Nominated roleplays:  The Prophet, DLPi

Louis Shirley, C09's moderator, deserves a comment for his amusing mockery
of older versions of warlords.  His turn message read:

Turn (#), game C09 was driven over and hand delivered to (player's name)
on (date).  Please submit your completed turn on (date), or else you risk
becoming a fossil you old dinosaur!  Classic indeed! :P

This had the markings of an uneven game, judging by the rankings:

Name			Color	WW2L Ranking
The Prophet		Red	9
Professor Patrick	Green	43
Dark Lord Pi		Blue	47
KlownKiller		Black	50

In Red lands, a prophet appears to lead the land of Aerolandia away from
sin and toward both religious and military salvation.  The land is
currently dominated by masters and their slaves and monsters.  The Prophet
hoped to change that.

Green begins by building giant bats in two of three cities, to aid
transport in that forest land.  His lands are those of academe.

Blue's roleplay will live up to what we have come to expect from Dark Lord
Pi. It is absolutely impossible not to love a roleplay by DLPi (as
groupies on the prize committee have taken to calling him).  It can be
neither shortened nor exerpted.  Therefore, I will only refer to this
roleplay when DLPi interacts with others, avoiding all comments about the
giant silver "G", the reappearance of the Ninja Assassin, the fact that
items of DOOM! are not even mentioned until turn 16, or the quirky grammar
and spelling that are the sign of a true cult hero.  (I can't help but
point out that even Microsoft Word was uniquely affected by DLPi's report,
giving an error that I've never seen before -- by turn 8, no less:  "There
are too many spelling or grammatical errors in C09 to continue displaying
them."  Clearly MS Word does not appreciate the subtlety of DLPi's style!) 

The evil BlackAdder rises in the northwest for the KillerKlowns.  He said
little but fought valiantly, and with good sportsmanship when the winds of
war shifted.

Red develops his tale:

> The events that took place last time, became news to the masters that 
> control the land.  Some that were present at the sermon of The Prophet 
> in the now taken and renamed town of The Temple, mocked and rejected The
> Prophet and his message.  Those damned ones, are the slaves that are 
> spared from the Carnage Feast, in return, they serve the masters and 
> their lives are spared.  
> 
> In the Carnage Feast, the masters gather to drink and feast for
> amusement. There in a field of broken terrain, people
> of the land which the masters invaded their land with their powerful
> monsters, are put in this field and told to run for their lives, for the
> monsters are to be left loose in the field to feed on whatever they can
> find.  This feast always eliminates any resistance from the people, and
> it keeps the monsters fed for anthoer invation of more land. 

The masters and their monsters challenge the new faith to prove itself,
and the Messenger arrives just in time with the holy Datil's Sword to
utterly defeat the foes. 

Red, Green, and Blue build griffins, while Black builds elephants.
Only Red does not take a second hero, though later he is able to build
minotaurs.

On turn 3, Black kills the Green demon.

On turn 4, when the Red Messenger frees the devil Yinni, he learns that
Yinni had been in the place of The Prophet hundreds of years ago.  Yinni
reveals that he refused to follow the gods of Aerolandia because they
insisted that he kill for them.  Upon his refusal, they changed him into a
beast that could not survive but through killing.  Yinni agrees to join
the Messenger, however, since he holds Datil's Sword.

Soon, Red attacks Blue, even though the two had exchanged words of
agreement.  It was inevitable, as the two dueling religions could not be
expected to coexist.  Red kills Politician A, also known as Mr. A and
Esiwald Ocama, in what may be one of the best hero-slaying roleplays of
the round. 

Green then suggests a three-way alliance against Red, and builds a second
griffin city.  Blue and Red both have their say, but in the end Black
rejects the treaty proposal and agrees to terms with Red.  His fear was
that he would be caught between Green and Blue at the end of the game.
Instead he was caught between Green, Blue, and Red in the middle of the
game!

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the holy war between Red and Blue
is that, although Blue loses militarily, Red begins to talk more and more
like him as time went on.  One has to wonder whether the magic of the
Master is working even upon Gods of Aerolandia.

By Turn 9, Blue is down to 2 cities, and Red has 23.  The rest are split
fairly evenly by Green and Black.  Black, however, has killed Green's last
hero, and the Red/Black union begins to look invincible.

But then Red does something unexpected.  He declares a civil war upon
himself and adopts a split personality.  As the demon Yinni dies, The
Messenger discovers that the gods had, in fact, acted as cruelly as Yinni
had claimed so long ago.  He vows to avenge the unjust treatment.  This is
one of the few games where roleplaying becomes meaningful militarily, with
maneuvering going on between the two Red sides.  In fact, a blue
infantryman befriends the Red hero and they go off walking and
talking together for some time.  Red distinguishes between forces of the
two sides by leaving a movement trail pointing in the direction of the
enemies so that the other players can click on a unit and see whether it
is friend or foe.

Disappointingly, after a brief standoff between the Red forces, the
Prophet and the Messenger decide to reunite the kingdom once again, this
time under the military guidance of the Messenger.  Red now joins in a
3-on-1 battle against Black, who must surely be wondering now why he did
not join in the anti-Red alliance not too many turns ago.  He is still
fighting well, however, sacking one of Green's griffin cities and taking
other Green cities every turn.  But then on Turn 14, Green deals him a
devastating blow, taking the Black capital and three other cities.  After
this, and a losing battle of attrition to both the Green and Red forces in
Black's strongest city, it becomes clear that Black cannot hold. 

On Turn 17, The Messenger (Green) is greeted by one of the gods he so
hates, and they explain to him the immense power of the items of DOOM!
that the blue hero ne Bob is now searching for.  Red, who controls two
(the silver G and Datil's sword), unifies them into the Silver Sword, and
makes it his quest to unify the five items himself.  He does not have time
to get the two items held by the hero of the KillerKlowns, but he decides
to meet ne Bob at the rocky spire where the fifth item of DOOM! is said to
reside.  Professor Patrick, however, destroys Black's final stronghold on
turn 20, and gives the final two items of DOOM! to Red's Messenger as a
tribute, though he admits to not understanding the purpose of his actions.
Clearly, he is being led by forces beyond his control.

And what transpired on that dragon's rock?  For the answer, you will have
to read the game.

Militarily, C09 was an odd game, as the only player eliminated had fought
extremely well throughout the war.  But as roleplaying it was spectacular,
with much interaction between Red and Blue -- so much so that the two
become good at mimicking the other's style.