50 thoughts on “[6.9 Spoilers] Binding & Countermeasures”
I agree with Avery’s gut feeling of awfulness about most of these. Although I wonder if Guilherme wouldn’t prefer getting bound over falling to Winter…
Aside from that, this is barely usable as is – the Kennet Others are varied enough to throw a wrench in any plan that would target a single one of them.
I’m guessing the girls will ask support from a couple Roles in the form of summoning a sort of Kennetian trial court to help bring the culprits in. Then binding could be seen as acceptable punishment and they wouldn’t lose too much trust from the remaining Others.
Maybe.
Being a Familiar could help. Specifically Lucy’s, though by then it might be too late to save him.
Shame if it is. She wants a fighter by her side, and I seriously doubt Gil’s been a Familiar before.
Being the animal sidekick of a girl that mixes Fae and Goblin magic and thinks the best framing of her involves arguing sounds like it’d keep him to busy for Winter.
Yes, but it would also inevitably relegate Lucy and the girls to second place to her familiar. The familiar ritual is the one where the book specifically warns that a large power imbalance can more turn the practitioner into the sidekick. And there’s no bigger power imbalance they could pick.
Yeah I don’t think this is a plan of action, so much as a set of notes for them to reference if they do need to come up with a plan of action. But you’re right about how horrible and awful it is to have to come up with it.
And about Guilherme, I suspect if being bound would prevent him to falling to Winter or be preferable he’d have already put himself in that position. He sounds like he’s played out every other story already, including that one.
Avery’s feelings about just how awful the things they’d have to do to the perp are really shows through in all of this- and I can’t blame her in the slightest. It really is awful.
I really can’t see Snowdrop being a secret ally of the perpetrator of the Carmine Beast’s demise. Not even if it turns out to be Cherrypop. (Which would be hilarious, but I can’t see Cherrypop being a secret mastermind either. Toadswallow maybe, with Cherrypop as a henchman, but nothing more.) So, there’s like zero chance they’ll need to bind Snowdrop.
Alpeana also seems fairly disconnected from the whole CB issue, just going about her nightly business. If they have to bind her, it’ll be for some other reason (like, it turns out she’s eating the souls of Innocents).
Thinking on a more meta level, what’s the worst case? If they have to fend off John Stiles, and the Doom, while the Faerie are plotting against them… so, probably that. Give ’em the goblins as allies so they aren’t immediately squished.
I can’t see Snowdrop being an intentional ally of the murderer, but she’s weak enough to potentially be turned against them and close enough to do some damage. (Especially if she gets her hands on some matches…) It’s good to be prepared.
She’s a Boon Companion, like a proto-Familiar. Can your familiar be turned against you? I… really don’t think so, it’d be like convincing a man’s left finger to betray him. I think they’re safe from that, though there could be rules and exceptions I don’t know.
That analogy isn’t very convincing to me, since I’m not so certain that you can’t get someone’s left finger to turn on them. You need more than words, obviously, but if anyone’s restricted to words they’re probably not a threat. (Which is why the girls aren’t worried about binding Charles.)
The information on how demigods work in the Otherverse is interesting. I wonder if the weakening effect from the Seal also applies to the more human-shaped ones; Hercules might not be able to hold up the sky anymore, but I’d expect he’d probably be a nightmare to fight against. I wonder how an Otherverse Percy Jackson story would go.
I really hope the only Other of Kennet that gets bound is the culprit.
On that note, maybe the type of Other they should be really be researching how to bind is a Carmine Judge.
Because the culprit is likely to claim that title eventually, and even before then they might be able to tap into some of the corpse’s power.
If for instance our trio is planning on binding an ordinary Vessel and it turns out they’re actually facing down the Carmine Vessel, that could throw a pretty major wrench into things.
There’s some weird ass patriarchy BS in this, so we’re not sure how much to listen to it.
I’d suggest a decent bit. Even if it’s BS, a lot of people buy into it, which gives it power (and not just the magical kind).
Put a goblin in a bathtub with clean water and they can’t even spit in it, can’t stain it, can’t really move.
I love that giving a goblin a bath is an effective binding measure.
Cig is an ambulatory object.
And thus the line between Other and mere spirit is eroded that much further.
I wonder what other technically-Others might be wandering around, unnoticed.
It’s not just that giving a goblin a bath is an effective binding measure, it’s that it’s utterly ineffectual at cleaning the goblin. The goblin can’t stain the water and it remains clean (or else the binding would immediately fail), so all the dirt must remain on the goblin.
Kind of a funny case where the laws of the universe reinforce what the goblins want, sort of.
And thus the line between Other and mere spirit is eroded that much further.
I wonder what other technically-Others might be wandering around, unnoticed.
Go look up tsukumogami: in Japanese tradition, an object that has survived for 100 years can develop a spirit of its own.
Pactverse does draw inspiration from several flavors of ancient folklore, though how much of what is shown in Pact/Pale is accurate to the old tales is debatable… but then again, folk lore often isn’t very self-consistent to begin with and nearly every work of high fantasy has it’s own twist on something from folklore.
That said, we haven’t had much of the practice from a non-European-descent perspective, so it’s hard to say what bits of Japanese folklore are true in Pactverse.
There’s a difference between “inspired by” and “canon to”. I could go back to the religious roots of canon, but in the interest of not pissing off a substantial portion of the world’s population I’ll instead note that the League of Extraordinary Gentleman comics (and movie) were inspired by many public-domain Victoria-era novels without those novels being canonically part of them; indeed, LEG contradicts them on several points.
We know that oni are canon. There have been scattered references to how Eastern practitioners do things differently. Do tsukumogami definitely exist? Nah, we don’t know. COULD they exist without being inconsistent with the world as we understand it? Definitely.
I mean, yes, they could exist. We literally see something that looks kinda like a tsukumogami in this chapter. But that’s not really relevant to my statement, which was basically “The existence of [X] in folklore doesn’t suggest [X] exist in Pact/Pale”.
Suggesting that the presence of oni in Pale proves the existence of tsukumogami (or makes them more likely or whatever) is kind of like saying that the presence of Excalibur in NetHack means the Wild Hunt must be in there too, since they both come from British folklore.
I mean, yes, but I was never claiming it proved anything; quite the opposite, I was pointing out an interesting piece of folklore that might be relevant, with no assertion that it HAD to be true.
id say even belief in something could give it magical power too. take glamour as the classic example.
be jung oynxr qvq jura svtugvat gur oneore, gel gb znxr rirel cbffvoyr fgno ng gurve cyna be npgvbaf, gb qvfperqvg gurz va gur fcvevgf’ rlrf? to me, belief in something goes a long way
So Tashlit could do something really powerful and dangerous, if she’s riled up enough and finds the way through the rules that lets her get away with it. And she’s probably infertile. I’m with Verona, that is sad. Probably a good thing to stop the spread of semidivine eyeball-people, but… I think the spread of semidivine eyeball-people would be a good thing.
Does she breathe? Does she eat? Does she eat images by watching them with her mouth-eyes? Does she exclusively eat baby images, but it doesn’t actually do anything bad to them?
I fucking love this setting. These are all valid questions and I love it.
Makes you wonder how Cig came to be. Maybe a powerful practitioner had a cigarette to destress after an intense breath-related ritual, and some remnant of that power got infused into the cigarette butt?
Brainstorming & ideas from texts at the school. How do we bind
or deal with the Kennet Others, if we end up having to deal with
them? Weapons, tools, resources, options…
General Stuff
If we end up binding, it’s hopefully going to be with us getting the
O.K. from the Kennet Others as a group. If we’re not in a position
to go to them, then we might talk to the judges to get the all-clear.
Lucy says it’s like getting a warrant before making an arrest. The
binding is the arrest.
Binding is hard. It’s effective when it works but a magic circle is
really time consuming to draw. So our idea is that we might have
a few circles of varying complexity. Or a basic way of drawing up
a circle against a target or targets, and then the complex one.
The benefit of working out a basic circle is that the same ideas
that go into making it a circle that contains can also be put into a
short barrier or wall. If a circle of fire can keep a ghoul inside it,
then a line of fire will keep it from approaching or keep it from
using any ghoul mojo or powers.
There’s also the problem of having to get them into the circle.
Some circles will draw them in, others will need us to do the work.
We know from Human Binding exercises that weakening them in
other ways will make the rest easier. Gotta diminish the Self, and
the same stuff that slows them down or buys us time to get the
diagram set up or get to the diagram we’ve set up in advance is
the stuff that works here. Countermeasures. Includes targeting
weaknesses, distracting, or hurting them.
This sucks.
[page break]
Vessels/Hosts
Matthew – Host of the Doom of Edith
Edith – Vessel for the Girl by Candlelight
The disctinction between vessels and hosts feels a bit funky.
Mostly it seems like if you go overboard you start to become a
vessel, the human part of you becoming a container for the Other
force. So why does Matthew call himself a Host? Pride? Is it
the more human side of him sitting in the pilot seat?
[drawing of a humanoid head and torso, being clawed open, with a
face peering out through the chest]
Vessels and hosts are notoriously difficult to bind. We saw this a
bit with Erasmus in the human binding class.
If you try to bind the Other, they can lean
into the human side a bit more, and if you
try to bind the person, they can lean into
their Other side. Humans are hard to bind,
too.
This means the binding ritual has to
be a complex diagram. Lots of moving
parts, interlinked, with emphasis on
the links that connect. This isn’t really
a binding that asks you do double-
reinforce everything, but instead, the
intricacy and overall structure will be
really important, starting with duality – Hosts
with multiple Others in them are different,
but both Matthew & Edith have just the one.
[drawing of two concentric circles, with a vertical dividing line;
the left half of the outer circle is black, and the left half of the
inner circle is white; the right hand sides are the opposite]
For the duality, we want to have a balanced diagram with stuff
mirrored but reversed… Full/hollow matched to hollow/full.
We want stuff in it like yin-yang but the shape
of it can’t be yin-yang, since that’s got its own
meaning and symbolism. Target both at the
same time, and then make the connecting stuff
important. That’s our starting point.
[page break]
Key stuff to include in the bind dragrams for Matthew, taken
from class with Durocher and the texts…
The number 2. We think this is really relevant because
of the duality hosting, because he exists as part of a pair &
it’s going to be part of the diagram anyway.
Going to other mystical numbers, 5 is the ‘Heirophant’, the
institution, and is often related to incarnations and other set
& related stuff like Fate, Destiny, Dream. The Doom of Edith
is dangerous because it’s inevitable. They knock it back, but
can’t totally stop it. Edith was supposed to die and death
or doom come for her. If we’re going to have 3 on one side
of the diagram and 2 on the other, it should bias toward the
Doom.
The number 13 is both a good indicator of misfortune and it
is the tarot number for ‘Death’, which covers transformation
and rebirth, not necessarily dying.
The number 15 is ‘the Devil’, for shadow self, attachment, &
being bound & is multiple of 3 x 5. Should be biased toward
Matthew, instead of the Doom.
Doom as a concept is rooted in fate, mostly, but also in
death and violence. There aren’t a lot of good symbols out
there to represent ‘Doom’, but Verona thinks a snake would
be a middle ground for the ‘thread’ of Fate, the skull of the
Death, and the sword of War. It’s flexible, has a head, and
has a weapon. We looked it up and snakes have a long
tradition of representing healing and renewal, but Verona
says we can have the snake’s head point ‘down’ (toward the
center) and it could mean something else. We’re going to go
with her gut instinct for this.
For Matthew’s symbols, we pretty much agree the heart
works for his human side. Humans have hearts, he loves
Edith, and does a lot of exercise, nature stuff. Feels right.
[page break]
[drawing of an ornate magic circle; the central circle contains a
pentagon, with angular “arms” spiraling around it; outside that is
a ring with writing in it; outside that is another circle with
snakes or loops on the left, and hearts on the right; the far left
has an ornate heart motif; the far right has a snake/loop motif]
First Take:
Frame of two opposing elements.
Ring of 15 hearts/snake loops/head
13 word binding: “Us three of
Kennet bind Matthew Moss and
the Doom of Edith James”
Five-sided spiral for the center.
Verona wants to redo this, with more emphasis on the structural
elements, so it’s not concentric circles. Maybe with rings of weird
pentagons for every layer. Have to figure out a repeating pattern
for snake loops & hearts, though, and make nicer hearts.
This doesn’t quite feel right, though. Maybe tree instead of heart?
He likes nature and works at Buckheed.
Stuff to include in the binding diagram for Edith, Vessel:
The number 2. Same reasons as for Matthew.
The number 1. This is a weird one for diagrams, but the Girl
by Candlelight is a spirit and, on her own, is very vulnerable
to the stuff like lines on diagrams and basic circles. Edith’s
body insulates the GbC against this stuff in most everyday
stuff. The ‘0’ in binding numerology is the hollow circle, like
we use for the darkness rune. The ‘1’, then, holds something –
typically a strong symbol, which flows well into the lines and
increases their effort. On that same note…
The number 0. The hollow spaces of a diagram are a key
part of any hallow, and what we’re really trying to do here is
make a hallowed space within. This makes the light/dark
spaces from two pages ago that much more important.
Fire/water dichotomy. Not much to say here.
[drawing of an ornate magic circle, with inward-pointing triangular
overlays at the top and bottom, and multiple overlapping triangles
inside; each region is white or black]
Ideas behind experimental, proposed binding
diagram for Edith: emphasis on triangles
because of the base elemental runes,
use of filled/empty spaces, and the
‘patchwork’ spirit, made up of many
segments. If it works, it should pull
at her from two directions. Is a ‘negative’
binding because it’s rigid, to oppose the
efemeral spirit.
Only issue is how much of a pain it would be
to actually draw. We might need a stencil or something.
Otherwise, if we use a simpler circle with a ring of water runes
and a fire rune in a ‘hollow’ in the center, that could work, but
we’d have to do something about Edith, who is a bit weaker.
Countermeasures:
Dwelling on this stuff is a real mood killer, but because humans
are way harder to bind than Others, it may be that we have to
attack or hamper them somehow.
While they’re close together, they’re stronger. They know how
to work together, Edith can do her thing, and Matthew can help
and protect her. Kind of. While they’re apart, Matthew can use
his Doom.
So it gets really really tricky to bind them because Edith is going
to stop us from binding Matthew and Matthew will stop us from
binding Edith. It’s almost like they’re not just a duality host, but
a quadra-mega-host. Sorta have to tie everything about them
all up in a neat bow.
…………………………we’ll have to think on this more.
[page break]
Night Hags/Nightmare (Apleana)
Excerpt:
[drawing of a tall, shrouded figure standing before a crescent moon]
As a general rule, the Night Hag may only be vuln-
erable for binding when on the hunt for her nightly
meals or when baited into negotiation. The Night
Hag pursues single targets, with a given Hag’s disp-
osition for periodic large meals or many smaller o-
nes varying from Hag to Hag. Those who would
wish to bind the Hag should study her pattern and
be prepared to interfere. As the Hag prepares to ta-
rget a particular subject, she must extend her vile b-
eing to them, and in this reaching, she foregoes her
ability to travel or be vague in nature. Vulnerabilit-
ies will be magnified, and it costs her dearly to aba-
ndon her prey once so extended. One may present
themselves, a volunteer, or a deserving and hapless
unawakened as bait, then use the means and metho-
ds detailed in this chapter to corner the depraved ni-
ght witch and bind her wholly.
The book on Night Hags (and nightmares in general) seems to
assume that they’re really hard to corner if they don’t want a
confrontation, and a lot of prep is needed to have any chance of
success at all. It also assumes they’re evil, and we’re pretty sure
Alpeana isn’t that evil.
More attention is given to the wways of hangling a Night Hag.
These ways fall into two categories. First, a lot of them
discourage the Night Hag, trying to make her go to a new target
or make her stop long enough that she can be talked to, at which
point the practitioner offers a deal like “Go manipulate this
person’s dreams and I’ll give you this.” (Continued on next page)
[page break]
These discouragements are really weird and lame, apparently
because the Night Hag is pretty immaterial and is stuck obeying
some odd rules and superstitions. Seems to require at least two
of the thre following things for optimal effect:
Sealing off the physical space the Hag is in. This can be the
Night Hag entering a room through a tight space, like the
crack under the door or a knothole, then blocking off that
space. Cuts off her access to the flows, realms, and forces
she taps for her power and sustenance. They immediately
get feeble and weak, like they’re starving.
Displays of dominance or getting the upper hand. Stuff in
this category includes things like stealing her stuff, laughing
in her face, or humiliating her. Confidence, presentation &
flair are pretty key here. There’s some weird ass patriarchy
B.S. in this, so we’re not sure how much to listen to it. All
about making her ‘meek’ so you can negotiate from a
position of power.
Measures focused around day/night, sleep, protection, and
general warding. Stuff like lines of salt on the windowsill,
lending your pillow to an animal in the daytime so she can’t
find you even if she’s right there and you’re lying in bed,
tricking her into thinking it’s daytime, and drinking milk.
The other approach is more focused. The Somnambulence text
has lists of materials that hurt Night Creatures, including pure
things like clear running water, salt, bright light, silver, and
cleansing smoke. Some of these are tied to cardinal elements
like earth, air, fire, and water, and can be matched to a specific
Night Creature. Then there’s hag stuff, capitalizing on how they
used to be human but aren’t anymore. Icons of civilization like
loud music, running machinery, television, and complex locks can
ward them off or diminish them. These things can stop her in her
tracks so that practice can be put into plaec. (continued…)
[page break]
In some cases, the approaches can be combined. Leading to
stories and situations like throwing a puzzle at the hag and then
demanding she solve it. Bewildered, she may end up trying to
solve it in a fluster while you can draw the binding around her.
Salt, chalk, and milk can make a good ‘negative binding’, while
black soot, black oil, putrefying fats (heated so it’ll run), murky
water the light can’t shine through, and tangled string all work for
the Night Hag, either because she’s a Night Creature or a Hag.
Circles are supposed to be hollow, attuned against immaterial
threats, & above all, are interpersonal. Because the Night Hag
has intimate relationships with her target, the most effective
bindings will have a place for the practitioner in them. If the
practitioner turns away, the binding gets wayyyyy weaker. If the
practitioner remains, even a chalk circle will hold a lot of weight.
It’s a bit like locking her in a room with you, knowing she’ll starve
before you do (and will wilt in any sunlight, etc, over hours).
Symbols for dark and light are common, and motifs of sun and
moon are good for negative and positive bindings, in that order.
Because Night Hags easily traverse realms and reams, the
sun, moon, and stars are used to help keep them present.
[drawing of ornate magic circle; inside are two smaller circles, empty,
with a swirling black shape wrapping around them; one point of the swirl
ends with a sun, and the other with a moon; outside/overlapping this is
the outermost part of a clock face with marks for each minute, and at
the 2:30 position on the outermost rim is an 8-pointed star]
We also want to use the wheel or clock motif at
the inside rim, to block passage. We could
fill it in for structure, but that takes time.
Taken from the book. There are
variants that put the practitioner and
the Other further apart, but they’re less
strong. We know Alpy, so this is easier.
It’s worth saying, if we end up going this
route, then one of us is going to be tied up sitting in the circle
to pin her down until we can get to surrender. Ugh ugh ugh.
The Faerie
Guilherme – Fae of the High Summer
Maricica, Young Fae of the Dark Fall
[drawing of eyeball with thorny vines]
No lie, if it comes to us needing to bind them, we might be in a
pretty bad spot. The Faerie are tricky. It’s like…
Guilherme is crazy good at fighting, especially
if it’s a duel or something organized, where he
can manipulate the organized part. But he’s a
better schemer, according to Maricica, than he
is a fighter.
The only benefit/hope, really, is that Guilherme
is going the way of Winter and isn’t that
interested in scheming. Which could be the ploy, but… we can
hope?
Meanwhile, Maricica is young, and she’s essentially at the far
end of the scale. Guilherme isn’t secretly saying his praises or
making us extra wary of her (at least on that front) so she might
not be that crazy good at manipulation. Maybe. But that could
be like saying she’s 50x better than us instead of 300x better.
[drawing of a sword, hilt upward, with a flower wrapping around
the blade]
Trying to do something like trap them in a binding is like going
into things with John by planning a shotout.
This is where we really need a good plan of
mostly countermeasures.
Just in case (pos/neg bindings, barriers)…
High Summer have affinity for Yew, wine,
and honey. They’re weak to poisons,
tarnished or rusty metal, and heartbreak.
Dark Fall likes bones, charms, and curses.
Fine chain (esp. silver or cold-forged),
virgin flesh and secret names a weakness.
[page break]
Because we can’t expect to bind them, we plan to disrupt. Big
explosions, blitzes, disruption, and unexpected stuff. We can’t
get caught up in their games, social or otherwise.
After discussing it, we’re thinking we should hit the market, with
the teachers’ help, if that’s still on. Either dark fall, to get info on
Maricica, or the fall court above, to see if a faerie would be willing
to give us something to use. Fae tricks and wiles against Fae.
Maybe. We don’t have a great Fae-focused lecturer, unless
a Vanderwerf family member comes to teach, and, well… they’re
Vanderwerfs. Seems like we’d be beneath their notice. Lucy
thinks Ray might be a good person to ask.
Big, big, megahuge priority is to figure out the traps and have a
plan in place. Maricica said there’d be some. It’s been a month
and apparently we haven’t seen one yet. Three of our gifts,
possibly one gift for each of us, has some hidden catch.
That’s bad, and it’s so easy to forget it’s a thing.
If we need to bind them, we’re going to have to hope we can get
help. John or the goblins, in coordination with tools and stuff.
According to ‘A Circle of Cold Iron’, one good thing about beating
a Faerie is that if you can get the victory, it tends to be decisive;
they fold.
Silver relates to the Winter Court, tarnishes easily, and has a long
tradition as something that penetrates illusions. Light reflected
off of silver can, with intent or power behind it, hurt illusions, At
the same time, Fae can treat it as a positive binding thing in
some cases, and will trade for it or use it. It’s very context
dependent and stuff like the silver being polished or being a knife
vs. being jewelry will matter a lot. We should get some.
[page break]
Dog Tag/Dog of War (John Stiles)
This one doesn’t need to be too long. Dog Tags are Animuses
and they’re really, really easy to bind, at least on one level. The
diagram doesn’t matter that much and a chalk circle could work.
Where it gets tricky is that the flow of power from the war to John
makes the circle hard to close. This is supposedly going to make
stuff like putting the chalk to the floor a lot harder, and will make
John stop like he’s hit a wall before he can get sucked into it. He
is basically too ‘big’, metaphysically, to fit, unless the diagram
is massive and has a lot of power. This can come and go with
the state of the war overseas, but it’s not impossible. The
practitioners that got the rest of John’s squad managed it.
Then there’s other stuff. Dog Tags who sit in a binding circle for
long enough apparently get a ‘get out of jail free’ card, if and only
if there’s conflict around them. More conflict means faster
turnaround on this, but if there’s a war, battle, or armed feud in
the region, it’s never more than 24 hours. If there isn’t, this
doesn’t apply. In really hectic cases this can happen fast, and in
really, really hectic cases, Dog Tags can have Frag Tags to blow
up the chalk lines or chains or whatever, and Black Dogs to mess
up the metaphysical stuff. Most War Mage practitioners will take
the bound Dog Tag far away to get clear of all this. AND, finally,
just so we’re reminding ourselves of the stuff to watch for, let’s not
forget John is smart and rigged bombs to catch us if we tried to
bind him. He takes steps.
We do have a countermeasure available, and it’s pretty awful. If
we need to stall John or keep him in place, technically he’s sworn
to come if we toss our tags down. We wouldn’t get them back
but we could get him where we need him. Hate this hate it.
Putting the goblin names at the top of the page is a big wake-up
call. It’s a lot. Goblins are pretty notorious for getting everywhere
& being everywhere, and it’s really starting to hit home that this
is a thing that happens.
The biggest factor with goblins is that they’re so versatile. T.S.
especially has some out-there tools and goblin-y magic items,
with a bunch of tricks up his sleeve, but all of them have these
little things they can do. Gashwad can tear up practice and turn
it against the practitioner, Bluntmunch can take charge of lesser
goblins and easily grab more, Doglick has the screams, howls, &
feral instinct, Snatchragged is good at breaking stuff, and Butty
is this slippery little nugget of awful that builds up in intensity until
he decides to utterly obliterate something in a disgusting way.
And most are really brutal in a fight.
So it’s not just that we’d be dealing with the chaos and the
unpredictability of 10+ small, aggressive, noxious little dudes and
dudettes, but every few seconds, one of them is going to be doing
stuff that we have to react to or handle.
The situation may be the opposite of the plan for the Faerie. We
need to avoid a fight or confrontation, or control it if we can.
Goblins listen to strength, so a countermeasure might be to win
over the lesser goblins so the more canny ones who could do
something can’t use them. Toadswallow springs to mind, but
Blunt isn’t dumb, & Gashwad is on paper as a ‘blighter’, as little as
the labels matter, who is good at messing with practice.
They shouldn’t be able to injure us, so that does help. (continued)
[page break]
The stuff that binds goblins is pretty varied, but Cherrypop told us
the big one, and the books back it up. Metal with earth, air, water,
fire, electricity, smoke, or whatever else moving through it will be
the best thing. The existence of this stuff is why goblins don’t go
that far into the heart of Kennet, and prefer to stay at the fringes,
by the water, at the north end of downtown, in the woods, etc.
We could use that to retreat to places, maybe.
But mundane means of binding work too. Chains, rope? They
can keep a goblin put. Goblins that are tied up and bound with
ropes or chains tend to stop fighting pretty fast, since they have
low patience.
Clean still water, salt, holly, and other natural things will hold
up a goblin. A lot of the time, they can’t actually do anything
about these things. Put a goblin in a bathtub with clean water
and they can’t even spit in it, can’t stain it, can’t really move. So
they’ll freeze. Same thing goes for holly, salt, and other ‘pure’
elements.
The problem is getting there.
Bound goblins can become weapons or tools, and we should
expect some goblins to use this. Two unarmed goblins can easily
become one goblin with a nasty weapon. They can also bind one
another, which beats us to the punch, which is a complicated
mess.
Writing this out, it feels like we should be very mindful of the boss
goblins. T.S. and Blunt. They wouldn’t bow down to or put them-
selves at the mercy of another goblin, and if they fall, the rabble
will be a lot less organized. Spooky to think about a confrontation.
[page break]
Lost -Miss Snowdrop
This is a tricky one. Lost don’t follow any particular rules, and
are next to Oni, apparently, as Others who break rules. Like how
Snowdrop’s speech is flipped around in intention.
So all we’ve got to go on is, well, what Miss told us she’s most
afraid of. Establishing patterns that catch her/them up in them, or
assigning labels to her. From the way Miss describes things, any
ritual with enough activity and power can snag her, and will pull
her in, making it hard for her to climb out.
Outside of that, we just don’t know. Typing this up feels awful, but
it’s necessary. Like John, she said she’s come when called, and
we’d be abusing that in the worst way to make her worst fear
come true, if we called her into a binding circle.
Other than that, she’s quick, and she has a really deep & subtle
understanding of how practice and how these things work. This also
includes stuff like practitioner-Other relationships and mentalities.
[image of a plain white humanoid head and upper torso, on a background
of horizontal black bars]
Instead of dwelling on this and getting Verona to do up a complex
ritual that could snag Miss, we decided what we’ll do is talk to the
family of Finders I’ve been in touch with & ask about measures for
the Lost. Just in case.
Putting Snowdrop in this same group. Not so
great at fighting. Not especially dangerous,
but they know us/me. They’ve got the low-
down info on us, and that’s dangerous in its
own way. I really don’t htink Snow is a culprit,
or even Miss, but we can’t afford to let our
guards down.
[page break]
Nine Other Others
We still have research to complete on this, but we’ve got notes on
a few, for the next few pages. Putting a note here as a reminder
to ourselves: the new Others who were brought in to help with the
perimeter are potential allies of the culprit. So we should make
some mental notes on how to deal with them. Fortunately, they
don’t sound too strong. We have labels for two:
Tashlit is a god-begotten. Apparently they uh… birds and bees of
the gods are sorta prone to making monsters. The theory is that
a lot of the time they’ll cover it up by making excuses and calling it
a curse. Since the various gods, known and super-out-of-the-way,
aren’t really talking to people all the time, they’re hard to call out
on stuff like this, with their excuses over monstrous, bastard
kids. Ugh.
Big thing for god-begotten others is that the limits on what they
can pull are really, really up there. It may require conditions, like
breaches of karma, trespass on territory, or for the god-begotten
to get really upset, but if they do cut loose, then it’s like a granny
lifting a car. Except it’s a bird-headed guy leveling buildings with
a scream or literally moving a mountain fifty feet. That’s only if the
innocent aren’t paying attention. The Seal weakened them all.
And it’s only the first generation G.B.s that are that over the top.
The second generation ones have only a small fraction of this,
and a really high chance of being sterile. So sad.
Cig is an ambulatory object. We may actually have an Other
weaker than Cherrypop. It’s a cigarette. It’s not personified, it
doesn’t speak, it just shows up places, has an inhuman, ambient
awareness, and never goes out or really diminishes. Apparently
Cig is keeping an eye on the perimeter and will show up burning
a hole on a map, ouija board or ilst of names when convenient.
[page break]
Add to M&E
Quick note while we’re thinking about it.
Binding Matthew. We were chatting about them being a quartet
more than two hosts, and the stuff that has to be handled, and I
sorta have one idea.
And it’s awful. This entire thing, thinking about how to deal with
the Others who’ve given us gifts? It’s awful.
But we don’t have to bind both Matthew and the Doom. If we bind
the Doom and just the Doom, then Matthew can’t go anywhere.
If he separates from it, then he’s risking that it will hurt Edith and
we know he doesn’t want that.
These are the options we haev? Ways of arresting the culprit(s)?
It’s easy to see why they hate and loathe practitioners, because
this is the sort of thing other practitioners do.
Note to self: no time to edit the doc and keep it tidy, so just add
this to the M&E part of the document later. Gotta prep for Lucy’s
Implement ritual tomorrow.
Hmm. It ate the asterisks that I was using as crude ASCII bullet point markers, but didn’t replace them with an HTML unordered list. How rude. I wonder what the best way to format a transcript is. (And damn, that was a LOT of typing. I have a lot more respect now for the people doing these regularly.)
Fortunately, subscribing to comments on a post sends me notifications of all comments on a post, not just direct replies to my comment… but yeah, the threading is kind of wonky, and I wish I could just force comments to display in strict chronological order to make it easier to read just new comments when returning to a post I haven’t subscribed to comments on… or at least knew a way to subscribe to comments without having to post a comment.
or at least knew a way to subscribe to comments without having to post a comment.
You can. When scrolling up the page, there’s a floating “Follow” button that appears in the bottom-right corner. When you click it, it changes from “Follow” to “Following,” and you start getting emails for all the things.
I don’t know how blind-friendly it is, though, since it’s on a dynamic panel. If you need a less GUI way to operate it, make sure you’re logged into your WordPress account and then run the following javascript in your browser’s console while on any page of Pale:
Hmm, actually that Follow button isn’t enough on its own. After using it, you have to also go to https://wordpress.com/following/manage and click the “Settings” button across from the entry for Pale, then flip the “Email me new comments” switch at the bottom of the panel it pops up.
Pale 
I agree with Avery’s gut feeling of awfulness about most of these. Although I wonder if Guilherme wouldn’t prefer getting bound over falling to Winter…
Aside from that, this is barely usable as is – the Kennet Others are varied enough to throw a wrench in any plan that would target a single one of them.
I’m guessing the girls will ask support from a couple Roles in the form of summoning a sort of Kennetian trial court to help bring the culprits in. Then binding could be seen as acceptable punishment and they wouldn’t lose too much trust from the remaining Others.
Maybe.
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Winter’s more a state of mind than a physical location; just being bound wouldn’t save him, unless it came with a story he could explore.
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Being a Familiar could help. Specifically Lucy’s, though by then it might be too late to save him.
Shame if it is. She wants a fighter by her side, and I seriously doubt Gil’s been a Familiar before.
Being the animal sidekick of a girl that mixes Fae and Goblin magic and thinks the best framing of her involves arguing sounds like it’d keep him to busy for Winter.
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Yes, but it would also inevitably relegate Lucy and the girls to second place to her familiar. The familiar ritual is the one where the book specifically warns that a large power imbalance can more turn the practitioner into the sidekick. And there’s no bigger power imbalance they could pick.
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Yeah I don’t think this is a plan of action, so much as a set of notes for them to reference if they do need to come up with a plan of action. But you’re right about how horrible and awful it is to have to come up with it.
And about Guilherme, I suspect if being bound would prevent him to falling to Winter or be preferable he’d have already put himself in that position. He sounds like he’s played out every other story already, including that one.
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Avery’s feelings about just how awful the things they’d have to do to the perp are really shows through in all of this- and I can’t blame her in the slightest. It really is awful.
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I really can’t see Snowdrop being a secret ally of the perpetrator of the Carmine Beast’s demise. Not even if it turns out to be Cherrypop. (Which would be hilarious, but I can’t see Cherrypop being a secret mastermind either. Toadswallow maybe, with Cherrypop as a henchman, but nothing more.) So, there’s like zero chance they’ll need to bind Snowdrop.
Alpeana also seems fairly disconnected from the whole CB issue, just going about her nightly business. If they have to bind her, it’ll be for some other reason (like, it turns out she’s eating the souls of Innocents).
Thinking on a more meta level, what’s the worst case? If they have to fend off John Stiles, and the Doom, while the Faerie are plotting against them… so, probably that. Give ’em the goblins as allies so they aren’t immediately squished.
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I can’t see Snowdrop being an intentional ally of the murderer, but she’s weak enough to potentially be turned against them and close enough to do some damage. (Especially if she gets her hands on some matches…) It’s good to be prepared.
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She’s a Boon Companion, like a proto-Familiar. Can your familiar be turned against you? I… really don’t think so, it’d be like convincing a man’s left finger to betray him. I think they’re safe from that, though there could be rules and exceptions I don’t know.
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That analogy isn’t very convincing to me, since I’m not so certain that you can’t get someone’s left finger to turn on them. You need more than words, obviously, but if anyone’s restricted to words they’re probably not a threat. (Which is why the girls aren’t worried about binding Charles.)
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Sure. Remember all the warnings Famulus gave about failed familiar relationships?
Naq vs lbh’ir ernq Cnpg, erpnyy gung Snlfny shpxrq Wbunaarf fb uneq ur ynaqrq va gur Nolff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome
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Snlfny jnf na bire-cbjreshy snzvyvne, abg bar ghearq ntnvafg vgf Cenpgvgvbare ol bhgfvqr vasyhraprf.
Nygubhtu, gurer vf gur yvggyr cbpxrg-zna gung qvnobyvfg unq, jura ur tbg va qrrc rabhtu gur Ynjlref svfurq uvz bhg.
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The information on how demigods work in the Otherverse is interesting. I wonder if the weakening effect from the Seal also applies to the more human-shaped ones; Hercules might not be able to hold up the sky anymore, but I’d expect he’d probably be a nightmare to fight against. I wonder how an Otherverse Percy Jackson story would go.
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I really hope the only Other of Kennet that gets bound is the culprit.
On that note, maybe the type of Other they should be really be researching how to bind is a Carmine Judge.
Because the culprit is likely to claim that title eventually, and even before then they might be able to tap into some of the corpse’s power.
If for instance our trio is planning on binding an ordinary Vessel and it turns out they’re actually facing down the Carmine Vessel, that could throw a pretty major wrench into things.
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I’d suggest a decent bit. Even if it’s BS, a lot of people buy into it, which gives it power (and not just the magical kind).
I love that giving a goblin a bath is an effective binding measure.
And thus the line between Other and mere spirit is eroded that much further.
I wonder what other technically-Others might be wandering around, unnoticed.
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It’s not just that giving a goblin a bath is an effective binding measure, it’s that it’s utterly ineffectual at cleaning the goblin. The goblin can’t stain the water and it remains clean (or else the binding would immediately fail), so all the dirt must remain on the goblin.
Kind of a funny case where the laws of the universe reinforce what the goblins want, sort of.
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And now I’m imagining a Practitioner who was trying to bathe a goblin but accidentally bound it, rendering the binding ineffective.
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*bath
I wish WordPress let you fix that junk.
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Wait, shouldn’t “bathe” be the correct word here anyway?
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I meant “rendering the bath ineffective,” not ‘rendering the binding ineffective”. The binding ruined the bath, not vice versa.
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Oh I see I’m dumb
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Go look up tsukumogami: in Japanese tradition, an object that has survived for 100 years can develop a spirit of its own.
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I don’t think ancient folklore is canon to the [Pact/Pale]-verse.
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Pactverse does draw inspiration from several flavors of ancient folklore, though how much of what is shown in Pact/Pale is accurate to the old tales is debatable… but then again, folk lore often isn’t very self-consistent to begin with and nearly every work of high fantasy has it’s own twist on something from folklore.
That said, we haven’t had much of the practice from a non-European-descent perspective, so it’s hard to say what bits of Japanese folklore are true in Pactverse.
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There’s a difference between “inspired by” and “canon to”. I could go back to the religious roots of canon, but in the interest of not pissing off a substantial portion of the world’s population I’ll instead note that the League of Extraordinary Gentleman comics (and movie) were inspired by many
public-domainVictoria-era novels without those novels being canonically part of them; indeed, LEG contradicts them on several points.LikeLike
We know that oni are canon. There have been scattered references to how Eastern practitioners do things differently. Do tsukumogami definitely exist? Nah, we don’t know. COULD they exist without being inconsistent with the world as we understand it? Definitely.
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I mean, yes, they could exist. We literally see something that looks kinda like a tsukumogami in this chapter. But that’s not really relevant to my statement, which was basically “The existence of [X] in folklore doesn’t suggest [X] exist in Pact/Pale”.
Suggesting that the presence of oni in Pale proves the existence of tsukumogami (or makes them more likely or whatever) is kind of like saying that the presence of Excalibur in NetHack means the Wild Hunt must be in there too, since they both come from British folklore.
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I mean, yes, but I was never claiming it proved anything; quite the opposite, I was pointing out an interesting piece of folklore that might be relevant, with no assertion that it HAD to be true.
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id say even belief in something could give it magical power too. take glamour as the classic example.
be jung oynxr qvq jura svtugvat gur oneore, gel gb znxr rirel cbffvoyr fgno ng gurve cyna be npgvbaf, gb qvfperqvg gurz va gur fcvevgf’ rlrf? to me, belief in something goes a long way
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Yes, belief in something gives it magical power. I was emphasizing that it gives other kinds of power, too.
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So Tashlit could do something really powerful and dangerous, if she’s riled up enough and finds the way through the rules that lets her get away with it. And she’s probably infertile. I’m with Verona, that is sad. Probably a good thing to stop the spread of semidivine eyeball-people, but… I think the spread of semidivine eyeball-people would be a good thing.
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Cig is my new favorite Other. Sorry, Eyeballs-chan.
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Fast-forward until next arc where Tashlit chainsmokes to curb her hunger for infant flesh and destroys Cig inadvertently…
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Then we have a tragic moment of Cherrypop feeling obligated to put Tashlit down to prevent here from destroying any more cigarettes
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But Cig would live on in Tashlit. As lung cancer, if nothing else.
(…does Tashlit have lungs, or just eyes that she breathes with?)
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Does she breathe? Does she eat? Does she eat images by watching them with her mouth-eyes? Does she exclusively eat baby images, but it doesn’t actually do anything bad to them?
I fucking love this setting. These are all valid questions and I love it.
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Makes you wonder how Cig came to be. Maybe a powerful practitioner had a cigarette to destress after an intense breath-related ritual, and some remnant of that power got infused into the cigarette butt?
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John Constantine?
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{Unofficial transcript, part 1}
Binding & Countermeasures
Brainstorming & ideas from texts at the school. How do we bind
or deal with the Kennet Others, if we end up having to deal with
them? Weapons, tools, resources, options…
General Stuff
If we end up binding, it’s hopefully going to be with us getting the
O.K. from the Kennet Others as a group. If we’re not in a position
to go to them, then we might talk to the judges to get the all-clear.
Lucy says it’s like getting a warrant before making an arrest. The
binding is the arrest.
Binding is hard. It’s effective when it works but a magic circle is
really time consuming to draw. So our idea is that we might have
a few circles of varying complexity. Or a basic way of drawing up
a circle against a target or targets, and then the complex one.
The benefit of working out a basic circle is that the same ideas
that go into making it a circle that contains can also be put into a
short barrier or wall. If a circle of fire can keep a ghoul inside it,
then a line of fire will keep it from approaching or keep it from
using any ghoul mojo or powers.
There’s also the problem of having to get them into the circle.
Some circles will draw them in, others will need us to do the work.
We know from Human Binding exercises that weakening them in
other ways will make the rest easier. Gotta diminish the Self, and
the same stuff that slows them down or buys us time to get the
diagram set up or get to the diagram we’ve set up in advance is
the stuff that works here. Countermeasures. Includes targeting
weaknesses, distracting, or hurting them.
This sucks.
[page break]
Vessels/Hosts
Matthew – Host of the Doom of Edith
Edith – Vessel for the Girl by Candlelight
The disctinction between vessels and hosts feels a bit funky.
Mostly it seems like if you go overboard you start to become a
vessel, the human part of you becoming a container for the Other
force. So why does Matthew call himself a Host? Pride? Is it
the more human side of him sitting in the pilot seat?
[drawing of a humanoid head and torso, being clawed open, with a
face peering out through the chest]
Vessels and hosts are notoriously difficult to bind. We saw this a
bit with Erasmus in the human binding class.
If you try to bind the Other, they can lean
into the human side a bit more, and if you
try to bind the person, they can lean into
their Other side. Humans are hard to bind,
too.
This means the binding ritual has to
be a complex diagram. Lots of moving
parts, interlinked, with emphasis on
the links that connect. This isn’t really
a binding that asks you do double-
reinforce everything, but instead, the
intricacy and overall structure will be
really important, starting with duality – Hosts
with multiple Others in them are different,
but both Matthew & Edith have just the one.
[drawing of two concentric circles, with a vertical dividing line;
the left half of the outer circle is black, and the left half of the
inner circle is white; the right hand sides are the opposite]
For the duality, we want to have a balanced diagram with stuff
mirrored but reversed… Full/hollow matched to hollow/full.
We want stuff in it like yin-yang but the shape
of it can’t be yin-yang, since that’s got its own
meaning and symbolism. Target both at the
same time, and then make the connecting stuff
important. That’s our starting point.
[page break]
Key stuff to include in the bind dragrams for Matthew, taken
from class with Durocher and the texts…
The number 2. We think this is really relevant because
of the duality hosting, because he exists as part of a pair &
it’s going to be part of the diagram anyway.
Going to other mystical numbers, 5 is the ‘Heirophant’, the
institution, and is often related to incarnations and other set
& related stuff like Fate, Destiny, Dream. The Doom of Edith
is dangerous because it’s inevitable. They knock it back, but
can’t totally stop it. Edith was supposed to die and death
or doom come for her. If we’re going to have 3 on one side
of the diagram and 2 on the other, it should bias toward the
Doom.
The number 13 is both a good indicator of misfortune and it
is the tarot number for ‘Death’, which covers transformation
and rebirth, not necessarily dying.
The number 15 is ‘the Devil’, for shadow self, attachment, &
being bound & is multiple of 3 x 5. Should be biased toward
Matthew, instead of the Doom.
Doom as a concept is rooted in fate, mostly, but also in
death and violence. There aren’t a lot of good symbols out
there to represent ‘Doom’, but Verona thinks a snake would
be a middle ground for the ‘thread’ of Fate, the skull of the
Death, and the sword of War. It’s flexible, has a head, and
has a weapon. We looked it up and snakes have a long
tradition of representing healing and renewal, but Verona
says we can have the snake’s head point ‘down’ (toward the
center) and it could mean something else. We’re going to go
with her gut instinct for this.
For Matthew’s symbols, we pretty much agree the heart
works for his human side. Humans have hearts, he loves
Edith, and does a lot of exercise, nature stuff. Feels right.
[page break]
[drawing of an ornate magic circle; the central circle contains a
pentagon, with angular “arms” spiraling around it; outside that is
a ring with writing in it; outside that is another circle with
snakes or loops on the left, and hearts on the right; the far left
has an ornate heart motif; the far right has a snake/loop motif]
First Take:
Frame of two opposing elements.
Ring of 15 hearts/snake loops/head
13 word binding: “Us three of
Kennet bind Matthew Moss and
the Doom of Edith James”
Five-sided spiral for the center.
Verona wants to redo this, with more emphasis on the structural
elements, so it’s not concentric circles. Maybe with rings of weird
pentagons for every layer. Have to figure out a repeating pattern
for snake loops & hearts, though, and make nicer hearts.
This doesn’t quite feel right, though. Maybe tree instead of heart?
He likes nature and works at Buckheed.
Stuff to include in the binding diagram for Edith, Vessel:
The number 2. Same reasons as for Matthew.
The number 1. This is a weird one for diagrams, but the Girl
by Candlelight is a spirit and, on her own, is very vulnerable
to the stuff like lines on diagrams and basic circles. Edith’s
body insulates the GbC against this stuff in most everyday
stuff. The ‘0’ in binding numerology is the hollow circle, like
we use for the darkness rune. The ‘1’, then, holds something –
typically a strong symbol, which flows well into the lines and
increases their effort. On that same note…
The number 0. The hollow spaces of a diagram are a key
part of any hallow, and what we’re really trying to do here is
make a hallowed space within. This makes the light/dark
spaces from two pages ago that much more important.
Fire/water dichotomy. Not much to say here.
[page break]
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{Unofficial transcript, part 2}
[drawing of an ornate magic circle, with inward-pointing triangular
overlays at the top and bottom, and multiple overlapping triangles
inside; each region is white or black]
Ideas behind experimental, proposed binding
diagram for Edith: emphasis on triangles
because of the base elemental runes,
use of filled/empty spaces, and the
‘patchwork’ spirit, made up of many
segments. If it works, it should pull
at her from two directions. Is a ‘negative’
binding because it’s rigid, to oppose the
efemeral spirit.
Only issue is how much of a pain it would be
to actually draw. We might need a stencil or something.
Otherwise, if we use a simpler circle with a ring of water runes
and a fire rune in a ‘hollow’ in the center, that could work, but
we’d have to do something about Edith, who is a bit weaker.
Countermeasures:
Dwelling on this stuff is a real mood killer, but because humans
are way harder to bind than Others, it may be that we have to
attack or hamper them somehow.
While they’re close together, they’re stronger. They know how
to work together, Edith can do her thing, and Matthew can help
and protect her. Kind of. While they’re apart, Matthew can use
his Doom.
So it gets really really tricky to bind them because Edith is going
to stop us from binding Matthew and Matthew will stop us from
binding Edith. It’s almost like they’re not just a duality host, but
a quadra-mega-host. Sorta have to tie everything about them
all up in a neat bow.
…………………………we’ll have to think on this more.
[page break]
Night Hags/Nightmare (Apleana)
Excerpt:
[drawing of a tall, shrouded figure standing before a crescent moon]
As a general rule, the Night Hag may only be vuln-
erable for binding when on the hunt for her nightly
meals or when baited into negotiation. The Night
Hag pursues single targets, with a given Hag’s disp-
osition for periodic large meals or many smaller o-
nes varying from Hag to Hag. Those who would
wish to bind the Hag should study her pattern and
be prepared to interfere. As the Hag prepares to ta-
rget a particular subject, she must extend her vile b-
eing to them, and in this reaching, she foregoes her
ability to travel or be vague in nature. Vulnerabilit-
ies will be magnified, and it costs her dearly to aba-
ndon her prey once so extended. One may present
themselves, a volunteer, or a deserving and hapless
unawakened as bait, then use the means and metho-
ds detailed in this chapter to corner the depraved ni-
ght witch and bind her wholly.
The book on Night Hags (and nightmares in general) seems to
assume that they’re really hard to corner if they don’t want a
confrontation, and a lot of prep is needed to have any chance of
success at all. It also assumes they’re evil, and we’re pretty sure
Alpeana isn’t that evil.
More attention is given to the wways of hangling a Night Hag.
These ways fall into two categories. First, a lot of them
discourage the Night Hag, trying to make her go to a new target
or make her stop long enough that she can be talked to, at which
point the practitioner offers a deal like “Go manipulate this
person’s dreams and I’ll give you this.” (Continued on next page)
[page break]
These discouragements are really weird and lame, apparently
because the Night Hag is pretty immaterial and is stuck obeying
some odd rules and superstitions. Seems to require at least two
of the thre following things for optimal effect:
Sealing off the physical space the Hag is in. This can be the
Night Hag entering a room through a tight space, like the
crack under the door or a knothole, then blocking off that
space. Cuts off her access to the flows, realms, and forces
she taps for her power and sustenance. They immediately
get feeble and weak, like they’re starving.
Displays of dominance or getting the upper hand. Stuff in
this category includes things like stealing her stuff, laughing
in her face, or humiliating her. Confidence, presentation &
flair are pretty key here. There’s some weird ass patriarchy
B.S. in this, so we’re not sure how much to listen to it. All
about making her ‘meek’ so you can negotiate from a
position of power.
Measures focused around day/night, sleep, protection, and
general warding. Stuff like lines of salt on the windowsill,
lending your pillow to an animal in the daytime so she can’t
find you even if she’s right there and you’re lying in bed,
tricking her into thinking it’s daytime, and drinking milk.
The other approach is more focused. The Somnambulence text
has lists of materials that hurt Night Creatures, including pure
things like clear running water, salt, bright light, silver, and
cleansing smoke. Some of these are tied to cardinal elements
like earth, air, fire, and water, and can be matched to a specific
Night Creature. Then there’s hag stuff, capitalizing on how they
used to be human but aren’t anymore. Icons of civilization like
loud music, running machinery, television, and complex locks can
ward them off or diminish them. These things can stop her in her
tracks so that practice can be put into plaec. (continued…)
[page break]
In some cases, the approaches can be combined. Leading to
stories and situations like throwing a puzzle at the hag and then
demanding she solve it. Bewildered, she may end up trying to
solve it in a fluster while you can draw the binding around her.
Salt, chalk, and milk can make a good ‘negative binding’, while
black soot, black oil, putrefying fats (heated so it’ll run), murky
water the light can’t shine through, and tangled string all work for
the Night Hag, either because she’s a Night Creature or a Hag.
Circles are supposed to be hollow, attuned against immaterial
threats, & above all, are interpersonal. Because the Night Hag
has intimate relationships with her target, the most effective
bindings will have a place for the practitioner in them. If the
practitioner turns away, the binding gets wayyyyy weaker. If the
practitioner remains, even a chalk circle will hold a lot of weight.
It’s a bit like locking her in a room with you, knowing she’ll starve
before you do (and will wilt in any sunlight, etc, over hours).
Symbols for dark and light are common, and motifs of sun and
moon are good for negative and positive bindings, in that order.
Because Night Hags easily traverse realms and reams, the
sun, moon, and stars are used to help keep them present.
[drawing of ornate magic circle; inside are two smaller circles, empty,
with a swirling black shape wrapping around them; one point of the swirl
ends with a sun, and the other with a moon; outside/overlapping this is
the outermost part of a clock face with marks for each minute, and at
the 2:30 position on the outermost rim is an 8-pointed star]
We also want to use the wheel or clock motif at
the inside rim, to block passage. We could
fill it in for structure, but that takes time.
Taken from the book. There are
variants that put the practitioner and
the Other further apart, but they’re less
strong. We know Alpy, so this is easier.
It’s worth saying, if we end up going this
route, then one of us is going to be tied up sitting in the circle
to pin her down until we can get to surrender. Ugh ugh ugh.
[page break]
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{Unofficial transcript, part 3}
The Faerie
Guilherme – Fae of the High Summer
Maricica, Young Fae of the Dark Fall
[drawing of eyeball with thorny vines]
No lie, if it comes to us needing to bind them, we might be in a
pretty bad spot. The Faerie are tricky. It’s like…
Guilherme is crazy good at fighting, especially
if it’s a duel or something organized, where he
can manipulate the organized part. But he’s a
better schemer, according to Maricica, than he
is a fighter.
The only benefit/hope, really, is that Guilherme
is going the way of Winter and isn’t that
interested in scheming. Which could be the ploy, but… we can
hope?
Meanwhile, Maricica is young, and she’s essentially at the far
end of the scale. Guilherme isn’t secretly saying his praises or
making us extra wary of her (at least on that front) so she might
not be that crazy good at manipulation. Maybe. But that could
be like saying she’s 50x better than us instead of 300x better.
[drawing of a sword, hilt upward, with a flower wrapping around
the blade]
Trying to do something like trap them in a binding is like going
into things with John by planning a shotout.
This is where we really need a good plan of
mostly countermeasures.
Just in case (pos/neg bindings, barriers)…
High Summer have affinity for Yew, wine,
and honey. They’re weak to poisons,
tarnished or rusty metal, and heartbreak.
Dark Fall likes bones, charms, and curses.
Fine chain (esp. silver or cold-forged),
virgin flesh and secret names a weakness.
[page break]
Because we can’t expect to bind them, we plan to disrupt. Big
explosions, blitzes, disruption, and unexpected stuff. We can’t
get caught up in their games, social or otherwise.
After discussing it, we’re thinking we should hit the market, with
the teachers’ help, if that’s still on. Either dark fall, to get info on
Maricica, or the fall court above, to see if a faerie would be willing
to give us something to use. Fae tricks and wiles against Fae.
Maybe. We don’t have a great Fae-focused lecturer, unless
a Vanderwerf family member comes to teach, and, well… they’re
Vanderwerfs. Seems like we’d be beneath their notice. Lucy
thinks Ray might be a good person to ask.
Big, big, megahuge priority is to figure out the traps and have a
plan in place. Maricica said there’d be some. It’s been a month
and apparently we haven’t seen one yet. Three of our gifts,
possibly one gift for each of us, has some hidden catch.
That’s bad, and it’s so easy to forget it’s a thing.
If we need to bind them, we’re going to have to hope we can get
help. John or the goblins, in coordination with tools and stuff.
According to ‘A Circle of Cold Iron’, one good thing about beating
a Faerie is that if you can get the victory, it tends to be decisive;
they fold.
Silver relates to the Winter Court, tarnishes easily, and has a long
tradition as something that penetrates illusions. Light reflected
off of silver can, with intent or power behind it, hurt illusions, At
the same time, Fae can treat it as a positive binding thing in
some cases, and will trade for it or use it. It’s very context
dependent and stuff like the silver being polished or being a knife
vs. being jewelry will matter a lot. We should get some.
[page break]
Dog Tag/Dog of War (John Stiles)
This one doesn’t need to be too long. Dog Tags are Animuses
and they’re really, really easy to bind, at least on one level. The
diagram doesn’t matter that much and a chalk circle could work.
Where it gets tricky is that the flow of power from the war to John
makes the circle hard to close. This is supposedly going to make
stuff like putting the chalk to the floor a lot harder, and will make
John stop like he’s hit a wall before he can get sucked into it. He
is basically too ‘big’, metaphysically, to fit, unless the diagram
is massive and has a lot of power. This can come and go with
the state of the war overseas, but it’s not impossible. The
practitioners that got the rest of John’s squad managed it.
Then there’s other stuff. Dog Tags who sit in a binding circle for
long enough apparently get a ‘get out of jail free’ card, if and only
if there’s conflict around them. More conflict means faster
turnaround on this, but if there’s a war, battle, or armed feud in
the region, it’s never more than 24 hours. If there isn’t, this
doesn’t apply. In really hectic cases this can happen fast, and in
really, really hectic cases, Dog Tags can have Frag Tags to blow
up the chalk lines or chains or whatever, and Black Dogs to mess
up the metaphysical stuff. Most War Mage practitioners will take
the bound Dog Tag far away to get clear of all this. AND, finally,
just so we’re reminding ourselves of the stuff to watch for, let’s not
forget John is smart and rigged bombs to catch us if we tried to
bind him. He takes steps.
We do have a countermeasure available, and it’s pretty awful. If
we need to stall John or keep him in place, technically he’s sworn
to come if we toss our tags down. We wouldn’t get them back
but we could get him where we need him. Hate this hate it.
[page break]
Goblins, Assorted
Toadswallow Bluntmunch Gashwad Cherrypop
Doglick Butty McButtbutt Snatchragged Unnamed nosepick + Several Others
Putting the goblin names at the top of the page is a big wake-up
call. It’s a lot. Goblins are pretty notorious for getting everywhere
& being everywhere, and it’s really starting to hit home that this
is a thing that happens.
The biggest factor with goblins is that they’re so versatile. T.S.
especially has some out-there tools and goblin-y magic items,
with a bunch of tricks up his sleeve, but all of them have these
little things they can do. Gashwad can tear up practice and turn
it against the practitioner, Bluntmunch can take charge of lesser
goblins and easily grab more, Doglick has the screams, howls, &
feral instinct, Snatchragged is good at breaking stuff, and Butty
is this slippery little nugget of awful that builds up in intensity until
he decides to utterly obliterate something in a disgusting way.
And most are really brutal in a fight.
So it’s not just that we’d be dealing with the chaos and the
unpredictability of 10+ small, aggressive, noxious little dudes and
dudettes, but every few seconds, one of them is going to be doing
stuff that we have to react to or handle.
The situation may be the opposite of the plan for the Faerie. We
need to avoid a fight or confrontation, or control it if we can.
Goblins listen to strength, so a countermeasure might be to win
over the lesser goblins so the more canny ones who could do
something can’t use them. Toadswallow springs to mind, but
Blunt isn’t dumb, & Gashwad is on paper as a ‘blighter’, as little as
the labels matter, who is good at messing with practice.
They shouldn’t be able to injure us, so that does help. (continued)
[page break]
The stuff that binds goblins is pretty varied, but Cherrypop told us
the big one, and the books back it up. Metal with earth, air, water,
fire, electricity, smoke, or whatever else moving through it will be
the best thing. The existence of this stuff is why goblins don’t go
that far into the heart of Kennet, and prefer to stay at the fringes,
by the water, at the north end of downtown, in the woods, etc.
We could use that to retreat to places, maybe.
But mundane means of binding work too. Chains, rope? They
can keep a goblin put. Goblins that are tied up and bound with
ropes or chains tend to stop fighting pretty fast, since they have
low patience.
Clean still water, salt, holly, and other natural things will hold
up a goblin. A lot of the time, they can’t actually do anything
about these things. Put a goblin in a bathtub with clean water
and they can’t even spit in it, can’t stain it, can’t really move. So
they’ll freeze. Same thing goes for holly, salt, and other ‘pure’
elements.
The problem is getting there.
Bound goblins can become weapons or tools, and we should
expect some goblins to use this. Two unarmed goblins can easily
become one goblin with a nasty weapon. They can also bind one
another, which beats us to the punch, which is a complicated
mess.
Writing this out, it feels like we should be very mindful of the boss
goblins. T.S. and Blunt. They wouldn’t bow down to or put them-
selves at the mercy of another goblin, and if they fall, the rabble
will be a lot less organized. Spooky to think about a confrontation.
[page break]
Lost -Miss Snowdrop
This is a tricky one. Lost don’t follow any particular rules, and
are next to Oni, apparently, as Others who break rules. Like how
Snowdrop’s speech is flipped around in intention.
So all we’ve got to go on is, well, what Miss told us she’s most
afraid of. Establishing patterns that catch her/them up in them, or
assigning labels to her. From the way Miss describes things, any
ritual with enough activity and power can snag her, and will pull
her in, making it hard for her to climb out.
Outside of that, we just don’t know. Typing this up feels awful, but
it’s necessary. Like John, she said she’s come when called, and
we’d be abusing that in the worst way to make her worst fear
come true, if we called her into a binding circle.
Other than that, she’s quick, and she has a really deep & subtle
understanding of how practice and how these things work. This also
includes stuff like practitioner-Other relationships and mentalities.
[image of a plain white humanoid head and upper torso, on a background
of horizontal black bars]
Instead of dwelling on this and getting Verona to do up a complex
ritual that could snag Miss, we decided what we’ll do is talk to the
family of Finders I’ve been in touch with & ask about measures for
the Lost. Just in case.
Putting Snowdrop in this same group. Not so
great at fighting. Not especially dangerous,
but they know us/me. They’ve got the low-
down info on us, and that’s dangerous in its
own way. I really don’t htink Snow is a culprit,
or even Miss, but we can’t afford to let our
guards down.
[page break]
Nine Other Others
We still have research to complete on this, but we’ve got notes on
a few, for the next few pages. Putting a note here as a reminder
to ourselves: the new Others who were brought in to help with the
perimeter are potential allies of the culprit. So we should make
some mental notes on how to deal with them. Fortunately, they
don’t sound too strong. We have labels for two:
Tashlit is a god-begotten. Apparently they uh… birds and bees of
the gods are sorta prone to making monsters. The theory is that
a lot of the time they’ll cover it up by making excuses and calling it
a curse. Since the various gods, known and super-out-of-the-way,
aren’t really talking to people all the time, they’re hard to call out
on stuff like this, with their excuses over monstrous, bastard
kids. Ugh.
Big thing for god-begotten others is that the limits on what they
can pull are really, really up there. It may require conditions, like
breaches of karma, trespass on territory, or for the god-begotten
to get really upset, but if they do cut loose, then it’s like a granny
lifting a car. Except it’s a bird-headed guy leveling buildings with
a scream or literally moving a mountain fifty feet. That’s only if the
innocent aren’t paying attention. The Seal weakened them all.
And it’s only the first generation G.B.s that are that over the top.
The second generation ones have only a small fraction of this,
and a really high chance of being sterile. So sad.
Cig is an ambulatory object. We may actually have an Other
weaker than Cherrypop. It’s a cigarette. It’s not personified, it
doesn’t speak, it just shows up places, has an inhuman, ambient
awareness, and never goes out or really diminishes. Apparently
Cig is keeping an eye on the perimeter and will show up burning
a hole on a map, ouija board or ilst of names when convenient.
[page break]
Add to M&E
Quick note while we’re thinking about it.
Binding Matthew. We were chatting about them being a quartet
more than two hosts, and the stuff that has to be handled, and I
sorta have one idea.
And it’s awful. This entire thing, thinking about how to deal with
the Others who’ve given us gifts? It’s awful.
But we don’t have to bind both Matthew and the Doom. If we bind
the Doom and just the Doom, then Matthew can’t go anywhere.
If he separates from it, then he’s risking that it will hurt Edith and
we know he doesn’t want that.
These are the options we haev? Ways of arresting the culprit(s)?
It’s easy to see why they hate and loathe practitioners, because
this is the sort of thing other practitioners do.
Note to self: no time to edit the doc and keep it tidy, so just add
this to the M&E part of the document later. Gotta prep for Lucy’s
Implement ritual tomorrow.
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Thanks for doing this
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Hmm. It ate the asterisks that I was using as crude ASCII bullet point markers, but didn’t replace them with an HTML unordered list. How rude. I wonder what the best way to format a transcript is. (And damn, that was a LOT of typing. I have a lot more respect now for the people doing these regularly.)
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Reading these comments is making me curious for details… transcript please.
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I don’t know if you noticed it already, but someone posted a transcript above your comment!
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I wrote the transcript after the request was made. It got moved up somehow. I don’t pretend to understand how this comment system works.
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Fortunately, subscribing to comments on a post sends me notifications of all comments on a post, not just direct replies to my comment… but yeah, the threading is kind of wonky, and I wish I could just force comments to display in strict chronological order to make it easier to read just new comments when returning to a post I haven’t subscribed to comments on… or at least knew a way to subscribe to comments without having to post a comment.
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You can. When scrolling up the page, there’s a floating “Follow” button that appears in the bottom-right corner. When you click it, it changes from “Follow” to “Following,” and you start getting emails for all the things.
I don’t know how blind-friendly it is, though, since it’s on a dynamic panel. If you need a less GUI way to operate it, make sure you’re logged into your WordPress account and then run the following javascript in your browser’s console while on any page of Pale:
document.getElementsByClassName(“actnbr-actn-follow”)[0].click()
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Hmm, actually that Follow button isn’t enough on its own. After using it, you have to also go to https://wordpress.com/following/manage and click the “Settings” button across from the entry for Pale, then flip the “Email me new comments” switch at the bottom of the panel it pops up.
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The art for these extra materials is really gorgeous.
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