Sythyry&#39;s Journal

How do you like having your own city so far are you glad you did it?

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Well, it's not my city, but it's our city, which is rather a treat.

Today's opinion -- and I change every third, sixth, and ninth day of the week -- is worrying about the future. Right now people who live here are all immigrants of one degree or another, and all determined to make Kismirth work well. That won't last. In a year, or ten years, or a hundred, everyone will think Kismirth has Always Been This Way and doesn't need any work to keep going right, and will start ... um ... forgetting why we did it this way.

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So why did you do it that way and not some other way? Are you more worried about people deciding that traff is wrong or that having nonprimes in the city was a mistake or that magically-created cities need more attention than wood-based ones?

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I'm worried -- I'm certain -- that the current widespread spirit of idealism and devotion to making Kismirth a Good Place To Live, won't last very long. I hope it will last until Kismirth is indeed a Good Place To Live, say.

Magically-created cities are in fact taking more attention than naturally-grown ones.

Ah! Now I may interrogate you viciously! What does "long-term planning" mean to you personally, and do you think it is a good idea ever?

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Ummmm.

It means being a good friend and relation and generally a good prime, I guess. I mean, that's the part that I try to do. I've heard stuff like 'deciding on a course of action and sticking through with it until the end' or 'buying property and building it up' or 'apprenticing and staying with a trade until you master it and then continuing to work in it until your apprentices and journeymen can support you' but none of those seem very practical. For me. I assume they work for other people!

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So, how's that water park / amusement park going? And how thoroughly did you read the various essays on the concept from my world, regarding the types of 'rides' our water parks tend to have?

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I am relying on the local Orren to do what they think best. They got distracted, mostly.

And -- what should a Good Place to Live do to criminals and wickedators?

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That is remarkably sensible.

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Exiling them's easiest!

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Well... a city like the one you are making can possibly end up with more resources (especially for building) than others, so you should consider more resource and investment-intensive options, like long duration prisons with a plethora of programs targeted at helping them reform their ways and become productive citizens. Not with Mentador, necessarily, but with the proverbial 'carrot and stick' approach -- some programs designed to scare them onto the straight and narrow, lots of stuff to encourage them to become lots of training for useful, non-criminal skills, lots of programs designed to take up their time and employ them, stuff like that. The main idea is to view a large criminal underclass as a failure of society in general, and thus a responsibility that society should attempt to fix, rather than a failure of individuals.

Further, effort should be spent on removing the incentives for people to become criminals in the first place! Also, some criminals won't take to this sort of thing, and should probably just be locked up for an extended period of time for the good of society at large. If you end up having an ethically run prison, other cities might actually pay you to take their prisoners...

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Yea, in a world as big as yours (and growing!), there's always a frontier...

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kensan-oni.livejournal.com

I have this fairy tale that I am trying to decipher. It's old and it was part of an oral tradition, and it feels like it was changed halfway through to remove traces of magic use and references to fairies due to a religious war back in the past.

Being long term friends with a monster of great power, what kind of motivations would there be to keep a person cursed due to some other person's wish? Assume for the moment that both parties are truely innocent of wanting any harm to befall either. and that neither really wishes the wish to remain, even though they have no way of communicating this.

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What kind of monsters live in Kismirth? Are there any from other worlds?

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terrana.livejournal.com

Oh, dear. You didn't specify a topic for the question, so I'm going to have to ask something wholly inappropriate. Hmm...

Okay, how was the magical crystallization process that you used to build Strayway and Kismirth discovered/invented? It's just fascinated me since you first mentioned it.

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tuftears.livejournal.com

What if they come back?

I think a fine is suitable for crimes that are basically monetary, i.e. if someone agrees to do X for someone else, then doesn't do X, they should be fined both the price they were paid and a penalty for the problems caused by X not getting done.

If someone isn't able to pay such a fine, then I would devise a 'Debtors' House' where people who are in debt are sent to live, and made to do such work as is available.

If they are unwilling to cooperate with such a venture, then exile would be appropriate: the sort of exile that is performed by temporarily removing their ability to fly/teleport/etc. and dropping them off of the edge of the city with a spell to resurrect them upon impact with whatever ground they hit far below.

If they return from exile with no means or intention of repaying the original charges (plus a surcharge for exile) then they should be killed, so their soul can be reincarnated to hopefully do better the next time around.

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I'm a bit confused about the people involved. Let us say, Sh wishes to keep G cursed out of deference to A's wish? And neither Sh nor A wishes the curse to remain?

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Nendrai, taptet, mherobump, blee, maraleni, norren, Locador demon, elfimel. The latter two are from other worlds.

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A gentleOrren wizard named Talujjan stumbled on it about ... my, nearly thirty years ago now. It does some quite unruly things with Locador.

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That's horrible. Typical for the World Tree, but not one of the things that really helps it be a good place to live.

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Do the Maraleni have many (or any) prime immara?

Hmm, maybe you could have that be one of the punishments for being wicked. Permanent surveillance! Well, unless you exile yourself.

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tuftears.livejournal.com

Well, my envisioning was that exile is used only if they are unrepentant and unwilling to behave by the rules of society, and killing is used only if they are determined to return and commit crimes against the citizens of Kismirth... In other words, Kismirth as a society has a right to defend itself against those who want to abuse it.

If you simply forgive debts, people will abuse that forgiveness, if they can get it without consequences.

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That's... are you being sarcastic?

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Well, the thing they weren't cooperating with to earn exile was being imprisoned and enslaved. You *shouldn't* cooperate with that!

Then you execute them not for committing additional crimes, but just for showing up again.

You can have consequences to deter people from gaming the system without making everything 'slavery' here and 'death' there.

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tuftears.livejournal.com

I am being Sleeth!

There is a certain degree of hard edgedness about such a policy. As long as people are willing to work with each other and with Kismirth, Kismirth should be forgiving. If they are determined to abuse others, or to abuse Kismirth, they should be shown the door.

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