#and that's not even getting into the Special Deaths you can have in the neath!

[thegreatyin]

You mentioned a while ago that sunlight kills you in fallen london, but spies clearly move to and from the surface regularly so there must be more too it than that

Is it like if you die in the neath and go the surface the sunlight will kill you?

that's exactly it, actually!

the actual reasons why are,, Complicated, but to keep a long lore explanation short, the lack of sunlight in the neath is a huge factor as to why everyone can come back from death.

to put it in simple terms, lets say you're visiting london from the surface. you don't stick around long enough to die, so when you come back aboveground, you can walk around in the sun all fine and dandy. no harm done. it's basically just going in and out of a weird cave.

but lets say, hypothetically, you die during your trip. and you get better (as is the way of things in the neath). you can now no longer go back to the surface. upon making contact with sunlight, the world will (effectively) remember you're supposed to be dead, and instakill you on the spot. this is a big part of why 99% of londoners can't just walk away from the neath and its horrors altogether. once you mark yourself as Not Supposed To Be Alive™, you have basically nowhere else to go.

well. nowhere but down.

[sith-shenanigans]

Amias Arling | The Calescent Inquisitive

[art by Gaudeamus_Igitur on Toyhouse]

Profile:

Ambition: Heart’s Desire

Primary Quirk: Subtle 12

Secondary Quirks: Steadfast 10 / Maganimous 10 / Ruthless 10

An individual of indistinct but not particularly mysterious gender. Watchful and Persuasive. Uses they/them pronouns.

Correspondent, specialized as a Crimson Engineer. Married to the Infamous Mathematician and Roguish Semiotician, forming an Endlessly Invigorating Union.

Their in-game profile can be found here.

History:

Previously the Artful Detective, having come to the Neath chasing a disinherited, indebted Society lady. After a stay in New Newgate caused by a sudden attack of sympathy for the target of their investigation, they escaped and began their career below working with the Honey-Addled Detective. They were satisfied to spend most of their time on Moloch Street for a few months, with occasional forays into Veilgarden to satisfy their more artistic side (‘artful’ was always a bit of a double meaning), but the deeper mysteries of the Neath drew them in before long. Courier messages for a few extra moon-pearls—but if you steal them, you get to read them. Expand your social circle, and you have so many more contacts for your cases. (And while you’re climbing the social ladder, you might even make a true friend or two; they still exchange letters with the Cloistered Diatomist.)

For a little while, it seemed like they might turn towards the Great Game. People are puzzles, they’re fond of saying, and their moral streak and sense of propriety don’t usually apply to the people they set out to betray. But the more they got used to the Neath, the less they found they cared about the Surface powers and their secrets—except that those secrets could be currency.

A sponsor took notice of their dogged pursuit of information and suggested that they join an expedition to the Forgotten Quarter. An expedition that, it soon came out, they would be leading. When they got their hands on the Correspondence Stones (before Virginia swooped in, thank you), they felt a spark that grew into a slow-burning obsession. The symbols that marked the Bazaar’s spires; the language of suns.

Alongside this, the woman they had been chasing—no longer another disinherited lady, but a Cordial Huntress, and one of their most vitriolic friends—had passed on rumors of a card game that would grant the winning player their heart’s desire. Those rumors began to pan out. They came into possession of a Cardsharp Monkey and made arrangements with a Bishop. They continued their archaeological pursuits in the Sunken Embassy, and earned enough brass to buy a spread of secrets that would take them from their drafty room to lodgings in the Bazaar. They got closer to Court with the sole intention of putting on the Topsy King’s impossible opera, and were nearly bludgeoned to death by a mob after their ‘practice run’ of an original symphony in the Correspondence.

When they returned from Venderbight—the opera not being appreciated by the Empress—and then Port Carnelian, it became apparent that their exile had overlapped with Benthic’s most troublesome pair of scholars: the Infamous Mathematician and the Roguish Semiotician. Their renewed courtship was the terror of the University; the marriage was a brief respite. Especially when the three went directly from their honeymoon to a zee voyage, allegedly for research. (The Mathematician and Semiotician certainly got some done. Their new spouse was busy convincing a One-Time Prince of Hell that they were far more terrible and callous than it; before and after that, they were keeping the ship running, though they spared as much time as they could to look over the Mathematician’s analyses of the places where zee became mirror and the currents that caused and ruined them or listen to the Semiotician’s delightfully unwise theories about drownie-songs.)

This peace didn’t last. Shortly after, at the conclusion of a line of lexical near-death experiences and brushes with madness, the ex-Detective penned a work that did to the University what their compositions had done to Court, and it was clear that they had moved on from murder cases and missing heiresses for good.

They followed this up by leaning on their place at the cutting edge of a new science, cementing their possession of a laboratory they badly needed, and only then—when they finally had an actual leg to stand on, academically speaking—delivering the dreadful news: they had been solving one last case all this while, and the Senior Reader’s murderer was none other than Summerset’s Provost.

This went over very badly, but Benthic argued a strong case against turning them out of the lab. It would, at this point, hurt the university more than it protected it. Perhaps it would be enough to shutter the planned Department of the Correspondence—in accordance with the Masters’ wishes—and keep away the students. And revoke funding, of course. Academic marginalization. The organized cold shoulder from both colleges. There would obviously not be a professorship. But so long as they were, on paper, someone’s hired and entirely-non-University-affiliated assistant… proper Correspondents aren’t an echo a dozen. Ones who will turn out research without commensurate pay, even less so.

There was a bittersweet sort of celebration at a certain flat in the Bazaar, that night. What they ended with was much less than they could have gotten—but it wasn’t the nothing they could have been left with, so long as they kept up the facade that it was something much more insulting. After all, who can bear being stripped of status without being stripped of the obligations that go with it?

Some fires burn slowly. The Calescent Inquisitive knew they could live with being one of them.

Personality:

Amias is amiable and charming, but in the somewhat nervewracking way of someone who regularly sits at Scandal 7 and doesn’t care until exile is nearly imminent. Their curiosity serves them well socially, as does their previous occupation; getting people to talk about themselves, and listening with genuine interest, are some of their best skills. They consider themself a “former introvert”—in reality, they just find the Neath’s social atmosphere a lot less discouraging. They want things on the other side of convention, and to an extent always have; what they could never get away with on the Surface is often only discouraged below. If you’re the exact right kind of unapologetic, you can pull it off.

They are, as a rule, exceptionally patient with their own plans, if much less so with others’, and too clever for anyone’s own good. They’ll spend months setting up affairs to avoid blowback they can’t handle, but they’ll also break into the Constables’ headquarters just to solve all the unsolved cases and leave the files stacked nearly on a desk.

Unsurprisingly for someone pursuing the Marvellous, the Calescent Inquisitive is best described as driven. If something interests them, they’ll pursue it, and everything else be damned. With that in mind, the rest of their contradictions fall into place; they believe in loyalty and a certain kind of propriety—if one that only ever aligns with Society’s by accident—and they make some effort to care about most of the people they meet, but they have a set of priorities, and they don’t feel the need to make those priorities fit anyone else’s. While they’d prefer to achieve whatever they’re focusing on with the minimum possible amount of harm, they won’t discard that focus for law or money or ethical qualms. Sometimes, at best, they’ll reevaluate what they want more.

For someone with such a defined list of priorities in their head, though, they don’t know themself as well as they think. Those priorities don’t help them self-analyze so much as stand in for it—they’re often unaware of their own emotions or desires, shrugging off all but the strongest and most consistent. They consider grudges inconvenient; they enjoy the Neath’s frequently-bizarre luxuries, but with a kind of patient efficiency the Bohemians would (and often do) find slightly unsettling. They take a surprising number of people to bed, but they don’t understand why people insist on gossiping about it—they’re not going to stop, unless their spouses decide it’s a problem, and there’s rarely any kind of great secret in it. They lie freely, if they feel the need, but rarely break promises. Hurt them, and they might well forgive you… just as soon as you’re no longer a threat. Everything is either a passing fancy or a project.

One might almost think that they didn’t start playing the Marvellous to win their heart’s desire—or even, as they’ve suggested, to discover the boundaries of what the Masters can grant—but to find out what it was.

[cetaceanhandiwork]

I saw a comment on the Fallen London wiki, where someone wondered whether it would be possible to "actually" revive/fix Mr Candles, as opposed to SMEN's mission to the High Wilderness which (as far as I can tell, having never Knocked myself) settles for mourning or avenging him.

My reaction was "well, this is the Neath, and the whole point of the Neath is to be a refuge for the audacious and the impossible, right? So there should be some way to do it, even if it's not in the game."

But then that got me thinking... how would you do it, exactly?

Part One: Body

First off, the requirements to revive the dead, even in the Neath, are apparently pretty heavy. Cups manages it at the end of Nemesis, with a ritual requiring Master's Blood, a bathtub full of Hesperidian Cider, a number of specially-prepared candles, and the remains of the deceased.

Of these four, the first two are obtainable in-game. Eye-wateringly expensive (fun fact: a bathtub is seven firkins), but still.

The third is also obtainable... at a cost. There's probably a reason that the Seeking Road, despite being as misaimed as it is, tries to spell Mr Candles's name in candles.

The fourth... well. SMEN ignores it, except at the very beginning. But the physical remains of Mr Candles apparently still exist. "IT IS NORTH UNDER GRANITE." Probably in Xibalba.

But there's a problem with the Cups Process: it can't restore the mind. In Nemesis, this was an unfixable problem. But for Mr Candles... its mind survives, and we know where to get it.

Part Two: Mind

The Mr Eaten of SMEN vascillates between two agendas: revenge and grief. Why? My theory is that there are two Mr Eatens in the Neath, each an incomplete remnant of the original Mr Candles. We know that one of them is imprinted in the lacre of the Bazaar. That would be the grieving one; aside from the obvious practicalities of what can and can't be described in the language of grief, we know that when you "Accept the Name" from the Eaten Mr Sacks, your Question is immediately shifted to "What is Forgotten" even if you previously set it to "What is Due".

Then where is the Mr Eaten of revenge? Well, where was Mr Candles most likely to leave a part of itself behind? I think the obvious answer is Parabola. It's a place where even the Masters are vulnerable, and if some impression of him didn't remain there, then we wouldn't have dreams of Death by Water. But this Eaten has been warped, too. The Strange Dreams of London interact with each other, after all, and none more than those of Storm. Storm is the other dream-remnant who dreams of going NORTH, and has his own reasons to want to pass the gate of Avid Horizon and bring down a reckoning upon the whole Neath and its lawlessness. When the Bag a Legend protagonist crafts the hungry knife to kill Mr Veils in retribution, they even use Storm's thunderbolt to do it. Some part of Storm has rubbed off on the Parabolan Mr Eaten, I think, and caused it to hyperfixate on the plan of revenge at any cost.

Part Three: Putting the Pieces Together

So now we've found the disembodied mind that the Cups Process cannot, on its own, rebuild. But how do we safely reunite those minds with their body?

If the grieving remnant is imprinted in lacre, then it can be read out of lacre. It's Correspondence, albeit a different dialect written with a different orthography. A sufficiently dedicated Correspondent could "accept the heart and lights" of the Eaten Mr Sacks and then transcribe them. And if there is a concern that "lacre cannot bury the law", then perhaps they should get the help of a Steward, whose whole craft centers around burying the Law, to enact that "no forgotten victim shall be forgotten" while the work gets done.

As for Parabola's Mr Eaten, well, the protagonist has successfully visited the dreams of dead Masters before. Get someone good enough at Glasswork to find the center of the dream. Speak the Name, to grab the attention of the dreamer, and then transport it in a Mirrorcatch Box; the endgame quests of Sunless Sea have shown us that this is a convenient way to contain and transport Parabolans who could not survive in the Neath.

With this, all that remains is to transfer these thoughts into the newly resuccitated Mr Candles. Irrigo is the obvious tool for this; we know that it can lubricate thoughts and memories, allowing them to flow freely from one person to another.

But using the Nadir itself for this purpose would be too dangerous. We'd risk permanently losing the precious canoptic jars which we'd worked so hard to recover. Instead, we need someone skilled with precision application of irrigo, of the "inks of undernight", to perform the transplant. We need Millicent Clathermont's remnant... whom, if we have St Eruzile's Candle, should already be present within us.

And what about the most fundamental obstacle? The notion, put forward by the authors themselves, that there is no longer such things as a Mr Candles, just an absence where a Mr Candles should be?

The Seeking Road has given us the solution to that, as well. The process for filling that void appears every time someone finishes St Gawain's service. St Gawain's Candle is, above all else, an emptiness in the shape of a person, filled with glory and coaxed back to life.

Perhaps it's presence as the final candle of the Seekers is no coincidence either.

In Conclusion

So this is the shopping list.

Mr Requiem, transcribed from lacre into Correspondence

Mr Reckoning, contained in a Mirrorcatch Box by Glasswork

The Inks of the Undernight, and a skilled hand at them, to return the two remnants of Mr Candles's mind to its body

The blood of a living Curator, for the Cups Process

Seven firkins of Hesperidian Cider (or another highly concentrated medium of the Mountain of Light's vitality) for the Cups Process

A number of specially-prepared candles, for the Cups Process

The physical remains of Mr Candles, NORTH UNDER GRANITE

Much of this is familiar. Much of this is stuff that SMEN gives you, for reasons it never deigns to explain before it sends you off to Avid Horizon to ruin everything.

Perhaps this was always the plan, originally. Perhaps Mr Candles, forseeing (as Winking Isle implies) the betrayal, prepared the Seeking Road as a means of resurrection, and it only got bent out of shape later. Perhaps by some ineffective Tragedy Procedure which smudged the Seeking Road but failed to erase it, or perhaps by some Mithridatic scheme of Nicator (who entire stake in the matter, as a player for White, is by his own admission “to bring light to the Neath”), or perhaps just by the Eatens’ tug-of-war between revenge and regret accidentally yanking the path past Xibalba and through the Gate.

It'll probably never be a part of the game. But in the realm of fanfic... the realm of "what might be possible"... who knows?

[theirrepressibleheiress]

goddamn i really do want to ask everying. i will restrain myself to 🌅, ⚔️ and 🧍‍♂️ though.

🌅 — Do they miss the Surface? What was their life like up there?

[Cont. from a previous ask]

The Heiress's brother died while they were in their last year of schooling. He was on a relatively routine business trip to the Neath. Even before any evidence of foul play, they did not take the news well - their performance in school plummeted and they become increasingly reclusive even while more pressure was placed on them as the new heir. This continued for long enough that it became a bit of a sore spot for the family as a whole, forming a rift between them and their parents.

That rift doesn't have time to widen too much, because shortly after they left school, more news reached the Surface about their brother's fate. It didn't even really suggest foul play. At best, it sort of apathetically shrugged and said "maybe" to the notion that he was murdered. The Heiress drops everything, burns what savings they have, and buys passage on the first boat heading to Italy. By the time they reach the Canal, they're almost broke. In a moment of surprisingly successful folly after realising this, they start picking fights with zailors at the Neath side of the Canal. They don't relent until they're detained and shipped to New Newgate.

⚔️ — Do they have a particular fighting style/signature weapon?

The Heiress is a Monster-Hunter in spirit as much as just profession. Their harpoon is lovingly maintained despite its age, with only the most stubborn ichor and fiercest scorch marks allowed to earn their place on it. In battle, especially above the waves, they lean hard into "winnowing the lesser terrors from the true". Their stained weapon, murky reputation, and willingness to strike at times and places unexpected, all combine to induce paranoia and convice their foes this isn't worth it.

While this is backed up by substantial fighting skills, a harpoon isn't really a great weapon in a swordfight. For that, they do have a backup option, though it's one they don't particularly like using. A Knife of Lost Sky, acquired when they first came to the Neath and fell into the tail end of the Game of Knife-and-Candle. It strikes with all the fury of the Sun above, bringing the threat of permanent death with every strike.

(In actual fact, the blade is a forgery - it's a genuine Knife and Candle piece but it's simply designed to look as like the sky as possible - there's nothing special about it beyond that. The Heiress still feels unpleasant using it, given the weight of legend behind it. Even knowing the legend's false, it feels incredibly hypocritical. Besides, if they're forced to use it enough that the lie is revealed, then it would become little more than a shiv with value to collectors.)

🧍‍♂️— What stats would they provide as a companion? Where would you obtain them?

This one took a little bit of thought and trying to eyeball balance numbers, so I'm not 100% sold on them, but:

Dangerous +10, Dreaded +2, Monstrous Anatomy +1.

As for where you find them? The sensible, fits with existing game mechanics, answer, is probably Hallowmas. The weird and fun idea that just came to me is that there are two ways you can get them:

An option on the A Chelonite Hunting Ketch card while at Zee, requiring 5 Revolutionary Favours and Revolutionary Renown 25.

An option if you die at Zee with a Silent Stalker. I think this is either a one time thing where the crew's log mentions watching the corpse of the monster that ate you float to the surface, dead. When you pick it, you also get a quality representing a calling card or something similar stuffed into a pocket. Once you get back from the Fathomking and being dead, you can go chase them up.

I was thinking about a card in somewhere linked to the Revolution and the Liberation of Night which requires Docks renown and favours (to mirror the Chelonite option) but the only place I can think of is the Nadir and that feels like it doesn't have the right vibes?

[awordbroken]

I haven't heard much about your skies captain oc, anything you wanna share?

Woe is the Captain from my Chiropterous Hoarder fics, so all of that is part of their canon. that said, a few things about them that hasn't come up in some 11k words across that series:

in the Neath, they were an urchin chosen by Storm. they were an urchin for a very, very long time, but when they look back at that time the years blur together, so they couldn't say exactly how long they've lived.

at some point before London went through the Avid Horizon, a Foreign Office recruiter picked up all their friends for the Vake choir while Woe was down with a bad cold. having essentially lost all their friends at once (not dead! they just have jobs now. tragic.), they were disillusioned with eternal childhood and began to age again. can i say with confidence that that's how urchin immortality works in canon? no. do i care? no.

(the rest cut for length because apparently i had a lot to say...!)

they used to love to sing, and are still pretty good at it; Relief From Death originally had a bit where they sang to the bat babies, but i cut it because i couldn't get it to where it didn't make me cringe a bit lmao (i was going to crib lyrics from Okkervil River's A King and A Queen: be a little sheep learning who'll shear and who'll feed / the hands come and they leave. be hands holding a knife / be a being on two feet, with his heart trembling / butchering for a king he believes in though he's never seen)

they're not really Stormy-eyed anymore, and Storm's influence wouldn't reach them in the High Wilderness even if they were, but when they sing one may still catch a faint scent of rain in the air.

when they grew out of the urchin gangs they drifted between odd jobs for a few years, until the Avid Horizon was opened and the traitor-empress declared that London would be moving to the stars. they signed up to help build the new London in Albion, which further fucked with their sense of age and time - this is based on the canonical sskies facet A Promise of Days, which i interpret as the workers who built up Albion experienced thirty years compressed time (similar to the Brabazon workworld) while rebuilding London, but for everyone else it was much shorter + they were paid in hours to extend their lives/not age too much in that compressed time. i may be making Victoria too generous there, but i reason that she wanted Albion made habitable asap + a generous payment would prey on the most desperate to overcome any hesitation about being among the first to get shoved through an unknown door into space. y'know.

Woe used the aforementioned generous payment to buy their first engine.

they suffer from pretty severe body dysmorphia, which i intentionally don't delve too deeply into in their fics; there's a scene in i think Shelter where they discuss what Woe's ideal body would be that was cut down a lot because i wasn't comfortable getting that into it. (they also have food issues that i similarly don't get into; fee free to imagine Apples frequently brings them food when they neglect eating or don't feel comfortable eating in public and makes them special meals when they're having highly specific texture issues etc.)

their train is named the Misery. :)

and thank you for asking, R <3

[dragynkeep]

Holy shit I still can't believe I've seen more people believe that KF thread accusing Sheena of killing Monty with their cat than people who believe the letter. I also hate how RWBY fans let the letter get co-opted by Vic stans so now if you bring it up they assume you're part of them. Also since you brought up how Monty and his brother weren't that close, there is some stuff to back up that monty wasn't that close with his family. In a post he wrote on his personal website (which has now been archived) there's a post where it talks about his mother's funeral and he mentions how he's been described as off the grid and that he's family was expecting little response from him. ( the whole post is a great if sad read here's the link)

https://web.archive.org/web/20180928220018/http://montyoum.net/archives/602

The other thing is how when Shane's letter came out, Chivy, one of Monty's brothers made a response and said that he didn't even know Monty was in a relationship until he met Sheena at the funeral so Monty didn't even tell his family about Sheena.

Another thing is how in the special thanks for V1 and V2 for RWBY while people put their family in the special thanks, Sheena was there and Monty's family wasn't. Come after his death for V3 and Sheena is gone than from V4 onward The Oum Family is there.

it's all an incredibly uncomfortable, distressing & ugly situation & one that has obviously been taken advantage of by certain pockets of fans to their own ends. i honestly don't know how people still deign to believe sources like kiwifarms when it's barely a step up from the likes of 4chan & has only ever served to cause more issues than they "claim to solve."

reading that archived post of monty's was very sad, especially because i never had this nostalgia for him or his work as i came into the fandom long after his death & really can view this without that colouring my perspective. the way he talks about needing to work because of his parents immigration to the us & how his siblings would accuse him of not making time just feels really sad in retrospect. because like i said in the other ask, this overworking & this need to drive himself beyond the limit was more likely the pressing factor contributing to his death than he & his wife wanting a pet & him getting allergy shots for it. the death itself was wholly a freak accident & yet sheena is perpetually, still, cast as this conniving, gold digging villain who murdered her husband & it's so heartbreaking.

i think a lot of rwby fans buy into the fact of crwby "doing their best in monty's honour" despite the company ousting his wife & deriding his best friend's mental health because of the narrative formed by the kiwifarms posts; as well as the inherent idea that your blood family knows you best. neath being in the cast is seen as a sign of good faith that what they did in the aftermath of monty's death was right, even though by neath & monty's own words they weren't close. there was nothing more than a slight familiarity there only due to blood, monty had his family & it wasn't his siblings. it was his wife, it was his best friend.

it's just very uncomfortable to see this brought into because this is what happens to so many people, our blood family speaks over the family we chose by virtue of that blood relation & nothing else; & like i said, i don't know how i would handle that if it were my best friend, or my husband's family speaking over me when i knew i loved them most. the rwby & by extension rooster teeth fandom really needs to remove the blinders they have because of this cult like adoration for rwby & see what was being said years ago in a new light. especially since shane's claims were validated by rooster teeth themselves in the exposure of the crunch & yet so few in the fandom thought to actually follow through & question if the rest of his claims were true.

[vake-hunter]

What is Salt?

Salt is probably one of the most uh complex parts of Fallen London lore so buckle up. I’m going to keep this as simple as possible because there is A LOT. 

!!Spoilers for Sunless Sea and Seeking Endings!!

Who IS Salt as of Right Now In The Neath 

Salt is one of the three Gods of The Unterzee. It is usually noted as being responsible for the strange flow of time in the Neath and memories in general. It is also called the Traveller Returning or just the Traveller. Its messenger is a white bat. Its blessings are usually that of sudden revelations or help to get home (but not always YOUR home…) Its curses however are extreme, erasing of memories, taking loved ones, undoing achievements, even erasing your whole existence. Better not to upset it. 

It's said Salt resides to the East, farther than anyone dares to travel. 

But who WAS Salt?

“the White: Recall who sent you here. That fierce old thing in the dark: "Find her," he said to you, "and you will find the treasures. Go down. You need only take a little. [...]" The light of his nimbus guttered, as if he were laughing. You knew nothing of the Neath, then. Perhaps you would never have come, if you did. [...] You remember the starlight.”

Salt is a Judgement, specifically one who worked as a spy for another Judgement, the White. 

Salt’s name was not always Salt. Its true name is long forgotten but may be found in the depths of Frostfound (Frostfound is a whole different essay). It has a strange name of seven letters, which is dangerous in the Correspondence. It’s name roughly translates to The Name-Which-Burns and it is also one of the sigils found near the Avid Horizon in art. (Its name is hard for humans to comprehend and depending on what options you choose, you can either pick to believe Salt was a human or was a Judgement. Everything about Judgements is almost impossible for humans to understand, thus you can pick a more ‘simple’ translation. Both endings still result in you going East.)

Salt was sent to the Neath by the White (more on that in speculation). It was a painful journey and sometime during its time in the Neath, Salt decided it no longer wished to serve the White. Salt travelled around the Zee to forget itself. It left parts of itself in Frostfound, Kingeater’s Castle, Irem, and finally it went East. It built these places and abandoned its Name, its Need, its Memories and, finally, itself. 

TRAVELLER RETURNING

“The Name is yours. Perhaps it always was - perhaps you're only coming home. [...] Other memories of other voyages press in on you [...]” 

Salt is every Traveller and the Traveller is always Returning. Salt beckons others to follow its path. To take up its name. To join it East. In Frostfound, you find Salt’s name and it is your name. You gain Salt’s memories and Name, you become Salt and you go East. There are others there, all others who followed the path. 

But why?

“The Gate is open, the Judgments have seen, but you have other plans. There is no Sequence for this. Rise and depart. [...] You failed, you succeeded. This was only the first element. It is a terrible pity about the Runt. If you could have saved him, you would. But all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Contact the others. Let them know what the White intended. Continue.”

That tells me absolutely nothing.

AK is no longer a part of FBG and so this may not be canon anymore but he wrote on Reddit about Salt and the White. 

"The Liberation of Night stained the Deep Wilderness long, long before it touched the Earth, and the White feared - reasonably that its metastasising rapture would darken the hearts of too many stars for it ever to be contained. [This is lore I'd have explored more in Sunless Skies as it was originally conceived, but Failbetter have gone, I believe, in a completely different direction, and this is no longer continuity.] He resorted to the Neath, that notorious half-secret laboratory of stellar secrets. The Bazaar is developing its own Counsel to soothe and cheer the Sun; the White hoped to find or foment a final argument of despair which would quell the rebellious hearts of any Liberated star it touched. It would also quell the hearts of any loyalist Judgements, but the White would rather see an empty universe than a disordered one. Of course the White couldn't know that the Counsel of Peace might threaten Histories beyond its own, but the White is the White, and it's unlikely that this would have dissuaded it."

So about the Bazaar. Messages written on it can affect those who read them. We see this in humans who feel love and such when near the Bazaar or talking about the Bazaar and Cups in Nemesis was trying to inscribe stories of revenge onto the Bazaar to make it and the sun suffer. It is implied this is from the Bazaar experimenting on itself and various surgeries it had done in the First City, although all Couriers have this power to a lesser degree (seen in Skies at Faith’s Fall).

SPECULATION

Even if you ignore what AK said the White wanted to find something in the Neath and sent Salt to find it. The White would rather kill Judgements rather than let them turn to Night. It scribe messages of Hate and Grief onto the Bazaar to turn others away from the Liberation. In both of the other two endings of Seeking, you would become fuel for the White’s plan. Both of these endings have Nicator react happily when you pick your question, saying that the White will come to fulfill his frozen Law, while asking Who is Salt has Nicator react in fear and confusion, saying you are going against the White’s plan. 

“I don’t understand. Who do you think will come, when you call? Tell – please tell me – you will bring light to the Neath. The White’s plan–”

Salt was sent to spy for the White and find a weapon, but turned away from the White’s plan. It’s implied then, that it is trying to build an army to kill the White. In Seeking, you knock, open the Neath to the White and then fly East to your army. You lured him to the Neath to kill him.

So this brings us to Candles. I am unsure of the actual connection the two have, although they very clearly have one. It is very possible the White had a hand in Candles’ death in order to further his plan. So let’s jump STRAIGHT into speculation. We know Veils had its claws in the Great Game and was on the Surface enough that it was one of its strongest personality parts so it could be that the White somehow told Veils to betray Candles, offering Veils something in return.

One of my special interests is religion so let’s dump some of that in here. There are plenty of comparisons of Candles and Veils to Jesus and Judas. Even the game does it. Judgements are gods. In the book of Judas, Jesus knew Judas would betray him and God himself told Judas to do so, because it was part of the plan to have Jesus die for the sins of humanity. So Jesus is Candles, God is the White and the Holy Spirit is Salt. It fits, as Salt is in every Traveller. Fucking weird but a good way to try and comprehend them. 

I personally really like the idea of Salt and Candles being Binary Stars!! Candles lowered itself first and Salt was sent by the White to find it.

[house-of-mirrors]

"Can bullets hurt the thing" my answers:

In the Martyr-King's cup ambition in sunless skies, we meet an enraged [spoiler] back in full curator form. Unlike the curators you can engage in regular combat, the strongest cannon purchasable in the game can only mildly irritate it into flying away. The only thing capable of killing this curator in the situation is a special sword created by the judgements themselves.

If a curator is hard to kill with a gun, you'd better believe a judgement is. There's a very chaotic way to die in sunless skies, in which you can steer your train guns blazing into the heart of the Blue Kingdom and register a complaint against death on behalf of all mortals. (Arguably the funniest text in game imo.) Your cannons do some mild damage. Imagine a crack on the sidewalk against the scale of an entire country. You are, of course, "no longer permitted to exist" within seconds of starting your attack.

However. This assumes the bullets are regular, human bullets against the stars themselves. Are the bullets secretly shards of killing time? Are they imbued with the poisonous grief extracted in Winter's Reside? Does each bullet contain a sorrow-spider? Have you first manipulated the judgement you want to kill into leaving his throne and removing his armor? In this case, regular bullets might actually work if you had enough.

These are the big questions. We must get creative. The humor of "Gun." full sentence against fantasy magic must have some merit in a horror-comedy setting.

As for the Princess, I think it's situational. I voted "no" thinking of skies. She's even more inhuman and can only be affected by a prison built by the judgements, or flung into a vortex, neither of which actually kill her I don't think. If you want to try hurting her at the end of her officer quest, forget about it.

In Fallen London, you might just be able to pull something off, but I still don't think bullets would be enough on their own. Maybe a minor annoyance. You'd need to lace them with one of the strong neath poisons, or maybe go after her in parabola. If you could get her on the surface, that might be a different story, but I'm not convinced the sunlight wouldn't just punish her before you even got your gun out because she's technically not supposed to exist.

Asking the real questions on this fine Sunday.

Brought into a conversation topic this morning on whether or not a gun is of any use for threatening the princess, which then brought me into thinkin on the fact that she's probably on the power level where bullets arent super effective against her...

She seems particularly strong if you ask me...

This is specifically considering FL power level, not considering skies stuff here.

[lorewytch]

A 80′s Gushing Rant

Sorry I just spammed everyone with 80s cartoons XD (Well.. sorry, not sorry?) As a child born in the 80s, I have a special attachment to these cartoons. I mean doesn’t everyone? Nostalgia sells for a reason after all. We all at least have one fond memory of one cartoon or TV show or book that touched us. I was born a only child so often I only could play with myself. I was shy and much different than my other classmates. I was awkward a lot and often did my own thing. But one thing I loved was my parents giving me VHS’ to play which I would watch over and over until the tapes warped. I had many favorites over the years. And the 80s and early 90s were a peek time for several different companies to open their doors and unleash a barrage of toys, videos and books at young kids. I of course loved the popular shows. Shows like TMNT, Tiny Toons, Care Bears, My Little Pony, etc. I had a special spot in my heart for them all. But there were a few that were widely unknown. Most of these were popular but only really had one animated episode created. I kinda just wanted to gush about them a bit. Because these were underrated and I felt needed more recognition. A few of these did have a few episodes out on VHS but most only had one or two episodes. Some you may recognize, some not. Granted I didn’t watch everything that aired in the late 80s and early 90s. But these are some I just remembered.

Rose Petal Place

This one had only one episode, several dolls and apparently a board game XD. Rose Petal Place was about a group of flowers. They were given life when a little girl cried over them, wishing to stay with her flower garden forever. But the family was forced to move and she had to leave her poor garden behind. The magic behind those tears transformed the flowers into real magical beings whose sole duty it was to protect the garden per the young girls wishes. Rose’s voice is the only thing that can keep the flowers blooming in the garden. Her singing brings life back and her spunky and upbeat personality kept me intrigued as a child. I loved girl heroes fighting bad guys as a child. It inspired me and showed me I could be as strong as her. Rose never backed down even when her voice was stolen from her by Nastina the classic spider villain in the series. She still tried to sing even without her voice. One of the very first lines we hear from Rose Petal perfectly defines what kind of character she is. Nastina: Rose Petal. You think you can restore the rose garden with your singing? Rose Petal: You know I can. (hands on hips) She was pretty classy too for a cartoon character. I loved her voice and singing was very on point. The episode itself was rather cliche and dated by todays standards. But the voice acting I felt was mostly on point. It did struggle a bit, but it kept it entertaining even as I watched it a few months ago. Sadly it didn’t really define the characters all that well. But I think given the chance it could have been a nice series. Maybe even with more colorful villains. It was very similar to Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite. I think also with the limited setting and semi unbelievable background story was probably a few of the reasons it didn’t do so well. However, the character designs were pretty cute and I loved the creative concept. “Friends, would you like to be friends? Would you like to share the day with me? We can be anything we want to be!” -Rose Petal  Pound Puppies (1980s)

Okay this one is a bit more popular than the others on this list. But honestly, I forgot about it until recently. The series itself is nice, but the one thing I remembered most about it was the movie.

I think the best part of it was the music. While some songs were meh, Songs like “All In your Mind” and “At the Pound” were pretty good and I found myself singing along. Also it was pretty dark for a kids movie. If you really think about it, the villain was creepy and him turning those puppies into those vicious dogs reminded me a bit of dog fighting and how people turned dogs into killing machines. Plus the background design on these were pretty impressive as well. At least for me anyways. This is really all subjective anyways. But I liked the concept. Who wouldn’t love singing Dogs and cats going on adventures? XD But I feel like a lot of that vanished in the TV series. I got to say I don’t remember the TV series that well. And while it was popular, I think if you think of the 80s cartoons, this one takes a while to come up. It’s not forgotten totally but its not one of the first ones you remember. I certainly didn’t. I remembered the movie more than the TV show. But I also think it was a important show/movie. Because it was the show to bring more awareness about Pounds and shelters. Adopting kitties and dogs from shelters seems common now. But it wasn’t so back then. And a lot of animals were treated very badly at these places. I feel like this had more promise. And I’ll always remember Cooler and his gang from back then. The voice acting was meh most of the time. But some of the characters were pretty interesting and I loved the movie. Also, can I say I love the whole 50s/60′s theme they got going on?! Poodle skirts! YES!

Lady Lovely Locks

Okay for this one, I only remember two episodes in particular off the top of my head. The Dragon Tree, which I loved because of the creative way dragons were born in this world. (Born from flowers the dragon tree bore) and the cute little baby dragons that emerged from them. Plus you got to see Lady Lovely Locks in black of all colors. The second episode being the first one. We get to see first hand at how Lady Lovely Locks can make her kingdom beautiful. Its literally in her hair. Magical girl hair. She was also rocking colored hair before it was popular. The voice acting can be cringe worthy and there’s not much music in this series, which is probably why it never got SUPER popular. It was semi known enough. Again, not one of the first ones I would think of. But I loved the character designs. I think in the 80s there were a lot of creative people wanting to create new and prettier dolls that stood out in one way or another to sell the toys to girls. But the world itself was very creative too and I appreciated that. So yeah the writing and stories kind of fell flat, especially by today’s standards.

But it was a series that doesn’t get nearly enough credit. It was one of the first American magical girls we had really. Lady Lovely Locks was a lady true to every word and not afraid to get her hands dirty to stop Ravenwaves. Also those Pixie Tails were so cute! Peppermint Rose

“Listen... to the legend... of Peppermint Rose...” Can I just say how much love I have to this lesser known cartoon girl? Okay, I admit, this girl at the beginning of her one episode debut was a bit of a brat. Hey they even admit it in the cartoon! Rose is the typical spoiled teen. She has a bit of a attitude problem and is more the hesitant hero than anything. But she has personality!

The writing on this episode is some of the better writing I feel on this list. Not to mention the music in this animated episode was pretty, flowery and I fell in love with many of the lyrics. Here’s the title song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEy536JeVEc “ Sunshine, Rainbows A breeze that gently blows A garden filled with magic The home of Peppermint Rose Daydreams, Laughter A sweet and Fragrant Glow As Four enchanted Maidens Help their gardens grow. There’s lemon Drop Lily So pretty and frilly Miss Vanilla Daisy Kind of Cute And kind of crazy And Dreaming ‘neath a sky of blue Merry Mint Violet dreams here too Someone Special And so the story goes A rose whose a rose Who’s much more than a rose And we call her Peppermint Rose Listen to the Legend Of Peppermint Rose..” Yeah no I had that stuck in my head for weeks.. couldn’t get it out. Despite Rose’s sour personality, she manages to cross a dangerous river, out wit the Bubba Beetle and magically sing the evil Queen turning her good as well as her henchmen because.. y’know...magic! XDDD The ending did seem rushed and the bad guys were very typical bad guys of the time. But I loved that Rose had a lot of negative traits. It goes to show people can change and her transformation into Peppermint Rose only proved that she could be stronger, braver and kinder. I admit the story does not age well. But I loved the music and character designs of them all. The story was also very cute. This was a decent cartoon for the time honestly and I was sad that there was only one episode of this. It had potential to be more. Again, another one like Rainbow Brite. “What’s that Smell?” “Begonia!”

Now I didn’t put Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Jem and the Holograms or any of the other more popular 80s cartoons here because while I did love them to death.. this list is for lesser known cartoons that others may not be familiar with. Granted the 80s and 90s were quite the decades themselves with a ton of cartoons. Both good and ehhh. But these always stuck out to me as a kid. Yes, I was a very girly girl. Still am in a few aspects. But each of these had something I appreciated and carried with me. And all had really cool designs for characters. I just wanted to show how much I appreciated them even as a adult. Even if they are dated and slightly cringe worthy today. I just appreciated the magic they brought with them, the music and the characters. I would love to see great remakes of any one of these. (The new pound puppies is kind of meh to me honestly) But I’d also love a great revival of Rainbow Brite and Jem and the Holograms too. Sorry this got so long. Whew... I think I will wrap this up. If I think of any more I may post something separate. Now remember, keep singing to bring life to those around you, never lose your bone of scone, let down your hair and let it shine and remember this beyond all else: A rose, whose a rose, who’s much more than a rose... And we call her.. Peppermint Rose.

[antarez4307-blog]

First Short Story (Lullaby)

They ran through the meadow, laughing all the way. Father had gone to the city for work and would be gone until dusk. Mommy had woken her up with a breakfast of fruits and cheese, and then combed and curled her hair. She was even allowed to wear her favorite dress because today was special. Today was the day that marked five years since Mommy and Father had taken her in after her parents died in the war. She’d been so little that she couldn’t remember them except as vague bits of warmth in her life. Mommy and Father took care of her now and loved her so. Father would be back in time to celebrate at evening meal. Mommy planned to take her into the village to get a present. But that would come later. Now they were running and playing in the field as the birds sang sweetly in the light.

They walked past the neighbor’s barn, hearing cows moo as they were milked at midday. A woman shouted out, “Erienne! Erienne, wait a breath!” Mommy tisked and turned towards the woman they called Old Gran with a smile. “What is ever the matter, Old Gran?”, she asked sweetly. The old woman walked up to her, and put a hand on her face, forcing her to lean down for a better look. “Ach, fer a start, ye should get sum sun, child. Yer skin’s pale as a ghost. If’n I didn’ know better, I’d call ye a wraith. Were it not for the Autumn breeze, I’d worry ye were catchin’ a chill. Ne’ermind that. Be wary on the way to town. Folk’s been talkin’ ‘bout a blood drinker ‘ereabouts. Pigs’ been cropping up dead of late. One torn ter pieces, others with their throats slashed and drained o’ blood.” Mommy looked scared, then asked “Aye, but what should we do? Isen won’t be back ‘till dusk.” Old Gran looked at Mommy kindly, “Oh, tis naught but a simple thing, dear. A line o’ salt ‘neath yer doors an’ windows will keep fiends, wraiths, and bloodsuckers out. None o’em can walk over it. Do it while the sun’s still out, and ye’ll be fine. Oh, and wear yer moonstone necklace! Fright’ns the basterds away.” Mommy looked happy, and hugged Old Gran. She thanked her for the advice and said we should be off so we’d not be late.

A few hours later, Mommy and her daughter walked through the town market. Mommy had promised to let her make a wish at the well before they went home. Now they were looking through the stalls for a gift for her. “Minishka, come see this! You’ll love it.”, shouted Mommy. The girl ran over to her mother, and saw a necklace of wound red silk with a shiny green stone. She squealed happily, and asked “Mommy, can I have it? It’s so pretty.” Mommy smiled, and gently told her “Of course dear. Today is special. And it goes so well with your hair and eyes. Come, we’ll buy it together.” They walked over to the merchant, the little girl happily holding her present. The merchant looked at them both, and asked “And how might I help ye?” Mommy and the merchant haggled for a bit over the price. After agreeing, he remarked, “It does suit the child.” He turned to her, “You’ll look quite pretty with this necklace. Would you like me to tie it on?” The child nodded with all the enthusiasm an eight year old girl could muster. After it was tied on, she was shown how she looked in a glass. “Mommy, I look near as pretty as you! It even hides my scar.” The girl skipped away happily, staying within a few feet of the jeweler’s stall where mother was speaking.

“Ye plan to be in yer house by nightfall, neh? There’s been talk o’ a blood drinker in the town. Killed a city guard few nights ago. If armed guards aren’ safe to wander at night, I’d not fancy the chances o’ tha likes o’ you an’ me.”, the merchant told Mother. The woman nodded, “Aye, you’ve got the right of it good man. My neighbor told me of what she’d heard when she last came to market. We’d planned to go to the well for my daughter to make her birthday’s wish, then head right back home. My husband will be along to home shortly, and he’s always made sure of the salt on our doors and windows. He even draws a line afore the hearth! No fiend will enter our house see if they don’t!” The merchant nodded understandingly. “Good, good. Glad to hear ye be a sensible lass. Rare in one so young as ye. Ye’ve a good eye too. That necklace be perfect for yer lass, and covers her ghastly scar. I was sure the poor girl would see me turn pale when I saw it.” The woman looked quite sad at the mention of her daughter’s scar. “Yes. . . She had an accident in the woods playing one day. Fell to the ground, and was bit by a viper. T’was all the pellar could do to keep her alive once the wound mortified. The scar. . . he said she’d carry it all her life.” Tears rolled down her high cheekbones as she spoke. The man looked mortified with what he’d done, “Apologies m’lady. Ne’er meant to stir up bad memories. Even with that scar, she’ll grow into a properly beautiful lass. How not, with a mother like ye? Aye, but Ah’ve spoken too much. I’ll leave ye be on yer way. Gods be with ye all, m’lady.”

They walked away from the stall to the village well. Mommy pulled her daughter to the edge of the well and told her to make her wish. “I, Elaine, vow to the gods that today I am theirs. I ask them to bless me, and grant me this wish: that I live with my wonderful Mommy and Father for all time.” As Mommy let her down, she turned around and hugged her as hard as she could. “I love you, Mommy.” She felt her mother’s arms around her, holding her tight as she kissed her cheek and whispered “I love you, Minishka” back.

Father returned from the city just before dusk, bringing her favorite sweet tart with him. They all sang the traditional birthday song to Elaine, and played games after the evening meal until sundown. As Mommy carried her back to her room, Father checked the salt underneath each of the windows and doors to make sure it was still where it should be. Mommy lay her down in her bed, and smoothed out her hair. “Minishka, would you like a lullaby to sleep?” She looked up to Mommy’s smiling face and nodded. Mommy leaned close, and sang

The winds-did howl, as daylight fled. All the dear children went, to bed. But thoughts most foul, did fill her head. Dear little Lilith, awake-with dread. She whimpered quietly, into the night, Each moment that passed, growing her fright. Tears came down, in ghastly flood. As she waited for it-to drink, her blood. And so she lay, awake in bed. Fearing in darkness, the monstrous dead. As night wore on, she fell asleep. To horrid slumber, dark and deep. Yet morning came, with wan sunlight. She woke to her mother’s smile, so bright. She thanked her gods, she was not dead. On her neck was a pale, red kiss, instead.

              She sang the lullaby twice more at Elaine’s request. “Mommy, you sing so pretty! I hope I can sing like you when I grow up.”, Elaine spoke tiredly. The woman smiled and put her hand on the child’s cheek. “Minishka, someday you will sing far more beautifully than I can. I’ll teach you how.” The little girl lay her head into her mother’s hand, and smiled.  “Mommy, can you sing it again? I love to hear your voice.” The woman smiled, and replied “Minishka, I’ve sung three times for you. It’s time to rest. Sleep and dream kind things, we’ll sing more tomorrow.”

The child put a petulant face on, and said stubbornly, “I want to hear you sing again.” The woman’s face changed in a second. Gone was the kind smile of Mommy; in her place was a sharp featured woman with eyes like gray rocks and none of the warmth of stone. “Sleep, child. We’ll sing on the morrow.” Elaine nodded hurriedly. It was never good to anger Mommy. As fast as it came, the scary face was gone. Gentle, sweet Mommy was back, smiling as ever. Mommy kissed her forehead, and blew out the candle. “Good night, Minishka.”

******************************

Erienne let down her hair as she walked out of her daughter’s room. The house was almost pitch black, only a deep red glow coming from the embers of the hearth. Isenrill’s breathing sounded clear across the house, a soft and rhythmic whisper as he slept. He must be tired from working so hard. I’ll let him sleep on the morrow. She smiled thinking of how excited he’d been lately to have a day off to spend with Elaine. She sipped from a small bottle full of dark liquid that lay on the top of the shelf and walked out of the house into the moonlit night, thinking to herself that it was in these quiet moments she felt most at peace. She’d grabbed the bottle as she walked out. Now it nested comfortably at her waist. She spied a toy of her daughter’s in the yard, and went to pick it up. Whispering quietly the words of her lullaby as she walked around their woods.

A soft whisper of wings came to her ears, and she froze. She focused on the sound. A bat seemed to be hunting. A whispered crunch, barely audible from so far away, accompanied its success. A cloud moved just then, and moonlight shone. Her skin seemed paler than the necklace of silver around her neck. Her dark hair and eyes seemed black in the night, the latter sunken into the recesses of her face that would leave an observer the impression of empty sockets. Anyone who saw her now would be frightened half to death thinking the corpse of a young woman had risen.  

She kept walking along their territory, listening to the woods and enjoying its sounds. Slowly, silence began to descend around her. Gently crunching, leaves gave away the approach of people before their breathing. The ragged smell of sweat and alcohol came off the men in waves that offended her nose. She heard them pause and begin to whisper of what to do. They resolved themselves and approached her. “Oi! You there! What’re you doin’ ‘ere?”, the man demanded too loudly for comfort. Erienne looked at him with a sweetly innocent face, and replied “I am merely walking through my lands, good man. Might I ask you why it is you are here?” He stomped closer to her, hand on an axe. “We be lookin’ fer the bloodsuckin’ freak that’s been prowlin’ round the village lately. One o’ the men claims he saw it flying this way.” He leaned in close, his appalling smell coming off in waves. The two men with him circling behind her. Erienne did her best to appear frightened, and told them, “Oh, that is so dreadful, that a vampire is lurking nearby. I shall run home at once, and have my husband draw lines of salt beneath our windows and doors.” She looked for all the world like a flustered young girl then.

One of them men looked at her, and recognized who she was. “Yer Isen’s lass, ain’t ye? What the devil ye be doin’ out here? Didn’t he tell ye about the monster?!” Erienne simply shook her head. The man grabbed her hand, more roughly than he might have had he been sober, and pulled her along to her house. As he did so, the bottle at her waist fell and broke. The men stopped and looked at it. One of them leaned down to it, and then bolted upright. “That’s blood! What the devil ye be doin’ with a bottle o’ BLOOD o’ all things?!” The man’s face was contorted in terror, his fear coming off him in ragged waves along with the foul odors he had been emanating earlier. The first man to speak to her caught on, and looking deadly serious spoke, “Yer the blood sucker. . . YER the fiend! By the gods, how many YEARS ye been hurtin’ us kind folk?!” She looked at him in shock, “How can you say that? I’ve never done ANYTHING to hurt the village. I took in a CHILD, by the gods. How can you accuse me of being such a fiend?!” The men grabbed their weapons, and moved to surround her at a distance. Their leader spoke, “Tis no use, FREAK! We’ll carve ye up, shove stakes into yer heart, and burn the pieces. Ye’ll die for all you’ve done, I swear it!”

Sick of the playacting, Erienne dropped the scared girl act. “It used to be that men knew their place, you know.” She dropped the cloak from around her shoulders. “Cowards and bastards like you would never have dared come after one of mine in decades past.” Her nails began to extend, turning into claws. “And the audacity! To think yourselves better than me. Two wife beaters and a whoremonger. How hypocritical.” -One of the men spoke up, “wha’ I do wit me cock ain’t none o’ yer business, BITCH!”- Erienne’s voice deepened several octaves, “You should have stopped at ‘freak’, imbecile. Not just a hypocrite and a monstrous person, but a moron as well. Humans should thank me for removing you from the breeding pool.” The men began to circle closer to her, their weapons trembling from fear or adrenaline. Her fangs began to lengthen and sharpen while her eyes expanded until they had no whites. She looked around, and said “On your heads be it.”

None of them expected how fast she would move. The first one had half his neck torn out by a swipe of her talons while he was lifting his axe. The second one swung down at her with both hands. She pirouetted quickly inside of his arms, and lifted up her hands. As his arms slowly, to her, descended into her palms, she squeezed. The pieces of the arms were barely falling when she locked her fangs around his throat, and threw him into the last of the men. As they landed sprawled, Erienne landed atop him and slammed her palm into the third man’s head. As she lifted her palm from the remains, she gently passed her tongue along it. Her first thought was, Blech, that tastes like rutting boar. The second was simply, I’m going to need something stronger than this swill.

The corpses had been taken care of; the dogs had eaten quite well. She had her bloody dress in a sackcloth. Come morning, she’d dye it burgundy. Isen kept saying the color looked wonderful on her, so he’d not be suspicious. She walked into their room, looking at her husband tenderly. In a few hours the sun would rise, but for now she simply enjoyed the darkened room and listening to his breathing. . . his pulse. She caressed his face gently, then turned to her daughter’s room. The impulse she felt brought up a mix of guilt, sadness, and fear bubbling up from a place deep within her. I’ll be careful this time. Elaine won’t get another scar from me. As she stood up to walk to her dear daughter’s room, she thought, I need a drink.”

[believerindaydreams]

@exoplaneeet some fic for you, cos I felt bad about your lack of CS/FL fic...well, actually it’s more SS than FL, with a post-game Tireless Mechanic. (If some of the lore’s off, please note that I have not actually played that much of CS yet...)

The Unrepentant Smuggler leaning against her study wall looks wry and relaxed, from neatly groomed mustache to mildly anachronistic boots. He does not, the Cynical Herald reflects, seem like a man who spent half a Zee voyage raving mad and tied up in his own hammock. Then again, the mutual friend who introduced them is a player of the Great Game; appearances count for less than nothing. 

“Ever since our trip to the Shattered Citadel,” he says. “I tried to loot something that the Mechanic told me not to, and, well, things got a little sticky.”

“No promises, you understand? Secret histories are fraught territory at the best of times, and I’m not even a Know yet.”

The Smuggler shrugs with evident lack of comprehension. “Better than nothing. We’ve been trying honey, laudanum, warm airag- do you know how foetid warm mare’s milk is? And none of it’s done any good. I just keep on dreaming.”

“If nightmares frighten you, go back to the Surface,” the Herald says indifferently. “Or simply wait it out. Even in the Neath, you’ll find that dreams have a tendency to cycle into complacency eventually.”

He glances her over, with the practiced eye of a born hustler, and speaks one word: “Illopoly.”

After that, __ it, she has to listen. 

A blackened engine warms the Physius to a nigh-intolerable point; the launch’s warm is very welcome to her bones, after years of witnessing Kingeater’s cold. Anyhow, their after-dinner Sangiovese is perfectly chilled, after a stint in the iceless ice box. 

“I take it the Mechanic’s as inventive as ever,” the Herald says, cutting herself neat slices of imported Parmesan. “To say nothing of thoughtful- I wouldn’t have expected such an appropriate tithe for my trouble. Or any at all, come to that.”

“Oh, well, that’s Ma- that’s the Mechanic for you,” the Smuggler agrees. “Do you mind if we get down to business now? Only I’d rather get it all out of the way before he wakes up. Talking about nightmares makes him real nervous.”

She studies the sleeping engineer, blissfully comatose now the ship’s safely docked, and nods. “All right. Is it always the same one? Are there patterns?”

“It starts with a desk. Faded viric-”

“It would have to be.”

“Which is far from my favourite colour,” the Smuggler says irritably, “but in the dream, I’m hanging on to the thing for dear life. Because there’s nothing else in the entire universe- literally nothing else to look at, except this desk and a pack of cards. So obviously I start laying out the cards for a game of solitaire, because what else are you going to do? Only that’s when it gets weird.”

“Trionfi,” the Herald murmurs, and draws a small case from her pocket. “Do you recognise any of these, by chance?”

He rummages through the pack. “A few. The Sun-in-Rags, that’s familiar. The Watchman. The Red Grail-”

“You needn’t invoke them,” the Herald says rather sharply, over the sleeper’s choking snore; she brushes an unkempt lock from his face, and he breathes easier again. “How new to the Neath are you?“

“Couple of years.” The Smuggler smiles crookedly. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it, however groovy the zeppelins are. Sorry. Only I don’t know what else you’d call them...”

“Don’t. Just point, and describe your symptoms.”

He does, for the following hour, while she takes notes in graceful Italian script. Possibly he is probing her knowledge of the occult for his own purposes, but the suspicion ebbs as she listens to his fraught accounting; clearly the Smuggler’s unaware of the greater import of his dreaming, and just as clearly doesn’t wish to. 

“After a while I’m not myself any more. The longer I’m playing, the more natural it feels to me- if I spend nights walking through city streets, I find myself weary to exhaustion. I tend people’s wounds with hands that understand scalpels better than control columns. Wake up expecting to be young and beautiful and ravenous, when I shouldn’t be any of those things.” The Smuggler picks up a worn, brimmed cap, strokes it absently. “Simple hypnosis would be a piece of cake by comparison. So. Can you help me?”

Putting off the answer will be false kindness. “I can guide you, certainly. Lead you through the Mansus, bring you to apotheosis, but there’s a price. Though one,” she says, not looking at the innocent in the shadows, “that you might find easier to pay than he would.”

“Go on,” he says, with ready eagerness. 

“Death,” she returns. “Not yours, other people’s. Acquaintances, friends, lovers. Special constables who’ll trace your trail. The prisoners who gave away everything they were, to be broken for your plans- and you will break them, before all’s well. The great appeal of Seeking,” the Herald says, as she links up wood-whispers, “is its solitude, the joys of private watches in the night and hugging secrets to your own heart. Cults are another affair altogether. But perhaps none of this worries you.”

“Not so much, now you’ve put it that way,” the Smuggler says, sober for a moment. “Sounds like I’ll just have to put up with this. Doomed to a lot of tedious clerical work every night, whoo.”

“Then the dreams will continue. Worsen, I should expect. Best improve your shining Hours, or find yourself consumed by them.“

“Which is the Neath all over, isn’t it...so it’s spending every night of my life wrapped up in these visions until I pay off the sacrifices?”

“Yes.”

Improbably, the Smuggler is smirking. “Guess I’m gonna have to ask the Mechanic for the recipe to that Darkdrop mess of his. He did warn me it might come to that.”

“A little more than that. Consider yourself under a geas from now on, as far as cardplay goes.“

That’s when he heaves the sigh. “Aw. Well, that’s okay. I never could beat anybody at Texas hold-em, anyway- hang about. How am I supposed to get by in London without the arcana? I mean, I wouldn’t be able to chat up factions, or find the way to my club, or anything...you sure that’s necessary?”

“There are...unspoken resonances,” the Herald says. “Lore has a way of drawing like to like, water always finds its level. You’ll find yourself making these connections whether you want to or no.”

“How about no,” the Smuggler mutters, and abruptly downs the remainder of his forgotten wine. “Okay. So it’s a strictly undercover, jati existence for me from now on- well, that’s okay. I wasn’t exactly a society highlight in the first place. Anyway, the Mechanic will always have my back.“

The affection, the swaggering intimacy, of the expression he casts at his partner takes the Herald off-guard; not for what it says about him, but herself, the unfamiliar kean of jealousy. Conversations left studiously unspoken, natural shipboard camaraderie and what goes for more than that, her ceaseless vigil at the loneliest place in the Neath. Necessary work, of sure and certain applications, but evidently more corrosive than she’d observed. 

Here is a man, persuasive and fascinating and brimful of mystique; and here is his lover. Suffering from an affliction so exotic, no London physic could possibly promise him a cure. 

“He came all the way here with you,” the Herald says, in a flat tone that threatens no more than it promises. “I wonder why. Kingeater’s Castle is about the last place anyone would seek refuge.”

“Yeah, I asked about that. He said...something about Dockers,“ the Smuggler says, chewing thoughtfully on his mustache. “Your being shipmates together, before, he trusts you. And didn’t want anybody else getting hold of me, in case...well, I dunno, they wanted to turn me inside out to rip a hole through the space-time continuum, or something kooky like that.”

That reasoning, now, sounds like a certain spy of her recollection. “In short, you’re at my mercy.”

“Completely,” the Smuggler agrees, with perfect self satisfaction. He winks. 

She grimaces.

There is very little for the Mechanic to repair at Kingeater’s; but he finds a pile of murder-dimmed knives and busies himself sharpening them to usefulness. Which is just about typical, the Smuggler figures. 

“...so. All’s well?”

“Uh-huh,” the Smuggler says complacently. “Slept like a top last night- or should I say, slept as hard as you? You were sure out of it yesterday. Missed a nice roasted blemmigan.”

“Hey, nursemaiding you here from Godfall wasn’t an easy job. To say nothing of sacrificing all those zee-stories.”

The Smuggler shifts uncomfortably. “She says you’re a damned optimistic fool, by the way. Well, not in so many words, it was more elegant language, but you know what I mean.“

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Said that it was ridiculous for you to think that a curse like this could be lifted without any blood being spilt, but fortunately she was clever enough to dissipate it harmlessly. Bully for your old navigator and all that.”

“That’s not what I had in mind at all. Not that it’s any of my business, but I thought she’d try to take it herself. I mean, look at this place,” the Mechanic says, waving at the castle’s ruins. “It’s ghastly, it’s freezing cold, and the only company is an occasional batch of half-dead zailors, who’ll probably try to eat you on sight. Some quiet warm dreaming about cities and real people would have done her a lot of good, I thought. But if she decided it was too dangerous, I suppose that’s her decision.”

“That tool,” the Smuggler says, voice suddenly edged with hostility. “The one you told me not to touch.”

“What about it?”

“You specifically pointed out that thing in the Citadel, just to warn me not to touch it. Me. Your notoriously greedy, treasure hunting buddy.”

“Now, I wouldn’t have said that. It’d be rude.”

“...did you hijack me? Did I spend a month blithering out of my skull so that you could get a curse from A to B, just to cheer up your ex-shipmate?”

“Don’t be silly,“ the Mechanic says loftily. “If it was that important to me, why wouldn’t I have done it myself?”

The Smuggler considers. “Cos messing around with dreaming on that level might have earned you unwanted attention in Parabola again. What ever happened to that worm, anyway?”

“What worm?”

“The one you put in the suncatcher. The one that was trying to kill you, so you couldn’t sleep for ages. That worm.”

“Oh,” the Mechanic says, with relief. “We gave it to the Khanate to get rid of, they’re good at disposing of stuff like that. And that was a snake. Not the same thing at all.”

“You sure? I know I’ve seen that in old fairy tales- worms are dragons, dragons are snakey sort of things...”

Above them, in a half-ruined tower, the Herald makes a note to herself. 

A preposterous suggestion. And yet, and yet- if the Khanate’s unwanted visitors were merely cast off elsewhere, does the war of illusions continue on another plane? Will I find my Mechanic’s foe there, reincarnated as some viscid ouroboros worm?

Strange to say, but I look forward to finding out...

[hollygopossumlovesj2]

Daydream Believer

Characters: Dean x Original Female Character (However, I don’t really specify gender so if you want this character to male, go for it.)

Rated: Explicit

Warnings: Minor Character Death, explicit sexual content, adult language. Angst, fluff and smut rolled into one unhealthy little story. Also, copious amounts of that beautiful black machine, Baby.

A/N: This story is the product of @butiaintgonnaloveem‘s Baby’s Big 50 Writing Challenge. The ending is kind of open, so if you want to imagine that Castiel made it in time there’s that possibility... I hope this has enough Baby in it for the challenge. As always, let me know what you think!

Tagging: @jensen-gal, @dancingalone21, @jotink78, @perpetualabsurdity, @maileann, @daydreamingintheimpala, @gecko9596, @gemini75eeyore, @winchesterprincessbride, @sandlee44, @exploratiionist, @arryn-nyx, @littledarlinhavefaithinme, @tiffanycaruso, @boredoutofmymindstuff, @feelmyroarrrr, @raeganr99, @ruprecht0420, @anokhi07, @letsgetyourdeanon, @sis-tafics

We were heading back from a hunt the first time I'd gotten Dean to sing with me. Sam had stayed behind to work on the on going project of digitizing the Men of Letters' library. He'd tiredly shuffled the two of us out the door, his brown hair askew, and probably gone back to the uncomfortable wooden chair pulled up to a table. Last I'd seen it, it was stacked high with books that he was translating so he could figure out what category it fit under.

Now we were sore from our hair follicles down to our toenails, and dripping wet from the rain. There had been more vampires than we'd planned on, as usual. Plus, the impromptu thunderstorm hadn't really helped matters any. It turned out we really could've used Sam's help. However, we'd dispatched all of them by the skin of our teeth and now had the wounds to prove it. Now we were in the safe confines of that beautiful, shiny black machine also known as Baby, and smearing her immaculate interior with rain water, mud, and blood.

You know, the usual.

In fact, I was driving because Dean had a gash in his right thigh that was slowly oozing blood even with a tourniquet. I'd argued with Dean about stopping to get a hotel for the night, but he was dead set on getting home to the bunker that was still a few hours away. I knew it was probably because the man still didn't like being separated from his brother for too long.

Even though Dean had me to keep his bed warm, the brothers were still painfully codependent. I supposed if I'd grown up in the life as young as they had and been through half of what they had, I would be too. So, I'd bandaged it up the best I could and told him to cool it in the passenger seat. He hadn't taken too kindly to being bossed around, but realized that it was futile to argue with me. I had a stubborn streak that rivaled his.

I had a few good gashes too. A couple of them probably needed stitches, but they could wait. At first, the rumble of Baby's engine beneath me and her wheel in my grip had been enough of a thrill to keep me wide eyed awake. I could count on one hand how many times I'd been given the honors of driving her. However, as the adrenaline spike threatened to wane, I found I was having difficulty keeping my eyes open.

I knew how much Dean treasured his car and treated it accordingly. Her suspension was a little rougher than a newer car and the solid steel chassis made sure we felt each bump and dip in the road. Dean never complained, but a pained, bitten off groan escaped him through gritted teeth if it was a particularly jarring bump. Like now, as I was unable to avoid a pot hole due to the size and a car coming the opposite direction at the same time.

Dean let out a pained grunt, gripping his leg through his blood soaked bandages as he nearly knocked his head into the roof. "Sorry." I gave him a quick apologetic glance when he settled, unable to take my eyes off of the road for too long. Baby's steering was smooth and sure, no doubt Dean rotated and balanced her tires regularly, but I just didn't trust myself. Plus, the rain was still coming down in buckets and pooling in the road. Luckily, unlike those newer ‘plastic roller skates’ (As Dean liked to call them), Baby was heavy which made it less likely that we would hydroplane.

A few moments later, Dean finally eeked out an, "S'okay."

After the traffic died down a little and we were on a boring back road with barely a street lamp to light the way, I felt my eye lids drooping in the heat of the car. Shit. I had the heat on full blast, not wanting Dean to be cold because of blood loss. But damn if it wasn't making it really hard to stay awake.

Dean's go to remedy would be to pop in one of his favorite tapes, but I had my own idea. "You know what my Dad and I used to sing on long trips?" My father and I had been dumped into 'the life' after a djinn had taken my mother. I'd been an only child. So, after that Dad and I were close. We hunted together until a werewolf had bitten him, leaving me banged up and nearly broken. That's when Dean and Sam had shown up, driving onto the scene in their shiny black steed.

I'd found myself laying in the back seat in no time, bundled in an old, scratchy blanket. I'd noted the smell of gun powder and leather between gasps for breathe as I'd tried to distract myself from the pain in my ribs. The smell of Baby's interior would be a strange comfort from then on.

They put me back together over the next month, then helped me to hunt down my father. It had been the hardest trigger I'd ever had to pull.

Anyway, my Dad and I had adopted a song for just this type of situation. It worked to pass the time every time.

Dean grunted in my direction. He wasn't really a man of few words like most suspected. He knew many words and when he was comfortable it was hard to get him to stop. But right now he was in pain and I understood. There was only so much a handful of aspirin was going to help.

"You have to sing your part." I added, earning a side eyed glare. I knew it was all bluster. Dean and I had been getting a lot closer over the past year. He knew that my connection with my father was special and that each tidbit that I shared was somehow a piece of myself.

I cleared my throat, the only noise to compete with was the hum of Baby's engine. I started off quiet, but gained confidence as I continued on. "Oh, I could hide 'neath the wings, of the bluebird as she sings-"

"Oh no." Dean groaned, but a tired smile tried to appear on his pain tight face. "Really?" He re situated himself slowly so that he was leaning on the sturdy door of the Impala, his head leaning sideways on her seat. It was like he could draw comfort from her steel beams and leather just by contact. A child cradled, safe in their mother's arms.

"Oh, c'mon. You've sang less worthy songs..." I put my hand on the ankle of the leg he'd just stretched out. The warmth of his skin bled through his damp socks and it was comforting. I smiled back at him, "The six o'clock alarm would never ring. But it rings and I rise, wipe the sleep out of my eyes-"

"The shavin' razors cold and it sings-" He broke off in a laugh, his gravely voice sounding almost comical in contrast to how the original sounded.

We both sucked in a pained breath and began to belt it out, "Cheer up, sleepy Jean! Oh, what can it mean. To a daydream believer and a homecoming queen..."

We continued to sing, our sing a long powering the rest of the trip home with tired smiles as Dean seemed to melt further and further into the upholstery.

Upon arriving, I let Sam stitch up the gash on Dean's thigh since he was a lot more experienced than me, and attended to the smaller cuts on both of us. Once he was done, Dean insisted on stitching up the long gash on my arm and butterfly bandaging the smaller cut on my shoulder.

We slipped into dry, more comfortable clothes before Dean carefully cleaned every thing with precision. Then he settled down with a towel in my lap and my arm resting between us. He leaned into my space, his forehead touching mine. I bit my lip against any sound as the needle first pierced the skin. That was always the worst part and maybe the repetitive nature of continuously stabbing was the second.

Dean always apologized, his brow crinkling in concern and concentration as he focused on the task. He got a few stitches in before he drew in a deep breath, a sheepish lilt to his features, his eyes bright. "You once thought of me, as a white knight on a steed." He began to sing in a low, gravely tone, so much grittier because he was tired and the pain killers had yet to kick in. It made a laugh bubble up my throat as I nuzzled my nose against his temple. "Now you know how happy I can be. Oh, and our good times start and end without dollar one to spend. But how much, baby do we really need."

The man couldn't carry a tune to save his life, his tone going flat more often than not, but it was perfect. In the wake of his laughter, warmth spread through my chest, making me feel vulnerable in a way that I seldom let my self be. Suddenly, the stab and tug of the stitches was the furthest from my mind. "I love you."

I know he never quite believed me when I said those words, the twitch of his lips unsure of what direction to go in. If he should be happy or if he should worry. He'd always settle on a quiet, "I know."

It never made me feel bad. I never doubted or questioned if he loved me. All I had to do was pay attention. He would care for me with the same attention that he put aside for Baby. He fixed what he could when I was broken. He polished the dents and scratches that littered my psyche in the vulnerable, dark night. He made sure that, on top of preparing himself, that I was prepared for each hunt. Did I have boots? Did I have enough warm clothes if it was going to be cold? Did I have the right weapons? I liked to think that he knew I was capable of taking care of myself, he just wanted me to know that I didn't have to all the time. After hunting by myself for a year, it was nice. It was more than I could ask for.

He touched me in much the same way that he caressed his car when he tucked her in a night. Sure, firm hands over engine warm curves, a soft light in his green eyes. Yeah, I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Once the clean up is completed, and Dean's nightly walk through the bunker proves that everything is locked up tight, he returns to the room we've been sharing. The lights are out when he stumbles in, and it never fails that he stubs his toe on the trunk at the foot of his bed. He's got to have a permanent bruise on his big toe.

He hisses out a very indignant, "Son of a bitch."

I feel the drowsy smile tug on my lips, halfway to a deep and deserved sleep when he finally slides into bed behind me. Exhausted, I let myself carefully melt back into him, feeling safe as his arms wrap around me. His warm lips drag through the tiny hairs on the back of my neck, eliciting a shiver.

His lips take their time as they migrate to the sensitive skin beneath my ear, his hot breath tickling my skin and producing a heat that melts my bones. "Cheer up sleepy jean." He laughs, his staccato breath on my neck stoking the fire. "Oh what can it mean to a..." He bites and licks the sensitive spot where neck meets shoulder. "Daydream believer and a..." He sucks on the skin, bringing forth a bruise that will stay for at least a week, marking me as taken. He pulls me closer to him, his arm around my waist pulling me into the pulsing hot length trapped beneath his boxers. His voice is an octave lower, basically a growl as he shifts his hips against you. "Homecoming queen..."

Now I'm a little breathless, "You're mis-" I shuddered, my breath catching in my throat momentarily as he slides his warm, open palm across my stomach and lower. "You're misusing the song, sir." I punctuated the 'sir' with a drag of my hips, reveling in the low groan I pulled from deep within his chest.

He hummed, stretching lazily behind me like an oversized cat. I turned over just so that I could see the content grin tilting on his face and cradle his jaw in my hands to savor it. "Should I be punished?" He whispered, the 'p' getting punctuated by his already slightly swollen lips.

I kiss those lips because I can't keep myself from doing so before I answer, "No, I think we've been punished enough." My voice is barely above a whisper, my lips gliding over his as I speak. "I think we should have a reward instead."

He wiggles his eyebrows before his expression grows soft. He tilts your entire hand so that it's now resting on the pillow between us before he lays careful kisses over the bandage covering the gash he'd sewn up earlier. If it were possible, I would melt further here. Seeing badass Dean Winchester place soul rending kisses over my wounds before pulling me closer so that he can reach the smaller cuts on my shoulder that peek out from beneath my tank top. His warm mouth against my chilled skin feels like an epiphany. Just like, when all of our clothes are gone and he slides into me while we're face to face, is a fucking revelation.

I can't find the words that I want to say, instead putting every emotion that I'm trying to communicate into one word, "Dean."

"I've got you, sweetheart." He says this as he hitches my knee up a little higher on his waist so that his next thrust is even deeper. He's got both arms tight around me like I might slip through his fingers like sand, and I suppose it's entirely possible. I'm unable to really think about that right now as a particularly deep thrust slides home and he moans sweet ecstasy into my neck.

Even though it's lazy, we don't last long like this. I come from just his cock hitting just the right spot. His arms tight around me and my head cradled against his shoulder. Dean comes a moment later, silent, shaking violently against me but not giving up the hold he has on my body.

All of those moments are leading up to this now, and I can say wholeheartedly that I wouldn't change a damn thing. That scent of gunpowder and leather surrounds me as I lay in Dean's warm arms cradling me to his chest. I can feel the comforting sway and rumble of Baby as she carries the boys safely away from another hunt.

As far as a hunter's death, I would count myself truly lucky.

"Just hold on, sweet heart. Just a little longer, okay?" I can hear the desperation in his voice, the pain, and its even more agony than the tear in my flesh I can feel pulsing blood from my side. He's got a firm hand over some bandages to staunch the blood flow, but I know it doesn't help much. I can hardly feel it.

"It's not your fault." I hear how weak my voice is and I know I don't have very much time. "I wouldn't trade a damn thing."

"Don't you talk like that." God, his voice has been ripped through by glass, jagged and bleeding. He knows this is the end. "Cas'll answer, he'll fix this."

I manage to put a hand on his face, noting that it's a little bloody, but there isn't time to clean it off as he leans into my touch. "Sing with me?"

He shakes his head 'no', tears welling up in his eyes. But, as my eyes slide shut, the last sound I hear is his gravely, tone deaf voice and the low rumble of Baby, and I smile.

"Oh, I could hide 'neath the wings of the bluebird as she sings..."

[doomedandstoned]

Austrian Doomers TarLung Construct Grand 3rd Album, ‘Architect’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Review by Billy Goate

Photos by Marcin Pawłowski/rockmetal.pl

Album Art by Alex Eckman-Lawn

Looking back at their discography, it seems I've been a fan of Austrian doomers TARLUNG from the beginning. I listed them in The Sludge Lover's Alphabet shortly after they shook our world with their colossal self-titled in 2014. I heaped high praises upon their EP, 'Void' (2016) following this, but it was 'Beyond The Black Pyramid' (2017) when the Austrian stoner-sludge trio really came into their own, and I've played selections from it many times on The Doomed & Stoned Show (including one very doomy episode based on Logan's Run).

We enter TarLung's third LP, 'Architect' (2021), with "Infinity," which greets us with a bright, familiar groove right from the start. Heads are bobbing as guitars and drums establish a pleasing stoner rhythm. No bass to be found here, folks, just two axemen and a percussionist, and that's been quite enough for the band for almost a decade now. When vocals converge with this bouncy tempo, it's not to sing about taking the sweetheart out for a Saturday night drive 'neath the setting sun. No, we've got the immensity of time, space, matter (and antimatter!) on the brain tonight, baby.

"Infinity" ends on a slow, three-note cadence, but if you weren't paying attention to the tracklist, you'd never know from this seamless transition that its successor, "Widow's Bane," was fully in play. This is a gloomier number, with guitars throttling menacingly like an approaching storm front. Grey clouds gather, becoming darker and distinctly ominous as frontman Philipp Seiler (aka "Five") adds his grim narrative. Marian Waibl's drums pummel like hail against a building, making you doubt for a moment whether the foundation can withstand this unorthodox pounding. Guitars strum the theme in unison, and crystal clarity to end the piece.

Marian's skins are back to announce "Weight of Gravity," beneath a rabbeting riff that establishes a morose and searching theme. Five adds a layer of raspy growling to the session and before we know it we're halfway through the song and it's really picking up emotional momentum, with Clemens (aka "Rotten") engaged in melodic development on guitar, concluding the song in serious fashion with a wobbling kind of effect between three distinct notes that pleased these jaded ears of mine.

We're deep into doom country at this juncture on the record and if any of you clean vocal devotees are still with us, I'd be surprised if you aren't at least a tiny bit swayed by Five's gravelly approach. I learned this a long time ago, when I took the leap from Metallica to Lamb of God: The key to appreciating (or at least tolerating) a dirtier singing style is to release your mind to listen to what the music is saying to you on the whole -- guitars, bass, drums, everything -- organically. Once you can appreciate the bigger picture, any song becomes accessible. With doom, the material is simple enough to follow, yet in deft hands it can be quite artistic, even moving. We get some of that here, as the guitars take on different roles, one expressed with great sensitivity to become almost a voice of its own.

By "Horses of Plague" we are squarely in Black Cobra, 71TonMan, and HeavyDeath territory with guitars that are both rhythmic and capable of interesting hooks and leads -- at times even soaring above the morass of thick, foggy gloom, made even more dire by beastly vox and murky drums.

If you're wondering how this slyphan journey will end, it is on a particularly hopeful note with guitars introducing a warm theme for the album's namesake track "Architect." Its sentiment is similar in tone to High on Fire's "Sons of Thunder," though by comparison its stay is all too short. Its noble sentiment is interrupted by sawing, Sleepesque riffage and stony percussion, which establishes a flinty second musical theme. You can hear scraps of the first subject re-emerging as the song capers on, at first playing nice with its dour counterpart, until a skirmish breaks out between them, delivering a solemn, but pleasing end.

We are fortunate today to bestow upon our readers a first listen to these spry six tracks before Architect formally emerges this weekend to the general public, but Doomers & Stoners are about to hear it all right here, right now. And if you dig it, you can pre-order the record in digital and vinyl formats at this location. Don't miss Silvi's interview with TarLung below, a great read as you soak in these dank, downtuned vibes.

Give ear...

Architect by TarLung

Meeting TarLung

Interview by Silvi Pearl

Keep good music close to you, I say. TarLung grew on me immediately when I discovered them on Bandcamp, not just because of their name, but owing especially to the weight of their sound. The fact that they were also from my native Österreich made my heart beat that much stronger.

One can describe TarLung's sound as generally gloomy and slow, with riffs that are heavy, mangy, and distorted, drums with deep resonance, and vocals that are hefty, but discreet. Dark souls will find themselves almost magically attracted to the three-piece gespann, which has existed as a band since 2013.

With their new album, 'Architect' (2021) releasing on June 11th, TarLung join the league of greats. Here they have ventured out of their style a bit, skillfully combining sludgy doom with playful riffs.

Those that like their metal slow, abyssal, heavy, and so very evil, will be more than rewarded here. Distorted guitars and deep drum tones paired with Five's grueling vocals is the recipe for the hellishly good sonance of this record.

Five (guitar, vox), Rotten (guitar), and Marian (drums) call Austria home, where the mountains have much to say, but the three bandmates don't exactly live close to each other, making collaboration interesting in terms of rehearsing and recording. Rotten is even a medical doctor in real life, so I affectionately call him "Dr. Doom." Despite the distance, they succeed in maintaining this boulder of a band, with a rare harmony that was evident on their last album, Beyond The Black Pyramid, but now takes their vision to expansive new places on Architect.

One can pick up on late-'70s and early-'80s influences, in addition later doom references, in the multi-part guitar passages, well-appointed rhythms, and discreet vocalizations. Five's coarse crooning reminds me very much of Amorphis and their Tales from the Thousand Lakes.

Just recently, I had the honor of interviewing the guys and riddling them with questions about TarLung's origins, the new record, and a whole lot more!

Take us back to the TarLung's roots. How did you guys meet?

Rotten and I were flatmates when we were studying in Vienna and because of the same interests we decided to jam. In the beginning it was just us with two guitars, but within a short time we already had some ideas and even self-composed song structures at hand. We quickly noticed that slowly, but surely, our style had crystallized. At the beginning, we were still looking for a bass player, but decided to let it stay. For the perfect combo, we were looking for a suitable drummer. Marian was the first and also immediately the perfect match. Classically through an ad on the internet, we were able to welcome him as our third member.

Fortunately, there was also any amount of musical intersections of favorite bands between us, from the most diverse genres of somewhat harder music, too. Already the first rehearsals worked very well and were a lot of fun. Within a few sessions and only six months later, we had already transformed our first recordings into audible material. Of course, we thought about how the vocals should sound and decided to take them from classic death metal, which strongly influenced all three of us, as our credo to top TarLung's music. We knew that such a way of singing could be off-putting, but it definitely belongs to the special kind of artistic expression and therefore we decided against classic, clean vocals.

TarLung - Architect (music video)

I would be interested in knowing why, although your influences come from often faster black and death metal bands, you chose slow 'n' low riffs for your sound?

We noticed that we are more and more into doomy and slow riffs. Bands like Electric Wizard, for example, have never been completely foreign to us, despite our affection for death metal. It has something fascinating, these fast guitar riffs. However, it wears out a bit after a while. With some bands it fits well, but we felt increasingly attracted to dragging and heavy sounds – while as twentysomethings we were still into death metal all the way. With the passing of years, however, one automatically expands his musical horizon. We can say now that there are few genres of rock and metal (and even music beyond that) which we do not like.

How was the decision process regarding the gear and tone? Did you guys agree on that quickly?

Basically, we play four semitones lower and since we don't have a bass player, we split the signals through the PA. So we kind of thicken the sound and provide a crutch to bring in more bass. However, in the studio itself, i.e. for the recording albums, we do record with a real bass. This worked very well in the record we share here.

The basis for our original sound was always there and with the technology available, we could let different gear flow in and out freely. However, it is important for us that whatever gear we use sounds massive and brutal. In studio recordings especially, it should sound super fuzzy, wide, and powerful, just as on stage.

My personal favorite song of the new record is "Infinity." It starts cheerful, but gradually the mood changes and your usual gloomy sound appears. I also like the different drum breaks and, of course, that it sounds so deep. In fact, I couldn't imagine better vocals than those groggy ones of yours! How did 'Architect' come about?

This time we dared to try new things and still stay true to our roots. This includes bringing across different moods musically. Yes, some breaks may be surprising, but we let each song write its own story. It should sound organic, but individual breaks are desired and what is just as important to us is the song structure itself, as well as the lyrics. The fact is, for us it was especially important to evolve on this album.

Speaking of lyrics, what topics do you focus on here?

We write lyrics that fit like a glove, but basically they are a bit ambivalent. The exact idea is up to the ear of the listener, but classically there are themes like existential problems, apocalyptic events, death and destruction, but also the play with clichés. In the end, they make sense to perform something that makes no sense. We will be sharing the lyrics digitally on our Bandcamp page.

I'm personally looking forward to receiving my copy of the vinyl edition! For the cover of 'Architect' you again turned to Alex Eckman-Lawn, who was already creatively responsible for the artwork, together with Marian, on 'Beyond The Black Pyramid.'

Yes, we wanted the musical material to match the cover art, so we commissioned it. We definitely wanted to move away from the desert and cliché artwork, so it was natural to turn to Alex Eckman-Lawn, who is known for his collages. We gave him a free hand here, but input on what we wanted it to generally look like. This makes it feel more personal, broken, with its ups and downs -- so more intimate. It should inspire listeners to enjoy the detail of the artwork.

Beyond The Black Pyramid by TarLung

Would you call yourselves a live band or a studio band? Touring was not possible until now, but I hope that the situation will improve and we will see more live shows soon. Is there already something planned?

We definitely see ourselves as a live band and are looking forward to playing in front of an audience again. Various single gigs could possibly still take place. It's about time!

I would like to ask you one more question: why is the band called TarLung. When I hear it, I immediately think of cigar-treaded consumption and the dirt that settles in the lungs.

Yes, we are aware that the name is polarizing, however our tendency is more towards non-smoking. The name itself definitely has an uncomfortable closeness to real life, theoretically, as well as abstractly.

Follow The Band

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[snipehuntpotatosack]

100 bits of song lyrics (to kill time)

1 Alleluia, Alleluia

2 Graceless lady, you know who I am

3 For a golden girl knows when he kissed her... It’s the kiss of DEATH from Mr.

4 Tail toddle, tail toddle, Tammy gart my tail toddle,

5 Corporal Clegg received his medal in a dream, from his majesty the queen

6. La donna e mobile, quai piuma al viento

7 And a cold perspiration bespangled his brow...O willow, tit willow, tit willow

8 Someone left the cake out in the rain

9 Konichiwa Bitches

10 Underneath that tree, there’s just gonna be you and me

11 Pres des remparts de Seville, chez mon ami Lillas Pastia 

12 By the living God that made you, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din

13 Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles

14 Fire eating boys - rising toys of the sun - energy dies without body warm - icicles ruin your gun

15 Spread your blue wings and I’ll shed my blue tears.

16. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the crawl all over your ears and mouth, aah-oooo. aaah-oooo.

17 Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbaya

18 Where Indian fights are colorful sights and nobody takes a lickin’ - where paleface and redskin both turn chicken

19 So let them begin the Beguine, let it play...

20 Expert texpert choking smokers don’t you think the joker laughs at you

21 you haven’t an arm and you haven’t a leg, you’re an eyeless boneless chickenless egg....and you have to be put with a bowl to beg

22 And yet he’s rollin’ down the mountain goin’ fast, fast, fast

23 Pourquoi ont-ils tue Jaures?

24 Shepherds, why this jubilee?

25 I’m a ramblin’ wreck from Georgia Tech and a heck of an engineer

26 Keep on chooglin’, chooglin’, chooglin’ chooglin’ chooglin’

27 Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier

28 by pushing down this special key it plays a little melody

29 O I could hide neath the wings of the bluebird as she sings.....the six oclock alarm would never ring....

30 Cee Aich Eye Cee Kay Eee En, that spells Chicken

31 we gonna chant down Babylon one more time. Chant down Babylon one more time

32 Leo said to Cleo, I think I’m goin’ mad…..

33 The Dutchess of Kircaldy always smiling and arriving late for tea

34 Stand off from me, you bloody butchers

35 look down that road far as I can see….gang o’ women, you know followin’ me

36 I got no kick against modern jazz, unless they try to play it too darn fast

37 Mary Margaret Luke and John all them prophets dead and gone

38 Don’t cross the street in the middle in the middle in the middle in the middle in the middle

39 Oche Chornya, Oche Krasnya,

40 Now she got him on the sofa where he’d gone to take a snooze, and I hope he went to heaven cause he wasn’t wearing shoes

41 Well he never heard the news on the radio, he was deep in the Glade so he’ll never know – his runnin’ and hidin’ didn’t make much sense for the jury had ruled it was self-defense

42 We will kill the old red rooster when she comes, when she comes.

43. You been lyin’, when you shoulda been truthin’

44 Put silver wings….on my son’s chest….make him one…..of America’s best…..

45 I can hear Atlantis full of  cheer……………………

Atlantis Full Of Cheer…………………………………..

46 She’s got Elgin Movements from her head down to her toes….breaks in on a dollar now most anywhere she goes…she’s got E-L-G-I-N M-O-V-E-M-E-N-T-S

47 And softly she came nigh him, and all she said, as there she came, “young man, I think – “

48 I’m beginning to hear voices, and there’s no one around

49 So we all came through the wall; no one uses doors anymore; we’d all love to be that small; you can’t fit, if you’re fat, and that’s all

50 God save King Pendragon,

    May his reign long drag on,

    God save our King.

51 Ciribiribin! Ciribiribin !!

52 We’ll curse the smella citronella, even as we dream

53 You think you’ve flown before, but you ain’t left the grooouuund

54 and you know there’s talk goin’ round town that Papa had three outside children, and                Another Wife………………and That ain’t right….

55 aw lean on me man cause you can’t afford the ticket

56 shebop, shebop awebop, ibop, ubop atheybop, hebop, mebop atheebop

57 The wall was too high as you can see, and the worms ate into his brain.

58 Wendy Michael John Tinkerbell Come On Hurry up and follow me for soon I will be gone

59 See right through me…walk right by me….and never know I’m there….Never….Even…..Knoowwwwww…………………

60 And even though my brain is even smaller than my penius I am the very model of a very stable genius!

61 Agios o Theos, Agios ischyros, Agios athanatos, eleison imas

62 Life is what you do, while you’re waiting to die

63 John Brown’s body lies a moldering in the grave

64 Ah, you don't even know That you're entering your hell As you leave my cemetery And you think you're doing well With that one who's at your side You're as proud as you can be Ah, she's going to make you cry But not the way you cried for me Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

65 I said not a word tho it meant my life I had been in the arms of my best friend’s wife

66 Down in some lonesome valley, hangin’ from a white oak tree

67 Mother Earth will swallow you, lay you in the ground.

68 I’m not a drowning man! And I’m not a burning building!

69 Those alive will meet the prophets

     Those at peace shall see their wake.

70 A bullet had found him / his blood ran as he cried / no money could save him / so he lay down and he died

71 I’m still, I have no life / to wait on boys and men / what’s mine, was yours, is dead / I take my leave of mortal flesh

72 Why dontya be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box!

73 That’s the last hour to think anymore – jelly and juice and bubbles, bubbles on the floor

74 Happy Birthday to You

75 They’ll stone you when you’re set down in your grave

76 But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow

77 And they fam, and they fam, back over the dam

78 Tell me Y oh Y did Constantinople get the works?

79 Do you love me? (do you love me) Do You Love Me? (do you love me)

80 a Puzzlement!!!

81 Wherever I have gone, wherever I have gone, the blues run the game

82 So I’ll jug some water bake some flour

     Store some salt and wait the hour

83 It’s a Holy Ghost building, it’s a Holy Ghost building

84 Yankee Doodle came to terms, writing Martin Buber,

     Stuck a Fuhrer in her back and called it Schicklgruber.

85 O Sacred Head surrounded, by crown of Bleeding Thorns

86 It was the Monster Mash (they did the Monster Mash) It was a graveyard smash

87 Dove nested towers, the hour was Strike the street quicksilver moon

88 But that was once upon a time and very long ago

89 I have left my book, I have left my room, for I heard you singing through the gloom

90 Stella splendens in monte ut solis radium miraculis serrato exaudi populum

91 There’s gotta be a song left to sing, cause everybody can’t have thought of everything

92 I will always love you - - hands alike – magnet and iron, the souls

93 Yes I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob broke

94 Well I’m near the end and I just ain’t got the time

     And I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home

95 Sad, deserted shore your fickle friends are leaving

     Ah, but then you know it’s time for them to go

96 She makes the sign of the teaspoon he makes the sign of the wave

     The poor boy changes clothes and puts on aftershave, to compensate for his

     Ordinary shoes

97 Observe his flame that placid dame the moon’s celestial highness

    There’s not a trace upon her face of diffidence or shyness

98 As I lay there with a flower in my hair and my cheeks aflush

    It was a blackberry blossom from the blackberry bush.

99 Oh it’s my heart

    Is that-a-way

   Just as welcome, boys

   As the flowers in May

100 We sleep in the morning

       We dream of a ship that sails away

       A thousand miles away.

   Trad./Jagger/Newley, Bricusse/Trad./Waters/Piave/Gilbert/Webb/Robyn/Dylan/Halevy, Meilhac/Kipling/Von Fallersleben/Slick/Parton/Trad./Trad./Taylor, Lava/ Porter/ Lennon/Trad./Dawson/Brel/Chadwick/Trad./Fogerty/Blackburn/Kraftwerk/Stewart/

John Hurt/Marley/Dylan/Lennon/Trad,/McDowell/Berry/Trad./Mizzy/Milman/Chad Mitchell Trio/Harlan Howard/Trad./Hazlewood/Sadler/Hendrix/Robert Johnson /Trad./

Dylan/Slick/T.H. White/Pestalozza/Hart/Jobim/Strong, Whitfield/Bowie/Lauper/Waters/ Comden & Green/Ebb/Randy Rainbow/Trad./Ebb/Trad./Brel/Wilkin, Dill/Whitter,

Grayson/Young/Byrne/Reid/Lake/Sinfield/Country Joe/Slick/Mildred and Patty Hill/

Dylan/Weatherly/Dowell/Nat, Kennedy/Berry Gordy/Hammerstein/Jackson Franck/

Lane, Marriott/Bill Monroe/Firesign Theater/Baker/Pickett/Wilson, Parks/Adams/Joyce/

Trad./Welch/Mitchell/Dylan/Winwood/Denny/Simon/Gilbert/Maybelle Carter/

John Hurt/Eno

[kayawagner]

CASTLE OLDSKULL Mega-Bundle III [BUNDLE]

Publisher: Kent David Kelly Ask and you shall receive!  This immense mega-bundle includes every Wonderland Imprints publication from 2016 through to December 2018 ... every Platinum gaming supplement, every Gold Gygaxian history book, every novel, every design guide.  Over 10,000 pages of old school gaming and pulp fantasy goodness.  Enjoy!

This special bundle product contains the following titles.

ACR1 - Advanced OSR Character Record - Fighter Class Regular price: $0.00 Bundle price: $0.00 Format: Watermarked PDF The best, easiest, and most flexible Old School Renaissance (OSR) character sheets you can find. Here it is, my preferred and custom-built deluxe OSR character record sheet set … direct to you from the World of Oldskull campaign.  These sheets are designed for use with both Basic and Advanced style Fantasy Role-Playing Games, as developed c. 1972-1985.  If you’re looking for significant changes and innovations introduced beyond 1985, I believe you might be looking in the wrong place. ;-) You get over 100 pages of material.  This download pack includes seven files:  [1] A 75-page book of instructions (and illustrations) for the Advanced record; [2] the blank Basic record, in editable Word format; [3] the blank Basic record, in printable PDF format; [4] ... ARACHNE - An Epic Work of Dark Fantasy Regular price: $4.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Death is only the beginning ... ARACHNE: A PYRE OF ANGELS is an unforgettable work of epic fantasy. Kent David Kelly’s haunting saga chronicles the death and afterlife of Elspeth Wight, a young Steam Age noblewoman whose beloved sister Christabel has died. Without Christabel, the heartbroken Elspeth forsakes her own beliefs. Tormented and reckless, she dares to believe in the whispers of her mysterious elder — and her childhood protector — Symon Adler. Symon swears to Elspeth that there is a secret afterlife, an unreachable Deathlessness, where Christabel’s soul yet breathes even as its memory begins to fade. Symon promises Elspeth that she and her sister will be reunited in a dark and Gothic paradise, the eternal purgatorial netherworld known only as Embris. ... BLOODBATH BUNNIES - An OSR Gaming Supplement Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Run away!  Run away!   No!  Come ye hither.  Avaunt not, you ninny.  Behold ye the drunken, juvenile scroll-doodles writ centuries ago by real-world medieval scribes … see here glorious art depicting the original Murder Hobos (tm), the mighty DEATH RABBITS.  Behold them hopping about preciously here and there and back again whilst merrily shearing the heads from atop unwary knights, nasty halflingses, and pompous elven magi.  Death by bunny, aye, with nasty big teeth.  Ridiculous dark fantasy as envisioned by delirious magi back in the 1300s.  You can’t get much more old school than that! Inspired by all those unsettling medieval sketches and illuminations of murderous rabbits cruelly slaughtering hapless... CASTLE OLDSKULL - 1,000 Rooms of Chaos Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF "Ah, yes.  And what do we find here?  Why, the dark harlequin of the underworld neath Castle Oldskull, Groohlz-Drakha, has brought you his cruelest and most luscious map of the nether:  Herein you will find 1,000 Rooms of Chaos, direct from the most secret lore of Darkseraphim’s own Castle Oldskull.  But here in this codex, which I now grant you, lieth only the names of the rooms, mind. What lurks in each chamber within?  You as Game Master will imagine up the descriptions, the tricks, the treasures, the traps, and the monsters lairing within each Room of Chaos on your own." So.  The adventurers open the door at last, into the dread reach of the dungeon which you have not had time to design yet.  And there, to their ultimate bafflement, they di... CASTLE OLDSKULL - 1,000 Rooms of Chaos II Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF "Ah, yes.  And what do we find here?  Why, the dark harlequin of the underworld neath Castle Oldskull, Groohlz-Drakha, has brought you his cruelest and most luscious map of the nether:  Herein you will find 1,000 Rooms of Chaos, direct from the most secret lore of Darkseraphim’s own Castle Oldskull.  But here in this codex, which I now grant you, lieth only the names of the rooms, mind. What lurks in each chamber within?  You as Game Master will imagine up the descriptions, the tricks, the treasures, the traps, and the monsters lairing within each Room of Chaos on your own." So.  The adventurers open the door at last, into the dread reach of the dungeon which you have not had time to design yet.  And there, to their ultimate bafflemen... CASTLE OLDSKULL - 333 Realms of Entropy Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Herein you will find 333 fleeting glimpses of the World of Oldskull … the Realms of Entropy.  What wonders will you create from these enigmatic inspirations? The realms in this book will give you enthralling and mysterious idea-shards filled with exotic locales, disturbing secrets, and haunting monster encounters which you can make your own. Each of the 333 realms is uniquely named, and includes terrain details and revelations about the most unusual and powerful monsters who dwell there. Herein you will also find hundreds of suggested random encounters by terrain type, and a unique rumor generator. The rumor generator will intrigue your players, while simultaneously providing you with new hooks which ease the creation of wilderness locales, monster lairs, adventure plots, ... CASTLE OLDSKULL - City State Encounters Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Assassins with envenomed daggers Sworn to exact the ultimate price … Veiled ladies of the evening Beckoning you on with painted eyes … Elegant nobles seeking adventure, Beasts and thieves lurking in alleys, Reavers and monsters stalking the rooftops, Crime lords, madmen, witch hunters, gladiators, All sharing secrets in an endless labyrinth Of arena and abattoir, temple and tomb, A thousand and one nights’ exotic tales Awaiting your discovery … Does this sound like the fantasy city-state of your dreams, the gateway to all adventure?  Or would you rather tell your players, “Okay, you guys heal up in town for thirty-six days, and nothing really happ... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Dungeon Delver Enhancer (Character Creator) Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF A decades-long labor of love: The ultimate old school character book. Your game, filled to the brim with every Pulp Swords and Sorcery detail imaginable, Will never be the same. Do your player characters ever seem less like heroes, and more like cardboard cutouts?  Do your campaign’s nefarious arch-villains fail to inspire fear, or even interest?  Do you need help with your next story hook or adventure campaign, creating compelling protagonists and enemies that your players or readers will never forget?  Look no further. The DUNGEON DELVER ENHANCER is specifically designed to enrich every aspect of character design, turning stereotypes into unique and engaging personas.  You can design thousands or even mi... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Game World Generator Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Please Note: This is the Platinum Best-Selling first edition of the Game World Generator, available to you at an introductory price.  If you would like additional content, there is now a separate Revised and Deluxe Edition available, at This Link.  The Deluxe Edition contains twice the content, including a full-featured City State Design Guide.  Feel free to choose which affordable level of complexity you require for your own campaign.  Thank you for your continued support of the Castle Oldskull line of OSR gaming supplements! ~K ** Wolf-haunted wastelands of frigid tundra, Veiling lost cities sunken and frozen into the ice … Mist-wreathed mountains teeming with orcs, Goblins, demons and dwarven underworlds … <... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Game World Generator - Deluxe Edition Regular price: $4.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Please Note: This Deluxe and Revised Edition of the Platinum Best-Selling Game World Generator is actually two books in one.  It is a fully expanded, reformatted, re-illustrated, and re-edited version of the original Game World Generator, along with a new 70,000-word book -- my requested City State Design Guide -- which is featured as a part herein, where the previous edition ended with very little city state information.  The two books are united as a continuous narrative due to the number of requests made by GMs for these associated topics over the years.  This Deluxe Edition supersedes the existing Game World Generator (GWG1 V1), which remains available separately at an introductory price.  The original edition's 71,000 words have expanded with new material to encom... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Monsters & Treasures Level 1 Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF AND SO YOU DARE to open the dungeon door, delving deeper into the upper ruins of nefarious Castle Oldskull. The door opens with a groan, puffing moldy spores into the air. Some evil creature cackles in the dark. You grip your sword, thrust your torch into the murky shadows, and … What do you find? Snarling orcs? Skulking goblins who worship the fire demon who reigns in the Abyss? Dark elves wielding mithril blades, or a coven of scaly Deep Ones? Perhaps you are more fortunate. There are wary gnomes to parley with, and halfling burglars, dwarven rune priests, and the serene and vigilant elven guardians. Or perhaps you are cursed, and therein shall arise the loathsome shrieking fungi, or a swarm of venomous centipedes … This book has all the answers you require for your ... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Adventure Generator Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The world’s ultimate adventure creation tool.  Infinite possibilities await you in dungeons, the wilderness, the seas, skies, netherworld, and the planes of existence.  Whither are you bound?   Years in the making, mega-supplement GWG2:  OLDSKULL ADVENTURE GENERATOR is the “Rosetta Stone” of the Castle Oldskull system, the one master system which binds all of the present and future supplements of the Castle Oldskull OSR gaming universe together into a massive unified imagination engine.  Harness the power of over 30,000 data elements to create dungeons, villains, quests, and more.  Your worlds of adventure will never be the same!  Using this 700+ page supplement, you can create millions of unique adventures for your pl... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull D100 NPC Generator Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Hello all, this one is short and sweet:  It's a 26-page old school Gygaxian OSR Non-Player Character (NPC) generator, designed to help you create NPC concepts in a very short timeframe.  You can use this book between sessions or even at the table to improv a character during a sandbox game.  Extensive tables are included to help you in determining an NPC's name, mythos/homeland, sex, race, class, experience level, ability scores, epithet (reputation), personality, likes and dislikes using only 8 or fewer dice rolls.  Appendices are included to assist you in the determination of carried wealth and magic items based on class, power, and wealth level.  11,200 words.  Please note that this is a compact generator; it does everything it says in this description but... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dragons Regular price: $2.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The great draconian powers of the World of Oldskull arise, ready to fill your players’ hearts with dread, excitement, and trepidation … Are their bold PC heroes ready for the challenge?   Have you been wanting to include some classic old school dragons in your campaign?  This book will save you hours of development time!  Many thousands of dice rolls have been made for you, with the results carefully collected into stat and treasure templates for easy reference and use.  Herein you will find 100 pre-generated dragons complete with unique names, combat statistics, spells (as appropriate), and pre-rolled treasure hoards.  All 100 of these glorious beasties have been sorted according to their relative challenge level, fr... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Bestiary Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF This is the tome of dragons deep, This is the book of the orcish blade ... Bloodied leer of cavern troll, Canticle of the underworld. Graven by the hand of Fate, Beheld by Balor's crimson eye ... This is the jeweled crown and key, Death chant of the dungeon beast. A major companion work to the well-received CLASSIC DUNGEON DESIGN GUIDE series, this epic bestiary is the great compendium of monsters, dragons, devils, and all the eldritch horrors who haunt the netherworld.  This massive tome is an ideal work for Game Masters conducting pen-and-paper Fantasy Role-Playing Games.  Now, with one huge resource, you can populate your entire mega-dungeon in record time with 79 different random encounter tables, 5,000 different classic encounters! THE OLDSKULL DUNGEON B... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Encounters Book I Regular price: $1.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF From the dungeons deep beneath the haunted Ushirian Manor, Castle Oldskull, the first fiends and treasures are now unveiled at last … In this mini-supplement tome you will find 25 unique dungeon encounters and 25 treasures, unearthed from the author’s Castle Oldskull setting, dungeon level 1.  The encounters herein are specifically suitable for adventuring parties of the first or second levels of experience.  Compatible statistics are provided for Basic, Expert, and Advanced editions of the world’s finest old school role-playing game. These encounters were designed using the Gygaxian bestiary of 1977 and have been specially developed to reveal the extent to which classic monsters... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Generator Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Hello all, this supplement features an immense Gygaxian OSR random dungeon generator system, crammed into 83 pages. It’s focused on empowering you to create the sprawling level 1 of any mega-dungeon, or any smaller dungeon set to challenge adventurers of experience levels 1 to 3.  The challenge levels of the monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures all reflect that difficulty level. You can use this book to design any number of dungeons, and if your group is patient you can even use it during play. You will also find some experimental solitaire rules here, if you like to practice the dungeon crawling yourself! This book’s systems interlock with the Classic Dungeon Design Guide series (CDDG1-3) as well as the Book of Dungeon Traps (BDT1) if you want to add more detail to any... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Tools Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF At last, the culmination of years of old school dungeon design ideas, at your fingertips …   Important Note: This is a spreadsheet program, with a user’s manual. This utility is designed to work with a desktop computer, with Microsoft Excel installed and also a word processor (allowing you to paste data output into an easily printable format). If you are using a non-desktop system such as a phone or tablet, you may become frustrated by your inability to use this tool to 100% of its intended functionality. Compatibility with other spreadsheet programs is unfortunately not guaranteed. Please purchase this product only if you have a system that can handle the formatted data and generators in a manner that will be helpful to you. These systems... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Monster Generator Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The OLDSKULL MONSTER GENERATOR is the ultimate random monster creation tool, created specifically for both the Fifth and First Editions (5E, 1E) of the world’s first and foremost Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG).  Rules and guidelines are provided for both editions. This colossal page compendium contains the largest, most comprehensive, and most ambitious monster creation system ever devised.  If you feel that your game might be suffering from a lack of variety in monsters and encounters; if you want straightforward help and guidance in refining your own monster concepts; or, if you just want to inject some old school Gygax-inspired, Arnesonian, and Lovecraftian atmosphere into your modern FRPG, then this is the perfect resource for you.  Tap into the chaos, ... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Treasure Trove Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The most ambitious old school treasure system, at your fingertips ... Are you weary of plopping down unimaginative treasures that read “1,000 gold pieces” or something similar?  More detail would be great, but how do you get there?  Do you have enough game and historical information to provide your players with intricate details on acid types, unholy symbols, perfume types, and realistic spices?  Can you provide enough variety to fuel an entire campaign replete with hundreds or thousands of different treasure hoards? The challenge is a daunting one.  How can you keep your players intrigued and exploring the endless intricacies of your world if every lair they visit is a predictable slot machine with only four vending bins for coins, gems, jewelry, and m... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Tyrrhenia Map Pack - TYR1 Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF An old school campaign world like no other … the fabled realm of Tyrrhenia which enshrouds the colossal manor known as Castle Oldskull, unveiled at last …   Well met, adventurer!  Welcome to the age-old land of heroes and perilous beasts.  In this introductory “sandbox” campaign starter kit, you will find 18 full-color maps which comprise the old school FRPG realm of Tyrrhenia (the author’s mythic and folkloric interpretation of late medieval Italy and Magna Roma).  There is a beautiful full-color satellite image showing all of the Tyrrhenian peninsula and seas beyond; a concise guide-sector map showing how all of the ultra-detail maps connect (as well as the adjacent lands and isles within the World of Oldskull)... CASTLE OLDSKULL - Sword & Sorcery Book I Regular price: $6.99 Bundle price: $0.00 Format: Watermarked PDF After decades of development, Kent David Kelly and Wonderland Imprints are proud to offer you the CASTLE OLDSKULL fantasy role-playing game system.  This first rules volume, OLDSKULL SWORD & SORCERY I:  BASIC PLAYER CHARACTERS features all the rules new players and Game Masters require to orient themselves in the fantasy world.  Here you will find rules, guidelines, and advice for creating newly-emboldened Player Characters in search of adventure in the unknown.  The Castle Oldskull Sword & Sorcery Adventure Game is designed in modular fashion, allowing you to progress and expand your realms with bold new challenges, wrought in a world of limitless imagination.  Additional volumes in this series detail character empowerment, level progression, dungeon adve... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Book of Dungeon Traps Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Tumbling boulders crushing over powdered bones, Death pits filled with gibbering slime, Strangling vines, enchanted lodestones, lightning bolts, Hateful wraiths Imprisoned in chests of ancient gold, Chained by holy symbol and silver seal ... Every mechanical horror, every thief’s demise, Every fell contraption Lies here, deep in this book of secrets. Would you like to fill your dungeons with traps, but you can never find coherent rules or guidelines to show the way?  Are your players weary of arbitrary deathtraps?  Have you ever searched in vain for a system which codifies spells into magical traps?  Are you bored with the “famous four” — pits, gas, arrows and poisoned needles &m... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Classic Dungeon Design Guide Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Deep dwarven cities of the underworld, Infested by conquering orcs, Enslaved by demons of skull and pyre ... Black labyrinths of mad demigods, Proving grounds for daring adventurers And graveyards for greedy fools ... Twisting passages, all alike, Where lurking trolls and shadow beasts Guard the deepest riddles of the nether ... If you have ever wanted to know how to quickly and masterfully create your own mega-dungeon for your pen-and-paper Fantasy Role-Playing Game (PNP FRPG) campaigns, this is the perfect book for you.  This Game Master’s guide will show you, step by step, how to take your vague-yet-promising ideas and how to sculpt them with precise and careful design decisions (enhanced, if y... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Classic Dungeon Design Guide II Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The sequel to the Classic Dungeon Design Guide is here ... Have you read every dungeon design book out there, but you’re still hungry for great ideas to amaze your players?  Would you like to possess the tools to generate countless millions of randomized results for bizarre rooms and shrines, dungeon doors, magical laboratories, skeletons, Lovecraftian abominations, and torture chambers?  Then this is the book for you. This massive tome is the direct sequel to Wonderland Imprints’ Gold Medal Best Seller, CDDG1:  THE CLASSIC DUNGEON DESIGN GUIDE.  Where Book 1 was a basic inspirational tome filled with thousands of ideas, Book II:  Dungeon Mastery Design Tables is an advanced nuts-and-bolts guide that provides you with hundreds of pages of tables wh... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Classic Dungeon Design Guide III Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Enchanted fountains shadowed by gargoyle sentries, Tricksy nymphs cavorting in crystal pools, Unholy altars, sacred shrines, Undiscovered treasure vaults, Thousands upon thousands of wondrous rooms Filled with treasure, tricks, magic and eldritch horror, All awaiting your heroes’ intrepid discovery … What greater mysteries await far below, For only the most dauntless magi And fearless warlords to ever find?   Continuing the proud tradition of the CLASSIC DUNGEON DESIGN GUIDE series, Book 3:  The Labyrinth Lexicon provides you with a nearly endless array of dungeon room types which you can use to build any size, plan and theme of dungeon you desire.  This is the largest and most ext... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Oldskull Deck of Strangest Things Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF For all levels, all classes, all who dare. Shake your old school campaign to its foundations with the ultimate magic item …   THE OLDSKULL DECK OF STRANGEST THINGS is a deluxe supplement detailing the hundreds of effects created by a Tarot-inspired minor artifact.  Profusely illustrated throughout with beautiful card motifs, and with printable color card sheets in the back.  100+ pages.   The purposes of this supplement, fully detailing the deck for use in your campaign, are as follows: [1] To make a new tarot deck magic item for old school FRPGs, which surpasses the complexity and quality of all others, while retaining the original Gygaxian spirit of the earliest masterpiece. [2] To clarify generally vague abilities and... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Oldskull Necronomicon I Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons, even Death may die. (Al Azif, Necronomicon, Scroll 50, fin.)   THE GREATEST NECROMANCER of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, Abdul Alhazred, comes to vivid and haunting life in this compelling first codex from the most fabled and infamous grimoire of black magic that the world has ever known: THE NECRONOMICON. This book is a treasure trove for any Game Master who wants to embrace the old school of Fantasy Role-Playing Games. Herein lie the terrible secrets of Great Cthulhu and his cult, of the sunken city of R’lyeh, of Alhazred’s necromantic incantations, of the Nameless City, of Nyarlathotep, and the horrible cannibalistic Ghuls who stalk the storm-wrought wastelands of Yemen an... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Order of the Scarlet Tabard Regular price: $1.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Hale companions, ready and true, prepared to brave the dungeons deep in the name of hard-won gold and glory … Behold the doughty and stalwart men- and women-at-arms who hail from the Free City of Grimrook, the infamous and ever-ready “Redshirts” from the mercenary company known as the Order of the Scarlet Tabard! The old school rules always encourage us to include men-at-arms ready for hire by any low-level Player Characters, so that the adventuring party’s strength is bolstered in the dungeon.  After all, if there are not enough bodies in the ranks to soak up those pit traps, fatal spider bites, and energy drains, all of those nasty attacks go straight to the imperiled and beloved heroes who are played by the players.  But while the ru... CASTLE OLDSKULL - The Pegana Mythos Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Maidens weaving a spell of clouds Over a ruined city of the spice Sunken beneath the venom sea, Blood-painted cultists Chanting beneath the storm moon, Sacrificing innocents to Mung In the name of immortality …   The world of a thousand wonders which inspired H. P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, and the Cthulhu Mythos Comes to vivid life once more In this Swords and Sorcery supplement For any Fantasy Role-Playing Game.   From the peerless works of Lord Dunsany, from my surreptitious campaign notes they come at last:  the secret Gods, Monsters, and Heroes who inspired the very foundation of the World of Castle Oldskull. How was the world created?  Who... FROM THE FIRE - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Epic Regular price: $4.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF The end of the world. The beginning of destiny. * A proven Amazon Best Seller (#1 in Action & Adventure Fiction, 2012; #1 in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, 2014; #3 in Dystopian Fiction, 2014; 5-Star UK Best Seler, 2017) * Over 80 5-Star Reviews for the Saga and Episode Novellas * The Entire Acclaimed Series: Episodes I, II, III, IV, V and VI in a Single Volume ON APRIL 4th, 2014, 6 billion and 783 million people died in the blinding white fireballs of the Pan-Global Nuclear Holocaust. Sophie Saint-Germain, wife and scientist and mother of one, was not among them. She lived for a time, and so her words endure. The reclamation of her terrifying story is a miracle in itself. Uncovered during the Shoshone Geyser Basin archaeological excavations of 2316, Sop... HAWK & MOOR - Book 1 - Deluxe Edition - The Dragon Rises Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF Lake Geneva, 1972.  Gygax.  Arneson.  Come experience the Golden Age ... THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons®, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design.  Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced.  Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Ga... HAWK & MOOR - Book 2 - Deluxe Edition - The Dungeons Deep Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons®, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design.  Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced.  Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination.   HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Gary, and the many other people whose efforts gave first life to the game we know a... HAWK & MOOR - Book 3 - Lands and Worlds Afar Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design.  Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced.  Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Gary, and the many other people whose efforts gave first life to the game we know and love today.... HAWK & MOOR - Book 4 - Of Demons and Fallen Idols Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design.  Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced.  Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Gary, and the many other people whose efforts gave first life to the game we know and love today.... HAWK & MOOR - Book 5 - Age of Glory Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE CREATION of the world’s preeminent Fantasy Role-Playing Game (FRPG), Dungeons & Dragons, is one of the most fascinating tales to be told in all the shared histories of entertainment, play and game design.  Two very different men, David Lance Arneson and Ernest Gary Gygax, undertook an unprecedented collaboration which gifted us — as their shared legacy — with one of the most intriguing games the world has yet experienced.  Their game did not just simulate one isolate corner of reality; it dared to encompass the entirety of all realms of adventure, the consensual playground of the human imagination. HAWK & MOOR tells the story of Dave and Gary, and the many other people whose efforts gave first life to the game we know and love today.... HAWK & MOOR - The Steam Tunnel Incident Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF THE MORE SINISTER urban legends concerning the Steam Tunnel Incident run as follows: A young genius, seduced and deluded by a mind-controlling fantasy game, abandoned his Satanic gaming cult because he feared for his life.  He then delved into the netherworld, a labyrinthine “dungeon” of steam tunnels running for miles beneath a sprawling university.  There, under the influence of drugs, occult talismans, evil magic or mere insanity, he mistook fantasy for reality and tried to slay his invoked dragons, demons and devils in real life.  Finally, he became hopelessly lost in the tunnels. Facing a slow and horrible demise in the endless dark, he committed suicide.  Or, he was murdered by a conspiracy of Lucifer-worshipping gamer-cultists who silenced him to... LORDS OF OLDSKULL - Book I - Krampus Regular price: $0.99 Bundle price: $0.99 Format: Watermarked PDF As cav’lier golems march and wheel, In tiny danse of death and holm And arc their blades of mint and bone To tinkling chaunt of glockenspiel;   And from the shadow’s watching wall? Krampus sighing, claimeth all. See his sorrowed eyes abright, Bells a-tinkling in the night;   Sixty-six the bells they are, Shiv’ring silver-bright I see: Bell woven to brimstone, beard, and mane, Regardless of thy slumber feign’d.   From the wintery shadows He comes, and when he sings, none dare keep their most forbidden secrets from his clutches …   Are you looking for something a little different to spice up your old sch...

Total value: $58.63 Special bundle price: $35.64 Savings of: $22.99 (39%)

Price: $58.63 CASTLE OLDSKULL Mega-Bundle III [BUNDLE] published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[amieravenson]

Magickal Month- December

Magickal Month December December is a month of extremes. There’s the cold and chill outside, and the warmth and comfort of our homes, our families, and our friends. There’s the stress and frustration of holiday shopping, finances, parties, etc., and there are the sweet, happy moments of seasonal joy. It can be incredibly difficult for a lot of people, or it can be the month that people look forward to all year. It can bring out the best and the worst in us. The holidays are full of contradictions. In nature, everything is quiet. A lot of places have gotten their first snows (not here in Georgia- we may be lucky to see some in January or February), and most of the trees are bare. This is the season of muted colors, greys and browns, and of soft focus sunlight filtering through the trees. I love Winter, despite the fact it flares up my fibro and leaves me in pain. It’s just so calm and peaceful and quiet. Outside of malls and shopping centers, that is. I haven’t really seen much wildlife lately, though I’ve been hearing blue jays. I’m mostly concerned for the neighborhood cats, and I’m hoping that their people take them in for the night. Last year, Pandora (a neighborhood stray) had 3 kittens, and only 1 made it through the cold Winter (our Minerva). We’ve since had them both fixed, and while she tends to find her way into the crawl space under our house, I’m thinking we need to build her a warm cat shelter outside from a Rubbermaid container and a styrofoam cooler. I worry about who will take care of her and all of the other neighborhood cats next Winter after we’ve moved. Lunations: December 7- New Moon in Sagittarius, 2:20am EST December 22- Full Moon in Cancer, 12:48pm EST Astronomy: December 6- Mercury goes direct at 4:23pm in Scorpio Geminids meteor shower peaks December 14th. Ursid meteor shower peaks December 22nd. Celtic Tree Month: Elder (November 25- December 23): Endings and new beginnings, completion of the cycle, focusing on greater happiness and your heart’s desire, evaluating what you’ve learned over the last year, cutting loose ends, thinking about your dreams for the new year, judgment, transformation, death and regeneration, fate, the inevitable, exorcism, banishment, prosperity and healing, leaves and berries can be used for protection and breaking spells cast against you. Birch (December 24- January 20): Beginning of Celtic tree calender, new beginnings, making plans for the future, contemplation, resolutions, inception, “Lady of the Woods”, reflects feminine aspects of nature. Renewal, protection, wards evil, banishes fears/builds courage, beauty and tolerance. Holidays (non-Pagan): December 1: World AIDS Day December 2: First day of Advent (Christian) December 3: First day of Hanukkah (Jewish) December 6: St. Nicholas Day December 7: Pearl Harbor Rememberance Day December 8: Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Christian) December 10: Last day of Hanukkah (Jewish) December 24: Christmas Eve (Christian) December 25: Christmas (Christian) December 26: First day of Kwanzaa December 31: New Year’s Eve Holidays (Pagan): December 9-10: Feast of the Greek Goddess Athena December 10-11: Feast of Greek deities Aphrodite and Hermes December 13: Feast of the Light Bringer, honoring Juno Lucina and Swedish St. Lucia December 14-15: Feast of Posiedon, Aphritrite, and all Greek deities of the seas December 17-23: Saturnalia/Opalia, honoring Roman god Saturn and goddess Ops December 21: Yule/Winter Solstice December 21-22: Old European festival of evergreen trees December 21-25: Romano-Egyptian festival of goddess Isis giving birth to Horus December 21-25: Greek festival Dionysia honoring Dionysis December 25-26: Greek festival of the wind gods of the eight directions December 25-January 5: Anglo-Teutonic Yule honoring Freyr and Freyja and Balder December 31: Feast of Father Time/Roman god Saturn Themes for the month: Family, friends, giving gifts to people you love, togetherness, long nights, staying cozy in the cold, celebration, joy, festivity, warmth on the longest night of the year. General activities for the month: Getting ready for your Winter holiday of choice, making gifts, wrapping gifts, decorating trees, making cookies, gathering with friends, going out to community events, building fires, drinking hot bevvies, watching holiday movies. Herbs I’m using: Holiday greenery. Wildcrafted holly, pine boughs, and frankincense oil in the essential oil diffuser. Tea for self-soothing as the days get cooler and the fibro flares more and more. Stones I’m using: Rutilated quartz for clarity and pathworking. Petrified wood, my ‘teacher stone’. Clear quartz for the pure, uncluttered energy boost that I need right now, and selenite for cleansing and clearing away the old year. Goddess of the Month: Laetitia, Roman goddess of holidays, festivals, celebration, and joy. Sometimes the holidays can be tough for people who are estranged from their families or work in retail or customer service. I’m honoring Laetitia in hopes that they can find some joy this season.

December 3 card reading December's Reading: This reading was so literal it made me laugh.  It's so very, very tied to this time of year, I love it! First, we have The Devil, which represents temptations.  The early part of December is all about rushing around to make all the parties, buy all the gifts, eat all the food, and drink all the holiday cheer.  This is a hedonistic time of year, when everyone goes off their diets, overspends, and just generally revels in the joy of the season.  So The Devil is a warning to revel within reason- don't go too overboard!  Because.... It's all really about the rebirth of the sun/son/solar deity of choice.  So when the sun rises the day after the longest Solstice/Yule night, we get to be reborn as well.  The King of Wands is the male at the height of his fiery/solar power, and this card is so clearly representative of the energy of the Solstice and the fire of the sun being reborn.  The only thing that would have been more appropriate would have been the sun itself, so I think this is a sign that we need to embody that solar energy ourselves and let ourselves be reborn with the sun. Finally, we have Death.  Death is usually all about a change where something has to be let go so that we can continue on, unemcumbered.  And what we need to let go of is all the negativity, expectations, and goals of 2018 to make way for 2019.  So at the end of the month, we'll have the death of the old year.  So the question is what do you want to leave behind?  Make a list and burn it in the Yuletide fire, and clear your life out for the new things to come in 2019. Our special guidance card especially cracked me up.  It's SO perfect to tie the reading together.  It reads "When I accept the love of the universe as my primary teacher, I will always be guided back to the light."  And since the longest night will be on the 21st of the month, every day after that leads us to progressively longer/warmer/brighter days as the sun builds in power.  We're absolutely, 100% being led back to the light.  The cards are laughing at me, I think. So we're going to party, welcome back the sun, and then let go of 2018 so that we can be led back into the light.  Viola! ******************************** The Christmas Holly By Eliza Cook The holly! the holly! oh, twine it with bay-- Come give the holly a song; For it helps to drive stern winter away, With his garment so sombre and long; It peeps through the trees with its berries of red, And its leaves of burnished green, When the flowers and fruits have long been dead, And not even the daisy is seen. Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly, That hangs over peasant and king; While we laugh and carouse 'neath its glittering boughs, To the Christmas holly we'll sing. The gale may whistle, the frost may come To fetter the gurgling rill; The woods may be bare, and warblers dumb, But holly is beautiful still. In the revel and light of princely halls The bright holly branch is found; And its shadow falls on the lowliest walls, While the brimming horn goes round. The ivy lives long, but its home must be Where graves and ruins are spread; There's beauty about the cypress tree, But it flourishes near the dead; The laurel the warrior's brow may wreathe, But it tells of tears and blood; I sing the holly, and who can breathe Aught of that that is not good? Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly, That hangs over peasant and king; While we laugh and carouse 'neath its glittering boughs, To the Christmas holly we'll sing. My personal tides: I’m already starting to plan for 2019, and I think I may have my phrase for the year. Things are starting to come together to the point that we can start looking for our new home, and I’m excited to change things up. In that spirit, I keep looking around at all this junk I’ve accumulated in the 14 years that I’ve lived here, and I’ve been deciding what’s really essential. Ideally, we’ll move and just take the things we absolutely have to have, and then have a moving sale for the rest, but I really want to get rid of it now. At the very least, I’ve already started packing books up. I’m just ready to let go of all of the old and make way for the new. I expect to give up at least half of my ‘things’. My personal goals: I’ve ordered a Passion Planner this year, and I want to spend the last week of December doing some in-depth planning. I also want to offer a variety of ‘year ahead’ tarot and oracle readings for 2019, so look for those soon. My holiday shopping as about half done as of this writing (November 28), and I should be able to get everything on time, which is a stressful proposition every year. We’re lucky this year to have a little extra cash in reserve, and I’m grateful. Read the full article