We have a church, therefore, we must also have patron saints. Who are they, and what else do you know about them? Saints can be from any cult or sect, not just those guys in the black frocks at the cathedral.
This is the Storytelling category for the 2016 Oiling Festival. Icons, illusrations, and/or sculptures can be rezzed in the exhibit hall or posted with your entry.
It is the divine and glorious inheritance of all sentient things to discover the ability to manipulate the world around them. From the crudest stone tools and pitch, to the machines and fuel so precise and finite that they cannot be seen by the naked eye, each is passed down from one generation to the other through this glorious realization. With it sparks hubris, vanity, greed, all things that drive people to create, to improve. It is all rooted in that sublime moment of realization that their hands can command the world around them through sweat and toil.
Saint Herbert embodies this better than most. In the story of our city he has a hallowed role to play. And whispers of his deeds may have been garbled by the ebb and flow of time, the fruits of his labor have not. While the walls of our city have been shrouded in mystery. The source of the stone is not. What would have taken a legion’s lifetime for more feeble, ancient hands to battle the earth for its stone took one man less than decade.
The means as to how he did it are lost in time, things of lewd schoolyard rhyme. Each generation of children passing adding a new superfluous mechanism to his machine. Another obstacle in his way. Expeditions to search for Saint Herbert’s quarry seem to pop up with each generation or so. All seem fruitless. the elements likely reclaiming from what was taken. New life and change springing from the earth. Their pride not letting such a slight against them be noticeable for long. But as the years slip by, as the stories shift and drift, and as nature reclaims on the site where he did battle; there is one thing that remain. The promise to all children, that if their deeds are great enough, their wit sharp enough, their muscles strong enough, their hearts kind enough, then their name will echo through the ages.
Alongside Saint Herbert of Babbage
“Expeditions to search for Saint Herbert’s quarry seem to pop up with each generation or so. All seem fruitless.”
Camaraderie, adventure and archaeology. The stuff of legends! Right Bunny?
Oh, I haven’t been on a dig myself. There was a gentleman who seemed inclined to take me on one. But I have not heard of him in some years.
Jimothy Babbeus was a local boy who made it big with the Church of the Builder way back in the media evil days, when the Great Empire was still just a fledgling republic. Back then, the fields of Dairy stretched all the way south to the Vernian Sea and New Babbage weren’t nothing but a few merchants in the village of Clockhaven and a couple of dozen fisherman squatting along the salt marshes that were to become your Wheatstone Waterways.
The folks in Dairy of that era was what you call nomads, meaning they didn’t stay put in any one place too long. So, technically speaking, they wasn’t really farmers by the modern definition; they was what the fancy academics in the Mix-a-Tonic University call hunters and gatherers. They tended to follow the seasons, see. In the spring they’d wander the land chasing down the big black worms that come up out of the ground due to the winter run-off. For any that don’t already know, the North Fellian worms range in size from five to fifty feet tip to tip—and as fat around the middle as a steam locomotive. They’re cold blooded so when they first crawl up out of the ground, the worms are right sluggish. The Dairyites, then as now, took advantage of the worms’s torpid nature to bash them buggers on the noggin, cut them up, then salt and dry the meat so it would keep a good long while—it’s what we in these parts call the worm jerky. A word of warning to any who want to try a little worm bashing—you have to be quick with your bashing, it only takes a couple of hours of sunshine to turn them effers right ornery.
Through the summer the Dairyites would collect nuts, seeds, berries and such to add a little roughage to the diet. The autumn was reserved for finding a new cave, splitting and stacking wood and for collecting and preserving the bud of the purple sage that blooms wild all over these northern parts. It’s right sweet when simmered in a pot with fermented cinderberries and gives a nice little kick that puts one in a giddy mood.
During the winter months, the ancient Dairyites would seal up the cave, hunker down and hope like hell they had enough nuts, worm jerky and purple-sage to last until spring when the cycle repeated.
All this background is just preamble though, to set up the point of my story. Jimothy Babbeus’s mother, Lilly Beaupree, was an educated woman from Ravila who found herself in Dairy by accident after the locals mistook her airship for a bloated air kraken and shot the airbag full of arrows. They felt right some bad about it too, once they realized the error of their ways, but it was too late, the airship was damaged beyond repair. The Dairyites then, as now, was right welcoming none-the-less and sheltered the stranded Ravilans. Lilly Beaupree formed a close friendship with one of her rescuers, James Babbeus, who had aspirations of becoming a mutton farmer should their nomadic ways ever come to an end. About a year after the unfortunate incident that landed Lilly Beaupree in Dairy, Jimothy Babbeus was born.
Keep in mind, ancient Ravila was much the same as modern Ravila—full of hoity-toities who prattle on about the arts and the sciences; Saint Jimothy’s mother weren’t no exception to the rule. She taught young Jimothy his numbers early on as she was a pious woman and knew numbers was the first step on the path to the Builder. Little Jimothy was one of them kids that excels in one area at the expense of others; so while he was right quick with his sums he was a might awkward when it come to the social graces which made the church the perfect place for him. Problem was, on account of them being nomads, there weren’t no permanent structure to house the church; so it wasn’t uncommon for Jimothy to be seen in public, reciting Pi for hours at a time.
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The sixteenth year of young Jimothy’s saintly life proved to be a turning point for both the young cleric and the people of Dairy. To begin, it was the summer of this notable year that Jimothy’s mother, Lilly Beaupree, disappeared in the mountains to the north, attempting herd the wild sheep that live in the hills. Pretty much since she arrived, Lilly had been an outspoken proponent about the need to leave their wandering ways and adopt a farming lifestyle. She’d been gathering and corralling animals for near a decade, but at this point the Dairyites still just considered the animals pets.
Following on the disappearance of Lilly Beaupree, near disaster bestruck the Dairyites at the very outset of cave season. They mustn’t have scouted the cave too carefully that year because they missed a whole nest of Falunian cave rats. They’re right voracious buggers that grow to the size of your average housecat. As you can guess, the rats got into the supplies and destroyed near half the provisions before they were stopped.
To the surprise of many, Jimothy took charge of the situation. He put his skill with numbers into practice, weighing and measuring all that was left to work out a very precise ration guide that saw the Daityites through the winter. And what a bugger of a winter it were too. They spent many a night that long winter listening to Brother Jimothy preach about how much better things could be if they worked the land to their advantage, instead picking and collecting here and there in the hopes of finding a decent stash of nuts.
When the Dairyites crawled out of the cave the following spring, they emerged a leaner and more sober people. They wasted no time putting Jimothy’s lessons into practice, building the first farmhouses to dot these lands.
Jimothy knew to be successful they were going to need proper irrigation system. So early one spring morning he found a shaded valley full of torpid worms waiting for the sun to warm them. He walked right up to the biggest one he could find, but rather than bash the bugger, he climbed right up on top, drove two sticks between her rings to steer, then rode that fearsome magnus sapidum pedicabo (as the academics call the worms) across the land, criss-crossing the hills of Dairy to create an entire irrigation system in just a single day. It was right miraculous and only one of many reasons Jimothy Babbeus is regarded to this day as the patron saint of farmers of the purple sage.
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While I agree this commentary is, for the most part, pretty accurate, it should be pointed out that many groups have claimed Saint Jimothy to be their patron. For example, as a result of The Miracle of the Rations, the first saintly legend relayed by Mr. O’Reatus, Jimothy is considered the patron saint of: inventory services, motivational speakers, and boarding school cafeteria managers.
As a result of the second saintly legend Mr. O’Reatus’s relayed, known amongst the devout as The Miracle of the Worm Whisperer, Jimothy is claimed as the patron saint of: crazy circus performers, snake tamers, irrigation-ditch diggers, and worm-castings suppliers.
I got one more for your list, Mr. Fancy-pants writer—Patron Saint of Honey Ranchers.
I’m about to relay something here and now that happened to me and my Uncle Tupelo about twenty odd years ago. We were sowing clover, scattering our seed here and there when out of nowhere this guy appears before us. I swear it was Saint Jimothy. I looked over at my Uncle Tupelo, he caught my eye and said, “Bugger me, you see it too?”
Now I know the saint’s been dead a since before the empire rose and fell but I swear it was him—and he had but a single word for me: ‘Manuka.’ That was all he said before turning and just walking away. Changed my life, he did.
As I am pious and truthful, I wish to state without prejudice that the revered Father Jimothy Babbeus is the patron of my small northern parrish. Our cathedral, St. Jimothy’s Hammer, is dedicated to the saint and built using plans based on his original design. Despite the fact that as a child I idolized the saint, and as a seminary student I joined the Pi Pi Pi house more commonly referred to as the Tri Pis, an off-campus fraternity that took itself far too seriously, professing to be steeped in the more esoteric entanglements of St. Jimothy’s equations. Despite these and other borderline obsessions with the Saint, I believe I can offer an unbiased testimonial.
There is one further issue, however, that might cause some small measure of discomfort. Every since an unfortunate incident at the opium den last spring I have been labelled mentally fragile and batty as a hatter—but as of yet those accusations come only from those within the church. Hardly reliable sources. The fact that there are demons beneath the streets—creatures that will one day consume us in the name of a leader named Thomas—is hardly relevant to what I have to say regarding Saint Jimothy.
With these confessions behind me, I now offer my own contribution to Saint Jimothy’s history.
It has been well established by unimpeachable witnesses that Saint Jimothy’s mind was so ordered he was able to sustain ten separate streams of consciousness and thus ten completely unique and simultaneous conversations—often pitting these unique streams of consciousness against each other in very analytical debates. He would refer to this mental state of a recursive, self-stimulatory ten-way as: the meeting of the decuple.
I wish to dismiss at the outset those ubiquitous, apocryphal legends suggesting Saint Jimothy would routinely raise money for the early church by demonstrating this abnormal mental skill in the side-show tent at county fairs; that was false advertising on the part of the promoters; in Jimothy’s mind, he was preaching to the masses—and doing so with the voice of ten different prophets. They adored him in the ancient frontier towns. His events were huge, but he had no idea people were passing around collection plates. By the time he found out it was too late to return the funds but he vowed to personally reimburse any individual who publicly complained that their charitable donations, solicited, admittedly, with perhaps too steely a determination, went to feed orphans and the elderly. Not a single person stepped forward to request reimbursement.
The illustration I’ve appended is a copy of a tile I used to stare at back in the Tri Pi House, during a Jimothy Night. The way a Jimothy Night works is you get ten Tri Pi brothers to join you in a room with lots of reverb and have each of them chant Pi a half second out of sync with each other. If they delay sync it properly and sustain it for an hour or more the fraternity brothers, in honour of the Saint, called it a meeting of Jimothy’s decuple. It’s mind-blowing. For those who haven’t tried this intense mental experience I highly recommend it.[img_assist|nid=9669|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=640|height=415]
St. Bewildered
This saint is not an official canonised member of the Church of the Builder, but has been adopted by the population by common consent.
He is the unofficial saint of urchins, lost pocket watches and the inexplicable. Urchins call on the saint before making an approach, in the hopes that his intervention will distract the person enough so they will give a bigger coin than expected, or not notice their wallet is missing. Those missing a pocket watch call on the saint to give them a moment of clarity showing them where they last had the watch, though this rarely results in any clue as to what happened to it subsequently, though the impression of urchinhood is often felt. Any event in which something that can not be explained by rational logic is also attributed to the saint, and in the City of New Babbage this is such a common experience that his influence is now just a simple exclamation of “What the B!”.
There are stories of the saint appearing in public with his flower in the wrong button hole, spending three hours searching for the keyhole in a door that had been earlier removed, as he could not get in until he had unlocked it, and challenging a lamp post to a duel after it had bumped into him on one of his many walks.
No evidence exists to prove the real life existence of the saint, it is assumed that there was paperwork once, but it was probably put down somewhere and forgotten in a moment of distraction. The only known painting of him was sent for cleaning but was accidentally placed with some canvases to be reused, and he was over-painted with a rather nice landscape by some famous artist. The painting was then hung in the City Hall three days before the Great Fire, and would have been evacuated with the other priceless works of art. Unfortunately it was placed in the wrong cart and used as kindling for the fire-breaks.
The story of Fiach, Patron Saint of Buskers and Sidach, Patron Saint of Goat Herders.
Fiach and Sidach were born in a small village nestled in a narrow valley between the hills and mountains of the Fells area.
As a matter of fact, the village was only a half-dozen houses and its inhabitants a few goat herders, a blacksmith and a miller, who had to take the trip every so often to the town of Clockhaven to trade their milk, cheese, wool clothes, bread and metal objects for everything else they needed to live.
Fiach and Sidach’s mother died while giving birth, as was often the case at the time, and since their father had never returned from his latest trip to the City and was thus presumed dead, the twins were born orphans.
They were raised by their uncle, the village’s blacksmith, and his wife, and grew up to become very bright and lively children, both curious and gifted in their own area of interest.
Very early, Sidach started following her aunt when she was leading her goats to the pasture and although her brother never took a liking to such an activity, she developed a privileged relationship with the caprine animals. It was almost as if she could “talk” with them. They seemed to understand her perfectly and she laughed often at their bleating as if they had just made a good joke.
Fiach was much more interested in his uncle’s forge and could stay hours watching him work. He especially enjoyed observing the way the blacksmith was fashioning the little brass bells that were used to locate the goats on the pasture.
For his fifth birthday, he asked his uncle for a very special set of little bells, all of different sizes, and he attached them to a horizontal piece of wood. He used a little brass stick to hit them one by one, following a pattern that turned out to produce a catchy melody, to the amazement of his family.
By the time they turned six, Sidach and Fiach had become very independent souls and could care for themselves and even more. Sidach was now leading the herd of goats to the pasture on her own and her aunt could be confident nothing would happen to them as long as they were with the little girl. As for Fiach, he was giving musical shows in the village with his bells and came back home with his hat full of little things the people had given him.
When the twins reached their eighth year of age, their uncle decided it was time for them to accompany him for his next trip to the City.
Fiach was very excited and jumping all over the house, while Sidach ran away and hid in the goatfold. The children’s uncle looked for the little girl everywhere, but could not find her, so he decided to take only Fiach this time.
They loaded the cart with their bottles of goat milk, goat cheese, wool and skins, and with clock parts and other metal pieces that had been ordered by the people of Clockhaven.
The City was huge in Fiach’s eyes and full of wonders. Apart from the pieces his uncle had to deliver, they did not sell much this time and although the blacksmith was looking grim on their way back home, his nephew could not stop grinning. As soon as they arrived, Fiach jumped off the cart and darted to the forge.
That evening, the supper was a sad business. The blacksmith and his wife were lamenting, wondering how they would manage through the coming winter having sold just a couple of cheeses. Sidach was sobbing quietly, mourning over the death of her dearest goat, devoured by an aggressive lone wolf in the early morning. Only Fiach was slurping his soup spiritedly. He reached for a slice of bread and flashed a mysterious grin to the other three, reassuring them that he had a big idea and everything would be alright.
The day after, Fiach spent some time with his sister in the goatfold and then ran to the forge to talk to his uncle. The whole of the week got very busy, the blacksmith working tiredlessly to forge the brass pipes and parts his nephew asked him for and his wife helping Sidach around her goat’s corpse, to retrieve the skin and intestines, and dry them up carefully. None of them had an idea of the full picture, but they could sense the result was going to be something beyond anything they could have imagined.
It took a whole month for all the parts to be ready. The brass pipes had to be of an exact size and Fiach needed several attempts to recreate a steam system like those he had seen during his stay in Clockhaven. Sidach’s goat skin had the time to dry properly and the guts were thinned and twisted on Fiach’s indications to become elastic and resistant strings of various diameters
Finally, one day, the young boy locked himself in the forge with all the brass pieces, the goat’s skin and the strings and spent hours assembling them, following the plan he had in mind. His uncle, aunt and sister could hardly bear the suspense as they were dieing to find out how Fiach was going to use all the things they had been working on.
They were anxiously pacing in front of the forge when they heard sounds coming through the door, the like of which they had never heard before. It was like a lute being played, but mixed in with loud whistles, the same kind as those the blacksmith could hear when some of the rare steam machines he had seen in the City were releasing their vapor. They could not restrain themselves anymore and pushed the door open to find Fiach, a proud smile crossing his grease-stained face, featuring a kind of brass-made lute he was holding horizontally against his stomach and linked through a network of seven strings to the contraption he was wearing on his back.
“Behold!” He exclaimed. “The Steam Goatar!”
The blacksmith, his wife and Sidach surrounded Fiach and asked many questions, amazed by the strange invention. The boy gracefully answered all of them and then demonstrated by playing a melody that was so out of their world it would make them forget all of their troubles.
To understand the power of the Steam Goatar, one has to remember that at the time, nobody in the village or even in Clockhaven had ever seen a calliope like those that are so common now in every circus. The use of steam-powered machines was just at its beginning and Fiach could be considered as a precursor. His instrument was a kind of guitar for which the sound box was a half sphere made of brass, the sounding board a goat’s skin and the strings were made of goat’s guts. Picking a string would play a guitar-like sound but would also pull the tap off the corresponding steam whistle, letting the steam go and the whistle ring. With seven strings and seven whistles, Fiach could play a whole octave, with the exception of semitones.
The child’s idea was that he could go back to the City with his uncle and do what he did in his village with his little bells. He knew though, that playing on bells would not be sufficient to draw Clockhaven citizen’s attention. They were living in a much bigger place and could not be as easily intrigued as the villagers. He knew he had to go many steps further and that is why he built the Steam Goatar.
Fiach and his uncle went back to town with the boy’s creation safely packed in their cart amongst the things they did not manage to exchange the last time.
Once arrived, they unloaded carefully the instrument and Fiach started playing in front of the local Church of the Builder, while his uncle was setting up his display with the goat cheeses and wool clothes. Soon, a crowd started forming around them, fascinated, and when the boy stopped playing, they clapped and whistled loudly, asking for an encore.
At the end of the day, Fiach was exhausted but his uncle had sold or traded all he had brought and his nephew had earned enough coins to feed the whole village for years to come.
Fiach had never been especially religious. He knew of the Church but the village was remote and they had nothing that could be considered as a place of cult. But that evening, he looked up at the church they were standing in front of and told his uncle he would donate half of what he earned for the Church’s charity.
Later, he became famous in the whole of what would become the city state of New Babbage for his musical talent, his creation of the Steam Goatar amongst other instruments, and most of all for the Free School of Music he founded, in agreement with the Church of the Builder. Music being the perfect alliance between mathematics and art, Fiach thought it would give a new departure in life to orphans and poor children, something that could help them to find their own way.
Buskers have claimed Fiach as their Patron Saint.
While her brother was gaining fame and success in the City, Sidach had grown stronger, back in their village.
Marked by the death of her dearest goat and the theft of an infant right from his crib under his mother’s eyes by the same aggressive lone wolf that had attacked and killed the poor animal, she had developed a training method for her herd. The goats were now staying in groups of four all around the village, like sentinels.
The villagers had shaken their heads, they would get eaten, they said. But when the wolf had come back and tried to enter the village, the four goats that were guarding that side had bleated in alert before circling around him with their head down, sharp horns pointing towards him. They had started to move closer and closer, parrying every of his attempts to bite them or escape and the wolf had met his tragic end when the other goats, upon hearing their friends’ bleating, had all converged towards him to draw his blood with their pointy horns in a perfectly rehearsed ballet.
The villagers had acclaimed the little girl and brought their own herds of goats to her aunt’s house for her to train them.
Later, Sidach traveled with her goats and came to live just outside the New Babbage’s Palisades wall, to be closer to her twin brother.
It is said that she was a better protection for the City than the guards and catapults they had on the Palisades because her goats were assaulting every bandit or invader who was trying to come close.
She became a Saint of the Church of the Builder and of the City of New Babbage because of her efficient role in keeping them safe.
The goat herders have claimed Sidach as their Patron Saint.
I submit for your perlustration the history of St. Oilyphant, accompanied by his official prayer and ikon.
History of St. Oilyphant
St. Oilyphant is the patron saint of machinery and mechanisms. He is also the patron of lubricating oils and, due to his own astounding facial hair, the patron saint of beards as well. His feast day is the Friday after Easter (the day of his martyrdom), and traditionally machines are paraded on the shoulders of workers before a statue or icon of St. Oilyphant, where it is believed the Saint anoints the machines with a sacred oiling from out his nether parts.
St. Oilyphant was martyred by syrup in the Great Molasses Flood of 18-aught-something, started by a molasses tank at the Littleman Distillery, which exploded under pressure, killing tens of people. “A 40-foot wave of molasses buckled the elevated railroad tracks, crushed buildings and inundated the neighborhood. Structural defects in the tank combined with unseasonably warm temperatures contributed to the disaster,” reported the New Babbage Chronicler of the incident. It remains unknown as to why then-Brother Oilyphant was at the Distillery yard at the time.
Historically, Oilyphant was an unguent maker for his religious order, The Brotherhood of Penitents, and in his lifetime was known for the efficacy of his preparations. Oilyphant was also known for being the most foul-smelling member of his order, already renowned for its particularly dirty friars.
Oilyphant was the spiritual confessor to St. Valvolina during her days as a Little Sister of Ichor. Prayers to the martyred Oilyphant by Valvolina and the other Sisters brought about many miracles, believed to be proof of St. Oilyphant’s sanctification. The three miracles supporting his canonization are:
One, His Incorruptible Body
After being drowned in molasses, Oilyphant’s body did not decay, but rather remained inviolate, wrapped in a sticky shell of syrup. His body was exhibited for many years in the Chapel of the Monastery of the Brotherhood of Penitents, but ultimately it was hidden for safekeeping prior to the de-consecration of the Monastery, due to the dwindling numbers of active friars. The location of his body is not known today.
Two, His Answering of Prayers and His Holy Apparition
After the martyrdom of Oilyphant, then-Sister Valvolina, along with others of her sect, would gather daily (later, weekly, on Fridays) to pray around his encased body and put to him the needs of their communal parishes. His intercession was believed to cause many healings of both man and machine, the resolving of wrongs and the answering of prayer requests. Valvolina and others present would remark that they knew a prayer would be answered when the scent of sweet molasses filled the Chapel chamber, followed by a gust of rank body odor. Occasionally an amber-colored apparition of amorphous shape would hover behind the petitioner; if so then it was understood that the prayer would be answered instantaneously.
And three, The Supernal Replenishing of Oilyphant’s Unguent Jar
A continual phenomenon initiated by prayers to the Saint was the miraculous refilling of the Saint’s unguent jar. Oilyphant’s Unguent was a well known and well-used remedy even prior to his martyrdom; afterward it was used for everything from the lubrication of metal machine parts to wood finishing, and hair dressing, as well as skin ailments. Sufferers of hemorrhoids reported that the miraculous preparation healed immediately, with a strange yet heavenly sensation. St. Oilyphant then became known as The Lubricant, as a mark of this charismatic gift.
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Again, for your perusal I offer the history of St. Valvolina, accompanied by her Novena and her ikon.
History of St. Valvolina
St. Valvolina, martyred by spontaneous combustion whilst tasting a batch at The Little Sisters of Ichor Brewery, is the patron saint of combustion engines and beer. St Valvolina’s intercession is believed to have performed many miracles, such as the inexplicable continuously operating engine of the steam-powered pumping machine at The Little Sisters of Ichor bottling factory, which ran for 9 days seriatim without additional fuel, beginning on the day of Sister Valvolina’s combustion.
After her martyrdom, the image of Valvolina appeared to a group of urchins during the period known as the Great Drought, and shewn them the location of a fount of spring water, which saved the citizens of Babbage from thirst, and their animals and plantings, also. Unfortunately it did nothing to save Babbage from the 2nd Great Fire (or, the Lesser Great Fire), which followed some days later.
Various citizens averred before clerical officiants at the time of her beautification that the image of Valvolina had appeared before them, proffering bottles of Ichorbrau and declaring it was a sin not to drink it. Each witness then described having received a healing of various types, after drinking the beer. Most of the healings were lasting relief of some chronic condition, such as dispiritedness, pain in the joints, misogyny, etc.
During her canonization, at which her icon was present, the eyes of Saint Valvolina wept tears of Ichor, which were captured in an alabaster vase, and were then added, by popular endorsement, to the steam chamber of the pump at the brewery. Again, the engine of the pumping machine ran without further fuel for 3 days, due to this direct infusion of the Saint. Regrettably, not enough bottles were to be had to contain the flow, and the brew filled the floor of the factory, washing out onto the streets.
Her icon still weeps tears of Ichor every year on her feast day of May 3rd. These tears are traditionally added to the special batch of Ichorbrau brewed every year on this day, called St. Valvolina’s Tears. The tears give the brew a pungent taste and smell described by most as “sweet and full of vim,” though a small few use the words “rank,” and “vile.” Nonetheless, the special brew is sought after, because it seems to produce a unique sort of drunkenness which enables the body to prodigious amounts of work, whilst the mind retires in blissful, thoughtless, slumber.
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[img_assist|nid=9675|title=The Ikon of St. Valvolina|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=640|height=640]
Soooo… yeah. My story got kinda long, so it’s posted over here.
Just following St. Hube’s mantra. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. *grin*
“St. Loyd, the Patron Saint of Technical Difficulties”
In the early days of the city of New Babbage, sometime before the fall of the empire, When New Babbage was just expanding into the city it now is. There was a mechanik by name of Loyd Loyd who maintained many of the engines that kept the city running. Always on call with his spanner and tool belt.
In those chaotic days following the collapse, when New Babbage became isolated from it’s neighbors, supplies stopped coming in, no new shipments of ores, no fuels, Loyd kept the machines running, going for days without sleep, and only taking ten minute breaks every other day to eat a can of beans as he toiled. Every breakdown, he was miraculously there with his tools, making repairs and getting everything running again. Eventually recruting assistants, urchins, people with no mechanicle understanding he took in and trained.
This went on for undetermined years during the dark ages, until the roads and trade routes finally started to open, new engineers, new supplys began trickling in, Loyd was in the basement of the Church of the Builder, repairing a samophlange when he stepped back and stated he would just take a minute to rest his eyes, Loyd never woke. He was canonized by the church shortly after for his dedication to keeping the machines running.
A common prayer to loyd mechanics and engineers utter when working on maintenance:
“Oh Loyd, Who Art in the workshop, Loud be your hammering.
Let the cogs be well oiled, and the metal be unstressed, let the boilers stay stoked, and the
pressure stay well stable.
Now Work you useless peice of !*#^&@**@#$@*^&!!! I’m going to smelt you down into a
paperweight so help me Loyd! You @!*)@&@#$(*@#&b Son of a!()&#@)*@&#$Orangutan!
()&#)@#(@)(@”
Posting for Wulfie Blitzen’s entry to preserve it:
St. Barbara of Mortal Peril
Legend has it that St. Barbara was the daughter of a Roman engineer, born at a time when Babbage was known as RATAE-CAMULODUNOM BABBII.
While today she is the patron saint of miners, engineers, canon crews and protects against sudden explosions and lightning, she is also one of the oldest of the saints to be continuously venerated, with her image being found in both the deepest mines as well as the more dangerous workshops around Babbage today.
She holds a bolt of lightning in her right hand, referring to the time when hiding from angry citizens after an experiment went wrong (her tower was struck by lightning and burnt down half of Babbii). The miner’s tool in her left hand refers to the kindness of the town’s miners who hid her in the deepest tunnels from the baying mob, remembering a time she created a special lamp, the Barbara Lamp, which enclosed the flame and prevented dangerous mine gas from igniting.
Once a year the miners carry her effigy out from the mines to have it blessed with a shower of soot, before the miners then proceed to run around the city throwing soot at passers by, shouting ‘Kaboom!’….