Technical solutions aid international team work (Morgan)

Dragonbane Diary
Sunday, December 11th, 2005
Blue Lake, California, USA

Some hectic weeks are now behind us and the Cinderhill Cultural guide seems to be a reality before the new year. Also the acting guide seems to be approaching the proofreading stage. After doing most of the writing for the Cinderhill culture I managed to land the position as Cinderhill Culture Übermaster, or rather the other organizers commandeered me to manage the compiling of the guide. So now I have to finish two major pieces of writing before New Year. And build that ritual dragon mask too. I am good at taking on more responsibilities it seems.

The scroll making process is being finalized, both the building of the scrolls and the rituals to channel magic into them. It all seems to be a rather lengthy process and a tad hard to learn. So if you mean to be involved in the scroll making process you have some reading and a bit of learning to do. The chants should not be to hard to memorize but I for one will have to do some practice runs with a group to remember everything.

The collaboration between the different teams within the organization becomes apparent when it comes to writing the practical sides of the culture of Cinderhill. The props team, the building team, the culture team, the sound team, the costume team and the special effects team are all involved in making the scroll making process a really unforgettable experience to go through. The actual writing was done by seven people; Trina, Timo, Esa, Heiko, Sarana, Maija and me. We all edit and comment each others work, making sure it all comes together as a coherent whole that can support the immersion on all levels.

The morning and evening exercises of the villagers, affectionately named the Path of the Dragon or the Dragon Postures, are making some progress. I have produced three small videos to show the execution of the moves, and started to make photos of the postures. What takes the most time is writing understandable explanations of how to do the different moves. So far we have six short movement sequences and I am producing two more with staffs for the adepts to use. On top of this I am trying to finalize the different cultural rituals of the village. It takes a lot of thinking to make cultural expressions that are original and different, but yet connected in style and form. In addition they are to be atleast somewhat useful as warm-up exercises and martial training, without being to complex to execute for the untrained participant.

The work on the ritual dragon mask will commence next week and I am really looking forward to put into practice the aesthetics of Cinderhill, to create something real and not just type away on my fantasies. I think a mask like this could be the tip of the tail as the Cinderhillians would say; something that really make the religious nature of the community come to life in a real, concrete way.

Most of yesterday was spent sending e-mails to my assigned players and trying to figure out how to use the Portal in the best manner. It seems to me that we have a great way of interfacing with this international production team and the participants from all over the world. All the supporting ground work and hardware is there for us, and now the content is getting fully fleshed out, so soon it will be up to the players to really make this event transcend its mundane base. We can reach another world, leaving our world behind for a week. Nothing less is expected of us, and nothing less is accepted.

Morgan Jarl