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Written By Tobias

Feb. 1, 2017, 3:31 p.m.(10/26/1005 AR)

I figured that the Crimson Blades would be contracted by either the Iron Guard, or for Duke Gabriels force. What actually happened was... interesting, but at this point, it works.

With the Crimson Blades officially assigned as auxiliaries to the Iron Guard, the people of Arx will be seeing a lot of us in the coming days.

With the Boroughs situation, I'm fully expecting the Crimson Blades in the Arx Company to earn their pay keeping the peace. If you see them patrolling Traders Home or the outskirts of Arx, remember: each group of Crimson Blades within the city has an Iron Guard consultant, so they know what they're doing.

Those who meet our Companies patrolling the outskirts? They are there for your safety, and as early warning against any invasion force looking to lay siege to Arx. Please, treat them with respect.

Written By Freja

Feb. 1, 2017, 1:53 p.m.(10/26/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Asger

I feel like I am going to be gifted whiskey or the carcass of an elk by this man, but I find little reason to protest against either.

Written By Alis

Feb. 1, 2017, 10:12 a.m.(10/25/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Talen

It warms my heart to know that you miss our mutual love of stabbing one another Talen. Perhaps soon we can spar, and I can show you my latest shiny precious. I mean, weapon.

Written By Lili

Feb. 1, 2017, 9:54 a.m.(10/25/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Inigo

Very Handsome, Fantastic Conversationalist, Stealer of Kisses

Written By Anze

Feb. 1, 2017, 8:54 a.m.(10/25/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Drea

I think had she not already been used to the fact that I'm an idiot she might have slapped me by now.

Written By Talen

Feb. 1, 2017, 7:31 a.m.(10/25/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Alis

You know, you could just stab the somethings. Or me. You never stab me anymore, your highness.

Written By Silas

Feb. 1, 2017, 3:41 a.m.(10/24/1005 AR)

I wrote a thing.

It is a long thing, but I think the Council will like it.

I think I have hand cramps now.

Written By Lili

Feb. 1, 2017, 3:02 a.m.(10/24/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Max

Pirate Count with a Big Heart

Written By Drea

Feb. 1, 2017, 2:23 a.m.(10/24/1005 AR)

...and so it begins! Not the result I was expecting, but still a result and one I take as a positive. It could've boiled over, but these waters run deep. People are still not ready for the truth, but more and more are willing. We move ever forward, preserve the cycle and let people never forget.

Written By Jeremiah

Feb. 1, 2017, 12:58 a.m.(10/24/1005 AR)

[This entry is written in a precise, flowing, almost delicate hand. It is titled 'A Defense: On The Sin Of Being Circular.']

I was accused of being circular--I had it explained to me. I asked for someone's opinion twice, not having liked the first answer, I'm told(I do not know how or even if this happened, but this is not a defense of that): this is the definition of being circular. By this demerit, I am told I am unfit for my position--perhaps even by one whose opinion would threaten such. It is a humbling thought, at first, but...

I will remain circular--if given an opinion I do not believe is best for Arvum, the Crown, and the Compact, I will speak again. I will batter down any barrier between myself and the betterment of our nation. I will seek to convince--if you are unyielding, I will move on. I hope you will not remain offended by my persistence(two did-- Duke Leo Fidante accepted me for what I was, however, and I respected him all the more for it.), but I will not be any less persistent.

I will remain circular--if presented with an obstacle that I am told I cannot climb over, I will seek a way around it. If it cannot be crossed, may I go under--ever forward. Relentlessly energetic, relentlessly seeking the better tomorrow.

I will remain circular--I will proudly be as I am. I am what is termed circular--I will encircle. I will besiege, I will battle, I will charge--I will give ground where I must. But one defeat is not enough for me--one 'no', one slammed door? There is a -window-. There is ever opportunity. There are some of us in this life who have had to -live- by this creed. I will ever do my best to represent those who have.

I will turn a demerit into a merit, I will remain who I am--young. Eager. Ready, willing, and able to use my talents, such as they are--with a position or without. I remain Crownsworn, Compactsworn, Arvumsworn. I remain circular, proudly--I would term it persistent, but I will bear the badge of circular unashamed.

Written By Jeremiah

Feb. 1, 2017, 12:42 a.m.(10/24/1005 AR)

[This entry is written in a precise, flowing, almost delicate hand.]

I do understand I write quite a lot, at times--fifteen, twenty, thirty pages--so be it.

[A note in the margins reads: I Was Once Accused Of Fifty Pages--Thank You Aleksei, But I Have Yet To Go So Far.]

But two pages? Two pages is too much to be read? Certain things are complicated for some where they are not for others--the process by which a farmer lays hand on his meat it simple. He butchers the hog. But a man in the city goes to the butcher, who bought it from a merchant, who bought it off a farmer. The process is more complicated.

The process by which Lords and Ladies of the Lycene drink ice-chilled wine is an entirely different process--ice from mountains or further north, packed into shipping containers covered in sawdust, shipped south or to the cities hurriedly, sold at a premium--but a man in Whitehold does not wonder why ice in a drink is difficult for the Lycene to get his hands on(I would daresay he barely wonders about the Lycenes at all, or ice--one is too distant, the other too everpresent).

So it is that some things which are simple for the nobility are more complicated for those who are not--one may not simply say 'Why does the common man not address the High Council,' I would hope(if one does, they say it simply--and I mean that). I was told most innocently recently that I should carouse with those I wish to convince--imagine telling that to the poorest man in the Lower Boroughs(I have been so poor). Those are the ones the Common Council was meant to represent. -I- may be able to afford such, at times(from my other work, not this)--it is an excess I am unused to. It is an excess some are unable to. It is an excess.

Simply wine and dine the Lords and Ladies, the Princes and Princesses--simply address the High Council. Why make it so damn complicated, Jeremiah?

It put me in a fit of pique, and not my politest mood--the less said about the rest, the better, save that I am ashamed that I find myself willing to rise insult to insult, blow to blow--in some ways I am unfit, it is true. I accept that--when sacrifices are asked of the Common Council, I have sworn and will swear again--if it leads to improvements on the Common Council, I will help lay my position on the line first. I will be the first to go. I will craft something of worth and remove myself from the picture if only it means something of worth can be made.

But the Gods and Spirits put me in this position, and I am a patriot--I am Crownsworn, a title once borne with the highest honor. I will die and live(the higher sacrifice) by that honor and by that service. The Sentinel, the rest of the Gods, the Spirits--they demand nothing less of men.

But--truly? Two pages were too much to read? Why make it so complicated? The lack of perspective floors me--I am left utterly disarmed. Two pages are too much to read, yet judgments are easy to make beforehand. I stand ashamed, but others should as well.

[A footnote reads: I still stand by my statement--I see no blockage, save in letters unreturned and ignored--Gods and Spirits help the common man, and the poorest of us. Gods and Spirits help me. Come to think of it, Gods and Spirits help us all. Two pages is too much.]

Written By Rainier

Jan. 31, 2017, 11:44 p.m.(10/24/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Maude

Auntie needs help and I have rarely felt as guilty as I did for my choices. I do not regret them but the burden she carries! And she does it stoically, with grace and even some humor I fail to see how she can summon at all.

Perhaps there will be a last stand on a bridge after all, a call to arms where the last of the willing and the capable will gather and cross the final line together. If that day comes we could all do a lot worse than being marshaled there by this Lady.

Written By Rainier

Jan. 31, 2017, 11:41 p.m.(10/24/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Harald

This one was not at all what I expected; that he enjoys his family's respect and reverence is clear. That he is surrounded by strong women who see the world differently than he does and he's frustrated by all the ways they are pulling away from his vision is also clear. But he wants what is best for them and he understands the truth of the world; that it laughs at our plans and mocks our wishes. Things are as they are. He sees it.

Written By Inigo

Jan. 31, 2017, 11:34 p.m.(10/24/1005 AR)

*excerpt from the travel notes of Lord Inigo Malvici*

I don't know what I expected but I expected more...

More than the eerie calm that had settled over the stretch of landscape where Eos met his end, more than the seemingly endless sheet of sand and landscape turned to black glass, more than the complete utter lack of answers to any of the questions that have presented themselves.

The visions of nightmares and strange oppressive sicknesses... all things pointing to ruin, death, destruction, and despair... not a trace was seen nor even a scrap of a clue to pursue. In some manner this is exactly what I wanted. Southport was fine, Southport would BE fine....

But now there's no manner of assurance for the future...

Written By Isolde

Jan. 31, 2017, 6:37 p.m.(10/23/1005 AR)



The Light, and I your Shadow
Admiration, Awe untold.
I could always see the tears unshed,
And the joys restrained.

I knew how you loved.
Wished I could be all you never
Realized you were.
And now a Shadow has no Light.
Formless, lost, bound, gagged, trapped.

Every flower whispers your name,
Every jewel sparkles with your grace.
The best part of me,
Dimmed with the loss of your Light.


Written By Eleyna

Jan. 31, 2017, 6:16 p.m.(10/23/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Esera

On my sixteenth birthday, I was convinced that everyone had forgotten me. My mother was many years dead. My sister had disappeared and was given up for dead. My father... well, no one could ever accuse Marik Velenosa of caring too much about his daughters. That night, Esera came to me with a gift. A dress. A perfect blue dress that she said matched my eyes. There was a party. Nothing overly large, but there was dancing and music. And Esera smiling at me, reminding me that I was never truly alone, no matter how much it felt as though I was.

Hers was the little hand that found mine at my mother's funeral when I was five. Esera was the one who got me drunk on Tor red the night before my first wedding because I was too anxious to sleep. She was my cousin and friend long before she was ever my Grand Duchess. That is who my heart aches for now.

Yet, even though she is gone, she is still there to remind that none of us are alone, even without her. There is still the family. Always. She bonded us all and, through her memory, the Velenosa will rise stronger than ever. As she would have wanted of us.

Written By Merek

Jan. 31, 2017, 5:14 p.m.(10/23/1005 AR)

Discovered a lot since my travels out to recover the team from the Society of Explorers. Beginning to wonder just who I am, at times. What am I? What are people? In this dance that seems to echo upon all lands, will the commoners be much more than they were before? I'd like to think that I could protect everyone with my new mantle as a Guard, but can I really manage that? I hope that I'm able. Met new people though, and have new friends, perhaps. That is wonderful.

Written By Sylvie

Jan. 31, 2017, 5:10 p.m.(10/23/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Esera

You cannot know the amount of respect that I held for you, truly. You were a woman not afraid to admit to a mistake, but strong enough not to dwell on it. You did not rush to judgment. You were willing to sacrifice for others. And despite the weight of your position, you also were able to set it aside and enjoy yourself, when it was appropriate. You were able to brush aside things that were light and bear yourself under the burden of those that were heavy.

There were many sacrifices I was willing to make in your name, Esera, and I was glad to follow a liege like you. I would have been proud to call you daughter-in-law, if it had been.

The Lyceum is truly worse for your loss.

Written By Ida

Jan. 31, 2017, 3:41 p.m.(10/23/1005 AR)

Relationship Note on Esera

It seems like a hundred years ago when Her Grace, Grand Duchess Esera Velenosa, visited my shop. Even with the amount of time that has passed, I am no less awed by the memory of that visit. As I think I wrote then, the Grand Duchess fills a room the moment she walks in. You can just feel her presence, should that make sense. I think I expected far more...distance, perhaps. Aloofness, y'know. A smith's shop just didn't seem like a place someone so refined and near-ethereal would visit. She was warm and kind while remaining a Grand Duchess in my every sense of the word.

She asked me to complete some tasks for her, which I failed to do. Utterly and completely. This or that commission took my attention, or a fight, or something that shouldn't have taken precedence after her graciousness. She never once asked why not, where were the things she'd asked after? Never a word.

I can still complete them, though, and believe I will. I owe her that much.

Written By Alis

Jan. 31, 2017, 3:39 p.m.(10/23/1005 AR)

There are times when I wonder, if maybe we added a few extra hours in the day I could get enough done that I didn't feel like I was simply treading water. But then I realize that in those few extra hours, there would simply be another disaster that would happen. And with it, a flood of messengers and the desire to stab something.

Make that multiple somethings.

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