The Calendar seems to have ha
The Calendar seems to have had a pretty strong effect on the game. For example, the next session will be structured around a festival day--figuring out what the customs are and what it brings up with respect to the religious conflict ongoing in the game will be interesting--and since the Priest Kings arose from the Calendar, I believe much of the substrata of this game arose from back-story or text.

Also, my interaction with the "text" of the known world has always been with it as oral history. My contributions have been of the interrogatory type rather than the contributory, often. But I think having an active audience is part of bringing it into play.

high holy days
The salmon run is a case in point with the setting generating events. How did the bad livers come about?

I'm not quite sure how it came about.
I know I mentioned to several people (Matt and Kip?) that it seemed like a reasonable result of killing the judge, but I didn't initiate it in game. I think Kip initiated it (Matt at one point queried Kip on whether it was 3 liver in a row, or 3 out of many), although I think it was initiated while I was involved in something else, 'cause I didn't see him do it. The first I saw of it in play was Matt's fisher priest Smells Bad bringing his bad livers to the attentoin of Barry's fisher priest (who declared that he also had had 10 bad fish livers).

One interesting thing (although unrelated to the calendar) is that we rolled dice to see if the bad livers were caused by enchantments on the priests' knives, or whether they were caused by a more difusse enchantment on the fish (or on the valley). Barry advocated for diffuse, Kim for Monkeys, and everyone else was uncertain, so we had them roll dice. Monkeys won.

It was my fault, I’m pretty sure.

It’s odd, having wireless access to the net while gaming. “What do you call divination with fish?” we say, while contemplating a couple of ginormous salmon intemperately slapped onto one of the tables in the Great Hall. So I hop on and check and it’s ichthyomancy, which you’d expect, flocking and entrails both, and I’m thinking of descriptions of the glassy, glossy sheen of a liver pulled from a fresh corpse, and that’s why they’re so good for divination, the reflections and shadows you see in it before it clouds over, and I’m betting the liver of even a ginormous salmon isn’t all that big.

Anyway: it was one of those moments where you just state something is so. Matt said Shoha was hauling up a salmon to check it, and I said, flat-out, the liver’s bad. Worst you’ve seen. Not maybe it might be. Not wouldn’t it be cool if. Not a neat direction for the story to go would be. Just reaching in and grabbing a bit of someone else’s narrative flow and yanking it to see what would happen. (Not in an entirely unexpected direction, mind. Hmm: we could use a dash of conflict and turmoil. But what? Aha! Bad omens!)

What was fun was when it was decided the Fisher priest from Iyyonchaba would get involved, and everybody turned to me for details. Why? I said. Because you’re playing him. —Oh. Okay. (I’d gotten distracted by something else and came back into this to find a character waiting for me. Can I just say how much I love the “kittens”? I like to imagine their mother dressing them in identical outfits, eldest to youngest, when they were little, years ago.)

Moments like that—flat-out just-so statements—have a vastly different charge to them in an all-GM game, as opposed to a single-GM model, where if you’re GMing then it’s just expected of you, all the time. Somebody on the Forge used a four-square analogy to describe the flow of narrative impulse, except it’s four-square with six people and several balls in play at once, all being batted about; still, I saw one coming out of the corner of my eye and reached out and pegged it good and hard without thinking about it much; I just did it, and watched everybody reach out to work it into the pattern. Which was a neat feeling.

Thinking too about the momentum needed to get the ball(s) in motion, and what’s needed to build up that momentum: the steps ritual and otherwise to move the sometimes sluggish group (each of us is more eager than all of us?) from nattering about this and that to full-on in-game hijinks. —A digression: back GMing the Isrillion game, I took great comfort in Mr. Blue: if I needed a moment or five to figure something out or figure out what NPC X might do to keep Plot Point Y operative, I’d toss something at Barry. An apple, even. And I’d know he’d run with it for at least a couple of minutes of antic comic action that would buy me the time. Sometimes, of course, he would destroy a tower or something and require a dreamtime one-shot retcon, but those were the risks we took.

In the all-GM model, that same antic comedy serves as kickstart rather than sidebusiness. The immediate bluster of Blesséd and Shoha’s ichthyomancy in the Great Hall which started this past game with a bang, for one thing, but also I’m thinking of how Tully compares with Mr. Blue: powerful and odd and chaotic, yes. But in the single-GMed model, Mr. Blue as PC served as distraction (from my point of view as the GM): I’d shine the spotlight his way, and his reactions to a seemingly innoccuous bit of business would entertain the other players (primarily in audience mode) and sometimes spill out and spin other plot points, other player interactions.

In the all-GM model, Barry can set something up with Tully—a prank, a lab accident, carelessly letting his sun roll down the stairs and into the courtyard while he scampers off to play with his new fishing pole—and let us all scramble to work it out, solve the problem, deal with the fallout. Instead of distracting (while entertaining), filling what might otherwise be a dead spot with some spotlit action, it fills what might otherwise be a dead spot by forcing us all or many of us into action or reaction, getting a ball or two in play, kicking the night’s momentum up over the necessary threshold.

Barry’s frequently the first out on the dancefloor, I guess is what I’m saying, not to knock the skills and temperament of anyone else. —Have I mentioned how much fun this all is?

Calvus' Schlieffen Plan
Calvus does expect and plans for greatness and for everything to fall into place. I however realize that what is being planned is several months of numerous magically powerful peoples attacking a nation, but then after those months, once Passion rolls around they will all happily go home to work on their Autumn projects; leaving Calvus and perhaps a handful of people who wanted this war to continue it.

This is most certainly set up for some sort of bad end. I can see in a few cases how it might turn out fine and dandy for Calvus and the Prince and the Order, but chances are it'll be the Eastern Front WWII (every war gamers favorite campaign to model) all over again. Initially superior force comes in and conquers large amounts of land, then sputters out, while the invaded shuffle resources, build up and then push back.

The only way for it to turn out well is for it to be Eastern Front WWI. Initially superior force pushes in, while the invaded being pressured on other sides and a civilian rebellion, sues for peace.

There is of course a myriad amount of middle ground that the conflict could result in as well. All of which will be something to discuss as we get closer to those times.

ennead square
I saw one coming out of the corner of my eye and reached out and pegged it good and hard without thinking about it much; I just did it, and watched everybody reach out to work it into the pattern. Which was a neat feeling.
Great image. And nice description of Barry's contributions to play. The fact that everyone was so willing to engage in character and make things happen is probably what made the large number of players in your games workable. If one person had to stand in the middle and make all the balls fly all the time--it'd be a recipe for burnout.

Oh, and were the kittens septuplets?

mwa-ha-ha. Little do they kn
mwa-ha-ha. Little do they know what is in store... I'm looking forward to the Mongols hitting Hungary where the Griffin's Aerie game is set. Should be any year now. It's perfect for our purposes: they wash over Hungary and Romania like an awful tide, killing and shaking up the infrastructure where ever they go. Then, the Khan dies, and they all high-tail it back out to the Steppes, never to return. It'll be kind of like shaking a snow-globe, though a bit less restful.

One of my favorite parts of this kind of co-plotting of events is the fact that you get to look forward to all the bad stuff happening. It's such an interesting feeling to put into motion the things that are going to nail your own characters. And it's part of the reason why I don't quite buy the idea that it's not possible to provide your own adversity--but large and small scale do make a difference.

I don't think they are septuplets
I think they have been mentioned as being older and younger. However, they must be quite close in age (mostly ~1 year seperations) for them to be close enough in age to all have been "kittens" together. On the other hand, I don't think we've firmly established that they aren't septuplets. Kip? Anyone?

Who is playing a kitten anyway? I know I am (fat kitten, the bar keep), and Kip is (striped kitten, the fisher priest), but I don't know if anyone else has claimed one.

Probably not septuplets—
But maybe there's a set of triplets in the middle. And a couple-three Irish twins. (Gack. What a phrase.)

Then again, it's funny to dress 'em all in matching outfits if there's a largeish age difference, too. One of those family legends upheld by sheer force of parental will? Do the Gaetani have arranged marriages? (I think we established sorta, but not so's anyone would be too put out by them.) Does the groom's family pay a bride price? Or does the bride's family put up a dowry? Trying to figure out the relative value of boys and girls, and whether having seven sons is a blessing or a burden. (Well, both, obviously. But.) —Do they have a sister? Are they overly fond of milk? (Cow's milk?)