The Death Cookie

After almost a year and 40 columns, I've run out of archetypes. I can think of others, but most of them are either specific to a certain genre or variations on Archeypes I've already covered. So I'm putting the column on hiatus for now. I'll still post new archetypes if I think of them and may revive it as a regular column for short periods to cover a specific genre or setting (kind of like the Fratboy of the Week entries), but for the time being this column will no longer be weekly. Tune in next week for the first installment of Monster of the Week.

The holy man is a character who serves God. Most fictional holy men serve the Christian God, but there are occasional examples of holy men serving other deities, especially in fantasy stories. It should be noted that the holy man's status as a servant of God is not usually verifiable; he is self-appointed, granted his holy status by a human organization, or claims that God talks to him. As a result, is often difficult to distinguish between a true servant of God and a delusional psychopath.

It's not a big secret that Leighton and I didn't do a lot of statistical analysis when we wrote QAGS. After all, the system was originally meant for use in pick-up games when we didn't have time to spend hours on character creation. We never really intended for it to be a "real" system used for "serious" games (the "real" game system was Anyworlds, the overly complex system I'd written in college). Of course, once we started actually using QAGS, we quickly discovered that it worked just as well as (and in many cases, better than) the more complicated systems we were used to. When it came time to write QAGS 2E, we didn't want to make any major changes to the system, but we did make a few changes and define the mechanics in more detail to improve the "game" aspect of things a bit. Mainly, though, we just tried to make it clear that Yum Yums were the great equalizer.

The noble savage is a character from a primitive culture who is uncorrupted by the prejudices and quirks of "civilized" society. As a result, the noble savage is seen as embodying a high level of spiritual enlightenment despite his barbaric nature. His simple, straightforward way of looking at the world allows him to point out the irrationality of many of modern society's most treasured rituals and beliefs.