It's about damned time.

Finally, SCO Lost.

Let the legal LARTing begin!

It was sometime last week when someone on fark.com posted a link to this YouTube series on the History of hacking.

So I watched. I learned. I became more interested in further nurturing my (not so) inner computer geek.

...And now I want a plastic Cap'n Crunch whistle.

Xaos Quotes

I can just see it: Mob name: The Dan - Attack: Stench of DOOM! - Hitroll: 80 Damroll: 105 Hit_all_room, effect: nausea: -45 hit and Damroll for 1000hrs

Bibliogasm

So a few days ago, I found something I've been searching for.

Something wonderful.

Something terrifying.

Back in 1895, a man by the name of Robert W. Chambers wrote and published The King In Yellow*. This was a series of short stories and prose poetry with a rather morbid bent to it. This book inspired H.P. Lovecraft, who incorporated the title character into his Mythos, and I think it was August Derleth who connected The King In Yellow as an avatar of the Great Old One Hastur.

The first four stories center around a play written in the fictional future of the 1920s and those who had the misfortune of reading it, as the play seems to drive the reader insane, or direly unfortunate.

As a recent initiate into the writings of Lovecraft, I was determined to seek out a copy of Chambers' work if I had enough money to spare.

According to the relevant entry for The King In Yellow at wikipedia.org, the copyrights on this work (as well as the work that inspired it, a short story entitled, An Inhabitant of Carcosa, written in 1891 by Ambrose G. Bierce) have expired. Subsequently, I now have both of these works in .pdf format on my hard drive.

I have read An Inhabitant of Carcosa and enjoyed it, and I am currently working through The King In Yellow.

Oh yes, I am quite happy.

--
* The primary antagonist of the play portrayed in this book likely inspired the name of a south-east Asian butterfly, Regipapilio hastur.

Playing in the MUD

So I've been playing Xaos, and man, I think it kicks ass.

It's the first Multi-User Dungeon I've seen that uses MUD mechanics, but it is purely roleplay oriented.

Here's my character, originally from the days when I was writing Andoria back in 2004. This is a rough draft, so bear with me:

Kyne Wintermourne, info and backstory.

Born to House Wintermourne of Gharadmore Province in the land of Andoria, III 1240 (the twelve hundred fortieth year of the Third Age), Kyne was a nobleman and chancellor of properties. When he was eighteen years old, Kyne fell into a tryst with Lady Illewyn Firebrand of Westmarch.

When he was twenty, Lady Illewyn posed a challenge to test his love for her, involving a soul-binding contract and a test known only by the phrase 'to dance the frosts'. As part of the test, Kyne was faced with a decision: Bind himself to her or remain with his family, whom he loved dearly.

He chose to remain in Gharadmore. The resulting cataclysm between them shattered her spirit, and left him scarred. In the resulting turmoil he was politically exiled from his homeland as well as Westmarch, but not stripped of his name. In acquiescence, he chose to become a wanderer, hoping to redeem himself in some way by aiding others in his travels.

Kyne’s disposition toward others is polite, though he never directly or outwardly announces his heritage. In secret, however, he is tormented by the last words Illewyn Firebrand spoke to him when she cast him away: “You’ve destroyed me, Kyne. Let that weigh like iron on your conscience, that it should drag you down into the Pit where you belong.”