No Two Copies of the Egyptian Book of the Dead Are the Same
In ancient Egyptian belief, the ba (the element of the soul that contained the personality of the deceased) faced a series of trials on its journey to the underworld. Failing these trials would mean a second death—obliterating earthly memory of the deceased, who would wander as a ghost forever. To avoid this second death, the Egyptians covered the walls of their tombs with The Book of the Dead, texts containing spells for the soul’s protection. The scene here shows the ba (in white) accompanied by jackal-headed Anubis, who watches the soul’s sins being weighed against a feather. If the sins are heavier, the ba will be devoured by Ammit, a crocodile-headed demon.
The Book of the Dead was never codified and no two copies are the same. Each was composed at a patron’s request, incorporating prayers that best reflected the individual in order to help them in the afterlife. Composition of Books of the Dead began around 1700 BCE, replacing earlier texts. Spells were added until a body of around 200 became common by about 1500 BCE. Contained in scrolls up to 22 yd (20 m) in length for commoners, or for royalty painted on tomb walls, the spells were said to be spoken by the ba at key points along its journey. Spell 4 is to let the ba turn into a snake, Spell 89 to return to the tomb at night, and Spell 98 to grant it passage on a ferry to the underworld. So powerful was ancient Egyptian belief in their efficacy that the scrolls were popular until the Roman conquest in 30 BCE.
— A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, Spells For the Afterlife
A Knight Would Have a String of Horses
[An eleventh century, C.E.,] knight would look to have a string of horses: a palfrey for everyday travel, a war-horse for combat (not yet the immensely heavy horses of later medieval warriors), mounts for servants and baggage which in Spain would often be mules rather than horses because they consume less water.
— The Quest for El Cid, chapter 8
Potions of Healing Restore One-Quarter of Maximum Hit Points
I recently read Healing Potions Are Dumb (and how I fix them), and enjoyed both its analysis and proposed solution. Then an old thought came back to me.
I never played the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, but one concept from it always impressed me: Healing Surges. Specifically, that a Healing Surge restores one-quarter of a character’s maximum Hit Points. No more risk of bad dice rolls on healing spells.
That fixed proportion can easily be ported to apply to Potions of Healing in D&D 5e—in any edition, really, but especially in 5e where combat damage frequently outpaces healing abilities. This is a middle ground between the current rule and Nerdwerd’s maximalist option.
Backlinks
House of Bow and Arrows
…The Japanese have always shown a particular form of reverence toward the bow, quite beyond its use in battle. One has to go back as far as the Assyrians to find this same veneration for the bow, for they considered it to be the most noble of all weapons. As for the Japanese, the Way of the sword and the Way of the bow rule supreme. There is a Japanese expression: “the house of bow and arrows” which denotes a person’s quality as a result of noble birth. The arrow which draws the bow is like the strength in man which can draw in the subtle power of the universe.
Finally, the bow and arrow were considered to be sacred by the Assyrians when they belonged to kings or generals.
In Shinto, the arrow is often an aid to purification. In fact, many temples have taken to selling arrows, which are carried home and which, during the course of the year, absorb all things evil and impure. These arrows are then burnt during the end of year ceremonies. The manufacture of arrows itself has to follow a set of rules, which means the work always carries with it a deep significance.
— The Overlook Martial Arts Reader, pp. 283-4
Amulets Often Portrayed the Spirit They Were Supposed to Ward Off
Wearing amulets was another part of protective magic, and such amulets often portrayed the spirit they were supposed to ward off. For instance, Pazuzu, the king of the wind demons, would be depicted as a creature with a bird’s chest and talons, holding a thunderbolt, and Lamashtu, who preyed on pregnant women, as a hybrid of a donkey, lion, and bird. Amulets could protect a traveler in hostile territory inhabited by demons, such as the desert, or keep disease away from a house during an epidemic. In the Mesopotamian world much was unpredictable, and magic tilted the balance just a little in people’s favor.
— A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, Magic All Around
First Law of Kenpō
The first law of [kenpō] states that when your opponent charges straight in and attacks, you should use your feet to move your body along a circular path. You should also consider moving your arms in a circular pattern to deflect the oncoming force. When your opponent attacks you in a circular fashion, however, you should respond with a fast linear attack—along a straight line from your weapon to his target. Just as the circle can overcome the line, the line can overcome the circle.
— 10 Kenpo Laws Every Martial Artist Should Know – Black Belt
Thank the gods for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, else I could not have linked to the source article.
Encounters with Military Units in a Feudal Japanese Setting
For large swathes of its history Japan was riven by internecine warfare, notably the periods of ‘feudal anarchy’ in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During those years the feudal lords (Daimyo) kept large standing armies which were constantly on the move throughout the country. It stands to reason that adventurers traveling in such a setting would have a relatively high chance of stumbling across one or more military units. This is a system for generating random encounters with such units.
The results will generate encounters with units varying in size from 11 individuals to 10,000 soldiers. Larger armies will include scouts, usually mounted, so DMs should take their existence into consideration when such an encounter is rolled….
— Random Encounters with Military Units in a Feudal Japanese Setting – Monsters and Manuals
Receptacles of Enormous Magical Power
The Mesopotamians believed that objects had an animate quality and could act as the receptacles of enormous magical power, helping to ward off evil spirits and thwart their actions, or gain the favor of a god needed to drive them away.
Royal palaces were guarded by monumental statues of lamassu, winged creatures with the head of a man and the body of a bull or lion, which blocked and supported gateways, corridors, and the entrances to throne rooms. These thresholds were seen as particularly vulnerable to infiltration from the underworld by demons such as Rabisu, “the crouching one.” Poorer people placed figurines of gods or hybrid creatures such as fish-men with pointed hats and scaly skins under doorways or windows….
— A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, Magic All Around
Effectiveness of English Royal Taxation
William the Conqueror and his sons amazed continental contemporaries by the extent of their financial resources. Their financial resources were great not only because of England’s wealth, for certainly, taken as a whole, the kingdoms of France and Germany were much richer, but because the Anglo-Norman king was able to tax the resources of his realm to a degree far exceeding that of any ruler in Europe. Money was needed to support the king and his family, his central administration, his local representatives, and his military establishment. The relative effectiveness of English royal taxation inaugurated by William the Conqueror is an important key to the political history of the Middle Ages. It helps to account for the fact that as late as the fifteenth century the king of England was able to inflict crushing defeats upon French kings, who ruled a country with three times the population of England and whose landed, commercial, and industrial wealth, if we could estimate it precisely, would be even greater. In the Middle Ages, no less than in the twentieth century, wars cost money, and the power of any particular king was greatly dependent upon the comprehensiveness and efficiency of his taxation system. In this regard the Anglo-Norman king was at least a century ahead of the Capetian monarchy, and no German ruler of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ever had any comparable command of the financial resources of his country.
The chief source of income of early medieval kings had been their own estates, and William naturally drew a substantial part of his income from the royal demesne, whose administration was the sheriffs responsibility. The law courts were also a lucrative source of income, but it was their clever and unrelenting use of the feudal possibilities for taxation that accounts for the great financial resources of the Anglo-Norman rulers. Like any other feudal lord, William enjoyed the prerogatives of relief, wardship, and the regular aids, and his treasury found that these old institutions could be made to produce great sums. Not only the lay vassals but also the bishoprics and abbeys that owed feudal obligations to the crown, were subjected to this kind of taxation. In addition to all these sources of royal income William inaugurated the practice of allowing his vassals the option of not sending their knights to serve in the feudal host on payment of a certain sum per knight’s fee; the practice came to be called scutage (literally, “shield money”) in the early twelfth century. William’s tenants-in-chief were glad to be freed of the burden of keeping their knights trained and equipped for war, and William preferred to use the income he obtained from scutage to hire mercenaries for his continental wars. Paradoxically, the same king who brought feudal institutions to their highest refinement and used them most effectively for enhancing royal power was the earliest to realize the inefficiency of the feudal method of raising armies. By feudal law the vassals were required to serve only forty days a year, which was a tremendous nuisance in a long campaign; the knights who were provided to his feudal host were not always adequately prepared and armed; it was advisable to leave most of the English army at home in case of another Scandinavian invasion, which threatened during most of the Conqueror’s reign; and William had the special problem of transporting the knights and horses across the channel, which was both expensive and risky. He preferred to hire mercenaries among the landless knights of Normandy, Flanders, and Brittany for his frontier campaigns against various French princes. The Anglo-Norman monarch’s envious continental enemies were not slow to realize the significance of this military innovation. A chief minister of the French king in the first half of the twelfth century referred to the English ruler as “that wealthy man, a marvelous buyer and collector of knights.” William initiated the slow substitution of mercenary forces for feudal armies, which is one of the central military developments of the High Middle Ages.
— The Civilization of the Middle Ages, Chapter 12
Evil Source of Weapons and Shields
[The elven high] princes were Fëanor and Fingolfin, the elder sons of Finwë, honoured by all in Aman; but now they grew proud and jealous each of his rights and his possessions. Then Melkor set new lies abroad in Eldamar, and whispers came to Fëanor that Fingolfin and his sons were plotting to usurp the leadership of Finwë and of the elder line of Fëanor, and to supplant them by the leave of the Valar; for the Valar were ill-pleased that the Silmarils lay in Tirion and were not committed to their keeping. But to Fingolfin and Finarfin it was said: “Beware! Small love has the proud son of Míriel ever had for the children of Indis. Now he has become great, and he has his father in his hand. It will not be long before he drives you forth from Túna!”
And when Melkor saw that these lies were smouldering, and that pride and anger were awake among the Noldor, he spoke to them concerning weapons; and in that time the Noldor began the smithying of swords and axes and spears. Shields also they made displaying the tokens of many houses and kindreds that vied one with another; and these only they wore abroad, and of other weapons they did not speak, for each believed that he alone had received the warning. And Fëanor made a secret forge, of which not even Melkor was aware; and there he tempered fell swords for himself and for his sons, and made tall helms with plumes of red. Bitterly did Mahtan [the Maia] rue the day when he taught to the husband of Nerdanel all the lore of metalwork that he had learned of Aulë [the Vala]….
— The Silmarillion, Chapter 7
Oath of Knighthood
Godfrey, Baron of Ibelin:[With his son, Balian, kneeling before him.]Be without fear in the face of your enemies.Be brave and upright that God may love thee.Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death.Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong.That is your oath.[Backhands Balian hard across the mouth. Balian tastes blood.]And that is so you remember it.The Hospitaller:Rise a knight…— “Kingdom of Heaven” (2005)
The Dangerous Direction From Which Demons Were Most Likely to Swoop
When the Emperor Kammu established Japan’s capital in the new city of Heian-kyo, he could not have foreseen the splendid success his action was to bring. Soon after the city was founded, in 794 [C.E.], it became a flourishing center of culture, the home of a decorative society that for more than 300 years was like an endless pageant embellished with art, literature and music and spiced with titillating love affairs.
The site chosen for the capital was almost ideal for the nurturing of such a society. The gently sloping site was open to the south but enclosed on other sides by forested hills or mountains. The dangerous northeast direction, from which demons were most likely to swoop, was shielded by Mt. Hiei and its protective Buddhist monastery. Many fast-running streams brought clear mountain water, and a navigable river, the Yodo, provided convenient barge transportation to the sheltered Inland Sea that separated Honshu from the island of Shikoku.
— Early Japan, p. 31
Early Medieval Standard of Living Was Low
On the material side the life of the feudal class was rough and uncomfortable. The castles were cold and drafty. If a castle was of wood, you had no fire, and if a stone castle allowed you to have one, you smothered in the smoke. Until the thirteenth century [C.E.] no one except a few great feudal princes had a castle providing more than two rooms. In the hall the lord did his business: received his officials and vassals, held his court, and entertained ordinary guests. There the family and retainers ate on trestle tables that at night served as beds for the servants and guests. The chamber was the private abode of the lord and his family. The lord and lady slept in a great bed, their children had smaller beds, and their personal servants slept on the floor. Distinguished visitors were entertained in the chamber. When the lord of the castle wanted a private talk with a guest, they sat on the bed. The lord and his family could have all the food they could eat, but it was limited in variety. Great platters of game, both birds and beasts, were the chief stand-by, reinforced with bread and vast quantities of wine. They also had plenty of clothing, but the quality was largely limited by the capacity of the servant girls who made it. In short, in the tenth and eleventh centuries the noble had two resources, land and labor. But the labor was magnificently inefficient and by our standards the land was badly tilled. Not until the revival of trade could the feudal class begin to live in anything approaching luxury.
— Mediaeval Society, pp. 30-31
Emphasis mine.
Personal Misfortune or Sickness Was Often Blamed on Witches or Demons
Personal misfortune or sickness was often blamed on witches or demons. Witches were also thought to secretly put curses on people. Priests developed rituals to counteract malign influences and collected them in nine Maqlu tablets, first compiled around 1600 BCE. They were passed down through generations of ashipu for about the next thousand years. A collection of 100 incantations, across eight of the tablets, enabled the ashipu to identify and tame evil magic; the last tablet gives instructions for a ritual to banish a curse, which involved burning a figurine of the witch responsible. Exorcists often doubled as doctors, and another tablet contains a spell calling on Gula, the goddess of health, to drive out the ghost making a patient ill.
— A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult, Chapter 2
Beneath the Official Pantheon Was a Layer of Demons
Beneath the official pantheon, including the likes of Enlil, the Assyrian sky god, and Ea, the god of wisdom, was a layer of demons, such as Lamashtu, who threatened pregnant women, and Namtaru, the plague-demon, who needed to be mollified. Natural phenomena such as floods and lightning, or epidemic diseases, were not scientifically understood despite Mesopotamian advances, and so people at all levels of society preferred supernatural explanations. Disasters were believed to be caused by mamitu (curses) laid by witches, by victims committing offenses (sometimes unknowingly) against the gods, or through unintentionally ignoring divine signs. Kings guarded against these occurrences by consulting temple priests, in particular ashipu (exorcists), who performed magical rituals, and baru, who interpreted omens. Palace archives were stocked with collections of clay cuneiform tablets containing spells, incantations, and omens. Huge numbers have been recovered from the palace library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Ordinary people also called on the services of ashipu to cast protective spells, and used amulets and enchanted figurines to dispel evil spirits.
— A History of Magic, Witchcraft and the Occult, Chapter 2
Fighting Filled the Noble’s Need of Something To Do
Fighting filled the noble’s need of something to do, a way to exert himself. It was his substitute for work. His leisure time was spent chiefly in hunting, otherwise in games of chess, backgammon, and dice, in songs, dances, pageants, and other entertainments. Long winter evenings were occupied listening to the recital of interminable verse epics. The sword offered the workless noble an activity with a purpose, one that could bring him honor, status, and, if he was lucky, gain. If no real conflict was at hand, he sought tournaments, the most exciting, expensive, ruinous, and delightful activity of the noble class, and paradoxically the most harmful to his true military function. Fighting in tournaments concentrated his skills and absorbed his interest in an increasingly formalized clash, leaving little thought for the tactics and strategy of real battle.
— A Distant Mirror, Chapter 3
Every Time You Step Onto the Training Floor, You Are Being Tested
I wasn’t thinking about a murder. I was thinking about killing.
The Japanese martial dojo is a training hall remarkable for its beauty. Clean lines. A lack of clutter. The warmth of wood and the stateliness of ritual. Don’t be fooled. Look closely at us as we move in that space. We watch each other warily, alive to the sudden rush of attack. We’re controlled and focused. But there’s a murderous ferocity running like a deep current in us all. It gets exposed in many small ways.
Most dojo are big spaces. Sound bounces around in them in a jumble of shouts and thuds. But if you have enough experience, you can hear things distinctly. Asa Sensei was a kendo teacher of the old school. When you find a really good group of swordsmen training together, you can hear things in the quality of the noise they make. We were in Asa Sensei’s dojo, and the chant of the swordsmen was fierce, a pulse of sound generated in a circle of swordsmen that rang throughout the cavern of a room. It created an energy that I could feel as I swung my sword and shouted along with them.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see both Asa and Yamashita standing and watching us. Their dark eyes glittered, but beyond that, they could have been carved in stone. My teacher’s shaven head sat on his thick body like an artillery shell. Asa was thinner and had gray hair swept back from a wide forehead. But the way they held themselves—the thick, muscled forearms that were visible beneath the sleeves of their indigo training tops; the dense, rooted silence of both men—made them seem almost identical.
They were watchers, those two. It’s how you must get after a while. They drink in their surroundings until they can feel it on their skin, taste it in their mouths. Until the breath flows in and out in the rhythm of what surrounds them. And then, when ready, they strike.
When you see them as they truly are, these men are frightening. They hold so much back, measuring you, judging you. They dole out knowledge in grudging bits, forcing you to struggle for each morsel. Looking back, you reluctantly admit that maybe it was necessary. But while you eventually come to trust them, it makes you wary.
I struggle with this. Yamashita is my teacher and I had once thought him perfect. I knew better now. He was still my sensei, but the relationship had changed. He looks at me with flat, emotionless eyes. And sometimes, I look back in the same way. I’ve learned a great deal. Not all of it is good.
The first time I stood across from Yamashita, any confidence that a black belt in two different arts had given me vaporized in the blast furnace of his intensity. Yamashita knows what you are up to before the nerve flash of your latest bright idea leaps across a synapse. As far as I can tell, he is without technical flaw. And without remorse. With Yamashita, every time you step onto the training floor, you are being tested. Over the years you accommodate yourself to it, but it’s still a reality that hovers just out of sight, like a prowling animal, both feared and resented.
— Deshi, chapter 2
Mnhei’sahe
“Gentlefolk,” [Romulan Subcommander] Tafv said…in his light tenor, “I assure you that the Commander is as little sanguine about offering you this plan as you are at the thought of accepting it. If it succeeds, the Commander and I have nothing to gain but disgrace, irrevocable exile for both of us and for the rest of her crew, and the permanent possibility of being hunted down and killed by Romulan agents for revenge’s sake.” He looked grave. “We are all willing to risk that for her sake. It’s a matter of mnhei’sahe.” There were curious looks around the table at the word the translator had failed to render, but Tafv didn’t stop. “However, we face far, far worse if the attempt fails. If caught in Romulan territory, we and Bloodwing‘s crew will assuredly die. You and your ships could conceivably fight your way out again—and whatever difficulties you may have with Starfleet Command afterward, you will still be alive to have them.”
“Noted, Subcommander,” [Captain James T. Kirk] said. “One moment. Lieutenant Kerasus—‘mneh’-what?”
“‘Mnhei’sahe,’” she said promptly. “Captain, I’m sorry, but you would ask me to render one of the most difficult words in the language. It’s not quite honor—and not quite loyalty—and not quite anger, or hatred, or about fifty other things. It can be a form of hatred that requires you to give your last drop of water to a thirsty enemy—or an act of love that requires you to kill a friend. The meaning changes constantly with context, and even in one given context, it’s slippery at best.”
“In this one?”
Kerasus glanced across at Tafv. “If I understand the Subcommander correctly, they are returning the favor that Commander t’Rllaillieu has done them by commanding them, by being in turn willing to be commanded. That sounds a little odd, I know, but their forms of what we call ‘loyalty’ do not always involve compliance. These people will follow her to death…and beyond, if they can…because they acknowledge that what she’s doing is right, no matter what High Command says.”
— My Enemy, My Ally, Chapter 10
Converted Map of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, Level 1
At long last, I have achieved a milestone on this pet project.
The original maps of the Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord computer roleplaying game (CRPG) utilized a wrap-around technique to create the illusion of a larger area than just a 20-by-20 grid. Here is the original grid of Level 1:
My pet project is converting these into maps rendered in HTML from a library of reusable images. These images are (with two exceptions) built as 4-by-4 grids. This allows for actual walls between adjacent areas. I am also “unrolling” all wrap-arounds.
The first milestone was completing Level 1 to my satisfaction. I have flipped and rotated it to place the entry stairs in the upper-left corner:
The Noise Was So Great That You Would Not Have Heard God Thunder
Emphasis mine.
William Marshall was 70 years old, here.