(TFT) PROOT

["Patrick Keleher" <patkeleher@hotmail.com>]

Here is an encounter some of you may enjoy.

    The Thorsz's Prootorian Guard

    ST:20 (or higher)
    DX:20 (or higher)
    IQ: 6

    Noted for their bright uniforms and even brighter body paint ("We make 
better targets!"), officially the Prootorian Guard are supposed to be 
halberdiers, but their arms and armor tend to be a miscellany of 
hand-me-downs.  Whatever weapon he bears the Prootorian will insist it IS a 
halberd.  ("I'm a halberdier!  This is my halberd!  If I didn't have a 
halberd I wouldn't be a halberdier.  Since I am a halberdier then this must 
be my halberd!  THAT'S logic!"  The confusion is compounded by the fact that 
many prootwaddles seem to think a halberd is a type of fish.  So, if you 
meet a muscular prootwaddle bearing a halibut, just compliment him for his 
fine halberd, and try not to snicker.)  The Thorsz has called his Prootorian 
Guards, "...eminently expendable...", a description these buff prootwaddles 
are so proud of they've taken it as their slogan.  In fact many of them have 
had it tattoo'd prominently (sometimes repeatedly) on their bodies.
    Prootorian combat is at -4 DX (for their having no skill with weapons) 
and they fight with a sort of reverse fencing handicap, ie:
    13 to 14 is an automatic miss.
    15 to 16 They drop their weapon.
    17 to 18 They break their weapon.
    (An astute and calculative reader might wonder why, if they are going 
to miss on any roll of 13 or higher, they need DX greater than 16?  (16 
minus 4 for lack of talent = 12.)  The only explanation I have is that 
prootwaddles are stupid; they don't know how to allocate attribute points 
efficiently.)
    The Prootorians are not allowed to use missile weapons.  And it is a 
capital offence for one to even HOLD an arquebus or blunderbuss.  Doesn't 
stop them though.
    I used to think of prootwaddles as being kind of like the peasants in 
'Monty Python and the Holy Grail', but lately I picture them more as like 
the kids on 'South Park', with maybe a smidgeon of Shakespeare's rude 
mechanicals and the Comedia d'el Arte's zanies.
    Maybe someday I'll tell you about the Prootorian's commanding officer, 
Clayton Zartan, or "Zartan, of the Proot", a human who, abandoned as a baby, 
was raised by a prootwaddle couple as their own.
                                -- Pat
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