This is based on a couple of items I encountered a while ago in another
conference (The Irish Rose Inn and the Snow Dragon Inn on the GAMES
confer of the UM system) which I thought were really cool.

It's basically role-playing without a GM; you create a character, of
any level of power from less-than-mortal-normal to godlike, and they
interact with the other characters created by other people.  You can
attempt to perform any action you think your character can or would
like to try to do; the results are determined by the characters it
might affect; for example, if you throw a punch, the other person
might say they ducked aside in time, or they might take it on the
chin.  The point is role-playing rather than "Winning", because you
can't really win.  The fun is in the interaction.

As to how your character gets to this place . . . well, such Inns as
the Silver Thistle lie at the intersections of many worlds.  Think of
the World's End Inn from The Sandman if you've never been on the
GAMES confer.

Characters of all types, fantasy, sci-fi, superhero, horror, and other
are all accepted.  Your only limit is your imagination and your
sense of fun.  FIghting is frowned upon, but probably no one's going
to stop you if you try.

Welcome to the Silver Thistle.

95 responses total.

This response has been erased.

  Kyra the bartender cleans a glass behind the bar in the comfortable,
wood paneled Inn.  Outside, the snow howls in the empty wilderness which
surrounds the Silver Thistle.  Kyra is a pretty woman, about five foot
four, with dark, mid-shoulder length hair, and no face.  There is only
smooth skin where her face would normally be.

  She adjusts the dartboard and wonders when her first customers of the
day will come in.  She wonders if, as usual, they will have become lost
in some manner of storm in their own worlds, and, dazed and upset, they
mysteriously find there way here.  She hopes they don't panic upon seeing
her . . . unusual visage, as that last group did.  Perhaps they will
have come here deliberately, to get a drink in a place where all beings
are welomed, whatever they are.  Or perhaps they will come here for other
reasons of their own, be they dark or light.

  Whatever their motives, however they get here . . . Kyra has drinks
waiting for them.

A vertically challenged, "Caucasian" skinned woman, with a slight tan and
wearing field plate armor enters the room.  She peers around, and decides to
take a seat near the hearth.  Catching a peek of Kyra, she seems somewhat
afraid but manages to maintain her composure.  A trial of wet, melting snow
leads from the doorway to the couch along with a few traces of crimson.
        Gandra unsheathes her bloodied sword, and wipes it off by the fire with
a white cloth.  Her face is also bloodied, but that's hardly noticable under
the open face helm.  She takes a book from her back pack, and opens the
aged-yellowed cracked pages to someplace akin the center, and begins reading
to herself.

  The newcomer feels a feather-light touch of another mind gently scanning
her own, and then hears a voice speak inside her head.  <<Welcome to
the Silver Thistle Inn, milady.  I am Kyra, the proprietor of this
establishment.  Would you like something to drink?  Or . . . perhaps
some bandages?  You seem hurt - what happened, if you don't mind my
asking?>>

"Ambush - Pirates, bucaneers and scallawags - all the kinds of people you
don't want to run into when you're just shopping for groceries . . ."

  A brown-skinned, weathered man enters the room.  He has a slight hunch to
his back, and has a pegged leg and a walking stick.  He appears to be at the
prime of his life.  He's wearing a dark brown cloak, with the hood down.  He's
got jet black hair, and dark green eyes.
  He sees Gandra sitting by the fire, and raises and black, tufted eyebrow.
He makes his way towards the hearth near where Gandra is sitting, and takes
the table next to hers.

  <<Yes, I can see how that would be a problem,>> Kyra broadcasts to
Gandra.  <<I got attacked by a violent mob once while trying to buy
foot lotion.  I did eventually get the foot lotion, though.  What's
your name?>>
  <<And for that matter, what's your name?>> she broadcasts to the
newcomer.  <<Welcome to the Silver Thistle.  Can I get you anything?>>

"I am Gandra Alek - my family is from Stuttgart, well - at least the members
I know about.  Most of us were orphaned in our early childhood . . ."

Saugar looks around, confused for a moment by the voice in his head, then
suddenly places it with the bartender.
  "Ahhh...  I am Saugar, sailor on a trading ship, and explorer of the world.
Pleased to meet your aquaintance."

  <<Glad to meet you both.  I suggest you both relax while you have the
opportunity.  Things seldom remain this quiet around here for very
long.>>

Saugar puts his walking stick up on the table, then kicks his one good foot
up on the table as well.  He then bends over and lifts his bad leg to rest
on the table.  He scans the room for a menu of some sort.

 There is a menu written in chalk on the wall, but it has been erased and
written over so many times as to be nearly unreadable.  A note, written
in paper, has been taped on to it, which says, in a language which is not
your own but which you can still, for some reason, read perfectly clearly,
"Ask for what you want - we've probably got it.  Prices negotiable.  Don't
sell Kyra your soul, she doesn't give refunds.  -- The Mgt."

  Suddenly, a creature which appears to be made of liquid night enters the
room.  It emanates a palpable aura of evil in a way that makes shudders
go up and down the spine of all present.  It surveys those before it and
says, "Only three?  Well, perhaps more will be showing up soon.  Allow
me to introduce myself: I am the Dark Knight of the Soul.  I suppose
you are all wondering why I've summoned you here."

As if in response to a challenge, a tall, cloaked figure, who nobody saw enter
or even noticed was there, rises to his feet from a chair in a shadowed
corner.  His form is quite thin, his face drawn, his limbs long and bony. 
Other than this, and the large scar on his left cheek, he is quite
nondescript.  On his face is a look of pure hatred, and he half hisses, half
spits at the creature:  "Perhaps it would be better for me to do the
explaining, *beast*.  I have spent my life struggling to keep your vile
influence away from the pure souls of our fair world....but this is no time
for idle talk.  You look confused--perhaps I should assume a more familiar
form...and then, to work."  With that, you see his entire body begin to shift,
and reform, in the shape of a stout dwarven warrior.  The scar on his left
cheek is now a gaping, bloody gash, and his entire body is scratched and torn.
"I belive *this* is how we last parted--perhaps you would care to resume our
little debate in a more civil manner."  He confidently reaches into his
pocket, and then looks shocked and frightened.  "Chalk!", he whispers to the
denizens of the inn.  "Does anyone have some chalk?"

Saugar gapes at the two newcomers.
  "Now, I've seen some pretty wild things in my time," he mumbles to himself.
"But this has got to be one of the weirdest."

  "Well, well, well . . . how *unexpected* to meet you here," says the
dark, vaguely anthropomorphic creature.  "But there is no need to
continue a disagreement we had in another time, in another place, while
we are here on neutral ground.  And lacking chalk.  I am merely here to
chat with this people, and you would be wise to let me . . . I have no
particular wish to ravage their minds, but I will do so if you drive
me to it.  Is that understood?"  The creature snarls the last three
words in an indubitably threatening manner.

  <<There's chalk under the menu,>> Kyra broadcasts to the now-dwarven
newcomer.  <<But mind how you use it - I do NOT like violence in my
bar, from any camp.  This is, as it said, neutral territory.>>

Gandra rises from the couch, being careful not to get too close to the hearth.
Sheathing her sword, if she has not done so already, she wipes the dirt from
her armour and heads in the general direction of the women's room.  As she
places the bloodied white cloth back into her purse, you notice that the blood
from her face was relatively fresh, as it now has soaked most of the visible
portion of her tunic, and the top of her breast plate.  Almost systematically,
if involuntary, she shakes her toosh as she strides towards the restroom. 
She tosses her hair playfully.

Of course, Gandra removed her helm before doing anything involving her head.
A thin trail of water follows Gandra's footsteps, and this time there is no
accompanying trail of blood.  Gandra's eyes are a bewitching green, and her
hair a childish strawberry blonde.  Thin, wire-framed, square-lensed
spectacles cover Gandra's eyes, and her hair flows freely stopping just above
her shoulders.

  The Dark Knight seems a bit put out that the majority of the Inn patrons
are ignoring it.  However, it pulls itself together, and says, "I
summoned you here because this plane is going to be destroyed.  You
can either save it, or be destroyed with it, both of which eventualities
would suit me just fine."

"Really?" says Gandra with an over-emphasized accent, "and just how would you
propose that we save it?  And I don't remember being 'summoned', I came here
of my own free will."

  "Yes, I'm sure you thought you did.  And I have no idea how you should
save it - that's your job, not mine."

"Well if you'll excuse me," Gandra adds haughtily, "if I don't get to the
women's room quickly, I swear to Aoskar that I'll soil my armour.  I also have
to wash this damned," over emphasized accent on 'damned', "blood off of my
face."

Saugar mutters "I *really* need a drink"

Gandra takes on a rather frightful countenance as she disappears into the
latrine or similar room.

  Kyra gives Saugar a drink.

  The Dark Knight disappears.

  <<I don't know whether that creature was the cause,>> broadcasts Kyra,
but I can't help but notice that this plane has begun steadily shrinking.
It's only about ten square miles in size right now.>>

Gandra emerges from the woman's room a couple minutes later, her clean face
sporting what appears to be russet war paint, her tunic is now dry, covered
in the sickly-brown of dried blood.  Gandra places her helm back on her head,
as she begins chanting something that sounds more like the calls of
non-humanoid animals in the wild than a humanoid language.

Saugar pickes up the cup of liquid, sniffs it, and swirls it around 
a little, then takes a nice, long draugh <sp> of it.

"This is just bloodt great," proclaims Gandra, "as if it's not enough that
I'm already persued by planewalking bounty hunters due to my choice of worship
- and now I have to save an entire plane.  To my understanding the planes are
infinite in size, so if one is shrinking wouldn't that be insignificant -
unless of course, enough thought had stolen pieces of this one and put it
someplace else - but to do that to an entire plane would require a massive
amount of loss in faith in SO many powers . . ."  Turning to Saugar, "So,
you and I, and all these others, have a plane to save - must be our lucky
damned day," again with over-emphasized accent on 'damned'.

"Well then, we might as well get to know each other a little better, if we've
got to be saving a plane together."  Saugar gives a grim smile to the
denizens of the inn.

"Right then," says Gandra in a seemingly failing voice as she she kneels and
plants her sword, blade-first, into the floor.  She extends her left hand,
palm downward and adds, "You already know my name, correct?"  Without even
waiting for an answer, "Well, if not, it's Gandra Alek and I am a Paladin of
the portal-god Aoskar."  Keeping her left hand extended as if expecting some
formal greeting, she asks "And you would be?" Looking first at Saugar, and
then waving her hand gesturing to the other patrons before returning her hand
before Saugar.

Getting rather impatient, Gandra forces her left hand towards Suagar.  Then
her eyes start rolling back and forth as if in play of a stigmatism, as she
adds "Look, you leatherheads!!  If we don't get our arses out of here and do
something about the diminishing size of this plane, then we're all going to
pay the music."
        Standing up and yanking her sword out of the floor (and a good portion
of the floor with it), she turns toward the bartender, "So, what's on
this blasted plane aside from yer tavern?!"  With a flick of her right wrist,
the piece of floor slides of the sword and bounces off the ceiling, then falls
back into place.  With a few minutes of chanting, the floor grows tendrils
to the removed piece to lock it into place.

The bloodied dwarven warrior (returning from vacation) assumes a more
comfortable form--the nondescript human once more, with only slight signw of
scarring.  "Why bother?    It's beyond our abilities to save the plane, why
not at least save ourselves while we still can?"  And with that, there is the
faint sound of howling wind, a smell of sulfur and dust in the air, and he
twists out of existance, leaving a wisp of smoke in the air, slowly dispersing

Saugar, referring to Gandra's outstretched arm, starts to say a little about
himself.  "I'm Saugar.  No last name or anything.  My parents abandoned me
when I was still an infant.  My leg was deformed when I was born, and so it
had to be amputated.  My parents were disgusted, and left me to die.  I was
rescued by a band of travelers who took me with them, and when I was old
enough, gave me a wooden leg to walk on.  They showed me how to make one
myself when I outgrew the one I was wearing."  Saugar pauses, looks at his
empty mug, and asks Kyra for more.  "They took me to town once, and got me
a job as a cobbler.  (Ironic, isn't it).  They said I was old enough to look
after myself, and left me."
        "I kept that job until I was about 20, and then set off as a sailor.
I worked until I had enough money for my own ship, then bought one so I could
explore the world, and come into my own.  That's what I've been doing ever
since.  To earn money, I'm a part time cartographer, mapping the lands I've
been to."  Saugar pulls a compass, and some scrolls out of his cloak, to make
his point.
        "How I got here?  My ship and I got stuck in a storm.  It wasn't a
natural storm, for right in the middle, a portal opened up, and my ship and
I were sucked in.  It took us to this plane.  I landed my sea-craft, and came
in here.  That's my story."
        Saugar pushes Gandra's hand away, hoping that she's satisfied.

Gandra regards Suagar a little differently, as she withdraws her hand.  "Not
what I expected, but at least now I know more about you."

        Saugar frowns.  "Most people say that about me...  I wonder what they
really expect?"

  At this point, all present see a bright flash of multi-hued light and hear
the distinct *thud* of a body hitting the floor.  When the light fades, you
see a 5' 9" humanoid creature pick itself up off the floor
, muttering to itself, "G'thai, d"eyl khedreth nei,"  (Damn, I hate it when
thahappens.)
When it gets to its feet, you see that it is covered in white fur
And has the facial features of a wolf.
It is Clad entirely in black: Black sleeveless tunic, black pants, black
boots, cloak, and gold-rune-etched black armmbands.
the creature looks around, only mildly surprised by the appearance of this
location and the  inhabitants thereof.  He walks up to the bar, looks directly
at theproprietor, and asks, "Excuse me, but could you please tell me where
I am?"
"

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss