Tuesday 24 June 2003

Pic of the day: GURPS Spirits book.

Imaginary spirits

I have been reading GURPS Spirits lately. It is one of the handbooks from Steve Jackson Games, fleshing out their Generic Unlimited Role-Playing System. These books are expensive, but they are packed with information and written in a readable style. I wish school books were as good.

Anyway, spirits. The book details various traditions about spirits, where they differ and where they overlap. Religion, shamanism and sorcery. The various spirit realms. Angels, demons, ghosts, ascended masters, ghosts ... anything from apparitions to gods.

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As has been my way since early childhood, I respond to new information by making my own fiction. So instead of writing a journal today, I have written angel fiction. (Well, angel and catgirl fiction. But the angel is the main character.)

Since I actually believe in a spiritual reality, but very different from the ghost-like world of myths, it is only fitting that my story take place in a galaxy far, far away. Another universe, actually, since I needed to avoid the strictures of my religion for this one. That's where the Splendoreans come in. Splendoreans are my invention, a highly evolved race of humanoids with a lifespan of a few millennia, intelligence and creativity far above any human. Living with a technology that seems like magic, they have no unmet worldly needs. Instead they spend most of their adult lives creating worlds of a lower order, where they are "gods". It sounds like a good place for a highly advanced humanoid to spend their time ... like Civilization and The Sims rolled into one! ^_^

It is somewhat unclear whether worlds of Splendor are computer simulations (kinda like The Sims only a million years more advanced) or made of some actual substance, perhaps in a pocket universe. What is known is that beings of human intelligence can spend their whole life in such a world and not notice that anything is amiss. (Then again, until recently we did not find anything strange about our universe either...)

Anyway, those are the lengths I go to, to avoid any trace of blasphemy, idolatry etc, even in my fiction. Fantasy worlds, twice removed ... But I've decided against posting any fiction here. I know the Elder Statesman of Online Journals has posted fiction instead of a journal entry occasionally, but I always felt uncomfortable seeing it, and I would feel even more uncomfortable doing it, I think. But if it grows into anything interesting, I'll post a link.