Reflections on Danse Macabre: Idea for a Covenant.

So, I came up with the idea for this covenant December 2010. This particular covenant occurred to me after I read and thought about the historical consequences of the Fall of the Camarilla. One thing that kinda stuck with me was just what DID happen to those poor fuckers in the Legio Mortus who were outside of Rome proper on the far outskirts of the empire when the city of Rome fell? I felt that there was something to work with in this so I have made a Covenant that is both a nod to the old Vampire with some new ideas. So, Ladies and Gentlemen! I present: The Children of the Empire.

The Children of the Empire

Alternate Names: The C.O.E.(Formal or informal), Hassan's Inheritors, (Archaic), The Specter Show(mocking), Specter (Informal), The Children (Formal), Imperials (Joking or derogatory)

History

In the far provinces that the legions once conquered, it took time for the news of the Fall of Rome to disseminate. Several of the surviving Senex and Legio Mortum members who lived outside the central provinces would abandon their old ties to make up the Invictus and hold their old standards of political maneuvering. But for one legion of the damned, the 9th Legion this conglomeration was not a viable option.

The 9th Legion was sent to the outer end of Romania to fight off the foreign invasions that were coming from the east. They were hand picked due to their steadfast loyalty to Rome and the legion, that and their skill at lasting an extended period without contact with civilization. When at last they heard the news of the fall of Senex, the Julii, and Rome herself the 9th Legion was stuck in this new roman province due to an onslaught invasion from the Baltic regions. At this news these legionaries then came to two horrific realizations: either they were to meet ignoble death by invaders for an empire that no longer existed and would not account their honourable efforts, or admit defeat by abandoning their posts and dishonoring their honour as soldiers of a legion. Placed in a situation that seemed impossible to turn to their advantage, and feeling divorced from the empire they fought for, the morale of the famed ninth legion broke. In the depth of their depression some legionaries fell to the red fear, some others wassailed out of impotent furty, and some turned their attentions introspectively, meditating on their situation and digging themselves into a deep self-destructive despair. However from this bleak no-win situation it was the legion's centurion, Mathias of Clan Nosferatu who divined the solution to their doom.

Emerging from his tent he took the legion's standard and stood before his soldiers and one by one asked them one question: "Would you choose to die by enemy now as a soldier of Rome or would you choose to die later preserving all of The Empire that remains?" To those to chose to die as soldiers of Rome he decapitated them with merciful quickness. Of those who chose the latter he ordered them to build a pyre for the fallen showing them a soldier's respect to comrades. Mathais demanded those surviving soliders swear to follow him in order to see his vision met. Mathias declared to his soldiers of the former legion that Rome died because it was weak! He declared that in its inability to adapt, to meet challenges, to know the dangers that desired to destroy it, Rome had forfeit it's right to existence! His epiphany that lead to this conclusion: only the empires made of stone and script may be destroyed, but The Empire the True Empire is one that could never be destroyed. Their duty as children of the empire was to make the True Empire that was invincible to the frailties that Rome and Rome's precursors suffered. With renewed dedication he lead his followers out of their camp stripping any object of use, and in a warrior's pyre of the blaze that was the camp the ninth legion faded into obscurity while the Children of the Empire moved forward into the long nights.

Until the Crusades the Children of the Empire remained a small but loyal conspiracy within the other covenants. From their positions in cities spread through the civilized world The Children slowly gathered followers and observed the development of modern technologies and techniques as they were applied to the battlefield. Extrapolating these techniques they learned methods appropriate to their body of tactics and began gathering information on war-making and statesmanship. As effective as they were in finding advanced knowledge they continuously came across the same problem in their discovery: contemporary techniques of warfare required too much material resources in weapons and people to be able to effectively threaten entire societies on a significant level. While weapons improved, tactics improved, and civilization moved forward rediscovering scant few secrets of the past more often than not methods proved again and again to be inefficient to defend The Empire. Despite this difficulty, The Children learned much in the following centuries, mostly about how not to rule and influence people on the long term. But by creating such a network of spies and moles to keep abreast of developments they were among the first kindred to hear of a small Islamic sect that had developed an effective way of influencing nations without resorting to armies or complicated weaponry, advanced tactical assassination. From the Hashishin sect of Islam the methods and tools of effective assassination were neatly poached by The Children. Even after the Hashishin sect fell, the Children of the Empire still honor Hasan-i Sabbah as being their great patron for inventing the method to preserve the True Empire, not through fighting wars of territory and state but of fighting wars of information and ideas. Just as the ninth legion fell centuries before due to the death of their morale, The Children learned how to take that affliction and weaponize it, and with that pen their history is written.

When the Children finally revealed themselves in the 16th century it was following an epidemic of destabilization and assassination in the cities and regions they wished to expand to, out of nowhere members of court would seem to go insane and either kill off kindred or sabotage some foundation of kindred society that had never been accounted for. Despite the fact that every city that they wished to truly gather within as a true covenant suffered from similar surgical chaos there were only four cities where the Children took praxis, Lisbon in Portugal, Toledo in Spain, Corinth in Greece, and Damascus in Syria. With the exception of these cities the children's introduction into the dynamics of politics on the aftermath of chaos was surprisingly succesful. As a small sect from the middle east with historical relation to Rome that merely wished to return to greater kindred society many suspicions were unvoiced or silenced. Despite suspicion the Children were mostly disinterested in rulership and far more inclined to encourage political stability in their newly established territories. Outside of cities with a considerable population of the Children small chapter houses were built with a small number of Children representing the organization as a whole and the many services that can be offered, for a price.

In their modern incarnation the Children have both honoured and improved upon their historical roots as soldiers and spies by also becoming, policemen, engineers, assassins, hackers, scientists, and brokers. Despite the fact that the Children emphasize the meritocratic pseudo-military nature of their covenant Children of the Empire methodology is surprisingly pragmatic in its execution. Members of other covenants who encounter The Children at work are often impressed at the efficiency and reverence they demonstrate in their actions, "Not quite a cult, not quite an army, and not quite an intelligence agency with the benefit of history's errors." a Carthian observer accounted of interacting with the children to a vampire colleague. Unfortunately that Carthian was liquidated for knowing too much about the Covenant's nature by being absolutely correct, fortunately the colleague was an informant for the Children. Skill, talent, and raw power are respected and admired in the covenant, though like the many intelligence agencies, security forces and mercenary companies that The Children have learned from, a respect for tradition is no justification for maintaining obsolescence, which is often said as a solemn rebuke to the Invictus members who criticize the Children's methodology.

Inside The Covenant

The Children of the Empire have learned that information is a commodity that many kindred value dearly but any trained observer can take for free. Misinformation, disinformation, and the simple act of knowing how to imply much by saying little are the typical behaviour when The Children are interacting with outsiders. The children are taught how to act when under any degree of public scrutiny, as themselves or as stereotypes. A C.O.E. member might be indistinguishable from an Invictus or Carthian member on a matter of common appearance or behavior, or they may just seem to be a down-to-earth guy with a few quirks that read "ex-military". Most Children have an On-the-Job/Off-the-Job kind of mentality, when not in some kind of duty for the covenant a Specter is free to do as they will, however when duty to the covenant becomes a factor a Specter knows when they must act accordingly.

Outside of the nine mother cities of the Children most Specters understand day to day covenant affairs as being part of the business set by the Chapter Pater or Mater. The leader of each chapter is named with the Latin word for Father or Mother, this has been the case since the founding of the covenant, as the leaders are supposed to have a parental responsibility to the Children under them and a familial responsibility to the covenant as a whole. The Leader of the Chapter is decided through a combination of respect, experience, and merit, frequently it is the oldest vampire in covenant in the city but this is not a hard rule. If a subordinate wishes to take the leader's place it may be decided by any number of manners, Ordeals, Trials, or a simple political coup, though in some cases the former leader may step down willingly, there is no shame in the last decision. In the event that the new leader isn't up to snuff, well, a incompetent leader is seldom long destined to remain in lead, let alone to get in the position to lead. There has been precedent of Paters and Maters stepping down as an object lesson to the chapter in why they became leaders in the first place, given the long history of the covenant the Children often nip fellow vampires with more ambition than ability in the bud.

Rank and file within covenant is less organized than any other, the aristocracy of talent is often the unofficial rule of discrete hierarchy, covenant members are encouraged to train with each other to know the strengths and weaknesses of their fellows for future operations. Ironically by setting this uncovering of weakness under the guise of group training, rather than the normal predatory instinct to take advantage of a fellow vampire's weakness, a pack-mentality kind of bond is instead crafted between Specters that make their use of small unit tactics amazingly effective. Thus the normal frictions that occur between vampires in close contact are instead channeled into more constructively competitive rivalries or strong bonds of comradery that have their own unique ways of being exacerbated by the beast.

A chapter-house is always a location that is large enough to house each member of the covenant in the city, it is always a subtly well fortified location, and it usually is not the location that most Non-children kindred in the city go to when they need to deal with the Children. A chapter-house is barracks, research and development, operations command, and temple to the Children, a multi-use building meant to be improved and maintained as needed. From the Chapterhouse missions are delivered, neophytes are trained out of their human limitations, long-term goals are organized and executed, and the spiritual foundations of the covenant are embedded into their members.

The Stereotypical thoughts about what goes on inside Children chapterhouses often brings images not inappropriate in a spy movie or TV show. Images of quartermasters with warehouses full of illicit goods, shadowy conference rooms where specific lighting masques the members, banks and banks of high tech goodies operated by TV friendly faces, yeah, the children have seen those too, and it's spoken of in the same mocking tone that Invicti speak of Renaissance fairs, a characteriture of the real thing. No member of the Children get paid the gross salaries expected in the mortal world for what they do, no they do what they do because they want to. The Covenant's spiritual background is expressed as a combination of Hashishin mystical practice, Neoplatonism, and Jungian psychology. The essence of the Children's spiritual practice is the True Empire and to understand it as Mathias did, the platonic ideal of a perfect empire in every way shape and form. The spiritual goal then that drives the Children as a whole is their desire to make manifest the one True Empire from platonic idea into reality by any means possible to any degree possible. In this light the covenant as a whole understands that in every government, there is some symbolic shard of perfection that is captured by word or art, from these artifacts the Children must derive symbolic meaning from its material manifestation.

To the Children, the world of darkness has two kinds of inhabitants, the proles who live in comparative bliss, and the ones in the know who see just how horrible the world actually is. However, on another level of reality wholly separate from the world of darkness is a world of perfection without flaw and without decay. Those jaded individuals who join the covenant after acquiring a cynical outlook find that the Children's cause and the personal knowledge of the True Empire is a catalyst to a genuine ideal. This foreign experience becomes a solid foundation of which many experience such power, loyalty, and dedication that with no previous equivalent find themselves unexpectedly devoted to the cause. Because while the world might be corrupt and people might disappoint, to make the way for perfection to enter such a damned world is a genuinely noble cause.

Rituals

Proving One's worth:
To join the children one must receive training with a taskmaster worse than any drill sergeant, even those who have successfully gone through elite training find the drills and practices deliberately difficult, for human error is no longer an excuse for failing to learn and improve. After satisfactory results of their training candidates go through a trial by ordeal meant to test the candidate's ability to take the pressure that Specters are likely to experience in their duties, no one goes through the ordeal without breaking in some manner, however what the Children want to know is just how long it takes for a candidate to break, and where the fracture points are. Last but not least the candidate must go through the proving mission. The proving mission is the sole test where failure to meet their objective is completely unacceptable. The mission must be done solo, with none of the covenant's resources, and the objective is always a goal that properly exposes the ability of the candidate, further more to show off their strengths and to overcome their weaknesses. For the Candidate passing the mission is the sole focus, for the testers HOW they meet their objectives makes for the longterm potential for the candidate, while the covenant has uses for blunt tools the swiss army knives tend to get preferable treatment.

The Initiation:

Of the Children that are brought into the covenant most find themselves under the training After completing mandatory training, a trial by ordeal, and their proving mission a candidate is at last allowed to become a full member of the covenant. The initiation ceremony has a new Specter fully armed and armored in their preferred gear. They are then at last allowed to enter the temple for the first time. As they enter they find an honour guard gathering and surrounding them dressed just the same that act as an escort to the leader of the Chapterhouse. In the center of the Temple the Pater or Mater holding a Roman Legion's Standard, The standard has all the relevant information and achievements of the chapter. When the Initiate reaches the center of the temple the Mater begins telling the tale of the ninth legion. At certain points the Mater pauses and names a single piece of gear that the candidate is wearing then ask a single question, "Can this protect the Empire?" The question is open ended and the candidate is encouraged to justify their response, if the candidate answers well the Mater will then ask them to remove it. If the candidate does not answer appropriately the Mater will correct them informing that it lacks the key essence needed and asks one of the honour guard to remove it. This questioning continues until the Candidate has been ceremoniously stripped naked the mater declares if the Initiate has not figured it out that only a candidates heart and mind can truely defend the Empire. The candidate is then made to go down on one knee raise their right hand to their heart with the left resting on the standard as the Mater asks the question that Mathias asked his legion so long ago. There is only one right answer, and if the candidate does not answer correctly they will meet final death as each of the honour guard dispatch him. After the ceremony the candidate is handed a Gladius sheds some of their blood upon it and swears by it that any who would prevent the Empire's coming will meet death at their hands or they will be struck down by that very blade.

Via Verum

The "road to truth" is a rite of meditation that is the most sacred ritual of the covenant. It is a guided meditation performed by the chapter's Leader to bring to all Children as close to the The Empire as can be achieved. The ritual has ecstatic element that then releases the consciousness of the members and takes their awarenesses to the very edge of the True Empire to glimpse at the Empire's awe inspiring perfection. What makes this rite so unique amongst the others of its type is that all members involved in the meditation are fully aware of the other Children who travel with him to the Empire and the vision is perfectly shared by all attendees. Though the vision is perfectly shared the vision is difficult to describe to those who did not share the vision, as if the platonic universe witnessed cannot be completely expressed through language.

Dedication to an End

Sometimes people die, oftentimes people die at the hands of the Children, however to the kindred in this covenant assassination is a sacred act. While killing and murder may be an incidental event that is required to achieve an objective, assassination is another thing entirely. Assassination for the Children is the sacred act of deliberately ending a being's influence upon the material world to ease the emergence of the True Empire. By this ritualized practice an assassination must be precise, surgical, and intimate with his target. The Assassin must know his target like he would know a lover, the death must be planned to the minute detail. The Assassin should know the date, time, method, and effect of his target's death. The Assassin must be aware of the consequence of death, and what ripples it creates. This is done both to emphasize the importance of the act and for the assassin to avoid the callousness that enourages the beast.

Covenant Advantage

Members of the Children may purchase the Armory, Contacts, Fighting Style, and Mentor at half the experience cost. This does not apply at character creation.

Lexicon

Babbage: Specter specialized in communication and codes.
Carrier Pigeon: a mortal Dominated into delivering messages to other chapterhouses
Collateral Damage: people harmed in an operation aside from objective targets

To Cowboy: To perform a messy assassination, with many bullets and excessive collateral damage.

Deep Throat: Term for a source of information that the Specter does not want to divulge.

Fida'i: Solo member on a killing mission

Fubar: Used to describe a situation where Covenant interference is required in another covenant's business

Hunting the Tiger: a mission where the objective is to prevent assassination

James Bond: Either a show-off Specter or a dangerous idiot.

Kiss of Death: To kill an apostate with their oath blade "kissing" them with the tip, this punishment is only reserved for true betrayers who have compromised the

Lance: Three person team used for most operations.

Magister: Practiced member of the C.O.E. who acts as an Itinerant teacher

Mergaq: Portmanteau of "Mergers and Acquisitions" Used when a vampire is handpicking mortals for either the embrace into the covenant or as a useful contact

Mr. Johnson: An anonymous client.

Neophyte: A member who has just completed their proving.

N.Q.'d: To offer no quarter.

Omega'd: A lance designed to go into deep cover as sleeper agents

Pater/Mater: Leader-priest of a Chapterhouse.

To Pull a Hoover: To blackmail a figure of considerable power.

Robspierre: a Straw-man made to kill off for political gain.

Regent: A Prince who is of the Children of the Empire

Spook Show: To perform an operation just to impress the city's kindred

Yojimbo: a Specter agent provocateur placed in a city to stir things up

More things on the Children of the Empire later....

Bus Poetry.

Sometimes I write poetry as a catharsis exercise, to get out what bothers me or to give me a moment to focus on what I am feeling so that I can ignore it. Besides, this warms up my fingers...

Fear! Anxiety! Exaustion!

I feel as a Hollow Man

Not Hollow souled, Not hollow legged,

But as a puppet without a hand.

The strength and solidity I feel is that of my frame

Looking full bodied, Vital! Enlivened.

But feeling myself open and exposed like a skin slapped onto a skeleton.

The world beats against my chest like a Drum,

My Body feels wave after wave Resonate in emptying Architecture.

Every Bump, Boom! and Drop makes my giant's frame rattle the child within.

The Child is in Command of the Castle

Yet the empty halls bleed loneliness like a midwinter Draft, excising warmth.

Do all of us feel this way when we feel so weak and vulnerable?

May we life in wonder of the Child that commands the giant's Frame.

Why it is "Danthulhu's Teahouse"

Danthulhu is a nickname of mine, one that i'm really fond of too. It comes from the dream of a friend of mine, Dieter.

So Dieter tells me that in his dream he is at home and he hears a knock at the door, he opens the door to see Cthulhu in all his greatness outside his house in all his gigantic monstrosity. (If you want to know what Cthulhu looks like just google it.) Cthulhu says to Dieter in my voice, "Hello Dieter, how are you today? Can I come in for some tea?" Rather polite for an elder god no? So somehow this creature wedges itself into Dieter's home, sits down, and Dieter pours Cthulhu some tea in a normal tea cup. So with a giant clawed hand Cthulhu delicately grasps the teacup (pinky raised), raises the cup towards it's head(presumably towards it's mouth,) pauses for a moment, and then says to Dieter once more in my voice, "Dieter, could I borrow a rubber band? The tentacles keep getting in the way."

Thus from this incident my nickname was born: Danthulhu. I think why it stuck is that my friends aren't wholy convinced I am not some kind of eldrich being with a thought process that could not be described as sane except in the least conventional senses.

The Eulicid Foundation: a Gaming Project. Part 1. The Concept

So this is a gaming/writing project that I have been driven to do. I have to make myself a tabletop gaming world to play some of my specifically themed tabletop games in. I will be using the New World of Darkness storytelling system, but I will theme the world and the games more on the Call of Cthulhu variety of Horror fiction, and because I have no intention to publish my written material for money I'm going to outright say what I'm borrowing and what I am not. Though in this light I'm saying now that I will noticeably state what is borrowed from White Wolf's World of Darkness line of games and what is not, as I have no intent on either being sued for stealing copyright infringed martial or being accused of plagiarism I make this preface.

So why don't I just use the NWoD world of darkness Hunter the Vigil line, they certainly have created a brilliant system and a great world to work with? Well, because I want to make something in a world that is notably NOT within the World of Darkness cannon. As most of my friends are used to the game, and most notably have read many WoD books I want to distance myself from much of the published product without leaving what I like about NWoD: The Storyteller mechanic and the massive amount of work they've done already. I'm original but I'm not so stupid to give up something that other people have already worked on, that's just silly. There is another reason why I would step away from the "metafiction" and setting of NWoD, so that when I use material in similar ways or introduce ideas that seem familiar I can feel free to ignore the meta and setting without feeling obligated to what has been written. (Anyone who tries to argue that NWoD has no meta fiction needs to go 1) lookup the definition, and 2) go suck eggs. )

But what about good ol' Call of Cthullhu? The answer is complicated. First of all Howard Phillips Lovecraft is a staple of geek culture, if I say "Cthulhu" and you think of an abomination that combines octopus head with batwings and a body that seems more apropriate to a Kaiju film than a piece of modern horror, you've got half my point. H.P. Lovecraft's work and the Cthulhu Mythos that his work has spawned is now so ubiquitous with Horror media that the best work done in his particular motif is that of an homage. Because really, who wants to spend minutes describing a monster, trying to raise the tension and maybe get the players nervous, only to have someone say "Oh! It's a Hound of Tendilos! We're Fucked!" While partially the correct reaction some of the tension is released by the players knowing what they are dealing with, further more that what they are dealing with has a name. Once more this is a departure from the metafiction and the plethora of things that the mythos represents.

For the Simple Answer: I don't want to run a game that complicated mechanically, I cannot homebrew or play with the system as I could with NWoD which would allow me much more leeway in figuring out what is "fair" and what would munch on the player's sadness like sweet sweet fruity candy.

So what do I want? I want a game that plays with modern horror, I want a game with eldrich horrors that are unknown, I want to make monsters that make people go insane, I want Player Characters that are not stuck within a tight paradigm of options. I want to take inspiration from the Films Nightwatch and Daywatch, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, the Delta Green supplement for Call of Cthulhu, Warren Ellis' comics Global Frequency and Planetary, Mike Mignola's Hell boy, The X-files, and Men In Black.

So thus, I make The Eulicid Foundation. A Non-Government Organization that no-one knows about but every government dreads having operating in their countries, but the foundation is given highest clearance for fear of what might happen if they don't. Foundation Agents can appear to be those ubiquitous Men In Black of conspiricy fame, or they might be a parapeligic genius with a particular talent or a person who is so deep in the strangeness of the world that there is no way to have a life otherwise. The Foundation takes in agents based on talent or experience, agents are the most paid on the planet if they can live long enough to spend it.

Most people in the modern age don't really know what goes on in the world, they don't pay close attention to world events, and most people are not inclined to look into those places that seem truly abandoned by humanity. Sometimes humanity hides things, sometimes we look the other way in some unconscious desire to stay safe, those of us who look deep into those places are changed. It's like opening your eyes for the first time, seeing the planet for the first time, and seeing that most people live in comfortable lives unaware of what horrors exist under their noses. The world is both more complicated and more simple than we think. Gods are real, so are monsters, it's just that most people can't understand them, they are the monsters that are moving in Nietzsche's abyss, and the sane don't want to get a close look. But then some people take responsibility for humanity, because civilization and the great delusion of reality are truly precious things.

Late Night Travelling

Originally written 2006-07-11, this piece has seen minimal editing, I thought this up on the last skytrain from Burnaby headed to downtown Vancouver, I was visiting my ex back when we still had our young love.

Late Night Travelling
I feel the flow of the car moving through my body
I am dragged away from paradise, I know this, I was in her arms.

I sit in a Speeding Wyrm of glass and metal watching the landscape of lights and buildings turn and flow at the command of some great deity on high. Its path is punctuated with Screeches and whines as it follows the trails that it had travelled long since dawn came this past day. This curving turning city-serpent leading me home but away from my love.

I can still Taste her on my lips, I can feel her breath at my nape, her warmth in my arms, her sweat on my skin. A cool night after a hot day, like the sun I follow my path elsewhere to hide away for a while. Her sweet taste decays on my tongue as I wish for the millionth time that I could lie with her, wake with her, be with her, even a patient man has patience tested, but will he bend or break from need?

The Dragon goes denwards, Into a tunnel of rhythmic darkness and light, Gentle voice and music bid me leave, the beast has lead me as far as it can for me to go. It leaves with a building burst of noise and air, even Dragons need to sleep sometimes. The streets are calling.

The streets are like the Dragon, surrounded by glass and metal, yet I am on the outside looking in, a mirror's reflection from the other end, Hello me, Will we walk tonight with the Hungry Ghosts?

Each Corner, each street, from every direction, we wander, the hungry ghosts. Hunger for Sex, Hunger For Food, Hunger For Love, Hunger for Booze, Hunger for Home, Hunger for Bed, Hunger for It All, Hunger for Hunger. We walk the night because we hunger, 'else we'd be sated, only the hungry walk the night as we do. each in our own directions, for any destination that will meet our needs.

Hookers, Cops, Couples, Singles, Workers Just off the Night Shift, Night Crawlers all. We all Hunger something this full moon. I know that I hunger for my bed, with my love in it.

Let me rest, not a Hungry Ghost walking the night, searching Satiation, but a living man, happy, in bed, this night.

Welcome to my tea house.

Hello! Welcome to Danthulhu's Teahouse! My new blog and the reincarnation of my old LJ Dan's Meditative Musings. So you're here, I guess you've either heard of me or my ideas, or have just stumbled upon this blog out of boredom. Well, I might as well mention the purpose(s) I intend for this blog.

1) I want an avenue to put my ideas onto a medium where they can promote thought, ideally for many people, but if it keeps my skills with the written word up to snuff I can't complain.

2) Maintain my skills to write essays that are both effective and accessable.

3) Get back in the habit of writing my less-private ideas.

4) Take my old writing and my ideas for writing out of my notebooks and make them open to be read. There are some works of the past that I like, even thought some REALLY need polishing, and this is a perfect oppourtunity to do so.

So, I'm using this as a medium for my ideas, a really vague yet accurate description for any blog. Yet, somehow I think my Interests will shine through.