I’m in Love with a Terrible Sport

That famous etching

Nobody plays baseball because they like playing baseball. They play because they are contractually obligated to play. It’s a kind of punishment. That’s why they have to put a wall around the field - to keep the players from running away.

It's also why they have to pay such exorbitant salaries: to attract people who would put themselves through the wringer like this. It's no wonder that major league baseball and various vitamin supplements have gone hand in hand since the olden days.

These poor sods get dressed in an underground dungeon dug out of the ground. They don’t even get to see the sun unless they’re on the field! They get driven around on a special bus, like prisoners.

It is a boring, horrible life.

But there are some perks to being a baseball player that bear mentioning.

You get to

• spit on the floor, 
• scratch yourself in front of thousands of people, 
• smack butts,
• generally act like a chimpanzee right out in front of lots of people - sometimes as many of 5500 or 6000 people will show up to a game (more in Boston and New York), 
• and eat snacks all the way through the game!

Someone does your laundry for you and you get to dress up in a lot of different accessories. Gloves, mainly. Fielding, batting, base-stealing... all kinds of gloves. You get to wear makeup under your eyes. You get flip-up sunglasses. You get to wear a hard hat and a soft hat (sometimes both at once.) You play in a nice button-down shirt tucked into your pants (with a belt), socks and stirrups (what other activity requires two pair of socks?) and polished shoes. 

Polished. Shoes. 

Just like most activities, this act of collective self-flagellation gets better as you get drunker, so they sell lots of beer. But only for 7/9ths of the game for some reason. How children put up with this, I’ll never know. Cough syrup maybe. 

As you can clearly see. she drinks the beer while the filthy baseball is still inside it. That beer cost her like $13, and she can't have another one until they finally let her back out into polite society. She's not even playing and she's turned into a freaking savage!

It is a sport that is literally better to read about in the newspaper than it is to watch.

And yet...

And yet...

Harald and Elisiv

Elisiv

Harald grew like Yggdrasil in these good seasons there at court and then away at war. And took he interest in strengthening the bonds between his homeland and this land of Yaroslav’s. Yaroslav’s young daughter, Elisiv, was but a darling bud of nine upon the year of ‘34, and nary fit for marriage would she be. However, Harald courted her as courtiers would do, to woo the princess for her pretty blossom-time, when seasons come for kneeling fools, and rings, and babes in Spring. They cloistered up in courtyard, walked they by the compass, hand in hand through curtilage of castle court. Counseled up his cortege to them dote upon her like her ladies waiting, but for him report. Homage did he pay, and fair he gifted her to sway. He always did her keep him company when he at court, and wrote her little pretties and sent gifts back to her while he were abroad. Bench and bar did she attend and think upon him, and ere they heady were her thoughts of him, as she approachethed turning ten. So finally, whenceupon her birthday anniverse, he knelt and begged her hand, and did she well agree! So trothed were Harald Sigurdsson Hardrade, and Elisiv, she of Kiev!

She would not fit to marriage though, for still within her pretty dotage and her childhood would shew. Harald went he on campaign and well again took up his men, and this time went to Byzantine. And this were ’34.

For four years Harald learned the ways of Russian war. He was a goodly student. Also did he learn the Eastern forms of Christianity and knew then of their struggle ‘gainst the Turks. By anno domini 1034, Harald earned the rank of Captain, even though he had not learned the Slavic tongue. Communicated he unto his troops by whistle and by semaphore. This was the custom of the Russian southlands where a myriad of peoples were united for the purposes of war.

Sojourn

He and his close companions from the North decided then to travel east to Conastantinopolis. His skill in arms and horsemanship therein afforded him to rank of General of the new Vangarian Guardsmen, who were personal escorts to the Emperor himself. Harald kept within his heart his failing to protect his King, his dear half-brother, and did pledge to Jesus and the Emperor that he would die, and not sing that refrain.

Local Byzantine soldiers had no loyalty to King, nor God, but only to the coin. Therefore their treachery made them most worthless to the Norseman. Called he then to Viking brothers of the North, likewise in exile, to attend him there, within the Eastern Rome, for there was coin and glory to be had. He built Vangary to a fearsome fighting force and ever after would the fame of it be due to Viking warriors, the fiercest of the world.

From 1035 until 1042, Vangarians, numbered near six thousand, did engage around the Middle Sea, in Sicily, Bulgaria, and in the Holy Land. Harald met and slew a hundred different kinds of fighting men and caroused he with one hundred different women. He grew rich from plunder, and his men did love him so.

In ’39, sent he a caravan, chaperoned and bulwarked versus any highway robber, back to Yaroslav and Elisiv, to keep it safe from Eastern treachery. Wise Yaroslav did keep his treasure safe within the vault, for he foresaw that Harald would return, and with him great assemblages of knights. It was at this time Harald was first called by Hardrada, roughly said, which means “stern council of the realm.” For ere, he rode ahead of Emperors of Byzant-way, or after when the Emperor’s decrees were poorly-heeded. And his Vangar and his Turcopoles would see the message through, and all resistance was defeated.

While in Constantin, he did become involved in making Emperors. Among his people, Witan men (the wise) were always chosen to elect the tribal king. He saw no reason not to broach this custom with the locals. and his Vangarians would make his arguments hold true. So politics of this, the Byzant lands, did learn Hadrade from roughly ’39 to ’42. What he learned within those years is might and gold make difference up in dynasty succession, a lesson he took well to in the coming years: money and aggression.

Return to Kiev

And then until 1042, he served to make and break the Emperors of ere the Byzantines though his own sword and stately guile. Also did he ride upon the Inland Sea of Empire Old in good Antiquity. And amassed he up some great amount of treasure, he and of his men as well, and shipped it back to Yaroslav and Elisiv for their good keeping fast. Eight years did he and his good men they ride, and were the arm of Emperors of Constantine they be. Even did some men of his take up the Moorish faith, and bring their treasures and their wisdom back to Rus’s, when their return did made.

A Russian Dream by Aramisdream

The Winter of late ‘42 in stately old Kiev was one of wondrous good fortune and good promise for the people. Elisiv was given to Prince Harald Sigurdsson in Kiev’s own Great Cathedral. Yaroslav provided up a feast for every man and wife and child in the city and the countryside. A village up entire carved the craftsmen out of blocks of ice, including of a river running red with spiced wine and courtiers themselves as gondoliers! For three full days and nights did all Kiev and Novogrod and all the people in between, they celebrate the union of Norwegian sword and Kievan sheathe.

Riding with William

June 24, 1066

On Sunday, here high summer in fair Normandy, the cock would crow quite early on, for brave Apollo roused the world as early now as ever in the year. But even earlier than cocks and suns, the Duke would rise. He needn’t sleep as much by half as other men require. He roused some of his men with heavy footfalls through the barracks. When he stood above Dame Ness, he woke her with a little kick. A gentle little thing, but ere enough to rise her humors up. And up with them was she.

“Time to tack the horses.”

“It early…? Or it late…? Pa…?” She was insensate at this hour. “Oh! My lord! ‘Tis you!” She scrambled to her feet and then she bowed to him, as stepped upon the filthy floor. “My shoes!” She fell akimbo once again and donned her riding boots of high, hard leather made.

“Stables,” said Duke William, as he’d already made way back toward the steeds, their tack, and hay.

Dawn broke. William rode a palfrey of some sixteen hands; no larger mount had Nesta ever seen in all her thirteen years. It took a steady heel to keep her own mount up to his. Her own was thirteen hands; a full pied shorter at the withers, and the length made difference in the speed. But Nesta kicked and kept her horse, a brute himself, near side of his.

Horseback Stroll by Leonid Afremov

“I keep losing ships. The blinking ships are sinking. Sinking.”

“Sinking, Lord? Are we at war?”

"Harbor. In the harbor, shipwrecks. Worthless shipwrecks, and they cost some great amount of money! Whacht, well I could have the harbor littered with old rubbish ships, and that for nearly free.”

“Why sinking?”

“Ask the shipwrights why. They say the boats need seasoning a year. But we ain’t got a year. We ‘ad neh year in January. Now it’s June, and still we haven’t got a year. The one thing Cousin Odo in’t be buyin’ us is time.”

“Why a year, milord?” Nesta’s mount was laboring, even though they were less than a league outside of town.

“And with the ships, my men. We got men morely macilent a’mer[1] nigh every day. The good ones going down with all these blinking worthless ships. But it won’t matter. Nay. We have the papal banner now.”

“The men who do remain will be emboldened by God’s truly sanction, lord.”

He looked at her askance. “They told me you were clever. But I find you thick and simple. What’s this about God? I said the Papiality.”  

And with this, he took his horse down to a trot, and dreweth out the syllables in dour downadmonishment, “They will embolden for the resource what they take. Money. Aid from Rome in men and in materièl and money from it come. We’re not be gone to England for the gold and for the women. Not this time.

“Land, Ness. We’re going for the land. We’re going to stay.” He cast his eyes to Occident; toward the pretty bird, this Angle’s Land, set in the sea of sapphire up around it, and the little dam did after him.

“Land,” said Nesta.

He leaned in closer to her ear. “By the way, Harold seized Northumberland and gift it to his brother. Of land? You’re right out y’self.”

---

[1] Lost at sea

Odo's Dinner Party

They were seated separately at dinner; Nesta at the foot with some the hangers-on and sundry; and Imogene at the Bayeux Bishop’s main gauche. All the men and ladies of the castles sat and servants wrought them bread with softened, salted butter and they ate it with their hands. Odo entered then, and all the conversation paused, and all stood up to welcome in the handsome host with sweet applause. (Although they had all seen him through the day, this was his custom: to be greeted by the company this way.)

“My dearly honored guests and all the rest of ye, may I present to you again our sister in the fight for Normandy and ere beyond this sainted land: Dame Imogene of dol-Combourg in Brittany; she is our honored guest for whom tonight we feast.” The ladies clucked to one another and the lords and knights smiled sweetly to the dam.

Odo’s blessing was perfunctory, and presently he disattached his collar and removed his scapular, revealing he an open linen shirt beneath, for on this eve, he hadn’t worn his habit; rather button-shirt and trousers, and some riding boots. He cut a silhouette!

The start of dinner was some pottage made of lentils, onions, garlic and of tongue. Followed that, the servants brought stuffed swan, with carrots in a garlic sauce as well. The main course was three boar, spit-roasted whole, and split among the men first, then the ladies afterward. Odo and his best man, Gabriel, ate of the brain and haunches of the best of three whole boars. But for those who didn’t fancy eating boar, the chef had also made up mutton haunch on cabbage cooked with mustard seed and weld. Fish were brought on Odwinsday and Freya’s, so there was none for the host.

As dessert, the men ate almonds. Nesta ate some, too, for she had dearly fancied some since they had reached the millhouse at Bec-Hellouin the other day. The ladies sipped on chilled fruit mash in wooden bowls. Within the mash were liquor, too.

All throughout the dinner, first one man and then another would they stand, and raise a toast to one saint or another, or a family they knew, or else the Summertime, or pass-times, or to one another. Nesta tried requesting ale, but this was not Le Mans: there was no ale or water to be drunk at one of Odo’s feasts; only peach-beer cider or red wine.

After dinner in the hall, some servants brought a grand container, some 4 pieds across and deep, upon a barrow made for such a task. All the waiting ladies and the ribald men let out a cheer and clapped.

Nesta knew not what the object were about!

A servant opened up the crate with great and fancy flourish, and came out were scores of goslings!  Some were mottled yellow; some were black and some were brown. Each wore downy mantle and they waddled out and squawk at goose and man alike. “Swee! Swee! Swee!” they gaily called, and fluttered they their stubby wings!

As they spread about throughout the hall, each lady and each man took up a piece of linen, given for this purpose, in his hands and captured one the goslings in this blanket, yea but with great care. Some were very drunk by now, and fell upon the floor or missed their mark quite comically. Nesta caught on quickly to the sport, and picked one up as well. Hers was adorned in silvry sable downing, and a little sleepy did it seem. It was quite happy just to look about and see what’s going on, and not its freedom break to mean. She found that it had, tied onto its hallux[1] with a ribbon, a wee tag of parchment with some writing put upon it in a woman’s hand.

The other guests were seated once again, and each held on a gosling, all around. Odo turned his gosling upside-down, and pulled the bit of parchment from the ribbon, and released the gosling down. It trumpeted in triumph, Swee! and strutted thence away. Odo read the note and smiled broadly, and then cast about the room. His eyes alit upon dear Imogene. He teased, “Shall I ask your squire there this question on my paper?” And fifty pairs of eyes turned ere to Nesta there. Fifty pair of eyes, sopped, and tokened up with two acclivities: the main part was there joy, but in the minor part, there was some vicious hunger, too. What could now these nobles mean to do?

Imogene saw Nesta was suspicious of the game. “Odo, shan’t we hold off with initiating her? She hasn’t got the notion of the game yet, has she now?”

“Very well,” he then acceded to her. “Very well, I’ll ask it of --” he looked about again and eyes alit upon a woman dressed in green, “-- Victorène, the Lady of Lion-sur-Mer!” Tense ghostfire filled the air betwixt the revelers, and some the women tittered at the choice. All eyes were on Victorène and off of Nesta now.

“Victorène,” Odo began, with shades of wolfishness at corners of his mouth, “tell us here: dans comment avez-vous été conçu? Dans quelle position? With that, the crowd erupted once again in peals of laughter and delight!  The woman turned a shade quite sympathetic to her dress. That is to say, ivy-colored dress she wore then complimented well her florid, blooded skein. She was quite red! And everyone hung closely on her answer to the test.

“M-missionary, M’seeur?” Gasps and laughter eminate.

“Dost thou ask or dost thou say it?” Odo pressed her then. Wild laughter then again!

But Victorène had naught to answer him, and threw her hands up into the air, surrendering herself to one the knights nearby! He picked her up and threw her up about his shoulder as the merry host began to sing and cheer them on. The knight continued on, and merrily he stepped away and took Victorène withacht, and exited the fray!

“I shall go next!” exclaimed a boy named Jean-Jaquinot, perhaps thirteen, and seated near to Nesta’s skein. Unraveled he his message hie and puzzled out the writing on the note with trouble tried. He smiled and he turned to Nesta, and she turned to him. He said, “It says for you to chuse a body part.”

“For what?” She asked. The throng all pressed to her, from every side, to choose a body part. Some named some of them, and Nesta lost the thread in pressing bald cacophony. She blurted out, “La joue! That is, joue faciale!” And laughter and applause sprung forth around the feasting hall.

Jean-Jaquinot reached for a bowl of heavy cream with honey, and he ran his finger round the rim and picked up quite a dollop. He stood, and spread the cream upon his cheek – la joue, and came quite close that Mortimer. Near her ear he whispered in the way that all could hear it: “Lick it.” And there, a heavy silence in the smoky air beheld.

She was sorely glad she’d said the cheek!

She made a proper show of it! And all the dams and men about gave homage to their little act! Nesta, was she well relieved! She’d passed their test, she did believe.

One by one, the parties took their turn to ask and answer bawdy queries of each other one. And off they trod then, two by two. And Nesta gathered some these sloppy noblemen would ere continue with frivolity perhaps they past the dawn. As for herself, she wished quite dearly to retire rather proximately, than anon. She found a girl to take her to her quarters and to Nod. And so she went, and so she did.

---

[1] The name of the lower extremity of a waterfowl.

Tales from the Norman Countryside

Historical fiction.

Jean-Rémin, offered to the congregants a little prayer: 

“Dear Jesus, please provide us with the wisdom and the judgement to respond in kindly and in merciful to those who hurt us, as You respond to me when I have trespassed ‘gainst my Earthly kin. Amen.”

The brothers did accord. Then sang they up another hymn and then retired briefly to the kitchen some, to bring the Feast into the common room.

Each fruit and flower was then doubly-blessed, by each the Benedictine brothers, Guytonnet and Jean-Rémin. Neither was ordained, but in these dire times, a layman priest was well preferred to having none at all! And well perhaps our Lord would mark His due, for two lay priests, they vicars proper, may be measured up to one in cloth received? 

Even in the countryside, the merchants did report that some remotest villages did them employ a woman as a priest. They said so with their full veracity. Never had the brothers heard, however, ever there’s a child priest, nor one of four-leg’d animals, nor fishes in the sea. For every season or a couple, stories did come through that someone near or far away had witnessed talking animals. Why not? God did shew us miracles of common sorts near every day. Think fondly of our Biche-Tachetée, the spotted hare, and all her kits! Something that should seem unusual, withas this lady priest, would come unusual to filling up their ears, and not on every day, from every place. This why it be strange of course, the very essence of this strangeness: not for someone other than a priest, a nun or brother be in love with God, but rather for it come from elsewhere, and infrequently.

Also had the brothers heard of other monks in other lands who were then be able ask of God to grant them power over weather. These some other monks would pray together early in the morning, to drive way the rains or bring a pleasant breeze. Their abbot though did scold them and admonish them for folly, for only God should tell the Four Winds where to blow and howl. Men ought not, even in their power, wright these things and make them writ upon the Earth without dear reason from ecclesiastical perspective. Never ere would miracles be done for sport or personal advance, but only for our Lord God and His plans upon the Firmament.

In Exodus, we learn that God did bring upon the Pharaoh plagues of vermin, and in one case, frogs. In doing so, the Lord did arm the Children with least of His Creation, to show the least of it could best the powers of the mighty Pharaoh. But well recall! The magi of the Pharaoh also wrought a plague of frogs to Egypt. Even in their majesty, these magi in their scintillating garments, they did harm their king. No one needs two plagues of frogs or several other things! So God did win the day and did that Pharaoh well embarrass. Keep thee this at hand.

True Story.

Here in Normandy, they tell a storm in nine hundred eighty-three that was so fierce that it did also bring a plague of frogs unto a village. The village inn was full when several pilgrims did attempt to stop and rest. There was no room. Just then, the frogs did fall as rain, and then the ones who lived did hop away again. Also did the villagers discover that the frogs, when roasted, had a pleasant flavor on the palate. Although the elders of the village did suspect some pilgrim wives of witchcraft, it was clear to the young priest that it was God reminding men of His great power over nature. Scolded all the Witan of the village, did the priest, their sin inhospitality, as was it evidenced by intervening God. They were well admonished and never have the plague of frogs again revisited fair Normandy, nor do bumpkins of the countryside turn pilgrims there away.

Be this here a prolix way to say that there are some un-uniform proceedings under Heaven here on Earth, whereas in Heaven things are perfect, and forever and forever.

Aethelward the Rat-Catcher Boy

The boy he kept nearby was Æthelward, a couching dreamer up with head up in the rafters. Charles, of the boy could dress him up, but never get the boy to look just right. Always was his tunic pull-dog, pull-devil, or he had split his hose. His ears curled forward and his front teeth abended out. He was the very etching of buffoonery to look upon him.  However may that be, the boy, this Æthelward, was useful, and he never malapert, for he did take to catching rats, and rats did take to Æethelward.

Aethelward, Lord High Rat Catcher

A professional Rat-Catcher is essential to yon every castle, city, town, and village, or wherever there are people. These crafty Men, they couch and rampant for the foul rats, must frequently they work the abject under-places where these vermin fester, inclewd the sewers, basements derelict, and catacombs dug underward the Earth. They risk their health and safety, as men surely do in every age, in mean proximity diseased and rabid screaming scoundrels of the underfeet.

Rats and mice and insects of the Plagues, and other vermin, are ubiquitous throughout the realm. Even here in fair-kept Normandy, did God place down upon the Earth so many kinds of vermin, erst Men never knew their worth. These sharpened knaves of matted blood and fur, of yellow incisitory insult, les animaux nuisibles servile avec des dents de verre empoisonné, an ever-present harbinger of pestilence and famine and disease and epidemics. Keeping down the population of the bristly deluge of death’s knell, this putrid business, crucial be the work to keep our realm enpeopled with good health, and guard con damage to our bread and grains, and goodly beer and wines. Thus, that tinkerer, he called the Rat-Catcher, be always in demand. Despite his grim and dirty work, has he but earned the tip and untip of the knight and lowly man alike. They are welcome in all corners of our Normandy and other realms.

So then when Charles and Robert both did come to Maine to rule, Charles brought along his Æthelward to keep the house of God more Godly in the face of pestilence. He did pay to Æthelward one livre carolingienne per week, plus room and one meal per diem, a lordly sum for such a lowly sod. Also did he grant the boy the title of Lord High Rat Catcher and made him as a Gentleman so he outranked the butler (ere except when they were in the proper house.) Whether Olive cared he overmuch or no, he kept it to himself.

Odo Enters Nesta's Bedchamber.

Even now, Midsummer’s highest sun, it past the sunset when the feast arrived in flaggèd Nod. A woman led dame Nesta to her quarters for the time. It was a room within, and overlooked it to a little atrium it seemed to her. Difficult to tell it, for Selene was almost new. Two girls attended to her with some of nightclothes, and they helped her wash within a basin that they brouwt. The chamberpot was emptied. Then the girls abade her for the night and shut the wooden door with iron wrought in black. She kept a candle lighted, and pulled up her covers round her neck; the mantle of the swan. She fingered through the vulgate on the table, poured herself a glass of wine, and thought she fondly of her brother and her pa, some nearly forty leagues away in sweet Le Mans.

Were it not too long before the door came open. There t'were Bishop Odo of Bayoux. The hour--!

“Know ye, girl, the lineage of Christ?”

“My lord, that is a queer way to begin your conversation. For every girl in Christendom knows well that Christ from Mary, she a virgin, be.”

“In Matthew, Chapter one, the truth revealed that all the generations down from Abraham to David, they are fourteen generations; and David then bequeathèd down to Bablyon were likewise fourteen generations; and Babylon to Christ was born were also fourteen generations.”

“Neatly does Our Lord do work upon this mortal soil.”

“Neatly does He work his wonders,” Bishop Odo did assent.

“But fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, and then fourteen more make up the year 1066, my jeune corbeau, and have we now the fourth in these, the August chapters of our Lord.

Nesta counted off in contemplation and came up with many more than four fourteens of generations ere between the birth of Christ and this,1066. 

She smirked a little, but she kept her trump well-hid, for now. His wee fowl game can barely count, she thought.

Odo found the thread she spindled out. “Of course, in ancient days, the generations stretched out longer than they do today. Today, a life is measured ten and score of three; but eld Methuselah were-”

“-Nine hundreds, three score and another nine,” the dam recat. He smiled and he nodded his approval of her catechism whacht.

Odo then approached the fodder’s blèached foot, the flaxen silage covered up by flaxen linen broidered up and light. He stepped forth like a Tom, at turns he supplicating and enticing, sorceling his little prey. A little upturned-corner on his lips here in the candle-light; and narrower then were his eyes, which never strayed from herupon.

“I’ve had a dream, not unlike the dream was giv’d to ere our Joseph, and our Virgin, in those days, a thousand years ago.” 

"You Married, Imogen?" OR "Romantic Love"

In which Imogen is caught flirting with Bishop Odo, and furthermore, her squire Nesta calls her out on it.

“You married, Imogen?”

“Aye. With a son by marriage take’d to me. This by the Duke, and by the Duke’s decree.”

“And naught but duty does this marriage bring, my Genny?”

“Naught, but loyalty confirmed. The Duke, when roosted so to play Alquerques prefers to know the pieces extant to him, and so where those pieces lay.”

“But dam, to lay with bridegroom misbegot; to play Alquerques in life for Will the Duke; to sacrifice your fruit of precious youth; what of the benefits to you to pay with all the Lord hast vested to your case- what gain, my dam, hast you to show, if may?”

Imogen was silent and showed sullenness abroad.

“And then, what’s now your tenders do alight upon Bayeux. This I saw, my dam! Your pretty cockles up and warmed, and with his nearly in within you-“

“What!”

“-His hands within yours held, I mean to say, and pinkness wrought from humor-wonts he draw’d from you this pretty afternoon today. It puts the lie to bridegroom’s well in hand that you should lay!”

“Do you, Ness... do you fancy that some other’s eyes fell so upon our sweet conspiracy?” She cast about with furtive brow and glances then. 

“The men? Whacht sees a man? A thing. We are a thing! A scrummy[1] Breton egg we be to them up in their saddle riding, looting booty from the cities and the towns they overrun! Aye, mayhap they see it, Imogen. But put their feeble wit to contemplation of the thing? They no more wonder why the river stones prefer to smoothen up in time, as wonder they what’s in our brains. You taught me so y’self, my pretty dame.” 

Imogen relaxed, though naught has she known then she’d tightened up. “Aye, right. You’re right. You’re right."

“Why d’you let the Bishop in, my Gen? Why him, of all the men?

“Why not the Bishop, Nesta? Has he not fair tongue, and cheek, and wealth and comfort, and magnanimity?”

“Fair tongue? Mean tongue, methinks.”

“Bite yours! Speak not so brazenly about fair Odo in me presence, not again!” 

Nesta grinned. “You fancy him for truly, don’t you Genny-dam?”

She blushed. 

Nesta smiled to her own, and turned away her face from ere the dame. For her own part, dame Imogene felt sorely for to strike her squire all about the ear. But with her good civility displayed, she well refrained. 

“Imogen, why dost our truly heart make fool of brains and eyes?”

“God’s will, methinks,” said Imogen. “God willest us to make our fatal mark against our better natures when He paves the Heavens and the Earth for future men to tread.”

“This makes much sense as any other thing’s been writ about romantic love,” did Nesta then assent. She wondered how it felt to be so take’d by Cupid and his Seraphim. She knew it not, herself.

---

[1] Delicious morsel

Mythical Journeys Adventure Game

+Shane Ward (his website) encouraged me to share my version of the D&D rules again here on the site. It's not for sale anywhere and it's not up on DriveThru or anything. But in case you want to know what we like to play at my house, here is my rule set. Over the past, oh, week, my spare time was consumed by another fantasy project, so I have been neglecting to oblige him.

There is only one book, which is the Player's Guide. About two years ago, I lost the original docs for my monsters and treasure book. My friend Jeff J., who is my editor and layout artist, sent me the PDFs but I never got back to that. And I have never gotten around to explaining how to make wilderness and dungeon adventures. Nothing sinister, just never did it. Anyway, you guys know what all that stuff is by now.

So here is the front and back cover image.

Here is the booklet of rules we use.

Finally, and this is important, here is the errata document. The main thing is that there is a bad misprint on Table 4, and this document has the real Table 4 in it.

I hope it has ideas you can use, and that it can spark your imagination when you make your own rules, too!

DM Screen, Part III

I pulled the materials together this weekend to build the prototype for my screen. I had to learn a little about the materials and the tools since I haven't done arts and crafts in forever.

I used a school guillotine to cut a large posterboard into four panels of the correct size. It's a little rough to use when you're cutting things thicker than a couple of sheets of paper, so I would suggest keeping an X-Acto knife to clean up the edges. I don't have one, but I should have one, so I'll buy one before I do the real job.

I decided on unobtrusive white Duck tape to seal the edges. It worked well. I used scissors to cut the pieces to the right size.

Here's a practice board I taped to make sure the tape would work the way I wanted it to. It worked perfectly. 

Place the tape sticky-side up on the table, and carefully line up the board halfway up the width of the tape. Press down firmly. Then fold the tape over the top, rather than flipping the board. Then cut the excess folded-over tape off with scissors.

ALSO PICTURED: My assistant, Tinkabelle.

Here, you can see a board pressed on half the tape, prior to being folded over.

Linking the panels: 

Once your four boards are sealed along all four edges with tape, make sure the commercially-machined part of the four panels are all aligned on the bottom edge, closest to you. This will allow the screen to stand up without wobbling when it's done.

Lay down a piece of tape longer then the long edge of the boards. Press each one about 40% of the way in on it, leaving a gap of about 1/8 of an inch. Then fold the extra tape over the top and bottom. Repeat for the other side of the boards with another piece of tape.

By leaving the small gaps between boards, the hinges can open at various angles, including laying flat. 

The final product:

Here's the Ref's side. To the second panel, I'll paperclip the map. To the third, I will paperclip the map key. To the fourth, I'm not sure, but probably the specific wandering monster charts for the dungeon or world we intend to tackle in that session.

Here's the player side. Panels 1 and 4 are the same: they have the attack and save matrices for the classes, and then the procedures for Rounds, Turns and Days.

The middle two panels are info for purchasing and using weapons, armor, adventuring equipment, tack and harness, and vehicles.

I did it like this because the character sheets and gen rules I use are so simple, the main differentiation between two characters of the same class is the gear they carry. So gear is very important!

I wanted to find a place to add alchemical and special purchase items, but they wouldn't fit on these panels. And anyway, I think it would be cooler if I whip out special lists when the several players come upon stores with unusual merchandise.

I made these sheets at Staples because they can print on special really good paper, and the ink is even and clean. You can email them docs to print out for you and then pick them up. Very nice.

The screen folds up flat so you can jam it in your binder or whatever. I suggest putting clear contact paper over it once you're happy with the contents of your panels.

So this was a really big success, and the final product is going to please me quite well.

PROPS: The tape is awesome. It works perfectly. Just as I'd imagined - maybe better.

SLOPS: Make sure you know how to use a grade school guillotine's little ruler dealie before you start cutting stuff! My panels came out a good inch short on each side because I couldn't use the ruler properly. I will do it right when I made the final screen.