A man loved a Morrigan and said this of her: that her skin was græy like knapped flint; that her hair was bloodless white; that her fingers were thick as branches; that her hunger was black like everything; that she carried an unbroken line in her hand, upon which were skewered many soldiers; that she placed a ragged standard in his hand; that she told him: walk on, forever. my Sword is dirty, and i cannot reach the End of it
* * *
All of the world maps are Dead Fucking Wrong, but sometimes rich idiots collect them:
- Whoever made this one was on some shit. It's 80% Koa, 10% cool drawings of sea monsters, with all the other geography squeezed into the corners. There's also two mountains that shouldn't be there(?) flanking the capital like bodyguards.
- A set of hypothetical maps which imagines the world as a pair of linked toruses. Gross!
- Star maps with too many stars are fairly common. This one has too few.
- An otherwise unremarkable (read: wildly incompetent) projection with an unknown land sandwiched between Parth and Apolya. It has a prominent lake ("Sajra Pit") and is labeled with a friendly-looking tiger.
- there is a RIVER going from COAST to COAST on this one I CANT
* * *
Fire came to Her.
The Wheel came to Him.
Iron came to Her.
The State came to Him.
Ash came to Her.
The War came to Him.
* * *
A wise woman once said:
God this place fucking sucks. I'm going home.
* * *
To each Holy thing, their Consort. To the Braid, their Knight. To the God, their Witness. To the Saint, their Bathinger. To the Moon, the Moon.
All things interwoven. Each loose strand paired or pared.
This is how we patch a hole.
* * *
they drank from her TEN FANGS;
they kissed at her FIVE NECKS;
they sang to her FOUR HEARTS;
and evil grew thick in their liversome tissues
* * *
Nasya Four-Ears once said:
Stem-sucking Greys keep making fun of us: "oh, no koans to contemplate? no cryptic lessons from the Old Master? nO aLLegOriEs????" There's only one story you need to really GET it, okay? It's the one where the jackal kills the frog, twice; I'd tell you it, but you already know how it ends.
The City is full of Gods. Some make fruit trees grow. Some do taxes. Some carry daggers, for protection. Many operate otherwise-inexplicable elevators.
* * *
the esoteric bullshit creation myth:
in early creation, there was only the spinning Wheel
the Wheel spin'd and spin'd until creation was full
then spin'd and spin'd until creation was tangled
a Weaver stop'd the Wheel, gather'd the thread
and began the long errand of making creation beautiful
* * *
Geometrick Heretics say:
The world is intransitive. Three Lefts will not make a Right; they never-ever did.
The Line is a Braid is a Knot is not The Line.
(The Geometrick Heretics were drawn and quartered by the Good winds.)
* * *
Where are the giants, who touched the stars, who wound the Apparatuses?
Said
the Witch: They are drowning. They are buried. They are mile-wide
stains. They are crawling. They are singing songs about you and how
disappointing you are with collapséd lungs. None of them are
worth your time. Ask me about dragons instead.
* * *
When Branwyn the Glory-Mantled met the skald, it was decidely a Bad Time To Do So; deep in his period-of-madness, the skald spake: You are a piddling nut/whose tongue wanders sideways/by your grandfather's map/[the last jab is thankfully lost to history, for it was so devastating that Branwyn's appendix ruptured on the spot, killing her instantly and turning her into a bloody willow, so the story goes, barkeep never lies]
* * *
O Hannamun-Hannamun, O Knot. Crawl over me; stand on my hands and feet; anchor me in liquid time.
- an Immortal's prayer
* * *
A man loved a Morrigan and said this of her: that her skin was red like everything; that her hair was red like everything; that her hunger was still very very very black; that she carried her wife in her arms, and nine more stood in her long shadow; that she placed a broken line in his hand; that she told her: if you love me, kill them. i have so many, and they keep treading on my heels
...
...
...what's this?
SWORDWIFE
Start with: Two swords; prominent ring-scar; female pronouns.
+1 to Hit and +1 AC per template
A - Sword Marriage, +1 Attack per turn
B - okay, you caught me, it's just Loch's Rotless
A: Sword Marriage
As Rotless, except:
- You never miss attacks against fools-with-guns, either.
- You can't speak unless you have a sword in your hand.
- You and everyone who loves you is immune to peaceful retirement.
This is wonderful! It's interesting what specific things repeat - the winding of machines (done by the Giants, and perhaps undone in the building of the world), and stepping on someone else's toes (Hannamun-Hannamun stands on the feet of the Immortals to steady them, and the nine wives following the second Morrigan trip over her heels - both of them are the prevention of movement, the inducement of stillness).
ReplyDeleteThe map that is almost all Koa is interesting - Koa was "reimagined as an imperialist power" by the builders of the Tomb-City, and their cantrip means "no one will ever question your right to bear arms". They were... insular, I suppose - militarized, but not pointed outwards. Their map is all Koa because it is the part of it that is relevant - they are reimagined as an empire because their defenses were assumed to be conquests.