Last week, he called it "full of shit," accusing bishops of corruption and womanizing during a speech to the family members of slain special forces. According to CNN affiliate, CNN Philippines , he also said priests should help him by speaking out about addiction instead of attacking him on the issue of extrajudicial killings. He brought up the child abuse scandals that have plagued the church, asking "What will you do about homosexuality in the seminary? What have you done to minors there? Still, that has not dampened approval for the President's campaign against illegal drugs.

While many of the faithful approve of the crackdown on drugs, Picardal believes they oppose the killings themselves. He says policeman have begun to come to confession with troubled consciences. Still, he concedes the drug war has its supporters. Some ordinary Filipinos, he thinks, have lost their way.

He ministers regularly to victims' families. He's no stranger to their pain, since his own mother was murdered more than 20 years ago by members of the Philippines' constabulary.

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He went on to live a life devoted to activism:. Picardal was part of a commission that investigated extra-judicial killings in Davao, Duterte's hometown. In , after dictator Ferdinand Marcos instituted martial law, Picardal was arrested while handing out fliers urging people to resist the regime. He was then imprisoned and tortured.

Later, he spent 16 years as a priest in the southern city of Davao, which is also the hometown of President Duterte. While Duterte served seven terms as mayor, Picardal joined a commission that investigated extra-judicial killings in the city, the same types of killings that have now spread nationwide. Duterte ordered hundreds of murders. This is a common use, the latest version of which we can see in the Dragon Age series where magic-users are considered dangerous and subject to terribly harsh rules.

The idea is that magic-users are restricted and inevitably seek to use their power freely, and thus a revolution is born. Gavin does lean this way in Bloodlust at times. A mystical aristocracy strikes me as an interesting idea. It makes perfect sense if magic-use is inherited and the power structure is feudal.


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In this case the people find some sort of equalizer that brings them on to equal footing with the mages which slides into revolution. Mages make great villains.

Maybe some types of magic are banned, while others flourish. This creates a conflict between the various types of magic which can lead to an uprising t against the oppressive force. The side that wins gets to determine what magic is acceptable. I could see a great book in here about advocates of Dark Magic rebelling against the light or vice versa. Class warfare is the go-to catalyst for revolutions of all types. Fantasy offers plenty of racism, class-hatred, and grit for this sort of scenario. Class warfare in a fantasy environment would likely play out similar to the way it does in the real world.

Regardless of the scenario, revolution offers a writer an exciting backdrop or a great central conflict. However, crafting a believable, interesting revolution for your fantasy world requires a great deal of work. Simple revolutions tend to come off as trite commentary on real world politics.

In a Fantasy revolution it is best to ground the act with deep world-building. Here are some things to consider:. People who are willing to get up and revolt often have a long list of grievances, built up over some time. The revolution often seems sudden because some event triggers it. What is this trigger? We have the courts and elections, for example.

It would be hard to imagine a full scale revolution while both of those function properly. What mechanisms have broken down in your world? Have the elders been corrupted? Is the oracle broken?

War on drugs: Priest speaks out against Philippines 'blood lust'

Have the the gods abandoned men? Has the King gone mad and started a crazy war? In almost all revolutions there are self-interested bastards who will try to take advantage. They might use the revolution as cover for dirty deeds or they might try to steer it into placing them into power.

Either way figuring these folks out makes the revolution way more interesting for a reader. I covered this in a previous blog post, when a system fails people will often search for scapegoats. The same is true in a revolution. Some group will bear the brunt of the anger and will try to deflect blame.

I could go on… Revolutions are a fact of life in the industrial age, and seem to be getting stronger, if less violent so far , in the information age. Bloodline Powers are essentially a set of inherited magical powers that all members of a particular bloodline share. Obviously this leads to eugenics. Bloodline Powers are based on industrial age literature, with vampires, ghosts, lovecraftian beasts, and so on making appearances among the nobility. Magical items were tied to the Bloodline. Inbreeding is a major factor in the plot. As the ruling families breed to concentrate power they make increasingly powerful, but unstable progeny.

Obviously, there are a large number of bastard children with bloodlines powers. This is important for next point. Before the current era, when a noble family became too unstable to be viable they were eliminated by the other nobles, or the Church. The Church, who believe that the source of the bloodline powers is a streak of divinity, keep tabs on the bastard children of noble families, often taking them and raising them.

When a noble family became a problem, the church could easily find a replacement, even when the nobility could not. Yes, the Church in End of Kings has a small army of elite Bloodline powered orphans. The user arms the weapon by concentrating on the Focus Stone, which changes colour depending on how much energy it holds. Once it is armed, the user points the weapon at the enemy and pulls a trigger which briefly connects the Focus Stone to the Spell Plate. The Spell Plate translates the energy into a spell effect which is then fired from the gun.

The Focus Stone and Spell Plate method powers a number of devices beyond firearms including melee weapons. A further refinement over the Spell Plate method is Spell Shot. Spell Shot uses part of the energy transferred from the focus stone to create an arcane explosion or magnetic effect that propels a bullet.

The best arms available combine Spell Shot and Spell Plate to create a projectile that has a spell effect on impact, but these are specialist weapons. Square bullets why WordPress, why did you change my interface?

Priest speaks out against Duterte's War on Drugs - CNN

We need a mature colony with a impressive population We need a distant monarchy that places heavy demands on their rich, established colony, but does not give it enough respect. The themes of the American Revolution that interest me are the movement away from the monarchy, the trend toward religious freedom, and the setting of the stage for the revolutions that followed in Europe.

The Colony, Wesfoundland Westfoundland is an enormous landmass best known for its farms, timbre, and an abundance of natural resources. The People of Westfoundland are a varied group, many of whom fled conflicts in the old world to settle here and live in peace.


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  • The colonies have a mixed reputation with the natives, many of whom they have driven from their lands. The Empire, Engildom Engildom is an Empire than has grown rich off trade. It is ruled by a Queen and a parliament.

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    Engildom is constantly engaged in conflicts all over the world to maintain its Empire. These conflicts are expensive and the burden of that cost often falls on rich colonies like Westfoundland. The Allies Engildom is allied with the rest of its colonies, a native people called the Wolf Clan, and various trade partners. Now lets add fantasy elements and mix them with our themes. Moving away from the Monarchy In history, the power of the nobility was tied to hereditary control of the land. In our example we decide to mess with the feudal system a little bit.