Written By Max
May 21, 2017, 8:44 p.m.(7/4/1006 AR)
I long for the Sea as only a sailor sailor can. I don't particularly care what fork we use.
Written By Max
May 21, 2017, 9:35 a.m.(7/3/1006 AR)
I have an understanding, more than many, of what slavery is. I have undertaken a study of it, in both name and in practice. It is a vile thing, no matter what it is called or how civilly, legally it is phrased. It a hideous blot that robs men of hope and it takes away the most fundamental right I think man has - the right to determine ones own choices and master ones own fate.
With that in mind, I find there can be no slavery in a free man or woman freely choosing to donate to charity, an evening of companionship to a worthy bidder. To say otherwise is to suggest that any Whisper, Courtesan or even any person who accepts a wage, honorarium or stipend for their work is a slave. I am rather of the mind, that the freedom to choose, and the payment of sums, is the defining line between slavery and freedom. Recompense and respect are the foundations of society, economy and our civilization.
I am no slave, nor thrall, and yet, I allowed an evening of my time to be auctioned off - for the benefit of my adopted city, for the benefit of my people, for the benefit of all. To compare the auction of the time and company of willing men and women to slavery, or to suggest it is comparable to mocking the dead of thralls lament is... not accurate. It is inaccurate to a degree of scale as to be outside the bonds of common thought.
There is no joke here. No sidelong jab or insult. I will not demean the topic with flippancy, nor with insult or scorn. I know Prince Mason is not of our lands, and is still in many ways, learning our culture, an I offer this perspective to help with that education. Not to mock him for lacking.
With that in mind, I find there can be no slavery in a free man or woman freely choosing to donate to charity, an evening of companionship to a worthy bidder. To say otherwise is to suggest that any Whisper, Courtesan or even any person who accepts a wage, honorarium or stipend for their work is a slave. I am rather of the mind, that the freedom to choose, and the payment of sums, is the defining line between slavery and freedom. Recompense and respect are the foundations of society, economy and our civilization.
I am no slave, nor thrall, and yet, I allowed an evening of my time to be auctioned off - for the benefit of my adopted city, for the benefit of my people, for the benefit of all. To compare the auction of the time and company of willing men and women to slavery, or to suggest it is comparable to mocking the dead of thralls lament is... not accurate. It is inaccurate to a degree of scale as to be outside the bonds of common thought.
There is no joke here. No sidelong jab or insult. I will not demean the topic with flippancy, nor with insult or scorn. I know Prince Mason is not of our lands, and is still in many ways, learning our culture, an I offer this perspective to help with that education. Not to mock him for lacking.
Written By Max
May 19, 2017, 11:06 p.m.(6/28/1006 AR)
Contracts are all written, approved and good.
Preparations are completed.
Soon my house will be quieter, but two allied houses will be richer for it.
It is a good day.
Preparations are completed.
Soon my house will be quieter, but two allied houses will be richer for it.
It is a good day.
Written By Max
May 10, 2017, 2:33 a.m.(6/8/1006 AR)
Also, in no fucking way, am I going to level fees on thralls for anything.
Written By Max
May 10, 2017, 2:17 a.m.(6/8/1006 AR)
I grew up a sailor.
Born a noble, true, but shipped out to the navy as soon as I could piss over the side of a boat. There's something I realized then, as I sailed with Victus Thrax, with Driskell Stillwater, as I visited port after port. I realized that Thralldom is an institution that is unsustainable.
My father, Draevor, would extol the virtues of instilling fear and terror in your enemies, about how a man of Darkwater, of the Isles, must be a man of bone and steel, never wavering. How he must exact tenfold vengeance for a slight, how if your enemy struck you, you did not stop the counter attack until he, his family and his memory were but dust and ash. He gloried in taking thralls. He reveled in it, enjoying the power it gave him. He declared it was the very source of his power.
My father idolized Donrai Thrax, you might imagine.
I do not subscribe to my fathers style of leadership. My brother did - but my brothers poorly learned lessons resulted in his death. Ixion Darkwater can blame none save himself for his death - stupid and prideful it was. To rule through fear, to rule through prideful terror, in makes rebellion and repression inevitable. It makes men so fearful to be in error, that they will choose instead, to do nothing, rather than risk being in error and thusly, drawing the tyrants gaze.
This brings me back to sailing with Victus and Driskell.
We were in Setarco. I was eleven. I sat on the bow of the Blood Tithe, Victus' ship. I watched two ships pull into the harbor at the same time. I watched the berth next to each other. Both were medium cargo ships. A displacement on each of say, a hundred tonnes. Both were flagged for Darkwater. Tradeships come to shift the tobacco crop. But one was a freemans Cartel and the other, a bannermans thralls.
The same ships, the same cargo, the same dock.
The freemen unloaded that ship in a fashion I can only call expeditious. They came in on the high tide, they unloaded the ship and reloaded a new cargo to return to Darkwater before the tide hit low. They skimmed out of the harbor right before their keel might have ground out. They were fast, they were capable and they were motivated by returning home and by profit. The faster they made their turn around, the more profitable the ship was, the bigger their shares were. The better off their families were.
The thralls did not work expeditiously. They took every opportunity to rest or to slack, doing just enough work to make it to the end of the day without being beaten. I do not say this as an insult to the thralls. I do not blame them, for they did not have any motivation in their work other than to avoid their masters lash. They dd not care if they got home anytime soon, they did not care if the ship was more profitable or less profitable. it mattered not them. They had no agency and no stake in the outcome, so long as they avoided the beating.
The difference between the two crews struck me. I asked Belladonna, whom I met later that same port-call. She offered the following advice: The difference between the two crews, was not one of capability, but of motivation. The freemen were motivated by the hope that their efforts would bring better days for their families, and so lived for the future's promise. The thralls had no such hope and so lived only in the moment.
This idea stuck with me for a very long while. Even until today.
You could say I am mercenary, in that my opposition to thralldom is based in, rooted in a merchantile nature. I want my people to be productive, to be wealthy. And that's true. I absolutely want my people to be wealthy enough to not live in the moment.
I want my people to hunger for the promise of the future.
It's why I am committed to removing Thralldom in Darkwater Watch.
It's why I have always been committed to this ideal.
It's a complex issue with a great deal of pitfalls, but we are putting in place an infrastructure to transition. It will take time, it will take effort, and it will take dedication. But it must be done.
In the face of enemies like Brand or the Deeps King - our greatest shield is hope. We must do what we can to kindle it.
Someone once told me that right before telling me to fuck off.
Born a noble, true, but shipped out to the navy as soon as I could piss over the side of a boat. There's something I realized then, as I sailed with Victus Thrax, with Driskell Stillwater, as I visited port after port. I realized that Thralldom is an institution that is unsustainable.
My father, Draevor, would extol the virtues of instilling fear and terror in your enemies, about how a man of Darkwater, of the Isles, must be a man of bone and steel, never wavering. How he must exact tenfold vengeance for a slight, how if your enemy struck you, you did not stop the counter attack until he, his family and his memory were but dust and ash. He gloried in taking thralls. He reveled in it, enjoying the power it gave him. He declared it was the very source of his power.
My father idolized Donrai Thrax, you might imagine.
I do not subscribe to my fathers style of leadership. My brother did - but my brothers poorly learned lessons resulted in his death. Ixion Darkwater can blame none save himself for his death - stupid and prideful it was. To rule through fear, to rule through prideful terror, in makes rebellion and repression inevitable. It makes men so fearful to be in error, that they will choose instead, to do nothing, rather than risk being in error and thusly, drawing the tyrants gaze.
This brings me back to sailing with Victus and Driskell.
We were in Setarco. I was eleven. I sat on the bow of the Blood Tithe, Victus' ship. I watched two ships pull into the harbor at the same time. I watched the berth next to each other. Both were medium cargo ships. A displacement on each of say, a hundred tonnes. Both were flagged for Darkwater. Tradeships come to shift the tobacco crop. But one was a freemans Cartel and the other, a bannermans thralls.
The same ships, the same cargo, the same dock.
The freemen unloaded that ship in a fashion I can only call expeditious. They came in on the high tide, they unloaded the ship and reloaded a new cargo to return to Darkwater before the tide hit low. They skimmed out of the harbor right before their keel might have ground out. They were fast, they were capable and they were motivated by returning home and by profit. The faster they made their turn around, the more profitable the ship was, the bigger their shares were. The better off their families were.
The thralls did not work expeditiously. They took every opportunity to rest or to slack, doing just enough work to make it to the end of the day without being beaten. I do not say this as an insult to the thralls. I do not blame them, for they did not have any motivation in their work other than to avoid their masters lash. They dd not care if they got home anytime soon, they did not care if the ship was more profitable or less profitable. it mattered not them. They had no agency and no stake in the outcome, so long as they avoided the beating.
The difference between the two crews struck me. I asked Belladonna, whom I met later that same port-call. She offered the following advice: The difference between the two crews, was not one of capability, but of motivation. The freemen were motivated by the hope that their efforts would bring better days for their families, and so lived for the future's promise. The thralls had no such hope and so lived only in the moment.
This idea stuck with me for a very long while. Even until today.
You could say I am mercenary, in that my opposition to thralldom is based in, rooted in a merchantile nature. I want my people to be productive, to be wealthy. And that's true. I absolutely want my people to be wealthy enough to not live in the moment.
I want my people to hunger for the promise of the future.
It's why I am committed to removing Thralldom in Darkwater Watch.
It's why I have always been committed to this ideal.
It's a complex issue with a great deal of pitfalls, but we are putting in place an infrastructure to transition. It will take time, it will take effort, and it will take dedication. But it must be done.
In the face of enemies like Brand or the Deeps King - our greatest shield is hope. We must do what we can to kindle it.
Someone once told me that right before telling me to fuck off.
Written By Max
May 7, 2017, 4 a.m.(6/2/1006 AR)
My gaze sweeps the area we called Thralls Lament and I am struck by an enormity of purpose that I can only write about. I can barely give words, much less speak them aloud.
There are no laments here now. No cries or wails. No moans of the wounded, no panicked cries as people seek to locate their family in the middle of this calamity. There is no hurried, frantic teams of men shifting rubble to find the survivors before they are too far gone to save. There are no shouted orders of medics as they labor to save those on the line between living and death.
There is no sound here at all, save for the occasional shifting of unstable rubble. They are all gone. Men and women who labored with the vain hope of freedom through work and effort. They have been turned to less than nothing by the power unleashed by Brand as he entered the city. A power that nearly killed me, and did claim the majority of my men. They are just gone. If immortality is to be remembered by family, then they have been denied even that small comfort. Their families died with them.
I will speak to my Princess and High Lord in the morning about what comes next.
There can be no more lamentation here.
There are no laments here now. No cries or wails. No moans of the wounded, no panicked cries as people seek to locate their family in the middle of this calamity. There is no hurried, frantic teams of men shifting rubble to find the survivors before they are too far gone to save. There are no shouted orders of medics as they labor to save those on the line between living and death.
There is no sound here at all, save for the occasional shifting of unstable rubble. They are all gone. Men and women who labored with the vain hope of freedom through work and effort. They have been turned to less than nothing by the power unleashed by Brand as he entered the city. A power that nearly killed me, and did claim the majority of my men. They are just gone. If immortality is to be remembered by family, then they have been denied even that small comfort. Their families died with them.
I will speak to my Princess and High Lord in the morning about what comes next.
There can be no more lamentation here.
Written By Max
May 5, 2017, 9:57 a.m.(5/26/1006 AR)
Money and wealth cannot create success.
Only the will to use money and wealth, can create success.
Money and wealth simply allow more avenues for success.
Only the will to use money and wealth, can create success.
Money and wealth simply allow more avenues for success.
Written By Max
May 5, 2017, 9:34 a.m.(5/26/1006 AR)
My men have returned from the Saffron - a new shanty scribed from their dealings with our new vassals. I have not forbidden it's singing, as upon reflection, it's clearly a warning for those who would bend knee to the Deeps King. Sung as a dirge, it's quite moving. I've penned it here for remembrance.
The King and his ships,
left from Maelstrom so far,
Into the darkling spray and foam,
the seas be ours, and by the Abyss,
where we will, is where we'll roam
Heave away, up all hands,
hoist the Kraken so high
heave ho, sailors and men,
Never shall we die.
The vast Krakens fleet,
Into the darkness boldly went.
But to the maw we bent the knee,
forever freed now by undying death,
and given cursed immortality,
Heave away, up all hands,
hoist the Kraken so high
heave ho, sailors and men,
for ever shall we die.
Now all had died,
yet some now live,
with the keys to the cage.
tis they who sail stormy sea,
And within blood to set us free,
ending betrayal's wage.
Heave away, up all hands,
Hoist the Kraken so high
Heave ho, sailors and men,
for ever shall we die.
The King has been raised,
from his darktide grave,
to read his abyssal tome.
A call to all,
pay heed the squall,
and turn your ships toward home
Heave away, up all hands,
Hoist the Kraken so high
Heave ho, sailors and men,
For ever shall we die.
The King and his ships,
left from Maelstrom so far,
Into the darkling spray and foam,
the seas be ours, and by the Abyss,
where we will, is where we'll roam
Heave away, up all hands,
hoist the Kraken so high
heave ho, sailors and men,
Never shall we die.
The vast Krakens fleet,
Into the darkness boldly went.
But to the maw we bent the knee,
forever freed now by undying death,
and given cursed immortality,
Heave away, up all hands,
hoist the Kraken so high
heave ho, sailors and men,
for ever shall we die.
Now all had died,
yet some now live,
with the keys to the cage.
tis they who sail stormy sea,
And within blood to set us free,
ending betrayal's wage.
Heave away, up all hands,
Hoist the Kraken so high
Heave ho, sailors and men,
for ever shall we die.
The King has been raised,
from his darktide grave,
to read his abyssal tome.
A call to all,
pay heed the squall,
and turn your ships toward home
Heave away, up all hands,
Hoist the Kraken so high
Heave ho, sailors and men,
For ever shall we die.
Written By Max
May 2, 2017, 7:02 a.m.(5/18/1006 AR)
The sea craved freedom.
If you, in five years, ask why I did what I did, I will give you a variety of answers. All of them true. There is enough truth in this world that I need not lie.
But it all started with the sea.
If you, in five years, ask why I did what I did, I will give you a variety of answers. All of them true. There is enough truth in this world that I need not lie.
But it all started with the sea.
Written By Max
April 29, 2017, 10:16 a.m.(5/13/1006 AR)
People are not loyal to you.
They are loyal to their need of you.
If their need for you changes?
So will their loyalty.
They are loyal to their need of you.
If their need for you changes?
So will their loyalty.
Written By Max
April 29, 2017, 8:29 a.m.(5/13/1006 AR)
<This journal entry is a sketch, not terribly elegantly done, but clear in intent, with good perspective and decent detail. It sort of loses it in shading, but it's a good effort. It shows a battered brass compass sitting on the railing of a ship as the sun sets in the distance.>
Written By Max
April 29, 2017, 7:55 a.m.(5/12/1006 AR)
It's not that actions speak louder than words.
There are a lot of incredibly loud people, so loud their words can drown out, for the inattentive, any action taken
It's that actions prove who you are - while words just state who you pretend to be.
If you watch a mans actions - watch what he does, not what he says, you will never wonder who he is.
There are a lot of incredibly loud people, so loud their words can drown out, for the inattentive, any action taken
It's that actions prove who you are - while words just state who you pretend to be.
If you watch a mans actions - watch what he does, not what he says, you will never wonder who he is.
Written By Max
April 17, 2017, 12:21 a.m.(4/15/1006 AR)
I am low on rum.
THis will not do.
THis will not do.
Written By Max
April 17, 2017, 12:21 a.m.(4/15/1006 AR)
I finally got a little rest. It was good. Now, back to work.
Written By Max
April 13, 2017, 3:42 a.m.(4/7/1006 AR)
Quickest way to lose my buzz - have a Crier read me the goddamn proclamations of the day.
Going to need more rum.
Going to need more rum.
Written By Max
April 11, 2017, 12:28 a.m.(4/3/1006 AR)
And now I rest.
Written By Max
March 26, 2017, 7:51 p.m.(2/28/1006 AR)
I do not write in the white journals much. I find them mostly grist and meal for gossip and such. People write about their love affairs, their business affairs, their opinions and outlooks... and it seems like an invitation to be argued with.
I reserve such for my blacks.
I reserve such for my blacks.
Written By Max
March 26, 2017, 7:40 p.m.(2/28/1006 AR)
From Camp Spearpoint to the battle of Giants Fall, and now back to Arx, it' been a hell of a fortnight.
I have spent a great deal of time trying to leave this city. Why is it now that I wish to remain?
I have spent a great deal of time trying to leave this city. Why is it now that I wish to remain?
Written By Max
March 20, 2017, 3:08 p.m.(2/16/1006 AR)
The first week of service up river has passed. And I took an inventory of my goods left in my locker. I came with a full locker of goods that I have distributed to the soldiers. Coffee, chocolate, a bit of drink but not much, we must maintain sobreity, a good deal of soap and other such things a soldier often - especially noble ones, will forget in the rush to get here.
I saw then, that someone has left me a gift. A beautiful work of scrimshaw art carved from ivory. It's about 18 inches long, about the size of my forearm and about as thick as my wrist. It's a glorious double ended penis. I fear for the creature what has a penis with two heads, for I can barely managed my on with but its single head.
I also fear for the person who carved this who thinks that this size of a member is both normal and reasonable. I can only imagine their debauchery.
With interest, mind you.
But I can only image it.
I saw then, that someone has left me a gift. A beautiful work of scrimshaw art carved from ivory. It's about 18 inches long, about the size of my forearm and about as thick as my wrist. It's a glorious double ended penis. I fear for the creature what has a penis with two heads, for I can barely managed my on with but its single head.
I also fear for the person who carved this who thinks that this size of a member is both normal and reasonable. I can only imagine their debauchery.
With interest, mind you.
But I can only image it.
Written By Max
March 19, 2017, 11:08 a.m.(2/14/1006 AR)
People wrote some shit.
Poems and insults come fast.
White journals are fun.
Poems and insults come fast.
White journals are fun.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.