So I don't know if any of the other folks working on Memento Mori ended up over-writing for it, but I totally did, so I figured I would hold on to the main thing we got cut-extra Regalia- so we could have a little gift for my internet home town, and also talk a little bit about my philosophy on Regalia.
So, here are the Regalia that got cut.
SO in designing Regalia, I wanted to really dig into the weird ideas of what is actually sacred to people, what they might take to the grave and have chopped up into pieces of the afterlife with them. I broadly started with the idea that major icons would be drawn from Mythology(including Folklore, Urban Legends, Fairy Tales, etc.), History, Pop-Culture, Living World Figures, and Weirdness(because the psychospiritual mantles that krewe-mates can wear should always become odd at some point). The Living World was quickly nixed in my case because as a professional we need to be mindful of how representation matters to individuals, and since I was rooting Pop-Culture in references to Chronicles media(Barring Akiko, who was originally the protagonist of a magical girl series, but whatever), that ended up with two of my five categories being oblique references to various other books, but nothing says that you, as a possible homebrewer, are so limited: I had one idea of doing RIchard Dawkins as both the Marvelist and the Racist(alas, I never got around to writing up Antagonist Regalia as spare additional content), as an example.
I regarded Regalia as being to Sin-Eaters what Deathmasks were to Reapers, as well as a venue to explore the fact how most people's iconography for what they value, what they really worship, is wild and weird and personal but always possibly transcendent. That's why things like comic book characters(Constance Lions/Veiled Guardian from the Cabal was an early pitch) and the Cassini Probe were in the original script-because it's those sort of things that I saw remaining as the outside fetish of faith I could see lasting when confronted with the Underworld. The world and the people in it are, again, large and wild and weird, and I wanted the oddness and vitality of the worship of and in the living world to contrast the assumption of the mantles provided to Reapers in their worship of the Cthonic Gods and fundamentally fatalistic nihilism.
I've also long regarded Regalia, incorrectly I admit (given their limited quantities), as the functional "sub-y splat" in that while the y-splat of other splats might describe what you do, your societal role as it were, Krewes reserved that sort of role for Regalia, that the wearing of Regalia says what you do in the Krewe. For Example, I started off with the Furies by saying there was a need for one person to act as a Judge, another as a Jury, and another as an Executioner. Despite some of the errors in my thinking, I think it's still a handy way of thinking about the main spiritual figures of a Krewe.
Soooooo yeah. Hope you enjoy the rough material and a little of the way I spent thinking about it. Who knows how much of it will be useful going forward.
So, here are the Regalia that got cut.
SO in designing Regalia, I wanted to really dig into the weird ideas of what is actually sacred to people, what they might take to the grave and have chopped up into pieces of the afterlife with them. I broadly started with the idea that major icons would be drawn from Mythology(including Folklore, Urban Legends, Fairy Tales, etc.), History, Pop-Culture, Living World Figures, and Weirdness(because the psychospiritual mantles that krewe-mates can wear should always become odd at some point). The Living World was quickly nixed in my case because as a professional we need to be mindful of how representation matters to individuals, and since I was rooting Pop-Culture in references to Chronicles media(Barring Akiko, who was originally the protagonist of a magical girl series, but whatever), that ended up with two of my five categories being oblique references to various other books, but nothing says that you, as a possible homebrewer, are so limited: I had one idea of doing RIchard Dawkins as both the Marvelist and the Racist(alas, I never got around to writing up Antagonist Regalia as spare additional content), as an example.
I regarded Regalia as being to Sin-Eaters what Deathmasks were to Reapers, as well as a venue to explore the fact how most people's iconography for what they value, what they really worship, is wild and weird and personal but always possibly transcendent. That's why things like comic book characters(Constance Lions/Veiled Guardian from the Cabal was an early pitch) and the Cassini Probe were in the original script-because it's those sort of things that I saw remaining as the outside fetish of faith I could see lasting when confronted with the Underworld. The world and the people in it are, again, large and wild and weird, and I wanted the oddness and vitality of the worship of and in the living world to contrast the assumption of the mantles provided to Reapers in their worship of the Cthonic Gods and fundamentally fatalistic nihilism.
I've also long regarded Regalia, incorrectly I admit (given their limited quantities), as the functional "sub-y splat" in that while the y-splat of other splats might describe what you do, your societal role as it were, Krewes reserved that sort of role for Regalia, that the wearing of Regalia says what you do in the Krewe. For Example, I started off with the Furies by saying there was a need for one person to act as a Judge, another as a Jury, and another as an Executioner. Despite some of the errors in my thinking, I think it's still a handy way of thinking about the main spiritual figures of a Krewe.
Soooooo yeah. Hope you enjoy the rough material and a little of the way I spent thinking about it. Who knows how much of it will be useful going forward.
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