Tidus playing Blitzball in FFX

John W. Howell asked if there were any entertainment activities in Windemere aside from the eating and drinking places that the champions find.  There are plenty of things to do, but it’s hard to bring them into the stories.  Part of the problem is that Legends of Windemere is a quest adventure, so these types of things become extraneous unless something happens around the event.  Aside from the arena fight in Prodigy of Rainbow Tower and the Rodil Darts in Beginning of a Hero, there hasn’t been much else in the realm of entertainment.

There are a lot of things you would expect that I don’t have to go into detail about.  Plays, circuses, gaming parlors, and simple sports exist when some being at the professional level.  In regards to sports, you do have versions of soccer and basketball that are found within the kingdom of Serab.  The barbarians have wrestling and some of your more classical Olympic events like javelin throwing and shot putting.  Yagervan has a sport that is an elaborate capture the flag race while Bor’daruk is similar to Serab.  The latter is in a desert, so they can’t do much because sand isn’t easy to work with.  To be honest, there are various sports scattered about the world.

People might be wondering what some of the more elaborate and unique things are or if there’s anything at all.  Well, I have 2 that are in the notebooks, but I’m not sure how to fit them into the stories.

Lords of Hyperscape

You might be wondering why this sounds like the name of a video game.  Well, it is a type of video game that the gnomes invented or will invent after Legends of Windemere.  It involves plunging the players into a detailed illusion world that they can interact with and other people can watch through scrying pools.  Due to the magical power needed for this entertainment, it’s closer to a sport and there is no home version.  Imagine the lawsuits on that disaster since you need a lot of precautions.

The way the game works is that each player is covered in an illusion that moves with their body and is altered as they progress.  The reason this is a popular activity is because not everyone can go on adventures or become a soldier, so this is a way for some people to safely experience it.  So there is a casual gaming parlor located in Nevra Coil that you can use for an hour or two.  Yet the real fun is watching the league that has turned up around this technology.  Teams compete in various matches and landscapes while the fans watch through the portals.  I was planning a story that revolved around a new team appearing to reclaim the game, which had become tedious and dull.  Not sure if this is still going to happen, but you never know.

Fry from Futurama

Clutch Ball

Long ago, a friend and I were talking about video games and thought Legends of Windemere would be a fun RPG.  I began designing various parts of it such as character abilities, magic system, battle system, and side quests.  I only made it as far as Timoran before I decided I should focus more on the books.  Still, one of the side quests came up because I’d been playing FFX, which had Blitz Ball.  I designed a sport for Windemere called Clutch Ball.

There are two teams and each one has a nest full of ‘egg’s that they have to protect.  Extra eggs are around the arena that they have to capture before time runs out.  The team with the most eggs at the end win.  Stealing is allowed as is using the non-lethal weapons to stun opponents.  This sounds rather simple, right?

Well, this is done with flying mounts, which means all of this is happening far above the ground with an arena that is both huge and filled with obstacles.  The mounts I had were griffins, pegasi, wyverns, hippogriffs, nightmares (winged skeletal horses), giant bats, and Gnomish flying machines.  There are enchanted items given to players to avoid falling to their death and the beasts are tamed.  Usually every team has the same type of mount, but some of the species get along with each other, so mixed groups have appeared from time to time.  Nearly every big city on Windemere has a team and there is a yearly competition that takes place in Cerascent due to their various islands.

So those are the forms of entertainment in Windemere.  There’s also a competition between the Sister Cities of Serab, which resembles the Olympics.  Various events and the winner gets gloating rights and respect.  Also a really big trophy that has the blessing of Cessia the Luck Goddess on it.  Any effect the trophy has on prosperity is accidental because the blessing is really for the oversized cup to never be destroyed and always find its way back to its home if lost.