Caraccioli

Hey, this user ID of mine is one short of being a skull! We can't have that and this seems like a good place to add a superfluous post.

It sort of seems like a conflict of interests, but who knows? Maybe the fictional Order of the Leviathan can become the underpinnings of an umbrella organization.

The man dressed like a ship's surgeon? What does she mean? I am the ship's surgeon...the dread surgeon Mission!

Dramatic Rabbit!! Bum bum bummmmmm! (I love the phrase 'dramatic rabbit.')

Cheers! (That'll teach ya' to include me in your friends list. )

Now, about those dental worms...you really need to know more about this subject. "The belief that dental caries and toothache could be caused by worms was, at that time, still in full vigor, and it gained still greater force by reason of observations recorded by different scientists, whose affirmations could with difficulty be doubted, for at that period the great number still swore blindly in verba magistri. Oligerus Jacobaens (1650 to 1701), a Danish physician and anatomist, who taught in the University of Copenhagen, declared that in scraping the decaying cavity of a tooth that was the cause of violent pain, he had seen a worm come forth, which, having been put into water, moved about in it for a long time. Martin Six, having split some decayed teeth a short time after they had been extracted, asserts that he determined the existence of worms in __ them. (It is probably that this observer, as well as others, mistook the dental pulp for a worm, an unpardonable error, in truth, at a time when the anatomical constitution of the teeth had already been very well studied by several scientists, and especially by the celebrated Bartomoleo Eustachius.) Gabriel Clauder (1633 to 1691) not only believed in dental worms, but maintained besides that these were the most frequent among all the causes of toothache. In a certain way, to sustain this opinion of his, he relates a case in which a tooth of healthy appearance being the seat of great pain, a tooth-drawer had asserted that there must be a worm in its interior; and, in fact, on the tooth being extracted and afterward split, the little animal whose existence the tooth-drawer had divined, was found to be existing inside of it! Philip Salmuth asserts that by using rancid oil he got a worm out of the decayed tooth of a person suffering from violent toothache, thus causing the cessation of pain. The worm, he says, was an inch and a half in length (!) and similar in form to a cheese maggot. Nicolaus Pechlin (1646 to 1706), professor of medicine at Kiel, testifies to having seen five such dental worms, like maggots, come out by the use of honey, though he does not say whether they issued from several cavities or only one! Gottfried Schulz. But all this is nothing compared to what Gottfried Schulz has dared to assert, viz., that by using the gastric juice of the pig, worms of great size can be enticed out of decayed teeth; some of these even reaching the dimension of an earth worm!” (Guerini, p. 231-2) “[Carlo] Musitano [1635 to 1714], too, believes in worms in the teeth, but does not admit, as preceding authors had done, that they generate spontaneously. He holds instead that they result from the eggs of flies and other insects, which, together with food, are introduced into the carious cavities and there develop in the heat of the mouth.” (Guerini, p. 247) “As to worms, the best mode of destroying them [according to Musitano] is by using bitter substances, such as myrrh, aloes, colocynth, centaurea minor, etc., but sometimes the use of sweet substances, such as honey, is a good means of drawing them out of the carious cavities!” (Guerini, p. 248)

Phoebe rocks!

That Black Pirate definitely belongs on such a list. Alas, it's old and careworn, not shiny, colorful and within recent memory. Oh, and what about The Crimson Pirate? That list needs another overacted opus with garish non-PC outfits...

I think people make things like the Letters of the Mark look old because that's what's expected by the masses. If PoD wants to sell his letters on eBay, he's probably well advised to make them look old because I suspect most people there would want to buy that versus one that looked new. (OTOH, he could try selling it without aging and see what happens...eBay auctions are neat way to do such marketing experimentation on the cheap.) Although that was actually my original thought when I asked what paper would actually look like after being at sea for a couple of months. I can't believe all paper completely yellowed to the tea stained color in such short periods of time.

To echo some previous posters... Do aging however and with whatever makes you happiest. There's no right way to play pirate. If you don't like one way, don't do it. If you tried one way and it didn't work for you, do it another way next time. It's your stuff and your schtick. We're here to share ideas with each other, not enforce best practices or decide the way others should do something. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." -Eleanor Roosevelt

I agree with Hawkyns that it only takes a few events to get your kit looking authentically used. I have never sought to artificially age mine. (Being a surgeon, I have the notion that my clothing would be a little less desperate looking than your average seaman, so that is probably part of it as well.) Still, if aging is fun for you and makes you feel more like the character your portraying, I don't see where it really matters that much. Now authenticity of smell is not what I'm personally going for, so I don't care a whit about that aspect vis-a-vis my character. (Keep in mind that this is from someone who prefers hotels to encampments and enjoys showering and regular daily ablutions, event or no.) People who want that level of authenticity, great! Have fun with it, knock yourself out, do (or in this case, don't do) your thing. I'll be over with my surgical junk doing my thing with the scents of Speed Stick, Ivory and Johnson's Baby Shampoo surrounding me. (Of course I use Johnson's Baby Shampoo.)

Yeah, I worked with Cutter last year at Hampton. I loaned him all my amputation stuff and he talked about amputation while I talked about other medical procedures and instruments. He was going to do a leg amputation there, but either he didn't get the chance or I didn't see it. He's a great guy - it was a genuine pleasure to work with him.

Wow, I like that waistcoat. Very stylish looking.

It's what I usually prefer to do anyhow. (Except MBTI, where I am in love with my INTJness.)