Farelle & Wildlands--New Info

[Speedwagon]

So a while ago, I had asked on the Fraternity of Shadows' Discord made by Zilferofshadows about the Wildlands and Farelle, with Ryan Naylor of the Kargatane giving his own thoughts which I found very interesting. I remembered bringing it up to IanFordam here when I mentioned for my Staunton Bluffs idea of having a Mistway to Farelle (and my own project on the Wildlands that'll be out for a looksie sometime later this month) but I remembered that it might not have been seen here. So here they are!

For the Wildlands
"Our idea was (as I remember it) that the language of the animals was not necessarily intelligible to humans. So (from an outsider's point of view), the domain is basically just a big savanna which appears empty of civilisation. Except that the animals are hostile, and surprisingly intelligent - luring the humans into traps (or plausibly-deniable traps), peeling off individuals and hunting them down, etc etc. Think The Ghosts and the Darkness, Congo, Jaws and all those other animal creature feature films. It adds a different type of horror (very man vs nature) to the Jungle Book reading of the Wildlands.

Or maybe they just don't want to talk to humans until the terrifying climax of your adventure, when they reveal they were intelligent all along.

I also linked the Wildlands with Farelle in the "The Jackal Who Would Not Be a Coward" in one of the Kargatane netbooks. It seems a bit clumsy to me now, but there might be some ideas for you."
-Ryan of the Kargatane, 5/31/2022 at 4:39 AM (this was in response to my question on the Wildlands)

For Farelle
"Farelle would have been part of the Gaztteers, I think, but we never got to the point of discussing what exactly it would have been like. So the sketch I wrote, and the very basic outline in the Red Box are basically all there is.

If I were doing Farelle today (and just off the top of my head), I'd probably do it as a combination of folk horror and rural slasher horror, with an undercurrent of weird horror. I think that's a niche that we don't really have a lot of examples from. Think the Wicker Man, Apostle, In the Tall Grass, Children of the Corn, The Hills Have Eyes, etc with extra wild dog packs. The key idea might be that the wilderness is hostile to people, and so, isolated villages and farms have had to become monsters themselves in order to survive. The dogs are good symbols here, because they're a domesticated animal that has turned on civilisation. They're wolves with an extra sense of betrayal added.

I do still live the idea of a domain with wildly accelerated technological growth, so you could combine these ideas to have a kind of rapidly civilising frontier realm. It might be a good place to have Westerns as well (although probably more Unforgiven or Deadwood). There's a weirdness in leaving town for a month for the hinterland and coming back to find it's doubled in size while you've been gone. So then the core idea is of nature vs civilisation, where both of them are terrible choices but the humans have to choose one.

So that's 4 types of adventure in 2 paragraphs for you. "
-Ryan of the Kargatane, 5/31/2022 at 8:48 PM (regarding my question on how they would have covered Farelle and what kind of vibe it would have had

[Jeremy16]

For Farelle
"Farelle would have been part of the Gaztteers, I think, but we never got to the point of discussing what exactly it would have been like. So the sketch I wrote, and the very basic outline in the Red Box are basically all there is.

If I were doing Farelle today (and just off the top of my head), I'd probably do it as a combination of folk horror and rural slasher horror, with an undercurrent of weird horror. I think that's a niche that we don't really have a lot of examples from. Think the Wicker Man, Apostle, In the Tall Grass, Children of the Corn, The Hills Have Eyes, etc with extra wild dog packs. The key idea might be that the wilderness is hostile to people, and so, isolated villages and farms have had to become monsters themselves in order to survive. The dogs are good symbols here, because they're a domesticated animal that has turned on civilisation. They're wolves with an extra sense of betrayal added.

I like the idea of a Hills Have Eyes type of scenario. A lot could be done witha a vast desert (or prairie) criss-crossed with plenty of caves and crevasses that hide crazy mountain folk and their cannibalist communities. The canine theme also brings to mind the dingoes of Australia, which dovetails nicely with that set up as well. The domain might have to be expanded significantly, however, much like Vorostokov in order to really get that isolated feeling across!

[Speedwagon]

For Farelle
"Farelle would have been part of the Gaztteers, I think, but we never got to the point of discussing what exactly it would have been like. So the sketch I wrote, and the very basic outline in the Red Box are basically all there is.

If I were doing Farelle today (and just off the top of my head), I'd probably do it as a combination of folk horror and rural slasher horror, with an undercurrent of weird horror. I think that's a niche that we don't really have a lot of examples from. Think the Wicker Man, Apostle, In the Tall Grass, Children of the Corn, The Hills Have Eyes, etc with extra wild dog packs. The key idea might be that the wilderness is hostile to people, and so, isolated villages and farms have had to become monsters themselves in order to survive. The dogs are good symbols here, because they're a domesticated animal that has turned on civilisation. They're wolves with an extra sense of betrayal added.

I like the idea of a Hills Have Eyes type of scenario. A lot could be done witha a vast desert (or prairie) criss-crossed with plenty of caves and crevasses that hide crazy mountain folk and their cannibalist communities. The canine theme also brings to mind the dingoes of Australia, which dovetails nicely with that set up as well. The domain might have to be expanded significantly, however, much like Vorostokov in order to really get that isolated feeling across!

The good thing about Farelle is that while it’s sparse on detail, the domain’s image can be neatly expanded. The distance between Kaynis and Mortilis can be anything between 3 hours or 3 days! And the whole stuff with dogs does remind me of Australia, so Farelle can have a similar feel to it in some ways. Expect a Farelle gazetteer sometime soon!

[Jeremy16]

The good thing about Farelle is that while it’s sparse on detail, the domain’s image can be neatly expanded. The distance between Kaynis and Mortilis can be anything between 3 hours or 3 days! And the whole stuff with dogs does remind me of Australia, so Farelle can have a similar feel to it in some ways. Expect a Farelle gazetteer sometime soon!

I can't wait to see it! If you need someone to edit or review it beforehand let me know!

[Speedwagon]

The good thing about Farelle is that while it’s sparse on detail, the domain’s image can be neatly expanded. The distance between Kaynis and Mortilis can be anything between 3 hours or 3 days! And the whole stuff with dogs does remind me of Australia, so Farelle can have a similar feel to it in some ways. Expect a Farelle gazetteer sometime soon!

I can't wait to see it! If you need someone to edit or review it beforehand let me know!

Thanks Jeremy! I’d be happy to send over a copy of the gazetteer when it’s ready for review, or I can share the general design ideas for how I plan to go about the gazetteer on this thread or somewhere else. Plus I plan to touch on the Wildlands in the future, so that one write up on the Elephant Graveyard in your Olerick’s Guides was pretty helpful to shift one’s imagination into gear (your article on hospices was super helpful to my home games—-a few players were shocked at the idea they could just heal up at the hospital instead of drinking x amount of healing potions!)

[Ryan Naylor]

The canine theme also brings to mind the dingoes of Australia, which dovetails nicely with that set up as well. The domain might have to be expanded significantly, however, much like Vorostokov in order to really get that isolated feeling across!

And the whole stuff with dogs does remind me of Australia, so Farelle can have a similar feel to it in some ways.

Well, I *am* Australian...


Although, to be fair, I was thinking of coyotes and Westerns when I wrote that.

[Speedwagon]

The canine theme also brings to mind the dingoes of Australia, which dovetails nicely with that set up as well. The domain might have to be expanded significantly, however, much like Vorostokov in order to really get that isolated feeling across!

And the whole stuff with dogs does remind me of Australia, so Farelle can have a similar feel to it in some ways.

Well, I *am* Australian...


Although, to be fair, I was thinking of coyotes and Westerns when I wrote that.

Understandable! And when you mentioned that the people had to become monsters in the settlements to survive, did you have any thoughts on how to square that with the Book of Sacrifices write up on Farelle saying the folk are super friendly and genuinely nice? I have an idea on how Karn (and by extension the land) might’ve changed to square the difference between the new thoughts on Farelle and Farelle as presented in the netbook, but I was curious.

[Ryan Naylor]

To be fair, the two versions of Farelle were written (off the cuff, in one case) without any real regard for each other. But...

Folk horror often hinges on the horror being hidden beneath a veneer of pleasant community living. There're also the tropes that good is not nice (and conversely, that nice is not good) and being affably evil.

In this view, Farelle's people are genuinely welcoming, pleasant, community minded people. Life on the frontier is hard, and the only way to survive is to depend on your neighbours. But they are also isolated, and strange customs, superstitions and needs have bred in that isolation. Woe betide the travellers who enter these communities without knowing their customs first...

If you wanted to lean into the weird horror/Wicker Man/Midsommar aspects, there's the weird cults route, where the PCs come to the village before some kind of festival, where Nature Must Be Appeased to ensure the next year's harvest, and the outsiders are a suitable sacrifice. Whether or not there is a genuine threat behind the rituals, or whether it's just a collective derangement (Children of the Corn/the Dunwich Horror vs Wicker Man/Midsommar) is up to you. They're good, upright people doing what's best for their neighbours and children. There's no malice, but it needs to be done.

If you wanted to lean more into the Western/slasher horror aspects, the town may be perfectly safe for decent, law abiding folk, but people who break the customs, or are undesirable elements, or suspected likely to endanger the town's community for whatever reason, are subject to disproportionate retribution (sometimes pre-emptively). Safe-until-you-break-the-rules would be more like Unforgiven. Clearing-out-the-undesirables pops up a lot in British farm horror films for some reason - you can even see it in Hot Fuzz, for example. Again, they're good, upright people doing what's best for decent folk. If people aren't decent folk, why, they're no better than a rabid dog, and you wouldn't suffer them to live.

And finally, there's outright folk/slasher horror, like The Hills Have Eyes, or any of the genre of welcoming-town-goes-mad-at-night. Here, "nice" is a thin coating over violent madness. Little old ladies welcome you with tea and cakes laced with sedatives so they can eat or torture you later. The local church has a basement full of trophies from murdered travellers. The locals compete in a neighbourly competition to hunt and capture visitors.

And outside the villages, the wild dogs howl, and worse waits for the unwary in the long grass. There's no respite for travellers who flee once the community turns on them...

Of course, all 3 are different (and consistent) responses to the same theme of Civilisation vs Nature: the first is appeasing nature so the community can survive; the second is defending community against threats; the third is community corrupted by the barbarism of nature. So you could use all of them as different sub-themes in Farelle.

I also think they're still consistent with Jack Karn and the Jackal Who Would Not Be a Coward. The strength of the communities harkens back to Jack's abandonment by the other jackals (i.e. the strength in numbers he never roused), and to a lesser extent his exile from the other animals. The growth of the towns are a thumb in his eye because of his contempt for humans, but they also echo the themes of his story and character. As a jackalwere, he, like the towns, presents a safe facade over a monstrous reality. The prospect of violence lurks within everyone, no matter how pleasant they seem to be, and being welcoming masks the hypocrisy at the heart of civilisation where thick lines separate the lives of Insiders vs Outsiders.

Anyway, those are my musings. What would you do?

[Mistmaster]

I think that a misanthropist darklord should have a pleasant and hospitable domain.

[Speedwagon]

I think that a misanthropist darklord should have a pleasant and hospitable domain.

That certainly fits with the old interpretation of Farelle from the Book of Sacrifices, but I like the current ideas being put forward with the folk horror/slasher horror theme. Plus, I already figured that "pleasant and hospitable" domain fits better for my take on Staunton Bluffs, and I didn't want to do the same thing twice between Staunton Bluffs and Farelle. But I'm interested when your Mistworld take on Farelle will be revealed to us, Mistmaster!

[Speedwagon]

To be fair, the two versions of Farelle were written (off the cuff, in one case) without any real regard for each other. But...

Folk horror often hinges on the horror being hidden beneath a veneer of pleasant community living. There're also the tropes that good is not nice (and conversely, that nice is not good) and being affably evil.

In this view, Farelle's people are genuinely welcoming, pleasant, community minded people. Life on the frontier is hard, and the only way to survive is to depend on your neighbours. But they are also isolated, and strange customs, superstitions and needs have bred in that isolation. Woe betide the travellers who enter these communities without knowing their customs first...

If you wanted to lean into the weird horror/Wicker Man/Midsommar aspects, there's the weird cults route, where the PCs come to the village before some kind of festival, where Nature Must Be Appeased to ensure the next year's harvest, and the outsiders are a suitable sacrifice. Whether or not there is a genuine threat behind the rituals, or whether it's just a collective derangement (Children of the Corn/the Dunwich Horror vs Wicker Man/Midsommar) is up to you. They're good, upright people doing what's best for their neighbours and children. There's no malice, but it needs to be done.

If you wanted to lean more into the Western/slasher horror aspects, the town may be perfectly safe for decent, law abiding folk, but people who break the customs, or are undesirable elements, or suspected likely to endanger the town's community for whatever reason, are subject to disproportionate retribution (sometimes pre-emptively). Safe-until-you-break-the-rules would be more like Unforgiven. Clearing-out-the-undesirables pops up a lot in British farm horror films for some reason - you can even see it in Hot Fuzz, for example. Again, they're good, upright people doing what's best for decent folk. If people aren't decent folk, why, they're no better than a rabid dog, and you wouldn't suffer them to live.

And finally, there's outright folk/slasher horror, like The Hills Have Eyes, or any of the genre of welcoming-town-goes-mad-at-night. Here, "nice" is a thin coating over violent madness. Little old ladies welcome you with tea and cakes laced with sedatives so they can eat or torture you later. The local church has a basement full of trophies from murdered travellers. The locals compete in a neighbourly competition to hunt and capture visitors.

And outside the villages, the wild dogs howl, and worse waits for the unwary in the long grass. There's no respite for travellers who flee once the community turns on them...

Of course, all 3 are different (and consistent) responses to the same theme of Civilisation vs Nature: the first is appeasing nature so the community can survive; the second is defending community against threats; the third is community corrupted by the barbarism of nature. So you could use all of them as different sub-themes in Farelle.

I also think they're still consistent with Jack Karn and the Jackal Who Would Not Be a Coward. The strength of the communities harkens back to Jack's abandonment by the other jackals (i.e. the strength in numbers he never roused), and to a lesser extent his exile from the other animals. The growth of the towns are a thumb in his eye because of his contempt for humans, but they also echo the themes of his story and character. As a jackalwere, he, like the towns, presents a safe facade over a monstrous reality. The prospect of violence lurks within everyone, no matter how pleasant they seem to be, and being welcoming masks the hypocrisy at the heart of civilisation where thick lines separate the lives of Insiders vs Outsiders.

Anyway, those are my musings. What would you do?

Your musings are always welcome!

I had thought of the general idea of folk/slasher horror of The Hills Have Eyes to be interesting to cover in Ravenloft, as well as that of the Midsommar style folk horror. 5e Tepest does that vibe pretty well and gave me some thoughts on the matter regarding Farelle, but I also struggled to reconcile the original write-up of "super friendly genuine people who are naive to contrast with a misanthropic Darklord" and the newer ideas that you presented which got the creative juices flowing. But then I figured that, many Darklords have evolved and changed over the years and sometimes, so have their domains. Hazlik went from being against the practice of magic to endorsing it for his own ends, for instance, and everyone's interpretation for the poster boy of Ravenloft, Strahd himself, is wildly different and personal to each DM and their table. So I figured, why not have Jack Karn evolve in some fashion as well? Jackals in mythology and folklore tend to be associated with trickery, cheating, cowardly deceit, and magic. Maybe Jack Karn, the Jackal Who Would Not be a Coward, managed to either learn magic somehow or get his hands on a magic item, and that somehow managed to change Farelle from its original Book of Sacrifices sketch to its current "Old Weird West with slashers and folk horror elements" sketch. Such a thing can definitely be tied to the Grand Conjunction, as Farelle disappeared from official canon mention after that with the only indication it was still around being that it was going to be covered in one of the later Doomsday Gazetteers.

So I guess my Farelle take is going to be one that takes advantage of the fact that the domain was made whole-cloth by the Darklords from the Stone Age to its current more advanced age, giving it a "False-but-not-as-false-as-other-locales" history and an explanation of how the Farelleans went from their OG sketch to their current one. Farelle would still reflect Jack Karn in the ways you stated above, though there'd be extra specification of what the wilderness is like (forests with temporal fugue like the tale of Rip van Winkle to give that feeling of the world zooming past you while you were out in the woods, along with fleshing out Farellean canids and other animals (with a very small link to the Wildlands)), and what the civilization is like and how it can be good and bad (Kaynis and Mortilis having a duality to them, with Kaynis being the good with a seedy underbelly and Mortilis being the one that looks bad and feels very rough and tumble but has a good heart, along with things like cheating and trickery's role in society, dog-fighting rings like the one in Karina, and slashers or other slasher horror/folk horror kind of villains). But we'll see, as I have a lot of ideas and I still need to figure out which are the winners and which are not as appropriate for Farelle. But many thanks for the clarification! I definitely do want to use all three sub-themes depending on where they can be squeezed in!

[Baron Von Stanton]

So I figured, why not have Jack Karn evolve in some fashion as well? Jackals in mythology and folklore tend to be associated with trickery, cheating, cowardly deceit, and magic. Maybe Jack Karn, the Jackal Who Would Not be a Coward, managed to either learn magic somehow or get his hands on a magic item, and that somehow managed to change Farelle from its original Book of Sacrifices sketch to its current "Old Weird West with slashers and folk horror elements" sketch. Such a thing can definitely be tied to the Grand Conjunction, as Farelle disappeared from official canon mention after that with the only indication it was still around being that it was going to be covered in one of the later Doomsday Gazetteers.

Or, perhaps Jack Karn would try to accept or embrace his human side, thereby causing him and Farelle to evolve further?

[KingCorn]

I talked about this in the Markovia Survery Thread, but I just can't help but consider the similarities and differences between the Broken-Ones and the Intelligent Animals.
Where as the broken-ones are shamanistic, religious, or at least superstitious, I feel the animals of the Wildlands would be very reality-oriented, if not outright atheist. A few have vauge agnostic leanings, but few in the jungle have true faith. While its a very 'might-makes-right' type of place, it would also be interesting to have it be very sophisticated and near...'civilized' in how it goes on behind the scenes.

The way I see it, a way to differentiate the Animals from the Wildlands to the Broken-Ones is, while the broken-ones society is just mimicing what they remember and what they see Markov do, the animals geneunly have their own society of their own design, and in some respects it is very similar to our own. A court of owls could function with the titles and rituals of an actual court, bats and poisonous animals function as hired spies and assassins, being practically animal versions of the Ba'al Versi.

King Crocodile would perhaps be the only one who has anything akin to faith, beliving himself a god-king, his many descendants as truely above everyone. Maybe that was even his sin: Trying to introduce a caste-system to the animals or at least try to recreate it with him on top, something that even amoung the very sophisticated animals would be seen as the ultimate taboo. Not only did he kill man (no real sin to a crocodile) nor was it betrayal (for that is common enough in the jungle), but trying to up-end the oldest order in the jungle to put himself on top in a way beyond 'might makes right' but 'Croc-makes-right'. His taking the strengths of the animals could be seen as another form of his perverting of the natural order.

In a way then, King Crocodile could have parallels to Markov. Both perverted the natural order of things. Yet ironically the one whos subjects are less superstitious have more mysticism to this perversion, where as with Markov and his obscene science, his subjects are more superstitious about this change.

[Speedwagon]

So I figured, why not have Jack Karn evolve in some fashion as well? Jackals in mythology and folklore tend to be associated with trickery, cheating, cowardly deceit, and magic. Maybe Jack Karn, the Jackal Who Would Not be a Coward, managed to either learn magic somehow or get his hands on a magic item, and that somehow managed to change Farelle from its original Book of Sacrifices sketch to its current "Old Weird West with slashers and folk horror elements" sketch. Such a thing can definitely be tied to the Grand Conjunction, as Farelle disappeared from official canon mention after that with the only indication it was still around being that it was going to be covered in one of the later Doomsday Gazetteers.

Or, perhaps Jack Karn would try to accept or embrace his human side, thereby causing him and Farelle to evolve further?

That's admittedly also possible, though it's an avenue that I hadn't really considered and I don't know if I want to go down that route completely. Reason being that there's already a beastwere Darklord that has been trying to embrace his human side (in vain) and that's Urik von Kharkov. I like the idea of Kharkov and Karn being foils to one another in some fashion, as opposed to Karn doing what Kharkov is doing but as a jackal instead of as a panther. But what would you think of how Farelle would evolve further via Jack Karn accepting or embracing his human side?

[Speedwagon]

I talked about this in the Markovia Survery Thread, but I just can't help but consider the similarities and differences between the Broken-Ones and the Intelligent Animals.
Where as the broken-ones are shamanistic, religious, or at least superstitious, I feel the animals of the Wildlands would be very reality-oriented, if not outright atheist. A few have vauge agnostic leanings, but few in the jungle have true faith. While its a very 'might-makes-right' type of place, it would also be interesting to have it be very sophisticated and near...'civilized' in how it goes on behind the scenes.

The way I see it, a way to differentiate the Animals from the Wildlands to the Broken-Ones is, while the broken-ones society is just mimicing what they remember and what they see Markov do, the animals geneunly have their own society of their own design, and in some respects it is very similar to our own. A court of owls could function with the titles and rituals of an actual court, bats and poisonous animals function as hired spies and assassins, being practically animal versions of the Ba'al Versi.

King Crocodile would perhaps be the only one who has anything akin to faith, beliving himself a god-king, his many descendants as truely above everyone. Maybe that was even his sin: Trying to introduce a caste-system to the animals or at least try to recreate it with him on top, something that even amoung the very sophisticated animals would be seen as the ultimate taboo. Not only did he kill man (no real sin to a crocodile) nor was it betrayal (for that is common enough in the jungle), but trying to up-end the oldest order in the jungle to put himself on top in a way beyond 'might makes right' but 'Croc-makes-right'. His taking the strengths of the animals could be seen as another form of his perverting of the natural order.

In a way then, King Crocodile could have parallels to Markov. Both perverted the natural order of things. Yet ironically the one whos subjects are less superstitious have more mysticism to this perversion, where as with Markov and his obscene science, his subjects are more superstitious about this change.

I saw that post in the Markovia Survey Thread and was gonna reply to it, but I appreciate you putting it here!

For me, I feel like the animals of the Wildlands having some sort of religion does humanize them and also gives a potential write-up on the Wildlands as a whole more material to work with. While it definitely makes sense to characterize the animals of the Wildlands as agnostic or even outright atheist (as nature is a cruel realm), it helps 'humanize' them and make them a bit more relatable to both DMs and players to see that even the animals of the Wildlands have made their own belief systems. Of course, that's not to say that atheism or even leaning agnostic is un-relatable, especially in contemporary times, but religion, whether in an organized sense or in a spirituality/folkloric sense, has been a part of the human experience. The animals of the Wildlands are horrifying, to me, because they have adapted trappings of society long considered exclusive to humans (and demi-humans/humanoids). Concepts of mass warfare, religion, slavery, celibacy, respect for their dead + grave-robbing, medicine, music, torture, art, philosophy, science (mad or otherwise), technology, prison/incarceration, theft, cheating, lying, tattoos, gambling, gossiping, bullying, trading, jewelry/fashion, most of these concepts we're familiar with and the Wildlands challenges that by having the animals there also engage in them. So on that note, I do agree with the idea of the animals of the Wildlands holding their own society of their own design. Xenofiction in recent years has a lot of examples of how to pull this off, and some of those types of books have been inspirations in my own upcoming take on the Wildlands. So your idea of owls and bats doing things is the sort of thing that I also think of doing (especially when you remember that one of the reasons why Jack Karn became a Darklord is because he didn't fit into his established role as a cowardly jackal, deciding he'd be the Jackal Who Would Not Be A Coward)! I just also think that the animals would have come up with their own religion, or at least, if the majority don't follow such an idea, a few of them would. Plus, there's a lot of opportunities to draw inspiration on animistic and shamanic beliefs from around the world (especially from Africa which hasn't had a lot of canon Ravenloft representation) (leaving aside the potential question of why the only Africa themed setting is just evil Lion King/Jungle Book instead of something like Things Fall Apart or Kirikou et la Sorciere or even Heart of Darkness of all things) that would be missed out on if the animals of the Wildlands don't follow or take inspiration from said ideas. But that's my take.

I actually have a rewrite of King Crocodile's backstory that I posted a while ago, and plan to use it for my future Wildlands gazetteer. If you want to check it out, it's on the forums and here's the link: https://www.fraternityofshadows.com/for ... p?p=250345. But I like your idea of King Crocodile trying to upend the 'natural order' of things with a caste system, as even in nature things aren't that simple; not just talking about food chains and food webs and keystone species here, but also of how detritivores and fungi serve a purpose, and even how flies and mosquitoes do things that can bring down even the mightiest of megafauna, and of course how nature isn't a written-in-stone style of rock-paper-scissors, as there are times where the jaguars eat the crocs or the gazelle escapes the cheetah or a group of jackals brings down a lone lion, and many more examples. Going back to your main point, your idea of King Crocodile having parallels to Markov is also one worth looking at, even if it's not the version I immediately jumped on in my own write-up.