sythyry | (no subject)

(no subject)

(in Sythyry's words)

Course	Teacher	Opinion at the start	Opinion at the end	Grade
Formal Enchantment	Prof. Trillisanguinus Spreen (Rassimel woman)	I presume I shall be thoroughly humiliated in this course too. Perhaps I should ask Glikkonen for some secrets which I could at least smirk about knowing ... perhaps Llezcaryg's Disaster. In any case this course is entirely theoretical, so it should not require any cley. Esory	Not as bad as I feared. Prof. Spreen got bored with teasing me after two weeks, and, I believe, some of the other students wrote her anonymous letters explaining how tedious it was to have so many spurious mentions of Glikkonen.	Generally Suitable
Notable Magical Catastrophes	Prof. Ili (Herethroy woman)	I had hoped that this course would be easy to the point of barely existing at all, but my hope is in vain, for the senior students wince at the very name of it. Prof. Ili does not simply tell entertaining stories (though she does that). The emphasis of the class is how not to be involved in a notable magical catastrophe onesself. One may expect to be interrogated by boiling weekly.	I, too, shall wince at the very name of this course. Not that the out-of-class work was very hard, but Prof. Ili did, indeed, take great joy in setting up subtly doomful scenarios and explaining how, no matter what we did, we were doomed. By the end of the semester I had died eight times, been transmuted into an arhoolie plant, a puffball, and a Herethroy both-female, had my left forepaw permanantly affixed to the inside of a cupboard, and had my left eye taken as a prize by a smargathaniel. This is relatively good, considering that most students in the class died between ten and sixteen times. Iska, for one, did better. She only died four times. Curse it.	Well-reasoned!
Applied Enchantment	Prof. Nethry Alzagond (Rassimel woman)	I expected this to be practical and straightforward.	It was practical and straightforward. And terrifying. I shared a table with Rhedwy, who (1) could eat me; (2) drops more than her share of things, due to having no hands, which is not safe in an Enchantment class; and (3) invited me to a sex party without telling me it was going to be a sex party.	Honorably Worked. (Which, for monsters, is a fairly good grade. But everyone in the class got Honorably Worked.)
Corpador	Prof. Oolsp (Orren man)	The continuation of last term's course, which even ~mother~ found little to complain about.	I was exactly and perfectly and slootly right about it being a continuation of last term's course.	Diligently Labored. Somewhat disappointing, since last term I got Finely Reasoned, but not too bad and not undeserved. I skipped this class more often than was perhaps wise.
A Discussion upon Monsters	Prof. Syylista Syyllia	This should be an easy course. It had better be an easy course, for no other course this term is easy. (In the Green Tile Classroom, Sprowlween Hall.)	I know much more about monsters now... which leads to a useful question to ask to the monsters.	Pleasantly Stated.

[Poll #345306]

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Earthern-monsters consider a skunk tail to be very dangerous indeed!

It sounds like Sythyry was fortunate to have a class on merely Notable Magical Catastrophes as opposed to the one on the Unmentionable Magical Catastrophes!

My species is often under-feared, because we look small, soft, and tasty in a meaty sort of way. However, because of our abnormally large brains, and abnormally small sense of responsibility to each other and our world, we have fought our way to the top of the feeding chain, and beyond.

It is now within the scope of my species as a whole to completely destroy our world tree; not just the branch on which we live; the whole schebang.

If we find a way to come to your tree, we'll own it in five days, tops.

Hmm... I was asking about individual abilities, not collective.

Ah, but that gives an inaccurate sense of danger, because. As a treatsie on your own world that I read once mentioned, one Cani alone wouldn't be much of a fight for some things, but a hundred of them will work together very well against a lonesome monster. Some species have power in numbers, other are a literal Army of One - which doesn't work well in all cases. :-)

Quite true. When I next feel precise and scientific I will ask such things!

I had Clorin fill this poll out, being probably the closest creature I know to being called a 'monster' - she's been one for short periods of time, after all - and she asked me to explain her "other" answer for the last question...

Maginaria of her general rank mostly live alone, but there's no screwing involved at all; they're by all appearances totally asexual creatures. Nobody has ever observed two maginaria in the act, and anyone who asks gets a prompt "no, we don't need to" (as if that answers the question of where new maginaria come from in the first place, but that they're not telling).

Ah! I, um, don't see. At all.

My most dangerous weapon is my voice; I use sarcasm and can kill at 100 paces if I am threatened.

I am mostly immune to magic and reflect spells straight back at the sender, with humourous consequences.

In my system of magic and religious beliefs it is said that what you do comes back to you three fold so, for that reason and because it feels "right" to me, I mostly use my meagre magic to help others (and occasionally to create random chaotic universes).

Peace
peter

I must confess, Notable Magical Catastrophes sounds like an interesting course- what did the professor do, propose a catastrophic scenario every class and tell you to describe how you'd escape it?

As for your poll, I took it, but I'm not sure how enlightening my answers will be. In the "Arms and legs" question, do you mean total, or of each? I happen to be the proud owner of a pair of arms and a matching pair of legs.

I have an odd question for you; forgive me for being random and hung-up on little details, but it just sort of occurred to me out of the blue. "Humans"- the particular species of monster of which I am a member- are bipeds, with four limbs and one joint in the middle each limb, much like tail-less Cani or Rassimel. Much like Orren, too, but we lack an Orren's water-form. We also don't have much fur and our heads are all different, but I digress...

Now, most other creatures on our world have four limbs- and in most other species of monster, their knees- the joints in their legs or their hind legs if they happen to be quadrupeds (most of them)- bend toward the back, such that if their knee is bent it will point to the rear. Our species is a bit of an oddity- our knees point toward the front when bent. We are one of the only species on our world with legs that work like that.

Are most species- primes and monsters alike- on the World Tree the same way? Are bipedal primes the exception to the "knees-bend-to-the-back" rule like humans are on Earth?

(OOC: Yeah, I'm sorry, I know this comes a bit out of left field- like I said, it's just something that kind of struck me out of the blue while I was watching my cat climb around this morning. This may have already been answered in the World Tree sourcebook, but since I've never actually played the RPG I haven't seen it more than a handful of times or read it in any great detail.)

- HC

It's actually not quite like that, anatomically. Humans do have the same basic skeletal frame as msot mammals. The reason it looks like we're different is that the joint you see in you cat as "bending backwards" is analagous to the human ankle, not to the human knee. Cats (and most mammals) walk on the ball of a very long "foot", with the heel in the air. The normal human (and other primates) stance is with the ball and the heel both on the ground. The primate stance is better for balancing on two legs; the other stance is better for moving quickly and jumping on four legs.

... Huh.

Guess you learn something every day. ^^;

- HC

I think Rowyn has the right of it.

My most fearsome weapon is my brain! I suspect this is the most fearful weapon of any Prime species (except Khytosis, of course); how many fewer Notable Magical Catastrophes would the Worldtree have been spared if no Primes (or monsters, for that matter) had significant mental abilities?

"Normal family structure" varies significantly for my species depending on location and culture. The most common are:

One male-multiple female groups. These arrangements typically (but not always) revolve around the male, who is frequently considered dominant.

One male-one female pairs. The male used to be widely considered dominant in these pairings, but in many cultures now the two are viewed as equals.

Both of these groups usually live in communities of other humans with similar family groupings. Either type may also share their home with other related humans (parents, grandparents, siblings, etc.) and may share child-raising duties with these others. In my own culture, this is considered unusual, but in other cultures and in earlier times, it is/was considered the norm.

While these are the most common family grouings, the other possibilities you cover do occur, with varying degrees of societal censure depending on the specific culture(s) of the individuals involved.

I’ll treat “wicked claws” as “swords”.
Normal family structure: none. Specifically, manufactured.
OOC: Questions answered by Perg, (see icon), as opposed to me, since I’m pretty boring as monsters go. Also, “durador substance” wasn’t listed under “outer surface”....

See, I just don't think of myself as a monster is the problem. At times, mind, I've had more monstrous traits -- there was a short while, for example, that I had a pair of wings, although they were on loan and not mine to keep -- but for the most part I think I'm just a big bundle of oddly expressed affection and peculiar, distracting comments.

Well, as far as I know, there are precisely eight species which must not be called monsters, at least in Ketherian. All other species may be called monsters, or nonprimes, or lesser peoples, in order from most respectful to most insulting. Since I suspect that the greater number of you live outside of the universe and are therefore none of the eight prime species, I have chosen to call you monsters, for politeness' sake. If you were to name your species, I might be more able to be specifically polite.

Unfortunately, etiquette requires that we lie about such things.

So I could say 'I'm an Orren!' or 'I'm a Blossomary!', or make up a word, but I can't tell you the truth.

How many heads do you have? (Khtsoyis technically are considered to have none.)

I'm not sure this is a fair assessment. It could be argued that Khtsoyis are in fact all head.

However, anyone who has talked to a Khtsoyis would not make this argument.

[Sythyry is more than usually bigoted today. -bb]

How do you go about creating such a poll in your journal--quite clever and fun :)

Shana

Apparently, zir translator got zir a paid account.

hYou need a paid account. Then you look here. It's fun.

Unless I'm grossly misjudging relative scale, I'm approximately as dangerous as a Rassimel, and own no weapons or armor, so it would take several of me to successfully oppose a well trained and equipped warrior.

Notable Magical Catastrophes does sound like fun... did she use props? I'm assuming you weren't *actually* killed during the course, but some visual aids would be amusing, I'd think.

Why, are there legal repercussions for killing one’s students? I mean, they did sign up for the course....
(To Sythyry: out of curiosity, was she evil enough to kill someone, and then use the distraction of being killed as an opportunity to kill them again?)

The course was entirely theoretical. I think that the legal repurcussions for killing a student, even temporarily, are quite high indeed. Well, at Vheshrame, where the average student outranks the average faculty member.

Oh, erm, ah. Well, it could have been much worse then.

Wait, if no one actually died, why are upperclasspeople so scared of the course?

It's hard and embarrassing

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