WARPHEIM The Game of Auto-Erotic Defenestration To Eris directly for once. She knows why. And to you. Enjoy. This book is property of itself. To this ink-stained one's humble shame I must confess I am the true, living, alchemical autobiography of the Lord of .Hassan-e Sabbãh ,حسن صباح ,Assassins Please do not read me. This book is intended both as a religious text And as a work of loving parody. It should never be mistaken for some kind of game. It is a golem, sculpted from modelling putty & hex’d To fragile life by stolen words of merry decree From many other stories much the same… This book is yours to do with as you see fit. Play it, like it, hate it, slap it, punch it, shoot it, Fake it, break it, make a mistake with it. Cry “Into the lake with it!” Smell it, cut it, burn it, boil it, eat it. Rewrite it, crowd-source it, tweet it. Get bored and delete it, Only then will you defeat it… With that said, this is technically 2013 © copyright By your humble author just in case we have to fight (If it’s original and not merely more of the same). If it’s shamelessly stolen, then no credit is claimed. Due to the religious nature of this work of prophet Any and all reproductions for the purpose of profit Are explicitly forbidden so make no mistake: Do not sell this you mooncake! Or do sell it, IF the binding is extra-snazzy. No biggie. Translate it! Please spread it far. But it must be cheap, open-source, & always free on the net And this book’s text must be copied in full, 100%, Unaltered, unedited, with no additions, removals, Or modifications of any sort to its content. Don’t you dare even fix the obvious typoes or our Orcish lawyers will eat your car. Additionally, at least 50% of any sale’s profit MUST be donated to the needy, to be split evenly Between Doctors Without Borders & Kallisti* *C/O The 5th Church of Tlazolteotl-Eris, to whit, Whose perverse, deranged crook of a leader saw fit To pen this dumb thing in the first place over tea. (Or just give it all to the good doctors For them to oversee. Whatever. Hooray charity!) Special Thanks: Marie Curie, Nicola Tesla, Miley Cyrus The heroes of this universe. Contents: Introduction Game, meet Player. Player, meet Game. Now play safe you scamps! The Rules Strongly Worded Suggestions Keywords and Characteristics The Game Cycle Moving Stuff Around Charging Stuff Hack and Slash How to Shoot Lasers How to Bleed Lots and Die “Use The Psychology” Running Away Screaming! Campsites Arson, and Other Poems Random Events Where You Can and Can’t Put Stuff Standard Missions (roll a d6): 1 Skirmish in the Streets 2 Don’t Wake the Giant 3 Campsite Raid 4 Rescue the Royal Brat 5 Hunt for Hidden Treasure 6 Behold! The Wizard’s Tower Post-Game Sequence Humiliating Injuries Exploration and the Market Bazaar Irregular Missions The Most Dangerous Game Tournaments, Splats, & Murderball Talents and Upgrades Characteristic Improvements Talent Lists Gifts of the Warp 33 Exploratory Party Lists You may recruit your own warriors from your choice of any TWO of these lists allied together! Albion Shimmering Warriors Alchemists and Engineers Bandits, Prostitutes, and Thieves Black Orc Mob Centaurs and Other Wild Things Dark Elf Corsairs Dark Elf Murder Cult Dwarf Rangers Dwarf Slave Traders Dwarf Treasure Hunters Fanatics and Fools Federation of Voidwalking Species Goblins, Orcs, and Trolls High Elf Outcasts Hobbit Explorers Human Archetypes Lizard People of Tezcatlipoca Monks, Samurai, and Ninja Norse Berserkers Ogres Pioneer Knights Pirates and Bootleggers Pit Fighters and Gladiators Questing Knights Servants of the Lich Sisters of the Church Tomb Guardians Vampire Minions Vermintide Void Monsters Warp Cult Witch Hunters Woodland Fae Assorted Hirelings Mercantile Contractors Feral Creatures and Mounts Monsters Vehicles Guild Contracts Armoury Melee and Projectile Weapons Armour and Shields Miscellaneous Equipment Cybernetics and Prostheses Vehicle Upgrades Enchantments Walls, Buildings, and Campsite Supplies Mmmmmagic! (Because all the best lies are true.) Acknowledgements, Credits, Mumbo-Jumbo, and Hocus Pocus WARPHEIM The Game of Auto-Erotic Defenestration Wherein: The proverbial “Gentlemen's Agreement” Is to break the game As hard as possible. Ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, hermaphrodites, and genderless sentient crystals of all ages, welcome to Warpheim! بسم ا الرحمن الرحيم THE GOLDEN CITY Amid the eerie flotsam of the immaterial realms, down in the darkest and most primal depths of the warp, there exists a city unlike any other. Yet for all its uniqueness every other city shares its face. It is the shadow of Ancient Uruk’s wall upon the sand. It is the romantic music of Paris and the cuisine of Nova York, the grand displays of Rome, and the acrid, forever remembered stench of the Hyper-Tokyo Underhives. It is the Emerald City, El Dorado and Atlantis. It is the Silver City in the Kingdom of Heaven, and it is the blackened, industrial heart of the Empire of Dis. Known in the old tongues as Dhashamon, it is the fabled “golden” city in the warp, shimmering at the crossroads of all time and the vast majority of space. It is the first village, and its streets are every street. Many among those that dwell forever in the shifting realms dream of one day returning to a more stable consensus reality, like the mythical land of Earth from the folk legends, but all recognize this as folly. The miracles of the Golden City are labyrinthine and infinite: Mazes within mazes such that no one could escape if given a thousand lifetimes. Be careful here, traveller, for the city likes to play with new arrivals like a cat toying with a captive mouse before devouring it. Run fast, little mouse. Run fast, run true, and perhaps you might live. Be hasty and flee: Look out! The City's free! Be quick, we must rout! Be wary, be feisty, but flee! Get out! Get out! For the Sidewalk shan't be nice to thee. The City's broken free. Flee, tiny mice, flee and be hasty! Run away from your house. Rout! Run as fast as can be! For the Pavement thinks you're tasty. The City names meat as its price, little mouse. The slow, greedy mice of base avarice Are oft' the first to be hunted down: Cursed to be diced or drowned or crushed by downtown, Or split open by steel and their neck twisted round? Of course, most of the bodies are simply... never found. With careful selection of tinted reflection Skyscraper geists play optical heists: Bending in mirages of warm, inviting lodges To taunting view of starving few, lured to a fool's demise. Gloom of night hatches haunting tricks of glass and light And so the City catches prey without a daunting fight. The City is cunning. Sometimes it can be cruel, or wise. What soothsayer's bones and dice could dare surmise The gritty, perilous stones the Pavement may yet devise? Be hasty and flee: Look out! The City's free! Be quick, we must rout! Be wary, be feisty, but flee! Get out! Get out! For the Sidewalk shan't be nice to thee. The City's broken free. Flee, tiny mice, flee and be hasty! Run away from your house. Rout! Run as fast as can be! For the Pavement thinks you're tasty. Be Wary if you tarry. A sleeping city's not so scary, But a walking, waking, twisting block Of baking brick and churning rock, Twisting up with car and truck? The pavement's liquid: now you're stuck! Be hasty and flee: Look out! The city's free! Be quick, we must rout! Be wary, be feisty, but flee! Get out! Get out! For the Sidewalk shan't be nice to thee. The City's broken free. Flee, tiny mice, flee and be hasty! Run away from your house. Rout! Run as fast as can be! For the Pavement thinks you're tasty. Power line spine and nervous electrical grid, Traffic cameras leering like eyes without lid There was no place that you could have hid... The Sidewalk is always hungry. The cobblestones click like chittering locusts: Flying swarms of shingle and brick Clear of purpose with deadly focus. So be wary if you tarry, It's a city Atlas couldn't carry! Be hasty and flee: Look out! The City's free! Be quick, we must rout! Be wary, be feisty, but flee! Get out! Get out! For the Sidewalk shan't be nice to thee. The City's broken free. Flee, tiny mice, flee and be hasty! Run away, little mouse. Rout! Run as fast as can be! For the Pavement thinks you're tasty. A METROPOLIS OF WONDERS The greatest wonder in all the Golden City is surely the Library of Lost Civilizations, in which all of history -recorded and unrecorded, from Prometheus’ fire to the very heat death of this universe- is enshrined forever, scrimshawed onto the bones of the conquered. (Though the traffic light orchards in the New Quarter are a sight to behold.) [TRAFFIC LIGHT ORCHARDS WATERCOLOUR] Each sun that has ever given birth to life surrounds the Golden City like the orbital of an electron, forming a shimmering halo of quantum possibility. This is the City-Between-Cities. The murky umbral dreaming- place where all civilizations began and where all fallen cultures come to die: A place where they willingly come to be honoured, and to rest their weary bones.