D&D: the New Deal

The last session went reasonably well, if a slow start.  They woke up in their respective places, the Paladin and the Bard in the Pirate hostel, and the Druid, the Ranger and the Fighter in the woods, camping.  Because they were kicked out of town for bad behaviour, neglecting prisoners.  They met up and they entered the dungeon for the second time (third time?).  They went into the Earth Temple and dug up the treasure that they had forgotten in there.  There was not much treasure but there was some stuff and some magic.  They had the map produced by the guard leader that they let go and knew e general locations of the temples and the relative strengths.  They knew that the strongest temple was the Water Temple and the weakest was the Air Temple, so they decided to tackle the strongest temple first.  They headed down to the Water temple, but the Elf spotted a secret door, and the party investigated that passage first and everything changed.

The secret door opened and they found stairs leading down and a passage filled with weapons, armour and the sound of running water.  The weapons and the armour were big, bigger than that of a human, and they recognised that it might be that of bugbears.  The water was a fountain and the end of the hall was a curtain with light leaking through it.  The Ranger snuck forward and peeked through the curtain and spotted a priest kneeling with robes of the air temple.  On reporting that, the Bard thought it was time to affect a disguise, he cast a spell to aid his ruse and became the high priest of the Earth Temple!  He strode forth and made a lot of noise and announced himself to the kneeling priest before entering.  Kenlo the Priest, tensed and then deliberately took out his dagger and placed it about arms reach before him, then he relaxed.  The Bard began with, "The Earth Temple has been attacked and we need aid!"

The priest asked, "How strong were the forces?"  He paused and then continued, "If they came to me, I would surrender to them and beg mercy to them, I might even help them to destroy the other Temples, anything to keep me alive!". Unbeknownst to the Bard and the rest of the party, Kelno had been out of his rooms in the past two day, he was not content to be a set encounter waiting for adventurers to find him then kill him.  He knew that the Earth Temple had been sacked and he knew that the Hight Priest of that temple was dead and rotting amongst his allies.  He also was confident that the Earth Temple and the other Temples did not know about the secret door that he hid all those weapons and that he strung a simple covering over.  He knew about the destruction of the bugbears to the North that he had been hoping to woe to his side; and the Greater Temple guard post just to the north of his rooms, covered with blood and gore.  

The Bard caught on then and the priest asked to speak to the whole party.  He wanted to live and everything else was up for grabs.  His first offer was that he aid the party with his forces and he get a share of the treasure and amnesty from the party for a couple weeks.  He told them he had ten bugbears and two gnolls and he would use them to defeat the other temples.  The mercurial nature of the Paladin who had the day previously had made a deal to get a map and escort some prisoners to the surface, did not want to make a deal for military aid.  A few of the other characters wanted the deal and it was tough bargaining for the priest.  Eventually it was agreed that if he helped them, and did not betray them, the party would ignore him until after the rest of the temple was destroyed, if he was still in the temple.  He accepted gladly, because he had a plan.  

The characters told him what their target was and Kenlo told them it was a good plan, but he thought it might be a better plan to attack the weaker Fire Temple and to arm themselves with the treasure of that temple to attack the stronger temple.  They thought about it and it made sense.  They asked detailed questions about the Fire Temple personnel.  Kenlo told them about the Warleader, the two priests and the paladin that worked with them.  He told them the most direct method was to attack the Warleader quickly and then to go after the rest.  He told them that the Warleader had a Flaming Sword.  They attacked and quickly overcame the Warleader, but he had one surprise for the party, he threw a rope of Entanglement at the Paladin and took him out of the fight.  The next room was separated by a space and the temple staff was not fully prepared.  They fought the bugbears with bugbears and when the paladin and the priests emerged they were bottled up with the Air Temple Bugbears.  The temple hierarchy was summarily killed.  They all filed into the Fire Temple after they looted the rooms and bodies.  The Temple was huge, about ninety feet long and seventy wide.  It was filled with the smell of brimstone and the heat from the many magical fires, both caused them all to sweat and dried their sweat instantly.  The Paladin mounted on his Giant Goat charged forth to the temple alter and struck it with his mace attempting to destroy it.  The act was largely symbolic as his mace did little damage, but it did invoke a magical effect that yelled out, "WHO DARES DISTURB THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL FIRE!", the loudness of the cry was meant to summon the bulk of the now dead priesthood.  Small snakes appeared on the coals and as the characters advanced, sixteen of the snake grew into large Fire Salamanders and they filled the southern temple.  

The paladin was in the midst of those Salamanders and his future looked certain and short.  The Druid acted quickly and cast a huge effect on e gathered Salamanders, casting Ice Storm, that made the area slippery for all, friend and foe.  The Bard cast hypnotic Patterson the largest group of Salamanders and combat was joined.  (The ice storm's main effect turned out to be a massive fog bank as the ice melted and steamed up the area.  There were only four salamanders and the rest were mirror images.  Every time they attacked I rolled a d4 and if I rolled a one, it was a real salamander and anything else was a mirror image, once four ones were rolled all the rest were mirror images or the last four were real salamanders.  The effect of the ice storm affected the allies more than the salamanders, but the salamanders were blinded by the fog and did not move at all, they were also cold). The paladin attacked with his lance and hit a real Salamander, the salamander took only half damage from non magical weapons, so the salamander he fought lasted most of the battle, meanwhile other characters were killing Salamanders with every hit.  The bugbears rushed to attack and many of them were slaughtered, only two survived the battle.  The Salamanders were a very effective enemy, they had two attacks, a spear thrust that averaged fourteen points of damage a hit and a tail slam that averaged eighteen points.  A couple lucky hits knocked the Druid from her giant bear into her normal self in two rounds, one tail slap caused the bear twenty-seven points of damage.  The mist and fog also made targeting the enemy almost impossible; characters fired arrows into the mist and hit fellow players and when they entered the fog they had to be careful or they would get turned around.  The battle ended, and the party was considerably worse for wear; that was the second strongest temple!  They elected to rest for an hour and to look for treasure afterwards.  

The next battle will probably stump the characters.  The Evil Intelligence that serves as the Water devotional entity is very difficult to kill, and it will try to convince characters to jump into it, or throw magical items into it.  There is also a different battle just before the temple with the priests, and the temple guardians.  I will have to prepare that battle carefully.  It will involve three different types of threat.

I gave the Priest Kenlo to one of the players to run, he was shocked to learn that the roleplaying hints that he was desperate to deal with the characters, because of the weakness of his position.  He knows the strength of the two other temples and he has heard rumours that there is soon to be a change in the balance of power in the two temples.  He desperately wants to change the fortunes of his temple.  He knows that the most likely direction of attack of this level is from the south and both temples have a super strong guard, a monster and a troll.  His adversaries had taunted him that they were in negotiation with a tribe of trolls.  He has offered the party intelligence to help them destroy the temples, but not the entire forces of each temple.  He plans to approach the trolls and offer continued support and then try to convince the Troll leader to join his temple, then when he is appropriately armed, he may recruit from the ghouls on the first level and try to get more bugbears, but the population of bugbears, may be severely depleted at this moment, the same with gnolls.  The addition of twelve trolls may give him better pull gaining resources though, if he can manage that.  He might gain the trolls easily though, he is intelligent and managed to dupe outside forces to wipe out his rivals, that is a very calculating argument for the trolls.  The loss of three temples to one set of adventures might cause the greater temple to fund his attempt to recruit the trolls too.  

Anyways after the Water temple is destroyed or put out of commission, they characters will have gained enough experience to be seventh level.  One Character wants a career path change and the priest classes all have to rest in a temple to gain their next powers.  So the characters may be gone for a week or more.  They also have to take their gold out and pay their taxes and collect their bounty for humanoid ears.  They have excess magical items that they want to get rid of, the duke will pay for them, but at a reduced price but with reputation advantages.  Probably after getting ten thousand GP magic items granted military titles, in any case, if they pay full taxes, they will get title, Elder of the land, honorary captains in the Armies of the land and the city guards.  Entrance to the knighthood of Greysteel…. Perhaps after they help the Local lord identify local enemies of the state.…

Notwithstanding

Notwithstanding lets everyone know that dispite everything else, we will do what we want to do.  The Premier of Ontario let people know that when ever the courts disagree with what he does, he will do it anyways.  He promised this when he used the clause whenever the courts ruled against his agenda.  In a recent tweet, he stated that he is doing this for e 2.3 million people who voted for him and his party.  Out of 10 million elligable voters in a province of 14.3 million people.  Get that?

In the election, 58% voter turnout was recorded—so 5.8 million votes cast.  2.3 million votes represents 40% of those voters, actually a little less.  So essentially with this overwhelmingly strong majority, they get to ignore the courts for five years and do whatever they want.  

The courts are not elected and so they should not set the course of the government.  That is the arguement.  Because they are not elected they have no say in what the government does.  Except they do.  What are the three pillars to Democracy?  Executive, Legislative, and Judicial.  

The Executive, composed of the leader and the cabinet, set direction.  They determine the majority of the laws and the way they people will be governed over the mandate of the term of office.

The Legislative, composed of all the elected members of government and the Senant, if there is one.  They are the people that brainstorm the bills and laws in committees to make sure that the laws cover what they are supposed to cover.  Then they are debated.  The opposition offers constructive suggestions on whether the bill is good or bad.  They offer amendments that modify bills to make them more inclusive.  Then the bill is voted on and may become law off there is enough supporting votes.

The Judicial, or the courts, determines if the law infringes on the individual or group rights of the people.  The guiding document is the Canadian Bill of Rights in Canada and the Constitution in the States.  If the law is found unconstitutional, the law is invalidated, and the government can re-table the law, make changes and pass it again.

That is what the courts do; that is why they are important part of our Democracy.  When the government has enough votes to pass a bill into law without opposition support it has to be careful or it will pass unconstitutional laws.  

The Notwithstanding Clause was put into the Canadian Bill of Rights to get it passed, because some people were worried that laws might be passed that conflicted with regional cultural differences and still be constitutional.  It was never really ment to be used and has only been used rarely or by Quebec in the first years of its inception as a protest against the federal government.  The clause allows the government to pass laws that are unconstitutional and have them work for five years.  

What this means for this government in Ontario, a government that has the support of only 40% of people who cast a ballot, 23% of elegable voters, or 16% of Ontarians, less than one in six, but has an absolute majority.  They could pass laws that infringe on people's rights and freedoms for five years.  They could make police enforce those laws too. 

The law that they made was to reduce the size of a cities council from 47 to 25.  They are allowed to do that.  That was not what was disputed.  The law went into effect the last day that people could declare that they wanted to run for local government.  The law extended the time they had to declare, but that was not the point, they created too much turmoil and disrupted the election campaign by re-aligning the ward boundaries too close to the start of the election.  The law was taken to court and the law was declared unconstitutional and made defunct.  The law was many things, petty, the premier was a former councilor for one term, rarely showed up to vote and was a failed in a run for mayor, but it was also exactly what the courts had declared it as unconstitutional due to timing.  If they reworked the law and stated that it came into effect the next election, there would have been no problem, but after people had declared the intent to run…

So there is more background.  There was a report over twenty years ago that stated that for simplicity the Greater Toronto Area should amalgamate and fold twelve or more seperate municipalities into one government structure because they were all similar and had the same concerns and this would reduce the government and the disparities of taxation in e seperate communities.  Build a super city in place of smaller cities.  The Conservative Leader at the time thought this was a horrible idea, because it would alienate all of his key support in the province, so he implemented only half the plan, the people who did not vote for him.  The five boroughs of Toronto were amalgamated.  Each five borough had a working city council and some of the boroughs were larger than the others, geographically and demographically.  They all had seperate concerns.  One was heavily urbanized and the others were suburbanized.  Each election since that first election they have been reducing the number of wards piecemeal.  The trouble was that some of the boroughs had a small population and a good ratio of representation, you can't reduce representation from ten to one over night, there would be riots as people would feel that they don't matter.  

People point out that bigger cities have smaller councils, but those bigger cities have had in many cases centuries of growth not a sudden expansion to deal with.  Usually the larger city is more homogenized too, but toronto has had a large number of communities in each Borough for decades and they were effectively different cities.  For example Toronto, the old city started the Transit system and the Subway and it was later expanded into the other areas, when amalgamation occured, all the boroughs had a piece of the subway system, but some were underserved and demanded more service and greater expansion.  When they first were forced to gather there were over a hundred Councilors now there are only 47.  25 they could do.  But the timing.

The analogy is a class of Class of students being told that they are going to the next grade together, but just before classes start the new school tells the students that they will only accept half of the students and the rest will have to go to a different school.  If the students were told last year or even before summer break, they would have time to find accommodation elsewhere, but it is the Friday before school start and it is a national holiday and everyone has to rush around looking for accommodation the next day.