tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62315303927548881272024-03-29T14:29:13.394+11:00MiddenmurkTom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-86040168368337661342019-03-10T22:15:00.000+11:002019-03-10T22:15:05.883+11:00Bestiary of the Fabled OccidentA long time ago I started to put together a bestiary. I've pursued various other projects in the time since but I still have a fair bit of material I'd like to publish and a reasonably coherent design philosophy. I'm honing an approach to the layout and information design. None of these three mockups are finalised.<br />
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For various strange reasons I am establishing intense focus on the Mantyger family of heraldic grotesques: I am mesmerised by themes and variations within themes. The approach of just doing the mantygers does not illuminate the full range of procedural elements that could be utilised in this kind of bestiary but it does at least allude to the fact of their being a range of options that could be utilised.<br />
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Laying things out in Photoshop is very tedious. I will be moving onto Indesign to preserve my sanity.<br />
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Have a look at the layouts and be as excoriating in critique as possible. I have deliberately overdone things so as to infuriate design boffins into offering free advice.<br />
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Basic idea:<br />
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- Folkloric monster manual that draws from a variety of historical sources<br />
- 10-word descriptions (I can't remember why I do this but I have been doing it for many years)<br />
- Procedural generation to include as much intriguing miscellany as I can get away with.<br />
-Double page spread for most monsters, more condensed for less important<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4hdtBx-n3AStifqWrKlk0P_MM9FWGgcGBoE8tGFVixoICi2SoL3HPjzFMXxiyslqo2bD0LQh9LkRBfgLW44XAa3WRDVjjN7-0uZ0pGTd51vKscCwBq5KRfk5_UWKQt29KKvtVKaOCTy1/s1600/Satyral+Layout+Spread.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1132" data-original-width="1600" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4hdtBx-n3AStifqWrKlk0P_MM9FWGgcGBoE8tGFVixoICi2SoL3HPjzFMXxiyslqo2bD0LQh9LkRBfgLW44XAa3WRDVjjN7-0uZ0pGTd51vKscCwBq5KRfk5_UWKQt29KKvtVKaOCTy1/s640/Satyral+Layout+Spread.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Open in new tab or you can't see anything</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUp-QwyIFZS2Pjlcjz_WtemX_ZOaxP14qQu1c_RSB6qUVVR7TGvnOoqkb56vMCmNjLSoVQxSBgqUpEjJHlfksaz0h6DjG-dvYqiwO2XB_45H7rdrFVT5Befr4sbuhCyorQnBYCyvoZBTGy/s1600/Lampago+Layout+Spread.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1132" data-original-width="1600" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUp-QwyIFZS2Pjlcjz_WtemX_ZOaxP14qQu1c_RSB6qUVVR7TGvnOoqkb56vMCmNjLSoVQxSBgqUpEjJHlfksaz0h6DjG-dvYqiwO2XB_45H7rdrFVT5Befr4sbuhCyorQnBYCyvoZBTGy/s640/Lampago+Layout+Spread.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Lampago and the Satyral are entirely without historical information, being nothing more that fanciful heraldic charges</td></tr>
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<br />Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com115tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-53182611042508216282019-02-27T16:43:00.000+11:002019-02-27T23:18:35.550+11:00Outlandish WeaponsSome may remember <a href="https://middenmurk.blogspot.com/2014/07/terrible-weapons.html">this post</a> from long ago, where I wrote about farm tools and various other improvised weapons. This post was meant to follow it but time and circumstance necessitated several circumambulations of the stablished earth betwixt that time and now, and various vicissitudes observed and experienced, so the original is barely recognisable. The names and pictures are what counts, though. Good names can be dusted off and reconditioned.<br />
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At about the time I wrote the Terrible Weapons post I got hold of a couple of Umberto Eco books that were highly influential on me; <i>The Infinity of Lists </i>and <i>The Book of Legendary Lands. </i>These books are essentially works of curation in which Eco exercised his very considerable erudition in gathering and presenting historical fragments to illuminate their influence on the cultures we inhabit. The result of my exposure to his scholarship and ideas caused me to rethink my approach to things.<br />
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Firstly, <i>Lists</i> is about lists, and the use of lists throughout history. I am especially interested in the fundamental importance of lists in rpgs. D&D is, at its core, a game about curating worlds and narratives from menus of options: its bestiaries are lists of monsters, its grimoires are lists of spells, players' handbooks are lists of heroes and weapons and equipment and skills, DM's guides are full of lists of traps and treasures and NPCs and terrains and techniques. The preceding sentence was a list of some of the lists in D&D. Lists of options suggest abundance and dynamism, even those you don't use enrich the sense of <a href="http://www.lomion.de/cmm/_index.php">more</a> wonderment and excellence receding beyond the horizon. Lists.<br />
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<i>Legendary Lands</i> is about the places historical people made up and either believed existed somewhere beyond their borders, enjoyed pretending to believe, or kept in some other manner as a cultural idea worth thinking on. This gave me a couple of things: The first was the sense that I could profitably work with a setting that was immediately adjacent to the real world, set in a vague epoch prior to the dawn of history, as did Howard and Tolkien, and didn't have to make up names for lands (which is something I don't like to do). The second was the names of the lands themselves and the power source of the adjacency of real-world histories and languages and cultures. Meropis and Atlantis, for example, are from Ancient Greek literature, Hy Breasil is from Mediaeval Irish literature. Their geography is already suggested by the sources and their psychogeography also. Drawing from these sources allows ersatz essentialism sans faux-nomenclature and allows access to more and better lists.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpEnCarOCAHQro-_WQwHQyaFPSRVsqg-UBmnT6y_EaDHPDLuw3RB31QNvK8P5F4jhgLuuElzWJdLDW4bc5wV9U9I1KrXG_uMY-N38kk6K93Zq7wPskEX0EfMXQESfQfMd6FWlo_eNvr_tr/s1600/dinguscrake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="980" data-original-width="709" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpEnCarOCAHQro-_WQwHQyaFPSRVsqg-UBmnT6y_EaDHPDLuw3RB31QNvK8P5F4jhgLuuElzWJdLDW4bc5wV9U9I1KrXG_uMY-N38kk6K93Zq7wPskEX0EfMXQESfQfMd6FWlo_eNvr_tr/s200/dinguscrake.jpg" width="144" /></a></div>
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The outlandishness of these weapons refers both to their strangeness and to their origin from beyond the Septentrional Suzerainty or the Occidental Imperium (or whatever the generic centre is that provides the ground against which the estrangement of otherness can be contrasted). The weapons require that the character use them is able to speak the language of the realm of their origin. So language, conventionally a relatively useless appendage to the old-school PC, could be said to have with it some knowledge and understanding of culture. Here, the assumption is that if you speak the language you can use the weapon properly. You could, of course, wield the weapon without the language, but it wouldn't be special, certainly, the merlouns and babewyns won't listen to you, and you'll almost certainly inadvertently incinerate yourself with a Magonian Phlogiston Globe.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgE5OPJzxE10yeMjz4CWoTDyptptsSQYXffDIFs6Mg862D0ViUfph_Mkr7ztYPNMvV3DntkXHTG8S3jbooCzv9ca0VdnZKShCs4ap3nmej0vD0_-GxlR52PayHJj7xUogm9LQOxCLs8t97/s1600/Outlandish+Weapons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1132" data-original-width="1600" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgE5OPJzxE10yeMjz4CWoTDyptptsSQYXffDIFs6Mg862D0ViUfph_Mkr7ztYPNMvV3DntkXHTG8S3jbooCzv9ca0VdnZKShCs4ap3nmej0vD0_-GxlR52PayHJj7xUogm9LQOxCLs8t97/s640/Outlandish+Weapons.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Open in another tab so you can read the inscriptions. My alchemical symbology is on point.</td></tr>
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">1.</span> Merloun of Annwn</b>: Raptor bred by the Faulkners of Annwn, whose falconry is unsurpassed in any realm other. AC: 20 (O) MV: Fl 200' HD: 1/2 Att: divebomb d6 dmg (automatically hits) Save: T7 ML: 11 AL: L<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">2.</span> Mezzoramian Hornbow</b>: Extraordinarily strong bow of horn, antler, hardwood, sinew and perchance blasphemous paynim magicks. STR bonus adds to the damage it causes. Range 70/140/210, d6 dmg, over 3 dmg and it's butted against the bone, d3 dmg to pull the barbed arrow out (-2 to everything per arrow stuck in).<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">3. </span>Lemurian Keris<span style="color: #990000;">:</span></b> Wavy-bladed weapon of outlandish mottled steel. d4 dmg, each wound bleeds 1 dmg/rd until bandaged.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">4.</span> Flambard of Lyonesse</b>: Flame-bladed greatsword, extraordinarily sharp. Flourishing the flambard in gleaming moulinets causes opponents of lower level to check morale or flee (unless of significantly superior numbers). d12 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">5.</span> Arimaspian Akinakes</b>: Shortsword of Arimaspian arsenical bronze. Those wounded will be weakened. -1 STR per wound. 1d4 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">6.</span> Atlatl of the Antichthones</b>: The indigo Antichthones, who dwell beyond Taprobane, fling their flint-tipped spears exceeding far by the cunning of their ebon spear-throwers: d6 dmg. Range: 40/80/120. Over 3 dmg and there are shards of flint stuck in the wound, -1 to everything until wounded receives assistance from a Chirurgeon.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">7. </span>Choromandaean Gimel:</b> Throwing stick of the savage Choromandae that flies with its own murderous intent. Goes round corners in search of its quarry. Ignores cover (even if complete). 1d4 dmg. Range: 30/60/90.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">8. </span>Atlantean Orichalcum Parazonium</b>: Dagger-sword of ruddy golden hue. Puissant against the cacodaemoniacal denizens of supramundane realms. d4 dmg, d12 against cacodaemoniacal denizens of supramundane realms.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">9. </span>Dwergish Blunderbore</b>: Preposterous gonne of the Dwergish folk. It goes off with a staggering bang that knocks wielder over if to-hit roll exceeds wielder’s strength. Ammunition is whatever bits of crock, nails, stones or low-value currency the wielder can get their hands on. 3d6 dmg + knockdown as with wielder to 10’, 2d6 to 20’, 1d6 to 30’ spreading in a cone 20' wide at 30' range. ROF 1/3.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">10.</span> Amazonian Sagaris</b>: Horse-headed hammer-axe of the Amazones, it is exceeding swift and deadly when used from horseback or chariot - double damage at the charge, helmets knocked off automatically. d8 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">11. </span>Quicklime of Palaisimundus</b>: Pouch of alchemically-refined caustic powder, slung in the faces of enemies causes blindness and burning lungs. Save or -4 for d6 rounds, backfires disastrously on a 1. 10 doses. Wear gloves.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">12.</span> Werrebowe of Elphame</b>: Knotty bow of yew, exceeding strong and springy. Flings its peacock-fletched arrows preposterously far. Range 300/300/300, d8 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">13.</span> Shillelagh of the Little Folk</b>: Blackthorn cudgel, buttered well and kept in a chimbley for seven years so it is as hard as iron. Stunning blow puts foe out of action, reeling idiotically, for one rd/lvl on a roll of 20. d6 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">14.</span> Bident of the Anthropophagi</b>: Gigantic eating-fork of the cannibalistic Anthropophagi. Once hit, opponent must sustain the same damage to tear bident from flesh. d8 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">15.</span> Naphtha Flasks of Iram</b>: Combustible spirit held in vessels of crockery or crude green glass. Ignited and thrown, it shatters and the naphtha burns green and evilly. 2d6 direct hit, 1d6 within 5', 1d6/rd thereafter until fire is put out. 10/20/30.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">16.</span> Antediluvian Fanged Club</b>: Heavy bludgeon set with the petrified teeth of the terrible beasts of the Earth's savage dawn: the Krackenback, the Ziphius, the Apophis, the Illuyankas: d20 dmg. One terrible monster will attack the possessor each day.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #660000;">17. </span>Arcadian Syrinx</b>: Panpipe of the maenads and tripping capripeds, the music of which is contagiously frenetic and strange. Disastrous frenzy ensues in the vicinity of its playing. All combatants, friend and foe, gain advantage on their attacks.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">18. </span>Flail of the Skiapodes</b>: Terrifying spiked flail, flailed in a flailing motion by the one-legged leaping skiapodes. Two attacks per round, flail self on 1, d8 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">19.</span> Meropian Vitriol</b>: Glass phial of mordant humour distilled from the sublimated rage of ascetic Meropian Philosopher-priests. Disastrously corrosive: d12 dmg on first round, d10 2nd rd, d8 3rd, d6 4th, d4 5th, d2 6th.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">20. </span>Babewyn of the Cynocephalides</b>: Unmanageably vermin-infested gurning ape kept by the dog-headed men. It steals and shrieks and flings its dung. Once you have one, another will arrive every d6 days. Everyone is itchy from now on : AC: 15 (5) MV. 40' HD: 1 Att: 1 bite, d4 dmg Save: T1 ML: 6 AL: C.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">21. </span>Soliferrum of the Hesperides</b>: Iron javelin forged in crucibles of the sunset-realm and marked with the glyph of the sun. Ignores all armour. d8 dmg, 20/40/60.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">22.</span> Angon of Urheim</b>: Iron-shanked spear of the house-carles of Urheim. If thrown at a shield it renders it useless automatically and the opponent cannot attack the next round. d6 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">23.</span> Hoggspjot of Thule:</b> Heavy and hardy hewing spear of the reivers of Thule. Wielder may hew opponent's mundane weapon in half on a successful strike. d8 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">24.</span> Agarthan Firelance</b>: A spear from subterranean Agartha with a pair of incendiary devices mounted on either side of the point. The wielder may light the fuses to produce gouts of blazing green sparks and smoke to dazzle, scorch and dishearten their opponent. An opponent who is deterred by fire will be at -4 to hit for the 5 rds. A successful hit also may cause clothing to smoulder and burn at GM’s whim. 1d8+1 dmg<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">25. </span>Fire-Blackened Stick of the Troglodytae</b>: A stick, sharp at one end and hardened in a fire, kept by the loathsome Troglodytae in their reeking grottoes, the uspeakable filth thereof makes the wounds vulnerable to corruption. Save or festering ensues: -1 CON/day, save each day thereafter, two saves in a row indicates recovery. Each wound festers independently.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">26.</span> Tourney Sword of Ys:</b> A sword specialised for harness-fighting with heavily-armoured men-at-arms. It is a stiff and narrow spike with a grip-knob for half-swording, armour-piecing quillons and a flanged-mace pommel for desperate bludgeoning. +3 to-hit against plate armour. d8 dmg<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">27. </span>Claidheamh-mòr of the Sith</b>: Greatsword of the Seelie-Wights, extraordinarily wieldy depite its size and conducive to vehement flourishing , successful kill means attack roll and full dmg can then be applied to another nearby enemy.<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><b>28.</b></span> <b>Dart of the Pygmies:</b> Long, fletched, barbed hurling-javelin wielded by the Pygmies in their battles against the Storks and Phoenicopteruses of their homelands. The Darts are poisoned with the virulent <i>lycoctonum </i>which they carry in little crocks. d6 dmg 20/40/60 save or fall frothing in agony, d20 dmg from poison, miss next round. 6 doses<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><b>29.</b></span> <b>Carnyx of Hy Breasil</b>: Brazen discordant howling of the Carnyx fills the enemy with fear and panic. Anyone not of Hy Breasilian ilk: ML Check each round. 1st failure lose initiative. 2nd in a row: Wavering - no actions this round. 3rd in a row: Flee in panic.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">30. </span>Hyperborean Harpoon</b>: Cold-forged harpoon for the hunting of the Raudkembingur and Troluals of the boreal seas. d8 dmg. Gets stuck inside if it causes 4 or more damage and wounded one bleeds great gouts, d4 dmg/rd until wrenched out, STR check to wrench out for d8 dmg. Range 15/30/45.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">31.</span> Shamshir of Serkland</b>: Supremely sharp sword of superb craftsmanship rewards the nimble wielder with unmatched flickering speed and deadliness: d8 dmg. Wielder may use both STR and DEX bonuses to modify attack and dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">32. </span>Jawbone of a Rantipike of Nod</b>: Seemingly simple asinine mandible allows one attack per level each round . 1d4 dmg.<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><b>33. </b></span><b>Stone-maul of Trollmark</b>: Heavy and unwieldy and fell, the stone maul carries in it some of the malevolent puissance of one whose petrified remnant this is. It has incised in it a sigil of gealdorcraeft: the <i>Stafur til að vekja upp draug</i>. It can strike invulnerable spirits, attacks only every second round and causes 2d8 dmg.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">34.</span></b> <b>Shotel of the Blemmyes</b>: Sickle-sword of the acephalic Blemmyes who wield it along with their great wicker pavises. Ignores shields: d8 dmg<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">35.</span> Magonian Phlogiston Globes:</b> Crystal spheres, scorchingly hot, 1d4 dmg to anyone who tries to throw them with bare hands, 3d8 fireball of 10' radius, white-hot, failed save = blind, - 4 for 1d4 rds 10/20/30<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;">36.</span> Firkin of Stitchback of Cockaigne</b> : Potent ale of Cockaigne cures what ails you up to the point where you sober up, each mug cures 3 hp for one hour, over three mugs also reduces dexterity by one per mug over three. Firkin has 20 tankards initially. Weight: 10 items<br />
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Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-45346107929629395362019-02-20T00:01:00.000+11:002019-02-27T20:09:31.880+11:00Six Words and Seven Winds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">Six Words</span></b></div>
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So it probably surprises no one who is even vaguely familiar with me that I like words. One of the primary sources of inspiration for me when I write Ampersandy stuff is Joseph Wright's incomparable tome from the turn of the twentieth century, <i>The English Dialect Dictionary.</i> And when I say tome I actually mean tomes, because it's a six-part beastie and runs to somewhere around five thousand bountiful pages. And when I say tomes I actually mean pdfs. I would love to own a hard copy of the thing but that is not only very expensive but of less utility than a searchable pdf. Much as perusing the thing is great, being able to search a specific term and find synonyms in twenty different English dialects is my favourite way of enriching my nomenclature*.<br />
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But the serendipitous acquisition of intriguing words is also great. I've always said that you can look at any page and find something gameable. I shall now attempt to prove this to myself with a few random examples, one from each of the six volumes (and probably draw them because I like to make things as time-consuming as possible).<br />
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Several hours later;<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMjP7fCNJLUVSRmOY1vyZk25kICZJYiktI1c1Z_eXgXcdFZ0sLqlVZ3PUtTKMQ21eKifPXu-n41ITwxXlCG83BiLk27DpA9Iw0_X7gIzJ3z5oZeMBZ0e7Et6EfAvavDEqJBr851urz-5rW/s1600/bullybagger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="354" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMjP7fCNJLUVSRmOY1vyZk25kICZJYiktI1c1Z_eXgXcdFZ0sLqlVZ3PUtTKMQ21eKifPXu-n41ITwxXlCG83BiLk27DpA9Iw0_X7gIzJ3z5oZeMBZ0e7Et6EfAvavDEqJBr851urz-5rW/s400/bullybagger.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This one is going to be easy. There are so many names for this kind of bogeyman (bugbear is the least awesome one). Note how in the examples in the Somerset dialect there is the form b<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">é</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">ol-bag'ur</span>. I like that one.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDZ9xmNOEh3Qj-mrnIjqFOZtPMSGZ2lNf2hM0xtRSDz9vVCF4IezkaTRuuQ_rW8G29CSVFIAt4GfS-BAYRriHP7aPuc9LDRNdg3MQzPTk2qPN9bVqGsuDogffxVm_c2oe0kDx4cRjmHgD0/s1600/Bullybagger+illo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1382" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDZ9xmNOEh3Qj-mrnIjqFOZtPMSGZ2lNf2hM0xtRSDz9vVCF4IezkaTRuuQ_rW8G29CSVFIAt4GfS-BAYRriHP7aPuc9LDRNdg3MQzPTk2qPN9bVqGsuDogffxVm_c2oe0kDx4cRjmHgD0/s640/Bullybagger+illo.jpg" width="552" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Béol-Bag'ur</span>. Evidently sufficiently evil that he must wear purple death's head pants.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJj3SumCkemEpLpNtXAZETGgXlPMU0x6FuAfC98dUeYqdut6XarOs9SzHsGI4ys3T_i9tYy0EqIoXw-57N4U6zdQErbpGKaH59XitJfgqb5bOCcE9_S05wX-y4k_8-epUpXDxJFdGsg-Xb/s1600/Fevertory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="61" data-original-width="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJj3SumCkemEpLpNtXAZETGgXlPMU0x6FuAfC98dUeYqdut6XarOs9SzHsGI4ys3T_i9tYy0EqIoXw-57N4U6zdQErbpGKaH59XitJfgqb5bOCcE9_S05wX-y4k_8-epUpXDxJFdGsg-Xb/s1600/Fevertory.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a random process and this was a suboptimal page but herbalism is good. Fumitory is said to be not just good for removing freckles but good for eye ailments and poisonous. Gameable. </td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYeFx8IVg-CVxor-brCB1YxaLO33-G7EGu6MCTu1Tlw1rfhKsLixUmATwGb9vQuMlgU6cTMI-p14uDOPTzSroSNCsssj_QZqvi_rrnGk8RjBr1As-Zk5cO6gSyG5axUgkdimKfCxIa4s8B/s1600/Fevertory+illo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1344" data-original-width="678" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYeFx8IVg-CVxor-brCB1YxaLO33-G7EGu6MCTu1Tlw1rfhKsLixUmATwGb9vQuMlgU6cTMI-p14uDOPTzSroSNCsssj_QZqvi_rrnGk8RjBr1As-Zk5cO6gSyG5axUgkdimKfCxIa4s8B/s400/Fevertory+illo.jpg" width="201" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fevertory: looks poisonous<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVW-nNEPB1ib9UBYQbqkz6OPzr49-TeAglnyWelZDnuY_cJEhFDy_3SY4W4CplKFD9bSdvWcixBTROG2ckx2MgNFvWwOewkRsf4PZWSbv4tEZM1baeGGou7DU7o46VcSz9GP1hE6dKVE7/s1600/hinderling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="33" data-original-width="283" height="46" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVW-nNEPB1ib9UBYQbqkz6OPzr49-TeAglnyWelZDnuY_cJEhFDy_3SY4W4CplKFD9bSdvWcixBTROG2ckx2MgNFvWwOewkRsf4PZWSbv4tEZM1baeGGou7DU7o46VcSz9GP1hE6dKVE7/s400/hinderling.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is also easy, and the fact that it's from Devonshire means that's two opportunities for bad West-Country accents already. Obviously the Hinderling is a particularly useless kind of hireling, and the notion that there are kinds suggests a taxonomy of hirelings. I cannot stress enough that hireling taxonomy is grossly underdeveloped.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim7OczVMlzV69475p_6P-aOtEB4hJy5JGISBTSbkT0-dqrXGJyes39kCucaK9i4xUKHuFF56me67hslGniCsnQUXEf2gi-_SoTIdRV0KDX9mviWHgLiVEdHb7JBxwP4ZnbaXGq-Uf7WPtF/s1600/hinderling+illo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1143" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim7OczVMlzV69475p_6P-aOtEB4hJy5JGISBTSbkT0-dqrXGJyes39kCucaK9i4xUKHuFF56me67hslGniCsnQUXEf2gi-_SoTIdRV0KDX9mviWHgLiVEdHb7JBxwP4ZnbaXGq-Uf7WPtF/s640/hinderling+illo.jpg" width="456" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Ornately ensatcheled rustic hinderling</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ0Vzm7P7ZfuHzGIj238JakNuIX2OGROq2d7nJXSsTyDcoZtN5ZAA8Ol50vpPSsk_-h19pesg32P1Q1z9TZrym_feBDMoUAiwo2If2DTBWHMUxwS4yS2LEXMWJkfRKbkAvhjv1bQtort5X/s1600/pirriedog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="84" data-original-width="357" height="93" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ0Vzm7P7ZfuHzGIj238JakNuIX2OGROq2d7nJXSsTyDcoZtN5ZAA8Ol50vpPSsk_-h19pesg32P1Q1z9TZrym_feBDMoUAiwo2If2DTBWHMUxwS4yS2LEXMWJkfRKbkAvhjv1bQtort5X/s400/pirriedog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pirrie-dog looks like a corruption of pariah dog. This one is also easy. It's an annoyingly parasitic kind of dog</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwEUg78oeUVoTL_DBSVBcuLB95S812nuHi7693Q1CMKmkR6_dGEl2sWfte7DJSYtD1Iq1D80fMvgilUo2dSsAh5d363J6hTIzxRTOuo3R6YVU7nqoGP0Q3coNhUultDcde6QQt4dkqa5h/s1600/Pirrie+dog+illo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1223" data-original-width="1467" height="532" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwEUg78oeUVoTL_DBSVBcuLB95S812nuHi7693Q1CMKmkR6_dGEl2sWfte7DJSYtD1Iq1D80fMvgilUo2dSsAh5d363J6hTIzxRTOuo3R6YVU7nqoGP0Q3coNhUultDcde6QQt4dkqa5h/s640/Pirrie+dog+illo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also gameable. PCs need pets. The pirrie-dog is meek unless its master be harmed, it also probably steals provisions.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvXm9Nh2nza95GiCg8mmv_Xv8N5gXCbFAswaDhe-5pOG71E-_JUpwFtw4fOZnQuj3WOwSsTwQhh0p8LVq-gQIvQPMwCoUTHopYY6PMWWp7T5T2mdu_PftLR6lZaRfmWNcae9UMdcBw_7_/s1600/Shimylick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="62" data-original-width="408" height="60" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvXm9Nh2nza95GiCg8mmv_Xv8N5gXCbFAswaDhe-5pOG71E-_JUpwFtw4fOZnQuj3WOwSsTwQhh0p8LVq-gQIvQPMwCoUTHopYY6PMWWp7T5T2mdu_PftLR6lZaRfmWNcae9UMdcBw_7_/s400/Shimylick.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I like guns in the game and this one gets points for being a proparoxytonic trisyllabic compound from the Shetlands.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVBWLrbj8OMLBkkVQUb8MgG-03O6Dw3viOJgDGuha4hXa0oXRSDX9LEDTDGCM1MO1ojXS9MAmCUJTJI8MlqA7vG5-ues3aeXMTbPNDPQHHWM1UXlXaNWo5yMjatczDPHyWFgCkqeg38S6F/s1600/shimylick+illo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="1600" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVBWLrbj8OMLBkkVQUb8MgG-03O6Dw3viOJgDGuha4hXa0oXRSDX9LEDTDGCM1MO1ojXS9MAmCUJTJI8MlqA7vG5-ues3aeXMTbPNDPQHHWM1UXlXaNWo5yMjatczDPHyWFgCkqeg38S6F/s640/shimylick+illo.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Because it's a fowling piece, this shimylick is ornate and doesn't do a lot of damage. Aristocrats covet it, though.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-A6z3JNayW8hnQ1bEE3QYhT7ggMcy1zZWGEYQQqeb_uTTWY3J0PsSDBzg3dULMxquivFUXMvuyOiZEXMmSR9zT29cDWZHQ5kgVlcIpAlpL94lliHSxKBpAioNQTAyWR6kFmrXh87a9Yq/s1600/Yurlin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="54" data-original-width="361" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-A6z3JNayW8hnQ1bEE3QYhT7ggMcy1zZWGEYQQqeb_uTTWY3J0PsSDBzg3dULMxquivFUXMvuyOiZEXMmSR9zT29cDWZHQ5kgVlcIpAlpL94lliHSxKBpAioNQTAyWR6kFmrXh87a9Yq/s400/Yurlin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There are a lot of words for sickly, underdeveloped, malnourished people in the dialects of the 19th century</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV_0LrgfKNTxmXF2d4wiIxFQorz7RfAXQUhyphenhyphenZxH0AABDSEA5X_odxRRHZWnE2fvkx5c2OH2BkZh6bBtIo1VwRPT6K8EK2iSTLhTIiWWDtTyoK9vFu1PMF00vKzbBnTaQZc38hixWcjvYLh/s1600/Yurlin+illo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1143" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV_0LrgfKNTxmXF2d4wiIxFQorz7RfAXQUhyphenhyphenZxH0AABDSEA5X_odxRRHZWnE2fvkx5c2OH2BkZh6bBtIo1VwRPT6K8EK2iSTLhTIiWWDtTyoK9vFu1PMF00vKzbBnTaQZc38hixWcjvYLh/s640/Yurlin+illo.jpg" width="457" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yurlin: yet another kind of wretched little fellow. I do not know what he is reaching for but I want to play him. He is wearing green winingas.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: large;">Seven Winds</span></b></div>
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I was reading<a href="http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-four-winds.html"> this post by Arnold</a> and I got to thinking about the winds that have names, like the Sirocco, or the Mistral. There's a wind in Western Australia called the Fremantle Doctor that brings cool relief when things are unpleasantly warm, and a wind that blows across the Great Lakes called the Witch of November that I can't imagine is very pleasant. Wikipedia has a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_local_winds">great list</a> of named local winds.<br />
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So I wrote about these winds. The only one of these I know well is the Scrafflehorn, which led me frequently astray when I was young. It is very difficult to resist.<br />
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Seven Winds are held to be of special significance by the Magonian Tempestarii, who, by the secret art that is theirs, do call them from out of the very firmament. Likewise, among certain cunning folk of more meagre realms the art of Whistling Down the Wind is known.<br />
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In each tradition, the production of certain tones is required. The Magonians have developed, through queer metallurgical and sonic arts, a type of ocarina of yellow-grey metal, and playing certain melodies upon it brings down the wind. Hedge Wysards merely whistle with their fingers, or upon an ancient eaglebone flute. Times and seasons needs must be right or the wind will disobediently dissipate and all be becalmed.<br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><b>1.</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>The Gaberliltie</b></span>: Lyrical and gentle breeze that blows across sunlit streams and sends the yellow willow leaves in tumbling cascade. It undermines the dictates of the waking wit, suggesting rather slumber in shady places where dreams of distant music fill the fancy. It is ever a cause of tardiness and distraction.<br />
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- The Gaberliltie will cause folk to go missing for a time, but only in daylight. Their excursion will be spontaneous and seemingly harmless as the Gaberliltie beckons them towards dappled shade and running water to wile away the day.<br />
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- A magician may use this wind to carry a snatch of song, to bear a piece of parchment, to lead an unsuspecting person astray by day<br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><b>2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Scrafflehorn</b>:</span> A warm wind, fragrant with the mingled perfume of flowers and of distant smoke, that comes on certain autumn evenings. It wakes in the hearts of those too young to stray abroad at night a wanderlust to do just that, and to run with the wind, encapsulated within an unseasonal warmth, always in the eventide and always away from safety toward some manner of trouble.<br />
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- The Scrafflehorn abducts innocent people with a kind of beckoning entrancement and they eagerly go forth unaware of the danger. In the night are sudden chasms and smugglers and nobles on ignoble trysts and innumerable dangers besides.<br />
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-A magician may use this wind to carry seditious words, to bear a piece of cloth, to lead an innocent astray at night<br />
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<b><span style="color: #134f5c;">3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Knaurthaw</span></b>: Laments among barren boulders and among the wiry brush of forlorn and distant places. It whistles and mutters interminable and does not cease for maddening weeks. And it is a hermit wind that scorns populated places in favour of the utterest desolation. But the lonely find in it some bitter solace, that like the restless soul within them the Knaurthaw grieves without cessation, and solely for the sake of grieving.<br />
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-The Knaurthaw afflicts wanderers in desert places with loneliness and madness. It is difficult for those afflicted to determine that it is the wind that is doing this but the suffering caused by the delusions and savage melancholia is real.<br />
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-A magician may use this wind in a wilderness to carry threatening message, to drive a little boat, to drive a lonely person mad.<br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><b>4.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Rackletongue</b></span>: Inordinately perverse and malicious wind that with fitful gusts seeks to upset the order of things. Fine garments are thrown by it into the mire and inkpots upset upon inspired poetry. It has about it a sullen vindictiveness, that any should strive to remain untouched by disorder aggrieves it and it punishes them with innumerable petty slights.<br />
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-The Rackletongue acts like a petulant intent on causing as much distress as possible and it seems to know what is important. It is not especially strong but it targets that which is valued.<br />
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-A magician may use this to carry an angry message, to drive a large boat, to break things from afar<br />
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<span style="color: #134f5c;"><b>5.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Lournagh</b></span>: Cold sorrow manifest as a wind off the mountains. It carries with it the stark essence of those elevated regions of inimical stone and sky. The uncaring nature of the Lournagh suggests, to those sensitive to such things, the uncaring nature of the cosmos-at-large.<br />
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<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-The Lournagh is not a strong wind but it is frigid and saps the will to live. Numb emptiness prevails where it blows. It tempts with oblivion and the meaninglessness of everthing.<br />
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-A magician may use this wind to freeze a person, to carry a desolate message, to induce self-destructive despair<br />
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<b><span style="color: #134f5c;">6.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Rambaleugh</span></b>: Fearful tempest that tears reckless and unbound from boreal wastes in search of ruin to wreak. It carries with it sudden squalls and sleet and heedless brutal violence. Shouted words are snatched away in the howling, and familiar geographies rendered obscure by the blinding tumult.<br />
<br />
-The Rambaleugh is perpetually enraged in its stupid kind of way and will smash everything, if need be, to sate that rage. Unlikely things are borne aloft by it and dashed to pieces on the rocks<br />
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- The magician may recklessly ride this wind or use it to destroy things<br />
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<b><span style="color: #134f5c;">7.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Uncle Withershins</span></b>: An unwholesome exhalation as of the last breath of a moribund earth before the death rattle, Uncle Withershins is more malefic and defined a personage than the other winds. He blows through the underworld, among catacombs of immemorial decay, and bears with him the redolence of rank odium. His gentleness is leprous, no noxious vapours are dispersed, but borne along slowly in a haze. Miasmas, especially, are his gifts, and ill-tidings.<br />
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-Once Uncle Withershins is loosed upon the world he will blow where he wishes. Wherever he blows suffering increases.<br />
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-A magician can bestow Uncle Withershins with prophecies of doom to promulgate to those who least deserve it, and to seek out miasmas to inflict upon the populace<br />
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<b>Quick Windy Glossary</b><br />
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Gaberliltie: troubadour or travelling minstrel<br />
Knaurthawing: discontented grumbling<br />
Lournagh: sorrow<br />
Magonia: fabulous land held by mediaeval French people to be among the clouds**<br />
Rambaleugh: tempestuous<br />
Rackletongued: harsh, blunt<br />
Scrafflehorn: rascally youth<br />
Tempestarius: weather-worker<br />
Withershins: anticlockwise. Opposite of deosil<br />
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*Of course I could just make up words for things. It is perfectly ok if you make up words so long as you don't show them to anyone. Unless you're a philologist and have spent decades creating your own language. That's ok too.<br />
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** Written about by Agobard of Lyons in 815, source <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/Agobard-OnHailandThunder.asp">here</a>. Mediaeval Aliens!<br />
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"But we have seen and heard of many people overcome with so much foolishness, made crazy by so much stupidity, that they believe and say that there is a certain region, which is called Magonia, from which ships come in the clouds. In these ships the crops that fell because of hail and were lost in storms are carried back into that region; evidently these aerial sailors make a payment to the storm-makers, and take the grain and other crops. Among those so blinded with profound stupidity that they believe these things could happen we have seen many people in a kind of meeting, exhibiting four captives, three men and one woman, as if they had fallen from these very ships. As I have said, they exhibited these four, who had been chained up for some days, with such a meeting finally assembling in our presence, as if these captives ought to be stoned. But when truth had prevailed, however, after much argument, the people who had exhibited the captives, in accordance with the prophecy (Jeremiah 2:26) "were confounded … as the thief is confounded when he is taken."</div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-62611807098849828702019-02-11T22:30:00.000+11:002019-02-27T20:10:20.219+11:00A Sojourn Among Antediluvian ArchæotheriaThis started with nomenclature, as so many things do. I started writing a response to Scrap Princess's <a href="http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2019/02/dinosaur-naming-conventions.html">post</a> about Dinosaur naming conventions in the fantasy genre. Then I got carried away.<br />
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Essentially, I attempted to cunningly misinterpret a <span style="text-align: center;">Stegosaur, an</span> <span style="text-align: center;">Azdarchid, a Theropod and a Plesiosaur.</span><br />
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I have <a href="https://www.instagram.com/middenmurk/">an Instagram</a> now, on which I am recording some of my illustrations. Please follow it. I am engaged in a project exploring the conventions of representation in mediæval bestiaries and am still (and increasingly so) obsessed with epistemology and delusion and pretending, with Umberto Eco's historical omnivory, with prosody, time, the <i>Anabasis</i>, <i>Heart of Darkness, </i>Eddison, Melville, lists, sentences that go on and on,Classical historiography, evolution, Harryhausen, melancholy, nomenclature-which-I-think-I-mentioned, the sweet futility of existence, the poetics of et cetera, people getting killed by monsters etc.<br />
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I cannot remember why I think the bone marrow of giraffes is hallucinogenic but that gets a mention.<br />
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Some of the Meropians are named for Archaic Greek potters, whose talent it was to enclose voids in burnt earth made beautiful. I am not sure what this suggests.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A Sojourn Among Antediluvian Archæotheria</span></div>
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(What follows are the notes of the transcriber)<br />
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And lo! Who has not heard of those half-a-thousand phalangites from the seven city-states of the Omphalian Autarky who, returning burthen'd with spoils from campaign against the Lemurians, did fall afoul of cacodaemoniacal tempests, doubtless vengeful sendings of those initiates of foul dæmonologie who reign over the immemorial swarming verdure of thrice-curséd Lemuria, and, finding themselves most mournfully marooned upon an alien strand beyond Taprobane and Palaisumundus afar, did suffer the depredations of unnamed tribes, and of the untamed elements themselves, that with immoderate vehemence did scourge the waylorn woeful wanderers with agonies innumerable, and with miasmatic airs laid low the mighty, such that in the span of forty days few only survived in confraternity of hardihood to overcome unspeakable perils and return, to what ingratitude and upheaval and what eventual ascendance escapes the bounds of this tale?</div>
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Of late, an Archivist of House Mirkinnen, trading favours for secrets that she may assure the betrayal of the unjust that is ever the stock-in-trade of those crepuscular whisperers, made available a fragment attributed to a nameless Meropian Scribe, claimed to be a student of Dropides the Metagnomist, and, asserting its claim as a lost chapter of that tale of phalangitic exile and return, did profit mightily in the exchange, such is the eager appetite for the outlandishness of that history</div>
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It was understood then, as it is understood now, that the inhabitants of quinqueremes are but poorly endowed with discernment, else why would they, in contravention of good sense, condemn themselves to bodily and to spiritual peril aboard such inadvisable vessels, to plough the deeps of unknown oceans in search of endless war? Little wonder is it, then, that gathered in those floating enclaves as far from the influence of such wise personages as do universally scorn foolhardy misadventure as they are from the rectilinearity and orderliness of civilised lands, and as far, indeed, from the immutability of land itself, starving and straining among the phantasmagorical changeableness of ocean, little wonder that such misapprehensions arise as to the nature and the order of things.</div>
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Thus, it is necessary to take the teratological revelations gleaned from the recovered chapter as being perchance the ravings of those too long in the habit of disgorging confabulatory concoctions as edicts of unfailing veracity. Mayhap the ordeal had temporarily bereft them of their senses, or strange fruit gobbled greedily by starveling sailors had, as does the henbane or the thornapple, bestowed strange fancies in their minds. Mayhap the scribe himself in old Meropis had gorged himself upon the marrow of the cameleopard that plunges the senses into radiant abysms beyond right knowing. Each of these circumstances is more likely than that what is said is true. Nevertheless, having disavowed claims of veracity, and not rendering salient the stark possibility that the fragment was a brilliant forgery, I relate to the reader what was claimed to have transpired upon the interior plateau of that unnamed island.</div>
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<b>Fragment 1: The Crenellated Beast</b></div>
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On the third day after the massacre among the bowers the skiapodes gave up their pursuit. We had, by this time, ascended above the scree into a place of thickets and thorns where we could rest. There was, nearby, a stream that ran upon a rocky shelf to a waterfall, and the spindrift and spume thereof, caught by the wind and borne about, filled the place with a misty uncertainty. It was at the edge of this stream and among this mist that, in the extremity of their exhaustion, the men beheld a thing like a great lumbering ox, but that he bear upon his back series of fortifications like those upon the walls of a fortress. In size he was greater than the great olifant who is likewise burdened by masonry when in warlike array he trumpets his challenge and tramples underfoot the massed legions of mankind. Greater and more terrible was this crenellated beast, and most terrible of all his twenty-cubit tail that bore upon its end the likeness of a morgenstern, that bludgeoneth even as it pricketh, so the saying goes, and with a sweep of this tail it smote Agathon, the lover of Teuthras, such a ponderous stroke as to hurl him bodily through spindrift and spume and over the precipice itself. There Teuthras plunged also, in extremity of woe, for had they not, against the designs of fickle fortune, escaped together the captivity of the Androphages and a dozen likelier dooms? Thus was the Plunge of Teuthras that in later days became proverbial. (Transcriber's note: No record of the proverb remains)</blockquote>
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<b>Fragment 2: The Haunter of Precipices</b></div>
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Following the theft of the fruit by the feathered jackanapes we ascended the second tier and came into a region of sheer chasms and ridges, a land cleft as by the primordial titans of an elder aeon, who with colossal strokes did split the world irrevocably asunder and thus allow the reign of chaos unending that, of a surety, prevailed still in this place. The necessity of traversing the chasm floor beneath such beetling heights wore heavily upon the men, inured to so many privations but exposed, in this place, to a growing terror of what might espy them from far above and stoop upon them in the barren streambed where they walked. They all remembered the report of lost Hegesistratus: of that great carrion fowl he had seen circling above the carnage following the disastrous battle with the Antichthones, and of other like shapes, greater by far than any mortal bird, incised upon the stones of their holy places.</blockquote>
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The second day in the chasms they all saw it, climbing along a narrow spine of stone in a manner reminiscent of the vespertilio that hangeth inverted in shrine or grotto and flitteth forth by dark of night. For it climbed upon its taloned pinions as well as its taloned feet, and those wings were of hide, but greater than the azure sails of the argosy flying before a zephyr, and they sagged in loathsome grey folds as it crept. Of a surety it espied us from those red eyes at the moment we saw it. For all cried aloud at the terror of the thing. But it did not come nearer then but crept over the far edge of its stony tower and out of sight. All saw, though from afar, the horrific delineation of its terrible crimson head, though what mad god devised it none could say.</blockquote>
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Though they kept to the narrowest ravines, the fear of the thing ate at the men and, in his anguish, Euphronios ascended alone an escarpment he thought an egress from the region of chasms. While he climbed, weeping, and Glaucon railed at him for a fool, there came a shriek unlike the cries of earthly fowl, and in it was mingled the hissing and bellowing of those serpentine and those bestial denizens of unfriendly Earth whose mischief has been ever the undoing of the world. The clamourous echoes in that stark and labyrinthine place resounded to such a cacophony that the waking nightmare of the thing that came upon cinerous wings and took Euphronios in its talons was not incongruous but fitting, for each perceived the world, in that moment, as does a sleeper in the torments of a night-terror. It bore him aloft, and he cried out in sorrow to Glaucon below. All saw it, plumed and scaled and inexplicably furred, bear him to its eyrie and rend him as the gastrel rendeth the slayworm, and its horrific brood raised their heads to received his proffered flesh.</blockquote>
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<b>Fragment 3: The Imperator Fowl</b></div>
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The third belt of verdure had been a more difficult barrier to traverse, in part due to its density and in part due to the chittering fowl that attended us nightly in great abundance and groped at us with curious fingers, snuffing, perchance, some victual and seeking to purloin it as had the treacherous plumed jackanapes a week before.</blockquote>
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After the squalls of the previous days the soil of the clearing was soft and muddy and bore the many and varied pawprints of the feathery denizens hereabouts. But they were furtive in the daylight, and the clearing was empty when we crossed it. Near the middle, where there grew a few ferny thickets, Cynaegirus saw the tracks of a far greater creature, alike to those of the pilfering fowl of the forest but huge and deep. "Indeed, among these diminutive subjects this must be an Imperator grown fat upon tribute" - such was the jape. For desperation necessitates a ready mirth, or hearts would burst asunder at the strain, but likewise came fear and decision was made to abandon open ground for the sheltering tangle on the far side of the clearing. As we ran there came a shrill warbling from far behind and a response from ahead, a strangely liquid and a harmonious sound to come from so great a creature but such it was.</blockquote>
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It came, trotting gigantic upon its hindlimbs, this Imperator Fowl, like unto a pullet grown titanic, or, even more so, the regulus that is hatched by an aspic from a cock's egg and embodies the very principle of virulence, so loathsome it strikes dead those who behold it. More loathsome still this Imperator Fowl strutting vast, his plumage like a habberjock, his crested head more fell by far than aught bethought by civilised man. For he had an hundred teeth, long and gleaming sharp, his maw was great and jaws heavy. He bit Mnesikles in half as he ran, and Taxis and Tleson he slew, and Kleitias left screaming dismembered to put down resistance imposed by Smikros and Sophilos, who sought in vain to spear the beast. He trod them mightily into the sod with his great paws and raked them with talons such that fair Smikros and brave Sophilos were torn to tattered shreds upon that muddy field.</blockquote>
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The rest escaped into the tangled woods but saw the great Imperatrix come stalking after her paramour, and they warbled together in the language of their abominable kind, and ate the men they had slain.</blockquote>
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<b>Fragment 4: The Lacustrine Enormity</b></div>
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And there was upon that lake an island, and visible there an edifice of stone, like unto those structures attributed to the ancestors of the ancestors of the barbarous Choromandae, who build nothing now save it be with mud and leaves. Decision was made to seek if there be any dwelling there, for no other structure had we seen upon this plateau and perchance amidst such bewilderness the rites of hospitality prevailed yet. The raft was crude, but the work of Hegesander the shipwright, even in the uttermost reaches of the unknown, was sound, and it bore the dozen of us who yet survived to the island.</blockquote>
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The millenial abandonment of the island and of its temple was made apparent by the accumulated dung of the thousands of fowl who made of it a monumental rookery. But its structure was largely intact and we were able to shore up a bivouac and feast on stolen eggs. These fowl, fanged and uncouth like the rest, were nevertheless winged and not of preposterous size, in their raucous company we stayed the night.</blockquote>
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In the morning, as we prepared our embarkation, a great head was seen out on the water, borne on a long neck like a serpent. This head was, again, abominably bestial and predacious, with yet more terrible teeth than aught we had yet seen in his place, that its maw was fairly crowded with fangs. It beheld us patiently with dark eyes, and in each man's heart, seeing the great size of this creature revealed and glimpsing the ponderous girth yet submerged, there fell the sense, inevitably, that we would none of us survive the crossing back.</blockquote>
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At this Hegesander, the eldest among us and traditionally taciturn, strode out upon the raft and began to declaim in the epic mode;</blockquote>
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O, Creature! Than whom none swim<br />
More sinuous in dreadful dank<br />
And dreary depths, and who,<br />
In days afore, in epochs long forgot<br />
Did sate a hunger horrible and huge<br />
On those that built this fane forlorn,<br />
This fallen folly. Beseek thyself!<br />
For in each bestial heart there must abide<br />
A wakeful wit, lest nature in its schemes<br />
And devious devices dupe thee ever,<br />
And appetites immense unsated be.<br />
Nay! Thou knowest what I speak<br />
Though ye be dumb, and doubtless,<br />
Did ye bargain for the bones of bigger beasts<br />
than I. And we, though weak<br />
And weary, with spirits sore beset,<br />
In westering lands unnumbered allies have<br />
Whose hard harpoons and hateful hands and hearts<br />
Shall see thee slain, who rends this raft to ruin<br />
That is not thine. Only this I ask:<br />
Eat only me. My brothers<br />
On this barque, shall bear my bier<br />
Unburdened by my body,<br />
That shall be thine,<br />
In far Meropis, and the sun shall shine.</blockquote>
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This said, Hegesander, whose face and voice had been transformed for a time by the nobility of his words, renewed his grimness of countenance and busied himself with casting-off. The rest, uncertain of the outcome of this crossing but transfixed by the purpose of abandoning this island despite the danger, went all aboard the raft. The head went down into the deeps and scarcely a ripple remained. </blockquote>
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We rowed all in silence, aware of the terror that lurked beneath. Young Praximon wept, for Hegesander had saved him in the sea-battle against the reivers of Thule, two years ago but an age now, for in their folly they had abandoned a world where heroisms might perchance prevail for one where impetus of implacable circumstance brooked no opposition. Nonetheless, they rowed across unmolested and, nigh unto the far shore, the thing rose up and took Hegesander in silence, and they saw, with wonderment, the calm visage of the shipwright borne into the depths betwixt those terrible jaws.</blockquote>
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(Transcriber's note: Praximon, after he had usurped the throne of the Archon Sostratos, had a mausoleum made for Hegesander, descriptions of the mausoleum reinforce the testimony of the author of the manuscript for the mosaics and statuary within depicted fanciful creatures and scenes resembling those referenced within the narrative.)</div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-86136507733686302702019-02-02T23:07:00.000+11:002019-02-05T00:29:01.143+11:00Ago<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Two things;<br />
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1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is no easy way to do this. Anything I write here will inevitably seem an obscene rearing-forth from forgotten aeons, a coelacanth dredged from benthic slimes and gasping in implausible sunlight. Never mind.<br />
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2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Google Plus is dying. I never used it much but for a very long time I checked it every day to see what was going on. I drifted away from it over the years and am unable to authentically commiserate with those who lament its passing. With G+ gone there is no centralised hub for the movement. No rightful heir being found, perhaps the blogosphere that birthed it shall rise from the ashes.<br />
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This out of the way, I continue.<br />
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<br />
I am no longer much of an aficionado of the fantasy genre. I am, however, interested in the human imagination and in human attempts to interpret and understand the world throughout history. This is a very pertinent subject at the moment.<br />
<br />
Part of the genre of fantasy for a very long time has been a kind of Euhemeristic reframing of some of the facts about the world that had been derived from rigorous post-enlightenment interrogations of reality. This can be seen as a kind of science-fantasy incursion into a pure let's-pretend-the-epistemological-approach-of-benighted-historical-peoples-was-effective conception of fantasy, and was prevalent during times when our infatuation with prehistory was at its height.<br />
<br />
Consider Tolkien. There are several examples in Lord of the Rings where Tolkien could be said to be drawing inspiration from prehistory. His work was very much concerned with capturing an emotional response to the passage of time. Techniques he employed in his construction of languages were designed to evoke, in one with the requisite knowledge of scientific philology, the sense of an extraordinarily long period of time. Much as the anatomical characteristics of basal forms of known lineages of organism would indicate the passing of time to an expert in biological evolution, so too the grammatical structures of Quenya and Sindarin are vastly more archaic than living languages and have encoded in their inflections a plausible reconstruction of the characteristics of the language of an earlier age. Tolkien had mentioned his imagined time for the events of The Lord of the Rings to be something like 6000-8000 years ago, and the archaic grammar he wove into his invented languages was supposed to extrapolate the processes of language evolution backwards in time in such a manner as to evoke that kind of timeframe.<br />
<br />
Since I encountered this idea in Ross Smith's <i>Inside Language </i>I have always likened it to the observations of parallax in astronomy. These observations, of the tiny shifts in the position of a star from the vantage point of Earth at opposite ends of its orbit around the sun, are what enabled astronomers to calculate the distance to other stars and thus give us a glimmer of an idea as to the vastness of the cosmos. To conceive of his fictional world in this way required that Tolkien had specialised knowledge. It is possible, given that the languages preceded the narratives, that Tolkien was working to capture the emotional resonance of his perception of the passage of time he encoded within the languages. It is, perhaps, something of an explanation for the whole sweet melancholy of his allusions to Elder Days before the Fall.<br />
<br />
But this is merely an aside, the specific elements of Tolkien that I am interested in unpacking here are the prehistoric allusions. There are three examples I'd like to touch on that I see as being characteristic of drawing inspiration, consciously or unconsciously, from prehistory.<br />
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<b>Oliphaunts</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg1JY8atmAnSaLhmWy8R0qsrRydGDy3HXPHxU-FpqawpH68v2peljH8mhCQQkg4cfbHkZiQOtA0SD-n8z93l4KkPDJHPpJyg56Pjhrt6LcduES7CWJQCG2EI0nC0xymyqXJoWGh676RCZj/s1600/001+LLc-74Gh6pj9fVgNSAhqjVSB4jPfI4YqGmpDr2QwoUk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="960" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg1JY8atmAnSaLhmWy8R0qsrRydGDy3HXPHxU-FpqawpH68v2peljH8mhCQQkg4cfbHkZiQOtA0SD-n8z93l4KkPDJHPpJyg56Pjhrt6LcduES7CWJQCG2EI0nC0xymyqXJoWGh676RCZj/s640/001+LLc-74Gh6pj9fVgNSAhqjVSB4jPfI4YqGmpDr2QwoUk.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cor Blok is the only Tolkien artist I know that Tolkien owned work from</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
"To his astonishment and terror, and lasting delight, Sam saw a vast shape crash out of the trees and come careering down the slope. ... much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes, but the Mûmak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty. On he came ... passing only a few yards away, rocking the ground beneath their feet: his great legs like trees, enormous sail-like ears spread out, long snout upraised like a huge serpent about to strike. his small red eyes raging. His upturned hornlike tusks were bound with bands of gold and dripped with blood. His trappings of scarlet and gold flapped about him in wild tatters. The ruins of what seemed a very war-tower lay upon his heaving back, smashed in his furious passage through the woods; and high upon his neck still desperately clung a tiny figure -- the body of a mighty warrior, a giant among the Swertings."</div>
<br />
So, the elephants that remain in the world are not as big as the elephants that lived before. The fossil record of proboscideans gives indication of plenty of examples of huge elephantine animals. One of which, the Woolly Mammoth, is so emblematic of the idea of prehistory that we do tend to magnify it it our minds (it was probably about the same size as surviving elephants). Still, there were bigger mammoths, and, as I shall demonstrate, much bigger proboscideans, but the Woolly Mammoth's primordial shagginess and extravagant curving tusks that so effectively embody the weirdness and savagery of an antediluvian world has thus infiltrated our mythic imagination deeply.<br />
<br />
Something of Tolkien's preoccupation with the diminishment of wonder in the world is encoded in this passage. I do not presume a literal attempt to include an extinct proboscidean in Middle-Earth so much as a potential source of inspiration. There were, in Tolkien's time, other endeavours that had begun to indicate the presence in our past of lost worlds.<br />
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<br />
<b>The<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="background-color: white;">Nazgûl </span></span>Steeds</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3j2N7osBrzFhJZEDuoeowE_XDpjpujXOZIjPSKA2oKa4GRE0ki-c_Z2GtYMXDrymRnHAUbajXZmzR49bQCdL7YzwLNFuFc53FeUuJh4olQhMJE0p2immcpbPijlaDn-WeDw2BqtBqTq2/s1600/001a+fellbeast_lee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="550" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq3j2N7osBrzFhJZEDuoeowE_XDpjpujXOZIjPSKA2oKa4GRE0ki-c_Z2GtYMXDrymRnHAUbajXZmzR49bQCdL7YzwLNFuFc53FeUuJh4olQhMJE0p2immcpbPijlaDn-WeDw2BqtBqTq2/s640/001a+fellbeast_lee.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alan Lee: Pterodactylic</td></tr>
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<br />
Tolkien, from Letter 211:<br />
<br />
"Pterodactyl. Yes and no. I did not intend the steed of the Witch-King to be what is now called a 'pterodactyl', and often is drawn (with rather less shadowy evidence than lies behind many monsters of the new and fascinating semi-scientific mythology of the 'Prehistoric'). But obviously it is pterodactylic and owes much to the new mythology, and its description even provides a sort of way in which it could be a last survivor of older geological eras."<br />
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So he disavows it, sort of. It "owes much to the new mythology". Its inclusion is an element that lays open Tolkien to the kind of criticism he leveled at C.S. Lewis' practice of heterogenous mythological inclusivity in the Narnia books. But it is beautiful;<br />
<br />
"The great shadow descended like a falling cloud. And behold! it was a winged creature; if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil."<br />
<br />
I always particularly enjoyed that passage and interpreted it in the kind of way Tolkien admitted was possible in Letter 211. The idea of creatures from the deep time of scientific discovery existing in what is explicitly a created world sets up a kind of paradox that really oughtn't be scrutinised unnecessarily but shimmers weirdly at the edge of my consciousness.<br />
<br />
<b>The Drúedain</b><br />
<br />
"There sat Théoden and Éomer, and before them on the ground sat a strange squat shape of a man, gnarled as an old stone, and the hairs of his scanty beard straggled on his lumpy chin like dry moss. He was short-legged and fat-armed, thick and stumpy, and clad only with grass about his waist."<br />
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There is a slightly different process going on in the descriptions of the Wild Men of Ghân-buri-Ghân. I am tempted to characterise them as a literary creation making reference to the Neanderthals and other archaic hominids but it is perhaps a safer set of assumptions to treat them as simply a race of humans living a more technologically-primitive lifestyle than their pseudo-mediaeval neighbours in Rohan.<br />
<br />
One of the telling elements is in the application of the term "woses" to the men of the Drúadan Forest by the Rohirrim. The wose/woodwose/wuduwasa is a potent mythic archetype of the mediaeval mind: the wild man who represents untamed nature (and the untamed nature in humanity). The application of the term as an exonym reframes the Drúedain as being the potential source of inspiration for what is undeniably a mythological being. There is also a similar process in the description of statues associated with the Drúedain as Púkel-Men. Púkel is a word with Old English roots (and a whole host of cognates in Germanic languages) that refers to fairies or spirits. Púkel is cognate with Puck, Phooka, Puca, Bwca, Bogle, Bogie, Boggan, Bauchan, Boogeyman and Bug.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuelryOlDz0p1RMguj1MyrrNHgvv5IuvltzA5PeTEDFuKJxAPoj8srolujZKmLe3cm6jU9m3mBBl6RxvccDY_DW_bP8168iZa8WjfcZ1RS2GWElAmIfBC5dRlYZwlqfRUZ7sOQvvl4dAgG/s1600/001c+ADurerWoodwoses1499.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuelryOlDz0p1RMguj1MyrrNHgvv5IuvltzA5PeTEDFuKJxAPoj8srolujZKmLe3cm6jU9m3mBBl6RxvccDY_DW_bP8168iZa8WjfcZ1RS2GWElAmIfBC5dRlYZwlqfRUZ7sOQvvl4dAgG/s640/001c+ADurerWoodwoses1499.jpg" width="398" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wild Men flanking some Albrecht Durer altarpiece</td></tr>
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<br />
As as aside, Tolkien used archaic forms of English to represent Rohirric as a means of establishing the relationship between Rohirric and Westron in a way analagous to that between the Modern English that stood in for, but was not identical to, Westron, and the Old English that stood in for Rohirric. Aside from the specific examples of constructed languages in Tolkien, everything is assumed to be a translation. As an aside within an aside, I am intrigued with the idea that there is behind the anglicised story of Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee an earthier narrative of Maura Labingi and Banazîr Galbasi (their original untranslated Westron Hobbitish names) tramping around in the early Holocene.<br />
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Was Tolkien making an attempt to say that our ancestors were inspired by their more technologically primitive neighbours to invent wicked fairies? Probably not, though there is definitely an interesting subject of investigation in the extraordinarily imaginative conceptions of the other by our xenophobic forebears. This example in Tolkien is less an example of the emotional resonance of deep time than of the entanglement of reality and myth that I find so endlessly fascinating.<br />
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Remember the Oliphaunt? Huge, old and tall? For a very long time there was a consensus that the largest terrestrial mammal, and therefore the largest terrestrial creature aside from the sauropods, was an Oligocene giant hornless rhinoceros called variously; Baluchitherium, Indricotherium, or Paraceratherium, extinct for more than 20,000,000 years.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRHpNAl_BjOVr52PbHDYq8M6Voxo3pjQoisyu5DBGe1qh2cLum-NgQ1jRodhhqVopWT_SzBw5gHNpMfSw2UEC7sWwZAsG7mLvaixwKyMMfFKWLNZfFEXsyQOgNtQqDY4pP0rpK1RYJMEV/s1600/01+baluchitherium-supersized+april+lawton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1027" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRHpNAl_BjOVr52PbHDYq8M6Voxo3pjQoisyu5DBGe1qh2cLum-NgQ1jRodhhqVopWT_SzBw5gHNpMfSw2UEC7sWwZAsG7mLvaixwKyMMfFKWLNZfFEXsyQOgNtQqDY4pP0rpK1RYJMEV/s640/01+baluchitherium-supersized+april+lawton.jpg" width="409" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I have no name, for I existed before names were.</td></tr>
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But the giant hornless rhinos were not the biggest, we have only recently determined that the biggest mammal to walk the earth (as far as we know) was <i>Palaeoloxodon namadicus</i>, the Asian Straight-Tusked Elephant, which inhabited Asia from Japan to India until the late Pleistocene, 24,000 years ago, and may have weighed up to 22 tons. This thing was not only bigger, this thing had a name (probably several). For this thing existed alongside behaviourally modern Homo sapiens who would, quite obviously, have had need upon occasion to refer to it. In all probability, we contributed to its extinction, along with at least <u>eighteen</u> other proboscideans that existed on the planet at the time of <i>Homo sapiens</i> most significant exodus from Africa about 70 thousand years ago, only to disappear after our arrival on the scene. Along with them died a suite of extraordinary creatures that we once shared the world with. This world of circa 70 thousand years ago was an extraordinary zenith of diversity in which practically every animal that exists now was joined by many others, of which the hugest and weirdest were all huger and weirder than what remains.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddgveD_jf-qHiAX-GSRQP8BOJI_FRAPV5NA1_YwHSM8zxF3q8RXpadacSdut53UgqSkjpqPQnf7mtvGvVuy-bX243GfgD0l67b041EUX9xSI2VZRl81xx5WEPoN2AuDyo2Y6umG9xT661/s1600/01a+P.namadicus-size-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddgveD_jf-qHiAX-GSRQP8BOJI_FRAPV5NA1_YwHSM8zxF3q8RXpadacSdut53UgqSkjpqPQnf7mtvGvVuy-bX243GfgD0l67b041EUX9xSI2VZRl81xx5WEPoN2AuDyo2Y6umG9xT661/s640/01a+P.namadicus-size-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Oliphaunt am I. <i>Palaeoloxodon namadicus. </i>Image by Roman Uchtyel, extraordinarily prolific palaeoartist, evidently not afraid of giant elephants<br />
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The fact of the existence of these creatures alongside Behaviourally Modern humans is, to my mind, astonishing. Behaviourally Modern humans were us, they had language and myth and art. They named these creatures and incorporated them in stories. The time of our cohabiting the world with these creatures was very recent, evolutionarily speaking.<br />
<br />
As a general rule, every highly successful species usurps the niches of previous species. There is evidence in the fossil record of extinction pulses occurring in Africa that correspond to periods of increase in brain size in our lineage. Every time we got smarter we wiped entire species from the face of the Earth. Come 70,000 years ago or so, we had achieved our current level of staggering genius. The world was not ready. Those of us who crossed the <i>Bab al Mandab</i>, the Gates of Grief between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, would find a world heaving under the weight of preposterous diversity.<br />
<br />
This all-consuming genius within explains, and to an extent is explained by, our confrontation with this world. In order to thrive and spread across the Pleistocene Earth we had to learn to adapt to environments dominated by the biggest representatives of most of the lineages that are in existence: the biggest land mammal, the biggest terrestrial predator, the biggest cat, the biggest lizard, the biggest bird, the biggest tortoise, sloth, prosimian, bovid, cervid, marsupial etc. Since the beginning of our rapid increase in brain size we have been killing and outcompeting other lineages, once we achieved so-called Behavioural Modernity we were able to overcome the most formidable examples of every other lineage we encountered. They all went extinct and we thrived.<br />
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Perhaps it is that bounty of extraordinary diversity and extraordinary size, of the richness of ecosystems that were at a zenith unmatched since the Cretaceous, that gave us the start-up capital we needed to kickstart the Agricultural Revolution and create civilisation. It parallels the idea that the wholesale plundering of the Americas by the European colonial powers gave them the wealth needed to start the Industrial Revolution. Schrodinger said that living things "drink orderliness" from the environment. In order for us to persist with the extraordinarily harmonious organisation of matter and energy we call our lives we need to vampirise the lives of other organisms who are themselves the end-result of a process of billions of years of the evolutionary algorithm honing and perfecting mechanisms to survive. The late Pleistocene abounded with accumulated orderliness, perhaps unmatched in any age of the Earth. Then we came.<br />
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The following graph shows the effect we had when we arrived.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVeyJJC-nywQOWMKucJ-KVPEfXyflxv7Y-udVtYJ6SkQlR7DJupl9lyhNra2zNP2aYy0ajH9-Dmi94Txgn3MBYI98uz45HVMMDu1bZU4GaJhPHXYP68Eu44EAb0deYa2eOH9nIvb3cCIYk/s1600/0001+Extinctions_Africa_Austrailia_NAmerica_Madagascar.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVeyJJC-nywQOWMKucJ-KVPEfXyflxv7Y-udVtYJ6SkQlR7DJupl9lyhNra2zNP2aYy0ajH9-Dmi94Txgn3MBYI98uz45HVMMDu1bZU4GaJhPHXYP68Eu44EAb0deYa2eOH9nIvb3cCIYk/s1600/0001+Extinctions_Africa_Austrailia_NAmerica_Madagascar.gif" /></a></div>
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The world that existed immediately prior to human dispersal across the world was astonishing. A couple of facts about these events bear keeping in mind;</div>
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1. All the animal lineages that remain in the world lived in the world before 70,000 years ago.</div>
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2. If we hadn't made them extinct then the vast majority of the lineages wiped out by us would remain alongside us.</div>
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To which I cannot help but add;</div>
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3. We're not finished.</div>
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Back to the elephants;</div>
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In addition to the colossal namadicus, there were plenty of other elephants bigger than those that remain, including 10+ ton <i>Palaeoloxodon recki.</i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFMKTD3N3RMnk0o_T728BNO783VH8xMBxg1yxnle9Ws5_WZEUO9IVoXltg44pSYqHPePP9Nvwngz99dL2lgxcOz6APVMykrwdsIdFkDUbOie4QQYxFStpqVB71S0i2ImLeYwx0lZNSvyK_/s1600/03+d8ctsz0-2b092b10-baef-4ea6-aa66-d291cd176e2f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="950" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFMKTD3N3RMnk0o_T728BNO783VH8xMBxg1yxnle9Ws5_WZEUO9IVoXltg44pSYqHPePP9Nvwngz99dL2lgxcOz6APVMykrwdsIdFkDUbOie4QQYxFStpqVB71S0i2ImLeYwx0lZNSvyK_/s640/03+d8ctsz0-2b092b10-baef-4ea6-aa66-d291cd176e2f.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Straight-tusked Elephant. Image from Sameer Prehistorica</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1kXUvABHIepISvo6tEN1Ezwz-FPJsxyqTV-klktHwEPlA8Mad9ffCtMrMjQbTQZ_lvl4OcFvp7N5zNEkthtTj5zeyd4IZBqO1Aqss0hV7twlBzEKZOHrb-F2DLchFPo0Cluf7x7R3RR2u/s1600/04+Mammuthus-size-%2528North-Ameica%2529-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1kXUvABHIepISvo6tEN1Ezwz-FPJsxyqTV-klktHwEPlA8Mad9ffCtMrMjQbTQZ_lvl4OcFvp7N5zNEkthtTj5zeyd4IZBqO1Aqss0hV7twlBzEKZOHrb-F2DLchFPo0Cluf7x7R3RR2u/s640/04+Mammuthus-size-%2528North-Ameica%2529-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Americas were fairly festering with Mammoths, many of whom were present in Eurasia also. Roman Uchtyel again</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIlKcF7mv5B2Vc-lmXuvZBq8nbKItdgDs5ond27UyWJcIHHDI54-NSPtrT25tIeVQFNpPBl5Jug-Ty9mEKCRb_LzaKQENyAfQaD3-UVhgYNbk2_Z65B_Op8vGgJtOc8aprOMjox8KVSl7h/s1600/05+Mammuthus+exilis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="950" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIlKcF7mv5B2Vc-lmXuvZBq8nbKItdgDs5ond27UyWJcIHHDI54-NSPtrT25tIeVQFNpPBl5Jug-Ty9mEKCRb_LzaKQENyAfQaD3-UVhgYNbk2_Z65B_Op8vGgJtOc8aprOMjox8KVSl7h/s640/05+Mammuthus+exilis.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But there were also various kinds of smaller mammoth, like <i>Mammuthus exilis</i>. From Sameer Prehistorica</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUEA-sRbtEs1EpPwMAkJGTZSx1kt2zgTge1p6CBIVSKVTccT77no1iWsBo9wYokETCWvV4rsAwo5URnRSkGbLa8cGo8TUbsjGIf40Ibina25zBQXozFAu9PD9CEfCrvLemPMLCo35BW38N/s1600/06+VictorLeshyk-dwarfmammoth3+creticus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="630" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUEA-sRbtEs1EpPwMAkJGTZSx1kt2zgTge1p6CBIVSKVTccT77no1iWsBo9wYokETCWvV4rsAwo5URnRSkGbLa8cGo8TUbsjGIf40Ibina25zBQXozFAu9PD9CEfCrvLemPMLCo35BW38N/s640/06+VictorLeshyk-dwarfmammoth3+creticus.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There were tiny Proboscideans on many islands, the products of insular dwarfism like this <i>Mammuthus creticus </i>from Crete. Image from Victor Leshyk</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEQlwIOHwupdifrOZMpCa7lMMbQAJjjyDrzSFzi91k69Zxt6J5sopsZAxREqVdJC-2TuNUAtx6WuwbqYQwj6B8fVUjISzuyKxQtEHfKm67pP878fg9uG9jtRnHIPZYiX91IsBX0eff6xvp/s1600/07+176e6311641dbe59411c1cffcb928b83.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="900" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEQlwIOHwupdifrOZMpCa7lMMbQAJjjyDrzSFzi91k69Zxt6J5sopsZAxREqVdJC-2TuNUAtx6WuwbqYQwj6B8fVUjISzuyKxQtEHfKm67pP878fg9uG9jtRnHIPZYiX91IsBX0eff6xvp/s640/07+176e6311641dbe59411c1cffcb928b83.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And various middle-sized Proboscideans like the Gomphotheres from South America</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGNyQg0eOo5wBJISQV0EDMcV6NlGIDLQNHbVCD82bPwisOlEF79XWc8SD_RIahkLFTi2YCstLGPSouwrPkg_8afIqUHYUBsL94CQ-bPLSXEqw1_U2-L2UcjzfLMZ2afr0PAdu4kXx-tuF_/s1600/09+Malta.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGNyQg0eOo5wBJISQV0EDMcV6NlGIDLQNHbVCD82bPwisOlEF79XWc8SD_RIahkLFTi2YCstLGPSouwrPkg_8afIqUHYUBsL94CQ-bPLSXEqw1_U2-L2UcjzfLMZ2afr0PAdu4kXx-tuF_/s640/09+Malta.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Malta had a dwarf elephant, <i>Palaeoloxodon falconeri</i>, and a giant swan, <i>Cygnus falconeri</i> (which probably went extinct before humans arrived)<i>. </i>Image from Julio Lacerda</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVHmebbldp2OosIEK1U6jSJaC-HEKv2rBgwsfBgD6OPtiW3yWZftMAQXtZ5xt_olbOHNbcmSfZbDpoQ5tQ7npEknmPTEpaLmSeRgyI9wNWReRtHVDeRJ4601wxURivSNYjsdOOFeAA56OH/s1600/10a+a72ab1be63aeab46b2624d18438097fa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="954" data-original-width="1500" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVHmebbldp2OosIEK1U6jSJaC-HEKv2rBgwsfBgD6OPtiW3yWZftMAQXtZ5xt_olbOHNbcmSfZbDpoQ5tQ7npEknmPTEpaLmSeRgyI9wNWReRtHVDeRJ4601wxURivSNYjsdOOFeAA56OH/s640/10a+a72ab1be63aeab46b2624d18438097fa.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The island of Flores had the dwarf elephant: <i>Stegodon florensis insularis</i>, which only looks huge because the <i>Homo floresiensis </i>(also extinct around 50kya) are so tiny</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnANosECV2LOgLQLzQOoMcGejbqsm0JkDrw16QdPnFPi9plqrapiYTXOXK7etzwi-MY8Nsdk4M_9QedOTG8C7JHoQDeX5BZ6WY0pK3AxE3rqkjBU8QSLpAVGjK5O1b22T7azwLGQ4lZkAu/s1600/10+ca060bd190cc4f1efa111da942696428.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="878" data-original-width="1600" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnANosECV2LOgLQLzQOoMcGejbqsm0JkDrw16QdPnFPi9plqrapiYTXOXK7etzwi-MY8Nsdk4M_9QedOTG8C7JHoQDeX5BZ6WY0pK3AxE3rqkjBU8QSLpAVGjK5O1b22T7azwLGQ4lZkAu/s640/10+ca060bd190cc4f1efa111da942696428.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I don't like calling them hobbits but understand why people do.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Sg6bCYqARnjvRrLnVOh6ZfegT_cujEdjuQwfR5f7n15Uq3Ufxs5VxSmM50vAV42iby_E9ZVN_mv_S8lLTkXKVWB5duvYyWvRiubej0ZX0nFZpGAdISrIg2p9pvaa9CxCQvSMLenCOuqE/s1600/10b+DlQSwhdUYAAGwMX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="736" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Sg6bCYqARnjvRrLnVOh6ZfegT_cujEdjuQwfR5f7n15Uq3Ufxs5VxSmM50vAV42iby_E9ZVN_mv_S8lLTkXKVWB5duvYyWvRiubej0ZX0nFZpGAdISrIg2p9pvaa9CxCQvSMLenCOuqE/s640/10b+DlQSwhdUYAAGwMX.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Leptopilos robustus </i>must have been terrifying to the little Flores people.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm1H5a6da3xeTZTsGn0Y2zvzonkxXgFOter7ZTp7upPNgy2AnuVRXBl1ZEViaSBx5En7l9fgB5l1_U8yiJ03WHhUa1cY0omWlJU7P0QX2VGmk0_4d87g90ja258YWrEhuUfbjxyTu51RUg/s1600/10c+I+van+Noortwijk+Lrobustus.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="481" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm1H5a6da3xeTZTsGn0Y2zvzonkxXgFOter7ZTp7upPNgy2AnuVRXBl1ZEViaSBx5En7l9fgB5l1_U8yiJ03WHhUa1cY0omWlJU7P0QX2VGmk0_4d87g90ja258YWrEhuUfbjxyTu51RUg/s640/10c+I+van+Noortwijk+Lrobustus.gif" width="444" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Utterly fucking terrifying. It was probably mostly flightless and converging on the terror bird niche and body plan.</td></tr>
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Until recently it was thought that the largest bird of all time was Madagascar's famed elephant bird: <i>Aepyornis maximus.</i><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7AFORSPYrVGu7vTGCgZbE1BbnYX5LHqLfuUe0QsvvOVSVL2kEc0BE_1hdAzMFxp6IvIOGb4GVMKhnggmnrX1HPi6PVk8dNlSZ9WzXaDcGV1tHSRwmw8OALOsk4magPJ6AegH3kNu8lPL9/s1600/12+Aepyornis+Peter+Schouten.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1126" data-original-width="564" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7AFORSPYrVGu7vTGCgZbE1BbnYX5LHqLfuUe0QsvvOVSVL2kEc0BE_1hdAzMFxp6IvIOGb4GVMKhnggmnrX1HPi6PVk8dNlSZ9WzXaDcGV1tHSRwmw8OALOsk4magPJ6AegH3kNu8lPL9/s640/12+Aepyornis+Peter+Schouten.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Which went extinct around the time of the Crusades. Image from Peter Schouten</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKR_O5NB1KTAdTemkK1S7yJsPC9bQ-7wj9sNgx8cYWyCp4BV55lOm25d8eBvz2pf_vLmyGRsGk5nSarZe4AC2OIFw0T2o4sweS1Thaeu5iSWkGRNX-Gy5NHeJDhIza20evPi8XXkFmVOLb/s1600/12a+Aepyornis-maximus-size-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKR_O5NB1KTAdTemkK1S7yJsPC9bQ-7wj9sNgx8cYWyCp4BV55lOm25d8eBvz2pf_vLmyGRsGk5nSarZe4AC2OIFw0T2o4sweS1Thaeu5iSWkGRNX-Gy5NHeJDhIza20evPi8XXkFmVOLb/s640/12a+Aepyornis-maximus-size-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At nearly half a ton it is an impressively huge bird. Image from Roman Uchtyel</td></tr>
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But recently another Madagascan bird was described that was bigger, <i>Vorombe titan</i> may have weighed around 700 kg. It was also driven extinct some time in the last few thousand years.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMnKoNLeO0hspE9Koh47LMUU8dLJrZ_uuvnzlqCt3zynlpTie7rRQFww1SiuFmgRIiwLnl-VtSpRmX-6Az38UgQ4q-4Ka2Cvq-xXwptbGnOHKNJAk2iSoxTwzXmKGh5JN_wLd6-pj2trt/s1600/12b+zslnamesworl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1237" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMnKoNLeO0hspE9Koh47LMUU8dLJrZ_uuvnzlqCt3zynlpTie7rRQFww1SiuFmgRIiwLnl-VtSpRmX-6Az38UgQ4q-4Ka2Cvq-xXwptbGnOHKNJAk2iSoxTwzXmKGh5JN_wLd6-pj2trt/s640/12b+zslnamesworl.jpg" width="494" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Vorombe titan </i>triumphantly flaunting its unparalleled avian enormousness</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Australia's huge bird species was the Mihirung, <i>Genyornis walleri, </i>still huge at 250 kg, but not record-breaking. It died out during Australia's significantly earlier megafauna extinction about 50kya.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyHiUK7_Ze7RNu4JL9hbFpIWih0ThL2FC7LW-O8BYjTIaE3tmnLD2PjQM-isGvhApMnpuIehYoA8QWzGXjsoDpPML_ZeFY7nC9F8v_DxmfLH5m7hQOEb2xY9tL0lNScygoT4qxyM9QIMNz/s1600/12c+genyornis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1091" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyHiUK7_Ze7RNu4JL9hbFpIWih0ThL2FC7LW-O8BYjTIaE3tmnLD2PjQM-isGvhApMnpuIehYoA8QWzGXjsoDpPML_ZeFY7nC9F8v_DxmfLH5m7hQOEb2xY9tL0lNScygoT4qxyM9QIMNz/s640/12c+genyornis.jpg" width="434" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp4vulxPr8RgGbNh6REaw8CxoUdEVKiWWITYTdvMnIflgKHwmnHEZ10vVd8amNdpFqFCOkbySsMQZX44ISlweRiR1jzW9Oj84lgqtvkqTeVh2t-b3z-C7um_Qi-yVT73o221v1mzAbBrCx/s1600/13+trusler-megalania-990x631.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="990" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp4vulxPr8RgGbNh6REaw8CxoUdEVKiWWITYTdvMnIflgKHwmnHEZ10vVd8amNdpFqFCOkbySsMQZX44ISlweRiR1jzW9Oj84lgqtvkqTeVh2t-b3z-C7um_Qi-yVT73o221v1mzAbBrCx/s640/13+trusler-megalania-990x631.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Genyornis had to contend with <i>Varanus priscus </i>(formerly <i>Megalania prisca)</i> the largest terrestrial lizard that ever existed. Only the huge Mesozoic marine reptiles, the Mosasaurs (still technically lizards), were bigger</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjevva8ngo494myEyC1nn3nMlXzTSVz3tNII7HL1b16yxokj_x74jmkm6lRrVFVXl2ne0dQ9Z4jngb4sBa3wMUjKAEBNfnpHfVoXd_BUkQKAJEq4gVJyt2cY3X95Mdij3u7BJd2ZJH2V7XV/s1600/13a+89bf494941731a8a34f58bbdadf4efa7-d8qvivh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="1371" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjevva8ngo494myEyC1nn3nMlXzTSVz3tNII7HL1b16yxokj_x74jmkm6lRrVFVXl2ne0dQ9Z4jngb4sBa3wMUjKAEBNfnpHfVoXd_BUkQKAJEq4gVJyt2cY3X95Mdij3u7BJd2ZJH2V7XV/s640/13a+89bf494941731a8a34f58bbdadf4efa7-d8qvivh.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The size estimates for <i>Varanus priscus </i>range up to 7m long. 5 metres is probably more realistic and sufficiently terrifying. Also extinct c. 50kya.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj56dEiDr0hChO14JM4DES97sbdovSNLq6cy1pJ8YAzIRF2Ei5tyqAgIThpHsWTJjTFnhJVqPvxEmAiXpHGsNfhFwVpAafeav3b5yRIKu0IqzaUrzGTaeeBwPQUdsM3XLPnDASktmOB2xLO/s1600/13b+1ueO9FN6wGQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="990" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj56dEiDr0hChO14JM4DES97sbdovSNLq6cy1pJ8YAzIRF2Ei5tyqAgIThpHsWTJjTFnhJVqPvxEmAiXpHGsNfhFwVpAafeav3b5yRIKu0IqzaUrzGTaeeBwPQUdsM3XLPnDASktmOB2xLO/s640/13b+1ueO9FN6wGQ.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the best Diprotodon I have seen, it really captures the rough-hewn blundering coarseness that characterises remaining megafauna. <i>Diprotodon optatum </i>was at a couple of tons the largest marsupial ever to live, and part of an assemblage of large marsupial herbivores, all of which went extinct after human arrival in Australia. Image from Roman Yevseyev, the second most prolific palaeoartist called Roman. </td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="378" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaETWA_rclH5asO2VqUKj2o-DmeALrR9MKQktapW1JWeN5DWALQJRkYpCd033ZhyiLuJx7fFeP_mMR3ojYPaDEvx4iXaY_9RrBXND4cvhN8ijyCXIDeSwIMBd_vuSWcvlzMN2eCI32XlbY/s640/13c+vani-07.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="514" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Quinkana fortirostrum</i> was only a medium-sized crocodile, about alligator size, but it was entirely terrestrial so it could get you while you slept.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image by Vlad Konstantinov.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoAxlfnL47hbx0cTsLLhp8xe47YzjwuywU-XM6m3KBwytYX4YCPgdCQ7PAFGjRsHRvje_kIz6EwGov1lGl4-KxSeM26Ovzv2rtnX0QN_VYjVHH2YNJL7ZtJdqmhF8lmfdRJYkL2-lUA1v7/s1600/13d+MF-3438-860x540.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="860" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoAxlfnL47hbx0cTsLLhp8xe47YzjwuywU-XM6m3KBwytYX4YCPgdCQ7PAFGjRsHRvje_kIz6EwGov1lGl4-KxSeM26Ovzv2rtnX0QN_VYjVHH2YNJL7ZtJdqmhF8lmfdRJYkL2-lUA1v7/s640/13d+MF-3438-860x540.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Wonambi naracoortensis, </i>a five metre long constrictor from a now-vanished lineage. <br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from Peter Schouten</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZp7fPpyd4GX-shIf_efeu15YhvUaNsQbB4yBGN5q9a5gT7-8DaNIRUoreo6qCuco1XPjJpLOZtBDaTYoUoNef_UdzvNDAF6HAC-WeRv23IdVzJ2LATRQkrkaFHeGcjuJi6H6UmHqvGgoO/s1600/13e+e36a6ad43-084e-4bf2-924b-1724460f1e46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="640" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZp7fPpyd4GX-shIf_efeu15YhvUaNsQbB4yBGN5q9a5gT7-8DaNIRUoreo6qCuco1XPjJpLOZtBDaTYoUoNef_UdzvNDAF6HAC-WeRv23IdVzJ2LATRQkrkaFHeGcjuJi6H6UmHqvGgoO/s640/13e+e36a6ad43-084e-4bf2-924b-1724460f1e46.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We also had <i>Thylacoleo carnifex</i>, the leopard-sized Marsupial Lion, with its weird evil-koala dentition and vicious thumb talons.<br />
Image from Peter Schouten.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0OpMMI7oDU72ELdVPGC1zGtK3vbx7ROhY6dBfBa7FY2hJTxcu5qGKEEF177xNewAE6T2LeGFo9ywD_06gDPO0atcIkklJQFgRUEgyguvauDKRqG9aLr6bnIdMm4FI1J94G-g-LqTsCcX1/s1600/13f+Procoptodon2-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0OpMMI7oDU72ELdVPGC1zGtK3vbx7ROhY6dBfBa7FY2hJTxcu5qGKEEF177xNewAE6T2LeGFo9ywD_06gDPO0atcIkklJQFgRUEgyguvauDKRqG9aLr6bnIdMm4FI1J94G-g-LqTsCcX1/s640/13f+Procoptodon2-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And giant short-faced kangaroos like <i>Sthenurus </i>and <i>Procoptodon. </i>The Red Kangaroo, on the right, is the last marsupial species left (aside from the occasional obese wombat) that still qualifies as megafauna .<br />
Image from Roman Uchtyel.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJfsFNfXuM-ly3gEUPHaVhgxXFU6T9An0xLFYMILeEIsFOTYeY3tThMZUItvcmFWsmS2gMUxfvgzfu5Khp5uVIrFtWVSRDgsBM2kbrpUeGoKyo3iP_-RczbSLFiYHBz31zTUKRghhl63Ep/s1600/13g+vani-03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="378" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJfsFNfXuM-ly3gEUPHaVhgxXFU6T9An0xLFYMILeEIsFOTYeY3tThMZUItvcmFWsmS2gMUxfvgzfu5Khp5uVIrFtWVSRDgsBM2kbrpUeGoKyo3iP_-RczbSLFiYHBz31zTUKRghhl63Ep/s640/13g+vani-03.jpg" width="514" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Palorchestes </i>resembled a marsupial version of the giant ground sloth with a cheerfully stupid face. <br />
Image by Vlad Konstantinov.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0oXLhB78dMByynq_jG7nrHq-s3sv1_czSkhUb2TwCY748TcjliNZSC-vollmhM7FvFCAwR-oLW9sknrNUgxUTQMgGhk45wnrHkhzjTkpP2Rs7QjDqK5qwnd-QqI8oA-HzAaWgHXr_Yg9_/s1600/13h+c626b2569bee4c5799af3a8907a99012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="1000" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0oXLhB78dMByynq_jG7nrHq-s3sv1_czSkhUb2TwCY748TcjliNZSC-vollmhM7FvFCAwR-oLW9sknrNUgxUTQMgGhk45wnrHkhzjTkpP2Rs7QjDqK5qwnd-QqI8oA-HzAaWgHXr_Yg9_/s640/13h+c626b2569bee4c5799af3a8907a99012.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Giant Horned Turtle <i>Ninjemys </i>(formerly <i>Meiolania</i>) from Australia, relatives of which on Pacific islands were even larger (and were wiped out more recently).<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Image from Peter Schouten.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilYZl8edtWs8bsXjR3XrQ1kxbqUl6tNtGGVMMWYP4pn4eNCfptr-icKxpO5U7LPpl-sHvkN37gMXrX344rOixzI5V3tfdbrS5Qoz4RAxoqj3Zjlv8e6yoCOP4CgDDMToIKdzNrDBYQxAFf/s1600/14+800px-GiantTurtle-SiwalikHills.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="594" data-original-width="800" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilYZl8edtWs8bsXjR3XrQ1kxbqUl6tNtGGVMMWYP4pn4eNCfptr-icKxpO5U7LPpl-sHvkN37gMXrX344rOixzI5V3tfdbrS5Qoz4RAxoqj3Zjlv8e6yoCOP4CgDDMToIKdzNrDBYQxAFf/s640/14+800px-GiantTurtle-SiwalikHills.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Megalochelys atlas, </i>at 2000-4000kg, was the biggest tortoise that ever lived, it went extinct in Eurasia after humans arrived</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNmuTMa6dvgOGQUtu1ZOnpDBPsfNVaKb0xmS3jLYbqQpSWGYddrFeU1m7DdR9iqFtQcZ3nofljr8OGAlXLnGBDM7X8CObey-NFSIoluczn_kWtI9M3OkZeWpKOzXedsZsofmXY7jZj0SqS/s1600/15a+211a37db4ca51f44c206a2e94766d080.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1129" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNmuTMa6dvgOGQUtu1ZOnpDBPsfNVaKb0xmS3jLYbqQpSWGYddrFeU1m7DdR9iqFtQcZ3nofljr8OGAlXLnGBDM7X8CObey-NFSIoluczn_kWtI9M3OkZeWpKOzXedsZsofmXY7jZj0SqS/s640/15a+211a37db4ca51f44c206a2e94766d080.jpg" width="424" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Not my caption but the picture is too good. South America's <i>Agriotherium angustidens (</i>also known as <i>Arctotherium) </i>was the largest terrestrial mammalian carnivore we have evidence for. Estimates range up to 1.7 tons. It went extinct in the relatively recent American extinction about 12,000 years ago.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYIT2Tu1WlAgdzd2udTSx42J_V-Mb0qf2Lo_ovT1UKIPiPoslXHDgP6HvZnnytHN76xpsSUcExkz5KB44WN5dcDhzylDNVma5YO6SMvPWHA_Vb0l3Wq1L4kmP6CN6AOJDoso-TQUBAG3UR/s1600/15+bears1-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYIT2Tu1WlAgdzd2udTSx42J_V-Mb0qf2Lo_ovT1UKIPiPoslXHDgP6HvZnnytHN76xpsSUcExkz5KB44WN5dcDhzylDNVma5YO6SMvPWHA_Vb0l3Wq1L4kmP6CN6AOJDoso-TQUBAG3UR/s640/15+bears1-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">North America also had huge short-faced bears - <i>Arctodus simus. </i>Alside from their unreasonable largeness, it was their long-legged, far-ranging chasey qualities that made short-faced bears so unpleasant. Disclaimer: The bear on the right was already extinct. We are not to blame.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70lmfIS5VeP4fiGeXtHYSYlI9J12bhVAlA4eSIUcKmGCtMpp18uGhgIx0AMxSNDfj7X43wPujyA_L_xu0EhxatKYZRcf9TQ3ophwwFkVxiXWPb2QQ2FtoYaK88OJT1jfTd_S-i0w0bw6e/s1600/15b+d87m2pb-da466ece-2bae-483b-ba64-83350c17268f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70lmfIS5VeP4fiGeXtHYSYlI9J12bhVAlA4eSIUcKmGCtMpp18uGhgIx0AMxSNDfj7X43wPujyA_L_xu0EhxatKYZRcf9TQ3ophwwFkVxiXWPb2QQ2FtoYaK88OJT1jfTd_S-i0w0bw6e/s640/15b+d87m2pb-da466ece-2bae-483b-ba64-83350c17268f.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Americas had this huge range of predators 12kya: <i>Panthera atrox</i>, (American "lion" the largest cat of all time), the sabretooth <i>Smilodon fatalis</i> (not as big as <i>Smilodon populator</i>, also present in that fauna assemblage), The scimitar-toothed <i>Homotherium serum</i>, the American cheetah <i>Miracinonyx trumani, </i>and the frickin' Dire Wolf (Depressingly, there were many more also wiped out)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDxSuwakFa30h_eDXfIw2oXgKK0RFki8nkpkYopp2mBKf-WF44PUit00fm79uO7RNvH7XIYGCTDu1WcrTEWIOJYbThKR7AAYytX7QpfqbNnUs69gegyP_tnbsy9HQMHFNl9f8P1gJbE35o/s1600/15c+Homotherium-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDxSuwakFa30h_eDXfIw2oXgKK0RFki8nkpkYopp2mBKf-WF44PUit00fm79uO7RNvH7XIYGCTDu1WcrTEWIOJYbThKR7AAYytX7QpfqbNnUs69gegyP_tnbsy9HQMHFNl9f8P1gJbE35o/s640/15c+Homotherium-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There was another <i>Homotherium </i>species in Europe also. Gone now.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiysgnh3u4wNBTVYt0Tzvwu1-qmY82Colm9_chyphenhyphenyZ8UzvQlvSyIV7loTEiGTEOtDwectRR2hjIFYFoK_akNofNM7fJOLjMIDAhEQqRp1Ada_Frb2-uvsSsLhsRy3oTtWgw4dvmftwIlv55q/s1600/15d+800px-Smilodon_Knight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="800" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiysgnh3u4wNBTVYt0Tzvwu1-qmY82Colm9_chyphenhyphenyZ8UzvQlvSyIV7loTEiGTEOtDwectRR2hjIFYFoK_akNofNM7fJOLjMIDAhEQqRp1Ada_Frb2-uvsSsLhsRy3oTtWgw4dvmftwIlv55q/s640/15d+800px-Smilodon_Knight.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium;">Smilodon populator </i><span style="font-size: small;">from Charles Knight, who imbued his palaeoart with that glorious overblown American landscape tradition splendour</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXZSbvtkUBlXhPNSf5LL5sfLPj9xvCDHsce9sqmrpovecP2cin_dhwS3RJdJkLBcRPeFNUOzlkfSg9fmmlRZNbS4vySlb-QDN94EXv90RR_xMH5_aCQszPGXgFsWW1G_0kDybHl8YGkuQ_/s1600/15d+Smilodon-size1-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXZSbvtkUBlXhPNSf5LL5sfLPj9xvCDHsce9sqmrpovecP2cin_dhwS3RJdJkLBcRPeFNUOzlkfSg9fmmlRZNbS4vySlb-QDN94EXv90RR_xMH5_aCQszPGXgFsWW1G_0kDybHl8YGkuQ_/s640/15d+Smilodon-size1-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That is how big and beefy they were. Roman Uchtyel is unperturbed</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbzEMnoqPxJVmdLctjCzvRgPdashowYc12f-YKxBcetcOjR3Ue-cOfZH4nPnGMJTtudsrhzBnS3EpZ-DdPQnzMZyJVLTjVlQVxl2x_KF1b_dxd7IurjEgY7C3C6cEW0pakKG28TJ163-Ee/s1600/15e+GDn5ZUJt8Ps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="990" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbzEMnoqPxJVmdLctjCzvRgPdashowYc12f-YKxBcetcOjR3Ue-cOfZH4nPnGMJTtudsrhzBnS3EpZ-DdPQnzMZyJVLTjVlQVxl2x_KF1b_dxd7IurjEgY7C3C6cEW0pakKG28TJ163-Ee/s640/15e+GDn5ZUJt8Ps.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">It is possible that the former presence of the American Cheetah explains why the Pronghorn, second fastest land mammal, is so damned quick. Incidentally, there were 13 species of pronghorns when humans first crossed the Bering land bridge. Now there is only one.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq0Ekbr7zcb0d_a3ts7-CKVsg7OETOUyvdSPR3WrPNVUU7M0usL1dFwJaEhVcc_WVAfKzoA6GMqBgH0YOUYd56OiHN_NaX5JkJ7daCJnApXsH4Mk-wkswYq95Po6tg9eM_lrhTKDjyKwiE/s1600/15f+bed446c0a112440cde52fcee4e51f029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq0Ekbr7zcb0d_a3ts7-CKVsg7OETOUyvdSPR3WrPNVUU7M0usL1dFwJaEhVcc_WVAfKzoA6GMqBgH0YOUYd56OiHN_NaX5JkJ7daCJnApXsH4Mk-wkswYq95Po6tg9eM_lrhTKDjyKwiE/s640/15f+bed446c0a112440cde52fcee4e51f029.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plenty of examples exist, as in the case of the Ngangdong Tiger <i>Panthera tigris soloensis,</i> of populations of existing species being wiped out from areas where they formerly existed<i> P. soloensis </i>was significantly larger than existing tigers, rivalling the American Lion, and the largest Smilodon as one of the biggest cats of all time.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQLadBXjKLIaHxQUAezR0J3nuDb1_pBKQvy_FyeeZhaZXfHllMswjiN7S-N31Ia1RGabfJHPYIgQNZTqelgJvRcJHgFL1osJ6m3YoiQ6MlH8R8qhTRE-QzNsHfKZpKS11bPoaV8t9QEc5o/s1600/16+Megaloceros-size-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQLadBXjKLIaHxQUAezR0J3nuDb1_pBKQvy_FyeeZhaZXfHllMswjiN7S-N31Ia1RGabfJHPYIgQNZTqelgJvRcJHgFL1osJ6m3YoiQ6MlH8R8qhTRE-QzNsHfKZpKS11bPoaV8t9QEc5o/s640/16+Megaloceros-size-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I always thought the Irish Elk, <i>Megalaceros giganteus, </i>was the biggest deer of all time. It survived well into the Holocene</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTfxEu0jLztIgRpX_juZFvOnolJXexfx5CKvM0OPfd8vb25lXjAP0QZFJwVXqbou8UC0FZuT9ttH0JK-KBy2cFxFoa1eM4wqvUqKQReIQA8-P4zXF4sUsC8km-Vw-JDV-rRkXQQAeSBK0N/s1600/16a+Emiliano+Troco.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="921" data-original-width="1280" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTfxEu0jLztIgRpX_juZFvOnolJXexfx5CKvM0OPfd8vb25lXjAP0QZFJwVXqbou8UC0FZuT9ttH0JK-KBy2cFxFoa1eM4wqvUqKQReIQA8-P4zXF4sUsC8km-Vw-JDV-rRkXQQAeSBK0N/s640/16a+Emiliano+Troco.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nope, the biggest deer was actually the Broad-Fronted Moose,<i> Cervalces latifrons,</i> that was driven extinct by Pleistocene humans. Lovely image from Emiliano Troco.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi59V9-UZbaPThfH7k0mbmsJIhyphenhyphennPGHvrM72CHGWo2TcZwLhsk7kyhmuWbsGx7lk_G7wyg4O0tGrN5e6R4jwo24WfUR3V0IClEEJdBWf7bREG0_oiwPmQpMUhE4nR_N6tVe1bLiHuuBMfOt/s1600/17+Bizons-of-NA-size-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi59V9-UZbaPThfH7k0mbmsJIhyphenhyphennPGHvrM72CHGWo2TcZwLhsk7kyhmuWbsGx7lk_G7wyg4O0tGrN5e6R4jwo24WfUR3V0IClEEJdBWf7bREG0_oiwPmQpMUhE4nR_N6tVe1bLiHuuBMfOt/s640/17+Bizons-of-NA-size-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The largest bovid was probably <i>Bison latifrons, </i>with the comically huge horns, incidentally driven extinct by humans.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSdNJooEkldCtQctykOG2V3d6vxArEp-kuwkc7Gx2P32jL1uWFoeAFGeHqSoUY2rq0YOgd1fIz01qp0c0TDqSQA-QXM3DTgXp-6tK0RpJDamQV0vtytLItbmG0mLBrGPFHJaa9_hsBl9kK/s1600/17a+MF-3399.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="935" data-original-width="1500" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSdNJooEkldCtQctykOG2V3d6vxArEp-kuwkc7Gx2P32jL1uWFoeAFGeHqSoUY2rq0YOgd1fIz01qp0c0TDqSQA-QXM3DTgXp-6tK0RpJDamQV0vtytLItbmG0mLBrGPFHJaa9_hsBl9kK/s640/17a+MF-3399.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But it also could have been <i>Pelorovis antiquus </i>from Africa that survived until 2000 BC, also with comically huge horns. Also humans. Image from Peter Schouten</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi-PsWPHlm23_wEXAbQSxumcatXrRsCb7V46zmO6poBDIpTW-EAGnhop0YbMuwN7URAlkjZ7FoqpNXxlXzoQGmto7_hgvql0Xe_DS0YvohQsOxsxFPSisOkoSrTT05tpJJrtETGMh6_DCa/s1600/18+Archaeoindris-fontoynontii-size-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi-PsWPHlm23_wEXAbQSxumcatXrRsCb7V46zmO6poBDIpTW-EAGnhop0YbMuwN7URAlkjZ7FoqpNXxlXzoQGmto7_hgvql0Xe_DS0YvohQsOxsxFPSisOkoSrTT05tpJJrtETGMh6_DCa/s640/18+Archaeoindris-fontoynontii-size-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madacascar had, in addition to the biggest birds of all time, an extraordinarily diverse assemblage of prosimians, including the huge <i>Archaeoindris fontoynontii</i>, which may have been bigger than a gorilla. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfh0Vx80cZ39YdxT0zsOJQPu4gWh1xyuEmHEAVVvKn_gH0OxAjB948-zzyNOuYyVUeTwsngV0_7CDx_C_kBwFzPH60eE595ipX9r_atF_LXmuS41KVu-_8Nxrcyp54s0CUkM5kZ7NklIY/s1600/18b+45cfd88acee50b2b9d95f3312e63e950.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="474" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfh0Vx80cZ39YdxT0zsOJQPu4gWh1xyuEmHEAVVvKn_gH0OxAjB948-zzyNOuYyVUeTwsngV0_7CDx_C_kBwFzPH60eE595ipX9r_atF_LXmuS41KVu-_8Nxrcyp54s0CUkM5kZ7NklIY/s640/18b+45cfd88acee50b2b9d95f3312e63e950.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It also had this giant fossa,<i> Cryptoprocta spleea, </i> like an arboreal leopard-mongoose. I really don't like the one on the right.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbY65t_jsAOBZxYoM87HkwX3lfSVSLXqTxM4vv04ZWcrhlgR3gfdm1K9lCehwvoukc_AU696lVdptawZlcsX1uiH_YG2oHbwrd4KxGJLCN0Oy0roPB8-FTi6wdaGv-qxgEiIEqutZ9gpKb/s1600/18c+MF-3374-810x540.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="810" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbY65t_jsAOBZxYoM87HkwX3lfSVSLXqTxM4vv04ZWcrhlgR3gfdm1K9lCehwvoukc_AU696lVdptawZlcsX1uiH_YG2oHbwrd4KxGJLCN0Oy0roPB8-FTi6wdaGv-qxgEiIEqutZ9gpKb/s640/18c+MF-3374-810x540.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Madagascan fauna included, until about 1500 AD, two kinds of pygmy hippos, similar species used to exist on various islands around the Mediterranean. Insular species are very susceptible to extinction so they're all gone. Humans.<br />
Image by Peter Schouten.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizS4yQgBL2mwIa0jLT4yPWZGl2FX91Wpe0M49j-OWr7xEtOw3eyLweYzZDUtPwWY12S7JbQFDiRct5SC9wCSIXIVRQeNbrrwPXaSoq8OULIZ-6XNWBVmV32BCycJ_xnNdL_bALNDyimGrS/s1600/19+20090421130214-megatherium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="388" height="548" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizS4yQgBL2mwIa0jLT4yPWZGl2FX91Wpe0M49j-OWr7xEtOw3eyLweYzZDUtPwWY12S7JbQFDiRct5SC9wCSIXIVRQeNbrrwPXaSoq8OULIZ-6XNWBVmV32BCycJ_xnNdL_bALNDyimGrS/s640/19+20090421130214-megatherium.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The largest sloth to ever live, <i>Megatherium americanum, </i>was around until shortly after humans arrived in the Americas about 12-14kya. It was about the size of an elephant</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi6QD4GQQlyo1IAHIyDvy16oO5SkgkK-8AzVJNsBo6Pp2CAA7ieLLImRW7EiAOcZdH-Hc_A_zF-3krZDl7PC3aqBrTv6oitdjpPs403khDK_8hXvI88hKXZawVVRQATZ8gJGuw_pA4COgE/s1600/19a+ground-sloths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="500" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi6QD4GQQlyo1IAHIyDvy16oO5SkgkK-8AzVJNsBo6Pp2CAA7ieLLImRW7EiAOcZdH-Hc_A_zF-3krZDl7PC3aqBrTv6oitdjpPs403khDK_8hXvI88hKXZawVVRQATZ8gJGuw_pA4COgE/s640/19a+ground-sloths.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was also just part of an array of giant ground sloths that had thrived in the Americas for a very long time, the last of which were exterminated on Caribbean Islands around the time the pyramids were built.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRF9fGz32gM-hvemOWmvDhLNqPaVlIDd7qosa1zVZ_-BStyPX9jagxPVpCuvcjezhSzX02M3GDmqSpOsL1_DzGfwUGK9-oqHGNK87gosWTnra_IDzsh53X60LTo6OH-9ILmQLUwdDogaLj/s1600/19+Doedicurus-size-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRF9fGz32gM-hvemOWmvDhLNqPaVlIDd7qosa1zVZ_-BStyPX9jagxPVpCuvcjezhSzX02M3GDmqSpOsL1_DzGfwUGK9-oqHGNK87gosWTnra_IDzsh53X60LTo6OH-9ILmQLUwdDogaLj/s640/19+Doedicurus-size-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Armadillos, much like sloths, were represented by a variety of huge and bizarre forms, <i>Doedicurus clavicaudatus </i>happened upon an approximation of the ankylosaur body plan.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip04k0lba44DyfHKVIxP78deCRAjTKAvGqJyQg9vGH5bq-2TYffRUYmEu19CL5uKI4xFR8c1FTqNkyzbzdr0ZNBJWlI33IJtNkoxD5nr5v2cAmJDFsDfvMwz0Ll3jFq9m7wPU9VZ-wy2kn/s1600/19+Glyptodon_old_drawing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="653" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip04k0lba44DyfHKVIxP78deCRAjTKAvGqJyQg9vGH5bq-2TYffRUYmEu19CL5uKI4xFR8c1FTqNkyzbzdr0ZNBJWlI33IJtNkoxD5nr5v2cAmJDFsDfvMwz0Ll3jFq9m7wPU9VZ-wy2kn/s640/19+Glyptodon_old_drawing.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As did <i>Glyptodon </i>in this lovely old illustration by Heinrich Harder.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwdB612VgX5UM2LIY8SKIw6JI51fPRleNqoV7ELsQ0rcIYQfSFvnW5WRbKBM4UsYBnN49FTkyby6crXub8c3GsbJA0pDp0ArD0cZfZohZTFzufakVRFNdUYsJL3qUS4SgB0vfRLKv_2kdk/s1600/21+pIGBQVVmWA4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="978" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwdB612VgX5UM2LIY8SKIw6JI51fPRleNqoV7ELsQ0rcIYQfSFvnW5WRbKBM4UsYBnN49FTkyby6crXub8c3GsbJA0pDp0ArD0cZfZohZTFzufakVRFNdUYsJL3qUS4SgB0vfRLKv_2kdk/s640/21+pIGBQVVmWA4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A lot of people know there used to be horses in the Americas, the largest , <i>Equus giganteus, </i>(henceforth<i> </i>Gigantic Horse)<i> </i>weighed around 1.2 tons and was thus the largest equine.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEillwcBSE8CA9lOdz29pIxHJpYTdxFTrr7uGwOB_O3caXSBMAUZF9jzUPwpL8S3q1i9GYkszKiafZEM6UHHPEZecPktzzcoP9UcZg0vebhxUBBBh53sSQ56E2AYOanbXIAOlRz3ItHu5zjk/s1600/19+slide-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="1288" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEillwcBSE8CA9lOdz29pIxHJpYTdxFTrr7uGwOB_O3caXSBMAUZF9jzUPwpL8S3q1i9GYkszKiafZEM6UHHPEZecPktzzcoP9UcZg0vebhxUBBBh53sSQ56E2AYOanbXIAOlRz3ItHu5zjk/s640/19+slide-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meanwhile, New Zealand was home to a diverse array of birds and very few native mammals (mainly bats). The two Dinornis species, the largest of the nine moa species, were, at 240 kg, about the same size as Australia's <i>Genyornis</i>, twice the size of an ostrich and a third the size of Madagascar's Vorombe. The moa all went extinct during the mediaeval period. Their relatively recent extinction means that we have better quality archaeological sites showing that they were butchered for the choice cuts and much of the meat was wasted. Image from Peter Schouten.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmgFTan8iI79dkR6Q2CJtnxOxaFtsBYTvwsuFFbszqG_unFve8Ug0FcBbmo02MHri397xtcm1U8ihyyq_ZQ-WtMfqwPxtuELL_bHu8aOajyRX-it2CIyft9LfP47EQj1PHyH_sZVS5pTPT/s1600/19b+TPOALS011800_WM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="621" height="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmgFTan8iI79dkR6Q2CJtnxOxaFtsBYTvwsuFFbszqG_unFve8Ug0FcBbmo02MHri397xtcm1U8ihyyq_ZQ-WtMfqwPxtuELL_bHu8aOajyRX-it2CIyft9LfP47EQj1PHyH_sZVS5pTPT/s640/19b+TPOALS011800_WM.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prior to human arrival, the only predator of the moa was <i>Harpagornis moorei, </i>the largest eagle ever to exist. It is gone now.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjX-3MwRsuPNNDnlnqavm3ccGsoCwo56FtP2iweU8EP49aV0I3pTguCouCqqDaa3vrtyJuSdCxiqTaHG_Z8xHlz7lLtlqhL_RLVbnROGVBsphZWV3Hoo8jevZ2BpCe6-HMI5kQIJYrzri6/s1600/22+gf9heyl9vpkz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="330" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjX-3MwRsuPNNDnlnqavm3ccGsoCwo56FtP2iweU8EP49aV0I3pTguCouCqqDaa3vrtyJuSdCxiqTaHG_Z8xHlz7lLtlqhL_RLVbnROGVBsphZWV3Hoo8jevZ2BpCe6-HMI5kQIJYrzri6/s640/22+gf9heyl9vpkz.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The largest owl of all time was the Cuban Giant Owl, <i>Ornimegalonyx. </i>Probably flightless but a fast runner. Doubtless hooting hideously as it chases you through the primordial forest dark. Extinct since the end of the Pleistocene.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcnsNtnUleohrltDC8NuSRN_slRTtH9zum632YOduP78ODC-t_7F3-iJFsaznh2HZm3Cip3jIFKAC-jLvbPK2EKptQjLipDFKNGYpsy-G0ke7RvzRPeUTPPdJ5Xkb4lPkY4f_zUHN3QfJn/s1600/23+Aiolornis-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcnsNtnUleohrltDC8NuSRN_slRTtH9zum632YOduP78ODC-t_7F3-iJFsaznh2HZm3Cip3jIFKAC-jLvbPK2EKptQjLipDFKNGYpsy-G0ke7RvzRPeUTPPdJ5Xkb4lPkY4f_zUHN3QfJn/s640/23+Aiolornis-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rather surprisingly, the largest flying bird of all time, the largest teratorn <i>Argentavis magnificens</i>, went extinct long before we had a chance to drive it extinct. Its smaller cousin <i>Ailornis incredilbilis </i>still had a 5m wingspan, far larger than any living bird, and was the largest thing flying until the arrival in the Americas of humans and the rapid extinction of the colossal creatures whose colossal carrion that would have provided the sustenance for this giant carrion fowl.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLKhwdycgEcpLQ71wIk6e6446vCI1pt4FmQhSC9ApX0fy7-2GbpnnU25tk04AAamzVmi3lRmHasmb8wW0QT2vQdufYEvKn0uYQXwTMM90AFiwzJXrn4xUWhDsY1jKcoq4dr_mZJ-suCXNO/s1600/23a+Castoroides-ohioensis-size-738x591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="738" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLKhwdycgEcpLQ71wIk6e6446vCI1pt4FmQhSC9ApX0fy7-2GbpnnU25tk04AAamzVmi3lRmHasmb8wW0QT2vQdufYEvKn0uYQXwTMM90AFiwzJXrn4xUWhDsY1jKcoq4dr_mZJ-suCXNO/s640/23a+Castoroides-ohioensis-size-738x591.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Biggest beaver ever. Gone 12,000 years ago.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZo-pJk-P70OyfeRPng3RNL9wIQ01uWoP0lVB_nyhr9fqMDwz9i5ygMRc6oUEWPJfWTtEl0P15GnKziR_xOJMCdLpl4kN68CrQK-oDlcm6IS-mBc27Jpn_jQKp44Rvo2Fo1lmUPdAg9Bu/s1600/24+maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZo-pJk-P70OyfeRPng3RNL9wIQ01uWoP0lVB_nyhr9fqMDwz9i5ygMRc6oUEWPJfWTtEl0P15GnKziR_xOJMCdLpl4kN68CrQK-oDlcm6IS-mBc27Jpn_jQKp44Rvo2Fo1lmUPdAg9Bu/s640/24+maxresdefault.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finally, Europe was home to a shaggy array of extraordinary shaggy creatures, most of which are sufficiently well-known that I don't feel the need to enumerate them here - Cave lions, Cave bears, Cave hyenas, Cave men, Woolly mammoths, Woolly Rhinos. Its almost like there's a theme. My favourite is this colossal horned muppet, <i>Elasmotherium sibiricum</i>, a primitive rhinoceros the size of an elephant</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mlCkq8Zi8KjHYpa4Xm6Y5kXo5Yi_xtCrWt-nE-uO8aq-y1Q3XlC8ihNHolKOcn3UzO5otXgmhSp5l2HShoW6J5sG2lErQmV6H7MleYCBN5fjJXmw1QSyq8HAv1YvSafJ8KJ41K9uVa6M/s1600/25+Ice_age_fauna_of_northern_Spain_-_Mauricio_Ant%25C3%25B3n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="1600" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mlCkq8Zi8KjHYpa4Xm6Y5kXo5Yi_xtCrWt-nE-uO8aq-y1Q3XlC8ihNHolKOcn3UzO5otXgmhSp5l2HShoW6J5sG2lErQmV6H7MleYCBN5fjJXmw1QSyq8HAv1YvSafJ8KJ41K9uVa6M/s640/25+Ice_age_fauna_of_northern_Spain_-_Mauricio_Ant%25C3%25B3n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's all a sadly familiar story.<br />
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Curiously, a little farther back in time, between 130,000 an 115,000 period there was another interglacial period resembling the Holocene. At this stage, while the numerous human species on Earth already included our own, we were still inhabiting the curious category of Anatomically Modern <i>Homo sapiens </i>and had yet to achieve Behavioural Modernity. The transition to Behavioural Modernity, what Jared Diamond called The Great Leap Forward, probably had something to do with the development of complex language as it precipitated a Cambrian Explosion of cultural development. Humanity during this Eemian interglacial may have ventured out of Africa to some extent, genetic markers in Neanderthal DNA indicate a few furtive forays of our lineage before the great crossing of the Gates of Grief, but did not have the necessary toolkit to conquer the Earth. All human populations in recorded history had the complex set of traits we characterise as Behavioural Modernity. Everyone alive today is from the only lineage of hominid that survived the great extinctions.<br />
<br />
The Eemian fascinates me. It was slightly warmer, on average than now (we are catching up). Hippos cavorted in the Thames. The ancestors of the songbirds you know probably had different accents. There were more creatures in the world then. We had not tamed it.<br />
<br />
That is a nagging doubt that I return to: that rather than merely being an extravagant waste of irreplaceable diversity, the bloody business our ancestors conducted during the last Ice Age was the necessary Great Taming of the Wild. If they had not done these terrible deeds then maybe I wouldn't sleep so soundly in my bed, knowing that there was no chance I would be killed and eaten by a giant lizard.<br />
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And maybe the violence in us is a necessary adaptation to a world far more dangerous than that which remains, our heedless energy a sign of our role as the perennial invasive species, to whom no terrestrial ecosystem is unconquerable.<br />
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It explains a lot.<br />
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It may not be possible to determine, beyond a shadow of a doubt, which period of evolutionary history supported the greatest biodiversity. The moment in time that immediately preceded human groups leaving Africa may be the strongest candidate. In addition to producing the bewildering array of forms now extinct, far more than I have mentioned, and the forms that remain, it produced several <i>Homo </i>species. The evolutionary algorithm, grinding away behind all things, gave rise to us. The others are gone now.<br />
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---<br />
This is from the end of Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">“It was an old hunter in camp and the hunter shared tobacco with him and told him of the buffalo and the stands he'd made against them, laid up in a sag on some rise with the dead animals scattered over the grounds and the herd beginning to mill and the riflebarrel so hot the wiping patches sizzled in the bore and the animals by the thousands and the tens of thousands and the hides pegged out over actual square miles of ground the teams of skinners spelling one another around the clock and the shooting and shooting weeks and months till the bore shot slick and the stock shot loose at the tang and their shoulders were yellow and blue to the elbow and the tandem wagons groaned away over the prairie twenty and twenty-two ox teams and the flint hides by the hundred ton and the meat rotting on the ground and the air whining with flies and the buzzards and ravens and the night a horror of snarling and feeding with the wolves half-crazed and wallowing in the carrion.<br /><br />I seen Studebaker wagons with six and eight ox teams headed out for the grounds not hauling a thing but lead. Just pure galena. Tons of it. On this ground alone between the Arkansas River and the Concho there were eight million carcasses for that's how many hides reached the railhead. Two years ago we pulled out from Griffin for a last hunt. We ransacked the country. Six weeks. Finally found a herd of eight animals and we killed them and come in. They're gone. Ever one of them that God ever made is gone as if they'd never been at all.<br /><br />The ragged sparks blew down the wind. The prairie about them lay silent. Beyond the fire it was cold and the night was clear and the stars were falling. The old hunter pulled his blanket about him. I wonder if there's other worlds like this, he said. Or if this is the only one.”</span></h1>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdp2S_obbCWqHX94Bv-MvJLJ8JTU8pWXThWG6TDI6BUJTADO6WK1o6JAbUVz9mOyPK4lOIYtvy48osjcYx2tlCCf8THdKxUuE777DUqM-b0kki6hhUFiixBZ1-zSFH0O9b2wKbVMzQ696b/s1600/Bison+skulls+pile+to+be+used+for+fertilizer+%252C+1870.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1251" data-original-width="1600" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdp2S_obbCWqHX94Bv-MvJLJ8JTU8pWXThWG6TDI6BUJTADO6WK1o6JAbUVz9mOyPK4lOIYtvy48osjcYx2tlCCf8THdKxUuE777DUqM-b0kki6hhUFiixBZ1-zSFH0O9b2wKbVMzQ696b/s640/Bison+skulls+pile+to+be+used+for+fertilizer+%252C+1870.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bison skulls destined to be used as fertiliser</td></tr>
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----<br />
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<b>But what of the Ampersand and its Flanking Capitals? </b><br />
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I have not forgotten about that. I do not think it needs to be spelled out but wallowing in carrion is our birthright and we must continually invent more worlds to conquer.<br />
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Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-41981983463233931842015-09-27T00:24:00.000+10:002015-09-28T22:30:57.385+10:00Body Armour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I think that armour is one of the
hallmarks of civilisation. I speak here of civilisation in the classic sense: agrarian, stratified, complex
societies in which a calorific surplus supports classes of specialists. </div>
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Armour was an effective
means of gaining military advantage for most of human history. Every tribe had
access to weapons, every tribe had its fair share of violent men, but there are
things about armour that require a level of organisation and wealth unavailable to nomadic peoples living in small kinship groups but that is available to
settled people who live in towns and cities connected by trade. The
fact of there being sufficient surplus to invest into military technology and
the incentive to do so (to protect the surplus) means that military tech
seems to emerge out of the situation spontaneously. Military technology is like
a physical manifestation of the basic human desire to do violence with impunity, and the cultural environment provided by civilisation allows it to thrive. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Historical armour worked, every single piece of armour I have included would have provided a degree of protection from injury from the kinds of weapons that the members of those cultures would have encountered. All other things being equal, the armoured individual wins the fight. In addition to this, armour also functions effectively as a sign of status. Its effectiveness as a sign and its effectiveness as a protective garment are inextricably linked: craftsmanship implies laborious attainment of skill, wealth, power. In order to produce effective armour there is a degree of organisation that needs to take place; organisation of labour, development of special skills, economic activity associated with the acquisition of materials, the production of surplus to support it all. The warrior wearing the armour carries around the evidence of this civilisation like a talisman. The more magnificent the armour the more cunning and splendid the civilisation behind it all must be.</div>
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It could also be said that by implying the presence of sophisticated civilisation behind it all, the warriors are also advertising their own effectiveness as men of violence. With such sheep, what must the shepherds be like?</div>
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In terms of game mechanics I am conflicted. I simultaneously love the bewildering variety of armour and armour components available and dislike too much mechanical complexity. I am pretty happy with a system of light, medium and heavy armour, with helmets and shields providing extra bonuses, but would like to have a very crunchy system where lowly characters in jackboots and wooden helmets strip slain enemies of their rancid fish leather cuirasses to gain a small advantage. </div>
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Ideally, everything in every game should be unique, it should be illustrated and it should be culturally and mechanically embedded in the game. So rather than wearing a wearing a mail shirt, a character should be wearing a rusty <i>baidana</i> with the names of the twenty-seven Thulean saints inscribed upon the rings. (+3 AC, +1 reaction among Praskoviyan Heretics, -4 reaction among Laighlander clergy). This is probably too ponderous.</div>
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{The other option is to rule Fibre, Wood, Skin and Textile armor as Light (+1 AC), Scale, Lamellar, Brigandine,Coats-of-Plates and Mail as Medium (+3 AC) Plate as Heavy (+5 AC), Helmets and small shields offer +1 AC each and large shields offer +2 AC}</div>
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What follows is a crude typology I established based on a few feckless days of perfunctory perusal and the raiding of Pinterest pins from some bloke who took offence and blocked me (which is apparently a thing). The categories are not backed up by any academic study but are useful in lumping things together that they may be examined. I am aware that the list is by no means complete and would appreciate additional examples of strange armour from around the world. I am also aware that there are many composite forms that combine one or more of the following categories - this is especially the case with Japanese armour which seems to be approximately as complex as all the armour of the rest of the world combined (so I am trying to avoid it). I'll do shields and helmets later on.</div>
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The categories I have chosen are based on techniques of manufacture and are;</div>
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<ol>
<li><b>Fibre/Wooden Armour</b>: wooden armour. rattan armour, things composed primarily of raw cellulose.</li>
<li><b>Skin Armour</b>: leather, hides, things composed of the skins of other things</li>
<li><b>Textile Armou</b>r: armour composed of woven fabrics</li>
<li><b>Scale/Lamellar Armour</b>: armour composed of individual plates attached to itself or to a backing</li>
<li><b>Brigandine/Coat of plates</b>: armour composed of individual plates attached to the inside of a garment</li>
<li><b>Mail Armour</b>: armour composed of a mesh of linked metal rings</li>
<li><b>Plate Armour</b>: armour composed primarily of metal plates</li>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Armours</span></b></div>
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<b>Fibre/Wood</b> - these armours are, along with the Skin category, among the most primitive. I am certain, though, that they provided significant military advantage for those who wore them, especially if they were fighting unarmoured enemies, which, in the contexts these kinds of armours existed, was highly likely.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCCHcyMjIznIp0NT6zaf8xEdaeiNetY8DW1UiHwFYYsgFI17qf_JbYpeGlBcn8gSnd-1LcJKAjUumo0NhCDwDJYkSU2_0_fDwYmQZD9_kwAB4tXYyE3OreqkMt6_Sq6_VPuoPMzjIDQKy5/s1600/Fibre+Papuan+woven+cane+cuirasses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCCHcyMjIznIp0NT6zaf8xEdaeiNetY8DW1UiHwFYYsgFI17qf_JbYpeGlBcn8gSnd-1LcJKAjUumo0NhCDwDJYkSU2_0_fDwYmQZD9_kwAB4tXYyE3OreqkMt6_Sq6_VPuoPMzjIDQKy5/s640/Fibre+Papuan+woven+cane+cuirasses.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Papuan woven fibre cuirasses</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhD6CWAcu84y8nmD9xo50pHguBRcZpqVeuB5fHrN4n1_6jMr6PVML054wieTyLib8QrmlfOhhGetvX16NrRtp7gLSkSouRBJ7sNqSS0PfHBvLu2zlQoE976VLh-i-Q4yCTO2xl4MYgVxJE/s1600/Fiber+Aleutian+wooden+rod+armour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhD6CWAcu84y8nmD9xo50pHguBRcZpqVeuB5fHrN4n1_6jMr6PVML054wieTyLib8QrmlfOhhGetvX16NrRtp7gLSkSouRBJ7sNqSS0PfHBvLu2zlQoE976VLh-i-Q4yCTO2xl4MYgVxJE/s400/Fiber+Aleutian+wooden+rod+armour.jpg" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aleutian wooden rod armour - Alaska</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwbGCt-Pt6ZzCE6qNIEiJEzjCBKrcLsYG7twLRhRmaA9sXSEQ-lB5uvK_Rr95Loq1ocG3VYjzpuvoIiWdmX0edwawibH23pVEveckOtW3u79QSslAB4kCGZXKE99WHHFRIYFwbR9hfHSzd/s1600/Fiber+kingsmill+island.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwbGCt-Pt6ZzCE6qNIEiJEzjCBKrcLsYG7twLRhRmaA9sXSEQ-lB5uvK_Rr95Loq1ocG3VYjzpuvoIiWdmX0edwawibH23pVEveckOtW3u79QSslAB4kCGZXKE99WHHFRIYFwbR9hfHSzd/s640/Fiber+kingsmill+island.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gilbert Islands woven coconut fibre armour with porcupine puffer fish helmet</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4QJGQ4rmmv4EbiTHEqyCEkbO80XvD6bgrF4nsokr4QVvB6pyiGpieTOPj3ERh_mehlQTZ2A1EmedM5zBYh6aQlqF4_TIizd4O1i8EyDMsybhbMy8M4VZ8D-v02lgb4Pyoe9-hYvds9tIK/s1600/Fibre+Nauru+coconut+fibre+1891.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4QJGQ4rmmv4EbiTHEqyCEkbO80XvD6bgrF4nsokr4QVvB6pyiGpieTOPj3ERh_mehlQTZ2A1EmedM5zBYh6aQlqF4_TIizd4O1i8EyDMsybhbMy8M4VZ8D-v02lgb4Pyoe9-hYvds9tIK/s640/Fibre+Nauru+coconut+fibre+1891.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nauru woven coconut fibre armour</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8XfQ9HjcwoaSTWvpmG4-mIdu_us_y1l_61IHvLWQn8MzAwYHlYt68f1_tn973kgtP7fSl6yCfoo8QLx23Hjr5FduSLl357J35Plc1G_JhmawW54Mj3S8m5bWhgghzsq-X5Ik-Zke589jl/s1600/Fibre+Shasta+rod+armour+19th+c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8XfQ9HjcwoaSTWvpmG4-mIdu_us_y1l_61IHvLWQn8MzAwYHlYt68f1_tn973kgtP7fSl6yCfoo8QLx23Hjr5FduSLl357J35Plc1G_JhmawW54Mj3S8m5bWhgghzsq-X5Ik-Zke589jl/s400/Fibre+Shasta+rod+armour+19th+c.jpg" width="358" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shasta wooden rod and fibre armour - Pacific Northwest</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbrzwCTN-d5PJCK0Py7gzftY4ggQB2fCDNae0yYvA00VArM19CGHmoxXzFIjdYktKJgApIno-dAY_SS16zoTkHVYJ10FFCpJx9mm_uOk81e0nkBxTVvtyfkRx03GeQbKQNVjSXNzxTnSRQ/s1600/Fibre+Tao+Fish+skin+and+rattan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbrzwCTN-d5PJCK0Py7gzftY4ggQB2fCDNae0yYvA00VArM19CGHmoxXzFIjdYktKJgApIno-dAY_SS16zoTkHVYJ10FFCpJx9mm_uOk81e0nkBxTVvtyfkRx03GeQbKQNVjSXNzxTnSRQ/s400/Fibre+Tao+Fish+skin+and+rattan.jpg" width="343" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tao woven rattan and fish leather cuirass - Taiwan</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCrVYNXhZZUeAYG1QN3CITc7g0QcaP3c4k_vUMEOkHLvo_Xg-9sMdEv_-uf9xBbxN1d2E76gGpLsOOYqZcalNzw0GveElYfJwtqwH7mKCC8s2EfIvdxJz6Up8npc0x6gQ46K7imUaenvM/s1600/Fibre+wooden+splints+and+wicker+breastplate+wooden+helmet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBCrVYNXhZZUeAYG1QN3CITc7g0QcaP3c4k_vUMEOkHLvo_Xg-9sMdEv_-uf9xBbxN1d2E76gGpLsOOYqZcalNzw0GveElYfJwtqwH7mKCC8s2EfIvdxJz6Up8npc0x6gQ46K7imUaenvM/s640/Fibre+wooden+splints+and+wicker+breastplate+wooden+helmet.jpg" width="368" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tlingit wooden splint and woven fibre armour - Alaska. Note awesome wooden helmet and bevor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>Skin Armour:</b> Not nearly as prominent as you'd think from the depictions in film, television and rpgs, various forms of leather and hide armour have existed in various cultures over the centuries. Most have rotted so we have to make do with such cryptic references as this one describing rhinoceros hide armour in the Chinese Warring States period, 5th to 3rd century BC (at the end of which the species were, unsurprisingly, hunted to local extinction):<br />
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<i>"The armorers (han jên) make the cuirasses (kia). Those made from the hide of the two-horned rhinoceros (si) consist of seven layers of hide; those made from the hide of the single-horned rhinoceros (se) consist of six layers. Those made from a combination of both hides consist of five layers. The first endure a hundred years; the second, two hundred; the third, three hundred."</i><br />
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Note: I'd like to find some authentic, non-fantasy cuir-boulli but Gygax casts too long a shadow<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGywGnbBWFQ89_Z8B3U5Qahe0PuXzKWHYcpZIbU02rymALIm4mQEYbX0pcVbZZVqMhlUJ5GBlJaRyZy6Bm5R49hkESTRZgLUmJMMNvaFX2Wg7yHzMKIBm2Vp7HCPHf0zW_xfSiTJaue6fp/s1600/Skin+Chukchi+Walrus+hide+and+rattan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGywGnbBWFQ89_Z8B3U5Qahe0PuXzKWHYcpZIbU02rymALIm4mQEYbX0pcVbZZVqMhlUJ5GBlJaRyZy6Bm5R49hkESTRZgLUmJMMNvaFX2Wg7yHzMKIBm2Vp7HCPHf0zW_xfSiTJaue6fp/s640/Skin+Chukchi+Walrus+hide+and+rattan.jpg" width="570" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chukchi walrus hide and wood armour from Eastern Siberia, note the special back shield characteristic of Chukchi and Koryak armours</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The Chukchis were formidable warriors who offered ferocious resistance to Russian colonisation, from a 1909 description of Chukchi warriors:<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">"To be fit for fighting, every warrior undergoes hard training, and
spends all his leisure in various exercises ... The hero must run for long
distances, drawing a heavily-loaded sledge. He carries stone and timber,
jumps up in the air, but above all, he fences with his long spear. He
performs this exercise quite alone; and the chief feature of it is the
brandishing of the spear with the utmost force, so that it bends like a piece
of raw reindeer leg-skin. He also practices shooting with the bow, and
uses for this purpose in various arrows [sic], sharp and blunt. from all
these exercises he acquires great skill and agility ... When he is shot at, he
avoids the arrows by springing to one side, or parries them all with the
butt-end of the spear, or simply catches them between his fingers and throws
them back."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGuraEp_1QEBspQVxMlvZGdjNDjrc89DoNeb9i7AZkUna3kjE5hyLsgjUe0J8HsCynFdcdj6T24UcGIrRPTAF7QLmqMx2BRLneG54yA93E_pUTTXqlpHTiTmUnyce7vdrcrvLvPvot9aKe/s1600/Skin+Crocodile+skin+Roman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGuraEp_1QEBspQVxMlvZGdjNDjrc89DoNeb9i7AZkUna3kjE5hyLsgjUe0J8HsCynFdcdj6T24UcGIrRPTAF7QLmqMx2BRLneG54yA93E_pUTTXqlpHTiTmUnyce7vdrcrvLvPvot9aKe/s640/Skin+Crocodile+skin+Roman.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roman Crocodile skin armour and Helmet from Egypt 3rd century AD Said to be ceremonial</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><img src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/9a/c9/22/9ac9225a71c9d2dbd2492b8a66b99eef.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">But the Osprey Men-at-Arms series of books will interpret everything in the fightingest way possible</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB6M5cVXpDLkZdM4Z-b3EQXV7SWKRF5pQhfdCKAyBfTUGepWAAGChHc1elqsiN2oPg4BCYQEU68nBQIocnrwQkMHLexaxfsM_q2jUtxoRjne-gnC9v_6M9cVL2TcN1QGHEpDRgFk1FHjIT/s1600/Skin+Jackboots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB6M5cVXpDLkZdM4Z-b3EQXV7SWKRF5pQhfdCKAyBfTUGepWAAGChHc1elqsiN2oPg4BCYQEU68nBQIocnrwQkMHLexaxfsM_q2jUtxoRjne-gnC9v_6M9cVL2TcN1QGHEpDRgFk1FHjIT/s400/Skin+Jackboots.jpg" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jackboots were a legitimate form of armour, Notably, greaves and sabatons were among the first components of plate armour abandoned and replaced with these</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrLsvSRA2Iyaut30EQyTqqQ3u9bfXUfanCXGWeoStIqOuNAy7iedZIclQxBiU8aS38TSs7xeaEnHuCIDWHmwmvl34ukTwLzFQwbrJy7-TyuRHtJDeVKcgEtIKitn_n3Ga-ODQPXvZnUMsj/s1600/Skin+Sulawesi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrLsvSRA2Iyaut30EQyTqqQ3u9bfXUfanCXGWeoStIqOuNAy7iedZIclQxBiU8aS38TSs7xeaEnHuCIDWHmwmvl34ukTwLzFQwbrJy7-TyuRHtJDeVKcgEtIKitn_n3Ga-ODQPXvZnUMsj/s400/Skin+Sulawesi.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leather Cuirass from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHyq1NtNU0U9nzkmm7ZNx4dxphu-H2-nyX086qDBQIZvn0f-m9fc2XnTrnjIbOECwfFzkxEEe5hSzWfyU0RV0Ld0X1gyZbe_ve8wq8Naur9ziMAnzhnPckldSI-Rjk5f2hIjW6jpWZfFuw/s1600/Skin+Buff+coat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHyq1NtNU0U9nzkmm7ZNx4dxphu-H2-nyX086qDBQIZvn0f-m9fc2XnTrnjIbOECwfFzkxEEe5hSzWfyU0RV0Ld0X1gyZbe_ve8wq8Naur9ziMAnzhnPckldSI-Rjk5f2hIjW6jpWZfFuw/s640/Skin+Buff+coat.jpg" width="340" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buff Coat, 17th century Engrish. These were notable for costing more than the cuirass of plate it was customarily worn with (for peculiar historical reasons)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXp9LBW5zAA94oiBa5Aixaim7qeCS8JMzJqeXShpoo08W_SVQ1Xv0w86rOHVOMuK9b-A3DZSA2APpVW4nqPQqynlxHdI3U9rNTSWIGjRs_uTyOgJbqdxUrhm4g3keuIabCfJv6z53buP3A/s1600/Skin+Yami+fish+leather+and+rattan+helmet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXp9LBW5zAA94oiBa5Aixaim7qeCS8JMzJqeXShpoo08W_SVQ1Xv0w86rOHVOMuK9b-A3DZSA2APpVW4nqPQqynlxHdI3U9rNTSWIGjRs_uTyOgJbqdxUrhm4g3keuIabCfJv6z53buP3A/s400/Skin+Yami+fish+leather+and+rattan+helmet.jpg" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yami fish leather cuirass and rattan helmet, Taiwan. Yes, fish leather is apparently a thing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Textile Armour:</b> this represents the most widespread and unsung type of armour in history. It worked quite well in surprising contexts. I have seen recreations of linen jacks resisting reconstructions of bodkin arrows fired from replica longbows admirably.<br />
<div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9t2EVkrLkCLJOzq0Sk8yUNW9U1B3yqbEOMIvNOAGCetG5G7CB7q9GwQIPGM9roo26c0ef8dn-rT2tps0_mN2Brbh6246soijFu6vXVb-rI5Y514iB5fI-tJGosavOIpNqm940jiyPKldr/s1600/Textile+Aztec+Ichcahuipilli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9t2EVkrLkCLJOzq0Sk8yUNW9U1B3yqbEOMIvNOAGCetG5G7CB7q9GwQIPGM9roo26c0ef8dn-rT2tps0_mN2Brbh6246soijFu6vXVb-rI5Y514iB5fI-tJGosavOIpNqm940jiyPKldr/s640/Textile+Aztec+Ichcahuipilli.jpg" width="459" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aztec manuscript depicting ichcahuipilli padded armour. Probably similar to European gambesons. Notable for the fact that many Spanish eventually adopted its use because it was less oppressively hot than plate cuirasses</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxn6S4dbGMH8gAhkGhFlBsD3lejdbBRGoohmXNDPNMa4smTZ-AfCIay849UzlRcyJJTaD48nYg0AngTW3LMKhyphenhyphenK9XYfivLSXvRGW-zghjITv7T2_QdJv2AnhGeOXMboowsZYpipcbLm5X/s1600/Textile+Cameroon+quilted+armour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqxn6S4dbGMH8gAhkGhFlBsD3lejdbBRGoohmXNDPNMa4smTZ-AfCIay849UzlRcyJJTaD48nYg0AngTW3LMKhyphenhyphenK9XYfivLSXvRGW-zghjITv7T2_QdJv2AnhGeOXMboowsZYpipcbLm5X/s400/Textile+Cameroon+quilted+armour.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quilted armour from the Cameroon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Xg6od9h40IehbhV_Rols-HypRKQutIonfycJwaQLka-gVNjwTjfqXfQ7KW8uohKKnmRHRs3GLMS8EN-hRNLld4a6_A3twCxLAiTc_8zs2M-pApDvmqmtCnp4gizJNKhYu42yNPHD-Srm/s1600/Textile+chilta+hazar+masha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Xg6od9h40IehbhV_Rols-HypRKQutIonfycJwaQLka-gVNjwTjfqXfQ7KW8uohKKnmRHRs3GLMS8EN-hRNLld4a6_A3twCxLAiTc_8zs2M-pApDvmqmtCnp4gizJNKhYu42yNPHD-Srm/s640/Textile+chilta+hazar+masha.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indian Chilta hazar masha, coat of a thousand nails, constructed of many layers of fabric and brass rivets with some plate components</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9s2Ktt_mhZId8doUD8ABBDclRIA9Q6-Oe02ICMkyfZl2QgUaEvCc3FaaLLgIeI2LnmLjc-3juhWRjR2hodqxhV7uQy2cFFcxMbcXEUXFWLYKRPurLV6tLfHk1OJ4eI5M89NzZrcnlso8/s1600/Textile+coat+of+a+thousand+nails.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9s2Ktt_mhZId8doUD8ABBDclRIA9Q6-Oe02ICMkyfZl2QgUaEvCc3FaaLLgIeI2LnmLjc-3juhWRjR2hodqxhV7uQy2cFFcxMbcXEUXFWLYKRPurLV6tLfHk1OJ4eI5M89NzZrcnlso8/s640/Textile+coat+of+a+thousand+nails.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another Chilta hazar masha</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSsg2R6mjG4zaokKsMFivrf8bwrZo5djyowNn6cnYjH8KTOQZmsEQUExojCsdtf1iB9oxxCzgW7METhv-8-omjwdz3qRiPmoYWpq20SThxD6H8Llu63v7xIl9q2sCdT39uww4dEEPkSAmg/s1600/Textile+eyelet+doublet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSsg2R6mjG4zaokKsMFivrf8bwrZo5djyowNn6cnYjH8KTOQZmsEQUExojCsdtf1iB9oxxCzgW7METhv-8-omjwdz3qRiPmoYWpq20SThxD6H8Llu63v7xIl9q2sCdT39uww4dEEPkSAmg/s400/Textile+eyelet+doublet.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Eyelet Doublet, holledoublet, a curious construction of tightly sewn eyelets, by all accounts extremely resistant to cutting and piercing</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4_h5mhKz3KoprQsqyKn6p34nRag0GKMw_jfORTkn5cTlJ7cbAHcWYgL9BWgc4nCKYpPDRxE9fqC0mAumi_c0N3TKekumuDqrT8EJFMskyq6WW632heEVzSBL6_1c3IKluIYSb3ln14ZY/s1600/Textile+eyelet+doublet+dog+armour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4_h5mhKz3KoprQsqyKn6p34nRag0GKMw_jfORTkn5cTlJ7cbAHcWYgL9BWgc4nCKYpPDRxE9fqC0mAumi_c0N3TKekumuDqrT8EJFMskyq6WW632heEVzSBL6_1c3IKluIYSb3ln14ZY/s640/Textile+eyelet+doublet+dog+armour.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Authentic hunting dog jackets constructed with the same technique</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="640" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1f/f1/c1/1ff1c12d9ffac784db35bf1c4227922b.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: start;" width="347" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Details of the construction. It is apparently incredibly time-consuming</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh4ZGFmgMDoUXJdT3AoBHSZkuLNqFq0ZNMPl2SXLFLde-x2zS0Innb81QsOfqA2klF1If4Qp128ZF_ofcIAA1XPvGZr7XGeq8_Gb-Qui2Bx-lSWREQqqWTAQGw26gwd_9tDR1dCJiYA4w8/s1600/Textile+French+Jupon+14th+century.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh4ZGFmgMDoUXJdT3AoBHSZkuLNqFq0ZNMPl2SXLFLde-x2zS0Innb81QsOfqA2klF1If4Qp128ZF_ofcIAA1XPvGZr7XGeq8_Gb-Qui2Bx-lSWREQqqWTAQGw26gwd_9tDR1dCJiYA4w8/s400/Textile+French+Jupon+14th+century.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">French 14th century Jupon, padded armour of quilted construction, essentially the same thing as a gambeson</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXRwr1I1RLnFtdkR-FPDKoPBUhqD6qr6DKLAnlZnHNkNZDjeSw9zFzLTS1ZDf-nq_TfEKQrg-mdyDSCdKQONVFmm5E4e4KS6PLAxY2b4JppIBuRJvuXa1IC3xJD84TutazCFDCJr205Kl2/s1600/Textile+German+wappenrock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXRwr1I1RLnFtdkR-FPDKoPBUhqD6qr6DKLAnlZnHNkNZDjeSw9zFzLTS1ZDf-nq_TfEKQrg-mdyDSCdKQONVFmm5E4e4KS6PLAxY2b4JppIBuRJvuXa1IC3xJD84TutazCFDCJr205Kl2/s640/Textile+German+wappenrock.jpg" width="478" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">German 15th -16th century <i>wappenrock</i>, probably of layered linen</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrfxqhe16ek3YOjaLb0kF5mFt1KdpUa05YkpYrd1bKlMAM4ONskKz2merKiVuLW3dXrWhdcRRa1lIiylFwe7yNXSOW4v3ukVI0lA07-0nZ89RgbfDunNbJBIh8Cc_x0jLzq6IPCiDgI29w/s1600/Textile+Greek+Linothorax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrfxqhe16ek3YOjaLb0kF5mFt1KdpUa05YkpYrd1bKlMAM4ONskKz2merKiVuLW3dXrWhdcRRa1lIiylFwe7yNXSOW4v3ukVI0lA07-0nZ89RgbfDunNbJBIh8Cc_x0jLzq6IPCiDgI29w/s640/Textile+Greek+Linothorax.jpg" width="420" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reconstruction of a linothorax, a rigid form of armour constructed from layers of linen glued together. The resulting object is like ultra-tough papier-mache</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3_D51KhL1v2Kv4taxlfl5HCsOOps5oEoByNXQ5Gd8SS0nIh92BEPWu8yQJEdFU3Wt3FRZH2dfaGQknQI6TC3nVKg5GgnMdTbTWfbORDQj5-MlJiyC34r2raVs4_g_boFhUU4rs-H4-o1/s1600/Textile+Jack+16th+c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3_D51KhL1v2Kv4taxlfl5HCsOOps5oEoByNXQ5Gd8SS0nIh92BEPWu8yQJEdFU3Wt3FRZH2dfaGQknQI6TC3nVKg5GgnMdTbTWfbORDQj5-MlJiyC34r2raVs4_g_boFhUU4rs-H4-o1/s1600/Textile+Jack+16th+c.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Hans Memling's <i>Altarpiece of St. Ursula, </i>note the bloke on the left wearing a jack with jack-chains, metal reinforcement splints on his arms. Also notable is the fact he is wearing the garment over a mail shirt, perfectly standard practice</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1VZrWstVvYbUeK0-MwbFp6jw0NKGDFz8hHScwXVTD6gqxWbRxJY001udpSJaEaVroiQO7KXgov9_vEDWidrxyxq858Xogn-rW27WDW0xuFH3XYdVq61EptCUxtXIQoCKiCHGWNKXweiri/s1600/Textile+japanese+horo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1VZrWstVvYbUeK0-MwbFp6jw0NKGDFz8hHScwXVTD6gqxWbRxJY001udpSJaEaVroiQO7KXgov9_vEDWidrxyxq858Xogn-rW27WDW0xuFH3XYdVq61EptCUxtXIQoCKiCHGWNKXweiri/s640/Textile+japanese+horo.jpg" width="276" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a strange one, not only is Japanese armour complicated and strange in every other way, they also invented the <i>horo,</i> which is a fabric covered wicker frame that offers protection from blows from behind. These things can be huge and imposing and definitely constitute part of the samurai's considerable arsenal of psychological warfare</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2TOJ_OF5NMNgdmJuIxx4nVACG8tZ0ZRDHc4a08zKdpsFbAMfEduCmtbjSZNDiDESBUPJnaFU588Ymy2r3H9u8SjV3abVMmq4hgQoLIzXjzrYK4zh0W-ox4hOSmUuM-tJU72pciPnvoUD0/s1600/Textile+Korean+fabric+armour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2TOJ_OF5NMNgdmJuIxx4nVACG8tZ0ZRDHc4a08zKdpsFbAMfEduCmtbjSZNDiDESBUPJnaFU588Ymy2r3H9u8SjV3abVMmq4hgQoLIzXjzrYK4zh0W-ox4hOSmUuM-tJU72pciPnvoUD0/s640/Textile+Korean+fabric+armour.jpg" width="462" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Korean fabric armour looks like a potato sack</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia6nDeQLQOZvivNlS8qVxk7dSGuDzYunclgh7i3Sx9kHu8EZuvsy41W0FUziH4qrU1NfTV0c6YMLkN5QESH3Rx0mXcdyuRq_8n3YaU5Vs1WqrdK6sKpmFRqhdZsFB9DYlQ39bR4NgSqpqm/s1600/Textile+Sudanese+jibbah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia6nDeQLQOZvivNlS8qVxk7dSGuDzYunclgh7i3Sx9kHu8EZuvsy41W0FUziH4qrU1NfTV0c6YMLkN5QESH3Rx0mXcdyuRq_8n3YaU5Vs1WqrdK6sKpmFRqhdZsFB9DYlQ39bR4NgSqpqm/s640/Textile+Sudanese+jibbah.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sudanese <i>jibba</i>, padded armour of quilted construction</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWYFrVHwbreozZ9lfFIAZO98cU9bh3HpVTjr7YRy9ybYcYMBA_vmI64tPQ1y9ibeXVhxHpQueQ6xUx-2eMbnl_btStIJ-kKwrDX9wlH889ftRBwG8JDEHb9RP3Ry4i7KaHjMbLg39So7SN/s1600/Textile+Sudanese+quilted+armour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWYFrVHwbreozZ9lfFIAZO98cU9bh3HpVTjr7YRy9ybYcYMBA_vmI64tPQ1y9ibeXVhxHpQueQ6xUx-2eMbnl_btStIJ-kKwrDX9wlH889ftRBwG8JDEHb9RP3Ry4i7KaHjMbLg39So7SN/s640/Textile+Sudanese+quilted+armour.jpg" width="436" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More Sudanese armour. I get the distinct impression that there were parts of Africa experiencing mediaeval combat well into the modern era</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.xenophon-mil.org/rushistory/medievalarmor/clotharm.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This image depicts a type of Russian padded armour called a tyegilyai which is difficult to track down in its original form when you got no Cyrillic to work with</td></tr>
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<b>Scale/Lamellar Armour: </b>closely-related forms of armour based on little plates laced together. The distinction is that lamellar plates are laced together independent of a backing and scale plates are laced directly to a backing. Brigandine and coats of plates are closely related forms that have the plates on the inside. Unfortunately nomenclature does not provide a convenient term allowing me to lump them together.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEukPaP1tgNEncihBmM910lP-e-s5NyO9eCKyFRkJ89DOXB0WdC-kehqfnj1tDeUzSrrTPwuYXqUDCd_uDBtCNm_RbZQpTwZeYaz9Pe5eBjVjsPjRC13cK3OOQ3qBg2g26AXfZbf-YKgAG/s1600/Scale+Chukchi+bone+and+iron+lamellar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEukPaP1tgNEncihBmM910lP-e-s5NyO9eCKyFRkJ89DOXB0WdC-kehqfnj1tDeUzSrrTPwuYXqUDCd_uDBtCNm_RbZQpTwZeYaz9Pe5eBjVjsPjRC13cK3OOQ3qBg2g26AXfZbf-YKgAG/s640/Scale+Chukchi+bone+and+iron+lamellar.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chukchi lamellar made of bone, walrus hide and deer antler apparently, the helmet is also lamellar</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQy2b0k5qZqwgqZB7H8x6LSCZK6AzLzdunz5kKww1Fnroa9pgLG19LKSSAmuNCy_JkCbqHSnMB_N6-r41AMuF-fIXdnoxnKDXOg5rt6IUMvBwrbcTct33wNCpSyi_9D0CbOLhSiW8ugHa_/s1600/Scale+European+Penny+Plate+Helmet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQy2b0k5qZqwgqZB7H8x6LSCZK6AzLzdunz5kKww1Fnroa9pgLG19LKSSAmuNCy_JkCbqHSnMB_N6-r41AMuF-fIXdnoxnKDXOg5rt6IUMvBwrbcTct33wNCpSyi_9D0CbOLhSiW8ugHa_/s320/Scale+European+Penny+Plate+Helmet.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">European "penny plate" helmet of scale construction</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2wyjPN_Tc-QRIaaiXK6mtWxqqIvj8joi-YeQUi0W_XyQTP6Zv6S1AsCmt8SeSeiHvraVWw-25bZhOt_UE7vJqpehT1EFZArZK6DjBPmqmm004TpLqTLv46Dt6WWYobKESw0hYQt4uBis5/s1600/Scale+Japanese+coin+armour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2wyjPN_Tc-QRIaaiXK6mtWxqqIvj8joi-YeQUi0W_XyQTP6Zv6S1AsCmt8SeSeiHvraVWw-25bZhOt_UE7vJqpehT1EFZArZK6DjBPmqmm004TpLqTLv46Dt6WWYobKESw0hYQt4uBis5/s640/Scale+Japanese+coin+armour.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japanese coin armour, close resemblance to Meyrick's apocryphal "ringmail"</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcXroPeqbAs1nphTjbNOcyokl1nCHH1XY5iAMEJInBLUaFYaNb63fvgYTImzOrsNycDDKzio_3MAUbgL5rhdsiEQVnWK3YWC_GqpSmP-0G4k70jnQG-C7-FLGJLl-BJx1_xD3kG-JbFRBr/s1600/Scale+Japanese+lacquered+leather+scale+17th+Century.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="556" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcXroPeqbAs1nphTjbNOcyokl1nCHH1XY5iAMEJInBLUaFYaNb63fvgYTImzOrsNycDDKzio_3MAUbgL5rhdsiEQVnWK3YWC_GqpSmP-0G4k70jnQG-C7-FLGJLl-BJx1_xD3kG-JbFRBr/s640/Scale+Japanese+lacquered+leather+scale+17th+Century.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japanese lacquered leather scale armour</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0jCpqkYofZv7xqPmFqdkEPyvllaKs3K8ZQvzEdOetJX9y1bOEYK_kXZGqM49_ltwghqthv_ZD3_hzvG6AoLceqlhfz1HJpN_USNVOSxX4caDgSGNGJKwx1M7AGaZLRPGi7C9iOTyUNeo/s1600/Scale+Koryak+lamellar.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0jCpqkYofZv7xqPmFqdkEPyvllaKs3K8ZQvzEdOetJX9y1bOEYK_kXZGqM49_ltwghqthv_ZD3_hzvG6AoLceqlhfz1HJpN_USNVOSxX4caDgSGNGJKwx1M7AGaZLRPGi7C9iOTyUNeo/s640/Scale+Koryak+lamellar.jpeg" width="578" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Koryak iron lamellar, 1901. The Koryaks lived in Eastern Siberia near the Chukchis and with them made a transition from bone lamellar to iron </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Sudanese ring armor was taken by the Devon Yeomanry Battalion from the hut of the Khalifa, Abdallahi Ibn Muhammad, who replaced the Sudanese Mahdi and lead the Mahdists warriors against the British army in the battle of Omdurman, Sept. 1898, steel rings sewn with leather strips on a leather and heavy fabric back. 13 X 18 inches. Very good condition. This armor was displayed in the Devon Yeomanry museum in the UK.: " height="320" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4f/45/d4/4f45d4e96182ef42a4176c6f96e7ab03.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sudanese ring armour from Battle of Omdurman, 1898, Meyrick style but half a world away and centuries too late</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQHhF_cD0kB3HSbuMTGPORB1cQz1eRrtl-FyJD37fnC_Hc1yQ0ZQSF_49uTpDx1MjZnaqsDGshbbfkg6o-8bsof26pw870jrxQvIfbK1E0EXdyTKg0cl9vd8HYV2epthaltcGMyf1lzrNy/s1600/Scale+Lolo+leather+lamellar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQHhF_cD0kB3HSbuMTGPORB1cQz1eRrtl-FyJD37fnC_Hc1yQ0ZQSF_49uTpDx1MjZnaqsDGshbbfkg6o-8bsof26pw870jrxQvIfbK1E0EXdyTKg0cl9vd8HYV2epthaltcGMyf1lzrNy/s640/Scale+Lolo+leather+lamellar.jpg" width="390" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yolo leather lamellar, Chinese, Note lacquered leather arm defence</td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSc8B1BIwR-RNhpFqQWPM0xWLl4494h6QLUJkhUeZzDwMtrUO1cSr0LtjhKN9AN9L-3roz0cXEqUyqdGaQXoWH0DSxWVeQgMSnrI6hezvwtLozxfivkGpkf-Jy2NO3aZ-2ziW_LhJ88P6f/s1600/Skin+Leather+scale+armour+poss+scythian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSc8B1BIwR-RNhpFqQWPM0xWLl4494h6QLUJkhUeZzDwMtrUO1cSr0LtjhKN9AN9L-3roz0cXEqUyqdGaQXoWH0DSxWVeQgMSnrI6hezvwtLozxfivkGpkf-Jy2NO3aZ-2ziW_LhJ88P6f/s640/Skin+Leather+scale+armour+poss+scythian.jpg" width="339" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Leather scale armour. I can't find a reference but I recall seeing this listed as Scythian, so maybe 3rd century BC</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqF3ApSSTohMmaI1yYHZwMn5Yyp47ZjoVKYi7R70qnv9RI3n8wGjOz6DypPipKNMpwL36oAkMVUm2Kr7-ehmaj3gifD3sckTNafy-crnJPpnhfNqFbIBj4hnnjBVwFIQ0e_7yH9pQNeJy/s1600/Scale+Polynesian+coconut+husk+and+rattan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqF3ApSSTohMmaI1yYHZwMn5Yyp47ZjoVKYi7R70qnv9RI3n8wGjOz6DypPipKNMpwL36oAkMVUm2Kr7-ehmaj3gifD3sckTNafy-crnJPpnhfNqFbIBj4hnnjBVwFIQ0e_7yH9pQNeJy/s640/Scale+Polynesian+coconut+husk+and+rattan.jpg" width="392" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Polynesian coconut husk scale armour on backing of woven rattan</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKWTw8hF9qNWz85cWcxM9pxzl8CPmLmp5KUbaqxuD7AvjRipn1Nsr2KoaIVT2CWaJFwgxvSv1V61SHbm72YO0uPA77lZrasu0CO-5tzgtfDqYEXMxR3Dmu9_1ncxaOwD24q27_G6iCy-B4/s1600/Scale+Roman+lorica+squamata.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKWTw8hF9qNWz85cWcxM9pxzl8CPmLmp5KUbaqxuD7AvjRipn1Nsr2KoaIVT2CWaJFwgxvSv1V61SHbm72YO0uPA77lZrasu0CO-5tzgtfDqYEXMxR3Dmu9_1ncxaOwD24q27_G6iCy-B4/s640/Scale+Roman+lorica+squamata.jpg" width="388" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roman <i>lorica squamata</i> iron scale armour. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkxMUZRPIJjX1rl0_afBB6T4F9pEJHd9UvAh5iZyn6h75aeuQ4pf-QOtyPccq5s_w1IVwzMzGeNvJ5JRE5qn3Y1sa5jwW7i2gvB3E_sXMU5tFkE8q4vfjBytyIXi9gqZ_KDaf9pEBvYbuc/s1600/Scale+Spanish+14th+C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkxMUZRPIJjX1rl0_afBB6T4F9pEJHd9UvAh5iZyn6h75aeuQ4pf-QOtyPccq5s_w1IVwzMzGeNvJ5JRE5qn3Y1sa5jwW7i2gvB3E_sXMU5tFkE8q4vfjBytyIXi9gqZ_KDaf9pEBvYbuc/s640/Scale+Spanish+14th+C.jpg" width="444" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian iron scale armour, 14th century</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0UxZ0Y0Ar8jO-fBeE8_UqW9LKZTpRrc6guKIPQAO60J7vUrjvuDht46fgm8tDFs5S6Ig8q7h9lR5P3NCr-uwUFBUc3BBcn-i9BYlk3c9IV67CW82n82Vh7CVMDPMt-Ht4N0VB84UFj8mD/s1600/Scale+Tlingit+Chinese+Coin+armour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0UxZ0Y0Ar8jO-fBeE8_UqW9LKZTpRrc6guKIPQAO60J7vUrjvuDht46fgm8tDFs5S6Ig8q7h9lR5P3NCr-uwUFBUc3BBcn-i9BYlk3c9IV67CW82n82Vh7CVMDPMt-Ht4N0VB84UFj8mD/s640/Scale+Tlingit+Chinese+Coin+armour.jpg" width="481" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tlingit Chinese coin armour, apparently the Tlingit traded furs and were paid in Chinese coins which they evidently had difficulty spending. I can imagine it would be useful to have it on you if you need to purchase something.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzYfm75NiWzrZCSA2nuyc6ffaSrBMdUQoWb5M9pqddtHje4CszXtPper2QdS3WNPLJL5jor_SZ7wJ8DcIozYX8Hyqr2u8MgnoSXQsfqOAkigHxr8H-2Q8BK6Kzio5DTA2qiGYUgUii5c-k/s1600/Scale+Valsgarde+Splinted+vambraces+and+greaves+7th+c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzYfm75NiWzrZCSA2nuyc6ffaSrBMdUQoWb5M9pqddtHje4CszXtPper2QdS3WNPLJL5jor_SZ7wJ8DcIozYX8Hyqr2u8MgnoSXQsfqOAkigHxr8H-2Q8BK6Kzio5DTA2qiGYUgUii5c-k/s400/Scale+Valsgarde+Splinted+vambraces+and+greaves+7th+c.jpg" width="305" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reconstruction of Valsgarde pre-Viking splinted arm and leg defense</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCcVXJ9qugw-U_Wz6qvYvVrxoJXrh5GXhDaj7TxfyoQPDFepj6YRJ04ul_SJT17Y3YBQA0gOR0RwWV8BgitSMf97S3kivQMlfwERKWarMLmShQ2k2xhGMzr1k6CpGKnmGgA1_oWZFzkhM/s1600/Scale+WWI+armour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguCcVXJ9qugw-U_Wz6qvYvVrxoJXrh5GXhDaj7TxfyoQPDFepj6YRJ04ul_SJT17Y3YBQA0gOR0RwWV8BgitSMf97S3kivQMlfwERKWarMLmShQ2k2xhGMzr1k6CpGKnmGgA1_oWZFzkhM/s640/Scale+WWI+armour.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">WWI French steel body armour of a structure similar to Meyrick's apocryphal tegulated mail construction</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWUKaSkdElo-qVOsM4gLIADujJkA8rT9Eaz7c8io0747Tz52S9cX8XrRCTNLeVM1g-F2X_qQNXJOiaXb9X8P74ukxwvz51doiibhOmQ8O3V02izVCrPvB1dwxm26dKihK-7JLUqPjZLe29/s1600/Sclae+chinese+stone+ceremonial+lamellar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWUKaSkdElo-qVOsM4gLIADujJkA8rT9Eaz7c8io0747Tz52S9cX8XrRCTNLeVM1g-F2X_qQNXJOiaXb9X8P74ukxwvz51doiibhOmQ8O3V02izVCrPvB1dwxm26dKihK-7JLUqPjZLe29/s640/Sclae+chinese+stone+ceremonial+lamellar.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reconstruction of Qin dynasty ceremonial stone lamellar, 3rd century BC</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYx39JpYFLAsjjr3N5uWFIa_g2gIpsJmhJWorpiSaoM8DsKQuTOp0-m2pJvGUy3xNVQKcei8XZto8C2XxohE-ow8lzfjCDm3-eV0-2KmvUJqUl3XIeYU9OxZ8i_sKBSbLpaoVNzP5SJZo/s1600/Sclae+Tibetan+lamellar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYx39JpYFLAsjjr3N5uWFIa_g2gIpsJmhJWorpiSaoM8DsKQuTOp0-m2pJvGUy3xNVQKcei8XZto8C2XxohE-ow8lzfjCDm3-eV0-2KmvUJqUl3XIeYU9OxZ8i_sKBSbLpaoVNzP5SJZo/s640/Sclae+Tibetan+lamellar.jpg" width="314" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tibetan iron lamellar with lamellar aventail on helmet, possibly 16th -17th century</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzWyjybbXhoPNujhdDMkqNrqBU7yGJeJ4TMRgHGCtvnQxLLMB4bN8vLEVKvJqx7Ev6TRmDSY1SOfRUMb8ImzyqUAWVOYDFnFaoK33yKzRy6UdOT7VjRkaOglwj0cE5WQd6y83uhoZggkM8/s1600/Scale+Carabao+horn+Filipino.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzWyjybbXhoPNujhdDMkqNrqBU7yGJeJ4TMRgHGCtvnQxLLMB4bN8vLEVKvJqx7Ev6TRmDSY1SOfRUMb8ImzyqUAWVOYDFnFaoK33yKzRy6UdOT7VjRkaOglwj0cE5WQd6y83uhoZggkM8/s640/Scale+Carabao+horn+Filipino.jpg" width="336" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Filipino Moro carabao (water buffalo) horn cuirass and helmet emulating Spanish plate armour</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>Brigandine/Coat-of-Plates</b>: this form of armour is like inside-out lamellar or scale armour, even to the extent that there are examples of coats of plates that are constructed of old lames from recycled lamellar. The distinction tends to be that brigandines are composed of smaller plates, are often stylishly emulative of civilian jerkins and are a later development. Coats of plates are technological precursors to European plate armour of the later Mediaeval and have a comparitively clunky quality.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTLfbr_E7tKzGG9jqA6dxbZhqlEIs162HFHm_nVJ0APv4gTvkuYKa5U_Qj3fStjEj8a7lnaBgc-_MGL8MggpaqCkpfVOYF-HnjSJkaJbUtp9bZzsBwme_GwZyxxUFU0A8g2eK3ZpDEUxy8/s1600/Brigandine+16th+century+italian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTLfbr_E7tKzGG9jqA6dxbZhqlEIs162HFHm_nVJ0APv4gTvkuYKa5U_Qj3fStjEj8a7lnaBgc-_MGL8MggpaqCkpfVOYF-HnjSJkaJbUtp9bZzsBwme_GwZyxxUFU0A8g2eK3ZpDEUxy8/s1600/Brigandine+16th+century+italian.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian 16th century brigandine showing construction.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfRufQK5c0znL05xCnad56kR2NiKqabtOQZH6TvUsBIbXDxZWvt_IIRf39QRQoWf4aKhizLMrU91nJYXv695ZUoAqRcB87SZvUjWwIcS9g3DPHE8f7Cz3GfkuIbGSxBj_opgrdGzIpp-Zw/s1600/Scale+Mongolian+scale+boots+15th+c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfRufQK5c0znL05xCnad56kR2NiKqabtOQZH6TvUsBIbXDxZWvt_IIRf39QRQoWf4aKhizLMrU91nJYXv695ZUoAqRcB87SZvUjWwIcS9g3DPHE8f7Cz3GfkuIbGSxBj_opgrdGzIpp-Zw/s640/Scale+Mongolian+scale+boots+15th+c.jpg" width="448" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Mongolian boots with metal plates inside</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-4ahcwG1yAoUg9yxJSyNRvI-vgeMX9kFdCU8SMbIYj5GbkqXYLkLLDS2LPqAtQH2Wnv0N8CZEnNcGkX_uA7PdTEq0y7ZuFjj05FL-F99s_xIvRTJEuuCzSfI_jX8_bAGMRXQgzC5WaSg3/s1600/Brigandine+African+Boru+Cuirass+Leather+and+Iron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-4ahcwG1yAoUg9yxJSyNRvI-vgeMX9kFdCU8SMbIYj5GbkqXYLkLLDS2LPqAtQH2Wnv0N8CZEnNcGkX_uA7PdTEq0y7ZuFjj05FL-F99s_xIvRTJEuuCzSfI_jX8_bAGMRXQgzC5WaSg3/s640/Brigandine+African+Boru+Cuirass+Leather+and+Iron.jpg" width="496" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boru coat of plates, iron and leather, African</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzBNnRwsuzY4MBtJIVfwJCQCcCQv28EHjBwO_dLkQTeoAPDmT4YNICzweW8jsnzirEQJKlQNX5ufCTIaWhE_OgsmntmlxBnPr12fMTS3bxkUouGyg2pdfLGT0kMT1t87Yq8yhvjd2g4fG/s1600/Brigandine+Visby+CoP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzBNnRwsuzY4MBtJIVfwJCQCcCQv28EHjBwO_dLkQTeoAPDmT4YNICzweW8jsnzirEQJKlQNX5ufCTIaWhE_OgsmntmlxBnPr12fMTS3bxkUouGyg2pdfLGT0kMT1t87Yq8yhvjd2g4fG/s1600/Brigandine+Visby+CoP.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swedish Coat of Plates from the Battle of Visby in 1361</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqXiqB0WpMatvg_U6Y-5i6n6L0afni6xUrFUwCLk-yifm04VmswDm5ihHhMDhWyG0YyquMUts2-mYKVvpEzM_Aoz4BtM9ndaDM8tBmVlvXCRB-hsv2G5_kaWnZcAwILwCy-3ZdrJ1W5Rd6/s1600/Brigandine+another+Visby+Cop+1361.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqXiqB0WpMatvg_U6Y-5i6n6L0afni6xUrFUwCLk-yifm04VmswDm5ihHhMDhWyG0YyquMUts2-mYKVvpEzM_Aoz4BtM9ndaDM8tBmVlvXCRB-hsv2G5_kaWnZcAwILwCy-3ZdrJ1W5Rd6/s1600/Brigandine+another+Visby+Cop+1361.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swedish Coat of Plates from the Battle of Visby in 1361, showing the variation in the size and shape and number of plates</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_lYkQW3Hr7iUna8CGgZLUCr5EgcsLvD1mBLhqH8isR8zg9jfnfHxy_q3TBBy7mUDA76NXWF0MhlPdgNmUNrCSPtKpvkVs7diWZ7nhPWB6EI3ceA6wAJcaE8Q-IubtIaDwuD5gaRQo5AOD/s1600/Brigandine+CoP+reconstruction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_lYkQW3Hr7iUna8CGgZLUCr5EgcsLvD1mBLhqH8isR8zg9jfnfHxy_q3TBBy7mUDA76NXWF0MhlPdgNmUNrCSPtKpvkVs7diWZ7nhPWB6EI3ceA6wAJcaE8Q-IubtIaDwuD5gaRQo5AOD/s640/Brigandine+CoP+reconstruction.jpg" width="498" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reconstruction of a Visby Coat of Plates</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_1eGWPk-CbfPvOqPHS3-X8gxWpozj9pCaHiOQwMv_xWDlAR3NOp7R202P3PPkKus-gFqwrsR-EVrYbxF0j1td-16wXL_bM4EXDEXDliHM3CdZlZLOdMTtWv-wC-PjAWh2RcuU76OsTVA2/s1600/Brigandine+or+corrazina+16th+c+Italian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_1eGWPk-CbfPvOqPHS3-X8gxWpozj9pCaHiOQwMv_xWDlAR3NOp7R202P3PPkKus-gFqwrsR-EVrYbxF0j1td-16wXL_bM4EXDEXDliHM3CdZlZLOdMTtWv-wC-PjAWh2RcuU76OsTVA2/s640/Brigandine+or+corrazina+16th+c+Italian.jpg" width="536" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another 16th century Italian Brigandine</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXtpW6gMycGgU4NDvxMrcVmksYp5Q5c2POuHVnM-5GzzvmDCwzCNvHA8TwU-5HeFhJemvMKCC410JP3n4-FjKGGO2alxemix2zdwKwt3Iym0dV-0RzBtTxV0xjYhyphenhyphenCqaErJInsmjUFFxb/s1600/Brigandine+Scottish+Jack+of+plates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXtpW6gMycGgU4NDvxMrcVmksYp5Q5c2POuHVnM-5GzzvmDCwzCNvHA8TwU-5HeFhJemvMKCC410JP3n4-FjKGGO2alxemix2zdwKwt3Iym0dV-0RzBtTxV0xjYhyphenhyphenCqaErJInsmjUFFxb/s640/Brigandine+Scottish+Jack+of+plates.jpg" width="450" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">English jack of plates, distinct from the brigandine in that the plates are sewn in rather than riveted</td></tr>
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<b>Mail Armour: </b>flexible mesh woven of metal rings. All mail known in Europe since its invention by the Celts in the 3rd century BC is made with riveted rings or a combination of riveted and solid rings, though much Asian mail is made of rings that are not riveted but butted together, which makes them significantly weaker.<br />
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Proper riveted mail is notable for being pretty much invulnerable to cutting blows. You can get bludgeoned to death through it and a good thrust with a strong weapon can break a few rings and wound but cutting it is hard. It's also pretty good against arrows provided some kind of padding is worn underneath.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy0EkxH2L7a-1fuGoYV5ZqIIBKuqd52cR473LBC18T8kxeAXF-o7q-CBLom_36HtxI7-jWLJk8SyV2LnVGdsOPkWk7rQDtEQbyhEoA8SzeNzM7guLq7kSVYAVcJdephsHljZmSiIl0yVPH/s1600/Mail+Venetian+15th+c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy0EkxH2L7a-1fuGoYV5ZqIIBKuqd52cR473LBC18T8kxeAXF-o7q-CBLom_36HtxI7-jWLJk8SyV2LnVGdsOPkWk7rQDtEQbyhEoA8SzeNzM7guLq7kSVYAVcJdephsHljZmSiIl0yVPH/s640/Mail+Venetian+15th+c.jpg" width="398" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Venetian 15th century riveted mail hauberk</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0VQCNnIVhKotCBWhjr_s0ilsd53kn28feKi9KrkkFRxXcs0nVMOoy4l6C05X-9vM8CYNDUYw2mYX2ydCeF2nIvYGT-zzLsCtf1hTppaZ9SdktdYlaCZfSf9dHfeml2QdkvPhPTDeUs4tg/s1600/Mail+18th+to+19th+century+mail+and+plate+Sind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0VQCNnIVhKotCBWhjr_s0ilsd53kn28feKi9KrkkFRxXcs0nVMOoy4l6C05X-9vM8CYNDUYw2mYX2ydCeF2nIvYGT-zzLsCtf1hTppaZ9SdktdYlaCZfSf9dHfeml2QdkvPhPTDeUs4tg/s640/Mail+18th+to+19th+century+mail+and+plate+Sind.jpg" width="590" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sind Mail and Plate armour, 18th to 19th century, India or Pakistan</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWj9KBPWuklbHyS-YDB-CFqf_zEFghv65GJ0W2hZBbUTBFcJzDndtAWPIcsCrLhTo3M_rwu1NG8vPA2968zn5UHJpEl1cE6-mCg8sl2aQ55P21L0WwBmsNXsGBbPpMqxtkX-b2scrxMNPa/s1600/Mail+Arming+doublet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWj9KBPWuklbHyS-YDB-CFqf_zEFghv65GJ0W2hZBbUTBFcJzDndtAWPIcsCrLhTo3M_rwu1NG8vPA2968zn5UHJpEl1cE6-mCg8sl2aQ55P21L0WwBmsNXsGBbPpMqxtkX-b2scrxMNPa/s640/Mail+Arming+doublet.jpg" width="476" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arming doublet with mail sleeves and voiders, 15th century European</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKFBJLQg4rJlPhT_ER466d3wwwBS6z4fsfhBJDFEjQqBTziU6ZmwQByMheTvBEvmEEM0q9frVH-Y5Jil4I71ld9Kh3yxakz4_nzKflEKpslz6bMr7hHjIpXfGiaUbSndWbUD4GWESupE5N/s1600/Mail+Bishops+mantle+100000+links.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKFBJLQg4rJlPhT_ER466d3wwwBS6z4fsfhBJDFEjQqBTziU6ZmwQByMheTvBEvmEEM0q9frVH-Y5Jil4I71ld9Kh3yxakz4_nzKflEKpslz6bMr7hHjIpXfGiaUbSndWbUD4GWESupE5N/s640/Mail+Bishops+mantle+100000+links.jpg" width="396" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Bishop's Mantle" constructed of over 100,000 individual riveted links, German, 16th century</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7uxpyAjeNuhSbYtKHJ9LLxOSYGNcMktEXy64sMegvk31c8B4ZI4AokMBK_AlsVYvmW4EzExeZS6r7zbHnustCEGePdl03nzp8OrLMwOQe0OoMIM6dZN6uqsOneXuKfjnYFPElaXxqIR0-/s1600/Mail+French+Arming+doublet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7uxpyAjeNuhSbYtKHJ9LLxOSYGNcMktEXy64sMegvk31c8B4ZI4AokMBK_AlsVYvmW4EzExeZS6r7zbHnustCEGePdl03nzp8OrLMwOQe0OoMIM6dZN6uqsOneXuKfjnYFPElaXxqIR0-/s640/Mail+French+Arming+doublet.jpg" width="404" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">French Arming doublet with mail sleeves</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIl7MBlqc6a_GfnIUcXuBc0kRJYkoOEDwBcDOHwlUINa1TC70juOy8A9Km6bjdM2zYXSaQY_EXJ_jAHv3OT3sZffNbJIidWHzO1xeG4L6pPrlQ04P5TTUXysZbMYR7PhHKnVQS8GX59DKx/s1600/Mail+Japanese+Mail+and+Plate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIl7MBlqc6a_GfnIUcXuBc0kRJYkoOEDwBcDOHwlUINa1TC70juOy8A9Km6bjdM2zYXSaQY_EXJ_jAHv3OT3sZffNbJIidWHzO1xeG4L6pPrlQ04P5TTUXysZbMYR7PhHKnVQS8GX59DKx/s640/Mail+Japanese+Mail+and+Plate.jpg" width="570" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japanese mail and plate armour, Japan has a bewildering number of mail weaves. Japanese mail is always sewn to a fabric backing</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2xUcsEYbTYbE1XXepN0M3rVOe-YLu6ao4QeksZyWJO5UqtcxhNPk5QGh_KDEn5vHyvQvoxWD_rapb6Oh9AzdNgTpTgKxafK_GVt3e9v5-T6ApoZU8Zv4xSnllH7rmqCCtkasEKPlbFfkv/s1600/Mail+Japanese+Yoroi+Katabira.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2xUcsEYbTYbE1XXepN0M3rVOe-YLu6ao4QeksZyWJO5UqtcxhNPk5QGh_KDEn5vHyvQvoxWD_rapb6Oh9AzdNgTpTgKxafK_GVt3e9v5-T6ApoZU8Zv4xSnllH7rmqCCtkasEKPlbFfkv/s640/Mail+Japanese+Yoroi+Katabira.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japanese <i>Yoroi Katabira</i> with mail sewn inside a padded garment</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdKJVj5nM92FgIcy-3wxCOsXRX3gG7e08WpXbjdmYcSDQmdvW46F5rAyKxHBPtL3JOOzDTzyCuZpEQ09b2GQFRFfSHi7BgpteBYKsA4ZDtHLkDCn_e7lcFbhTT_w6TkgRcIv66XSNU7cxu/s1600/Mail+Kazaghand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="599" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdKJVj5nM92FgIcy-3wxCOsXRX3gG7e08WpXbjdmYcSDQmdvW46F5rAyKxHBPtL3JOOzDTzyCuZpEQ09b2GQFRFfSHi7BgpteBYKsA4ZDtHLkDCn_e7lcFbhTT_w6TkgRcIv66XSNU7cxu/s640/Mail+Kazaghand.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ottoman kazaghand with mail sewn inside 15th century. This armour was also referred to as a jazerant or gestron</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfbuAuQK20cIcyAVPEjLLc6Nn9aEkPPpvIh9I41Q-FSXenprwRJUhFNOAIynoN7eghcSd4Ohr_zfxVVvZBRlh895VZNmlS-dZEqOXkKeCp8lm9YSUyduFIgLXJT7IoW_59ABFQUyq4cV9/s1600/Mail+Moro+mail+and+plate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfbuAuQK20cIcyAVPEjLLc6Nn9aEkPPpvIh9I41Q-FSXenprwRJUhFNOAIynoN7eghcSd4Ohr_zfxVVvZBRlh895VZNmlS-dZEqOXkKeCp8lm9YSUyduFIgLXJT7IoW_59ABFQUyq4cV9/s640/Mail+Moro+mail+and+plate.jpg" width="274" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moro mail and plate armour with mail and plate helmet/coif</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNPFxuSJwHhdyLBXi5EQLKTDL_qHMNDBMXTk9LKkO1eJ7wZVylxYBOxfQ_3iWOBhNqlpDtOU1kjaOusR6uPyvVn8JkG_CpAuqmIFFvrW42KIPCMUa8UKgK0uTOZC9x4EvdWyW0sJVVQ0Fp/s1600/Mail+Persian+mail+and+plate+1450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNPFxuSJwHhdyLBXi5EQLKTDL_qHMNDBMXTk9LKkO1eJ7wZVylxYBOxfQ_3iWOBhNqlpDtOU1kjaOusR6uPyvVn8JkG_CpAuqmIFFvrW42KIPCMUa8UKgK0uTOZC9x4EvdWyW0sJVVQ0Fp/s1600/Mail+Persian+mail+and+plate+1450.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Persian mail and plate armour and barding, 1450</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiib2IeWWufaDyorhyYcJqr1O3apy6YtRVS2DF0CRBLR9BxyI2sidUAda3w4QM7_hEz2RTS1xhWSav4HfwRtNL-Mg9bMIgT1Eu-a3h1DpodudVTmVfJBfWFGyhyGwJY-65Jga3hCe0gfuXz/s1600/Mail+Russian+baidana+style+mail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiib2IeWWufaDyorhyYcJqr1O3apy6YtRVS2DF0CRBLR9BxyI2sidUAda3w4QM7_hEz2RTS1xhWSav4HfwRtNL-Mg9bMIgT1Eu-a3h1DpodudVTmVfJBfWFGyhyGwJY-65Jga3hCe0gfuXz/s1600/Mail+Russian+baidana+style+mail.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Russian <i>baidana</i> mail, notable for its use of flat "washer" shaped riveted rings</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVe4D062ML8AvGc4Bu5pFCSjQFscFiUgLpt6hbvGsKzPqHZzMyx46dm9U6C2bQp3cebkjTDFkm9kci0J7mzLaEZU_7w5834q2CH1f4hs8TO4T4Ydl4u89BT4JM8__ddSJtIqoy2OlwbGJy/s1600/Mail+Russian+Baidana+Trar+Boris+Gudunov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVe4D062ML8AvGc4Bu5pFCSjQFscFiUgLpt6hbvGsKzPqHZzMyx46dm9U6C2bQp3cebkjTDFkm9kci0J7mzLaEZU_7w5834q2CH1f4hs8TO4T4Ydl4u89BT4JM8__ddSJtIqoy2OlwbGJy/s640/Mail+Russian+Baidana+Trar+Boris+Gudunov.jpg" width="286" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Russian <i>baidana</i> mail shirt belonging to Tsar Boris Godunov</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>Plate: </b>As a construction technique for armour, the use of plates of metal is ancient, and approaches high levels of sophistication in Roman times before achieving its apotheosis in the European Renaissance.</div>
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Plate armour is incredibly difficult to cut or puncture and, contrary to popular belief, very resistant to arrows. There was also a period after the advent of firearms when heavier plate was made bulletproof and shot after construction to provide a dent as proof of that fact.</div>
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Most, but not all, helmets use this manner of construction.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh_lb8WbCaYgzOO884YdBMlLhYbNKdFOIWgKxmfQgAX7JkgsXfEO9JoMSAt3Nb9r7RfDP2rDIhjxmj3OKk6RE03uWPcjjJ6PkMQzsnbHwarJ7qDL8Hbe95y-ovWijFZcfRVOIBuHBvAYWJ/s1600/Plate+Mycenaean+Dendra+Panoply.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh_lb8WbCaYgzOO884YdBMlLhYbNKdFOIWgKxmfQgAX7JkgsXfEO9JoMSAt3Nb9r7RfDP2rDIhjxmj3OKk6RE03uWPcjjJ6PkMQzsnbHwarJ7qDL8Hbe95y-ovWijFZcfRVOIBuHBvAYWJ/s640/Plate+Mycenaean+Dendra+Panoply.jpg" width="396" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mycenaean Dendra Panoply, bronze, 15th century BC</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmqyz63EhuDolCSVuRxFTbHtPEeGA2f3KU2DXgzACgddQVF5HQuF_1uW4MoGXS-gepxKkkuqVzocgJKvi6aVx25fej9VQHGL7PfI8OupeCovfSgQNYZXfSSsq0IkEkbZlEJAYf6FrKREl_/s1600/Plate+bronze+cuirass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmqyz63EhuDolCSVuRxFTbHtPEeGA2f3KU2DXgzACgddQVF5HQuF_1uW4MoGXS-gepxKkkuqVzocgJKvi6aVx25fej9VQHGL7PfI8OupeCovfSgQNYZXfSSsq0IkEkbZlEJAYf6FrKREl_/s400/Plate+bronze+cuirass.jpg" width="347" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bronze cuirass, Netherlands 11th to 8th century BC</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuglLUAn_iY0Way-olnCspesvomvX28UmlZrGbvnhxN-GCBxSKQAqIoQ3Xvrjj0WkkMyOF9LcVGxiW2zKH-CGkWIYv396g8fPx97rW40UDWgQBQF7ifdw4TSJ7xHAKegMduIGXHqtmIMTl/s1600/Plate+etruscan+breastplate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuglLUAn_iY0Way-olnCspesvomvX28UmlZrGbvnhxN-GCBxSKQAqIoQ3Xvrjj0WkkMyOF9LcVGxiW2zKH-CGkWIYv396g8fPx97rW40UDWgQBQF7ifdw4TSJ7xHAKegMduIGXHqtmIMTl/s400/Plate+etruscan+breastplate.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Etruscan bronze breastplate, 8th century BC</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip8HnrlAyXGg5-PKBBDaloz04v1GzQKAPTQ0hp0fj77ukI5-bBNHDuogjtQD5Uz82ruzPn187cAv_RICZ4a2uOrhhf5tH0BwIGZEaV3oPN8XkzfBTPDKZwlgZFv8DQjvQ38Lj6FY6w5uhQ/s1600/Plate+Etruscan+Cardiophylax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip8HnrlAyXGg5-PKBBDaloz04v1GzQKAPTQ0hp0fj77ukI5-bBNHDuogjtQD5Uz82ruzPn187cAv_RICZ4a2uOrhhf5tH0BwIGZEaV3oPN8XkzfBTPDKZwlgZFv8DQjvQ38Lj6FY6w5uhQ/s320/Plate+Etruscan+Cardiophylax.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Etruscan <i>kardiophylax,</i> bronze pectoral, 7th century BC</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbs-8zRtIoUR3otxRfDRt_8d0OX7Huh5_XB1oVbVNj7fSRG-2CKy86AM7BbKcCHToQW89T0l8Zzh5y-WRXJs8q-NbyYQjmg985YWkI2TLeZJJukEGG98qHwXrnCXXpwhRS2bD0vBTT6NGx/s1600/Plate+greek-bronze-cuirass-from-late-7th-century-bc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbs-8zRtIoUR3otxRfDRt_8d0OX7Huh5_XB1oVbVNj7fSRG-2CKy86AM7BbKcCHToQW89T0l8Zzh5y-WRXJs8q-NbyYQjmg985YWkI2TLeZJJukEGG98qHwXrnCXXpwhRS2bD0vBTT6NGx/s400/Plate+greek-bronze-cuirass-from-late-7th-century-bc.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greek bell cuirass, bronze, 7th century BC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDQJ9i6Cqf8Y0vTDbC4F9VBnEgreOOtTG0x15XWfFCfhRZAHufpTfwYsOSqWmnEq9s8ngSf5BtmBwqtnBZ4VUEZEcM4oZ6fgjEp53QudZBNU7INL5OVR4CUkG75UfzTa8S88EjV4s3vnIy/s1600/Plate+muscle+cuirass+475+bce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDQJ9i6Cqf8Y0vTDbC4F9VBnEgreOOtTG0x15XWfFCfhRZAHufpTfwYsOSqWmnEq9s8ngSf5BtmBwqtnBZ4VUEZEcM4oZ6fgjEp53QudZBNU7INL5OVR4CUkG75UfzTa8S88EjV4s3vnIy/s400/Plate+muscle+cuirass+475+bce.jpg" width="333" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Greek muscle cuirass 475 BC<br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4FUW7U1jbTACPYO18Cc7KmqcIZxk2j4WVW52L03JRJgFtfr7rU5srBO5T-k267LzooOiC5YeBaNIYjfcqzpcaKHyToYg_5MLYBe5Y4U9N0V_R0JtXrdbN4Tjdu8iknADMr1auyH2F4NC_/s1600/Plate+Etruscan+or+Samnite+tri+disc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4FUW7U1jbTACPYO18Cc7KmqcIZxk2j4WVW52L03JRJgFtfr7rU5srBO5T-k267LzooOiC5YeBaNIYjfcqzpcaKHyToYg_5MLYBe5Y4U9N0V_R0JtXrdbN4Tjdu8iknADMr1auyH2F4NC_/s640/Plate+Etruscan+or+Samnite+tri+disc.jpg" width="328" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Etruscan triple-disc breastplate, 5th-4th century BC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNrFZ0YvleKeD2t0vynjmPEdfDZk5YqEyDM2BRVj2zQxenaOBsWl8JOUlcUD6jalg7NeD3leBvwLPx8mjSMrbGgYqWxAWiAq_rPMA6bdHAEHR_e7AYgJwb_FcbyBO69a1BfsSPfOlxAXY/s1600/Plate+Carthaginian+brass+breatplate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNrFZ0YvleKeD2t0vynjmPEdfDZk5YqEyDM2BRVj2zQxenaOBsWl8JOUlcUD6jalg7NeD3leBvwLPx8mjSMrbGgYqWxAWiAq_rPMA6bdHAEHR_e7AYgJwb_FcbyBO69a1BfsSPfOlxAXY/s400/Plate+Carthaginian+brass+breatplate.jpg" width="381" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Carthaginian brass breastplate, 3rd century BC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKo0RSsiBBdvezXlxqb_qb8HULlEjOlXCRbNgI3dQ64xnemHwXq9zKpUHqnuYgSBSIFgcRrSGgBOXRRW88axKz96i29l5GKUlr7KvO88MG8hfcZLmtMT1LsNHA-TSeC1KnZUMq7wpmKslo/s1600/Plate+Italian+1400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKo0RSsiBBdvezXlxqb_qb8HULlEjOlXCRbNgI3dQ64xnemHwXq9zKpUHqnuYgSBSIFgcRrSGgBOXRRW88axKz96i29l5GKUlr7KvO88MG8hfcZLmtMT1LsNHA-TSeC1KnZUMq7wpmKslo/s640/Plate+Italian+1400.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian transitional armour, 14th century, incorporating elements of brigandine, mail and plate</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEoX44-V4e2NJyTDIg_oLaybuErumCdisKJuPtqsr9GXigeRVlGu_4WXl1Tb3Oh9K-5NTfQPJmyg1w12VWt3wfV1TBEB9sKhMsm66S0mw-ygB1v9FyLRL9j2g1zy-UMHcUopi4fO_-yhey/s1600/Plate+Henry+VIII.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEoX44-V4e2NJyTDIg_oLaybuErumCdisKJuPtqsr9GXigeRVlGu_4WXl1Tb3Oh9K-5NTfQPJmyg1w12VWt3wfV1TBEB9sKhMsm66S0mw-ygB1v9FyLRL9j2g1zy-UMHcUopi4fO_-yhey/s640/Plate+Henry+VIII.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henry VIII's armour from about 1510, body armour does not improve after this point, Henry outgrows this armour fairly quickly</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJlTTKBZcGa9fhW8ppHDniIZBQc-yxY1rGUPBkluDRThicsrSbebxHCK6cIGbwuFjJRmA9syUazrR5x4w4gMQsa9pl0yk6gJSIV_0KbmW_hoFT41HhtcuF7wLQFc7yCnZutnori7Yk5ZFN/s1600/Plate+German+anime+cuirass+1590.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJlTTKBZcGa9fhW8ppHDniIZBQc-yxY1rGUPBkluDRThicsrSbebxHCK6cIGbwuFjJRmA9syUazrR5x4w4gMQsa9pl0yk6gJSIV_0KbmW_hoFT41HhtcuF7wLQFc7yCnZutnori7Yk5ZFN/s400/Plate+German+anime+cuirass+1590.jpg" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">German <i>anime</i> cuirass from about 1590</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="A striking Cuirassier Officer's gold-painted three-quarter armour, Savoy, circa 1630. Comprising close helmet with rounded skull formed of two halves each with integral neck lame, the base studded with lining rivets on brass rosette washers, pivoted fall formed with hooded guards acutely arched over the eyes, visor cut with a single mouth-like breathe and the upper edges with hemispherical openings for the eyes, pivoted chinpiece: " height="640" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/fb/d8/19/fbd8195b621774baa4d5950b1716f0b3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="256" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">French Cuirassiers three-quarter armour, 1630, the armour of the lower legs is discarded first</td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hWR_tBzY6RexcheqMVZG8HVMC0SJrqASkQRS3bYtkhNBXXXEyArlpaKyDQY4rc8N9QmHBAEU40gpEOLfkXJWgxs20Mx8z03np9UTMz5wwNWmTk2CuSlq-BGW8bRFg1ArfWvR3TIO7bRD/s1600/Plate+Ottoman+krug+16th+to+7th+c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hWR_tBzY6RexcheqMVZG8HVMC0SJrqASkQRS3bYtkhNBXXXEyArlpaKyDQY4rc8N9QmHBAEU40gpEOLfkXJWgxs20Mx8z03np9UTMz5wwNWmTk2CuSlq-BGW8bRFg1ArfWvR3TIO7bRD/s400/Plate+Ottoman+krug+16th+to+7th+c.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Persian <i>krug</i> mail and plate cuirass, 16th to 17th century</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><img height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Bullet_proof_dou.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="268" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Japanese breastplate with marks of bullets, 1750</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAX0f6Eq8k48DHM9dtnAVQsXLjP856OJzlnoVuqBC4Iff36UTmdKSTrQJI_ClWtDF489asLm1MyMOJh2pIpHIlT8MWMV1w2XBfy6WR7TyJyJBxCLzJlS5Pifr9jJpDiTbd_xhFAtWL5bKp/s1600/Plate+Nias.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAX0f6Eq8k48DHM9dtnAVQsXLjP856OJzlnoVuqBC4Iff36UTmdKSTrQJI_ClWtDF489asLm1MyMOJh2pIpHIlT8MWMV1w2XBfy6WR7TyJyJBxCLzJlS5Pifr9jJpDiTbd_xhFAtWL5bKp/s640/Plate+Nias.jpg" width="528" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Iron plate cuirass from Nias, Indonesia late 19th to early 20th century</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxs3jPxjB_kIf8iae3T8sl_CJ0Fa2RfplzRlZ4YOQxqPz7xUqvdrmGxAujoFt8mEJ7t1kmBrtbm9-mCPW3HBjkq7Esl2EXW0NKw0MBMgREPEIJBx79ZSsY5EoGguw6IvrdNQ8UhfqClqCA/s1600/Plate+Brewster+body+armour+1917.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxs3jPxjB_kIf8iae3T8sl_CJ0Fa2RfplzRlZ4YOQxqPz7xUqvdrmGxAujoFt8mEJ7t1kmBrtbm9-mCPW3HBjkq7Esl2EXW0NKw0MBMgREPEIJBx79ZSsY5EoGguw6IvrdNQ8UhfqClqCA/s320/Plate+Brewster+body+armour+1917.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-40436340918997705042015-09-20T23:33:00.001+10:002015-09-27T00:47:33.173+10:00Undermining Certainties<div class="MsoNormal">
In the beginning everything was a mystery. You started off
with a broad sense of what you could be and what you could do but the specifics
of the experience were new. Your character, in those early days, seemed to know
little better than you. Learning the secrets necessary to stay alive was hard
and came at the cost of many ignominious deaths and much failure, but eventually
the knowledge came and with it power. Inadequate strategies were abandoned and
secrets to success discovered.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was the structure of early D&D: the Dungeon Master
was an initiated repository of secret wisdom and the players seekers after that
wisdom. The DM’s book was off-limits to players, for whom surreptitiously
reading the mysterious knowledge secured therein was tantamount to cheating.
The process by which the knowledge could be transferred from the initiated to
the uninitiated was a series of ordeals. The master was not required to tailor
the ordeals to the specific capacities of the aspirant, part of the testing
involved determining what manner of ordeal could be endured. It was only by
undertaking carefully judged ascending gradations of challenge that the
character and their player could rise through the ranks, gaining new abilities
to help endure the ordeals and new ways of using them and, almost as
importantly, gaining the knowledge of how to go about things in such a manner
as to minimise unnecessary death. There were tricks of situational awareness
and cautious thoroughness in negotiating the dangerous environments the DM presented, as well as lists of vulnerabilities and immunities and powers
that had to be learned by rote, list upon list of weapons, armour, spells,
characters, places, monsters and treasures. All of these were mysteries at the
beginning. You didn’t know them, your character didn’t know them, only the
DM had access to the privileged information.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A useful concept for discussing these ideas is that of the
epistemic regime. The epistemic regime of a work of fiction describes what is
known by the different actors in the story and by the author and reader. Much
of the tension, drama and humour in narratives derives from the unequal
distribution of various facts: she doesn’t know he’s the killer, the author and
the reader know it’s a bad idea but the character blunders on regardless. Irony
relies on this unequal distribution too, there is an audience that derives a
secret meaning from an ironic statement and an audience that does not, the
knowledgeable audience and the author of the statement collude in the transfer
of this secret knowledge in plain sight. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Epistemic regimes are of special importance to fantasy and
science fiction because there is generally a whole lot more the author is aware
of that the reader does not know and a subsequent necessity for a greater-than-usual
amount of exposition. It is because of this wildly unequal epistemic regime
that so much fantasy relies upon reader surrogate characters from outside the
magic world; Harry Potter, Dorothy, John Carter, Alice; or reader surrogates
from a provincial backwater; Bilbo Baggins, Rand al’Thor, Taran the Assistant
Pig-Keeper, Pug/Milamber, Duny/Ged, Shea Ohmsford, Garion [Insert High Fantasy
yokel-destined-for-greatness here]. Their ignorance or outsider status requires
that mentors explain everything for them or that the author’s exposition be
justified by the mutually ignorant position of reader and protagonist. The
other, less-important-for-my-hypothesis reason for humble origins is a dramatic
one, it is more dramatically satisfying for underdogs to come out on top.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is something of a distinction that can be made between
the ascending character arcs of post-Tolkien High Fantasy and the Picaresque
nature of much pulp fantasy. In the works of Jack Vance, Fritz Lieber or Robert
E. Howard, the protagonists tend to be worldly and exposition is a less weighty
component of the writing, even to the extent that, as is explicitly the case in
M. John Harrison’s work, world-building is impromptu and ad hoc – only that
which is necessary to pave the way for more adventure need be invented. Even the
author need not know much more about the world than is revealed to the reader,
and while some kind of character arc is often presented and new information
revealed as the narrative progresses, there is definitely a tendency for the
protagonist to not be a neophyte in need of initiation into the mysteries of
the invented world, nor need the reader be undergoing such an initiation by
proxy. Characteristically, such a world does not tolerate great upheaval, the
changes wrought by the actions of a Picaro are generally not world-shaking.
There is a fatalistic sense in the genre that the world will continues
regardless of the actions of individuals, while in High Fantasy, the fate of
the world is typically decided by the actions of individuals, their success changes
the world for the better and saves the world from some kind of terrible threat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These slightly distinct subgenres represent the two major
sources drawn upon to develop D&D, and while there is a definite preference
displayed by Gygax for pulp fantasy, the epistemic DNA of High Fantasy is very
strong in D&D. A satisfying and
engaging character arc is one of the major rewards for bold and clever play,
and as characters get more capable the dramatic stakes of their exploits are
also raised. This state of affairs deliberately emulates the style of High
Fantasy and does it well. In a player’s first campaign, they are given an
experience that emulates that of the reader of High Fantasy, the particular
ways in which the campaign world functions are revealed, and the geography,
people and events unfold before their eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
---<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hide and seek is a game of practical epistemology. The
different players start each round of the game with a different set of facts,
and the seeker’s role is to remedy their ignorance through the application of a
set of epistemological procedures designed to reveal facts about the
whereabouts of the hiders: looking under things, looking behind things and
trying to elicit giggling with a humorous performance of these procedures. The
hiding players attempt to conceal the fact of their whereabouts by sneaking off
very quietly during the count, selecting especially good and, if possible,
novel hiding places and stifling giggling. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is an environmental component to the game, a good
place for hide and seek has a lot of hiding places. The tension of the game is
increased by a prolonging the process of formulating and testing various
hypotheses about the possible whereabouts of the hiders. Eventually, with enough
rounds of play, the environment becomes exhausted as a source of novelty
because the players have discovered all of the potential hiding places. No longer is there any need for the
formulation of new hypotheses about the whereabouts of hiders. All that is
needed is to systematically check all of the known hiding places.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Vanilla D&D actually has a similar epistemic regime to
hide and seek. The PC begins play as the seeker, made deliberately ignorant by
a DM who knows all the hiding places. However, as long as there is no deviation
from the standard playbook, after enough time the players will know by rote
which strategy offers the best advantage against trolls, skeletons, ghouls, rot
grubs, rakshasas, yellow mold, medusae and mummies. They will know what to do
to best avoid running afoul of traps and surprise attacks, they will know most
of the spells available and how to use them and what magic items they should be
on the lookout for. This acquisition of lore is subverted and exploited by a
few notorious elements of the game like gas spores and rot grubs – punishments
for being too secure in your knowledge of in-game facts or confidence in useful
interrogative procedures. These, in turn, spawn ever more sophisticated
epistemic regimes where suspicion of malicious motives necessitate special
countermeasures.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a0/D%26DMimic.JPG/200px-D%26DMimic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a0/D%26DMimic.JPG/200px-D%26DMimic.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bastardry</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whenever knowledge is gained, ignorance is lost – naïveté evaporates under fire. Not only do
the players gain the epistemological skills to better interrogate the game
environment for useful information as they play, they also gain information
about the generic game-world itself. Over years, every veteran player will also
have had a chance to run games, or at least read through all of the
once-forbidden lore so, unless a very strict separation of player and character
knowledge is adhered to to avoid metagaming, a certain amount of worldliness is
going to creep into the character’s interactions with the predictable enemies
and scenarios they encounter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thus, then, the OSR. The OSR is largely composed of people
who have seen everything and are rigorous and cunning in their interrogation of
the game environment. This makes their characters disproportionately deadly and
their play-style effective, especially if there is a predictability in their environment
and the challenges they face – they have seen all the hiding places. This creates
a need for the establishment of different play environments and different secrets
as a means of recreating something like the epistemic regime of the older
versions of the game. Because in addition to the worldliness of the veteran,
there is in the nature of the OSR gamer certain amount of nostalgia for a time
when everything was mysterious and new. It is impossible to recreate the
experience of the first encounter with a rust monster using a rust monster.
That door is shut now. There are other ways of recapturing the excitement of
the experience but it requires the implementation of strategies of estrangement
and a certain degree of invention.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think there are many reasons why the source-texts of much
OSR material tends to be Pulp Fantasy rather than High Fantasy. There is a
degree to which the exhaustive creation of comprehensively detailed worlds only
makes sense if there is going to be a large audience to make it worthwhile and ensure its continuity over time. There may be a suspicion of the artificiality of grand sweeping story-arcs and a legitimate dubiousness about their unworkability as imposed from above by in-game canon (e.g. 2E-era Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk).
There is also the fact that picaresque Murderhobo-ism that is an emergent
property of D&D’s reward system seems to run counter to the prevailingly
axial morality of the High Fantasy genre but accords closely with the
urbane fatalism characteristic of Pulp Fantasy. I think the most compelling reason
for the preference is the inescapable fact of players Knowing the Score. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A related genre with
much overlap is the Weird. The Weird has about it something of an iconoclastic
punk sensibility, even in its earliest manifestations there is a quality to it that
is rooted in the erosion of certainties, in an ethical spectrum that runs from
fatalism through pessimism to the outer reaches of nihilism. The prevailing
epistemic regime here, particularly in Lovecraftian tales, is not merely
ignorance for the protagonist but a sense that the gaining of knowledge is
often inimical to sanity. The author is very much concerned with using
strategies of estrangement to undermine the certainties of the reader. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The true weird tale has something more than secret murder,
bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain
atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must
be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and
portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the
human brain--a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of
Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the
daemons of unplumbed space.” HPL<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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This is, for me, the natural territory of the best of the OSR: a kind of
iconoclastic undermining of whatever assumptions existed before (though maybe without quite so much portentousness), because there is compelling reason to serve up predictability. Hence
Raggi-esque Negadungeons and Deep Carbon Observatory. There comes always into
my mind the ridiculous image of the OSR gamer as a kind of reckless libertine glutted
with sensation, walking blindfolded into unknown perils. I think that I am
guilty here of a certain amount of reductive essentialism for effect but I
know that there is a canny market for evocative novelty. The process of players having
to negotiate new theories about the way the world is run and engage in rigorous
interrogations of the structure of fictional things is potentially a source of
much enjoyment for GM and player alike. It is especially the case if you’ve
invented all the stuff yourself and the players are unravelling exposition as a
means of ensuring their character’s survival. Nothing will ever be
the same as the original experience but it might just be better.<o:p></o:p></div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-69672161356078327362015-09-10T23:37:00.001+10:002015-09-27T00:48:15.341+10:00On Verisimilitude<div class="MsoNormal">
While I recognise that the makers of mediaeval and fantasy
movies are not responsible for educating the populace about the realities of history,
I think we miss out on a lot due to ingrained practices and a kind of
incestuously lacklustre creative vision. <a href="http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/">Patrick Stuart</a> made a typically
interesting point in response to ideas I raised in my last post. Patrick raised the notion
that the highly-individualised faux-armours worn by the characters in
contemporary mediaeval cinema and television actually tell the story of those
characters better than accurate armour would. My initial reaction was to
disagree, but now I am not so sure. The issue is, in part, who the characters
are, and in who’s imagined past are they living. If the details of the
production design, as opposed to the action that takes place, is the key means
by which the filmmakers convey the historical context within which the
characters are embedded, then the historical context is of diminished importance.
The characters may as well be anywhere
or anyone else. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I reserve a particularly keen dislike for most contemporary genre
filmmaking and almost all contemporary genre television, especially the mediaeval
stuff. The primary reason for this dislike is the consistency with which it all
behaves like a contemporary soap-opera with the same stock characters in
mediaeval or fantasy films espousing values indistinguishable from those in
sci-fi, which are, in turn basically the same as those in modern procedurals.
This is, of course, mainly due to the fact that everyone wants the same gigantic
audience that is literate in the dramatic language of the day. Not many people
want to be barraged with the grotesque inconsistencies of real history. Not
many people want to look at bad teeth. The imagined past of the people who
bankroll big films and lush television is soul-suckingly pedestrian and LARPy. This
is the boring reason.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
A more pertinent reason I hate the stuff is that my
crunchily details-obsessed mind seeks out the nuances of distinctly different
material cultures that produce the wonder of marvellous estrangement in my admittedly
childish heart. Historical people had less technology than we do but they
relied on what they had just as much as we do. They were also no less clever. I’m
not sure if it is possible to make a sword that is more effective than one made
five hundred years ago. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A more realistic version of the past need not be a less
beautiful version, or a less dramatic version. The story of real historical
people (and their fantastic analogues) can be told by the things they carried.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Occasional versions of this stuff turns up in films. Think
of the flying splinters in <i>Master and
Commander</i>, shipboard combat was always exciting in previous films but the visceral
horror of it had not, to my knowledge, been properly conveyed cinematically. It could be said
the Master and Commander is a post-Saving Private Ryan film, and benefits from
the revolutionarily elemental verisimilitude of that film, but there is a
tradition in maritime stories of attention to evocative details. This is one of
the many reasons I love <i>Moby Dick</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Details;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a siege, a smoky hellscape of broken barricades and grimy soldiers cowering behind mantlets beneath a rain of arrows. The pagan enemy below are singing. A grizzled captain of the defenders stands above the parapets and roars his speech of defiance and encouragement, arrows strike and catch in his mail but he ignores them or sweeps them away with his sword.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, creeping through the barbican beyond the shattered gate, hot sand is poured through the murder-holes. One soldier has a shield above his head and the sand pours harmlessly off. Another has sand go down his neck, underneath his armour. He sizzles and smokes and screams.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Two longships row through dense fog, the leading ship is
full of proud and haughtily moustachioed warriors who refuse to listen to the
wisdom of the crusty old gaffers in the other ship. The gaffers use a sunstone
to find the sun and determine their orientation. They turn aside from the edge
of the world. The haughty ones sail over.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj27nm05Gm9eXDNSMMp0Trf2ZWkLQDlR4J-BrsxMEL0_odws91hyuANT1Bw-pQSh847A0aAio4KQLtCfj99OYzsAAD3AVQXHlVASYkWWyZehV873MmkcnjtVL1ZVxMECLwVgxb8mbvpOx-/s1600/B4x06PQCQAEFUN_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj27nm05Gm9eXDNSMMp0Trf2ZWkLQDlR4J-BrsxMEL0_odws91hyuANT1Bw-pQSh847A0aAio4KQLtCfj99OYzsAAD3AVQXHlVASYkWWyZehV873MmkcnjtVL1ZVxMECLwVgxb8mbvpOx-/s400/B4x06PQCQAEFUN_.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TV gets some things right</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A woman arrayed in gleaming harness battles an ogre on a
narrow path on the side of a volcano, the ogre breaks her sword with a great
stone hammer. She grabs the beast and throws herself off the edge and they fall
and tumble together down the jagged scarp, smashing into rubble and shards of
volcanic glass. They lie still together at the bottom, the ogre is cut to ribbons
and his brains are coming out. The woman groans and gets up to dust herself off. Her
armour is scratched and dented but she seems unharmed. She gets up and falls
over, too dizzy to walk. Another ogre is picking his way gingerly down the
slope.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A warrior with a thick gambeson, assailed by war dogs, has a
snarling dog hanging from each sleeve, laughs and kicks awkwardly at them. A
third dog comes running.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A scullion-wench is chased over boggy ground by shepherds on
stilts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOJQ-IL1BQYW6Z6nIHdd2Zi9c32lz3wCfv0UCLPfDES91sbuml66weA2prglbmBoa_BbVIhh6J9QwsmeusxR1CODnj6NrsOoVDB3uI1VekW-dV1ArKpHE5rpkrFs1-dANG2F0DE0RtJdP_/s1600/stilts-charades-nypl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOJQ-IL1BQYW6Z6nIHdd2Zi9c32lz3wCfv0UCLPfDES91sbuml66weA2prglbmBoa_BbVIhh6J9QwsmeusxR1CODnj6NrsOoVDB3uI1VekW-dV1ArKpHE5rpkrFs1-dANG2F0DE0RtJdP_/s400/stilts-charades-nypl.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A battle rages about the site of the construction of a cathedral, the villain escapes by being winched by treadwheel crane, hilariously slowly, up to the flying buttresses. The heroes have to fight his loyal henchmen inside the treadmill and upon the soaring architecture while the villain hurls gargoyles down from above.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rTunJ0ALGEBWqQBUpzOr3Mxg4eD1dXl8A764tP742RYqbqauDYTcc8lBNJV6HM8BRioumWT7H1WqzgrdMlHPi1SJc-HGT-8bYlarxdXSIagC10HeuI5C0w8efI5arpeZyOgd-_7FhMru/s1600/tumblr_mb3vt3t25M1qb2qnco1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rTunJ0ALGEBWqQBUpzOr3Mxg4eD1dXl8A764tP742RYqbqauDYTcc8lBNJV6HM8BRioumWT7H1WqzgrdMlHPi1SJc-HGT-8bYlarxdXSIagC10HeuI5C0w8efI5arpeZyOgd-_7FhMru/s400/tumblr_mb3vt3t25M1qb2qnco1_500.jpg" width="293" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A murky village in which a trial is taking place. The
accused: a pig in a dress with a human mask, charged with the murder of a human
infant. She has no defence and is found guilty.<br />
<br />
A company of heavy cavalry try to close formation as a band
of outriders come thundering over the hill with barefoot hippodromoi at their
heels, holding on to the horses’ tails and bounding along at great speed. The
outriders wheel but the runners keep running, using their speed and momentum to tumble and duck below swords and gut and hamstring
mercilessly.<br />
<br />
A slave rebellion, the city is burning. A pair of cruppellarii
stride impervious down a cobbled street. The city guard break spears and arrows
on their armour and the gladiators murder them with impunity until some clever
bastard commandeers a stack of tent poles and the guards batter them to the ground,
pinning them like writhing animals until someone has the courage to stick a
knife through their eye slits.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisHLDI6OcTDkGFUGmA0Em6SEp3wzdWIhSs86PIDvNYOx0SWRJKnvfIrfAmP-oXTd17QI3thfuL9DhKhO12LK5AFdPxT0_4ooC9D1yAJ0hOj1hCQdzN-T86av_DGXS9OlsHQhxqKLzbrm4C/s1600/aa6b96d99198dd624ad095be7947a0d9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisHLDI6OcTDkGFUGmA0Em6SEp3wzdWIhSs86PIDvNYOx0SWRJKnvfIrfAmP-oXTd17QI3thfuL9DhKhO12LK5AFdPxT0_4ooC9D1yAJ0hOj1hCQdzN-T86av_DGXS9OlsHQhxqKLzbrm4C/s400/aa6b96d99198dd624ad095be7947a0d9.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I used to think they didn't invent armour like this 'til a thousand years later.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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Hurlbats.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8g6ROkmDBbvB0B2YUjK6h4af2iBjlkPV3-mjrcsFnDnGuc3uXvvirMi8punoZujgXrZmlKn8wtkVK2FaVSTdE09GhjbaR_3MYzFXlJTmBd3sFCY5CR3x_2-8nO9x8gQHevIyQX008Ci1g/s1600/hurlbats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8g6ROkmDBbvB0B2YUjK6h4af2iBjlkPV3-mjrcsFnDnGuc3uXvvirMi8punoZujgXrZmlKn8wtkVK2FaVSTdE09GhjbaR_3MYzFXlJTmBd3sFCY5CR3x_2-8nO9x8gQHevIyQX008Ci1g/s320/hurlbats.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism">Scaphism.</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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A lull in the raging battle and
the enemy line parts with drilled precision to reveal a line of a hundred handgunners
with sizzling fuses. They touch fire to barrel and the weapons go off with a
crackling roar. The defenders look down at themselves with incredulity. No-one is
hurt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
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Slight Caveat: As aspie as I am, I feel like there are
innumerable exceptions to the stance I have taken. I feel like the <i>Macbeth</i> film that is coming up with
Michael Fassbender is going to be awesome in spite of the blatant inaccuracies of
the production design (also maybe due to my slight man-crush on Fassbender from
<i>Frank</i> and S<i>hame</i>). This, I am sure, will work because Shakespeare is so
stylised, that it can be equal parts twenty-first and seventeen and eleventh
century and still be so good because it is about the universal truths of human
existence. There is also an irony to that kind of visual stylisation that is something
I strive for, though I feel it is easy to be too arch and mannered and coy
about the layers of meaning you are trying to convey. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br />
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I don’t know really. Haven’t seen the movie. Fucking awesome
trailer, though.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ieFaaCYztDU/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ieFaaCYztDU?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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One more thing. There has been recent discussion about how helmets make you head look big and dwarf your face or anonymise, which tends to relegate the wearer to villain-status or vulnerable underlingdom, and are thrown off by heroes at the first opportunity. If Fassbender were not contractually obliged to wear this thing by layers of intellectual property law, there's no way they would make him. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuThvjwmf2Hkz0ioEQFIkbafavaAy5HjCimE4ZgjJ5k0G7hTGjLJ_b9M_Z7B5w1czp8R1g-3MrPkABW4Dc4sBRnf3yJRHVwDQ9KdKpL54BlrVSZ8s-MpcbtrX7VH_Ya4J_QoG9PYgvrdO2/s1600/Erik_Lehnsherr_%2528Earth-TRN414%2529_006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuThvjwmf2Hkz0ioEQFIkbafavaAy5HjCimE4ZgjJ5k0G7hTGjLJ_b9M_Z7B5w1czp8R1g-3MrPkABW4Dc4sBRnf3yJRHVwDQ9KdKpL54BlrVSZ8s-MpcbtrX7VH_Ya4J_QoG9PYgvrdO2/s400/Erik_Lehnsherr_%2528Earth-TRN414%2529_006.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-21713598385726988032015-09-08T22:38:00.003+10:002015-09-27T00:48:53.694+10:00Apocryphal Armour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
There is a small subset of internet nerds who dislike the
use of the term chainmail. The problem is that it is tautological. Mail means
armour made from a matrix of metal rings linked together to form a flexible
mesh. Adding descriptors to mail as a means of describing other forms of
armour, as though mail just means armour, dates back, like most forms of
academic silliness, to the 19<sup>th</sup> century.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The 19<sup>th</sup> century was a time when Victorian
gentlemen were collecting and cataloguing things with gay abandon. Among these was Samuel Rush Meyrick. Meyrick
was active during the first half of the 19<sup>th</sup> century in the field of
mediaeval history. He was a renowned cataloguer of armour and has this marvellous
British Celtic helmet that looks like a backwards baseball cap made of bronze
named after him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Dl2wXNY5Ypg0msMahW0EZjZKe70VRmixJu3KuSNWZ_iv_HIJhcgjzo3LaR7XMsVI7kgNVHh8G9z_50Kbw1rcOos84z5-fF6DBqyKQ3hhcD8y0iMp7qZ16z-fyfa04vuh4iDGrEdm17aV/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Dl2wXNY5Ypg0msMahW0EZjZKe70VRmixJu3KuSNWZ_iv_HIJhcgjzo3LaR7XMsVI7kgNVHh8G9z_50Kbw1rcOos84z5-fF6DBqyKQ3hhcD8y0iMp7qZ16z-fyfa04vuh4iDGrEdm17aV/s1600/download.jpg" /></a></div>
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Meyrick was something of a taxonomic splitter. Generally
speaking, the world is made up of two kinds of taxonomists; those who see
similarities as being most important, and those who see differences as being
more compelling. It is tempting at times to characterise the splitters as being
more creative and perhaps more adventurous, always out to prove that there are
new things under the sun. It can also be tempting to see the lumpers as being like
the researchers that were determined to convince everyone that the
extraordinary revelation of the discovery of <i>Homo floresiensis</i> was a mistake, and that the remains found were
just some unusually small microcephalic individuals who happened to have
inhabited the same area over the course of a few tens of thousands of years. In
Meyrick’s case , however, the splitting was ill-advised. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Meyrick collected armour and classified it according to the
established systems of the day. For the majority of the armour he was able to
collect – predominantly plate armours – this was easy, plate armour lasts a
long time and was fairly well documented. As he was putting together his extravagantly
named work of a lifetime; <i>A critical
enquiry into antient armour as it existed in Europe, but particularly in
England, from the Norman conquest to the reign of King Charles II, with a
glossary of military terms of the middle ages, </i>he found it necessary to<i> </i>write about the armour that existed
before plate armour. To do so he relied upon secondary sources - there is
actually very little armour in existence from the early Middle Ages as it has
mostly rusted away and fallen apart, and documents from the period are not
particularly specific about the kinds of technical details he required. As a
result he had to look at manuscripts, at tomb effigies and to a very large
extent at the embroidered warriors of the Bayeux Tapestry. Whether because
different embroiderers worked on different parts of the Bayeux Tapestry or whether
there was an active attempt by the individuals concerned to vary the patterns
used to depict what would have been many similarly mail-clad warriors, the
result was a wide variety of patterns sewn upon the forms of the warriors.
Meyrick seems to have had one of those proliferating imaginations as he was
able to take simple patterns and extrapolate to quite ridiculous extents.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The results of Meyrick’s extrapolations from simple
stylistic conventions was a variety of different forms of apocryphal armour. These
misinterpretations were notable in being wrong in a number of quite detailed
ways which I can only assume to be the work of a dishonest man, or a foolish
individual so absorbed in his theories as to allow himself to be swept away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Meyrick saw, in the simple and stylised embroidery and in
similarly simple and stylised illustrations and carvings, what looked like
this;<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhafmS5k4OB-vFgU2KkKGcgttP-TaMpTbG-d3xWs0NyKy90POfcX27ThHWBSlZO6_Jql80HB0ga2q8_duogf4rkP8IoQuuZp5HNlv09wQT1Q1E_glwCdpoQ7rvCQhB2jn-NXUBPogsrajp2/s1600/delineations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhafmS5k4OB-vFgU2KkKGcgttP-TaMpTbG-d3xWs0NyKy90POfcX27ThHWBSlZO6_Jql80HB0ga2q8_duogf4rkP8IoQuuZp5HNlv09wQT1Q1E_glwCdpoQ7rvCQhB2jn-NXUBPogsrajp2/s320/delineations.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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From these he postulated eight different types of “mail”; ringed
mail, mascled mail, trelliced mail, rustred mail, chain mail, banded mail,
tegulated mail and scale mail. Of these, two actually existed. “Chainmail” was
almost certainly what the vast majority of these images depicted – Meyrick had
allowed the artistic conventions to feed his confabulatory obsessions. Scale
armour was a variant of lamellar armour, lamellar was actually rather common in
Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, and was included as part of
the composite forms of protection in Japanese armours. Scale armour is
significantly less common, even to the extent that I think it is probably safe
to say depictions of what look like scale in Western Europe were probably
lamellar.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgFUSh6sSP0GC4HmG_PPOmrXdowSvo9uxVLhJ0mV1V7mgn08HTkdVSXXdfQCIlXh-M_DIF63zNQi6Y5fyKr33lvVclJQxKzw5SnNOPIkwUT9bw9rf197CmtfIvwBiHu0MeBF49GSkszsLV/s1600/lak039a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgFUSh6sSP0GC4HmG_PPOmrXdowSvo9uxVLhJ0mV1V7mgn08HTkdVSXXdfQCIlXh-M_DIF63zNQi6Y5fyKr33lvVclJQxKzw5SnNOPIkwUT9bw9rf197CmtfIvwBiHu0MeBF49GSkszsLV/s400/lak039a.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the Bayeux. Note: That's Bishop Odo on the left starting the myth that clerics could only use blunt weapons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYXqFz4rTriNkCIdr1M5jhIpzw0vbjyqf_NI5q6hVTnJo2bhECAPy2RncG3lVOOpeoxJogJElkMaaKtHcg9XwSFRK3np0J2TuYGda4codUutsXqWXrLQ954nkwDznZq3pRq0VHmiTZhhfS/s1600/img01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYXqFz4rTriNkCIdr1M5jhIpzw0vbjyqf_NI5q6hVTnJo2bhECAPy2RncG3lVOOpeoxJogJElkMaaKtHcg9XwSFRK3np0J2TuYGda4codUutsXqWXrLQ954nkwDznZq3pRq0VHmiTZhhfS/s640/img01.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
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So, the apocryphals consist of;<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ringed mail, Which found its way into AD&D as ring mail
and is probably the most common form of bullshit pseudo-armour depicted in
movies and TV. There is a real version of this but it is Asian and relatively
modern so no banana.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrpAnAA3GskMnnUGelpqULjhIGSBhJF7_R57eETCYKvAD-vuMMrpgAbNOQdQaC4y7NfLS8Mq1DUk1i0Nzw8J6sGZyosTiYd3wWFy5AckdOjUQLEG0VCUQE9bXpseggMJVG0t9wQbEiLeVL/s1600/1428726921_178e45ffe3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrpAnAA3GskMnnUGelpqULjhIGSBhJF7_R57eETCYKvAD-vuMMrpgAbNOQdQaC4y7NfLS8Mq1DUk1i0Nzw8J6sGZyosTiYd3wWFy5AckdOjUQLEG0VCUQE9bXpseggMJVG0t9wQbEiLeVL/s400/1428726921_178e45ffe3.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Absolute bullshit</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Mascled mail: in which diagonal crosshatching is interpreted
to be overlapping lozenge-shaped metal plates sewn to a leather backing. Not
unreasonable except that it was poor interpretation of insufficient evidence
and wrong.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Trellised mail: this is particularly egregiously
confabulatory, from the third pattern across Meyrick concocted a form of armour
that has square plates held between layers of leather by a central rivet and strips
of leather between. This is essentially similar to a later form of armour known
as brigandine, but there was, of course, woefully insufficient evidence for
such a thing occurring in the eleventh century.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCI9xkrDc4KPHt_fCtDVnpCkOjjkWr7EpZwfkyRcqVT5M_8PDWA6X9YQ48f7-BelpJ601w3cHGQ6Wb6stzWoHnRh3e7i9C6jaPVXwP4njhH29fEeZgO17fSMCDL67An2nW1jDK4ENc7Pw/s1600/french_warrior_from_a_bas_relief_in_the_cloister_of_saint_aubin_at_angers.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCI9xkrDc4KPHt_fCtDVnpCkOjjkWr7EpZwfkyRcqVT5M_8PDWA6X9YQ48f7-BelpJ601w3cHGQ6Wb6stzWoHnRh3e7i9C6jaPVXwP4njhH29fEeZgO17fSMCDL67An2nW1jDK4ENc7Pw/s320/french_warrior_from_a_bas_relief_in_the_cloister_of_saint_aubin_at_angers.gif" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From this...<br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUaASNUrK2D2LzOPzNXHn03sV8weO4kkyxYSNYAdXae3RvsISrEL49xzlB00AiIpTm99VUGtMoPASYVCDBizE5pVAW0CXU0t9UCw3P9L80uITR2uornknRKSVGZmvUoETW4Uew0UM4GseV/s1600/Racinet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="572" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUaASNUrK2D2LzOPzNXHn03sV8weO4kkyxYSNYAdXae3RvsISrEL49xzlB00AiIpTm99VUGtMoPASYVCDBizE5pVAW0CXU0t9UCw3P9L80uITR2uornknRKSVGZmvUoETW4Uew0UM4GseV/s640/Racinet.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">... we get the second from the left, note the detail above (nonsense). Also nonsense are numbers one and four (ringed mail and tegulated mail).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Rustred Mail is impossible to find an example of. I saw a 19<sup>th</sup>
century illustration once in an old children’s encyclopaedia (Newne’s Pictorial
Knowledge). I have looked for it but cannot find it. It is ridiculous to think
that someone “figured out” rustred mail existed and others believed him. Rustred
mail is big overlapping rings that hang down over one another. It did not occur
to Meyrick that the reason people use rings in armour is the whole interlinking
thing. He somehow assumed people tried various other configurations before
linking them together.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWu3YOpzSKXE3FE2wcwfuUCMnmEcsYfwU2R1ZP82eBRC3NkL6oguJLi3OQDdbx2bki5D5ODMD_xHktyd_2DbNRMnrIfNRRiWdC7UPCO4tchlN2qv4ZzCwyWJd08EnF20tT_oFzs_zDNvIZ/s1600/specimen_of_the_rustred_coat_flat_rings_are_oval_and_overflap_each_other_half_way.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWu3YOpzSKXE3FE2wcwfuUCMnmEcsYfwU2R1ZP82eBRC3NkL6oguJLi3OQDdbx2bki5D5ODMD_xHktyd_2DbNRMnrIfNRRiWdC7UPCO4tchlN2qv4ZzCwyWJd08EnF20tT_oFzs_zDNvIZ/s1600/specimen_of_the_rustred_coat_flat_rings_are_oval_and_overflap_each_other_half_way.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a terrible image</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Banded mail gets interpreted in AD&D as being something
akin to the laminated armour cataphracts wore on their arms and legs but in
Meyrick’s nomenclature it refers to a misinterpretation of this simplified and
stylised way of depicting ordinary mail.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc4xgu6K5l297KNtedvxUMM3lN1aMsoM-GCBCTnMKeHSyJlojcoAq5tctMeilFAbXbanEP8NT0wBRUBj4WojPMI-6gWCwcYs9w1y370rV2K6nFCxYtwt0TZR0BJi_LE2j67qLMGI8P0IVz/s1600/pic_mail16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc4xgu6K5l297KNtedvxUMM3lN1aMsoM-GCBCTnMKeHSyJlojcoAq5tctMeilFAbXbanEP8NT0wBRUBj4WojPMI-6gWCwcYs9w1y370rV2K6nFCxYtwt0TZR0BJi_LE2j67qLMGI8P0IVz/s400/pic_mail16.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Like the hauberk of the bloke battering the muscular baby to death</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ-G1opK3u6WHnBorANMNfhQqfnba1l9QiDkp0AT8bc7C2uiZjv-GzeC5EufYrWt6LzL1yxr8e9RUXXBlWkpSfEF4j1D1HJddjZVxogAM6E88vjTG0V3q7cxyyx9jef_-NlpIKzsB2tqGy/s1600/armenian-and-parthian-cataphracts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ-G1opK3u6WHnBorANMNfhQqfnba1l9QiDkp0AT8bc7C2uiZjv-GzeC5EufYrWt6LzL1yxr8e9RUXXBlWkpSfEF4j1D1HJddjZVxogAM6E88vjTG0V3q7cxyyx9jef_-NlpIKzsB2tqGy/s400/armenian-and-parthian-cataphracts.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cataphract on the left is fighting a man from the future, there is no banded mail in this picture</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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There is a possible thread of truth in forms of conventional
mail with leather thongs threaded through as a means of stiffening collars and
such.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Tegulated mail is what Meyrick got out of crosshatching or
brickwork patterns where the lines are vertical and horizontal. His creative
interpretation of this is of square or rectangular plates riveted or sewn to a
backing. This would actually not be an especially bad interpretation save that
he had insufficient evidence to assert that it occurred where he asserted that
it occurred.<o:p></o:p></div>
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-<o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVKORG6qNOH2wUgikbIDoISEmPHiYjVI0RQX37t0ppqs8hbjGAYaY5V1rol9UoCcG0owUsaGz68-alOYDEcS-tp56mEVEOKHnBH6mkd7tdkRJq48SgMhQZQC0BXw-9RfXdDJ5klOH47nI-/s1600/Tegulated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVKORG6qNOH2wUgikbIDoISEmPHiYjVI0RQX37t0ppqs8hbjGAYaY5V1rol9UoCcG0owUsaGz68-alOYDEcS-tp56mEVEOKHnBH6mkd7tdkRJq48SgMhQZQC0BXw-9RfXdDJ5klOH47nI-/s320/Tegulated.jpg" width="147" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notice his hose are also tegulated</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Now what is the harm done by a few creative interpretations?
Isn’t all history interpretation? I don’t think any great harm has been
done by Meyrick’s confabulatory assertions but that there was an influence is
certain. In addition to being the heyday of collection and categorisation, the
19<sup>th</sup> century in England was a time of significant mediaeval
revivalism. There was something about mediaeval folks in general and about Vikings
in particular that stirred the romantic spirit of the age. Time was beginning
to move forward more quickly and as the landscape changed, the figures who had
been imagined to exist within the fading world were all the more poignant reminders
of what had been lost. In short, the reasons for the 19<sup>th</sup> century
mediaeval revival are the same as the reasons why fantasy is popular now:
yearning for what has been lost. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The textural embellishments provided by Meyrick’s
confabulatory misinterpretations enriched the cultural image of the mediaeval
world and were taken up, as with other things like horned helmets and
double-headed axes, as being an essential part of the mediaeval world. They
were embraced for much the same reason they were depicted as they were on the
tapestry, because people found a monotonously mailed mediaeval Europe unacceptable.
They still do. Look at the ways mediaeval armour is depicted in film and
television and the underlying principle of Meyrick’s work and the textures that
inspired it still applies. In mediaeval films textural variety is more
important than historical accuracy or even plausibility. The Viking as depicted
in contemporary cinematic culture is not so far removed from the Sturm und
Drang romanticism of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, and is even more clearly influenced
by the twentieth century romantic counter-cultural movements of hippiedom, punk,
heavy metal and biker culture in which individuality within accepted parameters
is the hallmark of status. In such a paradigm it becomes necessary to invent
various means of distinguishing between warriors, and I use the term advisedly
- soldiers are allowed to dress the same, warriors must be distinct in order to
personify notions of individuality.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwuh4MX6XmhVAYE6SXbDzEy_FxW-8WZ24dnxtpbZsUoO3IQvJRZ3Z0JyWuPuCysq4hPT5YcmrK49kLkh5_yXteq-FPUM5LrHwx13Uczl0jNUNsjkJSY5H187fvATOpge9Wp2KAjI3fQ8k/s1600/tumblr_nhyutanEB71sqztn9o1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwuh4MX6XmhVAYE6SXbDzEy_FxW-8WZ24dnxtpbZsUoO3IQvJRZ3Z0JyWuPuCysq4hPT5YcmrK49kLkh5_yXteq-FPUM5LrHwx13Uczl0jNUNsjkJSY5H187fvATOpge9Wp2KAjI3fQ8k/s640/tumblr_nhyutanEB71sqztn9o1_1280.jpg" width="502" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Note the number of different textures and means of fastening</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
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There is another aspect to this subject that is a little
harder to pin down. In addition to the need to distinguish between fiercely independent
heroic warriors, Meyrickian armours have about them a kind of contructivist
quality, which is heightened and honed in cinematic and illustrated depictions.
This is particularly the case in depictions of Viking and other “barbarian”
armours, the individuality of the designs suggest a series of individual makers
working independently of the dictates of an oppressive civilisation. The
individuality of the textures is talismanic, the protection they grant is
symbolic. This is especially the case in the contemporary TV series about
Viking called <i>The Vikings, </i>in which every
warrior wears a differently textured garment, none of which are explicitly
demonstrated as providing protection against weapons but are each encoded with
the idea of armour-ness. What armour actually did in historical contexts is not
depicted so the armour is reduced to a sign. The constructivist quality
intensifies this, the foregrounded materiality that is such an integral
component of what we see as the pre-industrial past. In reality the so-called
Dark Ages were not so rough-hewn, as even a casual perusal of the treasures of
Anglo-Saxon England will reveal. Our view of the past dictates that it must be
so. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKGaTRhsSCyQE4A7fsDnXAehigReFOVvPFT_mmQA_8rzyrddrjp0cFWSmzPQp807mLlg35K5RujmZKF-XfJ_LdNl8S53Z1q_3vbgIYjTBMUrrB53AvswwN-1BBzjReNnUUcQrjqaviuJki/s1600/northmen-a-viking-saga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKGaTRhsSCyQE4A7fsDnXAehigReFOVvPFT_mmQA_8rzyrddrjp0cFWSmzPQp807mLlg35K5RujmZKF-XfJ_LdNl8S53Z1q_3vbgIYjTBMUrrB53AvswwN-1BBzjReNnUUcQrjqaviuJki/s640/northmen-a-viking-saga.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The old fella on the left's armour is recycled from Dragonheart<br />
<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_afE8NLDtM-MHQ_Dyl0AUkdv_lpUhRVR9D-v5ji5acldDJyE9lpXMETJgFzJZuZUrdSBk3EpUMnF3o6R095x7tnmHznAtD3MjVSJxeNbgeDJVL1GZVKdIAy__DcKaveSmI3rO9gD_5BO/s1600/Dragonheart-dragonheart-and-dragonheart-2-26542595-848-361.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_afE8NLDtM-MHQ_Dyl0AUkdv_lpUhRVR9D-v5ji5acldDJyE9lpXMETJgFzJZuZUrdSBk3EpUMnF3o6R095x7tnmHznAtD3MjVSJxeNbgeDJVL1GZVKdIAy__DcKaveSmI3rO9gD_5BO/s400/Dragonheart-dragonheart-and-dragonheart-2-26542595-848-361.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Confabulated mail, mail,Confusticated mail</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0VJGkT1EEM3-1jitwJ-mgfZKL3NkL5K4khfM0qUjWUBm1FDyT35KE23gQq-HXjq0w7s1kWd91N0vXYSdh6fqP-X_J3Qgl8ll5l6xtC6sh6f2chDuZWMcnj1cHfAD9MAUO0as5Vn0SET0i/s1600/Vikings-TV-Show-Historically-Accurate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0VJGkT1EEM3-1jitwJ-mgfZKL3NkL5K4khfM0qUjWUBm1FDyT35KE23gQq-HXjq0w7s1kWd91N0vXYSdh6fqP-X_J3Qgl8ll5l6xtC6sh6f2chDuZWMcnj1cHfAD9MAUO0as5Vn0SET0i/s640/Vikings-TV-Show-Historically-Accurate.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These textures serve only to demonstrate that these are individual badasses</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA0LrM8j1crGVfEVpP_n4Xs7-aiIKvo831cPxb729ajlsF6ajqufJVxZVhx78vmAyQ9bgxyhrkzCpZQKs6Eg0kN5GmA2FZEMBSkKxJ1bDHa6WsnOFmoeN3j5duNUF2bn27YIZkD4GhDlPf/s1600/Dragonheart_26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA0LrM8j1crGVfEVpP_n4Xs7-aiIKvo831cPxb729ajlsF6ajqufJVxZVhx78vmAyQ9bgxyhrkzCpZQKs6Eg0kN5GmA2FZEMBSkKxJ1bDHa6WsnOFmoeN3j5duNUF2bn27YIZkD4GhDlPf/s640/Dragonheart_26.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These dragonslayers are awesome</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-10819720881099662932015-09-03T22:44:00.000+10:002015-09-27T00:49:34.988+10:00In Flambergast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS9GaPdGmtgWTzsL7Ias_t-N3c1z9YW9-ofxQyzj-aHktpFtHw4eWBpPmMVDzwtOkNK9q41s18rPh7m8_HlcJAO_DkeQc2fW3r56iFVJxZts0HP_mYMpu8-RY4Llp8DkvAvEOa9AX7ZiqZ/s1600/draugr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS9GaPdGmtgWTzsL7Ias_t-N3c1z9YW9-ofxQyzj-aHktpFtHw4eWBpPmMVDzwtOkNK9q41s18rPh7m8_HlcJAO_DkeQc2fW3r56iFVJxZts0HP_mYMpu8-RY4Llp8DkvAvEOa9AX7ZiqZ/s400/draugr.jpg" width="373" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Far beyond Pricking Moray another
citadel smoulders. In the cinders of Flambergast, ever-burning outpost of
Empire long-retreated, a silence reigns. In the silence is a great white horse
with a broken back, it has no ears or tail. In the horse is a man older than
the world and kingly. In his mouth a key. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The horse comes terribly maimed and
fierce. Its touch is bane and induces intrusive memories of being sewn by
elders into a hide and left by a thunderous cataract among dismal wastes, there
to be assailed by visions of descendants falling into internecine savagery and the ritual cannibalism of infants, betrayals of the most beloved under
torture and couplings with sooty extraneans in barbarous gardens beyond the
south.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Draugr-Steed</b>: AC: 16 MV:80’ HD: 6 (32hp)
#att 1 bite dmg: 1d8 + level drain ML: 10 AL: C<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The steed is undead and thus is
immune to sleep, charm and hold and other spells that affect minds and the
living functions of living beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-From the ruins of the draugr-steed
rises the man wide-eyed and bloody. He seems old but hale, white haired, dark
skinned and tall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-There is a profound sense of the
numinous about him, characters with a WIS over 12 have burning visions of the
man bearing witness to the drowning of the world from a mountaintop and placing
a key of bronze in his mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-Those touched by the man are assailed
by the inescapable knowledge that everyone and everything they have ever loved
will be swallowed by a deluge, that nothing can save them and that the sun will
shine upon the surface of the water indifferent to their fate. Everything they
experience from that moment forth will be tainted by that vision. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>The Man:</b> AC: 15 MV: 40’ HD: 7 (40hp)
#att 1 touch dmg: level drain ML 12 AL: N<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-The man is immune to magic but not
to conventional weaponry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-The key in his mouth may be used to
unlock the heart of the Keeper in the Apple-Garth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-His bones are marked with runes
describing the six of the seven rituals needed to unleash the drowning of the
world. These can be read and unleashed as scrolls by any witch who takes it
upon themselves to boil the flesh off of them and read the runes inscribed thereon: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Skull: <b>Matriculation of the Hollyhock
Demiurge</b> (MU 8) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Range</b>: Skin<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Area of Effect</b>: Caster<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Duration</b>: Until the sun dies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You must eat a wildcat alive at dawn.
You are transformed into a smiling marble godling, flower-wreathed and priapic,
all about you (30') sleep, charm and hold at the nightingale twittering that
emanates invisibly from somewhere in your vicinity. This effect is continuous so that a save must be made every
round while within range. In addition to
this the unyielding marble that is your flesh will blunt and break any weapon
save maces and hammers and the like. There is a need to consume a larger living
thing each morning or the transformation is reversed at noon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Left Thighbone: <b>Unravelling the
War-Skein</b> (MU 7)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Range</b>: Whisper<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Area of Effect</b>: Instruments of
violence borne in the hands of those who hear the whisper <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Duration</b>: Until the weapons are
melted in a foundry or the keepers are dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Every weapon sings a bright and
shimmery song of violence (+3 to hit, triple damage), it must make blood flow
each turn or it will turn against its keeper with all the wrath its keeper can
muster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pelvis: <b>Offering to the Incinerated
One </b>(MU 8) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Range</b>: horizon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Area of Effect: </b>Living souls within
the horizon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Duration:</b> Until the lives run out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With an athame must be inscribed a
glyph into the face of each sentient offering - d4 dmg. At the incantation and
every 1d6 rds thereafter a horrible blackened thing will approach in the minds'
eye and guide the caster through a parallel reality of burning canals on the
backs of shrieking silver-green dolphins. The caster is then able to enter the
souls of the living and to steal the quintessence of their being (which
manifest as fragments of radiant jade embedded in effigies of dung) , taking 1000 XP each round to be their own. After each d6 round jaunt an offering will go
shrieking into fiery doom until there are no more and enchantment is done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Right Shinbone: <b>Dance of the Timeworn
Vestiges</b> (MU 9)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Range</b>: Chanting<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Area of Effect</b>: One person<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Duration</b>: While chanting continues<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A door opens inexplicably in the
chest of the subject and out come all those who the subject has loved and
betrayed to cavort in a damnable pageant of unspeakable degradations. Should
the subject strike out against them they will crumble to ash at 1hp but any damage
inflicted will be visited sevenfold upon the subject at the end of the spell's
duration by the subject's own guilt manifest as flailing viscera from the door
in their chest. Should the subject survive the ordeal they must still save vs.
spells or experience level drain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Across five vertebrae of his lower
back: <b>Xanthic Apotheosis</b> (MU 8)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Range:</b> Horizon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Area of Effect</b>: Caster<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Duration</b>: One day per caster level<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The caster steps willingly into an
alembic of cosmic energies and is transformed instantaneously (but subjectively
over a period of many years) into a serpentine emblem of incipient monarchy. The caster must remain enthroned in basilisk-form inside the alembic until the spell expires, during which time the caster is vulnerable to all attacks as normal. The
landscape around the caster caustic substances begin to precipitate on every
surface, killing life slowly but inexorably. Each day the caster is present
within an area causes a cumulative 1 hp of dmg to everything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On the bones of his left forearm: <b>Profanation of the Sanctuary</b> (MU 9)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Range</b>:Self<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Area of Effect</b>: Caster<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Duration</b>: One round per caster level<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The caster vomits a darkness like ink
that spreads in a pool and keeps pouring forth whether the caster wishes it to
or not. Whatever enchanted being or thing is touched by the stuff may have the enchantment in it snuffed like a candle
flame. Magic-using creatures get a saving throw vs. spells and items get a
saving throw based upon the level and class of their creator (who becomes aware of the
profanation as a sickly shudder). The caster receives no saving throw. Assume
the pool spreads five feet per round on flat ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">_____________________________</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nothing beside remains</span></div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-59769939680575935432015-08-31T21:39:00.000+10:002015-09-27T00:52:58.819+10:00Children of the God of Teeth<div class="MsoNormal">
An excerpt from The Carcass of Noon;<br />
<br />
Down in the dusty vale the impalers ply their trade - making
upright citizens of those who have broken the law of the sainted dead. Few
trees remain but slender saplings, carefully tended that they may grow tall and
straight the better to correct the wayward.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In that vale the
children of the impalers are taught early that their teeth belong to the oldest
of rats. By his permission are they allowed to erupt from baby gums. By his
permission also the little borrowers are allowed to gnaw such portions as they
find suitably delectable but only for their allotted time. When their time is
up the teeth grow weak and fall out, as it were a sign of the senescence of
their infancy and burgeoning into what passes for adulthood among the impalers.
These adult years, the years between the ages of eight and their inevitable
death by thirty-six from teeth gone rotten and poison in the blood, are held to
have been purchased by the offerings they make of baby teeth and of teeth
stolen from those they execute. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is among them a trade in teeth chiselled from the
mouths of the impaled and the-yet-to-be-impaled. Favour may be gained from the
children of the eldest that scamper in the walls of the world by the right
offering of the right teeth, though it is argued among them a great deal about
who knows the correct procedures to contact and placate Those Who Gnaw Beyond.
It is said by some that those beyond care not about the status of the one to
whom a particular set of teeth belonged, more than that, it is not known
precisely whether they can know, it is the case that they may be bargained with
as to what manner of circumstance and heritage may be accepted to be embedded
in each handful of teeth. The elders who engage in these bargains rely on a
sophisticated and poetic form of lying that tests skilful rhetoric and
plausibility against an otherworldly cunning;<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those that come in the night from the riddled dark beneath
are appalling, but are dutiful servitors of Him That Gnaws. The ones who have
pleased him smile broad and yellow at the twitching recipients of their
expertise long into their fourth decade, until the inevitable cankerworm that
grows in the ancient jaw claims them in the writhing sweaty death-beds it
bestows. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They are knowns as fellers of wood and all the trees about
are well-hewn to coppicing stumps and dank mud among which bristle spinily
their nameless hamlets. Seven families dwell across a league of valley floor,
the lookalike Skenchbacks, the impertinent Skelpies, the Skenetons as thin as
sneering switches and Skenydougars with thunder in their voices, the grotesque
loping Skerrimudges, the Skoomits of sickly hue and the rampant Skelters
running before all.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are 4d6 in each of the seven hamlets, of which 1d4
will be amenable to becoming hirelings in exchange for the right to chisel
teeth from fallen and captured foes in addition to normal fees.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All are as Normal Folk without armour but with a clotting
beetle, a tendle knife or a meathook. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Their Laighlander heritage blinds them to the Darkness in the North. From the vale it can be clearly seen that a portion of the sky has fallen. Dread constellations glitter from beyond.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For <b>Skenchbacks</b>
only roll hit points for one, all others are alike<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For <b>Skelpies</b>
assume the most antagonistic demeanour as standard<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For <b>Skenetons</b>
assume they secretly plot to impale whoever they meet on whatever trumped-up
charges they can imagine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For <b>Skenydougars</b>
negate all attempts at stealth, they bellow and shriek like boreal tempests<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For <b>Skerrimudges</b>
allow a +1 bonus to surprise for they delight in ambuscades<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For <b>Skoomits</b>
assume a maximum of one hit point but an active alliance with the Eldest of
Rats<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For <b>Skelters</b>
double movement at all times<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Forenames and associated traits are determined by a d20 roll</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<br />
<ol>
<li>Trasimondo – pestiferous</li>
<li>Ursine – hirsute</li>
<li>Cateline – rancorous</li>
<li>Harrowjack - staring</li>
<li>Jehanne – mouldy</li>
<li>Gormlaith - haughty</li>
<li>Agrippina – skittish</li>
<li>Eleazar – avaricious</li>
<li>Grigori – merciless</li>
<li>Ephrath – lascivious</li>
<li>Ailill - capricious</li>
<li>Ashling – dazed</li>
<li>Corvus – hungry</li>
<li>Benedikt – secretive</li>
<li>Egon – vicious</li>
<li>Antje – unyielding</li>
<li>Ulfberht – watchful</li>
<li>Gerlinde – sly</li>
<li>Hedwig – warlike</li>
<li>Pherick – mumbly</li>
</ol>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When a favoured impaler dies (1-in-6 is favoured, as are all
Skoomits) a Rattenkönig bursts forth from the earth in a hideous swarming mass
to enact vengeance upon the slayer according to the bargain of the teeth .<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Rattenkönig</b>: AC
13 HD 2+2 #att: 4 dmg: 1 + bloody flux
mv: 40’ ML: 11 AL: C<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Daunting</i>:
hirelings check morale on sight.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Bloody Flux</i>: Save
vs. poison or contract diarrhoea, vomiting, cramps. Save vs. poison each day or
lose a point of constitution. Three consecutive saves indicates recovery.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Ratking.jpg" /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Benighted as they are and inured to atrocity by their
calling, the impalers have dark prejudices and a predilection for the brutal
imposition of penalties upon those they deem, by the fickle whim of their violent
instincts, outlawed;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
D6 determines prejudice of visited family;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
1. Any diminutive and rotund
individual with clever feet is obviously a Grummuck o’ Grundlestoan and should
be dragged naked through brambles before being skewered transversely upon an
iron spike<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
2. Any lankily fey and wanearthly
personage is probably a Neugle from the Wild Black Yonder who covets the tears
of the innocent and should be impaled upright upon a thorny branch and burnt
after death in a furnace.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
3. Any stooped and gravelly person
is thought an Ambulant Worm crawled hence from its millennial encystment in the
dark earth’s bowels. For such a thing only the inverse impalement through the
wretched maw will ensure its demise. It is customary to shatter the limbs prior
to the enactment of the sentence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
4. A clever-looking bloke with
cumbrous tomes is in all probability a Dwimmerthane in the service of Uncle
Withershins, who keeps a ledger of the minor iniquities of right-thinking folk
that he may the more effectively tempt them from the road to Neorxnawang. For this crime he should be impaled backward through the lower ribs and pelted with all manner of refuse.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
5. A weird woman with pets has in
all probability tempted the Ounkin Wights from the Middle Airs into bestial
form that she may indulge with them in manifold debaucheries. Such a one need
be buried alive with her familiars and pierced with a dozen stakes of rowan
wood.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
6. One who moves with practiced poise,
cowled and cloaked and lightly-shod, is of a certainty a Malign Funambulist who
seeks to steal the salvation of sleepers through their nostrils. The punishment
for such is to be gaunched at a rampart upon an iron hook.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Each year comes a hundred captives from the town of Strokannet
in obedience to a law that seeks to suppress the Cormorantine Heresy that died
seven generations since. The quota still exists by the unchangeable law that
thrives among them and subjugates their native will to the performance of meaningless
slaughter in the name of those that are dead. For those of Strokannet and
Routhercocke are subjects of a thanatocracy whose hierarchical positions have
long been held by the dead of seven hundred years gone. The will of the dead manifests
in reality as edicts handed down to be heeded above all, such that the living
aristocracy in those towns have been demoted over the centuries that they are
reigned over now by, respectively; a Seventh-degree Underslave’s Verminhandler
and a Thrice-banished Scullion-hags’s Groom of the Unmentionable Exudate (in
common parlance, they are still referred to as the Handler and the Groom but
the awareness of the ignominy inherent in all in these latter-days is
ever-present, even unto grovellings and prostrations that punctuate
everything). These potentates and all their even more ignominious underlings
are obedient to the tracts their ancestors bestowed upon them but above-all to
that bestowed by the seven chief tracts in all their gnarled poesy and in their
crippling opacity of ancient syntax. These tracts are; <i>The Margrave’s Tract</i>, <i>The
Tutelary Subdeacon’s</i> <i>Paradoxes
Reconciled</i>, <i>The Burgrave’s</i> <i>Brief commentary on the Margrave’s Tract</i>,
<i>The</i> <i>Haberdasher’s</i> <i>Appendices
Re-examined</i>, <i>The Apertures ‘twixt
Gelding Days</i> <i>by her Grace the
Slattern-Keeper’s Mistress</i> et cetera . Their names are beside the point,
their contents are such that the enunciation of psalms and platitudes from each
will summon forth an obedient citizen of either the Branks of Strokannet or of
the Bulwark at Routhercocke whose willingness to heed the Tract-holder’s
interpretation of the Tract necessitates their servitude in the most
circumstances (Morale is governed by charisma as usual)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lost tracts are to be found in troves in place of various
grimoires at the GM’s whim. Read aloud from a tract in the Language of the Dead
and after 1d12 days arrives one whose rank is beneath that of ninth-degree
underthrall (Summoned individual is a level 3 henchperson);<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
D10 determines<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>1. Lutwidge</b>: An Amanuensis of Strokannet
In customary ink and sackcloth arming-jack and wooden teeth, lang-pike of
seven-yards length. Believes that carrots inflame the passions (AC +1, lang-pike
d8 dmg)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>2. Morwenna</b>
: A Carpentaria of Routhercocke in jangle-sark, a caged songbird upon her helm
and a billhook (the songbird dies when evil is nigh, the jangle-sark provides
+1 AC but -1 chance to surprise, Billhook d10)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>3. Tripping</b> <b>Nestor</b>: A Dredgerman of Strokannet with Hewing-hods of tarnished
bronze, whose fighting-style resembles a demented hornpipe jig (strikes twice
for d3+1 dmg each time)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>4. Braam</b>: A Lime-kilner from the
Routhercocke Ovens with blood in his spittle and ancient barking-irons
(barking-irons [pistoles] d6 dmg, ROF ½ backfire on a 1 for full dmg, ignore
armour)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>5. Tristram</b> <b>Goad</b>: A Destrier’s Concubine from the stables at Strokannet with high
helm and horsehair plumes and flail and no mercy in his heart (Flail d8, ML
check to prevent pursuit of fleeing enemies to the very end)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>6. Atropa</b> <b>Glandrankle</b>: Imperfect Stranger of the Lost House of Strokannet* in
green battle-smock and bearing a green Morgenstern and a flask of lindwurm bile
that blazes with venomous fire when exposed to air. (AC +1, Morgenstern d10
dmg, Lindwurm Bile: 2d6 per rd. for 1d4 rds + save vs. poison to all within 20’
or swoon from the fumes for 1d4 rds)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>7. Corporal Griskin</b>: A Leatherhead from
the barbican at Routhercock in rancid gambeson and rusty iron jackboots,
wielding bastinado and bullwhip with exuberant abandon (Bastinado d4, Bullwhip
d3, AC +2)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>8. Erszébet Snood</b>: Carrion-Hunter from the
Routhercock catacombs with sevenfold wig and capacious black robes within which
are hid a flesh-axe, a garrotte and a latchet crossbow. (Flesh-axe d6, garrotte
d2/rd, latchet crossbow d6 ROF 1/1, AC +1)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>9. Salomon Grist</b>: Zelator of Strokannet, wheedling
stammerer, blinky and vile, swathed in dusty shrouds and bearing a pile of
bundled vellum on which are writ condemnations for trifling infractions
(Condemnation 1/wk , 1d4 bane-thralls [as skeletons] emerge from the ground to
drag the condemned into foetid abysms)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 106%; margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b>10. Piroska and Gullet</b>: Dog-whipper of Routhercocke
in russet cowl with hulking vicious pitcher-dog in ringmail coat (Pitcher AC:
15 MV: 60’ HD: 3 #att 1 bite Dmg: 1d6 )<b><o:p></o:p></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">*The
Imperfect Strangers are <i>aelves </i>who of
old dwelt nigh Flambergast and know of the Great White Horse of that ruin</span></div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-10839219537637278242015-08-27T20:39:00.000+10:002015-09-27T00:50:50.468+10:00On Fantasy<div class="MsoNormal">
As I see it, there are two main
strands of speculative fiction: that in which there is some degree of pretence
that things certain historical peoples were deluded about were actually true,
and that in which wholly speculative propositions are made that nobody has ever
believed were true. This distinction can usefully be applied to differentiate
science fiction from fantasy but there are obviously differing degrees to which
individual texts are bound by these categories. Fantasy is predominantly a
projection back into a historical-credulity-space in which belief in gods,
magicians, fairies and demons are taken to be truth, whereas sci-fi mines a
futuristic-speculation-space in which the assumed position is that certain
predictions made about the future have come to pass. There is a tendency for fantasy
to be less concerned with working out the possible ramifications of the
fantastic elements than science fiction is with its speculative elements but
that broad generalisation is subject to innumerable specific variations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is fantasy that I am most
interested in, and for reasons which may be different than most. In his essay <i><a href="http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953">Epic Pooh</a></i>, Michael Moorcock offers a
criticism of elements of Tolkienesque epic fantasy as inherently conservative
and reactionary, a means of mollycoddling the bourgeoisie with comfortable lies
about the world. While Moorcock was primarily concerned with the political and
social, rather than the ontological, an argument can be made that fantasy
represents a kind of atavistic reality, one in which modern systems of
categorisation are discarded in favour of something altogether more archaic. As
an avowedly sceptical atheist I find the idea of actually believing the things
mediaeval humanity believed to be distasteful, but at the same time find the
fact that they actually did believe them fascinating. Adopting the everything-they-believed-was-true
approach allows me to take the much-maligned role of the cultural coloniser,
patronisingly aping the attitudes of a non-privileged other with an aplomb
granted by the fact that the patronised, culturally-colonised other is largely
extinct. This fact of their extinction also allows me to venture, unmolested by
judgment, into scathing criticism and parody of the abhorrent attitudes mediaeval
people held with regards to women, sexual servitude, torture, violence as
entertainment, racism, abject thraldom to monolithic religion, cruelty to
almost everything and intolerance of everything else. Of course, the
everything-they-believed-was-true approach also falls foul of inherent
contradictions when the heterogeneous nature of real historical cultures and
their beliefs is taken into account. It can’t all be true.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My view of mediaeval people as
predominantly ignorant creates an interesting paradox in terms of my attitude
to the fantasy genre. If fantasy is to be believed, mediaeval people were not
mistaken in their positions with regards to fairies and wizards. A rarely asked
but very interesting question arises. If, in the context of the narrative, they
are right about wizards, what else are they right about? The answer offered by lazy fantasy writers - the least interesting answer - is that the people of the
fantasy world are indistinguishable from modern rational sceptics in Ren Faire costumes. These
people understand their world in much the same way educated westerners of the
late 20<sup>th</sup> to early 21<sup>st</sup> century understand it. Their
belief in the existence of magic is supported by empirical observation. They
believe in deities whose powers are demonstrably real. They believe in
supernatural monsters who exist in an ecology alongside conventional creatures
and whose supernatural powers are naturally occurring phenomena. Within this
understanding of the fantasy world superstition is fact and therefore does not
exist. All of which makes their world more rational than the real world. Which
robs it of some of its wonder, to be sure, and also robs it of much of its
perilous strangeness, which simply won’t do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are varying levels to which
it is possible to take the apocryphal claims of mediaeval people as fact. I
would argue that the further you allow yourself to travel down the rabbit hole
of the mediaeval paradigm, the weirder the world becomes and the
weirder the people themselves become. In comparison Legolas Greenleaf, say, who
is an immortal scion of a line whose ancestors lived before the first rising of the sun, is less
weird than a mediaeval Englishman who believed that geese grew on trees,
intellectually disabled children are fairy changelings and that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-burning">burning cats alive</a> is hilarious. The problem remains, and is even compounded, if you grant
all the claims made by mediaeval people as true. Take for granted, for example,
that the claims made in mediaeval bestiaries, wherein the intrusive ubiquity of
religious parable and a general off-the-wall silliness usurps all observational
naturalism, and you have a world in which the camel and the leopard can breed
and that is where giraffes come from, where panthers breathe an intoxicating
sweet fragrance, where mice are spontaneously generated by the soil and many
stranger things are true - the world is almost unrecognisable. There is an
approach that is sometimes taken which is to have a bet each way, to allow that
some of the irrational claims made by historical people are true in the context
of the narrative but disallow others, or relegate them to a shrunken category
of mere superstitions. This feels like compromise.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNC7l_ui-W1J_xf8jS7qdyp6sMFQkK0yJRXcuhketfBZlIx1cRqsfsIdmkFaruGdlDXPLm5jk3LUTdyQWhZkOynNdTb0jR1v8TWaCG53v6g4HN4pOmLyQ_tnKLlu2BvRcA4UuR6HksOYeo/s1600/img4461.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNC7l_ui-W1J_xf8jS7qdyp6sMFQkK0yJRXcuhketfBZlIx1cRqsfsIdmkFaruGdlDXPLm5jk3LUTdyQWhZkOynNdTb0jR1v8TWaCG53v6g4HN4pOmLyQ_tnKLlu2BvRcA4UuR6HksOYeo/s320/img4461.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There was apparently a belief that beavers self-castrated to escape from hunters</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the aspects of working
within a mediaeval fantasy paradigm that I find as powerful as it is
underutilised is what TV Tropes calls deliberate values dissonance. This is
what is being employed when the writers of Mad Men make Don Draper, obviously a
protagonist and therefore relatable, prone to historically consistent lapses
into chauvinism and insensitivity, which make him more fully realised as a
character, more matriculated into the internally-consistent structure of the milieux.
In much the same way, it would ring false to me to write an urbane roguish
swashbuckler in an Elizabethan London who eschewed the bear garden, had no
scorn for the lower classes nor festering racism in his heart. There is no
reason why ideologies cannot be critiqued without resorting to artificial
constructs. The beauty of described worlds, like the beauty in all of art,
exists independently of moral judgments. The entity to which one writes is a human
first, and it is invariably insulting to that humanity to tell comforting lies
about the nature of the world. This is essentially what Moorcock was driving at
in his essay, though I do disagree with him about Tolkien I concur with the
general thrust: fantasy need not be meek. To my mind, in order that those who people
the world be in some way historically concordant with the beliefs that they
held, beliefs which the author utilises in constructing the reality in which
they are embedded, some degree of estrangement from contemporary morality needs
to be in place. To live in a demon-haunted world is to be haunted by demons.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
M. John Harrison, whose work I
have only recently made happy acquaintance with, is renowned for the scorn he
has for world-building. In his essay, <i><a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/en361fantastika/bibliography/2.7harrison_mj._2001what_might_it_be_like_to_live_in_viriconium.pdf">Whatit might be like to live in Viriconium</a></i>, Harrison describes how the role of
the invented world is not to provide a consistently intelligible reality
outside the parameters of the narrative. Of his invented city, Viriconium he
writes; “it is not a place. It is an attempt to animate the bill of goods on
offer. Those goods, as in Tolkien or Moorcock, Disney or Kafka, Le Guin or
Wolfe, are ideological”. While he explicitly states that the purpose and
function of invented worlds in gaming contexts is different from those in which
fictional narratives are based I am going to conveniently ignore this fact, or
at least pretend I am writing fiction, and allow some of the constraints to
fall away. It does not matter, in the context of the narrative the structure of
reality can fluctuate according to the needs of the narrative. Acknowledging
the potential for the role of constraints in honing creativity, I can at the
same time reject the constraints when rejection is necessary.
Harrison does this effortlessly, Viriconium fluctuates according to the needs
of the narrative. Whatever is on the bill of goods that needs animating, the
city can be rewritten around those ideas the better to bear them along. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This attitude towards
world-building is liberating. There is a quality to any exhaustively detailed
world that is tiresome and false. No world can possibly be as detailed as Earth
(literally, because all invented worlds are contained within Earth). There are
always ragged boundaries at the end of the author’s endurance where things
referred to are obviously just names with no substance behind them and no more
narrative to make them resonant. Tolkien’s primary criticisms of invented
languages like Volapük and Esperanto is that they had no legends to make them
real. The entire corpus of Middle-Earth writings exist ostensibly so that Tolkien’s
invented languages would feel more alive. I take the approach that because invented
languages are difficult to animate with invented history and difficult also to construct
with any degree of verisimilitude without considerable philological expertise
and painstaking effort, I do not ever use invented words. The words I do use
are very often obsolete dialect terms, and often applied to obscure folkloric
concepts drawn from the well of things benighted people once believed. This
constraint serves a number of purposes; I do not have to construct a language
and the history of that language, I can avail myself of the robust
interconnectedness and developed sound symbolism of existing language to embed
the concept more fully into the world, I can encode extra layers of meaning
into the names, and I can create refugia where otherwise extinct words can
survive, however briefly, and be repurposed. The employment of obsolete obscurities is also part
of a strategy of estrangement wherein I can subvert expectations about familiar
things the better to lead toward the mystery I am trying to reveal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That there is a persistent
vocabulary that can be used to refer to things nobody still believes in is endlessly
fascinating to me. The things people believed to be true seem to be
epiphenomena deriving from our limited and biased perceptions of the world and
our capacity for confabulation and exaggeration. That nobody ever saw a fairy
is beyond doubt, the fact that people from innumerable cultures independently
held firm convictions that there was an invisible race of others with
potentially malign powers bears powerful testimony to the fact that, as
concepts, as delusions and as components of language, fairies were (are) real.
This list of legendary creatures from a compilation of British folkloric
material known as the Denham Tracts, incidentally a source of speculation about
origin of the word hobbit, testifies to the proliferation of terminology used
to refer to things that never existed;</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What a happiness this must
have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had
the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the
whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, Bloody Bones, spirits, demons,
ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, spectres, shellycoats, scarecrows,
witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags,
breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies,
hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers,
Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs,
calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains,
fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches,
hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves,
rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees,
giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers,
thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads,
mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs,
boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs,
bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs,
flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns,
gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers,
gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns,
silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or
cowes, nickies, nacks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths,
freiths, freits, gy-carlins, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails,
dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes,
grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes,
mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns,
kors, mares, korreds, puckles, korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen,
shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins,
doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites,
fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties,
and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and
description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own
peculiar ghost. Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could
boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its spectre, or its knocker. The
churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had
its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had
its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be
met with who had not seen a spirit!”</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In spite of my scorn for the
barbarisms committed by historical people I find the things they imagined to be
true fascinating precisely because I am one of them. The archetypes of
mythology exist as archetypes because they fulfil some primordial niche in the
human imagination. It is for this reason that they persist. I am in the habit
of engaging in recreational reductionism in a lot of contexts and I am especially
fond of mocking humanity in its hubris. I think there is a perspective from
which we can view the latent human need to confabulate that is simultaneously
humbling and ennobling, and one that need not resort to magical thinking. Human
beings are composed of matter and energy, we are not merely embedded within cosmology,
we are ourselves components of cosmological processes and part of the universe-in-motion.
The mythic archetypes that so easily delude human beings are as much the product
of naturalistic processes as anything else and it is precisely because they are
part of the naturalistic process that they have such traction. They are
ancient, primordial relics of our animal heritage. Magicians, fairies, monsters and otherworlds seem to lurk in the
essential structure of our shared humanity. If they did not exist it would be
necessary to invent them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So when I think of the things I
like to write about - the bill of goods – I keep returning to the same things; the nature of the world as imagined by the ignorant, how this crudely imagined
representation of things can be described in a consistent way and whether there is
any value in consistency, how there is a necessity to reserve some moral
judgment with regards to those that people the narrative and even to embrace their immorality as a form of integrity, how everything seems
to be extruded by the idiotic machinery of spacetime. For all these things I
keep returning to fantasy. It would be interesting to imagine a future world
that based a genre upon the delusions contemporary humanity holds, a kind of
pseudoscience fiction, complete with messianically-empowered reptoid televangelists and
anti-vax sasquatch CIA-insiders flying planes into buildings to foil Illuminati
plans to control humanity with chemtrails. Discovering M. John Harrison has
assisted me in debunking some of my own delusions: the Laighlands (Lowlands,
Lawlands, Meagrish Realm) is not a place (it is actually Doggerland) and exists
only as a means to convey ideas and emotional impressions into the brains of
other primates. That is plenty.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I leave you with Ruskin, from <i>Seven Lamps of Architecture, </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">...the Power of architecture
may be said to depend on the quantity (whether measured in space or
intenseness) of its shadow; and it seems to me, that the reality of its works,
and the use and influence they have in the daily life of men (as opposed to
those works of art with which we have nothing to do but in times of rest or of
pleasure) require of it that it should express a kind of human sympathy, by a
measure of darkness as great as there is in human life: and that as the great
poem and great fiction generally affect us most by the majesty of their masses
of shade, and cannot take hold upon us if they affect a continuance of lyric
sprightliness, but must be serious often, and sometimes melancholy, else they
do not express the truth of this wild world of ours; so there must be, in this
magnificently human art of architecture, some equivalent expression for the
trouble and wrath of life, for its sorrow and its mystery: and this it can only
give by depth or diffusion of gloom, by the frown upon its front, and the
shadow of its recess.</span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-2367727995039833412015-08-13T22:02:00.000+10:002015-09-27T00:51:52.477+10:00Some Quasimortals<div class="MsoNormal">
So I spend time writing one thing and then go off and write
another that seems like it is a different thing until I realise that the roots
of both of the things are somehow intertwined. I realise that I still
have a paracosm and it has grown out of the same mind as the one that has always been there. In
this sense, as was the case with Eddison and Tolkien and many others, one’s juvenilia can be utilised as the historical backdrop against
which one’s mature work can be seen. [Insert obligatory disavowal of hubristic
comparisons here]. The personal rewards of
publishing the things I have written are insufficient for me to pursue just yet
and the personal reward of pursuing the great interconnected thing beckons enticingly. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Writing is something I only ever
pretended to be interested in in much the same way as everyone vaguely literate
tends to express a desire to write at some point in their lives. But for much
of the time I spent writing I dabbled fecklessly and was generally shambolic in
my irregularity. Now I am trying to dig my way out of a creative stalemate I am
finding that writing might be a useful neurological exercise and not just as a
self-reflexive practice but also as a means of sharpening the wits.<br />
<o:p></o:p>_________________________________________________________________________________<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
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The way I figure it, when anyone
conceives an artwork of any description they start with an idea that manifests
as a series of emotional impressions. For me it is like a
dumb, pre-verbal looming-out-of-chaos of mingled glory and sadness and bitter
irony and deadpan hilarity and the process of trying to capture
it is always always crude. The enunciation of the idea changes the
idea. For me, writing seems like amateur carpentry, whatever
unspeakably wonderful thing glimmers at the edge of consciousness, its
representation is splintery and rickety and has too many nails. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Over time the translation into
carpentry grows less rickety.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
'I am that astonishment from which you write in those brief
moments when you can write.'<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
Russell Hoban, The Medusa Frequency<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Also, while I am throwing in
quotes, this is Thomas Pynchon from Mason and Dixon describing something
vaguely familiar;<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm; padding: 0cm;">
“The Astronomers have a game
call’d “Sumatra” the the Rev<sub></sub><sup>d </sup>often sees them at
together,- as children, sometimes, are
seen to console themselves when something is denied them, - their Board a sort
of <i>spoken Map </i>of the Island they have
been kept from and will never see. “Taking a run in to Bencoolen, anything we
need?” “Thought I’d nip up the coast to Mokko Mokko or Padang, see what’s
a-stir.” “Nutmeg harvest is upon us, I can smell it!” Ev’ry woman in “Sumatra”
is comely and willing, though not without attendant Inconvenience, Dixon’s
almost instantly developing wills and Preferences of their own despite his best
efforts to keep them uncomplicated, - whereas the only women Mason can imagine at
all are but different fair copies of the same serene Beauty,- Rebekah,
forbidden as Sumatra to him, held in Detention, as he is upon Earth, until his
Release, and their Reunion. So they pass, Mason’s women and Dixon’s with more
in common than either Astronomer will ever find out about, for even phantasms
may enjoy private lives, - shadowy, whispering, veil’d to be unveil’d, ever
safe from the Insults of Time.”<br />
<br />
_________________________________________________________________________________</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unburdening myself from the need to make things intelligible
to the reality of the game is liberating. Conversely, the realisation that the
purple prose is of less use than the poetic resonance of the concept is
grounding.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some Quasimortals:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is possible to become so lost that the home you return to
is no longer home. When a magician starts to transcend mortality they realise
that the self they were was rooted in that mortality and that the
transformation they seek makes a mockery of all the reasons they seek it. The enunciation
of the idea changes the idea. Loss is the price of gain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. Cornbrash Stratum, erstwhile pupil of Ravelhain the Garganaut,
opted, in his quest for immortality, for a kind of irresistible physicality that
would daunt time’s vicissitudes with unyielding material toughness. Replacing,
over the course of several decades, all that in him was frail with heavier
elements he became the embodiment of fortitude, a ferrous thing that wades
thighbone-deep through the world and sees through the things he once loved like
vapour. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His peculiar obsession is the structure of things, as he
replaced all that was within him of whim and passion with structural components
devised in such a manner as to stave off decay. He communicates now with
humanity only through architectural manipulations of masses of stone.
Unable to recognise individual human beings he nonetheless can perceive in architectural
style as it shifts from age to age the presence of some kind of agency that is
the aggregate of thousands of minds. It is with this aggregate that he now
seeks to communicate, at intervals of three or four generations, by enacting
reconfigurations of the geometries of their communiques or producing
constructions that parody the degradation of abstract mathematical ideals
manifest in human structures.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. Glowbason Kale, the cauldron witch, is attended by her
Savoury Characters and by the delectable fragrance of roasted meat. The attendants
number seven to ten, range from medium rare to blackening bones and bear her
along upon a palanquin brazier trailed by a turnspit dog who gnaws at their
ankles and laps at the juices they leave. The witch herself has boiled away for
seven hundred years and languishes in her simmering bath of broth. They travel
in search of firewood from the Hundred of Onbethankit long abandoned where her
toothsome crew have chopped down the spinneys and dug all the peat to keep the fire
burning. She requires, for the recipe that ensures her continuity, certain
herbs - by moonlight plucked from unhallowed ground - and spices from the far
lands.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her Savouries are variously glazed or garnished or stuffed
with writhing young. All are tasty save those who are now, sadly, overcooked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3. Behold Auld Jack Smelt on his pitchfork, riding backwards
through dreams. He can live there, in his phantasmagorical Clud-Haas above
Galligantus Peak, somewhat outside a reality he rejects. Upon seeing the
exhilarating wildness of his ride through the sky-wrack, one half-expects him to cackle madly, as mad cackling seems so obviously his
domain. He does not cackle but weeps, or remains stony-faced and dark of countenance.
Sorrows fly with him like hoodie-crows, in his Magonian house they besmirch the
golden-whiteness with their purpureal sootiness and incessant dirge. They roost
above his empty bed and bespatter all that place with the stinking memory of
times before all was lost. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aspics adorn his gate and writhe upon every floor in poisonous
relief. They remind him of the time it happened and of the time before.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4. Manigate Querken: prenticed to Ysgithrog the
Metempsychotic in an early saeculum, Querken sought and found a conduit into
his own past that he might relive his lost youth over and over. Many times now
he has crawled through the Tunnel in the Ivy to capture and murder the precursory
self as it skulked under a bridge one day in its fourteenth summer. Querken
reinhabits the youth’s life with his sinister foreknowledge and meticulous record
of the trammelled paths of his cyclical reality. He bears with him a grimoire
of exploitable occurrences and passes through the world each new time with more
cunning means of advancing his position and status to enigmatic purposes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The position of the Tunnel in the Ivy he keeps secret or fortifies
with walls of stone and soldiers bought with extraordinary wealth plundered
from those thralls of conventional causality and sequence who have the
misfortune of falling his prey. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nobody sees him coming. Nobody knows how many times he has
passed backward through the decades or lived forth again along his timeline, his
head full of foresight and cunning schemes. He may be the oldest of all. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With him Hobshanks, Querken’s man, formerly a Drungary of
the Twelth Assize, now loyal to the death to the master. In which former life Hobshanks
was Sir Layloc Theophagus, his current sobriquet arose from his habit of
falling to his armoured knees in the presence of the master. He is huge and
scarred and his purple cloak is ragged. None may stand before him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
5. The Bearer of Ill-Tidings: In her maidenhood she had
fallen victim to catastrophic sorrow and had thrown herself into a chasm. She
did not die, her broken body hung pinioned in a thorn tree for six days and
nights. On the fifth day a gastrel came and plucked out her eyes. In the
darkness of the seventh dawn the Thicketty Man came (whose cowardly habit was ever
to avail himself of untoward occurrence) and planted in her a seed of the
world’s destruction. It grew in her, this seed, and she grew strong again and
stronger still. Now she walks in the world again a witch unbridled, tall as a
tree, gaunt and hollow and swollen with century-child burgeoning inside. When
she speaks no words come but knives instead, clattering at her feet, etched
with glyphs that speak of ruin.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mostly she dwells beyond the sky in a star of serrated black
iron that hangs in the utmost void. Upon the earth she casts a tripartite
shadow that tells of forgotten suns, invisible to man. By their light she sees.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
6. The Get of Ravelhain: A feral thing, sudden and brutal,
furnished with immeasurable potence, squats in the hideous twilight. Its essence
is a blazing blackness: furred, simian, and eloquent in all the languages of
violence. Upon a long chain an angel of bronze, rearing magnificent in gleaming
counterpoint to the black one. The angel is crowned with lightning and sorrow.
She is immortal and captive to a thing born of the wicked earth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He wields her like a flail. She keens her celestial lament
for the wickedness of man and he batters mighty citadels to dust and splinters
and drags her from world to world in search of empires to trample and cow. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He is his father’s son.<o:p></o:p></div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-2838937335944041672015-02-03T00:15:00.001+11:002015-09-29T20:39:26.648+10:00MadLibMount<div align="center">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I don't own a copy of Dwimmermount so I don't know how this would play out in the original but it seems at least vaguely cromulent. This dungeon was generated through use of the find/replace function working from Zak's fairly recent<a href="http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com.au/?zx=9f3dd868d701dd3e"> MadLibMount post</a>, I haven't seen any others. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I don't know what most of the names actually refer to but I enjoy the mental image of the Profligate Messiah of Charnel Grace riding around in a Bonnacon Automaton. For those who don't know what a Bonnacon is, <a href="http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast80.htm">here </a>is the entry on one of my favourite websites of all time.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">There was a ribaldry present in real mediaeval culture that was swept under the carpet by so many post-Victorian or WASP-y American fantasy writers that I am not ashamed to be childishly amused by. Here a couple of other cultural touchstones I'd like to reference for tone. First, from the superb <i>The Worm Ouroboros </i>by E. R. Eddison, the description of the fight with the manticore (near the top of the tallest mountain in the world, mind you);</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Small time was there to ponder. Swinging from hold to hold across the<br />
dizzy precipice, as an ape swingeth from bough to bough, the beast<br />
drew near. The shape of it was as a lion, but bigger and taller, the<br />
colour a dull red, and it had prickles lancing out behind, as of a<br />
porcupine; its face a man's face, if aught so hideous might be<br />
conceived of human kind, with staring eyeballs, low wrinkled brow,<br />
elephant ears, some wispy mangy likeness of a lion's mane, huge bony<br />
chaps, brown blood-stained gubber-tushes grinning betwixt bristly<br />
lips. Straight for the ledge it made, and as they braced them to<br />
receive it, with a great swing heaved a man's height above them and<br />
leaped down upon their ledge from aloft betwixt Juss and Brandoch Daha<br />
ere they were well aware of its changed course. Brandoch Daha smote at<br />
it a great swashing blow and cut off its scorpion tail; but it clawed<br />
Juss's shoulder, smote down Mivarsh, and charged like a lion upon<br />
Brandoch Daha, who, missing his footing on the narrow edge of rock,<br />
fell backwards a great fall, clear of the cliff, down to the snow an<br />
hundred feet beneath them.<br />
As it craned over, minded to follow and make an end of him, Juss smote<br />
it in the hinder parts and on the ham, shearing away the flesh from<br />
the thigh bone, and his sword came with a clank against the brazen<br />
claws of its foot. So with a horrid bellow it turned on Juss, rearing<br />
like a horse; and it was three heads greater than a tall man in<br />
stature when it reared aloft, and the breadth of its chest like the<br />
chest of a bear. The stench of its breath choked Juss's mouth and his<br />
senses sickened, but he slashed it athwart the belly, a great round-<br />
armed blow, cutting open its belly so that the guts fell out. Again he<br />
hewed at it, but missed, and his sword came against the rock, and was<br />
shivered into pieces. So when that noisome vermin fell forward on him<br />
roaring like a thousand lions, <i>Juss grappled with it, running in</i><br />
<i>beneath its body and clasping it and thrusting his arms into its</i><br />
<i>inward parts, to rip out its vitals if so he might</i>. So close he<br />
grappled it that it might not reach him with its murthering teeth, but<br />
its claws sliced off the flesh from his left knee downward to the<br />
ankle bone, and it fell on him and crushed him on the rock, breaking<br />
in the bones of his breast. And Juss, for all his bitter pain and<br />
torment, and for all he was well nigh stifled by the sore stink of the<br />
creature's breath and the stink of its blood and puddings blubbering<br />
about his face and breast, yet by his great strength wrastled with<br />
that fell and filthy man-eater. And ever he thrust his right hand,<br />
armed with the hilt and stump of his broken sword, yet deeper into its<br />
belly until he searched out its heart and did his will upon it,<br />
slicing the heart asunder like a lemon and severing and tearing all<br />
the great vessels about the heart until the blood gushed about him<br />
like a spring. And like a caterpillar the beast curled up and<br />
straightened out in its death spasms, and it rolled and fell from that<br />
ledge, a great fall, and lay by Brandoch Daha, the foulest beside the<br />
fairest of all earthly beings, reddening the pure snow with its blood.<br />
And the spines that grew on the hinder parts of the beast went out and<br />
in like the sting of a new-dead wasp that goes out and in continually.<br />
It fell not clean to the snow, as by the care of heaven was fallen<br />
Brandoch Daha, but smote an edge of rock near the bottom, and that<br />
strook out its brains. There it lay in its blood, gaping to the sky."</blockquote>
Emphasis mine. Were it not for their Jacobean eloquence the protagonists of <i>Ouroboros</i> could be high-level PCs in anyone's campaign, Obsessed with adventurous striving and unconcerned of the consequences of their actions so long as their pride and honour is not questioned.<br />
<br />
The other touchstone is a part of a Russian film I just became aware of today called <i>Hard to be a God,</i> based on a 1964 novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the film is new and looks fantastically abject and I will never be able to see it at the cinema without extensive travel. It is the most Middenmurky piece of culture I've ever seen.<br />
<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/TjPQ5hRwQkk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TjPQ5hRwQkk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
Here is the teaser, it is short, imagine this world when reading the dungeon;<br />
<br />
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 18pt;">Marrowdank Level 8: The Copromancers' Sanctum</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHi9E3r-GCc5SCrg4qXct6XSSZ28SsiPVOuqmdUCuQGSAiUwKxQ8HDwestYbXOzAlXcD72b2vb7P7urwJUKC0uahxF-YO7X8FOuMaQ05y805_Ic-TpcgcEg0KclJPRgp7HKSjPgeCxO7Rp/s1600/dwimmer_map_8.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHi9E3r-GCc5SCrg4qXct6XSSZ28SsiPVOuqmdUCuQGSAiUwKxQ8HDwestYbXOzAlXcD72b2vb7P7urwJUKC0uahxF-YO7X8FOuMaQ05y805_Ic-TpcgcEg0KclJPRgp7HKSjPgeCxO7Rp/s1600/dwimmer_map_8.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Wandering Monsters
for this Level</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">1</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Tutelary Vagrant of Wicker and Twine</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">2</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> d2 Copromancers</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">3</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Mantled Incandescence </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">4</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Rider of the Flensing Wind</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">5</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Phlegethonic Imperatrix</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">6</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Chancreous Rampart</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">7</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> d8 Picklebrides</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">8</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Cindergimp </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">9</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> d4 Ambulant Slurries that once were men</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">10</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> 4+d4 Svartling Contraptioneer cultists</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">11</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Creeping Melancholia</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">12</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Tunnel Rukh</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">1. Fuck all.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">2. Pinchbeck Drudge attacks anyone
without Sevenfold Mitre</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">3. Gastrophetes of Dispatch bears
message saying to place Thighbone of St. Asprandulo into a ikon-niche.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">-If someone performs the action
and makes a save vs device, an Sevenfold Mitre appears</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">-If they fail a Malodorous Glyphe is
placed on the Thighbone of St. Asprandulo and also d4 Pinchbeck Drudges come
from <b>Rms 8 and 9</b> and attack.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">_If--after 2 minutes--no-one
places their Thighbone of St. Asprandulo into the ikon-niche, d4 Pinchbeck
Drudges come from <b>Rms 8 and 9</b> and attack.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">4. If the Privy Sump has been clear
for more than a day: 8 guards from Svartling Contraptioneers</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">If it has not, the rooms contains The
Laird of the Fleas, a Nexus of Bale.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">5. Rhadamanthus Mandragore, a Copromancer
is here and, if The Laird of the Fleas isn't in Rm 4, The Laird of the Fleas is
here, too.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Rhadamanthus Mandragore is trying
to deactivate the barricade of martyr’s bones that cuts off access to Rm 41 from
this room and Rm 27 and will try to cajole the party into helping. Rhadamanthus
Mandragore has Jawbone of St. Ghispert the Abominator, Oracular Marmoset of the
Seventh Order, The Ghaistwattle and two Chalices of the Nectar of the Gods, a Drouth
Ember and a Broken Draakzwaard. If Rhadamanthus Mandragore must flee, it will
be to Rm 7 or, if that fails, to Rm 6.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">6. Preserved but violently
mutilated Domovoi corpses--failed Picklebrides from</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Rm 24. If you ingest the substance
coating them you have to save or become Picklebrides.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">7. Rider of the Flensing Wind
placed here as a guard by Rhadamanthus Mandragore. Will attack any mortal on
site and do little to protect Rhadamanthus Mandragore if they appear here.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">8. and 9. Each contains 4 Pinchbeck
Drudges that attack anyone with Malodorous Glyph.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">10. Locked--can be opened with Sevenfold
Mitre. Contains bones of the dead.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">11. Storage. Contains Tharandus
Mantle however it's cursed so if it is used by any but heathens it will have a
50% chance of backfiring and hurting the user.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">12. Damaged smutty etching
representing actions characteristic of decadent urbanity, any cleric of decadent
urbanity praying here for 10 minutes will have their spells refreshed.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">13a-13b Cell off of 13a can only
be opened with Sevenfold Mitre. Otherwise touching them results in 8d6 Carnality
damage--save for half. Inside there is Arbitrator’s Swingeing Gavel belonging
to the Adipose Gallowglass in Rm 49.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">14 Area at 14a controls cell at
14b. If two Sevenfold Mitres are used here, a Gastrophetes of Dispatch will
hurl a message quarrel asking if 14b should be unlocked. Answering 'yes' will
release a Tunnel Rukh from suspended animation in 14b which will try to eat
whatever it finds. Closing 14b also requires two Sevenfold Mitres--whatever is
locked inside will be placed in suspended animation.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">15. Two Pinchbeck Drudges attack
anyone without Sevenfold Mitre.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">16. Door to this room is visible
and usable by creatures of decadent urbanity, invisible and impassable to those
of primordial vileness, and visible but impassable to those of rustic apathy.
Contains fallen hero with 3270 gp and Jar of Dismal Foetor, Skeinshear, Pyx
containing Reliquary Ordure</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">17. Shrine to Suzerain Inculcatus and
Gammer Guthrung, their statue lungs are here. 30% chance of containing d8 Picklebrides.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">18. A smouldering hassock--using
it prevents the user from Picking its teeth for 3o mins.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">19. Contains 600gp, Sevenfold
Mitre and Ensign’s Barbute. If Privy Sump has been available for more than a
day there are three members of Svartling Contraptioneers, one of whom is a
wizard.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">20. Four Pinchbeck Drudges attack
anyone with Malodorous Glyph. Any Pinchbeck Drudges summoned by alarms triggered
on the southern half of the level will be drawn from this room and/or from Rm
28.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">21. Mostly empty. Clear liquid
marked "Shouldst perils befall ye" in Svartling runes. Contains Tincture
of Wolfsbane.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">22. An intangible carnality exudes
from nowhere in particular save or be disoriented. 4 Picklebrides.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">23. <b>Door to RM 24 is
locked from the inside.</b> Sign reads, in Svartling rune "Doth
troublous circumstance arise? Fling open ye ikon-niche". Out in the hall, there
are 4 nooks, instructing the reader to perform the same action as in Rm 3.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">1: If the user is a cleric of Suzerain
Inculcatus or Gammer Guthrung, the northwest Ikon-niche reveals a Bloodstained
Crozier. Otherwise, the Gastrophetes of Dispatch hurls alarum quarrels that
howl “Foemen! Blackguards!” to summon 1d4 Pinchbeck Drudges Room 28 to
slay them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">2: If the user is urbane, the
southwest Ikon-niche reveals a Hypnalian Dart. Otherwise as 1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">3: If the user is a cleric of Suzerain
Inculcatus or Gammer Guthrung, the northeast Ikon-niche reveals a Hepatizon
Ostensorium otherwise as 1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">4: If the user is urbane, the
southeast Ikon-niche reveals a Veinseeker Lancet. Otherwise as 1.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Make wandering monster check
each time a ikon-niche is activated. It's loud. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">24. Any failed attempt to unlock
or force open the doors alerts the room’s occupants. Prison containing The
Seventh Emanation of Micturatus Gowk --who is fucked up from being imprisoned.
There are six Svartling Contraptioneers hooked up to the prison being
transformed into Picklebrides in d6 rounds unless<i> cure disease</i> or <i>neutralize
poison </i>is used.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Copromancer inside holds the keys
to the doors and oversees this process, protected by 4 Picklebrides. The Copromancer
has the Levinbrand and Aegis of Aelfbeorht Churnlark.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Copromancer will flee to Rm 26 if
things go poorly and will immediately flee if The Seventh Emanation of
Micturatus Gowk prison is shattered. It will shatter if successfully struck v.
AC 0/20 with a deliberate attack from an enchanted weapon that deals at least 5
points of damage, or if the tube sustains 25 or more points of damage from
being in the area of effect of spells.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">If the holding tube is shattered, The
Seventh Emanation of Micturatus Gowk will begin to return to its former state,
gaining 10 hit points per round until it reaches 100 and has full powers and
intelligence, fucking everyone up.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">25. 13625 gp worth of treasure.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">26. 6 Picklebrides. Complicated
barrier to<b> next level down </b>having to do with what happens in<b> Rm
40 level 6B</b>.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">27. Area controls Pinchbeck
Drudges. Anyone with Sevenfold Mitre and Coquatrix of Chrysoprase can change
the Pinchbeck Drudges with a successful Int check at -4. Each successful
check allows a user to command them to attack a specific type of target or stop
targeting a specific type of target as the user wishes—but not both. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">A Copromancer is here along with 2
Pinchbeck Drudges. If the Privy Sump has been available for more than a day
there will be 4 Svartling Contraptioneer guards, if it has not, the rooms
contains the Phlegethonic Imperatrix from Rm 34.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">28. Four Pinchbeck Drudges attack
anyone with Malodorous Glyph. Any Pinchbeck Drudges summoned by alarms triggered
on the southern half of the level will be drawn from this room and/or from Rm
20.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">29. The hatch to this room is
locked and barred from the outside. If a character presses themself or is
pressed into one of the ikon-ikon-niches, they must immediately make a saving
throw or become urbane. The Decadent urbanity shift is a zealous one,
meaning that anyone who uses a pillar will no longer associate or cooperate
with anyone primordially vile. The effect can be reversed through
the use of remove curse or similar spells.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">30. The hatch to this room is
locked. Inside one of desk drawers is a Sevenfold Mitre. Books worth 5000gp.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">31. Pieces to make Klibanion and
two Ballestrinos.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">32. Angry Cinnamulgus of Belphegor.
Scent of burnt wood coming from Rm 33.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">33. Brazier burning incense which
causes Unsettling Rictus if a Waerloga tries to regain spells within. 4 more
blocks of incense.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">34. Phlegethonic Imperatrix </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">35. Remains of dead creature wearing
Cinderbreeks</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">36. Scorch marks leading toward Rm
37.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">37. Cindergimp bound to remain
within 100 feet of Iron Glue-trough unless that object is destroyed.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">38. Fuck all.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">39. Mural of individuals suffering
unsettling rictus anyone observing the windowlike structure on the far wall
must save or suffer that punishment.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">40. Wreckage-fixable using tools
from next level down.. Coquatrix of Chysoprase.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">41. Barrier to entry has 3 states:</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">A-Impassable. It starts this way.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">B-Anyone may enter, but only urbane
characters may leave. Achievable using mechanisms in Level 6b, Rm 40.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">C-Passable to all. The bad guys on
this level are trying to do this.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">41a. Roll:</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">1-6 Profligate Messiah in Bonnacon
Automaton</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">7-24 Copromancer with Vulpinia
Targulche</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">25-42 Copromancer with Silas
Groomsharke</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">43-60 Copromancer with Bramble
Thorndyke Campion Varangy</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">61-00 Empty</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">42. Copromancer with Vulpinia
Targulche 25% here if not encountered in 41a, 33% Rm 45, 32% Rm 49, would die
before allowing harm to come to LocalDeity.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">43. Copromancer with Silas
Groomsharke 25% here if not encountered in 41a, 75% Rm 45. Despairs of ever
escaping open to possibility of mutiny against Profligate Messiah of Charnel
Grace.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">44. Copromancer with Bramble
Thorndyke Campion Varangy 25% here if not encountered in 41a, 75% Rm 45.
Would sacrifice Profligate Messiah if it meant they could escape this prison.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">45. Profligate Messiah of Charnel
Grace, if not encountered in 41a, 30% of being here, otherwise Rm 51. If here, Profligate
Messiah will not be alone. Whenever outside this cell, Profligate Messiah
rides in a Bonnacon Automaton. Within his quarters, however, it is just a head.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">46. Door to here is locked, Profligate
Messiah has key. Bones of martyr. If an urbane worshipper of the Suzerain
Inculcatus carries a bone fragment it grants a Nauseous Imperviousness vs
opponents of primordial vileness.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">47. Fuck all.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">48. Circle on floor--any being not
native to this plane who passes over its edge will become imprisoned and
powerless until the circle is broken by someone not bound by it.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">49. Locked; the key is kept by Vulpinia
Targulche. A heroic Adipose Gallowglass is kept here and periodically tortured inside
the Brazen Karkadann. If freed, the Gallowglass will ask for a weapon and help
the party.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">50. Stasis- Brazen Karkadann.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br />
</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">51. Locked the key
is kept at all times by Profligate Messiah. Circle on floor--any being not
native to the stablished earth who passes over its edge will become imprisoned
and powerless until the circle is broken by someone not bound by it. Inside the
circle is Revenant Scion trapped and opposed to Profligate Messiah who'll help
anyone who isn't primordially vile.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-38328690739395150102015-02-01T02:38:00.000+11:002015-09-27T00:52:25.550+10:00Hooligan Troupes of the Hither-Fells<span style="color: #444444;">When I read <a href="http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/a-writer-writes.html">this</a> at Monsters and Manuals about the nature of the practice of writing I thought it made sense and so returned to my previous habit of tapping on a keyboard. Nothing came of it at first (there is definitely a rusty period) but eventually the same dense and crusty stuff that I enjoy started to re-emerge, which was gratifying. Additionally, Santicore reared his ugly and I availed myself of the opportunity to do the layout for my own entry which got me interested in the algorithmic approach to content-generation and allowed myself a little bit of sneaky re-writing.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">I'm interested in nomenclature and the suggestibility of imaginations. I often approach things from a rather Tolkienesque angle, coming-up with names and then trying to find out what they mean. Rhythm and cadence and prosody as well as connotation and symbolism open up vistas for the imagination to explore.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">So I long ago decided that NPC party was insufficiently evocative a springboard for my imagination, suggesting as it did some kind of bland political organisation, so I decided that they would be called <i>Hooligan Troupes</i>. This term was satisfactorily animated and raucous. In my mind they were, of a sudden, alive with agendas and troubles to offer players.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">The following table is an attempt I have made to further animate the idea of Hooligan Troupes, as well as engage in a kind of mechanically terse proceduralism. Ideally, the generated troupe will be engaging, memorable and connected to the setting, and the fluff is entirely arbitrary, the tool generates a certain number of characters of a given level, carrying a certain macguffin for a certain patron, pursuing and pursued by other hooligan troupes, specific individuals and factions I have inserted are really just placeholders.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">_________________</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">The Hither-Fells are the rolling wastes and moorlands beyond the village of Foote rolling northward all the way to the rumoured fastness of Gibberhelk, whose dread castellan names himself the Hail-King and gnaws upon his madness in the waylorn wilds. Beyond is unknown and unknowable, a black horizon and interminable twilight.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuIbtPtwZ21Axy4__HtdP_rbFWrR2TV2OVSgeATbTdW05FyKjBe7K0D_HMIj4FfwVIGGhYLH2NkyQhQ50rgcKuYmwELZ5KG50v3GXPRGuiWsLNoGaeQhop_vcbHCzSCs1uxDENBTmy3uw/s1600/Gibberhelk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuIbtPtwZ21Axy4__HtdP_rbFWrR2TV2OVSgeATbTdW05FyKjBe7K0D_HMIj4FfwVIGGhYLH2NkyQhQ50rgcKuYmwELZ5KG50v3GXPRGuiWsLNoGaeQhop_vcbHCzSCs1uxDENBTmy3uw/s1600/Gibberhelk.jpg" width="360" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;">Gibberhelk, where the Hail-King reigns in procedurally-generated mouldering splendour.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">Wandering this vast region are troupes of untamed and exiled wandering villains. To generate a troupe roll 2d6 of different colours: the first roll determines the number of hooligans encountered; a roll of one indicates the leader only is encountered, roll of two indicates the leader and the lieutenant and so on, it should be noted that an equal number of underlings are encountered as members of the troupe. Additionally, this roll determines the patron for whom the particular troupe is working at that particular time.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">The second roll determines the particular troupe encountered with their corresponding underlings as well as determining their grail, this is essentially the macguffin that they happen to be carrying at that time for the patron generated earlier, whether they are delivering it to that patron, taking it from that patron to a third party, destroying it, or doing something else entirely is up to the GM.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">There is also an assumed relationship between the troupes: each troupe is assumed to be pursuing the numerically subsequent troupe and, in turn, being pursued by the preceding troupe, all pursuit being with hostile intent (troupe 6, the Strangelings are assumed to be pursuing troupe 1, the Feckless Knaves, creating a vicious circle). Notably, it is possible for multiple troupes to be in opposition and to be working for the same patron, this is merely indicative of the fey and contradictory nature of the powers at large in the Hither-Fells.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">Additionally, the second roll determines the level of each individual hooligan within the troupe as per the formula on the table; Leaders are assumed to be 6th level and the lowest ranked member of the troupe is assumed to be 1st level, this can be easily scaled to oppose PC parties if necessary.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">Finally, the first roll generates an inter-factional set of relationships that could potentially be exploited for dramatic purposes, while not providing any mechanical effect, the fluff is crunch rule applies.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">All of the automatically-generated dials on this array can, of course, be individually generated or determined arbitrarily. It is only my own obsessive desire for elegance and simplicity that makes me do it this way.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;">The format as presented has a few idiosyncrasies that bear mentioning. It is my preference to, in accordance with the aforementioned desire for simplicity, assume an average number of hit points per level, rounded up and adjusted for constitution. The ability score bonuses and penakties are assumed to be plus or minus one but give the GM leeway,should individual hooligans transition to regulary encountered NPCs, to assign the highest and lowest scores to the appropriate abilities. Armour is given an AC bonus, assuming ascending AC. The curious level titles I have given can act as just another bit of disposable fluff if that is desired, but there is also a secondary, slightly crunchy effect which is that individuals gain a reaction bonus with alike and aligned factions once they've bought into a career, and certain equipment discounts, as well as access to special items can be assumed to be a part of the career's perks. None of this is detailed here so iy can all be safely ignored.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_67uVD1xeipbHdYaTP_DmDB7WTe4BStIKRe4GvDQsBlZSCDM9Wxtl_5ogwZkRGLbZIm2TXTQLOMy-zUK2c4R_AdJfzc6YOBcwsqH6Icdk6jxZxpYMwjAobwiWm3BjdE5_2x1YWPVuXEA_/s1600/Untitled-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_67uVD1xeipbHdYaTP_DmDB7WTe4BStIKRe4GvDQsBlZSCDM9Wxtl_5ogwZkRGLbZIm2TXTQLOMy-zUK2c4R_AdJfzc6YOBcwsqH6Icdk6jxZxpYMwjAobwiWm3BjdE5_2x1YWPVuXEA_/s1600/Untitled-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>I. FECKLESS KNAVES</b></span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Joachim Crimeshanks: </b>lazy and squat,
talented dissembler, renegotiates relationships sentence by sentence. [<i>Captain of Charlatans, </i>as thief, INT+, CON-,<i> </i>cranequin arbalest (d8, 1/2), spadroon
(d6), buckler (+1), jupon (+1), mail coif (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Slatterkin Fraile:</b> seems a freckled
ogress in gambeson and kettle hat, betimes dappled light pranks her eyes and
she falls and drools and has visions of cool green realms where she is empress
[<i>Mosstrooper</i>, as fighter, STR+, WIS-, halberd
(d10), gambeson (+1), Kettle hat (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; padding: 0cm;">3 3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></b><b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; padding: 0cm;">Hakenbüchse Imbrocato</span></b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; padding: 0cm;">: cunning
engineer and strategist, deviser of war-wagons and grenadoes and devices for
spraying naphtha and quicklime, he is catastrophically combustible. [<i>Apronman, </i>as thief, DEX+, WIS-, <i> </i>hand-gonne (d6, ignores armour, 1/3) gunner’s stiletto (d4) grenado
(2d8 10’ radius), breastplate (+3) Special: explodes for 3d6 dmg if set alight]<o:p></o:p></span></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; padding: 0cm;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Ginflute Sprig: </b>her jackboots are full
of stilettos, her heart is cunning and wary, none who have betrayed her yet live
[<i>Miscreant,</i> as thief, WIS+, CHA-, stiletto (d4)
sword breaker (+1, d4), jackboots (+1) pourpoint (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Crimson Plethora:</b> slatternly,
lackadaisical, sinister and pantalooned, there is a reek of sorcery about her,
a dusty, musty, fusty smell with redolences of fear and sex, she enthralls
monks just to see them grovel and weep [<i>Pythoness,</i> as magic-user, INT+, STR- akinakes (d4), Spells: <i>charm person x2</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Girt-by-Satchels:</b> an utterly abandoned
vagrant who compulsively gathers useless things in preparation for an imminent
catastrophe, surprisingly dangerous with his clotting-beetle [<i>Vagabond</i>, as thief, clotting-beetle
(d6), jack (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>II. LOST CRUSADERS</b></span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Ultrogotha</b>: her hair is enormous, her
voice is rich and deep, her destrier is masterful and vast, she wears mirror-bright
armour and smells of grease and brimstone [<i>Vindicatrix</i>,
as fighter, zweihander (d10), mace (d6), plate (+5), burgonet (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Amaranth Incarnadine: </b>perilously
beautiful and young and lit as if by the last sunset of the world, fleeing the
persecutions of her boyhood, the streaming banner of her hair acts as call to
crusade [<i>Fugelmaid, </i>as fighter,<b> </b>CHA+, WIS-,<b> </b>arming sword (d8), heater (+2), hauberk (+3)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Glisterfrigg the Loath:</b> burned black by
an encounter with an a laidly wurm, she walks in a shadow of doom with long
black spear and black shield unadorned, her mouth is red and her voice is harsh
and fell [<i>Shieldmaiden</i>, as fighter,
CON+, CHA-, spear (d6) kite shield (+2), lamellar harness (+4)]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Sledgefork</b>: hooded eyes and splayed
toad-hands, pungent flagellant with cassock and flail who flirts with gangrene
and arnaldia and sees a ferocious truth behind the world [Flagellant, as
cleric, CON+, CHA-, flail (d8), Spells: <i>cure
light wounds x2, bless</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Lammermoor the Infidel</b>: scarified and
haunted by the war with the darkness, his hair is white and his eyes are red
with weeping, his rusty harness creaks and squeals [<i>Scutiferous Aspirant</i>, as fighter, WIS+, CON-, military fork (d10),
half-plate (+4)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Hans-who-Itches</b>: has ballestrinos,
stirrup-, latchet-, goatsfoot-, cranequin- and windlass arbalests and quarrels
for every occasion carried in a barrow-cart painted green and advertising
wondrous feats of skill, he is wracked with intense and ceaseless itching so that he
is a scabrous insomniac shadow and can no longer shoot. (<i>Arblaster, </i>as fighter, WIS+, DEX-, katzbalger (d6), buckler (+1),
Jack-and-chains (+2)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>III. OATHBREAKERS</b></span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-stretch: normal;"> 1.</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Lamgammachy Hallow</b>: ancient crone of
viciously sharp features and viciously sharp temper, borne on a palanquin by
lurching odiums of mannish shape, claims to be, by hereditary right, Queen of
Skinflint Hedge and several gullies thereabouts, demands paltry tribute and
vague obeisance. [<i>Gyre-Carlin,</i> as
magic-user, w/- six zombie thralls, WIS+, CON- Spells:
<i>magic missile, sleep, invisibility, levitate, lightning bolt</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-stretch: normal;">2.</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Hadean Tear: </b>has shorn his head and
body and infibulated himself, walks naked in the world bereft of desire,
practices daily ritualistic vivisections to retain his purity [<i>Demonologist</i>, as magic-user, WIS+, CHA-, Spells: <i>darkness x2, invisibility, ESP</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="font-stretch: normal;"> 3.</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Goatloon, the Carnifex of Untimely Brisket:</b>
somewhat bestial giant idiot with a cleft palate and an enormous gleaming axe,
prefers to wrastle and bind his victims, gets slobbery with excitement at the
prospect of decapitation [<i>Carnifex, </i>as
fighter, STR+, INT- , grappling (d2), executioner’s axe (d10, -4 to hit)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b> 4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Canterangle Broguentwine:</b> gaunt and
studious figure-flinger preoccupied with theoretical deconstructions of
reality, is consequently brittle and close to suicide (<i>Figure-flinger, </i>as<i> </i>magic-user,
INT+ WIS-, Crutch (d4), Spells: <i>read
magic, detect magic, detect evil, phantasmal force</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Chlodovech Harpe</b>: far-wandering warrior
of austere and peculiar heathen tribe, cuts his hair in uncouth manner, speaks
with clipped and formal directness but incorporating convoluted perversions of
syntax and tense, carefully prepares his sica and pelte and individually
specialised javelins prior to each battle, kills with workmanlike efficiency [<i>Paynim Reiver, </i>as fighter, STR+, CHA-, sica
(d6), javelins (d6), scale corselet (+3), spangenhelm (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Ariadne Firkinmolde</b>: Fierce huntress
with yellow teeth, red coat and blue arrows, rides a jackass all shuddery with
malice, has a wild voice for shouting over the wind [<i>Heathen Huntress, </i>as fighter, DEX+, CHA-, hunting bow (d6), sabre
(d6),teghily (padded armour), +1]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">IV. DESERT-SEEKERS</span></b></span></div>
<h2>
<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>1. <span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>The Almondine</b>: denounced heretic false
messiah, small and rotund and beaming, she bears the stigmata of unsuccessful
crucifixion and of scourgings and rackings but maintains her unshakable certainty.
(<i>False</i> <i>Messiah</i>, as cleric, CHA+, STR-, threshal (d6), gambeson (+1) basinet (+1)
Spells: <i>remove fear, resist cold, purify
food and water, resist fire, speak with animal, cure disease</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>2. <span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Malthus Pizzlewisp: </b>eunuch-sorcerer,
shrill and pasty, elegantly tapered hands and ridiculously superfluous parasol,
carries a little cage with a black canary who is intransigent and vile [<i>Castrato Incantare, </i>as magic-user, poniard
(d4), Spells: <i>charm person, ventriloquism, mirror image, invisibility, haste</i> ]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Epicanthus Brunt</b>: Braying oaf in
knapskull and haberschon who peers from a face that has been ruined by violence.
[<i>Brute</i>, as fighter, STR+ CHA-, morgenstern (d10), haberschon (+3), knapskull
(+1)]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-stretch: normal;"> 4. </span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Graylung the Frigantine</b>: sallow youth
of vaguely elfin cast and vicious misogyny, speaks in the barely-intelligible affected
dialect of the Agnatic Squirarchy, full of circumlocutions and synechdoche and
with which even he has difficulty enunciating anything meaningful, wears a
crimson coat-of-plates [<i>Gentleprig</i>,
as fighter, INT+, CON-, cinquedea (d6) coat-of-plates (+3) heater shield (+2)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>5. Flandleman Rut:</b> apparently moribund
toothless gaffer of fiendish vitality, bears a black oar with him in lieu of
cudgel to remind all he meets that we paddle through life on a river of misery
(<i>Brigand</i>, as fighter,CON+, INT- oar (d6), siege cap (+1) aketon (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l5 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-stretch: normal;">6.</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Erasmus Borborygmo</b>: corpulent iatrochemist
tattooed with anatomical diagrams relating to the circulation and balance of
the humours, prone to radical realignments of personality due to abuse of
medicinal elixirs, currently melancholic. (<i>Iatrochemist</i>,
as magic-user INT+, CON-, cane (d2), Spell: <i>charm
person</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>V. EXILES</b></span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Tanaquil Slake</b>: Disinherited baroness
of a realm that has been burned and depopulated, attired as a cuirassier with
three-quarter-plate, cabasset and caliver, insists upon the observation of
legal procedure prior to execution and torture, snide [<i>Ignoble Heir</i>, as fighter, WIS+, DEX-, prong-maul (d10), 3/4 plate, (+5)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Gallivantus Kirklouse:</b> craven <i>Reiter of the Salient Coot</i> who deserted
his order on campaign and lives in banishment and disgrace, scraggly ginger
beard and unconvincing pale eyes, lance and hammer and munitions harness [<i>Runagate Lancer</i>, as fighter, lance (d10),
skullhammer (d6), harness (+5), armet (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Hackamuggie Lammiger</b>: spade-bearded ark
ruffian with wooden leg and boarding pike, outrageously nimble and fearless,
chuckles as if at a secret joke (<i>Ark
Ruffian</i>, as fighter, DEX+, WIS-, boarding pike (d6), jack (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Oengus the Cow Leech</b>: Enormously
muscular sunburnt cottar of broad-brimmed hat and ugly good-humour, bristling
with knives (<i>Bounder-Lout</i>, as
fighter, STR+, DEX-, tendle-knife and broacher (d4,d6), buff-coat (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Forthwith Tobermory the Lesser: </b>Chinless
wonder of a hedgepriest-scholar, seethes with discontent, brittle of temper and
a secret sadist, hates his greater namesake more than life itself.<b> </b>[<i>Hedgepriest</i>, as cleric, INT+, CON-, quarterstaff
(d6), Spell: <i>cure light wounds</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Myriad Burncake</b>: scullion-wench turned
cutthroat murderess, exceedingly forgettably plain and mousy, equally deft with
razor, garrotte, beaming knife and earshank [<i>Murderess, as </i>Thief, DEX+, CHA-, razor, garrotte, beaming knife or
earshank (d4), ringlet-doublet, (+2)]</span><!--[endif]--><br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 32.15pt; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>VI. STRANGELINGS</b></span><br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-stretch: normal;"> 1.</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Grisly Huberht:</b> Little gluttonous
hobthrust with a malevolent profusion of sideburns and a penchant for practical
jokes involving terrible mutilation. [<i>Hob
o’ the Hurst</i>, as Halfling, CON+, CHA-, War-flail (d8), byrnie, (+3) Shapka –
reinforced papier mache cap (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Nox Nay Nabbity: </b>of apparently
indeterminate gender, shrouded in many mantles of fur and silk and velvet
finery adorned with broidered sigils and glyphs of ill-omened stars, secretly a
<i>Capriped</i>, her bestial features are
well hid but her musk is apparent to the discerning nose (<i>Capriped Sorceress</i>, as elf, INT+, CHA-, baselard(d4) kazaghand(+3),
Spells: sleep x2, <i>web, phantasmal force</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Frecken Klöster</b>: stunted mummer in
grotesque deofol-mask and tintinnabulous coat of bells, dances awkwardly to
drive away evil with terrible clangour, is mostly deaf and crawling with
vermin. [<i>Hunky-Punk</i>, as halfling,
DEX+, INT-, battle-thurible (1d6), coat of bells (+3), special: noise gives
+30% to Move silently within 30’]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Gryndercrust</b>: A lubber-fiend,
long-armed, cow-tailed, uncouth and hairy. Obsessed with the ritualised
transactions of agrarian society, eschews gold in favour of milk and barley,
flies into a scything frenzy at the harvest moon. [<i>Lubber-fiend</i>, as halfling, STR+, CHA-, reaping scythe (d8)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Erstwhile Shale:</b> sharger scout, jogs
from hiding place to hiding-place, seeks to outwit, outflank, ambush and murder
any possible threat, has barbed arrows tipped with curare and is good with
knots. [<i>Sharger</i>, as dwarf, shortbow
(d6 + poison), jack (+1)]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #444444;"><b>6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><b>Snell the Claker: </b>demon-haunted
petty-conjuror of tattered weaselish appearance, has a patchwork cloak of
scarlet and green and a hell-fiend’s face upon his arse that whispers appalling
things [<i>Claker</i>, as magic-user, INT+,
WIS-, poniard (d4) Spell: <i>sleep</i>]<o:p></o:p></span><!--[endif]--></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;">-</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-align: center; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="color: #444444;">______________________________________________________</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>UNDERLINGS</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;">Underlings are completely interchangeable hapless fodder appropriately themed to accord with the corresponding troupe, one of which appears for each Hooligan present: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>AC: 10 MV: 40’ HD: ½ hp: 3 #Att: 1 dmg: 1d4 ML: 8 (10)</b></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>1. Wayward Clavigers</b>:
servile underlings in faded green doublets and shakos, bearing cluncheons,
kirn-crewks, half-pikes and rushlights<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>2. Lowlander Gaberlunzies</b>: filthy peasantry in sheepskins, bearing sluff spades and dunnuks</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>3. Children of the Almondine:</b> idiot younglings enthralled by the false revelations of the Almondine, white tunics and righteous wrath</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>4. Starveling Lampadarii</b>:
holy lamp-bearers, gaunt and undernourished, bearing lanterns, candles, torches
to light the way and staves to correct transgressors<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>5. Kithans of Flambergast:</b> scurrilous scoundrels fled from a dead city, sick with grippe, bearing plumbata and caetrata</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><b>6. Manikin-folk:</b>
poxy midgets half the height of a conventional dwarf, wheedling and sly and
bearing nail-swords<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-48713043803879616142014-08-04T14:39:00.001+10:002015-09-27T00:55:05.640+10:00Grimmel-Dobbies and LayoutHere's another image from my Middenmurk bestiary. Grimmel-Dobbies comes, as usual, from a couple of dialect words and essentially means Pond-Fairies or Pond-Bogeys, they are essentially my version of the Welsh Gwragedd Annwn. They live in Lake Nenuphar (Nenuphar means water-lilies) and do not remember that they were inundated centuries ago. As far as they are concerned their realm was ever thus and there is no such thing as water. There are stirrings among the feuding houses, though, and a heresy is afoot. What will happen when the Aspidochelone returns? What does the Murmuring Marsgum know? I don't know. I just want to make things as much like a coiled spring as possible. Or like seeds planted in fertile ground or some other tedious metaphor.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggv_U3CsgRNw7HLlmrOCq1PCfHQ_pwdoO_4dcGy1q76dwoSfY5Qrw5KsfN4fjHxrhKoltO3AKb3vvqTtTEkAqgwmzF9tp1G3HkoJ-lDTI-aC7stNoZo4zYP0AM9Mlh9fJQdaGR_Dwlx-eV/s1600/Grimmel+Small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggv_U3CsgRNw7HLlmrOCq1PCfHQ_pwdoO_4dcGy1q76dwoSfY5Qrw5KsfN4fjHxrhKoltO3AKb3vvqTtTEkAqgwmzF9tp1G3HkoJ-lDTI-aC7stNoZo4zYP0AM9Mlh9fJQdaGR_Dwlx-eV/s1600/Grimmel+Small.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Please disregard slight watermark. Depicted individual is a Harpoon Squire. There will be a glossary.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Dobbies feature in an adventure I am writing but don't have any real job to do save to distract and waylay the protagonists. Actually everything in the adventure is about distraction and sidetracking so I guess maybe they play (or could play) a central role.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
___________________________</div>
<br />
I like layout. I like the way visual information can be unfolded onto a page in such a manner as to produce a thing that rewards prolonged visual scrutiny. Like this from Racinet's <i>Le Costume Historique</i>;<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.taschen.com/media/images/960/page_ju_25_racinet_page_01_1112121023_id_526014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.taschen.com/media/images/960/page_ju_25_racinet_page_01_1112121023_id_526014.jpg" height="420" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anyone who doesn't have a copy is missing out. It behooves me to say that several of the reconstructions are bullshit but I've actually developed a penchant for historical apocrypha</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are so many things in this image and in all of Racinet's imagery that you can profitably pore over, that spark imagination, that offer narratives. Admittedly there is a fiendish amount of work involved in this kind of thing but every detail, every bit of fluff offers opportunities. Old Forkbeard there with the red shield has a plume on his helmet that has just got to offer some kind of reaction bonus with other heathens.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.taschen.com/media/images/480/default_costume_hist_exc_07_0706141536_id_44997.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.taschen.com/media/images/480/default_costume_hist_exc_07_0706141536_id_44997.jpg" height="640" width="370" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See the wickerwork armour with the big backplate shield thing, awesome.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My Taschen copy is in three languages with tiny, tiny text and doesn't explain itself as well as it could but is nonetheless so resonant with ideas and psychic energy it acts as a doorway to endless creative meanderings .<br />
<br />Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-48917933664034734172014-07-28T23:24:00.001+10:002015-09-27T01:19:15.355+10:00Astragalomantic OntogenyI have been playing with layout and proceduralism. There are ways of dragging more information out of every dice roll. Doing this has an aesthetic appeal for me. Every time it is necessary to roll a dice to produce a relatively uninteresting result, like how many of something there are, I want to see more interesting results generated. I am also erring on the side of terse description though I can't see that lasting very long.<br />
<br />
This is a mockup and not finalised but contains the kernel of the ideas I am pursuing. The 21 dice icons at the bottom represent a character (3d6 x 6 + starting wealth), every page will have one, the numbers will also be used to determine aspects of the character's destiny and help to facilitate immersive and internally consistent procedural narrative generation in ways that have as yet not been determined.<br />
<br />
Astragalomantic parsimony dictates that every roll is laden with consequence. Open in a new tab or you can't see anything;<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhVHQ2WaDv_Ho45CGxcqGQR6X3xyuw8IIEK2g2V_XMvZlP1Avs2ZZwxFYdMOFKZUtu8kTzHb62VQn8w44Va3GFGqwxosniEdpzbe9siatmj1-BoN6ZP4E1sxAFqje1FNGwyOw35BzBlOF/s1600/Feorin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhVHQ2WaDv_Ho45CGxcqGQR6X3xyuw8IIEK2g2V_XMvZlP1Avs2ZZwxFYdMOFKZUtu8kTzHb62VQn8w44Va3GFGqwxosniEdpzbe9siatmj1-BoN6ZP4E1sxAFqje1FNGwyOw35BzBlOF/s1600/Feorin.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Astute observers will notice this is a B/X goblin with mild reskinning</td></tr>
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<br />Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-55389065332401278282014-07-13T21:35:00.000+10:002016-08-21T20:51:20.253+10:00Terrible WeaponsFor a very long time I've thought that there was a problem with equipment in D&D. Essentially, a fighter starts with a perfectly decent weapon at the beginning of first level and very soon afterwards acquires the best armour available in the mundane world. By second-level there is not much that interests the fighter on the standard equipment list save more of the same.<br />
<br />
I love the idea of having a more comprehensive weaponry-based reward mechanic and also of doing things to generally makes the setting more grubby and/or silly. To do this I am adopting a series of different options which may see initially complicated but will all make sense eventually; bumping up prices on the list, offering more varied gear, having a continuity of options stretching out through the levels and the price ranges and using the "fluff is crunch" principle -that I got from the very clever Roger the GS <a href="http://rolesrules.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/analog-digital-procedural.html">here</a>, initially, I think.<br />
<br />
Price Range: The vanilla price range for weapons is tiny and you can afford whatever you want early on. Using a copper standard it is not incongruous to have poor-quality make-shift weapons available for a handfull of coppers and beautifully made pieces by master artisans available for hundreds or thousands. Justifying this mechanically requires some chicanery but it ain't hard.<br />
<br />
Varied Gear: History presents us with a vast range of different tools for inflicting injury. As well as this there is imagination and ingenuity (which I refuse to utilise unless I have exhausted other options). To reflect this variation I offer a series of descriptors with very simple mechanical advantages to apply to weapons. e.g.;<br />
<br />
<i>shoddy</i>: breaks on a roll of 1*<br />
<br />
<i>hefty</i>: always strikes last unless wielder has a STR of 13 or more<br />
<br />
<i>unwieldy</i>: always strikes last regardless<br />
<br />
<i>short</i>: always stikes last unless the combatants are grappling in which case always strikes first<br />
<br />
<i>long</i>: always strikes first unless the combatants are grappling in which case is cannot strike<br />
<br />
<i>armour</i><b>-</b><i>piercing</i>: +1 to hit against medium and heavy armour<br />
<br />
<i>articulated</i><b>:</b> ignores small shields, always hit self on roll of 1<br />
<br />
In addition to this kind of thing there will be special stuff like; <i>Many-Tasseled Partizan of Majordomo Braglantore</i>: +1 to morale of nearby Lawful troops, -7 reaction penalty with Castigated Testudines. The Fluff is Crunch principle can be invoked to create advantages/disadvantages as well (and see below). Using such descriptors you can produce a 1 groat weapon that is shoddy, hefty, unwieldy and short and a 10,000 groat weapon that is something tales are told of, all without resorting to sorcery.<br />
<br />
Continuity of Options (trickle feeding the goodness): This is important. There is a continuity of options in D&D but the amount of choice/player agency that goes into the processes is insufficient. Magic Weapons are usually the only option after first-level and they are hidden in holes. I don't have anything about magic weapons, I am writing an adventure in which there is a magic weapon but is it overdone ? (Yes) My solution is to have equipment lists beyond first-level - equipment lists are, after all, a reward mechanic. Your bloodstained gold does off you the prospect of advancement but in the short term should also offer you the possibility of more satisfactory tooling up for havoc.<br />
<br />
So at the beginning you'll have a few options from the Rabble List, with Kavel-Mells and Dunnuks and Sluff-Spades and everything will be terrible and break constantly so you'll be especially excited about getting enough purloined copper to afford a proper Pigsticker from the Auxiliary List and will trek across dangerous territory to buy something that doesnae always break. After this come the Elite, Splendiferous and Ludicrous lists etc.<br />
<br />
Fluff is Crunch: a gavelock may well be heavy and unwieldy but it is still an iron crowbar which could be used for leverage and breaking stuff, a draige is attached to a big piece o' chain which has many purposes, a clotting beetle used for breaking sods in the field could be argued to convey some advantage against the Sinister Sod of Metheglin Meugle. I like that most of the things in the equipment table have no mechanical description but are merely plot tokens to be negotiated with the GM on a case-by-case basis.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<b><u>The Rabble List</u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
<b><span style="color: #660000;">1</span>. Yowing Knife</b>: the tool with which slates are trimmed - d4, <i>shoddy, unwieldy. </i>5 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">2.</span> Cruke</b>: shepherd's crook - d4, <i>long, shoddy, </i>3 groats<br />
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<b><span style="color: #660000;">3</span>. Clotting beetle</b>: a long handled hammer for breaking clods in the field - d6, <i>hefty, shoddy, </i>10 groats</div>
<b><span style="color: #660000;">4</span>. Maddock</b>-<b>hoe</b>: a digging tool, a mattock - d6, <i>hefty, unwieldy, </i>7 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">5</span>. Barnet</b>: a cart whip - d2, <i>articulated, long, </i>12 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">6.</span> Threshal</b>: threshing flail - d6, <i>articulated, unwieldy, </i>10 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">7.</span> Brummock</b>: short curved knife for hedging - d4, <i>short, shoddy,</i> 4 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">8.</span> Fourgeon</b>: wooden fork - d4, <i>shoddy, </i>5 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">9.</span> Hod</b>: spatulate trowel for wrangling mortar- d4, <i>short, shoddy, </i>5 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">10.</span> Snathing Axe</b>: small axe for snathing - d6, <i>short, shoddy, </i>8 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">11.</span> Huggie</b>-<b>staff</b>: staff with iron hook for fish, d6, <i>long, unwieldy, </i>7 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">12.</span> Kent</b>: spiked staff used by shepherds for leaping ditches - d4, <i>long, shoddy, </i>1 groat<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">13.</span> Muckrake</b>: for raking muck - d6, <i>shoddy, unwieldy, </i>6 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">14. </span>Battledore</b>: a flat wooden paddle instrument used as a mangle substitute - d4, <i>shoddy, </i>3 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">15.</span> Kavel-Mell:</b> sledge-hammer for breaking stones - d8, <i>hefty</i>, <i>unwieldy, </i>15 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">16</span>. Sluff Spade</b>: wooden spade with metal-reinforced blade - d6, <i>hefty, shoddy, unwieldy, </i>5 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">17.</span> Hack</b>-<b>hook</b>: curved hook with a long handle for hedging: - d8, <i>long, shoddy, </i>12<i> </i>groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">18.</span> Cluncheon:</b> a cudgel - d4<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">19. </span>Flesh</b>-<b>axe</b>: cleaver, d6, <i>short, shoddy, </i>8<i> </i>groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">20</span>. Tendle Knife</b>: a knife for cutting firewood or turf like a billhook - d4, <i>shoddy, </i>groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">21</span>. Oxter-staff:</b> a wooden crutch - d4, <i>shoddy, </i>2<i> </i>groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">22.</span> Drowning Knife</b>: large blade on a pole for cutting ditches - d8, <i>unwieldy, shoddy, </i>20 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">23.</span> Meathook</b>: a meathook - d4, <i>short, </i>3 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">24.</span> Klot</b>: A hoe used to scrape up mud - d6, <i>unwieldy, shoddy, </i>7<i> </i>groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">25.</span> Beaming Knife</b>: tanner's knife - d3, <i>short, </i>4 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">26.</span> Prong Spade</b>. digging fork with three thick prongs - d6, <i>unwieldy, shoddy, </i>10<i> </i>groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">27.</span> Draige</b>: iron hook on a chain for pulling down burning thatch - d6, <i>articulated, unwieldy, </i>12 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">28.</span> Dunnuk</b>: dung fork - d6, <i>unwieldy, shoddy, </i>15 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">29.</span> Clip</b>-<b>shires</b>: iron shears - d3, <i>short, shoddy, </i>12 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">30.</span> Gleavie</b>: barbed eel spear - d6, <i>shoddy, </i>13 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">31.</span> Gavelock</b>: iron crowbar - d6 <i>hefty, unwieldy, </i>15<i> </i>groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">32.</span> Mash</b>-<b>mungle</b>: an instrument used in brewing to stir the malt - d4, <i>shoddy, </i>1<i> </i>groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">33.</span> Lang</b>-<b>saw</b>: a saw - d4, <i>shoddy, unwieldy, </i>18 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">34.</span> Grafe</b>-<b>hook</b>: sickle - d4, <i>short, shoddy, </i>5 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">35.</span> Broacher</b>: A very large, sharp-pointed knife - d6, <i>shoddy, </i>10 groats<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">36.</span> Brand</b>: a flaming torch - d4, <i>on fire, 1 </i>groat<br />
<br />
* It should perhaps be noted that I am aware stuff didn't break so frequently in real life but I am concerned with genre emulation here. It is, after all, the Dung Ages.<br />
<br />
It occurs to me that I'd like to use a perverse version of the Chekhov's Gun principle to incorporate procedural world-building into the initial character creation phase (more on this another time maybe) such that purchasing a sluff spade precipitates events into reality such that you might have to save a peasant family from the aftermath of a bonnacon's fecal onslaught or purchasing a battledore generates a spectral Washer-at-the-Ford who needs help with laundering the clothes of those she loved and slew. Such fairytale nonsense appeals to me but these "weapons" are so useful they probably don't need such stuff.<br />
<br />
Edit: My old post on using <a href="http://middenmurk.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/copper-standard.html">a copper standard</a> is of relevance here.Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-50255884423829233752014-06-22T20:32:00.000+10:002014-06-22T20:32:08.849+10:00The Affairs of WizardsI am not interested in 5E because it is inextricably linked to the contemporary fantasy aesthetic. This also happens to be the secondary reason why I hated the Hobbit films. I realise I have exiled myself to a barren peninsula of my own eccentricity here but the fact remains that the aesthetic essence of the thing (i.e. its "style") matters far more to me that playability, accessibility or innovation. If 5E pursued a Weird aesthetic and rolled out Ian Miller, Russ Nicholson and John Blanche to illustrate it I'd be sold, no matter what goofy mechanics it might have.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl0CoVZo-IYr-ZRLDgRPIxBZqxJpdgMFxh8nUr721yMP3mKtkiz4w9aL9A5ak8OvmrJrSTUHj0G1ishCIyTypMqR89M-P_kzzKD9Xl0HHhIkwuHIajiKV1UTyqaWMMaXTiqCU7wYTPHh1n/s1600/Libra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl0CoVZo-IYr-ZRLDgRPIxBZqxJpdgMFxh8nUr721yMP3mKtkiz4w9aL9A5ak8OvmrJrSTUHj0G1ishCIyTypMqR89M-P_kzzKD9Xl0HHhIkwuHIajiKV1UTyqaWMMaXTiqCU7wYTPHh1n/s1600/Libra.jpg" height="640" width="425" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conversely, <b>Oleg Denysenko</b>, Denis Forkas Kostromitin and Vania Zouraliov could do it. Contemporary Russian illustrators are bloody marvelous.</td></tr>
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<br />
I know the world shall continue to recede from the ideal I carry in my head. It matters not.<br />
<br />
-----------------------------------------------<br />
So D&D magic is decidedly not magical. This galls me. There is such potential for intriguing and evocative as well as conducive to the initiation of self-perpetuating action-in-the-game-world stuff in magic but I don't see it used much.<br />
<br />
Firstly and importantly, given my long-time obsession with reward mechanics, I believe that neglecting to foreground the accumulation of spells as an important part of the magic-user's progression is missing out on part of the fun of playing that role. If a magic-user has no particular relationship with their spellbook and no motivating desire to go forth and pilfer the spellbooks of others for mystick puissance and abominable mysteries then they are functionally, in terms of relationship to the campaign setting, not so much differentiated from the other character classes.<br />
<br />
Of course the universal focus of the bloodstained gold reward system is valuable for tying together the party's major pursuit (plunder) but there is a beauty in individually differentiated class rewards. Magic items offer this to an extent, creating a dynamic where there is an understanding that beyond the typically slow and linear creep up through the levels there will be little bonuses here and there that will create sudden flashes and leaps of extra power, magic swords and wands and rings and the like, which constitute an extra, parallel reward system. In addition to this there is another, similarly underdeveloped reward system composed of more mundane items, purchasables like hirelings and retainers and ships and castles. All are means of augmenting agency within the gameworld and all are awarded by the GM to PCs whose actions have been sufficiently entertainingly ingenious and intrepid.<br />
<br />
-As an aside there is another intriguingly under-investigated social-aesthetic dynamic that goes on where the GM invests a portion of their effort and pride and love and care into the setting as an aesthetic object and the players petition with their interest and their care to be allowed to have agency within the gameworld. It is only through being an exceptionally good audience to and collaborators with the performative efforts of the GM that the secrets of the world reveal themselves and it is only through playing along with this fantasy, making at least the appearance of being enthralled by the GM's aesthetic virtuosity that the greatest secrets are uncovered. There is a thing about hospitality and flattery and communal aesthetic experience here that I shan't be pursuing further. Suffice to say: listen well and play along and ye shall be rewarded-<br />
<br />
Carcosa has a very interesting and deeply integrated-and-conducive-to-action magic system. I refuse to believe that there was never any intent that the players were never supposed to be sorcerors. While I acknowledge that the rituals involving the raping and murdering of children are too abhorrent for people to enjoy playing out and are actually much more effective as means of defining who the bad guys are and defining what the hitherto evocatively defined as unspeakably blasphemous rites actually consist of, the fact that the magic system and hexcrawl are so interlinked is brilliant. The map is fairly festering with Macguffins. Aside from the obvious unpleasantnesses, playing a sorceror in Carcosa would be cool, you've got places to go and people to see from the get go. Additionally, assuming the antagonists are probably sorcerors, they've got things to do also. Given a little inside knowledge it becomes obvious that the sorceror or his minions are trying to get the Radioactive Purple Crystal from Hex 0121 to the Seething Chasm of Indeterminate Depth in Hex 9982 to summon the Quaking Eidolon of Thrausaath-Glybbe (or whatever) and there you have a clear set of objectives and something to do while sitting around the table with your friends.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
__________________________________</div>
<br />
So, in this conception, magic spells are unlocked from the mysterious cosmos by the performance of particular rites. This gives the initiate access to the arcane mysteries which may then be inscribed in their grimoire and "memorised" daily, as normal. The written version is essentially enchanted, it functions as a magical scroll and may be destructively invoked in a similar manner, over and above its normal spellbook function. Once a spell is thus lost from the grimoire it is necessary to go through the whole process of ritual to regain the spell. Spells stolen from other magic-users may (after unlocking with Read Magic) be "burnt" as scrolls, additionally all written versions of spells of necessity contain the instructions for performance of the rite that unlocks the mystery.<br />
<br />
The individual spells in the magic user spell list are divided between a number of different factions in the setting (with a considerable degree of overlap). Each jealously guards its secrets and the rites that allow their revelation. It is only possible to achieve the ability to cast every spell by begging, borrowing or stealing from a number of different sources.<br />
<br />
Finally, language is the key to unlocking the knowledge, many languages within the setting have an association with a particular set of mysteries, knowing the language means knowing the mysteries. The languages and their associated magical disciplines are as follows;<br />
<br />
Five Paths of Lesser Sorcery<br />
<br />
1. Elder Druideacht - Language of Birds<br />
2. Bastard Alchemy- Alchemists' Cant<br />
3. Lowlander Spae-craft - Meagre Tongue (i.e. "Common")<br />
4. Mantic Disciplines of the Old Imperium - Diviners' Cipher<br />
5. Heathenish Witchery - Heathen Tongue<br />
-----------------------------------------------<br />
Exempli Gratia: <b>Elder Druideacht</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
The degraded rites of Low Druidry are relicts of the blasphemies of the north. The fell Druideacht of the northern heathens bound together their tribes in ties of blood and law and sacrifice. Theirs was an elder pact with the powers of the wicked earth personified in primordial gods of field and fen and unquiet ancestors craving sacrifice from the darkness beyond.<br />
<br />
There are six first level spells in the druidry spell list, a beginning initiate will have already performed three of the rites but will know the rites to access the others<br />
<br />
-<i>The Willing Sacrifice</i> (Charm Person) A pristine entity (white calf with red ears, blind foal, seven-day-old kid born in the new moon's dark) is bathed in milk and crowned with a wreath of mistletoe cut with a silver sickle. Songs are sung over it of Ancient Law. Eating of its heart will reveal the mystery<br />
<br />
-<i>Ordeal of the Hodimadod</i> (Detect Magic) At one of the known junctions of cosmic alignment between nexi of the embodiment of ancient lore (henges, raths, cromlech-graves, sacred groves and pools) the initiate must spend the night alone in a circle of seven knives and ritualistically strangle themselves seven times with a rope of their own hair that they swoon and fall. In the half-world between oblivion and wakefulness the mystery will be glimpsed.<br />
<br />
-<i>Walk Untouchable</i> (Protection from Evil) All sprinkled with gold dust, glimmering naked and drunk on tainted mead, the initiate must enter the opened tomb of a hallowed ancestor and lay together upon the slab, eat of its fingernails and hair and plead and beg the answer to the riddles of death and life .<br />
<br />
- <i>Assimilation of Ink</i> (Read Languages) From the mingled blood of a dozen initiates and the gall of a blasted oak and the venom of a murtherous humbledrum an ink must be brewed and the flayed skin of an ancient scholar adorned with the ciphered runes and the hundred forms of ogam and all the abecedaries of the Old Imperium and glyphs and ancient scripts forgotten by time. This skin must be slowly eaten and the initiate stricken with the poison for seven nights. On the eighth day the initiate rises with ink in their veins.<br />
<br />
- <i>Vigil of the Grey Horizon</i> (Sleep) The initiate undergoes mystical incubation wrapped in the flayed hide of a walrus, nettle-crowned and covered in bone-soot. The initiate must hold wakeful vigil for seven nights upon a shore between earth and restless ocean until oblivion beckons in the voice of a gull. In that voice can be heard the mystery.<br />
<br />
-<i>Blinding the Cipher </i> (Read Magic) Skyclad and fasted upon the dawn of Midsummer's Day the initiate must gaze into the rising sun until the world goes out of their eyes . Thereafter, they are led into a grove where ogam-staves and runestones and grimoires of mystick writings are kept and made to look upon them as their sight returns. In the dim light of returning vision the secret will glimmer among the glyphs.<br />
<br />
et cetera<br />
<br />
--------------------------------------<br />
As the character progresses through the levels it will become necessary to collude with other magicians to perform the rites necessary to unlock new forms of magical power. The different paths will have entirely different ways of gaining access to essentially the same spell - spae-wives will brew philtres of love to gain the ability to charm (instead of eating the heart of an innocent sacrifice) and other paths will pursue other means. In addition to this there is always the possibility that some kind of fraternisation with elves might be possible (though unwise). <br />
<br />Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-56940434754549821602014-02-22T17:41:00.000+11:002015-09-27T01:21:30.015+10:00Howling Across the Chasm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When the time comes for describing the monster the GM looks up and to the left, searching for the words, and the hands come out and begin delineating and caressing the invisible contours of this thing they are imagining. The players are transported, to some extent, by this performative enactment of monstrosity. It is not merely the actual description of the monster but the struggle for description that bears the aesthetic reward. There is a moment of shared mythopoieia where the GM is delving in their visual imagination and the players are doing the same and the fruit of that description, the mental image and conception of the thing is born in everyone's mind, fresh and immediate and consensually realised. Then the players take that emergent image of the monster and embed it in the situation they find themselves in and it becomes a threat or an opportunity, a mystery or an unmitigated calamity unfolding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That such a thing can occur at all in the context of aesthetically mediated group-bonding rituals is wonderful to me. That it occurs all the time, as a matter of course is even more so. The storytelling instinct and the competitive instinct and the yearning for group one-heartedness humans possess innately makes this miracle commonplace, to be taken for granted. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are two distinct kinds of excitement I am interested in that can arise from the moment of description. The first of these is the dawning familiarity/dread response: "You see a wrinkled sphere hanging in the gloom atop which writhe a number of short tentacles and from the midst of which there glares a single baleful..." "Fuck, Beholder! Run!" The second is the unfolding mystery response which makes me think of my own first D&D session - I encountered a rust monster and a carrion crawler, neither of which I had any notion of beforehand and both of which made a very strong impression on me such that subsequent encounters engendered in me the dread response, the thrill of which was all the keener from the disastrous initial meetings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am a bit jaded about settings and scenarios that only use established, folklorically entrenched D&D beasties. There is an OSR tradition of using such creatures in novel combinations and in new ways which is laudable but not what I am chasing here. There is also the accumulated technical knowledge of ways and means of dealing with monsters that brings with it a certain kind of slick satisfaction - even if that satisfaction is derived from huddling in a grimy corner trying to <i>bless </i>the last crossbow bolt before the rakshasa finds you and provides a tragic finale to your travails. These things have their own particular aesthetic appeal but I would like to investigate other ways.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The other way I have always striven to pursue is to try to reboot the process. To begin anew with whatever descriptive powers I can muster to break through to the freshness of things as-yet-unimagined. From whence will inevitably commence the diminishment of novelty. If it can be engineered that this slow death of wonder can be made to pass through phases of notoriety or fond familiarity then all the better. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Foreshadowing</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In published scenarios it is not uncommon for there to be examples of the literary device of foreshadowing. Rumours and portents precede the thing towards which the PCs are being guiltily ushered (often in direct contravention of accepted orthodoxies regarding railroading). Conversely, wandering monsters are almost never foreshadowed save as plausible inhabitants of certain habitats. If you go traipsing through the Accursed Principality of the Dead and encounter Spindle-Ghaists tripping bonily along the very nature of the place has done the work of priming the players' expectations for something gaunt and necrophilous, but there is scope for introducing other means of telegraphing intention to ramp up dread. Wandering monsters are usually just there, a sudden unpleasantness to add artful disarray to a situation that was probably going terribly awry in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, as a means of fleshing-out the environments through which the PCs travel and of producing a sense of foreboding it would be aesthetically pleasing to have signs that precede the appearance of wandering monsters. Something like;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dost thou wander the Lackly Veil? Roll each morning and evening upon this table;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>1</b>. Reek of burning hangs in the air and trees bear jagged wounds. Distant screams as of animals in pain. (Ugsome Boors)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>2</b>. Cruel honking geese harry and harrass, following at a distance, regarding with sinister sidelong glances or darting in to bite. (A<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">glæcwif)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><b>3</b>.The land about seems suddenly gaunt, pinched and harrowed as with years of hunger. Something rumbles from afar. (Grunzel-gullet)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><b>4</b>. Twittering starlings shrill and flock, innumerably multifarious, surging and warping on the northern wind. (Sceadugenga)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><b>5</b>. Huge footprints as of some elephantine behemoth have torn the countryside. Morning fog lasts too long. (Pukelin Tark)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><b>6</b>. In a mournful quiet, sparse and wiry grass grows in old lime-pits and red clover nodding in the breeze. (Marlebrute)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">etc. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Following such a foreshadowing and assuming something in the manner of an onward trajectory or feckless tarrying (rather than immediate withdrawal and/or other countermeasures) there is a 50% chance that the next wandering beastie corresponds to the foreshadowing (or if multiple things have been foreshadowed 25% or 16.7% or 12.5% each or whatever). The aesthetic intent here is the establishment of<i> linkages</i>, of apparent depth in an essentially procedural reality where depth can be hard to come by. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">I dislike the idea of determinism and the removal of agency but keenly love doom and foreboding. It would be nice to have the PCs discussing intently whether to go on up the Worm-Road knowing they'll probably meet the Pukelin Tark that tore out Pieter's lungs or go back around the hills where the starlings flock and risk forgetting their own names.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So there's this thing:</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Monster Reaction Table </span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Roll Result </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>2</b> Friendly, helpful </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>3-5</b> Indifferent, uninterested </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>6-8</b> Neutral, uncertain </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>9-11</b> Unfriendly, may attack </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>12</b> Hostile, attacks </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The reaction table is the vastly underused social mechanic I tended not to use. I saw it as an excuse to skip past the important funny voices component of the game. I now see it as an armature upon which vast quantities of setting-specific colour can be hung, fluff crunchified, fashionable curly shoes and ruffs and virtuosic sackbut performances rescued from obsolescence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">More on that later (or maybe never if you're lucky). It suffices to say now entities have a hostility rating, ranging from -9 (St. Cumbertwilde on her Sanguine Ass) to +17 (Vehement Rutabagas). PCs can have some effect on this with gentle croonings or bribes of food etc. but the general rule is that different things exhibit different behaviours. I recall the thing of most interest to me in the crowd-sourced Grognardian endeavour - Petty Gods - was the concept of individualised reaction tables. Reaction need not be a consistent spectrum but a set of behaviours specific to the behaver and modified by affordances particular to its predilections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So that the discerning GM may interlard their nattering with a few choice phrases without resorting to the stultifying tedium of boxed text I have chosen to give descriptions of these beasties in collections of fragments. Of course, the danger that the fragments themselves may infect said GMs' tones with the recitative droning inflection typically derived from reading shit out may be circumvented through judicious insertion of an implied <i>et cetera </i>after the suggested phrases and the use of (hopefully pre-sparked) imagination. There are plenty of details in these fragments conducive to dramatic description.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For a while it's been floating in my head as an alternative approach to the verbose gibberish I usually employ but Jacob Hurst's <a href="http://swordfishislands.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/on-information-and-its-layout.html">Dire Boar Den Information Layout Thingy</a> has encouraged me to experiment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- Also, no more descending armour class. I relinquish orthodoxies reluctantly but recognise finally that I'll be able to maintain the mechanical parsimony I desire at the same time as not doing that little mental calculation every time. It isn't an enormous effort but any means of doing away with unnecessaries appeals to me.</span></div>
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<u><b><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Pilshach Oobit </span></b></u></div>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Brutish Earth Sprites</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdFqxIcYoZWs_ZqnRRrHkNeA_21NNOUjay2mLnoSpMcUXTqoBRZZQ91Ian-Ch-Eqez8k-Lyz141hdmAkhyiPDKZxP2ELEA_Ft2Gp2ZPSsY5E9ybIua9tq1AZtDenOWQCFkNb1Zk6xmV1Zn/s1600/Grunzel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdFqxIcYoZWs_ZqnRRrHkNeA_21NNOUjay2mLnoSpMcUXTqoBRZZQ91Ian-Ch-Eqez8k-Lyz141hdmAkhyiPDKZxP2ELEA_Ft2Gp2ZPSsY5E9ybIua9tq1AZtDenOWQCFkNb1Zk6xmV1Zn/s1600/Grunzel.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Foreshadowings:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>- </b>Moldiwarps emerge from their diggings to sneer and gloat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-The land is strewn with boulders that seem curiously out-of-place and haphazardly arranged.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- Sensitive souls get the sensation they are being regarded with ill-will from among the stones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">-Everything seems heavy and trudgingly onerous. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="color: #660000;">Appearance: </b>Four-foot tall lumpen boulderish demon-thing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Elemental Menace:</b> unearthly brutality of essence, alien hate, archaic loathing, weird dark thwarted intensity, hollow black sockets like holes in the world</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Guttural Musicality:</b> Singsong droning dirge, thunderous barking, quaint unaccountable ponderous dancing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Catastrophic Tumbling:</b> sensation of vast weight and incredible force, quaking earth, embodiment of disaster and panic</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Upon Investigation of the Remains</b>: They appears to be made of boulders and blood and bits of lambent silvery ore, 1d6 x 10 groats' worth apiece</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>To the Scholar of Paynim Lore </b>(Heathen Language + INT check): The Oobits are sung of in the old songs as guardians of the thresholds between the earthly realm and realms of impenetrable density where the mountains dance and the sky is made of stone. The Dun-Trows know something of their ways and the uncouth mummery of the festival of Burian-Kirk is said to recount the parting of the Pilshach and Pulchrie Oobits in the long-ago springtime of the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Hostility:</b> Intensely Inimical, +7 to reaction rolls</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #660000;"><u><b>Oobit</b></u> </span><b>- (1d6) AC:</b> 18 <b>HD</b>: 4 <b>#Att: </b>1 chomp or special <b>dmg:</b> 1d8 <b>MV:</b> 6 <b>AL</b>: C</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Special: </b><i>Tumbling: </i>The Oobit must dance quaintly and sing gutturally for one round prior to this attack, 1d20 dmg, save vs. paralysis or be knocked prone</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mallagrugous Welkintrout </span> </span></u></b><br />
<i><span style="color: #990000;">Supramundane Piscatorial Monstrosity</span></i></div>
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<b><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Foreshadowings:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- Minnows or frogs fall in a rainstorm</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- A fishwife goes irrevocably mad, gesturing violently at the sky, ranting about a redness in the north</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- A missing child is found dismembered in a tree, unspeakable glistening mucus drips down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- There is a dismal reek that passes in the night. Perchance a wet flapping is heard.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Appearance:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Abysmal Foetor: </b>Like; - the dredgings of an ocean trench, - a whalefish disemboweled, - the open grave of a rancid giant, an eye-watering awfulness at a hundred paces.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Glaring Fishy Eyes:</b> dead-eyed gloating malice, alien curiosity, otherworldly hunger, startling wrongness</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Fanged Pugnaciousness: </b>hideous array of vicious fangs, horribly ragged maw, snapping jaws, bristling with dagger-teeth, talon-fins and wing fins flailing</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>To the Scholar of Inimical Otherworlds </b>(Alchemists' Argot + INT Check)<b>:</b> The thing probably originates from the ocean-skies of the Outermost Firmaments, beyond the poison-blue Empyrean of Night Everlasting. It can only have flown down to tellurean realms at the behest of a thaumaturge of considerable puissance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>To the Desperate Hooligan:</b> The talons and fangs may be salvaged for use as <i>shoddy weapons </i>(i.e. breaking on a 1) doing 1d4 dmg. They smell very bad. Those struck need save vs. poison or be sickened (see below).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Hostility: </b>Very Nasty, + 5 to reaction rolls</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #660000;"><u><b>Welkintrout</b></u> </span><b>- (1) AC:</b> 15 <b>HD</b>: 3+7 <b>#Att: </b>1 bite <b>dmg:</b> 2d6 <b>MV:</b> 6, Fly 24 <b>AL</b>: C</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Special: </b><i>Ungodly </i><i>Stench</i>, Save vs. poison within 20' or -3 to hit from vomiting. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Uncleanness</i>, Save vs. poison when struck or be infected with debilitating pustulent odium -1d6 CON per day unless a further save is successful, two consecutive saves needed for recovery. </span></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Tatzelwurm of Bastardly Hark </b></span></u></span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Creeping Squamous Odium</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Foreshadowings:</b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- Crickets shrill with fiendish triumph at the dying of the day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- The trees and plants hereabouts are pallid and sickly. Hemlock blooms with fervid vitality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- Dull-eyed lizards watch from mossy niches.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- Carven deep in trees and stones is the figure of a twisting snake. Corroded fragments of chain are found in the vicinity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Appearance</b>: Two-legged dragon-thing the size of a man</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Baroque Grotesquerie:</b> Weird ornate scaled anatomy, spiny and tattered, bristles and hooks and talons, undulating nastiness, awkward crawling and creeping, writhing worm-tail</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Demonic Malevolence</b>: Horrible gloating and hissing, gnashing and spluttering, drooling virulent spittle, tormented snarling</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Hostility:</b> Inimical +4</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To the Historian of the Empire</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (Imperial Tongue + INT check): Of old in this region it is told an Imperial outpost was held to ransom by a poisonous serpent that demanded a seasonal tribute of maidens. By the actions of avaricious knights and by grasping clergymen caught up in bloody internal strife was it laid low. Now only yammering shades haunt its empty hall.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>To the Canny Tracker</b> (Language of Beasts or Lowlander Tongue + WIS check): Following the furrows and poisoned weeds back to its foetid lair the hoard it stole in ages past can be found. The Tatzelwurm's venom is on it such that anyone handling it recklessly saves vs. poison at +2 or goes down like a pollaxed steer for 1d4 rounds. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>The Hoard consists of</b>;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Three Falchions of Dwarfish Temper with scabbards and baldricks chased with gold -250 groats apiece but of Svartling make -</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="line-height: 16.899999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Blæingr, Brusi and Baldrekr shall seek out the bearers of these and flay them alive.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 16.899999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 16.899999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">- Two Silver Reliquaries bearing the bones of Heretic Saints (Bombasticus and Gnoldo) - worth 200 groats apiece but representatives of the One True Church are 50% likely to denounce the bearers and call for their excommunication.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 16.899999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.899999618530273px;">- Ducal Signet Ring - worth 120 groats for the gold alone but potentially substantially more for the Imperial Crest (sadly of a lost and discredited house)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.899999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16.899999618530273px;">- 1298 groats in assorted solidii, guilders, stivers and half-crowns</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #660000;"><u><b>Tatzelwurm</b></u> </span><b>- (1) AC:</b> 16 <b>HD</b>: 5+2 (hp: 27) <b>#Att: </b>1 <b>dmg:</b> 1d10 + poison <b>MV:</b> 9 <b>AL</b>: C</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Special: </b><i>Poison:</i> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Save vs. poison or flop around haplessly moaning for 2d4 turns</span><br />
<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Threshing Flurry: </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When reduced below 10hp the Tatzelwurm will writhe its spiny form about in a snarling frenzy causing opponents within 10' to save vs. dragon or suffer 1d8 dmg from its barbed anatomy.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Curse: </i>Three times a day the wurm can bestow a curse causing a character to be consumed with the lust for gold, save vs. spells each time another withholds gold or attempt their murder within one day.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><u style="background-color: white;">Ark Raven </u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #990000;"><i>Antediluvian Avian Hierophants</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Foreshadowings</span>: </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Vast webs of intrigue perpetrated by jackanapes and boobries under the tutelage of corrupt abecedarians ensorcelled by demented druidical priestesses commanded by a cabal of unseelie princes et cetera. Behind all of it, eventually, will be Ark Ravens.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">-In the dim vaults of their ancient seclusion are mouldering nests of tomes and scrolls, tablets and runestones and ogam-staves and myriad other glyphic artefacts in crumbling strata from inconceivable aeons, forgotten now by all save the waddling scions of the elder world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Appearance:</span> </b>Featherless flightless birds, four feet tall</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #990000;"><b>Features: </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Waddling Decrepitude: </b>Wizened awkwardness, nearsighted, shambling, wrinkled hide, raspy croaking voice, mouldy stink</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Aura of Ancient Wisdom</b>: Hard bright eyes, vast store of sarcasm, cruel and mocking laughter, riddling speech, immortal pragmatism and patience</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Hostility:</b> Harsh +2</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #660000;"><u><b>Ark Raven</b></u> </span><b>- (1) AC:</b> 12 <b>HD</b>: 2-7 <b>#Att: </b>1 <b>dmg:</b> 1d4 <b>MV:</b> 12 <b>AL</b>: N </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Special:</b><i> Enchantments:</i>1/rd </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">at will; <i>charm person, sleep, cause fear, hold person, bestow curse, charm monster, geas, mass charm. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>Uncanny Foresight: </i>rolls d12 for Initiative rather than d6</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>To the Scholar of Obscure Lore</b> (Imperial Tongue, Heathen Tongue <i>and</i> The Language of Birds + INT check): There are faded legends of prophets and the fathers of the fathers of pagan kings who spoke to a birdlike race that lived in the deeps of the earth since before the stars were kindled. It is said they taught wickedness to the elves and avarice to the dwarfs and folly to feckless manlings newly woken in the world. They shall come again.</span></span></div>
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Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-6150753754894991192014-01-29T23:27:00.001+11:002014-01-29T23:27:21.244+11:00In the Jolly-Boat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There is a moment when you've got to get off the big boat and start paddling to shore and fucked if I have any understanding of how that particular process goes. The mystery that is on the shore is unfathomable. I'm not there but am paddling still.<br />
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I have been trawling through early Weird fiction of late and can say that Hodgson would be masterful with a little restraint. Haggard is proto-Weird and suffers from the same hokey bullshit characterisations as Burroughs and Merritt (which I guess is a pulp thing, or an old-timey thing). Merritt can't stop going on about light and colour and has the whole virtuosic inventiveness meets mediocre storytelling thing going on, I can see simultaneously why he was so popular and influential and is now relatively forgotten. Burroughs name-drops contemporary scientists like Lovecraft though perhaps not quite so embarrassingly. Blackwood is my favourite so far. Blackwood has the rather commendable quality of having not been impressed by Lovecraft (though Lovecraft was very impressed by old Algernon). <i>The Willows</i> is a ferocious thing of fiendish inscrutableness, it does not give anything away unnecessarily but what it gives is good.<br />
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Ho, chitchat, <i>Xenia, </i>generous Flailsnails referees, the lubricants by which social intercourse is made to run smoothly. Here are things which are not the heart of the matter but peripheral fripperies you'll have to traipse through to achieve the thing. More jolly-boats and dwindling shorelines, prevaricating headwinds. Game is not art but social-bonding ritual masquerading as communal aesthetic experience or vice-versa, wandering up and down the play-art-religion spectrum, daring itself to take itself seriously, taking too large bites, paddling. Don't go burrowing.<br />
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Gnome stew gives me nothing.<br />
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Requisite paragraphs achieved, content ensues;<br />
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1. A wind carries with it the sharpish tang and chill of storm and from the seaward horizon rises a hail-green malevolence of roiling thunderhead. The squall breaks flinging ice-shards and biting rain and whips the ocean to a seething and a waterspout roars out of the depths hurling piranha-fish a-gnashing on the ravenous wind.<br />
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2. The balmy air is fragrant with a curious perfume of long-lost land that fills the mind with visions as of another life long ago and far away. In the mind's eye a verdant furnace-realm of topless towers and a vastly upward yearning unto green skies where leathery grey things fly that croak and bellow in the burning air. Something abominably too-like lust stirs and with it a terrible loathing.<br />
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3. In the ocean's shallow azure brilliance writhe the impossibly vibrant forms of sea-snakes in superb and meticulous traceries of virulence unparalleled, that merely looking upon them too long causes the eyes of the watcher to split and bleed. The very waves that wash over their display hiss with the venom.<br />
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4. Among the dappled light and shadow of gently undulating kelp fronds is glimpsed a dappled curvaceousness. Closer inspection reveals a wallowing sirenian in playful mood that wakens unaccountable vistas of forbidden carnality. All else recedes before the tide of urgent longing and the drowning brine all-too eagerly engulfs.<br />
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5. Skin swells and seethes and from within come chitinous nodules that burst into barnacled masses that crust over the faces of sufferers with hideous rapidity. They can't stop laughing wild and shrill.<br />
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6. Out on the hazy grey distant shore a weird ululation as of something vast and fell and dreadfully eager fills the heart with a primal dread. Waddling ponderously onto the beach afar is a thing like a grey penguin bigger than a windmill, great yellow eyes agleam with a fiendish curiosity. It hurls its sleek enormousness into the surf and approaches with terrible speed, warbling as it breaches.<br />
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7. Close to the shore, beyond the reef, a warm lagoon, shallow, filled with stony protuberances like giant petrified toadstools lapped by the tide. Wrongness sings silent in the stillness of the stone. Intruders twitch and yammer and bloom with a fecund stench as internal alchemies recalibrate themselves in obedience to the thing that thrums in this place.<br />
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8. There are bodies on the beach, drownlings tangled in the wrack. Turn one over. It is you. Falling into the sky.<br />
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9. Maundy Jill or Skittlebridge throws something up into the bottom of the boat. Black and piteous little manling, half-a-fish and mewling in the scum. Red mouth gaping. Other black shapes are in the water, calling it home.<br />
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10. A shadow athwart the sun presages the approach of a teratorn like unto a black vulture-heron grown vast through aeons uncountable. It comes a-flapping out of an elder age, trumpeting its mournful cry.<br />
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11. Turbulences drag and suck and thrust the jolly-boat against a reef that seems to rise too violently to crack and splinter the feeble craft,tumbling its passengers into the surge. The riptide rages. There is seeming malice in the currents that endeavour to drag to drowning depth or tear against the jagged coral. Hungry little sharks watch the struggle.<br />
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12. The cannon fire seems at first incongruous and the initial shot falls short. Away back at the <i>Gomorrah </i>even at four-hundred yards can be heard the laughter of the drunken damned and seen the capering on the poop-deck. They reload quickly as the hulk sets ragged sail.<br />
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So, yeah, approaching something vast and ancient and unknowable. Numerical parameters of the aforementioned misfortunes do not exist yet because the thing is but an embryo or a furtive paddling ashore. I am one of those ducklings that doesn't want to be pushed out of the tree. Besides, d100 tables are in vogue now so I'd like to do one of those for the jolly-boat chapter. It is admittedly unlikely.Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-40439634959833048842014-01-18T20:04:00.000+11:002014-01-22T19:41:23.069+11:00Uttermost South<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzmZ92pWg0xyCRq1b-juZ8whL08hVxFEMTdy4NfyG_JGfoKCeJxaSiPnItClh8Ln9V7eAqA_ftcvCyKxNm2rgNBBvvFEQynhS1RXxwip2pNilK0STl5azOljx7noyr1XSsiOF6OcpUc81u/s1600/hulk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzmZ92pWg0xyCRq1b-juZ8whL08hVxFEMTdy4NfyG_JGfoKCeJxaSiPnItClh8Ln9V7eAqA_ftcvCyKxNm2rgNBBvvFEQynhS1RXxwip2pNilK0STl5azOljx7noyr1XSsiOF6OcpUc81u/s1600/hulk.jpg" height="300" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I frequently scrawl in notebooks because of situational restrictions ( at times self-imposed) then I lose the notebooks. Later on I find them while cleaning or looking for something else and what is written within immediately and inevitably distracts me from whatever useful task I am performing. The person who wrote that stuff knew precisely what I like and seems to be endeavouring to reconfigure reality and art in just such a manner as is ever my intent, and yet, some quirk of my drug-addled memory has invariably wiped away all recollection of setting down the words or encapsulating the thoughts and so the text smites my eyes afresh, a thing novel and tailored to my own personal proclivities. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Much of what finds its way onto the blog has precisely this genesis - excavated from papery strata and subject to some kind of semi-coherent palaeontological reconstruction of the original intent, a fleshing out of the skeleton of ideas from the scrawl-armature in which they lie coiled. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Among these texts are mentions of the Uttermost South setting, the which has no cohesive form but is of necessity and intent without concrete conception. The notion of it is rooted in a concept - The Retreat of Wonder - that I've been fecklessly mulling over for some time. Essentially, as nescience recedes with the accumulation of discoveries so too do the mysteries of the poetic and the transcendent recede with it. Fairies at the bottom of the garden give way eventually to fabulous beings in foreign countries and as those countries are rendered mundane by discoveries the fantastic projections of the desire for wonder flee beneath the earth and to nearby planets and distant times and are again and again banished by enlightenment, further and further away. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> This phenomenon works both ways, though. As scientific enquiry clears the local regions of space-time of pockets of ignorance where disbelief may be easily suspended, so too does it vastly expand distant realms where our fertile inventive instinct can project embodiments of the awe and terror it is in our nature to feel. This has ever been my explanation of Lovecraft and of his popularity and influence (and importance to literature), he recognised the dissolution of the Humanity's paramount position in the cosmos as deep-time and space and the successive Copernican, Darwinian and Freudian revolutions of consciousness rendered obsolete the old paradigms. In their place Lovecraft was able to set up a new nihilistic paradigm where vast new nesciences were able to be populated by new demons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I don't think this process will ever end, the demons dog our every step and they'll always find somewhere to hide. I reckon they're busy colonising outposts of meme-space and distant 'branes and lurking in wait our genes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> As for the South, it crept into my mind the first time I watched Peter Jackson's ridiculous King Kong in late 2005 (I call it ridiculous despite the fact it made me weep with joy at the time). Skull Island, where Kong lives, struck me as being precisely the kind of region of mystery I described, where the projections of early 20th-century folks are concentrated, all the mystery and danger and preposterous wonder alive and wild and free, and at precisely the time the last blank bits of the map are being filled-in. I think it is no mystery that it is at the time in history when lost-world and lost-race fiction is at its height the final stages of the Modernist project of mapping and colonising the Earth was taking place. But the last flourishes of projection were deliciously fanciful, undiscovered islands and plateaus and the hollow earth itself fairly festering with every kind of prehistoric marvel. This era of confabulation gave rise to planetary romance fiction once the lost worlds started to stretch credulity.* </span></div>
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Beyond this particular thread of inspiration is the fact of my being Australian. Living on the wrong side of the world I've always consumed fantasy predicated on familiarity with a temperate northern landscape that is utterly unfamiliar to me. I live in a subtropical environment characterised by riotous verdure and great biodiversity - there are more tree species on most of the sites I work (doing ecological restoration) than in all of Europe. The landscape that is familiar to me is the stuff of colonial-era fantasy and nightmares; all manner of poisonous serpents, giant kingfishers' mocking laughter, platypus-haunted rivers, innumerable things that bite and sting, beasts that hop about instead of run, and bear their young in pouches, black swans and inverted seasons. Onto this reality I have projected the familiar northern European tropes of fantasy and found the juxtaposition somewhat jarring. </span><br />
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The southern parts of the world interest me now, or rather, the concept of South in the northern mind. South means separated by time and space from the comforts of civilisation and reason. It is an inherently irrational direction and legitimately subject to suspicion. There was a time, not so long ago, when sailing into the Southern Hemisphere of the world was like travelling to another planet, an alien world where precious orthodoxies fall away and the pre-eminence of civilisation is brought into question through exposure to manifestations of the untameable universe.</span><br />
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<i> "We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there — there you could look at a thing monstrous and free." </i></span><br />
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There is a greater metaphor at play here. The wild south awakens a realisation of the wild in humanity. We are inextricably part of that wilderness. We came ravening out of it at the dawn of time and it will always be in us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Key texts informing this aspect of Southern-ness are; Moby Dick, Heart of Darkness (of course), Blood Meridian, the films; Aguirre: The Wrath of God, The Proposition, The Tracker and Van Diemen's Land.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The more pulpy stuff from the lost world era that I am interested in include H. Rider Haggard's She and King Solomon's Mines, Abraham Merrit's lost race stories, Burroughs' Palaeo-fiction, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Lost World and various stop-motion Dino-movies. Also; Mieville's The Scar and, at the farthest extreme, Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness and Call of Cthulhu. </span><br />
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The thing the first lot of texts have that the pulpy stuff lacks is ferocity and gravitas and a willingness to burrow deep into the mystery of humanity in ways Edgar Rice Burroughs could never achieve.** To me what they represent is one of the central themes of the modern era: it matters not that your sacred texts declared you to be beyond reproach, the real universe is made of carnage and you're holding a knife. </span><br />
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So that's South. I'm working on this idea at the behest of Jez Gordon, who saw something of a common thread in the settings of Australian OSR people (i.e. Crapsack sensibilities) and suggested that some or all of us work together to produce some writings on the theme for some kind of document or periodical we could put together. I think there are some brilliant people down hereabouts (and I include our south-eastern outpost, New Zealand, in hereabouts) and that such a thing has potential to be very, very good.
The contribution I would like to make to such a document is a setting or a series of tools for the emulation and evocation of an environment of savage alien wilderness. The Uttermost South setting would be concerned with the colonisation of the Great Southern Land - Terra Incognita - incorporating elements of Australia and Darkest Africa and Amazonia as well as all those aforementioned projections of alien otherness. </span><br />
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The Nameless Continent will become a penal colony, squalid hulks bear miserables banished from the light of civilisation to be cast up on the alien shore.
At present, I don't know what they'll encounter there. What I do know is that it will be terrible. The Earth we inherited from our Palaeolithic forebears is largely bereft of terrors but there have been more terrible worlds. Nobody human has ever been grabbed by a Titanoboa or an Andrewsarchus but I imagine it wouldn't be pleasant. I'd like to investigate that level of unpleasantness. </span><br />
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<i>Few of those who have experienced the crocodile's death roll have lived to describe it. It is, essentially, an experience beyond words of total terror. The crocodile's breathing and heart metabolism are not suited to prolonged struggle, so the roll is an intense burst of power designed to overcome the victim's resistance quickly. The crocodile then holds the feebly struggling prey underwater until it drowns. The roll was a centrifuge of boiling blackness that lasted for an eternity, beyond endurance, but when I seemed all but finished, the rolling suddenly stopped. My feet touched bottom, my head broke the surface, and, coughing, I sucked at air, amazed to be alive. The crocodile still had me in its pincer grip between the legs. I had just begun to weep for the prospects of my mangled body when the crocodile pitched me suddenly into a second death roll. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> - I fully intend for this to be a collaborative effort, though I do not expect any contribution, whatever people want to do for this project is more than welcome. Jack Mack already made the suggestion that the currency be rum. This is now canon (and also awesome).
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*It is worth noting that the highlands of Papua New Guinea remained isolated until the 1930s, this represents about a fifth of the world's languages and an enormous quantity of cultural and biological diversity hidden away from the rest of humanity until eighty years ago. </span><br />
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** An interesting trick of Values Dissonance makes Burroughs' all-American "civilised" protagonists seem preposterously alien to my mind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The unofficial theme song</span></div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-6936436233719318502014-01-07T19:52:00.000+11:002014-01-18T20:26:32.770+11:00The Root of all Evil<div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have a thing where I am fascinated and appalled by the ramifications of gold being the source of all power in old school games. It makes me think of Blood Meridian and of Cortez and like all the things with which I am deeply emotionally entangled I prance and caper at the margins of the thing because I cannot stare into the heart of the mystery and cannot bear to try to hold it for fear it might be crushed by my apish forepaws. It reminds me also of this bit of Milton;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Belch'd fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shone with a glossy scurf, undoubted sign</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That in his womb was hid metallic ore,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The work of sulphur. Thither, wing'd with speed,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A num'rous brigad hasten'd; as when bands</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of pioneers with spade and pickaxe arm'd,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From Heav'n; for ev'n in Heav'n his looks and thoughts</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Were always downward bent, admiring more</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The riches of Heav'n's pavement, trodd'n gold,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In vision beatific;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So you've been tested in the crucible of direst peril and won wealth as seems beyond the wildest dreams of mortal man. And now against unfeasible odds you've dragged it forth by the exercise of will and cunning and the expenditure of blood and magicks and by the favour of the gods. Here on the sunlit surface world you expect reward, staggering under the weight of booty and wounded comrades, going back to town. Thinkest thou thy trouble done?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Roll 2d6 + 1 per thousand groats retrieved, a further +1 per special item</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>2-7</b>. Lucky. No hustlers but watch out for <a href="http://middenmurk.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/bandits.html">bandits</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>8</b>. Local peons have various worm-eaten victuals and moldering accoutrements to sell at inflated prices which they'll attempt to press upon you with some degree of enthusiasm and vehemence.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2d4 appear. Demands: Triple normal prices for substandard shite</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>9</b>. A band of apothecaries, quacksalvers, barber-leeches and the likesuch worthless charlatans descend, they will charge outrageous prices for ineffectual healing and dangerous remedies.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2d6 appear. Demands: 50 groats per healing. CON check each time, if successful gain one hit point, if unsuccessful lose one.</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>10</b>. A troupe of travelling players and tinkers gather, selling popinjays and jackanapes and extravagant garb and flesh and mysteries and a hundred other things, hutling and gambling and getting you drunk, the prices are high but not absurd and the dozens of laughing children are all pickpockets.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">4d10 appear. Demands: double normal prices + 1d6 pickpocket attempts per party member.</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>11</b>. Desperate mothers with starving children in barrows and lepers and the scrofulous and plaguey come clamourous for alms and mercy in the name of all the saints. They follow and pluck at hems or prostrate themselves weeping in the path.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">3d6 appear. Demands: at least 5 groats apiece and they'll leave you alone, any more and the numbers will double each day, a random <a href="http://middenmurk.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/miasma.html">miasma </a>will accompany them.</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>12</b>. A mob of drunken louts in clogs and rancid smocks and beshitten trews all armed with swingle-flouts and cudgels and dung-forks come offering protection 'gainst the unfriendly world, eager to ensure the gold does not fall into the wrong hands. Their leader has an open face and hard little eyes.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">4d8 appear. Demands 10 groats apiece plus they'll attempt robbery at first sign of weakness. Their leader yearns to see gruesome and humiliating tortures enacted.</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>13</b>. A wheedling, reedy and peevish reeve of the ward comes bearing documents signed and notarised by bonnet-lairds and burgomasters decreeing the immediate forfeiture of one half of all that has been borne out of yonder hell-gate, citing fees and tarriffs and tolls payable. Seven sneering horsemen accompany him of grim aspect and loaded crossbows.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Demands: half of all treasure, The horsemen are 1st-level fighters.</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>14</b>. Painted blue and black, dark-eyed and tall comes a heathen warband thirty-strong. There seems to be a degree of acrimony amongst them regarding whether outright murder be the truest way but a sallow and sardonic bard among them comes forth to declare the land and its underworld theirs and their chieftain's by right and bloodline an hundred generations deep. All goods and chattels are to be seized immediately and all saintish priestlings shorn of hair and ears or the land will drink of thy drenching gore. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Demands: 100% of everything + d8 dmg to clerics, 30 Heathens plus 2nd-level leader</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>15</b>. Thunderously presaged by echoing hoofbeats comes a troop of heavy cavalry in rusted harness and bearing heads on pikes and such other grisly trophies of long campaign as are accumulated by those men to whom death and killing are a daily chore. They declare themslves outriders of a vast and terrible vanguard on the march to unseat an apostate demon-king from his ghastly throne and do vengeance to the night and all her legions. This crusade is imperative and it is hungry. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Demands: 100% of all treasures or 80% + joining the crusade, 20 3rd-level fighters plus 10,000 more soldiers on the march</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>16</b>. A huffing little herald and his dangerously slouching bodyguard come to declare each of the party newly granted title and demesne in the name of the Emperor (in far-flung, squalid and untameable districts) in recognition of their efforts in beating back the enemies of all. Of course, the Empire requires ongoing pecuniary recompense for the building of roads and aqueducts and the garrisoning and outfitting of troops.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These titles are;</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Baroness Impecuniary</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Underking of the Blodsea</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Landgrave of Kettlesprechen</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Laird Grootmanke</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Marquess of Netherclough</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Implacable Intransigent of the Erstwhile Fletches</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">etc.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Demands: 90% of treasure plus the same amount quarterly in perpetuity, the titles are worthless and potentially hazardous.</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>17</b>. Trumpets sound and bells toll and gleaming in gorgeous panoply of glory everlasting comes an embassy of the Utmost Pontificate of the Ineffable Truth. Pale choristers step lightly through the mud and upon their heels one comes clothed in the raiments of sainthood riding a brindled nag. She accepts graciously the offer to sacrifice wordly cares to the construction of a new cathedral upon this spot. Clad in light and thunder comes an angel in her wake.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">9th level cleric +2d100 in entourage + unpredictable angel. Demands: All wealth and perpetual devotion to the Truth.</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>18</b>+. It seems that one has followed ever since we came out of the hole. A little man, gnarled and hunched.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1 dwarf. Demands: Your money and your life, and roll again.</span></i></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Additionally it needs to be restated that all treasure carries with it the threat of <a href="http://middenmurk.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/heigh-ho.html">avaricious dwarfish claim</a>: 1% per hundred groats plus 20% per special item, this is in addition to other claimants.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yes, I am a bastard and I think this is how it would be. Tolkien was right.</span></div>
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Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-4873444950714688492013-12-19T21:45:00.000+11:002014-01-18T20:27:17.818+11:00Marmot Soap AngstThis is my obligatory anagram post. I've been listening to Rabelais again on audiobook in the forest and it got me onto a blog called <a href="http://sixdegreesofsirthomas.blogspot.com.au/">Six Degrees of Thomas Urquhart</a>, which is nice and allows me to indulge my logofascination, the which indulgence is one of the primary reasons for the existence of this blog (no secret really). So Zak brought up <a href="http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=toms+anagram+post&language=english&t=0&d=3&include=&exclude=&n=&m=&source=adv&a=n&l=n&q=n&k=1">this</a> site which I've been in love with before and I allowed myself the writing of this little post in which I mess with anagrams and mediaeval monotheism.<br />
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I also now have a tumblr; <a href="http://verminprong.tumblr.com/">http://verminprong.tumblr.com/</a> onto which I dump lots of inspirational imagery for Middenmurk.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rr7SeZChvzmktfRmxgIFHSWh5u2fLB7GBUhbGyyLqfEvrFOhDitYv14UT3iakXLn05At4rbPACVR8ktVtt2OvxvHoAWvDeC3zqEWuH_L-_OKrxxBkpLTZj152GqWpU5cTuvVhpOATW2B/s1600/witches15+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rr7SeZChvzmktfRmxgIFHSWh5u2fLB7GBUhbGyyLqfEvrFOhDitYv14UT3iakXLn05At4rbPACVR8ktVtt2OvxvHoAWvDeC3zqEWuH_L-_OKrxxBkpLTZj152GqWpU5cTuvVhpOATW2B/s1600/witches15+(1).jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
On a hunting trip in celebration of the achievement of her majority, the fourteen year-old Countess of Feigned Irony was seen to clamber through the summer air to impossible distance while waiting attendants shuddered in dumbfounded fear and watched her dwindle in the sultry heights. In the balmy evening among dancing fireflies she came down like an elegant meteor, incandescent and terrible, and devoured the entourage with celestial fury.<br />
<br />
Thence in a crater of her newly-attained radiant selfhood did she tarry a while in contemplation of universal mysteries that had suddenly revealed themselves. And a heresy was born for many holy heads did joyously avail themselves of such an opportunity to grasp from the universe the offered semblance of righteously embracing of a truth 'twould topple the highs and mighties of others whose truths were long-enshrined in cathedrals of historicity and rivers of scribed ink.<br />
<br />
Such is the way among the holy, holiness itself is not enough, furnished as it is with burthens of chastity and self-denial most galling to bear, to be holier than was the utmost aim and gilded with innumerable admirations. So tramped they hither and builded shrines nigh unto the abandoned pavilionade while summer faded. Imprecations were pronounced and theology woven from whole cloth, disagreed upon, torn apart and patched together on the crater's rim. The boldest heretics would venture into the burning pit to prostrate themselves before She who waited like an ember in the centre but her mystery was unfathomable, mortal minds could not conceive of it. Thus were they made into torches and became burnt offerings to that which cannot be conceived. Thus was this practice deemed unholy save for upon the feast day of the <i>Aphasic Ladder</i>.<br />
<br />
The predictable ossification of the once-fluid theological debates occurred under the stifling influence of Einhardt, the <i>Scalded Pariah</i>. From this does his title derive: while circumambulating the crater on pilgrimage he was caught in the first of the boiling rainstorms that derive their heat from the celestial firestorm of Her ardour. He was burned but in his pain did he speak in the tongue of angels, others heard and were smote deaf by its purity unmerciful. His revelation was then agreed-upon as unnassailable Truth, a cyst builded for him of grey stone upon the crater's brink and daily would stone-deaf acolytes attend to him and bring his scrawled parchments of dogma to the hastily-constructed scriptorium.<br />
<br />
The sacred texts out of the scriptorium are bound in leather and marked upon the cover with an <i>Heraldic Spada</i>, for so is named the langeschwert in Southering provinces and thus also 'mongst the delineators of blazonry. It is deemed a solar sigil and emblematic of her cutting disdain for perfidious backsliders and the likesuch unholy. Of these revealed parables are three held most high;<br />
<br />
I. <i>A Caliph's Adder</i> tells of the serpent of an Orient potentate that bade him glut too eagerly of his concubinage and with intemperate zeal indulge in correction of perceived transgression and how this did see that fatuous magnate die by a virgin's razor.<br />
<br />
II. Another text tells of how the Sesquipedalian Apocrypha of Balthasariandromachus was only partially correct about the flight of Aethelfleda, that the sentries upon that desolate hillside revealed she <i>Hid a Paled Sca</i>r beneath her cowl, indicative of her persecution during the terrible <i>Plaid Charades</i>.<br />
<br />
III. <i>Redcap's Dahlia</i> is a text that describes the most perfect blossom grown in the garden of a petty-noble by the boggle-bairn who was resident there and how this noble's expressions of gratitude manifest in such a manner as wounded the little gardener and turned his dedication to service into black loathing for light and life and keenest desire to defile reality with merciless abandon.<br />
<br />
Otherwise the heresy is utterly orthodox in its heterodoxy. Nettle-scourging and ritualised starvations and kneeling penitences and bewailings of untranscendable materiality abound by the great cloud of steam that veils Her perilous beauty and fills the crater like a cauldron of curdled milk .<br />
________________________________________<br />
<br />
Chaotics will be destroyed by spontaneous immolation upon setting foot into the crater.<br />
<br />
Neutrals are assailed by steam and boiling rain -1d6 dmg to reach the centre but numb amnesiac stupefaction prevent any meaningful perception of her glory.<br />
<br />
Lawfuls may pass into the centre and behold her as a pillar of fire, white-hot and terrible, and a roaring in the ears like constant thunder. They may ask questions that may resolve the occurrence of this bizarre theological anomaly but the answer to the fourth question is always ultimate destruction.<br />
<br />
Should they ask the right questions they will learn of the whereabouts of Bartholomaeus Crumpe* and that he should be brought before her that he may seek forgiveness for his sin prior to his transcendence of materiality. This done she ascends, bestowing a seraphic ikon upon the souls of those petitioners who secured the transgressor.<br />
<br />
_The Ikon is a whole 'nother experience level, contingent upon the maintenance of purity and avoidance of shellfish and young cabbages, upon consumption of which it is irrevocably lost.<br />
-------------------------------------------------------<br />
Sometimes when I feel like I am being coy and flippant with enormities I remind myself that other people eat the furry people with whom I hold inane one-sided conversations in paddocks sometimes, that aesthetics is abstract and most of my neuroses ain't got nothing to do with much in the real world. Anyways sorry if'n you is offended.<br />
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* As it happens, Crumpe has appeared <a href="http://middenmurk.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/bandits.html">before</a>, what a fortuitous coincidence.</div>
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Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6231530392754888127.post-52975009734495426042013-12-14T23:58:00.001+11:002014-01-18T20:28:03.841+11:00Miscellany and Iambic DoggerelSo it has been a year since James Maliszewski's last post at Grognardia and the OSR is still a thing. Still no Dwimmermount, though. I read a lot of forgettable nonsense at Grognardia over the years but he was nothing if not consistent. In the interim I've largely stopped reading all the blogs as they generally shit me to tears*. Zak has perceptive things to say, of course, and I love Scrap and Patrick dearly for burrowing fearlessly into the living heart of the mystery. There is also a small knot of crazies including Logan and Arnold and Jack Mack and the gloomtrain kid and Pearce Shea that will be important in years to come. There is a trigger-happy quality to some of the newer stuff (esp. Logan's body-horror stuff) that makes me think the most influential texts of the OSR might just be Carcosa and LotFP. I am guilty in this regard also, I think Weird means surreal juxtapositions with no concern for politeness. Original Weird was somewhat inspired by the erosion of the prevailing paradigm by the discoveries of deep time and space and the deep subconscious (makes me think the genre should be called Deep).<br />
<br />
So, yeah, flirting with taboos - there is potential artistic material to be mined from a setting in which the awful prejudices of historical people are represented and exaggerated**. I'm particularly fond of dystopian nastiness and have a peculiar distaste for Flintstones settings where contemporary values prevail and whatever handwavium the setting runs on is responsible for the production of a contemporary standard of living.<br />
___________________________________________________<br />
<br />
So I sicken of the way I've been writing my setting material and yearn for an easier way. I therefore attempted to exorcise the mawkish verbosity and faux gravitas that infects everything I write by writing a dungeon in blank verse. This didn't work. I've never actually written any subterranean stuff for the setting since I made peremptory stabs several years ago. In my mind, the underground is the Middenmurk proper and needs to be magnificently weird and horrible and possessed of a Northern Renaissance quality of flamboyant chimerical madness tempered with claustrophobia and disassociative feelings and it's too much and I daren't venture in. Patrick's Veins of the Earth setting captures the level of weird difference-from-the-expected I want to achieve while being, of course, different in its specifics.<br />
<br />
Miltonian similes represent dangerous tangents to the inexperienced pentametrist. You are going off in one direction when you take the opportunity to describe something by saying what it's like then you plunge merrily into that comparison. Sometimes you forget where you are and start up another simile inside the simile, which is fucked. Aside from that I've clumsily allowed the structure to dictate the flow and struggled to not use single syllable words at the start of lines because the initial iamb demands an unstressed syllable and polysyllabic words in English tend to stress the initial syllable unless it is a prefix in which case it isn't stressed most of the time but sometimes is. I haven't actually written anything deliberately iambic before but have carried around bits of Paradise Lost in my head for decades so should have done better. Blame Patrick for the impetus. I'll do Anglo-Saxon alliterative couplets next.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>The Sump of Gremory</u><br />
<br />
And lo! Of how in ancient North did stand<br />
Beneath a tinker-beaten pewter sky<br />
The fellest manse of man's untimely fall<br />
I here will tell to those who hearken near<br />
On moor where malice makes her lonely home<br />
Abandoned to the centuries and rot<br />
A piled keep of dismal disregard<br />
Umbrageous and repugnant borehole fane<br />
Looms dark in dread defiance of His law<br />
Above a shaft of seven hundred feet<br />
That into deeply dolven dark did pierce<br />
From which do noxious vapours issue forth<br />
That carry the asphaltick reek of pitch<br />
As like the odious breath of titan worm<br />
That in its fretful slumber is disturbed<br />
By dreams of plund'rous interlopers bold<br />
Descending they the longest ladders down<br />
Into those shadow-haunted Upper Hells<br />
Where black in gilded gulches wallow foul<br />
Th'accursed Elder Dragon's fearsome brood<br />
That gloat and dream their phantasies of greed<br />
And stoke in furnace-bellies the fires of hate<br />
That when the oldest prophecies bear fruit<br />
Shall all the waking world to cinders burn<br />
<br />
So thither then do trudge the lowly few<br />
Such bastard sons of those ignoble knights<br />
Whose harness goes to rust in dusty vaults<br />
Who quail to face the paynim's crooked sword<br />
Such bastard daughters fled from whoredom's yoke<br />
Who'd fain stick poniard into noble loins<br />
And brave the heartless northern demon night<br />
As bear the weight of drunken tyrant lust<br />
To bear more bastards destined for the chain<br />
Of servitude and labour until death<br />
To fill the coffers of unworthy kings<br />
These few and dastard folk in hardihood<br />
In dire desperation snared and bound<br />
Whose legacy unjust abandonment<br />
From ruinous Empire is - Untimely flung<br />
Unto the world's daemoniacal maw<br />
Where hopelessness might hide the final hope<br />
That from the Clootie-Man might gold be won<br />
And wrastled from his avaricious grasp<br />
Might all the hundred grails sacred be<br />
That touched the lips of all the hundred Christs<br />
And all the sacred pikes that speared them dead<br />
And verdigris-encrusted crowns of kings<br />
Who long have lain beneath the patient sod<br />
Since giants overthrew their vaunting pride<br />
Who rode against the titans of the dawn<br />
And made the skies resound with heedless war<br />
<br />
They gird their dauntless loins these feckless brave<br />
They take up pitted hunting-knife and adze<br />
And don their pilfered siege-caps 'gainst the stones<br />
That faceless fiends who haunt the lonely ways<br />
Oft hurl to dash out such unwary brains<br />
As might not think to watch o'erhanging crags<br />
They trudge the northward furrows gone to weed<br />
And ravens follow them who kestrels are<br />
Who bear a taloned will inside their breasts<br />
And though in tattered fustian and hide<br />
Do bear themselves like lion-mantled braves<br />
That in archaic epochs did contend<br />
With gorgon-whelps and fearsome anvil-kine<br />
And vanquished with the thighbone of an ox<br />
Entire armies clad in brazen scales<br />
The slaughter-hungry fierce onrushing hordes<br />
Like waves against unyielding rocks did crash<br />
To dash themselves to ruin 'gainst such strength<br />
As only in the dreams of man survives<br />
<br />
To Empire's tattered brink they northward go<br />
To hamlets made of wicker and of dung<br />
And memories of the words of ancient law<br />
That undefeated legions did enforce<br />
And banners bright declaim and harpers sing<br />
So tender were the rituals then and fierce<br />
The shepherds of all souls to souls' reward<br />
Did then enact that now all men forget<br />
They caught the piercing beauty of the sun<br />
To weave such webs of words that praised a truth<br />
That held imperial majesty most high<br />
And banished into darkness heathen things<br />
But all are lost in echoes and the night<br />
That follows after zenith - Now in dank<br />
And furtive squalor do these pilgrims preach<br />
Another revelation to the low<br />
That nevermore would armies of the south<br />
Give succor to those dwellers of the pale<br />
Instead a slow retreat from northern climes<br />
Would leave them lying naked in the storm<br />
Had not a hundred omens come that told<br />
Of doom unleashed from yonder darkest throne<br />
Of prodigies that walk beneath the sky<br />
That never should have woken in their tombs<br />
Crops lost to blight and hexing-hags at play<br />
And bargains made at crossroads with the damned<br />
And only bitter will and sinew strong<br />
And iron sharp and brightly burning brand<br />
Borne into chasms 'gainst the hateful dead<br />
Might win the precious plunder- Gleaming gold<br />
And talismans of heathen sorcery<br />
The keys to mighty kingdoms yet unfounded<br />
Sequestered in the labyrinthine dark<br />
Await the time their secrets are revealed<br />
<br />
Then go they forth across the dismal fells<br />
Through shattered principalities of stone<br />
And tumbled wrack of bastion and fort<br />
And harrowed by the desolation vast<br />
Do stumble on through numbest grey fatigue<br />
Arriving at the last to dreary ruin<br />
Where yawns the portal odious and dark<br />
That seven hundred thousand souls consumed<br />
Who swindled to their deaths by charlatan lies<br />
Must swell the ranks of legions of the damned<br />
And count the gold and centuries of dark<br />
In endless thraldom to His endless reign<br />
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*But not your blog, the other blogs.<br />
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**Why not have pseudo-historical settings with derogatory racial caricatures and slavery and noxious gender politics? The prevailing orthodoxy that equates artistic investigation of problematic issues as problematic in itself deserves to be ignored and/or ridiculed.</div>
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Two posts in a week? I've cut down on coffee so am less insanely anxious and depressed and slightly more productive.<br />
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To both of the people who read this far, thank you kindly, it means a lot to me.</div>
Tom Fitzgeraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14893168729760333884noreply@blogger.com29