seasong's Light Against The Dark II (May 13)

[seasong]

A recap for those who have joined in the middle. This is just a cut-n-paste from Part I.

OLYMPIAD

The people of Theralis are a physically competitive people, even more so than many of their neighbors. When the Theralese first freed themselves from the orcs, their initial culture formed from a combination of the physicality of orcs and some jealousy for the educated learning and civilization of their northern neighbors. Over time, this hodge podge of goals and habits were forged by military dominance, the prominence of grapes (and heroes of Dianas), and the dangers of the wilderness into what it is today.

The Olympiad's origins stem from the Century Riot, 300+ years ago. At that time, the Council deliberated and set aside the Century Mark as a time of celebration - something to look forward to rather than something to panic over.

A century later, in light of an attack by Amalan (a village had encroached too far) and other signs of the apocalypse, the Council planned a party sufficiently incredible that people could forget. And to honor the heroes that had died against Amalan, they staged a mock mass battle between well known athletes and a "dragon" constructed of wood. Between the mock battle (which ended with a lot of injuries, smiles, and a small riot in the southern Open Square), informal contests of athleticism and skill (that spontaneously broke out between distant country folk), and the immense consumption of wine that occurred, a tradition started.

Within a decade, that tradition gelled into the Olympiad, a two-day event sponsored by wealthy vineyards every five years (timed to coincide with Century Celebrations as well) in which athletes competed for grapevine wreaths while wine flowed like water among the spectators. Over the intervening centuries, this (like the Century Celebration) has been refined and extended, until it swelled to its current length of 10 days, with a dozen small rituals associated with it.

The Dragon Play/Opening Ceremony

Of the rituals of Olympiad, the dragon battle is the first and most prominent. It has evolved into more of a theatrical play, and encompasses more than just the one battle. Instead, it now covers the relationship between Amalan and Theralis (many citizens are curious how the latest development will be incorporated). Thera is almost always played by a prominent actress or poetess, but otherwise the roles are fluid. Each Olympiad, the play is put in the hands of a different playwright to interpret, although the most basic facts of history must be covered correctly.

Contests

Almost every conceivable athletic contest is present, from quarterstaffing to sprinting to heaving rocks and spears at targets. The captains of the military often hold sword fighting demonstrations, while the wine merchants often sponsor drinking contests (for stamina and taste). The most popular are the quarterstaff, wrestling, and feats of strength, although many others are very popular as well.

Athan plans to participate in feats of strength and wrestling, and spear throwing. Greppa was thinking about quarterstaffing, until he saw the real competitors practicing!

Wine

"At Olympiad, the rest of the world goes dry." For three days, roughly 200-300 Theralese athletes compete with each other. The remaining 20,000 to 100,000 people at the Olympiad drink. Wine tasting tournaments, cups purchased at the stadia, where ever there are people, there is alcohol. For most vineyards, this is the banner year for profits, and for merchants (who are unable to buy as much as normal for the north) it is usually a rotten year. Still, few complain. That's Olympiad!

 

[incognito]

(rubbing his hands together in greedy anticipation)

Monday update. Suh-weeet!

 

[seasong]

Olympiad: The Opening Ceremony

The dragon, kept hidden in pieces in a wine cellar for the past year and a half while the artisans who got the job worked on it, now stands assembled and covered with a tarp of stitched grape vines and leaves. Nothing of it is visible, save for the muscular young men and women who will operate it, squirming into its underbelly.

The playwright, Estellas the Short, is a phastini woman of unusual girth and serious demeanor, and she stomps around among the other actors, double checking them for lines, positions, makeup. It will be perfect, or she'll flay the lot of them, of that most of them are certain.

Every five years, the Dragon Play is revisited at the Olympiad, interpreted in some fashion by the playwright who wins the honor. For the first time in a long time, there is new material. A lot of it. At the last minute. And Estellas the Short had a short temper before all of this happened.

Then, the moment. Estellas collapses in the background, unnoticed, as the stitched grape vines...

Contract. They do not fall away, but instead pull inward, tugged by hidden ropes, and, in an immensely satisfying rtchhh, become the dragon! It stands eight feet tall at the shoulders, and a massive, crane-like neck bobs up and down, left and right. The mouth opens, and a spray of red, paper streamers blows from the mouth, scattering faux flames over the closest audience. A pair of wings lift and drop...

But what most people notice is that it very closely resembles Amalan, as seen only months before, and they take a moment to admire the slumped Estellas before cheering. Many playwrights have had difficulties building a dragon - few have managed it without a hitch with only months to rebuild it.

Amalan and Theralis' early history is sketched in quickly. Thera, played by a well known actress, singer and athlete, delivers her lines with force and conviction, at first standing up bravely to the dragon, then coyly persuading him to let her people have a place to live. The Keraunesti, the most feared and admired shock troops of Theralis, stand in for the soldiers of centuries ago, and (sometimes laughing) are scattered about like rag dolls through a room by the swinging neck, flapping wings, and vigorous body slamming. The story is mostly overwrought drama, as it always is, and told more with actions than with words - the audience knows the words already, for the most part.

Then, the modern age. Flat, painted buildings are hastily made vertical, representing the city, and Amalan stomps down the central avenue (in truth, it was his kobold, but this looked better). He speaks the same words that kobold did a few years ago, saying "Dwellers in the city of Amalan's valleys, I bring you both warnings and thanks. In your war, you have observed the old treaties well. My friendship with your people is strengthened by this, and I thank you for your respect."

"However, I also know that war is a time of great temptation, and ask that you not, in desparation, forget the bonds forged in centuries of friendship between your people and Me. Do not think that such things can be escaped, as these orcs once did."

And then, another set of soldier-actors, these dressed as orcs in filthy hides and cruel, ugly spears, run in to fight the dragon. It blows red streamers at them, and they scream as if burning. Some of them fall over, some of them remain standing, their faces frozen in fear.

There was no other way to present it. The memories of the kobold's illusory retelling is still vivid in the city dweller's minds. After a moment of respectful silence, the buildings are flipped around to present flat, painted mountains.

And Phitios himself steps onto the stage, to parley with the dragon. The actor for the orc war chief is a well known comedic, and he overacts to the hilt. Laughter helps heal the memories of the burning orcs, and Phitios recites his lines with pomp and relish. Then, as Phitios and a large young man attempting to play the part of Athan walk off, hands to their ears and heads cocked back as if listening, the war chief takes center stage as a bumbling fool, attempting to impress the dragon by alternately cringing and blustering.

Finally, the dragon sends him off, shaking its head in a remarkably human gesture of irritation, and then the Olympiad is officially opened by the arcanists of Theralis, who unleash an impressive display of fireballs into the sky simultaneously (in most years, there are 3-4, but this year an even dozen fireballs erupt in the sky).

The Olympiad has begun.

 

[Talix]

Woot! Can't wait to hear more about the Olympiad!

 

[seasong]

Olympiad: The Valley Run

Stretching in a lazy oval through the valley of the city itself is a single road. Originally two farm trails that happened to be useful for wine merchants in later centuries, they since merged into an important military road, as the unearthed granite that forms their base allowed soldiers to cover two fronts and the remaining valley with far fewer soldiers than would have otherwise been possible, during the first defenses against orc raids, in the days when Theralis was first struggling to grow into a full blown city-state.

Today, that road is still used by wine merchants, still maintained by the military (including short, defensible walls at various stops), and still used as a test of endurance, speed, and heart.

Had he been alive, Athan would have dominated the contests this year. This, Greppa and Merideth agreed upon whole-heartedly. The pair were sitting beneath the shade of a grape vine trellis, examining the runners with a critical eye. Lean and muscular, they resembled a collected assemblage of youthful demigods, the ideal blend of powerful musculature, light build, and long limbs that the Theralese admired so much.

Bellos, having discovered that some Theralese wines packed a bit more kick than the beers he was accustomed to, was snoozing lightly in the corner of the Trellis. He was missing out on one of the most demanding physical competitions in Theralis.

Shield-beating thunder, rolling down the mountain and through the valley, announced that the time had come. The play had ended an hour ago, and now everyone was prepared. The runners had stretched, bets had been laid, wine was being sloshed on chattering tongues. The thunder was impressive, and it was obvious that Captain Agina had unwittingly begun a new tradition.

The runners lined up like a row of hunched otters, bare skin glistening in the direct sunshine. The thunder stopped. The Run Master's arm dropped. The runners pushed off and began a swift, ground-eating lope.

Cheers, then milling about. It was going to be at least two hours before the runners came back around the other way, and people had other stuff to see in the meantime.

The startup and ending was usually impressive. The middle part, except for those standing along the road (who couldn't make it to Theralis for the Olympiad), wasn't more exciting for the runners pushing themselves.

 

[seasong]

Olympiad: Athletics

During the two hours between the start and end of the Theralis Run, they split up.

The athletes who had operated the dragon were doing gymnastic feats in the South Square, and Merideth gravitated, mesmerized, to watch them perform feats of agility. For the most part they weren't competing, so much as they were doing team performances... and it was oh, so pretty. Bellos tagged along, not certain he was interested in whatever Greppa was looking for, but unwilling to wander the confusing maze of streets alone.

Greppa might have found that interesting, except that there was an informal rock hefting competition going on in the North Plaza. Open to anyone, a merchant had offered a few bottles of rare wines to the first person who could fully lift a boulder he'd had dragged in, and had brought in a lot of smaller rocks for competitors to "practice" on. It had turned into something of a grunting match, with bets flying, wine sloshing, and rocks soaring a few feet at a time. For Greppa, it was a near perfect way to find the biggest collection of big, strong people to look at.

 

[seasong]

There will be an update, but I had to share this.

I. Just. Lost. 600+. Words.

It's okay. I know what they are, and I can type them in again (in about 10 minutes or less, as soon as I have 10 minutes again). And they weren't the BIG stuff, like Greppa as a belligerent drunk or anything... it's just a weird feeling, like I'm missing something.

Ick.

Anyway, I'll have to post later.

 

[incognito]

Sympathy post:

I was copying files that help me in my campaign, from one folder to another, on my PC. and one of them - the one where I compiled the 'experience chart', AND the 'wealth by level' chart got deleted. Permanently. Don't know how that happened.

So, I hear ya - and in case you thought (gasp!) I wasn't reading:

Citius, Altius, Fortius

 

[seasong]

Well, I ended up rewriting it anyway . Good thing it wasn't already posted . And it wasn't obvious, but I was being sarcastic about the "not important" thing.

Olympiad: The Rest of the Day

The first day of Olympiad is always devoted to pure and performance athletics. Although a few military tactics make their way in, the distance runners do not carry spears, the sprinters do not carry shields, the arcanists do not demonstrate any accuracy or stamina beyond "fireballs are pretty".

Greppa, born to a reasonably wealthy family, had always enjoyed wandering through the streets of Theralis in a haze of eye candy and alcohol. He watched sprinters with their powerful legs and gracile builds, hurlers with their broad shoulders and bull necks, gymnasts with their stocky power. It was all good.

For Merideth, it was a very different experience. She'd only been to Olympiad twice, once when she was very little, and once immediately prior to apprenticing as a healer. Usually, Olympiad was when her family took few days off (except for a few minor daily maintenances that couldn't be avoided), a pleasant thing to be sure, but nothing quite like this. As much as possible, she followed the gymnasts - the feats they pulled off did not quite seem possible, and that helped her get over the small surges of jealousy for wealthy people who lived their entire lives with events like this.

Bellos, originally intending to stick to Merideth and avoid trouble, found trouble anyway in the form of a dark-eyed gymnast who thought his vaguely exotic looks pleasing. He missed most of the athletics after the first gymnastics performance ended.

Not that he minded.

Greppa and Merideth found each other slightly before nightfall, and, already full of wine and bread and cheese and eye candy, stumbled into Greppa's tower and broke open a rare wine Merideth had charmed* out of a merchant.

Greppa took a whiff of the wine, and after deciding it was probably going to put him to sleep, knocked the rest of his night's agenda off the list. "To our absent friend, who carried us all on his broad shoulders, may the gods find him in a good company."

Merideth, more than a bit drunk, clipped stone cups with Greppa, "So say all men."

And with that, they drank. They emptied the bottle, sucking up the pain and loss. They drank of their memories of Athan, of his life lived to the fullest. And Dianas washed away Akeros, as the alcohol soothed and burned away the pain. Falling asleep, tumbled together like kittens, Greppa and Merideth found some solace, as Athan watched over them from Allas' realm.

* Normally it would just be assumed that she smiled prettily at him, but Merideth is an esper, and they sometimes go bad, so we have to be clear: she didn't muck up his brain to get the wine, she just smiled prettily.

 

[seasong]

Working on day two now. Tougher than I thought. Greppa participated in too much stuff! I may have to cut it a bit, to make room for Bellos & Merideth... Figures - everybody gets involved on the day of military athletics (2nd day was mostly military stuff, like upslope shield sprinting).

Anyway, hope that wasn't too jumbled - my thoughts are more focused in what I'm writing, I promise .