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To Jewel, Please put this in the OOC section of the Chronicle, if it is not
too long. From: SteeIWorIdsMyst Hello
Fellow Role Players, Many
of you have asked for my response to the latest Silver tirade concerning the Kurii, as it appeared in the 804th Edition of
the Outlaw Times. Therefore, the following is addressed to all of you out there
who play AOL Gor. I apologize for the length and
detail, ahead of time. Silver
says: Been doing some checks. Seems one group had Kurii
Guidelines listed and the Leaders aren't sure how they got there. However they are voicing their opinions and considering eliminating
the guidelines or lowering the Kurii Dice Collection. This is interesting. The particular web site that I used for a
guideline for the kurii dice stats has been around
for years. It was always used by all
role players, as it was a respected and accepted source by the majority of
players. Therefore, I must say that if they change their dice stats only due to
Silver’s incessant whining that they have dropped to his level and are allowing
him to control their role play. The web site I used as such a respected source,
was the one by the RRaMC, that is no secret. Silver says: As usual, Silver managed to
skip over and leave out some facts with the express purpose of leading his
readers to his side of the fence. I will take each of his “comments” and
expound upon them, backing myself up with the books of Norman that we all base
our role-play on. His comments are in the original text and color he used in
the Outlaw Times, my responses will be in the black font you see here, any book
quotes will be in italicized blue. Yes, Tarl
Cabot, the hero of Gor killed several Kurii in several battles but he had help in different
forms. So, too, did some other warriors. Here are some examples: In this first example; Tarl, Forkbeard, and others were
asleep in the Hall and a single kur snuck in, lifted Tarl up and threw him against the wall, then proceeded to
kill and eat one of the Torvs. Rollo, a described
giant even among Torvs, came from behind and struck
the kur with his axe severing it’s spine a foot
beneath its neck. Surprising all in the hall, the kur
was still alive and strong enough to tear away the butt of a spear that was
thrust into its mouth. Tarl asked the kur if it knew him
and the kur answered him with; “No”. Again, it was questioned, this time by Forkbeard, and it answered in Gorean,
before it finally died of its wound. The kur that was
killed was not one in full health; in fact, it was described as being small for
a kur, and having fur mottled with white patches,
indicative of disease. This is taken from Marauders of Gor,
Chapter 7, pages 109 – 110: “It opened its eyes. “Do you know me?” I asked. “No,” it said. “This is a small Kur,”
said the Forkbeard.
“They are generally larger. Note
the mottling of white. Those are disease
marks.” And then: Then he (Forkbeard), bent to the beast. “Have you hunted
here before?” he asked. “Have you killed
a verr here, and a bosk?” “And, in the hall,” it said, its
lips drawing back from its jaws, “last night a man.” In this next example: Tarl was sent out on the Ice by Zarendagar,
with a white kur that was supposed to kill him. Tarl managed to
kill the white kur, however, he had help from his
friend Imnak. Imnak gave Tarl a sack full of meat right before Tarl
and the white kur left Zarendargar’s
Complex. Imnak told Tarl
specifically “Sleen like it”, telling him what kind
of meat it was, warning him. The following is a quote from Beasts of Gor, chapter 27, pages 334-335 that explains what was in the meat Imnak gave to Tarl: “He took a long strip of baleen,
about fifteen inches in length, and, with his knife, sharpened both ends,
wickedly sharp. He then, carefully,
folded the baleen together, with S-type folds.
Its suppleness permitted this, but it was under great tension, of
course, to spring straight again, resuming its original shape. He then tied the baleen, tensed as it was,
together with some stout tabuk sinew. The sinew, of course, held the baleen
together, in effect fastening a stout spring into a powerfully compressed
position. If the sinew should break I
would not have wished to be near that fierce, compressed, stout strip of sharpened
baleen. “Put it away,” I said to Imnak. Imnak made several of these objects. He then inserted them into several pieces of
meat, one in each piece of meat. He threw one of these pieces of
meat, containing the compressed baleen, outside the shelter. “Now, let us
sleep,” he said.” This was done to keep the sleen away from them while they slept in the shelter, it
later describes a horrifying cry of pain from a sleen,
who, having ate the meat, had the tabuk sinew
dissolve in its stomach, springing the baleen trap. Once out on the ice Tarl tells the kur that he is
hungry. The kur would not give him the meat, but ate
it himself; the following is straight from the book Beasts of Gor, chapter 34, pages 385-386 and shows exactly how Tarl
killed a kur all by himself, not to mention how
strong the kur was. “Then
its ears lay back against the side of its head. I stumbled backward, and it sped
toward me, swiftly. I struggled, seized in its
arms. I saw the blazing eyes. It lifted me from the ice, lifting me toward
its mouth. It held me, looking at me for
a moment. Then it turned its head to one side.
I struggled and twisted futilely.
Its breath was hot in my face, and I could scarcely see it for the
vapors of our mingled breathings. Then
its jaws reached for my throat.
Suddenly, and so suddenly for a moment I could not comprehend it, there
was a hideous shriek from the beast and I could hear nothing else for a moment
and it was one of surprise and pain and I was momentarily deafened and then,
too, at the same time, reflexively I was flung from it, the stars and ice
suddenly wild, and turned and I struck the ice and rolled and slid across
it. I scrambled to my knees. I was more than forty feet from the beast. It stood, not moving, hunched over, looking at me. I rose unsteadily to my feet. It tried to take a step toward me,
and then its face contorted with excruciating pain. It lifted its paw toward me. Then, suddenly, as though struck
from the inside, it screamed and fell, rolling, on the ice. Twice more it cried out, and then
lay, motionless, but alive, on the ice, on its back, looking up at the moons. The digestive juices, already
released into the true stomach, continued with their implacable chemical
work. Bit by bit, loosened molecule by
loosened molecule, in accordance with the patient, relentless laws of
chemistry, the sinew slowly dissolved, weakening the bond which held the
compressed, contorted, sharpened baleen, until the slender bond broke. The beast screamed again. Thoughtlessly the beast must have
devoured fifteen or twenty of the hidden traps.” This goes on for a while,
and eventually ends with the kur dying, as follows
(page 387): “It amazed me that it was not
content to lie still and die. Each step
must have been torture for it. Yet it
continued to follow me. I learned
something from it of the tenacity of the Kur. At last, on the return to the
complex, some four Ahn later, it died. It is not easy to kill a Kur.” Tarl also managed to kill a few kurii in the
ancient jungle city, in the heat of battle, and he still had great difficulty,
the majority of the Kurii in the battle were described as native kur to Gor and undisciplined in the ways of battle. This is from
Explorers of Gor, chapter 53, page 436: “Many of
the Kurii, I suspected, were Gorean
Kurii, wild, degenerate Kurii,
descendants of marooned Kurii or survivors of
crashed ships. Others, I feared, were
ship Kurii. “Hurry!” I
cried. One of the two Kurii who had been looking at us suddenly lifted his arm
and pointed towards us. On all fours,
moving with an agility and speed frightening in so large a beast, they
charged.” Tarl gets lucky here: I hurled the loosened manacles into
the face of the other Kur. (Tarl
hit his target as is explained further on page 437) The beast who confronted me, howling, tore
the manacle from its slashed, moonlike eye. Its mouth was bloody where it had
bitten on the steel of the panga. I scrambled, leaping, half crawling, to the
place on the stones where Ngumi had, after putting me
in manacles, dropped my belt, sheath and dagger, I rolled wildly to the
side. The panga
of the beast who followed me, with a great ringing sound, and a flash of
sparks, smote down on the stone. And then, further still
after the wounded and weakened Kur pursues Tarl, page 437: The Kur, roaring and snarling, looked about. For the moment it had lost me. I kept to its blind side. Then, uttering the war cry of Ko-ro-ba, I leaped upon its back, and, an arm about its throat, plunged the dagger to its heart. I felt the great body shuddering under me and
I leaped away from it.” Many Kurii
and many men, brave Askari Warriors among them, lost
their lives during this battle, however, the outcome
might surprise old Silver. This is from
page 443: The Kur
commander raised his paw. His lips drew
back over his fangs. It was a sign of Kur triumph, or pleasure.
Then he swiftly communicated commands to his beasts. Msaliti leaped down
from the stones and withdrew from the fortress-like enclosure. The Kurii facing us
then, snarling, watching us, not turning their backs, began to withdraw. They obeyed their commander. He had won.
He would not now risk more of his beasts.” Then there is the
interesting story about how one Kur saved Tarl Cabot’s life time and time again in their trek over
the desert as allies, only to have the journey takes its life in the end. Tarl was left to
battle the Kur that stood guard over the Kurii space craft that had been made into a doomsday
machine. Yes, two Kurii,
one assisting Tarl to save the world and the other
determined to allow Gor to be destroyed. This
happened in Tribesmen of Gor, and the following is
taken from Chapter 21, page 292-293: I looped
the noose where the wire was naked. As the Kur
climbed near me, his back to me I caught its great shaggy head in the loop and
drew it tight. It tore at the fine wire
with its thick digits but they could not slip beneath it. I flung myself backward off the beam and the wire
pulled the Kur from the side of the ship until it
hung, struggling, I hanging a few feet below it. It flung out its paws but could grasp on
nothing. It tried to hold the wire, and
climb on it, or relieve the pressure on its throat, but its great paws slipped
on the slender strand; then its weight began to pull me upward; I, hands
knotted in the insulated portion of the wire, kicked the Kur
back as it reached for me; then I was above it, being drawn by its weight to
the height of the beam; the shoulders of the Kur were
mantled in red; blood ran heavily from its throat, in throbbing, gigantic glots; I braced, myself, head down, feet pressed up against
the beam, to hold the Kur in place; then, without
warning, the wire parted; when the wire parted I was almost horizontal to the
beam, trying to keep from being pulled over it, trying to hold the Kur; the force of my legs, relieved suddenly of the counter
tension of the Kur’s weight, flung me back, almost to
the other side of the ship, and I slid down a few feet and caught some piping.
The Kur, striking four times, fell some sixty or seventy
feet, to the lowest level of the ship, past the door, well below the level of
the sand outside. But the Kur
is not dead yet! Page 293) Below me,
to my horror, I saw the Kur, a mass of blood,
struggle to its feet. It was still
bleeding, heavily, from the throat. I
had little doubt that the great vessel of its throat had been opened, if not
severed. The beast
seemed indomitable. Its strength was
almost inconceivable. Tarl, again, gets lucky, for before the Kur could
reach him it bled to death (page293): I saw the
Kur not a foot below me. It tried to lift its hand, to seize me. Blood no longer ran from its throat. It was dead. Tarl also kills a kur in the Hall in Torvaldsland when the kurii
overrun the hall and set it ablaze. It
was a battle that ended badly for the Torv’s and our
hero only escaped by shimmying up a rope and climbing through a hole in the
roof, (the quotes for this particular battle are further on in this article). Silver continues:
Must we remind Silver that
this is not a game of DnD, but a game of Gor? In any event, there are dozens of descriptions of kurii stating that they ARE more agile than humans. I will
not bore you with the quotes here, but they can be found on the kurii web site, under Physical Capabilities on the Rules
Page. Where are the Kurii described as a cross between a Bear and a
Gorilla? If someone has come across a
quote to that effect, please send it to me. Norman describes the Kurii more cat-like in their movements and nocturnal
vision, having legs shorter than their arms and having the ability to run on
all fours like a Baboon, and states that what truly makes them extremely
dangerous is their intelligence combined with the physical build and
musculature of a predator as deadly as a Bengal Tiger. Norman also goes on to
describe how agile, sure footed, and expert they are in the use of weapons such
as axes, blades, and shields made of iron. This part made me
laugh. The Assassin that Silver is
speaking of is “Drusus”. Drusus was actually
a Kurii Agent who attempted to talk Tarl Cabot into joining the Kurii
cause. He tried to tempt Tarl by stating that the Kurii are generous with women and gold. He and Tarl met with drawn steel at one point in the book, (the
book being Beasts of Gor). Tarl won the day
and then to the horror of Drusus, refused to kill him. Drusus slunk off whining about how he had
failed his caste. In any event, that
duel with Tarl caused Drusus to do some thinking and
he turned against the Kurii. Drusus carried a weapon
made by Kurii Technology, it is explained below, from
chapter 29, page 350: “The men on either side of the cage
cart carried some sort of projectile weapon.
It fired, I conjectured, judging from the breech, a long conical,
gas-impelled dart. The principles of the
weapon, I assumed, were similar to those of a rifle, except that the missile
would not be a slug of metal but something more in the nature of a tiny
quarrel, some six inches in length. The
weapons had carved wooden stocks, reminiscent of a time in which rifles were
the work of craftsmen. Eccentric designs
surmounted these stocks. The actual
firing of the weapon was apparently by means of a button in the forepart of the
stock. Although this button could be
depressed quickly it could not be jerked, as a trigger might be, either on a
rifle or crossbow, an action which sometimes, in moving the weapon, ruins or
impairs the aim. Each man carried a bag
at his left hip. It contained, I
supposed, among other accouterments, the missiles, or darts, for the weapon.” It goes on to say “Bringing up the rear, also with a
dart weapon, was Drusus” Later in Chapter 30, we
find out just what those six-inch darts do, as follows, page 362: “Another hiss smoked past me and I
saw, across the room, almost at the same instant, a six-inch dart sink part way
into a steel wall and part of the wall, screeching, burst back, a four-inch
hole, blackened, in it.” Yes, they were explosive
darts. Drusus later kills four kur, single handedly,
armed with a weapon that fires explosive darts of such power they can cause a
hole to appear in a steel wall. He admits such in the following, from chapter
35, page 410: “Four Kur were here,” he said, “to guard this place, to intercept
him who might attempt to attain it.
Those I slew”. He
gestured to an aisle in the boxes. I
could smell Kur blood. I did not take my eyes from him. The girl,
turning about, shrank suddenly back, desperately, futilely, trying to free her
small hands, tied behind her back, and stilled a scream. “Four
times I fired, four I slew.” He said. “There
are four beasts, or parts of beasts,” she said, “three here, and one beyond.” I can’t help but wonder
where the Priest King’s Blue Flame of Death was during all these explosions,
perhaps they were asleep. Nevertheless,
Drusus, who was bested at swordplay by Tarl, used
basically a futuristic grenade launcher to kill four kurii. It must have been a terrible mess among those
boxes. In any event, those facts speak for themselves. If any of the BC groups
out there decide to indeed, as Silver suggested, allow their Assassins to AA a Kur, they better have the same type of dart weapon handy
and pray that the Priest Kings lay off the Blue Flame, for as the books tell
us, to shoot a Kur with a crossbow only angers the Kur. As an aside here: The
Pyramid of the Kurii? There was no pyramid. It was,
in fact, a military base and complex which held munitions, vehicles, and
supplies for a possible Kurii invasion fleet from the
Steel Worlds. Tarl describes it here in Beasts of Gor, Chapter 34, page 382: When I, drawing the sled, had left
the complex I had turned and looked upon it.
I had stood there for a moment in awe.
It was indeed an ice island, and one of considerable size. It towered more than a thousand feet above
the surface ice in which it was now locked.
It would extend, below the surface, much further, probably some seven thousand
or so feet. In width it was some four pasangs, I would conjecture, and in length some ten pasangs. It was not
the only such island in the vicinity. Let us continue. Silver says:
The “group of Kurii” Silver speaks of here were actually winning the
battle and had clustered together behind a shield wall. This shield wall, is reminiscent of what the
Romans used, the outer ranks held their shields to the front, back, or side, of
a square or rectangular formation. The
inner ranks held their shields overhead, making an almost impenetrable wall of
shields. The kurii
were waiting behind this shield wall for night to fall. The nocturnal vision of Kurii
is superb and the Torvs were worried, knowing that
there was no way they could win the war by a battle in the darkness of
night. The only thing that saved them
was the quick thinking of causing a herd of 1000+ bosk
to stampede through the Kurii shield wall. They won the war, due to the Kurii being trampled by a herd of Bosk.
They did not win the war due to hand-to-hand combat. These events happened in
the book Marauders of Gor, Chapter 18. Here are a few
excerpts from the battle, the first from page 250: Many were the men of Thorgard who fell beneath the teeth and steel of the Kurii, and several were the Kurii
who fell to the weapons of Thorgard’s men, as they
fought madly to defend themselves. Later on in the battle,
page 253: “We have been tricked!” cried a
man. “Across the camp is the true rally,
hundreds of Kurii! All falls before them! This was a ruse to draw men here, permitting Kurii to regroup in numbers elsewhere!” My heart leaped. No wonder the commander of the Kurii had left his forces here, disappearing. I wondered if they knew his real intent had
been elsewhere. I admired him. He was a true general, a most dangerous and
lethal foe, unscrupulous, brilliant. “It seems,” grinned Ivar Forkbeard, “we have a worthy
adversary.” The Shield Wall, page 255: The Kurii
showed no signs of emerging from the shield wall. It consists of two lines, one on the ground,
the other at chest level, of overlapping shields. The shields turn only for the blows of
axes. We could see the two front lines,
one kneeling, one standing, of Kurii. Similar lines, fierce,
obdurate, protective, extended about the formation, on all sides, forming the
edges of the Kurii war square. Forkbeard guesses what the Kurii strategy will be,
page 256: “They will wait for night,” said Ivar Forkbeard. Men shuddered. The Kur has
excellent night vision. Men would, for
practical purposes, be blind. “They will slaughter us with the
fall of night,” said a man. “Let us withdraw now,” said another.
And then the Torvs unleash their secret weapon, without which they would
have lost the war, page 257: Then the air was filled with the
thunder of hoofs, bellowing of the bosk. The bosk,
in their charging hundreds, heads down, hooves pounding, maddened, relentless,
driven, struck the square. We heard,
even from behind the herd, Ivar, and I, and a hundred
men, screaming and shouting, the howling, the startled shrieks of Kurii, the enraged roars of Kurii. We heard the scraping of horns on metal, the
screams of gored Kurii; the howls of Kurii fallen beneath the hoofs. Nothing on Gor
withstands the charge of the maddened bosk. The stampeded bosk gave the Torvs the edge they
needed and the battle was theirs, but once again, it is proven, that it is no
easy feat to win victory from a Kur or force of Kurii.
He says here “our
Warriors”. Whose warriors exactly? The Warriors that Norman wrote about
defeated the Kurii, however, it did take quite a lot of effort in which many
warriors died hideous and brutal deaths.
Check out the following quote from Players of Gor,
Chapter 20, pp 365-366: “Suddenly, from the midst of those bodies,
howling, the Kur, spears in its body, thrust upward
clawing and raging like some force of nature.
It stood knee deep in bodies. “Kill it!” screamed the
officer. Again men charged, with spears
and swords. In the bloody tumult men
struck even one another. I saw it reach
out and tear a man from his fellows, disposing of him, half decapitating him
with a slash of fangs to the throat, and seize another, tearing his head from
his body. Then it went down, bloody and
terrible, again, beneath the weigh of iron, and
men. That was the thing, I recalled,
which had been cast out of its own world for its alleged weakness. “It is moving again!” screamed a man. Once more I saw it rise up among
bodies. I heard men weep, and continue
to strike at it. How it prided itself on
its refinements, on its sense of gentility.
How vain it had been! How
irritated I had even been with it, with its confounded supercilious arrogance. How jealous it was of being a gentleman. It went down again. “We can’t kill it!” screamed a man. “We can’t kill it!” It even cooked its
meat. Once more it thrust its way up
through bodies, now waist-deep about it.
An arm hung from its jaws. Spears
and swords struck at it, again and again.
“They will learn,” it had said, “that even a gentleman knows how to
fight.” Twice more it tore its way up
among bodies, and then, at last, men stepped wearily back from it. Bodies were pulled away. It lay alone on the sand, dead. I could not even pronounce its name.” I am not sure where Silver
gets the idea that a kur was so easily killed by one
warrior, then again, perhaps he is implying that all of the warriors of Brundisium, (where the above took place), are inferior to
all those on AOL Gor.
As an aside, the dice used
for the Kurii have been standard Kurii
dice for years, no one made them up on a whim. Never has there been an issue
with the dice stats until Silver got his nose out of joint about the Kurii Story Line. The dice stats he mentions that were “accidentally”
listed, could not have been “accidentally” listed. If that was so, why then,
has that listing been there for years? Why then, during many planned Kurii Hunts over the years, do the players go by those
particular dice stats? I do believe someone is making up a story to suit their
own needs. Kurii are NPC’s?? By Silver’s own admission there have been other kurii groups. I
quote him here from an email he sent me on 01-21-08: “Back years ago before the OT came into play we had a group
that played Kurii in Disney fashion. Once again, Silver twists the
facts to suit his own design. He even states that his readers want a more
proper Kur back on Gor. That does not sound like NPCs to me. Our Kurii group is not the first, there was also the group
called the “Resistance”, which is still around, though on hold due to its
Leader being deployed in Iraq. We all
wish him a quick and safe return home to the States. Now, it is no secret that many of
the muns in our group are also the muns in the group that role-plays in the GBC. We have yet
to have any of our GBC characters ignored, so that is a surprise to us. The
fact that Silver calls the GBC Disney is due to his animosity towards anyone
that he cannot prove wrong. Yes, Silver,
I have bantered back and forth with you about the BC too, and back then you
could never prove me wrong either. I
even told you that according to John Norman the Assassins were “Esteemed
Mercenaries”, which you vehemently denied and told me that I did not know what
a Mercenary was. Then just last year you
come out in the OT stating that Assassins were “Esteemed Mercenaries”. I found
that most interesting, if not highly amusing.
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