A day later edit:Gosh I am absolutely blown away by the positive feedback and kind messages I've received for this! You guys are awesome and I am so honoured to be able help out budding Boros players!I've had a few people ask for decklists- I'll need to update my TappedOut because they're out of date, but I'll add them here ASAP! This post is mostly for my own self-satisfaction, but also to see if I could partake my experiences of playing Boros for some other budding Boros players and help them avoid mistakes that I made. I haven't really thought about a way to set up this post, but I think I'll try and go through a few bits and pieces and vent on a lot of feelings, both positive and negative, I have with Boros.
Boros Commanders I have played over the years
[[Gisela, Blade of Goldnight]]
[[Tajic of the Legion]]
[[Aurelia, the Warleader]]
[[Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice]]
[[Firesong and Sunspeaker]]
[[Archangel Avacyn]]
[[Anya, Merciless Angel]]
Now, immediately one might look at those commander and think to yourself ... '90% of those are combat-based commanders'. And ... you would be right. Though I tried to differentiate and toss it up a bit through each commander. I moved through Angels, Soldier Tribal, Tokens, Voltron, Spellslinger, and - my favourite - 'Judgement Day' (Archangel Avacyn). So what did I learn about playing my favourite Guild? Well, there's a few things - and I think it's important to recognise that everyone's experiences will be different, but more importantly, your experiences will - 90% of the time - be dictated by the Meta and Power Level of your playgroup/online. So ... without further ado ... here are a few lessons I learned that I wish I knew at the beginning.
1. You need to embrace Land Destruction.
A wise person on this sub once said to me - "Boros is the most effective colour combination at destroying resources. Lands are an invaluable resource. Why would you sacrifice your greatest asset and handicap yourself just so you can be nice, when Boros is already the weakest guild?" I don't like blowing up lands. But all is fair in love and war. If you sit back and just let that Green player ramp unchallenged into an Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof combo, when your colour choice has more than enough tools to stop it, you only have yourself to blame. That isn't to say you have to play Armageddon. MLD should only be reserved for the end of a game. Instead, try to go for more ... controlled land destruction. One of my absolute favourites is [[From the Ashes]]. It punishes greedy multi-colour players, especially five colour players. I have a Jodah player in my meta, and I've grown tired of him casting things like Expropriate for just 5cmc. He wants to be greedy and play a bunch of dual lands? Punish him for being over-confident. That's what Boros does - punishes.
2. Play risky - accelerate without breaks.
This is more of a Red aspect, but I've found that I have greater success in the games that I am quick and throw caution to the wind. What do I mean by this? Well, you need to play cards like [[Howling Mine]] and [[Font of Mythos]]. Yes, making your opponents draw is risky, but by God you need card draw in Boros. You can't hold back. [[Humble Defector]] - play him. Thank me later. [[Ghriapur Orrery]] is an all-star and goes in all my Boros decks. This card is a monster. When I play Boros, I have a rule. If I have more than three cards in my hand, I'm not playing properly. I should always have a near-empty hand. Now, this is very much a unique to me thing, but I like to blow my load (no not in that way) as quickly as possible. Ghirapur lets you restock your hand after you're out of fuel. Theoretically, if you're playing Boros properly, you should be drawing three cards each upkeep. No one will want to destroy the Orrery because it lets them play 2 lands per turn. You're a glass cannon. You need to embrace that.
3. Removal, removal, removal.
White is the king of removal. Board-wipes, targeted removal, artifact and enchantment hate ... white is incredibly strong at this. Now, this varies depending on your meta, but I run more single-target removal than I do boardwipes. Sure, I run stables like [[Blasphemous Act]] and [[Austere Command]], but I find White has wonderful access to single-target removal such as the all-stars of StP and PtE, but it also has access to the most powerful artifact/enchantment hate - [[Return to Dust]]. This leads me onto my next point - choose exile removal every time. Do not run 'destroy artifact'. You are white. You have access to Exile. That Sol Ring needs to go permanently. That Helm of the Host must never see the light of day again. Oh, and - [[Rest in Peace]]. Run it. You need to sacrifice your own graveyard shenanigans to shut down those Sultai decks.
4. Don't underestimate small points of damage.
So you have a 2/2 on the field that can attack? You don't need to hold it back as a blocker? Swing. Don't ever pass up the chance to do damage. Running a [[Staff of Nin]]? Ping someone before your upkeep. Those little ticks of damage add up. It could mean the difference between killing a player and them surviving and winning the game.
5. One Neheb to rule them all.
[[Neheb, the Eternal]]. Sweet Christmas Neheb is quite possibly the best card WoTC has made for Boros in years. "He's Red though?" Yeah, but he is made for Boros. You need all the mana you can get so you can explode ASAP. Neheb is a powerhouse and goes in all my Boros decks. He has won me games with the sheer amount of mana he can produce. Protect him, cherish him, love him. He will show you the world ... shining shimmering splendour ...
Closing ...
Thank you for reading this splurge of my thoughts and advice with Boros. Now go out there and conquer your enemies! For the glory of the Legion ! For the glory of Aurelia! Now is your [[Chance for Glory]] !! No seriously, that's my favourite card in all of MTG.
I find the above sources to be very reliable for roster changes. However, do note that liquidpedia is a wiki, and can succumb to vandalism. Thus, any unsourced changes on liquidpedia won't be posted as confirmed here.
I decided not to maintain free agents lists in this topic, as then I have to make decisions about which free agents are notable and which aren't, and that just becomes a whole thing. So I will not maintain a list here.
Team Name/Sponsor Changes
Not roster changes, but listed here to avoid confusion if a team name changes
Gale Force Esports relinquished ownership to the quorum of remaining players, who rename as Team DJ
Tricked Esports relinquished ownership to Remmerballer, renamed to Monkey Menagerie
Roster Change Rules
As teams are now required to be owned by a single entity (does not have to be an individual, could be an LLC for example, but a single legal entity), roster changes are no longer capped. A team can literally replace all 5 players if they want to.
Roster Schedule
May 7 - May 14 - Roster release period - Players must be released in this window
May 15 - May 22 - Roster addition period - Free Agents may be added in this window
May 23 - May 24 - Roster approval period - Blizzard approves all roster changes for Phase 2
Note that despite these dates, the actual public statements may come later. Example, last season, Yoda played for Roll 20 at MSB, despite having been released from the team for Goku. This announcement wasn't made until after MSB. However, the actual roster change occurred in this window.
Player Sniping
A note that sniping, that is, contacting a player on another team directly to offer them a position on your team, is against HGC rules. However, Team Managers/Owners are allowed to contact other Managers/Owners to discuss trade or ask for permission to approach a player.
Rumor Mill
Here I will list unofficial, unconfirmed, or non-definitive posts related to roster changes. Posts are order oldest to newest based on when I received it:
May 7
Akaface TwitLonger - suggests Gale Force Esports is dropping sponsorship, and that Akaface and Fury are going to own and manage the team, possibly dropping the other three members
Nurok (currently Team Liquid) has been grinding supports in Hero League. MatchHistory - credit Simsala91
Quackniix vague tweeting. Could have nothing to do with HOTS. Could be a troll. Could be meaningful. I have no clue.
Mopsio on Facebook says he and ADRD (Adrian) are off of Zealots - unconfirmed by ADRD or Zealots. In the post Mopsio states that he and ADRD are looking for separate opportunities. A later post suggest ADRD was leaving for a "better position" (translated quote)
BadBenny twitch clips: clip #1 and clip #2. Says Breez is staying at tank, can't say more. Implies roster swaps now were worse than Blizzcon swaps. "Although I [BadBenny] might be a bit biased." In Clip #2 he says he's "probably going back to tank", implying he won't be on the same team as Breez. Likely BadBenny isn't on Fnatic after roster swaps if these comments are true.
May 8
Team Octalysis tweets at Merryday, who is an unretired free agent in Korea. Unlikely to mean anything, but enough people PM'd it to me to post it here. I'm pretty sure Merryday is only eligible in Korea.
Several individuals associated or formally associated with Gale Force Esports, including players and non-players, have claimed to have not been paid for March and April. Could spell trouble for the organization Full disclosure of my own biases, I once wrote for GFE, but agreed to never be paid for it as it was strictly a hobby. My reasons for leaving were not related to pay. However, my previous relationship with GFE should be disclosed here.
Akaface tweets - "The spot has been taken from Fury and I cannot go into details atm surrounding why or what took place." - Somewhat cryptic. I interpreted it as Fury was in ownership of GFE's spot in HGC, but that it has been taken from him. Akaface followed up by thanking GFE community and teammates Udall, BigE, and bkid. With everything going on with GFE, I still have no clue what this means for now, so waiting for more official announcements.
Fury confirms he does not own GFE's slot. With this news, I'm going forward on the assumption that Fury and Akaface are not on GFE's (or whatever they rename to) Phase 2 roster.
Arcaner whispering on Cris's stream this certainly seems like trolling. The timing is such that I'm like 99.9% sure it's just trolling. But hey, this is what the rumor mill feeds on. That and twitlongers.
Former GFE players posted a ton of stuff on twitter and at this point I just refuse to continue linking it on principle. And by principle I mean it's just too many links and I'm lazy. Organization confirmed leaving HGC, Bkid, Udall, and BigE confirmed to be on the new team with two more.
You can either post a tip in this thread or PM me. Post it as a new comment, not a follow-up comment, so it ends up in my inbox. However, all tips must have a link to something. I will not post anything that doesn't have at least some source.
Hey guys, Sunny Sen M.D. here with the first of two development diaries for the world’s greatest footwear peninsula. Today, I’d like to tell you a little bit about Fiume. The Italian Regency of Carnaro and Upper Dalmatia is the incubator of political Futurism and the starting point of the new revolution sweeping the globe. Influencing National Surrealist French Escadron de l’Futur, Yugoslav barbarian Zenitists and Russian futurists, many simply call the Regency “Fiume”, after its capital and center of activity. Its territories comprise several small portions of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, centered around the former corpus seperatum of Rijeka. In the initial peace settlements following the Great War, Rijeka was made a Free City as a solution to the border dispute between Yugoslavia and Italy. Gabriele D’Annunzio was shocked at the government’s capitulation of ancient Italian territory, and with several hundred armed followers he successfully took control of the city (called Fiume in Italian) and its environs.On 11 September 1919, the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio left Ronchi at the head of a handful of firebrands with the intention of occupying Fiume and annexing it to the Kingdom of Italy. D’Annunzio’s surprise operation was performed to great media effect, and for 16 months a spectacular “revolution party” was staged in the occupied city. Fiume became a little world of its own, a microcosm where radical dreams and aspirations were given an unprecedented chance to be lived out and experimented with. Socialists tried to establish 'soldiers' soviets' as in Germany: syndicalists and anarchists organised producers' networks following Proudhon's example; Utopian life-models were practiced in an atmosphere of free-wheeling individualism and extravagant self-expression.The Futurist idea of Life as Art and Art as Life never found a more concrete realisation: 'Today reigns Poetry', declared Mario Carli, and 'the old antithesis of Life and Dreams has finally been overcome.' Umberto Carpi has described Fiume in 1920 as a 'place where the highest concentration of a specifically bourgeois and intellectual subversiveness' could be found and 'transgression of norms and mass practice of rebellion' was an organised everyday occurrence. Under the exceptional circumstances of the City State under siege, the common constraints of civil law were suspended.Groups of revolutionary intellectuals managed to assume control over the city and created a political culture, where spontaneous expression of beliefs replaced the tedious procedures of parliamentary democracy. Artistic fantasy and energy gave birth to a new 'aesthetics' of communal life, where the fusion of political and artistic avant-garde movements became a reality. A festive lifestyle replaced conventional social behaviour.Transgression of moral and sexual conventions were widely accepted, including nudism, homosexuality and the liberation of women from the shackles of marriage and family life. New and picturesque dress codes were invented. There was the never-ending cycle of dances, concerts, banquets, theatre performances, games, torchlight processions, cortèges, etc. There reigned, as one participant wrote in his memoirs, 'an atmosphere of a perpetual quatorze juillet'.Fiume is an experience that foreshadowed a new socio-political order, a “bubbling magma of moods, conceptions of life, aspirations towards renewal, between idealism, utopia, anarchy and festive vitalism, a response to the apprehensions and malaise of a generation that had experienced war and considered themselves to be different from their fathers’ generation in terms of how they conceived of life, human and social relations, and the organization of power.”Fiume survived initially thanks to the support of the Italian public for D’Annunzio and his patriotic efforts. After consolidating the region around the city, D’Annunzio and his followers (now joined by the Arditi, the most elite units of the Italian Army) occupied Istria and Trentino. The Italian government initially planned to eject the revolutionaries by force, but following the Hungarian Revolution and the increasing chaos in the Balkans, they decided that a highly energetic buffer in the east might not be such a bad idea. The Italian government struck a deal with D’Anunnzio, giving him de facto control over conquered territories while de jure it will be autonomous state under Italy. When Yugoslavia had a revolution of its own, D’Anunzio seized the initiative and annexed upper Dalmatia to the Regency to great public acclaim. For 26 years, D’Annunzio has presided over a unique country on the world stage. Though majority Italian and fiercely nationalistic, Fiume boasts a number of minorities to whom it extends full equality of rights and freedoms. Its constitution is democratic, corporatist, and localist. Communal governments deal with day-to-day affairs, while the central legislature, representing both local populations and workers’ bodies (corporations) handled overall affairs. An executive council (Consiglio degli Otimi) theoretically presides over the Regency, but real power has remained in the hands of the country’s founder since 1919.In 1936, everything is proceeding as usual. The vibrant life of the country rages on, and though the Slump and developments in the Balkans are beginning to cause some concern, none doubt that the Comandante and his advisors will soon solve both problems with little fuss. In the meantime, the public awaits the yearly Arengo (meeting of both legislative houses), the 15th in the history of Fiume. For the first year, the player will settle comfortably into the role of leader of the birthplace of the new revolution. Flavor events abound as the government lazily dreams up innovative solutions to current problems between wild parties and exciting plays. 1936 will pass in a blur of pleasure and inspiration, with the proceedings of the Arengo almost imperceptible in the background. 1937 brings a bit more tension to the mix. It is clear to all that D’Annunzio’s age is finally catching up to him, and various factions are maneuvering to secure power in his absence. The 16th Arengo opens in an atmosphere of concern and uncertainty, until D’Annunzio’s health seems to be improving. The meetings proceed with their usual mixture of vigorous enthusiasm and laissez-faire scheduling. Until--- Disaster! The Consiglio meets immediately. The factions are each demanding their candidates, and we have no choice but to elect one of them and give them emergency powers to restore order. But who? Three players have made their bids for power clear: a theorist, an aviator, and a warrior.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, father of Italian futurism, man of action, and maybe one to be blamed for rise of futurism in Europe, on 6 September 1919, Marinetti made his way to Fiume, dressed in the uniform of a Volunteer. He was warmly greeted by d’Annunzio and fêted in the streets by legionnaires. Together with Vecchi and Carli they organized some Futurist events; but Marinetti was equally active in political rallies and gained access to the top brass in the military command of the city. His judgment on the officers who surrounded d’Annunzio was not exactly complimentary: «They are nearly all monarchists and passéists, who do not want to understand or admit that their gesture has been a revolutionary one. They declare that they are not involved in politics! Some probably have regrets and want everything to find a quick and good ending, so that it will not inconvenience their career and they will get His Majesty’s approval!!!» Full of revolutionary spirit, Marinetti will focus on implementing what he demanded in Futurist manifesto:to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness, to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist. The Italian people will hit the pedal to the floor and ride this fast car known as Fiume, only riding into the mystical garden of the future. To sing about the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit, What is the use of looking behind when the Italian people must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. Fiume is already living in the absolute, since futurists have already created eternal, omnipresent speed. Futurists want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill!
No mere mod dev’s description can do Guido Keller justice, so take a look at this description we cynically copied from reakt.org: “Guido Keller, aviator, aesthete and man of action, instigator of lightning strikes, piratical feats and sensational japes, and follower of the health/naturist movement, as well as disdainer of uniforms and bourgeois clothes, is the only one of the young legionnaires present in Fiume allowed to use the familiar ‘tu’ form of address with D’Annunzio.Keller prepared for and animated the Fiume undertaking with his genial enthusiasm for hatching plans. With his acute, penetrating, witty, pensive spirit, he possessed the Futurist talent for demolition and mockery. He knew the frenzy of action and the superior calm of the purely cerebral. As an imaginative, bantering character, he loved life, and took pleasure from playing with things and people, and inventing paradoxical entertainments. He is known for carrying out reconnaissance missions in his fighter plane, dressed in his pyjamas. Bruno recalls sees him on a few occasions, after a risky flight, lying under a tree completely naked, engrossed in a newspaper or book. On board his plane there is always a little tea set, and flowers, cigarettes and tins of biscuits: it is a genuine flying drawing room.On 14 November 1920 on board a single-seater SVA, he flew over Rome to drop three “messages” to the Vatican, the Quirinal and Montecitorio respectively, with the aim of furthering the Fiume cause.: ‘Having reached my destination I offered red roses to Frate Francesco at the Vatican, over the Quirinal I dropped more red roses for the Queen and the People, as a love token. On Montecitorio I threw an enamelled iron utensil attached to a strip of red cloth, with some turnips tied to the handle and a message: Guido Keller – Action in Splendour Wing – gives to Parliament and the Government that has been ruling on lies and fear for some time, a tangible allegory of their worth. Rome, 14th of the third month of the Regency.’ The tangible allegory naturally referred to the «enamelled iron utensil» an object for intimate use which is no longer in fashion today.”In 1936, Guido Keller leads ‘’Yoga" , a group of the most daring, intelligent and modernist men in the Fiume . This association plans and carries out bold feats, and pledged support for the futurist revolution and the nationalist movements worldwide. He is seen as the most likely il Duce of Fiume, and he will aspire to keep city of dreams as it was created, decadatist-futurist utopia of freedom, vitality, action and speed. Ulike Marinetti, he will not try to impose specific futurist dogma, allowing various cults, groups, madmen and revolutionaries to have absolute freedom in Fiume. Keller formed a company to guard D’Annunzio, a company that he called «La Disperata». Many soldiers who had come from Italy to volunteer were without papers and had not been accepted by the Command. Instead of leaving they were camped out in the town’s big shipyards. When he went to see what they were doing there, Keller found some of them naked diving from the prows of the moored ships, others attempting to manoeuvre the old locomotives that used to run between Fiume and Budapest, and others perched up on cranes, singing. He found them to be high-spirited and jolly, and he gathered them for inspection: they were all proud, handsome men, and he declared that they were the finest soldiers in Fiume. He mustered these soldiers, known to all as the ‘desperados’ in view of their situation, and offered them to D’Annunzio as personal guards. This move scandalized superior officials, but the Poet accepted the offer. With the creation of this company, Keller began to put his ideas for a new military order into practice. These new soldiers spent most of the day swimming or rowing, or singing and marching through the city, bare-chested and dressed in shorts. They were not obliged to stay in the barracks, and in the evening they frequented a deserted area called La torretta, where they split into two groups and did battle with real hand grenades, often leading to injury.The presence of a number of morally dubious elements did not sully the company’s reputation, but rather gave it the crepuscular flavour of a group despised by the wise and the mediocre, and this was its greatest source of pride.Today, Desperados are backbone of Keller’s support and he will seek to implement his futurist-vitalist ideas in Fiume and make material preparations . With his new military order of free spirits, vital heroes who laugh in the face of danger, Keller can prepare Fiume for its final strike, spreading this wild energy of danger, true freedom and romantic excess to the whole of the glorious Italian fatherland. In the process he will recruit Italian naval captains to his side, use the remaining blackshirts to destabilize the weak liberal fools, and outfit a great aerial armada to crush the senile parliamentarians from the skies.
[Spoiler] Calus Pt. II; The Leviathan and the coming of the Darkness
Alright so firstly, just want to thank everyone for the discussion, feedback and generally positive reception you guys gave my Calus: Cabal Emperor lore summary. It wasn't without some mistakes and assumptions, but you all seemed to like it. So here's my follow up, with more information on what Calus is up to now, the Leviathan, and most importantly, the Darkness. Spoiler Alert this time I will be going into spoilers for:
Story - Ending & Post-Credits Cutscene
Adventures - Nessus: A Message From The Emperor
Exotic Quest - On The Comms. (Aka "The World Eater" quest)
Lore - Symmetry Flight (Exotic Ship), Eye of Another World (Warlock Helmet), Sins of the Past (Item Unknown) and It Stared Back (Item Unknown)
Limited Edition Booklet - Intro & Epilogue
Now, everyone's been buzzing about this Leviathan for quite some time, and there's a good reason for that. It's a planet-eater. Despite how impossibly massive the Dreadnought might have been, Calus' Leviathan is many times larger, with a gaping maw that can devour planetoids whole for their minerals, presumably as sustenance or fuel for itself. And the Cabal's next target is the Unstable Centaur drifting at the Sol System's edge, Nessus. By coincidence, our resident Lore-master My-Name-is-Byf did a video on this subject right as I was starting this write-up, so I'll link it here given that he came to a lot of the same conclusions as I did. But for those of you who are either trapped at your jobs (My condolences), on mobile, or just prefer reading to video, I'll summarise my (and his) points anyway. Our first warning of imenant danger comes in the form of an exotic quest that, as of the time of writing, cannot be completed. This quest unlocks at Level 20, and an item will drop into the players' power slot upon killing high-ranking Cabal in any location. The item is called "On the Comms" and requires you to kill 5 more high-ranking Cabal on Nessus to retrieve their comm fragments. Doing this will unlock the next stage of the quest, wherein we are given this message:
The decrypted communications indidate something is coming. Look for the arrival of the "World-Eater".
This is our first clue about the Leviathan's path to Nessus. The next is far less cryptic, and comes in the form of the Nessus Adventure "A Message from the Emperor." Here is a complete transcript of the dialogue from the Adventure. I'd recommend playing it yourself if you want to really dig into this, or watch the aforementioned video.
Cayde-6: "Hey you two. My scouts picked up a wierd Cabal signal coming from a ship that's definitely not Red Legion. Some new guy giving orders. He's got the Red Legion running around like errand boys on Nessus. Last time the Cabal had a management shakeup, they burned down our house. Let's see what they're up to. Bring guns. Ghost: "Well we always have at least three."
Your next objective is to enter a set of Vex ruins, where you'll encounter a Cabal recon team leaving terminals about the place to gather Data from the Vex network. They aren't regular Red Legion however, these ones are marked as "7th Company." Clearing them out and examining the three terminals reveals some clues about what they're up to, and why. First Terminal:
Ghost: "The Legion is pulling schematics of Nessus itself from the Confluxes! Atmospheric, geologic and tectonic data... They want it all. I'm not sure why."
Second Terminal:
Ghost: "Okay, this might explain it. Let's see... The Legion is helping their unnamed leader identify mineral-rich deposits on Nessus for... consumption? Well, that can't be right."
Third Terminal:
Ghost: "Okay I'm going to read this and you pretend like I understand. The Cabal want to grind Nessus into 'Glorious dust, fit for royalty.' It's more environmental data. Just some logistical planning so they can prime their ship to... "eat the planet"... This new Cabal leader might have a few screws loose. I mean, they don't have a ship THAT big! ... Do they?"
Ghost transmits the data stolen from the Cabal back to Cayde, however the mysterious figure guiding the 7th Company has something to say about all this.
Ghost: "Transmitting now. Cayde! I'm picking up a planet-wide broadcast. "Red Legion 7th Company has failed to secure Vex data. Their invitation to join the Loyalist regime is hereby rescinded." Ghost: "There's more. "The rest of you still have a chance to prove yourselves. I offer you a life of... opulence?" " Cayde-6: "Opulence? Oh, I could go for some opulence right now."
"Opulence" is another word for luxery or splendour, which fits with what we know of Calus so far. A man devoted to gluttony and decadence. Meanwhile, the Adventure story progresses, as accessing a nearby Vex Conflux allows our Ghost and Guardian to find out more about what data the Cabal were digging for in the Vex network.
Ghost: "I'm in! This gets weirder... they've analysed the planetoid soil and what might happen if it's combined with something called "Royal Nectar." One more cluster." Ghost: "Great work! Both Confluxes linked! just keep them away while ... read this recipe for converting Nessus soil into a purified "Royal Wine". What are the Cabal doing?
Once you've repelled them from the Confluxes and put an end to the 7th Company's attempts at redeeming themselves in the eyes of their leader, things wrap up with the revelation of who exactly is behind all this (as if we didn't already know.)
Cayde-6: "They're gonna be so mad, I love it!" Ghost: "Serves them right! Let's get this to the Vanguard before I have to defrag. The legion wanted every byte of data the Vex have on Nessus."
Ghost: "All I ask is you return to my loving embrace." Ew. "Emperor Calus has spoken." Cayde-6: "Whoa. Wait. Emperor? As in Cabal Emperor? OK, opulence later. Ikora now. Ikora! Uh, great job today, guys." Ghost: "Boy he left in a hurry. I wonder what that was about?"
So, this much we know. Ghaul's leadership is not absolute, as there are factions of the Red Legion- such as this 7th Company, who were loyal to Calus' rule rather than that of the Dominus, and wanted to return to the fold. Calus instructed them to gather data from the Vex, to learn every possible facet of data about Nessus, to prime it for consumption by the Leviathan. My thinking is that Calus is so devoted to his life of luxery and excess that he needs entire worlds to be strip-mined down to the last pebble just to fuel his insatiable appetites. The Limited Edition booklet's introduction pages make reference to how far he'll go for the sake of his vanity and indulgences.
I have pulverized moons into beautiful rings of ruin! I have snuffed out the stars to improve the harmony of the constellations! Think of the monuments I can make for you."
In Destiny, we were told the Cabal blow up planets and moons just for getting in their way. Calus, in his sloth and excess, is worse. He will destroy stars and moons just to make the view from his flagship a little prettier. And Nessus is the Leviathan's next meal, he'll have it stripped down to fuel his further wealth and self-serving pleasures, its raw materials used to build gaudy statues and monuments, the soil turned into wine that he can binge upon for as long as he likes. Until he grows weary of it and needs another world to provide a new "flavour" to his celebrations. But there is a slightly more pressing matter, one I've not seen brought up yet. The Leviathan is coming to Nessus, this we cannot deny. But what concerns me is where it's already been. When the Traveller exploded open and sent its light blossoming across the cosmos, the light reached all the way to the edge. To where something was waiting, and has now turned its attention our way. Those strange pryamidal things... are they the Darkness itself? Someone else in the lore has warned us of these ominous shapes. From Eye of Another World:(Exotic Warlock Helmet)
When the universe conspires, its enemies cannot hide. Say again? You ask, are we alone here? You mean to ask if we are the only good that lives in the light of our sun, do you not? You mean to ask, do we have allies? Do we have distant allies, ignoring our plight, either too weak to fight or too afraid to show their faces? I, too, have been cursed by these questions. What if I told you that eons beyond the void lie worlds that do yearn to aid in our struggle? What if I told you there is a way to grant them passage into your mind, to let them guide your eye against our one true enemy? That they have told me that the dusk of the pyramid draws nigh? Would you believe me? Fool!
Right now, we simply don't know much about the Darkness, as it seems to be a thing that does not want to be known. Or at least, cannot be understood as we know it. Ulan-Tan, the founding figurehead of the Thanatonauts posited that it was a force of nature, a simple "equal and opposite reaction" to the light, to keep the universe in symmetry. From Symmetry Flight(Exotic Ship)
"To have Light, we must have Dark. This is the symmetry of the Universe." —Controversial Warlock Ulan-Tan I propose a simple experiment—look around. You see light. You see darkness. There could not be one without the other. They are two sides of the same coin. If it is true for these Newtonian echoes, why would it not be true of the purest, paracausal forms? Therefore, I conclude: the reason you persecute me is not because of the symmetry. It's because of the truth beyond this truth, the truth which you most dread: if we could destroy darkness, but we had to give up our Light to do so, how many of us would make that trade?
This might seem like a tangeant, but stick with me, I'm going somewhere with this. It is my belief that Calus, in his exile aboard the Leviathan, drifted further than anyone has before him, to the edge of the universe itself. And what he found there was the same shadowy threat that has us in its sights. From the Limited Edition Booklet epilogue pages:
I will gather the mighty to protect my empire, an empire of hard-working scientists and clever engineers. Where this war, legions of my citizen-soldiers will bring peace. Where this hurt, my armada of golden ships will bring hope. And when greater powers intrude on my domain, I will greet them as their sovereign. For in my exile, I have plumbed the secret places of the cosmos. Even my grand Cabal is only a single tooth in the great jaws of time. The universe is strange beyond reckoning, and dangerous beyond courage. I have voyaged beyond the the edge of reason into the dominion of cold screams. I have seen our future written in the ruins of ancient fortress worlds. I have gathered up the moon-sized bones that tumble on the precipice of ancient singularities and I have tossed them to scry our fate. When everything has been taken from you, nothing remains to you. And when you roar into nothing, nothing sometimes answers.
This might sound like the insane ramblings of a man mourning all that he has lost. But there are lore cards for (currently) undiscovered items that go deeper into this line of thought. With some terrifying ramifications. From Sins of the Past:(Unknown Exotic/Item)
What once was old shall be knew again, and history will have its revenge. I weep for what the Cabal have become—a war machine forged in Ghaul's own image. His obsession with the ideal form has produced a hollow people devoid of culture, robbed of their history. The Leviathan is now home to the last of us true Cabal. We will remember the old ways, for I am the wellspring from which our great civilization flows. And when my empire returns, the traitors will see us as through a dark mirror. We will be a terrifying reminder of their former selves. In that moment, they will feel the shame of their betrayal. They will know I have come for my revenge. The Red Legion will not escape the sins of their past. They shall be consumed by them.
At the edge of the universe, I stared into the infinite deep. It stared back, and was pleased. I would become the herald of its victory, and bear witness for all creation. The Leviathan came to a halt before a wall of infinite void. It could go no further, as the navigation system had suffered a cataclysmic failure. The course that the conspirators had set crossed a space that simply didn't exist. I don't know how long we traveled. Years? Millennia? Time had ceased to have meaning as I wallowed in the despair of my exile. But this event shook me out of my stupor. At the edge of the universe, we had found something. No—we had found a nothing. From the seat of my observation chamber, I stared into the perfect void. Only I, a god, could understand what I witnessed. It was a thing greater than myself. And if such a thing exists, then I, too, can become more.
This isn't the first time we've heard the term "Deep" used in connection with a thing of Darkness. When Oryx communed with the Darkness, he called it the Deep too. Calus found this infinite deep at the edge of the universe itself, which is exactly where those strange pyramid-vessels foreshadowed so many years ago in old concept art dating all the way back to D1's beta, seemed to be lurking. While we have fought minions of the dark, gods empowered by it and their offspring, what Calus found at the universe's edge was true Darkness, in its purest form. The Traveller's explosion of light has caught its attention once more. The Darkness is coming for us, and Calus is leading the way aboard his Leviathan. He sees himself as a herald of the Darkness now, wanting to bring its power to the cosmos and be the champion of its victory. So I suspect when we board the Leviathan, we'll see more than just ordinary Cabal. Ghaul tried to steal the Light for himself. Calus, has embraced the Dark. Thanks for sticking with me throughout this long, long bit of writing, I hope you've liked what you read :)
Some OG semi-autobiographical Gambling fiction from Dostoyevsky 1867. Roulette, but still Relevant.
The Gambler was published in 1867, and tells the tale of a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian General. The novel reflects Dostoyevsky’s own addiction to roulette, which was in more ways than one the inspiration for the book: Dostoyevsky completed the novel under a strict deadline so he could pay off gambling debts.” Excerpt From Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Translated by C. J. Hogarth CHAPTER II I confess I did not like it. Although I had made up my mind to play, I felt averse to doing so on behalf of some one else. In fact, it almost upset my balance, and I entered the gaming rooms with an angry feeling at my heart. At first glance the scene irritated me. Never at any time have I been able to bear the flunkeyishness which one meets in the Press of the world at large, but more especially in that of Russia, where, almost every evening, journalists write on two subjects in particular namely, on the splendour and luxury of the casinos to be found in the Rhenish towns, and on the heaps of gold which are daily to be seen lying on their tables. Those journalists are not paid for doing so: they write thus merely out of a spirit of disinterested complaisance. For there is nothing splendid about the establishments in question; and, not only are there no heaps of gold to be seen lying on their tables, but also there is very little money to be seen at all. Of course, during the season, some madman or another may make his appearance — generally an Englishman, or an Asiatic, or a Turk — and (as had happened during the summer of which I write) win or lose a great deal; but, as regards the rest of the crowd, it plays only for petty gulden, and seldom does much wealth figure on the board. When, on the present occasion, I entered the gaming-rooms (for the first time in my life), it was several moments before I could even make up my mind to play. For one thing, the crowd oppressed me. Had I been playing for myself, I think I should have left at once, and never have embarked upon gambling at all, for I could feel my heart beginning to beat, and my heart was anything but cold-blooded. Also, I knew, I had long ago made up my mind, that never should I depart from Roulettenberg until some radical, some final, change had taken place in my fortunes. Thus, it must and would be. However ridiculous it may seem to you that I was expecting to win at roulette, I look upon the generally accepted opinion concerning the folly and the grossness of hoping to win at gambling as a thing even more absurd. For why is gambling a whit worse than any other method of acquiring money? How, for instance, is it worse than trade? True, out of a hundred persons, only one can win; yet what business is that of yours or of mine? At all events, I confined myself at first simply to looking on, and decided to attempt nothing serious. Indeed, I felt that, if I began to do anything at all, I should do it in an absent-minded, haphazard sort of way — of that I felt certain. Also, it behoved me to learn the game itself; since, despite a thousand descriptions of roulette which I had read with ceaseless avidity, I knew nothing of its rules, and had never even seen it played. In the first place, everything about it seemed to me so foul — so morally mean and foul. Yet I am not speaking of the hungry, restless folk who, by scores nay, even by hundreds — could be seen crowded around the gaming-tables. For in a desire to win quickly and to win much I can see nothing sordid; I have always applauded the opinion of a certain dead “and gone, but cocksure, moralist who replied to the excuse that “one may always gamble moderately”, by saying that to do so makes things worse, since, in that case, the profits too will always be moderate. Insignificant profits and sumptuous profits do not stand on the same footing. No, it is all a matter of proportion. What may seem a small sum to a Rothschild may seem a large sum to me, and it is not the fault of stakes or of winnings that everywhere men can be found winning, can be found depriving their fellows of something, just as they do at roulette. As to the question whether stakes and winnings are, in themselves, immoral is another question altogether, and I wish to express no opinion upon it. Yet the very fact that I was full of a strong desire to win caused this gambling for gain, in spite of its attendant squalor, to contain, if you will, something intimate, something sympathetic, to my eyes: for it is always pleasant to see men dispensing with ceremony, and acting naturally, and in an unbuttoned mood.... Yet, why should I so deceive myself? I could see that the whole thing was a vain and unreasoning pursuit; and what, at the first glance, seemed to me the ugliest feature in this mob of roulette players was their respect for their occupation — the seriousness, and even the humility, with which they stood around the gaming tables. Moreover, I had always drawn sharp distinctions between a game which is de mauvais genre and a game which is permissible to a decent man. In fact, there are two sorts of gaming — namely, the game of the gentleman and the game of the plebs — the game for gain, and the game of the herd. Herein, as said, I draw sharp distinctions. Yet how essentially base are the distinctions! For instance, a gentleman may stake, say, five or ten louis d’or — seldom more, unless he is a very rich man, when he may stake, say, a thousand francs; but, he must do this simply for the love of the game itself — simply for sport, simply in order to observe the process of winning or of losing, and, above all things, as a man who remains quite uninterested in the possibility of his issuing a winner. If he wins, he will be at liberty, perhaps, to give vent to a laugh, or to pass a remark on the circumstance to a bystander, or to stake again, or to double his stake; but, even this he must do solely out of curiosity, and for the pleasure of watching the play of chances and of calculations, and not because of any vulgar desire to win. In a word, he must look upon the gaming-table, upon roulette, and upon trente et quarante, as mere relaxations which have been arranged solely for his amusement. Of the existence of the lures and gains upon which the bank is founded and maintained he must profess to have not an inkling. Best of all, he ought to imagine his fellow-gamblers and the rest of the mob which stands trembling over a coin to be equally rich and gentlemanly with himself, and playing solely for recreation and pleasure. This complete ignorance of the realities, this innocent view of mankind, is what, in my opinion, constitutes the truly aristocratic. For instance, I have seen even fond mothers so far indulge their guileless, elegant daughters — misses of fifteen or sixteen — as to give them a few gold coins and teach them how to play; and though the young ladies may have won or have lost, they have invariably laughed, and departed as though they were well pleased. In the same way, I saw our General once approach the table in a stolid, important manner. A lacquey darted to offer him a chair, but the General did not even notice him. Slowly he took out his money bags, and slowly extracted 300 francs in gold, which he staked on the black, and won. Yet he did not take up his winnings — he left them there on the table. Again the black turned up, and again he did not gather in what he had won; and when, in the third round, the RED turned up he lost, at a stroke, 1200 francs. Yet even then he rose with a smile, and thus preserved his reputation; yet I knew that his money bags must be chafing his heart, as well as that, had the stake been twice or thrice as much again, he would still have restrained himself from venting his disappointment. On the other hand, I saw a Frenchman first win, and then lose, 30,000 francs cheerfully, and without a murmur. Yes; even if a gentleman should lose his whole substance, he must never give way to annoyance. Money must be so subservient to gentility as never to be worth a thought. Of course, the SUPREMELY aristocratic thing is to be entirely oblivious of the mire of rabble, with its setting; but sometimes a reverse course may be aristocratic to remark, to scan, and even to gape at, the mob (for preference, through a lorgnette), even as though one were taking the crowd and its squalor for a sort of raree show which had been organised specially for a gentleman’s diversion. Though one may be squeezed by the crowd, one must look as though one were fully assured of being the observer — of having neither part nor lot with the observed. At the same time, to stare fixedly about one is unbecoming; for that, again, is ungentlemanly, seeing that no spectacle is worth an open stare — are no spectacles in the world which merit from a gentleman too pronounced an inspection. However, to me personally the scene DID seem to be worth undisguised contemplation — more especially in view of the fact that I had come there not only to look at, but also to number myself sincerely and wholeheartedly with, the mob. As for my secret moral views, I had no room for them amongst my actual, practical opinions. Let that stand as written: I am writing only to relieve my conscience. Yet let me say also this: that from the first I have been consistent in having an intense aversion to any trial of my acts and thoughts by a moral standard. Another standard altogether has directed my life.... As a matter of fact, the mob was playing in exceedingly foul fashion. Indeed, I have an idea that sheer robbery was going on around that gaming-table. The croupiers who sat at the two ends of it had not only to watch the stakes, but also to calculate the game — an immense amount of work for two men! As for the crowd itself — well, it consisted mostly of Frenchmen. Yet I was not then taking notes merely in order to be able to give you a description of roulette, but in order to get my bearings as to my behaviour when I myself should begin to play. For example, I noticed that nothing was common than for another’s hand to stretch out and grab one’s winnings whenever one had won. Then there would arise a dispute, and frequently an uproar; and it would be a case of “I beg of you to prove, and to produce witnesses to the fact, that the stake is yours.” At first the proceedings were pure Greek to me. I could only divine and distinguish that stakes were hazarded on numbers, on “odd” or “even,” and on colours. Polina’s money I decided to risk, that evening, only to the amount of 100 gulden. The thought that I was not going to play for myself quite unnerved me. It was an unpleasant sensation, and I tried hard to banish it. I had a feeling that, once I had begun to play for Polina, I should wreck my own fortunes. Also, I wonder if any one has EVER approached a gaming-table without falling an immediate prey to superstition? I began by pulling out fifty gulden, and staking them on “even.” The wheel spun and stopped at 13. I had lost! With a feeling like a sick qualm, as though I would like to make my way out of the crowd and go home, I staked another fifty gulden — this time on the red. The red turned up. Next time I staked the 100 gulden just where they lay — and again the red turned up. Again I staked the whole sum, and again the red turned up. Clutching my 400 gulden, I placed 200 of them on twelve figures, to see what would come of it. The result was that the croupier paid me out three times my total stake! Thus from 100 gulden my store had grown to 800! Upon that such a curious, such an inexplicable, unwonted feeling overcame me that I decided to depart. Always the thought kept recurring to me that if I had been playing for myself alone I should never have had such luck. Once more I staked the whole 800 gulden on the “even.” The wheel stopped at 4. I was paid out another 800 gulden, and, snatching up my pile of 1600, departed in search of Polina Alexandrovna. “I found the whole party walking in the park, and was able to get an interview with her only after supper. This time the Frenchman was absent from the meal, and the General seemed to be in a more expansive vein. Among other things, he thought it necessary to remind me that he would be sorry to see me playing at the gaming-tables. In his opinion, such conduct would greatly compromise him — especially if I were to lose much. “And even if you were to WIN much I should be compromised,” he added in a meaning sort of way. “Of course I have no RIGHT to order your actions, but you yourself will agree that...” As usual, he did not finish his sentence. I answered drily that I had very little money in my possession, and that, consequently, I was hardly in a position to indulge in any conspicuous play, even if I did gamble. At last, when ascending to my own room, I succeeded in handing Polina her winnings, and told her that, next time, I should not play for her. “Why not?” she asked excitedly. “Because I wish to play FOR MYSELF,” I replied with a “I replied with a feigned glance of astonishment. “That is my sole reason.” “Then are you so certain that your roulette-playing will get us out of our difficulties?” she inquired with a quizzical smile. I said very seriously, “Yes,” and then added: “Possibly my certainty about winning may seem to you ridiculous; yet, pray leave me in peace.” Nonetheless she insisted that I ought to go halves with her in the day’s winnings, and offered me 800 gulden on condition that henceforth, I gambled only on those terms; but I refused to do so, once and for all — stating, as my reason, that I found myself unable to play on behalf of any one else, “I am not unwilling so to do,” I added, “but in all probability I should lose.” “Well, absurd though it be, I place great hopes on your playing of roulette,” she remarked musingly; “wherefore, you ought to play as my partner and on equal shares; wherefore, of course, you will do as I wish.” Then she left me without listening to any further protests on my part.”
By Thomas Mann Translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter The term he had set for his holiday passed by unheeded; he had no thought of going home. Ample funds had been sent him. His sole concern was that the Polish family might leave, and a chance question put to the hotel barber elicited the information that they had come only very shortly before himself. The sun browned his face and hands, the invigorating salty air heightened his emotional energies. Heretofore he had been wont to give out at once, in some new effort, the powers accumulated by sleep or food or out- door air; but now the strength that flowed in upon him with each day of sun and sea and idleness he let go up in one extravagant gush of emotional intoxication. His sleep was fitful; the priceless, equable days were divided one from the next by brief nights filled with happy unrest. He went, indeed, early to bed, for at nine o'clock, with the departure of Tadzio from the scene, the day was over for him. But in the faint greyness of the morning a tender pang would go through him as his heart was minded of its adventure; he could no longer bear his pillow and, rising, would wrap himself against the early chill and sit down by the window to await the sunrise. Awe of the miracle filled his soul new-risen from its sleep; Heaven, earth, and its waters yet lay enfolded in the ghostly, glassy pallor of dawn; one paling star still swam in the shadowy vast. But there came a breath, a winged word from far and inaccessible abodes, that Eos was rising from the side of her spouse; and there was that first sweet reddening of the farthest strip of sea and sky that manifests creation to man's sense. She neared, the goddess, ravisher of youth, who stole away Cleitos and Cephalus and, defying all the envious Olympians, tasted beautiful Orion's love. At the world's edge be- gan a strewing of roses, a shining and a blooming ineffably pure; baby cloudlets hung illumined, like attendant amoretti, in the blue and blushful haze; purple effulgence fell upon the sea, that seemed to heave it forward on its welling waves; from horizon to zenith went great quivering thrusts like golden lances, the gleam became a glare; without a sound, with godlike violence, glow and glare and rolling flames streamed upwards, and with flying hoof-beats the steeds of the sun-god mounted the sky. The lonely watcher sat, the splendour of the god shone on him, he closed his eyes and let the glory kiss his lids. Forgotten feelings, precious pangs of his youth, quenching long since by he stern service that had been his life and now returned so strangely metamorphosed——he recog- nized them with a puzzled, wondering smile. He mused, he dreamed, his lips slowly shaped a name; still smiling, his face turned seawards and his hands lying folded in his lap, h fell asleep once more as he sat. But that day, which began so fierily and festally, was not like other days; it was transmuted and gilded with mythical signifi- cance. For whence could come the breath, so mild and meaning- ful, like a whisper from higher spheres, that played about temple and ear? Troops of small feathery white clouds ranged over the sky, like grazing herds of the gods. A stronger wind arose, and Poseidon's horses ran up, arching their manes, among them too the steers of him with the purpled locks, who lowered their horns and bellowed as they came on; while like prancing goats the waves on the farther strand leaped among the craggy rocks. It was a world possessed, peopled by Pan, that closed round the spell- bound man, and his doting heart conceived the most delicate fancies. When the sun was going down behind Venice, he would sometimes sit on a bench in the park and watch Tadzio, white- clad, with gay-coloured sash, at play there on the rolled gravel with his ball; and at such times it was not Tadzio whom he saw, nut Hyacinthus, doomed to die because two gods were rivals for his love. Ah, ye, he tasted the envious pangs that Zephyr knew when his rival, bow and cithara, oracle and all forgot, played with the beautiful youth; he watched the discus, guided by torturing jealousy, strike the beloved head; paled as he received the broken body in his arms, and saw the flower spring up, watered by that sweet blood and signed forevermore with his lament. There can be no relation more strange, more critical, than that between two beings who know each other only with their eyes, who meet daily, yes, even hourly, eye each other with a fixed regard, and yet by some whim or freak of convention feel con- strained to act like strangers. Uneasiness rules between them, un- slaked curiosity, a hysterical desire to give rein to their suppressed impulse to recognize and address each other; even, actually, a sort of strained but mutual regard. For one human being instinctively feels respect and love for another human being so long as he does not know him well enough to judge him; and that he does not, the craving he feels is evidence. Some sort of relation and acquaintanceship was perforce set up between Aschenbach and the youthful Tadzio; it was with a thrill of joy the older man perceived that the lad was not entirely un- responsive to all the tender notice lavished on him. For instance, what should move the lovely youth, nowadays when he descended to the beach, always to avoid the board walk behind the bathing- huts and saunter along the sand, passing Aschenbach's tent in front, sometimes so unnecessarily close as almost to graze his table or chair? Could the power of an emotion so beyond his own so draw, so fascinate its innocent object? Daily Aschenbach would wait for Tadzio. Then sometimes, on his approach, he would pre- tend to be preoccupied and let the charmer pass unregarded by. But sometimes he looked up, and their glances met; when that happened both were profoundly serious. The elder's dignified and cultured mien let nothing appear of his inward state; but in tad- zio's eyes a question lay——he faltered in his step, gazed on the ground, then up again with that ineffably sweet look he had; and when he was past, something in his bearing seemed to say that only good breeding hindered him from turning round. But once, one evening, it fell out differently. The Polish brother and sisters, with their governess, had missed the evening meal, and Aschenbach had noted the fact with concern. He was restive over their absence, and after dinner walked up and down in front of the hotel, in evening dress and a straw hat; when suddenly he saw the nunlike sisters with their companion appear in the light of the arc-lamps, and four paces behind them Tadzio. Evidently they came from the steamer-landing, having dined for some rea- son in Venice. It had been chilly on the lagoon, for Tadzio wore a dark-blue reefer-jacket with gilt buttons, and a cap to match. Sun and sea air could not burn his skin, it was the same creamy marble hue as at first——though he did look a little pale, either from the cold or in the bluish moonlight of the arc-lamps. The shapely brows were so delicately drawn, the eyes so deeply dark——lovelier he was than words could say, and as often the thought visited Aschenbach, and brought its own pang, that language could but extol, not reproduce, the beauties of the sense. The sight of that dear form was unexpected, it had appeared unhoped-for, without giving him time to compose his features. Joy, surprise, and admiration might have painted themselves quite openly upon his face——and just at this second it happened that Tadzio smiled. Smiled at Aschenbach, unabashed and friendly, a speaking, winning, captivating, smile, with slowly parting lips. With such a smile it might be that Narcissus bent over the mirror- ing pool, a smile profound, infatuated, lingering, as he put out his arms to the reflection of his own beauty; the lips just slightly pursed, perhaps half-realizing his own folly in trying to kiss the cold lips of his shadow——with a mingling of coquetry and curi- osity and a faint unease, enthralling and enthralled. Aschenbach received that smile and turned away with it as though entrusted with a fatal gift. So shaken was he that he had to flee from the lighted terrace and front gardens and seek out with hurried steps the darkness of the park at the rear. Reproaches strangely mixed of tenderness and remonstrance burst from him: "How dare you smile like that! No one is allowed to smile like that!" He flung himself on a bench, his composure gone to the winds, and breathed in the nocturnal fragrance of the garden. He leaned back, with hanging arms, quivering from head to foot, and quite unmanned he whispered the hackneyed phrase of love and longing——impossible in these circumstances, absurd, abject, ridic- ulous enough, yet sacred too, and not unworthy of honour even here: "I love you!" In the fourth week of his stay on the Lido, Gustave von Achenbach made certain singular observations touching the world about him. He noticed, in the first place, that though the season was approaching its height, yet the number of guests de- clined and, in particular, that the German tongue had suffered a rout, being scarcely or never heard in the land. At table and on the beach he caught nothing but foreign words. One day at the barber's——where he was now a frequent visitor——he heard some- thing rather startling. The barber mentioned a German family who had just left the Lido after a brief stay, and rattled on in his obsequious way: "The signore is not leaving——he has no fear of the sickness, has he?" Aschenbach looked at him. "The sick ness?" he repeated. Whereat the prattler fell silent, became very busy all at once, affected not to hear. When Aschenbach persisted he said he really knew nothing at all about it, and tried in a fresh burst of eloquence to drown the embarrassing subject. That was one forenoon. After luncheon Aschenbach had him- self ferried across to Venice, in a dead calm, under a burning sun; driven by his mania, he was following the Polish young folk, whom he had seen with their companion, taking the way to the landing-stage. He did not find his idol on the Piazza. But as he sat there at tea, at a little round table on the shady side, suddenly he noticed a peculiar odour, which, it seemed to him now, had been in the air for days without his being aware: a sweetish, medicinal smell, associated with wounds and disease and suspect cleanliness. He sniffed and pondered and at length recognized it; finished his tea and left the square at the end facing the the cathedral. In the nar- row space the stench grew stronger. At the street corners placards were stuck up, in which the city authorities warned the popula- tion against the danger of certain infections of the gastric system, prevalent during the heated season; advising them not to eat oysters or other shell-fish and not to use the canal waters. The ordinance showed every sign of minimizing an existing situation. Little groups of people stood about silently in the squares and on the bridges; the traveller moved among them, watched and lis- tened and thought. He spoke to a shopkeeper lounging at his door among dangling coral necklaces and trinkets of artificial amethyst, and asked him about the disagreeable odour. The man looked at him, heavy- eyed, and hastily pulled himself together. "Just a formal precau- tion, signore," he said, with a gesture. "A police regulation we have to put up with. The air is sultry——the sirocco is not whole- some, as the signore knows. Just a precautionary measure, you understand——probably unnecessary. . . ." Aschenbach thanked him and passed on. And on the boat that bore him back to the Lido he smelt the germicide again. On reaching his hotel he sought the table in the lobby and buried himself in the newspapers. The foreign-language sheets had nothing. But in the German papers certain rumours were men- tioned, statistics given, then officially denied, then the good faith of the denials called in question. The departure of the German and Austrian contingent was thus made plain. As for other na- tional, they knew or suspected nothing——they were still undis- turbed. Aschenbach tossed the newspapers back on the table. "It ought to be kept quiet," he thought, aroused. "It should not be talked about." And he felt in his hear a curious elation at these events impending in the world about him. Passion is like crime: it does not thrive on the established order and the common round; it welcomes every blow dealt the bourgeois structure, every weak- ening of the social fabric, because therein it feels a sure hope of its own advantage. These things that were going on in the unclean alleys of Venice, under cover of an official hushing-up policy—— they gave Aschenbach a dark satisfaction. The city's evil secret mingled with the one in the depths of his heart——and he would have staked all he possessed to keep it, since in his infatuation he cared for nothing but to keep Tadzio here, and owned to himself, not without horror, that he could not exist were the lad to pass from his sight. He was no longer satisfied now to owe his communion with his charmer to chance and the routine of hotel life; he had begun to follow and waylay him. On Sundays, for example, the Polish family never appeared on the beach. Aschenbach guessed they went to mass at San Marco and pursued them thither. He passed from the glare of the Piazza into the golden twilight of the holy place and found him he sought bowed in worship over a prie-dieu. He kept in the background, standing on the fissured mosaic pave- ment among the devout populace, that knelt and muttered and made the sign of the cross; and the crowded splendour of the oriental temple weighed voluptuously on his sense. A heavily ornate priest intoned and gesticulated before the altar, where little candle-flames flickered helplessly in the reek of incense-breathing smoke; and with that cloying sacrificial smell another seemed to mingle——the odour of the sickened city. But through all the glamour and glitter Aschenbach saw the exquisite creature there in front turn his head, seek out and meet his lover's eye. The crowd streamed out through the portals into the brilliant square thick with fluttering doves, and the fond fool stood aside in the vestibule on the watch. He saw the Polish family leave the church. The children took ceremonial leave of their mother, and she turned towards the Piazzetta on her way home, while his charmer and the cloistered sisters, with their governess, passed be- neath the clock tower into the Merceria. When they were a few paces on, he followed——he stole behind them on their walk through the city. When they paused, he did so too; when they turned round, he fled into inns and courtyards to let them pass. Once he lost them from view, hunted feverishly over bridges and in filthy culs-de-sac, only to confront them suddenly in a narrow passage whence there was no escape, and experience a moment of panic fear. Yet it would be untrue to say he suffered. Mind and heart were drunk with passion, his footsteps guided by the dæ- monic power whose pastime is to trample on human reason and dignity. Tadzio and his sisters at length took a gondola. Aschenbach hid behind a portico or fountain while they embarked, and directly they pushed off did the same. In a furtive whisper he told the boat- man he would tip him well to follow at a little distance the other gondola, just rounding the corner, and fairly sickened at the man's quick, sly grasp and ready acceptance of the go-between's rôle. Leaning back among soft, black cushions he swayed gently in the wake of the other black-snouted bark, to which the strength of his passion chained him. Sometimes it passed from his view, and then he was assailed by an anguish of unrest. But his guide appeared to have long practice in affairs like these; always, by dint of short cuts or deft manœuvres, he contrived to overtake the coveted sight. The air was heavy and foul, the sun burnt down through a slate-coloured haze. Water slapped gurgling against wood and stone. The gondolier's city, half warning, half salute, was answered with singular accord from far within the silence of the labyrinth. They passed little gardens, high up the crum- bling wall, hung with clustering white and purple flowers that sent down an odour of almonds. Moorish lattices showed shadowy in the gloom. The marble steps of a church descended into the canal, and on them a beggar squatted, displaying his misery to view, showing the whites of his eyes, holding out his hat for alms. Farther on a dealer of antiques cringed before his lair, inviting the passer-by to enter and be duped. Yes, this was Venice, this the fair frailty that fawned and that betrayed, half fairy-tale, half snare; the city in whose stagnating air the art of painting once put forth so lusty a growth, and where musicians were moved to ac- cords so weirdly lulling and lascivious. Our adventurer felt his senses wooed by this voluptuousness of sight and sound, tasted his secret knowledge that the city sickened and hid its sickness for love of gain, and bent an ever more unbridled leer on the gon- dola that glided on before him. It came at last to this——that his frenzy left him capacity for nothing else but to pursue his flame; to dream of him absent, to lavish, loverlike, endearing terms on his mere shadow. He was alone, he was a foreigner, he was sunk deep in this belated bliss of his——all which enabled him to pass unblushing through experi- ences well-nigh unbelievable. One night, returning late from Venice, he paused by his beloved's chamber door in the second storey, leaned his head against the panel, and remained there long, in utter drunkenness, powerless to tear himself away, blind to the danger of being caught in so mad an attitude. And yet there were not wholly lacking moments when he paused and reflected, when in consternation he asked himself what pat was this on which he had set his foot. Like most other men of parts and attainments, he had an aristocratic interest in his for- bears, and when he achieved a success he liked to think he had gratified them, compelled their admiration and regard. He thought of them now, involved as he was in this illicit adventure, seized of these exotic excesses of feeling; thought of their stern self- command and decent manliness, and gave a melancholy smile. What would they have said? What, indeed, would they have said to his entire life, that varied to the point of degeneracy from theirs? This life in the bonds of art, had not he himself, in the days of his youth and in the very spirit of those bourgeois forefathers, pronounced mocking judgment upon it? And yet, at bottom, it had been so like their own! It had been a service, and he a sol- dier, like some of them; and art was war——a grilling, exhausting struggle that nowadays wore one out before one could grow old. It had been a life of self-conquest, a life against odds, dour, stead- fast, abstinent; he had made it symbolical of the kind of over- strained heroism the time admired, and he was entitled to call it manly, even courageous. He wondered if such a life might not be somehow specially pleasing in the eyes of the god who had him in his power. For Eros had received most countenance among the most valiant nations——yes, were we not told that in their cities prowess made him flourish exceedingly? And many heroes of olden time had willingly borne his yoke, not counting any hu- miliation such if it happened by the god's decree; vows, prostra- tions, self-abasements, these were no source of shame to the lover; rather they reaped him praise and honour. Thus did the man's folly condition his thoughts; thus did he seek to hold his dignity upright in his own eyes. And all the while he kept doggedly on the traces of the disreputable secret the city kept hidden at its heart, just as he kept his own——and all that he learned fed his passion with vague, lawless hopes. He turned over newspapers at cafés, bent on finding a report on the progress of the disease; and in the German sheets, which had ceased to appear on the hotel table, he found a series of contradic- tory statements. The deaths, it was variously asserted, ran to twenty, to forty, to a hundred or more; yet in the next day's issue the existence of the pestilence was, if not roundly denied, re- ported as a matter of a few sporadic cases such as might be brought into a seaport town. After that the warning would break out again, and the protests against the unscrupulous game the authorities were playing. No definite information was to be had. And yet our solitary felt he had a sort of first claim on a share in the unwholesome secret; he took a fantastic satisfaction in put- ting leading questions to such persons as were interested to con- ceal it, and forcing them to explicit untruths by way of denial. One day he attacked the manager, that small, soft-stepping man in the French frock-coat, who was moving about among the guests at luncheon, supervising the service and making himself socially agreeable. He paused at Aschenbach's table to exchange a greeting, and the guest put a question, with a negligent, casual air: "Why in the world are they forever disinfecting the city of Venice?" "A police regulation," the adroit one replied; "a pre- cautionary measure, intended to protect the health of the public during this unseasonably warm and sultry weather." "very praiseworthy of the police," Aschenbach gravely responded. After a further exchange of meteorological commonplaces the manager passed on. It happened that a band of street musicians came to preform in the hotel gardens that evening after dinner. They grouped themselves beneath an iron stanchion supporting an arc-light, two women and two men, and turned their faces, that shone white in the glare, up towards the guests who sat on the hotel terrace en- joying this popular entertainment along with their coffee and iced drinks. The hotel lift-boys, waiters, and office staff stood in the doorway and listened; the Russian family displayed the usual Rus- sian absorption in their enjoyment——they had their chairs put down into the garden to be nearer the singers and sat there in a half-circle with gratitude painted on their features, the old serf in her turban erect behind their chairs. These strolling players were adepts at mandolin, guitar, har- monica, even compassing a reedy violin. Vocal numbers alternated with instrumental, the younger woman, who had a high shrill voice, joining in a love-duet with the sweetly falsettoing tenor. The actual head of the company, however, and incontestably its most gifted member, was the other man, who played the guitar. He was a sort of baritone buffo; with no voice to speak of, but possessed of a pantomimic gift and remarkable burlesque élan. Often he stepped out of the group and advanced towards the terrace, guitar in hand, and his audience rewarded his sallies with bursts of laughter. The Russians in their parterre seats were be- side themselves with delight over this display of southern vivacity; their shouts and screams of applause encouraged him to bolder and bolder flights. Aschenbach sat near the balustrade, a glass of pomegranate-juice and soda-water sparkling ruby-red before him, with which he now and then moistened his lips. His nerves drank in thirstily the un- lovely sounds, the vulgar and sentimental tunes, for passion para- lyses good taste and makes its victim accept with rapture what a man in his senses would either laugh at or turn from with disgust. Idly he sat and watched the antics of the buffoon with his face set in a fixed and painful smile, while inwardly his whole being was rigid with the intensity of the regard he bent on Tadzio, leaning over the railing six paces off. He lounged there, in the white belted suit he sometimes wore at dinner, in all his innate, inevitable grace, with his left arm on the balustrade, his legs crossed, his right hand on the supporting hip; and looked down on the strolling singers with an expression that was hardly a smile, but rather a distant curiosity and polite toleration. Now and then he straightened himself and with a charming movement of both arms drew down his white blouse through his leather belt, throwing out his chest. And sometimes ——Aschenbach saw it with triumph, with horror, and a sense that his reason was tottering——the lad would cast a glance, that might be slow and cautious, or might be sudden and swift, as though to take him by surprise, to the place where his lover sat. Aschenbach did not meet the glance. An ignoble caution made him keep his eyes in leash. For in the rear of the terrace sat Tadzio's mother and governess; and matters had gone so far that he feared to make himself conspicuous. Several times, on the beach, in the hotel lobby, on the Piazza, he had seen, with a stealing numbness, that they called Tadzio away from his neighborhood. And his pride revolted at the affront, even while conscience told him it was deserved. The performer below presently began a solo, with guitar ac- companiment, a street song in several stanzas, just then the rage all over Italy. He delivered it in a striking and dramatic recitative, and his company joined in the refrain. He was a man of slight build, with a thin, undernourished face; his shabby felt hat rested on the back of his neck, a great mop of red hair sticking out in front; and he stood there on the gravel in advance of his troupe, in an impudent, swaggering posture, twanging the strings of his instrument and flinging a witty and rollicking recitative up to the terrace, while the veins in his forehead swelled with the vio- lence of his effort. He was scarcely a Venetian type, belonging rather to the race of Neapolitan jesters, half bully, half comedian, brutal, blustering, an unpleasant customer, and entertaining to the last degree. The words of his song were trivial and silly, but on his lips, accompanied with gestures of head, hands, arms, and body, with leers and winks and the loose play of the tongue in the corner of his mouth, they took on meaning; an equivocal meaning, yet vaguely offensive. He wore a white sport shirt with a suit of ordinary clothes, and a strikingly large and naked-looking Adam's apple rose out of the open collar. From that pale, snub- nosed face it was hard to judge of his age; vice sat on it, it was furrowed with grimacing, and two deep wrinkles of defiance and self-will, almost of desperation, stood oddly between the red brows, above the grinning, mobile mouth. But what more than all drew upon him the profound scrutiny of our solitary watcher was that this suspicious figure seemed to carry with it its own suspicious odour. For whenever the refrain occurred and the singer, with waving arms and antic gestures, passed in his gro- tesque march immediately beneath Aschenbach's seat, a strong smell of carbolic was wafted up to the terrace. After the song he began to take up money, beginning with the Russian family, who gave liberally, and then mounting the steps to the terrace. But here he became as cringing as he had before been forward. He glided between the tables, bowing and scraping, showing his strong white teeth in a servile smile, though the two deep furrows on the brow were still very marked. His audience looked at the strange creature as he went about his collective liveli- hood, and their curiosity was not unmixed with disfavour. They tossed coins with their finger tips into his hat and took care not to touch it. Let the enjoyment be never so great, a sort of embarrass- ment always comes when the comedian oversteps the physical dis- tance between himself and respectable people. This man felt it and sought to make his peace by fawning. He came along the railing to Aschnbach, and with him cam that smell no one else seemed to notice. "Listen!" said the solitary, in a low voice, almost mechanically; "they are disinfecting Venice——why?" The mountebank an- swered hoarsely: "Because of the police. Orders, signor. On ac- count of the heat and the sirocco. The sirocco is oppressive. Not good for the health." He spoke as though surprised that anyone could ask, and with the flat of his hand he demonstrated how oppressive the sirocco was. "So there is no plague in Venice?" Aschenbach asked the question between his teeth, very low. The man's expressive face fell, he put on a look of comical innocence. "A plague? What sort of plague? Is the sirocco a plague? Or perhaps our police are a plague! You are making fun of us, signore! A plague! Why should there be? The police make regulations on account of the heat and the weather. . . ." He gestured. "Quite," said Aschenbach, once more, soft and low; and dropping an un- duly large coin into the man's hat dismissed him with a sign. He bowed very low and left. But he had not reached the steps when two of the hotel servants flung themselves on him and began to whisper, their faces close to his. He shrugged, seemed to be giving assurances, to be swearing he had said nothing. It was not hard to guess the import of his words. They let him go at last and he went back into the garden, where he conferred briefly with his troupe and then stepped forward for a farewell song. It was one Aschenbach had never to his knowledge heard be- fore, a rowdy air, with words in impossible dialect. It had a laughing-refrain in which the other three artists joined at the top of their lungs. The refrain had neither words nor accompaniment, it was nothing but rhythmical, modulated, natural laughter, which the soloist in particular knew how to render with most deceptive realism. Now that he was farther off his audience, his self-assurance had come back, and this laughter of his rang with a mocking note. He would be overtaken, before he reached the end of the last line of each stanza; he would catch his breath, lay his hand over his mouth, his voice would quaver and his shoulders shake, he would lose power to contain himself longer. Just at the right moment each time, it came whooping, bawling, crashing out of him, with a verisimilitude that never failed to set his audience off in profuse and unpremeditated mirth that seemed to add gusto to his own. He bent his knees, he clapped his thigh, he held his sides, he looked ripe for bursting. He no longer laughed, but yelled, pointing his finger at the company there above as though there could be in all the world nothing so comic as they; until at last they laughed in hotel, terrace, and garden, down to the waiters, lift-boys, and servants——laughed as though possessed. Aschenbach could no longer rest in his chair, he sat poised for flight. But the combined effect of the laughing, the hospital odour in his nostrils, and the nearness of the beloved was to hold him in a spell; he felt unable to stir. Under cover of the general commo- tion he looked across at Tadzio and saw that the lovely boy re- turned his gaze with a seriousness that seemed the copy of his own; the general hilarity, it seemed to say, had no power over him, he kept aloof. The grey-haired man was overpowered, di- armed by this docile, childlike deference; with difficulty he re- frained from hiding his face in his hands. Tadzio's habit, too, of drawing himself up and taking a deep sighing breath struck him as being due to an oppression of the chest. "He is sickly, he will never live to grow up," he thought once again, with that dispas- sionate vision to which his madness of desire sometimes so strangely gave way. And compassion struggled with the reckless exultation of his heart. The players, meanwhile, had finished and gone; their leader bowing and scraping, kissing his hands and adorning his leave- taking with antics that grew madder with the applause they evoked. After all the others were outside, he pretended to run backwards full tilt against a lamp-post and slunk to the gate ap- parently doubled over with pain. But there he threw off his buf- foon's mask, stood erect, with an elastic straightening of his whole figure, ran out his tongue impudently at the guests on the terrace, and vanished in the night. The company dispersed. Tadzio had long since left the balustrade. But he, the lonely man, sat for long, to the waiters' great annoyance, before the dregs of pomegranate- juice in his glass. Time passed, the night went on. Long ago, in his parental home, he had watched the sand filter through an hour- glass——he could still see, as though it stood before him, the fragile pregnant little toy. Soundless and fine the rust-red streamlet ran through the narrow neck, and made, as it declined in the upper cavity, an exquisite little vortex. The very next afternoon the solitary took another step in pur- suit of his fixed policy of baiting the outer world. This time he had all possible success. He went, that is, into the English travel bureau in the Piazza, changed some money at the desk, and posing as the suspicious foreigner, put his fateful question. The clerk was a tweed-clad young Britisher, with his eyes set close together, his hair parted in the middle, and radiating that steady reliability which makes his like so strange a phenomenon in the gamin, agile- witted south. He began: "No ground for alarm, sir. A mere formality. Quite regular in view of the the unhealthy climatic condi- tions." But then, looking up, he chanced to meet with his own blues eyes the stranger's weary, melancholy gaze, fixed on his face. The Englishman coloured. He continued in a lower voice, rather confused: "At least, that is the official explanation, which they see fit to stick to. I may tell you there's a bit more to it than that." And then, in his good, straightforward way, he told the truth.
From Thomas Mann: Stories of Three Decades, Translated from the German by H. T. Lowe-Porter. Copyright, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, 1936, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. The Modern Library edition, Random House, Inc. pp. 415—427. https://old.reddit.com/copenhagendenmark
The Gateway to Heaven [part 9] (links to other parts included)
(Click here for: Part 1 ; Part 2 ; Part 3 ; Part 4 ; Part 5 ; Part 6 ; Part 7 ; Part 8) ... ‘Expired?’ it was the winged man who spoke. I had been trying to mouth the word but I seemed to have lost my voice. ‘Yes, expired,’ said the gnome to the guardian. ‘Funny thing, too, it only expired about six minutes ago. If Mr Baltimore had taken things a bit more seriously, showed proper responsibility and arrived here on time, he would already be walking up to Paradise Planet!’ ‘Six minutes is nothing,’ I blurted out, my voice seeming to have come back out of nowhere, ‘it’s not expired, I tell you, it’s not! It’s not! No!’ The gnome gave me a serious look, and coughed politely. ‘We have policies and rules set in place for a reason, Mr Baltimore. You can’t just expect us to let you in on an expired letter.’ ‘Oh!’ I said, eyeing them both ruefully. I was prepared to kill them and barge through the gates if I had to. ‘Then where would I go?’ They exchanged glances. ‘Well…’ said the winged guardian, ‘… you probably won’t like the answer to that.’ ‘Yes,’ said the gnome, ‘try not to get too angry.’ I stared at them in silence. ‘You would have to go back to hell,’ the humanoid with the golden club said. My expression didn’t change and I only continued to stare. ‘Don’t get angry!’ said the guardian quickly, ‘it would be better for all concerned if you didn’t get angry; if you just did the reasonable thing, and walked calmly back to the sewer-hole and climbed down into it, we would appreciate it.’ My expression remained as still as stone. The wires in my head were turning… in my mind the following word kept repeating itself: kill, kill, kill, kill… ‘But,’ added the gnome, after having sat thoughtfully for a while, ‘perhaps in your case we can make a special exception.’ For the first time my face moved; I raised my eyebrows. ‘Why don’t you just go back and ask the secretary you met before if he can write you up another letter? You would have to remember your one hundred good deeds all over again of course, but if you tell him I sent you back with my personal recommendation that he allows you another chance, it should be alright.’ ‘So now you want me to go back, do you?’ I asked him. ‘There’s not really any other way around it,’ said the gnome. ‘You should be grateful. It’s not strictly protocol, and so we’re actually doing you a favour, here.’ ‘A favour huh?’ I repeated, my voice at this point a high-pitched kind of squeal. ‘Oh, and on the way back would you mind washing that dung off your clothes?’ asked the gnome. ‘Paradise is a classy place after all, and you smell terrible.’ That was the last straw. I flipped over the desk. ‘DAMN YOU!’ I screamed at him. There was a pause in which I was breathing heavily. I couldn’t take it. ‘This again,’ said the gnome. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Mr Baltimore.’ ‘Hmm… anger…’ said the winged guardian. ‘One of the-’ ‘Yes, I know!’ I screamed, ‘one of the surest signs of evil!’ and then I leapt at him, tore the golden club from his hands, and began to pummel him. ‘Stop!’ he cried, shielding his face; ‘stop! Stop!’ I cast the club aside, snatched up my letter, and dashed through the Gates of Jasper, and beyond it were the Platinum Steps, a staircase without rails that reached upwards into a low cloud. ‘You’re not allowed to do that!’ the gnome’s voice called after me, ‘get back here!’ I didn’t listen. I didn’t care. I bounded up those glorious, silvery steps, leaving dark footprints, left the grass and the hills and the gnome and winged guardian below, and with my heart quite literally in the clouds, sprinted into that cloud, into which the staircase became absorbed. Yes, here was paradise! No more letters; no more pointless bureaucracy; no more underground labyrinths and monsters and danger; from here on it would be smooth sailing. Golf! Space ships! Champagne! Mansions! Everything someone could ever want or dream of and more! Finally I would be getting what I truly deserved! As I entered the cloud into which the stairs went I was surrounded by a wondrous white light, a sea of shining splendour; I let out a cry of heavenly laughter, and then… I was falling… I struck something heavy, and found myself lying back on the grass again. I saw the stairs above me, and the cloud above me, and the Gate of Jasper, when I looked, was just behind me: what had happened? I noticed that I couldn’t see the other end of the staircase reaching out of the cloud… it just went into the cloud and then disappeared. I bounded around to the other side of the Jasper Gate, where the gnome-like man and the winged humanoid had remained standing. ‘Don’t go up there!’ the gnome warned again. ‘You’re not allowed!’ cried the winged guardian. I ignored them. Again, up I went, but this time as I entered the cloud which concealed my surroundings from view, I went down carefully on my hands and knees, and crawled forwards, feeling the steps. I felt them one by one, and then my hand reached into empty space. The staircase, its end concealed by the cloud, led to nowhere. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ I called down to them. ‘This staircase doesn’t go anywhere! I want to be let in to heaven, right this instant! I want my holidays, and my gold, and my space ships, and everything else! I want the whole package!’ ‘Mr Baltimore,’ the gnome called up, ‘this has gone on for long enough. We may as well just tell you. Zazibzab doesn’t actually have a paradise-planet. The reason you can’t go to heaven is because there’s no heaven for you to go to.’ ‘What?’ I crawled out of the cloud and looked down at him from the steps. ‘What are you talking about? Everyone who has a hundred deeds or more gets to go!’ ‘No,’ said the gnome. He and the winged guardian looked at each other. The winged guardian looked down as if feeling a bit embarrassed and the gnome himself was blushing. ‘Mr Baltimore, that’s just a ruse. You see we’re actors. We’re here to pretend to be able to let people into heaven, but something always prevents them getting there. Sometimes an imp steals their letter. Sometimes they’re required to think of a number of good deeds so high that we know they will fail to think of them, which gives an excuse to not let them in. Sometimes we don’t even bother go through the routine and this man here’ (beckoning to the winged humanoid) ‘just hits them on the head with his club as soon as they show up and are still dazed from having awoken from the mortal world. No one ever really gets in, because, well, there’s no heaven to get in to.’ I looked down at him blankly. ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘Of course it does,’ replied the gnome. ‘You see, Zazibzab did try to make a paradise a long time ago, but it proved too difficult. Everyone had different expectations; sometimes they weren’t happy with whatever it was they got. I mean can you imagine trying to fulfil every single whim of so many people? Even for a god that’s tough and unforgiving work.’ I stared down at the gnome as he continued talking, and the winged guardian beside him remained quiet, looking a little embarrassed. ‘Anyway, in the end,’ the gnome said, ‘he just decided that what with everyone’s different expectations the whole paradise idea was just too difficult. He asked some of his advisers what to do about it, and they said: “Well, why not just send everyone to hell instead?” ’ ‘Yes,’ the winged guardian chipped in, ‘that way, you know, there are no more complaints. Or if there are complaints, he doesn’t have to listen to them.’ Aghast, I could only stare at them. My mouth opened and shut a few times before I managed to say, ‘But… but… but… why all this? Why the tricks? Why make people believe he had a paradise waiting for them?’ ‘Well,’ said the gnome, ‘the thing about that is, and this is just between you and me, you understand; Zazibzab was a bit embarrassed that a great god like him couldn’t create a heaven that satisfied everyone. What would humans think of him? So, whenever mortals die he pretends that he’s made a paradise, and that they might have been able to enter it if they were just a bit better, but that they’re not quite good enough. That way he saves himself embarrassment by keeping up appearances and also gets to keep the respect of mortals.’ ‘Respect!?’ I cried. ‘…Respect? There is an entire tree of people, an entire TREE of them, in hell who have been cursing him day and night for thousands of years! Does he even know!? How is that having respect!? How does someone actually wake up one day and say to themselves: “Gee, I KNOW HOW TO GET RESPECT, WHY NOT JUST SEND EVERYONE TO HELL FOR NO REASON! YES, THAT’LL SOLVE EVERYTHING!” ’ ‘Well, umm…’ the gnome fell short. I was breathing heavily now, crouched on the silvery stairs, a hunched, grey, ragged creature, with the cloud behind me, and my legs behind me and my arms facing the two figures below. ‘I guess when you put it that way,’ the winged guardian chipped in after a few moments of silence, ‘it does seem a bit… misguided…’ ‘Pfft!’ I had thrown my arms up and waved my head and pulled a funny face again. Like before, I had now become unable to express my disgust and incredulity in proper words. I might have said: “Misguided! Is that what you call it? Misguided? How about downright insane!?” and yet, the words failing to come, I just said ‘Pfft!’ again. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing… ‘Look, I know you’re probably not feeling too happy,’ said the winged guardian, ‘But, to be fair on Zazibzab, he’s nowhere near as bad as you seem to think. Originally he sent everyone to paradise. Absolutely everyone. It was only after he got sick of it that he planted the tree there…’ ‘The Tree? The Tree… of… Abagad?’ ‘Yes,’ said the guardian. ‘That’s the one.’ ‘Are you… telling me…’ I choked out the words, ‘that hell used to be paradise?’ ‘Right,’ said the guardian. ‘That planet with the Tree of Abagad on it… that used to be the paradise-world. Then, when he planted the seed and the tree began to grow, all of the other plant life, and all the animal life came to an end, as Abagad drained the paradise-world of its life force.’ ‘And you think… that is supposed to make… Zazibzab… look… better!?’ The winged guardian opened his mouth to respond and shut it again. ‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘It sounded better in my head…’ he finished lamely. There was another short silence, now, in which I began to comprehend where this left me. No heaven meant that my entire family was in hell; all my ancestors were in hell; all my friends, those that were still living, as well as their descendants, would be going to hell; all my enemies were in hell… And I must end up going back to hell. Yet almost before this thought had finished forming itself an idea struck me. I stood up and came down the stairs quickly, directing my question at the gnome. ‘What about the original inhabitants of paradise?’ I asked him. ‘I spoke to the Tree of Abagad! I was told that the people in the tree were mortals who had died and gone there before the fruits fell, before the Corrupt Mothers were ever hatched! Yes, I spoke to one of them myself and he never mentioned anything about a previous paradise. But those people in the Tree are the first ones who fell down there! How could they have no memories of their lost paradise? Because you’re LYING to me, that’s why! Yes, yes, I see what you’re up to! You’re trying to trick me out of getting into heaven!’ ‘Well, the answer to that is,’ said the gnome, ‘that the People of the Tree are not the first inhabitants of hell.’ I was face to face with him now, and he was looking up at me. ‘What?’ I demanded. ‘You have to remember,’ he said, ‘a tree like that takes a long time to grow. It wouldn’t have had the weight to absorb so many people into itself while it was only a sapling; and of course it was created to drink up all the water in paradise until there were no oceans and no water cycle left. Something as powerful as that requires a lot of sacrifice.’ ‘What are you getting at?’ I asked sharply. Was he just making this up as he went along, and stalling for time? I would try to make him answer quickly in the hope that I could catch him in some contradiction. But he only continued to answer calmly. ‘The original inhabitants of paradise,’ he said, ‘are called the Seedlings, now. They were used to help the Seed of Abagad grow. Zazibzab transformed them all into infants, and stuffed them below the ground; the seed he planted drank up their fear and pain. As more people continued to fall into hell, they were devoured by the Red Worm and became Seedlings themselves, their dreams and nightmares nurturing the one seed. Eventually the Sapling became a Tree, and then it began to absorb into itself the people who fell. So, Mr Baltimore, the original inhabitants of paradise, and who have become the oldest and the wisest of the human race, look like mere babies now; Zazibzab gave them little jaws and clumsy tongues so that they could never speak of paradise again. But they all remember it; they know what it was they lost. Sometimes they dream of it, and they are never more tormented than when they do.’ As he spoke it took tremendous effort to not shudder involuntarily as I recalled those hellish infants, and then, as I remembered the word they had tried to say, which they had pronounced as “Tha ba ba”… had they really been calling on Zazibzab? Perhaps they had really been chanting: “Paradise, paradise, paradise…” And then, once again, I remembered the way their eyes had looked at me and those blank stares. ‘They were told,’ continued the gnome-like person, ‘that Zazibzab had decided to abandon them for their evils and would make a new heaven somewhere else (which he never really did).’ I couldn’t quite think of any answer to this. ‘Listen,’ said the gnome, ‘I don’t think you’re appreciating just how much Zazibzab tried to help everybody.’ ‘Help!?’ I boomed. ‘Absolutely,’ replied the gnome, ‘Back when he used to send people to paradise. If someone got a mansion they might say “I want a bigger one”, and when they got that bigger mansion their neighbours would see it, become jealous and want a bigger house as well; and then before you know it everyone wants a bigger house, a bigger this, a better that, and no-one’s satisfied. Whenever someone thought of something new that they wanted, everyone else grew envious and had to have it to. “I want my own mountain”, someone would say, and Zazibzab would give to them, and then the next person would come along and say “oh yeah? Well I want a better mountain and mine has to have a river on it”. Sometimes people didn’t get along; sometimes they got into fights about the most menial things; sometimes some people wanted to rule over other people and arguments ensued. Arguments like someone saying “Well since it’s paradise and I should get anything I want, I want this other person to be my slave”, and then that person would answer “Well since it’s paradise and I get to have anything I want, I choose to not be a slave!” and then the whole case would be brought before Zazibzab and he’d have to sort it out. Married couples were especially terrible. “Zazibzab”, someone would say, “my partner is insufferable sometimes. Give me a clone of my partner that looks and sounds just like them but who tends to my every whim and isn’t so bothersome”, and when Zazibzab gave it to them their real partner would get upset and say that this was an abuse of their rights; it wasn’t fair, this isn’t what they signed up for; how dare this happen without anyone even so much as asking their permission first. Then the whole matter would become a controversy with some people siding with one person, some with another, but on the whole most people blaming Zazibzab for the whole thing. “We’ve had a very difficult time of it through our mortal lives,” they would say, “without a god coming along, promising us eternal happiness, and then screwing it all up.” Some people wanted to be kings and have tens of thousands of servants, and somehow expected Zazibzab to conjure all these things out of thin air. Other people weren’t satisfied with merely having a few mansions and wanted to rule over their own planet, and would become upset when Zazibzab explained: “Look, I only have one paradise-planet, it would be quite difficult to try and build another, can’t you just make do with what you have?”; all this while also having to deal with all the people who wanted more land or tastier food or whatever else. And even when Zazibzab actually did manage to appease some of them, after having pampered to all of their needs, they would end up getting bored after a few years and want something else. He worked very hard and it was very tiresome for him.’ After pausing for a while the gnome said: ‘Look, I’ll tell you what. Since you seem like a nice person…’ My eye twitched and I began to lick my lips as I remembered some of the humans I had eaten… ‘We’ll let you stay here as long as you like. It’s the closest thing you’ll get to a heaven. But, there’s no food here, and while me and him’ (beckoning to the guardian) ‘don’t need food to survive, you do. So eventually I’m afraid you’ll die, and then I guess your soul will fall back down to the Corrupt Mothers, but never mind about that. Just don’t worry about it. Until then we’ll make your stay as comfortable as possible. Do you like board or dice games? We have a few, and it’s been a while since we’ve played against a new player…’ ‘That’s a good idea!’ said the winged guardian, ‘Baltimore looks like he could use a break…’ I had heard enough. I snatched the golden club out the guardian’s fingers and began to pummel the gnome with it. ‘Wait, wait!’ he cried, ‘don’t kill us! Alright, alright, we can do something else for you!’ ‘What!’ I demanded. ‘We can… we can… just let me catch my breath…’ he panted for a few moments. I lifted up the club again menacingly. ‘Alright!’ he cried, ‘we can give you a direct audience with Zazibzab! There! If you talk to him yourself, maybe something can be worked out for you.’ ‘Talk… actually talk to him?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ said the gnome, ‘if that’s what you would like to do. But please think carefully on it.’ ‘Of course I’ll talk to him!’ I cried, but on the inside I wasn’t so sure. This was the god that had apparently transformed a paradise into an endless, living nightmare because he got bored of it. This was the sadistically inventive god who had designed a tree that soaked up the screams of infants, ate people, and then gave birth to monsters which also continued to eat people, and all because he was too lazy and it was easier to do that than create a heaven. How could I speak to him? What if he was offended that I would dare to? What if he invented a new and an even worse hell, especially for me? ‘Be careful,’ the gnome warned, and what he said next confirmed my fears. ‘Don’t think that just because everyone ends up in hell a god can’t make things worse for you. Zazibzab has a special place in hell for those who displease him specifically, which is separate from the rest of it. It is at the bottom of hell and can only be reached by climbing the Tree of Abagad to its topmost branches.’ And yet, even as I became full of the fear of hell, I recognized that if I could reason with him, I might be able to persuade him into creating a paradise again… What a hero that would make me to everyone! I would be loved and adored by every generation of humanity from now unto eternity! My stomach filled with butterflies, as the saying goes, and I became light-headed just thinking about the implications of it. On the other hand, I reasoned, my thoughts turning again, why would he deign to listen to the opinions of a mere mortal? How was I supposed to debate ethics with a god? All these questions and more burdened me, and the fiery-haired gnome-like person, and the winged guardian, both recognized my anxious look. ‘Well?’ asked the gnome, ‘what would you like to do?’ I considered. I would be taking a great risk in speaking to Zazibzab, and truth be told I never wanted to see his face. Yet if I did not seek him out, I was inevitably doomed, whereas if I did, I might have a chance. Perhaps he would have calmed down by now? Surely no-one could hold a grudge against humanity that lasted thousands and thousands of years, and still be angry to have it brought up even today? ‘I’ll speak to him,’ I said. ‘I’ll try to reason with Zazibzab.’ The winged guardian slapped his forehead with his hand. ‘That’s how you get yourself sent to Zazibzab’s special place in hell,’ he said. ‘You haven’t even spoken to him yet and you’ve failed already! You don’t “reason” with a god like Zazibzab, you flatter them. As soon as you try to “reason” with him, as if you’re somehow an equal, Zazibzab gets offended and then you’re dead.’ ‘But… I’m sure grovelling and flattery is what all the mortals do that come before him,’ I reasoned. ‘If someone actually stood up and behaved confidently, maybe started off the conversation with a joke to break the ice, perhaps he would actually be impressed by their attitude enough to listen to what they had to say?’ The winged guardian turned to the gnome. ‘This isn’t going to end well,’ he said. ‘It would have been better for this guy if he’d never escaped in the first place.’ Those words chilled me to the bone. ‘Well, be that as it may, Mr Baltimore has made his choice,’ said the gnome, and then, turning to me he said: ‘Come with me,’ and so together we began to walk across grass and hills, leaving the winged guardian at the Gate of Jasper. Even as we left him there I turned over my shoulder to see someone approach him, a girl of about sixteen. ‘Letter,’ he said. ‘I had my letter,’ she began in a flustered way, ‘but out of nowhere this imp with wings came and took it!’ ‘Do you expect me to believe,’ said the winged guardian, ‘that out of absolutely nowhere an imp just magically happened to appear and snatch away your letter? You clearly don’t take me seriously if you’re inventing a silly lie like that. Do you know how long I’ve been working at this job…?’ That was the last I heard of the conversation before we walked out of earshot. Looking at it from an outside perspective, I recognized the expressions on the girl’s face because they had been on my own and I had felt them myself. The doubt, the denial, the anxiety… the feeling flustered… The whole charade all seemed so fake, now. Yet she was confused and on edge… there was no way she would be calm enough to consider that the entire thing might be a façade. ‘Is it me,’ I asked the gnome, ‘or does he seem to enjoy his job too much?’ ‘He does his job well,’ the gnome replied, ‘and the work isn’t as simple as it seems. Sometimes we have to make up excuses on the spot when unexpected things happen, though of course by now we have a whole list of excuses for when anything happens. For instance, the first time a famous martial artist came through here, they had apparently fought the imp and snatched their letter back! When we began asking them to present their letter we felt a bit awkward when they actually did present it. That was when I invented the idea of an expiration date…’ He must not have noticed the cold look on my face as he continued to speak matter-of-factly. ‘Yes, the expiration date,’ he said, ‘I would squint my eyes, pretend to be looking at an expiry date on the paper, and then I would say “sorry, it looks like this has expired”. It often amazes me how gullible people are sometimes. None of the letters even had a date on them in the first place, ha ha!’ My expression became colder. ‘And then when they asked “Well, when did it expire? Let me see the date on the letter” I would make up the excuse that it could only be seen by the guardians to the gate of heaven and was not for mortal eyes. While they were arguing whack would go the club and then off to hell they would go. It didn’t work out that way with the martial artist, though,’ added the gnome with a dark look, ‘he actually snatched the club and beat the last guardian to death, (we had to hire a new one) then he ran off looking for heaven. Eventually he starved and went down to the wombs anyway but the whole experience caused me to have a newfound respect for myself. It’s not everyone that has the backbone to do a job like this, no sir!’ ‘How do I talk to this god?’ I demanded, growing tired and irritated at his conversation. ‘To speak to Zazibzab,’ the gnome said to me, ‘you must be able to lift your mind to another dimension of thought. Oh, and you’ll have to wash your clothes as well,’ he added, noting my smell. We came to a pool of water sparkling in the grass where I bathed and drank… it had been so long since I had tasted water, real water, cold and fresh… I drank deeply. And then, when I was clean, and the waste had been washed off, and I stepped out of the pool dripping wet, the gnome led me along our merry way. ‘The entire universe,’ said the gnome, ‘does not exist in the way you think it does. It exists only as a collection of minds. Zazibzab’s mind is on a thought-plane above ours, and he does not come down to our level, so we must rise to his.’ ‘Is this philosophy you’re talking to me about?’ I asked. ‘What I’m talking to you about,’ he said, ‘is the method by which you will come face to face with a god.’ We came to a country whose hills were green and yellow, and littered with great, broken blocks of stone, with weeds and roots and flowers growing among them. The gnome went about collecting a particular type of flora, and then brought out a bong and some flint which had been hidden behind a rock. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Now we’re ready.’ I stared at him. I stared down at the bong. I looked at the flowers. Each had ten petals, and each petal was a different colour. ‘… Are you serious?’ I asked him. ‘This is the way we talk to Zazibzab,’ he said, ‘it is the noble and ancient method through which we commune with the gods.’ I looked at him. His expression was one of complete seriousness. ‘This is nonsense,’ I said, ‘all this will do is melt the brain.’ ‘No,’ said the gnome, ‘it is a flower that Zazibzab created from a single drop of blood from his own tongue. There is no other like it. It is a doorway that will open up pathways to new and unexplored spiritual planes; avenues into realms of wonder; portals into alternate dimensions. Or, in other words, a sort of… gateway-drug, if you will.’ I began to become suspicious now. The gnome was talking nonsense. He was probably trying to drug me into a deep sleep and then throw me back into hell while I was unconscious. Yet, what if, against my better judgement, it turned out he was telling the truth? This could be my only chance… ‘I will have some if you also have some,’ I said. ‘Alright,’ said the gnome, ‘if it makes you feel better, but I will only follow you part of the way. I’m not meeting Zazibzab. I actually happen to value my life.’ The flowers were lit, the petals curled and changed colours so that a rainbow of ever-changing hues drifted along the petals of the flowers. A multi-coloured smoke which shimmered and glimmered began to curl up in the shape of human fingers. ‘Breathe deep,’ said the gnome. ‘Breathe deep…’ I breathed. The buzzing of the bees became louder, the fragrance of the flowers, sweeter; and a breeze became breezier. My conscience was heightened. ‘You know,’ I said to the gnome, ‘have you ever thought, that, like, life is like a wheel? And everyone’s wheel just keeps on rolling? Rolling, rolling, rolling, and then suddenly the wheel just stops? Yeah. That’s what life is.’ ‘Breathe deep,’ said the gnome, ‘breathe deep…’ I breathed. The fields became brighter, the earth became richer, the sky became wider. My conscience was altered. ‘You know what?’ I said to the gnome, ‘I feel, just, smooth, you know what I mean? Like everything is smooth. Like I’m going with the flow. Have you ever felt like that?’ ‘Breathe deep,’ said the gnome. ‘Breathe deep…’ I breathed. Boom. The grass took on a new colour, and the sky changed shape before my eyes. As I looked, the blue iciness became cut into the shape of many blue, smiling faces, all made of sky. They laughed and blew clouds out of their nostrils. ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Here I am talking with a gnome. Ha, ha, ha…’ ‘Breathe,’ said the gnome. ‘That’s right… breathe deep…’ Boom. The blue faces turned sad and wept. Their tears became spring rain, and the flowers reached up to them longingly. ‘Breathe; come on, now, breathe; breathe; breathe…’ Boom. The blue faces became a single face, made of sky. Laughing, an arm made of sky shot down from above, and when it did, it laid its open hand on the ground, waiting for me to step onto it. ‘This is as far as I can follow,’ said the gnome. ‘Good luck.’ ‘Peace,’ I said. ‘That’s the one word you have to remember.’ I stepped upon the giant hand’s open palm, and it lifted me up, and then I was swallowed in nothing but sky… The world morphed, changed, melted away; at once I became full of peace and deep wonder. … I stood in space, now, and about me there was a dark ocean like blue crystal which ebbed and whispered. It was full of glimmering lights, like stars. Now it was the height of my stomach, now the height of my chest; now it was down to my stomach again as the waves flowed by, caressing me. In and out of the waves spheres slowly turned and moved, floating through the air; they were white and rocky and full of craters, like miniature moons that varied from the size of human heads to the size of elephants. Above the sky was black, but streaks of purple nebulas cut through it. Strangely, the waves did not leave me feeling wet and as they moved past I remained quite dry, and each time they moved through me they seemed to course through my very body, filling me with sensations of peace, awe and wonder. I stood there, waist-deep in a cosmic ocean of blue space and stars. ‘Here I am, Baltimore,’ spoke a voice that rippled along the dark air and floated around me like bubbles in the wind. ‘And welcome.’ ‘Where am I?’ I breathed. ‘What do you feel, Baltimore?’ I paused. I saw one of the moons turn quietly around the bend in a wave as pearl-coloured foam caressed another moon in front of it, and at once the water rose and a wave touched my chest. ‘I feel every happy memory I ever knew coursing through my veins,’ I said; ‘I feel the joy of water and the songs of the birds and the sounds of the wind; I feel the deep thoughts of the planets as they spin through the cosmos…’ ‘Yes, Baltimore,’ said the voice again, delicate as a whisper. ‘That is where you are.’ ‘Heaven, then,’ I said. ‘But then, where are you?’ At once there was a change in the flow of the water and three or four waves rose and curved about each other, joining into one, and then a woman stood there, made of water, and her hair like a waterfall. ‘I am right here with you, Baltimore,’ she said. I stared at her. She melted back into the sea, but at once the water rose up and she re-formed again, right next to me. Then she whispered in my ear in a soft, snake-like hiss: ‘Have you ever kissed a goddess before?’ ... Click here for the Final Part
Years ago, I was riffing with some friends on a message board about silly magical items, and how they would work. Well, I recently found a printout I'd made back then to take to my gaming group. So, for your entertainment, I shall transcribe the list I have. Afterwards, if anyone wants to contribute more, feel free. The requirements were, and are, that the magical items must follow the spirit of D&D's rules, if not the letter of them. The idea is that the item works, just in very weird ways. Some are harmful, some are helpful but in methods that don't make sense, and some have powerful magic that can't be used. Note: This list was made in the 3.5e days, which is important to the mechanics. Potion of Magic Missle Manacles of Acid Orb Massage Oil of Shocking Grasp Effigy Doll of Dimension Door: A little doll that is made in your image, and empowered with a personal item as well as some part of your body. When you throw it, you'll be teleported to the spot where the doll hits anything(ceiling, flor, cliff face, doesn't matter). The doll will return to your hand and you'll appear where the doll hit, with your body in the exact same position the doll had. Hammer of Tremor: When you strike the earth with it, everyone in 10' radius of the place of impact is thrown to the ground, including you(treat as trip attempt, Large creature with STR 22, no counter trip). Unholy Longsword of Evil-Bane: A sword that can only be wielded by evil characters(without a negative level), and deals extra damage to evil characters. Boots of X-Ray Vision Mirror of Major Image Works as Major Image, but only while looking into the Mirror. It ends as you stop looking into the mirror. Potion of Energy Drain Lute of Summon Instrument Eyeglasses of Blindness Oil of Horrid Wilting Lead Boots of Jump Axe of Liveoak Manacles of Freedom Lead Lenses of X-Ray Vision The Amazing Burrowing Carpet The Harp of Silence The Glass Mask of Disguise as Self Ring of Commend Elemental: Intelligent item. Can't shut up about how awesome this or that elemental is. Potion of Other's Splendour: Brewed with prime ingredients like yeast and malt after an ancient code called Reinheitsgebot, this gives everyone the drinker sees a +1 bonus to charisma. Like all unnamed bonuses, this bonus stacks with itself and others, so you can imbibe multiple doses of the Potion to greatly increase other people's Charisma. With enough potions drunk(varies from person to person) you also gain the effects of Heroism and Tongues. Cornucopia of Glamoured Bounty: This horn produces food and drink as Create Fod & Water upon command. The food appears real in all particulars, and even appears to sate hunger and thirst, but this is completely illusory, and anyone attempting to survive on such fare will starve and dehydrate while feeling full and sated. Clothing of Faerie Fire: The wealthy nobles who commission these elegant outfits(typically cloaks and gowns) have them enspelled with Faerie Fire. Sure, it makes them easier targets, but the goal is to be seen and look fabulous, not to live forever! Safety Goggles: These Gnomish goggles protect the wearer from gaze attacks, blinding lights, the harsh glare of sun on snow and irritants affecting the eyes They work by casting a Blindness spell on the wearer, thus protecting the wearer even if the strap slips and the goggles fall away from the eyes. Self-Coiling Rope: This fine silk rope has been animated to keep itself coiled for ease of stowing away. It resists any attempt to uncoil it, un-knotting itself and slithering back into a coiled state if necessary. Dagger of Healing: This masterwork alchemical silver dagger heals 1d8+1 hp to any creature it damages. Faint Transmutation; CL 1; Craft Magical Arms and Armor, Cure Light Wounds; Price 2322 gp, weight 1 lb Scissors of Mending Potion of Thirst: The more you drink, the more thirsty you become. Incense of Calm Emotion: Light this and inhale the aroma to mellow out. Ever-Extinguished Torch: This Torch never lights up, all attempts to light it on fire fail. Casts a 5-foot radius darkness effect when in any light. Horn of Sonic Resistance: Blowing this horn provides everyone that hears it Sonic Resistance 10 for ten minutes. The wielder of this horn is immune to this effect, Shark's Helmet: Headpiece for sharks that casts scorching ray. The Space Ring: Transports you thousands of miles off the world and into space. Be sure to wear your coat. Potion of Rapture: Flings you into the sky at a speed of 100 miles per hour. Peters out about 2 miles up(if a ceiling is above you, take 10d6 bludgeoning damage). The Pervert Portal: This ring, when the command word is spoken; floats in the air, stretches to 2.5 inches in diameter, and opens a portal that leads to a random plane. Blanket of Invisibility: This blue blanket with glow-in-the-dark embroidered stars renders anyone or anything covered by it completely invisible, and unable to be seen by any magicial effect(such as True Seeing or X-Ray vision). However, the blanket itself remains completely visible. Invisible Potion: This potion is completely invisible. Poisonous Potion of Poison Immunity: This potion is a poison. Initial Effect- 1d4 CON & 1d4 STR damage, Secondary Effect- Immunity to all poisons(magical or otherwise) for 1 round. Orb of Unnecessary Force: Can be used to open any kind of portal. Uses Knock - and then pulverizes the door just for kicks. Boots of Speed (5'): Sets your speed to 5'. Boots o Running Away: On the beginning of combat, casts a 60' radius spread fear effect(no save) that affects anyone, including the wearer. Rod of Copy Spell Effect: When the wielder is subject to a harmful spell effect, this rod duplicates the effect exactly: Same power, same save DC, same target. Longsword, +3 vs Party Members
A great cataclysm, too great and terrible to describe, had taken a nameless fishing hamlet centuries ago. It was not its sudden reappearance that caused so much concern to the neighbouring settlements. No, it was instead the shape the hamlet had returned in, now named Semblance. The Cataclysm irrevocably changed this place, freeing it from laws and tyrants. All laws and tyrants. That is, apart from one: that all visitors and citizens must hide their faces, lest they be taken by Those Who Lurk.
From a distance, onlookers of Semblance are quick to note the crimson lightning that hovers over it, coiling and dancing as if alive. The hamlet itself is a twisted mess of wooden buildings stacked atop one another haphazardly, bordered by a cobblestone wall. Even if its current location isn't near a body of water, there is still a mess of jetties, piers, and boats on one end of the town beyond the stone wall - a remnant of what this place once was.
Optional Rule: Those Who Lurk: A character who isn’t covering their face in some manner or another immediately within the walls of Semblance feel as if they are being watched. They begin noticing figures watching them from behind corners and on rooftops. They are clad in heavy robes, but a careful observer notes their almost inhuman, worm-like features. Helpful masked citizens may provide unaware characters with masks, potentially at an exorbitant price. The Face Taker uses the statistics of a wraith with the following alterations: * It has a dexterity score of 22. * Remove sunlight sensitivity. * Replace the wraith’s Life Drain and Create Specter with Crippling Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: +9, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 16 (3d8 + 3) necrotic damage, and the creature’s speed is reduced by 5 feet. If a Face Taker reduces a creature to 0 hit points, its face is stolen. The creature can no longer sense the world in the normal sense, but has a form of blindsight with a range of 15 ft. It also no longer requires air, food, or water to survive. Each hour, for as long as the characters remain in Semblance, they will be hunted by 1d4 additional Face Takers. If one wishes to retrieve their stolen face, it will be an ordeal of its own.
Entrances to Semblance The wall surrounding Semblance normally stands around 10 feet high. However, if a creature attempts to climb over the wall, the wall will grow in height, preventing anyone from being able to enter Semblance that way. There are three gates that allow entrance to the hamlet:
The Waterbound Gate. Those who approach the Semblance by the water will be greeted by The Waterbound Gate. It is an entranceway lined with dozens of open-palmed, beckoning stone arms. Entrance requires a gift or ritual dependant on the cycle of the moon. Nothing may pass through the Waterbound Gate during the full moon.
Moon Phase
Cycle Activity
New Moon
Each person must recite the twelve unholy words of The Conqueror Worm.
Waxing Crescent
Every group must offer an iron amulet that has been bathed in water under the waning crescent moon for at least one hour.
First Quarter
Each person must create and present an idol made of animal bones.
Waxing Gibbous
Each person must spill a pint of blood into the water.
Full Moon
May the gods have mercy on those who pass at this time.
Waning Gibbous
Ever group must offer one spell scroll of at least third level.
Last Quarter
Each person must offer 100 silver pieces. they must be all in silver coins.
Waning Crescent
Each person must devour a live toad whole.
The landbound Gate. The Landbound Gate sees the most thoroughfare, merely because it is the least obstructive, time-consuming, or dangerous for the hamlet's masked citizens. Six severed goat heads hang from the walls along the gateway, hung with wooden charms. A low wail crawls from their throats when something of lawful alignment approaches. The Landbound Gate is tended to by Renny Temar, an old long-faced man with long, wispy grey hair and the mask of a laughing man; often seen wandering off into the countryside with an axe and crossbow to kill mountain goats. As the goats' heads quickly rot, they need to be prepared and replaced weekly. He guards the gate and locks it if anyone of lawful alignment approaches. He is a bitter old man. If questioned about why he does this, he says that “no amount a’ law’s done any good for our old town. Off with ye.”
The Worm's Gullet. This stone gate is carved into the shape of a colossal worm, with a maw that disappears into magical darkness. Pilgrims of the Conqueror Worm sometimes travel through the Worm Gullet, to hear the whispers of their lord. The gullet twists and bends, leaving travellers and pilgrims blindly walking through the dark. Characters that can see through magical darkness can see that the maw seemingly goes on forever and that the stone walls have turned to yellow flesh, even though they still feel like stone. It takes 1d8 hours of walking to reach Semblance from the Worm Gullet. There is a 10% chance a character can hear the twelve unholy words of the Conqueror Worm echoing throughout the Gullet throughout the entire walk.
Locations of interest It isn’t entirely straightforward for one to find their way around the hamlet, despite its deceptively small apparent size. The streets change when you’re not looking, and the doors of small homes lead into open plazas, making this a difficult and puzzling place to explore. Characters can ask a masked citizen to lead them to their destination, for a fee of course. They have no difficulty moving from one place to the next. Below are some of the more interesting locations found in Semblance:
C’Erizier’s Plaza From here, the town’s politics and decisions are run. Semblance has somewhat of a twisted take on democracy. A single, undying man named “The Parliament” acts as a host for copies of all of the minds of the settlement, and makes decisions on their collective behalf. Rumour has it that a sorcerer named C’Erizier created it. The Parliament believes that every citizen in Semblance is happy here, and tells the characters this if asked. But although The Parliament speaks with one voice, if someone were to read its mind, they could discern unwillingness from parts of it, or sense the silent protests of those who choose not to speak. This place is cursed, regardless of what some may have convinced themselves. Some citizens assist The Parliment from time to time, but no one is obliged to listen to him, or assist him (although if the parliament wishes for something to happen in the town, it is likely that a majority of the citizens do too.)
House of Flesh and Shaping A place where the people of Semblance engage in earthly pleasures. This building is dressed to match its occupants, the pleasure houses in lurid colours and drapery, warm and inviting. The steady scent of warm sweat and perfume permeates the air. The House of Flesh and Shaping is first and foremost a pleasure-house, with a side venture as a party palace, with alcohol and opium aplenty. It is run by the Great Procuress, a vampire. Any residents of Semblance who wish to use the House of Flesh and Shaping promise a pint of blood as tax every month for the Procuress. Because of this tax, she has made many enemies who wish to see her dead (it reminds the people of when their hamlet was until the tyranny of law and order). The ladies and gents of the pleasure houses are staunchly loyal to her, and keep a sly watchful eye for these enemies.
Flesh Crafters The House is also the working space of the Flesh Crafters, those have learned the art of rebuilding and reshaping mortal flesh. They can create a new limb from their flesh vats and graft it to a body. Or replace or enhance it with something more exotic, things like acid excretion, wolverine claws, pincers, and wings are all possible. Unknown to the common public, the pleasure house has a deal with the Flesh Crafters. In exchange for a monthly barrel of artificial blood from the Flesh Crafters, the pleasure house collects genetic material for sale to the Flesh Crafters for purposes unknown. An awful clone factory would seem likely (its hard for people to notice a clone if they are wearing a mask day and night).
House of Hunger and Harvests A place to be happy and healthy. A door in the shape of an upside-down triangle opens into the House of Hunger and Harvests. It is an indoor marketplace, with aisles of stalls lined with burning candles, with lanterns hanging from stall to stall. It is an assault on the olfactory senses, wax, spice, brimstone, fish, meat, and flowers being the most easy to determine. The merchants here are all thin-fleshed and wear animal masks. They are hunched creatures with almost boneless limbs. A fish vendor has arched elbows that never seem to reach a point, as he slowly guts a particularly ugly fish. "Take", he tells a nearby character. “Eat.” Everything in the House is on the house. Those who are too greedy and consume too much transform into pigs, and they are subsequently made into food themselves.
House Of Milk and Honey A place where one may sacrifice what is needed, and gain that which is desirable. The house is commonly empty for the most part, leaving visitors to wander around until they find what they are looking for. The floor of the House is littered with insects. They crunch loudly beneath the character’s feet. In some parts, they have to wade through them. Within the House, characters can find a circular room with half a dozen altars. Resting on each altar is a golden chalice filled with milk, and a small golden bowl filled with honey. A nothic tends to this room. It crushes insects with a machine near the back of the room and throws them to the ground. After, the nothic fills empty chalices and with their various juices. The nothic is all that remains of C’erizier, the sorcerer who created The Parliament. It barely remembers who it once was, but can helpfully provide the characters with the gifts it offers. It tells the characters that consuming the milk and honey on an altar, a pact will be completed: they will be gifted with what is desirable, in exchange for what is needed. Each altar has a different gift and price. A Gift of Milk and Honey functions like a charm (“Supernatural Gifts” in Chapter 7 of the DMG). As soon as a character drinks the milk and the eats the honey of a specific altar, the Gift immediately takes effect. A Gift of Milk and Honey is described to a player in a general sense, rather than its precise in-game effect. If a character tries to be clever and has the milk of one altar and the honey of another, they melt into black fluid for 1d4 minutes. Below is a list of all altars and their effects:
The First Altar: The nothic describes this gift as Knowledge Unknown, and its price is “inability to ignore the uncomfortable truths of the cosmos.” The honey is dark and twinkles like the cosmos, and goes down easily. The milk tastes like The Gift: The gift bestows a character with the knowledge of the cataclysm that took Semblance, where it was taken, and the roles of both C’Erizier and the Conqueror Worm in this cataclysm. The character is overwhelmed with the revelation of such immense knowledge and gains +3 Intelligence (to a maximum of 22) from the unholy insight. The Price If the beneficiary attempts to tell anyone these secrets, they belch out 5 gallons of black fluid. If they try to write this information down, other people see the words in a language that they cannot recognise or understand, even with magic. If a character attempts to use detect thoughts or a similar spell to discern this specific information, they immediately lose concentration. Additionally, the beneficiary gains the following flaw: “I am deathly terrified of worms.”
The Second Altar: The nothic describes this gift as the ability to unleash the Deadly Cold of N’Gui, and its price as a “heart of ice.” The milk has an ordinary taste but feels like razors going down a character’s throat. The Gift: This gift allows the beneficiary to cast the Ice Storm spell as an action, which also engulfs the area in magical darkness. The beneficiary also gain a resistance to cold damage. After it has been used 4 times, the gift vanishes. The Price: The beneficiary’s skin becomes cold to the touch, and the following flaw: “I cannot empathise with others.” This ends when the gift vanishes.
The Third Altar: The nothic describes this gift as Trollblood Regeneration, and its price is “loss of vitality”. The Gift: As a bonus action, the beneficiary can choose to begin regenerating at a rate of 5 hit point per round. As a bonus action, they may also choose to end regenerating. The Price: The beneficiary permanently loses 20 hit points. Each time the beneficiary chooses to regenerate over 10 hit points, tumours and cysts begin forming over any damaged area. After a total of 200 hit points have been healed, the beneficiary transforms into a troll under the DM’s control.
The Fourth Altar: The nothic describes this gift as the Gift of Unholy Wormlight, and its price as “always being a kindly host to those who seek board”. The Gift: The beneficiary can cast the Guiding Bolt spell as an action, 3 times per day. The Price: The beneficiary’s body becomes host to a myriad of otherworldly beings that burrow into the flesh and make their homes. They can only be seen with truesight.
The Fifth Altar: The nothic describes this gift as the Burning Haste, and its price as “loss of earthly strength”. The Gift: The beneficiary’s Dexterity score increases by four, to a maximum of 22. Additionally, their speed increases by 15 feet. The Price: The beneficiary’s strength score decreases by 4, to a minimum of 3.
The Sixth Altar: The nothic describes this gift of the Aura of Silver Tongue, and the price as “compelling others to follow their hearts desire” The Gift: The beneficiary’s Charisma increases by 4, to a maximum of 22. The Price: The beneficiary leads a trail of sin and debauchery in their wake. Lynchings, witch burnings, murders, adultery etc. increase significantly in a half mile radius.
The Tower of the Worm The Tower of the Worm is a large spike that protrudes from the ground, made of sickly yellow sulphur. It penetrates the sky, wooden walkways and ladders curling up and around it, reaching the top. The tip of the Tower is consumed by the red lightning above Semblance. It looks like a gateway to somewhere beyond. Ecstatic laughter echoes from the cloud. This place strongly smells of sulphur, the character's tongue tingles, and their mind temporarily ascends to a greater state when they draw near. The cultists of the Conqueror Worm often find themselves here, whereupon they try to enter the gateway of Red Lightning. Few return, but their voices add to the eternal laughter. Characters who want to try their luck can try going into this realm.
DM’s Toolkit: This location has appeared in one form or another a few times in my campaigns now, and it’s always a place I love bringing back. Below is a list of potential plot hooks to use for this strange and wonderful place:
A local faction is (perhaps rightfully) frightened of Semblance, and rallying their forces to destroy it. The residents seem peaceful enough, so which side will the characters take? Their local faction, or the strange but seemingly benign residents of Semblance?
The Taken Hamlet is like a cancer, spreading chaos and nonsense to the surrounding land. It must be cured, or in failing that, removed.
A rogue faction of the Flesh Crafters seek to create a new dominant form of life, their experiments already stalk the wilderness at night.
A diplomat has returned from their mission to Semblance. Their face is missing.
The Flesh Crafters have been commissioned by a local or foreign faction/nation be to construct a huge flesh giant, a symbol of the faction/nation’s splendour, a terrible weapon to hurl at any who would oppose them. Where are they getting this flesh? What will happen if the flesh giant is finished? And can the characters stop this?
OBJECTIVE OF SPLENDOR: The objective of Splendor is to earn the highest amount of prestige points by the end of the game. NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 to 4 Players (special rules for 2 and 3 players; see variations section) MATERIALS: 40 tokens (7 green emerald tokens, 7 blue sapphire tokens, 7 red ruby tokens, 7 white diamond tokens, 7 black onyx tokens, and 7 yellow gold joker tokens.), 90 Splendor Board Game Strategy Guide September 4, 2019 September 13, 2019 Chris 0 Comment splendor, splendor strategy. When you play Splendor for the very first time after hearing the rules explanation, the game flow seems self explanatory. Splendor’s strategy appears to be focused on drawing gems until you can buy cards, then get some more GAME RULES The youngest player begins. Play then proceeds clockwise. On their turn, a player must choose to perform only one of the following four actions. - Take 3 gem tokens of different colors. - Take 2 gem tokens of the same color. This action is only possible if there are at least 4 tokens of the chosen color left when the player takes them. splendor board game Splendor is an incredibly simple to play engine-building game that is so robust it could keep you busy for 100s of hours. Players are gem traders in the renaissance on a quest to be the fastest to 15 victory points. Step-By-Step instructions on how to player Splendor board game.Splendor has only been around since 2014 but it is already considered a strategy classic. The mechanics are simple and make the games quick, but the endless roads to victory create a robust gaming experience. Learning to play is very simple. Built for 2 – 4 players. On your turn, you may (1) collect chips (gems), or (2) buy and build a card, or (3) reserve one card. If you collect chips, you take either three different kinds of chips or two chips of the same kind. If you buy a card, you pay its price in chips and add it to your playing area. In a capsule, the splendor board game proceeds in the following order: Collect gems → Reserve and/ or purchase development cards → Collect several development cards to attract nobles → Earn maximum prestige points to win the game The remaining tiles are removed from the game; they will not be used during the game. Finally, place the tokens in 6 distinct piles (sort them by color) within reach of the players. Game With 2 Players. Remove 3 tokens of each gem color (there should be only 4 of each remaining). Don't touch the gold. Reveal 3 noble tiles. Game With 3 Players Each game is different so the strategy is constantly changing. Clever gameplay quickly becomes a race to the finish as players attempt to outsmart each other and gain the game winner title. Give Splendor a try today and have fun with your friends or family. One other rules are, a player can only hold 10 tokens at a time. This means when they end their turn, you should not be holding more than 10 tokens. When any player has more than 10 tokens, then the player must return the extra tokens and should only keep 10 tokens with him/her.
SPLENDOR Board Game Quick Walkthrough w/ Doron - YouTube
I have never lost a game of Splendor, and that's not a good thing. There are very few board games that we actually dislike. There are, however, many games th... hello everyone i am the Board Game nuT. this is my review and how to play splendor including the 5 player variant I apologise for the poor delivery, I look forward to the live playthrough explaination to someone :)A chance to take a look at a game you may not have seen b... A basic strategy guide on how to play Splendor, where you may think building up a card economy is the best way, but may actually be a slower, less efficient ... Use your gems and gold to create the most fantastic jewelry, and appeal to the nobles to gain the prestige you need to win. Great game for 2 or more players.... In this video we're going to learn how to play Splendor! If you have any comments or questions, please do not hesitate to post them in the Youtube comments ... We'll show you strategies to win the board/card game "Splendor" so everyone can hate you.Music from bensound.com More info about Splendor at BoardGameGeek:http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148228/splendor
