oh,
keep in mind the two major organized crime groups on Ölgard.
the Loki Thrall: like the Hell's Angels, but only wish they had motorcycles. Hard core crime, extortion, guns, etc.
the Relics: a smuggling network, career criminals plus crooked dock workers, navy sailors, merchant marine, fishermen, etc.
you answered your own question..6000 french men vanished when islands were annexed and then 6000 legionnaires invaded the island in 1951..the 6000 french men joined the foreign legion to come back and get the islands back. I'm working on the War of the 4 Quarters.
The War Of The Four Quarters
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The most common causes of war are land, religion and women (if you don't believe me, ask Paris), but this war was caused by a gemstone, more accurately a diamond, the largest and clearest diamond known as The Jupiter Diamond. And a woman, of course.
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At first sight, the four quarters of the Island of Miquelon's famous market square live in equinimity and barely perceptible annoyance side by side, going about their business with ne'er a cross word, but this wasn't always the case. Back in the 1970's while the rest of the world thought The Osmonds were worth listening to, a very beautiful woman called Montaigne decided it would be rather nice to own The Jupiter Diamond. No one
quite understands what it is with women and diamonds but its a bit like men with their golf. At about this time, the Loki Thrall and The Relics (or the rejects as the Loki called them) spent a vast amount of time brawling and drinking at Miquelon hurling insults at each other and generally "not getting along". The Relics would sneer at the Loki Thrall that an organised crime syndicate could buy and sell guns but couldn't organise themselves some 2 wheeled transport while the Loki Thrall called the Relics "a bunch of losers who smell of fish and couldn't smuggle a kipper out of a fish market". The insults would escalate until fights broke out and everyone went home minus a limb. Then one day the leader of Loki Thrall fell in lust with Montaigne..he just couldnt get enough of her. She didnt love him, she was actually incapable of any emotion but avarice, but knowing his credentials as leader of a huge criminal syndicate, she asked him to get her the Jupiter Diamond. And he did! But The night before he was due to give it to her, it vanished.
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The gang leader was cross..actually furious...and, because there was no one else to blame he accused the Relics of stealing it.
To be continued....
The Relics denied this, as they would , and a full blown war broke out. The market square, which was already on the bawdy side, became host to vicious fighting and armed combat. No one in the vicinity could avoid being drawn into the blood shed, and so inevitably the "four quarters" got drawn in. The Celestial Quarter, Casino and The Salt Lamp Quarter did a lot of business with The Relics so waded in on their side. The Relics supplied them with oils, telescopes, slot machines and a lot of booze, so they became their dubious allies. The celestials couldn't actually fight very well but they could watch what was going on really close up, and Casino had cage fighters who fought valiantly against the Loki Thralls, knocking several teeth out in the process. The Salt Lamp residents provided medical help and sexual favours for free. The Necromancers joined the Loki Thrall because Loki was a particular hero of theirs but also because they couldnt stand the Celestials or Casino. They described Casino as "idiots who couldnt win a bet on a dice throw with a blind gorilla who cant count", and said the celestials "wouldnt know an alien invasion from a flock of crows". In response, the celestials dubbed the vampires "blood sucking loonies who are so dumb they can't even look into the mirror to shave".
No one insulted the Salt Lamp District because they all liked sex too much.
To be continued more
In one incident in one of the drinking establishments, it is rumoured, a vampire sneered at a Casino stage fighter that his "appendage" was so small that cage fighting was the only way he'd get any action. The cage fighter, unperturbed sneered back, "oh yeah? bite me". Well, telling a vampire to bite you is never going to end well and, so its said, the fight that ensued left at least two men incapable of fathering children, and at least one no longer wanting to.
These incidents carried on for many months and at no point did anyone find the Jupiter Diamond. Nor did anyone wonder where Montaigne had got to. It was at the mouth of the dragon while a wizard was trying to cut his finger and bleed into the dragon's mouth that he heard that Montaigne had run off to France with an astrologer called Olaf and was living off the proceeds of a diamond she stole from a former lover.
Which is why no one likes the Astrologers and they never get invited to parties.
the end
amendment..should read 60s, not 70s and Bob Dylan, not Osmonds
was it ok?
The Outlanders
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The Outlanders are the homeless vagabonds who dwell outside the city..they live off the land by fishing and hunting, but occasionally raid the market place for other supplies. The hamster laureate wrote a poem about them which is read to children who wont go to bed ..this is it..
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The Outlanders
The Outlanders are hiding
Hiding, hiding
The Outlanders are hiding
Outside the city walls
They live within the forests
And the desert and the plain
They may not know where you are
But they will find you just the same
The Outlanders are coming
Coming, coming
The Outlanders are coming
To magic you away
The artists with no money cos they cannot sell their art
Refugees who have no country, cos their country's torn apart
Soldiers missing limbs who were robbed of all they had
Dangerous and bitter, with eyes so strange and mad
Convicts who have nowhere but know how to wield a blade
Exiles thrown from their country for the chaos that they made
The Outlanders are coming
Coming, coming
The outlanders are coming to plunder everywhere
So you had best be sleeping
Sleeping, sleeping
So you had best be sleeping
So they don't know you are there.
how was that?
The Legend of the Lucifer Stone
In the market square there is a gargoyle made of stone and its mouth is wide open. A sign next to it reads "please do not put litter in the gargoyle" and this is the legend...
At the time of the expulsion of the French, a priest (there were many Catholic churches when it was french), betrayed his countrymen by giving away the whereabouts of a large stash of French weaponry, about which the French were annoyed and when he was captured they took him to the central square and asked him to admit what he had done while his hand was in the gargoyles mouth. The priest denied it and tried to blame someone else. When they withdrew his hand it was a bloody stump. The necromancers claim that it is the judgement of lucifer, and now people dare each other to tell lies while holding their hand in the gaping jaws.
And throw litter in it.
(Any resemblence to a gargoyle in Roman Holiday is purely accidental).
The Dark Festival
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Back a very long time ago, it was customary to try to scare your enemies BEFORE battle, or "put them on the back foot" if you will. This was done by celebrating The Dark Arts, and , at first, the necromancers came in handy because they knew lots of dark arts shit and, to be fair, no one else did. Voodoo was particularly popular as efiges were crafted of enemy leaders then thrown into fires, stamped on, cut into pieces, and generally rendered unrecognizable. While this worked psychologically, it didnt scare the enemy because the enemy was busy getting drunk somewhere far off and thought voodoo was "a load of old hogwash". So a festival would be arranged that made eerie sounds, lit up the sky with blood red fireworks, and involved the vampires raiding the enemy lines and drinking blood from awkwardly slit throats. Nowadays, the ceremony takes place once a year and the evil spirits are summoned. Some people claim to have seen devils and anguished spirits while others say the most scary thing about it is the hangover next day. Last year there were 340 arrests, 23 hospitalizations and one grown man burst into tears.
I'm really liking all of this. My mum was here for a week, and now the lodge is packing up.
I'll probably be on-line for another 5-10 days (ish) then without power 'til spring.
I will get myself to Winnipeg in december, then back here in the dark until ice out....
The Outlanders
-
The Outlanders are the homeless vagabonds who dwell outside the city..they live off the land by fishing and hunting, but occasionally raid the market place for other supplies. The hamster laureate wrote a poem about them which is read to children who wont go to bed ..this is it..
-
The Outlanders
The Outlanders are hiding
Hiding, hiding
The Outlanders are hiding
Outside the city walls
They live within the forests
And the desert and the plain
They may not know where you are
But they will find you just the same
The Outlanders are coming
Coming, coming
The Outlanders are coming
To magic you away
The artists with no money cos they cannot sell their art
Refugees who have no country, cos their country's torn apart
Soldiers missing limbs who were robbed of all they had
Dangerous and bitter, with eyes so strange and mad
Convicts who have nowhere but know how to wield a blade
Exiles thrown from their country for the chaos that they made
The Outlanders are coming
Coming, coming
The outlanders are coming to plunder everywhere
So you had best be sleeping
Sleeping, sleeping
So you had best be sleeping
So they don't know you are there.
between this and the Gnaw-Gnukk, kids in Olgard are going to grow up HARD
The Crazy Beggar of Miquelon
We have all seen them hanging around the city centre of any town..the man in rags who has "something to tell you" but is obviously five beers short of a shindig. Such is the crazy beggar of Miquelon. Harmless but clearly distraught he wails to himself about "a map" but no one can get any sense out of him, although the tourists buy him a drink, then take a photo. Few stop to find out his back story but you are in luck, because i did!
It all started with Achille Bardin (old french for Achilles of the axe) who escaped from the massacre of the Knights Templar in 1307 by disguising himself as a spice seller and stealing a horse. He fled to the little known french island of Miquelon where he devoted the rest of his life to the formation of the Star-kept Lightmen, a group of outlaws who sought the ancient relics which the Knights Templar had hidden somewhere . The knights had drawn up a map, then carelessly lost it. The Star-kept Lightmen antagonized a lot of people because if they wanted information they tended to use rather primitive ways of getting it. The group survived for many generations and they eventually found a very old map, printed on parchment and indicating the whereabouts of Arthur's Sword, Excalibur. Unfortunately, at exactly the same time, a bunch of vigilantes with a grudge (mainly that someone had caved in the head of their uncle while trying to extract information) exposed the Star-kept Lightmen as an anagram of The Knights Templar and garrotted them all and hung their bodies from the city walls. The young son of one of the hanged men witnessed the act and it sent him insane and fixated on the whereabouts of the map his father had found.
Thus, the crazy beggar of Miquelon bemoans the loss of a map that could have led his father to King Arthur's sword, he watched as his father was brutally murdered, and his mind is quite gone. He has become at worst a nuisance and at best a tourist curiosity. If you see him, buy him some lunch.
is Achille Bardin real?
because many believe that Templar treasure was buried on Oak Island, in Nova Scotia....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island_mystery
no, Achille Bardin was made up..the Knights Templar, however, are not and have a fascinating history..and they were all massacred on a Friday 13th in 1307 after brutal torture. I couldnt open that link.
i googled Oak Island..fascinating!
I was obsessed with Templars for a long time, read every book I could find, visited many Templar castles (my favourite was in Portugal), then tha dan brown guy started writing those shitty novels and the whole thing turned into a pop-culture side show...
there is some pretty convincing evidence that the Templars were in North America though,
the corn and native carvings at Sinclair castle in Scotland, or the Newport tower, etc.
How about the famous "hippocampus de Troi" when a merchant container ship in 1951 turned out to be loaded with 6000 french foreign legionaries, who invaded the city?