New in a recent version of Cosmic Cutthroats, the story of how the interdimensional metropolis of Uru Ulan came to be, in the words of its founder himself. WARNING: Shakespeare Thorspeak ensues!
ALSO NOTE: It’s entirely debatable how in-game “true” this testament is, but it’s certainly how Ensi Abgal wishes to appear to his servants and citizens.
“It came upon a time that I, the one others call Ensi Abgal, betook myself to found a city in the stars.
“I would found a city for the purposes of studying the heavens, and learning all that is in them, and obtaining such lore as had been kept from mortals even by the Neteru themselves. I would gain this great wisdom so as to be like the great king, Gilgamesh, to conquer death, and bring the serpent’s gift to all of mankind, in the name of great Marduk, and Inanna, and Ea who is above.
“But it is only through great study and sacrifice that Ereshkigal may be denied her due, the life of mortal man, as it has been since of old, and so my task was a heavy one. I wailed and despaired, until I built me servitors, walking men of stone.
“And though they served me well, they knew not the ways of the kitchen, and of speech they had none, so I looked into the scrolls of time, the past and future, and there I found for me other servants among mortal men, that I could betake me to study all the hours of the day.
“And some were men from other worlds, with strange flesh and strange manners, but they learned what I had to teach, and betimes their sages had aught to teach to me as well. And soon my library grew into a vast temple, and soon into a walled city, an orb of light in the endless dark.
“But though the wisdom granted to me by the gods is great, and the overseers beneath me good and strict, still rogues and rebels crept in among my servants, and coin and precious incense disappear into the night. And so I relay these, my edicts, to you, the people of my city. Obey them, and you shall live long and well, in this city I built. Fail, and you will be cast down from your place as a servant into shackles, or worse, into the gaping jaws of a cold and waiting grave.
“And do not forget, even you who call yourselves ‘nobles’ and fatten yourselves at my table, in my city, you are my servant, and if you raise a hand, or bethink you for a moment to betray and destroy he who generously raised you high … woe, woe, woe to you, and woe to your children and grandchildren, for how much worse for you will it be than for them, on whom the yoke was light!””
For my birthday, and as an early giving-of-thanks to everyone, Metagene Super Hero RPG, a 229 page, rules-light four-color supers RPG from Imperfekt Gammes, is discounted to $0.99 for the rest of November!