With all due respect (and I hope you know that I respect you

sincerely)--

It is a far different thing to patiently obtain the mystical

folderol required to burn a wax, all the while exposing yourself to

the harassment of your fellow fighters, than it is to whip up an

army of demons, et al. I have watched large sorcerers (sic) put

together their armies, and I have been amazed at the ease and rapidity

with which they put together very potent and large groups of followers.

Now, admittedly, I know nothing whatsoever regarding prices for various

demons, and aside from the fact that I serve in many undead armies (most

currently Rohan's, I believe), I do feel that surviving a large onslaught

of POTENT followers (I'm not talking about satyrs, here) is particularly

difficult, especially when one is confronted with the primary opponent's

OWN prowess. That Panaideos is a solid threat far beyond his ability

to control followers I do not dispute for an instant, and though I respect

Culinane's abilities mightily, I honestly wonder if he can succeed where

Guido (whose profession need not be mentioned) failed. The thought of

Guido walking up to me and JJ'ing me is rather frightening, and yet Panaideos

shrugged him off like a gnat, so far as I could tell. (It was just the

rapidity and unbroken insistence of those \"Guido has been slain by Panaideos\"

messages that gave me this impression, by the way: I've not seen any logs.)

Is it really necessary for a profession that can evoke blackhand to also

be able to lead around a squad of antagonists? Why don't Cavaliers get to

bring 200 fighting Pageboys with them, or somesuch? How come I don't get

an army of Seeing Stone-People? Why do some professions get very, very

potent followers, and others not? We can all spit jegga... We can all put

runes on our swords... We can certainly all web, struggle, and eat every

kind of healing herb known to man. But we can't all raise our own personal

armies, and those of us who can, other than sorcerers, just don't seem to get

the 'good' followers... As an experiment, when I again attain Starion, or

thereabouts, I shall lead an army of rabbits, sheep, and wolves against

a couple of homunculi! Oh, no, wait... they won't berserk for me. I guess

I'll just go free a stone.

Perhaps if Bards weren't so ridiculously constrained to working in groups,

I'd be more sympathetic to your drift regarding the skills required to

use various profession's skills. I left the bards guild in final protest

over the decidedly STUPID attitude of the people who run this game about

Bardic skillsets, and I don't care who disfavours me for saying that.

With Avalon prices being what they are, and scarcity of continuous players

being what it is, why on earth SHOULDN'T any bard complain that his 'army'

must be real-life associates, while some moronic army of 'followers' crushes

him/her. Oh, damn, now I've gotten upset about it... I became a seer to

calm down, and look what happened!

Written by my hand on the 18th of Midwinter, in the year 969.