A Short Guide to Guides on Minia and Lodi

By: Aelis Posted on: July 30, 2005

'Boldly go where everyone else older than you has gone before!'
- from 'The Worldly Novice's Almanac', page 34.

'If anyone asks who you are, run.
If anyone asks why you're there, run.
If anyone asks why your hand is in their pocket, run,
But preferably with their money.'
- from 'The Apprentice's Pickpocketing Songbook', page 1.

INTRODUCTION

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Within many organisations, special care has been taken to make life notably easier for the young, the slightly pimply, and rather awkward. These precautions usually take the form of written compendiums, often with handy, easy to remember titles. Some are entitled 'Newcomer Guides'; others call them 'Novice Handbooks'; and some rather high-minded individuals prefer to label them such things as 'An Apprentice's Encyclopaedia'.

(Incidentally, the Bardic House - known as Ty Beirdd - is the only organisation that does not bother with such stylisations. Comprising mostly of sweary drunks, bitter musicians, and rather surly sirens, their apprentice reference scroll is affectionately known as, 'Read This, Or Else We Shall Break Your Legs and Roll You Into a Ditch'.)

All of these collections are fundamentally the same - long drawn-out warnings with dire consequences, meticulous listings of requirements, overviews of the little kingdoms appropriate for apprentices to start their first adventures, and in one case, a rather shakily written and quite inexplicable passage involving a proletariat revolution using only a length of twine and an empty bottle of spirits (the liquid having been ingested prior to the attempt).

Most young apprentices find these scrolls helpful, if not a bit overwhelming at first. Harried yet still-smiling newcomer aides remain fountains of patient clarification on trickier wordings for older scroll copies, such as reminding Serpent youngsters that the rather archaic phrase 'do unto others as you wish them to do unto you' does not apply to sado-masochism with whips and dirks.

But as everyone with half a brain discovers in time, the best advice does not come from quill-scribbled manifestos, but from that niggling, nagging little voice inside one's head. This little booklet will hopefully act as the physical manifestation of that voice - however, any sarcastic and cutting inflections within the text will have to be inferred by the readers to their varying states of sanity and preoccupation with split infinitives.

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A QUICK NOTE ON PORTALS

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One of the many fortunate things young Achaeans have going for them would be access to the legendary Ring of Portals. Points of access to all major cities and other key landmarks (Seasone for the permanently accident-prone, Delos for those who have no sense of economy, and so on) are concentrated upon one Loom Island. All of it is relatively safe, as the watchful eye of the Guides ensure that no shenanigans of the interesting sort carry on.

However, even with Divine precaution, novices often find themselves plopped into places such as Mhaldor as a member of the Church, or in Hashan as ... well, anyone going anywhere exciting. In such instances, the blame is usually put on the victim for being 'as directionless as a lobotomised moth', which in reality is quite an untrue thing to say.

It is a well-studied fact that cities that are polar opposites in ideology to ones own have a certain magnetic, if not magical, draw to these said individuals. The strength of this pull is proportional to a person's sum amount of adventurousness, mischievousness, and the utter inability to read a simple map. Additionally, one's resistance to such a pull is equal to their common sense subtracted from their sum age and body weight, multiplied by the proximity (in miles) to the city in question.

Of course in the end, this doesn't amount to much for (many) people who prefer less mathematical explanations on mortal stupidity. But it did look quite impressive when written out neatly on paper with crisply ruled margins.

But as life often goes, the research team from the Shallamese university was never able to publish its findings, as the researchers were all mysteriously killed during an Eleusian field study within the halls of Blackrock upon Sartan's Island. Due to this unfortunate scholarly setback, the majority of the world still rests on its previous judgement that young Churchgoers who portal and end up in Mhaldor are 'as directionless as a lobotomised moth', never knowing that there was something mathematical involved.

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MEANDERING IN MINIA

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Many apprentice handbooks will cheerily point out that Minia is the ideal place for a youngster to start their first adventures, usually by starting right away with the mindless slaughter for pay that is the backbone philosophy of many Houses (usually along the lines of: 'We believe in the absolute Freedom of our members to do anything they wish, and it would impede on their Freedom to dictate what they should or shouldn't kill. As a House emphasising Freedom, we reserve the right to say that, "It's a free world, we can't help it if our members are really just a bunch of evil bastards."').

There are four villages in Minia, each pairing off against another in a deadly dance of embittered harassment and mailing off crude letters to each other's mums. Each village will pay for the corpses of their enemies, a fact capitalised on by aforementioned Houses that give no guidelines to whom one should not kill, as long as there's a fat pile of gold at the end. More discerning Houses will advise, for a variety of reasons, that an apprentice should stick to meticulously killing off only one pair of villages to become either Saintlike in the meting of Righteous Smiting, or Exceedingly Naughty in the meting of Calculated Massacre.

It is quite stunning to note that no organisation's newcomer scrolls list 'diplomatic negotiation' as a solution to the years of slaying in Minia. It is assumed that the authors, after watching the years place a gap between their youthful pasts and their current curmudgeonly selves, have fallen victim to exquisite cynicism coupled with a memory that would make a goggle-eyed goldfish look intelligent. Even those Houses happily bearing the goldens standards of 'Good' or at least 'Relatively Good When Convenient' do not bother suggesting 'peace treaty summits' - then again it is much easier to obey a command that goes along the line of, 'Just kill all the evil buggers and get a prize at the end.' It does wonders for morale and incidentally boosts the potential recruitment pool of the Ivory Mark (assassins spelt with a 'C').

Paradoxically, these self-same scrolls somehow emphasise that Minia is quite a nice place to be, exempting its grievous diplomatic issues that they highly encourage a bloodied hand in. This, of course, is a large farce.

To the untrained eye looking in from the entrance to Minia, the lands would appear slovenly at best. This is mainly due to the fact that the area by the archway to Minia is amazingly filthy, and replete with impeccably tasteless furnishing. Pilfered and empty backpacks line the place, occasionally sprinkled with thick expensive journals abandoned by less literary-minded individuals. Other useless junk and detritus are hastily hidden, tossed aside, or otherwise arranged into obscure avant-garde art sculptures about the area, the latter of which are subsequently used as public toilets.

It also has a stone bench lovingly painted in a glaring shade of pink.

Additionally, the archway to Minia houses a motley collection of people, ranging from the young to the suspiciously old, all engaged in barking conversation that involves talking louder than their neighbour and subsequently ignoring everything their companion says.

A brief example of the noise pollution is as thus: --- 'Er, excuse me -'

'So Oi said to 'im, "Roight, guv, Oi want me munnoi, hear?" and the bastard jus' warks off!'

'Ahh, my net, and look at those beautiful butterflies! Many thanks! Here is your payment ...'

'You see, my dear apprentice, you ALWAYS need to be careful where you point your cursing finger -'

'Ah, pardon me, but can I just ask -'

'Selling a shortsword! No idea what the stats are, but I like getting gold thrown at me!'

'Oh my gaaarrwwds, Tredders, dat's an AWRFUL t'ing!'

'Ahh, my net, and look at those beautiful butterflies! Many thanks! Here is your payment ...'

'Excuse me? Anyone?'

'Are you saying if I point my finger funny, I could end up making someone's nads bleed?'

'Selling my trousers, anyone want my trousers? They're really nice trousers -'

'No, not quite, I don't think you understood -'

'Excellent! Here is a net for you to use. Wield this net and catch any butterflies you encounter -'

'Pardon, but -'

'Hey, does anyone have some bloodroot?' ---

As the reader can see, the archway to Minia is about the last place for a tentative, polite individual to begin queries about ... well, anything. Usually such inquiries end up having the exact opposite effect on the inquirer, often with the relieving of possessions as opposed to relieving of stress.

In the end, it makes much more sense to stay out of tribal wars and half-arsed blackmarket trade while in Minia - best stick to waging war on the butterflies, the beefy little buggers. Arinas was onto something when he said they were wretched little things.

LUMBERING THROUGH LODI (and Gorshire)

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One of the first things a person will notice about Lodi and Gorshire village is how utterly wholesome, family-oriented, and dreadfully dull everything looks. Granted the mayor is a bit dotty ever since the Opposition's party decided to hare off across the Putoran and into the Pash Valley to take over the winery, but the gnome people as a whole are rather friendly and dead helpful with selling things that don't last that long and are slightly overpriced.

Many guides suggest that one start off on a good foot with the residents and play the kindly benefactor - fetching a weaver's missing shears that she left at a drunken party (the wee souse), assuaging the mayor's frenzied paranoia, solving the constable's lack of anything enforcing to do, and so on. Gold and experience with something very much akin to customer service is earned, considering the scope of the gnomes found wanting.

For those more inclined to cut their teeth on some more flesh and blood, they are encouraged by giddily written texts to beat up a few weasels that 'pester' Fergil the goose farmer, or perhaps delve into the active thwarting of feline Putoran domination.

This leaves to say: has anyone (besides those who heartily support unprejudiced mass slaying) who has ever written a novice help scroll even considered the fact that maybe it's the sodding gnomes that are the problem?

The three main conflicts in Lodi are: gnomes versus the weasels, gnomes versus the bats, and gnomes versus the wildcats. Note how all three have the word 'gnomes' in common, as well as the nice little rhyme between 'bats' and 'wildcats'. Basic mathematics state that the common denominator must always be eliminated - or something to that, anyway.

Instead of lingering on the gnomes' inexplicable hatred for anything furry and thoughtfully debating the morality of mass extermination, handbooks suggest that the young apprentice merely go along with whatever earns them the most coin. This usually means helping the gnomes for the Good-aligned, or killing off everything and doing underhanded cadaver-selling for Everyone Else.

Logically, however, it's the gnomes who brought their own problems upon them. Chuck a semi-useless goose farm on top of a prime piece of land and throw the ecology for a grand loop - rodents will be exterminated to protect goose feed, which in turn eliminates a primary food source for the native weasel. Hiding from bludgeons yet slowly starving, a thin weasel observes a tender, fat goose wobbling by ... of course the weasel would have at the waterfowl's neck before the stupid creature could even so much as honk its half-penny swansong.

This could be solved by simply suggesting to Fergil that he should sell off his geese to Braan (the local livestock-eater) and start breeding weasels for intelligence. It is, after all, a quality much sought-after by those without it and dim enough to pay for it.

Turn northwest to the mines, which are excavated for ores that mysteriously seem to only get ported to Sethrin, a most renowned and great capitalist prig no one sensible really likes. Bats who have lost their previous habitat to constant hammering and pickaxing will understandably scoot into the gnome-made mining shafts, some even having a go at excavating gnomes who try to take their remaining caves.

This could be solved by shutting down the mines, training the bats as elite pest-control methods, and telling Sethrin to stuff it up his trousers, with knobs on.

Far north leads to the most vexing problem to quasi-moral ecologists specialising in Lodi: what to do with wildcats that have suddenly decided that rank-smelling tunnels are rubbish and that taking over the Putoran Hills is a much more viable investment?

If the wildcats were clever enough to evolve into acute sentience and create an established civilisation of sorts within some eighty years, that's an applaudable feat that requires some study and prestigious awards given by balding men with very long beards. The gnomes are quite frankly better off holding settlement agreements with the felines, who can probably predict market shares better than they can.

But where does this leave the adventurer, while the wiles of politics and desperate pleading spiral off into the distance? They would, for one thing, see how things are naturally done by relatively sane individuals, and learn how to make quicker gold with much less blood on their hands. This method just favours those with enough wit to figure out where to pull strings and when to slip the bag of gold under the table.

Alas, not all scroll authors are sensible thinkers and even less are ecology-economists - the stubborn gnomes and salivating wildcats continue their communal loathing that parallels the utterly ridiculous clan wars in Minia, and the adventurer remains relatively oblivious to the grievous ecological damage they cause. It's all rather shameful, and you can't even blame the butterflies.

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CONCLUSION

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To end this volume of Short Guides to Guides, this researcher would like to emphasise the fact that no matter what organisation the apprentice may join, all basic philosophies are the same: 'go kill something, and good will come of it'. This remains terribly inaccurate: while the immediate future is relatively rosy and smells vaguely of sea salt, the distant future is a rather unpredictable and often lethally ironic, often involving red hats and shouting angrily in the streets.

To wit, the best advice does not come from meticulously written self-help books, or from scrupulously exact novice scrolls. It comes from thinking critically and cleverly about the situation and ignoring the fact that there is a small pixie gnawing angrily on your knees.