My own self

- I haven't. The world of Jeeb is still something I hope to one day keep working on. It might be unlikely, it might be I'll make tons of changes to it if I one day do, but I still plan and hope to. Meanwhile, it's in hibernation.


Still, here's a new, smaller continent I drew up for Jeeb today. So far you people have only seen the northern third of Geona, one of the supercontinents of the world, Geona in its entirety being just short of the size of Eurasia in the real one. This one is tentatively named Nezhambar, and its size is approximately like India. The old, British one that includes Pakistan. While I have (again tentatively) placed it on my world map of Jeeb, I hesitate to share that as I'm planning multiple more landmasses on it that hasn't been drawn on, yet. Still, it's liekly to lie very far away from Geona, on opposite sides of the world, pretty much, east-west-wise. My plan is to use this continent to intigrate a very detailed (yet, as always, unfinished) history of undeads I made in my early teens onto the world of Jeeb, setting the gist of that story on Nezhambar (I say the gist as while lots of the ideas still appeal to me, the actual execution of stuff I wrote when I was fourteen is ghastly to say the least. The one thing from it I'm still truly in love with is the character of Sirian-Cadra, which is what I named the first liche. (Mortus Primus, eh?)).

So, in layman's terms, this is the continent that, whenever I get around to writing a story for it, will end up being the "undead continent". Where nothing's all that different from other middle-age-like places to live 'cept that when you die, your life CONTINUES to suck.

That's that then. Welcome to Nezhambar:

"Now, just a few seconds longer, there, Mrs. Adams, and it'll all be over... there! Now you can spit."
Fredrick "Garlic" Gobblevalley, dentist par excellence and, totally coincidentally, also frightful excuse of a bowling player, threw off his plastic gloves and made some notes on a sheet of paper on his orderly yet over-filled desk. The sun gleamed in through the window and played shadows over Gobblevalley's mouthbind, which did nothing to hide the ever-looming stench of an impressing sortiment of onions from his patients but still made him look dashingly handsome by hiding his beak-like nose and giving the very subtle impression of a gentleman rover bandit in the Wild West. Behind him, Mrs. Adams was done spitting, and tried to sit up - quite the impossibility, seeing as he'd conveniently forgotten to move his instruments-panel away from over her. Mrs. Adams apparently refused to admit this little piece of stark reality, ensnaring the panel with Gobblevalley's instruments in what could be described as a helpless little dance, but will rather be described as a gruesome display of the purest futility. Gobblevalley chuckled to himself - Mrs. Adams had been his English-teacher some twenty-odd years earlier, and never once would he he forget how she made him dance in the school-performance of Pinocchio. If there was one thing to be known about Gobblevalley, it was this: He did not dance.

After a conveniently hurried excuse for a totally unecessary bathroom-break, Gobblevalley came back into the room, smiling pleasantly to the sprawling heap of wrinkles in his dentist's chair. "Well, now, sorry about that. Oh! I'm so sorry, I seem to have forgotten to remove my instruments. I do hope you weren't inconvenienced?"
"Oh, no, not at all," came the frail remains of a voice whose spirit died years ago with the sevenhundredandtwentysixth attempt at making young boys cease their war-like activities with the classroom-sponges. There is just no coming back after that, and Mrs. Adams' voice had as it realized this decided to retire while still in marginally decent health.
"Well, that's very nice of you, Mrs. Adams, very nice of you. I guess a little extra laid-back time isn't something to wrinkle one's nose at, eh?" Chuckling merrily of his own excellent little pun with the always very tasty side-dish of twenty-year-matured vengeance, Gobblevalley moved over to move the panel away. And then the phone rang. Not believing his luck, Gobblevalley waved a hand at the wriggling Mrs. Adams' and her clearly uncomfortable hind-parts. "So sorry, I'll just be a minute."
"Not a worry, young man, not a worry," it sounded feebly from deep within the chair.

Grinning more widely than years of experience in the field of dentistry told him was physically possible, he pulled down his mouthbind and picked up the white little phone on his desk.
"Grayham Dentist's office, Dr. Gobbleyvalley speaking."
"It's started, Gobblevalley. You have hereby recieved your summons," said a bleak voice in the other end.
Gobblevalley admitted to some amount of perplexion at this. "Started? What has? Summoned to what?"
"The Bicentennial Election of Dentists!" hissed the voice impatiently. "I can't believe that I have to remind everybody!"
Gobblevalley was affronted. "Well excuse me for the audacity of being born after the first World War." Then the sentence finally followed the tone in properly registering in his garlic-weakend brain. "Wait, what? The Election?! Are you sure?"
A sharp wheeze in the other end, as the mere question was a blasphemy towards not only all that is holy, but also all that is holy's petite old grandmother and her stray cat Marlin. Then: "Of course I'm sure! Do you think this is a child's play, Gobblevalley? Do you think it's a game?!"
"Oh, eh, nono, no not at all! I'll be there!"
"I trust you are at least familiar with the protocols of location and ritual?" said the voice, clearly trusting no such thing. This, at least, Gobblevalley felt comfortable with. His old professor had initiated him fourteen years ago at the Academy, but he'd never thought it would occur during his own lifetime.
"Of course I do." He lowered his voice, mindful of the patient tossing helplessly a few feet behind him. "Where the Palatal hill drinks the first few drops of the morning sun, the first of December, there all who know the art of arts will come to remember. I always found the rhyming to be a little silly, honestly." He added that last part, feeling cheeky now that he was on familiar ground.
"We all do," groaned the voice. "Can't be helped. Tradition, you know. Like the drilling?"
"Ah, of course."
"Right." The voice seemed to suddenly remember itself and grew bleakly mysterious once again. "You will attend," it stated, and hung up.

Gobblevalley whirled around, carelessly dropping the phone to the floor in the process. "Dreadfully sorry Mrs. Adams, but something has come up, I will need to leave at once. The nurse will be in within the hour to see you out." Grabbing his coat, idly wondering what the frail sounds from the chair was intended to mean before deciding that he didn't really care, Gobblevalley left his office in exultion. Finally, the dentists would choose their king!

Yes, you thought you'd seen the last of it, didn't you? To be honest, I did, too. But then I just kind of got the urge to produce some ill-concieved spur-of-the-moment text, and here we are.



THE LACH NESS-MONSTER OF NOTABLOG

Closely related to the Loch Ness-monster of our world (no known relation to the one on Mars, though), the Lach Ness-Monster ("Lassie") of Notablog is rumoured to dwell in the depths of Lach Ness, a giant swimming-pool owned by Bert the Half-Gnome, holder of titles such as Mega-rich Accountant Supreme (an honour given him by the Gnomen Accountants' Fellowship), Chief of Cashy Money (awarded him by the Dwarven League of Master Gold-smiths) and Ponce of the Year (by Father Time Magazine), and also the modest little villa to which the Lach Ness belongs.

Bert swims in Lach Ness daily and claims to be on great terms with Lassie, a claim Lassie, in a somewhat suspiciously handy cover of maybe not existing, has yet to affirm or deny.


Lassie is rumoured to be about yay long, and yay high, and possess the knowledge on how to teleport timbermen out of wells and tortoises out of soups. The Gnomen Waiter Association Inc. has long tried to get his claws on her for the latter reason, as she seems to be sabotaging him in his job. (Or so he claims. Lassie, again, has conveniently played the "may not exist"-card to avoid giving any official comments on the matter)


Lassie was for a period dating Captain Nemo, but theirs was a forbidden love, and they drifted apart. (Literally) She will still sink the occasional oil-tanker in fond rememberance of what they shared, though. (There is surprisingly high industrial naval traffic going on in Mr. Bert's swimming pool)

Development from approximately 3000 to 2500 BD:


The centuries following the entrance of Dwarves and Human to Northern Geona are characterized by peaceful expansion by most of the species. The northwestern Humans mostly organized in smaller tribes, expanded throughout today's Bendoria and around most of the Joanian sea. In the southeast, though our records remain dubious and lacking, Humans seem to have spread out in all directions. The result of which was that the Trolls, who at this point had never encountered other sentients yet was far more organized and civilized than most, began retreating cautiously up in the mountains and deeper forests of the northeasts, keeping their safe distance from the strange, numerous Humans spreading out.
The Goblins, similarily, them too without any common organization, was growing and expanding throughout the southwest, and encountered those who would be the forefathers of the Cunnmen of today. The interaction, surprisingly, seems to have been as often one of peaceful trade as hostile activity, though a few violent encounters have no doubt also occured.
The Dwarves seem to have encountered the Humans at this point, too, quickly opening trade-routes and even some interspecies-settlements in their borderlands.


Between 2500 and 2300 BD, the peaceful expansion ended, caused chiefly - but not only - by the wave of nomadic Ogres coming up through the northeast, slaughtering everything in their way, which at that point seems to have been mainly Humans. The barbarian Ogres continued northwards throughout the coming centuries, the western Goblin tribes taking advantage of the power-vacuum in their wake, expanding further.

Development from approximately 2500 to 2300 BD:


Humans fleeing north and east as a result of the Ogre onslaught, of course, caused the cautious Trolls to retreat even more into the mountains. The isle of Gong and the city of Taug appears to have begun their role as the two centres of Troll civilization at this point, as a reaction to the species having been spread throughout a wide area. In the vast peninsula between them, the now ruined city of Magh seems to have played a similar role, tying the three main areas of Trolldom together.

As the millenia closed to an end, a third wave of immigrant sentients appeared, arriving by sea in the Dwarven lands. The old records indicate that they came from the south, and why they didn't land more to the south has been the subject of many a book. No theory to date has fully managed to explain this, but more attempts are made every few decades. The Gnomes themselves have been silent on this. Many scholars supporting the idea of the Gnomes simply having been frightened by the sheer amount of Goblins and Humans in the south and preferring the more desolate north for settlements claim this silence gives credence to their theory, saying the Gnomes hold their tongues so as not to offend their Goblin and Human trading partners of today. Other scholars think this theory is ludicrious, as Gnomes seem to be one of the most, if not the most, adaptable species on Northern Geona, and also one of the most urbane ones, and the idea of them at any point in time fearing large numbers of other sentients seem, to them, ridiculous.

Development from approximately 2300 to 2000 BD:


The Goblins were still expanding at this point, now also in the west, pushing at the borders of the Centaur plains, who had remained undisturbed before this. In the east they continued following in the wake of the Ogre tribes, picking up and conquering the areas the Ogres laid waste to. The Ogres and their slow, seemingly never-ending march has squeezed the Humans back southeast now, and as the second millenium Before the Darkness came to an end, they were heading northeast. Straight towards the isolationist Trolls.

Seeing as Obdormio made a very valid point regarding the number of sentient species on this world, I thought I'd try to make a little quick study on their origins and the like - without going into too much detail.

First of all, all sentient mortal species on Jeeb are dualistic in their innermost nature. There is the body, and there is the soul. So far, that seems very familiar, right?

Well, it gets a little more complicated.

There are two kinds of gods on Jeeb, for whom I'll borrow the Greek terms Daimon and Deus, though I might change that in the future, as none of this stuff is set in stone as of yet.

Now, note that neither Daimons nor Deuses (yes, I make English plural forms out of Greek words, so sue me) are the Highest Form of Being, nor are they the lowest forms of immortals - there are plenty of lower (though not necessarily weaker) spirits, too. But they are in general the closest Jeeb gets to our understanding of gods. Again, this is a general rule - there are other beings who both are worshipped as and functions as gods, but that is irrelevant to this text.


The Deuses are the children of Time and Matter, while the Daimons are children of Time and Æther. They were in agreement when the first thinking mortal being was created, the First Mortal, Aon. From Aon's example has all self-aware life - including wildlife and animals - been made, though Aon is unique in having the entirety of both groups of gods supporting his (used here for simplicity, the myths say nothing of Aon's gender) creation.

All beings were thus made out of both Daimon and Deus power, meaning they have qualities of them both. The body is the work of the Deus, the soul the work of the Daimon, and the mind is their joint effort to hold their creation together.

The animals of Jeeb were thus both given the Deus urge of competition, command, involvement, self-preservation and conquest, as well as the Daimon urge of knowledge, insight and detatchment. The problem the gods soon discovered was this - the Deus element caused the animals to kill each other, while the Daimon element did not, thus when their bodies died, their souls lived on. Another joint effort (though not all members of both groups participated this time) was made to create a natural order, a system for the souls to ascend through after their bodies died.

When sentience later was concieved, it was again modelled after Aon, but with the experience gotten from the creation of the animals close at hand. There was at this time two seperate divisions of the creators - some gods preferred to create sentients modelled in part after the primates, whilst others preffered to create inspired by the form of the drakes.

Of course, some gods - in certain cases even individual ones - had more invested in certain species than others, and competition soon arose - not only between the Deuses, which was normal, but also between Deus and Daimon, and even, though far less often, between Daimons themselves. In certain cases, this lead to rebel gods creating new sentient life, by taking what had already been created and warping it to their own liking, mixing sentient beings with the animals of their own preferance. This was soon put a stop to by a Decree of a gathered majority of Daimons and Deuses, a Decree which, once uttered, cannot be broken. Theologians who recognize the story of creation as referenced here in any recognizable form usually divide time between Before the Decree and After the Decree, as it was with this that the age of creation finally ended.

Other sentient species have since appeared, but never through the creation of gods. Some has been made by other mortals in their mad pursuits of power and knowledge, others by gods working indirectly through other mediums, but never through outright creation. Generally, such sentients are considered abominations by most mortals, spirits and gods alike, and several brutal wars have been fought in attempts to eliminate such beings.

To get back to the duality, the body-soul-division of the sentients were the same as that of the animals, though few of the gods would have them follow the afterlife of the animals, and there were created new realms to greet the souls of mortals who had lost their bodies.

A note is at its place here - mortal souls, like mortal bodies, can be destroyed. There is, however, far more rare for a beings soul to try to kill another beings soul - and bodies cannot kill souls, nor vice versa - and thus, souls usually live on when their bodies die. In the rare case of a soul dying before the body, the same thing happens, and the surviving half retains the mind, the link between them, and the memory of the life before one half died. This memory, however, is erratic and blurred by the mind missing parts of what made it work originally, and having to adapt to the new situation, which is why necromancers and their ilk tend to get vague and confusing answers when asking questions of dead souls.
Souls also, unlike bodies which are made out of matter, have no way of deterioriating on its own unless it itself wants to - the will is the essence of the soul, much like energy is the essence of the body.

Certain oddities of course exist - in their own way, every single species is its own oddity, but some are more odd than others. The Elves, and the Trolls, for instance, are quite special. The Elves were concieved as an attempt to avoid the splitting of soul and body, by tying them so closely together that one could not be destroyed without also destroying the other at the same time. This has lead to their bodies not being deteriorated by age, because their soul is preserved by the will and the body cannot be weakened until the soul is (and vice versa). However, it has has the unforeseen side-effect of age deteriorating the will, thus deteriorating the soul AND the body. Elves, thus, can logically not have any form of afterlife - if they die, both body and soul has died with them. The Elves themselves aknowledge this, but at the same time some of them claim some kind of afterlife for themselves of which little is known neither the content of, the explanation of, or the certainty of. It is, after all, very possible that this is but a self-deluding beleif based on nothing at all.

The Trolls are odd in a similar way - they are born seperated, bodies and souls not connected yet, and thus they are, at first, almost mindless. The souls are kept in some form of aetheral sleep, where they are put under teaching and guidance of older Trolls, usually in their family. The exact hows of this is unclear. The bodies, meanwhile, live much like simple beasts, in packs with other children, until well after they reach puberty. They are also followed by adults and taught values of the matter, like hunting, fishing, craftmanship, and so forth. Then, through a long ceremony which is what the Trolls usually think of as their day of birth, the souls are awakened and entwined with their bodies.
In the rare - and greatly tragic - case of a Troll child's body having died or disappeared during its youth, the soul is imposed in the body of a close relative. Thus there are some Trolls who consists of two souls in but one body, who usualy develop strongly prophetic abilities at the expense of their sanity - but not always. In the few cases where the insanity does not appear, or appears only in a weak and insignificant state, such Trolls usually grow to be extremely talented and valued individuals in Troll society. There are no records of Trolls having been instilled with three souls, and it is believed that this would instantly kill both souls and body.
After the soul and body is entwined, the Troll usually sets out on a long wandering journey, which can take anywhere from one to ten years, where the soul and the body grow accustomed to each other, and merge together into a personality. It is usually - but not nearly always - during these wanderings Trolls find and choose their mates from other wandering Trolls. When a Troll returns from this wandering, another ceremony is performed, one mainly ceremonial in content, but if two Trolls return as mates, the ceremony has a more actual content, as their souls and bodies will be merged through it, in a manner not as extensive and complete as when two souls are instilled in one body, but which still resembles it in many ways. The exact extent of which the merger has seems not to be controlled by the priests - a rare few of these merging ceremonies (which can also take place at a later point in time for those who find mates after having returned from their wanderings) have actually physically blended the bodies of the two Trolls, causing the ridiculous notion among some other species that there are Troll races with two heads.
When Trolls die, the souls stay merged. Why the gods who created the Trolls did all this with them is unknown, but very likely, it was an experiment similar to that of the Elves, trying to eradicate the "design flaw" of the body dying before the soul. Indeed, Trolls live far longer than most species, which may seem to indicate some success on their creators' part. There are also far more myths of Trolls having achieved true immortality (combining body and soul) than there are similar myths of, say, Humans, Orks or Dwarves. Another similar attempt may be the concept of reincarnation, which appears in several species, in various ways and to a various extent.

See? I keep my promises.


Some of them, anyway.



So, Minotaurs! In mountains! (Damn, I said the m-word, and thus, this quote is unavoidable, so we'll just do it and get it overwith, 'key? *clears throat, which is odd, as I'm typing this* "I want to see mountains again! Mountains, Gandalf!")


The word "Minotaur" comes from Trollish "Taur" ("beast"), and a derived version of the Minotaur's own word for themselves, "Mohon" (pronounced "Mohn"). While most of the Minotaur subspecies are rather primitive, the Mountain Minotaurs, or the Mimoh (pronounced "Mah-mo"), as they are named in their own language, are actually among the most civilized people on North Geona.

There are two races of Mimoh, highlanders and lowlanders, and it is the former category I will deal primarily with in this post. The lowlanders, for those interested, are heavily influenced by another subspecies of the Minotaur, the nomadic Minotaurs to their west, both culturally and also somewhat physically, and if I ever write a post on the Nomadic Minotaurs, I will get back to them.



The highlander Mimoh are large, very large, even for Minotaurs, and while they otherwise look a lot like their lowlander cousins, they are generally much bigger and taller. The male average height is a gargantuan 3,3 metres, the female slightly lower at somewhere between 3 and 3,1. They are broad about the shoulders, and have very big, impressive horns - hornsize, too, being a major social denominator. In fact, while the horns may be the most important, it appears that Mimoh society generally discriminates against those who are smaller or weaker physically - a tendency seemingly at odds with their almost pacifist, intellectual ideals.
The Mimoh have hairy, thick and long fur, ranging in colour from as white as snow via stone gray to a very pale, icy blue, a bluish gray being the most common. "Pure" colouring, with all bits of the fur being in the same shade of the same colour, is often considered pretty, especially in females, while uneven colours on the fur is generally considered a mark of bad breeding, though it is important not to overdramatize this - in fact, almost no Mimoh has such a pure, unmixed colour on their furs. It is an ideal, not a demand, much like Humans consider for instance obsesity to be aesthetically inferior to being in fit shape.
Their feet, though mostly humanoid, end in oversized cow-like cloves, which most scholars consider to be in order to keep their massive weight from making their feet get stuck when walking on unstable ground. The irises of their eyes are a grayish white, with pale blue pupils.

The Mimoh society, unlike other Minotaurs, is based on cities and villages, not small family-units or tribes. They have five major cities, and somewhere between twenty and thirty villages (no scholar has been able to determine the exact number, partially since some of the smaller villages seems to be inhabited by both lowlander and highlander Mimohs, so that one doesn't know into which category to place them)


The Mimohs all consider themselves from one of these cities, as all other villages in theory is beneath the rule of one of the five. Their largest city, Nohm, seems to hold some kind of sacred significance to all Mimohs, but the exact details of this is unclear.


While the Minotaur females are, in one way or the other, surprisingly respected, often almost revered, in all the species, the Mimohs seem to have carried this to the greatest lenght - with the exception of warfare, where there is a predominance of male Mimohs among the officers, there is no part of the administration of Mimohean society where the females do not outnumber and usually outrank the males. Among lowlander Mimohs, there is even signs of females being the only ones allowed to serve as priests, though we have evidence the highlanders do not share this ludicrous idea. All these strange customs may be a result of their pantheon being headed by a goddess, not a god, though as many have pointed out, so is the Troll pantheon, and while they, too, have given their females an outrageous amount of control of their nations, they have in no way subordinated themselves to them, as the Mimohs seems to do. Another, though somewhat obsolete, theory, is that this is a result of barbaric influences from the Ogres to the south of the Minotaur lands. This theory is built on the faulty assumption that Minotaurs are as primitive as the Ogres, and that they have or have had close social contact, which we know now to be far from the truth - in fact, most encounters between Minotaurs of any kind and the Ogres are reported to have ended in horrible bloodshed.

One notable advantage the highlander Mimoh seem to have gained from their female rule is vast amounts of spare time - almost all great Mimoh philosophers, scholars and architects have been male. This has also greatly beneficed their society - the water-supplying systems of the Mimoh are unequaled even by the Gnomes, and even all the way over in the heart of the Nemman empire the richest try to gain Mimohean architects to make their estates for them. Especially the Mimoh stonemasonry is renowned.

Another reason for their great intellectual achievements may be their rather long lifespans - they live to be very, very old, males often reaching 120 years, and females sometimes as much as 130. The highest recorded age though was a male, a librarian and intellectual who lived to be 182.

Due to their advanced cities and their following need for trade, the highlander Mimoh are, despite their desolate dwellings, the chief source other species have for knowledge on all Minotaur. Especially they enjoy a close relationship with the Trolls of Taug. They have even on occasion been known to send out researchers to gather information on other species and cultures themselves, yet another result of their, for Minotaurs, rather odd ideal of the scientist and the scholar rather than the hunter and the warrior. That being said, the highlander Minotaurs are an impressive military might, though relatively few in numbers, they make up for it in a very tightly organized society, and of course their huge, massive bodies. Luckily, they are a peaceful society who only attack when provoked, and usually they are only provoked so by their more primitive cousins from the swamps and the plains. There have been a few Mimohean Wars, though, the most notable being when in 1152 the Empress Charltèen I of the Nemman Empire tried to expand her rule up through the Orcish Plains towards the Trolls, and the Trolls called for their Mimoh allies for aid, causing the slaughter of the horrific number of nine Nemman legions.

Or, in English, "Battle". In my "book-project", though it is an insult to book-projects to call it so, I today had to have two characters play a strategic board-game. While the world the plot takes place in resembles ours closely, culture- and technology-wise, I felt having chess or backgammon there would be pushing it. So I invented some names and pieces on the spot.

Then I made a mistake. I showed this latest addition to the text to Obdormio. Who, by his nature, of course insisted upon a comprehensive guide on how to play the damned thing.


So, here I am. This is still just in the "random ideas"-stage, and it will probably never get any further than that, but hey, I put some work into it, so here you go:



The green line is the Castle Wall of the Green House, the grey one is the Castle Wall of the Shadow House. The blue lines on the sides mark off the Astral Plane, where only the Magicians move. They may move elsewhere - and, to take out other pieces, they usually have to - but are far less powerful outside it ny nature of being more vulnerable.

The purple squares are the High Seat of each of the two houses. The red square is the Throne of the Realm, and the yellow squares symbolize the Royal Court. Most pieces gain some kind of bonus ability when standing in the Court, for example, if your King-piece is on the Throne of the Realm and there are no enemy pieces on the yellow squares, you may promote any one of your peasant-pieces standing on a yellow square to a Knight. (Provided you have no more than one Knight already, there cannot be more than two on each side at the same time) Likewise, if a Knight reach the Throne and you have no King in play, the Knight becomes a King.

Now, how do you win? Well, there are, at this planning-stage, several ways, divided into three categories:

In all scenarios:
1. By placing a Magician-piece on the Royal Throne without any enemy Magician-pieces being placed on the corresponding Astral-squares.
2. By the other player yielding, signified by tipping over (one of) his or her highest ranking remaining officer-piece.

If neither side has a King-piece in play:
3. By having a Knight or Field Marshal-piece in your opponents High Seat-square whilst having no enemy pieces on the Royal Throne or your own High Seat.
4. By taking out all the enemy's officer-pieces and retaining at least three officer-pieces yourself.
5. By placing a High Priest-piece on the Royal Throne without any enemy Magician-pieces being placed on the corresponding Astral-squares.

If only your side has a King-piece in play:
6. By having your King-piece in your High Seat-square without any opponent pieces threatening him.

If both sides has a King-piece in play:
7. By having your King-piece in your opponent's High Seat-square without the opponent being able to remove it in one move.
8. By having your King-piece, non-threatened, on the Royal Throne, while no other piece (including your own) occupy any High Seat or Court-square.
9. Only if you in addition to the King-piece have two Knights in play and placed on squares behind your Castle Wall: By having your King-piece in your High Seat-square without any opponent pieces threatening him while no enemy piece is on the Royal Throne or in Court.



I know. I over-complicate. I always do. It's a character-flaw.

Just wait 'til you see the rest of the rules. (That is, until I bother to imagine them with enough clarity to write them down)


Edit:

Okay, I've made (tentative) rules for the pieces.

Pieces you start play with, from lowest to highest rank:

6 peasants
3 archers
2 siege engines
2 chariots
2 knights
2 magicians
1 field marshal & 1 high priest

Throughout play you may also acquire the following pieces:

1 knight templar, of equal rank with magicians
1 king, highest rank


Peasants: Move and strike like pawns in chess, but cannot move two squares on their first move. When standing on their own Castle Wall they can strike forwards as well as diagonally forwards. When on the enemy Castle Wall, they may strike horizontally as well as diagonally forwards. They cannot enter the Royal Throne-square.
When a peasant is situated behind the enemy Castle Wall its owner may choose to spend a move removing the peasant, and adding a new peasant on any of his or her own free Castle Wall-squares (bar, of course, the two Astral-squares)
When a peasant is situated on a Court-square and its owner's King-piece is standing on the Royal Throne, if there is no enemy units on any of the Court-squares adjacent to the one the peasant is standing on, a move may be spent to exchange the peasant for a Knight.

The officer pieces:

Archers: Move like peasants, but with the following changes: They may enter the Royal Throne-square. May always strike forwards as well as diagonally forwards. May move backwards as well as forwards, but cannot strike backwards. When on own Castle Wall they can strike any directly opposing Siege Engine within firing distance if there are no pieces between them.
May, under the same circumstances as the peasant-knight-exchange described above, be exchanged for a Siege Engine or Chariot, by choice of its owner.

Siege Engines: Moves one square in any direction, save to the three behind it. Cannot strike pieces that aren't placed either on the enemy Castle Wall or in Court. Does not move to the square it strikes pieces in, but spends a move striking them without moving the siege engine itself. Is within "firing distance" when there are between two and no free squares between it and an enemy piece situated on a Castle Wall or in Court. (Though they may not move backwards, this opens for them being able to, in some rare instances, strike backwards, on ones own wall or on the Court.)
No player may have more than two Siege Engines in play at the same time.

Chariots: Exactly like Rooks in chess, but cannot enter any enemy Castle Wall-squares. No player may have more than two Chariots in play at the same time.

Knights: Move and strike like Bishops in chess. When a Knight is moved into the Royal Throne, if its owner has no King in play, it is exchanged for a King-piece. When located on a square next to a High Priest or King-piece, Knights may move - not strike - one square forward, sideways or backward, as long as the square they move to is directly next to the High Priest or King as well, effectively changing the diagonals they may move on.
When the same conditions as for the peasant-knight-exchange are in place, only with a Knight instead of a Peasant and a High Priest instead of a King, a Knight may be exchanged for a Knight Templar-piece.
No player may have more than three Knights or two Knights and a Knight Templar in play at the same time.

Magicians: Move and strike like Knights in chess, but when on the Astral-squares may also move (not strike) one square forward or backward. Able to move on the Astral-squares. If both a players magicians are situated on exactly opposing Astral-squares while the opponent High Priest is on a square between them, a move may be spent to strike the High Priest.

Knight Templar: Move and strike like both Bishops and Knights in chess. You cannot have more than one Knight Templar in play at the same time. Knight Templars may move onto the Astral plane but only to strike a magician or high priest-piece.

Field Marshal: Move and strike like the Queen in chess.

High Priest: Move and strike like the King in chess, only up-to-two squares instead of being limited to just one. May, however, not jump over pieces. Are able to move on the Astral-squares, and able to strike magicians on it. Cannot strike officer-pieces except for Kings and Magicians.

King: Move and strike like the King in chess, but without restrictions - you may for instance move the King into a square where it may be struck.
If, at any time, all the Court-squares are filled with peasants and/or archers, regardless of sides, all Kings are immediately removed from the game.
You cannot have more than one King-piece in play at the same time.




A concern I'm having is that there'll be too few peasants. A variant rule may be to add four Village-squares, like so:

and say that whenever a peasant is located on a village, a player may skip his move to place an additional peasant on any free non-Astral square of his Castle Wall - the limit of peasants for each player being eight.

As ordered by Obdormio.


Once upon a time, there was a - oh, bugger this, go here, read everything above the chart, and come back.


There. Good boy. Or girl. Or hermaphrodite. Or possibly bad boy. And/or girl. (Whoever said I wasn't a quick learner?) There's no way for me to know, is there?





Now that you've learned all that stuff about Elder and Infantile Gods, it's time to move on, and make like the Buddhists and forget: What you just learned was shit, and having mastered it, we can move up a level, to new shit.

You see, originally originally, there was but One Entity. His name was Tommy, and He was a grouchy sort of feller. Well, He was the only sort of feller, true enough, but he was distinctively of the grouchy disposition. Being grouchy, He quickly decided that being the One Entity was somewhat suicidal, as He had to take his bad mood out on himself all the time. (Well, He would have had to to that, had Time been invented, at least). So Tommy created the Second Entity, Jeff, the God of Biscuits. Jeff, however, was way too dry to be an appropriate victim for His grouchyness, so he made the Third Entity, also known as the Mother Of All. (There is rumoured to have been a fourth word to her name, but it has been shrouded in the depths of Time, Modesty and Sensible Censorship)

And so began the world.


Seeing as Obdormio, who ordered this topic, just logged off, I won't be getting instant gratification by way of ego-boosting commenting upon the post.

Therefore, this will be a two-parter. MWHAHAHAHAHA.

Here ends "Religion on Notablog, an astonishing roller-coaster of an article-series in two sizzling chapters, filled to the brim with, well, not saucy gypsies, I guess, but saucy stuff nonetheless, Part Initial One: The Start and the Beginning, a First Chapter."

I hope you're looking forward to the sequel, "Religion on Notablog, an astonishing roller-coaster of an article-series in two sizzling chapters, filled to the brim with, well, not saucy gypsies, I guess, but saucy stuff nonetheless, Part Two - that is the Second - The End and the Finish, a Final Chapter", as it will indeed be far longer, far more informative, and hopefully far more entertaining than this sordid piece of fei hua.

Elephants have had a looooooong and ardeous existance on Notablog, and, being elephants, they remember every single last little meaningless trivia of it.

Which, of course, has driven them mad. Madder than rollercoasters on speed, on the Moon, during spring break, with a shotgun-fetish and tendencies towards humping everything with a shiny piece of wrapping-paper on it.

Luckily (I guess...), before they got quite that mad, they side-branched into sentience! Lo and behold, the humanoid elephants on Notablog, 2,5 metric metres tall on average, with fearsome tusks and even more fearsome tiny elephant-eyes, evolved when the goddess Zeem'd Agodid Eatetaim (elephant for "Oh wonderous shinyness" or something) decided that hey, this seems like a good idea. They're kinda funny-looking, they're peaceful yet capable of defending themselves, and they're, like, huge, so why not make'm sentient? I mean, when you look at an elephant and then a baboon, who'd you prefer giving sentience? That's right. (See why Christians who believe in evolution are clearly completely bananas? If they were right, we'd all be whales or something.)

The sentient elephants, in Elvish "Modons", evolved rather without outside interference in the middle of a very desolate but large continent, and are the only known non-flying species who developed forms of air-travel before they did water-travel.

Modons are by many considered the sixth most intelligent mortal species on Notablog, when looking at the average member of the species, behind the Puffs, the Elves, the Trolls, the Leprachauns and the Gnomes (who are not necessarily ranged in that order), but this is information which could easily be misleading, as the Modons in many areas seem unintelligent barbarians. For instance, they don't even have a written languages. With the exception of a very few clerics and shamans, they have never tried to learn another species' written language, either. They claim there is no need, seeing as they remember everything anyway. Several Gnomes are rumoured to have died of frustration after not having been able to successfully explain to Modons how people may pretend NOT do remember a deal if it isn't written down.

Living for at least ninety years on average, the Modons are a sturdy species, living longer than the more numerous Orcs, Humans and Goblins, but far shorter than, say, Dwarfs and Elves. This is due to their extremely high resistance against almost all kinds of diseases, and their peaceful nature, letting almost every member of their species die by natural death.

Modons are generally on good relations with all sentient species they come in contact with, being very fine diplomats by nature. Orcs, Minotaurs, Humans and Elves alike are fond of the Modons. They do seem have a somewhat strained relationship with the Puffs and the High Centaurs, but none of the three species has ever admitted this to anyone outside their respective species. It has been speculated, however, notably by non-Elven scholars, that Puffs and High Centaurs are disappointed in the Modon species for not being willing to implement advanced technology and structured education in the arcane arts in their society, as they may be of the opinion that the Modons are a species who potentially could rise to be among the most advanced cultures on Notablog. Elven scholars have of course scoffed and even laughed at scholars supporting this theory, as the High Centaurs and the Puffs never have had a strained relationship with the Elves, and Elves clearly resist technology in their societies as much as the Modons do. A cheeky Dwarfish scholar named Erik Ironpen famously commented to the Elven scholar Yatheliel during such a debate that "maybe that's because you're all so sweet and cosy they can't stand the thought of being mad at you just for being primitive", but seeing as this was almost followed by an all-out-war between the Elven Nations and several Dwarfish kingdoms the very next day, Ironpen's comment will not be commented upon here.

Modons are primarily vegetarians, but they do eat meat, mostly on holy festivals and the like. (A side-note that may be of some interest: Some anti-Modon movements among other species - rare, of course, even speciesists like the Modons - claim that they eat Gnomen, Elven and Human babies in these rituals.) Religion is integral to the Modon way of life, and their great Goddess and her nineteen aspects are worshipped with great fanaticism - but never with zealotry. Never have the Modons attacked or even been noticably offended when another species' religious views openly conflict with theirs.
Most of their rituals consists of thanking the spirits of nature and their goddess, and, for some reason, spraying fresh water on idols and totems with their trunks. Some interesting stories of Human and Elven explorers into un-charted Modon territory have sprung out of this, when the leaders of the expeditions were asked to "use their trunks to spray the glorious goddess".
The Modon religious authorities are the Shamans and the Clerics. Shamans are always female among Modons, and are well versed in the arts of communicating and manipulating the spirits of nature. Shamans are usually the religious authorities in the rural areas of Modon culture, while in the more urbane mileus Clerics, warrior-priests of Zeem'd, are the most influental ones. The two groups are closely co-operative, however, and to become an Archcleric a Cleric must (among other things) study for at least three years at the feet of a renowned Shaman, just as Shamans are not permitted to perform certain rites without having studied the holy verses of Zeem'd with the Clerics in a Modon city for at least a year.

The civil authorities in Modon culture are the Village or City Elders, consisting of a council where the eldest eleven per cent of the inhabitants have one vote each on important issues, and elect a nine-year-sitting inner council of five to handle smaller issues. None of these five can be Clerics or Shamans, to avoid monopolies on power in their society. To the same effect, during the race times when Modons are at war, the inner council elects two among their own to participate in a war council, which is also consisting of three warriors or hunters, elected by a vote made by all adults in the village, or, in the case of large cities where this would be impractical, by a vote made by all warriors and hunters in the city. Only one of the three warriors elected to such a council is allowed to be a member of the clergy, and cannot hold a higher rank in it than Cleric.

Modons are polygamists, which makes for very stange households. A household usually has between one and three husbands, and between one and nine wives. (This is the average. Modon law states no maximum or limits) Possibly, this custom arose due to the low number of childs born among Modons - twins are even rarer than among Humans, and a pregnancy takes almost fourteen months.

Modons on Notablog at one point seperated in two races - the grey ones in the villages in the woods and jungles, and the white and slightly larger ones living as nomads on the plains. As other species came in contact with them and their culture solidified, however, the two races grew back into one, neithers genes appearing to be dominant, causing Modons born today to be either white or gray, but with seemingly no logical reason for being of either - two gray Modons may well spawn a white one, and vice versa.

Modons are great chefs.

As requested by Terje.


The most commonly scholary used system of dating on Notablog is the "BTP"-system. ("Before This Post") In it, dates are given by calculating how many years ago the event described took place.

Of course, this has just moved the problem slightly, as the BTP-system doesn't work unless every scholary text using it is properly dated in another system, so as for the reader to know from what point to calculate backwards. DLTA is the most used system for this.


The DLTA-system had its origin 44 005 years BTP, when a drunken badger of some sentience told a tale at the Dig In(n) for an equally drunken audience, and started it with the following sentence: "This all happened some five thousand years damned long time ago". Among the audience was one Cheekie B'sted, an Half-Elf, Half-Human scholar of some merit and even more ambition, moonlighting as a drunkard, supposedly to "study the local plebian culture" under the cover of an unemployed bard without a repertoire. When he awoke the next day he had gotten, in addition to the compulsory horrible headache, the idea of making an inter-species-usable dating system. He quickly decided that they were currently living in the year 304 DLTA, seeing as how threehundred-and-four was his all time favourite number. He had won several lotteries playing that number (he never won on the exact ticket with 304 on it, but the only common denominator between the times he won was that among the tickets he'd bought and NOT won with was one numbered 304) and it was also his age when he first lost his virginity to a particularily saucy Gnomen widow of questinable repute.

The DLTA-system follows the cycle of Notablog around its sun, and one trip around it is one year, consisting of 304 days (it spins slower and is bigger than Earth). Really, it is 306, but Cheekie B'sted, as mentioned, preferred 304. This has lead to the seasons being gradually shifted around in the year, as no-one has ever thought of adding two days to the year after B'sted's untimely death when he was killed by a particularily provoked Gnomen husband of (until then) being-dead repute in the year 352 DLTA.

The Human Empire of Nemm ("Nememp" on Common tongue, or simply "the Empire") is, obviously, a human-controlled area, generally viewed as the local dominant "Human nation" by the other species in the vicinity, and, as most empires, views itself as the very heart of civilization.

The Empire is the leading nation in the powerful Northern Alliance, a diplomatic entity of Northern Geona formed to keep the Orcs at bay, consisting of the Nemmans themselves, the country of Bandor, the Dwarven Earldoms in the North and the north-western troll-nation on the continent; Taug.

The Empire has approximately the following population mix:
Humans: 73%
Gnomes: 15%
Dwarves: 5%
Others: 7%

Though somewhat smaller today, in its days of glory, the Empire of Nemm covered vast portions of the western part of North Geona:





Being predominately populated by Humans, I thought I'd give a quick sum-up of the different Human races living in Nemm:

-Nemman
Nemmans heir from the Nemma Isle, where the Nemm Empire originally took form. They are tall (2,0 metres at average for men, slightly less for women) and muscular, with blonde or light brown hair, blue or grey eyes, long legs and broad shoulders. They tend to be adventurous and fond of traveling, exploration and warfare, and therefore surprisingly small percentages of them actually live on the Nemma Isle, though the richest of them usually have a household there for prestige's sake. The Nemmans are an elite race within the Empire, usually holding high positions and great fortunes. They make up some twenty per cent of the total Imperial Human population.
-Northerners
Most humans in Bendoria and nearly all Humans in the Dwarven Earldoms are Northerners, or of partly Northern descent. They are tall, though not as tall as the Nemmans, being something like 1,85 metres tall at average, and though generally as muscular and powerfully built as the Nemmans, they have a more tough and gritty figure, a less proud and arrogant bearing. Their shoulders are not as broad, and on average, they have shorter legs. They are more skeptical towards strangers and foreigners than the Nemmans, and culturally tend to lean towards Dwarven values and view on life, being heavily influenced by these. A lot of Northerners are farmers, but almost all males know how to handle a spear or an axe and a shield, as it is a matter of honour to be able to fight and defend one's land and family. Their hair is blonde or red, and their eyes blue or green.
In the Empire, they usually find work as soldiers in the legions, or as body guards for merchants and noblemen, and they make up eight per cent of the Imperial Human population.
-Southerners
The general Imperial Human population, and most of the workforce, are of Southern descent, having slightly darker skins than Notherners and Nemmans, dark hair, and brown or grey eyes. They are much shorter, the average Southerner being somewhat below 1,7 metres tall, and are in general a peaceful folk, though the Imperial legions in great part consist of Southerner conscripts. Some sixty-five per cent of the Imperial Human population are Southern.
-Cunn
The Cunn, being the remaining seven per cent of the Imperial Human population, dwell mainly around the inland coast and in the Imperial Capitol. They are the true rulers of the Empire - as the Nemman nobility pay far too little attention to social and domestic issues to wield any true power outside the military branches of government - and they hail from the inland where it borders on the Orcish plains. Their skins are very pale, and their hair almost black. They have dark yellow or brown eyes, and are more or less exactly 1,7 metres tall at average, with far smaller individual differences than most Human races. The Cunn living on the Deiàn half-isle by Bendoria have, after the founding Bendoria cut them off from the rest of the inland Empire, been developing into a clearly different culture, though they are so similar of the other Cunn in physical sense that they cannot truly be counted a race of their own. Another factor for not naming these Cunn as a seperate race is noticable tendencies among Southern inhabitants on the Deiàn half-isle to develop the same cultural differences from the rest of the Empire, though notably in a lesser extent.


That's it for today, folks.

A wise man, who due to wanting to be eligible for my Anonymous Tip Reward has decided to remain anonymous, once said: "Dwarfs come in two varieties: those who speak with a Scottish accent, and those who don't".


What the layman will probably not understand is that the implied words after "don't" aren't "speak with a Scottish accent", but rather "who don't speak". Meaning "those who don't speak Human languages".

Dwarfs, you see, are veeeeeeery protective with their language. Unlike the Gnomes, who in the years around 55 DLTA decided that if they insisted on doing all their contracts in Gnomish, and used all kinds of horribly complex grammatical ways of writing in Gnomen, they could get away with a helluva lot more than they already were, and who therefore indirectly caused the entire world to start at least dabbling in Gnomish around 56 DLTA. And though their own language is nothing like Scottish, their English is decidedly like Scottish English. No one has ever been able to figure out why. Though some (Elves, obviously) have tried, little good has come of it. The most outrageous theory to date, for example, is that they speak like that because they like the sound of it, a theory which was indeed piped out of the collegium to which it was presented.

Speaking of Elves, this article is somewhat delayed due to an Elf - I won't mention any names, but he's blonde, tall, pointy-eared and somewhat girly-lookin' - insisting that I sent the article through the Elven Council of Non-Discriminative Behaviour Enforcement, seeing as though there apparently have been complaints that my articles on this page have been species-biased. I can't imagine how they ever got that into their thick - oh, I'm sorry, I meant their slim, elegant, super-human hyper-intelligent skulls, but I'm playing along, for the time being. I wonder if Tolkien ever had to deal with this sort of crap.* (Lewis probably did. I mean, there's a reason there are no Elves in Narnia, people! Again, I won't mention names, but Cyaldar, I'm looking at you.)

I'm getting off course, here. Where were we? Oh, yes, Dwarfs. Short, bearded fellows. Hm. Did I have a theme for this post? Anyone? No?

Hm.

Oh, well, it's getting late, anyway. And I think that I did write a whole bunch of stuff on the Dwarfs here, but then those Elves went ahead and censored it. Yes! Yes, that has to be it. I'm thinking I'll pick up where we left off in part four, which will be a roller-coaster of an article, written in beer, on beards. Or at least it will be about Dwarfs, more or less. More than less, hopefully. If the Elves don't short that one down, too.





*<sub>I'm suspecting he did. I mean, that Elrond-guy can't possibly be a multi-class Prophet Sage Ruler trying to upstage Gandalf in ancient lores without there being some kind of message behind it. The only reason he got through the censorship, I suspect, is due to being called a "Half-Elf" - which is bullocks, of course, the guy chose elfhood when given the choice by the Valar, thus making him an Elf for all intents and purposes. They tried the same chickening out in the movies, casting him as a guy who was physically incapable of being completely cleanly shaved, trying to move the blame over to the Humans.

Elrond, I council you to sleep lightly. We're on to you.</sub>

Fucking Elves.


They've made a caricature. Of me as an elf, as if my degredation wasn't complete enough by their giving me RED hair. RED!


LOGI is the guy who is all fire and lunchables! Me, I'm not too big with the dramatics, I can style my hair without going all elemental. True, I'm described as "fair", but first of all, Snorre never really knew what the My Daughter he was talking about - being a Christian and all - and second of all "fair" can actually mean "blonde", too, it doesn't necessarily put me down as a redhead once and for all.


But the main travesty here, of course, is the elf-bit. Yes, I'm leaner and slightly less brutish than these other chaps strutting around in my neighbourhood with their "Omniscienter than thou" (puh-lease. Like I can't go throw away one of my eyes if I ever need to see it all. Which I don't, by the way. Anyone who has seen Freyr skinny-dipping in the early spring... suffice to say, at that point, I'd tear both my eyes out for far less than omniscience. Hel, I'd settle for an omnious scientist in those circumstances) and "Look at me, I've got a big hammer without a proper shaft" (I would point out that I got him that hammer, but it'd seem so damned petty, so I won't) - attitudes, but that's not saying a heck of a lot, as these chaps could go to the finals with the Yeti and the Bigfoot and the Titanic Toe and whomever in the Hairiest Freaks Alive-contest. That doesn't make me a bloody elf. And it sure as helf doesn't make me a bloody elf with my hair on fire.


However, I do consider growing a goatee.





As if this horrible shock wasn't enough, my dignity has been further stamped upon, as the sodding Trolls have joined in. Apparently, I'm rather big in their pantheon, and they found it insulting to see me portrayed as an elf. (On that at least, we could agree. Fucking Elves.) Therefore, they've went ahead and made their own little picture of me, adding injury to insult. I mean, honestly, while my skin may not be quite as extravagant as that fairy (no offense to the Tuatha Dé Danann intended) Snorre claimed, I do not look like my face has been carved out of a sodding tree. My eyes do not glow (except when people dingle money in front of me, but that's hardly a situation for fair assessment), and while indeed strong and awesome, my teeth aren't that sharp. Years of apple-eating gets to you, you know, dulls 'em down.

Seriously. One could get iconoclastic for far less than this.



The only thing that could be worse than this would be... I don't know, maybe if the Humans came trotting along. Yeah, yeah, that'd probably be horrible. They'd probably be making me into some silly super-villain dressing in green pyjamases and wearing some strange horns only found on some especially silly Texas-bred cattle or something. Without a goatee.

Luckily, even Humans can't possibly be that blasphemic.