The story of the Blues

From: Richard Melvin <101625.512_at_CompuServe.COM>
Date: 17 Aug 96 11:18:12 EDT

Ian Gorlick was nice enough to like my ideas on browns, but worried that my reds weren't evil enough, as they had no choice in what they do.

Perhaps it is true that they are to be as much pitied as feared, but never forget, they always have a choice - just stop commit ing atrocities for a week or two, and thay find eternal rest. For me, anyone so attached to life that they would prefer to live the life of a red Vadeli than none at all is a pretty fair approximation of evil...

He's right about the blues though - as I wrote them, they would have wiped out the Brithini before the year zero. So how about the following variation - instead
of remaining in their current caste, descendants of a new blue all convert straight
away to non-breeding reds. These are all immortal as long as their master wants them to be. This allows a Vadeli army to actually go for a week or two without sacking a town or fighting a battle - normal reds are fine as pirates, but would stand no chance in a war.

Of course, the truth is that the blues were genocided by ZZabur, leaving nothing more than a memory and lots of conflicting myths. Unfortunately, that legacy is perfect raw material for any powerful Vadeli sorcerer with ambition. They may never bring back the original blues, but toss together a bit of vampiric sorcery, Hrestoli caste progression, necromancy, mind control magic and a few (western-style) heroquests, and they could produce something just as bad.

So the above would just be the mainstream brown version of 'The story of the Blues'
- - loads of others would exist.

For example:

• - the blues are really dead, and aren't coming back. Most westerners probably believe this.
• - the blues are the <insert race here> of <insert land here>. Various wierdo scholars write pamphlets discussing this kind of thing.
• - any red that kills 1000 people in a minute (exact figures vary) qualifies to be a blue. Lots of reds joke about this kind of thing, but few really believe it. Doesn't stop them trying though.
• - a brown needs to kill their descendants, a red needs to kill others, perhaps to become a blue you need to kill your parents. This is a fairly common, but ruthlessly suppressed, brown view.
• - a brown needs to kill their descendants, a red needs to kill others, perhaps to become a blue you need to kill yourself. This is a very rare brown view.
• - the blues are all held captive by ZZabur, and need rescuing. Another rare brown view.
• - ZZabur is a blue. An extremely rare brown view.
• - the true blues are actually really nice people, and would be horrified by the things the Vadeli had to do to survive without them. Nobody believes this.

Richard

p.s. someone said the best way to defend yourself against the Vadeli (if you're not Onslaught) is to kill yourself before they can. Perhaps the Kingdom of War is someone's attempt to do this on a larger scale?

---