Campaign so far

I have to come up with a new direction for my game.  There is a lot of history now after playing since May, seven months and probably twenty sessions or more.  It is a player directed setting and there is a base setting plot that the characters are only now just touching or getting involved in. 

That that came before:

They Exalted.

They entered into the Cult of the Illuminated and they set up a small town called Somewhere Else, part of a naming strategy that would confuse their enemies should their warriors be captured and forced to say where they are from.  A nod to Homer's books Odysseus and the Cyclops story.  They conducted raids and gathered slaves and began training them to become warriors.  None too soon as the Realm began to investigate the raids that had been happening.  Also, the Realm, which is resource poor began expeditions to seek out new resources and they encountered one of the setting pieces and were lured in to thinking that there was a rich cache of First Age artifacts near by and the ruins of an ancient city lost to the ravages of time.  There was an army landing there and they were preparing for a major assault in the area.  The Solar army engaged the Realm army and soundly defeated them, but it was not an army, but a forward force.  There is more coming.  A lot more.

They were sent on a mission to pick up a lone Solar who was hiding in the South and traveling quickly between several locations and inspiring the locals to resist the Realm.  The lone exalt was attracting more attention than was warranted and the Realm began to think that there was more than just the one Exalt.  The players knew that there was a only one and were quickly able to camp out and recruit her.  By recruiting her they also learned what had happened in the world since they left it and they discovered that there were things that they needed to do, personally and as a group.

Missions: 1) Find all the Solar Exalted and form a common front.  

2) Discover the destination and whereabouts of the missing 245 Solar Soulshards.

3) Investigate the Shadowlands and the Mythical Deathlords, their goals and numbers.

4) Discover the nature of the curse laid upon the Solar Exalted in the First Age.

5) Tackle the Fair Folk City and figure out the enigma that it represents.

6) End the Wyld zone at the base of the local river and free the mental faculties of the local River God and free the resources of the First Age city located there.  

7) Defeat the Tepet legions that threaten to invade their adopted home.

And some personal goals:

8) Free Stalking Jaguar's people from slavery

9) investigate the Weird group of Solars they met in Nexus.

10) Rediscover the past of Creation to understand it.

11) Discover the hidden history of the Solar Shard of the the Nameless Wolf; the soul that was not recycled until only 400 years ago… which begs the question what was a First Age Solar up to in the 800 years since the end of the first age?

12) A personal exploration of the dark side of creation

13) Re-discovery of sorcery.

The quests that move the party around are 1) and 8). They will send the part around Creation to find and recruit Solars while looking for the enslaved home tribe.  

The quests that will keep them anchored to home are 5), 6), 7) and 9). Their obligations to the area as well as the light protection of the Cult of the Illuminated, but also the strength of that Cult as their home base increasingly becomes a place of safety.  When all 55 Solars are acting together, they will be unstoppable.  And the goals of the party will spread to managing the group.  Fighting the Deathlords.  Saving Creation.  Restoring the First age.

Each recovered Solar represents an adventure and a new setting.

The obvious settings that the party will head to are the locations where Stalking Jaguar knows her Tribe has been taken.  These include: the Realm, Thorns, Jades, Great Forks, and a dozen other locations that are yet to be determined…. In this locations they will meet Solars and they will get more things to do… no doubt.

Broken?

I was reminded recently of another way that I am not normal.  My longest relationship lasted about a year.  And when it was over I could not look at another woman for years and it took 8 years for me to get into another relationship.  After that, I had another and it took me five years to get into another.  Then it was a six month relationship and it took me 18 months to even think about another relationship and five years to get one.  That is me.  I am scared currently that if this relationship does not last, I will be alone for the rest of my life.

But I am the odd one out.  An acquaintance just this Summer ended a two year relationship a month before taking her vows and she was up and running with a new person within a few months.  Other friends end long relationships and at back in new ones after a month more or less.  I makes me feel like I am broken.

#Autism; #Demisexual; #Demiromantic

Prince of Veils

I was born in a place that I care not to go to again, unless it is at the head of an army.  It was a very small farm deep inside the Realm half way between the Imperial Mountain and the Imperial City. It was equally hard to get to any city and impossible for any farmer.  The land was fertile but the portion my family farmed was small and we barely grew more than we used after taxes.  We lived far from the roads and there was never any trade nearby.  The local magistrate was the landlord of the area and it was his family that dictated what we grew.  But only as long as we were allowed to be there.  Just before my tenth winter, the land owner told us that we were to vacate the land and never come back.  So we left our ancestral home of centuries, and began a long arduous journey to the nearest city to begin our new lives as beggars or what ever turned up.

The Winter was tough.  When we were pushed off the land, we were not the only ones; there were hundreds of us each year.  The growing population of Dragon Blooded meant that the scions of the great houses were being sent to oversee smaller and smaller areas.  Smaller areas often meant more direct control.  The cities were getting clogged by the increase of the disenfranchised, the poor.  My father and my mother each found employment, but there were periods of unemployment too.  I found more steady employment than my father, as there was always work for the very small.  Soon, though, the Empress found work for my father as he was swept up in recruitment for the Vermillion Legion, as all beggars were from time to time.

When I got old enough I removed myself of the burden to my mother by going to the Scarlet Chapel and there I spent three days as a postulate before being accepted into the Immaculate Order.  The trip to the Palace Sublime took a long time but the experiences of the previous few years left me more humble than all of the pilgrims on the journey.

The years I was a monk of the First Coil were some of the best in my life: there was a good meal every day, plenty of practice and the comrades of the cloth all near by.  I was able to learn and proceed though the katas of the basic Immaculate style and after some time, I was allowed to follow in one of the Elemental Dragon styles—not to learn the secrets of the uses of essence, but the katas and the sutras.  I decided to emulate Daana'd, to seek self sufficiency and to help others to depend more upon their own resources.

I understood that the Exalted would always progress faster than I would because they were closer to the Immaculate Dragons than I ever could, but I aimed to do the best I could.  I attained the Second Coil after several years of devotion and it was said I progressed fast.  Upon reaching that station I was sent to work in a Mission in the Threshold, in Cherak.  I spent many months there acclimatizing to the region before traveling to the countryside.  When I did I found the locals open to the teachings on Daana'd and they learned well at my hand.  But all that was to come for naught, when my superior was replaced by an Exalted by the name of Peleps Deled.

The Scion of House Peleps had strong ideas of how things should be done and was very exacting in which interpretation of the Immaculate Texts was valid and which were heretical.  All the monks had to fall in line with his ideals or suffer the consequences.  The consequences were for the mortal monks quite swift and permanent: death.

Peleps Deled's interpretation focused mostly on the superiority of the Dragon Blooded and that of the protection of humanity from the Anathema threats and not to elevate the mortal life to a more self sufficient way of life.  He made his point by showing to my parishioners exactly how self efficient I was at defending myself.  The match was over in a very short spell, my crushed rib cage from his first blow seemed to sum up his point in his mind.

The minutes that I had in my life were painful, but I knew that while I was insignificant to the power of a chosen of Daana'd, it did not show that I was wrong.  Not having air in my lungs, a working jaw, nor a space for my diaphragm to make speech possible, denied me my ability to make that point.  I was not wrong.

The voice in my head spoke of the misfortune that my death was and asked me if I would still like to make that speech and if I had the power to make the Immaculates listen to you.  I responded that I would like that very much, there was much arrogance in my soul after the indignity that was shown to me and the bullying that was done to my flock.  I accepted.

I was born anew and I was greeted by my new Sufi who began to teach me many new things.  I learned that self sufficiency was only the first step in a mortal's enlightenment.  He also told me that what the mortal had to work with also determined how hard they had to work to gain self sufficiency and therefore how fast they rise to enlightenment after becoming self sufficient.  He also taught me the Peleps Deled was correct to point out that I was not as self sufficient as I thought I was, but that the Immaculate monks all suffered from this delusion, the Exalted more than others.  He told me that I should make sure to drive that lesson home as often as I could and to be aware of it myself.

He then presented me with a project.  He desired that I free slaves from a nearby nation and set them up with the ability to become self sufficient and see if they can become enlightened from the experience.

The initial projects met with failure, but I was cautioned that there would be much failure to start with, but I would need patience.  Later projects also met with failure, but my Sufi only expressed satisfaction at my many attempts, saying that it was also my enlightenment that he was concerned about too.  He told me that I had progressed quite far and that enlightened mortals should not be the measure of my success; I had to weigh the fact of the difficulty of the circumstances that the mortals were in too.

I know that the ways of my master are harsh but he seeks the very best for them.  I hope to continue to please him forever more.

Unrepentant Dancer

Riding, it has been said, is in our blood.  It was also said that we were each born in the saddle and that we were riding before we were walking.  That is all nonsense, except for the blood of course; horses are in our blood.  I was raised on the proper way to take care of a horse.  The steps that must be done before you ride one, afterwards, the best mix of feed for different forms of work.  I did not ride my first horse until I was past my tenth Summer.  Ponies, I rode those until then.  The truth is that if you can't mount a horse by yourself then, you should not be riding one.  Stirrups and saddles are different.  They are cheats, but they are meant for different things to my people.  A saddle is for war.  

I spent all my non education time playing with the other youths in the fields out side the yurts.  We played games that, on reflection, mimicked the skills that we would need in life.  We used the tall grasses and the gullies to sneak up on our fellows.  Two or more teams where you had to find and catch the members of the other teams.  Later we practiced at spear throwing and archery, as the were seasonal competitions.  The rite of majority in my people was simple, you had to approach without spooking one of the wild horses in the plains and coax it calmly and get on its back—if that was not hard enough, you also had to stay there.  The real trick was to pick the correct horse.  You find out afterwards that you lose points with the people if you pick the most wild and furious stallion.  You want to beable to mount your horse with as little damage to you or the horse.  

After you pass that test, you get to learn the other things, the stuff that involves saddles and stirrups.  Throwing spears and firing bows from horseback and sneaking into places and stuff like at; as I said just like when we were colts.  There were competitions, this time from horseback and this time the prize was being goo enough that we could head to the Murukan Redoubt and sign up with the Legion in Lookshy.  After passing into adulthood, I was still a few years before I was good enough to show my stuff before the recruiters at the Redoubt.  I was so pleased, working with the Seventh Legion meant that after ten years of service I would be able to take my wages and set up a great household and attract a mate.  My family was very proud of me, as not all are chosen to represent.  

I packed what I would need for the journey to Lookshy, the recruiting was just a formality, our people are prized as scouts for their army and we only send the best to the Redoubt.  I was part way through showing off for the recruiters when a lone horse came up.  The horse was saddled, but the rider was not immediately apparent.  I went over to investigate.  The reins were braded just like my clan does it and the form of a figure could be discerned.  It was not a late arrival, but my cousin and she was wounded from an arrow wound in her leg.  She was too young to ride this horse, so I knew there was something terribly wrong.  She was unresponsive, I later found out that she died.  The message that she was announcing was clear, the arrow was Realm issue, Thorns had attacked my people.  

I pushed my horse to its limits to reach my people, who I had just left the day before.  My family had been butchered and the herds had bee pillaged.  There was nothing left my family.  I rent my hair and cut my skin in grief and rode to the nearest neighbouring clan, to seek aid and retribution.  All thoughts of serving with Lookshy passed, though, I spent many of my next years working closely with them in the war against Thorns.  

Despite all my intentions, throwing myself into the thick of the battles and volunteering for the dangerous scouting missions I fought the length of the war.  I was a scout, part of the cavalry and at one point when things were at there worst I even snuck behind their lines to wreck havoc on their baggage train.  It was a very dark time, but I did not die; it was dying that I was looking most to do, but I failed.  That was what they told me I was trying to do.  

I was offered a position in Lookshy's forces when the war was over, but I did not see the point—no future with my people, no wars to lose myself in and no hope for an easy out.  So I joined up as a caravan guard with the Guild and took the most dangerous routes.  The work was steady, in addition to guard work there was work that had to be done with the caravan.  The route passed through the far East and up into the North. There was a lot of space between the towns and there were many dangers.  Between the bandits, the wild animals and the rest, I was never without work. The truth was I was just avoiding getting along with my life.  Between caravans I spent my time drinking in the worst places in Nexus and getting in fights until I had lost all my money.  

The next caravan that I took turned out to be the one I would stay with until the end. The caravan master was a veteran, like myself, of the War with Thorns.  I learned from him that Thorns was put up to the fight by the Realm as a proxy to try to conquer the River Provinces and Lookshy.  I spent many long nights with him drinking and reliving those days.  The route was called the North Central Trunk.  It started in Nexus and headed along the North Shore of the river by boats topping in Port Calin and heading north through the interior to Cherak.  There we would resupply and head north almost to the Haslanti league before turning back and heading half way to Sijan and back to Cherak before heading back to Port Calin along the River of Tears.  

My end, when it came, was where I felt it started, with Thorns.  Cherak is a satrapy of the Realm, but seems to get so little trade from them that the guild is able to make a fair business, especially in the hinterlands.  We were resupplying there to head into the north and there was some time, so I went out to see the sights and ran into a few dozen veterans from the war, but from Thorns and the Realm.  

It was more likely going to happen eventually on this route, but I had thought that I had made my peace with the events of the war, but the men that I saw there were a different sort from the ones that had actually fought; these men were not the ones that had bled, but the ones that had stayed back and when the worst had happened, for their side, they fled to the Realm.  They were the boastful sort and they bragged that they were there from the start.  The ones before me bragged that they were with the ones that started it all by attacking the Marukan Horselords and taking their herds so that they could use them during the war.  It was too much and I saw that these men needed to pay for what they had done.  My compatriots were all for the fight so I gave it a good start.  The first few moments I gave better than I took but it was then I realized that my companions did really want this fight and had backed out right away.

They tossed me out into the back after I gave out the fight, the men of Thorns took to giving me more and they beat me to death in the back alley amongst the filth.  My consciousness floated above my broken body briefly before everything went grey.  A voice came to me and asked if my anger was over and my venom spent?  I was still angry I realized, the deaths of my people, my family, my brothers and sisters still weighed heavy on my soul a lesser weight than the anger at the men that killed me.  I did not want to kill mere men, I wanted vengeance on the entirety of the city… and I wanted revenge upon the Realm that pushed Thorns into attacking us.  I wanted them all to pay!  

I woke and the Shadow came to me.  He said at he had plans for the Realm and for everyone that knew about the attack on the Horse Lords and the people of the world.  He said he had a plan that would ruin the Realm and make it fall upon itself.  It had a plan at would destroy all their satrapies like Thorns and draw the Realm in where it could be crushed and ground into dust.  He revealed to me how it was going to happen and I agreed to help him do it.  I will be forever his servant if he does this.  

Minister of Laquacious Trials

I was born in deep in the Realm, daughter of an unimportant bureaucratic cog in a prominent Patrician family to an important house that served the Empress of all Creation; all the important parts, but not the parts that rejected her rule. I went to the best schools that a patrician family could afford and went to all the right parties and had the right friends.  I excelled at it all, but I did not excel too well, I excelled just enough that I was not a threat to any of the more prominent families and certainly I never shone brighter than the ones that had more chance to exalt.  There was a hundred thousand Dragon Blooded in my father's generation alone.  In my generation there was many, many more.  And it paid, in my mind to be very aware of that fact.  All those thousands, they were all looking for the best marriage to attract the right notice.  They were looking to make their mark on the world the best way they could and e pressures they felt were all strong.  And I was not going to be the focus of their aggression.  

It was bad enough that my father's designs on my future was to basically whore me out to frustrated scions of Great Houses—he would never put it that way, he would not have to.  I have eyes.  I saw all the visitors that came to our house while I was growing up, just to see my mother.  He said I was a product of a union between he and my mother before she was of age, much to the shame of her father.  My father was very careful to make sure that would never happen to me, someone like him.  I was being saved for some great Dynast to spill his seed in me and perhaps have a child who exalts and set the family fortunes higher.  It was a good plan for him, but not for me.  

I once made the mistake of finishing first in a test and it took me the rest of the year to make it seem like it was a fluke.  People don't understand how much work it is to come in third or fourth but not to come in last.  You have to look at all the people in your class, watch carefully and see where their strengths are.  Then you have to know the subject so well that you could teach it.  And lastly, you need to make errors on purpose so that it appears you know the fundamentals but the harder parts are giving you difficulty, but not too much difficulty.  It is very tricky.  All that time that I was concentrating on being just stupid enough to escape notice, my body was betraying me.  I was turning into the prettiest girl in the class.  

It was what my father wanted and when it was clear that I would be one of the great beauties of the world, he pulled me from those 'unimportant' subjects and sent me to a school where I would learn the arts of seduction: poetry, dance, manners, singing, musical instruments and of course pleasure.  It was a dreadful turn of events and unlike the other schools, this school would except nothing less than perfection.  There was salvation in my future, but I could not see it; I put on a brave face and faced my trials.

My salvation came at the price of my schooling, the shame!  Our small house was ordered to attend the Noble Dragon Blooded as he was being sent into disgrace into the Threshold, to the Satrapy of Serrat.  My father, and much of our arm of the Patrician house was told to accompany him into exile, to engage in the menial tasks that might show how, his noble sir, was being wasted in the fringes of society.  My father pulled me from the Pleasure Palace, as I called it, out of fear that without him there, some scamp might ruin his plans for my future, his future.  So, he took me with him.

It was a mixture of freedom and worse isolation.  I was free of my studies, but I was locked in a golden cage made of wood.  I was locked in my rooms and my only outlet was to review the books that my father was taking care of, the ledgers a series of latifundia where slaves farmed and harvested rarities destined for the Realm.  I looked over the books as there was nothing else to do and I cleaned up some of the errors and uncovered embezzlement from the previous bureaucrats.  There was nothing else for me to do.  The only other people who I had to talk with was my father and the slaves.  I was only allowed to see the female ones.  Even my guards were women.  They were all slaves and they were all on drugs.  My father even arranged that my guards received better drugs and more drugs, so as to keep them loyal.

The entire system was inefficient.  The Realm lost more to productivity than it gained by having no rebellions.  Well that was the theory.  I imagine that it was so.  There were so few histories on how much the last rebellions had cost, State Secrets.  So it was done.  I could not tell if the slaves were happy or sad, angry or indifferent, all they wore was a blank stare for the most part, sometimes a little grin after they got their hits or antsy and rushing if they were overdue.  

My one pleasure ended when my father saw that my fingers were stained with ink and I had callouses on my fingers where I held my brushes.  A proper lady has only porcelain skin, softer than silk, I was told.  But there was more salvation coming for me of a kind that I would not want on any one, but for me it was a relief as it ended my captivity.

Late in the night there was a difference.  The sounds of the night birds and the dogs were quieted.  There was not the casual sounds of conversation outside of guards huddled and bored.  There was only an unnatural silence.  It disturbed me; it is the thing that assassins never really understand, the absence of noise can be more of a warning than none at all.  The one thing my father let me have was a knife, just incase one of the slaves should try to deflower me.  I pretended to sleep as I clutched the knife under my pillow.  The door opened and a shadow entered.  The shadow was complete, I could not see a thing about him that I would be able to identify, but for a few distinct things.  First there was the blindingly bright light that filled the room, brighter than the sun light that filtered through my windows in the day and the second was the golden ring that was set on the demon's brow.  I vaguely remembering that perhaps this anathema was here to kidnap me and hold me for ransom after he deflowered me, but at illusion captivity ended when he struck me with his blade and disemboweled me in a single stroke.  I gasped.  My bedding was soaked with my blood that I thought I had wet myself.  It reached down and dipped its hand in the pools and painted my walls with my blood in great hand prints.  

I drifted down into the cold.  I felt myself let go and I reviewed my life.  If I had been born in a different place I would have been happy.  I could have made a difference and I could have done things, anything, but I was a parrot locked in a cage forever and forced to sing songs that I did not desire.  I was angry.  A cold voice spoke in my head, "Would you revenge yourself upon the World that did this to you?"  I thought and I replied yes, I would make them all pay if I could. Make them treat me as more than a pretty face to be bartered but a vengeful queen that uses her mind and skill to ruin all those around her.  

My seething rant found voice and my anger turned to shouts and then she was there.  The most beautiful dragon blooded woman I had ever seen.  She spoke gently.  They created me as the most beautiful woman ever and they passed me between their friends as a favour and I performed for them as a pretty trained bird.  But when I got my voice, I got my revenge upon them and I destroyed their works and pissed upon their graves.  Is this the revenge that you seek?  I nodded and said, "it is!"  She turned and I followed.  

Before the others she appeared as a shadow that made other shadows light in comparison, but when she was alone with me she shed the cloak of darkness and appeared as she was.  I trained with her and she pushed me hard, harder than the rest she said, because I had it all in me and she wanted to draw it out.  She pushed me and I excelled.  She confided in me the real plan.  The plan was to free the slaves that my father had helped to keep shackled and to remove the yoke on their abilities.  She said we had to remove them to a place of safety so they could heal and grow.  But that was the first step.  The slaves had to be tested, they had to weaned from the teat of control and they were to be put into a crucible where the ones that had drive would float to the top and the slag of humanity would be discarded for these few.  That was the plan.  We together would make an army of realized soldiers to change the world.  

 

Might of Fallen

When people from outside the North first meet one of my people, or of our sister people, they assume that we are wild cannibals intent on sucking the marrow from their bones and sacrificing the rest to their ancestors.  Their ideas are silly!  We would never burn perfectly good flesh, the Dead don't need good meat!  That was a joke, you south landers have no sense of humor.  

All joking aside, the ways of our people, the Mishtokoka, are simple and our laws are clear, we do not kill and eat people ever.  The very idea is abhorrent to all of us.  There are some, mostly our enemies that send their old out into the wilds when they have no use for them, but we value our elders and would never do that; they provide a link to our past and tell the stories of what were and teach the small ones.  Second to our people are our herds.  We tend our flocks of Muskox, take their excess wool in the summer, use their milk and blood as food and occasionally thin them of their excess population.  We defend them from wild beasts and raiders.  In the Winter we share our time with them to stay warm through the coldest times.  Our God Mishtoko permits this as long as we keep the herd strong and healthy and Mishtoko will protect us from the worst of the winter storms.  

Winters are the worst.  They last for almost half the year.  No one knows what Winters are truly like, no one who has never experienced them can judge us.  When the milk runs dry and the health of the herd is in danger of compromise, we hunt other tribes, not the Sister Peoples but our enemies.  The meat we take is needed for us to get through the winter lean times, they are not people, they look like people but they are not, it is known.  People are disgusted by our funeral practices.  They are from far away and cant know our lives or our people's wishes.  We know that we will provide nourishment for our people in the lean times when we go, when we die we go and become one with the honored ancestors and what we live behind is nothing related to that.  We all know that that this is what keeps us Mishtokoka and it honors the dead.  We know that sometimes we die defending the flock and this is upmost in honor.  We do not ever kill people, it is affront to our ancestors and Mishtoko.  Which is why what  Mishkapook, Strength of Ox, did to me was such a sin.

Mishkapook was born the spring before I was born, we grew up though as brothers and we competed in everything that we did.  He was called to begin his rite of manhood a year before me as was his right as elder to me.  The elders said that he must or else he would be cast out as not contributing to the people. It is a big thing for us this rite of passage, up until then we are thought of as potential people and afterwards we are full people ready to take on the duties of adulthood.  The elders say when we must compete, but we can choose to compete when ever we want, sometimes Mishtoko tells us when we are adults too, like me.  Mishkapook he was away and he was bringing back a real prize that would strengthen the herd for years to come a great roaming Mish bull, who would father many strong Mish for years to come, a great feat.  But for what I did.  

Mishtoko had chosen an enemy, a tainted wolf of great size and placed me before it and the herd.  It would have savaged and killed many breeding cows and calves but for me being there and me with my spear.  There was nothing to what I did, I was just destined to be where I was.  If I had failed, the people would have lost much, if I had died and failed who knows.  But I succeeded, I say with Mishtoko's help.  I ate its heart as the elders directed me to and the people ate the rest gaining its strength to protect the herd.  The teeth were made into a necklace for me and the pelt was traded for tools to keep us strong.  It was just chance.  Mishkapook was a real hero, he planned and he strategized and he single handedly brought the bull to strengthen the tribe for generations.

We were still friends for years afterwards, but looking back the seeds of the end were there.  But for then it was great that we were both real people in the eyes of the people.  We could got wives from the sister people of my grandmother.  It turned out by design or guidance of Mishtoko that Mishkapook took a wife from my Grandmother's family, and I from his, we were as linked as we could be in the lives of our people.  

It was such a surprise that when the leader of our people passed the mantle early one Spring and the elders all spoke that it should be I that should lead our people because I was a chosen person by Mishtoko.  But when they pronounced this, I stepped forth and declaimed against their choice.  True, I said Mishtoko chose me to raise my spear to defend the herd, but that is all I was, a chosen defender.  Mishkapook, was a better choice.  He had the wits to see what needed being done, he showed intelligence and cunning to get it done and he had the strength, the pook, to lead the people to greatness.  Me as leader would just be a vote to maintain the status-quo.  My speech was moving and the elders.  Said that time was of the essence and they needed to chose quickly.  They asked us to go out on a hunt and let Mishtoko make the choice.

In my mind we left the people as friends, looking for a sign that Mishtoko would give us, I was sure the god would see my friend as the proper choice.  I told Mishkapook so.  The streams by our lands were swollen with melt water and the sides were treacherous, but we went together so that we could find the biggest fish or find a way to prove our worthiness to the people.  I was spearing a great fish that is saw in the pool and I was bringing it in through the cold waters when I felt something stab through me.  Mishkapook's spear, it's tip pierced my flesh from the back and through my chest.  I looked to him as I fell in the water, the anger in his eyes.  He had killed me, a real person.  He pushed me into the rushing river so that the tribe would be deprived of my strength and I could not be honored by our people, and he took the fish that I had speared as his own and he let me drown and die in the rushing waters that no one could survive.

A rage took hold of me in my soul.  He would be leader of my people, but he broke our laws and he deprived our people of my strength.  He was a criminal of such greatness that there was never a story like what he did, he was no real person.  A voice called to me and asked what I would do if I were given the power to avenge the wrong that was done to me.  I screamed in my head that I would make all non people pay for they must surely be the source of all evil and I would kill Mishkapook or his crime and remove his taint from the people.  

My body was dumped over a waterfall and I fell, but the pool underneath, I never hit.  I breathed again in the underworld and strength was given to me to avenge my people.  The one came to me who claimed that he was the ancestor of all our people.  He said that I should serve him to unmake all the non people in the world so the one true people will flourish and have many children and herds that filled the North.  He showed me how to become great at killing the enemies of my people and to become great in their eyes, as I was now the chosen leader of my people, but not by Mishtoko, but of our ancestors.  He told me that he had followed all the generations of our people and told me of how generations of our people had been enslaved and forced to breed with outsiders.  He said it was necessary to free those people and to separate the true people from the not.  

It has been long work to learning to separate those people, the ancestor said that there had been much dilution of the people, but that I needed to persevere.  He said that he would give me dreams of the way the real people would live when they were all freed and the way that they lived before the fall.  The dreams appear to show great lives that the people will have, but they all feel so real and the people don't feel like the real people, but the ancestor says it is that way to separate the real people of his chosen, it is a test.  

When he saw me fighting the non people the ancestor gave me the name that I bear now, champion of the my people, Might of Fallen. 

Slowly going going slowly 5,4,3,2,1 switch

I have maintained now for the past several years that everyone is crazy.  I got this idea from another person who imparted this information, but I thought that the one sure way to stave off your insanity was to admit that you, yourself, was crazy and to know that you were nuts every-time you did something.  Really.  But I was wrong.  Knowing at you are crazy just means that you are not lying to yourself and so you are being honest with at least one person.

I am crazy, and I have proof.  Facebook has been telling me that I am nuts the past few months.  It has been doing it by showing me what I thought was important enough to share with the world over the past nine or ten years.  The person who made those posts was clearly not fully there.  Which means, I was not fully there.  Which means, I, am not fully here.  I am nuts.  But looking around, I see that everyone else out ere is nuts too.  

Except for the children.

Except their parents are all nutters too, so the children are destined to be crazy too.  The best you can hope is that you find someone who is going down the well of sanity the direction that you are going and hitch a ride with them.

Letter #2 in one week… I am turning into my father

Hi, http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ long time silent listener, failed writer on a number of occasions.

Just listened to part of your recent show.  Energy storage.  The problem with energy storage is that most people seem to always talk about it in relation to the power that they get from the wall and not the energy that they use from the tank of their car.  I know that as soon as a great affordable electric car becomes available this is not a factor assuming universal conversion and all that stuff that I know you know will not happen until the pumps go away.  So what about that?

I know you mentioned hydrogen fuel cells, and that they were thirty percent efficient, but what about other artificial fuels?  Is there someone looking to make an artificial fuel that is an analogue to gasoline?  The advantages that I can pull off the top of my head are 1) No new infrastructure.  2) No new vehicle designs needed.  3) Zero net carbon, what gets burned gets captured and stored for use again. 4) Near instant usage; once the first plant goes into production, the fuel could be added directly with the other fuels.  5) Easy to use no technology has to be invented to use the fuel source, which is the reason why you were focusing on grid storage.

The only problem that I could could see is that gasoline is not a very efficient fuel storage method, lots of energy in a small space, but hard to get it in there.  Very stable once it is there though, as you said a few episodes ago in Science or Fiction.  

Thanks for the 80+ hours of listening material every year.  

Lady of Squalor

Not everyone in the Age of Sorrow is born into poverty and turmoil, it is just that the present is a fallen state from what was before.  I remember both, with perfect clarity.  I remember my past before I nearly died, before I died.  Some aspects are foggy but what would you expect I was only eight when I Exalted.  

I remember the warm and happy feelings of seeing my father come home after a trading trip.  I remember the sweet cakes that he brought and how they were soaked in honey.  I remember the toys from the far reaches of Creation that my father traded for, but mostly I remember his worm embrace and how prickly his face was after he came back.  I remember crying when he left again.  Most of all.

I don't remember, I can't remember the next time he came back.  He was different and I ran from him.  I remember the battle that took place outside in the streets and I remember the trial where my father was exiled.  I remember how the other children in the school would not play with me anymore.  I remember that there were no more sweet cakes soaked in honey.  I remember learning what a pariah was and that after a hard Winter, my mother and I left Whitewall, the only place I ever knew.  I remember that my mother did not have to go, that her family would take care of us, but that there were fights where people told her that she was too proud.  

The trip south in the Spring was cold.  It was called spring because it rained more often than it snowed.  The Holy Road was warm, the blessings of the Age before had made a road that was never cold and had lights that glowed all night long.  They created a road that no one could come to harm while on it, but one that would not protect you from what lay on the the side.  First there were the pretty people that asked me to come and dance with them, play games with them.  My mother told me that they are the people that killed my father.  I did not know he was dead and I cried.  I did not know what dead was then, but I knew it meant that I would never see him again.  

Later in the trip it was worse.  People lined the road on both sides and just stared.  Mommy told me that they were dead people.  I asked is daddy there?  I was slapped, but I know mommy just was sad.  The dead people were gone in the day, but the land was bleak and horrible.  At night I remember daddy calling me gently in the breeze…

We made it to our new home, Wallport.  It was a small city at the end of the Holy Road.  People who wanted to go up the road had to stop here first and they arrived by boat and left by boat too.  I remember looking out that first time at the Sea.  The waves were tiny from the cliff top and there was an island far to the south almost hard to see.  There was a tall mountain on that island.  At night the island twinkled like he stars above, but only on a clear night.  People told me that the island was as far away to the South as Whitewall was to the North.  The island was called the Blessed Isle and the land was Owned by the Empress of the Realm, where the great Dragon Blooded came from.  Mommy told me to never look at them and do what ever they told me to do.  

I remember that my mother found a place that was not as nice as the place that we left.  I told her I did not like it and I wanted the old place back.  She said that this place was better it had 'opportunity', and that was better.  When I asked again she slapped me and told me that we could never go back.  My mother said that she needed me to go to school and to do well, school was not like it was in Whitewall, and it was expensive.  Most of the other kids were stupid and did not know anything so I was bored and often went out to learn other things and see other things.  There was a forest near by and there was the sea.  There was a goat path down to the water, but there were no goats.  There was a waterfall that fell down the cliff.  The water was brown and smelled horrible, but it was warm and in the winter there was a fog all over the harbour that smelled of shit.  Sailors called it Whiteshit fog.  

I remember that a Dragon Blooded came to visit my mother.  She told me to leave before he would arrive.  One day after he came, I came back and my mother was dead.  I never saw my father die.  I saw the dead on the road, the ghosts and stuff, but I never saw someone dead like my mother.  There was lots of blood and she never lifted her head when I called.  Her hands were limp.  There was a scattering of white coins on her body and on the floor sitting in the blood.  I knew it was jade and I knew it was valuable, but it also felt that is was all that was left of my mom.  I took one and hid it.  I would look at it when I was alone.

They took me and put me in a house full of orphans.  I was not an orphan though, I had parents; they were just dead.  The others did not know who their parents were.  I left that place the first night and they were happy to have me go.  I wandered the streets and the forest and begged for food and stole when I could do neither.  I slept on the road, the Holy Road, it provided warmth but nothing else.  I learned quickly that you needed to sleep in the day, beg in the morning, steal in the night, avoid the city at night before the early mornings.  The other times people would beat you.  Beat you or worse. 

When you break the rules bad things happen.  The last I saw it, was when I was down by the docks, in the early morning just before sunrise.  I was absorbed in my prize, the white jade obol that was crusted with the last dried blood of my mother.  I was looking at it when the had reached over me and grabbed my hand, crushing it and prying it open.  An older boy had me, he and his friends.  The grabbed my prize and I bit them.  They did not like that, the hot taste of salty blood went into my mouth followed by the sharp cut of a dagger in my gut.  They tossed me on to the rocks bleeding and rent.  The fall to the rocks broke something in me, but it was the taking of my prize that hurt the most.  My mother was lost to me forever.  The waves washed over me and my life departed, choking on the foam.  .

A voice asked me what was in my heart.  I said nothing.  What do you want, I responded, to cause them pain.  I woke and I was no longer in Wallport.  I was not in the sea.  I was with my Master and he had plans for me and it was all going to be better.  

He told me that I was his Lady of Squalor and that was who I was from then on.  He showed me that he had been watching me for a long time, sometimes he came to me as my father and sometimes as my mother.  Sometimes he was the whore bitch Marama and sometimes he walk with Marama.  Sometimes he was just a shadow with piercing eyes that filled people with dread, but to me he was my mentor.  He always pushed me and told me that there were great things afoot and he had plans for me.  There were others who I was paired with, but it was me who he had the most faith and held in most esteem.  I was his prodigy.  He showed us how it was to go, how we were the saviors of Creation.  We were the ones that were going to remover the pain and the hurt and the suffering from the World.  The suffering was everywhere.  There was suffering in the brothels, suffering on the streets, I knew that.  He said that there was a whole bunch of nations that were filled with people suffering day in and day out.  The ground wept at the suffering—you just have to stop and listen and you would hear the constant weeping it made everywhere.  Well not everywhere.  In Shadowlands the land no longer wept, but slept, they way that it was supposed to.  

I remember the way the world was before this age, it was happy and the poorest man was more wealthy than the richest person today.  I remember that people flew everywhere and learned anything from books and I Am.  I see the wonders that are gone and the crash that Creation has suffered and that it is unrepairable, that we must bring it back to a place of rest before it can be made better.  

For the first few months we spent our time training and going out on forays into the surrounding lands, lands filled with drug addled slaves, wallowing in misery every second.  I knew what had to be done.  He showed us how we were to do his work.  We ventured into the heinous nations nearby and hacked the overlords to death, wounding them so they paid for their crimes with a slow painful death and brought out the victims, the slaves to resettlement camps where they could prosper.  After months of doing this we had freed thousands of slaves and had resettled them into those towns in the wild.  The master was pleased.  He told us that we had exceeded his expectations.  But he asked us how our freed slaves were were doing.

We went and investigated.  There were people that were spoiling the paradise we created for them, hurting and strong arming them.  After the treatment they had suffered they just went about and did it to the ones that survived.  A few took what they wanted from the weakest.  It was enough.  In despair she did what she had to do to keep the freed slaves safe.  She hoped that they would understand that she did it for them.  Any village that had a problem like this she remedied the situation.  Soon the lands around the supplanted villages were calm and resting.  Her master was pleased with what she had done and she was rewarded with his mark, that all might know his pleasure.  

What he desired most from her was that she go out and recruit for the cause.and she excelled in this task too.  She found a new Solar, who was uneducated in the ways of the world and thought that he had a tough go of things.  But her master said it takes all sorts to help quiet the land and make it ready.

Planet Nine Null Hypothesis

I was listening to a podcast yesterday, http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/episodes/the-ninth-planet , an interview with the scientist that ruined many a people's childhood by demoting Pluto's status as a planet.  He was on the show talking about his new finding and search, there is another planet out there; a new planet nine.  

The discussion about how his team knew there was another planet out there and all the ways they looked for it and even though it has not been observed, they know so much about the planet already.  For example, they know it is about ten times the mass of the Earth.  They know that the orbit is highly elliptical.  They know that it's orbit takes about 15,000 years to complete and they know what the the orbital path it must follow, but they don't know where it is.

The entire process that he did to determine these facts was also interesting because he used the Scientific Method to determine everything.  People need to know that to be a successful scientist you have to fail a lot.  The best scientist fails a lot.  The scientist asks a question and then she tries to prove it.  Sometimes he succeeds, but success does not tell us anything important.  Throw a dart at a mountain.  If you hit you know it is there but you know nothing of the edge or the top, you just know you hit the mountain.  If you miss that tells you that the mountain is not there and you need to throw your dart another place.

It is called the Null Hypothesis.  Not succeeding tell you more about what you are looking at.  There was once an Internet post that asked people to give the formula that fit for the following sample of numbers: 1, 8, 64, 256.  People were given three guesses to figure out what the formula was.  Most people failed to find the correct formula because all of the following formula worked y=x^3, y=x^2, y=x^4; they all worked.  These also worked: y=x+10, y=x+2 or y=x+1.  Those are actually all the same formulas, at least on one level.  Formulas that don't work are: y=root x, y=x+.5 and other of these types of equations.  People who asked these questions would able to determine that the formula was y=x+1, by trying to find out what the formula was not.  The answer was a set of numbers that were all Real Numbers.  

So this scientist was not looking for a planet to fit all the observable data, he was looking for everything else and failed to find it.  As Sherlock Holmes was said to have said, "After ruling out all the most probable explanations, what ever is left, no matter how improbable, most be true."

Solo session for Vael: Descent

These are the notes and plans for a solo Session for one of my players. Just a couple sessions that they are going to maybe tell the group about, or perhaps not:

The labyrinth there is an easy access to it close by, the entrance into the lowest levels where the Old Gods, the Forbidden gods live has a mirror in the underworld and it is the labyrinth.  Unlike the creation analogue, this one drops deeper into darker depths.  In fact it does not stop.  There is a spell that will get here sooner and faster, but that is not the point, because Minister of Loquacious Trials, knows she is being followed.  She knows because she was told.  She knows who it is but also knows that she won't be able to see Vael.  She is useful but no as useful as turning Vael.  Still she is on her own until she gets to the labyrinth.  There she is to give Vael the book.  The treaty of the Black Sun.  It is written in Old Realm, but there is a small translation available that the Minister can give to him too.  The text is old, over five hundred years, but it looks older, the script and the vellum appear older.  The script tells about the frustration that the writer sees in the world how the Solar Exalted have left the world weak and the people that took over even weaker.  How creation is a never ending torture to the inhabitants.  Common diseases kill and slavery is everywhere.  He book is a treaties on the misfortune in the world and the sorrow that was everywhere.  The book is a suicide note.  And it is the work of a Solar Exalt with a ten essence and full of many social charms.  It was his last work as a mortal…. It is rending and it describes many things in the world around anyone who reads it.  The compelling nature of the text rivets the reader for days while it is read, preventing the reader from going to sleep unless they spend two will power, if they do sleep, the book sends them dreams that reenact the worst of the book as real life.  At the same time, the book makes them tired and listless, requiring them to spend a willpower to continue reading.  If they continue to read to the end they recieve a point of Whispers background—and they are rewarded with new script that describes that he died but he was now a ghost until he saved creation from all that he had seen, only then could he go to Lethe and be reborn.

Minister of Loquacious Trials tells him that this is the master who she follows.  It is his direction that she follows to save creation from the woes that beset it.  If Vael does not have the skill to read the manuscript she tells him that she has a primer, that she used, but the original words are far more eloquent.  She offers it to him and after a few hours of use, he will have additional skill in reading the Old Realm script.  Also he will gain whispers rating of two that will boost his reading ability a bit.  When he gains whisper rating up to three he will be able to see how poetic the script is.  

When he is done he will have questions.  If his questions are about the how and the why, she will tell him instead that his concerns can be answered by showing him instead.  She says that they raid the Slave states much like he has in the past, only they do it to free the slaves and to resettle them, not to enlist them into any army.  He will come to see that their methods are far more effective.  They launch an surprise attack on a latifundia deep in the state and create a portal which they usher the slaves into the underworld, where they are free from any reprisals and then they feed them and they travel in safety to towns set up in the north far from the slave states in villages that have been built by Zombie labour.  

The raids are much more effective than the ones that the Solars engage in.  Instead of taking as many slaves that can fit on the Storm-Wind-Rider and leaving the rest, the entire surviving population is evacuated and the neighbouring settlements as well, all funneled through the Shadowland and after a week of journeying out into Creation into waiting towns.  The populous is split up into new towns and villages.  

If he goes on the raids, Lady of Squalor will be there.  She and her cohort will treat Vael like a friend and a comrade at arms.  

If Vael wants to know more about their boss she will say of course, I will bring you to him, but first i have a time table with things that need to be completed.  She will then tell him about the raid and how it needs to be completed before she can make a meeting for him.  Everything is set and they need to get going, otherwise they will be behind schedule.  Everyone needs to do their part.

If he still wants to meet the chief after, Marama will come to him.  She will claim to be the co-author of the manifesto. The meeting will be about assumptions.  She will let Vael tell her what he thinks and she will tell him the truth every time.  If he asks things about her future plans she will say, that information is only available to the inner circle, not even Squalor is privy to that, because the salvation of creation is at stake and there is only one chance to do everything correctly.  The planning has been going on for nearly eight hundred years and only now that things are so close.  Soon she can tell everything, now that things are falling into place.  But she needs help to make things run smoother.  The more help the better.  

She is truthful that Squalor and her group are not Solar Exalted, but that is a good thing, because if they were they would be the pawns of an uncaring God that can't pry himself away from his own self pity, to see the misery in the world.  If he wants to join, she will show her appreciation in ways that the Sun, never would.  He asks, that she will personally show him ways and techniques that will increase his Essence.  There are lot of overtones as well, she also says that the Panoply of heaven has been closed to him, but not so here, he will gave all that he needs.  Including an extensive network of spies and informants, and artifacts and equipment.  

But the price will be steep.  She is not shy about that.  She tells him that the sun is jealous of his children, even though he refuse to acknowledge them or use them effectively.  But when he joins, he will need to prove himself as worthy

Why was Minister of Loquacious Trial in the labyrinth?  To see the wealth of the underworld along the way?  To manage the mines that mined underworld iron.  To pick up missives from the underworld spies and informants?

1) to allow Vael to see the Underworld that the Black Sun controls

2) to pick up a number of missives from the Black Sun's information network

3) to look into the production of the mines in the labyrinth

Research into the Labyrinth all talks about it all coming from the Mouth of Oblivion in Stygia, but further reading tells a different tale about how it is accessible from all over creation and that there are multiple levels, ten levels, and wormholes that lead to various parts from multiple locations.  It talks about how the labyrinth is constantly changing and moving.  

4) Ministry of Loquacious Trials is heading to the site of the next Slave break and from that location is going to take the freed slaves and bring them to the New Towns.  The names are already chosen, the towns are already built, each has housing for 500 people.  The location of the raid is in Amber River, they are taking five Latifundia in a cluster, each has 1750 people in them, 250 guards and administrators and 1500 slaves in pens.  The idea is to attack each latifundia in the hour before dawn and destroy the guards and administration then lead the populous to the entry position for sunset.  Each raiding party is lead by one from the Circle, 100 zombies wielding swords and 25 former slaves.  There are spies that will tell them if things have changed in the past few days.  The deaths of 250 people in each location, mostly killed with the swords that leave agonizing wounds is more than enough to create a Shadowland that will engulf the latifundia—not that they will inform Vael about this fact.  They will say if he asks, that the wounded will die soon and they can use this time to rethink their actions and become better citizens when they are reborn in the next life.  Also, they are on a time table to get the rest of the slaves out of there before the Realm comes down on them.  All plausible reasons.  

• there will be complications. Five junior Dragon Blooded have been enticed into the region by informants of the Black Sun, because he wants Vael to feel that the operation is riskier than it normally is.  

• there is an Immaculate Monk in the area that the Black Sun did not know was in the area and needs to be taken out or there will be some disruption to the plan.  

• on the way through the Labyrinth, there is an encounter with a few ghosts and a nephwrack not aligned with the Black Sun and for secrecy sake they need to be scilenced.  The Circle will actually treat this encounter with a lot more concern than any other 

They will arrive and exit a Shadowland near the newly set up towns.  The fifteen towns are spaced over large area, but with interconnected roads, they will be called Freedom in five languages, Home in five languages and Safety, also in five languages.  Certainly better than Elsewhere, Somewhere, Someplace Else and Nowhere.  

Dreams II

Dreams …

Vael

First you encountered the symbol etched into an abandoned Temple far in the North.  The temple was destroyed and deserted for centuries and the symbol was nearly fully eroded off the face of the upset stone.  The question at the time was whether it posed some significance to Adorjan or whether something else entirely.  It may have stayed a riddle for the ages if you had not found another such mark, scratched a new, in the face of a hidden shrine covered by ivy.  It was not the cell that you were looking for but the sign appeared to have some significance, perhaps among the Demon Worshipper circle.  Perhaps not.  Questioning the people in the area about the symbol revealed little but perhaps other cities might reveal more.  After finishing up your business, you moved to your next stop on your itinerary, Sijan, and questioned your network on this new symbol; this very old symbol.   You had other business in the city and more important to be sure.  Before you left, one in your network reported that the symbol was repeated in the city within the city; the Necropolis.  The symbol was emblazoned prominently upon four tombs of the many tombs for the Heroes who fell in the Age of Legends, the War with the Primordials.  Dawn, Zenith, Twilight and Zenith were in four of the five tombs.  The tomb for the Night caste remained empty, but the others there was a eulogy of each of their deeds signed with the same symbol.

You dropped all inquiries on the symbol of The Black Sun.

The Practioner

Pressing deeper into the fold of chaos, the regions of noise beyond the quiet your presence forced on to the lands around, were filled with polka dotted cats jumping into the air and turning into a riot of birds with a colour pattern of paisley.  The trees had enticing fruit that weighed the branches up into the air with promise of sweetness, but you trusted them not.  Your staff you planted deep into the ground and activated it.  Ten paces from it in five directions you placed similarly attuned rods.  The demesne that you carved from the Wyld energies would be enough to contain what would come next.  You stepped out into the Wyld beyond the quiet that the stakes provided.  Your spell was grand and soon the area hummed.  Single hole appeared over the staff and from that a slash rose high into the pink sky scattering doves, well something that might have been doves anywhere else.  The verticle slash widened out to the limits of the rods and it slowly began to rotate in a large circleit would take an hour and that would be the crucial time.  The attacks did come but you were able to thwart them and destroy the Rakasha that tried to intervene. The smart ones ran, the ones that had learned.  The hour complete and the Reality engine had been retrieved from Elsewhere.  Attuned to the demesne, it powered up, waves of reality spilled out.  The process would take about two days to complete, but you hoped that your technique would win the prize in the competition and for that five more needed to be placed and then linked…

Nix…

There was a war coming, a big war.  There has always been a war coming, but this war would be big.  A foe that had not been tested in a long time was to join the battle with them.  The Dawn Caste wanted to test their prowess, powers that had remained untried in a thousand years.  There were competitions to be one.  The Dawn was to destroy as many as they could before the end, three categories, the ancient masters who fought the Primordials, the millenials – over a thousand years and no experience and the New Dawns less than the others in age.  There were other categories, the Twilight had a few for best weapons in their age categories, your entry was going to be spectacular a bomb that would turn Wyld energies into Jade, Moonsilver, Starmetal and Orichalcum, killing all within.  Just a month left before the the Eastern walls of Creation would 'fail' and let the hosts of Rakasha into Creation and the Games would begin…

Arik

The trouble with Exaltation after the Great War was that all the great deeds had been done long before you were born.  The stories of the combats and the dangers would have been thought by anyone else listening to be hyperbole, but you knew the truth, you hade memories of the dangers and the battles, one which had left your predecessor crippled and dying when the battles were over, a splash of vitriol from the death throes of one.  Since then there had been no big fights, now huge wars, no way to prove that you deserved the exaltation you wore.  Your surviving Cirlclemate from that time has not deigned to speak to any of you since the inauguration of their tombs those many centuries past. But the plan is a foot and all is ready, soon the walls of creation will be dropped and the Chaos of the Wyld will flood into the Eastern Lands.  Lots have been chosen and you hope that you will be close enough to the front that in a thousand years it will be you that has the stories that the younger Dawn caste will be listening to…

Jaguar

The images of the Primordial War were like none you had ever seen and there is nothing that would force you to view the crystals that you had them stored away in.  You know from the books at you wrote and set the crystals in that there were lakes that turned to acid at a wave of an appendage, dissolving fishermen and warships a like, there were rains of blood winds that made molten stone seem a respite; each breath broiled people from the inside out.  Horrors removed from your mind forever.  By comparison, your retreat to the Wyld lands has been a great relief.  Oaths were easy to acquire from the Rakasha, their beings constantly in flux moving from one form to another.  Unlike mortals they were easier to live with content to live in a miasma of chaos  competing with each other for dominance of their reality.  No contest to you, whose presence codifies your own stamp around you.  They kept trying to envolve you in their plays for power.  You have grown to learn that a curious sideeffect of their storied existence is that a simple promise given holds them as strongly as a sanctified Oath.  As it was explained to you, their Word is their existence.  Betrayal of their word is not possible, something that is not true of a Sanctified Oath; people—Solars, break those Oaths all the time…

And …

The Lands around Creation had changed, a lot.  The disease that swept across the North had swallowed up cities, towns, villages, ricket and cots and added them to the Fell.  The invasion that you had seen swept past the Fell as if it hurt them and further laid waste to the lands.  But that had failed too.  Nothing it appeared would end the torcherous existence.  The plague of humanity still clung to the world like ship rats upon floating jetsome of a storm.  You toured creation hoping against hope that something would give you a reason.  The Terestrial Exalted few, but someone had used the Sword of Creation to beat back the Rakasha threats.  Killing these survivors offered no challenges and they were shells.  Sijan survived, the tombs of you friends intact along with the eulogy you inscribed on each.  Your tomb still empty and warded by long dead guardians, Wyld shaped to nothing.  The leaves in the south still bloomed their Wyld party fragrance that tore through the populace; that was fun, for about an hour.  You summoned the essence to your will and landed on the Blessed Isle, causing your lessers to rush around in terror.  The Chosen of Endings you saw did not suspect that it was her time, it was; the fight was over before it started: boring.  Back at home there was nothing to amuse you but a quick fuck with the ghost of Marama and to peel her ghostly skin; not for the first time you wish that you kept her alive a few more years…

Shame porn

I have been watching a lot of Internet TV lately, you know down load an episode of a television program that you can't normally see because it is over ten years gone.  The are a lot of advertisements scattered around the edges.  Telling you that someone in your area, insert your internet provider location, has just gotten rich by doing nothing and you can too, just click here!  There are other ads telling you that Clinton is considered a genius, who else is a genius too!  There are ads that tell you all sorts of things that you don't want to know or don't care to know.  Some ads want to show you the most recent scandalous photos of celebrities. 

After watching a few episodes of Buffy or Gotham, you get curious, so you click on one or two.  You see pictures of what ever you click on and a lot more ads and a next button hidden somewhere deep in the ad haze.  It is the captions that are most amusing.  Many of the ad groups are about sexy women in poses, nothing x rated, nothing even close to what you can find in thirty seconds of unconscious barely looking, but pretty women.  The captions are horrible.  They call the women as shameful and sluts and worse.  The thing is that the captions should read: "Hey viewer, you are disgusting getting joy out of looking at this young woman taking a picture of herself in her underwear.  Is this what you think is fun?". The truth is that they want you to look at the images, but then they want to dehumanize the people in them.  

I don't care about what these people think, but it is all hypocritical and that does bug me.  It speaks of the place where these ads are coming from, the United States.  Morality is a hot button issue there, the overwhelming group think on what is immoral and what is moral and what falls into the grey area.  For me there is consent and there is lack of consent and the grey area is assumed consent.  There is all of that stuff out there.  A pornographic site mostly has consent.  The models all are agreeing to do what they are doing and they are presumably getting paid to do it.  There are porn site that offer no consent to the models, like hidden camera sites.  Change room cams, washroom cams, toilet cams, hotel room cams.  These are all illegal and amoral.  I won't watch these and they are despicable—there are probably some that feature paid models who know what is happening, but you can't tell.  

Then there are the grey areas.  Like people who sign waivers but are lied to as to how the images are going to be used, this includes sexting.  Someone who takes a photograph and sends it to a significant other and they betray their trust.  That is immoral but it is in a grey area, just as someone who records a video that is behind a pay wall and distributes it around.  Some people might look at those grey area examples and say that they are not grey; I feel the same, but they are still grey.  Imagine a woman at a beach who has a wardrobe malfunction.  Imagine a celebrity who walks up the red carpet in a very revealing dress.  Imagine a sports celebrity who is photographed while competing.  They are all grey regions.  Two lions mating in the savanna.  People on a topless beach, nudist beach.

The grey regions can be portrayed as less grey when people begin to moralize them with captions.  It becomes a whole different form of porn, moral porn, shame porn; the porn part is not the pictures but the intention.  Trying to tell me that they are worse people than me because they have pictures that they would be embarrassed about if they knew where on the internet viewed by millions of people.  I think about it for a second and I know that there are three people in this picture: The subject, who may have taken the picture for their own purposes.  The moralizer, who is placing a value on their actions, divorced from the subjects intention, who is making money that the subject will never see and is setting up the third person to feel superior.  The third person is the viewer, me or you, the intention is to shame the individual, but in my case I feel shame for myself and anger at the Second person.  I know that most people never know the person who is in the frame, but the odds say that someone will know the person.  

I feel cheapened a little bit now.  But I offer up my humility, to allow others to feel superior over me, that's okay because I am consenting to it and I don't expect profit.

Exalted dreams…

Part of the Exalted character is that  for many of the character types they had previous lives and they come off with the Soul Shard that provides the exaltation.  These memories bleed into the new exaltation through their dreams, but they are memories of their past lives.  They provide a clue into the times before.

Arik you dream

The clouds drift around you as you glide.  Their forms wet your face as you pass through them.  The last whisps pass below you as you rise above them, their brightness dispersing the Dawn's light.  Solar Invictus rises to the East and after all these centuries, you still chose to meet it far above everything else.
Below you a break in the clouds allows you to see a portion of the nearly infinite expanse of ocean below you, and the platform that you fled this morning in the dark, your mobile home an Indomitable Class Sky Citadel.  It and its arsenal  could easily lay waste to the city to the East, Meru, where it sits hugging the mountain mid way up its slope.  Your rise falters and you glide further up, basking in the light before turning and plunging back through the clouds to skim the top of your fortress.  Perhaps this time you will scare the willies out of a sentry who is not paying the skies the attention the deserve… perhaps.

Nix you dream

You emerge from the forest, the sweet smelling new leaves of spring fill the air.  These trees are yours, designed for their fragrance, leaves, flowers and fruit—which tastes as good as it smells.  The white apple will be coloured with a splash of pink and pale green, the flowers are yellow and the leaves purple; all too garish for your tastes, but still perfectly tempting to all and extremely poisonous.  The gentle slope heads down to the coast and from there across the Inland Sea rests the Blessed Isle and the Grand City of Meru where the flesh will be made into magnificent tarts and cakes that only the most hardy like you and your fellows stand a chance of surviving.  From your perch you know there is a hidden grotto where your lab sits and where your special gardeners reside.  The sun tips over Creation marking the end of the day, Meru rests like a halo around the top of the central Pole of Earth, far to the west.

Practitioner you dream.

The hammer falls, a staccato of sound off the walls of the homely forge in the tiny village a leisurely walk of two days from Rathess, the First City.  A home away from home and far from the halls of business in Meru.  This political backwater is where you rest and plan for your next assault against your rivals in the Deliberative.  This home is far from you were raised and few of your friends know to call upon you here.  The village was overlooked in the recent expansion of I Am, just as you planned.  The hammer strikes on metal soothe your soul better than any masseuse you have ever known.  It is what you need more than anything else before you face the boors at the Calibration Feast in two days time.  The metal hisses as you quench it.  A perfect plowshare to add the the perfect mouldboard and colter.

Vael You dream:
Your Circle mates will only be just now waking up from their pleasant sleeps where ever they are in Creation.  Idling their time with War Games and hammering wonders, perhaps making strategies that will swing the Solar Deliberative their way and do what they want.  You are too busy for that.
Last night you were meeting up with the Cabal that you started in shadows of Itinerant Supplicant.  The cabal had been picking up steam the last few months, disaffected have been flocking to the secret places seeking to strike at the Solars and their Millennial rule.  The rumour and the existence of this Cult and the success that they had communing with demons from Malfeous was enough to draw them in.  Months of planning and collecting names and bringing them there, only one of them informed on the group.  That person was carefully silenced, given a place in the local parade to be held next Calibration festival.  The rest all arrived where they summoned a demon using the rites you had supplied them.  They chose to act, they were not forced.  They still cried for mercy as you cut them down.  Perhaps they will be reborn as better citizens next time and not bring shame on their families and their town.

Tomorrow night you will track down the three copies of the rites where they are headed.  To Meru, Chiaroscuro, and the City of Flowers.  You will start Cults there, where the criminals of the Deliberative will flock and you will cut them out as well.  Your work never ends, keeping the world safe so your fellows can plot in the Solar Deliberative, beat out toys from gold and play games of war.

Jaguar You dream…

You are lying in a very large bed made of the under feathers of hummingbirds, with a shear spider silk sheet draped over you form in repose, lying in post coital bliss.  The large dog at your side lifts his head on a the predawn light sniffing the breeze that wafts through the open door to the balcony.  It pads over shifting subtly, rising on his hind legs until it is a man walking on to the balcony, nakedly uncaring.  The first rays of the Sun, Solar Invictus, fill the room save for your mates long shadow.  Your had caresses his shoulders as you gaze upon Meru, the city on the Pole of Earth.  Your bedcovers trail behind you forgotten on the floor, the light reflecting off the roof tops and the flying chariots intent on delivering their cargoes.

…and others…

The screams of the small figure before you rebound off the cages to either side.  The moans of discomfort from the cage city around you forms a murmuring of background noise for you to do your work.  The white skin and black spots bleed freely under your gentle administrations.  Relatively gentle, for these creatures, sub human monsters, must suffer in a way that their creators did not suffer all those years ago.  The ground was withering here in the camp, the grass and flowers would not grow here anymore, slime and mould in their place.  The Rain water stagnated where it sat, mingling with the blood.  You are careful, they only finally die when you say they can die and not a moment sooner.  You make them cry out their sins of being Solar creations, Spawn of the Anathema.  The ground where they die darkens just a little, staining the essence of the world a little as it should be.  Back in your rooms, your great pleasure waits.
Once there you strip down out of your Fire Jade armour until you are naked.  The tattoos that were painstakingly placed upon your flesh accentuating your swollen breasts.  The room is secured against sound, but it doesn't matter.  The door is opened and your image is reflected before you in the figure trussed up hanging from the rafters.  Perfect copy in every way, save for the additional scars that deface her body and the bright ring of light that rests on your brow as you dig blades into your reflection's skin; her screams though great make not a sound…

You wake, your sheets a sodden mess of sweat.

It is a way to add more to their story and possibly drop in hints and ideas into their heads

Game time

I have been running a game since May.  It has been taking up a lot of my writing time since then, and truthfully it was a factor in why I stopped altogether.  That and Natural20 and hard work.  I have not even been reading.  

I have been coming to grips that I can't write a story.  I have a story I want to tell but there is no plot.  I have a setting that I have written but the story is not a plot of characters but a story of the world.  There are players in the world that have agendas and are influencing the world and there are the player characters that have to change the world the way they want to, but there is no real plot on the small level.  More it is the players that have to react to what the main antagonist choose to do and how the setting changes to that end.

The players don't see the actions of the antagonists and so they don't know how to act yet.  And I feel that I am losing them. I have homework to do and I need to introduce them to the plot.  I have set out a few pieces, but the last time at I did it I lost my player.  So I am worried.

Too much running and not enough playing.  I need to drop the players into it and I am just about ready to do it.

Buffy

I have been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  When it was running I caught a few episodes, but that is it.  I was never a fan.  Mostly because I caught a few in season 6 and 7 and that was it.  Some shows you need to be there right from the start.  My other exposure was two children in grade 5 who I helped when I volunteered.  They were complete Buffy Addicts.  They would talk about the characters like they were close friends, and so I became curious and watched the few episodes that I watched.  And was disgusted.  I missed the first few high school seasons and was right into the college seasons and the dark sexual themes of that the series took.  But was focused on the fact that it was a show that some ten and eleven year olds were watching.  What was their mother thinking, letting them watch this stuff?  She wasn't, likely thinking, ore she watched the first season and thought the content "G".  Much like all the parents who let their grade three and four children watch South Park, the adult focused animated cartoon.  Underline adult.  They probably watched in passing an episode and saw that it was a cartoon and gave it a pass.  Along with all those television schedulers who let it go into prime time or children time-slots with Barbie and Mattel toys advertised in the commercial intermission.  

A lot of these shows is funny, but the adult themes are there and children who see them, will repeat them.  Like you know when someone is dead, because they shit themselves.  That was an actual quote from an episode.  

I know that parents can't monitor everything that their children watch, some children have parents that monitor everything and others are lax.  Some parents say no gun games, but others do not and that is where the banned children go to play those games.  That is a fact.  You can hold your child's hand through everything or you can let them go and explore the world.  Thought choice.  Middle of the road seems the best, be with them when you introduce them to new content and be there to answer questions.  Or perhaps watching movies before you let them see it and deciding then if you want your child to see it.  When you do be there to answer the questions, but that means being aware what they are watching.  

On to Buffy.

I was surprised.  Very surprised.  I like it.  It covered quite a few subjects that I was not sure they would cover and they did them tastefully without a lot of religious overtones.  In season 4 someone died and there was a funeral and people picking up the pieces.  There was someone who was there that had experienced death before and they offered support correctly, they said that it had happened to them, but it was not the same and they were just offering a shoulder and someone to talk with out making it all about them.  

There was a story about addiction and stories about love and loss.  There were stories about so many things all cloaked in supernatural events.  But, I am not sure that it is a show for young children.  Season five took on a serious level of darkness and I am sure that it is not something that I would expose to young people unless I knew they were ready.  

There is a lot of creativity, an episode of no voices in season 4, an episode of show tunes and dancing.  If there is an episode where everyone is cartoon characters, then I will have, doff my cap to them, after checking to see who did it first, Buffy or Farscape.  Wait, Farscape wins.

Dear Sam Mulvey

Dear http://askanatheist.tv/

I have wanted to write in for a while now, because I am one of the thousands who listen to you every week.  You put a bee into my bonnet today when I listened to, the first podcast that I listen to if given a choice, your show.  Colony collapse.  It is a myth, but it is a helpful myth.  Let me explain, people get upset at the thought that bees are all dying and they get interested in the environment in a way that all the bats dying and fishing stocks being depleted don't.  

Did you see that?  I pointed out some a couple of real crisis in the world today. I am not an entomologist nor am I into bee keeping, but I pay attention to everything in the environment and I paid attention to the bees until I determined what was the wrong with them.  There are the pesticides and the other pesticides and a lot of different causes, but the end of everything is that there is no honey bee colony collapse problem.  What we may have is the same thing that is affecting the world over, that humans are removing the natural habitat of native species and filling it up with exotic ones.  Native bees are suffering.  Bumble Bees, wasps, and all the rest are losing their habitat and their populations are suffering. 

 But here let's get back to colony collapse.

Colony collapse has multiple causes that have added up to the death of some colonies.  There are mites, there are pesticides, there are Neonicotinoids, there are cold winters and there are Human Practices in Horticulture.  There is no single cause far loss of bee colonies.  Cold weather kills bees here in Canada every winter, really cold winters can kill off entire colonies and that won't change.  Mites are a fact of life, there are things that will always feed off other things and that won't change, if it is not mites it will be something else.  What is true is that the denser we pack bee hives the more likely that bee pests will spread.  Pesticides kill bugs dead, Neonicotinoids are pesticides that affect bees, but all the others affect them too.  If they are not applied when the plants are flowering, then they are fine.  It is funny that a lot of the people who cry fowl when insecticides kill bees are the ones that say people should go Organic, because they think Organic pesticides don't kill bees too.  GMO is the way to go on this, but I digress.

The biggest cause of Colony collapse is human agricultural practices.  There are companies out there that exist to pollinate crops, Big Bee.  They have transport trucks that are loaded with hives and they move through the countryside stopping to release the bees and to pollinate crops.  They drive to California to pollinate Almonds, they drive to the orange orchards to pollinate them, they go to the rapeseed crops and then they go to all the other crops that they need to pollinate.  They feed them sugar water in the long dark trips, they are traveling regularly and that is stressful.  Stressed bees get sick, stressed bees suffer from mites.  Stressed bees suffer from low level neonicotinoid poisoning.  Stressed bees die.

You know what would help bees?  A scattering of perennial flowers under the crops that they pollinate.  When I was a garden centre worker, I told customers that they needed two different varieties of apples to get fruit, unless they were sure that there was another apple tree within 400m (1/4 mile) because that was the distance that bees would travel.   It is the same thing that many people have been saying for years, people need to work with nature.

Here is a link with other links.

 An episode of my second favourite podcast that talks about the myth of colony collapse.  http://www.trcpodcast.com/trc-419-are-bees-endangered-peanut-butter-deadly-to-dogs-transcendental-meditation/

I realize that the lack of links makes it appear that this is just an opinion.  

Now I can get back to listening to your words.