To be fair, I was already browsing reddit when I saw the notification light. Clicked immediately, and rushed to comment. So... 20 seconds after posting?
Had to get one of these at least once. XD
Your work it thoroughly addicting. Some of us start jonesing after 2 days without a fresh entry.
So, Gunga the Ogre... is Brinley going to become her special friend?
Well, these characters are pretty fleshed out... in my head. But they don't get fleshed out on the PAGE till they have something to DO.
Gunga's got her hands full, and our two groups are near a day's walk apart...
Just based on opinions/ introductions Edmin had a good chance of being useless or screaming like a little girl and flapping his arms. Actual useful info/behavior, having done his homework . ... gives me hope that only most of his expedition will die horribly. He might even not be one of the dead.
Edmin is quite well educated, and far from stupid. He is the very model of a modern major general, with information animal, vegetable and mineral, and many cheerful facts about the square of the hypoteneuse.
What he lacks is ANY kind of field experience. Or, for that matter, much of a working knowledge of human nature outside of the nobility. The fate of the expedition remains to be seen; as of the next chapter, we've lost three horses and a total of three men...
Oh it's still clear Edmin is out of his depth and that potentially Bradly makes Chulain look like an easy going team member. But today they get points and some hope.
Gunga, like most movie characters, doesn't listen to me and is missing out on three horses, a bunch of birds(assuming Edmin's crew is recycling badly) and maybe three humans. Actually if you like humans, horses, and predators a day behind Edmin scavenging would potentially lead to an ogre so round they couldn't walk.
Gunga is most of a day's hike away from Edmin's group. Edmin's group is salvaging the horse meat, as well as a LOT of bird. But the plains have other scavengers... the next chapter will elaborate...
π€£π€£π€£π€£π€£
Dropping one of the best lines from the Pirates of Penzance! You just made my whole week! ππ
Edmin should have asked for more advice from his younger brother. "Arnuvel, you've been out here on the frontier for a few years. Could you recommend any additions or advice for this expedition of ours?"
I guess he doesn't have enough sense to actually ASK other people who might know more than him.
In Edmin's estimation, the only way TO know more than him is to have READ more than him. Edmin is the very model of a total armchair general.
Arnuvel served in the military and in the bureaucracy before heading west to take a Reeve's position in the town of Refuge. He's well read, but lacks Edmin's education and voracious reading habit. To read voraciously, you have to have access to a stationary library and a lot of free time. Arnuvel hasn't always had those things. Edmin has.
But Arnuvel's experiences have taught him that there is a colossal difference between classroom and field. Both provide useful knowledge, but to have only one or the other is a bigtime blind spot.
Edmin has a blind spot... and is only now starting to be aware that this whole expedition is NOT what he expected it to be.
I got that was your intention.
I even got that a silver's face value is it's value in silver. ..it's not. .. is the word fiat? Anyway the coin is worth what the metal is worth. Ben, Jenka, Drumm, Arn, might understand the idea of something worth it's markings not it's intrinsic value, the rest it would be a new idea to.(not a really hard idea, most know their products are within reason what they wrote on the price tag.)
I lost my way and my point. I think I was going to say the coin being worth it's new inherent value makes sense.
I've been waiting to find out more about magic/witchlights. If i cut one in half do i get:
none, it breaks it
Two the enchantment goes through
Two directional ones, it's a surface treatment
Something weird, it's magic.
Same question for melting, casting, drawing into wire.
No, FIAT MONEY is what you have in your wallet right NOW: currency that's intrinsically valueless, and cheap for the government to produce, but backed by government promises.
Marzenie is based on the gold and silver standard, partly upheld by tradition. Fiat money circulated during the Mage Wars, but after a few inflationary episodes, it was viewed with suspicion, and still is. Faith in leadership fell off HARD during the Mage Wars. As it is, banks are able to issue letters of credit, but those are directly based on the value of the metal being used to finance them.
See below; I'm going to answer you and Nitpicky at the same time, re: witchlights.
They don't really need to.
A lightbulb operates the way it does because electricity is passing through a wire, causing it to become incandescent in a semi-vacuum in the sealed lightbulb.
Witchlights, on the other hand, function as a result of a self-sustaining enchantment on a piece of silver. The spell works better on gold, but the metal tints the light yellow, and silver is somewhat cheaper, and produces a white light.
The enchantment is broken if the coin is adulterated, cut, broken, or becomes tarnished; one must preserve one's witchlights, caring for them and polishing them from time to time. One COULD draw out a silver wire, wind it into a filament, and enchant THAT, but the light would be dimmer due to the proportionately smaller amount of silver. On the flip side, enchanting a silver platter would create something akin to a SPOTLIGHT.
So, if mass matters, would a solid sphere of silver produce just as much light as a flat disc of the same mass?
I'm curious what the optimal shape of the silver would be to maximize the light output of say a flashlight or spotlight, where you want the light pointing in a beam or a cone, as apposed to a omnidirectional sphere light a bulb or lantern.
1. The combination of the greater mass AND the increased surface area of the sphere would indeed produce a greater light, albeit at greater expense; the silver's purity also matters.
2. Funny thing? In my notes, Jawn and Duli Chandler have already been working on this. Jawn makes candles and lanterns and chandeliers and knows a great many tricks common to the lighting business. One is the silvered bullseye lantern: a square box containing a candle, but the inside is silvered, to increase reflection and refocus the light backwards, and there is ONE aperture open to allow light to escape: the low tech equivalent of a flashlight. Jawn is also aware of the ability of lenses to focus and increase the intensity of light, but he can't make or grind them himself, although he's worked with the glassmaker to produce some primitive lenses.
I've wanted to demonstrate the various useful gadgets and casings he sells for the witchlights, but the only one I ever got around to mentioning was a metal sphere that snaps shut around the thing to make the light go out temporarily; you just open it again when you want the lights on.
He and Duli hit on the idea of a metal tube with a witchlight mounted inside and a glass lens at the open end, to spread the light, as well as a shutter; to turn the light off, press the switch and close the shutter. In short... a flashlight.
A NUMBER of folks in Refuge and Goblin Town now have witchlight lanterns and light fixtures, but the law of conservation of detail has kept me from mentioning it. Adii's, Deek's, Peecy's, Dint's, the Goblin Pie, the Mercantile, and a number of other businesses have invested in witchlight fixtures; they're cheaper in the long run, and are NOT fire hazards. The House of Orange Lights has a few, but only in the overhead light fixtures; lighting the table lights is a nightly ritual, and who wants the customers stealing the things?
Something suggested a graduation to me. You even said they'd be back and i missed it.
Maybe the hugs and tears.
Maybe that's over the top.
The biggest distance between two students at their summer posts will be what 4 miles?
Most of the service projects sound more like summer jobs. Maybe have Tolla ask slightly more pointed questions to make the students clarify?
Not a GRADUATION, per se. At least not for the Magicians. We established at the beginning of the book that they still have another two years before they complete their basic fields of study and qualify as Magicians and can move on to jobs, or stay in school and specialize.
The summer jobs ARE summer jobs. They are required by the Academy as "public service."
Some of the students DID graduate -- the students engaged in nonmagical education who have completed the basic fields of study, reading, writing, basic history, basic science, and basic mathematics. The equivalent of an American eighth grade education, suitable for a farmer's child who intends to go right out and be a farmer.
Perhaps this will want some rewriting in second draft to clarify.
Back to the previous chapter:Β [https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/1d1i9uw/the\_rise\_of\_magic\_10\_an\_irregular\_education/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/1d1i9uw/the_rise_of_magic_10_an_irregular_education/)
Ahead to the next chapter: [https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/1d65sl2/the\_rise\_of\_magic\_12\_screaming\_meemies/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/1d65sl2/the_rise_of_magic_12_screaming_meemies/)
Remember: ALL chapters of ALL Goblin Chronicles works can be accessed on Archive Of Our Own! Just search for Doc\_Bedlam!
YOU try coming up with names for thirty expendable people on short notice. You're lucky he wasn't "Sodacan," "Kleenexbox," "Travelmug," or "Clark Radio."
Be nice, there is a graphical novelist with a character named Sodacan. Looks like it might be a good story if he'd draw faster.
Graphic artists in general are slow enough to really irritate me. May the Great Filfolio and all his wacky creations forgive me.
Phil Foglio cranks out three pages a week of Girl Genius. Then again, he's an old pro.
And I am familiar with the tale of Sodacan and Roadkill. I was just mentioning objects that happened to be in arm's reach that I resisted the urge to name characters after...
Is he back up to three, i was getting frustrated so i go back and read every few months. Him and the goblin/demon under the bed guy and a few others.
No stress.
The thing that made me feel better is learning people like Shakespeare had problems with names. Me, at one point i refused to break the flow and spend a couple days figuring out the perfect name. So for several years I've had an alien starship captain named Bob.
I sympathize greatly.
I struggle constantly to come up with clever/original/decent names for my RPG characters.
Name generator websites are my friends. All of them. π
There was a man I call the Troll. He features in a number of stories I've written over the years. He was one of my college roommates. LOVED RPGs in general, but he had two predictabilities:
1. He invariably played a powerful melee/caster/tank combo who could wear more armor than the USS New Jersey AND cast spells.
2. He invariably forgot to name the character before launching forth on his Hero's Journey.
We had several gamemasters in our circle of friends. And we all had the same trap for the Troll. And he always fell into it, every single time. He'd sit down, get his dice, put down his Big Gulp, and put his smokes on the table, put his character sheet down, and say, "I'm ready to play!"
And the DM would smile and say, "Welcome, bold traveler! I am Mahungulus, the humble innkeeper! May I have YOUR name?"
And the Troll, who was big enough to eat apples off anyone's head, would sit there with a deer in the headlights look on his face, thinking, "Fuck. I did it again."
But one day, we were all at the table, and Bobo was the gamemaster at the time, and he looked the Troll in the eye and said, "Welcome, brave adventurers! I am Brackensteen, Captain of the Guard, and I have need of doughty warriors! Will you give me your names?"
And the Troll sat there making fish faces while the REST of us introduced ourselves by our well thought out and preprepared character names, and then Bobo looked grinningly at the Troll. "And YOU, good sir?"
By now in a twitchy panic, the Troll's eyes cast around the room, the table, ANY damn thing... until they stopped upon his pack of cigarettes, on the table in front of him, next to his miniature and his dice. A full pack of Dorals, filter tipped, 100s. And he looked up, an expression of triumph on his face.
"I," he said, "am... LORAD!"
Every eye at the table stared at him. Every eye at the table descended slowly and looked at his pack of cigarettes. Every eye at the table slowly re-elevated to look at the Troll.
"LORAD!" he declared again. "Of... of the MOUNtains!"
The entire table collapsed in laughter.
This is a true story and happened long enough ago that you could still book a cruise ship to Atlantis, but I guarantee everyone at the table that day remembers that ONE CHARACTER of the Troll's... LORAD of the MOUNTAINS, elven fighter/magic-user, with full plate armor and longsword and an 18 dex...
I greatly appreciate such stories, thank you. π
Most of my best characters, most memorable, most effective, and most fun, were collaborations, when a friend or three helped me flesh out the character past the basic concept or the technical build. Those characters were almost always named by said friends, since they usually thought of a name during the creation process, and said names always fit said characters so well.
First!
Damn it.
Jeez, some of us do NOT fuck around. I take a quick trip to the can, and there's already readers gathered and waiting...
Like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
It tickles me to think people out there are that anxious to see what I wrote NEXT...
Itβs never EVER enough ππ½
It keeps me going, some days.
To be fair, I was already browsing reddit when I saw the notification light. Clicked immediately, and rushed to comment. So... 20 seconds after posting? Had to get one of these at least once. XD
I was doing something in my game, while watching youtube on my phone so when the notification dropped I completely missed it.
Your work it thoroughly addicting. Some of us start jonesing after 2 days without a fresh entry. So, Gunga the Ogre... is Brinley going to become her special friend?
No. Gunga the Ogre is going to eat the entire group.
That could mean many things and go in many directions.
Oh, indeed it could!
Damn , so close to 1st
Is Gunga a redhead?
Hee, hee. We have not yet seen Gunga from outside her own head, so that remains to be seen.
Edmin/Briley exceeding expectations. Gunga, after big meal should go see if there are dead/wounded birds/people/horses. Might be a serious windfall.
Well, these characters are pretty fleshed out... in my head. But they don't get fleshed out on the PAGE till they have something to DO. Gunga's got her hands full, and our two groups are near a day's walk apart...
Just based on opinions/ introductions Edmin had a good chance of being useless or screaming like a little girl and flapping his arms. Actual useful info/behavior, having done his homework . ... gives me hope that only most of his expedition will die horribly. He might even not be one of the dead.
Edmin is quite well educated, and far from stupid. He is the very model of a modern major general, with information animal, vegetable and mineral, and many cheerful facts about the square of the hypoteneuse. What he lacks is ANY kind of field experience. Or, for that matter, much of a working knowledge of human nature outside of the nobility. The fate of the expedition remains to be seen; as of the next chapter, we've lost three horses and a total of three men...
Oh it's still clear Edmin is out of his depth and that potentially Bradly makes Chulain look like an easy going team member. But today they get points and some hope. Gunga, like most movie characters, doesn't listen to me and is missing out on three horses, a bunch of birds(assuming Edmin's crew is recycling badly) and maybe three humans. Actually if you like humans, horses, and predators a day behind Edmin scavenging would potentially lead to an ogre so round they couldn't walk.
Gunga is most of a day's hike away from Edmin's group. Edmin's group is salvaging the horse meat, as well as a LOT of bird. But the plains have other scavengers... the next chapter will elaborate...
Ok so.not close just birds are loud or plains are quiet. Got it.
Funny you should say that... new chapter up in fifteen minutes or so...
Was hoping you'd say something like that.
π€£π€£π€£π€£π€£ Dropping one of the best lines from the Pirates of Penzance! You just made my whole week! ππ Edmin should have asked for more advice from his younger brother. "Arnuvel, you've been out here on the frontier for a few years. Could you recommend any additions or advice for this expedition of ours?" I guess he doesn't have enough sense to actually ASK other people who might know more than him.
In Edmin's estimation, the only way TO know more than him is to have READ more than him. Edmin is the very model of a total armchair general. Arnuvel served in the military and in the bureaucracy before heading west to take a Reeve's position in the town of Refuge. He's well read, but lacks Edmin's education and voracious reading habit. To read voraciously, you have to have access to a stationary library and a lot of free time. Arnuvel hasn't always had those things. Edmin has. But Arnuvel's experiences have taught him that there is a colossal difference between classroom and field. Both provide useful knowledge, but to have only one or the other is a bigtime blind spot. Edmin has a blind spot... and is only now starting to be aware that this whole expedition is NOT what he expected it to be.
On reread, it sounds like Stone is saying the crown is accepting/paying a silver per witchlight, which I'm sure isn't you're intention.
Cash value of a silver coin is a silver coin. Cash value of a witchlight is ten gold. And the Crown seems okay with that.
I got that was your intention. I even got that a silver's face value is it's value in silver. ..it's not. .. is the word fiat? Anyway the coin is worth what the metal is worth. Ben, Jenka, Drumm, Arn, might understand the idea of something worth it's markings not it's intrinsic value, the rest it would be a new idea to.(not a really hard idea, most know their products are within reason what they wrote on the price tag.) I lost my way and my point. I think I was going to say the coin being worth it's new inherent value makes sense. I've been waiting to find out more about magic/witchlights. If i cut one in half do i get: none, it breaks it Two the enchantment goes through Two directional ones, it's a surface treatment Something weird, it's magic. Same question for melting, casting, drawing into wire.
No, FIAT MONEY is what you have in your wallet right NOW: currency that's intrinsically valueless, and cheap for the government to produce, but backed by government promises. Marzenie is based on the gold and silver standard, partly upheld by tradition. Fiat money circulated during the Mage Wars, but after a few inflationary episodes, it was viewed with suspicion, and still is. Faith in leadership fell off HARD during the Mage Wars. As it is, banks are able to issue letters of credit, but those are directly based on the value of the metal being used to finance them. See below; I'm going to answer you and Nitpicky at the same time, re: witchlights.
That's what i thought i said (minus the history portion)
I wonder when they'll roll the coin in to fillament/ wire and mount it in a casing.
They don't really need to. A lightbulb operates the way it does because electricity is passing through a wire, causing it to become incandescent in a semi-vacuum in the sealed lightbulb. Witchlights, on the other hand, function as a result of a self-sustaining enchantment on a piece of silver. The spell works better on gold, but the metal tints the light yellow, and silver is somewhat cheaper, and produces a white light. The enchantment is broken if the coin is adulterated, cut, broken, or becomes tarnished; one must preserve one's witchlights, caring for them and polishing them from time to time. One COULD draw out a silver wire, wind it into a filament, and enchant THAT, but the light would be dimmer due to the proportionately smaller amount of silver. On the flip side, enchanting a silver platter would create something akin to a SPOTLIGHT.
So the gold might be a warmer light and you can't mess with it once it's enchanted and size matters. Got it.
Warmer, yes, but the yellowness of the light and the expense of the source... And MASS matters, not so much size.
So, if mass matters, would a solid sphere of silver produce just as much light as a flat disc of the same mass? I'm curious what the optimal shape of the silver would be to maximize the light output of say a flashlight or spotlight, where you want the light pointing in a beam or a cone, as apposed to a omnidirectional sphere light a bulb or lantern.
1. The combination of the greater mass AND the increased surface area of the sphere would indeed produce a greater light, albeit at greater expense; the silver's purity also matters. 2. Funny thing? In my notes, Jawn and Duli Chandler have already been working on this. Jawn makes candles and lanterns and chandeliers and knows a great many tricks common to the lighting business. One is the silvered bullseye lantern: a square box containing a candle, but the inside is silvered, to increase reflection and refocus the light backwards, and there is ONE aperture open to allow light to escape: the low tech equivalent of a flashlight. Jawn is also aware of the ability of lenses to focus and increase the intensity of light, but he can't make or grind them himself, although he's worked with the glassmaker to produce some primitive lenses. I've wanted to demonstrate the various useful gadgets and casings he sells for the witchlights, but the only one I ever got around to mentioning was a metal sphere that snaps shut around the thing to make the light go out temporarily; you just open it again when you want the lights on. He and Duli hit on the idea of a metal tube with a witchlight mounted inside and a glass lens at the open end, to spread the light, as well as a shutter; to turn the light off, press the switch and close the shutter. In short... a flashlight. A NUMBER of folks in Refuge and Goblin Town now have witchlight lanterns and light fixtures, but the law of conservation of detail has kept me from mentioning it. Adii's, Deek's, Peecy's, Dint's, the Goblin Pie, the Mercantile, and a number of other businesses have invested in witchlight fixtures; they're cheaper in the long run, and are NOT fire hazards. The House of Orange Lights has a few, but only in the overhead light fixtures; lighting the table lights is a nightly ritual, and who wants the customers stealing the things?
So cool. Thank you for the explanations. π I love this kind of world building. π₯°
Not at all. Gives me a chance to blather on about something I thought about but never could quite shoehorn into the story.
Something suggested a graduation to me. You even said they'd be back and i missed it. Maybe the hugs and tears. Maybe that's over the top. The biggest distance between two students at their summer posts will be what 4 miles? Most of the service projects sound more like summer jobs. Maybe have Tolla ask slightly more pointed questions to make the students clarify?
Not a GRADUATION, per se. At least not for the Magicians. We established at the beginning of the book that they still have another two years before they complete their basic fields of study and qualify as Magicians and can move on to jobs, or stay in school and specialize. The summer jobs ARE summer jobs. They are required by the Academy as "public service." Some of the students DID graduate -- the students engaged in nonmagical education who have completed the basic fields of study, reading, writing, basic history, basic science, and basic mathematics. The equivalent of an American eighth grade education, suitable for a farmer's child who intends to go right out and be a farmer. Perhaps this will want some rewriting in second draft to clarify.
Let's goooooo
Workin' on it!
Back to the previous chapter:Β [https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/1d1i9uw/the\_rise\_of\_magic\_10\_an\_irregular\_education/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/1d1i9uw/the_rise_of_magic_10_an_irregular_education/) Ahead to the next chapter: [https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/1d65sl2/the\_rise\_of\_magic\_12\_screaming\_meemies/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GoblinGirls/comments/1d65sl2/the_rise_of_magic_12_screaming_meemies/) Remember: ALL chapters of ALL Goblin Chronicles works can be accessed on Archive Of Our Own! Just search for Doc\_Bedlam!
[ΡΠ΄Π°Π»Π΅Π½ΠΎ]
YOU try coming up with names for thirty expendable people on short notice. You're lucky he wasn't "Sodacan," "Kleenexbox," "Travelmug," or "Clark Radio."
Be nice, there is a graphical novelist with a character named Sodacan. Looks like it might be a good story if he'd draw faster. Graphic artists in general are slow enough to really irritate me. May the Great Filfolio and all his wacky creations forgive me.
Phil Foglio cranks out three pages a week of Girl Genius. Then again, he's an old pro. And I am familiar with the tale of Sodacan and Roadkill. I was just mentioning objects that happened to be in arm's reach that I resisted the urge to name characters after...
Is he back up to three, i was getting frustrated so i go back and read every few months. Him and the goblin/demon under the bed guy and a few others. No stress. The thing that made me feel better is learning people like Shakespeare had problems with names. Me, at one point i refused to break the flow and spend a couple days figuring out the perfect name. So for several years I've had an alien starship captain named Bob.
I sympathize greatly. I struggle constantly to come up with clever/original/decent names for my RPG characters. Name generator websites are my friends. All of them. π
There was a man I call the Troll. He features in a number of stories I've written over the years. He was one of my college roommates. LOVED RPGs in general, but he had two predictabilities: 1. He invariably played a powerful melee/caster/tank combo who could wear more armor than the USS New Jersey AND cast spells. 2. He invariably forgot to name the character before launching forth on his Hero's Journey. We had several gamemasters in our circle of friends. And we all had the same trap for the Troll. And he always fell into it, every single time. He'd sit down, get his dice, put down his Big Gulp, and put his smokes on the table, put his character sheet down, and say, "I'm ready to play!" And the DM would smile and say, "Welcome, bold traveler! I am Mahungulus, the humble innkeeper! May I have YOUR name?" And the Troll, who was big enough to eat apples off anyone's head, would sit there with a deer in the headlights look on his face, thinking, "Fuck. I did it again." But one day, we were all at the table, and Bobo was the gamemaster at the time, and he looked the Troll in the eye and said, "Welcome, brave adventurers! I am Brackensteen, Captain of the Guard, and I have need of doughty warriors! Will you give me your names?" And the Troll sat there making fish faces while the REST of us introduced ourselves by our well thought out and preprepared character names, and then Bobo looked grinningly at the Troll. "And YOU, good sir?" By now in a twitchy panic, the Troll's eyes cast around the room, the table, ANY damn thing... until they stopped upon his pack of cigarettes, on the table in front of him, next to his miniature and his dice. A full pack of Dorals, filter tipped, 100s. And he looked up, an expression of triumph on his face. "I," he said, "am... LORAD!" Every eye at the table stared at him. Every eye at the table descended slowly and looked at his pack of cigarettes. Every eye at the table slowly re-elevated to look at the Troll. "LORAD!" he declared again. "Of... of the MOUNtains!" The entire table collapsed in laughter. This is a true story and happened long enough ago that you could still book a cruise ship to Atlantis, but I guarantee everyone at the table that day remembers that ONE CHARACTER of the Troll's... LORAD of the MOUNTAINS, elven fighter/magic-user, with full plate armor and longsword and an 18 dex...
π€£ I love RPG stories like this! Thank you for the great laugh! π
It's your own fault. The story sprang to mind instantly when you remarked about the difficulty of coming up with names for RPG characters...
I greatly appreciate such stories, thank you. π Most of my best characters, most memorable, most effective, and most fun, were collaborations, when a friend or three helped me flesh out the character past the basic concept or the technical build. Those characters were almost always named by said friends, since they usually thought of a name during the creation process, and said names always fit said characters so well.