Magical Industrial Revolution: Some Thoughts

Not exactly timely, but here is a review (of a kind) of Skerples's Magical Industrial Revolution (hereafter MIR).

This is available in hard copy (US link, UK/EU link) and PDF. I'm working from the PDF.

Other reviews collected here. 

I'm dividing this into three sections. First, a fairly self-serving look at how MIR might connect or overlap with the The Rest of All Possible Worlds (hereafter TRoAPW), the magical enlightenment setting I'm steadily assembling. Second, a look at the bulk of MIR and how it all fits together. Third, some scattered thoughts.

****

The cover.

So: does MIR conflict with TRoAPW? Do the two match? Is this blogosphere big enough for the two of us?*

Well, the answer to the first of these is no. MIR starts with the premise of a paradigm of magic having been devised. See 'Emergency Backstory', p. 7:

a reclusive foreign wizard named Valentine Sims published Principia Arcana, a new book of theoretical magic. In obtuse but incontrovertible terms, the book explained the nature of spells, wands, scrolls, ghosts, and a dozen other seemingly disconnected phenomena. 

Sims publishes what is imagined could be the results of TRoAPW. Players in TRoAPW are (in an atmosphere of) contributing to the research of magicians, charting ley lines in far-off places, making observations - if they aren't getting into fights, conceiving wild schemes, investing in the South Sea bubble or anything else players usually want to do. Theories flash back and forth; journals contradict one another; schemes are hatched to prove one side over the other.

Do they match, then? Well, I don't intend to take the Paradigm of MIR as the 'canonical ending' of TRoAPW. It's a possible result. MIR claims to be (p.2):

Restoration-Georgian-Regency-Victorian fantasy. It starts with liberalism and social change and ends with the First World War, but it’s more focused on the middle bit than the transitions at either end. 

But to my mind the emphasis is far more on the second two of those four historical modifiers. A Later Stuarts-Early Georgian fantasy with rapid social change fostered by magic probably looks a little different to vanilla MIR. TRoAPW probably only has a bit of proto-liberalism floating around - and has already sketched out a continent, rather than one city, for players to come from and visit - for enlightened absolutists to sponsor experiments, for intrigues and golden opportunities.

Enough of this. On to the next section.

**** 

MIR is a set of narratives - I can't call it a set of tools, for the places and people are sufficiently detailed to make them beyond templates - detailing a industrial revolution using magic in a city called Endon. Whatever else Endon may be, it is ahead of the curve: an unstable mass. Skerples calls it a 'pre-apocalyptic setting'; that may be technically correct throughout the game, but it is truest at the higher levels of development. 

Endon is London. That should be obvious. Not the real, historical London but the London of a thousand movies and TV series and novels and half-remembered anecdotes. 

Of course, if your group is familiar with London, Endon becomes Hong Kong. Or New York. A New York with only one river to cross; a Hong Kong with a Parliament and a Royal Palace. It is London unless sufficiently altered, though that's not a bad thing.
Incidentally, for all that Endon is London part of it reminds me of Edinburgh - no Royal Mile or New Town or crag-top Castle, but there is an Auld Grey Cathedral, an Old Endon Cemetery which seems more reminiscent of the Edinburgh Kirkyards (and Burke & Hare) than anything in London and an institution called Grim Balliol (yes, but also...).

Endon is unlike the countless districts and wards of Electric Bastionland, say. You can get a grasp on the entire city and its laws and mores - in order to save it, or exploit it, or simply live in it.

Fine. London-not London. Rules for smog. Vast crowds. What else? 

A map of Endon.

CLASS.

The Poor, the Working Class, the Middle Class and the Upper Class. Encounters, NPCs and districts are divided by Class. Innovations will effect different classes differently. 

This sounds obvious and to be expected - how many tabletop RPGs do you know set in a classless utopia?** - , but MIR is very clear about the presence and requirements of social class. There are ways to enter a given class, and ways to leave it.

INNOVATIONS

There are eight narratives of innovation that take place in Endon, detailing their evolution from Initial Innovation to Terminal Events. These will change the surroundings of the city around you as (say) teleport spells become cheap and safe. 

The changing pace of events is called the Tempo, and must be tracked. The Pre-Session Checklist (p. 151) allows you to do just this. There's a lot of ticking clocks built in, each with its own dire consequences - aside from any hijinks that may ensue as you go. It's the sort of game that makes me long for a team of staff officers to help run it. 

Given that each Innovation is effectively a science fiction story in miniature, this should be no surprise. The premise is generally excellent, building into a bizarre and quite probably horrifying set of consequences. 

MAGICAL INDUSTRY

There are methods for making magical items and creating new spells. Doing this at scale seems to be largely a business of getting capital and a workforce. The methods of mass production are established, as are the norms connected to it.

The lists of Unique Low-Level Spells, Discount Spells, (Minor) Magic Weapons, Minor Magic Items are all inventive and characterful - in regards of humour and practicality. Two examples, then.

A Minor Magic Weapon:

Crass Knuckles. Deals 1d4+1 damage. On a hit, target must Save or spend their next round swearing and unable to cast spells. 

A Minor Magic Item:

Hairpuller. Originally used by tanners. Small metal rod. On hit, all hair on a cow-sized target or smaller flies off painlessly. 3 uses per day. 

I have then presented several attractive images of MIR. This is all very well, but some of you will be asking how well these separate elements come together and all the mechanisms work. I can't claim to have tested MIR at all, so shan't make any very bold statements. 

MIR is largely laid out in two columns per page, quite crisp and clear. The introduction of the Tempo symbol (¤) makes clear those elements of Endon that are being transformed by the innovations. The whole thing is presented, fittingly, in black and white - integrating jokes from Boff! Magazine, even. A mix of illustrations decorate it, some from the public domain, some the work of Messrs Newell, Stahl and Rejec.

The greatest irritation MIR presented me with was the Condensed Random Encounters table on p. 18. This is of three rows and six columns, with headings in bold and entries alternately on a white or grey background. The second two rows are sub-tables for the first two columns of the first row; this was not clear to me at first - there are some discrepancies between the text used in corresponding terse entries.
I suspect that some colour-coding or a few well-placed arrows would have redirected me sooner - but ruined the overall scheme. It makes me wonder if anyone has accomplished digital variants of the tricks of cross-hatching, dotting and so forth seen on old maps (IE, here).

MIR is an interesting balance of ideas and urban mechanics, usefully presented. It is sufficiently modular that any pieces you wish can be removed and repurposed, and there is room for extra stuffing. I would take a look.

****

• The Eight Deadly Sins (the extra is Hatred) work quite nicely as the basis for a carousing table.
• I am convinced that Wackit is in fact very simple and terribly exciting; so exciting, in fact, that everyone decides to take tea midway through a match in order to calm down.
• The fact that the newspaper name generator can turn out the Daily Mail/Express means that re-rolls may be necessary. That said, a paper with a name like the 'Inside Monitor' is quite sinister. 
• There is magic, but no miracles or divine intervention. No clerics. There is a Church of Endon, but this is 'a feeble and somewhat disreputable institution vaguely associated with charitable works, weekly luncheons, and tutting'.
  Again, this is the London of popular fiction. We leave aside Mission Societies, the birth of the Salvation Army, fledgling Anglo-Catholicism, and all other trappings of the religious life of nineteenth century Britain. Though clearly, you could slot some of these back into Endon.
  Leaving clerical magic out simplifies things immensely - but Endon is intended to slot into other settings, and we are provided with potential motivations for clerics, monks, paladins and druids to visit the city.
• Further details on Loxdon College have been made available on Coins and Scrolls, and I advise you to take a look at them.
• An adventure called the Biggest Aspidistra in the World is included, with a giant specimen of the titular plant. 
• The PDF came with some in-universe pamphlets that allow communication of some of the above. These are an apt touch.
• There is a Bibliography (p. 147) and a list of Inspirational Media (p. 148) to consult. You won't be surprised by the appearance of Charles Dickens, Osacar Wilde or Conan Doyle, though you may not have encountered the stories of Saki. Nineteenth century non-fiction makes an appearance - including some of the works of Marx. The familiar appearance of Sir John Soane's House was quite welcome.
  Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is cited (though is perhaps a little rural for Endon). Terry Pratchett's Ankh-Morpork was clearly something of a reference for MIR (just look at the list of street-sellers) and sure enough, some of the Discworld's 'Industrial Revolution' stream such as Going Postal appear here. The unlikeable rogues Redmond Barry and Harry Flashman crop up also.
  The 1970 film Cromwell is perhaps there to explain the Bogs and Gumperts; I'm less sure for the reasons behind the 1998 picture Elizabeth. Unless this is something to do with the monarch.
  Gardens of Ynn is suggested among the list of bolt-on RPG adventures.
  Mid-twentieth century BBC Radio comedies such as The Goon Show, Hancock's Half Hour and Round the Horne are suggested to inspire Endonian plots. I would suggest Tales from the Mausoleum Club (and The Fall of the Mausoleum Club) to add onto this; the episode 'Heart of Skegness' remains a wonder. (There have been numerous half-hour BBC Radio 4 historical sitcoms***; the 2000s saw two closely occurring Victorian ones in the shape of Bleak Expectations and The Brothers Faversham).
  

*Grimacing, the drifter extracted a package from his coat. He struck an electronic match on his electronic bootheel and used it to light an electronic cigarillo. The fingers of one hand stroked the bone grips of his cyber-Colt. From between narrow eyes, he watched the drift of the Vampire-Spam tumbleweed.
When his voice came, it was in a harsh whisper.
"Alright, Mad Dan Skerples....."

**Of course, it doesn't seem to weigh too heavily on the average band of adventurers. 

***Like Acropolis Now [Aristophanes jokes are mainstream, right?], or the weirdly specific Leopard in Autumn.

Terrae Vertebrae: The League of Civic Etiquette

A desire was expressed in conversation for more details of the world of Punth; Terrae Vertebrae. While the continent of Vertebrea is detailed in some of the earliest material on this blog, its neighbours - Punth excluded - have only been roughly sketched out. Following said chat, a few ideas occurred for at least one more exception. 

****

Welcome, traveller, to the cities gathered in the League of Civic Etiquette. Welcome to thousand-celled markets and busy counting-houses. Welcome to courts where the fountain plays and libraries with the muted footfall of slipper-clad scholars. See the munificence of the prince and the receipts of the chancellor. Hear the call of the poet, the grunt of the wrestler and the questions of the metaphysician. Look closely for the woman with the hidden knives or the man with scroll-cases under his robe. Seek out traders in a hundred different goods and services, teachers of a hundred different faiths and disciplines - but keep an ear open for the news from the municipal herald or the decisions of the district magistrate.

To the west of Vertebrea across the Inner Sea, with its nearest portions at about the same latitude as the Imperium, is Near Rhakhia. The name Rhakhia, same as the modifier 'Near' derive from Vertebrean use. A well-travelled person or a scholar from Near Rhakhia might acknowledge the similarity between Rhakhia tongues, or the proximity of the states, or the forms of culture - but still think of themselves as a Cascaran or an Agogi.

Numerous states exist in Near Rhakhia, their interactions governed by the League of Civic Etiquette. The Faith of the Eight is prevalent but not dominant in Near Rhakhia. The two institutions are not unconnected. 

The earliest tales of Rhakhian society - that is, stories involving rulers and people rather than the creation of man from clay, or fire, or the spittle of goats, or apes cursed with the hearts of lions and the tongues of serpents - describe only two offices of note beyond family heads and village headmen (not infrequently the same thing). These are literally translated from the dialects of Old Rhakhian as 'Judge-Chieftains' and 'Captains of the Host'. 

    The former was a single, supreme role within a region, granted (as those old stories actually collected and recorded tell it) to a wise householder with enough personal wealth to have the leisure to judge disputes and enough clout to enforce their pronouncements. The latter was a role gained by charisma and wealth sufficient to head a militia, and many Captains would reside in the region of one Judge. A Judge-Chieftain would not bear arms, even if they had once been a Captain of the Host. Neither role seems to have had a specifically religious function, and the presence of a specialised priestly caste varied from region to region.

Both roles diminish or transform in the histories as the cities of Rhakhia emerged from hillforts, river crossings and oases. Trade and agriculture brought a concentration of wealth and the production of oligarchies. Occasionally some potentate would gain enough prestige and might to make themselves a tyrant, but such rulers rarely lasted long enough to produce a dynasty. 

    The conquest of one city-state by another was rare, but not unknown. Far more prevalent was the economic subordination of one state by another, or the withering of fortunes in plague or famine, or alliance leading to one-sided hegemony. 

Then across the sea in Vertebrea (somewhere) rose the Faith of the Eight, as the Sybil of the Rocks communicated her revelations. The man recorded by both the Manifest Rite and the Unified Rite as  Confessor to the Rhakhians was St Euthydemus. The first convert he made was Gamilat, from then his constant companion - at least, as The Book from Across the Water gives it. There may have been converts to the faith in Near Rhakia before this, but their names have been lost to men. 

Alongside oligarchs and cities had grown an administrative caste. Records in papyrus and clay attest to this, as do inscriptions and seals. Tyrants and the more unscrupulous oligarchs would when pressed use these as scapegoats: my decision was just, but the corrupt scribe altered it. The foolish clerk failed to record it. The petty magistrate was too wedded to protocol, and let that beast go unpunished. The corrupt vizier took the money for herself. The enemy bribed him. My advisor did not bring that to me. Our troops are loyal and strong, but went unfed and were thus defeated. Even where clerks escaped the wrath of a tyrant, the chances of mob violence or social ostracism and penury were high. Such purges may not have been regular, but had sufficient chilling reputation to slow or disrupt administrative work, including the licensing of trade and the gathering of taxes - which reduced the ability of the state, which led to more rulers seeking scapegoats. The historian Shabilat, writing two centuries after Euthydemus, records this practices as 'The Abuse of Viziers'. 

Huldo was the cousin of Gamilat, and if not a vizier, had escaped just such an abuse to arrive in the port of Rabbelisotor, where Gamilat dwelt and Euthydemus had arrived. It is still, frustratingly, unknown if he was a convert to the Faith of the Eight. The Book from Across the Water gives his name only twice in lists of other people and such letters of Euthydemus that have survived refer only occasionally to Huldo. What does seem likely is that he was desperate, embittered and in want of friends. Bureaucrats and converts found common cause at this time: a foreign faith could be cursed and despised in the same fashion as a wicked, scheming functionary. Euthydemus, along with Gamilat is recorded as having fled a city in fear of his life at least twice. It may be supposed that Huldo was with them.

The years of this life that Huldo endured do not seem to have been ill-spent. When finally St Euthydemus gave the Sermon in Pharnaces that would establish the Faith of the Eight in Near Rhakhia, he used the burgeoning assembly of converts to circulate the text later called the Fount of Civic Etiquette. This was, in so many words, a plea for the end of the Abuse of Viziers - together with a series of suggestions to strengthen the work of administrators in service of rulers. The principles of broad flexibility, limitations to taxes and a series of suggested, predictable limits to policies (if never to rulers) were suggested as renewing the ancient roles of Judge-Chieftain and Captains of the Host. Demagogues would be replaced by statesman-teachers, despots by wise leaders. Religious tolerance would be the rule, exercised through a licensing system. 

The Satrap of Pharnaces (a ruler in his own right, wherever the traditional title came from) endorsed not only the new Faith, but decided in time to try the new method. Even if Huldo is recorded as more of a dialogist than a rhetor, it is clear that the example of Euthydemus had been meaningful. 

    The revitalising effect on Pharnaces - be it through the busy new community of converts or the new codes of Civic Etiquette or smoother trade with coreligionists in Vertebrea - was obvious. The Cathedral of Euthydemus rose, as did Huldo's School of Civic Etiquette. The next decades would see the spread of the Faith, and the composition of the Codes of Civic Etiquette - along with several books of maxims.

****

If the Faith mimicked the provincial structure of the Nirvanite Imperium without taking on its full range of administrative functions, the League of Civic Etiquette grew to inhabit the functions of an empire without the drive of an Emperor. There was no single burning cause: just the unspoken request for predictable, orderly government. A ruler could be harsh, but harsh in a certain set of pre-arranged manners. Local weights and measures could never be standardised across Near Rhakhia, but a certain bracket of comparable units could be compiled. 

Cities might be ruled by a Bashaw, or a Lord Protector, or a Prince, or a Nizam, or a Supreme Functionary. But they will be staffed by those schooled in the Civic Etiquette and taught at one of its academies - and sent far from home. Armies are led by local aristocrats and filled with the troops of the region, for those schooled in the Etiquette are nigh-on pacifistic; the highest paid mercenaries in the wartime are thus pioneers and quartermasters. In contemporary Rhakhia war is rare. Conspiracy is more usual than conflict and discreet, dedicated operatives do more than a host at the gates.

Unification of Near Rhakhia is nigh-impossible; federation highly unlikely. The simultaneous preservation of the cities and defusing of national and ideological tensions reduces most drives for this. Huldo is recorded as having said that were a reef in the Bay of Rabbelisotor to rise to the surface, and the crabs on it to gather in council, and appoint ministers and magistrates, they too could be admitted to the League. This was likely in jest; there are sufficient cultural peculiarities to Rhakhia that limit the League of Civic Etiquette - structures of inheritance and the choices of taxable goods and services. 

Of course, the sheer weight of the League on the cities of Near Rhakhia has also brought its own set of cultural changes. A common tongue unites many of the city-states of the League, with many language barriers eroded down to dialects. If Etiquette-trained clerks are not constrained in the manner of a monk, the form of their education and displacement furnishes them with a certain approach to the world. Local aristocrats and elites actively develop forms of culture set against the League - flamboyant manners to set against the self-effacing servants of the Etiquette in their un-official non-uniforms. Great lavishly costumed performances compared with the word games and technical poetry of the Civic Etiquette. Aside from the sword-drill and manoeuvres expected of the governing class, shows of physical prowess in the pursuits of wrestling, horsemanship and falconry.

Another product of centuries of the League has been public works. The wealth of trade and the ease of communication has swelled coffers. Local rulers wish to differentiate their government from the codes of Civic Etiquette to which they are bound and will do so by financing and completing works above and beyond the requirements of the Etiquette. These shout their patron's status, by ornament or symbol or unique function. 

    Public baths, libraries, viaducts, avenues, plazas, observatories, study halls, fountain courts and ornamental well-houses crowd the cities of Near Rhakhia. These are unlike the self-consciously simple buildings associated with the Civic Etiquette - one could not speak of a single Rhakhian style of public architecture, but some of the most impressive features include palaces of many apartments, Solomonic columns, tiled surfaces (placing an emphasis on shape over colour; tiles interlock in numerous points or curve and drip in extravagant scallops), carved window screens, millefiori domes, gilded grid structures and numerous ornamental gardens. 

    Scholars flourish in the League, either falling into the patronage of a luxuriant elite or the smoothly furnished path of a student of the Etiquette. In either case, there is a desire for and satisfaction in innovation. Mathematics, music, poetry, logic and metaphysics abound. Public performances or expositions are popular events.

Defiance of the League can meet - and has met - with a number of penalties. An entire corps of civil servants can disappear from a city, most famously in the story of the Flight from Cascara. Every city under the League will have a thick-walled inn near one of the gates with a full stables, secretly (or not-so-secretly) belonging to the League. Anything that has even a whiff of the Abuse of Viziers may meet with work stoppages, barbed letters and infamy. A city that united fully against the League would be left to its own devices. The League plays the long game.

    The fate of one trained in the Civic Etiquette who openly counsels against the Etiquette is unknown, but the fact that Schools of the Etiquette are kept particularly clean has been noted, though servants are never seen.

Diplomatic relations between the states of the League and nations around it are perfunctory. The business of the League is the League; a merchant may travel, but those learned in Civic Etiquette should remain in places where that Etiquette holds. The League rarely acts a single entity, preferring to respond as necessary to explain its internal processes to incomers. 

Yet in the last years, several responses to the League have emerged. Banditry flourishes in the backcountry, between the jurisdictions of Rhakhian city-states. Unsatisfied young lords chafe at the restrictions of the Etiquette, proposing bold new theories of governance and modes of leadership. The Codes of Civic Etiquette have after all never been framed in explicitly ethical or religious terms - their breach could only ever be a venial sin. The toiling villagers of backwater Sanjaks long for some of the fruits of urban life and the balance of ethnic and religious rivalries, long carefully poised, might be tipped by mass migration or a wave of missions. 

    And there are always whispers of warlords, witch-kings and ethnarchs in Central Rhakhia that might finally be willing to cross the hill country and descend on the cities of the coast....

The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Mechanics and Gazette

Having sketched out four states of one continent for The Rest of All Possible Worlds, here is a listing of the places and professions thus far mentioned. However, with these gathered here together, I should mention something about their usage.

None of these are (really) complete pictures of any state involved; likewise, when taken together, they would not provide a complete picture of the continent. There are more cities in the Prizelands than just Datresse, there are certainly more islands in Malmery than those mentioned, and Tsymric may well be divided into more provinces than those described. Certainly, there are more states than the four that have received blog entries. 

The sub-divisions mentioned for each state, incidentally, are not of equal sizes. They are apt units for the state in question and might well differ as much as an English county, a Russian oblast and a Swiss canton differ. However, they discuss units of (approximately) equal significance to each respective state. 

So, if this is not a complete picture of the relations (present, historical, diplomatic, cultural...) of Calliste  what is it? Well, each listed state suggests a broad set of conditions. There is the Concentrated state and the Diffuse. The Sea-based and the Land-based. The Commercial and the Aristocratic. Prosperous/Straitened. Centre/Periphery. Expansive/Compact (land mass, not the state power style of Concentrated/Diffuse). Cool, Hip and Happening/Dull, Square and a Backwater.

(These contrasts, of course, also exist within states - Hentzay is the ageing heartland full of palaces, wunderkammers and schools; Caspianstadt is the boomtown with warehouses, new-style government offices and one half-built theatre.)

Hence Datresse. This city might be more Amsterdam than London or Venice, but it acts as a template for aspects that could be geared towards cities and states of such a sort as these. Likewise Tsymric - which I have been explicit is a mingling of 16th Century Spain and 17th century Russia. Now, I hope that the fictional states and their residents I have laid out are interesting enough to interest you in Calliste.  But there's more than enough room for others - and numerous small Dukedoms and Principalities are quite apt for a roaming picaresque!

The lists of professions given are, clearly geared towards the state in whose entry they first appear, but it's an Early Modern setting: people are crossing continents. If tobacco is ubiquitous in Tsymric, it is popular everywhere else - and thus tobacconists are not uncommon. The appearance of a Qacenoit scout in Datresse is technically fairly rare, but not worth commenting on.

****

A few notes about Calliste. 

The majority of Calliste was once under the rule of the Horatione Empire, long fallen to internal sclerosis and waves of migration. This reached from the edges of present-day Tompordy to Insular Malmery. Even those lands not once directly under its control have by now adopted Horatione influenced languages, however impenetrable a given dialect may in fact be. The Horatione gold piece set an enduring standard for later currencies - whatever lesser silver or copper coins are issued, and despite various debasements of the coinage, the gold piece maintains a certain semi-idealised value.

Religion is relatively out of focus, but The Majestic Vision has been established as the background religious and intellectual influence for Callistan society, with the School of Malicarn being the best established and most extensive. Malicarn has also set the tone for the arrangements by which the Vision is communicated by individual halls of learning.

The class of those who expound on the Words of Procophon and the Vision are known as Schoolmen. Malicarn's arrangement of Schoolmen is the best known and frequently imitated. To sketch it roughly: a village or portion of a town will have a Reader; a Magister will arrange matters for a province, a High Magister for a region and a Grand Magister for a nation. The School of Malicarn rejoices in the supervision of a First Magister or Primus; this rank is rarely employed by other Schools. 

The First Magister and the scholars and functionaries who make up the Chapter of Malicarn communicate news, provide spiritual direction and settle disputes by envoys known as Overseers and (at a higher rank) Superintendents. (In day-to-day matters, an Overseer trumps a Magister - not that an Overseer will always be present; in an 'ecumenical council' a Magister trumps an Overseer.)

Schoolmen within a given school adhering to a certain interpretation of the Words of Procophon or making use of a certain set of practices may group together in a Society. Many Societies have been in existence for centuries and are sufficiently endowed to run their own halls of learning. 

The most common sign of the Majestic Vision is the stylised three-tongued 'beatific flame'.

****

BIG SQUIRE ENERGY, direct from the V&A.
Just think, your character could be commemorated like this.

Gazette of Places and Professions

Places

Datravia, vulgarly known as the Prizelands

            Datresse (capital)

Tsymric

            Tompordy    Tompord (capital)

            Hentzay

            Mszhinksky    Caspianstadt 

            Choroff

            Myrchonog

            Suecomark

            Transmontane Tsymric

Malmery

           [Insular Malmery] divided into High Malmery and Low Malmery

            Glengallow

            Nhalark

            Tyrconoway

            Cerq centre of the Cerquae Isles

            Laldiel

Pavaisse

            Ile-de-Szouche     Purlitz (capital)

            Celzia                  Loughdainne

            Dordonneland

            Joachimsland

            Arpadhia

            Roqueport

Others in Calliste

        Malicarn

        Loribides

        Horato

Beyond Calliste

       Bronzemount Free State

       Mayara Isles

       Buccaneers' Archipelago

       Spondine Gulf

        The Alamgir Empire

Professions

1. Datravia

Coach Guard

Parliamentary Lictor

Dockyards Pugilist

Coffee vendor

Burgher of the Isle

Pamphleteer

Lensgrinder 

Supercargo 

Hot-house botanist 

Ley-line surveyor

2. Tsymric

Royal Dimarchi

Overseer of the Faithful 

Tobacconist

Alpine Expeditionary 

River boatman

Transmontane Native Scout 

Hidalgo [a]

Myrchonog Plainsman

Engineering Student

Mage Prospector 

3. Malmery

Sailmaker

Returned Mercenary

Tin Miner

Fishmonger 

Privateer

Student Advocate

Mage Navigator

Thane

Island Shepherd

Wizarding Matross

4. Pavaisse

Mask-maker 

Imperial Fusilier

Arpadhian Horseman

Chairman

Artist's illuminator 

Man of letters

Gambler

Topiarist

Courtier

Concierge

***

Ongoing Magical Debates in Calliste:

The Question of Pneumametrics [Pnemametricians, be they Polycameralists and Unicameralists]

The Anti-Grimoirean Thesis [Hard or Soft Anti-Grimoireans, alongside Ante-Grimoireans]

The Possibilities of Nematism [Dynamic or Static Nematists, Spectrumists]

The Question of Spell Levels [Naive or Prudent Tabulators, opposed by Unicursalists and Multicursalists]

The Question of Spell Schools [Teleotaxists, alongside Polytaxists, Gerundists and Cryptotaxists, opposed by Ontotaxists]

The Influence of Antecedents [Realists and Idealists, opposed by Ritualists]

Interaction with the Realms Beyond [Conjuncts and Autarks]

Of Chalices and Choices

You are a Square-Jawed Adventurer. You have been seeking the Sacred Cup. 

You are in a Mysterious Cavern filled with Goblets, Chalices and Other Vessels. Most are made of gold. One is made of wood. There is a stone bowl full of clear fresh water. There is an Ancient Guardian clad in dusty armour watching you closely.

Your Duplicitous Adversary has drunk from one of the gold goblets and died horribly. 

There is a Loved One outside the Mysterious Cavern who urgently needs the healing properties of the Sacred Cup.

What do you do?

1. The Holy Man who used the cup was a simple man who spurned worldly things. You reach for the wooden cup.

1a. .... wait. This wooden cup is too simple. It flatters your modern Bauhaus-influenced Protestant-inflected norms with its cleanness of line and distinctive lack of ornament. 

1ai. No. There can be only one Sacred Cup, there is only one wooden cup. It is the clear exception among all those present - the only golden cup you have seen used caused your Duplicitous Adversary to die horribly. It's the wooden cup.

1b. ..... wait. The Sacred Cup is a metaphor.  The divine needs no such physical vessels, only conceptual ones, which the enlightened may transcend. You don't need the Sacred Cup, all you need to do is to seek it, If you truly do that, all blessings will be with you and you may bestow all blessings. Thrumming with new found power, you smile politely at the Ancient Guardian and turn to leave.

1bi. But if all blessings are with you, do you even need to leave the Mysterious Cavern? You kneel, and begin to think about your Loved One in perfect health. Surely they will soon be healed. 

The Ancient Guardian is watching you, expressionless. 

1bii. Hang on, your Duplicitous Adversary just drank from a cup and died in a clearly supernatural manner. There is a man in there wearing medieval armour who just addressed you in fluent Old French. Metaphor, my eye. Time to go back in there and pick a bloody cup. 

2. Hang on, you're a scholar. You've....

2a. ...seen reliquaries before. You inspect the gold cups. One is quite bulky; a catch on the side reveals that it is a chalice-shaped tabernacle, inside which rests a simple small clay cup on a velvet lining.

2b. ....seen reliquaries before. You inspect the gold cups.  One of them has a darker band in the middle of it. On inspection, it turns out to be a golden stand and framework supporting an older wooden cup, enhanced with a large gold lip. The cup itself has a small coating of gold leaf on the outside. 

2c. ...read some of the literature on the subject.  Often, the old poems describe the Sacred Cup as having been transformed after it was used by the Holy Man. So before then, it would have been a fairly normal Levantine cup from the beginning of the 1st millennium. You inspect the gold cups, and find one that adheres near-perfectly to the shape of Levantine cups you have seen in the Museum.

3. You examine the chalices on offer. Each has been kept clean and well-polished, even the one your Duplicitous Adversary drank from. But one must have been used more often, if the Ancient Guardian drinks from the Sacred Cup - and how else could he be so Ancient? You lift a chalice to examine it in the light, and see the the subtle wear from hands and lips over the centuries. Comparison with the neighbouring cups makes this plain. You take the chalice over to the stone bowl and fill it. 

4. The ancient texts say.... 

4a. ...that when the Sacred Cup was first blessed, it was shared. You grab a chalice at random, fill it from the stone bowl and turn to the Ancient Guardian. "You first."

4b. ...that when the Sacred Cup was first blessed, the Holy Man was drinking wine. You point this out to the Ancient Guardian. He produces a flask of wine from a cupboard that you hadn't spotted. 

5. Think about the journey you've been on to reach the Mysterious Cavern, and the perils you braved within. This is a test of faith....

5a. ....so you should not think about it overlong, but reach out with hope in your soul and take up a goblet. You grasp one, and trying not to look down at it, take it over to the stone bowl and fill it.

5b. ....that ends the journey you and your Duplicitous Adversary have both been on. But even if your choice of companions differed,  the course of your travel and object of your desire was the same. The main difference was in your motives. Knowing your motives to be good and your faith sound, you should submit yourself to judgement in exactly the same way he did. 

You pick up the golden cup your Duplicitous Adversary drank from.

6. You gather up each of the cups, pour a little bit of water in each, mix it all together and drink. The Ancient Guardian smacks you over the back of the head with a chainmail glove and tells you (in Old French) not to be a smart-arse.

****

You have chosen ◼︎◼︎◼︎◼︎ly. 

The Rest of All Possible Worlds: Palaces of Pavaisse

When people talk about Pavaisse, they aren't talking about Pavaisse. Even when Pavaissians talk about Pavaisse, they aren't talking about Pavaisse. 

They aren't talking about the peaks and mines of Joachimsland, and narrow towns and tall houses of its people. Nor are they talking about the mountain-fenced plains of Arpadhia and the horses it rears for the Imperial cavalry. There are people that write about these places, but few people go to them.

They aren't talking about the long river valleys of Dordonneland, where the vines band the hillsides and the proud back-country folk gather in high-set villages. They aren't talking about Roqueport, the sole Pavaissian harbour for transoceanic ships. All sorts of strange ideas brew there. Not quite Pavaisse at all. 

They aren't talking about Loughdainne, as old a city as any in Pavaisse. Profitably set at the junction of two rivers, it has long been a centre for commerce: it is the grand ornament of Celzia, and well knows it.

Perhaps they are talking of Ile-de-Szouche. But Ile-de-Szouche is so often a funnel for great gold-girdled Purlitz, capital of Pavaisse.  What is in Purlitz? Law courts, Counting-houses, Hostelries, Markets, Drapers, Tailors, Cooks, Vintners, Booksellers, Parks, Riding-schools, Fencing-instructors, Colleges, Poets, Attempted Poets, Salons, Ballrooms, Courtyards, Palaces - in short, all those thing that a man of good taste could want, as well as a few things that probably fall outside the bounds of good taste as well.

One thing that is also generally in or about - or, possibly, above - Purlitz is the presence of the Emperor. Clovis X has been Emperor for most of his life, but did not always have an opportunity to demonstrate the fact. He succeeded his uncle, Boniface II at the age of three. Boniface II was a zealous devotee of the School of Malicarn; accordingly Grand Magister Remigian was named Chancellor and regent alongside Clovis's mother, Beatrice Von Dottore. 

The Honoured Magister has conveyed his spirit to the hereafter, lifted up by the Words of Procophon; his influence over the young Clovis and his schemes in the name of Pavaisse have long ceased. The age of the Imperial Mother has brought with it quietude; she may enjoy her old age in the gardens of Ile-de-Szouche - and it looks like that's exactly what she will be doing.

Clovis X has entered his fourth decade. The Schoolmen of Malicarn no longer enter his privy circles, though they remain frequent at court. A thousand cares and amusements offer themselves to him - the reform of the currency, the disputes of courtiers, the malice of Dukes, the ceremonies that exhibit and enhance Imperial splendour, the balance of trade, proposals for foreign intrigues, designs for new uniforms, the armies of the Sublime Prince in the South and East, masques, dances, portraits, odes, plays in verse, romances, Romances, hunting, cards, dice, discoveries, tales and gifts from far-off lands - and the requests and concerns of all those who would share in these labours and pleasures.

With so much of the world spiralling into gold-girdled Purlitz, perhaps even here you will not find a certain idea that is Pavaisse. 

***

There's probably a few of these in Purlitz.

1. Mask-maker /// Pasteboard, Brow pads, Glass discs, Two masks [Roll 1d6 - 1. Patrician 2. Matron 3. Wild beast 4. Malevolent ghost 5. Martial visor 6. Absolute blank], Perpetual knowing little smile (-1 to CHA unless wearing one of your own creations)
2. Imperial Fusilier [Grand Magister's Retainer] /// Elegant sword, Colourful tabard: [Blue and gold with Imperial bees] [Red, silver and charcoal with Beatific flame], Wide-brimmed hat, Fusil (curiously underused), Foolish rivalry.
3. Arpadhian Horseman /// Fur-trimmed Pelisse (protects against cold, elegant), Sabre, Sabretache, Ornate saddle, Horse (instructed in an obscure dialect).
4. Chairman /// Pole with comfortable grips, Tough shoulder-straps, Overshoes (protects agianst street muck and other under-foot hazards), Ornate uniform with padded shoulders, Silent gnawing grudge against the man who gets to go in front. 
5. Artist's illuminator /// Folding screen, Book of carefully graded light spells, Translucent coloured panels, Pale sun-reflecting clothing (resists sun), Irregular tan. 
6. Man of letters /// Portfolio, Five different pamphlets*, Two books, One banned book in plain wrapper, Quire of paper, Quills, Bottle of Ink. 
7. Gambler /// Two packs of playing cards (unmarked), One pack of playing cards (marked), Three sets of dice, Baize cloth (green), Twelve gaming-tokens (mother-of-pearl), Wide flat reflective snuff-box, Large cuffs.
8. Topiarist /// Stepladder, Pruning shears, Thorn-resistant jacket, 10' of Garden twine.
9. Courtier /// Sinecure, Court Dress, Comfortable shoes (for long ceremonies), Wealth of delicately-expressed rumour, Vial of scent, Concealed pillbox with emergency purgatives and restoratives. 
10. Concierge /// Elegant but unobtrusive suit of clothes, Master key, Corkscrew, Four bottles wine, 1d8 Notes, Calling-cards and Billet-doux (one of them your own).

* (Roll 1d4 for tone; 1 - Comic, 2 - Poetic, 3 - Trenchant, 4 - Bawdy. You may decide on content or genre yourself - IE Bawdy Satire, Comic Romance, Poetic Editorial, Trenchant Travelogue, Bawdy Tragedy**, Trenchant Open Letter, Comic Verse, Trenchant Songs, &c)

** Titus Andronicus, I suppose. Or perhaps a bit like Thackeray's Luck of Barry Lyndon.