A Small Booklet...Stitched Together With Red Thread

Orlando's Blood by Jacqueline Nichollshttp://www.jacquelinenicholls.com/
red-thread-drawings.html

A small booklet with dozens of square pages that have been stitched together with red thread, and then bound with resin. Each page is written in red ink, and describes a favor given to someone, or a favor owed to someone. 

The booklet is used to enforce reciprocity. 

The Bloodweaver Wizards who contended for dominance in the realm of Woven Strife created these books when they tired of constant broken promises and betrayals among their peers. These booklets brought a quick end to shifting alliances, and great predictability to the fulfillment of arrangements made between peers.

When you do someone a favor, you record the deed in the booklet. At the time, the beneficiary agrees to return you an equal favor in the future. It is understood a favor which will need to be reciprocated as soon as the original benefactor of the original favor calls in its return.

If someone reneges on a promise to reciprocate, then the book itself takes revenge. The ink and threads of the book swirl and form a shape. A tiny hand-high Red Swordsman comes forth from the book. It sets immediately to take a revenge of its own devising on the person who reneged on the favor. 

The Red Swordsmen are clever, tireless, and creative. They will observe and even secretly cohabit in the home of their target until they find and execute a fitting revenge. Their revenge is not always lethal. But when the deed is done, everyone will know that the target is someone who can't keep their end of a deal. 

Thysanurians find these favor-books particularly appetizing. 

Blade & Crown Turns To Piracy!

http://www.cindyvallar.com/medieval.html

Our Blade & Crown campaign resumed this week, thanks to the perspicacity of GM Eric Gilbertson! Serene the Priest and Stabber the Assassin finally got off the Island of Too Many Stupid Rules thanks to much sneakery and the help of a friendly  trapper. This trapper was a fellow Morensian, one of the failed crusaders who came to this Island of Ill Fortune many years ago. He got us out of harm's way, saving us from the soldiers of the Three Suns heretics. The good man also turned us on to a way off the island: join the pirates who come ashore periodically.

The catch? You only get to join them if you can beat one of the pirates in hand-to-hand combat. If you lose you become a slave. So naturally we asked to try out as pirates immediately, and were rowed away from Heretic Island out to the pirate ship.

Stabber, as played by Eric Stoltz

Our good friend the handsome Stabber aka "Red", faced off with his new magic greatsword against a wiry swordsman pirate opponent. Both were wounded, but Stabber prevailed in the end.

It was a close call.

The priest Serene had a better time of it. She used her weapon of choice, a warhammer, facing off against a worthy and well-muscled she-pirate. Serene also prevailed, using the pointy end of her warhammer to mete out a benediction to her defeated and prone opponent.

Then "our" two children cleaned the decks with two pirate children.

So we are pirates now, and off the Island Cursed By Three Suns! A great session with stirring combat that was uncertain until the very end!

Strangerside Scholar: Interpolation

http://downloadsourcecodes.com/matlab/
image-interpolation-matlab-code

One conjecture about why the dragons created Mousetrap Realms was to conceal something else behind them. In this sense, the Mousetrap Realm becomes a form of Interpolation, the magical art of creating a new object between two existing ones. At the dawn of history, the Bridgeworlds, the first human intersphere empire, used the art of Interpolation to build a chain of Fortress Realms as center-realms acros a chain of spheres. (This "chain" of course was many different chains of spherepaths that radiated out from a central hub. It is said that the foundations of the Library of All Worlds are drawn out similarly to one of these Fortress Realms.)

What were the dragons up to when they built the Mousetrap Realms? They may have been concealing their own Nest Realms behind fortress walls. They could interpolate Mousetrap Realms between existing worlds on a spherepath.

For example, suppose a certain World A at a certain point in a chain of worlds; let's call World A, the Spider's Web. The adjacent World B might have been the Nest Realm known as The Red Hatchery of the dragons. Through the art of Interpolation, a Mousetrap Realm - No Floor - might have been inserted between World A and World B. No Floor is conjured into existence as the center-real between the other two, a so-called World A-Prime.

Thus a chain of spheres can be broken. The Mousetrap Realm of No Floor becomes a deadly dead-end for  most Spherewalkers going through a gate from there towards No Floor. Meanwhile the dragons cavort or sleep safely in The Red Hatchery beyond. The Red Hatchery no doubt has other gates that go other places. Or it might have not gates. Some dragons can still make their own gates. And they have worked out numerous serpentine paths to get around.

Strangerside Scholar: On Mousetrap Realms

Merode Mousetrap, c. 1427-32
http://historiesofecology.blogspot.com/
2012/05/merode-mousetrap.html

After the dragons lost in their war against the gods, they turned to other pursuits. Partly due to spite, and partly due to boredom, some of the dragons began devising and setting traps among the spheres.  They created the Mousetrap Realms to catch and kill Spherewalkers.

The Mousetrap Realms have one way in: a Gate which opens into a new realm, beckoning a Spherewalker to come explore. But unlike normal realms among the spheres, the Mousetrap Realms have no way out. Either their Gate works in only one direction, opening only into the realm, or else once entered, the Mousetrap Realm becomes a more active and deadly trap.

Death by starvation. Death by plenitude or lack, whether Earth, Air, Fire, or Water. False epiphanies. Entombment. World-creatures. Treasure of Infinite Counting. Doppel-craft. The dragons have never lacked for imagination in devising their traps. And they were masters of misdirection.

Humans have often attributed the creation of Mousetrap Realms to capricious gods or demons. Few have seen the Dragons' Stamp: The House of Knives, The Box of Under, the Ocean-Hole, Mother of Cankers, the Roundel, the Whorl, Pop-Up Drop Down, the Meat Grinder, the Flower That Ate Itself, and The Limbless Tree. Even the names of the Mousetrap Realms sound like curses.

There are in fact hundreds of Mousetrap Realms on record at the Library of All Worlds. As many as one realm in one hundred may be Mousetrap Realms. It is wise to consult the collection of spherepaths within the Library of All Worlds, or the Chamber Platinum's special collection (these are usually the most up-to-date) before planning a particularly long journey among the spheres.

Most Spherewalkers will encounter a Mousetrap Realm if they travel far enough.

Wooden Figure Of An Oar, Painted White

Glenn Kaino

Some gates open; others explode from one infinity into another. The object is a small white wooden oar, about the length of a little finger. It's a Gate Key. This little white oar can open a Water Gate in any lake, river, or bay. The gate will open in all directions, summoning the White Fleet.

Canoes, funeral rafts, fishing boats, paddle wheels, galleons, gigantic battle barges, the white tar sub, and even a world-ark:  the Whiteoar family's entire fleet will be gathered from every realm and sphere, together again in one body of water.

The Whiteoar family, defeated, destroyed, cast adrift and scattered among the million spheres: suddenly, once again, a great armada.

If you find a little white oar, burn it to ashes immediately.

A Jeweled Gold Crossbow Fibula

http://art.thewalters.org/detail/17586/crossbow-fibula/

This is not a weapon; far from it.  A crossbow fibula is a kind of brooch, a pin used "to hold together the corner of a garment at the shoulder."  The pin is on the back side of the brooch.

Note the four animal heads arranged around this fibula.  A thing of beauty, this crossbow fibula was last seen adorning the shoulder of a bold soldier from the realm of Step Lively. White Mane found it while escorting a company of scholars along the receding glaciers of the realm of Round Stones. They had been ambushed by a rival group of scholars and soldiers, and these interlopers drove White Mane and her charges from their dig site.

The scholars soon discovered the ruins of another city revealed by the withdrawing glaciers. In the ruins of that ancient city - a vast metropolis which the scholars soon dubbed Big Pond - White Mane spotted the crossbow fibula brooch in a glittering in pool of the purest meltwater. Small fish swam in circles around the brooch. She reached in and took it.

White Mane pocketed the brooch, keeping it hidden from the eyes of the scholars until she returned to Step Lively with her charges. Then her life got interesting. White Mane learned that the brooch had powers, and a thirst for blood. The brooch's pin held a garment best when it pierced skin. The skin of her shoulder became scarred with repeated piercings. The piercings gave her the ability to commune with animals. She was never ambushed again.

EVERWAY MECHANICS

The crossbow fibula brooch is a three point Power, one which is nurtured and fed by the wearer's blood. The Power allows the wearer of the brooch to see and hear whatever nearby animals can see and hear. Voices will be recognized as such, but human speech is unintelligible; it is almost as if the speakers are not using the Tongue.

This Power can be used to listen in on what animals hear over distance equal to the space spanned by a five minute walk. It will be difficult to be surprised by others when operating outdoors.

A Star-Shaped Porcelain Tile...

University of Michigan Museum of Arts (Ann Arbor)

...Depicting a cheetah. Until the Everwayans came to Emerald Savannah, it crowned a King's chair. For centuries, no King of Emerald Savannah ruled without this symbol of athleticism and prowess adoring his throne. Shortly after the Emerald family of Everway began its grain trade with the realm of Emerald Savannah, this royal symbol disappeared.

The records of the Chamber Platinum show that a star-shaped tile fitting this description was recently cataloged in the Ledger of the Chamber's Acquisitions Among the Spheres During the Realm of the Great King Horizon Emerald:

"A fine star-shaped tile depicting a cheetah, gold and red - Origin unknown." 

No one remembers who brought the star-shaped tile to the Chamber Platinum, and the signature of the Ledger's note writer is illegible. The price of the purchase: 10 beads.

The royal family of Emerald Savannah has dispatched a Spherewaker-Emissary to Everway, because the Lion Seer of their realm has had a vision that the star-shaped tile will be found near, on, or within one of the great structures of the City of Everway. The Chamber  has already had inquiries from this Spherewalker, and sent her away with no new information. The Ledger has also been hidden away.

The Chamber Platinum has offered to help with the search. Now they just need to identify the right Spherewalkers to assist the Spherewalker-Emissary from Emerald Savannah. Before she discovers something embarrassing or worse.