As the Frozen Moose of the ice-swept Lost Mountains will tell anyone who gets close enough to listen (and has learned to speak Moose), sometimes Mephoria can seem like a place where things very rarely happen. Days drag by with little or no event, and trying to count the icicles that have formed on your antlers overnight is a game that quickly wears thin. What the Moose are in the wrong position, situation and species to see, is that great tides are sweeping across Mephoria. Politics and Religion are vast mountains of declaratives and presumption, and slow and unchanging as they may often seem, even a mountain range can move. Something monumental has happened this week in Mephoria, and it’s all to do with hats.
Up at the very top of the Crescent Continent, the lapping waves often bring boiling lava onto the shores. It is a volcanic region, separated from the mainland by water, with only a thin bridge of black rock adjoining the Sparko Islands to the land. It is a harsh and unforgiving environment (that still remembers all those who peed in the sea) and so it should come of no surprise that people live there. If there’s one thing humanity seems to love on occasion, it’s giving itself a hard time.
So here, where hot rocks occasionally fall from the sky, lives a group of humans as advanced and sophisticated as the inhabitants of the Pherron Realms, if not slightly singed in places. Theirs is a culture based on strength and honour – they wear no armour into battle, they continue their day to day lives even in the most extreme temperatures, and no sea full of boiling lava will ever cause one of their fisherman to keep his boat and his person on dry land.
These people are the Agura, and they are a strong tribe. Mostly through natural selection, although they prefer to call it The Way. Many of their proverbs begin ‘The Way permitting’ and it is as much a god to them as, well, the gods. (Who might object to this, but a half-donkey half-scorpion hybrid in the Hallango Plains is currently causing them a lot of amusement. The next time one of them goes to refill the crisp bowls, the rest of the world might get a look in.)
Because of this honour code, the Agura do not wear hats. Protective hats, to be more specific, which in a region where you are more likely to find a falling rock than a falling leaf can be a bit of a hazard. Many of their best, and worst, have survived the harshest of environments, the toughest physical and mental challenges, only to half a kilogramme of quartz cave their skull in as they enjoy a victory pint down the local tavern.
Incidentally, even their alcohol comes with its own threat. A live Lemon Crab is placed in each glass to sweeten the flavour. At some point along the journey of being caught, submerged in a very bubbly liquid and constantly transferred from being vertical to horizontal, the crab usually becomes rather irritated. As a result, Agura beer is not to everyone’s taste. Just because someone asks for a cold beer does not necessarily mean they wanted it to be nippy.
So it is than many Agurans have been killed by a little bit of rock when a small tin hat would have saved them, although for the next couple of days they may have wished it hadn’t. It is not illegal to wear a protective hat in any part of the Aguran lands (and is in fact actively encouraged in the swimming pools) but to do so would be to break an unwritten law, flout a matter of morality rather than law. It is something that is not done, in the same way young boys are told off for crying whereas a young girl would be left to it. No matter how dangerous it gets, even if going outside without a hat on is pure suicide, an Aguran, a true, believing Aguran will never put on a hat.
Which is a shame, as they’re relatively inexpensive and worth a lot more than dying with a head full of rock. There are so many unpleasant things that happen to people who do not wear hats, and for the little extra effort of putting one on, a lot of things could be different. But the Agurans have been bound by their honour code for a long time now, and most people had given up hope of that ever changing.
But perhaps, just perhaps, it is…
The Overlord, Majest Orro, is feeling rather threatened in his position as ruler of Agura, and wants to make sure his military is at full strength. Considering that his soldiers spend the bulk of their time standing out in the open in formation, it is no surprise that approximately ten percent of his forces are killed each year by the falling rocks that the offshore volcanoes spit into the air.
Because he fears for his safety, and thus wishes his forces to be at full strength, he has decreed that sometimes, just sometimes, perhaps it is in fact acceptable for a man to wear a hat when he goes into potentially dangerous terrain. This is a small act of concession from the ruler, but could have massive complications, as it throws the Aguran Honour Code into disarray. Miners, for example, may wonder why they are not allowed the protection awarded by a hat, but a soldier is, even though in a mine the danger of rocks overhead is ever-present. (Apart from those open air mines, but most are of the view that if it couldn’t kill a canary, it’s not a mine.)
This move may mean that Majest Orro has an extra eight hundred men to guard his palace should an uprising occur, but it also makes that uprising more likely. Similarly to going to a AA meeting with a box of liqueur chocolates, those extra men might be that final straw. Those who see him bracing for an attack may believe there to be one, and thus go about pledging their allegiance. The act of one noble openly saying he and his men will fight for Majest Orro should a coup be launched (much to the chagrin of many chickens) may not seem like a bad move, it will in fact then point the finger at all the other noble families. Very soon, it will be clear whose allegiance lies where, and if Majest Orro does not hold the majority then there may be trouble. Seeing just how much of an advantage they would have may be the last thing the dissenters need to cause them to take up arms.
It is this simple act of agreeing that sometimes hats can be worn without breaking the rules that could lose Majest Orro a lot of followers. Those who do not see him as a living interpretation of the Honour Code may begin to think that he is bending under pressure, and changing the rules because of outside demands, not because it is in the best interest of the Code.
And of course, saying that soldiers may now wear hats is all well and good, but without them having worn them for so long, it is likely to take everyone a long time to learn how to put them on.
Wednesday 24 November 2010
Thursday 18 November 2010
Getting Closer To Nature, Then Calling A Doctor.
The people of The Crescent Continent have always had a lot of things to deal with as of late. Not only is the Tyrant Jaspiel making life for those who live on the Waning Shores rather difficult (‘An execution a day keeps overpopulation away’), but there are also rumours of a Crimson Elf invasion from their home on the Volco Isles. Add on to this the fact that goats are mysteriously dying out, and most of the wheat planted before July has run away, and one could be forgiven for thinking that the people of the Crescent Continent have had enough of hardship for a generation or two.
Apparently not, it seems. There is one thing that even a tyrant cannot restrict, that even Crimson Elf domination could not confiscate from the populace, and that is the vast array of diseases and ailments to choose from. And it seems that the people of the CC really love their choice when it comes to how to be ill. As if the vast array of illness available to mankind were not enough, the people of the Crescent Continent have started to borrow ailments from the animal kingdom as well.
This is why apothecaries across the curved land are now struggling to find cures for a variety of animal-related diseases, as the people of this particular part of Mephoria fall foul to Giraffe Limping, Antelope Headaches, Panda Rickets and Spider Sneezing.
Some claim that these recent animal inflictions are in fact a punishment sent down by the gods. Many people blame Elisa the Pig-Headed for this. She spent much of her time preaching that the gods had created women and men and then populated the remaining space with animals which provided them not only with something tasty to eat when they all got bored of fruit, but also some a lot of entertainment in the form of zoos, pets, races and hunting. (Cresentuan Scholars are unclear as to whether animals in zoos count as pets. They like to think that they are pets for the entire public, but they do not like the implication that the next time a lion gets sick, they may be partially responsible for footing the bill for the vet.)
The gods have yet to speak out on whether or not Elisa was speaking the truth, but because there are so many people who are interpreting their writings and, like Elisa, generally speaking for them, the chances are they won’t even bother. So the rumours will go unabated that in order to show that they created animals for something more than just the pleasure of humans, the gods are now inflicting said humans with the animal diseases.
They hope, or at least it is claimed they hope, that if a man laughs at a swan, and then two days later goes down with a bad case of Swan Itch, he’ll realise that perhaps he and the swan are equals. It’s hard to feel superior to a bird when you are overcome with an overwhelming urge to run a very deep bath and then spend the next few days with your bottom being the only thing sticking out of the water.
Certain theologians have started to wonder, if this is the case, why it has not worked the other way around. It is hard to prove that humans and animals are equal by giving humans animal diseases and afflictions, if the same thing is not happening in reverse. Where, they want to know, are the lactose intolerant cats? Where are the giraffes with vertigo? Where are the ostriches with Athlete’s Foot? Where are the Invisible Geruffian Hunting Camels? The latter being a general question, and not having much to do with animal ailments, and more simply being something that people really want answered.
The percentage of the population that tend not to believe that the gods have had a great hand in things tend to disagree. (There are no people in Mephoria who do not believe in the gods. Considering how often they make their presence known it would equate to not believing in windows or, more fatally, bear traps.) These people have turned to alchemists for their explanation, and got an equally unsatisfactory answer to those who listened to Miss P. Headed.
The Alchemists have come up with the novel idea that perhaps the viruses are evolving, that they are reshaping themselves to greater adapt to the environment. This raises certain chilling situations, images of viruses actively on the hunt. The day that haemorrhoids can disguise itself as a comfy set of garden furniture is the last day anyone sits comfortably. The day flu can package itself as a sachet of medicinal hot lemon drink is the day the human race will fall. And a headache that learns to take its strength from menthol, well, it just does not bear thinking about.
The people of the Crescent Continent are on the whole not a very happy bunch. On one side, they can believe that the divine beings who lounge around on the clouds and occasionally drop new chocolates down on Mephoria (accidentally, of course, apart from the Giggle Mint, which was just a prank) are punishing humanity for their lack of respect towards the animal kingdom. On the other, the viruses are attacking with a vengeance, covering themselves in tissues, clinging to paracetemol, swimming in cough syrup. Science and religion have both thrown up equally unlikely answers.
Regardless of whether or not the cause can be fully ascertained, this winter in Mephoria looks like it is shaping up to be a suspicious one. Not only are those who believe that the gods are responsible getting ready to clash violently with those who believe the Alchemist’s version of events, but every time a sparrow dies, the nearby villagers will be rushing to put ointment over their noses. Every time a Yak coughs, the rural witches will perform their famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Spirits Begone Suppository Dance. Every time a bear sneezes, some salmon will undoubtedly shout ‘bless you’, before realising the large tactical mistake they have just made.
Apparently not, it seems. There is one thing that even a tyrant cannot restrict, that even Crimson Elf domination could not confiscate from the populace, and that is the vast array of diseases and ailments to choose from. And it seems that the people of the CC really love their choice when it comes to how to be ill. As if the vast array of illness available to mankind were not enough, the people of the Crescent Continent have started to borrow ailments from the animal kingdom as well.
This is why apothecaries across the curved land are now struggling to find cures for a variety of animal-related diseases, as the people of this particular part of Mephoria fall foul to Giraffe Limping, Antelope Headaches, Panda Rickets and Spider Sneezing.
Some claim that these recent animal inflictions are in fact a punishment sent down by the gods. Many people blame Elisa the Pig-Headed for this. She spent much of her time preaching that the gods had created women and men and then populated the remaining space with animals which provided them not only with something tasty to eat when they all got bored of fruit, but also some a lot of entertainment in the form of zoos, pets, races and hunting. (Cresentuan Scholars are unclear as to whether animals in zoos count as pets. They like to think that they are pets for the entire public, but they do not like the implication that the next time a lion gets sick, they may be partially responsible for footing the bill for the vet.)
The gods have yet to speak out on whether or not Elisa was speaking the truth, but because there are so many people who are interpreting their writings and, like Elisa, generally speaking for them, the chances are they won’t even bother. So the rumours will go unabated that in order to show that they created animals for something more than just the pleasure of humans, the gods are now inflicting said humans with the animal diseases.
They hope, or at least it is claimed they hope, that if a man laughs at a swan, and then two days later goes down with a bad case of Swan Itch, he’ll realise that perhaps he and the swan are equals. It’s hard to feel superior to a bird when you are overcome with an overwhelming urge to run a very deep bath and then spend the next few days with your bottom being the only thing sticking out of the water.
Certain theologians have started to wonder, if this is the case, why it has not worked the other way around. It is hard to prove that humans and animals are equal by giving humans animal diseases and afflictions, if the same thing is not happening in reverse. Where, they want to know, are the lactose intolerant cats? Where are the giraffes with vertigo? Where are the ostriches with Athlete’s Foot? Where are the Invisible Geruffian Hunting Camels? The latter being a general question, and not having much to do with animal ailments, and more simply being something that people really want answered.
The percentage of the population that tend not to believe that the gods have had a great hand in things tend to disagree. (There are no people in Mephoria who do not believe in the gods. Considering how often they make their presence known it would equate to not believing in windows or, more fatally, bear traps.) These people have turned to alchemists for their explanation, and got an equally unsatisfactory answer to those who listened to Miss P. Headed.
The Alchemists have come up with the novel idea that perhaps the viruses are evolving, that they are reshaping themselves to greater adapt to the environment. This raises certain chilling situations, images of viruses actively on the hunt. The day that haemorrhoids can disguise itself as a comfy set of garden furniture is the last day anyone sits comfortably. The day flu can package itself as a sachet of medicinal hot lemon drink is the day the human race will fall. And a headache that learns to take its strength from menthol, well, it just does not bear thinking about.
The people of the Crescent Continent are on the whole not a very happy bunch. On one side, they can believe that the divine beings who lounge around on the clouds and occasionally drop new chocolates down on Mephoria (accidentally, of course, apart from the Giggle Mint, which was just a prank) are punishing humanity for their lack of respect towards the animal kingdom. On the other, the viruses are attacking with a vengeance, covering themselves in tissues, clinging to paracetemol, swimming in cough syrup. Science and religion have both thrown up equally unlikely answers.
Regardless of whether or not the cause can be fully ascertained, this winter in Mephoria looks like it is shaping up to be a suspicious one. Not only are those who believe that the gods are responsible getting ready to clash violently with those who believe the Alchemist’s version of events, but every time a sparrow dies, the nearby villagers will be rushing to put ointment over their noses. Every time a Yak coughs, the rural witches will perform their famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Spirits Begone Suppository Dance. Every time a bear sneezes, some salmon will undoubtedly shout ‘bless you’, before realising the large tactical mistake they have just made.
Saturday 13 November 2010
2. The King's Guard: Underused Facilities?
Well it seems the bloodthirsty generals got their way in the end. The rebels, those blacksmiths and tanners and fletchers and organisers of fancy balloons made of animal intestines, tried a peaceful protest, and in some ways succeeded. Sadly the onlookers were distracted, as always, by the extremists, who were obviously of the world view of ‘Well, we pay for all these guards to police us, don’t we? It’s our right to get smacked on the head with a truncheon when we’re being out of order.’ There were plenty of signs reading ‘Down with this sort of thing’ and ‘Stop punishing us for learning.’ There were no warning signs, that suggested things might ‘Roll like a drunken cow’ – that is, to go udders up.
The cynical believe there is no such thing as a peaceful protest; after all, a protest is born out of anger, and only intense anger at that. No one who would describe themselves as ‘a tad miffed’ would ever be moved to go down to the shed with the paints and cardboard and make themselves a sign. Let’s say that a throng of these angry people turn up to protest outside the palace, as happened recently. It is only logical that some of them will show their anger not by chanting ‘We Will Not Be Moved’, but by moving very violently towards the nearest person who looks like they might disagree.
But even aside from present events, or the idea that protests are naturally destined to boil over, the history of Mephoria can stand testament to the fact that sometimes people just like an excuse for a good old fight. The bar room brawl is a good example of this. Every local tavern has been the site of many a battle, whereby one person with a general grievance with another smashes a bottle on their head, and then the couple in the corner of the bar, twenty feet away, stop playing scrabble and inexplicably lay into each other. The woman who just popped in to use the privy gets tackled over the bar, and of course someone is slid down the length of the counter. When the local guards turn up to enforce the law and deflate the situation, they never fail to be completely baffled by the following exchange, which they will have with every participant.
Guards: ‘What on the shiny bonnet of Cheo happened here?’
Random Brawler: ‘We won. We showed ‘em good and proper. That’s the last time they do something like that to us.’
Guards: ‘Why, what did they do to you?’
Randon Brawler: ‘Er… dunno, but it must have been bad. Look how many people lost a tooth.’
These random acts of violence, whilst appearing everywhere, serve only to taint such protests. As is the way when honest people come together to protest in a nice manner – a sign is not too harmful, after all, until the sharp end is jabbed in one’s eye – their collective message is overshadowed by the minute quantity of people who stopped throwing insults before they’d even seen someone who was a member of the opposing side to them. Several of the King’s windows got smashed, and there is now a lot of cowering amongst the populace of Skyth, and even more vocalising of the fact that everyone is very lucky that King Pherron is nothing like his father, King Overly-Keen-With-The-Axe, as he was fondly referred to (mostly by people in the axe sharpening trade, it has to be said).
It is a problem in Mephoria, a land that has suffered many a mass book burning over the simple power of words, that a lot of the time people with an honest message go unheard because someone happens to be standing next to them with a large pike and an intense look in their eyes. These volunteer-mercenaries, as they might well be deemed by the Scholars of the Treetop Libraries, are like water looking for a gorge. They do not care what shape it is, or in which direction it is trying to go, as long as it provides them with a vague way of getting from A to Bloody Well Take This, You Opressive Pig-Type Person.
They would argue that the situation is roughly similar to this: a man chops off your leg and he’s fine, but if you throw your shoe at him (a shoe, they rush to point out, which is now unneeded) that makes you some kind of anarchist. Yes, they say, so perhaps he claimed he was doing it under the guise of necessity. But I’ve never heard of gangrene before, and anyone can go around calling themselves a doctor.
So the generals that so thirsted for a fight got one, and although out of tens of thousands of protestors, only nineteen women, seventeen men and one small pig (whose defiant act of public urination could have simply been a coincidence) were involved in violent acts, the full might of the King’s guard was unleashed, and one thousand heavily armed soldiers careened into the protestors and forced them to abandon their cause. And so it is in Mephoria, in Skyth the Capitol City of the Pherron Realms, that repressed people voicing an innocent protest have been swept aside, and their protests will go unnoticed, not because they did nothing, but because a few of them did too much.
The cynical believe there is no such thing as a peaceful protest; after all, a protest is born out of anger, and only intense anger at that. No one who would describe themselves as ‘a tad miffed’ would ever be moved to go down to the shed with the paints and cardboard and make themselves a sign. Let’s say that a throng of these angry people turn up to protest outside the palace, as happened recently. It is only logical that some of them will show their anger not by chanting ‘We Will Not Be Moved’, but by moving very violently towards the nearest person who looks like they might disagree.
But even aside from present events, or the idea that protests are naturally destined to boil over, the history of Mephoria can stand testament to the fact that sometimes people just like an excuse for a good old fight. The bar room brawl is a good example of this. Every local tavern has been the site of many a battle, whereby one person with a general grievance with another smashes a bottle on their head, and then the couple in the corner of the bar, twenty feet away, stop playing scrabble and inexplicably lay into each other. The woman who just popped in to use the privy gets tackled over the bar, and of course someone is slid down the length of the counter. When the local guards turn up to enforce the law and deflate the situation, they never fail to be completely baffled by the following exchange, which they will have with every participant.
Guards: ‘What on the shiny bonnet of Cheo happened here?’
Random Brawler: ‘We won. We showed ‘em good and proper. That’s the last time they do something like that to us.’
Guards: ‘Why, what did they do to you?’
Randon Brawler: ‘Er… dunno, but it must have been bad. Look how many people lost a tooth.’
These random acts of violence, whilst appearing everywhere, serve only to taint such protests. As is the way when honest people come together to protest in a nice manner – a sign is not too harmful, after all, until the sharp end is jabbed in one’s eye – their collective message is overshadowed by the minute quantity of people who stopped throwing insults before they’d even seen someone who was a member of the opposing side to them. Several of the King’s windows got smashed, and there is now a lot of cowering amongst the populace of Skyth, and even more vocalising of the fact that everyone is very lucky that King Pherron is nothing like his father, King Overly-Keen-With-The-Axe, as he was fondly referred to (mostly by people in the axe sharpening trade, it has to be said).
It is a problem in Mephoria, a land that has suffered many a mass book burning over the simple power of words, that a lot of the time people with an honest message go unheard because someone happens to be standing next to them with a large pike and an intense look in their eyes. These volunteer-mercenaries, as they might well be deemed by the Scholars of the Treetop Libraries, are like water looking for a gorge. They do not care what shape it is, or in which direction it is trying to go, as long as it provides them with a vague way of getting from A to Bloody Well Take This, You Opressive Pig-Type Person.
They would argue that the situation is roughly similar to this: a man chops off your leg and he’s fine, but if you throw your shoe at him (a shoe, they rush to point out, which is now unneeded) that makes you some kind of anarchist. Yes, they say, so perhaps he claimed he was doing it under the guise of necessity. But I’ve never heard of gangrene before, and anyone can go around calling themselves a doctor.
So the generals that so thirsted for a fight got one, and although out of tens of thousands of protestors, only nineteen women, seventeen men and one small pig (whose defiant act of public urination could have simply been a coincidence) were involved in violent acts, the full might of the King’s guard was unleashed, and one thousand heavily armed soldiers careened into the protestors and forced them to abandon their cause. And so it is in Mephoria, in Skyth the Capitol City of the Pherron Realms, that repressed people voicing an innocent protest have been swept aside, and their protests will go unnoticed, not because they did nothing, but because a few of them did too much.
Epilogue
It is not all doom and gloom in Mephoria, however. It was a particularly prosperous day for melons, as the fruit was considered the best, and cheapest, impromptu missile. It was not such a good day for windows, however, as they were mainly what the melons went through.1. The Slow Machinations Of A Sedate Uprising
Certain brutal Generals in the Kingdom of Skyth, the capital of the Pherron Realms on the Crescent Continent, long for the old days when people rebelled properly. The kind of days where angry people could run with nothing more than a pitchfork and a suit of torn peasant clothing straight at the well armoured, highly trained regiments of the King’s own private guard. The peasants would get killed horribly, the rest of the populace would grumble for a while, but the general feeling in the air would be that ‘Ok, we had a go, we’ve made our point, now to get back to the turnips’. What never occurred to the farmers was that fighting soldiers was never going to work – they had all the advantage. Challenging the King to a ‘who can shear the most sheep in an hour’ competition would have much more likely resulted in a victory to the “dung-covered”.
But nowadays the people of Skyth have come to live by the maxim of ‘Horses poo, so don’t be surprised to find poo on the ground.’ This means that when the Royal Poo gets passed around, via the process of a new tax, for example, the peasants are well trained enough to simply put a peg on their nose and reach for their impermeable shoes. This creates a problem for certain believers in the ‘good old days’, especially the Generals, because fighting against the enemy is all very well, but there’s a chance they’re as well trained and equipped as you are, which means that the unsporting sods might even win the damn fight. Far better simply to shoot at irate peasants, who do not possess the monetary resources required to purchase the necessary armour plating that tends to help when a shouting man hits you with a sword. Then you know where you, as a General, stand. As a rule, this is usually on top of a pile of body parts.
There’s always a shortage of basic things such as potatoes and ham after an uprising of this scale, during which those responsible for the merciless killing wonder if perhaps it was such a good idea to shoot all the farmers, but the general consensus is ‘what the bloody hell, things happen, and the survivors will end up having more than enough children to fill in the gaps in a few years when they reach the legal working age.’ (The legal working age being four. What are minors for, if not for, well, mining? It is for this sense of literalism that the children of the endangered Suicide Crab have the terrible choice of living up to their name or disappointing practically everyone by ensuring the continued survival of the species.)
But for once it’s not those who are covered in dung who are kicking up a fuss. It’s the people in the middle, the people who aren’t trained with a sword, but can purchase the necessary helmet to ensure that in their over eagerness, they don’t stick it through their eye. These people have a place within the city walls, unlike the peasants who live outside their protection, next to or in their fields, and are the traders and the masons and the blacksmiths and suchlike. By right, these groups of people have always had the opportunity to visit The Academy, run by charitable scholars and priests, who aim to educate the populace.
Naturally, it was not long before a King realised, centuries ago now, that there was a way of making money out of this. Since that time any person not of noble birth who wishes to learn to read and write to ‘Academy Level’ must pay an Enlightenment tax, as the King and his council of nobles like to keep a clear line drawn around these things.
They want to know that they can throw dung at a peasant, and not be able to tell the fresh from the week old encrusted on their clothing. They like to be assured that the traders who rank above the peasants have enough money to live, but will still have to enrol in the King’s army should Skyth ever go to war. And that they - those who generally favour silver moustaches and ladies who can afford to wear the kind of dead animals that tried to kill the tailor back - will buy themselves the privilege of not going to war and possibly turn up at the palace with a large ham and several fine horses for the King’s stable.
But now that tax has been raised further. It seems that in the eyes of the King, too much of the ‘riff-raff’ have been sneaking through the system and learning to read and write without actually needing it. The people who frequent The Academy have argued that, as the old saying goes ‘The man who doesn’t know how to read walks around for a month thinking he’s got a Elven protection spell written on his cheek, when really his friends are being instructed to throw tomatoes at his wife.’ Not a particularly succinct proverb, perhaps, but learning to read and write is rather like learning to speak – just because you can, doesn’t mean you’re any good at saying something.
It has become something of a disgrace that several notable scholars, previously thought to be of noble birth and breeding, actually spent their childhood and teenage years chasing pigs around a frozen field every winter and eating their sister for dinner before saving up enough money to pay the Enlightenment Tax and thus attend The Academy. The King proposes to triple this tax, meaning that even some of those for whom reading and writing was once a natural thing to aim to do when growing up will now have to think twice. Their options are to spend the rest of their lives carving bricks or making hammers, or go for it anyway and then spend the rest of their life paying off the massive debts accumulated. Many would even say that paying the tax for reading and writing in the first place was unfair, and that the applications of it have gone downhill since the Great Word Drought of 809, and that nowadays paying to read and write is like paying for a hammer and getting a nail.
And as has been mentioned, the generals are disappointed. Because rebellion is coming to Skyth, and it is very unlikely to be the bloody kind that they so relish. Rather than pitchforks, shouting and pillaging there will be picketing, slogans, and the inability to walk into a building that forms an important part of your daily routine without someone shouting abuse at you, conveniently formed into rhyming couplets.
- 10/11/10
But nowadays the people of Skyth have come to live by the maxim of ‘Horses poo, so don’t be surprised to find poo on the ground.’ This means that when the Royal Poo gets passed around, via the process of a new tax, for example, the peasants are well trained enough to simply put a peg on their nose and reach for their impermeable shoes. This creates a problem for certain believers in the ‘good old days’, especially the Generals, because fighting against the enemy is all very well, but there’s a chance they’re as well trained and equipped as you are, which means that the unsporting sods might even win the damn fight. Far better simply to shoot at irate peasants, who do not possess the monetary resources required to purchase the necessary armour plating that tends to help when a shouting man hits you with a sword. Then you know where you, as a General, stand. As a rule, this is usually on top of a pile of body parts.
There’s always a shortage of basic things such as potatoes and ham after an uprising of this scale, during which those responsible for the merciless killing wonder if perhaps it was such a good idea to shoot all the farmers, but the general consensus is ‘what the bloody hell, things happen, and the survivors will end up having more than enough children to fill in the gaps in a few years when they reach the legal working age.’ (The legal working age being four. What are minors for, if not for, well, mining? It is for this sense of literalism that the children of the endangered Suicide Crab have the terrible choice of living up to their name or disappointing practically everyone by ensuring the continued survival of the species.)
But for once it’s not those who are covered in dung who are kicking up a fuss. It’s the people in the middle, the people who aren’t trained with a sword, but can purchase the necessary helmet to ensure that in their over eagerness, they don’t stick it through their eye. These people have a place within the city walls, unlike the peasants who live outside their protection, next to or in their fields, and are the traders and the masons and the blacksmiths and suchlike. By right, these groups of people have always had the opportunity to visit The Academy, run by charitable scholars and priests, who aim to educate the populace.
Naturally, it was not long before a King realised, centuries ago now, that there was a way of making money out of this. Since that time any person not of noble birth who wishes to learn to read and write to ‘Academy Level’ must pay an Enlightenment tax, as the King and his council of nobles like to keep a clear line drawn around these things.
They want to know that they can throw dung at a peasant, and not be able to tell the fresh from the week old encrusted on their clothing. They like to be assured that the traders who rank above the peasants have enough money to live, but will still have to enrol in the King’s army should Skyth ever go to war. And that they - those who generally favour silver moustaches and ladies who can afford to wear the kind of dead animals that tried to kill the tailor back - will buy themselves the privilege of not going to war and possibly turn up at the palace with a large ham and several fine horses for the King’s stable.
But now that tax has been raised further. It seems that in the eyes of the King, too much of the ‘riff-raff’ have been sneaking through the system and learning to read and write without actually needing it. The people who frequent The Academy have argued that, as the old saying goes ‘The man who doesn’t know how to read walks around for a month thinking he’s got a Elven protection spell written on his cheek, when really his friends are being instructed to throw tomatoes at his wife.’ Not a particularly succinct proverb, perhaps, but learning to read and write is rather like learning to speak – just because you can, doesn’t mean you’re any good at saying something.
It has become something of a disgrace that several notable scholars, previously thought to be of noble birth and breeding, actually spent their childhood and teenage years chasing pigs around a frozen field every winter and eating their sister for dinner before saving up enough money to pay the Enlightenment Tax and thus attend The Academy. The King proposes to triple this tax, meaning that even some of those for whom reading and writing was once a natural thing to aim to do when growing up will now have to think twice. Their options are to spend the rest of their lives carving bricks or making hammers, or go for it anyway and then spend the rest of their life paying off the massive debts accumulated. Many would even say that paying the tax for reading and writing in the first place was unfair, and that the applications of it have gone downhill since the Great Word Drought of 809, and that nowadays paying to read and write is like paying for a hammer and getting a nail.
And as has been mentioned, the generals are disappointed. Because rebellion is coming to Skyth, and it is very unlikely to be the bloody kind that they so relish. Rather than pitchforks, shouting and pillaging there will be picketing, slogans, and the inability to walk into a building that forms an important part of your daily routine without someone shouting abuse at you, conveniently formed into rhyming couplets.
- 10/11/10
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