The poet this week is Sara Teasdale: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sara-teasdale
Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/
Stance: http://takeastance.us/
The Woods:
The Map:
Riverhouse Games Thanks You!
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Battlebards Tracks used:
Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet
Crypts of the Undead – Where the Dead Dwell – Score Music – Wilddog Productions
Transcription:
For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals. But now, we’ve driven them off, and we have this – a year of relative peace. In this moment, there is an opportunity to build something.
A week has passed.
Before the storm hits, the camp of marauders shares hot beverages and crumbling trail cakes. Their leader watches our community in the charged autumn air. The moon tonight is like a scimitar, a little silver scimitar, a-drifting down the sky. And near beside it is a star, a timid twinkling golden star, that watches likes an eye. Drach looks up at the smoke in the hills from their camp, and through the window-pane of the hospital he helps to build he sees the bandits have a fire again, just like the ones we make,— and somehow he knows the meal they share, having shared similar ones before. Eileen jolts him from his staring to ask for his help with a beam, the artist helping to accelerate the project before the snows hit.
In the mountains, The Monster reaches the gates. As the freezing girl who has been with us a long time steps into the cavern where the Frost Shepherds slowly struggle against their bonds, she casts small spells. Her might and magic stand no protection from the ancient withered shepherds, but shepherds aren’t the only things living in the mountains. With her first footsteps into the cave, tiny tempests whisk themselves up, stirring sand and dust from the floor. She pleads to the four winds blowing through the sky, they have seen the cycles of life and death in the mining camp, to tell her then what to do. She keeps an image of Eileen, Drach, Llyana in her mind, knowing that if not for their affection that she would never have been captured by our community. She knows nothing stands in the way of the Frost Shepherds’ annihilation, and yet if she could bring those three with her into the next cycle, the winds may hold the key to keep her love may be true. As the winds stir, the mountains pick up their snowy caps and in calling the elements to help her, the foolhardy girl who has been with us a long time may have doomed us all. Unnoticed to her, the storm rages down from the mountains, and the valley where miners centuries ago toiled rests at the ending point of the storm’s path.
First comes soft rains from the winds and the smell of the ground from the mountains, and songbirds circle with their shimmering sound; and frogs in the river sing in fear at the night, and wild plum trees shed their tremulous white, robins wear their feathery fire and whistle their whims on a low fence-wire; and not one of us foresee the storm, nature will not care at last when it is done, would not mind, neither bird nor tree, if we all perished utterly; and Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, would scarcely know that we were gone.
In the caves, said the wind from out the south, “Lay no kiss upon his mouth,” and the wind from out the west, “Wound the heart within zer breast,” and the wind from out the east, “Send her empty from the feast,” and the wind from out the north, “In this tempest save them not, when thou art more cruel than they, then will we be kind to thee.”
Before she kissed Eileen only winds of heaven had kissed her, Before Drach, only the tenderness of rain, before Llyana, the fire of the summer sun— with winter coming, how can she care for kisses like theirs again? In the river, she sought the sea, yet now she sends her winds to meet us, surging down the mountain singing of the south— She looks on from the cave her head turned away to keep still holy our kiss upon her mouth. And swift sweet snows of shining November weather found not her lips where living kisses are; she bows her head lest they put out her glory as snow puts out our star. The North Wind speaks “They are yours forever, sealed with a seal and safe forevermore— think you that we could let beggars enter where monsters stood before?”
Crisply the bright snow whispers, crunching beneath our feet as we walk through the ruins of snow collapsed buildings, our shadows dance, fantastic shapes in vivid blue. On the broken foundations of the hospital the chickadees flit to and fro, with sharp turns weaving a frail invisible net. In ecstasy the earth drinks the silver sunlight; in ecstasy the birds drink the wine of speed; in ecstasy they laugh drinking the wine of love. Had not the music of their joy sounded its highest note? The bandit leader holds Drach’s arm, the marauders and our community having struck a bargain to ensure their help getting everyone to safety. Our homes may be destroyed, as well as our hopes of a hospital building, but no lives were lost in the storm. Eileen and Llyana hold each other underneath a door frame, all that remains of one of our homes crushed under the weight of wet snow, and suddenly, with lifted eyes ze tells her to look. There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple, fearless and gay as our love, a bluejay cocked his crest! Oh who can tell the range of joy or set the bounds of beauty?
We begin a new project. Consolidating our community into the few remaining shelters is no easy task, and between marauder, newcomer, and our original settlers, there are plenty of people looking for beds. We plan on moving everyone into main living areas over the next three weeks, and sorting out other structures for purposes of storage and other needs. Drach’s thick hair keeps his head warm during this work and he grits his teeth against the appetite he builds. Despite the rough work, Llyana’s long nails remain pristine and zer blue eyes glow in the sunlight. As Eileen flows through the camp, leading us in our efforts with inspiring song, we look to the river. If it can keep running after the storm, so can we.
Thank you for joining us for the thirty second episode of From The Jackals To The Shepherds. If you like this show please give us a rating on iTunes, tell a friend, or share us on social media. As always the intro for the show was read by Dave Lapru, who is also our mapkeeper. You can find Dave on twitter at plantbird, and I’m at leviathan files. This week’s poet is Sara Teasdale. Please consider visiting our website at Riverhouse Games dot com, or supporting this show and other Riverhouse Games work on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Riverhouse Games. Music for this episode was provided by Battlebards dot com.
Listeners, I have a favor to ask of you. In these times there’s a lot that scares me in the world, but we have to stand up as a people and make our voices heard. I ask that you make a few phone calls to your representatives about issues that matter to you. I’ve been using a great website at 5 Calls dot org which provides critical issues, background information, contact info, and even scripts to read while on the phone. Thankfully my representative’s offices have been polite and personable when I call, but if you’re worried about it, or if you experience phone anxiety, there’s an app you can download called Stance, which allows you to pre-record your statement, which it will then deliver straight to the representative’s voicemail. Today I’m calling to demand that congress MANDATE THE DISCLOSURE OF ONLINE POLITICAL AD INFORMATION
This fall, the US electorate learned that Russian operatives spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on political ads across Facebook, Twitter and Google to influence the outcome of the 2016 US elections. Because online political advertising is not currently covered by political ad disclosure regulations (unlike television, print, and radio advertising), these ads went undetected for over a year. Campaign advertising requirements have not been substantively updated since the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, when Internet advertising was still in its early days. Consequently, the millions of American voters who were targeted by Russian political operatives were unaware of who was behind the political advertisements they were seeing, how they were being targeted, or the scope of Russian advertising influence on the electorate.
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mark Warner (D-VA) and John McCain (R-AZ) have introduced the bipartisan Honest Ads Act to update standards for political advertising and reduce the potential for foreign interference in future elections. The bill would mandate that all online ads include a disclosure statement identifying the ad as a political one. The bill would also require that platforms running online political ads (such as Facebook, Twitter or Google) build and maintain public databases of these ads. The databases would include images of the ads as well as information about the buyer, linked organizations, cost, and targeting. Furthermore, online platforms would be required to make “all reasonable efforts” to ensure political ads are not being purchased by foreign citizens or governments, just as radio and television broadcasters must already do. The new rules would apply to online platforms with more than 50 million active users, organizations buying political ads with a total value of over $500, and ads for both specific candidates and for legislative issues of national importance.
The Honest Ads Act is not a sufficient standalone response to Russia’s election interference in 2016, but it is a reasonable and necessary first step in safeguarding our democracy, informing our electorate, and ensuring campaign disclosure rules reflect the rapidly changing landscape of advertising and online media.
Please make your calls to help make our world a better place. Thank you, I love you, and I’m proud of you in advance.
And until next week, I hope your week goes well.
From The Jackals To The Shepherds 