Ah, Politics

So the news has been all about immigration. (In Australia anyway) Why, I'm not sure. Apparently we have a crises - 2000 people want to come into our country and aren't taking no for an answer. No, seriously. OK, sure, America has 22 million [1] 'illegal' immigrants - about the same as the population of Australia. But we have a smaller population! And if action isn't taken, why that number could increase to 4000! or even 10,000!

Please.

Campaign Log: Winter 1470 (2)

Tito walks into the ambush site, screened by his walking trees. (Animating trees is Tito's Thing). But he's not here for a fight, he just wants to find Valantino, so he tries to open up negotiations. Gaius, up on the hillside is looking for a fight, so he's trying to find the bandits that he saw going over the ridge, without much luck. He holds off on starting anything, knowing how Tito gets when he causes needless casualties.

The bandits are also not interested in getting into a fight. They saw Tito fly in, and they're looking at walking trees - they know they're up against a wizard. So negotiations begin. They fetch their captain, and Tito sends Gaius back to the campsite to pick up some stray hairs for use as arcane connections later.

Cut to the campsite, an hour or so ago. Carlos has made his way back there, after losing track of the other mages. As he approaches, he hears activity. Being invisible, he easily manages to sneak up to the campsite and observe that some of the bandits have doubled back and are clearing out their hastily abandoned campsite. They move with precision and purpose, destroying or removing every trace of their presence here. These are no ordinary bandits.

Carlos tries an illusion to scare them away from the flying carriage, but this only causes them to sweep the forest for the illusionist. He evades them, but chooses not to interfere further. The bandits complete their cleanup and depart. Shortly afterwards, Gaius teleports back to find a clean campsite. He casts around for a bit, exchanges a few words with Carlos, and then goes back to Tito - who sends him back when he admits that he didn't use magic to find the stray hairs.

Carlos goes back, fails to cast the spell, and teleports back to Tito. He's getting a little tired of being Tito's errand boy, but changes his tune when he hears how the negotiations are going.

Titos goals are a little unusual for a Italian landowner. He wants:

1. Nobody to get killed.
2. His trees not to get cut down.

The bandits, of course, want money. I think it was Gaius that proposed that Tito hire the bandits to keep other people out of the forest, and to not rob people. Captain Gavino is agreeable to that, but his price is 300 florins per month, which is money that Tito just doesn't have. Other options proposed include simply allowing the bandits to operate in the woods, keeping people out by robbing them. Gavino says that he could step up operations - they've been keeping a low profile to avoid pissing off Sigismund off too much. If Tito was willing to provide political cover...

Gaius's preferred option is that they hire the gang, and use them to rob the Pazzi's bank, giving them enough funds to pay them. Gavino is also in favour of this idea - this is turning out to be a pretty good day for him!

Tito, unwilling to make any commitments at this stage, returns to his top priority - getting Valantino back before sunset. He explains why to Gavino, who points out that Valantino is unlikely to be fighting any sorcerous beasts any time soon. Nevertheless, in light of the new, hopefully profitable relationship, he agrees to show the PCs where to find their friend. He'll have someone meet them in town tomorrow or the next day.

And so the PCs go back to Rimini. Sorcerous beasts are not in evidence, which is just as well, as Valantino is at -5 from his wounds, even after aid. Its a quiet night for all.

In the morning, Valantino hashes out the details of the Lamia trap he wants Tito to build, and tries to get healed. Unfortunately, he doesn't have enough vis of the right type. So he goes looking for a trade, first amongst the players, then its flying back to Florence to see if any of the other mages have Creo or Corporam vis. None do, but Tito remembers another mage who might be able to help. Someone who would almost certainly trade Herbam (one of the least valuable types of Vis) for Creo (one of the most valuable types)

Some digression is needed here. Tito specialises in Herbam - plants. He hates seeing plants destroyed, and he's very bad at doing it himself - he can't destroy them using herbam magic, and he can't use fire magic worth a damn either. When the players visited a Covenant near Bolongna, Tito had been very exited to hear about another Herbam specialist. All the other types of mage tend to look down on the Herbam mage, what their flying and teleporting and fireballing. Here was somone he could talk to!

As it turned out though Daunte Rociacasale was a Perdo Herbam specialist, specialising in destroying plants. And worse - on causing them pain. Hey, everyone needs a hobby. When Tito visited Daunte, he was horrified to find the garden that Daunte was growing - a garden filled with plants twisted and macabre, of plants given traits of animals or humans, twisted mockeries of Gods creation.

Daunte, though, would almost certainly be interested in Valantino's trade. So off to Avenio they go. Not all the way though, Tito refuses to go within a mile of the place, so Valantino is forced to walk the rest of the way. When he gets there he is greeted by Uso - a big man who has a habit of turning into a wolf as big as a bear. Uso greets Valantino warily - the PCs don't have a great reputation in Avenio. He considered giving Valantino a hard time, but the first words out of Valantinos mouth are that he needs to see Daunte. Short of attacking, Uso can't think of anything worse than that, so he directs Valantino to the garden. (The rest of Avenio's mages aren't mad keen for Daunte either)

Valantino walks the gauntlet of the outer garden, looking at the bleeding trees and the softly screaming flowers and eventually finds Daunte. He's fairly old, and keen to show off his latest creations, the crying begonias, and the cabbage kids. He gets so few visitors. But he is happy to trade. So pleased is he by the visit that he give Valantino a plant that hes been working on. To all appearances, its a small potted flower. Valantino is too eager to get out of there to ask whats special about it, and too polite to refuse it. He leaves as soon as he can.

Greeted again by Uso, the conversation goes something like: "Finished already? Oh look, he gave you a plant... WellthatsverynicebutI'msureyouhavetobegoinghaveanicedaybye!" SLAM.  Valantino walks back to the carriage. When he gets there, Tito is staring at him in horror.

Tito: "Where did you get that plant?"

Valantino: "Daunte gave it to me as a - "

Tito: "No! Kill it! Kill it!"

Valantino: "I can't do that, it was a gift -"

Tito: "Its an abomination! It must be destroyed!"

Then follows an hilarious sequence, where Valantino, who could easily destroy the plant, refuses to, and Tito, who is completely unable to, is desparate to. Valantino is willing to let Tito do as he will in this matter, so he stands aside and lets him try, even pointing out that its quite a small plant and Tito could just step on it. He demonstrates on a nearby shrub.

Tito: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!!"

Despite the example, Tito is worried that the plant might recover from crushing damage, or worse that it might release pollen or seeds. He tries Plant-rot spells and fire spells, but he never had a chance to succeed. He double botches his Natural Philosophy roll and decides that the only animal that could eat a plant like this is a wild boar. Taking pity on him, Valantino picks up a stick and conjures fire on it - and botches, hitting the flying carriage.

Tito: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!!"

Tito quickly detaches the piece of the carriage thats on fire (it was just a small spell) and tries to set the plant alight. It refuses to burn.

Tito: "Nooo! Abomination!"

Tito heads off into the forest to find a boar to eat the flower. He takes the control stick for the carriage with him. Valantino waits. Valantino uses his invisiblity ring on the plant and stows it on board. He creates a fake plant and pot. Eventually, Tito comes back out of the forest with some boar poo.

Tito: "Right, lets summon this boar!"

Valantino snaps his fingers and summons a flame that burns the pot to ash.

Tito: "Why didn't you... I've got boar shit on my... Fine! Lets just go."

Why does Gartner exist?

Two articles I saw today:


Prediction:

Speaking of Apple, its share of the smartphone OS market will also grow - but only from 10.8 per cent to 13.7 per cent [in 2012], Gartner said. 

Observation:

The latest smart-phone numbers from Canalys show that Apple's gaining share like a bat out of hell. The company has gone from 2% global share to 14% share in a year. 

Looks like Gartner's numbers are a little out of date? I can't understand why newspapers keep quoting Gartner reports like they mean something - and why managers keep reading their reports. They are just so often wrong.

I'm starting to remember what I like about my job

When I left, I didn't think I could stand one more day there, but after three weeks, I'm starting to feel OK about it. Well, thats generally how long it takes for a holiday to end.

The good thing about working in a soul-sucking bureaucracy is... you can't fail. You can stuff something up, but thats not failure. Clearly, you didn't have the knowledge or experience or enough time or whatever to complete the task. We'll work out what went wrong and do better next time. And thats when you stuff up, which is rare, because a bureaucracy has rules to follow. As long as you follow the rules, you'll do well. If you find yourself in a situation without rules, you can do whatever you want - and if it doesn't work out, then there will be some new rules to cover that situation.

In the real world, failure hurts. Even if its just the rejection of a story submission to a magazine, when you put yourself out there its you that gets rejected. That never happens in my job - I can do my job in my sleep.

Which brings us to the bad part. Doing my job - I am asleep. Theres just mindless tedium and endless procedure, and I hate it. Its easy, but you can't live fully when doing it. Part of you has to go away and do something interesting.

Right now, I'm looking at my first piece of pain, my first rejection, and I'm thinking - I'm not good enough. I'm not writing enough, I'm not submitting enough, I'm not getting better fast enough. I'm not going to accomplish anything during this time off and I'm going to go back to work, back to sleep, with nothing having changed. Its fear and I hate it. But at least its real.

Books you've never read: The True Game

It took me a while to realise that most people haven't read The True Game. I read it  when I was quite young, so it had quite an effect on my thinking about fantasy, becoming part of my background understanding of how fantasy worked, much like Tolkien did for a lot of people (including me) So it was quite a shock to realise that other people didn't share it.

Because I was very young (12?) I missed a lot of what was going on. I had taken it for a standard fantasy epic. You know the one, the one with the young boy hero who is born with a special power, who goes on a journey to change the world and defeat the Evil King. All of which is in the book, but there was so much more. Like the homosexual relationship between Mandor and the underaged hero, Peter.

And so much more. Tepper's style, and Peters voice (the novel is in the first person) is so... nice, that it masks the fact that the Lands of the True Game are horrible places to live. You might think that George R Martin's Westeros has scant regard for human life, but at least there, people only kill for fun and profit. In the Land of the True game peasants are killed by the dozens for the scant advantage that sucking the heat from their bodies gives. The society in which Peter lives and the ethos with which he grew up with completely lacks compassion and morality. Peter grows up without parents, not because they are dead, but because they know that if anyone knew of his parentage they would use him to get at them. Its a wonder that Peter is as nice as he is.

Not that he is a saint. One of the features of this world is the Schools where people of Peters class are raised, kept safe from the horrors of the world outside. Peter grew up being taught in class how, when, and where to kill. It lends an interesting twist to the naive hero who somehow manages to survive all the dangers to reach his destiny. Peter is naive, and is always finding himself in dangerous situations, but when he stops to think about, he has all the mental tools available to outwit, ambush or otherwise overpower his adversaries.

If you've read Tepper's other works, you may start to see her oft used theme here of "People are horrible", but you will have to read the rest of the series (The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped and the Jinian Trilogy, two trilogies often grouped to together as two books) before the full nature of the situation unfolds, and the real message behind the books becomes clear.

Campaign Log: Winter 1470

The characters are still in Rimini, scouting out a location for their covenant. They have a potential site, with just one problem - the local residents. The site is on Mount Titano, and the locals are a stand-offish group who haven't had much interaction with the rest of Italy. As magi, the PCs could probably destroy the small community without much effort or repercussions, but despite strong representation for that option, the majority are against founding their covenant with a bloodbath.

Efforts at negotiation have been made more difficult by Carlos, who played around with some illusions last session, provoking the village. Tito had to fly in and put a stop to it, managing to stop the confrontation from escalating, but not really ingratiating himself with the villagers.

So in the morning, its up to Valantino to head up the mountainside and negotiate. Flying most of the way there, he lands and approaches on foot to avoid spooking the villagers. He spots the guards before they can ambush him, and speaks his piece, offering gifts and asking to speak to the leader. When the leader agrees to speak with him, he continues his humble approach, submitting to the silly (and quite uncomfortable - bathing in winter?) rituals and is allowed to come up and speak to the High Priest.

Meanwhile, Tito is wandering around Rimini, trying to find out something about the bandits that are living in his forest. Of course, Tito being Tito, he says the wrong thing to the wrong person, and he finds himself in an escalating confrontation with a very loud shopkeeper. He shouts "Fine, see if I care if you get killed by bandits!" and tries to leave. But the crowd blocks his way. He forces his way past them, but the crowd follows, yelling insults, and working its way up to throwing stones at him.

Before it can get to that stage, though, Tito cracks. He starts blubbering, crying "I'm sorry that I'm so ugly, I don't mean to be!"

Confused, and more than a little disturbed by the sight of the big man blubbering, the crowd disperses. Tito goes back to his rooms in the castle (the players are guests of the Duke, Sigismundo) and sulks. When Valantino comes back with news that the villagers are ready to move on to the next step in negotiations, Tito is in no mood to hear it.

The rest of the party are pleased to hear that things are moving forward. Valantino tells them that the next step is for the people that were fooling with and/or killing the villagers last night will have to come forward and apologise. Its suggested that they will have to pay were-guild for the dead raiders. Sigismundo steps in a this point, and says that there's no need to stint on the gifts - he provides silver, fine cloths and wine for the characters to offer.

And offer them they do. The High Priest is pleased with the gifts, and impressed by their powers - it seems he is no stranger to magic. He admits that the warriors that were killed were on a raid, so their deaths were honourable and accepts the gifts as reparation. He declares that there will be a feast. He doesn't mention that the feast will be a test of the characters good nature, but they get that anyway.

The feast is held, and the characters acquit themselves well. Gaius makes an impression on one of the prettier villagers, but he manages to sneak off with her and not cause any trouble. Carlos declines to make any more mischief. And Tito has a chance to save a young kid from a nasty fall. The kids mother thanks him profusely, and Tito starts to come out of his sulk. The characters are invited to stay the night, as climbing down the mountain isn't safe - but the characters have a flying carriage, so they decline. Gaius manages to re-join the party in time, and they depart.

As the party flies down to the castle, they spot a figure wandering the battlements. A closer approach reveals that it is Valantino's wife, sleepwalking or in a trance. Valantino snaps her out of it, and gets her back to bed. Carlos also retires, but Gaius takes Tito out into town. Tito has been moping far to much for Gaius' liking recently so he gets Tito drunk and pays a 'large woman' to spend some time with Tito. Tito is too chaste to take advantage of her offers, but he feels better at least.

The next morning, Gaius declares that he needs a coffee and a kebab to deal with his hangover. Since neither of these have been introduced into Italy yet, he teleports to Tunis, where such things are available. He quickly regrets it, as it turns out teleporting is bad for hangovers. Even with the recuperative powers of coffee and kebabs, it is noon before he feels well enough to teleport back. But he's in time to join the party's bandit hunting expedition.

Tito has learned from Sigismundo that the bandits are ex-members of his mercenary company. They are skilled, know the forest and are trained to deal with magic. Worse, they have got a hold of at least one of the helmets that Sigismundo equips his trusted soldiers with. These helms allow the wearer to see through illusion and provide magic resistance. Nevertheless, the characters are feeling confident as they set out. The weather is good, if chilly, and they hope to fly over the forest and identify the bandit camp by the smoke from the campfires. A high aerial pass shows 5 possible sites, Valantino volunteers to do a close inspection as he can both fly and go invisible.

Some three hours pass, and Valantino does not return. The party heads out after him. They quickly investigate a charcoal-burners camp and a lone cabin by a lake. As they approach the third site, a man pops out of concealment an fires a crossbow right at Tito. Tito is protected by his Shriek of the Impending Shafts spell and dodges the arrow. The man pops back into concealment and sounds his warning horn, as the flying carriage zooms up to his hiding place. He is not to be seen there, and as they fly over the ridge in pursuit of him, they espy the remains of a hastily-vacated camp. Ignoring their attacker, whom they have lost track of anyway, Tito lands in the camp and identifies the direction the bandits have left from. He follows on foot, leaving the rest of the characters to follow.

The bandits left a few traps to slow pursuers down, but Tito uses his magic to disable them without breaking stride. Much to his dismay though, he finds that the tracks split a number of times. Each time they do, he knows the chances of finding Valantino grow smaller. He runs on. Carlos falls behind, gives up and heads back to the carriage. Gaius manages to keep up, and spots another ambush ahead. He teleports above the ambushers, ready to serve up an ambush of his own....

End of Session.