The Guide to the Universe and Everything by You but also Verrill Lebastion

Around! -V.L.

Where have you gone, old friend?

~N.D.

Ah finally a question with a long answer. In short Londwyns make gold, blackpowder, and progress. They make each link of this chain to accelerate the next.

Their ancestors took to the seas some 300 years ago, fleeing the isle of Vis. The world they left was collapsing from magitech gone mad, and a singular faith that adhered to Psionics and the wanton whims that come with it. Those first bold few that made landfall on the western shores of Palmydia did all within their power to expunge any technique or tradition of their homeland from living memory. They rest their piety not in Gods or magics, but the progress they could seize with their own hands. As generations would pass, and the magics of Palymdia came into practical use, this first belief would govern the difference between "true" londwynian culture and "low" Londwynian culture. Stability and pragmatism. Replicatable results. A Chroniclerite watcher could instantly replicate a dense document with their prayers, but the inventor of a press could replicate it 1,000 fold without prayer and only a small workshop. A naturally gifted mage could fling a fireball after a year of training, but a rifleman could fell that same wizard with a day of training and the correct equipment.

This new faith would wage it's first terrible crusades against the ancient Sylvan forests. The rapid expansion this once small refugee nation required spared little room for compromise. The first war between Londwynians and Sylvans was a bloody and horrific thing, The thunder of guns and the roaring of great primal beasts left bloody swathes that careened toward both nations assured mutual destruction. An endless winter threatened to blanket the coast, while a gate-based artillery threatened to decimate the highest court of elves. The standoff was met with a ceasefire and the entire west of Palmydia took a sigh of relief.

For generations the ceasefire stood but despite this there have been loopholes found by greed or grudge. Notably The "War of Sylvan Aggression" that raged some 15 years ago. Londwyns had grown quite proficient in their methods of war- using all they had learned over the centuries. Bulwarks, rotating arquebus lines, and deforestation incendiaries- Every cruel instrument a vast engine that produced nothing but coin, soldiers, and weapons could bring to bear. Politic brought the war to a close with a few small acres of expanding logging territory, but this skirmish brought on a renewed drive to expand their empire further then just the Sylvan's forests- erecting distant states in far flung lands- great trade companies using their united industrial state to further their control of land and sea.

I will post more about recent cultural innovations and expansions but I feel as tho this is a good start to that grand cult to progress and the sacrifices that came along the way, V.L.

The best moment of your life, the worst moment of your life, and every moment in-between have never stopped. You are still there- those seconds of thinking how to put your question to parchment- you still sit there wetting the ink of that quill as much as you weren't but a scattering of matter just several decades ago or several centuries from now. Time never stops happening, and some could argue never really began. Entities that see and exist beyond time can struggle to appreciate the limited linear nature of mortal perception. One may say knowing fate is just seeing a glimpse of this elevated perspective and seeing the moments that are still happening- further from the mortal's current perspective.

Best Wishes, V.L.

A letter bearing the seal of the House of the Ratcatchers is tacked on the wall. Translated and written on behalf of Chud Larsson by the pen of Ser Thomas Bell. "One time I saw a gnome what had a shiny flat circle on a shiny flat chain with numbers on it what told him what time it is" Gracious Thanks and Compliments The Grande Chud Full of questions, empty of letters.

P.S. How come day time happens?

How is time a flat circle? To clarify, I think most people understand that the progression of time is an illusion based on mortal perception of events, and in fact all things that can happen have already happened on some metaphysical level, which people are perceiving sequentially as they experience the events. What I'm specifically asking about is how is it a "flat circle"? A circle is already a two dimensional representation of a geometric object, a flat sphere if you will. How can a 2-D representation be more flat? Does it become 1 dimensional? Wouldn't that just a line? Is it still a circle with an unnecessary adjective added? - Jackdaw

Ah, finally a question with a long answer- Give me but a moment...

No we don't.... anyway .... We were curious about the Londywins, is all they do drink tea and wear hats? They've never expressed much interesting culture.

Even priests wield a silver strand. You wield strands as well- You're just deluding yourself into not realizing it. A real pro-magi move if I do say so myself, but madness is its own form of instability.

-V.L.

Why base all magic in a weave, around a fey, where the entire source of power can become compromised? We don't use it, but it's baffling that anyone would.

I did not know Anoch would send a philosopher so early in these queries. I will not rush to meet these grand mysteries so early in this discourse, but am flattered by your inquiry. There are many tales of winter- ever envious of sweet summer. In more recent (and less credible) accounts of Valos' scepter lighting the sky- However the clearest discernment is found in the spheres of the elemental planes. Fire and heat drift across the celestial, and as they annually drift away from Arawyn only the cold and ice remains in its absence. V.L.

P.S. (hastily written on the back of the envelope) "How come it gets cold in winter?"

A letter bearing the seal of the House of the Ratcatchers is tacked on the wall. Written on behalf of Chud Larsson by the pen of Ser Thomas Bell. "Why does night time happen?" Gracious Thanks and Compliments The Grande Chud Full of questions, empty of letters.

Well once upon a time things were admittedly simpler. A shade is a broad term now for "spooky incorporeal thing" when once it meant a shadow elemental. These creatures have fallen out of vogue so the term has been appropriated for a large denomination of "spooky" things that are oft created by "Healing" gone terribly wrong or other aberrations in the resurrection method. A ghost is a form of shade that is specifically a spirit that has not quite passed on correctly, and now is likely taking it out on any living thing it can get its cold ethereal hands on.

Additionally every ghost I have met is a terrible card player.

If you have any further questions,

Feel free to inquire, Verrill Lebastion

In the Library of Anoch some sources classify ghosts as undead, and some sources classify ghosts as shades. Is it possible for a creature to be both?

- Amhrán Briste-Laoch