In the Middle Ages, the wealthy were known to sponsor holy pilgrims. Like modern millionaires funding a NASCAR team, the sponsors would share in the reflected glory of the pilgrimage. Of course, as in all matters of salvation and piety, there were also deeper spiritual entanglements to consider in such things: Acting in their name and as their agents, the pilgrims would receive blessing not only for themselves but for the lords and ladies in whose name they journeyed.

Historically speaking, the sponsoring of pilgrimages were partly a matter of holy duty (like any other form of tithing) and partly a matter of expediency (for those too busy to make the journey for themselves). In a fantasy setting, however, it would be fairly easy to imagine a third parameter: Danger.

Enter the adventurers.

Imagine, for example, an ancient holy site which is now located in the upper lairs of the Bloodreaver Dragons. Or in the Lava Caverns of the Myrmarch. Or lost in the eddies of the Astral Sea.

And in a world where the gods are active (and perhaps even malevolent) forces, the stakes for successfully performing such pilgrimages might be incredibly high. Thus those who have proven that they can make the greatest dangers into their play-things could easily find great profit in performing such journeys.

A sponsored pilgrimage could be a fun, exploratory travelogue (an appropriate sub-structure for any hexcrawl); it could be tied into a larger scenario (“we need guidance from the Forgotten God of the Purple Seas, and you must journey to his Broken Temple lost among the Steppes of the Black Wight”); or it could be the seed for even larger adventures (“we went to Thor’s shrine for you, but now we all seem to be having visions of Ragnarok”).

Found a great word the other day: Scurrier.

It’s an old term referring to “one sent out to reconnoiter or scout”. It originally seems to have applied specifically to military scouts (who would be sent out to “scour” the countryside), but in the 16th century it seems to have migrated into more domestic concerns as a sort of “special agent” before abruptly disappearing from the language.

I just love the archaic tang of it. It makes it sound like the perfect job for a group of PCs: Whether exploring a vast wilderness; investigating extraordinary crimes; acting as agents in a foreign land; or any number of other activities.

It could also be readily applied to any number of modern milieus as well: Scurriers of the Knight Templars emerging from the hidden sanctuaries to pursue the Order’s agendas in the 21st century. Or perhaps agents of an ancient order which has charged itself with scourging the planet of the vampiric plague.

What about applying it as a bit of cyberpunk slang referring to the ‘runners who scout out the digital frontiers?

Once you start looking, it seems like there’s no place you won’t find scurriers scurrying.

Last year, after writing Node-Based Scenario Design, I received several e-mails from people interested in how node-based scenario design could be translated into a published product. This was an extended pitch I put together for a publisher who then, regrettably, disappeared off the face of the planet and stopped responding to my e-mails. I don’t think I’m going to be doing anything with it, so I thought y’all might find it interesting and/or useful.

The basic concept was a “ripped from the headlines” spy campaign in the vein of James Bond. This proposal doesn’t focus on the detailed node interactions, but instead looks at the “layer cake” structure of the whole campaign.

THE TALIBAN PROXY

START: The PCs are part of a task force investigating increased gang violence in a major American city. (I’m leaning towards San Francisco. But a gunfight in the Seattle Space Needle also sounds like a nice set piece.)

FIRST ESCALATION: They discover that they’re actually investigating a proxy gang war, like the ones fought between Pakistan’s ISI and Indian CBI in the streets of Bombay. In this case, the gangs are being supported by the Al-Shibh terrorist organization and the CIA. (Al-Shibh is derived from the Arabic word شبح, meaning literally “the ghost”.)

SECOND ESCALATION: There may be a bit of a thematic cul-de-sac involving the illegal CIA operation (with a wider consideration of fighting symptoms instead of causes), but the overall thrust is discovering Al-Shibh’s connection to a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. This investigation, backdropped by the ongoing war, lead the operatives to a massive Taliban operation hidden within previously undiscovered mammoth caves. (I’d like to tie the discovery of these caves into the “ripped from the headlines” element of the massive mineral wealth recently discovered by a geologic survey in the country. At least part of the structure can take the form of “cockroach tracking” — blowing a base and then tracking the survivors to the next base.)

THIRD ESCALATION: Breaching the Taliban complex, however, reveals that the Taliban isn’t the ultimate source of the money used to fund the proxy war. The Taliban itself was being used as a proxy. These leads take them to the blistering heat of Dubai where they have to unravel their way through the emirate’s massive money-laundering industry. Crazed architecture and mind-searing opulence provide the backdrop for an investigation harried by ever more active opposition.

FOURTH ESCALATION: The leads in Dubai take the investigators into the heart of the Biggest Bank Heist of All Time — the looting of $1 billion from the Central Bank of Iraq in March 2003. (The Central Bank was recently attacked again. This could be fodder for a “trying to destroy the evidence” sequence.)

BIG CONCLUSION: All the evidence now points to Qusay Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein who was responsible for robbing the Central Bank of Iraq. Qusay, now in disguise, is apparently running the small Eastern European country of Nistrulia (which will be based on the real-life mafia state of Transnistria). But that’s not possible… Qusay was killed by American soldiers in July 2003. Or was he?

In any case, the PCs are now forced to fight the leader of a sovereign nation on his own turf — pitting their infiltration skills against a highly sophisticated police state.

In the beginning there was the Word.

And the Word had Power.

Many laypersons believe that arcane sigils are a language which describe power. But true wizards know that the symbols are the power. Wizards know full well the dangers of unleashing such runes in the open tablets of their minds, but they also know the great advantage of it and are willing to wrestle with the words for possession of their own sanity.

This is the great art of the scroll-writers: To trap primeval energy, ethereal spirits, and astral constructs in the ancient bonds of ink and parchment. If one were to carelessly copy such writings — to treat them like any scribbling to be trivially transcribed — one would be fortunate to merely waste their time. Far worse would be to mimic rites without perfecting them; to attract spirits without binding them.

Photo by Henrik Sendelbach.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of “decompressed storytelling” in comic books, here’s the short version: It’s a combination of reducing the number of words per panel, increasing the number of panels per moment, and (consequently) stretching a given amount of plot over a larger number of pages/issues. Its proponents describe it as “cinematic” and highlight the ability to savor particular moments and tweak comedic timing. Its detractors say that it’s just a way for writers to stretch out their plots and milk ’em for all they’re worth (to the point of not making them worth much of anything).

My personal opinion has generally been of the, “If it’s done well, it’s great. If it’s done poorly, it’s crap. Just like everything else.” school.

But what I’ve recently realized is that this trend toward decompressed storytelling at the micro-level in comic books has been accompanied by a trend towards drastic compression of storytelling at the macro-level of mainstream superhero comics.

What I mean is the pace at which HUGE and DRAMATIC changes are brought down the pipeline. You can see this most dramatically in the milieu-shattering crossover events which are now essentially annual events at Marvel and DC, but you can find plenty of examples in individual titles, too. For example, when Geoff Johns rebooted the Green Lantern Corps he created a scenario which could have comfortably been used to tell dozens or hundreds of stories. Instead they told roughly 6 before launching into the next sequence of WE’RE CHANGING EVERYTHING.

The combination of (a) taking more time to tell a story while (b) having less time to tell a story is, in my opinion, increasingly disastrous.

Where this is perhaps most deeply felt is the relationship between characters. Bruce Wayne starts dating Jezebel Jet and the relationship is supposed to be completely changing his life before it turns out that she’s secretly betraying him… but since she appears in maybe a hundred panels between the time she’s introduced and the time she’s revealed to be a traitor, it’s really hard to take any of it seriously. Hal Jordan is in a new relationship with a lady call-signed Cowgirl, but there’s a publishing deadline so there’s no time to actually show us that relationship. Dick Grayson and Damien are supposed to be forging a deep and meaningful bond in their new working relationship as Batman and Robin… but the status quo necessary for us to invest into that relationship never actually exists.

“Status quo.” A potentially deadly phrase. Am I saying I just want comics to enter into a form of stasis? Not at all. I want to see Bruce Wayne fall for Jezebel Jet. I want to see Hal Jordan try to rediscover what it means to be human with Jillian “Cowgirl” Pearlman. I want to watch the comradeship between Dick Grayson and Damien grow into a rich and rewarding partnership.

But that’s not what I’m getting right now. What I’m getting right now is a sort of “highlight reel” of the actual story, followed abruptly by SOMETHING EPIC that CHANGES EVERYTHING.

The shallowness of what I’m experiencing in these (de)compressed books can be contrasted to three other recent comic-reading experiences I’ve had:

First, looking back at 52 I think one of the reasons I really enjoyed it was that the main characters seemed to get more time to just naturally reveal themselves over the course of the series than characters limited to monthly books do. Effectively, it was as if I was reading a comic from an alternate reality where the DC Universe had gone unplagued by a THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING event for more than four years. (Since the DC Universe has effectively been in a perpetual state of THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING for the better part of a decade, the contrast is huge.)

Second, I’ve been reading Walter Simonson’s mid-1980’s run on Thor. I’ve actually only gotten about six issues into it, but this is back in the “compressed” era of comic book storytelling and more shit can happen in 3 panels of this book than in entire issues of “decompressed” stories. The book is not entirely immune from character developments lacking justification (Sif falls for Beta Ray Bill without much in the way of narrative support to back it up), but I do note that the faster pace of events allows certain storytelling beats to be achieved effectively with fewer issues. (For example, Odin’s curse-gift to Beta Ray Bill comes after only knowing the character for a few issues… but you’ve spent so much narrative space with him that you’ve really come to know the character well and the curse-gift resonates beautifully as a result.)

Third, Paul Tobin’s work on Spider-Man Adventures as collected in Thwip!, Peter Parker vs. the X-Men, Amazing, and Sensational. These stories conveniently exist in the “Tobin-verse” and are completely separate from mainstream Marvel continuity… which means they’re immune to the macro-compression of the mega-events. Although Tobin uses a more relaxed, decompressed pacing within each issue he’s never forced to wrap things up in time for the next corporate-enforced game-changer. The result is that characters are given the room to breathe and develop; relationships become invested with the sorts of detailed storytelling that make them come alive; and the whole series is simply a delight. They’re also the best Spider-Man stories I’ve read in years.

So what I’m saying here is not “decompression is bad”. I’m not even saying that massive continuity shifts and cross-title mega-events are bad. But I am saying that the two of them together — the (de)compressed pace of modern superhero comics — does not seem to be a healthy combination.