Bruce Sterling's preface to the William Gibson short story collection Burning Chrome made a lasting impression on me when I first read it as a thirteen-year old. For those not familiar with it, he - very briefly - sets out an agenda for what might be thought of as the '-punk' movement (as in 'cyberpunk', 'steampunk', and so on). Without saying so in so many words, he makes the case that the focus of literature of the '-punk' kind (what makes it 'punk') is its focus on the rebellious down-and-outs who live in wake of vast and irrevocable change. Such fiction is in other words predicated on there having been some big Revolution (technological, societal, economic, whatever) which has left certain sections of society dispossessed. And this body of fiction is interested in telling stories about these 'victims of the new' (Sterling's phrase) and how they make a life for themselves in the aftermath of a quasi-apocalyptic change.
Cyberpunk fiction obviously posits its quasi-apocalypse as the cybernetic/information revolution, and Gibson's stories - at least the Sprawl trilogy ones and his early short pieces - can very much be read in this way. But the concept of '-punk' has since become degraded into a shorthand descriptor of a vaguely 'edgy' or self-consciously 'cool' aesthetic (which I have absolutely zero patience for, or interest in). Hence steampunk fiction is not really about the rebellious victims of a rapid steam/industrial revolution; clockpunk fiction is not really about the rebellious victims of a rapid clockwork revolution; raypunk fiction is not really about the rebellious victims of a rapid scientific revolution predicated on the far-future visions of the 1920s and 30s, etc. These terms are just a way of referring to one's project as being in line with a certain mood or feel (generally because that is the only notable thing about it).
The '-punk' suffix therefore has outlived its usefulness and has to go. But there is something interesting, important, and useful about the way Sterling originally described things. Fiction about the 'victims of the new' - i.e., those dispossessed by rapid, quasi-apocalyptic upheaval - is inherently interesting, and I think those of us who feel ourselves to be on the edge of such an upheaval in our own time find such stories particularly apt.
D&D, on the face of it, does not have much of a relationship to the '-punk' aesthetic (though there have been some highly cringeworthy attempts to bridge the gap). But once the aesthetic connotations are jettisoned, there is actually something similar at work at least in the OSR conception of D&D as being fundamentally interested in rogues (or 'murderhobos' or whatever you wish to call them). D&D in this vein too is interested in rebellious down-and-outs starting small and trying to make a life for themselves; it just doesn't generally posit them doing so in the aftermath of revolutionary change.
Is there, then, space for doing so? Is there room for '-rogueing' D&D?
What about, for instance, 'abyssrogue', in which a fantasy world has been recently exposed to a demonic invasion? The demons suddenly rule; they have many 'native' allies who have done very well out of the changes wrought by their presence. But at the same time there are those whose lives have been thrown into permanent confusion and impoverishment; these 'abyssrogues' try to make the best of things regardless. Then there's the 'undeadrogue' setting (after the takeover by the lich-lords), the 'dragonrogue' setting (after the rise from slumber of the forgotten race of ancient dragon princes), the 'great-old-one-rogue' setting (self-explanatory, I think), the 'magicrogue' setting (after magic has returned to the world), and so on. In each the emphasis is on fundamental upheaval, and its aftermath - the 'victims of the new' and their roguelike efforts to survive and prosper.
Interestingly, seen in these terms, there is a precursor to this way of thinking, about which we are all very familiar: Shadowrun, with its sudden interjection of fantasy tropes (a fantastical quasi-apocalypse, if you will) into a cyberpunk future. Shadowrun is often thought of as basically a cyberpunk game, or a cyberpunl-fantasy mashup. I think in retrospect it might be better to think of it as proto-fantasyrogue.
So, what immediately jumped to mind for me, before I was through the third paragraph, in fact, was a quasi-historical medieval campaign setting in the aftermath of the single biggest event of the medieval period, the plague. You've just had four years of a self-evident divine curse that has killed half, maybe more, of the population, sparing neither prince nor prelate. The system has broken down: nobles fighting each other for the right to inherit the dead big shots and trying to put down rebelling serfs who are picking up their tools and just leaving. Fields left to the weeds. Abandoned abbeys and manor houses. So many dead bodies, whole packs of feral dogs that have lived their lives eating nothing else. They say the pope caught it and died in a day. They say the Jews did it, or witches. Maybe you were a peasant? But now you have no master, no ties to anything anymore. Maybe you were a knight? All your servants are dead, and the baron told you to go to hell when you went to him for food. A monk? You got out when the other brothers started dying, and might be you're the only one left. A Jew? Try to pass for a gentile before they catch you, and maybe you can make it to Poland, where some say it's safe. Now you're on the road with nothing but your wits and something sharp in your hand.
ReplyDeleteI've worked on a post-apocalyptic setting, set after the combination of a great famine, plague, and cooling climate (i.e., the crisis of the late middle ages over 5-10 years instead of 100) where players leave a stable -- if highly restrictive -- citystate to explore a depopulated countryside and ruins of a fallen empire. That is, rogues leaving a bureaucratic Venice, eventually shaping their own futures in the ruins of Constantinople -- along with those bold, greedy, and crazy enough to also go there.
DeleteI liked your examples of specific groups across the continent.
While we're talking of period apocalypses, you might consider this: https://weaver.skepti.ch/20211111.html?t=Empire_of_the_Deceased_Sun
DeleteNice ideas - I actually wrote a piece a few years back on The Revenant and Apocalypto, which are about something along similar lines (the plagues which devastated the New World): https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-revenant-and-post-apocalypse.html
Delete-rogue sounds interesting - but one would have to make it clear how definitive and established the victory of the (Undead, Dragons, &c) was, otherwise it turns into a resistance or war story. I'm not exactly put off by the notion of (say) a magical Guns of Navarone* or The Hunt for Red October BUT! with dragons - however, these are fairly different things to D&D.
ReplyDeleteMulling on this, my mind went to Glen Cook's Black Company. Mercenaries making the best of things in a world recently dominated by mage-tyrants.
'Magicrogue' sounds the most Vance-like, to me. Picture a pseudo-Medieval fantasy world where the magic comes back: the Kings and Princes flail in confusion, the Priests are shocked and exhilarated, a bunch of dusty scholars and alchemical con-men suddenly find themselves in possession of significant power, a Da Vinci-esque Renaissance Man suddenly finds himself out of a job.
*My browser wants to correct this to 'Nazarene', which would be rather different....
Yes, agreed on all of the above.
Delete'Abyssrogue' is already available. Courtney Campbell published the game Perdition several years ago. I was in the playtest group for it and I highly recommend it. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/188535/Perdition
ReplyDeleteI remember hearing about that but never got around to reading it - I will investigate.
DeleteI believe the default setting of DnD already posits some sort of catastrophe. Dungeons only make sense if one is either a comparatively young civilization living amid the ruins of the old one, or an old one living in the shadow of one's former glory.
ReplyDeleteFreebooters, rogues and champions alike will not be common in an era when everything is well organized and stable. The question is if the trajectory is upward or downward. Are you vultures picking over the scraps, or heroes trying to regain by sword & sorcery some of the secrets of the long-forgotten dead.
Yes, it's a good point and one I am sure somebody has made before in the comments on my blog (it may even have been you). I fully accept that concept of D&D and actually I find D&D settings thin and uninspiring if they don't have a very explicit background of ruin/decay/decadence.
DeleteI'd probably pin this as coming out of the Medieval world (and especially the dark ages) under the shadow of the almost completely lost Roman world (well, the church stayed intact). That and the odd autochthonous (in more ways than one) barrow mound or ruined castle of a more coeval time make for good dungeons, but that is a pretty cold take at this point. But the fall of Rome might work as a -punk setting.
DeleteAs an aside, your thoughts on the various -punks exactly mirror my own (in the comments section).
ReplyDeletehttps://princeofnothingblogs.wordpress.com/2019/10/19/review-cistern-of-the-three-eyed-dwarves-o5r-thunderstruck/
Unlike Cyperpunk, which had potential, steampunk has no defining literature (besides arguably the Difference Engine), becoming the purview of quirky teenagers writing love triangles.
Yes.
DeleteDark Sun tried ...
ReplyDeleteIt did - forgot about that. I think Spelljammer (the original one) kind of qualifies as well. So possibly too does Planescape.
DeleteI think the beauty of affixing the word "punk" to word XYZ is precisely that, no longer possessed any meaning whatsoever, it emphasizes the "ideology" of the pair word. Employing yon random word generator, I get "agreement" and that being a bit bulky, I declare:
ReplyDeleteHarmonypunk
What is it? Who knows! Blue Rose or something. But you can imagine something if you put in 15 minutes and cup of coffee.
basically "punk" used in this way means "ism" - "taking side with" or "in imitation of" And sure, the 1,001 Arabian "isms" in philosophy and art are preposterous, but a bit of gilt never hurt anyone yet
(also the "P" plays well with both vowels and consonants)
"rogue" I think is a problematic word because "rogue-like" is already a d&d adjacent concept in video games (procedural generated dungeons, grid-based movement, permadeath). Also "R" itself is a downright temperamental engine and takes a long darn time to get rolling.
Harmony Rogue, on the other hand, sounds like TWERPS Space Cadets character I should roll up. Done. Str - 5
That's an interesting interpretation of the -punk thing. I know what you mean about rogue-like. Everything ends up sounding like a *band variant.
DeleteBecause I can't help myself, I have peered into the unblinking eye of the thesaurus, and I would like to humbly put forward the suffix S.O.B. for this kind of "down-and-outs displaced by an adjective" er... "all-encompassing eschaton"
ReplyDeleteSo you get
SteamS.O.B., ClockS.O.B., RayS.O.B.
and the pièce de résistance, AbysS.O.B. (4 syllables please)
And, of course, there must be Arts & CraftS.O.B.
DeleteHa.
DeleteCome to think of it, maybe the original meaning of "-punk" is just the uncool but very relevant literary term "the picaresque". The original Spanish examples protagonize marginalized, quick-thinking characters who inhabit a world of ready marks, outrageous swindles, and grossly unfair punishments. Their backdrop is the swirling displacement caused when the wealth of the Americas was disgorged into old Castile's creaking, hidebound purse. Any fantasy game with a "thieves' guild" is following in the steps of the picaresque, specifically Cervantes' Rinconete y Cortadillo.
ReplyDeleteNice comment.
DeleteI wonder whether it's just the wealth of the Americas, though. Spain is different. https://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2022/03/there-are-no-other-countries-like-spain.html
Agree with Roger. Punk is for picaresques from 1800 onwards. Sailpunk (Giant wooden sailing ships), Trenchpunk (Forever WWI), Dieselpunk (Fume belching trucks in the desert) all work, but knightpunk does not. Why? Because -punk always involves pushing technology forward while keeping the aesthetic of the "base" technology unchanged. Better steam, better cyber.
ReplyDeleteThus, it isn't surprising that punk starts and picaresques end at the birth of the industrial revolution, when the layman has technological progress as the primary distinguishing characteristic of consecutive ages.
Interesting comment - yes, athough I think the -punk element has to retain a feeling of rebelliousness. The -punks aren't the ones pushing technology forward (or, at least, not in the officially designated directions), though they may be using it for subversive/self-centred ends.
DeleteThe Spire RPG is pure Drowpunk
ReplyDeleteI run games in a setting like this sometimes!
ReplyDelete"An empire of archmages once ruled the globe, spreading out onto the uninhabitable moons and asteroids around it in spelljammers. To keep their dominance over the world, the legal masters of the day drew up contracts with demons and aided them in a demonic civil war in exchange for demonic advisors in archmagi affairs.
The archmages made an ecumenopolis of their world’s supercontinents. Their cities stretched deep into the earth.
In the course of the demonic civil war the empire was cast down, the demons of the world defeated, the high archmages slain or enslaved by the rivals of their demonic allies. The chromatic dragons of the world drove out the remaining demons and seized the agricultural surfaces and halls of government, turning the latter into great temples where they themselves were to be worshiped.
Without the produce of magically-enhanced agriculture, millions starved, and the survivors of the ecumenopolis descended into a state of barbarism. Without magical support the ecumenopolis began to sag and slowly collapse. New networks of jagged artificial caverns have reformed the neat halls, promenades, and aqueducts of the Lawful Age. There is no agriculture beneath the surface, although old portals to Elemental Water still pour into the stone halls, allowing lichens, mosses and molds to grow abundantly. Some of these are edible to humanoids.
The surviving junior mages have formed governments between the realms of dragons, cabals producing magical goods for trade and direct employment, always scheming to overtake the other cabals and destroy the realms of dragons. Beneath all of this, nomads descended from sedentary men roam the underhalls, devouring whatever can be eaten, and accumulating magical artifacts of untold power."
Ecumenopolis is a good word.
DeleteThanks for the thought-provoking post. I need to reread Gibson's work, it has been far too long.
ReplyDeleteI love the short stories - I think he's actually a better short fiction writer than a novelist (though I do also really like his novels).
Deletea lot of what you're picking up on is that both cyberpunk and early D&D were inspired by pulp literature of the 1930s + 1940s. hardboiled detective fiction for cyberpunk and sword& sorcery for D&D, but both sharing the same cynical antihero sensibility. as cyberpunk has evolved into steampunk and clockpunk etc and WotC D&D has evolved into tiefling affinity clubs at Candlekeep University, both have lost this sensibility even as there is a recognizable continuity of aesthetic.
ReplyDeleteGood point.
Delete