Tabletop Dalloway
The people in my classes will know this about me, but I act as a Dungeon Master for a tabletop RPG group at my school. That means I’m in charge of creating dungeons and story lines, balancing enemies, and keeping order during the meetings. I give myself extra work in the fact that my tabletop system isn’t very much like traditional D&D. In fact, I’ve been using a system developed by Robert Moran for the URealms Live show he does for his Youtube channel — check the man out, he’s one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGVMTa6NZ4iiC6LpSU9kPUQ?&ab_channel=BruceWillakers
Anyway, you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this, especially considering the title of the post. Well, you’ll need to bear with me a while. There’s a lot to explain.
Background
The system Rob developed, and that I mimic and alter for my own gaming system, revolves around cards. Players begin by selecting a card to choose their race. In my system, that means anything from being a Sun Elf to being a Selkie to being a standard human. Regardless, once they’ve selected their race, the player selects their character’s class by taking a “Starting Gear & Passives” card for that class. They then get to select their character’s abilities from within that class. Rob has his players choose three abilities, but I let them take four. After that, players get their items, weapons, armor, potions, etc. All of this, again, is based on cards. The cards tell you what the object/skill/race can do, how much stamina — Rob combines magic and health into a single pool — a skill costs, how much gold you have, and what items your character starts with without having to buy it.
There’s a lot more than that to explain about my tabletop system, and about its differences with the URealms Live system. In addition, I could go on for hours about how my internal multiverse is translated to cards. But that’s not the point of this blog post. The point of this blog post is Mrs. Dalloway.
A Strange Relationship
It’s a bit of a hobby of mine to compare my characters and multiverse to that of others. It’s mostly harmless fun; I’ve never been one for the fanfiction genre. There’s something inherently pleasing about comparing similar magics in my universe to those in extant media, and comparing my characters to similar figures in other writers’ universes. But normally, I do that with fantasy to fantasy, sci-fi to sci-fi. So it surprised me, this morning, when I drifted off into trying to get characters from Mrs. Dalloway into my universe.
Of course, I’m working with several universes here. Having non-magical characters is a given, and the universe carries statistically more of them than it does of the magical ones. But I normally don’t relate realistic or historical fiction with my own writing because I prefer working with fantastical worlds. So putting characters from Dalloway into my universe could go one of two ways.
One: I could simply plop them in and compare. But that’s dull. Comparing a character to a character is done quite a bit, and by better analysts than I. But two: I could try and translate characters from Dalloway into my universe by taking their personalities and psyches and creating a character with analogous powers or skills.
And now we get back to the tabletop cards. I could easily write out a bio sheet for Dalloway characters and add in my magics and skills and the like. But my cards, my tabletop gaming system, is a physical representation of a fraction of my ideas. It’s my own created multiverse turned into a gaming system, my own generated media. And as such, it would be interesting to make NPCs for my tabletop campaigns, and design them to mirror people from Mrs. Dalloway. So, off we go.
Subject 1: Clarissa Dalloway
Let’s start with the protagonist, if one could call her that. I drew a simile on a class assignment between Clarissa’s personality and something ethereal. The way Peter Walsh can sense her presence, the impact she makes on people’s lives simply by passing by and smiling, and her habitual flowing between past, present, and future make her seem like more than human, something supernatural. So, to not be boring with making the characters all human, I’d want some other race to represent my multiverse’s analog of Clarissa. Her fleeting attention between details leads me towards a species of fairy, as my elves are too concrete for the likes of her. So, ethereal, fey, and flowing…the best match is a Sylph.
Tied to wind, graceful, a Sylph would make a perfect Clarissa. But race is only part of it, and I only really captured Clarissa’s mindset with this fantasy species. Onto what her skills would be. Again, she’s a more ethereal presence in the story. But she’s also highly superficial. She doesn’t analyse things too deeply while they’re before her, and even in memory she tends to only fleetingly fathom deeper meanings than events portray. So, though her being is supernatural and magical, the magic couldn’t be a highly complex one, nor one with philosophical meandering.
The quick, dirty, and cheaty method would be to simply call her a Wind Mage, especially since her racial bonus would make that spellcraft easier. But I’m not a fan of quick, dirty, and cheaty. It’s no fun, and it has little meaning. So, for Clarissa’s NPC analog, I think a Wizard would suit her best.
As it says on the card, Wizards have great memories. This fits with Clarissa’s endless forays into her past, inspired by the tiniest detail of her present. In addition, Wizards in my universe form their own little society. They conform to their own rules, and expectations, and tend to consider themselves to be the “higher class” of magic users. That said, Arcana — wizardry — is fairly showy, designed to be impressive to onlookers while still serving its purpose. Clarissa’s Arcana in the novel is her penchant for parties. Her desire to have them be perfect, and her eschewing of Miss Kilman relate to Wizard snobbishness perfectly.
For abilities, then, this Clarissa analog gets the four allotted to her. I’ll start with the Wizard ultimate spell, “Chessboard.”
On the surface, it feels more like the power of someone more manipulative, more sly. But think about how desperately Clarissa wanted her party to go well, how she loses faith in it until things go right again. In addition, Clarissa spends a lot of thought on her idealized understanding of life and people. To Clarissa, then, the power to make all things go according to her own perception of the world would be a dream come true.
Onto her next ability, “Copycat.”
This one stems from Clarissa having adopted Richard Dalloway’s beliefs upon marrying him. As we hear Peter and Sally Seton complain, Clarissa was a very different woman before she grew enamored with Richard. So Clarissa has some aspect of her personality that makes her mold herself to suit the thoughts of those important to her. We see that when she extends an invitation to Ellie Henderson simply because Richard seems to think it would be fine to do so. “Copycat”, then, is fitting for Clarissa’s assimilation of Richard’s opinion.
Next up, “Dust Bunny Dance.”
I know, I know, this one sounds silly, but hear me out. What is the most important thing a hostess must do? What must a woman, obsessed with the success of her social endeavors, do to ensure they succeed? She must direct attention. Clarissa spends her party darting around, speaking to certain people, bringing other people together, and hiding her own feelings at the proceedings — and at the news of Septimus. She is trying to displace attention from her internal qualms to the party itself; a displacement from thought to moment. Ergo, a spell that distracts enemies is perfect for a Clarissa analog.
And to round off her skillset, I’m giving the Clarissa analog “Arcane Bolt.”
Why did I give her that spell? It has absolutely nothing to do with the book. The thing about making an NPC for tabletop is that they need to deal damage. So the Sylph based on Clarissa gets three meaningful spells, and one to hold its own in a campaign.
Subject 2: Septimus Warren Smith
Now that we’re done with the magical, floaty fairy of Clarissa, I thought it’d be only fair to do her counterpoint: Septimus. Where Clarissa is focused on the now with occasional flashes to the past, Septimus is embroilled in the past and only sometimes focuses on the present. Where Clarissa focuses on action and superficial appearance, Septimus delves into philosophy and metaphysical being. Add that to his depression and PTSD, and Septimus becomes the antithesis of Clarissa’s bottomless charm. So, for a Septimus analog, we’d need a race with a dark outlook on life. And, actually, I have the perfect one: a Draugr.
Yup, an Undead will be our Septimus. Not just because the Undead probably have a pretty grim outlook on remaining in the world, but because Septimus does, in fact, die. So there’s something pleasantly disturbing about having his analog be a reanimated corpse. There’s also the “feel no pain” thing, which matches up well with Septimus’s suicide and his PTSD’d mind.
As for a class, our analog can’t get away with being a magic user. Philosophical Septimus may be, but something fits him far better than a magic class. He is, after all, a war veteran. Septimus was a soldier. And soldiers, in the tabletop system, fall into the category of Warrior.
Now, this doesn’t mean that Septimus’s analog doesn’t get magic. I am going to give him a spell, but his primary class is that of a Warrior; a normal, run-of-the-mill soldier involved in his nation’s war.
As for his abilities, let’s start with “Valourous Charge.”
This one goes right to Septimus’s history in the war. Supposedly, he did very well. He was decorated, he became excellent at his work, and made quite the soldier. I can imagine a slightly Alan Rickman-looking man running over the crest of a trench, firing at the enemy. So at one point, Septimus was indeed a valourous man. And even in his depressed state, he feels that his suicide is one last act of valour, of fighting against the enemy embodied by Dr. Holmes. So here we go, his analog gets to do a charge.
Up next, “Savage Strike.”
Here we go again with this being based in Septimus having a past as a soldier. Number one rule of a fight: beat the crap out of your enemy. Throw a grenade to disorient them, then gun them down. Stuff like that. But Septimus also has a psychological reason for this skill suiting him. In his fits of depression, he often gets fairly morbid and vehement, savagely disdaining all that society calls beautiful. And there’s even more to it. In one word, in one action, he can tear his wife’s hope for him to shreds. So a “Savage Strike” would suit his analog well.
Third and final of the Warrior skills, “Tactical Retreat.”
Let’s be honest here: every soldier out there is smart enough to get out of dodge if he realizes he’s doomed. So a soldier like Septimus, who did well in the war — and came home alive, let’s remember — probably knows that it;s best to retreat at times. On the aspect of his psyche, however, Septimus does a lot of hiding. He flees from the world, takes little interest in things beyond his own mind. In an effort to escape his horror at not being able to feel, Septimus retreats into himself and his half-crazed tangents. When confronted with the unbearable, he escapes to what he feels is safety, even though his mind is more dangerous than the world. So, there’s that skill reasoned out.
For his fourth skill, I’m doing something my tabletop group hasn’t yet encountered. Because he’s primarily a Warrior class, the Septimus analog got primarily Warrior skills. But in my tabletop system, I allow one of a character’s skills to be from a different class. A physical class can have one magic skill, or a magical class can have one weaponry skill. For the tabletop version of Septimus, being primarily a physical class, he gets one magic spell. And said spell belongs to the Shadow Mage class: “Dark Repulsion.”
I like this one for Septimus on so many levels. Let’s get the obvious one out of the way: depression=dark mindset. Dark mindset=Shadow. There, the obvious explained. But this spell means so much more for Septimus. His depression is a void and a barrier at once. In its black negativity, it surrounds Septimus in an aura of dark thoughts. All those who too closely approach him get repelled somewhat by this. And poor Rezia — his wife, ever hopeful he will return to her with the right treatment — is constantly hurt by it. Septimus’s mental illnesses are his “Dark Repulsion” through and through. As if that weren’t enough, how often is Septimus repulsed by what he sees or hears? A lot. So yeah, I really think this spell suited him.
Synopsis
So, there you have it. In my universe, Clarissa becomes a Sylph Wizard with a penchant for utilitarian spells while Septimus becomes a reanimated Draugr Warrior with a Shadow spell to his name. Granted, their analogs in my tabletop system probably wouldn’t seem a thing like the versions from the novel, but hopefully my logic connects them well enough. That said, I don’t think I’ll ever use the analogs in an actual campaign. Don’t get me wrong, I could. But at the end of the day, they’re not my characters to use. Clarissa and Septimus belong to Virginia Woolf’s headspace, and I wouldn’t feel right putting mimicries into my own. Only she knew exactly how those two characters would act. I can only sit back, make my analogs, and hope I got close enough to the mark.