Written By Avary
Aug. 1, 2020, 6:24 p.m.(10/6/1013 AR)
Courtkeep is coming up, and it’s true that it’s the holy day of the Sentinel and often simply celebrated by those within the legal professions. But there’s a there’s another holy day that I want to remind you of, your birthday.
Birthdays are of course celebrations, and how often do parents ask where in the Library of Vellichor is the book to raise a child! On the birth of every child, the parents should already be ready to name the Witnesses for their child. For a girl, two women and a man. For a boy, two men and a woman. These Witnesses form a very special bond with the child and family, and support the child through their lifetime. Throughout the child’s life and far into adulthood, these Witnesses honor their obligations to recognize someone’s birth, and to confirm that the person is who they say they are.
To be a Witness is a great honor and a great challenge. The three should take an active role, as much as they’d desire, in helping the parents raise the child, act as guides and a mentor. They should be members of the Faith, for the oaths and promises as a Witness shouldn’t ever be taken lightly. While they might be related in blood, there’s more I think to gain in having Witnesses beyond your family who can help bridge the weaknesses and the child (and family units) become stronger for it.
Celebrate birthdays with jovial happiness, but also remember that you are Witnesses to the person. You see their actions, their successes and failures. But as Witnesses, you aren’t called to judge.
I wish each of you a happy birthday, and to the Witnesses, may the gods help and strengthen you to become guides in the child’s walk of faith.
Birthdays are of course celebrations, and how often do parents ask where in the Library of Vellichor is the book to raise a child! On the birth of every child, the parents should already be ready to name the Witnesses for their child. For a girl, two women and a man. For a boy, two men and a woman. These Witnesses form a very special bond with the child and family, and support the child through their lifetime. Throughout the child’s life and far into adulthood, these Witnesses honor their obligations to recognize someone’s birth, and to confirm that the person is who they say they are.
To be a Witness is a great honor and a great challenge. The three should take an active role, as much as they’d desire, in helping the parents raise the child, act as guides and a mentor. They should be members of the Faith, for the oaths and promises as a Witness shouldn’t ever be taken lightly. While they might be related in blood, there’s more I think to gain in having Witnesses beyond your family who can help bridge the weaknesses and the child (and family units) become stronger for it.
Celebrate birthdays with jovial happiness, but also remember that you are Witnesses to the person. You see their actions, their successes and failures. But as Witnesses, you aren’t called to judge.
I wish each of you a happy birthday, and to the Witnesses, may the gods help and strengthen you to become guides in the child’s walk of faith.
Written By Sydney
Aug. 1, 2020, 5:15 p.m.(10/6/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Viviana
From the sound of it, I'm halfway to making a proper sailor, then.
Written By Philippe
Aug. 1, 2020, 4:48 p.m.(10/6/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Drake
My wife has been taken by a fey mood and has started drafting a children's book. I suspect this book has been inspired by a plush rendering of Oaty that was masterminded by Drake. I am unsure if the plush rendering came before or after Mathilde began this scheme, but now it seems to be something that I am honor-bound to support. After all, I have to protect Oaty's good name.
Written By Bree
Aug. 1, 2020, 12:43 p.m.(10/6/1013 AR)
Today I continue my journey as a disciple of Gild. I was going to write 'I begin my journey,' but truth be told, I've been Gild's disciple for as long as I can remember. Now I'm just going to be a better version of that (or strive to be, anyhow).
Written By Sydney
Aug. 1, 2020, 12:25 p.m.(10/6/1013 AR)
A person's word is to him or her the sweetest and most valuable thing they own.
Some might say it is the most important thing in Arvum to that person.
It is the one way those who have nothing might be taken seriously. It is a sign of honor and a way of recognizing them. When someone acknowledges that we are as good as our word, we feel respected and more important. It makes a positive and lasting impression on others. To besmirch someone's word, especially when someone has had to defend it their entire life, is to make that person's subsequent words valueless and small.
A commoner who isn't as good as their word often finds themselves on the outs with their community, or face-down in an alley, depending on how little their word is worth to the right people. It is dangerous to assume that losing a title or standing is where this breakdown ends for those without a noble house to fall back upon.
It is discouraging and dismaying to find out that your word will not be vouchsafed by someone who throws words around like 'love', and instead shrinks away from their own word because their equals are around. Often, what is correct is not the path that is righteous. It's horrible to be treated as a lesser by someone who you respected, simply because the situation was inconvenient. Or worse, to assume that you would suffer their continued disrespect for any longer when their respect of you extends only so long as it takes to ask the bare minimum of favors: Telling one who would listen to you that the one you purport to love can be trusted not to have ulterior motives. Believing them when they speak. Treating them with kindness, not suspicion. With affection and with dignity.
Your word and your feelings are precious. Protect them from those who would not respect them, or make light of them.
Do not feel the need to return someone's words of adulation out of duty. Love is nothing more than a promise waiting to be broken.
It always has been.
Some might say it is the most important thing in Arvum to that person.
It is the one way those who have nothing might be taken seriously. It is a sign of honor and a way of recognizing them. When someone acknowledges that we are as good as our word, we feel respected and more important. It makes a positive and lasting impression on others. To besmirch someone's word, especially when someone has had to defend it their entire life, is to make that person's subsequent words valueless and small.
A commoner who isn't as good as their word often finds themselves on the outs with their community, or face-down in an alley, depending on how little their word is worth to the right people. It is dangerous to assume that losing a title or standing is where this breakdown ends for those without a noble house to fall back upon.
It is discouraging and dismaying to find out that your word will not be vouchsafed by someone who throws words around like 'love', and instead shrinks away from their own word because their equals are around. Often, what is correct is not the path that is righteous. It's horrible to be treated as a lesser by someone who you respected, simply because the situation was inconvenient. Or worse, to assume that you would suffer their continued disrespect for any longer when their respect of you extends only so long as it takes to ask the bare minimum of favors: Telling one who would listen to you that the one you purport to love can be trusted not to have ulterior motives. Believing them when they speak. Treating them with kindness, not suspicion. With affection and with dignity.
Your word and your feelings are precious. Protect them from those who would not respect them, or make light of them.
Do not feel the need to return someone's words of adulation out of duty. Love is nothing more than a promise waiting to be broken.
It always has been.
Written By Denica
Aug. 1, 2020, 10:43 a.m.(10/5/1013 AR)
Lady Snow purrs loudly, yet the music is wasted on me as I lay in bed - eyes staring at the ceiling of my room. A spell, a mood swing, I don't know what came over me. I lay in bed - turning memories and regrets over and over in my head, wearing them smooth and unable to cut but they still manage to manufacture an edge to do so. I will never be rid of them, I think.
To think it started out small, a minor upset, but it spiraled down and down till I was avoiding my family and locked myself in the bedroom. I am trapped in the dark room of my mind; the place I was born in, surrounded by a vast emptiness - a void.
I have remained for far too long, it was comfortable, but the room is shrinking now. Ominous almost. I need to let in some light, to open the windows and freshen the web of tangled thoughts instead of ruminating over and over again.
(A splash of midnight-ink darkens the bottom of the page, a messy outline of an abstract head could be made out - freakishly long, fuzzy arms sprout from the lower sides of the page and tightly clutch at its head. Its mouth is agape, almost too wide to be human, in a silent scream.)
To think it started out small, a minor upset, but it spiraled down and down till I was avoiding my family and locked myself in the bedroom. I am trapped in the dark room of my mind; the place I was born in, surrounded by a vast emptiness - a void.
I have remained for far too long, it was comfortable, but the room is shrinking now. Ominous almost. I need to let in some light, to open the windows and freshen the web of tangled thoughts instead of ruminating over and over again.
(A splash of midnight-ink darkens the bottom of the page, a messy outline of an abstract head could be made out - freakishly long, fuzzy arms sprout from the lower sides of the page and tightly clutch at its head. Its mouth is agape, almost too wide to be human, in a silent scream.)
Written By Viviana
Aug. 1, 2020, 10:42 a.m.(10/5/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Sydney
Have you indulged in far too much hard liquor recently?
Then yes, yes you do understand how sailors feel, I think.
That’s how I’m coping with things anyways.
...I was doing it before the whirlpool showed up, too, but still.
Then yes, yes you do understand how sailors feel, I think.
That’s how I’m coping with things anyways.
...I was doing it before the whirlpool showed up, too, but still.
Written By Lisebet
Aug. 1, 2020, 9:44 a.m.(10/5/1013 AR)
I have been spending far too much time with books of late. Perhaps I shall take time to jog from place to place. Alban would probably be pleased to know I have kept up the habit.
Written By Preston
Aug. 1, 2020, 6:09 a.m.(10/5/1013 AR)
I was called the other day a ‘Tyrant’s Pet’. The person that said it was naturally angry, and for reasons that are true to themselves so this is not some attempt to attack them. But simply to say that after this encounter I have thought of those I have served in my life. The old Grandmaster of the Templars, Fawkuhl, Aldwin, Dominus Orazio, and the King.
The old Grandmaster was an honourable man. But not one who to my knowledge aspired to more than he was. I was also never his pet - his squire, yes. And I miss his advice each day since his retirement from his duties.
Dominus Fawkuhl? Perhaps the closest one might consider to me being a pet - the orphan he moulded for his ends. A fierce defender of the Faith as Fawkuhl wished it to be. And yet, while he had ambitions, he never realised them. And his removal by the Faith, even as we upheld several of his decisions around excommunications, shows that he was ultimately accountable.
Dominus Aldwin and Dominus Orazio have both asked things of me as a Knight of the Faith, but both have always been respectful and always allowed for me to have my opinions. Never was I a pet, to be instructed without regard and controlled. Both are also wise and kind leaders of the Faith who are ill suited to any notion of ‘Tyrant’.
And finally the King. I suspect he would laugh at any idea that I was his pet. Much of what I feel I must do for the Faith is not always politic, and that is the world of temporal rule. It is also hard to imagine Alaric as a tyrant - the King has always consulted widely on most things, even when many close would bid him use prerogative to move faster. He has sought to bring the realm together, favouring the well being of us all over his enrichment or empowerment.
No I do not think I am a tyrant’s pet. I am a servant of course, that much is true and I am proud to be so, for it is in service to the Gods that I have found life.
The old Grandmaster was an honourable man. But not one who to my knowledge aspired to more than he was. I was also never his pet - his squire, yes. And I miss his advice each day since his retirement from his duties.
Dominus Fawkuhl? Perhaps the closest one might consider to me being a pet - the orphan he moulded for his ends. A fierce defender of the Faith as Fawkuhl wished it to be. And yet, while he had ambitions, he never realised them. And his removal by the Faith, even as we upheld several of his decisions around excommunications, shows that he was ultimately accountable.
Dominus Aldwin and Dominus Orazio have both asked things of me as a Knight of the Faith, but both have always been respectful and always allowed for me to have my opinions. Never was I a pet, to be instructed without regard and controlled. Both are also wise and kind leaders of the Faith who are ill suited to any notion of ‘Tyrant’.
And finally the King. I suspect he would laugh at any idea that I was his pet. Much of what I feel I must do for the Faith is not always politic, and that is the world of temporal rule. It is also hard to imagine Alaric as a tyrant - the King has always consulted widely on most things, even when many close would bid him use prerogative to move faster. He has sought to bring the realm together, favouring the well being of us all over his enrichment or empowerment.
No I do not think I am a tyrant’s pet. I am a servant of course, that much is true and I am proud to be so, for it is in service to the Gods that I have found life.
Written By Emberly
Aug. 1, 2020, 1:49 a.m.(10/5/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Alban
Brother of mine, I often wonder where the world has taken you.
Written By Piccola
Aug. 1, 2020, 1:21 a.m.(10/5/1013 AR)
Many are not satisfied with the simpler way of life.
They will want more luxuries: dainties, perfumes, incense, and cakes; all these, not of one sort only, but in every variety. Correspondingly, they shall want more servants to wait on them.
They will want more knowledge: secrets, information, books, and lessons; all of these, not on a single topic, but upon every subject. Correspondingly, they shall want more tutors to teach them.
They will want nurses, barbers, confectioners, and cooks; they will want swineherds, cattlemen, farmers, and shepherds too.
And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will become too small and not enough, so a slice of our neighbors' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage. And they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth.
And so they shall go to war, without determining whether war does good or harm, all for what we now have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in nations, private as well as public.
They will want more luxuries: dainties, perfumes, incense, and cakes; all these, not of one sort only, but in every variety. Correspondingly, they shall want more servants to wait on them.
They will want more knowledge: secrets, information, books, and lessons; all of these, not on a single topic, but upon every subject. Correspondingly, they shall want more tutors to teach them.
They will want nurses, barbers, confectioners, and cooks; they will want swineherds, cattlemen, farmers, and shepherds too.
And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will become too small and not enough, so a slice of our neighbors' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage. And they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth.
And so they shall go to war, without determining whether war does good or harm, all for what we now have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in nations, private as well as public.
Written By Ilira
July 31, 2020, 11:30 p.m.(10/5/1013 AR)
These southerners and their dark eyes. I am mesmerized, every glance.
Written By Sunniva
July 31, 2020, 10:57 p.m.(10/4/1013 AR)
It amazes me how much a single conversation can change a person's view on the world...
Written By Sydney
July 31, 2020, 8:38 p.m.(10/4/1013 AR)
There is nothing more exquisitely painful for someone who's trained to do a thing well than to have to sit on their hands and just not.
I suppose I understand now how those who sail must feel with this whirlpool in place, pacing the docks as though in a prowl, thinking any moment might be the one in which they can launch into action, and finally feel the sea breeze on their face again.
This horse thinks I'm fucking insane, given how often I've checked and rechecked the saddle.
...a literal horse, not a proverbial horse. Don't read into it.
I suppose I understand now how those who sail must feel with this whirlpool in place, pacing the docks as though in a prowl, thinking any moment might be the one in which they can launch into action, and finally feel the sea breeze on their face again.
This horse thinks I'm fucking insane, given how often I've checked and rechecked the saddle.
...a literal horse, not a proverbial horse. Don't read into it.
Written By Cassandra
July 31, 2020, 6:20 p.m.(10/4/1013 AR)
A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
A person's name is the greatest connection to their own identity and individuality. Some might say it is the most important word in Arvum to that person.
It is the one way we can easily get someone's attention. It is a sign of courtesy and a way of recognizing them. When someone remembers our name after meeting us, we feel respected and more important. It makes a positive and lasting impression on us. To not remember a name, especially when someone has had to repeat it several times, is to make that person feel slighted. Duels have been fought over forgotten names.
They have also been fought and punishment doled out on the misuse of names. A Prince or Princess could suddenly find themselves relieved of title if they misuse their name or title. It is dangerous that you assume if you use a name to get something that there will be no consequence.
It is discouraging and dismaying to find out that your name has been used in a way you would not approve of. It is disrespectful for someone to use your name to get something without asking your permission. Or worse, to assume that you would approve of something simply because they used your name.
Your name is precious. Protect it with all you have. Let no one besmirch or ruin it.
A person's name is the greatest connection to their own identity and individuality. Some might say it is the most important word in Arvum to that person.
It is the one way we can easily get someone's attention. It is a sign of courtesy and a way of recognizing them. When someone remembers our name after meeting us, we feel respected and more important. It makes a positive and lasting impression on us. To not remember a name, especially when someone has had to repeat it several times, is to make that person feel slighted. Duels have been fought over forgotten names.
They have also been fought and punishment doled out on the misuse of names. A Prince or Princess could suddenly find themselves relieved of title if they misuse their name or title. It is dangerous that you assume if you use a name to get something that there will be no consequence.
It is discouraging and dismaying to find out that your name has been used in a way you would not approve of. It is disrespectful for someone to use your name to get something without asking your permission. Or worse, to assume that you would approve of something simply because they used your name.
Your name is precious. Protect it with all you have. Let no one besmirch or ruin it.
Written By Rosalind
July 31, 2020, 6:09 p.m.(10/4/1013 AR)
It's finally getting cooler out. FINALLY! I'm not saying it's still not hot. Because it IS! But it's getting nicer! And I'm not melting! Time to venture out more!
Written By Luis
July 31, 2020, 3:31 p.m.(10/4/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Juliana
My lovely wife, if it wasn't for our union, I fear I would have done something tragically stupid by now. You are one whom has helped ground me, to ensure I do not fly so high that I burn in the sun's heat. And yet, you are also the one whom understands me more than any other. We lay awake at night discussing the minutia of the world and we see it, you see it, and it helps me to see it as you do and as it should be seen. Such a sparring partner of words and concepts, I once again must say that I am so entirely thankful for what we have together. I do hope that others will find their pair as we have, though not with you because well, we are what we are.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Written By Orvyn
July 31, 2020, 3:05 p.m.(10/4/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Apollo
Guildmaster Apollo has been such an inspiration over these past few weeks. Aiding us in various trade details, but also we discovered a hidden talent within the man, an ability to tailor clothing. It is such a thing that my Sun has already commissioned a whole new wardrobe from him and I will admit that despite my complete disregard for current fashion, he has even managed to convince me to be excited.
I look forward to what he presents.
I look forward to what he presents.
Written By Orvyn
July 31, 2020, 3:01 p.m.(10/4/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Sunniva
The last month has flown by, Summer changing to Autumn at record pace, though I must say that having Sunniva here to support and rally the cause of Harthall has been uplifting and freeing. With her desire to see the world a better place and her heart for all, it has allowed me to focus on those things that I find myself better at and so that she can shine where she does excel. Already the connections she has brought from all over and restored the relationship with House Laurent, it has been wonderful and truly it reminds me of the time that we first arrived in Arx, when we set forth with a plan and a purpose, before she had to leave of course.
But now that she is returned, the plans and desires to continue to strengthen in all areas are returned, I find myself with room to breathe and think again. It is wonderful and I am truly glad that she is here.
But now that she is returned, the plans and desires to continue to strengthen in all areas are returned, I find myself with room to breathe and think again. It is wonderful and I am truly glad that she is here.
Written By Lucita
July 31, 2020, 1:45 p.m.(10/4/1013 AR)
Relationship Note on Mabelle
I asked the twins what to send someone who could not eat solid foods and was sweet. They clammored 'Peach Delight'. So I had cook make a big bowl of Peach Delight for Lady Mabelle, and then a second for the twins. Cookies crumbled up on it and a little peach juice stirred in make everything soft and drinkable rather than like the usual pudding texture.
Please note that the scholars may take some time preparing your journal for others to read.