worlorn vocabulary - glossary 991206

worlorn glossary
you said what!?!?

vocabulary

concordance: An alphabetical index of all the words in a text or corpus of texts, showing every contextual occurrence of a word: for example, a concordance of Shakespeare’s works.

Not bloody likely. How about a glossary?

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

aquaestor - lit: created by the imagination and sustained by concentration of thought (from Gene Wolfe’s Shadow of the Torturer series). in common use: the non-name level dreamer. colloq: any inspired creature without a true name.

Billykins World - this is the in-game name for a defunct D&D world run by a genius named William Dawkins Sr., also known as Standing Bear. The planes of Knock, Compass Mountain, and Llabyrinth are campaigns within Billykins World. relevant because some Worlorn characters came from Billykins World.

bonze - monk character class.

brown sheet - a special character sheet earned in Hissarlik dungeon. represents a status where the character personality is so well-defined that the character sheet is effectively laminated, all abilities locked in place, immutable, regardless of future adventures. for characters who no longer interested in gaining experience points. may be given up at any time, but the decision is available only to the character on the sheet.

carded magic items - in the Cycle of Dreams certain PCs appeared to obtain magic items that were not granted on adventures with mark-DM. soon aferwards, all magic items were represented on 3x5 index cards from mark-DM’s wierd Commodore-64 dot matrix printer. possession is 10-10ths of the law for carded items. if you leave one behind and another player finds it, tough.

in the Cycle of Dance, only Dreamers require cards

the Hissarlik dungeon remains the only place carded magic items can be consistently acquired on adventures.

character dice - in the Cycle of Dreams, when a character acts consistently within a known personality, and the player has a set of dice that are associated only with that personality, the character is sometimes granted the ability to set those character dice instead of rolling them randomly. consistent personalities are rewarded by not being inconvenienced by random events.

in the Cycle of Dance, Almitra Almustafa and Tanngrisnir rescinded all character dice from the Cycle of Dreams.

circumstances - Billykins equivalent to “tough.” see below.

Compact - the portion of the rules (re)writable by in-game characters. Each Cycle of Worlorn has a different book; Comedy has the Rules of the Game; History has the Ardouin Grimoire (a commercial gaming system), Dreams has the Book of Ells (L’s or laws, for those of you who care), and the Cycle of Dance has the Book of the New Day. Astronomy’s book is lost.

Courts of Chaos - this is the in-game name for a probably still-thriving D&D world run by a gentleman named Phillip Partridge. relevant because some Worlorn characters came from the Courts of Chaos.

coven - druid who has been properly initiated into an official Worlorn druid group. also: a group acknowledged by the Great Druid, led by seven female and seven male name-level druids.

Crossing-in-the-Mist - in-game name for an adventure or time period where PCs are active (from Ursula LeGuin’s Lathe of Heaven). presumes Worlorn magic exists that can detect whether iahklu are active or not. more than one Crossing-in-the-Mist can happen during one game session, but rarely does one Crossing-in-the-Mist occur over more than one gaming session.

d-state - in-game name for a PC Crossing-in-the-Mist requiring dice. presumes Worlorn magic exists that can detect whether iahklu activity is fulfilling probabilities. see also s-state.

dance - in the Cycle of Dance the muse Terpsichore granted experience points in the gaming system of TSR Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons and ICE RoleMaster. this unprecedented duality is one of the mysteries for characters to explore within the game. theoretically all us sentient dragons are dancing up stories in a cave somewhere, and our powerful dances generate our characters to live out the dance-stories as their reality.

dm also dungeon master- the player who controls the NPCs and develops the story (me). a handful of PCs have powers that allow them to be called “Assistant Dungeon Masters,” but this is inaccurate. technically a character within the game can be only an assistant games authority.

dreams - in the Cycle of Dreams the muse Klinure granted experience points in the gaming system of TSR First Edition Dungeons and Dragons. theoretically all us sentient dragons are dreaming in a cave somewhere, and the powerful dreams generate our characters to live out the dream-stories as their reality.
dream knowledge - the DM encourages players with multiple characters to share information between them. i always hated having to ask myself, "was Troy on that adventure or Remo or Xcalis? who was it that already knows that this NPC is a con man setting a trap?"

er’ per-henne - lit: reinforcement (from Ursula LeGuin’s Lathe of Heaven). in common useage, non-player character (NPC). pronunciation: “air per annum.”

franectireur - lit: freelance. usually indicates a person attempting to be a free agent in a profession that requires union or guild membership.

game force - a thing, or event, or power that is controllable by characters within the game. a game force may be magic or natural, and it may not be intutively obvious that something is a game force. it is common legend that everything within the game is possible to affect with the proper iahklu. there are some game forces that no er-per’henne may master.

Game of Blood and Dust - a semi mythical in-game force that accounts for players who want to run PCs from a gaming system other than the current campaign. (from the short story of the same name by Roger Zelazny.) agents of Blood support the current system and agents of Dust support any other system.

games authority - a personality within the game, usually NPC, who has the ability to (re)write the rules. historically this personality gains the power through the use of a magic item such as the Maker of Rules, the Jewel of Judgement, or the compact.

history - in the Cycle of History the muse Clio granted experience points in the gaming system of Fantasy Trip, a late 1970s precursor to Steve Jackson’s GURPs system.

iahklu - lit: candidate (from Ursula LeGuin’s Lathe of Heaven). common usage: player character. one who shapes the world with his dreams.

inspiration - experience points. only creatures inspired by a muse can gain experience points in Worlorn.

Lemuria - this is the in-game name for a D&D world run by a gentleman named Tim Hyatt. relevant because some Worlorn characters came from Lemuria.

Maleficent - the NPC of sentient Tloluvin. an Assistant Games Authority in charge of Hissarlik when Daver’s Assistant DM character is not available. to say the name “Maleficent” while Crossing-in-the-Mist is the Second Worst Thing You Can Do. from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. for sure watch out what you say when mark-DM is wearing his Maleficent lapel pin.

mark-dm - me. mark, your dungeon master. the term mark-dm is used by me to indicate that a player is confirming rules, and your PC is not receiving information from a potentially-opinionated NPC. Who are you asking? is my most common indication that your question is not a rule clarification, but rather a mystery for your PC to resolve in play.

name level - the level in first edition D&D where the level title no longer changes with each level earned. a character who reaches name level is guaranteed to have a True Name.

nightmare - lit: bad dream. this is a character run by a sentient who is not the original creator of that character. for example, an evil er-per’henne made an artifact called The Maker of Nightmares, which makes a photocopy of a PC character sheet to be run as a NPC. while nightmares are similar to clones, nightmares are usually worse. they don’t want to kill you, they want to do what you do better than your PC. common jokes about nightmares include "I can run your character better than you can."

however, nightmares are not evil. Justin and Damon Maker are examples of good PCs who are nightmares of good aligned PCs Justin and Champion Eternal, characters willingly retired by Sentient Brian D. Blacksword is a kindhearted PC nightmare of the NPC Llewellyn. There are rumors of a NPC nightmare of the good-aligned PC Silverfox out there, but it’s probably catatonic with self-loathing (sorry Chris ;-).

No Matter What - what mark-DM says when he sees no possibility of failure. this is the opposite of Not Bloody Likely.

nostoi - lit: one who has returned (Greek?). a character who has earned a brown sheet in the Hissarlik dungeon.

Not Bloody Likely - what mark-DM says when he sees no possibility of an occurrence, but no game force has made it guaranteed entirely impossible. this is the opposite of No Matter What.

original character - the first character you generate within Worlorn is special. keep it alive and this PC will go far.

Pattern, the - a game force that demands its magic prevail within all locations it can reach (from Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber series). a real stinker for rules and order. rumored to be a Trojan artifact.

many artifacts write and change the rules. the Trojan Pattern is what carries those rules to all corners of the known universe. if you find a place where the Order of the Pattern does not extend, then you have found a rare and useful place. See also turf.

personality - this is the individuality of a character. some personalities change bodies and minds and incarnations, so only the personality is consistent. the DM generally dislikes situations/scenarios where the player is forced to change the PC personality, such as helms of opposite alignment. however, when you eventually find scenarios where your character must state an alignment, you better know exactly what your character is committing to.

place of power - a fixed location, one mile in radius per level, where a character earns the right to set down dice and otherwise treat all within the radius as within range of all of that character’s earned game abilities. the character is not able to write the rules within the pop radius; rather instead, within the pop radius, the character is able to do perfectly what that character can already do. a place of power is gained through a mystery of the game. see also turf.

s-state - in-game name for a PC Crossing-in-the-Mist requiring speech only, no dice. presumes Worlorn magic exists that can detect whether iahklu activity is fulfilling probabilities. see also d-state.

sentient - this is the player (you!) as a game force behind a character. there are ways the player can impact the character, and vice versa. there are twenty NPC sentients run by mark-DM, each of whom share dreams between their characters just as you players with multiple characters are encouraged to share dream knowledge between your characters. One notable game force that affects sentients is the nightmare.

shearjashub - lit: a remnant has returned (Hebrew?). traditionally this is the character who comes back from the Dung Pits after dying in one’s own place of power. commonplace usage includes any character who claims without proof to be a dead character returned.

smurf - a character with all D&D statistics at 18. any character in Worlorn with all statistics at 18 becomes a small blue creature with no game actions. going over 18s is not dangerous; D&D rules account for that in many places. all stats being exactly at 18 is just silly, and therefore treated likewise.

swefen - lit: significant dream (old English). Name-level character, or non-name level character with a true name. Someone who is important enough to have existence in all shadows and all planes.

Tloluvin - a NPC sentient that was perfectly imprisoned but recently released on a player character adventure into the Cycle of Dance. Time Was, Tloluvin had been incapacitated and was not able to accompany adventures. too bad that time ain’t now.

Tloluvin represents the malice a non-neutral DM can inflict on his own campaign. unlike most sentients, the “Demonlord” Tloluvin is free sentient and able to listen to all player character adventures, and therefore all his NPCs can act on knowledge gained during your adventure.

one of Sentient Tloluvin’s characters was responsible for the artifact Maker of Nightmares, created because no free sentient can roll up any characters unless they are under the Isle of Sleep with all the other sentients. also known as Sathonys Lato or the big S.L., a name after his only two legally-generated NPCs.

to say the name “Tloluvin” while Crossing-in-the-Mist is the Worst Thing You Can Do.

whenever you ever see a NPC nightmare of an iahklu, Sentient Tloluvin is playing that character. no NPC sentient will run an nightmare, ever, NO MATTER WHAT.

tough - what mark-DM says when you are unaware of, don’t understand, or disagree with a Worlorn rule that prevents you from accomplishing what you want to do. it translates roughly to: “if you don’t like it, find out why it is so; maybe you can change circumstances, but you’re screwed in this place and this time.”

turf - from Billykins World. in the Cycle of Dreams turf meant a location where an outworld character had created a gateway back to his old D&D campaign. the turf was a foyer between campaigns with rules by the character and not completely by the DM of either world. only characters who had earned a place of godlike powers ever found turf-gateways, and then only after creating an undeniable resonance of similar power between both DM’s campaigns. see also place of power.

in the Cycle of Dance, any fool with a gold card can create Turf of near-absolute dominion.

turf is where a the Pattern allows a personality to write its own rules with no practical restrictions save one: only a Muse can give out experience points. any turfholder can make recommendations for experience awards to be ratified by a Muse, but the turfholder cannot give experience without taking it from a known and defined source.

uhian - the “race” a human becomes when one or more D&D statistic rises above 18. all humans who have one or more stat of 19 or higher are uhian, regardless of the birth race. uhian statistics are said to be possible because of faerie bloodlines. also known as ubermensch. (from Masters of Solitude by Parke Godwin and Marvin Kaye).

wathan - this is the essence of the character that carries inspiration. characters change bodies and minds and incarnations, but the wathan is the consistent essence, the soul, the immortal spirit, the ki of a character that earns experience points. from Ursula LeGuin’s Lathe of Heaven (i think). while your character may lose its soul, if your character gains experience points, it must have a wathan.

weirmoniken - lit: dark things from shadow (from Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber). outworld character, character generated in another DM’s D&D campaign.

Worlorn - the planet which most player character activity occurs. common usage has Worlorn as mark-dm’s D&D campaign, but technically Worlorn is one particular asteroid passing near a red giant star with six white dwarf satellites (from in George R.R. Martin’s Dying of the Light).

at a certain level of play, mark-dm’s campaign actually can be seen to include a few other parallel/peer locations, but for most purposes, Worlorn is my entire campaign. the phrase “Worlorn System” is used to specifically include the other areas of mark-dm’s campaign aside form the Worlorn asteroid proper. all turfs are congruent with Worlorn asteroid, although only sixteen are bound to the asteroid magically.

wu hsin - lit: empty heart (Chinese). the stone that forms when inspiration is consumed by a morganti weapon. rumored to be the feces of the morganti id.

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