Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 52

Run Blogging Day 2

I didn't really mean to run.  My back and stomach muscles are sore from yesterday, and I pushed myself hard enough, apparently, to trigger bad anxiety reactions (Your heart rate?  Up?  For a while? IT'S THE BIG ONE!!!!1!!1!11!1!) which kept me up until 1 and woke me up at 5 (for a clonopin, which kept me down until 10 D:  ).  Anyway, I didn't mean to run.  I didn't dress to run, I didn't set out to run, but I ran.  2 miles, very, very slowly.  But done is done.  And Deedees has colonized my lap without concern for my sweaty beasthood or my ability to type around 14 pounds of pure cuteness.  Us fat bastards, we stick together...

BAD Internet Laws Heading Your Way

Originally posted by write_light at BAD Internet Laws Heading Your Way
From the flist: 



Spread the word, even you're not a US citizen, it is important for everyone!! It easy to do and it can change everything. More info by clicking on the banner.
<center><a <br />href="http://americancensorship.org/"&... <br />src="http://pics.livejournal.com/justmyb0n...
Website Blocking

The government can order service providers to block websites for infringing links posted by any users.

Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users

It becomes a felony with a potential 5 year sentence to stream a copyrighted work that would cost more than $2,500 to license, even if you are a totally noncommercial user, e.g. singing a pop song on Facebook.

Chaos for the Internet

Thousands of sites that are legal under the DMCA would face new legal threats. People trying to keep the internet more secure wouldn't be able to rely on the integrity of the DNS system.

Read this analysis from boing-boing.net

Get on the phone and call your representative. Express your disapproval. Tell him or her exactly how you feel, and that you don't support this. Tell your friends to call their representatives, their Congressperson, and complain. Mention that you are a registered voter that takes your civic responsibility seriously and that you will use that vote to express your feelings about this.

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_60/Internet-Companies-Boost-Hill-Lobbying-210345-1.html?pos=olobh

“We support the bill’s stated goals — providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign ‘rogue’ websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting,” the Internet companies wrote in Tuesday’s letter. “Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites.”  The chamber-led coalition in support of the bill includes Walmart, Eli Lilly & Co. and Netflix.

Google and other opponents of the legislation argue that restricting the Internet in the U.S. sets a bad international precedent and that the language defines infringing too broadly.

SIGN AND FORWARD THESE PETITIONS

American Censorship
Whitehouse Petition
Fight For the Future
DemandProgress
Save the Internet

Run Blogging Day 1

1.66 in 21:14.  Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Thanks to aliseadae  for convincing me to do it.

[Dork] The Kacias

Kacias
They are everywhere.  Some of them live in villages up in the hills or out in the forest, but some of them are nomadic and don’t stay in one place more than a few months before moving on.  If their culture was First One or Oldcomer, or something made up on the spot in the Provinces, even they are not certain.  They have no language of their own, though most Kacias speak a few and mix those into a pidgin at home.  There is no ethnic group, their tradition is to adopt, foster, marry, or let in anyone who wants to be with them or lacks any other place to go.  They are never plentiful in any single place, but there is nowhere in the Provinces you can’t find them.  Kacias follow the lessons that their founder, a girl named Sylfie, learned, recounted in colorful and hilarious detail.  Where she came from or who she was before she decided to walk around the world (among other things) isn’t really covered.  Sylfie isn’t a god, exactly, but she was, in life, if she lived, a hero and a trickster and, well, lots of different things, good, bad and frankly absurd.  They say she comes back.  Pretty often.  You might have met her.  The guiding principles of the Kacia are twofold; first that life is to be experienced to be understood, and second that everything has a use and the trick is to figure out what that use is.
Kacias, when they are not going incognito, tend to dress in light blue and wear red caps or kerchiefs, and bells.  They relentlessly reuse and repurpose anything they can, and their crafts often bear the images of bees or spiders (two of Sylfie’s favorite animals).  Any Kacia you meet will have a little poppet or doll in their founder’s likeness, ranging from what you’d expect for a child’s doll to something small enough to slip in a pocket.  The usually have a couple, just in case.  For some reason, they are good talismans and ridiculously easy to make.  If you meet a Kacia in the army, they will be wearing a patchwork coat.
Kacias will have their dress, though they don’t seem forbidden to dress otherwise, very few ever do.  They will definitely have a Sylfie, and any Sylfie counts as a talisman (for this reason the dolls are popular among settled folk for their children).  Kacias pick up additional languages from their diverse membership and big families, and can pick up a special little knack that has one of the few uniquely Kacia words for a name: bana, resourcefulness.  You can use bana in place of just about any piece of Gear in a Fight, but you must always risk it.  Bana can be gained back by someone who had it in their kit the same way someone can get mojo. 
The Traits listed below are not the only Bardic College Traits there are, and you can feel free to alter, make up ones, mix and match them as suits your character.
·         You are an Adopted Foundling, and you remember a life before you came to live with the Kacia.  How much of that life and whatever it meant to you, you have a new home and a family now.
·         You are a Child of the Hills, born in the villages tucked out of the way.  You may never have seen settled folk before.
·         You are a Child of the Spider, dedicated to the principles of bana, thrift and making use of everything you see.  Your pockets are always full and your mind always searching for a way to make use of what is in your hands.
·         You are a Child of the Bees, accustomed to life on the road and in the sight of settled folk.  You know many languages and customs and ways to get by, be silent, get ignored or not offend. 
·         You are a Child of the Swan, because there are things that have to be done, and no one needs to know they ever happened.    When your people fight, it is through you, and usually, it is without their knowledge.  Or anyone else’s.
·         You are a Patchwork Soldier; armies have learned that impressing Kacias gets them excellent support staff, and Kacias have learned to accommodate that.  You wear the patchwork and help keep the army fed.  It could be worse.
·         You are a Self-Reliant Hermit, keeping an eye on the outposts while the traveling groups are away; it’s a lonely task, but an important one; all sort of settled folks line up to fence Kacias out the moment they are away.
·         You are a Savvy Rambler, off on your own little walk of the world.  It may not be your first or your last.
·         You are a Friend of the Bandits, because even the bandits need friends.  You might be a member of a chapter.
·         You are a Nan or Pada, and usually they are old, but not always.  The people who direct the Kacias need only be recognized as having something important to say. 

[Dork] Bardic Colleges

The Bardic Colleges
The longest running and most brutal war the old empire ever fought was against culture and knowledge.  Each dynasty set about not only systematically destroying all the knowledge and memory of every people they could subdue, but also the accumulated history of their own people to date.  Through accident or design, the empire fostered a deep streak of anti-intellectualism that remains prevalent in the Provinces even after the fall.  The Bardic Colleges truly are a secret organization, even a generation after the empire stopped ruthlessly rooting through their colonies, burning books and hanging the people who held them; these organizations are slow to trust.  Slow to trust the people who largely sold them out and refuse to listen, some infected with a sneering hatred of expertise and learning, but most merely deeply ambivalent about the ruins the empire made of their displaced and oppressed cultures.  They have been slow to trust one another, since the collegial system is divided along cultural lines and though all of them were called “colleges” in the security documents of the empire, they have vastly different scope and structure, depending on who made them.  In most Provinces, the collapse of the empire has made things worse for the colleges with strongmen and demagogues scrambling for power at any cost, with all of the imperial prejudice against those of learning but none of the security of position.   It’s not much of a stretch to assume that most of those on the Path of the Bard have some ties to a college, but anyone who believes in knowledge and seeks to reclaim their culture and history has a stake in the work of the colleges.
Bardic colleges can differ significantly from one another, especially between Provinces, so in taking collegial Traits, it’s good to think about what you want the structure, resources and goals of your college to be.  Most colleges identify their members through signs and counter-signs, though some colleges may use other identifying symbols and means of marking their allegiance.
Bardic colleges entrust knowledge and history to their members, including books and other means of recording information, also access to libraries, hidden caches and laboratories.
The Traits listed below are not the only Bardic College Traits there are, and you can feel free to alter, make up ones, mix and match them as suits your character.   
·         You are a Culture Preserver, dedicated to promoting the traditions and history of your people; this is a public and, in many places a dangerous assignment, even still.
·         You are a Lore Seeker, hunting down leads and rumors of lost information and knowledge.  Archaeological adventurer, pretty much.
·         You are a Knowledge Protector, charged with the defense of a particular set of information, knowledge, set of books, cache or library.  It is up to you to ensure that those who need can learn from what you have and those who would seek to destroy it never get to do so.
·         You are an Expert in Field with specialized knowledge that makes you both a valuable asset and a valuable target.
·         You are a Wandering Teacher, and you have sacrificed depth of knowledge for breadth.  You risk your life to share that knowledge with your people.
·         You are a Rogue Scholar who knows things that even your college would rather be forgotten.  Eventually, what you know will vindicate you, but for now, discretion is the order of things, even among your colleagues.
·         You are an Ivory Tower Dweller, one of the few who had security enough to carry out your studies without constant fear of exploitation or for your safety.  Will what you learned in that time serve you well enough to survive?
·         You are a Simple Entertainer, one of the clandestine administrators of your college.  Not always as well educated, your remit is usually to help and protect others.
·         You are an Iconoclast, someone who believes that the people are ready to hear the truth.  Not very popular.
·         You are an Academic Avenger, one who protects your college through more direct routes.  And stabbing. 

[Dork] The Masked Bandits (a.k.a, if Team Ico did Sons of Anarchy)

Masked Bandits
Banditry is nothing new and nothing unexpected, some people are going to, through necessity or inclination, steal from other people and live outside the law.  Everyone expects that.  No one expected the horned masks or the intricate patterns woven into tabards they wear, or that the masked bandits would eventually coalesce into a parallel society that transcends Province and culture of origin.  The Masked Bandits partially evolved from rebel militias as well as the standard bandit, which might go a ways to explain them, but no one knows where the masks came from.  Occasionally, you will get some very unreliable stories about some rakish hero who put on a mask, but those don’t get a lot of traction.  The masks don’t come from any of the cultures that make up the Provinces, and they have proven almost suspiciously useful against the Queen and her servants.  The Bandits are divided into organizations and chapters with insignia (painted on their masks and woven in their tabards), they take anyone who can prove themselves, though some cling to a cultural identity and all of them are prone to infighting over territory and ideology.  They exist in tandem with the local communities, sometimes acting as benevolent protectors, sometimes hidden, fugitive outlaws and sometimes brutal predators, depends on the organization, depends on the situation.  They tend to live in camps and even full towns of their own device.  Their popularity has grown a bit since the coming of Dahan Nen, and a lot of bandit chapters have taken to raiding against her; since the war, this makes them the most credible fighting force opposing her in the Provinces.
The Masked Bandits have a simple set of symbols, the horned mask and the patterned tabard; that said, both display a dizzying array of combined colors patterns and meanings that outsiders have a very hard time following.  By design.
Masked Bandits give their members their masks and tabards, knowledge of bandit heraldry, and can provide a fairly extensive array of weapons.  Most importantly, Masked Bandits can provide conveyance (horse or motorcycle, depending on the technical capabilities of the age).  Trusted fighters can get access to light military grade hardware, though they’d better return it in usable condition when they are done with it.
The Traits listed below are not the only Hearthkeeper Traits there are, and you can feel free to alter, make up ones, mix and match them as suits your character.   
·         You are a New Prospect under the wing and the thumb of your experienced siblings.  It’s not a terribly pretty lifestyle, it can be pretty demeaning and menial, but you’ll prove yourself.
·         You are a Vested Member who has taken your scars and earned your place.  You are the rank and file, distinguished only by your skills and accomplishments.
·         You are a Daring Raider and you love the raid.  If there is a raid, you’re going.  The bread and butter of your chapter.
·         You are a Masked Face, the one who does the talking, maintains ties with the community and probably has some weight to throw around, whether through esteem for your responsibilities (which can vary) or force of personality.
·         You are a False Face Collaborator, and your bare face is the mask you wear.  You are a spy and informant in the communities your organization fosters.
·         You are a Mask Maker, who knows the heraldry, keeps the lore, and quotes the code.  Your position is ceremonial, but very important, and your word holds a lot of authority.
·         You are a Quiet Authority and you lead by example.  Let other people make the decisions, argue and second-guess, when the course is clear, you show the younger ones how it’s traveled.
·         You are a Young Turk and you know things can be different, that there are better ways to get by in the world while holding tradition, and you are more than willing to take your licks to stand up for what you believe.
·         You are a Overlooked Grumbler who raids and works and fights and is ignored.  No one gives you the credit you deserve, no one listens when you’re right, and no one’s looking when you accomplish. 
·         You are a Trusted Lieutenant, active in policy and council, leading raids and helping make decisions.  You are not full leadership, yet, but if you want it, time will come.

[Dork] The Hearthkeepers

Hearthkeepers
The secret in plain sight, the things parents talk about when they all get together after the kids are in bed, the appeal of last resort.  The Hearthkeepers are the largest semi-secret tradition of witchcraft in the territories hidden under a thin veneer of a charitable health-and-service organization.  Witches found little love from the old empire and their Malist neighbors and began to evolve a public face of harmless, avuncular folks who just want to help.  That’s largely become the truth, but, ironically, it has, rather than defanging them, made them more powerful than the old witch clans could have ever become on their own.  The Hearthkeepers hold hygiene classes and health fairs to teach the old country sorceries, they have parades and charity picnics that often include Malist priests and public officials performing the ancient rites in harmless guise.  There are levels of membership, secrets, codes, greater responsibilities and cooler costumes, but these are smokescreens for the simple practices of wit and will that their ancestors used to practice in secret and in hiding.  Everyone knows they are witches, but everyone needs them too much to make a fuss and a third of everyone has a degree with them anyway.
Hearthkeepers use brooms and ashes, effigies, bonfires, fireworks and torches as symbols, as well as a library of sigils, codes, code-words, signs, countersigns and honestly a little bit of theater.  They don’t mind their members being part of other groups so long as they don’t spill the beans and keep to the code of helping, whether you like it or not.  Amber, Maroon, Indigo and Black are important colors with different meanings.
Hearthkeepers have a lot of medical lore, witchy swag and neat old books.  They have a cant which members learn by degrees (low degree cant and high degree cant, guess which one you have to learn first).  They have the recipe for making the white ash that bars the Gloom, and the black salt that draws it forth.  Healer’s kits and talismans (wands, brooms, sacred knives [not for stabbing people], ghostwood beads, sacred torches) are also available to those on whom they rely.
The Traits listed below are not the only Malist Traits there are, and you can feel free to alter, make up ones, mix and match them as suits your character.   
·         You are a Keeper of Secrets with some degree of authority and trust.  You watch over the lore of the witches.
·         You are a Fiery Priest who can lead covens in ritual; naturally this is also a position of trust and authority.
·         You are a Bleeding Heart who takes the healthcare remit of hearth very seriously and pushes for ever-greater responsiveness to the needs of the community.
·         You are a Seasoned Healer often a traveler and a teacher of medical technique and country sorcery, midwife, pharmacist, veterinarian; a position of respect, but not always tied to coven or community.
·         You are a Hardened Triage Veteran and you have been in blood to your elbows and seen patients die.  You do what needs must, and make decisions that others will shy away from.
·         You are a Enthralled Apprentice who is just beginning to learn the depth and breadth of this group, still finds the mystery glamorous and exciting.
·         You are a Tasked Agent with a specific goal and means to prove your trustworthiness and reliability.  This is the most common journeyman level of the Hearthkeepers, where one has a chance to distinguish themselves.
·         You are a Charitable Booster, who would just as soon bake pies as chant in ritual.  You are the public face of the hearthkeepers, either committed wholeheartedly to the public functions you serve or committed wholeheartedly to looking as harmless and boring as possible. 
·         You are a Repairer of Reputations who others seek out when things go wrong.  An agent with a lot of trust and deeds behind you, a reliable person who gets results.
·         You are a Witch, Damn Right and when people come for your help, you let them know it.  In some ways, you are the counterbalance for the Charitable Booster, a slightly ridiculous or embarrassing figure until things get real.

The Opposing Goalie (Sleeps Alone Tonight)

So just as good wrestling is an excellent place for bad drama, bad hockey is kind of a good place for drama.  The Fail* vs. the Sound Tigers in Hartford, I know little about hockey, honestly, but I think I have a reasonable idea when it's done poorly, and the poor Bridgeport goalie not only had to spend two periods with an unusually... passionate and original heckler, but he also made 43 saves and his team lost the game.  In overtime.  With less than a minute on the clock.

That's not why I write.  In front of me sat a father and son, the boy was maybe 4, a cute, serious little kid with stick-out ears. His father was a boy.  He was probably in his early to mid 20s and he reminded me of me.  When I was 8; angry, hurt, half-mad, a quarter feral, guts all aspilt.  He screamed and moaned and yelled and harassed the local radio creeper acting out and taking passionate opinion of everything, begging for approval, his vulnerable ego just spilling out all over the place.  

I worry.

Motherfucking Metrics (Broom Closet Edition)

2500 toward a total of 46000.  This will not be over in November.  They're still in hell.  There is at least one more section before FINAL CONFRONTATION.  I still need a fifth man for the band.

[Dork] Haven't Used this Tag in a While

Right, so Monday night game has been an earlier version of Autumn War, and it's going pretty well.  I've made a lot of changes based on what's come up in play, and I'm going to eventually spring them on my players.  I'm also messing around with the setting, since one of the things that always seems to happen to me is that I make setting more an more dense (because I love it) and then it becomes impenetrable, so I've been trying to back off and take a better look at what I am doing.  

The Provinces have gone through a lot of changes, and the recent round is portraying them as a sort of balkanized, almost-republic, former colony, still diverse in population, but with a lot more externally (imperially) imposed culture.  One of the other things I changed was the return of one of my Crystal Dragon Jesuses (if I linked that, it would be to TV Tropes): Malus.

So this is what I've got:

This may sound a bit familiar.  Sometime far back in time and in a faraway land lived this teacher, healer, leader of his people, really good guy that people in the Provinces know as Malus.  Malus had a big problem with all the evil in the world and all the suffering it caused all the people he loved, so he did the rational thing you’d do at that point and swallowed it.  All the evil.  This worked out poorly for him; eventually some of his friends hammered 19 nails into his swollen body to let off the pressure, causing him to explode into all the apple seeds everywhere, and the Afterworld, as neither apparently existed before he made them.
History gets a little murky in terms of what happened after that, but Malus’ cult became one of the big winners of early imperial conquest and commerce, and is now a big player for the souls of people in the Provinces, with really only local cults and beliefs to compete.  People have a lot of conflicting ideas about what state the man is in now, what his preferences and opinions are, and who he likes best. 
Malist’s favor light green as a color, Malus’ symbols are a string of 19 iron nails (or 19 nails pushed into an apple), apples, and the 5 pointed star-shape of the seeds of an apple when you cut it transversely.
A Malist can add any of the following to their Gear, up to 1 per Malist Trait. 
Nail String (iron, most nails in the early modern and beyond are steel), Extra Nails (also iron), Seed-Star (usually silver, gold if you’re fancy), Book of Malus, extra set of clothes, extra food pouch, Faith in Malus (requires two Malist Traits).
The Traits listed below are not the only Malist Traits there are, and you can feel free to make up ones, mix and match them as suits your character.   
·         You are a Pious Believer, and you know the words and prayers, the ins and outs of the congregations, how to talk to other believers, organize the faithful.  You truly believe and truly feel a call to help those in need.
·         You are a Mystical Aspirant who looks for truth and gnosis behind the words and rituals.  You seek to experience what is transcendent in your faith.
·         You are a Social Believer who talks the talk and walks the walk for the sake of those around you.  Your own faith is beside the point.  The point are your family and friends and the people who need you around.
·         You are an Intellectual Critic who notices how often Malus’ opinions line up behind those of the people speaking for him.  You know the words and scriptures well enough to catch these people up, you know history well enough to see the rise of the cult through the empires.
·         You are a Disillusioned Rejecter who reached out to Malus in need and found nothing.
·         You are an Ostentatious Signifier who talks the talk very well and very loud.  You know the social dynamics of believers quite well and how to get what you want out of them and come out smelling like apple pie.
·         You are a Terrified End-Timer who sees the signs, knows the secrets, and fears the doom that sits at the top of the Rickety Tower, yet waits in hope for Malus to return and knock that tower down.
·         You are a Wandering Stray who once was found, but now is… well, Malus probably knows where to find you if he’s interested in talking.
·         You are an Interested Nonbeliever who figures it’s wise to know what most of the people you are going to encounter believe.  Full of questions, though skeptical of the answers.
·         You are a Guilty Backslider who got lost and found and… well, your relationship with Malus, there is love, but it is a complicated love.