SLUGGO

 (Puppet Factions in the City Mickey Dugan)

Some number of years ago, I was a tertiary and relatively non-contributive member of an OSR book club run by a luminary we will for the moment call Bat Masterson —

— the first book of which was Clifford Geertz’s Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Nobody, as far as I can tell, liked it. Geertz is famous for this concept of "thick description"— a kind of "everything is everything" kind of deal: that without the FULL context you can't know if it is a blink or a wink or some sort of ironic riff on the inability of said wink-blinker to affect such a gesture.

This seems simultaneously kind of obvious and non-actionable, really — witness all the pieces that grapple with but ultimately fail to capture the 6, 7 phenomenon (crossed over to mass cognizance just this week and soon to depart). There's ultimately no accessing the DEEP MAGIC unless you were when it was written, Witch. I know Geertz is critiquing contemporary practice and academic tendancy to make grand proclamations out of paper-thin evidence, but his core thesis in Negara, that these Balinese polities were ones where "power served pomp, not pomp power," seemed pretty grand and dodgily evidenced itself. 

No matter how much bread and circus we have to wade through on the daily, or our sneaking suspicion that typography is running the rpg product, I would be hard pressed to reduce such soup down to anything more than Power in the Raw makes everything sugary.

Mork Borg, via Explorer's Design

Patrick Stewart has a characteristically cogent engagement with Geertz here.

Anyhow, I ran across a print copy of Negara the same day another, better book, arrived via the gutted remnants of the USPS. Written by a different osr veteran (let’s for the sake of call this fellow Gearóid Ó Ruagáin), this second (which I heartily recommend) got me to thinking, or at least something that to the outsider would LOOK like thinking: 

"It was obvious from the body language of some of the individuals
that they were merely going through the motions"

Here side by side are two imaginary renderings of south-east Asia. How do they, as per the Geertz, "construct expression on their surface enigmatical?" 

Ruagáin's Yellow City has an overcast of slug men. They are plenty cute lil' guys but to my mind and I'm sure to their subordinates they are MONSTERS most foul. But why are they like that? The corruption of Power? The debasement by gilded Pomp? The nature of the forever inscrutable invertebrate? Let's instead take the G. man at his word and assume the slugs are instead putting on ... a Show.

Skottie Young

The Slugs in this case have spheres of influence in the real world — the SHAREHOLDERS — politicians/ criminals/ criminal politicians and the like. Bosses, underbosses. Each overarching Slug-run organization is a called BODY CORPORATE. A given Body Corporate is the equivalent of a single actor in our world. So say, the Body Corporate Christopher Lloyd - a consortium of mad scientists, spaced out peace and love aristos, and black robed inquisitors. 

These B.C.s play out a cycle of dramas which are choreographed power struggles. Pro wrestling, really. They (or rather the slugman's cronies as a collective) audition for parts just like any actor. The B.C.C.L., by way of example, is known for their work as the trickster type: Herla Cyning certainly, although in some epochs as Dottore Spaccastrummolo. They are good at it and get consistent work.

I guess all of this is maybe a little bit Xorvintaal – but it’s not a game. It’s a play. And the play is Our American Cousin forever and ever.

“Ronald Reagan? The actor? Then who's vice
president? Jerry Lewis?” – Dr. Emmett Brown

You know how history repeats itself? The whole K.M. first as a tragedy, second as a farce bit? Well, the second go wasn’t supposed to be farcical – the actors involved just botched the tone of the production. I was in the audience with a bunch of 14-year-olds who laughed like mad at the end of Othello, too. "Yes. 'Tis Emilia. Emilia — By and by — She’s dead.” Her leg twitches. When the audience starts breaking into giggles, it’s hard to go hard on with the, "Ha, no more moving. Still as the grave.” Man, the actors were pissed.

The reviews, if the Shareholders screw up, will be savage. You're finished in this town, Sluggo, it's somebody else's part next time and moving forward to infinity. The Company's time at the center of events has passed and they are little more than an applauding audience anymore, if that. Sometimes there's a comeback. "I will not retire while I've still got my legs and my make-up box" and that. Sometimes there's just the long tail (slime trail?) of denial.

Here are the roles then (you will perhaps notice I have stolen the structure from SJG Revolution and a VERY loose interpretation of commedia dell'arte mixed with some Germanisms):

Miles Gloriosus	Zarzuela	Attaccabrighe	Flour Tortilla
Pickelhering	Chiusette	Il Magnifico	Soubrette
Pavironicas	Erlkönig	Dottore Spaccastrummolo	Pollastrello