Poddington-on-Slossip: Theme

A Note on the Supernatural

The Poddington Project maintains a balance between the main thrust of its sphere of writing--the everyday life of the village--and its largely obscured  plane of myths and legends.

It is certainly true that Cornwall has more than its share of eerie, supernatural legends. It would be untrue to our setting to ask writers to ignore the potential of incorporating these elements into their stories. Within the bounds of theme, setting, and, er, reason, your characters can paint themselves as occultists, witches or warlocks, believe in sprites and knockers, keep time by the Aztec calendar, or hold long, heated monologues with what they thinks are their dead spouse's phantoms. However, as in real life, we far from guarantee that your character's beliefs will result in actual sprites cleaning up your dinner dishes of an evening, or that your black masses in the woods will draw anything more than scorn from the other villagers.

The mythology of the many fantasy worlds  is laid out comprehensively in a massive series of manuals, though. The mythology of Poddington-on-Slossip is not. It's something we encourage writers to uncover for themselves as they work on the project. We don't mind if people have odd beliefs. A Poddington resident may profess the ability to see auras, to communicate with spirits through automatic writing, and to place milk on her front door for the dear brownies. But that doesn't mean our world actually includes any of the things she might profess to believe.

If a group of writers were to decide that they believed Diva Stedman's automatic writings were truthful prophecies from the Demigod Da'aarka, and were to form the Da'aarka Cult that met secretly in the crypts of St. Athenasius every Wednesday evening after teatime, we'd have no objection to the plot--so long as the players involved knew their characters were just crackpots. If one of the members of the cult became transformed into the fourteen-armed Da'aarka and flashed her seven breasts to the Vicar, however, your Moderators would have to object. Believing in Da'aarka is one thing. Bringing physical evidence of the manifestation of a demigod who doesn't exist in the Poddington mythology is another.

When you contemplate writing a story with supernatural elements that evolve from belief to event (for example, if your character believed in the existence of ghosts, that would be a mere belief, but if she happened to encounter one, that would be an event), talk to your Poddington Project moderators. They will let you know if the supernatural elements are within the scope of the Project.

Your Moderators will be glad to give you, on occasion, various 'clues' to include in your stories, should the tone of the story merit it. You might wish, for example, to write the Moderators and tell them that your character intends to spend a solitary night camping near the deserted Tin Mine on the plains of the moors--what would your character see and hear that night? Your Moderators might have a few insights.

Questions? Email the Moderators, or ask on the list!