"Can you sue a god? What a ridiculous question!
...Of course you can sue a god! This is Wizard City! Anything can sue anyone. A ham sandwich can sue an Archmage if it can string enough words together into a proper sentence.
Winning, though, is another matter entirely..."
At some point, some lawyer or philosopher or bum on the street somewhere must have wondered how we started worshiping the Incorporated as 'gods'. That, by the legal and commercial traditions of the wizarding empire, a not-insubstantial portion of the populace now pledge their souls and offer their prayers to an incorporated persona known as "Ecstatia Doppeldorf Engenheimer LLC." How they offer their thoughts, their money, and their very real time, to the propagation of a entity which is, according with all official intents and purposes, a real, 110% legal, dream-holding, personality-wielding, actual property-holding... "Person".
Not a person like you or me. A person that's beyond a person. Higher-dimensional, distributed, Incorporated. Dare we say: divine? A person made of persons and places and things and dreams of shareholder value. Your flesh is their flesh, and your coworker's flesh, and the stock-holders' flesh. (Well, only a part of the stock holder's flesh that is that particular fraction of their investment portfolio, but I digress.) Their dreams are different from your dreams - and they do certainly have dreams (as established in MagnaCock II v. Archmage's Secret Police c.559)
Tenure-holding historians might argue that is was really sort of inevitable: that this was the natural conclusion for the Train of Progress chug-chug-chugging along, occasionally accosted by some bomb-throwing apes but otherwise stalwart in its inertia. That eliminating the last bits of "inefficiencies" that were holding back the potential of BUSINESS (hallowed be thy name) was inevitable as the evolution of wings... or perhaps the anus.
But does it really matter how we got here? Offer your prayers! (Your loud, verbal, very public prayers, preferably those pre-approved by your Incorporated's partnered advertising collegium!) Offer your paychecks! Sacrifice the finest fatty cow's thighs and pour libations upon the Altar of Consistent, Reliable, Quality Goods at Affordable Prices (tm). Upon the Altar of Service Your Can Trust! (tm). Upon the Altar of XOX: Cool, Refreshing, XOX... To Take the Edge Off of Life! (tm)
(...Yes, you have to say the whole name. You can't just call it Xox. It's gotta be cool and refreshing and yadda yadda yadda... You won't get that promotion, or corporate sponsorship, or Xox-Day discounts if you don't say the whole thing.)
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| Image: Jared Rodriguez, Truthout |
Chronulus doesn't have "temples". Temples are for far less economically-developed cultures, who reserve interpreting the blemishes on animals' internal organs for primitive notions like winning battles and passing laws instead of market trends. But it does have Ivory Towers: the base of these corporate offices having big public spaces with monuments and clerical staff and places for charitable contributions offerings and advertising prayers. The Ivory Towers are the shining, pointed teeth of the city, if the whole thing was grinning like some upside-down goblin.
Incorporated Entities (I.E. if you're short on time) occupy a space somewhere between landlord, crying baby, and amoeba. They tend to start with very little personality, hungry for just about everything: money, people, market share, assets, low interest rates. They grow bigger over time. They can't die, though, only subsume. Sometimes they merge with other entities, becoming some mix of each other, like if Zeus and Poseidon went back into the womb and merged together into some super hybrid brother made of ignored HR complaints and waterfowl.
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Here are the big shots, and how to read 'em.
Stock Directory Symbol: you want to find this Incorporated Entity's listing on the stock market, this is what you'll look up.
Persona: How the entity manifests in our world. Or, if you will, its logo.
Domains: 'Assets', if you prefer. Monopolies. An Incorporated Entity typically doesn't achieve a 'Domain' unless it has at least some monopolistic or duopolistic power.
Blessings: What prayer can get you.
Prayers: What the Incorporated Entity wants you to do, to get its blessings. Frequently called 'Advertising'.
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XOX
Merged from Hayden Magichemical and the Clean Oxygen Company. XOX makes "XOX: cleaner than air, fresher than fresh!" That's X-OX, in case you're wondering. Oxygen gas mixed with some other trade secret goodies that make it extra extra "clean". It's a nice product affordable to anyone who can sustain an addiction, if you spend all day sniffing magitox disposal or you live by a chemical factory.
Stock Directory Symbol: XOX
Persona: A dove. What's cleaner than the idea of a dove? (The idea of a dove, you philistine!) A cloud of shiny gas. The shine on a bald man's head. Wax on marble.
Domains: Clean Air, Cleanliness, Drugs, Bleach, Decontaminants, Chlorine
Blessings: Clean Air, Euphoria, Water Breathing, Enchantment Boons, Wind Spells
Prayers Include: "XOX: cleaner than air, fresher than fresh!" - say it with gusto and preferably in front of 3 or more people or it doesn't count; "Take the edge off life: with XOX!"
C-SEC
Chronulean Security Enterprise Corporation! Who could forget you? With your bloodthirsty wizard mercenaries and cutthroat mercantilism! Who can forget the organization which crafted the robotic killing machines with demons' souls trapped inside of them, that stalk the darkest corners of the city and feed on the souls of the innocent? Who can forget those little red signs people post on their lawns, with skulls and bones, warning "BEWARE OF LETHAL AND IRONIC TRAPS! INTRUDE AT YOUR OWN RISK!"
Stock Directory Symbol: CSC
Persona: A human skull biting a wand... (Why the fuck is it always skulls with these guys?)
Domains: Security Systems, Booby Traps, Unfeeling Killing Machines, Foreign Legions.
Blessings: "Security Contract Experts" showing up like ritually summoned assassins, protection from horrible demon murder machines, conspicuously-appearing contract muscle work, trap spells
Prayers Include: various blood sacrifices done in basements, thanking your local "Peace Expert", signing up for the subscription mail list, "C-SEC: prosperity and security"
Killer Whale
Merger created from the holding company of the King of Whale's sovereign slush fund and the waste management conglomerate Landfill-Kille LLC. Controls 55% of the city's water resources through collection, treatment, and distribution. (Another 44% controlled by the University of Chronulus.) They've even got an olympic-sized swimming pool in the lobby, for the whales.
Stock Directory Symbol: KW
Persona: A handsome whale-man hybrid holding a trash can, inexplicably sexy and short-skirted smooth-skinned HR representatives, Waves, Cloud of Mist, an oil lamp flame.
Domains: Water, Waste, Beauty, Fuel, Transmutation
Blessings: purify food and water, extending fuel use, making minor bits of trash disappear, getting a quick glow-up, fire spells
Prayers Include: (You hum a little jingle) "Killer Whaaaaaaale!", fulfilling customer satisfaction surveys,
Locke-Key International
The jury's still out on whether these guys are part of the criminal underworld or they're legit. Extradimensional spaces are a legal grey area at best. At the highest level it's a partnership between two wizard dynasties, but on the ground they're just everybody's landlords. Better pray rent on time, or else expect your front door to scream harsh words or open up into the bottom of an extradimensional latrine.
Stock Directory Symbol: LKI
Persona: Lock and Key, Magic Mouth, a dark and stormy tower
Domains: Real estate, extradimensional portals,
Blessings: discounts or approved delays on the rent, Knock/Hold Portal spells,
Prayers Include: paying the rent on time, talking about how great it is to live in a Locke-Key-managed rental property, "Locke and Key, for you and me!"
Scrivener
Wizards need spells. Spells need parchment. Parchment needs skin. Five million wizards need five million wizard's worth of skin. Do you have any idea how much skin that is? Let's just say you measure it in a unit bigger than 'hectares' and smaller than 'acres'. You've heard of a pig skin, right? Well Scrivener is a proud patent owner of the 'Skin Pig'.
Stock Directory Symbol: SC
Persona: Quill and Scroll, Inverted Nike Swoosh, Dawn on the Horizon, a Muse, a very fancy signature.
Domains: Scrolls, Spells, Private Libraries, Textbooks, Cattle
Blessings: spell scroll coupons, cheaper spellbook replication, skin spells (Stoneskin, Barkskin, etc.)
Prayers Include: Donating excess, unwanted, or 'medicinally unrequired' skin to your local skin in-box (a.k.a "skin-box") - wizard skin makes the best spell book material; reporting second-hand textbook donation to your local intellectual property manager; grow your own Skin Pig!
Angel Venture LLC
This Incorporated Entity fucks. Don't get me wrong: exactly 0% of anyone working for this thing has or will ever have sexual congress. They simply do not have the time nor the energy (and most of them are either undead already or self-castrated to keep themselves focused on work). What I mean is that Angel is venture finance par-excellence. They're the bacchanal of capital, the unwanted pregnancy of private equity. Acquisitions, conquests, mergers, seed fundings, initial public offerings, impact investing, open partnerships, asset lubrications and liquidations, equity after dark, a_al (it's a wizard finance term). Angel's got a lot going on... financially speaking.
Stock Directory Symbol: AV
Persona: a cute little cherub, a foxy siren, reflections at the bottom of the bottle, a rotting corpse
Domains: Arbitration facilitators, hollowed-out brands, fast food, ruins
Blessings: Spells of entropy and destruction; temporary elimination of hunger, sleepiness, or other bodily desires; grind mentality
Prayers Include: brand loyalty, using the word "disruption" a lot in casual conversation,
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