Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
Interlude: Ship of Fools, Part III. What the Monkey-Man Saw
<Overheard, as if by magic, aboard the MCSDF Windsprint, 7th night out of St. Tarte's Island.>
The Most Honorable Yet Least Experienced of the Sacred Guardians of Wu-dan Mountain, sifu Wujuyama sits with his tiny legs wrapped around the bowsprit, reclining into the immobile, windswept waves of the figureheads' wooden hair. He considers a chip of yellow paint he's pried from her peeling mane, nibbles at it, makes a face.
"Mallus-san, please to tell me about the oni Joachim saw"
"Yoni?" says Mallus, caught off-guard. "You're a naughty little monkey, Wu."
"Oni... it means demon in my language."
"Oh, I thought you said yoni. That means a lady's naughty bits in Shirac."
"You speak the witch-tongue of the Shirac?" asks Wu, momentarily distracted.
"Enough to get me...by."
Dr. Wu asks Mallus a barrage of questions: Did the demon hop? Did it's head come off? Did it have a yellow parasol?
Mallus has no answers for the monkey. He reiterates what he told Rackhir. He saw a face come through the side of the carriage, which suggested a woman's, but was not.
"Ah... this is plainly a foreign oni. Not one of the 10,001 known in the Empire."
"Empire? Is that what you're calling it these days?"
"We've called it that since the Emperor of Heaven descended the Three Mountains and ordained it. When your kind were new in the world."
"Whatever. Look, why don't you ask Joachim? He saw it with his own eyes."
"Mallus-san, you say the oni had both the yin of woman and the yang of not-woman together? The poon of female energy and the tan..."
Mallus cuts the inquisitive monkey-man off. "Something like that."
Wu says excitedly, "Ah, Wu, you old fool, you have seen such Wu before, on the streets of Narayan. The day Master Kenji taught those disrespectful red swordsmen, ah... yes... the Room Rouge Players... a lesson that involved their bowels spilling onto the ground. And the polite old Barrister came to pass judgment. There was a fat round-eye priest with too many gold chains who gave favorable testimony. He had a wand with a carved face much like the oni you described. Could there be a connection? Yes... yes... Am I saying this out loud, Mallus-san?"
"Not a word of it. Say, you wouldn't happen to have a fresh lime on you?" asks Mallus as he reaches for his flask of gin.
"I must speak to Master Kenji."
"What about my lime?" shouts Mallus as Dr. Wu scampers away.
Here's a fleshed out version of Rackhir's Big Adventure by way of Raymond Chandler and with a heavy dose of David Drake.
Rackhir's "Big Sleep"
It started with a woman. It always starts with a woman. Whether its Empires rising and falling or just going to the market for food, it always starts with a woman. In my case the woman had brought me to the pitching deck of a ship full of bastards, with the red glow of cannibals cook fire painting the horizon. We'd finally found the Lady Delphine's paramour and now the only thing between them, was a rampaging horde of polyneechean berzerkers. But this wasn't where things began, just where she'd brought me.
A stint in CITY's military had provided me with citizenship, a sharp eye, a strong bow and few skills other than those of war. But it gave more than my family ever did. I grew up on a hard-scrabble farm in the Ajakhani Empire and a peasant's life doesn't offer much of anything other than backbreaking work that ground my parents into the red dust of the land, but that's another story. The Lady Delphine had provided me with a Purpose and that was reason enough to serve her. Right now that service was going to involve killing quite a large number of people.
Of course to the Polyneecheans I wasn't a person, nor by the standards of my homeland were they, but I'm sure their blood will prove just as red and flow just as freely as mine once the arrows start flying. I do my best to keep mine on the inside, but that isn't always possible in my line of work and the squeemish or cowardly don't last long at it. The Lady Delphine was the squeemish type, but keeping her out of the messier aspects of things was one of my jobs. Since she definitely was no coward. I do some times marvel at her purity of soul. For someone who has grown up as the daughter of a powerful and ruthless tycoon, she is almost an innocent.
As the small boat taking us to the docks rocked up and down, the Lovesworn Mallus was holding her hand ostensibly to keep track of the Lady Delphine's paramour, but his mind wasn't as low as he likes to pretend. He's a better man than he'd admit even under torture and like many such men, he puts up a lot of bluster to hide it. This world is not kind to those who show their vulnerabilities.
Burne also blusters a lot and has an opinion of himself that's higher than Mallus is, most of the time, but he does not lack for courage. I've never seen him back down from a fight or show signs of fear. He also possess not an ounce of incincerity, though that comes from an arrogance that would do a dragon proud. He is exactly as he presents himself and that is a rare thing, if not always an admirable one.
We managed to reach the docks without drawing the notice of any of the Ping and we quickly moved into action. I padded steathly down the docks towards the guards on the peak of the fortress. Then things started going "Pear Shaped" as the Madman who accompanied us charged off on his own to attack some of the Ping further down on the dock. I wasn't as close to the fortress as I'd like, but they were beautifuly silhouetted against the night by the Ping's cook fire and for once my luck held as I released the arrows. Death is always close at hand and it came rapidly enough for at least one of the guards as my arrows tracked down range through the night.
However I had to make certain they were both dead and had to trust my comrades to handle those behind me. Even if Trust has a tendency to coldcock you in the back of the head with a sap and leave you for dead in an alley. A quick run brought me to the fortress wall and moments later I was a top the battlements, thanks to a grappling hook and silk rope. Blood trails indicated that one had in fact survived long enough to try and drag himself away from death's embrace. Lucky for him. Death can be as clingy as a prostitute who's lached on to a meal ticket. I still don't know if he survived, but it mattered little as two of his bretheren burst through the door he'd apparently dragged himself through. Ping Islanders are brutal thugs of warriors, but my luck, of sorts, still held and to my mild surprise they were also lying dead moments later. However Fate decided to spit in my eyes, as two more followed through the door and one was a shaman.
For some reason the ever fickle gods continued to favor me and I resisted his spells, while my arrows left him dying on the fortress floor, off to shame the halls of his ancestors. But I was still paying in blood for each one I killed and my account was starting to run dry. His friend the thug with the obsidian razor club had made me its aquaintence once or twice, but a few more arrows had him fleeing with his friend's ghost. For a "Master Race" of warriors, they seem awfully fond of their own lives. But cowards are often the loudest braggarts. Falling further behind, I followed him through a few doors before I came to my senses.
It was one of those times when you want to slap your self silly, for being so stupid. Charging blindly into a fortress over run with Ping is the kind of behavior you get from heroes in those Arabia Wainwright novels. Behavior that usually gets people dead in the next chapter.
So I quickly retreated from the fortress barring the doors as best I could without wasting too much time and managed to excape a heart beat ahead of pursuit. The pinhead gods weren't through with me though. As I wound up tripping over the rope and fell off the crenalations, though their twisted sense of humor meant that I was largely unhurt.
Any sense of triumph though, turned to ash as I promply ran into a patrol of four more Ping with two of their war boars. I tried in vain to remember if CITY had a god of slapstick humor and what I might have done to offend it, given the recent run of events. Yet as the Fates took away with one hand, they gave with the other, in the form of a narrow goat path for me to back up and prevent them from attacking me more than one at a time. I was down to a handful of arrows by the time the two warriors were dead along with one of the handlers and his pig. The last handler showing the courage of your typical pimp confronted with a greater threat than a helpless woman, decided to flee with his pig, leaving me among the dead to mend my battered body as best I might.
The docks were silent and devoid of any obvious trace of my comrades, aside from the handful of Ping corpses. But there was blood enough to follow where they'd gone. There usually was where we'd been.
__________________ "We are all Individuals! They chanted in unison...
Interlude: Ship of Fools, Part IV. Talking Marriage With Mallus
<Around midnight, aft rail, MCSDF Windsprint, 7 days from port at Narayan:CITY.>
"Can you marry?" asks Rackhir.
"No," says Mallus, with a surprisingly forlorn quality in his voice. He takes a sip of gin. "In order to join the Lovesworn you must have a broken heart. And once you join, you may never know true love again."
"I meant, can you perform marriages for other people?".
"Oh. Yeah, sure. By the power invested to us by the Eternal Physick of Love, the fulcrum upon which all souls balance, we can marry...thought their legality is questionable in certain parts of CITY, particularly Eris. What are you getting at, Rackhir?"
Clearly preferring the sound of his own voice, Mallus continues before Rackhir can reply.
"So you want to marry off the two lovebirds before we hit port. Before Delphine's father can stop her? Or before Baker Boy decides to devote his life to an entirely different sort of crumpet?
"Well, you have no shortage of people capable of marrying them on this trip. I count eight. Captains Revi and Spar, the five priestesses of the Goddess of Love, not to mention myself. To be on the safe side, we call all perform the ceremony. That should cover all bets, from the ridiculous to the sublime.
"Why, someone should get married before we dock, this is practically the love boat.... Hmmmm, that Felicity from the Shrine is quite the little minx.
"But I'm curious as to why you're interested in facilitating their matrimony, Rackhir. There's a good chance once they get married she ceases being rich. So what's your angle?"
Rackhir does not pause for a moment before replying.
"I am... well..., let us say that without a master to serve my life has no purpose or meaning. My people would say Ronin, but I can not claim such a rank. She is the Lord whom I serve, so her interests are mine. She wishes to marry Joachim and you tell us they truly love each other. She has risked her life several times already to find and help save him. So the more secure their marriage is and the less interference possible, the safer she should be."
"As to her wealth, I do not serve her for reward, so her wealth is irrelevant to me. It is my duty to serve her interests as much as possible, so I will warn her of the possible consequences, but I think we both know what her answer is likely to be."
After a moment Rackhir continues with the ghost of a smile on his face. "Besides as the tales tell us, what nobler cause is there than True Love?" The capital letters are clear in his voice.
Rackhir then offers Mallus a lime.
"You sound just like Lazlo Lovesworn. Ever hear of him, Lazlo and Chain of Love? He fights with this absurd-looking barbed chain thing, I swear he looks like a circus performer. Anyway, he's all about the noble service and 'True Love'. I wonder why he gets all the tales written about him? He must have a publicist...and where the hell did you get that lime?!" Mallus snaps it up greedily, showing surprising quickness of hand.
"You know, Rackhir, if someone breaks your heart, you should consider joining the Lovesworn. You wouldn't happen to be a good tracker, would you? Fond of the wild? My Order needs those types, but lately all we've been getting are applicants better suited to navigating art openings and cocktail parties."
"If you should require my aid Mallus, I believe that the Lady Delphine would be happy to have me join you in reuniting separated lovers. I am a fair tracker, though much better as a killer. Combat is where my talents truly lie."
Mallus considers Rachkir a moment, then says "I might just take you up on that offer someday. My usual traveling companions for dangerous journeys are a tad...unreliable. Dononan Ben Donovan is a fine swordsman, but he may well be insane. And Mattameo the monk is unduly burdened by principles. Though he's a remarkably stylish dresser. For a Hannu.
And you say you like fighting? That's fabulous. I try to avoid it if at all possible... I have an acute sensitivity to pain... Anyway Rackhir, maybe you should talk to Delphine and Joachim. I am forbidden from trying to influence them. As the old saying goes, I can lead a horse to water, but not make it drown."
Rackhir bows to Mallus and replies "I will go now to broach the subject with Lady Delphine and her paramour. Turning to walk away, Rackhir pauses for a moment and adds. "With regards to the lime, the ladies of St. Tarte's are called that for more than one reason Mallus."
Ignoring Rackhir, Mallus says absently, "I was in love once. In fact I was engaged. A week before the wedding my fiancé tried to stop a man who was committing suicide by jumping into the Pit of Erebus. But he was a lot stronger than she was, so he pulled her with him."
Mallus stops talking for a minute or so. He drinks gin.
"One of these days, Rackhir, I'm going in after her. Any chance you're game for that?" asks Mallus, his fine features twisting into a mask of self-disgust.
Rackhir shrugs.
"Perhaps someday. I see no point in dying just yet. Life is not yet so great a burden, nor death such a release. I suspect though, that my path may well lead me in that direction one day. Meifumado, is a path often tread by those such as I.
"Meifumado?" says Mallus, "I don't think that word means what I think it means, since I think in means a noodle dish you can get in Little Ajakhan. Care to explain?"
Rackhir nods, "Meifumado is the path to Hell. The way of demons and damnation. It is both a path of one's own choosing, and the inevitable result of the choices one has already made. It is the life we chose, the life we lead. Those who live by violence, what ever the reason, however pure, however noble, often find themselves walking its dark path."
Taking a heavy slug from his drink Mallus replies "No, I'm not ready for the Pit yet, either. The horrors that crawl out of it are bad enough. Only a madman would crawl in. In fact, I know a madman who did, an alchemist I deal with in Saltbend. Riven Sugarglass.
Nowadays he looks like a wax statue of a man that was melted, split in two, and stuck back together by a committee of blind men."
Interlude: Ship of Fools, Part V. The Things They Carried (On About)
<Aboard MCSDF Windsprint, 6 days from port at Narayan:CITY>
For Burne, the plan was uncharacteristically simple and free of combustion. Get Joachim’s advice concerning the problem of Han Oi Xian’s mother, whose living soul was bound up inside a necklace of jade. As a priest, he should have insight into this kind of mystery
Unfortunately, Joachim has spent the better part of the day exploring mysteries of an entirely different sort. The ones of gin, giving out like a blessing by Tawny Portal, High Priestess of the Order of the Saint of Shamelessness, in the Faith of Aja Opal Blossom,
Satisfaction Be Upon Her.
It is evident that young Joachim is but an initiate into these particular mysteries.
“F—k if I know how to put her soul back into another live body,” he says with inappropriate enthusiasm, which so happens to be a virtue in the Order of St. Tarte.
“Great Kruetzel the Ever-Risen teaches us to feed the poor, protect the home, defend the hearth, and eat sweets and oils sparingly. Not much in our creed about the transmigration of souls. To Kruetzel there’s no emptiness that can’t be filled by a good meal. Unless it’s that gnawing feeling you get when you keep a secret from the woman you love.”
“Hell and damnation, man!” exclaims Burne. “She’s risked death and worse to see you again, and you don’t think she’s strong enough for whatever is eating away at you? She’s an adult, last time I checked.” An awkward pause follows.
“Not that I really spent much time checking, you understand!” Burne adds hurriedly. “She being betrothed and all that. But! As I was saying! She’s an adult and I think you’d better start treating her as one. Else you risk waking up with a slit throat one fine morning. Or *not* waking up, to be more accurate. She strikes me as woman with little tolerance for condescension.”
“Fulminous Mercury! We’re getting sidetracked, man. I was asking about souls. I’ll have time enough later to fix your communication problems with Delphine.”
Joachim takes a swing from a canteen that, from the grimace on his face, clearly isn’t filled with water.
“Kruetzel doesn’t teach much about the afterlife. Some denominations teach that the most faithful are gathered up by Kruetzel and serve as prep-cooks in the Kitchen of Heaven. The ones who weren’t too bad, a little too salty or burnt 'round the edges, get split into their ingredients and made fresh, to live their lives again. And those that were really rotten, curdled, bad to the marrow, they get thrown into the fires of Kruetzel’s own pandoor --his oven. To blacken for all eternity.”
“Of course, other denominations say that’s a crock-pot of s—t. When you die, you're dead, and you become a meal for something else. You say his mother’s soul is stuck in a piece of jade. Well somebody should get her out. That’s just… unnatural. I could take you to see the High Gourmand at the Grand Pandoor Temple on Cavalry Hill in Narayan. He might know more. There are legends that speak of Kruetzel breathing life into dough.”
“I’ve heard of more unlikely things, at that. Probably a bit less objectionable than jade, if a little more prone to being nibbled to death by hungry mice,” muses Burne.
“You don’t suppose this fellow would mind having a big tart for a mother, would you?” says Joachim with a pronounced slur.
“Bear a grudge, do you? Not that I blame you, under the circumstances.”
“I should. That damnable foreign yamika got me thrown into the navy.”
“I believe that it's ‘yakuza’”, says Burne, backing into the correct pronunciation by accident.
“Why does Delphine want to help him?”
“It’s all rather complicated. Seems that Xian’s mother is the spitting image of Delphine, only older. So she could be your future aunt-in-law. Or perhaps his mother is Delphine herself and time travel is involved…”
Nearby the madman, sometimes, for reasons no-one can quite recall, Any Seven, looks on with a far-away look in his eyes. He starts to speak.
“The fires of love burn hot but the baker man drinks his way to a heartburn of another kind. A little milk might soothe the inside… that’s what mommy always used to say”.
He offers up an old tin cup of fresh goat’s milk to Joachim, yet his gaze seems fixed on some point infinitely far away on the horizon. From the condensation around the base of the cup, it’s evident the milk is quite cold. It hovers there for a brief moment, before Any Seven dumps the contents onto the deck.
“The fire consumes us all eventually, burns us up, bakes us like cookies left in the oven until the raisins dry up. Keep your hand out of the cookie jar –especially between meals.”
Suddenly, the former homeless man bursts into a rage, grabs Joachim by the shirt, and screams into his face.
“She roasts in the fire, her flesh charring, crackling… like a pig roasting on a spit! Flames around her -- char-broiling the life from her – so the her body and soul are CONSUMED. The fat man grows fatter, then warms his hands by the fire!
“No guilt. No desire.”
He releases Joachim gently, and resumes staring off towards some infinitely far place.
At first, Joachim is too startled to move. Then a look of anger crosses his face. Followed by one of horror.
“Oh Gods, her family is going to be consumed by fire!” he says, wildly casting about as if looking for a place to run. Realizing that no good would come from attempting a mad dash across the wave-tops, he takes a desperate pull from his canteen and then slinks below decks unsteadily, looking like a crestfallen soufflé.
“Well,” Burne murmurs after a long moment of silence, “That certainly went well. You’ve a gift for words,” he continues in a louder tone, turning to Any Seven. “Have you ever considered a career in marriage counseling?”
It was nice to get a few more voices into the story hour. The madman words were all courtesy of his player, seeing as this was culled directly from our in-character email exchanges.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
Interlude: Ship of Fools Part VI. Some Like it Not.
<Late in the evening aboard MCSDF Windsprint, 5 days from Narayan:CITY>
Mother Superior Tawny Portal speaks with Rackhir the Red, privately, if such a thing is possible, concerning the fate of Han Oi Xian's mother.
"I just had a revelation, actually several, just now in my cabin," says a flushed and smiling High Priestess of the Saint of Shamelessness. "I have a solution to your soul problem. The Magnaeta Delphine is a blood relative of Xian's mother --the resemblance is unmistakable, yes? So she is of her body. And Xian is her true son by birth? So he is of her body and of her soul? Good....
"Now as everyone knows, life begins at birth. The soul enters an infant when it draws its first breath. Before that its just a bunch of wet, fiddly bits that look like they belong in a stewpot. Where was I?
"So! The obvious answer is that Delphine and Joachim must conceive a child, which will be the perfect vessel for Xian's mothers soul. At the time of birth a ritual will deflect the newborns soul away, and the soul in the jade necklace will be inserted in its place. The newborn soul, blank as the eyes of man at his crisis -- don't you just love that euphemism? I got it from a book about saucy woodsmen -- that soul will return from whence it came, i.e., the mother and the father. No harm done. Except the mother will feel the briefest sensation of loss, and the father, searing relief...."
"What kind of ritual is involved?" asks a suspicious Rackhir.
"To be frank, and my order is encouraged to be that no matter what the cost to others, I'm a little hazy about the specifics. I asked my goddess a question. And got a brief answer back.
"I'll inquire further at the Pleasuredome when we get to Narayan. It's the greatest Temple of Aja Opal Blossom in CITY, near the Bridge of Sighs. Ever been there? All are welcome. It says so on the plaque over the main door. 'Give me your tired, your poor, yearning to be....' Ah, it's a lovely place. Classy. Though I wouldn't go so far as to call it stately. Anyway, I've heard they have some Shirac witches there who took the Vows of Unchastity. Perhaps they could use their mind-magic."
"And this isn't evil?" Rackhir grows more suspicious.
"There are some in Aja's priesthood that are capricious and vindictive, but none are evil. We're charitable, though in ways that can wreck homes. We give until it hurts, more often than not. We heal the sick and protect the innocent, though usually from continued innocence."
"Is any child guaranteed to be perfect?"
"I said a 'perfect vessel'. There's a difference."
"What if it's a boy?"
"Nobody's perfect".
Hours later, in the dead of dead of yet another unquiet night, the Mother Superior rises with a start from the middle of a sacrament known as the Wet Meditation. "Did I say Delphine and Joachim must have a child? Silly me, I meant to say Delphine and Xian. That makes a lot more sense.
Every update in this story has at least one line that's an absolute classic.
I was proud of that one...
On another note, is anyone reading interested in hearing more about the world in which our heroes, and I use that term inappropriately, are adventuring? Before the database died, someone asked if there was a CITY website or wiki, and the answer is sadly, no, not yet.
In fact, there wasn't much in the way of player handouts for CITY. One reason for the long, talky, detail-laden in-character emails was to familiarize players with the setting. All exposition is better as dialogue, or so a friend kept telling me in college. Oddly, the same friend who co-created CITY...
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
Interlude: Ship of Fools Part VII. The Confession of Joachim Driftwood
<Late afternoon, due east of Grand Base Island, 3 days from port at Narayan:CITY.>
Throughout the day Joachim's slurred, frantic, muttering is heard throughout the ship; from aft to stern, hold to crows nest. "I must tell her! Consorting with demons! Could it be an infernal affair? Damn the family honor! And their souls... ah the flames! The madman saw! And what of our love? And why the f--k does she want to help the man who got me pressed? Could she really be related?"
It's accompanied by hushed yet plainly audible whispers of the crew and refugees. "Will they marry? What of the soul-transference ritual? Will she do it? Will it work? Just what did the baker see?"
Even Captain Revi's voice is heard: "Will I be court-martialed? It's hard to say."
Delphine asks the crew to leave Joachim be. "He'll talk when he's ready. And that better be soon."
Late in the day, Joachim Driftwood, acolyte of Kruetzel, and sous chef at the Narayan Arms Hotel, stands at the prow and begins to speak.
"I'm tired of all the talking behind my back." He turns to glare at those who begin to gather round, in particular Rackhir, Dr. Wu, and Mallus Lovesworn.
"Technically it was talking all around you; above, below, front and...." Mallus observes.
"Shut your dirty mouth, Erisian, or I'll shut it for you," Joachim raises his holy rolling-pin shaped mace. "And get me a drink!"
Mallus is silent for a moment. "I didn't think you had the scones," he says, slowly passing his own flask to the angry young priest.
The Lady Delphine St. Sous pushes through the small crowd of rough sailors and the nuns sworn to pleasure them, wrapping Joachim in a fierce embrace. "Just tell me...umm...us, the truth."
Next to Mallus, Sister Inferior Eva Longinus practically squeals with delight. Her hips begin to sway as she makes obscene guestures with her delicate hands. She incants.
"There's no need for your spell. I'll speak loud and clear." says Joachim.
Eva stops moving. The sailors behind her let out an audible sigh. "Spoilsport." she says.
Joachim ignores her and takes a long drink from the flask. By now, the entire crew has gathered round.
With a surprisingly loud and commanding, if not exactly sober voice, Joachim tells his story.
"I was preparing a feast for honored guests, in the basement kitchens of Delphine father's estate. Her father may not like me, but he loves my tarts".
"And you love his," remarks Sister Eva. Joachim shoots his fellow cleric a murderous look.
"I was making traditional Narayan fare: curried snails, vindaloo cordon bleu, crepes-paneer...."
"If he doesn't get to the point soon, I'm going to start masturbating", says Sister Eva out of growing boredom.
"If there's anything I can do to help," begins Mallus.
"...when I heard a sound coming from above. It was Sabot. I could tell by his shoes. Fancy, bad fitting things the Lady St. Sous gave him as a joke. He was stumbling along toward a big black carriage with two noblemen at his sides. I'd seen them before around the estate. Friends of Delphine's father. I think they're art dealers. Always talking about art, especially from Ajakhan....
"So I figure they've gotten poor Sabot, who can't walk straight in those f-----g shoes to help carry some priceless vase or something. The carriage door flies open, and Sabot goes in. One man goes in after him, the one with the funny jeweled walking stick. The other stands outside, pacing. He must have a dozen bottles of wine under his cloak from the racket he made. Probably from old Pavur's own cellars.
"Then everything gets real quiet, and the whole inside of the carriage goes red for a minute, like I was looking through blood. When it cleared I saw her face through the carriage. A demon, from one of the Hells."
"She's going to damn my beloved's family."
"And instead of telling them, I ran away to help the greengrocer and feed some halfwit foreigners."
Joachim gets down on one knee by virtue of falling. "So, Magnaeta Delphine Laxsmhi St. Sous," he fumbles for the ring he doesn't have, and instead offers his holy symbol, "Will you marry me?"
There is a brief moment of stunned silence throughout the ship, broken only by the sound of NE7 singing a gentle chromatic melody to his dog. It's surprising that the madman has such a sense of pitch. The song sounds alien to the Ajakani ears, but after a moment Burne recognizes it as a children's song...what were the words again? Something about a lazy mouse who refuses to get out of bed...although it isn't explicitly stated in the lyrics, he seems to remember that the mouse is too lazy to even run away from a cat, who promptly eats him.
Frowning slightly, Burne throws a puzzled look at the madman. Even more puzzled than usual. "Omen? Or insight?" he wonders aloud.
<Joachim Driftwood and Delphine Laxshmi St. Sous were married at sunset in a small ceremony attended by strangers, sailors, and ecclesiastical harlots.>
On another note, is anyone reading interested in hearing more about the world in which our heroes, and I use that term inappropriately, are adventuring? Before the database died, someone asked if there was a CITY website or wiki, and the answer is sadly, no, not yet.
In fact, there wasn't much in the way of player handouts for CITY. One reason for the long, talky, detail-laden in-character emails was to familiarize players with the setting. All exposition is better as dialogue, or so a friend kept telling me in college. Oddly, the same friend who co-created CITY...
Hell, man, I'd love to see that. It's a great setting, and there are a lot of details that made it so great. "St. Gorge" indeed....
Great update as well, those, uh, priestesses are funny :P
And damn friendly too
My PC (Mr "not in the face!") thinks they're wonderful and would probably have joined the faith. If he wasn't a godless, cynical bastard, that is. I think you'll like him a lot when he shows up. Rackhir especially does.
__________________ shilsen is broken - Crothian (and this is why)
My Eberron Story Hour. Updated November 12. Almost at the climax!
(In lieu of a story update, some setting information. Geography, anthropology and urban studies to follow...)
“All politics are metaphysical” –attributed to Count Tyrabidus Marphan, just prior to his initial death, Late Imperial Period, Gate Builder Era.
As above, so below. As within, so without. There’s a sucker born every minute. These are spiritual truths for the ages. Unfortunately our present task is to catalogue the Gods known in CITY. A job not unlike counting the grains of sand on a particularly unpleasant beach, just after a Dread Tide, in the rain. Their origin is a mystery, if you’re lucky. A source of bloody, public contention if you’re not. So once more onto that beach, dear would-be-theologians, and let us count the grains. And pray they do not curse us with impotence, higher taxes, or an undue burden of faith.
--preface to The CITY Book of the Dead, revised edition, University of Narayan Press, 250 Monopolis Standard Year.
The Common, Accepted CITY pantheon (excluding Hannikum:CITY): major deities
Aja Opal Blossom, goddess of lovers. Formerly a geisha from the Empire of the Three Pillars of Heaven (the Empire is commonly referred to as ‘Ajakhan’ --the land of Aja-- which also means ‘land of the coyly submissive’ in the primary Imperial dialect) . Said to have won divinity from Erebus as a part of a divorce settlement from him. One of the patron gods of Narayan:CITY.
-St. Tarte, the Saint of Shamelessness in the Temple of Aja.
Belli Rex Legis, god of lawyers. One of the patron gods of Narayan:CITY. Also patron of the Honorable Order of the Barristers, an order of lawyer-knights.
Bigby Ghosthands (also Bigby Handsfree), god of valor, battle and hopeless causes. Said to have been maimed by Erebus after repeatedly challenging Him to one-on-one combat . Later granted divinity and a pair ghostly prosthetic hands by Erebus out of pity.
Dhalberg (also The Dreamer out of Time), the god of boredom, madness and outer space. Said to rule an Outermost Plane called “Pasadena, California”.
Kruetzel (the Ever-Rising), god of cooking, home, and hearth. One of the patron gods of Narayan:CITY.
The Maestro de Grappe, god of swashbucklers, wit, and manliness. Said to have won divinity from Erebus in a duel. Patron god of Gallina:CITY.
Malec Pearlhammer, god of simple machines and craftsmen, particularly jewelers. Said to be ‘all sizes at once’. Inventor of the cigar lighter.
Mr. Spidergod, god of money, merchants, contracts, free trade. He appears as a giant golden spider, with the so-called “Eight Perfect Jewels of Heaven” for eyes. His creed is referred to as the “Eightfold Profitable Path”.
Mr. Three-Legs, god of virility. Said to be both ‘the father of the Giants” and “formerly a Giant”. Legends say the Grand Chasm between the Lassantees Wastes and the Plains of Gallina was dug by his penis dragging along the ground as he walked up and down upon the earth looking for a wife.
Nadanya (also Nanya, Nonny Fancypants), god who dwells on Mt. Parvishta. Nominally the god of civilization and culture. Legends say Nadanya gave the gift of pants to the Yeti, thus civilizing them. Nadanya is often depicted as a large, handsome Yeti smoking a cigarette, wearing a brocade vest and pantaloons.
Narsisco (the Saint of Self), the un-god. Teaches followers to worship ‘the god within us all’. His church charges exorbitant fees for their so-called ’12 Station Program’ to personal deification.
Oroborous, serpent god of the Great Canal; also god of the underworld.
Pentamoor, goddess of vengeance and storms; also piracy.
Shialla, the goddess of those her serve unseen; also goddess of darkness and caves.
The Smoldering Whore of Ur-Imbra, goddess of abandoning and the abandoned. Destroyer of Ur-Imbra, and by extension the Lassantees Empire. Depicted as either a tall woman in desert garb with black pits for eyes, or as a column of fire descending from the sun.
Tophaceous Pairolairo (the Saint of Sinners), god of gamblers, thieves and scoundrels. Said to have won divinity from Erebus in a game of cards.
The Common, Accepted CITY pantheon (excluding Hannikum:CITY): minor deities
Dicastor, god of metalworking and sadness.
Ezramundius (The King of Emperors), chief god in the cult of deified emperors in Eris:CITY.
The Leeres and Pinyates, small household gods that originated in Eris:CITY. Leeres are short, red, impish creatures who peer in open windows looking for disrobing ladies. Pinyates are roughly dog-sized and said to break open and scatter minor miracles when hung up and beaten repeatably with sticks.
Mercruxiphus, the winged death-sentence, old Imperial god of justice. Patron of Eris:CITY.
The Misery Cults (including Mewl, Mournfallow, and The Sower of Men), an almost extinct set of mystery religions of a uniformly pessimistic nature. Dicastor is sometimes considered one of them.
Mr. Pau Pau, the Saint of Alleyways. Depicted as a faintly luminous cat, often asleep in a flowerbed. Said to able to forgive all sins.
The Infallible Revelation of the Hannikum Monotheon:
God (also Al ha’Kum, “The Only One”), the Creator of All, the Most Mighty, the Most Merciful, etc. Only the Priest-King of the Hannikum Church worships Him directly. The rest of the faithful pray to Him indirectly through an array of venerated saints.
Mr. Cradle-Casket, saint of death and duty.
Mr. Featherbones, saint of martyrs and missionaries. Often depicted as a Shirac.
Mr. Skinflower, saint of fertility (female).
Mr. Jaguar, saint of war, strength, prowess. Said to live in the sun.
Mr. Onyx, saint of divinely sanctioned murder. Said to be ‘black as the last night of the world, and made of knives.
Mr. Redlips, saint of blood and healing. Patron of the Order of the Bloody Hospitaliers.
Mr. Skull Monkey, saint of chance and fate, said to embody the unknowable nature of God. Often depicted as a skeletal Hannu.
The Gods of the Barbarians:
Tiki-Ishii, fire god of the scattered Polyneecheean (Ping Island) tribes. Formerly a volcano.
The Voice of Thunder,The Wolf With Many Jaws, The Smoke Bear, etc., Aspects of the One God worshipped by the far-flung barbarian tribes outside of CITY.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
- Crothian (and 
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