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[Best Non-King Character:]

Best Non-King Character: Sinitrena (The Narrator)
Best King: Myinah (Mr. Pak)
Best Atmosphere: WHAM
Best Ending: Monkey424
Best Background World: Myinah, WHAM
Best Writing Style: Monkey424
Most Substantive: Myinah (Insight into dictator-y style power)

1. AprilSkies - A work of art, and the coat of arms at the bottom would be an awesome logo for a kitchen that specializes in catering medieval style feasts.
2. Stupot+
3. Tabata

Wow, this looks awesome!

The Golden Spatula propaganda flag for Kitcheneria:



You will be assimilated into the Order of the Spatula.

[Buffoon of Baboso]

Buffoon of Baboso

“Heavy is the crown of Baboso…” lamented King Babo of Baboso.  His Minister of Propaganda Sir Alfred Lassard (more simply known as Sir Fred), replied, “Well sire, you are wearing your lead crown.”  King Babo appeared to have a moment of revelation, and then removed his royal raiments which included an impossibly large lead ornamental headdress, a jewel encrusted velour robe, and a large golden self-awarded Official Medal of Humility that had dangled at the end of a necklace.  The good (or bad as many would allege) King Babo was of average height with a pear-shaped build and perhaps most notably, a bulbous drinker's nose.

King Babo commanded, “Sir Fred, have my royal cabinet summoned!”  Fred replied, “Sire, do you mean the jesters?”  The giddy King nodded and the royal kazooers announced the royal jester brigade who happily pranced into the room and began dancing around to the rhythm of the court bard's tune.  One overweight court jester dared to be hungover and was half-heartedly swaying while cradling a jug of firewater mead, which caused King Babo to point at him and announce, “He displeases the King!  Sir Fred, send this oaf to the lions!”  The Propaganda Minister seized the lax offender and frog marched him into the lions den, and then dramatically slammed the door.  The discombobulated Jester roused from his stupor and stared at an equally confused pride of sea lions.

With a dismissive wave from their ruler, the Jesters sashayed out of the throne room while Sir Fred brought in the first of the civil disputes.  On King Babo's left stood a stunning, voluptuous young woman.  On his right was a greasy old elixir merchant who stood with folded arms while angrily tapping a foot.  The King picked up his Scepter of Wisdom with his right hand, while the left was curled into a fist under his chin as if in deep contemplation.  King Babo ordered, “I will now hear your grievances!”  The gorgeous woman leaned closed to the King and said, “Sire, I am but a mere naïve damsel simply trying to find my way in this harsh World-” and was cut-off by the annoyed merchant who curtly interrupted with, “Horsefeathers!  This woman is singing a siren's song-“ and himself was cut-off by King Babo's booming voice which declared, “HOW DARE YOU interrupt this fair maiden's tale of woe?!  I've sent better men to the stocks, to the racks, or even to the spiky, expandable pear of anal anguish!”  Everyone present noticeably cringed, and the King went on, “I've made my decision.  The fair lass here will enjoy priority access to the Baboso Castle Club facilities, and the curmudgeonly merchant will face twenty lashings!”  The beautiful woman sauntered off to the royal pool, and the old merchant slumped his shoulders at the verdict as the royal roaster entered the throne room to dish out the tongue lashings.  “This old fart is so greasy that his liver spots slipped off!” lashed the royal roaster.

After a verbal onslaught of nineteen more tongue lashes, the merchant was finally escorted out by Sir Fred.  King Babo twirled his Scepter of Wisdom and proclaimed, “The King tires of squashing squabbles!”  He leapt up from his small white throne and strolled through the front gates to the castle lawn.  The Royal Harem had returned from picking prunes and passed by King Babo, who grinned and waved.  The King's subjects would often joke that ole' King Babo “casted a wide net” with his preference for the rubenesque ladies.  The Master Harem Harlot, Mable Babo, waved back.  While the echoes of her arm flab flapping together dissipated, King Babo solemnly watched the harem - prune baskets in hand - skip back into the castle across the old wood drawbridge that loudly creaked in protest. 

The King stared into his moat, and pondered what the royal genealogist had said about the purity of his bloodline being “Hapsburg-like”.  The King reminded himself to check with his sister-cousin in the royal library to find out the meaning of that word.  King Babo's chief concern, however, was the growing unrest amongst many of the noble houses, monastic orders, peasant clans, less fortunate citizens from the almshouses, and even the barbarian hordes from the outlands that have all banded together in an unlikely alliance to dethrone the King and end his glorious reign.  He had never seen so many people of different social classes and backgrounds come together for one common cause, and this thought brought forth a small tear which trickled down his jowly cheeks and fell into the moat.  While the unrest was troubling, he smiled at the idea that only a great King could bring so many together. 

The King composed himself and reminisced his major accomplishments for the Baboso people…There was the time that an evil and immensely powerful knight armed with a huge claymore sword had strode into his kingdom and began chopping the heads off of any unlucky citizens he chanced upon, and so naturally the brave King Babo pledged to his people that he, “would not rest until the evil knight tires of head chopping and then returns to his lands.”  Also, there was the great famine, which wise King Babo solved by allowing the populace to share from his royal prune stores (This lead to major sewer canal blockages, but that is another story and solution).  And lest the chroniclers could forget, the inventive King and his royal architects designed the first air transport system which propels travelers via giant ballista to their destination.  Once the kinks are ironed out, mainly the landing, this will no doubt catch on in Baboso and the citizens who have been randomly selected as test pilots will go down in history as pioneers of aviation.

King Babo eagerly watched as the moat began bubbling and frothing, and he began clapping his hands together gleefully as something began rising from the murky depths.  He was distracted by Sir Fred from within the castle who hailed him with, “Your Highness, there are matters which require your attention!” and the King half-jogged back to his throne room.  “Aye, what is it?” the King asked as he sat down on the throne, which was actually a medieval toilet since the King never tired of laughing at the double-meaning.  Sir Fred motioned towards a tall, elegantly attired gentleman who stood before the King and explained, “He is from House Viceroy, and wishes an audience with the almighty, all-knowing, and merciful King.”  King Babo leaned over to Sir Fred and pointed to himself, and Sir Fred quickly nodded and whispered, “yes, you.”

The King straightened up in his throne and turned towards the visitor and said, “I assume you are here to pledge your fealty or perhaps give tribute.”  The stranger said, “I've come to discuss the current state of vassalage with the goatish felon of a king.”  To which the King replied, “Um…Yes…Vassalage, of course…And in this case that would be…”  The stranger sighed and said, “You do not represent the people of Baboso.  Nor do you care about them and even if you did, you are not able to reign.  I, Lord Viceroy of House Viceroy, do represent their combined interests and hereby publicly challenge how your forebears came to power and thusly, your very birthright!  You will battle me in a contest of champions in the main tiltyard, and as my sole royal courtesy I will allow you to choose the weapon.  Should you be the victor, then the rebellion will come to an end and your rule shall continue on like the Black Plague.  But make no mistake you bootless dullard, I intend to send you to God's Acre and claim the title of King so that someone fit rules in your stead!”  Sir Fred shook his head slowly as he knew that this man hailed from a family of Teutonic Knights, and was both in top physical condition and skilled in all forms of combat as a professional soldier.  Lord Viceroy was also the type to not make idle threats.  He figured that calling the guards would be of no use, as they were very likely in cahoots with the rebellion.

King Babo boomed, “Wait!  This is all very confusing…Your title is Lord or Viceroy.  What say you?”  Lord Viceroy responded, “My title is Lord, and I am of House Viceroy you craven churl.”  King Babo seethed with rage in response, “Such INSOLENCE!  I should have you drawn and quartered!”  The King's challenger responded, “The King's capacity to be oblivious is certainly not limited to matters of state.  Nearly everyone on your court is part of this rebellion.” King Babo glanced around his throne room and saw the members of his royal court sheepishly shrug while avoiding eye contact with him.


On the morrow in the King's chambers…Sir Fred addressed his King with, “Sire, the royal court only agreed to join the rebels if you weren't killed outright.  Speaking boldly…This condition may have saved your hide.  And you should further note that many remain indifferent.  Meaning they wouldn't run your Highness through with a polearm, nor would they take a polearm thrust for you.”  The King wearily scratched his large, veiny nose and became teary eyed.  He glanced at the royal squire who was folding clothes near the royal bedchamber and said, “You!  Mayhap you have a shred of loyalty to your King?”  The squire brazenly replied, “In place of barking orders, perchance my King could say “prithee” once and a while.”  Sir Fred grinned for the first time in many moons, and advised, “Sire, get some bellytimber in you and then we'll pick out your arms so we can start training.”

The man-at-arms, royal trainer, and royal falconer were all assembled in the tiltyard with King Babo.  For fifty-five years the old man-at-arms had served the Kingdom, and had earned the respect of all who had passed by his weapons racks and passed through his training halls.  He explained that one shouldn't “Cross swords with a swordsman or joust with a jouster” and ran down the list of weapons for King Babo, explaining the advantages/disadvantages of each individually and when wielded by a formidable opponent such as Lord Viceroy who was skilled in all manner of battle.  The royal trainer and his team were present to help with training the King on whichever primary weapon was eventually chosen.  The royal falconer was there because King Babo thought falcons were pretty.

The King was decked out in the overly fancy royal chain coif armor (that seemed to be fitting tighter these days) as he examined his weapon options.  In his relatively strong youth the then Prince did have basic fencing training and was given semi-regular marksman lessons with an arbalest crossbow, but alas those days were long behind the King.  For the two secondary weapons he decided to pocket a particularly nasty caltrop and put a sword-breaker dagger on his hip, and as the main selection (which Lord Viceroy will be forced to wield as well) an extremely rare, exotic weapon from the East was chosen that was called “chain-sticks” which he would use in tandem with a small hard wood buckler shield.  Lord Viceroy was an expert with swords, axes, halberds, maces, flails, morning stars, maces, lances, spears, clubs, staffs, all projectile weapons, and basically everything used to “stab or bash” that was common in their lands.  The Lord was additionally adept at bare-handed combat.  As far as the King knew, Lord Viceroy was unaware of the unconventional chain-sticks weapon and was not a fan of shields as he viewed them cowardly.  The royal trainer and his team treated the chain-sticks as a morning star variation for training purposes and went to work…


On the fortnight in the main tiltyard…The crowd of hundreds of Baboso citizens from all walks of life chatted, argued, and placed bets as they watched King Babo and Lord Viceroy make their way up to the trial master.  He inspected their weapons and raised his ceremonial short-sword in the air to signal for quiet.  The trial master announced, “The rules are simple:  Neither poisoned edges, nor any outside interference will be tolerated.”  King Babo glanced down at Lord Viceroy's hip and saw a lone trident dagger as his secondary weapon.  His opponent was wearing bronze scale armor that proudly displayed the Viceroy coat of arms, and of course was he also armed with chain-sticks and a wooden buckler.  Sir Fred caught his attention briefly as he hollered, “Godspeed Sire!” which drew dirty looks from many of the assembled onlookers.

The opponents squared up in the middle of the tiltyard, and Lord Viceroy taunted with, “I like your hufty-tufty armor and will claim this as my battle prize for facing the unready and unworthy King of Baboso.”  The King was shaking, but held his ground as the two stared each other down with a quarter furrow-long between them.  The leader of the Viceroy House dropped his buckler and began twirling his chain-sticks, and then he flipped one stick behind his back and grabbed it under his arm and then pulled it around and swung it over his other shoulder and repeated this maneuver as if it had been practiced.  Lord Viceroy smiled and said, “I'm well versed in Eastern warfare, and that includes nunchaku.”  King Babo's shoulders sagged as the crowd exploded in response, and wondered if his sword-breaker dagger could be used to snag and break chain-sticks.

The King tensed, and waited for the Lord's first move.  He heard a whooshing sound and raised his buckler, which recoiled sharply from a solid blow.  As Lord Viceroy confidently strode over to his opponent, the King looked at the front of his buckler and saw a plumbata dart stuck in the center.  King Babo guessed that this had been the hidden secondary weapon, and he backed up as the Lord advanced.  Jeers and boos rained down from the crowd as the King put distance between himself and the challenger.  One particularly angry and overly prepared dwarf began launching rotten tomatoes at the King via a small wheeled catapult as he neared the tiltyard boundary; while dodging King Babo recalled once having relations with the portly little man's wife and sister.  The trial master stopped the dwarf just as King Babo reached the back boundary of the tiltyard, though the verbal jeers rained down unabated.

Lord Viceroy charged with his chain-sticks spinning, and King Babo blocked what would have been a staggering blow with his buckler and got lucky in choosing which way to dodge a follow-up attack, and then the unpopular King proceeded to run the opposite direction away from the fight.  Lord Viceroy's normally proper and elegant wife, the fair Lady Elizabeth of House Viceroy, screamed profane obscenities at the King that would even make a dungeon torturer blush.

Now rotten fruit and vegetables were raining down from all sides as he escaped to the other end of the tiltyard, and the trial master was powerless to do anything due to the sheer numbers that were hurling rotten food.  Even some half-starved wildlings from the outer reaches of the Kingdom had made the trip, and preferred to hurl food at the King rather than use it to satiate their hungry stomachs.  A huge gourd caromed off the King's leather helmet that caused him to tumble to the ground.  He turned to face the oncoming Lord Viceroy, staggered a bit, and then slipped backwards on a rotten orange to ultimately land on his royal posterior.

The Lord had nearly caught up to his opponent when he yelped in pain and collapsed.  King Babo stood up, ran over to the crumpled form, and abruptly halted just outside of a sword swings distance.  Lord Viceroy had lost his chain-sticks and was holding up a trident dagger directed at the King with one hand, while the other checked his leather boot which now had a bloody caltrop sticking out of the sole.  The King realized that it must have fallen out at some point during his “tactical retreat”, and he watched as the rebellion's champion removed the business end of the mantrap from his boot.  The Lord announced, “Your brave King fights with dishonor and subterfuge!”  The already irate crowd became furious, but the trial master's guards were now finally preventing them from throwing food and some even had to be prevented from filling slings with rocks.

King Babo circled his hobbled opponent, occasionally darting in to wildly swing the chain-sticks which Lord Viceroy artfully dodged.  During the fourth attempt, the Lord dealt such a crushing dagger strike to King Babo's buckler that it split down the middle.  The King snatched up the plumbata dart which had fallen to the ground, and threw it at the Lord who expertly knocked the iron missle aside with his trident dagger.  Both opponents now faced each other with daggers pointed, though the challenger was limping around on one leg while his opponent was crippled by years of hard drinking and lack of exercise.

Sir Fred, tired of witnessing such an embarrassing debacle, grabbed an elderly spectator's inordinately large ear horn and ran to the trial master's platform.  The fatigued trial master saw Sir Fred leap up on his platform and decided right then that his days of officiating matches are behind him - regardless of who is crowned King.  Sir Fred boomed, “Good citizens and friends from afar!  I propose a deal.  You will allow the King to live out his days banished to another far-away kingdom.  In return, I give both you and the new King my honorable word that the exact whereabouts of the royal gold stores will be disclosed; of which the King only knows the exact location.”  Lord Viceroy and the King exchanged glances, and the Lord said, “Agree to further conditions and I will grant this deal…You must wear a foul smelling badge of shame while riding atop a large mule as you journey to your new home.  And you must also allow that amusing dwarf with the mobile catapult to pelt you with rotten tomatoes during your trip.”


On the morrow atop the largest jackass in the Baboso Kingdom…Sir Fred listened as the former King griped about his ungrateful harem unanimously deciding not to join them on their quest for a new home.  The ex-King droned on as he occasionally adjusted the large medal dangling from his neck.  This not-so-prestigious one was recently awarded, and made of dried ox manure.  Sir Fred quietly thanked the Gods that they managed to get away from both the new royal family and the hordes of angry Baboso citizens with their lives.  He was mulling over their relative good fortune, just as he could hear a familiar rustling in the bushes near a bend in the horsepath.  Sir Fred grabbed his trusty tower shield and covered his friend Mr. Babo just as they were once again relentlessly bombarded with rotten tomatoes.

  This comp got me looking over the list of past and present micronations.  Sealand might lead the pack for most obscure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

EDIT: I'm working on a bumbling medieval King story...So I'll have an entry in a day or two.

DOUBLE EDIT: Its taking a while because though I love medieval terms, I find the "thou arts" and "thines" to be a bit repetitive so I'm changing the dialogue.

Has to be a record; congrats Baron!

Wow looks and sounds awesome...I'm eagerly awaiting this one!

[Best Character:]

Best Character: Sinitrena (Ystichor)
Best Plot: Baron - I'm a sucker for escape planning and follow-through
Best Atmosphere: Baron - Just a hair over WHAM's on this one...I could feel the tension in that prison
Best Setting: Sinitrena - For the prison/World; good stuff
Best Word Choice/Style: WHAM - Here thar be lots o' old school jargon

  Congrats to Baron and Ponch (your couple name is Banch?) on MAGS winner Fridge Follies!

  Also, Food Factor looked promising based on that screenshot.

[Best Character:]

Best Character: Stupot+
Best Atmosphere: Stupot+
Best Word Choice/Style: WHAM
Best Creativity in terms of Survival Tactics: Alberth
Best Story Efficiency: Myinah and monkey424
Best Scenario: Stupot+ and Alberth

[January 28th, 2016]

Mike Sullivan's Blogalypse
Home of the famous SpotRotShotâ,,¢ Software

Page 15

January 28th, 2016
It's both windy and sunny today.  This is awesome, because as the loyal Blogalypse readers know, a wind turbine and solar panel array supply power to my PC, heating/air, fridge, and microwave.  At last inventory count, my canned food and MRE stocks should last for 3-years depending on my rationing discipline.  With 10,000 rounds of .50 caliber ammo for my Barrett rifle and Desert Eagle I'm ready for a small rotter army.

January 29th, 2016
I love watching my SpotRotShotâ,,¢ code in-action.  For my late joining readership I'll recap…So on my PC with an attached 4D camera, the facial recognition system detects a rotter, and then the thermal imaging system determines if there is no heat signature.  If none is found, then I hear servo motors whizzing /whirring as the Barrett M82A2 .50 caliber rifle is positioned based on distance (AKA bullet drop) and wind resistance.   Usually there is nothing left of the head.  The sole malfunction came when a large rotter was wearing a size xxxxxxl (or something) t-shirt with a giant Richard Nixon face on it.  Speaking of shirts, occasionally rotters will show up wearing messages scrawled on them from their formerly living owners.  Some are deep thoughts, others are messages to family, and my favorites are the jokes such as one shirt that had “SHOOT HERE!” scribbled on complete with an arrow pointing up to its head.

Anyway…Tricky Dick took a round to the noggin, which split the rotter in half.  The top half crawled around until it propped itself up on a rock and my SpotRotShotâ,,¢ software demolished its real face in less than a second.  Yep, my software spots rots and then splots!  All you need is a decently specced out PC, any 4D camera, a Jensen motorized base mount complete with weather station attachment and cabling, and any (Version 2.1 supports any caliber!) caliber rifle.  For those of you that still have Internet and the ability to deliver edible foodstuffs, ammo and/or a companion (don't worry ladies, I'm harmless) to me, this software is a MUST HAVE.  I'd give it away, but my dead wife won't let me!

February 3rd, 2016
A small word of advice for those customers who send a courier out here to deliver trade payment…Please tell them not to wear heat shielded body armor AND a heat shielded helmet, as my SpotRotShotâ,,¢ software needs to be able to clearly detect heat signatures.  There was a minor mishap today, but no problem as EVERYTHING IS A-OK Blogalypseaholics!

February 5th, 2016
E-mail me with the coupon code HOTSHOTMIKE today and receive 20 percent trade value off SpotRotShotâ,,¢ â€" BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE - plus the SpotHumanShotâ,,¢ addon free, which is helpful for those of you in the wild contested regions.  Also...Sorry for disabling the comments section, but after DiarrheaGobbler69 made that momma joke I felt that the spirit of the whole thing was tainted.

February 9th, 2016
I just want to reassure my loyal customers that the inferior knockoff of my SpotRotShotâ,,¢ software is called “SpotRotSplot” and is in NO WAY affiliated with me or my product.  Rumor has it that there are serious bugs in the software that can result in human (as in non-rotter!) deaths.  My longtime fans from the beta days will recall that since version 0.95, no good* humans have ever been harmed by my product.

*The version 0.96 incident involved bad guy humans.

February 10th, 2016
I was sorting through my many customer testimonials looking for some blurbs when I noticed that someone has destroyed my primary solar panel while I was sleeping.  I know some of you think I should just give this software away for nothing, but that doesn't give you the right to sabot-

February 20th, 2016
Ok the power is back online.  The solar panel is gone, but the slight gusts are enough for trickle power from the turbine.  Because of the vandals that lurk around in the shadows, I had to actually break out my Desert Eagle for the first time in three months.  If I catch you saboteurs in the act, I will put giant fifty caliber holes in your h-

February 28th, 2016
Well I've been bitten after thirty rotters busted in to my fortification.  I assume the dirty saboteurs who ruined my solar cells and crippled my defenses were freeloading software pirate types who wanted my source code and would stoop so low as to indirectly murder me to get at it.  Anyway, the source code has been uploaded to an old buddy at SourceForge (yes, they are still up).  I also gave him evidence that will hopefully lead to the capturing of whoever did this.  Sadly, I won't be around for revenge.  So this brings me to announcement…SpotRotShot is now public domain freeware.  And for doing this, with the virus currently pulsating through my veins, I submit my one request to you loyal readers/customers: Bring the saboteurs to justice.

February 29th, 2016
Hapy Leap dy.  evryone cm over for fre tinned fod and amo. Wiopewqwsohugnrytyjhjnrslljhk

  I'll probably be submitting a humble little entry for this one.

  So...It was tied, and then Baron received three more votes while Sinitrena received an additional one.  So that would mean...

[Best Character:]

I'm in the midst of a huge work trip...So I've gots to be brief on the 'splaining.

Best Character: Baron (Dr. Bumbleworth)
Best Plot: Baron
Best Atmosphere: Baron
Best Setting: Sinitrena
Best Word Choice/Style: Baron
Most Scary: Sinitrena

Nice!  Both looks and plays old school.

Thanks!  I took 5VPQ9-7JZ8G-0257P.

Oh, and I'll be sure to spread the word a bit in return

1. AprilSkies
2. JWalt
3. Hobo Cat

[Best Character:]

Best Character: Durinde (Mygar, poor hapless Mygar), TheTelephone (the protagonist has an even more sad existence than Mygar)
Best Plot: Sinitrena (Sadly, I think think pygmies were actually put on display in a few zoos in the 1800s)
Best Homosphere: Monkey424, Durinde (Both created interesting and bleak homospheres (new word for me))
Best Word Choice/Style: Monkey424 (I loved the "...with a wave of his tentacle" and the cynical look at how humans are at home, among other things)
Best Use of Theme: Durinde, Sinitrena

  How about Earth itself is a terrarium for aliens!  Or Planet of the Apes builds a homo sapien zoo!  Or we devolve and dolphins evolve into sentient masters that enslave us and build our habitats (for their viewing pleasure) underwater!