Lord of Misrule.
It's traditional at christmas to temporarily boot out the Lord-Earl -King-Whatever from his throne and replace him for the 12 days of festivites with a Lord of Misrule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_Misrule
So do we have any nominations for the forums own Lord or Lady of misrule?
So do we have any nominations for the forums own Lord or Lady of misrule?
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Bengoshi is always worth a look....
Iolien is a fungi....
Damn...
But it's still a cool sounding name
I shall do everything in my power to keep this group safe, and on the path of Right.
So tell me more about the Lord of Misrule, @kiwidoc. Since its a tradition from across the pond, I don't know much about it. When do I start and what's the role? I hope I get to demand tribute from the local peasants.
Seriously guys you've solved a problem for me- I wasn't sure if I should set up a poll or something. So congrats to Flashburn!
The Lord of Misrule is something I first came across in historical novels, and then later in my reading about the late medieval period (the bit where people lived in castles, wore plate or chain mail, went on crusades etc).
The twelve days are December 25 to January 5th (inclusive) For at least one of these days the Lord of Misrule got to be “King for a Day” This was someone chosen from the lower orders. It seems the official versions recorded the “Lord” as being chosen by lot – one method was by finding a token (such as a black bean or a coin) in food prepared for the communal tables. Various novels I’ve read set in medieval or pseudo medieval worlds talked about him or her being chosen by popular demand - and it seems the forum has chosen the popular demand method by popular demand!
For the day or days when the “Lord” reigned everyone in the castle, manor etc got to join in the festivities in the big hall, for the “Feast of Fools”. The Lord of Misrule sat at the head of the table, and could order various things to happen, but they had to be fun things like the ladies got to steal a kiss from any man they liked rather than serious things such as nicking all the jewellery off the nobles. Think of it as being very like the court jester getting put in charge for twelve days (in some novels I've read it actually was the jester who got to be Lord of Misrule).
I'd suggest you have as much fun as you can, ordering us about without breaking any of the serious rules or really upsetting any of the known trolls. You can demand tribute from the peasants and from the nobs, so long as it's praise, small tasks etc and/or virtual gold but not actual money. Kisses can be stolen in large amounts but I presume on these fair forums actual sexual harassment is a big NO!
We'll avoid any of the earlier, darker traditions behind the Lord of Misrule. We won't sacrifice you to the gods by slitting your throat and pouring your rich red blood over the snowy white fields, thus ensuring the sun will rise again after all the short nights and that the land will be fertile once more ... at least we probably won’t ...
The “Feast of Fools” was said to occur on or about January 1st. On our forums Christmas day and New Years are probably not a good choice, as people will be busy. Also time zone differences mean a single day is probably not long enough. How about we designate the 27th and 28th as being the two days you get to create minor mayhem?