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[1,564]

Thank you for requesting an aesthetician's assessment of your furnishings.

Based on calculations, your property: Eagle's Mount ranked at 1,564 points.

Your aesthetician, Sister Hypatia, included the following notes:

It's coming together, but the balance of the room is off. Try to make sure you're using the whole space, and consider what furnishings match the color scheme of the room and the theme that you're going for.

We hope you will consider us in the future for your aesthetic needs.

The Furnishings Board of Ephia's Well

Mae, is there a single world that you and I both live in?

They say that the world is made up of every thing that is. These things are defined by their traits - their fixed form - the things that we can see, and touch, and feel. These things are further defined by their relations as we understand them. All roses are roses. Not all roses are her rose.

So, the world is defined by how we perceive things, and how we understand the connection between things.

If my world is only a picture of my perception, then that's all the world can ever be to me. I can never see a world outside of what I see. There's nothing that separates me from the world that I make.

But, Mae, that doesn't just hold true for me. You make your own world, too. You see, and touch, and feel, and interpret the things you know. I can't say for sure, but I think there isn't a difference between you or the world you make, either. So you must be the world, too.

Even then, our worlds are separate. The objects are the same, but the relations between them cannot be more different. The facts of our worlds are mutually exclusive. Because of that, I can't see the world you see. I've never seen the world that you see. So there can't be a single world that we both live in.

But is that really true?

Even if the facts of our world are separate, our worlds see the same sky. Don't they? The stars you see are the stars I see.

The stars we see are still the same.

Hypatia

Estie,

I wrote a poem for you after our earlier talk about poetry. It's been some time since I've made an attempt like this, but I'm very happy with the result.

The little desert fox, he goes
Galumphing o'er the plains!
He sneaks along to find his prey
The little bird and her eggs!

The desert fox hides in the brush
His foeman passes him by!
No melek, kobold, goblin-band
Shall make a fennec pie!

A little fox must be so deft
If he shall earn his keep!
He has so many miles to go
Before it's safe to sleep.

But when the night is dark and still
The fox, he is alone.
"Where can I find me a friend,
That I might share my home?"

It always makes me smile to see the little foxes trotting across the sand. With their little footsteps! I hope it makes you happy too. Please send me your thoughts, and any other works of yours that you might like me to read.

Your friend,
Hypatia

Dear Alejandro,

Something terribly unfortunate has happened, which I hope you may be able to rectify.

I want to write a poem for a friend after we discussed her own (rarely-seen) poetry. To my great chagrin, all that I have been able to produce so far is a blank page. It disheartens. Have I really so little to say?

You are of course the first poet I thought of to write for help. Please, how do you decide what to write about? Is there a process that you follow?

Your friend,
Hypatia

Domhnall,

Urrazir screams. Izdu weeps. Gellema laughs.

We must meet and see how the peace that was broken, and the counsel ignored, might still be answered for. There are some whose grasping hands reach too far, and who too eagerly take advantage of mercy.

If there is a third time, we will not live to regret it.

Acolyte Hypatia

Honored Legate,

I am taken to understand that something both terribly disastrous and utterly predictable has occurred. I would like to meet with you, at earliest urgency and haste, so that I might bring a fuller understanding of the matter to your attention.

I plead not to speak only of what has happened, but also what should happen. There are wrongs which must be put to rights, and might still be if a just hand guides the scales. We have seen the results of hubris, left unchained, and now is the time where wisdom might prosper in the stead of naked and unrestricted curiosity.

This is, of course, a delicate matter that I speak of, and I hope the delicate response I offer might satisfy both Urrazir's needs and the needs of the Pyramid. It is not the same answer that those who cry for blood would desire, but it will be satisfying for those in the Well who desire truth and yearn for justice.

In the path of Izdu's Lantern, in the pursuit of Urrazir's Justice
Acolyte Hypatia

Domhnall,

It is my understanding that many terrible things happened at the Debates, and many more horrible things were revealed. Yet, I do not have myself a full understanding of the situation which is rapidly unfolding.

We should speak. Please find me at your leisure.

Acolyte Hypatia

Estellise,

I understand what you were trying to do, even if no one else does. Thank you.

I wish we could have saved her. I'm still trying.

What happens now?

Hypatia

the Krak is an awesome hub pub, but since it's the most popular hangout it'd be cool if it had more cycling music like the Plaza. the music that's there already gets a little stale...

Ashfolk are nocturnal, and there's been DM shouts describing the city coming more alive as night comes around. Having nameless NPCs that appear at night in Ephia's Well, or more signs of liveliness when night comes up, would help that to feel visible. I'm not actually sure if it's possible to make npc schedules like that though...

[The two sealed notes, left at Eagle's Mount, differ only in who they are addressed to...]

We need to speak at earliest convenience, upon a grave matter which I do not dare put to writing lest the words themselves twist and distort, lest diabolical agents intercept my fears.

Find me.

-H. 'Comet'

Lynneth,

Of late I find myself thinking about what could be, and what could have been. About watching the stars with you. About a quiet chat over coffee. I realized, reading your poem, that Mae had not entered these dreams at all. She has not for some time.

Virtue is something that resides in the heart, even if it is not acted upon. I could have been able to ignore it, the passing looks you give me, the gentle touches and the kind words. But now all that I remember is my shame; all that I see reflected in your longing glances is my own failure.

Even then, do I love you? If I do, it is something shameful. It is something wrong. How can I answer that to myself, much less give you the answer you deserve?

Yet it burns that I cannot, should not, must not say the words. Even more, it burns to think of Mae and know that I would be betraying her, the woman who has sacrificed so much for me to walk my own way.

Often, we find ourselves succeeding in part and failing in part, and here is the clearest example of that. I have succeeded in ending my desire for Mae. But I have failed utterly in ending my desire.

Unless the world changes, this can never be. But please, do not shun me. Please do not hate me. We are comrades of the Cinquefoil Rose. These feelings will pass in the fullness of time.

The note is unsigned.

If I have astrologian cards out, they still appear when I press H to hide the hud. Not a dreadful problem just wanted to note it somewhere!

i think it would be cool if we could choose what our 'togglehood' head is, so people with those open-faced helmet heads could don and doff their helmet instead of wearing it 24/7

or people could pick a special hood like the halfling hood model... or take off hats?

[A letter is left at the Sibylline Priory, written with meticulous care...]

I seek to know the mysteries of the Sibylline Sisterhood, to find community in like-minded women who see visions and dream dreams. The weave of fate beyond all things is endlessly intricate, and to untangle it is an undertaking I cannot attempt alone.

We live in a dying age, one of strife, confusion, and darkness - but this shadow is not the true nature of the world. There is a glory beyond glories, a light beyond lights, that I have glimpsed only once before in my life. I believe that the Sibylline Vine is the key beyond this gate of shadow, and would gladly cast myself before you so that I can seek truth by the light of Izdu's lantern.

As for vocation, I am a tailor by trade, though I weave both threads material and immaterial.  I am blessed with a meager understanding of magic which is marked by the stars, that dwells in the lines between constellations and in the strings connecting us to our pasts.

Whatever your decision may be, I humbly await it at your discretion.

Yours in truth,
Hypatia Komitou

I really like how /c date shows how many days since Sands of Intrigue began! I think it'd be cool if there was a way to see ingame how many days since your PC was created too. There's an RP element that's like 'it has been 21 days since I arrived in Ephia's Well...' but honestly I just think it'd be neat more than anything else.  :)

[E]

The great Bookkeepers of Isphi wrote of these things, and debated them in the Vellum Tower, before the Ringfall and the coming of the Ash Waste. Written here are my half-rememberings, my conjectures and recollections from my youth as a scribe in the Tower when it still stood.

SECRET HISTORIES, or THREADS OF HIGHER SPLENDOUR
Hypatia Komitou

Every decision is spun by the Fates in an ever-iterating tapestry of History, woven without fail or pause. Because we have identified this History, we may easily think that it is the only History, and look only to the different threads in front of us to tug at and shape. This is reductive. While there cannot be effects without causes, there can be causes without effects, and causes which do not go away even if rendered redundant.

It is possible to tamper with histories beside our own, and with some skill render their boons and woes to be a part of our own. A blow which killed you in this world may have been rendered impotent in another - it is a relatively simple matter to transpose the other world's blow to your flesh instead. The scholars of the Vellum Tower, however, left these sublunary applications of minor History to their scribes, hoping instead to find a deeper truth through the cataloging of major Histories.

As Izdu shepherds and broadens the secrets of our History, so does Gellema reveal fragments of other, secret Histories, in visions and dreams. Thus is Gellema the goddess of the unconscious, the night, the dream and the seeress. Scholars, do not be so quick to discount the madman or the fool. Perhaps their theories are correct in another world, perhaps their visions stem from a higher place.

The sage Eramentheou theorized that there were five major Histories beyond our own, each with their own branches of minor history that often varied only in degrees. These are the Star, the Wildwood, the Bridge of Sighs, the Moth, and the Nowhere. Of these, however, I was only taught the mysteries of the Star, which is the most fundamental - for we know through prisms that color can exist only within light. The Star, often called Izdu's Lantern or Izdu's Splendour, is almost not another History at all - it is a firmament of endless light. Knowledge dwells here, and the answer it speaks is always that of affirmation - existence - being. Light from this brighter place bleeds through candles, cards, and lesser stars into our own History. It is the inverse and opposite of the -----, who is formlessness - denial - shadow - negation.  The two mediums which this light most purely touches are the living Soul, and the Ash.

There are those in this world who disappear without a trace. Many of them simply die in forgotten and lonely places. But others have, through purpose or through misadventure, passed through the drumskin of our world and found their way to another History, a journey which is so often a one-way trip. Mark this as the ultimate fate of the Bookkeepers of Isphi, who sealed themselves in with their books when the Inert menaced the Vellum Tower, finally disappearing in a great ritual that they hoped would deposit them in a separate History entirely. Their ultimate fate is a matter of some debate between the handful of those who remember lost Isphi. Some think that they were burned up to cinders at the sight of Izdu's Lantern in its full Glory. Others believe that they fell to the Nowhere in their haste to escape the -----.

My position on the matter is quite clear, for we know that the Fates adore irony.

[Memory]

Memory
Hypatia Komitou

Time passes, dreams fade.
The shape of the world slips away.
Memory's lost and history breaks,
Ash erodes the statue's face.

Dreams fade and history dies.
Izmu's percipient eyes are blind.
All that we are fades formless in vain,
Gellema smiles and bides her time.

Nothing major, but like how airships in the Air Seam could get attacked by air elementals /possibly a hero spawn if you were unlucky. Adds a little flavor to give the god of protecting travellers something to do!  8)

[Pentad]

[A journal bound with lambskin, which the seeress Hypatia carries on her person at all times. ]

Invocation

O gods of the Wheel, now grant me your graces
I beg for your boon, to make vision flow freely
Let my tongue and my hand spill truths that will please you
And bridge the sacred into our late days.

I sing to the Pentad, who guide the aspirant.
Grant me, o Izdu, the lantern in shadows.
Grant me, o Warad, the wisdom of travel.
Grant me, Gellema, the prism of clearsight.
Grant me, o Martyrs, your peace beyond death.