Hating Kismirth, prelude

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

After hearing about Pirly, and about the Rounses and Noritts, you might get the impression that everyone who moves to Kismirth loves it — the casinos! The open transaffection! The erotically-charged atmosphere! The quasi-Hrreptite governmental system! The gentle yet loving yet insightful yet perfect hand of Phaniet and the other Wrongfolk guiding all things!

That is not the case. A significant number of immigrants don’t like this or that feature of the city. Even the Rounses and Noritts aren’t terribly fond that their children are going to grow up in as immoral a place as Kismirth. (If their children have any clue of the horrors of adolescence that await them, they might be glad of it. Which is what their parents are afraid of.)

And people who can tell early on that Kismirth is not for them generally don’t generally immigrate. Any number of people have come here thinking it would be a wonderful place to live unlike their current home — or a place where it was possible to live, unlike their current home — and been shocked by all the different-species couples or triples kissing in the streets, or been upset by the laws against stealing from tourists, or what have you. People who know they shouldn’t move here mostly don’t move here.

Niia and Chiver did move here. They were a very typical immigrant couple, Rassimel woman and Cani man, coming from a Vepri-infested city-state that didn’t approve of them at all. But it didn’t work very well for them.

This story does not end with everyone moving to Kismirth and being happy forever. Kismirth is not a Heaven of Mircannis (or a Heaven of Sythyry); and even a Heaven of Mircannis doesn’t seem able to please everyone. Don’t expect Kismirth to either.

Though we (and Mircannis) really try our best to make it so.

Chiver and the Principal: Hating Kismirth, part 1

The lords of Choulano have not, historically, tried to make their city be a Heaven of any sort for much of anybody. Actually the first lords of Choulano were a pleasant and well-intentioned lot, according to Yylhauntra, who was there. But there have been many, many lords of Choulano since then, as with any of the earlyish cities on Craitheia, and they haven’t always been the best.

(Note to self: See if there’s some way to keep the same thing from happening to Kismirth.)

The current lords of Choulano are a pack of Ministers, as the city has a fairly democratic parliamentary sort of system. There’s a Duke of Choulano I think, but she is somewhere between a figurehead and a public ceremonialist. So they’ve got a pile of Ministers of the Exchequer and Ministers of the Culture and Ministers of the Armiger and Ministers of the November and Ministers of the Alkaseltzer anything else at all. [Free translation. -bb] Most of these Ministers, currently, belong to the ruling party, the Vepri. (Democracy is not the culprit here. The Duke is also a Vepri.)

Chiver and Niia were not Vepri. One of Chiver’s uncles — his parental family was rather large, even as Cani longhouses go, so he was plentifully supplied with uncles and aunts, most of them sensible — had been for several years the Yarlving D. Thwaliostro Professor of Magic Theory at Amborkk Academy in Choulano. As the Vepri started becoming more prominent and more powerful, the uncle — like anyone else who knows much about magic theory — had certain reservations about some fundamental articles of the Vepri program, and he expressed them in very distinct terms in a long and exceedingly clear guest editorial in the Choulano Chopper. Not long after, Chiver’s uncle’s office burned up, with the uncle — generally a teetotaler — dead drunk and passed out on the desk in it. While the uncle survived, he was not good for much Magic Theory after that, and, indeed, rarely left his bedroom save in a wheelchair.

Vepri are the so-called VErified PRImordeals. The basic theory is that (1) the people from the earlier generations were more virtuous and wise and excellent than those from later generations. (While this is obviously true in my case — I am third or fourth generation depending on how one counts — there is no particular reason to think it true.) And (2) the leadership and members of the Vepri are themselves early-generation people, or, specifically, the reincarnations thereof. They claim to have devices and methods to verify this. Any magic I know that does so is quite hard and rarely bothered with. But it’s a popular movement in Choulano, and other places as well.

Comments

[rowyn]

Or can bribe/persuade the appropriate parties to claim that they are, which seems the more likely route. }:)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right, from what I hear from here.

[rowyn]

I'd be tempted to argue that early-generation spirits are generally inferior, being all worn-out from repeated use and tattered around the edges from dying all the time. Surely it's much better to have a fresh new spirit with all the latest improvements the gods have come up with since the early days! >:)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

If I ever need to start my own wicked movement, I might use that!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

And not only can you identify who's new and pure, you can sell expensive Purification rituals to people who aren't pure enough but are willing to burn away their past sins.

[rowyn]

That's what the Vepris need! Spiritual aging rituals. n.n

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Normally one ages spirits by putting them into large barrels made from oak or other woods whose essential oils are of the proper sort, possibly ensured by burning them out.

The barrels are then stuck in a cave or other cool, dark, quiet place where they can be left unmolested for several decades or possibly aeons, finally to be removed and tapped once sufficiently mellowed.


Clearly Vepris does not nearly meet this standard.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Wine!

I mean, Whine!

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Wow, the pun translated? I should totally have seen that coming... aging spirits...