Exiern
Swords, Sorcery, And Then Some!
<!– Global site tag (gtag.js) – Google Analytics –>
<script async src=”https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-22856846-2″></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag(‘js’, new Date());
gtag(‘config’, ‘UA-22856846-2’);
</script>
<!– Global site tag (gtag.js) – Google Analytics –>
<script async src=”https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-22856846-7″></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag(‘js’, new Date());
gtag(‘config’, ‘UA-22856846-7’);
</script>
Exiern Producers
Be a Producer! Your name/title with an optional SFW hyperlink will be posted prominently HERE following the close of the month! You’ll also receive monthly mailings from Exiern’s author, Scott T. Hicken!
Support Us On Patreon
Want to help Exiern run independently, and even increase how often we post a month? Check out our Patreon page for early access and bonus stuff!
or
T-SHIRTS!
Recent Comments
- Gorm on Insert Monty Python Reference Here
- elfguy on This will hurt more
- elfguy on I don’t get it
- JuL on The Night
- JuL on He’s Dense, But Grounded
Notice how the King has moved to the back. THAT’S a sign of true royalty.
… notice how the King is smiling smugly? At least it looks that way. Difficult to make out.
I pretend he’s smiling smugly, cause he’s got some devious plan for just this occurrence.
@Hikaro, no point employing guards and not using them. Getting beat up and killed ahead of the people in charge is their job and what they signed up for.
I think the king’s smug smile is about the fact that she is displaying some serious were-cleavage.
So, why exactly did the skinwalker need to completely rip the clothes last time she transformed, but now she only stretches them?
Kings have been doing this from the beginning. In the Gilgamish epic, the oldest written story so far discovered, Gilgamish was a king. Why was he the king? One possible reason was that his mother was the high priestess and he was believed to be 1/3 god. Another possible reason was that he was a bull of a man and the best wrestler in the city.
Enkidu was maybe half animal. He grew up wild with the animals and they loved him. He came to challenge Gilgamish. They wrestled and neither could win and they became inseparable friends.
When they went to war, Gilgamish’s mother told Enkidu to do whatever he could to protect his friend. And she told Gilgamish to hold back and let Enkidu take the damage.
They faced a giant woodchopper and apparently he wrestled with both of them at the same time. Enkidu was hurt badly enough to eventually die of his wounds. Gilgamish won.
I’m not sure they had the concept that Enkidu was killed because he accepted a contract that he’d get paid money to die first. Capitalism was important to them — people bought wives in the marketplace — but not THAT important. Enkidu was Gilgamish’s closest friend, to the point that the rest of the story was about what Gilgamish did out of his despair over Enkidu’s death.
Kings sacrifice their closest personal friends for their schemes, because that’s what kings do.
The one and only time someone’s clothes SHOULD be destroyed… 😛
I think the king is gonna whip out some serious whoopass.
Moved to the back or the guards moved forward – either way, it isn’t cowardice; in a land that generally values reckless bravery, it’s pure selfishness for a king to put themselves in danger to collect the glory, when they lack a heir that’s honestly ready to take their place and keep the land safe.
She shops at the same stores Bruce Banner buys his pants at…
You just need to look at Dark Age Europe to see the political instability and generally appalling mess that happened when the guy in charge would recklessly plunge into battle. A particularly good example is Harald Godwinson who lead the Saxon charge at Hastings in 1066 personally, vs his opposing King, William the Conqueror who lead from the rear, letting his knights (and archers) do the actual fighting. The fact that William is known to history as “the Conqueror” instead of his pre-1066 title, “the Bastard” is kinda a clue as to how it worked out. The brutal oppression of the Norman conquest, and the harrowing of the North, ending the Saxon communal rule and replacing it with feudal serfdom (i.e. indentured slavery) showed that your King leading from the front doesn’t really work out for the ordinary people under him either. Of course history being what it is, it still took another few hundred years for that lesson to sink in. A King who leads from the rear won’t lose the war by losing a single battle.
@ J Thomas: Actually in ancient Sumeria they had Annual Regicide so yearly they killed the king to represent Marduk’s sacrifice to bring back Inanna and restore fertility to the land. Often it was a random selection of who the king would be after a few days of mourning for the other king who died. The High Priestess would select a man (often no one wanted this job) and then she would take his seed in him in a consecration of royalty where he officially became king in public sex with the High Priestess which would then kick off a wild multiple day orgy fest in the town.
So how come James Tiberius Kirk personally led all 1,048 Away Missions, and never suffered a scratch? (Though in every case, the red-shirt guys got redshirted.)
@GrimGhost Don’t even know who he is but still 1048 battles unscratched is either due to too much quality of himself or his defenders. Those who died, however, just died – history may be pretty unfair to those who sacrifice.
Rukh.. You don’t know who James Tiberius Kirk is?? Captain Kirk?? Oh the sad sad decline of the rising generations! :/
It’s simple: Kirk was wearing the coveted “Yellow Tunic of Invincibility”. He was the only one who owned one, as is why every other captain in Starfleet in the 23rd century died either during the episode or just before.
@Fairportfan
Good job, my friend, good job. I need to shop at that store when I Hulk-out (and it happens quite frequently).
um, @grimghost, i beg to differ, i seem to remember a couple of episodes that jtk did get smacked,and one where he had to get his chest wrapped.
Okay, no sign of Papa Bear or Baby Bear, but Mama Bear? Check. So I’m figuring, it’s about time Goldilocks showed up (along with her “big scary sword”).
The King has some ethereal light coming off of him. Are we going to see royal beat down showing why this is the Alliance of Light?
To quote Army of Darkness:
“Baby, you got reeeeaaaal ugly.”
omfg we’re talking about startrek? o_O
I don’t think Rus-Mira is going to live to see 2012. My predictions on how she’ll die–
1) Most likely: One of the king’s soldiers is actually Rus-Mira’s father, the Rus ambassador. He will himself turn were-bear, becoming bigger and stronger than his daughter. Furthermore, he’s the only one in Exiern who could kill Rus-Mira without starting a diplomatic incident. The king is grinning right now because he’s thinking, “Bitch, you’re about to be turned into hamburger by your own father!”
2) Perhaps: sliced and diced by Tiffany. But Tiff’s in another room and has no reason to leave it.
3) Possible but unlikely: Real-Mira or Ctyx kill Rus-Mira by magical means.
Rukh, it’s either Star Trek or we’re back to bear puns.
That’s a honey of a dilemma right there.
@Freyja, the Gilgamish story has been collected from excavated royal libraries across mesopotamia and over something like 1500 years. So it was widely known. Gilgamish was apparently king for an extended time. I didn’t see anything in the story about him getting sacrificed. Probably customs varied.
Frasier documented the annual regicide custom from britain to india, and there was a similar practice in south america before the europeans arrived. And yet I suspect that most places it was mostly symbolic.
The symbolic form survives today in US high schools. Every year the student government president is not killed, but thrown out of the school along with almost the entire senior class, after the orgaistic senior prom. But the school principal is likely to remain until he retires….
You know, I’m thinking of that classic line from the Simpsons to quote when some guy transforms: That goodness his pants stayed on.
See, I would be saying a line very similar to that if this lady were wearing a mask.