Strangerside Scholar: The Seven Unlucky Spherewalkers

Although the Sphere of Xeno-Meso is very far away from Everway, The Paddlers are not the only Everwayans to have visited the Sixth World. According to the scroll-book Things Seen In the Obsidian Mirror by Lightning Diviner Crookstaff  (and from the title we assume you can guess the name of the book's author), seven other Everwayans have visited that Sphere.

Apparently, none of them returned.

Instead, the scroll-book tells us they became Petty Gods among the peoples of the Sixth World.

Mr. Lightining Diviner Crookstaff's cursive is quite crabbed, and consequently his scroll-book rather difficult to read. But we are slowly making progress with the text.

In time, the Strangerside Scholar will have more to say about these unfortunates.

Strangerside Scholar: On Mousetrap Realms

Merode Mousetrap, c. 1427-32
http://historiesofecology.blogspot.com/
2012/05/merode-mousetrap.html

After the dragons lost in their war against the gods, they turned to other pursuits. Partly due to spite, and partly due to boredom, some of the dragons began devising and setting traps among the spheres.  They created the Mousetrap Realms to catch and kill Spherewalkers.

The Mousetrap Realms have one way in: a Gate which opens into a new realm, beckoning a Spherewalker to come explore. But unlike normal realms among the spheres, the Mousetrap Realms have no way out. Either their Gate works in only one direction, opening only into the realm, or else once entered, the Mousetrap Realm becomes a more active and deadly trap.

Death by starvation. Death by plenitude or lack, whether Earth, Air, Fire, or Water. False epiphanies. Entombment. World-creatures. Treasure of Infinite Counting. Doppel-craft. The dragons have never lacked for imagination in devising their traps. And they were masters of misdirection.

Humans have often attributed the creation of Mousetrap Realms to capricious gods or demons. Few have seen the Dragons' Stamp: The House of Knives, The Box of Under, the Ocean-Hole, Mother of Cankers, the Roundel, the Whorl, Pop-Up Drop Down, the Meat Grinder, the Flower That Ate Itself, and The Limbless Tree. Even the names of the Mousetrap Realms sound like curses.

There are in fact hundreds of Mousetrap Realms on record at the Library of All Worlds. As many as one realm in one hundred may be Mousetrap Realms. It is wise to consult the collection of spherepaths within the Library of All Worlds, or the Chamber Platinum's special collection (these are usually the most up-to-date) before planning a particularly long journey among the spheres.

Most Spherewalkers will encounter a Mousetrap Realm if they travel far enough.

Strangerside Scholar: Creation And The Spheres

Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life (1909)
http://thebeautifulbrain.com/2010/01/the-neuroscience-of-avatar/

Life arises and develops in numerous ways among the million spheres. In some realms, the gods do everything by Committee. First they develop a Process, and then they split into different Sub-Committees to flesh out a comprehensive Work Plan with all the individual Details on different species.

Once everyone is in agreement, and no one stands in the way of the Project or opposes specific Details, then the gods then issue Contracts with individual gods and godlings, farming out creation at the local level. This approach can take years - even centuries - but of course, the gods are immortal. They have all the time in the world.

There are also the Spheres where creation happens when one pantheon of gods overthrows and slays another. These realms often resemble one or more divine corpses on a certain level of scale.

In other spheres, one god does all the work. Often such creations are the work of one blind, idiot god (creation-as-piecework can be boring to the point of inducing madness) or the work of a single obsessive divine being. Who else would create thousands of different species of beetles? Only a Watchmaker.

Still other spheres have always been and always will be. Worlds without beginning or end. These are often called Fortune's Spheres because they are the most stable, fecund, and abundant of all the known worlds. They are the purest expression of the eternal Fortune Deck. If you look carefully, you will see all of Fortune's trumps hiding in plain sight in the land and living things. Often there is also a Tree of Life at the center of such worlds. Its leaves are the glistening trumps of the Fortune Deck itself.

Pluck these leaves at your own risk. But find one pressed between the pages of a book, and you could use it to change an entire world.

Strangerside Scholar: The Strangers We Don't Welcome

Big. Green. Stupid. They smash stuff. They kill stuff. They take stuff. This is the average Everwayan's view of the Ogres, and who can blame them? We all remember the havoc that broke loose when the the Ogre "diplomats" arrived in Everway. The Host family has barely recovered from their "visit".

The Ogres came out of nowhere. Eight feet tall. Massive. Lustful. Demanding.They arrived from  beyond the farthest realms that the Chamber Platinum has mapped. They have trouble speaking the Tongue, and they have their own gobbling nonsense language. Some say they are massively mutated humans, warped by the energies of the planes beyond. Others say they are the offspring of giants who coupled with demons. And it IS strange that so many of them are apparently Spherewalkers.

http://that-figures.blogspot.com/2011/09/news-sideshows-skaar-son-of-hulk.html

Ogres leave a path of destruction behind them. They have no skill for governance. Bullying is their only recourse other than violence. The Ogres' so-called Simple Empire is nothing more than a spherepath - one littered with at every step with burned farms, forests, and cities. They turned realms upside down and shook them until their pockets were empty.

Will these barbarians arrive in force in Everway? Rumors of their approach abound. Their free range is further evidence of the weakness and corruption of the Emeralds. And what if the barbarians never come in force? Who will save us from the Emeralds then?

Ogres

• Fire 7
• Earth 7
• Air 2
• Water 2

Ogres prefer brute force weapons such as giant axes and great swords. They are very resistant to magic and poison, but surprisingly, they can be readily subdued by the sound of harps and by broken jars releasing sweet-smelling perfumes. 

Most individual Ogres cannot spherewalk, and will require non-Ogric guides to walk between spheres. However, Ogre Hordes have a collective power, Gatecrashing, which enables a Horde to use a gate to spherewalk en masse to another realm. This often damages the gates on one or both sides of the path. 

Boris Stremlin invented these creatures a decade or more ago. The visual reference for them in his Everway campaign was Shrek. We've chosen a more dignified visual reference, but feel free to take these creatures in either direction in your campaign.

Strangerside Scholar: The Underground Library

The Strangerside Scholar has been quiet for a while, but all this hype about the Library of All Worlds has gotten him all stirred up.

The Library of All Worlds is not the only library in Everway! There are dozens of specialized private libraries and collections in Everway. Just check out the Scratch family estate some time and it will get you thinking: where, or where did all these books come from? The same is true of the Crookstaff family. And there are many more private and often quite specialized libraries, some of which will open their doors to interested scholars.  

And now there is even something even better: Everway's first genuinely community-owned and operated library, located right here in Strangerside of all places! The Strangerside Scholar knows all about it, since he helped start it. We call it the Undergound Library!

Recently, a few dozen friends and fellow travelers moved into the General's Estate in Strangerside. In the aftermath of the General's recent and untimely demise, followed by the concomitant desertion of his small armed multitude, we moved in and began an occupation here. Artists, writers, and diverse ideologues and Strangerside organizers moved in to take up residence and make something new here. People living on the streets moved in too. 

http://www.rutahsa.com/incaarch.html

The General's stone walls and iron gates protect us. The General's gardens and kitchens feed us, and we have taken up preparing collective meals for ourselves and our guests. We figured out that we can pay for the other food we need by holding poetry contests in the General's courtyard gardens; hundreds of people pay a modest sum to attend. And we have organized committees to keep the Estate clean and orderly, and in good repair. 

The General's Underground Library itself is the most amazing part of his Estate. His neighbors never even suspected he had an immense library. They thought that all the boxes his followers ahd brought in to the Estate were weapons and war equipment, as well as treasure boxes. Instead, the General's underground storerooms housed his vast collection of books and scrolls from the many realms he passed through and conquered in his adventures. From the Entirety to the Swallowtail Marches to the Emerald Palisades, his library grew and grew from battle to battle. 

The General's collection was so big that he even extended is underground book vaults well beyond the walls of his Estate. The Underground Library extends into hollowed-out chambers directly under adjoining streets and neighboring dwellings. We all wonder where all that dirt and stone went, and how no one noticed its being moved out of the Estate!

http://jasonmanley.com/prints/index.html

As I mentioned above, we discovered the Underground Library when the General's troops deserted his estate. Looters descended, expecting to find numerous weapons and treasures. What they found instead were books. From everywhere. Thousands of books and thousands more scrolls. No wonder his followers called him a warrior-scholar.This one time, that title was actually deserved.

I wonder if the General saw the Library of All Worlds as his ultimate prize. Maybe the Uprising he was planning was just a pretense to cover his true objectives? But I digress... 

We are currently using the Underground Library for a number of different research projects. Among the most important is an investigation into the phenomenon of debt pawns among the thousand spheres. In recent years, the Diggers and other Everwayan lenders have forced many new arrivals into debt pawnage. Strangerside debt pawns are even being traded or exchanged for goods, money, and services between different Everywan families. 

After a few months it isn't always clear who owes (or owns) whom any more. It has become a form of labor speculation. The practice must be stopped and the debts must be forgiven. That is one of the major goals of this occupation: to demand that King Horizon Emerald declare a jubilee.

Strangerside Scholar: Demon Urns

Demon Urns, jars of clay with wax seals. Jars wrapped in spells and wards. What do they contain?

http://signpoststoeden.blogspot.com/2009/08/mesopotamian-incantation-bowl.html

Most scholars say that Demon Urns contain evil spirits of Fire and Air. Only great wizards and powerful priests with the gifts of the gods themselves can seal such beings within jars of clay. In this way, for a time, demons are bound to and sealed within the Earth. They can't harm anyone while they are sealed within the jar. But who profits from their confinement and how? What bargains will be struck; what feats will be coerced?

http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/tag/herodotus/

Many priests say that Demon Urns are a work of human impiety, a sprung trap for the godlings of a particular city or place. The jars were placed where the godlings would find them, and deceptively appeared to them as spirit houses, palaces of clay.

Unfortunately, the godlings who choose to reside within Demon Urns soon find themselves trapped, wandering the corridors of an endless palace-become-tomb for the undying. Trapped within Demon Urns, such unfortunate godlings fall victim to their own Faults and furies, often unwittingly becoming vengeful and demonic, and soon completely beholden to the unscrupulous persons who tricked and trapped them.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17323/17323-h/images/122.jpg

But a few sages contend that the Demon Urns are remnants of realms that collapsed in upon themselves. Realms with a Virtue and a Fault, but no Fate. Realms with a Virtue and a Fate, but no Fault. Realms with a Fault and a Fate, but no Virtue. Realms with only one quality, or even less. These sages believe that Demon Urns contain the materials for making new gods - or that such jars, when broken and their contents spilled, give birth to Floodgates, and thus to new realms.

Strangerside Scholar: Tower Realms

http://casimir0304.deviantart.com/art/Tarot-Series-The-Tower-155372023

Tower Realms. Castle Realms. City-Realms. Many such Gormangastian piles arise, testaments to human ingenuity, hubris, and folly. Realms made entirely of floors and walls - and dungeons, of course. (All the better for ensuring the Builders have a disciplined workforce.) Tower Realms are entirely the product of human beings, all too often built in direct defiance of the gods.

The first Tower Realms were raised by the Priest Kings. Tower Realms celebrate the vertical power embodied in class societies. All this power is channeled into building, expanding, and reaching up to Heaven. To become gods or at least like the gods.The Priest Kings sought to challenge Heaven. This single end always breeds isolation and amplifies arrogance.

All too often, the gods take their revenge.

Lightning strikes twice in the Tower Realms - again and again. Tower Realms almost always meet their end in a sudden, explosive way. Great Kings and Queens, Grand Architects and Viziers fall to their deaths as their Tower Realm disintegrates underneath and around them on all sides. This is often the fate of the workers toiling to build the Tower as well.

The fall usually begins subtly. New words - even nonsense words - enter a Tower Realm's vocabulary. Language becomes confused. New languages emerge among the Builders and their workers. Treaties are not properly honored because promises are twisted or misinterpreted. Trade relations break down. Alliances falter. New insights occur among the populace, and philosophical, religious, or political revolutions come out of nowhere. The foundation shatters. The Tower falls.

A few remain behind, mining and recovering treasures from inside the ruins.

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Secret Scroll: The Ape Trade and The Mankines

Report to the Chamber Platinum

"So far the sources have proven accurate about Emerald Savannah's role in the Ape Trade. I learned a great deal during my stay."

"The Master of Acquisitions at the Library of All Worlds was right about my appearance: I blend in well here. The people are handsome. They have dark skin, high foreheads, high bridged noses, and kinky hair. They are quite tall. Just like me. Fortress monasteries dug straight down right into the mountains, just like you said. Coming in through the Monastic Gate there was a much better idea than arriving through the gate at the capital."

Ethiopia, stemhaus.com

"I introduced myself as a Seed Trader. That drew frowns. Bad soil up here. I explained that I go into other realms to see what plants are in their forests. People relaxed a bit. I made friends in a nearby market. I found a guide to take me to the forests."

"This realm certainly does have an odd relationship with the Emerald family. Emerald Savannah's ruling family has sold the Emeralds great tracts of land. A merchant in the market told me that the Emeralds are buying up land near the capital. They have large plantations and have cleared away forest near the capital." 

"And the Everway connections don't stop there. Spherewalkers are bringing in special high-yield grains; the seed barrels have Crookstaff seals."

"The Emerald plantations are using The Mankines to till the soil and tend their crops. This is the source of Ape Trade, although I did not have time to work out the details of how the trade is conducted (persons/groups involved, Spherepaths used, etc.). But there can be  no doubt that these are the same creatures being sold and used as slaves by wealthy families Everway."

Homo_habilis.JPG: Photographed by User:Lillyundfreya

Few of these poor creatures remain in the wild. Time to move on. Action is recommended.

http://www.paleoterran.com/journal/tag/hunter-gatherer

This one is for Boris Stremlin.

Strangerside Scholar: The Elemental Alleviators

Heinrich Khunrath
http://www.trinitysaintdavid.ac.uk/en/rbla/onlineexhibitions/witchcraftandwizardry/

There are four of them - and there always have been. They travel together across the spheres. As long-time companions on the road they seldom feel the need to converse. Each of the four has an apprentice or companion. A caravan travels in their train, carrying their impedimenta and equipment.

"The First Stage of the Great Work" by Hans Vredeman de Vries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Khunrath

The Elemental Alleviators are an ancient society of elemental wizards. Each wizard is a master of an element and of the cosmic forces associated with that element. They can restore the balance in a realm. Or they can let it die. If they help, they will always exact a price.

They are always headed somewhere, but some worlds they cannot reach in time. Others, they judge beyond their capabilities. Still others, unworthy of assistance

But when they choose to help, the Elemental Alleviators can make a real difference. An imbalance among the elements can put a realm at risk of annihilation or implosion. This is what occurred in the realm of Bensalem after their religious revolution; the Alleviators were not there to help the realm, and it is no more.

The Elemental Alleviators begin to help by identifying what is wrong in a realm. Their tools include divination and magical metrology, the sciences, and more mundane means of investigation. They will present the authorities of the realm with an analysis and a plan to address the realm's existential threat. This may involve potions or gases; magical or political intervention; scientific and social innovation or reform. Solving a sphere's core problems usually requires multiple methods of intervention.

Iranian Alchemist
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/a-archive_sep04.html

Finally, the Elemental Alleviators will always ask for something significant in return - a boon, a new apprentice or companion, a safe house, or some other favor. Most realms are only too happy to oblige. Unfortunately, some try to renege on the deal once the Alleviators have done all the hard work.

Ancient scroll records within the Library of All Worlds claim that the Elemental Alleviators are nearly ageless and immortal. Some have suggested they were the first Spherewalkers to follow in the Walker's footsteps. An ancient portrait of one, Lord Fire, hangs in the Hall of the Chamber Platinum. But the fact that they always have an apprentice or companion also suggests that they can be killed. It is said that they always watch their backs, for a few desperate Spherewalkers pursue them, hoping to appropriate their storied Spherepaths and possessions.

Questions:

1. What was the most recent realm where the Elemental Alleviators were of help? 
2. What challenge was the realm facing? How were the elements out-of-balance?
3. What boon did the Alleviators demand for their help?

What are your answers?

Strangerside Scholar: Does the Multiverse Have a Structure?

Does the multiverse have a structure? Most Spherewalkers wonder about this at some point in their journeys; a very few study it. Of course, there are the ready-made answers. You need look no further than the Pyramid Priests who surround the Walker's Pyramid at the very center of Everway.

Many people believe that the multiverse has an arborescent geometry. That is, the countless worlds branch off a main stem-world. The universe looks like a tree. This is an old concept; many cultures and spheres describe the multiverse as a Tree of Worlds. Most see their own sphere as the trunk of the tree.

Stefanus Rademeyer, Arborescent Geometries III (2010)http://www.argief.litnet.co.za/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&cause_id=1270&news_id=106518 

The Pyramid Priests claim that Everway is the trunk, and that the branches of the tree represent the Walker's countless steps, which created the million spheres. Yes, Everway is at the center of all, which is why any good pilgrim should make offerings to the cult when they visit the Pyramid. It is a debt that we owe the Walker. So the Priests say.

A more cynical view is that the Tree of Worlds represents an example of how Everway rules. Repressive tolerance. "Yes, your world is important" say the scholars in the Library of All Worlds. "Tell us about it, so that we can make an entry in the Codices of All Worlds." When you describe in rich detail how your world is unique or different, the scholars unctuously say "Well, yes, yes - that's interesting, but you are missing the point. Your Creator got a few details wrong. That's why your world isn't like Everway. But you can still see the relationship to Everway here, here, and here. Focus on what you have in common with us and you will be happy."

Thus does diversity ever reinforce the status quo. It is good for trade that all branches lead back to Everway.

But what if the universe took a different form? The wise already know of other ways that spheres are connected besides the Earth gates connecting worlds to Everway. Tidal Pools. Cenotes. The Floodgates.  And so on. The Whiteoars ran afoul of this.

What if the multiverse was rhizomatic rather than arborescent in geometry? How would that complicate things? Would it lead to another civil war? A capstone? The Usurper?

http://candidcandidacy.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/rhizome.jpg  

Albert-László Barabási
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v1/n2/fig_tab/nphys162_F1.html   

http://immanentterrain.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/spinoza-god-and-immanence/  

Strangerside Scholar: Tales of the Gorgeous Liberator

The Slave Trade: an ugly topic for any day, let alone the first day of The Convening. But after all, this is a holiday where critical thinking is appreciated - even when intense family arguments break out. So, let's talk about the slave trade in Everway. 


Most people have heard the story of how the gods possessed their priests and ended slavery in Everway's Court of Fools. They descended on the Slave Market (now known as the Court of Fools), broke the slaves' chains, and changed the city forever. Thanks to the beloved Sage Sits-beneath-a-tree, we all know this story with its promise that "A slave who breathes the air here is free." Every Everwayan today knows that story - from the newest escaped slave fleeing the realm of The Market and arriving in Strangerside ("Strangerside, no need to Hide") to the oldest Mother, now being cared for by her children.


But there is another story to tell. It is the story of the barbarian known as The Gorgeous Liberator. He came from the realm of Never Yonder, taken as a youth to be a slave in the Diggers' mines. He escaped, and had many adventures. And he changed history.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnymalone/favorites/page2/?view=lg

In ancient times - perhaps long before the Priests' Rising - The Gorgeous Liberator led the greatest slave revolt in the history of Everway. The Liberator deposed King Grasping Emerald. The Convening commemorates that day when the Crows took flight from the City Walls, and the slaves' army took over the King's Palace, the Council House, and the Emerald Family House. The Liberator abolished slavery and made many reforms. He even chose a Mother to lead the Council, which the high families have never forgotten.

It is said that if you go into the Palace on the first day of The Convening, you can still hear the The Liberator's bare feet  slapping their way down the Palace's numerous floors and galleries. Or hear the click as he re-positions his iron slave collar - in truth, he was overly fond of it. Or hear rummaging sounds as he searches The Palace for edible food - for when the Emerald's household slaves ran away, they took everything, and went off in search of their own families.

Yes, The Convening commemorates the inaugural Council meeting of The Brief and Pitiless Reign of the Forgotten Regent, as The Liberator's reign is described in Molt Snakering's unremarkable thousand-page history of the Council. The Liberator was indeed pitiless: to the Stonebreakers' taskmasters, to the un-calloused Diggers, and to the envious Emeralds. Thanks to this holiday, the poor remember an army that truly fought for them. The Convening gives the poor hope, and the high-born pause.

Yes, slavery by custom is forbidden in Everway, but always and ever it returns in new forms. Even the scholar Brief Message Scratch himself noted its continued existence in Everway in the First Little Book of  his triptych. Of the Stonebreakers, he wrote: "In the same family, there are members who work side by side with slaves and convicts in the quarries" (p. 12, emphasis added).

One also notes the existence of the Ape Trade. The Council continues to turn its eyes away from that trade. The Mankines, they argue,are animals.

More on the Ape Trade and The Mankines next week.

Happy WisCon, Everyone! 

This post is for Samuel R. Delaney, the creator of Gorgik the Liberator and 
Tales of Neveryon.

Strangerside Scholar: The Dragon Trade II

The Dragon Trade has two forms: the backing of currency, discussed in an earlier essay, and a secondary trade in dragon relics, which is the subject of this brief essay. The two trades appear to have a common origin: the Scales family, which has both an assimilated Everwayan branch, and the originary branch native to the realm known as The Market.

The Market branch of the family continues its role in lending. Long ago, the ancient-lender priest Luchre Scales set the family on this road. But in Everway, the Diggers have been successful in preventing the Scales from having a direct role in lending. Nevertheless, they play a critical role in the sponsorship of expeditions to recover dragon's hoards, and thus also a role in authenticating the provenance of coins and other treasures derived from dragon's hoards. Both branches of the Scales family also play a central role in the secondary Dragon Trade: the trade in dragon relics. 

As noted in the earlier essay on currency, the Dragon Trade does not deal in live dragons or viable dragon eggs. Instead, it deals with the remains of dragons: dragons' teeth, scales, horns, claws, bones, mummified dragons' hearts and other vital organs, and more. This is the ultimate irony and indignity to which the gods consigned their rebellious creations: not only were the dragons cursed to become more twisted and deficient with each successive generation, but after their deaths they are consigned to the fate of being sold part and parcel across the million spheres.

It's a lucrative trade. While the Scales don't directly control currency and wealth in every realm, they are supreme in a few and influential in many. They are sought out by warriors and alchemists searching for puissant weapons and powders, by priests in search of relics sacrifice to the gods for favors, and by potentates who seek immortality.

Dragon relics have great power, but they often pay forward part of the karma associated with the rebellious dragons' curse. Take, for example, the Mechanical Scorpion's Spite Auger, which is used to trap and torture spirits; this is a rare and two-edged dragon relic. Taken from the hyoid bone of a dragon slain while shifted into human form, the Spite Auger is a venomous tongue which can provide divinatory services - or power a scorpion's tail that poison's the diviner.

The Scales themselves pass on a variety of dragon-derived curses to their children. Like the successive generations of dragons born after their rebellion against the gods, most Scales are missing some essential quality - in their case, something essentially human. One Scales stares like a reptile, and thus has a difficult time in social situations; brings a forked tongue to the negotiating table, and gains an instant reputation for being untrustworthy; yet another has dragon's claws, and draws blood with each handshake or caress of a loved one.

Even worse (if more subtle), someone's Virtue might disappear entirely.

As the saying goes: "Scales' greed, bad seed."

  

Strangerside Scholar: The Mother's Day

Today is normally the day of rest for The Everwayan, but the Strangerside Scholar had something important to say.

The Mother's Day: Over in Strangerside, The Quarreler, one of the few to escape the implosion of the realm Bensalem, waits for The Mother's Day to roll around to make his usual joke:

"Ever notice how whenever someone creates a holiday for the oppressed - say, Outsider's Day - someone in Authority has to come to create a holiday for the oppressor, like Horizon Day? It's tiresome. It's just the same with Mother's Day; next thing you know the Authorities create Father's Day so no one feels bad."

Once a Moon or so, Strangers and Outsiders do listen to what the The Quarreler has to say, but most Everwayans just shake their heads, and point out that The Quarreler just doesn't understand how things work here in Everway. There's gender equality in Everway, not gender oppression. There's also no Mother's Day or Father's Day, here. There is only The Mother's Day.

The Mother's Day is as old as the city; indeed, it founded the city in a very real sense.

***

The legend of The Mother's Day began when Everway was just a collection of huts surrounding The Walker's Pyramid. The Pyramid was quite new in those days. In fact, our story begins the morning The Walker laid the final stone upon the seventh tier of her Pyramid. "One left, she thought. Time to go away for a while and find it."

The Walker descended the Pyramid. As she did so, she heard a baby crying. The Walker found a child left all alone, a baby girl in a wicker basket who had been placed on a stone on the first tier of the Pyramid. The basket's bottom was wet. So was the baby's.

The Walker then looked out at the Pyramid priests.They were staring at her. "Where did this baby come from?" The Walker asked.

"We're not sure" shrugged Half Moondance, the chief of the Pyramid priests. "A fisherman found her in the Sunset River, fished her out, and brought her here as an offering."

The Walker snatched Half Moondance's fine cloak right off his shoulders. She tore it in half. With one half of the robe, she cleaned the child. She used the other half to line the basket, and put the baby inside it.

The Walker turned and began climbing back up the Pyramid. Slowly, surely, steadily, keeping a strong hold on the basket until she reached the seventh tier. Then, the Walker took the baby girl out of her basket. She held the her up, and faced her out towards the scattering of huts that would one day become the great city of Everway.

She turned the baby to face each of the four directions.

The child saw smoke rising from the huts, and beyond them fields and trees. She also saw small fishing boats bobbing in the Shimmermoon Bay. The baby smiled.

"All this is yours." The Walker said. "I hold you up now, as you will hold up others."

"Help them. Heal them. Ensure their children come into this world safe and sound."

"I show you your world. Your name will be Mother First."

"Take three three gifts with you: Awareness. The Healing Arts. Responsibility."

This is how the Mother family came to be the first great family of Everway.

"Teach other Mothers this ritual."

***

Sources: This legend was inspired in part by the Moses story (which relates to other wood and wicker Mesopotamian and Egyptian arks). Another inspiration was rite of the Roman goddess of childbirth, Levana. Those familiar with the film Suspira by Dario Argento, and with its inspiration, Suspira de Profundis and "Levana And Our Ladies Of Sorrow" by Thomas DeQuincey will be familiar with De Quincey's significantly darker view of this goddess.

For Alice T. Till.

Strangerside Scholar: The Dragon Trade

The Dragon Trade: This is no Mother of Dragons scenario. You'll find no fairy tale princess trudging with her hatchlings across the desert to the big City. The truck and barter in live Dragons is another Trade entirely. The Dragon Trade relates to currency, as well as to some special Dragon-derived commerce (more on this later).

If you have visited or live in Strangerside, you have seen quite a few different examples of currency from the many realms and spheres. And we all know that the Digger family maintains the official monopoly controlling the foreign currency exchange. Everway itself has three forms of currency: pea-sized copper beads, which can be put on a string, a silver coin called a "heft" (worth 24 beads), and a gold coin called a "heft" (worth 24 silver hefts). [You can consult the Playing Guide, p. 17 - Ed.] Of course, Everwayans also use paper forms of currency, such as promissory notes and debt tokens.

But what underlies a currency, and thus trade itself? What stands behind it? How does one currency relate to another?

We find our first clue by going to any of the markets of Everway. Goods (and currency) are weighed on scales. Indeed, an old name for coins is "scales". This vernacular of course alludes to dragons, who love coins, jewels, and other precious articles. These beloved things are what they collect and jealously guard in their vast hoards.

A rich man is said to "ride the dragon's back." Most currencies today - whether copper beads, silver, gold, jewels, paper, tokens, beautiful feathers, pieces of shell, or something else are also said to be dragon-backed. And it is widely recognized that even using gold coins does not secure the value of gold. What guarantees and secures the value of gold or any other currency is that it is dragon-backed. That is, the value of a currency is only truly universal and guaranteed when that currency is derived from a dragon's hoard. A dragon sat on it, rolled around on it, scratched its back on it. 

So it has been since this fiscal doctrine was first proclaimed by Luchre Scales, the ancient lender-priest of the ancient realm known as The Market, "the land where gold reigns supreme, and anything (and anyone) can be bought or sold" (Playing Guide, p. 25). Lenders are respected and sought after when they are dragon-backed. And as any adventurer will tell you, wealthy people's constant thirst to increase their dragon-backed holdings spurs a constant search for new treasure hoards.Merchants, lenders, sovereigns, and nobles hire out Spherewalkers to discover, uncover, and "recover" dragons' hoards in other realms so they can increase the portion of their wealth that is dragon-backed. Amassing ordinary gold is just never enough.

These folk keep their own dragon's hoards - sometimes several, and often in secret locations - in order to dragon-back their money. There is a whole industry devoted to proving the provenance of various dragon-backed treasuries, and another industry dedicated to building the secret and not-so-secret (but always well protected) vaults that store this treasure. In Everway, vault construction is an uneasy joint venture between the Digger, Stonebreaker, and Gold families...and the vault designers often have short lifelines.

Sometimes people who amass dragon-backed hoards turn into dragons, becoming as arrogant and foolish as those ancient creatures who declared war on the gods. A foolish king or queen  is often said to be "striking the dragon's tail". Great greed often leads to great folly. That is what led to the downfall of the Blue Khan, that terror of many realms now lost.

The Blue Khan's closest advisor was a Spherewalker named Scale Snakering. Posing as a traitor to Everway, Scale offered to lead the Blue Khan to Everway's supposedly hidden, dragon-backed treasury in the realm of Stone Cage. Scale Snakering led the Blue Khan and his army into the realm through a secret gate. Once he and his armies entered the vast empty chamber vault that is the realm of Stone Cage (Playing Guide, p. 27), Scale Snakering used powerful magics to seal the Blue Khan and his armies inside forever. Now even their bones are gone. A few scattered beads are all that remain inside this hollow tomb.

All of that being said, certain gadflies, such as Strangerside resident and self-proclaimed "Student of Kinship" Deft Grabber, have tried to debunk the notion that money's value derives from the dragon's hoard. Instead, he sees money as a form of reason itself. In his scroll-set called "That Which is Owed: the First Five Thousand Spheres", Grabber writes:

Money was no more "invented" than music or mathematics or jewelry. What we call "money" isn't a "thing" at all, it's a way of comparing things mathematically, as proportions: of saying one of X is equivalent to six of Y. As such it is probably as old as human thought.The moment we try to get any more specific, we discover that there are any number of different habits and practices that have converged on the stuff we now call "money", and this is precisely the reason why...[we] have found it so difficult to come up with a single definition" (p.52).

Deft Grabber hasn't been seen in a while, but you can find his scroll-set in the Library of All Worlds. Recently, it was moved from the Sphere Studies wing of the library and into the Numerology Section. It is stored in a cabinet that looks like this:

South East Asia Collection, University of Michigan Museum of Art
Photo c. 2012 John Everett Till