Nattering about outfitting
Sep. 30th, 2024 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethToday my house got Cleaner but other than that the day just sort of happened when I wasn't looking.
I keep getting distracted on the internet looking for The Perfect Thing.
I have thus far managed to avoid actually buying any of these Perfect Things, but I keep getting distracted looking.
One large category of Thing is 'equipment that matches the functional description of Pathfinder equipment', except mostly if it is more modern it will weigh less, be more waterproof, and be stronger.
Which is nifty but not on the whole essential to my daily function.
But still, trying to collect at least the pictures of Perfect Things.
It's the thought experiment 'but what if you had to plan a one way trip to another planet'.
I got over invested.
Thing is I end up with many strong opinions that actually have no place in narrative fiction.
They'd do grand at plays or other dramatic productions, my firm belief is I could tell ever so many story by putting all these objects on screen. Someone who packs a large packet of disposable razor blades is a different person than someone who has an actual cut throat razor, let alone the really snazzy ones with damascus blades that there's no real excuse for. Like there's a sweet spot of long term thinking and practicality, and then there's tipping over into the rich guy's mistake of 'but wouldn't it be better in real ebony'. And you learn about someone from seeing that. But, only if the viewer can decode it. Which is why I can get so much more out of the set dressing on Torchwood, set in the UK so I know what all the brands are, than out of pretty much any US or Canadian production.
(Especially since Many of the Canadian ones ar epretending, somewhat badly, to be US.)
Once you are on another planet you have to build up all your signifiers from scratch.
Seeing how people react to imported goods may or may not help with that, since often their tech level will determine large parts of their reaction.
I reckon they'd hold a healthy disdain of most of our fabrics though. Sure, there's some technical fabrics that do grand stuff, lots of camping and climbing gear made with complicated fibres with a very specific task.
But then there's what happens when you even try and look for decent fabric and fibre to make things with nowadays, and everything comes up polyester and acrylic wool, and sure the clothes would go through a washing machine grand but what else are they optimised for?
... I may have spent a bunch of today looking at fabrics and wondering what they think they're even for. Silly see through things? If I so much as want a waistcoat that'll stay buttoned up then the requisite combination of sturdy and fancy is going to be tricky to find.
Not that I actually craft, so recs wouldn't help this one, it was just the feeling everything went fast fashion even if you don't want that.
(Also the goth fabrics are very skulls and not very daggers. I miss daggers. Fleury crosses are available labelled ecclesiastical fabrics but (a) still not daggers and (b) there's a lot of polyester.)
(There's some very excellent embroidery in the world now though, fancy machines plus computer programs make reliable complex stuff. Makes me wonder which centuries they could copy.)
It's one thing every corset or set of stays being flimsy when it is fashion, but another when you want it to stand up to the rigors of adventuring, or any moderate regular movement.
... witch costumes in Pathfinder rules tend towards corsets.
Also I was thinking about alchemist's outfits https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/File:Damiel.jpg
Because it almost makes sense. An alchemist has to mix things in their hands on the fly mid combat. If anything is going to go boom it go boom right there. So you'd want a tough flame resistant set of clothes, acid resistant too, good solid things like for the forge or the lab. But that big standing collar could be like a bucket neck that protects your face. ... wiki reckons what I'm thinking of is called a bevor or beaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevor which amuses. But like, if a bit of a flash is going to go off under your face sometimes, you'd want to protect and deflect. (Also to wear the world's best welding gloves or something.) Big collars with a front wrap to the rescue. Also a double breasted coat ala Rocketeer, for roughly the same reasons. Flame resistant trousers and very solid boots.
But also I reckon you'd need a bit of a cape like on an ulster. You want to mix things without getting other things falling into them, like rain or blood. You need to make a sheltered patch, like under a cape. Shoulder length like on chaperons would be a bit small, but full poncho length a bit long. Something in between just to get whatever you're holding out of the rain would be good. Split down the middle you could probaby see what you were doing. Ish.
That picture includes a backpack, which hardly any of the iconics pictures do, but basically everyone is assumed to have one. And the standard backpack is https://www.aonprd.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Backpack 2 cubic feet in capacity, which google says is 56l. Find any 56l backpack and see it on a human - that's a lot of backpack. https://www.fjallraven.com/uk/en-gb/bags-gear/backpacks-bags/trekking-backpacks/kajka-55-sm/ is more the pathfinder one described as masterwork but that's a lot of bag. Bags that match the drawings tend to be in the 20l range instead, which is half size. And if they're a handy haversack they could go even smaller obviously, since it just says 'well used, well made, and ordinary', but a regular pack should be a bit notable. ... a handy haversack has capacity in each side pocket to match a regular backpack, but the only weight you'll ever feel from it is the 5lb of the bag itself. 2.25kg. That would be delightful.
Mostly though, the rules for encumbrance make more sense when you realise how big and bulky and... swingy that much weight would be on your back. Sure people can climb mountains with a backpack on, with a lot of training, but spinny combat stuff? Seems like it would matter.
But that would be less cool, so on the whole it don't.
A bag of holding is 'a cloth sack, 2 feet by 4 feet in size'. Which presumably most people carry somewhere other than their hands. Does it have a shoulder strap or do they just stick it in another different bag? https://www.hoeshinternational.co.uk/products/breathable-non-woven-3-in-1-bag is the first bag I could find at that size shown carried by a person, though that one has a third dimension not just two flat bits of fabric. Still, that is one large bag to drag around. I've always assumed you can roll it up without impairing the function if you can still fit things through the mouth, but even a two foot wide roll is a bunch of bag. And it weighs between 15 and 60 lbs, which is three times as much as an empty backpack, and more awkwardly arranged. And! If it gets pierced ie battle damaged, poof, no more stuff, 'all contents are lost forever'.
Yes I realise it is a game so they are only doing the fun bits, and it is an approximation on all things so it won't fiddle that fine, but, imagine. You have six people questing on a grand adventure. And one of them has to lug around the dry cleaning bag. Because that's the size the bag of holding is.
If it's the halfling... that seems like a non starter.
So these narratively non useful details keep getting in my head and being the only scenes my brain presents to me. Like, okay, first things first, bring Owen Harper back from the dead. Then, tell him you'll be living out of a backpack, questing to close the rifts. Then, present him with the relevant size of backpack. A Kajka is 2860g, bit heavier than masterwork, but plenty of pockets. Keb is 2260g, that's 5lb, but pathfinder masterwork is only 4lb so probably pockets are different still. Here, have a splitpack, https://www.fjallraven.com/uk/en-gb/bags-gear/backpacks-bags/travel-bags/splitpack-large/ 55l and only 1300g. No fancy pockets, no masterwork frame, just a big rectangle on your back. Happy?
He's going to have Some Things To Say is all.
Actually the more backpacks I look at the more I'm wondering where they got their assumptions from.
Canvas and leather usually weigh more than modern stuff.
ANYway...
I was also trying to translate Owen's look in my head when the only keyword I came up with was skrunkly. Some sort of military bits, shoulder tabs on shirts, but that might just be the year. Cardigans, but was that just when he was out of character? Lab coat, obviously, with all the impractical pins that leave you wondering if he washes it. Black leather jacket when he goes outside, military boots according to the magazine article. And t shirts with patterns. How does any of that translate if he goes medieval?
... the pins aren't medals but its an interesting comparison. pilgrim badges too.
... distracted myself looking up what Owen's badges are. Don't reckon the screencaps someone has on tumblr are from the HD discs, bit blurry. Assorted musicians mostly. Look like they came off the same market stall.
... now I kind of want to let Owen loose on etsy and see which weird he'd end up with.
... reinvent Owen via badges...
ANYway.
... there's actually nothing stopping a made up fantasy world from having pin badges for locally famous musicians. You could buy them at live gigs. Yes they'd be fiddlier but this is magic world, magic world can have animated badges if you want.
ANYanyway.
Translating people via their stuff makes them into slightly different people.
Like, Ianto mentioned his goth phase in an audio. So I want to give him my favourite waistcoats and trousers with the good patterns. But he didn't wear that for work. Would he ever wear that? Deciding that means deciding if he moved on or stayed with a genre.
And if you do that in fantasy world you crash right into how skulls get used for evil and red and black is for actual factual devil worshippers on Golarion. That's a bit edgier than wanted. Pharasmin obsession with the grave is fine, but there's such a thing as too far, and locally it can get you burned at the stake. Bit of a nazi punks situation there then. Fine line.
... any two colors on Golarion declare your allegiance to a religion, and ones including black are either Pharasma or, far as I can tell, evil. Which is a bit of a pest if you arrive with a goth wardrobe.
Solution though, no deity uses three colors in the rulebook list. Sarenrae has iconics wearing red blue gold, Shelyn has a rainbow, Pharasmins either wear all black or wear grey with purple, but generally, if you wear three or more colors together, you don't accidentally land on a religion. Possibly a nationality, but not a religion.
... an in character reason to try and talk everyone into red white and blue...
... not an awesome look...
Wearing peacekeeper blue camping gear would land you looking Sarenraen, who is also a peacekeeper in her way, just her way has scimitars.
Hunter orange isn't associated with a deity I remember right now. But there's a very long list.
If you try and set up a secondary world full of symbols you either need a rulebook for reference or a lot of scene setting to give meaning to the symbols. If you try to translate the known symbols to the new world you get a lot of space for hilarious mistranslations. Or horrible conflicts.
But right now I just have characters in my head getting into arguments with tailors about trousers and the way neither Ulfen nor Ustalavic ones are quite right.
Which almost certainly amuses no one but me.
Ah well.
I keep getting distracted on the internet looking for The Perfect Thing.
I have thus far managed to avoid actually buying any of these Perfect Things, but I keep getting distracted looking.
One large category of Thing is 'equipment that matches the functional description of Pathfinder equipment', except mostly if it is more modern it will weigh less, be more waterproof, and be stronger.
Which is nifty but not on the whole essential to my daily function.
But still, trying to collect at least the pictures of Perfect Things.
It's the thought experiment 'but what if you had to plan a one way trip to another planet'.
I got over invested.
Thing is I end up with many strong opinions that actually have no place in narrative fiction.
They'd do grand at plays or other dramatic productions, my firm belief is I could tell ever so many story by putting all these objects on screen. Someone who packs a large packet of disposable razor blades is a different person than someone who has an actual cut throat razor, let alone the really snazzy ones with damascus blades that there's no real excuse for. Like there's a sweet spot of long term thinking and practicality, and then there's tipping over into the rich guy's mistake of 'but wouldn't it be better in real ebony'. And you learn about someone from seeing that. But, only if the viewer can decode it. Which is why I can get so much more out of the set dressing on Torchwood, set in the UK so I know what all the brands are, than out of pretty much any US or Canadian production.
(Especially since Many of the Canadian ones ar epretending, somewhat badly, to be US.)
Once you are on another planet you have to build up all your signifiers from scratch.
Seeing how people react to imported goods may or may not help with that, since often their tech level will determine large parts of their reaction.
I reckon they'd hold a healthy disdain of most of our fabrics though. Sure, there's some technical fabrics that do grand stuff, lots of camping and climbing gear made with complicated fibres with a very specific task.
But then there's what happens when you even try and look for decent fabric and fibre to make things with nowadays, and everything comes up polyester and acrylic wool, and sure the clothes would go through a washing machine grand but what else are they optimised for?
... I may have spent a bunch of today looking at fabrics and wondering what they think they're even for. Silly see through things? If I so much as want a waistcoat that'll stay buttoned up then the requisite combination of sturdy and fancy is going to be tricky to find.
Not that I actually craft, so recs wouldn't help this one, it was just the feeling everything went fast fashion even if you don't want that.
(Also the goth fabrics are very skulls and not very daggers. I miss daggers. Fleury crosses are available labelled ecclesiastical fabrics but (a) still not daggers and (b) there's a lot of polyester.)
(There's some very excellent embroidery in the world now though, fancy machines plus computer programs make reliable complex stuff. Makes me wonder which centuries they could copy.)
It's one thing every corset or set of stays being flimsy when it is fashion, but another when you want it to stand up to the rigors of adventuring, or any moderate regular movement.
... witch costumes in Pathfinder rules tend towards corsets.
Also I was thinking about alchemist's outfits https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/File:Damiel.jpg
Because it almost makes sense. An alchemist has to mix things in their hands on the fly mid combat. If anything is going to go boom it go boom right there. So you'd want a tough flame resistant set of clothes, acid resistant too, good solid things like for the forge or the lab. But that big standing collar could be like a bucket neck that protects your face. ... wiki reckons what I'm thinking of is called a bevor or beaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevor which amuses. But like, if a bit of a flash is going to go off under your face sometimes, you'd want to protect and deflect. (Also to wear the world's best welding gloves or something.) Big collars with a front wrap to the rescue. Also a double breasted coat ala Rocketeer, for roughly the same reasons. Flame resistant trousers and very solid boots.
But also I reckon you'd need a bit of a cape like on an ulster. You want to mix things without getting other things falling into them, like rain or blood. You need to make a sheltered patch, like under a cape. Shoulder length like on chaperons would be a bit small, but full poncho length a bit long. Something in between just to get whatever you're holding out of the rain would be good. Split down the middle you could probaby see what you were doing. Ish.
That picture includes a backpack, which hardly any of the iconics pictures do, but basically everyone is assumed to have one. And the standard backpack is https://www.aonprd.com/EquipmentMiscDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Backpack 2 cubic feet in capacity, which google says is 56l. Find any 56l backpack and see it on a human - that's a lot of backpack. https://www.fjallraven.com/uk/en-gb/bags-gear/backpacks-bags/trekking-backpacks/kajka-55-sm/ is more the pathfinder one described as masterwork but that's a lot of bag. Bags that match the drawings tend to be in the 20l range instead, which is half size. And if they're a handy haversack they could go even smaller obviously, since it just says 'well used, well made, and ordinary', but a regular pack should be a bit notable. ... a handy haversack has capacity in each side pocket to match a regular backpack, but the only weight you'll ever feel from it is the 5lb of the bag itself. 2.25kg. That would be delightful.
Mostly though, the rules for encumbrance make more sense when you realise how big and bulky and... swingy that much weight would be on your back. Sure people can climb mountains with a backpack on, with a lot of training, but spinny combat stuff? Seems like it would matter.
But that would be less cool, so on the whole it don't.
A bag of holding is 'a cloth sack, 2 feet by 4 feet in size'. Which presumably most people carry somewhere other than their hands. Does it have a shoulder strap or do they just stick it in another different bag? https://www.hoeshinternational.co.uk/products/breathable-non-woven-3-in-1-bag is the first bag I could find at that size shown carried by a person, though that one has a third dimension not just two flat bits of fabric. Still, that is one large bag to drag around. I've always assumed you can roll it up without impairing the function if you can still fit things through the mouth, but even a two foot wide roll is a bunch of bag. And it weighs between 15 and 60 lbs, which is three times as much as an empty backpack, and more awkwardly arranged. And! If it gets pierced ie battle damaged, poof, no more stuff, 'all contents are lost forever'.
Yes I realise it is a game so they are only doing the fun bits, and it is an approximation on all things so it won't fiddle that fine, but, imagine. You have six people questing on a grand adventure. And one of them has to lug around the dry cleaning bag. Because that's the size the bag of holding is.
If it's the halfling... that seems like a non starter.
So these narratively non useful details keep getting in my head and being the only scenes my brain presents to me. Like, okay, first things first, bring Owen Harper back from the dead. Then, tell him you'll be living out of a backpack, questing to close the rifts. Then, present him with the relevant size of backpack. A Kajka is 2860g, bit heavier than masterwork, but plenty of pockets. Keb is 2260g, that's 5lb, but pathfinder masterwork is only 4lb so probably pockets are different still. Here, have a splitpack, https://www.fjallraven.com/uk/en-gb/bags-gear/backpacks-bags/travel-bags/splitpack-large/ 55l and only 1300g. No fancy pockets, no masterwork frame, just a big rectangle on your back. Happy?
He's going to have Some Things To Say is all.
Actually the more backpacks I look at the more I'm wondering where they got their assumptions from.
Canvas and leather usually weigh more than modern stuff.
ANYway...
I was also trying to translate Owen's look in my head when the only keyword I came up with was skrunkly. Some sort of military bits, shoulder tabs on shirts, but that might just be the year. Cardigans, but was that just when he was out of character? Lab coat, obviously, with all the impractical pins that leave you wondering if he washes it. Black leather jacket when he goes outside, military boots according to the magazine article. And t shirts with patterns. How does any of that translate if he goes medieval?
... the pins aren't medals but its an interesting comparison. pilgrim badges too.
... distracted myself looking up what Owen's badges are. Don't reckon the screencaps someone has on tumblr are from the HD discs, bit blurry. Assorted musicians mostly. Look like they came off the same market stall.
... now I kind of want to let Owen loose on etsy and see which weird he'd end up with.
... reinvent Owen via badges...
ANYway.
... there's actually nothing stopping a made up fantasy world from having pin badges for locally famous musicians. You could buy them at live gigs. Yes they'd be fiddlier but this is magic world, magic world can have animated badges if you want.
ANYanyway.
Translating people via their stuff makes them into slightly different people.
Like, Ianto mentioned his goth phase in an audio. So I want to give him my favourite waistcoats and trousers with the good patterns. But he didn't wear that for work. Would he ever wear that? Deciding that means deciding if he moved on or stayed with a genre.
And if you do that in fantasy world you crash right into how skulls get used for evil and red and black is for actual factual devil worshippers on Golarion. That's a bit edgier than wanted. Pharasmin obsession with the grave is fine, but there's such a thing as too far, and locally it can get you burned at the stake. Bit of a nazi punks situation there then. Fine line.
... any two colors on Golarion declare your allegiance to a religion, and ones including black are either Pharasma or, far as I can tell, evil. Which is a bit of a pest if you arrive with a goth wardrobe.
Solution though, no deity uses three colors in the rulebook list. Sarenrae has iconics wearing red blue gold, Shelyn has a rainbow, Pharasmins either wear all black or wear grey with purple, but generally, if you wear three or more colors together, you don't accidentally land on a religion. Possibly a nationality, but not a religion.
... an in character reason to try and talk everyone into red white and blue...
... not an awesome look...
Wearing peacekeeper blue camping gear would land you looking Sarenraen, who is also a peacekeeper in her way, just her way has scimitars.
Hunter orange isn't associated with a deity I remember right now. But there's a very long list.
If you try and set up a secondary world full of symbols you either need a rulebook for reference or a lot of scene setting to give meaning to the symbols. If you try to translate the known symbols to the new world you get a lot of space for hilarious mistranslations. Or horrible conflicts.
But right now I just have characters in my head getting into arguments with tailors about trousers and the way neither Ulfen nor Ustalavic ones are quite right.
Which almost certainly amuses no one but me.
Ah well.