3. The Election Campaign of Perriwig P. Doubleday

The Election Campaign of Perriwig P. Doubleday


  • "Perriwig For Peltarch!"

    <u>ACT I, SCENE 1.
    "If sugar be the food of love, fill my gob…"</u>

    An artist's impression of the gastrognome's opening gambit, in the Docks District of the Fair City of Peltarch…

    As the other campaigns break out with fizzle, flourish and in some cases, with fornication, the gastrognome and sometime private gentleman's push for electoral supremacy begins with a general speech in the Docks district, but with an inevitable, gnomish twist. Impish and charming Sparkle of Glittergold, Gilda Haven, known associate of Senatorial Gnominee, Perriwig P. Doubleday, prances a merry prance through the district, summoning one, summoning all to the "unveiling" of a new "Tidus, Fisher King and damn fine fellow, O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!", she chortles in her joy. The small huddle of the bored, the anxious and the daft that have been dragooned into attention are lead to an enswaddled, mysterious figure in the district. With a flash and a flourish, Gilda whips the blanket away to reveal - egad! - an improbable sight! With magical whizzbangs provided by Perriwig's wizardly associate, Caramella Bestefaren - underneath the coverlet, is revealed an equestrian statue of Perriwig, improbably dressed up as the Fisher King himself. Even more daftly, the statue appears to have been crafted entirely of a white, gleaming sugary frosting. With a puff of magic, however, the toothsome coating falls away to reveal a flesh-and-bone Senatorial candidate, rather than a sugar effigy…

    "Da-da!"

    Chortles the gnome, waving grandly at what crowd has assembled there, before embarking on his gallant first address to his fellow citizens. The canny in the crowd, acquainted with the gnome, will certainly notice that he has been ensorcelled up to enhance his flagging gnomely charisma..

    "Acquaintances, Peltarchians, fellow country persons! Rent me your hearing extremities! I come here not to bury Peltarch, but to praise her! My name is Perriwig P. Doubleday here I stand, YOUR candidate for the Senate! A simple man, an ordinary Peltarchian! A chick fallen from a LOCAL nest! An ordinary fellow with your interests at heart! Not some lofty lordling, grubbing in his guild's interests! I'll always be on YOUR side, my little herrings."

    "That is why I pledge here and now - summon me up as your senator and I'll introduce a sumptuary law in the Senate – a land tax on the bloated Civic District estates – to fund a boat building programme like we’ve never seen before! We sit on the doorstep of the Icelace, but we're crowded in by stones. I praise the Senate for their work in rebuilding our knobbled city after the ghastly war with the odious goons and ruffians of N’Jast! But it is NOT enough. Peltarch pulled herself up again by the roots, but is only dipping its TINY toe in the water! Our flow of trade is too much of a trickle, our sons and daughters prey to all sorts of rampaging, gold-minded pirates! For first hand experience of the booty-raking, merchant-thumping and villainy – just ask the EYEPATCH-wearing John Isle! I’m sure he could tell tales of his own larceny to CURL your boots!"

    "Does that sound like Tidus' dream made TRUE, my sprats? I say, NO! Although our MAJESTIC walls now tower over our citizens, and our glorious defenders and dogged guardsmen work to keep us safe – the Docks have not been tended to! Our houses have been rebuilt. But our boats still lie, shattered! Peltarch used to have a navy that was the envy of the Icelace! And we MUST have such a navy again! The tax on landed gentry won’t touch you, the honest Joe Peltarch, one of the city’s many hundred Fisher Kings, just looking to put food on the table of your beloved Fisher Queens and bread in the mouths of your little Fisher Princes and Fisher Princesses! We could use that money to invest in boat building – in jobs for Peltarch’s skilled artisans – in employment for the city’s tradesmen! A promise of a better future for our brave boys in the Marines, manning only the best ships to give those piratical goons what for - and take back the Icelace FOR PELTARCH!"

    "Let's finally make the hoity toity Civic district pay its way and deliver on the promise of TIDUS’ dream! A dream where we are ALL Fisher Kings! And we've all get a look in when the plums are dished out!"

    "PERRIWIG FOR PELTARCH! A GNOME'LL MAKE IT SO!"


  • <u>ACT 4, Scene 1.
    “Carpe tartem”</u>

    Gastrognome and Senatorial Gnominee Perriwig P. Doubleday brings his sweet-toothed election campaign to its end by delivering a cavalcade of speeches in each of the city’s three districts – even chancing his not-inconsiderably long gnomish nose by taking his message into the heart of the Civic District that he has been cheerfully bashing over the past few weeks. As a precaution against the risk of thrown fruit & vegetables, he saves the swankiest of the Peltarch’s neighbourhood. The risk is not your paltry rotted Docks tomato of course, or sticky Commerce apple, the Civic snobs would probably only lob their over-ripe avocadoes at objectionable gnomish yobs in their midst. Whether uttered from the rant stand or atop a Icelace-waters edge soapbox, Perriwig’s peroration in all three places more or less sticks to the following version, which he gleefully delivered in the Commerce District. Again, his arcane advisor Caramella Bestefaren is clearly at work, having cast an empowered Eagle's Splendour on the gnominee before he opens his mouth in public…

    “Good people of Peltarch, our nation of simple Fisher Kings and Queens – let me first thank you! Thank you for listening to what I’ve had to say over the past days and weeks and minutes and hours! Our campaign will soon be at an end. No longer will it be a story of hearty Heffa against iniquitous John Isle, robber John against Eerie Enny Snydders, sorcerous Snydders against the wholesome and upright gnomish gentleman you see before you. Now, its YOUR recipe for the making! We’ve given you your ingredients – your candidates sweet, your nominees sour – your sugar-dusted promises, your light or generous portions of policy. Now the cake is yours for the baking! I say, the perfect mix is Perriwig P. Doubleday! The ONLY way to get a rise out of the Senate House!”

    “Here are my policies. Tax the rich, and invest that wealth in a labour for the WHOLE city, not just the Docks, or Commerce or Civic. Turn that money into wood, that wood into boats, those boats into jobs, those jobs into a decent livelihood for you and YOUR family! Peltarch owes its brave citizens this much. Some have spoken out against the proposed tax. Senator Fishy-Fish Fisher thinks he and his caviar cronies will have their roast swan snatched from their mouths! Don’t they see? Invest in the city, invest in Icelace trade, invest in rebuilding Peltarch’s GLORIOUS navy of days gone by – we will ALL be able to work more SAFELY, trade more SURELY! In short, there will be a decent dinner for all families, whether they break bread together in Commerce, Civic or Docks! I say that YOU should sit in judgement over your peers on CITIZEN juries – and take back the government of the People by the People for the People which Tidus the Fisher King intended for Peltarch! I promise to support individual CONSCIENCE so YOU decide where to trade, where to work, how to earn your crust for those you love!”

    “Others tell it different. Hearty Heffa is a goodly chap. I have only respect for the dwarven gentleman! But I respectfully disagree with his priorities – first sail the Icelace blue! He is a dwarf, my codlings, he can’t HELP thinking in terms of stone! I tactfully remind Heffa that Peltarch is the Jewel of the ICELACE! Not the Gem at the Foot of the Giantspires! Navy first, towers later!”

    “You will all be aware by now, I’m afraid, of the scandalous allegation made by scurvy senatorial nominee John Isle against honourable candidate Snydders. I distance myself from his remarks altogether! Whatever Eerie Enny’s past, I’m sure that the life-extending potions he has been brewing to keep himself alive were absolutely NOT necromantic in nature! Whatever his unorthodox arcane hobbies, it is none of our business insofar as he observes Peltarchian law. I’m sure if you elect him to the Senate, he will focus all of his efforts on delivering his promised policies - having no time to spend rustling up vials of death-defying gloop. I’m certain that we shall see his Lordship ageing naturally again, as Chauntea intended, if you vote him your senator.”

    “That being so, I strongly urge the scallywag candidate Isle to retract his defamatory remarks at the gallant warlock’s expense, post haste, before any other innocent member of the electorate get wind of this wholly private matter. I repeat, I believe that Snydders is an honourable man! In office, he will do exactly what he has promised to do – serve the old style GUILDS, as THEIR representative in YOUR government, serving only their material interests!”

    “Now is the hour to choose, beloved Citizens of my fair City! I have lived among you all my days! I have your best interests nurtured like a sunflower in my big gnomish heart! I’ve told you what I honestly think, I’ve made my case. I humbly invite you in this beauteous and happy twilight of the campaign, as your make your considered citizen’s choice – Vote Perriwig if you share my vision for a city where each and every one of us has the dignity of a free and fair life, as Tidus’ intended! Vote for Perriwig for a People’s Champion! Vote Perriwig for a Local Choice!”

    “Perriwig for Peltarch, this gnome’ll make it so!”


  • **[ACT II, Scene 3.
    …Slurping the soup of justice...

    After his cookiedough advertising stunt, the eccentric gnominee makes his next electioneering appearance back in the Docks, apparently having written off the Civic District almost entirely in his Quixotic, shamelessly populist campaign for the Senate. Today, he appears in public wielding a comically outsize ladle, using it to punctuate elements of the following, Portia-esque speech…

    “The quality of Peltarch’s justice is STRAINED! Although it droppeth as a tasty SOUP from a ladle, upon the DISH beneath - it should be OUR spoon! A spoon held by him that gives AND him that takes. Ours is Justice of the mightiest by the mightiest! It becomes our throned Magistrates’ better than our People’s. Their bowls greedily slurping all of the temporal power, to try and prosecute and convict, wherein doth sit the honest citizen’s dread and fear of our judges!”

    “But Peltarch should be ABOVE one man or one woman’s sceptred sway! It should enthrone in the hearts of our courts the good sense and fine judgement that is an attribute of the PEOPLE themselves! Time for an END to unbridled judicial power, and time for the people to season the soup of Peltarchian justice! And by gum, TASTE it too! Vote Perriwig for your Senator and I’ll abolish the power of magistrates to sit in lonely judgement over YOU! Vote Perriwig and criminal cases will ONLY be lawfully determined by an honest jury of your peers, the hearty Fisherkings and Fisherqueens ALL of you can see to your right, to your left, on all sides in this upright, upstanding city of noble and WISE souls! Guilty or innocent, your fellow citizens will have the FINAL say! Like Chief Cooks, our Magistrates should become even-handed overseers, final seasoners, STIR the pot of justice! No single citizen should be able to send you to chokey for TEN years with only a scratch of cheese and a crumb of prison loaf to give you sustenance! Or worse, have you HANGED! Only the PEOPLE should be able to pluck tasty food from our mouths!”

    “Let me be plain, as only a plain fellow can be. I have NOTHING against the honest Johns and honourable Joannas who’ve sat in Peltarch’s Magistrates’ chairs these past many years. Perhaps there have been one or two bad eggs, but for the main, they’ve proved reasonably jolly, even occasionally merciful! The present eggy crop are double-yokers, without doubt! This isn’t about these bigwigs, but about the PEOPLE’S RIGHTS and for justice to be SEEN TO BE DONE! Vote Perriwig for Peltarch and put the cutlery of justice where it should be – in YOUR hands!”

    Perriwig for Peltarch - this gnome'll make it so!](86340a3f3f)**


  • <u>ACT II, Scene 2.
    "Is this a cookie I see before me? Come let me clutch thee…"</u>

    <u>In the Commerce District…</u>

    _And in a flourish of baskets and a fragrant cloud of sugar cookie stacks, all is revealed! Perriwig has clearly, cunningly, cut a deal with the Baker's Union. Instead of churning several helpless trees into pamphlets and posters, littering the alleys and floors of Peltarch for days, the gnominee has demonstrated his gastrognomic credentials by working up an amazing wealth of colourful cookies, proudly displaying a ludicrously colourful, heroic iced depiction of himself and trumpeting his essential campaign message. These tasteful objects are given out all across the Commerce District, with gnomish dispensers paying particular care to press them into the sticky paws of the children who might particularly appreciate their sweet taste and flashy colouring.

    This bakery-based fliering campaign in the bartering District is launched by the gallant gnome himself, in a speech from the District's rant stand, brandishing one of the outlandishly-hued red, white, yellow and blue biscuits, illustratively. Once he has stepped down from the trumpeting spot, Perriwig joins the rest of his cookie-flier dispensing supporters, glad-handing and generally having a chubby whale of a time, all a'twinkle with glee at this candied political stunt..._

    “Four score and seven minutes ago our BAKERS brought forth from their mighty OVENS this COOKIE, conceived as sugary, and dedicated to the proposition that ALL sweet-tooths are created EQUAL!”

    “Now we are engaged in a great political CONTEST, testing whether our city, or ANY city, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure the anticipation of a delicious TREAT. I’m sure we can! We are met on the great MARKETPLACE of our EFFORT. The district of commerce. We have come to dedicate a generous portion of cookie dough, to celebrate and commemorate those who daily sell their baked goods, and fruit and vegetables, and quality meat products, that Peltarch might LIVE! It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. For without the HARDY men and women of our bakeries, the HONOURABLE merchants, the GOODLY brewers – we would all march on empty stomachs, and life wouldn’t be WORTH the living!”

    “But, in a chubbier sense, we cannot dedicate...we cannot consecrate...we cannot hallow this cookie! The BRAVE folk, living and dead, who bartered here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The Gods will little note, nor long remember what we munch here, but they can never forget what they DID here! It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which our suppliers, who negotiating strenuously, and haggling here, have thus far so NOBLY advanced. It is rather for US to be here dedicated to the BIG JOB remaining before us - that from these honoured merchants we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of reasonably priced brown sugar. That we here HUNGRILY resolve that these biscuits shall NOT have been guzzled in vain - that THIS city, under the elbow of the Giantspires, shall have a NEW birth of sweetness with FULL stomachs for ALL and that a GENEROUS government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE, shall not perish from the glimmery shores of the Icelace!”

    “Vote Perriwig for Peltarch, all military rations will be investigated and IMPROVED by the latest and best insights of GASTROGNOMIC science, so our brave boys and fighting dames can get the DECENT DINNER that the Fisher King intended! Vote Perriwig for Peltarch to put our growers and sellers and brewers FIRST! Don’t let Old Man Miser, Fishy-Fish FISHER and his CAVIAR CRONIES tell you different! Vote Perriwig for Peltarch to ensure that ALL of the hungry are filled and not just the fat, swaggering TUMS of the Civic District!”

    “Perriwig for Peltarch! This gnome’ll make it so!”


  • **ACT II, SCENE 1.
    "The best laid plans of mice and gnomes, gang aft eggly."

    _Mischief afoot in the Doubleday camp. His clutch of gnomish special advisers - the lofty-hatted caster of charms, Caramella Bestefaren and feather-wielding fluffer of Glittergold, Gilda Haven - and the candidate himself - have been seen whiffling about town and consulting, scribbling and rescribbling some sort of design on a vast piece of paper over tea and buttered crumpets in the Dancing Mermaid. Any peekers run the risk of being dazed or dazzled by the campaign's Chief Wizard, seeing only stars and little yellow birds, rather than the campaign's instrument of political triumph.

    Indeed, several times, one of the gnomes might be spotted sneaking into the Baker's Union, wearing an outsize "stealth" hat and a diabolically forked false beard. Hardly recognisable! Quite what they are about is difficult to say, but some campaign stunt is clearly a'brewing in the gnominee's mischieful gnomish mind.

    Here's hoping that whatever it is, they don't get "egg on their faces!"._**


  • **ACT I, SCENE 4.
    “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.”

    Clearly puffed up like a fetching cheese soufflé at getting a rise out of his would-be constituents, Perriwig is about to bounce away from his soapbox when the ruby gold inquisitor pipes up from the crowd. Quick with the repartee, the gnominee flashes a smile and hops back up on his elevating stump.

    "I may have a gnomish trick or two up my sleeve…" At which point, he produces a sunflower from the aforementioned custard-coloured jacket with a dexterous flick and flourish... "... but I've got nothing to hide, ladies and gentleman! Any citizen who wants to ask this gastrognome and senatorial gnominee for his view on ANY of YOUR concerns, just pipe up, my squidlings, and I shall do my fair weather best to answer each and all! While FLUFFY Ms Featherdown and EERIE Enny Snydders may only see fit to issue bardic press releases, I’M at your disposal.”

    “I’d like to begin by thanking the fine fellow in carmine for his question. Oscuran trade is the proverbial CLOUD GIANT in the room in this particular Senatorial campaign. We ALL know what has been said and done in the Senate. Here’s my view. I’m a jolly old gnome, not a lectern clutcher, here to presume to tutor YOU in morality! You are the masters of your fates and the CAPTAINS of the souls. Do you wish to hear the sweet choirs of religion? – Go to Church! I am sure the devout Lady Daisy with sing hymns to deliver you into rapture and delight. Dip into Selune’s Temple to seek your moonly illumination – I’m not here to play teacher to you, with a spanking rod and the roll of litanies for you to learn. Peltarchians aren’t CHILDREN, and I’m no divine!”

    “How many of you have ever been to Oscura, friends? I found myself buried there only the once, and it struck me as a pretty dismal hole in the earth, damp as undercooked cake batter, drippy as a leaky tap! The Senate isn't a tribunal of morals! Should we sup from Oscura's bitter cup? I say that is a question for each individual to answer to his or her conscience, NOT the business of Peltarch’s senate to YEA or NAYSAY. Since its TOO LATE to take this particular overbaked scone out of the oven, if YOU put your faith in me, I’d SUPPORT the trade agreement in the Senate and let each of you and each of your guilds plot their OWN course, as their consciences dictate!”

    “That answer your question, my fine fellow?”

    //Sorry for the delay with this. It has been a busy few days!**


  • After Perriwig's latest speech, he seems to have gotten the crowd quite riled up, though a man in red and gold livery queries him on one issue before he can move on;

    "What of Oscura, gnome? The other candidates have made themselves clear, but what of you? Will you support the trade agreement in the Senate?"


  • <u>ACT I, SCENE 3.
    "There is something fishy in the State of Peltarch!"    </u>

    Back in the Docks district, Perriwig P. Doubleday’s latest speech from the seaside stump is presaged by the crackle and whiz of colourful streamers and magical sparkles in red and peachy hues emanating from his pet wizard and badminton partner, Caramella Bestefaren. Some will presumably be aware of sitting Senator Ryan Fisher’s bitter assault on Perriwig’s proposed new tax on the Civic District estates to fund a boat building programme to refit Peltarch’s navy, make work for locals and generally rouse the rabble. The stand set, Perriwig hops up on his proverbial soapbox, delivering this Jeremiad against the Senator's patrician theorems. Where he quotes, the gnominee reads from a papery transcript of Fisher's speech which he holds in his paw.

    "I bring NEWS! There’s something FISHY in the State of Peltarch! Old Man Miser, Senator Fishy-Fish Fisher wants to make Perriwig P. Doubleday his catch of the day, poach me in his FINE patrician principles and serve me up, plump and dandy, with one of his GOLDEN apples stopping my honest mouth! Gadzooks, I call that RUM stuff, gentleman and ladies of Peltarch – and I tell you this – his slap up fish tea is just a RED HERRING!"

    “Who funds the Guilds who employ you, who feed you?” He asks you, you the HONEST inheritors of Tidus’ dream for this port. “Who put roofs over your heads?” asks this jovial old trout. His answer will BURST your bubble, friends! - “The families of the Civic District, that’s who!” argues our Fishy-Fish Fisher!”

    Perriwig bows ostentatiously, all twinkling irony –

    “ - With your lordship’s permission, as your lordship PLEASES! Ballyhoo, balderdash! Some of you may be surprised at Old Man Miser’s words – do you not WORK for your living, my hardy-handsome fellows? Is it CHARITY, to serve your guilds from dawn to dusk? To EARN your honest day’s wage? Or to shell out those wages on one of the hundreds of simple palaces that Peltarch’s fisher queens and kings RENT and call HOME across this Glistering Jewel? Listen! Can you hear that?"

    Cupping his hand to his ear for a moment for dramatic effect, Perriwig explains -

    "Far off, in Fisher Towers, they’re enjoying a penny chortle at YOUR expense, my codlings, thinking they’ve got you hoodwinked. He thinks you should be grateful and bend and flex and kowtow for what YOU jolly well EARNED! Its YOUR work-a-dawn-days that keep old Fisher’s flippers in ermine gloves, his cronies’ tummies full of truffles, and swan, and lark’s noses!"

    "WE have other fish to fry! I say, its time for the Civic District to pay its way. Boats for our boys! Ships for our shipwrights! Security for our traders! But Old Man Miser, Fishy-Fish Fisher doesn't think you’ve got the stuff to do it! “If the Docks be Peltarch’s backbone, and the Commerce be Peltarch’s heart, then the Civic is her mind, her conscience and her keeper!” he said!

    Scandalous! Hath not the Docks a MIND, and CONSCIENCE both - and STOMACHS to boot, needing tending? Hath not Peltarch's Commerce District heart, mind, stomach, backbone to match any CIVIC popinjay? Fishy-Fish Fisher says NO! Are we not fed with the same grub, itched by the same itches, subject to the same sniffles, healed by the same Gods, warmed and cooled by the same icecream and toasty fire, as a Civil District snoot is? If you tempt us with a slap-up cream tea with butter, jam and a pot of tea - do our tummies not grumble? If you tickle us, do we not giggle? If you poison us, do we not die?"

    "In our jaunty little well-appointed house in the Commerce District, my dear departed Mother Doubleday once cautioned me NOT to throw stones in GLASS HOUSES. It was good advice then, its good advice now! What a tragedy that Mammy Fisher neglected to teach her son that the SAME rule applies in the Civic District’s glass PALACES!"

    "Here’s one catch this FISHER won’t be landing! Don’t be hooked, folk of the Docks! His "Results, Results, Results" are nothing but a fat heap of caviar for him and his Civic District CRONIES, and not a sausage for YOU! I say, time for a FAIR deal for Tidus’ children!"

    "Perriwig for Peltarch, This gnome’ll make it so!"


  • <u>ACT I, SCENE 2.
    "Put ALL your eggs in ONE basket - its economical!"</u>

    After yesterday's white icing unveiling, Perriwig has reverted to his usual, bright yellow, custard-coloured jacket and has been putting himself about town in a more low-key fashion than the Dockside speechification. Today, he makes great play of shopping in the Market district, clutching a wicker basket under his arm, squeezing and purchasing fruit appreciatively, with a generous word to the sellers about the deliciousness and quality of their fare - and generally depicting himself as one of the Jewel's plain, albeit brightly coloured, "fisher kings".

    "What luck! The city should be very proud of its MOST excellent wholesalers of delicious fruit and vegetables to put the apples in our children's cheeks and spring onions in their steps!", he remarks.

    "We can't all be like WILD Aelthas Benthur, fending for ourselves out on the blasted heaths of Narfell. Did you know that he was raised by gypsies in the wild woods of the west? Gallant fellow still hunts all of his own food I gather, strangles it with his own hands, as his dear mama instructed him. I don't care what anyone says - we ought to be open-minded and credit him with these rustic habits he's kept up from his gypsy days. Real primitive authenticity!"

    "Its not for me though, eh, my fine mercantile fellows? I'll keep buying my tender fruit and vegetables here, as I've always done. My delicious pork chops, sun-yoked eggs of glorious freshness, my toothsome fresh-caught fish, landed by the brave Fisher Kings of the Docks district! Perriwig P. Doubleday, YOUR edible candidate for the Senate, champion of rich tucker for ALL!"

    _With that, he bounces off, declaring he'll be having a wild mushroom omelette for lunch.

    "Perriwig for Peltarch, The gnome'll make it so!"_


  • Noticable face in Peltarch, Wog, the half elf orc leigonaire was seen at Perriwigs election campign speech cheering and whooping along, perrwig clearly has struck a chord