From: Klyfix@aol.com
Date: Sat 09 Aug 1997 - 13:57:20 EEST
Two views of ducks....
1. Ducks are comical creatures that exist as Comic Relief. The model to
follow is Disney's Donald Duck; blustery and hard to understand. Silly stuff
should happen to them and because of them.
2. Ducks should be taken seriously and have more of a real culture to
them, and are legitimate player characters.
I'm not terribly fond of the first view; heck, as I was reminded when
I'm inspired by Sergio's suggestion of Eurmal the Duck Friend, however.
Here the model is Daffy Duck, as portrayed in older Warner cartoons.
watching part of the "Darkwing Duck" cartoon that most Disney Ducks speak
prefectly normally. But I do think that ducks living among humans and
adopting human culture _will_ tend to be objects of ridicule, placed on the
defensive and probably reacting a bit like Donald. It'll be a rare and
exceptional duck who really is respected by humans or anybody else.
I'd suggest that among the Durulz tricksters have a higher place in society
than among their Orlanthi neighbors; they aren't outcasts as such. The
function is a bit like what Mark Sabulaskas suggested a few Digests back with
his Trickster "accidentally" dispatching a Riddler when no one else in the
tribe could; protecting the ducks from hostile outsiders.
Our duck trickster harasses and insults and even attacks (in a bizarre
fashion) those who would harm the durulz. I'd propose that the duck trickster
is in a subcult of Eurmal; the duck trickster would never harm another duck
(except maybe an outcast) but it's open season on anybody who might mess with
the tribe.
Often the only ducks an outsider might see is a Trickster, and from
this they determine that all ducks are a joke. But they may well find out
otherwise; I don't think that ducks follow Humakt as a suicide cult.
(Confession: While I did read the Gold Key Duck comics as a kid, I always
found Daffy to be a whole lot funnier than Donald.)
V.S. Greene : klyfix@aol.com : Boston, near Arkham...
------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 13 Jun 2003 - 20:42:20 EEST