SMOOSH JUICE
Artful Dodgers
Poetry is for the children
Whose light turns the empty stages
Into solar fields for mages
Whose hands transform dejects
Into carved and tailored affects
Whose laughter turns the mute
Into the celestial chorus of lute
– Poem composed by a Dodger pretending to be a supposed master poet teaching students in a village. The poet was a hack.
(Notes on a supernatural creature type present in some of my games)
What happens when the bodies of children get older but stay the same? The Dodgers seem to give an answer to it, infantile in stature but quite diverse regarding the age illustrated on skin. A noticeable incapacity to grow facial hair is another trait, although they might wear fake versions of it. They are immediately recognizable to most people in whatever realm they show up, to the delight of the young ones and annoyance of the mature.
Nobody quite knows their origin. They are an invasive species from elsewhere, even if their appearance and inner anatomy seems to match the development of humanoids. Dodger hatred is partially based on the notion that, wherever they come from, they surely don’t think much of who’s around here. Their behavior is based on a theatrical compulsion to imitate the power structures around them, to adopt names and playact with authority, although it’s up to the interpreter whether this is based on spite, childish sincerity of admiration turned gauche, or variable.
What authority is being recreated depends. Each group in the same space might take in different authorities and their retinue: a Dodger king, Dodger crime lord, and Dodger schoolmaster walk together into a bar in the same region. A Dodger is acting as the pub master behind the counter. If a Dodger troupe is aware of a specific authority in the realm, they might imitate them. Otherwise, they will state they are the true authorities, or good friends of the authorities coming from distant lands to be received and given a feast.
The procedures by which Dodgers imprint a particular performance seems a complete mystery, and they are either unable or unwilling to explain; some seem unaware they are performing. All Dodgers seem to have proper names and personalities, however crude and simple both are. But they don’t remember neither when in the grips of acting, and their companions won’t identify them by their former identity if asked. They have always been the figure endorsed. Some in the grips of theatrical mania keep their names if the role portrayed is purely subordinate, but will only identify their fellows by the imagined persona. If a member of a “troupe” dies or goes away, the collective mania rearranges and a new Dodger assumes the authority role.
In rare occasions, a Dodger which is performing a specific authority role under the grips of mania is given insight of something only the original model for the play could know. To kill a Dodger is seem in many realms as extraordinary bad luck, so many rulers afraid of secrets being spread demand that the visiting Dodgers who are imitating them be well-guarded and that their stay is brief. Roll luck or similar to determine if a Dodger met by the players has such knowledge.
Among a few scholars in realms concerned with Law and cosmic order, there’s the suspicion Dodgers, despite their chaotic play-acting and manners, are indeed beings of sheer Law, strange cherub children from the higher planes, with their emulation of local rulership being either a nostalgic recreation of the world they knew or a celestial reminder about the fluidity of authority itself in mortal bodies.
Dodgers are surprisingly well-regarded in some villages during carnival times, as their activities serve satirical and joyous procedures very well. In some realms, it isn’t unusual that Dodgers are found well-employed in traveling carnivals.