Neyrr Jesond
Male Koorivar, rog 1 wiz 2

Concept: Fearmonger

Background: Neyrr Jesond was born on the prime material world of Koorivar, far along the dimensional axis from his current home. While traveling between worlds, Neyrr’s family was caught in a dimensional rift and unceremoniously dropped on an alternate plane with few surviving resources and no apparent way to return home. Determined to survive and make the best of their situation, the Jesond clan bartered their supplies with the fearful natives of the world and purchased food, shelter, and magical translation into the local tongue, and managed to make a place for themselves in a small farming community. Natural merchants and canny traders, the elder Jesonds turned their meager belongings into a healthy profit and, soon, into respectable wealth, and left the farming community to go to the larger cities. Eventually setting themselves up in a seaport metropolis, the Jesonds were accepted as a rarely seen subspecies of lizard-folk and became wealthy and respected. Into this setting was Neyrr born some few years later; never taught his native tongue or ways, Neyrr was raised as a native of the plane and, although he was taught that he roots are extraplanar, he was taught that this world was home, and a far better home than that which his parents had inadvertently left.

Neyrr was not a big or strong child, but he was as healthy as most human children. He was rapidly set apart from other children, however, by his remarkable intellect and his charming demeanor. Despite an unsettling appearance, Neyrr had a silver voice and a glib tongue, and the genius to use both to his advantage. Inheriting his parents’ mercantile abilities, Neyrr naturally followed his parents into the field of commodity trading, and learned the ways of profit. As he neared adolescence, Neyrr was invited to join the Young Traders, an inclusive organization in the city which catered to the children of wealthy families, allowing them to form early networks of contacts and teaching them both the legal and shady side of business. Among the Young Traders, Neyrr learned the arts of negotiation and diplomacy as well as lock picking and pocket-slicing.

And he learned the ways of terror.

From early childhood, Neyrr understood that his appearance caused fear in humans. His earliest memory was of being brought to playgroup and the other toddlers shying away from him. At first this reaction in others dismayed him, but quickly Neyrr learned to relish the reactions he caused in other children. With the calming and persuasive words he could earn to trust of the frightened children with just a few words, and so he did not suffer for lack of companions, but when he grew tired or displeased with another youth, he had but to cease being friendly and let his natural manner scare the offending ones away. As he grew older, Neyrr watched how his parents and other traders subtly used the art of fear as much as they did greed, generosity, or other emotions to buy and sell, and Neyrr grew first curious and later obsessive about this powerful human motivator.

Neyrr spent twelve years learning the art of trading; with a Koorivari lifespan more than twice that of a human, he took his time in his studies and sought to learn everything he could at his own pace, and while his human companions grew older and left to pursue their own ventures, Neyrr remained behind and continued to study. When he learned all he could from the traders, he studied briefly with the thieves guild. When their brutish ways began to bore him, he went to the university to study with the alienists. When the philosophers had taught him all they could of fear, he finally went to the Academia Arcanum, the local college of wizards; Neyrr passed their entry exams with near record scores and was enthusiastically welcomed by the mages.

In the four years that followed, Neyrr became a highly proficient wizard. Apparently possessing a natural aptitude for magic, Neyrr excelled in his studies and was the pride of the college. By the end of his fourth year, his professors all but begged him to stay on and accept a position teaching and researching the ways of magic, but the calling of Neyrr’s heart beckoned him to leave the city and go forth. The ways of the traveling merchant were in his blood and the call to visit new ports was strong. Even stronger, however, was the call to go into the world and study the ways of fear... what causes it, what defeats it, and what it does to those it infects. Neyrr had learned the ways of the mind to cause natural fear; he had learned the ways of magic to cause unnatural fear. Now he would use both to learn the deepest secrets of fear which only those beings who lived in the dark truly knew, secrets he could not learn from a room in a pampered college. To seek the answers to his questions, he would follow that most controversial of all careers – he would become an adventurer.

Neyrr’s parents were sorry to see their only son leave, but pride shown in their eyes. Coming from a non-magical world, they had not imagined their child would learn wizardry, much less have such a talent for it. Traders themselves, they also saw that leaving and traveling would be the best way for Neyrr to make his way and his profit in the world. The elder Koorivari provided Neyrr with a generous amount of gold, with which he purchased magical and non-magical supplies, and Neyrr Jesond set off along the highways.

Current sketch: In the two years he has been traveling, Neyrr has seen and done much. He has learned many of the secrets of fear, but the deepest mysterious still elude him. Neyrr is patient, though... barring injury, he will live the better part of a century more, and thus he has decades of good years ahead of him to travel, and decades after that when he intends to settle down and perhaps take a seat at a college such as that which was offered to him. He has taken up the worship of Shessh, a roguish god of fear, and become a devout believer in the god. Now, having seen many ports and many trade routes, Neyrr is contemplating two possible future paths: returning home for a time to apply what he has learned, or traveling into the wilder, more dangerous regions, for which he believes that seeking out some traveling companions of stout arms and armour might be wise. Neyrr intends to see what fate Shessh wishes for him... if he finds trustworthy companions he will continue to travel, and if he does not, he will go home.

Image: Tall and thin, Neyrr looks more reptilian than human. Better than six and a half feet tall, with green and black scaly-looking skin, unsettling sickly yellow eyes, a single twisted horn growing from the top of his head, and his flowing mages’ robes, Neyrr Jesond looks every inch the monstrous, inhuman wizard. His natural grace and charm tend to put others at ease around him and offset his unnatural appearance, but he is not above turning the charm off and watching the fear course over those he deals with. Neyrr’s masterwork rapier hangs loosely from his belt to dissuade casual troublemakers, and he carries few obvious possessions thanks to his bag of holding, which is secured deep within his robes where it is unlikely to be pick-pocketed. When Neyrr deals with other, he tends towards two characteristic poses: either a few feet back, standing with the calm arrogance expected of wizards, or a few inches too close, looming over and staring down with all the intensity his reptilian eyes can muster.

Roleplaying Notes: Fear is your food and drink. You study it, you love it, you worship it... you acknowledge that, in some ways, you obsess over it. The study of fear drives you more than the pursuit of wealth or power. You don’t derive any pleasure from hurting people, and some people certainly don’t deserve to be made to feel fear, and so you don’t feel the need to just walking around scaring people. That said, when the opportunity arises – when there’s a stubborn official or a would be thief, or even the odd belligerent dock-worker looking to pick on the non-human – fear is a beautiful thing, filled with infinite variety and nuance, which only a scholar such as yourself can truly appreciate.

Currently, you are seeking companions to travel with. It will be some years before your magic is truly powerful, and in the meantime, you require protection. If they treat you fairly, your companions can expect you to be a true and stalwart ally, though perhaps a bit unsettling now and then.

Bano
Furry Spider
Growing up, Neyrr combated a severe phobia of spiders, and so when the time came for him to select a familiar, he paid to have a live specimen of the deadly Furry Spider shipped to the mages’ college. The spider, which he named Bano, has since become a valued companion to Neyrr and even something of a friend as its intelligence rises to human levels with the passing years. Possessing only a mildly poisonous bite, Neyrr uses Bano primarily as a threat-detector and as an instrument of fear. Bano is highly skilled at detecting prey and predators, able to spot interesting objects faster and more reliably than Neyrr, and will often ride perched on Neyrr’s shoulder, simply looking around for anything his master ought to see. Secondly, Neyrr has previously used Bano as a threat in the past; the exotic spider looks far more dangerous than it is, and there are few humans who are not at least slightly nervous about a spider the size of their skull crawling towards them. Bano has even worked hard to develop the ability to drool poison from his fangs, purely for the psychological effect it has on people watching him.

Shessh
LN Lesser God of Fear
Fear is a remarkable thing. Fear exists in all cultures and in all races. Even the so-called emotionless races understand and respect fear. Fear is the only emotion found in rich and poor, corrupt and virtuous. No matter how glorious or how depraved an individual, still have they known the touch of fear.

Shessh is a small god of fear. While many of the greater gods consider fear to be a part of their portfolios, only Shessh is a god of true fear. Fear is not evil, any more than it is not good. Fear is not weakness any more than it is a strength. Fear is the great equalizer, felt by all. It is a fundamental tragedy that so few understand and respect fear.

It is the teaching of Shessh that to understand life, sentients must understand fear. They must appreciate fear. Fear is what keeps young children from going into the world too soon and being hurt, as much as it is the force that brings strong men to their knees. Fear is what motivates sentients to meet and overcome challenges as much as it is the feeling that cripples at the darkest moments. To understand and appreciate the duality of fear is the secret to appreciating and using it. The church of Shessh is a small organization, populated mostly by humans with some elves, which goes forth and preaches that fear has a natural and desirable place in life and that life without moderate fear is empty, joyless, dangerous, and probably short. Contrary to the popular belief about the church, they almost never cause fear where they travel, either by magic or non-magical methods, except in their own self-defense as is sometimes necessary among communities where the holy message of Shessh is not appreciated. The church has no need to cause fear, because it is already everywhere; they wish only to help people appreciate the fear in their lives, harness it, and use it to become better.

Non-cleric worshippers of Shessh come from all walks of life, although their numbers are not large. Many rogues worship Shessh in addition to a more powerful god of thievery or shadows, and the worship of Shessh has often been found among spies, torturers, and even diplomats. The ordered neutrality of Shessh’s teachings appeal to a wide variety of sentients who appreciate the power of fear but are incapable of embracing the evil inherent in most gods of fear. They are generally encouraged to seek out situations which cause a moderate amount of fear. In most cases, this is interpreted as meaning one should simply have challenge in one’s life, seeking out new business ventures or other similar, non-dangerous activities. They are taught that when they feel fear, they should embrace it and let it flow through them, and neither fight it nor allow it to drive rationality from their minds.

Shessh worshippers follow some regular observances. A brief ritual or prayer is conducted twice daily, at sunset and sunrise. At sunset, Shessh worshippers bow to the east to embrace the coming of darkness, the time of fear, and at sunrise, they bow again to the east, the welcome the return of the light which banishes fear for a short time and allows fear to be felt at the proper times but ensures that it never takes over one’s life. At each time, prayers lasting about three minutes are said. For non-clerics, it is considered acceptable to say prayers at only one of these times, preferably at sunset, and if one is unable to pray at these times exactly, then an alternate ritual lasting five minutes should be performed when arising in the morning and retiring at night. Additionally, worshippers are expected to spend some time each week, preferably each day, either facing something which elicits fear from them or meditating upon something that causes them fear; many worshippers keep as a pet a small insect, lizard, or other animal which they are afraid of, so that they must confront it when they care for it. Adventuring worshippers of Shessh, of course, rarely lack for things they are afraid of to confront. Finally, worshippers of Shessh are expected to make a pilgrimage to a temple of Shessh at least once each year; there is no particular preferred date, although many try to schedule their pilgrimage for either the longest or shortest night of the year. Since temples of Shessh are somewhat rare, this pilgrimage might entail walking down the street or a journey of hundreds of miles, and so traveling clerics of Shessh carry with them portable altars which they can set up on behalf of isolated faithful as needed.

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Divinely Morphic

I believe I can change the universe through simple belief. I like to think that this is primarily delusions of grandeur, but I’m forced to admit that this is also based on empirical testing.

The assertion that the universe can be shaped by our will goes back to the earliest days of civilization, when philosophers and thinkers argued that the universe is a function of our perceptions and that it can be shaped by our will. Similar thinking is one of the most fundamental principles of the Path of Forsteri; the Path does not argue that reality is a subjective construction of imperfect human senses trying to perceive a perfect and complex universe, but it does argue that the universe responds to will and that, given enough will, the fundamental patterns of the universe can be changed.

The difficulty comes in finding sufficient will to make the really fun changes. No matter how hard you believe you have superhuman powers, 6 billion people believe otherwise, and that’s competition even a god might balk at.

I do believe, though, that I’m constantly altering the universe around me, which in Silinist tradition is known as “twisting the probabilities.” Forsteri is very much a god who messes with the odds of things happening, and while Forsteri may not be powerful enough to change who will win the lottery, past miracles have included such things as ensuring that traffic is unusually light at important moments or that objects have fallen off of shelves and onto the heads of people I don’t like at opportune moments. These small miracles have suggested to me that I can control reality to some small degree, and with this in mind, I’m constantly pushing to see just how small that degree is at any given time. I may never develop the ability to change the world, but at least I’ll never get the power and fail to notice for lack of trying.

Consider an example: At 9:35 AM on June 15th, 2005, against all odds, I was accepted to study medicine at McGill University. For the benefit of those not native to Montreal, Canada, McGill’s medical program is respected worldwide as being one of the finest, and the only reason it isn’t classified as “ivy league” is that it’s not in the US. None the less, they accepted me. This is completely illogical for several reasons, which I won’t go into here in case anyone at McGilll’s admissions department should ever read this. I am, justifiably, proud of earning acceptance, as not everyone manages to get accepted to study medicine at a good school. I obtained my bachelor’s degree with distinction and an A- average, which is impressive but only at the lower end of the spectrum of students acepted into McGill. Similarly, I got 80th percentile writing the MCAT, which legend tells is the hardest written exam ever devised by humanity, but even that high score was at the very bottom of McGill’s minimum requirements. There’s no question that I’m a genius, but much of my powers come from my extremely high Wisdom rather than my very high Intelligence. So when the time came to apply, I relied heavily on twisting the probabilities.

The first part of getting into medicine, not counting completing all the prerequisite courses which, by and large, I had fun doing, is the application. The application consists of sending the school my grades (which were good but not great) and an autobiographical letter. Being a writer by nature, the letter was my chance to make up for imperfect grades, and with the help of some reliable reviewers, I managed to get an interview. Life experience and leadership skills more than made up for my lower grades in the eyes of the interviewers, apparently... it pays to have worked in a laboratory for a few years, and having the Aerican Empire on my resume seems to have actually been a major factor in my making it that far.

It was the day of the interview when my ability to twist the probabilities was most excercised. The night before I went for the interviews, I set aside a good hour before bed when I could sit quietly and meditate. Once I had relaxed and become one with my inner selves, I turned myself towards actively reshaping reality. As I saw it, there were several distinct ways in which the interview could be ruined. First, traffic between me and the public transit point of my choice might be messed up... I willed that the next morning, traffic would be unusually light on the stretches of road I would be taking. Second, the metro (the “subway” in less enlightened cities) might have been a source of trouble... I willed that it would be unusually uncrowded and efficiently-running. Third, something could go wrong waiting for the two interviews, one in the morning and one in the afternoon... I willed that the waiting area would be a quiet, chair-filled area with a good water fountain and easy washroom access. Finally, the interview itself... I willed that I would be blessed with interviewers who would ask easy questions and fall prey to my incredible charisma which, though I don’t have, I am able to fake given motivation. And, of course, after all that, I willed that I’d be offered acceptance, but that’s less relevant to this example.

I believe that I actually twisted the universe because each of the things I willed happened exactly as predicted, despite the fact that each one was a highly improbable outcome. The traffic reports that morning reported that it was one of the best days the highways had seen all year, the metros were running more smootly than I’d ever seen them go at rush hour, the waiting room was better than I expected in every way (the chairs were uncomfortable, but there was such a small crowd that I felt it balanced out), and, from listening to the moans of the other studnets applying, I got the two nicest interviewers who were there that day.

As an interesting side-note at this point, I feel it worth mentioning that both interviewers asked me extensivly about my gaming experience and how I felt that being a gamer would make me a better doctor. I answered that my ability to play roles and think on my feet would enable me to become whatever kind of doctor a patient would be most comfortable with while also solving all the myriad problems which can arise suddenly. I earnestly believe that if I wasn’t a gamer, I wouldn’t have been accepted to the program. This is a lesson which I think all of us need to take to heart. So anyway...

The theory breaks down slightly when one considers my acceptance itself... My application wasn’t good enough to actually get me accepted, but I did make it onto the waiting list, which is quite an accomplishment in and of itself for a student of my academic standing. I was accepted in the end, but that’s only because enough other students who were offered initial acceptance decided to go to other schools instead. Even here, though, I believe that my will played a part... you can be sure I spent a lot of time and energy between April and June willing people not to accept a place in McGill’s program.

Thus ends the story of how, through the power of my mind and the reality-bending powers of Forsteri, I was accepted to study medicine. I never doubted I’d get in... I’ve twisted reality sucessfuly before, of course. This is, however, the most significant event towards which I’ve ever had to bend my talents, and also possibly the event in which I see twisted probabilties playing the biggest part of a sucessful outcome. Like some other gods I could mention, Forsteri helps those who help themselves; I call this one a team effort.

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Eric's Very Brief Guide to the Philosophers

It comes as no surprise to people to learn that i have studied most of the great Western philosophers in my life. Often I haven't been priviledged to have studied primary sources -- Kant's books could be used effectively as torture implements if anyone was cruel enough to do so -- but I have studied much of the great works and read about many of the others. It will also come as no surprise to people that I spend a lot of time discussing philosophy with people, and I'm blessed with friends who, most of them at the very least, have either studied the philosophers as I have or have always wanted to but never got the chance. I very rarely discuss my own views of the philosophers, because I'm a liar and it's usually more fun to just take on an opinion which is the opposite of whatever the other person believes and more profitable to argue in favour of whatever the other person believes.

For the benefit of readers who may not be quite as familiar with the great Western thinkers, however, I have prepared this brief and regrettably incomplete account of some of the great thinkers of history, what their best known theses were, and, where applciable, why they were funny looking.

The word "philosophy" literally means "the love of knowledge." It's derived from the Greek philia, meaning to love, and sophos, meaning to be clever, wise, and deceitful. I'm not making that up. The word comes to us from around the 5th century BCE, when thinkers could be split into two camps: the sophists, who used their prodigious powers of reasoning and persuasive speaking too form seemingly logical arguments to bend the foolish to their will, and the philosophers, first and foremost of which was Socrates, who believed that knowledge and persuasion should be used only for the betterment of the universe and never for fallacious argument. The sophists very much ruled Ancient Greece at that time, the government of which was based laregly on "who can make the better speech and win over the most rich investors." And, despite the best efforts of the philosophers, the sophists still rule the world, although today wel call them politicians and, quite frequently, academics. It tells us a greta deal about the state of our civilization if we look at what words have their roots in the words which make up philosophy (such as "file") and the words which have their roots in the words which make up sophist (such as "sophisticated").

I regret that I cannot here present any material on non-Western thinkers. I don't know enough about non-Western traditions to say much about them, though I wish I did. I've studied Confucious enough to poke fun at him but not at his work, and I've studied various forms of Eastern philosophies, yogas, and meditations, but not the thinkers responsible for them.

And on that note...

Socrates:
Approximate age of living: 5th century BCE
The father of philosphy in general and Western thought itself, Socrates is possibly the single most influential thinker who has ever lived. A retired soldier, an unhappy husband, and an unusually ugly but charismatic individual, Socrates dedicated his life and his death to making the elite of his time look foolish. Everything we know about Socrates comes to us from the work of his student, Plato... which means that it's entirely possible that the most influential figure in human philosophy may have been fictional. Evidence exists in Plato's writings that Socrates was a nasty, sarcastic man, who valued making others look stupid more than he did his own life. Evidence also exists that Socrates may have been a public worshipper of the Egyptian god Anubis, just because it annoyed his Hermes- and Zeus-worshipping contemporaries. Socrates' greatest teahcings included that noble birth did not indicate competence, that humans are incapable of forming effective governments, that knowledge should be used for noble purposes, and that stupidity is the only true capital crime. Brought before the government on charges of corrupting the young with his ideas, the penalty for which was death, Socrates chose to turn his entire defense speech... Plato's Apology... into one last chance to mock the whole of Athens. Had he apologised, he would have had his life spared, but instead he choose to commit suicide so that he would have the last laugh and so that philosophy would be uncorrupted. Socrates was later billed by Nietzcie as being the man singularly responsible for the death of god.

Plato:
Approximate age of living: 5th century BCE
The greatest student of Socrates, Plato was a poet who had acheived fame and glory but destroyed all of his works so that he could start his life anew when he met Socrates. Plato's work covers primarily the area of justice and good behaviour as well as the nature of truth and the universe. Perhaps Plato's greatest teaching, from a Gamer poitn of view at least, was the lesson that there is a true world which only the gods can perceive, and a material world which humans exist in because they cannot perceive perfection. Plato taught that to all things, there somewhere exists a perfect form, which humans can learn to perceive if they are wise, good, and fortunate. This logic has since been expanded into the Neo-Platonic dictum:

To all things, there is a single perfect form somewhere... a perfect tree, a perfect rock, a perfect chair. Somehwhere, there is a perfect, absolute, and complete idiot... and he left here an hour ago.

Aristotle:
Approximate age of living: 5th century BCE
Said to be the last human ever to learn everything that could be learned in the world at the time, Aristotle was a chemist, teacher, thinker, mathematician, botanist, biologist... he basically did everything. Much of it he got wrong, but that wasn't his fault, considering the textbooks he had to go by. Aristotle's writings cover mostly politics and ethics, and he preached, among other things, that only philosophers deserved to rule, that moral behaviour is the greatest goal one can aspire to, and that humans are stupid in general. When Aristotole was faced with the same choice as Socrates, to pick death or exile, Aristotle chose exile, stating simply that philosophy would not be sinned against twice. This proved to be rather a good career move, in-so-far as it led to him not dying. A student of Plato, Aristotle was technically the third true philosopher in history, and was the inventor of higher education on a large scale, based on the invention of his teacher's Academy.

Rene Descartes:
Approximate age of living: 17th century ME
Mathematician, physicist, and artist, Descartes's laid the groundwork for much of modern Christian thought as well as modern psychology. His works included discourses on the connection between the mind and body which led to many of the teachings of the Principia Discordia, and his mathematical works led to the invention of linear algebra and, in D&D, planar theory. Descartes is most famous for his single aphroism of "cogito ergo sum" or "I am thinking, therefore I exist." This poorly understood argument has been one of the most influential single lines in modern history. At the time, one of the great debates of philosophy was whether the universe as we see it is true or if it is a fiction caused by poor human perception, i.e., did anyone actually exist and did the ability to think mean that one truly existed. Descartes, a Jesuit educated devout Christian, argued the following. 1) God exists; we take this as a given. 2) God is good, kind, and omnipotent. This, too, we take as a given. 3) A good God would not create a world which can only be perceived falsely by humanity. 4) If what I perceive is true, then to think, I must exist to think. 5) I think, therefore I am. It is of some note that this whole chain of reasoning therefore breaks down as soon as one stops believing in a good or non-deceptive god, and so Descartes' reasoning is largely inapplicalbe to the modern world, a fact which few people today have noticed.

Immanuel Kant:
Approximate age of living: 18th century ME
A German thinker who, according to legend, would go for nearly 24 hours at a time merely sitting in his chair thinking and writing, Kant was an antisocial, unhealthy individual who dedicated himself to understanding morality. Kant's great contribution -- great as in big, and not good -- was the categorical imperative, possibly the single most poorly undertsood philosophical concept among students early in their study of philosphy and ethics for reasons which are beyond me. According to the categorical imperative, a moral act is one which an individual could will as a universal moral law. Thus, "do not kill" is a valid moral rule if one could reasonably say to themselves "it is always bad to kill." Kant's system is fascinating in that it sets down a clear system of how to learn to be moral, rather than deciding what particular actions are or are not moral. On the downside, Kant's system is grounded in perfect order and is unable to make exceptions. For example, Kant argued vocally and publically that it was always immoral to lie; when a friend asked him if, if a friend was hiding in one's home, a stranger wanted to kill the friend, and one could tell the killer the friend was not hiding there without any personal risk, it would still be wrong to lie, to which Kant said that it would still be wrong, because lying is always bad. According to legend, Kant would refuse to even discuss exceptions... he argued simply that column A was right and column B was wrong and that this was a universal truth. From that perspective, it is somewhat dispointing that his works caught on so well, because they have led many thinkers unwisely down the path of moral absolutism. An additional flaw in Kant's thinking was that it never occured to Kant that some people might be able to will double standards without seeing any illogic... for example, a person might easily consider it reasonable to will the universal imperative that "all humans should bow down before me."

This completes our first brief list of philosophers. The list could be much longer, of course, but very few philosophers have ever captured my attention as being very interesting. In the future, I might take a moment to discuss men such as Malthus and Hobbess here, but for the moment, but if I did, I would probably have to also write about Wilde, Heinlein, Malaclypse, Machiavelli, G'Kar, and others that a normal student of philosophy wouldn't bother to list. Normal philosophy, one might say, has little or no relevance to this Journal.

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Soundtrack by "Queen"

Since my last rebirth, there have been a few constants in my life, things which have stayed with me through the long years, the changing social ties, the different schools and jobs, and the general blessed chaos. My toys have always been with me, for example, though I’ve added some and removed others. My joys have stayed fairly constant – I still like mostly the same things today that I did when I was reborn – as have my pains, which will be with me regardless of my incarnation and iteration. Of late, though, I have borne witness to the ending of one of these few constants in my current life: my immortality.

Most people never have immortality to lose, contrary to what most young adults believe of themselves. Psychologists have spent millions of dollars studying the “illusion of invulnerability” possessed by young adults the world over. I never really went through this stage, since my upbringing always left me very much aware of my vulnerability to injury. However, shortly, before my last rebirth, I was presented with a prophecy of my own immortality for a given period; it was foretold, quite convincingly, that I could not die, nor could my life be reduced to a state that would prompt me to desire death, for about 8 years. Due to circumstances primarily within my control, that period ended in early June, and I am, for the first time in my current life, mortal. Naturally, this has advantages and disadvantages.

Those who know me know that I don’t tend to go in for prophecy and precognition. I happily celebrate Apocalypse Day in July, which celebrates that Nostradamus was a crackpot or, at the very least, that those who obsess over his works are. I have spent literally hours arguing with Bible-thumpers about the myriad prophecies in their Book and why all of them are pointless and silly. I have personally struck no less than three people with a cardboard tube for insistence in fate. And I am one of the few living people who knows why astrology doesn’t work, can explain it mathematically, and can clearly illustrate why, faced with today’s astrologers and astrology supporters, the true astrologers of Ancient Times would smile nervously and back away from them. That said, I’m a big believer that, throughout one’s life, one will encounter things that Ring True, things that just seem so true and accurate that they are immediately accepted as valid. Spirituality is, to a large degree, the ability to find and accept these things, while science is to seek out such principles and then rigorously test them. One such True Thing came to me many years ago, when the earliest stories about Star Wars: Episode 1 were coming out. Rumours had been circulating since the early 80’s that there would be three more Star Wars films, and I had been eagerly following such tales most of my life. Around 1996/1997, the rumours became fact, and in conversation with someone in my highschool, it was said to me, “of all the people I know, you’re the only one I’m sure will see all three new movies. You probably can’t even die unless you see them first.”

A True Thing.

I didn’t make much of that statement at the time, although it did amuse me and I repeated it every now and again. Fast forward another couple of years, though, to my rebirth in late 1999. At that time, a lot of things which had been mere fancy for Eric 3.0 became fact and identity for Eric 4.0, and one of them was the prophecy. Episodes 1, 2, and 3 were going to come out, there was no doubt of that, and I was going to see them, which was equally doubtless. But I had become filled with the certainty that, until I saw episode 3, I couldn’t die, and nor could I be psychologically reduced to a state in which I’d be unable to appreciate the film. I’ve never had cause to doubt the prophecy during my incarnation, and I do indeed feel that things might have been touch and go a few times if not for the prophecy.

Of course, none of this was an excuse for me to do anything stupid. As it is wisely written, a prophecy is just a guess that comes true. Certainly I was immortal, but I wasn’t invulnerable, so a new career in bullet-catching or superheroism wasn’t advisable. Similarly, immortality was no reason to drink, or smoke, or drive recklessly... I couldn’t die, but I could still be crippled or otherwise damaged. From that point of view, in fact, immortality isn’t such a good thing, because to be in a position where death is preferable and be unable to die sounds very much like my vision of Hell. Fortunately, the whole issue was more or less moot during my life.

In any case, thus passed eight years, so in my current incarnation, some in my previous one. Then, on Thursday, June 2nd, 2005, I watched episode 3. I had already seen episodes 1 and 2, of course, and unlike most Star Wars fans, enjoyed both. Episode 3 was easily as good as the first 3... it was worth living for, one might say. I plan to see it again, many times and with different people. But – and this is the point – having seen the film, I’m mortal. Arguably, this is the first time in my life I’ve ever been mortal. I can remember what it felt like to be mortal in my previous incarnations, but they lacked my sense of perspective and imagination, and mortality is quite different to Eric 4.0 than it was to my predecessors.

It’s not that I fear death... in a totally healthy, non-suicidal way, I rather look forward to it. I’m in no rush to die, but I believe I’m not going anywhere bad when I do, so it’s not something which holds any real fear for me. I am utterly terrified of the pain which is associated with most forms of death, but there isn’t much I can do about that except work very hard to ensure I have access to good medical care when the situation arises. So, my sudden mortality isn’t something I’m afraid of, it’s just something disconcerting. For what is, essentially, the whole of my existence, I’ve been functionally immortal, and now I’m not – it’s less a case of fear and more a case of paradigm shift. Immortality was a part of my identity, part of the answer to Who I Am, and now I’m no longer immortal. It’s a small change, but a change.

At this point, as it’s dawned on people that my life and death have been contingent upon my seeing a movie, someone out there is probably asking, “why didn’t you just never see the movie?” There are three parts to the answer to this question. First, I was born and raised watching Star Wars. I have lived watching, reading, and appreciating Star Wars. To suggest I might not watch one of the films, particularly one which had been rated as “Good” by general gamer consensus worldwide, is utterly ridiculous, even as a question of life and death. Second, the prophecy was that I could not die until I had seen the film, and not unless I had seen the film. Logically, therefore, I must see the film, or the whole thing falls apart. Finally, I don’t want to live forever; I don’t think I have the fortitude of spirit to outlast everything I know and care about, and certainly by the time the planet is reduced to a life-less ball of ice spinning in outer space, I have no desire to be the last living thing on it.

Thus do I find myself once more among the ranks of mortals, though fortunately, still not among the ranks of humans. I will, over the coming weeks, come to terms with my new situation, and since it seems probable that my mortality will play no major difference in my life for another sixty or seventy years, this ought not to be a huge adjustment. Those of you who cross my path in real life, don’t be surprised if I seem a little jumpy for the next little while; I’m just keeping an eye for anyone who’s out to get me.

And if you people thought I was paranoid *before*...

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Luckily, It's a Will Save

We like to think of games as not being addictive.

I’ve watched a lot of gamers go through symptoms which they laughingly call gaming withdrawal. They get listless, tired, and bored. They become dissatisfied with the things going on around them. They complain endlessly that they miss gaming. Some even begin to show signs associated with depression. Then they chuckle, and say they’re in withdrawal.

Montreal, like many cities in the world right now, is facing an increasing problem of gambling addiction, exacerbated by our opulent casino and plethora of videogambling terminals throughout the city. Such is the threat of this worldwide growing problem that various world organizations, including the ominous CDC and the ever-entertaining Health Canada, are taking steps to brand gambling as an addictive activity, with all the legal implications that would have. Each year, a growing number of people are finding that they have become unable to stop their gambling, their lottery-ticket buying, and their general risk-taking behaviour.

The parallels between this and what we call Gaming should be obvious even to a CEGEP football player.

For nearly five years, I have been running a game every week. Some weeks were missed due to illnesses or holidays, and sometimes those games were bi-weekly, but basically, I’ve been running something weekly since the winter of 2000. Prior to that, I was playing in games intermittently, but was still gaming on a nearly weekly basis since my entry into John Abbott College in August 1999. Today, I look at my calendar. I’m currently running only 1 game and playing in none and, at the time of writing this, my three-year-long Saga of the Chronomancer campaign is one, perhaps two sessions from ending. When SotC finishes, I won’t be gaming. At all. It will be the first time in nearly five years when I won’t be running at least one, sometimes two or three games each week. It will be the first time in more than five years that I won’t be in a single regular game.

I’m somewhat surprised to find that this truly upsets me.

The prospect of my game ending excites me, there’s no question there. A three year game is longer than any single one of my games has ever lasted, and the fact that I actually pulled off a single successful story-arc of near Babylonic proportions has brought much joy and pride to my life. But when that game ends, I don’t know if anyone in my regular group plans to run a game of their own... most of the people in the group have no desire at all to run a game (or a second game, as the case may be). I suddenly face not only the huge shock of looking at a week without having to write anything for any game whatsoever, compounded by the very real threat that I might not be playing anything at all. I’m genuinely kind of depressed about it.

I don’t really believe that gaming... role-playing games, I’m not talking about slot machines or something... is addictive, unless someone has a ridiculously huge natural susceptibility. At the very least, my games probably aren’t, not because they aren’t pleasurable, but because the rewards and vital outcomes aren’t contingent upon random chance and dice rolls, which is the addictive part of gambling. Gaming is addictive in another sense, though... as a Gamer, my games are my primary social activity, the one day each week when, come Hell or homework, I always get to see my friends, relax for a few hours, have some pizza and laugh. It’s an irrational fear, but there’s always a little part of me that worries that if I’m not in a game with someone, I won’t see them. This is an irrational fear because while *I’m* antisocial and don’t tend to call people up, I’m blessed with friends who make a point of contacting me and keeping me involved with them. None-the-less, an irrational fear is no less a fear. Gaming is somewhat addictive because my games are often the best nights of my week – to say nothing of the incredible pleasure I get during the rest of the week scheming what I’m going to do to my players – and I’m justifiably concerned that, within a couple of weeks, I won’t have any way to feed that addiction. My life may be measurably less fun. And even if I do manage to see nearest and dearest, it’s unlikely to be at a regular, reliable time-slot I can look forward to every week.

Needless to say, I’m really hoping that some new game starts up to replace mine. I’m counting on it, in fact.

I’m going to go to sleep holding my dice bag tonight...

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Happy Somethingday

Today is the one year anniversary of my writing this Journal. Well, technically yesterday was, but this Journal updates only every 3 days, so this is close enough.

For the benefit of readers who might never have read the first Entries when the purpose of this Journal was first discussed, my Journal originally began as an act of penance. I’m a big believer that, when one sins, one should do a little extra good afterwards to make up for it. At the time... last June... I was taking classes prepatory to writing the MCAT exam, and had to drive through some of Montreal’s worst traffic just to get to the public transit stations which helped me get into the core of downtown where the classes were taught. I hate driving... as those close to me know, I have some major control issues, and driving is perhaps the time when I feel I have the least control over the things around me. I’m normally a very careful driver... not good, but at least I try. However, to survive in heavy traffic sometimes means you’re forced to shange lanes without signalling or run a yellow light when you ought’nt. It also means sometimes being the car responsible from gridlock when you miscalculate being able to get through an intersection in time, and it means that sometimes, whether by mistake or design, you make the people around you very upset. I lie, cheat, and steal without guilt, but failing to signal a lane change is a cardinal sin in my code, and I was finding myself with a lot of guilt building up. So I arranged to do penance.

Enter this Journal.

Throughout my current incarnation, the criticism I’ve gotten most from those most important to me has been that I don’t share my thoughts, that I’m private, and that I’m very hard to get to know. In response, I created a Journal which would force me to set down my thoughts in a public forum. Furthermore, I publically announced that I would make a reasonable attempt at answering any question sent to me, assuming the answer wouldn’t require the reader to have Violet security clearance or higher. To make up for my sins, I made a real and earnest attempt to give my friends what they wanted, and tried very hard to ensure that, if people had things they wanted to know about me, they could ask. This is, I think, more than most people would be willing to offer their friends, particularly in penance for sins which most people don’t consider to be particularly sinful.

As expected, of course, most people didn’t have that many questions for me, so more and more, Entries turned towards whatever I’d been thinking about at that time, rather than distributing answers. I still made every effort to answer questions as they came in, and even gave a few answers that I consider to have been very private, personal things which were a real gesture on my part to not only reply to, but to reply to openly. Still, even when I just sat and ranted, the result was usually entertaining and often outright funny... I’ve never pretended to have false humility, and I know I’m a damn good writer, typos aside. The Journal started off with a readership base of about two people besides myself... now it’s closer to 20, and while that’s not much, it’s pretty impressive considering it’s a glorified Livejournal without an advertising budget. Some of those readers, who are actually subscribed to the notification mailing list, are people I’ve never met face to face, and at least one or two are people I’ve never even spoken to, but who liked my writing. The Journal may not always be funny, and it may not always be good, but I like to think I keep my dear readers entertained – or at least, not bored – more often than not. The readers, for their part, seem to agree.

So now I’ve been writing this Journal for over a year, for a total of 123 Entries. Looking back, I think most of them were quite good, and there are a few which make me laugh out loud, even after rereading them many times. Even the filler has generally had some effort put into it. I’ve attracted a modest audience who stick with me even when, like today, I’m not being very funny, and in my own way, I’m making my own life and the lives of some of those around me better. And that burns off a lot of my sins.

The project has been a success. I feel good to have done it, and I feel good knowing I’ll continue it. I am, deep down, a writer, and it helps keep that strong if I actually write. I also derive meaning and satisfaction from entertaining others and spreading the joy of Chaos, which, I dare say, this Journal allows me to do. When I started, it was originally planned to be continued from mid june to mid august... but it’s funny how things turn out sometimes.

So, my honest and earnest thanks to all my readers for giving me a reason to keep writing this. It improves my life to have an excuse to write a few times a week, and I flatter myself to imagine it improves some of your lives to have something to chuckle at now and then. I wouldn’t be doing this if no one was reading. Here’s to another year and another hundred and twenty three amusing Entries. And feel free to send me any questions.

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File This

The funny thing about filing systems is that, no matter how well organized, arranged, documented, planned, indexed, and designed a filing system, more people will fail to be able to use it properly than will be able to use it. This is in part due to the inherent complexity of the human mind, the breadth of possible connections which human minds are able to reach, and the richness, vastness, and creativity of human thought. This is also due to people being eccentric, and sometimes stupid.

Even to a chaos worshipper, it is obvious that some things need to be properly filed. There are two significant examples of this. First, I buy comic books. When I go into a store, I’m looking for four, perhaps five books that I like out of hundreds which I hate, and the last thing I want is to have to dig through all that other stuff to find my books, when, thanks to the miracle of alphabetization, it can be found for me by people who are paid to sort through these things. The second example is that I’m currently employed in the Quality Control section of a pharmaceutical company, and they file *everything.* On the one hand, as a chaotic individual, I dislike having to use such a regimented structure for papers and documents, but on the other hand, this is a company which produces medications, which people will be ingesting in the hopes of not dying, and if there’s a type of company which you want to be well organized and competent at producing their product, it’s a drug company, because you might just be taking their aspirin for your next headache. So, obviously, some filing is necessary in life.

I have worked in more than one office, and I have had more than a few friends go through information, library, or archival technologies studies programs. I have also made an extensive study of human business and informational structure – by which I mean that I read Dilbert several days of the week – and certain conclusions are suggested given some clear facts. First of all, many varied and different methods of filing exist. Second, there is much contention, sometimes erupting in violence, as to which filing system is the best. Third, each of these filing systems are used in conjunction with highly trained individuals whose entire jobs are dedicated to nothing more than helping people find the things which have been filed under these systems. Given facts 1, 2, and 3, there is only one obvious conclusion: none of these systems actually work. At least, they don’t work well enough.

The astute reader may at this point notice some surface similarities between today’s Entry and some recent ones. My thoughts have been following certain recurring patterns recently.

Unlike the inherent flaws in, for example, human inventiveness or political theory, the problem with filing isn’t based on any sort of human flaws, but rather on what is, normally and admittedly only from certain perspectives, a human strength: eccentricity. Humans have varied and unpredictable thought patterns, and in most humans, this is a redeeming feature in my eyes. Be that as it may, it is eccentricity which makes filing difficult, because given two people, each will have a different view of what constitutes an obvious, comprehensible system of rules, and if the differences in two perspectives are small enough, they may go unnoticed for long periods of time, only to emerge at inconvenient or catastrophic moments, as one user of a system discovers that the only files “complaints” under “com” rather than under C or under the item to which the complaints relate, or files items which begin with “the” under T, or files names by first name rather than last, or any other of billions of possible minute variations. And, as surely as a pianist can progress through the myriad Goldberg variations before reaching the single, perfect harmony, so too will any filing system progress through each and every possible confusion it can before achieving a single, unifying disorder. For those of you who rely on filing systems for your lives or livelihoods, that means you’re doomed. Those of you whose well-being is less directly endangered by filing systems may rest well knowing that only your credit histories are at risk. And I advise you against needing to see a doctor any time soon.

Needless to say, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil gave me nightmares. Then again, Jonathan Pryce has that effect on me no matter what film he’s in.

I personally find the idea of filing things to be fascinating. Above and beyond being a tangible expression of humanity’s need to impose order on the word, the way a person or group files their things says a lot about them. I keep important papers in my home ordered only in the loosest possible sense, but my files on the computer are obsessively organized into increasingly specific subfolders. Ironically, this makes it harder for anyone except me to navigate my files, since no one except me understands the specific connections I form between items and the categories into which I put them.

In is incumbent upon the student of chaos to meditate upon filing as a concept and as a tool for one’s own nefarious purposes. One should understand how filing systems work and understand the psychology behind the human need to file, sort, index, organize, and otherwise botch. It’s not just a case of Know Your Enemy... it’s also so that you can find your Stuff.

I can’t believe I was able to write this much about filing...

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Politics

Like most Canadians, I don’t vote for any single candidate or policitcal party... I just vote against all the other ones.

Politics is one of humanity’s oldest professions. The oldest profession is warrior, contrary to popular belief, and several other professions follow closely behind it, but fairly near the top of the list is politician: one who actively courts power and leadership over others. A political system can be taken to be anything from a dominance hierarchy in goldfish to modern over-complixitized power centers. Politics can be said to be one of the most important and vital areas of human thinking, and indeed, it was ruminations upon political systems which formed the foundation for philosophy itself, in the days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. If not for politics, one might argue, human thinking, and even human civilization, might have turned out very differently, or not turned out at all. Humans might very well have a deep and powerful instinct to be political in one way or another.

None of this explains why ten thousand years of human evolution have failed to produce a single workable political system.

The idea that every political system is flawed goes all the way back to Aristotle’s aptly named work, The Politics. In this book, which is a bit of a dry read but which ought to be required reading for any self-respecting megalomaniac, Aristotle breaks political systems up into basic categories, such as monarchy, democracy, plutocracy, magocracy, and then outlines, clearly and succintly, which each one sucks. It may be entertaining to note that democracy is one of the systems for which Aristotle had the greatest contempt, for reasons similar to my own... keep reading to get to them. Aristotle had nearly equal contempt for anarchy, monarchy, dictatorship, and, quite frankly, the vast majority of political system; each one had its own unique flaws, but each one had many of them. Aristotle concludes in the end that the enlightened anarchy is the second best possible system of society, surpassed only by an empire under the rule of philosopher kings, and because both of these systems are all but impossible to achieve given human limitations which were apparent to wise men even in ancient Greece, Aristotle’s final analysis can be boiled down to “we’re screwed, I’m leaving, buy my other books.” As is probably apparent to my beloved regular readers, I tend to think Aristotle and I would have gotten along fairly well.

In my mind, political systems can be basically split into three categories: democracy, dictatorship, and anarchy. Then, because nothing is ever easy or simple, these can be further subdivided – for example, into “good anarchy” and “bad anarchy” – but basically, three systems. Each one is flawed, imperfect, and stupid, due largely to the prevalence of those three categories in the people who form them. As the neo-Hobbesians say, the average human is nasty, brutish, and short, and this is quite evident in human politics. From worst to best, the systems can be ranked democracy -> dictatorship -> anarchy. Interestingly, however, the worse a system generally is, the easier it is to create a “good” version of it, which is why democracy is often seen as being the best system we currently have available to us. It’s nearly impossible to have a good anarchy or a good dictatorship, but it’s easy to have a halfway decent democracy, and even a halfway decent version of a poor system is often better than an absolutely fnarked up version of a good system.

Let’s look at democracy. Democracy was defined by Winston Churchill as the election of the corrupt few by the incompetent many. At its heart, democracy is the label which can be applied to any system wherein a group of people has the power to vote in their leaders. To separate this system from a dictatorship, it should be qualified that, in this system, there is more than one choice of who to elect, and it will actually make a difference who gets elected; if the same corrupt president is the only candidate for thirty years in a row, it doesn’t count as a democracy. On the other hand, the ancient Greek democracies gave the vote to only a fraction of the population, but the votes were then dealt with fairly, so it doesn deserve to be called a democracy. A democracy is the worst system of government because it allows people who help choose their own fate. This is a bad thing because throughout human history most people have not wanted to decide who their rulers are as long as decent choices get made. When you give the vote to too many people, you get maximum equality at the price of maximum inefficiency, because for every intelligent, informed voter, there will be one who doesn’t know who to vote for but votes anyway, one who doesn’t care who they vote for but votes anyway, one who has strong opinions about the right issues but doesn’t know why, one who has strong opinions about all the wrong issues and doesn’t know why, and finally, one who has strong opinions about all the wrong issues and knows exactly why. Even looking at it this way, which is being a lot more generous towards humans than I tend to be, it’s a 1:5 ratio of trustworthy voters to untrustworthy voters. These calculations don’t mean that all 5 untrustworthy people will make the wrong choices – it could just as easily be a 4:2 victory for the “right” side – but I don’t like those odds. The redeeming feature of the democracy is that it’s easy to get it right and hard to get it wrong... in a true democracy, things will, over time, tend towards an evolution towards a healthy society, though not necessarily a progressive or moral one. The ability of a single leader to screw everything up is minimized, though not removed entirely, especially if individual terms are nice and short. A democracy will probably be an inherently flawed, barely-functioning circus as idiots happily pick their own nemeses to rule them, but in the end, probability favours a stable, functioning system, if not a good one.

The second best political system, in my opinion, is the dictatorship. This covers everything from the empire to the monarchy... somewhere, one single person or small group of people has all the power. Whether it’s an oligarchical ruling council or a single despot, the dictatorship is the system wherein the bulk of people have no power and a tiny fraction of people do. On the surface, and given the democratic attitudes of most people likely to read this, this is going to sound very bad. The important distinction to make, however, is between the good and bad dictatorship. In a bad dictatorship, people live in terror, rights are crushed, spirits are destroyed, and Bad Stuff happens. Everything is miserable because the person or people holding all the power use their power in a bad way, and this makes for a bad system. However, a dictatorship might just as easily be good. The trains run on time, as they say... but so do the hospitals, and the schools. People are content and happy, as long as they can learn to trust handing their fate to a single individual. In essence, if the dictator is a caring, wise individual... a king Solomon of the modern age, hopefully without the crippling depression that afflicted the namesake in later life... then the society will flourish and thrive. Freedoms don’t have to be restricted in any way, shape, or form, except for the right to vote as to who the next leader will be. In an ideal dictatorship, there would still be lots of voting; the dictator would always want to know the will of the people, even if the state’s course of action ended up being the exact opposite. Good dictatorships have been rare in history but they have happened, and no doubt they will again as time goes by. The single greatest flaw in the good dictatorship, however, is that sooner or later the crown changes hands, and there’s no logical way to ensure that the next guy in line is going to be equally good. It only takes one bad dictator to erase all the good works of a hundred wise predecessors, particularly in the nuclear age. The good dictatorship is the category into which I feel that Aristotle’s ideal system, the philosopher king empire, falls; Aristotle argues that if a school of philosophers became rulers of the world, they would by definition rule justly and well, and because there would always be more wise philosophers, each generation would be an equally wise leader. I have a number of issues with this thesis, but the basic theory is consistent with how a good dictatorship might be possible over a long period of time in absence of immortal god-emperors.

Finally, the very best political system is the anarchy, which just happens to also be the hardest possible system to get right. Bad anarchys can be said to not actually exist, because in a bad anarchy, there is no order, law, or society until a strong leader emerges to take power, at which point it more or less becomes a dictatorship or, more rarely a democracy, usually a bad one. A bad anarchy doesn’t exist becomes it almost immediately becomes something other than an anarchy. A good anarchy is something which only a chaos worshipper can truly conceive of, let alone appreciate. In a good anarchy, often referred to as an enlightened anarchy by political thinkers, everyone does exactly what they want, when they want, and it all works out because they respect each others personal space. No one has any rights, but everyone offers everyone else ample priviledges, because doing so guarantees one’s own priviledges. The system is a perfect balance between order and chaos, because the system is in chaos but everyone in the system implicitly puts in just enough order to function peacefully. The great flaw of anarchy is immediately apparent to nearly anyone: it is nearly inconceivable that everyone in the system would act in a manner to make the system work. If even a single individual in the system fails to act properly, the whole system becomes at risk of breaking down, because either that one person will restrics everyone else’s priviledges, or everyone else must enforce a restriction of priviledges upon the villain, and the whole philosophy breaks down even if the system still functions.

So, we have the three basic political systems – politely ignoring for the moment the existence of mixed system, such as the parliamentary monarchy – and we have the good and bad versions of each. Given the theories suggested here, what can we conclude?

We’re screwed, I’m leaving, buy my books.

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