Ghyll:Lollipop
Lollipops are, on the surface, nothing more than a simple sugary confection on a stick. How often do we see childhood innocence symbolized as a young girl in Whereabouts sucking on a lollipop? Do they not remind us of summer days, sticky mandibles and old-fashioned candy stores (and the spitmounds that inevitably develop behind them - Mmmmm!)? Sadly, this image is a mere farce. Beneath their sweet exterior, lollipops are the cause of more conflict and strife than any other dessert item in existence. The reason is, long ago, some idiot in a position of authority that he didn't deserve made an unwise decision and passed some ill-concieved laws, and from then on their construction has been classified.
So, by law, lollipop recipes must not be shared outside of their creator's family. Therefore, whenever a particularly tasty or cheap-to-produce recipe is created, the creators must, BY LAW, have a monopoly on its production. Lollipop prices soar, competition is fierce, and outbreaks of criminal behaviour occur. The oldest lollipop families are engaged in the bitterest of feuds, which usually stretch to street level in the form of fierce gunfire battles and subtle - and usually illegal - attempts to convince the public that a given family's lollipop recipe is the best. In some places, a pedestrian can fall victim to such tricks as the spitmound infused with submental psychic hypnotic resonance frequencies, the rigged blind taste test, or the dreadful, gooey confection known as the Ebony-Headed Marrow-Sucker disguised as a normal sucker. Many lollipops are produced with addicting chemicals in them, and some of these "hooked" lollipops find their way in among the normal lollipops in otherwise reputable candy stores. Innocent citizens who have become hooked on lollipops start spending more and more of their money on the candy, until their addiction is so bad (and their pocketbooks so empty) that they are willing to steal for the smallest fragment of a good sucker. The larger lollipop families have even been known to abduct people off the streets to use as workers in their hidden underground lollipop factories.
The most notorious lollipop man of all time was the mysterious Alpaca One, who managed to live his entire life without having a single crime pinned on him despite the number of murders carried out by his underlings. Of almost equal fame was Donna Coral One (no relation), who was twice as bloodthirsty and just as much a corinthos. Speaking of corinthi (corinthoses?), Jackie Tuckarando is the nephew of a notorious lollipoping family himself, although it is unknown if he has ever participated in the family business.
Although recipe-sharing is illegal, it is also (due to its infeasibility as a sound business practice) traditional to not attempt to uncover the recipes of another and, when a person does, it often results in a suspension - indeed, the longest recorded suspension was the result of Leselle d'Burder's theft of the Toostie family recipe, which made her a very large sum of money before she was caught and suspended.
So overall, despite their glossy exterior, lollipop sellers and makers are a bunch of quidnunc at best, and a bunch of dangerous criminals at worst. Hard candy on a stick is a delicacy best avoided unless you are willing and able to put up with the potential consequences.
Citations: Blind taste test, Suspension, Whereabouts.
--Dfaran L'Eniarc 00:52, 4 November 2005 (EST)
