Playing The Serpent

 

The Serpent

That evening in Strangerside, Tom summoned and then played The Serpent. Its sound made it impossible for Percy three floors up in The Salt Mill to continue his efforts toward sleep. Percy through on a nightrobe and descended to the main floor where Tom was performing. Pahoeho forms a conga line, there is more drinking, and Percy, Tom, and Pahoehe retire late.

Percy sleeps surprisingly well, but our Spherewalkers have hangovers. Tom, Pahoeho, and Percy order the Strangerside equivalent of Bloody Marys with breakfast. Then they head to the Walker's Pyramid to see the sights, and learn what they can about this whole Year King thing.

The Walker's Pyramid is huge. The steps of this step pyramid are too large and far apart for a human, but there is a scaffolding on one side of the Walker's Pyramid that humans can climb.

Tom is a people watcher and takes an interest first in a dark skinned acrobat and dancer, whose routine includes tumbles off the side of the Walker's Pyramid, and conjuring coins behind kids' ears in the crowds that gather to watch him. He notices another dark skinned young man with lots of rings and an earcuff. He is holding an golden-eyed black cat, and curiously the young man has similar golden eyes.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/456552480981699946/

Using the Pisces Zodiac Force of his Star River magic, Tom channels a spirit cat to speak with the cat that the man carries. The cat's name is Whiskers. The young man's name is No Whiskers. The cat is from a faraway Sphere that reportedly no one from Everway has ever visited. 

What's Whisker's favorite realm? Merryflag, where humans delight in getting into bloody duels and vendettas over trivial slights. 

Where are the best fish? The realm of Shallowsea, where my human can wade out into the water with a trident or a net and catch a feast.

No Whiskers is his human.  Tom's spirit cat attempts to communicate with the human, but there isn't much Air there. What gives?

Pahoeho Sun finds this strange: he belongs to an Everwayan family and knows that there is no slavery in Everway. Well, maybe there is among recent immigrants in Strangerside; but any slave who sets foot within the city walls of Everway becomes a free person. 

The party observes a procession comin from the direction of the Council House and Palace down Walker's Way to the Pyramid. Bright Mask, the priest of Osiris that Pahoehoe chatted up on the golden barge performs a bridal ceremony. The young Year King, Younger Wood, is wed to a heavily scarred Emerald woman who is missing a left eye, but has an unusual eye glyph tattooed on the palm of her right hand. Is she a mystic? A sorceress? Her name is Righteye Emerald.

Next comes a visit to an office of the Sun family located near the west side of the Walker's Pyramid, and adjacent to the Gold family house. Pahoeho wants to collect his allowance, and fortunately, it's one of the uncles who likes him who is running the office that day. Uncle gives Pahoeho a string of cash. 

Local gossip that Uncle Three Sun shares: the Gold family (practically next door) is debating a name change to Jewell, or possibly to Jade. Pahoeho's uncle Three Sun speculates that the name change might invalidate some contracts that the Sun family has with the Gold family, which would be a great way to get out of some debt!

Pahoeho, Tom, and Percy ask Three Sun what he knows about the whole Year King situation. Uncle confirms that there hasn't been a Year King in Everway for hundreds or maybe thousands of years. The whole thing seems strange: one day, Great King Horizon Emerald is officiating at ceremonies, and the picture of health, and the next he is dead. Then, seemingly out of the blue, Year King project is pushed forward, and several rural Emeralds from the Emeraldcloak Forest of all places seem at the center of the project. For example, Righteye Emerald: who even heard of her before today. And the new Year King, who used to be Younger Wood (and now is supposedly Younger Emerald - for a year!) - he is from an obscure, unimportant offshoot of the Emerald family from the same area.

Three Sun shares his suspicion that all this has something to do with the trouble that Prince Woke, a recent arrival in Strangerside has been stirring up. He has been pointing to the refugee problem, the collapsing spheres, the stagnation of Everwayan culture, and the need for new leadership and civic renewal.  Three Sun has heard a lot about his so-called Woke Forum in Strangerside. This Righteye Emerald is no stranger there! Someone needs to look into this Prince Woke, Three Sun says.

Three Sun also asks which spheres Tom and Percy come from, and offers that the Sun family is always looking for local partners among the spheres, since the family business is leading pilgrims to shrines among the spheres.

The party agrees that maybe someone should look into this Prince Woke (maybe indeed, us!), and Pahoeho wishes his uncle well. They head out, but first let's get lunch. "No more fish, please" pleads Percy, and Pahoeho suggests pasta instead. He knows a second story pasta and tomato sauce place nearby, just the thing, a heavy filling pasta place that everybody who matters knows: The Red Brick. It's not far from the Sun business office so they go there. A good filling meal and wine, consumed in moderation.

The party was going to head to Strangerside next, and look for this Prince Woke. But Percy and Tom are still thinking about Whiskers and No Whiskers. What is Whiskers up to and where is he going?

Percy uses his Water Magic to search the city for a human with very low Air. The GM draws Failing to See the Diamond, Reversed, a propitious draw. Interpretation: Percy spots No Whiskers, just as Whiskers and No Whiskers pass through the wards at the entrance to the Library of All Worlds. They pass through the leftmost archway into the Library.

The party decides to head right there and figure out what Whiskers is doing.

Pecuniary Scratch is waiting for them right at the entrance. He demands an inducement in exchange for entry. 

Mosa Pijade (Self-Portrait)

Tom says he is at the Library to learn about Song. [You can almost feel the Platonic ideal form behind that capital "S".] Song, as in the mechanical vs. spiritual aspects of Song, as well as connections between Song and Magic.

Percy makes the practical offer with respect to inducements: knowledge about his Sphere, which appears to be unknown to the people of Everway. The party are welcomed into the Chamber of Welcoming Visitors from the Million Spheres [speculation here that its decor is as plunderous as that of the British Museum], and library staff bring out long rectangular Spherepath Scrolls which note details of individual spheres, and the gate connections between them.

Percy references knowing about Water Gates, which the Library's scribes and scholars dismiss with feigned disinterest (there is no credible record of gates tied to elements other than Earth!). Meanwhile, Pahoeho is browsing Library's gift shop, and about to get into trouble...

The Gold Menagerie

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/
highlight_objects/me/i/ivory_figurine.aspx

We're continuing our series of posts with details on Everway's family clanhouses. For this series, I am using Kevin Crawford's One Page tables for creating an Urban Palace and Building A Noble Clan from his forthcoming medieval Africa-inspired fantasy RPG, Spears of the Dawn.

As you enter the Gold family clanhouse, you will expect to see fine jewelry with gems and gold everywhere. And you won't be disappointed. But you will really be surprised by the number of ivory statuettes and figurines placed on little shelves and in small wall nooks throughout the Gold clanhouse.

The Gold family are gold-skinned Outsiders from another realm. In their original home, the Golds were known as exquisite metalworkers, specializing in gold jewelry. It is whispered that they were forbidden to work in ivory - the magic was to potent for any but a strong hunter or shaman.

So the Golds content themselves with buying finely carved art in ivory. The spirits in these items are so lifelike that they pray, talk, and dance for them.

Strangerside Scholar: The Dragon Trade

The Dragon Trade: This is no Mother of Dragons scenario. You'll find no fairy tale princess trudging with her hatchlings across the desert to the big City. The truck and barter in live Dragons is another Trade entirely. The Dragon Trade relates to currency, as well as to some special Dragon-derived commerce (more on this later).

If you have visited or live in Strangerside, you have seen quite a few different examples of currency from the many realms and spheres. And we all know that the Digger family maintains the official monopoly controlling the foreign currency exchange. Everway itself has three forms of currency: pea-sized copper beads, which can be put on a string, a silver coin called a "heft" (worth 24 beads), and a gold coin called a "heft" (worth 24 silver hefts). [You can consult the Playing Guide, p. 17 - Ed.] Of course, Everwayans also use paper forms of currency, such as promissory notes and debt tokens.

But what underlies a currency, and thus trade itself? What stands behind it? How does one currency relate to another?

We find our first clue by going to any of the markets of Everway. Goods (and currency) are weighed on scales. Indeed, an old name for coins is "scales". This vernacular of course alludes to dragons, who love coins, jewels, and other precious articles. These beloved things are what they collect and jealously guard in their vast hoards.

A rich man is said to "ride the dragon's back." Most currencies today - whether copper beads, silver, gold, jewels, paper, tokens, beautiful feathers, pieces of shell, or something else are also said to be dragon-backed. And it is widely recognized that even using gold coins does not secure the value of gold. What guarantees and secures the value of gold or any other currency is that it is dragon-backed. That is, the value of a currency is only truly universal and guaranteed when that currency is derived from a dragon's hoard. A dragon sat on it, rolled around on it, scratched its back on it. 

So it has been since this fiscal doctrine was first proclaimed by Luchre Scales, the ancient lender-priest of the ancient realm known as The Market, "the land where gold reigns supreme, and anything (and anyone) can be bought or sold" (Playing Guide, p. 25). Lenders are respected and sought after when they are dragon-backed. And as any adventurer will tell you, wealthy people's constant thirst to increase their dragon-backed holdings spurs a constant search for new treasure hoards.Merchants, lenders, sovereigns, and nobles hire out Spherewalkers to discover, uncover, and "recover" dragons' hoards in other realms so they can increase the portion of their wealth that is dragon-backed. Amassing ordinary gold is just never enough.

These folk keep their own dragon's hoards - sometimes several, and often in secret locations - in order to dragon-back their money. There is a whole industry devoted to proving the provenance of various dragon-backed treasuries, and another industry dedicated to building the secret and not-so-secret (but always well protected) vaults that store this treasure. In Everway, vault construction is an uneasy joint venture between the Digger, Stonebreaker, and Gold families...and the vault designers often have short lifelines.

Sometimes people who amass dragon-backed hoards turn into dragons, becoming as arrogant and foolish as those ancient creatures who declared war on the gods. A foolish king or queen  is often said to be "striking the dragon's tail". Great greed often leads to great folly. That is what led to the downfall of the Blue Khan, that terror of many realms now lost.

The Blue Khan's closest advisor was a Spherewalker named Scale Snakering. Posing as a traitor to Everway, Scale offered to lead the Blue Khan to Everway's supposedly hidden, dragon-backed treasury in the realm of Stone Cage. Scale Snakering led the Blue Khan and his army into the realm through a secret gate. Once he and his armies entered the vast empty chamber vault that is the realm of Stone Cage (Playing Guide, p. 27), Scale Snakering used powerful magics to seal the Blue Khan and his armies inside forever. Now even their bones are gone. A few scattered beads are all that remain inside this hollow tomb.

All of that being said, certain gadflies, such as Strangerside resident and self-proclaimed "Student of Kinship" Deft Grabber, have tried to debunk the notion that money's value derives from the dragon's hoard. Instead, he sees money as a form of reason itself. In his scroll-set called "That Which is Owed: the First Five Thousand Spheres", Grabber writes:

Money was no more "invented" than music or mathematics or jewelry. What we call "money" isn't a "thing" at all, it's a way of comparing things mathematically, as proportions: of saying one of X is equivalent to six of Y. As such it is probably as old as human thought.The moment we try to get any more specific, we discover that there are any number of different habits and practices that have converged on the stuff we now call "money", and this is precisely the reason why...[we] have found it so difficult to come up with a single definition" (p.52).

Deft Grabber hasn't been seen in a while, but you can find his scroll-set in the Library of All Worlds. Recently, it was moved from the Sphere Studies wing of the library and into the Numerology Section. It is stored in a cabinet that looks like this:

South East Asia Collection, University of Michigan Museum of Art
Photo c. 2012 John Everett Till