under the northern lights

OOC: the Retiring Room (excerpt from canon)

2008-02-10T04:08:28Z

Crouching behind the high table, Lyra darted along and through the door into the Retiring Room, where she stood up and looked around. The only light in here came from the fireplace, where a bright blaze of logs settled slightly as she looked, sending a fountain of sparks up into the chimney. She had lived most of her life in the College, but had never seen the Retiring Room before: only Scholars and their guests were allowed in here, and never females. Even the maidservants didn't clean in here. That was the Butler's job alone.

Pantalaimon settled on her shoulder.

"Happy now? Can we go?" he whispered.

"Don't be silly! I want to look around!"

It was a large room, with an oval table of polished rosewood on which stood various decanters and glasses, and a silver smoking stand with a rack of pipes. On a sideboard nearby there was a little chafing dish and a basket of poppy heads.

"They do themselves well, don't they, Pan?" she said under her breath.

She sat in one of the green leather armchairs. It was so deep she found herself nearly lying down, but she sat up again and tucked her legs under her to look at the portraits on the walls. More old Scholars, probably; robed, bearded, and gloomy, they stared out of their frames in solemn disapproval.

"What d'you think they talk about?" Lyra said, or began to say, because before she'd finished the question she heard voices outside the door.

"Behind the chair-quick!" whispered Pantalaimon, and in a flash Lyra was out of the armchair and crouching behind it. It wasn't the best one for hiding behind: she'd chosen one in the very center of the room, and unless she kept very quiet ...

The Scholars greeted the visitor and moved into the room, some sitting around the table, some in the armchairs, and soon a buzz of conversation filled the air. ...

The Master lit the spirit lamp under the little silver chafing dish and heated some butter before cutting half a dozen poppy heads open and tossing them in. Poppy was always served after a feast: it clarified the mind and stimulated the tongue, and made for rich conversation. It was traditional for the Master to cook it himself.

— The Golden Compass, ch. 1

getting onto IRC

2008-02-08T23:56:21Z

Browser-based interfaces

CGI IRC can be found here: http://cgiirc.esper.net/publicirc/irc.cgi. It runs from your browser and all you have to do is type your nickname into the Nickname box, #jordan_college into the Channel box, and then hit join! Great for people who have never used IRC before.

Firefox browser plug-in: ChatZilla.

Install it like any other Firefox plugin. Once it's installed, select ChatZilla from your Tools pulldown menu. Type the following:

/server irc.esper.net 5555

/join #jordan_college

This will get you onto esper.net and into our chat room. To change your nickname, use the /nick command. For example, if you wanted to change your nick to Camilla, you would type:

/nick Camilla

(If you want more, or more detailed, information check out this ChatZilla FAQ.)

IRC client software

If the browser-based interfaces don't work for you, or if you'd prefer something different, there are other ways to get onto IRC.

mIRC is what Prima uses and she likes it a lot. It is shareware and will prompt you after 30 days to consider registering, but will not force you to do so or to pay. It can be downloaded at http://www.mirc.com/get.html.

LGS says:

To get on to our channel from there, install the program and then open it. Go to Tools in the menu, and then Options. A box should pop up. Type your nickname in the nickname box and one alternate nickname in the other.

Then in the left scroll menu, click on "Servers", then the "Add" button. In the Description box, just type EsperNet.

In the IRC Server box, type irc.esper.net. In the Ports box, type this exactly: 5555,6667

Then hit the Add button. Click the Select button next. Then go back to the left scroll window and click on Connect. Then hit the Connect to Server button.

The box that pops up should say EsperNet somewhere on it! Otherwise you're in the wrong place. If the box says EsperNet, type /join #jordan_college and you're there! If you have any trouble with this, just do me a favor and use CGI:IRC, because I hate doing tech support on mIRC with a passion.

Prima is willing to try to walk you through it, though.

Multifunction messaging clients like Trillian and Miranda can access IRC. If you're already a user of one of those clients, then that's a good option. Trillian users may find this list of IRC commands useful. As for us, we don't use Trillian and have no idea. XD

Jordan College and the northern outpost.

2008-02-07T03:25:14Z

For all kinds of information on the multiverse in which His Dark Materials takes place, the Srafopedia wiki is indispensable.

There's a useful list of places in the Geography section of the Bridge to the Stars wiki.

Maps of Lyra's Oxford are available here (a locked post in the community).

Jordan College, Oxford, in Lyra's World:

"Jordan College occupies the same physical space in Lyra's Oxford (Lyra is the young heroine of my story) as Exeter College occupies in real life, though rather more of it. I didn't see why I shouldn't make my college the biggest of them all." -- Philip Pullman ("From Exeter to Jordan")

An NPC porter has mentioned in RP that most of Asriel's 'exchange students' (i.e., our player characters) are being housed in Yaxley Quad when space permits. This is largely for convenience's sake OOCly, as Yaxley Quad is the building where Lyra lives in canon, and is based on the residence Pullman lived in at the real-life Exeter College. Feel free to have your characters housed elsewhere if you prefer.

The Srafopedia entry on Jordan College
The Bridge to the Stars wiki entry on Jordan College, which lists various locations within the College
"From Exeter to Jordan", an article by Philip Pullman discussing how he based Jordan College on the real-life Exeter College, Oxford
A canon description of Jordan College:

"Jordan College was the grandest and richest of all the colleges in Oxford. It was probably the largest, too, though no one knew for certain. The buildings, which were grouped around three irregular quadrangles, dated from every period from the early Middle Ages to the mid-eighteenth century. It had never been planned; it had grown piecemeal, with past and present overlapping at every spot, and the final effect was one of jumbled and squalid grandeur. Some part was always about to fall down, and for five generations the same family, the Parslows, had been employed full time by the College as masons and scaffolders. The present Mr. Parslow was teaching his son the craft; the two of them and their three workmen would scramble like industrious termites over the scaffolding they'd erected at the corner of the library, or over the roof of the chapel, and haul up bright new blocks of stone or rolls of shiny lead or balks of timber.

"The College owned farms and estates all over England. It was said that you could walk from Oxford to Bristol in one direction and London in the other, and never leave Jordan land. In every part of the kingdom there were dye works and brick kilns, forests and atomcraft works that paid rent to Jordan, and every quarter-day the bursar and his clerks would tot it all up, announce the total to Concilium, and order a pair of swans for the feast. Some of the money was put by for reinvestment -- Concilium had just approved the purchase of an office block in Manchester -- and the rest was used to pay the Scholars' modest stipends and the wages of the servants (and the Parslows, and the other dozen or so families of craftsmen and traders who served the College), to keep the wine cellar richly filled, to buy books and anbarographs for the immense library that filled one side of the Melrose Quadrangle and extended, burrow-like, for several floors beneath the ground, and, not least, to buy the latest philosophical apparatus to equip the chapel.

"It was important to keep the chapel up to date, because Jordan College had no rival, either in Europe or in New France, as a center of experimental theology. Lyra knew that much, at least. She was proud of her College's eminence, and liked to boast of it to the various urchins and ragamuffins she played with by the canal or the claybeds; and she regarded visiting Scholars and eminent professors from elsewhere with pitying scorn, because they didn't belong to Jordan and so must know less, poor things, than the humblest of Jordan's under-Scholars.

"As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had daemons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them. Lyra imagined the Chaplain speaking loftily, listening to the star daemons' remarks, and then nodding judiciously or shaking his head in regret. But what might be passing between them, she couldn't conceive.

"Nor was she particularly interested. In many ways Lyra was a barbarian. What she liked best was clambering over the College roofs with Roger, the kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum stones on the heads of passing Scholars or to hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on, or racing through the narrow streets, or stealing apples from the market, or waging war. ... "

-- The Golden Compass, ch. 3

The northern outpost, in Norroway of Lyra's World:

" 'Here's how it came about,' John Faa went on. 'When he was a young man, Lord Asriel went exploring all over the North, and came back with a great fortune. And he was a high-spirited man, quick to anger, a passionate man ... In the end the judges punished Lord Asriel by confiscating all his property and all his land, and left him a poor man; and he had been richer than a king.' " -- The Golden Compass, ch.7

At the time our game takes place, Lord Asriel's entanglement with Mrs. Coulter and the consequent fallout thereof are still years in the future. Asriel is still in possession of immense wealth and power. He has a profound interest in northern exploration. It is here, he believes, that the future of experimental theology lies. It is in the North that he will unravel the mystery of Dust.

In conjunction with Jordan College, drawing on its prestige and that of the Royal Arctic Institute as well as his own wealth and connections, Asriel has undertaken the creation of a research outpost in Norroway (his world's equivalent of Norway).

The Norway of our world is analogous to the Norroway of Lyra's World, and the Tromsø of our world is analogous to the Trollesund of Lyra's World in location if not necessarily in makeup. Therefore the following real-world links may be of use:

A map of Norway.
Weather observations from the University of Tromsø — time-lapse video!
Sunrise and sunset in Tromsø, Norway.
Information on travel near the poles.

Asriel's research outpost is not the sterile sleek technological institute that canon's Bolvangar will become in his future, nor is it built on the site that will become known as Bolvangar. Rather, Asriel's outpost has been built by workers hired from the nearest town, Trollesund, and its buildings are much like the houses of Trollesund itself.

"Directly ahead of the ship a mountain rose, green flanked and snow-capped, and a little town and harbor lay below it: wooden houses with steep roofs, an oratory spire, cranes in the harbor, and clouds of gulls wheeling and crying. The smell was of fish, but mixed with it came land smells too: pine resin and earth and something animal and musky, and something else that was cold and blank and wild: it might have been snow. It was the smell of the North." -- description of Trollesund in The Golden Compass, ch. 10

The outpost itself is a small and unprepossessing cluster of wooden buildings, located quite a way inland from Trollesund. Its remoteness is deliberate. Supplies can be brought in from the town, but this is not a terribly frequent occurrence, and stores should last for months at a time. The food supply is augmented by the hunting of local game, though not heavily.

The outpost is, by and large, rustic. It does have a few modern amenities. There is indoor plumbing (though there are also outhouses in case the pipes freeze; if for some odd reason you want to create plumbing-related plots, here is more information on plumbing systems in far-North climates than we can digest). There is anbaric power (electricity) supplied by generators. Several buildings make up the outpost, only one of which is devoted solely to scientific work. The rest are outbuildings for housing and storage. Researchers and residents live in shared houses: there are private rooms, though spartan (accommodations comparable to those in the dorm rooms at Jordan College), a single shared bathroom per house, and a kitchen that generally does not see much use, for the outpost also possesses a small dining hall. (Think of the chow hall at summer camp and you won't be far off.) The grunt work, cleaning, and cooking are done in desultory fashion by hired laborers from Trollesund. Their language is Scandinavian, but these specific laborers have been chosen for their relative command of the English language, and should be able to understand and make themselves understood to Asriel's fellow scientists.

People and supplies are transported to the outpost from Trollesund by sledge. The outpost maintains some sturdy Northern horses and a dog team for the drawing of sledges, and the horses can also be ridden.

This should give a general overview of the outpost. Feel free to ask the mods for more detailed information when needed.

Character roster for jordan_college

2008-02-03T07:32:09Z

Alphabetically listed within their home base.
Character name (fandom), <lj username>. Daemon names and species have now been added.

Mod NPCs:

Lord Asriel (His Dark Materials), scholar_asriel. daemon: Stelmaria, a snow leopard.
Thorold (His Dark Materials), scholar_asriel. daemon: Anfang, a pinscher.

Characters based at Jordan College, Oxford:

Axel (Kingdom Hearts 2), thehipsdontlie. daemon: Aurelius, a jackal.
Vossler York Azelas (Final Fantasy XII), vosslerazelas. daemon: Caldwyr, an Irish wolfhound.
Aziraphale (Good Omens), mister_a_phale. daemon: n/a
Balthier (Final Fantasy XII), von_strahl. daemon: Laverna, a South American Squirrel Monkey
Anthony Bourdain (real life), cheftonyb. daemon: Rose Lee, a fishing cat.
Trowa Barton (Mobile Suit Gundam W(ing)), holdingnofear. daemon: Yanamai, a panther.
Buttercup (The Princess Bride), shes_number_one. daemon: Gamemnon, a lovebird.
Max Carrigan (Across the Universe), killedthefan. daemon: Desra, a raccoon.
Anthony Crowley (Good Omens), a26blackbentley. daemon: n/a.
Jesse Custer (Preacher), dukesmyhomeboy. daemon: Jenny, a shaggy brown mutt.
Bran Davies (The Dark Is Rising), the_raven_boy daemon: Gwenno, a Welsh sheepdog.
Ed Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime)), fm_elric. daemon: Gisela, a caracal.
Jude Feeny (Across the Universe), loldeported. daemon: Sylvie, a black-capped capuchin monkey.
Kaylee Frye (Firefly), kayleerp. daemon: Mack, a brown dog.
Owen Harper (Torchwood), king_of_flirts. daemon: Ceridwen, a dingo hybrid.
Riza Hawkeye (Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga)), sniper_fire. daemon: Ettore, a border collie.
Jay (Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse), bob_no_speak. daemon: KT, a macaw.
Sae Kashiwagi (Peach Girl), serene_willow. daemon: Minoru, a coatimundi.
Lord Katsumoto (The Last Samurai), areallperfect. daemon: Yasu, a white tiger.
L (Death Note), horribleposture. daemon: Olyandra, a ring-tailed lemur.
Camilla Macaulay (The Secret History), c_macaulay. daemon: Quentin, a fennec fox.
Lucius Malfoy (Harry Potter), venomousblond. daemon: Aurelia, an adder.
Rodney McKay (Stargate: Atlantis), mckayrm. daemon: Nigella, a ferret
Oriya Mibu (Yami no Matsuei), graciousenigma. daemon: Apollon, a black panther.
Kazutaka Muraki (Yami no Matsuei), doctorbadtouch. daemon: Methodius, an albino kingsnake
Near (Death Note), a_cote_du. daemon: Tillie, not settled yet.
Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly), shitzi. daemon: ShiZi, a lioness.
Basch fon Ronsenburg (Final Fantasy XII), baschronsenburg. daemon: Renate, a smilodon
Roxas (Kingdom Hearts II), antiantisora. daemon: Lysander, an ocelot.
John Sheppard (Stargate: Atlantis), hedge_pilot. daemon: Rosalie, a vampire bat.
Silent Bob (Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse), bob_no_speak. daemon: Roberta, a meerkat.
Larsa Ferrinas Solidor (Final Fantasy XII), larsafsolidor. daemon: Eleftherios, not settled yet.
The Doctor (Doctor Who), thesonicdoctor. daemon: Artaith, not settled.
Tiger Lily (Peter Pan), lily_tiger_blue. daemon: Tiriaq, a Sumatran tiger.
Bruno Walton (MacDonald Hall), save_the_hall. daemon: Karl, a clownfish.
Quatre Raberba Winner (Gundam Wing), notesdemusique. daemon: Brienne, a Norwegian forest cat.

Characters based at the outpost in Norroway:

Iorek Byrnison (His Dark Materials), iorekthebear. daemon: n/a.
Draco (Dragonheart), theoldcode. daemon: n/a.
Fou (D. Gray-Man), crystallizes. daemon: Jinx, a red fox.
Galadriel (Lord of the Rings), ladyaltariel. daemon: Are, a bluebird.
Hashiba Touma (Yoroiden Samurai Troopers), blueshiftstar. daemon: Kairavi, a red-tailed hawk.
Gregory House (House M.D.), exam_room_one. daemon: Luciana, a spotted hyena.
Ami Mizuno (Sailor Moon), mercuami. daemon: Yuta, a tabby cat.
Link Ordonus (Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess), quiethero. daemon: Miloslava, a wolf.
Rabi (D.Gray-man), witha_fire. daemon: Ayn, a raccoon.
Richard (Looking For Group), undeadrichard. daemon: n/a
Rincewind (Discworld), runaway_wizzard. daemon: Molly, a sparrow.
Jack Skellington (The Nightmare Before Christmas), skeletaldreamer. daemon: n/a.
Jon Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire), starkwhitesnow. daemon: Ghost, a direwolf.
Arya Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire), runaway_stark. daemon: Nymeria, a direwolf.
Benjen Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire), not_an_other. daemon: Hild, a crow.
Susan Sto Helit (Discworld), usethepoker. daemon: Morrigan, a raven.
Utena Tenjou (Revolutionary Girl Utena), calyx_ofheaven. daemon: Madeira, a chaffinch.
Elphaba Thropp (Wicked), shizalumna. daemon: Iacchus, a cat.
Allen Walker (D.Gray-man (Manga)), crownednimer. Artemidoris, a White Siberian tiger.
Toki Wartooth (Metalocalypse), tokisisu. daemon: Sisu, a wolf.
Lucivar Yaslana (Black Jewels Trilogy), eyrienprince. daemon: Semele, a wolf.

Pending:

Bunny Corcoran (The Secret History), bnuny
Fran (Final Fantasy XII), chasingskies. daemon: Shawnodese, a snow leopard.

Available:

Wufei Chang (Gundam Wing). daemon: Ming, an ocelot.

Atreyu (The Never-Ending Story, book canon). daemon: Kishi, a coyote.