Meanwhile, at the Bear Owl Sanctuary

We started what may become a new D&D campaign. It quickly went off the rails (as all the best campaigns do) with our unintentionally racist cleric and our mercenary paladin. Things reached their peak when our characters killed a sleeping owlbear. Our daughter commemorated the moment with this picture.

And now for some sadder news.

Mungo the porgbear was loved by all the children at St Brutus's Hospital, where he wandered the children's wing as a therapy bear. He could often be found rocking them to sleep, snuggling up with them or turning his head around to amuse the children who had been dealt a losing hand in life.

That is until this weekend, when he was brutally murdered in his sleep by a party of "heroes" employed by King Tristan. When asked for comment, the party's paladin Orion demanded payment up front before speaking, Raveena  tugged on her beard, Vidalia ate her namesake onions and Moser shouted racial slurs.

In lieu of flowers, the family of 400 surviving baby porgbears is requesting donations to St Brutus's. Services will be held at the chapel in the Starcourt Mall. It will be closed casket due to the condition of the deceased.

The Storms of Venus

I won't reprint the letter here, but a Zelazny fan whose first language is not English asked for some clarification regarding this exchange from "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth"

"You're from the Midwest, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"Get bad storms out there?"
"Sometimes."
"Try to think of the worst one you were ever in. Got a slide rule handy?"
"Right here."
"Then put a one under it, imagine a zero or two following after, and multiply the thing out."
"I can't imagine the zeros."
"Then retain the multiplicand—that's all you can do."

It's a bit tricky to decipher because it involves both the archaic instrument of a slide rule and the word "multiplicand", which itself is hardly in common use.

I think the slide rule is something of a distraction. Davits is basically saying that you want to imagine a large Midwestern storm (which would be the multiplicand, the item which is multiplied) and the one followed by a one or two zeroes in the multiplier.

A one followed by one zero would be ten and a one followed by two zeroes is one hundred. Davits is telling Mike that the tropical storms on Venus are ten to one hundred times more powerful in the American Midwest.

Jack and Jill went down the hill.

Gray and I ran after.

Story Preview: The Case That Baffled the Boy

At 18th Wall Productions, an exclusive look at The Case That Baffled the Boy, from Sockhops & Seances.

The invasion of robot bugs!

I saw this piece about a robot bug and couldn't help but think of Yama's own version in the monastery.

https://boingboing.net/2019/08/02/this-tiny-robot-bug-can-surviv.html

"Yet," said Aram, "Patanjali does state that it is the intention rather than the act which governs. Therefore, if I killed with love rather than malice, it would be as if I had not killed. I confess that this was not the case and that malice was present, therefore, even if I did not kill I do bear the burden of the guilt because of the presence of that intention. So I could step upon it now and be none the worse for it, according to the principle of ahimsa. Since I am a guest, however, I of course respect the practice and do not do this thing." With this, he moved his sandal away from the insect, which stood immobile, reddish antennae pricked upward."Indeed, he is a scholar," said one of the Order of Ratri.Aram smiled. "Thank you, but it is not so," he stated. "I am only a humble seeker of truth, and on occasion in the past have I been privileged to overhear the discourses of the learned. Would that I might be so privileged again! If there were some great teacher or scholar in the vicinity, then I would most surely walk across a bed of hot coals to sit at his feet and to hear his words or observe his example. If...”He stopped then, for all eyes had suddenly turned upon the doorway at his back. He did not move his head, but reached out to crush a beetle that stood near his hand. The tip of a small crystal and two tiny wires protruded through the broken chitin of its back.