Editor-in-Chief: Alenia Solarius-Kinneas
Grand Commander : Sir Tristan Llyr
Second-in-Command: Adratha Al'thor
Third-in-Command: Brier DuBois

Date Published: May 7, 2007

Alenia Solarius [aleniasolarius] is back from an extended LoA.
Congratulations to Alenia Solarius-Kinneas [aleniasolarius] and Khale Kinneas on the birth of Valin Aldaval Kinneas. Their son was born on April 13th.

Brianne Alcinoos [xix bri xix] has become a healer delegate!

Let us send good luck to all those that have joined May's events!

Please write to the editor-in-chief [alenia solarius] of any announcements you have! They can include short messages for the holiday season, engagement announcements, marriage announcements, birth announcements anything that comes to mind.

Spring has been in the air for some time, so the next time it rains come to the Inn or Tavern and start a mud fight, mud-wresting, or mud-pie throwing. Clothing required, showers and baths offered afterwards. Free drinks to guild members. And if there is no rain and you still want to? Create the mud-pit. All mud fighting is to be done outdoors!

Wishing thanks to Brianne A. Alcinoos for all the work she has done this past month. From starting a community journal where all can see meeting notes, to getting together the past event information which is listed here.

As mentioned above, there is something new for all of us want to see what what's going on in some of the meetings or see what events are going on. The map to get to this journal is: http://egovnotes.blogspot.com/

Event Breakdowns
How to read the matches:
Match Type; Winner [score] Guild; Contestant {Score] Guild;...
Proctor (if given): Name (Guild)

The editor's events file has been stolen and all information lost except for the latest results. Hopefully it'll be found, or restored before the next Chronicle issue.

The Goose that Lays Golden Eggs

GLGE HM; ReyvanShdwwalker[10]AoC vs Charles Adjovi[9]EGoV
GLGE HM; Raengwen[14]OBR vs Charles Adjovi[12]EGoV
GLGE HM; Kendra Sky Nite[12]CRoWWN vs Charles Adjovi[11]EGoV
GLGE EM; CaetlynDaemovyre[23]AoC vs Charles Adjovi[22]EGoV
GLGE HM; Charles Adjovi[14]EGoV vs Kailari WoIfeyes[13]AoC

The Case of the Gold Digger

Detective Palumbo had just ordered a drink at the bar in the Tahoe motel when a young man with sun-bleached golden hair and tanned cheeks sat on the stool beside him.

After ordering a scotch and water, the sunburned man nodded toward the gaming tables. "My name is John Patmos," he said genially. "It's great to be back in civilization and hear people and money talking out loud."

Palumbo introduced himself. "I guess you've been out in the desert?"

"Yeah, I got back yesterday," said Patmos. "Washed the dust out of my ears, had a barber shave off my seven months of whiskers and trim my hair. Then I bought a whole wardrobe on credit. All I had to do was show my assay report. Boy am I going to celebrate."

"You found gold?," inquired Palumbo.

"Yes sir. Hit the big load." Patmos stroked his bronzed chin thoughtfully; then in a low voice he said, "if I can find a backer, I'll take enough out of those hills to buy ten pleasure palaces like this one. Of course, I'm not trying to interest you. But, if you know someone who'd like to get in on a sure thing, let me know. I'm staying in room 510. Can't give out the details here, you understand."

"I understand," said Palumbo, "that you'd better improve your story if you want to sucker someone into a deal that's worthless." How did Palumbo know the story was fictitious?

I think we all have some general idea of what exactly virtue and vice both mean. Virtue is the moral excellence of a person, a character trait that is valued as being good. The conceptual opposite of this, is vice. Vice is a practice, habit, or character trait that is considered immoral, depraved, and/or degrading in the associated society. Vice can also refer to conduct that is seen as depraved or degrading such as prostitution, incest, or pedophilia.

I’ve read somewhere that there are five strategies that can help us live more purposeful lives, to raise children of integrity and compassion, develop a culture of character in our schools, and inspire excellence and service in the workplace. These strategies build foundations for safe and caring communities.

Strategy 1: Speak the Language of the Virtues
Language shapes character. The way we speak, and the words we use, have great power to discourage or to inspire. The language of virtues helps us to replace shaming and blaming with personal responsibility and respect. It is a frame of reference for bringing out the best in children and ourselves. It helps us to become the kind of people we want to be.

Strategy 2: Recognize Teachable Moments
Recognizing the gifts and life lessons in our daily challenges helps us to cultivate character in ourselves and others. When we have the humility and confidence to learn from our mistakes, every stumbling block becomes a stepping stone.

Strategy 3: Set Clear Boundaries
Virtues-based boundaries focus on respect, restorative justice and reparation to create a climate of peace and safety. Personal boundaries help us to build healthy relationships and protect our time, our energy and our health.

Strategy 4: Honor the Spirit
This strategy begins with respect for the dignity of each person and encourages us to make time for reflection, reverence, and beauty. It is expressing what is meaningful in our lives by participating in the arts, honoring special life events, and sharing our stories. Creating Vision Statements increases unity and morale in our homes, schools and workplaces.

Strategy 5: Offer Spiritual Companioning
By being deeply present and listening with compassion and detachment, we help others 'to empty their cup'. This counselling approach empowers others to define teachable moments and to reflect on their virtues. It supports moral choice, intimacy in relationships, and peaceful conflict resolution. This process is a powerful tool for healing grief, anger, and trauma.

The most dreaded powers of a wizard come from the spells at his or her disposal. The Dark Art has many uses, the least of which brings death in a horrible and excruciating manner. The necromancer can drain the life force of a victim, command shadowy spirits of the netherworld, or animate the remains of the dead. Yet, for all the attention focused on the manifestly evil spells of the archetypal sorcerer, little concern has been devoted to exploring the more useful and even beneficial applications of the so-called Dark Art. In addition to its stereotypical negative uses, necromancy can also heal the afflicted, provide protection from the dead, and inform the living. In this text, I shall try to shed truth on the Art and its uses.

The best way to visualize the Art, in my studies, has been to classify it into three general sub-categories: Black Necromancy, Gray Necromancy, and White Necromancy. The names should be enough for you to discern the meaning, but for those of you who are not educated enough to make that guess, I will elaborate in detail as these editorials continue through out the weeks.

Today, I shall start with the most common known form of necromancy – Black Necromancy. This is indeed the use of the art for a purely evil and destructive purpose. The studies of these spells will, of course, shed light on the most powerful of the spells in the art. However, as I’m sure a lot of you do not realize, power comes at a cost, even in these immortal realms.

You would be a complete fool to assume that the preparation and casting of the Dead Spell does not attract the attention of certain baleful deities. On the contrary, the excessive use of such spells often provoke confrontation with the demons and devils of the abyss, often coming with offers of gifts, and powers, in order to keep you in their favor.

I can not even see your face when you read this part of the text, and I already see the glint of ambition lighting your eyes. Again, you are a fool for thinking an allegiance with such an evil deity can only bring about more power. Such power is short lived, before you find yourself suffering just as much as your victims. I shall use my own life as an example of such an event.

I entered life as a mere wood elf, my mother a school teacher, and my father a master huntsman. Life was no different from any other elven child in the town. In my early years, while out playing with my friends, I fell upon an ancient tome. The art of magic in general inspired me, and I was determined to find a tutor to teach me how to wield the power myself. It was this book, however, that informed me on the school of necromancy.

I began by teaching myself. My first successes in the Art was trivial stuff such as the animating of dead rodents, and blinking out a small area in my room with the complete and utter absence of light. It wasn’t too long before I progressed into more self gratifying results.

The power I had over such things was overwhelming, and it wasn’t too long before I made my first kill with the art. A bully at my school pushed me too far, and after a day’s worth of studying, I managed to put him into an early grave with a slow, agonizing death. The result of which gained me the attention of my would be tutor, as well as the Lord of Suffering himself, A tanar’ri demon known as Thasmudayn.

In short, I am what you see now, because of the uncounted thousand horrors I suffered through under the wing of my tutor. Made immortal under his tutoring so that the inflictions brought upon me such as a decade of starvation, the wearing of thorns, and the blistering and rotting of my skin, would not kill me.

After a decade of his teachings, I left his realm a mortal again, but wracked with his continual afflictions. It is true, I know more about the Art of Necromancy than ever thought possible, but at the cost of my existence. I am reminded of my choices by my withered, malnourished, and scarred body. Dead, but alive at the same time.

Now than, personal experienced set aside, how does this pertain to you? Who knows? You might undergo the same experience I had. Or perhaps one worse than that. Physical deformities such as the acquiring of a new appendage, or a humpback, or even something horrifying as the growth of fish scales instead of skin, and webbed hands and feet. All have been documented in history, and even more likely unheard of and equally dehabilitating.

Madness is always a road to be traveled. Many mortal minds are not meant to hold the horrors of the art. In my years of traveling, in search of more on the art of necromancy, I met a woman who’s study in the art led her to believe that she was a vampire. Of course, she was as human as the next man, but regardless, she killed victims and drank their blood, turned away all offerings with any mirror like use to them, and slept in a custom built coffin. I left her estate after she killed herself, after having stepped out into the sunlight. Of course, no harm was being done to her from the sun’s rays, but she was so enthralled in her believe, that she felt she’d rather leap to her death from the balcony of her mansion, than burn away in from the sun. Another felt the compulsion to sleep in an open grave. Failure to do so would result in failure to memorize any more of his spells.

Though it is true these cases are extreme, and possibly rare, it is not entirely impossible. Most practioners of the arts suffer from simple phobias, paranoia, delusions of being someone, or some thing else, or even hallucinations.

Lastly, I want to end this section of Black Necromancy on the notion of determining what is ‘evil.’ Ultimately, it is the deities that watch over your actions decisions, but that does not mean your morality can’t come into play.

It should be widely accepted that the draining of once life force permanently and irrevocably by use of a Death spell, no matter the enemy or circumstances, is inherently evil, and is likely to bring about some attention. I do not care how you rationalize the use of the spell – whether slaying a mortal enemy, or doing it for kicks – the end result is always considered an evil act.

Let’s take into consideration the animating of undead, however, a tactic I use most often. By simply telling you I rose up a town’s graveyard, waking up the dead into an endless state of unrest, and agony just to serve my purposes, you consider me an evil man. However, let’s put more detail into this.

Now I tell you I rose up the dead to protect the town from an army of orcs hellbent on destroying all life in it. Am I still commiting an evil act? To some, yes. To a priest of Lathender, the god of light, animating the dead and depriving the body of a peaceful sleep is always an evil act. As such, regardless of how I use the undead, that priest will undoubtedly attempt to slay me for such an act; same for paladins, and all others who determine this as an evil act.

Now consider the other end of the spectrum. Though the spirits of the dead that are raised are suffering in a state of unrest, the town is protected, and the orc tribes warded off. I’m I now still an evil man?

This idea is explained further in the next installment, when I discuss Neutral Necromancy, and it’s uses.