A Descent Into The World Below

What if I told you there was a world before this one you know, a world ever dark and cold, where cold water drip-drip-drips down into lightless depths. . . A world usurped by this one, full of sunlight and the wind tousling the grasses, and resentful of losing its place. A world that sends its inhabitants squirming up out of the depths, throngs twisted by their hatred of us living above, all waiting just on the far side of our cellars and between our walls for their moment to strike. . .

Recently, I heard of a gaming supplement called The Veins of the Earth, which sounded like a re-imagining of the now-tired idea of The Underdark (I’d offer my apologies to R. A. Salvatore, but I never got around to reading his books detailing Menzoberranzan and drow culture). Veins of the Earth does what many works do when they are attempting to revitalize an idea: it goes back to some of the original sources that inspired Gary Gygax himself to rebuild from the foundations. Apart from an evocative title, the purpose of the gaming supplement is to return to some of the original metaphors. D&D dungeons are supposed to be both a symbolic and literal piercing of a membrane and a descent into a hostile Otherworld.

“Stone is time made sensible to touch.“

Patrick Stuart, The Veins of the Earth

Talking D&D in a Crap Books episode, someone shared a review of The Shadow People by Margaret St. Clair (referenced in the 1^st Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide Appendix N). The premise immediately appealed to me, and I was able to find a copy for sale on eBay (sadly, this is one of St. Clair’s titles that isn’t available as an ebook in the US). When it arrived, the opening paragraphs drew me into a world thrumming with a certain paranoia. It brings to mind the vague unease of standing at the threshold of a dark abyss, knowing you must take the plunge.

“They dwell in a strange world, one of roaring waters, bitter cold, ice-coated rocks and fox fires glowing in the dark.”

Margaret St. Clair, The Shadow People

I recognized it as the old fear of the dark, of silence, an echo of the symbolic crossing the threshold and following the twisting path down into the darkness under the Earth. I recognized it when I first played Zork I, and figured out the first big puzzle. My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I understood the challenge presented by the trapdoor in the floor. I had to choose to open the trapdoor and climb down into dark (and hope that I had thought to TAKE LAMP to avoid all those Grues waiting to devour me in the lightless places).

For they were lords and ladies, once, ruling over their dim and mist-haunted. Unchallenged, able to walk tall in their deep and shadowed halls–until the hateful light came to cleave their realm in two.

In the The Shadow People, the protagonist makes his way underground via a series of basements and sub-basements following the apparent path his girlfriend’s captors have taken. After hours of moving across the city of Berkley, he crosses an underground river that serves as the barrier between the upper world and the one below. Written in 1969, St. Clair is likely using the Campbellian tool of “crossing the threshold” to signal the hero’s descent. An old-fashioned tool by today’s standards, but hammers are old-fashioned and are still quite effective at what they do. However, not long afterwards, this symbolic barrier is subverted as the hero’s background is revealed, and we learn this is not a simple story of the brave hero rescuing his maiden fair.

In the Hero’s Journey, when the hero enters the cthonic depths, it is usually to confront their Shadow. Itself a reified metaphor, the Shadow is often externalized as a monster that is a part of the hero they need to exorcise or confront in order to learn something about themselves. However, journeys into an under- or otherworld aren’t only found in the realm of fantasy. In his guest appearance on the Sleazoids podcast, Blood Knife’s own Kurt Schiller talks about how the world of The Grid in TRON (1982) is an updating of this older concept. Flynn crosses into the digital world and as a result, is thrust into an adventure to recover evidence of what his value is (literally, since it’s proof he developed a central part of his former employer’s software).

In my estimation, though, cyberspace being an extension of humanity’s dominion means that it is not as hostile an environment as its mythic counterpart. Where the otherworlds of fantasy are often dangerous and primal, cyberspace tends to reflect the ethos of the commune culture that predates Silicon Valley. At worst, the virtual world is a playground, where people can indulge themselves, or a place where they can escape “meat space” and be their true self. While Neuromancer introduced ICE (or Intrusion Counter Electronics), as a sometimes lethal danger (Black ICE), it wasn’t a peril of cyberspace as a whole, only one that is triggered by trying to pierce the virtual perimeters of a giant corporate entity. After all, trying to hack into a corporate node in cyberspace is a bit like trying to sneak into a dragon’s lair.

Which leads me to what I discussed in the third episode of Crap Books–specifically, the game setting’s need to have a tech analogue to its fantasy counterpart. In Shadowrun, dragons exist and they are very much as powerful, secretive and as loathe to lose any treasure as any corporation. It’s a great comparison, though by needing to approach the storytelling parameters the way you’d balance an equation (or gameplay), the more mythic framework is flattened, somewhat tamed.

And truth is, I don’t want a tame dragon.