TheNexusProject/CinnabarChalkInitiative
- back to the NexusProject.
- back to /Cinnabar.
The Cinnabar Chalk Initiative
by MelWong
- "Blasphemy and idolatry! I don't care how close to the Dragons that Ledaal Metara is, we need to hold a vigil at that blasted academy!
- - The Immaculate Ayeva of the Thousand Flower Temple.
- "You'd think handing those shiftless urchins bars of chalk was a bad idea, but they've kept the profanity to a minimum and actually drawn stuff. Strange."
- - Aleko Ausengrim, keeper of the Sign of the Black Cock.
Depending on who you ask, the Cinnabar Chalk Initiative was either a bust or a great success. The initiative was the brainchild of three students at the Orinas Colors Academy, Lady Ledaal Metara (an unExalted scion of her House), Silver Cricket (the son of a Nighthammer chalk-grinder) and Sable Blossom (the daughter of a Whitewall merchant prince).
The three of them had been taking their supper at the Sign of the Black Cock when they overheard the proprietor, Aleko Ausengrim, complain loudly (and colorfully) about the graffiti the street children had been leaving all over his front steps.
Seeking to channel such destructive impulses constructively, the three students of the Academy decided to hold informal art lessons, held mostly under the shade of the Lonely Mendicant's Tree on the southern end of Fish Mail Avenue. The children were given free sticks of chalk from Silver Cricket's father's stores (mostly remaindered or broken pieces), basic lessons in line drawing, and plenty of encouragement.
The results have been stunning. The temporary nature of chalk has prevented any severely offensive works from staying around too long, and the frequent rains and floods in the district have left the children with many empty canvases to work on. The children spend a few of the cracked bits they make doing odd jobs to buy a fresh stick of chalk when they run out; it seems that going even hungrier is well worth the artistic expression to them.
Most of the street children have constructed elaborate murals of surprising complexity, sometimes with somewhat shocking subject matter. Worthless Soot the paperboy once drew a large diptych of the Immaculate Sextes Jylis planting flowers on both sides of the Thousand Flower Temple. His skill was surprising, but the Immaculates at the temple considered such work heresy and sent acolytes out with buckets of water to wash the art away. Aleko Ausengrim, on the other hand, has been known to give candies out as prizes to the children who decorate his shopfront with colorful designs.
No matter what anyone thinks, though, the Cinnabar Chalk Initiative is here to stay.
Rumours
- The idiot-savant works of the vagrant child Worthless Soot were in fact inspired by Sextes Jylis himself, but the Immaculates are too narrow-minded and blind to see his holy genius.
- Some of the pictures are iconography in a new street religion the children have started; hence the Immaculates' eagerness to stifle the Initiative.
Secret
- The various members of the Burnt Pennant Brotherhood utilize the murals and graffiti to pass coded messages to each other.
Comments
One point about the heresy (and I don't have the Dragon-Blooded book so I could be wrong): I thought that according to the Immaculates, the only respresentations allowed were the Dragons and their incarnations. Thus, wouldn't drawing Sextes Jylis be okay? Or at least not straight-up heresy? Also, you tend to put a lot of links in your entries. This isn't a bad thing, but I think it's worth noting that the rules explicitly state that there should be no more than four links total. I would be absolutely fine with changing this rule -- I think we should allow as many links per entry as we want, and only put a cap on phantom links -- but since the rule does exist, I figured I'd point it out.
~ Shataina
- It states that the Immaculate religion is aniconic, and that only the Dragon-bloods are sufficiently enlightened to give entities homage. Where it leaves the Dragons is a bit sketchy, but I doubt they'd look kindly on an entire initiative designed to teach urchins HOW TO DRAW. It ... it's idolatrous!
And yeah, I do tend to stick a lot of links in these, mostly to already-written entries I reference for ease of navigation. I'd assumed the cap was on unfilled links. - MelWong
