KODT in Honorverse

zuluwiz wrote:Are you going to tell the rest of us what KOTD is, or is it your secret?

Kaptenen wrote: palace security has a major by the name B.A Felton whom has a cousin named Sergeant Sara Felton, their coastguard have a Brian Vanhoose and a David Boswell in their ranks, now all these people are members of KOTD which a comic about a roleplaying Group, very droll indeed.

The Knights of the Dinner Table

The main group of characters are the members of a gaming group known as "The Knights of the Dinner Table" in a fictionalized version of Muncie, Indiana. The players' best-known and most often-used characters are the HackMaster characters known as the "Untouchable Trio (Plus One)" (abbreviated as "UT+1"). They consist of:

Boris Alphonzo "B.A." Felton

B.A. is the GM and current organizer of the Knights (although the group was founded, and GMed, by Brian). In his 30s, he lives with his mother due to a failed attempt at game design, and works at the local pizza shop known as the Pizza-A-Go-Go, as well as his father's dry cleaning shop. B.A. has a bad reputation among the Knights for being ruthlessly cunning, largely because the players tend to be paranoid and to react poorly to setbacks, and any attempt at normal gameplay usually ends in misery (or complete and utter disaster). He often finds his games thwarted or sabotaged by the antics of the other players, much to his dismay.

He is also a sucker for the local game-shop owner, "Weird Pete" Ashton (see "The Black Hands Gaming Society", below), who constantly finds ways to sell him new or over-stocked product, on the basis that it's just what B.A. needs to spice up his campaigns. B.A. was supposedly based on Jolly Blackburn himself. B.A. from late 2005 to early 2006 took a furlough from GMing, having seen too many of his hard-worked campaigns reduced to rubble, the last such disaster prior to his furlough being a difficult situation revolving around two self-aware swords. His place behind the GM screen was temporarily taken by Brian VanHoose(q.v.). B.A.'s return to the gamemaster's seat was heralded by his acquisition of a copy of the infamously deadly Temple of Horrendous Doom HackMaster scenario created by "Weird Pete". Now he's taken up a hardball approach in the hopes of reining in the power gaming that wrecked most of his previous adventures.

Robert Samuel "Bob" Herzog

Bob lives for gaming. He's a member of the "Old School" style of playing which revolves around killing people and breaking things. His short temper has led him into trouble on many occasions. He reacts to most encounters with "I waste him/her/it with my crossbow!". Bob is extremely protective of his large dice collection. At one point, Bob came into conflict with his father over gaming, given the option to straighten up and give up gaming, or move out. Being the true gamer, Bob did indeed move out, and is currently attempting to live on his own, but tends to spend his rent money on gaming paraphernalia. Bob's favourite character in fantasy campaigns is a dwarf named Knuckles (ranging from Knuckles, King of the Wall-climbers to Knuckles the Eighth), who rides a mule named "Little Mike" which he believes to be a "Dwarven Warhorse."

Bob is in a relationship with Sheila Horowitz, a member of another Muncie gaming group, the Dorm Troopers; recent issues have shown the two apparently living together. Bob currently works for Weird Pete at the till, getting paid in gaming stock each week, because Weird Pete cannot afford to pay him in actual money. Bob has little qualms with this arrangement, and has even made Sara compliment him on how enthusiastic he is.

David "Dave" Harcord Bozwell

The youngest of the Knights, Dave is a student at Ball State University, where he studies Cultural Anthropology and Dance Theory (the latter of the two for the purpose of meeting girls.) He originally used to show up for the food, but really got into the game despite a bad first encounter with Johnny (a former Knight who gouged Dave out of a priceless gem). Dave is the typical "Hack-N-Slash" player, who becomes bored easily in non-action situations. When faced with talking things through (at which he is poor), or fighting, Dave chooses the latter. Dave, until recently, played a character by the name of El Ravager, wielding a coveted Hackmaster +12 named "Tremble." He lusts to own a god-level Magic Sword, but dreads the possibility of such a blade having its own ideas of what it is to be used for.

More recently (late 2006) in B.A.'s newest campaign, Dave has changed tactics (in part thanks to B.A.'s new hardball rules) and is playing a magic-user named El Mardico with, it must be said, some margin of success. Brian has therefore provided Dave with tutelage on how to properly run a mage – for a small fee. Dave was once involved with local Game Master Patty Gauzweiller; he later broke it off but she still had feelings for him, leaving him a target for her flirtatious tactics. This, however, seems to have disappeared with time.

Sara Ashlyn Felton

B.A.'s cousin Sara, the only female member of the group, prefers games with a focus on role playing rather than the pure action. Often, she tries to solve issues in-game through negotiation, while the others prefer violence. Exactly how she, playing a 'good' character, came to unleash upon the game-world a blood-thirsty pack of pit bulls to attack and devour anything alive they come across (and quite a few not-alive things as well) is an entirely different story, and one Sara would like the world to forget about (even if she never will). Usually the voice of reason, Sara has reflexes that would scare a striking cobra and has been known to have a hair-trigger temper on certain subjects (sexist remarks being perhaps the foremost); Bob, Dave and Brian have all had their shirt collars wrenched by a fuming Sara at least once.

Sara's trademark characters are generally (fully clothed) female barbarians, the most noteworthy of which are probably Zayre and Thorina. She also has the distinction of being the person that broke Brian's undefeated streak at Risque (a parody of Risk). Brian is not fond of being reminded of this. Sara was supposedly based on Jolly Blackburn's wife, Barbara Blackburn.

Brian Montgomery VanHoose

Brian is the rules lawyer and powergamer of the group. A web designer and miniature painter, he lives alone in a house inherited from his parents. He can quote rules and supplements down to page and paragraph/footnote numbers, and bend and abuse this knowledge to his advantage, at times at the expense of other players. He meticulously hands down notes of earlier adventures to his characters' descendants, thereby giving them in-game access to knowledge they otherwise would not possess, and has been known to tattoo his character's spells on fellow party-members backs as a contingency plan, making them into walking grimoires. Brian is another person said to keep a grudge so long he has a regular account at the taxidermists' shop. In addition, when he does get pushed too far (either by a carefully constructed plot falling apart or a bout of in-game backstabbing), he has been known to flip the table in a moment of rage.

Kaptenen wrote:Now what annoys me that he call the mercenaries Volsung, now I have no problem with that but the correct Word
is Völsung and trust me it sound quite different. Now I am
a aseirbeliver and why should my beliefsystem be less than your belief in jahve and jebus?

tlb wrote:

Kaptenen wrote:Now what annoys me that he call the mercenaries Volsung, now I have no problem with that but the correct Word
is Völsung and trust me it sound quite different. Now I am
a aseirbeliver and why should my beliefsystem be less than your belief in jahve and jebus?

I am not sure where you see your beliefs in the Aesir questioned. As to the accent mark over the "o", it might be hard to find on a keyboard outside of Scandinavia. Note that the following article about the Volsung does it both ways; but the text spells the word without the mark: Saga of the Volsungs

Volsung (spelled that way) also occurs in the computer game titled The Elder Scrolls.

JohnRoth wrote:On a Mac, you simply hold down the key for a moment and a menu pops up so you can select the appropriate accent. for ö it's 2. Other systems? No idea.

tlb wrote:

Kaptenen wrote:Now what annoys me that he call the mercenaries Volsung, now I have no problem with that but the correct Word
is Völsung and trust me it sound quite different. Now I am
a aseirbeliver and why should my beliefsystem be less than your belief in jahve and jebus?

I am not sure where you see your beliefs in the Aesir questioned. As to the accent mark over the "o", it might be hard to find on a keyboard outside of Scandinavia. Note that the following article about the Volsung does it both ways; but the text spells the word without the mark: Saga of the Volsungs

Volsung (spelled that way) also occurs in the computer game titled The Elder Scrolls.

Kaptenen wrote:Now what annoys me that he call the mercenaries Volsung, now I have no problem with that but the correct Word is Völsung and trust me it sound quite different. Now I am a aseirbeliver and why should my beliefsystem be less than your belief in jahve and jebus?

tlb wrote:I am not sure where you see your beliefs in the Aesir questioned. As to the accent mark over the "o", it might be hard to find on a keyboard outside of Scandinavia. Note that the following article about the Volsung does it both ways; but the text spells the word without the mark: Saga of the Volsungs

Volsung (spelled that way) also occurs in the computer game titled The Elder Scrolls.

Kaptenen wrote:That is not a accent mark, it is a letter, we have the letters Å,Ä and Ö and it sounds quite different. Why are you yanks so indifferent?

In orthography and collation, a letter modified by a diacritic may be treated either as a new, distinct letter or as a letter–diacritic combination. This varies from language to language, and may vary from case to case within a language. English is the only major modern European language requiring no diacritics for native words (although a diaerisis may be used in words such as "coöperation").