Author Topic: Duty Above All:  (Read 9453 times)

Silas Rotleaf

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Duty Above All:
« on: April 07, 2018, 12:23:59 PM »
I've been lied to.
Most of what I took for granted was a fiction designed to keep an old couple happy.
Ugh! That explains why I'd get bullied in my childhood. No, they raised me like I was their own child. Then when I reached the Hazlani rite of passage where every Mulan youth receives their first tattoo it was explained to me I was in fact of mongrel birth. The woman I thought of as my mother did not actually give birth to me. It made sense from that point on looking back for why she tended toward being distant.

My true mother was one of the plantation slaves??? My father had a mistress.

I am a Quoa but also half-Vistani.
The Vistani aren't fond of giomorgios, so for the most part aside from learning my biological mother was of the Vatraska clan they've been rather tight lipped. Trying to ask them for more information is largely useless.

I'll try to honor both heritages while at the same time being neither one entirely.

It's difficult to trust others. Everyone is pushing some sort of agenda.
This isn't a question of foreigners vs. locals. Even within your own community there is that dynamic. It's the millstone by which the Lawgiver tests our mettle. How He separates the good grain from the bad. To believe anything else would be to fall prey to the falsehoods of Mytteri, a fate for weak-kneed and simpler-minded people who are inherently unfit.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2018, 07:27:58 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2018, 05:16:20 PM »
I am told to join either the Wayfarer Kinship or Vanguard Initiative.
They could help me become a better adventurer and healer... I guess?

My people (on both sides) have a fearsome reputation to the point foreigners ask me how I could miss my homeland. I look at them funny. They think that Hazlan has slavery and red wizards makes it a horrible place.

Certainly if you piss off the slavers you would not have a good time of things.  They (a few of the foreigners I was traveling with) also tried some nonsense with a display of perhaps mixed genuine and mock fright in the mist camp that I have a pet worg but Mamat is typically pretty docile. He won't attack you unless he thinks you are trying to attack me. That or if I tell him to. Do not flatter yourselves.

I raised him from a pup. Assuming thorough malevolence on the part of a caster based on the creature he or she takes as a familiar is incredibly backward! Also egotistical. To think every mage is specifically out to get you when you are a stranger to us too??? Preposterous.
I have much more interesting things to study and experiment on than dirt headed Barovian peasantry. Do they all each assume such high importance they feel it warrants worrying about being the target of direct attacks? You are a princess of turnips! And you, the king of the tsuika. I laugh. Oh dear, this isn't helping.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2018, 07:50:20 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2018, 07:27:03 PM »
I am a Hazlani. I am of my Father's House.
Being a rural aristocrat I was star struck getting to meet real live red wizard apprentices. They offered me, a simple country boy - an apprenticeship! At least in my home country magic isn't so stupidly and backwardly persecuted simply for being.
There are legitimate channels to go about your arcane studies in Ramulai.

I spent some time in Barovia and Har'Akir. To be honest I was most fascinated by the ruins in the latter, though I dare not try to explore them alone. Perhaps the masters I am apprenticing under will see fit to take us there at some point. I told them about how I can read Akiri.

A boy? I'm a thirty year old man. Enough with being star struck.
Didn't father tell me I'd have a wife? One of the Iron Order monks it sounded like was who he had in mind...
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 08:34:17 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #3 on: April 11, 2018, 01:52:08 PM »
I do have a wife.  That's right.
We didn't see each other much because she is busy with duties in the hidden monastery.

How is Shanaz doing?
« Last Edit: April 11, 2018, 03:18:35 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2018, 12:28:14 PM »
Either she got my letter or the mists carried her to Barovia. Very happy to see her again. Mamat was happy to see her too.

Father and stepmother picked well.
It feels so nice knowing Shanaz and I have each other's backs.
I think a few of the Barovian men are jealous.
The look on their faces says how did a not physically rugged domn like him wind up with a devoted and extremely limber doamna like her?!
Hazlani secret! My grin tells them right back.


The plantation is fine Shanaz tells me.  Father and stepmother were doing okay. Hopefully there is a good harvest this season. We grow barley and malt that is then traded to Immol and the nearby regions make it into liquor, mostly.

Shanaz's family are brewers, mine own a farm. It was a very pragmatic match for our parents to make. Like most Mulan this was decided for us when we were children. The thing about arranged marriages is you learn to get along with one another. This odd foreigner idea of free love seems strange. I guess they like being their own matchmakers themselves? A Barovian I sometimes travel with finds it odd the Mulan men wear skirts.  Well, so too do I think that so many older Barovian men like to have mustaches is a little strange.

It's not true that we do not love one another. Rather, you work together to support each other and the family is an economic unit. Our skills and abilities complement one another meaning there was quite a bit of wisdom in our parents arranging such a match. It should be profitable as well to cut out some of the middle traders and directly supply the brewery. Prudent sense for both our families.

Now though we have to contend with a way to make our fortunes here. I've come back from my travels abroad to Har'Akir able to read their hieroglyphics. For now money is tight but my wife is clever and we make each coin we do spend count.  We plan and budget carefully to make the most of what we eke out in this barbarous land.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2018, 08:02:13 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #5 on: April 14, 2018, 11:51:06 AM »
The high priestess of the Morninglord temple and her Richemuloise? Mordentish? Perhaps Dementlieuse lover propagated a nasty rumor which caused a Garda to bash in my glasses and break my nose.
They think we are *all*,- that every Hazlani needs to be a wicked slaver and that we are out to conquer the entire core. They think we all want to recruit everybody into being lawgiver faithful.  That is stupid.
Why would any Lawgiver faithful want his or her trip to Iron Paradise made filthy and unclean by polluting it with souls of inferior stock? Their disorderliness of thought in terms of sheer entropy is abhorrent.

I myself am of mixed birth but that must remain my secret shame. I was raised Mulan on a plantation in a very rural region of Hazlan. I have the tattoos including the calligraphic scalp glyph depicting my name. I am a Quoa.
I might end up going to the hell of slaves for the tryst my father and true mother had the one fall they must have. Shanaz is a good Mulan woman. She'll go to iron paradise. There is no doubt.
If we have any children will their chance(s) also be denied for being of impure blood even though it is more dilute?
I can't go to a Biskop or Kontor to ask. For now I'll just continue to postpone that until I can feel more certain.

Lying is bad but if it is a lie to preserve order, order is good.

People don't understand... The Church of the Lawgiver IS the only State sanctioned religion Hazlani are allowed to practice. If you advocate our people to be subversive that would damage everyone and the elegant figurative machinery of our wizard-king's grand social experiment.  You are telling us when you think we ought to break away from our traditions to disobey our own laws and get ourselves and our loved ones endangered. Afterall, it's no skin off your nose judgmental foreigner.

What's another dead Hazlani if you simplistically view us all as a big monolithic "empire of evil"? What barbarous peoples.

We aren't all like that.
Not every Mulan is out to capture you in the middle of the night from the street or your home to fuel fiendish experiments or bid as items in a slave auction. Have some decency and tact. Oh wait, you can't because you don't have our class. That's right. Trashy foreigners. Many of them even wear pants and grow their hair out long. Like barbarous folk. Actual wild men are a touch more civil.
I've had fairly reasonable conversations about business and craft with dwarves!

Agios, you should have thought of augmenting dwarven teamsters years ago! Indeed, who needs stupid oxen when you can boost the stoutfolk who are already capable fighters into small juggernauts for transporting goods? Oh blast... That didn't go as well as I'd hoped.
We ended up getting lost and still suffering some setbacks due to attacks by crag cats.

Also when you use invisibility on someone for them to avoid predatory beasts... You need true seeing or a potion of revealing to go with it otherwise your haulers in the mountain caravan get lost. You can only see each other a short distance apart which hampers speed, in turn cutting into productivity.
The money we saved on pack oxes was largely spent on bandages to nurse our many scratches and bite wounds from the beasts.

The dwarves liked it though and I found it exhilarating.
Maybe my place isn't overseeing migrant agricultural laborers but directing movers? Eh... No, my sense of directions is pretty bad.
I get so caught up in maintaining my concentration to keep the workers' wards strong that I get a tad easily distracted and lose myself easily as the focus for my spells demands much of my attention.

They find my lack of beardedness odd but I explained to him the tattooed glyphs on our heads are a bit like their runes and that I think made sense to the two haulers. Hurdik and B-something? What was the older one's name? It'll come back to me when I see him again.*
He was a dwarven monk and I practiced using my newest helpful spells on him to temporarily enchant his clothing and punching mitts. We worked out which ones work well together which will be great; Now I know ahead of time which things to prepare to help my Shanaz thanks to the old dwarf allowing me to test it all out on him, rather graciously.

Why are we here and not back in Hazlan?
Is it so entirely inconceivable to you narrow-minded heathens that perhaps not that unlike yourselves my wife and I are simply adventurers and may actually enjoy exploring the core?
Or that the mists grab everyone equally both offworlder and outlander alike? Ask the mists why. See what they say (or don't).

Did we both come here to cause strife and unpleasantness for your idyllic vapid and thoroughly insipid little lives to experience like a rash one tries to wash away but gets worse due to being irritated?
No!

I seek to practice medicine and study and have already learned Akiri.
If my wife and I seek to do business and interact with you foreigners at all, it does not have to be some evil trap you egomaniacal simpletons!
We are people!

Oh but it is not right for us to verbally defend ourselves from such things because your brute like sensitive feelings are easily bruised.
Your misguided sense of right and wrong lead you to think destroying an entire people or toppling an economy must be the right thing.  This I see as symptomatic of not having unification under a strong leader who takes charge. Such dissent is likely a sign of weakness.

And yet...
I do enjoy a spirited ethical debate or philosophical meandering a little with these nonHazlani at times.  Even though they aren't Hazlani.

*Barradin. His name is Barradin.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 08:35:40 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2018, 04:21:56 PM »
To me a slaver is someone who kidnaps people to sell at an auction.
To assume everyone in a cruel empire as citizens of it needs be responsible for the actions of their government is the most idiotic of notions. Do the Barovians hold themselves responsible for every atrocity committed by their count? I think not!

You don't elect an absolute ruler.
We are not simply all wicked fiends. We are a people.

I am a doctor of medicine.
Disease strikes both freeman and slave alike indiscriminately.
I had decided long ago at my family's plantation that it (disease) was my enemy.
I do not deny someone healthcare based on their status. As much as I am able I treat Mulan, Rashemi and demihuman alike, regardless of their social standing.

The full moon makes me ill.
I don't turn into anything but it puts me ill at ease during those three nights of the month and I'm always glad when that cycle of the lunar phase is behind us in retrograde. Typically I'm more irritable. I'm not sure why that is but I try to keep a handle on it.

I am Doctor Agios Quoa. My wife and I are adventurers from Hazlan.
Every nation has some adventurers.

Does every bad thing the Dukkar does mean people hate all Invidians? I think not.
Is every brutality committed by the Boritsis and their condiotteri thugs make it reason to dislike all Borcans? This is unlikely.
Har'Akir is a theocracy with endemic slavery in it. I don't see people up at arms about that nearly so much.

Why single out Hazlan and traveling Hazlani?
You fuss about abolition like it was something which could happen overnight. How very naive.

The King of Hazlan and the Iron Church are very powerful entities. Telling us to stand against them like sacrificial lambs to the slaughter is no skin off your nose foreigner, so continue advising us how to run our affairs better when unsolicited for advice. Tell people to oppose their ruler which for a Barovian and anybody in Barovia is considered high treason and the punishment is execution. You'd think they'd understand that both kingdoms have stern and severe punishments for criminal offenses as something in common.

I, Doctor Agios Quoa, do not myself own any slaves. Nor does my wife.
We travel too much. There is simply nowhere which we would be able to put them!

Obviously you must hate us for why else deliberately urge actions that would get one killed, stricken from imperial record as ever having been and deliberately forgotten about on purpose? Erasure of all Hazlani from ever existing simply because you find some of our empire's practices to be abhorrent? Hmm, who is the genocidal madman now you well-meaning fools!?

I will not apologize for being a Mulan.  If you have complaints about Hazlan please do take them up with our Wizard King or the Church of the Lawgiver and be sure to do so directly. See where that gets you.

I have been implored by a handful of these goodly "hero" types from the "free world" to give up or free any slaves my wife and I have. Repeatedly I have explained we do not own any. This circular debate is getting tiresome.

Oh but our parents have some and their parents did so we should go back and demand they lose them? The old are most stubborn in their ways and are not giving that up any time soon. The loss in status and productivity would hurt many. Not your problem though is it outsider?

As a country physician I have seen plague ravage people from all walks of life. Injury and illness happens to the free and to the indentured. Disease does not care how wealthy and well connected you are nor whom you are related to.  Whether you are a census taker, migrant laborer or overseer little does this matter to contagion.

I am sorry Sir Lexington. I cannot renounce being one of King Hazlik's subjects. To ask this of my wife and I knowing full well the Barovians will continue to mistrust us anyway would mean everything to be lost and very little to be gained.
So I will do what I can to indirectly help your hospice or if you find yourself short on physicians I will offer to step in during an emergency.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2018, 07:25:30 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #7 on: April 21, 2018, 09:32:44 AM »
Opium is illegal in Vallaki. You can purchase/use it in Dementlieu but right now they are locked in yet another civil war.

I usually would use it to treat my lunar sickness. That isn't going to be an option here in Barovia so I will just have to tough things out.

Do it for yourself and do it for your wife. Don't give in to the wild feelings. Just hang in there for the next three nights. Try to...

Keep it together! Get a hold of yourself man! You are a doctor of medicine!

I'm getting very tired of the constant prejudice the Vallaki people tend to throw my way just because I am a Hazlani. I am not in charge of what the Iron Church or Red Academy do. I'm just a citizen in an empire. If you don't like what they are doing please take it up with a biskop or the local vraylock. The zulkirs are quite busy but you might talk to their receptionists.

I am not in charge of any of these institutions you dislike sir/madam.
How incredibly annoying.

Perhaps I should amass food donations to support the Dementleuse war effort/refugee relief, even though I personally do loathe those people...
« Last Edit: June 12, 2018, 03:16:52 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2018, 05:04:58 PM »
There is much to think about as of recent. I will detail some of it later and in subsequent entries.


Our anniversary!
Got Shanaz gloves of the Yellow Rose and she got me a staff of the apprentice conjurer. How nice!
« Last Edit: April 24, 2018, 04:29:35 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2018, 07:18:12 PM »
Medical supplies aren't cheap.
Funds run low.
Need to do more deliveries and expeditions.
Expeditions aren't cheap but the rewards can cover the cost... Except for when people are stingy in the payout. Hmm.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2018, 12:32:50 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2018, 11:57:24 AM »
Strange bedfellows:

I never imagined I'd be working with the high priestess of the Morninglord temple to save a life. That did turn out unexpected.

The Vallaki temple basement was especially overrun and skeletons were choking the entranceway. A fighter fell. We retrieved him and cleared out the skeletons.

====
Lest people forget,
Hazlan and Nova Vaasa are the bread basket of the core. Our grain and other agriculture feeds much of the other nations and is our primary export.  For generations people have traded between Hazlan and the northern Barovian village of Immol at our southern border.
===
Some people I thought might have been my friends are possibly not. When I am at my most vulnerable they hold it against me. This is what it means to be a giomorgio.  There is no cure for lunatio. You can treat it with narcotics some of which are illegal in Barovia or you can have a trusted friend heal your injuries. There won't be much sleep gotten during the three nights of the full moon's station. Things begin to get more normal again once that lunar phase has passed its waxing zenith and is in a waning retrograde.
===
I'm not a red wizard, I'm an orange doctor!
These are two quite different things, yes? Yes!
===
Shanaz is proud of me.
Eventually I will be both a great physician and a great wizard.
Of course, not as powerful a wizard as King Hazlik, but a respectable mage nonetheless.
==
I hate that feeling. The one where everybody acts like you *cannot* say certain things or you end up dead. Like there are things you have to pretend *aren't* just to keep people happy or else they turn into very human monsters. They will descend upon you like a pack of meenocks.

Not the things a ruler says but when unwashed filthy peasants think they are in charge of what everyone else is supposed to do and think. When they pass judgement on you for being a foreigner.
===
Don't tell me how you think I ought to feel and what I ought to do. I do know my place very well. The question is do you? Is my unity of purpose something you find bothersome?
==
« Last Edit: April 26, 2018, 09:20:59 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #11 on: April 27, 2018, 01:30:46 PM »
I suspect Miss Kismet is a Rashemi freewoman due to her coloring, long hair and fluency in Vaasi. She's a clever girl and I have begun mentoring her in herbalism and the healing arts.
===
I am an imperial citizen, yes.
King Hazlik is our ruler.
He is an archmage and probably the most powerful wizard in the core.
I am *PROUD* of being a Hazlani.
People act like we are all monsters because the empire practices slavery but we aren't uncivilized kidnapping murderers. That is very offensive.
We have actors, tradesmen, crafters, artisans, artists, teachers and doctors... We appreciate the arts and theater. We have philosophy and mathematics and all sorts of cultural achievements. To paint this big monolithic picture of it being a nation of savages is just... Stupid and wrong.
==
The Iron Lord: A harsh God in harsh lands and a faith practiced by harsh people. Yes, I am aware of this. Culturally I use statements referring to the Lawgiver on occasion. It's something we grew up around.
I am not a religious missionary. It is not my goal to spread this faith throughout the core so if everybody could just *relax* maybe a little bit...
===
I am *NOT* a red wizard. I *AM* an orange doctor.
I'm a physician of Eastern medicine.
==
Often it is insinuated to me by people (some well-meaning and others not) that my differentness and distinct foreignness will lead to fearful folk killing me. I certainly hope not. I will not apologize for being what I am, however.

I have made a few concessions.
I already keep my head markings to myself under a bandana or headscarf most of the time. I have adopted these barbaric pants over my more traditional kaftan. I will not give up my pointy toed shoes though.
====
Missed the deadline for submissions in Practical Necromancy at the Red Academy.
That's okay, I'm a transmuter and not a necromancer.
If I did become a red apprentice that's considered very honorable back home. I have to keep reassuring these rustic backwoods Barovians I am not one though because they hold much fear and loathing towards our arcane academy graduates.
===
It's annoying having to always be vague about magic and act like it doesn't exist in order to appease the locals but I do like my head remaining attached to my shoulders.

I'm just kindly Doctor Quoa, the Hazlani physician, treating diseases and injuries for everybody both freeman and slave alike! My wife and I travel the core healing the sick.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2018, 06:39:16 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #12 on: April 30, 2018, 03:41:27 AM »
I really don't much care for the Dementliuese.

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #13 on: May 02, 2018, 05:02:30 PM »
You don't have to like me.
Or my people.
I'm just here to help.
-Doctor Agios Quoa.

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #14 on: May 03, 2018, 04:12:46 PM »
The Garda are lying.
They are saying because I am a Hazlani and was looking into alternatives to opium I could prescribe to it for my patients since this drug is illegal here that I must therefore have been giving/using/advising people to do so illegally.
I have also been advised to leave Barovia, go back to Hazlan, etc.

It seems rather quite unfair.
Every time I have told them I do not and thrust my medical bag at them to allow them to see for themselves I don't have any contraband they refuse to search me and then say they will write it up as I am an opium fiend, for being a Hazlani.

It seems a blasted shame.
I just started learning Balok and my wife has made some friends here.
Oh well though.
I severely doubt the Garda will be willing to admit they made a mistake.
Afterall, what's another dead outlander to throw on the pile?

I was raised to respect authority figures so being attacked by them and told outright I will be punished for crimes which they themselves they actually directly have told me they know I did not commit, for "allowing" it to happen or simply seeming suspicious for being a foreigner is not right nor just. I feel. I told some of this to the corporal.
He laughed. He reminded me how very early on he did say I could leave. In fact he again recommended it. I wonder if I leave and don't come back if I will be pursued. Perhaps people will make up the same sorts of terrible stories they often do in order to justify this?

So Vallaki,... Feh!

The silver lining? I now have a fundamental grasp of basic alchemy.

A few of the younger privates seemed genuinely sympathetic but I know there is nothing they could do without risking the ire of their superiors and it would not be right of me to ask them that so I should just leave. I will not have these promising young lawmen potentially jeopardize their livelihoods.

I came to Vallaki to study medicine under Sir Lexington. They don't care. Told me so.
I'm not indignant anymore in fact. I'm just... Very disappointed. You'd think people were a little more advanced in our neighboring country.

Father and in-laws, step mother and wife I have failed you.
I have brought shame to our house in a foreign land by raising the hackles of misunderstanding and mistrustful lawmen trying to convict me of things I did not actually do. The stain is indelible.

If I have helped people, the locals resent it. I feel though it was important for me to do so.
Those people definitely benefitted from having medical care and support during their fights against the terrors of the old night.

I will not be a martyr. I do not want to die senselessly and not here.
It isn't worth it. This is not a point worth dying over.
Let the stupidly stubborn and ignorant keep to their traditions just as they judge us harshly for ours.
Try to rise above that.
You are a civilized Hazlani. You were raised in the Mulan way!
You keep your promises. You respect rulers and agents of their authority... To the extent such is possible. The law is important.
==
When Shula of Sigil asked you cannot possibly be attacked or judged badly in Vallaki by people just for looking and being a tad different, yes? I have an answer to that now: Well no. YOU VERY MUCH CAN.
===
This was very upsetting to me but when I voiced some concern I was deeply ridiculed and told I worry too much, complain too much about things and to simply stop worrying because it invites this sort of unwanted negative attention... Yet the people who adivse such I don't think have been in a situation this potentially dire.
====
If there is a lesson to be had here it is essentially that when you are an outsider you are subject to a land's laws but are not protected by them. This is perhaps quite the important cautionary tale for other travelers and I hope someone else may teach it to them.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2018, 10:53:44 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2018, 10:50:42 AM »
Gods bless Sir Lexington.
I don't know what he did or said to get the Garda to relent but the Lance Corporal very approachably and in a quite civil manner addressed to me some of his concerns. I was more than happy to respond to them and comply with his requests.
I am glad my wife and I will not have to move away. My patients in Vallaki are also glad.
I hope Sir Lexington gets to go to iron heaven.
====
Ugh, Lenny is a mess. That young warrior is so undisciplined, and he needs someone to teach him tactics. Getting the entire party killed and making off with their gold and weapons is not alright. When the tactician, the leader, even the ranged support and your medics and healers in a team say don't run ahead and open the door because there are shadow demons we want to deal with one at a time...
I really cannot fathom what other than Mytteri itself convinced him opening that gateway would turn out in any other way than the mission going badly.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2018, 10:52:50 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2018, 10:30:43 AM »
I'm not so sure that Sir Lexington talking to Lance Corporal Mircea did anything afterall. I've been informed I have been summoned to appear at his behest at the citadel.

Before he said if I couldn't apprehend Romeo I'd be punished in her place. Now there is a wanted poster with a substantial bounty out on her.
I don't want to die or get maimed. She ran away when he disrupted my physical examination in the basement of the Lady's rest. It was a check up and she was describing chronic pain symptoms to me. It really doesn't help she wielded a spell to run away from him.

I'm scared but I have to. I can't really run away.
It's not the Mulan way. It's not my family way. Shanaz would be extremely disappointed in me if I voluntarily went into self-imposed exile. Father's advice was respect the laws of the place you are whether traveling or at home. Nobody ever really went over what you should do when an official is mad at you for something somebody else did while you were there.

I have exactly no coins now. If they want me to pay some giant fine... I heard typically Barovians put you to work in mines as community service when you cannot afford to pay a violations fee. I'm not strong enough to wield a pickaxe or chop wood. Maybe I could scrub his floors, stitch the gashes of an injured hunter, help deliver a baby?
I can make potions and simple varnishes but those all cost money to produce.

« Last Edit: May 05, 2018, 10:38:35 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #17 on: May 08, 2018, 05:39:39 PM »
Varnishes!
I have dived into the interesting world of alchemy.

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #18 on: May 10, 2018, 01:34:03 PM »
I love my wife.

Our good friend the hunter named Jack brought us some gifts.
It's wolf and worg season and he and I see fur trading is going to be a good way to make some extra money.

I am a law abiding person.
Ignorant imbeciles still give me grief about how I need to be a terrible person because the empire of my homeland practices slavery; It is much easier to attack a civilian than take your grievances to the actual leader of a country whose government you do not like, isn't it?
They insist I cannot possibly be a physician and pretend my assistant must be some sort of slave or have been otherwise coerced and act fearful and full of loathing I have actual friends because apparently they have been fed many demonizing tales about us Hazlani.
Can you name one empire which is not bloodstained though? I think not.

This is dangerous foolishness. So much Mytteri.
I *AM* a doctor you fools, not some kidnapping murderer.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2018, 05:45:07 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #19 on: May 12, 2018, 10:00:40 AM »
I am angry. Angry about people telling me I should not be even allowed to have an opinion on the things around me when they volunteer theirs often unsolicited while in my presence.
Annoyed at those who judge my people without having met any first.
Irritated that the ignorant fools presume to lecture me on the evils of slavery without realizing that the way their own societies use prisoners for forced labor is itself also a form of slavery, and so on...

Also that people in Vallaki seem to think all Hazlani are chaotic rabble rousers seeking to destabilize their very way of life.
If they knew anything about us at all they would know all proper Hazlani abhor chaos, are respectful toward laws and traditions and do their best to obey authorities in whichever land they set foot in.
Our very religion, that of the Lawgiver says law and order are sacred and not to be questioned. Our version of hell is a concept that the supreme authority of all existence will be displeased with you for sewing seeds of dissent and confine you to a unique unpleasantness of endless drudgery and torture, a state of perpetual torment.

I am not a savage, fools.
I am a physician. I study and practice chirurgery and alchemy.
People do love spouting their nonsense.
Meanwhile, there are injuries and illnesses to tend to in the populace.
These people *urgently* need better healthcare than they are being offered.

My existence makes those who are my detractors upset. It challenges their preconceived notions.
I do not think though that killing me for being an outlier will be them "truly" winning but like anyone would stop to consider that; It's a morbid amusement as I help these ungrateful, backwards and fearful primitives.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2018, 10:20:32 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #20 on: May 15, 2018, 08:21:25 PM »
Floki lied and made up ludicrous things to me about my wife while also admitting he held feelings towards her...

I had a feeling he was making it up but checked with Shanaz just to make sure.
She hadn't left for Port yet so she could not possibly have been cheating on me with men there and sure as heck didn't sleep with Floki.
I was incensed. Just seethingly angry, mostly with him for a few days after he told me that.

I had restraint though and didn't change him into a pig.
Shanaz and I have been together for 17 years. We raised Mamat together from a pup and always help each other in our business decisions. As a team.

I am getting better at alchemy. People want to get lessons in alchemy from me and lessons in herbalism from Mrs. Quoa.

We are thinking soon it will be the right time to open our apothecary.

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #21 on: May 17, 2018, 01:06:11 PM »
It somewhat bothers me when people in Vallaki demonize us Hazlani.
Much fuss gets made about how the kingdom has slavery and people (in Vallaki) oft give their unsolicited opinions on our government. They throw it at us very gratuitously as though this is supposed to do something about it?
Them: You are Hazlani?
Me: ... Yes.
Them: I don't like your country's politics. You must be evil because your king and church don't ban slavery!
Me:... Well, that's slightly irritating.

They ignorantly accuse us of all being slavemongers and have mock fright, quite melodramatically and insultingly insisting we will kidnap them in the middle of the night.

This is very annoying.
I am a doctor, *not* an uncivilized brute!

Them: You must be with the iron church! I hate the Lawgiver! Bane is a wicked religion and you must repent your ways and adopt *mine* instead!
Me: Sir or madam, please let go of the scruff of my shirt... Stop holding me at sword point. That is *not* very civilized.

Not like anybody asked but I'm not an especially religious person.
Also, what is with this fussing about some supposed black gate?
Shady types ask me if I have seen or been to it.
It finally occurred to me while with one of my Barovian friends that what these tigans were likely referring to was the great iron cathedral in Nordenfall Vale. No, I haven't been to it.
I spent most of my time in Hazlan in the countryside and the city capital of Ramulai. I am a traveling physician. I make house calls.
I have a little black bag full of medicine, my chirurgery tools and alchemical kit.

A particularly ditzy elf has it in her mind that I cannot be a physician and need to be a "thrall keeper." When she sees me she makes rude gestures or hurls insults in Sylvan and common.

Now a few people are insisting they think I will get people killed.
I am a good physician though. I save lives. This is all clearly nonsense and gawking, gawping at the curiously exotic foreigner.
===
Unfortunately there is no cure for ignorance.

Shanaz hasn't been to Port yet.
Our friend Miss Darcey suggested I come with them.
I don't much care for the Dementlieuse but they do have access to certain more advanced materials than can be readily obtained in Barovia; I could get more updated and modern medical equipment, for instance!

My wife and I are quite civilized. These imbecilic fools... Don't seem to want to understand that. Oh well, there is no curing stupidity.

Or perhaps they are attempting to goad me into a violent or otherwise illegal response so they can feel rationally justified in killing "the 'evil' Hazlani man".
Must resist the urge to respond back in kind to the verbal barbs and aggressions of these pissants. Be the more civilized one Agios.
===
My alchemy apprentice, an elf named Lomir progresses well.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2018, 05:50:07 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #22 on: May 19, 2018, 11:14:05 AM »
People complain to me about the elf, Tinu, often!
She is bossy, pushy and sometimes just plain rude. Apparently due to some sort of earlier pain or trauma one might surmise; I don't think that's a reason to treat other people around you in such a manner though.

I hate ignorance and I hate when people deliberately make up harmful lies to hurt one another. Idiots like to spread this garbage around. They obviously don't have enough going on in their miserably insipid, vacuous little lives. They need a hobby.
Except their hobby is causing trouble. Ugh, so much Mytteri!

Zephyr, Iridni and Timond all told me I should join the Wayfarers but there's one problem: Jean Renaud.
He has flat out told me in no uncertain terms that he hates me, hates my people and will forever, that there is nothing I could do to change his opinion BECAUSE I am a Hazlani and he hates them. Iridni wants me to try and win his vote over somehow? ...I don't even...

I got to know Miss Domi a little better recently. She sells turnips to make a little extra coin and I knew she toiled away at the hospice as one of the nurses but did not know she was interested in other cultures and liked saving up to travel the core.  It was refreshing.
Very unusual for a Barovian, too.

I must try not to give into despair and rage. It is all, this is all, just tests of my mettle. Metal. The Iron Lord. Lawgiver, please deliver me from having to deal with malicious idiots all the time.

My wife's shop thrives. Thank you. Finally we are not hurting so much for money.

Now if I could just find a competent crew to raid with...
The search continues.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 05:23:13 AM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #23 on: May 21, 2018, 04:04:46 PM »
I have lost my heavy crossbow and placed an order for a new one.
Being without it feels rather limiting.

People whom I travel with have been noting I seem stronger though. Not physically no, but mentally. Huh.

A lying sack of manure in Vallaki is going around claiming untruths I'm a necromancer to try and cause me trouble for no other reason than they have little better to do.

Evidently this is the new strategy since claiming my wife and I have to be slavers for being Hazlani no longer upsets and causes the Garda alarm.

I am a doctor and alchemist, you imbeciles!

On the bright side, people like my wife's shop quite a bit!
« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 04:44:43 PM by Silas Rotleaf »

Silas Rotleaf

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Re: Duty Above All:
« Reply #24 on: May 22, 2018, 06:27:26 PM »
Took my Barovian friend Gutter on a trip to Hazlan to show him that yes, we are quite civilized so he could see how skewed the silly, stupid Vallaki propaganda is. Hopefully.

We have a mall! Hazlan and Nova Vaasa largely provide a lot of food for most of the rest of the core! I showed him the acres and acres of farmland.
It's really not so terrible here. The Vallaki-folk would have you believe we're all just devils walking around in human guise and barely considered a people. It is disgusting.

Unlike Har'Akir at least we tend to give our slaves their own housing and there are opportunities for them to earn their freedom and become citizens... Provided they demonstrate aptitude in tradecraft or art.

The Rashemi rebels aren't freedom fighters. They are terrorists who have succumbed to Mytteri. They won't hesitate to cut you down and take your things. They oppose our enlightened ruler and the church and hurt all the honest and hardworking citizens, both Mulan and Rashemi, and for what? What good can possibly come of that?

In the jungle we encountered the abandoned lab of some mad mage who had altered the trees themselves and some people into wicked treeant-like things (I suspect much like the abandoned fishing station in Barovia's experimenter, the ultimate fate of this mage was to be ripped limb from limb). We fought several of them and collected their sap.
I took Gutter on a hunting safari and we also bagged several krenshar. Unfortunately it seems the owlbears were still hibernating. We will need to plan another hunting trip a different season. I could tell he was a bit disappointed we did not encounter one as they are so very unlike the beasts one is likely to encounter in Barovia.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 05:24:49 AM by Silas Rotleaf »