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Entry 671 March 11 2010
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Entry 693 February 15 2010
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Entry 691 February 9 2010
Entries 681-690
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Once again, I've recently been playing games of Scrabble with friends online, and that means that once again, it's time to delve deep into that most useless of useless reference books: the Gamers' Dictionary.
Able:
1: Marked by intelligence, knowledge, skill, or competence.
2: Having sufficient power, skill, or resources to get oneself stabbed by one’s rivals.
Addend:
A thing added to a speech in which the speaker is sufficiently sure of their material that they can avoid saying “um” between words.
Aft:
Near or towards the rear end of a boat or aircraft or whatever part is currently expelling the most flames.
Ar:
The eighteenth letter of the English alphabet, held to represent “life” or “good fortune” among pirates.
Ave:
1: Abbreviation: avenue.
2: An expression of greeting or of leave-taking. Literally, “I’m on the same street as you.”
Awe:
1: An emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime.
2: An individual who is pathologically incapable of deciding how they feel about anything.
Bang:
1: A resounding blow; to strike sharply; to knock, hit, or thrust vigorously often with a sharp noise.
2: A sudden loud noise or striking effect.
3: The transition from potential to kinetic energy or from terror to startlement.
Barmy: Britishism: Crazy, foolish. Literally: “I’m not drunk enough to put up with this so give me alcohol, please.”
Blip:
1: A usually transient trace on a display screen (as an oscilloscope); especially: a spot on a radar screen.
2: A short crisp sound.
3: Something relatively small or inconsequential within a larger context.
4: An unlicensed practitioner of a highly specialized field.
5: Civilization and intelligent behaviour.
Bo:
One who masters multiple fields of expertise but, as a result, is unable to devote sufficient attention to monitoring their livestock.
Body:
1: The main part of a plant or animal body especially as distinguished from limbs and head. The organized physical substance of an animal or plant either living or dead.
2: A mass of matter distinct from other masses.
3: Particularly important evidence.
Bop:
1: A blow (as with the fist or a club) that strikes a person.
2: A form of early jazz characterized by harmonic complexity, convoluted melodic lines, and constant shifting of accent and often played at very rapid tempos.
3: Any injury caused by very bad music or by a musical instrument played with excessive enthusiasm.
Boxy:
Resembling a box, but without actually serving the purpose of a box.
Chord:
Three or more harmonically-related musical tones sounded simultaneously thereby creating the illusion of musical talent.
Cig:
1: The small filter-end of a cigarette which remains after the rest of it has burned away.
2: A pair of boots mysteriously left behind untouched by a release of energy, despite the complete disappearance of the wearer of the boots.
Cob:
1: A rounded mass, lump, or heap.
2: The pile of ash left behind when a cartoon character is immolated.
Craze:
1: To produce minute cracks on the surface or glaze of; to break or shatter.
2: To make insane.
3: An exaggerated and often transient enthusiasm which leaves minute cracks on nearby surfaces and drives unenthusiastic people crazy.
Deli:
1: Ready-to-eat food products, as cooked meats and prepared salads.
2: Low-level adventurers.
Den:
1: The lair of a wild animal or suburbanite.
2: A hollow or cavern used especially as a hideout.
3: A subdivision of a Cub Scout pack made up of two or more boys or two or more wild animals.
Din:
1: A loud continued noise, especially if discordant.
2: Technical term for the background noise in a crowded restaurant when it is just loud enough to be unable to carry on a conversation at a comfortable volume.
Diode:
1: An electronic device that has two electrodes or terminals and is used especially as a rectifier.
2: A curious device attached to robots to simulate costochondritis or arthritis and thereby make them more sympathetic to humans.
Dite:
1: An extremely small amount somewhere between a mite and a bit.
2: Any unpleasantly warm place occupied primarily or exclusively by heretics, murderers, suicides, blasphemers, usurpers, sodomites, panderers, seducers, flatterers, Simoniacs, sorcerers, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, false counselors, schismatics, falsifiers traitors, and bartenders.
Doze:
1: To sleep lightly or fall into a light sleep.
2: To be in a dull or stupefied condition.
3: Nose, when pronounced with one which is blocked or broken.
Ecru:
Unbleached, raw, crude, natural, beige, disagreeable, or on fire.
Ef:
1: The sixth letter of the English alphabet.
2: A vulgarity used primarily by those deeply incapable of being vulgar.
Em:
1: The thirteenth letter of the English alphabet.
2: An object or person which is about as wide as it is tall.
Felly:
1: The exterior rim or a segment of the rim of a wheel supported by the spokes.
2: An area of particularly powerful artificial gravity.
Fil:
1: A Swedish mesophilic fermented milk product.
2: A receptacle which is in the process of but is not yet finished being filled.
Foh:
1: Any part of the theatre in front of the arch above the stage, particularly areas open to the public or the audience seating area.
2: Anything said or done by (or to) the audience during a performance.
Fort:
1: A strong or fortified place, especially a fortified place occupied only by troops and surrounded with such works as a ditch, rampart, and parapet.
2: A strong or fortified place, especially one constructed primarily from pillows, blankets, and plush toys.
Gee:
1: An introductory expletive or to express surprise or enthusiasm.
2: A direction to turn to the right or move ahead.
3: A unit of gravity.
4: An expletive used to express surprise at being suddenly pulled to the right by a unit of gravity.
Gem:
1: A precious or sometimes semiprecious stone.
2: Something prized especially for great beauty or perfection.
3: Any bread of sufficient consistency and solidity as to cause teeth to crack before the crust does.
Hay:
1: Herbage, especially grass mowed and cured for fodder.
2: A small (usually insultingly so) sum of money.
3: A wire or electrical component which is currently working but which, it is suspected, will soon be the cause of a great many (and usually costly) problems.
If you've found this entry interesting, mail Eric about it.
If you didn't find this entry interesting, go to hell.
And the general said unto the king, you know, majesty, I can always spot the ideas that you came up with at 3am when you couldn't sleep.From The Book of Contrivance, Chapter 43453, Verse 3
We begin by supposing that there are basic and essential branches of science: mechanics, electricity, and gases. We pick these branches because they form the essence of physics and chemistry, the fields most commonly regarded as "pure" sciences. This is only one approach, of course. A more advanced version of the following formula can be crafted to include more advanced branches, such as relativity and brownian motion, but it's better that we begin slowly. Similarly, a more advanced equation can be crafted which incorporates the biological sciences, but as these areas of science are as yet relatively imprecise, we won't include them as yet. So, having idenfitied what we consider the most important scientific fields, we now consider their most important equations. Mechanics is represented by the principle that x=vt, or distance moved is equal to velocity times time elapsed. Electricity is represented by v=ir, or voltage is equal to current times resistance. Finally, and most complex, pressure times volume is equal to moles of gas times the gas constant times temperature. Now, on the surface it may seem that these equations have nothing to do with each other, but that's only if you lack imagination.
x=vt
v=x/t=nrt/p=ir
x=nrtt/p=tir
nrtt/px=tir/x
nrtt/p=tir
nrt/p=ir
nrt/pir
nt/pi
So, as we can clearly see, according to the Grand Unifying Equation of Sciolistic Science, V=nt/pi. This simple equation therefore perfectly explains the entirety of the three branches of the physical sciences discussed above. Unfortunately, I no longer have any idea what V stands for, so drawing conclusions from this is pretty much impossible. So much for that.
If you've found this entry interesting, mail Eric about it.
Disclaimer: The following is an intellectual exercise and should not be construed as the legal or ethical policy of any government, institution, or individual. Anything which offends you is clearly a joke and was not meant to be taken seriously.
The biggest obstacle between any government and the implementation of its policies, aside from the people themselves (since people will inevitably stand in the way of most governments' attempts at advancement), is money. Rather, the biggest obstacle is a lack of money, and oddly, an abundance of money is correlated with a paucity of obstacles. Universal health care, for example, is as apt to break down due to insufficient money as it is from insufficient workforce. Universal education, on the other hand, clearly suffers mostly from lack of funds in most regions, and a lack of workforce is related in part to there being insufficient money to act as incentive for new workers. Money doesn't necessarily bring either intelligence or efficiency, but at least it opens up options. As it is written in The Book of Contrivance, "money may not be the root of all evil but it certainly lets you buy plenty of fertilizer."
Given that the Empire supports the notions of free universal health care (for evidence-based procedures and essential services) and free universal education up until the end of undergraduate, the issue of money is of spectacular importance. At this time, since the Empire's income is a negative number, the services of education and health care, guaranteed by the constitution, are unfulfilled promises, but it is hoped that in the future this may change. For this to happen, it will obviously be necessary for the Empire to drastically increase its funds, and thus, its taxes. The duty of the Empire will be to find ways to increase its income in a manner which places the minimum pressure on the poor. Much to the chagrin of capitalists and proponents of laissez-faire government, this will require preferentially gouging the rich.
The basis of the Empire's taxation system is an income tax. This rate at which an individual's income is taxed is not universal, but rather depends on their level of income. These tax brackets ensure that those who earn more pay more, while those who earn minimal income pay as little as possible. One difficulty with this system is that individuals who ascend from the high end of one bracket to the low end of the next due to an increase in income may find themselves actually making less money than before after taxes; this difficulty is, unfortunately, inevitable, although ideally a flexible taxation system will be developed to minimize this effect.
The mere implementation of tax brackets, however, will likely not be enough to cover the government's needs. Fortunately, there is a particular population which can be more heavily taxed with relatively few ethical concerns and with the support of the general populace: the ridiculously rich. Let's be honest: in a society where many live below the poverty line and the vast majority of people live happily on incomes of under one million dollars per year, it's very hard to argue that you need ten million to sustain your lifestyle. Under Imperial law, any individual who earns more than five million dollars per year before their paying income tax are required to give all surplus income as tax. Any individual who pays more than five million dollars in this manner is not required to pay any further taxes on their remaining five million. This refers only to personal income, of course, and does not preclude, for example, a wealthy individual giving the bulk of their money to a research initiative or non-governmental organization prior to taxes being calculated. This policy may seem unfair to those who have earned their ridiculously large incomes by hard work, initiative, and brilliance, and I admit that it penalizes a segment of the population to an unfair extent. On the other hand, it penalizes an incredibly small percentage of the population, a population which has far more money than it could possibly need for an individual's need... even an individual with some dependents. Seriously, if you can't find a way to live happily on a mere five million dollars per year (possible as little as 2.5 million after taxes), you don't deserve to have the chance to try. Consider: simply by levying these heavy taxes on the entirety of the world's professional athletes, we could have the funds to wipe out most of the world's hunger and illness. Most of the wealthy will find ample ways to hide their true incomes from the government in any case, so it's difficult to find much sympathy for them.
Thomas Jefferson said, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” Screw him. This is an Empire, damn it. Democracy is a matter of perspective.
If you've found this entry interesting, mail Eric about it.
Disclaimer: The following is an intellectual exercise and should not be construed as the legal or ethical policy of any government, institution, or individual. Anything which offends you is clearly a joke and was not meant to be taken seriously.
We hold it as one of the highest tenets of our society that violence against each other in abominable and unacceptable, and for this reason, many consider the death penalty to be inherently immoral. I agree; it is a terrible hypocrisy for us to say that the individual may not kill the individual, but if they try, then society may kill them. It is totally, utterly, and inexcusably immoral and unethical. It is also efficient, cost-saving, and extremely satisfying.
Let's be honest: many criminals are very hard to rehabilitate. It's all well and good to speak of human potential and the inherent goodness of the human soul, but the medical and psychological research confirms that a significant number of the people in prison are pathologically scum. Note that a "significant number" is not a majority by any stretch of the imagination; only a tiny fraction of people in prison can truly be classified as irredeemable psychopaths. Most people have a strong capacity for rehabilitation, or at least, ocialization; you may never teach a hardened killer to respect human life, but with current methods, we can at least teach them not to re-offend. This is decidedly not always the case, as is evidenced by society's re-offending rate. Consider the fellon who brags about their crime and boasts that they look forward to offending again; does this person deserve the same treatment as the minor offender or the genuinely-repenetent murderer? Why, then, should countless man-hours and large sums of money go towards caring for these people, however poorly? Why should they be kept in a system which allows for the possibility that they may be released?
Is the death penalty suitable for all crimes, as Draco is reputated to have said millenia ago? Certainly not! The young shoplifter who goes to jail for a few months or the troubled youth with a single drug conviction shouldn't die for their crime. Nor should the murderer or rapist convicted by insufficient or suspect evidence. The death penalty is not a cure-all for anti-social behaviour, to be wielded indiscriminately. Rather, the death penalty is one of the few threats society can use when it admonishes its people to "play nice, or else" and as such it must be used carefully or else it loses its power. To paraphrase a famous quotation, it's better for a thousand guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be wrongfully executed... but what about those cases where there is no doubt? There are cases where there is no doubt; we have criminals who boast of their exploits, criminals caught on film comitting their crimes, criminals who freely admit that they intend to commit their crimes again, given the opportunity. These are rare cases, perhaps -- though becoming less rare, perhaps, with the spreading of official and unofficial video surveillance -- but in these rare few cases, it is possible to be assured of guilt without doubt. A mere confession of guilt is not sufficient certainty; pride in one's crimes, accompanied by recorded proof, might be. If such individuals constitute a clear and present ongoing danger to society, why not eliminate that danger in the most reliable fashion?
Furthermore, once we accept the death penalty, we can consider accepting the next logical step: punishment. Consider the rapist. Should they be punished in the same manner as the "mere" assaulter? Different crimes can be shown to have different degrees of harm, and the death penalty allows us to measure punishment accordingly. Let "uncomplicated" murder be punished by a relatively swift death; let a more prolonged a psychologically harmful crime be punished by, if not death, than why not castration (assuming, as the data seems to show, that most rapists are male)? Let the offender go free once they have served an appropriate sentence; allow them to rejoin society with the certainty that it will be extremely challenging for them to reoffend. Perhaps the punsihment should fit the crime, in some cases.
The death penalty can save great sums of money. It's often argued that it costs more to execute a criminal than it does to imprison one for a lifetime, but there is a flaw in this argument. The bulk of the costs of the death penalty are due to two factors: endless appeals, and unecessarily "humane" means of execution. If we are proposing to execute only those "guilty with certainty" then we clearly have no need for the expensive redundant appeals process which makes up the bulk of the costs. Eliminate the risk of sentening an innocent and everything becomes both cheaper and quicker. Another major cost is the requirement that one or more physicians must be present to ensure the process is done correctly and painlessly. Having now established that "painless" is not necessarily one of our priorities, "correctly" likely also becomes less important. Granted, using the correct dose of sodium thiopental may require an educated person (though a pharmacist is likely better than a physician), but using a sixteen-ton weight is more or less medically certain in and of itself.
For the most part, murder and sometimes rape would seem to be the only crimes for which execution can even possibly be justly. Some few other examples exist. As has been previously stated, drunk driving causing death, though arguably not technically murder, may be so punishable. A regular accident, even one involving negligencce, does not merit execution; no one should be too harshly punished for a single error however horrific that error may have been. Drunk driving, however, is not a single error. This crime requires one to 1) imbibe or otherwise intoxicate or self-medicate beyond a sensible limit, then 2) choose to operate a vehicle anyway and finally 3) lack the skill and intelligence to avoid a catastrophic accident. Stupidity of such degree cannot be tolerated.
Can white-collar crime ever be punishable by death? This is contentious. In recent years, society has seen people who commit fraud not merely for thousands but for millions of dollars, and in doing so, truly destroying lives. Execution might be considered depending on the criminal's capacity for restitution. If the bulk of the money -- a sufficient number requiring case-by-case determination -- can be returned or somehow repaid, then death is likely too extreme a punishment, although condemning the criminal to eternal poverty might not be unreasonable. In contrast, the criminal who takes money exclusively from vulnerable populations -- the lower-class elderly, for example -- and who consumes the money and is thus unable to repay it certainly deserves some special punishment. Do they deserve death? Perhaps, perhaps not... likely, it depends on their attitude about the whole matter and whether they seem to have enjoyed themselves too much. This reveals a necessary truth about the death penalty: it is one of the few forms of justice which must absolutely be judged on a case-by-case basis and should never be either used -- or not used -- based solely on pre-existing precedents or rules. If you intend to kill someone for a crime, you have no right to hide behind algorithm.
If you've found this entry interesting, mail Eric about it.
Disclaimer: The following is an intellectual exercise and should not be construed as the legal or ethical policy of any government, institution, or individual. Anything which offends you is clearly a joke and was not meant to be taken seriously.
Traffic laws occupy a curious place in the public consciousness. On the one hand, most traffic laws are, arguably, not very important. Why does it matter if you stick to one lane or weave between them if you're the only one on a stretch of road? If I drive well with one hand on the wheel, why should I have to keep both on it at all times? Traffic laws, at once, rules which may seem unecessary and restrictive, but are also laws in place to protect non-drivers as well as to ensure that most important of all things: common courtesy. Within the Empire, where so many laws are deemed to be merely suggestions, it may seem odd that traffic rules should be held so sacrosanct, but this is in recognition of one simple truth: traffic laws exist to keep you from acting like a jerk. For me, it's hard to think of a higher purpose for any law to aspire to. Unfortunately, traffic laws restrict people while they're driving, especially while they're driving fast, and in so doing, they place a limitation on the activity which modern society views as its single greatest expression of freedom and power. Any attempt to place "unecessary" rules on drivers will inevitably be met with resentment; any attempt to actually enforce the laws will inevitably be met with bitterness, resistance, and open flouting. Traffic laws are therefore one of the few areas of justice which truly require an absolutely Draconian approach.
In many countries, driving is considered a right, and citizens become enraged at the prospect of their right to drive being limited. The Imperial government regards driving as a priviledge, not a right, and reserves the right to revoke that priviledge.
All cars within Imperial territory must have a working Traffic Network Linkup computer or analagous device. This device will link the vehicle to the central traffic network. In addition to providing GPS locating and route-planning to the driver, this computer will be able to track a driver's behaviour. The TNL must be capable of tracking whether or not turn signals are used relative to turns of the wheel but is not required to track the vehicle's speed. In the event of collision between two vehicles, data from the TNL will be used, where possible, to determine if one party was at fault.
The most important rule of the road is proper use of turn signals. The turn signal is the most valuable form of communication available to individuals who may be meters apart and unable to see each others' bodies. Any driver might occasionally forget to signal a lane change, but consistent failure to use turn signals properly reflects both a dangerous level of stupidity and an inexcusable lack of communication skills -- two traits which are intolerable under Imperial justice. Turn signals MUST be used by a driver when making any lane change or any turn, even if this is a required turn. Turn signals should be activated at least one to two seconds before the relkevant maneuver is made; both as a means of asking permission from the other driver and informing the other driver that, whether they give permission or not, you are about to make a maneuver. Obviously, in cases where a sidden change is needed to avoid an obstacle or surprise, a two-second delay is not required, but the attempt should be made to give adequate notice to other vehicles. Turn signals are not required if there are no other vehicles within a five hundred meter stretch of contiguous road, but if another car is within visual range it is considered polite to use them regardless. A driver's TNL will track how well they signal versus how often they change lanes or turn; a driver is permitted to fail to signal six times per hour, no three of which may be consecutive. Failure to comply with these limitations will result in one demerit point per hour and a fine. Accumulation of ten demerit points within one month will result in suspension of a driver's license.
We recognise that speeding is the second most common area of driver error, and we recognise that speed limitations may not be as necessary in all situations. in theory, all roads will be held to a clear speed limit: one hundred kilometers per hour on highway, fifty kilometers per hour on city road, forty kilometers per hour on suburban road, thirty kilometers per hour in a school zone or in the vicinity of a playground, ten kilometers per hour in a parking lot. In practice, this limitation is open to contextual wiggle-room; on an open, traffic-free highway, a driver may reach speeds of up to one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour without fear of punishment, or speeds of seventy kilometers per hour on major city routes. A driver exceeds speed limits at their own peril, however; an accident which is deemed to be primarily the result of excessive or unecessary speed will not be tolerated lightly. A vehicle carrying a child of less than ten years of age may not accelerate beyond one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.
Recognizing that, statistically, taxi drivers are among the safest drivers on the road (despite the many near-misses their driving may cause), taxi drivers who have held a job for greater than one year without any significant penalties are exempted from all speed limits. As with other drivers who may speed, however, penalties for accidents due to excessive speed will be dealt with all the harsher. A taxi driver enjoying their priviledge of greater speed may not disrupt the flow of traffic around them, nor are they exempted from other rules of the road (particularly the requirement to signal).
The Imperial government has a zero-tolerance policy for inebriated driving. Any driver found to have been operating a motor vehicle with any level of alcohol in their system will be subject to immediate revocation of their license. A second offense shall be punished by imprisonment. Should a drunk driver be involved in an accident which results in the death of one or more humans, the penalty will be death. This shall apply, not merely to alcohol, but to cannabinoids, narcotics, benzodiazepines, and other substnces classified as "street drugs" unless prescribed for medical purposes. Inebriation is not an excuse for stupidity and will not be tolerated as such.
If you've found this entry interesting, mail Eric about it.
Once again, we look to the Lower Upper Lower Upper Planes, home of the small gods who have only a few worshipers each across the planes. Today we consider Danus, known sometimes as the the Half-Elven or the Elf-Man, god of Dramatic Musical Accompaniment. Danus is young by god standards, having existed for a mere few hundred years. Priests of Danus, few as they are, tell that their deity sprang fully formed from the mandolin of a bardic god at the precise moment that the orchestra struck the first note in the overture of the very first opera ever performed. Since that time, Danus has acted as a muse for bards and musicians who strive to set music to worldly events. Danus' church teaches that to every moment of life, there is a distinct and perfect musical formula which accompanies it, and devotees dedicate themselves to trying to uncover that perfect music, believing that if the music is played, then reality itself could be altered along with the notes. To date, no arch-priest of Danus is known to have lived, and so it can only be speculated what strange powers such mighty devotion might bring.
Clerics of Danus are often found within a city, where they make efforts to contribute to the arts, particularly the dramatic arts. It is not uncommon for the temple of Danus in a small town to double as the town's theater. When clerics of Danus travel, they almost invariably do so in groups, both for protection and as a means to experience the music of the world as shaped by other people. Such traveling clerics are often in high-demand by caravans and traders, for the beneficial effect they have on a caravan's morale and for such beneficial spells as The Marchin' Song (see below).
Danus' favoured weapon is the mandolin. While the mandolin is an inefficient weapon compared to the longsword or the heavy mace, some of Danus' clerics have achieved great fame and notoriety for their combat prowress. Legend speaks of Tomler, the only known paladin ever to serve Danus, who came to take holy vows after being raised in Northern barbarian tribes; few enemies could remain unshaken by the sight of the great warrior charging into melee wielding his signature weapon, the enchanted harpsicord, Duckcrusher. All priests of Danus receive weapon proficiency: musical instruments for free if their first character level is cleric.
Domain spells:
Level 1: Hear The Soundtrack. This spell, which lasts for one hour per level, allows the caster to hear a faint but audible musical score accompanying their lives. While this spell is active, the caster gains a +2 bonus to all spot checks and a 5% chance per level of not being caught flat-footed by a surprise attack, as musical cues warn them of a looming surprise. While this spell is active, the caster takes a -2 penalty to all listen checks and must rest for nine hours instead of eight to regain spells and hit points.
Level 2: Mood Music. With this power, the caster invokes the music of a social situation and shapes it to their advantage. While this spell, which lasts for one minute per level, is in effect, everyone within a ten foot radius of the caster who is able to hear normally can just faintly hear happy, cheerful, rapid music coming from nowhere in particular, and unless they succeed on a will save, feel inexplicably cheery. The caster and any companions gain a +4 bonus to diplomacy, bluff, and gather information checks made as long as the music is heard. A roll of a natural one on any such checks ends the spell immediately, as everyone present hears a sudden scratching, ripping sound and then silence.
Level 3: The Marchin' Song. This spell, which lasts for twelve hours (twenty four hours if cast by a caster of tenth level or greater), fills the hearts of everyone near the caster with a quick-tempo, energetic beat which makes them want to get up and move. Creatures friendly to the caster who remain within sixty feet of the caster can march at half-again their normal walking speed without suffering any ill effects of fatigue. When the spell ends, the creatures are affected by all the fatigue they would have accumulated during that time and must rest as normal. A creature who strays outside of the sixty-foot radius for more than 1 round per caster level immediately slows to their normal walking speed and feels the full effects of any fatigue, and this fatigue does not disapear when they re-enter the area (although the fatigue will cease to worsen as long as they remain in the area again).
Level 4: Da da da da da da, CHARGE! This spell may be cast as a free action when the caster rolls for initiative at the start of combat. The spell confers upon the caster and up to one other creature per caster level (none of whom may be more than thirty feet from the caster) a powerful charge attack as the music of battle takes them over. All affected creatures are considered to have a simultaneous initiative of 25 for the first round of combat. Creatures subject to this spell may charge up to thirty feet (or further, if their movement speed allows) in a straight line and take a full attack action at a +2 bonus on all attacks and damage rolls. Because these attack rolls are taken simultaneously, all creatures must attack a different five-foot square and thus usually a different target. At the end of this combat action, each creature affected by the spell rolls their own independent initiative which they will use for the rest of this combat.
Level 5: I Know Your Theme. This spell lasts for two rounds per caster level and may be used for two possible effects. First, the caster may target themselves or another specific character; while the spell remains in effect, the character gains a +2 circumstance bonus to two ability scores of their choice, +6 to intimidate checks, +4 to any two other skills and +4 to attacks and damage. Ability scores and damage must be chosen at the moment of casting and cannot be changed midway through the spell. A botch rolled on any die roll immediately ends this spell. While the spell is in effect, anyone who is close enough to hear the caster speak in a normal voice hears a distinctive music unique to the character, which can be recognised if it is heard again. Alternately, this spell may be cast as a general spell not specifically targeting the caster. While the spell remains in effect, the caster may choose to listen for the themes of any specific individuals they desire as long as they can clearly visualize the character or know the character's name. As long as that character remains within thirty feet of the caster, the caster can hear a unique musical theme unique to that character. A caster may choose to listen for a different theme each round for the spell's duration. This spell does not enable the caster to identify a character's direction, nor their specific distance except for "within thirty feet."
To date, no cleric of Danus is known to have gained the ability to cast higher level spells, and so any further domain spells are unknown.
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I've always heard it said that to be a doctor, to find that part of themselves that feels driven to try to cure the sick and wounded, each person must find within themselves what it is that medicine means to them, uniquely. It isn't enough to just wantto get paid to cut people up; a true physician, we are taught, is someone who derives deep and personal fulfillment from treating the sick. For about six years now, I've been looking deep into the black and shrunken plush toy that is my soul and have been consistently unable to find what that personal meaning might be. I enjoy treating patients and I love studying mental illness, but the whole "doctor" thing as a sublime concept, which so many of my classmates seem to grasp instinctively, has always eluded me. Tonight I had an ephiphany, which as Bob Hoskins could tell you is nothing to smee at. For me, personally -- and this is by no means true for anyone else in the world, although I suspect that it probably is -- being a doctor is all about laughter. Laughter is not, obviously, the best medicine. A good laugh might make someone feel better, but I challenge you to conduct a study showing that it's superior to surgery in the treatment of, say, appendicitis. To me, though, medicine -- as a profession, not the stuff you get in little plastic vials -- is all about laughter.
When a patient comes into the emergency room, part of how they're triaged by the nurses is whether they "look sick" and a patient who has it in them to seem happy tends to seem like less of an emergency. Why do people come to a hospital or a doctor? It could be pain. It could be anxiety. It could be that they've been brought against their will and don't even know why they're there. Whatever the case, odds are good about one thing: part of why they're there is that there's something happening why is getting in the way of their ability to laugh. That isn't what they'll compain of, obviously, but isn't that one way of measuring illness? When you're really sick, one of the hardest things to do is laugh, because it's hard to find the energy and it's hard to find the positivity. Even if the person starts of happy and cheerful, a day spent waiting to be seen by a doctor will wipe the smile right off of most people. One of my first supervisors put it to me this way: a doctor might be working the thirtieth hour of their shift, might be having a terrible day and feeling utterly miserable, but as a general rule, they're still having a better day than the average person who's come into the hospital.
Mind you, for some people, losing the ability to laugh isn't their problem. Certainly in psychiatry, where it looks like I'll be ending up, you have a fair share of patients who are very much able to laugh, but the things that make them laugh might stop other people from laughing. Here again, a block to laughter is part of the problem, albeit not in the same way. Here, treating the patient means helping them reach a state where other people can laugh with them -- as one supervisor put it to me, "I don't have to make the patient stop hearing voices, I just have to make the voices stop bothering him and his family." This is also something important for the doctor to remember, because it reminds us that we work as part of a team, and optimal restoration of everyone's laughter means involving social workers, physiotherapists, and everyone else who helps the patient's caregivers be able to laugh as well. No one laughs in isolation, after all; we all need other people, or recordings thereof, or at least hallucinatory sensory impressions, to laugh.
Finally, how do we know when someone has gotten "better?" In our physicianship courses, they tell us again and again that there is a difference between "curing" and "healing." Healing involves, not just aleviating disease -- which often, doctors can't do -- but helping a person cope with their disease state and come to feel as well as they can physically, emotionally, and spiritually. In that sense, laughter is one of the best measures of endpoint that we have. When a person comes in to hospital unable to laugh and leaves with their laughter restored, even if their disease hasn't signifiantly improved, they've undergone some healing and can at least enjoy a few more days of life. You can't necessarily meausre healing by whether the patient can run a few laps, or even whether they can get up out of bed, but you might, in a lot of cases, be able to identify it by whether they're laughing again. In that sense, the role of the doctor is to give the treatments and the medications which have the highest probability of helping the patient remember how to laugh.
Which leads me to the answer to a puzzle that I've been agonizing over for a long, long time. When I graduate, I'll be awarded the letters "MD CM." MD is the standard doctor-ish suffix obtained at any medical school; CM is an affectation of the British and particularly the Scottish systems, which McGill continues to give to this day in recognition of its European roots. The CM stands for Chirurgiae Magister, which is Latin for "master surgeon." As it happens, I'm a terrible surgeon, both due to my uncontrollable hand-tremor which makes me unsafe with safety scissors, let alone a medical-grade scalpel and due to my lack of drive to be the very best at whatever I do. I had inquired whether it was possible to change the letters on my diploma -- perhaps to chirurgiae pauperis ("surgeon of little value") or something like that, but understandably the school was reluctant to make an exception in my case. Today... well, February 17th, but who's counting... it occured to me that CM is actually a perfect choice for me after all. As far as I'm concerned, the letters after my name will actually indicate that I am Medicinae Doctor et Comicus Magister -- a doctor of medicine, and a master of comedy.
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For a couple of weeks now, I've been reading Peanuts, the classic comic strip by Charles Schulz. Peanuts was one of my favourite comics strips when I was younger. When I stopped reading most comic strips in the mid to late nineties due to perceived falling quality, Peanuts was one of the few that I still bothered to read from time to time; even if I didn't usually find it funny, at least I didn't feel that its pathetic attempts at humour were beneath me. When the opportunity arose to get my hands on a collection of every Peanuts strip ever printed -- something in the area of seventeen thousand strips -- I took it, and have been very slowly reading it. At the time of this writing, I'm up to 1954, about three and a half years into the strip, and I've been enjoying it. It isn't riotously funny, but it's fun in small doses, and I've certainly been enjoying it. Peanuts is an American institution, because its simple humour reminds people of a more iddylic time, when life was simpler and children could play outside without questions of safety, and most people who read it do so because it reminds them of a better world. In contrast, I read it to see the cute little dog torment the humans.
It's actually been neat to read through the strips in sequence, because you can really see how it evolves over time. There are obvious ways -- the art changes as the artist develops his style -- but there are more subtle ways as well. For example, in the 1950's strips, the characters make frequent reference to all the things they can buy for a penny. I haven't read far enough into it to really appreciate the effect which inflation has on things, but I'm sure it'll be fun to see how their candy gets more expensive with the decades. Even as prices rise, though, the characters actually age (not in real-time, perhaps, but certainly more than in most comic strips). In the very first strips, for example, the iconic Charlie Brown starts off so young as to barely be able to walk or read, and soon grows to his final age of about four or six. Linus only appears some years into the comic, first as a baby but soon able to walk and interact equaly with the other characters. None of it makes any sense in terms of the space-time continuum, of course, let alone the laws of continuity, but it's still interesting to watch how things change.
Peanuts actually holds something akin to a special place in my heart. Back when I was in grade school, I didn't have huge numbers of friends, and would often spend lunch hours more or less sitting alone. I didn't pick up reading novels until around grade 7, in my first year of high school, but before that I still had a keen appreciation for my school library. A grade school library is rarely a place where you'll find really exciting books, of course, because most of what we consider "really exciting" is stuff adults consider "unsuitable for children," especially in a religious school where they'd assign extra homework on October 31st because going out for Halloween was "inappropriate for little Jewish boys." While the school library didn't contain Ian Fleming or Dashiell Hammett, it did contain a respectable collection of Charles Schulz, which was a pretty brave choice for the library of a Jewish school since it contained strips about Jesus and Christmas. Back then I didn't have my current level of literary sophistication, so I enjoyed the comics a lot more than I do today, and they got me through many a dull hour. If not for those comics, I might not have developed my great love of reading; I might not have learned to build a story to a punchline; and I might never have learned to pretend I'm a rhinoceros and bump people with my head.
Clearly, these were life-changing books.
The reason I think of this now, as I skim through 1954, is that I'm starting to recognise old strips that I know I've seen before. After fifty years of publication, Schulz was known to have re-used the occasional punchline here and there, so sometimes that accounts for it, but somewhere in the cotton-candy sieve which passes for my memory, some of these strips are triggering flashes of recollection. I don't think I ever took Peanuts books out of any libraries other than the one in my grade school, so it seems reasonable to conclude that the strips I'm reading now are some of the same ones that I was reading twenty years ago. At the time, I didn't realise how old they really were, and even if I had, I doubt it would have been as shocking -- twenty less years of inflation in the prices of candy, after all. I remember that in some ways, I really felt as though those books were *mine* in some special sense, in part because very few other students ever read them; I clearly recall that in the file cards of some of those books, the last name to have taken them out from the library before me had been my older brother, who had probably read them three years before I did. In a sense, seeing the strips again now brings me back a bit to some of my earliest memories, when the horror that was the school day was broken up only by occasional forrays into the world of comics. Which to be honest, isn't so different from my life today, except that now the comics I read between classes are wordier.
I do seem to recall that those Peanuts books back in the school library struck me as looking very old. I don't think that at the time I realised just *how* old. They weren't older than my father, as it turns out, but they came close. Certainly, they qualified as a piece of history even back then and might today be worth a good deal of money if not for the many food stains left by careless children.
Life, as I've said before, is all about learning to take joy from small accomplishments. I genuinely believe that years from now, I'll take pride in knowing I'm one of the few people ever to have read every single Peanuts strip ever. It may not be the sort of thing that brings wealth, fame, or respect, but it'll still be an accomplishment. What's more, it'll be an accomplishement that inspires me to pretend to be a rhinoceros and bump people with my head.
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Legend has it that many centuries ago, an archmage invested the bulk of his power in crafting an unknown number of extremely powerful magical items. This in and of itself is not an uncommon form for legends to take; if every story of "a powerful wizard who put his magic into a talisman of extraordinary power" were true, no one would be able to walk to the tavern on the corner without tripping over an ancient ring or an ineffable tome. Be that as it may, this particular story is considered noteworthy by adventurers for two reasons. First, some of the magical items from this particular legend have been recovered, which suggests that there are others out there to be found and exploited. Second, the items in question, for reasons lost to the mists of time, were all created in the forms of stuffed penguins. Heroes who have wielded these penguins report that they are squishy, snuggly, and generally adorable, which is a most unusual proclamation to hear made by seven foot-tall, blood-spattered, skull-necklace-wearing barbarians.
The legends in question disagree in their opinions as to whether the mage in question was brilliant or an out-of-his-pointy-hat loony.
Each magical penguin is approximately two feet tall by one foot wide. Those which have been discovered to date have all been almost identical save only for the different colours of their little top hats and bow-ties. One scholar suggested that the use of colour to distinguish them indicated that there were likely only seven penguins in the set, as corresponding to the number of colours in the spectrum, but this theory was proved alse by the discovery of the Penguin of Spell Disruption, whose hat and bow-tie were found to be green with purple polka-dots. Each penguin has two floppy feet and two thin flippers some four inches long, with a four inch long yellow beak. Despite their apparent flimsiness, the penguins have survived remarkably well over hundreds of years, suggesting that either tey have an innate resistance to damage, or else someone out there is making more of them.
Penguin of Blindness:
Penguin of Invisibility:
Penguin of Spell-Disruption:
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The other day, I went get my graduation photos taken. It still hasn't quite sunk in yet for me that I'm actually finishing medical school; despite having started my interviews for residency next year and now having had my cap-n-gown pictures taken, I suspect that it still hasn't hit me yet. Having the grad photos taken didn't actually do anything to make it seem any more real. In fact, if anything, I think that having the photos taken has set me back and made me even less willing to believe that I'm graduating. The Graduation photo process is, after all, so artificial, so contrived, and so deliberately fake that how could they possibly relate to an actual graduation? I pride myself on being a deceiver, but I'd have been hard-pressed to come up with a way to make my graduation photos -- or at least the process of having them taken -- seem like more of a concerted, organized effort to lie to posterity.
First off, let's just point out that my graduation photos look pretty good. Under ordinary circumstances, I hate pictures of myself, in part because I don't like my own smile and in part because I don't think that the pictures ever look like me. That said, over the years, I've at least gotten pretty good and minimizing the things I hate most. In any photo, if I can get my hair and my smile to look halfway decent, I'm usually happy with them. In this case, since I knew I'd be going for the photos, I made certain that my hair was perfect, which was easy. Much harder was getting my smile just right, but in these pictures it seems to have worked. Of the eight or so photos that were taken of me, i'm showing a genuine smile in one -- my least favourite of the bunch, naturally -- but a good, measured smirk in the others. Starting from that relatively good position, the photographers then cleaned up the photos themselves, so that my normally less-than-flawless skin looks perfect in all the pictures. So, whatever else I may say, I have nothing at all against the pictures based on how I look. I look pretty darn amazing for a specimen as physically unimpressive as myself. That said, my smile is a lie, and so is everything else in the picture. Through no fault of my own, I'll add.
Let's take this one picture here (my second-least favourite of the bunch, incidentally). In this photo, I'm sitting in front of a book-case, holding a rolled-up diploma, wearing a graduation cap and gown. It's not a bad picture, as pictures go... in fact, it's so classically a "graduation photo" as to be kind of cliche. Let's take a second to break it down into its seperate elements, though, and mock them one by one. The subject of the picture is me; I'm absolutely stunning, so there's no need to dwell on that any further. The book-case behind me is the most eye-catching. Green and red bound books line a wide set of shelves. Gold writing is picked out on the spines of every book but you can't seem to read any of the words written there. In fact, when you look closely, the writing on all of the spines seems to be nothing more than crude squiggles, and poorly-disguised squiggles at that. Why is this? Because, of course, the book-case in a painted backdrop. I'm no more sitting in an old and venerable library than I am at that moment a graduate of McGill. Next, we have the diploma in my hands. Well, I'm not holding it in a natural or comfortable manner, but it's to be expected that a photographer will pose the suvject in an unrealistic position; this is the only way they can prove that a professional photographer was used. What you can't see, since the diploma is rolled up, is that it's not my diploma. In fact, it isn't *any* diploma; it's a blank sheet of yellowish paper with a ribbon wrapped around it. I've seen the diplomas that we'll be getting at graduation, and they don't actually look very much like the one in the picture at all. Finally, we come to the graduation cap. You know the one: a black square with a dangly-thing hanging from one corner. I've never understood the concept of the graduation cap myself -- I've always thought that they probably should have stopped wearing them at graduation when professors stopped wearing them while they taught -- but I suppose I can't find anything contrarian to say about it except, of course, for the fact that it's not mine. How embarassing to have your graduation photo taken wearing somebody else's hat.
Just for good measure and to really beat the point home, I'm also wearing a white shirt and tie. I enjoy wearing white dress shirts but I never, ever wear a tie except to synagogue and job interviews. Wearing a tie doesn't show that I've dressed up formally for a special occasion; it's an insincere attempt at pretending that I accept mindless cultural mores and don't believe that people will like me if they see how I actually dress.
Apparently, mild righteous indignation drives me to use even more semi-colons than normal. I only just noticed that.
In any case, there you have a general sense of what all of my graduation photos look like: a non-graduate in an artificial pose in front of a blatantly-fake background holding a blank diploma wearing clothes they'd never actually wear to either school or work and someone else's hat, pretending to smile. This picture is going to get put up on a wall somewhere in the faculty of medicine office so that in the future, people can look at it and admire what a bright, happy, clean-cut group of students must have graduated that year. I can only hope that at the precise moment that someone is one day complimenting my photo on how professional I look, I'll be at home playing D&D and making my stuffed penguin dance.
Photographs: they're how we lie to future generations.
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pv=nrt
v=ir
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Laws of the Empire: Taxation
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Laws of the Empire: The Death Penalty
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Laws of the Empire: Traffic Laws
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Danus Half-Elven, God of Dramatic Musical Accompaniment
Level 0: Ominous Chord. When this spell is cast, the caster can detect imminent danger in particular courses of action for one round per caster level. As long as this spell is active, if the character performs an action (walks towards a door or moves to open a box) which will put them into immediate danger, they will hear a horrible, jarring tone. This ends the spell prematurely if it has not already expired. The spell does not warn the caster of the nature of the danger (for example, it does not reveal if opening the doro will trigger a trap or reveal a monster) and the caster is shaken for one round as a result of the noise.
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Comicus Magister
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Working For...
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Fifty Feet of Rope, a Ten Foot Pole, and a Penguin
This penguin has a blue hat and tie and is typically described as having a particularly chubby belly. Its best-known ability is implied by its name: it has the ability to cause temporary blindness in a target. Although at first this may seem like a very powerful ability, it is limited in that to affect a target, the penguin must be pressed against the target's face, covering its eyes. Against most people, the fact that this is a magical effect might be difficult to tell; it becomes more obvious when used on targets with unusual modes of vision, as the penguin blocks infra-red sight and so-called "x-ray" vision as well as normal sight. In addition, the penguin has related abilities unknown and undiscovered by most users. While the penguin is being used to cover someone's face, it has been reported that the target similarly loses the senses of taste and smell, a phenomenon which has gone unnoticed by most owners. If the flippers are used to cover a target's ears, they will similarly be deafened. It has never been conclusively proven whether the penguin could be used to block other sensory modalities, but there is no question that its power is far greater than might be discovered simply on casual use.
This penguin has a white hat and tie and has a perpetually faded look to it. Precisely as is suggested by the name, this enguin has the ability to turn the bearer invisible. What makes this penguin particularly effective is that it does not appear to have any limitations regarding a number of times per day or for a maximum period of time; the bearer of this penguin could conceivably remain invisible in perpetuity using its magic. The feature which makes the penguin particularly desirable is that the bearer can remain hidden even if performing a hostile action against another, as opposed to most forms of invisibility, which end when the subject attempts to harm another. The penguin does have one significant limitation, which is that while the user of this penguin becomes completely invisible, the penguin itself does not. Curiously, those who have used the penguin successfully attest that people who observe a floating stuffed penguin seem to beome remarkably accepting of that fact and take its presence as a given, becoming puzzled by the sight only several minutes after it leaves their vicinity. To turn someone invisible, the penguin must be held out in front of them, blocking their face from an observer. Any observer with a clear line of sight to more than one quarter of the bearer's face is able to see the bearer perfectly normally -- and may in fact be able to spot them particularly well, as they will be the only person present holding a stuffed penguin. The penguin does nothing to quiet noises made by the bearer and they can still be detected by any other sensory modality.
In the world of adventuring, few items are as sought-after as those which allow someone to prevent an enemy wizard from casting spells. Powerful magics are the great unbalancer; even the greatest warrior can potentially be laid low by a single well-placed magic spell. This penguin, which has a green with purple polka-dots hat and tie, is one of the more powerful of the various penguins, because its magic can prevent a spellcaster -- be they wizard or cleric -- from performing any magics. Reports indicate that the penguin has been used successfully against untrained hedge-mages and archmagi alike with equal success, and that it can disrupt both week-long rituals and nearly instantaneous cantrips. To use it, the penguin must be held close to a target and bumbed repeatedly with its head, such that the penguin appears to be pecking the target with its beat. As long as they pecking continues, the caster in question will prove to be unable to perform any magic, no matter how simple or rapid. Individuals who have been targeted with the penguin report that they have a sense of being distracted which disrupts their every attempt; the pecking is both unignorable and extremely annoying. The penguin has never been demonstrated to have any effect on spells which are already in effect, although it can prevent a caster from concentrating on a spell which requires ongoing focus.
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A Thousand Lies
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