The following is an annotated guide to the Cliches and Common References which permeate FrischWorlds(tm), and to a lesser degree Hack and Slay campaigns run by other GMs. Joe Decker wrote the initial draft a while back, which has been significantly revised, added to and improved manyfold by Lisa Nikodym, Joe Frisch, and others. Joe’s draft was based on an earlier "list of cliches" that Joe and Lisa Nikodym had put together. You should blame him for any typos or mistakes which slipped through. This is based on Joe’s Revision 1.0. Jon Leech has done a bit of maintenance on the list and merged it into the proposed update to the rules.
- "Beard"
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Blondbeard, Redbeard, Beard, Longbeard, etc., etc. All are one of the two stereotyped Joe Decker characters, all pirates, all good drinkers. Yo ho ho.
Being sneaky but fast and heavily armed but also acting in a casual manner:: Canonical example of a PC trying to do contradictory things and get away with it. Another example is "hang-glider in my backpack…."
- BFA
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Bold Frontal Assult. Synonym for DFA, which is more common.
- Black Iron
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Very rare substance which destroys magic it comes in contact with. The second word is pronounced "i-ron", not "i-urn", in honor of mispronouncer James Bell.
- Blue Oyster Cult References
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See: Four Winds Bar, Diz-Busters, Cultosauri.
- Bond Effect
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Any mechanism by which the PCs get to destroy the entire works of the bad guy by pressing a big red button designed for the task, named for James Bond (of the movies), who typically can get this effect near the end of any movie.
- Brain Eaters
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See Encephelophages.
- Bribing GM with Mint Milano cookies
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Never actually seen in FrischWorld, Ruthanne Bevier described using Mint Milano cookies with a previous GM to reduce, for example, the number of orcs the party was facing. (It’s been tried more subtly now and then in FrischWorld, and may have had effect.)
- Canaris
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A power-hungry dwarf with "stubby little legs", who occasionally appears as Dark Lord. Doesn’t like elves. In one universe, created strange, apparently magical (though they didn’t "detect magic") devices called "nukes", "machine guns", and "ME262s" (the last being yet another Blue Oyster Cult reference).
- Chaos at the end of the world
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Standard fantasy cliche.
- Chaos Leaks
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Chaos actually eating into the useful part of the universe, often as the result of some plug being broken or some crack in the universe. Usually associated with either Mandelbrot or the "-ac" Mages.
- Chili, Four Winds Bar
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From Ozymandia's mother’s recipe. Probably the hottest chili in the known (and unknown) universe. See: Four Winds Bar.
- CSUTN: Continent-Spanning Underground Tunnel Network
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Goes everywhere, pretty common but not in every world. Often a dangerous place. Exits can be very far between. Often contains shoggoths from the <<mythos,Cthulhu Mythos>.
- Cthulhu Mythos
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References to the works of H. P. Lovecraft abound in FrischWorld. A "Shoggoth" is a castle-sized magical blob of protoplasm that you never want to meet. Saying the names of most of the standard Lovecraft critters themselves is inherently dangerous (just so you know not to say them, the names of the biggies are Cthulhu, Hastur, Shub-Niggurath, Ithaqua, Azathoth, and Nyarlathotep).
- Cultosauri
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Another Blue Oyster Cult reference. Dinorsaur-like creatures with humongous bodies, miles-tall skinny necks, weird strainer teeth, and possibly no legs (no one’s ever seen the underside of one; there’s a vague rumor that they have two little bitty feet). I really don’t do them justice — check out the cover of Cultosaurus Erectus. They live in huge deserts and eat sandworms like spaghetti. Often found with entire civilizations living on their backs. Rare.
[[dark-lord] Dark Lords:: Big magical bad guys who want to take over the world and kill everything in their way in the most aestheticly nasty way. They generally try to hire the PCs. Common. Frequently female (FrischWorld ™ is an equal opportunity employer).
- Dark Tower
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As Dark Lords are common in FrischWorlds ™, Dark Towers are common also, typically as their residences, and typically dangerous. Dark Tower architecture has been classified into a number of styles: Early Dark Lord (simple geometric shapes like pyramids, domes and obelisks), Middle Dark Lord (geometric shapes with some elaboration, ex. Mayan-style pyramids), Gothic Dark Lord (think Cologne Cathedral), Late Dark Lord (weird organic-looking stuff, like the alien constructions in "Aliens"), Vernacular Dark Lord (basic medieval-style castle construction), and maybe one more I’m forgetting (Post Dark Lord????).
- Dark Tower, Cthulhu Mythos, Everybody Dies
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The canonical 'low-ku' describing FrischWorld. See the individual entries for more information.
- DFA
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Direct Frontal Assult. Standard procedure for the PCs, even when they plan something else.
- DFA on a heavily-defended fortress by about five PCs
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They do it every time. Very silly of them (Joe Frisch himself insisted that we add this one to the list.)
- Diz-busters
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Pterydactyls with afterburners and long stretchy claws that can grab you and hurt you as they fly by at 200+ mph. Dangerous, like anything else in FrischWorld ™. Usually in groups of seven, in reference to the Blue Oyster Cult song Seven Screaming Diz-Busters.
- Drinking Contests
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Pretty canonical, esp. Shotglass chess.
- Earth Mages
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Notorious for destroying the world, or at least creating major destruction in large portions of it. Hence the adage "Earth Mages are Bad News".
- Elder Sign
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Do Not Remove. Magical seal (painted or stone, depending on the universe), which is generally used for locking away nasty Cthulhuoid critters (see Cthulhu Mythos) to keep them from trashing the world. The symbol itself was stolen from Space 1999, but the Frisch hates to admit it.
- Escaping off the edge of the battle map
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It’s worked at least once…
- Encephelophages
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A.k.a. Brain Eaters. Typically found attached to the back of someones neck, when in larval form. Very dangerous, there’s usually a controlling creature (the adult form, based loosely on D&D mind-flayers) somewhere around. Very deadly, useful for getting the PCs into a very paranoid frame of mind. (Responsible for the PC’s invention of "neck armor".) I think the little guys may be from an R. A. Heinlein story, "The Puppet Masters". (Lisa Nikodym’s note: Yeah, he admits it.)
- Everybody Dies
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It’s not uncommon for whole parties to get wiped out during FrischWorld ™ runs. Don’t get too attached to your characters!
- Four Winds Bar
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The canonical FrischWorld ™ bar, chili is very dangerous, surpassed only by Thunderpartridge. It occurs somewhere in every universe. Don’t mess with the owner. A Blue Oyster Cult reference. The architecture is always unique and interesting. Most often located somewhere hard to get to, like high mountain passes.
- Giant Mutant Rats
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There are no giant mutant rats in FrischWorld ™.
- Good cop, Bad cop, Naughty cop
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Legendary interrogation technique, which I will leave to your imagination save to say that "Naughty Cop" was by far the most effective.
- Kane
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A reference to the character in the Karl Edward Wagner novels. "Bloodstone" in particular is recommended, if you can find it. Swords 'n' Sorcery stuff, with an attitude and conically-breasted women. Kane has red hair, and always survives. He never dies. In one world, we knew the end of the world was near, but we had a device which would show us specific things or people we asked for. We asked it to show us Kane, and saw him getting on a derelict interplanar sailing ship, which we snuck onto.
- Killing Ron’s Character
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Ron is Dr. Ron Sapolsky. A cliche, since it happens so often, usually when he’s running an Earth mage. Ron’s earth mages (and in fact, all earth mages) have a reputation for being untrustworthy, disloyal, backstabbers with no sense of when not to use the Big Magics. Very amusing (the earth mages, that is, not killing them, although I suppose that’s a matter of taste.)
- King Crimson References
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Not really a cliche since it’s mostly entered into one world, based on the song "In the Court of the Crimson King". Eventually, the world was destroyed by a falling moon — the characters just didn’t "get it". Oops. (Note: The Yellow Jester has turned up once or twice since then - a brightly dressed fellow with a great sense of humor and mind-boggling powers, especially involving confusing methods of transportation. Last seen loading up at the Gods' Buffet in Valhalla after the gods had left to fight Ragnarok. Sometimes known as "The Great Sun Jester", but that’s a Blue Oyster Cult reference.)
- Mandelbrot
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Capricious Lord of Chaos. Likes destroying the multiverse, unless the PC’s can talk him out of it.
- Mi-go
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Inspired by Lovecraft but usually don’t want our brains in cans. Instead they have a penchant for trying to Plutoform human worlds. WMD attacks against the Mi-go homeworld (shoving poison gas through which killed several of their cities) may not have been the best response by the PCs.
- Mumbledy Peg
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Common enough anywhere, I suppose, still, it’s a staple of tough characters everywhere. Usually associated with Sopai Assassins.
- Multidimensional Giant Spiders
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Can attack you from a direction you don’t even realize exists. You can fight them with multidimensional weapons, but said weapons also attract them, so this is risky. Simpler variants (regular Giant Spiders) also exist. Likely to appear in all Frischworld campaigns. The GM is believed to have severe Arachnophobia.
- Old Empire
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In many FrischWorlds ™, the PCs are running around at a time past the peak of a great, forgotten civilization. This is generically the "Old Empire", which alwyas did things in a bigger, studlier, more direct sort of way. + (In my (n.b. Joe Decker? Joe Frisch?) opinion, this is symbolic of the idea that American civilation has declined since 1969, when our own Old Empire could produce cheap cars as fast as the current RX7, when the largest passanger aircraft (the 747) in use today was built, when we went to the moon, and when we had a budget surplus. It was a very good year.)
- One Word Epic Poem
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Written by the elf Kelinor (a recurring Ray Trent character), who spent 5000 years in the dungeons of the Dark Lord Canaris (see Canaris) doing nothing but composing poetry, so he got really good at it (5 million EP worth). So good with a long bow it’s utterly ridiculous, too.
- Orc Olympics (also, 'x' Olympics)
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Occasionally our GM runs out of plots, and then we’re often lead into a run of a type we usually call Orc Olympics. In fantasy worlds, this is actually sort of what happens, an interesting a pointless battle for 'control' of the orcs amoung its particular clans (orcs of the runny nose, orcs of the broken bottle, the Queen’s Guard, etc.) Generically, any big pointless battle.
- Ozymandia
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A recurring Lisa Nikodym character. Originally, an immature adolescent half-elf half-demon running away from home. She was running away from home because she thought that Mommy would get mad that she had been looking in Mommy’s best spell books (where she learned such fun spells as creating black holes and plane-spanning firestorms, though she usually didn’t know what they would do, exactly, until she tried them…). She was especially fond of orcs, with whom she played Shotglass Chess. + After growing up a bit, she became assistant bartender at the Four Winds Bar, where she introduced her mother’s Chili recipe Eventually killed by a Gug; her mother showed up shortly thereafter, and soon there were no more Gugs. Anywhere. (Her mother was the arch-duke of plane 657, so she could do things like that.) Her favorite orc, Gordon of the Tribe of the Broken Bottle, is still around somewhere though, with nine Rings of Power on his fingers because he thinks they’re pretty (he’s about 50,000 years old, which is why he’s so good at chess, but that’s another story…).
- Pacifist Vegetarian Orcs
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Someone managed to convert a few of them once. Their agricultural community was destroyed by an exploding volcano, but who knows, a few may have escaped to other worlds.
- PC Recognition
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PCs recognize each other by the Glowing "PC" symbol stamped on their foreheads, visible only to other PCs. There is no other possible explanation for how some of these groups get together.
- Pleasure Palaces
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Often constructed by rich and powerful PCs. Designs in the past have often called for the "green jello room", "Thrad’s Jungle Room", and the "Marion Memorial Dwarf Room" (or was it the "Marion Memorial Dwarf and Green Jello Room"?).
- Red Shirts
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Kannonfodder. References to Star Trek, in which red shirted security officers were always the only ones to die. Not a perfect analogy since PCs die all the time in FrischWorld.
- Rule you don’t know about means you die.
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Pretty self-explanitory, also I don’t remember the last time it actually happened, but often a useful retort.
- Search for Secret Doors
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Something the PCs always do, even though in FrischWorld it is virtually never successful. Occasionally applied to dead things, with snickering.
- SFA
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Sneaky Frontal Assult. Only theoretically possible, in practice these always turn into DFAs.
- Shotglass Chess
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Standard chess except that the pieces are glasses containing amounts of some beverage proprortional to the weight of the pieces — if you take a piece, you must drink it. An effective negative feedback system. Multiple games are recommended for optimal effect. Started in FrischWorld ™ by Ozymandia, who played it with orcs (at least, one or two orcs who could manage to remember the rules). Has been played by players, as well.
- Sopai Assassins
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Name comes from the comic book Cerebus but the idea is somewhat different. Sopai assassins are very dangerous and very good. They are generally trained from a very early age, and seem to be uniformly female. They prefer light two-handed swords. They are capable of being very sneaky, but often lack the will to be sneaky when the alternative is a direct frontal assult yelling "YeYeYeYeYeYe" at the top of their lungs. They sometimes call themselves "feminist pacifist vegetarian ninjas", but the rest of us aren’t so sure about the "pacifist" part, because they cannot keep themselves from killing everything in sight whenever they get excited.
- Special Effects Budget
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A generic term referring to how cool something looks, a Bond Effect explosion of a Dark Tower Tower] could be said to "blow the Special Effects Budget", as if the game were a movie.
- Stealing the Sun
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Frequently used Dark Lord / Elder God tactic to gain more power.
- Stone Warriors
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Start with a good warrior, flesh-to-stone spell, animate rock spell. A favorite of earth mages. Tough to hurt. (An early variant, the Stone Monk, is even scarier because it’s fast.) + In 2014-vintage rules, the Body of Stone spell folds in both steps. Drawbacks: a fumble by the mage may result in a statue of a screaming Earth Mage and a party which is unable to counter the spell.
- Stay for the night, and maybe for a… BITE!
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Line from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, uttered at appropriate moments, mostly by Joe Decker and Lisa Nikodym. The last word is uttered with particular relish. Fallen out of usage in recent years.
- Stormbringer
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Reference to the Elric mythos. The name of a Soulsucking sword, black with runes. Variations occasionally occur.
- Tar-Aman
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The Great God Tar-Aman (accent on the last syllable) is the god of utter peace, love and harmony. His followers are so pacifistic they’re intensely annoying.
- Thrad
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A recurring Joe Decker character. Big and dumb. Big sword. Doesn’t remember how old he his, but there’ve been hints that he’s near immortal. One of the two barely distinguishable prototypes for Joe Decker’s characters (the other is the canonical pirate-type). Also called "Thrad of the Jungle" (see the George of the Jungle theme song).
- Thunderpartridge
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Fabeled most potent beverage in the universe. Found, if ever, at the Four Winds Bar. Originally more potent than you can imagine, it gained in power of the years of gaming through a stage where a whiff would knock out a normal and ended up being a useful explosive against (say) Warrior Demons. Aging is important for high quality and potency. The potentcy of this is not purely due to alcohol. This is made, partially, from the berries of the Thunderpartridge bush.
- "Two, four, six, eight, tiptoe sneak and infiltrate, cha cha cha."
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Quote from "Bored of the Rings".
- "Very dangerous, you go first."
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Quote from "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Frequently uttered line. Self-explanatory.
- Velociraptors
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Jurassic Park style. Mostly an annoyance except for low level PCs.
- Vorch
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Hideously dangerous pack carnivore. At least twice the speed of a fast human, multiple attacks, intelligent or at least cooperative behavior. Believed to be the degraded form of an ancient powerful civilization predating humans. Best avoided or dealt with by large armies with a disregard for casualties and appropriate weaponry (see Vorch Sword).
- Vorch Sword
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Eastern weapon which can be used to kill Vorch. Typical stats when wielded with no armor are +9 for 50 points. When wielded with armor it’s more like a really heavy sword (+2 for 50) and very poor Parry. Can be swung once every other round. + Best strategy is to have a large number of NPCs with Combat - Eastern. One wields the weapon and does a fully offensive charge attack on the Vorch. If she fails, the next NPC steps up. Lather, rinse, repeat. + If a Vorch can be trapped, rains of arrows are also effective at killing them. First, trap a Vorch…
- Warrior Demons
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Trilaterally symmetric (i.e. no back to get behind) demonic killing machines with three heads, six nasty claws, and a tail with a poisonous stinger that reaches through hyperspace to get you. Very clever, too (but, on at least on occasion, not as clever as the PCs). Very dangerous. Guardian Demons are basically equivalent, though they have backs, and aren’t quite as studly.
- The Wizard Guard
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We don’t remember where the original reference was from, but the Wizard Guard was used in "Planet of Assassins", a game that James Bell and Joe Decker ran many years ago. During the game, if the GMs got bored, they would set a kitchen timer (wihtout saying anything about why they were doing so.) If they got unbored (e.g., the players did something), they would turn the timer off and reset it. The first time it went off, the PCs were immediately ambushed by the Wizard Guard, the guards for the people the PCs were trying to assassinate. I don’t believe it was necessary for them to show up more than once or perhaps twice — the sound of the timer worked wonders!
- WUFU
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Pronounced "woo-foo". Stands for "Wrong Universe For Us". In most FrischWorlds, the PC’s at some point realize that every major power in the universe is out to get them and/or that they are in a universe that is about to self-destruct. At this point, if they’re smart, the PC’s proclaim a state of WUFU and look for alternate universes if possible.
- Zarga or Zlena
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Female Dark Lord or Dark Lord-in-training who has, or wants to conquer the entire world with armies of orcs, balrogs, dragons and such. Generally this is expected to leave the world in a much better tate than it was in previously.
- Alianthe Laverte
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Exceptionally acrobatic, exceptionally stealthy thieves who are motivated largely by the security of the group, the challenge, and the sparkly loot. Loosely based on Parker from the show Leverage.
- Christine Clarke
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Very poor, very sneaky people. Or wealthy, beautiful women with extremely high Shopping Pluses.
- Graham Hamilton
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Communist Rabble-Rousers. Fighters with military command / espionage skills, often from Mongol cultures and very fond of their horses. Life Mages who wring their hands a lot and seem to be the specific target of almost every powerful enemy in the world. Known to take unilateral action when the PCs have been dithering for too long over a decision.
- Joel Duisman
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Extremely beautiful priestesses of Love Goddesses. Or War gods.
- Joe Frisch
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Generally runs dislikeable or psychotic characters who for some reason almost never wear armor.
- Jon Leech
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Small sneaky acrobatic people who are usually not dishonest by nature, but are always eager to take on very dangerous scouting missions and climbing feats. Often results in capture by, and requiring rescue from the Bad Guys. + In recent years Jon has finally figured out the melee rules and is more likely to run extremely Acrobatic Heavy Fighters who can run on the heads of enemies.
- Lisa Nikodym
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Sagely characters who carry Oreo cookies everywhere (Lisa’s note: Useful for making friends with the natives and determining the voraciousness of local fauna).
- Ray Trent
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Mysterious characters, secret lives, etc. Often bowmen.
- Ron Sapolsky
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Gonzo earth mages whose names end in -ac. Power-mad, magic-crazy. They frequently make lawn statuary with Calvin-and-Hobbes twisted faces (sometimes of themselves when the spell fumbles). See: Killing Ron’s Character. If in a high-tech world without magic, "Jedi" with high Psionic skills.