Twisted Time in Magicland (2024 - 2025)
Jeu de rôle pédagogique - High Fantasy Comique
With the objective to introducing students on the Animation Cinema course at the École de Condé Rennes to the widest possible spectrum of the creative entertainment industry, second-year students take part in a role-play exercise that I organise as part of their screenwriting and character design modules. (For reference, third-year students are creating a board game and a promotional trailer.)
By rolling dice to determine their characters’ stats – thereby encouraging them to move away from the trope of the character who has to be ‘cool’ – the students then take part in three three-hour sessions, after which they produce an illustrated book in which they recount their characters’ adventures through both text and visuals.
The themes vary each year, drawing on the cultural hits of the current year and combining them with one or more ‘classics’. In addition to the three sessions, I also produce an illustration to accompany the final one. Once the project is complete, a lesson is held explaining the narrative structure of role-playing games and the process of creating the illustration.
Year three of the role-playing projects at École de Condé: as there were more than 25 students, I was now joined by two fellow lecturers to act as game masters. As the theme for the Animation Cinema section was “Fairy tales” for 2024/2025, Éric Le Berre took charge of “classic Western” fantasy in the style of Raymond Elias Feist,
Laurent Miny took charge of more horror-themed tales inspired by the role-playing game Vaesen, whilst I was able to return to comic and absurd fantasy in the style of Terry Pratchett (with a dash of Catherine Dufour thrown in, as Blanche-Neige et les Lance-Missiles was an inspiration impossible to ignore).
With season 2 of Arcane having been released a few months earlier, it seemed like the perfect final ingredient in the cocktail.
Twisted Time in Magicland – “Rumble-Tumble It’s Melon Time” is based on a premise far simpler than its rather long title suggests. Following some screenwriting lessons with my pupils, I wanted to show them how one could easily conceal an extremely rudimentary plot within a sea of elements that “seem to make no sense at all”, and that, therefore, the richness of a story does not rest on its complexity in the strict sense, but on the pacing of the narrative and the way in which the keys to the plot are revealed.
Still based on the idea that the pupils create a human-and-animal duo before being swept away by a portal—this time a magical one—the pupils saw their merged character arrive in a universe described by these words:
In the beginning, the world was flat and empty, like a dried-out taco. To remedy this, HE poured water into it to rehydrate it. But the water was spilling out of the taco on all sides, so HE surrounded it with a vast mountain range. The wind came into being, and with it, the sun. The seasons came into existence, and with a snap of HIS fingers, HE dotted the water with islets, like cereal on milk.
Vegetation flourished on these patches of land, and as another snap of the fingers occurred, life came into being. Fish in the water, herbivores on the shore. But since the herbivores began to devour all this greenery insatiably, they needed predators. And so the dragons were conceived.
The dragons swiftly roasted the herbivores, and worse still, burnt down a large part of the forests along with them. Displeased, HE created humans. They were apparently meant to be the ultimate weapon against these great reptiles. Nothing worked. For every dragon defeated, thousands of these hairless apes had to be sacrificed.
Humans began to hate their creator. Realising they could not rely on HIM, they seized magic for themselves and turned it against their Creator. Abusing the inexhaustible mana of this boundless world, humanity built cities and kingdoms, each more fantastical than the last. Underwater, in the skies, at the heart of volcanoes that were once the lands of their draconic enemies. They even began to summon portals leading to a whole host of other universes, flooding their own with a myriad of things that had no business existing here.
And indeed, amongst all these things, there is you. Welcome to Mistemia, the capital of the Kingdom of Melchior. You didn’t know it a minute ago, but you’re about to enrol at the most famous school of magic in this strange little world: the Academy of Meteors.
Plot
Mistemia, capital of the Kingdom of Melchior. You find yourself in a parody of Hogwarts, where the creator isn’t transphobic but rather resembles a particularly elderly dog and goes by the sweet name of Phamsoo. But make no mistake: you are in the presence of the most powerful archmage on this flat net.
Once through the gates of the Academy of Meteors, you’re asked to complete a questionnaire. What is 2167 × 34 + 3? Do angels fear endives? Is the mandrake’s cry deadly? All questions to which the answer is, of course, always ‘yes’. House Belphegor, House Pizzananas, House Morgenstern: what will your fate be?
It doesn’t matter, because whatever happens, you’ll end up encountering the same teachers, the same pupils and the same lessons. Mr Papaya Dragonfleur, the quantum botany teacher; Dragon Pouic, who is a wyvern—but shhh, don’t tell anyone; Eleanor Mistebille, who’ll teach you necromancy and business; and, of course, Alda McDonald, your tutor in the science of magic.
A burnt-out classroom, magic that looks surprisingly like a slap in the face, teaching assistants taken prisoner, a pupil who walks around in a T-pose, the assassination of a king in the blink of an eye, a girl infatuated with a cadaverous sociopath, the supposed arrival of the Endwalker meant to destroy the world, inflation of course, and then Melon. Melon, yes. The little mage with the angelic face who, despite his best efforts, can’t manage to cast a spell. His eyes brimming with tears at the thought of inadvertently blowing up his classmates again tomorrow. Alone, isolated, lonely, endearing and kinder than anyone else.
But just as the Solstice Festival is about to reach its peak, with rebellion brewing amongst the people who are fed up with soaring prices and their homes being blown to smithereens, the skeletons and bishops each preparing their own messiah, the professors and the royal guard bereft of their king, and the old arch-dog running out of steam, Melon and his companions—whom he has gathered along the way—would like to make the most of the Solstice to summon a strange entity known by the sweet name of ‘The Friend’.
Outcome & Twist
Behind the absurdity of the situations and the numerous subplots, small clues were scattered amongst each of the characters. As the students witnessed each other’s situations, the idea was to enable them to piece together the story in its entirety. Thus, whilst all paths led to the Solstice and the summoning of Melon, only the correct answer to the question ‘Who is the Friend?’ could lead to the True Ending. The students narrowly missed it, resulting in (among other things) the destruction of half of Mistemia and the march of the Dead upon the world, but they still managed to quell the madness of the demonised Melon so that everyone could return to their original world. Everyone except one: the archmage Phamsoo.
As the students would later discover:
“This is the story of a little boy who couldn’t bear the loss of his dog. Unable to accept its death, he became willing to defy the world and the rules of the cycle of life to be reunited, if only for a moment, with his best friend: his dog, now too weary to wake up. So, in desperate denial, the little boy invents a world where magic can grant even the wildest of wishes – that of seeing his friend wake up for just one more day.”
Here are a few examples of possible endings in the campaign, with at least one per pupil:
TRUE NAME (Melon Good Ending) - “At the very last moment, Melon managed to remember the true name of his First Friend. Pham Soo, or Shampoo. The little dog of a little boy whom time had sought to separate from. Who refused to accept this sad fate, to the point of preferring to forget his name rather than accept his departure.
Moved by this devotion, the magic begins to sing in unison with this ritual, illuminating the eclipsed disc with the colours of the rainbow. The abomination writhes and howls; its hundreds of eyes swell and then burst like soap bubbles. At the heart of this atrocity, the shape of a little dog begins to appear. Melon’s eyes, too, begin to sparkle, and he regains his human form. He throws himself upon his friend and wraps his arms around him. Portals begin to form all around the square. The portals spread further and further, first into the city, then across the entire kingdom. Until Discworld sparkles with a thousand lights. One by one, the portals recall their creations, returning each summoned being to their original world.
Melon and Pham Soo are no exception. A golden portal has opened before them. And together, off they go, heading home.‘
A NECESSARY MO(U)RNING (Melon Grey Ending - What They Got)- -’I-I see. It’s true I’ve been keeping you awake for a long time. You must be at your wits’ end. I’m going to miss you, my friend. But I suppose it’s time for me to wish you goodnight. Sleep well, my friend. Sleep well...”
THE LAST DESPAIR ( Melon Bad Ending) - “Since I can never find you in the real world, then I shall preserve this one for eternity!”
AN EPOCH OF DARKNESS (Eleanor + Élève C - Victory Ending) - “In a whirlwind of magic as treacherous as it is blasphemous, the Deceased Witch has finally triumphed. Bringing back to earth all the dead she could carry, Eleanor has shattered the balance that separated the living from the dead. By ridding the world of life, she has stripped everyone of any reason to fear death. And beneath the dark halo of the eclipse and the languid gaze of a bird that was perhaps too curious, she now reigns as Empress over Mistemia."
VOID (Élève P. - Solo Victory) - "The void engulfs the world, plunging everyone’s eyes into eternal darkness. Spirits dissipate, bodies decay. Yet not everything has vanished: amidst this absolute blackness, one can still glimpse a small luminous halo. At its heart lies the silhouette of a little boy, and by his side, that of his dog. Trapped for eternity, certainly, but trapped together."
LIGHT OF TYRANNY (Church/Endwalker Victory) - "The arrival of a god destined to eclipse all others is sealed. Student T. now reigns over Discworld, overwhelming the world with a light that allows no shadows. Neither those of skeletons, nor those of humans with evil intentions. Nor of zombies or mere living folk. And certainly not that of a little dog. Which, like a spark blown out by a greater blaze, fades away."
CRYPT OF THE NECRODANCER ? (Catacombs of Twilight Victory) - "In this world where magic has taken precedence over reason, where as long as the spell shines, the consequences matter not, what place is left for those who wish to live in peace? The non-magical are mistreated, tortured, enslaved… We wish to restore this shattered order, to free beings from the burden of the flesh. And so, beneath the eternal moon, we shall at last dance without fear."
