Go read my two blog posts on Stories-Worth-Telling, then come back here and join in the fun! In my next message I’ll list all the Elements in my Cascadian Animist Folklore Oracle, that I use to seed stories in my storyband’s jams. This certainly counts as a work-in-progress! I haven’t finished yet. Let’s help each other create a world of story-elements!
Awesome!
As you know, but others may not, oracles have preoccupied me of late, too.
Now, tarot cards obviously already have general meanings attached to them, but fewer people know that the regular deck of playing cards (which has some historical relationship with the tarot deck) has meanings, as well.
Fun history fact: we used to play with the Kings as the highest card in each suit, and the ace as the lowest. In the French Revolution, people began playing aces high, to represent the primacy of the people over the monarchy. It actually made a bold statement against hierarchy…
I wonder if we should take these into consideration for oracles, and have bioregional oracles adapt these basic tropes and archetypes to the stories, ideas, rhythms and values each bioregion holds dear?
Yes! I just linked to you in my blog a bunch, but I forgot to do it here.
Thanks for the new tidbit on Aces and Kings. Crazy!
Here’s a bunch of stuff off the top of my head that I’ve discovered personally about a deck of playing cards, while experimenting with where the Mythdeck could go:
4 suits: 4 directions, 4 seasons, etc. Classic wise compass stuff.
13 cards in a suit: 13 moons in a year.
52 cards in a deck: 52 weeks in a year.
Black cards/red cards: Day/Night, Yin/Yang, Wet Earth/Breathing fire (i.e. Tiger/Dragon in the Yin-Yang (chinese) and In-Yo (japanese) compasses).
So the deck of cards could operate as a really awesome calendar, either sun or moon-wise. I’ll look at my old notes to dig up other stuff. And Jason (or anyone else), any other ideas or discoveries, I’d love to know!
Remember back in Jan 2007 when you asked me about the Mythmap, and how I conceived of doing it here (you noticed my Valley of the Gods link to the Willamette Valley Watershed map and wondered what I planned), and I said (yay for my gmail archive!):
Thanks for clarifying your question.The reason I don’t have a mythmap up for my area involves a couple of nuts I haven’t cracked yet.
Nut #1: I have an experiment going with oral/spoken only traditions - how much of what I do can I keep out of writing? how much can I keep any record in just things like bricolage (remember Story of B?), i.e. physical memory aids, and such.
Nut #2: Often times, indigenous folks learned things detail by detail, place by place, and then WHAMMO at the age of 50 they realized that all the sacred sites in the area conform to the shape of a gigantic serpent, or some such, with particular cultural implications that take them to a whole new level of perception/paradigm. Throwing a map up would short circuit this as a tool, by showing the big picture before the details and on-the-ground experiences.
So I fuss and hesitate on putting an actual map up, though if someone else did it, it would excite me a lot…I don’t have an opinion, just a doubt about what I should do for my landbase and myself.
Having said all that, on a smaller scale, past mythmaps I’ve helped make for places usually involve a physical map, with evocate names associated with landscape features that may have a overtly mythological visual characterization ( i.e, a huge douglas fir tree, drawn on the map as a tallish looking grandmother, or something). On the web, I probably would’ve then hyperlinked riddles and strange little stories to each site.
This definitely works, and I’ve witnessed how much even this much really cranks people’s (not just kids) minds open…but I always want to go farther and deeper with things, so…I hesitate on the form, and in the meanwhile keep researching.
And you haven’t even gotten me started on the whole MythDeck thing yet, which manifests the Mythmap in a whole 'nother way. Talk about crazy!
I hope this helps - once again, I think of a map first, then placenames, then stories/riddles/layers. And then I think crap I don’t want to put it online at all. But I don’t know.If you haven’t yet, READ “Wisdom Sits in Places”, by noted anthropologist Keith Basso. It gives a lot of good ideas, from describing how one group of apaches (the cibecue? now i forget) use places and placenames (their myth map) in their culture, even to this day. I also can’t recommend Martin Prechtel’s books too much…on his website you can see that David Abram has recommended Prechtel’s books too…[wink wink]…
[Edit: I quote this not only because it excites me to see that I’ve finally come back to this idea in a more satisfying way, but also that I’ve finally addressed a lot of concerns and worries that bedeviled me! if only I knew about the indie story game thing then…thanks again jason!]
So, the Mythdeck thing I didn’t tell you involved having each card represent a place-story, a place-character, and that the places each go in their compass direction suit (East-diamonds, South-hearts, West-spades, North-clubs) according to where you’ve called the ‘center’ of your mythmap.
I finally see how I can use this understanding, by having each person use this as a structure to play with concepts of ‘place-story’.
Most importantly, I’ve learned that doing this must work ITERATIVELY. One must feel good throwing away early ideas of cards, playing and making ‘mistakes’ as necessary. One may never reach a ‘final’ iteration of the card, or the ‘one’ card that represents the 3 of clubs.
So, the deck makes room for 52 holy and beautiful places in any particular area which you explore with myth-mapping. You just fill up the deck. You could use this deck as an oracle for pilgrimages around your mythic map (where do I go today? draw a card!), and so on.
Lots and lots of possibilities.
I’ll stop now. For a little bit. 
Wow Willem, I never noticed that with cards before… so cool!
You could then, split the deck into 4 seasons… and then during the season your in, draw a card, once a week, from that season, and play that card that week, and each set could have a theme based on that season (locally), or the directions could work as well, and play them at random without dividing it up.
Wow thanks for that!
Yes, yes, yes!
But BEWARE…
…if you think about it too far, and too deeply, it will drive you INSANE! I have gone there. I know.
Just like the mathematician in "A Beautiful Mind’. And what did he specialize in…GAME THEORY!
AAAAAAAAAGH!
I delight in breaking the mind 
The circle with infinite radius
ahh there it goes
Sorry, didn’t mean to act like such a link-whore upthread; I read this thread before I read your article, and we’ve already seen what wonderful things come from cross-pollination. I also hope that might encourage people to try working on oracles for their own bioregions. It sounds like an incredibly useful exercise no matter what, but I imagine some people might not do it unless it could “be useful.” So, if the Fifth World can offer someone an excuse to do this, well then heck, what more could you ask of a game than it help someone come a little closer to their land? I’ll have a few oracles for the Anayok (I think I might change that name, though) that I’ll need Giuli’s help with, though I really want to write the stuff up on their western neighbors, the descendants of Toby’s People and our neighbors, the Alleghans.
But seriously, yinz, as much of a happy buzz as I’ve got off the very existence of this thread, it doesn’t mean too much until you start implementing it. What stories did native people tell in your bioregion? What stories do you and your neighbors act out now? Take a long, close look at that, and I’ll bet you’ll start to hear a common theme, even when you swap out the whole choir. That happens because the land sings through you, and it keeps singing the same melody. Get a feel for that melody, find some of the symbolism of a card deck, and start making up some oracles! It will help you understand your bioregion–and if you need an excuse, tell yourself you need it for The Fifth World. Because hey, you’ll need it for that, too.
This thread is so, so cool. So many ideas. I really like the possibility of the deck of cards as a calender, there are so many different ways you could go with it, so many different symbols, so layered. It is so neat the way that everything ties together, back and forth, back and forth, time and space, myth and place.
Crossing the ideas of oracle and calender, you could look at having not only a myth map but also kind of myth calender for your region. A lot of cultures have myths centered around the changing of the seasons and the activities that take place at different times in the year. It also ties in nicely to the idea of bio-regional moons that rix is talking about (I don’t know how to use the tags so http://wilderix.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/full-moon-names-rewilding-your-calendar/).
Hmmm… so many ideas, so many places to go from here.
I was also considering the idea of oracle not focused strictly around re-wilding but looking at the broader possible ways people will survive the future. There are so many different things that could happen and I think it might be interesting to explore how they could work out and interact.
One final question. I know it isn’t strictly relevant to this post, but of all the story games that people have played, do you think that In a Wicked Age is the best one to start people off with?
No way dude! Link-whore away! I want to make sure folks keep up with this, and I know not everybody knows all the places in which we’ve written about it. No worries at all.
I also hope that might encourage people to try working on oracles for their own bioregions.
Right! In fact, I think (I hate to say it) that this thread has started to veer off topic, but in an equally fascinating direction. Let’s save Mythdeck musings for a new thread, which I’ll create now, and use this thread just for oracle offerings.
[EDIT: Oops, I mean the exact opposite. I’ve created a new thread just for Oracle Offerings, and let’s use this for talking about Mythdeck possibilities!]
FOLKS! I can’t tell you enough how easily you can make oracle elements. Watch! I now will pick up a book sitting right next to me, that I really like. Hm. ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’. Okay. Paging through it…okay, now I remember the story. My new Oracle element:
A good-hearted young wizard, destined one day for great magic, but for now unable to escape the horror and dread of his own pursuing shadow…
Easy, dudes! And as you mention Jason, books of local folklore provide some of the coolest stuff, but don’t worry too much - pick what you already love. It already sings to you, you know? If you want to plunder the Lord of the Rings nobody will stop you. That whole story couldn’t easily have happened in the Pacific Northwest, too. Western coast, eastern mountains, Desert to the southeast…hrm…Anyway, go for it!
But seriously, yinz, as much of a happy buzz as I've got off the very [i]existence[/i] of this thread, it doesn't mean too much until you start implementing it. What stories did native people tell in your bioregion? What stories do you and your neighbors act out now?
YES! And mix it in with stories from your favorite books, that make your heart sing.
hee hee. i feel like somebody let all the monkey’s out of the zoo and they ran right to my house and threw me a birthday party.
Crossing the ideas of oracle and calender, you could look at having not only a myth map but also kind of myth calender for your region. A lot of cultures have myths centered around the changing of the seasons and the activities that take place at different times in the year. It also ties in nicely to the idea of bio-regional moons that rix is talking about (I don't know how to use the tags so http://wilderix.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/full-moon-names-rewilding-your-calendar/).
I love it! Go for it!
I was also considering the idea of oracle not focused strictly around re-wilding but looking at the broader possible ways people will survive the future. There are so many different things that could happen and I think it might be interesting to explore how they could work out and interact.
Listen, if it makes your heart sing, I don’t think you have a choice. Do it! Do it! Add 'em to the oracle thread I’ll start right now, as soon as I finished writing this.
One final question. I know it isn't strictly relevant to this post, but of all the story games that people have played, do you think that In a Wicked Age is the best one to start people off with?
You know, I do recommend it. The rules feel really simple. It costs a lousy 10 bucks or so to get the electronic .pdf. Yep. Go for it! If you have one of those old school folders with the three metal clips you can do a three-hole punch after printing it out and it works out great. you also have as many copies of the game as you want to print. Also, if you want any advice learning/playing the game, don’t hesitate to ask.
I also would recommend Primtime Adventures, but I’ll write more on that later. Start with In A Wicked Age.
Now to split this thread!
[/quote]
Now you all understand the bizarre diagram of the Mythdeck-to-come that my friend Big Tony and I made two years ago. I think the dry erase markers have etched themselves into the white-board at this point. Future archaeologists will marvel at it. 
Crossing the ideas of oracle and calender, you could look at having not only a myth map but also kind of myth calender for your region.
Firstly, welcome to REWILD.info, Matt! I haven’t seen you around here before–and since it says you’ve got two posts here, I guess that makes sense!
Secondly, have you ever experienced a time without a place? Or a place without a time? One of the points David Abram makes in Spell of the Sensuous speaks to the notion that modern physics with its notion of four-dimensional space has only now come around to what we phenomenologically experienced all along, what most human cultures take for granted, and what only we ever lost along the way with our abstractions of things like featureless Cartesian space: that you simply cannot separate space and time. Particularly with nomadic people who move in great seasonal cycles, the different seasonal camps don’t just exist as locations in three-dimensional Cartesian space, they also mean a time of the annual cycle when they inhabit those camps. The place (as opposed to the location) exists as a kind of sediment of story laid down by all the stories lived there. So at the winter camp, all the stories take place in winter, all move around the challenges and features of winter. That place really only exists in winter. In the spring, it becomes a very different place.
So I agree! The myth map and the oracle already cross time and space, because really, we never managed to separate them in the first place.
I was also considering the idea of oracle not focused strictly around re-wilding but looking at the broader possible ways people will survive the future. There are so many different things that could happen and I think it might be interesting to explore how they could work out and interact.
What do you imagine would fall under the heading of “possible ways people will survive the future,” but not under rewilding? I may mean something broader by “rewilding” than you do.
One final question. I know it isn't strictly relevant to this post, but of all the story games that people have played, do you think that In a Wicked Age is the best one to start people off with?
Well, first you have to ask, where do people start from? The regular In a Wicked Age game has a very “sword & sorcery” feel, so if you’ve got people who play traditional roleplaying games, it might offer a really good place to start. Then again, you might also use Burning Wheel to introduce narrative mechanics a little more gradually.
If you mean people who’ve never played an RPG before (a.k.a., normal people), maybe not. Primetime Adventures might offer a better starting point for people who really like TV or movies. If you want to introduce your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/sweetheart/crush/other-person-you-desire-romantic-or-sexual-liasons-with, you might want to take a look at Breaking the Ice.
If, sight unseen, you asked me to run something to introduce a group of people to story games, and you wouldn’t tell me anything about them, though, I’d probably pick Primetime Adventures, myself.
Listen, if it makes your heart sing, I don't think you have a choice. Do it! Do it! Add 'em to the oracle thread I'll start right now, as soon as I finished writing this.
YES!
If, sight unseen, you asked me to run something to introduce a group of people to story games, and you wouldn't tell me anything about them, though, I'd probably pick Primetime Adventures, myself.
Also, keep in mind that In A Wicked Age creates an anthology of stories (a series of stories somewhat connected but with a rotating cast of main characters). So I see it as good for creating the feel of ‘folklore’. I’ve also discovered how Vincent Baker planned to ‘hack it’ (besides just rewriting the oracle) to work for other genres [edit: besides sword and sorcery] (detective stories, romance, etc.), which i can talk about more another time.
Primetime Adventures creates a serial narrative, much like the old radio shows (The Lone Ranger, Little Orphan Annie, Boston Blackie, etc.) and modern serial TV shows (Alias, LOST, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, The Sopranos), and perhaps series of Novels or Epic cycles too (the Odyssey, Beowulf, Lord of the Rings). It doesn’t create ‘episodic’ narratives, those TV shows and stories that you can watch in any episodic order (like Law and Order, MASH, etc.). I would ‘hack’ Primetime Adventures to make it less TV-focused, but otherwise I agree that it makes a great introductory game.
I find this part fascinating, because by choosing (or hacking) the right game, you can create different types of stories. Episodic, serial, anthology. Jason, you mentioned Burning Wheel, which I suspect would create something more like a series of Novels, or the old Epic cycles, about the same main characters.
If you want to introduce your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/sweetheart/crush/other-person-you-desire-romantic-or-sexual-liasons-with, you might want to take a look at Breaking the Ice.
Have you played this? Do tell!
Also, I have totally hijacked this thread. If this converations keeps going this direction, I’ll just split it off into yet another thread on story! woo hoo!
I haven’t really had much of a chance to play any of these. My group thought that Savage Worlds stretched things too far! But I will say, since that group basically imploded, I do think that Giuli & I will try some Breaking the Ice. She loves romantic comedies, so that ought to work.
And yes, you could use In a Wicked Age for other genres, which you did. In fact, Dogs in the Vineyard works with other settings, but I also agree that system matters, so I try not to stray too far from the intended genre, usually.
Jason, Willem, thanks for the welcome, I’ve been hanging around here for a while but this thread really made me want to talk.
Willem, i am about half-way through the oracle, should be able to get it up by late today.
Jason, i don’t know what you’re definition of re-wilding is, but i definently think that, in the (relatively) near future at least, there is some possibility of permaculture cities, based on efficient tech, with storehouses of some small amount of oil or turn of the century type stuff, various small agriculture fuedal empires, small agricultural towns, something like the mid eighteenenth century england, and many more options, all of which fall outside my definition of re-wilding. I think that it would be interesting to create an oracle to explore how these would interact with on-another and with more re-wilded humans.
No, I wouldn’t call that rewilding, either, and this would go a bit far afield so if you’d like to discuss it further, you can start a new thread, or you can comment on my last big blog post about it, but mostly, I think this makes for something crucial to think over for yourself, if nothing else: since we know that permaculture can’t scale up to feed a city, or really any community much more than a few hundred, where will the food come from?
As far as an oracle, though, like Willem said, go with the stories that you hear, and if you hear that story, go with it.
Yeah, I’ll continue with the oracle, and though it may be more theoretical than practical or plaussible, there is always some degree, usually a lot, of theory involved in predicting or postulating on the future.
I would like to continue this discussion about the practical side though, so I’ll move to the land thread. I’ll re-read that thesis first though.
I think generating the oracles almost constitutes a game in itself!
Better yet, trading oracles with other people!
Reading the oracles for our storyjam got me so revved up I started writing my own right away, sourced from my own waking dream-anteroom full of the surreal undigested crumbs of daily life that constantly litter the floor right at my feet, just to get the feel of it. (Maybe I’ll post it.) And holy cow, the story-bits that felt so stuck while playing (yes, you can call me the reluctant story-gamer, I feel a strange mix of pleasure and pain playing, but I can’t stop! ;)) just started flowing out onto the paper!
Anyway, the process of writing that helped me see my life’s daily story as, whoa, story. Then somehow I started shapeshifting my “real” story into more of a “jam” story–or even a “dream” story. Events that day had thrown me seriously off balance, like “fer chrissakes, why don’t I just jump off a bridge?” off balance. But once the elements took on their new shape as trees, rotting roots, robots, dancing demons, and a torrential rain of tears–re-telling my own story to myself– I could get a grip on my tale in a way I couldn’t in the guise of your everyday, pedestrian gutwrenching drama, and pull myself back together.
So if simply trading out my personal story elements for “another oracle” rocked so hard, maybe my crazy life-story elements could swap out and transform someone else’s life story in the same way. . . by just handing off a “pile of cards”. . . fucking awesome! pokemon therapy for folks-who-rewild!
AND, all this interaction with story starts to blur the line with dreaming. . . I can already feel the fence between dream-time and not getting all melty. Huh. Can story change us that much?
Woah I like it, at first I thought ‘how does one go about coming up with these oracles’ and now, I see I should just recall past events, or tales told to me.
Ex: my brother witnessed a riot, some thugs beating on two helpless people, a multitude of people around, no one doing anything…
my little brother caught with stolen goods…
to personal relationships, the desire of one conflicting with the fear of another…
maybe throw the environment and scenery around…
Know what makes this all really hit with me, not yet even playing, just starting to see all the stories around me
Could story playing have a sort of therapeutic ability, to bring in problems and conflicts at hand, and play around with them?
Yes of course, story allows you to interact with personal issues in a safe even fun environment as well as sharing these issues with people that are close to you. Playing around with these issues seeing them from different angles, different perspectives allows you to come to grip with them and to better understand yourself and your own position.
You can find a rather academic article on RPG’s and therapy here http://www.rpgstudies.net/hughes/therapy_is_fantasy.html
BTW, I love how these story-threads are spiralling down, it seems we all have plenty of stories we want to give shape to. That’s so cool. I go to sleep, wake up and have all this cool stuff to read here!