Post by Young Grimwold on Jun 14, 2007 2:40:39 GMT
*Young Grimwold is not pleased. [ModNote: YG was last seen in Sword Technique.] He is storming through the streets, a crumpled copy of the Warlock Street Journal in his non-club hand.
YG has increasingly been seeing these news parchments posted on walls and fences around town. Some say that they were inspired by the clue scrolls which used to be mysteriously deposited about the realm for dungeoneers, but YG knows that the idea of public news notices is one from ancient times (the Romans called theirs the Acta Diurna). There are rumours that entire news books, several pages long, produced weekly or even daily, are also available, for a sum of money; but YG has never seen one, and suspects that the level of technomagical resources required for such a feat is many centuries away from being achieved. Nonetheless, there is the Warlock Street Journal, its sheets springing up across the land like merciless weeds, and YG has finally given into his temper and torn one down.
Why should a page of information so offend a literate fellow like Young Grimwold? For one thing, as the former associate of a troubadour, he knows what a tremendous threat these parchments pose to people who earn their living from distributing news by song. And what of the gossip-mongers, the people who spread news and rumour simply for the joy of conversation: if all that they might tell is already written down, what will they have to speak about? What would the marketplace or the Crazed Heifer be like if its loquacious costumers were forced into morose silence? Yet there is the fact that a great many of the townsfolk are illiterate. This makes the news sheets either damaging in the one instance, or pointless in the other.
And how does one dispose of the things? They only have worth for a single day or week, after all. Will the realm become a vast plain, stubbly and scorched, where all the trees have become papers of news, and all the papers have become bonfires, stoked by destitute minstrels and flibbertigibbets gone silent? Not if YG can help it. It is too soon for newspapers. Let the folk of the future live out such nightmares; now is not the time.
[OOC: Newspapers, as we know them, did not arrive until the first decade of the 17th century, putting them beyond the traditional Knightmare time period as I understand it. In my opinion, something like the Warlock Street Journal is good as a very occasional plot device, but shouldn't replace direct communication between characters.]
As YG stalks into the Crazed Heifer, Owen Vartern the tavern owner is waiting, and summons him to the back room for a talk.*
Owen: Master Grimwold, you will be accompanying me on a trip. For some time, the Bodkin Brothers of Warlock have been charging me rather more for barrels of their Grimdale Ale than I feel they should. I tried to discuss it with them, but they told me that if I value my bones, I should let the matter rest and be content with their "very fair offer". *Owen sneers.* There's three of them, they each look like they could lift a cow, and probably have, many a time - into their mouths. So I could hardly argue with them.
Owen: However, with an og... a chap of your stature behind me, my chances of negotiating a fairer price are somewhat higher. I don't want to delay - the Bodkins have already grabbed enough of my gold - but also don't wish to be away from the tavern for too long. If we ride through the night, we should reach Warlock by daybreak, giving us the rest of the day to pin the Bodkins down. Naturally, there'll be some gold for your time. If we succeed.
*YG nods. He hopes that he won't have to give too much exposure to his ogre side in order to accomplish this task. Then again, thanks to the parchment that is still in his hand, the thought of Warlock is not one that engenders a desire to be civil. YG has spent time there in the past while on his travels, and it seemed an innocuous place to him; but even the ripest of fruits can go rotten in time.*
I'm glad you think I can help. Warlock sounds like a town where the reckless and immoral are all too active. I'll be pleased to put some of them in their place.
*YG knows how self-righteous that must sound to Owen, but better that than thinking of himself as nothing more than 'hired muscle'.*
Owen: I don't know if I'd put it like that meself. Who's a taverner to tell a brewer what's moral and what isn't? It's about money: they want to take it, I want to keep it. They're not criminals, Grimwold, just bastards. And I'm not sure I've ever met a man who isn't. Leave the law-breakers to the hangman. And as it so happens, I hear Warlock's is going to be hard at work tomorrow.
*Squandering some of his short supply of self-respect, YG gives into curiosity and uncrumples the news parchment, sensing it is relevant. He reads about Leytan's impending execution.
He feels a strange urge to be there - and yet, the hand of Fate has already pointed him in that direction. The parchment is two weeks old, and the dates will coincide exactly.
YG begins to prepare for the journey.*
[OOC: Continued in 'The Day Of The Hanging', Otherlands.]
YG has increasingly been seeing these news parchments posted on walls and fences around town. Some say that they were inspired by the clue scrolls which used to be mysteriously deposited about the realm for dungeoneers, but YG knows that the idea of public news notices is one from ancient times (the Romans called theirs the Acta Diurna). There are rumours that entire news books, several pages long, produced weekly or even daily, are also available, for a sum of money; but YG has never seen one, and suspects that the level of technomagical resources required for such a feat is many centuries away from being achieved. Nonetheless, there is the Warlock Street Journal, its sheets springing up across the land like merciless weeds, and YG has finally given into his temper and torn one down.
Why should a page of information so offend a literate fellow like Young Grimwold? For one thing, as the former associate of a troubadour, he knows what a tremendous threat these parchments pose to people who earn their living from distributing news by song. And what of the gossip-mongers, the people who spread news and rumour simply for the joy of conversation: if all that they might tell is already written down, what will they have to speak about? What would the marketplace or the Crazed Heifer be like if its loquacious costumers were forced into morose silence? Yet there is the fact that a great many of the townsfolk are illiterate. This makes the news sheets either damaging in the one instance, or pointless in the other.
And how does one dispose of the things? They only have worth for a single day or week, after all. Will the realm become a vast plain, stubbly and scorched, where all the trees have become papers of news, and all the papers have become bonfires, stoked by destitute minstrels and flibbertigibbets gone silent? Not if YG can help it. It is too soon for newspapers. Let the folk of the future live out such nightmares; now is not the time.
[OOC: Newspapers, as we know them, did not arrive until the first decade of the 17th century, putting them beyond the traditional Knightmare time period as I understand it. In my opinion, something like the Warlock Street Journal is good as a very occasional plot device, but shouldn't replace direct communication between characters.]
As YG stalks into the Crazed Heifer, Owen Vartern the tavern owner is waiting, and summons him to the back room for a talk.*
Owen: Master Grimwold, you will be accompanying me on a trip. For some time, the Bodkin Brothers of Warlock have been charging me rather more for barrels of their Grimdale Ale than I feel they should. I tried to discuss it with them, but they told me that if I value my bones, I should let the matter rest and be content with their "very fair offer". *Owen sneers.* There's three of them, they each look like they could lift a cow, and probably have, many a time - into their mouths. So I could hardly argue with them.
Owen: However, with an og... a chap of your stature behind me, my chances of negotiating a fairer price are somewhat higher. I don't want to delay - the Bodkins have already grabbed enough of my gold - but also don't wish to be away from the tavern for too long. If we ride through the night, we should reach Warlock by daybreak, giving us the rest of the day to pin the Bodkins down. Naturally, there'll be some gold for your time. If we succeed.
*YG nods. He hopes that he won't have to give too much exposure to his ogre side in order to accomplish this task. Then again, thanks to the parchment that is still in his hand, the thought of Warlock is not one that engenders a desire to be civil. YG has spent time there in the past while on his travels, and it seemed an innocuous place to him; but even the ripest of fruits can go rotten in time.*
I'm glad you think I can help. Warlock sounds like a town where the reckless and immoral are all too active. I'll be pleased to put some of them in their place.
*YG knows how self-righteous that must sound to Owen, but better that than thinking of himself as nothing more than 'hired muscle'.*
Owen: I don't know if I'd put it like that meself. Who's a taverner to tell a brewer what's moral and what isn't? It's about money: they want to take it, I want to keep it. They're not criminals, Grimwold, just bastards. And I'm not sure I've ever met a man who isn't. Leave the law-breakers to the hangman. And as it so happens, I hear Warlock's is going to be hard at work tomorrow.
*Squandering some of his short supply of self-respect, YG gives into curiosity and uncrumples the news parchment, sensing it is relevant. He reads about Leytan's impending execution.
Infamous Mercenery brought to Justice
The whole realm of Knightmare as well as many others can sleep easy in there beds tonight, as The Ice Killer will stalk the streets no more, when in a few weeks he pays the price for his crimes.
It was 1 ago week that it was confrimed by the Local athoritys in the small hamlet of Warlock that the notorius Mercenery and killer for Hire Leytan had been arrested and was due to stand trial on 14 counts of murder, 2 of of accesory to murder, 1 of attempted kidnapp and of violating nutrality laws. Relating to the failed bounty kidnapp of alleged war crimminal Sheik Kovax 2 weeks ago.
Leytan know as "The Ice Killer" is belived to have been responcibal for upwards of 300 other murders, is arguably the most wanted man in the Knightmare realm not associated with the Opposition. Leytan a Half-breed was born to an Atlantian Father and a Winterian mother. Was brought before the Warlock court at the start of this week.
The Trial lasted 3 days with the prosacution layed out in grusome detail the bloody trail of corpses and maimed soals that Leytan had left in his wake. Although only charged in relation to the Kovax case evidence of Leytan's other crimes was submited into evidence.
With such a compleing case the deffence could offer little in rebuke and Leytan's staunch reffusal to deffend himself or even reconise the procedings as legal and legitimate did not help him.
At the end of the 3rd day the judge passed the enevitable sentence
"Death By Hanging."
300+ dead, countless wounded, maimed and permently scarded or crippled. Numurs griveing familys and loved ones and countless other crimes have all lead Leytan to his enevitable capture.
and now it seems they will lead him to his deathon the gallows in 2 weeks time.
The whole realm of Knightmare as well as many others can sleep easy in there beds tonight, as The Ice Killer will stalk the streets no more, when in a few weeks he pays the price for his crimes.
It was 1 ago week that it was confrimed by the Local athoritys in the small hamlet of Warlock that the notorius Mercenery and killer for Hire Leytan had been arrested and was due to stand trial on 14 counts of murder, 2 of of accesory to murder, 1 of attempted kidnapp and of violating nutrality laws. Relating to the failed bounty kidnapp of alleged war crimminal Sheik Kovax 2 weeks ago.
Leytan know as "The Ice Killer" is belived to have been responcibal for upwards of 300 other murders, is arguably the most wanted man in the Knightmare realm not associated with the Opposition. Leytan a Half-breed was born to an Atlantian Father and a Winterian mother. Was brought before the Warlock court at the start of this week.
The Trial lasted 3 days with the prosacution layed out in grusome detail the bloody trail of corpses and maimed soals that Leytan had left in his wake. Although only charged in relation to the Kovax case evidence of Leytan's other crimes was submited into evidence.
With such a compleing case the deffence could offer little in rebuke and Leytan's staunch reffusal to deffend himself or even reconise the procedings as legal and legitimate did not help him.
At the end of the 3rd day the judge passed the enevitable sentence
"Death By Hanging."
300+ dead, countless wounded, maimed and permently scarded or crippled. Numurs griveing familys and loved ones and countless other crimes have all lead Leytan to his enevitable capture.
and now it seems they will lead him to his deathon the gallows in 2 weeks time.
He feels a strange urge to be there - and yet, the hand of Fate has already pointed him in that direction. The parchment is two weeks old, and the dates will coincide exactly.
YG begins to prepare for the journey.*
[OOC: Continued in 'The Day Of The Hanging', Otherlands.]