wiz bits

scribbles and sketches for no reason in particular

  • The Dwarves

    Robert, Hubert. The Finding of the Laocoön, 1773, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.

    Robert, Hubert. The Finding of the Laocoön, 1773, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.

    The feel as pick first splits earth. It is in the hands, rough and thick with a hundred-thousand such strikes, each one a first, fresh and new as felt in the hands that are smooth and unworked. It is in the handle, worn, wet, and splintering, in its roughness nearer the bark of its birth, as in the lithe wood, wick and bright, of the newly hewn timber, lathed and carved, set to solid ends. It is in the axe-head, stolid and doughty iron in aged service, striking its chime in stoic praise of labor and sweat, as it is in coveted blazes of bright-metal inlays, glowing in ancient glyphs of kings and honor, of wonders and depths unseen. It is in the stone, stubborn and unyielding, as in clean sheers of slate, snapping as easily as bid. It is in the breath, ragged and course, fast and hot, of steamy must and papery ores. It is in the sweat, on the temples, lining the brow, beading the jaw and back. It is in the depths as it is in the sun. It is true, and there is not a lie in it.

    Virtue is effort: Labor, time, and toil. Its products are material, visible, obvious, and tangible. The great dishonor is theft thereof. To steal a work, to steal a time, to name what is not mine. Designs are a good of their own kind, but they cannot be held. They cannot be called pure, but what is pure is proven in the making. There is no test too exacting, no trial too hard, and none so great as time. In testing is the proving.

    If you are working the earth and you see a creature, you will not strike it with your axe. You will not cease your work to pick it up with your hand. If you are working the earth and you find that in your work you have struck a creature, you have done no wrong. If the creature seeks to harm you, you will kill it. If its blood feeds the earth, leave it be, and do not work that earth until it is dry. If there is no blood, and the creature is in the way of work and may be moved, remove it to the soft earth, that it may be honored.

    In the Hall of Ages are inscribed the chiefs and kings as thus: THIRD KING ARDNYR, Low King of Underhome of the Dwarves in MEZKLDYR, from quarter-breadth to full-breadth. Ten Sons. Husband of one wife.

    Great blocks shall be hewn and stone set upon stone, upholding a basin, submerged in earth over The Great City. The basin will draw waters from the earth, and it will be of finished stone, thick as a city gate, that its size and volume of water remain constant. Beneath the basin are channels, each to be opened in their time, and beneath the channels are set the seed of minerals, equal in size and weight but the last, reserved for the Long Age. In its time, one after another, each channel is to be opened, not before the last is finished, to let flow a uniform drip of water from the basin. This drip will grow the seed, and the growth of the seed will be used to measure the passing of time. One after another, a seed will be watered, and the next seed will not be watered until the first is finished. A seed shall grow until it forms a column, uniform and whole, and this column marks the age of the city and the era of its people.

    Heft and hew
    Work makes new
    Broken and forged
    Stone — reborn

    From the rock
    Build a home
    Cleanse with sweat
    Brow to bone

    Ours do thrive
    in mountainside
    under vale
    whole and hale

    Works make rest
    for beating breast
    the unseen height
    is our might!

    Helt dug. He dug, bore and broke. Grip unwavering, forearms tensed to iron coils, he smote earth and shattered rock in a rhythm unceasing. A stonebreaker, his work was of no glory to himself but of great honor to the Hearth. He worked, tunneling far, a Dwarf of experience and years, one trusted to survey far from home, to dig on the frontier guided only by his hands, his will, and the will of earth — her hard limbs of stone, her veins of coveted metals, her organs of dirt, mud, and air. His was a work of discovery and survival. His was a work of loneliness and fortitude. Forsaking homely comforts, he dug. Forsaking mountain years of friendship, he dug. Forsaking all but duty, he dug.

    Helt peeled the thick metal clasp that attached his lamp to his belt. He did so reaching behind him, eyes still fixed forward, his hands knowing the way from thousands of such movements. A deep, chunky ka-chung accompanied the clasp as he released it and it sprang closed once more. The lamp was heavy. Durability was prized in an expedition of this kind. A doughty dwarf the likes of Helt could carry his gear any distance, but he was loathe to suffer a failing implement. Materials and tools of the kind needed to repair a metalwork were scarce out here in the far tunnels, though any reasonable workman is resourceful enough in a pinch.

    “Oil.” He muttered the word under his breath, a habit that was in part a best practice: Name the material as it is used, and never a two are confused. It is a child’s rhyme, the sort that never quite leaves once it is set up in the heart. In other part, the habit may not need be taught or rhymed at all, for a dwarf loves the making. The building, mending, yea — the breaking to make anew. So it is that were there no law, no code, no saying or norm, there might arise from the excitement of his heart and the longing of his throat the name of the thing beheld, and so a dwarf might do just that, say “oil” when it is oil in the flask, “ore” when ore he breaks, and “hammer” when that he clasps to do the breaking. Perhaps, then, the practice is born of this spirit ere any other purpose.

    The flask, double-stoppered and bolted tightly to a modular nozzle, was near-hexagonal in shape, with several extra faces along the bottom, sprawling in some order known to its bearer. With knowledge and practice, the rate of flow could be known precisely by the particular face being orthogonal to the pull of gravity, a direction which was indicated by a set of upward-striving air-bubbles in channels inset the dwarf’s work gloves. The gloves themselves were a motley of cloth, metal, and leather, striking a balance of purpose somewhere between run-of-the-mill work, high temperature protection, and warfaring armor.

    The dwarf made no use of faces or air bubbles, tilting the flask, nozzle embedded snugly within the lantern’s base. He held both, flask and lantern, steadily in front of his chest, unmoving, taking sharp draws of breath through his nose. His racing heart stoically declined to a relaxed rhythm, each systole like the beat of a large bead of water, clinging lazily to a leaf long after rainfall. The dwarf knew little of rain and less of leaves. As he pulled the nozzle from the full reservoir, it extended to a locked position. Not a drop fell astray.

  • Objects of Faith

    Scribbles is a place for collecting thoughts and notes that I have recorded at some time or another. As with anything a person creates, they are not necessarily indicative of what that person believes currently, or even what they believed 5 minutes after they wrote it. They are just little snapshots of existence, tiny little sojourns of psyche.

    The faith must have an object — purely semantic. What am I trying to say? Here I describe a feeling rather than an axiom, but what isn’t, really? When we reason, how are we not beholden to this sense of what feels right, whether we appeal to our own limited notions of logic, to some authority, or “merely” to our own experience? I am no opponent of objectivity. I actually like objectivity (subjectively). Nonetheless, I feel a deep need to convey the subjective as well. Here goes.

    The intellect must be subservient to something not of its own design — something it might name, but the name is at best a description. The names of God are many, but one cannot simply add them up and “get” God. That which does the adding, that which uses the name, can never exit the world of representations. It must rely upon, submit to, its superior, but not the mere representation of its superior, which is an object of its own making, restricted to the space of the known and knowable.

    The one that knows in this sense of categorization or quantification may at best do itself a service by adopting a policy (for it operates within the realm of policies, needs them) of flexibility, of willingness to do things for no particular reason, to do precisely those things which offer no promise of gain or reward or even intrinsic worth. It must seek those out and do them, and upon discovering utility, refuse to make utility the object of the search.

    The knower here defends itself in the face of possibility, for unknown possibilities are its rightful fear and, in fact, its continual death. It never grows comfortable with the assurance of rebirth, no matter how many times it dies in this way and is reborn — nor should it. Its duty alone is to submit to what it can only call God, and one is left to wonder whether it ever could or ever has done anything other than just that.

  • Tuk – Part 3

    A D&D Character

    A super-nice minotaur surrogate dad who is also a doctor. What more could a boy want? The picture is by AI. The writing, for better or worse, is not.

    This is Part 3 of my character diary for Tuk, a monk adventuring through Out of the Abyss. Read the previous entry, or start with Part 1.

    Fargus. Fargus. The name echoed in his mind, but more than the name was the voice. He had not heard a halfling’s voice, its bright timbre, its lilting inflections, in… well, in longer than he could remember. They had found him encased in web, paralyzed with venom, doomed to be eaten. “Spider-snack” was the term given by their tunnel guides, the goblins Spiderbait and Yukyuk. Tuk and the strange dwarf freed him. The human called Cedric healed him. Then he spoke. The halfling spoke, and a wave of memory overtook Tuk’s anxious mind.

    Mid-morning sunlight trickled in through the window on the far end of the room. Muffled voices could be heard just outside the thick oak door.

    A deep voice spoke in low tones, “I do wish you had come to me sooner, but at this stage, our options are limited. All is not lost. We can still reach those more recently affected.”

    A much higher voice, a halfling voice, said, “I… damn. I didn’t know it was so serious.” A sigh, then, “Yes. Yes, there are more.”

    “Thank you for being honest with me. We can still help those for whom symptoms have not yet presented. Now, you must tell me —” then the voice paused. After a few moments, the voices resumed again, more distantly, the words no longer discernable.

    Inside, the boy sat patiently. He knew he was in the examination room, but he didn’t know why. He couldn’t quite seem to recall. He noticed a large, leather-bound book sitting on the desk. This belongs to the healer he thought. As the moments passed, his curiosity grew. Noting that the muffled voices continued in the hallway outside, he slowly moved over to the desk, glancing at the open pages. The journal was neatly lined with concise entries, medical records and notes, with many words he had never heard before.

    Pt #211
34 y/o halfling male. 

Patient presents with gumma of the palate consistent with tertiary stage infection of Treponema Pallidum. A review of the patient's social history was performed. Patient reports several known risk factors. Due in part to close living quarters and other environmental factors, behavioral modification has proven unsuccessful. Recommend use of solitary confinement facilities as quarantine. Known partners must also be identified and examined. Request Penicillium spores from the guild. Surely, if they cannot suffer additional serology equipment, they can at least provide this.

Pt #26
17 y/o human male.

Patiently initially presented with head injury, parietal trauma secondary to fall. Reported syncope while balancing on second story bannister. Possible etiologies include atonic episode or transient ischemic attack. Interview revealed history of "blanking out" with increasing frequency over time. Suspect absence seizures. Amnesia onset observed in the postictal phase. Predominantly anterograde component, although some retrograde memory loss is observed as well, with possible progression of symptoms. No known treatment options.

    As he was reading, he felt a jolt of fear, suddenly noticing the hallway had gone silent, not sure how long ago it had. He was halfway into his chair when there were two quick knocks on the door. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say anything. He half-shouted, “Uh, come in!”

    Floorboards groaned loudly behind the door as the healer approached. Muted thunks. Footsteps.

    Armored boots? A soldier? the boy thought.

    The knob turned, and a large figure slowly and graciously opened the door and entered, affecting an air of composure, control, and calm.

    Not boots. Hooves!

    “Ahh, the young prince! How’s my favorite patient?”

    The boisterous voice belonged to a towering figure. He loomed large in the space, which had not been designed for one of his kind. Nonetheless, in his practiced and gentle manner, he moved about the room as one well accustomed to manmade structures. His forearms were braced with intricate, glinting metal that caught the light in multitudinous ways as he moved about. His blue cloak, obviously cut for human proportions, was tiny against his bovine shoulders. It bore the gold and white serpent and staff of the healer’s guild. This sign, one of great dignity and status within the city, took on a quality of modesty when he wore it, as though it were more of a concession for him to bear the guild sigil than a point of pride. Pride was reserved, then, for the adornments of his skull, two large horns shaped like rolling waves. Each was inset with precious minerals of varying color and crystal form. Deep wells of crimson and byzantium were trimmed with a xanthous alloy, finely worked into symbols of precise erudition, none of them Baldurian.

    The minotaur, appearing to notice something, stepped over to the book, looked at it, and frowned a bit. “Hmm. Did I…?” After a moment’s thought, he closed the book. His furrowed brow relaxed, and he turned to give the boy his full attention. “Ah, nevermind. Now tell me how you’ve been.”

    “I’m sorry, I…”

    “Don’t believe we have met?” He chuckled. “That’s quite all right, young one. You may not remember me, but I remember you.” He tilted his head and smiled at the boy, who didn’t say anything. A moment passed, and the healer glanced around the room. Then, noticing something amiss, his eyes brightened. “Ah! Perhaps this will help.”

    He cracked open the window behind his desk. The scent of the herb garden — a sort of medicinal pet project — wafted into the room. Some birdsong could be heard from the array of brightly colored birds picking bits of seeds off the garden floor. “I always find it helpful to be in touch with nature, being out of doors. And, seeing as you can’t quite be out of doors, that savory square they call the cloister notwithstanding, this is the next best thing. Not to mention, scent! A powerful catalyst for memory retrieval!”

    The fresh scent did help to calm the boy’s nerves. He eased back in his seat a bit. Nonetheless, the face was unfamiliar to him. As far as he was concerned, he had never seen a minotaur before, and he was fairly certain he would remember if he had.

    “All right, young prince. A few questions, if you’ll indulge me. What month is it?”

    The boy answered, “Eleint.”

    “Good. Where are we?”

    “The Center. In Baldur’s Gate.”

    “Yes. Can you spell ‘Toril’ backwards?”

    “L-I-R-O-T”

    “Right again. What is your name?”

    “I — uhh.” Several moments passed, as the boy’s eyes scanned the ground, then looked distantly above him, searching for his name.

    The minotaur made a clicking noise with this tongue. Tchk. “Interesting. Well, you are known to some as —”

    —

    Tuk was pulled violently back into the present. He felt as though he had been kicked in the skull. His vision blurred. Sound was warped and dampened as the Underdark came creeping back into his awareness. No. I have to stay. STAY.

    —

    He was back in the office, the horned healer seated across from him. “But most of us just call you Young Prince.” The minotaur smiled. “And I am Er-Chlor, resident physician, at your service. Heh-heh. Pleased to make your acquaintance, again. Now, come take a look. I want to show you something.”

    He waved Tuk over to the desk with his hand, and the minotaur pulled something out of a drawer.

    “This little device I’m quite proud of.” He held up a metallic vial, the open end of which was tapered to a fine point. “Here, examine it for yourself. Careful not to touch that end. Quite sharp.” He extended the device in an open palm.

    Tuk held it. It glimmered strangely in the sunlight coming through the window, reflecting thin little slices of light in a thousand directions, and when he turned it over, a thousand more. Looking closely, he could see the metal engraved in complicated, overlapping lines.

    “Glyphs are something of a specialty of mine.” He smiled again. “And the material, well… Not a light expense in the city treasury. Creative paperwork and aggressive negotiations, another specialty.” He chuckled. Heh-heh. “Those clerks, they’ve learned not to mess with these,” he leaned his head forward a bit, and pointed at his horns. His throat grunted a deep laugh. “Cost me a bit of let’s say, social capital, but nevermind that. It’s the least I could do, considering.”

    Then, his face darkened. His kind smile turned to a scowl. His nostrils flared as a resounding snort filled the office. A rustle of wings was heard as the birds in the herb garden panicked into flight.

    “Look, young one. You are soon to come of age, and at such time the city can no longer… I can no longer… When I was assigned to this clinic, shortly before your birth, I knew there would be challenges. I accepted these challenges. I made them my own. Would that I might grant you further sanctuary here. Sadly, this is something I cannot do.”

    For the first time in their conversation, he avoided the boy’s eyes and scowled at the floor. His head turned away from some unseen offense. “I always did my best to advocate for your family, as it were. I will continue to do so in your absence. It has been a great honor to serve you.”

    “Now, on to business!” And just like that, the shadow lifted from his face.

    “One point of order. I would recommend that you remain awake for the procedure. While this will certainly result in an increase of discomfort, it will also significantly decrease suspicion. In my experience, I have found suspicion to be far deadlier than pain. You’ll be fine. In Labyrinth, we had no word for anaesthetic!” Heh-heh-heh.

    The wind rustled gently through the herbs just outside. In echoes, the boy could hear the residents beginning to rise and go about their daily business. He looked at his hands, finding them to be the most familiar thing in sight. He looked at the minotaur. While he had no real evidence of the healer’s behaviors or intentions, he sensed something genuine about the creature, something that went beyond the his obvious competence and the symbols of authority adorning him.

    He smiled again, gently. His eyes squinted slightly, then he raised an eyebrow. “We may proceed!”

    The procedure was uncomfortable, but not so bad, as the healer had promised. Despite his joke, local anaesthetic was applied, so Tuk felt very little in the way of actual pain. It was only a few minutes before the capsule was situated deeply within his pectoral tissue, providing a steady supply of the medicine that would prevent seizures from disrupting his memory. A few minutes more, and the boy’s awareness expanded, as it was ballasted by a great mass of experience that had gone unnoticed for some time. His memories returned.

    “Er-Chlor!” The boy spoke, “I remember you. I remember everything! I remember… oh.” His heart sunk within him. “That means it worked. That means… That means it’s time, isn’t it?”

    Though he was not quite sure, he thought he could see tears welling in Er-Chlor’s eyes. The minotaur nodded slowly.

    “Yes, my boy. Our time is near its end.”

    The healer regained his professional composure and continued, “But before we get to goodbyes, there is business to which we must yet attend. The device that I have implanted within you contains a compound of my own design, synthesized from valerian extract. A potent anti-convulsant, but more than that. It has a stabilizing effect on your neurological activity. The dramatic results of this intervention — that is, the return of your memory — confirms our suspicion that your overactive brain has played a role in your memory loss. This is good news. This means you are treatable. However, circumstances, it seems, would conspire against us. You are soon to go out into the world, and as potent as this formulation is, it will not last forever. It is being slowly, very slowly, ever so slowly, released into your bloodstream by the device as needed to maintain a particular titration. It will last for some time, but it will run out.”

    “How long?”

    “Yes, well, that is the question. How long is uncertain. Could be months, years.”

    Tuk grimaced in frustration and fear. He would lose his memories again. It was only a matter of time, and then he would not have Er-Chlor to help him.

    “Ah, but all is not lost! You didn’t think Er-Chlor would leave you without a contingency, did you? Heh-heh. Though the formulation is of my own invention, I have no interest in guarding it or hoarding it as those rotten guild cowards would have it. They would have me lock it away in a drawer in some basement, to be synthesized only under market demands. Pah! This is not the birthright of knowledge. This is not the fruit of inquiry! No, I am sending a copy of my findings to every house of healing this side of the Sea of Swords! What’s more, I have inscribed the device itself with the formula by which it may be synthesized.”

    “So I could make more of it? But I couldn’t read any of those symbols.”

    “Not you, but any artificer worth his fire salts could. If you notice that your symptoms begin to resurface, seek out a competent artificer at the first opportunity. Do whatever you must to enlist their service.”

    Then, before he could say goodbye, Tuk came to. Ripped away from the realm of memory, he was in the present once more. Looking around him, the faces were once again unfamiliar and strange. He knew only glimpses. He saw vividly an angelic being, guiding him through the darkness, its presence a light to his path. He remembered an act of great sacrifice, as this angel forfeit its own life for those of its companions. He remembered something about a spider. Nonny. And something about a… bell? A real bell? He looked down at his hands, his own hands, completely unfamiliar to him. They were larger, thicker than the remembered. For that matter, so was he, standing a foot taller than seemed normal.

    An artificer. I must find an artificer.

  • Tuk – Part 2

    A D&D Character

    “There is only spoon.” – some other Matrix kid, probably

    This is Part 2 of my character diary for Tuk, a monk adventuring through Out of the Abyss. Read Part 1 for a little backstory.

    Tuk lay, eyes closed, on a quarter-dried bedroll. The blanket, like most of his belongings, had not quite fully dried from the prison escape of recent days past. Although he was exhausted, his sleep was fitful and light. For this, the damp bedroll was among the least of causes. You can try any number of contraptions and rituals — wring it with all your strength, sling it on a line, carefully drape it over a fire — but once a bedroll is wet, it never dries, not really. Such is life out of doors. A sojourner’s bedroll is always musky and damp, the same way his stomach is never quite full, the same way his eyes are always at least a little bit red. To lose any of these is to be at home. To be at home out here is to die. Doubly so in the Underdark.

    Had he not rappelled ten stories of waterfall, the shabby bundle of burlap and straw, surely molding by now, would still be tinged with sweat. Even in the cool, dank environs of the world beneath, one must consider the stressors of combat and survival, the continuous strain of alertness, the weighty knowledge that from the shadows encroach horrors unseen. One of these conditions by itself would be sufficient to produce sweat on the brow of any man. Tuk bore them all with respectable stoicism, but stoicism was not all. In the early, pre-waking hours, he felt something that the others did not: peace. Though there was no sunrise on the horizon, no birdsong on the air, no comforts of the world above, Tuk felt peace. Peace, thanks in some part, to the boon of sleep. Sleep helps one to forget — forget the grudges and pains of yesterday — if only momentarily. Tuk slept, and he forgot. Nonetheless, he sweat.

    His hand rested lightly on his ward, a hairy arachnid companion in its youth, larger now than it had been some tenday or so upon their meeting. The spider, Nonny, nestled tightly between Tuk’s hand and ribs. The slow drip, drip, drip of cave moisture was a familiar sound to him (or so he thought) as was the odd rustle, sniff, or snort of his slumbering topside companions, unaccustomed as they were to sleeping in the utter silence of the Underdark. No leaves rustled here. No soft whisper of wind tickled the ear or kissed the cheek. There was no owl’s nocturnal call, no dim flicker of starlight. No benevolent deity gazed down at them from above, at least none who would care to make herself known.

    Tuk had received a fair amount of religious instruction as a youth, running the gamut of the more socially accepted pantheons of his metropolitan home. What were described to him as gods never failed to seem more like caricatures, heightened versions of the base, boring, mortal experience. He often wondered if they should be called gods at all. If there were indeed some higher existence, he thought, it might look a lot more interesting and strange than what he had been taught — stranger than could be taught, for that matter. Nonetheless, the good-aligned denizens of which he knew must have preferred to turn their inviolate visages elsewhere, to other places and other planes than this.

    The others in the camp drooled and snored, battle-wounded, in shameful want of the subtlety needed to survive such a place. Though free from their stalactite cells, they were no less trapped, caught. Doomed as fish washed ashore, gasping for air. Splayed and vulnerable as Shuushar, strung up by an as yet unidentified assailant. Cursed, as one who robs the spider-queen herself. Infected, as one afflicted with a lycan’s bite — or worse. They were mere flies caught in a web, panic-stricken, struggling fruitlessly, each limb becoming more tightly ensnared, each twitching wing more fully arrested, bodies thrashing impotently as each helpless blunder further sealed their fate. Doomed and cursed all — all, save for perhaps the child of Cannith, the warforged. No, not the one with decidedly human proclivities. The other one. He neither slumbers nor drools. He has not succumbed to greed like the other of his mechanistic kin. His is a way of silence. In him has yet to be espied any vice. Ah, but give it time. As the old gnomic goes: Clockwork most precise is not without ticks.

    Tuk thought none of this, of course. As he lay sleeping, or half-sleeping, he knew only the dripping and the snoring. Eyes closed, he was home. Where else would he be? It must be raining, dripping down the stone walls of the cell block. His thick wooden door, the only one that could be freely opened by its occupant, was doing its part to muffle the snores, sighs, ruffles, and other, less gracious noises of the halflings and women there detained — there, of course, being the Baldurian Detention Center for Wayward Women and Little People. Home. More home than anywhere on Toril, if in her bosom Yondalla yet retained any warmth. But of course she had, and with warmth to spare. Anyone could see that. Anyone could feel it. All it would take were a visit to one mealtime, and anyone with eyes would see the halflings, wrongfully detained (for the most part) though they were, conjuring all the merriment of a holiday at home, all the joyful warmth of a well-kept hearth, from a meager prison lunch .

    Then, as Tuk yawned and stretched happily, it happened again, as it always did, as it had countless times before. With eyes first squinting, then half-lidded, he was greeted once more by a world completely foreign to him, a place that was not his home at all, a place he had never seen before, a place of which he had no recollection whatsoever. It happened as it always did. First, the wave of shock and surprise. Strangeness all around: strange people, strange smells, strange environs. Next, the pit of longing, the emptiness in the stomach, longing for that which was so near. It was just here. It could have stayed if he had just kept his damned eyes shut. Lost in an instant. Lost so long ago.

    Finally, the dread. The sweat on the back of his neck, the realization that this day, as all other days, he would be met with the unknown once more. Each and every person, creature, and moment, would be a potential threat as yet unfulfilled. Another day in which everyone would know everything, and he would know nothing at all.

    What memories he did have were few and fleeting: Glimpses of home, isolated facial features, and a Vow of Truth. I am… at first, nothing came. I am… He searched for something more, but could find nothing, until a thought presented itself from the recesses of his mind, as though it had been folded away neatly, waiting to be retrieved: I am Tuk.

    …Why is my bed wet?

    He was awash with senses. His mind may not have remembered, but his body did. His hands throbbed, and he was reminded of swinging his staff into… something. Someone? Had he been moved to violence? That’s unlike me. His ankles remembered the soreness of weary travel, and of perhaps kicking? Strange. His inner ear recalled in vertiginous waves the feeling of falling a long, long way. His shoulders recalled the stings of many whips. His wrists felt the warm cuffing of new scabs. Imprisonment! Real imprisonment, not like home. All surprising. All confusing. All new.

    Then his hand felt… But no, it couldn’t be. His eyes drifted downward, and he recoiled, first with his hand, then jumping to his feet. A spider! Monstrous in size, unnatural and terrible, the largest spider he had ever seen. He drove his hands into his robe, seeking safety, but there he felt something warm and wet. It smelled rotten. His fingers grasped in horror. A snake? No, a tail. Fearing to be bitten, he pulled it out quickly: the half-eaten, decaying corpse of a rat.

    The spider wiggled expectantly, displaying something like excitement. Almost servile. Almost… cute. He tossed the rat to the swaying creature, who nibbled it at first, then finding no sport in its quarry, devoured the rodent with unchecked malice. It scampered to Tuk’s ankle and sidled him like a cat. Charmed, he reached down, hesitantly, and pet the thing. He was surprised to find warmth, an ever so gradual softness, as though the palm of his hand were momentarily engulfed in beautiful oblivion.

    Then he remembered himself. Rather, he remembered to observe his surroundings. His eyes, adjusting to the dim bioluminescence of standing toadstools and creeping molds, saw for the first time an encampment of strange bodies and faces. He eyed them suspiciously. He caught small glimpses of familiarity, a cheekbone here, an odd nose there, but he recalled not a single name.

    His hands found his quarterstaff. Some rope. A torch. Ordinary, everyday objects. Tools. Implements. These he remembered. In these he would find comfort. Upon these he would rely. He sat in a meditative pose, waiting patiently for the troubles of the day to arrive as surely they would. When arrive they did, he would face them as he always had: feet light, hands ready, and thoughts renewed.

  • Generative Art

    Init

    Experiments in programmatic art emphasizing interplay of iterative processes and randomness.

    These images are the products of hand-coded, non-AI-assisted algorithms. Despite the lack of AI in this project, I still consider these pieces to be in some sense collaborative with machines. To create involves a relationship with the medium of creation, however unidirectional that relationship may seem. We do not typically think of the relationship between a painter and brush to be a collaborative one, but the advent of generative models has perhaps called this assumption into question. How does this type of collaboration differ from that of a human-AI interaction? Does the degree to which it is a collaboration differ at all? Why have we been drawn to this term, artificial intelligence, to describe generative, stochastic processes like neural networks and their products? When considering generative models, we might consider to what end they are entrained.

    These images began simply as an exploration of randomness. Drawing rectangles, specific introductions of randomness, such as placement and color, is in some sense free of habits and preferences. It is agnostic, coming from a place of very little supposition, very little assumption. It is an attempt to begin axiomatically, minimizing the domain of the axiom as much as possible. How free are we from that which is assumed? How might we expand or contract these freedoms in time?

    What is curve? What is round? Does it include jagged little edges and horns? Mutilated sine waves care little for these notions. Colors are again random. Placement is given a domain of composition. Each coordinate is potentially drawn upon, but origins are preferred in a cascading spiral. The distribution of this spiral is apparently evident, but our discomfort with randomness may lead us to wonder about things like sample size.

    A small decision is made here. Solids and symmetry.

    If hominid preference had not returned above, it does here. What kind of brush would make these? Some give a sense of direction in the brush stroke, but these are merely random. What does random mean here? Is there any tendency in randomness? We might know if we could observe, or at least observe attributes, of sufficient… oh, there’s that sample size thing again.

    What if we delete small parts of an image over some distribution? They become scratchy, attenuated.

    Strong commitments to composition and uniformity. What happens when our textured shapes cross a boundary? What is the effect of inversion, noise?

    A reaction to the unfriendliness of patterned gradients? Large, clear shapes and complimentary colors. The same motivation for two opposite images reminds us of the enormity of our task. This too is comforting; enormity is familiar.

    The images that follow are beautiful to me. They strike a balance between the will of the creator and that of the created, the influence of chaos versus that of control. The lone mass, fearful of integration. The bold sun, present, conspicuous in its absence, and never out of context. Why do we risk these interactions? What is left behind?

    Many were made like this. Each is colorful with discrete shape placement. This one is noted for its sense of movement. Its color choice is suggestive of bloom, obscured in likeness and centrality.

    The number of elements up for variation we might call degrees of freedom. As these increase, so does difficulty in discerning a sense of direction of these elements, particularly when viewed from a 2-dimensional plane. We might impose an illusion of 3-dimensionality or an actual 3-dimensionality to explore. This may account for the added principality of one such element, perhaps more. How might we continue to generalize our perspective into multidimensionality?

    A strong preference for noise, even at the expense of colorful insults.

    An experiment of 3-dimensional placement of polyhedra, with a strong preference for 2-dimensional, near-orthogonal perspective.

    Future explorations may include other volumes, experimenting with vertex placement, number, and distribution. What might noise do to a surface? What might volumes of noise do when intersecting with solid volumes? Scratchiness and attenuation need also be considered.

  • Fareful Tore

    View from Moonrise Tower

    View from Moonrise Tower

    Ere the night darkens below,
    A trefoil of promise averted.

    Southward, the sun sets obscured.
    Oft prow’d ambitions falter.

    Harken, the ol’ ward a’wandrin’
    Is invitation of wariness born

    Unto aimless and wayward a fond’rer
    To ne’er a solar be wicked.

    To gnomess Tunomé so darely
    To half-elven maiden A’rdred
    In Orcish Hainokres ‘Onakri
    But only to her is it Séd.

    The curse, would I wander upon’t
    Strain t’ Gargoyle New.
    Nae, less’n laddy’s a-wheatin’
    Ae canna wa’elsa mate y’.

    But stayeder and stayeder see me.
    And weckle to may feckle may
    Shae shinin’ they’ll at but so dearly
    an’ leman be twestin’ hem hay.

    Til glimmer is glint I may stead.
    Tuglimus gloat his maight hed.

    Shorn est the Westerwer daring
    Shone is the needin’er bret.
    Flown is the flicker him sparing.
    Farn is the Novener met.

    I would fain na’entry,
    but fainer ma’ground.
    Not frostered doth tree gain an entry
    but one of the roots growing round.

    The weeping, the moroner she nary
    A-whipper the path enot trode,
    but lain ana’ware but a’Farey
    Is tha’ ware they layabout Gode?

    Arresting the scene but an altar
    tho’ never on here did eyes see
    The cherry is still but a cherry
    The stem dear is still stem to me.

    The cawkajay, ho’ how she laughing!
    The marramow, ho’ how she brae!
    The Donno a mayne remaynin’
    The ferrow of durin’ aday.

    The makener done she a plummeth
    Forevner naught, for nigh
    Ah but yet did not mistaken
    Thy ableybone fer the Sky!
    Ha! Thy abley’on withe Sky!

  • Nobelitye

    No nobleye a’theng ha’ sifnedde
    twine sae foresythe æn etwicks
    fer erry’s lofful mayneyrod
    in twae erwarren Styx.

    myn, myn dont Is’weat
    tonye a’bil nasyne
    Betake mine aught
    Betake betyde—
    Hollen ernest bryx.

    He crae he lo!
    He craen afer
    He c’roon a ethertun
    Hem aerye aigh
    Ha meery love
    He tyrn ine efer wer

    Alost ye been?
    Asketh yon crawn
    Wi’narry efer faire?
    Aneen Anyn awert anon
    Anny awert æthér.

  • Tuk – Part 1

    A D&D Character Sketch

    Portrait of Tuk. (Image courtesy of me ‘n’ my AI)

    The following is a character sketch for a D&D campaign in which I am playing a monk. The plan is to begin with Out of the Abyss. As of writing this, the only thing I know about the adventure is that I have somehow been captured by Drow, so getting up to that point was the goal of this write-up. I am going into this campaign knowing nothing about the other characters and having not played D&D in person around an actual table for quite some time. I am very excited to see what we discover and create together. As for this character’s backstory, I have some more fun ideas that I hope to explore in the game itself, and perhaps future posts.

    Update: Part 2 is now available.

    Tuk is a monk who has broken his vow of silence, his vow of poverty, his vow of chastity (reportedly) and many others besides, but not his Vow of Truth. Ordinarily, the breaking of a vow would mark a monk like Tuk with a certain disgrace, but our monk’s monastic tradition is anything but ordinary. Owing to the peculiarity of his monastic order, if he is so marked it is only in his own private thoughts. Nonetheless, he has flown from the monastery, the one place he has known all his life. One might ask, is there an angry abbot or abbess giving chase? Were the shun and scorn of bitter peers too much for him to take? Did he flee the monastery to escape these things? No, he did not.

    What kind of monk is Tuk? Why did he leave the monastery? Where is this monastery anyway? Perhaps these questions are better answered by the circumstances of his birth. Tuk was born, naturally enough, an only child to an adoring mother. Except for a small physical deformity[1] he was quite like any other human boy. This common combination of commoner traits — his humanness and boyness together — are precisely what made him singularly distinct from those people he would call his family. From birth, Tuk was blessed with a large, large family of adoptive grannies, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and sisters (as well as some third cousins twice removed on his father’s side). In his early life, due to circumstances not unrelated to certain changes in municipal policy, the family grew quickly and constantly. Many came to visit, and once sparse living quarters were soon bustling with liveliness. Of these many visitors, few ever left, and they by one door only.

    Was Tuk a prince? Maybe. Was he an orphan? Hardly. What will become of him? We know not. What we can say for certain is this: He was charmed, blessed. He was loved. He enjoyed an upbringing that was not without its privileges. In a place of strict order, his mischief was often overlooked or even encouraged. In a place of scarcity, he had plenty. In a place of longing, he had a home. He was one set apart. What else would one expect for the sole natural-born citizen of the Baldurian Detention Center for Wayward Women and Little People?

    Founded in recent years, the Baldurian Detention Center for Wayward Women and Little People represents one of many dark underpinnings of new leadership’s “clean streets” campaign. In a promise to restore the districts of Baldur’s Gate to its former glory, a coalition of mayors and magistrates have rounded up jobless women and halflings, some criminals, many not, orphaning their children and gutting their communities. Detention Centers such as this create reduced scarcity among the general populace by imposing scarcity upon detainees, not to mention cheap, forced labor at the cost of only the barest food and shelter. The program has been immensely well-received by the Baldurian middle and upper classes, who know only that the price of butter has never been better. Tuk’s mother is one of the first detained, and he was born soon after.

    To call Tuk’s home a prison is more a matter of fact than description, which is to say that his upbringing in Cell Block B was really rather nice. As mentioned before, he had many aunties and nannies, each one more doting than the last. In the adjoining wing, he would come to learn a sort of wisdom that is known to few, and seldom shared so openly. Educational offerings certainly could have been worse. A smattering of lectures were available daily, representing each of the city’s major religious institutions. His hands found work in the kitchens, the cleaning closets, and even the occasional community service project.

    Through endlessly repetitive work — sweeping, scrubbing, scraping, mopping, brushing, pushing, placing, throwing, bending, lugging, catching, straightening — he found great familiarity and comfort in everyday objects. From this familiarity grew a certain art, in which Tuk found a physical practice of his own. As a youngster, he could even hold his own in the occasional mess hall scrap. As the adoptive son of not only the inmates, but also the Warden and guards, Tuk enjoyed a certain amount of protection from violence. Nonetheless, he was not entirely immune.

    Mealtimes were the great unifying events of each day, taking place in the courtyard adjoining Blocks A and B, known colloquially as The Cloister. Meals consisted primarily of hot porridge in the morning, and notably less-hot, chewier porridge in the late afternoon. The rare donation of potatoes or vegetables from a house of worship, or the addition of salt and spice on holidays, raised spirits to near mania. Were meat on offer, it was a truly momentous occasion bordering on holy.

    Gatherings in the Cloister were often joyous times of song and dance, and a folk song or cutlery-juggling act was not entirely out of place. Sometimes a bawdy joke may even have sufficient lustiness to crack the stony facade of a guard or two. These were also crowded affairs in which simmering conflicts would now and then boil over into brawls. As for the lone youth sometimes caught in the conflagration, a ready hand with a mop, feet quick to scale chairs and tables, and a few acrobatic tricks on the quadrangle balcony were often enough to scare off would-be assailants.

    In their own savory way, Tuk’s living conditions were near-idyllic, so why did he set off? To find others like him, perhaps. To know what lay beyond the the courtyard, on the other side of those cell walls. Maybe all that talk of being imprisoned finally convinced him. Why does anyone leave their home behind? This is a question we may explore in future installments.

    Though we do not know the precise reason for his escape, we are more or less aware of the means. Annually, on the eve of Returning Day, the Warden arranges for the release of a handful of prisoners. Under din of festival chants and glimmer of fireworks from the city ahead, the small contingent of freed people board a cart that takes the long road away from the outer prison walls. One night, Tuk conspires to join them, hiding away in the wagon and making his escape before the Warden grows wise. Imagine our sheltered young monk’s surprise when he discovers that this cart and its passengers have been purchased by slavers, and at bargain rates no less!

    Far from his home, shuffled from one oppressive hand to the next, Tuk turns inward. He learns the practice of meditation, turning over thoughts, feeling their weight, pushing and pulling them like a broom, balancing them like a stack of bowls, dangling from them like the Cloister balcony. By appearances, he is a lowly man of the cloth. By behavior, a seeker of the way. By speech, one who favors truth. You may call him a friar. You may call him a fool. But of his fraternity you may say only this: There is but one.

    1. The perceptive may notice his left hand bears a sixth finger[2], much like a duplicate ring finger. That is, he has a second fourth finger, that being the sixth, so designated for its out-of-placeness, though he has at times wondered whether the first fourth finger is actually the sixth, a thought that distracts him more often than he would care to admit. ↩︎

    2. Which I suppose makes this footnote more of a handnote. ↩︎

  • Dial-Up

    (Image: An LLM-Gen'd Corded Phone)

    (Image: An LLM-Gen’d Corded Phone)

    Only children had a sister named the internet.
    We were conceived in the same apartment complex,
    delivered in the same hospital.
    Our first words were, “You’ve got mail.”

    We remember her,
    we reams of dot matrix paper
    and landline telephones
    and magazines about solar cars.

    We had Pokémon cards,
    and we weren’t allowed to play Magic
    or Dungeons and Dragons,
    but we did it anyway.

    Listening to a Weird Al mixtape,
    burned on a CD
    downloaded from Napster
    in between Dexters on Cartoon Network.

    Hooked on phonics
    in love with electronics:
    Gameboy printer, Minesweeper,
    Dad’s belt holder for a beeper,
    little button on the intercom speaker.

    Gliding through Windows on skis,
    Summer chihuahuas freeze, no yetis
    Mouthful of veggie spaghetti
    When “veggie” just meant there were vegetables in it.

    Board games uncovered like ancient relics
    A VHS of Thriller with werewolf prosthetics
    Roller blading the unfinished basement
    Opening cases of dried-up art supplies

  • Hackman

    Long fingers, long hands, stretching causality
    come too late, gone too soon, giving the unknown
    breath, and space, softening skillfully the…
    what? Sleeping, none the lesser, setting
    ships aright, sails billowing, flight.
    Redeem, redeem, and I cannot attend.

  • Mesceret’s Lament

    Whither went the Kingdom of whom Mesceret was a-fear’d?
    Whenever and wherever the ganging-way had clear’d
    Across the stony morning and awakened sundered sky
    For earth’s blows a-horning and raising of her eye.

    Make not the bless’d gateway arise beneath her call,
    but send forth her children scorn’d, forever and for all.
    My dear, my darling Lethirwasse, of this you only know
    why the summer creeping or the tawny flies must go
    in fleeing and in flight before the foxes yonder bray
    before the mark of Hardholde and ‘neath the light of day.

    My bonnie, o my bonnie, in binding don’t delay.
    Don’t delay my bonnie, for mercy’s hand please stay.