Go to Part 1

LOCATION: THE MINDWARP ALEHOUSE

The Mindwarp Alehouse is kaleidoscopically eclectic: The bar is made of a deep crimson marble. Some of the tables are heavy affairs of oak, while others are rickety assemblages of pine (and at least one is actually made of balsa wood). The walls are plain wood, but inset with apparently random niches – some of which are concealed behind panels. A rope of teeth longer than a man’s hands hangs decoratively along one wall, and animal heads are mounted on another. In the corner a small platform serves as a stage for a belly-dancer and her musical accompaniment.

Those who listen to the tales of Klevator Bur, the owner, would lead you to believe that there is a legend behind every item in the bar. Those with a firmer grasp on reality will note that Bur must have spent fabulously little on his mismatched furnishings and knick-knack decorations.

Nonetheless, the atmosphere of the Mindwarp Alehouse is nothing if not distinct. And, to many, it’s highly appealing. This is largely due to the fact that the only source of illumination in the common room is a mammoth fireplace of black marble, and this Bur keeps stocked with flammable, alchemical bricks, which cause the fireplace to burn in an exotic rainbow of colors: Blues, reds, yellows, purples, oranges, and a plethora of colors in-between regularly wash over the shadowy interior of the Mindwarp.

The Mindwarp’s other claim to fame is Bur’s ale. The brew itself is a cheap swill, but Bur mixes it with exotic drugs and herbs – lending his various ales both a unique flavor and a wide variety of debilitating (and enjoyable) effects. Combined with the lightshow created by the fireplace, the effect can be quite powerful.

CHARACTER: KLEVATOR BUR

Klevator Bur loves the role of the barkeep, a part for which it seems he was born: He is a man of girth and a grin, with expansive gestures which emphasize his every word. Those who frequent the Mindwarp will tell you that he can smoothly fill three mugs with ale at once, and have each movement punctuate whatever tale he may be telling at the time.

Indeed, Bur is infamous for his tall tales, which he tells at every opportunity (see sidebars for some examples). In fact, only one of the many tales he tells is true: The Legend of the Wishing Fountain (see sidebar).

He is endeared to his patrons, and is harsh to no man… save those who harm his person, his custom, or his beloved bar.

CHARACTER: DELLIRA LOVELOCKS

Dellira is the Mindwarp’s belly dancer: If you haven’t come for Klevator’s stories or the mind-numbing ale, then you’ve come to see Dellira dance.

Dellira is visually stunning: Deep blue eyes, an immaculate face, and soft, blond hair top a body of the type that men have been known to die for. No one is really sure how Bur convinced a girl like this to dance for him – which has led to a number of lewd theories – but the truth is that Bur took her in and protected her from those who were trying to take advantage of her on the streets. Dellira looks upon Bur as a savior and a father, and Bur looks on her as a daughter.

Which is not to say that Dellira has not had her share of flings with the Mindwarp’s patrons – but all of those (invariably brief) relationships have come from her initiative. Those who push in the other direction are rebuffed; and those who persist will feel Bur’s anger.

Price List: Ale

Story: Legend of the Wishing Founts

It is said that between the Upper and the Lower Catacombs of the hollow peak of Nimbus Tor, there lie the great Paragon Caverns. The dark recesses of those mammoth caves conceal many secrets, and among them are the Wishing Founts.

These miraculous, perpetual geysers spout water both cold and pure – at times, it is said, as high as a hundred feet into the nighted cavern. Powered by some unknown magic, it is said that those who sacrifice items of true worth to the giver will be granted a wish.

Story: Rivers of Fire

As Bur tells the tale, two years ago a group of wandering adventurers who had often frequented the Mindwarp stumbled through his back doors – battered and bleeding – scant moments after he had locked the front. He offered them solstice, and as they mended their wounds they told a harrowing tale of a journey to the dungeons beneath the Cryptic Citadel. They told Bur that there were passages in that dark labyrinth that led even further into the earth, and that when they followed these they left all traces of the civilized world behind.

The greater part of this story changes with every telling. There, in the depths beneath the Cryptic Citadel, Bur has weaved tales both sublime and comical: Tribes of fungoid barbarians stalk his adventurers one night, while on others they wander through great works of ancient steel and magic. In another telling it is albino halflings who play crude tricks on them. In yet another they travel through strange blue gates to the corners of the world, or wander lost in those caverns until thirst and hunger drive them to near madness.

Oddly, however, two details in Bur’s story never waver: First, every telling has the adventurers leaving the Mindwarp near dawn to scale the walls and escape the city before some unnamed wrath of the Overlord. Second, as they go the adventurers drop dark hints of some deeper evil… and of “rivers of fire” which course and churn through those stygian depths beneath the city.

Story: The Gremlins of the Tower

A number of rumors and stories have accumulated around the abandoned tower in the southwest corner of the city wall (L8), but none are quite so ingenious or varied as Bur’s tales of the Gremlins of the Tower. These mischievous creatures, who make their home in the walls of the tower, play a variety of tricks and pranks on both those who venture in and near their home. Upon occasion, as Bur’s tales would have it, they have even been known to venture far afield from its walls to wreak havoc across the City State.

Rumor: Whitecloak the Druid

A few of the local mercenaries who frequent the Mindwarp on the sojourns through the City State have heard that a mysterious druid – known only as Whitecloak – is hiring men-at-arms for a two week contract at the Red Axe Inn.

Go to Part 3: Temple of the Gargoyle

I just wrapped up my current thoughts on using cities in RPGs, so let’s take a moment and go back in time by a decade or so. In May 2002, I sent Bob Bledsaw a query letter for writing an updated version of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. He sent me a polite, but somewhat vague, rejection. The reason for the vagueness became apparent a couple of months later when Necromancer Games announced their license to do exactly that thing. So I repackaged my proposal and shipped it over to Necromancer Games. I knew that was a longshot and wasn’t surprised when I got another polite rejection from Clark Peterson because they had their own plans for how to approach the material and a team already in place. I then filed it in a digital bin.

My goal was to be very faithful to the original, very minimalist key. But I also wanted to expand the material to make it more detailed and more useful. In order to demonstrate the approach I wanted to take, I adapted the entirety of Temple Street. (I would have supplied stat blocks for all the characters.) Perhaps you’ll find it of interest.

TEMPLE STREET

The broad cobbles of Temple Street were first laid down roughly five centuries ago as part of the broad, sweeping stone plaza which was set around the newly constructed Temple of the Flesh. Founded by a sect of Atlani cult worshippers, the Temple of the Flesh had been driven from their original site near the Square of the Gods by religious persecution. At the time the future site of Temple Street was an abandoned dirt track laying between the Wall and the South Road (which was, at the time, the southernmost boundary of the City State).

Over the course of the next three hundred years the Temple of the Flesh slowly waned, and as they did they were forced to give up more and more of their lands. Finally the Temple of the Flesh died out entirely, and the remnants of their once mighty stone plaza were refurnished into the modern Temple Street.

Despite the fact that it was abandoned, the former temple continued to dominate Temple Street. Various businesses and religions attempted to use the site, but mishaps and strange deaths seemed to plague anyone who came into possession of the property. A legend of a curse sprang up, and the property became totally dormant.

Then, roughly fifty years ago, it became apparent that the Temple had become occupied once again. Strange noises were heard emanating from the building, and shadowy figures were seen coming and going during the dark hours of the night. It is rumored that, although many brave souls entered the Temple to investigate, none ever returned.

Three years after this began, the Temple suddenly fell silent. Then, a few weeks later, a screed appeared on the Temple doors. Those who dared approach to read the parchment discovered that the long-deserted building had finally been claimed… by the Temple of the Gargoyle.

LOCATION: THE BLOODY FOAM

The Bloody Foam lies in the shadow of both the Temple and the Wall, drawing its primary custom from the militiamen of the 5^th Company (whose barracks lie just up the street) and the heartier variety of wanderers passing through the City State – the type of wanderers who look for their drinking holes in the backwaters of whatever community they happen to be passing through. The Foam is owned and operated by Hangharid Goldenhand, a former adventurer himself.

The Foam’s dark interior is decorated in black oak, and typically lit by only a handful of murky lanterns and the bright flames which are perpetually kept stoked in the Foam’s massive fireplace. The resulting atmosphere is often foreboding to the newcomer, but welcoming to the regulars.

Upstairs, in addition to the quarters kept by Hangharid and his barkeep, are a number of rooms which are rented out (usually to one adventuring party or another). A back room is devoted to various games of chance.

CHARACTER: HANGHARID GOLDENHAND

Hangharid was once a hired fighter who travelled up and down the coast in the service of many different masters. Those days came to an end, however, when he lost his right hand (stories of how this happened, exactly, vary greatly – see sidebar text). Taking the small stash of wealth he had accumulated over the years, Hangharid bought a golden facsimile to replace his missing appendage, and spent the rest on the Bloody Foam.

The Foam’s previous owner had allowed the establishment to decay precipitously, but Hangharid performed a serious renovation, and when the Bloody Foam opened again he offered free drinks for a week to the militiamen of the 5^th Company (whose barracks are only a block away, on Old South Road). By the time that week came to an end, Hangharid had earned himself a core of loyal customers who have come back, year after year.

Since opening the Bloody Foam, Hangharid has established himself as something of a community leader, and he seems to have a wide-ranging set of connections throughout the City State and beyond. Recently, regular patrons at the Foam have noticed that Hangharid has been visited regularly by strangers wearing finely embroidered green cloaks.

CHARACTER: COCKROACH BENGURD

Bengurd is the barkeep at the Bloody Foam. Rumor has it that he was once Hangharid’s torchbearer. Years later, when Hangharid heard that he had fallen down on his luck, he tracked him down and offered him a job. Bengurd gratefully accepted. Since then, Cockroach (apparently a nickname – but the only given name anyone seems to know him by) has become a fixture of the Bloody Foam.

CHARACTER: SEYLASHAHL

Seylashahl has been working at the Bloody Foam for a little over a year, and has quickly become the favorite barmaid of all the regulars – largely on the back of the amazing, and suggestively bawdy, juggling acts she works into her daily routines. Although she has strangely beautiful and alien features, no one is sure where she comes from.

Rumor: The Golden Hand

Hangharid never speaks of how he lost his hand, and this cavernous silence has been filled by a wide variety of tales, ranging from the mundane to the exotic. Some speak of a bet with a dark god which went awry; of torture at the hands of the Purple Claw; of strange traps buried beneath the surface of the earth. A few claim that the hand was lost in a drunken brawl. At the moment, however, the most popular tale tells of an audience with the Overlord and a secret mission to the catacombs beneath the city.

Perhaps the strangest rumors of all, though, are those that suggest that the hand itself has mystical powers – or is, in fact, a sentient creature in its own right. Although none claim to have ever seen any evidence of this, there are many who cast long and questioning stares at Hangharid’s golden fingers.

Rumor: Escape!

A group of militiamen who have just come off duty claim that a sabretooth tiger which escaped from the Overlord’s Zoo may be in the area. They warn that it is treason to harm a Zoo animal, but there may be a reward for anyone who can return the creature unharmed…

LOCATION: SEITERGUD’S SWORDS

Seitergud’s Swords is a small place, pretending to an opulence it does not possess: Pine has been painted to look like oak; faux-blue marble is inlaid upon the countertops. The proportions of the entire design are those of the dwarves – and although this makes the store somewhat uncomfortable to other customers, Seitergud seems to consider this a feature of sorts.

The store has earned a reputation within the underworld of the City State: Seitergud asks few questions, and his customers fewer.

CHARACTER: STEN SEITERGUD

Sten Seitergud was once a Royal Craftsman, in the service of Nordre Ironhelm, King of Thunderhold. Although a minor member of the royal guild, Seitergud labored faithfully for the better part of a century. Eighty years ago, however, he found himself on the wrong end of a political falling out within the royal court and was forced to flee for his life. He came to the City State, and quietly set up his own small business just within the city walls.

DWARVEN CRAFTSMEN

Over the years, Seitergud – still bitter over his own status as an outcast from his homeland – has served as a conduit for dwarves seeking to escape Thunderhold. Many of these political refugees only stay a few weeks before moving on, but some of those who have passed through his doors stay. At the moment four of his former kinsmen – Talen Mathalik, Yulthorn Wik, Veseb Dogin, and Baidan Suthok – serve as junior craftsmen in his shop.

Price List: Swords

Price List: Scabbards

Go to Part 2: Mindwarp Alehouse

I saw Blade II in the theaters with a large group of people. One of my enduring memories from that film is from the drive home, when a member of the group insisted on criticizing the film because its vampires failed to honor the rules of Vampire: The Masquerade. I thought it was bizarre that someone felt that one piece of speculative fiction should be bound by the rules of another.

I mention this because I’ve noticed that fiction featuring time travel seems to bring this behavior out in people who would otherwise find it ridiculous to, say, hold Short Circuit to the Three Laws of Robotics (or whatever). It seems that a lot of people have very firm ideas about how time travel is “supposed” to work and they’re very unhappy whenever a film violates those “rules”.

SPOILERS AHEAD

This is something I’ve mentioned previously while talking about the handling of causality in Looper. That made sense to me because the Looper’s version of time travel was so unorthodox and unique. But I was really kind of taken aback when Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar prompted similar outrage for its use of a pretty bog-standard bootstrap paradox.

For those unfamiliar with bootstrap paradoxes, they involve any situation where an event appears to cause itself. This most often occurs with information. For example, you send a message back in time to yourself and then, when the time comes, you know what message you have to send because you already received it. But… who wrote the original message?

It hurts your brain because you’ve spent your entire life living a temporally linear life, but it’s widely used in time travel stories. (In fact, sometimes it can seem as if it’s almost impossible to find a time travel story that doesn’t feature a bootstrap paradox.)

RESOLVING THE BOOTSTRAP

How can the 5-dimensional creatures in Interstellar create a wormhole that’s required for their own existence?

There are a couple of ways to resolve (or, perhaps, understand) bootstrap paradoxes and maybe relieve your headache.

First, assume that the linearity of time is an illusion. Interstellar talks about this in the form of time being a “canyon” that the 5-dimensional beings can climb into and out of: All of time exists simultaneously. This radically changes the concept of causality (possibly eliminating it entirely.) In this scenario the question, “How can they create a wormhole if they need the wormhole to create wormhole?” is like asking, “How can you drop a rock into the canyon if the rock will land at the bottom?”

Second, and perhaps slightly easier to grok, is the “hidden iterations” theory of establishing stable timelines with time travel. Take the scenario in Terminator, for example. We can imagine a first iteration of events in which causality proceeded normally: Sarah Connor had sex with some random dude from the 20th century and gave birth to a son who later led a rebellion. Then SkyNet tries to use time travel to kill her son, so her son sends Kyle Reese back in time. This creates a second iteration in which Sarah Connor has sex with Kyle Reese and gives birth to a different son who also grows up to lead a rebellion. The timeline is now a stable loop and no longer changes (until James Cameron gets a really cool idea for a sequel).

Similarly, one can imagine an “original” version of history where humanity’s space program never found a wormhole and decided to do something like colonize Mars instead: Most of the human race dies off, but our civilization survives and eventually evolves into the 5-dimensional beings. And then the 5-dimensional beings look back and say, “It still sucks that billions of people died on the planet of our birth. I think we can fix it, though.” And then they send the wormhole back through time and rewrite the history of their own creation (but this time without the mass extinction event).

Third, in the specific case of Interstellar, you can assume that there is no bootstrap paradox: Cooper is simply wrong about the 5-dimensional aliens being a future version of humanity. (One of the really great things about the film, actually, is that it features a lot of people being wrong about a lot of things…. or maybe being right about them, but in ways that the film is not interested in proving one way or the other.)

End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse is the first in a series of RPGs from Fantasy Flight Games, each featuring a different apocalyptic scenario: Zombies, Gods, Alien Invasion, Robot Revolt.

The primary conceit of End of the World is that you’re playing as yourself. The game’s default modus operandi is that you and your friends are sitting down to play an RPG when the apocalypse starts. At that point reality kind of bifurcates: The version of you playing the game stays at the table while the version of you in the game presumably leaves the table to go deal with the apocalypse.

If you’re an experienced gamer, the odds are pretty high that this concept immediately fills you with skepticism: There have been quite a few games that have tried the “play as yourself!” thing. It mostly doesn’t work very well, with the primary problem being people either painting themselves as paragons of virtue, becoming insulted when their fellow players dispute their self-assessments, or both.

End of the World, however, has a very clever method of steering around these problems.

Characters in the game are defined around three categories: Physical, Mental, and Social. Each category has two associated characteristics (Dexterity and Vitality in the Physical category, for example), features (either positive or negative) that affect task resolution, a stress track, and associated traumas.

Character creation basically consists of two steps: First, you get a pool of 16 points that you can use to model yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 in each of the six characteristics.

Second, the rest of the group secretly votes on each of your character’s categories: They can either agree with your assessment, vote that one of the characteristics should be higher, or vote that one of the characteristics should be lower.

The combination of the point buy system (which makes it clear that you’re just modeling a version of yourself, not trying to objectively measure some sort of fundamental truth) and the secret vote (which allows for anonymous tweaking while still giving you final control over exactly which characteristic in the category is adjusted) go a long way towards mitigating the common problems of playing yourself. But the clever twist is that the outcome of the vote also impacts your character’s positive and negative features: If the group decides one of your characteristics should be higher, then you gain a negative feature in that category. If they decide one of your characteristics should be lower, then you gain a positive feature in that category. This incentivizes you to be honest in your self-assessment and also rewards you if the group passes the harsh verdict that you’ve over-estimated your abilities. (It also lets you play the system a bit by, say, deliberately ranking yourself higher than you think you deserve in a category: Either you get a nice ego boost when people agree with you or you get the positive feature you were fishing for.)

The other nice thing about this system is that you can easily use it to create a character other than yourself. So the game pushes you in an interesting direction, but is flexible enough to really let you do whatever you want to with it.

Character creation is easily the game’s best feature.

SYSTEM

Task resolution in End of the World revolves around pools of positive and negative dice. (All the dice are six-sided.) You start with one positive die and you add additional dice for positive features, equipment, assistance, and situational benefits. Then you add negative dice based on the difficulty of the task, your negative features, the traumas you’re currently suffering from, and any situational hindrances.

Then you roll the pool. Each negative die result cancels out a matching positive die result. If you have any surviving positive dice that are equal to or less than the characteristic being tested, you succeed at the task. If you have any surviving negative dice, however, they inflict stress in the matching category.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to run away from a horde of zombies. You have Dexterity 3 and the positive feature of long-distance runner. You also have a twisted ankle from when you jumped out of a hayloft yesterday (that’s a trauma). The GM rules that the number of zombies involved in the pursuit makes escape more difficult, so he adds a negative die to the test. That gives you a pool of two positive dice (one base and one for long-distance runner) and two negative dice (one for your twisted ankle and one from the situation).

Let’s say you roll 3 and 2 on your positive dice. You also roll 5 and 2 on your negative dice. The negative 2 cancels out your positive 2, but you still have a positive 3 (which is equal to your Dexterity score) so you succeed. Because the negative 5 also survived, however, you suffer a point of stress even though you succeeded.

There are a couple of wrinkles to this: If you sustain a certain amount of stress, you suffer a trauma. The more stress you’re suffering from, on the other hand, the more difficult it is to sustain additional stress (as you become hardened to your circumstances). In combat, weapons will grant you additional dice and/or modify the amount of stress you inflict on a successful attack. Suffer enough stress in any category and you are either dead, insane, or catatonic.

But that’s basically it. Ultimately, this system is vapor-thin. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly robust and it doesn’t really have anything unique to say. (It does have a weak focus on the concept of stress and trauma, but it’s less of a spotlight and more of a 20-watt bulb.)

The couple of places where it does occasionally try to offer more than the most basic support are, unfortunately, kind of laughable. For example, there’s a table of “common gear” which consists of thirteen items featuring descriptions like, “Water Bottle: Storing and transporting water.” Thank god they included that table; I never could have figured out what a water bottle might be used for without it.

(I’m not cherry-picking there, either. They’re all like that. “Flashlight: Spotting things in the dark.”)

The system will get the job done, but it’s not really a selling point for the game. Which means, at the end of the day, that End of the World is going to live or die on its scenarios.

SCENARIOS

Unfortunately, the scenarios are the biggest disappointment in the game.

End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse includes five different versions of the zombie apocalypse: In one version the zombies are the result of a meteor. In another they’re the result of disease. In another they’re purely supernatural. And so forth. The game covers the gamut of possibilities.

Elsewhere in the book, the designers recognize (although not in quite so many words) that any apocalyptic tale basically breaks down into five parts:

• Discovery that the world is coming to an end.
• Acquiring weapons and the means to defend yourself from immediate threats.
• Gather food and medicine and the other supplies necessary for mid-term survival.
• Establish a safe house to provide stability and defense for long-term survival.
• Find long-term safety by figuring out what permanent survival looks like in the new world order.

Where the game truly flirts with genius is in realizing that the specific manifestation of this five act structure depends heavily on the circumstances the players find themselves in and the decisions that they choose to make. So rather than trying to pre-bake a particular package of events, the scenarios in End of the World feature flexible, generic locations.

For example, the first scenario includes a Farm. It describes some of the useful features of the Farm and how those features are likely to be tied into the five part structure of apocalyptic survival (although once again, unfortunately, not in so many words or with so clear an understanding). It lists a half dozen or so events and encounters that could occur on the Farm.

What makes this potentially brilliant is that the GM can take this richly developed generic material and instantly contextualize it in response to the players. If one of the players says, “We need to get out of the city! My Aunt Patty has a farm north of the cities.” Then the GM can flip to the Farm and immediately figure out what happens there. If the players are later driving cross-country when their car breaks down and the GM says, “You can see a little farmhouse off on the horizon.” Alternatively, if the players decided to go to the Mall to gather supplies, then the GM can readily reach for a different location while contextualizing it to whatever local mall the players are familiar with.

I say this is potentially brilliant, however, because End of the World face-plants pretty hard on the actual execution.

The first problem is that it’s not clear that the designers fully understand the potential of the structure they’ve adopted. This leads to a lot of the material shying away from strong choices and instead coming across as mushy and less useful than it could be.

The bigger problem, however, is that there simply isn’t enough material. The first scenario, for example, contains just six locations (and one of them isn’t actually a location): Farm, Horde of Ghoul Rats, House, Mall, Hospital, and Sewers.

What End of the World needed was for each scenario to be fully developed so that, no matter where your players decide to head in your local community or surrounding countryside, you’d be able to flip open the book and find material for it. Instead, the material presented is so thin on the ground that I’m not really sure what the point of it is.

Where the approach becomes particularly ridiculous are the post-apocalyptic scenarios. End of the World also features five scenarios describing what the world is like after the apocalypse (with each of these being paired to one of the apocalypses). But these post-apocalypse scenarios only include three of the generic locations.

You can kinda get away with pointlessly describing six locations in the modern world because, well, it’s the modern world: We presumably already know our own communities. But these post-apocalyptic settings completely transform reality as we know it and then the designers pretend that giving you three unconnected locations qualifies as meaningful guidance for running a scenario there.

CONCLUSION

End of the World features a character creation system with a couple of clever ideas. It features a rule system that gets the job done.

But where it falls apart are the scenarios: In the decision to cover five apocalypses and five post-apocalypses (or possibly in the decision to limit the book to 144 pages), it’s really clear that End of the World has simply spread itself too thin to do any of its scenarios justice.

What makes this bitterly disappointing is that if any one of these scenarios had gotten the attention and the depth of support that it deserved, it would have almost certainly pushed End of the World into being a brilliant game.

Instead, it’s just kind of pointless.

Because the scenarios aren’t developed, they all boil down to, “There are zombies and they wreck shit.” If you’ve ever watched a single zombie movie, you’re not going to gain a single piece of useful information from this book. Meanwhile, the rule system is so simplistic that it, too, isn’t really adding anything to the experience.

What you have, basically, is a book that doesn’t actually do anything. There’s no value being added. Once you’ve read the title, you basically have everything the game is going to offer you.

Skip it.

Style: 4
Substance: 2

Author: Andrew Fischer
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Cost: $39.95
Page Count: 144
ISBN: 978-1-63344-055-5

The First Folio of 1623 is our only original source for Cymbeline, and so naturally the ASR script for the play is based upon it.

CYMBELINE – FULL SCRIPT

CYMBELINE – CONFLATED SCRIPT

In working with the script, it quickly became apparent that a heavier hand than usual would need to be employed with emending the punctuation of the text: At some point there was either a scribe or a typesetter who was passionately enamored with commas, and Cymbeline became dedicated to their love. In addition to a wide practice of what can only be described as random commatization, one can be ensured upon finding an “and” or a “but” in the original text that a comma will be strategically inserted immediately before it (even if it renders the sentence into utter nonsense).

This love affair with the comma is strewn everywhere, and their use is so frequently contrary to any sense that even when they can be hammered into some semblance of sense, I feel there is good cause to doubt them.

NOT-SO-LOOSE VERSE

Another aspect of the Cymbeline text to note is the ease with which a great quantity of seemingly irregular verse in the play can be trivially regularized. For example, the text beginning on page 2 reads, in the original Folio text:

By her election may be truly read, what kind of man he is.
2 I honor him, euen out of your report.
But pray you tell me, is she sole childe to’th’King?
1 His onely childe:

Which virtually all modern editions (including the ASR script), regularize to:

By her election may be truly read
What kind of man he is.

2 GENTLEMAN I honor him
Even out of your report. But pray you tell me,
Is she sole child to the king?

1 GENTLEMAN His only child:

But there are longer passages as well. For example, his passage from Act 3, Scene 7 (pg. 41):

In our script you can read the corrected scansion as:

IMOGEN To Milford-Haven.

BELARIUS What’s your name?

IMOGEN Fidele, sir:
I have a kinsman who is bound for Italy;
He embark’d at Milford, to whom being going,
Almost spent with hunger, I am fall’n in this offense.

BELARIUS Prithee (fair youth) think us no churls,
Nor measure our good minds by this rude place
We live in. Well encounter’d, ’tis almost night;
You shall have better cheer ere you depart,
And thanks to stay and eat it: Boys, bid him welcome.

GUIDERIUS Were you a woman, youth, I should woo hard,
But be your groom in honesty: I bid for you,
As I do buy.

ARVIRAGUS I’ll [make it] my comfort,

Most modern editions will leave the first line as “To Milford Haven. / What’s your name?” (which is short at just 8 syllables). This also leaves the next line (“Fidele, sir, I have a kinsman who”) short at 9 syllables. These editions will attempt to correct the further error at the end of this passage (which in the Folio reads long at 13 syllables as: “I bid for you, as I do buy.” / “I’ll make’t my comfort”) by emending “I bid for you, as I do buy” to read “Aye, bid for you as I’d buy”.

But if we identify the colon after “Fidele Sir:” in the Folio as the indication of a line break, the rest of the passage quickly falls into remarkably regular verse.

TEXTUAL PRACTICES

Source Text: First Folio (1623)

1. Original emendations in [square brackets].
2. Speech headings silently regularized.
3. Names which appear in ALL CAPITALS in stage directions have also been regularized.
4. Spelling has been modernized.
5. Punctuations has been silently emended (in minimalist fashion).

SCENE NUMBERS: Modern tradition has conflated several of the Folio’s shorter scenes into longer scenes, frequently altering the dramatic structure of the play to achieve this. This script adheres to the original Folio scene breaks, which means that its scene numbers will not always correspond to modern texts.

Special thanks to Emma J. Mayer who worked with me in editing this text. Emma has recently moved away from the Twin Cities and her work on the project will be sorely missed.

Originally posted on October 25th, 2010.