Written By Mailys
May 18, 2017, 5:37 a.m.(6/25/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Mirari
Mirari, my most favorite and beloved cousin (I say that about them all) makes the best wines. I am the first taster of them all. I might also be bias in her favor.
Written By Mailys
May 18, 2017, 5:36 a.m.(6/25/1006 AR)
Dearest Readers,
I was contacted by /The/ Lady Niamh about helping with her Gold Order plans. It seems like a good thing to do. Maybe it'll help me figure out just what it is I want to do with myself now that I am no longer a Whisper or Courtesan.
I have also filled the bottles for the various wines Mirari made. As long as I say I am helping Dire Me allows me to test them.
-Mai
I was contacted by /The/ Lady Niamh about helping with her Gold Order plans. It seems like a good thing to do. Maybe it'll help me figure out just what it is I want to do with myself now that I am no longer a Whisper or Courtesan.
I have also filled the bottles for the various wines Mirari made. As long as I say I am helping Dire Me allows me to test them.
-Mai
Written By Sameera
May 18, 2017, 5:33 a.m.(6/25/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Driskell
I kind of wish for something not fish. You already know I don't like the elaborate and, I'm sure, flavorful things you enjoy making. IF you happen to be making something not fish but simple, let me know.
Written By Sameera
May 18, 2017, 5:31 a.m.(6/25/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Armel
I am pretty sure his liege will not. Probably give him a stern talking too and maybe a punt or two. If Driskell did that to me, he would get to meet my knuckle dusters. Which have spikes.
Written By Ford
May 18, 2017, 4:31 a.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
Reports of my death and/or illness are greatly exaggerated.
Hate to disappoint you all.
Hate to disappoint you all.
Written By Isolde
May 18, 2017, 4:08 a.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
It seems that I'm not the only one who reads journals religiously.
I'm received so many books and recommendations. It's staggering. I was unaware of the amount of... Interesting literature.
As for those who asked what my favorites were? I'm unsure if you meant favorite journals or favorite books. So I'll answer both.
Favorite Books: Anything historical or of religious significance. Or about botany.
Favorite Journals: Driskall's cooking exploits, people's vague complaints aimed at half of Arx, and the occasional bad romantic poetry.
I'm received so many books and recommendations. It's staggering. I was unaware of the amount of... Interesting literature.
As for those who asked what my favorites were? I'm unsure if you meant favorite journals or favorite books. So I'll answer both.
Favorite Books: Anything historical or of religious significance. Or about botany.
Favorite Journals: Driskall's cooking exploits, people's vague complaints aimed at half of Arx, and the occasional bad romantic poetry.
Written By Silas
May 18, 2017, 2:48 a.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
Meh, I like the book, personally.
That Hawks guy sure is handsome.
That Hawks guy sure is handsome.
Written By Armel
May 18, 2017, 2:25 a.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Kima
I have a family recipe, I'll dig it up for you sometime and make it. But no sharing the family secrets, it has our stamp on it.
Written By Kima
May 18, 2017, 2:08 a.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
Oft times, when I read the White journals of the Grandmaster, I leave with this strange desire to eat a spicy bean and meat stew.
Perhaps Driskell would be so kind as to post a recipe one day?
Perhaps Driskell would be so kind as to post a recipe one day?
Written By Armel
May 18, 2017, 1:48 a.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Driskell
I may disagree with a /lot/ of what this man writes about (aside from his recipes, they are delicious), but any man that publicly asks for courting women for his liege? Has a pair of brass ones hanging down there. I might kill him, if I was his lord, but brass nonetheless.
Written By Driskell
May 17, 2017, 11:28 p.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
I do apologize, my lord, if you read this.
If one does come from a good family, enjoys living life on the edge of danger and fraught with peril? If you can weather scandals like ships in terrible storms and view the fruits of your labors as rewarding and enjoyable as seeing port after a long reaving? If you could see marriage as a partnership of strengths and face all obstacles having each other's backs? Then perhaps you ought to court Count Darkwater.
The man needs a wife.
If one does come from a good family, enjoys living life on the edge of danger and fraught with peril? If you can weather scandals like ships in terrible storms and view the fruits of your labors as rewarding and enjoyable as seeing port after a long reaving? If you could see marriage as a partnership of strengths and face all obstacles having each other's backs? Then perhaps you ought to court Count Darkwater.
The man needs a wife.
Written By Anze
May 17, 2017, 9:09 p.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
Seeing the gates in person is interesting, a flurry of activity. Its good that people can move about again, and seeing all the people coming and going into the city tweaks some wanderlust in me. I should go camping.
Written By Edward
May 17, 2017, 7:03 p.m.(6/24/1006 AR)
I have gone out to find myself. If I get back before I return, keep me there.
Written By Aureth
May 17, 2017, 4:08 p.m.(6/23/1006 AR)
There are many who find the worship of Death intimidating because of their fears of the end. I don't know that these words will address those fears, but I find, as I wait in the front of the tailor's shop while my new Archlector's longcoat is being sewn and altered, perfected to fit my height properly (because I guess they expected I'd be taller -- must be the undead army), that my thoughts continue to come back to grief.
There is a tendency to blame Death for the end of life. I find that I stand against that more and more often these days as her Voice. (Orazio says that is a title I have now. Her Voice.) To blame the protector who stands at the gates of the beyond and guards your soul from harm strikes me as a particularly ungrateful thing to do, but I understand that her role has been lost to us for centuries, misappropriated to the hands of another Goddess by those who recognized that the task must be done and could not remember who has done it; and I understand that the symbols of stark mortality that she claims for her own are not the sweetest, kindest symbols in the Pantheon.
The grinning skull; the spinning spider; the lost bat, whatever those are.
The end is frightening and cold and it can be horrible. Illness is a failure of the body. Injury is brutal and cruel. Death at the hands of another is harrowing, terrifying, murder a gross terror of the Sentinel. I've seen death. I've known loss.
I wanted nothing more in this moment than to look into my mother's face and tell her what exactly I was having commissioned. To know the pride of her heart and the outrage of her tongue because I'm sure I would have incurred both somehow. The end comes to us all in time, and hers was not a short life. It wasn't that recent an ending, yet still I could feel the sting of it anew.
I don't blame Death because my mother isn't here. I don't blame the Sentinel because human justice failed her. I don't blame Skald because someone chose to end her life. I don't blame Limerance because I give a damn about it.
Grief isn't about the dead. It is about what you have lost. It is about the great hole in your life that the departed have left. It is about what should be there, that you came to rely on in life, about the habits of your heart and of your existence that have been ripped from you. I have complete faith that my mother's soul was taken into the protection of the Goddess; that her brilliant spirit, kissed by Jayus, has returned the Wheel to be woven anew, sometime that Death has a need for clear eyes and total, unrelenting fearlessness.
But the hole in my heart remains. Because grief is fundamentally selfish. It is about what you had, which you can no longer possess. To give it up is to sacrifice, not your memory of whom you love -- which is a treasure to be honored -- but instead, your hurt. Your unwillingness to accept that they are gone.
Pray to Death for the souls you love. Pray to Her because she is their guardian and she will keep them whole and safe. Pray to Her because she is the ending and because she is the beginning. Because she made each soul from her own self and set it into the world, and because all things must end so that they can begin anew.
Pray to Lagoma for the bereaved. Pray to Her that they may shed that part of themselves that clings to bitterness and loss. Pray to Her because you must continue on, and accept that you no longer are who you were when they were with you, and must be someone different now. Someone shaped by who they were, yes. Someone who will never forget. But someone else.
Remember, the gods are a whole Pantheon. One without the others is not complete.
There is a tendency to blame Death for the end of life. I find that I stand against that more and more often these days as her Voice. (Orazio says that is a title I have now. Her Voice.) To blame the protector who stands at the gates of the beyond and guards your soul from harm strikes me as a particularly ungrateful thing to do, but I understand that her role has been lost to us for centuries, misappropriated to the hands of another Goddess by those who recognized that the task must be done and could not remember who has done it; and I understand that the symbols of stark mortality that she claims for her own are not the sweetest, kindest symbols in the Pantheon.
The grinning skull; the spinning spider; the lost bat, whatever those are.
The end is frightening and cold and it can be horrible. Illness is a failure of the body. Injury is brutal and cruel. Death at the hands of another is harrowing, terrifying, murder a gross terror of the Sentinel. I've seen death. I've known loss.
I wanted nothing more in this moment than to look into my mother's face and tell her what exactly I was having commissioned. To know the pride of her heart and the outrage of her tongue because I'm sure I would have incurred both somehow. The end comes to us all in time, and hers was not a short life. It wasn't that recent an ending, yet still I could feel the sting of it anew.
I don't blame Death because my mother isn't here. I don't blame the Sentinel because human justice failed her. I don't blame Skald because someone chose to end her life. I don't blame Limerance because I give a damn about it.
Grief isn't about the dead. It is about what you have lost. It is about the great hole in your life that the departed have left. It is about what should be there, that you came to rely on in life, about the habits of your heart and of your existence that have been ripped from you. I have complete faith that my mother's soul was taken into the protection of the Goddess; that her brilliant spirit, kissed by Jayus, has returned the Wheel to be woven anew, sometime that Death has a need for clear eyes and total, unrelenting fearlessness.
But the hole in my heart remains. Because grief is fundamentally selfish. It is about what you had, which you can no longer possess. To give it up is to sacrifice, not your memory of whom you love -- which is a treasure to be honored -- but instead, your hurt. Your unwillingness to accept that they are gone.
Pray to Death for the souls you love. Pray to Her because she is their guardian and she will keep them whole and safe. Pray to Her because she is the ending and because she is the beginning. Because she made each soul from her own self and set it into the world, and because all things must end so that they can begin anew.
Pray to Lagoma for the bereaved. Pray to Her that they may shed that part of themselves that clings to bitterness and loss. Pray to Her because you must continue on, and accept that you no longer are who you were when they were with you, and must be someone different now. Someone shaped by who they were, yes. Someone who will never forget. But someone else.
Remember, the gods are a whole Pantheon. One without the others is not complete.
Written By Driskell
May 17, 2017, 2:32 p.m.(6/23/1006 AR)
The Redrain are an interesting culture, full of mysteries and stories of wild beasts and skin changers. This recipe is in memory of the Spines of the World that frame the Redrain borders, of keeping warm against another with distractions among the furs, of roaring fires, howling winds and ghastly snowdrifts.
Driskell's rack of slow roasted northern ice bear ribs with spicy whiskey marinade
Serves 16. They're big ribs.
a rack of ribs from a northern ice bear (by far the hardest ingredient to obtain. By no means should you cut it in half with a saw, the size is inspiring when served)
two bottles of Stone Mountain Whiskey (One for the marinade and one for yourself, of course!)
a cup of ground brown mustard seeds crushed with Lyceam white wine and salt
a half cup finely chopped green onion
a cup of packed finest and darkest of brown sugar from the Saffron
a pinch or two of salt, my preference is of evaporated Grayson tears
a dash of fermented fish sauce, see your local apothecary
three pinches of ground black pepper
four cloves of garlic, crushed like the dreams of many trying to kill a Northern Ice Bear
four pinches of oregano
four pinches of paprika
two very large dollop of honey, my preference is an amber color. Sticky like the situation certain people find themselves when they can't keep their oaths.
The trick with Northern Ice Bear is, first, finding a hunting party that won't kill you for your stupidity of tempting fate by hunting and tracking an ice bear, secondly surviving the encounter of killing the damnably large and ferocious beast with hands nearly as big as a man's chest and lastly but most importantly, quickly butcher it while out on the snow field or ice.
Mix all of the marinade together in a very large bowl and stir it well. Find a kite shield, or even better, an oval shaped shield to set the rack of ribs on and pour the marinade over it. Ensure you take the time to massage all over the ribs thoroughly and I do recommend letting the marinade soak into the ribs for at least three hours.
I can't stress how large these ribs are. Set the ribs in your largest oven, or roast it over at your nearest smithy overnight once they close shop (you probably want to get their permission, don't blame me to the Iron Guard). The second bottle of whiskey is to keep you company while you check every half hour and baste the ribs with the drippings from the pans. Twelve or so hours at a low but even temperature will yield an incredibly rich gamey meal which simply falls from the bone that has a spicy yet delicious marinade. No doubt, people will be licking their lips and sucking the marrow from the bone. I suggest pairing it with roasted potatoes, carrots, turnips and beetroot.
Serve as a centerpiece item with a large group. I suggest presenting it while on that shield you used for roasting, sprung between two large pikes or spears carried by two men.
Driskell's rack of slow roasted northern ice bear ribs with spicy whiskey marinade
Serves 16. They're big ribs.
a rack of ribs from a northern ice bear (by far the hardest ingredient to obtain. By no means should you cut it in half with a saw, the size is inspiring when served)
two bottles of Stone Mountain Whiskey (One for the marinade and one for yourself, of course!)
a cup of ground brown mustard seeds crushed with Lyceam white wine and salt
a half cup finely chopped green onion
a cup of packed finest and darkest of brown sugar from the Saffron
a pinch or two of salt, my preference is of evaporated Grayson tears
a dash of fermented fish sauce, see your local apothecary
three pinches of ground black pepper
four cloves of garlic, crushed like the dreams of many trying to kill a Northern Ice Bear
four pinches of oregano
four pinches of paprika
two very large dollop of honey, my preference is an amber color. Sticky like the situation certain people find themselves when they can't keep their oaths.
The trick with Northern Ice Bear is, first, finding a hunting party that won't kill you for your stupidity of tempting fate by hunting and tracking an ice bear, secondly surviving the encounter of killing the damnably large and ferocious beast with hands nearly as big as a man's chest and lastly but most importantly, quickly butcher it while out on the snow field or ice.
Mix all of the marinade together in a very large bowl and stir it well. Find a kite shield, or even better, an oval shaped shield to set the rack of ribs on and pour the marinade over it. Ensure you take the time to massage all over the ribs thoroughly and I do recommend letting the marinade soak into the ribs for at least three hours.
I can't stress how large these ribs are. Set the ribs in your largest oven, or roast it over at your nearest smithy overnight once they close shop (you probably want to get their permission, don't blame me to the Iron Guard). The second bottle of whiskey is to keep you company while you check every half hour and baste the ribs with the drippings from the pans. Twelve or so hours at a low but even temperature will yield an incredibly rich gamey meal which simply falls from the bone that has a spicy yet delicious marinade. No doubt, people will be licking their lips and sucking the marrow from the bone. I suggest pairing it with roasted potatoes, carrots, turnips and beetroot.
Serve as a centerpiece item with a large group. I suggest presenting it while on that shield you used for roasting, sprung between two large pikes or spears carried by two men.
Written By Shadow
May 17, 2017, 1:50 p.m.(6/23/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Lark
~Written in Northlands Shav~
I received word after hearing of the proclamation from the one I called friend and named Bird Princess, She has decided to sever all ties with me and like so many others in this city that spoke words of friendship has since turned their back and abandoned me. Perhaps this is why the spirits kept me so long on the mountain alone. To weather the storm that is the city and the ways of her people. Or maybe they are simply cruel and find amusement in it. I have never before questioned the will of the spirits near as much as I do now. She seemed so different when I met her and when we would meet. I saw something different in her, and perhaps it is still there. But if it is I do not see it in this moment, In this gathering shadow of the backs that are turning against me because of my honesty with Freja. I only wish she had asked to hear my side, to know my feelings and see the truth in my eyes. I shall treasure the moments we shared and the friendship that we seemed to have. Maybe someday she will ask to know what really happened.
I received word after hearing of the proclamation from the one I called friend and named Bird Princess, She has decided to sever all ties with me and like so many others in this city that spoke words of friendship has since turned their back and abandoned me. Perhaps this is why the spirits kept me so long on the mountain alone. To weather the storm that is the city and the ways of her people. Or maybe they are simply cruel and find amusement in it. I have never before questioned the will of the spirits near as much as I do now. She seemed so different when I met her and when we would meet. I saw something different in her, and perhaps it is still there. But if it is I do not see it in this moment, In this gathering shadow of the backs that are turning against me because of my honesty with Freja. I only wish she had asked to hear my side, to know my feelings and see the truth in my eyes. I shall treasure the moments we shared and the friendship that we seemed to have. Maybe someday she will ask to know what really happened.
Written By Mason
May 17, 2017, 11:49 a.m.(6/23/1006 AR)
I feel as if Arx is a different city than when I left. During the siege, the people have changed. It can be seen on their faces and reflected in their eyes. These are a people that have now tasted of the horrors out there in the world. No more is the easy assurance that everything is mythology. Dark forces ever seep into Arvum and it distresses me deeply.
I had hoped to have put so much of that behind me, but perhaps that is why fate has brought me here? It seems arrogant to assume as much, but I will do my best to learn what I can so I can be of assistance to those in need, regardless.
I had hoped to have put so much of that behind me, but perhaps that is why fate has brought me here? It seems arrogant to assume as much, but I will do my best to learn what I can so I can be of assistance to those in need, regardless.
Written By Percephon
May 17, 2017, 9:28 a.m.(6/23/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Zhayla
It was good to see this young prodigal again. If anything, she clearly needed a reminder not to be lax on her homework and learning, though I believe we have rectified that appropriately, and she won't forget again, at least not if she remembers point Three Hundred and Sixty Eight. I look forward to her knighting ceremony, an honor that is well deserved.
Written By Nicia
May 17, 2017, 3:30 a.m.(6/22/1006 AR)
Part of me was very excited about the prospect of journeying to Arx, to see things I'd never seen, and meet people that I had never met before, and may not have ever had the chance to otherwise.
I find that the city is exciting, there are so many people. So many different types of people, if you sat down and thought about the wildest possible person you could meet...I would be willing to place a bet that you could find someone like that here. If not more than that.
Everyone I have met so far has been polite, kind, welcoming...even ones that I have met just in passing. I know that it is just not possible for everyone in the city to be polite and kind, open to accepting new people. Maybe I've simply had the best of luck in finding them, though.
I find that the city is exciting, there are so many people. So many different types of people, if you sat down and thought about the wildest possible person you could meet...I would be willing to place a bet that you could find someone like that here. If not more than that.
Everyone I have met so far has been polite, kind, welcoming...even ones that I have met just in passing. I know that it is just not possible for everyone in the city to be polite and kind, open to accepting new people. Maybe I've simply had the best of luck in finding them, though.
Written By Nicia
May 17, 2017, 2:43 a.m.(6/22/1006 AR)
Relationship Note on Valerion
Oh...Valerion. One of the very first people I met when arriving in Arx. That in and of itself makes him someone that I will always count as special. No matter how much time passes, he will always be special.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.