Confusion, Intrigue, and Paranoia Reign in Wake of Palatial Pie Fight

Today, Stollenian ministers and advisors have gathered to determine the precise cause and order of events behind the pie fight, which disrupted a planned luncheon and meeting between Irwin-Amadeus II and the Prussian ambassador to Stollen, the jocular Herr Heinz von dem Salat. Few are sure how the post-bathing pie fight began, although everyone who was present has an opinion.

There are any number of suspects although no arrests or inquiries have been made. Is it the dastardly French mercenary General Philip de Latte, currently in the service of the Electorate of Zichenau and reportedly operating from somewhere inside the Stollenian frontier? Or is it the noted dessert chef, currently serving the kitchen of Krankenstadt Palace, Antoine Pont Neuf de Gallia? Is it instead a ruler from one of the many apocryphal 18th century states of Central Europe?

Herr Heinrich-Schatzi von Pelznikkel, who drew the short straw yesterday and so assumed personal responsibility for bathing Irwin-Amadeus, later receiving several cherry pies in the face for his troubles, opined that the Graf Maurice of Stagonia might be the instigator behind yesterday's palatial dessert debacle. Other ministers and advisors whisper that Graf Maurice in fact sent the right-handed lobster costume claw on purpose, fully aware that what was needed was a replacement left-handed claw.

Still others feel that mischievous agents from Hesse-Engelberg, the Duchy of Alzheim, or the Reconstituted Byzantium might also have had a hand in yesterday's dramatic turn of events. Suffice to say, there is much finger pointing in Krankenstadt this morning and little of substance offered in the way of explaning yesterday's spoiled luncheon.

Finally, some palace staff quietly suggest that Irwin-Amadeus himself, a man always appreciative of the rediculous, the sublime, and the absurd, staged the pie fight. However, this claim too remains unsubstantiated at present. If our Grand Duke was the man behind the pie fight, he isn't saying today, but instead seems content to sit in the shade outside the palace with a gin and tonic, chuckling contentedly to himself.

-- Katrina Bettina von Heffelfinger, Die Krankenstdat Tageblat

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

Herr Heinrich-Schatzi von Pelznikkel is a wise man.

2:01 PM

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

Sunday Morning Coffee with AI. . .

A rmed with a second cup of fresh, strong coffee, I messed around a bit this morning with artlist.io using its image to image function in an attempt to convert my hand-drawn map from September 2006 to something that more resembles an old map from the mid-18th century. And just like my experiments with Ninja AI in June, the results are mixed. The above map is pretty good, but Artlist keeps fouling up the place names and has trouble putting a faint overlay of hexes across the entire area. Hexes, admittedly, are not likely to be found on any genuine maps from the era in question, but there we are. Frankly, I prefer the appearance of the Ninja map, but there were problems getting it to correct its errors. Grrrr. As is the case with so much having to do with the various AI's out there now, the output generated is a direct result of the prompts entered. For text alone, and when you develop a lengthy, highly detailed prompt, it is...

Continued Regional Map Revisions. . .

F ooled around a bit more with the revised map just before and after dinner this evening, using the Fotor app to reinsert missing text . I also removed a few other things using the 'Magic Eraser' function, which works surprisingly well. Now, we're getting somewhere. I just have to figure out how to ensure that the text is all a uniform font style and maybe figure out a way to add a few bunches of trees to suggest forested areas, Ninja AI is not always entirely cooperative to the tune of "I'm sorry Dave. I can't do that." -- Stokes

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

Search This Blog