#Wotan Games

[oldschoolfrp]

Sorcerer King, 1986, Wotan Games, designed by Julian Musgrave with Robin Parry box art. Apparently Chessex has a stash of these from 1986, still available through their website.

[howlingaround]

[ Faction Paradox / Doctor Who ] I think I just figured out what the Enemy's identity is. Or at least another candidate next to giant invisible spiders. (Again, I am certainly not the first to point this out, since Faction Paradox has been 20+ and Doctor Who 60+ years around by now, but I didnt find anything with those modern search engines) (Also keep in mind that the enemy in the EDAs and the enemy in BotW are, as I understand, not exactly the same) In my last post I claimed that the BotW mythos mostly centres around the Fourth and Fifth Doctor stories from the classic run. What i forgot to list was the De-mat Gun from the Fourth Doctor story "Invasion of Time" which also appears in BotW as the D-Mat. Except thats not entirely the truth, because weaponised dematerialisation - as a form of execution* - was already used in episode 10 of "The War Games" , a Second Doctor story. (You probably can already guess where this is going.) The aliens that made the War Games - to my understanding - never get named during the episodes, and neither does their home planet. They do however have knowledge about Time Lords, as well as bigger-on-the-inside spacetime machines, thanks to the War Chief, who is a wannabe Conquer of the Galaxy. None of the aliens - who look exactly like humans, and therefore exactly like Time Lords - use proper names, they all use titles. War Chief, War Lord, ... War King. Now the theory that the War Chief is an earlier incarnation of the Master is a popular theory, even appearing in the extended universe and also being contradicted in the extended universe and thats just Doctor Who for ya. But the Wilderness Years was obsessed with using elements from Classic Who and giving them new life, new context, new stories. This doesnt explain anything at all, but nameless aliens with a nameless Homeworld with time travel machines and obsession with warfare ... hmmm. (Essentially this is just the "Time Lords enemy is the Great Houses" theory with 1960s Who but still, maybe this War Game theory is closer to what the original enemy in the EDAs was supposed to be?) Notes: *I dont think that at this point, dematerialisation was meant as "erasure from the time stream", but just literally "as if you never existed" in the sense that there will be no trace of them. I mention this because otherwise it would be too easy to headcanon this as the point where the timeline rewrites itself and the BotW universe takes over and would also make the Time Lords conplete idiots as they create their own enemy by accident. But still fun to speculate about.

[rwpohl]

das experiment, oliver hirschbiegel 2001

[petermorwood]

Interesting post about costume here.

This paragraph in particular caught my attention...

What we think of as “peasant garb” is actually the product of a game of telephone that travels back from Romantic Revival art, and many of those (urban) artists got their idea of what rural peasants wore from opera costumes. The costumers working at the opera were not going out to the country side to take notes on what farmers actually wore, nor did they want to. Opera is show biz, you want it to be evocative, but not ordinary. Their costumes would have been based on what urban folks were wearing, with extra little touches like a shepherds crook to make it look “rural”.

... because it was Wagner's Ring Cycle that gave us horned helmets.

They didn't originate with the Vikings. They originated with the 1876 costume designs for a bunch of operas, and those designs by Carl Emil Doepler still exist.

For reference, all the horny characters are mortals.

Those helmets were probably based on archaeological finds, even though all Northern European examples are, AFAIK and depending on context, either religious headgear equivalent to a bishop's mitre, or ceremonial headgear equivalent to a crown.

In addition, every single one predates the Viking Age by a period ranging from a couple of centuries to a couple of millennia so - makes vague handwave gesture - they're more appropriate for the sorta-kinda mythic Migration Era setting of the Ring than any Vik who ever inged..

Doepler's designs also feature WINGED helmets, worn by immortals like Wotan...

... and the Valkyries.

Something else I encountered when looking for pics to illustrate this was that other clichéd armour error, the boob-plate.

Here's dramatic soprano Karin Branzell wearing one...

...while here's heroic tenor Fritz Vogelstrom also wearing one.

He's singing the role of Siegfried but wearing the costume of Brunnhilde, at least that's how it looks to an operatic Philistine like me.

Anyway...

Winged helmets are even more historically dodgy - no archaeological evidence at all - yet are actually more feasible as working combat helmets.

The difference is that horns, being heavy, need sturdy mountings so a horned helmet both provides catch-points for incoming blows and handles for an enemy to grapple, while a winged helmet does neither. The wings, being light, wouldn't need solid fixtures so would just shear off under a weapon or come off in an enemy's hands.

I'm well aware that other times, places and cultures - Indo-Persia, Poland, Japan etc. - had helmets with wings, horns and all sorts of other stuff, but this is about how the popular image of Vikings that headgear came from opera.

And went all over the place... :->

[gandalfsalt]

How Ragnarok Predicts Veilguard Endings

What can the norse myth of Ragnarok tell us about ending of the Veilguard? I think it can predict some major themes and plot developments.

Veilguard’s soundtrack is likely inspired by Richard Wagner and his epic fantasy work The Ring Cycle. Not only are there striking musical similarities, but the album covers use similar symbolism. 

The Ring Cycle is a series of 4 operas based on Norse mythology, and it shares themes and plot elements in common with the Veilguard and Dragon Age more broadly. The Ring Cycle tells the story of the god’s downfall due to their desire for power, corruption, and greed, which is represented by a cursed golden ring of power.

The fourth and final installment of the cycle is the opera Gotterdammerung, which is German for Ragnarok, or the end of the world in norse mythology. Gotterdammerung culminates in the end of the god’s rule and influence, and the emergence of a new world driven by human and mortal choices. The Veilguard is the fourth installment of the Dragon Age franchise, and I think it will also represent the end of an old cycle and the birth of a new era. 

Giant Wolves Eating Gods

A central figure in Ragnarok is the giant wolf Fenrir, who’s name was probably inspiration for Fen’Harel. Fenrir is responsible for destroying the order of the gods. During Ragnarok, Fenrir devours Odin, the all-father and leader of the gods. Solas’s knife that can probably kill gods as well as tear down the veil is referred to as “the wolf’s fang.”

During one of the trailers, we see Solas in his Fen-Harel wolf form leaping up to take a huge bite out of Elgarn’nan. Like Odin, Elgar’nan is the head of the elven pantheon and referred to as the all-father. And like Odin’s counterpart in ring cycle, Wotan, Elgarn’nan becomes a power hungry despot. 

Things do not end well for Fenrir, unfortunately, because even though he’s successful in taking down the gods, after he devours Odin, he’s killed by one of Odin’s children who rips his jaws apart. Are we going to see Ghilan’nain take out Solas? It could be a possibility on one of his paths. 

A Symbolic Spear

As head of the gods, Wotan heads down a path of corruption and destruction in his quest to accumulate power. His rule and the order of the gods, along with its corruption and descent into tyranny, is represented by Wotan’s spear. We know Andruil’s spear is probably going to play a role in the game, and I think it may serve a similar symbolic purpose. 

We see in his new tarot card image that Solas is holding what may be Andruil’s spear - What does it mean that Solas is holding a symbol of the god’s oppressive power and corruption? It could foreshadow a bad path for Solas, or represent how in his quest to save the world from the gods, he has in fact become just like them. Just like the other Evanuris, in his quest to tear down the veil Solas has accumulated godlike power in pursuit of his goals, and he’s willing to make sweeping unilateral judgements and decisions on behalf of millions. 

We know one of the final achievements is called “The Dread Wolf Rises” and we’ll likely be facing off against Solas during the endgame. It’s possible that Solas becomes like the Evanuris no matter what path we choose and we’ll have to face him. I don’t think that means he won’t have a good path or chance at redemption based on our choices, but I think it might not come until the very end. Which brings us to my next point...

Redemption through Self-Sacrifice

In the ring cycle, the curse of the ring is only broken through an act of self-sacrifice motivated by love. The heroine Brunhilde, a valkyrie and former servant of the gods, takes it upon herself to return the ring from where it came, ending its cycle of destruction and corruption. I think the possibility of redemption through love and sacrifice is going to be a big theme in the Veilguard, and we could see it play out with Solas’ and Morrigan’s arcs. Love in this context doesn’t need to be romantic love, it can apply to platonic love, familial love, and companionship as well. I know it’s unlikely we’ll see Keiran, which is really unfortunate, but if we did he could have an interesting role to play here.

Brunnhilde’s sacrifice represents the undoing of the god’s original sin, and marks the end of the gods' reign which allows for the possibility of a new, uncorrupted world to emerge. When I think about Brunhilde’s sacrifice, I immediately think about Morrigan and Solas. This kind of self-sacrifice would be a full circle, cycle-breaking moment for both of them. I personally wouldn’t want to see Morrigan sacrifice herself because Morrigan isn’t complicit in the gods misdeeds, whereas I think Solas is. I do think Solas was probably manipulated and exploited to a certain extent, but I think we’ll find out he’s done a lot wrong of his own volition that he’ll need to answer for. I personally can only see redemption of Solas through his death. 

These are the 3 ways I see Ragnarok influencing the ending of the Veilguard. The Ring Cycle has other influences on Dragon Age and the Veilguard that I see, especially parallels between the blight and the ring’s curse, so if you want me to get into those let me know in the comments!

[mooneln0ne]

I compiled and made a bunch of questions you can ask a One piece fan! (An ask game if you will..) Ranging from simple questions to interesting questions that can have the person you’re asking start thinking or start getting creative!!

1. Who is your favorite strawhat?

2. Do you prefer the Eng dub or the Jp dub?

3. Who is your favorite Shichibukai?

4. Who are your favorite side characters in the series?

5. What is your favorite arc so far?

6. Which is your favorite filler arc? (If you have one)

7. Which one of the One piece Movies are your favorite?

8. If you were a Strawhat, what role would you provide to the crew (Navigator, Chef, Shipwright, etc)

9. What is your favorite fight scene in One Piece and what made it memorable for you?

10. Who do you think is the most underrated character in the series, and why do you think they deserve more attention?

11. Which non-Straw Hat character would you love to see join the crew?

12. What is your favorite arc in the series, and what makes it so special to you?

13. (Excluding the Strawhats) Which is your favorite pirate crew in the series?

14. If you were to have one of the devil fruits in the series, which one would you have?

15. What devil fruit do you find fascinating and want to see more of?

16. If you were to make fake devil fruit, what would you call it and how would it work? And what would happen if it awakened?

17. What race do you wanna be from one piece? (Fishmen, Merfolk, Mink, Shandian, Wotan, Tontatta, Giant, etc)

18. (Excluding the Strawhats) What pirate crew would you want to join?

19. If you were hypothetically brought in the world of One piece, would you be a Pirate, Marine, Revolutionary, or stay as a civillian?

20. What Island would you rather live in One piece? (You can choose what era of the island you live in)

21. Imagine you have the opportunity to design a completely new island in the Grand Line. What would it be called, what unique features or challenges would it have, and what kind of treasure or secret would be hidden there?

22. If you were tasked with creating a spin-off series focused on one character's backstory, whose backstory would you choose, and what aspects of their past would you explore in detail?

23. If you were a pirate captain in the One Piece world, what would be the name of your crew, and what would be your Jolly Roger symbol?

24. If you were to write a filler arc for One Piece, set in a non-canon location, what would be the premise, the new characters introduced, and the overarching storyline that the Straw Hat Pirates would navigate through?

25. If you were a Yonko, one of the four most powerful pirates in the world, what would be your territory and how would you maintain your influence and control over it?

26. If you had the power to rewrite the outcome of a major battle or conflict in the One Piece series, which battle would you choose and how would you change the outcome?

27. You are given the chance to create a completely new race or species in the One Piece world. Describe their physical characteristics, cultural traditions, and any special abilities or powers they possess.

28. If you were a pirate that managed to catch the Government’s eyes and offered to be Shichibukai (Warlord of the Sea) would you agree or no?

29. If you met Oda in real life and he told you that you can only ask him one question, what would you ask (and how do you think would he reply to you?)

30. If you could change the role or backstory of ANY character in the series, which character would you choose and how would their altered narrative impact the overall story?

[ahordeofwasps]

Six Sentence Sunday

I've been tagged by the spectacular @talesofsorrowandofruin! Thanks for the tag! I'm going to share the last six sentences (plus a few extra to finish the paragraph) from Crying Wolf.

But first, the no pressure tags! I'll be tagging @revenantlore, @winterandwords, @loopyhoopywrites, @mary-is-writing, @emelkae, and open tag!

Now, onto Crying Wolf!

“Hey,” Theo answered, barely looking up at him. His attention was on the lobster. Wotan didn’t blame him. The way it smelled with melted butter was divine. He had to say something. Something that wouldn’t give himself away. He was still in love with the idea and not the man. He had to say something to change that. They say love is a game, but the only game Wotan knew that fit it was the kind where he didn’t know any of the rules and all his plays were random, made in blind desparation.

Crying Wolf taglist: @sarandipitywrites

[shotofstress]

Is telling when some white ppl say "We have culture" and then proceed to speak about consumerism, their household traditions or of drinking chocolate milk, talking to ppl (no joking, literally someone said that), and singing at the bar.

No traditional art, no songs with cultural meaning, no games, no traditional clothing nor traditional food, no dances and traditional music, no shared pain, no historic joys nor wounds, no stories, legends nor mythology, no vestige of anything older than 100 years, no indigenous roots, etc.

That's how you usually know that this white ppl will threat other white ppl as "exotic" or other terrible way like that for having culture, like when the British Empire created the concept of "Near East" among others and all that bc they couldn't deal with people that looked like them (and yet "not enough", they do, and they don't too, you know), but were at the same time "too similar" to the uncivilised non-white people.

This reminds me too how some usa and british ppl (thus the media they produce and affects the ppl that consume it too) sees scottish, irish and welsh ppl as magic half faeries coming from the "untamed lands of the north" or even as "good uncivilised". Not forgetting how some time ago I saw a ton of irish people being tired of the fetichization of Hozier at hands of some of his fans and speak about how this is terrible common and how they are portrayed in media. I'm not even begin with "vikings", the whole fascism surrounding that and the victorians lying time and time again and the adoption of that fantasy fic as truth, and giving a shit about colonialism and the indigenous ppl still being displaced and killed while cosplayers of the show vikings see themselves as children of wotan.

Fuck up that ppl prefer to lie and/or adopt consumerism, capitalism and upper class lifestyles as culture than admit how colonialism and capitalism don't gives them the culture that they see the groups they hate have nor will they care about the people they invaded and still invaded, nor care about the indigenous people of the territories they occupied.

[issela-santina]

yeah I think these two baritones on the left would go on dates, preferably tabletop gaming, where the (bari)tension between each other would go off the charts. Loge would have to chaperone them on occasion because they're that unhinged, Donner is busy cozying up to Froh, Freia has an apple orchard to take care of, and Fricka isn't willing to babysit her husband who has ADHD in a time long before the meds were invented

Das Rheingold, Teatro alla Scala, 2024. From left to right: baritones Michael Volle and Ólafur Sigurðarson respectively as Wotan and Alberich, and tenor Norbert Ernst as Loge, whose hair looks like a cherry. Loge holds the red rope tying up the captured Alberich who is on his knees, holding onto Wotan's spear and looking at the allfather as if pleading.

I am willing to wait years just to see how this staging's Wotan and Alberich outbitch each other in Siegfried

also making Wotan look like he should be in an Evanescence concert is a nice touch

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Der Ring des Nibelungen: Das Rheingold (Bayreuth, 1980): Reactions, Part II

let us continue!

okay this set change is cool

and the interlude is even cooler

down the…fire escape? did they have those in 1876?

that is not a helmet that is a chain mail veil

✨capitalism✨

…so it has a gold detector

same power structure, just reversed

oh it’s the panopticon

annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd there it is

this is the worst argument ever

just gotta say that so far, everyone in this is a really committed actor, which is something i ALWAYS appreciate in a production

i mean he IS pretty smart

fair enough!

okay that trick was actually REALLY cool

just a little guy!

GOT ‘IM!!!

and now to reverse the process from the last interlude

smart move, wotan

okay but COULD you actually???

first recorded instance of amazon same-day delivery

i mean, technically you only said you wanted to keep the ring

uh YEAH, because YOU were the one who took it??? we’re not talking about hypotheticals here

in fairness, it’s not like wotan is actually planning to give the ring back to the rhinemaidens

oops

i rest my case

AND THERE IT IS

i mean it was stolen from the RHINEMAIDENS, so it’s gotta go back to THEM really

this is a lovely musical moment

world’s highest-stakes game of jenga

i love how they’re allowing them to keep the wrapping on the gold lol

this guy is just trying his best and i respect that

oh THAT is some bs

uh oh

ooh boy

spooky times

but how often do opera characters actually do that

“fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine :/“

okay then

well that escalated quickly

nice effects!!!

he’s not impressed

and in they start to go…

…but the rhinemaidens are still upset…

…but they still go in anyway!

“this isn’t over yet, everyone”

and indeed it is not, but 1 part down, 3 to go, see y’all soon for my first-ever die walküre!!!

[cyclist-of-guilt]

I'm going to say something that will sound insane to you probably at first but stick with me here okay? ring: the legend of the Nibelungen actually IMPROVED some parts of the original opera mkay? it did some things BETTER (...at least the first game I think the second is just trash and honestly Siegfried deserved better even though in the opera he's an insufferable brat).

the best example for the improvements for me is honestly alberich, which yes what an original take but hear me out: in the opera, alberich only ends up stealing the rhinegold because he can't get that rhinemaiden pusspuss so he's like "whatever I'll just steal the gold then I can BUY bitches >:(" and you know the whole time the rhinemaidens insult him and tell him how ugly he is...and well...wagner was an antisemite so a lot of it boils down to "OH MY GOD HE HAS DARK CURLY HAIR??? DISGUSTING!" which yeah- uncomfortable. and you know I feel like despite the silly moments cryo made alberich more threatening and way less of an anti-semitic caricature. in the game the RHINEMAIDENS approach him, offering him...their time and he rejects them because from the first moment on his goal is power and control (...marina and the diamonds moment). he's actually a way more timeless villain that way and comparable to evil people in our own world- like seriously the mines in Nibelheim and an amazon warehouse are basically the same thing right? it also captures the initial message of ring better that capitalism and authority are bad, as much as wagnerians try to deny that.

it's honestly a shame that ring 2 was such a fuckup because believe it or not the original game had potential and worth and I would've loved to see how the story ACTUALLY continues. in general Arxel tribe's thing of taking these old stories that everyone has grown tired of and giving them a new, fresh approach is just so neat and it's a shame that...they stopped being good at it HIHGSGSUI

anyway sorry for the long ask I have a ringworm in my brain

Nah anon I was thinking the same. Removing antisemitic context (I mean there are some hints of it but I guess he kinda looks like the austrian painter too) of Alberich was great move on their part. Hope Wagner in hell is seething that bunch of ppl are now thinking character based on his racial caricature is the coolest villain.

Tho I'm still not getting Alberich the proletariat take.

I wish there was any info about how they were planning the sequel to be. What's up with Isha, the galactic war, entire twilight of the gods etc? I would give as much for that info as for design documents of faust Also designs in 2 are such a downgrade Wotan probably got it worst.

[oldschoolfrp]

Sorcerer King -- Sorcery and bloodshed in a treacherous struggle for the ancient kingdom (ad in Adventurer magazine #5, December 1986, for Wotan Games' board game of war between mages and their fantastic followers, with Robin Parry box art)

[durianinspectors]

Happy Daze

Prologue

"DIU command, this is Codename Pípíxiā. My infiltration route through the Tohaa settlement is stalled. I'm pinned down between two sentry guns and taking heavy fire from a mimetic sniper wearing a porkpie hat. Requesting urgent assistance!"

"Pípíxiā, this is Hsien Yue Fei. We have a plan to get you moving and we're on our way to you. Let's go!"

The Durian Investigation Unit has been infiltrating undercover resources onto 1777 Du-ε. One of the infiltrating agents has blundered into a Tohaa sentry position and needs fire support, but a shadowy individual has chosen to exploit the situation to plan an ambush and counter-infiltrate their own agent. The identity of the mimetic sniper turns out to be all too familiar.

Overview

This is a game against my long-time narrative campaign opponent Obadiah, who has played as noir cube detective Jager Nadim in Wotan, Asteroid Blues, Durgama and Shattergrounds.

Mission: Blockade Runner

Forces: ISS (YueFei23) versus Tohaa (Nehemiah) (300 vs 340 w/ BAMS reinforcements)

Deploy First: Tohaa

First Turn: ISS

ISS List in Army

This is a fairly straightforward list, with three 3-man fireteams. The Deva, Taowu and Celestial guard make up one really fun little team that carries an MSV spitfire, smoke grenade launcher and template/viral surprises. Taowu disguised himself as Adil Mehmut. Hsien Yue Fei had a choice of a bounty hunter sniper, CSU and Xi Zhuang to link, depending if he wanted to defend or attack. The Dakini and pheasant offered chain of command in case the Hsien went down and some solid firepower.

Tohaa List in Army

We decided to play all the BAMS extras, and Nehemiah made the unconventional (to me) choice of playing a Tohaa 340pts reinforcements list against my 300 points of ISS. This would leave me with an early lead trying to steal the central console, but a dangerous counterpunch to deal with later in the game. To toughen up his main group he included a couple of Kaeltars with Symbiobombs and Symbiomates.

Deployment

Nehemiah chose deployment and I set up to go first with my Dakini set up on the left flank and Hsien Yue Fei on the right flank. Both flanks had some madtraps (foreshadowing!) and the ninja hid in the middle to score the console. The Deva team set up in the center to be able to put smoke where it's needed, attack and score centrally and hopefully alpha strike something juicy.

Nehemiah counter-deployed the Dakini link with LeMuet, buffed for surviveability with a Symbiomate and a Kamael Paramedic in case he went down. The Dakini don't have visors and LeMuet ignores their mimitism, so the risk of engaging him directly with would be too high. A libertos guarded the central avenue with a mine covering the console and a hidden clipsos. On his right flank, a team with an MSV spitfire Gao Rael, Sukeul and Makaul threatened an attack run. On his left, a Kerail Preceptor was primed to run down the flank and pick up his HVT. After reviewing what was on the table, I also learnt about the nasty surprise that would land on me mid-game - a Draal, Igao and some nasty template slinging buddies.

Turn 1

"Le Muet, is that you in the hat? Stand down! This is Hsien Yue and the DIU. We can place you under retainer again if you cooperate with us." "Hrh, No! Lou says he'll give me a record contract if I work for him again. Everyone will hear my songs. You can ���� off!" <Several DA rounds slam into the wall by Agent Pípíxiā>

"Get me out of here, I felt that last one!"

Top of 1 - ISS

Xi Zhuang and the Pheasant Agent deploy madtraps into the midfield, breaking and reforming the Dakini link to avoid fire from Le Muet. A TO camo token shuffles carefully around the obvious mine in the midfield. The defensive turrets spin around to discover it, activating the madtraps and glueing themselves out of the game.

Hsien Yue Fei discovers an antipersonel mine laid by a Libertos. The Deva shoots it away as her haris team takes a path to the right of the central church building, into a smoke cloud prepared by Celestial Monitor Zhou.

"Le Muet engaged, his Symbiomate is dead at least."

The Deva team shoots Le Muet from inside the smoke, though he's saved from real damage by throwing his Symbiomate under the bus. Getting rather ambitious, "Adil" moves outside the smoke cloud to prepare to threaten the Kerail Preceptor. Disturbed by the nearby gunfire, a Kaeltar Specialist pops up and aims a boarding shotgun at him. As the Deva is still visible to Le Muet, this locks the fireteam in an annoying position.

Adil breaks out of the fireteam and dodges to get back in the smoke, revealing that he is Taowu... which triggers a Symbiobomb attack from the Kerail. [ A cunning dodge-reset fork! Agh! Taowu is put dogged and somehow the Kaeltar manages to dodge prone again. The Deva shoots LeMuet unconscious, leaving herself and Celestial Zhou in a very exposed position as the orders for the group run out.

Hsien Yue's Haris reforms to include the Bounty Hunter Sniper. The Pheasant's Dakini team also reforms and gains assisted fire on the sniper from the EVO Pangguling.

A Ninja dodges out of camo to score the central console.

Bottom of 1 - Tohaa

Annoyingly, Le Muet is successfully revived by the Kamael Paramedic.

The Gao Rael & Makaul team advances towards midfield to shoot at the Ninja. The Ninja manages to survive, dodging and using the console to block incoming fire from the triad.

There's nowhere good to hide though and the Liberto manages to lay a mine and kill the Ninja with his shotgun.

The Surda, Libertos and Kerail surround the Deva and Celestial Guard. Moving through the building the Libertos is sent dogged by a shot from Celestial Zhou but knocks her unconscious in return. As there aren't many orders left, the Deva manages to survive the Surda's pulzar by failing guts into contact with the dogged libertos, judging that it's less likely to kill her than incoming shooting from the Kerail.

A Clipsos reveals itself by the central console and kills the Bounty Hunter Sniper with a surprise shot from a combi rifle.

Turn 1 ends with a tie, we each scored 1 point on the central console.

Turn 2

Top of 2 - ISS

Shuffling around a little on top of his perch, the Dakini Multi Sniper guns down the Gao Rael.

Reforming his fireteam with Xi Zhuang, Hsien Yue Fei takes the table center, ignoring the mimetism on the Clipsos and the Sukeul Commando and removing them from the game.

In a textbook bit of police work, the Deva shoots the Kerail's Surda and moves back to the table center, successfully convincing Agent Pípíxiā to follow her.

Hsien Yue Fei, Xi Zhuang and the CSU drop a madtrap and take up a position around the central console, worried about comms chatter they're receiving about incoming reinforcements.

ISS score a second point on the central console, though Nehemiah's reinforcements team is about to drop.

Bottom of 2 - Tohaa

Silently appearing from tunnels and rappelling down from holes in the cavern ceiling, a second group of Tohaa appear around Yue Fei and his team in the midfield, attacking as soon as they appear.

A Kauri midget starts by firing tiny nanopulsers at Yue Fei, Xi Zhuang and the CSU, immediately getting covered in a gluey hug from the madtrap. Yue Fei dodges gracefully and drops prone [as key ops he dodges on 17s ] but Xi and the CSU are knocked out by buzzing nanobees.

"Ahaha, it is I! Artichoke Lou! At last, I step out of the shadows of the food service industry to claim my rightful place as the saviour of the Tohaa race!"

Laughing maniacally, Artichoke Lou, Draal Saboteur plants a dazer on the roof of the central building.

The movement on the roof tips the Deva off that an Igao is creeping up on her and she rounds the corner to stare it down.

The Igao charges into combat and the Deva just has time to fire off he nanopulser before getting sliced in half. The Igao is incapacitated by prickly nanobots.

As her rescuer goes unconscious and a nanobot field slows her movements to a crawl, Agent Pípíxiā starts to wonder if she's going to get out of there alive.

Utilizing what remains of the orders in the first group, the Kerail Preceptor runs down a flank and shepherds a strangely familiar-looking CSU towards the ISS deployment zone.

Lou climbs down from the building and spends a couple of orders shooting at Hsien Yue Fei, who takes a wound, but makes impressive use of his Key Ops bonuses and dodges onto the central console. The Kerail makes a dash forwards shooting down a Kuang Shi on the right flank and Yue Fei hits it with a Multi Marksman shot, but only succeeds in killing another Symbiomate.

ISS score a third point here, with the Key Ops on the console.

Turn 3

Top of 3 - ISS

The situation is dire, with a wounded Hsien surrounded by Draal and Kosuil. Yue Fei in a position to score a classified and rescue Agent Pipixia, but if he moves off the central console or dies he also gives away that fourth point. Doing nothing would be the smart choice.

First, a Kuang Shi tries to run up and deal with Lou, but he misses and is flash-pulsed by a Kaeltar. Pheasant Wang advances his Dakini team on the left flank and gets a bead on Lou outside cover with the Dakini hmg. Unfortunately, Draal are excellent at dodging and Lou avoids all the shots, zipping into cover out of LoF of the Dakini. The Kaurii triumphantly shakes itself free of madtrap glue and is promptly executed by fire from the Dakini. At this point, Hsien Yue Fei places glory before prudence and tries to shoot the Draal himself. He fails to wound Lou and goes unconscious to a shot from the Kosuil's boarding shotgun, forfeiting the last point for holding the console.

Bottom of 3 - Tohaa

A Makaul pops out of the coffee shop on the left flank and burns both Dakini Tacbots with his flamethrower. Revealing admirable presence of mind Pheasant Wang neatly puts a boarding shotgun round between the Makaul's eyes.

The Kosuil does something incredibly vigilant near the table center.

Adding insult to injury, the wretched Draal Saboteur runs to the downed Hsien and attempts to steal his cube. Not so fast, Artichoke Lou!

Pheasant Wang levels his shotgun a second time and puts a single critical shot into Artichoke Lou, knocking him out. Tinbot Gǒu makes Hsien Yue Fei's cube secure and the ISS perform a tactical withdrawal before anything else can go wrong. For a second, Pheasant Wang is confused that one of the Corporate Security Contractors appears to be wearing a new fabric pattern on her miniskirt, but assumes it must be some kind of mimetic color shifting fabric and congratulates her on her survival.

Tohaa secure the HVT, pick up the Vigilance Classified, held the console in turn 1 and pick up 4 points for getting their HVT to my DZ. 7 OP to my 3.

Tohaa wins!

Tohaa 7 OP, 113 VP remaining - ISS 3 OP, 47 VP remaining

Post Game Analysis

It will take me a few games before I figure out an effective way to defend against a reinforcements counterattack with ISS. I regret not sending a lone CSU to take the central console in turn 2, which perhaps could have kept Hsien Yue Fei relatively save for turn 3. My poor strategy aside, if the Dakini or Kuang Shi had been able to tie down or shoot Artichoke Lou on turn 3, I might still have been in a good spot to tie or win this game. Hsien Yue Fei was in a position to take me to 7 OP, which all went south when he got hit by the Kosuil. Rather than infiltrating Agent Pípíxiā into Dewey, she was left staggering around in a Dazer field. Meanwhile, the Tohaa managed to counter infiltrate a totally not suspicious CSU into the DIU. I hope that doesn't cause any trouble.

Epilogue

From: Mei Kumae, CEO Jīyuán Unlimited Corporation To: Hsien Yue Fei My Dear Hsien Yue, Congratulations on your latest successful resurrection. I am excited to remind you that the Jīyuán Unlimited Corporation remains absolutely indebted to you following your heroic exploits defending the Jīyuán Open-Pit Site on Novyy Bangkok. As a gesture of our good will we have made sure that a supply of pre-prepared LHOST bodies, replacement components and silk are at your disposal. Your new Tinbot, which you have designated Gǒu, contains advanced subroutines for cube backup and recovery. You can fight on assured that your immortality is now underwritten by our substantial resources. By absolute coincidence, I have a few small errands in the planetoid cluster which might benefit from your specific expertise and documented bravery. A shipment of ungraded, frozen Monthong Durian was accidentally shipped to our Khurland base and has been forwarded on to you for inspection. Please take careful, personal receipt of this precious cargo. If you deem it of acceptable quality and freshness, we request that you personally deliver it to the Sterling Forge and Rocaworks offices on LuY as a gesture of our friendship. We were rebuffed in our last round of negotiations to start our own mining operation on the planetoid, but perhaps they will be more flexible now that they have labor disagreements disrupting their productivity and operational security arrangements. I do hope that nothing happens to further disrupt smooth running of their ammonia mines. We look forward to working with you to secure and advance the StateEmpire's role in the Human Edge territories. Best regards, Mei Kumae Jīyuán Unlimited Corporation

[void-knight96]

Artwork of two teamates from on of my DND Games, Brian the Ranger (Got her leg 'healed' by a Hag and Wotan the Barbarian (In his Cowboy Phase)

[charkyzombicorn]

I was messing around with a character generator. So here are the some oc for you to do as you please with

You are a vice captain and you don't have a bounty. You're a Lunarian, and you're not related to anyone. You dislike the World Government. You are considered to be shortish for your species. You have vivid green hair. You are a younger teenager. You also have Leprophobia or Lepraphobia. You're friends with Marguerite, Capote, and Coby. You hate Marshall D. Teach. You aspire to be spotty. You believe that Kaido should be the pirate king. You most often feel groggy. You have Armament Haki. You are currently captured. Your favorite color is red. You do not have a devil fruit. You're from the South Blue, specifically Baterilla. You grew up a child who was taken care of by your city.

You are a pirate who is apart of the Red Hair Pirates and is a quartermaster on said crew and your bounty is ฿1181626321. You're a Wotan, and you're not related to anyone. You dislike the World Government. You are considered to be short for your species. You have silver hair. You are in your early sixties. You also have Contreltophobia. You're friends with Crocodile, Usopp, and Marco the Phoenix. You hate Marshall D. Teach. You aspire to be inexperienced. You believe that Monkey D. Luffy should be the pirate king. You most often feel not. You have Observation and Armament Haki. You are currently alive. Your favorite color is blue. You do not have a devil fruit. You're from the West Blue, specifically Ballywood Kingdom. You grew up an orphan, with no family or friends.

You are a bartender. You're a Lunarian, and you're not related to anyone. You hate the World Government. You are considered to be below average height for your species. You have light grey hair. You are in your late twenties. You also have Logizomechanophobia. You're friends with Kuina, Hina, and Nami. You hate Marshall D. Teach. You aspire to be sturdy. You believe that nobody should be the pirate king. You most often feel patronizing. You have Observation and Armament Haki. You are currently alive. Your favorite color is magenta. You have a devil fruit. It is the Yuki Yuki no Mi. You're from the Red Line. You grew up an orphan, with no family or friends.

You are a pirate who is apart of the Buggy Clown Pirate Delivery Fleet and is a surgeon on said crew and your bounty is ฿336606026. You're a Merfolk, and you're a great-aunt/uncle to Helmeppo. You dislike the World Government. You are considered to be above average height for your species. You have magenta hair. You are in your late teens. You also have Meteorophobia. You're friends with Patty, Charlotte Compote, and Prince Berret. You hate Marshall D. Teach. You aspire to be white. You believe that Trafalgar Law should be the pirate king. You most often feel awkward. You have no (unlocked) Haki. You are currently imprisoned. Your favorite color is chocolate brown. You do not have a devil fruit. You're from the North Blue, specifically Rubeck Island. You grew up a wealthy child with 2 parents and 2 siblings.

You are a chef. You're a human, and you're not related to anyone. You hate the World Government. You are considered to be above average height for your species. You have navy hair. You are in your late teens. You also have Atelophobia. You're friends with Curly Dadan, Rebecca, and Pound. You hate Marshall D. Teach. You aspire to be steel. You believe that Monkey D. Luffy should be the pirate king. You most often feel committed. You have Observation and Armament Haki. You are currently captured. Your favorite color is teal. You do not have a devil fruit. You're from the East Blue, specifically Warship Island. You grew up a noble with 1 parent and 3 siblings.

I like this game

WHY DOES THE DICKFART CREW HAVE A SLUR FOR A NAME?!?!

[hellsitesonlybookclub]

It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis

THOSE who have never been on the inside in the Councils of State can never realize that with really high-class Statesmen, their chief quality is not political canniness, but a big, rich, overflowing Love for all sorts and conditions of people and for the whole land. That Love and that Patriotism have been my sole guiding principles in Politics. My one ambition is to get all Americans to realize that they are, and must continue to be, the greatest Race on the face of this old Earth, and second, to realize that whatever apparent Differences there may be among us, in wealth, knowledge, skill, ancestry or strength—though, of course, all this does not apply to people who are racially different from us—we are all brothers, bound together in the great and wonderful bond of National Unity, for which we should all be very glad. And I think we ought to for this be willing to sacrifice any individual gains at all.

Zero Hour, Berzelius Windrip.

BERZELIUS WINDRIP, of whom in late summer and early autumn of 1936 there were so many published photographs—showing him popping into cars and out of aeroplanes, dedicating bridges, eating corn pone and side-meat with Southerners and clam chowder and bran with Northerners, addressing the American Legion, the Liberty League, the Y.M.H.A., the Young People's Socialist League, the Elks, the Bartenders' and Waiters' Union, the Anti-Saloon League, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Afghanistan—showing him kissing lady centenarians and shaking hands with ladies called Madame, but never the opposite—showing him in Savile Row riding-clothes on Long Island and in overalls and a khaki shirt in the Ozarks—this Buzz Windrip was almost a dwarf, yet with an enormous head, a bloodhound head, of huge ears, pendulous cheeks, mournful eyes. He had a luminous, ungrudging smile which (declared the Washington correspondents) he turned on and off deliberately, like an electric light, but which could make his ugliness more attractive than the simpers of any pretty man.

His hair was so coarse and black and straight, and worn so long in the back, that it hinted of Indian blood. In the Senate he preferred clothes that suggested the competent insurance salesman, but when farmer constituents were in Washington he appeared in an historic ten-gallon hat with a mussy gray "cutaway" which somehow you erroneously remembered as a black "Prince Albert."

In that costume, he looked like a sawed-off museum model of a medicine-show "doctor," and indeed it was rumored that during one law-school vacation Buzz Windrip had played the banjo and done card tricks and handed down medicine bottles and managed the shell game for no less scientific an expedition than Old Dr. Alagash's Traveling Laboratory, which specialized in the Choctaw Cancer Cure, the Chinook Consumption Soother, and the Oriental Remedy for Piles and Rheumatism Prepared from a World-old Secret Formula by the Gipsy Princess, Queen Peshawara. The company, ardently assisted by Buzz, killed off quite a number of persons who, but for their confidence in Dr. Alagash's bottles of water, coloring matter, tobacco juice, and raw corn whisky, might have gone early enough to doctors. But since then, Windrip had redeemed himself, no doubt, by ascending from the vulgar fraud of selling bogus medicine, standing in front of a megaphone, to the dignity of selling bogus economics, standing on an indoor platform under mercury-vapor lights in front of a microphone.

He was in stature but a small man, yet remember that so were Napoleon, Lord Beaverbrook, Stephen A. Douglas, Frederick the Great, and the Dr. Goebbels who is privily known throughout Germany as "Wotan's Mickey Mouse."

Doremus Jessup, so inconspicuous an observer, watching Senator Windrip from so humble a Boeotia, could not explain his power of bewitching large audiences. The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.

Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. Seven years before his present credo—derived from Lee Sarason, Hitler, Gottfried Feder, Rocco, and probably the revue Of Thee I Sing—little Buzz, back home, had advocated nothing more revolutionary than better beef stew in the county poor-farms, and plenty of graft for loyal machine politicians, with jobs for their brothers-in-law, nephews, law partners, and creditors.

Doremus had never heard Windrip during one of his orgasms of oratory, but he had been told by political reporters that under the spell you thought Windrip was Plato, but that on the way home you could not remember anything he had said.

There were two things, they told Doremus, that distinguished this prairie Demosthenes. He was an actor of genius. There was no more overwhelming actor on the stage, in the motion pictures, nor even in the pulpit. He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts—figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect.

But below this surface stagecraft was his uncommon natural ability to be authentically excited by and with his audience, and they by and with him. He could dramatize his assertion that he was neither a Nazi nor a Fascist but a Democrat—a homespun Jeffersonian-Lincolnian-Clevelandian-Wilsonian Democrat—and (sans scenery and costume) make you see him veritably defending the Capitol against barbarian hordes, the while he innocently presented as his own warm-hearted Democratic inventions, every anti-libertarian, anti-Semitic madness of Europe.

Aside from his dramatic glory, Buzz Windrip was a Professional Common Man.

Oh, he was common enough. He had every prejudice and aspiration of every American Common Man. He believed in the desirability and therefore the sanctity of thick buckwheat cakes with adulterated maple syrup, in rubber trays for the ice cubes in his electric refrigerator, in the especial nobility of dogs, all dogs, in the oracles of S. Parkes Cadman, in being chummy with all waitresses at all junction lunch rooms, and in Henry Ford (when he became President, he exulted, maybe he could get Mr. Ford to come to supper at the White House), and the superiority of anyone who possessed a million dollars. He regarded spats, walking sticks, caviar, titles, tea-drinking, poetry not daily syndicated in newspapers and all foreigners, possibly excepting the British, as degenerate.

But he was the Common Man twenty-times-magnified by his oratory, so that while the other Commoners could understand his every purpose, which was exactly the same as their own, they saw him towering among them, and they raised hands to him in worship.

In the greatest of all native American arts (next to the talkies, and those Spirituals in which Negroes express their desire to go to heaven, to St. Louis, or almost any place distant from the romantic old plantations), namely, in the art of Publicity, Lee Sarason was in no way inferior even to such acknowledged masters as Edward Bernays, the late Theodore Roosevelt, Jack Dempsey, and Upton Sinclair.

Sarason had, as it was scientifically called, been "building up" Senator Windrip for seven years before his nomination as President. Where other Senators were encouraged by their secretaries and wives (no potential dictator ought ever to have a visible wife, and none ever has had, except Napoleon) to expand from village back-slapping to noble, rotund, Ciceronian gestures, Sarason had encouraged Windrip to keep up in the Great World all of the clownishness which (along with considerable legal shrewdness and the endurance to make ten speeches a day) had endeared him to his simple-hearted constituents in his native state.

Windrip danced a hornpipe before an alarmed academic audience when he got his first honorary degree; he kissed Miss Flandreau at the South Dakota beauty contest; he entertained the Senate, or at least the Senate galleries, with detailed accounts of how to catch catfish—from the bait-digging to the ultimate effects of the jug of corn whisky; he challenged the venerable Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to a duel with sling-shots.

Though she was not visible, Windrip did have a wife—Sarason had none, nor was likely to; and Walt Trowbridge was a widower. Buzz's lady stayed back home, raising spinach and chickens and telling the neighbors that she expected to go to Washington next year, the while Windrip was informing the press that his "Frau" was so edifyingly devoted to their two small children and to Bible study that she simply could not be coaxed to come East.

But when it came to assembling a political machine, Windrip had no need of counsel from Lee Sarason.

Where Buzz was, there were the vultures also. His hotel suite, in the capital city of his home state, in Washington, in New York, or in Kansas City, was like—well, Frank Sullivan once suggested that it resembled the office of a tabloid newspaper upon the impossible occasion of Bishop Cannon's setting fire to St. Patrick's Cathedral, kidnaping the Dionne quintuplets, and eloping with Greta Garbo in a stolen tank.

In the "parlor" of any of these suites, Buzz Windrip sat in the middle of the room, a telephone on the floor beside him, and for hours he shrieked at the instrument, "Hello—yuh—speaking," or at the door, "Come in—come in!" and "Sit down 'n' take a load off your feet!" All day, all night till dawn, he would be bellowing, "Tell him he can take his bill and go climb a tree," or "Why certainly, old man—tickled to death to support it—utility corporations cer'nly been getting a raw deal," and "You tell the Governor I want Kippy elected sheriff and I want the indictment against him quashed and I want it damn quick!" Usually, squatted there cross-legged, he would be wearing a smart belted camel's-hair coat with an atrocious checked cap.

In a fury, as he was at least every quarter hour, he would leap up, peel off the overcoat (showing either a white boiled shirt and clerical black bow, or a canary-yellow silk shirt with a scarlet tie), fling it on the floor, and put it on again with slow dignity, while he bellowed his anger like Jeremiah cursing Jerusalem, or like a sick cow mourning its kidnaped young.

There came to him stockbrokers, labor leaders, distillers, anti- vivisectionists, vegetarians, disbarred shyster lawyers, missionaries to China, lobbyists for oil and electricity, advocates of war and of war against war. "Gaw! Every guy in the country with a bad case of the gimmes comes to see me!" he growled to Sarason. He promised to further their causes, to get an appointment to West Point for the nephew who had just lost his job in the creamery. He promised fellow politicians to support their bills if they would support his. He gave interviews upon subsistence farming, backless bathing suits, and the secret strategy of the Ethiopian army. He grinned and knee-patted and back-slapped; and few of his visitors, once they had talked with him, failed to look upon him as their Little Father and to support him forever.... The few who did fail, most of them newspapermen, disliked the smell of him more than before they had met him.... Even they, by the unusual spiritedness and color of their attacks upon him, kept his name alive in every column.... By the time he had been a Senator for one year, his machine was as complete and smooth-running—and as hidden away from ordinary passengers—as the engines of a liner.

On the beds in any of his suites there would, at the same time, repose three top-hats, two clerical hats, a green object with a feather, a brown derby, a taxi-driver's cap, and nine ordinary, Christian brown felts.

Once, within twenty-seven minutes, he talked on the telephone from Chicago to Palo Alto, Washington, Buenos Aires, Wilmette, and Oklahoma City. Once, in half a day, he received sixteen calls from clergymen asking him to condemn the dirty burlesque show, and seven from theatrical promoters and real-estate owners asking him to praise it. He called the clergymen "Doctor" or "Brother" or both; he called the promoters "Buddy" and "Pal"; he gave equally ringing promises to both; and for both he loyally did nothing whatever.

Normally, he would not have thought of cultivating foreign alliances, though he never doubted that some day, as President, he would be leader of the world orchestra. Lee Sarason insisted that Buzz look into a few international fundamentals, such as the relationship of sterling to the lira, the proper way in which to address a baronet, the chances of the Archduke Otto, the London oyster bars and the brothels near the Boulevard de Sebastopol best to recommend to junketing Representatives.

But the actual cultivation of foreign diplomats resident in Washington he left to Sarason, who entertained them on terrapin and canvasback duck with black-currant jelly, in his apartment that was considerably more tapestried than Buzz's own ostentatiously simple Washington quarters.... However, in Sarason's place, a room with a large silk-hung Empire double bed was reserved for Buzz.

It was Sarason who had persuaded Windrip to let him write Zero Hour, based on Windrip's own dictated notes, and who had beguiled millions into reading—and even thousands into buying—that Bible of Economic Justice; Sarason who had perceived there was now such a spate of private political weeklies and monthlies that it was a distinction not to publish one; Sarason who had the inspiration for Buzz's emergency radio address at 3 A.M. upon the occasion of the Supreme Court's throttling the N.R.A., in May, 1935.... Though not many adherents, including Buzz himself, were quite certain as to whether he was pleased or disappointed; though not many actually heard the broadcast itself, everyone in the country except sheep- herders and Professor Albert Einstein heard about it and was impressed.

Yet it was Buzz who all by himself thought of first offending the Duke of York by refusing to appear at the Embassy dinner for him in December, 1935, thus gaining, in all farm kitchens and parsonages and barrooms, a splendid reputation for Homespun Democracy; and of later mollifying His Highness by calling on him with a touching little home bouquet of geraniums (from the hothouse of the Japanese ambassador), which endeared him, if not necessarily to Royalty yet certainly to the D.A.R., the English-Speaking Union, and all motherly hearts who thought the pudgy little bunch of geraniums too sweet for anything.

By the newspapermen Buzz was credited with having insisted on the nomination of Perley Beecroft for vice-president at the Democratic convention, after Doremus Jessup had frenetically ceased listening. Beecroft was a Southern tobacco-planter and storekeeper, an ex-Governor of his state, married to an ex-schoolteacher from Maine who was sufficiently scented with salt spray and potato blossoms to win any Yankee. But it was not his geographical superiority which made Mr. Beecroft the perfect running mate for Buzz Windrip but that he was malaria-yellowed and laxly mustached, where Buzz's horsey face was ruddy and smooth; while Beecroft's oratory had a vacuity, a profundity of slowly enunciated nonsense, which beguiled such solemn deacons as were irritated by Buzz's cataract of slang.

Nor could Sarason ever have convinced the wealthy that the more Buzz denounced them and promised to distribute their millions to the poor, the more they could trust his "common sense" and finance his campaign. But with a hint, a grin, a wink, a handshake, Buzz could convince them, and their contributions came in by the hundred thousand, often disguised as assessments on imaginary business partnerships.

It had been the peculiar genius of Berzelius Windrip not to wait until he should be nominated for this office or that to begin shanghaiing his band of buccaneers. He had been coaxing in supporters ever since the day when, at the age of four, he had captivated a neighborhood comrade by giving him an ammonia pistol which later he thriftily stole back from the comrade's pocket. Buzz might not have learned, perhaps could not have learned, much from sociologists Charles Beard and John Dewey, but they could have learned a great deal from Buzz.

And it was Buzz's, not Sarason's, master stroke that, as warmly as he advocated everyone's getting rich by just voting to be rich, he denounced all "Fascism" and "Nazi-ism," so that most of the Republicans who were afraid of Democratic Fascism, and all the Democrats who were afraid of Republican Fascism, were ready to vote for him.

CHAPTER X

WHILE I hate befogging my pages with scientific technicalities and even neologies, I feel constrained to say here that the most elementary perusal of the Economy of Abundance would convince any intelligent student that the Cassandras who miscall the much-needed increase in the fluidity of our currential circulation "Inflation," erroneously basing their parallel upon the inflationary misfortunes of certain European nations in the era 1919-1923, fallaciously and perhaps inexcusably fail to comprehend the different monetary status in America inherent in our vastly greater reservoir of Natural Resources.

Zero Hour, Berzelius Windrip.

MOST of the mortgaged farmers.

Most of the white-collar workers who had been unemployed these three years and four and five.

Most of the people on relief rolls who wanted more relief.

Most of the suburbanites who could not meet the installment payments on the electric washing machine.

Such large sections of the American Legion as believed that only Senator Windrip would secure for them, and perhaps increase, the bonus.

Such popular Myrtle Boulevard or Elm Avenue preachers as, spurred by the examples of Bishop Prang and Father Coughlin, believed they could get useful publicity out of supporting a slightly queer program that promised prosperity without anyone's having to work for it.

The remnants of the Kuklux Klan, and such leaders of the American Federation of Labor as felt they had been inadequately courted and bepromised by the old-line politicians, and the non-unionized common laborers who felt they had been inadequately courted by the same A.F. of L.

Back-street and over-the-garage lawyers who had never yet wangled governmental jobs.

The Lost Legion of the Anti-Saloon League—since it was known that, though he drank a lot, Senator Windrip also praised teetotalism a lot, while his rival, Walt Trowbridge, though he drank but little, said nothing at all in support of the Messiahs of Prohibition. These messiahs had not found professional morality profitable of late, with the Rockefellers and Wanamakers no longer praying with them nor paying.

Besides these necessitous petitioners, a goodish number of burghers who, while they were millionaires, yet maintained that their prosperity had been sorely checked by the fiendishness of the bankers in limiting their credit.

These were the supporters who looked to Berzelius Windrip to play the divine raven and feed them handsomely when he should become President, and from such came most of the fervid elocutionists who campaigned for him through September and October.

Pushing in among this mob of camp followers who identified political virtue with money for their rent came a flying squad who suffered not from hunger but from congested idealism: Intellectuals and Reformers and even Rugged Individualists, who saw in Windrip, for all his clownish swindlerism, a free vigor which promised a rejuvenation of the crippled and senile capitalistic system.

Upton Sinclair wrote about Buzz and spoke for him just as in 1917, unyielding pacifist though he was, Mr. Sinclair had advocated America's whole-hearted prosecution of the Great War, foreseeing that it would unquestionably exterminate German militarism and thus forever end all wars. Most of the Morgan partners, though they may have shuddered a little at association with Upton Sinclair, saw that, however much income they themselves might have to sacrifice, only Windrip could start the Business Recovery; while Bishop Manning of New York City pointed out that Windrip always spoke reverently of the church and its shepherds, whereas Walt Trowbridge went horseback-riding every Sabbath morning and had never been known to telegraph any female relative on Mother's Day.

On the other hand, the Saturday Evening Post enraged the small shopkeepers by calling Wmdrip a demagogue, and the New York Times, once Independent Democrat, was anti-Windrip. But most of the religious periodicals announced that with a saint like Bishop Prang for backer, Windrip must have been called of God.

Even Europe joined in.

With the most modest friendliness, explaining that they wished not to intrude on American domestic politics but only to express personal admiration for that great Western advocate of peace and prosperity, Berzelius Windrip, there came representatives of certain foreign powers, lecturing throughout the land: General Balbo, so popular here because of his leadership of the flight from Italy to Chicago in 1933; a scholar who, though he now lived in Germany and was an inspiration to all patriotic leaders of German Recovery, yet had graduated from Harvard University and had been the most popular piano-player in his class—namely, Dr. Ernst (Putzi) Hanfstängl; and Great Britain's lion of diplomacy, the Gladstone of the 1930's, the handsome and gracious Lord Lossiemouth who, as Prime Minister, had been known as the Rt. Hon. Ramsay MacDonald, P.C.

All three of them were expensively entertained by the wives of manufacturers, and they persuaded many millionaires who, in the refinement of wealth, had considered Buzz vulgar, that actually he was the world's one hope of efficient international commerce.

Father Coughlin took one look at all the candidates and indignantly retired to his cell.

Mrs. Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch, who would surely have written to the friends she had made at the Rotary Club Dinner in Fort Beulah if she could only have remembered the name of the town, was a considerable figure in the campaign. She explained to women voters how kind it was of Senator Windrip to let them go on voting, so far; and she sang "Berzelius Windrip's gone to Wash." an average of eleven times a day.

Buzz himself, Bishop Prang, Senator Porkwood (the fearless Liberal and friend of labor and the farmers), and Colonel Osceola Luthorne, the editor, though their prime task was reaching millions by radio, also, in a forty-day tram trip, traveled over 27,000 miles, through every state in the Union, on the scarlet-and-silver, ebony-paneled, silk-upholstered, streamlined, Diesel-engined, rubber-padded, air-conditioned, aluminum Forgotten Men Special.

It had a private bar that was forgotten by none save the Bishop.

The train fares were the generous gift of the combined railways.

Over six hundred speeches were discharged, ranging from eight-minute hallos delivered to the crowds gathered at stations, to two-hour fulminations in auditoriums and fairgrounds. Buzz was present at every speech, usually starring, but sometimes so hoarse that he could only wave his hand and croak, "Howdy, folks!" while he was spelled by Prang, Porkwood, Colonel Luthorne, or such volunteers from his regiment of secretaries, doctoral consulting specialists in history and economics, cooks, bartenders, and barbers, as could be lured away from playing craps with the accompanying reporters, photographers, sound-recorders, and broadcasters. Tieffer of the United Press has estimated that Buzz thus appeared personally before more than two million persons.

Meanwhile, almost daily hurtling by aeroplane between Washington and Buzz's home, Lee Sarason supervised dozens of telephone girls and scores of girl stenographers, who answered thousands of daily telephone calls and letters and telegrams and cables—and boxes containing poisoned candy.... Buzz himself had made the rule that all these girls must be pretty, reasonable, thoroughly skilled, and related to people with political influence.

For Sarason it must be said that in this bedlam of "public relations" he never once used contact as a transitive verb.

The Hon. Perley Beecroft, vice-presidential candidate, specialized on the conventions of fraternal orders, religious denominations, insurance agents, and traveling men.

Colonel Dewey Haik, who had nominated Buzz at Cleveland, had an assignment unique in campaigning—one of Sarason's slickest inventions. Haik spoke for Windrip not in the most frequented, most obvious places, but at places so unusual that his appearance there made news—and Sarason and Haik saw to it that there were nimble chroniclers present to get that news. Flying in his own plane, covering a thousand miles a day, he spoke to nine astonished miners whom he caught in a copper mine a mile below the surface— while thirty-nine photographers snapped the nine; he spoke from a motorboat to a stilled fishing fleet during a fog in Gloucester harbor; he spoke from the steps of the Sub-Treasury at noon on Wall Street; he spoke to the aviators and ground crew at Shushan Airport, New Orleans—and even the flyers were ribald only for the first five minutes, till he had described Buzz Windrip's gallant but ludicrous efforts to learn to fly; he spoke to state policemen, to stamp-collectors, players of chess in secret clubs, and steeplejacks at work; he spoke in breweries, hospitals, magazine offices, cathedrals, crossroad churches forty-by-thirty, prisons, lunatic asylums, night clubs—till the art editors began to send photographers the memo: "For Pete's sake, no more fotos Kunnel Haik spieling in sporting houses and hoose-gow."

Yet went on using the pictures.

For Colonel Dewey Haik was a figure as sharp-lighted, almost, as Buzz Windrip himself. Son of a decayed Tennessee family, with one Confederate general grandfather and one a Dewey of Vermont, he had picked cotton, become a youthful telegraph operator, worked his way through the University of Arkansas and the University of Missouri law school, settled as a lawyer in a Wyoming village and then in Oregon, and during the war (he was in 1936 but forty-four years old) served in France as captain of infantry, with credit. Returned to America, he had been elected to Congress, and become a colonel in the militia. He studied military history; he learned to fly, to box, to fence; he was a ramrod-like figure yet had a fairly amiable smile; he was liked equally by disciplinary army officers of high rank, and by such roughnecks as Mr. Shad Ledue, the Caliban of Doremus Jessup.

Haik brought to Buzz's fold the very picaroons who had most snickered at Bishop Prang's solemnity.

All this while, Hector Macgoblin, the cultured doctor and burly boxing fan, co-author with Sarason of the campaign anthem, "Bring Out the Old-time Musket," was specializing in the inspiration of college professors, associations of high-school teachers, professional baseball teams, training-camps of pugilists, medical meetings, summer schools in which well-known authors taught the art of writing to earnest aspirants who could never learn to write, golf tournaments, and all such cultural congresses.

But the pugilistic Dr. Macgoblin came nearer to danger than any other campaigner. During a meeting in Alabama, where he had satisfactorily proved that no Negro with less than 25 per cent "white blood" can ever rise to the cultural level of a patent-medicine salesman, the meeting was raided, the costly residence section of the whites was raided, by a band of colored people headed by a Negro who had been a corporal on the Western Front in 1918. Macgoblin and the town were saved by the eloquence of a colored clergyman.

Truly, as Bishop Prang said, the apostles of Senator Windrip were now preaching his Message unto all manner of men, even unto the Heathen.

But what Doremus Jessup said, to Buck Titus and Father Perefixe, was:

"This is Revolution in terms of Rotary."