The Hillside

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Background by David Alderslade

Look Around You

The Hillside is set on the physical level, between Solar (Land) and Lunar (Sky). It is represented by ascending a hillside, where the distant horizon can be surveyed; the meeting point of land and sky, an equal-awareness of land and sky. In coastal contexts, this can be a cliffside; or a huge open plain. We are rotating away from the organic: such landscapes tend to be barren, or with cropped and harsh-adaptive plants, as opposed to lush; we are windswept, gripping, rock-exposed yet clinging on.

Typically, the weather communicates the Lunar rather than the Solar: that is, grey and overcast, windy, a blue day but with brisk breezes, fardistances suggested by the free-motion of clouds while we are still, or a peaceful night. And similarly, between-times (but without sunlight), such as the blue hour of morning or evening.

We are one step outside the Village. The mood is reflective, but restless. There's a little bit of yearning, and a bit of futility too: an awareness of lost time, and limitations, and of everything pulling you backwards because everybody is pulled backwards. The horror of social realism is that nobody can ever leave the place that they are born. For most people, a little taste of infinite is enough.

At the Horizon

The hillside is both Solar and Lunar. The ordinary human cannot go into the sky; the hillside is as far as can be dared, and looking, and wanting. It is confined within human limitations; and yet something draws us to look beyond. A slight touch of moon draws us outside of the Village to look back at it and consider. From the Hillside, new ideas can be formed, and new steps taken. We may be on the cusp of returning home to change everything; reaching outwards into the world of magic and the strange; or setting forth under the stars to fartravel to places unimaginable.

If the Solar city represents the center of a human life, then this hillside is things that stand just outside it. It can be both young and older people - approaching or leaving the city, getting some needed time outside to think, reflecting on how they have been raised or how they have lived and rejecting it, a teenage restlessness and frustration, or a twilight-years wisdom (or attempt to escape before it's too late). The hillside is human borderbrinks.

You might think of the hillside as the place a character goes during their I Want song - the I Want is a song placed at the beginning of musicals to introduce what the protagonist wants but has not yet found; or the place the hero flees to having rejected their call to adventure. Space to breathe, time to think. The hillside is the natural setting for the personal, or spiritual, crisis. There's a tension that needs releasing. It's also the borderlands of the hero's choice: what if, instead of going home this time, they just kept going? Part of the reality of the hill is that you can't get as far as you can see. You can look as long as you like, but the choice still remains: and once made, it is easy, to go downhill and forward to adventure, or to go downhill and be swallowed up by home.

It can denote the touching of the mortal and divine: a monk with a particular devotion, a loremaster with an angelic spirit, a teacher with a pupil. It implies mortal people with an airish element: archers, falconers, astronomers, and in all these cases there are notes of far-seeing.

Most of the positions on the Fencraft map are a limen of one kind or another, a series of boundaries to break in increasing levels of seriousness. This is a first-step: it's comfortingly close to home, but might still be impossibly brave and unpalatable within the little battles of the everyday. On regarding the hillside, there's a tug, and a terror. And a sorrow, that one is mortal and made of earth, and cannot so easily be freed to fly (and a relief, that one is firmly anchored)

This position can be understood as the tension between the Solar and Lunar, but without its light or heat, without its animation of the divine. On this hill, we are alone - but yearning. The Solar here is "concerned with the human world" and the Lunar is "but standing alone and apart from human community and manners".

Many Directions

This position echoes some of the meanings of the similarly placed Light, but where that is a glorious certainty, there's more of a touch of doubt to the Hillside: wandering without finding, questioning without discovery. It is as if the grey overcastness of the clouds and the tantalising confusion of breezes are getting in the way of something. Yet the Hillside celebrates uncertainty: we need this space of notknowing.

This position is also the furthest from the Stellar, suggesting perhaps that a mortal alone attempting to reason within the human domain is insufficient. To find true answers, man needs the awareness of the celestial, or the cthonic, or the wild. We are below the clouds, not within or above them, and certainly not wielding the heat which will burn them off and bring clarity.

All the same, the vision of this hillside can be accompanied by the dawning of a light or setting of an era, to emphasise Light's role. Light might be seen as "doubt resolved".

Explore

The practice of Walking is most closely associated with the Hillside: to go as far as can be dared within a day while returning home for tea, those little decisions made on the foot, small firm resolutions that could never be taken in the circles of your ordinary world.

The foods of the hillside are hardy fare: the simple salty-biscuit and cheese and thermos of tea that tastes never better than when unpacked from a rucksack. It is purposeful food, nourishing just what is necessary: it supports you, and gets out of your way.

In the life of a spiritual seeker, the early Hillside phase can call you to get your affairs in order so that a spiritual life is possible. Petty irritants, personal barriers and the unresolved can stand in your way. It is us at any moment where we desire the spiritual but are unsure where to find it or what to do. It is also us in the moment of our doubt, a desire to be close to familiar things once more and look back at the everyday world we left behind to wander.

Domains

Between Solar and Lunar

Elementally

Meeting of Land and Sky.

Landscape

On top of a hill, or ascending a mountain; standing on a cliff top; a wide open plain. Sense of land and sky equal

Animals

Swift movement and direction, embodiment of wind. Birds (not songbirds or hedgebirds: birds of prey and corvids who coast along hillwinds, and seabirds who soar far, and the mysteries of swallows). Horses, undomesticated.

Mood

Doubt, questioning, spiritual quest or crisis; temporary retreat before returning to try again; seeking but without direction; journeying without destination.

Colors

Colour palette is drawn from those things. Think washed-out, white and grey undertones (but rarely with too much black or contrast) - green and pale grey, or greenish greys. Or blue and green together, but not vibrant.

Weather

Grey and overcast, windy, a blue day but with brisk breezes, or a peaceful night.

Times and Tides

Between-times (but without sunlight), such as the blue hour of morning or evening; the spring, when it is fresh, blustery, a bit wet, rather than warm, floral or vibrant

Aspects

Seeking the Landweird

Called out of the Village by itchy feet, wanderlust, or frustration with the King, the Seeker takes to the hills. They become the Wanderer. Here, they may encounter with the Keeper who is their guide to the next mysteries; travel far to the Lunar Sanctuary; resolve their doubts and return as a Challenge to the Village; or give up the quest, and go home.

Reading List

Selections from the lore with the Hillside