What’s better than a column with a five-part list? A column with five five-part lists! I did that once before for Dar Hamaak and it ended up being an incredibly long column. This week… isn’t different in that regard. Oh, but it is different in that not every list has five entries.

Anyway, let’s get to the topic at hand: lists about House Delinoix. Despite how serious House Delinoix is and how seriously I generally treat them, today’s column is a bit different. I’m going to take a break from somber melodrama and dark subtext to be more whimsical. I hope you enjoy!
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My series detailing the major nations of Novagallia continues. Novagallia is one of the worlds most powerfully affected by the reality-manipulating effect that permeates the Ingressa. As a result, the people of Earth who settled the planet found lands, climates, and latitudes very similar to those they left. The Japanese who founded Toshima were no exception.

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, Toshima currently faces a pair of compounding crises that threaten its survival. First, the imperial regalia, symbols of the imperial family’s power, disappeared shortly after the death of the previous emperor. Without them, the heir-apparent, Princess Hiko, cannot rightfully claim the throne. Numerous daimyō throughout the nation, particularly in the south, claimed this as divine will and refused to accept Hiko as empress; their revolt, bolstered by neighboring Yamagawa, threw the country into civil war.
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Like Clydno, of Magic Halter fame, Gwenddoleu is descended from Old King Cole. The juxtaposition makes one wonder if perhaps we should discuss not the Halter of Clydno and the Chessboard of Gwenddoleu but the assorted treasures of Coel Hen and how he won them.

But that knowledge is lost to us. It cannot be said if Gwenddoleu came by these items from Coel Hen’s treasury or by their own merits.

What can be said is that Gwenddoleu owned a chessboard of gold and chessmen of silver and when laid out, these would play by themselves.
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(Did you know? Last week marked our first full year of putting up new content every single day in our columns. That’s fifty-two straight weeks without missing a day! We look forward to bringing you another fifty-two at least, and we hope you enjoy what we’ve done so far!)

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Five forms of power–resources, we call them–grant special, extra-normal abilities to those who wield them. Putting supernatural and technological abilities into neat categories is an aspect of “gamist” philosophy–shifting the storytelling of the universe to accommodate external, game-design-related needs. While the resources were certainly made with game-design needs in mind, they also do serve a storytelling purpose.
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There were two different guys named Padarn. I know that seems pretty absurd, since I don’t know a single guy named Padarn, but hey, I’ve also never actually met a guy named Logan or Han.

But, unlike Logan or Han, between these two guys named Padarn, there only seems to be one coat. I suppose, though, that there’s something to be said for owning a magic coat, whether or not you got it as a hand-me-down from some other guy also named Padarn. Maybe the coat likes guys named Padarn. It is a kind of cool name.
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The whetstone of Tudwal Tudglyd is the only one of the Treasures of Britain that I believe has been lost forever. The others have mostly, as mentioned, made their ways back out of the Glass House and returned to the world. But the whetstone? I have reason to believe what Myrddin received had already lost its power, having been used to make the White Sword of Rhydderech.

But then, maybe I’ve heard wrong.
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In the distant south of Caralis is a range of mountains that connects the uninhabited polar regions to the sparsely populated fringes of the planet’s smallest continent. The mountains run nearly a thousand kilometers, separated frequently by ocean channels where their valleys dip too deep, and outlined on either side by narrow shores. Some thirty or forty independent mining settlements cling to their sides, but no nation has ever tried to claim the mountains for itself.

Competition for the rights to mining operations began with the discovery of pockets of high-purity bismuth, valuable for the creation of the delicate circuitry in psionically empowered devices. Mining companies from Caralis’ Galerine provinces bid against each other to buy entire villages and the mines on which they were built, and before long, offworld companies joined in: Skandakata’s Nidhi Exploration Company, the Wuyun Corporation of Wéiān, and at least three front-companies controlled by TDA. During a meeting of representatives from these groups in the village of Aesis, the discovery of an artifact in one of the mines caused negotiations to take an unexpectedly mythic turn.
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Some things are too good to be left in this world for long.

The Cauldron of Dyrnwch the Giant will only cook for the brave; a coward’s food will never boil in it. (I wonder if that is what’s up with my back burner.) If that doesn’t sound useful to you, think about some of your friends. Do you know a guy or three who are all bluff and bluster? What about a quiet one who’s just always there to help someone out of trouble? Would you have ever have found it useful to know one from the other ahead of time?
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Llawfrodedd had a knife, long and sharp. And it would serve twenty-four at the table.

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There’s a whole bunch of material tied up just there. Here we have Llawfrodedd, a Man of the North, and he has reason to serve twenty-four men at his table. That’s a scary thought in itself, if you’re looking at the Men of the North. He’s counted who’s eating at his table.

And he has a knife that doesn’t need sharpening.

Think about that for a minute.
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Clydno is, as things turn out, descended from Old King Cole, the merry old soul, and I wonder why Cole’s Pipe isn’t among the list of treasures of the isle of Britain. Perhaps it was lost; its music broken forever.

But we’re not here to talk about Coel Hen, but about his descendant. We can tell stories about fiddlers and pipers another day.
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