Written By Fortunato
May 19, 2018, 8:48 p.m.(10/10/1008 AR)
Relationship Note on Driskell
The pendulum swings.
It is well to act with purpose and knowledge, even caution.
But one must act.
It is well to act with purpose and knowledge, even caution.
But one must act.
Written By Fortunato
May 8, 2018, 12:22 a.m.(9/14/1008 AR)
Relationship Note on Aureth
You'll have to go through the usual channels. You know the ones.
Written By Fortunato
May 8, 2018, 12:21 a.m.(9/14/1008 AR)
Relationship Note on Mae
Well, suppose you're not wrong.
Think of it as losing a piece of yourself you're giving the world. The world.
Think of it as losing a piece of yourself you're giving the world. The world.
Written By Fortunato
May 7, 2018, 11:10 p.m.(9/13/1008 AR)
Learning art from me is free, especially if:
a. you have dark tastes (please contact me immediately)
b. I remember you asked for it (always uncertain)
MURALS, though, always cost 50,000 silver. Always. They're worth it. Absolutely. (Please buy a mural.)
a. you have dark tastes (please contact me immediately)
b. I remember you asked for it (always uncertain)
MURALS, though, always cost 50,000 silver. Always. They're worth it. Absolutely. (Please buy a mural.)
Written By Fortunato
April 17, 2018, 8:36 a.m.(7/25/1008 AR)
It is my deepest and most hopeful goal to start a brawl in the whites unintentionally.
For bar fights will fade, struggling with people and horrors in alleys and war will be forgotten, but cascading fury and/or puns are forever.
The word is truly mightier than the sword. (If maybe not the flame.)
For bar fights will fade, struggling with people and horrors in alleys and war will be forgotten, but cascading fury and/or puns are forever.
The word is truly mightier than the sword. (If maybe not the flame.)
Written By Fortunato
April 14, 2018, 9:34 a.m.(7/19/1008 AR)
Most folk don't care who treats their wounds or malaise as long as the physician is competent.
But there are always going to be a handful of folk who are bothered by the capacity of nobles to wield coin and authority in what they see as their neighborhood. At its core, it's not personal. It's a reflection on the autonomy and power commoners would like to have, to control their own institutions in the Lower Boroughs.
So it's possible we'll see rival clinics to this popular project. I think that would be the most interesting form of 'protest', after all. Competition.
But there are always going to be a handful of folk who are bothered by the capacity of nobles to wield coin and authority in what they see as their neighborhood. At its core, it's not personal. It's a reflection on the autonomy and power commoners would like to have, to control their own institutions in the Lower Boroughs.
So it's possible we'll see rival clinics to this popular project. I think that would be the most interesting form of 'protest', after all. Competition.
Written By Fortunato
April 8, 2018, 11:22 p.m.(7/8/1008 AR)
Relationship Note on Thena
Thena only licks the most exciting walls for the most righteously exploratory of reasons.
Written By Fortunato
April 7, 2018, 12:55 p.m.(7/5/1008 AR)
What does it mean to be a noble?
Some of you feel you are born to authority and responsibility. Some of you feel you are born to wealth and pleasure. You may make decisions that lead to death or elevation. Or you may make no decisions of much weight. But certainly nobility is meant to mean leadership, responsibility, your house and all the lands beneath under your care. If your lands fail, distant as some of them may be, this is at your door, and so your every waking hour must be toward improvement or, at least, mitigation of disaster.
That is what a noble is supposed to be. A noble is also supposed to be a glittering nexus of entertainment, wise and witty and fun, capable of throwing parties and/or being irritable in ways their people find funny. This is all ideal, of course, and we all fall short of ideals.
What does it mean to be a commoner?
I am a commoner, but I couldn't tell you what a commoner is supposed to be. Servile? Independent? A placid servant, a dynamic, hungry worker who frightens the peerage as he climbs? Bound for the Faith? Bound for the fields? Bound to buy and sell? We are freer than nobility in one sense. Our purpose is to be given to us by our betters, but we can go Crownsworn, we can opt to be free of anyone else's purpose -- in theory. In practice, a commoner has responsibilities taken and responsibilities imposed. A commoner, most of us, have little power, and if we have few lands to worry over while we sleep, we instead worry about food or safety or coin. Or growth. You nobility see us as something to be taken care of, and we occasionally fear your whims, knowing our ability to counter them is limited.
What does it mean in Arx?
I've only lived in Arx. I don't think I'd much like being a commoner in a fealty outside a city. I'd feel isolated, powerless, more likely to end up bound to the fields, more likely to be vulnerable to whims. It does seem more likely I would have no noble friends, or few of them. My arrogance may have never developed, haha! But perhaps that is desirable.
Some of you feel you are born to authority and responsibility. Some of you feel you are born to wealth and pleasure. You may make decisions that lead to death or elevation. Or you may make no decisions of much weight. But certainly nobility is meant to mean leadership, responsibility, your house and all the lands beneath under your care. If your lands fail, distant as some of them may be, this is at your door, and so your every waking hour must be toward improvement or, at least, mitigation of disaster.
That is what a noble is supposed to be. A noble is also supposed to be a glittering nexus of entertainment, wise and witty and fun, capable of throwing parties and/or being irritable in ways their people find funny. This is all ideal, of course, and we all fall short of ideals.
What does it mean to be a commoner?
I am a commoner, but I couldn't tell you what a commoner is supposed to be. Servile? Independent? A placid servant, a dynamic, hungry worker who frightens the peerage as he climbs? Bound for the Faith? Bound for the fields? Bound to buy and sell? We are freer than nobility in one sense. Our purpose is to be given to us by our betters, but we can go Crownsworn, we can opt to be free of anyone else's purpose -- in theory. In practice, a commoner has responsibilities taken and responsibilities imposed. A commoner, most of us, have little power, and if we have few lands to worry over while we sleep, we instead worry about food or safety or coin. Or growth. You nobility see us as something to be taken care of, and we occasionally fear your whims, knowing our ability to counter them is limited.
What does it mean in Arx?
I've only lived in Arx. I don't think I'd much like being a commoner in a fealty outside a city. I'd feel isolated, powerless, more likely to end up bound to the fields, more likely to be vulnerable to whims. It does seem more likely I would have no noble friends, or few of them. My arrogance may have never developed, haha! But perhaps that is desirable.
Written By Fortunato
March 18, 2018, 10:45 a.m.(5/19/1008 AR)
A friend who never quite trusts you has a strange, but real value. I will miss Armel.
Also, greetings, I am in Setarco, with Magpie and Mayir, although being of no nautical help whatsoever, I will have to find a way to make myself useful. Philosophy and sketching is-- useful, right?
Also, greetings, I am in Setarco, with Magpie and Mayir, although being of no nautical help whatsoever, I will have to find a way to make myself useful. Philosophy and sketching is-- useful, right?
Written By Fortunato
March 9, 2018, 1:43 p.m.(5/1/1008 AR)
I like being common, in the main. I will occasionally jest, but I am not interested in joining the Peerage (although I would be a credit, I assure you).
I like change. I like barriers being more porous. But I must note that the children of your serfs are just as innocent as the children you have outside of Limerance's bonds. No one is averse to being born to a little more wealth, a little more power. I understand anyone's compassion is necessarily limited. Anyone's resources. How we determine who is worthy of our help and elevation is also necessarily limited. You may need to decide what those limits are if you would change the current ones.
I like change. I like barriers being more porous. But I must note that the children of your serfs are just as innocent as the children you have outside of Limerance's bonds. No one is averse to being born to a little more wealth, a little more power. I understand anyone's compassion is necessarily limited. Anyone's resources. How we determine who is worthy of our help and elevation is also necessarily limited. You may need to decide what those limits are if you would change the current ones.
Written By Fortunato
March 5, 2018, 11:41 p.m.(4/22/1008 AR)
I can hardly distinguish what I own with enough care to leave it to anyone. My fractious family can decide.
With the caveat that if they can find another man of about my size, they really ought to do him the favor of giving him my clothes. It's a hard road for short folk.
With the caveat that if they can find another man of about my size, they really ought to do him the favor of giving him my clothes. It's a hard road for short folk.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 15, 2018, 9:19 p.m.(3/14/1008 AR)
Relationship Note on Reigna
Today, I am choosing to recognize the limits of my control.
Today, I am choosing to see the complexity in my world and those around me.
Today, I am choosing to try myself, knowing my best self is not someone I know yet.
Today, I am choosing to make changes I desire, knowing I may change and not desire them later.
Today, I am choosing to continue.
Tomorrow I may be better. Tomorrow I may be worse.
Tomorrow I may be stronger. Tomorrow I may be weaker. Tomorrow I may be wounded. And tomorrow I may recover. A cycle is not ever upward. Winter precedes the spring. This is also the road.
Today, I am choosing to see the complexity in my world and those around me.
Today, I am choosing to try myself, knowing my best self is not someone I know yet.
Today, I am choosing to make changes I desire, knowing I may change and not desire them later.
Today, I am choosing to continue.
Tomorrow I may be better. Tomorrow I may be worse.
Tomorrow I may be stronger. Tomorrow I may be weaker. Tomorrow I may be wounded. And tomorrow I may recover. A cycle is not ever upward. Winter precedes the spring. This is also the road.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 6, 2018, 12:31 p.m.(2/17/1008 AR)
There is also great joy in change. Joy and wonder beyond describing. You are on the river, you look back and look at how far you've come. At all you've seen. All you've learned to be.
But you must acknowledge the fear and the difficulty, because you must change not despite it, but because of it. Fear is excitement and anticipation as much as dread. Fear need not war with desire. It can feed it. Well. Enough. I can talk forever about change.
But you must acknowledge the fear and the difficulty, because you must change not despite it, but because of it. Fear is excitement and anticipation as much as dread. Fear need not war with desire. It can feed it. Well. Enough. I can talk forever about change.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 6, 2018, 10:50 a.m.(2/17/1008 AR)
Relationship Note on Roran
Change is terrifying. Why wouldn't it be? You're swept up in upheaval and must learn to swim in new waters. You make a choice and must change yourself to make it. Every choice is opportunity lost, every change is a molding of the self that may fluctuate tomorrow. Change is the grasping of chaos and shaping it into growth. It is not certainty, it is not safety. Neither exist. It's meet to be terrified. But it's also appropriate to realize the alternative is much more frightening.
I am old enough to have life I regret wasting. The river is fearful. But to stand on the shore and watch it pass is to disappear from your own life.
I am old enough to have life I regret wasting. The river is fearful. But to stand on the shore and watch it pass is to disappear from your own life.
Written By Fortunato
Feb. 3, 2018, 11:07 a.m.(2/11/1008 AR)
We slaughter noncombatants to feel safe, because we were provoked. Because we could be provoked.
If we take our actions calling the will of the gods or righteous vengeance, we hope it somehow cleanses us. We hope it separates our actions from those of the Abyss. That the dark reflection doesn't reflect us.
If we take our actions calling the will of the gods or righteous vengeance, we hope it somehow cleanses us. We hope it separates our actions from those of the Abyss. That the dark reflection doesn't reflect us.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 30, 2018, 3:58 p.m.(1/24/1008 AR)
Relationship Note on Mae
I know it. To rise in the morning is to wonder, today where will Mae's ire rise? It is how I know I have an impact on the world.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 30, 2018, 3:44 p.m.(1/24/1008 AR)
Relationship Note on Aureth
Once in a while, when a matter is my fault, Aureth is still the one in trouble. Suppose it's a brother thing, but it's odd all the same.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 26, 2018, 12:55 p.m.(1/15/1008 AR)
I look forward to the day when the peerage of Arx decides it tragically necessary to purge the Lowers because of what might be hiding among the commons.
I really do.
I don't envy them their burdens, the burden of having to weep over the bodies of people they decided they could not trust and therefore had to be disposed of in great quantities. How heavy their heads! As they mourn their need to make so many faceless dead.
I really do.
I don't envy them their burdens, the burden of having to weep over the bodies of people they decided they could not trust and therefore had to be disposed of in great quantities. How heavy their heads! As they mourn their need to make so many faceless dead.
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 13, 2018, 4:35 p.m.(12/17/1007 AR)
Relationship Note on Joscelin
Wait, you're not a Grayhope?
Written By Fortunato
Jan. 12, 2018, 1:16 p.m.(12/14/1007 AR)
Nierzan's a professional contrarian. He's wrong about elves and Heralds, but I think his primary intention was to get precisely the reaction he got.
That said, while we're quite cognizant that every Grayhope has not been a shining beacon, I'm a bit concerned about the implication that your average noble family has a better balance of good or evil. I'm not qualified to weigh that! But I'd be happy to have a conversation about it.
That said, while we're quite cognizant that every Grayhope has not been a shining beacon, I'm a bit concerned about the implication that your average noble family has a better balance of good or evil. I'm not qualified to weigh that! But I'd be happy to have a conversation about it.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.