Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa Mackinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Kyle Krueger, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Transcription:

A week has passed
We found something digging in the mud and a week has passed and
We made new families and a week has passed and
We planted our gardens and a week has passed and
We met The Beast and a week has passed and
We met The Creature and a week has passed and
We saw a good omen and a week has passed and
We consolidate our tools and a week has passed and
We learned the legends passed down by those before us and a week has passed and
We splash in beauty and a week has passed and
We learn of the ruinous girl who has been with us a long time and a week has passed and
We meet the charismatic girl who has been with us a long time and a week has passed and
We feel old love and a week has passed and
We get into a playground fight and a week has passed and
We find the first pine tree and a week has passed and
We prepare to kill The Creature and a week has passed and
We say goodbye to old love and a week has passed and
We die to The Creature’s hand, defending its home, and a week has passed and
We feel the hunger of summer storms and a week has passed and
We know that summer is fleeting and a week has passed and
We welcome a new face into our community and a week has passed and
We feel the potential of summer all around us and a week has passed and
We try the first ritual and a week has passed and
We welcome a new family into our community and a week has passed and
We build new homes and a week has passed and
We are reminded of the danger of the woods and a week has passed and
We discover the absence of wildlife and a week has passed and
We slip in our ritual, dooming us all and a week has passed and
We mar something beautiful and a week has passed and
We meet the marauders and a week has passed and
We fight ourselves, fighting progress as well and a week has passed and
We part ways with those who feel they cannot belong and a week has passed and
We weather a natural disaster and a week has passed and
We enjoy the fruits of our labors and a week has passed and
We quarantine our ill and a week has passed and
We mourn the death of the strongest among us and a week has passed and
We throw our strength into a single project and a week has passed and
We finish a project early and a week has passed and
We are cold, tired, and miserable and a week has passed and
We react to the winter weather and a week has passed and
We watch a soul disappear into the winter night and a week has passed and
We see a good omen and a week has passed and
The Frost Shepherds arrive.
When the sun finally returns to the sky, the mountains are still. The river continues to run. Winter lasts forever and is over in as much time as it takes to declare that spring has arrived.

We are all that is left, and we have been searching for a place to call home. We find ourselves gathered together in a dark wood, nestled between sharp mountain ridges. The forest is filled with scrawny and sickly trees that stretch upwards like twisted spears. We make our way through the forest to find a small river and an abandoned mining camp. The buildings of the camp are rusted and the wood in them rotting. Mysteriously, all of the trees in this area have been cut despite the area having been abandoned long ago, and only the occasional stump remains, sticking up from the ground. The sun has dipped below the horizon as we take stock of the area and group together.

Many weeks pass.

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/

The poet this week is Sylvia Plath: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa Mackinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Forgotten Chamber – Power Unfaded – Score Music – Dimitris Vachaviolos

Underground Lake City – Whispers of the World Below the World – Score Music – Marko Gugic

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.

Eileen who has been with us a long time is perfected.

She walks through the community square in the still frost of a winter midnight, her dead body wears the smile of accomplishment, the illusion of a Greek necessity flows in the scrolls of her toga, her bare feet seem to be saying: we have come so far, it is over.

As she walks sprites come down from the mountaintops each one coiled, a white serpent, one at each little personal garden, now empty. She has folded them back into her body as petals of a rose close when the garden stiffens and odors bleed from the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about, staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.

As Eileen who has been with us a long time walks into the forest, escorted by the rippling roots of pine trees which leave needles scattered over her path, she passes the Jewel of Gerard. The red rock iced over and pastel rusted snow drips from its pocked surface.

In the morning she is gone, but the flowers once shriveled and frozen rise up healthy and red in the dry sunlight of the morning.

We see this good omen and know that despite those who have left us, we can grow out and up, into the sun as the flowers do. Our personal gardens bloom, with red flowers, oily and bright, pierce the snow and reach to the sky.

Emboldened by this good omen, we set about the camp. Remaining in our homes until spring will only breed restlessness, and what better way to shake that restlessness than exploring.

We walk through the sickly trees, speared up into the air from the crusted forest snow. Our vision now is only blocked by pine trees we could have sworn did not grow when we first settled in the area those months ago. Some circle around small clearings, others form lines in the woods, still others dot the landscape randomly.

One grows on the bank of the river, and as Safwan approaches it, they hear a whisper ease from the bark, and stumble back in fear as a woman’s face rotates into view, mossy and old.

“I know the bottom of the river,” she says. “I know it with my great tap root: it is what you fear. I do not fear it: I have been there. Is it the sea you hear in me, its dissatisfactions? Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness? Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it – Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.”

Saffwan stands still and thy hear the rumble of the river, frozen over, whose current rumbles against its icy cover. Ezekiel walks its banks but trips in shock as the rumbling turns into a voice that greets him, saying,

“All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously, till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf, echoing, echoing. Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons? This is rain now, this big hush. And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.”

The pine continues to Saffwan:

“I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets. Scorched to the root my red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires. Soon I will break in pieces that fly about like clubs. A wind of such violence Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek. The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me cruelly, being barren. Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her. I let her go. I let her go diminished and flat, as after radical surgery. How your bad dreams possess and endow me.”

Yuen plays throwing snow and ice at the boarded doors to the mines. Her arm halts mid-throw as she hears a reptilian voice eke out from the cracks in the wood and stone:

“I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps out looking, with its hooks, for something to love. I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me; all day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity. Clouds pass and disperse. Is yours the face of love, that pale irretrievable? Is it for such you agitate my heart?”

That night, trying to explain to the adults the children are unable to remember the words, they find themselves incapable of more knowledge. What was this, this face shown to Saffwan, so murderous in its strangle of branches? What was this voice that spoke to Yuen, its snaky acids hissing. What spoke to Ezekiel, which petrifies the will.

These are the isolate, slow faults that kill, that kill, that kill.

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the fortieth 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 Sylvia Plath. 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 needs doing in the world, and 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. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to PROTECT MUELLER AND THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

The New York Times reported that in June of 2017, Trump ordered the firing of Robert Mueller, but backed down when his White House lawyer threatened to quit over the decision.

Trump has been publicly playing with the idea of firing Mueller, the special prosecutor leading the independent investigation into Russia’s election interference, their potential ties to the Trump campaign, obstruction of justice, and a litany of related financial concerns. Trump cannot fire Mueller himself, but he can coerce someone in the Justice Department to do so. Trump’s public criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, causing many to believe Trump may fire Sessions and replace him with someone who agrees to fire Mueller. Trump could even launch a large scale staffing shake-up, similar to Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre,” until he finds someone willing to fire Mueller.

Last fall, Mueller impaneled a grand jury in Washington D.C. That was a significant development, showing Mueller’s seriousness in moving the investigation forward with prosecutions in mind; the grand jury allows Mueller to subpoena documents, call witnesses to testify under oath, and indict individuals if sufficient evidence of a crime arises. Because grand juries are arranged by prosecutors, if Mueller were fired now, this grand jury would effectively be dismantled. It is vital that Mueller’s position and investigation be protected.

Two bipartisan bills have been introduced in the Senate to do just that – one by Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and one by Chris Coons (D-DE) and Thom Tillis (R-NC). While the bills differ in when a judges panel would review the firing of a special prosecutor, both plans limit a president’s ability to do so.

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.

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/

The poet this week is Paul Laurence Dunbar: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/paul-laurence-dunbar

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa Mackinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Forgotten Chamber – Chamber of Voices – Score Music – Andrea Marras

Dark Elf Temple – Supplicant to Demons and Web – Source Music – Phil Archer

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.

More than a week has passed.

Time passes.

Forever passes in the quiet still of a snow that falls onto the mining village as the sickly trees break brittle their ice covered boughs.

Eileen who has been with us a long time had not known before forever was so long a word. The slow stroke of the clock of time she had not heard. ‘Tis hard to learn so late; it seems no sad heart really learns, but hopes and trusts and doubts and fears, and bleeds and burns.

The night is not all dark, nor is the day all it seems, but each may bring her this relief— her dreams and dreams. She had not known before that Never was so sad a word, but wrapped in desired forgetfulness— she wishes to not have heard.

Again a morning comes and we are less. The bandit leader, strong and cunning, having brought her marauders in to our community for warmth and home, does not sit at our breakfast table this morning. Footprints in the snow lead from her shack out to the circle of pines and disappear in snowy drifts from the nightly winds.

The night before, she stirs. Drachs voice growling in the night, prowling close to her window with animal longing or a stirred remembering of past life. Snow falls to collect on a hairy shoulder, and breath condenses from a toothy maw. As the Beast walks through the mining camp with Drach’s eyes, the bandit leader wakes to see. She grabs her knife and her coat and opens the door to the wind, stepping out into the night. She follows Drach unseen until he disappears into a circle of pine trees, strangely close to the camp, not there the night before but thick and tall as if they’ve been there for all time.

She walks into the circle of pines and into a mountain cave filled with sprites flying throughout the air wearing masks made of ice. Before she loses consciousness she hears them rasp out verses of a faerie poem:

We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— this debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile and mouth with myriad subtleties, why should the world be over-wise, in counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while we wear the mask. We smile, but oh great shepherds, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile beneath our feet, and long the mile, but let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!

The bandit leader learns the debt we bear just for one quiet year, times of regret and grief, sorrow without relief. Pay it we will to the end— until the grave, our friend, gives us a true release— gives us the clasp of peace. Slight was the thing we bought, small was the debt we thought, poor was the loan at best— and now the Frost Shepherds prepare to collect the interest!

As the last footprint of the bandit leader drifts over with winter snow, and Eileen who has been with us a long time helps Ezekiel remove his frozen boots, we look up to the mountains where a great fog is forming, rolling slowly down to our community, and we discover yet another phenomenon of our new home. As the fog freezes overnight we wake to thick layers of frost that seems to twist into floral patterns, petals of ice growing everywhere we look.

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the fortieth 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 Paul Laurence Dunbar. 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 needs doing in the world, and 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. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to OPPOSE WORK REQUIREMENTS FOR MEDICAID BENEFICIARIES

On January 11, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released new policy guidance that allows states to impose work requirements on working-age, non-pregnant, unemployed adults in order to receive Medicaid coverage. States must specify how they will help Medicaid beneficiaries find work by connecting them to services like job training. However, CMS prohibits states from using federal Medicaid money to fund these services. CMS also allows for some exemptions to work requirements, e.g. for people who are ill or disabled; however, qualifying for these exemptions will be difficult, and many who should be exempt will likely lose Medicaid coverage anyway. Also, people who already meet the work requirement would need to demonstrate their compliance or risk losing their benefits.

About 60% of non-disabled adults on Medicaid already work. Thirty-six percent of those without jobs are too sick or disabled to work, 30% are acting as caregivers, and 15% are students. Imposing work requirements on this population will not decrease unemployment. An evaluation of work requirements in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program found that 5-year employment rates among TANF recipients with and without work requirements were the same. The study also found that the overwhelming majority of people who got jobs remained in poverty. By contrast, a study of Medicaid estimated that the program kept 2.1 million Americans out of poverty and 1.4 million out of extreme poverty in 2010.

Medicaid is designed to be a safety net program that helps protect low-income people from disabling illness and medical bankruptcy. Imposing work requirements is inherently at odds with Medicaid’s core mission and will penalize thousands of Americans simply for being low-income and struggling. Congress must challenge this dangerous decision by CMS to limit access to Medicaid.

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.

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/

The poet this week is Edith Södergran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_S%C3%B6dergran

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa Mackinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Portents of the Future – Prophecy of the White Witch – Score Music – Lois Paton

Elven Dirge – Fallen Petals – Score Music – Phil Stokes

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.

Some of our younger members lived their entire lives in the city, before the Jackals came. Winter comes to them foreign and in another language. As the wood of our homes creaks and cracks in the dry frozen air we translate to them, and tell them what to expect from short days and long nights. The soldier and the farmer would have been the best to tell the children how the cold was an enemy to fortify against, that can be beaten, or how the snow blankets the fields, only to melt and water crops months later. With their deaths still heavy on us like the spindled icicles hanging over our heads, we make do.

Everything frozen, solid unmoving, unchangeable, brittle and breakable. The river’s mud once held Ezekiel’s attention but try as he might to crack the shell of ice, his trowel pulls only solid slivers from the black river’s banks. Implausible fish bloom in the depths, mercurial flowers light up the coast; we know red and yellow, the other colors,— but the sea, the unseen outlet of the river’s progress, that’s most dangerous to look at. What name is there for the color that arouses this thirst, which says, the saga can happen, even to you—

As the temperatures plunge further every day we restrict our movements, freeze ourselves inside. Cooped up, the children run and scream and set off the nerves of their caretakers. It might be nice to give them a chance to play outside, but half an hour of bundling up with small fur jackets and mittens and hats and scarves and thick pants tucked into stiff boots with woolen socks on, wrapped up until the children are as muffled as the snowy ground they stomp on. The Creature remains completely unaware of their presence deep in its cave. Their forms are so padded The Beast cannot smell them from its home in the woods. Only Eileen, who has been with us a long time, watching from a window as her eyes roll with ocean turbulence, looks on.

The footprints that the children leave in the thick snow blow over with wind in less than an hour, large dunes of snow build up between shacks, drifts close in on doors. The red sun rises without intent and shines the same on all of us. We play like children under the sun. One day, our ashes will scatter— it doesn’t matter when. Now the sun finds our innermost hearts, fills us with oblivion intense as the forest, winter and sea. Back inside & shivering, Yuen hangs up a dripping sock near a weak fireplace.

That the stars are adamant everyone understands— but Eileen who has been with us a long time won’t give up seeking joy on each river wave or peace below every gray stone. If happiness never comes, what is a life? A lily withers in the sand and if its nature has failed? The tide washes the beach at night. What is the fly looking for on the spider’s web? What does a dayfly make of its hours? (Two wings creased over a hollow body.) Black will never turn to white— yet the perfume of our struggle lingers as each morning fresh flowers spring up from hell. The day will come when the earth is emptied, the skies collapse and all goes still— when nothing remains but the dayfly folded in a leaf. But no one knows it except for Eileen who has been with us a long time, and she cannot begin to warn us.

We begin a project this week. The blood red plants that bloom in the snow must have something in their veins to ward against the cold. On even the harshest days when our breath hardens our lungs and the wind numbs our fingers the moment we walk outside, the flowers still pop and ooze. Locked inside to fight the cold we have little else to do but wonder, and see if this is something we can learn to benefit us in the cold months ahead.

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the thirty ninth 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 Edith Södergran. 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 needs doing in the world, and 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. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to CLOSE THE BOYFRIEND LOOPHOLE FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE GUN BANS

As we piece together the terrible personal histories of the mass shooters in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, once again we are reminded that the majority of mass shooters have a history of intimate partner violence and domestic abuse. Extensive data have shown that people who abuse and threaten partners and family members are even more dangerous when they have access to firearms. In fact, abused women are 5 times more likely to be killed by their abuser if the abuser has access to a gun.

Although keeping guns out of abusers’ hands reduces gun violence, major loopholes in federal gun safety laws allow users to readily access firearms. For example, federal law does not consider an assault domestic violence if the abuser and victim were in a dating relationship without living together or having a child together. This so-called “boyfriend loophole” leaves thousands of abusers able to legally purchase guns to use against their victims. Also, although it is well known that stalking is a reliable predictor of future violent behavior (76% of women murdered and 85% who survived a murder attempt by a current or former intimate partner experienced stalking according to one study), federal law does not consider misdemeanor stalking as a serious enough crime to limit an abuser’s access to guns. Furthermore, federal law does nothing to restrict an abuser’s access to guns during the most dangerous time for victims of domestic violence, the period when a victim has left their abuser and filed for a Temporary Restraining Order. Until the restraining order is permanent, violent abusers can easily buy and use a firearm.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate have proposed several bills to close the boyfriend loophole, protect victims of stalking, and limit abusers’ access to deadly weapons. Congress must act now to prevent perpetrators of domestic abuse from accessing deadly firearms.

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.

[Content warning for character death]

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/

The poet this week is Edna St. Vincent Millay: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edna-st-vincent-millay

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Crypts of the Undead – Where the Dead Dwell – Score Music – Wilddog Productions

Ancient Chamber – Eon City – Score Music – Mark Stothard

Heavenly Plane – Paradise – Score Music – Luka Lebanidze

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.

It becomes time to accept that many good people are dead. From their old coats we make little jackets; we make little trousers from their old pants. There’ll be in their pockets things they used to put there, keys and coins covered with dust and straw; Ezekiel shall have the coins to save in his bank; Yuen shall have the keys to make a pretty noise with. Life must go on, and the dead be forgotten; life must go on, though good folk die; we eat our breakfast; we take our medicine; life must go on; we forget just why.

Llyana knows what zer heart is like since zer love died: It is like a hollow ledge holding a little pool left there by the tide, a little tepid pool, drying inward from the edge. The winter’s freeze caps the ebb of the pool, holding its volume unchanging against the hard mountain stone.

Winter arrives without invitation, without asking if it can take our warmth from our chest, and without letting us dry the tears as they fall. Winter freezes a mask of grief.

What lips our lips have kissed, and where, and why, we have forgotten, and what arms have lain under our heads till morning; but the snow is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh upon the glass and listen for reply, and in our heart there stirs a quiet pain for unremembered lads that not again will turn to us at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, yet knows its boughs more silent than before: Llyana cannot say what loves have come and gone, ze only know that summer sang in zem a little while, that in zem sings no more.

We wake to find zer fireplace cold with the ashes of yesterday hard against the stone. Zer face covered by an icy mask.

Winter elements leave everyone cold, tired, and miserable. From fatigue physical and emotional comes a deep sleep, and Llyana’s eyes close in a forever slumber.

All ze could see from where ze stood was three long mountains and a wood; ze turned and looked another way, and saw three islands in a bay. So with zer eyes ze traced the line of the river, thin and fine, straight around till ze was come back to where ze’d started from; and all ze saw from where ze stood was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things ze could not see; these were the things that bounded ze; and ze could touch them with zer hand, almost, ze thought, from where ze stands. And all at once things seemed so small zer breath came short, and scarce at all.
 
Ze screamed, and—lo!—Infinity came down and settled over zem; forced back zer scream into zer chest, bent back zer arm upon zer breast, and, pressing of the Undefined the definition on zer mind, held up before zer eyes a glass through which zer shrinking sight did pass until it seemed ze must behold immensity made manifold; whispered to zem a word whose sound deafened the air for worlds around, and brought unmuffled to zer ears the gossiping of friendly spheres, the creaking of the tented sky, the ticking of Eternity.

Ze saw and heard, and knew at last the How and Why of all things, past, and present, and forevermore. The Universe, cleft to the core, lay open to zer probing sense that, sick’ning, ze would fain pluck thence but could not,—nay! But needs must suck at the great wound, and could not pluck zer lips away till ze had drawn all venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn! For zer omniscience paid ze toll in infinite remorse of soul.

All sin was of the wishful girl who had been with us a long time, all atoning hers, and hers the gall of all regret. Hers was the weight of every brooded wrong, the hate that stood behind each envious thrust, hers every greed, hers every lust. And all the while for every grief, each suffering, she craved relief with individual desire,— craved all in vain! And felt fierce cold our community crawl; perished with each,—then mourned for all!

Drach was starving in a cave; he moved his eyes and looked at her; she felt his gaze, she heard his moan, and knew his wolven hunger as her own. She saw at sea a great fog bank between two ships that struck and sank; a thousand screams the heavens smote; and every scream tore through his throat.

No hurt he did not feel, no death that was not his; his each last breath that, crying, met an answering cry from the compassion that was hers. All suffering theirs, and theirs its rod; theirs, pity like the pity of God.

Ah, awful weight! Infinity pressed down upon the finite Me! Llyana’s anguished spirit, like a bird, beating against zer lips ze heard; yet lay the weight so close about there was no room for it without. And so beneath the weight lay ze and suffered death, but could not reach infinity.

Long had ze lain thus, craving death, when quietly the earth beneath gave way, and inch by inch, so great at last had grown the crushing weight, into the earth ze sank till ze full six feet under ground did lie, and sank no more,—there is no weight can follow here, however great. From off scaled breast ze felt it roll, and as it went zer tortured soul burst forth and fled in such a gust that all about zem swirled the dust.

Deep in the cave ze rested now; the cool hand of the conjurant girl who has been with us a long time upon zer brow and soft zer breast beneath the head of one who is not gladly dead. And all at once, and over all the pitying snow began to fall; They three lay and heard each melting drip upon the mountainous step, and seemed to love the sound far more than ever they had done before. For snow it hath a friendly sound to one who’s six feet underground; and scarce the friendly voice or face: a grave is such a quiet place.

Eileen leaves flowers dead, dried, cracking on Llyana’s grave. How can she bear it; Llyana buried there, while overhead the sky grows clear and blue again after the storm? O, multi-colored, multiform, beloved beauty, that she shall never, never see again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold, that she shall never more behold! Sleeping zer myriad magics through,  close-sepulchred away from you! O God, she cried, give zem new birth, and put zem back upon the earth! Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd and let the heavy snow, down-poured in one big blanket, set me free, washing zer grave away from me!

She ceased; and through the breathless hush that answered her, the muffled rush of scaled claws came whispering like music up the vibrant string of her ascending prayer, and—crash! Hidden in the wild wind’s whistling lash the startled Creature woke in turn and roared up in terror in its cavern, and the big snow in one white wave resumed its surge and struck the grave.

Eileen knew not how such things can be; she only knows there came to her a fragrance such as never clings to aught save happy living things; a sound as of some joyous elf singing sweet songs to please himself, and, through and over everything, a sense of glad awakening. The ice, a-tiptoe at her ear, whispering to her she could hear; in the cave the confused girl who has been with us a long time felt the sprite’s cool finger-tips brushed tenderly across her lips, laid gently on her sealed sight, and all at once the heavy night fell from Eileen’s eyes and she could see,—
A drenched and dripping apple-tree, A last long line of silver snow, A sky grown clear and blue again. And as she looked a quickening gust of wind blew up to her and thrust into her face a miracle of stale mountain-breath, and with the smell,— she knew not how such things could be!— the fading girl who has been with us a long time breathed her soul back into she.

Up then from the ground sprang Eileen who hailed the earth with such a cry as is not heard save from she who has been dead, and lives again. About the circling pines her arms she wound; like one gone mad she hugged the ground; she raised her quivering arms on high; and laughed and laughed into the sky, till at her throat a strangling sob caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb sent instant tears into her eyes; O God, she cried, no dark disguise can e’er hereafter hide from me thy radiant identity!

Shepherds move across the cycles of time and her quick eyes do see Them pass, and speak, however silently, and her hushed voice answers Them. She knows the path that tells Their way through the cool eve of every day; God, she can push the cycles apart and lay her finger on Their heart!

The world stands out on either side no wider than the heart is wide; above the world is stretched the sky,— no higher than the soul is high. The heart can push river and land farther away on either hand; the soul can split the sky in two, and let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart that can not keep them pushed apart; and she whose soul is flat—the sky will cave in on her by and by. And so Eileen who has been with us a long time turns to The Beast and The Creature, taking their hands, and rising to the sky.

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the thirty sixth 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 T.E. Hulme. 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 needs doing in the world, and 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. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to DEMAND PROTECTION OF OUR NATIONAL MONUMENTS

On Monday, December 4th, Trump traveled to Utah to announce the reduction of two National Monuments in the state: Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Combined, the reduction removes two million acres of land from the public, shrinking Bear’s Ears by a whopping 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 45%. This decision by Trump represents the largest rollback of federally protected land in American history, opening the way for development, logging, drilling, and mining on these lands.

This assault on our public lands is just his first. In April, Trump issued an executive order directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review the status of all national monuments that make up 100,000+ acres and were created since 1996 under the Antiquities Act of 1906. The results of this review, leaked to the Washington Post in September, recommended modifying 10 national monuments including the shrinking of at least four. These sites include the 2 Utah monuments along with Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou.

There is some question if Trump has the authority to reduce National Monuments under the Antiquates Act of 1906, and legal challenges by Native American and environmental groups have already been filed. Congress also has a responsibility to speak out against this attack on public lands and demand Trump change course.

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.

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Elven Dirge – Undome ar lomin – Score Music – Stephane Lorello

Forgotten Chamber – Power Unfaded – Score Music – Dimitris Vachaviolos

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.

Occasionally, we lack verse for our stories, as the events of life do not sync with poems or songs.

The shovels dig into the frozen earth as we burrow deep for our food store’s foundation. The steel scrapes against the icy dirt and we chisel downwards and downwards in the frigid fall air. Soon it will be winter in earnest and although the river still runs, throwing mist into the air to create halos with our shadows, the ground remains as hard and unmoving as stone.

That is, until we breach through the layer of solid ground and into an opening. We had nearly forgotten all those months ago, of our friends lost in the mines when we ventured deep to confront The Creature. Yet, when we set about to dig our base we had moved far away from the hill. No distance, it seems could put us away from the burrowing halls and carved passages underground. As the first shovel breaks through the crust and sends it wielder flying, we start back, prepared to flee or to be devoured. And yet, no movement ekes its way up from the crack. The frozen shell of the earth does not give way to a scaled eye in this moment. And we breathe a sigh of relief.

The opening we have found was long ago sealed off from the rest of the mines, it seems. As we widen the hole enough to get a good view inside, we notice a cave-in further down; long wicked roots weaving through crumbled dirt. The lack of any motion inside the cavern emboldens us enough to cautiously ease down into the space, where we find a hermetically sealed cavern. Some of the roots near the cave-in glow a soft blue when we brush dirt from them, however no signs of life other than ourselves fills the cave. Our foundation is completed with barely any effort.

As the last days of autumn crystalize away into the cold afternoon of winter, we gather around a celebratory bonfire to share songs and enjoy a warm meal. Between celebrations, we load up our new storeroom with hearty roots and jars of food to keep during the cold days to come. We discover something new as well, as small black flowers bloom from underneath the snow. The color of the petals looks like the night sky, but as Yuen steps on one to crush it under her boot, the bud bursts and a deep red oozes into the white snow. She giggles and kicks some of the snow at Ezekiel and Safwan, who both scamper away laughing.

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the thirty sixth 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 T.E. Hulme. 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 needs doing in the world, and 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. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to protect the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which Congress passed in 1990, is designed to provide people with disabilities equal access to employment, government services, public accommodations and businesses, and transportation services. Title III of the ADA requires businesses to proactively remove obstacles that prevent people with disabilities from accessing their establishments. However, businesses have resisted Title III for decades and have now pressured Congress to pass a law, the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017, to drastically limit Title III enforcement.

The ADA Education and Reform Act, H.R. 620, would eliminate all incentives for businesses to proactively ensure their businesses are accessible to people with disabilities. Instead, people with disabilities would have to notify businesses when their rights are violated, wait six months for the business to act to address issues, and only then bring the matter to court. The bill further exempts businesses from facing any penalties for noncompliance, as long as they can show “substantial progress” in fixing issues. Thus, people with disabilities could be forced to wait to access necessary services for months or even years while waiting for businesses to decide to comply with the ADA.

By shifting the responsibility of ADA compliance from businesses to people with disabilities, Congress is essentially destroying a key element of the ADA. People with disabilities already face substantial obstacles to full participation in public life even with Title III in place. It would be unacceptable to weaken this provision further.

H.R. 620 has passed committee and now awaits a full member vote on the House floor.

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.

The poet this week is T.E. Hulme: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/t-e-hulme

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

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.

The scratch of pen on paper, the ring of hammer on nail, and the sound of warm laughter in the autumn air ring an echo in our ears of Drach’s absence. Idle hands lead to idle hearts he was fond of saying, and we know that if we took more than a moment to focus on his fate that the idle heart of grief would drown. We focus our efforts on a central project, as those few of us gathering wood soon become those many of us and we decide to step up our efforts. We add on to the project to bring down those trees large enough to sustain the fires in our empty homes as a way of paying tribute to his loss, and the circle of pines watch, at night their faces turn to each other and babble their speculative mourning.

Eileen watches the community throw their strength into this project, remembering her time with Drach in the spring following Jules and Gerrard’s deaths. Lighthearted they had walked into the valley wood in the time of hyacinths, till beauty like a scented cloth cast over, stifled them, bound motionless and faint of breath by loveliness that is her own eunuch.

Now Eileen passes to the final river ignominiously, in a daze, without sound.

The creak of a falling tree fills all our ears as we watch another fall to be cut in smaller bits by the town. Llyana helps pull the sickly trunk clear of the line and as ze stretches zer back, ze look to the moon hanging high in the fall sky.

Beauty is the marking-time, the stationary vibration, the feigned ecstasy of an arrested impulse unable to reach its natural end.

Llyana, whose bent form the sky in archèd circle is, seems ever for an unknown grief to mourn. Yet today we hear zer cry of weariness of the roses and the singing poets. Ze wipes away sweat of hard work and sets about cracking boughs and splitting knots.

A touch of cold in the Autumn night – the terrifying girl who has been with us a long time walks abroad, and she sees the ruddy moon lean over a hedge like a red-faced farmer.
She does not stop to speak, but nods, and round about the wistful stars blink, and send white faces like town children. As the light of the stars touch the split trunks of the ancient yet ascetic trees the transforming girl who has been with a long time lifts her hands and picks iridescent scales from between her fingers. She turns her luned eyes to the moon watching down. The clearing grows larger this cycle.

We start a new project, the last we will start before winter comes. The excess of lumber affords us the resources to rebuild our food stores, and perhaps this time the building will stay upright. To counter the failings of the last attempt, we dig deep for the foundation. The scraping of steel tools on frozen earth echoes in a blue cave, and scaled eyes open, reptilian nostrils breath blue mist through a cave, and a Creature stirs.

Thank you for joining us for the thirty sixth 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 T.E. Hulme. 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 needs doing in the world, and 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. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to stop final passage of the disastrous Republican tax bill.

Around 2am on December 2nd, the Senate voted 51-49 to pass H.R. 1, the Republicans’ sweeping, multi-trillion dollar tax bill. Bob Corker (R-TN) was the only GOP Senator to vote No, citing the bill’s massive and consistently-reported $1.4 trillion deficit increase as a dealbreaker. In a major departure from procedural norms, Senate GOP leadership waited until only a few hours of floor debate remained to unveil the final text of the bill (479 pages, filled with illegible notes and changes written by lobbyists), preventing senators, nonpartisan analysts, and the American public from understanding the bill’s widespread effects before the vote took place.

The House and Senate have now each passed differing versions of H.R. 1, setting up two potential paths forward for the bill. Either the House will simply vote to pass the Senate’s version, or the two chambers will agree to go to Conference Committee where an identical compromise bill will be agreed upon and sent back to each chamber for another full member floor vote. While the former path leaves little room for change, a Conference Committee creates a window for the bill to be derailed. The chambers may struggle to reconcile differences — ACA individual mandate repeal, child tax credit, estate tax, etc. — or other previously agreed upon caveats may fail in the interim. For example, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), voted for the Senate bill under the condition that two ACA-protecting bills pass first, but the House has offered no guarantees that they will pass either of them.

Regardless of the tax bill’s path forward, the passage of this bill in both chambers has illustrated that Republicans have prioritized lining the pocketbooks of the wealthy and corporations over providing much-needed relief for struggling middle-class families and workers.

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.

The poet this week is Claude McKay: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/claude-mckay

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor – Aaron

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

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.

We don’t choose the cards we’re dealt.

If we must die, let it not be like hogs hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, while round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain; then even the monsters we defy shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, and for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Connecting cabins together with walls and halls makes the disparate shacks of the old mining community into one large building. Sleeping quarters ring around our central square where the ruined model of a skyscraper towers in the open air. Drach smooths the last sealing coat over his work and watches it dry slowly in the cold autumn air. The heavy snowfall of weeks prior has all melted away and we feel unusually warm this far late into the year. As he sets his brush down a roar and a scream pull from the woods.

Sopping wet, The Beast pulls itself from the bank of the river, little Ezekiel trying to scamper backwards over the hardened sand. Having run from his work, Drach is the first to reach the river. The fur of The Beast, once lush and full now hugs to its bones and while its stomach warms from its meal of the bandits recently, it still bears the signs of starvation. It hesitates when it sees Drach, and Drach hesitates as well.

The morning sun sparkles on the frost that grows on the withered stalks of the flowers that grow from the Jewel of Gerrard. Ezekiel runs to the shacks crying as Drach holds The Beast back. By the time the rest of us arrive it is too late. We rob The Beast of a meal, but not of a kill.

We do not joy to see the playful snow, like white moths trembling on the tropic air, or waters of the hills that softly flow gracefully falling down a shining stair. And when the fields and paths are covered white and the wind-worried void is chilly, raw, and in the mountains a spell of heat and light the cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw, like the mourning girl who has been with us a long time you’ll long for home, where birds’ glad song meant flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry, and tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong, beneath a vivid silver-flecked blue sky. But oh! more than the changeless southern isles, when Spring has shed upon the earth her charm, we’ll love the Northland wreathed in golden smiles by the miraculous sun turned glad and warm.

We find Drach’s journal under his cot. The last page a meditation on anger, reflecting on the Jackals, the bandits who now share our homes, and the monsters living both in the woods and in his dreams. He ends with a poem, and as we read it out loud, we set about a new project: with Drach’s own tools we begin to dig a well. Without the protective girl who’s been with us a long time, we no longer feel the strong pull to the river, and we can’t guarantee that it will stay flowing in the cold of winter. We put our mourning to use in the same way he did, transferring our emotions into work.

Drach:

Anyway, I found this poem in one of Clovis’s books. He said he used to read it to Figueroa whenever the Jackals took strides. I gotta keep it in mind, remember it when things get too rough.

I will not toy with it nor bend an inch.
Deep in the secret chambers of my heart
I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch
I bear it nobly as I live my part.
My being would be a skeleton, a shell,
If this dark Passion that fills my every mood,
And makes my heaven in the white world’s hell,
Did not forever feed me vital blood.
I see the mighty city through a mist—
The strident trains that speed the goaded mass,
The poles and spires and towers vapor-kissed,
The fortressed port through which the great ships pass,
The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate,
Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.

Never was a lot for poetry before but I like this one. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, journal. Those houses won’t seal themselves.

Thank you for joining us for the thirty fifth 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. The voice of Drach is Aaron Catano You can find Aaron on twitter at Aaron underscore Catano, where you can reach him for all sorts of Voiceover work. He’s been an absolute joy to work with, and you should check him out if you need anything. This week’s poet is Claude McKay. 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 needs doing in the world, and 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. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to DEMAND THE FCC MAINTAIN NET NEUTRALITY.

Internet users scored a significant victory in 2014 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) installed protections for net neutrality and the “open Internet.” Net neutrality allows all users to have equal access to everything available on the Internet, and prevents Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from essentially turning the internet into cable television — creating fast and slow speeds for sites of their choosing and charging consumers premium prices for upgraded access. Without net neutrality, small businesses, low-income individuals, and much of rural America would lose access to affordable, reasonably-fast internet service.

The four major ISPs (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and AT&T) have been lobbying against the 2014 net neutrality regulations, frustrated by the constraints placed on their ability to profit from those who need their services the most. They have specifically targeted the classification of ISPs as Title II services, a category that requires more strict federal oversight. In response to their lobbying efforts, the new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has pledged to roll back these net neutrality protections with a softer Title I classification and will allow ISPs to instead make voluntary, unenforceable commitments that they will maintain the open Internet.

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.

The poet this week is Yone Noguchi: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/yone-noguchi

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Elven Dirge – I Nainie A Nierme Uuvea – Score Music – Mike Bridge

Dark Elf Temple – Ode to Submission – Score Music – Cameron Last

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.

At night the Universe grows lean, sober-faced, of intoxication, the shadow of the half-sphere curtains down closely against our world, like a doorless cage, and the stillness chained by wrinkled darkness strains throughout the Universe to be free. Listen, frogs in the pond, (the world is a pond itself) cry out for the light, for the truth! The curtains rattle ghostily along, bloodily biting our souls, the winds knocking on our cabin doors with their shadowy hands.

Rattled wind comes not only from outside our homes, however. The tragedy of Autumn’s harsh storm these past weeks pulling down our attempts at a hospital reveals itself to us now. Safwan’s cough no longer plagues them, but others in our community lack the fortitude of youth. Wheezes, coughs, hacking rings through our community and echoes off bare wooden walls of the old mining community. Influenza is autumn’s friend, the cycle of yearly contagion does not skip our community.

The strongest among us abandon the project to consolidate housing for the week to ensure the available warm beds are given to the sick and those who need comfort the most. With the grace of fortune we do not lose any lives this week to the disease, but all progress stops in every other area while we care for the sick. As the disease washes through us quickly, Llyana puts xer hands to use. Caring for the sick is a farmer’s skill after all, regardless of if the sick are humans or livestock. Xe takes xer new duties seriously, and at the end of the week, when we all return more or less to the land of health, xe sits at the top of the hill overlooking our community center, as the sun dips behind the mountains and the last rays sparkle over the Jewel of Gerrard.

And victor of life and silence, xe stands upon the Heights; triumphant, with upturned eyes, xe stands, and smiles unto the sun, and sings a beautifully sad farewell unto the dying day. And xer thoughts and the eve gather their serpentine mysteries around xem, xer thoughts like alien breezes, the eve like a fragrant legend. Xer feeling is that xe stands as one serenely poised for flight, as a muse of golden melody and lofty grace. Yea, xe stands as one scorning the swords and wanton menace of the cities. The sun heavily sinks into the mountains beyond, and leaves xem a tempting sweet and twilight. The eve with trailing shadows westward sweeps on, and the lengthened shadows of trees disappears: how silently the songs of silence steal into xer soul! And still xe stands among the crickets, in the beauteous profundity sung by stars; and xe sees xem softly melted into the eve. The moon slowly rises: xer shadow on the ground dreamily begins a dreamy roam, and xe upward smiles silent welcome.

When we am lost in the deep body of the mist on the hill, the world seems built with us as its pillar! Are we the gods upon the face of the deep, deepless deepness in the Beginning?

We begin a new project at the end of the week, for if we are to bring everyone under the same roofs, we need more lumber, stronger lumber as well, to hold the warmth of winter in. We hear the call of a copse of pine trees, we hear them upon the hill, by the silent river where the lotus flowers bloom, we hear you call, pine tree. What is it you call, pine tree, when the rain falls, when the winds blow, and when the stars appear, what is it you call, pine tree? We hear you call, pine tree, but we are blind, and do not know how to reach you, pine tree. Who will take us to you, pine tree?

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the thirty fourth 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 Yone Noguchi. 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 urge my representatives to STOP THE GOP GIVEAWAY TO CORPORATIONS AND THE WEALTHY

The goal of the House Republicans’ tax reform plan, dubbed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is clear: to provide corporations and the ultra-wealthy as many tax breaks as possible. The bill would permanently lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, gradually phase out the estate tax (which applies to estates with over $5.6 million in assets), and eliminate the alternative minimum tax (AMT) immediately. The AMT only applies to people who make more than roughly $130,000 a year; Trump paid an additional $31 million in taxes solely because of the AMT in 2005. Meanwhile, this plan offers no tax breaks to the bottom 35% of Americans and will increase the deficit by a whopping $1.5 trillion over the next decade. This deficit will in turn necessitate future cuts to critical government programs like Medicaid and Medicare; the Congressional Budget Office found the House tax bill would force a $25 billion cut to Medicare in 2018 alone.

To cover the revenue shortfall from slashing taxes for the wealthy and big businesses, the GOP will eliminate a multitude of itemized tax deductions that typically offer relief to middle-class consumers, including deductions for student loan interest, adoption costs, alimony payments, and extremely high medical costs. As a result, any middle-class consumer who adopts a child, has costly student loans, pays more than 10% of their income on medical costs, and/or has multiple children could pay more under this plan. The larger standard deduction also means that middle class consumers have less of an incentive to donate to charity, hurting non-profit charitable organizations in the process. Further, the bill would eliminate tax incentives for using renewable energy while preserving tax shelters for the fossil fuel industry.

Meanwhile, this plan offers no tax breaks to the bottom 35% of Americans, and the bill’s massive deficit will necessitate future cuts to critical government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The GOP claims their plan is designed to cut taxes for the middle class, but it is clear that their primary goal is helping the wealthy avoid paying their fair share in taxes. If implemented, these changes would result in the transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich and will continue to exacerbate income inequality in this country. Bottom line, this plan is a raw deal for Americans.

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.

The poet this week is Elizabeth Barrett Browning: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/elizabeth-barrett-browning

Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/

Stance: http://takeastance.us/

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

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.

Following the devastating snow, we cry “O Dreary life!” and yet the generations of the birds sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds serenely live while we are keeping strife with Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife against which we may struggle. River girds unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees, to show, above, the unwasted stars that pass in their old glory. O thou Gods of old! Grant us some smaller grace than comes to these;— but so much patience, as a blade of grass grows by contented through the heat and cold.

Patience brings us to harvest as autumn comes to a close. Those crops not pulled before the frost are pulled now and we work from before the sun rises until well after it hides behind the crags of the mountains overhead.

We are too ready with complaint in this fair world of God’s. Had we no hope indeed beyond the zenith and the slope of yon gray blank of sky, we might be faint to muse upon eternity’s constraint round our aspirant souls. But since the scope must widen early, is it well to droop, for a few days consumed in loss and taint? O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted,— and, like a cheerful traveller, take the road— singing beside the hedge. What if the bread be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod to meet the flints?—At least it may be said, “Because the way is short, I thank thee, Gods!”

Drach works with the bandit leader and her crew to divide harvest responsibilities, and while he works, he is met by one of their pets, a young sheepdog. It was but yesterday he mused, forgetful of his presence here, till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear; when from the pillow, where wet-cheeked he lay, a head as hairy as Faunus, thrust its way right sudden against his face,—two golden-clear large eyes astonished his,—a drooping ear did flap him on either cheek, to dry the spray! He started first, as some Arcadian amazed by goatly god in twilight grove: but as his bearded vision closelier ran his tears off, he knew Flush, and rose above surprise and sadness; thanking the true Pan, who, by low creatures, leads to heights of love.

The original planters of the field, Eileen and Llyana watch proudly as the entire community gathers to harvest, coming together in harmonious work. The face of all the world is changed, I think, since first we heard the footsteps of forest soul move still, oh, still, beside us, as they stole betwixt us and the dreadful outer brink of obvious death, where Eileen, who thought to sink, was caught up into love, and taught the whole of life in a new rhythm. The cup of toil and working fields, she is fain to drink, and praise its sweetness, sweet, with Llyana anear. The names of country, heaven, are changed away for where ze are or shall be, there or here; and this… With Eileen’s lute and song… loved yesterday, (the singing angels know) are only dear, because her love’s name moves right in what she sings today.

With stammering lips and insufficient sound she strives and struggles to deliver right that music of our nature, day and night with dream and thought and feeling interwound and only answering all the senses round with octaves of a mystic depth and height which step out grandly to the infinite from the dark edges of the sensual ground. This song of soul she struggles to outbear through portals of the sense, sublime and whole, and utter all herself into the air: but if she did it,—as the thunder-roll breaks its own cloud, her flesh would perish there, before that dread apocalypse of soul.

After the harvest we still barely have enough food for the community, and who knows what winter will bring. But we do know that we have a new abundance: love and companionship. As those toiling return to their homes few return alone, and those who do, do so by choice. As we dry the frosted fruits of our labor, ripe heat warms both our harvests and our beds.

We discover something new while we work, for as we pull up semi frozen roots and break through the top layer of frost in our fields, the underlying layers of clay and loam still radiate warmth upwards to the surface. Strangely, only a foot or so down, it is as if the seasons have no effect at all on the state of the earth. We shrug and put this knowledge in the back of our minds for now.

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the thirty third 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 Elizabeth Barret Browning. 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 urge my representatives to OPPOSE ANTI-LGBTQ JEFF MATEER FOR FEDERAL JUDGESHIP

Donald Trump has nominated Texas Assistant Attorney General Jeff Mateer for a lifetime judgeship on the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Despite being a constitutional lawyer, Mateer has repeatedly insisted that the separation of church and state should not exist. He has worked for the First Liberty Institute, a conservative legal defense foundation that often pursues cases involving disputes over religious liberties. He has compared the treatment of Christians in America to that of Jewish people in Nazi Germany, calling the Obama administration “totalitarian”. He also has a history of hostility towards the LGBTQ+ community. In 2015, he described transgender children as part of “Satan’s plan” and has likened same-sex marriage and polyamory to people “marrying their pets”. Mateer is also an active proponent of conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ individuals, despite extensive evidence that this “therapy” is ineffective at best and dangerous at worst.

Trump’s nomination of Mateer to a lifetime judgeship is an attack on both the separation of church and state and on LGBTQ+ individuals who remain vulnerable to abuse and discrimination. Mateer is an anti-civil rights, anti-First Amendment judge who has admitted outright to discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. Trump has already withdrawn a directive allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice, and banned transgender military recruits. Appointing Mateer to this judgeship would further undermine the rights and protections that LGBTQ+ people and their allies have fought for years to secure.

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.

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:

Dave – Taylor

Help The Show On Patreon

Riverhouse Games Website

Twitter

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe via RSS!

Riverhouse Games Thanks You!

Thank you for listening to this Riverhouse podcast. You can find more podcasts at RiverhouseGames.com as well as games and resources about queer & LGBT+ tabletop gaming. Thank you to the people backing the Riverhouse Games Patreon:

Nyssa MacKinnon, Jalyn Euteneier, Rohit Sodhia & GamersPlane.com, Joy Walker, VJ Brown, Paul Bennett, Amanda Coyle, Rob Abrazado, Tobie Abad, Vi Brower, Rob Day, Patrick ‘The Tyrant of Boredom’ West, Emmeline Duplois, and Kelsey Campbell: THANK YOU! If you want to see your name in upcoming Riverhouse games or podcasts, you can set a small monthly subscription at Patreon.com/RiverhouseGames

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.