You may have heard that the word “geek” was originally used to describe circus freaks who would entertain the crowd by biting the heads off of live fish (or some other bizarre feat).

While it’s true that circus freaks were referred to as “geeks” in the early 20th century, it’s not true that this is the original usage of the term. The word actually dates back to 1515 when it appears, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in Barclay’s Egloges: “He is a foole, a sotte, and a geke also, which choseth the worst [way] and most of jeopardie.”

What’s interesting, however, is that the OED lists this citation under the word “geck”. The word is spelled as “gecke” in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and apparently that became the “accepted” spelling of the word by most authorities. (Although the OED also cites an 1876 glossary which defined a “gawk, geek, gowk, or gowky” as “a person uncultivated; a dupe” — so clearly the “geek” usage did not actually disappear.)

Shakespearean authority for a word can be weighty, but Twelfth Night isn’t the only place Shakespeare used the word. It also appears in Cymbeline, and there he spells it “geeke”:

Why did you suffer Iachimo, slight thing of Italy,
To taint his nobler hart & brain with needless jealousy
And to become the geeke and scorne o’th’others vilany?

So if the earliest known occurrence of the word is spelled “geke”, why does the OED list “geck” as the original form of the word? I don’t know. But what I find truly odd is that virtually all modern editions of Cymbeline emend the text to read “geck” instead of “geek”.

The ASR script, of course, doesn’t do that. So come see Cymbeline tonight, where we’ll proudly be wearing our geekery on our sleeves.

Originally posted on October 26th, 2010.

Tagline: A really great card game, although with fewer twists than we’ve come to expect from Master Garfield.

THE CONCEPT

“’One day I will ride a horse like that,’ said the child to the woman as they watched the noble procession. ‘Yes dearie.’ ‘And I will have a palace, and lots of cake.’ ‘Maybe,’ she said, remembering the marble-lined halls of her youth. ‘But today let’s just to try to finish planting to the stream.’ The only place that peasant and princess change places faster than in a fairy tale is in The Great Dalmuti!”

Life isn’t fair… and neither is The Great Dalmuti!

According to the introduction of the little multi-lingual instruction pamphlet of The Great Dalmuti (English, Spanish, German, and French rules are all presented in one), Richard Garfield first encountered the rules for this game while attending graduate school. As he says: “I had never seen a game like it before; it rewarded the player in the lead and penalized the player who was falling behind. The game was played for no other purpose than to play. There was no winner or loser at the end; there was only the longest-lasting ‘Dalmuti’, and the ‘peon’, the player most talented at grovelling.”

THE RULES

There are twelve ranks of cards. The ranks symbolize various levels in a fantasy society – with the Great Dalmuti at Rank 1; the Baronesses at Rank 4; Peasants at Rank 12; etc. The rank also doubles as the card’s effectiveness (with lower numbers being more effective) and as the number of cards of that type in the deck (thus there is one Great Dalmuti in the deck, four Baronesses, twelve Peasants, and so on ). There are also two Jesters, who are assigned Rank 13 – but can also act as wild cards when played in conjunction with other cards.

At the beginning of the game everyone draws a random card, which assigns their rank: The player with the highest card is the Great Dalmuti; the second highest becomes the Lesser Dalmuti; the lowest becomes the Greater Peon; and the second lowest becomes the Lesser Peon. Everyone in between becomes a Merchant (of varying ranks depending on where their cards fell).

Here’s the really cute part of the game: You have to change the seating arrangment according to your rank. The Great Dalmuti can stay where he is, but everyone else needs to array themselves out to his right, until you finally return to the Greater Peon to the Great Dalmuti’s left.

All the cards are dealt at this point (by the Greater Peon) and the goal is simple: Get rid of all your cards. Before play begins, though, is a stage of taxation – in which the Greater Peon gives his best two cards to the Greater Dalmuti in exchange for two of his cards (which the Dalmuti selects), and the Lesser Peon gives one of his cards to the Lesser Dalmuti in exchange for one of his cards.

The Greater Dalmuti then leads the first round by playing one or more cards of the same rank. Play proceeds to his right (through the Lesser Dalmuti to the Greater Peon) with each player being able to play either more cards of the same rank which was last played, or a set of cards in a higher rank. The round proceeds until no one can (or will – you’re not forced to play just because you can), and then whoever played last wins the round and leads the next.

The first player to run out of cards becomes the Great Dalmuti in the next round; the second player out becomes the Lesser Dalmuti; and so on until you reach the last player (who becomes the Greater Peon).

There are some other flairs (for example the ability to call a Revolution and an optional scoring system), but that’s the gist of the game.

SUMMARY

You may be asking yourself why you should buy this game. After all, I’ve told you almost all the rules; Garfield didn’t invent it; and you can play it with a regular deck of cards.

Well, quite frankly, because the deck of cards which is being furnished to you is really great – and cheaper than buying the several decks of cards which you would need to in order to assemble the specialized deck needed to play.

Win-win.

Which, of course, leads to the obvious question: Is the game worth playing?

Absolutely. The bigger the group, the more fun it is. It’s open-ended, while remaining competitive, and the interactions (both socially and strategically) which the dynamics of the rules lead to are really entertaining.

Garfield says one thing in the instruction manual that really captures, I think, why he has had such incredible success in designing (and, in this case, presenting) card games that capture the minds and hearts of their players: “If you’ve enjoyed The Great Dalmuti and don’t usually play regular card games, give them a try. For me there are more hours of amusement in a single deck of cards than in all the world’s movies combined. And I love the movies.”

Amen.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Author: Richard Garfield
Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $7.95
Page Count: n/a
ISBN: 1-880992-57-4

Originally Posted: 2000/03/12

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

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.)