Bay 12 Games Forum

And so the dwarves rattled away in their hole...forgotten by their Gods and the universe itself.  They toiled away the entirety of the year 238 without doing much.  The pyramid was only inching into the sky due to the lack of dolomite.  The expansions to the moat and temple could only add so much dolomite, and the Stonecutters basically alternated between cutting stone, and then hauling stone. 

And at the end of the year, the Queen gave the Stonecutters a few hours off.  Hey...its Christmas ya know?  Carried away by the joy of the season, Urist had a tax collector crucified at the gates to the fortress.  Oh the wailing really got everyone into the Christmas spirit!

The crucifixion even brought Armok up from the demon pits below Blockedlance.  He wept with pride as he saw his Chosen One, Urist, throwing rocks and laughing at the tax collector as he hung helpless and dying very slowly.

"Gather round dwarves!  I shall tell you of the first Christmas!" boomed the voice of Armok throughout the courtyard of the fortress.

"Yeah story time!" shouted one of the dwarves.

They had grown accustomed to the fact that what they had once known as Ber Steelearthen, was in fact, the dreaded Armok they had been raised to hate.  But they also believed that the old dwarven society was weak and corrupted by goody goody elven morals.  They were ready to believe that Armok was just the ancient dwarvish name for Ber Steelearthen.  The two names were now interchangable among the laydwarves.  Only the nobility strictly referred to him as Armok.

"Yeah!  Ber's gonna tell us where Christmas came from!  I always wanted to know!" shouted another poor ignorant peasant.

No one even questioned Armok's gruesome scarred and burnt appearance.  Many a dwarf had battlewounds themselves, and in fact they admired the beardliness of their Demon-God that lived under their fortress.  Yes the brainwashing had been completed.  And so Armok began...

"You see...it all started just after world gen.  A star heralded the birth of a being of great power.....a God.  I sent some emissaries to my fellow deity, you know...to size him up.  I had my three wise guys tell his parents, 'hey we're just giving him some presents okay?'.  I dont even know what they gave him...just some junk they found.  I think they said they gave him some Myrrh.  I mean....what the fuck is Myrrh?  I guess its like rat weed or something."

Armok paused to take a puff off his pipe, then he continued his story.

"So they smoked some Myrrh with the guy's family, then they came back to me and were like, 'Nah man, dont worry bout that guy...hes cool'.  I didnt understand them at the time...I figured they were a bunch of Myrrh addicts...so I had them all executed.  It turns out though that they were right.  I had nothing to fear from this Jebus character.  Wait....was that his name?"

Armok took another puff of rat weed.

"Yeah...Jebus P. Christ.  Thats it....I think.  Anyways....this Jebus guy turned out to be the God of Love and Peace....haha!  I mean....Love and Peace?  If those are your powers then you might as well not even be a God!"

"Was he some kind of elf?" asked a dwarf.

"Oh no....he was a dwarf alright.  He had a beard and everything.  He was skinny like an elf...but thats just cuz he walked everywhere.  Thats the thing...he was always using his God powers for good.  Always healing the sick and feeding hungry people."

"What?!" shouted the audience in disbelief.

"Yeah!" laughed Armok.  "He would create fish and bread for these people, and I always though, man, just create a pile of gold and some naked women!  Ya know?!  I mean.....HELLO JEBUS!!!  Ahhh....but he was weird.  He even tried to bring people back from the dead.  I was right in the middle of torturing this Lazarus guy...and poof!  He disappears back up here to the surface.  And the worst thing...was that me and Jebus' dad went way back.  Yeah his name was Yahweh, and I tell ya, me and that guy were good friends!  We used to enslave people and smash babies against rocks!  It was great!  That guy was good people.  But you know how it is....he got older, he knocked up some broad and then started talking about 'responsibility' and 'good influences' and shit.  I never saw that guy again after he got Mary pregnant.  I dont even know what happened to him....although after what I did to his son, I can understand him not keeping in touch."

"What did you do to his son?" asked a curious dwarf.

"Well that leads us to the first Christmas.  You see....he had been going around vandalizing my temples, and telling people they were worshiping a false God.  He knocked over my money changers' tables and told people not to use our money, and be self sufficient.  I tell ya....I wanted to crucify that guy right there.  But Im reasonable.  I told him, look, we make money at my temples, and we tell people what they wanna hear.  If you dont like that routine, go start your own church, but youre not taking mine.  Guess what?  He started his own church!  He went around telling people that I was a cruel master, that might making right was wrong.  He said that an eye for an eye made the whole world blind.  When the stronger have the right to eat the weaker, then everyones life becomes Hell!  It was crazy talk!"

"What did you do, master?"

"Oh well I made an example of that guy.  I had him beaten and whipped with glass and rusted nails.  Then I put salt in his wounds and squeezed lemon on top. Then I whipped him some more!  Then I marched him through town and had people laugh and throw rocks and yucky vegetables at him.  Then I hung him on a cross, stabbed him with a spear, hung a sign above him that said 'King of the Elves' and all the village children came by and laughed at him and poked him with sticks. The crows pecked his eyes out.  Then they went after his brains.  By the end of that day, no one wanted to Love anyone or be Peaceful at all.  There was no faith in his peace powers!  I showed everyone! War IS peace!  Enslavement to me IS Freedom for you!  And Christmas is about the brutal violent death of Love, Compassion, Peace, and Mercy!  And I say good riddance!  They are crutches for the weak and the elf-minded!"

"Long live Armok!" shouted the dwarves.  "Long live the Blood God!" shouted others.  Then everyone shouted in unison, "Merry Christmas!!!"

And with that, the dwarves kicked back their booze barrels, and chugged down on some happy juice!