Kevin L. O'Brien's Blog: Songs of the Seanchaí, page 7

The Pliocene Adventure -- The Fossils

The next few posts in this series will describe the kinds of animals present in Colorado during the mid-Pliocene, 3.3 million years ago, based on the fossils that have been found there.



Finding a suitable reference of fossils was problematic. While there are many webpages that provide lists of prehistoric animals, most just concentrate on the sexy ones (cave bears, sabretooth cats, dire wolves, etc.), the big ones (mammoths, ground sloths, rhinoceroses, etc.), or mammals in general (horses, camels, antelope, etc.); most give no information on where they lived, except to say North America or The West; and most either give no dates or a very general date, like the mid-Pliocene, which can still cover a couple of million years. Finally, I stumbled upon a database that listed all fossils stored in museums, which included the locations where they were found and their proposed age ranges, and which covered the entire biological world, including all vertebrates and invertebrates. With that source I was able to compile a list of all the creatures that Differel and Team Girl were likely to encounter.

Even then, it wasn't that straightforward. To begin with, I decided to ignore the invertebrates. As it turned out, there were almost too many vertebrates to review in a convenient length of time; had I included invertebrates I might still be trying to compile a definitive list. Besides, there were no sexy invertebrates at that time, like giant spiders or scorpions or ants, and while they tended to be different species, for the most part the same kinds of invertebrates that exist today also existed back then. Nor did I want to invent a fictional invertebrate that would force me to handwave why it doesn't show up in the fossil record. This is not to say I won't mention invertebrates at all; Differel and Team Girl will have to contend with insects and arachnids, and their water source will have crustaceans. But other than mentioning what type they are, I won't go into detail on their taxonomical classification.

Even for the vertebrates, I concentrated on just the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, and even that last was pushing it. My story will be as much bestiary as adventure, so I will be describing the various animals Differel and the Girls encounter, especially those they interact with, and I justify some otherwise unlikely interactions by establishing that, as long as they are stuck in the past, they will do biological survey work for Mabuse, including trapping animals for collection and study.

Since their home includes a beaver pond that would also serve as a home for various amphibians, and the savannah they reside in has other amphibian-friendly environments, I figured some of their traps would catch the odd frog, toad, or salamander, so I couldn't justify (to myself) leaving amphibians out, even if all I might do is have Sunny pedantically mention the toad or frog that showed up in one of their traps. However, I decided to leave out fish. Partially because the kinds back then would pretty much be the same as the kinds we have now (though that would also be true of the amphibians), but mostly because the equipment Mabuse will provide them for animal collection will be land traps, not nets or similar water traps. As such, aside from anything caught while fishing, I won't have much to say about fish at all.

Next I decided to concentrate on listing genera (the plural of genus). All lifeforms, including plants and microorganisms, are classified by a two-name system, for example Homo sapiens, that goes Genus species. So Homo is the genus, while sapiens is the species. A genus is the lowest rank in taxonomy that indicates a distinct creature; that is, a creature that is recognizably distinct from all other creatures (though the distinction may be subtle). Species within a genus can be distinct, but don't have to be. Genus roughly corresponds to what many people call kinds or types of animals. For example, the ordinary house mouse belongs to the genus Mus, whereas the field mouse belongs to the genus Apodemus. Except for some special cases, I won't bore you with recitations of all the fossil genera I found in my blog posts; my purpose in listing genera was so that I could understand the diversity that existed during the mid-Pliocene.

The problem is, however, that many prehistoric lifeforms are only known by their taxonomic names, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, so I cannot avoid mentioning some taxonomic names. My point, though, is that I soon discovered that there were almost too many genera to list, and recording all the species as well seemed like overkill. In the end, I just wanted a list of the kinds of animals that lived back then, and frankly, if you've seen one field mouse, you've seen them all. The only time I recorded species names was in those rare cases when species within a genus were distinct enough to be considered separate kinds.

Even so, as much as possible I tried to use popular names when I could find them, or in some cases invent them, but be forewarned: saying "there were camels back then" doesn't quite cut it if there were four different kinds of camels living together, so listing their genus names becomes necessary.

All that allowed me to pare down the number of creatures I needed to review, but next I had to select which animals to record. My primary criteria were all animals that lived in Colorado 3.3 million years ago, but since the database consisted of a listing of fossils, it could not be comprehensive in the way I wanted. In other words, it could list that a grasslands big cat fossil was found in Kansas, but it would not say whether it might have also lived in Colorado if no fossils were found there. Logically we could assume that any big cat that lived on the Kansas prairie could also live on the Colorado prairie, but unless a fossil had actually been found in Colorado, the database would not list that big cat as being a resident of Colorado.

In fact, if I limited myself to just the fossils found in Colorado, I would have only had about a Baker's dozen of creatures. So I decided that any creature found in the surrounding states -- Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming -- probably lived in Colorado as well, unless its environment was too specialized or didn't exist in the state. I tried not to fudge this too much; there were some creatures I wanted to have in my story, but if their fossils were only found in California or Montana or Mexico I ignored them. Alligators are a good example. During the Pliocene they ranged farther north than they do now, and theoretically they could have followed the larger rivers west through Kansas to Colorado, but since none of their fossils were found west of the Mississippi I had to abandon that idea.

In the end, the only two creatures that I shoehorned in despite a lack of fossils were giant anteaters and terror birds. The former lived in Mexico, but since the environment there was similar to that of Colorado, I saw no reason to believe that individuals could not have wandered north, though I decided not to have a breeding population. Fossils of the latter have only been found in Florida, but they came up from South America, and to get to Florida they had to pass through the southwest. Again, I saw no reason to believe that a breeding flock could not have gone as far north as Colorado, with the lack of fossils perhaps explained by the fact that the arid conditions would not be conducive to preserving delicate bird bones except under unusual conditions, especially if it was just one or a very few flocks. If you feel inclined to dismiss this as handwaving, ask yourself why there are no fossils in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or Georgia, states the birds had to cross through to reach Florida, or explain how they got to Florida without crossing through these states.

I should point out that I am not arguing that terror birds actually made it to Colorado, only that they could have, and only for the purpose of my fictional story.

I was more strict with dating. The problem with dates is that they are imprecise and often approximations. That doesn't mean they are mere guesswork; there is a strong logical and evidential basis for sedimentary and taxonomical dating. However, even a paleontologist will admit that a dating range for a single fossil is based more on uncertainty than fact. For example, stating a fossil has a range of 5 to 3 mya isn't necessarily a claim of how long that creature's species lived, just the calculation of the most likely age range in which that individual creature lived. In other words, the range is not saying that species lived between 5 and 3 mya, but that the individual lived anywhere between 5 and 3 mya. It's like saying that a man died between 10 and 12 years ago. That doesn't mean he was dying for two years, only that we cannot say exactly when he died, except it wasn't more than 12 years ago and it wasn't less than 10.

Then too, the extremes are often themselves uncertain. In our above example, the 3 mya date might have really been 3 plus or minus 200,000 years, putting the lower limit at anywhere between 3.2 and 2.8 mya. With that kind of uncertainty it's amazing that we can be accurate at all. Multiple fossils make the date range more precise, and moves it closer to being the actual lifespan of the species, but even then we cannot say that the species did not exist before 5 or after 3 mya, only that we haven't found any fossils outside that date range. Of course, if you add in the uncertainties associated with the upper and lower limits, we can't even say that, since the data set might include a couple of outliers from 5.7 and 2.5 mya, that skewed the distribution into its wide range but otherwise fall outside the tighter range of the rest of the fossils.

The point of all of this is that I could only take the age ranges of the fossils with a grain of salt, and decided to err on the side of caution. I assumed for the sake of convenience that an age range of 5 to 3 mya was the lifespan of the species (I really had no evidence to the contrary), and I accepted the upper and lower limits as rock-solid (the database did not state the uncertainties associated with these dates), but I also rigidly applied them to deciding whether a creature might have existed 3.3 million years ago. If the range included the magical 3.3 number, say 4.2 to 3.1 mya, I accepted that the creature probably lived at the time of my story. However, even if the date was off by only 0.1 million years, I rejected it. In other words, any creature with a lower limit of 3.4 or an upper limit of 3.2 I ignored.

That might seem arbitrary, even considering the above discussion, since these cut-offs are so close to the magical 3.3, but keep in mind that we're talking about a difference of 100,000 years. Species can go extinct or be newly evolve in shorter times than that. You could also argue that with the uncertainty my cut-offs might not be all that accurate, but in that case where do I put them? At 3.5/3.1? 3.6/3.0? More? And what justification would I have for choosing my cut-offs? None that would be more objective than my justification for accepting the upper and lower limits given in the database as accurate. In the end, I did fudge even this to include some small mammals I felt were necessary for a thriving ecosystem, and a few birds to round out my list (otherwise it would be too paltry), but I fully accepted that my decision of how to interpret the dates given in the database would be rather subjective.

However, this did mean that some creatures I really wanted to include I couldn't because they lived too late. For example, I was surprised to learn that there were no mammoths in North America during the Pliocene. The soonest they appear in the fossil record is at the beginning of the Pleistocene 2.588 mya, with the iconic wooly mammoth not appearing until 780,000 years ago. There also weren't any bison, wolves, or coyotes (though there were analogs of the latter two). Certain extinct prehistoric animals that I had hoped were present, such as American lions and cave bears, were not (though again, I found suitable analogs), but as I pointed out in a previous post, I was able to include some exotic creatures from previous ages that would go extinct before the Pleistocene. They are what gives the Pliocene it's unique character that sets it apart from the Pleistocene.

I should point out, however, that this database was not perfect. For one thing, it tended to be conservative regarding age ranges, such that it listed some creatures as being younger or older than they really were. To compensate for that, I used other sources, such as Wikipedia, to provide alternative dates in a few cases. If I hadn't, for example, I would not have had any horses, which would have been ridiculous since horses lived in North America until the end of the last ice age. Then too, the database would sometimes list a creature as belonging to the Blancan faunal stage even though it listed an upper age range of 1.8 mya. The Blancan ended 1.8 mya, so rightfully the creatures belonged to the next stage, but even so, at 1.8 mya they were still too young to have lived in the mid-Pliocene. The problem was, I sometimes included a creature because the database claimed it was Blancan, without checking the date. I have tried to correct these errors, but a few might have still slipped through.

L. Neil Smith and the USS Maine

In his continued efforts to paint the United States government as an evil, brutal, thuggish, collectivist (i.e., commie) cabal out to grab your guns, take over the world, slaughter you all like sheep, and eat you as stew meat, all in the name of a fascist, eugenicist worship of Mother Gaia, L. Neil Smith readily and gleefully spins historical facts to fit his loony paranoid delusions. The story of the USS Maine is no different. This was the armored cruiser that blew up in Havana Harbor on the evening of February 15, 1898, and precipitated the Spanish-American War.

While there are several critical unanswered questions regarding that incident, and unquestionably some chicanery was perpetrated to goad America into declaring war on Spain, as usual Smith cannot content himself with history as it is, but must find hidden conspiracy behind the facts. He states:

Remember the Maine? In 1898, a U.S. Navy warship blew up in Havana, almost certainly due to poor boiler maintenance. But William Randolph Hearst, an evil newspaper publisher who wanted the excitement of a war to report in his chain of newspapers ... and William McKinley, a President who talked to fairies at the bottom of his garden, made sure that the frailest, most poverty-stricken Old World nation this side of Turkey got the blame for it.

Thus the Spanish American War began with a lie. In the middle was Teddy Roosevelt's mythical cavalry charge up San Juan Hill--which was actually made on foot against a tiny band of incredibly courageous Spanish riflemen. The war finally ended with a lie when the Moros, people of the Philippines, whom we'd talked into fighting on our side with promises of independence, learned that they'd simply traded one master for another. They objected to this, so we killed as many as we could.

“The Empire of Lies” The Libertarian Enterprise 288, June 22, 2003

To break it down, he makes two major and two minor charges:

1. The Maine was not sunk by Spain, but by an accident (specifically, a malfunctioning boiler);

2. Hearst and Pres. McKinley blamed Spain to start a war;

3. Teddy Roosevelt made no cavalry charge up San Juan Hill; and

4. We lied to the Moros and killed them when they demanded we keep our word.

I'll take these one at a time.

What destroyed the Maine? At least Smith has the decency for once to hedge his claim with "almost certainly", because in fact, while we know what happened, we still don't know what caused it, and we probably never will. One thing is clear, though: it had nothing to do with a faulty boiler.

Everyone agrees that what destroyed the Maine was the detonation of the ammunition in its forward storage magazines. The entire front third of the ship had been obliterated. What no one can agree on is whether it was caused by a mine or some other kind of external explosion, or by a spontaneous, run-away fire in its coal bunker. There are compelling arguments for both. In fact, there have been 7 separate investigations, both formal and informal, and roughly half argue for an external explosion and the rest for a coal fire. See the Wikipedia article on the Maine for more details.

Personally, I lean toward the coal fire explanation, but the point is we cannot rule out some kind of external explosion, which would pretty much mean sabotage (in fact, the Cubans and Russians claim it was a false-flag operation conducted by American agents; frankly, I'm surprised Smith doesn't claim this as well). Neither can we say "almost certainly" that it was a coal fire. We just don't know, but as long as that's the case, sabotage by Spain, whether officially or unofficially, is still a distinct possibility.

The American war-mongering conspiracy: Smith is basically right about Hearst, though he was as much motivated by patriotic fervor as a desire to sell newspapers. (Whether he was evil is a matter of opinion, not fact.) He did engage in what we call "yellow journalism"; in fact, he made stories up when there was no legitimate news he could use. Smith fails to mention that Joseph Pulitzer was almost as bad as Hearst, even though Pulitzer privately believed that only a lunatic could assume that Spain was responsible.

But Smith is dead wrong about Pres. McKinley. To understand why, we need to know what Smith is not telling us! He gives the impression that Hearst (and Pulitzer) and Pres. McKinley dragged the American people into war against their will to satisfy their own lust for power and dominance, when in fact the American people had been clamoring for war against Spain for some time, because they favored Cuban independence and were appalled by Spanish atrocities against the Cuban people, but McKinley opposed a war! He wanted to reach a negotiated settlement, one that would leave Spain in charge, but give the Cuban people self-government, or at least greater autonomy. It was Hearst and Pulitzer who wanted war, aided by some members of Congress. When the Maine blew up, they and Congress increased their pressure on Pres. McKinley and whipped the American people into a frenzy, but Pres. McKinley still resisted, insisting on a naval court of inquiry first. Even after the court declared that the Maine had been sunk by a mine, Pres. McKinley continued to try to negotiate, but Spain refused all offers of compromise. Finally he gave up and turned the matter over to Congress. They passed a resolution that delivered an ultimatum to Spain, and Pres. McKinley signed it. In response, Spain cut off diplomatic ties to the US and declared war. Two days later, Congress declared war on the Spain. See the Wikipedia article of the Spanish-American War for more details.

So, we now know that Hearst (and Pulitzer), Congress, and the American people wanted war, but Pres. McKinley tried to stop it, but when Spain declared war on us, he let Congress declare war on them. Only if you assume Pre. McKinley was a pseudo-Bond villain playing a long con to trick everyone into fighting Spain can you claim he conspired to start the war. Insane Troll Logic strikes again!

TR's charge up San Juan Hill: Yes, it was on foot; due to a lack of the required transportation, the Rough Riders were unable to take most of their horses with them to Cuba. The charge was also up Kettle Hill, not San Juan Hill. However, the "lies" (more properly exaggerations) in this case were due to the newspapers romanticizing the event. Such is common in history; even Smith does it, such as when he referred to the "tiny band of incredibly courageous Spanish riflemen" in the earlier quote. Though usually he vilifies the events he discusses rather than romanticizes them.

The Moros people of the Philippines: I can find no evidence that the American commanders in the Philippines promised the Filipino people independence; in fact, they had no authority to do so. At best, they simply assumed we would let them have it. We did encourage them to fight the Spanish, and they did help us defeat them, and they did declare their independence by themselves, but there is no evidence we promised it to them. As for us killing them, yes, we did, but Smith implies we did so in cold blood, to silence their call for independence. The picture he paints is of armed troops gunning down peaceful unarmed civilians. In fact, when we refused to recognize their independence, the Filipinos geared up for war, including expanding their army, and depicting us as allies turned enemies. We fired the first shots, but they attacked us as well as part of an overall strategy to gain their independence. We eventually defeated them, but whereas the Spanish would have mounted crippling reprisals as punishment, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt issued a full and complete pardon and amnesty for all Filipinos who had participated in the war. We then discontinued a military-style rule and set up a governor-generalship that granted the Filipinos a great deal of autonomy and self-government, even if we were ultimately in control. Our conduct in this affair certainly wasn't the best example of our American ideals, but neither did we sink to the depraved level Smith suggests.

As for the Moros, we had a peace treaty with them, so they stayed out of the Philippine-American War, but then we started colonizing Moros land, so they rebelled. Note that: contrary to Smith's claims, the Moros rebelled, not because we denied them independence, but because we tried to settle on their land. We tried to reconcile with them, but terrorists among them attacked us and we fought back. We quickly defeated organized resistance and occupied their country, but worked to grant them limited autonomy and self-governance, to improve their economy and agriculture, and reform their laws. We stayed as long as we did because terrorists continued to attack us and our Moros allies. Not until we disarmed the Moros, with their cooperation, did the fighting finally cease. We then transitioned to a civilian government to replace the military one that had put down the rebellion.

The point of this is, we did not indiscriminately slaughter Moros civilians in general; we only attacked armed terrorist groups that even other Moros hated. We helped the Moros where we could, and most were grateful for our protection and aid.

Would it have been better if we had simply recognized Filipino independence and left peacefully? Without a crystal ball, I have to say probably yes. At the very least, if we had done so and the Philippines had experienced problems as a result, they would still have been their problems, to solve as best as they could. Did we make mistakes? Yes, and some were quite bad, resulting civilian deaths that could have been avoided. But we were not depraved monsters as Smith claims. He can hate the government all he wants, but when he claims that good faith efforts on our part that resulted in tragedies we regret and we wish we could undo, were actually premeditated cold-blooded schemes to kill and rape and destroy for pure bloodlust and a hunger for domination, he goes beyond reasoned criticism, and delusional paranoia, and passes into psychotic hallucinations.

Either that, or (to paraphrase his own insult that his opponents must be stupid, crazy, or evil) he is as dumb as a sack of hair or an evil liar.

Combat Tropes: J-Z

Here is part 2 of my discussion of Combat Tropes.

Writing combat scenes is not easy for me. For one thing, I carefully choreograph any fight in my head as I write it out, which can take awhile, so that I start to think I'm dragging the action out for far too long. I then stop to rethink it, and I might not get back to it for a couple of days. When I do I read what I've written and discover that the scene is shorter than I thought it was, maybe too short, so I write some more, but start thinking it's going too long. And the whole process starts all over again. It can take me days, even weeks, to write one action scene.

For another, I haven't quite figured out whether I should just describe the physical actions or my character's thoughts and feelings, or try to combine them somehow. I seem to do better when I just stick to physical actions, but that's like transcribing a movie. I would think that literature demands we see how the fighting POV character thinks and feels while in combat, but it also seems like that would interfere with the action itself, in the same way that a lengthy exposition breaks the narrative.

Thirdly, I haven't decided whether saying something like, "Eile slugged Sheraton in the nose," is showing or telling, despite the fact that both drama and tension are heightened by short, simple descriptive sentences.

Well, for now all I can do is just keep writing and hope I can figure it all out, at least until a professional writer offers to give me some advice.

No, that's not a hint.

Knife Nut -- using knives as weapons

***** When Medb hErenn must engage in close-quarters combat, she uses a dirk with a heavy, foot-long, double-edged blade.

In the Dreamlands, Eile uses a bowie knife and Sunny a stiletto dagger.

Aelfraed is a master with the Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. As a Royal Marine, Master-at-Arms Giles Holt was given commando training, which included using a knife. Both taught what they knew to Sir Differel Van Helsing.

Knockout Ambush -- a character is attacked, but rendered unconscious instead of killed

***** This happens to NYPD Lt. Mark Thorner in "No Torrent Like Greed". Also Differel in "The Beast of Exmoor" and "Survival & Sacrifice".

Last Stand -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; the battle you can neither win nor survive, but which you must fight to save your friends, army, nation

***** Eile and Sunny have one in "Survival & Sacrifice".

Lead the Target -- aiming ahead of a moving target along its path to insure hitting it

***** Differel tries to do this with the Cat From Mars in "The Beast of Exmoor", but it moves too fast.

Let's Dance -- a euphemism for starting a fight

***** In "Rhapsody in Orange", the Princess in Orange quotes this euphemism verbatim.

Long-Range Fighter -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; a character who specializes in ranged combat

***** Sunny in the Dreamlands, with her bow.

Master Swordsman -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; a character noted for his or her mastery of the sword

***** Differel; duh.

Motorcycle Jousting -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; a character engages in jousting from the back of a motorbike

***** Though they use swords, Differel jousts with a ghostly headless rebel biker in "One-Percenter Vendetta".

Multi-Melee Master -- a character who carries more than one type of melee weapon

***** Medb, hands down (spear or Dane axe, sword, dirk); Eile and Sunny (sword and knife; quarterstaff and dagger); Differel (Caliburn or some other sword and dagger).

Multi-Ranged Master -- a character who wields at least two distinct types of ranged weapons

***** Medb, hands down (sling, javelins, crossbow, bo-shuriken, blow gun).

Near Misses -- the bad guys shoot at the hero, but fail to hit him or her

***** With Differel, usually because Vlad appears in front of her and takes the bullets himself.

Never Bring a Gun To a Knife Fight -- when a knife (or sword) is superior to a gun

***** In Real Life the 21-foot rule states that an attacker with a knife can charge a victim armed with a holstered gun and stab him before he can draw and fire. Because of this, people are trained to rush a gun but back away from a knife.

As such, if Differel is attacked by someone with a knife (or a monster with teeth and claws), instead of drawing her gun she summons Caliburn or engages him bare-handed. And if confronted by a gunman, she charges him with Caliburn or her dagger.

Never Bring a Knife To a Fist Fight -- when fisticuffs or martial arts are superior to a knife

***** Differel is trained to disarm and incapacitate or kill an opponent with a knife (or a gun) with just her hands.

Never Bring a Knife To a Gun Fight -- anytime one opponent has a weapon that is totally outclassed by the other opponent's weapon

***** In the forthcoming "The Toxic Celebutante", Sunny uses her composite bow to confront Marseilles Sheraton, who is armed with a kukri. Sunny makes her back down.

This happens whenever Differel sics Vlad on a monster or summons Caliburn.

No Arc in Archery -- arrows travel in perfectly flat straight-line trajectories

***** In Real Life, any arrow must be loosed at an upward angle, regardless of distance, to make sure it strikes the target. This is known as a ballistic trajectory. However, medieval illustrations clearly show that in battle archers tended to hold their bows more or less flat, because they were shooting at very close ranges. Only when aiming at far-away targets, or shooting over obstacles, did they point their bows up at considerable angles.

No Range Like Point-Blank Range -- shooting a target at point-blank range virtually guarantees a kill

***** In "The Beast of Exmoor", Differel shoots the Cat From Mars in the eye at point-blank range, killing it instantly. Justified in that the eye, with its direct connection to the brain, is the Cat's one vulnerable spot.

No Sell -- one character is immune to the attack of another

***** Medb and Vlad experience this when attacked by weaker opponents.

Non-Fatal Explosions -- explosions that don't kill anyone

***** In "Man Friday", Mr. Holt shoots a Fomorian with explosive rounds in a confined space, yet neither he, Aelfraed, or Differel are harmed. Discussed by him and Aelfraed before hand.

Subverted and played straight earlier in the same story, when the troop commander booby-traps himself and grapples with the Fomorian. The explosion kills him, but the Fomorian is unscathed. Justified in that the Fomorian is Nigh Invulnerable. Lampshaded by Vlad and discussed with Differel.

Non-Lethal Warfare -- no one dies in war

***** Averted in all my stories, but especially "Man Friday", "Adventurer's Honeymoon", "Inseparable", "Pyrrhic Victory", "The Denver Walker", and "Survival & Sacrifice".

Nonchalant Dodge -- the character barely moves to dodge; he or she does the most minimal amount of movement necessary to avoid an attack

***** Both Medb and Vlad can do this because of their magical powers.

One Handed Shotgun Pump -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; using the shotgun's weight and inertia to chamber a new round while holding the grip with one hand

***** Subverted with Eile; she prefers semi-automatic or fully automatic shotguns. Played straight with Marseilles Sheraton, who often does this with her riot version Ithaca 37 sawed-off shotgun.

One-Hit Kill -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; an opponent is killed by a single blow

***** Examples in "Dark Vengeance", "Gourmand Hag", "Adventurer's Honeymoon", "The Beast of Exmoor", and "The Denver Walker".

Pretty Little Headshots -- being shot in the head leaves a small entry wound with a tiny amount of blood, and no exit wound

***** Played straight in "The Beast of Exmoor", but justified in that the skull of a Cat From Mars is bulletproof, at least to anything under .50 caliber.

Right-Handed Left-Handed Guns -- guns designed for a right-handed shooter work equally well for a left-handed shooter

***** Subverted in Real Life, in that guns designed for right-handed persons eject spent cartridges from the right side of the breech, away from the shooter. Holding such a gun left-handed means getting hit by hot spent cartridges. Also, guns are designed to operate asymmetrically; that is, a right-handed gun has things like safety and selective fire switches on one side only.

This is one of those details I won't mention in a story unless it's necessary for the plot, but this trope is subverted in my stories as well.

In the Dreamlands, a matchlock or wheellock pistol can be fired by either hand because nothing is ejected and everything else operates symmetrically.

Semper Fu -- (not yet a true trope; an example of Foo Fu) Marine Corps martial arts

***** Both Mr. Holt, a Royal Marine, and Eile's Uncle Gene, a former US Marine, were taught martial arts as part of their training.

Showdown At High Noon [Version B] -- two combatants face one another in a gun duel

***** Subverted in "Barbarians R Us", "Gruff Tolls", "The Steel Gazelle", and "One-Percenter Vendetta"; melee weapons or magic are used instead of guns and they do not take place at noon, but they still involve two combatants facing each other in a duel.

Sighted Guns Are Low Tech -- gun sights are not needed because automatic weapons are not aimed

***** Subverted and played straight in "Survival & Sacrifice". Eile and Sunny use British Army L85A2 assault rifles on semi-automatic and take aimed shots. However, in one scene Eile switches to full automatic and in another she fires a light machine gun, both from the hip. Mr. Holt also uses a British Army L7A2 general-purpose machine gun, fired from the hip and fed by an Ammunition Backpack.

Single-Stroke Battle -- a sword duel is resolved with a single charge, pass, and strike, usually leaving one combatant dead

***** A number of sword dueling styles feature single-stroke attacks and parrying moves that combine blocking with attacking.

Examples with Differel in "Gourmand Hag", "Adventurer's Honeymoon", "The Beast of Exmoor", "A Little Hospitality", and "Dribble & Maggot in the Land of Dreams".

Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship -- combat with a blade (sword, dagger, spear, etc.) is reduced to cutting attacks

***** Any blade with at least one sharpened edge can be used to cut (slash), even if the weapon is primarily designed for stabbing (thrusting). A weapon that can perform either attack equally well is known as a cut-and-thrust weapon.

Medb's expertise with the spear allows her to slash as well as thrust. Her sword and dirk are designed to both slash and thrust.

In the Dreamlands, Eile's short heavy-bladed sword and bowie knife are cut-and-thrust weapons.

Longswords, greatswords, and broadswords are designed to cut unarmored opponents and stab armored opponents.

Rapiers are primarily thrusting weapons, but some dueling styles include slash attacks as well.

Sword and Gun -- using both a melee weapon and a projectile weapon at the same time

***** Differel often fights with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.

Sword Fight -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; combat with swords

***** Examples in "Adventurer's Honeymoon", "One-Percenter Vendetta", "A Little Hospitality", "Differential Damsel", and "Dribble & Maggot in the Land of Dreams".

Taser Tag Weakness -- using an electric shock to incapacitate an opponent

***** The Caerleon Order has learned that most monsters are vulnerable to electric shock, including Vampires, Werewolves, and certain types of Zombies, and that at worst it just takes greater amperage to bring them down.

There Is No Kill Like Overkill -- when the act of killing an opponent is completely overdone

***** Justified in "Man Friday"; overkill is the only way to destroy a Fomorian.

What the Cenobites do to their victims in "Youthful Indiscretion" (though also averted in that they are not trying to kill them).

Two Shots From Behind the Bar -- a weapon is retrieved from behind a bar and used to quell a disturbance

***** Subverted in "The Steel Gazelle" (the staff run like hell when the fight breaks out) and "A Typical Friday Night" (the barkeeper holds a meat cleaver, but has no weapon he can shoot with).

What the Fu Are You Doing? -- when someone tries to show off martial arts skill, but they just look goofy

***** Sunny does this sometimes to mislead opponents as to her true abilities.

When All You Have Is a Hammer -- ... everything looks like a nail; responding to a unique combat situation in the same way you handle any combat situation, but with a twist or addition

***** In "The Beast of Exmoor", Differel responds to an order from the Queen to deal with the threat to human life posed by the Beast in the same way the Armed Forces tried to deal with it in years past, by hunting it with sharpshooters, except she uses bait to try to lure it in. In other words, they only way she can think of to protect people is to kill the Beast with a gun, which is all anyone ever thinks to do. Justified in that the REAL Beast can only be dealt with by killing it.

Next week I shall discuss tropes about character Ensembles.

Dreamlands Bestiary: The Naga

Nagas are a semi-aquatic race in the Dreamlands that live in or near freshwater rivers, lakes, marshes, or swamps (though they do not need to stay moist to survive). Indeed, any reasonably good-sized body of water will do; Nagas have even been found at desert oases. In appearance they resemble Humans whose hips and legs have been replaced by the body and tail of a snake. The Human torso is covered with skin and possesses hair, especially on top of the head (though male Nagas have no facial hair and are frequently bald). Female Nagas have fully functional mammalian breasts. The serpent body is covered with small scales, that gradually disappear on the lowest part of the Human abdomen. Most Nagas have only two arms, but a small percentage are born with four. These are considered the elite, even if born to the lowest caste, and are treated as great leaders.

They see and hear no better than Humans, but their sense of smell is very powerful, and while not forked their tongues are long and supple and can taste the air, using something similar to a Jacobson Organ in the roof of their mouths. They can also feel sensitive vibrations through the ground. The Human torso contains oversized lungs, heart, stomach, and liver, while the serpent body contains the intestines, kidneys, and reproductive organs. Nagas have a single orifice for evacuating urine and feces, and for sex and giving birth similar to a cloaca. Male Nagas have a penis that is stored inside the body until needed. Female Nagas have a womb-like structure that contains the fertilized egg until it hatches; the infant Naga is then born alive. The female suckles it as it continues to develop, and when weaned she raises it to adulthood, when it then goes off on its own. Nagas give birth to only a single infant, or, very rarely, twins.

Nagas move using their serpent bodies, which utilize a wide variety of locomotion techniques, such as flexing their belly scales like a tank tread, using wide loops to grip and push against the ground or embedded objects, and sidewinding. Despite their bulk they can move very fast, but they are even faster swimmers. When "running" they hold their torsos just above and parallel to the ground, but when "walking" or at rest, they lift their torsos up and hold them perpendicular to the ground. Though their torsos and arms have only Human-level strength, their serpent bodies are immensely strong. They use their tails as whips and bludgeons, and if they grapple an opponent they will throw body coils around them and constrict them to death. Nagas have been known to bite, but they are not venomous.

Because they resemble serpents, other races tend to believe Nagas are carnivores, and therefore predators. They do hunt, but in that they are no different from any other race, and in fact they are omnivores; depending on where they live, plants makes up a substantial portion of their diet. Some Nagasa are even vegetarians, especially those who practice a pacifistic religion, such as certain sects of Buddhism. Nagas do not eat members of other races, so fears of Nagas hunting other people for food are groundless. Their diet is similar to that of Humans; meat is the easiest food for them to digest, but they can also digest grains, fruits, and juicy or starchy vegetables. They cannot digest vegetables high in cellulose as easily as humans, but if cooked to a soft, even mushy consistency, they can tolerate them better. Nagas will eat raw, even live, food, but they recognize that cooking makes any food easier to digest, and they are master chefs.

Nagas have Human-level intelligence, a distinct language and culture, and technology. They can engage in any craft that Humans can, though they are better at some than others. They are known to wear clothes (though they often go topless, even the females), jewelry, even armor, and they use metal tools and weapons. Because where they live is often very moist, they are masters at crafting rust-resistant steel. They can excel at any profession Humans can, but warriors, scholars, and poets are those most commonly encountered by other races. They practice equality of the sexes, so any profession will have a nearly equal mix of males and females, but curiously, outside of their home territory, female warriors and male scholars are encountered more often than their alternatives. Naga warriors of either sex are high trained, adept at wielding multiple weapons (especially four-armed warriors), and quite powerful in that they use their serpent bodies and tails as weapons. They build shelters to live in, most of which are simple and functional, but which can be elaborate and luxurious. They practice agriculture, raising small animals, garden plots, fruit trees, and small fields of corn or wheat, but they love to hunt, and their homes often have an abundance of natural plants they can harvest.

Nagas tend to be solitary, but do form life-long pair bonds, and accept young apprentices to teach them a craft or profession. They are no more aggressive or xenophobic than any other race, but they are more wary since they do not have the advantage of numbers that Humans or Leng Men have. It is not impossible to win a Naga's trust, but it can be difficult. Once given, however, a Naga's trust is equally difficult to lose. Most of these associations take the form of "friendship", in which both parties respect and aid one another, but derive no other benefit. However, it is not unheard of for Nagas to take Human lovers. The logistics can be hard to handle, in that a Naga's genitals are not located at the base of his or her torso, but just above the tail, which even on the shortest Naga is often still 12 feet down the body (the tail can be an extra 6 feet beyond that). However, a popular sex guide has a chapter on coupling with non-Human races, and it includes illustrations. It's also worth pointing out that Nagas are adept at fellatio and cunnilingus thanks to their long and sensitive tongues. Curiously, Naga's are more likely to take lovers of the same sex than the opposite, but considering the difficulties with traditional sex this may not be as surprising as it sounds. There is an element of risk, though. Nagas coil their serpent bodies around themselves when having sex, and they do the same with their Human lovers. It is not unheard of for a Naga to accidentally crush a lover to death during orgasm.

However, other more platonic associations are known. For example, Nagas can live in communities that are mostly like individuals or couples living in close proximity but maintaining isolated lives. Peddlers have been known to visit such communities, to trade jewelry and other ornaments, silk clothing and accessories, perfume, fragrant oils, toiletries such as brushes and mirrors, tobacco, wine, liqueurs, and such, for stainless-steel tools, fine handicrafts, objects d'art, and natural products such as fragrant resins, semi-precious stones, and decorative shells. Scholars and poets will visit their Naga colleagues to exchange ideas and inspiration. Female warriors are in great demand as bodyguards, for the exotic notoriety, the erotic titillation, and their physical and skillful prowess. (One legendary four-armed warrior in the service of the Prince of Dylath-Leen could loose an arrow, sling a bullet, and hurl a javelin all at the same time. Another fought with a rapier, a falchion, a parrying dagger, and a buckler shield.) Some wealthy individuals or foreign potentates have hired Nagas as chefs.

Synopsis: Baron Samedi (a Sir Differel adventure)

Sir Differel watches as a Mambo leads a group of worshipers in a Vodou ceremony that features the banda, a sexually explicit dance. They are calling upon the Guédé Lao to lift a hex off Eile and Sunny, who lie on the very brink of death. This is their last chance. If the ceremony doesn’t work, they are doomed to die, unless she can find a way to stop it.

The Girls had accompanied her to Haiti, as part of a contingent of Order troops to stop an incursion of an army of zombies lead by a Houngan turned Bokor. They were supernatural zombies: actual corpses reanimated through some kind of mystical force. And his army was growing, because he raised anyone killed by the horde. The contingent was hampered by not being able to kill the zombies, even with head shots, but they knew that if they could destroy the head, the body would wander aimlessly. So the troops were armed with special shotguns that had a short range but great power, and carried machetes for close-quarters combat. Despite the size of the zombie army, they managed to cut a swath through it to the Bokor, with Vlad’s help. As they engaged and held the zombies off, Team Girl arrived with a Mambo. She was possessed by the Loa Marinette, and she successfully contested with and killed the Bokor. The zombies were released from his control and collapsed to the ground, dead once more. However, before they could celebrate, they discovered that he had caste a death curse against the Mambo, which the Girls took themselves to save her. It was not one she was familiar with, but she could sense it was very powerful. It should have killed them instantly, but for some reason they were still alive, if just barely. The Mambo explained that that was cause for hope. They cannot die until Baron Samedi, the Death Loa, digs their graves; as long as he keeps them out of the ground, they are safe.

Yet after three days of enchantments, rituals, and ceremonies, there had been no change. The Mambo and her colleagues simply couldn’t identify it, and hence they couldn’t cure it. This last rite was the most powerful the Mambo could perform. It was meant to appease the Guédé and their leader the Baron with sacrifices and possessions, to convince them to lift the hex, but when the ceremony ends, the Girls do not awaken. The Mambo approaches Differel and expresses sorrow that there is nothing more she can do. Until such time as the Baron decides to allow them to die, they are condemned to a limbo of near-death. However, she admits the Guédé’s behavior is puzzling: keeping them alive but not curing them. She assumes they must want something in return, something more than what she can offer. Yet they did not reveal any such demand during the ceremony, so she is at a loss to know what it could be. Differel asks if there is any way to find out. The Mambo states there are two methods. One is to allow a Guédé baron to possess someone so he may reveal the demand. Differel volunteers to be that someone, but the Mambo repeats that the ceremony had given them that chance and none took it. The only option left is one no sane person would do. Differel asks what that insane option is, and the Mambo replies: to enter the realm of the dead and confront the Guédé in person. Differel volunteers to do that. When the Mambo expresses shock, Differel states that where the Girls are concerned her thoughts are not rational. The Mambo states that she is taking a huge risk. Her Vampire servant cannot accompany her, and once in their realm she will be completely at the mercy of the Guédé. She will not be able to leave unless they permit it. Differel replies she understands. The Mambo explains that there are preparations to be made and gifts to be acquired, but all can be ready by dusk tomorrow. Differel agrees to the time table.

The next evening, Differel says good bye to Eile and Sunny, and meets the Mambo at the closed gates of a cemetery. Vlad is with her, and he intends to wait until her return. As the Mambo enchants a ritual to allow access to the Guédé realm, Vlad tells Differel that the Vodou Loa are true supernatural beings. No weapon at her disposal, not even Caliburn, can prevail against them. She must rely on her own skill, experience, and will to survive. She thanks him for his advice as the Mambo completes her enchantment. They wait for some minutes, but finally a figure approaches the gate from out of the gathering gloom from inside the cemetery. He is black, looking like a zombie, and is naked except for a loincloth, a tailed dinner jacket and bowtie, and a headscarf, all mauve. She figures he is the Brave Guédé, the gatekeeper, the Vodou equivalent of Cerberus. According to her research, he keeps dead souls in and living souls out.

The Loa reaches the gate but says nothing, he just stares blankly. She walks up to her side and states she must see Baron Samedi on a matter of life and death. She then offers the first of her three gifts: a bag of grilled peanuts. The Loa takes them, pops a few into his mouth, and opens the gate. Differel takes one last look at Vlad, who touches the brim of his hat in salute, before she walks through.

The Loa closes the gate, and when she looks back she discovers she cannot see through it. It’s as if a cloud of fog has cut off all sight within inches of the opposite side. She also sees a white cross embroidered on the back of Brave Guédé’s jacket. He leads her deeper into the cemetery, and after a short distance she comes to a woman standing among a clump of headstones. She figures this must be Maman Brigitte, wife of Baron Samedi, guardian of cemeteries and protector of headstones. She is surprised, however, to discover that she is white instead of black, with pale skin, red hair, and green eyes. She realizes she must be based on St. Brigid, who is in turn based on the Celtic goddess, Brighid, who was the patron of bonfires, high-places, wisdom and invention, and poetry, the Celtic equivalent of Athena. This incarnation, however, is crude, speaks in obscenities, and though she wears white she dresses like Madonna during her “Like a Virgin” phase, especially the sluttish style and the heavy use of religious symbols, particularly crosses.

Brave Guédé turns to leave as Differel approaches her; she states that she needs to see the Baron on a matter of life and death, and she offers the second of her three gifts: a box of premium, hand-rolled Cuban cigars that Vlad acquired for her. Brigitte accepts them, takes one out, and lights it with fire from her fingers. She puffs on it for some moments, a smile on her face, and then she examines Differel. Finally she tells her to take off her clothes. Taken aback, Differel asks why. Brigitte explains that no one can come into the presence of her husband except as they were born. She is suspicious, because that didn’t come up in her research, but she can’t afford to take any chances. She complies, and Brigitte’s smile grows into a grin as she watches. When Differel has denuded herself, Brigitte looks her up and down, and says, “You’ll do.”

Brigitte then tucks the box under one arm and tells Differel to follow her. She leads her deeper into the cemetery, and much time seems to go by. Differel realizes that this is no longer a cemetery per se, but now she is truly in the realm of the dead. Finally they approach a black man sitting on a headstone above a freshly filled-in grave. He wears a black tuxedo trimmed with purple and a white shirt, a top hat, and sunglasses, and has cotton plugs in his nostrils. His face, however, is white and resembles a skull face. She just can’t figure out if it’s an elaborate tattoo or paint job, or real bones. A spade is stuck upright in the ground beside him and he smokes as if taking a break. To his left are two more headstones. One is inscribed with Eile’s name and the other with Sunny’s. At first Differel fears she has arrived too late, but is relieved to see the ground below them is undisturbed.

Brigitte approaches Samedi and sits on his lap. She takes the cigar out of his mouth and tosses it away, before kissing him in a highly-charged, tongue-filled erotic manner, as he fondles one of her breasts and she massages his groin. Finally they both look at her and Samedi tells her to come closer. Differel walks up to them and tells him she must speak to him on a matter of life and death. She offers the last of her three gifts: a bottle of premium rum infused with 21 hot peppers. He accepts it, pulls the stopper, and takes a drink. He then places it at the foot of the tombstone as Brigitte stands up and tells her to state her petition. She asks him to lift the death curse on Eile and Sunny as Brigitte walks behind her. He mulls it over, then asks why he should. She states that Team Girl are good people; they deserve a chance to live their lives to the fullest. He contradicts her in a crude fashion laced with obscenities, saying that they are no better than millions of others who die before their time. He then tells her about their sexual escapades, accusing them of being sluts, and states there are those who deserve his blessings more. She retorts that their sexual activity is prejudicial and has no bearing on their worthiness of life. He accuses her of being a hypocrite, as she is far from pure herself. He recounts her own peccadilloes, with Billy the stable boy and various other men, with Margaret, even with Team Girls themselves. He tells of the way she and Victor experiment with BDSM, and describes her darker fantasies that she keeps tightly locked inside her psyche. She is shocked he can know so much about her having just met her, but realizes that as lord of the dead he would naturally know everything about any mortal who enters his realm, if not before.

He then surprises her by switching gears unexpectedly. He asks her what she will give in return. She states that, short of surrendering her immortal soul, she will sacrifice anything or do anything to see them restored to life and health. As soon as she says it, however, she realizes it was a mistake. Samedi stands up and in the same moment he becomes naked except for his glasses. He advances on her, but as she tries to back away Brigitte grabs her with a strength greater than she can resist. Brigitte forces her to the ground and Samedi covers her. As Brigitte also becomes nude, Samedi proceeds to rape her, and Brigitte joins in. For hours they perform all conceivable acts short of sadism, including oral, anal, and vaginal penetration, and force her to perform acts she never would even with Victor or Margaret, such as fellatio and cunnilingus, as both climax time and time again. She can’t stop them or fight them off; all she can do is endure it; all she can do is hope for blessed oblivion, but it never comes.

Finally they finish with her and leave her lying on the ground. At first she doesn’t move, but she realizes she must, otherwise she may never escape. As she pushes herself up, however, Baron Samedi appears over her and picks her up by the shoulders. She thinks he will start raping her again, but instead he tells her his price for saving her friends is her agreement to stay forever and be the slave of the Guédé, to be raped and abused by them every day for all eternity. She doesn’t want that, but she realizes that if she refuses Eile and Sunny are doomed. She tries to negotiate a better deal, but Samedi shakes her and replies that there is no room for discussion. She either agrees to his offer or she does not; all he wants to hear is a yes or a no. She realizes she has no choice, so she says yes.

Samedi stares at her for a minute, but then lets her go. He walks away, and his clothes reappear. He tells her to get dressed, and her clothes appear neatly folded on a headstone. As she redresses he retrieves the bottle of rum and guzzles it like bottled water. Maman Brigitte reappears, also dressed, and hands him one of the Cuban cigars. She lights him up and they face Differel. He explains that he kept Eile and Sunny alive for two reasons. First, they are fated to save the world decades from now, but for his purposes, second, they sacrificed their lives to save one of his priestesses, even though they do not believe. Such selflessness cannot be ignored, but he wanted to see if Differel felt the same selflessness for them. So he withheld his blessing to see if she would come to him herself; he raped her to see what she would be willing to endure for their sakes (she could have stopped him anytime by rescinding her claim to make any sacrifice); and he threatened her with slavery to see if she would surrender her life for them. She passed each test with flying colours, and so he will lift the curse; in fact, he has already done so. Differel glances at the headstones with the Girls’ names on them and sees them disappear.

However, he continues, she now owes him a favour, and he expects her to make good. Raping her was also to see if she could endure the abuse of what he needs her to do, and he is now confident she can. She asks him what he wants, and he tells her to follow him. She accompanies him deeper into the cemetery, but notices that Brigitte remains behind.

In short order they pass the limit of the cemetery and enter a bleak, barren landscape. As they walk, Samedi explains that one of his powers is to ensure that the dead rot in their graves so they cannot be turned into mindless zombies, but that power has been usurped by another Guédé, Baron Kriminel. The Vodou equivalent of the Grim Reaper, he kills everyone for whom Baron Samedi digs a grave, but he is not satisfied with that. He wants total power over life and death, and robbing him of the power to rot corpses is just the first step. It was he who gave the Bokor the power to reanimate corpses, because they had stopped rotting. What Kriminel really wants is the power to dig graves, then no one would be safe, but so far Samedi has been able to frustrate him in that regard. Even so, it’s only a matter of time. Differel asks why he and the other Guédé don’t band together and destroy him, and he replies they cannot; no Guédé can kill another, not even him, since they’re already dead and above all recourse. Besides, without him no one would die, and the world would fill with the dead until they outnumbered the living. In any event, all that’s needed is to strip him of his ill-gotten power. She asks how he stole it in the first place, but Samedi simply shrugs his shoulders and says that he mislaid it and forgot where he put it. When she asks how they can get it back, he states there is one who is strong enough to force Kriminel to surrender it, but she will not aide the Guédé. He hopes, however, that Differel will be able to “persuade” her to get involved. When she asks who it is, he says Marinette, the Loa of bloodletting and carnage, who frees her people from bondage and enslaves them again. When she asks why he cannot simply order her to cooperate, he states that she is not a Guédé Loa but a Petwo Loa, and thus he has no authority over her.

In time they arrive at a hut that closely resembles those constructed by the Kongo people of central Africa. Samedi stops and does not call out, but almost immediately a tall, strongly-built African woman dressed in red, a warrior Amazon, charges out of the hut. She spies Differel, scowls, and berates Samedi for bringing her “that”, but all he says is, “She’ll do.” Marinette grimaces, and two greatswords appear, one in each hand. She tosses one to Differel, then attacks, screaming a bloodcurdling battle cry. Differel is not caught off guard, but she discovers the Loa is incredibly strong. Rather than right her toe-to-toe, she uses all her sword skill and her gymnastics to use her opponent’s strength against her. It isn’t long before she disarms her and forces her to the ground, at which point she demands she yield. Marinette flashes a wry smile and states, “She will do indeed.”

After she surrenders, Marinette invites Differel and Samedi into her hut. They sit around the fire as she serves coffee and rum, and she explains the situation. She states that she will never help the Guédé. There is eternal enmity between them and neither will yield. However, she no more wishes to see Kriminel acquire the power to dig graves than Samedi does. If Samedi has selected Differel to be the instrument of his revenge, she will aid her. The sword she fought with is the twin of her own weapon. They passed judgment on her, found her worthy, and engineered Marinette’s defeat. Now it will protect her against any threat not stronger than itself, but only until she has completed her task. Kriminel is not stronger than the sword, so if she can defeat him she can force him to give up the power to rot corpses. She cannot kill him, since he is already dead and thus above all recourse, but she can castrate him, which would not only cause him great pain, but also great embarrassment and inconvenience. He will agree to anything to avoid that. As will any Guédé, she says pointedly, glancing at Samedi with a wicked grin.

Beyond that, all she will do is set her on the right track. Once she leaves the hut, she will find a trail. If she follows it, it will take her to Kriminel. The rest is up to her.

Differel and Samedi take their leave, and as promised a trail begins just outside the hut. Differel realizes that once she starts down that path there can be no turning back, but aside from having given her word, she now realizes that Kriminel poses a very real threat. She steps off the threshold onto the trail and feels herself pulled forward. Once she is sure she and Samedi have progressed far enough down the trail, she summons Marinette’s greatsword, spins around, and brings it up between Samedi’s legs against his genitals. He accuses her of seeking revenge for the way he abused her, and she replies that she is sorely tempted. He in turn threatens her loved ones and associates with death, but she applies pressure and asks if that would be suitable compensation for the embarrassment and inconvenience of being castrated for the rest of eternity. As he mulls it over, she adds that all she wants is his word that, once she has defeated Kriminel and taken back the power he stole, Samedi will release her back to the world of the living, and that he will not retaliate against her or anyone associated with her. He suggests that once she got used to it, she might find the Guédé realm much more enjoyable, but she replies that she prefers her own, miserable as it may be. He grins, saying that he expected as much, and agrees, but on one condition. She asks what, and he replies that she must permit him to possess her whenever he needs to cross over into the world of the living. Otherwise he dares her to do her worst and damn the consequences. She realizes he isn’t bluffing, but she increase the pressure more and demands that he must have her permission. As he is about to object, she reminds him that he knows her well enough to understand that if the need is critical, she will give her permission. He grins, nods, and tells her it’s a deal. She removes the sword and it vanishes. He walks up to her, takes her in his arms, pulls her head back, and kisses her. She resists but he is too strong, and yet she finds his direct, aggressive manner strangely appealing. When he releases her she finds it prudent to just ignore what happened and continue with the mission.

After some time, they arrive at a cemetery, but Differel recognizes this one isn’t like the one she first entered. In fact, it looks fake, like something set up for Halloween. Samedi explains that Kriminel had been a human serial killer who had used his ability to communicate with the Guédé to discover the identity of those for whom Samedi had dug graves, so he would only kill those fated to die already. When he finally died, he was rewarded for his devotion to death by being made Baron Kriminel, the executioner. Yet he will not abide with the other Guédé but prefers his own private domain. As they travel through the faux graveyard they are confronted by zombies, in all stages of decomposition from seconds after death to near total decay. Yet while they threaten they do not attack, being as they are afraid of Samedi. Even so they collect around and behind them into such a huge mass that Differel wonders if all the dead in the world have been turned into zombies.

They finally reach a large circular area devoid of fake headstones. In the center is a huge bonfire. Zombies dance the banda around it, in a perverse version of a Vodou ceremony. To one side stands a black man dressed like Samedi, except his suit is trimmed in red. He appears to be in a trance. Presiding over the ceremony is a Houngan, but when he realizes he has visitors and turns around, Differel is shocked to see it is the Bokor her forces defeated. She was certain he was killed, but then she realizes he actually is dead and Kriminel is keeping him from decaying. Still, something about the setup bothers her. Who is the other Baron? If it’s Kriminel, why isn’t he in charge? Then the nickel drops: Kriminel is somehow under the Bokor’s control, not the other way around.

When she confronts him about it, he confirms she’s right. In fact, it was he who found the power to rot corpses on one of his sojourns into the realm of the dead. He could not exercise it himself, but he knew Kriminel craved it and more. He offered it to him in exchange for a special favor, and the fool Guédé was so besotted he agreed without bargaining. As soon as he had it, the Bokor invoked the special favor and took control over him. Through him he can exercise the power to kill and prevent the dead from rotting. Differel realizes that must have been the death curse he directed against the Girls: the actual killing power of Death itself. No wonder the Mambo and her colleagues couldn’t identify it. But she asks what good is it, if no one can actually die until their graves are dug. The Bokor responds that she is right, what he really wants is the power to dig graves. Then he can turn everyone in the world into a zombie under his control. And she has delivered that power into his hands!

She expresses skepticism that he could fool Samedi as easily as Kriminel, but he retorts he doesn’t have to. She sees movement out of the corner of her eye, and when she turns she sees a half-woman, half-snake embrace Samedi. At first he resists, but as soon as she wraps her coils around him, caresses his face, and kisses him he falls into the same trance as Kriminel. The Bokor states that though the lesser Simbi are weaker than the Barons, if caught by surprise they can be subdued by them. She summons the Marinette’s greatsword, but the Bokor shouts that there is a Simbi stronger even than her sword. A fiery shape emerges from the bonfire, a gigantic worm, half-dragon, half-serpent. It charges her, and she feels uncontrollable panic flood her nerves, paralyzing her.

Flames leap up from the sword blade, coalesce into a female form, and acquire the features of Marinette. She screams, “Simbi Makaya! You are not stronger than I!” The flaming woman throws herself at the fiery serpent and grapples it as it bites at her and throws coils around her body. The panic disappears and Differel turns on Samedi. The Simbi embracing him hisses at her, but leans away from him, giving her an opening. She lops off its head and it falls from the Baron’s body. He opens his eyes, gasps, and shudders, then rushes past her. As she turns, she sees him take a magical energy stroke meant for her. He tells her the Bokor is his and leaps at him. She charges towards Kriminel and decapitates the Simbi embracing him. However, he doesn’t respond. She realizes he may have been too long under the Simbis’ control. In the heat of the moment she can think of only one thing to do: she embraces and kisses him as she grabs his groin. She feels him jump and shudder, then he returns her embrace and kiss as he gropes her bosom.

She pushes away and sees him leering at her, like an evil Vlad. She slaps his face. Startled, he lets her go. She turns and sprints away, and surveys the battle. Lesser Simbi are all over Samedi, grappling him. He tears them apart, but new ones just rise out of the ground to replace the others. Inside the bonfire a naked Marinette battles toe-to-toe with a dragon-serpent. The Bokor calls out, and the surrounding zombies flood into the arena, straight for her. As the first one reaches her, Kriminel touches it and it dissolves into dust in moments. He tells her he will take care of them, and then becomes a martial arts dervish, whirling, striking, and kicking, reducing every corpse he touches into dust.

She summons the greatsword and throws herself at the Bokor, screaming a battle cry. He shouts out an incantation and morphs into an armoured demonic creature. They battle with one another for what seems like a long time, but Differel cannot get the better of him. At one point he grabs the sword, forces it against her neck, and grins as he pushes her into the blade. Kriminel appears behind him. He grabs him by the head. The Bokor begins screaming and lets Differel go. He struggles, but Kriminel does not let go. As Differel watches the Bokor rots and disintegrates.

She and Kriminel turn towards the bonfire. Simbi Makaya is constricting Marinette even as the Loa is strangling the serpent. But it realizes the Bokor is lost. It vanishes, and the Simbi attacking Samedi vanish as well. Marinette absorbs the bonfire and acquires a normal form. Samedi gestures, and the zombies freeze in position. The crisis has passed.

Marinette approaches Differel and the two Barons, smiling in triumph, but when she reaches them she grabs and holds Kriminel as Differel plants the sword point in his crotch. Differel demands that he surrender the power to rot corpses, or else. He threatens to kill her, but she states that technically she is already dead if Samedi won’t release her, so his threats are useless. But hers are not. He begs her to be merciful, but she pushes the point in farther. He screams for her to stop, and a ball of energy shoots out of his mouth. Samedi catches it and for a moment he glows. Then he gestures and the zombies all collapse into the dust. He laughs uproariously as Marinette releases Kriminel and the greatsword disappears.

Differel reminds Marinette that she had claimed she would never directly aid the Guédé. She smiles and replies that had she accompanied them openly Simbi Makaya would have been ready for her and might have overwhelmed her before the Bokor could be destroyed. Instead she used the ability of her twin swords to act as a transport conduit to let Differel ‘bring’ her along. Still, they could never have prevailed without her help. Differel is neither surprised nor angry; this isn’t the first time higher powers, mortal or otherwise, have used her without her knowledge.

They all return to the gate where she first entered, along with Maman Brigitte. Marinette embraces her and states she will watch over her from now on. Baron Kriminel states that he will enjoy killing her when her time comes, but she just smiles and tells him to get in line. He scowls and walks back into the cemetery. She shakes hands with Maman Brigitte and Baron Samedi. She notes they neither apologize nor thank her, but she realizes that to their way of thinking neither is called for. Still, she figures they at least feel vindicated in selecting her, if not impressed. Samedi hands her a candle. It is caste as an effigy of himself, in black, purple, and white wax. He tells her she may call on him whenever she likes by lighting the candle, but only as many times as it will allow. She didn’t expect that, and after a moment’s consideration she embraces him and kisses his cheek, and he grabs her arse. Brigitte tells them to break it up, and Brave Guédé opens the gate. Differel pauses before going through and looks back; Samedi and Brigitte are both smoking cigars and he raises the bottle she gave him as they laugh.

Differel walks through the open gate into the mist, and in moments finds herself outside the cemetery. Vlad still waits for her, but he has been joined by the Mambo and Team Girl. She embraces Eile and Sunny in a group hug as they sniffle tears of joy. Vlad escorts the Mambo back to the village as she walks with the Girls. They tell her she shouldn’t have risked herself for them. She asks what they would have done had their roles been reversed, and they admit they would have done the same, but they insist that would have been different. After all, she’s the Director while they’re just expendable assets. They say it without rancor, but she states that as far as she’s concerned, she is more expendable than they are. Besides, they’ve pulled her arse out of lots of predicaments in the past, so it was only right she did the same for them. They think she’s just bullshitting them to justify her actions, but they appreciate it anyways, and it’s a good excuse for a party. She considers telling them what Baron Samedi had told her about their future, but decides against it. That might change what would happen, and she doesn’t want to inflate their egos more than they are already. She tells them a party sounds like a capital idea.

Synopsis: The Lost Temple (a Team Girl Dreamlands adventure)

Eile and Sunny are in search of a fabulous lost temple in the Dreamlands, but have trouble finding it, until an old man they meet along the way tells them a story he heards when he was a child. Using the story as a guide, they find the temple in a secluded valley.



When they enter, however, the entrance is sealed off, trapping them, and a mysterious creature hiding in the ceiling robs them of their equipment. Sunny tries to zap it with a spell, but it doesn't stop it. However, two glass vials filled with an amber-green liquid drop out of the ceiling. With no other choice they press on, hoping to find another way out.

They come to a chamber with a canal of roaring water bisecting it. A friendly diminutive creature asks them to collect some mushrooms for it on the other side, which they do. It invites them to take some for themselves, but they discover that their own food has putrefied, so they accept its invitation. It then offers to do them a favor sometime in the future.

In the next chamber they come to they find a tree laden with fruit. It asks them to relieve it of its burden and place the fruit in some baskets. They do so, it allows them to take some fruit, and it offers to do them a favor sometime in the future. When they leave the chamber, though, they discover that their magical torch no longer works, but the walls glow enough for them to see.

In the next chamber they find a spider spinning a huge web choked with debris. It asks them to remove it and discard it down a hole, though it suggests they take some with them. They do so, and it offers to do them a favor sometime in the future. But when they leave they discover that their weapons have fallen into ruin.

In the next chamber a large fuzzy critter with matted fur asks them to brush out its fur. They remove all the mats, but their clothing disintegrates. It gives them its mats and they fashion fur bikinis and a carry bag. It then offers to do them a favor sometime in the future.

In the next chamber they find a burrowing creature that asks them to move some heavy rocks that are in its way. They do so and it gives them one of them. It then offers to do them a favor sometime in the future.

In the last chamber they find a hideous hag creature surrounded by a fantastic treasure and statues of adventurers. It seals off the entrance with a door of crystal, trapping them. It accuses them of wanting to steal its treasure; the penalty for that is being turned to stone. However, when the Girls argue they are innocent, it offers them a deal. It will give them three challenges. If they fail even one, they must remain forever as denizens of the temple. However, if they complete all three, they will be free to go, with a treasure of their choice. They have no other choice, so they agree.

The first task is to fill a bucket using a spherical ladle with holes in the bottom. She directs them to a spring inside a narrow crevice, and they can only reach the water with the ladle, but try as they might they cannot lift any water out of the spring, because it drains out the holes in the sphere.

Even as they begin to despair, a blind salamander crawls out of the spring. It explains that it was once an adventurer who failed this test, but it's had a chance to think about it, and it asks if the handle is hollow and has a hole in the tip. When they confirm it does, Sunny remembers her high school physics. She places the sphere is the water, but covers the hole with her thumb before lifting it out. When she removes her thumb, the water in the sphere drains into the bucket. They fill it in no time, but when they try to thank the salamander it is gone.

The hag is not pleased that they succeeded, but it congratulates them. It then gives them a bowl and commands them to fill it with semi-precious stones. She directs them to a pool, where the stones lie on the bottom, but the pool is filled with black water, and they can't see anything in it.

Even as they start to reach in, a blind crayfish comes out of the water. It explains that it was once an adventurer who failed this test. It warns them that anything inserted into the pool will be destroyed. Eile picks up a rock and dips it into the water, but when she removes it they see it turning black and crumbling. She drops it before the corruption reaches her fingers. Even as they start to despair, the crayfish offers to collect the stones for them. They agree, and soon dozens of crayfish start coming out of the water, carrying stones in their claws. They fill the bowl in no time, but disappear before the Girls can thank them.

Once again, the hag is not pleased that they succeeded, but it congratulates them. It then gives them a niddy-noddy and commands them to collect a skein of silk webbing. It directs them to a cave where the ceiling is covered with webbing. Though high up, they can reach it if one of them stands on the other's shoulders. As they attempt it, however, a blind cricket appears. It explains that it was once an adventurer who failed this test. It warns them that the air just below the webbing is ensorcelled so that whatever passes through it will be destroyed. Eile picks up a rock and throws it at the ceiling. Before it even hits the webbing it disappears in a flash of light.

Even as they despair, the cricket offers to free the webbing for them. A multitude of crickets appear, and they cut the strands by biting through them, which float towards the ground. The Girls collect them and wind them around the niddy-noddy until they have a full skein. The other crickets leave, but the first one remains. It tells them that choosing a treasure is a secret test, in that if they do not choose the right one, the hag can petrify them. When they ask how they can know which is the right treasure, it volunteers to tell them. They agree, and it hops down on Sunny's head, burrows into her hair, and nestles close to one ear.

Once again, the hag is not pleased that they succeeded, but it congratulates them. It then allows them to chose a treasure. They start at one end and walk along in front of the line of riches as Sunny holds her hand out over them. When they get towards the middle her hand passes over an unglazed ceramic tile, and the cricket chirps. Sunny grabs it, and they run for the door. Eile throws the rock the burrowing creature gave them, and it smashes the crystal barrier to fine sand. They run down the corridor and into the burrowing creature's chamber. It tells them to hide in the tunnel it has excavated. They pull rocks in front of the opening and the creature covers them with dirt. They hear the hag enter and demand to know where they are. The creature replies that obviously they are not here; they must be hiding in the corridor somewhere. The Girls hear the hag leave, they push the rocks out of the way, and flee the chamber.

Soon, however, the hag is right behind them. They remove their tops and throw them at the hag. They become demonic furballs with teeth and attack they hag. They run into the fuzzy beast's chamber, and it instructs them to hide in the mound of fur they cut off. They hear the hag enter and demand to know where they are. The beast replies that obviously they are not here; they must be hiding in the corridor somewhere. The Girls hear the hag leave, they throw aside the fur, and flee the chamber.

Soon, however, the hag is right behind them. They scatter the spider web debris on the floor behind them and it forms a patch of brambles, trapping the hag. They run into the spider's chamber, and it instructs them to hide in the pit in which they threw the debris. They drop into a web that breaks their fall. They hear the hag enter and demand to know where they are. The spider replies that obviously they are not here; they must be hiding in the corridor somewhere. The Girls hear the hag leave, the spider drops lines down so they can climb out, and they flee the chamber.

Soon, however, the hag is right behind them. They drop the fruit on the floor behind them and it forms a sticky morass, which the hag stops to lick. They run into the trees's chamber, and it instructs them to hide within its branches. They climb into its crown and it covers them. They hear the hag enter and demand to know where they are. The tree replies that obviously they are not here; they must be hiding in the corridor somewhere. The Girls hear the hag leave, the tree opens its branches so they can climb down, and they flee the chamber.

Soon, however, the hag is right behind them. They drop the mushrooms on the floor behind them, and the hag stops to eat them. They run into the little one's chamber, and it instructs them to hide in the canal underwater, covering their faces with their fur bottoms. They wrap the bottoms around their faces and jump in, clinging to the side of the canal. They hear the hag enter and demand to know where they are. The little one replies that obviously they are not here; they must be hiding in the corridor somewhere. The Girls hear the hag leave, they climb out of the water, and they flee the chamber.

Soon, however, the hag is right behind them. They drink the liquid in the vials and feel themselves grow immensely powerful. Eile runs for the blocked door. The creature in the ceiling tries to snatch her in its talons, but Sunny grabs it and throws it at the hag. They collide and begin fighting. Sunny's power vanishes, but Eile is strong enough to move the stone block, then she weakens. With the last of their strength they stumble out of the entrance and collapse on the steps.

Almost immediately they recover. They are naked and they still have the tile, but otherwise they feel fine. They question its purpose; the hag appears in the doorway and tells them that it is the key to the real treasure and the end of her trials. When they ask what she means, she changes into a female Great One, and the Girls recognize her as Hagarg Ryonis. She explains that for millennia she had used the temple to test the character of everyone foolish enough to seek out the temple for glory. All had failed her tests, until they came along. They are the first to pass the trial, and if they claim the treasure, the temple will vanish. However, if she kills them first, the temple will continue to exist, and she can continue her trials.

She turns herself into the Lier-in-Wait and attacks. They have no weapons, and Sunny's spells are useless, so they run, but it cuts them off and pins them to the ground. Then the old man appears. He commands Ryonis to release them. When she turns on him, he transforms into the Great One Zo-Kalar. He condemns her for cheating and she vanishes.

He commands the Girls to rise and they approach him. He apologizes for the attack and offers them restitution: he will tell them their future. However, they refuse; they don't want to know what's going to happen to them. He congratulates them on passing the final test, because the only future he can reveal is how they die, and the knowledge comes with a terrible price.

He asks what they would want, and the Girls ask him to help the other adventurers trapped in the temple. He is impressed with their selflessness, and instead offers them something more valuable: forgetfulness.

They awaken in the old man's village on the morning of their return to the valley to find the temple, but this time the old man goes with them. When they arrive, the find the temple in ruins. There is virtually nothing left; even the foundation is damaged. They can't explore it, so they decide to leave, but they find an unglazed ceramic tile on the steps. On a hunch, Sunny takes it to the plaza and places it in the space missing a tile. It is a perfect fit. The ground then opens up, revealing a fantastic treasure of gold nuggets and jewels. They also discover the old man has vanished, and they cannot even be sure he actually existed. As they go retrieve their llamas to transport it home, they decide that the amount is way more than they will ever need, so they will keep a twentieth part and give the rest to charitable causes.

As if somewhere a god was pleased, a cool breeze sprang up as the sun warmed the land and birdsong filled the air.

Ancient Roman Roads

Aside from towns and bath complexes, the one feature that is quintessentially Roman is their road system. Other cultures had roads, and some were as good as or better, but no one else created as extensive or far-flung a system as the Romans.

There were three types of Roman roads:

The viae publicae were the main roads of the Roman system. They led to cities or towns, the sea, public rivers (rivers with continuous flow), or other main roads. They were public works projects, paid for by taxes and tolls, contributions from wealthy landowner, and the personal wealth of the government official who wanted the road built.

The viae privatae were secondary roads, that led from the main roads to country estates and settlements. Also included in this category are roads constructed by wealthy landowners for their private use (though they might allow public use if the need was important).

The viae vicinales were auxiliary roads, that connected rural villages and each other. Some led to main roads, but most didn't. These could be either public or private, but private ones tended to convert to public use when the original builder was dead and forgotten.

It should be noted that while construction of roads was a government matter, repair was left to the locals. Nonetheless, the maintenance of the road system, especially the main roads, was considered so important that any government official at any level who was in charge of the roads could land in big trouble if he neglected their upkeep. There were also laws in place that allowed travelers to bypass unrepaired roads by traveling across private land if necessary, so there was an incentive to not only make roads that didn't require frequent repair, but also to repair them quickly when it became necessary.

Roman roads also took three forms (which didn't necessarily correspond to the types listed above):

The viae terrenae were plain roads of leveled earth. The auxiliary roads probably were primarily terrena roads; a few secondary roads might have been this as well, but no main road was.

The viae glareatae were earthed roads with a graveled surface. The secondary roads probably were primarily glareata roads, though a few auxiliary roads might have been this as well. No main road was this.

The viae munitae were the paved roads you see in pictures of Roman cities, such as the one above. These are perhaps the most famous; certainly they are what most people imagine when they think of a Roman road. All of the main roads were munita roads, and some secondary roads may have been this as well, but it is highly unlikely that any auxiliary road was paved.

Road construction was very meticulous in the Roman world; perhaps only the auxiliary roads, and even then only some of them, were built with less efficiency and exactness. However, while the people who planned the road and mapped its route were professionals, the legions usually performed the work of constructing the road. First of all, the route was carefully surveyed. The routes were invariably straight lines; this meant that Roman roads did not avoid hills or rivers, but ran over them, going straight up one side and then straight down the other, or crossing over a bridge. Practically the only time a road veered off the straight line was when an obstacle could not be surmounted or removed. Some roads also doglegged at certain points, taking off in a new straight-line direction, possibly due to a surveying error, to avoid passing through especially difficult terrain, or because the destination had been changed. Unfortunately, this meant that in some places grades could be as steep as 20%. The reason for this was military efficiency: the purpose of the main roads was to move the legions from one point in the empire to another as quickly as possible, and in the beginning no one cared if commercial traffic was inconvenienced. In later times, however, longer more manageable roads were constructed as alternative routes for non-military traffic.

The surveyed route was marked out using rods set into the ground; these also established the grid for its construction. By law all roads were supposed to be 8 feet wide, but they could vary between 3.6 and 23 feet. Once enough of the route had been laid out, the earth was excavated into a ditch using plows and shovels. The depth varied with the terrain and the depth of the water table. They dug down to bedrock or the firmest ground they could find. This bed was then leveled and, in the case of subsoil, compacted to make it stronger. It should be noted at this point that roads were constructed in a kind of assembly line process, in that different sections would be constructed and completed in sequence even as the route was still being surveyed.



Once the bed was ready, the ditch was filled with rubble, stones, gravel, and/or sand -- whatever was available locally -- until it came to within 3 feet of the top. This was covered with a layer of gravel, compacted, and leveled (A). If the ditch was shallow, it might be filled in completely this way, with the leveled gravel top as the paving, to make a glareata road (though these were usually just gravel poured over a level dirt road), or the foundation layer of rubble and leveled gravel might be dispensed with altogether.

Regardless, to construct a munita road, either the bed or the leveled gravel layer was covered with a layer called the statumen, made of broken rocks just big enough to fit into the palm of the hand mixed with cement to form a course concrete (B). Next came the rudus, a layer of crushed concrete mixed with cement to form a grainy concrete (C), followed by the nucleus, a layer of pulverized potsherds or gravel mixed with cement to form a fine concrete support (D). The final layer consisted of hexagonal basalt or square travertine blocks (or whatever was available locally) set into the nucleus to form the pavement, called the summa crusta (E). These blocks were shaped, finished, and smoothed, and the crusta as a whole was crowned to allow water to run off to the sides into drainage gutters. The whole road was bordered by edge stones (G), and many roads had raised footways on either side, while some also had bridle paths (F).

As mentioned earlier, the Romans preferred to engineer solutions to obstacles rather than go around them. If hills or mountains were too steep to send the road over, they bored a tunnel through, or if the hills were low enough, they cut through them. Rivers and ravines were crossed using bridges, while marshy areas were crossed using causeways of stones raised 5 feet above the water.

There are other aspects of Roman roads that are important to my stories, but these have to do with traveling on the roads, so I will deal ith them in a future post.

The Pliocene Adventure -- Bears and Birds and Cats! Oh My!

The most famous epoch in North American prehistory is the Pleistocene, because it contains all the prehistoric animals most people are familiar with other than dinosaurs: woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses, sabretooth tigers, American lions, cave bears, dire wolves, horses, and human beings. Yet the Pliocene should be just as famous, because it had many of these same creatures, and many more besides; the only really conspicuous absence is Man. In fact, it may have had a greater diversity than the Pleistocene, especially during the ice ages, but that should come as no surprise: warmer climates promote greater variety.

The fauna stage that the Pliocene animals of 3.3 million years ago belonged to is called the Blancan North American. This distinguishes it from similar but unique stages that occurred in South America and Eurasia. This last is important, because while all three continents shared similar forms in similar niches, significant differences in both environment and ancestral varieties produced different species, as well as certain types unique to their continents. Therefore, beyond a superficial similarity, the fauna of one continent cannot be used to determine what fauna another continent will have. This kind of mistake is an easy one to make, especially when comparing North American and Eurasian fauna. One glaring example of this is Jean Aeul mentioning in her book, The Valley of Horses, Ayla encountering a sabretooth cat. While the species is not identified, the description makes it sound like Smilodon. There were big sabretoothed cats in Europe at that time, but Smilodon was native to North America only.

However, there were two events that complicate this issue. One was the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, which bridged the gap between North and South America and allowed what is called the Great American Interchange, when animals from both continents crossed over into the other. Most of the migrations were north to south, but several important species, including ground sloths and terror birds, made the journey from the south into the north. The other was the formation of a land bridge between Alaska and Siberia, though most of the migrations were from America into Eurasia.

The Blancan stretched from 4.8 to 1.8 million years ago, and features a number of characteristics that make it important:

1. It was the start of megafaunal period. Though mammals as a whole had increased in size since the extinction of the dinosaurs, including producing some very large species, it was during the Pliocene that more animals on average started developing into giant forms, or at least huskier more powerful forms. For herbivores, this was probably due to the abundance of vegetation, while for predators it was due to the presence of large herbivores.

2. Blancan animals were not cold adapted. The mid-Pliocene, which fell roughly in the middle of the Blancan, was 2-3 degrees warmer than today. The warmer, wetter climate encouraged the expansion of forests and savannahs. The next glacial period would not begin until the late Pliocene, and a new full-blown ice age would not occur until after the start of the Pleistocene.

3. The Blancan served as a transitional period between archaic and modern forms. Earlier primitive species that survived to that point died out, while some new species that would proliferate throughout the Pleistocene first appeared. Meanwhile, some unique species appeared and disappeared all within that era. During this period a number of species that were transitional between archaic and modern types, and others that were ancestral to new types flourished, but "combination" species, such as hyena-dogs and dog-bears, were replaced by branch-off species that were one type or another.

4. The Blancan had analogs of later ice age creatures: "sabre-tooth" cats, hyenas, mammoths, ground sloths, horses, camels, and teratorns, to name a few. Many evolved into the later ice age animals.

5. Hypercarnivores were more abundant than omnivores. Hypercarnivores are predators who consume more than 70% of their diet as meat. This tends to happen when there is an abundance of prey, especially megafaunal prey.

These last three features created a rather unusual situation. During the mid-Pliocene the primary apex predators were hunting bears, big cats, and giant flightless birds (hence the title). A fourth apex predator, the hyena-dog, also existed, but in fewer numbers, and it became extinct a couple of million years later. Canids existed, but they were mesocarnivores, eating between 50% and 70% of their diet as meat, and they were fewer in numbers. They also had to compete with dog-bears and running hyenas, relegating them to smaller prey such as rabbits and peccaries.

New eBook: The Cats' Peril

I have just published a new ebook:

The Adventure of the Cats' Peril

Eile and Sunny met three weeks ago, fell in love, and decided to move in together. Each morning Sunny makes them breakfast, and then they spend the day together having adventures. One morning, after a bad snowstorm, Eile finds a stray cat outside their front door while fetching the paper, buried in snow and nearly frozen to death. She and Sunny warm it until it awakens, then take it to a nearby vet. While examining it, the vet discovers an identity chip under the skin. When she scans it, she finds an address, but no name.

Intrigued, the Girls go to find the owner, but the address leads them to an abandoned factory complex. They go inside and are captured by robots, which take them to their mad scientist creator, Dr. Mabuse. She demands the return of the cat for an experiment, otherwise she will use them in one of her other projects. She sends Sunny to retrieve it, holding Eile as hostage.

Sunny must return in an hour. If she fails, or if she tries to get help, Mabuse will use Eile as part of a particularly nasty experiment. And yet, the cat will almost certainly die if Mabuse gets her hands on it. Can Team Girl save themselves and the cat, or will Mabuse go back on her word? And why does the vet insist on coming along?

This ebook is free and can be downloaded from Smashwords.

Combat Tropes: A-I

Weapons may be the mainstay of the Badass, but they don't mean squat if he or she doesn't know how to fight. In fact, since the very definition of a Badass, not to mention the Action Hero, is based on fighting, Combat Tropes would be more important than Weapons Tropes.

My stories tend to be fantasy stories; even those that contain hard science or are based in mainstream reality have some kind of fantasy element, however subtle. Most are also adventure fiction, in that they involve a (hopefully) "exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger" (according to Wikipedia). However, not all of them are action-adventure, because they don't involve fighting, chases, or even much activity at all. For example, "Masie's Mind" and "Post-Traumatic Redemption" simply involve characters standing or sitting around, talking. Most other stories have some small amount of action, but it's mostly peripheral; not quite an afterthought, but not the main point of the story either. Even those that are action oriented have action scenes interspersed with quieter moments of conversation or traveling. (On top of which, I suck at writing fight scenes; more about that in the part 2.)

As such, I consider my stories to be fantasy-adventure, with some action, rather than true action-adventure.

Arbitrary Minimum Range -- weapons have a minimum range; any closer than that and they become useless

***** The Caerleon Order tries to take out monsters while they are far away, because all the weapons the Order uses have minimum effective ranges, and if the monster gets too close troops must switch to other weapons with shorter ranges. For example, all explosive projectile ordinance, from missiles to 40mm grenades, must travel a certain minimum distance before they arm themselves, so as not to endanger their users. If a monster gets closer than a weapon's arming range, that weapon becomes useless. However, weapons with shorter ranges are invariably weaker than those with longer ranges, and so have a lesser chance of destroying the monster.

In the Dreamlands, professional adventurers and fighters generally have at least three weapons, one for long range (like a bow or sling), one for mid-range (like a sword or axe), and one for short range (like a knife or club), to overcome this problem.

Medb hErenn defies this trope, because her strength and speed allows her to overcome the minimum range limitations for just about any melee weapon.

Armor-Piercing Attack -- an attack, weapon, or munition that rips through the armor that your enemies wear

***** Most monsters are either extremely tough or armored, or both. As such, the Caerleon Order uses whatever armor-piercing ammunition works the best, everything from armor-piercing bullets to anti-tank missiles.

Bar Brawl -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; a fight in a bar

***** Team Girl has one in "The Steel Gazelle" and "A Typical Friday Night".

Battle Chant -- before battle, a group of soldiers repeat a chant over and over again, or sing as they advance into battle

***** Monsters can be as vulnerable to psychological warfare as mere humans. Sir Differel Van Helsing has found that if she marches her troops to battle while singing to the accompaniment of bagpipes, she can confuse or demoralize some monsters, while others are physically harmed by the noise.

In the Dreamlands, chanting and singing before and during battle is standard operating procedure.

Bigger Stick -- using a more powerful weapon than your opponent has

***** Caliburn and Vlad Drakulya are Differel's most powerful weapons, and both are more powerful than almost any monster extant.

Blade Lock -- during a sword or knife fight, the combatants lock their blades together by the hilt

***** This is a standard maneuver in most sword dueling styles. It allows one combatant to push away the other's sword, or even disarm him.

Boom, Headshot -- targeting the head instead of the center of mass (usually the chest)

***** Technically, this is a video game trope, but it can work in other media as well.

Some monsters cannot be killed by chest shots unless the heart is struck. Others have thick armor over their chest. However, few monsters have bulletproof skulls, and the majority can be killed by a head shot. As such, all troops assigned to the Caerleon Order are taught to aim for the head as much as possible.

Bow and Sword (Blade) in Accord -- a character is adept at both archery and sword or knife fighting

***** In the Dreamlands, Sunny uses a composite bow, but if an enemy gets too close she switches to a dagger. She can also give them a good whack with the bow itself.

Boxing Battler -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; a character who fights as a boxer

***** Eile is a champion-level boxer, taught by her Uncle Gene, a former US Marine Corps drill sergeant who was a champion boxer. She in turn taught her daughter Connie to box.

Sunny's mother, Oda Jaeger, is also a boxer.

Master-at-Arms Giles Holt taught Differel rough-and-dirty street fighting techniques, and she taught them to Lady Margaret Chesham.

Bullet Dodges You -- bullets refuse to hit a character

***** In a future story, Differel confronts a child Vampire so old, she can use telekinesis to stop bullets in flight, even at point blank range.

Bullet Sparks -- when bullets hit a surface, they ricochet with sparks

***** Defied in my stories; lead bullets cannot produce sparks, even when hitting metal, and steel-jacketed rounds can only make sparks if they hit steel targets. Even then, the effect is quite weak and easily missed.

Chairman of the Brawl -- using furniture as a weapon

***** In the forthcoming "Cats' Peril", Eile and Sunny use stools to smash consoles in Dr. Mabuse's lab.

Chokeholds -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; grasping an opponent in a way that renders him or her unconscious

***** In "Fun 'n' Games", Maggie King saves Differel from rape by putting Giles Holt in a chokehold that cuts off his air.

Cold Sniper -- the emotionless, silent hunter with a scope, a rifle and a very good eye who can shoot you in the face from a mile away and not lose a wink of sleep over it

***** Differel can be this way when her people are in danger. Ditto Vlad or Mr. Holt when Differel is in danger.

In the Dreamlands, Sunny can act this way to save Eile.

Sunny's mother Oda will not hesitate to gun down anyone who threatens her daughter or Eile.

Combat Parkour -- a character in a battle jumps around and performs gymnastics moves to dodge bullets or other physical attacks

***** Team Girl can't dodge bullets, exactly, but they have incorporated their knowledge of parkour into their fighting styles.

Differel has done the same with her knowledge of gymnastics.

Combat Pragmatist -- a character who will do anything in a fight to win

***** Both Medb and Differel will fight honorable duels when challenged, but if just attacked outright, they both will do whatever they need to to survive.

Combat Sadomasochist -- a character who fights because he or she enjoys seeing or experiencing pain

***** Differel can't be sure this isn't the reason why Vlad continues to serve the Van Helsing bloodline after over a century.

Curbstomp Battle -- a fight that's extremely one-sided; where one side trashes the other with little-to-no effort

***** Medb with just about anyone or anything she fights; see "Barbarians R Us" for an example. However, in "Sacrificial Offering", "The Lions of Inganok", "Pride and Fall", and "The Price of Folly" she is barely able to hold her own against beings far more powerful than her.

Vlad does this to most monsters, but he is also subject to the Worf Effect, so sometimes a monster will do this to him. (But he always comes back!)

Delaying Action -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; a battle fought to try and hold up a superior force

***** In "Survival & Sacrifice", Mr. Holt does this to give Differel and Team Girl a chance to stop a horde of monsters before they break loose from the estate.

Do Not Run With a Gun -- a character must stop moving to shoot a gun

***** This is a video game trope, but it has some Truth In Television.

It is generally harder to aim when moving as opposed to standing still. In "The Beast of Exmoor", Differel has trouble hitting the weak point of a Cat From Mars while she dodges its attacks, but finally nails it when she stands still.

Dramatic Gun Cock -- used to intimidate a subject under interrogation

***** In a future story, Differel is interrogated by White Hall after the Fomorian wizard king Grendel is defeated to determine if she might have been in league with him, and at one point her interrogator threatens to shoot her in the head unless she tells the truth. He has some credibility in that he had already killed Margaret in the same way for lying to him.

Dual Wielding -- wielding two melee weapons at once

***** Medb will sometimes fight with her spear and Dane axe, spear or axe and sword, or sword and dirk. Also, if her spear is broken, she will wield the blade end like a sword and the butt end like a club.

If Eile cannot get to her shield, she will use her knife along with her sword to parry blows.

Differel will use both Caliburn and her poignard if she must; see "Dribble & Maggot in the Land of Dreams".

Eye Poke -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; attacking your opponent's eyes with your fingers

***** One of the fighting moves Mr. Holt taught Differel was the tiger's claws: using her fingers to gouge an enemy's eyes.

Final Exam Boss -- a Final Boss that can only be defeated by using just about every item and power you've acquired throughout the adventure

***** Technically, this is a video game trope, but it can work in other media as well.

In a future story, Team Girl explore a lost temple, making allies and collecting artifacts, all of which they need to defeat the Big Bad who rules over the temple.

Finishing Move -- a special combat maneuver that is only used to cap off a battle

***** Medb has two magical powerwords that never fail. One is setim, which stuns or knocks an opponent unconscious. The other is glamain, which blasts an opponent to ash.

Caliburn is this for Differel; few monsters can survive being struck by it, much less are immune to its power (The Princess in Orange is one such being that is immune).

While Vlad has many attacks that result in dead or destroyed monsters, one that virtually never fails is him ramming his hand through the monster's heart. Only supernatural creatures are immune to this attack.

Firing One-Handed -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; shooting a gun with only one hand

***** Team Girl and Differel were trained to hold and fire a gun with two hands, for precision aiming, but Differel often fights with a sword in her freehand, so she trained herself to shoot one-handed.

In the Dreamlands, because of the way she must hold her wheellock pistols to prevent misfires, she normally shoots them one-handed.

Five Rounds Rapid -- monsters are never attacked with anything except small arms, but they are never vulnerable to small arms fire

***** Subverted; the Caerleon Order would rather use the most powerful weapon at its disposal, but many monsters are vulnerable to small arms fire. See "Shenanigans", "The Beast of Exmoor" (the young of the Cat From Mars), and "Survival & Sacrifice".

However, played straight in the following stories: "Man Friday", "Oak Do Hate", "The Beast of Exmoor" (the Cat From Mars herself), "Rhapsody in Orange", and "Youthful Indiscretion".

Flynning -- stage swordplay in which the actors try to hit each other's weapons instead of each other

***** Some Truth In Television; in Real Life, an attacker is not trying to hit his target's sword but the target itself, but the target will strike at the attacker's sword to parry the attack.

In my stories, I try to depict swordplay realistically, which includes minimal Flynning.

Friendly Sniper -- a sniper that is cheerful and friendly, but still deadly

***** Sunny, when she's not being a Cold Sniper.

Gangsta Style -- shooting a gun while holding it sideways

***** In the Dreamlands, Differel's wheellock pistols have a lower rate of misfires if she holds and fires them sideways. The flame has a better chance of going from the pan into the barrel that way.

Grapple Move -- a combat maneuver that involves grabbing and throwing an opponent

***** Medb uses these moves, and taught them to Team Girl.

Differel was trained in commando close-quarters combat, which includes grappling and throwing, but mostly she tries to incapacitate or kill her opponent.

Groin Attack -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; striking someone's crotch (works on women as well as men)

***** Another fighting move Mr. Holt taught Differel was to grasp and squeeze an opponent's groin. It works as well on women as men.

Gun Fu -- the fancy moves characters perform with their guns; essentially martial arts with guns

***** Generally averted or ignored; I come the closest with Vlad, who can shoot while on the run and still hit whatever he aims at.

Gun Kata -- the style of shooting where your opponent ought to be when he or she is aiming at you, and not being where your opponent ought to shoot

***** Vlad; he selects a target, then aims and fires even as he selects his next target.

Guns Akimbo -- shooting two guns at once

***** Vlad; he carries two of each of his pistols so he can shoot at two separate targets at once.

Guns vs. Swords -- combat involving predominantly swords on one side and predominantly guns on the other

***** There have been a few times when Differel has been attacked by gun-wielding assassins, and all she had was Caliburn. At other times, the Caerleon Order has gone up against paranormal beings armed only with swords.

Heroes Fight Barehanded -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; a hero disdains fighting with any weapon except his or her own hands

***** Medb knows just about every hand-to-hand martial art there is or has been (though she prefers to use weapons first). Eile defends herself with boxing (unless she has a weapon available). Differel can take down monsters barehanded (but she would rather shoot them or blow them up).

Heroes Prefer Swords -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; the hero and leader is the character with the sword

***** Medb (though she prefers spears over swords); Eile (though she and Sunny are partners); Differel, hands down.

Hit-and-Run Tactics -- Exactly What It Says On the Tin; get into range, attack, and flee before your opponent has the time to react

***** During the invasion of Britain by the Fomorian wizard king Grendel, Differel at first tried to match him strength-for-strength in head-on battles, but only devastated her forces. After that, Vlad taught her to use guerrilla warfare to keep the Fomorians off balance and finally ambush them.

Speaking of which, when Vlad was human and voivode of Wallachia, he use guerrilla tactics combined with a sorched-earth policy to harass the invading Ottoman Turks and thoroughly demoralize them.

I Know Kung-Faux -- a character knows a fictional martial art that doesn't exist in Real Life.

***** Medb is perhaps the last practitioner of the Tuatha De Danann and Fir Bolg fighting styles. She also knows Fomorian, Serpent Man, and Leng Man martial arts, as well as those of the Hyborians and various other extinct tribes and cultures, and those of alien worlds she has visited.

I Know Karate -- when you warn an attacker you know martial arts, and then kick his ass

***** After Margaret learns enough about hand-to-hand fighting from Differel, she takes out attackers bigger and stronger than her while still a child.

I Know Madden Kombat -- a character trained in a non-combat sport uses it as a basis for combat

***** Eile and boxing; Differel and gymnastics.

I Know Mortal Combat -- learning a fighting skill (or any skill) from the media

***** Dr. Mabuse has a "sleep-teaching" machine that really works. She uses it to learn new scientific disciplines, and Team Girl and Differel use it to learn new languages.

Implausible Fencing Powers -- ridiculous or impossible displays of swordplay

***** Technically, Caliburn is supposed to be able to slay whole armies with a single stroke and cut the tops off mountains, but Differel has never put those claim to the test. She has used Caliburn to cut through steel fire doors, though.

Improbable Weapon User -- a character who tends to use improvised weapons

***** Sunny, hands down. In fact, she could be said to have a black belt in Improv Fu.

Speaking of which...

Improv Fu -- a fighting style that isn't so much about fighting as it is making up new and ridiculous ways to combat your opponent

***** Sunny is a master at improvisational combat, but sometimes she does this on purpose to confuse her opponents.

Instant Death Bullet -- a character dies the moment he or she is shot

***** In "Survival & Sacrifice", just about any monster Team Girl hits dies on the spot.

Instant Marksman Just Squeeze Trigger -- an amateur's marksmanship instantly improves when he or she is told to squeeze the trigger instead of pull it

***** In the forthcoming "Dream-Trials", Differel and her friends are traveling by boat when they are attacked by pirates. She gives one of her guns to Bettie Stivic and tells her to squeeze the trigger, not jerk it. Later, Bettie saves Differel life by shooting a pirate.

Next week I shall present Part 2 of Combat Tropes.