Editing Life of the Party (section)

==Preparations==

Purple Guy vanishes; Gale and Diomarche re-appear.  We try to catch them up on some of what’s going on, and this party that’s probably happening tonight.  Scout mentions he could find out where Managaratha is from, now that he has that Essence spell.  Or maybe not, it’s unclear what will happen if cast on someone from before there were Zones.  Gale is baffled, baffled! that you could ever ask the question “I wonder what happens if I cast this spell this way?” and not have already done it.  Scout says huh, and does so.  Turns out that Managaratha is from Kern.  Which is not how most people register.  Nesh says he wants to know where he’s from, so he drops his defenses.  Turns out he’s from Red, and Scout probably could have gotten more information if he had more successes.  Hmm.  He’ll have to try that again some time.

We think about what kind of preparations we need to do.

How does this party work, Asphabel?

The party is to denote who is the Goddess’ Daughter for the next year.  That does not have a definitive effect, but it does draw the attention of the Goddess to that person, and is considered a Blessing.

There are usually five candidates– last year’s Daughter, and a new one from each of the Varna.  There hasn’t been a Goddess’ Child (male winner) in 50 years.  The Servant Varna representative never wins, effectively.  If a candidate wins a second year, they invariably will also win a third.

Rani Dwalla will be the Noble; Harana Mufari is the current Daughter, and is also a Noble.  The Blessing is administered with a sip from a Divine chalice, which is one of the artifacts of the Mother’s Church.  There’s definitely not a public vote.  It’s a consensus-y thing.  It could be Feelings Magic-mediated, it could be divinely mediated.  It’s possible for it to not resolve immediately.  It is not improper for them to be giving out the Blessing, it happens every year, but she does think that giving the blessing to the Rani is one of Life’s Servant’s plans to arrange for a new Maharani.

There will be other non-voting guests; not all priests of Life in the city will be there.  Stella may or may not actually get a vote, that is a fascinating question Asphabel does not know the answer to.  Being someone’s Guest does not mean you’re their best friend or anything.  Everyone in attendance will either be one of Life’s servants, or an actual servant in the mansion, or a guest of one of the priestesses.

Gale thinks we should have a plan.  Harana Mufari is a famous fighter from the South part of Yellow.  Asphabel doesn’t think she’s either good or bad for the Maharani, particularly.