Nineteen years before the betrayal The hardy young laborer Fridok wiped sweat from his brow and drank the bitter and sandy water from his banged-up, dingy tin canteen. He tried and failed to tune out the foreman squawking insults at the other stone workers. Those kids wouldn't cut it in this hard vocation; they would have to find something else to do for their wages. Pity. Stone work was decent pay for someone of Fridok's station. It would never elevate his status in the City, but it would keep his belly full and his hands busy. He couldn't hope for more than that. The Walls kept the demons outside at bay, but did nothing to address the invisible demons that… Continue reading The Apostate Saint: Chapter 3 – The Stones
Backlog
The Apostate Saint: Chapter 2 – The Candle
The candle display on the Outer Sanctum alone was a marvel to behold, a true testament to the wonders of the Namer's creation. It had taken monks a full week to set up the display prior to the start of Beneficia, the week-long festival that pre-dated the Fall of Man. ALARICUS CABALLARIUS LUCIDIUS - Alaric, as he was known to his contemporaries, allowed himself reprieve from his duties to the Lord to see the tiny lights dancing in the wind. By themselves, none of the candles were remarkable. It was only when they were there, in their right places designated by skilled artists, that they amounted to something greater than themselves. If one were to remove just one from the collection, the whole display would be weaker in its absence. Alaric was proud to be here, in the place carefully designated for him.
The Apostate Saint: Chapter 1 – The Spear and the Sword
The careworn veteran of the Crusades could no longer distinguish the far-off incessant bustle of the Beneficia festival-goers from the forever-agonized gnashing of the lesser demons who still crawled through the lands. Such was the state of the man who foolishly agreed to set off from the White Walled City without stature or status, who survived his many tours only to gain short-lived, hollow praise. He received only a fleeting fraction of the reward that was promised to the veterans. His noble brothers-in-arms didn't enjoy the same discouragement. Lucky them.
Announcement – The Apostate Saint – Serialized Stories
I am pleased to announce a new series of short stories to be included directly on the blog. This new series takes place hundreds of years before the events of PANCHO'S FALL and follows FRIDOK, the Saint who went missing after his crusades were over. Fridok was among the original Ten Saints who followed El Hijo, out from the safety of the White Walled City and into the wilderness to cleanse the lands of the demons that inhabited it. The short stories will be serial in nature and will directly explain what happened to him, after the First Crusade was completed. Fridok returned from the crusades expecting to find some notoriety for his endeavors and sacrifice for the greater good,… Continue reading Announcement – The Apostate Saint – Serialized Stories
You Have a WIP Limit of One
From the time I started as a Scrum Master, I have had the opportunity to personally witness several different organizations' Scrum implementations, and discussed with others their experience with Scrum at their organization. Every organization does it slightly different, but that's OK. Some have been outstanding, and have inspired me to try many new things to solve problems on my Scrum teams. But, for every great example of successful Scrum implementations I have experienced, I've heard of several others where I'm baffled about how loosely their implementation follows Scrum. In those cases, I often hear people suggest switching to Kanban as a solution because they just don't think Scrum is working. Let me be clear: Switching to Kanban because your Scrum implementation sucks is a lazy and bad solution.