dreamed that anyone would use it on anyone other than their own character! Players do find ways to do things with our creations that surprise us.

Co-creation makes us all petty gods.

Iterative Adventure

Last night I had the good fortune to play one of my favorite games and game settings: Heirs to the Lost World, an alternative 17th Century RPG set in a Mesoamerica with Aztecs, Mayans, Maroons, and Eurpean settlers, pirates, occultists, and traders. Heirs author Chad Davidson ran the adventure, which was an updated and improved version of a game I ran maybe 10 years ago at Con of the North. The scenario was partly inspired by an old Shadowrun module, translated into Heirs' 17th Century multicultural setting.

I won't give away the plot, beyond saying that it had something to do with high stakes synchretism.

It was such a fun group with which to play! Heirs has a great wager-based stunting system (really, the best one that I have played), and this group of players really got into it. Stunts (and PCs) were flying around the main scene of the action: a huge 3D Mayan temple that Chad had built. It was a really stunning prop, the kind of thing I wish I could pack up and take to Tekumel oriented cons like U-Con!

Here's hoping I get another chance to play with this group of players.

Free RPG Day Event

On Saturday, June 20, we'll be running Atlantis: the Second Age as a Free RPG Day event at The Source Comics and Games in Roseville, Minnesota. The game will run from 2 PM-6 PM.

Atlantis: the Second Age is a swords & sorcery RPG set in an antediluvian age where heroes can affect the course of world events. Inspirations include the works of Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith.

With giant sloths and intelligent apes.

And Vodun.

This new iteration of a classic pulp fantasy RPG has a strong Afrocentric vibe- although it is accessible to anyone.

Saturday will be my first time running the RPG, and I'll be using the streamlined rules presented in the Free RPG Day book. I'll also have the core book and supplements with me during the session, and plan to use the Action Deck designed for the game.

Please stop by and play the secnario or just kibbitz for bit if you have time!