The Guildsman 02

UCR Guildsman #2
Contents
Cover Design
A Word from the Editor
UCRGG Constitution
Paul Anthony Johnson

Jim Vassilakos
1
1
Serious Stuff
UCRGG Reference Collection
Crime & Puzzlement
John Perry Barlow
5
8
Fiction
Navero V-X
Harrison 3 & 4
An Interview with Michael Harrison
One Smelly Gerbil
On Humanity
Kingdom of the Mind
Daniel Parsons
Jim Vassilakos
Jim Vassilakos
Frank Lemire
Steven Mays
Daniel Lee Rouk
23
36
45
53
54
58
Jeffrey Horne
Michael Sellers
Shawn Dudley
Brian Yip
Brian Yip
Wayne Wallace
Edward Zeamba
Colin Kameoka
Aaron Sher & Jim Vassilakos
Dan Judd
61
67
70
74
75
76
78
78
79
83
Usables
Xodiza
The Smuggler & The Smith
Advanced Character Generation for 2300AD
Doubly Blind
Combat Vehicles for Striker
Rangers in AD&D
Eds Guide to Dragon Skinning
Colins Guide to Killer Characters
Magic Items for AD&D
Riddles
Shared Stuff
Species of the Gamester
The Infinite Ways in which IT is Done
Bits & Pieces
84
89
91
Advertisements
99
A Word from the Editor-dude

[email protected]
Greetings, salutations, and felicitations one and all
UCR Gamers
Guild
Constitution
and welcome to the UCR Guildsman. The editing of

#2 has been somewhat less loathsome a venture than
our previous piss-in-the-mouth to apathetic conformity, however, for better or (more likely) for worse,
the dirty deed is now complete. As the indomitable
consequence, your eyes shall be brutally harassed by
my now infamous spelling (or rather lack thereof ), my
inability to type and chew giant-booger at the same
time, and worse yet, my bitter and pointless editorial
comments with which you are presently mesmerized.
Before pressing onward I must give many thanx
to Jason (tonto) Bishop for his technical assistance
with respect to his lisp-work on the emacs editor which
is basically what made this publication possible in the
first place and Wayne (lord zar) Wallace for sorelyneeded proofing, and of course to Ray (way wrong)
Wong for his additional help in keeping me up late at
night so we could LATEX this monster.
Those of you who are not entirely brain-dead will
note our change from single to double column format
of which we are distinctly proud. If this addition is
too confusing for your ladies and lordships, well be
all too happy to revert, or to invert and quite possibly
pervert, whichever the case may be more enjoyable
and thus lead to more efficacious merry-making, or
something to that effect.
Finally, sparing any further glib and quite possibly lethal tirades by the editor upon the expected readership, we doth scamper forth with all due salivation
and drool and then some.... Let the show begin!
Preamble
We, the Gamers Guild of UCR, under contempt
of the Regents with purple mushrooms majesty and
looney-toons and fornication for all... blah blah
blah... do hereby unite for the purpose of promoting gaming and consequentially having lots of fun.
yea!
...and there was much rejoicing...
The Honorable Offices

We hereby create five (i.e. one less than six but
not less than four) honorable, pompously-ignoramus
and highly-noble offices, invincible before all save
the dreaded rust-monster, most lordly and enviously
powerful of powers, known and revered throughout
the land of UCR. The means of management are
therein bestowed.
jimv
The first and foremost of these offices is to be known
as the One to Rule them All... the chief executive deputy marshall directorship of FlakeSpanking. yea!
The FlakeSpankers duties art as followeth:
to spank flakes (i.e. to institute progressive disciplinary measures by which the other four officers and their administrative cohorts can be
encouraged to perform at a greater capacity
through the use of whips, chains, barbed wire,
1
to propose club dues when deemed appropriate,
and left-over tofu),

to form overall policy on club direction (hopefully with the consent of the top management
team) and to be suspended by toe nails over
a bottomless pit of warm marshmellow cream
when suspected of leading the club in circles,
to present a financial report to the general membership at the end-of-quarter meeting,

to keep membership records particularly with regard to dues collected and receivable, and
to interpret this constitution and bend it where

appropriate with the consent of the other officers
for the purpose of expediting Guild projects,
to approve all asset outflows keeping careful

watch for outbreaks of the hershey-squirts.
to call for the ousting and replacement of officers The fourth office is that of Crying. The Cryer is
responsible for the promotion of club activities inshould that need ever arise,
cluding flyers design and approval, news advertisements (including but not limited to Highlander no to pompously & jismatically preside over club tices), mass-mailings, and t-shirt design.
meetings, and
The fifth and last of the honorable offices is that of
the Bard whos responsibilities include the following:
to keep a paranoid eye on the receipt and expenditure of club funds over which the Miser is
to design and produce clubsponsored publicaresponsible for accounting.
tions,
The second office is that of the Gamesmaster whos
responsibility it is to coordinate games and to keep
up-to-date records on existing campaigns and gaming groups within the club membership. The membership is herein accorded the right to split this office
into numerous genre as is deemed appropriate and is
further accorded privilege to review and modify this
functional division on a quarterly basis.
to appoint a selection committee (with the confirmation of the Flake Spanker) which will aid
this office in the selection and editing of publication submissions,
to record the outcome of all votes at club meetings,
The third office is that of the Miser (known also as

the office of Missing which is likely to happen to
club funds). The Misers duties are the following:
to record all bends & amendments to this constitution, and
to keep all club financial records up to date,
to hold the FlakeSpankers statement of objectives throughout the the quarter and evaluate
this officers performance at the end-of-quarter
elections.
to modify the clubs system of accounting as

is believed warranted with the consent of the
FlakeSpanker,
to call for the ousting of the FlakeSpanker should

that need arise.
to personally hold club funds and signature authority for all club expenditures except in cases
where individual is illiterate in Common,
...and so endth the fifth, last, and final

of the glorious, malodorous, most-high offices...
to hold all receipts pertinent to club expenditures,
Quorum
sition in words but must also present a written statement outlining their objectives of office, and these
statement are to be held by the Bard for end-of-term
evaluation). At this stage, a short, moderated discussion may ensue consisting of much fervor and bloodletting if anyone has anything to add for or against
the candidacy of the individual in question. The
Flake-Spanker is expected but not required to evaluate the performance of candidates seeking re-election
on the basis of pre-established criteria.
Ten (i.e. eleven less one, being the tenth number

or that cardinal number following the ninth) guild
members constitute a quorum given that the meeting
time and place was made adequately public in the
judgement of the majority (three-fifths) of the management team.
Third, the election (by simple counting of hands)

may commence with two appointed individuals keeping separate tallies, after the candidates have left the
room. If there is no room to leave, the candidates
may simply stick their heads in the sand in preparation for public office. In the case where more than
two candidates are running for an office and no single
candidate holds a clear majority of the quorum, two
rounds of voting are held for that office. The first
eliminates all but the two most popular candidates,
and the second decides between those two.
Elections
Elections for each of the five offices are to be held at
the final general meeting of each quarter. The chosen representatives of those elections may not assume
office until the beginning of the following quarter. If
they should try to assume office before that universally defined date, they shall be dunked repeatedly
in rancid orc-drool until they cease and desist from
all leaderly activities. Individuals may only serve a
maximum of four-quarters in a given office. If they
should attempt to serve more, the membership may
make up a sufficiently silly punishment to expel such
ideas in the future.
Voting
Candidates may not vote in the election governing

their intended office unless, of course, they are truly
Order of Offices
pompous, and even then they must be duly punished
with a multitude of silliness until they declare themselves reborn and promptly stick their heads in the
The offices will be elected in the following order:
sand. Flake Spankers, whether running for re-election
Flake Spanker, Gamesmaster, Miser, Cryer, & Bard or not, may not vote in the election governing the of(i.e. this, of course, being the preferred and holy fice of Flake-Spanking, lest their mighty and wrathful opinions be considered either mighty or wrathful.
order... amen).
Abstentions and no-votes are not counted as part of
the voting-bloc lest the guild be ruled by indecision.
Order of Election
For any given office, the following order shall be maintained. First, candidacies may be declared either
in writing or in person. Candidates must nominate
themselves for office in order to be considered eligible.
Candidates which feel too shy to nominate themselves
must be stripped of all personal belongings and photographed repeatedly until such feelings are properly
extinguished.
Ousting & Succession of Officers
The FlakeSpanker may call for the ousting of other

club officers or appointees at any general meeting.
A twothirds majority of the quorum may strip
an officer of all invested titles and authority. The
Bard is responsible for calling for the ousting of the
FlakeSpanker should such a need ever arise. Special
Second, individuals running for office who are present meetings may also be called specifically for ousting
may be allowed a short period of time to summa- purposes, but if the meeting is not general, then is
rize their intent in holding office. For the office of must be advertised in the Highlander at least threeFlake-Spankers, may becomes must (i.e. Flake- days in advance of the event with the word YuchySpanking candidates must not only present their po- Foo contained within the ad to signify the nature of
3
the meeting to the membership.
as thought appropriate by the voting membership.

The FlakeSpanker may also take luxury in a varyIf an officer voluntarily retires or is replaced being degree of Constitutional Bending whereby both
fore the term of service has been fulfilled, the substantive and procedural points of the constituFlakeSpanker is responsible for finding a replacement tion may be dispensed with for the greater efficacy
and must conduct the duties of that office until such of Guild operations. Such bending, however, must be
time as a replacement has been found. Such replace- done with the concurrence of the entirity of the top
ments may be appointed without the formalities of management (i.e. the five officers), and may be again
an election. If the FlakeSpanker should retire or be shot down at any meeting by a simple majority of
removed midterm, then the Gamemaster-elect is re- the quorum. All such bendings must be made known
sponsible for assuming this office. If it is the case to the general membership, and all must be recorded
that the Gamemaster has previously been replaced, in writing with the Bard. In this way, constitutional
the appointed Gamemaster may not assume the du- amendments may be tried out before being permaties of FlakeSpanking, and so these responsibilities nently enstated.
pass to the Miser and so forth by the Order of Offices.
Amendment
Expectations of the Member
This constitution may be amended at any general

meeting in which a quorum is judged present. This
Guild members, known henceforth as gamesters, are constitution is amended on a two-thirds majority.
accorded a variety of implicit rights and privileges,
and concordant with these are the following responsibilities:
Dissolution
to attend general meetings, lest the gamester be
accused of sloth. Members so accused shall be
mercilessly flatulated upon until such time as
the lazy slug gets up off that sedentary, posterior
portion of precious anatomy, thus facilitating the
retaliatory flutterblasts so rudely expected,
The Gamers Guild may be dissolved by a threefourths majority of the quorum at any publicly announced general meeting. In the case of dissolution,
creditors of the Guild are given first dibs on the Guild
coffers. Any remaining monies must then be refunded
to the general student body of the university through
ASUCR.
to attend all gaming sessions to which the

gamester finds him or herself committed, lest
that individual be pummeled into unconsciousness by boiled leaks, and
to pay all club dues promptly and with zeal.
Interpretation of the Constitution

The FlakeSpanker is charged with the overall interpretation of the constitution for purposes of expediency, however, on points of contention, these interpretations must be rendered to the Bard in writing and
may be contested at any meeting being overturned by
a simple majority of the quorum and reinterpreted
4
UCRGG
Reference Collection
August 1990
The UC Riverside Gamers Guild Reference Collection was established in

August of 1990 with a grant of two dozen source materials for GURPS &
Car Wars by Loyd Blankenship. The collection is housed within the Eaton
Room of the Rivera Library and is open to public scrutiny. The publications
within the collection are listed as follows:
GURPS: Space (Roleplaying in the Worlds of Tomorrow)
c
by Steve Jackson & William A. Barlow 1988-90
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-079-6
SJG 01695-6005
GURPS: Japan
c
by Lee Gold 1988
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-108-3
SJG 01195-6006
GURPS: Bestiary
by Steffan OSullivan
ISBN 1-55634-087-7
c
1988
SJG inc.
SJG 01195-6011
GURPS: Conan
c
by Curtis M. Scott 1989
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-148-2
SJG 01695-6012
GURPS: Ice Age
by Kirk Wilton Tate
ISBN 1-55634-134-2
c
1989
SJG inc.
SJG 00795-6014
GURPS: Supers
by Loyd Blankenship
ISBN 1-55634-112-1
c
1989
SJG inc.
SJG 01495-6017
GURPS: High-Tech
c
by Michael Hurst 1988
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-107-5
SJG 01495-6018
GURPS Supers: Wildcards
c
by John J. Miller 1989
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-151-2
SJG 01695-6026
GURPS: Cliffhangers
c
by Brian J. Underhill 1989
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-150-4
SJG 01295-6027
GURPS: the Prisoner
by David Ladyman
ISBN 1-55634-161-X
SJG 01295-6030
GURPS Basic Set Third Edition [hardback]
c
Game Design by Steve Jackson 1986-89
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-159-8
SJG 02995-6031
GURPS: Ultra-Tech
c
by Davin Pulver 1989
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-164-4
SJG 01695-6032
GURPS Space: Stardemon
c
by Greg Porter 1989
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-142-3
SJG 00595-6109
GURPS Horror/Cliffhangers: Chaos in Kansas
c
by James R. Hurst 1989
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-155-5
SJG 00695-6110
Gurps Autoduel & Car Wars Supplement
The AADA Road Atlas & Survival Guide
Volume One: The East Coast
by John Nowak
ISBN 1-55634-080-X
SJG 00695-6301
Gurps Autoduel & Car Wars Supplement [missing pages]
Volume Three: The South
ISBN 1-55634-088-5
SJG 00695-6303

Volume Four: Australia
by Greg Rickards, Gary Makin & Steve Reynolds
ISBN 1-55634-095-8
SJG 00695-6304
c
1987
SJG inc.

Volume Five: The Midwest
c
by Craig Sheeley 1988
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-105-9
SJG 00795-6305
Volume Six: The Free Oil States
c
by Stephan Beeman 1988
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-111-3
SJG 00795-6306
Volume Seven: Mountain West
c
by Jeff George 1989
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-153-0
SJG 00795-6307
GURPS Supers: Supertemps
c
by Mark Johnson & Sean T. Delap 1990
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-169-5
SJG 00895-6406
GURPS Space: Space Atlas
c
by Steve Jackson & William A. Barton 1988
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-108-3
SJG 00795-6500
GURPS Space: Space Atlas 3 (The Worlds of the Confederacy)
c
by Dale Kemper & Creede Lambard 1990
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-176-8
SJG 00895-6502
GURPS: Space Bestiary
c
by Chris McCubbin 1990
SJG inc.
ISBN 1-55634-181-4
SJG 01495-6503
7
CRIME AND PUZZLEMENT

c
1990
John Perry Barlow
[email protected]
June 8, 1990
This is a LONG article on what I think of as Gov-
Acid Phreak. Typing !finger optik yielded results of

similar insufficiency, including the claim that someone, somewhere in the real world, was walking around
calling himself Phiber Optik. I doubted it.
erment involvment in the Net, where the net is all of

Cyberspace be it a BBS, Usenet or even just the
pc in your home. Many of us have tryed to keep the
goverment out of our lives in the net, but it looks like
a lot might be happening very fast soon, and the people who make up the goverment are scared. They will
want In, in a big way.
However, associating these sparse data with the

knowledge that the WELL was about to host a conference on computers and security rendered the conclusion that I had made my first sighting of genuine
The challange is to keep ahead of the the mess, if we computer crackers. As the arrival of an outlaw was
are fighting to get back rights we will have missed a major event to the settlements of the Old West, so
the boat. Maybe we can even put some of the bite was the appearance of crackers cause for stir on the
back in the Constitution if we are VERY lucky.
WELL.
The WELL (or Whole Earth Lectronic Link) is an
example of the latest thing in frontier villages, the
bulletin board. In this kind of small town,
So me and my sidekick Howard, we was sitting out in computer
Main Street is a central minicomputer to which (in
front of the 40 Rod Saloon one evening when he all of
the case of the WELL) as many as 64 microcomputa sudden says, Lookee here. What do you reckon?
ers may be connected at one time by phone lines and
I look up and theres these two strangers riding into
little blinking boxes called modems.
town. Theyre young and got kind of a restless, bored
way about em.
In this silent world, all conversation is typed. To enter it, one forsakes both body and place and becomes
A person dont need both eyes to see they mean troua thing of words alone. You can see what your neighble... Well, that wasnt quite how it went. Actually,
bors are saying (or recently said), but not what either
Howard and I were floating blind as cave fish in the
they or their physical surroundings look like. Town
electronic barrens of the WELL, so the whole incimeetings are continuous and discussions rage on evdent passed as words on a display screen:
erything from sexual kinks to depreciation schedules.
Howard: Interesting couple of newusers just signed
on. One calls himself acid and the others optik. There are thousands of these nodes in the United
States, ranging from PC clone hamlets of a few
Barlow: Hmmm. What are their real names?
users to mainframe metros like CompuServe, with
its 550,000 subscribers. They are used by corporaHoward: Check their finger files.
tions to transmit memoranda and spreadsheets, uniAnd so I typed !finger acid. Several seconds later the versities to disseminate research, and a multitude of
WELLs Sequent computer sent the following mes- factions, from apiarists to Zoroastrians, for purposes
unique to each.
sage to my Macintosh in Wyoming:
Desperados of the DataSphere
Login name: acid
In real life: Acid Phreak
Whether by one telephonic tendril or millions, they

are all connected to one another.
Collectively,
By this, I knew that the WELL had a new resident they form what their inhabitants call the Net.
and that his corporeal analog was supposedly called It extends across that immense region of electron
8
states, microwaves, magnetic fields, light pulses and But as the Harpers Forum mushroomed into a boomthought which sci-fi writer William Gibson named town of ASCII text (the participants typing 110,000
Cyberspace.
words in 10 days), I began to wonder. These kids
were fractious, vulgar, immature, amoral, insulting,
Cyberspace, in its present condition, has a lot in com- and too damned good at their work.
mon with the 19th Century West. It is vast, unmapped, culturally and legally ambiguous, verbally Worse, they inducted a number of former kids like
terse (unless you happen to be a court stenographer), myself into Middle Age. The long feared day had fihard to get around in, and up for grabs. Large in- nally come when some gunsel would yank my beard
stitutions already claim to own the place, but most and call me, too accurately, an old fart.
of the actual natives are solitary and independent,
sometimes to the point of sociopathy. It is, of course, Under ideal circumstances, the blind gropings of bula perfect breeding ground for both outlaws and new letin board discourse force a kind of Noh drama stylideas about liberty.
ization on human commerce. Intemperate responses,
or flames as they are called, are common even
Recognizing this, Harpers Magazine decided in De- among conference participants who understand one
cember, 1989 to hold one of its periodic Forums on another, which, it became immediately clear, the cythe complex of issues surrounding computers, infor- berpunks and techno-hippies did not.
mation, privacy, and electronic intrusion or cracking. Appropriately, they convened their conference My own initial enthusiasm for the crackers wilted unin Cyberspace, using the WELL as the site.
der a steady barrage of typed testosterone. I quickly
remembered I didnt know much about who they
Harpers invited an odd lot of about 40 partici- were, what they did, or how they did it. I also remempants. These included: Clifford Stoll, whose book bered stories about crackers working in league with
The Cuckoos Egg details his cunning efforts to nab the Mob, ripping off credit card numbers and getting
a German cracker. John Draper or Capn Crunch, paid for them in (stolen) computer equipment.
the grand-daddy of crackers whose blue boxes got
Wozniak and Jobs into consumer electronics. Stewart And I remembered Kevin Mitnik. Mitnik, now 25,
Brand and Kevin Kelly of Whole Earth fame. Steven is currently serving federal time for a variety of comLevy, who wrote the seminal Hackers. A retired Air puter and telephone related crimes. Prior to incarForce colonel named Dave Hughes. Lee Felsenstein, ceration, Mitnik was, by all accounts, a dangerous
who designed the Osborne computer and was once guy with a computer. He disrupted phone company
called the Robespierre of computing. A UNIX wiz- operations and arbitrarily disconnected the phones of
ard and former hacker named Jeff Poskanzer. There celebrities. Like the kid in Wargames, he broke into
was also a score of aging techno-hippies, the crackers, the North American Defense Command computer in
and me.
Colorado Springs.
What I was doing there was not precisely clear since
Ive spent most of my working years either pushing
cows or song-mongering, but I at least brought to the
situation a vivid knowledge of actual cow-towns, having lived in or around one most of my life.
Unlike the kid in Wargames, he made a practice of

destroying and altering data, including the credit information of his probation officer and other enemies.
Digital Equipment claimed that his depredations cost
them more than $4 million in computer downtime
and file rebuilding. Eventually, he was turned in by
That and a kind of innocence about both the tech- a friend who, after careful observation, had decided
nology and morality of Cyberspace which was soon he was a menace to society.
to pass into the confusion of knowledge.
His spectre began to hang over the conference. AfAt first, I was inclined toward sympathy with Acid ter several days of strained diplomacy, the discussion
n Optik as well as their colleagues, Adelaide, Knight settled into a moral debate on the ethics of security
Lightning, Taran King, and Emmanuel. Ive always and went critical.
been more comfortable with outlaws than Republicans, despite having more certain credentials in the The techno-hippies were of the unanimous opinion
latter camp.
that, in Dylans words, one must be honest to live
outside the law. But these young strangers appar9
ently lived by no code save those with which they

unlocked forbidden regions of the Net.
the main drag before you run into hay meadow

on the left. Ive got the last house before the
field. The computer is always on...
They appeared to think that improperly secured systems deserved to be violated and, by extension, that
unlocked houses ought to be robbed. This latter built
particular heat in me since I refuse, on philosophical
grounds, to lock my house.
And is that really what you mean? Are you

merely just the kind of little sneak that goes
around looking for easy places to violate? You
disappoint me, pal. For all your James Dean-OnSilicon rhetoric, youre not a cyberpunk. Youre
just a punk.
Civility broke down. We began to see exchanges like:
Acid Phreak: Mr. Barlow: Thank you for posting

all I need to get your credit information and a
whole lot more! Now, who is to blame? ME for
getting it or YOU for being such an idiot?! I
think this should just about sum things up.
Dave Hughes: Clifford Stoll said a wise thing that

no one has commented on. That networks are
built on trust. If they arent, they should be.
Acid Phreak: Yeah. Sure. And we should use the
honor system as a first line of security against
hack attempts.
Barlow: Acid, if youve got a lesson to teach me, I

hope its not that its idiotic to trust ones fellow
man. Life on those terms would be endless and
brutal. Id try to tell you something about conscience, but Id sound like Father OFlannigan
trying to reform the punk thats about to gutshoot him. For no more reason that to watch
him die.
Jef Poskanzer: This guy down the street from me

sometimes leaves his back door unlocked. I told
him about it once, but he still does it. If I had the
chance to do it over, I would go in the back door,
shoot him, and take all his money and consumer
electronics.
But actually, if you take it upon yourself to destroy my credit, you might do be a favor. Ive
been looking for something to put the brakes on
my burgeoning materialism.
Its the only way to get through to him.

Acid Phreak: Jef Poskanker (Puss? Canker?
yechh) Anyway, now when did you first start
having these delusions where computer hacking
was even *remotely* similar to murder?
I spent a day wondering whether I was dealing with

another Kevin Mitnik before the other shoe dropped:
Presented with such a terrifying amalgam of raw

youth and apparent power, we fluttered like a flock of
indignant Babbitts around the Status Quo, defending
it heartily. One former hacker howled to the Harpers
editor in charge of the forum, Do you or do you
not have names and addresses for these criminals?
Though they had committed no obvious crimes, he
was ready to call the police.
They finally got to me with:
Barlow: ... With crackers like acid and optik, the

issue is less intelligence than alienation. Trade
their modems for skateboards and only a slight
conceptual shift would occur.
Optik: You have some pair of balls comparing my
talent with that of a skateboarder. Hmmm...
This was indeed boring, but nonetheless:
At which point he downloaded my credit history.
Acid: Whoever said theyd leave the door open to

their house... where do you live? (the address) Optik had hacked the core of TRW, an institution
which has made my business (and yours) their busiLeave it to me in mail if you like.
ness, extracting from it an abbreviated (and incorI had never encountered anyone so apparently unwor- rect) version of my personal financial life. With this
thy of my trust as these little nihilists. They had me came the implication that he and Acid could and
questioning a basic tenet, namely that the greatest would revise it to my disadvantage if I didnt back
security lies in vulnerability. I decided it was time to off.
put that principal to the test...
I have since learned that while getting someones
Barlow: Acid. My house is at 372 North Franklin TRW file is fairly trivial, changing it is not. But
Street in Pinedale, Wyoming. If youre heading at that time, my assessment of the crackers black
north on Franklin, you go about two blocks off skills was one of superstitious awe. They were digital
10
brujos about to zombify my economic soul.
Glittering with spikes of binary chrome, they strode

past the kleig lights and into the digital distance.
To a middle-class American, ones credit rating has There they would be outlaws. It was only a matbecome nearly identical to his freedom. It now ap- ter of time before they started to believe themselves
peared that I was dealing with someone who had both as bad as they sounded. And no time at all before
the means and desire to hoodoo mine, leaving me everyone else did.
trapped in a life of wrinkled bills and money order
queues. Never again would I call the Sharper Image In this, they were like another kid named Billy, many
on a whim.
of whose feral deeds in the pre-civilized West were
encouraged by the same dime novelist who chroniIve been in redneck bars wearing shoulder-length cled them. And like Tom Horn, they seemed to have
curls, police custody while on acid, and Harlem af- some doubt as to which side of the law they were
ter midnight, but no one has ever put the spook in on. Acid even expressed an ambition to work for the
me quite as Phiber Optik did at that moment. I real- government someday, nabbing terrorists and code
ized that we had problems which exceeded the human abusers.
conductivity of the WELLs bandwidth. If someone
were about to paralyze me with a spell, I wanted a There is also a frontier ambiguity to the crimes
more visceral sense of him than could fit through a the crackers commit. They are not exactly stealing
modem.
VCRs. Copying a text file from TRW doesnt deprive
its owner of anything except informational exclusivI e-mailed him asking him to give me a phone call. ity. (Though it may said that information has monI told him I wouldnt insult his skills by giving him etary value only in proportion to its containment.)
my phone number and, with the assurance conveyed
by that challenge, I settled back and waited for the There was no question that they were making unauphone to ring. Which, directly, it did.
thorized use of data channels. The night I met them,
they left our restaurant table and disappeared into
In this conversation and the others that followed the phone booth for a long time. I didnt see them
I encountered an intelligent, civilized, and surpris- marshalling quarters before they went.
ingly principled kid of 18 who sounded, and continues to sound, as though theres little harm in And, as I became less their adversary and more their
him to man or data. His cracking impulses seemed scoutmaster, I began to get conference calls in
purely exploratory, and Ive begun to wonder if we which six or eight of them would crack pay phones
wouldnt also regard spelunkers as desperate crimi- all over New York and simultaneously land on my
nals if AT&T owned all the caves.
line in Wyoming. These deft maneuvers made me
think of sky-diving stunts where large groups conThe terrifying poses which Optik and Acid had been vene geometrically in free fall. In this case, the risk
striking on screen were a media-amplified example of was largely legal.
a human adaptation Id seen before: One becomes
as he is beheld. They were simply living up to what Their other favorite risky business is the timethey thought we, and, more particularly, the editors honored adolescent sport of trespassing. They insist
of Harpers, expected of them. Like the televised on going where they dont belong. But then teen-age
tears of disaster victims, their snarls adapted easily boys have been proceeding uninvited since the dawn
to mass distribution.
of human puberty. It seems hard-wired. The only
innovation is in the new form of the forbidden zone
Months later, Harpers took Optik, Acid and me to the means of getting in it.
dinner at a Manhattan restaurant which, though very
fancy, was appropriately Chinese. Acid and Optik, as In fact, like Kevin Mitnik, I broke into NORAD when
material beings, were well-scrubbed and fashionably- I was 17. A friend and I left a nearby woodsie
clad. They looked to be dangerous as ducks. But, as (as rustic adolescent drunks were called in Colorado)
Harpers and the rest of the media have discovered and tried to get inside the Cheyenne Mountain. The
to their delight, the boys had developed distinctly chrome- helmeted Air Force MPs held us for about 2
showier personae for their rambles through the howl- hours before letting us go. They werent much older
ing wilderness of Cyberspace.
than us and knew exactly our level of national security threat. Had we come cloaked in electronic
11
mystery, their alert status certainly would have been fascination, ego, or the intellectual challenge), credit
higher.
card fraud (cash advances and unauthorized purchases of goods), and then move on to other destrucWhence rises much of the anxiety. Everything is so tive activities like computer viruses. Our experiill-defined. How can you guess what lies in their ence shows that many computer hacker suspects are
hearts when you cant see their eyes? How can one be no longer misguided teenagers mischievously playing
sure that, like Mitnik, they wont cross the line from games with their computers in their bedrooms. Some
trespassing into another adolescent pastime, vandal- are now high tech computer operators using computism? And how can you be sure they pose no threat ers to engage in unlawful conduct.
when you dont know what a threat might be?
Excerpts from a statement by
Garry M. Jenkins
And for the crackers some thrill is derived from the
Asst. Director, U. S. Secret Service
metamorphic vagueness of the laws themselves. On
the Net, their effects are unpredictable. One never
knows when theyll bite.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonThis is because most of the statutes invoked against
able searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
the crackers were designed in a very different world
no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supfrom the one they explore. For example, can unauport by oath or affirmation, and particularly describthorized electronic access can be regarded as the ething the place to be searched, and the persons or things
ical equivalent of old-fashioned trespass? Like open
to be seized.
range, the property boundaries of Cyberspace are
hard to stake and harder still to defend.
Amendment VI
Is transmission through an otherwise unused data
channel really theft? Is the track-less passage of a
mind through TRWs mainframe the same as the passage of a pickup through my Back 40? What is a
place if Cyberspace is everywhere? What are data
and what is free speech? How does one treat property which has no physical form and can be infinitely
reproduced? Is a computer the same as a printing
press? Can the history of my business affairs properly belong to someone else? Can anyone morally
claim to own knowledge itself?
United States Constitution
On
January 24, 1990, a platoon of Secret Service

agents entered the apartment which Acid Phreak
shares with his mother and 12 year-old sister. The
latter was the only person home when they burst
through the door with guns drawn. They managed
to hold her at bay for about half an hour until their
quarry happened home.
By then, they were nearly done packing up Acids

worldly goods, including his computer, his notes
If such questions were hard to answer precisely, there (both paper and magnetic), books, and such dubiare those who are ready to try. Based on their expe- ously dangerous tools as a telephone answering marience in the Virtual World, they were about as qual- chine, a ghetto blaster and his complete collection of
ified to enforce its mores as I am to write the Law of audio tapes. One agent asked him to define the real
the Sea. But if they lacked technical sophistication, purpose of the answering machine and was frankly
they brought to this task their usual conviction. And, skeptical when told that it answered the phone. The
of course, badges and guns.
audio tapes seemed to contain nothing but music, but
who knew what dark data Acid might have encoded
between the notes...
Operation Sun Devil
Recently, we have witnessed an alarming number
of young people who, for a variety of sociological
and psychological reasons, have become attached to
their computers and are exploiting their potential in
a criminal manner. Often, a progression of criminal activity occurs which involves telecommunications fraud (free long distance phone calls), unauthorized access to other computers (whether for profit,
When Acids mother returned from work, she found

her apartment a scene of apprehended criminality.
She asked what, exactly, her son had done to deserve
all this attention and was told that, among other
things, he had caused the AT&T system crash several
days earlier. (Previously AT&T had taken full responsibility.) Thus, the agent explained, her darling
boy was thought to have caused over a billion dollars
12
in damage to the economy of the United States.

And other such.
This accusation was never turned into a formal
charge. Indeed, no charge of any sort of was filed
against Mr. Phreak then and, although the Secret
Service maintained resolute possession of his hardware, software, and data, no charge had been charged
4 months later.
At some risk, I too have a copy of this document. To

read the whole thing straight through without entering coma requires either a machine or a human who
has too much practice thinking like one. Anyone who
can understand it fully and fluidly has altered his
consciousness beyond the ability to ever again read
Blake, Whitman, or Tolstoy. It is, quite simply, the
worst writing I have ever tried to read.
Across town, similar scenes were being played out

at the homes of Phiber Optik and another colleague
code-named Scorpion. Again, equipment, notes,
disks both hard and soft, and personal effects were Since the document contains little of interest to anyconfiscated. Again no charges were filed.
one who is not a student of advanced organizational
sclerosis...that is, no access codes, trade secrets, or
Thus began the visible phase of Operation Sun Devil, proprietary information...I assume The Prophet only
a two-year Secret Service investigation which involved copied this file as a kind of hunting trophy. He had
150 federal agents, numerous local and state law been to the heart of the forest and had returned with
enforcement agencies. and the combined security this coonskin to nail to the barn door.
resources of PacBell, AT&T, Bellcore, Bell South
MCI, U.S. Sprint, Mid-American, Southwestern Bell, Furthermore, he was proud of his accomplishment,
NYNEX, U.S. West and American Express.
and since such trophies are infinitely replicable, he
wasnt content to nail it to his door alone. Among
The focus of this impressive institutional array was the places he copied it was a UNIX bulletin board
the Legion of Doom, a group which never had any for- (rather like the WELL) in Lockport, Illinois called
mal membership list but was thought by the members Jolnet.
with whom I spoke to number less than 20, nearly all
of them in their teens or early twenties.
It was downloaded from there by a 20 year-old
hacker and pre-law student (whom I had met in the
I asked Acid why theyd chosen such a threatening Harpers Forum) who called himself Knight Lightname. You wouldnt want a fairy kind of thing like ning. Though not a member of the Legion of Doom,
Legion of Flower Pickers or something. But the me- Knight Lightning and a friend, Taran King, also pubdia ate it up too. Probing the Legion of Doom like lished from St. Louis and his fraternity house at the
it was a gang or something, when really it was just a University of Missouri a worldwide hackers magazine
bunch of geeks behind terminals.
called Phrack. (From phone phreak and hack.)
Sometime in December 1988, a 21 year-old Atlantaarea Legion of Doomster named The Prophet cracked
a Bell South computer and downloaded a three- page
text file which outlined, in bureaucrat-ese of surpassing opacity, the administrative procedures and
responsibilities for marketing, servicing, upgrading,
and billing for Bell Souths 911 system.
Phrack was an unusual publication in that it was entirely virtual. The only time its articles hit paper
was when one of its subscribers decided to print out
a hard copy. Otherwise, its editions existed in Cyberspace and took no physical form.
When Knight Lightning got hold of the Bell South

document, he thought it would amuse his readers
A dense thicket of acronyms, the document was filled and reproduced it in the next issue of Phrack. He
with passages like:
had little reason to think that he was doing something illegal. There is nothing in it to indicate that
In accordance with the basic SSC/MAC strategy for it contains proprietary or even sensitive information.
provisioning, the SSC/MAC will be Overall Control Indeed, it closely resembles telco reference documents
Office (OCO) for all Notes to PSAP circuits (official which have long been publicly available.
services) and any other services for this customer.
Training must be scheduled for all SSC/MAC in- However, Rich Andrews, the systems operator who
volved personnel during the pre-service stage of the oversaw the operation of Jolnet, thought there might
project.
be something funny about the document when he first
13
ran across it in his system. To be on the safe side,

he forwarded a copy of it to AT&T officials. He was Phrack merely omitted the last step in a long line
subsequently contacted by the authorities, and he co- of virtual events. However, that omission, and its
operated with them fully. He would regret that later. insignificant circulation, left it vulnerable to seizure
based on content. If the 911 document had been
On the basis of the forgoing, a Grand Jury in Lock- the Pentagon Papers (another proprietary document)
port was persuaded by the Secret Service in early and Phrack the New York Times, a completion of
February to hand down a seven count indictment the analogy would have seen the government stopagainst The Prophet and Knight Lightning, charging ping publication of the Times and seizing its every
them, among other things, with interstate transfer material possession, from notepads to presses.
of stolen property worth more than $5,000. When
The Prophet and two of his Georgia colleagues were Not that anyone in the newspaper business seemed
arrested on February 7, 1990, the Atlanta papers re- particularly worried about such implications. They,
ported they faced 40 years in prison and a $2 million and the rest of the media who bothered to report
fine. Knight Lightning was arrested on February 15. Knight Lightnings arrest were too obsessed by what
they portrayed as actual disruptions of emergency
The property in question was the afore-mentioned service and with marvelling at the sociopathy of it.
blot on the history of prose whose full title was A One report expressed relief that no one appeared to
Bell South Standard Practice (BSP) 660-225-104SV have died as a result of the intrusions.
Control Office Administration of Enhanced 911 Services for Special Services and Major Account Centers, Meanwhile, in Baltimore, the 911 dragnet snared
March, 1988.
Leonard Rose, aka Terminus. A professional computer consultant who specialized in UNIX, Rose got
And not only was this item worth more than a visit from the government early in February. The
$5,000.00, it was worth, according to the indictment G-men forcibly detained his wife and children for six
and Bell South, precisely $79,449.00. And not a hours while they interrogated Rose about the 911
penny less. We will probably never know how this fig- document and ransacked his system.
ure was reached or by whom, though I like to imagine
an appraisal team consisting of Franz Kafka, Joseph Rose had no knowledge of the 911 matter. Indeed,
Heller, and Thomas Pyncheon...
his only connection had been occasional contact with
Knight Lightning over several years...and admitted
In addition to charging Knight Lightning with crimes membership in the Legion of Doom. However, when
for which he could go to jail 30 years and be fined searching his hard disk for 911 evidence, they found
$122,000.00, they seized his publication, Phrack, something else. Like many UNIX consultants, Rose
along with all related equipment, software and data, did have some UNIX source code in his possession.
including his list of subscribers, many of whom would Furthermore, there was evidence that he had transsoon lose their computers and data for the crime of mitted some of it to Jolnet and left it there for anappearing on it.
other consultant.
I talked to Emmanuel Goldstein, the editor of 2600,
another hacker publication which has been known
to publish purloined documents. If they could shut
down Phrack, couldnt they as easily shut down 2600?
He said, Ive got one advantage. I come out on paper
and the Constitution knows how to deal with paper.
In fact, nearly all publications are now electronic at
some point in their creation. In a modern newspaper, stories written at the scene are typed to screens
and then sent by modem to a central computer. This
computer composes the layout in electronic type and
the entire product transmitted electronically to the
presses. There, finally, the bytes become ink.
UNIX is a ubiquitous operating system, and though

its main virtue is its openness to amendment at the
source level, it is nevertheless the property of AT&T.
What had been widely d istributed within businesses
and universities for years was suddenly, in Roses
hands, a felonious possession.
Finally, the Secret Service rewarded the good citizenship of Rich Andrews by confiscating the computer where Jolnet had dwelt, along with all the email, read and un-read, which his subscribers had left
there. Like the many others whose equipment and
data were taken by the Secret Service subsequently,
he wasnt charged with anything. Nor is he likely
to be. They have already inflicted on him the worst
14
punishment a nerd can suffer: data death.
lost an estimated $125,000. With such a fiscal hemorrhage, he cant afford a lawyer to take after the
Secret Service. Both the state and national offices of
the ACLU told him to run along when he solicited
their help.
Andrews was baffled. Im the one that found it, Im

the one that turned it in...And Im the one thats suffering, he said.
He tried to go to the press. As in most other cases,

there were unwilling to raise the alarm. Jackson theorized, The conservative press is taking the attitude
that the suppression of evil hackers is a good thing
and that anyone who happens to be put out of busiIn any case, association with stolen data is all the ness in the meantime...well, thats just their tough
guilt you need. Its quite as if the government could luck.
seize your house simply because a guest left a stolen
VCR in an upstairs bedroom closet. Or confiscate all In fact, Newsweek did run a story about the event,
the mail in a post office upon finding a stolen package portraying it from Jacksons perspective, but they
there. The first concept of modern jurisprudence to were almost alone in dealing with it.
have arrived in Cyberspace seems to have been Zero
Tolerance.
What had he done to deserve this nightmare? Roleplaying games, of which Dungeons and Dragons is the
Rich Andrews was not the last to learn about the most famous, have been accused of creating obsessive
Secret Services debonair new attitude toward the involvement in their nerdy young players, but no one
4th Amendments protection against unreasonable before had found it necessary to prevent their publication. It seems that Steve Jackson had hired the
seizure.
wrong writer. The managing editor of Steve JackEarly on March 1, 1990, the offices of a roll-playing son Games is a former cracker, known by his fellows
game publisher in Austin, Texas called Steve Jackson in the Legion of Doom as The Mentor. At the time
Games were visited by agents of the United States of the raid, he and the rest of Jackson staff had been
Secret Service. They ransacked the premises, broke working for over a year on a game called GURPS Cyinto several locked filing cabinets (damaging them ir- berpunk, High-Tech Low-Life Role-Playing.
reparably in the process) and eventually left carrying
3 computers, 2 laser printers, several hard disks, and At the time of the Secret Service raids, the game
resided entirely on the hard disks they confiscated.
many boxes of paper and floppy disks.
Indeed, it was their target. They told Jackson that,
Later in the day, callers to the Illuminati BBS (which based on its authors background, they had reason
Steve Jackson Games operated to keep in touch with to believe it was a handbook on computer crime.
roll-players around the country) encountered the fol- It was therefore inappropriate for publication, 1st
Amendment or no 1st Amendment.
lowing message:
One wonders what will happen when they find such
documents on the hard disks of CompuServe. Maybe
Ill just upload my copy of Bell South Standard Practice (BSP) 660-225-104SV and see...
So far we have not received a clear explanation of

what the Secret Service was looking for, what they
expected to find, or much of anything else. We are
fairly certain that Steve Jackson Games is not the
target of whatever investigation is being conducted;
in any case, we have done nothing illegal and have
nothing whatsoever to hide. However, the equipment
that was seized is apparently considered to be evidence in whatever theyre investigating, so we arent
likely to get it back any time soon. It could be a
month, it could be never. Its been three months as
I write this and, not only has nothing been returned
to them, but, according to Steve Jackson, the Secret
Service will no longer take his calls. He figures that,
in the months since the raid, his little company has
I got a copy of the game from the trunk of The Mentors car in an Austin parking lot. Like the Bell South
document, it seemed pretty innocuous to me, if a little inscrutable. Borrowing its flavor from the works of
William Gibson and Austin sci-fi author Bruce Sterling, it is filled with silicon brain implants, holodecks,
and gauss guns.
It is, as the cover copy puts it, a fusion of the
dystopian visions of George Orwell and Timothy
Leary. Actually, without the gizmos, it describes a
future kind of like the present its publisher is experiencing at the hands of the Secret Service.
An unbelievably Byzantine world resides within its
15
120 large pages of small print. (These roll-players

must be some kind of idiots savants...) Indeed, its
a thing of such complexity that I cant swear theres
no criminal information in there, but then I cant
swear that Grateful Dead records dont have satanic
messages if played backwards. Anythings possible,
especially inside something as remarkable as Cyberpunk.
The most remarkable thing about Cyberpunk is the
fact that it was printed at all. After much negotiation, Jackson was able to get the Secret Service to let
him have some of his data back. However, they told
him that he would be limited to an hour and a half
with only one of his three computers. Also, according to Jackson, They insisted that all the copies be
made by a Secret Service agent who was a two-finger
typist. So we didnt get much.
In the end, Jackson and his staff had to reconstruct
most of the game from neural rather than magnetic
memory. They did have a few very old backups, and
they retrieved a some scraps which had been passed
around to game testers. They also had the determination of the enraged.
Despite government efforts to impose censorship by
prior restraint, Cyberpunk is now on the market.
Presumably, advertising it as The book that was
seized by the U.S. Secret Service will invigorate
sales. But Steve Jackson Games, the heretofore prosperous publisher of more than a hundred role-playing
games, has been forced to lay off more than half of
its employees and may well be mortally wounded.
Any employer who has heard this tale will think hard
before he hires a computer cracker. Which may be, of
course, among the effects the Secret Service desires.
conceivable criminal violations of this operation have

serious implications for the health and welfare of all
individuals, corporations, and United States Government agencies relying on computers and telephones
to communicate.
It was unclear from their statement whether this operation meant the Legion of Doom or Operation Sun
Devil. There was room to interpret it either way.
Because the deliciously ironic truth is that, aside from
the 3 page Bell South document, the hackers had neither removed nor damaged anyones data. Operation
Sun Devil, on the other hand, had serious implications for a number of folks who relied on computers and telephones to communicate. They lost the
equivalent of about 5.4 million pages of information.
Not to mention a few computers and telephones.
And the welfare of the individuals behind those figures was surely in jeopardy. Like the story of the
single mother and computer consultant in Baltimore
whose sole means of supporting herself and her 18
year old son was stripped away early one morning.
Secret Service agents broke down her door with sledge
hammers, entered with guns drawn, and seized all her
computer equipment. Apparently her son had also
been using it...
Or the father in New York who opened the door at
6:00 AM and found a shotgun at his nose. A dozen
agents entered. While one of the kept the mans wife
in a choke-hold, the rest made ready to shoot and entered the bedroom of their sleeping 14 year old. Before leaving, the confiscated every piece of electronic
equipment in the house, including all the telephones.
It was enough to suggest that the insurance companies should start writing policies against capricious
On May 8, 1990, Operation Sun Devil, heretofore an governmental seizure of circuitry.
apparently random and nameless trickle of Secret Service actions, swept down on the Legion of Doom and In fairness, one can imagine the governments probits ilk like a bureaucratic tsunami. On that day, the lem. This is all pretty magical stuff to them. If I were
Secret Service served 27 search warrants in 14 cities trying to terminate the operations of a witch coven,
from Plano, Texas to New York, New York.
Id probably seize everything in sight. How would I
tell the ordinary household brooms from the getaway
The law had come to Cyberspace. When the day was vehicles?
over, transit through the wide open spaces of the Virtual World would be a lot trickier.
But as I heard more and more about the vile injustices being heaped on my young pals in the LeIn a press release following the sweep, the Secret Ser- gion of Doom, not to mention the unfortunate folks
vice boasted having shut down numerous computer nearby, the less I was inclined toward such temperbulletin boards, confiscated 40 computers, and seized ate thoughts as these. I drifted back into a 60s-style
23,000 disks. They noted in their statement that the sense of the government, thinking it a thing of mono16
lithic and evil efficiency and adopting an up-against- he guards what he has with hysterical fervor.
the-wall willingness to spit words like pig or fascist into my descriptions.
Time passed, and I forgot about the incident. But
one recent May morning, I leaned that others had
In doing so, I endowed the Secret Service with a clar- not. The tireless search for the spectral heart of
ity of intent which no agency of government will ever NuPrometheus finally reached Pinedale, Wyoming,
possess. Despite almost every experience Ive ever where I was the object of a two hour interview by
had with federal authority, I keep imagining its com- Special Agent Richard Baxter, Jr. of the Federal Bupetence.
reau of Investigation.
For some reason, it was easier to invest the Keystone Kapers of Operation Sun Devil with malign
purpose rather than confront their absurdity straighton. There is, after all, a twisted kind of comfort in
political paranoia. It provides one such a sense of
orderliness to think that the government is neither
crazy nor stupid and that its plots, though wicked,
are succinct.
I was about to have an experience which would restore both my natural sense of unreality and my unwillingness to demean the motives of others. I was
about to see first hand the disorientation of the law
in the featureless vastness of Cyberspace.
Poor Agent Baxter didnt know a ROM chip from a

Vise-grip when he arrived, so much of that time was
spent trying to educate him on the nature of the thing
which had been stolen. Or whether stolen was the
right term for what had happened to it.
You know things have rather jumped the groove when
potential suspects must explain to law enforcers the
nature of their alleged perpetrations.
I wouldnt swear Agent Baxter ever got it quite right.
After I showed him some actual source code, gave a
demonstration of e-mail in action, and downloaded a
file from the WELL, he took to rubbing his face with
both hands, peering up over his finger tips and saying, It sure is something, isnt it Or, Whooo-ee.
In Search of NuPrometheus
Or my eight year old knows more about these things

than I do. He didnt say this with a fathers pride
so much as an immigrants fear of a strange new land
Bob Dylan
into which he will be forcibly moved and in which his
Sometime last June, an angry hacker got hold of a own child is a native. He looked across my keyboard
chunk of the highly secret source code which drives into Cyberspace and didnt like what he saw.
the Apple Macintosh. He then distributed it to a
variety of addresses, claiming responsibility for this We could have made it harder for one another, but I
act of information terrorism in the name of the Nu think we each sensed that the other occupied a world
which was as bizarre and nonsensical as it could be.
Prometheus League.
We did our mutual best to suppress immune response
Apple freaked. NuPrometheus had stolen, if not at the border.
I pity the poor immigrant...
the Apple crown jewels, at least a stone from them.

Worse, NuPrometheus had then given this prize away. Youd have thought his world might have been a little
more recognizable to me. Not so, it turns out. BeRepeatedly.
cause in his world, I found several unfamiliar features,
All Apple really has to offer the world is the soft- including these:
ware which lies encoded in silicon on the ROM chip
of every Macintosh. This set of instructions is the
cyber-DNA which makes a Macintosh a Macintosh.
Worse, much of the magic in this code was put there
by people who not only did not work for Apple any
longer, might only do so again if encouraged with cattle prods. Apples attitude toward its ROM code is
a little like that of a rich kid toward his inheritance.
Not actually knowing how to create wealth himself,
17
1. The Hackers Conference is an underground organization of computer outlaws with likely connections to, and almost certainly sympathy with,
the NuPrometheus League. (Or as Agent Baxter
repeatedly put it, the New Prosthesis League.)
2. John Draper, the affore-mentioned Capn
Crunch, in addition to being a known member of
the Hackers Conference, is also CEO and president of Autodesk, Inc. This is of particular con-
cern to the FBI because Autodesk has many topsecret contracts with the government to supply
Star Wars graphics imaging and hyperspace
technology. Worse, Draper is thought to have
Soviet contacts.
Why had he come all the way to Pinedale to investigate a crime he didnt understand which had taken
place (sort of) in 5 different places, none of which was
within 500 miles?
He wasnt making this up. He had lengthy docu- Well, it seems Apple has told the FBI that they can
ments from the San Francisco office to prove it. And expect little cooperation from Hackers in and around
in which Autodesks address was certainly correct.
the Silicon Valley, owing to virulent anti-Apple sentiment there. They claim this is due to the Hacker beOn the other hand, I know John Draper. While, as lief that software should be free combined with festerI say, he may have once distinguished himself as a ing resentment of Apples commercial success. They
cracker during the Pleistocene, he is not now, never advised the FBI to question only those Hackers who
has been, and never will be CEO of Autodesk. He were as far as possible from the twisted heart of the
did work there for awhile last year, but he was let go subculture.
long before he got in a position to take over.
They did have their eye on some local people though.
Nor is Autodesk, in my experience with it, the Star These included a couple of former Apple employees,
Wars skunk works which Agent Baxters documents Grady Ward and Water Horat, Chuck Farnham (who
indicated. One could hang out there a long time with- has made a living out of harassing Apple), Glenn Tenney (the purported leader of the Hackers), and, of
out ever seeing any gold braid.
course, the purported CEO of Autodesk.
Their primary product is something called AutoCAD,
by far the most popular computer-aided design soft- Other folks Agent Baxter asked me about included
ware but generally lacking in lethal potential. They Mitch Kapor, who wrote Lotus 1-2-3 and was known
do have a small development program in Cyberspace, to have received some this mysterious source code.
which is what they call Virtual Reality. (This, I as- Or whatever. But I had also met Mitch Kapor, both
sume is the hyperspace to which Agent Baxters on the WELL and in person. A less likely computer
terrorist would be hard to come by.
documents referred.)
However, Autodesk had reduced its Cyberspace program to a couple of programmers. I imagined Randy
Walser and Carl Tollander toiling away in the dark
and lonely service of their country. Didnt work.
Then I tried to describe Virtual Reality to Agent Baxter, but that didnt work either. In fact, he tilted. I
took several runs at it, but I could tell I was violating our border agreements. These seemed to include
a requirement that neither of us try to drag the other
across into his conceptual zone.
Actually, the question of the source code was another area where worlds but shadow-boxed. Although
Agent Baxter didnt know source code from Tuesday, he did know that Apple Computer had told his
agency that what had been stolen and disseminated
was the complete recipe for a Macintosh computer.
The distribution of this secret formula might result
in the creation of millions of Macintoshes not made
by Apple. And, of course, the ruination of Apple
Computer.
I fared a little better on the Hackers Conference.

Hardly a conspiracy, the Hackers Conference is an
annual convention originated in 1984 by the Point
Foundation and the editors of Whole Earth Review.
Each year it invites about a hundred of the most
gifted and accomplished of digital creators. Indeed,
they are the very people who have conducted the personal computer revolution. Agent Baxter looked at
my list of Hackers Conference attendees and read
their bios. These are the people who actually design
this stuff, arent they? He was incredulous. Their
corporate addresses didnt fit his model of outlaws at
all well.
In my world, NuPrometheus (whoever they, or more

likely, he might be) had distributed a small portion
of the code which related specifically to Color QuickDraw. QuickDraw is Apples name for the software
which controls the Macs on-screen graphics. But this
was another detail which Agent Baxter could not capture. For all he knew, you could grow Macintoshes
from floppy disks.
I explained to him that Apple was alleging something
like the ability to assemble an entire human being
from the recipe for a foot, but even he know the analogy was inexact. And trying to get him to accept the
18
idea that a corporation could go mad with suspicion against cosmic peril and human infamy and those
was quite futile. He had a far different perception of who believe, without any hard evidence, that the unithe emotional reliability of institutions.
verse is actually on our side. Fear vs. Faith.
When he finally left, we were both dazzled and disturbed. I spent some time thinking about Lewis Carroll and tried to return to writing about the legal
persecution of the Legion of Doom. But my heart
wasnt in it. I found myself suddenly too much in
sympathy with Agent Baxter and his struggling colleagues from Operation Sun Devil to get back into a
proper sort of pig- bashing mode.
I am of the latter group. Along with Gandhi and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, I believe that other human beings will quite consistently merit my trust if
Im not doing something which scares them or makes
them feel bad about themselves. In other words, the
best defense is a good way to get hurt.
In spite of the fact that this system works very reliably for me and my kind, I find we are increasingly in
Given what had happened to other innocent by- the minority. More and more of our neighbors live in
standers like Steve Jackson, I gave some thought to armed compounds. Alarms blare continuously. Pogetting scared. But this was Kafka in a clown suit. tentially happy people give their lives over to the corIt wasnt precisely frightening. I also took some com- porate state as though the world were so dangerous
fort in a phrase once applied to the administration outside its veil of collective immunity that they have
of Frederick the Great: Despotism tempered by in- no choice.
competence.
I have a number of theories as to why this is happenOf course, incompetence is a double-edged banana. ing. One has to do with the opening of Cyberspace.
While we may know this new territory better than the As a result of this development, humanity is now unauthorities, they have us literally out-gunned. One dergoing the most profound transformation of its hisshould pause before making well-armed paranoids feel tory. Coming into the Virtual World, we inhabit Infoolish, no matter how foolish they seem.
formation. Indeed, we become Information. Thought
is embodied and the Flesh is made Word. Its weird
as hell.
The Fear of White Noise
Beginning with the invention of the telegraph and

extending through television into Virtual Reality, we
have been, for a over a century, experiencing a terriSigmund Freud,
fying erosion in our sense of both body and place. As
appearing to me in a dream
we begin to realize the enormity of what is happening to us, all but the most courageous have gotten
Im a member of that half of the human race which scared.
is inclined to divide the human race into two kinds
of people. My dividing line runs between the people And everyone, regardless of his psychic resilience,
who crave certainty and the people who trust chance. feels this overwhelming sense of strangeness. The
world, once so certain and tangible and legally preYou can draw this one a number of ways, of course, cise, has become an infinite layering of opinions, perlike Control vs. Serendipity, Order vs. Chaos, Hard ceptions, litigation, camera-angles, data, white noise,
answers vs. Silly questions, or Newton, Descartes and, most of all, ambiguities. Those of us who are of
& Aquinas vs. Heisenberg, Mandelbrot & the Dalai the fearful persuasion do not like ambiguities.
Lama. Etc.
Indeed, if one were a little jumpy to start with, he
Large organizations and their drones huddle on one may now be fairly humming with nameless dread.
end of my scale, busily trying to impose predictable Since no one likes his dread to be nameless, the first
homogeneity on messy circumstance. On the other order of business is to find it some names.
end, free-lancers and neer-do-wells cavort about, getting by on luck if they get by at all.
For a long time here in the United States, Communism provided a kind of catch-all bogeyman. Marx,
However you cast these poles, it comes down to the Stalin and Mao summoned forth such a spectre that,
difference between those who see life as a struggle to many Americans, annihilation of all life was preferNeurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.
19
able to the human portions becoming Communist. Perhaps the most frightening thing about the CyBut as Big Red wizened and lost his teeth, we began berpunk is the danger he presents to The Institution,
to cast about for a replacement.
whether corporate or governmental. If you are frightened you have almost certainly taken shelter by now
Finding none of sufficient individual horror, we have in one of these collective organisms, so the very last
draped a number of objects with the old black thing you want is something which can endanger your
bunting which once shrouded the Kremlin. Our cur- heretofore unassailable hive.
rent spooks are terrorists, child abductors, AIDS, and
the underclass. I would say drugs, but anyone who And make no mistake, crackers will become to buthinks that the War on Drugs is not actually the War reaucratic bodies what viruses presently are to huon the Underclass hasnt been paying close enough at- man bodies. Thus, Operation Sun Devil can be seen
as the first of many waves of organizational immune
tention.
response to this new antigen. Agent Baxter was a
There are a couple of problems with these Four Horse- T-cell. Fortunately, he didnt know that himself and
men. For one thing, they arent actually very danger- I was very careful not to show him my own antigenic
ous. For example, only 7 Americans died in world- tendencies.
wide terrorist attacks in 1987. Fewer than 10 (out of
about 70 million) children are abducted by strangers I think that herein lies the way out of what might othin the U.S. each year. Your chances of getting AIDS if erwise become an Armageddon between the control
you are neither gay nor a hemophiliac nor a junkie are freaks and the neo-hip. Those who are comfortable
considerably less than your chances of getting killed with these disorienting changes must do everything
by lightning while golfing. The underclass is danger- in our power to convey that comfort to others. In
ous, of course, but only, with very few exceptions, if other words, we must share our sense of hope and
opportunity with those who feel that in Cyberspace
you are a member of it.
they will be obsolete eunuchs for sure.
The other problem with these perils is that they are
all physical. If we are entering into a world in which Its a tall order. But, my silicon brothers, our selfno one has a body, physical threats begin to lose their interest is strong. If we come on as witches, they will
burn us. If we volunteer to guide them gently into its
sting.
new lands, the Virtual World might be a more amiAnd now I come to the point of this screed: The per- able place for all of us than this one has been.
fect bogeyman for Modern Times is the Cyberpunk!
He is so smart he makes you feel even more stupid Of course, we may also have to fight.
than you usually do. He knows this complex country
in which youre perpetually lost. He understands the
*
*
*
value of things you cant conceptualize long enough
to cash in on. He is the one-eyed man in the Country Defining the conceptual and legal map of Cyberspace
of the Blind.
before the ambiguophobes do it for us (with punitive
over-precision) is going to require some effort. We
In a world where you and your wealth consist of noth- cant expect the Constitution to take care of itself.
ing but beeps and boops of micro-voltage, he can steal Indeed, the precedent for mitigating the Constituall your assets in nanoseconds and then make you dis- tional protection of a new medium has already been
appear.
established. Consider what happened to radio in the
early part of this century.
He can even reach back out of his haunted mists and
kill you physically. Among the justifications for Op- Under the pretext of allocating limited bandwidth,
eration Sun Devil was this chilling tidbit:
the government established an early right of censorship over broadcast content which still seems directly
Hackers had the ability to access and review the unconstitutional to me. Except that it stuck. And
files of hospital patients. Furthermore, they could now, owing to a large body of case law, looks to go
have added, deleted, or altered vital patient infor- on sticking.
mation, possibly causing life-threatening situations.
[Emphasis added.]
New media, like any chaotic system, are highly sensitive to initial conditions. Todays heuristical answers
20
of the moment become tomorrows permanent institutions of both law and expectation. Thus, they bear
examination with that destiny in mind.
flying his Canadair bizjet to a meeting in California when he realized his route took him directly over
Pinedale.
Earlier in this article, I asked a number of tough questions relating to the nature of property, privacy, and
speech in the digital domain. Questions like: What
are data and what is free speech? or How does
one treat property which has no physical form and
can be infinitely reproduced? or Is a computer the
same as a printing press. The events of Operation
Sun Devil were nothing less than an effort to provide
answers to these questions. Answers which would
greatly enhance governmental ability to silence the
futures opinionated nerds.
We talked for a couple of hours in my office while a

spring snowstorm swirled outside. When I recounted
for him what I had learned about Operation Sun
Devil, he decided it was time for him to speak up
too.
In over-reaching as extravagantly as they did, the

Secret Service may actually have done a service for
those of us who love liberty. They have provided us
with a devil. And devils, among their other galvanizing virtues, are just great for clarifying the issues and
putting iron in your spine. In the presence of a devil,
its always easier to figure out where you stand.
He called a few days later with the phone number

of a civil libertarian named Harvey Silverglate, who,
as evidence of his conviction that everyone deserves
due process, is currently defending Leona Helmsley.
Mitch asked me to tell Harvey what I knew, with the
inference that he would help support the costs which
are liable to arise whenever you tell a lawyer anything.
I found Harvey in New York at the offices of that

citys most distinguished constitutional law firm, Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky, and Lieberman. These are the folks who made it possible for
the New York Times to print the Pentagon Papers.
While I previously had felt no stake in the obscure (Not to dwell on the unwilling notoriety which partconundra of free telecommunication, I was, thanks to ner Leonard Boudin achieved back in 1970 when his
Operation Sun Devil, suddenly able to plot a trajec- Weathergirl daughter blew up the family home...)
tory from the current plight of the Legion of Doom
to an eventual constraint on opinions much dearer to In the conference call which followed, I could almost
me. I remembered Martin Neimoeller, who said:
hear the skeletal click as their jaws dropped. The
next day, Eric Lieberman and Terry Gross of RabiIn Germany they came first for the Communists, nowitz, Boudin met with Acid Phreak, Phiber Optik,
and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Communist. and Scorpion.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didnt speak up
because I wasnt a Jew. They came for the trade The maddening trouble with writing this account
unionists, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a is that Whole Earth Review, unlike, say, Phrack,
trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, doesnt publish instantaneously. Events are boiling
and I didnt speak up because I was a Protestant. up at such a frothy pace that anything I say about
Then they came for me, and by that time no one was current occurrences surely will not obtain by the time
left to speak up.
you read this. The road from here is certain to fork
many times. The printed version of this will seem
I decided it was time for me to speak up.
downright quaint before its dry.
The evening of my visit from Agent Baxter, I wrote
an account of it which I placed on the WELL. Several days later, Mitch Kapor literally dropped by for
a chat.
But as of today (in early June of 1990), Mitch and I

are legally constituting the Computer Liberty Foundation, a two (or possibly three) man organization
which will raise and disburse funds for education, lobbying, and litigation in the areas relating to digital
Also a WELL denizen, he had read about Agent speech and the extension of the Constitution into CyBaxter and had begun to meditate on the inappropri- berspace.
ateness of leaving the our civil liberties to be defined
by the technologically benighted. A man who places Already, on the strength of preliminary stories about
great emphasis on face-to-face contact, he wanted to our efforts in the Washington Post and the New York
discuss this issue with me in person. He had been Times, Mitch has received an offer from Steve Woz21
niak to match whatever funds he dedicates to this

effort. (As well as a fair amount of abuse from the
more institutionalized precincts of the computer industry.)
The Computer Liberty Foundation will fund, conduct, and support legal efforts to demonstrate that
the Secret Service has exercised prior restraint on
publications, limited free speech, conducted improper
seizure of equipment and data, used undue force, and
generally conducted itself in a fashion which is arbitrary, oppressive, and unconstitutional.
In addition, we will work with the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and other organizations to convey to both the public and the policymakers metaphors which will illuminate the more
general stake in liberating Cyberspace.
Not everyone will agree. Crackers are, after all, generally beyond public sympathy. Actions on their behalf
are not going to be popular no matter who else might
benefit from them in the long run.
Nevertheless, in the litigations and political debates
which are certain to follow, we will endeavor to assure
that their electronic speech is protected as certainly
as any opinions which are printed or, for that matter, screamed. We will make an effort to clarify issues
surrounding the distribution of intellectual property.
And we will help to create for America a future which
is as blessed by the Bill of Rights as its past has been.
John Perry Barlow

[email protected]
Friday, June 8, 1990
22
Navero V-X
c
1990
Daniel Parsons
Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA
Navero
(Of the Correct and Unalterable Way) ap- Game Master: How? Your horse is dead, remempeared on rec.games.frp during the 89-90 school year,
ber.
endearing himself to readers worldwide. Chapters five
through ten of the famed saga are reproduced here with The Cavalier: I....
the authors permission.
Rizudo: I shoot him in the back with my crossbow.
Navero V
. . . And our heroes went riding off into the marshes,
looking for the Orc band. It isnt easy to hide an
entire band of Orcs, and this proved no exception to
that. Their tracks were quite visible on the paths
and runs, and we followed them back to a large cavern in a limestone rock formation. We did not enter
immediately; instead, we sat, and watched, and argued some more. This we did happily for some time,
until we were spotted by a patrol, who were naturally
not happy to see us. There were only 2 Orcs, and we
spotted them almost as soon as they saw us.
Game Master: Did you have it ready? I dont remember you saying so.
Rizudo: Of course its ready!
*Big, pleading grin*
Im not stupid!
Game Master: Ok. Roll to hit.

Rizudo: Ah, I roll a 3. Shit.
Dania: Youre all incompetent. I magic missile
it.
Orc 1: Hu gudiier nouds? (Whats with you?)
Game Master: Ok. (rolls dice) It stumbles, but

does not fall, and is rapidly loosing itself in the
trees.
Orc 2: Sliimsuka! Jacxoffss wit. (Elves over there!

Humans too.)
Rizudo: Dont you have a Hold Person spell,

priest?
Navero: Oh, ick!

there?
What are those things over Navero: But I dont speak Orcish...
Dania: Orcs! Get em!!

The Cavalier: GLORY AND DEATH! GLORY
AND DEATH!
Hack-Maim-Shred-Destroy-Slice-Chop-CrushSmash-Murder-Irk-Annoy-Vex-IrritateInconvenience
Game Master: You succeed in wounding an Orc.
The other runs away.
The Assassin: Its out of range for dart throwing,

isnt it?
Game Master: Uh, yes. Anything else? Oh, (rolls
dice) you notice the wounded Orc is trying to
crawl off into the bushes.
Navero: I jump on it and stop it!
Game Master: It trys to hit you. (rolls dice) It
does. Take 5 hit points.
Navero: Ouch!
Dania: Stop him! Hell tell all the others!

Rizudo: I kill it. I guess its up to me to clean up
The Cavalier: I ride off after the Orc and outdisafter yon Knights incompetence.
tance him. I do not spear him in the back, as
that is unworthy of me. I challenge him to stand The Cavalier: I shall ignore that. Consider yourand fight like slime.
self fortunate.
23
Dania: Did the other one get away? Shit! Pretty Official: *bugeyed stare* You... They havent been
soon, theyll be all over the place. We better get
here raiding for nearly a month... which means
out of here.
they wont be here for another month... and
you... people... went out and deliberately anThe Cavalier: We cannot run from a bunch of
tagonized them!?
Orcs! You can, but I refuse.
The Cavalier: You should never bear evil so
Navero: And what about all the damage they
lightly.
would do if we dont stop them?
Official: WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK
YOU ARE?!?!
Dania: Navero, come on. We cant take all of
them...
Navero: Um... have we interfered with some other
plans of yours?
The Cavalier: The devil you say! I move we take
them by surprise, right now, while they are still Official: (sudden, indignant look) Do you have any
trying to organize themselves.
idea what this means?
Rizudo: Now listen, kids. Our position here isnt The Cavalier: Freedom and Glory.
exactly ideal. Why dont we go tell the guys in
the keep that we saw the Orcs coming? Then Dania: Oh, shut up.
well get a bunch of men-at-arms to go with us The Cavalier: I will not for the likes of you.
to meet them.
Official: Be quiet, all of you! (to a servant) Boy, go
The Cavalier: I refuse to rely on an unruly bunch
fetch that warrior. Now, perhaps we can salvage
of peasants swinging farm implements.
something out of this. How would you like to
go back there and clean out those caverns right
Navero: Why stir up many men, when only one
now? We have a man here, the survivor of the
voice is equal to the task?
last group who tried it. He has been inside their
cave, and may know enough to help you. He
The Assassin: Its getting dark. They will soon
is supposedly a capable fighter and bowman. I
be about. Wed better go.
believe he comes from the northern regions.
Dania: Yes. Cmon, guys.
With this, a very large figure stomped into the room.
The Cavalier: You are taking all the horses? Ah, You might say that he did not believe in personal
I suppose a retreat to consider strategy would be hygiene. You might also say that he needed no announcement. He was well over 6 feet and had a huge
in order. But we are not running.
sword over his shoulder, and a long bow on his back.
Dania: Right.
Official: Kortul, you had expressed a desire to have
another try at the Orcs once your wounds healed.
With our horses, we were easily able to outdistance
Well, I would like to ask you to serve as a guide
the Orcs, and reach the keep. We saw them behind
to this group, which has the same purpose in
us in the marsh, and counted over 20 of them. They
mind. Will you do it.
did not travel all the way to Swamp Keep, but threw
javelins and insults at us as we fled back to relative safety. None hit. Once we reached the keep,
we were accosted by the gate guards, who had heard
the shouting, and taken in to see some high official
whose title I have forgotten.
Official: YOU WHAT!? You rode out to spy on
the Orcs, and stirred them up?
Rizudo: Yep, and theyre coming this way. And
they stink, too. We need the militia, a few of
your guards, so we can tidy them up a bit.
Dania: Yeah.
Kortul: (Looks group over. Sneers.) *Grunt.*

Official: Very good. Well, I wish you luck. And
if you fail, dont come back. After this, if they
dont kill you, some here may wish to do so themselves.
And with that cheery thought, we spent the night
and rose early to go out and finish the job. Although
at some point, the Assassin disappeared during the
night. Apparently, she had had quite enough of us all,
and went elsewhere to seek greener pastures. (Actually, the player dropped out of the group, as he had
too much work to do. But thats not as much fun.)
24
I read about the great unwashed but I

never expected to see one. Dan Parsons
Navero VI
Dania: Right. They must have another entrance

anyway.
Navero: Uh...
Rizudo: Look, these are Orcs, remember? ShitNOTE: I finally went out and found out what the name
for-brains? How much of a problem do you think
of that damn Cavalier was. Even the player had some
theyll be to fake out?
trouble remembering: Rourk Ravensbane, a seemingly
un-elven sort of name, but hes Drow, which sort of ex- Kortul: Stupid. *Disgusted look at Rizudo*
plains it.
Navero: Uh...
The Party Currently:
Rizudo: Are you saying it wont work, o your

mightiness?
Navero, 1st level human cleric
Kortul: Might. Probably not.
Dania, 1st level 1/2-wood elf MU
Rizudo: Well then, lets go get a bunch of wood!
Rourk Ravensbane, 1st level Drow Cavalier
Dania: Only dead wood, now. (Remember, she is

half-wood elf, and feels somewhat protective of
trees.)
Rizudo, 1st level human fighter

Kortul, 1st level human fighter
We went riding into the marshes, early in the morn-
Rourk: Dead wood will not make enough smoke.

It must be big, green logs.
ing; we expected to reach the Orcs cavern by that Dania: Id rather you not chop down trees, dear.
afternoon. Our trek through the marshes was largely
Besides, you wouldnt want to dishonor your
uneventful, except for a bunch of 6-armed squirrelblades with mere wood.
like monkeys who would stare at us from the trees,
and throw things. Rizudo once tried to hit one, but Rourk: Kortul, I perceive, has a hand axe. And we
they were impossibly fast. When we neared the cave,
can use his blade if necessary. One so large and
we left our horses tethered about 100 yards up the
unwieldy is of little use otherwise.
path, and snuck up on foot; within, a number of eyes
Kortul: Snarls.
seemed to peer out, but did not see us.
And so, we began uprooting saplings and chopping
down small trees. Dania ran about for a little bit,
Rourk: We can take them now. Pardon me while pleading or threatening or smacking us with her staff,
I prepare myself.
but the 3 warriors ignored her and soon assembled a
pile of green wood. Navero, having no great feelings
Dania: What did the caves look like, Kortul?
about trees, tried to comfort Dania with the arguKortul: Dark, damp. Didnt get far; hit deadfall ment that it seemed necessary, but she ignored him.
By now, it was late afternoon. We gathered the wood
near entrance, killed 3, Orcs finished rest.
into a large pile on a hill before the cave mouth; we
Rourk: And you ran.
could feel eyes on us, but we were out of range of any
but powerful longbows, which we were sure the Orcs
Kortul: *Fumes* Quiet, munchkin.
did not possess. We doused it with lantern oil, lit it,
Navero: Maybe if we can get them out of the cave and let it get to burning nice and smoky. Then we
sent it all rolling downhill into the cave.
into daylight...
Rizudo: Well, kids, what do we do with em?
Rizudo: Yeah! Good idea! We smoke them out,

then kill them as they come running from the
cave.
Navero: Uh...
Rourk: A poor strategy. The cave is probably ventilated.
We got lucky; most of it went in, but not so far in that

we couldnt see it. We sat on the hill; any Orc who
appeared to put the fire out was shot. They eventually tried throwing water on from further back in
the cave, but this didnt seem to do much good. The
wood smoked merrily, but as evening approached, no
Orcs came fleeing out. It wasnt working.
25
Dania: (Much grumbling and swearing) Murderers.
Rizudo: Hid in the tree for most of the battle.

Only the fact that all the other party members
were making so much noise kept him from beRizudo: Oh, be quiet. Youre getting on our
ing found. After it was over he claimed to have
nerves. Why dont you go play with yourself or
killed 6 Orcs.
something? Put that staff to good use.
Kortul: Picked off a few with his bow from the
Dania: Go fuck yourself, asshole. Whatcha gonna
bushes, then crept about in the darkness, usdo now? Throw in some squirrel-monkeys?
ing his two-handed sword to kill more. I use the
term crept lightly; sneaking in banded mail is
Rourk: Perhaps if we offer them a magic-user.
no mean feat, especially around creatures with
Navero: No! You cant do that!
infravision. He was on foot and alone, and so
presented the ideal target for the Orcs; nonetheEveryone: Stare at Navero
less, he was able to move fast enough not to be
overborn, and dispatched 8 Orcs while taking no
Navero: I mean...
damage himself. Eventually, they ran away and
Dania: The sun is setting, guys. Got any bright
left him alone. (I was playing both Kortul and
ideas what to do?
Navero. I was rolling extremely well for Kortul, which may surprise you when you see how
No one did. Instead, we sat on the hilltop and argued
Navero did.)
until our conversation was rudely interrupted by the
sound of wings flapping. BIG wings. Big, leathery Rourk: Got onto Kortuls big horse with some diffiwings that seemed right overhead. Suddenly, from
culty, and charged down the paths of the swamp,
over the hill that the cave was in, a great shape apusing his lance to great effect, until he found an
peared. It looked like the Wyvern, but it had four legs
individual whom he considered to be the Chief.
and was larger, and colored a great oily black. The
This worthy he dismounted and challenged to
party scattered. Everyone but Rourk ran to hide in
personal combat. That worthy looked at him like
the trees and bushes; he whistled for his dead horse,
he was some sort of joke, and whistled at the sky.
which did not appear, and then took his stand in the
Nothing happened for a moment, and so Rourk
middle of the clearing. The Dragon (for thats what
charged to do battle. GLORY AND DEATH!
it was this time, boys and girls) did not attack, but
GLORY AND DEATH! Then, he heard wings
merely soared over the clearing, horrible and proud,
again. Realizing at once that here was a foe far
watching us from above. Rourk was about to call it a
more worthy of him, he turned to face the beast,
coward, when a javelin whizzed past his helmet, and
realizing that only his valor could defeat it. The
he saw nearly 20 Orcs were charging towards him.
Dragons attack was not fussy or frilly; it simply
landed on him, grinding him into the mud. The
Rourk: Ah, they are finally coming out. I shall go
Orc chief patted its nose and told it it was a good
get my horse. (Runs)
boy, which Rourk found quite surprising.
Dania: Thats *my* horse! (Runs after him)
Navero: Kortul, do you know the Orcish word for
Stop ?
Rourk: The Orc Chief said WHAT? And it didnt

kill him?! Must be a very young, stupid Dragon.
Are both my arms pinned?
Kortul: Hudsdg. Lets get horses.
Game Master: No, one is free.
Dania easily outdistanced the heavily armored Cavalier; she reached her horse and rode off. Navero
was the second to reach the horses, and went riding
off after Dania, not wishing to see her get hurt. The
Cavalier took Kortuls horse; Kortul remained on foot,
and Rizudo hid in a tree.
Rourk: I stab the Dragon and tell it to get off of

me.
Would you believe he got a critical hit? And that

his next stab was also a critical? He didnt kill it,
though. Bleeding, it flew away into the swamp, blubbering and calling for its mother. The Orc Chief took
At this point, things became somewhat chaotic, with one look at this and ran off, leaving our hero flushed
four separate units of party running around, and so with pride, beaming to himself. Damn, Im good.
I will try to take things on an individual basis.
26
Dania and Navero: Dania went riding into the woods,

looking for a place where she could be of some use.
Navero went riding off after her, to protect her. They
crossed over a run with 3 Orcs in it; Dania rode down
one, but the others stayed up and took swings at
Navero. Navero did comand - stop on one, using
the new word he had just learned, and the other fortunately missed. They rode into the trees, when suddenly another group of 3 Orcs jumped up in front
of them, frightening the horses and bringing them
to a halt. Navero realized he would have to fight.
They were charging up with swords in their hands
and blood in their eyes, and he had to protect his
friend.
Navero swung his mace at an Orc trying to grab his
reins. Critical Fumble - he brained his horse. oops
he thought as he landed face-first in the mud. Dania smacked one with her staff, but another stabbed
her for 1 hit point. Yelling, Navero charged through
to her defense, determined to carry the day despite
adversity. Critical Fumble - he brained her horse.
The Orcs started laughing. Dania ran away, with
Navero right behind her. The Orcs started to chase
them, so Dania turned and magic missiled one in the
face. Navero hit a tree. The remaining two somehow
missed. After quite a few rounds of this, both orcs
somehow lay dead. I believe that Navero actually hit
his target once during the encounter, and did something like one hit point of damage. After it was done,
they both stood for a moment to collect themselves,
Navero staring at the ground, and Dania staring at
Navero. Then, she began to speak.
Dania: YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!! What the fuck
do (censored) you think you were doing?!?! You
(censored) asshole, I ought break your (censored)
stupid head off! GET THE FUCK OUT OF
MY GODAMN LIFE!!! I hate your ancestors,
your teachers, everything, you (censored) (censored) sorry excuse (censored) little (censored)
moronic... LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE, I
dont ever want to see you again in my entire
godammed life, you (censored) (censored) (really censored)! Just keep the fuck away from
me! go somewhere else! leave, you (censored)
moron!! TRY to (censored) describe your (censored), complete, and utter STUPIDITY!! You
incompetent! You idiot! You clumsy... IDIOT! Arghhh....! I hate you!! I hate the sight
of you! STAY THE (censored) FUCK AWAY
FROM ME AND NEVER COME NEAR ME
AGAIN!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?!?!?
Navero stood in numb silence. Mud crept up around
his shoes. His mace hung loosely from one hand.

Tears streaked down his face.
Navero: But.... but youre the only friend I have.
She stared at him. Her whole body was clenched like
a fist, knuckles white on her staff. What could she
say? She stared and stared and stared. She wanted
to kill him. He honestly deserved it. He was... He
did...
Dania: Oh, shit. Come on Nav, lets go get the
Orcs, OK?
She walked off into the forest, confused and angry and
depressed all at the same time, pointedly ignoring the
dead horses. Navero, utterly confused but somehow
kind of happy, followed after.
And so, our heros routed the band of Orcs. Those
who survived, including the chief, fled into the
marshes, and were not seen again. All that was left
now was the cave.
Im sorry. I didnt mean to.
Its ok. Forget it. I know you didnt. Its
ok. Dan Parsons
Navero VII
And so...
The party got itself reorganized, and wounds were
bandaged, the Cavalier healed, and the dead horses
not mentioned. Everyone proceeded on foot into the
big, spooky cave, looking for the Orcs treasure...
The first thing we encountered was the need for a
light. Navero had fortunately brought a lantern.
(Navero would soon develop the habit of carrying everything he might conceivably need on a trip.) We
walked past the still-smoking wood, to discover a
large vent within the entrance hall itself; our smoke
was all going right out. Further back in the cave was
a rusty iron gate; behind this gate we saw at least
one Orc, watching us. We decided to throw a Molotov cocktail, to take it and any others that might be
there. The DM rolled a save for the clay pot the oil
was in; it didnt break. The Orc picked it up and
threw it back at us. It didnt break again. We ripped
out the burning rag and watched the Orc run away.
Kortul the Mighty Barbarian Type (who has 18/98
strength) wrenched open a gap in the bars, and
shortly thereafter we discovered that it could have
been raised up quite easily. Sigh. We decided to proceed immediately, but some dispute came up over the
marching order.
27
Rourk: I shall go in first, naturally.

Kortul: Better I go. Know caves better.
Rourk: I recall that YOU didnt get much beyond
the entrance.
Kortul: You guard the rear, keep the priest and
mage safe.
Rourk: I think not.
Kortul: Back there, munchkin. Let men go first.
Rourk: You try my patience, barbarian. If you
wish to repulse them through sheer malodorousness, I must admit that you have an advantage
over me. But in the arts of combat I am the
acknowledged superior, so remove your clumsy
bulk from my path!
Dania: Look, will someone just go in?
Rourk: Shut up. You may guard the rear. Perhaps
you can make up for your previous failure some
other time, when it is less vital to the survival of
others...
Down south, there was nothing of interest. No money,

nothin. We went up north. After much searching,
we hit a trap. It was a big pit that opened up beneath the lead party member (Rizudo again) dropping him 15 onto a smooth floor. He was injured,
but noticed that there was something down there: a
level on one wall. He decided to go over and pull the
lever down. A large section of the ceiling fell into the
pit, neatly fitting into the hole, providing a smooth
surface that the rest of the party could walk over, except that at one end it was an inch or two higher. So
long, Rizudo. We mourned for the required seconds,
and Navero gave him the last rites, or tried to, and
then went about our business. In the northern caves,
we found a few trinkets, and about 500 gp in loose
change. Also a dwarven prisoner, who was unconscious and remained so all the way back.
Must run. I fear that this is somewhat rushed. Does
anyone like this so far? I havent heard anything
about it. Is everyone ignoring me?
He was a...
good man.
Maybe. Dan Parsons
Navero VIII
Rizudo: Oh, hell. (Walks through gate.)

Kortul went after Rizudo, who was now standing in
some sort of great hall. It was mostly empty, apart
from piles of straw and rags, sacks, and a great deal of
smoked meat near the south wall. There were 3 other
exits; one to the North (we came from the west), one
South, and a big one to the East. The one to the east
was peculiar; the Orcs had built a huge fence or barrier, with big spikes smeared with some gummy resin
all through it. It was angled so as to keep something from beyond from getting in. Something big.
We decided to leave it aloe, and went to check out
the south. Again, the argument over who goes first,
solved by Navero wandering down the tunnel.
Navero: Hello?
Sometimes.
Last time, we explored the Orc caverns, Rizudo died

in an idiot trap, (such traps turned out to be very
effective against our party), and we found a dwarven
prisoner and about 500gp in assorted loose change.
There were also various weapons, armors, all in fair
condition, but nothing we didnt already have enough
of. Somewhat disappointed, we went back to the
great hall, and stared over the east barrier; beyond,
we could see a little bit of a large cavern, which
seemed utterly devoid of life. However, we were not
about to go over and start exploring; first, we would
have to go back to Swamp Keep, report that the Orcs
were gone, and claim the rewards that we so richly
deserved.
Guard 1: Aw, shit, its them again.
Orcs: GURTTIO!!
KILLGT FUIORSDT UN- Dania: Will you PLEASE just open the godGOWAA GITCHE GUMEE!!
damned gate for once? You know who we are.
Navero: Eeep! (Runs)
Guard 2: Look, yu. Yu go a might big fa hed

there, lil lady. Now, be nice, an maybe Ill le
He came wandering back quite quickly, with about 20
ya in.
Orcs on his heels. Fortunately, these were all women
and child orcs, and so we were victorious against Rourk: We are not amused at your attempts at
humor. And our patience is wearing quite thin.
them. Kortul was hit in the face with a soup ladle,
This ill-treatment of those who should be your
and the Cavalier suffered badly gnawed-on ankles.
honoured guests speaks volumes of this pitiful
Game Master: You slay all the women and chilplace. I demand that you open the gates at
dren. Truly, a heroic effort.
once!
28
Guard 2: Say please.

Kortul: Punches Guard 2. Guard 2 drops unconscious.
Guard 1: Oh, good. Hes been especially crass this
morning. Roger! Could you open the gate for
these lovely people, and put Mungo to bed?
Roger: (From above) Is he out cold?
Guard 1: (Checks guard 2) Yes, he is. Lovely, isnt
it?
Official: I, of course, believe every word you say.

However, the Lord of the Keep is a hard man
to please. He will want to be certain. I must
say, that under these circumstances, seeing his
Lordship would be out of the question. And, of
course, the status of your reward money is placed
somewhat in jeopardy...
Navero: Well, theres the money we found in the
*ow!* (Dania drives her staff into Naveros
foot.)
Official: Whats this?
Roger: Quite.
Dania: My young friend here was just saying how
And so we entered the keep. Naturally, the first thing
short on cash we were. Would it please you if we
did was get ourselves healed to full strength (We use a
were to go back and get battle tokens?
spell-point based magic system, and Navero had just
enough spell points for everyone.) We then went to Rourk: We may find a few more, if you absolutely
insist upon this matter.
go see the official we had spoken to the previous day,
to report on our success and see to our reward (A
Navero: oww...
reward had been promised; I forgot to mention it.)
Official: You succeeded? Wonderful! I really cant Official: Yes, I think that would be the best thing
for you to do. A word, children; foresight makes
tell you how happy we all are to hear that. They
all matters go to your advantage. Now please
came about every couple of months; they used
go finish your task.
to stay away from the keep completely, but since
all the caravans started traveling on the North
We did spot one other Orc out in the marshes; it was
road, they have given us their attentions. The
not the Chief. Kortul killed it with arrow shots. We
lord of the Keep will naturally wish to see you.
collected all the right ears we could still find, even
the females and children. It was a very unpleasant
Rourk: Think nothing of it. It was childs play.
task, and accomplished hurriedly. The total came to
Official: Ah. Well: did you bring the Chiefs head 32; not bad. We arrived back at the Keep that night.
with you?
Guard 1: Oi, this lot. Fuck it, le em in.
Rourk: The coward fled into the swamp, and so I
was unable to obtain it for you. Rest assured As even officials need to sleep, we decided to be nice
that if we meet again, the oversight shall be cor- and not bother the government people until mornrected.
ing. Instead, Kortul, Rourk, and Dania went to the
Official: Did you bring any heads back? Or hands, only tavern, where they saw a few familiar faces.
The first was that of the rescued Dwarf, whom they
or ears...?
had dropped off at the inn; he had recovered enough
Navero: Thats... kind of barbaric, I mean, muti- to go down to the common room, and wished to
lation of the bodies?
thank his rescuers. His name was Arlor. The second
was a mercenary-looking type who rather resembled
Official: ...So you have no actual proof that you the late and largely unlamented Rizudo; this worthy
ever went near the Orcs?
turned out to be his twin brother Razuli, who wished
to hear of his brothers death.
Dead silence.
Rourk: So, Dwarf, you were captured by the Orcs
while trying to steal from them. Being naturally
incompetent, you were unable to fight them off
Rourk: You doubt my word? Those who do learn
or escape.
not to.
Kortul: Stupid.
Kortul: Real stupid.
Arlor: I, um, was jus trying to earn a liven, yup.

29
Dania: God, that guy looks familiar. Unpleasantly keeping the characters straight. This might be a good
so.
idea, especially as the party gets to be larger than five
people. I believe the most we ever had in the party at
Razuli: Hi there, kids! Say, you look like those id- one time is eight; I would need a list to keep them all
iots who were hanging around with my brother! straight at that point.
Rourk: Oh, no... Please leave us at once.
Also, some of you have told me how sad you were that
Rizudo died in the idiot trap. He was not mourned long
Razuli came in; he was run by the same player, had
the same stats, and the same personality. Basically, he
decided to start Rizudo over, rather than come up with
a new character. He is gone, yet he is with us. :-)
Razuli: Not till you tell me what happened. Say,

are you the little...
Dania: Shove it, asshole.
Razuli: I see you are. Well, kids; wanna have some
fun?
And finally, to the individual who commented on DaThe remainder of their evening is best left to the nias lecture to Navero at the end of Navero VI: A
imagination. Navero did not go to the tavern. While lecture? That was a full-bore rant if I ever heard
he did not approve of the others going to that place, one. The player was actually yelling at me for almost a
he didnt know what to say without offending, and he minute (hows that for role-playing) using most of her
desperately didnt want to offend anyone. Especially very impressive vocabulary. If you consider that a lecso soon after his failure in trying to protect his friend ture I would hate to hear a reprimand.
Dania. She had been so very angry, and rightly so; he
had done so very much harm. They all must think AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY
so badly of him. It was very late at night. Most DIFFERENT...
everyone else was indoors, asleep or otherwise, like
good people should be. Navero wandered through The following morning, we all assembled in the ofthe streets for a little while, but found nothing that ficials office. There was a great deal of yelling and
required his aid, nothing for him to help. Once a screaming, but the end result was that we didnt get
patrol of night watchmen passed by, and eyed him to go see his Lordship, we didnt get public fame, and
with obvious suspicion. He went to the only temple we got only half the reward, as we had left the Chief
in the town, which was consecrated to some Defender and the Dragon alive. Much grumbling followed.
goddess he did not recognize. He apologized to the
goddess, as she was not of The Order and he had no The DM then said that Navero, Danai, Rourk, and
right to be in her place, found a prayer alcove, and Kortul had gained enough experience to go to seccurled up and went to sleep.
ond level, but we would have to go get the requisite
training. The warriors had it easy - training facilities
Forgive me, Lords, for I have tried and
were readily available for them. The DM kindly ruled
failed. Again. Dan Parsons
that, in this case, Navero could go up by praying and
talking with the local priests for about a month, even
though they were not of The Order. Our DM generNavero IX
ally doesnt like to sweat these things, and neither do
I.
A short pause whilst I pontificate:
Thank you to everyone who sent mail. Thank you to
everyone who sent comments. I must admit, the story
has become rather less humorous than it used to be, but
that is completely intentional, I assure you. In reality,
the humor did settle down once the Orc chase started
in earnest somehow, when we had something to actually do, the jokes died down a bit and things took a
more serious tone. The funniest segments seemed to
come between adventures.
However, dear Dania would have to find someone to

supervise her studies in the arcane arts, and in a
Keep this small, the chances of finding a mage who
would apprentice her, and put up with her adventuring, seemed to be pretty dismal. Her efforts did come
to fruit, in time.
Dania: (To Joe Townsperson) Excuse me, but is
there a mage or wizard living around here, with
whom I might speak?
One suggestion was a Dramatis Personae at the beginning of each posting, as many people have trouble Joe: Well, theres the Wizards on High street...
30
Dania: There are *several* of them? In a town this

size?
All PPWs: YES!! (Some are doing cartwheels)

Dania: STARES
Joe: Yep, they hang around together. Dont know

why youd wanna talk to them, though.
PPW 2: We want the world to be a joyful place!

With bright colors and flowers and singing and
effervescence and glee!
Dania: Ive got my reasons. Thank you and good

day, Sir.
(Walks to High street. There, she sees that the houses
are all very tall, and seem to lean back, away from
the street. They are painted bright colors, and have
gardens with lots of colorful flowers. Violets and purples seem to be a general favorite here. She went up
to a random house and knocked. A tall figure with
a long white beard opened the door; surprisingly, he
was not at all annoyed at the intrusion (as wizards
often are), but seemed to positively beam good tidings from his beetling little brows. He was also, by
the way, dressed in a very loud purple robe, with lots
of polka-dots.)
All PPWs: YES! ALL THAT! (they make a giant pyramid, which falls, but they dont mind.)
Dania: *STARES*
PPW 1: I love apprentices; dont you love apprentices?
PPW 2: How dare you grab this one up so fast!
How dare you, sir! Why, Id horsewhip you if I
had a horse!
Dania: *STARES* (Jaw drops, hits ground with audible thud.)
PPW 3: Actually, Id much rather she did that to

Dania: Um... Hello, master Wizard? I am Dame!
nia Couliari; I have come seeking an apprenticeship.
PPW 2: Oh? Whips and chains, dear Xinjanthropus?
Wizard: You have?
Splendid!!
I love apprentices!
Especially small cute ones with PPW 3: Chains, you say? Your remark leaves me
pointy ears!
(Poof.
Flowers appear in
fit to be TIED!
his hand.)
Have some flowers!
Have
some more! (Poof) Have whole bunches of PPW 2: I am BOUND to strike you for that remark!
them! (Poof)(Poof)(Poof)(Poof)(Poof)(Poof)
Arent flowers nice? I like this kind best. Do
PPW 1: Lets have no disCORD!
you like flowers, young lady?
PPW 5: Yes! All this over a deLINKuent!
Dania: Actually, I have hay fever. Good day, sorry
to have troubled you.
PPW 3: But she looks like a FAST UN!
Wizard: No, no! I cant have you going away like
that! You arent happy!
PPW 1: You have a filthy mind! At least, not a

TIE-dy one!
Dania: Excuse me?
PPW 4: This LINE leaves me at the end of my

rope!
Wizard: We cannot have unhappy people in our

midst... For we are THE PURPLE POLKA- Dania: Uh, do you do this all the time, uh, great
DOT WIZARDS!!! We ALL want to make the
wizards?
whole world HAPPY!!
(All PPWs gaze upon her, with glee in their beady
(All of a sudden, doors and windows all up and down little eyes.)
the street burst open, and about 20 mages in loud,
purple, polka-dotted clothing lean out.)
PPW 5: A STRAIGHT WOMAN!!
SHES
MINE!!
PPWs: YES!!
HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY!!
PPW 2: Restraint! Julius saw her first!
(They all jump out and begin dancing.)
PPW 1: Ill fight you for her! Do your worst!
Dania: stares
PPW 1: We want everyone in the world to be just PPW 5: RIGHT! Lets have at it then, Julie
as happy as we are!
baby!!
31
(They do rock, scissors, paper in a furious huff. Dania trekked up to Kings road. The house was inBoth get rock, then both scissors, then both paper.) deed unmistakable, in its glowering eldritch hugeness, suspended seemingly as an abomination within
PPW 1: Alright then, two out of three!
a polite white-housed neighborhood. Other dwellings
shyed away from its improbable obesity, while it
PPW 3: Wait a minute, shes leaving. Come stood in solitude, lofty and arrogant, shrouded it its
back!
sheer weight of gloom and despair. There were no visPPW 1: Dont leave! Cant you see Im trying to ible doors, although windows which seemed to gaze
tell you I love you? Because you remind me of into your cringing soul were scattered about in awful
you! Your eyes, your lips your hair... everything patterns that the mind refused to acknowledge. A
about you reminds me of you! Except you. How neat house, but I wouldnt want to live there.
do you account for that?
Dania went looking for a door, but a disembodied

voice stopped her.
Dania: Sorry,gottago,kidsonthestove,bye! (Flees)
Voice: I am aware of your presence. And your desires...
PPW 4: Rats.
PPW 5: Do you think we sent her away unhappy?
(A door suddenly existed, where she was sure one had

not been.)
PPW 1: No, not at all. Look! She seems much

happier already.
Voice: Enter freely, and of your own will.

A few notes on the Purple Polka-dot Wizards: (This
is 1st edition AD&D, of course) They cast Tashas
Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter as a 1st level spell,
and Ottos Irresistible Dance as a 4th level spell.
They are of Chaotic Good alignment. When summoning familiars, if they get a special familiar, it is
not a Pseudo-dragon; they get a Faerie Dragon.
Dania entered. Beyond, there was a hallway, thin but

impossibly high, whose walls were a uniform shade of
grey, a disturbing grey; they seemed to shift slightly,
just at the edges of your vision, but never were seen
to move. The hall was longer than it looked; it took a
long time to reach the end, although when she looked
back, she saw it was indeed a long way back, and no
door was visible. She reached the end of the hall, and
Dania went to find Joe Townsperson again.
stepped into a small black room. An unknown force
moved her to another place, seemingly beyond the
Joe: Oh, hello.
very limits of space itself. There, she saw what was
Dania: You bastard. You sick little (censored) bas- presumably the master of the house. Nearly 7 feet
tard. Why didnt you tell me they were all a tall, dressed in a loose robe like a sundered piece of
bunch of lunatics?!?
space, and with huge hands which seemed to flow into
more fingers than was acceptable. His features were a
Joe: Well... you didnt ask.
study in fascinating ugliness, riveting and commandDania: Well, now I AM ASKING: are there ing in their grotesquery.
any mages in this whole godamned place who Master: An apprenticeship. How amusing. How
ARENT insane?
presumptuous. I havent dealt with an apprentice since.... Ah. So your former master was
Galvolin.
Joe: Well, one...

Dania: Where? And is there anything I should
know about him?
Dania: Uh, yes. He kicked me out when my parents

did.
Joe: Nobody much goes near his place, maam. He

Master: For sleeping with a Drow? Very closeonly gets visitors late at night. Its the big dark
minded people. You are well rid of them. I see
house on Kings road, cant miss it. He isnt a
some potential in you, though. Interesting flares
very good neighbor, maam, but I can say he
and prominences. Very well, apprentice.
aint any loopier than any other wizard, and less
than some.
Dania: Sure, thanks. Glad to be here.
Dania: Good. Good-day.
Master: Of course you are. Your first task...

32
(A wild gesture. Space and time scream. They appear in a room.)
Arlor, male dwarf thief (Uh... yep. Yep. I do.

Really.)
Master: Clean all this glassware. And I want to

be able to see my face in it! After that, set the
dining room table. I am expecting an important
guest. Put 7 forks and 12 knives at his place.
Training went relatively well. Dania didnt turn into
anything more hideous than usual, and the rest of the

month passed rapidly. Rested and fit, we decided to
trek back to the cavern and see what it was beyond
that big barrier that made the slovenly Orcs put it
Dania: Theres enough glassware here to fill my old up. Razuli accompanyed the group, despite the asbedroom...
surances of the others that his presence was not necessary, and Arlor also came along. Arlor was not
Master: It seems that would be rather uncomforttreated very well, I am sad to admit; the humans reable to sleep on. But some might find it very
garded him with indifference at best, and both elves
interesting... To work. Now!
very obviously disliked him. (The player was very
Dania: Yes! Very good, o my master! Chop, chop! quiet, and unused to our playing style, which involves
lots of squabbling, as you may have noticed.)
Oh, uh...
Master: Of course. I am perfectly aware of your Rourk: And another thing: you are to address me
as Sir at all times, unless conditions demand
other career. Your next assignment will involve
the more appropriate title.
it.
Dania: Ok. No problems.
Arlor: You mean, uh, madam ?
Master: For your studies, you may peruse the library on the first floor. NONE of the others.
And, after you finish here.
Rourk: (Draws sword.) If you insult me again, I

shall feed you your liver.
Arlor: Sorry, sorry. Um.
Dania managed to complete the requisite studies, and Navero: I kind of dont think that was very nice,
was able to rejoin us periodically for a drink. In fact,
uh, Rourk.
although that one library was a mages dream, she
took every possible opportunity to get out of the Rourk: YOU try being NICE to this hairy little...
But you are correct. I am loosing my temper
house. If she seemed any more morbid than usual,
over a nothing. I do apologize for disturbing your
no one noticed. The training period passed uneventcomposure, priest.
fully, leaving us rested and ready to continue in our
explorations of the Orc caverns.
Arlor: Thanks. Thanks lots.
Your hands look scaly. Is that from lots of
washing?
Lord, I hope so. Dan Parsons
Navero X
Dania: Just be quiet, will you?

Razuli: What are you two getting so upset about,
anyway? Its OK, Arlor, they really dont mean
it.
Arlor: I think they do, yup.
The continuing sto-o-o-ry...

Razuli: No! They just feel that way about anyone
shorter than they are. You see, Dania thinks
youre gonna look up her robe, and Sir Snot over
Dania, female 1/2-wood elf MU (You (racial
there was once bested by a rabid chihuahua, and
slur) idiot!)
it left him traumatized. We all love you. Really.
Navero, male human cleric (oops...)
Rourk Ravensbane, male drow cavalier (You in- Rourk: Mercenary, my temper is short enough as
sult me, knave.)
it is...
Kortul, male human fighter (various grumbles)
Razuli, male human fighter (Well,
whatcha gonna do now?)
Razuli: And thats not the only thing.
kids, Rourk: You are unworthy of notice. Begone from

my sight.
33
Navero: I wish you didnt not like him so much. We reached the cavern in due course, and went inside
Its kind of sad.
to the great hall. As far as we could tell, the foodstuffs had been taken, but nothing else disturbed.
Razuli: Kid, Ive spent enough time here to know The barrier was intact, although the gummy resin
that those two are both idiots. They are pretty on the stakes seemed to have degraded, and flaked
sad. Ignore em, and do what you need to.
off in places. The barrier was made of large logs
and branches, sharpened in places, and bound toKortul: Dragon to the left.
gether mostly with rope. Something the size of a
human could scramble over it without much danger,
There was indeed a Dragon there, in the misty dis- but something much larger probably wouldnt make
tance. We couldnt tell if it was the same one, and it. The cavern beyond was quite large; there were a
frankly didnt want to find out. At least, most of few interesting rock formations, most of them broken
us didnt; Rourk had to be told that by the time he off at the base, but the cave seemed empty and dead.
reached it, it would have flown away again.
Rourk: Priest! I request of you a blessing before
Navero: I wish they wouldnt be so unkind. Espegoing in to battle the creature.
cially Dania; she is a very nice person, I dont
know why shes behaving like this.
Kortul: Find creature first. Dont waste time sitting around now.
Razuli: Dania? NICE? Kid, youre deluding yourself. She is better built than most elves... but
Dania: Yes, as long as were in here, we should keep
that isnt what you mean, now, is it?
moving.
Navero: Huh?
Rourk: You may explore ahead if you must. I shall

be prepared.
Razuli: Never mind. (sigh) Where the hell did
someone like you come from, anyway?
Navero: Uh, kneel, and take off your helmet.
Navero: From the Chapel of St. Glajmir of the
Glow, under Master Luminant. And its not Rourk: I have vowed not to face others until I have
proven myself worthy of it.
good to use that name. It might attract diabolical attentions, the likes of which thy soul would
Navero: Oh. Well, uh... O Lords of the Correct
quake to behold.
and Unalterable Way... The true shining path
of servitude and right... Please do look down
Razuli: Right. (chuckles)
on this, thy... humble servant, and give me the
Navero: And you shouldnt say such degrading
right and the power to instigate thy will. (Takes
things about others as you do. Others will treat
Rourks head between his hands) Look down
you as you see them. And you shouldnt drink
upon me, thy chosen instrument, and let your
of liquorous spirits. Or fraternize with the evil
will flow through me into this, our... protector,
or the undisciplined...
that he may have the courage... and skill... to
do thy holy works.
Razuli: Nav?
Rourk: Very good. (Tries to rise, but Navero conNavero: And... uh, yes?
tinues.)
Razuli: Shut up. And do your job. Ok?
Navero: Yea, though thy flesh-and-blood servants

be weak, O Lords, I do ask that you forgive us
Navero: But I must follow my faith.
all, each and every one... for our failures, be
they of mercy... or of will. Please, O Lords, let
Razuli: Fine. Do that. But youve been pretty
our petty differences be settled between us, and
fucking useless so far, you know, and shouldnt
may we unite to vanquish those who would move
be giving no sermons.
against your will.
Navero: But... Im sorry. But...
Rourk: Amen! (Again tries to rise, but Navero
Razuli: Fine. Now shut up.
continues.)
34
Navero: If one of us do drag the whole down, O

Lords, inspire that one with thine own strength,
that he may better serve the needs of all! Let
that one smite down that which divides us! Let
petty hatreds and pointless greed be ended!
(Shakes Rourks helmet. Rourks head rattles
around inside.)
Rourk: (Fume...) You are beneath contempt.
Rourk: Uh, priest...
Rourk: WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT!?
Navero: Please, O Lords! Forgive us all! We are

weak and stupid and humble before your eyes!
Let us also cast aside old hates, which our own
STUPIDITY drives on! Yea verily, the scars of
a thousand years can be healed with an act of
kindness, if kindness can possibly enter the tiny
minds of those who hold the hate!
Arlor: Nothin.
Dania: Come on, Rourk, you walked into that one.

Lets go now.
Rourk: I did not. I insist upon that fact.
Arlor: (giggles)
Our brave heroes climbed over the barrier, and

down to the cavern below. There they were met
by... absolutely nothing. No hungry Dragons, maniacally screaming slime monsters from the planet
Shruey*ed, not even so much as a rabid Kobold.
It was a huge, irregular cavern, about 60 feet across,
(Everyone is staring at Navero. Rourk starts to feel with entrances in the north and the east sides. Our
footsteps echoed, but there was no other sound.
uncomfortable.)
Navero: Let the fear of the FIRES and PAIN of
your punishments sit with us ALL! Yea, illuminate us, and show us our follies! Though we
be but as mortals, BLIND and STUPID, let it
be within your infinite kindness to give us your
wisdom, THAT WE MAY SEE OURSELVES!!
And let this discord CEASE!
Dania: Navero?
Navero: And look DOWN and... Yes?
Razuli: Is your robe too tight or something?
Rourk: Perhaps it is. (Quickly jerks away and
stands up.) A good blessing. Truly, a great
blessing. I thank you, priest.
Navero: Uh... yes. Uh... (Everyone continues to
stare.)
Arlor: Um...
Navero: uh...
Kortul: Hope yelling didnt attract monster.
Razuli: Oh, brother. Thats all we need. A loudspeaker for a priest.
Kortul: Thought all priests loud-speakers.
they became priests.
How
Rourk: Indeed. This one can certainly make a helmet echo.

Razuli: Of course! Its easy with such a big hollow
space.
35
Nice place. Wouldnt want to build a house

here, though. Dan Parsons
Harrison 3 & 4
c
1990
Jim Vassilakos
[email protected]
Jim began the Harrison Chapters during the mid 80s, the Imperial police would leave his subjects body on
intending the work to serve as filler for the setting cite. That would make verification of the time of
of his Traveller campaign. The third and fourth of death too simple a matter.
the series are reproduced here with his permission.
I thought you guys held a patients body for
autopsy.
We do. I least were supposed to. The nurse
hit a few more keys and scanned the screen for more
Three
data.
Are you family? The nurses eyebrows wrinkled in
Here. The verdict was heart attack due to
rehearsed concern as he scratched down Mikes name the stress medication. It happens occasionally. The
and Tizarian I.D. number.
bodys been taken to Greenflower mortuary.
No, but will this do? Mike showed the nurse
The news startled Mike momentarily, and he
his Galactican press clearance. The shiny blue and wondered what the Imps motives could be. He
silver card was nearly identical to his Tizarian per- pushed himself away from the console and straightsonal identification or his Imperial consumer profile. ened out, slowly perceiving the implications. The
The three were hard to tell apart at a glance.
nurse gazed up from the computer and tried to read
The young man nodded in acknowledgement and Mikes expression.
hurriedly escorted Mike through the long white corriMike finally smiled, At least Forks going out in
dors of the medical center. The usually polished floor style. Say, you got a spare hour?
tiles showed dirty tread markings where a pair of wet,
oversized starlaw boots had recently stomped. Mike
*
*
*
grinned and snapped a picture though he doubted
that analysis of the photo could tell much more than Surrounded by lush costal woodlands and set around
a wild flower garden, Greenflower easily rated as
the boot size and service division of its wearer.
The air felt slightly colder as the nurse pushed the prettiest community in Silver-Tri county. It was
aside a set of green double doors. The word Freez- small, quiet, nearly perfect in every way. Mike would
ers was painted in icy blue across their surface. Mike have lived there, but it lacked in one crucial respect:
no beach.
followed closely.
Mike watched the passing trees and sighed as the
So what dya want with a corpsicle anyway?
The nurse smiled at his own joke. He was being nurse suddenly turned delivery boy drove the white
too smooth. Mike guessed that they were giving grav-car along the highway. The med-center was behim loads of preferential treatment because they were ing too kind but totally predictable, loaning him a
nurse and a car, all to straighten out its reputation
scared silly of the bad press he could inflict.
Its a long story. Mike bent over the computer with one reporter from a very powerful news syndiand with a few quick keystrokes he scanned the reg- cate.
I hope youre enjoying this. The nurse sounded
istry of the dead. Niki had taught him how the system worked last month and the lesson came back to slightly irritated.
Sure am. Watch out for the cat.
him as quickly as were it taught yesterday. Such were
Small rain droplets marched steadily up the
the benefits of being lectured by a Siri, Mike thought
windshield and swerved sideways with every curve in
as the nurse approached the terminal.
Hey, wait a second buddy. The nurse was visi- the road as the sun poked between the clouds with
bly surprised, but he scanned the screen seeing Mike sporadic recess, its rays shattering into a kaleidoscope
of colorful, dancing patterns.
had found his way through the system.
Hes gone. Mike closed his eyes in the anticiCruising at a hundred kilometers per hour, the
pated frustration. It was too much too expect that grav-car sped over the highway at an approximate
36
altitude of one meter. Mike thought that it felt like

they were floating on a current of air though he knew
that wasnt the case. They were floating on the force
of gravity which was really the curvature of space.
Mikes mind began to swim with equations learned in
a series of undergraduate science courses he had been
dragged into by a friend. Something about downvectors and Higgs boson emissions. He couldnt quite
remember who to hate for it. Mike had always liked
science, but never enough to actually understand it.
The nurse pulled up to the mortuary and gently touched earth. Outside the deep grey building a
small service seemed to be taking place. The dark
gloomy afternoon made the mourners look like an assembly of Draconian diplomats dressed in sleek black
suits huddling together exchanging whispers. Their
somber mood was catching.
Mike climbed from the car and headed warily
for the mortuary. A pit of ashes was exposed to the
rain about a hundred feet from the buildings entrance, green clover petals curving in along its red
brick walls. The nurse, genuinely fascinated, stopped
to look down. It was archaic. Almost barbarian.
Mike entered the buildings lobby while the nurse
ran to catch up.
Whatd you see?
Nothing. It was too dark, the young man
puffed catching his breath.
May I help you gentlemen? A middle aged
woman with a pale complexion suddenly appeared
as if from thin air. She was dressed in a long black
gown and wore a black pearl necklace.
Mike took out his press clearance, I hope so.
Im looking for a man, I mean a body of a man which
was brought here this morning.
The women seemed strangely amused. Does
this body of a man have a name. Her words sang
out like music.
He was listed as a jay-dee eighteen from SilverTri costal med-center.
I see, She seemed absolutely enthralled.
Mike smiled, Great, then consciously dropped
his smile. Where is he?
She slipped between Mike and the nurse and
crept to the lobby entrance, opening the large oaken
doors and pointing her long slender arm toward the
ash pit. Mike watched the rain fall in disappointment.
and crimson waves, hanging precariously onto the

thin salty air. As if beckoning him forth, the sea approached within inches of his face and then receded
into the distance while thoughts twisted about in his
mind like delicate angels on their way to a darktimes
meal.
But something was missing; something was overlooked. And for the life of him, he didnt know what
it was. What to do when youre deadended? Go
back and re-examine the facts. But there were no
facts. Everything was hidden behind lies.
Unable to sleep in his only true home, he picked
himself up and walked back toward the house. The
huge wooden doors seemed even more menacing when
sober, but he managed them open and headed to the
kitchen for a brew.
His soft bed and cold beer summed up the perfect
way to spend an evening, but as he sat on the edge of
the covers the camera drew away his attention. Near
the wall, it sat on the rug where he had dropped it
less than an hour ago as if pleading like a child for a
trip to the zoo, take me a picturing, I want to have
fun.
Mike smiled and stretched out on the floor beside
his toy. He opened the workset and began to review
the pictures in memory. He zipped past a Telmarian
mountain range where strange animals carried supplies across a snow ridge to the local guerrilla faction,
then floated along Tizarian waters as a shuttle from
nearby Aquapolis darted from under the seascape
in a beautifully chaotic conglomeration of white water spray and a rainbow of sunshine, then noticed a
Calannaan temple where the alter priests sacrificed
a political dissident with knives and a chainsaw, but
only one picture grabbed his attention that of two
starlaw guards scowling outside a medical center entrance in the wee hours of morning.
Mike pivoted the picture into different corners of
the screen and tried to decide where it would look
best hanging from the wall. He reversed the colors, intensified the light, rotated the picture around,
zoomed out for a wideangle, and suddenly noticed
what was missing.
The small distorted numbers mocked him from
the far corner of the screen. He manually zoomed in
on them and refocused. How could he be so stupid?
The medical center had no permanent cargo shuttle.
The vessel must have belonged to the Imperials.
*
*
*
He looked toward the controller wall, Cindy,
The setting suns amber beams tanned the evening load file from Silver-Tri. Find Imperial shuttle
coast, streaming thoughtlessly past the white wa- 8372919041.
She responded within the second, That shuttle
ters edge, scattering sullenly across Michael Harrisons tired features. He watched two gulls, wings is found.
outstretched, gliding peacefully over the shifting blue
Where is it now?
37
Docked onto the independent fast-merchant,

Nissithiu, which has jumped out of system fifteen
point two centims ago.
The idea itched like a hunch sent by the devil,
What was the cargo?
It was dropping off pharmaceutics.
Departure cargo?
None.
Mike leaned back on the bed, Thats pretty
strange, leaving a world as wealthy as Tizar.
Cindy gave no reply.
Where is the ship headed?
Flight orders dont state.
They should.
They dont.
Then read topside nav-data and figure it out.
Mike hated lazy computers.
Cindy came back to him after a few seconds,
This will take me twenty-four point seven centims
to compute.
Why so long?
Im not a navigation computer.
He shrugged, Fine, Take your time.
Now computing, she responded as if more than
a little annoyed.
Mike grinned. Shed be working until well past
midnight. At least he now knew how to keep her
busy.
As he stepped back outside, beer in paw, he shot
the dying sun a victory smile and sat down on the
damp sands under a chilly wind. Then, curling up
next to the surf, Mike closed his eyes and tried not to
dream. Songs of water and birds soothed him with
a serenity beyond mere music as he drifted away to
other seas.
*
Slowly, his soul floated about in black and empty

space. Silently, a touch from above pulled him away
from sleeps cherished womb. Sounds of music, songs
from the sea, clustered around him like the players of
an opera theater, sinking in and out of the void with
a strange, perhaps arranged harmony.
She bore no expression as he opened his eyes.
He felt himself gripped with a strange combination
of confusion and fear as the black sky above cast a
bold contrast around her disarranged golden blonde
hair and deep blue eyes.
She smiled sweetly whispering, Good morning.
For a moment, he felt as if he was dreaming, but
the rush of questions was uncharacteristic of sleepthink. In dreams he could accept that life was death
and good was evil, but on the surface of thought there
was only the here and the now and many, many questions.
Why are you here?
We found your psyche.
The cold tide washed the tips of Mikes toes as a
cool, salty breeze lifted a few strands of Robins hair.
Drop the story, or youll never see her again.
Robin walked slowly up the beach as Mike sat
still in the sand watching the ocean horizon curve
away into the distance.
*
Dawn was particularly brilliant along the coast, a

primary reason for his choosing to live there. Mike
watched the sunrise with a rueful stare as the dull,
throbbing pain stuck like a stiff arrow in the base of
his skull. Bitterly, he picked his sand encrusted self
off the beach and headed wearily toward the house.
Grains of earth fell off him with each dismal step.
The large livingroom reeked of a dreary gloom.
Mike glanced toward the couch and the pillow where
her head had rested two nights before. He walked
sullenly into the bedroom. The far curtains remained
closed, dimming the room. The chain locket shed
given him rested on his bed with the camera.
Hello.
It beeped compulsively as a point of light danced
around the controller screen.
Yes?
The Nissithiu went to the Calanna star system.
Oh.
Mike tumbled the junk off the bed, all except for
the locket. It was in the shape of a heart with words
inscribed along the front: Go For It!
Place audio connection call to Linden.
The light danced around the screen.
Done.
Mike gathered up his breath.
Hi, Whats up Mike? It was Lindens voice.
Morning editor.
Yes, and a very nice one it is too. Is there anything I can do for you?
Mike consciously tried collecting his spirit.
Why did you tell Clay?
What?
You heard me.
I dont understand, Mike. What happened?
Theyve got Niki.
...You think I told Clay about her?
I know you did, Chuck. I just wanna know
why.
Now dont start hurling accusations, buddy. I
didnt say a thing to Clay or anybody else. Now,
38
tell me exactly what happened. Did she screw up or

something?
No.
Well, how do you know?
Shes not a screw-up! Okay?!
Well, I didnt say anything. Editors honor,
Mike.
Bullshit.
The honest truth.
No, it had to be you.
Nope.
Chuck, if I find out later...
Im clean.
Chuck... stupid question coming up...
Mike scratched his head with the locket searching for the right words.
You ready?
I love dumb questions. Shoot.
Whens the last time you had your office
checked for bugs?
Silence.
Chuck?!?
The line was dead.
Four
Mike leaned over the mottled piece of metal which
had fused itself beyond recognition. The analysis specialist scanned his expression.
Theres no way we can trace manufacture; its
just too far gone, she explained.
Have you found anymore?
Nearly a dozen, Charles Linden broke in,
somewhat heatedly. Mike could almost see his bosss
anger steaming off the heavy overcoat he wore to protect himself from the labs sub-zero temperature.
I dont understand it at all, he continued.
Why would Clay go to all the trouble? And whats
so important about this dead John Doe?
Mike glanced at the specialist who seemed to be
examining the editor with an unconcerned stare. He
hoped she wasnt the type to blab.
Look Chuck, there are warmer places to discuss
this.
Linden was keen on the idea of getting out of the
lab, not so much because of the third party with ears
and a mouth as due to the chill. He and Mike took
the lift down to the subways leaving the company
security personnel to the unhappy clean-up their own
incompetence had prompted.
The subway train to Greenflower was nearly
empty, and the trip uneventful. Linden was, for once,
totally unconcerned about what was happening on
the floor. The scores of staff writers would just be

sending him more meaningless trash which he would
later strip to the bare facts and send back due to lack
of content. It was always the same old story at the
middle of the week.
Mike promised something far more interesting
for the readers, and for the editor as well. Linden
had suddenly taken a personal interest in the story, a
big no-no in his business. But it was worth bending
a few rules, and it felt right. It was even worth a trip
to the pit of ashes.
The late morning air warmed Linden as sunshine
broke through the white fluffy clouds and streamed
down in long silver threads from the heavens. He
hiked alongside Mike etching a trail through the dewsodden expanse of grass. Birds were darting about in
the brisk morning air. Their songs were like a childs
laughter, almost mocking yet innocent.
The pit suddenly lay before them, its sides sinking into the earth without warning. A variety of religious symbols decorated the inner surfaces informing
wayward souls to beware the footsteps of the dead as
the familiar sweet scent of ash and apple resin hung
heavy in the air. Linden sat down on the red brick
lifting his chin and squinting at Mike through the
bright beams of sunlight.
Not what you expected, Mike cautiously broke
the silence.
No, Linden admitted. Its too... He couldnt
pull off the words.
Antique?
Old fashioned. Its too dated.
I thought you were into that Chuck, Mike
prodded smiling.
I am, but theres a limit. This is so undignified.
Its a mass burial.
Just another screwed up religion. Mike
stretched out his arm pointing down the pit approvingly, But you have to admit, they did a great job.
What? I dont follow.
The Imps. They kill Fork, and get rid of his
body so perfectly that theres no way I can get a
confirmation on the time of death.
Sure, but why the mass burial? Why not just
cremate him and leave it at that?
Mike kicked a stone into the pit, Because he
isnt dead.
You just said they killed him, Linden countered.
Mike shrugged, I lied. If they just wanted him
dead and gone, theyd have done what you said.
Linden stood up. He glared at Mike in spontaneous disbelief but knew the reporter well enough to
39
realize that doubting was useless and quite possibly

counter-productive.
Explain, Linden finally insisted.
The Imps want to stage a fake death. They
snatch Fork and put some poor fool in his place, kill
the guy and send the body to the incinerators. But
that still isnt good enough. They now have to get
rid of the remains in a legal manner, but in such
a way that these remains cannot be later analyzed
to prove the guy who got burned wasnt Fork. Even
ashes can be analyzed. Admittedly, it isnt something
we often do, but it can be done. People dont often
share identical body chemistry. A mere difference of
as little as a gram in solid weight would be enough
to...
Enough, Linden interrupted, Ive got the
idea. The only legal way to dispose of the ashes in a
manner in which they cannot be later analyzed is to
mix them with other ashes. Thus, the ash pit.
Exactly.
Linden laughed, Its a really neat theory Mike.
Now prove it.
Mike looked at the wet grass in front of his feet,
If I try, I lose Niki.
What makes you so sure you havent already?
Mike considered the editors question with antipathy.
I know what youre thinking Harrison.
Do you?
Ive already sent for company personnel, off
planet. They should be here in a few days.
Chuck, if we had a few days we wouldnt be
talking.
Regardless of all other considerations, I wont
use our current security staff to deal with this... situation.
Mike shot his boss a rueful grin, You dont trust
them.
After what happened... would you?
We can always go to Tizar police. Even though
shes unregistered, theyve been supportive in such
matters before.
Linden shook his head in flat refusal, You know
as well as I that the paper cannot risk this getting
out.
She a friend, Chuck.
Shes also a psyche. And Clay is a damn boardmember. Theres no win here; we have no choice but
to wait and let company people handle it.
If we wait, it may be to late.
Shes already lost, buddy. If you think youll
ever see her again... Linden cut himself off midsentence. Im sorry.
Its okay. Youre probably right.
So what are you going to do? The editor carefully enunciated each syllable with the utmost patience.
What dyou think I should do?
If theyre hiding, we must chase. Ill get one of
the papers private starships to take you to Calanna.
I know you didnt have much fun last time you were
there, but like they say, duty calls.
Fine, but dont stick me in some ice box.
I wouldnt dream of it, Linden pledged. He
knew well Mikes distaste for low passage.
And what about Niki? If theres any chance...
Linden gazed back into the pit for some inspiration, but the same anger kept welling within him.
Mike studied his boss as the sunlight shined off Lindens black boots and whisked the corners of his eyes.
Whatever you do between now and the time
you leave is your own business, he insisted. You
understand?
*
Mike and Chuck took the escalator down to the floor

from p872. As they entered the ten acre room all
they could hear was the clicking of fingers on keyboards and the dull chatter of hundreds of gatherers.
Lindens press office lay at dead center, and a small
group of grouchy staff writers wandered about outside the entrance.
Why the committee, Mike wondered allowed.
Linden explained, Theres been talk of a strike.
Havent you been reading the paper?
Must have missed it. Serious?
They just like making waves. It was one of
Chucks pet phrases. Staff writers and clericals were
both labeled as replaceable by management. If they
decided to strike, there would be no problem finding
new recruits. For this reason, their union demands
were generally ignored. But even so, they still liked
to stomp around and threaten the editor every other
year or so. Mike was glad he wasnt following it.
I guess you read the news once and youve read
it a thousand times, Mike quoted.
Watch that kiddo.
They went their separate ways, and Mike felt the
better of it. He didnt envy Lindens job in the least.
Hey Harrison. Havent seen you here in a
while.
Hi Mike.
Hey buddy, whereve you been?
Walker. Kim. Chris, Ive been sick.
I see the boss is catching it too. I hope you
guysve been having safe sex.
Chris, youre an asshole.
40
Happy birthday to you too buddy.

Come to think of it, Mike didnt envy his own
job either. Not that he didnt like gathering. He just
didnt like many gatherers.
There also came those moments which he genuinely regretted. These he called mistakes. Being
seen walking in late with the editor was but one example. He hoped he didnt just call too much attention
to himself. Having a trail of story-starved gatherers
tagging along could seriously jeopardize his chances
of sneaking up on Clay.
Mike sat down at his desk and switched on his
terminal scanning the latest breaking headlines.
Staffwriters Prepare For Strike
Youth Locked In Freezer Eats Own Foot
Upcoming Press Banquet...
So whats up? It was Bill Walker. He was another crack investigative gatherer. Not very successful, but crack all the same. His youth was his greatest advantage and his biggest stumbling block. Mike
could remember what it was like.
Not much. How bout you?
Nothin. Did you see the one about the banquet? Youre gonna be speaking. Bill knew how
much Mike hated to read the paper and thus usually
never got word about these things until it was too
late to make reservations for an interstellar cruise.
The one before it looked more interesting. You
write it? Mike accused in his most inquiring tone.
Wish I did. It was something Bill would write.
He had a flare for the gory.
Whered you get cut? Mike just noticed Bill
had a nasty slash under his left ear taking the whole
length of cheek down to his dark sunburnt chin.
Mama did it, he laid out. There was a glint
of amusement in his grey-blue eyes. Otherwise he
seemed deadly serious.
Walker, youve got a sweet mama.
She is.
But youre a sick bastard.
Do you really mean it?
Mike turned back to his headlines pretending he
had serious work to do.
I really got into a fight with my neighbors cat.
Thats really fascinating. Mike mimicked
Walkers distinctive really without effort. It was
a common part of their interaction on the rare occasion that both were on the floor.
Mike didnt mind the wasted time. He knew it
would pay for itself eventually. Walker was young
and often useful when he wanted to be. He and Mike
worked together occasionally on the difficult parts of
each others assignments. Mike sometimes thought of
himself as a kind of mentor teaching a newcomer the

tricks of the trade.
But as much as he liked working with Bill
Walker, he knew the young man was also dangerous
to be around. He took too many unwarranted risks
as far as Mike was concerned. He got himself into
scrapes that hed have to fight himself out of. But as
the boss would often testify, it was all part of the job.
*
So whats really going on? Bill asked an hour later

as he finished picking the seeds out of his xisimo core.
His elbows rested on the clear surface of the table as
he tossed slivers of the fruit cut by his laser knife high
into the air and caught them smoking between his
teeth. This was one reason the cafeteria staff insisted
they sit in the corner, Mike thought.
Youre about to catch your tongue on fire.
Only if I miss. Cmon Mike. I need a story.
The well is dry buddy. Im dying of thirst.
So you want to steal mine?
Ive shared with you, Bill acted hurt.
Yeah, shared crap.
Cmon Mike. Admit it. You need me.
Like I need my penis to fall off, Mike agreed
thoughtfully.
Bill ignored the comment, Remember that time
on Telmar? Who saved who? Huh? He pointed the
blade of his weapon at Mike, You owe me one.
Mike gulped down the last of his beer and hoped
nobody was listening.
Hell, you owe me two. Remember...
I wasnt aware we were counting. But now that
we are, how many do you think you owe me?
Bill estimated a number in his head. Then finally
gave in with a sheepish look, Okay, Ill drop it.
*
Mike spent most of the afternoon on the computer

running searches on Clay and beginning a journal for
the story complete with facts, photos, and tapes of
conversations. Everyone else was minding their own
business which was nice for a change, though they
didnt seem to have very much to do. Private reports kept coming in, forwarded from Linden, on new
melted pieces of metal being found in Chucks private
residence and on his clothes. There was even one under the seat he sat in during lunch. Such is the life
of an editor, Mike smiled.
He kept smiling until his searches started coming
up negative. Clay seemed to have disappeared over
the past two days except for one use of his corporate
41
credit card at a shop in aquapolis just that morning.

He bought an expensive tie.
Otherwise, zip. He hadnt signed any business or
legal documents. He wasnt at his office. He wasnt
at his flat in Silver Tri. He hadnt been using the
subway. He hadnt so much as peed in an executive
toilet. Deadend, pure and simple. The only good
thing Mike could tell was that he certainly hadnt
left the planet. That would have made things a little
too complicated.
I can tell you where Clay is. Mike turned with
alarming speed, almost giving himself the second near
whiplash of the week.
Youve got to break that habit, Mike. Seriously. It was Bill again.
What the hell do you want, Walker?
I can tell you where Clay is. This time it registered. Mike opened his eyes wide, then looked around
to be sure nobody was listening.
Where?
Snow Country. Hes staying in a friends cabin.
Some sort of ski vacation.
What friend? Mike nearly growled it.
Some sort of business associate with the paper.
I dont remember the name, but I can find out.
How do you know this?
Bill shrugged, If I told you... maybe it would
rain for me. A smug grin crossed his lips, but his
eyes remained laser sharp, like the knife he carried
for occupational emergencies.
You want in on this one? Mike hated to offer,
but he had little choice.
You dont have to let me in if you dont want
to.
In or out? Im not saying please.
Bill considered it for all of two seconds, Okay,
Im in.
*
The infrared goggles penetrated the icy pitch darkness, making the chimney top of the well insulated
Solomon mansion seem like a beacon of light on an
otherwise frozen landscape. Mike bit his upper lip as
he lay prone in the snow, considering the fair possibility that Billys grapevine might be wrong.
Thank mama theres no wind, Bill whispered.
Mike smiled as the phrase. Clay would have thanked
the lord; Mike might have thanked the night, but Bill
would thank his mama.
Thank mama theyve got a fire going, Mike
countered. Bill quietly agreed. The house might have
been doubly invisible without it.
So get goin, Bill prodded.
Mike dropped the goggles and crawled over the

hard slippery ice away from his flycycle. He hoped
the vehicle would carry three on the off chance theyd
find Niki inside.
As Mike quickly reviewed the plan in his head,
he began to wonder if the computers information was
up to date. It showed three entrances to the house;
a front, a garage, and a servants entrance. In fact,
it gave him the entire floor plans including electrical
access, water, and sewage piping which he and Bill
studied most of the evening. Being a reporter on
Tizar accorded some amazing privileges.
Mike reached the garage. The door had an hard
polymer bolt fashioned to undermine the courage of
any would be thieves. He couldnt see it, but he knew
a fancy security alarm would be hidden behind. All
the locks would be like this one if the computer told
the truth. All would be difficult to saw. At least here
he wouldnt be heard.
The borrowed laser knife switched on silently.
The little bit of light that it shed was enough for Mike
to see what he was doing, though he didnt need the
luxury. He knew exactly where to make the initial
incision killing the alarm as it were. The rest was
grunt work as laser grinded against polymer. Now it
was only a question of time.
*
Mr. John Clay relaxed in a cushioned rocking chair

as he warmed his feet by the fireplace. It was quaint
but effective, he mused as he slowly rocked back and
forth, like fire itself. He glanced at the wooden chessboard where he had defeated his host, Mr. Soloman;
the two kings now stood alone face to face at center
board. Not very happy was he, Clay almost giggled.
The corporation did not encourage good losers. In
that, he was somewhat of an outcast.
He knew he had failed, but at least he was finished. Now he would soon leave Tizar and return to
the home of his childhood. He smiled faintly at the
thought.
Suddenly a noise thrust him to full consciousness. Someone was yelling and slamming his fist
against the front door.
Who could it possibly be at such an ungodly
hour? Clay got to his feet, hoping the sound hadnt
awakened his host.
Ill get it, sir. Marley, the night guard took
only few seconds to appear from the kitchen area.
He seemed stiff and angry.
Open up! Please hurry! Someone... Oh thank
goodness. Youve got to help. Theres been a terrible
accident. Do you have a vidiophone?!
42
Who are you? The guards face was stern as

he looked over the young man. His long stringy black
hair was wet from the snowfall, and he held a heavy
steel flashlight in his right hand which he kept shining
in the guards eyes.
Oh please! Let me in. Its a matter of life and
death! Ive got to use your videophone. Theres been
a terrible accident... The young man was panting
from exhaustion.
Where?!
Out there, the young man, exasperated, waved
his arm back into the darkness.
*
Mike quickly cut through the lock at the back of the

garage leading into the storage hall. Hearing the commotion up front, he slipped into the hall and ran
to the kitchen area. The polymer bolt had taken
more time than he anticipated. He had to hurry. He
reached the security office just a minute behind schedule.
The office was full of little television screens, and
there was a desk with a control station. An eight-pack
of fun-punch was set on the floor next to the largest
screen where the highlights of a tourist hunting safari
were being broadcast in via satellite from the far side
of the planet by channel #117 sports. Mike scanned
the other monitors and saw the recording light on
one. He grinned when he saw Bills face, desperate,
nearly frantic. Bill was always good at diversions.
Mike took out the current disk being recorded
and slipped it into his pocket. He grabbed a blank
from the desk and melted it down with the knife in
one swift stroke. Then, by flipping a few red switches,
he disconnected the batteries and shut off power to
the entire mansion.
The guard turned around in surprise when the
stairwell suddenly darkened. He didnt have time to
feel the blow to the back of his skull. He was already
unconscious.
Mike raced into the room. The fire and the knife
blade were the only sources of light in the entire
house. Clay stood motionless, hoping he wouldnt
be noticed.
Morning Mr. Clay.
Good morning, Michael. You wanted to see
me?
Well, yes sir. I was hoping to talk to you about
how irresponsible the press has been acting lately.
Its a damn disgrace.
Bill walked in, now competing for stage presence.
To think a few reporters could spoil a whole code of
ethics through some gross dereliction of duty. He was
shaking his head sadly and he homed in on Clay.
Mike continued, Overzealous is perhaps more

the word. Derelict implies neglect. What do you
think Mr. Boardmember? Mike held the blade to
Clays throat, igniting the bare traces of aftershave
near his chin.
What do you want?
Niki. You. Robin. Not necessarily in that order.
Your research assistant is upstairs in the south
guest room. You can go get her. Clays breath was
heavy with fear.
Lend me the flashlight Billy.
It broke.
Mike pivoted his glance, You hit with the back.
I know. I forgot.
Clay strained a smile, If you two professionals
dont mind being interrupted, I happened to notice
that the guard was carrying...
Sit down and shut-up.
Merely trying to be helpful. He sat back down
in the rocking chair.
Mike stripped the flashlight off the guards belt
and picked up an automatic pistol and a pair of handcuffs to boot. He gave the knife to Bill and wrapped
Clays arms around the back of the chair, securing
them with the handcuffs before he headed upstairs.
Slowly, carefully, he measured each step as he neared
the top of the plush stairwell searching for the barest
reason to shoot someone. The south guest room was
just down the hall. He found the door unlocked.
Niki was inside, on the bed, heavily sedated. Mike
picked her up gently, very much relieved to find her
unharmed. Content with his prize, he climbed back
down the stairs.
Okay sport, wheres Robin. Mike set Nikis
limp body on the floor by the guard.
Asleep, upstairs.
Bill rocked the chair roughly at the answer. I
wasnt aware androids slept.
She likes to pretend.
So shes heard everything.
Clay offered a smile, No, she shuts her senses
down, expect for touch.
Suddenly the stairwell light came back on. Mike
whirled around to face the kitchen. He lifted the gun
half expecting to see Robin running in to save her
master. Clay had, of course, lied. Mike inwardly debated blowing the old man away right there. He could
almost see the image of blood cascading through the
air as the chair would rock backward plunging its occupant into the fireplace. Mike nearly smiled at the
thought.
Mike...
43
I know. Get Niki and get out of here. He tossed

He was too tired and she was too far away. InBill the flashlight.
stead, he listened carefully for her laughter. But she
was gone.
What about you?!
Ill think of something. Go!
Bill didnt argue. He dragged Niki out the front
door as fast as his feet would carry him, leaving Mike
with Clay to wonder how many bullets it would take
shatter the circuits of a pissed off android.
Shes very cunning Mr. Harrison. Youd best be
careful. Clay seemed amused. Hes trying to distract
me, Mike thought.
Ignoring Clay, Mike slinked quietly toward the
kitchen entrance, wondering with each ill-fated step
how good the androids hearing was. Exceptional, he
supposed. The designers could make her as well as
they wanted. He tried to make his breathing silent,
but he only succeeded in noticing every small sound
he made whether it was a footstep, a breath, or even
a heartbeat.
Suddenly the door swung open. Miraculously, he
squeezed off a shot in time. Her head snapped back
from the impact, but it didnt stop her. She struck
him with phenomenal force, and Mike felt as if his
entire chest were caving in. In another moment her
hand darted up. That was all he remembered.
*
It was a little like watching the stars fall. The cold

coastal breeze gripping and then letting go, the tan
sands which seemed rather darker than tan, and that
distant disoriented feeling would combine on rare occasion when the stars fell from the sky.
Mike saw the stars falling clearly enough. He
could feel the chill. But it was the disorientation
that stole the show. He made numerous attempts at
standing, but he never quite managed it. The ground
seemed to rock like a see-saw back and forth as he lay
down, and whenever he tried to get on his feet hed
upset the balance and the entire room would turn
upside-down and send him crashing to the ceiling and
after a moment back to the floor again.
He heard voices far away almost shouting. They
seemed to be very angry voices, but he couldnt understand the words. Suddenly he knew the language
was foreign. Then he heard a girl giggling, but he
couldnt place the laugh. It was a sweet innocent
laughter which reminded him of the birds singing at
Greenflower. But it was very near. Mike thought
he could touch it if he reached out his arm just far
enough, but suddenly it ceased. He knew she was
close. His hand searched for her, but she wouldnt
be found. He crawled toward her for a few feet, and
then slumped down in despair.
44
An Interview with Michael Harrison

c
1990
Jim Vassilakos
This is a supplement/prelude to the Harrison Chap-
Memory: Youre height?

ters for the more religious reader. Many thanx to
Wally Neilsen-Steinhardt, Kathy Reinig, Ed Barach Harrison: Average.
& [email protected] for supplying the perMemory: Could you please be more precise.
sonality profile format.
Harrison: Probably.
Memory: Okay, Mr. Harrison...
Memory: Well?
Harrison: Is that thing on?
Harrison: Im 180 centimeters.
Memory: Yes. As you are no doubt aware, MemMemory: Weight?

ory is an Outworld Publication dedicated to the
gathering of biographical information regarding Harrison: Seventy-five kilograms.
popular figures of our time for the purpose of
Memory: Hair color?
constructing...
Harrison: Is this youre standard speel?
Harrison: Brown, tending toward auburn or so Ive

been told.
Memory: Yes. ...for the purpose of constructing

more accurate historical pictures for generations Memory: Eye color?
to come. As such...
Harrison: Yknow, I can just give you a picture if it
Harrison: ...nothing I say will be released for
would help.
at least ten standard years after my official
demise...
Memory: Eye color?
Memory: Youre stealing me lines?
Harrison: Brown.
Harrison: You wanna do this interview or not?
Memory: How old are you?
Memory: Fair enough. Lets start off with the basics. Self description. What is your name?
Harrison: Thirty-seven standards.

Memory: Your birthdate is 218-619?
Harrison: You tell me.
Harrison: I believe thats right.
Memory: Please Mister Harrison...
Memory: And your place of birth being Eden, Poseidon subsector, Ares sector, Hercules centrant,
the Empire.
Harrison: Call me Mike. For the record, I was christened Michael James Harrison. Imperial bureaucracy recognizes only the first and last name,
however.
Harrison: Yes.
Memory: Christened?
Memory: Tell me about it.
Harrison: Yknow, baptized? It had to do with

some religion my parents subscribed to.
Harrison: I dont really know what theres to tell.

Most people already know about what happened.
Memory: Do you?
Memory: From Shattered Eden. Wed like to hear

the short of it again.
Harrison: No...
45
Harrison: Okay, well... Eden is just a little satellite

much about them very appealing. Some intersurrounding Nod, the systems main gas giant.
stellar law in there. Ive learned to ride a flycycle.
The core is so dense, however, that its gravYou cant do that very well on Tyber. Airs to
itational influence is strong enough to attract
dirty and acidic. I learned more about operating
a descent atmosphere which supports a terracomputers than I expected to. Ive had to shoot
norm ecosystem. The planets anarchist state
a gun from time to time, not that Id call myself a
was founded by a rebellion within the Imperial
marksman or anything. Ive picked up more bits
military during the 2nd civil war. It seems that
and pieces of various languages. Its funny how
in the thick of the struggle, Constantine wanted
they begin to fit together, astrographically. You
to test a top secret war device capable of implodsee how dialects tend to evolve, how environment
ing gas giants. Thats the rumor anyway. The
dictates vocabulary; its really more interesting
population rebelled, taking control of the naval
than it sounds.
facility orbiting the gas giant. After the war, the
archduke tried reconsolidation, effectively killing Memory: Im sure...
off 99% of the population with a biological agent Harrison: Fine... be that way.
popularly known as the Death Bug. However, he
was forced to shift his attention with the Siri re- Memory: What were you doing a year ago?
bellion and didnt get back to us until there was
I was on Telmar last year. There was a civil war
already a big stink in the TNS.
in the brewing. Long story. I got paid very well.
Bill went with me. We almost got shot a couple
The sparse population that remains doesnt have
times. I also visited Tyber and Calanna before
much more of a government then youd expect
that. Routine jobs to make ends meet. I was
for a small town. Further, theyre all spread out
having trouble financing the house. Pissed me
far enough all over the world that nobody is reoff, because here I was with this big house and I
ally capable of dictating rules to anybody else.
couldnt even live in it.
There are certain standards over whats proper
and whats not, but thats about all.
Memory: What were you doing a month ago?
Memory: Will you ever go back there?
Harrison: Recuperating from a hangover probably.

The festivities after Telmar never seemed to
Harrison: Im a little scared of the place to be honcease. Me and Bill had a lot to celebrate beest, not that I dont want to go back, mind you.
sides the money. I never did find out what he
My parents got me off planet before they died of
did with his half.
an emerging strain of the bug. We were of the
very few who were uninfected. Most of the folks Memory: Do you work?
left still carry various strains. Our medical technology is good enough to effectively quarantine Harrison: I thought it was my so-called work that
led to this interview.
and occasionally to stop its progression, but not
so good as a cure. In 628 my parents found out Memory: Were just sucking the air out. In you
they had the bug. Luckily is wasnt contagious
honest opinion, do you work?
enough to overcome my immunizations. They
knew id get it sooner or later if I stuck around, Harrison: Well, I like to pretend I do; on occasion
so they got rid of me ASAP.
at least. My job allows me to take the role of
the independently wealthy eccentric from time
Memory: Where were you educated?
to time, only Im not old enough to play the part
very well. I tend to just sit around and sniff for
Harrison: I was shipped off to Tyber, a yucky-foo
something interesting mostly. Niki helps with
place I never got used to. I studied foreign lanthat.
guages, some history, and journalism. The university offered vacation packages to Tizar since Memory: Doing what?
it was so close, so thats how I got here.
Harrison: The job title is independent gatherer. In
the news business, that means Im a cross beMemory: What have you learned since then?
tween a hired gun and a snoopy house guest.
Harrison: Ive learned quite a bit about various culInstead of being put on such and such a story, I
tures and religions since Ive taken this job, not
go out and find stories. If that means breaking
46
the law, I can always plead freedom of the press.

You get good at it after awhile.
someone is lying to me gets me mad, but as a

professional gatherer you learn to channel those
sort of emotions into some constructive... usually
that is.
Memory: How do you like to spend your spare time?

Harrison: How do I like to spend my spare time or
how do I usually end up spending my spare time.
Thats the difference between taking nice long
walks on the beach and curling up half-drunk
hoping the waves dont drown you before morning. Im lazy. I like to relax. Occasionally I get
into a social mood, but that usually passes like
most other modern insanities.
Memory: What makes you happy?

Harrison: Being with friends. I guess Im easy to
please.
Memory: What makes you laugh?
Harrison: Niki makes me laugh. Some of the local

headlines in the Galactican are designed for humors sake. When youre into news as a business,
Memory: What do you like most?
entertainment tends to take precedence over inHarrison: Well, Im not sure its printable... okay,
formation content.
everythings printable... but barring anything
entirely uncivilized, I like being with friends such Memory: What experience has made the strongest
mark on you?
as they are; I like to watch the sun set on the
oceans horizon; I like picnics and riding my flyHarrison: Probably losing my parents. No surprises
cycle over the flat sands on the coast. I like my
there. Losing Kitara also. They had a lot in
job. That surprises most folks. Something about
common. They all knew it was coming. When I
busting the big people always makes my day, pargo, I hope its quick. Id rather not deal with the
ticularly if theyre Imperials. I guess it doesnt
anticipation.
take much imagination to figure out why.
Memory: What person has made the strongest
Memory: What do you like least?
mark on you?
Harrison: Nightmares are never fun.
Drunken
Harrison: My parents shaped me into who I am.
nightmares are worse. Having to do grunt work
After they died, Id have to give the trophy to
isnt much fun either. My first job as a gatherer,
Tara. It wasnt just her execution on Calanna,
I was watching people walk out of a subway exit,
although that had a lot to do with it. She was
counting heads for some statistician because he
just special.
didnt trust the transit board figures. That was
before Shattered Eden came out. Being an un- Memory: In what way?
known was generally a drag. Being well known
has its own problems, but theyre completely op- Harrison: In many ways. Id rather not get into it.
posite and can often be turned to an advantage,
so I dont have too much to complain about. I Memory: What have you done that you are most
proud of?
think the thing I like least about my job is that
it takes me and my friends into situations that Harrison: My first book, Shattered Eden. Only afare downright lethal at times. Clandestine drops
ter getting it out, published, talked about, was
are the worst. That whole episode on Telmar was
I ever really able to come to terms with what
extremely stupid. That fact that our team took
the Imps did there. The Galactican ran lengthy
only one fatality, albeit the team leader, is someexcerpts. It wasnt the money or even the fact
thing we like to pretend were proud over. The
that it put me on the map. Believe it or not,
truth is that luck plays a larger part than people
I didnt make all that much from it. First time
will usually admit.
writers rarely do. Tyberian Publications reaped
Memory: What makes you angry?
Harrison: Losing a good friend. When I lost Kitara,
that really blew my day. Maybe because of my
parents, those things dont affect me like theyd
get to most people. Maybe. For day to day
things I like to maintain an even keel. Knowing
47
billions off me, or so Ive been told, but being

new in the business, I had to swallow a lot of
their shit. They stuck me out on a ten year contract. Everything I wrote. Since I already had
ties to the Galactican, they basically rented me
out. It wasnt until the renegotiation that I could
even buy this house.
Memory: What have you done that you are most

ashamed of?
with a nice house, and not having to worry about

money... I have to say me and money have generally gotten along rather well.
Harrison: Leaving my parents when they were sick.

I went willingly. It was the only way it would Memory: How about the knowledge access that
have worked. Since I was a minor, I couldnt
comes with the job?
even be prosecuted. I basically let them take all
Harrison: For a gatherer, knowledge and money
the risks. A better son wouldve stayed.
are interchangeable commodities. Knowledge for
There are other things. Taking pics of salamen
knowledges sake Ill leave to scholars.
on Aiwelk wasnt the best thing I ever did. I
didnt have much of a choice, of course; I was Memory: How about the power it can afford?
still being rented out by Tyberian Pub. And it
Harrison: It comes in handy to know that you can
wasnt like I was pulling the trigger. But...
rip waves through other peoples lives and to
And then theres Tara. That never sleeps. I keep
know that they know it too. Being an well known
thinking of other things I could have tried to do.
gatherer affords that privilege, and I do use it
Theres Davin. There wasnt too much I couldve
from time to time. Again, its all a matter of
done about that, but then again you never know.
leverage and what youre trying to achieve by
The guilt is spread pretty thick in this business.
using it. Having power simply to have power
has never made much sense to me. That sort of
Memory: Do you have a philosophy of life?
thing doesnt give me a charge.
Harrison: I keeping thinking Ive heard every one
there is or could possibly be until another comes Memory: Sometimes you work takes you into physical conflict. Any words to share with us on that
sprinting along. No, I dont keep any favorites.
topic?
Memory: Do you have a religion?
Harrison: To be honest, Id rather run. Sometimes
Harrison: If I pray, itll probably be to the moon
you feel you have to fight, or that you have some
dogs of space or Bills mama. Ive never been
advantage and can afford to be cocky. If you
taken in by that stuff. About all I can say, beliefwanna interview a fighter, interview Bill. He enwise, is that I think theres more out there than
joys that sorta thing.
what we realize. What it is, I dunno.
Memory: How does killing make you feel?
Memory: Could you be more specific?
Harrison: Lousy. Im not a psycho. Ill do it. I have
Harrison: I once had a philosophy prof who said
done it. Im not a total pacifist, but if it has to
God is the identity function on the universe,
be done then theres no choice.... I dont feel as
whatever thats supposed to mean. Umm, can
bad as I should probably, but there you have it.
you strike that last statement?
Memory: I take it, its a facet of your work you
Memory: Many people see the life of an IG as...
dont like to think about too much.
well, adventuresome. And is has been for you by
nearly all accounts. How would you characterize Harrison: To put words in my mouth... yes.
it.
Memory: Okay. Name something naughty you did
when you were about twelve years old that you
got away with?
Harrison: I dunno. Its a living.

Memory: Okay.... How about the money.
Harrison: I like to spend it. Strike that, I like... being able to live comfortably, the way you wanna
live... its nice. Im not saying I grew up impoverished or anything. Eden was a fairly rich
world, and people adapted to the disaster. Labor was replaced by robots, there was practically no service sector except what you could do
long distance. But living on Tizar, on the beach,
Harrison: Twelve? When I was nine I became contraband. You know that story already, and its
not something I feel was particularly naughty
anyway since they never sent me back. How
could they? I was on Tyber when I was twelve.
Probably attending middle school. I remember
me and some friends inverted the images on the
school monitors while the principal was addressing the student body. We messed with the colors
48
too. Never got caught. Thats pretty lame stuff

through. I think I do more naughty things now
that Im an adult.
Tizar Pub had me by the balls and said if I interviewed it would be a breech of contract. They
started using public relations people to handle it,
using their own in-house statements from the
author to keep people interested and clinging
to the story. They kept drawing it out, trying
to capitalize on the media value. I finally got
frustrated and went to TNS. It made Tizar Pub
look very bad, and I got sued, of course.
Memory: Such as?

Harrison: Ummm...
lighter?
can we move to something
Memory: What is your favorite color?

Harrison: Umm... blue. Sea blue.
Memory: Tell me more about that.
Memory: What are your hobbies?
Harrison: Well, it was strange working for the people who were suing me. I was already on the
inside where I could make lots of waves. They
realized their mistake rather quickly and compromised by shipping me outside Imperial borders in exchange for dropping the suit which was
costing them public sentiment anyway. I worked
in the Yahhen district and Pansentient Alliance,
finally coming back by way of the Siri worlds.
Most of it was photo work. There were several
political essays regarding events in the region.
I was invited to attend a conference on Draconia but never managed to make it. Because all
this stuff was outside Imperial Space, Tizar Pub
could never collect on me. The sad part was
that I couldnt convert my liquid assets into credits upon re-entering Imperial space. In the end,
I managed to do some speculation with the remainder and made it back to Tyber in reasonable
comfort.
Harrison: Hobbies? Swimming. Kiyaking. Boating. Occasional fishing. Taking pictures of my

friends why they arent expecting it. That last
ones the most fun. I guess Im a gatherer at
heart.
Memory: What sort of scars or handicaps do you
retain, either physical, mental or emotional?
Harrison: Thats light? Nothing physical...
Memory: Tell me about your work experience?
Harrison: How much do you want to here?
Memory: As much as you feel free to tell. Just...
what youve done work-wise over the course of
your life?
Harrison: Well, this is gonna take some time.... I
wrote Shattered Eden during college. It started
out as a hobby and grew into a job I couldnt
have quit if you put a gun to my head. I did
layout and photo designs for various school periodicals and transferred the experience to a part
time job with the Galactican during break periods. Eventually somebody saw the book still in
progress and figured out I could write. I got
moved out of photo & layouts and up to the
floor. I worked with this training group. We
had three advisors and I worked under this guy,
Kalla was his name. Hes the one who made me
count heads, and I went on a few photo shoots
after that. Mostly grunt stuff.
By the time I graduated, the book was finished.
I waltzed into the Tyberian Pub, meeting this
big wig Kalla set me up with. She got me to
sign on for ten years. Turned out to be a big
mistake. The first thing they did was get me out
of the region. Eden was selling like flimsies, and
the TNS was closing in for a personal interview...
to help promote the book, or so it was argued.
49
They stuck me back on Tizar, but by that time

renegotiations were in order. I got to speak my
own terms, and although my fame had largely
dwindled during the long absence, I managed to
get a job doing independent work. That sort
of position is usually handed only to those who
brown nose or are born lucky. Id earned it, so
there was an immediate respect not usually accorded with the job title.
However, the disadvantage was that my stories
had to be better than everyone elses because I
was getting paid more. By this time the Galactican was already splitting with Tizar Pub, and
there was a certain amount of animosity on both
sides, so I went to Tizar and played monkey with
their bureaucracy. With Taras help, we managed to make a good many people look rather
bad. It was dirty laundry, but it did sell, and I
needed the money.
The series was said to be, and I quote, the
most successful of its kind, this being said by
the Tizars public affairs department. It must
have been, because it touched off a whole tidalwave of similar stories, not a few being directed
at myself. It convinced me to get out of town for
awhile. As an interesting sidenote, the readership for both sides steadily improved for several
standard months before finally slopping off at a
new equilibrium.
By this time I was taking a long cruise with
Royal Fleet, ending up somewhere in the Hepaestus sector, trailing end. I was running out of
money, so me and Tara started taking the seedier
freighters, and we ended up getting grounded on
Mithras. Its an Imperial prison world, also doubled as a medical research lab. interdicted and
the whole bit, but then our jump drive didnt
know that. They sent a prisoner detail to help
up get back on our feet, and Tara started picking
up all sorts of interesting things. Turned into a
real adventure. The short of it was that the Imps
were using prisoners in genetic research. War research. It cut me to the core, because Id seen
what that sort of thing could do first hand when
I was a kid. TNS offered to carry it, but I figured it would get me back in the good with my
so-called colleges if I took it to the Galactican
and let them run the first copies. Thats eventually what happened. TNS and the Platform
both picked it up on commission and had a field
day, and I was making more money, so all in all,
most everyone was happy.
panned out. There didnt seem to be any terrorist or state involvement that we could find, and
Tara was executed for assisting me in a rather
poorly conducted break-in of government offices.
I got away... lucky me, but she was caught. She
warned me of an upcoming assassination plot before she died. Other than being inconsequential,
it did earn me a friend in the government and
got me off planet. Calannas like that. Politics
by the bullet.
Davin heard about my interest in Telmar about
a month later, and being rather cocky by this
point or not much caring whether Id live another
day... never did figure out which... I decided
to accept the offer. We dropped in, Davin got
killed, and me and Bill got to run around in the
snow for several days, dodging bullets and hand
grenades. We were captured by the rebels, of
course, but as soon as they realized what we were
doing, they helped up put our story together,
took us on a few of their operations, and got us
off planet. I was completely insane, but then
front page material usually is.
That whole experience took my mind off Tara
long enough to contemplate getting myself another research assistant. Sure enough, I was back
in the Siri institute in no time flat. Niki was better at the parties then she was on the job, but
then I wasnt doing very much either. By the
time she found Fork, I was thinking of Tara every time I looked at her. We got closer because
of it.
It was about this time I began taking a break

from gathering. I wrote some more essays on
biotechnology and its horrific applications as a Memory: During all that time, who would you say
weapon of war. There were a few others conyour best friend was?
cerning worlds which had successfully broken ties
with the Imperium and they why and how of it. Harrison: Tara. What can I say? I guess we were
closer than I had ever wanted to admit. Niki
The various means they used. Chuck was my
helped fill in the gap after she died.
editor this time, and he kept me constrained to
the subsector wanting to keep the commentaries
locally based. Thus, the two candidates which Memory: Other friends?
Bills a friend. Davin was. Chuck rates pretty
fell into place were Calanna and Telmar.
high up there. Nikis a very good friend. Then
I visited Calanna legally, but ran into a sort of
theres the party crowd. Yknow how it is.
trouble Id rather not get into. Well, it concerned contraband. Not slaves or anything like Memory: I do?
that, but technology. It was rather messy and
I had to keep myself confined to the embassy Harrison: Course you do.
for quite some time. Luckily for me, I wasnt Memory: How about the opposite? Enemies.
there during the bombing. Strangely, there was
no statement from any terrorist groups regard- Harrison: Enemies? I pissed a lot of people off on
ing the why of it. I got paranoid and went under
Tyber. There was that shitty contract and then
cover. Tara came over once she heard about it,
the muckraking. Ive been told that the whole
and we decided to do a little investigating on
episode triggered the Tyber Corporations diour own. To make a long story short, it never
vestment out of Galactic Press, killing a virtual
50
monopoly in the making. The way I see it, the Harrison: Im a gatherer.
split was bound to happen sooner or later, but
Im sure theres some truth that I helped it along. Memory: Not much good. How do you think others
see you?
The Blanco regime on Telmar would probably
like to do me damage. My article made it politHarrison: Probably a crusader. Or a troubleically infeasible for the Grand Duke to turn the
maker. Is there ever a difference?
rebellion into a police action.
Then theres the Imperium at large. I busted Memory: Let me get more specific. Do you have a
that research lab on Mithras and made the navy
sense of humor?
look very bad for what they did to Eden.
Harrison: I like to think I have one.
All in all, Ive got more than any mans share
of enemies. Of course, its not like theyre just
Memory: What kind?
gonna come out and murder me. Well, I hope
not anyway.
Harrison: I laugh where I hear something funny.
Look, Im not as twisted as people say I am.
Memory: Tell me about your family.
Almost, but not quite....
Harrison: That was a long time ago.
Memory: I guess Im finishing for something.
Memory: Indulge me.
Harrison: Fishing? Im lazy until I hook on to
Harrison: My dads name was James Harrison. My
something. Then Im obsessed.
moms name was Lissa Ninque. They both
worked at Edens primary clinic, my mom do- Memory: Still you general. What are your ambiing viral-genetic research and containment and
tions?
my dad operating a shuttle. Nothing too fancy
for people trying to survive.
Harrison: To smack a few more Imperial faces before I die. I shouldnt say that, because Ive had
all the revenge Im probably entitled. Certainly
more than most people reap. But then again,
Im not burned out yet. Its not like I need the
money that badly. One more front pagers and
Ill be set for retirement. Well, maybe two more.
Memory: No siblings?
Harrison: None that matter.
Memory: You dont want to talk about it.
Harrison: I try to forget most of the past.
Memory: Okay. What would you say your main Memory: What sort of art... music... reading material do you like?
problem is in the present.
Harrison: Im interested in finding out what hap- Harrison: Classics, historical novels. The music
varies depending on my mood. Bi-dimensional
pened to Fork. After that whole episode on
imaging is my forte when it comes to art, even
Mithras, I know what technology can do in Imthough its not the in-thing.
perial hands. Maybe hes another victim. Maybe
itll tie in. Who knows?
Memory: How do you characterize the way you
Memory: Do you think youll have much luck?
dress?
Harrison: All sorts of things could go wrong. He
could fall into a coma because of some errant
drug dispenser. I dont know.
Memory: What do you think your strongest and
weakest traits are?
Harrison: Simple equals better.

Memory: How would you characterize your home?
Its atmosphere?
Harrison: Quiet. Peaceful. My house is white, has

lots of rooms, and is on the beachfront. You
Harrison: Mine? Im persistent. I also know when
know that, of course, because youre in it.
to turn tail. Im not sure how to answer this.
Memory: Well, how do you see yourself?
Memory: Expand on that.

51
Harrison: Ummm..... Its not packed in like those

others on the cliffs. And its walking distance
from a subway terminal. Were talking prime
location. Its a nice place. I dont mean to
brag... well, I guess I do, but most people dont
realize just what real estate is worth on Tizar. Were talking about a world that has dedicated itself to tourism and the natural environment. Sure, youve got a local planetside population of twenty some-odd billion, but theyre all
scrunched up into these acrologies... contained
living environments with everything you could
ever need except privacy and freedom. Over 95%
of the people occupy less than hundredth of one
percent of the surface area. If you make sure
youre not in that 95%, you know youre doing
okay.
Memory: Thats pretty good. What else beside
that and your background differentiates you
from other, successful gatherers such as Bryce,
Nabours...
Harrison: My methods, probably. To put it in economic terms, I fill a production niche.
Memory: Whats that supposed to mean?
Harrison: I hire telepaths as personnel assistants.
Somewhat of a no-no. Unlike Bryce, I dont use
controllers. Unlike Nabours, I dont use runners.
Its all a question of style. The way you look for
a story usually dictates more or less what you
find, so we each have our niche.
Memory: Ever consider branching out?
Harrison: What? Invade their territory?
Memory: Its been done before.
Harrison: And often without success. It takes a certain, I dunno, a certain kind of person to control
any method effectively. Running is illegal on Tizar and rather dangerous besides. And a controller can literally ruin your whole day if theyre
not careful. I dont like having to rely on another
person like that.
Memory: Then youd consider yourself a solo?
Harrison: Not necessarily. It all depends on the situation, but I like to have the flexibility to go solo.
Once you get into cyberspace or use a controller,
the tendency is toward addiction. You can say
the same thing about telepathy, but not to the
same extent. The telepath makes the hook, sure,
but unless you know how to reel in the line on
your own, someday youll be shit outta luck.2
52
One Smelly Gerbil

Frank Lemire
[email protected]
This
story may not have much to do with gaming, whipped out his access card, and the door slid silently
but then, we suppose, that all depends on the sort of open. He stepped in.
games you play. Not meant for cloistered eyes, beGere was on the table. Naked. He was facing
warned...
down, with his hairy buttocks exposed. A plaintive
squeaking sound could be heard, muffled in pain and
It was a dark, moist night. The kind of night where agony. As well, the sound of a gerbil could be heard
you just pull your raincoat in real tight as some kind from Geres anus.
Spokes Legerdemain shook his head in disgust.
of futile gesture against the elements. Spokes shudGoddamn
kids, he thought.
dered to himself as he raced down the slick steps.
Seizing
the nearest forceps, he probed into Geres
Goddamn weather. Why the fuck do I live in
colon
until
he
had a firm grip on the terrified, shaven,
Los Angeles anyway?
rodent.
He
pulled
mightily, cheerfully ignoring the
His head down, his non-descript rain coat pulled
yelps
from
Gere
himself.
in close, as if he might rust, Spokes hurried down
With a sickening plop the rodent and Geres anus
the street. A casual onlooker might have seen a
parted
ways. Spokes grabbed a cello-wrap, placed
frumpy, aging bachelor fretting about the weather,
the
still-wriggling
rodent into it, and handed it to
but to those who inhabit the higher echelons, they
Richard
Gere.
would know. He was a professional. He was a man
There you go, son. Try to be more careful from
whose services could be called upon in the direst of
now
on. And remember, dont put anything up your
emergencies. He charged high and worked hard. He
bum
that doesnt want to go.
was discreet and untouchable. When John Gotti had
Thank
you, sir... and I didnt even get your
hemmorhoids, he called Spokes Legerdemain. Yassir
name!
Arafat needed liposuction... he called Spokes.
Thats all right son, Spokes replied, youll be
Tonight, the call was from Richard Gere.
hearing
from my collection agents. If you dont pay
Spokes was sitting in front on the box, trying to
up,
this
will
be all over USENET, and pimply nerds
come down from a hard day on the streets and in the
will
be
asking
for more information. But if you pay,
buildings, when the phone rang. The red phone.
itll just be our little secret.
Shit, he muttered.
And with his smile still hanging in the air,
Spokes.
Spokes Legerdemain left, leaving behind a relieved
Need ya.
actor and one smelly gerbil.
Who the hell is this?
Look Spokes, get down to Labrea General.
Im not moving til I find out what the job is...
There was a pause on the line.
Okay. Its for Richard Gere.
Again!! Spokes shouted.
Yeah, its a gerbil this time... looks like a big
one. We really need you.... Spokes? Spokes? are you
there, man?
But he was speaking into a dead line. Spokes
Legerdemain was on his way.
The hospital was busy, but this was L.A. Spokes
jogged past the crowds of bleeding heavy metal musicians, over to the door marked M.D. conference. He
53
On Humanity
c
1990
Steve Mays
This story is about something most of us dont like
as Harvey said, Youd think that people would learn;

to contemplate much less confront. Yet, in gaming, ozone disaster of 2050 didnt teach these apes very
it is a thing with which we learn to tarry on a fairly much, did it!
constant basis. Steve brings the topic home with a
With a spring in his step, albeit a nervous one,
flash of cybertech for glitter and morality for garters. the black jumpsuit clad Harvey Bartok approached
the ornate wooden door. A face came up on the monLooking out the window of the hovercraft, Harvey itor beside the door.
saw none of the scenes of his childhood, only a mesHello, and welcome to the Bartok residence.
merizing blur of color and shape. Harvey Bartok, a One of the Bartoks will shortly answer the door.
youngish man, almost invisible in his nondescript ap- If you will please make yourself comfortable on the
pearance, was going home. For him, this was a new bench behind you..., a plush couch, more than a
experience since he could barely remember his home. bench, arose behind Harvey as the face spoke these
At the age of three, he was given up by his parents words, ...I will inform them of your presence.
to be used in scientific experiments at the National
Damn electronic door! Cant anyone do anyDisease Research Laboratory at low Earth orbit level thing for themselves any more? Just once, I would
one. He could never understand why his parents gave like to see... His thought was cut short as a man
him up, but he was told it was because he had some with greying black hair opened the door. Yes, may
terrible disease that could infect and kill many; now I help you? asked the man in the doorway.
he had his doubts.
Ye... yes, Harvey stammered as he looked into
The neighborhood was the typical American the eyes of the man who might or not be his father,
neighborhood, almost perfect. Harvey hated that, Justin Bartok, My name is Harvey.
perfection. Too much of his life was spent in perNice to meet you Harvey, may I ask the purpose
fect conditions, he ate the most pure foods, breathed of your visit?
the most perfect air, and was kept in a temperature
I am from the... that is... oh, what the hell, my
controlled room. Now the he was out, he wanted name is Harvey Bartok.
to enjoy the sensation of imperfection. He slowed
Are you a relative of mine from out west?
down to wind his way through the residential neighNo sir; I am your son. That is, if you are Justin
borhood. On the left side, a blue and white house
Bartok.
was displayed on his video screen.
I flopped badly on this one, thought Harvey
Ah, there... thats the one... left, yep, blue,
to himself, I could even have the wrong Bartoks.
yah, thats the one, came the voice from inside HarEither that or this man to whom Ive just confessed
veys command helmet.
my kinship is the Bartoks butler!
Its turbofans down to one tenth power, the hovI am Justin Bartok, but I have no son.
ercraft made a swift, almost acrobatic forty five deSir, I was told that I was your son from the
gree turn, to rest neatly on the driveway of a house
National
Disease Laboratory Director Michael...
on Maple Ave, in Billingsly, Vermont.
Hunt,
came the voice of the man who had just
Shutting down all systems, and Im outta here,
taken
a
step
back from the door, eyebrows knotted
Harvey said to nobody in particular as he took off his
in
shock.
Yes,
I know his name very well. Come in,
helmet and turned a large amount of switches to their
wont
you?
off position.
If you do not mind, sir, um... Mr. Bartok...
Pushing the big red button marked door reum...
Harveys bravado was beginning to slip, and
lease, a solitary figure emerged from the hovercraft.
noticeably.
Looking around, Harvey saw that his hovercraft
Denise, we have a visitor.
was unique in this neighborhood, alone in a sea of
Who is it? came the answering voice.
gasoline-burning ecology killers.
A snort of disdain escaped his tight lipped mouth
It is, um... Harvey.
54
Mr. Bartok, if this is any inconvenience... Harvey managed to spit out the words from his quivering
lips.
Nonsense, I want to find out for sure if you are
who you say you are.
From somewhere in the house, Harvey heard a
TeleTalk activate; its high pitch whining seemed noticeable only to Harvey. The voice on the other end
of the phone seemed very familiar. Funny, didnt
the voice coming from the phone sound like Michael
Hunt?
You must have traveled a long way, let me make
you comfortable. Would you like a small snack, or a
drink? Mrs. Bartok will be here in just a few minutes
and we can clear this whole matter up.
Yes I would like something to drink, intoned
Harvey, knowing that something was wrong here.
The man was definitely stalling for some reason.
Also, there was that voice, Michaels, almost positively.
The house was well furnished, a new modern
kitchen led off through the opening to the left of
the entryway, and a black lacquer paradise lurked
ahead. The living room was an example of a modern nightmare. Pictures of natural landscapes stood
in stark comparison to the unnatural sculptures of
twisted metal on the coffee table that were dubbed
incorrectly as modern art. Modern refuse recycling
seemed a better description. The closest couch was a
black lacquered wicker framework with what looked,
surprisingly, very enticing.
I have come a long way, and must be more exhausted than I thought, said Harvey.
Here... yes here, dammit. What do we do?
came the voice that was now absolutely talking about
him to Michael.
Looking around casually as if nothing was happening, Harvey made small talk with Mr. Bartok
while he tried to think of a way out of this situation.
Sliding glass door to the left, bay window in front,
hallway to right, possibility of hostage situation with
Mr. Bartok, these were some of the thoughts running
through Harveys mind, though the last was a very
distasteful one.
Mr. Bartok, may I use your restroom? asked
Harvey in a very disarming tone.
Why sure, um, Harvey, its down the hall to the
right.
Thanks, Ill be back in a second.
He could not believe that the man who said he
was Justin Bartok did not know that Harvey could
hear everything that Denise Bartok was saying about
him to Michael Hunt. At least he made no appearance of knowing, if he did.
The bathroom hid behind a small closet and a

heating compartment. Having the bathroom visible
today was considered tacky by polite company; at
least thats what Harvey had read in Vogue: 2060.
Closing the door, the lights automatically
switching on because of his entry, Harvey saw that
his escape (yet another one!) wasnt going to be as
easy as he thought.
Shit! Why cant these fuck heads at least have a
window in their bathroom, growled Harvey to himself as he noticed the acute lack of a window in the
bare wall facing him.
Still, the voices continued on the phone, outlining a plan for the recapture of the Harvey Bartok
experiment. Experiment! What the hell were they
talking about? I have been cured of the Wayfarers
disease for 10 years, Harvey thought.
All of a sudden the phone connection broke and
the experiment new it was time to act. He came out
of the bathroom, and approached Mr. Bartok.
Mr. Bartok, said Harvey in an apologetic tone,
I am sorry, but I am unable to stay. Mr. Hunt has
requested me immediate return on my miniphone.
You must stay and meet Mrs. Bartok so that
we may determine whether or not you are our son!
Something was wrong with the way Mr. Bartok
said, You must.
Faster than humanly possible, Harveys hand
reached out and grasped the unsuspecting mans gun
hand and its enclosed stunner in a vice-like grip.
Leaning closer to emphasize his point, Harvey hurled
his hushed words at the surprised and obviously hurting Bartok.
If I were you Mr. Bartok, or whoever you are, I
would be dead quiet or I may do something that both
you and I, mostly you of course, will regret.
Aggggk, gasped Bartok as Harveys hand on
his became tighter and tighter.
Oh Shit! yelled Harvey.
As the still befuddled Mr. Bartok looked to the
right where his wife should be coming with her own
stunner, Harveys hand shot into his solar plexus
making it impossible for him to breathe, much less
warn his accomplice of Harveys actions.
Dumb fuck! Never take your eyes from your
enemy, whispered Harvey.
Like a bolt of lightning, the man who was one
second ago holding the now incapacitated mans
hand, was down the hallway ambushing the second
occupant of the house. As she came out of the bedroom, stunner at the ready because of the commotion in the living room, the woman who pretended to
be Denise Bartok met an oncoming fist that stopped
about a millimeter from her face. Gasping from fear,
55
the woman was not prepared for the hand in front of

face to reach down and snatch the stunner from her
limp hand.
Now then, tell me who you are, since obviously
you werent sent here for my health? questioned the
now angry Harvey.
We.. aaa.. are... your parents Harvey! lied the
woman.
How do you know my name? I have met only
the man in the living room, who right now, by the
way, is gasping for breath.
I.. uh... i... i... know your face, you are my
son. Again another lie, and a bad one too!
If you do not tell me who you are, and right
fucking now, I will quite probably rip your shitty little
head off!
Okay, Okay! We went sent by... With a sudden burst of energy, the woman tried to surge past
Harvey, only to be met by a fist in the back of the
head.
As the woman slumped to the ground, Harvey
heard the man getting back up and through the bedroom window. He saw three ground cars careen into
the back yard. Running as hard as he could, Harvey bolted for the front door. Mr. Bartok stood in
front of him to bar his path and was met by a grim
end as the speeding Harvey sent him flying through
the kitchen window. Once outside, the blur that was
Harvey Bartok jumped into his hovercraft.
Main turbo... on. Gyros... on. Turbofans and
lifters... on. Cmon, cmon!! God Damn it!! Start!!!
His last words were met by a resounding boom
that marked the start up. At full power, the fans were
capable of blowing over the house in front of him. His
right hand shot to the thruster control and pulled it
all the way back, and at the same time, his other
pulled the control wheel all the way back. The effect
was spectacular, a still grey sleek machine became a
ball of fire shooting backwards into the air.
Steady, steady. His left land pulled the
thruster back to 50% while his right leveled out the
wheel.
Lets see them catch that! cried Harvey triumphantly.
Three blips showed up on his aerial doppler as if
to refute his statement.
Oh goody! Just like the tube races!! Only with
a whole sky to work with! laughed Harvey.
Over the radio came, This is the United Terran
Federation patrol. Please land your vehicle immediately.
Wasting no time, his left hand pushed the
thruster control towards its maximum, but this time,
his right hand did not echo its partner. It pushed
the wheel down. In among the houses, the flashing

needle that was Harveys hovercraft quickly lost the
pursuing blips.
Back on Lagrange one or, Low Earth Orbit, as
the scientists called it, Harvey was the champion of
the most popular sport, Tube Racing. Tube Racing consisted of ten speeders inside vacuum-sealed,
magnetically-charged duralineum (a clear plastic
polymer stronger than titanium). Each speeder was
inversely charged to the tube (if the tube was positive, the cars were negative), but could vary the
charge in their own field to take corners tighter. This
was a very dangerous sport as the tubes criss-crossed,
making it very easy for the amateur to get hit by a
speeder moving at about mach one or roughly 600
mph. Thinking back on his experience, Harvey was
surprised at his speed, and also at what had happened to the man he had now come to think of as his
enemy.
I hit him, sent him flying about 20 feet and
through a window, but I didnt even feel it, mumbled
Harvey to himself.
Seeing his ship up ahead, he knew that if he
wasnt even safe on Earth, the only place to find out
what Harvey Bartok experiment meant was back in
Michael Hunts office.
Dammit, I dont wanna go back there! I just
got away, yet Im going back! What kinda dumb shit
am I? Simple, the kind who would go back to a place
that he escaped from; thats what kind!
The N-wave signal he sent to the lander told it
to open the entry portal.
Open the pod bay doors Hal, came to mind as
Harvey chuckled to himself and landed in his ship, or
at least the one that became his. Possession is 9/10
of the law, is it not?
In a few seconds, yet another fireball shot into
the sky, this time a much bigger one, and much faster.
Once in Lagrange, thought Harvey, Im
gonna have a bitch of a time gettin back into the
Lab!
The National Disease Research Laboratory
looked much larger and much more imposing when
going towards it, wondering how to get in, rather
than flying away from it.
Security outpost one-zulu-foxtrot, unidentified
vessel, please send vehicle identification code, and
clearance number, came the harsh voice on the receiver.
Looking around for the paper he had found in an
old shoe, Harvey hoped madly that the code would
not be deactivated, reported to the authorities as possessed by a pirate!
Aha! This better work, or Im dead meat,
56
whispered a now worried Harvey.

One-zulu-foxtrot, this is federal shuttle Omega,
clearance six-niner-alpha-seven, on route to National
Disease Research Laboratory on Lagrange one.
Omega, clearance, there was a pause which put
Harvey on the edge of his seat, hoping against all hope
that the next words would say that he was cleared.
Okay, continue on indicated route.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Harvey joked to himself, Gotta remember to clean out these underwear
when I get home!!
As he approached the Lab, he saw another ship
entering the landing bay.
Tower control to vessel Omega, transponder
signal okay. Proceed to bay six, slot thirty-eight,
rasped a voice from the receiver.
Holy Shit! I made it! Im in!
The bay doors closed behind Harvey and the receiver spoke again, this time it was a much different
voice, and one that Harvey did not expect.
Mr. Bartok, please land your vehicle and come
out unarmed. A defense garrison is awaiting your
arrival at slot thrity-eight. Please do not keep them
waiting. Michaels voice had not changed, except for
the noticeable glee in it.
All this way, just get captured, bullshit! roared
Harvey.
Eat me Hunt! was the reply Michael Hunt
got from Harvey. Kill his engines, right now! was
Michaels response to what was quite a rude statement in his opinion.
Mr. Bartok, your engines are now dead, said
Michael, and he was right. At that instant, all his engine power dropped to zero, and like its engine power,
so did the ship, zero feet.
With a crash that shook the whole landing bay,
fifty tons of steel and plastic hit the deck. When he
woke up, Harvey was staring at Michael Hunt.
Mr. Bartok, that was a rash act of yours. I
mean, Piracy! Surely we did not program you to do
such things!
What do you mean, programmed? growled
Harvey.
Exactly what you do to a machine, you program
it to do what you want; only this time, something odd
happened. The machine programmed itself!
I am no machine. I am a man, the same as you,
and nobody programmed me.
Harvey, think about it. Did you ever notice how
fast you are? How strong? How, well... everything?
Yes, I am fast and strong, but I work out fiercely
for the races and eat well.
You do not eat. You merely take in food, process it, and release it. It is to simulate normal human
digestion.
Bullshit! What do you think you are accomplishing by this weird shit? Why would you lie about
my humanity?
You are correct. Why would I lie about your
humanity, or lack thereof?
I am done talking to you Michael. I aint finding nothin new from you anyway... so Ill be leavin
now.
That is not possible. I will not allow it.
I dont give a rats ass about what you think,
dickhead!
Really, you have been watching too much tri-D.
Your language has become abdominal!
Later, dude. Im outta here.
Just then he felt very weak, almost as if drained
of energy. As he looked up, Harvey saw Michael
standing above him with a device.
You see? You are a machine. I can neutralize
your reactor, thus draining you of your power.
No, no NO!!! came Harveys insane reply.
With amazing strength, Harvey leapt to his feet
and ripped through the steel straps binding him to
the chair.
This cannot be! gasped Michael upon seeing
Harveys returned strength. I have neutralized your
reactor!! You shouldnt have any power!!
If I was a machine, I am more now, I am human!!!
No you are a machine, not capable of sentient
thought. We programmed you....
I am now human. And now, let me show you
one of my human emotions... hate!!
Both Michael Hunt and the machine that came
to be known as Harvey Bartok were erased from reality as a Photon cannon atomized them both from
a before unnoticed hatch.
Damn, neither one of them worked, said the
real Harvey Bartok.
I wonder what went wrong? said the real
Michael Hunt.
Humanity. Thats what went wrong.
Will we ever get this God thing right?
I dont know, but Im hungry. How about
lunch?
Harvey?
Yes Michael?
What if we are the same thing as them? Are
we gonna be eradicated? Is that what death is?
No response came from the real Harvey Bartok
as both men left the control room.
57
Kingdom of the Mind

c
1990
Daniel Lee Rouk
[email protected]
Georgia Institute of Technology
These are the first two chapters of a story Dan began

writing back in March. Lucky for us other writers out
there, he doesnt yet know how good he is...
One
The
old chancellor looked up from his desk and

planted me with his gaze. What do you mean, you
wish to speak to His Grace?
I need to see him at once, Lord Torsa, as I have
a message from the captain Stormright, sir. I answered. I hate this runaround I get each time I come
here. Someday Lord Chancellor is going to get it.
Old Drago should have this mans head on a stake for
all his trouble. To think that anyone should question
Loric, son of Stormright.
Well, why dont you just give this message to
me and Ill go ahead and pass it on the king.
Go to hell, I thought. Im sorry, my Lord, but
I was told to specifically give it to His Grace, King
Drago Vlan Shipwain. I will give this message to no
one else, not even the trusted Lord Chancellor. Hell
let me in eventually, but Im in a hurry so I think Ill
just have a little fun with him now.
Slowly, now, lest he suspect. Ha, the old fool
forgot even his basic protections, so trusting in his
power. Now...
As the mind of the chancellor was suddenly
seized, a look of pain passed over his face and then
slowly changed to one of joy. Im sorry for the trouble, oh masterful lord of the South Coast, the King
will see you now Im sure. Here let me kiss your feet
and give praise for your allowing me to see you. A
look of pain again comes to the chancellors face, but
eventually it passes and he leads the way through
the Hall of Swords. Guards wave us past, recognizing us both. Only Lordamar, the Kings personal
bodyguard, remains to be passed.
Hail Lordamar, how are you? I say as I approach him.
Release Lord Chancellor Torsa, Loric, before I
take action.
I hesitate a bit, wanting to embarrass the chancellor some more, but Lordamar is not one to play
with. Pain rushes though my mind like a firestorm,
then quickly fades. Yes, he reminds me that he can
not be trifled with. I relinquish my control.
Lordamar, do something to this delinquent!
Torsa shouts as he regains possession of his body. He
shakes his head as if to clear it. A person who is being
dominated loses control of his body, but remembers
and feels everything that happens. Were Torsa not
such an arrogant lout I might just feel guilty about
what Id done.
I dont think you need worry about him, my
Lord Chancellor. The King has some plans for him
which will be quite punishment enough, I do believe.
I cant tell what he means, as his mind is closed
and his face expressionless, but a feeling of dread
slowly creeps upon me. The King Drago Vlan Shipwain is not one to take lightly. In addition to being
King of HighReach, he is the rightful Lord of the
Anacists, the people of the mind, and strongest of
any of that class since Quillion the Bright. Only Lordamar could challenge the king mentally, for he is
the Kings Apprentice and Protector, learning secrets
that no others of the Anacim alive now know.
The three of us entered the main hall, Lordamar
on my right and the chancellor to my left. We waited
at the base of the throne for some minutes, bowing
low so as to not see the kings entrance. You may
rise said an old voice, but still a strong one. I looked
up and beheld my King once again. He looked to be
about 50, with half his hair turned grey and worry
lines about his face. His robes gave him a deservedly
regal look. His hands were clasped together and he
was leaning slightly forward to see us better. He was
not a weak king by any means. The absence of guards
in his throne room was not due to a shortage of gold
to pay them, but rather to a feeling that nothing
could harm this man, so powerful was he. Any who
might even try to harm him would either feel the bite
of the runed sword sitting at his side, or would not
leave this place with their minds intact..
My King, I bring a message from my father,
58
Lord Stormright of the South Coast. He says that the

Magi of Arcanium are abroad again and to be warned,
the seas are no longer a safe road to travel. They have
raided Townharbour and taken the supplies of grain
held there against the upcoming winter. Also no ships
have been seen from the south in two weeks. The
warships we sent out have not returned, despite calm
seas and experienced captains. My father Stormright
wishes to muster again the Anacim and to finish these
Magi for once and for all.
A pained look passed quickly on the kings face.
It was well known that Princess Thelina, heir and
daughter of the king, was overseas in her mothers
homeland. She was beloved by all, and a gem too
precious for any to own. Normally the passage across
the White Sea would be an easy one, but now danger
has come.
Loric, this is grievous news you bear, but not
terribly unexpected. A number of messengers are
long past due from both the South Coast and also,
fearfully, the Norloc Woods themselves. He pauses
to let that information sink in, then begins, In the
older days of my great grandfather they killed bearers
of bad tidings, believing them to carry bad luck. Ill
spare you this pain, however, but give you a new one.
I charge you to seek out the land of Queen Helena,
and to bear my daughter, the Princess Thelina, back
to me. Make all due haste and do not tally. I will not
allow even death to keep you from this task. Lord
Chancellor Torsa, send those who are able to light
the beacons. We will begin the gathering of those
remaining Anacists who can answer the call.
The dread I had been feeling, suddenly came to
full growth. Queen Helena is the aunt of the princess
and will never let the Princess go. After the death
of Dragos wife, Queen Helenas younger sister, last
year, the two countries have not had even a single
messenger pass between them. It is said that Helena blames King Drago for her death. And the rumors might not be all that far off, I thought. Much
more important however was the news that the Norloc Woods had been cut off. The greatest strength of
the Anacim remain there. To come at the beacons
call they might have to break through some unknown
force of the Arcanium. For the Magi to have divided
us so soon is a terrible blow, and possible our doom.
Lordamar will accompany you on this quest,
but again, make all speed. Soon war will sweep the
land again and I want my heir near me should I fail
and fall.
We left the high room and went back to the lower
chambers. I felt as if a weight had been placed on my
shoulders. In addition I was exhausted from my long
ride here. But rest is not a pleasure I now can permit.
I gathered my belongings and turning to Lordamar

said, Well, cousin, lets be off; theres work to be
done.
Two
Well, cousin, lets be off; theres work to be done,
I said to Lordamar as we left the High Room.
Yes, Loric, we have need of great haste. How
are the road conditions between here and the South
Coast? Lordamar answered. He appeared deep in
thought, as if planing something.
The road is dry, a miracle after the last weeks of
rain. It is very busy, however. I passed two caravans
of wagons as I came here. Many people told stories
of strange riders and odd lights in the night. My
guess is that half the stories are meerly lies designed
to make a story teller look good. I recalled my ride
a second, then resumed, There was a look of fear
in their eyes, as though something scared them. The
people did not trust me until I told them who I was.
Hmm, it appears, should some of the stories
be true, that groups of the Magi of Arcanium are
also in the Southron Woods. It would be folly for
an Anacim to take the road to South Coast now.
Lordamar paused, as if thinking and then resumed,
Here, go down to the stables and ready our mounts.
I am going to take care of some unfinished duties and
will join you in the Crystal Room within the hour.
We will depart then. He walked beside me till we
came to the passage I needed to take. Within the
hour now. I heard as I turned off.
I went to the stables and looked in on our
horses. Mine was a black stallion with a white mane.
He looked magnificent and stood tall and proud.
Nighthoof was his name. He was breed from the
very seed of Tolmars Daymare, a noble blood to
say the least. After placing the saddle and other
pieces of gear on him, I looked over to Lordamars
stallion. His was a great white steed born out of legend. Greatsword was the horses name. He was taller
than any horse Ive seen before. None could ride him
but by his leave. Greatsword was unequaled by any
horse alive. None knew his history but Lordamar,
who quested long years to find him. Many peasants
say that Greatsword isnt a horse at all, but a demon
in disguise. Whatever the answer, he was a horse to
put awe in a king. I saddled him and, taking my
leave, headed toward the Crystal Room.
Arriving early, I looked about. The Crystal
Room was the place of meditation for Anacim masters. I had been to Castle HighReach often in my
youth, even studying there for a number of years under old Master Torsul, but never had I been allowed
59
to enter this room. In the center of this large chamber

stood a huge crystal. This I knew to be the MindGlass. It was found during the time when King Shipwains grandfather ruled. Even standing by the door
I could already feel its effects. The crystal calms the
nerves and opens the mind of anybody who would
come close to it. Few secrets could be kept here if
one wished to pry. I gazed up at the MindGlass and
felt my muscles relaxing. I could feel my guard slipping and resting. One could not, lest he be mentally
blind, commit violence here. The crystal removes violence before it can take root.
Loric, speak to me.
I jumped some, not realizing someone else was
there. Whos there and what do you wish?
Please, use your mind if you have one child.
Speech resonates badly here. I am Master Guldson
and was sent by King Drago Shipwain to test how
your studies have been going down in South Coast.
Proudly, I responded using the mind speech of
the Anacim, My studies are proceeding excellently,
Master. I even bested Chancellor Torsa today.
Fool! Ill be the judge of your studies, boy. The
very act you speak of belies your confidence. Torsa
has been blind now for a month. He lost his Talent
fighting the late Lord Baruso in a duel of honor! Now
quit bragging and open to me, so I can see how well
your Masters in South Coast have taught you.
I felt the fool he called me. Of course! How
could I not have seen? I had thought Torsa overconfident in his power since he didnt have defenses
raised. Blind he was, and a fool I was for not having seen the absence of mental ability. Lucky that
Torsa did not report me, for it is criminal to assault a
Blind. I should have known better. How could I have
known from looking, though? Chancellor Torsa was
numbered among the most powerful of the Anacim.
What a tragedy for something like this to have happened to one like him!
I lowered the last of my defenses that had not
succumbed to the MindGlasss effect. The touch of
Master Guldsons soul was at first sharp and painful.
For a second I tried to bring back my defenses, but
Guldson held them back and rushed into my mind. I
felt naked before him. Before I knew it, however, he
was gone.
You are progressing well, son, but need some
work still. Guldson rested a moment and continued, Your strength is surprising for one so young. I
am tired from reading you. In another few years you
might make Adept. Now dont jump to conclusions.
You still have a lot of work to come yet. I will give
the King a favorable report. You have tremendous
raw talent. Your training at South Coast is slower
than what you might have had here, but I believe you
adequate for your mission. Good luck. He rose up
from where he was sitting by the crystal and started
to leave. Oh yes, your trainer in South Coast claims
to have taught you all he can and states that you need
a new teacher. The King has decided that Lordamar
is to be the one responsible. Obey him, as you are
now his apprentice.
Master Guldson left and soon Lordamar entered.
I hear you are to be my new trainer, Lordamar, I
said, using the mindspeech still, Should I call you
Master Lordamar now? Sarcasm seeping from my
voice.
Dont get smart with me Loric. His voice shattering the peace of the Crystal Room, I dread this
duty also, but the Kings law shall not be challenged,
especially by the Kings Protector. I hope the horses
are prepared as I asked? I nodded so. Good. We
ride now east toward the Norloc Woods, and there
we will lay a trap for an unlucky Mage.
60
Xodiza
Jeffrey M. Horne
[email protected]
This is a world setting inspired by both astrology and

various elements of post-holocaust cyberpunk.
Intro
This short introduction is just for anyone out there
take only one path if he chooses gaining the commensurate advantages and disadvantages. Regardless of
the path chosen, the strength and power one receives
is linked to the followers Ka. When a follower expends Ka in the name of his God(s) he must rest
and pray in order to regain his Ka and thus perform
the feats unique to his tribe(s). Those following the
magical path must pray more than rest and those following the physical path must rest more than pray.
The source of Ka, whether internal or divine, is unsure, but both prayer and rest are necessary, for one
with out the other does not replenish ones Ka.
in gaming land who might be a little confused by the

following passages. I have gamed for several years
now and one thing that has bothered me a little is
the repetition of world settings and gaming styles.
In answer to that I present the following work in
progress which is my own vision of a slightly different
world and gaming system. Many of the same rules
apply but I believe it is the setting that is the most
History
unique. It is submitted for your approval in hopes
that some of its elements will inspire original ideas
and worlds of your own. Much of what is presented The world of Xodiza is a world far apart from our
here is loosely (very loosely) based upon astrology, own, but this was not always so. Xodiza is now
among other things, and is what inspired the world quite a regressive society. A world once dominated
by machines and technology, it is now a strange
of Xodiza.
mix of magic, religion and the bizzare effects of nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. Even before
the devastation of the legendary religious wars there
Philosophy
were signs of the tension and cultural differences that
My belief is that all energy in the universe mental or would one day lead to the twelve tribes we now know.
physical comes from a persons lifeforce or Ka (pro- Xodiza had always been a polytheistic society with
nounced Kahh). The proper definition for Ka being; little trouble between the followers of the various gods
the lifeforce each of us is born with and which leaves in the pantheon. In the second cycle of the third milus when we die, the source of all strength and power lenia or somewhere there abouts, a charismatic leader
in the universe. I am told and believe is true that I of the Geminese, known as Saador, called for conlike balance in everything, including this world I am version of all Xodizians to the worship of the God
describing. Pursuant to that, my world has two paths Gemini. The Libra sect, which had deep philosophithat can be chosen by a follower of any God a physical, moral and yes even religious differences with the
cal path and a mental or magical path. Followers who Geminese called for a united front against the powerchose the Physical major are most akin to Warriors ful Geminese and their Scorpion allies. By this time
and followers who chose the Mental major are most the regions of Xodiza were ruled for all intensive purakin to Wizards. There are of course advantages and poses by ironhanded theocracies who controlled weak
disadvantages to each. Of course cross breeding of ineffective governments. The religious missionaries/
of tribes is possible but with various unpredictable soldiers of the Libran and Geminese alliances soon
effects and with in certain restrictions. A follower came to blows which quickly resulted in the use of
chooses or has chosen for him a major path at the age chemical, biological and even a few tactical nuclear
of seven and a minor path at the age of twelve. The weapons. The initial exchange which did 90% of the
major may be in Mental or Physical but must follow damage was actually quite short only 4 or 5 days. The
the dictates of his God and his tribe. A follower may scars of that battle still show on the landscape and
61
faces of the people of Xodiza. Throughout the centuries as attempts were made to restore Xodizas former level of civilization more and and more of the former technology was destroyed as rival religious sects
raped and pillaged rising cities out of jealously and
fear of eventual domination by said cities. All that is
left now of the former world are the empty shells of
pillaged cities and towns, various scraps of metal, a
lingering fear of anything mechanized or technological in nature, and fervent devotion to ones god.
Geography
In order to paint a more complete picture of the world
of Xodiza a short explanation of the geography and
topography of the world is now presented.
Gwanaray: The largest of the habitable regions has
two major livable areas The Northern Coast and
the Living Desert.
air on Ixtapa is lethal to other tribes if they

stay on the island long enough. There are
no plants and no animals of any kind. The
ground is made of a black lifeless substance
that is damp but cannot properly be called
either soil or mud. The Scorpions make
their homes in what appear to be underground military bunkers.
Obselia: The volcanic island home of the Virgoans. It is a lush island with abundant
tropical plants and various mutated versions of tropical animals. Mount Aphesia
rises out of the center of the island with
the Virgoan settlements spreading out at
its base in a circular fashion. The Volcano
has been dormant for centuries.
Akira: The tribal home of the Aquarians is
characterized by the rampant growth and
quick life cycles of the plants there. No animals only giant insects inhabit the island.
It is said drinking from the fresh water lagoons of the island can extend life and is
said to be the source of the Aquarians healing powers.
The Northern Coast: This area is made up

of the remnants of the cities of ancient
Xodiza. The inhabitants of this region include the Pieceans, the Cancerians, and
the Ariens. The Pieceans control areas Pangaea: A land mass connected to Gwanaray by
to the east. The Cancerians control the
the Isthmus of Tanier.
west. The Ariens control a large central
The Savannah: The home of the Leonions
area known as Ramsville and are other wise
where they live in grass huts in extended
scattered throughout the other two tribes
family groups. The grass in the region
settlements. The major town of the Cancereaching a height of six feet or more gives
rians is Hermiton. The Pieceans main town
excellent cover for hunting herd animals
is Fishers Port. The only thing that makes
which make up the diet of the Leonions.
these towns any more important than the
others is that they contain the religious
The Woodlands: To east of the Savannah is
temples for the tribe.
a heavily forested area where the Sagittarians make their home. The forest is traveled
The Living Desert: A semi arid region to the
often by traders moving between the Leosouth that contains giant mutated lizards,
nion settlements and the Tauran villages in
huge mesas and giant cacti some of which
the Uluzian Mountains. These parties are
eat small animals and even small Xodizians.
frequently raided by Sagittarian bands.
The Librans live in ancient cave dwellings
on the edge of the desert. The Geminese
The Uluzian Mountains: A huge range of
make their homes atop the mesas using
lofty mountains whose summits average
man made stone steps to reach the summit.
10,000 feet in height. The Taurans live in
The Capriconians are nomadic traveling the
countless villages from the foothills to near
desert hunting giant kangaroo rats and the
the summits all up and down the range.
smaller of the giant lizards for food.
Beyond the Mountains is what is simply
known as the Wasteland.
The Astoria Archipelago: A group of islands a

few hundred miles of coast of Gwanaray
Ixtapa: The tribal home of the Scorpions which
is now little more than a toxic waste dump,
but they call it home and they love it. The
62
Other Regions: Other land masses and islands exist but like the Wasteland east of the Uluzian
Mountains they are assumed unlivable and for
the most part unseen.
The Races
Xodiza
currently has three races, if they can be

called that. They are classified here by their closeness to the original humanoid gene pool of Xodiza and
various political and religious alliances. The reason
for the races, beyond the alliances, is that viable offspring can only be produced within a given race. On
rare occasions Brutals have produced offspring with
both Elwin and Mutants. But It Is Rare! And Elwin
and Mutants are completely unable to crossbreed.
The Elwin: The Elwin are the most like the original
Xodizians genetically and ironically are the least
prevalent as far as population. The tribes that
make up the Elwin are the Virgoans, the Librans,
the Taurans and the Aquarians. Although each
tribe has it own particular culture Elwin are generally, peaceful reclusive and helpful when given
the opportunity.
break of the religious wars. These experiments which

dealt with Psychic abilities of certain Xodizian families, when combined with natural selection, a combative environment, and the bizzare effects of modern
warfare, produced the strange assortment of peoples
which are now known as the Twelve Tribes of Xodiza.
Geminese: A most powerful tribe, who worship the
two headed god Gemini. A mutant tribe with
two faces on the opposite sides of a single head.
They almost always wear a cloak with a hood
in order to hide one of their faces when they
are around other tribes. Along the magical path
they are able to polymorph objects, create duplicate objects given an original and the more powerful of the tribe can polymorph people. Each
face of a Geminese has a distinct personality.
Geminese personality traits come in opposite
pairs (eg. shy vs outgoing or cruel vs kind). The
degree of opposition is a function of how well that
particular Geminese works out his/her dual nature. One personality and face in a Geminese is
ALWAYS dominate thus controlling the change
between personalities and faces. Geminese have
the ability to swivel their head so as to have the
appropriate face and personality oriented to the
front of their torso. When following the physical path, Geminese take full advantage of their
unique mutation. In Battle Geminese get two attacks front and back left and right handed, but
only if opponents are attacking front and rear Often times Geminese use this ability to surprise a
would be assassin or backstabber in the heat of
battle.
The Brutals: The Brutals are a slightly mutated

race of Xodizians with certain mild physical
mutations which set them apart from the Elwin. The Brutals are the most abundant of the
races on Xodiza with about 50% more population than the Mutants. The are considered the
most barbaric of the races and thus received the
name Brutals. Brutals are generally aggressive,
chaotic, and prone to fits of lustful raping and Ariens: A Brutal tribe known for their impish nature. They are relentless pranksters and pracpillaging. The brutal tribes are the Ariens, the
tical jokers with a curious nasal laugh that is
Pieceans, the Leonians and the Capriconians.
particular to their tribe alone. Those who follow
The Mutants: They are by far the most malformed
the magical path have the power of telekinesis,
of the races when compared to the original inwhich aids them greatly in their antics at the
habitant of Xodiza. Their overt physical mutaexpense of others. An unexplained trip or a tap
tions tend to disgust the Elwin but are for the
on the shoulder when no one is there can be an
most part tolerated by the Brutals. The Mutants
indication that an Arien is somewhere in the the
hunger for power and wish to enslave the rest
vicinity. Those honing their physical attributes
of Xodiza. The Mutants are generally deceitful,
have extremely acute senses. A well trained
cautious in battle and extremely vengeful. The
Arien can hear people talking three miles away
Mutant tribes are the Scorpians, the Geminese,
and see through thirty feet of led on a moonless
the Cancerians and the Sagittarians.
night. Ariens make excellent trackers and often
work as bounty hunters finding the utmost joy
taunting their prey before he is captured. Their
The Tribes
bloodhounds nose allows them to follow even the
The Emergence of the twelve tribes can be linked to
slightest trail. The telekinetic powers of Ariens
Eugenics experiments being performed by the scienprogress and stabilize in a fairly predictable pattists of the various religious sects at the at the out
tern. The physical powers of Ariens appear to
63
be less predictable. Some Ariens seem to revert to almost normal levels in one sense while
the remaining senses increase markedly in there
acuteness. The only reason for this seems to be
over use of one particular sense. To compensate
for this side effect most Ariens tend to exercise
all of their senses equally. Arien facial features
are what make them so distinctive. They have
very round heads with small ears placed unusually high on the skull. Their eyes are also quite
large and set about twice as far apart as would
be considered normal.
may just toss off a gas grenade filled with neuro

toxin in the middle of a crowded market place,
his only concern being if used enough to ensure
genetic damage to the offspring of any survivors.
The magical and physical path manifest themselves in the Scorpions in the types of elixirs
they use. Physically oriented potions tend to explode, burn, freeze, dissolve or just kill. Magical
potions tend to induce truth, lust, invisibility,
alteration, or petrification. Despite the unusual
nature of the scorpions talents they still make use
of their Ka like all the tribes. For a scorpions potion to be effective he must pray for the specified,
be alert these are delicate compounds, (in other
words rested) and most of all every Scorpion requires a prescribed amount of the makers blood.
The amount is usually not much but exotic potions can call for a pint or two. As a result of
this requirement, scorpions always have numerous scars and scabs along their hands and wrists.
Fortunately they are quick healers.
Leonions: A Brutal tribe sometimes called the Lion

Men. The most distinctive feature of this tribe
is the customary long curly hair of both the men
and women. The men will almost always sport
beards after the onset of puberty. The men and
women often have lengthy and quite sharp nails
which they use effectively in hand to hand combat. Leonians possess both the strength and sensitivity of a lion. Along the physical path there
are none stronger. A single Leonion can clear a Librans: An Elwin race known for their poise and
road of a fallen Redwood. On the magical path
grace in all situations. Like all the Elwin races,
Leonions are empaths of exceptional power and
they are quite normal looking humanoid types
are naturally telepathic within their tribe. They
save for the fact that many of them about forty
have been known to develop telepathic links with
percent have two different colored eyes. This
close friends of other tribes given time. As emtrait does not appear to affect vision in any
paths Leonians can pick up on and eventually
way but is a curious mutation. Along the magproject all sorts of emotions and physical senical path Librans are sometimes called mental
sations including but not limited to love, hate,
thieves. The have the curious ability to rob a
thirst, cold, fear, exhaustion, pain, joy, and deperson of both memories and emotions. By robspair. Leonions are devoted to their family and
bing, it is meant to remove these things from a
often live in extended family groups of three or
person so as they will not know the ever existed.
four generations. Leonions are renown for their
As a result of this talent Librans make both exbravery and loyalty and are the most respected of
cellent spies and peacemakers. They can calm
the Brutal tribes by all four of the Elwin tribes.
the emotion of heated parties over a negotiating table, while at the same time lifting forever
Scorpions: A Mutant tribe who love to use chemicrucial pieces of information from the two comcals, potions and toxic concoctions of all types.
batants minds. Libran mentalist are also said
In appearance Scorpions are perhaps the least
to have near photographic memories. Though
grotesque of the Mutant tribes. They are short,
all Librans possess an elegance of both speech
never more than five in height. The irises of their
and movement, those following the physical path
eyes are a fluorescent green with even the whites
have evolved movement into an art form. Physshowing a tinge of minty color. Scorpions are
ical Librans are acrobats of extraordinary skill.
immune to all types of poisons and toxins. This
They are ambidextrous, double jointed, and exbeing result of the fact that their ancestors were
tremely flexible. Librans are excellent climbers
the survivors of massive chemical/biological atof any surface and quite skilled in hand to hand
tack the remains of which generations of Scorpicombat of any kind using their special abilities
ons have lived in and adapted to. The one goal of
and superior agility to great advantage.
all Scorpions seems to be to spread disease, contamination and death everywhere they go. Such Virgoans: An extremely beautiful Elwin race who
exploits tend to be be limited to enemies, ashave a particularly powerful effect on the opposassination targets, and people who piss them
site sex. Along the magical path they are able to
off: however, a cornered or desperate Scorpion
seduce nearly any person or creature of the oppo64
site gender. Their beauty has the effect of makgenerally have three offspring and separate afing the opposite sex believe almost any thing the
ter the children are grown. If all three children
Virgoan says and obey all reasonable requests.
are of the same sex the opposite sex parent will
A Virgoan making an obvious pass can seldom
leave after the birth of the third child. His/Her
be refused. A Virgoan kiss has many different
duty is now complete, since there are no same
effects including, orgasm, memory loss, confusex children to rear and the Cancerian will consion, sleep, deafness, blindness, and even death.
tinue his/her wandering ways. Cancerians are
Along the physical path Virgoans are defenders
very duty bound when it comes to their tribal
and protectors experts in the use of shields and
obligations to family, tribal defense and tribal
spiked bucklers. On the aggressive side Virgoans
secrecy.
are well trained in the use of whips and chains.
(Having had so much practice with their sex- Taurans: A strange race of totally blind prophets
who vary greatly in the accuracy of their preual partners) It is important to note that Virdictions depending on how far into the future
goans are a predominately female race. Males
they are called upon to see. In the very short
make up only about thirty percent of the tribe.
term Taurans, when able to concentrate, have
Males are used for reproduction and a few menial
the ability to navigate what obstacles to avoid,
tasks. Most of the males are docile and physiduck under, and and step over in a cluttered
cally smaller than the females. Virgoan females
room. They virtually see the obstacles in the
average about 6ft 2in while Virgoan males averroom as they move through it. Concentration
age only about 5ft 8in. A sizable minority of the
is required for this type of movement though,
males about ten percent reach between 6ft and
and if broken takes time to renew. Despite their
6ft 4in. These males are far more aggressive, and
handicap it is very difficult to surprise a Taupossess more brute strength than the average feran as they can predict an ambush a mile away.
male Virgoan and as a result are driven out of
Taurans rarely if ever carry canes but they are
Virgoan society by the age of eighteen. (After a
known to have guide dogs which double as attack
suitable amount their genetic material has been
dogs. These dogs are large, viscous loyal, beasts
forcibly obtain for eugenics purposes) Virgoans
with three inch fangs and very sharp claws. The
are very reclusive and seldom go outside their
dogs are bred specifically for this purpose and
own communities.
are found only in around Tauran communities.
In the physical discipline, Taurans are masters
Cancerians: A Mutant race with armour like skin
of the martial arts. Their only limitation being
which gives them excellent protection in combat.
that their opponent attack first. (So as to give
Cancerians do not have hands or fingers but inaway his position) Taurans also have the ability
stead claws or pincers which they use with great
to regenerate and heal from wounds much faster
skill when in combat. Cancerians brown shell
than the average tribe and subsequently have the
like skin is able to deflect all but the largest mislongest average lifespan of any tribe about 150
sile weapons. Cancerians are susceptible to most
years.
heavy swords and all types of blunt weapons.
Along the magical path Cancerians are able to Capriconians: A rather tall Brutal tribe with abenter the astral world and to commune with the
normally large heads, thick skulls and low intelspirits of the both places and people. Astral
ligence. Though of low intelligence Capriconitravel allows the follower to hear and see all that
ans have a likable nature and characteristically
is occurring in a particular place and all that
will not attack anyone who does not attack them
has occurred recently in that place assuming the
first. Capriconians, like the Leonions, generpsychic vibrations have not yet faded. Canceally have good relations with the Elwin tribes.
rians are also able to project their spirit into
When following the magical path Capriconians
other people for short periods of time, thus caushave the power of mental domination. When
ing great mental, emotional and physical daminvoked, spoken requests are difficult to refuse.
age. The amount of time spent tormenting a
This power will work on both sexes and can insoul and damage done is a function of that Canclude (with powerful followers) unreasonable and
cerians individual power level. Cancerians are
even self injurious acts even to the point of suivery hermitish throughout their life time. The
cide. This makes their ability in this regard
young are raised by the same sex parent and
much more formidable than the similar power
leave home by the age of ten. Mating pairs
of the Virgoans, seduction; however, unlike the
65
Virgoans seduction, if a victim realizes he is being influenced he has a better chance of resisting. After all if a person knew he was being
seduced by a very attractive member of the opposite, would he really try to resist? Due to their
kind nature Capriconians tend only to use this
power against those they consider enemies, potential enemies, or enemies of their allies. On
the battle field Capriconians are fierce fighters,
their favorite and best weapon being a spiked
club which they wield with great accuracy. As
a result of their large thick skulls Capriconians
can deliver a potentially stunning head butt to
an opponent and are highly resistant to psychic
attacks.
ful of all the tribes of anything mechanical or

technical. They will destroy any machine they
find no matter what the size or nature of it and
will attack any travelers, who are making obvious use of a machine. In past times Sagittarians
had been responsible for much of the destruction of the former technology of Xodiza. There
are stories of Sagittarian bands taking a week or
more to destroy cars, buses, tanks, even ships
not to mention the whole sale trashing of computer centers that have become epic in their oral
histories. The other tribes engaged in machine
bashing, literally, but to the degree and with the
finesse of the Sagittarians.
Pieceans: A Brutal tribe known for muscular legs,

small feet and webbed hands. They are excellent swimmers almost from birth and often become fishermen. Along the physical path they
are extraordinary runners and jumpers as these
skills improve with practice. Much of their fighting consists of kicks and leg sweeps. They often stomp opponents into submission or death.
What fights they dont want to get into they
can usually run away from with ease. The average Piecean can move a little faster than a
gazelle at top speed and jump thirty feet straight
up or fifty feet forward. In the practice of the
magical discipline, Pieceans are illusionists who
revel in messing with peoples minds. Most illusions start out simple but can become quite
lethal the more powerful the follower becomes.
Some examples of illusions of various power levels would be: light, darkness, invisibility, phantom shadow, dancing daggers, dream monster,
shadow wall, phantasmal killer and dream world.
Sagittarians: A Mutant tribe sometimes called the
Pieceans love the water and can seldom be found
watchers in the wood. They are a hairy bipedal
far from a large body of water. For their own
tribe with goats legs. Males sprout short horns
physical health they must immerse their body
on their heads, above the hair line, after puberty.
at least once a week in water or suffer dry peelOn the physical path they are skilled archers and
ing skin and a persistent rash that can become
quite adept at any sort of missile weapon. It is
incapacitating if water is not available to treat
told in legend that Saador, the Geminese fanatic
it. Soaking in a bath or pool of water relieves
who started the religious wars, was slain by a
the rash in a few days.
Sagittarian arrow. Along the magical path they
are able to command the woodlands and all its
creatures. They are often mistaken for woodland
creatures themselves. It is not uncommon for a
pack of wolves or a weeping willow to come to the
aid of a Sagittarian in distress. Powerful Sagittarians can call upon the weather to aid them
summoning gales, lightning and hail. Swarms of
insects, acid fog, and acid rain are also not unheard of. Culturally Sagittarians revere all that
has to do with nature and are the most distrustAquarians: An Elwin tribe with short lifespans,
a physically powerful grip and the ability to
heal, sometimes even to the point of resurrection. Along the magical path Aquarians are
known as the doctors of Xodiza. Depending on
the power of the follower, Aquarians can cure
light wounds to amputated limbs with a touch
of their over sized hands. Conversely they can
cause wounds and powerful followers can even
cause death with a touch. Aquarians have very
large powerful hands and with physical training
possess a Crushing Grip that can shatter bones
and crack windpipes in a matter of seconds. An
Aquarians grip is strong enough to squash a
ball of solid lead like it was clay. Culturally
the Aquarians are very peaceful, even cowardly.
They favorite sport is none other than thumb
wrestling and is practiced nightly by amateurs
in Aquarian pubs throughout Xodiza.
66
The Smuggler & the Smith

c
1990
Mike Sellers
[email protected]
Heres an FRP adventure for all you module runners

out there.
Some Notes
The adventure takes place in a large city-state, and
can involve some role-playing, intrigue, combat, a little magic, and a brief peek at the high-stakes power
plays going on in the city. I think this will work best
with characters who are not high power, though I
suppose you could scale it up if necessary.
The patron, Sir Eric, is a well-known noble associated with one of the more powerful trading houses
in the city. A deep background check might reveal a
hint of some connections that might raise a few eyebrows, but the characters have no reason to suspect
duplicity on his part.
Jules, the smuggler, is a tall thin man with lank
brown hair (why? I dont know, but thats how I
imagined him). He is well-paid, though his forte is
smuggling, not fighting. He died quite conveniently
when I ran this before as he was covering the PCs
retreat. He did it more out of shock that a plan of
his could have gone so far wrong than out of altruism
for the smith or the PCs (though I *did* have some
vague thoughts about Carl being Jules hated older
brother whom he regretted at the last minute having
sold to the Sisters, but thankfully that little subplot
never had to see the light of day).
The city has many large temples to various
gods. Most of these are set on a hill near the center of the city, and are well appointed and attended.
There are undercurrents of conflict or rivalry between
some of the temples, though this rarely touches the
worshiper-on-the-street. The temple in which most of
this adventure takes place is devoted to the goddess
Reltira, also known as she who walks in the night
(as some people know, an equally viable translation of
her name could be rendered she who stalks in darkness). Reltira is the patron of thieves, astronomers,
lycanthropes, shape changers, prostitutes, and others
who practice mainly beneath the moon. This temple
is at odds with the temple of Greenslade (god of life
and illusion [if youve ever seen Roger Deans artwork,
you may recognize where the concept for Greenslade

came from -MJS]), and is rumored by some to have
secret dealings with some of the priests in the temple
to Thet, the sea god.
Adventure in brief
Sir Eric, a noble of wealth and manners, has contracted with the characters to rescue a certain smith
(named Carl) from the clutches of the Temple of She
Who Walks in the Night, where he is currently illegally being held prisoner. If pressed, Eric will admit
that the smith is a master, and has a reputation for
making magical devices that the Sisters of the Night
are attempting to forcibly cash in on. Certain people do not want the Sisters to gain the sort of power
they could from this smith, and so have determined
that it would be best if he left their employ (though
this is not, strictly speaking, the PCs concern). All
of the PCs have been selected more or less at random
(from the pool of nascent adventurers) so as not to
arouse the Temples suspicions. To help them find the
smith and bring him to safety is a smuggler named
Jules. Jules says he knows where the smith is being kept and has been hired to help get him out. In
fact, Jules knows about this because he was the one
who smuggled the smith into the Temple in the first
place, and now bigger pay has helped him change
sides. Jules will admit this if it comes up, but will
not volunteer this information [note: this was played
for much hilarity on my part when I ran this; all the
players mouths dropped open when Jules casually
admitted that he knew which way to turn because
this was the way I carried him in here in the first
place]. Eric also gives the PCs each a small ebony
panther amulet and gives one of them (optionally the
confederate, see below) two keys that will help them
get into the Temple (one fits the outside garden gate
where the gardeners throw out their clippings, and
the other a grate leading into a series of steam tunnels). The amulets will be needed to circumvent the
temples passive guardians when the PCs are on the
way out.
67
Whats going on
The Temple wants Carl to make a magical cloak that
will aid in shapeshifting, something Carl is not excited about doing. He is in fact a consummate master, but his mainstream ethics prevent him from willingly giving in to the Sisters.
Carl wants to escape, but is being held both in
chains and by the fact that the Temple has something
on him (maybe a family member held hostage?).
[Note: I conveniently let this latter aspect of things
drop when everything started to get hairy and the
PCs were running like crazy.]
Eric ostensibly wants the smith rescued because
it will deal a blow to the Temple. In reality he is
deeply involved with the Temple himself, and this is
part of a power play on his part to gain more control over it. While he cannot directly supplant the
High Priestess, he can replace her with someone more
tractable. If the current high priestess were shown
to be incompetent (say, by losing an important commodity like the smith), her opposition would have the
leverage it needs to overthrow her with the popular
(though vapid) Clarise at their head.
Jules is just in this for the money. (Or is he?
Decide depending on how many twists and turns you
want in this thing.)
One of the PCs might be a confidant of Erics.
He (or she, which works even better, since most of the
people in the temple are women) would know about
Erics plan and be along to make sure things go okay.
Maybe this character knows a coupe of passwords or
something that is all too convenient... in any event,
if things go well, the confederate will probably expect
some credit from Eric, though if things go badly he
or she might just fade out with the rest of the PCs.
What They Have To Do

Get into the Temple, via the garden gate. (Possibility
of being seen by a random person/priestess walking
in the garden, or of being seen while stealing across
the garden towards the locked grate that leads toward
the basement where Carl is. Jules can unlock the gate
and grate, or the confederate can, or another party
member can.)
Get from there into the steam/ventilation tunnels (unused at this time of year). The grate leads
down into some steam tunnels. These are about 8 on
a side, with a square cross-section, and are lined with
a marble-like stone or ceramic that is fairly slick with
condensation. Jules knows his way perfectly, though
it might be interesting to have him fall or something
so that the characters are left to their own devices. At
any rate, Carl is in the lowest basement. The tunnels

open out into the ceiling of this room about 20 off the
floor. I also decided at the last minute that the floor
of the tunnel sloped precipitously above the grate in
the ceiling above Carls room, which made opening
the grate and lowering a rope quite hazardous with
the slippery footing.
Along the way, steal some robes from a wardroom for later use. Jules can go get these, or a couple of the characters can for a small side adventure.
Theyll need these on the way out (but see below).
Also, if there is a confederate along, at some point
he or she should drop the small panther amulet they
were given, or trip a tripwire by accident or something similar. Basically, one of the confederates jobs
is to raise the alarm before Carl is taken out of the
temple so that the Sisters can see who it is who is
taking him. Once they see that he is being taken out
by physical rather than magical means, they wont
suspect that this is really (in a twisted sort of way)
an inside job, and all their fury will be directed at
these unsuspecting adventurers.
From there get into the special forge that has
been set up in the lowest basement underneath the
temple. Carl is a large fairly handsome smith standing in the center of the room, hammering with large
stone hammers in both hands over a glowing anvil.
He is hammering at what looks like very thin shiny
black metal/cloth, and sparks fly from it each time
he hits it (this cloth is *very* valuable, but needs
more work by a non-smith before it can be made into
a cloak of shape changing). Carl is chained at the
waist to long chains, each terminating in an opposite
end of the room. He cannot move far from his anvil,
and cannot get a good angle to break the chains.
Once down into the room, the PCs have to free
Carl. Jules will watch the door, and bar it from the
inside. Only Carls hammer (wielded by someone else
until he is free on one side) will be able to break the
chains; there is enough slack to get a piece of it on
the stone floor, and it will break after being hit a
few times (this will also make rubble of the stone
underneath it). A dwarf or smith will be able to see
that the links in the chain are iron that has some sort
of crystalline treatment on it to make them magically
strong.
Carl is very grateful about being set free, but
will not leave without his hammer, the metal/cloth
he was working on, a beautiful dagger, and a few miscellaneous items. He will look longingly at the anvil
(in my system, such an anvil assists expert smiths in
making magic items; to a master smith, it is what a
+4 flametongue would be to a fighter), but there is
no way to move it (unless your characters have one
68
of my patented collapsible pack mules).

Once Carl is free on one side, the PCs will here
a lot of running and shouting coming toward them
in the hall outside the room. Either the alarm the
confederate tripped or something else (breaking the
chain?) has raised the alarm, and troops are coming
down on them quickly. While they are still trying to
free Carl on the other side, a big booming step can be
heard in the hall outside. Troops are now right outside the door, and they are trying to open it. A huge
booming starts up, like a big fist or a small battering
ram hitting the door. The party is trapped (since
they cant go back up through the tunnels, given the
slope)!
Or Are They?
Carl shows them an ancient trap door he found under
some boxes and rags in one corner. If the PCs Dally,
the door bursts open, revealing several temple guards
preceded by a large, angry troll on a leash with a
spiked collar. This is where Jules bought it before,
and I think it worked well. As the PCs struggle to
get the trap door opened, Jules fires a small crossbow
(where did he get *that*?) at the troll. The troll,
now really angry, rips Jules arms off. It pauses to
bite the top of his head off while the PCs, now truly
motivated, open the trap door and descend the steep
stone stairs.
They should all get through the door just before the temple guards reach it. Rather than pursuing them, though, the guards quickly shut the door;
sounds of it being spiked shut or something heavy
being moved on top of it can be heard, along with
muffled laughter. Clearly, the guards are not worried
about the PCs or the smith escaping this way.
They are now in small circular room with five
passages leading off in various directions. The passages appear to be storm sewers; there is a small
amount of stagnant water in the bottom of each and
a smell of stale air and refuse around them.
If any of the PCs have any religious training,
they might have heard tales of the passages underneath the temples, but these are never given much
credence. In all the tales, however, the passages are
supposed to be the homes of deranged lunatics, old insane shape-changing priestesses, prisoners converted
to animal form, lycanthropes, sluks, ghouls, and other
miscellaneous uglies.
In fact, all of the above do live in various parts
of these passages. I drew up a very random map on
unlined paper showing how the passages proceed, intersect, dead-end, and (in a few cases) actually empty
out into an empty field, the basement of a slum house,
or into the pit outside the city walls. The PCs have to
roam around for a while, and the number of hideous
things they encounter is basically up to you. To be
fair, I quickly noted on my map where the old insane priestess lives, where most of the lycanthropes
converge, where the party of goblins trying to break
in to the city is located, etc.. The party skirted the
area (and heard bone-chilling hysterical cackling in
the distance) where the priestess lives, hit some werebats and weretoads, and eventually got out it had
been a long evening).
Along the way, the party discovered a large room
with a stone ceiling that resembled the underside of
a huge bowl. A little ways beyond this, they found
a stair way leading up on one side of the passage.
At the top was a long dis-used door, with a brass
fish for a handle. They guessed (rightly) that this
door led into the sea-gods temple, though they didnt
even want to think about what those people might be
keeping in a large bowl or pool deep in the basement
of their temple... This little tidbit will come in handy
in later adventures :-)
The party eventually finds its way out of the sewers and into a field or some such (they almost ended
up coming out of a secret door (whose presence is unknown to the proprietors) in a sleazy beer-hall in the
slums). Carl wants to take refuge in the Temple of
Greenslade if he has any choice, and suggests that the
PCs come along. If they agree and they make there
without being sighted by the other temples guards,
he will give them the dagger (beautifully wrought,
with some really nice magic on it). For their part,
the priests of Greenslade will be so glad to see Carl
(he was originally coming to see them when his trip
was interrupted) that they will agree to give the party
safe passage out of the city [this is where the PCs actually set up their next adventure when I ran this, as
the priests had a task that needed doing, and since
these folks really did need to leave town anyway...].
69
Advanced Character Generation for 2300AD

c
1990
Shawn Dudley
The
following is a set of guidelines intended to

give helpful hints and assistance to anyone creating
a character for Game Designers Workshops roleplaying game 2300AD.
The character generation rules in 2300AD and in

its previous format, Traveller:2300 tend to be somewhat vague, and often do not mention important facts
about generating characters. Also, players often are
looking to add color to their characters background.
This article should help players (and game masters)
on both accounts. To fully use this guide, one must
have the Adventurers Guide from 2300AD (or the
Players Guide from Traveller:2300), as well as a
sheet of paper or a character record sheet. It will
also be helpful to have both the Earth/Cybertech
Sourcebook, and the Colonial Atlas. Further articles will be forthcoming about subjects like equipment for 2300AD, as well as details on the Cybertech
supplement for 2300AD.
Creating a Character
the basics
The
first order of business in creating a character

in 2300AD is determining his homeworld. In the
rules, a player first needs to make a die roll to determine if he is from the core or frontier. If he rolls
frontier, he then rolls for the gravity of the frontier
world/outpost.
In practice, the above is not generally recommended. Choosing ones home need not be so random, and the charts given in the rules tend to be
very biased towards characters born in the colonies
on worlds with abnormally high or low gravity levels.
While this is great if youre playing adventures on
the frontier, it tends to be a big minus for characters
involved in Cybertech adventures on Earth, as the
given die charts give them a big disadvantage when
it comes to abilities and background skills.
For characters who are intended to be played
in Earthbound cybertech adventures, the following
is recommended: reverse the core/frontier die chart
so that a roll of 1 through 3 is a Frontier result, and a
4 through 10 is a core result. Once this is done, then
skip the gravity roll and directly choose your homeworld from the Colonies given in the Adventurers
guide and the Colonial Atlas. Characters in the
core, of course, can choose either Earth or Tirane
(the colony at Alpha Centauri).
Once youve chosen your homeworld, you need
to determine your body type. This can be done in
two ways: one, roll under the appropriate gravity column on the bodytype chart to find a body type, or
two, just choose the body type you like. The second
method is preferred by many, as it gives a player a
little more control over his character than the existing charts would allow. The full descriptions of the
body types are given in the Adventurers guide, but
an easy way to think of body types is like this: Mesomorphs play football, Ectomorphs play basketball,
Endomorphs play hockey, and Normals play baseball.
Now that youve got your body type taken care
of, now roll for your physical and psychological attributes, as per the original rules. One thing to note,
however. The game rules are very vague on Attribute
Task Modifiers (basically, some fool at the typesetters
left it out!). Each one of your eight attributes needs
to be divided by four, fractions rounded down, to provide die modifiers for various rolls. This means a roll
between 1 and 3 would yield no modifier, a roll of 4
to 7 would yield za modifier of 1, a roll of 8 to 11
would yield a modifier of 2, a roll of 12 to 15 would
yield a modifier of 3, a roll of 16 to 19 would yield a
modifier of 4, and a roll of 20 would yield a modifier
of 5. Always keep this in mind when you are making
your rolls (and your rerolls), so that you can achieve
the maximum level of modifiers.
Also, dont forget you can reroll two attributes:
one physical and one psychological, and that the
reroll is only optional: you dont have to take it the
second time around. For the physical modifiers, what
you reroll depends on what you want to emphasize:
it could be wise to concentrate on beefing up one
particular ability, as opposed to just picking up lower
rolls. At the same time, its easier to pick up a low roll
than it is to make a high roll even higher by rerolling
up. The choice is yours. As far as your psychological
attributes go, the Determination ability is the single
most used asset your character has. You should always try for a reroll of any Determination roll under
70
8, and it is strongly encouraged also for a determi- carrer chart.

nation under 12. The second-most used attribute in
play is (get this, folks!) eloquence. If the character
Choosing Carrers & Skills
desires to interact well with NPCs, this ability should
have a minimum of 8, and 12 or higher is desired.
Probably one of the two most challenging things
a player has to do when generating a character is
pick a carrer (for some reason, picking a nationalBackground Skills
ity is the other one). Players need to have at least
carrer, and having two is highly recommended.
How a character divvies up his skill points depends one
As for what kind of carrer is best for ones characon what type of character he desires, of course, but a
ter, I suggest that you should read both what skill
general rule of thumb is to have a character with one
points the carrer offers you in initial training, and
skill at level 4, about two or three at level 3 (including
what the primary skills are, then choose a carrer that
at least one combat skill), and the rest at level 2. Any
best suits you. For combat oriented characters, a
skill at level 1 or 0 tends to be not as useful.
military carrer is a must for a first carrer. If you
What background skills a player gets depends
want a character to have some combat abilities, but
on if hes from the core or the frontier. The core is
be more well rounded, Troubleshooter, Field Agent,
quite sanitary, computerized, controlled, and, well,
Law Enforcement and both of the extralegal carrers
boring. A core character will receive little in the way
are good. For real technical-oriented characters, the
of combat skills, but lots of computer and intellectual
two exploratory carrers, academic, colonist, and core
skills. Frontier characters do not get much in the way
world are recommended. And, for those that want
of computer of intellectual, but do have most of the
characters that roleplay well, Field Agent, both Excombat and survival-oriented skills available, due to
tralegal carrers, Journalist, Independent Trader, and
a more rugged lifestyle.
Administrator come in handy.
For players who are looking for real detail in their
The reason why I recommend taking on a second
characters, a helpful hint: Characters growing up on
carrer is due to the free skill points available in initial
Tirane, and any colony over 75 years of age (detertraining. Normally, a character with a single carrer
minable by the colonies chart in the play aids) have
will get a whole mess of skill points once, in initial
access to both core and frontier background skills.
training, then a small trickle of skill points based on
This reflects the modernization occuring on the olhow many years a character spends in a carrer until
dermost of Earths colonies, as they cease to behe fails a turning point. With a second carrer, the
come mere frontier installations, and transform into
player will get another flood of skill points, as he goes
fullfledged, thriving worlds.
through initial training for that carrer as well. On the
Before I get into carrers, a note on skills: the
average, this will leave your character with more skill
amount of skill points needed to achieve a certain
points, and therefore higher skill levels, than if he had
skill level depends on the type of skill, determined
just selected one carrer. Remember, though, you can
in the carrer section. To make it easier, follow the
only change carrers after passing a turning point, and
chart below.
you only get to do it once.
For players interested in more detail in their carSkill level desired
rers, consult the various sidebars and notes on orType of skill
0 1 2 3 4 5
ganizations in the basic game, as well as in other
Primary, Background 1 1 1 2 2 3
2300AD source materials. Characters may want to
Related
1 1 2 3 4 5
assign their characters to a particular corporation,
Unrelated
1 2 3 5 6 8
foundation, or national military, law enforcement, or
Cross-index the type of skill with the skill level de- intelligence organization. A wide selection is given in
sired: the given number is the number of skill points the adventurers guide alone. If none of the groups
it takes to reach that skill level. A few notes to re- mentioned in the above sources really appeal to your
member: skill points left over in choosing background character, make something up, or, attach him to a fuskills, initial training, or carrer skills NEVER carry ture equivilent of a modern day organization. For exover. Use them, or loose them. Keep in mind that ample, in 2300AD, just as in present day, the United
you cant jump skill levels: a character must move States will probably still have the US Army, the Navy,
from each skill level to the next, paying all of the the Air Force and the Marine Corps, plus probably a
necessary costs. Also, an unrelated skill is any skill Space Force of some kind, as well as the FBI, the Sethat is not a primary or related skill, as given by the cret Service, the CIA, the National Security Agency,
71
the DEA, and the US Marshalls Office, or at least Nationality: For some reason, this seems to be
the twenty-fourth century equivilents of them.
the other really difficult choice a character
has to make. If you really want to get into
A note on college: In 2300AD, nearly 80% of the
what the political shape of 2300AD is, buy
population of the core worlds has five years of
Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook from your locollege education or more, as well as close to 40%
cal game shop, or borrow it from somebody. It
of the frontier population. If you wish to simuwill answer most of your questions about whos
late this, let either your first or second carrers be
who these days. However, for those who would
academic. Optionally, you can allow for two carlike a quick and dirty approach to picking a narer changes, as long is one of your carrers is acationality, just use the nations that are here todemic. But dont feel pressured to go academic:
day. The basic geography has not changed all
its a good way to build up intellectual and comthat much, and the important changes are listed
puter skills, but its not necessary to have one in
below.
2300AD. On the other hand, a good cyberjockey
would be incomplete without a college education
and the cheap computer and info gathering skill United States: Now commonly called America. No
longer the worlds #1 nation (not necessarily a
points it provides.
weakling, either!), significantly more isolationist.
A note on skills: The academic skills provided in
Southern California, and most of Arizona and
the adventurers guide are only a smittering of
New Mexico are now part of Mexico. Texas is
the type of skills one could obtain. Characan independent nation. Puerto Rico is now a
ters that desire to have fields of study outside
state.
of this list should feel free to add another skill or
two, maybe skills like Law, Economics, Botany, Mexico: Gained Southern California, Central
America, Cuba, and most of the Carribbean.
Astronomy, or whatever else he feels like (with
the GMs approval, of course). The General Texas: Now independent of the U.S.
Skills list could be added to in the same manner,
with skills such as Heavy Equipment, Animal Australia: Tasmania is independent, as is Queensland (now known as Papua).
Handling, Agriculture, Acting, Dance, Music,
etc.(within reason, of course). However, adding
Japan: Gained the Phillipines, Guam, most of the
skills beyond these two areas is not generally recsmall Pacific island chains, but not Hawaii, or
ommended.
Korea.
France: Now the #1 nation; the French Empire is
composed of France, Belgium, Guyana, a good
chunk of North, West and Central Africa, as well
Upon failing your last turning point, your character
as various other parts of the world. Characters
is now given the polishing touches that make him/her
who are French are generally not well liked by
complete. Finalization is explained pretty straightanyone but Frogs themselves.
forward in the Adventurers guide, but there are a
few extra points of interest.
Britain: Northern Ireland now part of unified Ireland. Still has a King, still a major power, but
Mass: you might notice that, after computing this
does not have Gibraltar, or the Falklands.
characteristic, your character seems a little overweight, particulary if hes a mesomorph or an Germany: Unified, but only recently (see game history).
endomorph. Im somewhat suspicious of the tabulation method myself, but I usually dont worry
Russia: USSR no longer around, most of the capabout it much. Mass is probably one of the most
tured republics have gone independent, such as
useless stats this game has.
the Ukraine, Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and
the Far East Republic.
Throw range: A character with a strength of 10 can
throw an 1 kg (about 2 lb. object) 80 meters, in
Scandinavia: Now unified.
the game. Like mass, its a little questionable,
but just how many situations occur in which you China: Split in three parts. Manchuria in the north,
need to throw something the length of a football
Canton in the south, and China in the middle.
field, anyway?
Tibet is still not independent.
Finalization
72
India: Split nine different ways.

Arabia: Saudi Arabia absorbed all the gulf states.
Iran: Still has an Ayahtollah.
Palestine: Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and the PLO all
unify (the only future event I personally dont
think would really happen. GDW can dream on,
but if you want to be a Zionist in my campaigns,
please, feel free).
Africa: Egypt expands into the UAR, the French
take over half the continent, and South Africa
comes under black rule, and changes its name to
Azania.
A character does not have to be particularly loyal
to his chosen nationality, but he should come from
somewhere.
Major powers in 2300AD are France, Germany,
Britain, America, Japan, and Manchuria. Other major political players are: Azania, Ukraine, Mexico,
Argentina, Brazil, Texas, Canton and Australia.
There! Now, youre finished with an enhanced character, but still within the basic rules and game universe. A note to the wary: please dont let the above
rules and recommendations, or the standard game
rules restrict you too much on what you want to do
with a character. As long as you and the game master
both agree to it, theres really nothing you shouldnt
be able to do, or as GDW prez and 2300AD creator
Frank Chadwick told me once: Once you buy it, its
not our game anymore; its yours, to do what you
want to do with it. Enjoy!
73
Doubly Blind
Limited Intelligence for GDWs Starcruiser
c
1990
Brian Yip
Whether roleplaying or wargaming, the general con-
your opponents will easily reach them. Play the strips

sensus seems to be that no system of rules is perfect, (information blinds) on top of each column but allow
and that every rule is open, not merely to reinter- the top part (where the object number and column
pretation, but also to revision. Understanding this, names are) to be visible. Now everything is ready.
Brian presents his revisions to GDWs Starcruiser.
Play proceeds as normal except that during the
detection phase, players consult the cards instead of
Starcruiser presents a very nice system for starship asking each other about their signatures. Instead of
combat that depends as much on detecting the en- asking Does this bogey have a signature of x? go
emy (if not more in some instances) as the firepower to the card with that bogeys number or letter and
one can bring to bear. Bogeys all appear as black secretely slide down the strip under that column until
globes, indistinguishable from one another except by you see the number x. If you see one of the numbers
circled, then the ship has been detected and you may
action until detected by active or passive sensors.
During the Active Sensor Illumination phase, look under the Identity column to see what it is.
players may illuminate their ships active sensors and You do not need to tell your opponent that he has
use their active sensor rating to detect other objects. been detected. Move the strips back into place so
During the detection phase, players may ask, for ex- that no one will know your sensor rating.
Note that if you illuminate using active sensors,
ample, Does this bogey have a radiated signature of
6 or more? If the opposing player responds yes, you still indicate so since detection of your ship is
then automatic. Also, if your ship has suffered a hull
the object is detected.
A couple of things happen in Star Cruiser that I breech, its radiated signature goes up. When this
do not find to be quite right. When players ask about happens, immediately take the ships card back and
their targets signature, their target then knows the circle the higher signature number. Return the card
players sensor rating. Secondly, the target player an- to the table and continue play.
swers yes or no when asked about his signature,
meaning the target always knows whether hes been
Object
detected or not. It seems to me that players should
Radiated Reflected Signature
only know whether theyve detected their target (and
Signature Radial
Lateral
Identity
thus the targets signature), not whether they them15
15
15
selves have been detected or their opponents sensor
14
14
14
ratings, especially not passive ones. Here is how I
13
13
13
propose this could be simulated.
12
12
12
For each object (starship, missile, drone, etc.),
11
11
11
two index cards are required. One card is divided
10
10
10
into four sections with each section numbered as in
9
9
9
figure A.
8
8
8
The other index card should be cut into strips
7
7
7
that will cover each of the four sections.
6
6
6
Under Radiated Signature circle your objects
5
5
5
radiated signature number (masked). Similarly, cir4
4
4
cle the objects radial and lateral reflected signature.
3
3
3
Under Identity, write in the identity of the unit.
2
2
2
By Object at the top, write a letter or number or
1
1
1
otherwise special mark that will identify which black
0
0
0
globe counter this card represents.
To play, lay the cards face up by the map where
figure A
74
Combat Vehicles for Striker

c
1990
Brian Yip
For
all of you whove taken a loooong... look at

Jonas (Tech level 5)
Striker vehicle design rules and have after long hours
of study and consternation figured out that you dont The Jonas has a crew of 3 (commander, driver, gunreally want to mess with em, weve found a crazy ner). It mounts one 2 cm charghwI autocannon in a
turret with direct fire control only. Height: 2m (1.5m
person who does. Enjoy!
chassis); Width: 4m; Length: 5m. Total volume is
34.375m3 (30m3 + m3 ). Weight is 30.254 tons. Price:
Light GEV (Tech Level 10)
48,614.28 Cr. This vehicle is amphibious. 2 passenThe light GEV has a crew of 2 (driver, gunner). gers.
It mounts one 5 cm CPR gun in a chassis front
mount, with both direct and indirect fire control. Movement: 55 kph/45.8 cm road speed
27.5 kph/ 22.9 cm cross country speed
Height: 1.75m; Width: 2m; length: 3m. Total
3
volume is 10.5m . Weight is 14.00941 tons (+2),
Movement effects on fire: -4 FFP, no EFP if 12
Price: 451,534.18 (+ ammo) Cr. This vehicle is nonspeed
amphibious. 0.005m3 cargo.
Armor (soft steel): front: 19; rear: 15; sides: 19;
Movement: 335 kph / 279 cm
deck: 8; belly: 1; Turret front: 19; rear: 11;
Movement effect on fire: none.
sides: 19
Armor (crystalline): front (1.5cm, radical slope)
28; sides (1.5cm, moderate slope) 24; rear
(1.5cm) 20; deck (2cm) 23; belly (1cm) 15.
Target size: +2 DM low/ +1 DM high
Target Size DMs: +1 low, no high.
Power: 0.6 MW internal combustion engine consumes 540 liters per hour; fuel capacity is 1080
liters, enough for 2 hours constant running
Equipment: 10-power radio, 10-power jammer
Equipment: 100-power radio, 100-power radio jammer, map box, light amphlifer goggles, activer
IR scope.
Power: 4 MW fusion powerplant consumes 3.0 liters
of fuel per hour; fuel capacity is 48 liters, enough
for 32 hours constant running.
Weapon: 2 cm bore gas-operated action autocannon

with single barrel. High velocity. Mounted in the
turret. The weapon engages 16 targets and its
ROF is 640 rounds per turn. There are 6400
shots (20 bursts worth)
Weapon: 5 cm bore CPR gun. Medium velocity,

Mounted chassis front. There is an autoloader Ammo: KEAP Effective:60(9)+6 Long:100(8)+5
and space and weight is allocated for 140 rounds.
Extreme:320(7)+2 (320 shots expended per
Performance varies with ammo: Direct.
phase)
ROUND
HE
HEAP
KEAP
KEAPER
flechette
CBM
ROF
7
7
7
7
danger
EFFECTIVE LONG
150(9)(1)1
250(9)(1)1
150(21)
250(21)
150(20)
250(18)
150(18)
250(16)
space 10, DM+4
EXTREME
400(9)(1)1
400(21)
400(16)
400(14)
Performance varies with ammo: Indirect. Range

is 7 km; Accuracy: +3 at 3.5 km, +1 at 7 km.
75
COST
1680
2520
1680
1848
8400
5040
Rangers in AD&D
c
1990
Wayne S. Wallace
Ranger Extraordinaire
This article was written as a response to the way cer-
good fight, he chose to take off, taking his valuable

tain folks (who shalt remain unnamed :-) tend to play fighting ability away from the partys potential.
rangers. Follow-ups are, of course, welcome.
Scenario two: The party, with an average level
of one, is currently enjoying the hospitality of a
The Ranger is a woodsman by nature, a stealthy halfling farmer. (NOTE: no class limitations were in
scout by training, and a warrior by circumstance. All place in this campaign) The druid/monk, a rather atrangers are in touch with nature, with plants and tractive female figure, awakens the party in the barn
with animals. Yet, they are protectors of good.
with the words: Lets go kill that stupid farmer. I
The problems some people have in playing a Pal- want his money. (Unbeknownst to the party, she was
adin are usually irrelevant when applied to a Ranger; pissed off that he didnt fall for her human charms
after all, Rangers dont have some big, limiting code and also had undergone enough stress to bring her
of honor like Paladins, right? Wrong!! A Ranger evil Illusionist/Assassin personality to the fore.) The
is, yes, a survivalist. He knows how to live off the party blinked as one and the Ranger stood before
land and find shelter in bad weather and other things her, sword drawn, but not in a threatening manner,
which make ones trip through a forest less harrow- and asked of her if she truly understood what she
ing. He is not, however, a survivalist in the sense of was saying. He also told her that murder is wrong.
putting his own life before others. As a good person, She proceeded to Color Spray (blind) him. He had
he goes by that basic code of honor that all good char- lost his most important sight. He could not track
acters go by: to help others, to sacrifice, though not or battle very effectively while blind. He used his
foolishly, most anything to save an innocent or good magic ring to see through the eyes of his falcon cirlife, and to attempt to ones best ability to fix past cling above and proceeded to attack her. He hit, and
mistakes.
she was down and bleeding. The elf came over to
Mortals are not perfect, however, and do make bandage her wounds and stabilize her so that, to his
mistakes. However, for those mortals who have lived mind, she could be taken to a city and checked for
and/or adventured a long time (in gamespeak, quite a possession by evil spirits, insanity, etc. The ranger,
few levels gained and foes dealt with), these mistakes his sight now regained, was furious, and as the elf
sat over her, making sure she would live, the Ranger
should be fewer, if not near-nonexistent.
Scenario one: The party, with an average level came over, sword brandished, and tried to attack her
of ten, foolishly draws attention to itself in a dor- with intent to kill. Had the weaker elf not gained
mant volcano with a fresh-water lake and tower (w/ leverage over the Rangers far greater strength, surely
drawbridge). They knew that they were in danger- he would have committed murder. Eventually seeing
ous territory where something lurked that had killed the futility of trying to remove this obvious source of
a powerful group of the kings elite warriors. Not giv- evil while the rest of the party was against him, the
ing a care to the cave they hadnt entered yet, they Ranger sheathed his sword and sat down for a while
proceeded to make much noise and ruckus. Little and became calm again.
did they know that the Red Dragon who had killed
Now, in which of those two situations did the
the elite warriors had heard the party and while they Rangers alignment (Good) breach cause him to later
were still looking around and had flown out of its lair lose the status of Ranger? Exactly what is forgivable?
to strafe them. Breathing fire once, it alerted them In the first scenario, the Ranger deserted his near lifeto its presence and returned to its lair. Most of the long friends with whom he had adventured for many
party yet lived, and all decided to go through the cave years, and left without even a thought of remorse or
and slay the dragon. They healed themselves some- caring for them. He had abandoned the ideals of good
what and proceeded to beard the beast. All, that is, to save his own skin, instead of helping them. If they
except the Ranger. After ten levels of fighting the had survived with the Ranger, much good would have
76
been accomplished. If they had all died, all of them:

including the Ranger, each would be assured a place
in their respective heavens because of past deeds.
In the second scenario, the Ranger was new and
inexperienced, so his lapse in judgement is understandable. Mortals make mistakes when angered and
the Ranger learned from his mistake and went on to
help the party win the rest of their battles.
Clearly, the dividing line between an honest mistake (while angered) and willful evil (leaving your
friends possibly to a gruesome death when perhaps
you could have helped them) is quite fine indeed.
Here are some tips on correctly playing the ranger as
he is: a good woodsman, not a cowardly survivalist. A
true Ranger helps the helpless, is charitable to those
who have not, is loyal to his friends, never deserting
them in their hour of need no matter how bleak the
outcome looks. A false Ranger ignores those who are
in need, never helps someone unless it benefits him,
and values his own life above all others, especially
in a might-as-well-be no-win situation, trading them
away to make good his escape.
77
Two For the Show
Eds Guide to Dragon Skinning

These are a few guidelines Ed uses when his players
get lucky. Real lucky...
Colins Guide to Killer Characters

Heres Colins advice on powergaming.
Greetings mutants and other sentient beings.
How
goes it? My name is Colin (Fandora) Kameoka and I
The following is my adaption of the AD&D 2nd Edi- have a few funny facts (or dumb and totally useless
tion rules concerning the skinning of dragonhide.
pieces of trivia to all those power gamers out there)
The second edition AD&D Dungeon Masters
about people and their characters.
Guide has some great ideas on this topic. Skinning
THE PROBLEM?
a dragon is difficult to do. It might take a series of
proficiency checks (or some such method) in order to
I can say it in one word... POWER! Almost evremove the hide without ruining it. I would give a ery gamer in the back of his or her mind must make
base chance of 50% to remove enough hide to make every character the most powerful in existence. It
each suit of armor. This could be modified by +5% does not matter what game you play; it is the same
by such things as leather- working or hunting profi- old thing. I have long since given up hope that people
ciency. Magical weapons add +10% per plus of the might change; only people who have seen the light can
weapon. Half the age category of the wyrm equates really change. For example, the infamous roll dice for
to the amount of usable hide for armor construction. characteristics game. Nearly everyone will cheat their
Thus an age stage 8 dragon has enough undamaged rolls; an 18 means nothing. I personally do not like
hide (you dont want sword gashes in your armor) to characters like this because low characteristics build
make 4 size M (man-sized) suits, or 8 size Small.
character. High characteristics from what I have seen
The curing of the hide would be very expensive mean nothing these days. How can one roleplay all
and must be done with care. Some GMs might re- 18 characters??? There are no real traits to make
quire the armor to be enchanted with the enchant fun of. On the other hand, I can also see why playan item spell. The Armor Class the finished prod- ers want powerful characters. It is called the infauct bestows is 4 worse than the AC of the original mous killer GM. In my days of playing RPGs nothing
dragon. Thus the AC of Great Wyrm Gold Dragon bugs me more than jerks who run nothing but blood
Hide would be = wyrm AC: -12 minus 4 = -8.
baths, (pc that is) and kill as many as they can with
Normally Dragon hide does not give any bonus the most powerful junk that they can come up with.
to saves or similar things (i.e. red dragon hide does Well, let us face the facts; human nature makes us
not give immunity to fire or even a +1 save as it is as- very destructive.
sumed that the low AC bestowed is benefit enough).
THE ANSWER?
If you want to give this kind of bonus that I
would suggest that you should give all dragon hides
I can not tell other people how to run their game;
a base AC of 5 (or whatever is the equivalent of scale that is their business. I however, use lots of little
mail). In all cases, the base AC of any hide should squishy baddies for PCs to deal with. I dont use
not be worse than this regardless of dragon age stage. too many, just enough that I only have to worry
One of the best things about dragon hide is that about bad die rolling nights for PCs. Reason: it
while it gives scale-mail like protection (or better), it gives players a good feeling about their characters
is as supple as studded leather. Thus thieves can wear without hurting their egos. The big bad guy should
it with the usual penalties for studded leather. The be rare and not much more powerful than a single
same is true for rangers. Because it is a natural player character. These are only steps in the right
hide, druids can also don this armor. Among high- direction. I can say no more. If abusing a game
level druids, usually those going into battle, dragon system is your cup of tea and you think it is fun to
hide is a sign of status. Note that druids do not kill powergame, then continue to do so. Only make sure
dragons for their hide, but like the American Indians, to buy your new game when your last one is no longer
they will put all remains of a dragon to good use.
fun to play.
Edward Zeamba
Colin (Fandora) Kameoka

78
Magical Items for AD&D

Aaron Sher & Jim Vassilakos
If the magic in your AD&D campaign is getting a little boring, the following items should help spice it up
just a bit. Feel free to modify and use as you see fit.
Aarons Items
Force Gem: Appears as a brilliant blue gem about
4 across, faceted, and with a yellow glow in the
center. If someone holds it and invokes it (I invoke you, Invoke!, or something similar), it
will sink into their palm, becoming just a pattern (like a tattoo), of blue with glowing lines
of yellow running up the fingers. At any subsequent time, if the user so wills it, a bolt of force
(which looks sort of like colorless fire, if you can
picture that) will shoot from his palm to a range
of 150, doing damage based on the percentage
of HP the user has left:
100% - 75%:
75% - 50%:
50% - 25%:
0% - 25%:
3d6
2d6
1d6
1d3
A successful save vs Wands on the part of the target will reduce this damage by half. Item saves
apply only if 1) the target failed his save, and 2)
the item is exposed to the blast, which is very
directional and about half a foot in diameter.
Ring of XXXXXX: Note about the name: This
ring should be called either a ring of lightning/electricity/whatever, or after its creator.
Its two incarnations in my campaigns have been
called the Ring of Irabunol and the Ring of Istaris (yes, the same one as in the module). This
ring appears as a normal silver ring, with a goodsized emerald set into it. Its powers are as follows:
Immunity to Electricity
Lightning Dart (2/day,1 turn)
Where applicable, the value before the comma

is how many times the power may be used, and
the number after is the minimum interval between usages. For instance, Lightning Dart may
be used twice in a given day, but the second usage must be at least 1 turn after the first.
The wearer is completely immune to any
and all electrical effects, including any type
(magical or natural) of lightning. However,
his equipment is not; if hes hit by a lightning bolt, item saves still apply.
A spell of my own creation, Lightning Dart
is as follows:
Lightning Dart
2nd level Invocation/Evocation
V,S,M
Casting Time: 2
Duration: special
Area of Effect: special
When this spell is cast, the mage is empowered to fire small darts of electricity, like
miniature lightning bolts. These darts can
vary in strength; their power is measured in
units, each of which represents 1d4 damage (i.e. a 3 unit dart does 3d4). The available power equals 1 unit per level of the
mage, and these can be held for a time equal
to one-half of the mages level, rounded up.
After this time, any unused units are lost.
Units may not be split. For example, if Isid
the 7th level mage were to case Lightning
Dart, he would receive 7 units. If he then
cast a 4 unit dart (doing 4d4 damage), he
would have 3 left. He could then cast a 1,2,
or 3 unit dart. If he does not use all 7 units
within 4 turns of the casting time, any remaining units are lost.
Lightning Ball (1/day)
Lightning Ball is as a ring of shooting stars,

but at one-half damage.
Shocking Grasp (4/day,3 rounds)
Shocking Grasp is as the spell.

79
All powers are used at the 8th level of magic use,

where applicable.
causes its wearer to become as a two-foot tall

leprechaun with the powers of invisibility at will
(from normal sight and infravision but not from
ultravision or vision of undead), ventriloquism
also at will, and create minor illusion once per
day (with the following restrictions).
Lightning Whip: This appears as a metal whip, 18

long. It is shaped like a three-pointed star, with
the edges very sharp. It thus inflicts slashing
damage as a longsword, rather than normal whip
damage. At the wielders will, the whip will begin to crackle and emit faint blue sparks. Anyone
struck by it when its power is active will take an
additional d4 of electrical damage. Its power can
be active for one turn per day, but this can be
split however the wielder chooses.
The illusion must be something small and simple and can only be worked on one person. All
illusions are cast instantaneously and last a maximum of one minute (10 melee rounds) or until
dispelled. Options on illusion forms are as follows:
A small object may seem to appear, such
as a shiny coin or bright gem or dagger in
the hand of the ring wearer.
The illusion may take the form of a blur
spell for the ring wearer (-4 on initial attack,
-2 on successive attacks, +1 save vs directed
magical attacks).
The illusion may finally take the form of
a hypnotism (if the victim is lured to attention in a non-combat situation and fails
a saving throw vs spell at +5). The victim
may then be urged to do something (as suggestion) for the duration of the minute or
until attacked or damaged.
Mesh Armor: This is not exactly a magic item, its

a new type of armor Ive come up with. Its made
of heavy wire mesh, in layers. Its thicker (more
layers) over vulnerable points, and thinner over
the joints to allow increased flexibility. Treat
it as elven chain for combat purposes, but it is
almost silent as theres nothing to click, clank,
or clatter.
Wand of Acid Blobs: This wand is capable of firing small blobs of acid, one per round. If a
successful to-hit roll is made, the acid inflicts
2d4 points of damage on the target. Ranges are
2/4/6, in tens of yards. It has charges, of course,
and cannot be recharged.
Necklace of Guarding: This necklace protects the
wearer from normal missile attacks. It puts out
needles of force, hopefully diverting the missiles
from their course. In game terms, this translates
to a -4 for any normal missiles of spear size or
smaller (no boulders) to strike the wearer. It has
charges, which are used up at a rate of one per
missile, whether or not the missile is successfully
repelled.
Jims Items
DragonDeath: DragonDeath is a magical (+3),

two-handed sword. It is +4 versus reptiles, +5
versus dragons, and +6 versus wyrms (truedragons in my campaign). It has a tendency
to glow when in the presence of these creatures
which it detests within an unholy wrath, and
in the presence of Wyrms, the weapon attains
dancing capabilities, striking as its wielder for
d12 rounds before returning. Note: regardless of
circumstances, the weapon may dance only once
per day.
Amulets of Inner-Voice: These amulets are dull

Gem of Imprisonment: This dark gem has the
copper and unremarkable except for their magproperty of serving as an efficient prison for spirical auras which confer upon their respective
its and demons. Any being captured within it
wearers the ability to speak with each other,
cannot normally be released other than by breakregardless of distance or method of separation,
ing the gem of through magical means. Nor is
as though by an inner voice which need not be
any communication possible with the held party,
openly vocalized.
though some distinctive feature (usually eyes)
may be recognized. Note that by placing the Belt of the Serpent: Snapping this belt causes it
to transform into an eight foot Amphisbaena
gem against a crystal ball, communication with
(two-headed) poison-spitting serpent. The creathe imprisoned spirit may occur via the crystal
ture has 64 hitpoints and attacks with a 12 thaco
ball.
causing 3-18 points of damage biting (twice), 2Ring of the Leprechauns: This ring, wearable
12 points for constriction, and 1-6 for poison spitonly by a dwarven sized creature or smaller,
tle (twice). The serpents Armor Class is 3. If
80
victims make saves vs poison, normal damage applies, however if they fail their save then death
quickly ensues.
control where the elemental attacks the wielder

of the staff.
The elemental may grow to greater proportions
once released from the staff, but with such
growth the elemental may make a save vs spell
breaking the wielders control when the elemental reaches the necessary hit dice corresponding
to its save.
Hat of Three Spirits: This cloth hat is tall, light

grey, and pointed, with an ever- dusty rim. It
contains within it three spirits who serve separate functions. One Spirit erases magical trails
left during teleportation, another serves as a pair
of 2nd eyes for the wearer of the hat (in any level
After several minutes on a prime world, the elof lighting up to sixty feet). Still another spirit
emental will naturally seek its own plane again,
controls the movements of the hat, so that it
thus gating itself through any like element, seemcan act on its own with minimal control by the
ing to dissolve within its own kind.
wearer, sprouting legs or wings as called for by
the wearer. This spirit may also be enticed to Sulegurth (Spirit Death): This folding mace is a
devourer of spirits, and in particular, of magic
leave the hat for a short duration, but is very
items. It does d10+4 damage and is at +4 to hit.
shy of doing so. In this capacity, it may act as
When thrown it will attack its target and return
a light, an unseen servant, or a liaison with unto the wielder in the same round. It can also
friendly spirits.
defend the wielder in combat without actually
Saddles of Walking: This is a pair of seemingly orbeing held, striking attacking weapons and foes.
dinary leather sandles without shin straps. By
Persons killed by Sulegurth are forever dead unuse of this footwear, the wearer may walk on waless the spirit makes a save to flee the corpse beter (80%), on air (50%), as teleportation (20%),
fore being devoured, and normal weapons failing
or as interplanar travel (10%). Note, that there
saves are likewise destroyed.
is an improvement of 1% for every sucessful use
Sulegurth has the personality and temperament
up to a maximum of 95%. On a role of 00
of a small, ill-disciplined child. It will insist of its
something bizarre may occur such as interplawielder that it be fed at regular intervals, often
nar travel, teleportation, timetravel, or a spiritrefusing to go to bed without supper.
high involving an out-of-body experience (DMs
discretion). Luckily of foolish wearers, the sad- Bands of Dholethalion: Both wrought of endles will nearly always attempt to find their point
chanted gold, inlaid with mithril, and each holdof origin after such mishaps.
ing a soulstone, the bracelet and anklet are intertwined in a powerful magic.
Staff of the Elementals: This is a tall wooden
Each bands confers an 18 constitution upon
staff, twisted as if warped by water, and black as
the wearer, and if one of the band wearers apif charred by fire. At the end, it is looped, with
proaches death (unconscious), then hitpoints are
the head of a snake, the forked tongue wrapping
instantly transferred (d8/melee) to keep each at
around the shaft to close the circlet.
or above 0hp. Once put on, the bands cannot be
An Elementalist may spit through the loop, blow
removed except by the most exceptional counair or fire through it, or toss a speck of dust
termagic. Further, both bands cannot be placed
through it to create any of the four basic eleupon the same person.
mentals. Other sorts of elementals can also be
The soulstone betrays the inner feelings/states
created with some imagination. All elementals
of the wearer through the ever changing color of
start with AC2, however, hit dice, thaco, and
the gem.
D/A follow directly from the wielders level of
experience.
Red Anger
Yellow Revelation
Blue
Sorrow
Green Life/Nature
Hit Dice = d8 level
White
Purity
Orange
Forgiveness
Thaco
= as per monster thaco at level
Black
Evil
Purple
Hurt
D/A
= max of 2.5 level
A save vs INT or Spell must be made to successfully control the elemental, both checks mean absolute control and neither meaning total loss of
81
There is a limited dream telepathy between the

wearers, an emotional cross-over, and often wearers will experience parallel lifepaths, each doing
similar things, meeting similar people, catching

the same cold, ect...
Further, the bracelet may only be worn by a male
while the anklet is specifically female. Each of
the items has a powerful spirit, but little outward
intelligence.
All three rings appear as simple circlets of gold.

Each adjust in size to the finger of the wearer,
and they are impossible to tell apart. They all
have the ability to fall off fingers during the
night, roll to where they want to go, and hop
on new fingers as desired; thus traveling with
a party, continually interchanging partners, and
causing confusion and mayhem along the way.
Necklace of Lust: Inscribed on one red pearl of

this necklace is a PowerRune which allures mem- Make-up Kit: The magical make-up, properly apbers of the opposite sex when the pearl is rubbed.
plied, grants a 24 comeliness. Duration is eight
Eleven charges are present.
hours and there are ten doses. There is also a
special nail paint (5 doses) which turns a womRamagurth (winged death): This weapon is like
ans fingernail into a sharp poisoned dagger (d4 &
a boomerang, except that it has one extra blade.
save). The perfume (9 doses) acts as an aphroWhen thrown, the weapon seeks out its target,
disiac on males. And the black lippaint (3 doses)
even if out of range or behind cover. It attacks
may be used to administer the kiss of death (save
at +4 twice per round, slicing and stabbing for
vs deathmagic). The make-up kit is locked with
d6 & d8. Its straight blade in venomous, doing
a wizard lock and trapped with a sigil 2d20pts.
an extra 3d12 on failed saves vs poison. Once
in, the poison works to the heart, doing an addi- Shorty: This long, thin-bladed dagger possesses its
wielder with a desire to steal and kill, turning
tion d4 per melee until the victim is at zero hit
the wielder toward a shade of selfish evil. In the
points. Then the victim becomes numb and dies
hands of a thief, the blade allows a plus 50%
slowly and painfully. The weapon may dance for
on opening locks (up to a maximum of 99%).
three rounds, and it may defend its wielder durMoreover, it can cut through most magical seals
ing sleep if stuck into the side of a living creature
(8 charges). The blade does a base d6 damage,
or plant. [As a sidenote: in my campaign, the PC
is +4 in term of magic, and attacks twice per
who acquired the weapon (not knowing its trueround whether thrown or held in melee. It may
name) named it Ragamuffin which eventually
dance for 3 rounds and may excrete a magical
stuck, becoming representive of the personality
poison once per day (save vs poison: lethal vs
the venom blade soon developed. Feel free to
lawful creatures, others take 6d6). The dagger
carry such development out as you see fit.]
has a playful mentality but a limited intelligence.
Rings of Mischief:
The ring of truth: the wearer cannot tell lies,

and must save vs magic when attempting to
deceive. Likewise, all lies which are heard
or read are detected, and attempts to deceive must make a save vs magic in order to
remain undiscovered.
The ring of gullibility: The wearer will believe anything told to him, but likewise,
others will believe everything he says. Save
vs magic applicable for truly unlikely lies.
Counters the ring of truth, canceling both
magics.
The ring of lies: The wearer cannot tell a
truth in the most awkward situations. Further, when he hears a true statement, the
ring may tell him it is a lie. When he hears
a falsehood, the ring may force him to believe it. DMs discretion advised.
82
Riddles
c
1990
Dan Judd
These are some riddles picked off the eklektic server
His tracks do not match,

and his limbs may detach,
but hes not a strange creature to see.
What is it?
at Pittsburgh. Enjoy...
1. For our ambrosia we were blessed,

by Jupiter, with a sting of death.
Though our might, to some is jest,
we have quelled the dragons breath.
Who are we?
9. The part of the bird

that is not in the sky,
which can swim in the ocean
and always stay dry.
What is it?
2. Colored as a maiden tweaked,

time was naught when I began;
through the garden I was sneaked,
I alone am the fall of man.
What am I?
10. Dead and bound,

what once was free.
What made no sound,
now sings with glee.
What is it?
3. Early ages the iron boot tread,

with Europe at her command.
Through time power slipped and fled,
til the creation of new holy land.
Who am I?
11. The root tops the trunk

on this backward thing,
that grows in the winter
and dies in the spring.
What is it?
4. One thin, one bold,

one sick, one cold.
The earth we span,
to prey upon man.
Who are we?
12. Touching one, yet holding two,

it is a one link chain
binding those who keep words true,
til death rent it in twain.
What is it?
5. One where none should be,

or maybe where two should be,
seeking out purity,
in the kings trees.
What am I?
1. Bees
2. An Apple
3. Italy (Rome)
6. He who makes it does not keep it.

He who takes it does not know it.
He who knows it does not want it.
He who gathers it must destroy it.
What is it?
4. The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse
7. One tooth to bite,

hes the forests foe.
One tooth to fight,
as all Norse know.
What is it?
8. A Man With A Wooden Leg
5. A Unicorn
6. Counterfeit Money
7. An Axe
9. A Shadow
10. A Wooden, Stringed Instrument
11. An Icicle
8. This creature, part man and part tree,

hates the termite as much as the flea.
12. A Wedding Ring
83
Species of the Gamester

Compiled by Charles K. Hughes
with addendum by Ed Zeamba
Whether
of humor good or bad, Gamesters have 10. The Punster: You know how many clerics it
taken great pleasure in classifying their fellow
takes to fix a light bulb? One to cast cure light.
Gamesters into various species, some benign and oth
ers rather malignant. Sparing the grand history of
the our adventure into the taxonomy of gaming, we 11. The PC Infighter: Since Ruths been such a
twit, I hit her in the face with my flail while shes
hereby present for your enlightenment, edification,
casting her find familiar spell.
and general jollies the umpteen million Species of
the Gamester.
12. Joe I-Got-the-Rules-Down-Pat: No, if you
look in the DMG, page eighty-one paragraph
five, youll find this spell wont affect griffons.
The Players
13. The Whiner: Three points?! I take three
points of damage!?! Frank, what the hell kind
The Real Man: Hot Diggity!! Gnoll outpost
of grudge do you have against me?
at twelve oclock!! Chaaaaaaaarge!!!
14. The Bully: Are you sure I dont make my savThe Real Role-Player: Dont start yet!! I
ing throw? Are you ABSOLUTELY sure? Do
need my two minutes to get properly into charyou want to keep your nose the way it is, Lou?
acter.
15. Mr. Greedy: So its not evil? And its not
The Loonie: I sheathe my longsword and kiss
attacking? So what! I WANT THAT XP!!!!
the ogre on the lips.
16. The Cheater: I roll an...
18!
It hits!
The Munchkin: Five arch-devils and two
(Quickly grabs dice)
demigods? Thats all?! I guess Ill only need
to use six of my rings for this encounter.
17. The Chastiser: And you didnt see that trap
coming? Hahahahahaha!! Just how long did you
The Coward: Yikes! Three kobolds!! Retreat!
say youve been playing this game?
Retreat!
Bill Bynum:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. The Troublemaker: Just before the Mayor 18. The Kamikaze Guy: I jump off our perch,
taking careful aim to land dead center on the
gives his speech to the town, I cast command:
hobgoblin patrol. Just before I hit the ground,
vomit on him.
though, I set off the fire trap on all my nine
7. The Novice: I just rolled a 2 on my to hit roll.
flasks of oil.
Did I want high or low?
19. The Good Roller: Oh, looky here. An 03 on
8. The Tactician: The archer will move silently
percentile dice. If that door was trapped, I just
into position behind the podium, carefully aimfound something.
ing at the sergeant. The mage shall remain behind the door in preparation of a sleep spell 20. The Bad Roller: Oh, damn it all!! *Another* critical fumble!!
which will be centered at the table around which
are the bulk of the guards. Meanwhile, the
21. The Braggart: The thought of you attacking
fighter and I shall...
me isnt even interesting. I could get off a sleep
9. The Quiet Type: I dunno... I lob off another
spell and slit your unconscious throat before you
arrow at the monster this round, I guess.
even get your longsword out of its sheath.
84
22. The Reminiscer: Say, yknow, this is kind of 32. The Worry Wort: Okay, my mage is invisilike the time our party thief spent twenty minble, levitating thirty meters above the party, has
utes trying to lock-pick an unlocked door.
a Phantom Armor and a Stoneskin on him, a
Ring of Fire Resistance worn, a Minor Globe of
23. Goody Two-Shoes: Wait a minute. Even
Invulnerability up (et cetera, et cetera) Damn! I
if they are orcs, we just cant kill them when
have a bad feeling about this...
theyre asleep and cant defend themselves.
Robert Nickelpede DeLoura replies:
24. The Overoptimistic Daydreamer: After
DM: Suddenly, a spellcaster appears in the hallwe get through this campaign, and have gained
way before you. Quickly gesturing in the
about nine, ten levels, Im going to buy me the
direction of the invisible mage, he casts a
finest battle axe that money can buy.
spell. (Dispel Magic) Oh, my! Mr. Worry
Wort has just plummeted thirty meters to
the ground, to his death!
25. Short-Attention-Span Man: Hmmm?

What? Oh, are we attacking now?
33. The Cavern Shyster (more commonly known

as Bill Mulhausen): Oh, so the Illusionary
Medusa I cast at the Archdemon Orcus doesnt
26. Thermonuclear Man (sub-species of Munchkin):
turn him to stone, does it? Well, if you look at
Awright, I swing at the Orc with my Bastard
the spell description, it says right here that he
Sword. (roll) Thats a 2, +2 for strength, +3 for
gets no save, has no chance to disbelieve, and I
specialization, +2 for (blah blah blah). So thats
made my magic resistance roll! What do you say
a 27. (Sarcastic grin) Does it hit?
to that?
Kathryn L. Smith
James Heath
27. The GM-hater (subclass of troublemaker):

DM: Orcus is a Demon Lord. He eats Medusae
The person who comes into the game and does
for breakfast. Amidst a hearty chuckle of
his best to think of ways to react to a situalaughter at your feeble attempt at illusion,
tion that the GM hasnt. Having a PC who is
he throws a thirty-die lighting bolt at you.
slightly schizophrenic is a good excuse for this.
What do you say to that?
Note: mixes really badly with the storytelling
34. The Pig-eyed Glutton: Now how do we go
style of GM.
about carting off this 800 copper pieces? Were
already loaded down with the four suits of
Charles K. Hughes
leather armor and electrum-inlaid toilet seats we
28. The mindless player:
found earlier...
GM: The gaping chasm stretches out before you.
It is too far to jump across.
Player: I jump the chasm.
Paul J. Zanca
29. The Crybaby: You
mean
the
big
rock crushed me? My characters dead?!? Really, really dead?!? Noooooooooooo!!!!
30. The Cowboy: I walk proudly up to the King
and challenge him to a duel to the death. Oh
yeah, I make sure to call him a wimp.
Charles Hughes
35. The masochist: I stop running, turn around,
slap the minotaur, and tell him to stop breathing down my neck. (closely related to #3, the
Loonie)
Edward C. Zeamba
36. Dishonorable Thieves (The Backstab Brothers Quix & Sly): Ill watch your back. or
Of course youre free to go... I give you my
word of honor. or I like to think of myself as
an income redistributor... I steal from the rich
and keep it myself.
31. The Psycho Killer:
37. Thief Attracter (dwarf Retten Larry Crammer):

What do you mean that drink will be one copDM: Okay, you open the door and you see
per piece. All I have is big bag of gold. or
PK: Kill kill kill!!
Blood blood blood!!
(yelled loudly in tavern) Anyone want to buy
Rraaaaagggghh!!
some gems!
85
38. Questionable Ranger (Quince JimGa- 5. The Cheater: I dont care if you hit on an 18
jewski): He pushes an unaware low-level guard
last time, this time you missed, and I dont want
into a campfire just so he can retrieve his stolen
to hear another thing about it.
quiver of Ehlonna which is behind the guard fifteen feet away. or I know she is an innocent 6. Mr. Dont-question-me: A blue bolt from
heaven strikes Harold the Whiner, reducing him
maiden, but I need one x.p. to become next
to one hit point. Anybody else got a problem
level.
with this campaign?
39. Unfaithful Cleric (Morden Kyle Whatshisname): After nine levels and thirty years of 7. The Novice: You rolled a 2 on your to hit roll.
Did you want high or low?
neutral-good life, He switches from neutral-good
Celestian to Boccob (who doesnt care if anyone
worships him) just so he can get combat spells. 8. Verbose: The door is solid oak, bound with
four iron bands of roughly equal width, spaced
Im sure Celestian wont mind.
equidistant along its width, and the wood is polished smooth, stained a dark brown, except for
40. Selfish Wizard (Zzyzzk Jim Gajewski):
a small patch near the bottom which is blacker,
A fellow party member is in close melee with a
and hinges are not visible from this side, but you
Githyanki and the mage toasts them both with
notice the exquisite design of the lock, the facea fireball while yelling Dont hit the monster. If
plate of which is a starburst design, edged in gold
I kill him I gain a level! (deck of many things)
or maybe polished copper or brass, its kind of
hard to tell with the torchlight, but the knocker
is definitely cast iron and you see... (sounds of
The Game Masters
snoring from party members)
Scott Butler
9. Those With a poker face: The slave you rescued courteously accepts your offer to accom1. The Munchkin: Having slain the hordes of
pany you and thanks you for your trust in her...
Azoth single-handedly, without even unsheathing the Sword of Universal Destruction, your
10. Those Without a poker face: The
slave
half grey-elven/half gold-dragon 50th level palyou rescued, hee hee, courteously accepts your
adin/MU/Cleric/Monk/Bard gazes down upon
offer, snort, to accompany you and thanks you
the pitiful Cthulhu who grovels at his feet...
for your trust in her, hah hah... boy are you
gonna get it now... giggle.
2. Monty Haul (variation on the Munchkin, but
characters tend to be lower level):
11. Timid: The orc hits your for four points of
damage, if thats okay with you, Steve. Really,
GM: You are each granted one wish.
youve got seventeen hit points left and he has
Player #1: I wish to have the hand and eye
only two, so youll be okay, okay?
of Vecna.
Player #2: I wish to have the flask of Teurny 12. DePalma school of blood and gore:
Your magic drill cleaves the demons skull in
the Merciless.
twain and it literally explodes, spattering everyPlayer #3: I wish to have...
one with blood and brains. An unsightly green
ichor drips from your face as you watch the smolGM: Poof, they appear in front of you. Now
dering corpse churn before you like a baby in a
what do you do?
blender and finally settle into a puddle of vomit
3. Killer: As you pull aside the tapestry, a green
and excrement...
slime jumps upon you from behind it, killing
you... nope, no to hit or saving throw allowed, 13. Gibson school of writing graduate:
The view in the crystal ball was the color of
it says so right here.
television, tuned to a dead channel.
4. The Troublemaker: singles out one player and
continually hands him/her notes which read 14. Vengeful: You wont go out with me SaturDont let anyone know there is nothing on this
day? Okay, all of the were-rats attack Chrisnote.
tine.
86
15. AD&Der: The 100 peasants beat at your 22. The Executioner: A hidden blade slides
fighter ineffectually with their sticks and pitchdown the doorway, mincing the two fighters and
forks until you have slain them all. A heroic
the cleric. The thief gets nine crossbow bolts in
effort on your part. (That was a really cheap
his back, and the magic user is hit by an intense
shot!)
beam of light, burning a hole through his head.
16. anti-AD&Der: The 100 peasants overbear 23. The Ghoul: Thats the 17th character you
rolled tonight? Mouahahahahahahahahahah!
your fighter with their great numbers and, unable to move under the weight of their hordes,
24. The Absolute Monarch: The huge Red
you squirm helplessly as they pry open your field
dragon can fit through the little hole, cause I
plate and skewer you like a lobster. You die an
said so!
ignoble death.
25. The Generous Munchkin: Okay, now that
17. the Stickler for detail: Taking into account
youve killed that Kobold, you open the treaatmospheric conditions, the acceleration due to
sure chests and fine 100,000 gold pieces, 50,000
gravity, the low drag coefficient of your greased
platinum pieces, and two hundred gems worth a
plate mail, your high dexterity, the gold in your
zillion gold each. Oh, and a +20 Vorpal Sword.
backpack, your associated credit rating, the eggs
And before I forget, a Rod of Seven Parts too.
you had for breakfast, ...and the average number
of chickens who would remain inside the coup on 26. The Killer Munchkin: You guys are dead.
a warm day, you have to roll 13 or better to
27. The Whining Munchkin: But, but, you
survive the fall...
guys cant do that! Its my only dungeon!
18. No originality: Its a quest, see, youre trying
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaail!
to take this ring to Mordor, to drop it into a
volcano to destroy it. No, no, honest I thought 28. The Die Modifier: Yeah, yeah, so you rolled
a 20. You missed. Secret modifiers you know.
of this campaign myself...
29. The Unimaginative Type: You walk into
the bar and see thirty mercenaries all wearing
scalemail and carrying longswords. They all sit
DM: You pump the bartender for information
at separate tables.
and he tells you about a red dragons lair
to the west.
30. The Design Zealot: I just need another fifPlayer: Too risky, we go to hear rumours
teen minutes. I only have three more levels to
somewhere else.
populate.
19. Leading and Overbearing:
DM: A man offers to hire you to clean out a Kathryn L. Smith

red dragons lair for him.
Player: We say no thank you and leave for the 31. The storyteller/scripter: He has the plot for
the adventure all figured out, and youre going
next village.
to follow it come hell or high water.
DM: On the way to the village you stumble
32. The planner: He has everything for the advenonto a red dragons lair...
ture carefully planned and written out ahead of
time. All the NPCs stats and background deMark Isaak
tails, who will tell you what, and so forth.
20. the Dungeon Builder: The first door in the
hallway opens onto a 2020 room containing a 33. The Make it up as we go type:
He comes in with a vague idea of what the PCs
griffon. The next room contains a party of orcs.
will run into today, and fills in the details as he
The next contains a gelatinous cube. The next
goes along.
contains a couple giants...
Charles K. Hughes
J.D. Frazer
21. The Schmuck: Oh. Can someone really do 34. The literal type: Player: I wish Joe had
more lives.
that? Okay, Ill let you have a 50% chance. Oh.
Okay, 75% then.
GM: Joe, you are now a schizophrenic.
87
&
39. Forgetful: Okay, you walk into the room. The

orcs look up from their card game, much surprised to see anybody at this hour, and grab
theirHuh? Youve already been through here
and killed the orcs? Shit. Okay, lets try that
again. You notice seven slaughtered orcs...
Player: What is the air speed of a swallow?

GM: African or European?
Paul J. Zanca
35. Sadistic: Just then, eighty ancient huge red

40. Flowery: Oho! Methinks that the Purple
dragons descend on your party... they all breathe
Mage has waxed sorely pissed at thy attempt
on you at once! What do you do now?
to engulf him in thy vomitous Stinking Cloud
dweomer! By my trow, he has, in his wroth,
Charles Hughes
flung a Power Word, Kill at thee, with a shout
35a. Sadist with Masochist players: Realizing
of Have at thee, vile knave! What dost thou
that you are adventurers the red dragon egg hurls
doest now, brave adventurer?
itself into a pan to prevent you from getting the
Dave Cooke
experience for them. (2nd edition AD&D)
41. The Chaos King: Ok, the gnome got off his
35b. Sadist with Masochist players:
Confusion spell, everyone roll their actions as
Realizing that you are adventurers the eighty
the four leprechauns chase three rust monsters
ancient huge red dragons kill themselves to preinto the camp. BTW: the two hobbits who you
vent you from getting the experience for them.
found tied to a tree earlier take this moment
(pre-2nd edition)
to change into doppelgangers and attack the
Yes, I know, 35a and 35b were cheap shots, but Im
princess youre supposed to be guarding. You see
an AD&D DM so I can make them. :)
all this clearly because the wagons in the caravan
are burning from the arrows the orcs have fired
Paul J. Zanca
at them. Whos wearing armor, as you were all
asleep?
36. Graduate of the Bob Newhart School of
Dry Humour: Okay, the sun goes nova and
Ed C. Zeamba
you are caught in the explosion. Everybody
takes (roll roll roll...) nine thousand seven hun- 42. The Bullshit Timewarp DM: You are all
dred and forty-eight points of fire damage from
riding on the back of a good blue dragon flythe plasma... save for half. Whatd you roll?
ing at mach 5 or Flying toward you is a red
Oh, too bad.
dragon (with 150 h.p. and a dragon rider who
can make a lance and two sword attacks against
one character in one round) he breaths on the
Cavern Shyster (a member of the party):
party Oh, did I mention the two F-4 PhanWell, I had my Ring of Fire Resistance
toms coming straight for you?!!
on, so I only take two points of damage per
round from the flames. How long did they 43. The Too-Nice DM: Oh, I didnt know that
rule but Ill let you get away with that this time...
last?
and next time... and next time. or Okay, you
want to jump down a twenty foot wall wearing
37. Nice Guy: Well Bill, I dont know how to tell
field plate. Um... make a dex check.
you this, but your characters dead. Just like
that. Im really sorry, but you know, these things
44. The Rules-Lawer DM: no comment
happen. Man hath but a short time to live, and
that full of sorrow. Look man, I know youre
hurting. If you want to talk about it, we can
take a break...
38. Monty Python-esque: Oh no! The Mutated
Potato Monster sprays the party with a stream
of Red Hot W olf N ipple ChipsT M ! Everybody
takes zero damage, Save Versus Heebie-Jeebies
or Become Very Frightened And Explode!
88
The Infinite Ways in Which
IT is Done
Compiled by Charles K. Hughes

[email protected]
Lots of very strange people decided to contribute to
all weekend
my list of ways in which IT is done, so rather than

list them by author I am simply listing how. IT is
done, and at the end is a list of credits (why anyone
would want to be ON this list is beyond me.
Since my compiled list of The Umpteen Million
Types of Players and GMs did not prevent the foolishness of creating yet another list having to do with
frp, I now inflict upon you:
in a dungeon
in a group
DMs do it:
with dice,
any way they feel like it,
The Infinite Ways in Which
IT is done.
whether you like it or not,
Dms have better encounters.
to YOU real good,
Monks do it out of habit.
anywhere they damn well please!
Dwarves do it with short strokes.
with worlds (or alternately, with entire populations)
Medusas do it stoned.
with land masses, universes... you get the idea...

and contrary to the laws of nature (or physics,
or any other laws, for that matter!)
Werewolves do it doggie-style.
Shriekers do it louder.
Djinn just wish they could do it.
Druids do it with animals.
When minotaurs do it, theyre a-mazing.
Rangers do it in the woods.
Psionic creatures dont do it, its the thought

that counts.
Thieves do it with tools.

Assassins do it from behind.
Demons do it wherever they *&@#$ well please!

Clerics do it with their gods.
Thieves do it from behind.
Swashbucklers do it with three feet of steel.
Earth Elementals do it dirty.
Paladins do it good or not at all.
Fire Elementals do it with spark.
Druids leave no trace.
Air Elementals blow a lot.
Illusionists fake it.
Water Elementals know theyre ready when

theyre wet...
Magic Users have crystal balls.

Cavaliers do it mounted.
Monks do it by hand.
Frpers do it:
all night
Ninjas do it under cover of darkness.

89
Drow do it with the lights out.
Nike says Just Do It!
Centaurs do it on all fours.
The way games do it:
Clerics do it in church.
AD&D does it badly.
Kings do it in the throne room.
Champions can do it, but there are always Disadvantages.
Court jesters do it in front of a crowd (for

laughs).
GURPS does it generically.

Rolemaster does it with skill!
Merchants do it all over the country.

Slaves do it with whips and chains.
...and unix dont do it at all! :-)
Flumphs do it upside down.
List of Contributors:
Druids do it in the bushes.
Defender (who started it)
Thieves do it in leather.
Silversmith (who seems to know too many ways

to do it :)
Gnomes are too short to do it.
Kev @ UNC
Illusionists only LOOK like theyre doing it.
Paul Fritschle
Magic-users do it with their hands.
Mike Shepherd
D.M.s do it behind a screen.
Cybersaur ([email protected])
Hobbits do it only if it isnt dangerous. (Well,

MOST hobbits, anyway.)
Michael J. Landshark Wheeler
Elves do it in fairy rings.
Philip Brown ([email protected])
Spellcasters do it with their rods/staves/wands.
Peter C. Lind ([email protected])
Thieves do it when youre not looking.
Luna (aka: Helen Todd

[email protected])
Mages do it with their familiars.
The Raven (who thinks (s)hes punderful :)
Peter Crowther
(Internet: [email protected])
Barbarians do it with anything. (As do orcs.)
Yngvi Diamondeye Hammerfoot

([email protected])
Paladins dont do it.

Mermaids CANT do it.
Ordania-DM
([email protected],
who is listing it all. My excuse is that it came
from a button bought at Mass Confusion, whats
yours? Naysayers ignored :)
Neutrals do it both ways!

Silversmith does it on a VAX.
How the Gods do it...

Jupiter does it with mortals.
Hermes does it quickly.
Atlas doesnt do it (back problems you know..)
Hera doesnt do it, and is jealous of anyone who
does.
Poseidon does it underwater.
90
No flames please...
If you cant take a joke, dont read my lists!
Additions & other silliness can be sent to me at:
[email protected]
or
Charles K [email protected]
This list brought to you as a public service so that
those people who persist in doing IT can be brought
to justice, and stop telling us right thinking people
what right thinks we should be thinking!
Bits & Pieces
In
the course of reading numerous articles over

rec.games.frp it becomes apparent that the strength of
Internet communication is not so much in the quick
and reliable distribution of massive essays as in the
cooperative sharing of bits and pieces thereof. Such
miscellaneous threads can be the work of no single
person, yet when brought together in a single forum,
they form a chaotic tapestry of alternate perspectives
and ideas betraying both the character and company
of the assemblage they represent. Herein follows the
bits & pieces.
Good Orcs. The cleric who hired the party is a tad

conservative in his social views, you see, and didnt
believe that Orcs *could* be converted. Funny how
few PCs will turn down the opportunity to commit
genocide.
[email protected]
University of Waterloo
More about orcs and evil:
Psychotherapist: So, vaht ist de problem?
Orc: Its those darn humans. They call me
evil, and I cant handle it....
Beware the beast man, for he is the devils

pawn. Alone among Gods primates, he kills
for sport... or lust... or greed. Yea, he will
murder his brother to possess his brothers
land. Let him not breed in great numbers,
for he will make a desert of his home... and
yours. Shun him... for he is the harbinger
of death.
[email protected]
If you can look into the seeds of time, and
say which grain will grow, and which will
not, then speak to me, who neither beg nor
fear your favors nor your hate.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes

c
1970
Macbeth, Banquo to the

Witches, I, iii, 58-61.
Two bits on the topics of orcs & evil:

On the topic of Good & Evil:
In our game, orcs are EVIL, and short of a helm of
opposite alignment, there is no way to make them
good. Therefore releasing orcish prisoners makes the
releaser morally responsible for any and all actions
of the former prisoners. The only good orc is a
dead orc! If an orc surrenders, he should be questioned (not tortured), and then executed as quickly,
and painlessly, as possible.
Eric Hunter
[email protected]
The UW gaming club [WATSFIC] ran a nifty tourney
that depended on that very mind-set. The party is
hired to clean out a temple infested by Orcs. Its
only *after* the PCs slaughter the Orc warriors and
put the women and children to the sword that the
cleric who *runs* the temple shows up and is greatly
upset at the brutal murder of his converted Lawful
91
If you are playing in a campaign where

there is absolute evil or good (D&D being the classic example), and assuming that
the terms evil and good are used the
way heroic fiction usually defines them, then
killing helpless prisoners is always an evil
idea, period. Mercy is a good trait; it is
given to any and all, regardless of the situation, regardless of their identity or potential
as a future threat, and regardless of whether
or not it is convenient.
Remember, good characters should treat
deadly enemies with courtesy and respect,
should give any unknown person the benefit
of a reasonable doubt, and should never put
what is convenient ahead of what it right.
Richard L. Bulter
[email protected]
and this is not only not synonymous with

detail; detail can kill the richness of a campaign. I can get more out of making the
King of Slobovia blind than I can out of
working out his ancestors to the nth generation. The first detail makes the gaming
world rich and interesting, the second bogs
it down with trivial and unnecessary detail.
Will the characters even make any use out
of the fact that the kings fifth cousins great
grandfathers aunts ninth cousin was Bill?
I doubt it, so why waste my time working
something like that out. Might they use the
fact that he is blind? Probably.
You see me now a veteran,

Of a thousand psychic wars,
Ive been living on the edge so long,
Where the winds of Limbo roar,
And Im young enough to look at,
And far too old to see,
All the scars are on the inside,
I dont know if theres anything left of me.
BOC
More than any time in history mankind
faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to
total extinction. Let us pray that we have
the wisdom to choose correctly.
I have had to play under GMs who had

extensive game worlds which were extensively detailed, and yet they had not the
magic to create a story in that world to
weave events and histories and love and hate
around the cold details of their world, to
make them subtlety rich with hidden meaning. It is more like a geography lesson (or
prison sentence) to play in such a world.
Woody Allen
About the risky business:
A risk without risk is not a risk. Ahem! :-)
I have gotten more passion out of a player

with a single roll of a saving die than I
could have hoped for out of five hours of
narrative. One monk was hit by a poison arrow down in a water dungeon, and
failed the saving throw. The narrative element of the game had made the player care
more about what happened to that monk
than any hacknslash power-grubbing game
ever could (the player told me later that
the monk was his favorite character, even
though it was only sixth level and he had
played characters up higher in other games),
but the saving throw really brought all the
thrill, danger and risk that is vital to gaming to bear at one single instant. I didnt
fudge the roll (and Id bet $1000 that the
player wanted me too in fact if I remember right he offered me $10 to restore the
character). But the death of the monk gave
a sense of tragedy, senseless and futility to
the narrative that I could never have made
up on my own (it required the participation of the players and the mechanism of the
game be there) this is what GMs who try
to control the game too tightly miss out on,
the sense of awe at something that occurs
that is beyond them. So in a sense there are
That is, a player should not take the attitude of, Well, Im about to do something
really cool, so the GM better not kill me
off. What makes the situation cool is the
element of danger, which requires planning,
a certain amount of toughness on the part
of the characters (read hit points), and, of
course *LUCK* (read die rolls) to overcome.
What makes the deed cool for the characters is their ability to pull it off with their
collective hides intact. If the GM does not
challenge (read attempt to kill :-) the characters then the intactness of their hides is
virtually guaranteed, and the situation becomes uncool.
Michael Cornelius
[email protected]
On the topics of game-richness & rollfudging:

What is really important in creating a campaign or adventure is the richness of the
environment the players wander around in,
92
You crash to the sidewalk with terrific velocity, smashing the concrete
and breaking an underground water
main. You climb out of the crater and
dust yourself off. One of your ankles is
sprained.
times when a fudge could save the game but

the GM should be loathe beyond words (a
narrative GM, that is) to let this spoil the
magic and wonder he has created with his
story.
And yet, when the house would not be built
but would come crashing down by not adjusting a die roll, it should be made. Even
something as vulgar sounding as fudging
may be elevated to an art of style that can
make or destroy the GMs game. When it
really comes down to it, no hard and fast
rule can decide for you what to do the
GM is in the drivers seat and accepts total
responsibility for the progress and style of
the game.
Robert Plamondon
[email protected]
Weitek, Sunnyvale CA
Hamlet on roll-fudging:
To fudge or not to fudge,
That is the question.
Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
D. Brad Shapcott
[email protected]
Or by taking arms against a sea of troubles,

end them...
Let he who has not fudged cast the first
die...
God not only plays dice, He also sometimes

throws the dice where they cannot be seen.
Fudging is as much a reality for GMs as

cheating on taxes is for accountants. Sure,
we all know its not right, but when we can
get that teeny-tiny little advantage just by
adjusting the numbers slightly . . .
S. Hawking
Like any good GM.
D. Heffernan
D Brad Shapcott
[email protected]
Fudging with Falling:

A fall from a balcony, even at 100 stories, is
not always fatal. Perhaps you could fudge
these rolls.
Lets just say that if complete and utter

chaos were lightning, then hed be the sort
to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm
wearing wet copper armour and shouting
All gods are bastards.
Brian T. Schellenberger
[email protected]
Terry Pratchett
Sure! How about...
I knew a GM who had an extremely powerful natural magician in his party. Thing
was, the fellow didnt believe in magic. He
believed that everything had a logical, technical explanation. The force of his magic
was so strong that whatever he believed was
true. Then one day his party met up with a
dragon...
You land on a passing flat-bed truck

piled high with mattresses. How fortunate!
A passing blimp cushions your fall.
Your high-tech sneakers save you from
destruction.
93
He snuck around back, opened the hatch

and evicted the two dwarves who were operating the machine. His fellow party members never succeeded in making him believe
that it really had been a dragon.
And so begins a lovely chase up and down

the Street of the Wizards (whose fees are
*much* too dear for our lowly party), ending up at Benjamin the Hedge-Wizards for
an under-the-table pink slip, leading to an
introduction to the Captain of the Guard
(So you expect me to believe you didnt
know this pink slip wasnt issued by an *accredited* wizard when you gave it to the armorer who sold the mail to His Lordship?),
and the beginning of their next adventure...
Gwen Johnson
[email protected]
Hmm. Enterprise. So thats its name. I always assumed it was the U.S.S. Whooosh!
or something.
Chris Robertson
[email protected]
Griffon Consulting
Paramount Legal Department Ogre

Theres a whole new breed of scientist out
there today: They drink, smoke, fool around
with women, but they wont answer one simple question: How do you destroy Washington, D.C. ?
Cyoeraith (Sigh-or-athe): n.
nasty.
a blood drinking
The secret to successful horror:
villian, Matt Helm flick
I once played in a call of Cthulhu game that

scared the wits out of us. We were supposed
to find out what happened to some person
who had been committed to an insane asylum some years ago; the asylum was closed
and the patients transferred. By the time we
got done being briefed by the client, it was
dark, but he told us not to worry, hed made
arrangements to have the power turned back
on at the asylum, so we could go up tonight.
And wed get a bonus for early success. So
we went.
Fun times in the city:

Yes, towns and cities can be lots of fun, for
both player and DM. And lets not forget
one of the inevitable consequences of a large,
well-run city with an active City Council
and Merchants Guild bureaucracy! Lets
illustrate from one of my recent adventures:
The party has arrived in town, laden with
assorted loot to sell. Theyve found an
inn which wont rob them blind overnight
(through sheer good luck), and have got directions to the Street of the Armorers...
We encountered various weird details along

the way, like no bird or animal or insect
noises. And a gate that was shiny and new
fastened with a lock that was old and rusted.
And things grabbed our hair (turned out to
be branches, but little things mean a lot).
Once at the asylum the lights flickered off
and on, and occasionally went out, so we
scared each other by running into each other
(wed split up to search the place). And we
found details, like a doctors hidden notes,
on fresh paper, in handwriting identical to
notes in a thirty year old medical record,
and the doctor was supposed to be dead...
and other little things, like a severed hand in
a drawer... which moved when we werent
looking. And cold nasty green slime oozing from under a door, but when the door
Player: Id like to sell a suit of plate mail.

Its magic.
Armorer: Magic, eh? No problem, magic
plates always in demand. Lets see the
pink slip for it then.
Player: Pink slip???
Armorer: Yeah, the pink slip. From the
wizard who certified it.
Player: Certified it???
Armorer: Look, dont keep on repeating
what I just said. Do you have a pink
slip or dont you? Cant take any
magic stuff without the pink slip, everyone knows that!
94
was opened nothing was there. And desperate graffiti left behind on the walls by
lunatics, claiming they were being experimented upon. And an operating theater
without anesthetic equipment. And a noose
hanging in a stair well. The noose was
brand new, but their were no marks of any
kind in the heavy dust to show how somebody might have put it there. And one time
when the lights were out, we heard a scream
and went charging up this stairwell, only to
smack into a very old, dead body hanging
in the noose. The body turned out to belong to our clients handyman, whom hed
sent over first to find the papers. But what
happened to him that he became such a cadaver in only a few days? And how did his
body get into the noose?
2. Character swings and lets go of weapon, which

sails way up into the clouds. Several days later
(in another encounter) the players should hear a
high pitched whistling sound: the weapon comes
down at mach 1, doing a whole lot of damage to
anybody it hits (otherwise digging a big crater)
3. (variation on #2) Weapon just happens to land
in such a manner as to kill a local monarch. The
local constabulary seeks out the owner of the
weapon.
4. Player accidentally cuts a rift in the fabric of
the universe. Stepping through (or being pushed
through) has no ill effect, and players can climb
back out again. Fabric of the universe can be
mended with normal needle and thread.
5. Gets stuck in mid-air. No amount of pushing,
pulling, etc. will dislodge it from its position. It
has become lodged in the aether.
And on and on and on. We were freaking all

right, one of the best adventures Ive ever
played in. And I dont really like Call of
Cthulhu. (We never did meet any Cthulhuoid nasties. But the thought that we might
certainly flavored the adventure. Especially
when the green slime started oozing under
the door.)
6. The weapon suddenly becomes a bowl of petunias.

7. Weapon hits the ground... and strikes oil!
The fumbling player is blinded for a number of
rounds, wiping off all of the oil, and everyone in
the general vicinity must save vs. DEX every
round to stay on their feet.
The secret to successful horror is details. A

door locking behind you, for example, trapping you in the mental ward. So what if
nobodys there? They might be.
8. The player makes a massively bad swing... Suddenly 10 imps appear, they confer for a short
while and then hold up scorecards: 9 of them
give the player a score < 0.1, but one gives
him/her a 0.5. All the rest of the imps shout at
this imp, throwing their score cards at it. The
entire assemblage then disappears.
S. Gwen Johnson
[email protected]
9. Player is about to swing... but suddenly is

struck by the thought that he/she might not have
turned the oven off before they left on this adventure. They must spend the next several turns
trying to remember if they did indeed turn the
oven off, or even if they have an oven to turn off.
Ive seen the ocean break on the shore,

comes together, no harm done.
Loren Miller
[email protected]
Gary P. Gray
[email protected]
Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
Worcester, MA
Justyn Tyme: Im here to save you!! Im Justyn

Tyme!!!
Peasants: Great. Who are you?
Funny Fumbles:
1. Player fumbles sword, but with a great feat of
agility manages to catch it... the wrong way...
95
Turingsblade! Sword of Heroes, Blade of Kings!

Q: How many pixies does it take to screw in a lightSharper than serpents tooth, swifter than
bulb?
dragons wings,
A: Two. But I dont know how they got in there!
Automatas Bane, and Chimeras Doom;
The Blade of the Hierarch! The Torment of
Mushrooms!
STERN? HES NOTHIN BUT
A LOW DOWN, BACKSTABBING,
from the Cornevala
DOUBLE DEALING, LARCENOUS,
PERVERTED WORM!!! HANGINS
TO GOOD FOR EM! BURNINS
A man may fight for many things; his counTO GOOD FOR EM! HE SHOULD
try, his principles, his friends, the glistening
BE TORN UP INTO ITSY BITSY
tear on the cheek of a golden child. But perPIECES, AND BURIED ALIVE! ILL
sonally, Id mudwrestle my own mother for
KILL HIM!!! KIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLa ton of cash, an amusing clock and a stack
LLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!
of French porn.
Hanover Fist,
Heavy Metal: The Movie
Edmund Blackadder
(ca. 1805)
Humor in RPGs (or at least a lethal substitute):
Funny magic:
Consider altering spells.
Well, there was the time the PCs ran into

Vorpal Bunnies in Guys favorite Monty
Python movie...
Create food: only makes Popcorn, but it

is hot and about to pop. (one cubic
foot of popcorn at the moment of popping fills the room very soon after...)
Tim: There it is.

Arthur: Wot? Be ond de rebbit?
Magic Missile: produces prayer books

(Missives), or a single Nuclear missile that decides it doesnt want to go
over there, *it* wants to explode near
*daddy*.
Cure Light Wounds: the
brighter.
lamp
Tim: No! It IS de rebbit!

Sir Robbin: You tit! I soiled me armor I
wooz so scairt.
Arthur: Borris, go chup its ead off.
Tim: Oim warnin ye....
gets
Borris: Right! Rebbit stew commin righttup.
Permanent Light: disco version!
(stomp)
(stomp)
(stomp) (heavy boots clompin along) The
rabbit leaps... AWWWWGGGGGGHHHHH... (sounds of death by vorpal bunny
deleted)
And magical items.

Ring of Turn Undead: hey,
zombie now!
youre a
Helm of True Vision: BBC2 only (or

CBS, or your local TV station).
Or there is the time a group of PCs in one

old AD&D game raided a lair of a hill giant....
Ring of Three Wishes: Ring of Three

Washes.
All gold carried turns out tove been cursed
its chocolate inside!
Monkey Face: F***kin A, what is this?

Myke: Far out, its like wax or somethin.
Liam R. E. Quin
[email protected]
SoftQuad Inc.
They examine this large sphere, several feet

in diameter near the kitchen table of the 9
tall giant they had slain.
96
The Searching General has determined that

smoking ziggarauts is dangerous to your
stealth.
M.F. Its kinda got a foul scent to it dont

it?
Myke: Yeah, and it smells too. Hey,
maybe its taffy or something. I mean,
giants gotta eat a lot right?
Had enough? Awright, awright, let me get

out a here before the tomatos fly.
M.F. I dunno, why dont you try it? It

sure looks familiar though.
Joel Lovell
[email protected]
Santa Clara Microprocessor Division,
Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA
Then it hits Myke.

Myke: OH NO! Dont eat it!
M.F. (Burp!) Yum, this tastes familiar...
Myke: (RRRRaaallpppphh) (Other puking noises deleted) Ohhhh, you idiot!
Youre a notch, and Im a legend.

Alice Cooper
Pook! Myke pokes him in the face.

Ride like the wind. Fight proud, my son.
Youre the Defender God has sent.
M.F. Whats the matter?

Myke: (Gag) You just ate part of that Giants booger vault!
Manowar
Sorry its kinda sick. Heres a pun to cheer

you up.
The high-intensity approach to characterization:
An assassin went into an ancient part of

the wilderness to scout out the plans of
an invading army. He knew the enemys
armies sorcerers would know he was in their
land and that the General would be searching for him right away. Well, he made it
through their borders and ventured forth
through the heart of their capitol city. He
was great at stealth tactics and clandestine
operations. Eventually the spy made it into
the HQ, which was situated inside the enemys greatest ancient structure, an old ziggurat (a wedding cake shaped temple structure). Once there he knew he was running
out of time, and that the general and his
armies would find him if he took too long.
He searched the whole building and could
not find the plans he was looking for. Angry, he lit fire to the place, and the whole
structure lit up like a bonfire. Being that it
was broad daylight, the smoke could be seen
for many miles. The general saw the smoke
and circled the whole area and captured the
spy.
When I was involved in theatre, in high

school, I always dreamed about the play.
Every night. This was true whether I was
acting, running the lights, or whatever.
As opening night approached, I would think
and talk of little else.
I would also talk about the character I was
playing in the first person, and refer to other
people by their characters names, though
its not as if I didnt know the difference.
At the time, all this was considered normal:
the dreams, the obsession, the random references to actors and their characters. It was
part of theatre.
I suppose if we talked about it on the net,
though, people would start to worry that
we had been too wrapped up, and that
something should have been done to bring
us back to reality. Perhaps we should have
been removed from the play w/o hope
for returning.
Wanna know the moral of this story?
97
Fortunately for us, they didnt, and we

werent denied the experience of participating in high-intensity theatre.
and lost my cool (going into a kind of half

shock state) for about half an hour when
two of my party got killed. It was one of
the most incredible experiences of my life,
exhilirating, emotional and terribly tiring. I
got further into that character than I have
ever been in any game, and I *loved* every
minute of it. It was a glorious experience
and I wouldnt have missed it for the world.
*HOWEVER*, at all times I was aware that
what I was doing was simply a piece of incredibly intense acting. I was Dr. Elias because I *allowed* myself to be. *I* was in
control, and I could have (and did at one
stage to eat pizza) snapped out of him
at any time. At the close of the scenario, I
was drained and happy. I knew when things
were over, took off my mask and went home.
The parallel to role-playing games is exact.

Some role-playing campaigns, like some theatre, is deeply involving, and is not the sort
of thing you can shrug off in an instant.
Others are beer-and-pretzel affairs that are
good for a few thrills and a lot of yucks.
Members of each camp look at the others
with disdain and suspicion. No doubt people in the middle are confused.
But its no kindness to take an actor/gamer
who gets deeply involved in a role aside and
say, Hey, dude, its only a game! Have
some more beer and pretzels! You arent
dealing with a failure of the actor/gamers
sanity; youre dealing with a difference in
approach to characterization.
The Welsh Hobbit

[email protected]
Telecom Research Labs,
Melbourne, Australia
Robert Plamondon
[email protected]
Weitek, Sunnyvale CA
I can handle reality in small doses, but as

a lifestyle, its much too confining.
Lilly Tomlin
On the topic of Role Playing:

In a game I played about a year and a half
ago, we were a motley collection of seven
characters flying out of Russia. Our plane
downed in a remote spot somewhere in the
eastern bloc (cant remember where, sorry),
and we were involved in a very peculiar
chain of events. My character was a retired
army chaplain, a six foot tall negro and a
very christian man. He had been designed
by the GM and assigned to me by him. I
wasnt very happy about this, but I was determined to play the character to the best
of my ability. As the game progressed, I
managed to get more and more into character until I reached a point where I truly
felt that I had merged, and for a while there
I *was* Dr. Elias. It was an awesome experience, I am told it was quite scary for
the others watching me. I lived that man.
I was reduced to tears at one stage when
God failed me when I called upon Him in
my hour of need. I developed a major sense
of responsibility for the rest of the party,
98
Advertisments
Hush up now boys & girls.
Zines 4 U
Town Cryer has to wail
some.
Necronomicon
c/o Anthony Kapolka
2931 Spring St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15210
Discounts on Games
Alpha Omega Games Unlimited
Bruce Perez (Owner)
10454 C Artesia Blvd.
Bellflower, CA 90706
(213) 867-5082
Mon
Tues - Thurs
Fri - Sat
Sun
Closed
Noon - 9pm
Noon - 10pm
9am - 5pm
25% discount for all card-holding members of the

UCR Gamers Guild on all in-stock supplies.
A magazine for gamers. $5 for four issues of $2

for a single issue.
The Game Oracle
c/o David M. Fitzgerald
1851 N. Ivar #208
Hollywood, CA 90028
A fantasy/role-playing magazine for adult
gamers. $3 per issue on postage paid subscription.
$1 per back-issue, availability permitting.
Call for Wargamers!!
Comics +
3858 Tyler St.
Riverside, CA 92503
(714) 785-4818
Now, while I enjoy role-playing as much as the next

person, not all games in this world include character sheets, gold pieces, and dungeons. Occasionally,
Mon - Sat 9am - 10pm
...well, not occasionally, quite often as a matter of
Sun
10am - 8pm
fact, I get a real urge to lay down maps and counters and declare war on whatever opponent I choose,
20% discount for all card-holding members of the
whether it be columns of Soviet armor, Iraqi MiG-29s,
UCR Gamers Guild.
North Korean patrol submarines, Viet Cong guerillas, or even Kafer battlecruisers. Whether it be for
an afternoon, or a long weekend, I find wargaming to
Daylight Hobbies
be a very challenging, fun and rewarding experience.
10220 Hole Ave.
While doing my internship in Washington, D.C.
Riverside, CA 92505
last spring, I spent several weeks in Virginia in the
(714) 688-6013
company of several other obsessive wargamers, many
Sat - Sun 10am - 6pm
of which were designers as well as players of games
Mon - Fri 10am - 8pm
(including, among others, Larry Bond of Harpoon
10% discount for all card-holding members of the and Red Storm Rising fame). We would spend
our Saturday afternoons gaming out various historUCR Gamers Guild.
ical and hypothetical situations, as well as shooting
Note: Daylight has requested that groups use their around gossip as to what was happening in the gamgaming table during store hours for either rpgs ing and military worlds. I found the experience quite
or war games in order to drum up business. rewarding, and I found myself not wanting to leave
Groups should schedule a week in advance for when the time came to go back to California.
such events.
When I got back to California, I realized what a
vaccum this place was for wargaming. Californias
99
a pretty laid-back place, and Californians are not

the type to go off to foreign lands and make holes
in other peoples teeth. Even during the Civil War,
while states on the Union side were sending thousands
of troops to fight, California only set a handful.
However, I have met in the past few months others that also enjoy wargaming in all of its various
forms in the Riverside area, and in gaming with them
discovered a need for a central group where gamers
could get together, game and discus gaming. One
night a week, perhaps, at a central location. What
type of game would depend on what the interests of
the group were. I, for instance, prefer contemporary
or post-WWII historical games, particularly strategy
ones. I also enjoy naval combat quite a bit. Others
I know have other preferences, anything from Star
Fleet Battles, to Squad Leader, Axis & Allies, Risk
& even miniatures.
If youre an active or compulsive wargamer, or
perhaps just interested in wargaming and things military in general, this might be the gaming group for
you. Im trying to arrange games for Saturday afternoon (and/or evening, depending on what demand
is), plus additional gaming sessions during the upcoming cons. If youre interested, please give me a
call.
Shawn Dudley
369-1518
if no answer, please leave a message.
Other Assorted Ads

Cypress Games
Cypress Games is a start-up publisher of role-playing
scenarios and games, with an emphasis on historical
and alternative history games intended for mature
audiences. We have three titles scheduled of publication during calendar 1990. We are currently seeking:
P.S. We are also building our product mailing list, if

youd like to drop us your name and address.
Christopher Pettus
cep.apple.com
circa: February 1990
Alarums & Excursions (A&E)

c/o Lee Gold
3965 Alla Rd.
Los Angeles, CA 90066
The cost of A&E is postage PLUS $1.50. Postage
runs about $2.40 for U.S. first class, $2.30 or so UPS,
$.90 book rate. For Canada postage is $2.72 for first
class delivery, $1.34 book rate (the same cost applies
for book rate to other foreign countries as well. Air
is $4.88 to Europe/Britain, $6.46 to Oz).
Essentially, just send Lee a check for $10.00 or
$15.00, tell her how you want the zine delivered, and
shell send you copies until the money runs out.
Unlike many APAs, A&E has no minimum contribution requirements if you contribute your own
zine, you get that issue for free, and the following
issue for only the postage cost. There is no waiting
list.
As a once (and future?) contributor to A&E I
recommend it highly. Quite a bit like a monthly dose
of rec.games.frp actually. A bit less off- the cuff
though.
Scott Bauer
[email protected]
...!sun!portal!sbauer
circa: May 1990
Anthropomorphs
Freelance artists for current and future projects; Status of some of the things going on in the Anthropomorphic World. Steve Gallacci says he will be get Freelance authors for system-independent sce- ting back to doing more stuff with Erma Felna, which
nario packages to be published in late 1990/early is good. Albedo Anthropomorphics might just become a production of MUpress.
1991.
Huzzah! the Albedo fanzine, might be expandWe offer compensation on an advance plus royalty ing to cover other stuff. The first new Erma Felna
basis for major contributors, and a flat fee in advance stuff will appear in Huzzah!. Subscriptions cost
of publication for minor contributors.
$1.50 per regular issue. Or you can pay $4.00 per
Please write for a copy of our authors and issue which covers the expensive cost of a full color
artists guidelines:
centerfold piece. The last one, was by Dan Flahive,
of a scene in upcoming Spacewolf installments. It was
Cypress Games
really good. The address for subscriptions are
19855 Stevens Creek Blvd. #165
Cupertino, CA 95014
100
Huzzah!
c/o Dwight Dutton
6700 Warner Avenue #5G
Huntington Beach, CA 92647-5130
there have been approximately 1100 posts (and this

is not from any FidoNet feeds)!
Well, have fun.
Please include in your letter that you heard about it

here from me and make checks payable to Dwight
Dutton. Foreign subscribers, add approximately
$1.50 for overseas mail. If you are a foreign subscriber I suggest you order one issue, to see what the
mailing cost will be.
A new anthropomorphic magazine is being produced. It is called Yarf ! and is coming out about
eight time a year. Currently it is forty-five pages
long, bound in either square bound or spiral (your
choice!, I suggest square), and contains art and fiction related to anthropomorphics. It will also contain
reviews, editorials, and news related to the anthropomorphic field of fiction (comics, boks, rpgs, etc). The
production is very good, and I recommend this for
anyone who likes anthropomorphics. They have high
production values and intend to publish mainstream
material ( neither kiddie or pornographic). Subscriptions are for eight issues and cost $24. You can
get a single issue by sending $3, and remember to ask
for square or spiral bound. A Preview issue exists,
which is six pages long, and is free. You can purchase
single issues at the cost of $3 per. Postage within the
United States is included, overseas subscribers must
add the extra amount (once again I suggest overseas
people order one issue, and add extra money [approx.
$3.00] to determine the mailing rate). When you order specify whether you want issue #1, #2, or in two
weeks #3 as the first issue of your subscription. They
will gratefully accept submissions. The address is:
Steven B. Fellows
[email protected]
Colorado School of Mines
circa: March 1990
Disclaimer: I am not receiving any benefit by
telling everybody about the Huzzah! fanzine
and Yarf ! magazine, other than hopefully seeing two good pieces of work succeed. I was introduced to them via the Rowrbrazzle BBS. I have
no connection to them other than intending to be
an occasional contributor and that I have been
steadily communicating with members of their
staff via the Rowrbrazzle BBS. I am putting my
money where my mouth is, for I have subscriptions to both of them.
One Step Beyond

A roleplaying game system, five years in the
making. For current ordering information contact:
Yarf !
PO Box 1200
Cupertino, CA 95014-1200
Make checks payable to Yarf ! The next issue will be
#3 and is coming out very, very soon, so you will want
to get your order in quickly. Also, please mention in
your letter that you heard about it here from me.
Finally, we are still working on a mailing list,
so please, if you are interested send me an email letter. Also, the BBS that covers Albedo is called the
Rowrbrazzle BBS (you will have to connect to it to
find out why). I am still making the numbers available to anyone who is interested. You must email
me to get the number. Some of the subboards on it
are titled: Albedo, Usagi Yojimbo, SpaceWolf, Storyboards, Albedo RPG, Anthropomorphics, and much
more. The board has two phone lines, and to give an
example of the amount of traffic, in the last six weeks
101
Aggressor Games
c/o James H. Grassi
P.O. Box 1610
Cotuit, MA 02635

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UCR Guildsman #2

Paul Anthony Johnson

John Perry Barlow

A Word from the Editor-dude

Greetings, salutations, and felicitations one and all

and welcome to the UCR Guildsman. The editing of

...and there was much rejoicing...

The Honorable Offices

to propose club dues when deemed appropriate,

and left-over tofu),

to present a financial report to the general membership at the end-of-quarter meeting,

to interpret this constitution and bend it where

to approve all asset outflows keeping careful

The third office is that of the Miser (known also as

to record all bends & amendments to this constitution, and

to keep all club financial records up to date,

to modify the clubs system of accounting as

to call for the ousting of the FlakeSpanker should

...and so endth the fifth, last, and final

to hold all receipts pertinent to club expenditures,

Ten (i.e. eleven less one, being the tenth number

Third, the election (by simple counting of hands)

Candidates may not vote in the election governing

Ousting & Succession of Officers

The FlakeSpanker may call for the ousting of other

the meeting to the membership.

as thought appropriate by the voting membership.

This constitution may be amended at any general

to attend all gaming sessions to which the

Interpretation of the Constitution

The UC Riverside Gamers Guild Reference Collection was established in

Gurps Autoduel & Car Wars Supplement

Gurps Autoduel & Car Wars Supplement

CRIME AND PUZZLEMENT

This is a LONG article on what I think of as Gov-

Acid Phreak. Typing !finger optik yielded results of

erment involvment in the Net, where the net is all of

However, associating these sparse data with the

Desperados of the DataSphere

Login name: acid

In real life: Acid Phreak

Whether by one telephonic tendril or millions, they

Unlike the kid in Wargames, he made a practice of

ently lived by no code save those with which they

the main drag before you run into hay meadow

And is that really what you mean? Are you

Civility broke down. We began to see exchanges like:

Acid Phreak: Mr. Barlow: Thank you for posting

Dave Hughes: Clifford Stoll said a wise thing that

Barlow: Acid, if youve got a lesson to teach me, I

Jef Poskanzer: This guy down the street from me

Its the only way to get through to him.

I spent a day wondering whether I was dealing with

Presented with such a terrifying amalgam of raw

Barlow: ... With crackers like acid and optik, the

Acid: Whoever said theyd leave the door open to

brujos about to zombify my economic soul.

Glittering with spikes of binary chrome, they strode

United States Constitution

Kortul: (Looks group over. Sneers.) Grunt.