When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the great Rabbi Israel Shem Tov, saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.
Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of Mezritch, had occasion for the same reason to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say, “Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.” Again the miracle would be accomplished.
Still later, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say, “I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” It was sufficient, and the miracle was accomplished.
Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God, “I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.”
From Hassidim’s oral traditions
The collective memory is the first step upon which we climb, the beginning of the stair that will bring us to the future. When we don’t know how to do something, we look at who tried the feat before us. When we don’t know what to say, we are inspired by a wise person’s words. When we are playing, we take our experiences and rework them together with those of the friends sitting at the gaming table with us. In each of these situations, it’s not important the origin of the story we’re drawing upon – be it true or legendary. Which stories have given you unforgettable ideas? Which legends have you discovered having more than a grain of truth inside of them? Which fact found in history books have you told as if it was a legend?
Our hobby, too, has its history, a different one for each country. Role-playing games can boast decades of history, changes and significant turning points. It’s time to tell these stories, too. Share your thoughts with us in the INCbook 2014: History and Myth.
Call for Papers
Here we are, publishing INCbook 2014’s Call for Papers. The theme, as you can see, is History & Myth. This year we thought about giving a more international scope to this book, with a double language publishing: Italian and English. To this end, we’re plotting in the shadows to help the contributors realize the bilingual version of their article, so we say to you: stay tuned for further news about this topic.
In the meantime, here’s the text upon which you can draw inspiration for yours.
Important deadlines
- For sending articles’ abstracts (the abstract can be sent either in Italian or English): 30th September 2013.
- For sending monolingual articles (Italian only or English only): 31st December 2013.
- For sending bilingual articles (with thanks from the translators!): 31st January 2014.
- InterNosCon 2014 Legendary Past: 23-24-25 May 2014
How can I be part of INCbook 2014?
First of all, to be part of INCbook 2014 you need to have an idea, something to say.
This is called “abstract”: a rough summary of the contents you want to deal with in your article. You can send your abstract, in “.rtf” format, to staff@internoscon.it. Once it’s been approved, you can proceed with your article’s final draft.
Since this year the INCbook will be bilingual, Italian and English, we’d be truly pleased if you could send the articles to us together with a completed translation. We’ll handle the revisal of both versions (personally for Italian ones, through English mother tongue friends for English ones). If you believe you’ll manage to send the article both in English and Italian, your deadline is 31st January 2014.
If Italian isn’t your favorite language (nor the second favorite one) you can send your article with only the English text before 31st December 2013. Compared to former editions, this year the workload will be higher. As a consequence, this year’s deadlines are IMPERATIVE.
We’ will soon have further information about who will translate and revise the articles.