Friends, Jesters, Achaeans, lend me your ears, for I shall tell
you a tale of incompetence, nepotism, and such high drama that
your brain will boil, your eyes will swell up to three times their
size in amazement, and your tongue will roll from your jaw and
dangle, drooling, dor the entirety of the post...


Having been a young Jester under Llewellyn, and a secretary and then
not a secretary under Callianessa I feel somewhat qualified to
comment on the good and bad points of both. Because I can assure
you that despite any good points they may have they have both
made relatively huge mistakes in their times controlling the guild.

Yes, it is true that Llew essentially founded and created the
Jesters, an event for which he has not received due credit for,
and that he turned the guild into what it is today. What is also
true though is that a guild is not a product of simply its skills
and its founding ethos, although these still feature highly, but
it is also an organic entity, developed and evolved through the
input of its members. Yes it is true that Llewellyn stood back
at times as guildmaster, as befitted the guildmaster of a
neutral guild, but that allowed his secretaries and members,
including his novice mistress Callianessa. It was not Llewellyn
alone who made the guild what it was, but I have to admit that
under his leadership guild life was a lot more fun and free
than it has been since Callianessa took over.

When Callianessa did take over as guildmaster it is true that
she has had her teething problems. She has caused a number of
long-term members to quit through her actions, and she has
adopted with the help of Dessa about half the active members,
and more than half of the leadership of the guild into her
family. Still, this is not a fault of intention because she
always intended to do the best thing for the guild. In the
past I've fallen out with her over what actually was best, but
it has been proven that currently the consensus of the guild
does want her as guildmaster and she is doing what she thinks
is best.

Whether or not outguilding Llewellyn was the best thing for her
to do, which I will admit was at the ultimatum of Ralph, who has
recently been a far bigger part of the organic whole of the guild
that Llewellyn has, despite his not interviewing (which I can
sypmathize with). I personally have no current opinion on the
Ximili matter, having heard both sides of the matter, but I
would like to make clear that despite the criticisms levied
against him he has not yet, to the best of my knowledge, broken
any guild rules, and has as much of a right to join the Jesters
as anyone under the current guild ethos, as established by
Llewellyn. Still, this post seems to be running too long, and
it is nowhere near as interesting as I promised, so here's the
ending...


Congratulations to Tonic on getting level 80 (and 1%)!

Mendax is great!

yours sincerely,

Mendax
The Delosian Bastard.

Penned by my hand on the 24th of Ero, in the year 322 AF.