You were probably expecting a character portrait today, but instead, you're getting a new answer. There won't be any more portraits for a bit because I'm down to only one more character I wanted to write about, and since he's part of a storyline my players will probably be resolving this week, I'll write that entry afterwards. In the meantime, we now learn the dark secrets of something which several people have asked for more information about: the Imperial Plagiarized Encyclopedia.

The Imperial Plagiarized Encyclopedia is a tome of vast knowledge and utility, which contains Gamer-oriented definitions of literally several words. It is Imperial because it is classified as a project of the Aerican Empire; it is Plagiarized because numerous entries are stolen from other sources, namely Webster's Dictionary and the Encyclopedia Britannica; and it is an Encyclopedia because calling if a Frazznerblurble just doesn't have the right ring to it. It is also occasionally referred to as the The Refined Imperial Plagiazed Encyclopedia, the Gamers Dictionary, and the Theoretically Useful Book About Stuff.

I now present a sampling of the items in the Encyclopedia for the reader's education and entertainment.

Adventure:
What you have when something terrible happens which has to be fixed.

Bad Luck:
An ephemeral, immesurable and unquantifiable force which ensures that one needs never blame oneself for screwing up.

Chaos:
1: Uncontrolled, random fluctuations in the Universe.
2: The tendencey for disorder to increase and for order to decrease.
3: A convenient excuse for random, unpredictable behaviour.
4: The force most often unfairly blamed for a wide array of evil and demonic activity.

Class:
That place where you go sometimes when you aren't gaming.

Cookie:
1: A broad classification which includes, in a variety of forms, the most superior form of matter yet discovered in the Universe.
2: A thing which starts with the letter "C" and about which no other information is particularly needed by any given individual.

Duty:
1: The burden hardest to bear.
2: The condition of being obligated to fulfill a task in the name of honour.
3: What lazy people cite when they are required to do something distasteful.

Eccentric:
The condition which an unstable or insane individual believes themself to possess.

Fire:
1: That thing which is a lot of fun as long as you get it to stay where you want it and which otherwise becomes somewhat inconvenient.
2: An action generally believed to solve the majority of problems facing an individual, group, or society.

Fish:
An aquatic animal, any of numerous cold-blooded strictly aquatic craniate vertebrates that include the bony fishes and usually the cartilaginous and jawless fishes and that have typically an elongated somewhat spindle-shaped body terminating in a broad caudal fin, limbs in the form of fins when present at all and a 2-chambered heart by which blood is sent through thoracic gills to be oxygenated. Immortalized in the famous song, "I say potato, you say fish, I say tomato, you say fish."

Fremen:
Verb. The action of climbing on top of any large, hazardous animal and riding it. Ex: To pull a fremen, to be fremen.

Fun:
The employment of time in a profitless and non-practical way.

Funny:
The condition of a thing which one would not want happening to oneself happening to someone else.

Game:
Any activity performed in the pursuit of Fun which utilizes at least one rule and, preferably, some dice.

Gamer:
One for whom games form a significant if not primary portion of one's social activity; one who perceives life as a string of games.

Gibb:
The condition of thing which has been hit hard enough to make it explode. Ex: He gibbed.

God:
Any of a countless number of cosmic entities which may or may not exist and may or may not have created various things, contingent upon their being existant in the first place.

Happiness:
The exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording one scope. The condition of having Fun.

Holy Avenger, +5:
That thing what everybody thinks they ought to have but nobody ever does.

Human:
Any of a wide range of living or pseudo-living creatures which meet any two of three criteria and which choose to define themselves as human: 1) possessing or possessed of Humanity, 2) bearing a humanoid physiology and anatomy, and 3) acting or thinking in a manner considered Humane.

Idiot:
Anybody whose behaviour makes them seem dumber than you.

Infinite Abyss of Absolute Nothingness:
That thing which you really ought not to look into, drop things into, or jump into oneself.

Journal:
Journal (Noun): That place where I writes stuff sometimes; the thing what Picard always talked into; something English teachers and psychologists make you write; a magazine about Research and Stuff.

Junk:
Someone else's Stuff.

Justice:
The pursuit of one's life within the limits imposed by god, fate, society, or oneself, as appropriate to the situation.

Kaos:
The primitive form of Chaos different in that it is typically perceived as a bad thing. Distinct from modern chaos in the same manner than small, fuzzy animals are distinct from hurricanes, tornadoes, and firestorms.

Laser:
Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. That thing which people aspire to shoot from their eyes.

Mine:
The condition of a thing being "not yours."

Money:
That thing what we work to get and which can be exchanged for goods and/or services (or games).

Mundane:
A human who fails to achieve or aspire to becoming a gamer, a non-human, or a god. A normal person.

Normal:
A human who fails to achieve or aspire to becoming a gamer, a non-human, or a god. A mundane person.

Oops:
A universal exclamation developed by numerous societies through concurrent evolution. Etymology: People attempting to say "you would be well advised to find egress from this general vacinity with promptness" while on fire.

Pie:
The state achieved by putting a pastry casing around any form of Stuff.

Psionics:
The ability to use one's mind to do Neat Stuff.

Quantum:
Any small unit of a thing, no, smaller than that, look, just imagine something really small and then take a little tiny piece of it, that's a quantum, the small bit. And if you have two, then they're quanta.

Roll:
The action performed on dice only when one has no vested interest in the final die result.

SPAF:
Stupid People Are Fun.

Stuff:
Your Junk.

Temporal Paradox:
See: Temporal Paradox

Toyetic:
The condition of a thing being ideally suited to having toys based on it.

Uh Oh:
A universal exclamation developed by numerous societies through concurrent evolution. Etymology: People attempting to say "you would be well advised to find egress from this general vacinity with promptness" when they realise they are about to be on fire.

Vinton, Bobby:
The worst musician ever to live, including those who were so incompetent that they never actually created any music.

Weasel:
1: Mustela nivalis (least weasel)
Head and body length is 114-260 mm, tail length is 17-78 mm, and weight is 25-250 grams. Old World animals average larger than those of North America, and males average larger than females. In summer the upper parts are brown and the underparts are white. In winter, the entire coat is white, though there may be a few black hairs at the tip of the tail. It feeds almost entirely on small rodents and may store food for the winter.
The least weasel is rare and of little or no commercial value. It is not known to prey on domestic animals and is beneficial to people through its destruction of mice and rats.
Mustela frenata (long-tailed weasel)
In Canada and the United States, females have a head and body length of 203-28 mm, a tail length of 76-127 mm, and a weight of 85-198 grams; males have a head and body length of 228-60 mm, a tail length of 102-52 mm, and a weight of 198-340 grams. During the summer the upper parts are brown, the underparts are ochraceous or buff, and the tip of the tail is black. During the winter the entire coat is pure white, except for the terminal quarter of the tail, which is black.
The long-tailed weasel occurs in a variety of habitats but shows preference for open, brushy or grassy areas near water. It dens in a hollow log or stump, among rocks, or in a burrow taken over from a rodent. Its den is lined with the fur of its victims. It is primarily nocturnal but is frequently active by day. It can climb and swim. Its long and slender shape allows it to follow a mouse to the end of a burrow or to enter a chicken coop through a knothole. It has a voracious appetite but also speed, agility, and determination. M. frenata seizes its prey with its claws and teeth and usually kills by a bite to the back of the neck. It may kill animals larger than itself and has even been known to attack humans who get between it and its prey. The diet, however, consists mainly of rodents and other small mammals. Although weasels are sometimes said to suck blood, this behavior has not been scientifically documented.
The long-tailed weasel is more prone to raid henhouses than are other species of Mustela but is generally beneficial in the vicinity of poultry farms, because it destroys the rats that prey on young chickens.
2: The niftiest animal known to human science.

X:
The value put in place of anything which is unknown, unexplained, or published by Marvel Comics.

Yawn:
The method of increasingly oxygen flow to the brain evolved by Gamers due to chronic lack of sleep.

Zoltar!:
Zoltar!

As with the entries on quotes, the Encyclopedia contains too much for a signle article... more will be posted as I find myself in the mood to dig them up from my files.

Today, we address a topic which I have actually been asked about many times, and oddly enough, the brief answer to this one is constantly met with stunned disbelief on the part of others. Today, we discuss alignment, and if this entry is well received, maybe the entry-after-next will be about natures and demeanors and maybe even character class. Whether that's a promise or a threat is up to the reader. So anyway...

First, let's clear up this law/chaos thing. Yes, I am an honest and truthful worshipper of Eris, AKA Discord, Goddess of Chaos. From the moment I read the Principia Discordia, I had what the Christians like to call a "born again experience." In layman's terms, the book just struck me as being so utterly good and true (though not always at the same time) that acceptance of Eris as a true Goddess seemed natural. Eris is what one might consider a Chaotic Neutral God -- she does what she wants, when she wants, heedless of harm or consequence. This probably does not sound like the God of a Neutral Good person, and you'd be correct in that; Eris is what I think of as a "secondary divinity," a God I venerate but who is not my primary God of worship and dedication. In the good ol' polytheistic era, it would hardly be uncommon for people to worship one god full time and then have other gods they give part-time worship to for either extra protection or because they felt the need. All that said, my primary God, as I'm sure most of you can see coming, is Forsteri, the Great Penguin, and Forsteri is Neutral Good.

It is a common misconception that Forsteri is a god of chaos, and I do little to dissuade this normally. In actual fact, however, Forsteri is a god of creativity, wisdom, and "happy chaos" as opposed to regular, less happy chaos. Forsteri's teachings include, for example, that chaos is not inherently superior to order, but that both must exist in balance, and since most of society's current ills are caused by an excess or Order, it is only natural that the Silinists work to strengthen chaos and weaken order. In an overly chaotic society, we'd be doing the opposite. This influence can be seen in the two places where I hold total creative control: in my room and in my folders on our computer. My room is, at first glance, fairly chaotic, with toys and books and comics and school-supplies everywhere. However, take a second look at my chambers and you will make an observation which is utterly shocking in light of my age group: my room is clean. I am that rarest of all things, an adolescent/young adult who keeps his room clean by choice. With the exception of dust, which my huge collection of Nifty Stuff collects faster than I can repel, everything in my room exists within an overall order, with smaller areas then allowed to grow chaotically so that their overall influence improves everything around them. Order and chaos are balanced. Similarly, my files on the computer consist almost entirely of cartoons, jokes, humourous pictures, half-completed files, and assorted chaotic and undecipherable scribblings, but *every single file* is meticulously catalogued, filed, sorted, stored, named, alphabetized, and backed up. As Stuart will happily tell anyone who asks, I compulsivley organize everything on the computer to which I have even the slightest claim. Copious amounts of chaos, along with detailed plans on what forms of chaos I plan to spread in the future, all exisitng within a sphere of order. Balance is mainatined.

Now we come to the issue of good versus evil. This is a little harder to nail down,since it's easy to imagine every marauding conquerer and blackguard throughout history believing he was a good and moral person. I believe myself to be good rather than evil because, according to society's comceptualizations and socializations of those concepts, I am aware of my capacity for and enjoyment of evil things and stride, regardless, to do good in excess of the evil. Furthermore, I am good rather than neutral because I feel a desire to do good, whereas I think that if I was neutral, I would merely see the logic in being good so as to make fewer enemies. I desire to be good, and thus I am good.

This does still pose several difficult issues. Is good the absence of evil, or the thwarting of evil? Is it a good act to merely resist the temptation to do evil? If resisting an evil impulse is itself a good act, then is it equally good as doing a truly good thing? How many good acts does it take to balance out the evil acts which I do choose to carry out? Is penance possible, or are are good and evil acts totally independent of each other, unable to balance each other out? I don't actually have the answers to these questions, but they're the ones I tend to devote a little backround processing power to around the clock, and I feel that if I don't have the answers, at least I'm asking the right questions, which is a pretty big part of what being good is about. Anyway, if I did know the answers to these, I wouldn't be able to answer them here anyway, because if I did, I wouldn't have room for a

Bonus Feature:

The Cardboard Tube (Author's Cut), Volume 3, Issue 4:
Black and White
"I'm going to hunt down the people who have strong opinions on subjects they don't understand. Then I'll bop them with this cardboard tube." -Dogbert

Hello children. Today's story is an ancient Irish tale written a few years ago called The Unwise King.

Once upon a time there was a king. The king was neither kind nor cruel, neither wise nor foolish. As a king, he wasn't particularly spectacular in any way. He did, however, lack wisdom.

The king knew this about himself and sought to change it. He searched throughout his kingdom for a way to become a wise king, and found nothing. One day, a traveling philosopher came to the kingdom. The philosopher had a reputation for being both very cunning and less than good. He came to the king and said:

"Your majesty, I can teach you wisdom in one lesson, and all it shall cost you is one grain of rice, multiplied by two for every square on a Chess board."

The king laughed and agreed in an instant, because math was not his strong suit. He laughed as a grain of rice was put down, then two, then four, then eight. He kept laughing when the number exceeded a hundred. He only chuckled when it surpassed a thousand. Soon the pile had stopped growing because more rice had to be brought; the king owed the philosopher a million grains, then a billion. Soon, the philosopher owned all the rice in the kingdom.

"The lesson," said the philosopher with an evil smile, "is to always consider every part of a deal or a discussion before taking a side. Next time, I know you shall weigh the matters carefully."

The king stood silent for a moment. He leaned to the left and considered the issue from one point of view, and he leaned to the right and considered it from another, and then he said,

"I see the lesson which you tried to teach me. I have learned it well. From now on, I shall rule as a wise and just king. But here is a lesson for you. It is unwise to displease a king when surrounded by his royal guards."

And so, the philosopher was drawn and quartered and his head was stuck on a pike outside the castle, and the king lived the rest of his years as a wise ruler to his people.

The moral of this story should be obvious to the astute reader, namely, Chess boards are evil. All Chess boards. The game itself isn't very nice, either.

Now, the two most probable reactions my readers must have right now are, 1: what kind of Gamer hates Chess, and 2: gosh, he must be really bad at Chess. Well, I don't hate Chess, and even though I'm not very good at it, that's not why it's evil. To see the problem, it takes only a considered observation.

1) A Chess board has 64 squares, 8 by 8. As everyone knows, we count in base 10, and the only creatures who count in base 8 are evil insectoid monsters, like those seen in Eight Legged Freaks, or the cast of Friends. Anyone who counts in base 8 is evil, pure and simple. It probably says so in the Bible, assuming you get the right translation.

2) A game of Chess involves players taking on the role of the king and moving their pieces around a little board. Most people think of it as pieces moving around and knocking each other down, when in point of fact, they are actually re-enacting the mass slaughter of thousands of innocent soldiers. As everyone knows, Chess was invented in the year 1123, by the Duke of Chess, after Richard the Second died in battle with Henry Tudor. In that battle, fought on a square-shaped field, infantry died by the score as they were ordered to advance ever forwrad, never back, while knights ran back and forth across both allied and enemy lines, weaving complicated patterns about their foes. Richard's forces appeared victorious until Richard was unexpectedly killed, supposedly stabbed by the youngeest son of the man who became Richard the Third later that day. The Duke of Chess created the game of Chess, calling it Boswith after the field in which the battle was fought, in honor of the fallen king.

Only I know how much of that is made up and how much is real.

Anyway, the point is that Chess is a re-enactment of a horribly bloody battle where lots of people died and one man really, really wanted a horse.

3) Chess is based on non-Euclidian geometry. Many of my readers are unfamiliar with non-Euclidian geometry, I'm sure. Essentially, the world operates according to Euclidian geometry, where lines intersect, corners are formed, and perspective exists. In non-Euclidian geometry, the lines don't always meet and the numbers don't always add up. Now look at the Chess board. The knights (or their horses) seem to be drunk, and posses the ability to pass unharmed through solid matter. More significant than that is the queen, who uses her arcane might to twist reality to allow her to make fantastic leaps to any point in her line of sight. Obviously, the only way the queen could move the way she does is if she can step into one place and emerge in another. The bishop has a similar power, but with less control, and can only move along the cardinal directions (as everyone knows, Boswith field runs northwest-southeast, not north-south). I dare not even contemplate the power required to move about the rooks, transporting entire towers across miles of land in the blink of an eye!

So that's Chess. The next time you play it, remember the evil which you are perpetuating. Oh, and keep an eye on your rice.

Adam Kane; AKA Kyle K. Simon, AKA Robert J. Siegel
Metahuman Identity(ies): The Spirit, AKA The Spirit II, AKA The Spirit of the 21st century, AKA, Master of the 7 League Step; Interval, The Thief Who Walked Through Walls
Birth/Death: 1972/2018 (Disappearance)
Group Affiliations: The Justice Battalion
Identity: Secret
Known relatives: Father, Jon Simon (Deceased); Mother, Joanne Simon (Deceased)
Base of Operations: Elysium Tower, Metropolis; Justice Battalion headquarters, Metrolopolis

Costume and equipment:
The Spirit (II): The Spirit appeared as a human male in a dark grey suit and fedora with a purple scarf covering the lower half of his face. Hands were covered by chainmail gloves. The Spirit typically carried a steel-capped cane and between two and six handguns (concealed). In addition, the Spirit typically carried an assortment of smoke bombs, lockpicks, blackjacks, and a PDA.
Interval: Interval's costume consisted of a white bodusuit worn over light kevlar armor, with a mask concealing all facial features. Interval used no special devices or equipment.

Skills and Powers:
1: Alpha + level translocator, upper limits never measured.
2: Ability to act in multiple space/time locations simultaneously.
3: While active, the Spirit demonstrated olympic level marksmanship.

Background:
Kyle Simon was born in the city of Los Angeles in a poor district. Unremarkable physically or mentally, Simon passed from job to job for years with occasional larcenous periods. Such jobs culminated in Simon's hiring as a custodian at a NoTEViLaboratories where physicists were investigating little-understood Viator rays, capable of moving matter from one location to another. Simon was in the building when an after-hours experiment went awry; while the laboratory was destroyed and the researchers killed, Simon soon discovered he has been given the ability to teleport across distances of a few feet which, with practice, became ten and then twenty feet. Using his newfound gift, and believed dead himself by the police, Simon took the name of Interval and turned to crime as a career.

Though low-powered in comparisson to many metahuman criminals, Interval plagued the city and was quickly elevated to the rank of master-criminal by the press. This crime wave lasted over a year before a metahuman responded to the police's request for help. The Spirit, a founding member of the Justice Battalion and one of Metropolis' foremost crimefighters, traced Interval to a bank and confronted him. In the ensuing fight, an explosive was triggered and the bank collapsed upon both men. The Spirit was severely wounded, while Interval escaped, teleporting long-range for the first time in his life (estimates based on research suggest this jump was approximately ten miles). Simon returned to his hideout, but was tracked by the Spirit, who confronted him again that night.

Neither individual has used the identity of the Spirit has gone into detail on record as to the events of that evening. It is known that, seeing his path of crime as leading to his own death sooner or later if things continued as they had been, Simon surrendered without a fight, whereupon the Spirit offered Simon the opportunity to turn his ability towards good. Ready to retire even before sustaining injuries, the Spirit had been a sucessful crime-fighter for decades due largely to a supernatural force known as "the spirit of vengeance" which he had carried within him. For the Spirit to retire, a new host for the spirit of vengeance would have to be chosen, and for reasons neither human could discern, it had selected Simon to be its new host. Forced to choose between a fulfilling life of adventure, excitement, and herosim, or going to prison, Simon accepted the proposal.

Sworn now to take the Spirit's place, Simon quickly severed all ties to the West Coast. His crimes had left him with ample wealth, enough to ensure he would not need to work and could dedicate himself to his new life full time. He purchased a new identity - that of Adam Kane, real-estate investor - and moved his resources to the chosen home town of the first Spirit: Metropolis, at that time home to the headquarters of the Justice Battalion. Kane purchased the Elysium Tower and turned it into his headquarters, stocking it with his equipment. Finally, in the year 2002, Kane arranged for a suit of armor to be crafted for himself, which he could wear under a suit reminiscent of the costume of his predecessor, and set forth into the world for the first time as The Spirit of the 21st Century.

Records of the first few years of the Spirit's career are incomplete at best. It is known that in 2004 he was instrumental in the formation of the new Justice Battalion alongside several other new heroes, and that his reputation grew steadily. Along with his reputation, his powers continued to grow. Within a few years, the Spirit's teleporation was sufficient for him to go anywhere within the city instantaneously, carrying with him up to five passengers. In addition, if necessary, he could "pause a teleport halfway" so that he existed simultaneously in first two and, later, upwards of ten locations. This, coupled with his becoming the reluctant leader of the Justice Battalion by virtue of his greater experience than his contemporaries, led to the Spirit becoming one of the foremost heroes of the East Coast.

By 2010, the Spirit's power had grown to the extent that he began to experience difficulties existing in only a single location at once. Consultation with the great scientific minds of the metahuman community led to the discovery that, since his first exposure to Viator rays years earlier, Adam Kane had been evolving into a four dimensional life form. The official report of his condition, filed in the Justice Battalion archives, read as follows:

Imagine a holding a picure frame which contains a two-dimensional universe. Its inhabitatns cannot perceve you holding it, since you exist outside of their one plane. However, since you can look down the third dimension, you can not only perceive their dimension, you can see everything happening in it, spread out like a painting or a city map. A similar thing is happening to you, Adam. You are slowly taking on the qualities of a creature who is holding a painting... of us! Every time you use your powers, they get a little bit stronger, and you take one step closer to becoming something we couldn't perceive, let alone understand.

I can see around the walls. Not through them... around, like I'm turning my head to the side and looking around it. I find myself picking up things in other rooms. I just reach my arm ninety degrees away from everything, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. But the worst is when sometimes I'll be doing a few things at once, and then suddenly realise I'm actually in five or six different parts of the city, and living like that just feel more natural than holding myself to just one spot!

When no trace of Kane was found after the battle and all attempts to track, locate, and contact him failed, Adam Kane was declared legally dead and given, in absentia, a hero's funeral outside the Justice Battalion headquarters. His costume remains, to this day, on display in the Battalion museum, and service mechanoids keep it scrupulously clear... in case he comes back looking for it.

End of file.
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Bonus Feature:

The third of the three most well-received issues of the Cardboard Tube, this column is not being reprinted in its complete form. What follows is actually an alternate version written a few weeks after the column itself was published, making a number of minor (and a couple of very big) modifications to the text.

The Cardboard Tube
One in Million
"I'm going to hunt down the people who have strong opinions on subjects they don't understand. Then I'll bop them with this cardboard tube." -Dogbert

In the year 2000, the world's population topped six billion with the birth of a boy named "Chuck" in New York. This was not a particularly auspicious occasion. It was not a momentous occasion. In fact, it was such a minor event that, if I hadn't made it up, no one would have known about it. Particularly oblivious to the whole thing was Chuck himself, who had specifically asked to get a more impressive name and will be sorely disappointed when he gets old enough to know who those people staring at him are.

To the rest of this column, Chuck will be unimportant. This is a subtle metaphor on my part, as the column is mostly about how the rest of us aren't very important, either.

Getting back on the train of thought before it derails: six billion. Nine zeros. Ten digits. What, you might ask, is significant about the number six billion? While, as a student of Kabala, I could talk about all sorts of numerological signs and portents attached to this number, the actual answer to my questions is, in point of fact, much simpler. What is significant about six billion?

"One in a million" is a cliche that's older than anyone reading this column. If you're "one in a million" it means that you're unique. It means that you're special. If anyone ever said that you're "one in a million," it was probably a huge compliment. If it wasn't a compliment, well, if you can't be famous, infamy is good too. Sounds pretty good to be "one in a million," doesn't it?

If you're "one in a million," then following the birth of Chuck (as seen in paragraph one, for those of you who came in late), there are now over six thousand people just like you. Exactly like you, in fact. Heck, you've probably even met a few of them. Still, it sure was nice to be special for a few seconds, wasn't it?

Now, I'm not saying that it's impossible to be unique. I'm just saying it's difficult. It's hard to be unique in our world, by which I mean our culture, not Earth. Society frowns on uniqueness. If you're *really* unique, you're probably locked up somewhere. Or you're going to be. Or maybe you just escaped. If you're reading this column, you probably don't fit into any of those three criteria, considering my small readership base. If you are one of my readers, of course, you've got a head start on everybody else, since you're clearly smarter and more culturally refined than the morons sitting next to you.

In the grand scheme of things, it might not be that important to be a unique person. The government doesn't want you to be unique. The school doesn't want you to be unique. Society as a whole and the marketing people who run it don't want you to be unique. Odds are even good that your friends don't want you to be unique; if you hang out with a relatively cool group, they wouldn't tolerate you if you were unique.

As always, I can hear what people who are reading this are thinking. Nimbly sidestepping the stuff that I don't *want* to see in any of your heads, I'm going to venture that most of you now think (or for those who know me, know for a fact) that I'm a social outcast. Hate to tell you, but you're wrong. Or, more accurately, I'm very happy to tell you you're wrong. I happen to like telling people that they're wrong.

Note to my regular readers: Have you noticed yet that my thoughts tend to jump around like crazed weasels?

Getting back to the point, I am not a social outcast. As I see it, there are two kinds of people who aren't part of the normal culture of their age group. First, there are the anti-social people. If you're anti-social, you can't handle society. As a result, you may make blunders, act oddly, embrace less popular ideas, etcetera. On the other hand, you might be asocial. The problem isn't that you can't handle society. The problem is that society can't handle you.

This, of course, brings me back to being unique. If you're unique, odds are very very good that most people can't handle spending any length of time with you unless they have to. This probably means that you're asocial and not anti-social. There isn't much difference, mind you, but there is a difference.

How can you become unique, you might ask? How can you take that six thousand number, which is, of course, a low estimate, and make it a bit smaller? How can you take what you are and make it a bit more unusual, a bit more memorable, and a bit more different? How can you make yourself unique?

Heck, I don't have a clue. If I could come up with a good answer to that one, I'd write self-help books and get paid to do this.

The biggest problem with trying to help people become unique is that most people already think that they are. They might be right, for that matter. I don't think they are, mind you, but just because I'm egocentric doesn't mean I can't be wrong.

I'm not wrong, of course. But it's conceivable that I can be, hypothetically.

I can imagine people sneering as they read this, and probably see it when I walk through the halls, too. After all, what right do I, a mere writer, have to say who is unique? What makes me any different from any of you? What, besides my super-human writing skills, of course.

Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Eric Lis. Emperor of the Aerican Empire, a small nation with about 150 citizens worldwide, a post I've held for over a decade. I am the high priest of Forsteri the Great Penguin. I think faster than I speak, which is not a curse many people are afflicted with.

These don't make me unique by any means. There are more small religions out there than there are followers for them, and there are a frightening number of people who have started their own countries. But if we say that there are a hundred people just like me, that's still ten times less of me than of you. Bad luck for me in terms of outright battle, of course, but otherwise kind of nifty.

This brings me to my very last point. I'm a socialist on most political issues, which means I vote Liberal for lack of a better option. Invariably, the people who get into power do not invoke the changes I would like to see made. This is because the people who get into one office or another are always less unique than I am. They are, in fact, just like everybody else. I may be more special than they are, but I'm outnumbered, which means I'm probably doomed, and if you're unique, you are, too.

Kind of makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?

I like to think of myself as both artist and scientist; above all things, I see myself as an architect, blending science and imagination to create works both functional and beautiful. This is, of course, pure drivel; on the realistic level, I wouldn't trust any building I'd designed, and on a metaphorical level, my creations are rarely beautiful and never functional. Be that as it may, the analogy stands up to basic scrutiny, and in none of my activities is this more evident than in one of my chief hobbies and area of specialization within psychology, inimicology, the study of villains.

Inimicology dates back to the dawn of time. As early as humans were capable of telling stories, they analysed the antagonists. Records from Babylon and Summeria contain works which, by generous interpretation, can be seen as analyses of the characters from their mythology. Jump forward a few centuries and we have the tales of Loki, Set, Ares, and their contemporaries, whose stories were less parables and more introspections into the nature of evil. This idea is at the core of inimicology as well: to understand evil as a concept and as a passtime by observing and understanding the evil characters found within a culture.

People like badguys. Popular culture revolves around them -- for a story to be internalized by the public, it must have a strong villain, and if it does, then a weak hero is usually politely overlooked. The most beloved stories in cinematic history are rememberd, more often than not, for the villains and the monsters, and not for the heroes. Consider Frankenstein. If you've read the book, you know that at least half-a-dozen characters are vitally important to the story as noble figures. That said, I defy you to name them. We focus instead on the Good Doctor and the Monster, Adam, because they teach us more about humanity, they keep the story moving (even when they aren't active parts of it for a time) and, to put it bluntly, they're more fun.

Darth Vader. Professor Moriarty. Edward Hyde. Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Strahd Von Zarovich. Sid 6.7. Sauron. Professor Gangrene. Magneto. Dracula. Oogie Boogie. Prince Humperdinck. Dark Helmet. Lord Soth. Alfred Bester. Cobra Commander. Keyser Soze.

This trend is most obvious in Gamer culture, but with a little imagination, it is found to be evident everywhere. Look at politics... Canadians don't vote for the best candidate, they just vote against the worst ones, and whoever actually wins does so by default.

I won't actually get into any detailed analysis of particular characters just now, since that can take much longer than I have to write this. However, here is an explanation of the system by which I do analyse characters; I encourage people to try applying this system, or their own version of it, to characters who come to mind, and I'll post it if multiple people analyse the same characters in vastly different ways.

1) Background
What is the appeal of a creature we know nothing about? Monster movies about killer animals do not give us villains; the monsters have no background, no history, and no story. There is nothing to tell us about them or to capture our imaginations. Backstory can be overdone, of course; after seeing him as a whiny loser in episodes 1 and 2, who is still capable of seeing Darth Vader as the implacable force of darkness he once was?
Exemplar: Alec Trevelyan. Trevelyan's backstory tells us who he is, where he comes from, why he does what he does, and what he wants to gain from it. His story can be summed up in thirty seconds of exposition but still contains all the information needed to highlight, flesh-out, and strengthen the character.

2) Power
James Bond has completed 20 films; Bambi Meets Godzilla lasts twelve seconds. A story cannot exist if the power levels of the characters are too far from each other, and the ideal villain is more powerful than the hero but is still, realistically, stoppable. This is the failing of villains as such the almighty Sauron. He plays little to no role in the Lord of the Rings because he is too powerful for the heroes to contemplate, let alone confront. Being only one step below omnipotence, he cannot actually appear in the film, but can only be named as a vague evil, watching. Had he taken part in the story itself, he would have been a better character.
Exemplar: Darth Vader. A mighty sorcerer, skilled warrior, and inspiring leader, Vader's power level makes him a nigh-indomitable threat to the heroes, but he is weak enough that he can be fought, and fallible enough that he can lose. He is all the more frightening in that he is understandable.

3) Style
While of the ideal power level to match his nemesis, Sherlock Holmes, James Moriarty is not a stylish villain. He is short, and hunchbacked, with a thin neck and a head that darts side to side like a lizard's. He dresses poorly and generally does not carry himself as a criminal mastermind should be expected to do. Of course, not all villains are well dressed; the werewolf wears the tatters of his human clothing, not Dracula's a tuxedo. This includes everything from a character's name to their clothes, mannerisms, voice, and so forth.
Exemplar: Doctor Clayton Forrester. The mad scientist of Mystery Science Theater 3000 has all the ideal trappings of a villain of his archtype. He wears an evil looking labcoat, his hair is mussed from working with electricity, he is cultured and educated, and his maniacal laugh is very... maniacal.

4) Evilness
As an Incompetent Villain, Forrester is not particularly evil; the limit of his cruelty is exposing his enemies to bad films. Two kinds of strong villainy exist: chaotic and lawful. Lawful evil is that which works within rules, either twisting and hiding behind laws or sometimes merely acting with careful, methodical behaviour. Chaotic evil is the absence of rules, indiscriminate slaughter and destruction. Typically, a middle ground between these two is most effective.
Exemplar: Keyser Soze. As it is said, "...he waits until his murdered wife and kids are in the ground and he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money."

5) Miscellaneous Villainy
Many are the characters whose strengths cannot easily be analyzed. Some villains are strong based solely on the grandeur of their death scenes; others have a single personality trait that makes them memorable, or their dialogue puts them head and shoulders above other characters. This also takes into account those rare few characters who are immortalized, despite the fact no one is quite sure why beyond the fact that something about them makes them impossible to forget.
Exemplar: Zombies. Found in any of dozens of quality monster movies, zombie films have nothing in the way of stylish villains, evil dialogue, creatively evil acts, or engaging backstories. None-the-less, something about the zombie film, independent of the blood and guts found only in a handful of the cult zombie movies, pulls the audience back again and again to see the same old story with brand new zombies. Some undefinable aspect of the zombie threat makes them totally engaging to viewers.

These categories provide an incomplete but useful picture of a villain as compared to other, similar characters. Taken together, they provide a portrait, both of the characters in question, but also of the viewers whose minds are captured by those characters.

Bonus feature:

Since this entry focuses on the topic of evil, it seems appropriate that today's special bonus feature is the writer's cut of Cardboard Tube, Volume 2, Issue 8, There's No "U" in Evil. With never-before seen paragraphs (well, seen by the Bandersnatch editors, briefly), this column is the second of the three colums generally received as my best work for the Bandersnatch.

"I'm going to hunt down the people who have strong opinions on subjects they don't understand. Then I'll bop them with this cardboard tube." -Dogbert

Where am I going and why am I in this hand basket? As promised, I'm bringing up this lovely question, and as expected, I'm avoiding answering it in favor of another topic. If you don't like it, write your own column.

Those of you who have taken Intro to Psych have no doubt heard of professor John Watson, a big name in the field of conditioning. Watson is famous for a particular experiment relating to fear. Here's a basic summary of it. Watson would find a baby and put the baby in a room. This room would also contain a cute, fluffy animal, like a rabbit. Watson would then lie in wait for when the child began to play with the cute fuzzy animal. He would then sneak up behind the baby and smash two pieces of metal together to make a Horrible Ghastly Noise [TM]. Before long, this would instill in the baby a horrible and irrational fear of cute fuzzy objects, even sending them into terror filled crying when exposed to, say, a fur coat.

What, you may ask, is the point of this story? Simple, actually. I like evil scientists.

Yes, I am of the considered opinion that Evil Science is the way of the future. My own career goal happens to be Evil Psychiatry, which is a lot like regular psychiatry but with more diabolical laughter.

Man: So, I've been having this problem where-
Evil Doctor: BWA HA HA HA!
Man: What was that?
Evil Doctor: Oh, nothing. Do go on.

The possibilities certainly are endless. Evil Medicine lacks some of the perks of Evil Physics and Evil Chemistry, but it gets paid for by Medicare. Oddly enough, there are no instances of Evil Mathematics in history, perhaps because no one thought such behavior unusual in Mathematicians.

Evil Math Guy: The formula is complete.
Student: But doctor, what does it do?
EMG: Do? Who cares what it does! Look at all the paper I got to use up!

I can imagine that people might be a bit unclear on what the benefits are of Evil Science versus Science. Read the following word list; if any of them are related to the way you want to spend the rest of your life, you may want to think about Evil Science as a career. Giant robots. Killer robots. Mutant armies. Genetically engineered super warriors. Manipulation of the mass media. Death rays. Lasers. Holograms. Microsoft. Entropy. Hollywood.

The last one, of course, is a trick; if you're interested in Hollywood, you want to be in Evil Theatre, which sadly was not offered this semester, considered as it was to be redundant.

The next excellent question you might have is, what makes some scientists Evil and not others? Consider the following example. Fred the Biologist works on an new form of anti-biotic, while Grapthar (the Invincible) the Biologist works of developing a race of half-human half-puma warriors to conquer the Earth. Fred will win the Nobel Prize; Grapthar will pry it out of his cold, dead fingers, which will be twenty feet away from his cold, dead arm. One path is more socially acceptable, but the other seems so much more efficient.

Some might argue that the biggest problem with the case of Grapthar the Invincible is the fact that he's not very nice. On the contrary, Grapthar is actually a very nice person who gives generously to charity, visits his parents regularly, and works at a free clinic, creating puma men only when he can find spare time. But you didn't stop to ask that, did you? No, you just assumed that it was killer puma men, all day, every day for Grapthar. That was very shallow of you, and you've hurt his feelings. When the Day of the Puma comes, you shall know his wrath.

But I digress.

Clearly, there is considerable stigma against picking Evil Science as a career goal. This is exactly why the majority of people who would enjoy studying Evil Science at Abbott go through Natural Science instead. Much the same, people who might otherwise have become Evil Psychologists or Evil Economists are forced to go through the more mundane programs. They then miss out on the more specialized humanities (Lootin' Pillagin' and Sackin' a Major City; Ethical Treatment of Super Mutants) and English classes (Intro to Lovecraft; Public Speaking to the Terrorized Masses). Such students also miss out on the Evil Gym credits (Swordplay; Firearms; Skulking in Shadows) from which they might have otherwise benefited.

If any of this is something which you have thought of before, I encourage you to write the people in charge. Talk to your teachers about turning your classes in Evil classes. Talk to an Academic Advisor and find out if a career in Evil is right for you. If we can have classes in Peace Studies, we should certainly have classes in Evil Studies.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a robot to finish building.

In terms of NPCs I consider significant, Virrar is an interesting case. Originally my most famous (infamous?) character on a large online forum, and designed to be the primary villain of the Dungeons and Bandersnatches game, Virrar simply never really caught on with my tabletop groups. While several storyliens existed designed to pit the players against the character who I expected to become their most hated nemesis, things just didn't work out as planned. Some storylines they didn't follow up.. some clues they missed... and my own use of him in stories just never made him into someone the players really thought of as a true villain to a great extent. None-the-less, Virrar is one of the few aspects of my personality that predate the establishement of Eric 4.0 (I'll be celebrating his seventh birthday this winter, just a few weeks after Ragon's) and, as my mental embodiement of Lawful Evil, he is certainly one of the most influential parts of me.

In the 2248th year of the Gerhyden calendar, in the kingdom of Locardia, a child was born. It is said that no omens foretold that night, and that no seer received so much as a sign or a sense of foreboding. The night passed unnoticed by all save the newly grown family. And time passed.

The boy grew. It was farm life, and the boy grew strong on honest work. He grew clever, though the family could afford little in the way of teaching. He grew wise, though the family had little in the way of religion. And he grew noticed, because a young boy who possesses all of these qualities is a rare thing indeed. And time passed.

The boy was brought before the king of Locardia, and asked questions he did not understand. He was asked if he was a witch; he was asked if he was a mage; he was asked if he served foreign gods, or abyssal demons. The boy said no, and the king took this as assent, for a boy so young should have had no knowledge of such things. The boy was thus brought to the palace, for the king had use for special children. And time passed.

The boy continued to grow. It was dark life, and the boy grew strong on dishonest work. He grew quick, so guards neither saw him enter or leave. He grew cunning, for traps and locks barred his way. And he grew cold, for the work to which the king put the boy was to seek out his enemies and kill them, and it was work to which the boy took complaint, though not without question. And time passed.

One day, the boy asked,
"Majesty, why must I have this blood on my hands?" And the king replied,
"Because the ones you strike down are enemies of the state, and must die." But the boy grew puzzled, and responded,
"They were not your enemies, majesty. Their thoughts were pure, though yours are dark as pitch at midnight."

And the king scowled, for he had long ago deduced that the boy, who reeked neither of magic nor witchcraft, had some gift for reading the minds of men. The king had never imagined the boy might read his own mind, however, and knew not what to do now. He decided, as kings are wont to do, to solve the problem, as kings are wont to do, and ordered the boy's parents tortured to death as an object lesson. When ready, he brought the bodies before the boy.

And the king said,
"Do you see these?" he asked, to which the boy, stony faced, replied,
"I do, majesty. They are my family. What has killed them? What has torn their bodies so?" And the king, proud of himself, said,
"I have, my boy." And then he said, "this is what comes of asking questions." And because he was king, as kings are wont to do, he then said "I trust that we will have no more asking questions."
"We shall not," agreed the boy.

And reaching out with his mind, from ten feet away, he grasped the king's eyes and burst them in their sockets, and while the king screamed and stumbled, the boy, without moving his body, lifted the scalpels of the torturers and flayed the king alive, and left the king at the point of death with the memory looping in his mind's eye for eternity.

It was the year 2261. The boy never left the palace, but Virrar Crysthalus did, leaving behind the corpses of guards who sought to block him and a broken king whose cries, it is said, could be heard for leagues in every direction save that which Virrar walked.

And time passed.

The man continued to grow. It was harsh life, and he grew strong surviving. He grew able, turning to adventuring to earn coin. He grew experienced as his travels took him across the land. And he grew powerful, for with every passing year his might grew. He could listen to every thought in a crowded tavern; he could lift great boulders from a hundred feet away; he could persuade the most miserly of merchants to part with their goods for free and never remember his passing; he could see where an enemy intended to strike and dodge the blow before it had begun. And finally, he met others of his kind, who named themselves Telepaths, and who stood apart from the humans who feared them and called them monsters. They took Virrar to their safehouse, and taught him to make his might even greater, and they gazed in awe at the strength of his gifts which put them all to shame.

And Virrar said unto the telepaths,
"Why do we hide from the humans?" to which they replied,
"For their numbers are vast, and their mages are mighty, and their gods are vengeful." But Virrar replied,
"Their numbers mean nothing; they are bolstered by sheep. Their mages are fools; they cannot strike what they do not see. Their gods are nothing; we are the gods humans should fear."

And the telepaths saw his wisdom, and one by one, they heard his message and joined their voices to his. And time passed.

It was the year 2267. The safehouse that had been known to them as theirs had become known to them as his. They had been organized. They had been trained. They had been joined by others from the farawaylands, and their numbers swelled to become an army. The became an Underground; they struck where none could keep them out; they were invisible to their enemies; they were gone before they were recognised; their enemies fell before them. And time passed.

It was the year 2269. A vast fortress had been built by ill-gotten gains, and in the center, an Arena the likes of which had never been seen. Prisoners from the kingdoms for leagues in every direction were brought, and bought, and sold, and lived, and died. In a month, they were profitable. In a year, they were the favoured of a thousand decadent nobles. And the Arena was ruled by the man known as Virrar Crysthalus, whose past no visitor knew or cared to enquire into. And time passed.

Virrar Crysthalus stretched forth his hand. With his soldiers that no warrior or mage could stop, he instigated plans and plots and schemes. He started and ended wars, bought and sold lives, raised and destroyed kingdoms. He grew wealthy, and he grew mighty, and he grew feared. Adventurers learned of his plots; they opposed him. Some suceeded, and some failed, and some died, but always, Virrar profited, and new telepaths joined his ranks. And time passed.

It was the year 2304. The Great Burn swept across the land. Though nearly killed, Virrar survived, as villains are wont to do, and rebuilt, as villains are wont to do. He sent forth spies and scholars and learned what had caused the Burn. Four years passed and he found the cause, and four more years passed, and he found a spell to prevent the Burn from happening. And with two more years, he found champions to send back to before the Burn and stop it. And when they went back, though they knew not, so too did Virrar. And time rolled back.

It was the year 2304. Virrar Crysthalus received himself with open arms, and the elder and younger saw the potential that neither alone could acheive. They stretched forth their hand. With an army no force could stop, they culminated plans and plots and schemes. They started and ended crusades, bought and sold kingdoms, raised and destroyed nations. They grew wealthy, and mighty, but not feared, for no man, no matter how clever, could pierce the veil of secrets they had wrapped around themselves. Adventurers learned of their plots, and were destroyed. And time passed.

It was the year 2309. Virrar was now 71 years old, and Virrar was now 61 years old, and the average life of a human was barely fifty years. Virrar, who had been crippled in the Great Burn and sustained by magic alone, passed silently into the night, leaving his memories and his mind in Virrar's keeping. And Virrar, unsustained by magic and unwilling to become so, became weak, and knew his time would come soon. He left his plans and plots and schemes, and put the destiny of his people in the hands of an able other, and found a small home, in a kingdom not unlike Locardia. And time passed.

It was the year 2312. The people had gathered to see the last moment to Virrar Crysthalus. A thousand telepaths had gathered, and among stood werebeasts, and vampires, and golems, and even ordinary humans.

And speaking directly into each mind, Virrar said,
"Would I have been a hero had I trod a different path? Am I now a monster for serving my people? There is no remorse; all I have done has been for cause, and I care nothing for its justness so long as it has been acheived. If I am thus damned, so be it, for none else would have been fit for what I accomplished in my life."

And quietly he died, smiling, and though the world was less evil with his absence, still some few mourned.

Bonus Feature:

Because the preceeding was a bit serious for my tastes (kids, Evil is no laughing matter), here's probably the most well-received column I ever wrote for Bandersnatch. Cardboard Tube, Volume 1, issue 3:

Babeheart
"I’m going to hunt down the people who have strong opinions on subjects they don’t understand. Then I’ll bop them with this cardboard tube."
-Dogbert

I think that the major problem with movies today is that they are designed to appeal to people stupider than I am.

It's a perfectly logical statement when you think about it. Most people look at most movies and say they hold no appeal. I just take it one step farther. For example, open the movie page of the Gazette- there’s probably one near you as you read this. Look at the movies, and ask yourself why the majority of movies don’t appeal. Maybe you’re the sort of person who has been anxiously awaiting Dude, Where’s my Car?, or perhaps you skip right to the ads for Hannibal. Whatever your preference is, it probably covers less than half of what’s there. Now ask yourself, how many of these movies look like they could only possibly appeal to someone stupider than yourself?

I know exactly where my tastes run, of course. Anything with Star Wars in the title has already earned three tickets worth of money off of me. I waited ten years for the D&D movie, even if it was an abomination in the face of the Books of Gygax. In contrast, I still haven’t seen Titanic, though I do cherish the thought of Leonardo DiCaprio dying a terrible death.

"I’ll love you forever!"
"That’s great, but can you just scoot over a little..."
"I still have the diamond!"
"There’s room for both of us on that board is you just..."
"I’ll remember you always!"

Let’s just say a movie rarely meets my expectations.

Now, if I ran Hollywood (and there’s a very good reason they don’t let people like me run Hollywood), movies would follow simple formulas. Movies would still come in every genre, since I have no interest in ceasing the production of a movie simply because it’s something I don’t personally want to see. However, I would see to it that more movies are made the way I like to see them, which for those of you who don’t know me very well means anything by Mel Brooks. I can see it now: Babeheart!

Yes, Babeheart! It is the late middle ages. The English are taking over Scotland. The Scottish people want to fight back, lacking only a leader. They find Babiam Wallace, a cute little pig who leads them to slaughter the English!

Babiam Wallace is a runt pig living in Scotland. Because his father and brothers died fighting the English, Babiam lives on the farm of lord Hoggett, a kind and wise Scottish noble. When Babiam’s best friends, Fly and Ferdinand, are killed by English troops, Babiam joins the Scottish resistance to fight for their freedom. Starring Christine Cavanaugh as Babiam, James Cromwell as lord Hoggett, Mel Gibson as That Funny Looking Cameo Guy in Scene 3, John Cleese as Evil English Guy, and Dan Castellaneta as Earthworm Jim, Babeheart is sure to be a success to rival Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

"You dumb-heads better get outta Scotland!"
"And if we don’t?"
"Squeal!"
"AAARGGHH!
[Gratuitous screams and Extra Gory fight scene ensues]

Yes, the potential for this film is incredible. Critics the world over would make it their top pick. Some of them might even do so *before* the blackmail.

As I said, there’s a very good reason they don’t let people like me into Hollywood, because although my movies are certainly designed to appeal to a higher class of audience (with scenes like twelve werewolves singing the periodic table while doing the Can-Can), they don’t appeal to a wide enough audience. It just means that I’ll have to take over the world before making the movie, which doesn’t bother me that much.

I was already planning to.

Yes, I own a custom designed sword, and yes, it has a name. The practice of naming swords goes back millenia, with Arthur, charlemagne, Heimdal, and Gandalf as just a few of the stirling (and, admittedly, semi or completly fictional) people whose swords are nearly as famous (or more famous) than they are. In gamer culture in particular, a sword speaks volumes about the person wielding it, and a sword or other signature weapon, particularly when it's been named, is something every gamer should have (or at least be able to visualize).

Over the years, I have designed quite a variety of weapons. People familiar with my sketchbooks are probably familiar with such marvels as the fork-chucks, the ballistic weasel, the atomic quarterstaff, Forsteri's Talon, the Shotgun of Vorpal Cutlery and others. Some, like Forsteri's Talon, I have attempted to actually build but, due to the materials available and my utter lack of dexterity and artistic ability, these attempts have always met with dismal failure, and only a couple weren't scraped and thrown out altogether. This is one reason why, when I finally got it right, serendipitously, with the Windblade, I formed such a strong attachment to the final product. Imagine someone who can't draw a straight line wake up one day and create a masterpiece, and you have an inkling of how I felt when it was finished.

The history of the Windblade is arguably interesting only because, in contrast to the many weapons I tried to make on purpose, I never actually designed this one. The major variation between the Windblade and my previous designs is the hilt. When I would sit down and actually design a sword (usually during class of some sort... I don't spend my free time on that sort of thing...) it would generally have either a nifty, pointy hilt guard or swashbuckler's a basket hilt. Also, I traditionally put a lot of design work into the pommel, often putting a large spherical happy-face there. The Windblade has neither of those; it is the most simply design possible, with no hilt guard at all, no pommel, nothing except hilt and blade. Had I been shown the design a week before I built it, I doubt that I would have approved of it.

The windblade's origin is, like many great discoveries, pure chance. While I was organising my closet, my mother offered me a unit designed to stretch across a closet and allow shelves to be hung up. The unit was built of low-carbon steel and coated in strong white plastic, and was composed of three long, thin segments slightly longer than my arm. Naturally, I began playing with the units, since there are very few things that enter my proximity that do not get lifted, moved, bent, foleded, spindled, mutilated, or spun around. To my surprise and pleasure, the balance of the units was almost perfect (they were held together by elastic, so it wasn't actually *perfect*) and, because it was three thin objects held close together, it made a spectacular whistling noise as it moved through the air. Quickly growing bored, I put down the unit and went back to work, but a few days later my attention fell on it again. By this time, it was clear that I wouldn't actually need them for shelves, and so could find another use for them if I wanted. The answer seemed obvious.

What followed was a quest -- a brief quest, but a quest none-the-less. Far and wide did I seek out what I would need to turn shelving units into a deadly weapon. In the end, I turned part of the unit into a hilt simply by wrapping it with foam-padded, grip-enhancing duct-tape, and used modeling putty to fuse the segments together at strategic points (a slightly less than brilliant idea was using green putty on white plastic, but I learned to live with it). The end result was a sturdy, sword-shaped chunk of platic-wrapped metal durable enough to stand up to my clumsy use, heavy enough to funtion both as a practice sword and as excercise equipment (yes, I excercise nowadays, though it pains me to admit it), and is generally fun to use. I even managed to adapt the putty to adjust the blade for my unique balance, which other people report tends to make the sword drift a bit to the sides when they use it.

The Windblade was sufficiently nifty in my eyes that I created an NPC in my game just so that I'd be able to wear the sword to a Haloween party; Rufshaad, later revealed to be the mortal form of Naglfr the Chronomancer in my Saga of the Chronomancer D&D game, started life as his sword... and then I built a character around it to make it useable in a game. I won't go into too much detail on that since Naglfr will probably by the subject of an upcoming Entry.

Bonus feature:

Since I have been getting a positive reaction to reprinting old almost-columns, I have been persuaded to reprint some of my old Bander writings. Today, I post something left over from Slanderbatch many years back, and starting next entry, expect to see Author's Cuts of the Cardboard Tube. If there's interest, I might even add some special features... deleted paragraphs, author's commentary, feedback I received at the time, that sort of thing. Nothing from the Gamer's Rant will be getting reposted... like all artists, I can't bear to look upon things created too long ago.

Scientists Disprove Math
Geneva, Switzerland

The International Mathematics Association announced yesterday that they have proven that math does not, in fact, exist. This announcement has rocked the science world and thrown the study of most physical sciences into chaos. It has been greeted with open acclaim by most schools and non-science institutions.

"It’s all really complicated," the spokesman of the IMA told reporters. "But basically, it all comes down to the way numbers work. Numbers don’t really mean anything, and unless people believe in them, they cease to function. If I don’t believe that two plus two equals four, then it doesn’t work anymore, and two plus two can mean anything I want."

To demonstrate this principle, the spokesman proceeded to cut a piece of chalk down the middle to make three pieces.

"This will revolutionize science. If we can find sufficiently unstable astronauts, I think we might break the speed of light by... oh... this Thursday."

Physicists have, in general, reacted badly to this discovery, and have thrown themselves more deeply into their experiments. An anonymous spokesman from the Einstein Society told reporters that, regardless of what the IMA says, their own experiments continue to work exactly as they are supposed to, and it is being hotly debated whether this proves or disproves the IMA’s findings regarding belief. In stark contrast, chemists around the world met news of the IMA’s discovery with little surprise.

"Told you so," said the spokesman for IUPAC. "Two plus two doesn’t always equal four. We’ve always said so."

IUPAC, the International Union of Physicists and Chemists, has been polarized by the theoretical shift. Math-dependent disciplines continue to protest the finding, while less numerically-based sciences have begun pointing at them and laughing.

Debate continues about whether or not enough people still believe in numbers to make them work for the general population. Many argue that, since most people never really understood math, this discovery will not make much difference in daily life.

Continuing the series of character portraits, Guxx Unfafadoo. First, a little background: The Netherhells as a general idea were stolen from a six-book series by Craig Shaw Gardner, The Exploits of Ebenezum and the Ballad of Wuntvor. There was going to be a third trilogy, but lack of interest in his earlier books and Gardner's burgeoning horror career combined to prevent their writing. This is a shame, because while Exploits is merely excellent, Ballad is truly brilliant (well, two and a half of the three books are). Never widely distributed, these trilogies are not easy to find nowadays, but can be located if you're willing to do the work. Anyway, a lot of names... The Netherhells, Guxx, Brax, the Dread Collectors... were lifted directly from these books and used in my D&D games. I think I changed enough to make them uniquely mine, adding in the Lesser Hoohahs, the obsession with technology over magic, the spice-weasels... I consider my Netherhells to be a tribute to, and not a theft from, Gardner's. So anyway...

Guxx Unfafadoo
Race: Demon (Netherhells, Kartaxian)
In the beginning, it is told in the Netherhells, the demons ruled the surface. Not the demons of today, but the First Demons, creatures of awe, and majesty, and terror. There was no life save for these great old ones, and they ruled for time beyond reckoning. But time did pass, and life found a way to develop. Molecules became microorganisms, and over the course of the old ones' reign, new, multicellular lifeforms emerged. The new life were the true demons, creatures made so mutable by their development that even from generation to generation no two looked quite alike. Feeling their time had passed, the old ones sank below the earth and opened a new world, three miles beneath the surface, and ruled there, leaving the surface to the newer life. The demons thus ruled the surface for time beyond reckoning, and life again moved on. The still-unevolved microorganisms that had grown alongside the demons became more stable, and became plants, and became animals, and in time, became humanoids. The new life was elves, and dwarves, and eventually humanity, and when the demons grew tired of the teeming life, they too sank below the surface, where the old ones still waited in darkness. They could not both rule beneath the world, and so set a contest; the old ones would depart, and would return once each century, and whatever demon had in that year previous caused the greatest destruction and chaos would battle the old ones' champion, and the winner would rule for another century. The old ones and the demons both were ageless, and saw this as good. The old ones left and the demons named their world the Netherhells, for they lived deep beneath the hell which they felt the surface had become.

Thus did the demons rule the Netherhells: The mightiest, craftiest, and most second most powerful demon became the Grand Hoohah, by either proving his worth or slaying his rivals. The next most powerful demons, those who did not challenge for rulership, became the Grand Hoohah's ministers, the Lesser Hoohahs, whose dominions were war, and death, and information, and power, and magic, and art, and history, and culture, and business, and the surface world. The Grand Hoohah ruled all, and the land not claimed directly by that most feared demon was divided into vast nations ruled by the Lesser Hoohahs, who appointed mighty sub-Hoohahs to administrate and enforce their laws. War was constant between them, and demons died in the millions as war raged beneath the surface. Thus did they rule the Netherhells for millenia, wresting the Netherhells from the old ones each century, for the old ones were eternal and stagnant but the life of the demons selected a deadly population for its deadliest members.

Over these millenia, clans and states and factions arose and fell, but some few were strong enough to endure. The Knowers grew to prominence in the Information lands, demons of eidetic memory who became living repositories of knowledge. The Nightstalkers grew into an order of assassins within the Warlands, and it was said their great book could tell how to slay anything, even the gods themselves. And, on an island far from all other parts of the Netherhells, where the mightiest demon of all, Karatax, had settled with its retinue as other demons battled over land, became Kartaxia.

The demon Karatax stood ten feet tall, with skin of burnished blue, and eyes of fiery red. Its three fingers each ended in foot long claws; its head was topped with steely spikes. Its mind whirled with schemes stretching into the centuries, and the earth shook when it spoke. No Hoohah tried to claim Kartaxia; no Hoohah would dare. The very aura of Karatax mutated all life on its island, and throughout the Netherhells, stories grew of the unique flora and fauna of Kartaxia. They spoke of the Kartaxian Death Lizard, whose single bite would decay flesh to the point of death in moments. They spoke of Death Mist, which turned in instants to unbreakable stone. Of Death Flowers, whose petals of steel would slice to the bone and rarely stop there. They spoke of Death Spice and Death Ale, Death Frogs, Death Books, and they very atmosphere as Death Air. Legends told that wherever a traveller set out from, kartaxia would always be at the point of the Netherhells farthest from there; some said the Island moved magicaly, but others insisted it was merely the rest of the Netherhells trying to get away.

In the year of Gerhyden 1775, Guxx Unfafadoo was born of two Kartaxian demons. In the Death Language of Kartaxia which seared the tongue to speak, his name meant "vast render of flesh, bone, and steel, whose gaze brings death and whose name brings terror." He was named after his grandfather. The spitting image of long-dead Karatax himself, Guxx Unfafadoo grew strong and cunning, and even in a land of the deadliest of demons, Guxx Unfafadoo stood apart. In less than a century, Guxx Unfafadoo had risen to become a sub-Hoohah, then to become the lesser Hoohah of War, and finally, vanquishing the Unnamable One in the ancient demon ritual of "Got Yer Spleen," Guxx Unfafadoo became the Grand Hoohah of the Netherhells.

For four hundred and thirty one years, Guxx Unfafadoo ruled the Netherhells, longer than any other demon had. In the year 2304, the Old Ones came to the Netherhells for their challenge, but when the call went forth for the champion of the Netherhells, it was a mortal female and her two adventuring companions who was inexplicably found. When one of those three was destroyed before the championship even began, the challenge looked hopeless for the Netherhells, and indeed it was; the old ones took back their lands, and mighty Guxx Unfafadoo was dethroned.

A century passed. Guxx was not idle. He traveled the Netherhells seeking the deadliest demons and swearing them to his side or tearing them limb from limb if they proved inconvenient. Once he had enlisted them, Guxx issued them a challenge. It was the hated surface world which had cost them their lands, he told them, but if they swore themselves to him, he would send them forth to the portals which linked the surface to the Netherhells and help them close these gateways. The demons hated and feared the surface world, and they agreed, and so Guxx sent his new, bloodthirsty legion out to close the gateways and, while at it, to cause whatever destruction appealed to them on the way to and from. Guxx himself toured the whole of the Netherhells three times in the century that followed, personally sealing each portal and leveling entire towns as the opportunity presented itself. When the demon Karatax walked the Netherhells, it was said that the world shook to his step, but when his descendent Guxx trod the land, the world shook as all other life fled him. Time passed, and the challenge was called once more. When the champion of the old ones stepped forward, it was Guxx Unfafadoo who had created the mast havoc and destruction that year, and it was Guxx Unfafadoo who faced it. The onlookers swore they saw fear in the ancient, unknowable old one's many eyes. The challenge began and they locked together in combat, each grappling the other with sinews that could tear steel. With a single mighty heave, Guxx Unfafadoo tore the old one asunder, standing tall and roaring his defiance as the old one's causitc ichor burned harmlessly against invulnerable blue muscle. Guzz Unfafadoo lifted the old one's spleen from the left half of its body and brandished it for all to see, and then ate it.

Thus does Guxx Unfafadoo rule once more, and thus has he ruled to this day.

Bonus feature:

Irregular Verbs
When you're studying languages, or learning to speak a language, the hardest part is learning about irregular verbs; which verbs are irregular, what makes them irregular, and how they are conjugated if they are irregular. Particularly in English, international language of business and law, irregular verbs are quite common and extremely troublesome. Here's an example of one irregular verb which causes many people a great deal of trouble.

"I offer constructive criticism. You are being insulting. He is being sued for harassment. We are trying to help. You are interfering. They should be taken out and shot."

Clearly, it can be extremely difficult for a non-native English speaker to learn to use these verbs correctly, and, in fact, many Anglophones never get the hang of it either.

"I am still learning to use verbs. You are having difficulty. He is failing English. We are practicing together. You should be practicing harder. They are incompetent."

It goes without saying, of course, that irregular verbs become even more complicated when we consider varying tenses. Consider these two.

Past tense: "I was guarding the rear. You were not where you should have been. He ran away. We were being careful. You should have stayed where you were. They are being court martialed for going AWOL in a combat situation."

Future tense: "I will pay you back the money. You had better pay me back the money. He should have paid back the money. We have put the check in the mail. You will give me the money right now or else. They have had their legs broken."

But what exactly makes a verb irregular? An irregular verb is one where one or more tense or person is conjugated in a manner which is unusual for a verb. A normal verb runs a predictable pattern, namely "I run, you run, he runs, we run, you run, they run." This pattern has considerable internal consistency, and it is easy for someone learning a language to conjugate such normal verbs. In the English language as defined in grammatical texts and dictionaries, there are relatively few irregular verbs compared to extremely complex languages like French or Yiddish, where there can be huge variation between persons, let alone tenses. However, no language exists solely in its text-book form; languages, even dead languages, are used, changed, stuffed with colloquialisms, painted brown, given fake antlers, and mounted on the wall disguised as a moose head. Because English is the "International language" following the demise of Esperanto as a viable alternative, and a relatively young language, it has "borrowed" a large number of words and semantic meanings from other ways of speaking. Furthermore, because of the combined efforts of stupid people and weasels, English has evolved in ways that make it difficult at best for a non-native to speak. Consider the following examples.

Weasel: I feel perfectly confident answering that particular question under the present circumstances at this exact time. Next question, please.

Stupid: Ey, lookit dem dere birds widda funny wingses. Dey're flyin'.

L33T: `/35, 7|-|15 r3all`/ 15 3|\|gl15|-|. 1 \/\/15|-| 1 \/\/a5 j0|<1|\|6.

It takes great effort and intelligence to be able to follow the unfathomable changes which English goes through on a daily basis. Compounding these emerging and/or ancient dialects, however, is the problem of people who verb words. Verbing a word is taking a noun or adjective and making it into a verb. One of the most common such verbed words is "online" which is used on the internet thusly: "I online. You online. He onlines." Similarly, the word offline has been adapted and verbed. This is a problem which is similar to but much less troublesome than the problem of people who simply put gibberish into their speech. Turning again to the internet community, we find such phrases in use as "I had a fraaling good time."

The true horror of modern English comes, not when we look at these issues alone, but when we find them all at once, as in the case below:

"I 3>R053C|_|73|) under section 2(a) of the Official Secrets 4C7, the stupiding flarknarb."

It goes without saying, of course, that all of these infractions against English, languages in general, and Humanity as a whole pale in comparison to one issue: apostrophes. Recent public surveys suggest that less than one in every ten people in North America is currently capable of using this beautiful, simple, and useful punctuation mark. Experts suggest that this is because people who on no accounts should be provided with a keyboard or a pencil have, beyond all reason, been provided with a keyboard or a pencil and left briefly unsupervised. One team of researchers has recently theorized that, on the day all humans everywhere learn how to use the apostrophe properly, the world will end, but their sources are dubious.

The apostrophe is used to denote a contraction (it's a good idea) or a possessive (Bob's idea is good). Contrary to popular belief, it is not proper English to put an apostrophe wherever the hell you want. Misuse of the apostrophe is the single most common grammatical error made by University students in their writing, second only to incorrectly spelling the word "absorption" with a second B in place of the P. Regrettably, the criminal code currently does not allow for corporal punishment to be brought to bear against apostrophe misusers, but legislation to that effect is being brought before Parliament shortly (really, and you can look that up). Under the best of circumstances, the English language can be painfully difficult to use properly. This is indicated by the fact that very few people, under the best of circumstances, do. I could offer a solution to this problem, but it's more fun to complain than it is to fix.

Next week: I came up with a good idea. You have an idea we'll get back to later. He has been fired for insubordination. And more!

Today I go back to addressing something people have asked me about, rather than writing about whatever catches my attention. Since opening the journal, I've received questions asking me what the big graphic at the top of the page is. For the benefit of those who haven't already guessed, that is a coat of arms. *My* coat of arms, to be precise. I guarantee it isn't registered with any heraldric societies, but it is, none-the-less, my adopted coat of army.

Everybody, and geeks especially, should have a coat of arms. I'll forgo a discussion of their role in classical society and their influence on medieval culture and focus instead on how nifty they are. A coat of arms is supposed to say something about who you are as a person -- what you want, what you care about, what you're good at, how you think and how you feel. A coat of arms is a rich image filled with meaning; people who are trained to really read a coat of arms, which I most certainly am not, can get tomes upon tomes of knowledge simply by looking at one graphic. A coat of arms, in theory at least, is a graphical representation of who you are, and we all know my obession with that sort of thing.

My coat of arms is not a professional job; if it looks like it's half an hour's work on Photoshop, that's because it is. Of course, more time was spent designing, tracking down appropriate images, that sort of thing, and it's actually the labor of quite some time, but in principle, we can think of it as a "rush job." It's mostly devoid of meaning, at least compared to real coats of arms. The fact that it's in black and white, alone, robs it of a great degree of depth and richness. That said, let's look at the elements which are there.

First of all, we bypass the crest and move straight to a helmet. The crest is an optional part of a coat of arms which is often left out simply because many heradry artists feel that, when seen with a modern artistic perspective, the crest makes everything a bit crowded. This is part of my feeling; the other reason it was left out is that crests are generally animal or plant based, and I felt that there was plenty of each already worked ito the design.

The helmet, which graces the top of my coat of arms, is where a lot of people get confused. Traditionally, the helmet displayed on a coat of arms was used to indicate the rank and time period in addition to the artist's preference. The helemet I chose is the head of the M1 Imperial Battledroid, one of my oldest and my beloved designs; no matter how many killer robots I design, I tend to always come back to the basic style elements of the M1. Featured on the helm are glowing eyes (not usually seen on traditional crests), a gaze directed to the right and up (which I believe signifies something but I don't know what) and, of course, Neat Pointy Things. The picture from which I took the helm is not actually one of my own drawings, but from a donation my website received from an artist called The Gnoll who liked my designs and did a series of 3D renderdings based on them. The Gnoll's images, along with my own more-than-ten-years-old design sketches, can be seen here.

Also absent from my coat of arms are a wreath and mantling, which are the flowing designs often appearing along the edges of and framing the shield on either side. Neither of these are part of the official coat of arms, traditionally, so I chose to leave them out because I couldn't decide on a suitable design. The animals included are not part of a mantling, although they do flank the shield. The penguins are supporters, which are animals placed in an almost carrying position around the shield and usually represent the traits associated with the person or family whose shield it is. Stags and lions are very common in traditional coats, representing speed and strength, respectivly, while unicorns were often used for purity, and so on. My totem animal, the weasel, is symmetrically placed as the supporting animal (albeit, in a strange place; surpporters were usually shown to the sides of a shield) while the penguins are included just for the hell of it, and are in the more traditional spot for supporters. The overall symbolism of this is that the weasels are supposed to be holding it up but have instead convinced the penguins to do the work for them while they take a nap; if you're wondering why the penguins aren't touching the shield that they're holding up, it's because they're telekinetic, obviously. All animals stand proudly looking to the sides, because I'm surrounded by stupid people and they're keeping my enemies at bay.

Lastly, we have the shield. Shield shape and design are not meaningful beyond being associated with certain geographical areas and time periods; I settled on this particular shield because it's always been a personal favorite and is also the design most commonly found in medieval fantasy. The shield has no banners, colors, stripes, or bars, because it takes years of study to understand the nuances of such things and I felt it was better to have a plain shield than one that gave the wrong message. The center image has a dual meaning -- that of the castle, which stands strong and proud against all comers, and that of the rook, as in the verb, "to defraud by cheating or swindling."

The astute reader may be surprised that there is no motto attached to the coat of arms, knowing my love of misusing Latin. The reason for this is that, when designing the coat, I narrowed my choices down to half a dozen sayings that I felt fit me well but I lack the ability to translate them and didn't want to put them on in English (or French, which is often found on coats of arms). Until I have them translated by someone I know to be competent, I choose to leave no motto attached.

So there you have my coat of arms. It, and that fact that I have one in the first place, say a lot about me, and I think I'm a better person for having one. If this has made you want to make one of your own, I heartily endorse the idea and hope that you'll send me a copy when it's ready for public viewing.

Bonus feature:

An Ancient Ballad
(Written a Few Weeks Ago)
I sing of a lad from olden times,
he lived in Europe somewhere.
It might have been Venice, or maybe the Isles,
but it could have been anywhere.

Though stalwart, the lad, he had few coins,
the gutters and streets were his lair.
In the depths of the city was no lack of food,
and he lived with nary a care.

But the lad had big dreams, of wealth and of hearth,
of becoming a millionaire.
That some should be rich, while others were poor,
to him this did hardly seem fair.

It happened one day, when walking the streets,
he saw a friend across the square.
A beggar like him, though older and wiser,
and seemed to be clothed in fake hair.

"My friend," quoth the lad, "your cloak is most strange,
and it nearly gave me a scare."
"This comes from an alchemist's shop," said the friend,
"It lies down the main thoroughfare."

Eagerly now, the lad did descend,
for he saw the shop over there.
Bottles and jars were arrayed all about,
in hopes to a cust'mer ensnare.

Nothing too curious now did remain,
but bottles which caught the sun's glare.
Disappointed the lad then looked all about,
and saw he was alone with the fare.

In the past the fine lad had stolen before,
some bread, or some wine, or a pear.
And now his eyes filled with the sight of the glass,
which he knew he could sell to some guy.

"Cowbane" the bottle's label proclaimed,
and curious, the lad did dare,
to bring the bottle right up to his lips,
and swallow some drops without scare.

Tossing the now empty bottle aside,
he walked back into the bright air.
But the lad's eyes went wide, and his face it went pale,
as he looked 'round and only could stare.

The buildings were melting, he saw with surprise,
a merchant was riding a hare.
The people had become all the shades of pastels,
save the alchemist, now a grizzly bear.

Mere hours later, the young lad was found,
his eyes had gone wide with despair.
And judging him mad by the words that he screamed,
they shipped him off to elsewhere.

There must be a moral to all ancient ballads,
so you learn from your time by my chair.
Be wary of stealing from alchemist shops,
which count LSD in their ware.

And now we have come to the end of this tale,
I pray that you've learned to beware.
If you do not feel that it was worth your time,
I'm happy to say I don't care.

One of the few characters I was accused of underusing in Dungeons and Bandersnatches, Crucible was set to be the main character of the next storyline when the game met its untimely demise. When you finish reading about him, keep going to read the first in our series of printing the unpublished issues of Rooked!.

In the year 1983 Gerhyden calendar, a century after the start of the reign of Guxx Unfafadoo in the Netherhells and three hundred years before the War of the Golems, ancient Dwarven smiths, servants of the Gods of Justice and the Gods of Steel, looked upon the world and found it wanting. The world lacked order; the world lacked purity; and above all, the world lacked justice. The smiths gathered together. "Let us build a sword," one said, "that with it our champion can smite the wicked." "But our champion would be struck down in turn," said the second. "Let us instead forge armor, that our champion can stride through the armies of evil unscathed." But the third smith leaned back, basking in the heat of their forge that would have killed a human and before which even a lesser dwarf might cringe, and said "we have no great sword and we have no great armor, because we have no champion. Let us thus first forge our champion, and then arm him however he wills." And the other smiths looked at their elder in awe, and saw his wisdom and his audacity. For ten days and ten nights they prayed to their gods, taking neither food nor water, and not moving from before their forge, until on the tenth day, each had the same vision; they would forge a Man of Steel, an armor which would claim the worthy and use their flesh to battle injustice. Thus did the smiths bring forth their finest iron, and forge it into their finest steel, and fold it into their finest strength, and shape it into their finest creation, and with each blow of their hammers they gave praise to their gods. And when at last their work was done, a suit of armor the likes of which none of them had ever seen was between them. Reverently did they present it to the greatest warrior of their clan, who did don the armor and announce, "Lo, the gods have given me strength and vanquish evil, and honor to know evil, and now they give me this gift, with which I shall bring evil to justice. Let the unjust tremble, for I shall be their Crucible, in which their evil shall burn away leaving either purity or ash!"

Thus did Crucible set forth from the Dwarven caves in search of injustice. Long did he travel, for long lived are the Dwarves, whose bones are the iron in the earth, whose nerves are gold, whose muscles are stone. The name of Crucible spread far and wide, for he was just and mighty, and no blade could pierce his armor and no wall could stay his charge. For three hundred years did Crucible seek out evil, until at last, at the hands of the Elven assassin Nykamel did a blade find a joint in the armor and the Dwarf known as Crucible fell in battle. The tale did not end there, however, for the smiths had forged better than they knew, and the gods had given unto the armor not merely Justice, but Life. The armor rose up from the flesh it had housed and, in retribution, claimed the Elf. Steel flowed over flesh like water and fused in place, encasing, and where had stood the assassin now stood the armored Elven warrior, Crucible, whose mandate of Justice remained unchanged.

But while the mandate was the same, much had changed within Crucible himself. For the Dwarven hero had been just and pure, but the Elf who wore the armor now was the soul of greed and hunger. The two minds became one, and while Justice still ruled, the lure of profit had joined it. Thus did Crucible pass from traveler to bounty hunter, and with its mighty magics and the skills of its two hosts it became the most feared hunter of men the lands had known. Forty years passed, and as waraxe had fallen before rapier, so too did rapier fall before greatsword; Crucible fell in battle before the barbarian warrior Hykon, and as the barbarian stood to gloat, the molten steel rose up upon him and claimed his flesh for its own. Crucible strode the land still, though all who saw him wondered at his change in weapon, in style, and seemingly even in height and girth as well. Twenty more years passed before Crucible began to hunt the treacherous Belisarius, whose two maces had laid many men low. Again was Crucible struck down, and again was his killer struck down in turn, and Crucible did lift the fallen maces and stride off the hunt again.

Thus had Crucible walked the lands for centuries, and thus might he have continued, save for the hunt of Raven. A human sought for uncountable crimes, Crucible followed Raven to the base of the castle of a mighty geomancer and there battled him. Victory was assured until Raven, refusing capture, flung himself and his foe from atop a cliff, and though the human's life was saved by chance, Crucible was dashed against the rocks far below. Though the armor rose up to claim its new slayer, Raven departed, oblivious to the armor's magic, and instead the geomancer came for it. The geomancer was an ancient being, a creature of mud, ageless as the stone and cold as the frozen rock. With its vile magic it froze the armor so it could claim no more flesh, and took it to its castle, and studied it, and duplicated it. Months passed, and the geomancer created many copies of the armor, exact copies save only that they were obdience where Crucible was justice. The original armor locked away, the geomancer locked innocents within his new armor, and thus built an army of steel men and women, and sent them to slay his brother, Ragon, with whom he was at war. When Ragon's golems struck the geomancer's fortress, Crucible was freed, and claimed a slave as his new flesh; body and armor fled together, united in their desire to be free, but when the war was over mere days later both golem and geomancer were locked away while the copied armors remained, and in absence of a master, they sought to conquer and rule themselves.

None know the story of the battle that ensued; of the hunt as Crucible evaded pusuers precisly as adept at hunting as he himself. It is known only that Crucible left one final record of himself with a Dwarven smith, and then set off to confront, for the last time, the evil armours. Crucible mayhap suceeded, for decades have passed and no man of steel has since been seen; and this record alone now exists to tell the tale of justice that fought itself.

And now, Rooked!

Bottomless Pits
Today I'd like to talk to my dear readers about home improvement. Specifically, I'm thinking of a project which I know, at one time or another, most people consider adding or having added to the place where they live, an addition of such unlimited usefulness and unrivaled aesthetic beauty as to be an absolute necessity for any quality home or lair. I'm speaking, of course, of a bottomless pit.

For those few of you who have never wanted a bottomless pit, let's take a moment and look at the pros and cons. The biggest and most obvious downside to a bottomless pit, as opposed to, say, a really deep pit with a bottom, is that when you drop something into your typical bottomless pit, you don't get that satisfying "thump" noise at the end. Now, I admit, that thump is, for many of us, the whole purpose of getting a pit of one kind or another, and as such this is a severe problem with bottomless pits. I think that when we look at the advantages of a bottomless pit, however, we can learn to overlook this problem, and eventually even learn to live with it.

Let's talk right away about space. The second objection most people have to a bottomless pit is that they don't have anywhere to put it. Admittedly, a good quality bottomless pit needs to be at least two meters in diameter, and while you can get them smaller, you want something of prime quality if you're going to have one at all. Most people never consider three dimensional space, however. Don't have enough floor space for a bottomless pit? Put in on your wall and push things through it. Really pressed for space? Stick your bottomless pit on your ceiling and make it topless instead. Besides which, if space is an issue, you haven't even considered the main attraction of a good bottomless pit: storage! You'd be amazed at how much stuff you can fit into a good quality bottomless pit. Naturally, some people balk at throwing their beloved heirlooms into an eternal black void of nothingness, but if that's a worry, you'll just want to spend a little extra on a pit navigator, so that you can instantly remove anything you've thrown into your bottomless pit. A pit navigator can go for a fair amount of money these days, but they're worth every penny, and after all, we're talking about doing this right.

The second and third concerns most people have about bottomless pits are related. For one thing, most bottomless pits are too easily exited, should you want to store really troublesome things in one, and for another, there's always the risk of some gibbering horror from beyond eternity coming through it and laying waste to this fragile material plane. To be fair, these are both valid concerns, but realistically, if you're worried about either of these, it just means you need to think a bit more carefully about what kind of pit you want. This brings me to the next item, which is, what kind of bottomless pit is best suited to your needs.

There are a variety of good ways to get a quality bottomless pit in today's market, so let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of a few of them. The cheapest and most efficient form of bottomless pit is a black hole, the remains of a collapsed star which has become so dense as to draw any matter, even light, into it. While simple and easy to maintain, black holes have two disadvantages to them. First, existing only in space, black holes are extremely hard to reach. Second, if you have one brought home, its gravity will crush the planet to a cinder in an instant, and that's just inconvenient, especially if you have company coming later. Black holes are a favored form of bottomless pit for the galactic traveler, but if you're more of a continental type, you'll want another alternative.

The second cheapest form of bottomless pit is to skip a little on the bottomless pit. By getting a very very deep pit, or maybe a chasm, and shrouding the bottom in an impenetrable gloom of midnight, you get the visual effect of a bottomless pit without the cost of actually violating the laws of reality. Really really deep pits have several advantages over true bottomless pits, but they're very hard to maintain, and if you drop stuff into it, sooner or later you'll be able to see the mess. Additionally, a really really deep pit takes up a lot more space, since rather than a simple rip in space and time, you have an actual pit, and you need to have somewhere for it to go. Most importantly, having a really really deep pit doesn’t actually violate the laws of physics, and when you think about it, if you're really serious about getting a good bottomless pit, you don't want to just violate the laws of physics, you want to drive over them in a tank, burn their crops, salt their fields, and spray graffiti on their remains. That said, let's look at the next type.

Now let's consider a real bottomless pit, the kind professionals talk about. A real top of the line bottomless pit is a hole in the fabric of reality, usually leading to either a pocket dimension or an infinite abyss of darkness. The infinite abyss of darkness has the advantage of really being *bottomless* which you don't get with even the best pocket dimensions, but they have two problems. First, whenever you look into your abyss, it looks back into you, and your bottomless pit is supposed to be fun, not stressful. If you're not the sort of person who's comfortable with the forces of eternal darkness seeing into the very depths of their souls where their darkest fears, thoughts, and imaginings lie, you'll probably be better off with a pocket dimension. Secondly, with a true portal to the abyss, there's always the risk of some ineffable monstrosity from beyond time and space stumbling through by chance; the odds against it are, by definition, one in infinity, but some people just aren't comfortable with that sort of risk, no matter how small. A pocket dimension is what most people opt for in their bottomless pits. Vast enough to be infinite for all intents and purposes, while still being a self-contained expanse of nothingness, a pocket dimension offers the convenience of a gash into the nether regions of eternity and the functionality of a really really deep pit, all while taking up no more space in proper reality than a small throw rug. Expensive to install but easy to maintain, a pocket dimension is the choice for most consumers, and unless you have a specific need for either the really really deep hole or the opening into the black abyss, a pocket dimension is the way to go.

Lastly, for those of you who are still unconvinced as to the utility of a bottomless pit in your home or lair, I have one last thing for you do. Take a nice, big heavy book, like a textbook or a four hundred page novel. Now, get a chair or something to stand on; you'll want it to be at least one foot in height, and probably less than one meter. Now, stand on the chair, and hold your book at about neck height (for short people like me, you may want to hold it at forehead height). Now, tell anyone else in the room to be quiet for a moment, and hold your breath. Now, drop the book. I'll wait here you do it.

(Time Lapse)

Congratulations. You have now, single-handedly, constructed a system whereby you can make that satisfying thump sound. Now that you know you can do that, there shouldn't be anything left stopping you from going out and getting a bottomless pit.

Next week: A catapult or a trebuchet, and which is more appropriate for the home office?