About Burning Lands

About the Kingdom of the Burning Lands

This page contains quotes from players in their own words about Kingdom of the Burning Lands. Updaters feel free to add, but unless the words are yours please do not subtract.

Luke Wyngarde

.. don't get me started.

Too late. Wink

I can't speak for others, but it was Aramithris and Cronies who spoiled it for me. They used to treat the 6th Edition Handbook like it was the Holy Fucking Grail or something. Like it was the end-all-be-all, bad-ass, totally-perfect fucking piece of shit in creation. Anytime anyone tried to improve upon the rules, they'd fly in from on high with edicts and threats from beyond and attempt to cow everyone into line.

In the mid-90's I was tasked by the King of the Wetlands, to create a version of the rulebook that included not only the Core Rules, but all our kingdom clarifications in the same place. I'm not talking about a rewrite or revision or anything here, I'm talking about the same old shitty rules with new layout and artwork (couldn't resist) and our "official kingdom rulings" set into the margins near the rules they clarified. Thus, the Lukronomicon was born - not my greatest work, but certainly a HUGE benefit to the kingdom reeves and questmasters.

And Lo, word of the Lukronomicon spread to the Burning Lands, who, through some unknown miracle, managed to secure a copy for themselves. Before the end of the reign, members of the BLBOD, people who had never before set foot in our kingdom, showed at one of our events, waving the contract and basically telling us "if you guys use this book, you're not playing Amtgard anymore." I tried to explain, look it's the same book, just prettier. Our clarifications don't hinder or impede anything. They're in the margins, in a different font style even.

Then the clincher came, one of the Movers and Shakers from the BL (who shall rename nameless) who made the trip pulled me aside and said to me, "Look, man, this book kicks ass. It is so much better than ours it's not even funny. But if you do this, then someone else is going to do it too and before you know it there'll be ten different rulebooks. So, what I'm saying is, tough shit. Throw them all away or we're yanking your contract tonight."

Evil or Very Mad

So I did just that. Tossed over 100 copies of the Lukronomicon in the trash. deleted all my files and swore to never publish anything for Amtgard again.

Well, we all know how *that* oath panned out, dont we? Laughing

Then, a few years later, the WL Circle of Knights finds itself in a predicament. We have a rule about knighting more than two people per reign, to keep from flooding the market so to speak. So we had a big backlog of not only non-belted candidates but candidates who were worthy of second and third belts. So we took a vote and decided to award those second and third belts without ceremony and to simply announce the belts in court and in the kingdom newsletter. (In the Wetlands, it's the CoK, not the King, who decides and plans knightings and has been that way since our very first corpora, which was approved by the BLBOD before we were granted a contract.)

OH MY FUCKING GOD! You'd've thought we'd eaten babies or something, the way we were condemned and chastized. The BLBOD told us, straight up, change your ways and let our Monarch knight people or we're getting our contract yanked (sound familiar?). Well, see, the last time we heard that, it was MY choice to fall into line, so when I buckled, no one got their panties in a bunch, even though many people were not happy about it. THIS TIME, however, their edict would require a corpora amendment to effect, thus making certain the entire populace had a voice in the decision.

Well, not once, but three times, we brought the situation up at Althing, and every time it was met with a resounding "fuck off" to the Powers That Be.

I've never been more proud of my kingdom, before or since.

We got "kicked out" and every damn kingdom in Texas EXCEPT the Burning Lands decided to ignore them and let us keep playing with them anyway. In fact, I daresay that was the beginning of the CK/EH/WL Triumverate that continues to this day.

Well, to make a long story short, the two parties came to a compromise and in return for a Monarchial Veto, we were "allowed" to return to the fold, at least as far as the BL was concerned.

All that's water under the bridge now. Kurse and his fellow BL'er's are about the coolest damn thing to come out of the BL since ... well, since the game first spread from El Paso. They have ushered in a new age of compromise and expansion for the game we've all come to know and love.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.