Introducing Forsetilafom (Fantasy Friday #11)

In time, even this character’s watchfulness couldn’t see every gradual corruption. As questionable magical activities came into vogue amongst this character’s peers, they almost fell to the same subtle spiritual disease as everyone else, almost found themself transformed into a wrathful brute. The nobility of their spirit wouldn’t allow them to trip over the line, however, and that drove them back into study. The loremaster’s smug grin as this character sheepishly came to the library after some years of frippery and social engineering was a bother, but a small price to pay as the pair’s research unearthed ancient secrets and a creeping spiritual rot. Strengthening all the spiritual purity they had, this character managed to throw off the effect and once more act as the Bulwark of Courtly Virtue to exorcise it, finally. The old Gold Dragon in Strength gives two tokens it doesn’t actually have to Intelligence.

This character’s incipient devotion to study was somewhat cut short as they were given an actual position, with power as well as honor, within the court. As High-Reeve, this character served to decide cases brought to the court in their host’s stead. Though young, they served well, with justice and supreme judgment as such until they decided to go adventuring. Despite some grumbling at their age, the sheer force and easy joy of their presence prevented anyone from moving against them. Nonetheless, they felt the need to prove themself and that was what brought them to travel the realm as High-Reeve Adventurer. The Silver Dragon in Intelligence gives one of its tokens to Charisma.

This character’s final ability score array thus comes out as:
Strength 8 [-2 points]
Dexterity 14 [5 points]
Constitution 15 [7 points]
Intelligence 13 [3 points]
Wisdom 15 [7 points]
Charisma 14 [5 points]
Constitution missed a 16 by one point, giving one point to Wisdom and one to Charisma. Similarly, Dexterity has one extra point, which trickles down to Intelligence.

We seem to have already determined a race and a homeland for this character ~ they are an asimar (yes, it’s spelt that way in my world) from Natsiyaasim. We should probably name them; I rather like the idea of naming them Forseti, after the most just of the Aesir. One’s noble house is important to most of Natisyaasim’s populace. Each raskokabajho who settled there with Blessed Imye gave rise to several such noble houses, each descended from that raskokabajho. Looking over my notes, I determine that Forseti is a scion of the raskokabajho Nosilebo, patron of Natsiyaasim’s various houses of carnal love. Taking a peek over at a Kushiel’s Legacy series wiki, I see that Namarrese houses include L’Envers, Fhirze, Le Blanc, Le Doux, and Lafons. (Namarre is the region of Terre d’Ange settled by Naamah, the equivalent to Nosilebo; the equivalent region of Natsiyaasim is called Nosleborre). Looking at the meanings of these names, I decide Lafons (http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Lafond) is the most appropriate for Forseti and remove the end to make the name work better with Natsiyaasim’s langauge.

In English/D’Angeline, their name would thus be “Forseti Lafo”, but in the language of Natsiyaasim, such a name would be constructed as a genitive phrase (Forseti of Lafo). I based the genitive construction in this language on that of Sumerian, so they are expressed as a single word constructed as follows: OWNED.OWNER.m. In this case, Forseti is the “owned” and Lafo the “owner”, so their name comes out as Forsetilafom, the asimar (a word that means “pertaining to that which is of the angel”, much like D’Angeline is an adjectival form of the prepositional phrase “d’Ange”).

As an aasimar descended from Nosilebo, Forsetilafonsom gains +2 Wisdom and +2 Charisma, some protection against negative energy, a +2 bonus on Diplomacy and Perform (erotic arts), the ability to cast detect desires once per day, and darkvision. As to Forsetilafonsom’s class, well, that’s not nearly as obvious (this is an interesting inversion of Boanerges’s process!) I think looking through the book Heroes of the High Court might be a good place to start . . . . The biggest things that jump out at me from that book are a couple of spells (one far in the future, as its 6th or 7th level) that would seem to entice Forsetilafonsom into becoming a cleric, inquisitor, sorcerer, witch, or wizard. And the silksworn occultist. At first, I was ready to pass on the silksworn, as psychic powers are a Scarhasi thing, but the silksworn occultist’s spells are arcane! For the moment, that puts occultist in the front running.

Heroes of the High Court also reminded me of Ultimate Intrigue, so I’ll check that out now. And the dandy archetype for rangers wins the day! It’s absolutely perfect! Forsetilafom is officially a ranger (dandy). 6d6 roll a dead average 21, making them 41 years old (significantly younger than Boanerges). I’ve been thinking about Forsetilafom’s gender, and I think I really like the idea of them being genderqueer. I often feel myself as an inside-outsider in a society so heavily binarily-gendered and have found that such a position can be both quite revealing and very powerful. Perfect for Forsetilafom. So I’ll average the heights and weights listed for male and female aasimar. Again, the dice come out right in the average; in this case, it’s 2d8 and that gives Forsetilafom 5’10” of height. They’re just a tiny bit skinny, at 140 pounds.

Scapegoat or not, this alien religion is the one everyone worries about (Traveller Tuesday #10)

Let's roll yet another 1d20 for the God View of the next religion. Another 12 gives us another remote monotheim. That's actually kind of interesting: Azeyrenawt is the numerically dominant religion in the Guild-State (I think) and this gives it two foils: one with a very different take on shared origin and the other with a similar theology. That contrast continues into the religion's Spiritual Aim, as an 8 on 2d6+1 tells us that the faith's focus is more on the individual than on society as a whole like in Azeyrenawt. In fact, it shares an Aim with the Bio-Witches described in the last post, framing ethical decision as providing benefits in and of themselves. We'll see if this religion is more prescriptive about right and wrong than the Barnwells, however.

Oh, wow! It seems likely that this religion is much more willing to tell its followers what's right and what's wrong. What makes me say that? The 5 I rolled on 2d6+1 for Devotion Required. Unlike every other Isheean religion with their monthly, bimonthly, or once to a few times during your life requirements, here we have a religion that demands devotions several days per week! I can imagine that difference alone can build a distance between them and the overculture, complete with distrusting prejudices of them as a brainwashing cult.

Its Organizational Structure ~ roll of a 4 on 2d6-2 , which is a rigid hierarchy with most decisions made at the local level ~ adds yet more strength to both the religion's ethical proscriptivity and its image amongst the rest of Ishee as a brainwashy cult. Despite Azeyrenawt's human supremacist theology, this faith is probably the one considered dangerous by most Isheeans (and some of its resonances with the bioroid identity religion of Scientological Witchcraft probably doesn't help either faith).

Although . . . a 6 on 2d6-3 reveals that the faith's several required services a week consist of formal church ritual with only limited teaching. No, on the other hand, that makes perfect sense. The limited teaching amounts to a dripdripdrip of theological bits paired with a reminder that right and wrong are their own reward, followed by a list of good and bad things. It's honestly not far from the Roman Catholicism in which I was raised.  Maybe this faith is descended from one of the Catholic faiths, one stripped of Heavenly rewards?

And yet another reason for the Isheean population to be wary of this faith: a 2 on d6-2 means that it's zealous in its proselytization efforts. Here, we have witnesses going door-to-door and people sitting and/or preaching at intersections, and friends who will inevitably mention that you should join their religion if you spend enough time with them. In fact, I'm now starting to see this faith as some sort of Calvinist Catholic faith tinged with elements from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Calvinist, because predestination of afterlife can create the view of ethics this faith possesses. That 2 also tells us that it's a one-species-only religion, the third on Ishee. It seems that there are deep, deep genetic rifts on this planet. The political conflicts ~ contractual hijinx, offworld wars finding a battleground here, etc. ~ seems to have at least two more societal conflicts joining them: the echoes of the schism in the Rose Brothers and conflicts between the species.

OK, let's work out the size and name of the religion before I begin speculating on what the one-species nature of this religion means. 5 on 2d6-2means there's hundreds of thousands of worshippers. I'm thinking that this will account for most of the remaining Ishee population, but random.org refuses to allow it, giving the faith 243,163 adherents, 78% of whom live on Ishee. And dWikipedia will name it . . . the Johnny Mellis Christian Church of the Blues-Metal Gospel? Naw, I don't like that. How about just Mellis?

OK, so that naming has pushed me to think of Mellis as an alien religion, rather than a human Christian-derived one. I don't yet rightly know the details of the alien species that follows Mellis, but I'll work that out! It does make me think that Mellis might be centered primarily in TCI, which tells me that TCI (which is a captive state) might be an alien outpost. Only, TCI has like ten times the number of sophots as Mellis does, so I think the dynamic needs to flip. Mellis is the dominant faith of the stateless captive state faction, the one that's pursuing an offworld conflict with TCI's masters here on Ishee. Might be time to name that group . . . Our Lord's Militant Mellis Church.

I'm not tryna decide right meow, but that does remind me that there's a stateless faction led by a messiah controlled by some sort of council. Obvi, that'll be tied to one of these religions . . .

The religious landcape of Ishee:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
1,506,003 humans (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
656,874 sophonts (4.1%) Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers (generally known as Clarencians, Science-Monks, or (the) Unit)
67 bioroids (essentially 0%) Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft (generally known as Bio-Witches or Barnwells)
189,667 alien!species#1 (app. 1.2%) Mellis (generally called Mellits)
582,307 sophonts (app. 3.6%) not yet accounted for

Complications from die-rolling (Design Domingo #10)

OK, so now we know how to figure out if our character succeeds at what they’re trying to do. But wait, there’s more!

Before you get too comfortable with your chances of success, you should know that the dice can have effects on your behavior beyond merely indicating success or failure. We are rolling with traits called Virtues and Traumas, after all! Sometimes behavior takes precedent over conscious intent; most of us have experienced doing something without thinking, and every roll in Middens and Morals contains the chance for that to happen. Count the kept dice that have results equal or lesser than your score in the Virtue at hand. This number indicates whether your character acts from their best self, their worst self, or the usual combination of the two that most of us spend the most time acting from. Your character might not take the action you set out to do when you made the roll thanks to the result; if so, simply narrate a new version of your character’s actions.

Each result of a roll has special implications, and high or low trait values may influence interpretation. The Virtues quantify a character’s likelihood to act in one of two generally opposed ways. Therefore it is not enough to know merely that a character does not feel particularly merciful — the player must know whether the character actually acts cruelly. The binary traits of Middens and Morals define the chances of either. If all of the kept dice are equal to or lesser than your Virtue, write a checkmark next to the Virtue, and your character acts strongly in accordance with the Virtue. The action need not be outrageous or extreme, but ought to be apparent enough to be noticed enough by others, and to make the character feel that they have revealed strong emotions or perhaps even compromised etiquette, strategy, practicality, their word, or suchlike in some way. If there are some kept dice that are higher than the Virtue, but the majority are equal or lower, your character acts in accordance with the Virtue. This result indicates that your character felt, and was moved by, the feelings and values expressed by that Virtue. Thus, if they made a Merciful roll, they feel that they should grant mercy in this instance. You may decide precisely what action ensues within that limitation. Write a checkmark next to the Virtue if and only if the action is somehow significant to the story or your character. However, you may choose to have your character act in the opposite manner: The penalty for disobeying the roll result is a checkmark next to the opposite Virtue. If the majority of kept dice are higher than your Virtue, roll a single d10. If the result is less than or equal to your score in the opposite Virtue, your character acts in accordance with that second Virtue. Otherwise, you may choose freely how the character will act. No checks are written. If all of the kept dice are higher than your Virtue, the opposite Virtue gets a checkmark, and your character immediately acts in accordance with the checked Virtue. If, by some chance, the divide between higher and lower/equal to your Virtue is an even split, 50/50, no checkmark is written, and your character may do whatever the hell they wanna.

The next time your character gets a chance to rest and introspect after having achieved something of at least minor significance to them or the story, look to see which Virtues have checkmarks next to them. For each one, starting from the upper left of the list and proceeding from left to right, roll 1d10. If the roll is higher than the associated Virtue, increase that Virtue by one (make sure to reduce its complement by one to maintain the necessary total of 10).

One of the key tasks of the GM is to decide when an action performed by a character deserves a checkmark as described above. The action need not have been preplanned as a test or challenge, nor need it be the result of a roll. For instance, if a player decides that his character will slay a peasant who has insulted him, the Gamemaster is more than justified in giving that knight a checkmark for both his Proud and Cruel traits, even though no resolution rolls took place.

But wait! There’s even more!

Every roll also has an intensity level determined by the GM that reflects how rough the situation and the action can be on your character’s mental stability. Different stresses have different intensity levels, ranging from 1–10. These are also called ranks. The higher the rank, the more extreme the stress and the more you’re likely to suffer. If your Hardened Trauma of the same type as the one you rolled is the same as the rank of the stress or higher, however, you don’t have to worry about it. You automatically keep your head because you’ve faced this down before and prevailed. Example: You make a rank-4 CrFV 48 roll. You have Hardened Violence 5. You don’t have to roll.

Just like the dice you kept determined whether or not you acted in line with your Virtues, the dice you don’t keep determine whether you lose your shit. If the majority of these dice are higher than the intensity level of the roll, increase your Hardened Trauma of the type rolled by 1. If the majority are equal to or lower than the intensity, increase the appropriate Failed Trauma by 1 instead and choose one of three reactions: panic, paralysis, or frenzy; the roll may have other long-term effects as well. If you panic, you run away at high speed. You can take no action except to run full out in the direction farthest from what made you panic. On the other hand, disturbing events often produce paralysis: indecision, terror, and a general “deer in the lantern-light” effect that persists until the stimulus ceases. This can be completely silent, or accompanied by screams and moans. Frenzy is just what it sounds like. You attack the source of discomfort with any means at your disposal. You can’t dodge or attempt any fancy moves, like multiple attacks on a single target. You just swing or punch or start biting. You act like this until the stress that triggered the behavior is gone. Until then, you must follow your choice. If you frenzy against someone who can beat the holy heck out of you, you are not able to run away. You fight until you or your opponent is dead. While you’re in any of these states, the unkept dice of your rolls have no other or more effect on your mental state or Traumas. You’re too screwed up to process any other stresses. If, by some chance, the divide between higher and lower/equal to the intensity level is an even split, 50/50, neither your Hardened or Failed Trauma is increased, and your character may do whatever the hell they wanna.

But does it always turn out the same? (Fantasy Friday #10)

Let’s create another character with the Three-Dragon Ante system. It’s a test of the reliability of the system: if this second character comes out significantly different from the first, it’s a sign that the system is a robust and a useful one. If every character comes out the same, then this system wouldn’t be very useful, would it?

This character’s card spread is:
Nature: Blue Dragon 2
Spirit: White Dragon 4
Body: Princess
Mind: Brass Dragon 2
Nurture: Silver Dragon 8
Strength: Gold Dragon 6
Dexterity: Blue Dragon 1
Constitution: Blue Dragon 7
Intelligence: Silver Dragon 2
Wisdom: Gold Dragon 13
Charisma: Brass Dragon 7

Much more heroic than Boanerges, with six metallic dragons! And yet at the same time, three blue dragons, which hits a threshold of significance. Maybe this character is from the desert (Not!Sahara? The Scarhasi deserts? Somewhere further afield?) . . . Or mebbe the character has some electrical association. Ironic, since the name I stole from the Bible for the last character (Boanerges) means “Sons of Thunder” in Aramaic bastardized by Hellenic authors. Also, because I’m already thinking about Africa cause of Boanerges, I’m reminded of Shango, the Yoruba orisha associated with lightning, and his wife Oya, who is the thunder, and their rather . . . tumultuous marriage (storms occur whenever they argue, which is often).

This character’s nature is almost as vain, resilient, and forceful as the last’s; I give six tokens from Nature to Body and three to Mind. Not a great sign when looking for differentiation between the two. Luck pushed them, however, towards the speed, ferocity, and agility of a white dragon. My first thought is that, while Boanerges is a preening barbarian dandy (when not the Unseen Heart of the Flame, of course), this character is more akin to the arrogant villain of a racing movie. They know they’re the best and they are overly assured that anyone who contests that will be eating their dust. They don’t show off to convince people to give them whatever they want, they just win always. Regardless, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma all get a token each.

The next card, somewhat sadly, inspires chuckles as I read it. The Princess denotes something very different from anything in Boanerges’s spread ~ that being diplomacy and influence ~ but has (at least for now) a very similar result. Constitution gets 4 tokens and Dexterity 2. I’m going to say that, however this turns out, that Princess in the Body position indicates that this character is devastatingly beautiful. Who knows if that will be in line with the rest of their occupation and reality or just a three-dimensionalizing extra quality? Although, a brass dragon’s wise and very perceptive mind lurks behind those good looks, so maybe they really are a social character who fights in courts rather than blood-mudded fields or the fantasy fucking Vietnam of a dungeon. Wisdom gets all three of Mind’s tokens, in a dramatic departure from Boanerges’s stats.

The adult Silver Dragon in Nurture continues the welcome distinction from Boanerges, as its judgment and justice give its token to Wisdom. I’m starting to get an image of this character ~ a noble of an evil realm forced by an uprising to flee as a child to another kingdom which, despite (or perhaps because of) its own goodness took them in and gave her a home. All that remains of their home culture is a vanity and an unrelenting drive for survival; all the rest of them is filled with the wisdom and the empathy and the justice of their rescuers. At the same time, their noble status among the houses of the realm and the friendship of their host has given them a solid place in their host’s court but their lack of any sort of realm or muster has left them without any sort of power amongst that court’s intrigues. Some years before they came of age, they learned to rely on a creative wit and judicious use of their good looks when those intrigues threatened the virtue of that court, maneuvering the host noble into uselessness and leaving the strong will of this character as the only advocate for justice. It was very Jacqueline Carey. Which, in turn, suggests that the character comes from Aoqina, my campaign world’s Europe-equivalent, specifically the realm of Natsiyaasim, which is based on Terre d’Ange (with influences from the Vikings and a religion tracing back to the grandchild of a Presterjho archangel who fought at a Troy-equivalent with Jedi expies).

Anyway, the adult Gold Dragon in the Wisdom slot gives two tokens to Charisma as the struggle for the soul of the court brings them much fame and skill at leading people with honor and nobility of spirit. That their host showered honors upon them as the Bulwark of Courtly Virtue only deepened the effect. Hilariously, the old Brass Dragon in Charisma just gives it right back. Where many would be tempted to just revel in the glory and the veneration of all the nobles around them ~ and this character was sorely tempted, considering their nature and early training ~ they resisted, and took the position of Bulwark quite seriously. Piercing eyes watched everyone, and discerned when and how to intervene without conflict to preserve the sanctity of the realm. Without conflict, to be sure, as this was a job of glittering laughter, not the dim and judgmental work of an inquisitor.

Of course, vanity could not be held at bay for long. It never hindered their work, but it is true that this character came to enjoy their position, the favor of their host, and the rewards of their good looks. Several relationships ended in tears and anger as this character’s incisive mind caught notice that they were founded upon the other’s desire for advancement, privilege, or ability to get away with some vice or crime, but for the most part, this character was free to indulge themselves in the gleaming giggles of play amongst the court. That old Blue Dragon in Constitution steals two tokens from Strength. The Blue Dragon in Dexterity isn’t so old, however, so it only steals one token from Intelligence, as these pleasures and this work call for time to be spent on them to succeed. Besides, studying with the castle’s loremaster was always yawn-inducing, so the distractions were quite welcome.

First we had Science-Monks, and now we have Bio-Witches?? (Traveller Tuesday #9)

We're so close! The 1d20 gives us a 14. One of the more unusual options (and one that I've added, as explained before), that means this is a religion of self-worship. It's a path concerned with becoming, realizing, or just being a god your own damn self. You might say it's a form of monolatry ~ the existence of other gods (other people) in actuality or possibility is recognized, but only one (the self) receives devotion. The Spiritual Aim can give us a lot more information about what that means, so let's roll that 2d6+2. An 8 tells us that the religion sees ethical action as their own reward, separate from any other spiritual awards.

Hmmmm . . . so if people are or can become gods, then this religion might preach that they're unable to be controlled or bound. We are all bound to be free, but that freedom is total as apotheosis and near-omnipotence approach. Far from draining ethical questions of meaning (as some might expect), this intensifies their importance, while stacking all of their weight on the decisions and introspections of the individual. The only ethic the faith can teach is that only the individual can decide their ethics and that they have a supreme obligation to do so.

Of the various apotheotic systems I can think of (some Satanisms, Mormonism, Thelema, the Feri/Faery tradition of witchcraft, etc.), I keep thinking that this religion we're creating right now most closely resembles Thelema and Feri/Faery. It could even make some sociohistorical sense, tying into the Freemason/Rosicrucian element of the Rose Brothers.

Another 8 on 2d6+1 reveals a monthly Devotion Required of followers of this faith. Though the form of this is decided a few steps down the line, I imagine this is a ritual designed to trigger memory of or progress towards one's own divinity, probably in some way related to moon-phase rituals of old. With a third 8, we get a loose hierarchy with most decisions made on a local level; the coven is the primary unit of the faith, though initiates of higher degrees do form connections and cultivate some power beyond that level. Those churchly positions carry some weight but lack much power over the covens within their remit. Covens are probably rather larger than many Wiccans would expect: say, maybe, a couple hundred people at the highest end.

We roll 2d6+1 for Liturgical Formality and get a 9. Rather than being transformational rituals, the monthly devotions emphasize communal teaching with limited ritual. Now I'm thinking of mixing in some self-help, inspirational/motivational speaker elements. Like, the theologies and many of the ethics of the faith are drawn from things like Thelema and Feri/Faery, but their monthly services resemble Tony Robbins, Landmark Forum, and things like that ~ imprecations to claim your pre-existing divinity and applying a number of techniques to liberate people from their own blocks that prevent them from stepping into that godhood.

You know, thinking about it, if we vague up that formula a bit, it could also describe the Church of Scientology. There are probably bits of that mixed in here.

Missionary Fervor gets a 5 on 2d6-2: active but intolerant of other sophonts. Once again, “active” here means there are efforts to get the word out but they don't necessarily affect the day-to-day lives of most adherents. I am tempted to make it another human-supremacist religion, what with fairly strong ideas of a heavy mix of human faiths feeding into it. But I think, instead, I'll mix in yet another element: Black Identity religions like the Nation of Islam, Rastafarianism, and the various incarnations of the Nuwaubians.

In my Traveller universe, there's a good century of rampant genetic engineering à la Transhuman Space and Eclipse Phase before the Greys manage to answer their lost ship's distress call (à la GURPS Black Ops) and we end up fighting a war against them. The War Against the Greys only ends when a small Spiritualist cult reveals that they have developed John Murray Spears's New Motive Power technology into noosphere-based FTL travel with the aid of the Casey Jones Effect. One legacy of that transhuman era is the widespread presence and use of bioroids (such as the Aslan model developed by the Turkish militry, the Vargr models developed by a Scandinavian company from licensed Aztechnology Xolotl specs, and others) in the early interstellar period. The first conflict of the Galactic Age was a bioroid revolt against their enslavers, seceding to form their own polity.

I'm now seeing the religion we are creating as a Bioroid Identity movement, a religious response to their once and continuing oppression at the hands of the evolved species, and primarily of humans. In that sense, saying that they are “intolerant of other sophonts” is somewhat of a misnomer. They aren't intolerant of humans and evolved species, but it would be as inappropriate as a white Rasta or member of the Nation of Islam.

We roll a 1 on 3d6-5 for the religion's size. Huh, another surprisingly small religious tradition. Whereas the Lost Secrets are small because it's old, this one is small because it's new, putting it in a very similar social position to the Black Identity religions at their origin points. In both cases, they are responses to oppression both fed by and in contrast to an overarching societal optimism. Random.org tells us that there are precisely 67 members of the faith. All of them will be on Ishee, of course.

And finally we roll the dWikipedia for a name: the Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft.

The religious landscape of Ishee:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
1,506,003 sophonts (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
656,874 sophonts (4.1%) Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers (generally known as Clarencians, Science-Monks, or (the) Unit)
67 members (essentially 0%) Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft (generally known as Bio-Witches or Barnwells)
771,974 sophonts (app. 4.8%) not yet accounted for

The basic resolution mechanic in Middens & Morals (Design Domingo #9)

TABLE: Effects of Traits on Spellcasting
Virtue 1-4: can’t cast spells tied to this trait
Virtue 5: can cast up to 2nd-level spells; no bonus spells
Virtue 6: can cast up to 4th-level spells; 1 bonus 1st-level spell
Virtue 7: can cast up to 6th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st- and 2nd-level spells
Virtue 8: can cast up to 8th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells
Virtue 9: can cast up to 9th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-level spells
Failed 0: can’t cast spells tied to this trait
Failed 1: can cast up to 2nd-level spells; no bonus spells
Failed 2: can cast up to 4th-level spells; 1 bonus 1st-level spell
Failed 3: can cast up to 6th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st- and 2nd-level spells
Failed 4: can cast up to 8th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells
Failed 5: can cast up to 9th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-level spells
Hardened 0-1: can’t cast spells tied to this trait
Hardened 2: can cast up to 1st-level spells; no bonus spells
Hardened 3: can cast up to 2nd-level spells; no bonus spells
Hardened 4: can cast up to 3rd-level spells; 1 bonus 1st-level spell
Hardened 5: can cast up to 4th-level spells; 1 bonus 1st-level spell
Hardened 6: can cast up to 5th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st- and 2nd-level spells
Hardened 7: can cast up to 6th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st- and 2nd-level spells
Hardened 8: can cast up to 7th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells
Hardened 9: can cast up to 8th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-level spells
Hardened 10: can cast up to 9th-level spells; 1 each bonus 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-level spells

How To Make Rolls
When you want your character to do something that requires a roll, you’ll negotiate with your GM to identify one of the 26 Virtues and one of the ten Trauma scores that applies to what you’re trying to do. For example, many (but not nearly all, or even most) attempts to hurt someone in combat involve Valorous and Hardened Violence (abbreviated often as a VaHV roll). Use your character’s motivations, reasons, and emotional experiences to determine which Virtue and which Trauma to use ~ WHY your character is taking the action and HOW they feel about it is what’s relevant here. Talent, training, and such things are usually much clearer decisions, and are reflected by things like skill ranks and feats and such. Once you know which Virtue and Trauma are involved, grab a number of d12s equal to your score in the Virtue and roll them.

Choose a number of those rolled dice equal to your Trauma score plus one and then total the results of those dice. Add the skill ranks relevant to the action at hand, and any other modifiers that might apply (spells, magical items, feats, etc.) If the total equals or exceeds the Difficulty Class (DC) of the roll, your character has succeeded! When abbreviating a roll for quick notations and speedy reading, create a four-letter abbreviation consisting of the two letters indicating the Virtue and the two indicating the Trauma; add a plus sign and the relevant skill (if there are any modifiers that will always be added, indicate those with one or more additional plus signs) and follow the whole thing with the roll’s Difficulty Class. Thus, a difficulty 60 Intimidate roll using Cruel and Failed Isolation could be written as a CrFI+Intimidate 60 roll.

Sample Difficulty Classes
0 ~ Mundane ~ Getting out of bed; remembering the details of your equipment
6 ~ Very Easy ~ Striking an immobile target; recognizing an old friend
12 ~ Easy ~ Carrying half your weight; finding a misplaced item
18 ~ Average ~ Lifting your weight; remembering someone you’ve seen once before
24 ~ Moderate ~ Jumping a ten-foot ditch; recognizing someone in disguise
29 ~ Difficult ~ Scaling a cliff without rope; finding a well-hidden object
34 ~ Very Hard ~ Diving safely from a waterfall; remembering someone’s exact words
44 ~ Heroic ~ Out-wrestling a troll; naming all of your ancestors in order
64 ~ Impossible ~ Shattering stone with bare hands; outwitting a god

There are times when simple success is not enough. When a character needs to accomplish something truly spectacular, something which will warrant mention in the songs and legends told about them to future generations, Inspirations are the means by which that can be accomplished. When a player declares they are acting with an Inspiration, they are choosing to voluntarily increase the DC of the task his character is attempting, by an increment of 5 per Inspiration. Inspirations are generally made when a player feels their character’s heavenly virtue, psychological damage, and abilities will allow them to easily exceed the DC for a given task. The most common use of Inspirations is to allow characters to perform special actions in combat, but individual GMs can allow any number of different effects with sufficient Inspirations; after all, the world itself is bending to your character’s fulfillment of both parts of being a mortal in the world. Players who wish to try unconventional or creative actions that are not covered by the basic rules should simply ask the GM how many Inspirations will be required to succeed.

A character can make a maximum number of Inspirations per roll equal to a quarter of their level, rounded up. An 8th-level character, for instance, can make 1 or 2 Inspirations per roll, but not 3. Some mechanical effects grant a character Free Inspirations. These give the benefit of having made an Inspiration without actually increasing the DC of the roll in question, and do not count toward the maximum number of Inspirations that may be made per roll. Free Inspirations may also be used to reduce the DC of the task being attempted by 5 instead of augmenting the roll in the same way as a normal Inspiration.

Inspirations are not without risk, however. If a player declares Inspirations on a roll, and the result of their roll fails to meet the new, increased DC, the roll fails. This is a failure even if the result of the roll meets the original DC but falls short of the new, increased DC.

Awi, raskokabajho of Destiny (Fantasy Friday #9)

(adapted from Superiors 3: Hope and Prophecy)


Awi
The Namer, The Gray Man, Our Shepherd
“The world has its own destiny. Accept it, embrace it, and help things along when possible.”
NG male yaim angel archangel of Destiny

CULT
Holy Symbol: A scroll from which the wings of a laughing dove spring
Temples: Libraries; booksellers; musea; places where events of great destiny occurred; anywhere that calls people to worship, contemplation, or inspiration
Devotees: Archivists, community leaders, debaters, fortune-tellers, researchers, scribes, town criers
Common Classes: Bard, expert, inquisitor, investigator, wizard
Servitor Words: Conception, Glossaries, Wisdom, Epiphanies, Inspiration, Forgiveness, Writers, Gossips, Holy Scriptures, Storytellers, Sages, Divine Mysteries, Divine Truths, Prophets, Secret Languages
Minions: balisse (NG; Bestiary 6), manasupatras of all sorts (LG; Bestiary 5), olethros (N; Bestiary 6), raelis (CG; Bestiary 6)
Obedience: Spend an hour engaged in deep philosophical conversation with at least one other person. Every 20 minutes or so, use some random element such as cards or dice to change the topic, line of argument, or style of reasoning to understand randomness and how it impacts destiny. Gain a +4 sacred bonus on Sense Motive checks to discern the greatest thing a person can achieve and the weaknesses that might seal their fate.

BOONS
1: Remembering the Forgotten (Sp): sow thought 3/day, anonymous interaction 2/day, or akashic communion 1/day
2: Divine Logic (Ex): The devotee can make practically anyone concede practically any argument ~ as long as they believe it themself. In two minutes (20 rounds), with a successful Intelligence roll (DC 10 + the target’s Will save), they will prove to their target by simple logic that a + b = c, therefore they are right and any other possibility must be absurd. Obviously, don’t try proving to a demon prince that good is better than evil. Somehow, it never works.
3: A Friend to All That is Written (Su): A devotee with this boon cannot be kept from recorded knowledge. Whether they want to walk into the private stacks of a scholar-noble’s library or to see an enforcer’s list of secrets, all mundane security measures effectively cease to exist for the devotee. Guards will cheerfully wave them toward the suddenly unlocked door, the door-servant will recognize whatever password they elect to try, and so on.

Awi, the very first soul created, spends most of his days in serene meditation in the Heavenly Library, wherein he gifts his kokabajhon with his knowledge of the universe from its most primal state and a miraculous ability to predict Creation’s future from that knowledge.

Awi is depicted as an elderly man, radiating calm good cheer and spiritual strength, with skin the color of fresh ink, gray hair, and deep blue eyes. In some descriptions, he’s a soft-spoken grandfather in monkish robes, and in others a regal and aging head of state, wearing the dashiki of a philosopher or oracle. Awi is the very definition of a gentleman scholar: his emotions are always in check and if he has nothing nice to say, he says nothing at all. Even when he has something to say, Awi is reserved and prefers to let others reach their own conclusions. To this end, he’ll subtly drop hints, even nudge the person in the right direction, but he’ll never force his opinions on others.

Awi and his angels are the givers of names, the guardians of knowledge. He is not omniscient, but he knows the names of all things, everything that has ever been written down, and ~ as raskokabajho of Destiny ~ all the best and brightest possibilities for the world. Awi teaches that without Destiny (or its hope) and Fate (and the fear of it) there can be no Creation. Without these two things, reality, the “Cosmic All,” even the Almighty would exist in lifeless stasis, frozen in potentiality for all of existence.

Destiny exists in everyone and everything. Each aspect of Creation has its part to play and it is Awi’s duty to ensure that this potential is actualized. Destiny is an all encompassing Word; it is not a thing like Stone, a place like the Spirit World, or an idea like Judgment, but all these and more. More concretely, Awi’s Word concerns itself with guiding Creation and ensuring that Light prevails over the Darkness. Unlike other raskokabajhon who preoccupy themselves with abstract concepts and often overlook the individual actions of mortals, Awi knows these actions are what define Destiny.

Destiny is a fragile and delicate thing that cannot be forced or manipulated. It is a culmination of individual choices, the important word being “choice”. Angels with the best of intentions have turned people from their destinies to their fates by interfering with their free will. Like a tender flower, Destiny needs to blossom on its own. It can be sheltered, eve protected, but it must grow by its own power. Everyone must decide what path to take. The choice is theirs and theirs alone.

However, destiny is more than just letting “what is meant to be” happen. Choices can’t be forced, but they can be educated. Without awareness of all the possibilities, there can be no Destiny. This is why Awi is the Giver of Names, and why his kokabajhon are chroniclers and scholars. It’s not enough to walk the less-traveled path; Awi’s followers must know where both paths lead and why. More important than knowledge and understanding, however, is faith. Without faith, one cannot have the confidence to let events unfold as they should.

Space opera, race, and fringe religious movements: an appearance of an idea that should get written about all on its own (Traveller Tuesday #8)

OK, less than one-tenth of Ishee's population has yet to have a religion. Maybe we'll finish it off with this one!

That 1d20 I should have been rolling all along gives us a 17: rational atheism. This is a religion that has scienced, logiced or in some other way reasoned the divine out of existence. Wouldn't it be fun if the techgnostic Rose Brothers had spawned a retrograde, materialistic child of a faith? Sadly, despite that being hella rad, I'm getting tired of thinking of things as being ultimately tied to the Rose Brothers ~ I want some more diversity, dagnabbit!

2d6+3 determines our latest religion's Spiritual Aim with an 11, perhaps taunting my idea of separating from the Rose Brothers theological line. This is another religion dedicated to expanding the boundaries of knowledge through inquiry and speculation, much like the Lost Secrets. Let's go with what seems to be the way everything is going. Maybe the Rose Brothers schismed in half, with one half retaining Hermachis of the Horizon but losing its forward orientation, and the other half trading Hermachis in for a continued gaze toward the future.

The Devotion Required's roll of 13 on 2d6+4 tells that adherents are called to devotion only several times during their life. This sounds like its about completing projects (like the Azeyrenawti). Here's a thought: logicing away the divine has caused the religion to set the sights of its ambitions rather lower. No longer do its adherents seek to create a new technology, unlike any seen before, that changes everything that society is and does forevermore. Paradigm shifts no longer bring Hermachis of the Horizon into the world, after all, so now these faithful strive to be a bit more like Elon Musk. The idea is to focus intensely on one field, one Big Project, learning as much as possible and innovating incrementally for years or decades, until one's intellectual curiosity is absolutely and fully expended, and then to move on to a completely different field. It is the obsession and depth of their study that is their focus, not on the grandiose effects of their work.

An 11 on 2d6+6 tells us that there is no organization or hierarchy to the religion above the planetary level, and rolling 2d6+4 results in a 12 and services being informal study groups with extensive limits on allowable subject matter. When someone reaches the end of a period of delving into a particular field, they work with municipal, national, and planetary colleges of the faith to call a World's Fair and present their innovations and the results of their research to the church as a whole. Almost inevitably, these Fairs involve presentations and installations from several people. Though they may not be as dramatic as the annual Old Rose Brothers Future-Shock Festival, these conventions (which happen a couple or a few times a year on Ishee, I imagine) can still gather quite the crowd and garner press attention in multiple star systems.

Missionary Fervor gets a 4 on 2d6-2. Once again, there are active conversion efforts: missions, proselytes, etc. ~ but these efforts are largely divorced from everyday interactions. No member of this faith will badger others to join or push the issue when there is no consent to hear it. The speciesism that took root in Azeyrenawt seems to have, to a lesser degree, infected this religion as well, as they limit those missionary efforts to a limited number of sophont species. I would bet, however, that their claims about the differing neurobiology of the species goes the other way than in Azeyrenawt. Some species, they claim, lack the neurological ability to intensely focus and build upon previous knowledge like the religion would require. Thankfully, they do avoid the human supremacy in Azeyrenawt, but (with deeper consideration) is that actually helpful or better?

Confession time: this is not the first time in my life that random planet generation in Traveller has brought me into an exploration of race politics and their intersection with fringe religious movements through the medium of space opera. It seems to be quite the obsession for me.

Finally, how many people follow this religion? 3D6-4 gives us 8 ~ hundreds of millions of followers ~ and random.org gives us the exact number as a quite respectable 827,561,177 (more than dectuple the size of Azeyrenawt). Rolling on random.org for the percentage of Ishee's population that are among that number, we realize that, well, I'm not a fan of the result we got. 1% feels both frustrating, as I'm trying to get to the next step of the process and a little too small for one of two major denominations of what was once the dominant faith of the planet. Let's try again. 4.1% is still small, less than half of the remaining population, but more satisfying. We'll go with that number, which is 656,874 (somewhat more than a third of the Isheean Azeyrenawti population, so we definitely learn something about the underbelly of Isheean culture with this result).

And as for a name . . . how about the Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers? Yeah, let's go with that. I like it.

The religious landscape of Ishee:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
1,506,003 sophonts (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
656,874 sophonts (4.1%) Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers (generally known as Clarencians, Science-Monks, or (the) Unit)
772,041 sophonts (app. 4.8%) not yet accounted for

Traumas, completed (Design Domingo #8)

Isolation Trauma
Isolation is a subtle danger: it corrodes your sanity by denying you input. You rely on other human beings for feedback. Without the opinions of others, you do not know how to judge yourself. When you become resistant to isolation, you overlook social morés and unwritten rules because you’ve forgotten how to conform to the expectations of others. If you’ve suffered from isolation, you become very needy. These are not mutually exclusive: it’s possible to be very clingy and still be unable to pick up hints about when your behavior is unacceptable.

Failed Isolation is often used to make Climb, Swim, or Disable Device rolls when escape or reconnecting with a friend or group is the goal, or Escape Artist, Fly, Ride, Knowledge (geography, local, nobility), Linguistics, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, and Perform rolls in general. Stealth, Knowledge (dungeoneering), Will, Survival, Bluff, and Intimidate rolls sometimes use Hardened Isolation, and both Failed and Hardened Isolation are often used to make Profession rolls.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Isolation (FI) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ You can interact in society and get through your everyday life with no real problems. You’re maybe a little shy with people at first, but you feel a kind of gratitude whenever a new acquaintance doesn’t reject you.
2 ~ You’re a bit nervous around new people, eager to make a good impression. This could be expressed as shyness or through “chatterbox” behaviors.
3 ~ If you sleep alone, you sometimes suffer from insomnia. Perhaps you don’t like silence when you’re by yourself, and always keep a your hands beating out a rhythm. Sometimes, when you’re not paying attention, you talk to yourself or think out loud.
4 ~ Sometimes when you’re isolated (either all by yourself or surrounded by strangers) you have panic attacks—a sense of intangible, impending doom. Your skin flushes, your breath becomes rapid and labored, you sweat. Simply put, you show the signs of being in mortal danger, when there is no danger around.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Isolation (HI) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ There are no really obvious signs of your experiences. Perhaps you’re a little standoffish or curt.
4–5 ~ You can be unthinkingly rude, breaking in during the middle of a conversation before someone’s done speaking, scratching yourself in an indelicate fashion, or telling the truth when it isn’t diplomatic to do so. (For example, you might blurt out “Damn that’s an ugly haircut!” instead of saying “Wow, that’s a new look for you, isn’t it?”)
6–7 ~ You lack patience with people who don’t immediately understand what you’re trying to tell them. Your natural inclination is to repeat the same explanations (which are obvious to you) over and over, or just give up. (This is just your first impulse; it can, of course, be overcome if you pay extra attention. In game terms, this means that your Diplomacy and other social skills aren’t penalized any time you make a roll, but you might have a little bit of trouble in casual situations.)
8–9 ~ Unless you’re concentrating, you lack dialogue skills. You don’t like it when people interrupt, but you frequently interrupt others. You also don’t see the point of a lot of social conventions such as clothing, grooming, etc. You might still shave every day, but it all seems a little silly.
10 ~ At some level, you not only don’t care what people think about you: you can’t understand how anyone could care. You are very aware that people are inherently alone, that we can never really understand anyone or communicate anything but the most rudimentary ideas and feelings. You know everyone is an island, in the final analysis. Especially you.

Self Trauma
This is the trickiest one. It’s your guilt and self-loathing, but it’s more than that. A major trauma is when you find out you’re not the person you thought you were, by breaking a promise you honestly meant to keep, or by standing idly by when your values (or what you thought were your values) are desecrated. It’s your sense of alienation from self that provides, perhaps, the deepest terror. Where other Traumas measure how, well, traumatized you are by things that happen to you, Self measures how traumatized you are by your own reactions to those things. To put it another way, the only thing you can ever really be 100% sure of is “I think, therefore I am.” The Self Trauma measures how uncertain you are about the “I” in that statement.

Both Failed and Hardened Self have a tendency to become the primary Trauma used for all rolls after a character falls victim to one of their Vices (that is, the lower of the two Virtues in a pair), as they struggle to predict their own actions in the intensity of the moment. Many characters use either Failed or Hardened Self for Sleight of Hand rolls, especially the first few times they use it; both are also sometimes used with Stealth to appear inconspicuous or to blend in or with Knowledge (history, nature, planes, religion), Heal, Profession, Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Perform, and Use Magic Device rolls. Failed Self is sometimes used to make Fly and Ride rolls (reflecting the connection between animal and humanoid) and Knowledge (local) and Sense Motive rolls, too. Survival and Intimidate rolls sometimes use Hardened Self.
Failed Self governs the spellcasting of sorcerers.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Self (FS) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ You don’t have any real kinks yet, but every now and again you feel a sense of dissociation, an eerie moment when you feel alienated from your own character and motivations. “Sure, I know I’m Greg Stolze,” you might think, “but who’s Greg Stolze?”
2 ~ The “who am I?” moments come more frequently. You tend to become introspective whenever someone mentions “truth” or “lies” or “promises.”
3 ~ Half the time your words and actions feel oddly forced, fake, or rehearsed to you—as if, rather than yourself, you were an actor playing the role of you.
4 ~ You frequently feel like you’re watching your every action from the outside. You have little or no sense of will or volition: it’s as if you’re a passive observer, along for the ride while your body goes through the motions.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Self (HS) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ There are few external signs of your interior struggle: people may sometimes find you to be a little brittle or “phony”-seeming.
4–5 ~ Even when you’re telling the truth, people often think you’re lying, unless you make a particular effort to act “natural.”
6–7 ~ You’ve lost a sense of connection to those who were previously close to you. You can predict the actions of your friends, relatives, or lovers, but you no longer know exactly what you feel about them.
8–9 ~ Half the time, you only know you’re telling the truth if you take a minute to think about it. Truth and lies aren’t nearly as important as they used to be—back before you quit lying to yourself . . .
10 ~ Life has been pared down to the essentials for you: you no longer have opinions about music, food, or fashion. You’ve lost the ability to enjoy or dislike things, because there’s so little “you” there to interact.

Boanerges's character sheet 3/3 (Fantasy Friday #8)

Medium-size outsider (native)
Aura: good (moderate; only in vigilante identity); Senses: Darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +4

Strength 11 (0)
Dexterity 17 (+3)
Constitution 17 (+3)
Intelligence 12 (+1)
Wisdom 7 (-2)
Charisma 15 (+2)

Hit Points: 28
Saves: Fort +4 (+1 class + 3 Con), Ref +6 (+3 class + 3 Dex), Will +1 (+3 class - 2 Wis)
Base Attack Bonus: +2
Base Speed: 30 feet
Special Qualities: Redemption inquisition, splintered identity (CN social, CG vigilante)*
Talents: Harsh judgment (purity +1, 1/day; vigilante)**, quick change (social)*, social grace (Intimidate; social)***
Special Defenses: Fire in the blood****, fire resistance 5
Spell-Like Abilities: 1/day ~ burning hands (CL 1; DC 13)
Skills: Acrobatics +9 or +13 (3 ranks + 3 Dex + 3 class)*****, Diplomacy +4 (0 ranks + 2 Cha + 2 inquisition), Disguise +2 or +22 (0 ranks + 2 Cha)******, Intimidate +8 or +12 (3 ranks + 2 Cha + 3 class)**, Knowledge (planes) +7 (3 ranks + 1 Int + 3 class), Knowledge (religion) +7 (3 ranks + 1 Int + 3 class), Perception +4 (1 rank - 2 Wis + 3 class + 2 inquisition), Ride +7 (1 rank + 3 Dex + 3 class), Sense Motive 0 (0 ranks - 2 Wis + 2 inquisition), Survival +2 (1 rank - 2 Wis + 3 ranks)
Feats: Celestial Obedience (Awi), Cosmopolitan (Celestial, <language>, arcana, planes), Improved Unarmed Strike (B), Light Armor Proficiency (B), Martial Weapon Proficiency (all) (B), Medium Armor Proficiency (B), Shield Proficiency (B), Simple Weapon Proficiency (B)
Traits: Impressive Presence (DC 13)*******, Redeemer********
Languages: Celestial, Ignan, <insert national language here>, <insert other language>, <insert other language>

Equipment: Belt of tumbling, armbands of the brawler*********, 1 dose seer’s tea**********, 1 dose war paint of the terrible visage***********, masterwork whacking stick************, masterwork leather armor, 2 traveller’s outfits, large darkwood shield, woven backpack, light blanket, bottle calabash, 2 wooden boxes (used instead of leather belt pouches), wooden headrest, wooden game board, 3 doses healing salve*************, 4 doses marsh water**************, iron fishhook, iron pot, iron sewing needle, tent, disguise kit, silver holy symbol of Awi, 1 piece papyrus, 1 piece charcoal, labor elephant, Huge pack saddle, 3 days elephant feed, 8 days of trail rations, 1 gp, 7 sp, 9 cp.

* Splintered Identity (Ex): A vigilante hides his true identity, allowing him to move about social circles and nobility without carrying the stigma of his ruthless actions. In effect, the vigilante has two identities: one is a polite member of society while the other is a skilled and cunning warrior. To keep up this charade, the vigilante usually has two names: his true name, used in polite company, and his vigilante name, used to strike fear in the hearts of those who oppose him. Knowledge checks about one do not reveal information about the other, unless the vigilante’s true identity revealed to the world at large. The vigilante can start each day in either of his identities, referred to simply as social or vigilante. Changing from one identity to another takes 1 minute and must be done out of sight from other creatures to preserve the vigilante’s secret. Changing identities is more than just changing outfits and clothing (although that is certainly a part of it); the process often also involves applying make-up, altering his hair, and adjusting other personal effects. Furthermore, the change is as much a state of mind as of body, so items such as a hat of disguise and similar spells and effects that change the user’s appearance do not reduce the time required to change identities. Most social talents require the vigilante to be in his social identity, but a vigilante who uses vigilante talents in his social identity risks exposing his secret. Despite being a single person, a vigilante’s dual nature allows him to have two alignments, one for each of his identities. When in an identity, he is treated as having that identity’s alignment for all spells, magic items, and abilities that rely on alignment. For the purpose of meeting a qualification for a feat, class, or any ability, he is only eligible if both of his alignments meet the requirements. A vigilante’s two alignments cannot be more than one step from each other on a single alignment axis. For example, a vigilante with a lawful neutral social identity could have a vigilante identity that is lawful good, lawful neutral, lawful evil, neutral, neutral good, or neutral evil. If a vigilante is the target of an effect that would change his alignment, it changes both of his alignments to the new alignment. Any attempts to scry or otherwise locate the vigilante work only if the vigilante is currently in the identity the creature is attempting to locate (or if the creature knows that the two identities are the same individual). Otherwise, the spell or effect has no effect, revealing nothing but darkness, as if the target were invalid or did not exist. A splintersoul’s two identities are even more distant from one another than those of a normal vigilante. He cannot use any of his vigilante talents while in his social identity. However, for the purpose of qualifying for classes, feats, and other abilities, he is eligible if one of his alignments meets the requirements. While in an identity whose alignment is incompatible with an ability, class, or feat, he temporarily loses access to the feat or ability or is treated as an ex-member of the class, as appropriate. For example, a splintersoul with barbarian levels, a lawful-good social identity, and a neutral vigilante identity can’t use his vigilante talents or his rage class feature while in his social identity, but he regains these abilities and can use them as normal as soon as he changes to his vigilante identity. A splintersoul with paladin levels must follow the paladin’s normal code of conduct while in a lawful-good identity, but while in an identity with a different alignment, the following changes apply to his code: Willingly committing an evil act (for example, casting a spell with the evil descriptor) still causes the vigilante to become an ex-paladin, but otherwise, he can do whatever else he feels is necessary to uphold the causes of law and good. He should strive to act with honor and uphold the tenets of his faith, but failing to do so is not a violation of his code. At the GM’s discretion, other classes or archetypes with similarly strict codes of conduct can also follow a less strict version of a code of conduct while in an identity with an incompatible alignment.
Quick Change (Ex): The vigilante learns to shift between his identities with ease. Instead of needing 1 minute to change his identity, he can now do so as a full-round action. If, after a quick change, he encounters any creature familiar with both of his identities, he must attempt a Disguise check to avoid the creature seeing through his hastily donned disguise and realizing that the identities are, in fact, the same person. The vigilante can spend 1 additional round adjusting and perfecting his appearance and persona to negate the need for this check.

** A vigilante with this talent can pronounce judgment upon her foes as a swift action. Starting when the judgment is made, the vigilante receives a bonus or special ability based on the type of judgment made. At 1st level, a vigilante can use this ability once per day. At 4th level and every three levels thereafter, the vigilante can use this ability one additional time per day. Once activated, this ability lasts until the combat ends, at which point all of the bonuses immediately end. The vigilante must participate in the combat to gain these bonuses. If she is frightened, panicked, paralyzed, stunned, unconscious, or otherwise prevented from participating in the combat, the ability does not end, but the bonuses do not resume until she can participate in the combat again. Purity: The vigilante is protected from the vile taint of her foes, gaining a +1 sacred bonus on all saving throws. This bonus increases by +1 for every five inquisitor levels she possesses. At 10th level, the bonus is doubled against curses, diseases, and poisons.

*** Social Grace: The vigilante selects any one Intelligence-, Wisdom-, or Charisma-based skill other than Perception or Use Magic Device. Whenever the vigilante is in his social identity, he receives a +4 circumstance bonus on checks with the selected skill. At 5th level and every 4 levels thereafter, he can select another skill (with the same restrictions) to gain this bonus.

**** Ifrits with this racial trait mimic the healing abilities of the mephits, gaining fast healing 2 for 1 round anytime they take fire damage (whether or not this fire damage gets through their fire resistance). The ifrit can heal up to 2 hit points per level per day with this ability, after which it ceases to function.

***** Belt of Tumbling: Aura: faint transmutation; CL 1st; Weight 1 lb. This thin and flexible cotton cord is meant to be wrapped several times around wearer’s waist. The belt’s wearer gains a +4 competence bonus on Acrobatics checks made to move through a threatened square or through an enemy’s space.

****** Seamless Guise (Ex): A vigilante knows how to behave in a way that appears perfectly proper and normal for his current identity. Should anyone suspect him of being anything other than what he appears to be while either in his social or vigilante identity, he can attempt a Disguise check with a +20 circumstance bonus to appear as his current identity, and not as his other identity.

******* Impressive Presence: Your grandiose posturing often makes it difficult for anyone to concentrate around you. Once per day as a full-round action, you may attempt to distract adjacent foes with a lengthy display of your martial prowess. All adjacent foes must succeed at a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your level + your Charisma modifier) or gain the shaken condition. This condition persists for 1 round.

******** Redeemer (Faith): You’ve always held the strong belief that morality is everyone’s choice, and that those who act in wicked ways have simply never been shown how their actions truly affect others. If they could be shown their errors, then they would accept a more positive course of action—and you have just enough patience to see this through. When acting as a sponsor for an evil creature seeking redemption, your patience and kindness grant the creature a +3 bonus on its save rather than a +1 bonus.

********* Armbands of the Brawler: Aura: faint transmutation; CL 3rd; Weight 1 lb. These scarred and worn armbands have clearly seen rough use, and are constructed out of coarse leather and fastened with thick leather straps. They grant their wearer a +1 competence bonus on grapple checks and checks to break a grapple.

********** Seer’s Tea: Aura: faint divination; CL 3rd; Weight —. This rich tea can be made from any number of herbs. When the tea is brewed without a filter and imbibed, the drinker can read the patterns in the leaves remaining at the bottom of her cup, gaining the benefits of an augury spell. Additionally, the unbrewed tea can be used as an extra material component when casting augury, removing the need for a focus. In this case, the caster instead reveals information as if she had cast divination instead.

*********** Warpaint of the Terrible Visage: Aura: faint necromancy; CL 1st; Weight —. This thimble-sized clay container of thick, moist face paint has enough material to paint streaks and whorls of any color on one creature’s face. Once applied, the wearer can, as a swift action, make the paint rearrange itself into a ghastly mélange of colors, making her appearance momentarily disturbing and hideous. The wearer chooses one creature who can see her painted face within 30 feet to be affected by cause fear (DC 11). Once the paint is used in this fashion, it loses all magic and becomes normal face paint. Once applied, the wearer has 24 hours to use the paint’s magic; otherwise it fades away.

************ Whacking Stick: Damage: 1d4 B&P or 1d6 B; Critical: x2; Range Increment: 10 feet; Weight: 1 lb. The whacking stick looks like a club, but is closer in function to brass knuckles. The head of a whacking stick is made from the hardened root bulb of a sapling, and is either sharpened to a dull point, or carved into flanges or facets like a mace. The tail end of the haft is sharpened as well. The head of the whacking stick is grasped in the hand and used for punching attacks, while the haft is allowed to trail along the forearm for use as a makeshift buckler. The grip on the weapon can also be reversed, still grasping the head but jabbing with the pointed end of the haft. Finally, the haft of the weapon can be used as a grip, allowing the user to swing it like a club. If the user is fighting defensively, the whacking stick adds an additional +1 to the user’s AC to represent the added defense provided by using the haft as a makeshift buckler. A whacking knife cannot be used defensively on the same arm as a sheathed arm knife. If used as a club, the whacking stick inflicts 1d6 points of damage, but it inflicts blunt damage instead of blunt/piercing damage, and the haft shatters on a natural roll of 1.

************* When applied directly to a wound, these herbal balms speed healing and produce a sedative effect. They are not especially useful in the heat of combat, as it can take several hours for the sedative effect to wear off and for the subject to return to normal. A healing salve converts 1d4 points of damage into the same amount of subdual damage. The subdual damage heals at the normal rate of 1 hp per character level per hour of rest. For one hour after the use of a healing salve, the user is drowsy; drowsy characters suffer -1 to all skill and ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws. A healing salve can only be effectively used once per hour ~ penalties and healing do not stack with multiple uses during that time ~ though subsequent application after an hour’s wait do convert more damage.

************** This liquid, distilled from the bark of trees, provides partial protection from malaise, a common but occasionally dangerous ailment caused by mosquito bites. Drinking marsh water allows a victim to take 10 on any saving throws against malaise for one week.

What bedeviling alchemy performs its transmogrifications when the future becomes the past? (Traveller Tuesday #7)

Oh, look, I missed a thing ~ I've adapted the list of God Views from The World Builder's Guidebook to account for more theologies than listed, and to flatten out the curve to remove that system's monotheism-is-better-than-primitive-polytheism-but-not-better-than-agnosticism-and-atheism-is-best bullshit. But it's been a year since I last looked at it, and I forgot to do that >.< Anyway, rather than going back and redoing everything, I'll just start rolling 1d20 to determine the God View of all subsequent religions.

I roll a 12 on the 1d20 roll, so this next religion is a remote monotheism. Somewhere between the reluctant God of the Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers and the watchmaker God of complete deism, the number of times God has involved Themself with the world is, according to this religion, very small. Another 12, on 2d6+1 this time, tells us that the Spiritual Aim of this religion is to preserve the knowledge and wisdom of the past, possibly specifically the stories of the few times God (or mebbe Hermachis of the Horizon) has deigned to interact with the world.

What if this was a descendant of the Rose Brothers? Going from a dedication to developing new tech and shifting paradigms and transforming a futureshocked society into something once more unrecognizable to a disillusionment with the idea that people can actually come up with new ideas that quickly (think the original hullabaloo around the iPhone turning into the humdrum banality of yet another minutely-different iProduct)? And then that disillusionment grasping for a straw of hope and becoming ever-more-desperate to remember those times ~ the Gutenberg Bible, the assembly line, et cetera ~ when the new idea really did change something? A desperation that metastasizes into hope and history?

2d6+5 gives us 14, which in turn gives us a Devotion Required that only occurs once in a worshipper's life, just once sometime before dying. That kind of makes me think of the hajj, and I could justify that within the bounds of the Rose Brothers turned historians idea. It would be a pilgrimmage to the site of some major paradigm shift ~ to see the first printing press or the city where agriculture was invented or Charles Babbage's workshop or whatever. But I think, instead, it would make more sense as the religion calling on its members to, once in their life, erect or enact some grand monument to a technological revolution or to some invention that changed everything. These are the people who fund musea and install statues and host grand virtual historical recreations and write epic poetry. The more religious people in this faith spend much of their lives and money on these testaments.

Organizational Structure is determined by a 2d6+7 roll of 9 (yep, rolled a 2). We continue the tradition of Isheean religions involving great variation amongst its subgroups, as this one has a loose hierarchy that leaves most decisions up to individual worshippers. There are higher clergy, but they exist to enable learning and the creation of monuments, not to lead or dictate. They are librarians and teachers and financiers and the people who introduce you to the people you need to know. Another 9 (this time much more predictable, as it's a 2d6+2 roll) tells us, sensibly, that services consist of communal teaching with only limited ritual. When a worshipper completes their monument, they host an unveiling ceremony with a little ritual and a lot more teaching and spreading of knowledge about the innovation at hand.

OK, now this result takes me aback a bit. These faithful are zealous proselytes. That part makes some sense: driven to ensure that the galaxy remembers the past, they have a habit to (at the least) go off on rants about various moments in history when an invention transformed the way people interacted and behaved. That part isn't surprising, but the fact that the religion is intolerant of other sophont races is (2 on 2d6-2). Let's call them a human religion, cuz that's fun. Turns out that these qweens are rather speciesist, insisting that human are the only species with plastic enough neural structures to experience such dramatic shifts in their thinking. Against the evidence of history, they like to claim that other sophont species had a much more gradual and hidebound path of development and that, since entering the galactic community, humans have been responsible for all technological advancement. What jerks!  But it does let me show that racism/speciesism can be subtle, it can be nonviolent (which doesn't make it any less dangerous), and it can present itself as something that people could admire, like a commitment to learning and teaching.

This intolerance of other species has worked to limit the size of the religion, which rolled a 7 on 3d6-2 for its size. That's tens of millions, and random.org tells us that it's specifically 69,207,559 sophonts. Significantly more than all of Ishee, still. Rolling for a random percentage of the remaining Isheean population, I get 9.4%, which comes out to 1,506,003 Isheeans. Most of those will be in the Guild-State, obviously (at least with the current religious makeup of the planet). As an interesting demographic thought (it's way too early in the process to do this kind of demographic work), the Guild-State has about 38.5% of the Isheean population. 0.094 divided by that percentage comes out to about 25% (roughly) of the Guild-State following this religion, which is a significant number. If the other percentages carry over appropriately, then the Guild-State would also be (all percentages approximate at the moment) 23% atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other, 36% Liberty Fellowship, and 2% Beaumonters. When I do get down to that kind of work, though, I think the Associationists would cluster in the Consular Marches, being more representative of galactic culture than Isheean, resulting in fewer of them in the Guild-State.

So, this significant religion, what's it called? Let's roll that dWikipedia! We're just gonna steal that village's name directly and call it Azeyrenawt.

The religious landcape of Ishee so far:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious/other
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners (known as Fellows, Associationists, or Listeners)
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers (generally just called gerontocrats or old fogies)
429,593 sophonts (app. 2.7%) Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (generally called Beaumonters, Algorithmists, or Systemites)
1,506,003 sophonts (9.4%) Azeyrenawt (generally called Azeyrenawti)
1,428,915 sophonts (app. 8.9%) not yet accounted for

Traumas, continued (Design Domingo #7)

Unnatural Trauma
It hurts your brain to think of things that don’t belong in your concept of the world. Contemplating infinity for too long, seeing proof that sometimes 2 + 2 = 5, and understanding how magic actually works are all unnatural traumas. It’s more subtle and unnerving than Violence. Everyone recognizes that violence exists, even those who are insulated from it. Unnatural traumas don’t just attack your idea of safety. They attack your idea of how the universe works.

If Hardened/Failed Violence are often used to run away from or towards battle, Hardened and Failed Unnatural are both often used in Climb and Swim rolls involving magic and the supernatural. Both can attune a character to the workings of the paranormal and so are often used to make appropriate Perception, Appraise, and Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, planes, religion) rolls. Hardened Unnatural is often used to make Disable Device and Intimidate rolls that involve magic or spells somehow, as well as Craft rolls to produce an enchantable item and Linguistics rolls involving otherworldly languages. Spellcraft, Will, and Use Magic Device rolls all often use Hardened Unnatural in general.
Hardened Unnatural governs the spellcasting of wizards. They also use it to calculate how many skill ranks they receive each level. Only one other class ~ bards ~ enjoys the benefits of a single trait governing both.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Unnatural (FU) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ At this level it’s pretty hard to tell. Perhaps you become a little superstitious—pestering the local fortuneteller daily, watching for “lucky” numbers, avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, etc.
2 ~ You have a few nightmares, and you are suspicious of and/or fascinated by occult and religious books, places, paraphernalia, and people.
3 ~ You frequently feel like you’re being watched, even when there’s no one around. Sometimes it seems like you hear voices in “white noise”—sounds like the wind in the trees, the sloshing of servants washing clothes, or the noises of the marketplace.
4 ~ The nightmares are frequent, and often you don’t know you’re dreaming until you jerk awake. Sometimes you feel like there’s someone—or something— watching you and you can almost see it out of the corner of your eye. When you whip your head around, there’s nothing there.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Unnatural (HU) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ There’s little to distinguish you from the average person, except perhaps a tendency to snort derisively when someone mentions their “intuitions.”
4–5 ~ You tend to listen very closely and intently when someone discusses the paranormal or supernatural, trying to figure out if they know something or if they’re just talking trash.
6–7 ~ You now know and accept that there are vast, incomprehensible forces governing the universe. It strikes you as odd when people act as if they’re in control of their lives: you know better.
8–9 ~ Things that average people consider “meaningless coincidences” strike you as deeply, intensely funny because you see the connections that they do not. You may develop a reputation for laughing inappropriately.
10 ~ You are no longer surprised by violations of ordinary logic. Everything is “normal” to you—talking foliage, spontaneous combustion, and stigmata are as ordinary and reasonable as carts, dogs, and rain.

Helplessness Trauma
A sense of control is crucial for feelings of safety, even when it’s completely unmerited. When you have been challenged by helplessness, you can lose your ability to gauge how “in control” of a situation you are: you may feel powerless when the situation is not completely lost, or you may ignore real impediments from a misplaced sense of capability.

Failed Helplessness is involved in determining the maximum amount of weight your character can carry, as well as sometimes being used to make Climb, Swim, Disable Device, Fly, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Knowledge (engineering), Appraise, Heal, Perception, Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, and Use Magic Device rolls. Rolls to perform feats of strength, too. Hardened Helplessness, on the other hand, is involved in calculating your character’s Armor Class (AC), and is often used to make Fortitude and Will rolls, too, while both Failed and Hardened Helplessness are often used to make Reflex, Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Stealth, Craft, Knowledge (local, nature, nobility), and Survival rolls.

The Effects of Various Levels of Failed Helplessness (FH) Trauma on Personality
1 ~ At this level you’re fairly normal. Perhaps you’re a little finicky or meticulous, trying to eliminate the possibility of something going wrong.
2 ~ You have a tendency to get unreasonably nervous and pessimistic when small things go wrong. You may be irritated if someone is just a few minutes late, or if a tool you’re using suffers a minor break.
3 ~ You have an intense dislike for surprises, even good ones. They remind you of the essentially unpredictable nature of reality, and that scares and annoys you.
4 ~ You find it very difficult to trust anything. Your friends, your own abilities, even your memories could be false, waiting to betray you. You have a tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behaviors such as checking your residence two or three (or more) times every time you leave to make absolutely certain no one’s snuck in. You attempt to be prepared for every eventuality.

The Effects of Various Levels of Hardened Helplessness (HH) Trauma on Personality
1–3 ~ You don’t have any major behavior or attitude shifts yet, just minor things. You tend to be pessimistic and fatalistic, perhaps.
4–6 ~ Your fatalism has increased. When things go wrong in a big, bad way, or when trouble comes from a completely unexpected or unlikely source, you handle it with a remarkable lack of affect. (This is not necessarily incongruent with the behaviors of Failed Helplessness 2+: it’s perfectly possible to be freakishly calm about big things and freakishly upset about little things.)
7–9 ~ You have a boundless faith in the ability of chaos to screw you over. You can easily believe that even the most suspicious of mishaps is simple random chance. (“So my plow blade broke and a sharp piece of metal flew at my face. What makes you think someone tinkered with my plow? Shit happens.”)
10 ~ The distinction between “intentional” and “accidental” is pretty much lost on you. Maybe you believe that everything is completely predestined, or maybe you believe that everything in the world happens due to chance. The one thing you find hard to swallow is the idea that we are the captains of our fates.

Boanerges's character sheet 2/3 (Fantasy Friday #7)

Personality: The Fifty encourage their members to be vain and swaggering, stylish bravos intimidating their opponents by means of their number, their volume, their indomitable confidence, and the panache with which they fight. Boanerges internalized all of that, seeking glory through tricks and acrobatics and flashy flourishes. Little is fully serious to him and everything can invite a joke or a wry chuckle, often tinged with the burning cruelty almost reflexive among the Fifty. That cruel streak shows itself on the scrap of papyrus he keeps on himself at all points, scribbled with the blows he taken and all the times he’s been wronged. That way he never fails to take revenge ~ vengeance is very important to Boanerges. The fire burns those who would attempt to extinguish it. A strange optimism develops from the same urge; there is no circumstance in Boanerges’s belief that can defeat him permanently. With an appropriately fancy and daring revenge, he can come back from any set-back or defeat to find victory in the fulness of time.

But Boanerges is feeling (and acting) increasingly awkward. So much of how he knew to interact with people is falling away as he fights to achieve his Destiny by ensuring that justice grows within the Fifty. He has increasingly less of an idea of how to interact with people, and he is terrified that this will expose him as no longer agreeing with the ways of the Fifty. He’s seen what the horde does to those they consider traitors, and he fears that even those he considered (before) very good friends will commit such atrocities on him. These fears are particularly intense after the beating he took for another of the Fifty recently.

Self-control is, in many ways, alien to Boanerges. If there is a pleasure to be had (or better, taken), then he gives himself over to it with a venereal devotion that might be inspirational if it wasn’t so base. Drugs, sex, combat, gambling, whatever it is, Boanerges loves to do it. However, under influence from the archangel Awi, he is struggling to learn how to turn this passion for the bodily pleasures to more exalted ends, still as strong in intensity but less conducive to his remaining powerless. Oh, yes, Awi has shown him how the leaders of the Fifty have fostered this attitude of indulgence as a way to perpetuate their power and consolidate their control ~ to keep Boanerges and those like him docile. Their names are written in large print on that scrap of papyrus.

Also alien to Boanerges is the way in which he must work towards his goals. While personal glory and shining panache were how he used to measure success, now success come when no one (or only those that need to, anyway) realizes he was ever there. Where violence was once a way of life, peaceful interventions and subtlety are now his bread and butter. Where he once sought the defeat of those he campaigned against, now his goals are to ensure that justice is done and to bring his friends to the realization that there is another way to be. Constraining the thunderous force of Boanerges’s personality into these clandestine activities is a constant struggle with himself, and discernment has a tendency to disappear into discomfort. Thankfully, however, that means planning (something neither he nor any member of the Fifty was ever good at) is replaced by his old friend and true companion, quick wits.



Appearance: Like most ifrit of the Fifty, Boanerges’s extremely dark skin shines with an inhuman polished brass sheen, against which his long, thin fingers stand out in a beautiful matte dark charcoal-grey, a color that extends up to his elbows and is matched by his calves and feet. The pointed shape of ears similarly reflects that of the horns on his brow. The ivory, brass-colored gleam of these horns against the bright red of his hair, worn in the traditional triple-crested amasunzu of the Fifty, draw the eye from his easy, dare-you grin and glinting hazel gaze. One almost never notices the seeming oddity of that gaze, not just in color but in the gentle, unflinching steadiness of it, looking at any individual thing just a beat longer than one would expect.

Built like a whip ~ tall, thin, and powerful ~ Boanerges of the Fifty wears a flapping kaftan over a relatively sparse leather armor, designed as much for breathability and heat moderation as for protection. The kaftan is in the traditional pattern of the Fifty, an akyem pattern of bright red and grey, symbolizing the glory of great deeds performed in the purifying flames of battle. Strapped to his back is a large, eye-shaped shield, its black ostrich feathers swaying above a stylized painted image of a bowl containing blazing flames and a small, lightning-like serpent escaping its confines. Boanerges’s frame drips and clatters with gaudy jewelry fashioned from the claws, horns, hooves, and teeth of a wide variety of beasts. In his hand is a gorgeously-carved whacking stick, held by default in the traditional fashion, its bulb in front of his fist and its pointed shaft alongside his forearm.

The Unseen Heart of the Flame, on the other hand, leaves the shield behind and dons a very different kaftan, much more tailored and fit to his flame so as to reduce its sound and its motion. Its pattern is the emaa da pattern that denotes uniqueness, perfection, exceptional achievement, and creative ingenuity behind several large stars patterned with the nsoromma pattern depicting the hopeful power of the people when they depend not on themselves but upon the divine powers. The green in the nsoromma, however, is instead blue, replacing the growth of crops with the growth of peace and harmony. The short raffia surrounding a mask consisting of an abstractified, circular face separated from the crescent moon a foot above it by a white rectangle painted with a blue x ~ adapted from a more northerly mask representing Destiny ~ tickles the silver dove-winged scroll bouncing on his chest.

The two giveaways that Boanerges and the Unseen Heart of the Flame are the same person are the scarred, rough-worn, coarse leather armbands whose thick leather straps clasp each upper arm and the thin, flexible cotton cord wrapped several times around his waist.