What is the Heart? Assorted Theories, Summarized for the Beginning Student:
The graveyard of failed cities. Whenever a city of a certain size dies completely, it sinks into the Heart, crushing everything beneath it into even more of a confused mess as it splinters and breaks apart. Because cities are alive, they are all trying to put themselves back together, but each one foils the attempts of the others, like crabs in a bucket. Delvers are vultures and dung beetles, stripping them down to their stony bones.
It is a prison for dark gods, or the titans who made the gods, and delvers are either foolishly opening the door to let them free, one treasure at a time, or are stripping them of the tools they would use to break free, each stolen treasure sapping more of their power until they become weak and pitiful shadows. If it is not a prison, then it is all the dream of one of these gods, the true god, and woe betide those who awaken them and cause the Heart to fade away like a dream at dawn.
The Heart is a marvelous world-creating engine from which all creation emanates. If anyone understood how to manipulate it, they would hold in their hands the controls of the world. Because delvers work at cross purposes and act without understanding, the world is a baffling, capricious series of ridiculous nonsense. But if you figured out the pattern, or sat in the Last Throne, or dethroned the Pattern Guardians foolish people think are deep gods, you could make it better. You could make it all better.
The Heart is a nightmare labyrinth that, in hindsight, we never should have entered. But now that it’s open... good people have to go down there and stop the Angels and the gods and the blood-rats and the parasite words and the goddamn trains from escaping. And the clowns. God. The clowns.
Facts Concerning the Metaphysic of the Heart:
The Heart has “up” and “down.” Up is closer to the world, more stable, and down is... stranger. The further down you go, the more risk and reward. Nobody knows if there’s a bottom. Nobody who made it back, anyhow.
The Heart shifts and changes while you’re not looking. Navigation is a matter of intuition and communion, not cartography. You can’t cross the same hungry river twice, as they say; if you find your way back to a place once seen before, it is invariably changed somehow.
Motifs like the Library and the Forest are not so much places as they are conditions or tilts. The Heart is a jumbled mess of ruin. Machinery and infrastructural motifs are common, but usually corrupted by some other influence.
ANGELS: actually a taxonomic class; a non-animal denizen of the Heart which is not (barring the theological debates) of mortal origin. Many are faceless; many are winged; many are dangerous. Many work at cross purposes. Some are flickering electric fractals and some are horned moss-drowned hunters and some are skittering vicious librarians.
BEES: up to something. They’re a pale blue, glow faintly in the dark, and are constructing... something. They repurpose the environment around their hives and stick various pieces of junk together with their spittle. Angels fear them. As long as you don’t break anything, you’ll be safe around them. For varying degrees of safe. They’ll start whispering to you if you sleep too close, offering you the chance to be part of the Great Work.
BLOOD-RATS: gorged on the luminous blood of King Dragon, the blood-rats are his eyes and ears and tiny hands throughout the Heart. They are trappers and saboteurs and steal vital supplies, and at the same time, are willing to sell you just what you need when you need it most, at ruinous price. Nobody loves the blood-rats. Nobody except their burning, hateful god.
THE CHIMERAE: known more commonly as “Beasts,” these are non-animal denizens of the Heart, of mortal origin. They drank too deeply of still pools, or were transcribed into words and then translated back again, or offended the king of all these woods, or ate an Angel’s flesh, or in some way invited the Heart inside themselves. Some cling to what normality they have left, offering themselves as guides in Detritus or forming nomadic scavenger caravans. Some even try to leave, but few can, and even fewer don’t come back. The Heart won’t let you go.
THE DARK CARNIVAL: danger in limelight. If you’re very lucky, you might get supplies, strange entertainment, and win your heart’s desire in a claw game. If you’re very foolish, you’ll accept the immortality the Fools’ Mysteries offer. If you’re unlucky, the clowns will begin howling and honking. Run.
DELVERS: professional tomb-raiders, thieves, and swords-for-hire. They carry no maps, but learn the moods and seasons of the Heart— that is, if they survive. Delvers live by an unspoken code: don’t kill (you’ll attract the Angels), share your food and drink when asked (one day you might be the one who needs it), and take whatever you can (tough luck if you can’t hold onto it). If you break the code... better make sure there’s no survivors to spread word around.
DETRITUS: on the “surface” of the Heart, where it brushes against the world, sprawls a wild and dangerous city filled with intrepid or foolish entrepreneurs, criminals and exiles hiding from their past (who usually know better than to descend), several university annexes, cultists and theologians. The city entire is bisected by Nexus Station, a holy cathedral which offers lodgings for hopeful travelers waiting for a train’s attention. Attempts have been made to establish government, but they always fail, leaving behind yet more dilapidated offices and another layer of impotent bureaucracy.
THE FLOOD: she leaks in between tiles and surges down corridors without warning, she lies stagnant and green-choked between you and what you want, she vomits forth pearls and coral twisting like bone, she drags you underneath unless you drown offerings to her, and if she takes you, you may find yourself elsewhere, years later— or earlier— gasping and mottled with her touch.
THE FOREST: up through bookshelves and between the tracks come the brambles, and their berries are black and bitter and cause strange reveries. Ceilings become twining branches, or are they roots? Far off, but never far enough, the hunting-horn sounds. The king of all these woods— you can smell him before you meet him, and the sight of his horns is terrible.
THE LIBRARY: the walls are spines, and the lion’s share of what you see are books yet unwritten, or never written, or from other places you might hope never to see. Mined books serve as currency among many delvers; the Heart detests useless books. And as a last resort, tossing them to a charging Librarian might earn you reprieve while it reshelves them.
OWLS: oh god oh god oh god we disturbed the nest I’ll hold them off as long as I can
THE VERMISSIAN: a terrible mistake made long ago. A dead civilization thought to abuse the liminal nature of the heart, to bore rail-lines through them and facilitate travel on luxury locomotives, cutting travel times from months to days. Now the rail-lines are hissing, echoing labyrinths, twisting all through the Heart, and the trains run themselves through conductor-cults. The Vermissian Knights serve as templars and wardens of the rail-lines, clad in shining armor made from train-moltings and carrying sharpened rails the size of greatswords.
Hello abouts, friends! My character came together extremely smoothly so I'm good to start whenever, in the interim I'll be thinking up random worldbuilding facts and details. Only need to do bonds once other characters start appearing :)
My sheet's going to take a little more time to get together; ran a Masks session yesterday and spent most of today recovering. I should have it up within the week though.
Since we're up to Bonds, I always find it hard to get a Feel for a character just from a sheet, without some interaction or story behind them.
So, I did a little bit of prosaic writing about Lucien to help get a better feel of him across.
THE ACT OF PARLIAMENT
Lucien had seen the writing on the palace wall in ten-foot high red letters. The best bit was it was written in a language nobody else understood.
This is because that big, obvious warning had been broken down into tiny, digestible reports that passed across his desk as Head of the Civil Service. Innocuous titles like; “Local Councillors Reports on the Impacts of New Tarifs on Salt Exports”, “Findings of Diplomatic Envoys to Neighbouring States”, both the Eastern and Western borders, and “Speculation on Grain Futures and Current Prices”.
In that last one, the footnotes glowed hot enough that Lucien’s fingers never held the page by the bottom, afraid they’d burn his fingertips off.
“Shit.”
“Sir?”
His eyes flicked up. “George. If you could have a holiday anywhere, where would you go?”
“Ah. I always wanted to see the Heart, Sir. Just for a little while. Everyone who’s made it back says it’s like nowhere else.”
“Everyone who’s made it back...” Lucien repeated, stroking his jaw. “George, could you do me a favour?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“I’m going to fire you now, and it would make things a lot easier if we pretend you did something awful. The worst thing you can imagine. So terrible we can’t talk about it.”
“Oh. I’m- Can I decline?”
Lucien’s eyes darted up off the report and locked with George’s. George nodded.
“Right. I’m terribly sorry for what I did, which was so disgraceful I won’t even specify.”
“I’ve written you a glowing recommendation, privately. But you’re so disgraced, George, that I think it’s best that you leave the country. The continent, if you can help it.”
George nodded, straightening his red waistcoat. “Has it got anything to do with what’s happening in the Garden?”
They looked out the window at the sprawling mob.
Today, titled landowners, clergy, the wealthier merchants and the newly booming industrialist class were forming an open court in the palace gardens to negotiate the balance between the new powers and the old. The King had shown up, but fallen asleep hours ago.
How was the King to know that this was the pebble that started the avalanche. By Lucien’s estimates, in six months, The Empire would cease to be.
Lucien pulled a letter from his jacket, and slid it across his desk. “Time to go, George.”
“Right. Thank you, sir.”
George took the letter, and tucked it inside his shirt. He took a lemon wedge from Lucien’s tea, squirted two quick drops into his eyes, then flung himself out of the office, making a good show of wiping away his tears. He had the presence of mind to lock the door behind him on the way out.
It was a tragedy to lose talent like that.
Lucien pulled the bottom drawer out of his filing cabinet, and opened the floor safe hidden underneath it. He took out a steel lockbox and flicked through the labels of the manilla folders inside.
[Archbishop of Evora] [Archbishop of dos Ossos] [Archbishop of Sedlec] [Secretary of State] [Secretary of the Treasury] [Field Marshal von Mackensen] [King (ours)]
Ah, yes. There’s the one he needed. He pocketed the blackmail materials, and skipped ahead to the handwriting samples. One for when he was sober, one for his usual self... He pulled the “bacchanalia” sample, and shook the forged signet ring from the bottom corner of the envelope, and began to write. He checked his calendar. Tomorrow would be perfect.
-----
Lucien stormed into the throne room, furious, letter held in white-knuckled fist. The second the door had been opened for him, he could see the king’s bloodshot eyes, like two red mushrooms in black soil.
“Rupert, what the fuck is this?”
The King sat a little straighter, fight or flight kicking in. Lucien was only on a first name basis with the King when something very bad had happened, or the King had been Quite Naughty Indeed. And, because last night had been the annual meeting of the Secret Fraternal Order of Bookbinders, Milliners and Vintners, the King had no way of knowing which it was, but he had some unpleasant guesses.
“A posting to the Heart? Are you mad?”
“Sir Roué, your voice, please...”
“I beg your pardon, your Majesty,” Lucien was close enough to the throne now to drop to his indoor voice, “But you’re sending me to the Heart? A foreign posting? Truly?”
The King furrowed his eyebrows, massaging his temples. “Who ordered this?”
“You did! This is your handwriting, isn’t it?”
Lucien pushed the letter towards the king. He read it with a pained wince, his lips moving as he read and reread it. “Hrrm.”
“Hrrm?”
“I made a good point. I think.” The king muttered. “Our last man couldn’t hack it. And embassies to the Heart don’t usually go well. I really do need my best man...”
“While I am very flattered, surely you need me here? The Empire will go to shambles without me.”
“You think too highly of yourself, Sir Roué,” the king reprimanded. “I see I suggested some very suitable replacements... for the time being. I know you’re not very fond of Marquis du Motier, but he would be quite capable.”
“Capable? Your Majesty, please, the man couldn’t lead a pig to a trough.”
“Lucien...” the King growled in a warning tone. Lucien stood up straighter.
“Fine. But if I’m going along with this, I’m going to need some damned good incentives. The best office you can give me. Some staff. Then there’s my salary!”
The King raised an eyebrow. “You demand it?”
“Or I’ll bloody retire in protest.”
The King’s fingers drummed against the arm of the throne like drumsticks. “It would help the Empire’s prestige, the office.”
“Yes. Everything I do, for the Empire, of course.”
“We’ll send the staff later.” The King’s blinks were getting longer and longer, “Let you set things up how you like it on your own.”
“Of course, your Majesty.” Lucien bowed once more. “How can I argue with such infinite wisdom?”
The King was snoring by the time the doors closed behind Lucien.
-----
Two months. The Empire lasted two months. Which was really bloody inconvenient, because he really needed that extra time to get himself set up. He’d barely had time to find a good tailor before his salary disappeared.
The staff never came. The Marquis had made a bigger hash of everything than Lucien could have anticipated - when the riots inevitably started, he’d ordered cannons to open fire on the crowds.
The King and his family tried to flee to Czcezik, whose monarchs were close cousins (so it goes). They didn’t make it across the border without being recognized by a farmer who knew the King’s face from the back of a coin...
So, the Czcezik royal family - now next in the line of succession, would you happen to believe? - marched on the Empire - and ran right into three different factional people’s armies who’d been preparing for civil war, now with a common enemy.
Who could have predicted those guerilla armies? Besides anyone who had carefully read the footnotes on a national report about the distribution of grain stockpiles, of course.
The New People’s Government was now pushing back into Czcezik, and anyone they could get their hands on who had a “Sir” in their name was having their head removed from their shoulders.
And Sir Lucien had a lovely new office, if he could keep it.
Every prime-numbered floorboard on the stairs was balsa over a beartrap. Most doorhandles had a heating element in them, the stucco walls hid a flotilla of pistols and the ceiling fans were heavy as anvils, and detachable.
And somehow, an owl still managed to flit over to his colonial-wood desk, intact. He regarded it with an affectionate smile, one hand on the grip of the pistol underneath his parabola-linen shirt.
“You know, a group of owls is known as a parliament? And I am a civil servant. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”
Since we're up to Bonds, I always find it hard to get a Feel for a character just from a sheet, without some interaction or story behind them.
So, I did a little bit of prosaic writing about Lucien to help get a better feel of him across.
THE ACT OF PARLIAMENT
Lucien had seen the writing on the palace wall in ten-foot high red letters. The best bit was it was written in a language nobody else understood.
This is because that big, obvious warning had been broken down into tiny, digestible reports that passed across his desk as Head of the Civil Service. Innocuous titles like; “Local Councillors Reports on the Impacts of New Tarifs on Salt Exports”, “Findings of Diplomatic Envoys to Neighbouring States”, both the Eastern and Western borders, and “Speculation on Grain Futures and Current Prices”.
In that last one, the footnotes glowed hot enough that Lucien’s fingers never held the page by the bottom, afraid they’d burn his fingertips off.
“Shit.”
“Sir?”
His eyes flicked up. “George. If you could have a holiday anywhere, where would you go?”
“Ah. I always wanted to see the Heart, Sir. Just for a little while. Everyone who’s made it back says it’s like nowhere else.”
“Everyone who’s made it back...” Lucien repeated, stroking his jaw. “George, could you do me a favour?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“I’m going to fire you now, and it would make things a lot easier if we pretend you did something awful. The worst thing you can imagine. So terrible we can’t talk about it.”
“Oh. I’m- Can I decline?”
Lucien’s eyes darted up off the report and locked with George’s. George nodded.
“Right. I’m terribly sorry for what I did, which was so disgraceful I won’t even specify.”
“I’ve written you a glowing recommendation, privately. But you’re so disgraced, George, that I think it’s best that you leave the country. The continent, if you can help it.”
George nodded, straightening his red waistcoat. “Has it got anything to do with what’s happening in the Garden?”
They looked out the window at the sprawling mob.
Today, titled landowners, clergy, the wealthier merchants and the newly booming industrialist class were forming an open court in the palace gardens to negotiate the balance between the new powers and the old. The King had shown up, but fallen asleep hours ago.
How was the King to know that this was the pebble that started the avalanche. By Lucien’s estimates, in six months, The Empire would cease to be.
Lucien pulled a letter from his jacket, and slid it across his desk. “Time to go, George.”
“Right. Thank you, sir.”
George took the letter, and tucked it inside his shirt. He took a lemon wedge from Lucien’s tea, squirted two quick drops into his eyes, then flung himself out of the office, making a good show of wiping away his tears. He had the presence of mind to lock the door behind him on the way out.
It was a tragedy to lose talent like that.
Lucien pulled the bottom drawer out of his filing cabinet, and opened the floor safe hidden underneath it. He took out a steel lockbox and flicked through the labels of the manilla folders inside.
[Archbishop of Evora] [Archbishop of dos Ossos] [Archbishop of Sedlec] [Secretary of State] [Secretary of the Treasury] [Field Marshal von Mackensen] [King (ours)]
Ah, yes. There’s the one he needed. He pocketed the blackmail materials, and skipped ahead to the handwriting samples. One for when he was sober, one for his usual self... He pulled the “bacchanalia” sample, and shook the forged signet ring from the bottom corner of the envelope, and began to write. He checked his calendar. Tomorrow would be perfect.
-----
Lucien stormed into the throne room, furious, letter held in white-knuckled fist. The second the door had been opened for him, he could see the king’s bloodshot eyes, like two red mushrooms in black soil.
“Rupert, what the fuck is this?”
The King sat a little straighter, fight or flight kicking in. Lucien was only on a first name basis with the King when something very bad had happened, or the King had been Quite Naughty Indeed. And, because last night had been the annual meeting of the Secret Fraternal Order of Bookbinders, Milliners and Vintners, the King had no way of knowing which it was, but he had some unpleasant guesses.
“A posting to the Heart? Are you mad?”
“Sir Roué, your voice, please...”
“I beg your pardon, your Majesty,” Lucien was close enough to the throne now to drop to his indoor voice, “But you’re sending me to the Heart? A foreign posting? Truly?”
The King furrowed his eyebrows, massaging his temples. “Who ordered this?”
“You did! This is your handwriting, isn’t it?”
Lucien pushed the letter towards the king. He read it with a pained wince, his lips moving as he read and reread it. “Hrrm.”
“Hrrm?”
“I made a good point. I think.” The king muttered. “Our last man couldn’t hack it. And embassies to the Heart don’t usually go well. I really do need my best man...”
“While I am very flattered, surely you need me here? The Empire will go to shambles without me.”
“You think too highly of yourself, Sir Roué,” the king reprimanded. “I see I suggested some very suitable replacements... for the time being. I know you’re not very fond of Marquis du Motier, but he would be quite capable.”
“Capable? Your Majesty, please, the man couldn’t lead a pig to a trough.”
“Lucien...” the King growled in a warning tone. Lucien stood up straighter.
“Fine. But if I’m going along with this, I’m going to need some damned good incentives. The best office you can give me. Some staff. Then there’s my salary!”
The King raised an eyebrow. “You demand it?”
“Or I’ll bloody retire in protest.”
The King’s fingers drummed against the arm of the throne like drumsticks. “It would help the Empire’s prestige, the office.”
“Yes. Everything I do, for the Empire, of course.”
“We’ll send the staff later.” The King’s blinks were getting longer and longer, “Let you set things up how you like it on your own.”
“Of course, your Majesty.” Lucien bowed once more. “How can I argue with such infinite wisdom?”
The King was snoring by the time the doors closed behind Lucien.
-----
Two months. The Empire lasted two months. Which was really bloody inconvenient, because he really needed that extra time to get himself set up. He’d barely had time to find a good tailor before his salary disappeared.
The staff never came. The Marquis had made a bigger hash of everything than Lucien could have anticipated - when the riots inevitably started, he’d ordered cannons to open fire on the crowds.
The King and his family tried to flee to Czcezik, whose monarchs were close cousins (so it goes). They didn’t make it across the border without being recognized by a farmer who knew the King’s face from the back of a coin...
So, the Czcezik royal family - now next in the line of succession, would you happen to believe? - marched on the Empire - and ran right into three different factional people’s armies who’d been preparing for civil war, now with a common enemy.
Who could have predicted those guerilla armies? Besides anyone who had carefully read the footnotes on a national report about the distribution of grain stockpiles, of course.
The New People’s Government was now pushing back into Czcezik, and anyone they could get their hands on who had a “Sir” in their name was having their head removed from their shoulders.
And Sir Lucien had a lovely new office, if he could keep it.
Every prime-numbered floorboard on the stairs was balsa over a beartrap. Most doorhandles had a heating element in them, the stucco walls hid a flotilla of pistols and the ceiling fans were heavy as anvils, and detachable.
And somehow, an owl still managed to flit over to his colonial-wood desk, intact. He regarded it with an affectionate smile, one hand on the grip of the pistol underneath his parabola-linen shirt.
“You know, a group of owls is known as a parliament? And I am a civil servant. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”
Another owl flew in behind it. And another.
Lucien swore.
Absolutely incredible. I can't wait to see Lucien in action. XD
For my end, didn't quite have the energy to get a short story together this week, so here's a small dump of thoughts about Jackdaw, and the sorts of things she's up to:
-Jackdaw is a collector of Words. Not, like, in the dictionary sense, but somebody who's always looking for new words, novel combinations of words, events and experiences that can communicate a particular feeling, etc. Her collection is this amalgamation of language and phrases and perfectly crystalized moments which she is constantly setting to her personal use. Somebody who is, quite literally, always hunting for the right thing to say. -No, for reals, she is always hunting for the right thing to say. All the time. In every situation. And usually winds up saying too much. And replaying conversations to try and find the actual best thing she could've said there. -One day, she will have all the words, and thus, she will be good at words. -Among the many books contained in the Heart, there are some on current events. As in you can open one up, and start reading a novel that perfectly describes the conversation you had over breakfast that morning. It can be hard to tell, sometimes, which books describe other worlds, and which describe ours. But if you can find the right sort of books, there are Buying Lists eager to snatch up any material about certain indviduals. -I haven't fully decided yet, but Jackdaw was at The Celestial College in some capacity - possibly even just on the basic service/kitchen staff - and has known Ailee from there. -Jackdaw is Delving in the Heart to find a most important word: Her name.
I'd like to hesitantly nominate my four Bonds with Ailee and Jackdaw - The train-eggineer terrifies me, and I have very good reasons to not like anything telepathic, so I'm really not sure how to get a read on Coleman yet even though I adore their concept;
Squire Bonds: I've bailed Ailee out of trouble more times than I can count. "Never a dull moment."
Jackdaw is always willing to listen to me, even when no one else has time - I have a very strong idea of Lucien holding one sided conversations at Jackdaw using the pauses where they try to think of what to say to answer their own questions. "Surely they can't mean-?" "-" "No. You're right, of course. They would. But the real question is, is it to their advantage, or to ours?" "-" "Mm. Of course, never assume you have the advantage - Try to be certain, and never be certain of your certainty... "-" "Jackdaw, I have no idea what I'd do without you. This could have been a disaster."
And, in the true fashion of a human diplomat in a fantasy setting, I'd like to take one bond from the Elf and one from the Dwarf playbooks;
Jackdaw defeated me in a game of Scrabble and I still cannot believe it. It wasn't even close, honestly.
Ailee is my drinking buddy. "I'd like to let you in on a little secret to these formal events. Always ask for your glass to be topped up every three sips, make sure you always have something to nibble on with it, and nobody can tell how much you're really having. Well. For a while, anyway."
Jackdaw is always willing to listen to me, even when no one else has time - I have a very strong idea of Lucien holding one sided conversations at Jackdaw using the pauses where they try to think of what to say to answer their own questions. "Surely they can't mean-?" "-" "No. You're right, of course. They would. But the real question is, is it to their advantage, or to ours?" "-" "Mm. Of course, never assume you have the advantage - Try to be certain, and never be certain of your certainty... "-" "Jackdaw, I have no idea what I'd do without you. This could have been a disaster."
And, in the true fashion of a human diplomat in a fantasy setting, I'd like to take one bond from the Elf and one from the Dwarf playbooks;
Jackdaw defeated me in a game of Scrabble and I still cannot believe it. It wasn't even close, honestly.
I wouldn't have called the first one, but I can see that playing out exactly like that if Lucien never gives Jackdaw a chance to chime in. :P
On my end, I have four Bonds to give out, and I think I'll be doubling up on Ailee. She and Jackdaw have a bit of history already, and I think that's the best way to represent it.
I stood watch for Ailee on the worstbest most night of our lives. Why didn't I say anything? I could've said something. I should've said something. But I didn't, then it was too late, and. Um. We don't have those lives anymore.
Lucien tells the best campfire stories, I don't know how I'd settle down without them. He never messes them up! Ever! How does he do it?!
When things go south, I'm hiding behind Coleman. And his train baby! Um, well, it's not his train baby, but it sort of is, in that it was given to him, but it's not his-his, and anyway that's where I'm standing.
I wouldn't have my crown jewel without Ailee's help. Someday, I'm gonna have the right words to thank her.
Asking out of character so as not to break the flow: Any chance I could get a bit more information about what just happened, or is happening? I think I'm more confused than I'm supposed to be - I'm not even sure if I've also been put in the broom closet as well, right now.
The patrons of the bar shoved the two of you into a broom closet just to be safe while they went to get the town’s magician. Mostly so that I could put Lucien under more pressure to see what he does, and to arouse Ailee’s ire.
My current headcanon is that animal people are common topside, and that the Chimerae of the Heart are notable because a) they mutate and mix attributes from lots of different creatures and things and b) they have a distinct tendency to grow horns.
My current headcanon is that animal people are common topside, and that the Chimerae of the Heart are notable because a) they mutate and mix attributes from lots of different creatures and things and b) they have a distinct tendency to grow horns.
I will endorse this being promoted to Actual Canon.
This specific mode of Fellowship has what is called a Response Level, intended to keep you from squatting in one place. The response level rises when you piss off The Boss of the area, when you break the rules of the local community, or the first time you do any of the following:
cause collateral damage
deface a place of power
harm the local wildlife
insult someone in charge
or upset the natural order
And, incredibly, you’ve gone from zero to three in one posting cycle, which means I make three moves in response immediately.
I’m marking Famine, Show of Force and Wild Animal immediately, with an eye to Guardian and Bad Weather moving forward.
And if you hit 6, that’s when things really get bad.
