I Stabbed Him In the Leg

Late on that languid afternoontime, Nesta sat against the curtain wall aside the gate, with knees drawn up and head bowed down, the seabreeze cooling her. Uncomfortable was she, inside and out. Her mistress then approached and was atop of her position ere ‘fore Nesta saw she had appearethed. Imogene sat down before her.

“Never trust a man of God when acting as a man of flesh,” she coolly said.

“Me never did and never will,” did Nesta then reply, but never raised her head to meet her master’s eye.

“It’s time to make your homage to the Duke.”

“And over that, my homage given ere direct to him, a priest will minister to that transaction, I suppose?”

“He will.”

She looked at Imogene, “Then what’s it mean? This homage? If between my Lord and me, there’s God’s own man to make a mockery of freely given hand?”

“Now perish!” Imogene then said, for second time this day. But here, in earnest did she grant. “These ways are the ways it’s done. Your insolence will cost me. And cost you, of course. But when you spend your reputation of your own, it’s yours to spend. Ask not for usury against my own supply, you wouldn’t mind!”

“I mind you, Imogene. I’m sorry for the folly me of questioning it.”

Imogene said, “Every man has place within the World. Tis God put down the order of the Firmament,” she said, looking up at skies unrestful now. “Some have man makes himself the order from ere Chaos where before the Gods firm hand. I mean to say, they said it in Antiquity like that. You knowest this from history, my charge?”

“Me aye, since I were very small, Cael Morth and some the tutors back at Wolvesey taught me this and other things from back in ancient times.

The girl continued thus, “My favorite is Juno, wife of Jupiter, and patron of the peacock, of all women and of Rome. For she was clever, and she loved us, Imogene. She gives us of our agency deliver out a babe, and gives us the ability to learn and grow our intellect – whacht men may scoff! But also did she have the failings of a woman, stark reminder to us always to be guarded ‘gainst our own weak failings, inspext[1] to our sex.”

“My favorite,” said Imogene, “is Leda and the swan. For Leda, she seduced by Zeus when in disguise, bore him two children: Helen and Polydeuces; but also did she bear for Tyndarus two children: Castor and the girl named Clytemnestra. Four children, each a hero or a consort to a hero be. Two men: One the king of mighty Sparta, and the other God to Greeks. She changed the ancient world through holding good fidelity to motherhood, and thought she highly now, despite her virtue take’d in subterfuge.

Came tears now from the Dame. “And now upon my afternoon in daydream wrought, and contemplating Odo and my heart, I feel a greater sistership to Leda than before.

“Now come with me and be presented to the Duke.”

And so she did. “Don’t you wish to know what thence transpired? When he came upon me, Imogene?”

She sighed. “…Non. Perhaps? I do not know!”

She spoke now not to Nesta, but herself. “For there is peace in letting that which will not change be also something one will never know. It’s done. There is no second act to play.

“But curious is she whose heart is twain: one side spurned by vile comedy, and one side t’ward his heart it doth remain. It’s worse to know than not to know, for half a heart beats firmer in our breast than none at all; however, God hast made from Adam woman to betray. And ere, within the matter of her heart, betray herself. It is our lot and pain.

“When men make feast of lamb, they are like wolves. They hunger, slaver, famished they of flesh. ‘Tis true of them, whichever were the lamb be food for stomachs or for loins. They have no high civility when the hunger in their case they feel for thee. They’re wolves.

“The lamb is slaughtered, dressed, and fed unto the wolf; the skin of her is tanned. The glover makes then iv’ry colored gloves from her, to separate the skin of precious youth from raunch and nast and slime. Tell me now, what purpose is the glove?”

Her Nesta tried to answer her, but Imogene was speaking to her naught.

“The glove protects the hands from fraudulence and base, and keeps good virtue good and whole, against poor custom and some down acclivities. But also from the touch of something greater: ere, good passion. Good passion dost it cloister off a woman from her wedded master.”

In daydreams then, did Imogene continue thus to speak now to herself: “Why then, do we wish ours to keep the glover’s wrought between ourselves and hands most gentle, Imogene? Ah, Genny! Would but thought this raptor would take to us and together make a roost! And so dazzled by him, Sunna in the Eastern morningtide, mistook his claws for plumage of the crest. He rent me, Leda! Ach! He rent me!

“But were this child here before me, Leda, gloved before she were in hand? Or were she now made shewn the fallen world, the foul fallen dignity, and gobbled up her virtue by a predatory swan? Were she made a roustabout by artisan of basest infidelities? Woulds’t she be Medusa, laid to rape, and then admonished for her fall? And he, Bayeux of deviltry, there residing up within the girl ere now?  She pregnant? What to say! Oh, Imogene, would William think of me, should bring him up an ingénue, when lioness the promised be?”

At this her squire shook her with great vigor. “Odo didn’t take my virtue, marm. I stabbed him in the leg.”

---

[1] Inherent.

How Common Are Clerics?

How common are clerics?

In AD&D and going forward the official literature seems to indicate that people are busting out with miracles left and right. Every village has a cure light wounds guy. Every city has a raise dead guy. And so forth.

The simulationist in me balks at this. The gamist balks too.

If you have a guy running around healing broken legs and so forth (or even curing diseases) then that’s going to change the demographics of a town. It also means that being irreligious or unobservant is kind of out. I mean, miracles left and right, right?

Same with clean water and safe food and a diminished fear of dark and frightful places fraught with disease and the restless dead. In other words, things are way less scary than maybe they should be. More folks would be adventurous and fewer would need to become adventurers. The world would be tame, which doesn’t fit with d&d at all.

Worldbuilding-wise it means that the assumptions of danger and fear of the unknown are diminished. It means fear of harm and death are diminished for the characters in their world.

And at the table, the same reduction in fear of harm means that the risk - that which creates meaningful drama - is also lessened. Less drama = less fun.

Therefore I have decided to make spell-using clerics rare and restrict them further than that, but also give common folks some pseudo-cleric power. Like so:

Not every religious figure can perform miracles (cast spells.) Just a very few special men and women can do it - people like Moses and Jesus and some of the prophets. In fact if you look at the early cleric spell list you will see an abundance of spells simulate miracles performed in the Bible. In fact clerics who can perform miracles might be outcasts, hermits, or otherwise viewed with suspicion. People may offer to pay them to teach the secrets of their tricks.

FURTHERMORE, and this is important, these clerics can’t just bust off miracles whenever they want to. On adventures they can. In dramatic situations they can. But they can’t just heal your broken leg in town or force you to tell the truth when haggling over the price of donuts. Miracles only happen when you really need them.

But on the upside, clerics of all kinds have a chance to diagnose monsters from their studies, knowing something useful about a strange beast on 3-6 on d6. Turning is also linear rather than with a 2d6 triangle-shaped probability distribution so it’s more likely they can turn higher-level bad guys.

For lay people, if they are Lawful and attend church, they can hold undead, demons and devils at bay with a holy symbol as a cleric of half their level. They can’t turn or destroy these entities but can hold them away indefinitely.

That’s how I do it. PC clerics are still powerful; churches function mostly as they do in real life; and commoners have a fighting chance against monsters as they come up.

Robert Bluetooth and the Theology of Frigga

My role in our campaign is the guy who dies a lot. Not that I actually die a lot, but my characters die more often by far than the next guy along. There are three adult and three minor-age players in the game and the DM makes a point of focusing the stories on the kids. I think that’s a good idea.

About the deaths, I’m cool  with it. It’s like playing the special guest star. It’s good to try out different classes and different personalities and ways to approach situations. I can teach the newbies different tactics and strategies that way.

When I was handed the kernel of an idea for my latest guy, we knew he was a cleric and they found him digging latrines for a refugee camp. He was the toilet cleric.

So what do you do with a toilet cleric?

It’s been established in this campaign world that at least some of the gods are the Norse gods. Whether you’re dwarf or man or elf, you might have allegiance to one or another of the Norse gods.

So which Norse god would be the god of latrines?

I looked over several lists of gods, demigods and giants and it seemed most likely that my cleric venerates Frigga. She is the wife of Odin and the goddess of hearth and home. (Norse gods are not worshiped like Christians might worship, but rather venerated and paid homage to in a more purely-ritualistic way.) And I have played with this cleric to Frigga for several sessions now.

He is Lawful Neutral. He is into control and orderliness. His favorite spell is Hold Person, because it negates some enemies without having to fight. Additionally, once a person is held, it’s possible to negotiate from a position of greater strength.

So I’ve done a lot of thinking about this cleric and his theology. There is no real theology to speak of in Norse history. They have a cosmogony – a story of the beginning, middle and end of the gods – and possible rebirth, along with a structure for Existence. But there’s not a lot of theory to go along with it. I feel comfortable inventing my own.

My cleric’s name is Robert Bluetooth, named after Harald Bluetooth Gormsson, who was the king of Norway and Denmark in the 10^th century. “Bluetooth” in this case refers to his clean white teeth that look bluish.

When already a middle-aged man nearing the sunset of military age, Bluetooth was on a walk in the woods collecting pine cones. There he encountered a lesser outsider – we would call it a hound archon. The outsider charged Bluetooth to go on a pilgrimage to the mountains and to meet with Frigga herself in her winter palace. Bluetooth was moved by this encounter with the otherworldly but initially refused. So he was visited by a lantern archon, a more powerful outsider. Only then did he begin the trek up the mountain.

It took nearly a month. He climbed from one village to the next. Scathi, the giantess who controls the snow, played tricks on him most of the way, but he persevered. Three days’ climb out from the very last village, he finally came upon Frigga’s winter palace. Lacking any evidence that he was expected, he parleyed with the giant at the gate and was eventually allowed in.

Within, he was received by Frigga. She was twenty feet tall and gloriously beautiful. Upon a great feast of ambrosia and mead, she explained to him that Surtur was coming for the people of the realm and that he was bringing the dark elf armies to plague the lands. It was important for men to put aside their material concerns in the face of the coming conflict.

“Surtur wishes to expand his domain. He wishes to control all of Midgard. And in so doing, remake it in his image. He believes he can create the perfect army from the ashes of the world.”

“Why can’t you stop him?” Bluetooth foolishly asked. “You are the goddess and he is merely a giant.”

Frigga smiled motherly. “Gods love and hate and rage and fight. We sing and feast and mourn, just as men do. Giants do the same, but they are not eternal. They can die in times before the Great War at the End of Time. But what we cannot do is enter into the world without your permission. We cannot make you love us, and we cannot force our way into your realm.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Bluetooth.

“The task of Men is to leave their neutral bent. They must choose up sides. For Creation is not neutral, even if the children of the four elements are often so. I’ve called you here to beg you to join the side of order. For if you do, I may then join with you.”

“Why me, goddess?”

“Believe me, you were not my first choice. And you won’t be my last,” she said cryptically.

She explained to him then that there is rationality, an eternal spirit. It has siblings as well: hatred, hunger and thirst, competition, lust, love, wrath and inquiry among other things. And each god has one or more of these in his portfolio. “This is why the gods can be eternal, for these ideals are indestructible. And it is why you mortals are our playthings: you are controlled by these base instincts in whole or part. Have you not been so controlled at times?”

“I have, goddess.”

“Not because you are bad, but because you are mortal.”

“Rationality is an eternal spirit. It is indivisible and indestructible. It is my purview and my animating force – my logos, my cause. But it only exists, my son. It does not act. The logos must be enacted by mortals. The cause must be put into action by you, and men like you.”

“But how? Will I be consigned to the cloisters and to poverty to think great thoughts for the rest of my days? Frankly that sounds boring, goddess.”

“Not at all. Cloistering yourself against the realm may allow you to master yourself, but it will do nothing to destroy Surtur. Remember, this is the goal – to preserve Midgard against the predations of the fire giant king. To allow rationality to go from idea and ideal to affect, it requires mortals to make sacrifice of themselves.”

“I have always made appropriate offerings to you and the other gods. This you know,” he said with some indignance extant.

“I don’t mean incense, figurines and the milk of goats. I mean that you must give a part of your soul to me. And in exchange I will infuse you with great magic with which to change the world.”

Bluetooth chewed some fat set in the fowl he ate with his bare hands. “My time upon the realm of Midgard draws to a close in less perhaps than half a score of years. Hel walks close. What have I now to lose? Valhalla? I’d rather serve at Frigga’s side, per truth, than feast with younger men for all the rest of time.”

And Bluetooth well agreed, and Frigga made him up into her champion – a cleric given over to the goddess.

Frigga is above all things a Lawful goddess. To master Frigga’s faith is to master one’s mind. This means always telling the truth, no matter how it hurts you to do it. It means to keep yourself from strong emotions to the best of your ability, and to never act from rage, or worse, from lust. But the mind is most mercurial. So the clerics of Frigga start literally by putting their houses in order.

This means keeping every campsite tidy. It means perfecting hygiene. It means to treat the sick and cultivate the land in ways amenable to Men. It means the faithful will build houses for the poor, and work as woodwrights, stonewrights, chefs. They build and civilize. And it means avoiding bloodshed when it’s possible, especially among the people of the common kinds – hence, why this Bluetooth uses Hold Person rather than flashier kinds of magic spells when he can.

Frigga’s magic has kept this cleric, Bluetooth, and his health’s improved as well. Perhaps he’ll have a score of years to go before he meets with Hel.

But not if Surtur hand his dark elf armies have their say.