Musica Universalis

MUSICA UNIVERSALIS

PART ONE

As of today, 7 May 2018, we're back from a weekend long larp where we played multiple NPC roles and learned about some of the conventions of this particular style of larping. Stuff we learned includes:

• Often, these things are held on camping grounds. Pack as if it were Pennsic -- cold, hot, and wet -- and also bring stuff to keep mosquitoes and ticks at bay. Flashlights are your friend.

• Signal is intermittent at best, so don't go if you're needing to be constantly online for any reason. Miraculously, I had sufficient signal to be able to do my Gen Con events sign up, as well as the time to do so without holding any part of the game up.

• "NPC blacks" = what you should wear when playing a default more-or-less generic NPC appropriate to the setting, which in this case meant a person who worked at the circus. In this role, we were supposed to wear black, white, and a splash of red. I interpreted this to mean that ALL the NPCs we played were to wear those colors. This was not the case, and in fact, specific NPCs shouldn't be wearing those colors, or at the very least, shouldn't have the splash of red.

• Even when told "Okay, how does this particularly juicy role sound? It's yours if you want it!", remember that this will not be the only role you play, or even the only named role you play.

• Stay up to date on the appropriate social media. In this case, that meant Google Groups for me.

• Folks need to figure out a meal plan. This is a bit easier for NPCs, at least in this game, as staff were prepared to feed us two breakfasts and one dinner. Also, we went up with Gaylord who contributed to PC potluck (he was NPCing, but wanted to make his own food) and he figured that we counted as contributing to that (we handed him money towards it) and so could certainly eat some of it. I also packed meal bars.

• "Mod" means "Module", which is both an adventure or scenario or encounter within the larp and a de facto default unit of time. Mods get set up, run, and torn down. How much time that takes varies. "House of the Rising Sun" was slotted for 2 hours and ran for 3, requiring both set up and tear down. "Trial of Rivers" was slotted for 2, and may have taken up the full slot, but this included starting late, set up, runtime, and teardown, so we actually caught up. Not everyone is in all mods. Mods may get moved around, and this can be an issue. Mods aren't always 2 hours, but they were in this game, which really helped -- 1 hour mod defaults are hard on folks. A couple of things got moved, and some things could have been handled better, but all in all, things ran astonishingly smoothly.

• A Combat Mod means there's boffer fighting. I think this may be referred to as Crunching as well, though I'm a bit vague on that. Most larps of this type have a lot of combat. Musica Universalis was an exception, which is part of why we signed up for it. I gather that in some larps of this type, even when one specifies one doesn't want to do combat, while no one will make you do it, they'll pointed ask if anyone is available to be an NPC combatant, bringing social pressure to bear. I don't know how common that is, but there was none of that here. In fact, when I was listening to a description of a mod the staff needed folks for, the person in charge said, "No, you really don't want this one -- it's crunch." The only thing that boggled me in this larp was the sight of folks dressed like perfectly ordinary 1930s women carrying around a Whole Lot of Big Guns Laden with Nerf Ammunition.

• Oh yes: Where there is combat, there are rules. We used a particular ruleset that folks who do this often know. I've downloaded the rules. I... still haven't read them. I got a very fast crash course in what terms I needed to know, and I don't recall them coming up where I was.

• The NPC player responsible for gathering PCs who are supposed to be in a mod and delivering them to the mod is called "the hook" and their job is "to hook" the players / PCs. This would be something like a "random person from town" running in to say, "There's this guy with wings standing at the crossroads -- can someone make him go away? This is above my pay grade!" It could also be someone saying, "Okay, you guys wanted to talk to these folks? They're ready to speak with you, so come this way please."

• Stuff may get made up on the spot, which includes discussing things at wherever the NPC players gather, in this case dubbed "Monster Camp".
  • This included Gaylord sitting down with people to discuss how to work the serial killer arc so the PCs could figure out it was his preacher NPC and take him down satisfactorily. Gaylord and the others involved in this arc as NPCs decided that the commonality in the murders was that the preacher would go off with someone, hear their confession, kill them, and then comfort the bereaved relatives.
  • This also included some of us in the Unseelie/Seelie/Manitou Montagues & Capulets plot asking staff for a reason we could give the PCs to care about that arc, given all the world saving that needed to be going on. (Mind, there were a number of PCs who seemed to care regardless; Josh says that this isn't a surprise as the PCs' job is to care.)

• Any given mod has a mod write up explaining what NPCs and PCs either must or ideally should be in it. There may be separate sheets for each NPC role, or there may be only a couple of sentences about each NPC, or there may be a combination of the two (e.g., one or two NPCs getting full sheets, and the rest only a couple of sentences). Sometimes, each NPC is supposed to focus on a particular PC.

• Each mod generally has a goal, whether it's described from the point of view of a PC or of an NPC player. There may be win or lose conditions listed; e.g., "They win if they get this thing or decide they don't want it. They lose if they want it, but don't get it."

• Most larps of this type are campaign larps, which means that even the smallest NPC role may become recurring, and NPCs may well develop over time. This larp was a one shot, which is less typical. There were still recurring NPCs over the course of the game, as well as potentially recurring NPCs. Fr'ex, I played one PC's mother, and whether she came out again depended on how the first scene went.

• Apparently, post-larp fan fiction is a thing. One of the staff set up a Google Drive folder for it. Thus far, nothing's in it, and perhaps nothing will be uploaded, but its existence indicates that folks have done post-larp fan fiction. 20 May 2018: There is now material in the folder.

• While cabins are assigned -- we asked for and got one with running water and electricity and outlets -- bunks are first come first serve, which meant all the bottom beds were taken. Folks were very surprised to see that both of us could fit in a single bunk (by choice, not necessity), and I'm not sure how good that would have been for more than the two nights we were there, but given the beds were for sleeping in for relatively few hours, and that the first night was fairly cold, it worked.

• For NPCs at least, theater modesty applied, which is to say we're all aware of what the human body looks like, and did you need help lacing that up?

We were supposed to leave at 10am. Gaylord figured that, realistically, that would mean 10-11am, but at 9:45 or so, texted us to say it would actually be 12:30pm. Given that Josh was not really wanting to be awake at that point, this was probably a good thing. I was awake, which was not a bad thing.

We also hit traffic. Our ideal arrival time was 8:30pm. We did not arrive at that time. We also weren't the only ones late. Game start was nominally 10pm, but might have slipped a bit. I figured out enough about where everything was. We sprayed ourselves with the appropriate stuff, and the rain let up about the time game actually started.

This was a game where everyone received a dozen songs ahead of time to learn, even though it was impossible to be present for all 12 official singings, as some were scheduled against each other. But, everyone started in the same place, with the song "Come On Up to the House".

The PCs had come from different places, but had all somehow found themselves at the Circus Liminalis, a magical marketplace where deals for just about anything could be made. The rules boiled down to:

• If you shake hands on a deal, that deal is binding. No takebacks.
• No violence at any market (there would be three during the weekend). If violence needed to happen, there was a space specifically allocated for that which was outside the market. Also, some mods were outside the market, in which case whoever was hooking PCs was supposed to say, "We are leaving the safety of the Market Truce." This would let folks back out or gather weapons.

Josh and I quickly came up with names for our circus NPCs. I was Gwen, and I think he was Joe, but I'm not sure. And, one of the NPC players broke out Rafael, which meant that the PCs (who were mostly human) slowly realized that there was an angel walking amongst them. Well, an archangel, really.

I went back to Monster Camp to ask about the next slot. I was supposed to play a named NPC, Marjorie Davidson, mother of one of the PCs, Matt Davidson. She'd tried to cure her son of hearing and seeing things that weren't there, trying everything from a faith revival to a newfangled treatment known as electroshock therapy, despite Matt's protests.

This was a bad idea. The treatment started, a dust storm ramped up -- possibly the dust bowl itself -- and Matt screamed. So did his mother, who was thrown across the room and knocked out. When she came to, Matt's restraints were broken, and he was gone. Marjorie had been looking for him for weeks and had apparently made it to the Circus Liminalis to search for him.

I was supposed to "Mom" at Matt, fill in any gaps in his memories, insist that he try more treatments (as he obviously can't make decisions for himself), be overjoyed and ask for details if he is somehow "fixed" by the time I found him, and leave when it no longer seems fun for the two PCs I was supposed to be plot for -- Matt and his friend Zacaraias Garcia.

I didn't know at the time that this is actually the sort of thing this style of larp does all the time, create NPCs who are there to have personal connections to a small number of PCs, possibly only one. I'm not sure if I did a great job on this.

I did find both PCs, and it helped that I was paying attention to name tags, which all the PCs had. NPCs did not. And we had a reunion. I Momed and worried at Matt, who assured me he was all better, said he'd never been sick, added that the electroshock therapy was a really terrible thing to do to him and that it had nearly killed him. After all, he wasn't hurting anyone.

Marjorie thought that if he was indeed better, it was because of the electroshock therapy, and that he was too sick to know what was best for him, and that he was hurting himself. He explained that he never thought what was inside his head was outside it, so it wasn't hurting himself. He also said that weird things were happening and the winged person was an angel.

Okay, obviously, that's someone working for the circus. Matt introduced the two, and Rafael agreed they were an angel -- archangel -- but either couldn't or wouldn't prove it. A PC from the same town as the Davidsons was going with Rafael somewhere and said he didn't know if Rafael were really an angel, but Rafael had said someone was in need of medical attention, and the man was a doctor.

All good, but not at all proof that Matt was well. Matt talked Zacharaias into showing Marjorie that he could make his hands glow, something that had been true since the storm. Okay, he'd been hit by lightning. These things happened.

Matt asked if she believed all that, yet didn't believe her son. And weren't they taught to have faith?

And I didn't want to drag this out, because that's boring and annoying, not dramatic, but I also didn't think Marjorie had anything she'd consider convincing about Matt. At about this point, a Generic Town NPC arrived to hook folks, describing hearing someone from behind a rock fall, and stopping to yell at some invisible party or other.

All right. Matt was consistently and firmly telling his mother that he couldn't help what she believed, but nothing was wrong with him. And clearly, he was in better shape than this strange town woman who was hearing voices. So, Marjorie tearfully explained that that was what she was afraid of, and if Matt found himself acting like this poor woman, he was to see a doctor at once. Matt agreed, and she let him go, wishing him luck and telling him he was still her boy and adding that he and Zacaraias had better not let him get hurt.

I'm not sure I could have done much more than that, and even though I was still a little vague on the whole hook and mod business, I already knew that I didn't want to keep a player from going on an Adventure. I went back to Monster Camp and asked about whether to bring Marjorie back in an evening slot the next day where my instructions were to ask a staffer about that.

The staffer asked how the interaction went, and when I described it, we both agreed that it didn't make sense to bring her back. What I did not realize was that Matt was a far stranger PC than Marjorie's sheet indicated.

In addition to various archangels, there were putti, small angels. Pre-game, Matt had indeed nearly died of the electroshock therapy when four putti dove into him to save him, so Matt was basically 4 putti in a Matt suit, with a bit of Matt left. Objectively, this sounds a bit horrific, but from a larp perspective, the player was told something like: "Okay, you're 4 putti with the following different personalities, all pretending to be Matt the human, with a bit of Matt inside as well. Have fun with this."

I've no idea how he played the PC for the rest of the game, but I got no sense that there were multiple personalities. It felt like a perfectly reasonable young man was holding his ground against his mother's belief that something was wrong with him, making fairly cogent and logical arguments that he was doing fine. I think perhaps I should have tried for more emotion, but perhaps not.

That was pretty much my Friday game, and when Josh was done with his Friday game, we went to sleep, albeit with much setting up of the bed and much fuss on my part as I tried to figure out how to get up there--and down in the morning. It was cold, but we had a lot of layers. Gaylord brought us plates for breakfast the next day, and we eventually stumbled into costumes and into Monster Camp.

My first two slots were Capulet / Montague 1 and 2. My third was Market Wheelings & Dealing, followed by Archangel Politicking in the fourth. After that was my dinner break, then Emo Angel in the Rain. I was off specific duty after that, but on call for as long as I chose to be, and I wound up doing Trial of Rivers and the Fiddle Contest at the Crossroads as Gwen.

Capulet / Montague had 4 slots total. There were two pairs of star-crossed lovers: one Unseelie and Seelie, one Seelie and Manitou. The Unseelie and Seelie groups didn't like each other as a whole, and the Manitou didn't like any of them because they waltzed in and took Manitou lands and magic, just as the humans they'd accompanied had taken the lands of the Native Americans.

But now, actual war might be imminent, due to a series of pre-game events. The Seelie princess had met her Manitou lover, and after parting from him, was accosted by the Unseelie prince, who thought her easy prey. He was wrong; she killed him in self defense.

When his body was found by his fellow Unseelie, they assumed it was the Manitou who had killed him. In retaliation, they attacked the Manitou, killing one of them -- the brother of the Manitou who loved the Seelie princess.

None of these characters were PCs. This continues to boggle me. However, this also meant that only PCs could sort out what was going on. But first, they had to know that this whole situation existed.

In the first slot, only the Manitou came out. They were seeking sympathy and allies. They wanted folks to know a war was coming, and that they might be able to fight off the Unseelie, but could not stand against the combined Seelie and Unseelie courts, if those joined forces.

Folks were not unsympathetic, but folks were busy. Sure, this was the first slot of the day, but there were, as usual, several mods running at once, and many of the others hooked mods designed with their PC in mind. We didn't want to pull anyone out of those. And, of course, when we said war was coming, most folks thought we were talking about the big apocalypse plot.

So, we returned after about 20 minutes. We'd done what we could to lay the groundwork. As our Seelie and Unseelie counterparts got made up, folks talked with staff about what had happened and asked if there were a good answer for "Why should the PCs care about any of this?"

We were told to let the PCs know that if they backed our side (whichever that was, depending on speaker), we could give them some kind of magical aid. What kind? Well, we were told to be vague about that.

And the Unseelie went out to tell their side of the story. We followed after ten, maybe twenty minutes, and quickly got into a shouting match.

And, to the PCs' credit, many folks intervened, listened, and tried to help out, and at no point asked what was in it for them. Josh tells me that this isn't that surprising -- the PCs' job, he says, is to care. Sure, we did eventually bring it up, but mostly, we were being semi-inflexible.

The Manitou leader kept saying, "I don't know how to explain this to you humans. They take the land. We ARE the land. They take our magic. We ARE the magic. And they CAME INTO OUR CAMP AND KILLED ONE OF US!"

The question was whether we could make a deal at market. What would we want? And, while we were quite sure the unreasonable Unseelie would never do that, and we weren't even sure we would, we said we wanted:

• Our land back. At least some of it. At the very least, not to lose any more.
• Our magic.
• Justice for the attack on us.

The Unseelie were not denying they'd attacked and killed one of us. They insisted we'd killed their prince, which was, of course, the first the Manitou had heard of this. Heck, how did we even know the prince was really dead?

Folks suggested to us that perhaps the Unseelie had been set up -- that someone else had killed the prince to start a war as a distraction from the whole fixing the world business, which gave us something of an opening to mention the cookie -- er, unspecified aid we could give.

Er, that is... Okay, so, we do have enough magic to defend ourselves against the Unseelie, if the Seelie don't join with them. If we need to that, obviously, we can't be using that magic to help with whatever fixing the world thing is going on -- but if we can make this deal, we can.

But, the Unseelie lie. While we were talking, they'd told someone they had evidence we'd done the deed. We said we had no idea what evidence that was and could we see it? At this point, the person we were talking to asked another PC about that, and he said that he didn't think they actually have any evidence. It was more "well, who else would have done this?"

And as for making a deal, first of all, how could we trust them?

Well, said the PCs, you'll have to word it all carefully.

Okay, well, who among you can help us with that? We're plain-spoken Manitou. And second of all, what is this crap about what we give in such a deal when they've been taking and taking from us?

Somewhere around here, the Seelie came out looking for their princess and being snooty. They asked if we had a problem with them. We asked if they were planning to attack us. No? Then we didn't have a problem with them -- or at least, not a new problem. And their prince offered to give the Manitou lessons in art and culture and the like, things the Manitou clearly lacked.

And during all of this, the Manitou Romeo came out and we told him we were trying to get vengeance for his brother's death. This was, of course, the first he'd heard of that, and he was devastated.

And after a few more rounds of arguing, the Seelie prince interrupted, talking to one of the PCs, and when I interrupted back, said, "Oh, a commoner" in the perfect condescending tone.

This was good. It was his job to be a condescending jerk -- and it gave the Manitou a reason to stalk off. We'd be back later. Well, I wouldn't, as I had other people to be, but this was only part 2 of the arc. Eventually, the Seelie princess came out, the PCs learned what had happened, and convinced her to come clean, as that was the only way to avoid a war, which, honestly, no side really wanted.

And, a deal was worked out that, as the Manitou were the most innocent in all of this, the Seelie and Unseelie would each return a portion of the lands they had taken from the Manitou, details to be worked out a year and a day from now, at another Market, always assuming the world didn't end. I'm not sure how folks who wanted blood for the Manitou death were talked down.

And, I believe, the vague magical help turned into a Token, which would be used at the final ceremony.

In the meantime, I changed into Oren Mikha'el, while Josh became The Assessor for Market Wheelings and Dealings, which would last for two slots, although we were only there for one. The Assessor was a sort of demigod of the Market, having inherited the position from John Jacob Astor. He thought that it might be now time for him to retire, so he wanted to look at potential successors, and one in particular among the PCs.

Oren was there with his mentor Charlotte, to trade songs, both little-t trade and big-T trade. Little-t meant sharing music, expanding both sides' repertoire, and generally having a good time. Big-T meant forgetting the song and losing your connection to it. Sure, you could learn it again, but your connection would still be severed. Mentor and apprentice didn't make any Big-T trades, but chatted with folks and made music. Our overlap in songs we had cold was not especially large, so clearly, Oren had only recently become Charlotte's apprentice.

Charlotte greeted Ibrahim, an NPC trader with many unusual items. There seemed to be some kind of wish tree. And there were plenty of musicians, PC and NPC alike. Charlotte sang a song her player (and, therefore, the PC) had written. I sang "Hard Times", and folks joined in, including Charlotte and Nathaniel. It didn't hurt that I had my copy of Rise Up Singing, which has the words.

Nathaniel was a PC fiddler, and got ribbed by Franklin, a guitar player who'd sold his soul twice and was trying to get it back from whichever demon or devil currently had it. He played and sang, and tried to get Nathaniel to sing. Then he had us all make up a song. Well, those of us brave enough -- I sang along, but demurred to invent anything there.

Franklin made the first verse. Charlotte did the second, and when Franklin noted we needed a chorus, she made a simple but effective one -- "They say that this is the end" repeated three or four times. I forget how we got a third verse. Franklin tried really hard to get Nathaniel to do it, and threatened not to end the song until there was a third verse. Folks considered doing one word apiece. But, eventually, there was a third verse, and then we repeated the chorus.

A couple of folks selling souls displayed their wares. Being soulless didn't mean one was out of play, but it did mean that one's fate after death was a bit, ah, dubious. It was possible to get one's soul back, and one of the women the Manitou had spoken to had done that only recently--that morning or the previous evening.

It was a slow day for song trading, though, so Oren and Charlotte headed back. We hadn't expected anything particular, though we had instruction in the mod for what to do in certain cases--there was a soul plot that might have come our way, fr'ex.

But, I realized, the Market Wheelings and Dealings mod is there as a deliberate slow spot. Andrew Zorowitz once told me that just about every weekend long larp has what he calls the Saturday Afternoon Slump. I'm not sure if that applies to this type of larp, but if so, having a slow mod rolled with that.

It let folks take breathers. It let NPCs be local color. It let PCs talk and think and figure out what they wanted to do and how they might go about doing it. There were other mods running as well, many of which were focused on information gathering.

Meanwhile, I got ready for Archangel Politicking, which involved a pair of costume wings, fairly small ones, which meant I didn't have much trouble with doorways.

Jophiel, Haniel, and Cassiel were three unaffiliated archangels, as opposed to archangels who wanted to bring about the end of days or archangels who wanted to retune the universe. Samael / Lucifer was bringing mortals to meet them and try to talk them into giving the mortals their tokens for the retuning plan. We asked what we knew and were told that our archangels didn't yet know about the whole retuning plan.

I hadn't reviewed my character sheet since the larp started, so I may well have gotten details wrong. But, as I understood it:

• Cassiel was the Archangel of Sorrow. They were also The Swiftness of God. I'd forgotten the other parts, which were Watchfulness and Solitude.
• They had not taken sides in the War in Heaven, but been very sad about it all, considering neither side fully right nor fully wrong.
• Retuning would kill many people, and that would make Cassiel sad. I can't find this now that I'm looking for it, but it made sense, as the Retuning is a very small apocalypse in its own right.
• The End of Days would also make Cassiel sad.
• In fact, just about anything would make Cassiel sad -- they were the archangel of sorrow, after all. (Heck, at one point in Monster Camp, one of the archangels was complaining about how no one else was doing their heavenly job, and Cassiel immediately said, "_I_ am!" They were very sad that the other archangel didn't think so. And, I gather, there were several archangels who were also doing their jobs.)
• I knew how the war in heaven had started (though I'd forgotten it was the second war, the first being about the nephilim).
• I'd mostly forgotten about how the Dust Bowl had been caused by Metatron becoming the Horseman of Famine, which may have been just as well.
• Cassiel had a scene after the dinner break dubbed "Emo Angel in the Rain" by the staff, which was where they were to give the token or not. In other words, as I understood it, the current scene, with the three angels, was not the one where I should be giving my token.
• My goal for that later scene, as opposed to Cassiel's, was ultimately to get talked into giving the PCs Cassiel's token, presuming they wanted it, but not to make it too easy -- and not to give it if the PCs actually screwed up.
• Ideally, they should get it by showing they understood the essential sadness of the universe. Bonus points for crying.
• I totally forgot the parts of the sheet that listed a couple of obvious tactics, but I think that's just as well because no one wanted a boring, easy victory.
• My goal for this scene was to keep the dialogue moving forward towards in the direction the PCs wanted, and not to go in circles. If this sounds like the goal I had -- or should have had -- for Marjorie Davidson and Narr the Manitou, well, it was. In Narr's case, however well or poorly I pulled off the balance between moving forward and playing the character, I didn't have to do this alone. Everyone who played a Manitou, Seelie, or Unseelie NPC was working together to set the mood and the balance. In Marjorie Davidson's case, I wasn't quite sure how to balance things. But Cassiel had been the first NPC I'd gotten word I was playing, and I'd had time to mull this over.

So when folks came in, I sat quietly, and eventually, someone came over to talk to me, Irene Bellanger, I think. And first I asked her to explain what she wanted and when she told Cassiel about the retuning, they said that yes, this sounded like it would work, but it would kill a lot of people.

Now, as I said, I can't currently find this in print, but it made sense, And, frankly, if it isn't true, there's no reason Cassiel shouldn't just hand over the token.

That said, the obvious response to this is, "Well, if we don't do this, a whole lot more people will die."

Josh, later, pretending to be Cassiel: That will make me sad, too.

True, but I really, really didn't want to go around and around, giving the players nothing to work with. There needed to be progression. Fortunately, while I haven't read it, I have heard about Robert Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_ and the "Men are not potatoes" line, and I shamelessly adapted it for Cassiel, who said, in agonized sadness, "You are asking me to weigh human lives as if they were potatoes, but you are not potatoes!"

Cassiel also said, several times, that they would not make a decision right away, but understood that a decision needed to be made soon. Therefore, they would be at the flagpole after dinner and would speak to any who wanted to speak to them.

Given that this was how I was definitely going to play Cassiel, I didn't want to make players waste their time if they wanted the token Right Now, or if they didn't want to hang around making arguments that would have no immediate payoffs. The point of this scene was to introduce the three neutral angels, and in two cases, set up later mods. Folks didn't have to hang around for very long.

But, to my astonishment, Cassiel had more and more company, and this company didn't seem in any hurry to leave. I'm not sure how much of this was good roleplaying all around in general, how much had to do with the conventions of this type of larp, which I'm still learning, and how much had to do with self selection. If you know there's an archangel of sorrow in the room, you probably don't focus on them if you don't want to spend quality time being sad.

CONTENT WARNING ABOUT BAD THINGS HAPPENING TO A CHILD

Cassiel learned about Irene Bellenger's story, which was that she and her husband were getting by with one child, decided to have a second, but then the husband was fatally wounded by a crocodile. Irene knew she could feed two, but not three, so held her youngest child under the water.

While I'd forgotten that my character sheet had said to push for hearing tales like this one, it wasn't hard to know that this would touch Cassiel, and they embraced Irene, and I think both of us were crying.

But, Irene's story had a happy ending, as her child hadn't died! He'd been raised by crocodiles, as she'd recently learned. Crocodile Boy was an NPC played with astonishing gravitas, I was told, given the frankly absurd backstory. Apparently, Irene took her son to get cleaned up, showing him how to wash his hands, and then how to throw away a paper towel in the garbage, which she identified as the place where we throw away things we don't want.

Crocodile Boy, pointing to himself: Like me?

END CONTENT WARNING

Cassiel pointed out that retuning equated holding a whole lot of people's heads under, and whether that included any dear to Irene herself, they'd be dear to someone. Cassiel, after all, took no part in the war because they couldn't bear to, loving all of their fellow archangels.

They also told Irene the story of the War in Heaven (okay, technically, the second one). Samael, who was Imagination in the same way that Cassiel was Sorrow, had asked their fellow angels and archangels, "What would you do if you had free will and didn't have to do as God decreed?" This resulted in a lot of thinking and quiet talking, at first.

And then Samael asked Camael, the Wrath of God. And Camael thought about this and then turned around and punched their boss, Michael, in the face.

Irene (kind of caught between laughter and tears, as it really is simultaneously sad and hilarious): Are you saying the War in Heaven was a glorified _bar brawl_?

Cassiel: Nothing so dignified.

Irene: Nothing so _dignified_ as a bar brawl?

Well, no. As Cassiel explained when a couple more folks came over, a bar brawl, well, usually afterwards, someone buys someone else a drink, no hard feelings. Usually.

A couple of folks nodded and said that sometimes, it was just a matter of tossing folks into a jail cell to cool down overnight, which often meant folks on opposite sides shared a cell, and that did often help.

Cassiel was telling this story to drive home the point that while they believed all of the archangels were telling the truth as they saw it, and all believed most sincerely in whatever course of action they were advocating, well... they hoped it was clear by now that none of the archangels were infallible or incapable of making a mistake.

One of the folks who'd joined Cassiel was Harold Lewis, who, Cassiel was told, was probably the human who would most understand Cassiel's position. I'm a little vague on Harold's story, but I gather he'd been in a war (probably WWI?) and he certainly seemed to empathize with Cassiel.

There was a fair amount of crying going on, and a surprising amount of understanding for the archangel's position. Cassiel promised to think very careful and wanted the humans to do the same and reiterated their promise to make a decision after dinner by the flagpole.

And one of the people there, Etta, talked about how important sorrow, and, by extension, Cassiel was, and how without sorrow, one doesn't understand joy. And she thanked Cassiel for, well, existing. And she invited the Archangel of Sorrow to dinner.

My original plan had been to go back to Monster Camp for supper, but... honestly, how could I refuse an invitation like that? And I knew that Gaylord had supplied some of the food that the players would be eating, and that I'd be paying for some of that, so it would be all right on that front.

I did, however, need to attend to certain biological functions first, ones angels and archangels perhaps do not need to. Morgan, the woman who'd introduced Cassiel to Harold, went with me to show me where the nearest bathroom was and to help me get the wings off. They were small, sure, but I wasn't about to try to maneuver in a stall with them.

On the way, she noted, in character, that Cassiel would be giving their token (presuming they chose to give it, of course, but I knew by then that, unless no one showed up at the flagpole, I'd almost certainly be handing it over, and I suspect she did as well) to an individual, and that it should be someone Cassiel trusted to act as they would wish to act. She thought that Harold would be the ideal person to give it to. I had it narrowed down to her, Harold, and Etta, and with her pushing for Harold, that narrowed it down to two, as Cassiel wasn't about to inflict their token on someone who didn't want it.

Out of character, the player complimented me on the sustained roleplaying I'd been doing. I also learned that there were lofts in some of the buildings, and that getting down from those could be a bit too interesting. There are trap doors involved, and the door had come down rather hard on her nose that day. Ouch.

We also talked about faith and belief, and she told Cassiel that she had faith in them. And then, we went to the tavern for dinner.

A general dinner call was announced, and a few minutes later, one of the players handed me a covered plate which I think Gaylord had set aside. I / Cassiel did doublecheck to make sure that the players / humans had enough to eat, but I was assured that they'd all heard the call to dinner, that there was no line, and that there really was enough food to go around.

After I ate, I returned to Monster Camp and the NPC cabin to catch my breath, recharge my electronics, spray myself with more tick repellent, read a bit, and generally chill. A bit after 8, I put on my wings and took a flashlight and some cloth, in case I wanted to sit on the ground, and headed out.

I'd already located the flagpole, and there was no one there yet. This didn't worry me, but I heard the sound of a lot of folks singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, so I went to the building where the sound was coming from.

I discovered that Cassiel had just walked into the House of the Rising Sun, where Lilith had set up her own market. This was slightly embarrassing, but only because Cassiel hadn't realized. They had nothing against Lilith, and I joined in the song, and then went to the flagpole.

I later learned that Hallelujah was the closing song for the House of the Rising Sun mod, the opening one being, of course, House of the Rising Sun. Lilith's player assured me that Cassiel dropping in wasn't a problem. Just about every archangel and devil visited at some point during the mod.

I went to the flagpole and shook out the cloth. As I was putting it on the ground, Harold and Morgan joined Cassiel. This pretty much settled the question of who'd be getting the token.

I'm not sure if the staff had a specific timing of the emotional beats in mind, but as far as I was concerned, the only question remaining was whether the humans still wanted Cassiel's token. Folks had listened. Folks had spoken of themselves and their sorrows. Folks had cried, and folks had understood. Folks had _gotten_ where Cassiel was coming from, and said that it was a valid and important part of the fabric of the universe. We had a regular Inside Out moment, and I do wonder whether Cassiel would have been in the game without that movie.

Sure, I didn't have a huge crowd at the flagpole, but Cassiel could only give their token to one person, so that wasn't necessary. And yes, Harold still wanted the token.

That is, he wished he didn't have to ask this of Cassiel, and Cassiel wished they didn't have to give it to him, but yes, he did still want it. Cassiel gave it to him. And there was more crying, as the three of us discussed how being alone wasn't quite so bad when one was with other people, how Harold and Morgan had just gotten married, how sorrow may make for greater appreciation of joy, but losing people really doesn't make one happy, and things of that nature.

And after something they said, Harold asked Cassiel if Cassiel wanted to change their nature.

I gave this some thought and decided that Cassiel probably didn't. They'd just been told by several humans how important and valuable they were -- how loved they were for being what they were. If that's not enough to restore an archangel's faith in themselves, I don't know what is.

So, no, Cassiel knew that sorrow was important, and that they were important as they were. But, they said, perhaps it would be no bad thing if there were somewhat less sorrow in the world.

End of Part One. Part two is written, but the zine's running long as is.