A quiet man's voice, in Thari, coming from far away in the wind:

"When I came to the asteroid Worlorn, it was all Wasteland. I found the set of Muse statues and studied them for a while. I then cleared away some unruly folks and staked out some Turf for people to have sweet dreams. Soon after, others staked out some Turf for their own Reign, but no one else on Worlorn could grant experience points for adventures without the statue of the Muse of Dreams, Klinure. This is why Troad fell with the Statue of the Muse stolen.

threnody on turf

Troy Ounces is the only person who made turf on Worlorn without having a previous connection. He had two advantages which may or may not have been significant. Troy got here first. Troy possessed the Muse of Dreams, and could therefore determine how experience points were aquired.

From TroyOunces@aol.com Sun May 7 19:50:34 1995

Threnody's Turf-acquisition research.

However, Threnody thinks that Erin's potential Gnoll Kingdom Turf in Hell is, um, less valuable, [yeah "less valuable" that's it,] for the general populace than Niteblade's Sanctuary of Peace Turf.

Examples will be directed to Erin since Threnody is more familiar with Erin's requirements. Threnody can be far more explicit what Erin must do to vanquish the Worlorn gnoll god than for Niteblade to invite the dragon goddess, Shal Omnis, to Worlorn.

In contemporary times, to claim Turf on Worlorn the candidate must have had a place of unlimited control (somewhere offworld) and duplicate all the conditions on Worlorn. If there is not a corresponding location in existence previous to the candidate's arrival on Worlorn, then one must be formed.

Erin the Betrayer, in slaying the Gnoll king in another continuum, claimed a land of absolute control, the plane which had been the Gnoll King's. To aquire Turf in the Worlorn system, Erin now must perform nearly identical actions to set up the proper resonances and Claim Turf. Erin must go to Hell and slay the Lord god of the Gnoll race and claim that plane of Hell for Erin's Turf.

This Turf aquisition is complicated by many things. The first complication is the difficulty of completing acquisition while in s-state dreaming [speech-only diceless adventures such as eD&D]. It would be much easier to kill the Gnoll King in d-state dreaming [dice adventures].

S-state imposes a more direct confrontation such as Paper-Scissors-Stone, in which battle is resolved in a blink of an eye. D-state allows recovery of mistakes but more casual exposure to deadly encounters. There is no running away in S-State if the opponent can kill you.

The second complication is the difficulty of doing the deed itself. The Gnoll God is an archetype; he has not assumed such a role out of incompetence. While Erin has a great deal of power at his disposal, this may not be a headlong brute-force-and-ignorance morganti-anyone-in-our-way type of deed. Some details on this follow.

In Worlorn, while the good planes (AKA "the Heavens") can be exited a countless number of ways, a creature may enter the Planes of Heavens only one way: by personal invitation of a being in power there.

Likewise, to enter the evil planes (AKA the "Circles of Hell") one may use any number of magical transportations, but to leave, one must have the personal exit visa of the the Big Guy in the center of Hell. The bottom line is that once entering Hell, a creature/soul/spirit is stuck in there, in effective damnation, forever, or until the Big Guy says "you may leave."

Now don't go all sexist on me, says Threnody. You all know men are shits. Until recently this Master of Hell was a male Demonlord name of Tloluvin (Don't say that name out loud, kiddies!). With the demise of Tloluvin, another male, the Duke Asmodeus, won out over Orcus and claimed the center stage.

Everyone, including Lords and Dukes in control of full portions of Hell, such as the Lord of Gnolls, even the nine mean f*ckers in charge of one entire Circle of Hell, they all have to bow to Asmodeus and grant him whatever he asks if they want to leave Hell.

What this means is that even if Erin secures Turf in Hell, he's not going to be a popular place for vacations. Anyone who comes to visit must pass Asmodeus' approval before returning to another plane.

It seems obvious that the main power Troy assumed for Troad was the power of Dreaming for gaining Experience [points]. Therefore it seems non-coincidental that the Isle of Sleep and the Muse of Dreams were a major facet of the legend of Troad, and the source of its downfall.

Unless a creature wants to pursue Turf through an Outworld connection, Threnody belives a candidate for Turf needs to gain control the Muse of Dreams or one of her seven or eight sisters.

Although Klinure (Dreams) and Terpsichore (Dance and Choral music), are the only ones known to have gotten out in the world for certain, there may be more. Marlee got Terpsichore's statue Pinqued by the god Fuzzy Pinque himself. Therefore we have in our time one less Muse of Worlorn to work with than when Troy first arrived.

Once in control of the Muse, we need to secure "the Crown of Worlorn" and "the Heart of the Earth" IN THAT ORDER. These are items which Troy donated to the Masters at Roke during his days of study there. Troy claimed that these items could undo the precious balance of Turf if they were used indiscriminately.

With the crown we can command the heart to grant us land area and bind our muse to it without [us] falling under the control of the heart. The heart is the demon amulet of the Motherlode, who is generally of a lawful good disposition and would not willingly give up any powers to a creature who has ever killed any creature intentionally. There is no f*cking way Erin of Dolkris will qualify under the Heart's rules.

This is a Tale told by Threnody. Listen, learn and ponder!

Subj: Threnody's Lists

Worlorn Turf: Fallen in approximately this order:

1. Troad - fallen when Odysseus removed the statue from shadows to the desert of Lomarn. Shadows made unreachable with the smearing of Kin Blood on the Pattern, see next item.
2. North Pole - Fallen/severed from the Wasteland with the death of Xcalis Regence on Troy's Pattern. Remo did it; the illithids thought it such a smashing-good idea that they killed the Half-elven One and used his blood to ruin the Pattern permanently to isolate persistent Troy's shadows from Worlorn. Hal then Destroyed 34 and Remo killed 15 of the illithids. The 15 skulls let Hal invent the illithid-skull-in-head thing, which proved dubious wisdom when the illithid spirits became dominant. Ahem. Anyway...
3. Kaldamaaren (the Hall of the Dwarfking) - fallen on the retirement (to abandoned dreams) of the TurfHolder Champion Eternal. Puk made him do it.
4. Paths of the Dead - fallen when a wrathman executed these orders:

   "Annihilate the illithid who is wielding the Gold CARD TURF PATHS OF THE DEAD, who is known as the Deathgod, by gaining the sword necessary to slay it, going to the PATHS OF THE DEAD slaying the wielder of the PATHS OF THE DEAD, the DEATHGOD, thereby bringing about the destruction of the path of dead and all beings SPONSORED FROM THERE."

   That charming command phrase is care of Erin of Dolkris, claims Threnody. And you don't know how hard that was to research!
5. District of Columbia
6. The Gold Road - fallen on the death of the turfholders, as the Paths of the Dead stopped sponsoring their non-continuous life.
7. Musquel by the Sea - fallen on the Destruction of Ko, recently, at the hands of Maeglin.
8. Elidor? Dolbadarn/Novus Mundi? Ogygia? It's anyone's guess, but Threnody thinks there are supposed to be eight Turfs and right now there aren't any left under the Compact of Worlorn.

see also turfholder 101.