Questions about the Lighthouse

fuzzybluelogic · Post by **fuzzybluelogic** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 9:43 pm

Hey there! A thousand pardons if this is the wrong forum for this (I was going to query Livejournal's little_details group, but knew that the greatest collective Nightcrawler knowledge was found here).

I was wondering, does anyone know the basic layout of the Lighthouse? Has there ever been a decent description of the interior in Excalibur or perhaps done for an RPG or bit of fan-fiction?

Mostly like: How many rooms are there, what are the rooms called? How many floors? That sort of thing.

Thanks!
Shane/fuzzybluelogic

idsunki · Post by **idsunki** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:15 am

From what I remember, it was some sort of interdimensional cross-road, so I don't think there was ever a very reliable map. I could be wrong though, and that's something I can add to my list to check on while I'm organizing my comics.

Post by **Saint Kurt** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 2:50 pm

The Excalibur Lighthouse had all the necessities of a regular house - kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom. I'm not sure of the exact layout, but it seemed to be a one room per floor thing. Kitty always entered a room by drifting through the floor or ceiling; the rest were shown on the stairs a lot so I'm guessing that most of the living space was in the "stalk".

Bryan and Meggan's bedroom was the top floor with its large round bed. (hubba hubba!) There was also a sort of exercise space up there, but don't think Danger Room, think apartment complex fitness center. It wasn't very big.

The Lighthouse was also a multiverse portal, meaning one existed in every multiverse standing in the exact same spot. The result was some odd stuff. Kurt accidently wandered into some kind of weird interplanetary gathering at one point and had to teleport out. (and this was when he could only teleport once a day so it was a big deal for him to get back.) And occasionally at other times the multiverse boundaries dropped for various other members.

The lighthouse underwent "renovation" after Gate Chrasher and the Technet arrived and destroyed it in a botched mission. As part of their punishment for screwing up (or was it simply that they wanted to apologise? I can't remember) they stayed to repair the lighthouse and put all sorts of neat-o space age gagets in like a null-grav elevator which, while still under construction people had a bad habit of walking through and getting catapulted out of the lighthouse. The Technet's stay at the lighthouse is pure slapstick.

When the technet was done the "new Lighthouse" looked like a giant mushroom, but was a lot bigger and more high tech inside. So they lived in the new lighthouse quite happily ever after.

So that's the story of the Excalibur Lighthouse.

-e

chicory · Post by **chicory** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 5:57 pm

(I tried to post this late last night, but the site just

- anyway...)

I loved the Excalibur books! I got all of them off of ebay a couple years ago, and they were the first comics I ever read. (I’m glad I started with them

)

The light-house was a great set-up for the team (it’s a shame they destroyed it – and closed the multiverse doorway – at the end of one of the story arcs). It’s cramped and cluttered and everyone has to share the only bathroom (or fight over it) (which was a fun concept!)

The layout probably depends on who’s doing the illustrating and changes a little from book to book. But, when Alan Davis does the penciling he tends to be consistent about all the little details.

Usually, the lighthouse is drawn with four windows arranged vertically and above those the topmost story is the glass-walled one that serves as the living space. There’s a furnace in the center and sofas and such arranged around.

In the issue where Rachel has a nightmare about baby Nathan she exits the lighthouse through the roof, but first passes through each of the floors on her way out. This wakes up the rest of the team and Kurt looks down into Meggan and Brian’s room and then they jump down to check on Kitty.

Kitty and Rachel share a room and have an arrangement of sheets on a string to close off their beds from the stairs. (Privacy is a problem as well as well as boxes of stuff that have to be shifted around to make room for everyone). The kitchen is so small that when everyone sits at the little round table they can probably (collectively) reach every corner of the room – there’s just a counter and a stove besides the table, and things hanging on the walls.

The lighthouse seems to be tapered, so the lower floors are probably bigger than the ones above. The stairs are spiral and close to the outer walls. Some of the lower rooms towards the basement have doors leading to storage rooms. Brian has a den somewhere in the building.

Nightcrawler set up a gym on one of the lower floors with a complicated, make-shift jungle gym. There’s also a network of caverns beneath the lighthouse, where they kept their full-sized dragon when she was living with them.

And of course the lighthouse is haunted. Shadowcat and Nightcrawler both open doors into other universes. Other-dimensional characters sometimes wander through. (They had nazi-versions of Excalibur one time and then the dinosaur doppelgangers). The nexus point for that appeared to be in their bathroom, (at least that’s where the toilet exploded and where Excalibur member Kylun first surprised Kurt when he was brushing his teeth.)

And yeah, that’s probably more information than you wanted. Oh, I dug out one of my early issues (it wasn’t hard to get to) and according to Claremont, Kitty and Rachel share the third floor, Brian and Meggan the fourth, and Kurt gets the fifth floor. From what Davis drew it looks like the lighthouse is six stories tall (not counting possible basements and the caverns).

Of course, if you’re writing a story or something (as I’m sure you know) you can just make up whatever you want the Lighthouse to look like. I think I saw some fanfiction somewhere where the rooms shifted on everyone all the time and I liked that idea.

Hope that helps

fuzzybluelogic · Post by **fuzzybluelogic** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 7:18 am

Thanks everyone

You've made my life as an rpg mod that much easier.

Nandireya · Post by **Nandireya** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:43 am

Originally posted by Saint Kurt
Bryan and Meggan's bedroom was the top floor with its large round bed. (hubba hubba!) There was also a sort of exercise space up there, but don't think Danger Room, think apartment complex fitness center. It wasn't very big.

Um...actually…that was the forth floor…there were two floors above that (Rachel blasted through them all in #6). Kurt had the fifth floor (#3 has a hung over Brian complaining about his crack of dawn calisthenics)…and the very top, where the light itself would have been, was sort of a living room area, with the girls (Kitty and Rachel) sharing the third floor…

elfofdoom · Post by **elfofdoom** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:54 am

I think the light house has bed rooms like kittys, kurts,brain and meggan, who share, a living room, a training area, a basment were those inter dimentional passages are. I think that it any more?

fuzzybluelogic · Post by **fuzzybluelogic** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:31 pm

Chicory, would it be ok if I C&Ped your reply into my Livejournal? I'm using it to keep notes while our server is down.

chicory · Post by **chicory** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:11 pm

Absolutely! Take as much of it as you like

Good luck with your game!