After years of creating Neo-Khuzdul lessons, grammar documents, dictionaries, exercises and other study materials, I am delighted to announce that Scholarium has officially opened its doors.
Scholarium is a completely free interactive learning platform where you can follow the Neo-Khuzdul course, complete exercises and examinations, practise with flashcards and crosswords, play language games, follow Story Letters, earn badges and track your progress through a guided lesson path.
Scholarium is the new home for learning Neo-Khuzdul, bringing lessons, exercises, flashcards, games, Story Letters, examinations and much mo
It brings the course and all its supporting materials together in one place, while introducing many new ways to practise and experience the language.
The included introductory video offers a first look inside Scholarium and some of the features waiting for you.
I have also written a longer article about how the idea for Scholarium began, how the platform developed and what this launch means for the older course systems, you can read it on the article wordpress blog.
A New Home for the Course
Scholarium now replaces the separate systems previously used to access different parts of the course.
Brainscape is no longer required. Scholarium has its own lesson-based flashcard system, including Practice, Memory and Challenge modes. Support for the Neo-Khuzdul content on Brainscape will end soon as well.
The downloadable Patreon lesson packages will also be removed within one week and replaced with a link to Scholarium. All their content, together with much more, is already available through the guided Scholarium lesson path.
The Google Forms exercises and examinations will also be taken offline within one week. Scholarium now includes its own exercise and examination system, created specifically for the course and offering far more possibilities than Google Forms.
The YouTube video lessons will remain available, but they are also included directly within Scholarium, where they can be watched without the advertisements you may otherwise encounter on YouTube.
Those who have already started the course through Patreon, Brainscape, YouTube or Google Forms can request to begin Scholarium at a particular lesson. However, I strongly recommend starting with Lesson 1, as Scholarium contains many new stories, games, exercises and activities that were not part of the earlier learning path.
The doors are open. Enter Scholarium and begin your studies today:
Added some prints to the shop!:D
A lot were previously work I did for zines and other projects but now I can add them to the store!
Hope you find something you like!;)
Link here!
I've been thinking of calling this whole part the "Fellowship at the Farramh", to give it that nice nod to LotR
DISCLAIMER: This timeline will differ from other sources which I believe overestimate how long the Seekers travelled. According to e15, when speaking to the Candescent Creed knight, he was "getting excited for Candle Feast", which implies that Candle Feast has not yet happened. So the Seekers must arrive in Castle Torch on the days before Candle Feast.
ADDENDUM: In e24, we heard from Romina on Weaver's Day (Day 6, 29th of Trozemere) that the Stahlkeep received word from Riesengurtle about a betrayal. For Romina, in Dol Makjar, to have heard of the Seeker's party shenanigans in Riesengurtle, then it would be nearly nearly nearly impossible for the Seeker's shenanigans to have happened on that same day.
If Romina heard about Seeker's shenanigans on Weaver's Day (Day 6, 29th of Trozemere), then the Seekers must have met with Einfassen (and left his house) before that day.
ADDENDUM 2: Brennan's narration of the Seekers traveling to Tannesar involved hours upon hours of riding with an added 8 hour long rest. We note in e25 that the Seekers had another 8 hour long rest on the way back. A conservative estimate of travel time total to get to Venatus is 20 hours (12 hours riding plus 8 hours resting). Going back, I can allow for shorter travel time, let's say 16-17 hours total. If the Seekers took 16-17 hours to get back to Castle Torch, then for the Seekers to arrive on the day of the Gala, before the sun starts to set, they must have started traveling away from Tannesar on the day before the gala. Ergo, the wiki cannot be correct to have the Seekers still be at Tannesar on the day befor the gala, then arrive at Castle Torch virtually overnight. The hours would not add up. The wiki is wrong.
REGARDING THJAZI'S BURIAL: Lorekeepers marked his burial on the 26th of Trozemere. However player narration during the burial says as follows:
"LIAM: I just draw my daughters in and stand over his resting place. Even though it is well past midnight from the sparse lights throughout the city, I look out at The Rookery below us and I can see out in the dark, just barely where the Lloy home rests."
If it is past midnight, then it can't have been the 26th of Trozemere. It would have to be the very next day, on the 27th. This is further corroborated by DM narration that claims it is well past midnight when they left the sewers.
QUOTES re: EVENTS BEFORE THJAZI'S EXECUTION
Regarding Tertia's Sacrifice: "Our most recent findings were from about two and a half months ago. The final experiment was a failure and wasted our last supplies of ossement." (e17)
Regarding the Stone of Nightsong:"...the object that you retrieved on your last big adventure with Thjazi, of several-- Like a month or two ago, you got back from it." (e1)
Regarding Thjazi's arrest: "Just for the past two weeks, because Thjazi got arrested two weeks ago." (e2)
Regarding Alogar, Thaisha, and Occtis:
"Thaisha and Occtis, you passed by here a few weeks ago...knowing that Alogar was stationed here a couple weeks ago..." (e15)
(Thaisha:) "...there was one meeting, he was probably out doing something on the secondary, the second pass-through." (e15)
"Didn't catch him on the way back. I think he probably was out ranging at that point. He was doing his job, doing the job of the Barrowguard." (e15)
(Thaisha:) "And we were hustling back trying to get to Thjazi, so we couldn't wait around." (e15)
"They told me to inform that the Grey Tower needed an excursion at once to Tannesar... The third battalion was sent under the command of our head ranger into the night." (e15)
Regarding Petra and Ryah: "The ladies of your house were here more than a week ago. They came truly not long after you were last here, my lord, venturing into Venatus." (e15)
Regarding Mara:
"I'm sorry to say, Mr. Fang, but your brother came in about five or six weeks ago. He came in, ordered about six of the enchanted amphora...He had a falcon with him." (e24)
"Shortly after you (Thaisha and Occtis) left, perhaps a day, a close ally of Thjazi Fang came to Venatus and told us that a important plan had gone horribly wrong. She had been making her way to the tear in the world where the Stormwrack and the Eternal Night touch in the Tachonis homeland." (e18)
"Mara had come to Venatus to explain that a plan had gone horribly wrong." (e18)
"She told us that she needed to make her way at once to Dol-Makjar. It was of utmost importance that she traveled there straight away, but told us that there was a small Tachonis outpost at Tannesar and that we had to come here at once, that the fate of all of Aramán was at stake and we needed to come here and destroy an obelisk." (e18)
"She, exhausted beyond measure, needed every precious moment and flew at once for Dol-Makjar." (e18)
The thing is, this isn’t JUST about the character Valko being removed.
His removal also affects, the voice actors, writers, translators, concept artists, in-game card artists, mocap, choreographers, environmental designers, costume designers, game developers, in person marketing, online marketing, story board artists, UI team, SFX team, and probably even more that I just can’t think of right now.
I'll confess the Bolaire discourse is bothering me. I'll own up front that generally i like Tal, enjoy his gameplay, and appreciate his commitment to interesting and unique characters. So yeah, I'm probably a bit biased.
But I want to break this down from the (objectively true) perspective that Bolaire is an abuse victim. I see a ton of discourse about whether or not Bolaire is right/being fully honest/acting reasonable with regards to Thjazi and this, to me, feels like willful blindness and victim blaming with regards to Bolaire's history.
Let's take the facts as we know them:
Bolaire was created by the halflings for the direct purpose of killing Rauwyn
Bolaire and his siblings succeed and are scattered
Bolaire is picked up and used throughout various conflicts without his consent because he doesn't have free will.
Bolaire gains free will
Bolaire murders his captors to escape being used against his will
Thjazi at some point figures out who/ what Bolaire is and blackmails him into his service
Amid all the conversations about the ethics of Bolaire's body snatching, about his outbursts and bad behavior and cattiness is how Bolaire is a victim of both his creators (who built him in an age of magic with knowledge our current PCs don't have access to, but presumably with the exact understanding of what they were doing) and Thjazi, who forced him into service against his will. I've seen plenty of discourse about how Bolaire is a monster for how he treats the bodies he rides and i see a lot of talk about consent for everyone BUT Bolaire so I'm gonna refrain the way he was treated in new terms in hopes it offers some insight into Tal's (imo) really nuanced gameplay.
*Imagine bolaire was built to seduce a god instead*
-your form was built for a singular purpose or service
- you're given no choice what you do with your form. You do as you were made. You seduce as your told. Because you have no mobility in your form you must share a body with one of your captors without your consent as they carry out the task you're designed to do- whether you like it or not
- you gain sentience and must use your seduction skillset to escape your captors, who have been forcing you to use your skillset against your will.
- you win your freedom, are forced to find a form so you can continue to exist. You choose the least kind person you can because you know you will destroy the body eventually.
-you build a life of sorts and begin to try to understand the world you're in and who you are, you've only ever known what you're told you do.
- some guy finds out "what you used to do" and decides he'd like some of that action, that someone with your skillset would be useful to his machinations and so he begins to threaten you and blackmails you back into the life of service you've just barely escaped.
Do those lists look pretty much the same? They look pretty the same to me. If you felt differently about the second list, thinking of this is terms of forced SA, than you do the murders, I posit you're probably wrong about Bolaire- or at least how Tal is playing him.
Tal's behavior isn't out of line or out of pocket. He's playing an abuse victim with no support who's being blamed for their abuse because their friend group loved their very charismatic abuser.
I've seen mile long essays justifying folx who've killed their abusers but we think Bolaire is being a little bitch because he rightfully called Thjazi an asshole? We want to bend ourselves into knots and cry buckets over Occtis (rightfully so, let me be clear) because he grew up in the Tachonis household but we don't feel bad for Bolaire's entire sentient existence being one forced murder after another? We're weeping over Azune's sister (another murderer btw) and his (justifiable) identity crisis and crash out because of it but we don't allow Bolaire the same over his *5 other siblings*? And that's to speak nothing of the fact that it's Thjazi's fault neither of them have been able to search for them in the post-rebellion years?
Y'all. Y'all.
Come. *ON*
And just- just worth pointing out that according to the NIH has conducted studies on the mindsets and behaviors of abuse victims and here's a list of the most common:
increased aggression
depression
distrust
alienation
tendency to withdrawal and isolation
impaired self-protection
poor social integration
Read that list twice and tell me Talesin isn't playing Bolaire as a medically accurate abuse victim. A full 100% of Bolaire's bad behavior (according to popular fandom sentiment i obviously think he's totally reasonable) *including the mistreatment of his body* is in line with the behavior of a person who has sustained long term abuse and frankly- and disgustingly heartbreaking- since Bolaire is emotionally only about 13 years old he's playing an abused teenager with terrifying accuracy.
Do i find Bolaire's behavior grating and distasteful sometimes? Sure. But I also find my teenager grating when they're acting out too, and they're a relatively well adjusted, average human. I don't think emotional behavior makes a bad person or character. I don't even think that Bolaire has let his emotions interfere with the Schemers ability to accomplish their goals and have no way interfered or put the rest of their group in danger; something we can't say is true for Julien, Wick, Tyranny, Hal, Thaisia, Murray, Azune or Thimble.
What i do know is Bolaire is now standing in a room full of people who are justifying his abusers actions because of his intentions, telling him he's being unreasonable about the abuse he suffered and he should just "let Thjazi go" so everyone can get on with the task of saving the world now that they're in clean-up mode after piecing together Thjazi's breadcrumbs.
I dunno fam, if my friends told me to just get over my abuser and hang with them while they sang his praises and would i mind too much helping with my abusers plan and oh maybe loan one of my siblings or myself out for a ritual that very possibly could destroy me, or the world maybe, it'd just be great so please suck it up and deal? I'd put Bolaire on myself and deal how I see fit.
I'm open to being wrong but as an abuse victim myself I think Tal's got the right of it.
I hate cigarettes so much I hate that smoking is becoming cool again I hate that we're becoming contrarian hipsters about this disgusting habit that has literally killed so many people and destroyed so many lives I'm so serious we need to become absolute killjoys about this again it's time to go 90s scolds on cigarettes until the scourge is wiped out entirely.
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