Modern Storytelling

Why does the games industry have such a problem with female protagonists?

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:44:58 +0100

Why does the games industry have such a problem with female protagonists?:

Belinda Parmar: It’s a tired cliche that all gamers are male, and it’s time manufacturers woke up to the fact that women want to see female characters they can relate to

nhyworks: “Why should we care about women’s representation in video games?” “Nobody is going to...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:29:00 +0100

nhyworks:

“Why should we care about women’s representation in video games?”

“Nobody is going to want a female protagonist!

“Their target audience isn’t big enough to warrant any games!”

“Women aren’t as capable as men, they don’t belong in video games!”

“If more women started playing video games, maybe then they’d have a say in the matter!”

I’d apologise for just how often I am reblogging content from Anita’s blog, but I think she’s saying a lot of things that the industry as a whole needs to hear. As often as possible, in some cases…

Twitter vs Female Protagonists in Video Games

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:50:03 +0100

femfreq:

Thanks #XboxOne #E3 press conference for revealing to us exactly zero games featuring a female protagonist for the next generation.

— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq)

June 10, 2013

Above is a tweet I made this afternoon in reaction to the fact that none of the games presented at Microsoft’s Xbox One E3 press conference featured female protagonists. Below are some of the Twitter replies to that observation which exemplify the male privilege and male entitlement endemic in the gaming community today. This is also a window into what it’s like to be a female video game critic on twitter.

1. @simplyflyin

2. @A_Hint_of_Shit

3. @Triosem

4. @DavidBostock93

5. @Jamie_Brereton

6. @SethForsman

7. @Beefheart82

8. @AzEHeaD15

9. @NickFuckypu

10. @JLB_esquire

11. @MathiasKaizer

12. @About20Donuts

13. @RogerLateralus

14. @izashid29

15. @BEATandDELETE

16. @B_Razz

17. @twerk_king69

18. @Epsilon_Five

19. @Spyrolic

20. @itwasagoodtime

21. @JerkfaceMcGee

22. @patq911

23. @r0bz0rz

24. @JimPhee

25. @Pootslap

26. @Pokefan1223

27. @Aurini

28. @yutt

29. @HennersQuack

30. @GabeAsterd

31. @MundaBric

32. @DoctorWatkins

33. @xTheShad0wZ

34. @GangWarlord

35. @le_mec

36. @coolguyquietess

37. @OldMiley

38. @TheChad118

39. @dodgykebaab

40. @urafaget

41. @BJ_Dickson

42. @Bloodergo

43. @Uneternal

44. @The_Master_E

45. @TheVidyaBoy

46. @danier_san

47. @ReissDJO

48. @mrdizzy

49. @IntelMiner

50. @AliAdelMohamed

Further proof of just how far we still have to go before we can think of ourselves as a mature industry.

I could say that it’s the fans dragging down the tone, even point out that it is just a very vocal minority and that the silent majority don’t feel this way, but the fact is that Microsoft are pandering to them.

The awful issue here is that we are talking about a major console manufacturer, one of the big three and the developer of the dominant PC operating-system, pandering to the misogynists and the idiots. Not out of malice, I’m fairly confident in saying, but out of habit.

They feel entitled because Microsoft just validated their beliefs. I’m not singling out Microsoft - Sony and Nintendo are guilty of the same oversights just as often - but they just happen to be the ones at the centre of this.

It makes me ashamed to be a man, maybe even a little awkward being a game-developer…

neil-gaiman: Iain Banks 16 February 1954 – 9 June 2013 Rest...

Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:22:48 +0100

neil-gaiman:

Iain Banks

16 February 1954 – 9 June 2013

Rest in Peace, Iain. I’ll miss you.

I’d have to say that he’s not my favourite author and he had a talent for making me feel uncomfortable (whether through his depictions of sex or violence) at times, but he influenced me as a writer more than I would otherwise care to admit.

As an atheist, I don’t suppose he has any expectations regarding what happens next. Having just finished Surface Details (one of his books, this one about death and afterlives) two nights ago, it has been on my mind though.

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:04:00 +0100

Let’s talk about this brilliant networking tool.

It helps you to find new people to do business with by showing you mutual contacts who can introduce you, speak up on your behalf or just confirm that you are who you say you are. You can list your skills and people can endorse you, confirming that you truly are as awesome as you say.

Only… It doesn’t quite work out that way…

Don’t get me wrong, it has its uses, but I am a freelance writer and that kind of gives me some insight into why it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I rely on networking to find work, to meet new clients and generally to keep going forward.

For a start, I think ‘professional acquaintance’ (or whatever the term that they use is) on LinkedIn has been stretched about as far as ‘friend’ on Facebook; you start off adding people you work with, then add in people you used to work with. Before long, you add in some of your school-friends and maybe a lecturer or two from university. They can all vouch for you to some degree, so why not. You then add a few people you met at conferences in case they post anything useful, accept the invitations from recruitment agents so that they can better serve your needs. Before you know it, you’ve added your parents and the cute barista from the coffee-shop you frequent.

I looked at ‘people you may know’ today and realised that it’s all a little skewed. I have a few big names which make sense; working with TIGA, I met people like Dr Richard Wilson and the CEO from one of my old companies is a close friend of Peter Molyneux, so I understand why they are on the list. I also have Ian Livingstone (Fighting Fantasy, Games Workshop, Eidos) through a fair number of friends and Rhianna Pratchett (award-winning games writer) worked with someone I worked with, not to mention the fact that we both work in the same field.

The trouble is that I see names like Chris Avellone, Feargus Urquhart and Ragnar Tornquist there too. These are my heroes, legends of the industry, and they are sitting there next to the text ‘5 connections in common’ as though they were just one quick email away. Then I look and I realise that I don’t know any of those five people well enough to even say hello at GDC or Develop. They were people who asked to join my network or who mentioned work and I added them so we could keep in touch. One or two are heads of recruitment at companies I applied for.

In some ways, endorsements are worse. The last three endorsements I got were from my grandfather (not as bad as you may think, since he’s been working with computers for longer than I’ve been alive, though I doubt he’s ever even seen an iPhone despite endorsing me for iOS development), my brother (a tech-support consultant who ~~I would also assume never played any of the games I made~~ has apparently played a few of my games) and a singer-songwriter I know socially and probably only added for her education links.

That all sounds quite negative, but it’s not all bad, I suppose.

At its heart, the system works. If I am talking to a client and look them up on LinkedIn, I can find people who have worked with them (the games-industry is ridiculously small) and ask the questions you could never ask a client. I can check whether they pay up on time, whether they are quick to answer emails, whether they will mess me about. I can get information about people, even just a ‘she is good people’ from an old colleague.

Emergent behaviour changed the way the tool works; basic functionality still persists, but we started using it in a different way to how they envisaged it.

If you are careful, you can use the mutual contacts and the endorsements to get a good picture of a person. Just… be more careful these days.

Never underestimate the wisdom of Neil Gaiman

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 12:08:45 +0100

Never underestimate the wisdom of Neil Gaiman

What Games Are: Who Will Create The No-Bullshit Games Console? | TechCrunch

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:19:45 +0100

What Games Are: Who Will Create The No-Bullshit Games Console? | TechCrunch:

For a device category whose core appeal is supposed to be making games simple, we get complex ambitions, the rush to features and a proposition that increasingly makes no sense. What is a game console supposed to be for? What is its core purpose? How do we deliver core purpose and connect with the..

Much as I hate to criticise the big players in the industry, I do have to admit that he has a point. Consoles are trying to do too much and I’m not sure I’ll use half of the functionality of the Xbox One even if I do buy one.

I don’t have a Blu-Ray player (that said, I don’t own an HD television either) and so maybe that’s useful on some level, but do I really need to have voice-controls?

I want to play games. If I want to watch a film, I use my DVD player or order it from my cable-supplier’s on-demand service. If I want to watch TV, I can use the same set-top box or toss a DVD into the player from my collection. If I want to use Twitter, the website is right there. If I want to use Twitter while I watch TV, I can use my phone.

What’s kind of worse is that I have a gaming-PC; I make games, so it is not a bad PC. I play most of my games on the PC. I do use a console, but the game I am currently playing on a console is Ocarina of Time. When I finish it, I might go back to playing A Link to the Past or forward to Wind Waker. I confess that I am playing them both on a Wii (a seventh-gen console) and yet, at the same time, doesn’t that particular console say a lot?

Do I really need an eighth-gen console?

Steamworks SDK now available to all developers

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 20:43:02 +0100

Steamworks SDK now available to all developers:

Valve has made its Steamworks SDK and accompanying documentation available to developers, as the company looks to broaden access to its Steamworks features.

You need to be ‘Greenlit’ to actually use the functionality, but making the SDK and documentation available is a great thing for developers who want to evaluate the SDK, as well as those who want to get the Steam version of their game up and running as soon as it’s Greenlit.

femfreq: Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video...

Wed, 29 May 2013 12:48:18 +0100

femfreq:

Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

This video explores how the Damsel in Distress became one of the most widely used gendered clichés in the history of gaming and why the trope has been core to the popularization and development of the medium itself. As a trope the Damsel in Distress is a plot device in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must then be rescued by a male character, usually providing a core incentive or motivation for the protagonist’s quest.

ABOUT THE VIDEO SERIES
The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project aims to examine the plot devices and patterns most often associated with female characters in gaming from a systemic, big picture perspective. This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters, but remember that it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of it’s more problematic or pernicious aspects.

For more examples of the Damsel in Distress see our Tumblr for this series: http://tropesversuswomen.tumblr.com

Visit http://www.feministfrequency.com for more information, videos and a full transcript.

Part one of three. Really worth a look if you work in games. Part two is the previous post, so just scroll down.

femfreq: This is the second in a series of three videos...

Wed, 29 May 2013 12:46:55 +0100

femfreq:

This is the second in a series of three videos exploring the Damsel in Distress trope in video games. In this installment we look at the “dark and edgy” side of the trope in more modern games and how the plot device is often used in conjunction with graphic depictions of violence against women. Over the past decade we’ve seen developers try to spice up the old Damsel in Distress cliche by combining it with other tropes involving victimized women including the disposable woman, the mercy killing and the woman in the refrigerator.

Due to the nature of the topic, this video comes with a trigger warning for violence against women.

For more information and a full transcript visit: http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/05/damsel-in-distress-part-2-tropes-vs-women/

DEFINITIONS:

The Damsel in Distress: As a trope the damsel in distress is a plot device in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must then be rescued by a male character, usually providing an incentive or motivation for the protagonist’s quest. This is most often accomplished via kidnapping but it can also take the form of petrification, a curse or demon possession. Traditionally the woman in distress is a love interest or family member of the hero; princesses, wives, girlfriends and sisters are all commonly used to fill the role.

Damsel in the Refrigerator: A combination of the Women in Refrigerators trope and the Damsel in Distress trope. Typically this happens when a female character is killed near the beginning of a story but her soul is then stolen or trapped and must be rescued or freed by the male hero. Occasionally time travel or some other form of resurrection may be involved in the quest to bring the women in question back from the dead.

Disposable Damsel: A variant of the Damsel in Distress trope in which the hero fails to save the woman in peril either because he arrives too late or because (surprise twist!) it turns out she has been dead the whole time.

Euthanized Damsel: A combination of the Damsel in Distress trope and the Mercy Killing trope. This usually happens when the player character must murder the woman in peril “for her own good”. Typically the damsel has been mutilated or deformed in some way by the villain and the “only option left” to the hero is to put her “out of her misery” himself. Occasionally the damsel’ed character will be written so as beg the player to kill her.

As always, Feminist Frequency making far too much sense. It’s not even about malice, it’s just cliche and the fact we never really stopped to think about it…

"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:43:00 +0100

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”

- Saul Bellow

Why a gaming startup is a good idea - Games Brief

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:00:00 +0100

Why a gaming startup is a good idea - Games Brief:

It’s less about ‘starting a business is good’ and more about a good definition for the term; if you want to succeed, you need to start with the right mindset…

Rhianna Pratchett’s #1ReasonToBe | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:05:00 +0100

Rhianna Pratchett’s #1ReasonToBe | Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

Recently, we had the wonderful fortune to post GDC’s magnificent #1ReasonToBe panel in full. It’s a powerfully eye-opening thing - regardless of which

It is interesting that even with the undeniable sexism in the industry, Rhianna still mentions basic quality of life issues as one of the major stumbling-blocks for women coming into the industry,

The whole EA Spouse scandal was over eight years ago, but we still struggle with things like abuse of unpaid overtime, long days and weekend work, excessive workloads, low pay and poor job-security.

Towards a Steampunk Without Steam | Tor.com

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:57:00 +0100

Towards a Steampunk Without Steam | Tor.com:

Towards a Steampunk Without Steam by Amal El-Mohtar

Some of you will know that I write stories which could be called ‘steampunk’ and in fact have been included in steampunk compilations

While this is an older story, dating back to 2010, the core issues it addresses are still valid over two-and-a-half years later; steampunk is all too often defined by the trappings of steampunk, the cogs and gears and steam, rather than the trappings being a result of the steampunk settings and stories.

The opening paragraph of the story For Queen and Country describes an airship, a “behemoth of canvas, steel and brass weighing more than one-hundred and fifty long tons” which is both a steampunk cliche and a pretty solid ‘this is steampunk’ declaration. We have an airship battle, some discussion of dirigible balloon tactics, but mostly just a story which happens to have an airship as the main location for the action.

The follow-up to this, Eye of the Believer, was released the following year with absolutely no airships beyond one quick mention of the previous tale’s events. Someone mentions the airship in passing, then moves on. It’s the same world, but the tale is actually more about a cold war fought between the magicians of the world. Perhaps it’s a gaslamp fantasy or a scientific romance instead, but the story turns up in a ‘steampunk compilation’ and inhabits the same world as the tales of airships and automata.

So what is steampunk? Are we unable to see the wood for the trees (or the machine for the gears) because we’re trying to write about steam and cogs instead of tales which happen to include gears and cogs?

Adobe kills Creative Suite, goes subscription-only

Mon, 06 May 2013 20:46:16 +0100

Adobe kills Creative Suite, goes subscription-only:

Just a year after launching its $50-per-month plan, Adobe has made its Creative Cloud the only way to get the new versions of its full software suite. Customers ‘overwhelmingly’ prefer it. Read this article by Stephen Shankland on CNET News.

I’m not sure how to feel about this. It may help people switch to open-source and non-Adobe alternatives, but I’m not sure there really are any professional quality alternatives for some parts of the Creative Suite.

What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy? - Greenheart Games

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:46:53 +0100

What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy? - Greenheart Games:

When we released our very first game, Game Dev Tycoon (for Mac, Windows and Linux) yesterday, we did something unusual and as far as I know unique. We released a cracked version of the game ourselves, minutes after opening our Store.

What happens when a game has the chance to show pirates the damage that piracy does? They ask how to research DRM…

What Writers Earn: A Cultural Myth

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:21:00 +0100

What Writers Earn: A Cultural Myth:

I write historical fiction. I’ve been a full-time professional writer for almost 20 years. I realized early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. Because there are no pay grades and very little structure, people make interesting assumptions about the profession.

An interesting (and scarily-accurate) discussion of why writing is not the dream job people think it is. This is why I supplement my ‘dream’ job with technical and copy writing.

The Poet's Tale

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:00:42 +0100

I stared down at the rivulets of water, threads of gold passing across my hands as the setting sun illuminated them. Already I could see them fading through pale amber toward the rosy red that presaged coming dusk. Curling my fingers, I shifted their paths and sullied their perfect clarity by stirring up the silt that lined the gutter.

To my left, I saw a field of pure alabaster. Tiny white flakes were falling upon the blanket of white, replenishing it even as it surrendered to the warmth of this dying day. Some little vision of heaven, it seemed, fading fast and soon to disappear as though it had never been.

The snow doth flow, but where does it go?

A middling poet on my best days, I laughed at the ugly little rhyme and turned my head to the right.

There, I saw the black iron grate which was the end of the journey. Streams of gold, flowing from pale Heaven to darkest Hell, and there I knelt between them with my guts burning within me.

I had come here, like so many before me, through drink. A glass of English gin here, some Russian vodka there, an Irish whiskey to chase them down and a dram of the Scottish to keep it company. Each one a toast to the absent friend whose pine box filled the table, whose ending had drawn us together.

The cold air dragged a cough out of my already-raw throat, the pain in my belly amplifying my spasms until I collapsed away from the gutter. The snow darkened in the spreading gloom as my stomach joined my lungs in their violent expulsions.

“You’re disgusting…’

I could barely argue with the voice. Even had I the breath, I lacked the words to hang upon it. I was disgusting. I was shameful. I deserved the pain.

Images swam in my head, clamouring to be revisited. My patron, displeased. His men, eager to make their master’s displeasure known.

My words… Once uttered, never to be taken back…

In vino veritas. The truth, shaken loose of my sealed lips by wine.

A passing light shone upon the snow and I heard voices turn from scorn to surprise, but their words were lost to me, obscured by the ringing in my ears. I think someone called for a doctor, but I waved them away weakly.

What brought me here? Simply this: I had spoken a secret. Drunken and boastful, I had uttered words best left unspoken. That night that had damned me, lost me my patronage and more.

She had been so beautiful, but also out of reach. She was above me, better, purer. Like any poet though, I aspired to greatness. More, I knew the right words. Words to flatter, words to woo, words to unlace the stiffest of gowns and soothe the most prudent of fears.

I had seduced my patron’s ward, dishonoured her and damned myself. It was a betrayal that we would repeat, time and again. Only through silence could we hope to escape his wrath, but like all poets, I was a man of words and boasts and pride.

In the gutter, my hands moved to my gut. The knife would not move, sunk too deeply into my soft flesh and my fingers too weak now to grip it.

I had dishonoured myself, taken the virtue of a true-born lady, and paid the price for my arrogance. Like Lucifer, it was through pride that I fell.

Once more, I felt myself falling. Nearby, a voice chanted in Latin, but I did not think he could chant fast enough.

And now I will learn the truth of it…

So tell me friend Peter. Is it to the alabaster gates or the cold iron that I go now?

I know I am not worthy, but I am a poet, you see. We always hope for more than we deserve…

She was standing there without any clothes...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:00:19 +0100

She was standing there without any clothes. I’m a man; we notice these sorts of things.

I noticed quite a few other things, but few that were immediately relevant in light of this single truth. I could have looked away, turned my back or even closed my eyes, but I was quite sure she’d arranged for me to see her like this.

“While I appreciate the view,” I said. “We both know that there are a number of ways to hide a gem even of that size. Were I less of a gentleman, I might even demand that you let me check.”

“Oh, you know I’ve got nothing to hide…”

Though she must have thought me unaware, I knew that I had perhaps thirty seconds before her associates reached the door, so she was stalling for time. It was not long enough to search her properly, especially if she took the opportunity to turn coy or try to flirt. The pile of clothes seemed an obvious hiding spot, but it would be hard to search them without putting down my gun. I had too many options, but not enough time.

“I could just shoot you,” I told her.

“Then you’d never get your stone.”

“No, but it’d make me feel better.”

The idea was not unappealing. She’d outmanoeuvred me, which made me angry, and any reprimand that killing her would earn me paled in comparison to the consequences of returning to England without the jewel. It might even improve my situation, help convince my employers that I was not in league with her.

I don’t like to hurt a woman though. It was a trait they had tried to train out of me, but I still found it easier to kill men. That is not to say that I hadn’t done it once or twice, I’d even killed women, but usually in self-defence. She probably knew that, was counting on it. Naked, she was vulnerable, reinforcing my sense of power over her. How could I hurt her when I had so much control and she had so little?

It was a slight shift in her eye that did it, a momentary flaw in the seductress persona. I wasn’t even sure she was aware of it, but her eyes flicked to something else in the room just long enough to tip me off and I turned. My gun went off before my brain even registered the man in the doorway, preparing to shoot me.

I turned back to the woman, fearing what I knew I would see. Despite her lapse, she was a professional; as soon as my attention had wavered, without even waiting to see if I or the assassin would be the one to survive, she had made her move. There was a knife in her hand and she was nearly on me.

I fired.

With God as my witness, I wish she had not forced my hand, but no amount of respect for human life will ever be more important than my life or my mission. She knew it as well as I did. Perhaps her own mission was worth more than her safety.

Twenty seconds.

I began replaying recent events in my mind. The way she had been standing, her posture and the way she had moved. I tried to identify anything out of the ordinary.

Fifteen seconds.

There had been something about her left arm. She’d held it close to her side. At first glance, it was not surprising - there was a fresh scar near her shoulder, one of the things her nakedness had allowed me to notice - but they’d never have sent her out on active duty with an injury still plaguing her, would they?

I had ten seconds to spare as I pulled the stone from her armpit, already heading for the window. By the time the first gunshots rang out, I was almost at the roof, where the extraction team were waiting.

“Well that was cutting it fine,” the pilot remarked.

I just shrugged. Any op you walk away from is a success in my line of work.

The Druid's Tale

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:18:00 +0100

The ranger Berric watched the man traipsing around the tiny hut, sniffing at bundles of twigs and tossing them into the fire-pit. With each addition, the temperature rose and the cloying scents of the smoke grew thicker. More than this, he started to realise, the smells became more nuanced.

With a little concentration, he could pick out the more common ones. Under the scent of pine, he detected the growing notes of camphor and sandalwood, along with a spice he could not quite place. While the druid seemed to toss the bundles with little care or attention to his actions, Berric noted that each was strong enough to be recognised and yet never strong enough to overpower the aromas of the other woods and resins.

“But what should I do?” he asked, and not for the first time.

“Just sit… Breathe… More than this, stop talking and let me think…”

Reluctantly, the ranger sat and watched the man going about his business. For a wise old man, he looked suspiciously young, but his actions were sufficiently enigmatic to assure the young man of his wisdom; all wise hermits were eccentric, after all.

”Stop watching me,” the druid snapped. “Stare at the fire if you need to look at something. Better yet, shut your eyes.”

“And then what?”

“Sit, breathe, think of that young lady from the tavern. I don’t really care…”

Berric was thrown by the latter suggestion, his vocation rarely bringing him into contact with either taverns or young ladies, but he recognised the tone of the man’s voice; shut up and stop bothering me it said.

This is not prayer, he thought to himself. He had travelled for a while with a paladin. Each night, the man would kneel down with his holy symbol in hand and give thanks to… whichever god it was that he followed. It irritated Berric that the name had escaped him, some foreign god in any case. In any case, the paladin had knelt in prayer each knight, beseeching his deity for the power to smite evil-doers and to enact miracles in his name. That was how it worked; you pray to the gods, they let you use their powers to further their goals.

Even the wizard seemed to spend a little while each morning with his spell-book, memorising those strange syllables and ridiculously-theatrical gestures. Not that he ever expected to learn that kind of magic, which seemed to involve years of study and dusty books kept in crumbling towers.

In some ways, Berric was not even sure why he was here. One little spell, an accident at that, and he’d been banished to go study with a druid until he could control it.

“You still awake? Your mentor should have taught you this, you know,” the Druid remarked.

“She… had other business to attend to.”

“Yes, yes…” he said, nodding. “End of the world stuff, I’d expect.”

Berric frowned, fairly certain that he was being mocked. It had not truly been ‘end of the world’ business, but tracking down the source of the undead who had overtaken their village had seemed quite important to those living there and unfortunately involved parting company.

“So now what?”

Berric was surprised to find that he had not been the one to speak. The druid looked at him expectantly, as though waiting for an answer.

“I… need to learn to control my magic.”

“And?”

“And I was told to seek you out for help.”

The situation was quickly getting out of hand, like a joke that Berric was not in on. The druid was starting to smile infuriatingly and Berric still had no idea quite what he was doing in this peculiar man’s hut.

“You’re a ranger,” the druid said, as though it were a revelation.

“Yes.”

“What does a ranger want with magic?”

“I don’t know. I never chose this, it just happened…”

“I thought you wanted to learn how to use it,” the druid remarked.

“No, I want to control it, like you do…”

The man laughed. “Control it? You think I control nature?”

“Your kind… I’ve seen you calling on nature to—”

“Oh, I’ve asked her for help from time to time, but control? Never…”

“Oh.”

The druid’s expression softened. ”I think you have the wrong ideas, boy. Nature isn’t like an axe or a sword, something to bludgeon your enemies with.”

“No… I know that. It is something divine, something to be worshipped.”

Now it was the druid’s turn to frown. “Worship? Don’t be daft. We might revere her, but no bugger’s stupid enough to worship her.”

Berric was confused. No child of theology, the words seemed no different to his mind. Worship or revere, what difference did it make?

“I see you’re not following me,” the druid said. “Let’s look at it in a way you can understand. You’ve seen priests, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they worship. Same with paladins. It’s all about submission, surrender and ‘I am thy humble servant’ all the time. You with me so far?”

“I think so,” Berric told him.

“Well, nature isn’t like that. Nature is all fire and teeth and poisonous bitey things. What do you call it when you submit to fire?”

“Er… Worship?”

“No, you call it being burned alive. What about water?”

“Swimming?”

“Close, but the word’s drowning. How about bears?”

“Bears?”

“What happens to people who submit to bears?”

“They… get eaten?”

“I think you’re catching on. Surrender to poison? You die. Surrender to bees, you get stung to death. Lightning? You get burnt up like bacon. Basically, you surrender to nature and it usually kills you.”

“How can you worship something like that?” Berric asked, thoughtfully.

“You can’t. Reverence is about saying ‘you are one scary bitch and I respect that’ rather than getting down on one knee. I’ve got all the respect in the world for nature, but you’ll notice that I still like to have a roof over my head and a nice fire-pit to cook my food on.”

“And the magic?”

“Well, you just ask her for it.”

“Ask her?”

“Sit down, stop talking and close your eyes.”

Berric did as he was told. “What now?”

“Can you smell wood-smoke? Feel the fire on your face? That’s nature. In your mind, that image you get when you think about why you became a ranger? That’s her too. Go to that place in your head and it’s all but done.”

In his mind, Berric pushed away the thoughts of the hut, the druid, even himself. The fire on his face like sunlight, the smell of wood in his nostrils, this was all that mattered. He knew things he would never be able to put into words, could feel potential flowing through his mind. More than this, he knew that he could take a fraction of that power back with him.

The fire was burning lower as he opened his eyes. At the back of his mind, like an invisible limb, he could feel the gift he had been given, the knowledge of how to calm the minds of beasts.

“You’ll never be a druid, boy,” the druid remarked. “But I reckon you’ll do well enough…”