Good Times

it's hard to imagine the story of Good Times told in a more compelling way than Phooney's famous RP piece:

• As your rangers frolic through the forest in search of artifacts or small destroyed kingdoms, they stumble across Phooney, a large halfling making camp along the borders of both his and your lands*

?Come, sit and rest for a while my friends, let me regale you with a story. It?s a story of great kingdoms, battles and magic. Not so much good Vs evil, but great tactical knowledge forces pitted against each other, what they were to do with this power may never be seen before this realm is wiped clean again by the overlords?

• Phooney makes the warding sign, as do you all*

?This epic involves Good Times, the postal service, a short lived faction who called themselves innocuous and the now unstoppable machine known as Urgent needs. I?m afraid I have to relate this story from a mostly Good Times perspective as they are who I have talked with the most in my travels, and for convenience I?ll be referring to them as GT, you?ll know what I mean, you look like smart rangers, probably scored over 1000% on your last performance reviews eh? Hehehe?

• Phooney makes a fuss over lighting his pipe and arranging some soft moss underneath him as he stares into the fire, building the suspense, the bluish gray smoke of the pipe carried instantly away on a slow but constant breeze*

?This all started when all these super power kingdoms you see around you today, were nothing but kingdomlets, barely 135 acres large IF they were lucky. Before the alliance that would later be known as Good Times could come into existence, the people who would lead them had to decide what races were needed for a successful alliance. First and most obvious was the need for the best equipment in all the realm, for this purpose the kingdom of Noah was accepted, for the leader Dan had brought many other dwarves the honour of being the most potently equipped in all the universes, and he brought some special brownies to his interview just to break the ice, he had good times written all over him. Next was the kingdom of Arks, a race of Orcs who Dan had also taken under his wing, they were only accepted as Dan?s most recent production success happened to be with an Orc kingdom.?

• Phooney pauses to blow a large and impressive series of smoke rings*

?Next on the list was mana support. The kingdom of metal madness, led by a loudmouthed man named Karl was chosen for this purpose. At his interview Karl brought along a sprite farmer from the population of Metal Madness. ?Go on, show ?em that trick you did the other day? said Karl. The sprite looked at Karl imploringly, ?DO IT!!!!? Karl screamed, raising a hand threateningly. A look of concentration passed over the sprite?s face and then it pointed at a chair in the corner of the room. There was a massive explosion and there was a smoking hole in the ground where the????? sprite had been. The Good Times panel was reluctant to accept this kingdom, but Karl was so vocal in his support of them that there was no choice really. The kingdom of Overdraft, more sprites, led by myself was also put into the position of gold and mana support. Nick, renowned for his abilities, was also accepted unconditionally bringing in a human kingdom known as Crusades and a Wood Elf known as Oak Tree. And what alliance is complete without a halfling nation to keep the enemies poor? For this purpose the kingdom of Tax was brought in, led by my cousin Phoonet. After a quick carrier pigeon call to Gimli?s land collection agency, the kingdom of Keeper, who ironically never did keep stuff, was signed up. So there we have the alliance of good times, though it was briefly called the sluts offensive alliance. Just to make up the numbers however the kingdoms of Dominator, Demolisher and Kettle one were also allowed to participate, though no resources were to be thrown at them.?

• Phooney pauses, looking around*

?Any questions so far??

• A ranger towards the back raises his hand*

?No? Good. It was amazing how smoothly things went. Any attack upon GT was responded to with massive stacking. The first land to receive this treatment in earnest was known as Wonk, some gnomes. The thing with Wonk was that he was friendly abused by a wood elf who was far below his range, and we assume was just used to search for land, every day. It was hard to get a word in edgeways on this. After careful observance of the recent warfare of the kingdoms involved, Phoonet of Tax had it down to the exact minute when attacks could be made upon Wonk, and so laid in wait for that moment. The time came and wonk was stripped of all his gold. No retaliations occurred and the friendly abuse kept on going. Parker only knows how long this would have kept on going for if Wonk had not have provided us with the pinnacle of stupidity that he did. He teleported, and then his friend couldn?t find him. It was beautiful.?

• Phooney smiles, remembering this period*

?The top ranks were more or less secured, and then this year?s wine came through and I was rendered unable to direct any kingdoms for 3 weeks. (OOC: I had to go on holiday in RL) I woke up in a gutter with a rubber mallet in one hand and an anatomically correct blow up sheep in the other. But that?s another story.

When I returned, Good Times still more or less held the top ranks. There were exceptions though, Leprophile and Totmacher are two that I recall. Trash was talked, but it was to get much worse.

Sadly, it was around this time that nick completed the construction of his harem and began taking applications for concubines, we still have not seen him again to this very day. Perhaps you have seen the posters offering a reward for his return? No? Oh well. Suffice to say, it was left up to me to run a kingdom in another universe, called Treehouz, in the hope that Nick would one day come back to us. Crusades and Oaktree fell to ruin and Eric gave them an elbow drop each, overlord style.

Time wore on, Good Times grew fat and complacent. Arks took up a new hobby: wasting food!! The Orcs of Arks would put several cauldrons of stew in a catapult and see how far they could throw them. They were feeling on top of the world, with the best war machines in all the multiverse. A pity they were only for show as no opportunity to use them ever surfaced. As soon as any respectable number of them were made, the Orcs refused to attack anybody, instead choosing to merely look at the war machines and serve up dinner in far off kingdoms. Things went along more or less the same themes in the kingdom of Noah, there was nothing more to do except dig holes and hope they filled with water.

Just below the sight line of Good Times, with the exceptions of Totmacher (who goon assured me was not working with postal) and Leprophile, and perhaps Cynical, was the Postal alliance. The Postal alliance had built their kingdoms in places where the Good Times war machines were unable to get to, lots of rocky terrain that the poor wooden wheels always broke on. The Postal alliance motto was ?Have vamp, will travel? and this was an important point of note. As well as putting their kingdoms where the good times war machines were useless against them, they were also situated between Good Times land, and Easy land.

With the radical improvements in defence that tactical experts have been able to come up with over the past few months, Good Times stagnated. The only source of land, and hence progress, was to intercept Postal land quests, which were made by something Good Times did not have, and that was a vamp. Skeletor was his name, and land collection was his game. Keeper was caught in the same situation as the rest of good times, equipment stranded him where there was nothing he could do.

The desire for land within Good Times grew. Postal members felt increasing heat, Phoonet led Tax thieves on looting raids through Lolliguild town limits. Gimli dropped Keeper through the postal area and into the easy land continent beyond a few times in order to try and provoke some kind of retaliation from those inhabitants, with very little success.

The pressure and/or frustration must have grown within the Postal camp. Through an ancient halfling trick I call ?mind doodling? which is based upon very complicated psychological theories, I convinced the Postal alliance that it was ?rife with spies? (in the words of Cynical). What this resulted in was some people leaving Postal, mostly kingdoms under the control of Trunks, who?s potential for evil had yet to be tapped, and they called themselves Innocuous. It was around this time that Trunks requested that Eruditus, a band of High Elves be left alone as he was attempting to make a kingdom work with no outside help, and giving no help to anyone. GT accepted his request on these grounds.

The GT/Innoc wars were short lived and inconclusive. Keeper sold some land to Overdraft, Carnivorous sold some land to Cynical, Totmacher took some land from Overdraft and Keeper took some land from Cynical. As I said, very inconclusive and the true power of bloodlust was only just beginning to be seen.

Around this time, a cheeky orc kingdom began making comments in the general mail section of the Shadowmere Times, the local newspaper run by the evil editor Parker. This orc kingdom called themselves Snaft Spunk.

Snaft Spunk had also placed his kingdom where the Good Times war machines were useless, up in the hills where no self respecting halfling could be bothered pushing a catapult to. Gimli led Keeper on an exploratory expedition to Snaft Spunk, only to be brutally repulsed. It would not be the last time Snaft did that.

So things were quiet for a while. Some progress was made, Good Times achieved an entirely friendly top 10 in the universe of Dan. (According to the rankings schedule drawn up by the deity turned mortal known as Caster) Although, this was only true for a few hours. Innocuous pulled off one tactically brilliant military assault upon GT. TheGreatPump, a kingdom of dark elves, sapped away the barriers made by metalmadness that were on kettle one and Overdraft, Cynical leveled much of Kettle one and Overdraft?s land and then Totmacher rolled through, for large land grabs then, unselfishly, TheGreatPump used all the sapped mana to put immense barriers on Totmacher, preventing an effective stacking retaliation from GT. Then word came that Snaft Spunk had allied with Innocuous and were now calling themselves Urgent Needs.

Out of nowhere, Snaft Spunk revealed that they had the capabilities to produce equally good war machines as Arks, and also that they had learned craftsmanship techniques from Floppy. This came as a shock to GT, all of a sudden the outright strongest orc was not the GT orc, and Snaft Spunk, posing as Arks intercepted trade caravans. This was not good times for GT, trades were being ambushed left right and center and Floppy had taken control of the universe. Around this time Totmacher and Cynical became increasingly vocal in the general mail. Showing immense discourtesy and dismissing any possibility of skill within the GT alliance, they said such things as ?We will win, they are not good enough? Ill feelings grew and it was decided there would be no mercy, if and when GT got back on their feet.

Surprise and shock rippled through GT, plans had to be made and the remaining 4 members had to rally together if they were to remain a force to be reckoned with. It was also around this time that GT asked the question as to how Snaft Spunk had managed such large amounts of study. The answer was of course GNOMES. A method pioneered by James from Emerald Keep over in Hadro, was now in full time use by Floppy, using Nosferatu?s gnome Marj. While I took the time to bring up a gnome, we stayed in touch with Snaft by using create foods from Metalmadness. During this intermediary period, Arks made several unsuccessful attacks upon Snaft Spunk. And Snaft Spunk replied with a cunning little piece of coordination with the leprechaun known as The_Prodigy and enticing Overdraft right on to the firing range of Snaft spunk?s war machines by gifts of armour and labourers, Snaft spunk managed to take exactly half of Overdraft?s land, with no hope of regaining it.

When my first attempt at a gnome was ready for full time food production, the immense level of teamwork necessary became apparent. Bloodlust became by far the most potent special ability. Bloodlust combined with free food from a gnome turned formerly slow and ponderous Orcs into huge battering rams for the alliance, taking vast swathes of land from enemy non-bloodlusters.

GT meetings were becoming increasingly longer and longer as more and more had to be planned. Looking back over the minutes of the meetings it is apparent that they were not so much meetings as they were 8 hour long speeches made by Karl, touching upon many different subjects, at the end of which he would pause to take questions.

When an old friend of mine told me that the kingdom of Verticus no longer wanted him to represent them I sent them my card and they agreed to take my instructions from then on. Upon inspection I found the kingdom to be in good order, well studied and more importantly they had the ability of bloodlust.

Indeed, there was so much to be done that detailed lists had to be made in order for things to run like clockwork. In general a good times attack was coordinated like this: Treehouz would train up millions of archers until they managed to pass 1500% on their performance reviews, then with the help of a passing caravan of deveels, he would have them sent off to Arks and then start training clerics to the same caliber. Kettle one would take it upon themselves to make sure Gears (my precious gnomes) couldn?t be attacked, and Gears would do the same for Kettle one, then they could go into full time food production mode. Arks would field massive armies on Gears brand food and then when he was finished, the archers would pass to Dominator or to Verticus. Then clerics would flood into Arks from Treehouz and from the GT troops warehouse, it was at this time that Metalmadness was supposed to put barriers on Arks, but Karl often took upwards of 3 hours to do this while he debated the merits of mana support with himself out loud. We had to tell him to be quiet on a daily basis. Then either Verticus or Dominator would go on another attack run in slightly different territory to where Arks rampaged with Kettle One doing the catering. After that, the archers would pass to Keeper, who would go on a rampage again in another different territory. (OOC: this is far harder then it sounds, coordinating 10 kingdoms in a single purpose took us around 8 hours some times) Safe land was becoming hard to come by for UN and then a devastating blow was dealt to them, Floppy went missing, a note was left in his bedroom saying ?There?s lots of beer, and purdy girls???.? UN feared the worst.

Now the heat was really on UN, GT trades were once again safe from brigands, imposters attempting to intercept trades were instantly recognised and slain upon sight. GT decided this was the time to bring out the secret weapon. GT had been impressed by the coordination that involved TheGreatPump some months earlier and so, the kingdom of Revolution, Dark elves, were hounded into co-operating with the GT cause by Karl, who?s skill with words was becoming legendary throughout the Shadowmere realm. Now no UN barrier was safe, and now Totmacher?s bloodlust wasn?t safe either.

A typical GT attack run remained more or less unchanged except it now also involved Metalmadness putting hundreds of million of mana onto Overdraft in the form of create foods, for the sole purpose of having Revolution sap it, thus being able to take down opposition barriers without having to use Dark power, and giving away the minimum of retals. Dominator began to act more as another troop warehouse, while Verticus became more of a battering ram.

One day Verticus became too confident, going against all of my advice, and he gave away more retals then what was good for him. UN held a council of war and the death of Verticus was plotted. Moonseed, under the control of the evil Sundance sapped away all of Verticus? barriers as well as his bloodlust. I happened to be strolling around the kingdom of Verticus while this happened, and I could feel all of the fight being sapped out of the large orc warriors around me. I fled deep into the heart of the kingdom to use the mystical communication warp known as the ?ICQ? to send out a mayday call for a food package to be sent, the orcs refused to fight on an empty stomach. Ren, heard the call and commanded his already starving gnomes to fulfill the request. When I returned I saw that Kyzh Froen had sent dragons then more dragons and then more dragons and then more dragons to Verticus. Twenty Eight thousand acres of land was now completely bare, there was no barriers no bloodlust and still no food. Things looked grim.

The first wave of Totmacher?s mutinees strolled into the camp, the clerics were accepted but the archers were turned away from the gates and shot in the back as they retreated, this happened again. Then the full army of Totmacher crashed against the portcullis, which was only just lowered in time. One repel, but Totmacher kept on coming, fuelled by create foods from Eruditus and driven insane by bloodlust, 3 more repels and then finally the food package from Ren arrived. I commanded the Necromancers of Verticus to perform the rites of bloodlust, which they hastily complied to do. I returned to the parapet of the castle to watch the last attempt of Totmacher, confident that this would be the least successful of all the attacks. Then Totmacher defied all logic by taking eight thousand empty land and a smattering of buildings. The necromancers looked at me sheepishly and I looked back at them, memorising their faces to be hanged at a later date. Once the aftermath of battle was over, I contacted the closest band of Deveels, and set up numerous trades, adamant that the retaliations of Verticus would be viscous and final. 20 hours later, Karl finished laying out his battle plan. Troops, equipment and food swarmed into Verticus. Six million Archers, testing at 1500% on their performance reviews, fully equipped with 6 million w/a from Noah, rating at 20,000%, along with 1 million war machines from Arks at 20,000% all in a bloodlust was the standing army for Verticus. Food was also plentiful, Kettle one made sure of that. Revolution took care of Totmacher?s barriers and his bloodlust, Dominator sent 4 separate packs of dragons to him, Verticus followed up with 5 packs of dragons of their own summoning. And then the hopelessly out numbered Totmacher was set upon. Totmacher, who had once described GT?s best skills as ?losing land to me?, was reduced in size considerably that day.

UN was in trouble, Floppy was stilling nowhere in sight, and now GT had not one, but two orcs with more land then him, as well as no food problems and an alliance dark elf. And then????.

Oh my! Monday, August 27, 2001 - It appears that the outlandishly high scores generated by the kingdom Snaft Spunk have attracted the attention of a race of Dwarves who had previously been minding their own business in an as yet undiscovered universe. Using the long forgotten spell Transport, they have materialised in the Universe of Dan! My sources tell me that they have come with the intention of "whumping up on some uppity Orcs" and that they needed some land. Sources also reveal that they prefer the beer back in their home universe and will be leaving within 48 hours.

The kingdom of BigE, (the HUGE sprawling juggernaut of a kingdom BigE) materialised out of nowhere, absolutely terrorising the inhabitants of Snaft Spunk, and running away with half of his land. This left GT with not one, not two, but three orcs with more land then Snaft Spunk now. Victory looked certain for Good Times but I for one did not want it like this, I was the first one to send a protest to the Shadowmere times and I prayed to the overlord Eric to restore Snaft Spunk to his former glory, so it could be a fair fight.

As it turned out, I had no cause for alarm, of that sort anyway??????

Good job, Snaft :) Wednesday, August 29, 2001 - You will all be happy to know that the Kingdom of Snaft Spunk has brutally repulsed the Dwarven invaders. It appears that they were distracted by a search for better beer when they should have been stocking up on arms and armor, and were caught sans pants by the wiley Snaft! This incredible shellacking by Snaft has probably taught those rotten Dwarves not to mess around in the known universes for now, and rumors of the ferocity of the inhabitants of Dan are spreading far and wide in the unknown. The extent of the slaughter is surpassed in the telling only by the legends of the fabulous riches to be gained...

And then it was all over. Good Times was instantly incapacitated. Arks could no longer keep up with Snaft Spunk on study, therefore GT trades were now once again subject to ambush and the interceptions of imposter-Arks. The UN orc no longer had the money problems that the GT orc did, UN now had a kingdom that could train troops so as to be far off the scale of any current review schedule.

For a few days, I struggled to hold GT together, I held out the hope that Eric would fix this, being an overlord surely there is nothing beyond his power. But nothing happened. Dan and Karl died of broken hearts, and their kingdoms disappeared from the known universes. Rumour has it that they got their hands on an interuniversal transporter and are now chasing BigE relentlessly in a quest for revenge. Overdraft, formerly in the position of mana support, no longer had anybody to support and so teleported away indignantly never to be seen again. Tax, who?s time was now entirely occupied with searching the unknown, found a portal to some unknown place and also have not been heard from since. Treehouz still wanders around directionless. And I???. Well I?m a lone halfling now. No longer do I enjoy the comradeship of an active alliance, my friends have left and I?m doomed to walk the earth alone until UN decides to squash me, as I am a reminder of what was there before.?

• With that, Phooney urges you to return to your kingdoms for there are more stories to be told elsewhere, The Overlord Eric will not wipe this land clean for some time yet*