Jeff Mach's Blog, page 3

The Revenge Of Silly Little Fantasy Tropes

Fate of the Dark Lord, Version I

How we love The Chosen One
Each one believing she’ll get the job done,
Each led by a Wizard White;
Each one earnest, and not too bright.
How we love someone whose prize
Will be achieved when Yours Truly dies.

__

Behold the Ancient Prophecy!
Which predicts, most obnoxiously
That at the demise of mine and me
All others will live happily.

____

Dark Lord? Dark Lord? Gods, I am bored
Why can’t he vanish of his own accord?
He started talking, and the rest of us snored
Boring, boring, bore, Dark Lord!

___

Quest For The Enchanted Club

Enchanted swords? Surely you jest.
Of enchanted weapons, clubs are best.
It won’t suck out your opponent’s soul,
Nor in their chest leave a giant hole,

But when its magic starts to crackle
It’s even more useful than spackle
For should its sorcery cease to work,
You can still head-crack the opposing jerk.

___

If you’re up for a little mischief,
Why not date a Kender?
Better yet, in my experience,
Just hit it with your fender.

___

 

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No Right To Obey

You can scream. You can pray.
But you have no right to obey.

You can tell me to go away;
But I won’t acknowledge a right to obey.

No-one has the right to say,
“I was only doing it my superiors’ way;
If I’d rebelled, I couldn’t stay,
There’s no blame;
I had to obey.”

Sometimes, obedience is a reasonable price
Shoot me or take my wallet? Living is nice.

But obey or be fired? Obey or they kill
Obey or they’ll find someone else who will?

Believe what you want. Believe what they say.
You never have a right to obey.

The post No Right To Obey appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Dungeon Doggerel Even Further

To my Doggerel, i bid you welcome:
May it be as little fun to read as it was to write.
I did it purely for the money, of which there wasn’t any.

Bigby’s Interposing Hand
Is a spell our tavern hates
Since Bigby’s Interposing Hand
Is how I end most of my dates.

___

The Balrog (known as Durin’s Bane)
Is not as sweet as sugarcane.
And Gandalf will not speak his name
(It’s hard to think about one’s old flame*.)

* of Udûn, specifically.

___

But darling, my Neutrality is True
Same (I swear) as my love for you.
Sure, you’re Evil, but I find it hypnotic;
You’re very sexy when you’re Chaotic.

___

A sexy bra,
A sexy halter,
A sexy sacrifice
On my sexy Lovecraftian altar.

___

Once Elves and Orcs
Were just for dorks
Until our attitudes began to reflect
A more basic interpersonal respect.

I’m just kidding. We owe it all to the powerful “Hobbit Lobby”.

___

Deep in the Dwarven mine
Against the fast and slow rocks
Deep in the Dark, the endless Dark,
They’re busy playing Roblox.

__

You could date an Aboleth;
I’d rather smoke a lot of meth.

You could date a Flayer of Minds;
I’d rather suck on lemon rinds.

I guess you could date an Orc;
Be sure your hips have lots of torque.

__

Before you buy those Wedding Rings,
Draw from your Deck of Many Things

If it sucks out all your bones,
You’ll save lots of dough on precious stones.

___

A Wizard’s Staff has a knob at the end;
It’s also very hard to bend.
if you want to know how I know,
I’ll be hiding behind Jon Snow.

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

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Pickup Lines For Hobbits

“Either you are a vision of loveliness surpassing even that of Galadriel, or Gandalf’s been putting something particularly good in this Pipe-Weed.”

“I can’t even speak of how beautifully hairy your feet are without getting a little hot and bothered.”

“If we get married, we shall have a glorious excuse to acquire a really snug Hobbit hole, and maybe even share it.”

“If I can’t have Elevenses with you, I almost don’t want to have three extra meals at all.”

“Kiss me if I’m wrong, but don’t you have a love of adventure, sleeping in the cold, not eating enough, and possibly dying?”

“I should be back from my adventure with Gandalf in a few years. You’re not doing anything, are you?”

“Would you like to lie out beneath the stars and think about Elves?”

“Are you a conjurer? Because when I look at you, I see the kind of fireworks which make me want to put on a magic ring and disappear.”

“I’ve cut a fine walking-stick. Can I interest you in hiking somewhere secluded, shady, and full of pastries?”

“Let’s go pick mushrooms and drink brandy and see what gets pickled first.”

“A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou beside me, hopefully bringing another loaf of bread, another jug of wine, and perhaps a few little seed-cakes and perhaps a little bacon?”

“Can I interest you tea, followed by a long nap, followed by several meals, followed by several naps, followed by a date eventually, if we have the energy?”

“I tried dating Orcs, but it turns out I’m not into bondage.”

__

“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― Jeff Mach, There and Never, Ever Back Again

You could go here to join my mailing list.

You could find more of my books and other work here on Amazon.

The post Pickup Lines For Hobbits appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

A Traditional Fable Mead Cocktail – from Wonderplace Alpha

First, steal Fire from the Gods.

This always makes them mad. Furious, in fact. Dare we say it really…burns their biscuits? (That’s one of the advantages of this particular theft: once it’s done, you can burn all the biscuits you want.)

And while the Gods are distracted by your theft of Fire, steal Alcohol.

It’s said that the first Mead was distilled by the Dwarven hero Gek, who was either seeking a potion of Eternal Life, or was just super annoyed that the other Dwarves made fun of him for keeping bees in a cave. He sought something stronger than beer, sweeter than sugarcane. Mead was what he chose…

3 oz Mead (Ambrosia – the drink of the gods, none of whom drink as few as 3 oz)1 oz Pomegranate Juice (Sorry, Persephone)1/2 oz Greek Yogurt Syrup (Sorry, everyone)1/2 oz Honey Syrup (Nectar of the Bees)1/2 oz Lemon Juice (This has no classical significance, but the cocktail would taste terrible without it)A Dash of Bitter Herbs (That’s just life, man.)Fresh Mint Leaves (Easily available if you run a Greek city-state.)Edible Gold Dust (Midas Touch; alternately, Goldfinger; alternately, you thought you could afford this?)Instructions:Make Greek Yogurt Syrup: Combine 1 part Greek yogurt with 1 part simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, heated until sugar dissolves, then cooled). Mix well until smooth. Try not to think about what the yogurt looks like.Prepare Honey Syrup: Mix equal parts honey and hot water until the honey dissolves completely. Let it cool before using. Do not drink the hot water.Combine Ingredients: In a cocktail shaker, combine mead, pomegranate juice, Greek yogurt syrup, honey syrup, lemon juice, and a dash of bitter herbs. Frankincense is optional.Shake: Not stirred.Strain: Strain the mixture into a chilled glass. Strain credulity at all other times.Garnish: Sprinkle a pinch of edible gold dust over the top and garnish with fresh mint leaves and Treasury bonds.Enjoy!

This cocktail, rich with the flavors and symbols of classical mythology, is perfect for summoning the spirit of ancient Greece in your next celebration. Raise a glass and toast to the gods and heroes of old!

The post A Traditional Fable Mead Cocktail – from Wonderplace Alpha appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Here Be Silly Little Fantasy Poems

If you’d like me to write a silly bit of Dungeon Doggerel for the beings of your choice, email your creature selections to jeffreypetermach@gmail.com.

All my silly poetry is dedicated a much greater poet. Thank you as always, Shel.

“Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.”
― Shel Silverstein

 

 

I often write of Unicorns
More than Goblins, Dwarves or Norns
I guess their alleged purity
Makes my hate for them a surety–
Either that, or else my hobby
Has been bought by the powerful Griffin lobby.

___

Ogres suffer no romantic snubs;
They don’t date each other,
They just love their clubs.

___

Living statuary
May, in general shape, vary,
But when things get hairy,
They precede a mortuary.

___

Gargoyle Poem I: The Kindly Old Wizard Who Hired Me To Build Some Decorations For The Foreboding Tower In Which He Happens To Live Seems Surprisingly Unsurprised At This Outcome

All that toil
To carve a Gargoyle!
One hardly approves
When the damn thing moves.

(The rest of the poem is just screaming noises.)

___

The Wicked Witch has skin of green;
She’s often Kermit for Halloween.

___

An Orc with torque
Can twerk with perks:
Their posteriors
Are highly superior.

___

Gargoyle Poem II: Tomb of Horrors

This Gargoyle is quite mutated
It has four arms, and they’re all serrated
We suspect it’s not elated
When ’tis time to be defenestrated.

___

Pitchforks, check
Torches, too
We’ll get the Monster,
Then come for you.

___

Once he fell in love with a sexy Ent
And on her all his money was spent
Now this sad fact, he still mourns:
He’s paying child support on three acorns.

___

You know you live in a boring Reality
When the Temple of Elemental Evil
Becomes a Temple of Mild Depravity.

___

Ogre angry? Ogre smash!
Ogre burn to burning ash!
Ogre fury has no twin–
When it comes out,
Ogre win.

___

If you read this ancient tome,
Ominous and foreboding,
You’ll soon find out this ancient zone
Is for loading and unloading.

___

Amongst salesmen of every kind,
This one gets the cold shoulder:
The lucky guy who has the franchise
To sell Visine to Beholders.

___

One of Nature’s immutable Laws:All castle guards must have glass jaws.All Unbreakable Codes are somehow breakable,Invincible Vampires, somehow stakeable;Ancient Demons can be banished,Dinosaurs, implausibly vanished;Sea Monsters spout down the drain,
Mind Flayers starve from lack of brain,

Paper Dragons get the snip,
Gelatinous cubes begin to drip;

Unpickable locks just open with clicks,
Unstoppable Doom Clocks cease their ticks,And things from strange Dungeon Dimensions
Change to more touristy intentions.”Come on by, and watch your step –
Next stop’s the Bahamas,
Nyarlothotep.___

Find me on Twitter.
Read my books.

Wonderplace Alpha

The post Here Be Silly Little Fantasy Poems appeared first on Jeff Mach Writes.

Pickup Lines For Dwarves

Dwarves are, depending on thy reckoning, either some of the most complicated beings in the World (living underground as if rock were air and air were almost optional) or very, very simple (gold, meat, gold, gold, mead, gold, gold, mining, gold, meat, gold). 

How do Dwarves romance each other? We hoped you’d ask.

“If our mine were to collapse, and I was able to save most of the gold, I would definitely go back for you second.”

“Are you a pickaxe? Because I want to hold you lovingly in my hands and use you to shatter rocks.”

“If you were a series of igneous rocks, I, for one, would welcome the cave-in.”

“I would slay ten thousand Orcs for you. Of course, I would slay ten thousand Orcs anyway, but I wouldn’t do it nearly so fast.”

“Let us enjoy dinner and a movie, and since movies have not yet been invented, let us, instead, mine for gold.”

“GUARDS! GUARDS! HE HAS STOLEN MY HEART! QUICKLY, PAT HIM DOWN TO MAKE SURE HE DIDN’T TAKE ANYTHING VALUABLE, LIKE GOLD!”

“My soul was as cold as rock until you split it open to get at the precious Love within. I always hoped there’d be fine metals or something, but this is good, too.”

“Let’s go back to your place and compare beards.”

“You are finer than the finest hammer, shinier than the third-purest gold, and you smell better than a metal smelter on an Autumn day.”

“All the others are as bronze; but you are surely at least silver.”

“All I wish is a good pipe at the end of day, a plate of meat, a cup of mead, a mountain of treasure sufficient to overtip this continent into a sodden doom within the Great Northern Sea, and you.”

“Want to go pants some Elves?”

“Perhaps we might read the words of the Ancients who came before and instruct ourselves in the proper placement of wheat and grain, after which we can canoodle under the stalagmites.”

“The moment I saw you, I realized I wished to raise children with you and begin a dynasty that shall lead all Dwarvenkind for a thousand years. After we mine for some gold, of course.”

___

Find me on Twitter.
Read my books.

Wonderplace Alpha

 

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The Dungeon Gift Shop

For best results, please turn up the volume on this training video.

Hello, and welcome to your new and rewarding career as a Customer Service Antagonist at the Citadel of Eternal Darkness. We’re excited to have you as part of our predictably dysfunctional family of associated associates.

Over here are cheap imitations of The Big MacGuffin, on sale for eight copper pieces apiece. Please handle carefully; they do have a tendency to fall apart before patrons actually have a chance to leave the room.

And over here is the Actual MacGuffin itself. Adventurers are often dismayed to find it on sale here, especially after they’ve just finished the entire dungeon, used up charges in their magic items, died, etc. But, as we point out, you don’t need to go through the dungeon to stop by our gift shop! The MacGuffin costs about 2,000 gold pieces, or about as much as it takes to equip one adventurer to go through this dungeon once.

Here’s a memorial to all the Adventurers who had heart attacks in the MacGuffin section.

Now, while Adventurers are an important source of revenue, we should mention that most of them make single-time purchases, for obvious reasons. We therefore stock a full line of things most Dungeon Denizens need. For general supplies, various kinds of blood are stored next to the Snack Bar, and assorted cuts of Human, Dwarf, and Hobbit meat are in the refrigerated section. We’d like to note that, after the whole Warg’s Head food recall, we do NOT serve Elf meat.

And, of course, in our most popular section, over in the back, we’ve got soft drinks, hard cider, soft hard drinks, Absinthe, popcorn, chocolate-covered Tiefling ears, and score cards. Adventurer-watching continues to be the 4th-highest-rated show broadcasting in cursed mirrors throughout the land, and until the last Adventurer dies of dragonfire or sheer stupidity, someone’s got to sell snacks to the various monsters, cultists, and undead who get off on their pain.

Be sure to ask if they’d like to round their purchase up in order to make a donation to the Feed A Mind-Flayer Fund. There are Mind Flayers out there starving because they have nothing but Adventurer brains to eat. They deserve our help.

___

Find me on Twitter.
Read my books.

Wonderplace Alpha

 

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Pickup Lines For Dating The Undead

“If I hadn’t been re-animated and thrust helplessly into the eternal battle between Light and Dark as a hideous unliving mockery of my former self, I would totally buy you a drink.”

“You just took my breath away! And since I haven’t breathed for over three centuries, that’s IMPRESSIVE.”

“Erase the words on my forehead which animate my sick, sad, corpselike parody of an unliving thing if I’m wrong, but aren’t Dragons fond of giving away gold and sticking their heads into large bodies of water just as they’re about to breathe flame?”

“BRAAAINS. BRAAAAAINS. Get coffee sometime? BRAAAAAAAAAINS.”

“So if you’re here, who’s busy stoking the endless fires of the infinite iron furnaces of the Seventh Hell?”

“If we could escape from the Necromancer’s vast fortress, I would definitely take you on a lovely picnic where I’d win you over with my marinated flesh-of-the-living and my secret recipe for asparagus sauce.”

“Your eyes are like the Ocean: mysterious, dark, and full of fossilized reanimated sharks.”

“Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I die again and rise slowly from my accursed grave a second time?”

“You know, when the Daemon-King Bajoombah thrust a stolen soul between the brittle ribcage of your ancient skeleton and bade you join his deathless army to slaughter the living, he was really showing off, because you’re kinda hot, in an ‘I’m hoping to set you on fire’ kinda way.”

“If I were a cat, I’d spend 8 lives on you, and all of my undeath on you, and just spend the one remaining life trying to get rid of this ghostly hairball.”

____

Find me on Twitter.
Read my books.

Wonderplace Alpha

 

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Lovecrafted: An MLM Cultist Experience

(All rise.)

HIGH PRIEST: “Great Yog-Sothoth, dip is into the unholy icing of Your disapproval for all things pathetic and Human. Vast Azathoth, may you continue to swallow the cosmic Nothingosity. Mighty Bast, continue to have cats act pretty much the way they already do.”

CULTISTS: “Amen!”

HIGH PRIEST: “Soon, we shall open the Gate to the Other World!”

CULTISTS: “The Gate! The Gate! Open the Gate!”

HIGH PRIEST: “And once the Gate is opened, we shall close it firmly with the Tupperware lid, keeping it fresh unto a new Aeon!”

CULTISTS: (All cheer wildly and pass the Ranch dressing.)

___

It came to pass that in the land of Floofth, by the river Glorp, there stood two trees which neither withered nor grew. Legend had it that if the Cats of Ulthar ever used either tree as a scratching post, the entire Earth would start putting pineapple on pizza.

You have been warned.

___

Nyarlothotep! Where’d you get those shoes?

___

wonderplacealpha.com

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