Meeple Mods

Carcassonne: The name evokes an idyllic beautiful pastoral French countryside. Or a bunch of tiles with people figurines confidently stradling roads, cities, and fields.

Before I divulge my modification, let me explain a little about the game. Carcassonne is a German-style board game. (Often it is considered a “gateway game” to the style for its quick and simple play.) The game consists of several tiles with parts of a landscape printed on them — field, river, city, road, and monastery. To begin the game, one player places the start tile atop the table, and has the choice to play a meeple. Then play passes onto the next player, who picks up an unknown tile. He or she must place the tile to match the landscape pictures on the existing tile, and may also play a follower (affectionately known as a meeple) on a feature of the tile. No one may place a meeple on a feature already claimed if the feature extends across touching tiles. When features are completed the player with who has the most meeple on the feature scores points.

We bought expansion pack which added new tiles and, more importantly, the capability to add a sixth player. However, the sixth player meeples were gray which we thought an unimaginative colour. Since the original colours were black, yellow, green, blue, and red, we decided purple would make a great addition to those colours. I bought some model paint and a brush and got to work. Surprisingly they required more coats of paint than expected.

Also included in the expansion pack were large meeple which counted as two meeple for the purposes of the game. Inexplicably, the large meeple are only 4 mm taller (sadly, I actually measured this) than a regular meeple. To help distinguish them, Heather used a silver Sharpie™ to mark a crescent on them, which resembles a small smile.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

I was given a copy of Susanna Clarke’s debut work 3-4 months ago, but regrettably put it on my shelf and forgot about it. Recently I decided to take a break from my usual fare and ventured to read a work of fiction.

Thus I picked up Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel. The book starts slow but is intriguing, holding promise of more interesting material ahead. Clearly, the author does not want to show her cards all at once. The story begins with a meeting of the Learned Society of York Magicians, discussing the decline of English magic. All of the magicians now in England are theoretical magicians and practical magic has not been seen in England for many years. In the first chapter, one of the principal characters, Gilbert Norrell, is introduced. Mr Norrell is England’s only practical magician. The first section of the book chronicles Mr Norrell’s experience in London as he attempts to restore English magic.

Eventually, a third of the way into the book, the 2nd major character is introduced: Jonathan Strange. The book details their work for the government, a strange prophecy concerning them and the restoration of English magic. Along the way, a woman is brought back to life, connexions between England and Færie are re-established, and the magicians quarrel.

The author has a very interesting writing style. She has elaborate descriptions of characters and settings similar to Charles Dickens. Her wit resembles Jane Austen, wherein she combines keen social observations with a dry sense of humour. To give the story an antiquated feel, she employed archaic spellings of some words, for example, ‘chuse’ and ’sopha’.

The work is quite long, around 1000 pages, but reads very quickly once you get into it. The version I was given was divided into three paperback volumes to facilitate reading. I finished the book in about a week reading at a moderate pace. I enjoyed the work quite a bit and highly recommend it if you enjoy fantasy. As a side note, Susanna Clarke spent a decade writing Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell. The rumour is she is working on a sequel which will involve secondary characters from this book; I hope it will be written in less time as I will be sure to pick it up.