Author's Notes

So that's it. No Strange Land is finally finished. For a long time it was very close to being permanently abandoned. The first chapter was published in September 2015. By the early summer of 2016, I had posted the first four chapters, and the fifth was a handwritten draft. At this point, I had my first panic attack, probably brought on by excessive amounts of caffeine. Occasionally I wonder if it was violently disposing of one of the characters that did it, but I certainly didn't feel that was the case at the time.

The panic attack was a deeply unpleasant experience, and I threw away my draft as a consequence, intending never to finish the story or write fanfiction again. However…

…the story still wanted to be written. This summer it started coming back to me, and after replaying NWN2 (so good if flawed) as well as MotB (good but depressing) and SoZ (can't be bothered to finish it) I got to work. There were snags. First, I had to reread my extant chapters a couple of times, redraw the map, and recreate notes about the original characters.

Another larger problem was that I no longer lived within easy reach of the Yorkshire Dales. This story was very much inspired by them after missing the bus and going on a long walk on their eastern outskirts, ultimately finding myself stumbling across a ruined 17th century hunting lodge on my way back to civilization and the nearest active bus station. In spring 2016 I'd even been known to take my notebook on trips with me to record details of the landscape and scenery. I had to write Chapter 7 without having been to any karst scenery in years. The internet was a huge help of course, but it did feel like a bit of a cheat. And aspects of where I live now tended to muscle in occasionally.

Merging the NWN2 Sword Coast with the north of England is a bit uncanonical, but at the same time I really enjoyed doing it. I'm not sure where Obsidian took their inspiration from for the Mere of Dead Men – Florida everglades, maybe? The bayou? And the dales don't exist in the game. Still, it was really gratifying to start turning everything northern in the English sense. Not that things were wrong as they were, but I enjoyed trying to create a sense of place, and the impression of a lived-in landscape rather than a kind of vast stage existing for the benefit of adventurers (and tourists, as in Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide to Fantasyland and Dark Lord of Derkholm).

Akachi

Something that struck me as I was writing Chapters 5 through 7 was that Mask of the Betrayer was both a direct and indirect continuation of the story being told in the Original Campaign. Akachi is a pretty clear equivalent to the King of Shadows. I wonder if MotB was to some extent deliberately reusing ideas that were cut from the Original Campaign due to time and budget issues, or if it was more of an unconscious continuation? The feeling of "unfinished business" shaping the story of Akachi and his shattered identity? The final battle that we were given in the OC was really very by-the-numbers when you consider the elaborate origin story that was created for the KoS in the Gem Mines.

Apologies to Sorley MacLean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain)

Chapter 6 and Chapter 9 make uncredited inexcusable abuse of a marvellous Gaelic poem by Sorley MacLean. The poem is Hallaig which you should all go and read right now. "Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig." English and Gaelic texts are readily available on the web, and a recording of the poet reading it in Gaelic is on YouTube. The poem treats the subject of the cleared village of Hallaig on the island of Raasay.

I pulled out a couple of lines from the poem without their context, and then tried to anglicise the spelling. This is a horrible thing to do to any language, but Gaelic orthography is very distinctive, and for many people would create an impression of Gaelicness that would drown out everything else.

The chapter titles

These are mostly taken from folk songs, some of which would have been known and indeed are known in the Yorkshire/Lincolnshire area. More details can be found on the website MainlyNorfolk.

Part 1 – Abroad for Pleasure: This is the first line of the Holmfirth Anthem, a popular song at folk festivals.

Part 2 – Soldiers in the Good Old Way: From The Good Old Way, a Methodist hymn. It doesn't come from Yorkshire at all, but the Isle of Man.

Part 3 – Over the Hills and Far Away. A 18th century song about being recruited to go soldiering, appropriately enough. Popularised in recent times by the TV series Sharpe.

Part 4 – In the Meadow One Morning: From I Wish That The Wars Were All Over. A very beautiful, tender song. Tim Eriksen and Eliza Carthy both sing great versions of it.

Part 5 – Died For Love: From a song often called A Sailor's Life. One of the verses of this one is quoted in the text of Part 1. A girl goes looking for her sailor love, only to discover that he's been drowned. She dies in despair. Cheerful! Like most folk ballads.

Part 6 – Now You That Have Your Liberty: From the Boston Burglar, a variant of The Whitby Lad. A young man is set to be deported to Australia, and cautions people against repeating his own offences. 'Now you that have your liberty/ Pray keep it if you can."

Part 7 – Be You of Good Courage: From The White Cockade. A young man is plied with drink and tricked into signing up to the army. His love is distraught, but "be you of good courage" he tells her – they'll marry when he comes back.

Part 8 – Long Time I Wished to See: From Brigg Fair. Should you desire to, you can here Joseph Taylor of Lincolnshire singing this in a recording made on wax cylinders in 1908. Beautiful melody that's made its way into the classical repertoire.

Part 9 – Beat The Drum Again: From a variant of The Female Drummer. A girl is chucked out of the army after her sex is discovered. Rather than resenting her officers' lack of gratitude, she says that if ever they find themselves short of men, she'll put on her hat and feathers, and beat the drum again. Norma Waterson recorded a great version called The Pretty Drummer Boy.

Part 10 – Free to Go Abroad: Not a folk song at all, in that we know who wrote it, one William Barnes of Dorset, in his dialect poem Linden Lea. In standard English, the final verse runs:

Let other folk make money faster
In the air of dark-roomed towns,
I don't dread a peevish master;
Though no man may heed my frowns,
I be free to go abroad,
Or take again my homeward road
To where, for me, the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

Conclusion

I have one more NWN2 story in me. It's about Casavir and Elanee. I really want to keep it short; ideally less than ten thousand words because any sort of writing gobbles up huge amounts of time very quickly. I've been planning to write this one for almost as long as No Strange Land has been a thing. I'm hoping it will be finished and posted well before Christmas. Then, like someone I've just been writing about, I'll be freeeeeeee.

I do plan I come back to No Strange Land once more to correct the typos. Like death and taxes, typos are inevitable.