Shining Kingdoms: An Irish Perspective

Derry Luttrell is an author and artist on Team+, and recently received their first writing credit on a Pathfinder book in Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms, where they wrote the current events, a monster entry and the Shining Kingdom Factions entry. This blog post is about their experience and feelings about their work here. It was supposed to be a short “haha this was fun!”, but they have a lot of feelings, a desire to write about them, and ADHD.

 

Being Irish: The accessory heritage

In November 2017, I was given Peter Griffin as an example of good Irish representation. 

This was following me posting about being excited about the addition of Moira to Overwatch– an Irish hero that had meaningful links to Irish culture in her voicelines and skins. This being the internet, some people were annoyed with this, and told me that Irish people already had a tonne of representation, and that this wasn’t something I needed to be celebrating. I asked for some examples, and what I got back still makes me grin a little– Steve Rogers, Peter Griffin and Peggy Hill, among a few others. The irony of Captain America being used as Irish representation isn’t lost on me, but more importantly, it did kind of give a look at the way that Irish representation is viewed in media pretty often; it’s an accessory to be tagged onto something else to flesh it out, but not really to get the spotlight on its own.

 

I make my Irishness pretty well known in a lot of my work; you see it in little snippets here and there in the Team+ series of 3pp expansions to classes (Barbarians+ has some Cú Chulainn in there, Clerics+ plays with ideas of religion inspired by Irish faith history, etc etc), and I proudly call myself a seanchaí, a traditional Irish storyteller, when I want to look impressive. My first ever campaign I ran on my own, for a grand total of two sessions, was set in ancient Ireland as the dreaded fomorian giants returned to reclaim the land that once belonged to them– regardless of what smallfolk lived there now. It’s something I’ve always been very proud of, maybe defiantly so; Ireland hasn’t exactly had it easy in the long run, culturally speaking. Our kings were conquered by the Normans that we had invited in to help us win a smaller war, our religion was outlawed under punishment of enforced poverty by Cromwell, and we still had violent echoes of war up until maybe 20 years ago because of the Troubles. When I say I’m proud of my culture, it’s because it’s a miracle we still have this culture after 700 years of our grip on it fading.

 

Ireland in TTRPG

One of those places I wanted to have more Irish influence was in the area of my biggest interest: Pathfinder 2nd Edition. I love the setting of Golarion, because it really feels like there’s somewhere for everyone. If you want to make an American character, there’s Andoran or Arcadia. If you want someone inspired by Russian myth? Irrisen is there. But when you try to make someone Irish, it gets a little trickier. There’s no clean Irish expy in Golarion, which was always a little weird, because we have a bunch of Irish influence on the setting as a whole. There’s druids and bards, both of which have decidedly Gaelic histories, there’s leprachauns and banshee and púca (although even these are bastardized versions with no similarities to the myth in any regard)… but there’s no Ireland. 

This has always a little bummed me out, because I want there to be somewhere I can set stories inspired by my home. But it’d feel hamfisted to tell a story about the daoine sidhe in the Wildwoods of Taldor and Andoran. It’d be odd to write “hey, here’s a story mimicking the tales of the Fianna, and it’s in Mendev!”. The River Kingdoms, maybe, but that’s not entirely fair, since it’s a conglomeration of ideas from different cultures. Telling Celtic-inspired stories in a world without Celtic lands just doesn’t really click. Imagine telling a story like Outlaws of Alkenstar in Absalom. Could you do it? Yes, probably! But so much of the world around it would need to change, or the story would need to have a different tone. It just doesn’t work as nicely as it could.

 

Luis Loza, Certified Cool Guy

I tweeted about this, a few years back, talking about how I wished there was some way to have more Irish stories in Golarion, and I had a decent few people chime in and agree. Well, that tweet caught the attention of one Luis Loza, who talked to me about it a little. He asked me for some resources on Irish myth, I gave him like 4 pages of handwritten notes, and he went “whoa, that’s maybe too much, there comes a point where the line between notes and free labor gets crossed!”, and we had a laugh about it. I didn’t really think much more of it, and continued on with my adventures.

And then, nearly 2 years later, Luis messaged me, and asked for me to write on Shining Kingdoms. 

I am extremely grateful for Luis, because genuinely, not only is he one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met, but he’s also really serious about making sure Golarion can tell all sorts of tales. I ended up taking on the factions part of the setting, because I’m a huge sucker for that kind of thing in fantasy one way or another. The big, shiny part of this was that of the factions, not only would I be fleshing out some of the big ones in the region, I’d be making some new ones. The Broken Ghosts existed before me, but they were basically a quick slip-in in War of Immortals. Then, Kyonin and the Five King Mountains, I’d have free reign to make anything I liked. THAT was the single most exciting thing I could have asked for the assignment.

 

Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms

I tried to put a little bit of a mark on every faction, giving them something I could say “this was something I did!”. The Prophets of Kalistrade are having a schism! The Lion Blades are fighting an internal civil war! The Eagle Knights have *guns!* I was delighted with that especially, because guns coming to Andoran was something I initially pitched, and Luis and Matt Morris (who wrote Andoran as a whole) jumped in and yes-anded it up. Luis’s idea of warshard guns is still one of the single coolest ideas I’ve ever heard. 

The Shieldwrought Striders are one of the more goofy aspects of what I wrote, and also, one I’m fiercely proud of. I host the Dice Will Roll podcast, and one of the NPCs (suggested by Patron and friend of the podcast, Skye Skyefused) is Wanda the Wandering Machine, a giant metal dwarf-head shaped vending machine on legs. While looking for tokens for this character, I came across a Warhammer mini that was basically a dwarf in a mecha, and the idea stuck with me. Now we have ultrasteel salesmen that prove how strong the ultrasteel dome is by using mecha dwarf heads to kill dragons! 

But the big, big thing I put a lot of soul into was the Wylderhearts. I’m really, really delighted by the buzz that these guys have gotten from people, because this was my little attempt to make something genuinely, truly Irish-inspired. Before I get into it, though, I want to quickly sidebar into something really funny on the topic. I was writing up the current events section of LOSK, and I was asking each area author “what big, new things are happening in the region you’re doing?”. I had a whole thing about Treerazer ready, and needed to check with Michelle Y. Kim about what he was up to, how he was doing, and what he might be planning for the future. And then, immediately, Michelle nervously pinged Luis like “hey, um, you break the news.” And Luis gently sat me down and gravely told me “by the time this book comes out, Treerazer will be dead.” Which was one HELL of a twist I had to keep from my partner, who couldn’t know anything because of my NDA, but heard me gag in surprise at that. This was a month before Gorum’s death was public knowledge, even, so hearing “yeah btw Treerazer died” was crazy! I think Luis put it best in this meme he made in the Dice Will Roll server:

Elves and Irishness

When I was making the Wylderhearts, I was pretty open about wanting to make something Irish-themed. Yes, Kyonin is not an Irish expy by any means; it’s a weird, alien-like nation inhabited by Tolkienesque elves. But Tolkien’s elves are also heavily inspired by the Tuatha de Danna (the Irish gods, the children of Danu) and the daoine sidhe (the Irish fey, the Silken people); immortal, beautiful creatures from a world beyond (Between? Overlapping?) ours. This image of elves is even further bolstered by Peter Jackson’s interpretation. He adds Celtic harps and Enya, misty images of women in white, he makes them look like the riders in Durcan’s 1911 painting Riders of the Sidhe. In the zeitgeist we have now, you can’t really divorce Tolkien elves from Irish myth, largely thanks to Jackson exaggerating what Tolkien already had. Tolkien himself, for what it’s worth, thought romanticising the Celts was a waste of time. This is unsurprising, as Tolkien was an Englishman in the 1950s. The point is, though, I wanted to make something Irish with what could be my only shot at ever doing so, and I took it.

The outline I was given for this new Kyonin faction was a group of demon-hunters. I pitched the Wylderhearts to Michelle, explaining my idea. Let’s mix the champion and the druid, and make them hunt demons. Let’s make them sing and drink and not give in to despair, and hunt the lands for the blight against them. Let’s include werewolves in their ranks, and let’s have them have these cool dogs that hunt alongside them.

 

All of this, of course, is taken from Irish myth. 

 

The Irish Influences on Shining Kingdoms

Before anything else, I will say I only wrote about the factions, not about the mechanics of any group, nor did I write any lore beyond the Factions of the Shining Kingdoms section. The Wylderhearts are an incredible archetype, and seeing what was written about them in the Kyonin section at large? Michelle did AMAZING. I love everything about how she portrayed them, about the archetype’s mechanics, about the extra love thrown Diadaithi’s way; Michelle, if you read this, know that you’re a hero!

The primary inspiration for the Wylderhearts was the Fianna, a group of Irish warriors from history and myth. They lived in the wild as bands of hunters and mercenaries. Most of the time, they were the children of aristocrats who had yet to inherit land– maybe kind of close to the mainland European concept of knights. They were lead by Fionn mac Cumhaill (pronounced Fee-YUN MAK Cool), a warrior-poet and the hero of many myths. The statue below is from near my hometown, and it gives an image of the way we saw these guys: larger than life myths, protecting our nation from evil. Of course, in reality, they mostly raided cattle and fought in local king’s wars. But that’s mythology as a whole, right?

You’ll notice the gigantic dogs by this statue here. These are Bran and Sceólang, Fionn’s wolfhounds. Wolfhounds are giant dogs, the biggest breed in the world, and they were bred to hunt and kill wolves. I thought it’d be awesome to have them with the Wylderhearts, and I pitched a breed of dog with genetics from Castrovel, bred for hunting demons. While I don’t think I actually named them in the book, I called them elfhounds during the creative process, so that’s what I’d go with if you give yourself one with the Demon Hunting Companion feat. The art (and I apologize, I actually don’t know the artist here!) of a Wylderdruid by her elfhound is fantastic; I *adore* that the elfhound is tall, pale, doesn’t have much hair and has huge ears. Sounds like some other ancestry I know…

Including werewolves in the ranks of the Wylderhearts was intentional, too. That’s a reference to the faoladh, the Irish werewolves. These were spirits of nature, men who could turn into wolves in their dreams. They were entirely benevolent, and protected children from monsters. The Cartoon Saloon movie, Wolfwalkers, is all about them, and that was an awesome thing to be able to incorporate. Diadathi, the leader of the Wylderhearts, is a werewolf themself, and I just think it’s kind of nice to have even that as some sort of reclamation of everything. You might think they’re monsters, but not here. Here, they’re our heroes.

The Wylderhearts weren’t the only Irish thing I slipped into Shining Kingdoms. I was asked to write about a troop of fey, and I pitched several to Luis. It’s not my fault the one he picked was the one that had Irish influence! I wrote the Beiran Frosthunt, a group of icy fey that bring unseasonable winter and serve winter hags. This was inspired by an Cailleach Bheara, the Winter Witch, from Irish myth. I happened to be working for Paper Owl Films on their cartoon Lí Ban when I got this assignment, and the show’s all about Irish myth. One episode was about the Cailleach, and how she was imprisoning the goddess of spring to keep an eternal winter. That’s very reminiscent of Reign of Winter’s story, which features these little ice fey when it starts in Taldor! As a fun extra, the town that this AP starts in, Heldren, also gets namedropped in a sidebar I did earlier, mentioning the Circus of Wayward Wonders saved the town. Because I love Extinction Curse and we ran it on Dice Will Roll. Nothing you can do about it.

 

What Next?

Despite all this, Ireland still doesn’t have a home in Golarion, and maybe it never will. Maybe that’s alright, too. Part of the beauty and tragedy of Irish culture is that it’s dying; our number of native speakers dwindles every year, and misconceptions about our history and mythology are everywhere. We were an oral tradition with no written language, and we were destroyed by Oliver Cromwell, by King James I, by Queen Victoria, by Winston Churchil. Short of a country getting its identity retold completely or a new country rising up from the waves, there’s no way to really put Ireland anywhere. Even Kyonin doesn’t really fit the bill.

 

But you can see our influence.

 

Maybe there will never be a country where druids wander the lands the way our own did. Maybe there won’t be a country we can say was rented from giants, that has warring kingdoms fighting over cattle, that has warrior-poets and bands of noble hunters and fey creatures in the night. And maybe that’s okay. We have ways to tell our stories in lands that aren’t our own; the Fianna hunt the minions of Treerazer, hounds bred to hunt monsters continue to do so, and bringers of unnatural winter revel and relish in tormenting the spring. Irish culture is slowly dying, having lost the war with England with a death by the poison arrow of Anglicization. 

 

But we can still make stories either way, and I think that in itself is a victory. We’re not an accessory, no; but you can keep a piece of home in your pocket and use it to remind you of what’s important.

 

I’d still love for Golarion to have an Ireland expy one day! And in a few months, Team+ will be releasing Shining Kingdoms+, a mechanical expansion to the full Lost Omens book. It’s going to include lots of great stuff, like a Shieldwrought Strider archetype, a few alternate religions and gods inspired by the region, and of course, content for the Wylderhearts and elfhounds. One day, I’d love to write an update to this blog that talks about more Irish stories in Golarion. But for now, play a Wylderheart, and keep the old stories alive.

Join the Team+ Discord to keep an ear out for news on Shining Kingdoms+

You can listen to Derry’s Actual Play, Dice Will Roll, which frequently has Team+ Content in it here.