Elf Sex in Atlantasia

Mike Mearls is sweating.  “[T]he most realistic fantasy based game around,” is now among us and “it’s a taste of what’s to come.”  It seems the way we think about role-playing games is about to change.  John Holland, resident of Vulcan, Canada, has graced the world with his masterful role-playing game, The Realms of Atlantasia, and he’s “going after the big boys.”  Hence the reason for Mike Mearls’ anxiety.

Of course, given the staggering importance of this event, your humble and intrepid host has acquired a (PDF) copy.  Thoul’s Paradise is here to sate your curiosity as to this new standard among RPGs.

There remains some question as to whether Atlantasia is a parody.  If it is a parody, it is brilliant, exquisite, and colossal; it eclipses Encounter Critical as the mighty Sequoia overshadows a simple shrubbery.  Given this unlikely level of attainment and the pricey set-up costs of the publisher (iUniverse), your humble host has difficulty accepting that it is a parody.  We are compelled to treat Atlantasia as a sincere effort and more’s the pity.  If Holland is indeed sincere, he might want to swallow his pride and act like it was a parody from the start.

Regardless of the quality of the end product, should we disparage a truly sincere effort? Did not the esteemed Zak recently encourage us all to publish our pet projects? I concur with Zak's sentiment; however, Holland has committed two unpardonable sins. He has engaged in naïve pomposity and he offers a work of absolutely dismal production values.

Apparently, Holland hasn’t seen any RPGs that have been published since he began work on his magnum opus eighteen years ago (nor does he seem to be aware of any advances in website design since then). Holland considers percentile dice and different schools of magic to be innovative.

The book is 545 pages long. There is no table of contents; there is no index. Other than the cover, there is no art. Internal organization is lacking (for instance, creature listings are not alphabetized). Obviously, Holland's word processing expertise does not extend to the use of a spell checker.

Somewhere, Mike Mearls breathes a sigh of relief.

There are only so many hours in a day and there is so much to deride. (A text search for the phrase “anal circumference” does not yield any hits, so at least it’s not a hack of F.A.T.A.L.) Rest assured, Thoul's Paradise shall soon revisit The Realms of Atlantasia.

Heaven forfend I should conclude this post without mention of elf sex. Recently, around the blogs, there has been some discussion of the sexual mores of Atlantasian elves. Page 3 of 'The Game Master's Bible' states:

On Atlantasia, you will NEVER find a half-breed elf (if a female elf was ever raped by another race she would commit suicide).

From this remark, we assume that elves are not attracted to other races but, since there is a possibility that an elf may be raped, other races may be attracted to elves. We also assume that elves are inter-fertile with these other races or else there would be no concern that a half-breed might result from a rape. What if a non-elf used a disguise (magical or conventional) to appear like an elf and thus engage in consensual relations? I mean, there's more than one way to shag an elf.