NOTED AUTHOR CAPHTOR CLOWE COWERS IN CLASPED CARYATID, CLAIMS CONSPIRACY OF FLOATING PIGS

Welcome Elect! the Golden Teat, Vornheims only true marker of the avant-garde, the final broadside firing, the journal of thought for those who truly THINK, returns!

Though haunted by FIRE, that bright shadow to life itself, we speak once more to shame our slavish imitators, rebuke our foes and kindle again the canker'd spark of DARING in those few within this warren of frozen mediocrity who retain and renew the capacity for original conception!

Rumours of this journals DEATH & DESTRUCTION at the hands of a church-mandated RESURRECTIONIST MOB, riled by porcine fabulists, gifted with the means of conflagration by the ARCH-CONSERVATIVES of the NOBLE CLASS and directed by well-placed DOUBLE AGENTS to assault our megre premises by catapulting small burning wolves lobotomised with golden pins through our windows until the ferocity of the burgeoning fire, the occlusive properties of smoke and the unmixed tragedy of the wolves sad consumption combined to DESTROY our press and CAST OUT our staff into the city street where they were radished and pilloried (MARTYRS), thereby depriving this decrepit manhive of its only true ORGAN OF PRINT dedicated to the preservation and sustainment of True Art, has FAILED.

The Golden Teat PRINTS ONCE MORE. We extend our apologies to our phandom within the body of the CHURCH, to our dedicated readers in the SALONS OF THE RICH and most of all to the Editors and Staff of that BASTION OF CONSERVATISM  the journal of the HONEY'D OAT and to its owner and editor, Voltoom Von Markenstark. Since you, SIR, were previously able to report on our papers ATTEMPTED destruction some hours BEFORE it took place, we do hope your PROGNOSTICATIVE CAPACITIES remain, and have warned you in advance the remarkable, the unspeakable, the unprecedented contents of our freshly disinterred and RESURRECTED journal. If so, then surely you are the ONLY ONE WHO LIVES to guess at what follows upon these words....

That is, the GOLDEN TEAT is proud and snide to report an interview, the first and ONLY  of its kind, with the overwhelmingly famous and shockingly reclusive author CAPHTOR CLOWE!!!!

This passenger of un-mixed fame, perhaps the most well-known writer of cube-entire, called by some 'The Gorgoliths True Bard' whose works have been translated into every language known and some un-known, invited in this organs factotum, Bathsheeba Vile, requesting that she pass through numerous unmarked portals and approach him only by a strange and vacant path. Vile (and scribe) met with the writer in conditions of ceramic secrecy and intense luxury.

Unlike the commandants of some OAT'er journals, the editors of the TEAT will spare no verbs in bringing you to the POINT. The interview begins upon this dash-

Clowe

VILE: Caphtor Clowe...

CLOWE: Please Bathsheeba, call me Caphtor.

VILE: It would be a pleasure Caphtor.

CLOWE: And make no signs. I am aware of all codes that pass and I have penetrated the mind of your scrivener.

VILE: Have you.

CLOWE: I become instantly aware of all thoughts within a five-metre distance of my naked skin, as, I am sure, do you.

VILE: I was not aware of it.

CLOWE: We are both Artists Bathsheeba, and we both know that True Art is THOUGHT and the substance of thought is ART. But if this masque pleases you, and I see that your scrivener still writes, then please proceed with your 'questions' and I will 'answer'.

VILE: Thank you. Mr Clowe..

CLOWE: Caphtor, please.

VILE: Caphtor, you have written two books over a space of five-hundred years.

CLOWE: I have.

VILE: Your first book 'Through the Eyes of the Gorgon' was published in the year (adjusted) 1532 and instantly banned. It claimed to be a 'tell-all' biography of an immortal being, one partly responsible for the creation of this world and mentioned in the scriptures of Vorn.

CLOWE: It was. It was, and it remains, an unappreciated and misunderstood work.

VILE: The few surviving reviews suggest that  it did not meet a favourable reception at the time...

CLOWE: CRITICS!! CRITICS!! CRITICS!!  THEY ARE CANNIBALS!! ALL OF THEM!! ALL OF THEM!!! I HAVE SEEN IT WITH MY STONE EYES!!!!!

(At this stage Clowe became violently agitated and moved rapidly about the room for several minutes. He then left the room and could be heard loudly requesting his 'substance' from an unseen member of his extensive staff. About a quarter of an hour later he returned, apparently weeping, though smiling and breathing deeply, and continued his response as if no interruption had occurred.)

CLOWE: 'Gorgon' was a misunderstood book. Most (all) of the qualities mocked by critics at the time were simply avant-garde or unpredictable stylistic choices necessitated by the remarkable nature of the subject.

VILE: The Honey'd Oat called it "Cheap, rubbishy, researched by dogs chewing dictionaries, unfit even for a turgid voyage, composed of error and transmitted by a borderline-retarded mind."

CLOWE: They failed to even notice, let alone un-pack and cognate, its multiple overlapping ironies. OF COURSE the biography of an immortal near-divine being would be written in the style of a poorly-researched potboiler, the style is both representative of the mortal minds collapse into apparent cliche when confronted with events of titanic significance over a period of incomprehensible time, and ALSO an investigation into and commentary UPON that self-same collapse.

VILE: And what they called "significant errors and inaccuracies in the text, not only in reference to recorded history, but even to its own narrative"?

CLOWE: A deliberate and entirely necessary aesthetic choice. The 'gaps' and 'inaccuracies' referred to are carefully chosen and precisely arranged lacunae in the syntax of rational thought designed to both provoke and NECESSITATE a free-floating relationship to the text and the near-shamanic leaps of intuition and interpretation which are the ONLY way in which the true narrative, not only of the book, but of HISTORY ITSELF can be comprehended! OF COURSE  it would seem to an unengaged and mediocre reader that I had written the book in under a week while drunk, OF COURSE it would seem to  DULL MIND that I had dropped the pages on the way to the publisher and had not bothered to put them back in the right order, OF COURSE it would look  to the LARGE CHESS SUBNORMALS AT THE HONEY'D FUCKING OAT that I had barely researched the thing and had simply made up details when required! Every single element was a deliberate aesthetic choice!

VILE: Your total disappearance shortly after publication seems to have caused almost no investigation or surprise.

CLOWE: They thought I jumped off a bridge. SHE saw to that.

VILE: And in your absence you were tried for both blasphemy and libel by the church. How did that feel?

CLOWE: I only discovered it recently. Luckily, since both trials proceeded in parallel, and since the evidence and arguments required for each conflicted at a basic level, to be found guilty of one would mean I was innocent of the other.

VILE: You mean you could not be guilty of both blasphemy AND libel?

CLOWE: Quite so, it was one or the other. If what I said was true, it might be blasphemous, but could not be libel, if it was not true, then it was libel, but, being legally classified as such, I could not be found fully guilty of blasphemy.

VILE: Both trials collapsed after only fifty years...

CLOWE: Of little use to me! Imprisoned as I was within a petrified cell!

VILE: And yet you were also charged (twice) with contempt of court for failing to present yourself at your own trials.

CLOWE: Yes, that charge still stands, making me persona non-grata within Vornheim itself and requiring my exile here in Osc Lithicum.

VILE: Are we not in Osc Leth?

CLOWE: Since no-one has ever been able to fully define the difference between the two cities, it makes little difference.

VILE: Your subsequent re-appearance though, almost five hundred years later, early in the year of Our Vorn (adjusted) 2013, and the publication of your sequel to 'Gorgon', 'The Maze of the Medusa', telling the story of your captivity, 'rescue' and of the death of the Medusa at the hands of a group of wandering and contemptible rogues, was perhaps the most staggering event in the history of publishing, seismology and the church of Vorn.

CLOWE: I have seen my future born, and it is hell.

VILE: Would you care to un-pack that for our audience?

CLOWE: Bathsheeba I will. Our culture, and the Gorgolith itself, exists currently in a state of mortal and extreme danger, totally unsuspected by the majority of its population. Both it, and I, have enemies of overwhelming and terrifying power.

VILE: Is this the reason for your hiring of an army of highly-experienced mercenaries and your fortification of this gigantic woman-shaped tower into a kind of high-security pleasuredome?

CLOWE: No. That relates to a legal matter and to the protection of my substance. My true enemies cannot be dissuaded by mere force. No lock or bar may stand against them, only the power of my ever-reaching and all-penetrating mind preserves even this thin sliver of reality from their relentless assaults upon both it and me.

VILE: Caphtor what are those enemies?

CLOWE: Their form is twofold. First as a race of invisible intelligent floating psychic pigs, and second as the poor enforcement of international copyright.

VILE: Mmm, I know the question of copyright has become something of a 'hot iron' issue in Vornheim recently....

CLOWE: Bathsheeba it is UNQUESTIONABLY TRUE  that AT THIS MOMENT, individuals ranging from the Hexenbracken to Vovoidia to distant Yoon Suin are experiencing and indulging in PIRATED  and POORLY TRANSLATED copies of my work for which NO REMUNERATION has reached either my publishers or myself and that an army of invisible mind-controlling pigs whose slavering mouths vomit pearls of pure psychic lightning are the unseen, and real, masters of this reality.

(The pigs fly oriented in a vertical manner, standing as crucified men, not in a lateral or animalistic way.)

VILE: Some more radical authors have argued that copyright ultimately benefits, not the author,  or the culture at large, but the vast power of the publishing houses who control the major presses, most of whom have close relationships with both the church and state.

CLOWE: They are either helpless victims of the psychic pigs or THEIR WILLING CONSPIRATORS. THERE IS NO DOUBT that the failure to enforce copyright over international boundaries is coarsening our culture, ROBBING authors and WEAKENING THE MINDS of the public, making them ever-easier prey to the tyranny if the invisible psychic pigs. It is for this reason that I am offering a SIGNIFICANT BOUNTY for the suppression and arrest of anyone pirating my work, even so far as Yoon Suin itself and for the destruction and annihilation of the levitating mesmerist pigs that haunt and destroy us even while we sleep.

VILE: Caphtor, may I speak frankly?

CLOWE: Bathsheeba I feel and know that we are and should be friends and between friends frankness and direct honesty is river and connection of SOUL that kindles and engenders the sweetness of mutual knowledge which is the primary course of life and the sweet release of comradeship. Please do speak with total frankness.

VILE: Skeleton armies, goblin armies, rings of demonic wolves, the discovery and dissemblement of sleeping gods, mechanical eyeborgs and sexual harassment by cockroach men, a lot of people would say that the last few years have been bad enough. 'Why pigs?' they might say. 'Aren't demons bad enough? At least we know they are real. After all, it's 2016'

CLOWE: Bathsheeba you're quite right, it is twenty sixteen, the darkest and most contemptible of years, and that's exactly why we need to take action now. I'd like to answer each of your points in turn.

VILE: Mm hmm.

CLOWE: Let me first say that I have been, and am, a deep, deep supporter of the rights of women.

VILE: It's so good to hear you say that.

CLOWE: Despite being directly involved in the murder of the Medusa, I consider myself a feminist.

VILE: I know that will mean a lot to our readers.

CLOWE: And let me state quite clearly on behalf of everyone in this ceramic pleasure dome, not just myself and the guards, but all of the staff as well, that we all take a firm stand against  sexual harassment, especially by filthy subhuman insect men who, lets be clear, may technically have a right to exist, but probably shouldn't exercise that right.

VILE: Just becasue you can breathe doesn't mean you should breathe.

CLOWE: And secondly, let me say this. I am weak, I am afraid, I am verifiably mentally ill, but do not silence me.

VILE: You have a right to speak.

CLOWE: I have that right. As much as any man. My hands are shaking.

VILE: Don't give up Caphtor.

CLOWE: I do feel as if I am about to vomit.

VILE: You are so brave for doing this.

CLOWE: I may require my substance.

(Clowe then left the room for approximately twenty minutes and reappeared weeping, smiling and with slight purple stains on his fingertips. Again he took up the conversation with no apparent awareness that he has been gone.)

CLOWE: Bathsheeba I'm going to take on these invisible pigs.

VILE: Thank you.

CLOWE: It may kill me. It may kill others. I have an army of well-paid magical assassins and roughly a metric tonne of my substance and I'm going to take on this intangible civilisation of invisible psychic pigs, I'm going to take on anyone influenced by those pigs, I'm gong to free humanity and I'm going to make damn sure that copyright is respected across international boundaries and no degree of unseen psychic force is going to stop me.

VILE: Caphtor I want you to know that both I and the Golden Teat stand with you in your war against these invisible pigs.

CLOWE: Thank you Bathsheeba. Although I'm fully aware that this could be an elaborate double-bluff by the pigs invisibly controlling your mind, I want you to know how much I appreciate what is probably your genuine and free-willed support.

VILE: Thank you.

CLOWE: And I want you to know that this makes you significantly less likely to be destroyed by my army of magical assassins.

VILE: But Caphtor..

CLOWE: Yes Bathsheeba?

VILE: I'm not here to form some kind of unquestioning assumptive choir for your point of view.

CLOWE: Of course not.

VILE: I am a journalist.

CLOWE: You are, and it's highly likely that you are not currently under the direct control of invisible pigs.

VILE: I feel I should present a few counter-arguments.

CLOWE: I feel ready to answer any and all of your arguments.

VILE: Caphtor, a lot of people are going to say - how do we know these pigs are real? They're invisible, they're intangible, they fly and they control minds..

CLOWE: They're going to say "Where's the evidence?"

VILE: Yes.

CLOWE: Bathsheeba I think if you look at the people making this argument..

VILE: Yes.

CLOWE: If you look very closely at them. If you think about the kind of person they are, I think your'e going to start noticing a lot of connections between them, a lot of similarities.

VILE: And what are those?

CLOWE: That they're all being controlled by invisible intelligent psychic pigs.

VILE: Caphtor I'd like to talk to you about fame.

CLOWE: I appreciate that Bathsheeba, fame if a powerful and terrifying force that imbues us with a mighty yet dissociative influence while slowly stripping away the armature of our moral self, not unlike the projective capacity of a mentally empowered sow.

VILE: Caphtor, do you feel that fame has changed you?

CLOWE: No. I remain centered in myself. Neither the five hundred years spend petrified in a bath of acid, my direct witnessing of the collapse of an interdimensional otherspace and the escape of multiple demonic horrors, my long and depressing sojourn on a tropical island that was not fond of artists, my staggering fame and wealth or the multiple legal actions and death threats against me have altered my core personality. I have always maintained my essential desire for a simple, clean, secure life in a ceramic fortress shaped like a gigantic woman and for the absolute power of life and death over everyone around me.

VILE: Death threats?

CLOWE: Bathsheeba I'm not here to play the victim card. Yes a number of amoral, deluded and violent people carry a direct and immediate hatred of me, yes the church wishes to imprison me and yes I am locked in psychic warfare with a race of flying invisible pigs, but harassment is simply something artists have to deal with in our modern world, whether its scheming newsboys flinging dead birds, fishwives interrupting you or monks stealing your letters, my policy has never changed; turn the other cheek and quietly order your army of magical assassins to kill them all.

VILE: Caphtor, some people might say that one man commanding an army of magical assassins is too much, it's one thing for educated people, for artists and writers and critics, we understand. But the ordinary peasant, the man in the field vacantly tilling his frozen earth, he's going to think "Hey, does that guy really need a private army of magical assassins? And what does it mean for me that he has one?

CLOWE: Bathsheeba, I understand and I want you to know that I am that man. I wasn't always the insanely wealthy genius you see before you now. I too have suffered I too know what it is to feel small.

Let me address the reader directly for a moment. Please understand, the only thing you have to fear from the professional killers under my command is freedom from the much more terrible threat of invisible flying pigs and non-payment of reasonable royalties.

VILE: Caphtor, thank you so much for this interview.

CLOWE: Bathsheeba it was absolutely my pleasure.

Lets Read And Condense: The Unearthed Arcana Barbarian.

So, I'm playing a Barbarian in Zak's AD&D game and its laid out in such a way, with such bizarre accumulation of interrelating rules and effects that to pretend to be a barbarian you actually need to have the mind of an insurance actuary, which Gygax was, so there you go.

...

Tracking, like a Ranger, except not indoors. Ok, flip to the ranger section. Its got special conditions, ok, write those down.

Identifying plants and animals  like a 3rd level Druid, flip to the Druid spells , NOPE, its not in there, try the class itself.

Ok simple, I can identify 'types' automatically. That's a little vague, I know Zaks gonna say 'yes, you identify that this is a fish' but whatever.

Predicting weather, I do this like a third level druid as well, ok, flip to druid section. Nope, its a spell, ok flip to spell section. Spell is level-relevant, ok write down rules for doing spell at lvl 3.

Climbing, like a thief, cool, except better, cool, except only in natural environments. Ok, makes sense. Except unfamiliar natural environments, you just climb like a thief again... Ok. Except you can learn to climb like a thief on anything with 'practice'.... Ok, so barbarians have two different climb abilities depending on the familiarity or unfamiliarity of the environment and might be able to use one of them in built environments depending on how much practice they've had, but the amount of practice required is not stated.

And exactly what you roll while you are 'practicing' isn't stated either.

They also have two different stealth values..

(EDIT: I got this wrong, there is only one climb value, but two separate stealth values.)

When exactly does my 'familiar' environment of hillbilly-esque backwoods fade into an 'unfamiliar environment of fake east asia? I mean like, what latitude?

Well it's a cube so never mind.

Saves, like a fighter. Cool. Except with bonuses. Nice. Except the bonus for paralysation and death magic is different to the one for poison, so that's two columns now. And all the bonuses are flat except the one for spells so that advances in a completely different way.

I can leap ten feet. Cool. With a running start I can leap 15+d6 feel... Ok I suppose? That's completely disconnected from the stats I would expect to use for leaping but. I can leap three feet in the air, that's.. slightly better than a normal human most of the time I suppose?, with a running start I can leap 4+d4 feet in the air..

But half the value of the d4. So four to six feet, that's not bad.

“Springing under similar conditions gives an upward distance of 4-7 feet, depending on the surface used as a step to gain height and spring.”

Ok, whats a 'spring'?  It must be somewhere right? Right?

No.

Ok, well I can still leap and a spring probably wasn't that good anyway.

A bonus to AC. Cool. "2 steps for every point of dexterity over 14. But only if armour not of the bulky, or fairly bulky type." Ok, whats 'fairly bulky'? I mean plate is definitely bulky and leather isn't, what about hide? Chain? Does this affect my stealth thing like it might with a thief? Probably, but it doesn't say anywhere..

I CAN SUMMON A HORDE!

Of 275 people. Well that's not bad.

"the leader of the horde will gain two aides"

Wait, what, What kind of barbarian has aides? "I am Garm, of the Wastes and leader of the Horde of Doom, and this is my aide Grarg, and my secondary aid Marg."

"each aide will have two assistants of one half the aide’s level"

".. and here are Garg's aides, Borlax and Gorlax, and Marg's aides, Vertox and Vortox."

Wow, Barbarians come to the table like the lawyers in a Simpsons Episode.

And of course, Barbarians hate magic.

Xp for destroying magic items is pretty kewl. Do other PC's share in that though? That's slightly weird. Handy if you can't carry something big back to a city though, just have Garm chuck the magic mirror off a precipice and bang, Xp for all.

I can't even associate with Magic-Users. It's like I got a Barbarian ASBO. Ok, I'll just avoid talking to the party Magic-User until level, what is that, level 6? So just 80,001 xp to go then and I can speak to them 'when necessary'. We'll just happen to be going in the same direction, on the same ship, and entering the same dungeons at the same time. How long till we can just hang out?

Level 8, 275,001 xp. "May associate with Magic-Users, occasionally".

But wait, to make up for it they can smell magic, that's pretty cool. Except its not really smelling it but whatever, Detect Illusion is pretty good. And they can smell other magic too..

Which advances in a completely different way to the detect illusion thing, so thats a new column. But they can smell wizards too right?

Nope. Not magic people, just spells and objects. I hate Magic Users, but I really have to catch them actually doing magic to be sure they are one, or dicking around with robes and crystal balls or whatever.

But that could be a wierd priest..

......

Through the fruits of my genius and mild aspergers, I have put together the following thing that has all the AD&D Unearthed Arcana barbarian rules, and all the rules that apply to those rules, and all the rules that apply to those rules, and attempted to condense them into a single document that doesn't drive you totally fucking nuts.

It's in landscape format because the basic levelling table has 12 columns,

That's not including the Saves table. Or the Leaping sub-table.

So if anyone really wanted to play the Barbarian from Unearthed Arcana and didn't want to do an insane load of paperwork, (a narrow group I'm sure), then click on the image below;

Think this is from Diablo 3, not sure who the artist is (its;Phroilan Gardner).

EDIT: The Document is now a much more attractive one that Jacob Hurst put together. He has used his design skills to put the whole thing on four pages, but, by the ancient compact of design made with the dark gods so long ago, any space freed by intelligent arrangement must then be spend on pictures of naked people and groovy trade dress.

Without Malice

John Masefield was not a great poet.

He kind of was great, just interspersed with 'good' and 'maybe slightly flat sometimes'. If you took all his great lines and put them in one book he would rival the great romantics, but they don't all appear in one book.

In this case my affection for his character and inner nature means that his flaws make him even more likeable to me, an achievable man you can imagine meeting rather than an ariel talent.

A Kirby-esque force of positivity. A self-taught poet who rhymes like a child and doesn't care at all. Boxing fan, ex sailor, probably the most hard working and most quickly forgotten poet lauriat we have ever had and, if you combine his love of adventure, the imagination, sometimes violence and THE SEA, you get a very D&D poet.


From 'Wonderings'

I do not know the day, the month, the year:
it was a green time, when the sky was clear;
I was then five or six, in open air,
When suddenly a doorway opened there.
An ecstasy discovered that my mind
Had every wonder that I wished to find,
Limitless strength, to see and create,
A wealth of phantasy, past telling great,
Power to call at will, to see and sway
Peoples and creatures infinitely gay,
Things in perfection, landscapes, forests, seas,
And I, who summoned, king of all of these,
King of a world to enter when I chose,
(O desert spring, O rock-delighting rose).

Instantly then, I summoned, to my joy
The tiny people suited to a boy,
A fairy people, who, in daily dreams
Provisioned ships, and sailed, exploring streams,
Familiar streams, but past the points I knew,
Where undreamed fruits and unseen flowers grew,
Where, in some bay, they purchased priceless things,
LIttle Green Hairstreaks', Purple Emperors' wings,
Crest feathers plucked at night by indian men
Scarlet from woodpecker, or gold from wren,
Or blue-green flash, or golden-tawney gleam
Dropped by the 'fisher skimming down the stream.



Yesterday Malice died. Malice Aforthough the white elf assassin who has been playing in the same game with my characters for.. not sure. Maybe two, three years? I know he's seen three of them come and go so far and I remember carrying around his petrified body for a loong fucking time till we could get him un frozen.

I've spent more time with this imaginary person that I have with many real people. It's weird that he's dead.

(Of course being dead isn't that big a problem at level 11+ but, thanks partially to my errors he's converted to green slime and then de-evolved to two mutually incompatible evolutionary ancestors, so he's more dead than dead really.)

Anyway, the following from Masefield seems appropriate, in all his somewhat-creaky, sometimes inspired enormously (to me) likeable self;



From 'The Ending'

And as she advanced, towing southward, those watchers of ships,
Sang from their places a song of the outgoing spirit
A cry to all farers on ways upon water or earth.

"Adventure on companion, for this
Is God's most greatest gift, the thing that is.
Take it, although it lead to the abyss.

Ceaselessly, like the sunlight, life is spilled
Into these channels till the purpose willed
Meet with the End that is to be fulfilled.

A little hour is given to apprehend
Divine companions from the mortal friend
From mortal hearts, a life that cannot end.

Go forth to seek: the quarry never found
Is still a fever to the questing hound,
The skyline is a promise, not a bound.

Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find
No highway more, no track, all being blind
The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.

Though you have conquered Earth and charted Sea
And planned the courses of all Stars that be,
Adventure on, more wonders are in Thee.

Adventure on, for from the littlest clue
Has come whatever worth man ever knew ;
The next to lighten all men may be you.

Adventure on, and if you suffer, swear
That the next venturer shall have less to bear;
Your way will be retrodden, make it fair.

Think, though you thunder on in might and pride,
Others may follow fainting, without guide,
Burn out a trackway for them; blaze it wide.

Only one banner, Hope: only one star
To steer by, Hope, a dim one seen afar
yet naught will vanquish Hope and nothing bar.

Your Hope is what you venture for, your Hope
is but the shadowed semblance of your scope,
The chink of gleaming towards which you grope.

What though the gleam be but a feeble one,
Go on, the man behind you might have none;
Even the dimmest gleam is from the sun.

All beauty is. No paradise of flowers;
No quiet triumph of perfected powers;
It lives in the attempt to make it ours.

All power is; but with retarding thrift
The watching Strengths administer this gift;
Man's paces as a spirit are not swift.

All that has been imagined from of old
Is, but more glorious a thousandfold;
The pebble lightens, and the clay is gold.

And you, the gray thing dragging on the sea,
Go as a man goes in Eternity
Under a crown of stars to Destiny.

Therefore adventure forth with valiant heart
Knowing that in the utmost stretch of art
Life communes with its heavenly counterpart."

So singing, the Watchers beheld her go on in the dusk;
The evening star brightened the dimness; Pentire dimmed down,
The lights of Land's End were beacons to show her the way.

Why did I mix up these city-states?

The DM forgot where he left a minor city and went with the nearest equivalent, only realising later that we were in Osc-something, six days travel away from where we should have been in Osc-Somethingelse. And we had met the 'right' NPC's for Osc-Somethingelse too. I mean I met my hot insect baby-mamma and had hot inset sex. Dumped the kids on her too. So that happened.

So here are a bunch of reasons that you might have mixed up two city-states. I put the same-context dependant ones in the front and numbered the others so you can use them as a table if you need to.


- Love can move mountains and also city states. It was a miracle of love, the kind that happens to Lancelot when a fucking castle appears out of nowhere so he can bone Guenevere in peace.

- Deathfrost Mountain time emanations. Its near Deathfrost Mountain, that place if full of temporal shenanigans. Maybe we went all the way to the right place in a moment?

- The journey between the two cities is so fucking boring and so free of incident that, like a five hour shift on the biscuit lines, the moment its finished its simply wiped from the memory.

- Hot astronomer girlfriend swapped cities so she could get parallax on a particular star formation and we happened to go to the right one.

- Hot insect girlfriend organised city government-swap with Osc-Something for complex dynastic and economic reasons. Like a house-swap.

1. Names of all local cities changed regularly to confuse infiltrators from very-nearby enemy state.

2. Cities 'Harrisoned' now twinned in time and space. Kind-of reflections of each other but not necessarily causally connected. Like the Mad Max films. Its all a bit vague but probably a metaphor for something.

3. Cities 'Mievilled' A bit like like a Harrisoned city but a bit more practically worked out. They are separate but somehow share space. You could walk down a street in one and come out in the other. This is regular and people know about it but no-one takes advantage of it for COMPLEX POLITICAL REASONS. This is definitely a metaphor, for capitalism.

4. City 'Gaimaned'. Deal with para-deity means single city story-locked and eternal so long as people remember it, but the collective memories shape its physical expression. Council big on intellectual property laws and punish silly songs about the city with death. Will invade to stop rumours about them spreading. You went to the same place but it was different because the memories of it had changed.

5. Its the same city. Djinn fly it back and forth at dawn and dusk. You just went at different times.

6. Djinn again, one was ordered to build city B in a single night. Sneaked a few millennia into the future and took the ruins of city A and built them of that. They are literally the same stone. Scholars from City A go to City B to analyse relics and stones and try to work out their future history.

7. The second city is actually a necropolis of the first where bodies rest in simulations of their former homes. The people you interacted with were g g g ghoooosts! (Also if you saw old friends it means they're dead.)

8. Second city built as vast copy of the first by trillionare idiot obsessed with history and tales of old culture. Like those americans who buy London Bridge. An inhabited folly an a gigantic scale.

9. Mission-Impossible style plot by well resourced enemies with small army of illusionists and actors to persuade you one place was in fact another. You got Truman-Show'd.

10. Whole population swaps back and forth every 12 years in vast processions for ritual reasons. You jut missed the swap.

A Bounty on the Dignity of Zorlac

Fiddln' Joe I says (for, as you no doubt know, it's always been my habit to name myself in my own mind in order to avoid any legal complications arising from surveilance of the telepathic kind), Fiddlin' Joe, you've been screwed over and worked over and dammn near killed and robbed and libeled. You've been hung up in a tree in the street. You've been sexaully alleged against, (and you without even mammal glands to work em with. Swear to Vorn, last thing I was attracted to turned out to be the husk of a fruit vibratin' in a strong wind, what the hell got into me?), and had yer name slandered. And for what? By who? Well its only the same guy.

Zorlac.

Fellahs a librarian, try to sell the boy books and he sets a goaddmn city on you.

Well Fiddlin Joe (I says, once again, entirely to myself within myself), Joe, its about time you did somethin' about this fella. You can't let people just go on siezin an advantage over you, no matter how much of a good egg you may be.

So I fixed on killin this guy and burnin' down his house, but, you know, events took a hold of me (as they so often do) and here I am fixin' to burrow into the head of a sleepin' god for about the second time.

First time I tried this we had a bunch of people, but they seem to have.. eh.. escaped notice at about the crucial moments. Left the few if us left facin' a whole heap of badness downn there in the sleeping mind of Vorn.  We was lucky to get out at all.

Well I aint much tougher than before but, dang it, ah have become funct-on-ally immortal and what the hell are you supposed to do with that kind of thing except take risks? We got more people with us this time, sure hope they dont dissapear on the axis of cruciality, as has been know to happen.

Gotta get in there and kill about three unkillable witches. Personally I can't hit shit but ah bought about twenty sacks and they only got about a head each so that should be enough.

Anyway, I'm gonna be busy gettin hacked at and pierced in the service o Vorn so ah thinks to myself 'Joe, old Fillin' Joe' (you see I was once again refering to mahself internally so to speak, in order to avoid  confusement) 'Joe, aint you just about one of those one-per-cent you heard folks talkin' about. You are beleagured with coins. Joe, why not just settle this Tortuga-Style and wax fierce on Das Kapital, that is, play it like a Lawman Joe and upend a bucket of Bounty on that poor fool, she how he likes it ah says!'

Well here you go. This bounty is guaruntee'd by the Bank Of Fiddlin' Joe, and I say anyone can claim it at all, but if you aint known to be reliable you better bring evidence that you did the deed.

Let it be known throughout the multiverse that 'Fiddlin' Joe Cooper, the cockroach thief, hereby places a bounty on the dignity of Zorlac the Librarian.

10,000 GOLD to the first to publicly throw a pie into Zorlacs face.

(Pete Loudly the audiomancer will add a further 5000 gp if the filling stains permanently.)

20,000 GOLD to the first to STRIP HIM of his trousers in a public place, thereby inducting him onto the HALLS OF SHAME.

20,000 GOLD to the first To write the word 'TIT' on his forehead in indelible ink.

Each reward may be claimed only once, but they may be combined

a liar and a coward and a cold-blooded killer

In addition.

Ah never should have killed that man. I saved his life and took it. You only get to occupy one side of those scales without breakin em and I’ve weighed down both. I’ve paid for it and I reckon I’m gonna keep payin’ for it.

That girl come and took her daddys eye back. She didn’t do nothing else about that fort though I’m sure we was all thinkin’ she coulda. Left that one up to us.

So we did some plann’ and some waitn’. Reckon we did too much waitin’. Gave those fellah’s inside time to de-frost some nasty surprises.

Don’t know why but I was always expectin’ those daemons they had froze up in there to get out and cause havoc, least, whenever I let daemons loose that’s always what happens to me. Guess some folks have better luck.

We ended up with about hundred-and-fifty guys, maybe two-hundred. Not many more than those inside. Brung down some buildings to get a big ramp up that way.

These guys made their dang curtain wall too close to the inner but that’s buildin’ in a city for ya.

My boy Nack takes me aside an hands me his pig-sticker.

“Joe”, he says, “Joe, they got all kindsa daemons up in there and you don’t know just what’s gonna happen so take this old girl and she’ll see you right.” Good boy that one.

We grab us an old plank or somehtin’ from somewhere. I give those boys the old stonewall-jackson line and takes em up that ramp and over we go.

Well it was a dumb choice but between waitin’ and stupidity you know how I go.

We run over that plank with it clatterin like train tracks. Aint over for a second before we’re pinned down up there. Those guys have us outnumbered and damn-well outgunned. First I see one fellah throwin’ magic at us, then another, then another, then one more. It’s a bad situation. They take out our boardin’ ramp pretty fast. I call for another.


(Shit, ah just about forgot to tell you about all the times, (that’s multiple) that boy Nack saved may old bug life. Well he was jumpin about like a crawdad infronta me. First I wonder “Well just what are you up to son?” Then I sees; he’s only snatchin’ dang arrows outta the damn air! And they aint aimed at him neither! Those arrows was pointed at me! He musta grabbed a whole bushel of those things. We’ll he’s the Real Deal, that’s all you need to say about Nack far as old Fiddlin’ Joes concerned.) 

Seems just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Our magical cavalry get caught up duelling wizards instead of clearing the troops off that roof. As usual, everyone runnin’ about harum scarum, not a co-herent thought in they heads. Ah try getting round the back of one of these guys, ahm about to try shankin the boy but then ah think ‘hey Joe, what’s he got in those volumous robes there?’ Dammn it ah try robbin the man ah came to kill. Hobo ways don’t wear off so quick.

Ah last long enough to see the boys who were dumb enough to follow me over get wiped out to a man. Somethin’ knocks me out. Ah think mebby it would have been better if they’d left me there.

Next thing that pretty girl with the horns is draggin’ me outta some kind of web. Ah look down and see all mah scratches and scars dissapearin’ like they was never there. You’d think it a blessing but all it means is that a bug like me can take more hurt than he was ever meant to.

Turns out my boys took care of those wizards eventually, not much help from me on that one. That problem aint nothing but shit though cause now the real murder starts.

Those dang blasphemers inside, well they not only froze up some daemons. They allied with em too! And they sends one up to deal with their problem on the roof. That is to say, us.

I aint never seen a daemon before but this thing is some monstrous confusion of selves. Creature was a mess ah tell you! Had writin on it too which ah take to be elvish, having seen it before.

Fool that ah am ah try talkin’ to the thing. This boy seems indifferent to mah words. Course ah still had the wrong idea about the whole thing, assumin’ that cause’ they was all froze up in there these things is prisoners. Well they aint. They’s more like contract workers. None-too enthusiastic ones at that.

Talking don’t do a dammn thing so I hides mahself up in there while he tangles with Tizane, that girl with the horns, and old Loud Pete. Ah look down on this pig-sticker old Nack gave me and think to myself.

“Fiddlin Joe” for you’ll recall its always been mah pride and necessity to name myself in mah own thoughts for reasons ahm sure ah’ve described previous to now. “Fiddlin Joe, it’s about time you made good on all that bullshit you like so much so spread around. Git up there and stick that dang daemon right in the spine!”

Ah had the right position to do it too. Crept up on that dang super-natrul entity. Without stirrin’ a whisker. Ah raise that spear up and drive it right dang in the middle of its back!

Not a motherfuckin’ scratch on it. It don’t even turn around.

Ah shoulda died right there if not before. Guess a bug like me’s under the notice of a thing like that. Dumb-ass spear an’ all.

You’d think that woulda been my signal to git the hell outta there, but no, old Fiddlin’ Joes got yet more mistakes to make it seems.

Ah start lookin’ around for something useful to do. Start thinkin’ maybe if ah can’t hurt this thing, ah can still subvert it, if you get mah meaning. Ah grab some more of those elven boys and I’m about to lead them into this castle in search of some kinda advantage that might let us win when what do I see?

It’old Gaffer Sticks, mah brother-in-Vorn knocked plumb out and abandoned. Well, between leavin him on the battle ground and taken him with us was just about even so far as danger goes.

“In together, out together” thinks I and I order those boys to grab him up and come with me.

We don’t get too far into the place before we run into someone dead set on keepin’ us out. Guess ah shoulda thought of that what with it bein’ a siege and all. Still, no matter how bad it is down here, at least there ain’t no daemons.

Well that fuckin’ death machine only followed us in. Next thing ah hear is we got this infernal destroyer right up our asses.

You probably see how Fiddlin’ Joes kinda runnin outa options here. You aint’ wrong.

Forward or back I thinks. Ah tell my boys to roll me like a some kinda crazy bowlin ball right at the enemy in front. Mah hope was we burst through in a rush and take that daemon with us on a trip through his own castle, causin’ chaos all the way.

Well it don’t turn out like that. Not. At. All.

Its about that time I start screamin’. Pinned down like the bug ah am, trapped between mah own boys and the enemy, curled up on the floor, wriggling and crawlin and trying ta somehow get away. All I could hear was those fools I lead in here dyin and that demonic thing laughin’ fit to burst. Reckon he did notice mah attempted assassination after all, he was just takin’ his sweet time getting even. Ah don’t know how long ah was there, squirmin and cryin and just about covered in the blood of men mah dumb ideas got killed but it felt like a long time. Mebbe feels like I’m still there now.

Ah got away eventually and go rollin blindly down the stairs. Next thing ah know I’m inside the castle, right near a room where some kinda bigwigs got his HQ. Ah’ve got about one point five seconds ta come up with somethin’, any goddamn lie will do.

Well ah run in there screamin some crazy bullshit about assassins, hopin ta somehow turn the chaos to mah advantage.

Looks like ahm a little late for that. This boy got hisself assassinated bout ten seconds ago. (You know it’s that same fellah ah spoke to about the goblins?) These folks are a mite upset about that.

Well they capture me and take me away. Ah wrack and wring mah old bug brains trying ta come up with some kinda lie to make sense of it. Ah spew all kinds of crazy nonsense ta get them to take me to wherever they got those deamon locks or whateverthehell it was they was usin’.

They don’t give a dammn. Hell you’d have to be pretty dumb to fall for the same shit twice, and, more ah think on it, more it seems that’s all I got. The same shit over again.

Ah reckon ahm just where I deserve to be. Threw that boy outta that window like it wasn’t nothin’ at all, sent those poor dumb elves to they deaths, abandoned and got killed just about everyone who ever listened to me at all and ah never stopped talkin bullshit the whole time, you cut me open guess that’s what you find. Lies. An a thick streak of yellow right down mah spine. Ahm a liar and a coward and a cold-blooded killer and there aint no way outta that at all.

Ahm done talkin. Reckon I’ll just sit here and wait for one of these boys ta put me outta my misery.

Rashamoron

(Editors note; there are a lot more people in this story than simply those speaking below. I had to cut it down to only the few who had provided a first person narration, which meant that a lot got left out. Chris did a fine one in third person, Rey, I left yours out as it all happened some distance from Joe and Grunion and I didn’’t think it had enough context on its own to be self explanatory. Sorry. If other people add theirs for the same events I will bring it back in. It took hours to arrange as it was. If you were there and want to add your own, let me know.)

Gruntruck:

The northern city of Nornrik is a pitiless place of ice and stone. The trees thin, giving a wide berth to these jagged fortifications at the edge of the world. A suitable home for the contemptible white elves, whose clans are numerous and have names difficult to pronounce with southern tongues.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

    For years I had fled that place and my family with it, wandering deserts to ply my trade under strange stars with but a handful of copper pieces to my name. Now that I have returned, I have reason to wish I had not.

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

..somebody here owes me money. Alas, the (somewhat paltry) reward has already been given out, and now the nobleman whose son or nephew or whatever we returned is trying to convince us to kill the queen of this city.

Gruntruck:

 It’s here we found ourselves, being asked to assassinate the Queen of Nornrik by Baron Allrath of House Rath Orlath.

Said queen is a 100 ft tall frost giantess...and known lover(?) of Tizane, saviour and cleric of Vornheim...who was also in our party.

Pete Loudley: (Drunk)

And he’s only offering us 12,000 gold pieces, which is maybe a fifth of what we were paid to fetch a weasel. Admittedly, the weasel turned out to be much more than it appeared, and it was on a separate continent, but still. Market value, yes?

Gruntruck:

So we rejected the offer, and beat feet into the frigid streets of Nornrik, off to see the Queen and inform her of her subject’s treachery.

On the way we encountered a score of elf soldiers, all of them barbaric and drunk, or civilized and drunk. They quickly noticed us.

“You there! Such fat creatures! What’re you doing here being so fat and wide!”

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

   “I am of your house, do you not recognise me?”

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

I won’t be the first amongst you that’s seen a fellah git stabbed by a member of his own family, why, there just about the folks most likely to do it, all things considered.

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

I have seen him slay a slaad in a single strike, and stand toe to toe with demons and cannibal mermaids, and he appears to have a strongly enchanted sword; I turn to the nearest bystander and start placing bets.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Ah was anti-chromatic at the time, that is to say, intangible to the eyes. Now old Joe looks kinda like somethin' you'd bang out of a biscuit or feed to an owl, so my ensorcelment was fortunate, visibility-wise, that is. 

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

The fight goes poorly, however. I miss the details, but Malice’s weapon lies on the ground, and Malice himself has been shrunk to a fraction of his usual size.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

So, when I seen this elven gentleman in my acquaintance feuding with his kin on the streets of his own city I say’s to myself;

“Joe” for it’s always been my nature to name myself in my own thoughts to make sure of just whom I’m addressing “Joe “ thinks I “this fools surrounded, shrunk and nowhere near drunk enough to be killin’ a cousin in daytime. Best you do with this like cousin Elwin did with that pig that went wild in the pantry, and occlude the fellow eyes. With delicacy Joe, with delicacy, for these are some fine folks, and use yer best bag too.”

Well that’s just what ah did. And down it goes, now that drunk cousin calmed hisself down right quick, just like that pig did, and it looks like things are lookin real pretty.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

For my own part, I only suffered a few minor scratches and a slight magical reduction in stature.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well that fool Malice only goes and starts that fight right back up. That’s feuding for you.

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

At this point I remember all the times I have observed this same Malice fall from great heights, and stumble loudly about when trying to sneak about. A bag has appeared over someone’s head…

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

(I’ll speak frankly and tell you that the issue with the bag weren’t quite the first thing to leap to Joe’s mind. Truth is I tried just about every wild-mule scheme that a fellah can try when he’s invisible and monstrously formed in a city he don’t know with a language he don’t speak. I threw bout’ twenty kinds of bullshit at that issue and just at the end some of it stuck.)

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

..and a voice from the crowd begins shouting about a fire. This understandably concerns some people, but they do not know that a number of my comrades have taken to wandering about invisibly, and are prone to shenanigans.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Came about’s that my boy Malice won that dang duel. (Ah never had a lick of doubt about it.)

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

A duel which certain of  my travelling companions, afraid I would lose, used as an excuse to start a panic in the city by use of invisibility, sacks, and calling out that the house of my ancestors was burning to the ground--after the crowd believed them, and a panic began to spread in a city already much oppressed by both local and foreign intrigues.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

It was about that time that folks about started thinkin’ that they house was burnin down. Might be I had something to do with that.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

The dragoon apologized, and I sent him home with money, a crutch, and my name.  I re-joined my companions and the Witch-Consort before they entered the palace.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well they got fair het up about it, started dashin’ and runnin’ hither and yon. So I thinks to myself;

“Joe, old Fiddlin Joe Cooper” you’ll recall how I address my own self internally, that is to say, in the privacy of mah skull. “Joe why don’t you follow those fellahs runnin’ home and see just what they’re about.”

Gruntruck:

Here the party splits. With the duel concluded, most of the party enters the castle, seeking an audience with Oscula. Meanwhile, Fiddlin’ Joe, Malice, and Grunion make haste to House Aforth Ot with the small mob of elves.

Upon seeing their home safe and unburned, Fiddlin’ Joe invisibly puts a sack on another elf’s head.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

“Now Joe” I  hear you sayin “when you bagged that first fellah, it near almost made sense. That is to say, we could follow yer logic. But now you go baggin another, for no reason? And usin yer last bag  for it too? Old Joe, why you go do a dammn stupid thing like that?”

Truth is, I got no explanation for you. It just seemed the thing to do at the time. I’ve always had a devil in me for mischief. Lookin’ back on things, it might be real lucky for us all that I ran out of bags.

Gruntruck:

Cries of sorcery and panic fill the streets.

“A plague of sacks! Sorcery! All is wrong!”

In the castle, we’re served wine (its description eludes me, but it sounded great).

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

We are received graciously at the palace, which is a remarkably rare occurrence. The wine here is fantastic: I briefly consider the feasibly of exporting it in quantity before remembering the erratic nature of inter-universal travel. Ah well, maybe I can obtain some before we leave...

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

It would be unnecessary, and furthermore impossible, to convey in full detail the splendour of the palace, the sumptuous wine, the titanic beauty of Oscula herself or her voice, which one feels rising within their bones as much as hears through the ears.

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

A one hundred foot tall giant whose every step reverberates through the entire palace has just surprised me. I should drink less.

Gruntruck:

Tizane presentes Oscula with numerous gifts of vanquished enemies and pet dinosaurs, while the rest of us explain the situation.

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

I am trading shop talk with the Court Alchemist, discovering uses for several bits of monsters we’ve been ghoulishly carting around for just this reason

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Ah grew lonesome and sought out the crew ah came in with. Found em’ just about right where ah expected, takin’ tea with a giant in a palace of ice. “That’s their style right enough Fiddlin Joe’” ah thought to myself, makin’ sure to add mah name at the end there to be certain of who ah was talkin’ to.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

My compatriots, after a brief reflection on the relative value of hundred-foot-tall semi-divine rulers compared to geographically inconvenient mustelids and the obverse proportionality of the sums offered us to acquire or destroy such beings, chose to betray the treasonous acts of a certain Baron Alrath of House Rath Orlath in attempting to hire a band of travelling murderous vagabonds (to wit, ourselves) to remove the head of state.

Gruntruck:

Queen Oscula thanked us, and promised us a reward. She then used her booming voice to call out Allrath to answer for his crimes in a trial by fjord. This gave the party time to mill about, ask questions, and get things done.

Tizane bathed, washing the blood from her numerous presents. Malice sought to contact his family via letter:

“Do you have a salamander?”

“Um...not on my person?”

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

Before preparations for the Trial by Fjord were carried out, word came back that House Rath Orlath had struck down their fortress’ bridges and risen in open rebellion, and that the Queen's soldiers anticipated a long siege.

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

Word comes back that the nobleman is resisting arrest, and has apparently been planning to do so for some time, as his manor is rather effectively turned into a fortress, moat and all. One of our number offers our services to the queen in this matter;

Gruntruck:

“Your large majesty, it would be our pleasure to bring these vile traitors before you. Leave it to us, your tallness!”

Pete Loudly (Drunk)

apparently we’re doing this now, instead of sailing away. My hopes to sail over the edge of this cubic world will have to wait. Metaphors involving cats and herding come to mind.

                                    

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

My compatriots offered their services to bring the traitor to justice, and I rode away to advise my house of the crisis.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Turns out we got ourselves hired! As what, you ask?

LAWMEN.

That’s right, old Joe done turned workin’ for the Pinkertons. Well you can’t say ah don’t have the skills. Mah familiarity with the criminal kind is known and remarked upon.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

After so many years, they greeted me with open arms. After so many years, they still treated me as a child, and ignored my counsel. I asked them to hold their peace. They promised only caution (and delivered less than that.) I left mere minutes after arriving, telling them I would go and observe the siege. They made no attempt to bar my passage. I wonder if I will ever return again?

Gruntruck:

So we set out to the fortified keep of House Rath Orlath, only to find it almost impregnable. A massive ‘poisoned’ moat, archers in the towers, and after a few stray magic missiles, a magical rune barrier!

Still, some progress was made.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

At House Rath Orlath, my associates were already in motion. Invisible wizardss flew overhead, gathering intelligence. An attempt to breach the wall by magic was made, and runes warding it against such attempts discovered.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

The city has a number of canals crisscrossing it, with bridges at several levels. This manor has a sizeable wall, with a door set flush with it, and the lone bridge stops about a dozen feet short. The canal underneath appears to have been tampered with, as well.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Now, there was only one difficulty with this fellow we was arrestin’, that is to say, his castle. An the army inside it. An the moat, (acidic you know?) together with the towers and walls and, oh damn, just about every dang thing a fellah would need if he was dead-set on not getting’ arrested at all.

And it addition to that, that dang place was buttered up with some kind a hoodoo-resistant coating. Ain’t a damn lick of magic could get in or out.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

It was at this point that the descent into calamity began.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well old Joe never did like waitin’ So he asks these two invisible wizardss he knows, Loud Pete and Gaffer Sticks (ah named him that on account of his birdlike legs and extreme age) to just scoop him up and hurl him at that dang wall.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

Fiddlin' Joe, a human-sized cockroach and the bravest of us, volunteered to be flown invisibly atop the walls and vanished, presumably inside the fortress somewhere.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

Notice a woozy feeling pass over me as we fly over the wall, put it down to the drink. In retrospect, I could easily have died; that was an anti-magic barrier, which fortunately did not affect me this time.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

It’s right about now my tendency to avoid over-thinkin starts getting’ in my way. That is to say. To an observer, it might seem that old Joe had no real idea what he was doin’. Well hold on, says I, and we’ll see about that.

Well you’ve probably seen the inside of castles, more often than not they tend towards a state of locked. That is to say, almost designed to impede yer progress.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

We deliberate, again.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

It’s about this time that my state of induced translucency starts coming in right useful. Those damn guards didn’t know what the hell was going on I tell you! Up goes Joe, and down again, dashin all over that place like the bug he is. Seems ah managed to filch a set of keys of one of those mightily confused elves and just like that, in I go!

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

Within minutes, we heard shouting and the familiar sound of crossbow bolts shattering on stone, followed by silence.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well not entirely. I was shot somewhat. Pin-cushioned  to be precise. And beaten somewhat around the head. And captured.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

I had been hesitating, bound by a lack of clarity. The world is all labyrinths, intertwined and obstacle-filled, which must be navigated with cunning and, at times, hewed through with brute force. A maze of stone and blood and thought through which the only sane path leads towards power. Any other course is madness.

    I did not know which side in this conflict would have the upper hand. I did not even know which side I preferred, aesthetically or otherwise. But saving the lives of those I travel with, and having my life saved by them in turn, is both a habit and a professional necessity in our way of life.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

But that ain’t the end for old Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper. Never has been never will be! Turns out by capturing and nearly killing me, these fools had walked right into my hands! They never had a chance I tell you.

Gruntruck:

Growing impatient, Malice considered buying a flatbow to shoot vials of acid at the door, but thought against it.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well old Joes always been a student of what the greeks called Rhetoric. That’s Bullshit to you and I. So I cracks open the old dung-box and gets spreadin’ just about the most extreme example of de-lusional clap-trap that I or anyone has ever heard tell of at all.

Gruntruck:

Tizane leveraged the might of Vorn to cancel the magical barrier, but it proved too strong.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

“Fellah” I tells this gent I was sent to arrest “why you aint’ locked in, its them out there that’s locked out. Just cause’ you trapped in a castle with people tryin’ ta kill you, it don’t mean they’re against you. Why that’s just circumstance! Turns out most of those folks out there thinks just the way you do about things. Now, obviously, ahm a hideous creature to your eyes, and a thief to boot, havin’ very clearly just broken in, but think about it fellh’ , can’t you see ahm just about as tied up in this situation as you are? Why its that dang Frost Giant Queen out there’s got both of us buffaloed her an”

I’ll remind you to pay especial attention to this part as it’s here that old Fiddlin’ Joes ever-adaptable genius with the human, and in-human mind comes into play.

“why its that Queen and her hidden Goblin allies.” Says I. “They’s all wrapped up in illusion and soon as you get rid of that, well they whole damn city’l be with you!”

Gruntruck:

 After that, the party spent a while throwing flasks of oil onto the far away door and shooting them with flaming arrows.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well, they bought it. Folks who lock themselves in the house for safety are likely to believe just about anything about the world outside. My old Granny was the same way.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)         

    A rope had been slung from the top of the wall near one of the gates by Grunion, one of the aforementioned invisible wizards. The gap between bridge-end and rope was not too large. I climbed into position, took a running start, slipped, and plummeted several dozen feet through the air into the moat.

Gruntruck:

Gruntruck cast a spell to make his voice more imposing, and then shouted like an idiot, accomplishing nothing.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)       

    I have had a fair bit of practice at falling near-fatal distances, and so it wasn't until the waters of the moat closed over my head and began to dissolve my flesh that I became truly concerned. At the same moment, the hallucinations began.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

I fish a hallucinating Malice out of what is clearly a poisonous acid.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)         

    I remember hauling myself from the moat onto a squirming python, which tried alternately to buck me, strangle me, and bite me with its dripping fangs.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

 (He is one of few people I would bother to do this for, though I muse once more upon his vast swings in competence), narrowly avoiding breathing in the hallucinogen myself.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)            

I remember trying to throw my grappling hook to the far wall, only to discover that it too had become a snake and turned against me. I remember the walls rippling and closing in on me, the world moving farther away somehow, a complete departure of my sense of gravity.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

The end result is a stone door covered in oil and burning desultorily, a rope hung from the top of the wall past the door, and another invisible comrade, this time a fellow arcanist named Grunion, swallowed up by this frustrating manor house. One of the runes has been destroyed, to no apparent weakening of the barrier. Perhaps they merely guide the anti-magic, which is powered from deeper within the residence? Tizane decides to leverage her connections for a catapult.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)         

It is an embarassment to be so often indebted to a human wizard, but a lesser one than being drowned and dissolved in hallucinogenic acid with your own rope tied around your neck, or choking on your own death-froth surrounded by laughing toads (as I found myself mere days before this, but I write too much already.)

    Tizane of Vornheim, the aforementioned Witch-Consort, was able to heal me, and my senses returned shortly. We tried to come up with a new plan of attack--using acid to destroy the antimagic runes? Calling for a catapult?--

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Some folks are always eager to believe in what you might call invisible enemies, that is to say, secrecy and plottin and sucklike. You punch these boys in the nuts and they’ll just send you the doctors bill without a second thought. But you hint that someone out there, hidden away, was plottin and plannin’ to punch em in the nuts…. Well they go loco. And that’s just what this fellah did. He went plum loco.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)       

--and as we did, a voice arose from within the House calling for all elves to rise up against the Usurper, the Tyrant, to restore their dignity, and so forth.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

Presumably our target or his relative, though all of these elves look alike to me. Especially in my condition. He exhorts the city to revolution (doubtless we would have his humble leadership to look forward to), citing the use of siege weapons against the native populace.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)         

Having no patience for speeches, I thought to distract and humiliate the speaker, and fired an arrow tipped with a screaming Akenian flower into his trumpeter's trumpet, where it emitted wailing pleas for death.

Gruntruck:

Let it never be said again that the pitiless white elves of Nornrik are easily vanquished. And now, with panic in the streets, and cries of a “sack epidemic” on their lips, they’re ready to revolt. Subjugation under the frost giantesses has only made them colder and harder; their faces taciturn masks of hate and spite.

They make good wine, though.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)         

    Unfortunately, this served to strengthen his cause, as he began to rant about concealed goblins already active among us. Lamentable paranoiac raving, but--given the epidemic of invisible creatures performing pranks, and the horrible screaming flower--plausible.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

Unfortunately, the House of Afforth Ot, Malice’s own people, heed his words and ride forth. There is fighting in the streets.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

We tried to batter our way into the castle by catapult, as dragoons and infantry clashed in the streets,

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

The catapult stones fall into the acid moat, splashing it everywhere.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

and eventually succeeded in destroying a single door.

Tizane expressed a need to depart, but said she would leave a blessing of Vorn with us to protect us and our troops from the chaos that threatened to engulf us.

   So saying, she surrounded us with a huge whirling circle of rusty man-sized blades, spoke a single word, and vanished.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

I will admit to a small amount of jealousy, but constant obeisance to the whims of another is much too high a price. She then is called away, or simply tires of our antics, and disappears.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

   The blades followed me wherever I went, keeping the same distance, obliterating anything that attempted to cross them. This kept us safe,

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

Unfortunately our soldiers are inside the whirling blades, and moving the spell would dice them finely

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

but also trapped our soldiers and meant that we destroyed buildings before we could enter them.

    It was then that I had the idea…

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

so we have them climb the catapult and jump over. This puts them in danger from the marauding House of Afforth Ot, and fighting breaks out.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

   We ordered the soldiers out of the circle, using our catapult as a makeshift bridge, and when only Pete and I were left I tied myself into a harness of ropes, and had him carry me into the air.

    The blades remained on the ground, following us as your shadow does when the sun is directly above you. It was here, looking down over the city, that I had my vision.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

. Once in the air, though, I must reconsider…

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

    Perhaps it was an aftereffect of the acid.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

I have no particular compunction against bloody destruction,

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

Perhaps it was divine inspiration, directly from Vorn—

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

but to wreak havoc with no purpose, upon friend and foe alike, is not a long term strategy worthy of an intellect such as mine.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

Perhaps it was simply born of stress and confusion and irritation at having no clear way to proceed, no real certainty of which foe it was I should be moving against…

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

Besides, that barrier is still up, preventing spellcasting inside the manor.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

..but until this moment I had never understood what it would mean to wield the power of a god.

Suspended over the city, with the freedom to move and destroy, I saw a battlefield where those who served my family were killing those I had undertaken to serve, and realized that it was within my power to reduce this sorry mass of complications and conflicted loyalties to a simpler geometry of rubble and red ruined corpses; to end it all so suddenly and with such incomparable force that all who saw would be overcome by their awe and dismay.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

We will need warm bodies to feed the gods of war, as none save the monk and Malice are even remotely competent in a clash of arms; my alchemical and mutative abilities are vast, but ill suited to open fighting.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

    We advanced, and the blades of Vorn rent apart the facades of thousand-year-old buildings on either side of the street. Dust kicked up. The melee increased in intensity as each side fought to throw the other towards the spinning blades. I called for surrender, exhorting them not to turn elf against elf at a time when the whole world stands imperilled by Tiamat and Demogorgon.

    My words, well-chosen or ill, were too quiet to be heard over the whirlwind of destruction below. No one listened. And it was here that I made my mistake.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

With reluctance, I convince Malice that we should turn around, and test the might of Tizane’s god upon this barrier instead.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

    I relented. I listened to the drunken mumblings of Pete about this being, "Maybe a bad idea, man." I did not look through the forms of the elves struggling in the street below me to the essential meaninglessness of it all, but was trapped by pathetic sympathy for them. I ordered Pete to turn about, to test the power of the blades against imperfect strength of a damaged anti-magic wall.

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

We veer, mighty blades whirling and sending up chunks of cobblestones, tearing gaping holes in walls where the street narrows. As we reach the moat, a vortex of acid whips up. Metal screams, winds howl, there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. We aim for the precise point where the sigils have been damaged and we deem the barrier to be weakest.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

    We wheeled about in the sky, inscribing half a block of the city with deep-cut spirals, and launched out directly at the impenetrable fortress. The blades whipped into the acid lake, enormous, unstoppable, blasting it upward into a frothing vortex of physical and mental dissolution that pocked the surrounding walls and streets with deep pits.

The blades whirled on, touched the warding surface..

Pete Loudly: (Drunk)

The blades wink out of existence. I hate this place. Why did I stop him? This city deserves bloody ruin.

Malice Afforth-Ot: (White Elf)

     In the next few moments, we were shot several times with crossbow bolts--not too badly, but they served to punctuate the immensity of what had been lost. We made it back out, and stared at the barely-dented fortress, once again reduced to a tiny fraction of an immense circumstance beyond our control.

    I have heard it said that the measure of one's character can be found not only in the analysis of actions, but also in the analysis of regrets. Know, then, that I regret nothing more than not dragging the shadow-halo of Vorn's destruction through the streets of the city I was born in, ripping it apart and destroying all who would stand against me. I regret that I am not more of a monster than I am. Ruthless action has carried me as far as I have come, and I feel that it alone can carry me further.

   The opportunity is lost, the error made. It is better not to dwell upon it--but should another present itself, I swear I will not be so weak.

“Gaffer” Grunion
Captured, cunningly, unwelcome guests were we, the Seeliest Grig and I, the woeful wysard of joy bereft and the jigging joyful waylorn monstrosity veiled both by dwimmer-craft.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well I ain’t been captured but a lick of time and ah’ve just about got the guards convinced that either they, or me, or lord whatshisname is a doggone goblin spy, but who gits dragged in, invisible to boot?

Why it’s good old Gaffer Sticks! The old fellah came in ta help me out!

“Gaffer” Grunion

In an oubliette we languished unseen and forlorn

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well turns out old gaffer has a real good idea. You recall that fellah we brought back after rescuing? They reason we came to the city at all? Well he’s right here!

“Gaffer” Grunion

until in wisdom unparalleled I cried out to our wicked captors and invoked the name of Duke Vaulwraath whose wretched life we had in foolish younger days snatched from terrible paws. A scion of the House was he and inane with credulity beyond the most gullible idiot child.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Now I’ll be frank, this guy ain’t much smarter than his paw is and it aint long before gaffers got him wrapped right around his little finger. (Fact is, we did save the poor boys life, couple of times maybe, and dragged him home half way across the whole world, so he had reason to think we was upstandin’ citizens, specially me.)

“Gaffer” Grunion

He came and lead us forth, through the frozen citadel, babbling like a gowk, showing us here a demon frozen in a sorcerous snare, there an aqueduct of sacred tears, all foulness and depravity, unspeakable blasphemy harnessed by tyrant sorcery.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Turns out these boys got themselves a dang daemon in an ice cube! Well I’ll be! Must be that what’s powrin’ that anti-hoodoo shell they got.

“Gaffer” Grunion

Away and afar, below and beneath in its fastnesses of ragged stone our compatriots in righteousness suffered and died in brutal fight with the wicked white unseelie thralls of frozen hate. For Vorn they bled and wept in a honeycomb of nightmares while the flippant popinjay blathered his blatherings. Their sacrifice was not unnoticed. Their blood fell like rain and their iron sang a hymn of Vorn.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

We’ll this damn deamon’s got some kinda coolant system keepin’ it all chilled out as they say. We’ll what powers that we ask him. He aint shy about showin us neither.

“Gaffer” Grunion

On we went. And it came to pass that we entered the last hallow and looked upon that which none should see, the end of worlds, despicable dark unending and immortal radiance. His eye, in a cage of spines, weeping his truth. 

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

It’s a damn GIANT EYE. ‘What the HELL’ I thinks. And you can tell ah was distressed cause ah neglected to name myself as I do. Now this big weeping eye was bad enough on top of everything else, but, even though I’d never seen anything like it, ah couldn’t shake the feeling like it knew me somehow.

Anyway, that fellah whose life we saved? Reason we ended up here? Pushed him outta window.

“Gaffer” Grunion

To an attic we ushered that giggling abhorrence to an unceremonious defenestration and the swift embrace of stone unyielding. Then quickly to the aid of Him we rushed and five spines did that chitinous apostle of the Truth remove from his sacred flesh.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Ah got real busy bangin spikes outta that eye like chiggers from a boot-hole. Why, seemed just about the only thing to do. Old Gaffer Sticks disappears for a while, then turns up sayin we got elves askin about the fellah they seen fallin outta the window.

“Well get up her boy!” says I “An help me free this dang GOD EYE, less you think you got somethin’ better to do?”

“Gaffer” Grunion

In ages to come, in iron shrines in the northern rain shall those mighty deeds of Yusephus the Fiddler  be in gilded ikons rendered. But the sixth spine that perpetuated his agony was mine to remove. And he was free.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Well the damn thing got free, and no sooner but it goes rollin! That’s spheres for ya. Strange thing is, just as that giant eye rolled towards me, lookin like it about ta crush me ta death, all that goes through old Fiddlin’ Joe’s head is “Not again”. Aint that strange?

“Gaffer” Grunion

 And we touch him and of a sudden we could see, a blissful servitude, a chosen seat among his templars. Far and far the thunder of his silence rolled.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Now it’s about this time that Fiddlin’ Joe goes and gets religion. Rather unexpectedly too.

“Gaffer” Grunion

A sky of fire. Mountains of ice in tumult, dying and born again. To be the servant of a living god is no servitude, nor ignominy, nor shame, but a storm of joy, unspeakable laughter in the rain.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

And we RIDE THAT EYE! Ah tell you we hopped on that there god eye and rode it just like a dung ball from back home! We crushed and murdered just about every sunbitch got in our way and rode that eye right through the walls and off the roof! Praise be ta Vorn!

“Gaffer” Grunion

From his broken cathedral must needs we flee to the lap of his daughter to prostrate ourselves before her, whose wrath will free him and succor his woe. Him who is ever after the master of us and we his beloved slaves.

‘Fiddlin’ Joe Cooper (Hobo)

Turns out we got a friend out there, Nack the Monk, Kung-Fu fellah you know? With the punchin and such? Well Gaffer and I get crushed and shot just about to pieces and I don’t reckon we woulda minded much cause it was a hellofa ride. But that boy Nack hops right over the wall, shrugs off some arrows like they aint nothing but ticks, kicks three boys to death in about twelve seconds (the last one fled you know?), then before we know it he got potions down our throats and away we go!

After all that we’re kinda back where we started, with us outside and them in, cept now instead of invisible we’re fumitory and two-dimensional respectively. That’s adventuring for ya.

Ah still feel kinda bad about that boy we murdered though. But what do ya expect if you go keepin’ a dang GOD EYE in ya house? An’ in the attic too?