See above; Phil dropped all sorts of heavy-handed hints about the thing, but refused to be pinned down with specifics. All we know for sure is that the Man of Gold cut off the connection that the thing had to She Who Cannot Be Named's bethorm. Me, I'd send somebody up there to take a look, but I hear that the Baron discourages casual visitors...Originally Posted by Hrugga
You're welcome; sorry about the delay.
Phil loved to put this kind of very clever in-jokes into his work. For example: The name of the ruling dynasty in Tsolyanu? Tlakotani, of course. The in-joke, from Phil the linguist:
*Tlatoani (Classical Nahuatl: tlahtoāni [t͡ɬaʔtoˈaːni], "one who speaks, ruler" plural tlahtohqueh [t͡ɬaʔˈtoʔkeʔ]) is the Classical Nahuatl term for the ruler of an altepetl, a pre-Hispanic state. It may be translated into English as "king"." - Wikipedia
Phil would lay these little gags with great glee, and then wait for us to get them patiently - sometimes for years. The more you know, the funnier it gets...
EDIT: Forgot to add; yes, I'm looking forward to seeing what she comes up with as well; we had a chance to exchange e-mails on the subject.
Last edited by chirine ba kal; 09-03-2016 at 06:25 AM. Reason: added text
You can hear him laughing, can't you, as we finally get the joke...
Indeed so. * salutes * Well done, Phil.You can hear him laughing, can't you, as we finally get the joke...
That's his sense of humor, folks. "Dry" does not BEGIN to describe it.
I don't care if you respect me, just buy my fucking book.
Formerly known as Old Geezer
I don't need an Ignore List, I need a Tongue My Pee Hole list.
The rules can't cure stupid, and the rules can't cure asshole.
The guards at a Sakbe road tower are they Imperial, local, locals in the Imperial military or some one else?
How trustworthy are they for road traffic?
Do they get involved in anything that happens off the road?
=
Ain't that the truth! Part of the fun in writing "To Serve The Petal Throne" is continuing the in-jokes, as well as adding some of my own in the same style. Phil- wherever he is, and I'd like to think he's arguing dice rolls with Gary and Dave - will get them...
They are nominally Imperial troops, but not part of any legion. They are the same type of troops as the city guards or market police that you find in cities and towns. (Temple guards are the same kind of thing, but report to the temples.) They report to, and are supposed to be paid by, the provincial governor who has a specific officer who's supposed to be in charge of the road guards. The Imperium allows the governor a percentage of his tax revenues for the guards' pay and upkeep, and the governor in turn takes a percentage of the taxes due from the various fief-holders in his province. As a result, the guard are usually underpaid and under-staffed. Generally, the guards are locals to their area; officers might be 'imports', but this is pretty rare - the 'outsider' is either somebody's relative who needs a place and a position, or somebody's problem who needs to be stashed away someplace quiet. Either way they are people of some status in the local community.
Pretty trustworthy; they'll give the traveler advice on food and lodging - since they usually have a relationship with the providers of same - and will look after one's goods; the prudent traveler or merchant will always make sure to 'tip' the guards for their good service, and may expect to get it. The guards have a pretty easy job, and it's in their best interest to make sure that everything on the road goes smoothly; contented travelers are better tippers, after all. Trouble, like the incident in "Man of Gold", usually means that Somebody Important has bribed the guard to look the other way when something 'political' is happening.
Generally, they leave 'off-road' stuff to the local fief-holder and his/her guards, but they will get involved if they see something that is a major issue - Ssu, invaders, stuff like that - happening within sight of the roads. They will not normally leave the road, however.
Bandits and brigands are not welcome; normally, travelers hire a 'local guide' / 'fixer' to prevent such unworthy persons from being a bother; Should such people appear, the guards will deal with them if they are around; if not, the traveler may deal with the miscreants themselves and collect the reward money for the heads. I had to do this on the road from Meku to Fasiltum; I had a half-dozen bandits try to rob our little caravan, and since they were 'unlicensed' brigands - unallied with the local clans - I dealt with them in my usual direct manner and had the bearers collect the heads after the smoke cleared. Turned in the hard at the next large tower to the officer in command, collected the reward money, and handed it out to my retainers and made sure to tip the guards so that they didn't lose any money. Also paid for the damage to the roadway, too; a little patching and resurfacing was in order, although I'm told you can still see the glassy spot on the road when you go by...
I had a very, very quite trip after word went up the road that I was a noble person who looked after his people.
Does this help?
Chirine,
In your opinion, how likely do you think it would be that some settlements of the ancients would have continued to survive up to the time of Llyan's Empire? I know that the epoch spanning from the Time of Darkness to the Lords of the Latter Times is not really well documented, but were there pockets (other than the Undying Wizards) that "kept the torches burning," and tried to maintain as much of the technological lore are they could?
Were there any indications of this from what Phil said or wrote?
Shemek
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain
Uncle,
Could you say a bit more about "licensed" and "unlicensed" brigands and how they may relate to local clans...As far as tower guards go, I could imagine all sorts of adventures. A warrior trying to escape his/her past and somehow being thrust back into the thick of things(old West style)!!! As Someone dear loves to say,"Mayhem ensues...!!!".
Thanks,
H:0)
I'd think it would be a pretty good chance; the cataclysm was pretty sudden, so I'd think that the more remote villas, settlements, and garrisons would tend to hold on for as long as they could. It'd be a long, slow decline over time, I would think, based on what Phil said about this.
One of the factors in this was - and still is, for that matter - just how 'survivable' the technology of the Ancients can be. A lot of it is still working today, so it must have stayed working for them then. Phil remarked that the biggest problem was preserving the knowledge of how things worked; I see this myself, every day, where people retire or pass away and their knowledge of how a particular machine works is lost. Even if the information is preserved in some form, how does one access that information? (The 5.5" floppy drive we had to get to read his old floppies is an example of this.) Oral traditions are useful, but you do get a lot of 'drift' over time, and Phil was very aware of this from his own field work - and I thought that it was sad that nobody wanted to deal with his huge archive of audio tapes that he made in South Asia in the early 1950s, which meant that all that information on how things had worked for generations has gotten lost. The flashlight may still work, but nobody may know how to change the focus...
For written documentation about this, I'd suggest the Blue Room, as Phil didn't write much about it in the time we were with him. We did talk a lot about this kind of thing in our 'after-game' conversations, and there might be something on this in the audio-taped interviews I have of him. My advice would be to follow his practice, and go in the direction of having adventures - as he put it, "it's the whole purpose of the thing..."
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