April 13, 2017

From “The Well of Souls” by Lew Foussoll

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Each soul is a droplet, a point of mist. When its shell expires, it rises, unnoticed, and returns to the well. There is it absorbed, mixed, reborn. The mist that can be seen rising off of the well is that of souls outgoing and souls incoming.

The collected knowledge and experiences of the well are the energies that power the world within the crystal. Everything inside the impenetrable shell crafted by the Glazier springs from and returns to the well.

But this has not always been the case. Many times throughout the history of the crystal, beings have sought to redirect souls away from the well for their own purposes, or to use the well’s energies for their own desires.

Everyone knows the tale of Erdall, who created her own well in mockery of the true one and built a mighty empire on its back. They know the story of her destruction and annihilation–never to return to the well herself–just as fluently. Perhaps its equal is the tale of Revinger, who sought to harness the power of the well to pierce the crystal and free the world from its “prison.” It is not for those within the crystal to know what he found when the howling void beyond sucked him in.

Is the rise of the Denier and its followers a peer to Erdall and Revinger, the two great enemies of the well? This remains to be seen.

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April 12, 2017

From “The Pundigrion” by Heidi Purington

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The Pundigrion is a book of immense power. Many have gone mad scrying deeply into its pages, expecting as they often do a mere book of very good puns. But those are a dime a dozen, from The Funomicon to The Wit’s Endgemot, and have no power over the insane (merely the inane).

But The Pundigrion works on a different principle. It open’s the reader’s mind to the inner working of language, the web of phonemes and graphemes that make up language at its most base. It tears away the veil of individual language to expose the underlying code that makes puns possible. And, in this way, it drives readers to gibbering madness.

We can trace the oldest known copy of The Pundigrion to Moshe Abraham, the Mad Israeli, who composed a scroll in Aramaic in the year 135. Taken by the victorious Romans, it was later copied in Athens into Greek and Latin by Leonidas the Loony Lacedaemonian. The Latin copy ended up in the Vatican archives, where numerous vulgate copies were made by Innocentius the Insane Italian. The Greek copy was captured by the Ottomans and sent to Constantinople, where Turkish and Arabic versions can be traced to Taranuz the Touched Turk.

In total, nine copies of The Pundigrion are known to have existed, in Aramaic, Latin, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Italian, French, German, and English. Each has had its exact whereabouts lost over time, largely because it reduces those who study it to gibbering lunatics capable of speaking only in elaborate puns. These people tend not to dispose of their estates very rationally; the 18th-century scholar Berthold the Batty Berliner tossed his copy of The Pundigrion from the dome of St Hedwig’s, for instance. It was rather quickly followed by the rest of his library, his clothes, and Berthold himself.

Chroniclers record his last words as “Singt ein Vogel auswendig? Nein, am meisten singt er vom Blatt!” A rough translation would be “Does a bird sing from memory?
No, it mostly reads from the sheet music.”

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April 11, 2017

From “The Tuvo Principle” by Tulip Provence

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“You can’t leave!” the first hooded figure, the one in a purple robe, cried. “It is a violation of the Tuvo Principle, the Society’s most cherished precept!”

“Wait a moment,” said the second hoodie, this one in crimson. “I thought free will was the centerpiece of the Tuvo Principle!”

“Free will aside from total subservience to the Society and the Tuvo Principle,” added a third member wearing forest green.

Crimson shook their head, as evidenced by the bobbing of their robe. “How can your will be free if you’re subservient?”

“Yeah,” said Yellow. “That’s dumb.”

“Well, if the Tuvo Principle isn’t what I say it is, then what is it?” Purple shouted.

“It’s absolute free will!” said Crimson.

“It’s absolute subservience!” shouted Green.

“I’ll show you who’s subservient!” Yellow followed these fighting words with an actual physical blow aimed at Purple.

The argument quickly degenerated into a melee after this. Forgotten amidst the Society’s shouting, Chris worked the bindings free and cut Avery loose with the sacrificial dagger.

“What the heck is the Tuvo Principle, anyway?” Said Avery as they fled.

“I don’t even think they know.”

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April 10, 2017

From “The D&D B&B” by Hayley Grainer Sturlsson

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Cascadia is home to a uniue brant of bed and breakfast, adventurous in more ways than one: the Dungeons and Dragons Bed and Breakfast, or D&D B&B. Staci Gvensdottir runs the establishment with her partner, Peter Smith, and like so many other desperately innovative business ideas it dates to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008.

“Peter lost his job and I lost mine, within a few days of each other,” laughs Gvensdottir. “Just after we inked the lease on this place. So we had to do something fast, because banks were feeling awfully foreclosey back then!”

The solution lay in the massive collection of role playing books accumulated by the couple. Gvensdottir purchased new books as they came out, while Smith preferred to hoard classic tomes. “I’m a third edition and before nutcase,” says Smith. “As far as I’m concerned, if there ain’t THAC0, it ain’t Dungeons and Dragons.”

Gvensdottir and Smith wrote a few quick D&D campaigns that could be played with a variety of settings, characters, and systems. They then began advertising their home as a destination getaway for couples looking to do a little role playing. “Not neccessarily the sort of roleplaying everyone thinks of, admittedly,” says Gvensdottir. “We had a few very disappointed people in gimp masks show up.”

At first, Gvensdottir and Smith’s “D&D B&B” was advertised through word-of-mouth. “Our friends at the comic book shop and on listservs and message boards, mostly,” says Smith. “The first few were really just pity stays, but once word got out, we’ve been pretty constantly booked.”

A weekend at the D&D B&B begins with rolling character sheets in a living room from a classic 1880s lumber baron house, restored to its full glory. Guests either roll new characters or adapt prechosen ones and then set out on an adventure that will last from two days to over a week. Meals are provided, as are caffeinated beverages and salty/sugary snacks, and every few hours there is a fresh-air excursion to a local Cascadia landmark.

“The standard dungeon grind is by far the most popular,” says Gvensdottir. “People just love the thrill of delving deep into a castle dungeon to defeat an ancient evil.”

At the end of the stay, visitors have the option or purchasing their character sheets or leaving a copy on file for future adventures. Nearly all do, as the experience of 12-hour marathon dice-rolling sessions is not soon forgotten.

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April 9, 2017

From “Alfredo Muñoz is the Tank Whisperer” by NBS Broadcasting

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MUÑOZ: And how long has she been acting like this?

CINDY: A week, maybe two. She has been growling, refusing to accept anything we give her, making a mess on the floor…

MUÑOZ: I need you to think carefully, Cindy. How did this all start?

CINDY: Well, we had just come home from the barbecue. It was amateur night, and-

MUÑOZ: Say no more. Let me lean down and whisper to her.

(MUÑOZ leans over, whispering to his subject in a sweet, low voice.)

MUÑOZ: She says that it is a simple problem. She says that in your husband’s haste to deal with a…problem…he pulled too hard and something broke.

CINDY: Can you fix it?

MUÑOZ: It is a simple matter.

(MUÑOZ opens the toilet tank and reconnects the plunger to the valve.)

MUÑOZ: It is done.

NARRATOR: Join us after the break for more exciting unclogginds with “The Tank Whisperer!”

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April 8, 2017

From “Smurf ‘n’ Turf” by Murphy Stearnn

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“I’ll have the beef in blueberry sauce, please.”

“Ah yes, the Smurf ‘n’ Turf. One of our most popular menu items.”

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April 7, 2017

From “All About Squibblins” by Bobb Stulls Aquilina

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Like the name suggests, squibblins favor dank environments as they subsist almost entirely on a diet of mushrooms. Squibblins shy away from direct sunlight, direct heat, and direct confrontations, preferring instead to wheedle with vaguely subservient coos.

A typical squibblin colony will consist of 50-100 workers, 8-10 drones, 3 queens, and a SquibberLord. Despite these ranks, they are all virtually the same size and attain their positions entirely through ingratiating themselves with other squibblins or with more powerful clients. Records exist of a squibblin colony ruled for a squibblin generation (approximately 2 years) thanks to a rather scary picture of a dog.

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April 6, 2017

From “4-3-2017” by April S. Tertius

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When the date appeared in chalk around town, it was an oddity.

When it became spray paint, it was a nuisance.

When lovingly crafted hand-fired tiles with the date were found plastered on everything from streets to building walls, it was a sensation.

Eventually, police apprehended the person responsible as he was gluing a tile to Circlebooks. The perp was John William Smith, age 44, who lived alone with his ailing mother and had a history of making bizarre phone calls to local radio shows and universities.

Smith claimed that the graffiti was “a notice” of an imminent and important event. Through research at the local university library, communing with crystals, and interpreting radio waves emanating from Jupiter, he had realized that at 12:00:00 Greenwich Mean Time on 4-3-2017, the world would cleave into two alternate timelines.

One of these timelines would lead, inevitably, to paradise. The other would lead, inevitably, to the destruction of the universe and damnation. Smith said that both process would be subtle, a matter of aeons, but inevitable. Those who were trapped in the latter were heirs to a doomed world.

After the date had passed, a small but fervent group began a discussion over which of the two branching paths they remained in: the one destined for paradise or the one destined for destruction. Smith himself, when consulted in the mental institution where he’d been remanded, refused to elaborate,

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April 5, 2017

From “Dealing with Harpsters” by the Specter Council of America

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The fact is, a lot of hipsters have been dying since they arose. Some from the usual mundane causes like car accidents or diseases, others from lifestyle choices like improperly sanitized organic food or allergic reactions to vinyl. Whatever the reason, you in the afterlife will still have to put up with their disembodied specters.

“Harpsters,” as they are called, are deceased hipsters that, for the same reasons that affect all us specters, have been unable to fully sever their connection to the mortal coil and proceed to the hereafter. Or to fade away into oblivion, as some nihilist spirits would have you believe. Harpsters tend to haunt craft breweries, independent restaurants with tables for less than ten people, tiny cramped concert venues, Whole Foods, and Broadway musical revivals.

Due to their disdain for haunting places laden with “chemicals,” the easiest way to avoid harpsters is to haunt an oil rig, service station, big-box store, fast-food restaurant, or the Republican National Convention.. Naturally, we understand that Functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation. If simply haunting somewhere else is not possible due to your geographical and temporal perimeters, here are some other ideas for avoiding harpsters:

-Prey on their insecurities. Specters appear wearing what they wore in life, so look for name-brand or made-in-China tags to point out.

-Discuss privilege. Your time as a specter means that you can accuse harpsters of failing to check their privilege. Whether it is true or not, it will make them extremely defensive.

-Note how mainstream your haunt is. Harpsters are forever chasing trends and will recoil from evidence that they are a poseur or a johnny-come-lately.

-Hire an exorcist or ghostbuster. Well-behaved spirits have been known to contract with such bio-exorcists, though you will need to know a physical asset or secret to be used for payment. Harpsters are extremely ostentatious and therefore very prone to exorcism or ghostbustery.

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April 3, 2017

From “An Alternate World Translation” by N. Althea Worbledon

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Now, the second thing you’re going to have to realize is that I’ll be translating some terms for you. Like there’s going to be feet and inches and yards even though, in the branching alternate world I came from, they’re not called that. It’s just to help you understand.

If I were to use the real words, it would sound ridiculous and yank you right out of my story. We had a measurement that was roughly a yard but we called it an abre, and it was divided into 36 yots. It was named after the old King Abre of Jutia, who standardized all the weights and measures in the old kingdom, but it just means “knuckle.” I’m sure you can figure that one out too.

This gets complicated really quickly. We didn’t call King Abre “king,” we called him “Layx.” It doesn’t quite mean king, but it doesn’t translate well into English, and the concept is kind of weird in this alternate branching world. I guess the closest would be “elected-baron-over-other-barons-whose-son-gets-his-chair.”

Is it any wonder I’m trying to translate this a little for you? It’s tough enough to keep alternate worlds straight as it is.

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