Artist Appreciation.

I hope spring has finally arrived for most of you, Burrowers. The high winds and 30°F temperatures of winter are lingering here as of late, with the added bonus of rain water causing the ground to become sodden or swollen. I had to kick the door to my den hard enough to dent the front of my shoe just to get it open this morning. Of course I saw a squirrel on the other side and immediately shut it again, and now I'm wishing that I still had that barricade of a dirt clod in place.

But while I'm trying to stay hunkered down and quiet, I've come across a couple of delightful things that I wanted to pass on to others.

First and foremost, I want to thank an artist known as Evoro for this awesome bit of sketchwork.

To any of you longtime readers, this gangling guy might be recognizable as Ergil, one of the gods of the ITUniverse whom I've written about before. He's a psychopomp and avatar of death, but also the acceptance and relief of death, so he's a fairly swell fellow. Not a great conversationalist, though.

I recommend that you can check out Evoro's art blog for other doodles. In particular, I like the Darkest Dungeon inspired character designs.

Also, I'd like to thank an unnervingly dedicated super-fan for initially commissioning the sketch.

You know who you are.

Completely unrelated to any of my work, I wanted to give the comic GoblinsGoblins a plug.

It's a once-every-few-days single-panel strip detailing the misadventures of two nameless little goblins wandering around a dreary, swampy, forested world full of death, grinding despair, ennui, ruined leather boots, and heart-rending determination in the face of all those things. It pretty well sums up the feeling I have when I'm trying to get out of bed some mornings, and I think other youngish adult-like people could appreciate and relate to some of the themes the Tall Goblin muses on.

I hope the comic persists for a good long while, and that we might get a more in-depth look into the thoughts or personality Small Goblin someday.

As an added bonus for you readers who dig Magic: the Gathering, the artist has apparently designed an entire goblin deck.

It seems a lot more effective than my last attempt at a minotaur tribal.

Stupid digeridoos never getting drawn when I needed them...

On the Origins of Haraal.

Despite my strong feelings on the subject, I have to retain some small shred of impartiality, lest I become no better a writer than any member of the mid-tier faculty back at the ITU. In writing for a broader potential audience (all half-dozen of you), I must assume that no piece of history is universally-known. And that even extends to the life of Haraal, who incidentally was exactly the sort of figure who wanted his own name to be universally known.

According to the most common legend which supposedly stems from his own account of his early life, Haraal was not born. But he was birthed.

Upon the slopes of a mythical peak known as Yorl'di, there stood a weathered old tree which could generously be called a pine, alabaster in color and of the bristlecone variety. It was gnarled, bent and bowed by the unremitting wind and cold of those desolate slopes, such that it could scarcely grow more than a few needles facing away from the breeze. To any observer, it would appear almost completely dead.

But what it was actually doing was channeling its life inward, rather than expressing it outwardly. Over the span of a year, the tree's bent trunk swelled and distended until bark split and the integrity of the whole plant was compromised. When this massive protuberance at last ruptured, out came the body of a fully grown adult male, a bit sticky with sap but otherwise no worse for wear considering the year he'd just spent inside of a frozen tree. As popular depictions are quick to agree, he was bronze-skinned, black-haired, and possessed of a smoldering icy-blue gaze the likes of which one could see in an ice floe shattered by a sudden winter storm. It is no coincidence, I think, that he so closely resembled the aesthetic ideal of the old Ersuunians.

In all of his glory he stood up, dazed and nude, and turned to behold his dead "mother".

Instantaneously, the full scope of knowledge of life and death and the nature of the world blossomed within the man's mind. This would not be the only time the man would be known to instantly acquire knowledge- time and time again, often at the most convenient and dramatic moment possible, he would suddenly come into complete and masterful knowledge of whatever practical or philosophical issue was at hand. Whether this knowledge was gifted to him by a miraculous source, or it was innate to him and merely needed "unlocking" has been a topic of hot debate among priests and scholars alike for several centuries.

Whatever the nature of his genius, he did not however obtain the knowledge of how to walk properly in that first insight. Upon turning away from the splintered tree, he tripped and fell down a precipice, nearly painting a cliff face with his own insides.

Fortunately for this as-of-yet unnamed man, he was not killed by the fall, though he was badly hurt. Miraculously, the daughter of a shepherd from the lowlands just so happened to be gathering herbs and berries from the more mild scree-fields by the base of Yorl'di, and saw the man fall. She then took him back to her family's home and nursed him back to health, and in doing so, the man learned language. When he rose from bed one day, having healed at an astonishing rate, he pronounced that his name was Haraal.¹

This was also the moment of awakening for two of Haraal's other remarkable qualities; the Presence, and the Gaze. Both of them abilities which would be instrumental in his future successes.

Somewhat (un)fortunately for the shepherd's family, Haraal thanked them for their hospitality by testing both of these qualities on them.



¹ Officially, Haraal learned how to speak the language of the shepherds (as well as all other languages known to man) simply by watching and listening to them from his bed. Controversially, some scholars have argued that it may be that the shepherd's daughter was the one to directly teach him the spoken word, or even to name him, when he had neither before then. This theory pokes a hole in the idea of Haraal's immaculate or innate knowledge however, as well as places him in a position of tutelage--and therefore subordination--to another person, and a woman at that. To see this theory in full, as well as the rebuttals to it by Haraal's hardline faithful, look to the expanded introductory chapter found in annotated copies of Origins of Instruction: A Comparative Examination of the Earliest Instances of Formal Education in Recorded History by Apla the Elder, BR 82.

On the Consolidation of the Ancient Ersuunians.

History seems to enjoy starting cycles just as much as it likes seeing those cycles broken.

It began a new cycle with the settling-down of the Ersuunian tribes into semi-sedentary or even fully agrarian communities within a few generations of mastering the Basin for themselves. They still maintained animal herding as their chief industry, but their vast pasture lands became more rigidly delineated from one another's over time, even to the point that they were individually owned by a chieftain and/or his people. Other land was tilled and farmed, not so that the people could live off of the fruits of those lands themselves, but so that the vast herds would have stored grains to subsist off of every winter.

It isn't explicit where this large number of agricultural workers came from all of a sudden, but I am open to the speculation that they were the first Esgodarrans and lower-caste Ersuunians living together in any sort of cooperation, with firsthand experience and knowledge of the land coming from the hill-people of the periphery. That extensive harvesting of tree products never caught on among the ancient Ersuunians at this time also indicates to me that it was a specialization developed by the Esgodarrans who were pushed farthest into the hilly forests from their original, more pastoral homelands.

Small-scale raiding and regional disputes kept the tribes mostly separate until a warrior named Gohr united them. He did this by launching an aggressive campaign across the basin, incorporating defeated groups into his army and continually pushing forward from south to north, until he was able to force the coalition of tribes battling against him into a stalemate. He then extended an offer for peace and the other chieftains, expecting him to demand of them a treaty which would heavily favor him and ensure him the customary decades of tribute plus bonuses, reluctantly agreed.

Gohr had different ideas in mind however, and at the banquet where they had all gathered together, his political rivals were all poisoned. This included the heads of allied families, and many members of each noble family as well, leaving the entire basin in a state of political instability which Gohr was able to mold to his liking. Out of this vomit-slicked usurpation, he became a proper king. To this day, even in Deneroth's heavily influenced as well as reformed dialectical Ersuut, the phrase "invited to a warlord's dinner" survives to describe an experience expected to be bad, but turning out to be even worse.

This king consolidated his power and pioneered the greater use of agriculture by his people, though the cavalry elite which had won him his battles was exempted from this, as well as the eventual land-tax system which was put in place. It is said that while his riders expanded his domain even farther beyond the heartland of the basin, Gohr's subjects grew skinny and complaisant while Gohr himself grew fat and complacent. A little more than twenty years after taking power, before an heir had been decided upon, one among his corps of nomad-cavalry organized a coup which saw him overthrown, and a new dynasty put in place. Though Gohr did not die from it personally, mass poisoning was used once more as a political tactic.

This set the trend for the next several centuries, as hot-blooded young heroes from the marginal lands of the basin won the allegiance of the riders, overthrew the acculturated and corrupt dynasty, became acculturated and corrupt in turn, and was then overthrown by the next young hero from the periphery.

Successive generations of rulers in their palisade-towns and nascent stone-foundation cities were keenly aware of this cycle, and attempted to break it. Naturally, the remaining dedicated equestrians were opposed to all measures taken. But over the grinding years of centuries, the mobility and independence of those pastoralists was diminished until they could pose no credible threat to their lords, and the ways of war among the Ersuunians transitioned from being focused on an almost mercenary mounted elite to including far more mixed varieties of specialized and in some cases even career soldiers. It took generations of bloodshed and repeatedly denied justice by a hundred different parties, but finally an uneasy peace settled over the basin, where political strife more and more took the form of courtly intrigue over open warfare.



And then Haraal showed up.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 13.

I look up from a hastily-scrawled side-note on the early origins of the pastoralists who once called this region home, as well as a personal note to elaborate upon that history in full at a later time, to see the imposing structure of the alehouse looming much closer.

For what it is worth, the building does seem to have several hallmarks of authenticity to it, both in terms of architecture and upkeep. Both Hraela and I are surprised to find that there are many features to the alehouse consistent with the style of building used by the more southerly and easterly kin-groups of Gertish peoples who, owing to the greater drainage of the broad expanses of relatively sandy land they inhabit, are more given to mixed agriculture than to fishing and more intensive river industries. In fact, Hraela finds herself admitting that it resembles a farmhouse she once saw at Hoehpleg.

Yes, the dense thatch roof has been garishly painted over in a variety of dyes to produce symbols and imagery of wild animals, nonexistent clan lineages, and scenes of battle. And indeed, the crossed beams above the roof's front gable, though accurate, are thickly gilded and shaped like snarling unwelcoming wolf's heads. But the walls, obviously made from wooden boards, have been textured to resemble wattle and daub from a distance, and a pole bearing some sort of potted plant on a rope could serve no other purpose but to indicate the readiness of the proprietress' latest brew. For every stretch of soulless, clueless pandering, there is a very clear indicator of care taken, and of knowledge of the genuine craft and practices. Perhaps it is that sense of compromise and wasted potential that wounds Hraela the most.

At the very least, she has relaxed her grip on her training sword without my needing to bring up that any violent reaction to the farce on her part could, conceivably, be construed as a reinforcement of certain hot-blooded stereotypes "enjoyed" by Gerts in the south.

Beyond the large alehouse structure itself, the accuracy quickly dissipates. Nearby, at another terminus of the joined roads we are rolling over, the actual travel-house and stables stands. It uses far more stone and mortar, its roof is far less steep, and its somewhat boxy nature gives it away as Denerothi in influence. It could easily pass as a chain of residences along the lowest tier of the city, or perhaps a particularly wealthy family's storehouse higher up. Past its prodigious gatehouse I can see several wheeled vehicles and their animals being loaded or unloaded, and there are sounds of carousal between caravan teams and traders almost as loud as those issuing forth from the alehouse itself. A dark beeline of liquid stains the shortest path between both buildings, where countless containers of alcohol have recently been sloshed or spilled during the frantic back-and-forth runs of the servers staffing both locations. It seems we've arrived on an unusually busy day, despite how dead and empty the roads seemed up to this point. I am remound that, for some travelers, the alehouse is as much a destination as it is a stop-off.

As we draw closer to the gate and Elrusyo leaps off of the side of our wagon in order to go about a task which he refers to opaquely as "getting a feel for the place", Ciudo attests to the diversity of patrons. One of our mixed Esgodarran guides asks for the overnight fee in a pronounced "Woodlands" accent, to which one of the men posted at the entrance responds with a hand gesture and an accent indicative of the south-central Ersuut spoken by people from Porylus to Meroth. And when the taskmaster pays for our party's stay in pieces of roughly-hewn electrum, everyone within earshot bursts out in a series of uproarious exclamations and jokes at the expense of the Ivory Tower originating from an eastern Nambarish dialect. I knew I should have petitioned for our budget to be supplied in the form of something more universally acceptable, like tin or lead.

His excitement at the linguistic confluence somewhat distracts me from my fears that we will be targeted for casual assault, robbery, or urination upon University-owned equipment before night's end.

On the Arrival of the Ancient Ersuunians.

It occurred to me as I wrote the last complete parchment of my current travelogue that I have never given a great deal of attention to those commonly alluded-to progenitors of ours, the Ersuunians. I often write as if my audience has received the same general schooling in history as I have, or at least a fraction of it, but as I try to write for a readership not confined to the upper levels of Deneroth, I realize now that I leave far too many gaps and vistas of untouched possibility in my works. This will never be completely remedied, but I will attempt to remain conscious of the issue while moving forward.

Or in this case, even farther backward.

Disregarding for a moment the Esgodarrans, the Pach-Pah lineages, the tribes of the Oron'er Mountains, half of the ethnic admixture of the Nambarish, the Gertish, the aboriginals of the Khokhantipa Mudflats, and the Delta-dwellers¹, the Ersuunians were the catalyst for the development of complex and wide-reaching civilizations in all of the known world.

According to classical depictions, they were a tall and broad-shouldered folk with dark hair and dark or sometimes blue eyes, possessed of a bronze complexion and, in the case of the men, truly impressive mustaches. With that said, I point to the much wider diversity exhibited by the groups descended from them as an indicator that this was simply one of many phenotypes found among them and their constituent peoples at the time of their arrival on the landmass.

More verifiably, the Ersuunians were well-established pastoralists who carried or carted what little material wealth of theirs which couldn't be herded. According to tradition these other articles of wealth included finely crafted iron tools and weaponry, and the materials used to create them, but it is unclear how they managed to maintain both a pioneering lifestyle and a long tradition of blacksmithing. Perhaps their carts were larger and more numerous than commonly reported, or perhaps the speed of their expansion across the continent should be measured more in centuries than in decades.

The Ersuunians were accomplished riders, and the horse is strongly associated with their culture to this day, though it is unclear whether they had such a surplus of horses that all had a mount, or only the nobility and warriors--those most likely groups to have records or accounts about them extant--had access to such resources. By "nobles", I mean the tribal chieftains who led a group in practical as well as ritual affairs, and who commonly passed their title down through a patrilineal like of succession. These chieftains would host a court and establish fortified camps for at least as long as winter lasted, often building them so that they resembled an ovoid or more rarely crescent (perhaps even horseshoe?) shape.

They originated from somewhere far to the east, beyond the lands which have since become dried and parched. Either they dwelt in those regions soon to become desert until they became less favorable, or they passed them up directly in their efforts to find or claim a new homeland for themselves. Wherever they or their own ancestors originated from beyond what is now wasteland is lost to unwritten history, for the extent of those trackless and dangerous lands is unknown either by land route or sea. Whether the Fokari lived in the area at that time is also unclear, but I speculate that if they did, the Ersuunians had one more reason to push further west, rather than contend with established tribes and their herds.

Settling first in the highlands to the east of the rivers and the corridors of steppe country north of there, the Ersuunians spread out over the region over a period of time which might be better guessed at if the University begins to develop an archaeological studies group in the next few years. I imagine that they moved with less than burning purpose, with those who arrived first establishing themselves and their families in decent grazing lands while those behind either passed beyond into the newest frontiers, or forced their erstwhile neighbors ahead of them in return.

Eventually, or "forty-by-forty generations before the cracking of the alabaster bristlecone pine's trunk and the birthing of Haraal" to be exact ³, the Ersuunians would come to the basin which now bears their name.

When they did happen upon this vast and comparatively quite verdant depression, they also encountered the Esgodarrans living there. Exactly how these two peoples related to one another at first is unclear, but at some point their relations turned hostile. It may have been a matter of land dispute, because the mounted Ersuunians were victorious over the Esgodarrans and "drove them into the hills" of the basin according to the Histories of All written by the sage Yashka, circa 1284 BR.⁴ The implication is that the Esgodarrans were present outside of the hills prior to that conflict, and the resulting clashes allowed the Ersuunians to move in and occupy the territory by themselves. This too needs better research than I am able to attempt at the time being, but were I to make the attempt, I would seek to cross-reference these histories with those surviving in Esgodarran accounts, oral or otherwise.

Whatever the catalyst or the series of events, the result was that the Ersuunian tribes now controlled vast swathes of rich new territory, which they quickly adapted to their lifestyle. It was only so long until exploration into the agriculture practiced by several of their new neighbors began, and after that it was a sad inevitability that the first chieftain arose up among them who got the wild horsehair up his backside and decided that he wanted all to refer to him as "king".

Fans of my short piece on the Pach-Pah Empire might be able to spot history repeating itself here.



¹ Why yes, that is quite a substantial list of peoples to ignore when discussing the qualifications for "original" civilizations.² Almost seems like our definition of the term is worth revisiting, doesn't it?

² Let me also preemptively admit to my bold-faced hypocrisy in not including the Longfolk of the Reossos or the Fokari of the eastern wastelands in this list. Much to my chagrin, I cannot treat all of my sources on those peoples as accurate after two to four hundred years have passed since their (arguably) shaky formation. In the latter case, sheer distance has prevented recent exploration by any daring adventurers, and in the case of the former, our modern brand of daring adventurer tends not to be very arrow-proof. Let me also acknowledge the unwritten word which must remain so even now, lest I return home to find my accommodations back at the ITU completely and wholly dismantled despite what any technicalities in the University's code of law and conduct might say otherwise about the matter. Even so far south, I can still feel the shadow of Adelbramp's black marker looming close.

³ Verse eight, line eleven of the Histories of All, Yashka the Sage, 1284 BR.

⁴ Because the passage in question is not drilled into each and every freshman's brain by orientation courses for three semesters straight like the citation just above, and because I am far away from the text at this moment, I cannot state with a great degree of accuracy where in the Histories this information may be found. However, I am reasonably confident that it is located somewhere within the first 48,000 verses of the narrative, narrowing one's search down considerably.

Looking Southward and Backward, Part 12.

Out here, we are utterly exposed. The wind is dying down by itself, but it can be legendarily powerful across these flatlands. Once upon a time, this whole area was the heartland of pastoralists of varying sorts. First the Ersuunians, then the Haraalians and their kin, grazed vast herds of cattle as well as horses in between the patches of intense hill-country which dominate the imagination of many people confined to the walls of their towns and cities. Indeed, the homelands of the hillfolk are grand and extensive, but the plains which surround them are what allowed for the formation of those first nomad confederations which would eventually give rise to the urban existence which so many of us enjoy.

Even after their fences and tents were traded in for walls and buildings with stone foundations, the hooves of beasts trod over these regions in uncountable numbers along the borders of vast farming estates built to feed burgeoning polities. It was only when the Rupture occurred, and vast areas of grassland were subject to killing frosts the likes of which had not been seen before, did their numbers dwindle. And when they did fall, they plummeted, for the herds and their owners had multiplied and gorged for uninterrupted centuries. Even now, a few hundred years after that winter of winters, local belief holds that one cannot drive into the topsoil with a plowshare anywhere in the south-central plains without striking the skull of a bull.

Not that there is much driving of plowshares around here these days. Many areas are still given to dirt so loose that it blows away on windy days such as this, and deeper soil still possesses that imperceptible taint of overuse. The land that may still be good for hardier crop-raising would have to be reclaimed from the wild first, for the old towns--such as the one purportedly erected alongside Janskurf's Place--crumbled away into nothingness long ago. Deneroth, rather than investing in the risky venture, has opted to feed itself primarily through trade- even as it rulers bemoan the loss of territory and loudly champion returning to the territorial integrity of the old days. Still, the dirt road is wide enough for wagons going both ways at once, attesting to the stubborn regularity of trade from the south.

A peculiar aisle of raised ground divides the two horse paths, dotted with the same tall, tough grasses which surround us. I am remound of the details of one of the accounts of the palace of Haraal, as penned by one of the personal scribe-assistants of Laizij himself. Supposedly for a whole mile leading up to the entrance to the ill-fated stronghold, two roads positioned closely together like this were divided by a pair of tapestries of immense length and height. Woven upon each face was all of the accomplishments of the godlike emperor, oriented so that they could be read while approaching from one road and while leaving along the other. Every day they were being dragged forward or back as new chapters of his greatness were added, lengthening the tapestries while ensuring that they remained perfect, if flipped mirrors of one another.¹

Up ahead, at the highest point on a gentle slope, we can now see the dark timbers of Janskurf's Place. It rises up out of the least inviting-looking patch of heath in the entire land, perhaps a result of one clever bit of business acumen- the worse the environment looks around it, the more inviting and safe the old tavern seems by comparison. The two halves of the road merge together before it and pinch inward as they lead toward it and the structures nearby. The roadside sign we are nearing now is even larger than I had pictured, standing easily twice as high as I do. Elrusyo lightly elbows me and grins as we come close enough for Hraela to recognize that the sensationalist Denerothi Ersuut engravings upon the sign are not even accompanied by anything in a known Gertish dialect.

She is not amused.



¹ I am also remound of one infamous passage described in The Attestations of Itraszes, in which one of the tapestries miraculously transformed to reveal the future of the empire on the night of Haraal's disappearance, describing in grizzly detail all of the plagues, catastrophes, and evils to be visited upon its peoples. The Attestations only surfaced about a century after the ruler departed from his realm, but it was accepted as true enough to be used as an argument for the deification and veneration of Haraal. While I am no expert on topography, I can somewhat confidently state that these plains have not yet been swallowed up by an ever-expanding lake of black fire, causing me to cast some of my own humble skepticism upon the prophesies.

Ko-Fi CuPost #1.

"How about a peek into ITU's hierarchy and faculty?"

-TheLawfulNeutral

Why is it that the farther away from the University I travel, the closer I seem to be linked to it?

Very well. I will do my best to illuminate the nature of my lodgings.

The exact hierarchy and composition of the echelons of the Ivory Tower University are an impenetrably convoluted mystery, even (and sometimes especially) to its own members and higher-ups. At the time of the school's consecration during the life of Grand Scholar Laizij, the bureaucracy was already a broad and robust machine with many lateral offices divided between a considerable number of tiers of authority. In concept it mirrored the specialized and staggered structure of the whole of the city of Deneroth, embodying the perfect form and function of Laizij's greatest creation.

In practice, it introduced bloat and chaos into the mix forevermore.

I use "chaos" in its literal, mythological sense of undifferentiated formlessness, rather than in its sense of randomness, anarchy, and/or man-made lawlessness. The red tape and regulations in place, however arbitrary they may have been in origin under Laizij, are dutifully followed by all members of staff and faculty centuries later, especially in regards to the procedure used to determine where exactly one falls in the hierarchy relative to another individual. You might ask "why would one's position in the hierarchy be in question at any given point?" And that would be a perfectly valid question for which you would be fired, demoted even lower (and then tasked with finding your new ranking), or banished to the libraries in exile on "probation".

You would not be removed before you got the full answer, however. The faculty is quite proud of it.

Here at the University, every position held has a numerical value attached to it. These numbers range from 76 at the lowest, to 0 at the highest. You read that correctly- seniority increases as the number decreases, with various thresholds limiting or enabling an individual's privileges. The first guidelines for the scale were put in place by Laizij himself, and while the number range has remained unchanged in the centuries since, the means of navigating it have ballooned into a textbook's worth of formulae and rules for irregularities and exceptions. Because raw number overrides position within the spine, it is very possible for someone of quite low standing to achieve a very high rank through a combination of judicious school politicking, dumb luck, and bureaucratic blunder.

For example, a freshman student with zero involvement in any clubs or extracurricular activities possesses a 76, which entitles them to room and board, lavatory access, and basic utility and facility usage across campus within the weekly minimum curfew hours. A 5th-year senior who is head of their dormitory's division of the sporting club however, might have a number closer to 52. This would potentially place them above the ranking of their own nontenured professors starting at 55, assuming the student was still enrolled in entry-level classes of course. But if one such professor possessed the title of Committee Head, which is worth a score minimum of 40, then those scores would be averaged together to a respectable 47.5, which would enable them to shut down just about any student attempting to call a referendum on their course materials.

There are ten tiers of importance making up the "spine" of the University, if you will. Various departments confined to each hence radiate outward like "ribs". The topmost rank is made up of the deans of each supra-department, the composition of which is a constantly changing thing, as well as the head senior administrator. These individuals, alongside the biggest contributors to the funding of the University (including at least one representative of the family of the Stewards of Deneroth) make up a Board of the Directorate which modifies all member's rankings to a flat 0, or alters their average, depending on whether or not the Board has been in session in the past eleven days. The Directorate is the single highest decision-making body in the University, and each member enjoys approximately the same weight of importance, involvement, and irritability. Each semester, a vote is conducted by the Directorate to determine who besides the investors has earned the floating title of Inheritor of the Grand Scholar, which among other things possesses a rank of -1. Therefore, the highest seniority number achievable is -0.5 for a period of about sixteen weeks.

The next three tiers are the proper bureaucrats and administrators of the University, who oversee the valuing of titles and positions, the tenuring of professors according to those values, the allocation of funds not decided upon by the Directorate, the regulation of all clubs and committees and their rules, and other matters. Tier three is the level to which my infamous colleague Senior Editor Adelbramp belongs, as both the Provost of the Board for Historical Ordination and Associate Vice-Dean of Affairs for ITU Publishing. He currently sits at a lofty 12, but the latest rumor is that the venerable Chairman Lomeus Bielo of the Treasury is contemplating retirement¹, and acquiring the right position or title left behind in that vacuum would allow Adelbramp to ascend to 8, the threshold for becoming an audience member to the Directorate's meetings.

The next four tiers include the actual professors, instructors, teachers, and graduate students in the University's employ. This vast army of educators is at times even more severe and cutthroat than the realm of bureaucrats, which goes a way toward explaining how hidebound some individuals within these tiers may become- their very livelihood often depends on whether or not the theories they built their careers on remain unchallenged or not for the rest of the year. I am often derisive and hard on many of these men and women (and the occasional squirrel in a waistcoat), but I do not envy the razorwire on which they must balance while also battling for the respect of their walleyed students. Diverse fields dealing with every conceivable consideration or recreation of the sciences, as well as the study of humanity and its many arts, can be found espoused within the classrooms of this at times vexing, other times delightful mess of scholars.

The last tier is composed of the thousands-strong student body itself, but as many introspective pieces produced by students and alumni alike will suggest, a whole separate and intricate web of hierarchies and social dealings is imbricated within, hidden just beneath the surface. At the risk of being over-reductive, I will observe that most of these hierarchies derive from some permutation of clique, academic performance, gang club membership, and family status/background. The seemingly placid, anemic masses of nebbish university-goers is far more vigorous than one might expect.

"But Mr. Litte," you might ask once more, wonder and amazement still etched upon your face, "where is the tenth tier? You've only described nine of them."

Well, my observant reader, you are correct.

Officially there are ten tiers, but the proper tenth receives something of a False City treatment in day-to-day life. The lowest tier is occupied by any and all members of staff deemed to be menial in nature. This includes tenders to the campus grounds, physical laborers, janitorial and/or custodial staff (with the exception of the keepers of the Ivory Tower itself, who are in fact Tier Two administrators), and those who are employed from outside of the University proper work to in or manage various supply offices and commissaries, an exception to the general rule that "outsiders" are not permitted within the gates outside of designated hours. The lower level of Gatekeepers who perform the opening and closing rituals each day while being barred from University entry also occupy this tier, as do stationary adjuncts such as myself.²

All of this is a simplification of a system which must be articulated in several volumes rather than on a few sheets of parchment, of course. One or two nuggets of lore on the subject may have escaped my memory, but I hope I have still made an appreciable contribution to a topic which I have less than absolute fascination for.

¹ It was recently discovered that for the last decade, Bielo had been accidentally sending redeemable treasury checks to University business partners in triplicate, rather than sending records of the transaction down to the Office of Finances. Thus his "retirement" may in reality be mandated. Then again, someone probably should have started to ask questions four years before that, when he turned 89 years of age and began to become confused as to whether he worked at the ITU, or its cousin campus twice removed at Porylus Mons.

² Yes, this is why I am able to maintain the same approximate role and status within the campus despite being dematriculated and then unofficially expelled from the Humanoid Ecology program eight years ago. No, I will not go into this in any greater detail than I absolutely must.