A Review of the Natural History of Selbourne by Gilbert White

This is an exceedingly charming and at times very slightly boring book made up of letters sent by the Rev Gilbert White around the time of the American Revolution, in which he closely describes the flora and in particular, the wildlife, of his small parish of Selbourne in the south of England.

(Other books I've read a little like this are The Peregrine, which has a similar intense focus, but this time on a single subject, and which is a much more intense and moody book, and Fire on the Rim, which is also about a particular relationship with a certain environment over time.)

The modern form it most closely approximates, with its short particular chapters, some focused, some wandering, all linked by a common personality and subject, is a blog. Though Gilbert Whites blog is unusually good.

Whites language has the lucidity, slight sensuality and precision that I have become accustomed with from the best Scientific writers of the 18th Century. One person who he reminds me of a great deal is Faraday in his book on the observation of a candle flame, who also combined great powers of observation and keen description with a controlled sensuality and love of beauty.

If anything the book is a masterpiece of observation. It is meditative, like the Peregrine, but not othering. The vividness and close attention of Whites scenes and prose, and the lively humour one perceives behind it, means that to read we almost walk alongside White into moments and scenes. The closeness of his eye and the exactness of his words create moments and sights that bring fragments of his world before our eyes. Particular moments - a bug scurries along the letters of a page, White hurls a clod of earth into a bush or races home excitedly in his carriage with a recently obtained tortoise.

(The savagery of the natural philosopher is well displayed throughout the book. White began as a huntsman and has no trouble shooting his way through animal life, cutting it open, or messing about with corpses. This is all part of his world.)

All novels and books are in some sense a compression of time but Whites Natural History makes the brilliance of that compression its chief ornament. To open it is a little like being given access to a time machine and being able to hop along Whites existance, dipping in and out into a myriad of small experiences.

Drama, other than the drama of cutting open an eel or finding swallows nesting on the corpse of a dead owl, is absent, and must be, in order to maintain the coherency of the related world. One Large Incident would cast the whole thing into shade.

We do see fragments of Whites social and cultural world, and a mirror of his personality (or at least what we assume to be his personality) through his description. The existence of the poor of his village is mentioned in one chapter, the uses of farmland. Farm-lore and house-lore spring up (bats come down chimneys to eat bacon in the night, an old sow grows intelligent enough to open her own gate and travel several miles to a male pig when in heat).

And it has the greatest benefit of many good books, that it is short.

The Vana Parva and Viata Parva

Two books this time, the Vana Parva, the Book of the Forest, and the Viata Parva, the Book of Virata, the name of the Lord at who's court the Pandavas hide themselves.


Book of the Forest First

Something of a Rocky montage, a wisdom quest. A little like a 'greenwood story' - like the Robin Hood stories in which the heroes live in a place where their identities become negotiable, and without social context people become who they say they are (though really the Vana Parva is more like that). Also a bit like the Clone Wars cartoon - coming between two major parts of the main story,  but with a huuuuge amount of time to cover, and room enough for the characters to get up to potentially anything.

I suspect this is also a part of the story where, since the Pandavas have enough time to get anywhere in India. If you have a local temple or a local Mahabharata story anywhere outside the north where most of it happened then this is the period where you can say "Ah yes the Pandavas came here while they were banished to the forest".

Or a bit like Neal Adams Batman Oddesy thing where, here's our main character on the move, in a variety of other situations.

Their main sage tells the Pandavas that, since they are banished for 13 years they should use that time to learn and gain wisdom, the primary method by which they do this is by wandering around, getting into adventures  and meeting sages and hearing even more stories from them. All of these tales have some kind of Dharmic point.

None of them seem to inculcate enough wisdom to persuade the Pandavas to not hate Duryohana, its pretty clear they are still going to try to kick his ass when this exile thing is over. Clearly I don't understand Dharma that well...

Arjuna ends up going off to Heaven, or Swarma and encountering Apsaras who teach him to dance, which comes in useful later on. He also gets DIVINE SUPERWEAPONS - which are hidden away.




Then the Book of Virata

the Pandavas have to spend the last year of their exile hidden, so they take up low-status disguises and go to work in the court of Lord Virata.

This is pretty much like every 'Fair Unknown' story from the Arthurian mythos, where a suspiciously clean servant arrives one day and does menial work for a while then turns out to be a Prince. Shared into-European story-structure or parallel story evolution?

This is where Arjunas dancing skills and Apsara experience comes in handy, as he acts the part of a eunuch dance instructor - taking on a female, or quasi-female role. He's actually much nicer like this, its pleasant to see him not being a tit, maybe all that forest stuff did wear off on him.

Their cover is blown towards the end of this period by a sketchy aristocrat lusting after Draupadi, Bhuima takes that guy out. This leads Duryohana to suspect them and he launches an attack on that kingdom, (the sketchy aristocrat was the kingdoms main defender). The Pandavas go to help him, still in nominal disguise, but are clearly super duper guys so give themselves away.

Duryohana says this breaks their promise as it hasn't been 13 years by the solar calendar. They say no we were calculating by the Lunar calendar....



I think my main question from all of this is did they really learn much from all this stuff?

Considered as ordinary people - they went from a state of conflict, learned about Dharma and humility, and then went straight back into conflict. But apparently these are divine beings, or semi divine, and what they do, the whole of it, is a lesson or a ritual for humanity, acting out the divine order.

So this returning to conflict thing is part of that

Also quite possibly this is a beowulf-style situation with a story coming from a slightly older more 'honour-culture' culture, being written down and interpreted in the terms of a more settled 'dignity-culture' culture, so all this barbaric vengeance-based stuff actually has hidden meanings and layers of interpretation.

We will see....

a strong propensity to bees

From Gilbert Whites 'The Natural History of Selbourne'

Letters to Daines Barrington

Letter 27

Selbourne, Dec 12, 1775

Dear Sir,
We had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot-boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, shewed a strong propensity to bees; they were his food, his amusement, his sole object. And as people of this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dozed away his time, within his fathers house, by the fire side, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney-corner; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks.

Honey-bees, humble-bees, and wasps, were his prey wherever he found them; he had no apprehension from their stings, but would seize them nudis manibus [with bare hands], and at once disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of these captives; and sometimes would confine them in bottles.

He was a very merops apiaster, or bee-bird; and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been know to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where methglin was making he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called bee-wine.

As he ran about he used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favourite pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of understanding. Had his capacity been better, and directed to the same object, he had perhaps abated much of our wonder at the feats of a more modern exhibitor of bees: and we may justly say of him now,

Thou,
Had they presiding star propitious shone,
Should'st Wildman be...

When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a distant village where he died, as I understand, before he arrived at manhood.

I am, &c

Thoughts on the Sabha Parva

Its book two! The Book of the Assembly Hall. And it has the best quality of any book - that it is short.

I'm pretty sure a guy gets cut in half in this, maybe two guys?

There's some dude who was born in two halfs which were then sealed together by a demon chick - well Bhima rips that guy like open a phone book.

Then there's a ceremony or something. An underachieving relative gets honoured and some irritant starts giving everyone shit

There's a self-fulfilling prophecy (there always is).

Anyway, thus guy tells the irritant "I'm gonna let you insult me exactly one-hundred times. Because of that dumb prophecy. But that one-hundred and first time.. mate don't fucking do it...."

But the guy is a tool and does it one more time and gets bisected by a high-speed chackram.

Anyway......




The main thing that sticks in my head about this is the horror of severe Gambling addiction.

The Pandavas main guy, Yudhishritha  is the son of a God, and meant to be incredibly wise. (Though *not* his monthers first son, that child was raised by a charioteer so even though he's super-amazing he can never be important ever).

The Pandevas build a big wonderful palace in the kingdom they made from that forest they torched.

There is an official ceremony where you basically Brexit yourself, or sign your own constitution and get your own flag and now you are a proper kingdom.

The Pandavas want a bunch of kings to come to this thing to validate it, so the go and beat up a bunch of local neighbouring kingdoms who were "bad" (one, the demon-sewn half-n-half guy, was apparently "about to" do a human sacrifice, which sounds like a 'they have weapons of mass destruction' situation. The Pandavas deal with this guy the same way they deal with a lot of things, like Old School D&D PCs - sneak in dressed as Priests then have Bhima tear the guy in half).

So the Pandevas do some local regime changing and invite everyone to their big ceremony.

Duryodhana of the Karuvas, their main rival, arrives. His low self-esteem is about to get everyone in trouble.

He's so amazed (and jealous) about this palace that, staring about at all the cool stuff they have, he falls over.

AND Draupadi, the wife of the Pandavas mocks him public ally.

AND she makes fun of his blind parents at the same time!

So this seems some very classic Mahabarata stuff - pride, shame, public shaming, the little impulsive worm desire to publicly dominate or degrade someone.






Duryodhana  goes home, and in his increasingly customary Dick Dastardly manner, comes up with a clever scheme - invite the Pandavas to a big gambling thing.

An interesting thing from the Doring Kindersly edition - apparently at the time, inviting a King to gamble or play games of chance was completely normal and, in fact, it would be weird for a King to *refuse* such an offer.

Dharma and the Gods express themselves through the random generation method (usually dice I think) so for a King, the chance to show that they were 'lucky' is the chance to show that Dharma favours their rule, because they themselves live within Dharma.

So turning down an opportunity to gamble is slightly sinful (wrong word) and questionable. Which is an interesting inversion from the West.




But the Kanavas have a gambling expert.

(This guy has his own backstory - a branch of the Pandavas family imprisoned his whole family and as they starved slowly to death in prison they gave all their food to him, the most intelligent of them all, hoping that he would survive and take revenge for them. Which he did and does.)

Yudhishritha the Pandavas main guy has an absolutely crushing gambling addiction.

Its a really horrid scene, still effectual through a few millennia and multiple translations

The Karuvas just keep winning

Yudhishritha just keeps going back - the Karuvas gently chide and humiliate him if he tries to to leave, and the mania for gambing and the sunk cost situation make him go back and back and back, each time losing more and each time thinking he can win it all back.

There is a general atmosphere of increasing horror to this as everyone can feel it going deeply wrong but no-one has the will, strength or authority to stop it

Its not Duryodhana doing it *directly*, so he is disassociated. The king is blind and weak. The Pandavas all have to go with their older brother, because = Vedic India, but he is temporarily mad.

So he loses the money, the kingdom, the houses, his brothers one by one then himself, then his wife. The same wife who humiliated Duryodhana in the palace, and who he now systemically humiliates in front of everyone by dragging her in, stripping her naked (divine intervention stops this) and making it extremely clear that her husband gambled her away.

Then she flips out and says the next time she braids her hair it will be after she washes it in his blood.

You went too far dude. It's such an overwhelmingly bad idea to humiliate your enemies.




Then the Pandavas get banished to the Forest for so many years.

All of this fine-grained humiliation relies on people really wanting to hurt each other but staying juuuust within the rules, and sending the Pandavas off to the forest is using their sense of honour against them "hey you gave your word right? In public?"

They leave in this ritualistic way, each performing some action that symbolises how much shit they are going to cause in the future.



Its made pretty clear that this isn't just one persons failure. Its a systemic societal or general human crime. Everyone in the Assembly Hall had something to do with it, and everyone somehow contributed to it.

Draupadi humiliates Duryodhana.

Duryodhana sets up the game but Shakuni the evil dice master does the dicing.

(But is he actually evil? He is taking revenge for his starved family and in some versions his cool dice are his dads fingerbones.)

Yudhishritha just keeps going back, the Kauruvas plan works waaaay better than they thought it would. Too well in fact.

None of the other brothers have the nerve to act in an un-Vedic way and to tell the older brother to knock it the fuck off.

The blind king doesn't stop things going wrong.

Duryodhana publicly humiliates Draupadi in turn.

Just a biiiig web of circumstance and different failings, with everyone trapped in it and contributing to it. Which I suspect is the point with the whole Dharma thing. You can win the big fight at the end but how do you get out of that web?

Thoughts on the Adi Parva

Just finished the Adi Parva - The 'Book of the Beginning', first part of the Mahabarata, this thing is so huge that I will have to review it piece by piece as I go along.

A friend recommended this to be as being 'like the Horus Heresy', which it isn't, yet. But it's getting there.

The bits that are extremely unlike the Heresy are that there are loads more women in it, a really surprising amount of gender-bending and trans representation. Its all about families (which is a bit heresy), but has multiple overlapping divine hierarchies. And instead of its moral axis being dark-good vs ultimate super-evil, its Dharma vs Vengeance/Justice, which is very different indeed.

The story doesn't really have a villain.

The ways in which its getting to be more like the Heresy is that it has a lot of very tough, ultramasculine and VERY FUCKING TOUCHY men, and a complex attitude to what might have been a little bit of a genocide, or at least a dab of ethnic cleansing, if the Nagas are indeed standing in for or representing an earlier forest-dwelling snake-worshipping people and if book is also about how Aryans burnt down the forests and dispossessed the Naga to build Civilisation, which was terrible, but necessary.

A few things made this a challenge (for me specifically) to wrap my head around.

It’s an epic based on descent so there are multiple family trees and a complex cast of characters, plus the specifics of how parentage work in the ancient Indian society are reeeallly important.

It's Doring Kindersy so everything is quite carefully laid out, with lots of reminders, but I would still have had a big, main family tree with portraits on a dominant page.

Non-anglo phonemes and unfamiliar cultural stuff make it more of a maze than it otherwise might be for my born-in-the-80's ass, but that’s the path of Dharma I guess.


INTERESTING BITS AND PIECES

The extreme intergenerational obedience between fathers and sons would be strange for me even in a historical European context.

The curses are fascinating, they are often more like challenges, or weirdly specific superpowers.

Long chains of circumstance which often begin with the mild or errant wish of some god, or the unwise (or too-quick) promise of some king. A god basically momentarily arranging furniture can really fuck up someone’s life, or fundamentally change its context.

In many cases the originating crack is a worm of superiority and contempt, a desire for social dominance.

So far I find myself probably more on Duryohanas side, even though he is "the baddy".

This story has really complex feelings about status, gender, ethnicity, civilisation and interpersonal bitterness.

There are lots of things here that remind me of old dark-age Euro-stories being 'reinterpreted' by Christians so "actually" they were spiritual, and not just about men and death.

The thing with 100 sons, I couldn't help but imagine a historical king going "Well this Yogic magic has DEFINITELY WORKED and now I have 100 SONS and absolutely not just a chunk of abortive meat. Any FUCKING QUESTIONS ANYONE???"




WHAT IS THIS ABOUT REALLY?

Dharma- what is this story really about, a bunch of dudes hitting each other? Or spiritual growth, via dudes hitting each other.

Well they do tell us at the start that actually its about Dharma so really we should be looking out, not just for dudes smacking each other up the head but *what it means* that they chose to smack each other up the head, in this or that particular instance.

We will see how this goes.

You can lose, but win spiritually. Or be in the right, but still fail.

You can win, but lose spiritually. Or be in the wrong, but learn and change, and hence attain Dharma or whatever.

This book is large so I read it on a pillow across my crossed legs and I feel extremely deep and philosophical doing so. I feel like I want a Prince to wander into the room with a complex query and I can be like "Ahhh, the answer is Dharma..."

A "Puritanical Instrument"

The Lictor

The Lictor, a flail of stained brass carrying twin morningstars said to be the petrified eyes of a sleeping god, carries a mixed reputation in Blackwater.

For Somon, especially for the great masses for whom holding a pike in formation is the closest they will come to adventure, and for whom getting a month ahead in their rent is the closest they will come to freedom, the Lictor represents a force of near-revolutionary possibility.

For this is the Flail of Judgement, carrying the eyes of the Sleeping God who's nature was Justice, and whomsoever wields the Lictor carries also the right, and the duty, to Judge both high and low. From the Frogsnatchers to Fyrdmen to walkers of the Waste and Sustainers of Reality, no-one is beyond the Lictors power. For a mass of Humanity often crushed by debt, ritual and fear, the idea of those with power being punished and held to account should they prove false, is deeply inspiring.

Perhaps regrettably, functional governments are rarely entirely "fair" or even "just". For those in power, who regard themselves as having the duty and the burden to make the best possible decisions in difficult circumstances and with limited resources, a bunch of angry Somon proles hopped up on justice juice, and lead by some lunatic swinging a magic flail, are not well set-up to percieve and enact a complex version of Justice.

For the minority races of Blackwater, especially the Aeth, the Lictor is seen often as a tool of Somon dominance,  a "Prejudicial, Puritanical Instrument", or them may simply give the flail its somewhat degrading Aeth-name; "The Somons Balls".

In many cases the Lictor has been carried at the head of some Judgement Crusade or Penitent Parade. Supported by great masses of the poorer Somon, and empowered by their belief. For those rural and urban poor, victims of injustice, taxation and repression, the Lictor is a source of rare, impartial judgement.

For urban elites, Aethm and some other minority groups, the sight of a great mass of poor Somon, empowered by an overwhelming belief in what they consider to be "justice", is not reassuring.

Through exactly who's eyes, and with who's mind and temperament, will this 'justice' be perceived?

Who's interests will it serve?

  

  

The Aspect Of The Flail

The staff and crossbars of heavy, dark, gleaming brass worked in the style of the early diaspora, mark the haft of the Lictor as being clearly a creation of early Blackwater, after the chaos of the Great Flight, but long before the treaty of Birch Falls.

Though this makes the Lictor thousands of years old at least, compared to other Curia it is young. Not something fallen from Old Esh or drawn into Uud from some collapsing Parallel, but a creation of this world, this time and this age, shaped by its people and dedicated to its cause.

The morningstars though are a different matter.

Most Somon believe these spiked, black balls to be the petrified eyes of a dead or sleeping God. Formerly the God of Justice in Old Esh.

Esh had an myriad of Gods, of different qualities, hierarchies and dispensations, and probably several hundred of these were either dedicated to Justice or at least had the concept under their purview, so it’s not clear exactly which God the crowd is thinking of when they speak of the Lictors eyes.

But this is the kind of tiresomely accurate but essentially incomprehending detail atheists tend to fixate on. Whether it makes "rational" sense or not, and no matter how it is accounted, for the masses, the Eyes of the Lictor are the Eyes of Justice, either prised from the Gods bleeding sockets during the fall of Esh, or spontaneously bursting out in spikes like some defensive sea creature, in horror at the sights they were forced to witness, and rolling from the Gods sockets themselves.

Clearly the Morningstars are not of the same substance at the flail. In theory they could be removed from it, (though no-one on record has done this). They are currently soot-black, but their edges and the gleaming tips of their spikes suggest that beneath this may lie some stranger and more lucid substance.

(The Aeth covertly refer to the stars of the Lictor as petrified whale testicles ensorcelled by some ancient Thaumaturge.)

Practically, the flail is heavy to the point of being near-unwieldy. In combat its morningstars swing in an unpredictable, looping orbit, curving on their carrying chains like bound snakes and crashing violently into the most strongly-armoured opponents.

  

The Powers Of The Lictor

Common Powers

Like many Curia, the Lictor seems to have a range of expression which differs both according to the individual who wields it, the cause in which it is used and the Age in which it swings.

And, again like many Curia, the ability and understanding to express and use those powers can grow with time and experience, deepening with use.

In battle the pointed stars of the flail swing with irreducible force, batting aside guarding weapons, crashing through shields and crunching through armour as if it were paper.

The stars themselves are reputed to execute vengeful destruction on other items of magical power. They are considered so destructive to other artefacts that those wise in knowledge of such things will often refuse to take the field against the Lictor.

One blow from those black stars can shatter magical blades and annihilate long-deepened enchantments, especially those Thaumaturgies of illusion and the alteration of minds. Illusions, charms, unreal vistas and shadow creatures, all waver and fracture before those black, spiked eyes.

Should the day go ill for those opposing it, there is little chance of magical escape from the Lictors swing. Like a judge in court, it enforces the coherency of reality around it. Attempts to teleport, to slide into alter-realms, to change shape, to fly or become invisible, all become more and more difficult the closer comes the flail.

And the strength of this effect deepens the longer and the stronger is the bond between the Lictor and its wielder.

Though these powers are considerable on their own, they matter little when compared to the one, key power which the Flail bestows;

  

The Power Of Judgement

When the bearer of the Lictor closes their eyes, they see twin realities, one etched in black, the other engraved in silver.

One orb, or "eye" of the Lictor, sees the Truth. Not the believed truth, or the arguable truth, but the simple cold, hard fact of what-is.

That which is not True will not be seen by the Lictors black eye.

But Justice is not only about seeing what is true, but about deciding what is right. It is action, perception and understanding combined.

The second orb, and according to Somon myth, the second eye of the Dreaming God, sees Justice. An image of what should be, in a Just world, engraved in silver. For some this is a tenuous silver thread, for others a shifting maze, a path or an altered image of the world. For others the image itself is clear, but so hard to reach, always just a handful of actions and a fingertip away.

Each wielder of the Lictor sees a subtly different reality when they close their eyes.

For average individuals, the world perceived through the eyes of a sleeping god is so hypnagogic, surreal and strange that they can barely comprehend it. Even some remarkable individuals have only been able to functionally see through one or the other Eye of the Lictor at a time, closing first one eye, then another, and attempting to understand what they perceive sequentially.

TRUTH is vast, and Justice is both deep and wide. A mortal mind can only 'see' those fragments or elements of it which its nature allows it to perceive.

The flail responds to its wielder, with the nature of its judgement shifting in its intensity and action according to the empathy, intelligence, willpower and perception of the person who wields it

The wiser and calmer and deeper the wielder, then the wiser and calmer the nature of justice perceived and desposed.

If the wielder of the Lictor is wilful and intelligent, but ruthless and cold, then the image of Truth and Justice which they see will be that of a cold, ruthless and calculating God.

In a way, justice is itself a kind of power, one that must be understood and comprehended in order to be controlled.

  

The History Of The Lictor

A surprising amount of knowledge of its origins survives.

The creators of the Lictor are said to be 'The Judges of the Fall'.

It is written that after the Fall of Esh and the great flight and escape to Uud, a group of intelligent Theists dedicated themselves to investigating the reasons for the Fall. Their original purpose was that, only once those weaknesses to Yggsrathaal were identified and understood, only once Humanity fully understood why it had failed, only then could they truly begin to fight back. They were the first to recover the Eyes and to create the Lictor.

Over the centuries though, the Judges of the Fall decayed (or evolved) into a cult of repentance and penance. Instead of simply seeking for the weaknesses in Humanity in order to record and correct them, they slowly fell into a fetish of despair and purposeless, narcissistic repentance.

This change was neither unnoticed or accepted by the entirety of the group. Over time, as the more despairing and ritualistic elements of the Judges played a part in the rising tensions that lead to the Great Theistic War, the movement splintered.

One faction dove headfirst into self-flagellation, hyper-religiosity and mass ritual, while the other increasingly began attempting to retrain and prevent what they considered the mad excesses of the Theists; crusades, pogroms, mystery cults and unrestricted warfare.

Strangely, over time this second faction of Theists ended up having more in common with the ruthlessly atheistic mechanists and the 'greater humanity' survival-based near-humanitarians (and allegedly, the 'Wise Undead'). Ultimately, during the disaster of the Great Theistic War, the Judges, with these other groups ended up forming a the nucleus of the Tolerance, a group dedicated absolutely to the survival of Humanity and the reasoned suppression of any vast societal forces which might threaten that survival - whatever the cost might be.

Allegedly the Tolerance still carries in its hierarchies, rituals and processes, the ghost of the substance of the old Judges of the Fall.

After the treaty of Birch Falls, the creation of the Tolerance, and the birth of 'modern' Blackwater, the Eyes of the Lictor have come forth on many notable occasions;

   

The Lictors 'Crusades'

The Purge of the Invisible Kings

When the Cult of the Grand Illusionist attempted to re-create the seeming of Esh in Fallen Uud; spreading a great veil of magic over much of the land in which life seemed simply 'better', more free, fulfilling luxurious and kind than it truly was, and in which many of the sights and sounds of Old Esh (or at least as much as could be recalled in this ruined age) were re-created, it was the Lictor, at the head of a great procession of commoners, which penetrated the illusion and restored cold, unfeeling reality, breaking the power of the Invisible Kings, just in time to avoid a mass invasion from the Waste.

The Breaking of the Crystal Crown

When the insidious invasion of a dark, curled reality into Blackwater lead to a plague of hallucinations, madness and the entrapment of people in loops of Fey imaginings, adults acting like children and animals speaking in riddle and rhyme, castles of Black Glass rising up from the shadows of burning forests, filled with mirror-people who served the Eld King, it was the Lictor which smashed the Eld Kings Crystal Crown.

(Aeth histories of this incident are quite different and the situation only deepened the Aeth belief that the "Somon Balls" are essentially racist.)

The Emperors Second Death

When the Imperial Line of the Grey City of Nelvana seemed to come close to dying out, then returned in great power, with the megastructure of that city vibrating to unearthly frequencies, shifting reality instead of preserving it, creating streets like dreams and towers like pillars of sleep, realms of soft silence and warped, quiet carnivals of faceless fear, it was the Wielder of the Lictor who penetrated the Forbidden City at the Megastructures heart and discovered the Emperors were, not ageless or renewed, but un-dead, and totally mad.

The Judgement of Mad Queen Orgula

When Orgulas precognitive fear of her own future judgement drove her to try to transform her entire Queendom into one great argument for her own innocence, using magic, torture, transformation, propaganda and direct law to create a land of 'perfect purity', it was the Lictor which lead the brutal, and attritional war against her. (As any war against a Precognitive must be - pursued relentlessly until every alternative and escape is exhausted.)

The Entropy Cults of Yga

When Yga's noted tolerance came close to being its undoing and the City became infested with covert Cults of Entropy. ("Not only evil, but extremely dull" - Vosis Fail). Even that bastion of liberal humanism called for the Lictor to be Wielded, believing that only its cold, ruthless, but exact judgement, could fairly separate the guilty from the deceived.

THE FATE OF THE LICTOR

Ultimately, the vast majority of those beings capable of using the Lictor to some meaningful end, without being corrupted by it, and without going utterly mad from its black and silver visions of truth and justice, invariably leave the Flail to be, after a time.

For these individuals, their gradually increasing comprehension of Justice and its meaning, as seen through the eyes of a Dreaming God, leads them to a too-great understanding of their own limitations. They come to believe or that they are not wise enough to wield the Lictor for too long. And perhaps that no-one is.

Letters from Ir - The Beginning

Inspired by Jon Petersons 'Playing at the World' and in particular the stories of Proto-Roleplaying/Wargaming in the U.K. in the 70's, and by reading (listening to really) Churchills 'Marlborough', for the last few months I have been trying to run a kind of letter-writing, RPG/Strategy game.

Basic idea is this - 

Every player gets a chunk of the map, invents a nation and a ruler, generates a power level (which they do not disclose to other players), and assigns points from that power level to armies, individuals etc.

Players write orders to their assigned agents by writing, in character, to me. They can send one envelope per month but include as many orders as they like.

They can also write as many letters to each other as they like (in character, as rulers).

They are not meant to chat online to each other or do political stuff (on the Discord at least, I can't really stop them if they do it secretly.

Each month, towards the end of the month, I work out the results of all the Rulers orders and write back to them, in character, describing what happened - and OH MY GOD ITS DENSE.

And I could do a whole post on the evolution of my questionable rules for this.

So things proceed, month by month, with the history of Ir and the interactions of the various nations.

Ir as of today

To make diagetic sense of the existence of these nations who essentially had little or no contact before October (Month of the Time-God 'Oct') 2019, but who still know enough about each other to write letters, I created a quasi sci-fi origin story which links them in somewhat to the Esh/Uud metaverse.

Here's the original background text;

"WORLD HISTORY

The planet, or plane you are on used to be part of a trans-dimensional super-empire. This might be where all the different races and peoples of your biome came from.

About a thousand years ago [EDIT - is not 2two thousand an nineteen years], something went wrong and the giant intra-dimensional portal that connected your world, or realm, to this great commonwealth, was closed.

The Optimate, a kind of super-wizard meant to be in-charge of keeping your realm stable, or at least coherent, and safe from creepy interdimensional predatory elements, gave vague or unclear reasons for this. 

The Optimate evolved into a kind of world-ruler. They used their powers to keep all the nations, cultures and races stable, and somewhat separate. Individuals are allowed to move around, but only members of the upper classes. A kind of passport system was used, so the educated rulers have knowledge of each other but there were no mass movements of population. And the Optimate used their powers, and the remains of the Trans-Dimensional Government they headed, as a kind of 'nuclear option' which prevented anyone from amassing armies, invading each other, challenging their rule, or putting together magical or technological forces that might challenge them. The general opinion of thinkers was that, separated from their interdimensional culture and not knowing what else to do, the Optimate essentially tried to set the planetary/realm culture into 'survival mode' and to keep it stable and alive for as long as possible, and that meant tamping down on innovation of most kinds.

Over the millennia the forces of the Optimate have been gradually lessening, generation upon generation, so slowly that really only historians believed it was happening. They haven't been seen, and nothing has been heard of them for fifty years, and the previous messages indicated some kind of sickness. You don't even know if there is only one Optimate, or if its a generational thing or a cult, or what. You just know whenever anyone tries to put together military forces or magical forces above a certain (proportionate and deliberately-unclear) threshold, they get whacked by super-magic, and no-one has done it for 200 years.

Your rulers and cultures may well have very partial and very vague ideas about most of this. Its not like they necessarily know what a ‘dimension’ is, or even that the Optimate was a kind of Magic-User. For most of them its as if the world was ruled by a kind of very bureaucratic, distant, but very material demigod. Its been like this for a millennia and that’s long enough for history to become highly legendary.

The game starts as the radical traveller and poet Uxlorian Vesh has entered the Optimates silent city of Esh, broken into the City of Portal, evaded the decaying guards and discovered and confirmed that the Optimate is definitely either dead or gone. No-one is guarding Esh. No-one is policing the use of force. The only people enforcing the passport system are you, if you want to. 

There is no dominating centre to the geopolitical world, and no-one knows what to do next. A massive power vacuum has opened up, perfect for someone to fill it, or, if they are more morally responsible, to prevent anyone else from filling it, in order to maintain stability.

None of you can be certain how militarily or economically powerful each other are. It has literally never been tested in memory or record.

You know a bit about each others existence, travellers and ambassadors pass back and forth, there is some trade, but compared to, for instance, any point in the civilised history of earth, you really know shit all about your neighbours, or what might lie in the spaces between powers. You do have a general map of your world though."

The Oceans of Ir

The current nations (some are only recently 'awoken' are;

Xingando -mercantile alchemists ruled by Cerberus Or

Ulukaa - mixed nation of lizard people, tattooed humans and masked priests living in a super-jungle, ruled by All-Eyes the Pontiff Queen

Illmora - pretty reasonable growth/nature worshipping nation ruled by The Great Father-Mother

THE GREAT GLORIOUS GRONNATE - an extremely reasonable nation of arts and education ruled by THE GRON MAXIMAL

The Secret Dutchy - as yet unawoken.

Kanibalo - shark-toothed individuals in steel canoes. Ruled by Cefa Kuristo.

Slug Isle - Isle of rain-swept slug farmers, ruled by ysbryda Holyworm.

Highvern - freezing mountainous nation of jewel-mining Goblins, and others, ruled by High Queen Settra.

The Mourgelands - desert nation of pharonis Hobbit necromancers ruled by The Great Zarazant.

Twelve - currently isolationist nation of insect-people ruled by Holy Three Hand.

............................................................

In addition to their monthly letters I give the players a chronicle of the events of the world as told by the 'Heralds of Ir' - with all the news at least a month old.

Here's the current chronicle;

The God Oct- Year 2019

 1^st of Oct – Rumours begin to reach the Halls of the Rulers that the sot, Uxlorian Vesh, has penetrated the boundaries of the Optimate and found them Void.

7^th of Oct – It is said that the Verdant Fleet of Doth-Far the Clever, of Ilmora, is anchored at Metheltossos on the Insect Sea, and there trades valued metals with the peoples of Ulukaa.

9^th of Oct – Sailors claim that a great fortress of Wax has been seen crossing the Shadows Reach between Twelve and the unknown lands which lie between the Green Reach and the Sea of Shadows.

11^th of Oct – A single fisherman of Xingando tells a wild tale, that he was driven by storms across the Reach Inferior and into the Circle Sea, where he was captured and brought aboard a mighty armada, and there entertained by a most beautiful Admiral, Eralassua, as if he were himself of Noble Birth, before being sent upon his way.

The God Nov – Year 2019

2^nd of Nov – Rumour states that war has broken out between Xingando and Illmora! The Illmorans flee in terror as Xingado invades!

3^rd of Nov – The Illmorans make ready to resist the Imperious Invaders of Xingando with what force they may.

8^th of Nov – A Great Host moves in Highvern. Tales speak of Wolves in the Desert lands.

9^th of Nov – Sailors and fishermen claim to have witnessed Ships of the Dead in the Ocean of Alien Dreams to the South of Twelve.

10^th Nov DISASTER IN ILLMORA –A Great Massacre! The Illmorans fall back in disarray, is Illmora doomed at the hands of Xingando? Surely Xingando is now the Great Power of the East.

13^th Nov – It is said the Dead now rise also in the Circle Sea, ghosts are sighted within its waves.

15^th Nov – The Battle of the Desert Wolves! In the far West of the Mourgelands the Wolf-Riders of Settera the Ice Queen have met the Undead Hordes of the High Zarazant. In a conflict which lasted till the stars burned cold the Wolves of Settera were driven back. Their General, the Savage Clasnat, swears revenge against the Zarazant and his general of the East, Kathegras Ekibe.

18^th Nov – Disaster at the Pillars of Delusion! A Great Host of Setteras Armies did attempt crossing of the Pillars of Delusion to invade the Realm of the High Zarazant. They faced catastrophe! The skeletons of mighty sea-wyrms, the foul zombified corpses of Whales and the ghosts of sharks did battle with the Navy of Eralassa for a day and a night. Ultimately, so great was the phanstasmorgic terror that the forces of Highvern fell back to port. It is said that Tadaitzol, Hegeomon of Settera, and wielder of the Sword of Destiny, made of Motherfucking Diamonds, does rage against High-Admiral Eralassa for this failure.

20^th – The savage army of Xingando, the so-called ‘Rough-Gut Boys’, advances upon the Illmoran capital, so far with neither response or opposition from the Great Father-Mother.

23^rd – A Great Host of beings fleeing the Insectoid Nation of Twelve are pursued across the wildlands west of the Shadows Reach by the forces of “Holy Three-Hand” and were sure to be destroyed. Yet as they approached the border of the Great Glorious Gronnate, that border did open! The refugees claim this is a Sign and beg succour from the Great Gron Maximal.

28^th – In the Northerly Isle between the Optimate and Xingando, a new power rises. She who names herself the “Optimatrix”, called by some “The Golden Witch” declares rulership of all Optimate lands and demands recognition from all other rulers of Ir, beginning with the impudent and imperialistic Cerberus Or.

The God Dec – Year 2019

6th Dec - The Hot/Cold War drags on!

The conflict between Highvern and the Mourgelands staggers on in its southern theatre.

The Mourgelanders are unable to push Clasnats Goblins out of their land, but it is said they have poisoned the desert and made the area impassible for living beings in large numbers.

All observers believe that neither Setra or the Zarazant are about to back down and many wonder what their plans may be.......

  

8th Dec – Setra Fails!

Ice Queen Setra leaves the Crystal City and attempts to use her Great magical Power to freeze the gulf between the Pillars of Delusion claiming that her armies will simply walk across.

She leaves only icy bergs and black water which proves a serious impediment to shipping.

The Mourgelanders send up fireworks of ultraviolet mockery in response.

  

9th - Ghosts in the Crystal City

Wild tales grow of ghouls and spirits in the Crystal City, and of a Strange Gackling Moon. Highverners believe this is the work of the Foul Zarazant.

  

Dec 10th - Build That Wall!

The Great Glorious Gronnate proudly announces the building of an extremely long and narrow school, in the shape of a wall, which exactly matches the shape of its Eastern border with the wildlands.

General Snavros insists that anyone can apply to study in the Wall-School, the only two rules, The first is that to get in, you have to climb over the school. The other rule is that anyone trespassing on school property will be ejected.

The hordes of Human Chattel fleeing the Wasp-People of Twelve moan in Great Terror as their former owners repossess them by force.

  

13th Dec - Clasnats Betrayal!

It becomes common knowledge across Ir that the Goblin General Clasnat. Leader of Setras Wolf-Riders and main commander in the Southern Hot/Cold War, is considering betrayal, either for money or because he fears Setra has sent him and his riders there to die, as they may be potential threats to her continued Rule.

It is said that Setra has taken Clasnats family hostage to ensure his loyalty

  

15th Dec - MYSTERIOUS MEGABEAST SEEN

Crazed and confused stories speak of something Gigantic and Amorphous slithering beneath the waves of the Pass of Indecision between Northern and Southern Illmora.

Heralds are sent to investigate but their only report is that EVERYTHING IS FINE HERE ABSOLUTELY FINE

........................................................

Will probably be a year (assuming I even manage to keep this going for a year) before I can post any of the letters back and forth between rulers and their agents, but I might be able to put up some of the 'opening letters' from the start of the game.