Category: Gaming

Notes On “Irradiated Notebooks”

Me and Heinlein

These are “The Irradiated Notebooks of Lazarus Long,” and that’s a name that bears some explanation. I habitually name my game characters after characters in Robert Heinlein’s novels, notably those in his “Future History” series of books centering around “Lazarus Long” (multiple aliases applicable, the oldest known continuously living (i.e. subjective time measured objectively) human being of some two thousand years).

As part of the whole process of setting up this section of my website, I rolled an all-new character by this name for Fallout 4, and will be chronicling his adventures through a bunch of screenshot galleries, blog posts, and so forth all collected under the banner of “The Irradiated Notebooks Of Lazarus Long,” a play on the title of the book-within-a-book in Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love.”

(There are long-standing urban legends and rumors, never confirmed, that the idea of the “World’s Oldest Man” was a snarky thought Heinlein had after listening to L. Ron Hubbard bloviate for several hours – that for anyone to have actually done what Hubbard claimed to have, he’d have to be two thousand years old.)

Wassupwitdat?

No, I don’t mean I’m going to role-play and story-tell through it, I don’t really game like that. I use those names because I lack imagination.

I’m going to play through the main storyline of Fallout 4 with Lazarus, catching screenshots and writing about interesting little oddities and easter eggs that I find. The game’s seven years old or something as of the moment I’m starting this; spoiler warnings and walkthroughs would be a waste of time.

This image contains a little side-joke/easter egg/adult humor. See if you can figure it out on your own. Hint: remember the game’s set in and around Boston. This single frame tells an entire story.

That’s one reason I decided to do this new character. I have an existing game, “Dora Brandon (*).” I’ve been picking away at that game for about 6 years. You’ll see some of Dora’s stuff turn up in other parts of the Fallout 4 section here, as I’ve done a ton of work building settlements and so forth with her that are great showpieces for some mods, plus I hate to dump half a decade of casual game time.

Much of this content will be a screenshot parade, and I’ll likely work in some video over time as well, but I doubt I’ll be doing any livestreaming, at least not with my current rig; it doesn’t have the room to stream a high-quality cap of an ongoing game, I’d have to turn all the visuals down to nothing. Also, I’m running out of drive space and don’t want to overload it with video game videos.

One hell of a big closet to come out of.

I’ll also use ol’ Laz here to explore various aspects of the game and mods I use and so forth, eventually we’ll get him all the way through the main storyline and main DLC storylines and start building big ol’ settlements and managing those, which to me is the most fun part of the game.

At some point I’ll likely do an entirely separate article just on Bethesda‘s game console, which is consistent across two entire game worlds (Fallout and Elder Scrolls) that I know of and has been for over twenty years, give or take a few technological developments.

I’ll probably throw in a little narrative as I post ongoing bundles of screenshots of his progress through the game as well, because in the end I am after all a game nerd and general geek on top of the rest of it, but mostly this is just a fun little project making something useful of my hobbies.

I’m pretty sure there will still be plenty of suck in the world to talk about at my real job, don’t worry.

(* Also a Heinlein character. I tend to roll female about 80% of the time, too – when I do actually “game” rather than using someone’s game software as a manic ADHD playground, I enjoy trying to put myself in the brain of someone not like me and try to understand how they’d handle various things. It’s good mental exercise and helps develop my empathy muscles. A storyline-rich game like Fallout 4 is great for this. In this case, however, our protagonist bears some physical resemblance to his controller…)

May 10, 2023
Gallery: The Life And Times Of Lazarus Long

The omnibus collection; this is the entire screenshot life of Lazarus Long, Sole Survivor. Companion to “The Irradiated Notebooks Of Lazarus Long.” This will likely feature hundreds if not thousands of screenshots by the time it’s done, but I’ll try to make them entertaining.

Lazarus, Come Forth

The birth of Lazarus Long, Sole Survivor.

Meet Lazarus Long, the Sole Survivor. That’s his wife behind him, she (spoiler) will not be surviving.

I rolled ol’ Lazarus here specifically for this blog. I’m going to walk him through the main quest lines, doing my best to create as few settlements as possible along the way (save that for after the main quest lines). I don’t have a big plan or purpose other than to post a bunch of cool screenshots and share various things about how I play this game, cool mods and things you might be in to, and so forth.

Biggest reason I’m starting a new character for you is that the one I have running has been running since about 2018, and much of the space is unrecognizable where settlements have been build up and so forth. So I figured if I’m gonna do it, let’s do it right and get proper before-and-after stuff and let people see how it all develops and changes over time, what kinds of neat screenies I get, and all that good stuff.

I’m going to let the gameplay and process dictate when things get screenshots and what sort of content I write here, but fundamentally this is my character to do this blog with so a good deal of the eventual side and meta content like plugin/mod reviews and so forth will feature both here and in its own content space. I got a few early shots from The Story We All Know And Love, but you’ll see I start going on detours right away…

Impending Doom

The Sanctuary Hills area prior to the firestorm.

This, as anyone who’s played for more than five minutes will recognize, is the entrance to Vault 111, looking back at my wife Nora and son Shaun as we’re evacuating the town, you all probably know the storyline. Basically just a “candy” shot of the world before it gets blown to hell.

The Big Bang

And now, the end is near…

Again, hardly a spoiler for the new game cutscene that was released in 2015. Shows off some nice work with the graphics though, and it’s a nice bit of howdy for folks who haven’t played.

Rings Of Fire

And they burn, burn, burn…

Just a few seconds later, as we see the light of the bomb and the pulses of energy (heat, I’m guessing) in the atmosphere creating concentric rings in the atmosphere, as Our Hero And His Beloved Family Desperately Run For Safety.

This Is The End

My only friend…

Just as the kinetic shock approaches Our Heroes, the elevator to Vault 111 lowers them to safety, and the world burns overhead…

The Cold Equations

“…but I didn’t DO anything!”

I’ll spare you the nine millionth recounting of the Fallout 4 storyline here. This is the last thing Lazarus sees before the unexpected cryogenic hibernation. It’s the second to last time he’ll ever see his beloved wife Nora. sniffle Note: If you’re not familiar with it and you don’t mind a story pretty much guaranteed to leave you sobbing and maybe not in a terribly bright space in your head, you absolutely must read the short story ‘The Cold Equations‘ by a fellow named Tom Godwin, originally written back in 1954. It’ll make you think.

That’s All For Now!

To Be Continued…

And that’s the end of the gallery for now. This will be updated constantly-ish, as I get opportunities to put time in on the game. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget my entire life and work is crowdfunded so please like, share, comment, subscribe, and use that tip jar if you can!

May 9, 2023
JH’s Brief History Of Video Games

Introduction

I figure since I’m going to open the box on the whole gaming thing, which I really haven’t touched in terms of content creation in about 25 years, I should probably introduce myself in that context. Then I started writing and about eight hours later had a fairly cool and comprehensive article about the history of video games between 1975 and 1986, so I decided to go with it and do a multi-part project covering that history from my perspective as a gamer, and this is the first segment of that project.

This isn’t “the” history of gaming, it’s “my” history of gaming. This is what it looked like to me, as someone alive at the time, to the best of my memories. I’ve done significant work to ensure I’m not communicating any old urban legends or myths, but in the end this isn’t intended to be an objective article; it’s my subjective memories and opinions, augmented by research. Feel free to argue about it in the forum!

In this edition we’ll go from “In the beginning…” up to the calm before the Nintornado that blew through the industry in February of 1986. Note I’ve used the post splitter, so pay attention to that little navbar where the section title is, at the top and bottom of each page.

Early Days

I’ve been a gamer since before video games existed. Pong clones and two-word text parsers were hours of time spent before I was ten years old…and that was in 1980. We’re talking single-color monitors, 80×25 characters, and a “pixel” was roughly the size of your pinky nail.

When there were any pixels at all. There are none here, or there wouldn’t be if it was running on OG equipment. NB: This isn’t a really early beta of “Elder Scrolls VI,” but it’s closer than you probably think.

Whether it was early consoles like those PONG clones, ante-computer-geek text games and bad, blocky knock-offs of then-currently popular arcade games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, or just taking a screwdriver and shorting together the pins in the EPROMS on my VIC-20 while it was plugged in so I could see what it would do on-screen, I’ve always been deeply fascinated in computer imaging and gaming both.

Trivia point: the first thing I ever “hacked” was using what eventually became Norton Utilities to overwrite the contents of a floppy drive, directly to the disk as hexadecimal text input from the keyboard, to remove the copy protection and customize the load/splash screens on a bunch of old games like this. Then I’d take off to the local mall, go to the Radio Shack, load up a game on their demo box(es) and walk away. That was when I was probably 13, 14.

So yeah. I’ve been at it for a minute.

Over the last forty years or so of course video gaming has gone from a micro-niche targeted toward “kids” to become not just a multi billion dollar industry, but depending on your sources it’s arguably the largest sector of the entire global entertainment business. While one may quibble over methodology and rankings and calculations, certainly it can’t be argued that gaming has become an incredibly popular, and lucrative endeavor.

What’s your vector, Victor?

Around 1980 we started seeing some interesting innovations, beginning with “vector graphics.” This is a little different than the way we use the term today. In 2023, programs like Adobe Illustrator use “vector graphics” to draw scalable images that are defined by mathematical formulae in the rendering software. By contrast, “raster” graphic programs like Adobe Photoshop instead program an array of pixels with color and (in some cases) transparency information.

So a raw vector formula to create an “S” might (in the simplest implementation) describe mathematically a pair of sine waves, oriented vertically, calculated such that they intersect at each end of the “S.” A rastor formula for the same “S” on the other hand would basically be a small relational database or spreadsheet – a two-dimensional array – with each intersecting coordinate being described in terms of the levels of red, blue, green, and “alpha” (transparency) that each pixel will be programmed with.

The end result of this was no more blocky edges on diagonal lines traveling across horizontal CRT scanlines…but alas, still, no more curves at all.

Pictured: not curves. A screenshot of the vector-graphics game Battlezone. This screenshot is from a version ported for the US Army called the “Bradley Trainer,” which was used to train literal legit tank operators for the US military. The Battlezone monitors were green on black, not white.

Vector monitors (a whole different setup than your traditional CRT monitors and TVs, or modern LED displays) couldn’t draw circles either, but only straight lines between a series of points (think about the levels in the video game “Tempest,” which was one of the earliest memories I have of color vector graphics).

Lines, lines, everything is lines. Screenshot from the attract screen of Tempest (1980)

What made vector monitors sort of cool and different was that the lines were sharp. Where a CRT or television simply draws a series of horizontal lines that quickly “scans” from top to bottom, a vector monitor draws the lines directly from point A to point B. An old-school CRT draws a diagonal line as a series of horizontal lines with different characteristics at different points across the inside of the tube to create the illusion of a vertical line. Consequently – although it’s impossible to really show you here because you’re all not reading this on a vector graphic monitor – the resulting drawings are remarkably sharp and crisp when compared to traditional raster graphics.

Unfortunately limitations of computing power and the overwhelming prevalence of raster graphics in consumer products like TVs and (increasingly) computers made these games pretty limited in their ability to really capitalize on the improved visuals of vector monitors. Probably the peak of the field was the 1983 Star Wars arcade shooter, in which the player sat in as Luke Skywalker on a repeating three-level infinite adventure. (World record: five days on a single credit, played back and forth between two guys in the 80’s. Total score slightly over a billion points.)

Those funny things that look like asterisks on way too much caffeine are supposed to be fireballs. The other things are tie fighters, and a shooting reticle, and then the “guns” of your x-wing fighter at the edges of the screen. Courtesy Atari, Inc or whoever owns the game IP this week.

Unfortunately as you can see from the image, this really didn’t get us to the sort of photo-realistic pinnacle of graphic art that we youngsters were hoping to reach, but in 1983 plenty of us spent many many dollars in quarters hearing “Red five standing by!” and “Use the force, Luke,” and my favorite line “Luke, let go!” The first was Actually Mark Hamill and the second and third Actually Alec Guiness. I don’t know if they recorded the lines specifically for the game, or if the audio was pulled from the film soundtracks – in fact I just tweeted Mark Hamill to ask, I’ll let you know if he offers a canonical answer. He might, he’s known for being pretty cool with stuff like that.

Color! And More…

Around the same time vector games were rising, we also saw the introduction of color into early eight-bit games.

Carrying on a long-standing tradition of pretending that Americans in the old west were all the same color.

The first “eight bit” game is generally recognized as “Gun Fight,” a 1975 arcade game by Taito (worldwide) and Midway (North America). The use of the phrase “eight bit” can be confusing because now most people related that to the graphics of the game itself, but in reality this was the bandwidth of the CPU. Prior to “Gun Fight,” video games were created with “discrete logic” electronics explicitly, physically created for the tasks at hand. When Midway licensed the game for the US, they ported it to run on an Intel 8080 CPU, making it the first CPU-based video game.

At this stage of the technology, using a CPU allowed game developers to begin true game programming – the creation of game software to run on hardware that is intended generally for “computing” rather than specifically “to be a video game cabinet.” In 1979, the game changed completely with the introduction of the Galaxian platform by Nintendo in Japan. With various leaps forward in processing techniques, Galaxian was the first truly modern video game, with the now familiar “Pac-Man” graphics. Trivia note: Pac-man was originally developed on Galaga hardware, as were several others like Galaga and (if I remember correctly) Jungle King).

This was the dawn of the first wave of modern video gaming. With hits like “Space Invaders,” “Galaxian,” and “Pac-Man” raking in billions of dollars in quarters, gaming had started to carve a niche in the culture. Although a certain Italian plumber would ultimately take the role, Pac Man in particular was the symbol of everything exciting about video gaming in 1981 or so…

Leading us to the unlikely scenario of two hillbilly-lookin dudes lip-syncing an electro-synth pop anthem about a yellow pizza with a slice missing on what was then the most-watched visual music presentation in the US, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

Often called the “golden age of arcade gaming,” the period from 1980-1983 saw an explosion of arcade games, for the first time supplanting pinball machines as vice du jour for the nation’s misguided youth. This is where the classics really began – in basically a three year span you had Pac Man, Galaxian, Frogger, Space Fury (the actual first color vector game). In 1982 the first 16-bit CPU arcade game, “Pole Position,” was released by Atari, and with groundbreaking offerings like “Tron,” “Dragon’s Lair,” and “Space Ace” capping off the run toward the end of the wave, it was a pretty magical time to be a gamer.

This coincides roughly with the first real wave of home gaming consoles beginning with the Atari 2600 in 1977, which was the first “must have” home gaming console right up until they created a game so bad they had to bury it in an undisclosed desert location and it basically killed the platform.

Some say Atari died in 1979 when Nolan Bushnell sold out to Warner, but the gravesite’s been found and the body is definitely dated 1983.

The long version of the story is that Atari had been bought by Warner in 1979 and generated some 65%-ish of their 1982 profits…and then proceeded to lose about a half a billion dollars the next year, in part due to the failure of E.T. but also disappointing results from their port of Pac-Man – these two titles themselves owning about 85% of votes across the board for “worst video game ever.” Warner sold them off in 1983 and their steep decline continued. The brand has basically been used as a venture-capital electronics brand buoyed by its early 80’s reputation ever since, and by all accounts ceased being “the real Atari” in any way after being sold off by Warner.

Into the vacuum stepped a couple of quite decent contenders among a mess of nonsense like the Timex Sinclair. Although the Mattel Intellivision sported the first 16-bit processing in a home console and superior graphics and sound, a series of business missteps including the abominable attempt at creating an attachable keyboard that would convert the whole thing into a rudimentary home computer ended the Intellivision while the Colecovision – running on an 8-bit Z80 processor but coming out of the gate with the first home version of Donkey King that was ridiculously faithful to the original – started eating Atari’s console market share until similar missteps with their Adam ended that.

Fortunately for gaming, a revolution was around the corner.

And that’s where we’ll break it off for now. Stay tuned for part 2, coming soon!

May 7, 2023
JH The Gamer

I’ve talked for a long time about my love of gaming, going back to childhood in the 70s. For those of you who are interested there’s going to be a lot more content related to that showing up on my blog as well. Kinda tired of allowing my public life to exist under the shadow of the idea that poor people don’t deserve to have fun. So watch for that, I’m about to throw up a bunch of Fallout 4 stuff and get some basic things in place to start doing a lot more work on that and dishing out a bit of the lore and wisdom carried by JH The Gamer.

Insider secret: I tend to bury myself in reading books and gaming when I’m super depressed AND when I’m in that “percolating” mode where I’ve been through a bunch of experiences and now it’s time to sit down and process them and build the platforms for whatever’s next.

Breaking that stuff out into content mitigates some of the losses involved when I’m locked in some mental illness issue that includes executive dysfunction, by creating interesting and monetizable content out of the results…and all I really have to do is lean on the screenshot button and then write about and post the results when I’m in a more productive and energized space.

EZ mode, and as a bonus there’s zero ideological or ethical reason not to monetize it and push it as a “product” rather than feeling very averse to that idea the way I do about my social justice, public interest, and creative artistic work. MBAs & muggles cf. “long tails” and monetizing EVERYTHING, just the way capitalism demands. Plus it’ll pull some inevitable cross-traffic to my work.

Also, as part of the overall reorganization of everything I do, I decided to launch an explicit category here called “My Actual Blog” that will serve as the space for little “by the ways” and “slices of life” and so forth that go by and I feel like blogging about with no particular explicit intent or purpose. This is the first entry in that blog 🙂

I’ll set up a nav tree and proper landing pages and get it all plugged in to the menu and all that stuff soon. Meanwhile have a little gallery of screenshots from Fallout 4!

May 6, 2023
The alt.games.morrowind FAQ (2003)

[This is the final version of the alt.games.morrowind newsgroup I founded in 2003 as a huge fan of the game and level designer.]

alt.games.morrowind
Frequently Asked Questions List
Version 1.2
13-Jul-03

alt.games.morrowind newgrouped by John Henry (johnhenry@lowgenius.com) on 23-August-02

FAQ © 2002, 2003 John Henry. All Rights Reserved. This document may be reproduced freely via any public or private medium, as long as this copyright notice remains intact.

Welcome to alt.games.morrowind!

Preface: What is this document?

This document is the Frequently Asked Questions list for Usenet newsgroup alt.games.morrowind. As such, this document pertains mostly to the newsgroup, as opposed to the game itself. If you are looking for an FAQ for the game Morrowind or it’s companion applications, we suggest you start looking at the official Morrowind website at www.elderscrolls.com, and continue on from there. There are a number of great game FAQs for Morrowind that deal with all aspects of the game; the scope of this document is merely to provide a simple game overview, and an explanation of the purpose and substance of the newsgroup.

Be forewarned that while we try to avoid spoiling the game for you, there are some minor spoilers throughout this document.

If your news server doesn’t carry alt.games.morrowind, they probably will if you politely request it! If they ask, yes it has a properly formatted control message at ftp.isc.org, the repository of record for newsgroup control messages.

1. The Newsgroup

A. What is this place?
B. Who put this thing here in the middle of my Internet?
C. Why wasn’t I informed?
D. Okay, but really, what’s the point?
E. Isn’t [insert other newsgroup here] good enough? Is it really necessary to have a separate Morrowind newsgroup?

2. The Game

A. What Is Morrowind?

I. The Game

a. Overview
b. The Elder Scrolls Series – History and background information

II. The Place
III. The Story
IV. Game Play

a. Character Races, Classes, Skills, and Attributes
b. Guilds, Factions (“Great Houses”), and Cults
c. Weapons, Magic, and Travel
d. Non-Player Characters (NPCs)

B. What Is Tribunal? Is it worth the extra money?
C. What About Bloodmoon?
D. Platform Variations
E. The Elder Scrolls Construction Set
F. Where can I get these wonderful, must-have, innovative, earth-shatteringly stupendous games?

3. FAQ Version History

4. alt.games.morrowind Control Message Archive

————————————-

1. The Newsgroup

A. What Is This Place?

      This is Usenet Newsgroup Alt.Games.Morrowind. It is a discussion group dedicated (mostly) to conversations about the PC and XBox Game “Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III,” produced by Bethesda Softworks. The Newsgroup Charter (every properly-created newsgroup has a charter, except for a collection of groups who’s charters were lost in a major crash in the early 90’s) reads as follows:

      “alt.games.morrowind is a Usenet newsgroup for the purpose of discussing all aspects of Morrowind. Excessive crossposting and binary posting are prohibited. Binaries may be posted to alt.binaries.games or a website. alt.games.morrowind is an unmoderated newsgroup; we strongly suggest that all users check out newsgroup news.announce.newusers prior to posting, if you are unfamiliar with Usenet.”

      In short, it’s a place where people gather to talk about Morrowind. What’s Morrowind? Keep reading.

B. Who Put This Thing Here In The Middle Of My Internet?

I did.

You’re welcome.

      Okay, a real answer. Alt.Games.Morrowind was created by John Henry <johnhenry@lowgenius.com> in August of 2002. As of this writing, John maintains the FAQ, and CONTROLS THE PLACE WITH AN IRON FIST.

       Just kidding.

      The group is unmoderated, although, like any other usenet newsgroup, binaries and excessive crossposting are ‘forbidden,’ meaning that most news servers will automatically torch a binary (that is, non-human-readable-text) file that is posted to a non-binary group. You can tell the non-binary groups by the lack of the word “binaries” in the group name. Excessive crossposting may potentially trigger anti-spam bots or be a violation of your ISP’s terms of service. Posting in “rich text” (i.e. HTML), while not PROHIBITED, is STRONGLY DISCOURAGED, which is also true across all of Usenet. We also recommend, if you are new to Usenet, that you take a browse through the newsgroups news.announce.newusers and news.answers. It may prevent embarrassing mistakes, offensive body odor, acne, and erectile dysfunction.

C. Why Wasn’t I Informed?

      That’s what you get for missing staff meetings ($1 to the alt.usenet.kooks FAQ)

D. Okay, But Really, What’s The Point?

      Sharing information, tips, inside jokes, and various other bits relating to Morrowind. That and the sooper-sekrit nekkid pictures of the Suran Strippers.

E. Isn’t [insert other newsgroup here] good enough? It is really necessary to have a separate Morrowind newsgroup?

      Well, that’s a long and rather convoluted story, but I’ll try and make it simple. When I first set out to create AGM, I searched for an appropriate newsgroup (other than comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg) for Morrowind discussion and didn’t find one. Now, contrary to popular belief, I’m not omniscient…but I’ve been on Usenet for about 7 years as of this writing (27-May-03), and it never even dawned on me to look for “elder-scrolls.” alt.games.elder-scrolls also never came up during preliminary discussions in alt.config, so I’m forced to conclude that it didn’t dawn on anyone there, either. That, if nothing else, indicates to me that chances are when people go looking on Usenet for information about Morrowind, they’re going to search for “Morrowind” long before it occurs to them to search for “elder scrolls.”

      Furthermore, there *is* precedent; Several game ‘franchises,’ including Sid Meier’s “Civilization” series, Diablo, Command and Conquer, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Final Fantasy, Quake, Sim City, Myst, Mechwarrior, Unreal, Vampire, and even Morrowind’s predecessor Daggerfall all have their own dedicated newsgroups.

      With all due respect for the question, I personally don’t understand it; by the logic inherent to the question, the entire alt.games.* hierarchy shouldn’t exist; after all, that’s what comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg is for, right?

      Finally, it should be noted that a.g.m currently handles between 70 and 100 messages, average, per week. Not exactly the kind of post counts you see in places like alt.politics or rec.sport.pro-wrestling – yet – but certainly enough to justify the group, and more than one of our regular readers has said that if not for alt.games.morrowind, they would have never known about alt.games.elder-scrolls. The general tendency is for people who have played the previous games in the ES series to go to a.g.e-s, and people who have not to come to alt.games.morrowind. That said, there is plenty of cross-pollenation between the two groups (and several others), and there is no effort in any quarter to encourage a “preference” for one over the other.

      As of this writing, addition to the Google archives of alt.games.morrowind is pending.

      As you may have guessed, I will not discuss this further on newsgroups, as it tends to be a pointless series of arguments that leads nowhere and eats into my gaming time.

2. The Game

A. What Is Morrowind?

I. The Game

a. Overview

      Morrowind is a combination first-person shooter/role-playing game for the PC and XBox published by Bethesda Softworks and released in 2002. The official website is located at http://www.elderscrolls.com. That’s the nuts and bolts of it; the full answer is much more complex and interesting.

b. The Elder Scrolls Series – History and Background Information

      The Elder Scrolls series of games actually consists of (as of this writing) no less than *8* titles: Arena, Daggerfall,       Battlespire, Redguard, Morrowind and it’s two expansion packs Tribunal and Bloodmoon, and Oblivion. All of the games are set in a world called Tamriel. Unfortunately, Your Friendly FAQ Keeper has not played any of the previous titles, so I can only pass on information I’ve gleaned from other sources, but here’s the series in a nutshell:

     Arena, released in 1994 (not sure of the exact date, but the Unoffficial FAQ hosted at the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (http://12.145.63.45/~uesp) was last updated in December of that year), was the first title in the series and was widely hailed at the time as a genuine breakthrough in PC-RPG’s. This is a watermark that is common to all three of the main titles in the series (Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind). The visual immersion (even back in the bad old days when $Mb was an obscenely huge amount of video memory to have) – including weather effects, seasons, and night/day – open-ended style of game play, and high-quality storylines have long been worshipped by many in the CRPG community. From what I gather in reading about it, the main quest in Arena is to gather the pieces of a major weapon and use it to defeat a “Boss” character in the form of a battlemage. However, with over 400 cities and uncounted side-quests and NPC’s, the main quest is – as with Morrowind – merely a small slice of what the game has to offer.

     Daggerfall, the second title in the series, was released in September of 1996. With some fifty thousand people, six thousand towns, and tens of thousands of houses, dungeons, caves, and so forth, it was far and away the largest CRPG world ever created at the time, and indeed remains so. According to the Unofficial Daggerfall FAQ, Daggerfall features “much improved plot over ARENA; your character is asked to undertake a special mission for the Emperor and obtain artifacts before rival groups of the court of the town of DAGGERFALL can get them & use them to instigate an uprising. In investigating the court of DAGGERFALL, stories of madness, unrequited love, dark sorcery, seduction, betrayal, and a plot to recreate a powerful force from thousands of years past will be revealed.” Daggerfall also was one of the earliest PC games to feature parental controls over sexual and violent content; indeed, according to what I’ve read, it’s quite possible to find full frontal nudity in this game. Again, like Morrowind, game play is open-ended; it is even possible to win the game by working AGAINST the main storyline. Further, details such as clothing, experience, player class, and the completion of side quests were calculated to have a lasting effect on the players world-wide reputation which had an effect on overall gameplay. All of this packed in to what was at the time the most advanced 3D graphics engine ever created and featuring many of the same environmental innovations as Arena – weather, day/night, etc. The FAQ keeper actually has a copy of this game; unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to make it run properly under Windows XP.

   Battlespire and Redguard were apparently intended to launch new branches on the Elder Scrolls tree, with Battlespire being touted as the first in the “Legends” series, and Redguard being billed as the first in the “Adventures” series. It appears that after these two titles were released, Bethsoft decided instead to concentrate on creating Morrowind…a process which took them nearly 5 years. Both games were less “open-ended” than the other three titles, and seem to be less RPG than action-adventure game, but they did provide a nice bit of additional information and structure for the world of Tamriel.

      Oblivion is the announced title for the next game in the series. No further information is available about it, other than it’s next, it’ll be a while, and it’ll likely be different from Daggerfall and Morrowind.

II. The Place

      Tamriel, the “planet” upon which all of these games take place, is a land rich in flora and fauna, as well as several different species of intelligent life – a few different races of elves (“Dwemer” and “Dunmer”), a ‘human’ race, the lizardly Argonians, and the feline Khajit, possibly among others – not to mention gods, demi-gods, and mortals who have usurped the power of gods for their own egotistical ends.

      Tamriel is quite probably the largest, richest, and best-documented fictional planet outside of a fantasy/science fiction series or the original Dungeons and Dragons games.

     Morrowind is an island continent, surrounded by archipelagos (archipelagi? archipelaguses? i’m so confused…), in what is usually drawn as the north-eastern quadrant of Tamriel.

III. The Story

      Many years past, a group of powerful mortals – Amalexia, Sotha Sil, Vivec, the Nerevar, and others, if I’m remembering my legends correctly – found a key to power which would grant them the powers and longevity of gods. Unfortunately, it did not necessarily grand the wisdom of a god. There are various aspects to this key of power, and one of the group of mortals seized this key, betraying the others to gain control of for his own selfish greed for power. Now, a stranger “born of uncertain parents under a certain sign” has arrived in Morrowind, and there are rumors that this stranger may hold the power to divest the traitor of this key, and with it the power he has usurped. Note that by “key” we mean “an object which is primary,” not “something that unlocks a door.” There are several thousand “door keys” in Morrowind – we wouldn’t want you to get confused!

IV. Game Play

a. Character Races, Classes, Guilds, Skills, and Attributes

      One of the enduring traits of the Elder Scrolls series is the ability to create characters of various races and attributes. I won’t go into listing them all here – again, this is supposed to be an FAQ about the newsgroup, not about the game – but suffice it to say that you’ll find everything you’d expect from a full-featured RPG, and then some. Each skill is governed by an attribute; each attribute is improved with the used of the skills that use it, and you progress through “levels” as you gain higher skill and attribute values. For instance, the “Hand to Hand” skill may be a function of the “Agility” attribute…so if you go through Morrowind getting in fist fights, your H2H skill will increase, and when you advance a level, you may be awarded a potential bonus multiplier for your “agility” attribute. Each race has specific weaknesses and strengths, which are explains both in the game and in the various game tutorials that can be found on the web. You can also create your own custom Race and Class which has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.

b. Guilds, Factions (“Great Houses”), and Cults

Guilds are, as you might expect, professional associations…sort of like labor unions without all the contract disputes. There are several guilds in the game – Mage’s, Fighter’s, Thief’s, a guild of assassins known as the Morag Tong, and more. You have to be careful, though! All is not what it seems, and it is not uncommon for one guild to send yo on a quest which, when completed, will get you thrown out of another guild.

      There are three “great houses” – Hlaalu, Telvanni, and Redoran – and again, each has it’s distinct advantages and disadvantages. You can only join one Great House (unless you’re using a mod that allows otherwise), although I Have heard rumors that you can join 2 houses IF you pick the right two.

      There are also several religious organizations – the Imperial Cult, and the Temple, for instance, that you can also join; I don’t believe that membership in one will prevent membership in another.

      In all the guilds, houses, and temples, there are things you can do which will cause you to be kicked out, or which may prevent advancement higher through the ranks. In my first character, for instance, I made a mistake which caused the Mage’s guild to refuse to promote me any further.

c. Weapons and Armor, Magic, Items, and Travel

      TRAVEL in Morrowind happens in a variety of ways – you can walk or run over the landscape; you can get real good with potions or spells and fly over the landscape; you can take a silt-strider (sort of a bug bus) to and from major cities in the game; you can travel by boat to and from certain places; you can travel by something called a Propylon Chamber, which is sort of a teleportation device; or you can make use of one of the Mage’s Guild transporters (I think you have to be a member of the Mage’s guild to use these). Each has it’s own advantages and disadvantages, and chances are you’ll use just about all of them in the course of playing the game. There are a dozen or so major cities, quite a few minor cities and towns, and small settlements (such as the Ashlander camps) scattered all across Morrowind, and each one has it’s own surprises and challenges. Of course, there are also literally hundreds – perhaps over a thousand, I haven’t counted them – of dungeons to explore.

      MAGIC in Morrowind is unlike any other game your FAQ Keeper has played, and – along with the spectacular graphics, incredibly immersive game play, and just plain fun of it – is one of the reasons why it is far and away my favorite CRPG since Betrayal at Krondor. Not only do you have spells, but there are scrolls, ‘soul gems’ in which you can trap the soul of vanquished foes and use it to enchant weapons, clothing, and armor, potions which you can create from alchemical components you gather on your journeys (more on that later), inherent powers that you may be gifted with depending on how you elect to build your character. There are ranged spells, contact spells, and spells you cast on yourself. You can control fire, ice, electricity, poison, and paralysis; you can fly, walk on water, enhance or restore your skills and attributes, drain or enhance the skills and attributes of hostile or friendly NPC’s. You can combine spell effects – in-game, without creating mods – and there are hundreds of scrolls, potions, spells, and enchanted items that are already canned and placed in the game for you to use. If magic is your forte, you’ll love this game without a doubt.

      WEAPONS and Armor in Morrowind are just as varied as magic; in part, because they can be enchanted with any magic effect that is in the game. There are multiple classes and types of swords, maces, staves, bows, crossbows, knives, clubs. They might be made of chitin, glass, steel, silver, ebony, or other material, each with it’s own set of strengths in varying degrees. Ditto the armor…and it can all be enchanted (and often is!) with any given magical effect…if you’ve gained the skill or have the money to pay someone to do it. Plus, again, there are several hundred (thousand?) “canned” items already placed in the game for you to find or buy.

      ITEMS in Morrowind are ridiculously plentiful – nearly EVERYTHING in this game can be picked up and manipulated. The products of native flora (flowers and plants), fauna (animals and monsters that you kill or harvest), and other natural resources (like gemstones) can be used as alchemical components to make potions with; there are lock picks and probes; armorer’s hammers and metal-working tongs so you can repair your own armor and weapons if you’d like; there is a HUGE variety of clothing in different styles and qualities that can be enchanted with spells just like armor and weapons…but even such mundane things as spoons, napkins, and pillows can be picked up, bought, or sold as you wish. Additionally, there is property ownership in Morrowind; many things are laying around for the taking, but many more are “owned” by an NPC, and if you steal them you will be caught by an Ordinator or Imperial Guard (Morrowind Cops) and forced to give the property back, plus pay a fine or serve time. There are even illegal drugs – some traders will refuse to deal with you if you have certain things in your possession.

d. Non-Player Characters (NPCs)

      There are two major classes of NPC’s in the game – essential and non-essential. Essential NPC’s – leaders of guilds and factions who give you quests, wise women of the Ashlander camps, and all sorts of other interesting characters – may give you quests or challenges which will help you complete the Main quest. Unlike many other RPGs, these characters have personality – just wait until you get to meet Crassius Curio! You maintain a level of favor or “disposition” with *each and every NPC in the game*, which, together with your overall reputation, determines how they act toward you throughout. You may find yourself being looked at with contempt early on by characters who will become almost slavish in their admiration as you progress. The non-essential NPCs are, perhaps, not *quite* as versatile and interesting as the essential ones, but in any case, especially early on in the game, it pays to talk to EVERYONE about EVERYTHING. Plus, of course, there is the usual assortment of shopowners, regents, bad guys of all caste, slave (yes slaves – buy them, sell them, or set them free), and even – if you know where to find them – a trio of erotic dancers (all human ;-)). Sometimes you may have to escort them from place to place – other times you may take great pleasure in killing them with no remorse…as long as they attack you first. You can pick their pockets. You can strip them naked (nearly) and leave their corpse laying in the street as an example of your power. It’s your game – play it your way!

B. What Is Tribunal? Is it worth the extra money?

      Tribunal is the first official expansion pack for Morrowind, released in fall of 2002. It adds a new city – Mournhold – and a whole new set of NPC’s, quests, caverns, dungeons, new flora and alchemy components, new weapons, new armor, and new reasons to continue playing. The original Morrowind game is required for Tribunal on the PC. The Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions are not available for the XBox; however, Bethesda recently released an XBox version called “Morrowind Gold” that incorporates elements of both expansions.

C. What About Bloodmoon?

      The Bloodmoon expansion is now in stores worldwide. Hailed by most as yet another stunning advance, Bloodmoon incorporates new creatures, new alchemy ingredients, new spell abilities, a new island, Sothseim, that is about 1/4 the size of Morrowind, and of course, a whole passel of new quests. Also added is the ability to become a Werewolf, which carries with it a whole new dimension of game play.

D. Platform Variations

      Your FAQ Keeper is not a console gamer; therefore, I can’t speak much about the XBox version of the game beyond what has already been written. However, many of our readers are owners of the XBox version, and questions regarding it are certainly welcome. If someone here can’t answer your questions, chances are we can point you to someone that can. The biggest variations are in regard to expandability – there is no “modding” for the XBox version; hence, the Elder Scrolls Construction Set does not come with the XBox version. As mentioned above, the expansions will not work with it either (and are not offered for XBox as separate products) although Bethesda has created an XBox version called “Morrowind Gold” which implements elements from both expansions.

E. The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, and “Mods”

      Included in the PC version of Morrowind is The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, a “level editor” unlike any you’ve ever seen. Basically, anything that is part of the game, you can create, recreate, or modify here to suit your own needs. While there is no included tool to re-texture (“re-skin”) existing models or create new models, re-texturing can be done fairly easily with the help of a decent graphic program (I highly recommend Adobe Photoshop) and several available tools; if you’re loaded with extra cash, you can pick up the 3DStudioMax software from Discreet and make your own models. Even without new models and textures, however, there is an unlimited range of things you can create with the level editor – new interiors (caves and houses), exteriors (land and building exteriors), characters, weapons, armor, jewelry, spell components, quests, storylines, alchemy tools, clothing…even create entirely new factions, races of characters, or (as several folks have already done) create an entirely different *game*. If you don’t want to do all that work yourself, there are literally thousands of mods out there to be downloaded and enjoyed as you see fit. A caveat – some modders aren’t as careful as they should be about changing things; we highly recommend that you install one mod at a time and make sure it works, rather than going and downloading 50 of them and installing them all at once.

      You can find sites full of mods all over the net just by typing “morrowind mods” into your favorite search engine. However, there are a handful of sites which this author, and many regulars of AGM, have found to be of particularly high quality and wide selection. These are:

      The Official Morrowind Site – Bethesda has written several very good “official plugins” for Morrowind – you can find these by browsing their site at www.elderscrolls.com.

   The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages – http://12.145.62.45/~uesp (or www.m0use.net – this URL is sometimes not as reliable as one would like) – source for much of the background information in this FAQ regarding previous ES titles, plus has full quest walkthroughs for Morrowind and Tribunal, and a great selection of mods.

      http://www.morrowindfiles.com – this is where pretty much everybody uploads their mods to at some point. A huge selection, ranging from the simple weapon to entire quests. Well worth taking the time to browse through.

      The FAQ keeper (who, being the FAQ keeper, is allowed ONE gratuitous plug for his own site!) also keeps a small selection of his own custom mods at his website, http://www.lowgenius.com. Just check the menu and you’ll see a link to several Morrowind-oriented pages. I also operate an official mirror for the Morrowind FPS Optimizer, which is a most excellent little tool to help you get the most out of Morrowind on your particular computer system.

F. Where can I get these wonderful, must-have, innovative, earth-shatteringly stupendous games?

Flattery will get you everywhere. Morrowind, Tribunal, Bloodmoon, Bloodmoon have shipped worldwide as of this writing. If, for some reason, you can’t find them locally, you can purchase them via the FAQ Keeper’s website, gratuitously plugged in the previous entry.

————–

So endeth this FAQ, at least for now. I hope you have found it informative, and if you would like to see something added in the future, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line at agmfaq (at) lowgenius.com, and I’ll see to it that it’s included in the next version.

3. FAQ Version History

1.2 13-Jul-03 Added information about Bloodmoon, more spelling corrections, added section 2F with purchasing information.

1.1a 29-May-03 Web-only revision to include some minor spelling corrections, information about Oblivion, an FAQ Version History, and a copy of the alt.games.morrowind newsgroup creation message

1.1 28-May-2003 – a huge overhaul of the FAQ, to include history of the Elder Scrolls game series, information about the history of the group, and detailed information about gameplay components such as character creation, magic and weaponry, and mod creation.

1.0 23-August-2002 Newsgroup created, simple FAQ written

4. Alt.Games.Morrowind Control Message

From johnhenry@lowgenius.com Fri Aug 23 16:25:29 2002
Newsgroups: alt.games.morrowind,alt.config
Subject: cmsg newgroup alt.games.morrowind
From: “John Henry, King Of The Night-time World” <johnhenry@lowgenius.com>
Organization: LowGenius.Com
User-Agent: Xnews/5.04.25
Control: newgroup alt.games.morrowind
Approved: johnhenry@lowgenius.com
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <Ylt99.134$eS.26242@news.uswest.net>
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 16:25:28 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.96.231.239
X-Trace: news.uswest.net 1030119928 68.96.231.239 (Fri, 23 Aug 2002 11:25:28 CDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 11:25:28 CDT
Xref: news.isc.org control.newgroup:344636
[posted and mailed]
For your newsgroups file:
alt.games.morrowind Bethesda Softworks’ RPG/FPS for PC and XBOX

CHARTER: alt.games.morrowind discusses the fantasy role-playing game Morrowind. This discussion may contain spoilers, or be relative to The Elder Scrolls construction set, or the X-box version of Morrowind, as well as the PC version. The newsgroup is unmoderated. Binary postings are not allowed. Use of [SPOILER] tags, or other relevant tags for filtering, scoring, or killfiling (for instance, [TES] or [XBOX]) are strongly encouraged.

JUSTIFICATION: According to a google search on 22-Aug-02, the word” Morrowind” had appeared “about 38,300” times. The discussion is obviously there to justify the group. Currently discussion is spread across usenet, with some in the *games* groups, and some found elsewhere. There is also a strong existing community of Morrowind users who would certainly populate the group once it propagates. The alt.games.* nomenclature/subhierarchy is already established and active on Usenet. Discussion took place on alt.config 22-24 Aug 2002. Suggestions for improvement were incorporated into this message.

March 25, 2021
The Twelve Steps Of Elder Scrolls Anonymous

I originally wrote this back in the summer of 2003 as “The 12 Steps of Morrowind Anonymous.” Since then of course the Elder Scrolls universe has expanded mightily, so I’ve revised it a little bit to reflect both the expansion of the game world and of its popularity.

Step 1: Came to believe that we were powerless over Morrowind, and that our lives had become unmanageable…

Step 2: Came to believe that ~~Vive~~…er, a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of ~~Azur~~ God as we understood ~~Her~~ Him.

Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ~~ourscrolls~~ OURSLEVES! Ourselves. I mean ourselves.

Step 5: Admitted to ~~Almale~~…er, God, to ourselves and to another ~~NPC~~ human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Step 6: ~~Paid the ordinat~~ Were entirely ready to have ~~Azur~~ God remove all these defects of character.

Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our ~~vampirism~~ DAMMIT! shortcomings.

Step 8: Made a list of all ~~NPCs and demi-gods we had killed…shit, I mean~~ persons we had harmed, and became willing to ~~brag about it in Steam comments~~ make amends to them all.

Step 9: ~~Paid the Imperial Guards..~~.no, that’s not right…oh, yes: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others~~, or would cause us to lose Reputation points or be ejected from a Guild, Great House, or Temple~~.

Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and ~~fence it before we got caught~~ when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Step 11: Sought through prayer and ~~Minion~~ ~~medication~~ meditation to improve our conscious contact with ~~Azu~~ God as we understood ~~Her~~ Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out, and a longsword that would do 300 damage to hit, plus cast Soul Trap and Armor Eater so we could wipe out that annoying little bastard Gaenor outside the Temple complex in Mournhold during the Third Era

Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to Twitch, and to practice our marksmanship in anticipation of the next expansion pack.

And now for a little prayer:

Azura,
grant me the septims,
to buy the armor I cannot enchant,
to learn the spells I don’t know,
and the wisdom to save my game often.

Amen.

March 24, 2021
The Murloc

a poem by RogueGenius, Alexstrasza-US

Back in the mid 2000’s I like many gamers was quite addicted to Blizzard’s “World Of Warcraft.” In fact I’d probably still be playing if I could afford it, but unfortunately their pricing is about as friendly as their labor policies. In any event, at that same time I was one of the founders of a local non-profit theater company in North Carolina, and one of the other founders was quite the Poe fan. We were also guild mates – “Champions Of The Raven” on Azeroth.

That all has long passed now, but remaining is this little bit of nonsense I cooked up one night around…probably 2006 or something originally.

Once upon a marsh, quite muddy,
while I quested with my buddy,
looking high and low for loot in some forsaken bog,
Suddenly there came fapping,
like a fish but not as slapping,
Carried clearly to our ears
despite the cold dense fog.
” ‘Tis a mudskipper,” I told my friend,
“Now let us have more grog!
Don’t get spooked, it’s just a frog.”

Ah, so clearly I remember
it was just this past September
And Brewfest was alive with sounds
of drunken dwarven priests
My friend happened to mention
a bit of loot for my attention
So ‘leet that it induced me to
forsake the autumn feasts.
To seek the epic frogman,
known as king among the beasts
Zangarmarsh, I’d heard; to the southeast.

As we sat there drinking, and
my mind had started thinking
Wond’ring if our gear would match
against this nameless foe?
A quiet then befell upon
our damp and muddy hell and e’en
the crocolisks and flies
stopped moving to and fro.
“One more brew,” said I,
“and then we’ll pack and go.”
Sad to think…we didn’t know.

Presently a crash abounded,
trembling earth and then it sounded:
A call of demon evil
unlike any heard before!
With my boomstick quickly rising,
I sought what was terrorizing
the flora and the fauna on
this ill-begotten shore.
What fright had come upon us
on this ill-begotten shore?
And then, the quiet…nothing more.

Trepidation seared my veins
as my fear escaped it’s reins
I began to cast about me for
some meaning to this warble.
Then it was, I saw, an Eye
rising to the darkened sky
Nictating, nor blinking,
like a newly-minted marble.
Staring deadly in the night as though made
from dead, cold, marble.
Quoth the Murloc, “ARLRLRLBGLBGLBGL!”

“By the Titans!” I expounded
As my heart in my ribs pounded
leaping to my throat like
some regurgitated meal
“This monster is outragous
If we’re caught he’ll surely cage us
And braze us and fillet us with
revenge-empowered zeal!
Bronzebeard help us, this is it!
He’ll club us like a seal!
Then we’re done! A murloc meal!”

The frogman’s arm was raised and
I saw the end of days as
the best I could have prayed was for
the end to quickly come.
But then to my deep shock
this gargantuan Murloc
gently grabbed me by my frock
between his huge finger and thumb.
“For Khaz Modan,” I muttered,
and then, I was struck dumb.

For the Murloc then commenced
communicating the events
which had led him hence, to this forgotten shore
It seems there was a chest
That had been duly blessed
with a full set of armor
even better than tier 4
An entire set of armor,
even stronger than tier 4!
From my friend…still a snore.

The voice was in my head it seem’d
but clearly this was not a dream
this thing, this frog, this man was real
and had been here before
back in the days of beta
and the devs left in his data
heretofore forgotten in some
thumb drive in a drawer
“I was king,” he sighed, but there was more

It seems Azeroth’s fauna
had evolved within a sauna and
come up on the land with fins
and gills and slimy hide
The head-voice said “but sadly,
The alpha went so badly, that
the devs decided we would best
inhabit the outside
In the wetlands!” It exclaimed
And then I swear it cried.

This injustice, I decided,
simply could not be abided
And with renewed resolve I stood
and said to my new friend:
“Just tell me what you need,”
said I and looked into that giant eye
and saw my future there inscribed
beginning until end.
The Murloc finally told me of
the place to me he’d send
This crime, I swore, I would amend

“In Jenkin’s office desk,” he said
“Up in accounting, he’s the head
You’ll find the plans from alpha testing
showing our true fate.
You see,” continued he,
“We were intended to be free
and help new players level so that
they won’t have to wait
They’ll have their mounts at level one and
epic swords at eight!”
“Heroic Deadmines?” said I, “I can’t wait!”

“With our freedom, joy you’ll bring
and you will be annointed king
of Azeroth United, Orcs and Humans side by side.
Arthas will no longer threaten
Kel’Thuzud will be forgotten
Sargeras’ plans will fall apart and
you’ll be filled with pride!
All his plans will crumble down and
you’ll be filled with pride!”
“Let’s do this,” I said. “Can I get a ride?”

To Zangarmarsh we flew and
let my friend sleep off his brew while
I went AFK to get the data from the desk
On my return rejoicing as
the Murloc still was voicing
Aspirations for his race that
we once had thought grotesque
A goal for every murloc more than
just some frog burlesque
“Where’s the loot,” I said, grinning my rogueish best.

But still he kept expounding on
the world that he was founding and
one remark which struck a darker
tone than ones before
It seemed his greatest wish was
for everyone to fish and thus
the murloc then could eat without
this mind-erasing chore
Their plan was to enslave us all,
so they could eat some more.
“You no take candle,” the Murloc said
And then, there was no more.

Thinking quick I grabbed my blades and
vanished fast into the shade behind
the Murloc contemplating
food with a contented warble
A dagger in the back he took and
sadly rolled his eye to look
upon my dagger scoring deeply
through that vast and lidless marble.
My dagger sinking deep into that never-blinking marble.
Quoth the Murloc, “ARLRLRLBGLBGLBGL!”

(okay, it’s a little clumsy in spots. YOU try finding a rhyme for ARLRLRLBGLBGLBGL.)

All game images are copyright Blizzard Entertainment.

October 28, 2008