Notes on Nobilis and setting incoherence
Jun. 30th, 2017 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
p_h_leeSo I've been running Nobilis. (Specifically, 2nd edition, the big white book which I bought in 2002 and utterly blew my mind, because it is the edition that I am familiar with, with some tweaks re: Miracle Point regeneration and Realm.)
In my usual style, I had the players come up with their estates before we came up with our Imperator, because I've found that when you come up with the Imperator first everyone's estates fit perfectly in theme and you don't get the lovely contradictions and off-kilter associations which make Nobilis interesting.
So, sitting down to the character session, we had the following estates:
Artificial Light
Loving-Kindness ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving-kindness )
Mending
"Something like memory or reversals or something"
Atrocities or maybe disasters or maybe fossils or maybe extinction
It seemed fairly obvious to me that this set of Powers was going to have a Light or maybe Angelic Imperator (Diabolic could also be possible, but I'd given a soft "I'd rather not" in the early discussions.)
But when we sat down, we were discussing the various Imperator types, and a lot of people were interested in True Gods*. Specifically, I got into a discussion about not really wanting to portray a God that anyone worships in the modern day, and then mentioned off hand the possibility of playing a God from a pantheon who was no longer remember.
(* There were also several people interested in an Aaron's Serpent but they were all the quiet people, so that didn't happen.)
"Like what?"
"Like Ninshubar," I said.
Ninshubar is a captive goddess. She was taken captive by the Sumerians, from some now-forgotten people who lived to the east of them, and was made a slave to the primary Sumerian goddess, Inanna. She is a feature of Inanna stories, where she is Inanna's advisor, bodyguard, servant, and slave. She is called "you who were Queen in the East" but there is no record of the pantheon that she was once a part of, or the people who once revered her.
"Cool," the players said, "let's do that."
"Great, so, what sort of God are we talking here?" I responded
"No, I mean, let's be Ninshubar's powers."
Oh. Well that's quite a thing. There's a ton of implications there. Inanna must also exist. Inanna's powers carry a necessary authority over our powers. If the rest of the Sumerian pantheon isn't Imperators, why not? Since Nobilis is specifically Abrahamic in cosmology, what does it mean that we're from a cosmology that pre-dates Abraham considerably?
So we ended up with:
NINSHUBAR: Sukkal of INANNA, she who was Queen in the East, now a slave in the Temple of Uruk. With her Nobles:
Alex Wong, power of Artificial Light: A lighting technology CEO.
Metta, power of Loving-Kindness: An elemental of the emotion of Loving-Kindness, who can live inside anyone who is currently experiencing that emotion.
Stephanie Boryevna Ivanova, power of Mending: A folklorist and seamstress.
Zara, power of Reversals: A very, very old power, who has extended her life by reversing her own aging. Was probably related to the sacrifice that created Ninshubar's Chancel and created her as an Imperator.
Abraham, power of Disasters: A victim of the great San Francisco earthquake, an amoral con-man and huckster who has almost been angry at his role as a servant.
And, as NPCS:
INANNA, Goddess of Uruk, the Morning Star, the Evening Star, Keeper of the Holy Me, Queen of Heaven and Earth. With her Nobles: Currency, Prostitution, Cities, Rebirth, Marriage. (And also, by a particular divine right, a Noble Without Portfolio.)
One of the things that I love about Nobilis is that everything you decide has so many implications. For instance, the existence of a Power of Artificial Light implies the existence of a Power of Natural Light. Or, in this case, a Power of Light, whose was maimed in the creation of the estate of Artificial Light:
* Nihyr, the power of Light. She exists eternally from the beginning to the end of time. Half of her body is missing, supported by some amorphous radiation. She normally keeps this covered -- gazing directly on it is dangerous even for an Imperator. She is largely considered cold and unfeeling, although you may have seen a different side of her lately.
Likewise, the existence of INANNA implies the existence of the holy Me, the precepts of Sumarian civilization that she stole from her uncle Enki on behalf of humanity and, more specifically, on behalf of Uruk. If there is a Noble of War (and there is), what does it mean that INANNA has the Me of War? What's the relationship there?
(Our first plot involved the theft of two of the Me, but we still haven't entirely answered what the distinction is.)
If NINSHUBAR and INANNA were something else before they were Imperators (and they were), what were they? If NINSHUBAR had a pantheon with her, what has become of them? If LUCIFER, as we are told in the Nobilis book, is the ruler of Hell and the Diabolic Imperators, then what about Erishkigal, Queen of the Dead, INANNA's sister and her murderer?
One of my favorite things about Nobilis is that the cosmology is baldly incoherent but, if you like, you can use that incoherency as an endless source of plot threads. To do this, you must resist the temptation to, as a GM, make the world all make sense. Rather, each time there is an incoherency, think "What do the people involved in this feel about it? What sorts of problems does it cause them?"
And then when your players ask "but how is there an estate of Guns and an estate of Weapons?" you can answer "well, the last time you heard of it, they were still fighting."
In my usual style, I had the players come up with their estates before we came up with our Imperator, because I've found that when you come up with the Imperator first everyone's estates fit perfectly in theme and you don't get the lovely contradictions and off-kilter associations which make Nobilis interesting.
So, sitting down to the character session, we had the following estates:
Artificial Light
Loving-Kindness ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving-kindness )
Mending
"Something like memory or reversals or something"
Atrocities or maybe disasters or maybe fossils or maybe extinction
It seemed fairly obvious to me that this set of Powers was going to have a Light or maybe Angelic Imperator (Diabolic could also be possible, but I'd given a soft "I'd rather not" in the early discussions.)
But when we sat down, we were discussing the various Imperator types, and a lot of people were interested in True Gods*. Specifically, I got into a discussion about not really wanting to portray a God that anyone worships in the modern day, and then mentioned off hand the possibility of playing a God from a pantheon who was no longer remember.
(* There were also several people interested in an Aaron's Serpent but they were all the quiet people, so that didn't happen.)
"Like what?"
"Like Ninshubar," I said.
Ninshubar is a captive goddess. She was taken captive by the Sumerians, from some now-forgotten people who lived to the east of them, and was made a slave to the primary Sumerian goddess, Inanna. She is a feature of Inanna stories, where she is Inanna's advisor, bodyguard, servant, and slave. She is called "you who were Queen in the East" but there is no record of the pantheon that she was once a part of, or the people who once revered her.
"Cool," the players said, "let's do that."
"Great, so, what sort of God are we talking here?" I responded
"No, I mean, let's be Ninshubar's powers."
Oh. Well that's quite a thing. There's a ton of implications there. Inanna must also exist. Inanna's powers carry a necessary authority over our powers. If the rest of the Sumerian pantheon isn't Imperators, why not? Since Nobilis is specifically Abrahamic in cosmology, what does it mean that we're from a cosmology that pre-dates Abraham considerably?
So we ended up with:
NINSHUBAR: Sukkal of INANNA, she who was Queen in the East, now a slave in the Temple of Uruk. With her Nobles:
Alex Wong, power of Artificial Light: A lighting technology CEO.
Metta, power of Loving-Kindness: An elemental of the emotion of Loving-Kindness, who can live inside anyone who is currently experiencing that emotion.
Stephanie Boryevna Ivanova, power of Mending: A folklorist and seamstress.
Zara, power of Reversals: A very, very old power, who has extended her life by reversing her own aging. Was probably related to the sacrifice that created Ninshubar's Chancel and created her as an Imperator.
Abraham, power of Disasters: A victim of the great San Francisco earthquake, an amoral con-man and huckster who has almost been angry at his role as a servant.
And, as NPCS:
INANNA, Goddess of Uruk, the Morning Star, the Evening Star, Keeper of the Holy Me, Queen of Heaven and Earth. With her Nobles: Currency, Prostitution, Cities, Rebirth, Marriage. (And also, by a particular divine right, a Noble Without Portfolio.)
One of the things that I love about Nobilis is that everything you decide has so many implications. For instance, the existence of a Power of Artificial Light implies the existence of a Power of Natural Light. Or, in this case, a Power of Light, whose was maimed in the creation of the estate of Artificial Light:
* Nihyr, the power of Light. She exists eternally from the beginning to the end of time. Half of her body is missing, supported by some amorphous radiation. She normally keeps this covered -- gazing directly on it is dangerous even for an Imperator. She is largely considered cold and unfeeling, although you may have seen a different side of her lately.
Likewise, the existence of INANNA implies the existence of the holy Me, the precepts of Sumarian civilization that she stole from her uncle Enki on behalf of humanity and, more specifically, on behalf of Uruk. If there is a Noble of War (and there is), what does it mean that INANNA has the Me of War? What's the relationship there?
(Our first plot involved the theft of two of the Me, but we still haven't entirely answered what the distinction is.)
If NINSHUBAR and INANNA were something else before they were Imperators (and they were), what were they? If NINSHUBAR had a pantheon with her, what has become of them? If LUCIFER, as we are told in the Nobilis book, is the ruler of Hell and the Diabolic Imperators, then what about Erishkigal, Queen of the Dead, INANNA's sister and her murderer?
One of my favorite things about Nobilis is that the cosmology is baldly incoherent but, if you like, you can use that incoherency as an endless source of plot threads. To do this, you must resist the temptation to, as a GM, make the world all make sense. Rather, each time there is an incoherency, think "What do the people involved in this feel about it? What sorts of problems does it cause them?"
And then when your players ask "but how is there an estate of Guns and an estate of Weapons?" you can answer "well, the last time you heard of it, they were still fighting."
