Written By Alecstazi
July 8, 2019, 12:49 p.m.(6/5/1011 AR)
Relationship Note on Shard
Perhaps it is that we simply have different definitions of butchery. Be that as it may, my point is simply this:
You seem deeply conflicted. You proclaim loudly to have certain morals, yet your actions and voluntary associations paint a different story. You are so quick to decry and denounce the Compact that you claim to be a citizen of, saying that you seek to make us a better people. What would you have us do then, Prima Shard of Nefer'khat? What is your suggestion as to how to deal with the Abandoned who refuse our laws and squat on our lands? Would you have us turn away from flagrant law-breaking? Should we attempt to round them up and ship them elsewhere? What is the solution that you deem more appropriate? I am not asking this to be argumentative, but in a sincere attempt to understand your point of view. And maybe a little bit to be argumentative. I admit it. I like debate.
But in all sincerity, I *do* want to know what your suggestions are. What do you propose we are to do in order to maintain the laws of the land?
You seem deeply conflicted. You proclaim loudly to have certain morals, yet your actions and voluntary associations paint a different story. You are so quick to decry and denounce the Compact that you claim to be a citizen of, saying that you seek to make us a better people. What would you have us do then, Prima Shard of Nefer'khat? What is your suggestion as to how to deal with the Abandoned who refuse our laws and squat on our lands? Would you have us turn away from flagrant law-breaking? Should we attempt to round them up and ship them elsewhere? What is the solution that you deem more appropriate? I am not asking this to be argumentative, but in a sincere attempt to understand your point of view. And maybe a little bit to be argumentative. I admit it. I like debate.
But in all sincerity, I *do* want to know what your suggestions are. What do you propose we are to do in order to maintain the laws of the land?
Written By Alecstazi
July 7, 2019, 1:09 p.m.(6/4/1011 AR)
Relationship Note on Shard
You hate butchers... And yet you willingly served under Audric de Lire? To be clear, I never met the man personally, but the stories...
Written By Alecstazi
July 6, 2019, 5 p.m.(6/2/1011 AR)
Relationship Note on Shard
I have noted a propensity on your part to hold up your personal experiences and speak as they were not only the most common but the only truth. When in fact, MOST Abandoned peoples do not bear identifying marks such as facial tattoos or disfiguring scars. What makes the threat of them so insidious is that if they dress as members of the Compact they are virtually indistinguishable from legitimate commoners. They speak Arvani same as we do, they look like us, but they are not us. They do not honor our laws, they steal from us, they start on our lands and keep us from them. They steal and poach and murder us. They are the enemy. You frequently seen to forget that YOU are ostensibly a citizen of the Compact. A surprising thing, given how much disdain and contempt you regularly seem to hold it in. If you hate us so much, no one is stopping you from returning to your savage people... Or are you the sort that just wants to complain about things even while you enjoy the benefits and safety that are the results of the very things you most about?
Written By Alecstazi
July 3, 2019, 2:38 p.m.(5/24/1011 AR)
I finally had a chance to speak with High Lord Victus. I find myself in something of bind. He is not the man I knew all those years ago. He is not simply the coarse and unrefined brute that he was made to be.
We all had our roles, our masks as much as Uncle had. His he chose to hide the effects of age, his vanity unable to bear the sight of himself at anything but his prime. He was so fixated on appearances. On the surface, as if that had any real correlation to the meat of a thing. Skin is only so deep. It is a shallow truth, skin.
I do not like this feeling. It is like standing on the tide's edge, and with each retreat of the waves, the sand under your feet is pulled inexorably away. When the tide returns, more sand is laid atop, planting you, even as more is pulled out from under your heels and you are left unbalanced. That was very much the feeling of Donrai's court. Uncertainty, unbalanced. You were given a role and made to live it. You were what you were and that was all. Deviation was not encouraged, change... change was allowed to an extent but never seen with joy. It became rote. To be what you were told to be. And as with practice in any thing, the more time spent doing or being that... the more natural it all became. To see people as no more than the surface masks we were assigned. The loyalist. The perfect woman. The brute.
Coming to Arx has challenged me in many ways. I have had to remove that mask and examine my actions, both today and of the past. My perceptions have been flawed. The proof stands in front of me. A man I swore was incapable of successful leadership has been shown to be one I am eager to follow. His words moved me. The logic, the respect, the intellect all show me how false those masks were. I admit freely, gladly, that I was wrong.
I cannot abandon my core belief that traditions are important, or that tradition is what makes us uniquely, supremely Thrax. But no single tradition defines us. I still think it is a slippery slope. I do not like the precedent set. But I am not enough of a fool to cling to what was, when what *is* is going to keep us alive.
We all had our roles, our masks as much as Uncle had. His he chose to hide the effects of age, his vanity unable to bear the sight of himself at anything but his prime. He was so fixated on appearances. On the surface, as if that had any real correlation to the meat of a thing. Skin is only so deep. It is a shallow truth, skin.
I do not like this feeling. It is like standing on the tide's edge, and with each retreat of the waves, the sand under your feet is pulled inexorably away. When the tide returns, more sand is laid atop, planting you, even as more is pulled out from under your heels and you are left unbalanced. That was very much the feeling of Donrai's court. Uncertainty, unbalanced. You were given a role and made to live it. You were what you were and that was all. Deviation was not encouraged, change... change was allowed to an extent but never seen with joy. It became rote. To be what you were told to be. And as with practice in any thing, the more time spent doing or being that... the more natural it all became. To see people as no more than the surface masks we were assigned. The loyalist. The perfect woman. The brute.
Coming to Arx has challenged me in many ways. I have had to remove that mask and examine my actions, both today and of the past. My perceptions have been flawed. The proof stands in front of me. A man I swore was incapable of successful leadership has been shown to be one I am eager to follow. His words moved me. The logic, the respect, the intellect all show me how false those masks were. I admit freely, gladly, that I was wrong.
I cannot abandon my core belief that traditions are important, or that tradition is what makes us uniquely, supremely Thrax. But no single tradition defines us. I still think it is a slippery slope. I do not like the precedent set. But I am not enough of a fool to cling to what was, when what *is* is going to keep us alive.
Written By Alecstazi
June 27, 2019, 10:30 a.m.(5/11/1011 AR)
Relationship Note on Sina
Your words grace us, Archscholar, and inspire, I am certain, more than just myself to commit more to the contemplation of our daily notations. Our journals are sacred, a bridge between ourselves and the gods, an expression of our souls, a transcript of our darkest fears or desires.
I was entirely with you until you spoke a single line, and that made me pause. You spoke of committing to writing the truth.
In my years in this world, if I have learned one thing, it is that truth is more clay than stone.
Two men can have a single, simple interaction and walk away with two entirely different stories that to each is the precise truth of the encounter, and yet utterly contradict the other. And this is not just that people, in general, tend to be the most unreliable witnesses, (Ask any lawyer or law enforcement official and they will tell you that) but it is that truth, like so many other things in this world is almost entirely subjective to the individual.
Even something that should be an objective truth, "The sky is blue," is debatable between people. Is it blue, or cyan? Cobalt or ultramarine?
I may be pushing this a little bit to the extreme, but the gist of my point is that truth, at the end of the day, even when earnestly believed by the one telling it, is rarely, if ever, the solid concept we speak of it as.
I was entirely with you until you spoke a single line, and that made me pause. You spoke of committing to writing the truth.
In my years in this world, if I have learned one thing, it is that truth is more clay than stone.
Two men can have a single, simple interaction and walk away with two entirely different stories that to each is the precise truth of the encounter, and yet utterly contradict the other. And this is not just that people, in general, tend to be the most unreliable witnesses, (Ask any lawyer or law enforcement official and they will tell you that) but it is that truth, like so many other things in this world is almost entirely subjective to the individual.
Even something that should be an objective truth, "The sky is blue," is debatable between people. Is it blue, or cyan? Cobalt or ultramarine?
I may be pushing this a little bit to the extreme, but the gist of my point is that truth, at the end of the day, even when earnestly believed by the one telling it, is rarely, if ever, the solid concept we speak of it as.
Written By Alecstazi
June 26, 2019, 1:09 p.m.(5/10/1011 AR)
I have had the opportunity of late to share one of my favorite stories that my father told me when I was a child. It is the story of one, beloved by Mangata, Sednaya, whose blood and flesh nourished the empty seas and gave life to the bounty found within its waters. Her story so moved Petrichor and Mangata, that together they birthed a whole second world to give to Sednaya when the world above the waves was too cruel.
As a child the lessons to be learned from the story seemed obvious. But as I look back with the eyes of an adult, I begin to wonder at the deeper messages contained within. Was my father hinting at his own true nature in some way? Were there seeds in the story, that grew into his ultimate betrayal and the fate that laid on him?
As a child the lessons to be learned from the story seemed obvious. But as I look back with the eyes of an adult, I begin to wonder at the deeper messages contained within. Was my father hinting at his own true nature in some way? Were there seeds in the story, that grew into his ultimate betrayal and the fate that laid on him?
Written By Alecstazi
June 22, 2019, 6:35 p.m.(5/2/1011 AR)
Relationship Note on Peri
1. Just because I am "newly come to Arx" does not mean my opinions are invalid or uninformed. There is a whole world outside the walls of this city.
2. Politics has little room for emotion. Hopefully this is a lesson you learn before you assume the role of Countess, for your people's sake.
3. It is actually his highness Prince Alecstazi Thrax.
4. The Isles do not beg. Nor are we a people who will easily accept charity.
2. Politics has little room for emotion. Hopefully this is a lesson you learn before you assume the role of Countess, for your people's sake.
3. It is actually his highness Prince Alecstazi Thrax.
4. The Isles do not beg. Nor are we a people who will easily accept charity.
Written By Alecstazi
June 21, 2019, 6 p.m.(4/28/1011 AR)
I agree with your words, we of the Isles have many traditions that have helped us become the strong, prideful people we are.
The tradition of thralldom is only the one that garners the most argument.
The tradition of thralldom is only the one that garners the most argument.
Written By Alecstazi
June 21, 2019, 9:54 a.m.(4/27/1011 AR)
Relationship Note on Shard
I can appreciate your passion in this topic, though I believe that in that passion you have missed several salient points.
First, when you say that we should till our own land, and hunt our own forests, to that I ask, what land? Perhaps you have not had the pleasure of visiting our beautiful Isles, but I can tell you that what land we have is not prone to being effective farm land. Our forests are fewer. Unless you can convince the Compact to cede some prime arable land along the coast, the fact of the matter is that there is not enough land to feed our people.
We do not have kidnappers. We have warriors that do precisely what Mainlanders do. They roam outward to seek new resources. Where on the mainland the choice is much more often simply death, we do not waste life so recklessly.
You say that you would choose death. That it's your choice. Thralls made a different one.
First, when you say that we should till our own land, and hunt our own forests, to that I ask, what land? Perhaps you have not had the pleasure of visiting our beautiful Isles, but I can tell you that what land we have is not prone to being effective farm land. Our forests are fewer. Unless you can convince the Compact to cede some prime arable land along the coast, the fact of the matter is that there is not enough land to feed our people.
We do not have kidnappers. We have warriors that do precisely what Mainlanders do. They roam outward to seek new resources. Where on the mainland the choice is much more often simply death, we do not waste life so recklessly.
You say that you would choose death. That it's your choice. Thralls made a different one.
Written By Alecstazi
June 20, 2019, 6:38 p.m.(4/26/1011 AR)
Relationship Note on Sophie
How odd indeed, to be on the waking mind of the Mother Mercy. It did not seem to be a particularly pleasant dream, however, so I begin to wonder if there is need for apology.
But which would apologize to whom?
But which would apologize to whom?
Written By Alecstazi
June 20, 2019, 3:49 p.m.(4/26/1011 AR)
Relationship Note on Shard
So I suppose what you are saying is that it is preferable in your mind to have hundreds or thousands of people starve because we cannot afford to import crops and supplies we need. And that need is based off not having enough arable land to farm, or forests to hunt in. You'd rather that criminals be maimed or mutilated or outright murdered instead of paying the community back through labor and service. All of those Abandoned tribes you mention -- you would rather them all be put to the sword, their lives wasted, ended, their blood left to soak into the land.
It is a curious thing, this mainlander belief that their way is somehow more humane. You are advocating for the death by starvation of swaths of innocents. For the rampant murder of criminals.
Now who is the monster?
It is a curious thing, this mainlander belief that their way is somehow more humane. You are advocating for the death by starvation of swaths of innocents. For the rampant murder of criminals.
Now who is the monster?
Written By Alecstazi
June 19, 2019, 6:58 p.m.(4/24/1011 AR)
Today I spent a significant amount of time in the Shrine of Lagoma speaking to all manner of people.
I was told about Druids, or Hierophants. Some cadre of folk called the Metallics. I was told that magic is complicated.
And I could not stop myself laughing. I mean really, is this some poor attempt at duping someone newly arrived to the city? I mean, please.
I had a more severe conversation focusing on the utter nonsense that much of the Peerage here in Arx has allowed. At first I thought this was just part of the foolishness about druids and magic and wizards. But a little digging showed me just how real this is.
I need a drink.
I was told about Druids, or Hierophants. Some cadre of folk called the Metallics. I was told that magic is complicated.
And I could not stop myself laughing. I mean really, is this some poor attempt at duping someone newly arrived to the city? I mean, please.
I had a more severe conversation focusing on the utter nonsense that much of the Peerage here in Arx has allowed. At first I thought this was just part of the foolishness about druids and magic and wizards. But a little digging showed me just how real this is.
I need a drink.
Written By Alecstazi
June 19, 2019, 6:57 p.m.(4/24/1011 AR)
It has been at least eight years since the last time I was in Arx. Unsurprisingly, quite a lot has changed. The city is louder than I remember. Some of the landmarks are familiar, the markets, the city squares. But so many details are subtly changed. Walking through the sanctums, I expected the shrines of Lagoma and Jayus to have changed, but the Shrine of the First Choice and Shrine to the Queen of Endings are new. What was once the Shrine of the Lost now seems to favor the Dreamer.
Change, often said to be the only constant. In many ways this city seems to feed on change. New people, new Houses, new politics, new beliefs. From moment to moment, breath to breath everything is in motion. It is a frenzy at times. I stand still and watch and it seems as nothing stays still for longer than the space between heartbeats.
My question is this: When did we become a people of gamblers? Our ways are what they are because we know what works. What has always worked. This rush to adapt to the new ways feels reckless to me. When we begin to let our traditions slip away, we let our identities slip away. Once we say one thing is no longer sacred, soon all constants are lost. That is the slippery slope that leads to chaos, lawlessness. It starts with small things. Little shifts. Compromises. But it grows, it becomes easier to justify more and more until the moment it becomes clear that all we are all we were is lost forever. It cannot be coincidence that in this time of unprecedented change we are met with a rapid succession of challenges and threats. Perhaps this is the gods way of warning us that to continue along this path is dangerous and unwise.
I do not know the full story. I do not know the whys. And that is why I crossed the Mourning Sea and came to Arx. To hear. To listen. And I pray that I will begin to understand. So that I can go back to the scared people of the Mourning Isles who see their entire way of life changing, who are crying out, feeling abandoned, feeling unheard. I can go to them and explain. To reassure them that the world is not ending.
Change, often said to be the only constant. In many ways this city seems to feed on change. New people, new Houses, new politics, new beliefs. From moment to moment, breath to breath everything is in motion. It is a frenzy at times. I stand still and watch and it seems as nothing stays still for longer than the space between heartbeats.
My question is this: When did we become a people of gamblers? Our ways are what they are because we know what works. What has always worked. This rush to adapt to the new ways feels reckless to me. When we begin to let our traditions slip away, we let our identities slip away. Once we say one thing is no longer sacred, soon all constants are lost. That is the slippery slope that leads to chaos, lawlessness. It starts with small things. Little shifts. Compromises. But it grows, it becomes easier to justify more and more until the moment it becomes clear that all we are all we were is lost forever. It cannot be coincidence that in this time of unprecedented change we are met with a rapid succession of challenges and threats. Perhaps this is the gods way of warning us that to continue along this path is dangerous and unwise.
I do not know the full story. I do not know the whys. And that is why I crossed the Mourning Sea and came to Arx. To hear. To listen. And I pray that I will begin to understand. So that I can go back to the scared people of the Mourning Isles who see their entire way of life changing, who are crying out, feeling abandoned, feeling unheard. I can go to them and explain. To reassure them that the world is not ending.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.