The Cosmology of Lost Worlds
[Lost Worlds, pt. 7]

To borrow an analogy from a previous commenter, the Lost Worlds are kind of like a cross between Ravenloft Domains and Brigadoon. Let me explain:

Many pocket dimensions share the same Reality as their "core" dimension. The Godnet, for example. Fringe Realities are pocket dimensions which do not. Core Earth's Atlantis and Avalon (from Infiniverse Update, Vol. 2) are the archetypal examples.

Lost Worlds are fringe Realities: they exist as part of the Living Land cosm, but with a Reality different from the Living Land itself. Their own Axioms, their own World Laws, and their own physical space.

This physical space sometimes comes into phase with the cosm proper (or its realm on Earth). When it is in phase, people can physically cross to the Lost World and back. In extremis, a Lost World can even materialize (kind of like Brigadoon). It can overlap or displace the physical space of either cosm, becoming physically a part of it, while still maintaining its own Reality. (More details on this, next post.)

Nearly every Lost World was once part of a cosm the Living Land conquered. (The one exception being those that reflect the pre-Cataclysm Reality of the Living Land.) There is reason to believe that every cosm conquered by the Living Land over the last 1000 years (near a hundred, maybe more) has its own Lost World. These include:

• The homes of the surviving Ustanah (this Lost World reflects the Axioms and World Laws of Takta Ker's original Reality).

• The alt-Earth where the term "Saar" came from, also known as the Detroit Dead Zone.

• Anything else the GM wishes. A variant fantasy world, a world of Gothic Pulp (like the Batman Animated Series), or anything else they want to add to their game, but can't find a place for.

There could be dozens, maybe a hundred such fringe Realities in the Living Land. And, during the Reality War on Earth, they can come into phase with our world. So, an empty patch of ground can suddenly be the site of a village from a plundered reality, sometimes with inhabitants, or sometimes not. Or a grove of trees can become a portal to a Lost World, and passing through the trees of our world leads to trees that are part of another world.

Lost Worlds, in Depth
[Lost Worlds, pt. 8]

Lost Worlds are fragments of cosms, anything from the size of a small village to an entire region (about the size of Scotland). They have the axioms and World Laws of the original Reality.

Lost Worlds are typically formed around hardpoints of the alien Reality, and their boundaries tend to loosely conform to that of the hardpoint. Accordingly, they usually have two zones: a Pure Zone of the alien Reality, at the core of the Lost World, and a larger Dominant Zone surrounding that.

Some are lifeless, many others still have natives. All of them contain relics and ruins from the original cosm.

These pocket dimensions can exist in one of three states at any given time. Most change from one to the other over time.

1.) Isolated. The dimension cannot be reached by any native tools of the Living Land. If the PC's have access to dimensional travel tools, and specific knowledge of the dimension, they may try to reach it (via the Dimensional Door spell, for example). This usually doesn't work, and if it does, people find it's almost always easier to cross into the Lost World than leave it.

2.) "In-phase." The dimensional walls between some place on Takta Ker (or the realm on Earth) has been weakened. People can cross to the Lost World and back. Walk the wrong direction, and you will leave this world and enter a Lost World.

Such events are typically marked by atmospheric anomalies (fog, storms, etc.) and navigation devices — GPS, compasses, whatever — cease to work. (These atmospheric anomalies are not the Deep Mist.) It is difficult to tell when one has crossed into the Lost World, and finding your way out may be just as difficult. Some people never do.

(Obvious module: A party of people wandered into a strange fog and were lost. Players sent to retrieve them, discover strange ruins.)

3.) Materialized. The Lost World has displaced a piece of Takta Ker or Core Earth. For example, since just after the Invasion began the city of Detroit was replaced by the Detroit Dead Zone, a region of 1915 France that includes a small French village, the surrounding countryside, and the front line trenches of an alt-Earth WWI (including a regimental German HQ).

Detroit still exists, in a pocket dimensional space. It's inhabitants are very frightened because, from their POV, the entire rest of the universe just disappeared.

Such displacements may be temporary, lasting a day or two, or may last for weeks or months. They may be one-time events or may recur periodically.

New Amsterdam
[Lost Worlds, pt. 9]

A sample Lost World: The GM wants to add a Reality of Georgian Fantasy (inspired by "Two Crowns for America" by Katherine Kurtz), but doesn't want another invading cosm. So he makes it a Lost World.

As with other Lost Worlds, this one came into existence as the result of a Reality Invasion. When Baruk Kaah invaded the Georgian Fantasy alternate Earth (in 1750), that world's New Amsterdam (the site of a fairly powerful hardpoint) broke off from its cosm and became a Lost World. It literally disappeared, leaving behind a Manhattan Island suddenly bereft of buildings, streets, and people. The disappearance was baffling.

From the point of view of people living on the island, it's the rest of the world that disappeared. The ocean, the entire continent of Columbia, everything outside Manhattan and the surrounding waters just vanished. They can take boats out onto the waters, but as soon as they get out of sight of land, they find themselves sailing back to the island, this time from the other side. So far as they can tell, the island has become its own world.

The Dutch and English settlers maintain an uneasy peace, enforced by the regiment of redcoats who have taken charge of the city. North of the city are the forests, in which live tribes of natives, both hostile and friendly. They trade with the city for supplies, and intermarriages, while uncommon, do occur.

It's been twenty years since the outside world disappeared. Occasionally, people set off onto the waters or into the woods and just vanish. And, rarely, strange people land on the shores of New Amsterdam. People with strange clothing who talk in unknown and unpronounceable tongues, people with metal limbs or strange powers, and sometimes things that are not people at all. Some are taken in, others attacked. But life on the island continues.

Belvedere Castle (in Core Earth's Central Park, Manhattan) is the site of an intermittent portal to New Amsterdam. Every few weeks, at midnight, a conduit opens up there, leading to the same place in the Lost World (though that's not required, the GM likes the mystical symmetry).

In New Amsterdam, the same location is the site of a massive mansion, once the home of the governor of the Colony of New Orange. The mansion is abandoned, and has been since shortly after the vanishing. It is rumored to be haunted.

The rest of Central Park has been turned into farmland. Aided by mystical workings, it produces barely enough food to sustain the city's 10,000 inhabitants. (They supplement their diet with fishing and small game from the forests. The latter is a luxury, as it requires risking native wrath.)

The inhabitants of the Lost World speak a pidgin of Dutch and English, leavened with loanwords from the native tribes. The inhabitants are not innately hostile, but are suspicious and wary of outsiders. They know nothing of the portals, Lost Worlds, or how either operates.

Neither the British Regiment nor the Dutch merchant guild (the two strongest factions in the city) have magisters on staff. Instead, the island depends on a couple of witchy women (who are primarily skilled in as midwifery and herbalism) and a hedge wizard whose magic workings are spotty, at best. If there is a magister living on the island, he keeps himself well hid.

If visitors have any abilities that will allow them to improve life in the city, they can readily trade them for shelter, food, or other luxuries. Food (or means to produce same) and metal implements are in high demand, but entertainment is welcome as well.

[Note: This should include Axioms and World Laws for the sample Lost World. Another task for the pile.]

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;665461Detroit still exists, in a pocket dimensional space. It's inhabitants are very frightened because, from their POV, the entire rest of the universe just disappeared.

Similar to the real world Detroit.

jg

The Land Below Makes No Sense
[Lost Worlds, pt. 10]

The Land Below makes no sense.

A Reality with Pulp Powers and Engineering (two unique FX systems from the Nile Empire), that shared World Laws with the Nile Empire, that shared two axioms with the Nile Empire, and was a Pulp Reality like the Nile Empire, was supposedly a pocket dimension of… Core Earth, the “real world”.

Right.

Then there were the variant Reality domed worlds, which somehow contained other Realities, Realities created by the invaders, but which were still part of the Land Below. The metaphysics of the game simply couldn’t support such a thing, yet there they were.

Sure.

Then there was the pocket dimension of the Ustanah. Of course a Reality containing survivors from the primeval Living Land was part of a pocket dimension of Core Earth.

Of course.

Makes. No. Sense.

Primitive Pulp is part of the Pulp genre. Tarzan. She. DC’s Warlord. And on and on.

Primitive Pulp is part of the Pulp genre, and is therefore part of the Nile Empire. In fact, it’s already part of the Sourcebook!

Proof? The Amazon template, from the Nile Empire Sourcebook. The Jungle Lord template, same place. Both are primitive pulp characters.

Then there’s Hespera (Sourcebook, pg. 46), a primitive pulp Ancient Greek city. And Khem (Sourcebook, pg. 10, third column), the ancient Egypt island (“steadfastly clung to their ancient Egyptian customs across the intervening millennia”). Primitive Pulp.

Primitive pulp locales and characters are already a part of the Nile Empire. They’re in the official Sourcebook.

The Land Below (in specific, Merretika, not the "variant Reality" domed worlds) is part of the Nile Empire. The Axioms, World Laws, FX systems, and genre of the Land Below (plus copious setting details of the Nile Empire itself) prove that.

So, in Storm Knights, that’s what the Land Below is: a pocket dimension of Terra, the home cosm of the Nile Empire.

That said, the concept of a “grab bag” of Realities is highly useful, colorful, and fun. But it isn’t, and shouldn’t be, part of the Nile. But it should be part of the Lost Worlds Reality.

New places, unexplored places, weird and bizarre and unknown places — that’s what the Lost Worlds genre is. And that’s what the Living Land is.

Conclusion
[Lost Worlds, pt. 11]

The Lost Worlds are one of the oddest, yet most compelling features of the Storm Knights Living Land. Though they are optional (like all the elements this far presented), they add so much to the cosm. So many adventure opportunities, so many character opportunities.

GM’s can make any Reality they want. And players can be from any Reality they wish (subject to GM approval, of course). Lost Worlds are the cosmological back door that allows GM’s and players to experiment with any idea they can conceive of. And, if the experiment doesn’t work out, the Lost World just goes away.

They allow for the same breadth as the Dome Worlds of the Land Below, while being better integrated into the cosmology and setting of the game.

The Cataclysm is a major addition to the mythos of the Living Land. As described in post 5, it explains why the religion developed the way it has and why the edeinos love Lanala so much. She literally saved all life on Takta Ker. Even if I weren't using the Lost Worlds, I'd still be using that as a background.

All settings (including Torg cosms) need a mythos, a history-as-story that explains why the setting became what it is. Shadowrun has the Awakening, Deadlands the Reckoning. My rewritten Living Land has the Cataclysm.

The Next Series

The next (and last, for now) Living Land series covers the high Social Living Land, and explains why a tribal society has a Social of 28.

Why?
[High Social Living Land, pt. 1]

I want to start off this series with a "why": What is the point of a high Social Living Land?

Back at the beginning of this thread, I pointed out that the Living Land was a monotonous, one-note Reality: mist, dinosaurs, stuff getting lost. That's it. Period.

More, it's an obvious Reality: everything about the Living Land is immediately apparent in the first five minutes in the Reality, and it never, ever changes. There is no depth, no surprises, nothing unexpected.

The Storm Knights Living Land, on the other hand, is all about the surprises. Baruk Kaah leads the Rek Jakutta, but is really a Jakatt. The primitive, religious Reality was, at one point, a High Tech, science-fiction cosm. And Lost Worlds, Lifecrafting, Legendary Miracles, and more.

Not what is expected.

The high Social Living Land is that, times ten. It's a completely unexpected element, the discovery of which will surprise and shock players who are used to thinking of the Living Land as "that primitive jungle place".

The high Social Axiom also adds something of immense value — tools that go beyond the religious theme of the Reality. Even in the variant Living Land, all the new tools and toys are miraculous or religious in nature — boons, intercessions, Lifecrafting, and so on. All religious. All spiritual.

The high Social Living Land adds something more  — high Social tools.

Metalinguistics, the ability to rapidly translate and learn alien languages. Lucid hypnosis, characters so persuasive they can rewrite your personality. The Insight skill, which allows them to almost read your mind, based solely on your body language and speech. Infectious norms, wholesale editing of cultures via social manipulation. Predictive sociology, an ability akin to Asimov's "psychohistory". And infinitely adaptive institutions, the ultimate form of social organization.

These are colorful tools, powerful tools, and highly unique tools. They mark the Living Land as an alien Reality, a place utterly unlike Earth.

So, despite it being a non-obvious choice, a high Social Living Land is very much an improved Living Land.

Of course, all this needs to be explained. How does this cosm have a high Social Axiom? Why does this cosm have a high Social Axiom? And what does the high Social Axiom mean?

I'll start with the explanations next post.

The Social Axiom, in 750 Words
[High Social Living Land, pt. 2]

For Storm Knights, I have been revamping the Axiom charts, including expanding and rewriting them. The high Social Living Land is the first Reality that takes advantage of the new entries at the upper end of the Social scale.

To explain why the Living Land has a high Social, I need to recap the concepts behind the revamped Social axiom. This will also help explain what their Social abilities are.

# # #

The social nature of humanity is built into our brains. Our neurology makes social interactions necessary and possible. (And, when the brain has structural variances, it can make socializing very difficult.)

We learn standards of behavior growing up. These standards of behavior — called "norms" — guide us in social situations.

Norms tell us what to do. But some people violate norms — they're rude, offensive, or even deviant. At low Social levels, with small-scale societies, this is punished by ostracism or exile.

People can only intimately know a limited number of others. (Recent data indicates this maxes out at 150 or so individuals.) When the community grows beyond that, social sanctions are not as effective — people care far less about what strangers think — so misbehavior becomes more common. Humans solved this with laws, a legal code, and judges.

These differed from norms by being explicit, verbal, and (often) recorded. The more people that lived and worked together in the same small space, the more explicit social structures were needed and the more complex they became.

Yet norms, conventions, and traditions (all variations of the same thing) are still useful. The United Kingdom's form of government is almost all determined by tradition — there is no written Constitution. Yet still it functions, and has for over a millennium.

Humanity almost always divides itself into "Us" and "Them". "They" are almost always enemies. The story of civilization and the Social axiom is the increasing size of the "Us".

Historically, hunter-gatherer bands numbered about 150 people (for good reasons, see above). Tribes numbered less than a thousand. Cities and city-states were thousands or tens of thousands. Countries were hundreds of thousands. And modern nations are numbered in the millions (or even billions). The larger the group being governed, the more complex the social structures.

Also advancing are scholarship and science — the ways in which we understand the world, including the social nature of living beings. The first way a high Social society differs from our own is this: they have learned all there is to know about societies. Language, ways of learning, psychology of individuals, nature of culture and social structures — such Societies have learned it all and mastered it all, to the extent that such knowledge is unconscious and innate.

We have to conduct studies to tease out psychological truths. They just know. We have to struggle with various forms of governments, arguing and warring over which is best. They just know. We have to hire efficiency experts, to streamline procedures and policies and methods and guidelines and… They just know.

All of the things we barely hope to understand, one day. They just know.

The second major difference is this: infinitely adaptive institutions.

At some point in the future, my Social axiom posits, people become able to understand their own motives and strengths with clarity and rationality. Emotional attachments exist, but they no longer compel behavior unconsciously. We eventually learn to consciously integrate emotional data, to overcome irrationalities like arrogance and insecurity.

This enables consensus decision making on a wide scale, among millions of people. No longer do we depend on rigid laws and bureaucracies. Instead people can make decisions in the moment, creating policies on the fly, and they will be more effective and more correct than any decision made by a central authority.

Authority and law become — in the modern term — crowd-sourced. There are still "laws", but these are a product of norms and decisions, not explicit and recorded constructs.

This isn't anarchy. There are still social structures and institutions — still a post office, still a military. (If either is needed.) But these institutions are far more adaptable than ever before. Infinitely adaptable. More, they are only the size they need to be: they change in size and structure as needs demand.

If the optimal size of a military is 30 people, that's approximately how large the military will be. If situations change, the military changes.

Traditional social structures have always evolved. Again, look at the gradual development of the UK's parliamentary system.

In a high Social society, everything is a tradition, and they evolve rapidly, sometimes in minutes. Social structures are no bigger than they need to be, and have the structure they need to deal with the situation at hand.

All of the above can be directly applied to the Living Land.

Time to Scare You
[High Social Living Land, pt. 4]

The high Social Living Land is a radically different vision of the cosm. How do this this work out in play?

Just remember, edeinos are not the stereotypical "stand around and gawp at the marvels of modern society" primitives we see in movies and TV shows. They're more socially adept than anyone you know. All of your complicated societies are child's playthings to them. Their whole attitude towards democracy and socialism is "nice, for what it is, but too complicated and inefficient". They do innately things we have to spend our lives learning.

They can fit in at any social function, sweet-talk nearly anyone, and feel at home in any kind of situation, ranging from a vicious shaman in the Land Below to a grand House ball in Aysle, to the Church Court in the Cyberpapacy. They can intuit the rules of these situations and turn them to their own advantage. They are the ultimate lawyers and bureaucrats (assuming they're motivated to try), and any sort of explicit legal system, political structure, or org chart can be bent, folded, spindled, or mutilated to produce the result the edeinos wants.

They can learn nearly any language rapidly, and speak it with a facility that stuns natives. They can seemingly read your mind, just by understanding social cues and speech.

They are born leaders, born psychologists, born storytellers, and born debaters. They can literally rewrite your attitudes and personality with their mad debating skills. More, if they take the time, they can rewrite the cultural norms of an entire society. In less than a decade, they could change the bohemian and technology-centric culture of San Francisco into a clone of the Amish.

Obviously, all the above require skill adds to fully realize — the descriptions are of the culture as a whole, not every individual edeinos. Yet the capabilities are there.

These are some truly frightening people, balanced by the fact that they don't really care enough about outsiders to deploy their full capabilities. They are more interested in their internal wars, Jakatt vs. Rek Jakutta, to bother rewriting our culture.

Which is fine. It means we can survive the encounter.

(I don't know how, but I posted part 4 first. Whoops. This is, indeed, supposed to be part 3.)

Takta Ker is Very Old [High Social Living Land, pt. 3]

Before we talk about what the high Social Living Land is, I have to explain why it exists. Specifically where it came from and how it survived.

Where it came from is easy: Takta Ker is very old.

The original galaxy-spanning confederacy of worlds had a massive Tech and a high Social. It had to. To quote from the R&E:

Social 27: "Social structures are advanced enough to incorporate factions and societies of a completely alien nature."

It's hard to get more alien than the amoeboid benthe and floating starfish stalengers. Yet these races are perfectly integrated into Takta Ker society. How? The Social axiom is high enough.

When the Cataclysm devastated Takta Ker, it destroyed their technology and industrial base, so the Tech axiom plummeted. But the Social remained the same.

How did the Social axiom survive?

Social advances don't depend on a technological base. They depend on norms, traditions, and conventions — things that are taught person-to-person.

Pre-Cataclysm Takta Ker had reached the "innate understanding of Social issues" stage. Thus, inhabitants of the cosm no longer needed conscious scholarship to understand complex sociological, psychological, linguistic, and cultural issues. Understanding of these areas was unconscious and taught person to person (like norms). Thus, even when the society became "tribal" scale (composed of groups of less than 150 individuals), they retained their mastery of Social issues. This mastery allowed them to adapt to the new, post-technological circumstances they found themselves in.

Remember also that their society was infinitely adaptive in scale: groups were no larger than needed, with the leadership structure that was needed. In the post-technology Living Land, tribal bands (or cells) of roughly 150 people are the ideal size. It maximizes their ability to hunt and gather food (necessary due to the absence of agriculture), and maximizes their ability to avoid and survive the perils of the natural world.

Takta Ker tribes are also fantastically flexible. In most tribal cultures, power structures are determined by centuries-old traditions. Matriarchy, patriarchy, rule by a council, rule by a Big Man, rule by hunters, rule by priests, rule by magicians — all of these are traditions, more or less set in stone.

Not in the Living Land. One day, the hunters may lead (as the tribe responds to a sudden food deficit). The next day, an optant (or priest) may take the lead. The next day, a communal decision by consensus, involving the entire tribe.

Power structures can change rapidly, if circumstances dictate. And one day's leader may become the next day's foot soldier. And everyone involved accepts that this is the way it should be.

What appears to be — at first glance — tribes are, in actuality, highly efficient social structures fine tuned for survival in the perilous jungles of Takta Ker. It's deceptive simplicity.

Such societies are highly flexible and highly resilient. Our society would (and has) fractured under the pressures of, for example, pandemics. And, after fracturing, the effective Social level drops, as former advances are forgotten or abandoned.

But an infinitely adaptive society can absorb the blow, adapt to their new circumstances, and still educate the youth in the necessary knowledge. Which is what happened on Takta Ker.

This adaptability is the hallmark of a high Social society. And, despite its seemingly primitive culture, that's what the Living Land is.

Tools of a High Social Axiom & Conclusion
[High Social Living Land, pt. 5]

There are two layers of "house rules" to the high Social Living Land. The first, and most obvious, is just giving the Reality a high Social axiom in the first place. The second is that the Torg Social axiom is, for the most part, amazingly empty. There are no entries for most of it, especially the upper reaches, let alone concrete tools that strongly distinguish the upper reaches from the lower Axioms. Thus, all of the tools available to the Living Land due to its high Social derive from my rewritten Social axiom. And here they are:

Innate understanding of social situations and scholarship — Edeinos have an innate grasp of social dynamics. They can acclimate to any social situation, no matter how bizarre, and ingratiate themselves (or not) with ease. They also innately understand science and scholarship, and are experts at both. These facilities are represented by a blanket +3 bonus to applicable skills, such as Artist, Business, Linguistics, Scholar, Science, Streetwise, Charm, Performance Art, Persuasion, Taunt, and Training.

Insight skill — Think of this as the "Hannibal Lector" skill. It allows edeinos to deduce a great many things about a person, based solely on a minimum of personal interaction. Motivations, personality, temperament, goals, the truth or falsity of statements, and so forth. A highly useful ability. Can also be used to enhance other social skills.

Metalinguistics — The ability to analyze and understand nearly any language, based solely on a minimal sample. Edeinos are master translators. More, they learn languages faster than any other cosm.

Infective norms — Editing cultures, or creating new ones from scratch. Edeinos make war with propaganda, more effectively than anyone else.

Lucid hypnosis — The ability to "hypnotize" a person, through normal social interaction. (Again, a "Hannibal Lector" skill.) Say a few words in the right way, and people will find themselves doing things they never imagined.

Predictive sociology — "Psychohistory". That is, the ability to predict trends and actions a population will take in the future.

Partial or preliminary rules for most of these have been written. At some point in the future, I'll be posting them to my Torg fan site, Storm Knights, here: http://stormknights.arcanearcade.com/

Conclusion

• All of these tools are unique. Most are unavailable in any other Reality, and even if available, the edeinos are simply better at them than anyone else. More, they are very different from the miracle-centric tools that dominate life in the cosm.

• They add variety. All cosms need variety — Aysle has magic and miracles, the Nile Weird Science and Pulp Powers, the Cyberpapacy miracles and cyberware. Now the Living Land has miraculous abilities and powerful social tools.

• They are colorful — they give the Living Land a distinct flavor or feel. As masters of social dynamics and interactions, edeinos stand out.

When complete, I expect the high Social Living Land to be something unique and very, very interesting.

In the original version, wasn't the Edeinos language ability more a physiological trait?  And doesn't this mean that disconnecting removes that advantage?

jg

Deceptive Simplicity & Conclusion

I think the Storm Knights Living Land is compelling and unique. It is certainly an easily graspable cosm — primitives, dinosaurs, and ruins of lost worlds. But that layer of common tropes conceals great depths.

The whole paradigm is that of deceptive simplicity. It seems like the edeinos are simple primitives, living low-Tech, simple lives. But their apparently simple tools are, in reality, Lifecrafted.

It seems like they're speaking a primitive, guttural tongue. But it is deceptively complex. (See here: http://goo.gl/q9VRq )

And it seems like a tribal society, just like any other. The truth is, they have just left all the social complexity behind. They have advanced past legal edifices, bureaucracies, and democracy.

What they seem to be is easy to portray. But, if players and DM's want to dig under the surface, they’ve a whole world of complexities awaiting them.

Conclusion

I came to hate the official Living Land. It was punitive to players (“You’re lost!” “You lose your stuff!”) and boring to run and play.

This Living Land, in contrast, is pure fun. This is an action-adventure Reality. Brave adventurers exploring an untamed wilderness, facing hostile natives (and friendly natives), dangerous wildlife, and ruins of lost civilizations.

The cosm is about exploring the strange new world imposed over our own, facing the dangers of nature (volcanos, blizzards, earthquakes, herds of stampeding dinosaurs), fighting massive and sometimes monstrous creatures, scavenging tools and supplies from ruined Earth cities, running supplies to resistance communities, exploring ancient alien ruins, encountering strange civilizations, and in general running "lost world" style pulpish adventures.

This Living Land, with Lost Worlds, Lifecrafting, advanced Social and Spiritual abilities, and a rewritten background is one I’d very much like to play in and run.

This is the end of my Living Land posts, for now. I want to, again, thank everyone who’s read and responded. I appreciate all the comments and compliments.

Cheers!