The Fereldan Frostback
Coexisting With The Fair Folk Who Have Taken Up Residence In/Around/Beneath Your University: A How-To Guide
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Whole bunch of lore/things I couldn’t fit/everything I love about the overlap in superstition and General College Weirdness below the cut-
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Amazingly surreal Las Pozas in the rainforest by Xilitla in the Mexico mountains. Created by Edward James in the 40′s, it includes more than 80 acres of natural waterfalls and pools interlaced with towering surrealist sculptures and buildings. The many trails throughout the garden site are composed of steps, ramps, bridges and narrow, winding walkways that traverse the valley walls. It was supposed to be a “Garden of Eden” containing a huge variety of plants and animals.
I’ve learned this method years ago and I’ve been using it ever since. The zigzag plot creator starts like this:
An crescent zigzag.
You can have as many up and downs as you want. I’ve drawn six to keep it simple. Alright, this zigzag is your storyline and every corner is an important event that will change everything:
Every down represents a bad thing happening to your main characters, taking them further away from their goal. Every up is a good event, taking them closer to their goal:
So, when the zigzag goes down, something bad must happen. When the zigzag goes up, something good must happen. The reason why we drew a crescent zigzag is because every down must be worse than the previous, and every up must be better than the previous. As the zigzag advances, events become more serious and relevant.
Let’s apply the zigzag method. My storyline is a detective trying to catch a serial killer in a futuristic city. Minutes later, this is what I’ve got:
Start: Detective, our protagonist, is just promoted
Down #1: Mass suicide happens in town, detective gets the case, the whole town thinks it might have been a religious suicide act, but detective suspects that someone single-handed killed all those people
Up #1: Detective finds clue about a possible killer
Down #2: A bigger mass murder happens, a true massacre, it’s a definitely a murder
Up #2: Detective finds the killer’s trail
Down #3: Thinking he is ahead of time, close to catching the killer, detective ends up dead in another mass murder
Up #3: Because of his notes and discoveries, the police is able to find the killer before they leave town
From this point on you can play with zigzag as much as you want. For example, changing the orientation of the zigzag for a bad ending:
Lots of ups and downs:
Or just a few:
It’s up to you (see what I did there?).
You can plot any type of story with the zigzag method. It’s a visual and easy process for a very complex task.
I don’t really know what people generally call this method of sigil making, so I’m just calling it “Letter Shaping” because you’re using the basic shapes from certain letters. This is the most common form of sigil making, and it allows the most creative influence. As you see above the sigils are for nearly the same thing, yet the sigils came out completely different. Not because the purpose was different, but because I approached them both a different creative way, and that’s what I like so much about this method. There’s a lot of freedom and personalization involved.
(UPDATE: Here’s a link to a guide on how to deconstruct letters down to basic shapes)
Dolce and Gabbana Alta Moda spring 2016 part 1