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Alea Iacta Story Hour: A Mythic Rome Campaign (Baby Announcement: 8/17)
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<blockquote data-quote="Meloch the Pygmy" data-source="post: 1146460" data-attributes="member: 14538"><p><strong>Setting the record straight</strong></p><p></p><p>Shast, Shast, Shast.</p><p></p><p>What will that monkey get up to next? It's endearing how he keeps smuggling paper and ink around and thinks I won't realize he's up to something. He must have known it was only a matter of time until I found someone who would read me these little notes he's been dictating.</p><p></p><p>No, I can't read, any more than he can. Why spend the effort on learning to use a lot of symbols that only have power over the space between men's ears? Llyr keeps arguing with me on that point -- says there's all sorts of powerful knowledge that would be lost if it weren't written down. But he's hardly a neutral advocate; reading is as Roman as road-building, and Llyr (much though I love him) would run about wearing nothing but a bag over his head and a ribbon around his waist if he were told it was the fashion in Rome. </p><p></p><p>Knowledge passed down by word of mouth is tested in every generation. The knowledge which rests in books quickly becomes fat and unreliable. It's why the Romans end up believing so many ridiculous things. Let's take this little gem which my friend Orichalcum assures me is a real, written description of Roman views on pygmies:</p><p></p><p>"Small and burnt black by the sun, they were shrill-voiced, strong-legged.</p><p>The sun drew their blood to their heads, so they were quick-witted. On the</p><p>other hand they suffered from blood-deficiency and were therefore afraid</p><p>of losing the small amount of blood that they possessed. In consequence</p><p>they were like hemophiliacs, terrified at being wounded; so they made bad</p><p>fighters in hand-to-hand battle."</p><p></p><p>Now, Shast is a far from reliable witness, but I hope his little history has already disproved the idea that I am a gutless, bloodless cringer from battle. In the dunes and wadis of the Garama, before my capture by the Romanii, I was known as a great hunter as well as a great sorcerer. It's true that in fighting enemies twice my size -- which seems to be about par -- I would much rather stick them with arrows from a reasonable distance than club them to death. But as that rat Minucius can attest, I don't shrink from a hand-to-hand clash either. If I'd been concentrating on splitting his skull rather than keeping his hands off the Eagle, that fight might have turned out rather better for me than it did.</p><p></p><p>Pygmies do have a certain shrillness of voice (though contrary to Shast, I do not <em>screech</em>), and I'll be the first to claim strong legs and quick wits. We also shrug off the evil eye -- a gift that has come in handy not only against the shadow spirits of the Ouenikones, but a certain blacksmith in our party (a fact which Shast seems to have forgotten). And of course, the gods tasked us with keeping the other peoples from forgetting what's important in life -- we both inspire lust and make its natural outcome more likely. But we're no cowards. The only things that frighten me, frankly, are cranes. And if you'd seen them do the things I've seen them do, they'd frighten you too.</p><p></p><p>I was captured when I was only a youth, and brought north to a land where the sands were unfamiliar and the air heavy with wetness -- a land where I had to relearn all my skills from the most basic level. In the Garama, I had been on the verge of learning to call Fire upon the cranes. In the north, I was reduced to parlor tricks with lights and ropes. Long and wasted years. Only in Rome, after all the adventures Shast has been so enthusiastically retelling, did I finally teach myself how to summon Fire in these lands of clay and snow. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.</p><p></p><p>Strangely, it was in the wettest and coldest of these lands that I found myself most at home. I made the best of the years entertaining fools in Mediterranean brothels and taverns -- they weren't always bad places, and most of the people I knew there had a refreshingly low level of self-importance. There's nothing that annoys me more than someone too earnest to see their own foolishness. But then I was purchased and packed off to Britannia by Licinia Luculla -- a woman who as far exceeds me in sorcerous power as Marcus does in brute strength, and is every bit as terrifying as Shast portrays her -- to serve and secretly tutor her daughter Cornelia. Teaching a girl the Skill seemed a more interesting use of my long years of service than juggling in whorehouses. Still, I expected the daughter to be a lesser image of the mother: calculating, seductive, manipulative, and ultimately ruthless.</p><p></p><p>She couldn't have been more different. Poor, dear girl, she's far too kind for her own good. I immediately saw that Metellus was the best match that would come to Eburacum (if not Britannia) in our lifetimes. Cornelia has her mother's loveliness; she could have had him bent around her finger. Especially with my help. But she wove her Charm on him not to seduce him, but to convince him to bring her along to fight the Druids; and when she saw the effect that had on the poor morbid lad -- all that throwing himself on his sword business -- she was so guilt-stricken that she swore never to bend his will again. AND made me promise not to stick him with any love-darts, either. </p><p></p><p>Now, I'm not one of these oath-struck Greeks or Celts who'll hold to a promise though it cost them their hearts and hamstrings. My promises are only as good as the people who are willing to hold me to them. This is why I was so careful not to phrase anything I said in the Grove of Mona in the form of a promise: the Celtic gods (indeed, gods in general) will hold you to your oaths by the short hairs. So I won't deny that I kept my eye out for the chance to shoot Metellus with my blowpipe while he was idly eyeing Cornelia. But I also let several such opportunities pass by. It wasn't fear of being caught (the boy's so blind to magic he wouldn't notice if Hecate herself flew past him backwards on a chariot drawn by fire-breathing cuckoos). Let's just say I decided that the person holding me to that promise was good enough. </p><p></p><p>In the same way, even when at long last I learned the art of Invisibility (which I had only toyed with as a youth), it scarcely occurred to me that I could now free myself without the least need for gold. And though I argued Cornelia out of flogging me for violating hospitality in Duonon, it wasn't with the lies I foisted off on Marcus and the others. She's a Roman, but I trust her with the truth, even when the truth, as in Duonon, was my own bloodguilt. </p><p></p><p>I'm not going anywhere until I see her grown into a woman as safe as she is good -- secure in her powers, in a secure household with a good man, and (above all) beyond the power of her mother.</p><p></p><p>But there I go getting serious, when all I really set out to do was correct certain distortions of the record that have crept into Shast's little narrative...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Meloch the Pygmy, post: 1146460, member: 14538"] [b]Setting the record straight[/b] Shast, Shast, Shast. What will that monkey get up to next? It's endearing how he keeps smuggling paper and ink around and thinks I won't realize he's up to something. He must have known it was only a matter of time until I found someone who would read me these little notes he's been dictating. No, I can't read, any more than he can. Why spend the effort on learning to use a lot of symbols that only have power over the space between men's ears? Llyr keeps arguing with me on that point -- says there's all sorts of powerful knowledge that would be lost if it weren't written down. But he's hardly a neutral advocate; reading is as Roman as road-building, and Llyr (much though I love him) would run about wearing nothing but a bag over his head and a ribbon around his waist if he were told it was the fashion in Rome. Knowledge passed down by word of mouth is tested in every generation. The knowledge which rests in books quickly becomes fat and unreliable. It's why the Romans end up believing so many ridiculous things. Let's take this little gem which my friend Orichalcum assures me is a real, written description of Roman views on pygmies: "Small and burnt black by the sun, they were shrill-voiced, strong-legged. The sun drew their blood to their heads, so they were quick-witted. On the other hand they suffered from blood-deficiency and were therefore afraid of losing the small amount of blood that they possessed. In consequence they were like hemophiliacs, terrified at being wounded; so they made bad fighters in hand-to-hand battle." Now, Shast is a far from reliable witness, but I hope his little history has already disproved the idea that I am a gutless, bloodless cringer from battle. In the dunes and wadis of the Garama, before my capture by the Romanii, I was known as a great hunter as well as a great sorcerer. It's true that in fighting enemies twice my size -- which seems to be about par -- I would much rather stick them with arrows from a reasonable distance than club them to death. But as that rat Minucius can attest, I don't shrink from a hand-to-hand clash either. If I'd been concentrating on splitting his skull rather than keeping his hands off the Eagle, that fight might have turned out rather better for me than it did. Pygmies do have a certain shrillness of voice (though contrary to Shast, I do not [I]screech[/I]), and I'll be the first to claim strong legs and quick wits. We also shrug off the evil eye -- a gift that has come in handy not only against the shadow spirits of the Ouenikones, but a certain blacksmith in our party (a fact which Shast seems to have forgotten). And of course, the gods tasked us with keeping the other peoples from forgetting what's important in life -- we both inspire lust and make its natural outcome more likely. But we're no cowards. The only things that frighten me, frankly, are cranes. And if you'd seen them do the things I've seen them do, they'd frighten you too. I was captured when I was only a youth, and brought north to a land where the sands were unfamiliar and the air heavy with wetness -- a land where I had to relearn all my skills from the most basic level. In the Garama, I had been on the verge of learning to call Fire upon the cranes. In the north, I was reduced to parlor tricks with lights and ropes. Long and wasted years. Only in Rome, after all the adventures Shast has been so enthusiastically retelling, did I finally teach myself how to summon Fire in these lands of clay and snow. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. Strangely, it was in the wettest and coldest of these lands that I found myself most at home. I made the best of the years entertaining fools in Mediterranean brothels and taverns -- they weren't always bad places, and most of the people I knew there had a refreshingly low level of self-importance. There's nothing that annoys me more than someone too earnest to see their own foolishness. But then I was purchased and packed off to Britannia by Licinia Luculla -- a woman who as far exceeds me in sorcerous power as Marcus does in brute strength, and is every bit as terrifying as Shast portrays her -- to serve and secretly tutor her daughter Cornelia. Teaching a girl the Skill seemed a more interesting use of my long years of service than juggling in whorehouses. Still, I expected the daughter to be a lesser image of the mother: calculating, seductive, manipulative, and ultimately ruthless. She couldn't have been more different. Poor, dear girl, she's far too kind for her own good. I immediately saw that Metellus was the best match that would come to Eburacum (if not Britannia) in our lifetimes. Cornelia has her mother's loveliness; she could have had him bent around her finger. Especially with my help. But she wove her Charm on him not to seduce him, but to convince him to bring her along to fight the Druids; and when she saw the effect that had on the poor morbid lad -- all that throwing himself on his sword business -- she was so guilt-stricken that she swore never to bend his will again. AND made me promise not to stick him with any love-darts, either. Now, I'm not one of these oath-struck Greeks or Celts who'll hold to a promise though it cost them their hearts and hamstrings. My promises are only as good as the people who are willing to hold me to them. This is why I was so careful not to phrase anything I said in the Grove of Mona in the form of a promise: the Celtic gods (indeed, gods in general) will hold you to your oaths by the short hairs. So I won't deny that I kept my eye out for the chance to shoot Metellus with my blowpipe while he was idly eyeing Cornelia. But I also let several such opportunities pass by. It wasn't fear of being caught (the boy's so blind to magic he wouldn't notice if Hecate herself flew past him backwards on a chariot drawn by fire-breathing cuckoos). Let's just say I decided that the person holding me to that promise was good enough. In the same way, even when at long last I learned the art of Invisibility (which I had only toyed with as a youth), it scarcely occurred to me that I could now free myself without the least need for gold. And though I argued Cornelia out of flogging me for violating hospitality in Duonon, it wasn't with the lies I foisted off on Marcus and the others. She's a Roman, but I trust her with the truth, even when the truth, as in Duonon, was my own bloodguilt. I'm not going anywhere until I see her grown into a woman as safe as she is good -- secure in her powers, in a secure household with a good man, and (above all) beyond the power of her mother. But there I go getting serious, when all I really set out to do was correct certain distortions of the record that have crept into Shast's little narrative... [/QUOTE]
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