Choosing between two evils is still choosing evil.

- The Tao of Shinsei

Let’s you and me talk for a second. Let’s talk about EVIL. . No, not the sexy, slender, leather-clad, come-hither evil you get in most roleplaying games (the kind you have to “come to terms with”), the kind that’s written in a very pretty, curvy font to doll it all up.

No sir. No madam. We’re talking about all bold, all caps

EVIL

A lot of people tell me there’s no such thing as EVIL, only varying shades of gray. These people never spent the time I did as a counselor for emotionally troubled kids at a summer camp. Kids who don’t even come up to your hip who’ve seen more pain and misery in their lives than any of us ever have.

Like my little buddy “Jimmy” who watched his mother’s brains get blown out. What remained of her face sprayed all over his. He remembered swallowing some of her blood. The man who killed his mother was his natural father. Apparently, he got tired of making alimony payments. Jimmy ran for his life, dodging shotgun blasts, finally making it to a neighbor’s house. But the neighbors wouldn’t open the door. They saw Jimmy, they saw the gun, and they wouldn’t open the door. After ten minutes of running and hiding, after ten neighbors, someone finally called the cops. Ten neighbors. TEN NEIGHBORS. Now, who’s more EVIL, the guy with the gun, or the neighbors who wouldn’t help?

But that was yesterday. This is today. And today, I’ve found a new kind of EVIL.

Computer viruses.

Think about it for a second. A thief’s motive is greed. He wants more money. I can sympathize with that. It’s still larceny, but it’s understandable. Even murder can be justifiable (like in the case of computer hackers). But computer viruses… think about it. What’s the motive? What does the hacker gain for writing up a little virus that gets into my computer and tries to destroy any file with the letters “ork” in the title? Money? Fame? Prestige? Respect?

No. I’ll tell you what he gets. He gets his rocks off. He can sit in his little chair in front of his Big Computer with his Little Dick in his hands and jack off while he thinks “I screwed up Orkworld! I screwed up Orkworld!”

The person who sent that bomb to me had nothing to gain. His motive was nothing more than pure EVIL. The intent to harm another human being because causing that harm gave him pleasure.

Causing damage for pleasure. Not profit. Pleasure.

I know you’re reading this. Like most sick screwjobs, you fantasize about the object of your obsession. Oh yeah, I know all about you. You read everything I write, you keep copies of my GDJ columns and my Play Dirty columns and you keep your Shadis magazines and L5R supplements and 7th Sea books in plastic bags and you scan over every single last word, looking for hidden messages that tell you that I know who you are.

Well buddy, I don’t know who you are yet. But I’ll find out.

Do you know how much it costs to hire a private eye?

I do.

Do you know how easy it is to convince the FBI that people sending targeted viruses are a danger to themselves and others?

I do.

Did you know I keep copies of everything that’s sent to me over the internet, backed up on ZIP disks and those ZIP disks are now in the hands of those people I mentioned above?

You do now.

I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d find out who you are. But in a way, I already know who you are. Your name is on a long list of names that came off the files that weren’t ravaged by your little bomb. A file called “E-Mails”. You see, the letters “ork” don’t appear in a file called “E-Mails”.

And when I do find you, the law will have its way with you. Bend you over the bench and pound you with the Big Black Dildo of the Law.

And when the Law is done with you, when your backside is bloody and sore and you’re sure that trip to the toilet will be a new experience in pain, it’ll be my turn.

Some say you don’t fuck with a lawyer or a cop because he can break you with the law.

Some say you don’t fuck with a rich man because he can break you with his money.

I say you don’t fuck with a writer.

Why? Because he’ll break your pale, pasty, lard-filled ass with his imagination.

I know EVIL. It isn’t sexy, it isn’t cool, it isn’t hip, it isn’t naughty and it isn’t tragic. It isn’t something I have to learn to live with. It isn’t a beast within that must be fought with the sword of my conscience.

No.

EVIL is something tangible. Something real. Something that must be put down like the mad, sick, frothing dog that it really is.

And with that in mind, let’s you and me talk about elves.

The following text comes from the (salvaged) MONSTERS chapter. It contains my first draft writing of the elves of Orkworld. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you get the idea. I hope you understand that it won’t be “cool” to play elves. It won’t be “hip” to play elves.

People often ask me, “If you met Kachiko, you’d be like ‘Wow! She’s the perfect woman!’”

No. If I met Bayushi Kachiko, I’d be scared to death. Nothing in her life happens by chance. If I met Kachiko, it’s because she wanted to meet me. That means, she wanted something from me. And she’d be willing to do anything - anything at all - to get it from me. That kind of person scares the hell out of me.

So do the elves of Orkworld.

* * *

They are six feet tall, slender and perfect. Their eyes are the shape and color of almonds and their breath is as sweet as honey. They have perfect teeth, perfect eyes, perfect fingers. Their sorcery is beyond orks’ capacity of understanding and they their power is only matched by their cruelty.

These are the elves. Creatures of such might, they can destroy armies, nations, even worlds if the fancy takes them. But they are not native to the world of orks, dwarves and men. They came here a long time ago, and they are eager to leave. However, certain measures must be taken first. Three things must be achieved before they can return home:

The destruction of the men.

The destruction of the dwarves.

And the destruction of the orks.

Th Ælvendroonalvreensheeloodadanan

Elves do not have “anatomy” like other creatures. Like everything else in their world, the bodies they inhabit are creations of magic. Elves are creatures of energy living in bodies fashioned to their liking. They do this by capturing bodies they favor, then using magic to perfect that body to the ideal image. This is why elves resemble humans; dwarves and orks are simply too ugly. Elves capture humans, eliminate their souls (see below) and warp the flesh and bone until their satisfied with the shape. Then, they inhabit the body for as long as it lasts - usually a thousand years. When the body’s flesh is worn out, they capture another body and begin the process again.

However, the spell elves use to transform the human body also makes the flesh stronger. Elven flesh is tough like thick hide while remaining as soft and subtle as silk. Their bodies are also faster. Most organic creatures have to carry around heavy flesh, while the bodies of elves can move with the speed of thought. Elves’ perception is also beyond the limits of flesh. Elves do not rely on sight, sound or smell, but a magical intuition that acts almost like a radar. Elves are aware of everything that surrounds them up to a 360 degree radius.

The elven body does not need to eat to sustain itself; the energy of the elf keeps the body fresh and active. However, elves must eat, and they can only find nourishment in the souls of living creatures. Fortunately (for the rest of life on the planet), elves only need to eat once a year (see Elven Calendar, below). Unfortunately (for the rest of the planet), elves enjoy eating, and do so whenever they can.

An elf can be killed, but not by mundane means. Destroying the body is not enough; his spirit must be disrupted. This can only be accomplished in one way: with a weapon made from the meteor found at Dowlandeen. The Dowlandeen meteor, like the elves, is not from this dimension, but from their own. It arrived as they did, through a dimensional portal, and has irradiated the area with its energy. Any weapon made from the iron found in the Dowlandeen meteor can harm, and even kill, an elven lord.

The word elves use to describe themselves is ælvendroonalvreensheeloodadannan. For convenience, we’ll continue to use the ork word. The elves found in Orkworld are a single household cast out of their own universe by an eldritch vendetta. The world they came from is a hotbed of political intrigues and machinations between warring households that span millennia. These elves were on the losing end of one of those machinations.

They were trapped here many thousands of years ago, only able to return when the stars were in a specific alignment. Unfortunately, when that alignment came, the spell went wrong. A large portion of the planet was ripped up and thrown into the atmosphere while the area the elves colonized was blasted into black sand and glass. The “magical radiation” (see Elven Sorcery, below) that remained made the region completely uninhabitable for any form of life… except elves.

The error not only transformed the region, but the sorcerers as well: the next time the stars would be in the proper configuration would be one hundred thousand years. With the realization that they were trapped on an alien planet with no hope of seeing home, the elven race sunk into a deep despair from which they never quite recovered.

Many thousands of years later, the elves are still the melancholy, dispirited and decadent people they’ve always been. The elves have seen it all. They’ve played political games against their siblings, turning allies into enemies, then turning enemies into allies, and back again and back again. They’ve held great tournaments of blood with thousands of men, orks and dwarves fighting for their lives just for the chance of pleasing the populace, for the slim chance of mercy from the crowd. They’ve watched the birth, life and death of hundreds of nations and peoples. They’ve created life. They’ve destroyed life. They’ve done it all.

And now, they want to blow it all up.

* * *

That’s the end of Part One. You get Part Two next week. I’ve got to re-write it.

And, for the record, if you want to send me e-mail, send it to me here on the private list. Don’t send any more e-mails to me at orkboss@orkworld.com. I won’t read them. Not any mail from anyone I don’t know personally. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.

Take care of yourselves, and I hope that what happened to me this week never happens to you.