The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

Summary:

Immortality for our sterile overlord.

The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

Greengoat 06 Dec 2010 17:20

Transmedia loves bullet points:

• I produced a pencil illustration of a fantasy village that I called Pigdivot but never got around to writing up.
• Quendalon pointed out the Art First/Writing Second request on the Fight On! publication forums in which random artwork is posted and a writer volunteers to write up to create a joint article for an issue of FO!
• CrusssDaddy picked up the map on the forums and delightfully decided to write it up.
• CrusssDaddy (Chris) asked me to give him a couple of "easter egg" items to write into the text and I supplied him with details on The Boss and Bill the Mule.
• Bossly influences are hard to explain simply in a short article and sound crazy when explained over email. An immortal mule named Bill is a far easier egg to plant.
• There is now a request for artwork featuring Bill the Immortal in the upcoming issue of FO!. Anybody want to supply an illo? See the bottom of the request list.

http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=fanzine&action=display&thread=5048

Re: The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

TavisAllison 06 Dec 2010 18:00

Bossly influences are crazy, they don't just sound that way.

What about a photo of your excellent Bill mini to bring it full circle - perhaps with the photo incorporated into a line drawing, to emphasize the point that the humans are ephemeral but the mule is the representative of a higher reality?

Re: The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

James_Nostack 06 Dec 2010 18:32

As much as I love Bill the Mule, as a faithful follower of THE BOSS I think crazy details are absolutely required: accept no substitutions, even those of an immortal mule!

Also: I call heresy on Bill's immortality. The original challenge of Glantri - since terribly neglected - is to keep Bill alive on countless dungeon quests, knowing that he ultimately will meet a horrible, horrible death for our sins. Keeping him alive was a measure of skill, creativity, and kindliness (well, to the extent you can be kind in dragging a mostly helpless animal into a hell-mouth). That challenge goes away if Bill is immortal.

You guys have really lost your way without Hamish to keep the faith pure.

Re: The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

Greengoat 06 Dec 2010 19:23

You guys have really lost your way without Hamish to keep the faith pure.

No, the great holy war will ravage the land of Glantri pitting the Bossly and the Muleish against one another. A great mass of people of all walks will follow Bill towards the final conflict. The end-times will be signaled by his braying.

Re: The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

Charlatan 06 Dec 2010 19:53

Also: I call heresy on Bill's immortality.

Whoa, whoa: Let's all calm down. Clearly, Bill's immortality is thus:

1. Bill the Mule has not died, and thus may be immortal
2. If Bill were to die, would the Bossly not procure a new mule? If this Mule's name were Bill, and Bossly dungeoneering practice continued, would it not be Bill the Mule? Does this not suggest that an eternal— dare I say immortal? — ideal of Bill motivates the works of the Bossly?

We should all be less concerned with the corporeal identity of Bill, and more concerned with how planning to take Bill into a dungeon might reveal the Boss in all of us.

Re: The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

naked samurai 06 Dec 2010 20:20

If the descendents of Theseus kept safe the ship in which he returned from Crete, but in the following years removed and replaced the decaying parts, until eventually every part was removed and replaced by a part that was new, can it be said that what they held dear was still the ship of Theseus?

Re: The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

Charlatan 06 Dec 2010 20:25

One clearly cannot step in the same mule twice. I think, though, we are not talking about mules, but rather The Mule.

Re: The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

Sternum 08 Dec 2010 14:11

Everything James said regarding Bill the Mule is correct. This is why Bill is opposite the Boss on the Glantrian alignment chart — in order to keep him alive, you have to be careful and conservative in your dungeon exploring. Bring him into the dungeon, but don't put him in a position of too much risk. The patron saint of Bill the Mule used to be Immortus, his original owner who actually died protecting the mule from skeletal wolves ("He sacrificed himself so the Mule may live" - Codex of the Mule 23:1). Immortus's Bossly resurrection has resulted in a schism in the faith.

Therefore, explaining the Boss should be no more difficult than explaining Bill the Mule. He is the patron deity of kicking down doors, exploring one last room when everyone is down to 2 hit points, and drinking from the off-colored fountain in the room filled with skeletons. To the faithful, these reckless acts result in incredible wealth and glory, but when they turn south and death ensues, we can safely assume that the victim did not carry the favor of the Boss.

He's basically a D&D version of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.

Last edited on 08 Dec 2010 14:13 by Sternum Show more

Re: The Bill-The-Mule-Transmedia-Experince

James_Nostack 08 Dec 2010 21:43

when they turn south and death ensues, we can safely assume that the victim did not carry the favor of the Boss.

Really? Isn't one of the tenets of The BOSS that what looks like death is simply awaiting a stone to flesh scroll? For does it not say in the BOSSonomicon:

That is not dead, which can eternal lie
and with strange aeons, even Hazart can cheat his way to Level 11

?

I would draw from this that grisly, horrible death from incorrigible foolhardiness is an expression of one's faith in the BOSS. It's a martyrdom; those holy idiots are saints of the faith.

Praise the BOSS!
@-<
\o/
|
^

Last edited on 08 Dec 2010 21:46 by James_Nostack Show more