The Pride of the Flames - "The Flags of Inferno"
El Capitan: Laneth Sffarlenn
Lieutenants: Xyaida & FrogsDancing
Challenge One: To Create an Item of Power
Challenge Begins: 10am PST, Monday 11th Feb, 2008
Challenge Ends: 11:59pm PST, Friday 15th Feb, 2008
Participants: Laneth, Xyaida & FrogsDancing
Challenge Details:
The past. Much has been learned from our past. We have unearthed relics, statues, ancient Grimoires. Many are the lessons that have been taught to us. But much has been lost as well. Towers have fallen, statues remain buried, and writings have been consumed by worms and time.
Your task is to create an object of power. Will it be a statue? A chalice? A knife? Search out what it shall be. Will you charge it with a spell or working? Include a description of your preparation and the purpose of the object. Submit a picture to this forum or, if you have not the capability, let us know and we can arrange to post it for you.
Post your results to the results forum for task one in the Captain’s Corner. You may communicate with your team in your house or lodge forum. We ask that anyone not on the team feel free to watch the progress and to cheer on your team. However, the ideas and work must be done by the team members themselves, please refrain from offering ideas or interfering.
You may designate one team member to do the physical work on this project.
Tasks:
• FrogsDancing: To prepare and construct the item of power; to play a major role in the ‘discovery’ thereof.
• Xyaida: To assist in the ‘discovery’ of the item of power and to play a key role in uncovering its purpose.
• Laneth: To oversee the reinstatement of the item of power to its place in the Flames Lodge and to document our discovery for future generations of Flames – to also report the completion of Task One of the Try-Wizard Tournament 2008.
Completed Tasks:
• FrogsDancing: Construction of item of power
• Xyaida: Reintegrating the “Flags of Inferno” to the Flames’ Dragon’s Den
• Laneth: Authoring our ‘discovery’ of the item of power and subsequent submission of finished report for Challenge One.
The judges file out and the teams race for the exits amongst the cheers of their friends…
Creative Licence on the Creation of the Flames Team’s Relic…
…sitting in the Dragon’s Den, Laneth looks up from the novel he was reading to see FrogsDancing & Xyaida walk down the stairs from the women’s quarters. It is still day one of the tournament, yet the team had not yet met to discuss their plans in meeting the requirements of the challenge – confidence in their ability to complete the task, it seemed, was well in place as the two ladies sat down in comfortable arm chairs opposite Laneth.
“So, what do you think Laneth? Xy and I have come up with a few ideas for what we could make for the challenge. So far we’ve got,” Frogs pulls out a small sheet of paper with various notes scrawled across it. Among the various symbols and short-hand notes that Frogs uses to remind herself of important information, a short list of items was listed in dot-point form…
- A spell/power box of some kind
- A magic mirror
- Candles
- A trivet
- A pentacle or plaque of some kind
- For some reason a 'God's Eye' popped into my head. Something I used to make a lot as a Girl Scout.
- A journal or book
“I’m liking these, especially the idea of a journal or book…” Laneth hands the paper back to Frogs. “Speaking of which, I spoke to Talin just before and confirmed with him that it’d be best if just one of us actually made the item, rather than all three of us make one – the judges wouldn’t cope with choosing between three items from the one team, let alone having to choose a winner between the 8 teams!”
“Makes sense when you think about it,” Xyaida spoke up. “But I was kinda looking forward to seeing what we each came up with.” Laneth & Frogs both laughed at Xyaida’s predictable enthusiasm, arriving right on time!
“Of course ye were Xy!” Laneth got up to replace his novel on the bookshelf. As he’s reaching up onto the shelf, Frogs watches where he was placing the book and notices a small, old-looking chest sitting on the shelf.
“Laneth, what’s that?” She asked, getting out of her seat for a closer look – curiosity runs rampant among us kitties! – Reaching the chest before Laneth had a chance to catch up with what she was talking about, Frogs pulls the small chest off the shelf and places it on the coffee table between their three chairs.
“Have either of ye seen this before?” She asked, studying the old-style brass fixtures and the ancient looking lock adorning the latch, almost dwarfing the chest itself.
“No,” remarked Xyaida, as she crept forward, equally as curious and eager to get a closer look.
“I don’t remember seeing it when I got my book down…” Laneth scratched his head and retraced his steps from earlier when he arrived in the Den. He could swear that it wasn’t there when he arrived and took down his novel…but, then, perhaps it was?
Either way, it was here now. As Laneth turned back around, he saw Frogs and Xyaida grinning at him impishly. Knowing that spelled trouble, Laneth looked down to see the chest laying open!
“How’d ye…” he began, and then remembered that they’re attending a school of Wizardry – as if ye question “how” someone opened a simple locked chest…
Sitting himself down, he saw that inside the chest lay a bundle of folded cloth, bearing the face of…
“Psyche House?!” We all said in unison – but those days were long gone, part of a chapter in Grey School’s history not many could remember!
Carefully unwrapping the fabric, Frogs nearly gasped at what she found within; Pulling it out carefully and thanking Xyaida for moving the chest, Frogs lay what looked like a bunch of fabric and some string out on the table. Initially, that was all it looked like, until we saw that the string ran through one end of the fabric pieces, joining them together.
Unfolding these bits of fabric led to our discovery of the old “Flags of Inferno” – the flags that held the motto for all Fire Signs. Each of the four elements represents three Astrological Sun Signs, and each four elements had a House within the school for the Youths. It wasn’t until much later, however, that the Psyche House that housed all adult students evolved into their current forms, Lodges. It was thought that, in the
transition, the flags for each of the adult groups were lost – but here we sat with the Flags of Inferno! What a timely discovery of such an important relic for our Lodge!
It was decided then that these flags fulfilled the requirements of the First Challenge of the Try-Wizard Tournament. However, us being the overachievers that we are, decided to take the challenge details a half-step further:
As we didn’t create our relic but rather ‘re-discovered’ it, we decided that we would re-dedicate it to the Flames Lodge with the following small incantation, as dreamed up by Xyaida:
What once was lost, has now been found.
The Flames’ “Banner of Power” is safe and sound.
From days gone by when Psyche House was made,
Vitality, Courage and Passion creatively displayed.
Fire elements we were and Flames we are now,
The Dragon's Den will hang the “Flags of Inferno” proud!
Aries, Leo, Sagittarius alike,
Bless these symbols with your delight.
May the powers represented be within us all,
This 'Pride of the Flames' reclaims its call!
It was then my task to bring the finished product to the attention of the school, as our submission for the First Challenge.
Here ends the creative piece on our ‘re-discovery’ of the Flags of Inferno…
Practical Explanation of our Submission to the First Challenge.
After much thought and discussion, it was quickly decided (within two hours of the challenge being posted!) that we would create a set of Spell / Meditation Flags. It came through much later on in the challenge that we would explain their creation through a short story, detailing them as a long lost relic of the Flames Lodge – much like in the example paragraph of the challenge.
The Flags themselves were a bit tricky in their design and construction, as we each decided to take one word from the Flames’ motto and come up with a design. It was decided that Lady FrogsDancing would be our seamstress and would construct our flags for the challenge, and Lady Xyaida and myself would submit our designs by scanner & uploading the images to our team’s discussion forum.
Below are the initial plans for each word:
FrogsDancing’s initial design for “Vitality”
It was her thought that, “…we could tie the words to the Lodge symbols (Sun, volcano, lightning, flames). It seemed to me that "Vitality, Courage and Passion" all relate to the heart.” Frogs - 12 February 2008 6:54 AM EST
My design came next, as shown here. I’d taken the word Courage and came up with the quote which is featured at the bottom of the image, in the foreground of the volcano – “That which holds our heads high, our hearts strong and our resolve firm.”
The Flames from the Lodge Crest we re-drawn onto the base of the heart and there was a medal of Courage pinned to the left side of the heart (where medals are worn in the military, but it looks reversed because of how we’d be looking at it, were it real.)
Much like the two before, this was Xyaida’s design – her word being Passion.
Her quote reads, “The Spark from Within that helps us to Create Success of Fulfilling our Desires.”
The symbols up the top are Chinese Mandarin for Passion, which are read as: Jï Qìng.
The Rose is obvious in its ties to love, passion, tenderness & friendship.
Unfortunately the designs as we’d intended them weren’t going to be easily transferred to the fabric. Lady Frogs had the marvelous idea of “Iron On Transfer paper” but, alas, the designs were too intricate and would not print properly onto the iron-on paper.
Not beaten yet, our wonderfully talented Frogs had another trick up her sleeve, and produced a scan of two of the three designs that she’d come up with for the flags, last minute:
These formed part of the final product – the Flags of Inferno.
The final stage of construction happened late at night for our Lady Frogs, with much dedication to the task. And after much fretting by Laneth about time differences and 8 hours of sleep later, he awoke to find an email from Frogs containing progress photos, as well as ones of our finished Banner.
Here follows some notes from our Lady Frogs & some progress photos:
Frogs Speaks:
Flags/Banners are magickal objects/tools that are hung to gain specific energies. Flags/Banners use the power of the Element of Air to release their energy.
Here is the little chant I used while creating the flags/banner...
"I create with power.
The Power of my need,
Plants the magickal seed."
Construction was relatively simple. I used 9x12 felt for the flags. I used 1 1/2 yards of black cotton for the banner. A stitch here and a dab of glue there and it is done.
Here Ends the Submission of the Flames Team – The Pride of the Flames
Challenge One: Create an Item of Power – “The Flags of Inferno”