C08 Summary 1. C08 looked to be a pretty even matchup among the four players, as they were all in the middle of the pack after the tallies for Round B. It would require a decisive victory by any of these players to advance to Round C, and even that might not be enough! The four players in this game were: ShirKhan, was 49th after the first two rounds, and hired the Heroes Swamp Thing and Doombringer. KlownKillers (formerly Of Unknown Origin), who was 56th in the pack, with the Klown Heroes Bozo II and Krusty. Kamevil, in 35th place and the highest-ranked player in this game selected Kron and Fury to be the representing Heroes. The Masked Avenger (formerly The Avenging Angel & Thor) who was in 39th place, and only chose to have one Hero, Captain Vulgaria. ShirKhan arrived in Aerolandia via a small capsule, with no external sensory input to tell him whether he was travelling to another world or another world was changing under his feet. The splat of his capsule setting down in the swamps of Aerolandia told him he had arrived. As he approached a city, he encountered a number of curious muck-people: >>>>ShirKhan looked at the abacus-like object which Doombringer had left. He turned it over and inspected it, but he could not determine its function. The device had rows of brown-green and green-brown beads, each of which had a small, darker greeny-brown protrusion on the top of it. As he continued to puzzle over the item, a small muck-creature (which ShirKhan took for a child) walked up to him.<<<< ShirKhan's empire expanded quickly with the two Heroes, going to 12 cities by the end of Turn 3, but he just couldn't get over the awful smell! The KlownKillers started creating a circus atmosphere in their territory, naming their cities SideShow, ThreeRings, and BigTop. But who were these individuals? >>>>It has been a busy day 1 for the KlownKillers. I should clear one thing up before we get too far along. I have been asked; are we Killers of clowns? or are we Klowns that are killers? Gentle Klowns, we are indeed both. Our charter, which has been written on the rarest of crepe paper, is clear. We shall not alter our course of amusement and destruction until this world is safe for the enjoyment of children everywhere!! So it is written, so it shall be done. Now pass out the candy apples and popcorn and prepare for the evenings entertainment. Hey!!, does anybody know how many Giant Bats can fit into a Volkswagon??<<<< The KlownKillers expand to 11 cities after 3 turns. Kamevil's first Hero is the unstable Kron, who calmly marches into cities, decapitates the mayor, and then renames each city after one of his ten daughters. Fury, his Heroine ally, seems to be just as dangerous as he is. By the end of Turn 3, Kamevil had a total of only 9 cities. The Masked Avenger hails from the kingdom of Vulgaria, whose citizens hide behind trees in order to spy on each other. Wilbur Wimpost, a popsicle cart driver, has a secret identity of Captain Vulgaria! Who would join Captain Vulgaria on his quest to conquer the world?! >>>>Every super-hero must have a side-kick and the Captain is no exception. Several want ads were placed in the Vulgarian Times, but no one answered, possibly because most Vulgarian newspapers use invisible ink. However, while investigating a secret ruin, he stumbled across a particularly vile and disgusting looking demon called Yucky, and the rest is history. Yucky is very effective during any kind of fight, because most Super Villains simply walk away in disgust.<<<< At the end of the third turn, the Vulgarians had 10 cities - but were already starting to get into some trouble. ShirKhan's troops were occupying their Black cities, and then on Turn 5 the Hero Swamp Thing slew Captain Vulgaria, leaving The Masked Avenger without a Hero and causing chaos in Vulgaria! The Vulgarians would receive another Hero on Turn 8, and try to persuade everyone to leave them alone in the meantime! But, they could only persuade the KlownKillers to an alliance, as a semi-stable Kron began invading the Vulgarian cities. The new Vulgarian Hero, Xorro, recovered two command items and two battle items from the carnage of the battlefield where Captain Vulgaria had fallen, and used these to defend the land against Kron. ShirKhan was fighting battles against the Klowns and the Vulgarians, but no Warlord was making very much progress against any other! Each captured city would be answered in kind with a capture in return! The game continued on with no Warlords dominating This game had a lot of humor in it, which was a lot of fun to read. There was one battle between the red demon and the black demon with orc mob described thus: >>>>The red demon looked over the orc's shoulder and saw the Darkie Demon. It seemed to be strapping some air-filtration device onto its back. The red demon studied the device and mentally measured a nearby intake valve. "Why are you looking at me like that?" asked the orc, which was the last thing she said before being stuffed into the valve. Just then, the Darkie Demon turned to face the red demon. "You! You had better by-god call me by my proper name or else you will pay the penance!" the Darkie Demon screamed. "I have a new defensive mechanism that top Vulgarian boffins have designed to render your stench useless. Tremble now, red stinker, as I attach the device!" It didn't take long before the orc vapors took their toll. <<<< The game ended with not too much roleplaying, but there certainly was a lot of enteraining roleplaying during the rest of the game! This was easily the most balanced finish in all the Round C games, with the players having 15, 10, 12, and 11 cities respectively. The great thing was that there were no totally solid alliances formed and the game was not a stagnant affair, but rather one of constantly shifting power and territory. All four players had some measure of entertaining roleplaying, with humor playing a primary role in each of their stories', characters' and empires' development. While it looks unlikely that any of these players will advance into Round E, due to nobody dominating the field, they all did well against each other and it would certainly be a treat to see them continue in the Warlords Ladder! Keiran D.