The Hummingbird Thief (Mutants & Masterminds 3e)

Professor Clive Cullen

"We can have no significant understanding of any culture unless we also know the silences that were intentionally created and guaranteed along with it."
--Gerald Sider
 
Colonizers have been getting the religions of those they colonized for centuries.  The tradition dates back to long before the current European-dominated colonialist backwash.  Professor Clive Cullen is just one more of a sadly long line.  He doesn't realize it, of course ~ do they ever? ~ but then again he has a bit of an excuse.  His misinterpretation somehow managed to drum up some actual magickal power.  I blame chaos magick; it's got too much insight into the way the world works with too few of the imprecations to introspection that serve to water the twin ferns of morality and ethics.

Clive began as a rather nebbish professor, with a paunch somewhat larger than the one he sports currently and stock in the company that manufactured the leather-elbowed tweed coats he loved so much.  His specialty was the anthropology of religion; he'd earned his Ph.D. with a thesis exploring Middle Eastern folktales involving the interactions between the androgynous peacock-winged archangel Abbridon who was invoked to reveal truth, Lamal the Law-Giver who was another of the Three Powers of the Modrossus, and the pain demon Shatachna who was known as the Iron Queen.  Specifically, Clive was fascinated by a genre of tale in which the three worked together to achieve some necessary end.  Two angels and a demon, all united in the revelation of reality ~ a simply engrossing challenge to traditional moralities.

"Who could truly set His shield to rest?
His throne? His mighty spear?
Think on that. Remember it well, O princes.
Who could lay waste to Tenochtitlan?
Who dares assail the foundation of heaven?"
--David Bowles, Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

Clive would have walked through the world this way, pipe in hand, all his life, had it not been for a chance encounter at a conference in Amherst, which introduced him to things like the quetzal bird, and Fray Diego Duran's theory that Quetzalcoatl was St. Thomas, and the huehuetlatolli, and Nezahualcoyotl's haunting meditations on the interplay between earthly pleasures and the certainty of death, and all manner of such things.  Intrigued, Professor Cullen began several years of a slow, creeping total shift in his research from one continent to another.  He didn't fully abandon his original research, however, turning in his spare time to the interminable and interlocking initiations of any number of magickal secret societies (he himself certainly lost count).  Somewhere along the way, he even began to unlock the secrets of a couple of spells, two invoking Abbridon, two in Lamal's name, and a fifth calling Shatachna's dread power.

He finally got himself a job at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas studying pre-Columbian Nahua religion.  His explorations continued, as did the intrusions of what he thought he knew into what he was trying to learn.  The ways of the teteo became twisted by interpretations founded in Middle Eastern religions and Christian theology and Freud.  It's always fucking Freud, isn't it?  But somewhere along the way, he had the bright idea of mixing in what he thought he knew to the thaumaturgies he'd begun to comprehend.

"How we devour one another's culture, do so without shame--ideas like water, free flowing and able to take on other forms. Able to flood highways, level entire cities if summoned with enough force."
--J. Andrew Schrecker, Insomniacs, We

Colin never understood the Aubin Codex.  Not really.  He thought he'd come up with a radical new interpretation of how Huitzilopochtli had stolen the Chichimeca, turned them into Mexica, and done somewhat similar with his sister's heart.  It was complete bullshit, of course, but mixing it into some Hermetic practices with a lot of Nahua dressing and some plumas turned out, somehow, to have some sort of power.  He discovered a spell that allowed him to harvest the motion of those whose blood he spills and concentrate it within himself, dramatically increasing his speed.

He quickly crossed paths with the hero known as Catspaw when the two happened to be robbing the same casino museum on the same night.  Dikadora was allowing herself to be used as a cat burglar by New Covenant Regulator, stealing artifacts brought to this continent in the bloody hands of the conquistadores, relics of the Lord of Peace which battered upon the heads and bodies of the Native Americans.  Clive sought a tecpatl, a sacrifical obsidian knife, that was supposed to have belonged to a powerful and ancient Quetzalcoatl Totec Tlamacazqui.  The two fought like a cat and a bird.  Clive got away with the tecpatl, but Catspaw failed to nab the relic she sought, distracted by the fight and the failed chase.  She broke back in to the casino museum that night only to find the relic gone, but that story has nothing to do with the Hummingbird Thief, as she dubbed him.  I'm sure I'll get around to telling it sometime.

"She recalled her absurd attempt to construct an example—an image that, because it was constructed of things it simply did not fit, reversed the idea into an idea silly by itself, ridiculous in application—a ridiculousness that could easily, she saw, have strayed into the pernicious, the odious, or the destructive, depending on how widely one had insisted on applying it."
--Samuel Delany, The Tales of Neveryon

Home Base:  Las Vegas.
Gender:  Cismale
Sexuality:  Straight vanilla
Romantic Identity:  Monogamous aromantic

"We all are influenced by things and copy things, but often where there is a certain level of copying, only the surface value ends up being reproduced and that becomes thinner and thinner. I feel like a lot of appropriation suffers from that."
--Jason Fulford

Recurrent Foes:

• Vincenzo Sangiovanni:  Vincenzo is older than the Mafia, but few people know that outside of the other vampires in the city.  He fled the last gasps of the Renaissance on the mainland to Sicily, and history was made.  Now he owns a casino and has a position in the Mafia far below what he deserves.  He likes it that way: fewer people bothering him about the kind of minutiae the living seem to think are so important.  He ran afoul of the Hummingbird Thief for the first time when he opened an Aztec-themed casino on the Strip.  Clive, oblivious to his own cultural appropriation, was unduly incensed at Vincenzo's.
  
  • Notable Powers:  (PL 12) Metrosexual Vampire from Supernatural Handbook.  Command the Undead, Grasping Graves, Death Sight, Death Vision, Necromancy (with a number of spells as Alternate Effects), Speak with the Dead, Mind Control from Powers Profile.  Death-activated equivalent of Scrying Stone of Sirrion and large installation from Gadgets Guide.  Benefit (wealth 5)
• Tonka Truck:  This Lakota wicasa wakan comes from a post-apocalyptic future where they lead a combine of truckers supplying a wasted west with food, medical supplies, and mail service.  One of the artifacts on display in one of the casinos when the bombs dropped had some sort of reaction with the radioactivity and tore a rip through time.  Tonka Truck found it and came here, now, hoping to prevent his future from coming about.  He claims that defeating the Hummingbird Thief is somehow part of that mission.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 11) A sizeable magical array of spells (Animate Machines, Control Technology, Deactivate Technology, Disassemble, Assemble, Interface, Manipulate Technology, Sensor Masking, and Sensor Network from Powers Profile, for example), tricked-out technomagical dumptruck, Artificer, various junk-magic devices, tech spirit allies.
• Catspaw:  As mentioned, they ran into each other trying to steal different things from the same museum.  Since then, they have engaged off and on in, shall we say, cat and bird chases whenever they would run into each other.  On more than one occasion, werecats of the Qualmi, Pumonca, and especially the Balam tribes have contacted Catspaw to task her with frustrating one of Clive's schemes or recover something he had acquired that he shouldn't have.
  The Hummingbird Thief tends to be a more straightforward opponent for Catspaw than her usual targets, as he isn't trying to exert influence against her.  This sometimes comes as a relief to the werecat, but at other times feels frustrating; she has once or twice tried (and failed) to educate him out of his unconsidered racism. (PL 10)
  
• Ravella the Riverboat Queen:  Younger than Don Sangiovanni, but immortal nonetheless, she began making big bets and keeping cards up her sleeve on the Mississippi some 200 years ago or so.  Her death was gambled away to a demon, and so she's still kicking aorund.  Ravella's come to love the thrill.  She'll bet on anything, with anyone ~ as long as it's big enough, and she's been around to see some big pots.  Catspaw had heard of her and called her in to challenge the Hummingbird Thief to a game of cards with his knowledge of the Nahua at stake.  Ravella still hasn't forgiven him for winning.
  
  • Notable Powers:  (PL 10) Variable (can bet and receive bets for anything; Affects Others, Slow, Precise, Variable Descriptor, Distracting, Limited: Only in Betting Games, Side Effect 1, Check Required: Opposed Expertise: Gambling), Immortality, Immunity (aging)
• Trademark:  Pierce Draper, the dream-controlling advertising agent, sees lots of value in the Hummingbird Thief and his image.  At first, he simply appropriated the Hummingbird Thief as a mascot, seeding dreams throughout the nation of him wearing various brands of shoes and other clothing.  Clive did not take well to such non-academic fame, which led to Trademark trying again, but this time to advertise a line of children's books about the Aztecs.  That fell apart over arguments about money.  Mr. Draper had the most success when trying to use his powers to "convince" Professor Cullen to film commercials for his clients.  The relationship between the two has continued in this fashion, with contentious alliance after contentious alliance.
  • Notable Powers:  (PL 9) Benefit (wealth), Connected, Inspire, Trance.  Features (Fast Sleeper, Light Sleeper, Lucid Dreamer), Sleepless, Dream Mastery, and Psychic Vampirism (Asleep as third degree) from Power Profiles.
• La Malinchista:  UFO abductions don't just happen in the States.  Concepcion Lopez is one such abductee; it was the scariest moment in her life.  Concepcion's proudest moment was when her daughter, Marina, joined the AEM.  Little did she know that this would bring Marina into contact with the species that implanted her within Concepcion's egg.  Falling in love over interstellar radio with one of the aliens, Marina agreed to serve as the invading force's agent on Earth, preparing it for easier conquest as the supervillain La Malinchista.  Area 51 was part of that plan, so she emigrated to the US, where she ran afoul of both Corporal Cadmus and the Hummingbird Thief.  The first was because of her mission, the second because of how poorly he treated the culture of her ancestors.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 8) High Presence, high interaction skills, Attractive 2, Affliction (horniness; entranced, compelled, limited degree), Communication (olfactory), Weaken Awareness.  Cosmic Awareness, Universal Translation (expanded language, animals, machines) from Power Profiles.

Recurrent Allies:

• Emberwight:  Professor Cullen might be over-focused on (his interpretations of) Huitzilopochtli-as-hummingbird, but he hasn't forgotten that he was also a sun god, or had been raised to such exalted status by the cihuacoatl Tlacaelel I.  This has led him to team up from time to time with the fiery ghost Emberwight.  Usually, he allows Emberwight to possess him, allowing them to combine both the Hummingbird Thief's superspeed and Emberwight's control over flames.  They often go by the name of Solar Flare in this form.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 8) Skin-rider from Supernatural Handbook.  Death Stare, Death Touch, Death's Gate, Death Sight, Death Vision, Speak With the Dead, Feature (deathly aura, tiny flame, cooking from the inside, flaming Presence bonus), Fireball (Soulfire), Fiery Breath (Soulfire), Fire Blast (Soulfire), Flame Aura (Soulfire), Immolate (Soulfire), Heatstroke, Melt, Smoke Cloud (Linked to Suffocation with Area), Fire Shield, Heat Absorption, Immunity to Heat, Infravision, Pyrokinesis, Warm from Powers Profile.
  

"The fleeting pomps of the world are like the green willow trees, which, aspiring to permanence, are consumed by a fire, fall before the axe, are upturned by the wind, or are scarred and saddened by age.
The grandeurs of life are like the flowers in color and in fate; the beauty of these remains so long as their chaste buds gather and store the rich pearls of the dawn and saving it, drop it in liquid dew; but scarcely has the Cause of All directed upon them the full rays of the sun, when their beauty and glory fail, and the brilliant gay colors which decked forth their pride wither and fade.
The delicious realms of flowers count their dynasties by short periods; those which in the morning revel proudly in beauty and strength, by evening weep for the sad destruction of their thrones, and for the mishaps which drive them to loss, to poverty, to death and to the grave. All things of earth have an end, and in the midst of the most joyous lives, the breath falters, they fall, they sink into the ground.
All the earth is a grave, and nought escapes it; nothing is so perfect that it does not fall and disappear. The rivers, brooks, fountains and waters flow on, and never return to their joyous beginnings; they hasten on to the vast realms of Tlaloc, and the wider they spread between their marges the more rapidly do they mould their own sepulchral urns. That which was yesterday is not to-day; and let not that which is to-day trust to live to-morrow.
The caverns of earth are filled with pestilential dust which once was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sate upon thrones, deciding causes, ruling assemblies, governing armies, conquering provinces, possessing treasures, tearing down temples, flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise and dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by the fires of Popocatepetl, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on which they are written.
Ha! ha! Were I to introduce you into the obscure bowels of this temple, and were to ask you which of these bones were those of the powerful Achalchiuhtlanextin, first chief of the ancient Toltecs; of Necaxecmitl, devout worshiper of the gods; if I inquire where is the peerless beauty of the glorious empress Xiuhtzal, where the peaceable Topiltzin, last monarch of the hapless land of Tulan; if I ask you where are the sacred ashes of our first father Xolotl; those of the bounteous Nopal; those of the generous Tlotzin; or even the still warm cinders of my glorious and immortal, though unhappy and luckless father Ixtlilxochitl; if I continued thus questioning about all our august ancestors, what would you reply? The same that I reply—I know not, I know not; for first and last are confounded in the common clay. What was their fate shall be ours, and of all who follow us.
Unconquered princes, warlike chieftains, let us seek, let us sigh for the heaven, for there all is eternal, and nothing is corruptible. The darkness of the sepulchre is but the strengthening couch for the glorious sun, and the obscurity of the night but serves to reveal the brilliancy of the stars. No one has power to alter these heavenly lights, for they serve to display the greatness of their Creator, and as our eyes see them now, so saw them our earliest ancestors, and so shall see them our latest posterity."
--Nezahualcoyotl

Physical Appearance:  I can't draw, so I really like providing a few reference pictures and trusting in your imagination to build a good image of the Hummingbird Thief.  He looks like some combination of these five pictures:

"The fact that we restored Teotihuacan or that Father Garibay labours to translate Aztec poems brings no benefit to the Indians, adds not a single tortilla to their daily diet. We adorn ourselves with their jewels, excavate the earth to turn up their ancient artifacts, but we stubbornly ignore their rags, protect the men who steal their lands, fail to punish their exploiters... We have one attitude toward the dead Indians, a very different one toward the living. The dead Indians excite our admiration, stimulate a stream of tourists; the living Indians make us blush with shame, give a hollow ring to our fine words of progress and democracy"
--Fernando Benítez, "Los Indios de México"

The Hummingbird Thief (PL 8)
STR 0  AGI 0  FGT 0  AWE 1
STA 0  DEX 1  INT 4  PRE 0 
Powers
Stolen Tecpatl:  Easily removable Str-based Damage 2 (piercing), accurate 6, concealable, dangerous 4, impressive, indestructible • 9 points
All-Seeing Eyes of Abbridon the Lantern of Heaven (spell):  Remote Sensing 2 (visual, auditory, mental) • 8 points
Illumination of Abbridon the Lantern of Heaven (spell):  Environment 2 (bright light), feature 1 (equal to daylight) • 5 points
Legate Lamal’s Mighty Hands (spell): Move Object 2, Precise, Subtle • 6 points
Light of Legate Lamal (spell):  Ranged Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Will DC 14; controlled), progressive, limited degree, limited to speaking the truth • 4 points
Shatachna's Seal of Silence (spell):  Perception ranged Affliction 3 (resisted and overcome by Will DC 13; controlled), progressive, limited degree, limited to communication, limited to specific information • 6 points
That Which is Owed to the Hummingbird Thief (spell):  Weaken Movement Traits 8 (broad, incurable, check required: Expertise: Magic 5, limited to only after spilling the person’s blood) • 4 points
Paynal's Song (spell effect):  Dynamic Array (8 points) • 24 points total

• Enhanced Speed 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 8 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Winged Flight 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Multiattack Strength-based Damage 4, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise, penetrating 4 • 2 points (1 + 1 point per additional rank + 1/rank of penetrating)
• Enhanced Dodge 14, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise • 2 points (1 + 1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Parry 8, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Quickness 14, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise • 2 points (1 + 1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Advantage (Improved Initiative) 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Movement 2 (wall-crawling, water-walking), limited to while moving, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points.
• Concealment 4 (visual), limited to while moving, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points

Advantages
Beginner’s Luck, Benefit (wealth 2), Equipment 1 (camera, smartphone), Evasion, Fascinate (Expertise: Teaching), Languages 4 (Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Latin, Nahuatl, Quiche Maya, Spanish), Instant Up, Ritualist, Seize Initiative, Uncanny Dodge
Skills
Expertise: Anthropology 8 (+12), Expertise: History 10 (+14), Expertise: Magic 6 (+10), Expertise: Teaching 10 (+14), Investigation 4 (+8), Technology 10 (+14), Vehicles 6 (+7)
Offense
Initiative +0 (up to +64 while Paynal's Song is active)
Tecpatl +12:  Close, Damage 2 (piercing; up to 6 with Multiattack while Paynal's Song is active), Crit 16-20
The Light of Legate Lamal +1:  ranged, Will DC 14, compelled to tell the truth
What is Owed 0:  Fortitude DC 18, lose power points from Movement traits
Unarmed 0:  Close, Damage 0 (up to 4 with Multiattack while Paynal's Song is active)
Defense
Dodge  0 (up to 14 while Paynal's Song is active)
Fortitude  0 
Parry  0 (up to 8 while Paynal's Song is active)
Toughness  0
Will  2
Ground speed rank 0 (2 mph; up to 16, 125,000 mph, while Paynal's Song is active)
Flight speed rank -- (up to 16, 125,000 mph, while Paynal's Song is active)
Complications
Intellectually Arrogant:  Clive has a tendency to trust what he reads in books or the conclusions he draws therefrom over the theories of others or, in fact, the lived experiences of the people he studies.  This has not endeared him to the Jews, Arabs, occultists, pious Christians, Nahua, or Maya that he has objectified ~ I mean, studied.  He doesn't have a reputation, per se, but his attitudes usually become apparent rather quickly, as he lectures and corrects people (wrongly) on the culture they were raised in.
Motivation ~ Knowledge:  Clive isn't in the supervillain business for money or revenge or power.  He just wants to know things because he likes knowing things.  Well, he likes thinking he knows things.  More than one of his supervillainous plots have been attempts to force one of his fallacious interpretations of native American and Mesoamerican culture to be true.

Power Point Totals:  Abilities 12 + Powers 66 + Advantages 14 + Skills 27 + Defenses 1 = 120

The Big Bronze Hog of Vileswe, part 1 of 3

This post is inspired and dedicated to my sweet and beloved Owner, Francesca Gentille, the merbunny who was indeed the spark for the entire D&D setting.  She’s in Firenze right now, getting ready to teach Tantra in Roma and all about Persephone in Sicilia in a week or so.  She posted a picture of her with Il Porcellino and that inspired this whole idea in my head.  Much of the text is adapted or outright copied from https://curiousrambler.com/2014/09/07/the-bronze-pig-of-florence/ and Hans Christian Andersen’s Bronze Hog stort from A Poet’s Bazaar.

In the city of Vileswe, capitol of the Tosganwa region of the northwestern Holbytlan peninsula, there is a bronze fountain nestled in a little cross street called Tesla Lossa (“Red Chariot”) not far from the Hwatla ti Gwantoga at the side of the New Market where thet sell vegetables to the artists and their patrons, and that fountain is in the shape of a wild boar.  Clear, fresh water bubbles out of the mouth of the animal, which has become dark green from age; the snout alone shines as if it were polished bright; and it is made so by the many hundred children and townsfolk who take hold of it with their hands, and put their mouths to the animal’s to drink.  It is a complete picture to see that well-formed animal embraced by a pretty, half-naked halfling, who puts his sweet little mouth to its snout.*  Volsolno, as the halflings call him, meaning “the big pig”, is said to bring good luck when visitors rub his snout and put a coin in his mouth.  If the water washes the coin from the pig’s mouth and it falls into the grate below, the giver-and-rubber will have good luck and will be sure to return to Vileswe.  If the water fails to wash the coin from his mouth, people just try again; the coins are used to support an orphanage, after all.

Volsol’ino was sculpted 330 years ago, and copies have been installed in places in the Ravenlost Penal Colony across the Plateau of Leng, the troll-ruled realm of Sjǫtrungnis, Ganatje full of ghostly expat villages living aside living indigenous villages, the unclaimed forest of Huginmathathir, and Orvad where humans trade away their freedom in order to have it. There are 2 in Natsiyaasim where everyone is descended from angels, 2 in Camugaard the frozen land of survivalist philosophers, 4 in Brobdingnag the last refuge of the giant peoples, one in each colony along the Savage Coast, and innumerable throughout the Holbytlan peninsula.

There once was a Violeswino halfling couple who could not have children. The husband blamed his wife and made her life miserable. One day the city was attacked by a band of swine-elfs (a.k.a., orcs) who were slaughtered by the Violeswino guard; sent to scavenge what was useful and dispose of the bodies, the wife of this couple saw heard a babe’s cry.  Following the sound, she found an orcish baby squawling under the fallen body of its mother.  She lamented to herself that this babe surely would die while she couldn’t herself bear children.  Praying aloud to Hwe, the goddess who rules youth and childhood, she took the child right home with her, a slaughter-field adoption.  The couple was so excited they were going to be parents, but they had no idea that the infant was no typical orc, but rather one that had been fey-touched.  Nonetheless and unknowing, the couple did in fact raise him as their own beloved pet/son, and did a damn good job of it, too, by all accounts.

As the young fey-touched orc matured, he spoke with eloquence and was quite clever.  Then the time came when Holbytlan culture said he should begin to think about marriage.  Most of the other boys steered clear of him because they were afraid.  However, one young and very poor halfling boy recognised that he was intelligent and not like his barbaric cousins that roamed Aoqina so violently ~ in short, he saw Volsol’ino as a person and not a racist stereotype ~ so he took a chance and went the whole hog – he married orc who had been raised as a halfling.**

On their wedding night***, the halfling groom was pleasantly surprised when his orcish husband shed his boar-like skin and stood in the form of a handsome young halfling man.  His fey heritage had finally manifested, giving him the ability to change his shape, unconsciously chosen in response to the love of a good man. He had not known this would happen, however, so he did not know how to control it.  In the daytime, he changed back into an orc – and this happened day after day.

The couple, distressed, made a secret visit on a night with no moon to a certain gnomish witch who made their home in what is now the Old Market.  The witch told them that the orc’s halfling husband must promise never to tell anyone, for if he did, Volsol’ino would be forever trapped in the skin, not of an orc, but of a pig ~ and the halfling would be turned into a frog for not being able to control his tongue.  It was just the way of fairies and their magics.

Well, he tried to keep the secret but the story was just too incredible and he told his mother who in turn told her friends and by nightfall everyone knew the orc’s secret. So the halfling turned into a frog and his husband was reduced to a boar.  Well, “reduced” is how the Holbytlans tell it; the orcs got the way they are by seeking to emulate the Sow Mothers they worship, so it is possible they tell the story differently.  None of the Violeswini have ever asked.  The halfling/frog lived in the pool where the boar went to drink every day and chat with him.  It is said that he came to atone for the tongue he spread wide over his city, and the result was the grippli race, but that is an entirely other story.  A fountain in the form of a boar now stands in the same pool as a memorial to this doomed couple.  And as a lesson that one must learn to control one’s tongue.

Many years later, I will say, on a late winter evening, the mountains covered with snow, in the Dotle’s yonder palace garden, a thousand lilacs bloomed as they did every winter, a little ragged, androgynous halfling child had sat the whole day long, under the pine-tree’s roof.  They were a child that might the image of Holbytla ~ so pretty, so laughing, and yet so suffering.  They were hungry and thirsty; no one had given them even the smallest coin; and when it became dark, and the garden was to be closed, the porter chased them away.  They stood long on the bridge over the Olno river, dreaming and looking at the stars as they glistened in the water, between the child and the noble marble bridge, Ti Tlinita.

They bent their steps toward the fountain of the bronze hog, knelt half down, threw their arms around their neck, placed their little mouth to its shining snout, and drank a deep draught of the fresh water.  Close by lay lettuce salvaged from the remains of an orgy****, and a few chestnuts: these were the child’s supper.  There was not a person in the street; they were quite alone.  They sat down on the swine’s back, leaned forward so that their little curled head rested on that of the animal, and, before they themself knew it, was asleep.

It was midnight, the bronze figure moved; the child heard it say quite distinctly, “Hold fast, little androgyne, for now I run!” and away it ran with them.  It was a laughable ride.

The first place they came to was Hwatla ti Gwandoga, and the bronze horse which bore the statue of the Dotle neighed aloud; the variegated arms on the old Council Hall shone like transparent paintings; and the statue of the Heroic Shepherd swung her sling.  It was a strange life that moved!  The bronze groups with Holswus, and the “Seizure of the Savi,” were but too living: a death shriek from them passed over that magnificent but solitary place.

Volsol’ino stopped by the Halatlo ti Uvvitli, in the arcade where the nobility assemble during the pleasures of the Satolslwa.

“Hold fast!” said the animal, “hold fast!  For we are now going up the stairs.”  The little child said not a word; they half trembled, they were half happy.

The two entered a long gallery; the child knew it well, for they had been there before.  The walls were covered with paintings; here stood statues and busts: everything was in the brightest light, just as if it were day; but it was the most splendid when the door to one of the side rooms opened.  The little androgyne remembered the splendor here, yet this night everything was in its most beauteous lustre.

Here stood a beautiful naked minotaur female, as beautiful as nature and marble’s greatest master could make her.  She moved her fine limbs, those strange beings from the Hemeya Sea with the front halves of rabbits and the back halves of fish played around her feet, immortality shone from her eyes.  By the world she is called the “Mirtiin ti Netitli”.  On each side of her were numerous marble groups, in which the spirit of life had pierced the stone.  These were naked, half-formed men: the one sharpening the sword, is called the Grinder; the wrestling Gldiators form the second group; the sword is whetted, the combatants wrestle for the Goddess of Scientific Beauty.

The child was almost blinded with all this lustre: the walls beamed with colors, and all was life and motion there.  The double image of Mirtiin was here seen ~ that earthly Mirtiin, so swelling and observant, whom Titwas had pressed to his heart.  It was strange to see.  There two beautiful genderqueers; their handsome, unveiled limbs were stretched on soft cushions, their bosoms rose, and their heads moved, so that the rich locks fell down on their round shoulders, whilst their dark eyes spoke the glowing thoughts within; but ot one of all the pictures ventured to step entirely out of the frame.  The Goddess of Scientific Beauty herself the Gladiators and Grinder, remained in their places, for the glory which beamed from Natsiyaasim’s dawn-blooded founder and the angels which followed him, had bound them.  The holy images were no longer images ~ they were the sainted beings themselves.

From saloon to saloon what splendor!  What beauty!  And the little androgyne saw it all.  The bronze hog went step by step through all this magnificence and glory.  But one sight superseded the rest ~ one image alone fixed itself in their thoughts: it was caused by the glad, happy children who were there on the walls: the little child had once nodded to them by daylight.

+ = Astinwu, just to give you an idea of what he looks like, at least

Many, certainly, have wandered carelessly past this picture, and yet it incloses a treasure of poesy: it is Astinwu, boyfriend of one of the emperors of old, who descends into the netherworld by means of a watery grave; but it is not the tortured nor the forgotten nor the dreary shades we see around him; no, they tell of hope and immortality by means of the Beautiful Boy’s mysteries.  Nahwolo Bwostlino, the Violeswino, painted this picture.  The expression of the children’s certainty that they are going to be transformed into celestial beings, is excellent; two little ones embrace each other; one child stretches its hand to another below, and points to himself as if he said, “I am going to walk amongst the angels!”  All the gods stand nearby, sad, the one melancholy part of the picture, as they mourn these delicious morsels who have stolen themselves away from the plate.*****

The child looked longer at this picture than at any other; the bronze hog stood still before it; a gentle sigh was heard; did it come from the painting, or from the animal’s breast?  The child extended their hands toward the smiling children; then the animal started off with them, away ~ through the open front hall.

“Thanks and blessings on thee, thou sweet animal!” said the little androgyne, and patted the bronze hog, who with an amiable grunt sprang down the stairs with them.  “Thanks, and blessings on thyself!” said the animal.  “I have helped thee, and thou hast helped me, for it is only with an innocent child on my back that I have strength to run.  Nay, I dare now enter under the light of the lamp, before the image of Natsiyaasm’s founder.  I can bear thee away everywhere, only not into the temple; but when thou art with me I can look in through the open door from the outside.  Do not get off my back; if thou dost, I shall fall down dead, as thou seest me in the day at Tesla Lossa.”

“I will stay with thee, my blessed animal,” said the little child; and away they went with a whizzing flight through the streets of Vileswe, and out to the open square before the temple of Nasta Gwotle.

----

*  No joke, this sentence is lifted with but a single excepted word from Hans Christian Andersen’s story about the pig fountain in Firenze.  I exchanged “halfling” for “boy” in an attempt to tone down how creepy it read to modern people . . . .

**  Yes, I am deliberately making the situation muddy.  It is quite likely that the only one to see Volsol’ino as a person could only do so because he had been raised outside of orcish culture . . . which would be racist, y/n?  I am uninterested in fantasy that addresses issues like racism only to give simplistic answers and shallow thought ~ I will not write such.  Racism is complicated, and sticky, and often shows up to plague us just when we think we have solved it.  Our fantasies can help us do better, but only if we depict it accurately and openly.

***  That said, same-sex marriages (or rather things similar enough that modern readers cock an eyebrow) existed within the Christian church(es) from the 8th, maybe the 2nd, all the way until the 16th.  Well, for men anyway.  Read John Boswell’s Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe for the same introduction to such that I got.  Accordingly, none of the gossip accompanying the marriage involved in the gender of the grooms.  Just their race.

As the sticker on my computer says, being queer doesn’t give you a free pass to be racist.

****  Of course my Roman-inspired halfling culture has orgies, but more importantly: lettuce was considered an aphrodisiac throughout the Ancient Near East, from Khemet (Egypt) to Kiengir (Sumer; southern Iraq).  I suspect that it is because its white sap can seem similar to semen.  This is simply too good an association to not add to Holbytlan culture!

*****  Holbytlan religion says that mortal beings were created as delectable treats for the gods to eat, and that life is the process of seasoning and cooking (or pickling or what have you) one’s soul to maximize your deliciousness.  Astinwu’s mystery cult is sometimes seen as blasphemous and dangerous because the transformation it promises results in the gods not getting fed properly.

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

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

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

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

Aztec/Nahua Representation in RPGs (a request followed by a rant)

What I wouldn't give for just one single RPG that portrayed the Nahua (a.k.a., Aztecs) without resorting to "human sacrifice is bad, mmkay?  So EVIL!"  Does anyone know of an RPG that depicts the Nahua or a Nahua expy that doesn't invoke that tired old racist trope?  Preferably one that displays Nahua religion, with nextlaoaliztli present, without moralizing about it?

<rant>

Seriously, every major RPG of my day that has featured any Mesoamerican content whatsoever (which is, itself, a distressingly small number ~ I can think of Deadlands, Shadowrun, D&D2e/Maztica, and D&D3.x third-party products, and I feel like I'm forgetting an obvious one or two) has at least included elements of that.  Deadlands at least had the "Oh, but these few teteo are good!" inclusion so that qweens could play "acceptable" Nahua characters, but their storyline in-setting was almost inevitably all about fighting the evil Aztecs who wanted, like, their land back or whatever.  And whatever else might be true about Precious/Feathered Serpent, I can never see him portrayed as the sole good teotl/one of the only good teteo without thinking about effing Fray Diego Duran and his theory that Precious/Feathered Serpent was actually Saint Thomas!  It might be reaching, but the colonialist BS gets baked in pretty deep.

Shadowrun had the ovaries to face up to their racist depiction of Aztechnology/Aztlan ("Blood magic is bringing back the Horrors and that's what those brown people south of the border are all trying to do!"  Fuck you, Mr. Darke) but 5th edition feels the need to go on and on about how blood magic is inherently evil and addictive unless you do it out of total, all-consuming, purest-of-the-pure love and nobility.  Nextlaoaliztli is neither the godsdamned Force nor is it effing Sunday School!

</rant>

This is a frustration that strikes me every 18 months or so, when I touch on my favorite RPGs, like Deadlands and Shadowrun, that do this bullshit.  Thanks for reading my venting.