Jackalope chapter 3

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Most of the action in jackalopes takes place in the underworld. The underworld of this story is a very dangerous place that all dead souls must pass on their way to paradise. In my design document I noted that the it should be based on equal measures of Mayan (the monsters and traps), Greek (general dreariness) and particularly Egyptian (the knowledge of protective spells and the one safe path) view of the afterlife. Egyptian mythology is very fascinating to me and the focus on knowing about the one true path is somewhat similar to the Christian view of Jesus as the one true path. As I wrote in the blog-post before this one, I want the main idea of the story (jackalopes leaving paradise to help dead souls to safety) to be relatable to all kind of people. Guarding the soul of the dead can be like being a security guard or police-officer, for example.

As I write in the last post Jackalopes is in essence, a story about giving up or temporarily leave a privileged position. I do not necessarily mean that in the religious sense, either. I also meant this story to be applicable to for example rescue-workers or similar. Even office workers fit into the story as Jane has to go through quite a lot of paperwork, induction and training before becoming a jackalope.

But what of the underworld itself? The first and foremost feeling I want to convey when designing the underworld is confusion. Not only for the shades being stuck in a strange and dangerous place with no hope of returning to life but also for the jackalopes sent to protect them. The main two ways I have used in my writing in order to make the underworld confusion is firstly to make the transition of time and space somewhat dreamlike. Characters and places can move around with no rhyme or reason. For example a character the main heroine met can be sent away on a faraway mission and then reappear quite suddenly from a nearby room without anyone noticing anything weird. Time is also vague, and it is always uncertain how fast the days go by since the underworld is always dark, and characters are always surprised when talking about what time it is.

The second way I have made the underworld confusing is by adding elements from different mythologies, myths and surreal things that simply do not make any sense (exactly what I mean by that you have to read the story to find out). I wanted to imply that people have built cities, towns and temple all over the underworld for times immemorial and as they left everything just crumbled or was reused by people coming after leaving a mix-maxed world of strange architecture and machines that a few, but not all shades know what they are for. The underworld itself has had many rulers leaving their mark on it, its borders changing constantly (the underworld has two neighbouring countries, so to speak, Hell and the borderworld of Xibalba).

Even for the jackalope lot of it is very mystical and weird. The only constant though the underworld is the safe path!

I do plan on making a series of jackalope books (although very slowly since I have several other ideas I wish to explore in-between books) and in this first one we explore just the first third of the underworld. We explore the outer darkness (a term lifted from the bible) the borderworld of Xibalba (lifted from Mayan mythology, Sami dream shamanism and er, Half-Life). Lastly, and most importantly, we explore thirteen of the twenty-three pylons and are dotted along the safe path through the underworld. These pylons are the main base of the jackalopes and there the heroine of the story, Jane, will meet several different friends, mentors and other denizens of the underworld. This story was very interesting to write because the main villain changed three times during me writing this. All three characters are still in the book.

Can YOU guess who were originally the main villain?

I guess I should provide a little of the text or otherwise provide a favourite scenario of mine. Since the whole book will be provided for free on my website I think I will just discuss some of my two favourite scenes. Actually, the two scenes are related. The first is Jane stumbling upon the kitchen of a pylon and conversing with one of the chefs. I wanted to show that work to save others is not all about heroics but also providing for them and feeding them. The hustle and bustle of the kitchen with people running to and fro and small imps pushing down ingredients into the cauldrons and pans below is quite vivid and a scene I am very happy with. The other one is Jane camping with a couple of other jackalopes and a emissary from the religion of Ray, the fox god. It is a nice little example of ecumenism and understanding between religions as Jane and the emissary compares notes between what their gods are like.

Chapter 3:
http://www.tymorthetrickster.com/Jchapter3.html