Raafi in Revelation
+ Show First Post
Total: 3907
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

He's going to do today's rounds as scheduled. He sends acknowledgements to the others.

How many emails are there from the daeva rights groups, he can get through maybe three before he has to go start his daily routine.

Permalink

There's only two of those. Fey Citizenship says they applaud his work. The Society for the Protection of Daeva points out that if GCP detainees are exiled to their native realms then they can harm other daeva and caution him that only some forms of harm are excluded by indestructability.

Permalink

Fey Citizenship gets an appreciative acknowledgement and a suggestion that they email him again when things have calmed down; he may be interested in working with them, or know people who are. SPD gets an email asking if they have any concrete suggestions for how this issue could be handled, bearing in mind the likely possibility of clerics going to the daeva realms and of spellcasters developing new daeva-related capabilities once they're familiar with this world.

He does his devotions; he does his rounds. He has a couple of hours before his first summoning class; he checks his email again.

Permalink

The SPD recommends that it be gently explained to Fharlanghn that the Ganymede prison meets the requirements for conditions that have been agreed upon by its constituents and that his influence thereupon is unwelcome unless he wants to seek citizenship in a subscribing country and cast a ballot as part of the ordinary political process.

Permalink

Fharlanghn isn't going to accept any outcome that leaves people held against their will. He doesn't know if allowing them the option of ceasing to exist would be acceptable, if that turns out to be possible. - offering them the option to go to one of his world's afterlives should be; he'll suggest that.

What do the churches have to say?

Permalink

Several of them are trying to pitch him on converting to them. Some are denouncing him as a heathen and calling Fharlanghn all kinds of unkind names. One of them has written him an essay on the history of religious civil disobedience and the importance of the faithful staying inasmuch as possible within the law of the land for the long-term viability of their culture and creed.

Permalink

He lets Dogwood know that he's not interested in hearing from people that just want to bash Fharlanghn, makes himself a note to write a blog post about how following another god on the side works for clerics, and starts in on the emails from individuals.

Permalink

Dogwood has pruned more of them by now. The remainder are:

- asking about whether his magic can do various things the copy on his website doesn't expressly cover
- suggestions for posts they'd like to see
- a request that he cameo in a TV show
- one from Dogwood, stating that they've forwarded the threats to the police but he might want to change hotels pretty frequently (staying within the EU will mean not having to inform a new batch of police)

Permalink

He answers the magic questions, declines the TV show request for now (but they can ask again later), notes the post suggestions, and assures Dogwood that he's hard to hurt but will start moving around more often.

He has a quick look at the animal rights emails, just for completeness.

Permalink

They want to know if there will be an afterlife for elephants, if his magic can advance the field of animal communication, and the state of animal protections in his world.

Permalink

He's not sure whether animals get afterlives - they might, as fiendish and celestial versions of their species. He can't communicate with animals but druids can. Cruelty to animals is frowned on by good gods and too much interference with nature tends to get a reaction from one of the gods of it but the details of what exactly is considered acceptable treatment of livestock varies from place to place - if they give him specific examples of things he can tell them how common they are.

He picks a random hotel to book a room in for the next three nights, lets them know at the front desk that he's leaving, and heads out early for his summoning class.

Permalink

They want to know if animals are being hunted or slaughtered for food, fur, leather, or other purposes, if they are used for research, kept in zoos and if so what kind, if they get medical care, if there are efforts towards predation substitution and humane non-hunting population control of species with spiky population curves, if animals kept for eggs, milk, or wool are overbred or mistreated, etc, etc.

His summoning class has eight people in it plus the teacher, an old dark-skinned fellow who introduces himself as Professor Hopeworth.

Permalink

Wild animals are commonly hunted for food, hides, and to remove dangerous ones from populated areas, and rarely hunted for magical reagents or sport, and livestock is kept for food, hides, reagents, and to do various sorts of work. Animals are used for research; he's not sure how commonly but it can't be very, wizards aren't that common. Private zoos exist but are rare, and usually have druid oversight. Animals in areas with a druidic presence receive medical care but that's a minority of places, maybe 20 or 30 percent, and some smaller number will receive care from traveling druids and such. He's never heard of predation substitution or population control like that but it might be the sort of thing druids consider private rather than something his world doesn't have at all; he can ask when he has access to his world again. Livestock is generally treated reasonably well in his opinion but he doesn't know what the local standards are.

He's attentive but quiet, in class, trying not to draw attention to himself.

Permalink

Presumably he does not check his email in class so he'll have to read articles about modern animal handling standards later.

Hopeworth doesn't make the students introduce themselves. He goes over the basic structure of a summons: the ontologically basic components are summoner, daeva, circle, binding, task, and dismissal. Bindings can snap; it's a trivial mental action; don't. Killing a summoner instantly dismisses their summonses, voluntary dismissal takes about a minute.

Permalink

He takes notes.

 

While that's happening...

An angel who's been working in human hospitals since very nearly Revelation day itself dreams of the sun and a voice saying "thank you for your service", and wakes from her weekly nap with knowledge of how to cast spells to make things glow, detect poison, magically clean things in her environment, stabilize the dying, halt the progress of any disease for a day, gain insight into the physiology of a patient to aid the use of her existing magical healing, and cure light wounds.

A teenager whose family has been touring the world in their mobile home since he was a toddler dreams of the moon on the horizon and a voice saying "come and find me", and wakes with the knowledge of how to magically mend broken objects, improve the skills of those around him to a minor degree, create water, restore spoiled food to a safe state, divine how dangerous the next hour will be for him, stay magically safe and comfortable in extreme temperatures, and understand any written or spoken language.

A scientist who studies daeva magic dreams of an open eye in an iridescent pentagram and a sense of being observed, and wakes with the knowledge of how to detect magic, make himself able to read magical writing, improve the skills of those around him, temporarily summon a small wooden version of the eye-and-pentagram from his dream, read books with a touch, summon any of a handful of unfamiliar creatures, and grant the ability to see in the dark.

They aren't the only ones, though there aren't many - five or six total of each sort, over the course of an hour or two, scattered all over the solar system, each with a slightly different collection of spells; mostly humans, though two faeries dream of the moon on the horizon and a demon dreams of the eye-and-pentagram. 

Permalink

The angel tells her boss and gets a resummon with the latest from the Safe Summoning Authority and resumes work.

The teenager grabs a buddy and buys a ticket to Luna.

The scientist gets a demon subject to make the symbol for him and inspects it, compares it to the conjured version he makes, then goes through books on his ereader till he's dizzy and out of spells and he goes and gets stoned out of his mind.

Permalink

Nothing very interesting happens to them, immediately. (Or, well, not magically interesting. Godspeed, scientist.) They'll notice that their spells replenish when they rest - after a good night's sleep, for the humans, and after an hour of relaxation, for the daeva, but not more than once a day for either. They don't seem to need to prepare them, and can choose freely among the spells they know as long as they have enough magic left.

 

Raafi stays after class, to make sure the professor knows who he is and ask if he'd like him to take any particular precautions given the threats he's been receiving recently.

Permalink

"...I can start teaching class with a fairy handy, I know one who'll do it."

Permalink

"I'd appreciate it, thank you. I'm hard to hit, but I wouldn't want any of the others to get hurt. What do you pay them?"

Permalink

"The one I have in mind likes volunteering at schools."

Permalink

"All right. If they'd like a spell for it, though, let me know."

Permalink

"That'd at least speed things up for me, I'll ask."

Permalink

"Okay," he nods. "Thank you."

He checks the internet again over dinner.

Permalink

He has an email about modern animal handling standards! People do not eat meat that used to be an animal anymore unless they belong to obscure religions and treat their chickens or other especially dumb animals very kindly. Predation substitution involves supplying predators with hunting-equivalent activities proactively so they don't chase live prey (drones carrying demonic animals around are one option) and separately managing prey species with birth control so they don't, unchecked, overrun habitats.

Permalink

Huh. Well, in the absence of daeva and this world's technology, his world hasn't been doing that. They'll want to talk to some druids and some of Pelor's clerics about it when they can, it's not especially his area.

Anything else attention-grabbing in his email, before he starts reading what they sent him about this world's religions?

Total: 3907
Posts Per Page: