fluffaholics of the world, unite!

Lucien Swift · Post by **Lucien Swift** » Tue Oct 01, 2002 5:52 pm

are you like me? do you know all of the 'did you know's' by heart? can you name all of the hall of famers from the reikland reavers? have you ever written-up a history of your team that goes back thirty years before having ever played a single game on the tabletop? are you just plain obcessed with the fluff, world background, history, culture, and general non-game aspects of bloodbowl?

good, both of you come with me.

i've started a little pet project, well, maybe not so little... i'm trying to get the wheels in motion on a new resource that will catalog and create the fluff side of bloodbowl. not another rules and rosters website, but an encyclopeidic attempt to put a face upon the most intersting and under-developed aspect of the game we love... we'll never be able to get it all, but i think that with a little effort and a lot of insanity, we can make something pretty cool...

so, if you're chomping at the bit to wax voluminous on the various and sundry esoteric topics of the bloodbowl world like the history of the game, its most exciting players, team histories, the nature of CabalVision(tm), the life of freebooters, the encroaching doom of corporate sponsorship and the current whereabouts of nikk three-horn... drop me a line at phio23@hotmail.com and we'll talk fluff...

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Tue Oct 01, 2002 6:03 pm

I have some fluff in my belly button if you want it.

Good idea though Lucien!

Grumbledook

Mestari · Post by **Mestari** » Tue Oct 01, 2002 6:13 pm

Lucien, if you add in the small magic sentence that the BB world must be separated into a parallel universe (and a few centuries ahead) of the WHFB world, then I'm with you.

Lucien Swift · Post by **Lucien Swift** » Tue Oct 01, 2002 6:23 pm

you need not worry mesto, one of the reasons this project is important to me is my lifelong drive to seperate bb from the wfb world...

the official editorial stance of the project is that bb exists in a parallell dimension created by teh lesser-known god nuffle as a mirror image of the prime material plain in an effort to prove to the higher-order gods that the rules of structured competition (nuffle's realm) are superior to the rule of avarice and the will to power which dominates the wfb world.

no wfb... as for being a "modern" era, it's more like high renaisance with a lot of mystical and technical knowledge spent on football instead of warfare...

Mestari · Post by **Mestari** » Tue Oct 01, 2002 6:46 pm

Lucien Swift wrote: bb exists in a parallell dimension created by teh lesser-known god nuffle as a mirror image of the prime material plain in an effort to prove to the higher-order gods that the rules of structured competition (nuffle's realm) are superior to the rule of avarice and the will to power which dominates the wfb world.

Well... honestly said, I don't like that one. Wouldn't it suffice to say that it's a parallel universe?

ps. testing my own smileys

(don't worry - I won't be using them excessively...)

Lucien Swift · Post by **Lucien Swift** » Tue Oct 01, 2002 6:51 pm

"the cosmology and motivations of nuffle are only speculated upon by the priests... dissenting opinions exist but it is clear that there are other dimensions very much like ours where the nature of civilization are dominated by different ideals... "

regardless of what the reasons for it are, it goes without saying that it is parallell and that the things that happen in the wfb cannon have no compulsion upon the bb world...

Relborn · Post by **Relborn** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 6:51 am

Lucien ... You almost had me after your first mail.

But I really hate those paralell Dimension and enesaince stuff. It simply does not feel Bloodbowl this way.

To me Bloodbowl still plays in the Warhammer World (so no Paralell Dimension necessary) BUT definately a millenium after the timetable of Warhammer Fantasy.

The time aera should be very much like our time right now with almost the same technological level like now. Okay admitted the presence of magic replaces some technologic evolutions from our world (like cabalvision). But the reason therefore was, that it is that much easier to accomplish some things by magic.

I still see teams travelling around on highways in their team busses and having Rock bands giving their intros before BB Matches. That's the way it was presented in the 2nd edition and that's the way I like it.

Lucien I really like your initiate of bringing more fluff to BB but I would like to keep the old style as well.

Valen · Post by **Valen** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 7:25 am

I agree Relborn, I like the idea of extra fluff and background info, but lets keep it in the era and place it should be.

Great idea though Lucien, let me know if I can be of any help, but I don't want to get involved in the paralel universe stuff.

Mestari · Post by **Mestari** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 8:51 am

My image of the BB world has always been:

the WHFB world with some modern time stuff added in. Rock bands and team carts suit in fine to that humorous world - the world doesn't have to be modern in order to have those! It's still sword and axe -era, but with boosted development what comes to certain areas of society so that those aspects seem like our modern times. It's a bit like Discworld (remember The Gonne?).

But that's just what I think it is.

Relborn · Post by **Relborn** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 9:32 am

Sorry Mestary from all the Fluff from the Second edition Bloodbowl it is evident that the Aera of Bloodbowl is long past the Sword and Axe Aera.

So no Team Carts as well as Magic and automotive developement has gone as far as our modern age (at least from the technological point of view). Okay it could be arguable if the progress level in Bloodbowl is more advanced than in our world, but hey definately not less.

Sure everybody can make up his own fluff if he does not like the official one but me like sticking to the official version ...

Lucien Swift · Post by **Lucien Swift** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 11:58 am

the bb era simply isn't clear, even in 2nd.... there are clear elements of the medieval fantasy foundation, and they've brought in all sorts of anachronistic nuiances to enhance the flavor.... the truth is probably somewhere in between wfb and a "modern" era... we can't really say that it is analogous to any particular year, as there is no expectation that the timeframe between our dark age and today is the same as that in the wfb world...

...personally, i see the bb world as having a timeless quality... it was cast in the image of the wfb world, but it certainly is not important when it happens to be at the moment... for me, bb is a jumbled mess of time clues... they have fast food joints, but the local guards still carry crossbows...

i stated that bb is in another dimension for the simple reason that it semantically and perceptably removes bb from the burden of wfb's fluff... it does not mean or imply that there is any further mirroring in time or space. the fact is that the existing material clearly and throroughly defies any attempts to peg it in a particular "time" and it really matters very little to me to be hinest... i am perfectly content and perfectly able to proceed with the task of organizing this project without having ever having to say "bb is essentially our world in 1972" because you can't, i won't, and it doesn't matter...

bb has elements of both a modern world and a medieval world, you balance the two, you don't worry about that fact... the truth is that the modern influences are more frequently referential or twisted than actual, the ones that are there are part of the joke...

you can't take this stuff too seriously, you really have to get the joke.

Relborn · Post by **Relborn** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 12:05 pm

Sorry Lucien I have to disagree.

I haven't seen any medivial fluff in the second edition (apart from Team Wizards of course). And I have definately not seen ANY Guard with an crossbow.

Its is not important to me which comparison to which age in our world you compare the BB-World ...

but please let out any medivial or WHFB stuff out of Bloodbowl and I am very happy.

As you said Bloodbowl has Fast Food, Rock Music, Cost Accountants, Suit wearing Business Managers Running teams, Colleges, Companies advertising their products ... that all gave me the impression of an not so medivial world.

Lucien Swift · Post by **Lucien Swift** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 12:23 pm

there are crossbows, i think it's in the did you know where a player's record for referee casualties comes up short because the final ref int he match is the local cavalry regiment commander and his men back him with crossbows or something like that... might now have been "crossbows" but the vibe is the same...

either way, there's cavalry...

and yes, there are a lot of modern references, but there are no references to cars, highways, airplanes, telephones, aluminum foil, pollution, high-rise buildings, etc...

my point is that it is _NEITHER_ medieval or modern, it's bb, and that means it's both. the appropriate way to write fluff for bb is to bring in only those institutions and references from modern sport, and leave all the rest of modern life out of it, and to bring in only those references from medieval fantasy that make the world interesting and leave the rest on the heap... it's a blending of high fantasy with our athletic culture, and that's the approach i take...

i really simply don't give a damn _when_ bloodbowl takes place. i'll write one article that inclues some statement about a player being a former soldier in an imperial halberd regiment and another that talks about mcmurtry's worldwide warehousing and distribution network and another with crossbows and cost accountants in the same room and _that_ is bloodbowl... it is both and it is neither... trying to make it only one or the other misses out on the essence of the joke and fails to capture the appropriate flavor...

bloodbowl's fluff has always taken what it needs and left the rest behind, _especially_ in second edition where the joke was more lucid than anywhere else in the history of the product... i tell you that it quite clearly was not a "modern" world, it was a satirical world. satire has no mandate to be either thorough or homogenous, but it needs to be referential, and that's what you got...

ljm · Post by **ljm** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 1:44 pm

In my copy of WHFB (3rd edition) it says that the current year for the game is 2500 which, incidentally, is the same as the dates given in BB fluff. So I think that the parallel universe theory is the way to go.

ljm

Lucien Swift · Post by **Lucien Swift** » Wed Oct 02, 2002 1:49 pm

not neccessarilly binding... remember that some of us have spent our real-world lives with two or more different calendars (is it 2002 or 5763? depends on how i'm feeling at the moment) so these things really matter little... the dates in bb are useful for comparissons within the bb world, but don't mean much in relation to other games' calendars...