One blunderbuss i would like to have ...

[Philip]

Originally Posted by kronckew

Poisoning was a traditional method, especially of insuring inheritance, since imperial rome, and earlier. favoured for pesky relatives that refused to die on time. quite a few emperors, as well as their rivals, usually relatives, were poisoned. the catholic church was fond of it as well, as priests were (and are) frowned on if they shed blood.

p.s. - poppy, my saluki lurcher cross is my avatar, she has the saluki breed standard feathering on her ears, tail, legs and feet. and she CAN fly along. roughly 40 mph, tho she rarely gets too far off the ground.

Clergy not shedding blood -- that's why archbishops who led troops during the early Middle Ages carried maces, not swords since they could probably get away with bonking a guy hard enough to put him out, without making him bleed. And the reason that heretics were burned at the stake during the Inquisition (in fact, in Spain and Portugal the authorities were fastidious enough to limit torture methods to the bloodless ones of waterboarding and the use of pulleys and ropes. )

Dogs -- Oh, that's the story. I had assumed that her breed was descended from dinosaurs which some paleozoologists now believe may have had feathers and proto-bird features. 40 mph is a very respectable speed nonetheless, whether or not she manages to get airborne. Is the world really ready for flying dogs, anyway? How could I handle confusing an eagle with a beagle when I've had too many drinks?