(no subject)

[sythyry]

(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]

Comments

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

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

[rowyn]

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.

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

... Huh.

Guess you learn something every day. ^^;

- HC

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I think Rowyn has the right of it.