Basecamp 34 Update - 1/16/20

The Age of Magiq Dispatches from Lion's Heart
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Here’s a few fast outlines of a story I was thinking about. (Which I won’t use now but feel free to.)

FABLES

step 1, find an item: Let’s say you find some shiney coin you want to use for this casting.

step 2, tell a story:

Typical ‘child given a coin to go to market to buy bread for family’ start.

‘Child finds beggar with a bowl with 9 coins in it’

‘Beggar asks for coin, because he needs 10 for a blanket to keep warm at night, and winter is approaching’.

‘Child thinks long and hard and decides even if the beggar has more technically, he needs the blanket and his family will survive somehow without one more coin.’ <== play up the emotional decision and ultimate generosity and concern that leads to this choice

‘Child is punished for not bringing home bread, or the coin by angry parents’.

‘The next day beggar arrives and says he no longer need a blanket. Somehow, the child’s coin seems to keep him warm enough and gives the family his remaining 9 coins in thanks.’

EMPOWERING A REAL LIFE ITEM WITH MEANING

“My grandfather/mother lived through X and it was really tough. They gave me Y. You know what? They were such a kind, caring, compasionate person and I wouldn’t exist without them. I wish their name and generosity they showed me at time Z was remembered forever, recorded into this simple item. Maybe the Aliquary would see this as a useful vessel and I could pass on my grandparent’s kindness to others even thought they are gone.”

THE HIDDEN LIVES OF ORDINARY OBJECTS

I was thinking the other day about the Book of Kings vs the Book of Wilds. In the BoW much was the same, but lots of changes were made when magiq was edited from the world. Maybe I lived somewhere else. Maybe I actually had hair still there. Maybe Becky Silverstien actually called me back when I asked her to prom. ANYTHING could have been different!

Maybe,hey maybe this pencil was magiq in the Book of the Wild? Maybe this pencil was owned by a famous explorer, who low on supplies found that no matter how many sketches of ancient runes, lost histories or magic d’etants with fae it wrote about the pencil never got any shorter, and never lost it’s point.

Perhaps she used this pencil to write notes back home to her family, and her stories kept her children and friends up late into the night and then into blissful sleep. This pencil could’ve brought words, sketches and news from afar, but more so it carried the love and warmth of it’s author with it.

Gee,I wish I our new Book had a pencil like that…

Feel free to take any of these and run with them.

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I made a thing to send out into the world for the casting on Saturday! Just have to write up my bit of figuration and I’ll be ready to go (and thanks for the example post Robert, it helped with sorting out exactly how I’d put into words what had been rattling around my brain recently). :aetherdetermined:

For the actual casting, I’m assuming we’ll have a separate thread for that like we usually do. Do we want to make it in advance so it’s ready to go, or just decide who’s going first and have them start it day of (and then link to it in here either way, obviously)?

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Hi guys! Long time no chat, huh? I just had an absolutely demolishing couple of weeks IRL, although come to think of it, the disappearance of free Magiq might explain the level of absolute “blah” I’ve been feeling for the last week plus. Anyway, I’ve showed up late for all the interesting stuff, as always, but I’m caught up on the thread now, and happy to help in any way I can!

Speaking of which…a question for the group. It seems like there’s been some discussion around how many people should participate on either side of the veil for this spell to work correctly. What if the best answer is just “As many as we can get”?

The reason I ask is that…well…this is huge. Jumpstarting the new Book is more important than any other spell we’ve tried ever, except maybe the Day of Change, and even then I’m not sure that would win out. Magiq was scarce then, but at least when we did that, we were working with the knowledge that there were traces of ambient Magiq, free to be harnessed for the outline of a spell that had at least been tried before. This, on the other hand, is further outside the bounds of what we know than we’ve ever been before.

The way I see it, we’re trying to engineer a sort of seed spell, right? Plant magiq from the aliquary across the known world in places and ways where it can grow? Then maybe we don’t need to worry so much about following the numerical principles we’ve vaguely traced out before. Maybe we just need to plant as much as we can, as widely as possible, no matter what side of the veil we’re on?

Normally I’d be the first to jump in and stress arcane laws and principles and possible symbology that could make the spell stronger, but right now, there isn’t any of that Magiq available. We just have a peculiar box we were gifted that we think contains some pure, wild, enormous power, and that we’re guessing on how to open. Believe me, in another scenario, I’d be the first to jump on the “Six is the most powerful magimystic number” wagon; heck, I’d be conducting it. But I think this is too important to throw less than everyone we’ve got at the spell. Thoughts?

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I’ve been accumulating stories from real life acts of charity anyway because the Extra Life Kickoff for my guild is next Monday and I’m the Secretary this year. By the way, we had a super successful fundraising year in spite of a DDoS attack on our main marathon day.

I also have a ton of my own longform work that relates to generosity and kindness, because that tends to be a theme in my work. (I write Punk work and I’m of the opinion that kindness in a world that’s trying to shut down any human decency is Punk.)

For the figuration I’ll be writing something on the day of, but I have the pattern down. It’s going to be a variant on the Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas format, where it backtracks and rewrites for each choice. I’m thinking I’ll do it Fishbowl style, where I post a viewing link to the Doc I’m working in, so if you want to watch me write you can.

Let me know what time you need me “On Duty” but I’ll be pumping out Figuration and Good JuJu all day. I’d be doing good luck rituals anyways because my city’s team is going to be at the SuperBowl on Sunday so I might as well put the Book in the list of things to focus good luck on.

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Welcome back Viviane! And yes, I like numbers and plans as much, if not more, than anyone else, but I think you’re totally right. Everyone who wants to and can participate should.

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I 100% agree with @Viviane and @Robert . I feel like a relic of a bygone age saying this, but I think the rules we all operated under leading up to the Day of Change, through scouring the globe with our Secret Society Herman pins, casting the 30 Day Spell and then the Cataclysm are gone now. My gut is telling me: new Book, new rules.

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Well, if that’s the case then it makes our job a little simpler: We simply need a time to start. If we assume we want as many as possible over the course of the entire day, that works just fine, but of course, Saberlane’s going to start us all off, and we need to know when that’ll be.

So we need!
Object – Story – Chant
We’ve got the chant more or less down, and the object and story are down to individuals. I’d say we should post a picture or description of the object, or describe it specifically in the story, do the story, finish with the chant, and then in our own time give the object away. That seems to be the goal! I don’t know if we need to describe how we’re giving it away, but I think that bit would tie in with the story.

So basically what I’m asking now is: should we do the chant at the beginning, or after the story is told? And when do we start?

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Wait, we decided on a chant? I saw a couple or three proposed, but it wasn’t clear to me whether anything had been decided. Which one is it?

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Here’s what I’ve pieced together from the different suggestions for the chant, but of course any further feedback is welcome!

Seed to be planted
Filled with potential
Waiting for spring to come
With love and with light
Refract through our hearts
Gleam bold strong and true
Go out into the world
To shine forth anew

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I told @Catherine to stay home on Saturday and work the spell from there. I’ll be in the office, ready to go.

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It was my impression that we were going in reverse of the Cataclysm, and therefore @Saberlane was going to kick it off and the rest would add to the building of the spell. That being said, I suggest an early morning HST kick off (dawn would be magiqally potent but I’m not sure we want to make anyone get up at dawn) and then scroll across timezones in a big magiq “wave”. So after Saberlane kicks us off, the Eastern Time adepts would post their stories and images of items, then those of us in Central, the Mountain (how approps) and then Pacific, our Aussie contingent, and so on.

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Oh! Kind of important: did we need to work anything out for the activating of the aliquary? Or you just going to see what feels right in the moment @Saberlane?

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My plan now is to use the aliquary as my object, but we have no way of knowing if that will be enough to activate it. If anyone has thoughts about anything I should add, I’m all ears. Looping @Eaves into this as well, in case they have ideas.

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What do we know about the aliquary itself? Here’s the note that came with it (at least temporarily) from Avis Green:

This object is called an aliquary. It is an ingot of pure magimystic energy. Aliquaries are sometimes left behind when a powerful magimyst dies. We left this for someone like you to find, and since you have, then the efforts of my family were not completely in vain.

[A blurred out passage]

I can’t imagine what the world is like now. I’m not even sure where I am if it has come to you finding this. But with this aliquary, you will have a chance. You were led to this. Chosen to find it. Use it well, but judiciously. It may be all the magic that’s left.

Fight for wonder in the world, whether it is our world, or some new and unknown world beyond.

Remember that nothing is by chance.
Trust in magic,
Avis Green

The aliquary was in the magical cabinet that we eventually unlocked, but didn’t it also appear in that photo of @Saberlane that he didn’t actually take in City Hall Station? Could that location have something to do with all this?

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I went and double-checked the old Cataclysm directions, and found this final piece of verbiage that was used to activate all the gathered magiq:

Definitely feels like we need a quick redo on that as well.

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Perhaps a rework to go with growth such as:
See what we see in you
Flourish in the new light
Power granted freely
… ???

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Do we want to keep this as a separate piece or integrate it into the piece we already have? Cause I could see it integrated to create more uniform stanzas. But having it be its own thing at the end would also be neat.

Seed to be planted
Filled with potential
Waiting for spring to come

With love and with light
Refract through our hearts
Gleam bold strong and true

See what we see in you
Flourish in the new light
Power granted freely

Be reflected and expand
Go out into the world
To shine forth anew

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I like the 3-line stanzas!

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The chant is just lovely. Seed and prism imagery together makes me happy!

Going to get to work on my story and finish up my object tonight! And since it’s my birthday today, I’m going to gather up all the goodwill and wish really hard for our spell to work. Any boost possible, you know?

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@Saberlane, I was wondering about the aliquary activation, also. The way we designed the rest of the spell relies on objects that, while we personally think they have the potential to seed magic, are perfectly ordinary as far as we know. The aliquary, by all accounts, is…not that. To clarify, I’m thinking of the aliquary here as the peculiar filigree cage necklace that appears to be holding the ingot of pure magic, but even by that definition it’s a special thing. I dunno what sort of metal can actually contain pure magic, but I get the feeling it’s not just run-of-the-mill sterling silver.

Augo, you said the aliquary was also in the photo someone took of Saberlane in the City Hall Station? I don’t remember a whole lot about those weeks, and I can’t see the picture very well to be able to tell - can you walk me through why we think that might have happened? Asking because I’m sort of wondering whether Sabes doesn’t need to do something different than us in order to “unlock” the aliquary so that the seed spell can draw bits of it out for planting, and I’m wondering if maybe the station, or a well, or something else could assist with that.

(Also wondering whether we don’t need to do something more to protect the seed objects from being picked up by the Silver, but maybe I’m just being paranoid? Someone check my work, please! :laughing:)

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