Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 6:11 am Post subject: June 5th What's the Winslow doing there? Waiting for (Buck) Godot? Razz Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Jun 05, 2009 1:55 pm Post subject: It's doing what the Winslow is always doing: being incredibly dangerous. Very Happy _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! EthanG Joined: 02 Mar 2012 Posts: 7 Sat Mar 16, 2013 11:40 am Post subject: Super-late comment, I know, but I didn't get the reference before I read this thread, and now I do I just wanted to say I think it's super-cute. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Mar 16, 2013 1:20 pm Post subject: The official primer on the Winslow can be found here. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:07 am Post subject: "Mansionland" and its size (SPOILERS) (SPOILERS and idle speculations follow) 1 2 3 To start with, "Mansionland" is not the actual name of the country in which the Mansion of E is located. I haven't explicitly revealed the real name not because it's any big plot-point, but because it amuses me to find ways of not mentioning it. That said, if you've been paying abnormally close attention, you might be able to figure it out anyway. OK OK, it starts with a "Y", which is why that stylized letter is on the country's flag. I have also deliberately avoided giving any hard-and-fast figures as to how big the place is. However, in a recent strip, I finally broke down and had Sylvester say that in the pre-Crash days, a passenger on a tram (a magically-powered levitating train) could cross the country in about a week. Promptly getting questioned about this, I started fiddling with the numbers, and I now realize that establishing that time-span may have been a mistake, if I want the Trams to move faster than a crawl, and for Y-Land to be the size I envisioned. (Which is.. pretty large, but not nearly as big as, say, the USA) Another problem is this strip, which I had forgotten about, in which Cox the Fixit, who actually rode Trams before they were wiped out in the magic-curtailing Crash, says that it took "two days" just to get to Glome, Audravania's Provincial capital. If that was the case, there was no way to get clear across the country in a week. Sooo.. now you get to witness an example of how I've been cobbling together all these background details over the years.. The Trams did exist, they did run on the route depicted in the strip, and at least moved faster than a horse/horse-drawn vehicle; Sylvester, again, a first-hand witness, has said it takes three days now to get to Noodle, a larger Audravanian town which is (roughly) halfway to Glome. He is presumably using mailcoach-speed, not walking-speed. (Another mistake, I should have had him say two days; I didn't realize how far a real-life horse-drawn coach could travel in a day. Stupid 2005 me.) In regards to the trams, Sylvester wasn't lying. But maybe he misstated, or was misinformed; I do have some wiggle room here, as the trams stopped running about twenty years before he was even born. There's also the question of how exactly the Trams worked; it may be that any particular car could move quite fast, but could only go X miles a day before needing to be rested? recharged? I will have to think about that some more.. As for Cox. the obvious answer is that some tram-routes ran at higher speeds and didn't stop at every little podunk junction, and these faster routes were much more expensive and high-profile, atributes that Cox as a covert body-puppeteer would want to avoid. Hopefully, in the end, none of this will really matter, but I just draw this stupid strip, I don't control where (or when..) it ends up going. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:13 am Post subject: distances So your imaginary country is, say, about the size of France? You can get away with the "three days to Noodle" issue if you assume that there is difficult terrain - hills or poorly-maintained roads - on the way that will slow the horses down. When assessing the speed of horsedrawn traffic you also have to consider the following: Are they changing horses at staging-posts along the way, or using the same horses throughout? If using the same horses throughout they will go slower because the horses' resting and eating time has to be subtracted from the journey-time, whereas a stage-coach will move on with fresh horses while the previous team are eating and sleeping at the last staging-post. If they are using the same horses throughout, are there regular places where they can get food and water for the horses, or do they have to weigh the coach down by carrying grain and water? How good are the actual horses? If they've been accustomed to using magical trams for centuries, they probably don't have that many strong, athletic, properly-bred specialist carriage-horses available. When considering the speed of the trams, you have to ask whether they have sleeper-cars, dining coaches and so on? If not, the long-haul trams are going to have to stop from about 7pm to 9am to allow the passengers to eat, sleep and wash, and also probably for an hour at lunch. They could carry packed lunches of course - but unless there are lavvies on the trams they'll need to stop to pee anyway, so they might as well stop for lunch. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:19 pm Post subject: All good points, thanks. MORE SPOILERS Re: losing horse-breeds to the trams.. Mansionland was undergoing a rapid technological boom at the time of the Crash, and thus the trams had been around for mere decades, rather than centuries. And so there was still a fair amount good horse-stock around when the Crash hit. Additionally, the tech was not being spread around evenly and so there were enough stragglers and throwbacks that the human population didn't have to re-learn horsebreeding/blacksmithing/swordfighting completely from scratch; it would be as if our real-life society had collapsed around 1910 or 1920. The Eetown seen here was in particular a boomtown and becoming an important trading hub, and so is not entirely typical of the era; that's why the tramline was pushed through to it. Then of course, there are the airships, which I decided to avoid even mentioning in the original strip. They did carry passengers, but not even Philbert, Earl of E, had so much money that he could regularly ride on them. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:48 pm Post subject: Why is there somebody in the background carrying what appears to be a bomb? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:42 pm Post subject: It was a gratuitous homage to Mad Magazine's Spy Vs. Spy; it may or may not be a real bomb, and it's unlikely to ever matter plot-wise. But.. you never know.. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Mar 02, 2013 6:59 pm Post subject: Reviving the general topic, since it has come up on the feedback box on the main site. Very mild Spoilers, I suppose. 1 2 First, as a voting reward, here's my current map of "Mansionland". (If you're reading this months after March 2013, that link will probably lead to something different.) Climate: The winds tend to blow in from the east across the region, so yes, Audravania and its sister Province Lhune to the south get a lot of rain off the Specific Ocean. In one early strip, Sylvester mentions the storms that blow through. Further south, the province of Arcadia also gets a fair amount, and this combined with lots of fertile land, makes it the nation's breadbasket, even after the Crash. East Arcadia, on the coast is more hilly and rocky, and so doesn't produce much food, though it is famous for its stonecarvers and wood-workers. Incoming clouds then hit the Ridgeback mountains and dump their loads, so the center of the country, the provinces of Laputa and Fenwick, are very wet and swampy; with all the runoff from the Ridgebacks and Barrier Peaks to the north, there are two large lakes there as well. All of this drains out through Lhune, into the Bay of Moons. Rosemary's home, west of the Ridgebacks is drier, and the further south you go, the drier it gets; Alfibay is forested, fading into rolling prairies in Moonin and Morlock, while Abalone is California-like, and away from the coasts, most of Shibolith is Arizona-level desert. Audravania is also fortunate that its section of the Barrier Peaks shield it from the worst of the cold that blows down from the north; the Provinces of Paydon and (particularly) Thull have long horrible winters. All of this is played out again in greater detail in the "Southlands": the Deep Jungles regularly get lashed with hurricanes, while beyond the enormous Brushspire Peaks lies the Great Dry, a Sahara-like desert. I imagine that a real-life climatologist could point out all sorts of things I've gotten wrong here, but.. oh well. Try to relax and enjoy it. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sun Mar 03, 2013 7:48 am Post subject: There is another factor to consider with the trams. It may be that it took two days to get to Glome by tram because the journey had to be done in two or more stages, and you had to wait twelve hours for a connection. Mon Dec 24, 2012 10:43 pm Post subject: Magical trivia To answer a couple of questions from the feedback box on the main site.. Yes, the "Mansionland" Thaumalogical Academy probably was rather like Hogwarts, though more regimented and under direct government control. Unlike Hogwarts, it took in only the best and the brightest, while there were other smaller schools scattered around as well. All of them were destroyed in the Crash; the Academy's ruins in particular are now a walled off and shunned site. The famous magical families that Amos lists are all homages, of course. I have to admit I've never gotten around to reading any of the Harry Dresden books, but he's gotten enough positive press that he earned a spot on the list. Silverjohn is a reference to the work of Manly Wade Wellman, who is one of my favorite authors; track down some of stuff if you can. And Erasmus Craven is Vincent Price's character in the fun little Roger Corman flick "The Raven". The final Wizard's Duel between Price and Boris Karloff is a delight. Note that it's not literally Harry or Silver John in the strip. Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:23 pm Post subject: Digger Odel We don't get to see what Digger is because most of him is always out of frame. However, the other characters we see with him, such as Comshaw and Niddle, can see the whole of him - allowing for whatever clothes and equipment he may wear. So... do *they* seem him as a one-off, a creature the likes of which they've never seen elsewhere, or do they see a small example of a creature they already know (even if we the readers aren't allowed to know what it is yet)? I have this theory that he's going to turn out to be an Ettin.... Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Mon Nov 28, 2011 8:33 am Post subject: He's very good at staying in the background and not being noticed when he doesn't want to be, so most people don't have an opinion one way or the other. Those who do notice him.. yes, he wears a lot of protective gear besides the helmet, which confuses the issue. Most probably do just put him in a category by himself. The more perceptive ones, with sharper senses of hearing and smell, can probably figure out what he is. Even though he hasn't appeared on-screen, I've dropped a couple of hints about him in the last year or so. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:15 pm Post subject: Whatever he is, he's small - too small to be a Nome or a Pale etc, unless he has a serious dwarfism issue - and too long-lived to be a Gnoll. He's not a Scalpsucker, is he? Iirc we're told that some Scalpsuckers can talk, and they're about the right size.... Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Nov 29, 2011 12:10 am Post subject: All I will say is that he is far from a typical member of his species. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Nov 29, 2011 7:57 pm Post subject: I'm re-reading the story slwoly from the beginning, having made msyelf a series of HTML files which display it in comcs-page form rather than one strip at a time (and I took archive copies, so if comicgenesis ever goes tits up as you were wondering recently, I have backup copies). So I'm looking, slowly, at what we know about Digger. Probably not a Scalpsucker, because he's too heavy for a gnoll to lift - unless the weight is due to his equipment of course. Not a Super Rock - he appears to be wearing goggles, which implies eyes. Not a very short Eyebolt, either - if he was, the goggles would have one lens at the front, not lenses at the sides. Not a dwarf Trog, because if he was he'd be senile by now. Not a gnoll because he's too long-lived. Too massive for a Smyt or a Fuzz. Could he be a surviving Wendigo in thermal underwear? It's implied that they are small creatures. [I'm not expecting an answer - just thinking aloud.] whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Nov 29, 2011 8:44 pm Post subject: Are you still collecting minor typoes? 03/11/2003 - "pray" should be "prey" 05/12/2003 - "rouge" should be "rogue" 27/03/2004 - "you're to going help" should be "you're going to help" 28/04/2004 - "we will needing new customers" - missing "be" 15/06/2004 - "as a adaptive" should be "as an adaptive" Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Thu Dec 01, 2011 1:45 pm Post subject: whitehound wrote: Are you still collecting minor typoes? 03/11/2003 - "pray" should be "prey" 05/12/2003 - "rouge" should be "rogue" 27/03/2004 - "you're to going help" should be "you're going to help" 28/04/2004 - "we will needing new customers" - missing "be" 15/06/2004 - "as a adaptive" should be "as an adaptive" I may not fix them immediately, but yes, thanks for letting me know. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Thu Dec 01, 2011 5:10 pm Post subject: I'll keep collecting then. There's really not that many. 05/08/2004 - "then a pack of smyts" should be "than a pack of smyts". 14/08/2004 - innerds should be innards (= inwards) 17/12/2004 - "Because the we lost the war" 26/01/2005 - "Now we will shall have to" 11/02/2005 - "I'm not going hurt Mr. Zay" 08/03/2005 - "notible" should be "notable" Forum seems to be working OK now. whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:43 pm Post subject: I note with interest that the Boogieman who just crawled out of the C&E hole speaks in the same font as Digger... . So, uh, he's a Boogieman with a *serious* dwarfism issue? Other things not yet identified - the unseen watchers with the cat-like, slit-pupilled eyes who called the Scary Lady "The Destroyer", and the unseen short person with round-pupilled eyes who was watching through a hole in the wall as Blit went past. The latter could conceivably have been an Oooze, lying down. What did the pupils of Wendigoes' eyes look like? The only real (as opposed to soft toy) specimen we've seen so far was dead and had little x marks in its eyes. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:15 am Post subject: Yes, Digger and the two Boogiemen who have spoken to date use the same font, "Invisible Killer"; the other was Chumley in the Council chambers. (Yes, OK, way way back, one of them said "duhhh" using something else.) The Operator, at least, identified the Scary Lady-watchers as "Shades" in this strip. If I was doing the strip over, I would not have included them. Wences, the guy looking through the hole... he was just a one-off joke/homage to the ventriloquist Senor Wences, and wasn't intended to be any great mystery. He's not necessarily short, but is standing on a platform/in a hole that's not level with the floors in the Observatory, so he can both talk to/see people in the passage, and check the trap mechanisms underneath. He is definitely not a Wendigo. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Jan 18, 2012 5:32 am Post subject: Aha - I *thought* there was a strip where a Boogieman had what seemed to be little tusks - or is that his tongue? I might alter that strip for the page-by-page layout, by puitting the Duhh into the standard Boogieman font. So... the Shades are some different thing, maybe some thing which came through a panegate? Maybe they followed the Scatry Lady from wherever she came from. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:58 pm Post subject: whitehound wrote: I might alter that strip for the page-by-page layout, by puitting the Duhh into the standard Boogieman font. Feel free, of course. I try to resist making changes like that in the official archives. As we've seen here, I do fix spelling mistakes sometimes. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:46 pm Post subject: If you prefer not to update that kind of thing - if it counts as an earlier style decision rather than an error - then I'll leave it as is. whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Jan 18, 2012 5:28 pm Post subject: Erm - this strip http://mansionofe.comicgenesis.com/d/20091205.html refers to Wifts and Gobble'Ems, and this one http://mansionofe.comicgenesis.com/d/20091217.html to Wilfs and Gobblems. Gobble'Ems and Gobblems may be two ways of saying the same name, but one of Wifts and Wilfs must be incorrect. Which is right? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:06 am Post subject: I guess Wilfs is the "correct" name, though the long-extinct species in question is so shrouded in legend for Humans that even that may only be approximately right. As may or may not be obvious, I was thinking of Goblins and Elves when I came up with the names. If I need to put a fig-leaf on it without actually changing the archives, I would say that the author of the "Willy the Wendigo" books called them Wifts, maybe even claiming at one point that her characters "aren't the same thing as Wilfs." (Right now the name I have for the author is Laurel Judith Feer, (sic) but that may change if/when she gets mentioned in the strip.) _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:25 am Post subject: OK - they could well have several slightly different names in folklore anyway, according to the dialect of the speaker. The simplest explanation is to say that the auithor comes from somewhere a long way away. And are the Wilfs and Gobblems the people who fought the pre-Ettin Dawn Wars, or was that somebody else? The Gobblems look as if they could, conceivably, be the ancestors of the Gnolls.... Bo Lindbergh Joined: 31 May 2002 Posts: 1744 Location: 59°20'N 18°03'E Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:27 pm Post subject: A feer is someone who charges fees, right? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:38 pm Post subject: Dawn war: That's how the story has come down to Humans, but they have gotten it fourth or fifth hand at best. Gobblems/Gnolls: The Gnolls are not direct descendants, but it's possible they are distantly related. Feer: Possibly one of her ancestors manned a toll bridge or something, but I was thinking of the children's author Richard Scary, and felt that "Fear" was being a bit too overtly silly. As I say, I may change my mind if she ever appears in-strip. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:24 am Post subject: Digger So, we see that Digger has proper arms, with three-fingered hands. Unless he's some sort of bizarre mutant that probably rules out his being an Ooze, Ichyoid, Fixit, JibJib, Wyrm, Ecadem, Helipath, Queensnake or Gobule. There isn't room in that suit for an Eyebolt's "neck" or (probably) the long snout of a Saur or the horns of a female Motihaul, he's too long-lived and his arms seem too chunky to be a Gnoll and he's probably too talkative to be a Pale. And he can't be a Willigig because you said not everybody that's seen him knows what he is, and if he was half hovering cloud nobody would be in any doubt. That still leaves a lot of possibilities. He could be an extra-large Smyt or Fuzz, an extra-small human, Boogieman, male Motihaul, Metalmin, Trog, Sneech or Ghast or a more or less standard-sized Wendigo, Mugwump, demon, djinn or Nome. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Sep 07, 2012 1:25 pm Post subject: At one point in the strip, a character has explicitly stated what species Digger is, and revealed another interesting fact about him. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! SoulWager Joined: 04 Jan 2012 Posts: 4 Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:01 am Post subject: Is he a nome? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Sep 18, 2012 7:52 pm Post subject: He is an atypical member of a species who has appeared live in the strip. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:19 pm Post subject: How d'you mean, he's appeared live? He appears live all the time, albeit heavily dressed. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:06 am Post subject: "Live" as in, not in flashbacks or memories. He is not, for example, a Wendigo. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:06 am Post subject: "Do you mean "*which* has appeared live" - that is, you're saying that the species has appeared live? Not that Diggere himself has appeared live, which we already knew? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:06 am Post subject: Yes, his species is alive, right now, in the Mansion. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:24 am Post subject: So not a Wendigo, Mugwump, Ettin or anything unknown, and we can probably rule out Wifts and Gobblems because we've only seen those (through a Panegate) in flashback, albeit a fairly recent flashback. He appears to have a single pair of arms, with actual separate humanish three-fingered hands, so he's not an Ooze, Ichyoid, Wyrm, Ecadem, Fern, Fixit, Sneech, Gobule, Biter, Helipath, Jibjib, Queensnake, Tree-Squid, Spyder, Science Bug, Scalpsucker or another Horned Frog, nor whatever Tand, Ahz and Skiv are. Not one of the "Shades" who watch Myrrh, because they have four-fingered hands. And nothing about him suggests Willigig. He doesn't have any little Floaty Things, so he's not a Ghast. He's at least fairly long-lived, so not a Gnoll, and he's very vocal, so not a Pale. And we can probably rule out his being a Metalmin because he says he's thirty years old - i.e. born post-Crash. That leaves him as a very small Human, Nome, Boogieman, Motihaul, Trog, Saur, Demon or Djinn, or a very large Fuzz or Smyt. Sat Aug 25, 2012 4:57 am Post subject: Eyebolts Is Hypothimia (to take a recent example) "really" called Hypothimia, or is her "real" name a similarly mangled version of whatever the word for hypothermia is in the "real" local human language? Are the marks on Eyebolts' necks naturally grown there or are they some kind of barcode or similar which is painted or tattooed on? Or both, i.e. a genetically-implanted barcode? Is there a reason why Preznit's rings are so different from the norm? He has lots and lots of very thin darkish rings with soft fuzzy edges, as opposed to the sharp-edged and usually thicker rings seen on other Eyebolts. Have they faded in the darkness inside his hood? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Aug 25, 2012 1:10 pm Post subject: Minor SPOILERS 1 2 3 In-universe, right now at least, their names are "just" names, but I do usually select something that is/was an obscure (and hopefully vaguely appropriate) English word. They have a cultural preference towards choosing longer names. Hypothimia is not the same thing as Hypothermia. They are born with the bands. There are at least near-duplications from time to time. With their antenna, they have other ways of telling each other apart, and are not dependent on the bands for ID. And yes, in more than one way, Preznit is not a typical Eyebolt. The ring-differences were intentional on my part, and he was born that way. Tue May 22, 2012 11:37 pm Post subject: Mansionland and the Prisoner of E As you know, the country in which the Mansion of E resides is something of a secret. I have a come up with an in-story reason for this: it's a metaphor. Sylvester, as the Earl of E, is kind of a prisoner. His life revolves around the bizarre Mansion he inherited, and although he sets out from time to time, his fate is bound to it. As far as he is concerned, the country he lives in IS Mansionland, and the Mansion may as well be its capital and geographic center. However, Robert has stated that it the comic goes on for long enough, the story will finally leave the Mansion and enter the wider world. If Sylvester is among the characters that set out, it is my belief that then, and only then, should 'Mansionland's' true name be explicitly revealed, because for Sylvester, it won't be Mansionland any more. And in at least one way, Sylvester will be free (well, one can only hope). Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed May 23, 2012 3:11 pm Post subject: Well.. that's one theory. Wink As I've said before, in other places if not here, if you've been paying very close attention, you might already be able to figure out what the country's "real" name is. As a hint.. SPOILER: 1 2 3 4 There's a name-related reason that the country's symbol is what it is. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Aug 25, 2012 4:48 am Post subject: I thought it was called Audravania? But that doesn't go with the Y-shaped symbol. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Aug 25, 2012 12:55 pm Post subject: That's the Province in which the Mansion is located, and yes, it was named after Sylvester and Mortimer's ancestor. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:06 pm Post subject: Origin of Thorax (very mild spoilers) Following a comment on the feedback box.. yes, the graffitied appearance of "Thorax" in this June 2012 strip is technically a homage to the character of the same name who appears in the comics Pibgorn and 9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney. You see.. Back a few years ago, when I was young and foolish, I read both of McEldowney's strips, and enjoyed them; I particularly admired the bizarre imagination on display in Pibgorn. And so, when in 2008 it came time to name a certain "Mansionland" folk-hero, I decided to show my appreciation. Since then, I have pretty much soured on McEldowney's work, and quit reading both strips. 9CL lost me (of all people) during its painfully extended and melodramatic WWII flashback, and the final Pibgorn tipping point came with a strip where the artist said, almost verbatim and in total seriousness, that he was a genius and his readers all a bunch of clods who didn't deserve the pearls he so magnanimously cast before us. Well. OK then, Brooke. I won't let the door hit me on my way out. But, just because we've come to a parting of the ways, I'm not gonna start violating my strip's continuity, even in so minor a matter. So, my Thorax, whoever he was, is still Thorax. And who knows? Maybe he still indeed lives. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:16 am Post subject: 9CL has got back on track and continues to be very interesting and well-written, but Pibgorn unfortunately has degenerated into repetitive soft porn. It seems to be mainly a vehicle for drawings of Drusilla's arse. I know what you mean about McEldowney. He's very much drawing to amuse himself rather than the readers. He's been commenting infavourably on readers who complain about how drawn-out and dull some of the fight scenes are, saying that when they are collected in a book these scenes will flash past, which is fair enough - but they don't flash past *now*, and there's nothing to stop him inserting some extra frames when the book collections come out. He's also recently insisted, twice, that it's impossible to write a good story with dramatic tension unless the characters behave foolishly, which is just silly - that's like saying it's impossible to write a good story unless there's a murder in it. Characters behaving foolishly is just one of many ways of introducing tension. It may be difficult to write a dramatic story about a character as powerful as he's made Drusilla unless she behaves foolishly, because if she acted sensibly she would solve the problems she meets far too easily. But that's a special case. EthanG Joined: 02 Mar 2012 Posts: 7 Thu Jun 07, 2012 3:42 pm Post subject: So that's what's wrong with the Pibgorn characters! I couldn't put my finger on it. They could be so likeable, too. Eh so, his characters and faces kinda let me down, his faces don't vary much. It's a bit ironic that Drusilla is the best-developed. No.. no, on reflection it's not ironic at all. Favourite characters do develop even when their author doesn't wish it, and it's pretty obvious Dru is his favourite. whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Thu Jun 07, 2012 5:17 pm Post subject: I think the faces in 9CL do vary quite a lot and they are very expressive, but Pib and Dru and inded the other female characters in Pibgorn are people he draws because he fancies them and so they all look pretty-much the same - they're all his "type". Dru as you say at least has good character development (and is not entirely unlike Myrrh) - Pib OTOH is a bit of a nonentity whose usual function is to give Dru someone to rescue. Even when she temporarily became Death she didn't develop all that much and the story sort-of petered out - and yet the characters in 9CL are all so individual. The reason the WW2 story went on so long btw seems to have been because he was planning to turn the whole arc into a stand-alone graphic novel so it needed to be long enough to fill a book - but the result was rather over-extended as far as the plot went. It did at least turn out to be highly relevant to the main plot - for reasons I'll tell you in an email if you want but not put here because of being a massive spoiler. Was he really sneering at his fans in general or just a few particular ones? If you have a very large readership you do sometimes attract real nutters. I'm a popular writer of Harry Potter fanfics and I generally get on well with all my reviewers - even the deeply creepy ones who want the central character to end up being a torturer. But there have been two occasions when I've been reduced to saying "Well, don't read the bloody thing then". One was deeply affronted at the idea of British characters in a British story set in Britain following British laws and customs rather than American ones, and the other was incensed by the fact that the story was based on the books and not the films, so in both cases their complaint was "Why didn't you write a completely different story?" Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:05 pm Post subject: Other people have commented about BMcE's sometimes shaky work with expressions; his smiles in particular look like they should be attached to a shark. (Not that I pretend I'm any sort of great artist, of course.) I started the "re-booted" version of the MoE around the same time that Pibgorn began, so, yes, I was quite likely thinking in part of Dru when I created Myrrh, although I can't remember now for sure. I hope Myrrh is not a carbon copy; she is not nearly as over-powered as Dru, for one thing. Even the Operator isn't that bad. One thing that changed... at the very first, I was toying with the idea that no one but Frederick knew that Myrrh existed, or that she was even completely imaginary on his part. There was also the possibility of making her a vampire; I'm glad I didn't go that route, and as I've said before over on the main site, I have no plans of including them in the strip. I've read broadly how the WWII story ended, so I don't need an update. I actually do still read a few 9CL strips occasionally, when the plotline-de-jour comes up in forum-discussion somewhere. And, yes, I may have overstated The Comment slightly, but that was definitely the tone. Maybe it was literally closer to "My work is brilliantly plotted and those of you who dare to complain are idiots." I'm not gonna page back through all the Pibgorn archives to find it. I personally have been quite lucky in regards to criticism; about the worst I've ever gotten is "the art sucks". I have an exponentially smaller audience, of course, than probably either BMcE or you, WH. Maybe I'll break down and actually pay for some advertising one these days... _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:21 pm Post subject: The sharky smiles in 9CL seem to be deliberate, though - they're a comment on the nature of the characters. That's explicit in what's probably my favourite 9CL strip, where Amos says to Edda that one of the things he loves about her is how much she regrets it when she doesn't tell the truth - and another thing he loves is how much everybody else rgrets it when she does - and she smiles this awful shark smile. Myrrh's more sensible that Dru, and apparently much less of a maneater and not so much a vehicle for her author's sexual fantasies. But there's that basic theme of the beautiful female demon who is restrained by her love for an unlikely-seeming human man. And yes, McE shot himself in the foot by making Dru so all-powerful - it strictly limits what he can do with her, plot-wise. Your art is strange because in some ways it's very naive, yet the colour and design sense is excellent and even from the start the facial expressions were very well done - I suppose it's a kind of cartoon-strip art translated into an action comic. The only bit I really had a problem with - and by the time I'd worked out what was wrong it was too late to do anything about it anyway - was that scene where S&R fall into the Chasm and then walk across the top of a piece of the tree. It too me a week to work out why it didn't look right - they were walking across it as if on a level road, with their feet and hips level, but if one was walking across the top of a big bush like that you'd be stepping from branch to branch and so at almost every step you'd be standing unevenly, with one foot higher than the other. whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:45 pm Post subject: Actually, I can't offhand think of an instance of one of McE's characters being shown smiling in a context in which looking shark-like isn't appropriate. In circumstances in which you might expect a warm, happy smile he tends to draw people looking dreamy rather than smiling. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sun Jun 10, 2012 1:17 am Post subject: whitehound wrote: they were walking across it as if on a level road, with their feet and hips level, but if one was walking across the top of a big bush like that you'd be stepping from branch to branch and so at almost every step you'd be standing unevenly, with one foot higher than the other. Unless the branch was specifically designed and grown to be walked on. Wink _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sun Jun 10, 2012 5:24 am Post subject: True - the tree could have been trained to generate a level bridge which is hidden from view by the fluffy bits. There are actually tribes in the far east if India who do exactly that, and make live bridges - sometimes even double-decker ones - out of living branches which have been trained to lie straight and to fuse with another tree on the far side of the river. EthanG Joined: 02 Mar 2012 Posts: 7 Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:20 am Post subject: I've seen pics of those bridges, they look very strange, disturbingly organic, but I don't doubt their solidity. As for McEldowney's expressions, there are people who don't really smile when they're pleased. Patrick Stewart is one; or at least it comes out in Captain Picard rather spectacularly in one scene where he's meant to smile on the successful and gratifying conclusion of some negotiations or something. It's been a while, but the scene stuck in my head as Stewart completely failed to smile in any manner I recognized at the time I watched it. I'm starting to suspect McEldowney of developing a more mature attitude towards his readers in the last year or two. Wink Particularly, I couldn't find anything to offend me in the recent commentary he's been running in Pibgorn, especially when and after that commentary was briefly replaced by news of reader reactions to a sensitive plotline in 9CL. I do find it hard to follow some of his plots. Most get quite weak towards the end, which is probably the biggest thing spoiling me on Pib now, lowering it to the level of "nice" rather than exciting. At least the plots are still well ahead of, say, Caribbean Blue, which itself does better than the brain-twisting, suspense-deflating leaps of Wapsi Square. As for Myrrh, I never imagined she was related to Drusilla in any way. Now it's been mentioned, I can see a certain commonality in motivation, but I can't see much else in common between the two at all. Drusilla claims to be in love with one guy but appears to be completely comfortable using her sexuality on anyone else, usually as a weapon, while almost ignoring the man in question for most of the duration of the strip. Myrrh strikes me as being very much the opposite on both those points. I hardly think either MoE or Pibgorn are the first to present demons in this kind of scenario. The Napping Cat's Dream as a roleplaying forum was very well established when I joined it early in 2004 and many of the characters played within it were demons or monsters who for one reason or another could be worked with, allied with, and/or befriended. I miss that board, there were some extraordinarily high-quality players and GMs. whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Aug 25, 2012 7:11 am Post subject: I suspect the reason those organic-looking bridges are so disturbing is because of their resemblance to something off the set of Alien.... Agree about the plots of Pibgorn - the one where Pib became Death, for example, seemed to just peter out. Dru and Myrrh aren't much alike but there are similarities - including the fact that both of them seem to be relatively nice people, independently of their being tied to their love-interest. Myrrh is dangerous but not gratuitously malicious, and she is kind to helpless animals. Not not to arrogant adventurers who see kindness as a weakness, but that's ruthlessly logical - if Zay disapproves of kindness he shan't have any. Dru is very loud and wouldn't be much fun to be around except sexually, whereas Myrrh is probably very good company, in a faintly unnerving way. Fri Mar 23, 2012 1:51 am Post subject: The other shoe drops So, Sylvester has finally realized that his uncle knew about the crash before it happened. I wonder who's going to make the connection w/ the zorper and Myrrh. Or is there something else he knows which is still in the future? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Mar 24, 2012 7:11 am Post subject: The Crash happened twenty years before Sylvester and his siblings were born, so no, Frederick's described behavior, as witnessed by Sylvester, was not a preparation for that event. Sylvester's realization deals with events which transpired within his own lifetime. Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:12 am Post subject: The Day Everything Counted Okay, I'm taking my maniacal mathematical rambling out of the shoutbox and into here. Post Everything-Changing, the TIcker's digits are still in the right order. However, the digits are now oriented wrong. A simple contruction error or programming glitch. Their relative orientations/flipping seem to be inconsistent. There are two possible explanations for this: 1. Out-of-universe: Robert made a mistake, which he may fix. 2. In-Universe: When Ludwig made mistakes, he made them good and thorough. The relative orientations/flipping of the numbers may even change over time. Geoduck oined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:55 am Post subject: Just to confirm and/or clarify a point, those are ones on the display, not upside-down sevens. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:03 pm Post subject: The Woman of Mystery (SPOILERS) The Woman of Mystery/Scary Lady has finally been given a name in-strip, but there were a couple of questions about her, so.. SPOILERS 1 2 3 I've known the name I was going to use with her for a long time; in this strip from 2006, Mortimer would have said it aloud if he hadn't been interrupted. I always intended/hoped to reveal it when she and Rosemary finally met face-to-face. Outside the actual strip, I will continue to use "Woman of Mystery". It is very likely that the name she uses in the Mansion is not the name she was born with. She's used it so long now, however, it might as well be. No, she's not human. Frowgler described her arrival at the Mansion, saying that Frederick (then a talented magician) accidentally summoned her up from somewhere. This is accurate enough, although Frowgler (who is "not a demon") was probably not there in person when it happened. At another point, the WoM confirms, obliquely, that she originally came from the same place as the Operator, although they did not know each other there. It's also strongly implied that said place is/was not a stereotypical "fire and brimstone" hell. The Operator is more powerful magically than the WoM, but is limited as long as he remains trapped in the Elevator. I haven't 100% decided this, but it is likely an irony that the greater amount of power flowing from him makes it harder for him than the WoM to pass himself off as Human; he's a lighthouse blazing away, rather than a streetlight. Yes, the Weirdo told Yasmine that the Operator was the only "one of his species" in or under the Mansion, and made no mention of the WoM. That was an odd oversight on his part, wasn't it? _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:21 pm Post subject: So that balcony scene was in the Operator's home-dimension, not in whatever human city he caught that tram in? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:32 pm Post subject: SPOILER 1 2 It was his and the WoM's home, which is why it was tinged purple. The first time they met after being summoned was at the Mansion of E. Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:50 am Post subject: unanswered questions I've been compiling a list of unanswered questions from the strip, in no particular order. Rob, I don't expect you to comment on these because most, maybe all of them are obviously going to turn out to be Plot Points at some later date. I just thought I'd post them as a sort of check list, so other readers can add any I've missed. Who lives in the corridor of human-type doors Mortimer's party passes as they leave the underhub, and whose was the non-human hand which retrieved the Keep Out sign? Who was the woman with the pink bow in her hair they passed in the Ettin underhub? If it was she who marked the signposts, why does she have the same handwriting as Nirvana Clepe (although I'm guessing Rosemary is right and she's Clepe's new love interest, and both of them marked the signs)? Is Mr Flip the same as God, and who is/are he/they? Who is Mr Hand? Who employs Argon? Who employs Protus? What has happened to Squeeb? Who built the safety-device in the Great Chasm, and why - if it's intended to rescue Trogs - is the Trog habitat it's linked to so bleak? Why does Mortimer know there's a safety device, when Sylvester didn't know? What did the Djinnoscope give Rosemary? Who was the Metalmin at The Pit? Who (not what) is the Hitchhiking Gem? Who/what are Tand, Ahz and Skiv, who sent them and what side are they on? Who are the Ghasts who put Snerk in the artificial Saur habitat, and what are the Sawtooths? What is the Scary Lady? And what is her name? Who are the Shades watching her? What caused the Crash? What were the Dawn Wars, and who was involved? Who is the mummified, crowned king Hector passes, and what is that chained Trog doing on that treadmill? What is Frowgler and how does he relate to his comic-book counterpart? What is Digger Odel? Who/what exactly is the Operator, and where did he come from? What did Rosemary steal, and who is chasing her? How did Rosemary arrive at the Mansion? What happened to the Mugwumps? What is Yasmine up to? Why did the cabinet in the Riddler's Grotto change shape? Why did the cabinet near Villipend's place scuttle? In what sense was the Ghast Stirrer in the Council chamber not present? What do Finaglers do? Where have all the Sneeches gone? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Jan 24, 2012 4:44 pm Post subject: Choosing some semi-randomly.. SPOILERS, small and larger.. 1 2 3 >Who employs Argon? It should be "Agorn". (Homage to Tolkien's "Aragorn", not the character of the same name in the ancient US sitcom F-Troop.) If I ever spelled it the other way, that was a mistake on my part. He was part of Agita's entourage when she went to the forest for the Auction. >What has happened to Squeeb? He is still lying unconscious on the floor of the Trog habitat. I haven't forgotten about him. >Who built the safety-device in the Great Chasm, and why - if it's intended to rescue Trogs - is the Trog habitat it's linked to so bleak? Why does Mortimer know there's a safety device, when Sylvester didn't know? I did not mean at all to give the impression that Mortimer knew about it. He didn't. The rest.. someone has been slack in their duties. Possibly because they died. >Who/what are Tand, Ahz and Skiv, who sent them and what side are they on? Do they have to be on someone's side? >What caused the Crash? Nobody seems to know the answer to this. >what is that chained Trog doing on that treadmill? The Trog is being conditioned to hate Gnolls. Why Mr. Hand is doing that.. hmm.. >Who/what exactly is the Operator, and where did he come from? He is a "demon", and originally came from a place called Zark. The Scary Lady/Woman of Mystery came from there as well. She was a witness, on at least one occasion, when he made a speech from a balcony. >What happened to the Mugwumps? The species suffered some sort of calamity which rendered them extinct, at least in the Known World. Humans are aware of this; many of their bodies washed up on ocean beaches in the aftermath. >What is Yasmine up to? Headed back home with her sack of Fleebs to report to her superiors. She has mentioned that she possesses a horse. >Why did the cabinet in the Riddler's Grotto change shape? Because I belatedly decided that I hated the way it originally looked, and liked the idea of doing a 2001 homage. Still, there is an in-universe reason for these "Changes". >Why did the cabinet near Villipend's place scuttle? It was portable, but instead of having wheels, it had a set of mechanical legs. >In what sense was the Ghast Stirrer in the Council chamber not present? The Ghasts were heavy backers in the creation of the Council, hoping to bring more order and stability to the Basement. (Their immobile breeding pools give them a much bigger stake in this than most..) In order to stave off accusations that the Council is just a "Ghast puppet outfit", the Ghasts now make every effort to avoid direct involvement with Council affairs. Thus there is no Ghast representative on the Council, and official visits to the Council chambers by high-ranking Ghasts are kept to a bare minimum. >What do Finaglers do? In broad terms, make sure that Gnoll matings work like they are supposed to. >Where have all the Sneeches gone? Suppose you were living in/under the Mansion of E, and one day decided that you really wanted to get away from it all... _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Jan 24, 2012 6:48 pm Post subject: > It should be "Agorn". (Homage to Tolkien's "Aragorn", not the character of the same name in the ancient US sitcom F-Troop.) If I ever spelled it the other way, that was a mistake on my part. No, my typo, sorry. > I did not mean at all to give the impression that Mortimer knew about it. He didn't. So when they told Mortimer about falling into the Chasm and he started to say something about a safety device, he wasn't talking about the big padded bit of tree they fell into? > The rest.. someone has been slack in their duties. Possibly because they died. Ah, right, so it was intended to be a proper comfortable habitat, but it's broken down. >Who/what are Tand, Ahz and Skiv, who sent them and what side are they on? > Do they have to be on someone's side? Well, we've got the God/Mr Hand axis, and Mr Flip, and the Council, and Frowgler's conspiracy with Digger, and whatever the Wyrms are doing - if the people who sent Tand aren't on one of the pre-existing sides, that makes them *another* side. >> Who/what exactly is the Operator, and where did he come from? > He is a "demon", and originally came from a place called Zark. Yes, OK, but after that - he arrived by tram from some other town. > The Scary Lady/Woman of Mystery came from there as well. She was a witness, on at least one occasion, when he made a speech from a balcony. Does that mean she's definitely a demon? > >What happened to the Mugwumps? > The species suffered some sort of calamity which rendered them extinct, Sure, buit we don't know what kind of calamity. > >What is Yasmine up to? > Headed back home with her sack of Fleebs to report to her superiors. She has mentioned that she possesses a horse. Yes, but in general, what's happening with the Weirdos' Guild? > >In what sense was the Ghast Stirrer in the Council chamber not present? > The Ghasts were heavy backers in the creation of the Council, hoping to bring more order and stability to the Basement. (Their immobile breeding pools give them a much bigger stake in this than most..) In order to stave off accusations that the Council is just a "Ghast puppet outfit", the Ghasts now make every effort to avoid direct involvement with Council affairs. Thus there is no Ghast representative on the Council, and official visits to the Council chambers by high-ranking Ghasts are kept to a bare minimum. Does that mean that the Stirrer *was* physically present, but very unofficially? It soubnded as though she was a projection or golem of some kind. > >What do Finaglers do? > In broad terms, make sure that Gnoll matings work like they are supposed to. Sure, but *specifically*? > >Where have all the Sneeches gone? > Suppose you were living in/under the Mansion of E, and one day decided that you really wanted to get away from it all... To Wirtvale, maybe. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Jan 25, 2012 2:34 am Post subject: Again, where I am willing to currently elaborate.. 1 2 3 >So when they told Mortimer about falling into the Chasm and he started to say something about a safety device, he wasn't talking about the big padded bit of tree they fell into? No. He was talking about the levitation-elevator they were then standing at the edge of. >Yes, OK, but after that - the Operator arrived by tram from some other town. He arrived from Zark a long time ago, and has wandered far and wide since. Most of the places haven't even been named in strip yet. He has not always been a destructive force. There are factors that have kept him from running completely amok. >Yes, but in general, what's happening with the Weirdos' Guild? Someone somewhere has realized how strange the Mansion of E is, and the current MoE Weirdo (Arthur) has been dispatched to covertly investigate. Yasmine was sent to get a progress report from him. >Does that mean that the Stirrer *was* physically present, but very unofficially? It soubnded as though she was a projection or golem of some kind. Yes, she was really there. Comshaw was being sarcastic. > In broad terms, make sure that Gnoll matings work like they are supposed to. Sure, but *specifically*? It varies from couple to couple. As he said, Wittol performed his duty when he made sure that Sina and Sprocket took a few private minutes to celebrate their mating before getting back to work. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:25 am Post subject: >It varies from couple to couple. As he said, Wittol performed his duty when he made sure that Sina and Sprocket took a few private minutes to celebrate their mating before getting back to work. So if we leave aside the mysterious rituals, it's basically like having a live-in marriage guidance counsellor cum nanny? I think we established before that Finaglers are always male and Gnolls really do have about twice as many males born as females, so a male becoming a Finagler doesn't leave some female without a mate. Is it obvious from childhood that somebody is going to be a Finagler, i.e. aAre they biologically different from the males who find mates? And are they sexless, or sterile, and if not, are they gay? [If they're neither sexles nor sterile nor gay there must be occasions when the children's parentage is in sone doubt). Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:49 pm Post subject: Again, I'm going to leave some of that ambiguous until/if it becomes important in plot terms. Always remember, even now, this is still a work in progress. It definitely becomes clear at an early age that a Gnoll is going to be a Finagler. They all have light hair, although that's not a sure-fire determination. (Snerd, for example, is not a Finagler.) They develop little interest in actual physical sex, but are they actually sterile? Hmm.. I'm also pretty sure that not every last one of them actually takes up Finagling duty. It's not mandatory that they do so, and some would be so bad at it, that it's better if they abstain. It all seems to work out.. almost suspiciously well.. I'm starting to think now perhaps that the sex-ratio is in fact equal, and there are female Finaglers.. but they are perhaps called something else, and do something else.. maybe something that gets discussed even less than Finagling... _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:56 am Post subject: Could the female Finaglers be teachers? We've seen Trog and Gobule teachers, and Agita's daughter observing mum at the office, but I don't think we've even seen any Gnoll children, let alone schools. Yet, the fact that they are short-lived (so they don't have long childhoods in which to find things out for themselves) and yet so sophisticated suggests they have some intensive training going on somewhere. Maybe Gnoll children go to a top secret boarding school run by female Finaglers, so we don't aee either the children or the teachers around much? Or maybe the female finaglers do something religious - that acolyte in the headscarf that Cully met muight have been one. Or... have we ever been told the parentage of any finagler? You could even make it so finaglers were a whole different species of Gnoll, not fertile with the others, and female finaglers breed new finaglers while most of the males seek employment as live-in nannies for the other species. Incidentally, kudos on keeping the complicated shape of this underworld with its upside-down castles and underground towers in your head and making it so convincing. TWo points have jsut occurred to me: a) another unanswered question - is the elevator access point which Mortimer's party pass just after leaving the underhub below or above the one where the fire etc was? b) this world setup would make the most terrific game scenario. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:20 am Post subject: I do appreciate you (or anyone) raising points I may have overlooked, but when it comes to actually offering possible future plot developments, I had better just skip ahead. I don't want to be guilty of stealing ideas for profit. The elevator entrance near Tand/the Ettinworks is higher up than the one where the fire was. There are also doors near the River of Fire and the Great Chasm, but we haven't seen them in-strip yet. Yes, the elevator is magical, and does not travel up and down in a straight shaft. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sun Feb 05, 2012 11:58 am Post subject: Here's another question. When Sprocket mentions a two-pronged flank diddler in the context of his and Sina's wedding night, is he talking about a sex toy, or a regular tool capable of being used as a sex toy, or is this a euphemism for some part of his sexual anatomy? Also, how did Endix and Ogdoad achieve depth perception, given that Endix was sitting between Ogdoad's shoulders and staring up his neck? Did Endix shuffle round to sit where he could see forwards, or did they settle for stereoscopic vision of the ceiling? [And if you find any ideas of mine useful enough to use, have them as a free gift.] Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:52 am Post subject: Sprocket was jokingly renaming a tool that normally serves a less personal purpose, but could also be used as a sex-toy, at least by Gnolls. Yes, if they actually wanted to see the same thing in stereoscopic vision, Endix would have had to move somehow. Ogdoad was being somewhat metaphorical. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:40 am Post subject: Minor Spoilers 1 2 3 Since it's been asked again over on the feedback box on the main site.. The Scary Lady/Woman of Mystery's name. She does have one, the E family members normally use it when dealing with her, and it will be revealed. The name itself is not a big plot point, per se, but long ago when thrashing out said plot, I decided on the moment when it would be revealed, and to amuse myself, I tried to keep it from being revealed before then, without being too silly and obnoxious with the dodges and "unreveals". If I failed, ah well. I will note that if you've been paying close attention, you might be able to figure out the first letter. And Sylvester and his siblings definitely do not call her "Auntie". At least not to her face. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:24 pm Post subject: 27/02/2011, 44c, Cully and Chunner are offered a choice of three objects - a snake, a flower and what's the third one meant to be? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Feb 10, 2012 7:04 pm Post subject: I actually had to think about that for a minute, but it's a piece of rock. (The idea being the choices are animal-vegetable-mineral.) _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Fri Feb 10, 2012 7:43 pm Post subject: Although "mineral" need not equate to "non-sentient"... Dandily is spelled two ways, once as Dandily and twice as Dandilli - do you care? And is there a reltionship between Cully's little blue dart, the Hitchhiking Gem and Aunt Scary's balloon? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Feb 11, 2012 4:39 pm Post subject: (usual minor SPOILERS) Minerals: Yes, though most people in the Basement don't know that. It's not really important, but the correct spelling is with an I. The Gem is a physical object imbued with magic. The dart is mostly made of magic. The balloon is probably more like the gem, but I hadn't given it much thought, as again it hasn't been terribly important in plot terms. I imagine the Woman of Mystery is now supplying the magic to keep it "alive". So.. no, there's no direct connection between them. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:39 pm Post subject: OK ta. Just to be difficult, I've been working out the count on that ticking-down thing that Rosemary and Sylvester saw. The clicks have to be speeding up for it to work. The count can't ever have been higher than 999999999 because there are only nine spaces. It's currently at 315342651, and timing it against the amount of conversation they have between clicks suggests that the clicks are about 10 seconds apart. If that 10 seconds is constant, it's been ticking for about 217 years and will tick for another 100 years before reaching zero, which doesn't fit either with Sylvester's statement that it was there before the Eman family arrived in the Mansion (unless it didn't start ticking until long afterwards) or with his intention to be out of the area when it hits zero - unless they are very long-lived, he'll be dead in 100 years. But if it's gradually speeding up, then it makes sense - it can have been ticking since before the Earls arrived, have counted through just over two-thirds of its countdown and still be likely to hit zero during Sylvester's lifetime. Of course, if it had *ten* digits instead of nine, it could have been counting since the days of the Ettins.... Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:02 pm Post subject: I created the design for the Device way back when I was young and foolish, so, yeah, if/when it reappears it will get an overhaul. At the very least, I will establish/retcon that the counter-with-Human-numbers was added on long after its original creation, probably by Ludwig; he was smart enough to be able to figure out how to do that without getting a massive shock. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:08 pm Post subject: That would work. If you assume Rosemary and Sylvester are talking fast (or in a very concise langiage), so the interval between clicks is say 8 seconds, you could have the counter starting in Ludwig's lifetime and finishing in Sylvester's, with Ludwig living maybe 170 years ago - assuming he started it at 999999999 rather than partway into the sequence. Ludwig presumably could read Ettin well enough to tell how many clicks it was from zero, so he could start his human-style readout at the right time. whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:54 pm Post subject: Who was the Melvin Dwamish whose security details great aunt Scary borrowed, other than "some dead guy"? Former servant, in-law, World o' Pots manager? The whole World o' Pots thing is a lovely bit of background detailing, btw, especially the fact that it's owned by Pales. Like Terry Pratchett you have a gift for filling in the working nuts and bolts of your world, shops and flush lavvies, accountancy and rendering plants and post offices - most fantasy and SF authors don't bother to think these things through. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:30 am Post subject: As always, this will change if the plot ever calls for it, but at the moment Dwamish was an E family employee involved in the construction and maintenance of robots. It's likely some Dwamishs still live in the village. Like pretty everything from the earliest days of the strip, the World O' Pots started life as a throw-away joke. I think at the time I pictured a place that literally sold nothing but pots. The general-store aspect and Pale part-ownership came much later. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:46 am Post subject: It reminds me a bit of Lakeland Plastics, although probably not as upmarket. Lakeland Plastics started out as, yes, a little plastics firm in the Lakelands about fifty years ago, and it grew into this major chain of posh household goods emporia. If you want any really good quality bit of cookware or any specialist cleaning materials or any really fancy, exotic fancy foods - citrus oils, Australian liquorice, real cherries filled with brandy and dipped in dark chocolate, whatever - it comes from Lakeland Plastics. The Lakeland Plastics Christmas catalogue is an Event. But it still keeps this naff-sounding name from the firm's early days. I did the maths on the clicky thing, btw. You said that Mortimer and Sylvester are both "about" thirty, and there's a brother in between them so they have to be at least 18 months apart. So Sylvester is now about 31/32. If we assume that the language which Rosemary and Sylvester are "really" speaking is faster/more compressed than English, and that the clicky thing is clicking every six seconds, that gives us a zero in sixty years when Sylvester will be in his early nineties, so it's reasonable for him to be making plans which assume he'll still be alive at that point. It also gives us a starting point at 999999999 just over 130 years ago, so that gives us a "longest ago" that Ludwig could have started his Roman numeral counter - although of course, he could have done it more recently than that. That in turn gives us a maximum average reign for the last five Earls of 26 years - all of which sounds reasonable. Fri Jul 15, 2011 6:41 am Post subject: Mortimer's Umbrella (SPOILERS) Since it's the topic de jour on the shoutbox.. SPOILERS about Mortimer's umbrella. 1 2 3 I intended it to be fairly obvious by this point that, yes, the umbrella is magical, although Mortimer still hasn't fully realized that fact. (He's of the mindset that "all the wizards died forever in the Crash", which is.. not accurate.) Putting the umbrella and the glowgem together increase both of their powers. One of those powers is hypnosis/mental influencing, intentional or otherwise. Sadly, Rosemary has a problem being susceptible to that sort of thing. More specific details will be forthcoming before too terribly much longer. At least in MoE terms. As someone noted, Mortimer got the umbrella (sort of) from Frowgler the Horned Frog. Frowgler was not lying when he said it wasn't his, but that was far from the whole story. As for where the umbrella came from.. if you're a long-time reader of the strip and have been paying very close attention, you might be able to figure it out, but it hasn't yet been explicitly spelled out anywhere. At some point, I will have to give a full accounting of Frowgler's activities, won't I? Wink _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Bo Lindbergh Joined: 31 May 2002 Posts: 1744 Location: 59°20'N 18°03'E Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:58 pm Post subject: So Rosemary is going to be a mindless slave from now on? Neither of the E brothers seem to have any idea of what's wrong, and auntie doesn't seem to care. SoulWager Joined: 04 Jan 2012 Posts: 4 Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:10 am Post subject: I assumed it was the umbrella Agita was carrying at the auction. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sun Feb 12, 2012 2:27 pm Post subject: Agita still has her umbrella, as seen here. SPOILERS 1 2 3 And re: Rosemary's current condition.. the guys are at least finally aware that there's a problem. The Scary Lady could almost certainly fix it, and will, if Sylvester asks, although he by default considers that to be the last-chance desperate option. Her favors generally comes with a price, and she'd be mucking around in Rosemary's head. Also, we've seen a future scene where she's evidently back to herself. So, no, whatever happens, she will not be a mindless slave forever. Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:44 pm Post subject: ages How old are Sylvester and Mortimer meant to be? I would have said mid to late 30s, but Mortimer remembers Dorian apparently quite clearly from his childhood, and Dorian supposedly hasn't left the Spike for 42 years. That makes Mortimer at least 46 and Sylvester at least 48, i.e. they were born very soon after the Crash. Is that right? They look younger than that - but maybe they are longer lived than Earth humans, or their years are shorter. Or is it that the Dorian who has been in the Spike for 42 years goes back in time to become the Dorian they knew when they were children (in which case it doesn't have to have been 42 years ago)? The Dorian we see in outline in Mortimer's memory looks no younger than the Dorian in the Spike - certainly not 42 years younger - although of course the beard is very aging. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Jan 21, 2012 9:23 pm Post subject: Dorian has a Standard Speech he regularly makes about this, and that Cox the Fixit has heard all-too-many times. He is lying/exaggerating/willfully forgetting about literally never having never left the Spike in all that time; he made a few short trips into the surrounding forest, posing as a hermit (for some as-yet-undisclosed reason) when Mortimer and Sylvester and their siblings were younger. It's (probably) true he hasn't been down at all in at least ten or fifteen years. I suppose Cox's later comments to Vix may have made it seem Dorian was being 100% accurate, and for that I apologize. Mortimer, Sylvester and Rosemary are all about thirty years old. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Jan 21, 2012 9:34 pm Post subject: Ah, right, and being a hermit would enable him to discourage people from visiting him very often, so they wouldn't realise he was only there occasionally. Looking at the recent strips again I see that even though Rosemary felt better in herself she was still hypnotically suggestible, and Mortimer has accidentally given her two commands - "Go to sleep but act like you're still awake" and "Do as you're told! Stay in your place! Speak only when spoken to! The Brush wills it!" - which are going to cause problems when Hpobfvfr attacks them. I suppose the necessary intangible which the Djinnoscope gave to Rosemary was friendship and a home. Oh and there was a metalmin (not Hector) at the Pit. Was Frowgler at the Pit at some point too? Ig and Niddle smell the same metal-and-flesh, wet-and-burnt smell at the Pit and at a location where Frowgler has recently been. If Frowgler was not at the Pit, then that implies either that what they are smelling is "robot" and Frowgler is a made thing, or what they are smelling is a strong magical discharge and Friwgler is using or generating enormous amounts of magic. And that white thing on Agorn's spear - he's picked up NIddle's not-a-glowgem, hasn't he? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:09 am Post subject: No comment on the Djinnoscope, although we will see the thing again someday. (Probably with a fairly major design overhaul, because version 1.0 is so ugly.) Frowgler: I'll just say.. as we've already seen, the guy gets around. Yes, that was a functioning robot. Agorn: Yes, that is what I call the "Hitchhiking Gem" again. I plan/hope to do a more explicit (if brief) recap of Agorn's entire day at some point. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:46 pm Post subject: How old is Espy, anyway? Skradt thinks of her as having been "old Espy" when he was a small child, and she certainly looks pretty old, yet she's beak-faced and mentally sharp. It does seem to be the same Espy, not two people with the same name. We're told that 90% of female Trogs die soon after reaching adulthood. It soubded from the way Wrawa said it as if the remaining 10% deteriorated like the males, but does Espy's age anmd sharpness mean that the 10% of females who survive, don't decline mentally, or does it mean there are some special circumstances surrounding Espy? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Mon Jan 23, 2012 1:14 am Post subject: As always, I try to avoid giving out exact ages, but she's the equivalent of an eighty-year-old human who is still mentally sharp and relatively vigorous. It's important to note that calling the changed Trogs "adults" is a rather cruel misnomer; Trogs are fully mentally and physically mature long before their 10th/12th birthday. Unless the plot eventually dictates that she be an "old maid", Espy had a mate and laid eggs at some point. If the change started happening to real-life humans, it would happen when they reach, again, eighty or so, and they'd live to 150 or 200. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:44 am Post subject: OK, the maths for that works out. If they are fully physically and mentally mature long before their 10th birthday then that means that for them, let's say six years old is equivalent to sixteen in a human - fully fertile but not quite fully grown physically and mentally. So the multiplication is 3 Trog years = 8 Human years, and if the Change happens when they are equivalent to eighty, that means it happens at thirty. And they die at about sixty. Wrawa, who is let's say about eight, a young adult in human terms, expects that she will die when she is thirty, in 22 years, and that Leny will outlive her by six years. So she expects Leny to die in 28 years, meaning he is now about 32, give or take a year. That makes sense. And obviously the Trogs have to reach sexual maturity long before the change, otherwise there wouldn't be time for them to raise young. However, they don't speak as if there's a *very* long period between breeding age and the change. And none of the changed males that we see shows any physical sign of age, other than the increasingly flat face. Espy is white-haried, grizzled-looking and seems to walk with a stick but Leny and Kronk are in peak physical condition. Is it that only females show that kind of ageing, and Espy will die soon? Do *any* females undergo the change, and if they do, do they become flat-faced? Or is it that at 30 females start to die of old age, at variable rates, while males turn into something else? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Jan 24, 2012 12:20 am Post subject: To be brutally honest, I haven't thought about a lot of these details, because they simply haven't been important to the immediate plot. A male Trog knows which way he's going; he either starts aging like Espy, or he doesn't. This is the point where he decides whether to let the change happen, or find a way to end it all while he's still mentally competent. At the moment, I would say that a tiny handful of females have changed in the past, but it's very rare, and there probably aren't any currently alive in the Basement. As I said before, this is something that can change if it helps the plot at some future date. We haven't seen many really young or old Trogs (or any species) because they generally aren't out roaming the Basement, especially when there's fighting going on. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:23 am Post subject: Right, so at about age 30, or thereabouts, ageing and changing are alternate courses, right? Those who get grizzled and old don't transform, and vice versa. And nearly all males change, and nearly all females age. PS does this have anything to do with Larry Niven's Protectors? Oh and was that very aggressive Trog that Rosemary killed near the elevator, the one who seemed to be trying to eat her and Sylvester, some kind of super-aggressive, super-dim end product of becoming "adult", or had he always been a murderous thug? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Jan 24, 2012 4:03 pm Post subject: Again, I'm not going to pin down specific ages, even here, but other than that, yes. I've read some of Niven's work, and made a reference or two, but no, I wasn't particularly thinking of him when I developed this; a lot of it was retconning after I decided to take the MoE more seriously plot-wise, and not just toss out whatever goofball idea occurred to me, which is what I did back in the very early days. There is a reason why this is happening to the Mansion's Trogs, and it will be revealed someday. Current theory on the elevator Trog: That's what you get if a Trog lives long enough after changing; their brains slowly continue to deteriorate, and they do start to age. Most of them don't last long enough, the Basement being as dangerous as it is. I doubt there was much of his original personality left. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Jan 24, 2012 4:56 pm Post subject: By any chance, are the big dim "sawtooths" in the artificial Saur habitat Saurs who have undergone the change, and are those Ghast scientists trying to work out why Trogs change and Saurs (usually) don't? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Jan 24, 2012 6:18 pm Post subject: No, I forgot to say about Sawtooths... 1 2 3 They are a bigger, meaner, far less-intelligent sub-species of Saur who are not present in The Forest As We Know It. And no, the Saurs near the Mansion do not have the same problem as the Trogs; male and female alike get old and die on the normal schedule. Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:28 am Post subject: The message is this right? Quote: Our Payment Trajectory E (for ye?) Crys assist divergence Payment for what? Who's crys? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:35 am Post subject: First, for anyone reading this at some future date, this thread is referring to this comic. That said.. no, it's two columns of text, first on one side of the object, then the other, reading down. If you want to figure it out on your own, here's some spoiler space.. 1 2 3 4 Reader Whitehound got it right in the comment box on the main MoE site: OUR TRAJECTORYS DIVERGE PAYMENT FOR YE ASSISTANCE And yes, I deliberately misspelled "trajectories". Bigger spoilers 1 2 3 The Sneeches left the object (which will get an official name at some point) and the message. How they were assisted is yet to be revealed. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Bo Lindbergh Joined: 31 May 2002 Posts: 1744 Location: 59°20'N 18°03'E Wed Jan 04, 2012 5:58 pm Post subject: "So long, and thanks for all the fish". Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Thu Jan 05, 2012 1:37 am Post subject: Bo Lindbergh wrote: "So long, and thanks for all the fish". I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Mon Jan 23, 2012 7:12 am Post subject: T'wasn't me who worked it out - it was someone else, maybe Biggerj. I was just repeating it for the benefit of somebody who had missed the earlier comment. Mon Nov 28, 2011 8:19 am Post subject: Cully in the future and Finaglers (SPOILERS) Answering recent questions.. SPOILERS 1 2 3 First, LizShella (the large clothed Gnoll) gave "Future Man's" name as Mr. Flip. Flip was assigning letters somewhat randomly to the days of Cully's life; not all the letters are an equal distance apart. When he said he wasn't sure what letter should be assigned to his current day, he was being polite and/or intentionally vague. He knows if Cully is alive or dead. He hasn't made any major appearances before, but if you have been paying very close attention.. As Smaller J said, the transparent shapes are letters from the word ZORP. The same thing is/was (just barely) visible when Mortimer used the HJ42. Cully will go back when he came from; it is not easy for non-Willygigs to time travel. And.. Finaglers. I've been intentionally vague about this in-strip. Yes, they are always male. There are more male Gnolls born than females, and a certain percentage of them are always Finaglers; it becomes clear at an early age which they will be. Many Gnolls never "officially" mate, but just stay single or "Fool Around" their whole lives and never have litters of whelps. You don't need a Finagler if you do this. If a couple needs a Finagler, there's usually one floating around, if not the best one in the world. It all works out. Almost suspiciously well. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Mon Nov 28, 2011 8:00 pm Post subject: Mm, but if Mr Flip *can* be vague about whether his time is before or after Day H (Cully's death) without sounding ridiculous, he can't be much more than a Gnoll-lifespan into the future (I'm assuming here that the problem isn't that you or he forgot that G comes before H), and so not much over ten years ahead. Less, because Cully is already a couple of eyars into his lifespan. Are Finaglers actually fertile? (among people living in a testtube-free state of nature, dedicatedly-gay counts as infertile btw). whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Mon Nov 28, 2011 8:03 pm Post subject: PS just out of interest, what are the species-names of the little religious bugs in space-suits, and of the things that look like gerbil-sized gobules with antennae? Or are the gerbil-sized gobules with antennae actually baby full-sized gobules? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Nov 29, 2011 12:40 am Post subject: He's trying to get the whole basic concept of time-travel across to Cully in a very limited time, so if he fudges a few details, he (and I) are not going to sweat it too much. I think Finaglers are fertile, but most have little interest in actual sex. This may change if a better plot-opportunity arises. Both of the species you asked about have labels of convenience, rather than official names, since I currently have no plans to re-use either of them; both species occupy only minor niches in the overall Mansion ecosystem(s). And sometimes, I do just drop in a throw-away joke; the whole "Mr. Penny" thing only happened because his creator offered the crossover opportunity on the then-Keenspace Forum, and it amused me. The bugs are "Sciencebugs". They're most likely a trundlebug offshoot. The small gobule types are "Biters". They are very distant relatives of normal Gobules. New-born Gobules are quite tiny, but lack any antenna. Wed Oct 26, 2011 6:07 pm Post subject: Basement Currency If I recall, there are two currencies in the Basement. Glowgems (chosen for their usefulness) and Fleebs (chosen for their uselessness). What roles do these currencies have? Are they used for different things, or is one a smaller denomination of the other (like how cents are a smaller denomination of dollars)? While I'm on the subject, I've recently remembered a third thing - E-tokens. Sylvester has a few, and he spent one to summon the Great Riddler. He also got one on a string, which he kept (hopefully the Basement has more... Sylvester might have to give it back during his next visit). He also has a different-looking E-token whose purpose remains unknown. Geoduck Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:56 pm Post subject: Basement currency is something I haven't given a great deal of thought about, since it hasn't been important in plot-terms, but.. Usual minor spoilers. 1 2 3 At the moment, there are no hard and fast rules about the use of Fleebs and glowgems; they are swapped freely back and forth, but the exchange rate goes up and down depending on demand, while some people refuse to deal with them at all, and stick to bartering goods and favors. If you're willing to just eat treefruit (which is bland but nutritious), drink well-water, and sleep in any convenient corner, you don't even need to do much of that. If the Council gains more/enough power, it might occur to them to issue some sort of more formal currency, possibly backed by Fleeb or glowgem stocks. As for the E-tokens.. the one with the string attached was not possessed by Sylvester, but was scrounged up somewhere by the as-yet-unseen Skibble, who has his minion Cerbis loan it out for a fee. These tokens are far too rare in the Basement to use as currency. Sylvester, conversely, has lots of them stashed away upstairs, but was only carrying two of them in his actual pocket. The first he used on the Summoner (not using the Summoner's genetics-tester as he could have, because Camora was watching). The second he gave to Rosemary. The type-2 token is used on Something upstairs in the actual Mansion. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! BiggerJ Joined: 16 Jul 2009 Posts: 8 Fri Oct 28, 2011 12:23 am Post subject: Ah, I'd forgotten that Sylvester refused to take the token-on-a-string. Thanks! Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:59 pm Post subject: Character ages (SPOILERS) The topic of the week on the shoutbox. Spoilers follow. 1 2 3 As I've probably said before, when doing the strip I am deliberately vague when it comes to giving dates and establishing character ages, in large part because I suck at math and want to avoid making too many mistakes. That said, I do have a long fairly specific timeline of events typed up in my notes, and I do try to stick to it. So.. Sylvester and Rosemary are 30 years old. Mortimer is a couple years younger (There is a brother between him and Sylvester, "Ace", who is currently Out West somewhere.) Next come the twin girls, Lilith and Lenore, and Rufus is the youngest. Digger was telling the truth about also being 30. When he spoke of "3 generations come and gone" he was referring (perhaps more poetically than accurately) to Basement (and Forest) lifespans, which for most species only run about ten years. Yes, Digger is an aberration. Another individual who is longer-lived than most is the leader of the Pales, the Nexus, who is at least 50; s/he led their post-Crash exodus from their old Ettin exhibit to settle in the Forest. The Great Riddler has been in the Basement for several Human generations. Basement-dwellers grow up much faster than Humans. Just because things are one way in the Basement doesn't mean they are that way in the rest of the Known World. The Crash happened 50 years ago. Sylvester's grandfather Quincy married and had Sylvester's as-yet-unnamed-officially father (his only child) in the immediate aftermath. Quincy died 25 years ago. The Nome War happened 15 years ago, so Mortimer was about 13 when he accidentally triggered the mine explosions. His/Sylvester's father also died around this time, although not due to the War. Sylvester was away attending the University; he was there for five years, starting at the age of 15; he lived full-time in the Capital as he didn't have the money to travel home. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Sep 28, 2011 3:02 pm Post subject: There's a bit of confusion here about what a generation is (you did say you suck at math). A generation is the average time from birth to giving birth, and usually a lot shorter than a lifespan. If 30 years is three generations, the species first reproduces at about ten years old and probably lives about 30 years. If 30 years is three generations come and gone - that is, born, lived and and died - then we're probably speaking of a life form which first reproduces round about 5 years old and dies at 20. It works like this: Year 0 - birth of generation 1. Year 5 - birth of generation 2. Year 10 - birth of generation 3. Year 15 - birth of generation 4. Year 20 - birth of generation 5, death of generation 1. Year 25 - birth of generation 6, death of generation 2. Year 30 - birth of generation 7, death of generation 3. If you have a species with a lifespan of only 10 years they probably have a generation time of (start breeding at) about 3 years. 30 years would represent about seven or eight [not 16 or 17 as I originally wrote!] generations come and gone. The only way they could have a 10 year lifespan and 30 years be three generations come and gone is if they don't reproduce until ten years old, and then die almost immediately - like salmon. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sun Oct 02, 2011 10:05 pm Post subject: Thank you for the info, and sorry I didn't reply sooner. Looking at my notes, I think I still sort of make it all work if I stretch the average life-span in the Basement to 12 years instead of 10. Need to do a lot of work on my timeline anyway... As for Digger's comment, well.. either he sucks at math too, or he was mistaken or lying. I'll worry about if it becomes important plot-wise. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:51 am Post subject: Since you haven't establ;ished what kind of critter Digger is, perhaps you can say he got it wrong because his species *does* reproduce once and die, so that their lifespan is only a few days longer than their generation time. That would mean they had to have a large litter, to ensure that enough survived from that single birth to keep up the population. It would be difficult to make that work for an intelligent species which needs to learn culture and technology from its elders, but not impossible - if the births are staggered the new, parentless children in one family could be taught by the young adults in another family. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Oct 11, 2011 5:40 pm Post subject: You had two hopefully duplicate posts, and I deleted one of them. (SPOILERS) 1 2 3 What you describe is essentially how the Helipaths reproduce; an individual senses when death is coming, anchors themselves in a designated nursery, and becomes an incubator for the next generation, who are genetically identical to their parent. (Or possibly there is a very subtle and automatic genetic transfer going on between living Helipaths. They certainly don't mate with each other.) Memories do not pass from one generation to the next. And yes, there is a special caste which is in charge of raising and teaching the newborns. And you might say that such an arrangement would never work/develop on its own. Yes. Just like the physical structure of their propellers. Smile _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Tue Oct 11, 2011 6:12 pm Post subject: Yeah, the website was [playign up and I had to make several attempts to get it to post - hence the duplicate mail. You *could* get a lifecycle like the Heliopaths' evolving naturally and I could probably work out a way for the rotor to evolve, too - but it's certainly easier to assume it's been helped along. It's the Fixits who really have to be in some way engineered, because experiments indicate that it takes about forty generations to bring about a significant evolutionary change. OK, really fast breeders like rats can theoretically get through forty generations in eight years but something with fully verbal, sophisticated intelligence probably needs a long childhood to learn in. Even if you assume Fixits have a generation time of only two years - as opposed to the human twenty - that still means eighty years to bring about a change, and evolving into a hat isn't one simple change, it would be thousands of changes over thousands of years. Yet, a given style of hat will probably only stay in fashion for about fifteen years, max. If you want the Fixits to be natural, though, you could make that work by assuming that they are born with an octopus-like ability to change their colour and shape and texture, but it becomes fixed at a certain point, maybe at puberty. In a state of nature they would decide to become a rock or a bush or a pumpkin or something else suitable for ambush hunting, and then stick like that, but the modern techno-Fixits model themselve on hats. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Oct 12, 2011 12:15 pm Post subject: Probably-not-really-a-SPOILER: The Fixits are not in any way a naturally-occurring species. They are distantly related to Fleebs. And speaking of which.. It's been more-or-less established that the Helipaths' ancestors were brought through a Panegate from an alternate dimension/history; Rosemary had never seen one before arriving at the Mansion. Their closest relatives in the "real" world are scalpsuckers. Unless a better plot-idea occurs to me at some point. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:28 pm Post subject: I don't think the Fleebs are natural either - I think they're self-propelling spy cameras. But I suppose you couldn't possibly comment.... Bo Lindbergh Joined: 31 May 2002 Posts: 1744 Location: 59°20'N 18°03'E Sat Oct 15, 2011 1:11 am Post subject: So this isn't how fixits originate? Cool whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Oct 15, 2011 4:29 am Post subject: It really looks like a developing Fixit, but I suppose a rock of Fixit size would be too heavy to sit on people's heads, unless it was pumice or jet. If Fixits are engineered, maybe they're made of bits of animate rock and bits of scalpsucker....... What do scalpsuckers do, I wonder? They don't appear to do the victim any harm, so what's in it for them? Could they be data thieves, reading the victim's brainwaves in search of useful information? Or do they just like a high vantage point and end up on people's heads by default? Or they eat dandruff? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Oct 15, 2011 2:44 pm Post subject: They suck up dandruff/salt/sweat/dead skin; they don't feed on or influence thoughts in any way. (It's possible they even get used in spas as a health treatment, in times and places that have spas..) The gain in elevation and mobility is probably appreciated as well. And there is no intended connection between SuperRock and Fixits, or Scalpsuckers and Fixits. I changed the design of the Fixits' feet, giving them sucker-pads, because they looked too much like SuperRock's. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Oct 15, 2011 2:54 pm Post subject: Oh, right, so scalpsuckers sit on the heads of humans and gnolls because those are the only bits of them which are really hairy and not covered by clothes, but if presented with something which had accessible long hair all over it - a sheep, say, or a Persian cat or a gorilla - they would crawl all over it. I had my feet nibbled by little fish today - similar sort of thing. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Oct 15, 2011 6:29 pm Post subject: I should make one more clarification; when Mr. Hand had a scalpsucker on his head, his voice-font was different. This was not because it was controlling him in any way (scalpsuckers are mostly just barely sentient), but because its grip altered his vocal cords. Oh, and Gnolls are mammals, and do have hair all over their bodies, but it's so fine and short that it's not easily visible. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Oct 15, 2011 6:42 pm Post subject: Most humans have short fine hair all over their bodies too, but because it's short and fine it tends not to get dandruffy. But clearly it wouldn't do to walk around naked near a scalpsucker unless you first shaved your armpits, groin and chest-rug if any. I dunno about alterring your vocal cords but having something clamped to your face would certainly change the quality of your voice - it would muffle it, for starters. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Oct 18, 2011 11:08 pm Post subject: Rather than being on his actual scalp, it was probably down around his chin, not gripping tight enough to strangle him. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Wed Oct 19, 2011 4:23 am Post subject: I can't remember whether the guy has a beard or not, but if he doesn't he must have had stubble, then, which the Scalpsucker was examining. Incidentally - this seems to be an alien world, not a future or alternate earth, so humans and horses etc presumably didn't evolve there. [You might get parallel evolution producing something *like* a human, but it's unlikely to extend to having beard hair.] So - did humans and their beasts come through a pane-gate, or are they escapees from an earlier Ettin zoo, or is this an alien planet in the long future, where a human colony lost their original technology and split into full-size humans and nomes? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Thu Oct 20, 2011 12:14 am Post subject: We haven't seen Mr. Hand's face yet, but no, he doesn't have a full flowing beard. Hector the robot was complaining about his growing a mustache. I'm not going to give Big Ultimate Spoilers about Human evolution, even here, but this is what educated Humans such as Sylvester currently know. I've touched on some of this in the strip: Human origins are in the Deep Jungles which fill the southwest of the Known World; they emerged from there as (more or less) stone-age primitives, and slowly but relentlessly expanded their way across the Known World, which had been largely depopulated of sentients following the Sneech/Ettin War. In some regions, Motihauls were already present (having had A Relationship with the now-departed Ettins), cobbling together their own civilization(s) when the Humans came along and pushed them aside. (Mostly; in a couple of remote/particularly swampy places, Motihauls are still the dominant species, such as the "SAR" and the island nation of Coradine.) The few surviving Sneeches were sulking in isolation even from each other, Trogs were filtering into the Sneeches' abandoned caves, Saurs wandered some of the forests, the Pales had their forts in the Great Dry, Gobules served as everyone's garbagecritters (And they cheerfully took up that duty for the Humans as well). The Nomes also came out of the Jungles, and trailed along in the Humans' wake; you'll find colonies/slums of Nomes living at the outskirts of many Human cities, and they have their own loosely-defined nation back in the Deep Jungles. The first real Human civilizations arose among two competing river-tribes in the "Djinnwastes" on edge of the Great Dry; farming, writing, irrigation, real magic-use all spread from there at various times. They are now the countries of Agrada and Ackbar, which still hate each other. "Mansionland" was one of the last areas of the Known World to be settled by Humans. The Humans known as Haroons were already living in what came to be the Province of Alfibay. No one knows how they got there, except maybe the Haroons themselves, and they aren't talking. And then there's the Far Eastern Shore, which is a whole other continent, and about which even University-educated Humans know almost nothing; they were just starting to explore it when the Crash hit. (Ditto the most savage of the Deep Jungles, where any answers about Humanity's origin will eventually be found...) _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Thu Oct 20, 2011 4:49 am Post subject: This is going to take you about forty years to write, isn't it? Please leave a plot summary somewhere, in case you get run over by a bus.... Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:02 pm Post subject: I have a fairly comprehensive timeline written up, and 200 pages of notes for my executors to wade through/post.. Tue Aug 16, 2011 2:37 pm Post subject: Mansionverse religion (minor spoilers) Since I've come around to the topic in the strip, some notes about religion in the Mansionverse. Some background spoilers follow. 1 2 3 The local deity in the Mansionverse is universally referred to as The Brush rather than God. (And yes, there is also an as-yet-offscreen character called God, but no one worships him.) The dominate organized religion in "Mansionland" is just called "the Temple". Every town of any size has a Temple, ranging in size from a near-shed to a near-palace, which is staffed by a female Oracle and a male Guardian, who choose new names for themselves when they take up the calling. The Oracle leads discussions, offers counseling, conducts marriages, and in smaller towns often serves as the official midwife and low-level healer. The Guardian "Grows a Garden", carries a sword (ceremonially if nothing else) and presides at funerals. These people are all trained at and sent out by "The High Temple", which located in the province of Gilad, literally high in the Ridgeback mountains. The heads of the religion are the Prime Oracle and the Last Guardian; the current holders of these offices are "Chime" and "Gong". There are two major schools of thought in the Temple system competing for control, whom Sylvester at least calls "Mainstream" and "Throwback". The Oracle in the Eetown is Threnody, and the Guardian is Dirge. Sylvester likes her; he had a terrible relationship with the previous Oracle, who was named Omega. The HT was built in its rather cold, barren and miserable location because it was the site of a major Religious Event which is still spoilered. The Temple religion was officially founded and spread by seven women who are know as the Founding Oracles. This founding happened a relatively short time ago, and quickly swept away the hodgepodge of religious beliefs which then existed in the region's various fiefdoms. When the country was unified politically under Yorik I, which happened some time later, the Temple religion immediately became the official state religion. There is a very large and elaborate Royal Temple in The Capital, the second-most important after the High Temple. The province of Erewhon in the far west is an exception to all of this; being the last fiefdom that was very forcibly added to the country, and having an older culture, it stubbornly clings to its own version of Brush-worship, which is organized around "Clans". Other Human countries have their own religious beliefs (ie in Tiranog, they have "Druids" and sacred Groves), but ultimately everyone in the Known World prays to The Brush in their own fashion. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Bo Lindbergh Joined: 31 May 2002 Posts: 1744 Location: 59°20'N 18°03'E Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:55 am Post subject: Hairbrush or paintbrush? Razz Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Aug 17, 2011 11:59 am Post subject: Unsurprisingly, the latter, as detailed in this strip. Mon May 30, 2011 2:36 am Post subject: Tand Answers and Comments (SPOILERS) Lots of questions/comments piled up during Rosemary's meeting with Tand, (plus events in the subShafts) but I decided to wait and answer them all here, after said meeting was over. There are explicit SPOILERS and comments about my thought processes.. A B C 1. I didn't really "plan" to have the glow-avator be glowing to illuminate Rosemary after Mortimer left with the light-source. One of these devices appeared before, and since it glowed, this one did too. I actually mulled over which of the three Humans was going to have the conversation with Tand, but decided it really had to be Rosemary. 2. Yes, Ahz and Skiv were/are the things attached to the "uninteresting" growth in Le Tree. I deliberately decided to not include a reminder-link this time; some things you have to remember/figure out for yourself.. 3. Yes, they and Tand were named after the main characters from Robert Asprin's MythAdventure fantasy novels. I always enjoyed reading the books, and Ahz and Skiv's personalities, at least, were roughly appropriate for their namesakes. Tand (Tanda) not so much.. 4. Despite the resemblance, no, Ahz/Skiv/Tand are NOT Wyrms. 5. Yes, when Tand talks about sparks, she is referring to magic. Yes, she's talking about the Crash. Yes, that means she's been around for at least fifty years. 6. The "mask-thing" has not been mentioned by that name before. No, Tand was not referring to Frowgler; at this point, I honestly don't know if she and Frowgler have ever met. Yes, despite my 200 pages of notes, even I don't know all of the MoE plot and the backstory. Where would the fun be in that? 7. Re: masterminds. Yes, there are a lot of powerful people lurking about. They are not all equally powerful, and they are not all automatically competing against each other.. 8. I had never heard of Thay before, having been long away from Dungeons and Dragons, but yes, now that I've read about it, there are similarities. 9. No, Mr. Hand and God are not the same person. 10. Sylvester ("The Earl") keeps track of the stock market by reading the Times newspaper. He's never been in the subShafts. Other folks in the Mansion have more.. direct ways of getting news from far-off places; as an example, Chauncy and Edgar knew who Rosemary was , even though they've never been far from the Mansion since they arrived from their previous home. _________________ Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:13 am Post subject: Jungles (SPOILERS) (SPOILERS) 1 2 3 To answer a question/comment from the feedback box.. When I drew up the map of the landmass on which the Mansion of E is located, I included a whole lot of references, overt and subtle, to previous fictional worlds. (I say "drew", but details still get tweaked as new ideas occur to me and I absorb more culture.) This map has been offered as a voting reward more than once, but as long as I keep fiddling with it, it won't be "officially" and permanently posted on the MoE site. Bits and pieces have appeared in-comic. More specifically, every good fantasy map needs a jungle, and when it came time to start naming stuff in mine, yes, I decided to simplify everything and just mashed all the "African" and "South American" pop-culture references together. And so, the two major rivers that drain through the Deep Jungles from the Brushspire Peaks to the Specific Ocean are named the Limphopho and the Orinchocho. Names taken from Tarzan and Allan Quatermain books are next door to El Dorado references. If this is offensive, well, I apologize, but that's the way it is. This does mean that I have to Make A Decision in regards to what the area's Human inhabitants actually look like; I'm still mulling that one over, but they'll probably end up looking more like Incas than Zulus. There is also a Russian/Viking area (here there be Wendigoes), an India-analogue (watch out for Elephinos!), and on the other side of the Brushspire Peaks from the Jungles, a desert with Egyptian/Arabic stuff. (Home to oldest Human civilizations around, and the place magic was first harnessed.) There is not an "Asia", or at least not one that any of the Humans in the Mansion have heard of... _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! PO8 Joined: 16 May 2009 Posts: 3 Fri Apr 15, 2011 4:11 am Post subject: It's all good Thanks for the explanation (and as always for the wonderful comic). It all seems good to me. (Hopefully most folks know why the elevator thingy should indeed play something vaguely like "The Girl From Ipanema".) I have to say that I'm looking forward to the full return of the original personalities of our protagonists. I was so excited when they became the focus of the story again, but it just doesn't seem like them now. Lots to resolve, and the Day That Changed Everything is drawing to a rapid close. Excited to see the next steps... Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Fri Apr 15, 2011 1:18 pm Post subject: SHORT-TERM NON-JUNGLE SPOILERS: 1 2 3 You'll have to put up with it for a while longer, but yes, before The Day is out they'll be back to normal, or as normal as they all get. And yes, in the immediate future at least I intend to focus much more exclusively on the two brothers and Rosemary. _________________ Sun Mar 13, 2011 8:28 am Post subject: Boogiemen, and Yasmine (SPOILERS) If only to see if this thing is actually working again, and to answer a question from the feedback box.. SPOILERS 1 2 Yes, Chumley, the tall bearded fellow in the March 2011 Council scenes is a Boogieman. (As it happens, this will be explicitly confirmed in-strip shortly.) Yes, all Boogiemen have pointed dog-like ears located on the top of their head. I'll admit I only recently decided this, when I also decided it was finally time to show what Boogiemen's faces look like. Up until the Fixit revelation, all(?) Boogies covered them with some sort of hat or helmet. The name Chumley is a homage to the late Robert Lynn Asprin's MythAdventure fantasy novels. No, the Weirdo's covert contact Yasmine is not a Boogieman, she is a Human who grew up in the desert Province of Shibolith. The spike-thingies on her hood are an artificial disguise/affectation on her part. She is a Weirdo, after all. And what the heck... it wasn't asked, but if ever you've wondered why no Boogie"women" have appeared in the strip.. right now, it is my plan/opinion/theory that male and female Boogie"men" look pretty much the same, right down to the beards, and all use "male" names. Which ones are female? Apart from actual mating, the Boogies don't care much, so neither should you. Yes, I stole this idea from Terry Pratchett's Discworld dwarves. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:32 pm Post subject: If so you might correct a logical error by Terry. He has female dwarves branching out and trying to be obviously female, but it hasn't occurred to him the *male dwarves should be doing it too* because for dwarves their usual attire of armour, beards, axes etc isn't masculine, but neuter. Once female dwarves start wearing skirts, even chainmail ones, there ought to be male dwarves shaving their beards off and growing handlebar moustaches, and wearing cod-pieces and so on. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Mon Mar 14, 2011 12:20 pm Post subject: I'll bear that in mind, if I ever decide to be even more imitative. Right now, everyone's happy enough with the status quo.. Sun Jan 14, 2007 3:06 am The Council (and Helipath) spoilers For this month's lecture, some spoilers and comments about the Council and Helipaths. Stop reading now if you don't want to see them. I'll admit it; way back in my early carefree days when I first drew the Council scenes, I had no firm idea who or what most of the council members were, apart from Wunk the gnoll and the female Motihaul (later named Gavzada) who reminds Preznit about the Penalty Wine. I did make an effort to depict Preznit wearing gloves; I think I had some vague idea at the time about eventually revealing him to be a human in disguise, but I later added the plot point that many basement species have a very keen sense of smell, making it sort of ridiculous to think that someone so high-profile could carry out such a deception for long. So I simplified, and in addition to being the Eyebolt Council representative, he's also the chairbeing. And his using the word "gentlemen" became a mistake on my part. As for Aprat... Yes, the guy peering though eyeholes in the "chest" of his robe had to be either a Helipath or a Gobule. A Gobule might have made more logistic sense, and that's probably what I was thinking originally, but.. when it came time to make a formal identification, I thought about the two species, and decided that it was much more likely the Helipaths would be the ones to have a rep on the Council. (The same is essentially true for Doyen the Trog; she might have been a Ghast, but I decided the Ghasts would avoid having an official face on the Council, as people like Camora already consider the Council to be a Ghast puppet.) Anyway, to "explain" Aprat's propeller, not getting too hung up on real-life physics... it's not fixed and rigid like the ones used on a helicopter; it's a long specially-adapted set of muscles which can flop loose and then snap into position when being spun, much like a weedwhacker's cutting cord. Preznit insists that the Council members all be "equal" in appearance, so their chairs are customized up or down, and Aprat squats on his as best he can. Since he's not hovering, he can keep his propeller mechanism all crumpled up inside his "hood". (Yes, his wearing the thing is really stupid, but.. you know, people. What can you do?) As I believe I have noted elsewhere in the strip, Helipaths "talk" by adjusting the buzz of their propellor mechanism. If a Helipath can't freely spin their propellor, or it becomes damaged.. they have to find an alternate way of communicating. And yes, I've thought of something they can do, which will be probably revealed at some point. On a marginally-related topic, Helipaths only have one sex; they are all referred to/depicted as male for reasons of convenience. Again, their method of reproduction will eventually be detailed. See you next month.. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:36 pm Post subject: "Helipath" ought to mean "disease infecting the sun". "Cold-forged iron" - hmm, OK. I am fairly reliably informed that the "cold iron" of folklore is meteorite iron, which arrives as lumps of iron or steel rather than as ore, and can be hammered out as-is without the need to smelt it. So cold-forged iron would come to much the same thing. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Dec 15, 2010 2:28 am Post subject: I don't have a problem with "Helipath" being technically incorrect, as people slap inappropriate names on things all the time. Still, duly noted. As for "cold forged".. its use as a descriptor is an unfortunate artifact from the ancient days before I rebooted the strip and moved it to ComicGenesis (then Keenspace). I would definitely call the substance something else today, probably a completely imaginary metal. Since I'm stuck with it.. I'm still mulling various theories for when/if it truly becomes important plot-wise. (As noted, maybe it's not really iron at all..) As for why Sylvester had a frying pan made of the stuff.. one of the previous Earls had it shipped all the way from Plinth because he thought using it made his fried eggs taste better. And he may have been right. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Dec 15, 2010 5:42 am Post subject: Well, meterorite iron is usually actually steel (iron and nickel alloy), which is probably why it acquired a magical reputation, in the days before people learned how to make steel. Presumably these people *do* know how to make steel, since they have trams and good-quality swords and so on - but if you want the saucepan to have special properties you could assume that meterorites in wherever-they-are contain significant impurities which change the properties of meteoritic steel. Or it could be cold-forged in the sense that it's normal on-planet steel, but it was forged by magic, not by heat - in which case you can assume it contains residual magic. Inventing a whole new metal is probably a bad idea. You can't really have any new elemental metals - unless they are really heavy ones existing in an "island of stability" way off the Periodic Table - because we've filled in all the spaces in the Periodic Table. Any new elemental metal you come up with is going to be just one of the earthly ones with a fake-foreign name. You can postulate a new alloy of existing metals, though, and if you aren't too specific about the constituents you can give it any properties you like. Thinking about "helipath", the "heli" bit could be from "helix", a spiral, as it is in "helicopter", rather than from "helios", the sun. But I can't think of any English word where "path" doesn't mean either a narrow track you walk on or "disease" - pathology, pathogen, sociopath etc. Maybe somebody called them that because they thought they looked like giant amoebae? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Wed Dec 15, 2010 6:45 am Post subject: whitehound wrote: Thinking about "helipath", the "heli" bit could be from "helix", a spiral, as it is in "helicopter", rather than from "helios", the sun. But I can't think of any English word where "path" doesn't mean either a narrow track you walk on or "disease" - pathology, pathogen, sociopath etc. Maybe somebody called them that because they thought they looked like giant amoebae? It's been a long time now, but if I remember correctly I was playing off the word "telepath". _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Wed Dec 15, 2010 7:06 am Post subject: Good point - that's a "-path" word which probably doesn't mean "pathological". [Looks up etymology of "telepath".] Hmm. Well, telepathy is sort-of a disease word too. The root apparently is a Greek word meaning to suffer or to feel. "-path" usually means something you "suffer from", i.e. a disease or injury, but in "telepath" it means a mind-feeler. So if it's not a disease, a helipath would be either a spiral-feeler or a sun-feeler. Can they feel cosmic rays, or something? They look as though they might. Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:55 pm Post subject: I sit just me or does comic sort of like Dwarf Fortress? Huge caverns going all the way down to a magma sea filled with strange creatures under a massive structure packed with insane devices and artifacts that no one can really figure out? Sounds like a typical game of Dwarf Fortress to me. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:06 pm Post subject: I have enjoyed playing Dwarf Fortress, and have worked in a couple of references, but I started the comic long before I first heard about the game. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! KilloZapit Joined: 11 Dec 2010 Posts: 2 Sun Dec 12, 2010 11:27 am Post subject: It's not that I thought you based the comic on it. About the only connection I can see is both have Troglodytes. But both the comic and the game seem to have the same kind of appeal, so I wondered if anyone else saw the similarities. I am curious as to what references you are referring to. I don't remember noticing any. I wonder if anyone thought to mod in some of the races from the comic into Dwarf Fortress though. It seems like they would fit in there. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sun Dec 12, 2010 2:40 pm Post subject: I've just made a couple of references to plant varieties. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Oct 13, 2009 6:48 am Post subject: Mansionverse Calendar and Time (sorta spoilers) This is the topic that's come up in reader feedback, so this month's semi-official forum post is, appropriately, my current thoughts/plans on how the calendar and time are set up the in world of the Mansion. As always, not all of this is 100% set in stone, and subject to last minute change if a better idea occurs to me. Even so, I suppose these qualify as SPOILERS . . . . Because I'm rather lazy and bad with math, I decided not to press my luck and just made a Mansion-year the same as ours, 365 days. However, it's exactly 365 days, so there is no need for leap years. (How convenient!) I thought about renaming the months and/or the days of the week, a la Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, but again decided to keep it relatively simple. What you see in the strip is technically translated from another language, but dialogue will still use January and Monday and such. Changes: As detailed here, Mansion-days only have twenty hours, but I probably didn't/couldn't make it clear that, despite the current endless day in-strip, the actual amount of daylight/darkness is basically the same as ours; each hour is the equivalent of.. (er) 72 RealLife-minutes? I've gone back and forth on how many Mansion-minutes there are in a Manson-hour; If I ever have to get specific, I may go with 80, because those Mansion-folk with hands have eight digits instead of ten. (I seriously considered making all the numbering base-8, but again chickened out; as penance, I do try to never use the number 9 in-strip. It all may become a plot-point eventually.) There are 12 months of 30 days each. So, yes, the dates listed on the background poster in this strip were intentional. The last five days of the year are set especially aside for a Christmas surrogate/New Year's celebration. The exact details of this Festival of the Brush are still a little hazy, but each of the five days is dedicated to a different activity, and there is the construction, wearing and destruction of ceremonial masks. (Inspired in part by a line in this guest strip by Ian Jay.) Some in the racy younger set now refer to this as the "Brushtival", which annoys their elders. Speaking of which.. the rest of the holidays are different as well. The only two I believe I've mentioned so far in-strip are Unification Day, which is in August and replaces the American "Independence Day", and Wintergate, which is the local version of Halloween. I think Canada has the right idea here, so in Mansionland the harvest festival also comes first, before the symbolic death-of-the-world celebration. There's also an Easter-like spring-rebirth festival, and a summer solstice party. If I really feel like torturing my characters, there may be Maypole dancing. All this means, yes, the Mansion's planet is round, tilted on its axis and follows an elliptical orbit. If I was starting over, I'd probably change at least one of those facts.. The previously-mentioned endless day is in mid-April. Anything I need to reconsider or address? _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Bo Lindbergh Joined: 31 May 2002 Posts: 1744 Location: 59°20'N 18°03'E Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:14 pm Post subject: You could make the orbit circular without changing anything in the archive. whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Dec 11, 2010 2:26 pm Post subject: I don't think a circular orbit is astronomically feasible. So the three-fingered hands are deliberate, not just a cartoon convention? That means even the humans aren't human, or if they are they've drifted a fair way (although the mechanism by which digit-number is controlled is fairly flexible). When is this meant to be taking place, relative to earth-normal present? Are they in a parallel universe, humanoid aliens, human colonists in the far future or what? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:20 pm Post subject: It started out as a convention, but when I did the crossover with Sandwich World, I decided to make it "real", and depicted the visiting Zay with five fingers on each hand. (Because that's how many he had in his home strip.) The exact answer to your last question is too large a spoiler to reveal even here off-strip. They are human in every sense that matters, but no, they are not literally, genetically, Homo Sapiens Sapiens. The Mansion's world is not Earth, past, present or future. Again, this has changed from the earliest days of the strip, which is why I originally included this bit with the Real Life artists. As noted, that's been officially declared A Mistake. Or maybe it was Twistpoint Weirdness. If you want to read one of the works which influenced me in this matter, check out Harry Harrison's novel West of Eden. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:35 pm Post subject: Not genetically Homo sapiens sapiens implies they might be Homo sapiens magici or some such. If you want them to be descended (humans *and* nomes, since the nomes are obviously related to the humans) from human colonists, it's easy enough to explain the fingers. The way you get digits is, the embryo has a wrist-bud on one side of which is a thumb-bud, and then the thumb-bud produces a chemical which diffuses across the top of the wrist-bud and causes the growth of a row of digits, getting smaller as they get further away from the thumb and the chemical becomes more dilute. A little bit of extra chemical gives you a seven-toed cat; a little bit less than normal would give you a four-digit human. Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:34 pm Post subject: What's with the sudden forum activity? Was the comic featured on some high-traffic site or something? whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:53 pm Post subject: No, just a new member flicking through the forum and commenting on random points. Mon Nov 29, 2004 11:58 pm Post subject: Water question When did it change from Some Sea to Specific Ocean? _________________ Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Nov 30, 2004 2:13 pm Post subject: Didn't think anyone would even notice or care... Since the name has yet to be mentioned in the actual strip, I changed it last week in the places where I control the text. I decided "Specific" was a better name: In a small a small plot spoiler, the country where the mansion is located is bounded on the east and west by oceans. (At least in part; the map is still somewhat flexible at this point.) The Mansion is in the east, on the Specific Ocean. Out West, there's the Titantic Ocean. I've always thought those would be two good ocean names, so now's my chance to use them. Some Sea will probably still crop up in a new location, if it's needed. And yes, the country has a name, but I won't reveal it just yet. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Tropylium Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Hyperborea Tue Jan 04, 2005 8:20 am Post subject: Geoduck wrote: Didn't think anyone would even notice or care... Hey! We certainly did notice! …And with names like those, you'll probably have to squeeze Whatever Lake somewhere, too, right? Wink Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue Jan 04, 2005 1:44 pm Post subject: To be honest, I hadn't considered doing that, but who knows... The small lake that you can see in the background when Rosemary and Sylvester are talking up on the turret is unimaginatively named "Lake E". Sylvester's family plastered their name all over the landscape. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:49 pm Post subject: That's not as weird as it sounds - the Romans called the Mediterranean "our sea", and "middle-of-the-land sea" isn't much more inspired. The Cornish seem to have a particular talent for giving specatacular landscape features very minimalist names. Ferex, there's a place near Padstow where the sea has eaten away at the base iof the cliffs, carving out a circular chamber which then collapsed, creating a 30ft-deep, about 50ft-across hole in the landscape, with the sea roaring in and out at the bottom. You might expect it to be called something like Devil's Kettle, but it's actually called Round Hole. Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:47 am Post subject: Origin of (various) Species (SPOILERS, of a sort..) This month’s post was inspired by another comment on the Tagboard: real-life origins and inspirations of the various mansion species As was noted, I’ve made a conscious effort to avoid using the “standard” fantasy species in the strip; there are no elves, dwarves, or goblins in the world of the Mansion, and there probably never will be. But still, no idea is created in a vacuum: Humans: You might not think I would need any inspiration for these, but when I started getting serious about fleshing out a backstory, I was influenced by certain ideas in Harry Harrison’s alternate-history novel West Of Eden. Gnolls, Ghasts, Troglodytes: All of these names came from creatures which appear in the TSR role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, but the amount to which my critters resemble the D&D version varies wildly. The Trogs are actually pretty close, my Gnolls are more like D&D Kobolds (I just liked the name “Gnoll” better), and the Ghasts are totally different. (D&D Ghasts are flesh-eating undead ghouls which haunt graveyards, but again, I liked the name.) More than any of my species, the Gnolls’ appearance owes a major debt to the Muppets. Yes, the Ghasts started life as a joke: they look like a human wearing a mining helmet and covered with slime. Some of their other characteristics were inspired by Shambling Mounds, another D&D species. Ichyoids: One of my more blatant physical steals, they are scaled-down copies of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu, with a bit of D&D’s Mindflayers tossed in. Mentally, there’s very little comparison to either. The name is a deliberate simplification/modification of “Ichthyology”, the study of fishes. Oozes: As they have evolved over the course of the strip, these have drawn inspiration from the titular hero of one of my favorite webcomic reads, Schlock Mercenary, although they lack many of Schlock’s advantages. Nomes: I used this spelling instead of “Gnomes” as a homage to L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels, where the eternally-scheming Nome King is the closest thing the series has to a regular villain. Also, having both Gnomes and Gnolls probably would have been confusing. Gobules: These are a steal from another TSR game of yesteryear, The Awful Green Things From Outer Space. Gobules are Green Things, with two eyes and a visible mouth. The occasionally-appearing Symts are from TAGTFOS’s “sister” game, Snit’s Revenge. Boogiemen: A name I picked because I couldn’t think of anything better; it was inspired because you never see their faces. I probably should have gone with “Troll” or “Ogre”. In the original version of the strip, pre-Comic Genesis, Percy was the first Boogieman who appeared, and his name and job were both lifts from yet another game, the RPG called “Toon”. Dornbeasts: The name is a steal from a critter who appears in old Infocom text-adventure games, another of my major influences as a youth, although again, the designs of the creatures are quite different. (Most of the Nomes’ personal names were originally spell-names used by a player’s character in the same games.) Motihauls: As you can see here on the Forum, these were named by a strip-reader, after I asked for suggestions. It’s a riff on the old-time game show host, Monty Hall. I’ve only recently “realized” that they started existence as a semi-aquatic fresh-water species, in same way that real-world humans started existence living in trees in Africa, and that the Motihauls we’ve seen so far have all long-adapted to a relatively waterless existence underground. As noted on the TB, they thus have a definite resemblance to the Marsh-Wiggles of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia, which I don’t mind at all. Note that they are not mammals, and don’t reproduce like mammals.. Helipaths: Apart from propeller beanies, I honestly don’t know where these came from; I needed a unique flying critter to work as a waiter in Le Tree, and that’s what came out when I started doodling. Ditto the Eyebolts, although I’ve always thought the latter species’ name was one of the better ones I’ve come up with. Jibjib Burds: The name is a riff on a critter which is mentioned in Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky. And yes, there is a reason why it’s spelled Burd. Sneeches: If you can believe it, this name and the species’ general attitude were both taken from a Dr. Suess story. More will be revealed, eventually. Pales: This was the best name I could come up with, after reluctantly deciding that “Spook” just had too many racial connotations. But it will eventually be revealed that the final choice is not totally inappropriate. Wyrms: If I could go back and change one major thing about the strip, it would be the Wyrms. I don’t like their name, and I don’t their appearance. I’d go instead with a race of insects. Or at least give them limbs. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Tropylium Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Hyperborea Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:12 am Post subject: I seeee. There's a lot of games there that I haven't played. A few counternotes, however: Ghasts are in no way D&D specific; they're originally from Arabic mythology, and were popularized in the West by H. P. Lovecraft & contemporaries. Possibly more obviously, "troglodyte" means simply "cave dweller". Also, according to most representations, Cthulhu has wings, so the Ichyoids aren't totally gratuitious. I'm sorta familiar with Mindflayers, but that connection I didn't realize at all… Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject: Well, yes, I should have said that the D&D folks.. um.. "borrowed" almost all of their monsters from other sources. To the point, I believe, they got sued a couple of times. But they were still where I first encountered many of these names/creatures. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Tropylium Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Hyperborea Mon May 07, 2007 1:24 pm Post subject: …wait, I messed that up. Ghouls are from Arabic mythology. HPL adapted ghasts from British sorces — FWIW, the name is a dialectal/old variant of "ghost". One thing I need to check, however: the Ecadems are completely your own invention, right? I'm thinking of putting them in for a small cameo role in an RPG that I have in semi-eternal development… And if this is OK for you, are there any specifics I would need to kno about their appearence or general habits that haven't yet been seen in the strip? No, I'm not asking for complete DnD stats, but just general tendencies. Is that stinger poisonous, for example? (I've passingly considered the same with the Fleebs, but as it seems like that there're many essential things we don't kno about them yet, and I'd like to keep clear of those spoilers, I abandoned that idea.) Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Tue May 08, 2007 3:33 pm Post subject: SPOILERS about Ecadems.. Ah, Ecadems. Feel free to use them if you want, Tropylium, but to be honest, if I were doing the strip over I probably wouldn't even include them. Or like the Wyrms, give them a massive design overhaul. As it is, I am toying over a couple possible future roles for the species, but for now I've made a very conscious effort to fade them (and Queen Snakes) into the background, and have made little effort to flesh their details. Here's what I have worked out, some of which has been revealed in the strip: They are fully sentient, and capable of talking. They are probably mammals, with males and females looking pretty much the same. They are omnivores. There aren't many of them in the Basement. There is a reason why Rosemary didn't recognize one when she saw it. They aren't quite as formidable as they appear, and are in fact rather fragile. The stingers, while particularly subject to breakage, are poisonious. (Although the poison is not especially deadly.) Their name is a variation on the word "ecdemic", which is vaguely appropriate to their nature. It's pronunced "Ek-ah-dem." But if you want to make them into swarming armored rampaging kill-machines in your game, go for it. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Tropylium Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Hyperborea Mon May 14, 2007 4:04 pm Post subject: Geoduck wrote: Ah, Ecadems. Feel free to use them if you want, Thankya. Smile Quote: They are probably mammals, with males and females looking pretty much the same. I had taken them for reptiles or somesuch. It doesn't really make a difference, tho. Quote: They aren't quite as formidable as they appear, and are in fact rather fragile. The stingers, while particularly subject to breakage, are poisonious. (Although the poison is not especially deadly.) (…) But if you want to make them into swarming armored rampaging kill-machines in your game, go for it. Nah, actually I've planned them appearing as a "protege race" of a wizard (not domesticated enuff to count as "pets" but still under surveillance; etc.) While killing-machines would fit that part too I suppose, they're going to be quite peaceful as long as not provoked. whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:26 pm Post subject: I had assumed that ghasts were highly-evolved slime moulds. You do know about slime moulds, right? The things that can't make up their minds whether they're a single-celled fungus or a multi-celled animal? Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:58 am Post subject: Allusions (no real spoilers) If only to keep this board from being cancelled for lack of use.. One of my major pet peeves regarding other people's webcomics is when someone doing a mideval/fantasy comic has his or her characters spout direct overt pop-culture references; ie someone living in the Mystic Village of the Wood Elves describes an event as being "just like that scene in The Matrix!" (or Superman, or whatever..) This is only a problem when it's done gratitiously, for a cheap laugh or as a lazy way to explain something. If the Wood Elves only came into existence after the Revival of Magic in 2076, and there are still old DVDs floating around, OK. (Or in one of my favorite strips, Order of the Stick, what we're seeing is a role-playing game being brought to life, so the players controlling/speaking through the characters can spout whatever they want, and it makes internal sense..) Since this bothers me, I've made every effort to avoid it in the MoE. I do make pop-culture references, sure, all the time, but I try to always bury them in the context of the strip. Recognizing the reference should add to your enjoyment of the strip, not be vital to enjoying it in the first place. Most recently, one of my Sunday "SubShaft 44f" strips quoted a semi-famous line of dialogue from the movie Aliens, but it was at the same time a statement the character in question would actually make. This extends beyond obvious pop-culture stuff. I try very hard to avoid having Basement denizens (or the strip's humans for that matter) make casual reference to things they have not experienced, or provide an explanation as to how they know it. That was one reason I recently had Comshaw explain to Ig about "hours", and how the Basement folks could know about days and seasons. But despite my best efforts, I'm sure I've missed stuff on occasion. In those cases, as always, a wizard did it. whitehound Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:17 pm Post subject: It's a difficult balance to get right. If you have an alien on an alien world buying a pound of apples, that's an obvious anomaly: but if you have them buying a roop of leptas it brings the reader up short and distracts them from the flow of the story. You can work round it by saying "a basket of fruit" but even that can get irritatingly noticeable. Wed Oct 06, 2004 12:55 am Post subject: Trogs and their problem The recent plot arc and Tagboard discussions have been about Trogs, (short for "Troglodyte", they are the basement dwellers who look something like bipedal lizards, and who turn big and stupid as they get older.) It was asked if anyone had ever tried to do anything to help Trogs with their problem. Even here on the forum, I'm not going to get too specific due to spoilers, but I will say a few things. First, the entire situation hasn't yet been explicitly outlined in the comic. Second, the Trogs themselves have obviously been aware of the problem, but there wasn't much they could do; to date no one in the basement has simultaneously possessed the resources, knowledge and inclination to do anything to help. And third, as is all too often the case, there are those who profit from the current scheme of things, and might react badly to change. Assuming the strip and I last long enough, some or all of these facts will almost certainly change, but it won't happen tomorrow. One character in the strip has made an off-hand comment that may show where help will eventually come from. Smile _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Tropylium Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Hyperborea Tue Jan 04, 2005 8:26 am Post subject: Re: Trogs and their problem Geoduck wrote: One character in the strip has made an off-hand comment that may show where help will eventually come from. Smile OK, I'll have to go reread all the lines ever said by or of Trogs, then… Rolling Eyes Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:59 am Post subject: Three years on, and I don't know if any Troglodyte questions have been answered, so in response to a recent visitor comment, I'll explicitly SPOIL a couple of points I wish I had made clearer in-strip. 1 2 3 When Basement-dwellers, even Trogs themselves, refer to "Adult" Trogs, they are being inaccurate; Trogs reach full mentally and physical maturity before they balloon in size and lose their intellect. They can and do mate and produce offspring; as Wrawa the Trog notes in this strip, most female Trogs get old and die rather than change, which is why there haven't been any "Adult" females featured in the strip to date. Conversely, the strip hasn't shown any truly young Trogs because they are all kept inside the Trogs' home Hall until they are old enough to fend for themselves. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! whitehound Joined: 10 Dec 2010 Posts: 67 Location: Scotland Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:30 pm Post subject: Basically you have a aspecies in which all the males and some of the females suffer from something like Huntington's Disease, or early-onset Alzheimer's. The fact that they get bigger also has vague overtones of Protector. In real-life primates it's surplus young males who are cannon-fodder (or leopard fodder) and only those who survive, get to breed. In Trogs perhaps the older males turn into big dumb soldiers to guard their grandchildren, although the fact that they breed *before* being selected in combat would slow down their evolution a bit. Thu Jun 01, 2006 2:17 pm Frowgler SPOILERS Since there appears to be some confusion, (dunno how that could happen..) here are a couple of SPOILERS about Frowgler the Horned Frog... Most of this will be explained eventually in the strip, so don't read further if you don't want to be SPOILED! The fellow who was just talking to the Woman Of Mystery calls himself "Frowgler" (although he didn't tell her that..) This is not the name he was given at birth. Before the Crash, there was a individual named Frowgler who became famous enough in human society that at least one book about him was published. It's thus possible, though far from assured, that any given basement-dweller has also heard the name "Frowgler". The famous Frowgler and the horned frog currently in the forest are not the same person, although the sharing of names is not a coincidence. Sun Sep 12, 2010 4:53 pm Four years later, this subject comes up again. MORE SPOILERS, at least if you haven't read the whole MoE archive. It has now been revealed that the famous Frowgler is a character in a long-running (ie several decades) comic strip called "Roshambo The Warrior Beetle" which is published in the "Mansionland" newspaper of record, The Times. (Mortimer is a devoted fan.) Like the real Frowgler, he is a horned frog. The fan-theory being promoted at the moment is that famousFrowgler was somehow named after realFrowgler, and not the other way around. My comment would be that while realFrowgler has admitted knowledge of RtWB, in the same MoE strip, he implicitly implied that the famousFrowgler came first. How trustworthy he is as a source of information must be decided by the individual reader, but I will say that while Frowgler often withholds information, or even (ahem) encourages people to jump to the wrong conclusion, at no point so far has he out-and-out lied. Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:22 am When you say Frowgler is a horned frog, do you mean he is an actual frog, i.e. an amphibian, in which case since he has a tail he is actually a horned newt? Or do you mean that he is the sort of horned, spiky lizard (reptile) called a horned toad? "Horned frog" doesn't quite work either way - if he's an amphibian he's a horned newt, and if he's a reptile he's a horned toad. Or are we to assume that he's a reptile, he's a cousin of the horned toad and they just call him a horned frog in Eeetown because it's a local variant name? Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:55 pm He's a regular frog with retractable horns and devil tail. If that technically makes him a newt, fine, but he still calls himself a frog. Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:20 pm Post subject: The Earls of E listed (SPOILERS) SPOILERS FOLLOW 1 2 3 In the past with the MoE, I've made a very conscious effort to avoid using specific dates with most anything. Behind the scenes, however, I do have a timeline all written up, and in a recent strip, I broke down and put some numbers on the side of a speculative time-machine that, yes, could be used as dates. This prompted a question about the Earls of E, and so, as a public service, here is a list of the earls that to the best of my recollection have been named in the strip, however vague and offhand that naming might have been. Also included are what they are known for, the dates of their reign (not their lifespan) and, when it has been established, their cause of death. The dates in particular are still flexible, and may change if/when they officially appear in-strip. Digression: The dates are not AD, but based on an in-universe calculation some Human far from the MoE made at some point as to how old MansionWorld was. It was later determined that they had been completely wrong, and MWorld is much older than 5000 years, but by then the dating system had caught on and spread. All of these people are parent followed by child 09 MILO- philosopher/warrior 5062-5098 10 DORN- talked to Ichyoids 5098-5113 eaten by Dornbeasts 11 XXX 5113-5137 12 LEMUEL- studied Panegates 5117-5168 Panegate-related, maybe 13 XXX 5135-5180 14 LINUS- combat botanist 5180-5210 15 GRIFFINGTON- built battletank 5210-5235 16 ANGUS- conquered Mansion of S 5235-5271 17 AUDRA- raised an army 5271-5289 Poked the Hot Zone 18 LUDWIG- genius scientist 5289-5332 19 ERNEST- party-animal forger 5332-5341 stabbed 20 PHILBERT- philanthropist 5341-5373 car crash 21 QUINCY- tied shoes 5373-5398 22 XXX "vague" 5398-5411 23 SYLVESTER- intelligent twit 5412-5423 still alive Feel free, as always, to use or repost any of this over on the Wiki. Fri Oct 15, 2010 11:04 pm Audravania (mild spoilers) The name of the country in which the Mansion of E is located has not yet been revealed. The name of its home province, however, has been established as being "Audravania" And so, in response to another shoutbox question.. Yes, the province is named after Sylvester's ancestor Audra; he is the 23rd Earl of E, she was the 17th. How this came to pass is as yet unknown. What has been mentioned about her in-strip: Rosemary is wearing one of her helmets, she was the only woman ever to be official head of the family, she had a very healthy ego, she lost one of he hands and replaced it with a hook, she had to "make time" to have her son Ludwig, and she was in the business of raising and maintaining armies. Against Ludwig's advice, she also instigated some kind of enormous project (called "Icebreaker") deep in the Hot Zone which led to generally disastrous results. Obviously, there will be further revelations; I will say that she was probably the most important and influential Earl to date, but that doesn't mean that she's terribly well-known to the general public... Fri Jul 30, 2010 3:02 pm Post subject: July 29th, 2010 Mr. Montoya? Would that be Inigo, by any chance? Mon Aug 02, 2010 10:13 pm Post subject: It's certainly possible, but I would have to go and check the Hack N' Slash personnel files to be sure. Thu Jul 01, 2010 5:03 am Lurkers Usual mild SPOILERS... 1 2 Since the appearance of a Lurker in the strip provoked some questions.. visitor BiggerJ was right about the species; they haven't appeared much up until now because they live out on "the Fringes", the edge(s) of the Basement where there is little light and civilized activity, and where the plot hasn't (yet) spent much time. As was seen with Mortimer in the forest pit, they are there, too. They have bad/non-existent eyesight and keen hearing and smell. They compete with Tunnelrats for food and living space, and both in turn are preyed on by feral Trogs and wild Dornbeasts. They're about as smart as a bright dog, and don't talk (Which is why they aren't part of the Basement society.) As Rosemary says at one point, they exist in other similar places in the Mansionverse. The name was inspired by the H. P. Lovecraft/August Derleth title "The Lurker at the Threshold", and I suppose lurking Grues in the old Infocom text-adventure games. Although they aren't nearly as deadly as Grues. Their visual look owes something to the Xenomorphs in the Alien movie-series. Mon Apr 26, 2010 1:11 am The Endless Day I've been thinking about the Endless Day, which I like to call Day One (the day shown at the beginning of the strip being Day Zero, since the strip starts partway through it and it serves mainly to set things up for Day One). The end of the Endless Day will certainly be a glorious milestone, but will it simply be followed by another day, or will it be the end of the strip? Mon Apr 26, 2010 11:59 am Post subject: Well, for my health and sanity, it would probably be best to end the strip when the day ends, but no. I have plans to go on. I at least know what's going to happen 'tomorrow', and have an overall plot worked out. Where exactly in that plot I will end the strip, I don't currently know. Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:24 am Earldom Rites of Passage I've been thinking about the Earl of E Rites of Passage. The two rites we've learned about so far (walking through Sneech territory and passing through a Panegate) have one thing in common: they are destinctively Mansionly. My theory is that Earls of E have to go through these rites to prove that they are capable of being 'masters of their domain', as much as any human can ever become a master of the Mansion. I wonder what the others could be. Here's what I could think of: Introduction to the Tasks, and memorization of the details of the most common ones (rarer ones like the dreaded G-4 are not bothered with - that's what the Book of Tasks is for). Going through the Time Twistpoint Something involving the Mansion's decidedly extensive library? Something involving going through the Basement and/or Garden incognito? Getting tricked into attacking or otherwise trying to fiddle with the Thing That Ticks Ever Downward To Zero, heh heh. Heck, you wouldn't even have to trick a prospective Earl. That thing's like the History Eraser Button. Tell them it's a mystery and sooner or later, ZAP. Wed Dec 23, 2009 7:35 am Very mild SPOILERS, maybe. I'll be honest, and admit I don't have a complete list worked out. I have pages and pages and pages of notes, but if every detail was set in concrete, I'd get bored drawing the strip real fast. One I can add, though, that's been mentioned before: learning the pidgin language of the Ichyoids well enough to be officially introduced to/ talk to the Great Riddler. Sat May 16, 2009 12:13 am Bim Toggling (no real spoilers) For anyone who was wondering about the mention of bims and toggling in a recent strip, it's a reference to one of my favorite authors, the outdoor humorist Patrick McManus. Specifically, in one of his stories, he makes joking reference to working in an ad agency on the "bim toggling" account ("We toggle your bims!") and the phrase always stuck with me. I've made other references to his work in the strip, and I recommend his books to one and all. You don't have to be an outdoor enthusiast; I haven't been camping or fishing since I was about 12, and I have always find his work hilarious. Google has most of his books posted on-line. Also, I wanted to point out/admit that the bim toggle wall appeared previously, here. I do try to maintain continuity when I can, and if I can re-use a background, it is one less thing to draw. I'll also admit that when I drew that originally, I had no clue what the phrase even meant. While I know that the broad arc of the story is going, I often try to leave myself plot-hooks I can either pick up later or feel free to ignore. Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:01 pm Fixits (sorta spoilers) Random thoughts on the current plotline.. As I've said before, I have a general outline about where I'm taking the plot of the MoE as a whole, but when I started this particular segment, I had only the vaguest idea about where it was going to end up. I didn't even know what was in those boxes that "Age" and "Beauty" were hauling. Even if I were able to plot out every last detail in advance, I'd then get terminally bored drawing it all up. I may eventually cover some of the below in-strip, or not.. I couldn't manage to work it into the dialogue, but Grix has a reason for her foot-wiping obsession; if enough grit gets tracked into her place, it fouls up the machinery. (Or at least she worries that it does..) In the comment box, Jim North was thinking along the right lines about the elderly Motihaul that Apix is riding; the more time a Fixit spends on someone's head, the more.. blending.. there is of personalities. If you go back here, you'll see the same thing with the elderly human Dorian and the Fixit on his head. And yes, there is a reason why some Fixit victims/mounts have their eyes closed, while others are pupiless. I'll definitely cover that at some point. _________________ Fri May 04, 2007 10:38 pm The Crocogator on the Ceiling (no real spoilers) Since it's become a topic of burning interest on the Tagboard, I did some quick internet-browsing on the subject of "crocodiles suspended from the ceiling in alchemical labratories". As contributor "Podge" said, the fantasy writer Terry Pratchett has mentioned this pheonomon once or twice in his Discworld novels. To quote from 2004's Going Postal: "It was a wizard's study, so of course had the skull with a candle in it and a stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling. No one, least of all wizards, knows why this is, but you have to have them." As big a writing god as Mr. Pratchett is, however, he is in this case riffing on a very old idea, as can be seen in this copy of The Alchemist, a painting by the 17th century artist David Teniers. It seems that there was a fad in Europe at the time of collecting strange and unusual objects of nature and displaying them in sort of mini-musuems, "cabinets of curiousities". A crocodile, being imported from far-off Africa, would certainly qualify. Becoming associated with "learning" the hanging crocodile evidently also became shorthand for "alchemist". As noted by "Theoman", Shakespeare mentions them in Romeo and Juliet. A few years down the line, Charles Addams put one in a 1980 cartoon for The New Yorker, which was part of my inspiration for including it in my own work. (As was Pratchett; Going Postal is one of my favorite of his novels.) Much of this is discussed in this article on MetaFilter. As for my using the name "Crocogator".. it sounded amusing, and, as Theoman again touched on, let me draw the critters without having to worry about getting the snout/feet/teeth/whatever "right" for an alligator instead of a crocodile. (or vice versa.) And no, I didn't invent the name. It's been around almost as long as the alchemical crocs. Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:48 am Post subject: Sundays Ever considered cranking up the alliteration by calling it "Slapstick Sundays in SubShaft 44"? Cool Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 186 Location: Pacific NW Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:27 pm Post subject: I could.. but I might decide to change it someday to heartrending pathos, and then I'd just have to switch it back. Very Happy _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:08 pm Post subject: "Translation" of Ichyoid speech SPOILERS Reply with quote The font I use in the strip for Ichyoid dialog is called "Elder Futhark". It is based on/inspired by an alphabet used by (human) tribes in Pre-Christian northern Europe, and later cribbed somewhat by JRR Tolkien for use in The Lord of the Rings. I chose it because I liked the way it looked and because it's sorta semi-readable, and not because of its real-life origins, so don't take that as any sort of plot-clue. (And yes, it was probably a subconscious influence on the Basement-dweller's Manglish alphabet.) If you want to learn more about the real language, here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the subject. As for the strip itself, I'm not going to translate everything any Ichyoid says, but below should be a cheat-sheet. I didn't create the font or assign the letters. Go complain to the Vikings if you don't like the arrangement. (The creator of the font might be one "Curtis Clark"; there are a lot of versions floating around. Thanks to whoever it was.) [PICTURE HERE] If the picture is nonfuctional or gone, you can try this link. I use the lower-case version. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! Tropylium Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 19 Location: Hyperborea Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:34 am Post subject: Reply with quote FWIW: the third-to-last letter was used by the Norse for "th", not "x". 'fcors there aren't any actual Norse around in the comic so it's all a fair shot... Wink Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:38 pm Post subject: Techniques used in producing the Mansion of E comics? Reply with quote I am very curious about how Mansion of E is produced, and would appreciate any input you wanted to give on the background technique. I read that you do them in MS Paint and then cut down the colour saturation. Do you draw them with a mouse or with an art tablet? (I'm guessing mouse. Art tablets have come down quite a lot in price lately though and you would probably find one quite liberating - the Wacom Bamboo is under $100 and I think MacAlly even produces one for under $50 - without even getting into what they go for on eBay.) Since you do them in full colour and then desaturate them, does this mean you keep an archive of higher quality masters? If so, what dpi and size are they? Do you use layers for the dialogue balloons? How long does it take you to produce a typical strip? Are you, like the Dread Pirate Roberts, not left-handed either? Regards, CD Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 175 Location: Pacific NW Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:38 pm Post subject: Reply with quote Let's see.. I use Paint Shop Pro 8, not MS Paint. Same basic idea, with a whole bunch more flexibility and features, including the use of layers. I guess most serious graphic artists use Photoshop, but that is very expensive. PSP is sold by Corel these days, after they bought out the original manufacturer. Yes, I use a mouse (in my left hand.) I would like to try a tablet someday, but up till now I haven't been willing to shell out the $$ on something I'm not sure I'd use. As you say, maybe I'll find something on eBay. Yes, I use several layers on each strip. In the typical finished result, you see six of them: characters, background, dialogue, balloons, frame, timestamp/copyright. I particularly recommend using a frame layer, as you can just slap it down over the finished panels and neatly cover up any slop around the edges. You can shuffle the layers a bit if something is supposed to go outside the panels. (Yes, the blue around the panels is technically "above" those panels.) The original files are in ".psp" format, which, with all the layers and such, is much larger than the final ".png" files. I draw in full color and (usually) double-sized to cut down on the jagged edges of pixelation, then shrink the various elements and position them. Once the strip is 'done', I copy each relavent layer (characters and background, usually) and apply PSP's 'hue/lightness/saturation' control to the copy. Lately, depending on where a scene is located in the Mansionverse, I've been removing 75%-80% of the color. After that, I save off a merged copy of the whole works as a .png. If I were to save off a full-color version of any given strip (which I generally do not do), the resulting file wouldn't actually be much bigger than the grayscale. Production time varies wildly from strip to strip, depending on how many panels there are, and what is being depicted. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! camidumas Joined: 07 Jan 2008 Posts: 3 Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:03 pm Post subject: Reply with quote Right right, PSP, being a Mac person I conflate all that PC software together sometimes . I understand that the GIMP (the open-source alternative to Photoshop) has really cleaned up over the last year or so so it might also be worth a look. Last time I tried it the interface was Impossible, but that was a few years ago, and recently my brother (who does 3D animation) has put GIMP on his go-to list. I think you'd be amazed by how liberating a tablet would be if you gave it a sincere shot at working. I used to do DTP and photoshop work with a mouse, and while it's okay, the tablet allows for easier, more delicate manipulation which means you do more in the same amount of time and the experience is more enjoyable. My standard method for trying out a new kind of hardware (if I can't just come by a demo unit) is to buy one from Wal-Mart, see if I like it, return it to Wal-Mart, and then shop online for a better deal. Provides the two great flavours of new toy and sticking it to the man . I started out with the original USB Wacom Graphire and recently got a very delightful Wacom Bluetooth wireless tablet through work (technology writer) - now those free you up! Do you have a complete archive of the masters with layers? It seems a bit odd that the grayscale is nearly the same size as the coloured comic - however, if you're including the blue layer as part of the ultimate png (which seems to be the case) that's the explanation - though it's mostly gray, that one blue border probably makes the whole thing take up near full-colour bits. Do you have a map on the wall showing the mansion and environs, with pins stuck in for the different character locations? Or do you track them with notes or sheer force of will? Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 175 Location: Pacific NW Wed Jan 09, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject: Reply with quote Shrug. I don't regularly save off color copies, so I don't know for sure. But note that "80% desaturation" is not the same thing as "grayscale". When I started this new routine, I did have to switch from using .gifs to .pngs; gifs worked fine on the older "true" grayscale pictures, but start adding color, and the finer details get blurred out. Yes, I have all the original .psp files in storage. Multiple copies. I even have a CD archive stashed away in a bank safety deposit box in case my house burns down. As for keeping track of characters.. with the mass of the minor ones, it's not urgent that I know exactly where they are every moment. I do keep a lot of background notes. But yes, mostly I just try to remember what the important people are doing. I often wade back into the archives to remind myself, and see if I've overlooked anyone. _________________ Visit The Mansion of E!! camidumas Joined: 07 Jan 2008 Posts: 3 Wed Jan 09, 2008 4:10 pm Post subject: Reply with quote Well, yeah, to a computer, color is color - the bits for a bit of color is not much different from the bits for a lot of color. (Computers ain't racist, yo, pinky-whitey is pretty much the same as bluey-greeney. Hurrah computers.) With a story this complicated, why a webcomic? Did you ever consider a novel, or a series of graphic novels, or, etc? Somewhere around when you've done something almost 1600 times, it seems like it becomes less of a hobby and more of an Artistic Commitment, if I may lay out the two-dollar words I have left-over from dinner. I'm not objecting to the format, mind, but with a story this thickly layered it does get unwieldy and forbidding to newcomers. (Though I read 'em all anyhow.) Obviously by making high-quality masters and keeping good care of your backups (the lack of the former scuttled any plans Sexy Losers might have to do a non-web edition) you're at least keeping your options open. Geoduck Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 175 Location: Pacific NW Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:18 am Post subject: Reply with quote I didn't set out to create an epic; the whole project just grew on me. When I first started the strip on my own site back in 1999(!) with maybe a handful of readers, it was a goofball thing, almost stream-of-consciousness, where I tossed in whatever wacky idea occured to me. When I eventually rebooted in 2003 and moved to ComicGenesis (then Keenspace) I decided to try and come up with a coherent explanation/background for everything that a reader had seen. This explanation just kept getting longer and more involved, and Rosemary and Sylvester's visit to the Basement kept stretching out... and now here we are. I do have a plot worked out, I am going somewhere with all this, but we will all live to see it? I dunno. Even now, I'm not at all sure at what point in that plot this strip will end, or if anything will pick it up afterwards. If I were to start over, I would do a lot of things differently, both in terms of plot and production schedule. And yes, I am a much better writer than an artist, but if I were to turn the MoE into a novel, it would be very different than the strip. Probably a lot bleaker and darker, as what strengths I do have as an artist tend to run towards that goofball end of the spectrum.