Tubbian Foundations

Tubbian Foundations

Postby Treadwell » Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:42 pm

Aloisius Horatio Treadwell
By my hand, writing from my meetinghouse office where paper is present and ink is plentiful.
The sixteenth day of the seventh month, 214, Myrken Wood.

Orson.
Mountain Grove.
Chalmbury.
Furt.
Wane.
Colmouth.
Westenford.
The Eastern Reach of Hibera.
Myrken Wood.

Nine separate churches devoted solely to Tubbius.

Orson: Four members. Down one after the death of the fifth of five brothers.

Mountain Grove: Ten members. Unchanged in numbers and specific members since AR 208 and disobedient to the command of their Tubbius Regalis to spread the faith and remain less isolated.

Chalmbury: Twenty members. Grown since The Council of The Round in 208, as commanded. Their membership now includes several of their moneychangers, welcomed into the fold these past years.

Furt: Fourteen members. Grown two since The Council of the Round. Still dreadfully isolated in their tower a mile from the town, but entirely supportive of their own efforts.

Wane: Eighteen, mostly comprised of Mayor Tom Kutch and his Belinda with their children, farmer and swineherd Manfred Blinney and his Lotha and their children, with a few cousins and the town blacksmith, Ned Smith. A small town, with a wonderful shrine of me in its midst!

Colmouth: Forty-six, now, grown from thirty-two since The Council met. They have sharpened the focus of the church and have taken to a strict observance of The Folds of Tubbius. They please me. Food is plentiful there, both baked goods and seafood. Colmouth will be the seat of the Church in years to come. My Harvell will lead them when he becomes Mayor there.

Westenford: Twenty-nine members: the entirety of the Westenford Parliamentary Ruling Council. When the twenty-four members of the Westenford church came here to Myken Wood in AR 207, they were quite quickly replaced at my command to Jon by the members of the Council there. They all took quite well to my teachings: gluttonous, greedy landowners looking to maintain control, all of them. Jon leads them in the Church as he does at the Plaza. Splendid!

Hibera: A little over a thousand faithful, at the moment: the entirety of the Eastern Reach. Queen Mother Marian is soon to deliver four more daughters who will fall quickly into step with the rest of the Church there, and her King Oswald will spread the faith to the Western Reach when he is ready. My strongest devotees are from these fae folk.

Myrken Wood: There are an even fifty of us here, counting me in that number. There were twenty-four from Westenford initially. Bill Jacobson, my physician, and his three sons came later, and Langley. Others have joined over the years, mostly from the poorer quarters, and the babies born to the faithful in 212 could do so in future years as they grow from infancy.

I must gather from them all again for a Second Council of the Round. We have much to discuss regarding the future of this Holy Church.
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: Tubbian Foundations

Postby Treadwell » Sat Aug 16, 2014 2:30 am

Morning of the sixteenth day of the eighth month, 214.
The Church of Tubbius, Myrken Wood.


Dwarves are not typically known for traveling much; they, like their mountains where they usually reside, tend not to move from their appointed places. Then again, most dwarves are not subject to having 274 of their kind burned and eaten by an invading black dragon looking to gorge on their numbers. Most dwarves do not abandon their settlement and take up a life of nomadic, merchant seafaring after that.

Of the twenty-six survivors of the assault on Stonepath, twenty-five remain. They are the crew of Captain Gord Griffum, better known to most, including his crew, as just "Griffum" or "Griff." Captain Griffum has made a thriving business in the last eight years, first leading his refugees east from Stonepath in Thessilane to the coast at Orvere and from there by boat to the north, then west, then southwest again, settling in contentedly to sailing among Colmouth, Furt, Westenford, and Ricathair. As of late, they have begun to specialize in the trade of seafood, primarily, enriching their stores with the contents of the towns they visit and with what they pull from the sea, although they still manage a reasonable business in dwarven crafted goods whenever they are forced to settle briefly due to the threats of poor weather, rougher than usual seas, or the ever-present pirates of the Red Caps.

This crew is unique. It is the only fully mobile Church of Tubbius. It is also the only Church briefly disregarded by Aloisius Treadwell in his list of places to contact. It is the only Church to have seen the need to moor its boat in the harbor below the cliff at Westenford, with the other boats that do business there, and, after paying a noteworthy fee for the extended use of the dock, to begin the trek from there to Myrken Wood.

Thus it is that twenty-five round-bodied dwarves exit a rented carriage driven by a paid man from Westenford. Myrken Wood is not a location these visitors know; it is not like their native Stonepath, nestled inside a mountain, and it is not out on the coast like every other place they have seen in the last eight years. However, Myrken Wood hosts a Tubbian church, and that means that Myrken Wood is as much home as any.

Why the Tubbians?

Four years past, nearing four and a half, Captain Griffum and company were shipwrecked at Westenford. They were visitors then, as well, aware of the faith's origins among the Ploavians but unaware that the Tubbians survived to the present. A miraculous feast that fed them saw, after deliberation once back on their ship and on the sea, conversion of both their shipping and religious practices. What better way to launch themselves into a faith devoted to eating when they could easily pull their bounty from the water on which they sailed? Thus it is that the formerly only mildly plump dwarves--save the Captain, who was even four years ago nearly as round as he was tall!--grew out as their wealth grew with them. They took quickly to the proper ranks, titles, and colors of the Tubbian faith. Therefore, the group looks completely at home with everyone else at the community, the dwarves all wearing their burgundy robes of the faith, save the purple worn by their Lord Tubbian and Captain.

The two dozen of them in red, though, are made to wait by their leader. "Find the dining hall!" he commands. And then, his beady eyes nearly disappeared between the doughy masses of his cheeks and nose, Captain Griffum made a simple, unusually polite (for him) request of the one man he'd seen in a purple robe, white sash, white alb, and purple miter--one of only two men at this entire church who would be his senior member.

"Tubbius Princeps," he offered with a slight hitching up of the waist of his robe and an equally slight bow, "I am Captain Gord Griffum. I am here with my men, all faithful. They are here to rest after our trip from Westenford, all of us piled in a coach, and I am here to see our master, Tubbius--our Lord Treadwell! I am here on business quite important, you see, regarding him and his family."
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: Tubbian Foundations

Postby Treadwell » Sun Aug 17, 2014 2:00 pm

Morning of the sixteenth day of the eighth month, 214.
Courtyard at the Church of Tubbius, Myrken Wood.


"But the Tubbius Regalis isn't at the Church today, Captain. Your name, however, I know and have heard spoken of quite fondly on many occasions these past years. If you would be our guests here today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your stay in Myrken Wood, I do think we could support you and your fellows, and tomorrow evening, His Holiness should be here, awake, fed, and free for discussion. I am leading the service in the morning, but he's already told me he plans to be here in one capacity or another tomorrow eve."

"That's perf'tly fine, my lord. I'll fetch the men. You fetch the rooms?"

Evening of the seventeenth day of the eighth month, 214.
The Church office of the Tubbius Regalis, Aloisius H. Treadwell.


"Do pardon my saying so, Tubbius Princeps Wilde, but you said he'd be in his office."

"You misheard me, my friend. That door there at the side?"

"This 'un?"

"Mmhmm. Stairs through there lead down into the earth. There's a hot spring down there. When you and your fellows were asleep after supper, His Holiness came in, having eaten, and settled right into the spring to rest, warm himself, and, I suppose, bathe."

Creeeeak.

"You can't--"

"Oooh, I'm just going to check on 'im!"

Downstairs the round little man goes, feet finding stone steps as he huffs his way through the muggy steam and finds Treadwell with his bosom and beard barely surfaced from the water, his Tubbian garments hanging across a rack for the purpose. A moment to squintily study the white-bearded dwarf, and then, "Captain Griffum!"

"M'lord!"

"It has been a few years, mmph, and you have grown out to a right proper Tubbian. Granted, hm hm, you were close enough four years ago!"

"Mm hmm! Now, I'm sorry t'intrude on you like this, but--well, did the Tubbius Princeps say much to you?"

"He only said you had very important news for me and my family."

A chuckle escapes the bathing Treadwell.

"Oh, come, come! You'll be burning up in that robe and those layers soon enough down here. You might as well remove all of that and slip into the spring and enjoy it all, mmph mmph!"

"B-but m'lord. . . . I'd rather not. It wouldn't be respectful."

"Very well, then! Suit yourself!" Gleeful giggling erupts. "Now, this news? What is it so important you had to travel here a week from Westenford and further from wherever you last sailed, mmph mmph?"

"Well, m'lord, it's about all this." Pudgy leg and boot dip barely into the water to poke the Councilor's stomach. "It's about you, and yours, and your family line."

"My family line! I'm quite familiar with it: all Treadwells."

"Not all. There was one you never knew the name to."

Pauses from both men.

"Tobias, mmph mmph. The fellow who started the faith. He was found a baby at a monastery by James up there. James is in my office, yes? Mister Wilde? Tubbius has kept him alive for three centuries now, mmph mmph."

"He is. Warned me not to come down 'ere, too. But enough of him. You're right. That's the one."

"Well, what of him?"

"I know where he come from, m'lord."

"Oh? What miraculous knowledge is this?"

"I'm well-traveled, sir! And when we met, and you were wearing his skin and looks 'stead of your own for a bit. . . well, that set me to thinking."

"For the last four years, good Griffum?"

"That long indeed. It all goes back to an old story from us dwarves from Stonepath, or what's left of it. About three hundred years 'go, one of the ones about middle-age went west, over the mount'ns, and made a lovesick fool of himself with a woman."

"Quite normal."

"A human woman."

"Not quite normal, then, mmph mmph."

"Not a bit! But story has it she was beaut'ful--a bit on the plump side--and story has it he got her preg'ant!"

"Mmph mmph! And how, little fellow," Treadwell chortles, reaching for a block of soap and a washrag, resuming his bath, "does this tie in with old Tobias?"

"Well, sir, that's what the graybeard scamp named 'is son, story says."

"People share names quite often."

"But the mother, bless 'er, she died givin' birth to the little tub."

"A common occurrence."

"And her dad, not lookin' to raise a half-dwarf babe by 'isself, left 'im at a church. So the story says."

Treadwell frowns gently, setting down the soap but continuing to scrub himself with the rag.

"That's a rather fanciful story. Have you any proof of it? Have you anything solid of how it, hmm hmm, ties with my great-great-grandfather?"

Pudgy pointer stabs sharp into the flabby bridge of Treadwell's shnozz.

"You got m'nose."
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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Re: Tubbian Foundations

Postby Treadwell » Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:18 pm

Evening of the seventeenth da of the eighth month, 214.
The hot spring under Treadwell's Church office, Myrken Wood.


You got m'nose.

"Your nose?"

"M'nose! And if I studied you from top to toes, I'd prob'ly see other things, too! Umm. Your Hol'ness."

"So what you're saying, sir--"

"Is that the six hundred year ol' dwarf beside you is yer great-great-great-grandfather?"

"Mmph mmph."

"So you've got a lil' dwarf in you. That's not a bad thing."

Silence falls on the two men as the hot spring bubbles and Treadwell sinks a little lower in the mud-slick base.

"It's hardly 'nough to matter in most circles, Your Hol'ness. There's a bunch of generations 'tween us! But to a dwarf who knows it?" The seafaring Tubbian slaps his superior on the nearer of his shoulders. "You're blood, much as any!"

"So Tobias was a Griffum. Then shouldn't I be the same?"

The dwarf shrugs his shoulders. "There's no need to change it all now. The boy didn't never know, an' he took on his wife's name, didn't he?"

"He did."

"Then, m'lord Treadwell, you're a Treadwell!" Griffum, though, grins, leaning over his white-bearded kin to give him a poke of a flabby finger deep into flabby bosom. "But don't y'sass me, child! I could still bend y'over m'knee!"

Night of the eighteenth day of the eighth month, 214.
The dining hall in the Church of Tubbius.


"Told you, men! My thrice-great-grandson eats just like me! More, even!"

Twenty-five waggly-bearded dwarves sit at the dining table on chairs and cushions; Treadwell sits at the center instead of his usual end, surrounded, continuing to make singular work of a slaughtered pig killed for the group long after the others have stopped, bellies full.

"I'm quite honored to be in the family, Captain, mmph, even if it doesn't show or mean too much among most folks."

A wink from the round dwarf captain. "Don' talk with your mouth full, boy."

Chuckles and chortles erupt around the table from drunken, tottery visitors.

"Mmph! How long might you be staying, hm?"

"Our boat's docked in Westenford, and we've been gone o'er a week, now. Chief Mag Lincoln ain't changed any rules 'bout daily fees since you were in charge, so we ought t'be heading back soon, or we'll be broke from spendin' time on land."

"Well! I was hoping you could at least stay until next week. I was hoping to give you a feast in your honor before you left. Did you care for this pig?"

"What we ate of it 'fore you settled in at the trough, Your Hol'ness."

Nods and more drunken wobbliness.

"Well, we've plenty more just like it, mmph. It's settled. I'll give you the funds to pay off the dock fees, mmph mmph, and you'll stay here through the start of the week. Besides, I must draw up an official charter for your traveling church and seal it, mmph, since you won't be back for my second Council of the Round."

"Won't, Hell!" A blink. "Beg pardon. I'll give you my 'dresses in Furt an' Colmouth. Y'can send notes on to 'em, and I'll be back here for it whenever you want."

"Very well! Splendid, mmph mmph!"

Supper falls into silence as Aloisius skillfully dissects the remains of the pig, loosening the sash around his robe as he feasts on the last.

"Goodness, Your Hol'ness. It's no wonder Tubbius blessed ye 'bove all the rest of us!"

Rousing cheers circle the table. More ales are poured and lifted and pulled from by all. Even a simple supper is very much a time for merriment when there are Tubbians and all of them present are at least a tiny bit dwarves.
"Looks like a table to me. Do you think it could hold up someone as bulbous as Treadwell?" -- Dr. Brennan, Myrken Wood Rememdium Edificium
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