Glass Bead Worldbuilding
I've been working my way through Herman Hesse's The Glass Bead Game recently. Set in the distant future in a 'pedagogical province' founded by Baroque music enthusiasts, asia-boos, and mathematicians,1 it narrates the biography of a man who rises to the rank of Magister Ludi of the titular glass bead game.
The GBG is derived from a teaching exercise used by musicians in which one person would use glass beads on a wire music staff to create a short motif, then player 2 would use beads of another color to continue it or add a counter-melody, etc. Eventually mathematicians got ahold of this and started playing a similar game where they'd riff on mathematical theorems and patterns. Over time it was extended to other disciplines and became a way of synthesizing knowledge across various cultural domains.
The core of the game seems to hinge on the ability to make analogies or connections between elements of disparate areas of learning -- for example, linking a particular sonata with a mathematical series that mimics the sonata's progression, then linking that mathematical series with a philosophical meditation about infinity or something.2 Moves can be more or less valid based on the legitimacy of the implied connection between two concepts -- personal or superficial connections are discouraged.3 There seems to be a spatial element (?) which determines which existing moves a new move must be connected to. It can be played solo, or with a partner.
I've been thinking about butchering it to gamify the keying of Antibor's 20,000 points of interest. Already, Antibor is a soup of allusions to my various non-D&D interests, but I like the idea of formalizing that into a solo game. The pointcrawl map of Antibor is graph with well-defined adjacencies, so it should be possible to use it as a pattern of 'moves' in a bastardized GBG.
The idea (so far) is that each POI would be assigned a 'move' in a GBG that attempts to obey the game's vague rules (it would have to be a 'valid' allusion to the GBG moves of all neighboring points). Then, that move would be used as an additional prompt or 'spark' for the actual key entry.
So the process of creating a new POI might go something like this:
- First, consult neighboring points for their GBG moves, and then make an appropriate GBG move.
- Next, consult the POI's assigned category (settlement/lair/ruin/landmark)
- Next, write a description including:
- One reference or allusion to the POI's GBG move
- Any material from an appropriate random generator
As a proof-of-concept, I tried it out on the 12 POIs of Lamprey Isle, by the mouth of Blood Thief Bay.
For the 'opening move', I've sited a pilgrimage site (more on this later) for Sts. Levis & Astris at POI 8672. Since Sts. L & A are based on the Lovers tarot card, that's the GBG move for this site.
This POI borders two others. For the next move, I went to 4367. The Lovers card is associated with the star sign Gemini, so Gemini is the GBG move here.
POI 16049 abuts both. Both the Lovers and Gemini are associated with the element Air.
Next 5973, which only links to 16049, so my possibilities are more open. I decided to link the element Air to Prospero's closing soliloquy in The Tempest ("These our actors, / As I foretold you, were all spirits and / Are melted into air, into thin air").
Lamprey Isle City is linked to both 5973 and 16049, so the GBG move needs to incorporate the element Air and Prospero's Soliloquy. Here, I'm going to make a possibly tenuous move and extract a single line from the soliloquy: 'cloud-capped towers', which seems like a solid prompt for a city.4
POI 10627 is connected to 5973, so must also relate to the soliloquy. The context of the speech in The Tempest is Prospero interrupting a wedding masque upon remembering a plot against his life, so I'll go with 'assassination'
POI 18775 links to 10627, Lamprey Isle City, and 5973, so needs to incorporate something of 'assassination', 'Cloud-capped towers', and the soliloquy. This one is tougher and more tenuous, but one of the conspirators is Prospero's brother Antonio, usurping duke of Milan, and 'towers' evokes a city, so I'll go with Milan.
POI 9912 links to Lamprey Isle City and 18775, so needs to incorporate 'cloud-capped towers' and 'Milan'. I'll go with Castello Svorzesco, Milan's coolest-looking castle.
Moving on to the Weestern side, 6066 links to 9912 and 18775, so Milan and Castello Svorcesco, so I'll go with the Milanese "Golden Ambrosian Republic" which apparently destroyed the castle in the 1400s.
5202 links to 6066 and 18775, so Milan and Golden Ambrosian Republic. Apparently the GAP was founded by university students, so the move here will be medieval university.
13439 links to 5202 and 6066, so medieval university and Golden Ambrosian Republic. The students were apparently in the school of jurisprudence, so I'll say lawyers for the move here.
With the GBG moves thus in place, I tried to weave each GBG move into a site description, even if in a superficial way:
8672 - The Rock of Reconciliation
GBG: The Lovers Tarot Card Type: Landmark
According to legend, a great war was ended here many millennia ago. In celebration, the Icosidyadic curia consecrated it in the name of the gods of friendship, love, and sociability. The rock itself is now little more than a lichen-encrusted nub, but the 3000-year old cathedral on a nearby hill is still well-maintained. The side facing the sea is made entirely of stained glass, casting beautiful kaleidoscopic sunbeams across the Weestern wall whenever the sun passes by.
Since it is customarily forbidden to carry grudges here, it is frequented by fugitives & recently-eloped lovers.
4367 - The Twin Sentinels
GBG: Gemini (star sign) Type: Landmark
Two colossal statues of stylized human forms, resembling early Greek kouroi, one of white marble and one of black marble, otherwise identical. Signal fires lit atop their heads are used to help ships navigate to Lamprey Isle City (reachable with rope ladders). If the signal fires aren't lit during inclement weather, there's a 1-in-6 chance of a shipping vessel wrecking nearby.
16049 - The Aerodrome of Arcturus the Hated
GBG: Air (element) Type: Ruin
An ancient landing place for flying machines, still littered with cracked silver fuselages. An underground bunker on the site reputedly contains a stockpile of valuable fuel rods, but is currently occupied by a fanatical & secretive Aerocult, known for raiding the island for captives and firing them out of a huge pneumatic cannon in a sacrificial ritual.
186 - Lamprey Isle City
GBG: "cloud-capped towers" Type: City
Designated by the Archon Nereus as a customs & excise facility for sea traffic entering and leaving Blood Thief Bay. Mariners, merchants, & wormingers congregate in seedy saloons, bombastic brothels, and multitudinous market streets. To separate themselves from the rabble, the city's elites live in towers and have summoned a semi-permanent layer of thaumaturgical stratus clouds between their idyllic garden penthouses and the hoi polloi.
5973 - Also Lamprey Isle City, but Not
GBG: Prospero's closing soliloquy in The Tempest Type: Landmark
For unclear reasons, all natives of Lamprey Isle speak about Lamprey Isle City as though it were here, and not where it is. When asked, they will describe in great detail the layout of a city at a four-mile remove from the bay, how mariners continually grumble at the long walk from the docks to the customs office, its commanding view over the whole island, and so on. Those passing this point will remark on how they enjoyed a visit to Lamprey Isle City, whereas those who actually conducted business in the city will fastidiously fail to connect their activities to the presence of a city, perhaps noting that the foreign merchant they spoke with was oddly far from the expected usual haunts.
9912 - The Red Brick Tower
GBG: Castello Svorcesco Type: Landmark
A ruined fortress made of red bricks at the edge of the Isle's forested Psouthern half. The walls are crumbled and overgrown with ivy, but the keep's highest tower can still be ascended, providing a view of the whole island.
10627 - Niccolo Cliff
GBG: Assassination Type: Landmark
Long ago, the duke of Schamulia was killed on this spot by black-clad assasins. A granite stele has been erected here to commemorate the murder. Speaking the name 'Trystero' aloud here three times will summon one of the assassins for parlay.
18775 - Nalim Bridge
GBG: Milan (city) Type: Ruin
The remains of a ruined city that was once nestled under the colossal concrete suspension bridge connecting Lamprey Isle to the mainland. Currently home to an ogre mafia that extracts tolls from those crossing into the island. The Boss Ogre lives in the former Mayor's house, which has a wall safe containing the password to reset The Scriptorium (5202)
6066 - Peach Grove
GBG: Golden Ambrosian Republic Type: Landmark
A grove of trees hangs heavy with huge, golden peaches, ripe with sublimely blissful nectar. Unfortunately, they are guarded by an ancient stilt sentinel construct, 60' high with a disintegration ray it uses on anything that comes within 150'.
5202 - The Scriptorium
GBG: Medieval university Type: Landmark
An enormous domed structure in which legions of cyber-scribes copy a manuscript with molecule-level precision. Unfortunately, some joker replaced the original work being copied with 'Buster Oakeshotte's Big Book of Boorish Humour', and the passcode to reset the mainframe has been lost long ago.
13439 - Krunkus, Zitzak, & Snedge, Esq.
GBG: Lawyers Type: Lair
A Nylock (orc-like demon-/beast-men) law firm that serves court summons to unsuspecting humans, dragging them (willingly or unwillingly) to a bureaucratic demiplane where they must wait through interminable legal proceedings for alleged libelous crimes against the demon prince Zogrolog.
Thoughts
It's a lot of extra work but I like the oblique prompts. Keeping the GBG and the writing of POI descriptions separated in time helps.
The biggest issue is a lack of clarity about what constitutes a legitimate move or connection; with no Archives and no Magister Ludi, only subjective judgements are possible. Right now I'm inclined to go with a looser approach where books, quotes, songs, concepts, people, historical events, etc. are all valid. Tapping into an existing concept network, like a personal Obsidian knowledge base or even just Wikipedia (closer to what I actually did) could be one way of constraining legitimate moves.
I'm also approaching this as a lateral thinking exercise where GBG moves should be largely unrelated to fantasy worldbuilding, with the expectation that they will get subsumed by the full development of the POI entry. One could probably skip an intermediate step by using a set of more immediately gameable concepts, maybe mining rich texts like the AD&D DMG for connections.
Finally, this could work well for stocking a dungeon -- in fact, probably a more broadly applicable use case.
I know it sounds flippant but this is basically how it happens.↩
"One man, for example, had made a meticulous study of the history of the madrigal and discovered in the development of the style a curve that he had expressed both musically and mathematically, so that it could be included in the vocabulary of the Game. Another had examined the rhythmic structure of Julius Caesar's Latin and discovered the most striking congruences with the results of well-known studies of the intervals in Byzantine hymns. Or again some fanatic had once more unearthed some new cabala hidden in the musical notation of the fifteenth century. Then there were the tempestuous letters from abstruse experimenters who could arrive at the most astounding conclusions from, say, a comparison of the horoscopes of Goethe and Spinoza; such letters often included pretty and seemingly enlightening geometric drawings in several colors. […] A distinguished botanist once whimsically expressed the idea in an aphorism: "The Glass Bead Game should admit of everything, even that a single plant should chat in Latin with Linnaeus.""↩
"At one point Knecht speaks about analogies and associations in the Glass Bead Game, and in regard to the latter distinguishes between "legitimate," universally comprehensible associations and those that are "private" or subjective. He remarks: "To give you an example of private associations that do not forfeit their private value although they have no place in the Glass Bead Game, I shall tell you of one such association that goes back to my own schooldays. I was about fourteen years old, […]. The ground was wet, but free of snow; strong green shoots were already breaking through on the edge of streams. Buds and the first opening catkins were already lending a tinge of color to the bare bushes, and the air was full of scent, a scent imbued with life and with contradictions. There were smells of damp soil, decaying leaves, and young growth; any moment one expected to smell the first violets although there were none yet." […] At that time I had found an old volume of music at my piano teacher's. It was a volume of songs by Franz Schubert, and it exerted a strong attraction upon me. […] And now, on the day of that walk to the elderberry bush or the day after, I discovered Schubert's spring song, "Die linden Liifte sind erwacht ," and the first chords of the piano accompaniment assailed me like something already familiar. Those chords had exactly the same fragrance as the sap of the young elder, just as bittersweet, just as strong and compressed, just as full of the forthcoming spring. From that time on the association of earliest spring, fragrance of elder, Schubert chords has been fixed and absolutely valid, for me. This private association of mine is a precious possession I would not willingly give up. But the fact that two sensual experiences leap up every time I think, 'spring is coming' — that fact is my own personal affair. It can be communicated, certainly, as I have communicated it to you just now. But it cannot be transmitted. I can make you understand my association, but I cannot so affect a single one of you that my private association will become a valid symbol for you in your turn, a mechanism which infallibly reacts on call and always follows the same course."↩
Is is legitimate to make a move that's a smaller part of a neighboring move? Had I made 'The Tempest' my move, would it have been legitimate to have the soliloquy as a move? For the sake of my sanity I lean toward yes, but it might make sense to impose limits on this.↩