Source:NetHack 3.6.1/dat/data.base

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 # NetHack 3.6	data.base
 # $NHDT-Date: 1524683801 2018/04/25 19:16:41 $  $NHDT-Branch: NetHack-3.6.0 $:$NHDT-Revision: 1.84 $
 #	Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 by the NetHack Development Team
 #	Copyright (c) 1994 by Boudewijn Wayers
 #	NetHack may be freely redistributed.  See license for details.
 #
 # This is the source file for the "data" file generated by `makedefs -d'.
 # A line starting with a # is a comment and is ignored by makedefs.
 # Any other line not starting with whitespace is a creature or an item.
 #
 # Each entry should be comprised of:
 # the thing/person being described on a line by itself, in lowercase;
 # on each succeeding line a <TAB> description.
 #
 # If the first character of a key field is "~", then anything which matches
 # the rest of that key will be treated as if it did not match any of the
 # following keys for that entry.  For instance, `~orc ??m*' preceding `orc*'
 # prevents "orc mummy" and "orc zombie" from matching.
 #
 abbot
 	For it had been long apparent to Count Landulf that nothing
 	could be done with his seventh son Thomas, except to make him
 	an Abbot or something of that kind.  Born in 1226, he had from
 	childhood a mysterious objection to becoming a predatory eagle,
 	or even to taking an ordinary interest in falconry or tilting
 	or any other gentlemanly pursuits.  He was a large and heavy and
 	quiet boy, and phenomenally silent, scarcely opening his mouth
 	except to say suddenly to his schoolmaster in an explosive
 	manner, "What is God?"  The answer is not recorded but it is
 	probable that the asker went on worrying out answers for himself.
 		[ The Runaway Abbot, by G. K. Chesterton ]
 # takes "suit or piece of armor" when specifying '['
 ac
 armor*
 armour*
 suit or piece of armor
 	"The last spot on the school jousting team came down to another
 	boy and me.  He was poor, and his only armor was a blanket his
 	mother had made him from her hair.  I, on the other hand, had
 	a brand new suit of chain mail.  Just before our joust, I asked
 	him what he'd do if he made the team.  (I was hoping to be more
 	popular with the ladies.)  He said he would be able to save the
 	town from dragons and be able to afford some water for his 20
 	brothers and sisters.
 
 	Well, a sense of compassion came over me.  I insisted we swap
 	armor.  He was forced to accept, as it would have been an
 	insult not to do so.
 
 	On the battlefield, we charged at each other and we both connected
 	with our lances.
 
 	Lying there on the mud mortally wounded, I learned what true armor
 	class was that day."
 		[ When Help Collides, by J. D. Berry ]
 aclys
 aklys
 thonged club
 	A short studded or spiked club attached to a cord allowing
 	it to be drawn back to the wielder after having been thrown.
 	It should not be confused with the atlatl, which is a device
 	used to throw spears for longer distances.
 ~agate ring
 agate*
 	Translucent, cryptocrystalline variety of quartz and a subvariety
 	of chalcedony.  Agates are identical in chemical structure to
 	jasper, flint, chert, petrified wood, and tiger's-eye, and are
 	often found in association with opal.  The colorful, banded rocks
 	are used as a semiprecious gemstone and in the manufacture of
 	grinding equipment.  An agate's banding forms as silica from
 	solution is slowly deposited into cavities and veins in older
 	rock.
 		[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
 aleax
 	Said to be a doppelganger sent to inflict divine punishment
 	for alignment violations.
 *altar
 offer*
 sacrific*
 	Altars are of three types:
 	1.  In Temples.  These are for Sacrifices [...].  The stone
 	top will have grooves for blood, and the whole will be covered
 	with _dry brown stains of a troubling kind_ from former
 	Sacrifices.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 
 	To every man upon this earth
 	Death cometh soon or late;
 	And how can man die better
 	Than facing fearful odds
 	For the ashes of his fathers
 	And the temples of his gods?
 		[ Lays of Ancient Rome, by Thomas B. Macaulay ]
 amaterasu omikami
 	The Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami is the central
 	figure of Shintoism and the ancestral deity of the imperial
 	house.  One of the daughters of the primordial god Izanagi
 	and said to be his favourite offspring, she was born from
 	his left eye.
 		[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
 amber*
 	"Tree sap," Wu explained, "often flows over insects and traps
 	them.  The insects are then perfectly preserved within the
 	fossil.  One finds all kinds of insects in amber - including
 	biting insects that have sucked blood from larger animals."
 		[ Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton ]
 *amnesia
 maud
 	Get thee hence, nor come again,
 	Mix not memory with doubt,
 	Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
 	Pass and cease to move about!
 	'Tis the blot upon the brain
 	That will show itself without.
 		...
 	For, Maud, so tender and true,
 	As long as my life endures
 	I feel I shall owe you a debt,
 	That I never can hope to pay;
 	And if ever I should forget
 	That I owe this debt to you
 	And for your sweet sake to yours;
 	O then, what then shall I say? -
 	If ever I should forget,
 	May God make me more wretched
 	Than ever I have been yet!
 		[ Maud, And Other Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ]
 ~amulet of yendor
 ~amulet of restful sleep
 *amulet
 amulet of *
 amulet versus *
 	"The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make
 	people unhappy -- jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness,
 	greediness, selfishness, laziness.  Evil spirits, people called
 	them when the Amulet was made.  Don't you think it would be nice
 	to have it?"
 	"Very," said the children, quite without enthusiasm.
 	"And it can give you strength and courage."
 	"That's better," said Cyril.
 	"And virtue."
 	"I suppose it's nice to have that," said Jane, but not with much
 	interest.
 	"And it can give you your heart's desire."
 	"Now you're talking," said Robert.
 		[ The Story of the Amulet, by Edith Nesbit ]
 amulet of yendor
 	This mysterious talisman is the object of your quest.  It is
 	said to possess powers which mere mortals can scarcely
 	comprehend, let alone utilize.  The gods will grant the gift of
 	immortality to the adventurer who can deliver it from the
 	depths of Moloch's Sanctum and offer it on the appropriate high
 	altar on the Astral Plane.
 angel*
 	He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed
 	is the Son of man; the field is the world, and the good seed
 	are the children of the kingdom; but the weeds are the
 	children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the
 	devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers
 	are the angels.  As therefore the weeds are gathered and
 	burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
 	[...]  So shall it be at the end of the world; the angels
 	shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
 	and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be
 	wailing and gnashing of teeth.
 		[ The Gospel According to Matthew, 13:37-42, 49-50 ]
 angry god*
 	Cold wind blows.
 	The gods look down in anger on this poor child.
 
 	Why so unforgiving?
 	And why so cold?
 		[ Bridge of Sighs, by Robin Trower ]
 anhur
 	An Egyptian god of war and a great hunter, few gods can match
 	his fury.  Unlike many gods of war, he is a force for good.
 	The wrath of Anhur is slow to come, but it is inescapable
 	once earned.  Anhur is a mighty figure with four arms.  He
 	is often seen with a powerful lance that requires both of
 	his right arms to wield and which is tipped with a fragment
 	of the sun.  He is married to Mehut, a lion-headed goddess.
 ankh-morpork
 	The twin city of Ankh-Morpork, foremost of all the cities
 	bounding the Circle Sea, was as a matter of course the home
 	of a large number of gangs, thieves' guilds, syndicates and
 	similar organisations.  This was one of the reasons for its
 	wealth.  Most of the humbler folk on the widdershin side of
 	the river, in Morpork's mazy alleys, supplemented their
 	meagre incomes by filling some small role for one or other
 	of the competing gangs.
 	    [ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 anshar
 	A primordial Babylonian-Akkadian deity, Anshar is mentioned
 	in the Babylonian creation epic _Enuma Elish_ as one of a
 	pair of offspring (with Kishar) of Lahmu and Lahamu.  Anshar
 	is linked with heaven while Kishar is identified with earth.
 	    [ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
 ant
 * ant
 	This giant variety of the ordinary ant will fight just as
 	fiercely as its small, distant cousin.  Various varieties
 	exist, and they are known and feared for their relentless
 	persecution of their victims.
 anu
 	Anu was the Babylonian god of the heavens, the monarch of
 	the north star.  He was the oldest of the Babylonian gods,
 	the father of all gods, and the ruler of heaven and destiny.
 	Anu features strongly in the _atiku_ festival in
 	Babylon, Uruk and other cities.
 # takes "apelike creature" when specifying 'Y'
 ape
 apelike creature
 * ape
 	The most highly evolved of all the primates, as shown by
 	all their anatomical characters and particularly the
 	development of the brain.  Both arboreal and terrestrial,
 	the apes have the forelimbs much better developed than
 	the hind limbs.  Tail entirely absent.  Growth is slow
 	and sexual maturity reached at quite an advanced age.
 	  [ A Field Guide to the Larger Mammals of Africa by Dorst ]
 
 	Aldo the gorilla had a plan.  It was a good plan.  It was
 	right.  He knew it.  He smacked his lips in anticipation as
 	he thought of it.  Yes.  Apes should be strong.  Apes should
 	be masters.  Apes should be proud.  Apes should make the
 	Earth shake when they walked.  Apes should _rule_ the Earth.
 	  [ Battle for the Planet of the Apes, by David Gerrold ]
 apple
 	NEWTONIAN, adj.  Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe
 	invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall
 	to the ground, but was unable to say why.  His successors
 	and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say
 	when.
 		[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ]
 archeolog*
 * archeologist
 	Archeology is the search for fact, not truth. [...]
 	So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel,
 	and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried
 	treasure, and X never, ever, marks the spot.
 		[ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ]
 
 	"I cannot be having with archeological excavations, myself,"
 	I said.  "The fellows who dig them only ever find tiny walls
 	and a few bits of broken pottery, and then they get all
 	excited and swear that they have just made the most
 	important discovery of the century, the ruins of a mile-high
 	gold-covered temple to Frogmore the God of Bike-Saddle
 	Fixtures or some such."
 	"I think you will find," said Mr Rune, "that they do this
 	in order to secure further government funding for their
 	diggings and so remain in employment."
 	"That is a rather cynical view," I said.
 		[ the brightonomicon, by Robert Rankin ]
 #		[title & author: same situation as with "bad luck" entry]
 archon
 	Archons are the predominant inhabitants of the heavens.
 	However unusual their appearance, they are not generally
 	evil.  They are beings at peace with themselves and their
 	surroundings.
 arioch
 	Arioch, the patron demon of Elric's ancestors; one of the most
 	powerful of all the Dukes of Hell, who was called Knight of
 	the Swords, Lord of the Seven Darks, Lord of the Higher Hell
 	and many more names besides.
 		[ Elric of Melnibone, by Michael Moorcock ]
 *arrow
 	I shot an arrow into the air,
 	It fell to earth, I knew not where;
 	For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
 	Could not follow it in its flight.
 
 	I breathed a song into the air,
 	It fell to earth, I knew not where;
 	For who has sight so keen and strong
 	That it can follow the flight of song?
 
 	Long, long afterward, in an oak
 	I found the arrow still unbroke;
 	And the song, from beginning to end,
 	I found again in the heart of a friend.
 	  [ The Arrow and the Song, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
 ashikaga takauji
 	Ashikaga Takauji was a daimyo of the Minamoto clan who
 	joined forces with the Go-Daigo to defeat the Hojo armies.
 	Later when Go-Daigo attempted to reduce the powers of the
 	samurai clans he rebelled against him.  He defeated Go-
 	Daigo and established the emperor Komyo on the throne.
 	Go-Daigo eventually escaped and established another
 	government in the town of Yoshino.  This period of dual
 	governments was known as the Nambokucho.
 	  [ Samurai - The Story of a Warrior Tradition, by Cook ]
 asmodeus
 	It is said that Asmodeus is the overlord over all of hell.
 	His appearance, unlike many other demons and devils, is
 	human apart from his horns and tail.  He can freeze flesh
 	with a touch.
 		[]
 
 	The evil demon who appears in the Apocryphal book of _Tobit_
 	and is derived from the Persian _Aeshma_.  In _Tobit_ Asmodeus
 	falls in love with Sara, daughter of Raguel, and causes the
 	death of seven husbands in succession, each on his bridal night.
 	He was finally driven from Egypt through a charm made by Tobias
 	of the heart and liver of a fish burned on perfumed ashes, as
 	described by Milton in _Paradise Lost_ (IV, 167-71).  Hence
 	Asmodeus often figures as the spirit of matrimonial jealousy
 	or unhappiness.
 		[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
 athame
 	The consecrated ritual knife of a Wiccan initiate (one of
 	four basic tools, together with the wand, chalice and
 	pentacle).  Traditionally, the athame is a double-edged,
 	black-handled, cross-hilted dagger of between six and
 	eighteen inches length.
 athen*
 	Athene was the offspring of Zeus, and without a mother.  She
 	sprang forth from his head completely armed.  Her favourite
 	bird was the owl, and the plant sacred to her is the olive.
 	    [ Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch ]
 axe
 	"For ev'ry silver ringing blow,
 	Cities and palaces shall grow!"
 
 	"Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree,
 	Tell wider prophecies to me."
 
 	"When rust hath gnaw'd me deep and red,
 	A nation strong shall lift his head.
 
 	"His crown the very Heav'ns shall smite,
 	Aeons shall build him in his might."
 
 	"Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree;
 	Bright Seer, help on thy prophecy!"
 		[ Malcolm's Katie, by Isabella Valancey Crawford ]
 axolotl
 	A mundane salamander, harmless.
 bag
 bag of *
 sack
 	"Now, this third handkerchief," Mein Herr proceeded, "has also
 	four edges, which you can trace continuously round and round:
 	all you need do is to join its four edges to the four edges of
 	the opening.  The Purse is then complete, and its outer
 	surface--"
 	"I see!" Lady Muriel eagerly interrupted.  "Its outer surface
 	will be continuous with its inner surface!  But it will take
 	time. I'll sew it up after tea."  She laid aside the bag, and
 	resumed her cup of tea.  "But why do you call it Fortunatus's
 	Purse, Mein Herr?"
 	The dear old man beamed upon her, with a jolly smile, looking
 	more exactly like the Professor than ever.  "Don't you see,
 	my child--I should say Miladi?  Whatever is inside that Purse,
 	is outside it; and whatever is outside it, is inside it.  So
 	you have all the wealth of the world in that leetle Purse!"
 		[ Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, by Lewis Carroll ]
 b*lzebub
 	The "lord of the flies" is a translation of the Hebrew
 	Ba'alzevuv (Beelzebub in Greek).  It has been suggested that
 	it was a mistranslation of a mistransliterated word which
 	gave us this pungent and suggestive name of the Devil, a
 	devil whose name suggests that he is devoted to decay,
 	destruction, demoralization, hysteria and panic...
 		[ Notes on _Lord of the Flies_, by E. L. Epstein ]
 balrog
 	...  It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as
 	if a cloud had bent over it.  Then with a rush it leaped
 	the fissure.  The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed
 	about it; and a black smoke swirled in the air.  Its streaming
 	mane kindled, and blazed behind it.  In its right hand
 	was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it
 	held a whip of many thongs.
 	'Ai, ai!' wailed Legolas.  'A Balrog!  A Balrog is come!'
 		   [ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 baluchitherium
 titanothere
 	Extinct rhinos include a variety of forms, the most
 	spectacular being _Baluchitherium_ from the Oligocene of
 	Asia, which is the largest known land mammal.  Its body, 18
 	feet high at the shoulder and carried on massive limbs,
 	allowed the 4-foot-long head to browse on the higher branches
 	of trees.  Though not as enormous, the titanotheres of the
 	early Tertiary were also large perissodactyls, _Brontotherium_
 	of the Oligocene being 8 feet high at the shoulder.
 		[ Prehistoric Animals, by Barry Cox ]
 banana
 	He took another step and she cocked her right wrist in
 	viciously.  She heard the spring click.  Weight slapped into
 	her hand.
 	"Here!" she shrieked hysterically, and brought her arm up in
 	a hard sweep, meaning to gut him, leaving him to blunder
 	around the room with his intestines hanging out in steaming
 	loops.  Instead he roared laughter, hands on his hips,
 	flaming face cocked back, squeezing and contorting with great
 	good humor.
 	"Oh, my dear!" he cried, and went off into another gale of
 	laughter.
 	She looked stupidly down at her hand.  It held a firm yellow
 	banana with a blue and white Chiquita sticker on it.  She
 	dropped it, horrified, to the carpet, where it became a
 	sickly yellow grin, miming Flagg's own.
 	"You'll tell," he whispered.  "Oh yes indeed you will."
 	And Dayna knew he was right.
 		[ The Stand, by Stephen King ]
 banshee
 	In Irish folklore and that of the Western Highlands of Scotland,
 	a female fairy who announces her presence by shrieking and
 	wailing under the windows of a house when one of its occupants
 	is awaiting death.  The word is a phonetic spelling of the
 	Irish _beansidhe_, a woman of the fairies.
 		[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
 barbarian
 * barbarian
 	They dressed alike -- in buckskin boots, leathern breeks and
 	deerskin shirts, with broad girdles that held axes and short
 	swords; and they were all gaunt and scarred and hard-eyed;
 	sinewy and taciturn.
 	They were wild men, of a sort, yet there was still a wide
 	gulf between them and the Cimmerian.  They were sons of
 	civilization, reverted to a semi-barbarism.  He was a
 	barbarian of a thousand generations of barbarians.  They had
 	acquired stealth and craft, but he had been born to these
 	things.  He excelled them even in lithe economy of motion.
 	They were wolves, but he was a tiger.
 		[ Conan - The Warrior, by Robert E. Howard ]
 barbed devil
 	Barbed devils lack any real special abilities, though they
 	are quite difficult to kill.
 # takes "bat or bird" when specifying 'B'
 ~*combat
 ~*wombat
 *bat
 bat or bird
 	A bat, flitting in the darkness outside, took the wrong turn
 	as it made its nightly rounds and came in through the window
 	which had been left healthfully open.  It then proceeded to
 	circle the room in the aimless fat-headed fashion habitual
 	with bats, who are notoriously among the less intellectually
 	gifted of God's creatures.  Show me a bat, says the old
 	proverb, and I will show you something that ought to be in
 	some kind of a home.
 		[ A Pelican at Blandings, by P. G. Wodehouse ]
 bear*trap
 	Probably most commonly associated with trapping, the leghold
 	trap is a rather simple mechanical trap.  It is made up of two
 	jaws, a spring of some sort, and a trigger in the middle.  When
 	the animal steps on the trigger the trap closes around the leg,
 	holding the animal in place.  Usually some kind of lure is used
 	to position the animal, or the trap is set on an animal trail.
 	Traditionally, leghold traps had tightly closing "teeth" to make
 	sure the animal stayed in place.  The teeth also made sure the
 	animal could not move the leg in the trap and ruin their fur.
 	However, this resulted in many animals gnawing off legs in order
 	to escape.  More modern traps have a gap called an "offset jaw"
 	and work more like a handcuff.  They grip above the paw, making
 	sure the animal cannot pull out but does not destroy the leg.
 	This also allows the trapper to release unwanted catches.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 *bee
 	This giant variety of its useful normal cousin normally
 	appears in small groups, looking for raw material to produce
 	the royal jelly needed to feed their queen.  On rare
 	occasions, one may stumble upon a bee-hive, in which the
 	queen bee is being well provided for, and guarded against
 	intruders.
 *beetle
 	[ The Creator ] has an inordinate fondness for beetles.
 		[ attributed to biologist J.B.S. Haldane ]
 
 	The common name for the insects with wings shaped like
 	shields (_Coleoptera_), one of the ten sub-species into
 	which the insects are divided.  They are characterized by
 	the shields (the front pair of wings) under which the back
 	wings are folded.
 		[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
 bell of opening
 	"A bell, book and candle job."
 	The Bursar sighed.  "We tried that, Archchancellor."
 	The Archchancellor leaned towards him.
 	"Eh?" he said.
 	"I _said_, we tried that Archchancellor," said the Bursar loudly,
 	directing his voice at the old man's ear.  "After dinner, you
 	remember?  We used Humptemper's _Names of the Ants_ and rang Old
 	Tom."*
 	"Did we, indeed.  Worked, did it?"
 	"_No_, Archchancellor."
 
 	* Old Tom was the single cracked bronze bell in the University
 	bell tower.
 		[ Eric, by Terry Pratchett ]
 blindfold
 	The blindfolding was performed by binding a piece of the
 	yellowish linen whereof those of the Amahagger who condescended
 	to wear anything in particular made their dresses tightly round
 	the eyes.  This linen I afterwards discovered was taken from the
 	tombs, and was not, as I had first supposed, of native
 	manufacture.  The bandage was then knotted at the back of the
 	head, and finally brought down again and the ends bound under
 	the chin to prevent its slipping.  Ustane was, by the way, also
 	blindfolded, I do not know why, unless it was from fear that she
 	should impart the secrets of the route to us.
 		[ She, by H. Rider Haggard ]
 blind io
 	On this particular day Blind Io, by dint of constant vigilance
 	the chief of the gods, sat with his chin on his hand
 	and looked at the gaming board on the red marble table in
 	front of him.  Blind Io had got his name because, where his
 	eye sockets should have been, there were nothing but two
 	areas of blank skin.  His eyes, of which he had an impressively
 	large number, led a semi-independent life of their
 	own.  Several were currently hovering above the table.
 	    [ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 * blob
 ooze
 * ooze
 *pudding
 * slime
 	These giant amoeboid creatures look like nothing more than
 	puddles of slime, but they both live and move, feeding on
 	metal or wood as well as the occasional dungeon explorer to
 	supplement their diet.
 
 	But we were not on a station platform.  We were on the track ahead
 	as the nightmare, plastic column of fetid black iridescence oozed
 	tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinus, gathering unholy
 	speed and driving before it a spiral, re-thickening cloud of the
 	pallid abyss vapor.  It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster
 	than any subway train -- a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic
 	bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes
 	forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the
 	tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic
 	penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its
 	kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.
 		[ At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft ]
 blue jelly
 	I'd planned how to prevent the lock from sealing behind me; it
 	required a temporary sacrifice, not cleverness.  I used the door
 	itself to help me cut off a portion of my body, after shunting all
 	memory from the piece to be abandoned.  The piece, looking
 	inexpressibly dear and forlorn for a bit of blue jelly, would
 	force open the outer door until I returned and rejoined it.
 		[ Beholder's Eye, by Julie E. Czerneda ]
 bone devil
 	Bone devils attack with weapons and with a great hooked tail
 	which causes a loss of strength to those they sting.
 book of the dead
 candelabrum*
 *candle
 	Faustus: Come on Mephistopheles.  What shall we do?
 	Mephistopheles: Nay, I know not.  We shall be cursed with bell,
 	book, and candle.
 	Faustus: How?  Bell, book, and candle, candle, book, and bell,
 	Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.
 	Anon you shall hear a hog grunt, a calf bleat, and an ass bray,
 	Because it is Saint Peter's holy day.
 	(Enter all the Friars to sing the dirge)
 		[ Doctor Faustus and Other Plays, by Christopher Marlowe ]
 boomerang
 #: this one is commented out because two from the same source feels a
 #: bit excessive; if uncommented, it should be first since the punchline
 #: is about coming back while the other one is disdainful about that, so
 #: if this one came second, its joke would be weakened
 #	"It's a boomerang," said Vimes.  "You find something like this
 #	all over the world.  You have to wave it carefully and suddenly
 #	your opponent gets it in the back.  I've heard that there's a lad
 #	in Fourecks who can throw a boomerang with such precision that it
 #	can get the morning paper and come back with it."
 #		[ Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett ]
 #
 	Rincewind pulled himself up and thought about reaching for his
 	stick.  And then he thought again.  The man had a couple of spears
 	stuck in the ground, and people here were good at spears, because
 	if you didn't get efficient at hitting the things that moved fast
 	you had to eat the things that moved slowly.  He was also holding
 	a boomerang, and it wasn't one of those toy ones that came back.
 	This was one of the big, heavy, gently curved sort that didn't
 	come back because it was sticking in something's ribcage.  You
 	could laugh at the idea of wooden weapons until you saw the kind
 	of wood that grew here.
 		[ The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchett ]
 ~*jack*boot*
 *boot*
 	In Fantasyland these are remarkable in that they seldom or
 	never wear out and are suitable for riding or walking in
 	without the need of Socks.  Boots never pinch, rub, or get
 	stones in them; nor do nails stick upwards into the feet from
 	the soles.  They are customarily mid-calf length or knee-high,
 	slip on and off easily and never smell of feet.  Unfortunately,
 	the formula for making this splendid footwear is a closely
 	guarded secret, possibly derived from nonhumans (see Dwarfs,
 	Elves, and Gnomes).
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 *booze
 potion of sleeping
 	On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had
 	first seen the old man of the glen.  He rubbed his eyes -- it
 	was a bright sunny morning.  The birds were hopping and
 	twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft,
 	and breasting the pure mountain breeze.  "Surely," thought Rip,
 	"I have not slept here all night."  He recalled the occurrences
 	before he fell asleep.  The strange man with a keg of liquor --
 	the mountain ravine -- the wild retreat among the rocks -- the
 	woe-begone party at ninepins -- the flagon -- "Oh! that flagon!
 	that wicked flagon!" thought Rip -- "what excuse shall I make
 	to Dame Van Winkle!"
 		[ Rip Van Winkle, a Posthumous Writing
 		  of Diedrich Knickerbocker, by Washington Irving ]
 boulder
 	I worked the lever well under, and stretched my back; the end
 	of the stone rose up, and I kicked the fulcrum under.  Then,
 	when I was going to bear down, I remembered there was
 	something to get out from below; when I let go of the lever,
 	the stone would fall again.  I sat down to think, on the root
 	of the oak tree; and, seeing it stand about the ground, I saw
 	my way.  It was lucky I had brought a longer lever.  It would
 	just reach to wedge under the oak root.
 	Bearing it down so far would have been easy for a heavy man,
 	but was a hard fight for me.  But this time I meant to do it
 	if it killed me, because I knew it could be done.  Twice I
 	got it nearly there, and twice the weight bore it up again;
 	but when I flung myself on it the third time, I heard in my
 	ears the sea-sound of Poseidon.  Then I knew this time I
 	would do it; and so I did.
 		[ The King Must Die, by Mary Renault ]
 ~*longbow of diana
 bow
 * bow
 	"Stand to it, my hearts of gold," said the old bowman as he
 	passed from knot to knot.  "By my hilt! we are in luck this
 	journey.  Bear in mind the old saying of the Company."
 	"What is that, Aylward?" cried several, leaning on their bows
 	and laughing at him.
 	"'Tis the master-bowyer's rede: 'Every bow well bent.  Every
 	shaft well sent.  Every stave well nocked.  Every string well
 	locked.'  There, with that jingle in his head, a bracer on
 	his left hand, a shooting glove on his right, and a
 	farthing's-worth of wax in his girdle, what more doth a
 	bowman need?"
 	"It would not be amiss," said Hordle John, "if under his
 	girdle he had four farthings'-worth of wine."
 		[ The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ]
 brigit
 	Brigit (Brigid, Bride, Banfile), which means the Exalted One,
 	was the Celtic (continental European and Irish) fertility
 	goddess.  She was originally celebrated on February first in
 	the festival of Imbolc, which coincided with the beginning
 	of lactation in ewes and was regarded in Scotland as the date
 	on which Brigit deposed the blue-faced hag of winter.  The
 	Christian calendar adopted the same date for the Feast of St.
 	Brigit.  There is no record that a Christian saint ever
 	actually existed, but in Irish mythology she became the
 	midwife to the Virgin Mary.
 		[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
 ~stormbringer
 *broadsword
 	Bring me my broadsword
 	And clear understanding.
 	Bring me my cross of gold,
 	As a talisman.
 		[ "Broadsword" (refrain) by Ian Anderson ]
 bugbear
 	Bugbears are relatives of goblins, although they tend to be
 	larger and more hairy.  They are aggressive carnivores and
 	sometimes kill just for the treasure their victims may be
 	carrying.
 bugle
 	'I read you by your bugle horn
 	And by your palfrey good,
 	I read you for a Ranger sworn
 	To keep the King's green-wood.'
 	'A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn,
 	And 'tis at peep of light;
 	His blast is heard at merry morn,
 	And mine at dead of night.'
 		[ Brignall Banks, by Sir Walter Scott ]
 bullwhip
 	"Good," he said and, unbelievably, smiled at me, a smirk like
 	a round of rotted cheese.  "What did your keeper use on you?
 	A bullwhip?"
 		[ Melusine, by Sarah Monette ]
 *camaxtli
 	A classical Mesoamerican Aztec god, also known as Mixcoatl-
 	Camaxtli (the Cloud Serpent), Camaxtli is the god of war.  He
 	is also a deity of hunting and fire who received human
 	sacrifice of captured prisoners.  According to tradition, the
 	sun god Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into Mixcoatl-Camaxtli
 	to make fire by twirling the sacred fire sticks.
 		[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
 camelot*
 	The seat of Arthur's power in medieval romance.  The name is
 	of unknown origin and refers to the castle but also includes
 	the surrounding town.  ...  Camelot appears, most significantly,
 	as a personal capital as opposed to a permanent or national
 	one.  It is Arthur's and Arthur's alone.  There are no previous
 	lords and Arthur's successor, Constantine, does not take up
 	residence there.  Camelot is actually said to have been
 	demolished after Arthur and Lancelot were gone by Mark.  Fazio
 	degli Uberti, the Italian poet, claims to have seen the ruins
 	in the 14th century.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 candy bar
 	Only once a year, on his birthday, did Charlie Bucket ever
 	get to taste a bit of chocolate.  The whole family saved up
 	their money for that special occasion, and when the great
 	day arrived, Charlie was always presented with one small
 	chocolate bar to eat all by himself.  And each time he
 	received it, on those marvelous birthday mornings, he would
 	place it carefully in a small wooden box that he owned, and
 	treasure it as though it were a bar of solid gold; and for
 	the next few days, he would allow himself only to look at it,
 	but never to touch it.  Then at last, when he could stand it
 	no longer, he would peel back a tiny bit of the paper
 	wrapping at one corner to expose a tiny bit of chocolate, and
 	then he would take a tiny nibble - just enough to allow the
 	lovely sweet taste to spread out slowly over his tongue.  The
 	next day, he would take another tiny nibble, and so on, and
 	so on.  And in this way, Charlie would make his ten-cent bar
 	of birthday chocolate last him for more than a month.
 		[ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl ]
 carrot
 	In World War II, Britain's air ministry spread the word that
 	a diet of these vegetables helped pilots see Nazi bombers
 	attacking at night.  That was a lie intended to cover the real
 	matter of what was underpinning the Royal Air Force's successes:
 	Airborne Interception Radar, also known as AI. ... British
 	Intelligence didn't want the Germans to find out about the
 	superior new technology helping protect the nation, so they
 	created a rumor to afford a somewhat plausible-sounding
 	explanation for the sudden increase in bombers being shot down.
 	... The disinformation was so persuasive that the English public
 	took to eating carrots to help them find their way during the
 	blackouts.
 		[ Urban Legends Reference Pages ]
 s*d*g*r* cat
 	Imagine a sealed container, so perfectly constructed that no
 	physical influence can pass either inwards or outwards across its
 	walls.  Imagine that inside the container is a cat, and also a
 	device that can be triggered by some quantum event.  If that event
 	takes place, then the device smashes a phial containing cyanide and
 	the cat is killed.  If the event does not take place, the cat lives
 	on.  In Schroedinger's original version, the quantum event was the
 	decay of a radioactive atom.  ...  To the outside observer, the cat
 	is indeed in a linear combination of being alive and dead, and only
 	when the container is finally opened would the cat's state vector
 	collapse into one or the other.  On the other hand, to a (suitably
 	protected) observer inside the container, the cat's state-vector
 	would have collapsed much earlier, and the outside observer's
 	linear combination has no relevance.
 		[ The Emperor's New Mind, by Roger Penrose ]
 # takes "cat or other feline" when specifying 'f'
 *cat
 *feline
 kitten
 	Well-known quadruped domestic animal from the family of
 	predatory felines (_Felis ochreata domestica_), with a thick,
 	soft pelt; often kept as a pet.  Various folklores have the
 	cat associated with magic and the gods of ancient Egypt.
 
 	So Ulthar went to sleep in vain anger; and when the people
 	awakened at dawn - behold!  Every cat was back at his
 	accustomed hearth!  Large and small, black, grey, striped,
 	yellow and white, none was missing.  Very sleek and fat did
 	the cats appear, and sonorous with purring content.
 		[ The Cats of Ulthar, by H.P. Lovecraft ]
 # this one doesn't work very well for dwarven and gnomish cavemen
 cave*man
 human cave*man
 	Now it was light enough to leave.  Moon-Watcher picked up
 	the shriveled corpse and dragged it after him as he bent
 	under the low overhang of the cave.  Once outside, he
 	threw the body over his shoulder and stood upright - the
 	only animal in all this world able to do so.
 	Among his kind, Moon-Watcher was almost a giant.  He was
 	nearly five feet high, and though badly undernourished
 	weighed over a hundred pounds.  His hairy, muscular body
 	was halfway between ape and man, but his head was already
 	much nearer to man than ape.  The forehead was low, and
 	there were ridges over the eye sockets, yet he unmistakably
 	held in his genes the promise of humanity.
 		[ 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke ]
 dwar* cave*man
 gnom* cave*man
 	'Twas in a land unkempt of life's red dawn;
 	Where in his sanded cave he dwelt alone;
 	Sleeping by day, or sometimes worked upon
 	His flint-head arrows and his knives of stone;
 	By night stole forth and slew the savage boar,
 	So that he loomed a hunter of loud fame,
 	And many a skin of wolf and wild-cat wore,
 	And counted many a flint-head to his name;
 	Wherefore he walked the envy of the band,
 	Hated and feared, but matchless in his skill.
 	Till lo! one night deep in that shaggy land,
 	He tracked a yearling bear and made his kill;
 	Then over-worn he rested by a stream,
 	And sank into a sleep too deep for dream.
 		[ The Dreamer, by Robert Service ]
 *centaur
 	Of all the monsters put together by the Greek imagination
 	the Centaurs (Kentauroi) constituted a class in themselves.
 	Despite a strong streak of sensuality, in their make-up,
 	their normal behaviour was moral, and they took a kindly
 	thought of man's welfare.  The attempted outrage of Nessos on
 	Deianeira, and that of the whole tribe of Centaurs on the
 	Lapith women, are more than offset by the hospitality of
 	Pholos and by the wisdom of Cheiron, physician, prophet,
 	lyrist, and the instructor of Achilles.  Further, the
 	Centaurs were peculiar in that their nature, which united the
 	body of a horse with the trunk and head of a man, involved
 	an unthinkable duplication of vital organs and important
 	members.  So grotesque a combination seems almost un-Greek.
 	These strange creatures were said to live in the caves and
 	clefts of the mountains, myths associating them especially
 	with the hills of Thessaly and the range of Erymanthos.
 		     [ Mythology of all races, Vol. 1, pp. 270-271 ]
 centipede
 	I observed here, what I had often seen before, that certain
 	districts abound in centipedes.  Here they have light
 	reddish bodies and blue legs; great myriapedes are seen
 	crawling every where.  Although they do no harm, they excite
 	in man a feeling of loathing.  Perhaps our appearance
 	produces a similar feeling in the elephant and other large
 	animals.  Where they have been much disturbed, they
 	certainly look upon us with great distrust, as the horrid
 	biped that ruins their peace.
 		[ Travels and Researches in South Africa,
 			by Dr. David Livingstone ]
 cerberus
 kerberos
 	Cerberus, (or Kerberos in Greek), was the three-headed dog
 	that guarded the Gates of Hell.  He allowed any dead to enter,
 	and likewise prevented them all from ever leaving.  He was
 	bested only twice:  once when Orpheus put him to sleep by
 	playing bewitching music on his lyre, and the other time when
 	Hercules confronted him and took him to the world of the
 	living (as his twelfth and last labor).
 chameleon
 	A small lizard perched on a brown stone.  Feeling threatened by
 	the approach of human beings along the path, it metamorphosed
 	into a stingray beetle, then into a stench-puffer, then into a
 	fiery salamander.
 	Bink smiled.  These conversions weren't real.  It had assumed
 	the forms of obnoxious little monsters, but not their essence.
 	It could not sting, stink or burn.  It was a chameleon, using
 	its magic to mimic creatures of genuine threat.
 	Yet as it shifted into the form of a basilisk it glared at him
 	with such ferocity that Bink's mirth abated.  If its malice
 	could strike him, he would be horribly dead.
 		[ A Spell for Chameleon, by Piers Anthony ]
 charo*n
 	When an ancient Greek died, his soul went to the nether world:
 	the Hades.  To reach the nether world, the souls had to cross
 	the river Styx, the river that separated the living from the
 	dead.  The Styx could be crossed by ferry, whose shabby ferry-
 	man, advanced in age, was called Charon.  The deceased's next-
 	of-kin would place a coin under his tongue, to pay the ferry-
 	man.
 chest
 large box
 	Dantes rapidly cleared away the earth around the chest.  Soon
 	the center lock appeared, then the handles at each end, all
 	delicately wrought in the manner of that period when art made
 	precious even the basest of metals.  He took the chest by the
 	two handles and tried to lift it, but it was impossible.  He
 	tried to open it; it was locked.  He inserted the sharp end
 	of his pickaxe between the chest and the lid and pushed down
 	on the handle.  The lid creaked, then flew open.
 	Dantes was seized with a sort of giddy fever.  He cocked his
 	gun and placed it beside him.  Then he closed his eyes like
 	a child, opened them and stood dumbfounded.
 	The chest was divided into three compartments.  In the first
 	were shining gold coins.  In the second, unpolished gold
 	ingots packed in orderly stacks.  From the third compartment,
 	which was half full, Dantes picked up handfuls of diamonds,
 	pearls and rubies.  As they fell through his fingers in a
 	glittering cascade, they gave forth the sound of hail beating
 	against the windowpanes.
 		[ The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas ]
 chih*sung*tzu
 	A character in Chinese mythology noted for bringing about the
 	end of a terrible drought which threatened the survival of
 	the people.  He achieved this by means of sprinkling the
 	earth with water from a bowl, using the branch of a tree to
 	do so.  He became the heavenly controller of the rain, and
 	lived with other celestial beings in their paradise on Mount
 	Kunlun.
 	  [ The Illustrated Who's Who In Mythology, by Michael Senior ]
 chromatic dragon
 tiamat
 	Tiamat is said to be the mother of evil dragonkind.  She is
 	extremely vain.
 citrine*
 	A pale yellow variety of crystalline quartz resembling topaz.
 cleaver
 	Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed,
 	sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic
 	melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled
 	thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.
 		[ The Phoenix on the Sword, by Robert E. Howard ]
 ~elven cloak
 ~oilskin cloak
 *cloak*
 	Cloaks are the universal outer garb of everyone who is not a
 	Barbarian.  It is hard to see why.  They are open in front
 	and require you at most times to use one hand to hold them
 	shut.  On horseback they leave the shirt-sleeved arms and
 	most of the torso exposed to wind and Weather.  The OMTs
 	[ Official Management Terms ] for Cloaks well express their
 	difficulties.  They are constantly _swirling and dripping_
 	and becoming _heavy with water_ in rainy Weather, _entangling
 	with trees_ or _swords_, or needing to be _pulled close
 	around her/his shivering body_.  This seems to suggest they
 	are less than practical for anyone on an arduous Tour.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 cloud*
 	I wandered lonely as a cloud
 	That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
 	When all at once I saw a crowd,
 	A host, of golden daffodils;
 	Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
 	Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
 		[ I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, by William Wordsworth ]
 cobra
 	Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without
 	answering, for from the thick grass at the foot of the bush
 	there came a low hiss -- a horrid cold sound that made
 	Rikki-tikki jump back two clear feet.  Then inch by inch out of
 	the grass rose up the head and spread hood of Nag, the big
 	black cobra, and he was five feet long from tongue to tail.
 	When he had lifted one-third of himself clear of the ground,
 	he stayed balancing to and fro exactly as a dandelion-tuft
 	balances in the wind, and he looked at Rikki-tikki with the
 	wicked snake's eyes that never change their expression,
 	whatever the snake may be thinking of.
 	'Who is Nag?' said he.  '_I_ am Nag.  The great God Brahm put
 	his mark upon all our people, when the first cobra spread his
 	hood to keep the sun off Brahm as he slept.  Look, and be
 	afraid!'
 		[ Rikki-tikki-tavi, by Rudyard Kipling ]
 c*ckatrice
 	Once in a great while, when the positions of the stars are
 	just right, a seven-year-old rooster will lay an egg.  Then,
 	along will come a snake, to coil around the egg, or a toad,
 	to squat upon the egg, keeping it warm and helping it to
 	hatch.  When it hatches, out comes a creature called basilisk,
 	or cockatrice, the most deadly of all creatures.  A single
 	glance from its yellow, piercing toad's eyes will kill both
 	man and beast.  Its power of destruction is said to be so
 	great that sometimes simply to hear its hiss can prove fatal.
 	Its breath is so venomous that it causes all vegetation
 	to wither.
 
 	There is, however, one creature which can withstand the
 	basilisk's deadly gaze, and this is the weasel.  No one knows
 	why this is so, but although the fierce weasel can slay the
 	basilisk, it will itself be killed in the struggle.  Perhaps
 	the weasel knows the basilisk's fatal weakness:  if it ever
 	sees its own reflection in a mirror it will perish instantly.
 	But even a dead basilisk is dangerous, for it is said that
 	merely touching its lifeless body can cause a person to
 	sicken and die.
 	  [ Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library)
 	      and other sources ]
 *coin
 ~creeping coins
 *coins
 zorkmid*
 	The coin bears the likeness of Belwit the Flat, along with the
 	inscriptions, "One Zorkmid," and "699 GUE [ Great Underground
 	Empire ]."  On the other side, the coin depicts Egreth Castle,
 	and says "In Frobs We Trust" in several languages.
 		[ Zork Zero, by Infocom ]
 # not "stethoscope"
 combat
 fight
 fracas
 melee
 spat
 squabble
 tiff
 	[Scene: Mr. Moon and Gilbert enter tavern and discover many
 	corpses strewn about the place; Blind Pew is sole survivor.]
 	Blind Pew:  Evening.  Sounded as though there has been a bit
 	            of a squabble.
 	 Mr. Moon:  Squabble?  They're all dead.
 	Blind Pew:  Oh.  Must have been more of a tiff then.
 		[ Yellowbeard, directed by Mel Damski, screenplay
 		  by Graham Chapman, Peter Cook, Bernard McKenna ]
 cope
 * cope
 	The cope is a liturgical vestment which may be worn by any
 	rank of the clergy.  Copes are made in all liturgical colours,
 	and are like a very long mantle or cloak, fastened at the breast
 	by a clasp.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 cornuthaum
 	He was dressed in a flowing gown with fur tippets which had
 	the signs of the zodiac embroidered over it, with various
 	cabalistic signs, such as triangles with eyes in them, queer
 	crosses, leaves of trees, bones of birds and animals, and a
 	planetarium whose stars shone like bits of looking-glass with
 	the sun on them.  He had a pointed hat like a dunce's cap, or
 	like the headgear worn by ladies of that time, except that
 	the ladies were accustomed to have a bit of veil floating
 	from the top of it.
 			[ The Once and Future King, by T.H. White ]
 
 		"A wizard!" Dooley exclaimed, astounded.
 		"At your service, sirs," said the wizard.  "How
 	perceptive of you to notice.  I suppose my hat rather gives me
 	away.  Something of a beacon, I don't doubt."  His hat was
 	pretty much that, tall and cone-shaped with stars and crescent
 	moons all over it.  All in all, it couldn't have been more
 	wizardish.
 			[ The Elfin Ship, James P. Blaylock ]
 couatl
 	A mythical feathered serpent.  The couatl are very rare.
 coyote
 	This carnivore is known for its voracious appetite and
 	inflated view of its own intelligence.
 cram*
 	If you want to know what cram is, I can only say that I don't
 	know the recipe; but it is biscuitish, keeps good indefinitely,
 	is supposed to be sustaining, and is certainly not entertaining,
 	being in fact very uninteresting except as a chewing
 	exercise.  It was made by the Lake-men for long journeys.
 		[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 cream pie
 		Gregor stared at the pastry tray, and sighed.  "I suppose
 	it would disturb the guards if I tried to shove a cream torte up
 	your nose."
 		"Deeply.  You should have done it when we were eight and
 	twelve, you could have gotten away with it then.  The cream pie
 	of justice flies one way," Miles snickered.
 		[ The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold ]
 *crocodile
 	A big animal with the appearance of a lizard, constituting
 	an order of the reptiles (_Loricata_ or _Crocodylia_), the
 	crocodile is a large, dangerous predator native to tropical
 	and subtropical climes.  It spends most of its time in large
 	bodies of water.
 		[]
 
 	How doth the little crocodile
 	    Improve his shining tail,
 	And pour the waters of the Nile
 	    On every golden scale!
 
 	How cheerfully he seems to grin
 	    How neatly spreads his claws,
 	And welcomes little fishes in,
 	    With gently smiling jaws!
 		[ How Doth The Little Crocodile, by Lewis Carroll ]
 croesus
 kroisos
 creosote
 	Croesus (in Greek: Kroisos), the wealthy last king of Lydia;
 	his empire was destroyed when he attacked Cyrus in 549, after
 	the Oracle of Delphi (q.v.) had told him:  "if you attack the
 	Persians, you will destroy a mighty empire".  Herodotus
 	relates of his legendary conversation with Solon of Athens,
 	who impressed upon him that being rich does not imply being
 	happy and that no one should be considered fortunate before
 	his death.
 crom
 	Warily Conan scanned his surroundings, all of his senses alert
 	for signs of possible danger.  Off in the distance, he could
 	see the familiar shapes of the Camp of the Duali tribe.
 	Suddenly, the hairs on his neck stand on end as he detects the
 	aura of evil magic in the air.  Without thought, he readies
 	his weapon, and mutters under his breath:
 	"By Crom, there will be blood spilt today."
 
 	    [ Conan the Avenger by Robert E. Howard, Bjorn Nyberg,
 		and L. Sprague de Camp ]
 crossbow*
 	"God save thee, ancient Mariner!
 	From the fiends, that plague thee thus! -
 	Why look'st thou so?" - With my cross-bow
 	I shot the Albatross.
 	  [ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge ]
 crystal ball
 	You look into one of these and see _vapours swirling like
 	clouds_.  These shortly clear away to show a sort of video
 	without sound of something that is going to happen to you
 	soon.  It is seldom good news.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 curse*
 	Curses are longstanding ill-wishings which, in Fantasyland,
 	often manifest as semisentient.  They have to be broken or
 	dispelled.  The method varies according to the type and
 	origin of the Curse:
 	[...]
 	4.  Curses on Rings and Swords.  You have problems.  Rings
 	have to be returned whence they came, preferably at over a
 	thousand degrees Fahrenheit, and the Curse means you won't
 	want to do this.  Swords usually resist all attempts to
 	raise their Curses.  Your best source is to hide the Sword
 	or give it to someone you dislike.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 cwn*n
 	A pack of snow-white, red-eared spectral hounds which
 	sometimes took part in the kidnappings and raids the
 	inhabitants of the underworld sometimes make on this world
 	(the Wild Hunt).  They are associated in Wales with the sounds
 	of migrating wild geese, and are said to be leading the souls
 	of the damned to hell.  The phantom chase is usually heard or
 	seen in midwinter and is accompanied by a howling wind.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 cyclops
 	And after he had milked his cattle swiftly,
 	he again took hold of two of my men
 	and had them as his supper.
 	Then I went, with a tub of red wine,
 	to stand before the Cyclops, saying:
 	"A drop of wine after all this human meat,
 	so you can taste the delicious wine
 	that is stored in our ship, Cyclops."
 	He took the tub and emptied it.
 	He appreciated the priceless wine that much
 	that he promptly asked me for a second tub.
 	"Give it", he said, "and give me your name as well".
 			...
 	Thrice I filled the tub,
 	and after the wine had clouded his mind,
 	I said to him, in a tone as sweet as honey:
 	"You have asked my name, Cyclops?  Well,
 	my name is very well known.  I'll give it to you,
 	if you give me the gift you promised me as a guest.
 	My name is Nobody.  All call me thus:
 	my father and my mother and my friends."
 	Ruthlessly he answered to this:
 	"Nobody, I will eat you last of all;
 	your host of friends will completely precede you.
 	That will be my present to you, my friend."
 	And after these words he fell down backwards,
 	restrained by the all-restrainer Hupnos.
 	His monstrous neck slid into the dust;
 	the red wine squirted from his throat;
 	the drunk vomited lumps of human flesh.
 		[ The Odyssey, (chapter Epsilon), by Homer ]
 ~sting
 *dagger
 	Is this a dagger which I see before me,
 	The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
 	I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
 	Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
 	To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
 	A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
 	Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
 	I see thee yet, in form as palpable
 	As this which now I draw.
 		[ Macbeth, by William Shakespeare ]
 dark one
 	... But he ruled rather by force and fear, if they might
 	avail; and those who perceived his shadow spreading over the
 	world called him the Dark Lord and named him the Enemy; and
 	he gathered again under his government all the evil things of
 	the days of Morgoth that remained on earth or beneath it,
 	and the Orcs were at his command and multiplied like flies.
 	Thus the Black Years began ...
 		[ The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 # includes "dart trap"
 dart*
 	Darts are missile weapons, designed to fly such that a sharp,
 	often weighted point will strike first.  They can be
 	distinguished from javelins by fletching (i.e., feathers on
 	the tail) and a shaft that is shorter and/or more flexible,
 	and from arrows by the fact that they are not of the right
 	length to use with a normal bow.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 
 	Against my foe I hurled a murderous dart.
 	He caught it in his hand -- I heard him laugh --
 	I saw the thing that should have pierced his heart
 	Turn to a golden staff.
 		[ Gifts, by Mary Coleridge ]
 demogorgon
 	A terrible deity, whose very name was capable of producing the
 	most horrible effects.  He is first mentioned by the 4th-century
 	Christian writer, Lactantius, who in doing so broke with the
 	superstition that the very reference to Demogorgon by name
 	brought death and disaster.
 		[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
 
 	Demogorgon, the prince of demons, wallows in filth and can
 	spread a quickly fatal illness to his victims while rending
 	them.  He is a mighty spellcaster, and he can drain the life
 	of mortals with a touch of his tail.
 # takes "major demon" when specifying '&'
 demon
 major demon
 	It is often very hard to discover what any given Demon looks
 	like, apart from a general impression of large size, huge
 	fangs, staring eyes, many limbs, and an odd color; but all
 	accounts agree that Demons are very powerful, very Magic (in
 	a nonhuman manner), and made of some substance that can squeeze
 	through a keyhole yet not be pierced with a Sword.  This makes
 	them difficult to deal with, even on the rare occasions when
 	they are friendly.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 diamond
 	The hardest known mineral (with a hardness of 10 on Mohs' scale).
 	It is an allotropic form of pure carbon that has crystallized in
 	the cubic system, usually as octahedra or cubes, under great
 	pressure.
 		[ A Concise Dictionary of Physics ]
 
 	The diamond, _adamas_ or _dyamas_, is a transparent stone, like
 	crystal, but having the colour of polished iron, but it cannot
 	be destroyed by iron, fire or any other means, unless it is
 	placed in the hot blood of a goat; with sharp pieces of diamond
 	other stones are engraved and polished.  It is no greater than
 	a small nut.  There are six kinds, however Adamant attracts
 	metal; it expels venom; it produces amber (and is efficacious
 	against empty fears and for those resisting spells).  It is
 	found in India, in Greece and in Cyprus, where magicians make
 	use of it.  It gives you courage; it averts apparitions; it
 	removes anger and quarrels; it heals the mad; it defends you
 	from your enemies.  It should be set in gold or silver and worn
 	on the left arm.  It is likewise found in Arabia.
 	 	[ The Aberdeen Bestiary, translated by Colin McLaren ]
 dilithium*
 	The most famous and the first to be named of the imaginary
 	"minerals" of Star Trek is dilithium. ... Because of this
 	mineral's central role in the storyline, a whole mythology
 	surrounds it.  It is, however, a naturally occurring substance
 	within the mythology, as there are various episodes that
 	make reference to the mining of dilithium deposits. ...
 	This name itself is imaginary and gives no real information on
 	the structure or make-up of this substance other than that this
 	version of the name implies a lithium and iron-bearing
 	aluminosilicate of some sort.  That said, the real mineral that
 	most closely matches the descriptive elements of this name is
 	ferroholmquistite which is a dilithium triferrodiallosilicate.
 	If one goes on the premise that nature follows certain general
 	norms, then one could extrapolate that dilithium might have a
 	similar number of silicon atoms in its structure.
 	Keeping seven (i.e. hepto) ferrous irons and balancing the
 	oxygens would give a theoretical formula of Li2Fe7Al2Si8O27.
 	A mineral with this composition could theoretically exist,
 	although it is doubtful that it would possess the more fantastic
 	properties ascribed to dilithium.
 		[ The Mineralogy of Star Trek, by Jeffrey de Fourestier ]
 dingo
 	A wolflike wild dog, Canis dingo, of Australia, having a
 	reddish- or yellowish-brown coat, believed to have been
 	introduced by the aborigines.
 		[ Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary
 		    of the English Language ]
 disenchanter
 	Ask not, what your magic can do to it.  Ask what it can do
 	to your magic.
 dispater
 	The Roman ruler of the underworld and fortune, similar to the
 	Greek Hades.  Every hundred years, the Ludi Tarentini were
 	celebrated in his honor.  The Gauls regarded Dis Pater as
 	their ancestor.  The name is a contraction of the Latin Dives,
 	"the wealthy", Dives Pater, "the wealthy father", or "Fater
 	Wealth".  It refers to the wealth of precious stone below the
 	earth.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 djinn*
 	The djinn are genies from the elemental plane of Air.  There,
 	among their kind, they have their own societies.  They are
 	sometimes encountered on earth and may even be summoned here
 	to perform some service for powerful wizards.  The wizards
 	often leave them about for later service, safely tucked away
 	in a flask or lamp.  Once in a while, such a tool is found by
 	a lucky rogue, and some djinn are known to be so grateful
 	when released that they might grant their rescuer a wish.
 # takes "dog or other canine" when specifying 'd'
 ~hachi
 ~slasher
 ~sirius
 *dog
 pup*
 *canine
 	A domestic animal, the _tame dog_ (_Canis familiaris_), of
 	which numerous breeds exist.  The male is called a dog,
 	while the female is called a bitch.  Because of its known
 	loyalty to man and gentleness with children, it is the
 	world's most popular domestic animal.  It can easily be
 	trained to perform various tasks.
 # typing "spellbook or a closed door" shouldn't yield this entry
 ~trap*door
 ~*spellbook*
 *door
 doorway
 	Through me you pass into the city of woe:
 	Through me you pass into eternal pain:
 	Through me among the people lost for aye.
 	Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
 	To rear me was the task of power divine,
 	Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
 	Before me things create were none, save things
 	Eternal, and eternal I endure.
 	All hope abandon ye who enter here.
 		[ The Inferno, from The Divine Comedy of Dante
 			Alighieri, translated by H.F. Cary ]
 doppelganger
 	"Then we can only give thanks that this is Antarctica, where
 	there is not one, single, solitary, living thing for it to
 	imitate, except these animals in camp."
 
 	"Us," Blair giggled. "It can imitate us. Dogs can't make four
 	hundred miles to the sea; there's no food. There aren't any
 	skua gulls to imitate at this season. There aren't any
 	penguins this far inland. There's nothing that can reach the
 	sea from this point - except us. We've got brains. We can do
 	it. Don't you see - it's got to imitate us - it's got to be one
 	of us - that's the only way it can fly an airplane - fly a plane
 	for two hours, and rule - be - all Earth's inhabitants. A world
 	for the taking - if it imitates us!
 		[ Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell ]
 
 	Xander: Let go!  I have to kill the demon bot!
 	Xander Double (grabbing the gun): Anya, get out of the way.
 	Buffy: Xander!
 	Xander Double: That's all right, Buffy.  I have him.
 	Xander: No, Buffy, I'm me.  Help me!
 	Anya: My gun, he's got my gun.
 	Riley: You own a gun?
 	Buffy: Xander, gun holding Xander, give it to me.
 	Anya: Buffy, which one's real?
 	Xander: I am.
 	Xander Double: No, _I_ am.
 	    [ Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Episode 5.03, "The Replacement" ]
 *dragon
 *xoth
 	In the West the dragon was the natural enemy of man.  Although
 	preferring to live in bleak and desolate regions, whenever it
 	was seen among men it left in its wake a trail of destruction
 	and disease.  Yet any attempt to slay this beast was a perilous
 	undertaking.  For the dragon's assailant had to contend
 	not only with clouds of sulphurous fumes pouring from its fire
 	breathing nostrils, but also with the thrashings of its tail,
 	the most deadly part of its serpent-like body.
 	  [ Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library) ]
 
 	"One whom the dragons will speak with," he said, "that is a
 	dragonlord, or at least that is the center of the matter.  It's
 	not a trick of mastering the dragons, as most people think.
 	Dragons have no masters.  The question is always the same, with
 	a dragon:  will he talk to you or will he eat you?  If you can
 	count upon his doing the former, and not doing the latter, why
 	then you're a dragonlord."
 		[ The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. Le Guin ]
 *dragon*scale*
 	Stephen had argued, and the expert armorer had grudgingly
 	admitted, that dragonscale shield or armor, provided it proved
 	feasible to make at all, ought to offer some real, practical
 	advantages over any metal breastplate or shield -- gram for
 	gram of weight, such a defense would probably be a lot
 	tougher and more protective than any human smiths could
 	make of steel.
 		[ The Last Book of Swords: Shieldbreaker's Story,
 			by Fred Saberhagen ]
 *drum*
 	Many travelers have seen the drums of the great apes, and
 	some have heard the sounds of their beating and the noise of
 	the wild, weird revelry of these first lords of the jungle,
 	but Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, is, doubtless, the only human
 	being who ever joined in the fierce, mad, intoxicating revel
 	of the Dum-Dum.
 		[ Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs ]
 dunce*
 	A dunce cap, also variously known as a dunce hat, dunce's
 	cap, or dunce's hat, is a tall conical hat.  In popular
 	culture, it is typically made of paper and often marked with
 	a D, and given to schoolchildren to wear as punishment for
 	being stupid or lazy.  While this is now a rare practice,
 	it is frequently depicted in popular culture such as
 	children's cartoons.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 dungeon*
 	At once as far as Angels kenn he views
 	The dismal Situation waste and wilde,
 	A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
 	As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
 	No light, but rather darkness visible
 	Serv'd only to discover sights of woe,
 	Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
 	And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
 	That comes to all; but torture without end
 	Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed
 	With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd:
 	Such place Eternal Justice had prepar'd
 	For those rebellious, here their Prison ordain'd
 	In utter darkness, and their portion set
 	As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n
 	As from the Center thrice to th' utmost Pole.
 		[ Paradise Lost, by John Milton ]
 ~dwarf ??m*
 #~dwar* cave*man
 dwarf*
 	Dwarfs have faces like men (ugly men, with wrinkled, leathery
 	skins), but are generally either flat-footed, duck-footed, or
 	have feet pointing backwards.  They are of the earth, earthy,
 	living in the darkest of caverns and venturing forth only
 	with the cloaks by which they can make themselves invisible,
 	and others disguised as toads.  Miners often come across them,
 	and sometimes establish reasonably close relations with them.
 	... The miners of Cornwall were always delighted to hear a
 	bucca busily mining away, for all dwarfs have an infallible
 	nose for precious metals.
 	Among other things, dwarfs are rightly valued for their skill
 	as blacksmiths and jewellers: they made Odin his famous spear
 	Gungnir, and Thor his hammer; for Freya they designed a
 	magnificent necklace, and for Frey a golden boar.  And in their
 	spare time they are excellent bakers.  Ironically, despite
 	their odd feet, they are particularly fond of dancing.  They
 	can also see into the future, and consequently are excellent
 	meteorologists.  They can be free with presents to people
 	they like, and a dwarvish gift is likely to turn to gold in
 	the hand.  But on the whole they are a snappish lot.
 	    [ The Immortals, by Derek and Julia Parker ]
 earendil
 elwing
 	In after days, when because of the triumph of Morgoth Elves and
 	Men became estranged, as he most wished, those of the Elven-race
 	that lived still in Middle-earth waned and faded, and Men usurped
 	the sunlight.  Then the Quendi wandered in the lonely places of the
 	great lands and the isles, and took to the moonlight and the
 	starlight, and to the woods and the caves, becoming as shadows
 	and memories, save those who ever and anon set sail into the West
 	and vanished from Middle-earth.  But in the dawn of years Elves
 	and Men were allies and held themselves akin, and there were some
 	among Men that learned the wisdom of the Eldar, and became great
 	and valiant among the captains of the Noldor.  And in the glory
 	and beauty of the Elves, and in their fate, full share had the
 	offspring of elf and mortal, Earendil, and Elwing, and Elrond
 	their child.
 		[ The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 eel
 giant eel
 	The behaviour of eels in fresh water extends the air of
 	mystery surrounding them.  They move freely into muddy, silty
 	bottoms of lakes, lying buried in the daylight hours in summer.
 	[...]  Eels are voracious carnivores, feeding mainly at
 	night and consuming a wide variety of fishes and invertebrate
 	creatures.  Contrary to earlier thinking, eels seek living
 	rather than dead creatures and are not habitual eaters of
 	carrion.
 	    [ Freshwater Fishes of Canada, by Scott and Crossman ]
 egg
 	But I asked why not keep it and let the hen sit on it till it
 	hatched, and then we could see what would come out of it.
 	"Nothing good, I'm certain of that," Mom said.  "It would
 	probably be something horrible.  But just remember, if it's a
 	crocodile or a dragon or something like that, I won't have it
 	in my house for one minute."
 		[ The Enormous Egg, by Oliver Butterworth ]
 elbereth
 	... Even as they stepped over the threshold a single clear
 	voice rose in song.
 
 		A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
 		silivren penna miriel
 		o menel aglar elenath!
 		Na-chaered palan-diriel
 		o galadhremmin ennorath,
 		Fanuilos, le linnathon
 		nef aear, si nef aearon!
 
 	Frodo halted for a moment, looking back.  Elrond was in his
 	chair and the fire was on his face like summer-light upon the
 	trees.  Near him sat the Lady Arwen.  [...]
 	He stood still enchanted, while the sweet syllables of the
 	elvish song fell like clear jewels of blended word and melody.
 	"It is a song to Elbereth," said Bilbo.  "They will sing that,
 	and other songs of the Blessed Realm, many times tonight.
 	Come on!"
 	   [ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 electric eel
 	South-American fish (_Gymnotus electricus_), living in fresh
 	water.  Shaped like a serpent, it can grow up to 2 metres.
 	This eel is known for its electrical organ which enables it
 	to paralyse creatures up to the size of a horse.
 	   [ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
 *elemental
 	Elementals are manifestations of the basic nature of the
 	universe.  There are four known forms of elementals:  air, fire,
 	water, and earth.  Some mystics have postulated the necessity
 	for a fifth type, the spirit elemental, but none have ever
 	been encountered, at least on this plane of existence.
 ~human or elf*
 ~elf ??m*
 *elf*
 elvenking
 	The Elves sat round the fire upon the grass or upon the sawn
 	rings of old trunks.  Some went to and fro bearing cups and
 	pouring drinks; others brought food on heaped plates and
 	dishes.
 	"This is poor fare," they said to the hobbits; "for we are
 	lodging in the greenwood far from our halls.  If ever you are
 	our guests at home, we will treat you better."
 	"It seems to me good enough for a birthday-party," said Frodo.
 	Pippin afterwards recalled little of either food or drink, for
 	his mind was filled with the light upon the elf-faces, and the
 	sound of voices so various and so beautiful that he felt in a
 	waking dream.  [...]
 	Sam could never describe in words, nor picture clearly to
 	himself, what he felt or thought that night, though it remained
 	in his memory as one of the chief events of his life.  The
 	nearest he ever got was to say: "Well, sir, if I could grow
 	apples like that, I would call myself a gardener.  But it was
 	the singing that went to my heart, if you know what I mean."
 	   [ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 elven cloak
 	The Elves next unwrapped and gave to each of the Company the
 	clothes they had brought.  For each they had provided a hood
 	and cloak, made according to his size, of the light but warm
 	silken stuff that the Galadrim wove.  It was hard to say of
 	what colour they were: grey with the hue of twilight under
 	the trees they seemed to be; and yet if they were moved, or
 	set in another light, they were green as shadowed leaves, or
 	brown as fallow fields by night, dusk-silver as water under
 	the stars.
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 emerald
 	'Put off that mask of burning gold
 	With emerald eyes.'
 	'O no, my dear, you make so bold
 	To find if hearts be wild and wise,
 	And yet not cold.'
 
 	'I would but find what's there to find,
 	Love or deceit.'
 	'It was the mask engaged your mind,
 	And after set your heart to beat,
 	Not what's behind.'
 
 	'But lest you are my enemy,
 	I must enquire.'
 	'O no, my dear, let all that be;
 	What matter, so there is but fire
 	In you, in me?'
 		[ The Mask, by W.B. Yeats ]
 engrav*
 A.S*
 	Presently we reached a place where the beach narrowed; the sea
 	almost came up to the foot of the cliffs, leaving a passage no
 	wider than a couple of yards.  Between two projecting rocks we
 	caught sight of the entrance to a dark tunnel.
 	There, on a slab of granite, appeared two mysterious letters,
 	half eaten away by time -- the two initials of the bold,
 	adventurous traveller:
 
 			A.S.
 
 	'A.S.,' cried my uncle. 'Arne Saknussemm! Arne Saknussemm again!'
 
 	[...] at the sight of those two letters, carved there three
 	hundred years before, I stood in utter stupefaction.  Not
 	only was the signature of the learned alchemist legible on
 	the rock, but I held in my hand the dagger which had traced it.
 	Without showing the most appalling bad faith, I could no longer
 	doubt the existence of the traveller and the reality of his
 	journey.
 		[ Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Jules Verne,
 		  translated by Robert Baldick ]
 *epidaurus
 	The asclepieion at Epidaurus was the most celebrated healing
 	center of the Classical world, the place where ill people went
 	in the hope of being cured.  To find out the right cure for
 	their ailments, they spent a night in the enkoimitiria, a big
 	sleeping hall.  In their dreams, the god himself (Asclepius)
 	would advise them what they had to do to regain their health.
 	There are also mineral springs in the vicinity which may have
 	been used in healing.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 erinys
 erinyes
 	These female-seeming devils named after the Furies of mythology
 	attack hand to hand and poison their unwary victims as well.
 ettin
 	The two-headed giant, or ettin, is a vicious and unpredictable
 	hunter that stalks by night and eats any meat it can catch.
 excalibur
 	At first only its tip was visible, but then it rose, straight,
 	proud, all that was noble and great and wondrous.  The tip of
 	the blade pointed toward the moon, as if it would cleave it
 	in two.  The blade itself gleamed like a beacon in the night.
 	There was no light source for the sword to be reflecting
 	from, for the moon had darted behind a cloud in fear.  The
 	sword was glowing from the intensity of its strength and
 	power and knowledge that it was justice incarnate, and that
 	after a slumber of uncounted years its time had again come.
 	After the blade broke the surface, the hilt was visible, and
 	holding the sword was a single strong, yet feminine hand,
 	wearing several rings that bore jewels sparkling with the
 	blue-green color of the ocean.
 		[ Knight Life, by Peter David ]
 expensive camera
 	There was a time when Rincewind had quite liked the iconoscope.
 	He believed, against all experience, that the world was
 	fundamentally understandable, and that if he could only equip
 	himself with the right mental toolbox he could take the back off
 	and see how it worked.  He was, of course, dead wrong.  The
 	iconoscope didn't take pictures by letting light fall onto
 	specially treated paper, as he had surmised, but by the far
 	simpler method of imprisoning a small demon with a good eye for
 	colour and a speedy hand with a paintbrush.  He had been very
 	upset to find that out.
 		[ The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 eye of the aethiopica
 	This is a powerful amulet of ESP.  In addition to its standard
 	powers, it regenerates the energy of anyone who carries
 	it, allowing them to cast spells more often.  It also reduces
 	any spell damage to the person who carries it by half, and
 	protects from magic missiles.  Finally, when invoked it has
 	the power to instantly open a portal to any other area of the
 	dungeon, allowing its invoker to travel quickly between
 	areas.
 eyes of the overworld
 	... and finally there is "the Eyes of the Overworld".  This
 	obscure artifact pushes the wearer's view sense into the
 	"overworld" -- another name for a segment of the Astral Plane.
 	Usually, there is nothing to be seen.  However, the wearer
 	is also able to look back and see the area around herself,
 	much like looking on a map.  Why anyone would want to ...
 fedora
 	Some hats can only be worn if you're willing to be jaunty, to set
 	them at an angle and to walk beneath them with a spring in your
 	stride as if you're only a step away from dancing.  They demand a
 	lot of you.
 		[ Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman ]
 figurine*
 	Then it appeared in Paris at just about the time that Paris
 	was full of Carlists who had to get out of Spain.  One of
 	them must have brought it with him, but, whoever he was, it's
 	likely he knew nothing about its real value.  It had been --
 	no doubt as a precaution during the Carlist trouble in Spain
 	-- painted or enameled over to look like nothing more than a
 	fairly interesting black statuette.  And in that disguise,
 	sir, it was, you might say, kicked around Paris for seventy
 	years by private owners and dealers too stupid to see what
 	it was under the skin.
 		[ The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett ]
 fire trap
 	'Let him be for a while,' said Cohen.  'I reckon the fish
 	disagreed with him.'
 	'Don't see why,' said Truckle.  'I pulled him out before it'd
 	hardly chewed him.  And he must've dried out nicely in that
 	corridor.  You know, the one where the flames shot up out of
 	the floor unexpectedly.'
 	'I reckon our bard wasn't expecting flames to shoot out of
 	the floor unexpectedly,' said Cohen.
 	Truckle shrugged theatrically.  '_Well_, if you're not going
 	to expect unexpected flames, what's the point of going
 	_anywhere_?'
 		[ The Last Hero, by Terry Pratchett ]
 f* brand
 	Some say the world will end in fire,
 	Some say in ice.
 	From what I've tasted of desire
 	I hold with those who favor fire.
 	But if it had to perish twice,
 	I think I know enough of hate
 	To say that for destruction ice
 	Is also great
 	And would suffice.
 		[ Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost ]
 flesh golem
 	With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected
 	the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark
 	of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.  It was
 	already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against
 	the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the
 	glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow
 	eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive
 	motion agitated its limbs.
 
 	How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how
 	delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I
 	had endeavoured to form?  His limbs were in proportion, and I
 	had selected his features as beautiful.  Beautiful!--Great God!
 	His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and
 	arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and
 	flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances
 	only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that
 	seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in
 	which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight
 	black lips.
 		[ Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ]
 flint*
 	An emerald is as green as grass;
 	A ruby red as blood;
 	A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;
 	A flint lies in the mud.
 
 	A diamond is a brilliant stone,
 	To catch the world's desire;
 	An opal holds a fiery spark;
 	But a flint holds fire.
 		[ Precious Stones, by Christina Giorgina Rossetti ]
 floating eye
 	Floating eyes, not surprisingly, are large, floating eyeballs
 	which drift about the dungeon.  Though not dangerous in and
 	of themselves, their power to paralyse those who gaze at
 	their large eye in combat is widely feared.  Many are the
 	tales of those who struck a floating eye, were paralysed by
 	its mystic powers, and then nibbled to death by some other
 	creature that lurked around nearby.
 *flute
 	With this thou canst do mighty deeds
 	And change men's passions for thy needs:
 	A man's despair with joy allay,
 	Turn bachelors old to lovers gay.
 		[ The Magic Flute, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ]
 # also takes fog/vapor cloud
 fog* cloud
 	The fog comes
 	on little cat feet.
 
 	It sits looking
 	over harbor and city
 	on silent haunches
 	and then moves on.
 	     [ Fog, by Carl Sandburg ]
 # includes "food detection" and "detect food", which might not be the best
 *food*
 	The little girl stood on tip-toe and picked one of the nicest
 	and biggest lunch-boxes, and then she sat down upon the ground
 	and eagerly opened it.  Inside she found, nicely wrapped in
 	white papers, a ham sandwich, a piece of sponge-cake, a pickle,
 	a slice of new cheese and an apple.  Each thing had a separate
 	stem, and so had to be picked off the side of the box; but
 	Dorothy found them all to be delicious, and she ate every bit
 	of luncheon in the box before she had finished.
 		[ Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum ]
 fountain
 	Rest! This little Fountain runs
 	Thus for aye: -- It never stays
 	For the look of summer suns,
 	Nor the cold of winter days.
 	Whose'er shall wander near,
 	When the Syrian heat is worst,
 	Let him hither come, nor fear
 	Lest he may not slake his thirst:
 	He will find this little river
 	Running still, as bright as ever.
 	Let him drink, and onward hie,
 	Bearing but in thought, that I,
 	Erotas, bade the Naiad fall,
 	And thank the great god Pan for all!
 		[ For a Fountain, by Bryan Waller Procter ]
 fox
 	One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard
 	till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine
 	which had been trained over a lofty branch. "Just the thing
 	to quench my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he
 	took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning
 	round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with
 	no greater success. Again and again he tried after the
 	tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked
 	away with his nose in the air, saying: "I am sure they are
 	sour."
 		[ Aesop's Fables ]
 *fung*
 	Fungi, division of simple plants that lack chlorophyll, true
 	stems, roots, and leaves.  Unlike algae, fungi cannot
 	photosynthesize, and live as parasites or saprophytes.  The
 	division comprises the slime molds and true fungi.  True
 	fungi are multicellular (with the exception of yeasts); the
 	body of most true fungi consists of slender cottony
 	filaments, or hyphae.  All fungi are capable of asexual
 	reproduction by cell division, budding, fragmentation, or
 	spores.  Those that reproduce sexually alternate a sexual
 	generation (gametophyte) with a spore-producing one.  The
 	four classes of true fungi are the algaelike fungi (e.g.,
 	black bread mold and downy mildew), sac fungi (e.g., yeasts,
 	powdery mildews, truffles, and blue and green molds such as
 	Penicillium), basidium fungi (e.g., mushrooms and puffballs)
 	and imperfect fungi (e.g., species that cause athlete's foot
 	and ringworm).  Fungi help decompose organic matter (important
 	in soil renewal); are valuable as a source of antibiotics,
 	vitamins, and various chemicals; and for their role in
 	fermentation, e.g., in bread and alcoholic beverage
 	production.
 		[ The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia ]
 *gargoyle
 	And so it came to pass that while Man ruled on Earth, the
 	gargoyles waited, lurking, hidden from the light.  Reborn
 	every 600 years in Man's reckoning of time, the gargoyles
 	joined battle against Man to gain dominion over the Earth.
 
 	In each coming, the gargoyles were nearly destroyed by Men
 	who flourished in greater numbers.  Now it has been so many
 	hundreds of years that it seems the ancient statues and
 	paintings of gargoyles are just products of Man's
 	imagination.  In this year, with Man's thoughts turned toward
 	the many ills he has brought among himself, Man has forgotten
 	his most ancient adversary, the gargoyles.
 		[ Excerpt from the opening narration to the movie
 		    _Gargoyles_, written by Stephen and Elinor Karpf ]
 *garlic
 	1 November - All day long we have travelled, and at a good
 	speed.  The horses seem to know that they are being kindly
 	treated, for they go willingly their full stage at best
 	speed.  We have now had so many changes and find the same
 	thing so constantly that we are encouraged to think that the
 	journey will be an easy one.  Dr. Van Helsing is laconic, he
 	tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays
 	them well to make the exchange of horses.  We get hot soup,
 	or coffee, or tea, and off we go.  It is a lovely country.
 	Full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are
 	brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice
 	qualities.  They are very, very superstitious.  In the first
 	house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the
 	scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two
 	fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye.  I believe they
 	went to the trouble of putting an extra amount of garlic into
 	our food, and I can't abide garlic.  Ever since then I have
 	taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have
 	escaped their suspicions.
 		[ Dracula, by Bram Stoker ]
 # gas spore -- see *spore
 gehenn*
 *h?nnom
 hell
 	"Place of Torment."  The Valley of Hinnom, south-west of
 	Jerusalem, where Solomon, king of Israel, built "a high place",
 	or place of worship, for the gods Chemosh and Moloch.  The
 	valley came to be regarded as a place of abomination because
 	some of the Israelites sacrificed their children to Moloch
 	there.  In a later period it was made a refuse dump and
 	perpetual fires were maintained there to prevent pestilence.
 	Thus, in the New Testament, Gehenna became synonymous with hell.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 gelatinous cube
 	Despite its popularity (or perhaps because of it), the
 	gelatinous cube is also widely known as one of the sillier
 	role-playing monsters.  It is something of a commentary on the
 	ubiquity of treasure-laden dungeons in the Dungeons & Dragons
 	universe, as the cube is a creature specifically adapted to a
 	dungeon ecosystem.  10 feet to the side, it travels through
 	standard 10-foot by 10-foot dungeon corridors, cleaning up
 	debris and redistributing treasure by excreting indigestible
 	metal items.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 *gem
 gem or rock
 	The difference between false memories and true ones is the
 	same as for jewels:  it is always the false ones that look the
 	most real, the most brilliant.
 		[ Salvador Dali ]
 geryon
 	Forthwith that image vile of fraud appear'd,
 	His head and upper part expos'd on land,
 	But laid not on the shore his bestial train.
 	His face the semblance of a just man's wore,
 	So kind and gracious was its outward cheer;
 	The rest was serpent all: two shaggy claws
 	Reach'd to the armpits, and the back and breast,
 	And either side, were painted o'er with nodes
 	And orbits.  Colours variegated more
 	Nor Turks nor Tartars e'er on cloth of state
 	With interchangeable embroidery wove,
 	Nor spread Arachne o'er her curious loom.
 	As ofttimes a light skiff, moor'd to the shore,
 	Stands part in water, part upon the land;
 	Or, as where dwells the greedy German boor,
 	The beaver settles watching for his prey;
 	So on the rim, that fenc'd the sand with rock,
 	Sat perch'd the fiend of evil.  In the void
 	Glancing, his tail upturn'd its venomous fork,
 	With sting like scorpion's arm'd.  Then thus my guide:
 	"Now need our way must turn few steps apart,
 	Far as to that ill beast, who couches there."
 		[ The Inferno, from The Divine Comedy of Dante
 			Alighieri, translated by H.F. Cary ]
 *ghost
 valley of *dea*
 	And now the souls of the dead who had gone below came swarming
 	up from Erebus -- fresh brides, unmarried youths, old men
 	with life's long suffering behind them, tender young girls
 	still nursing this first anguish in their hearts, and a great
 	throng of warriors killed in battle, their spear-wounds gaping
 	yet and all their armour stained with blood.  From this
 	multitude of souls, as they fluttered to and fro by the
 	trench, there came a moaning that was horrible to hear.
 	Panic drained the blood from my cheeks.
 	     [ The Odyssey, (chapter Lambda), by Homer ]
 ghoul
 	The forces of the gloom know each other, and are strangely
 	balanced by each other.  Teeth and claws fear what they cannot
 	grasp.  Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious appetites, hunger
 	in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and jaws which
 	have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out
 	uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a
 	shroud, erect in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem
 	to them to live with a dead and terrible life.  These
 	brutalities, which are only matter, entertain a confused fear
 	of having to deal with the immense obscurity condensed into an
 	unknown being.  A black figure barring the way stops the wild
 	beast short.  That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates
 	and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the
 	ferocious fear the sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter
 	a ghoul.
 		[ Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo ]
 *giant
 giant humanoid
 	Giants have always walked the earth, though they are rare in
 	these times.  They range in size from little over nine feet
 	to a towering twenty feet or more.  The larger ones use huge
 	boulders as weapons, hurling them over large distances.  All
 	types of giants share a love for men - roasted, boiled, or
 	fried.  Their table manners are legendary.
 # note: "gnomish wizard" is a monster
 ~gnome ??m*
 #~gnom* cave*man
 gnome*
 gnomish wizard
 	...  And then a gnome came by, carrying a bundle, an old
 	fellow three times as large as an imp and wearing clothes of
 	a sort, especially a hat.  And he was clearly just as frightened
 	as the imps though he could not go so fast.  Ramon Alonzo
 	saw that there must be some great trouble that was vexing
 	magical things; and, since gnomes speak the language of men, and
 	will answer if spoken to gently, he raised his hat, and asked
 	of the gnome his name.  The gnome did not stop his hasty
 	shuffle a moment as he answered 'Alaraba' and grabbed the rim
 	of his hat but forgot to doff it.
 	'What is the trouble, Alaraba?'  said Ramon Alonzo.
 	'White magic.  Run!'  said the gnome ..
 		[ The Charwoman's Shadow, by Lord Dunsany ]
 
 	"Muggles have garden gnomes, too, you know," Harry told Ron as
 	they crossed the lawn.
 	"Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes," said Ron,
 	bent double with his head in a peony bush, "like fat little
 	Santa Clauses with fishing rods..."
 	There was a violent scuffling noise, the peony bush shuddered,
 	and Ron straightened up.  "This is a gnome," he said grimly.
 	"Geroff me! Gerroff me!" squealed the gnome.
 	It was certainly nothing like Santa Claus.  It was small and
 	leathery looking, with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like
 	a potato.  Ron held it at arm's length as it kicked out at him
 	with its horny little feet; he grasped it around the ankles
 	and turned it upside down.
 	  [ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling ]
 goblin
 	Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted.  They make
 	no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones.  They
 	can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled
 	dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually
 	untidy and dirty.  Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes,
 	tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well,
 	or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and
 	slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and
 	light.
 	     [ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 god
 goddess
 	Goddesses and Gods operate in ones, threesomes, or whole
 	pantheons of nine or more (see Religion).  Most of them claim
 	to have made the world, and this is indeed a likely claim in
 	the case of threesomes or pantheons:  Fantasyland does have
 	the air of having been made by a committee.  But all Goddesses
 	and Gods, whether they say they made the world or not, have
 	very detailed short-term plans for it which they are determined
 	to carry out.  Consequently they tend to push people into the
 	required actions by the use of coincidence or Prophecy, or just
 	by narrowing down your available choices of what to do next:
 	if a deity is pushing you, things will go miserably badly until
 	there is only one choice left to you.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 gold
 gold piece
 	A metal of characteristic yellow colour, the most precious
 	metal used as a common commercial medium of exchange.  Symbol,
 	Au; at. no. 79; at. wt. 197.2.  It is the most malleable
 	and ductile of all metals, and very heavy (sp. gr., 19.3).
 	It is quite unalterable by heat, moisture, and most
 	corrosive agents, and therefore well suited for its use in
 	coin and jewelry.
 	     [ Webster's New International Dictionary
 		  of the English Language, Second Edition ]
 gold golem
 	The bellows he set away from the fire, and gathered all the tools
 	wherewith he wrought into a silver chest; and with a sponge wiped
 	he his face and his two hands withal, and his mighty neck and
 	shaggy breast, and put upon him a tunic, and grasped a stout staff,
 	and went forth halting; but there moved swiftly to support their
 	lord handmaidens wrought of gold in the semblance of living maids.
 	In them is understanding in their hearts, and in them speech and
 	strength, and they know cunning handiwork by gift of the immortal
 	gods.
 		[ The Iliad, by Homer ]
 ~flesh golem
 ~gold golem
 ~straw golem
 ~wood golem
 *golem
 	"The original story harks back, so they say, to the sixteenth
 	century.  Using long-lost formulas from the Kabbala, a rabbi is
 	said to have made an artificial man -- the so-called Golem -- to
 	help ring the bells in the Synagogue and for all kinds of other
 	menial work.
 	"But he hadn't made a full man, and it was animated by some sort
 	of vegetable half-life.  What life it had, too, so the story
 	runs, was only derived from the magic charm placed behind its
 	teeth each day, that drew down to itself what was known as the
 	`free sidereal strength of the universe.'
 	"One evening, before evening prayers, the rabbi forgot to take
 	the charm out of the Golem's mouth, and it fell into a frenzy.
 	It raged through the dark streets, smashing everything in its
 	path, until the rabbi caught up with it, removed the charm, and
 	destroyed it.  Then the Golem collapsed, lifeless.  All that was
 	left of it was a small clay image, which you can still see in
 	the Old Synagogue." ...
 	    [ The Golem, by Gustav Meyrink ]
 grave
 	"Who'd care to dig 'em," said the old, old man,
 	"Those six feet marked in chalk?
 	Much I talk, more I walk;
 	Time I were buried," said the old, old man.
 		[ Three Songs to the Same Tune, by W.B. Yeats ]
 grayswandir
 	Why had I been wearing Grayswandir?  Would another weapon have
 	affected a Logrus-ghost as strongly?  Had it really been my
 	father, then, who had brought me here?  And had he felt I might
 	need the extra edge his weapon could provide?  I wanted to
 	think so, to believe that he had been more than a Pattern-ghost.
 		[ Knight of Shadows, by Roger Zelazny ]
 *grease
 	ANOINT, v.t.  To grease a king or other great functionary
 	already sufficiently slippery.
 		[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ]
 gremlin
 	The gremlin is a highly intelligent and completely evil
 	creature.  It lives to torment other creatures and will go
 	to great lengths to inflict pain or cause injury.
 		[]
 
 	Suddenly, Wilson thought about war, about the newspaper
 	stories which recounted the alleged existence of creatures in
 	the sky who plagued the Allied pilots in their duties.  They
 	called them gremlins, he remembered.  Were there, actually,
 	such beings?  Did they, truly, exist up here, never falling,
 	riding on the wind, apparently of bulk and weight, yet
 	impervious to gravity?
 	He was thinking that when the man appeared again.
 		[ Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, by Richard Matheson ]
 grid bug
 	These electronically based creatures are not native to this
 	universe.  They appear to come from a world whose laws of
 	motion are radically different from ours.
 	    []
 
 	Tron looked to his mate and pilot.  "I'm going to check on
 	the beam connection, Yori.  You two can keep a watch out for
 	grid bugs."  Tron paced forward along the slender catwalk
 	that still seemed awfully insubstantial to Flynn, though he
 	knew it to be amazingly sturdy.  He gazed after Tron, asking
 	himself what in the world a grid bug was, and hoping that the
 	beam connection -- to which he'd given no thought whatsoever
 	until this moment -- was healthy and sound."
 	    [ Tron, novel by Brian Daley, story by Steven Lisberger ]
 gunyoki
 	The samurai's last meal before battle.  It was usually made
 	up of cooked chestnuts, dried seaweed, and sake.
 hachi
 	Hachi was a dog that went with his master, a professor, to
 	the Shibuya train station every morning.  In the afternoon,
 	when his master was to return from work Hachi would be there
 	waiting.  One day his master died at the office, and did not
 	return.  For over ten years Hachi returned to the station
 	every afternoon to wait for his master.  When Hachi died a
 	statue was erected on the station platform in his honor.  It
 	is said to bring you luck if you touch his statue.
 *harp
 	A triangular stringed instrument, often Magic.  Even when not
 	Magic, a Harp is surprisingly portable and tough and can be
 	carried everywhere on the back of the Bard or Harper in all
 	weathers.  A Harp seldom goes out of tune and never warps.
 	Its strings break only in very rare instances, usually
 	because the Harper is sulking or crossed in love.  This is
 	just as well as no one seems to make or sell spare strings.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 
 	After breakfast was over, the ogre called out: "Wife, wife,
 	bring me my golden harp."  So she brought it and put it on
 	the table before him.  Then he said: "Sing!" and the golden
 	harp sang most beautifully.  And it went on singing till the
 	ogre fell asleep, and commenced to snore like thunder.
 	Then Jack lifted up the copper-lid very quietly and got down
 	like a mouse and crept on hands and knees till he came to the
 	table, when up he crawled, caught hold of the golden harp and
 	dashed with it towards the door.  But the harp called out
 	quite loud: "Master!  Master!" and the ogre woke up just in
 	time to see Jack running off with his harp.
 		[ Jack and the Beanstalk, from English Fairy Tales,
 		  by Joseph Jacobs ]
 hawaiian*shirt
 	'One of the things he can't do, he can't ride a horse,' he
 	said.  Then he stiffened as if sandbagged by a sudden
 	recollection, gave a small yelp of terror and dashed into
 	the gloom.  When he returned, the being called Twoflower was
 	hanging limply over his shoulder.  It was small and skinny,
 	and dressed very oddly in a pair of knee-length britches and
 	a shirt in such a violent and vivid conflict of colours that
 	the Weasel's fastidious eye was offended even in the half-light.
 		[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 healer
 * healer
 attendant
 doctor
 physician
 	I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health,
 	and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according
 	to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this
 	stipulation -- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear
 	to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve
 	his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the
 	same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if
 	they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and
 	that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction,
 	I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those
 	of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath
 	according to the law of medicine, but to none others.  I will
 	follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and
 	judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain
 	from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.  [...]
 		[ Hippocrates' Oath, translated by Francis Adams ]
 
 	PHYSICIAN, n.  One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our
 	dogs when well.
 		[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ]
 heart of ahriman
 	The other three drew in their breath sharply, and the dark,
 	powerful man who stood at the head of the sarcophagus whispered:
 	"The Heart of Ahriman!"  The other lifted a quick hand
 	for silence.  Somewhere a dog began howling dolefully, and a
 	stealthy step padded outside the barred and bolted door. ...
 	But none looked aside from the mummy case over which the man
 	in the ermine-trimmed robe was now moving the great flaming
 	jewel, while he muttered an incantation that was old when
 	Atlantis sank.  The glare of the gem dazzled their eyes, so
 	that they could not be sure what they saw; but with a
 	splintering crash, the carven lid of the sarcophagus burst
 	outward as if from some irresistible pressure applied from
 	within and the four men, bending eagerly forward, saw the
 	occupant -- a huddled, withered, wizened shape, with dried
 	brown limbs like dead wood showing through moldering bandages.
 	"Bring that thing back?" muttered the small dark man who
 	stood on the right, with a short, sardonic laugh.  "It is
 	ready to crumble at a touch.  We are fools ---"
 		[ Conan The Conqueror, by Robert E. Howard ]
 hell hound*
 	But suddenly they started forward in a rigid, fixed stare,
 	and his lips parted in amazement.  At the same instant Lestrade
 	gave a yell of terror and threw himself face downward upon the
 	ground.  I sprang to my feet, my inert hand grasping my pistol,
 	my mind paralyzed by the dreadful shape which had sprung out
 	upon us from the shadows of the fog.  A hound it was, an
 	enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes
 	have ever seen.  Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes
 	glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and
 	dewlap were outlined in flickering flame.  Never in the
 	delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more
 	savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that
 	dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall
 	of fog.
 	  [ The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. ]
 hermes
 	Messenger and herald of the Olympians.  Being required to do
 	a great deal of travelling and speaking in public, he became
 	the god of eloquence, travellers, merchants, and thieves.  He
 	was one of the most energetic of the Greek gods, a
 	Machiavellian character full of trickery and sexual vigour.
 	Like other Greek gods, he is endowed with not-inconsiderable
 	sexual prowess which he directs towards countryside nymphs.
 	He is a god of boundaries, guardian of graves and patron deity
 	of shepherds.  He is usually depicted as a handsome young
 	man wearing winged golden sandals and holding a magical
 	herald's staff consisting of intertwined serpents, the
 	kerykeion.  He is reputedly the only being able to find his way
 	to the underworld ferry of Charon and back again.  He is said
 	to have invented, among other things, the lyre, Pan's Pipes,
 	numbers, the alphabet, weights and measures, and sacrificing.
 hezrou
 	"Hezrou" is the common name for the type II demon.  It is
 	among the weaker of demons, but still quite formidable.
 hippocrates
 	Greek physician, recognized as the father of medicine.  He
 	is believed to have been born on the island of Cos, to have
 	studied under his father, a physician, to have traveled for
 	some time, perhaps studying in Athens, and to have then
 	returned to practice, teach, and write at Cos.  The
 	Hippocratic or Coan school that formed around him was of
 	enormous importance in separating medicine from superstition
 	and philosophic speculation, placing it on a strictly
 	scientific plane based on objective observation and critical
 	deductive reasoning.
 		[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
 hobbit
 	Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more
 	numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace
 	and quiet and good tilled earth:  a well-ordered and well-
 	farmed countryside was their favourite haunt.  They do not
 	and did not understand or like machines more complicated
 	than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a handloom, although
 	they were skillful with tools.  Even in ancient days they
 	were, as a rule, shy of "the Big Folk", as they call us, and
 	now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find.
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 hobgoblin
 	Hobgoblin.  Used by the Puritans and in later times for
 	wicked goblin spirits, as in Bunyan's "Hobgoblin nor foul
 	friend", but its more correct use is for the friendly spirits
 	of the brownie type.  In "A midsummer night's dream" a
 	fairy says to Shakespeare's Puck:
 		Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
 		You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
 		Are you not he?
 	and obviously Puck would not wish to be called a hobgoblin
 	if that was an ill-omened word.
 	Hobgoblins are on the whole, good-humoured and ready to be
 	helpful, but fond of practical joking, and like most of the
 	fairies rather nasty people to annoy.  Boggarts hover on the
 	verge of hobgoblindom.  Bogles are just over the edge.
 	One Hob mentioned by Henderson, was Hob Headless who haunted
 	the road between Hurworth and Neasham, but could not cross
 	the little river Kent, which flowed into the Tess.  He was
 	exorcised and laid under a large stone by the roadside for
 	ninety-nine years and a day.  If anyone was so unwary as to
 	sit on that stone, he would be unable to quit it for ever.
 	The ninety-nine years is nearly up, so trouble may soon be
 	heard of on the road between Hurworth and Neasham.
 		[ A Dictionary of Fairies, by Katharine Briggs ]
 holy water
 	"We want a word with you," said Ligur (in a tone of voice
 	intended to imply that "word" was synonymous with "horrifically
 	painful eternity"), and the squat demon pushed open the office
 	door.
 	The bucket teetered, then fell neatly on Ligur's head.
 	Drop a lump of sodium in water.  Watch it flame and burn and
 	spin around crazily, flaring and sputtering.  This was like
 	that, just nastier.
 	The demon peeled and flared and flickered.  Oily brown smoke
 	oozed from it, and it screamed and it screamed and it screamed.
 	Then it crumpled, folded in on itself, and what was left lay
 	glistening on the burnt and blackened circle of carpet, looking
 	like a handful of mashed slugs.
 	"Hi," said Crowley to Hastur, who had been walking behind Ligur,
 	and had unfortunately not been so much as splashed.
 	There are some things that are unthinkable; there are some
 	depths that not even demons would believe other demons would
 	stoop to.
 	". . . Holy water.  You bastard," said Hastur.  "You complete
 	_bastard_.  He hadn't never done nothing to _you_."
 	"Yet," corrected Crowley.
 		[ Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett ]
 hom*nculus
 	A homunculus is a creature summoned by a mage to perform some
 	particular task.  They are particularly good at spying.  They
 	are smallish creatures, but very agile.  They can put their
 	victims to sleep with a venomous bite, but due to their size,
 	the effect does not last long on humans.
 
 	"Tothapis cut him off.  'Be still and hearken.  You will travel
 	aboard the sacred wingboat.  Of it you may not have heard; but
 	it will bear you thither in a night and a day and a night.
 	With you will go a homunculus that can relay your words to me,
 	and mine to you, across the leagues between at the speed of
 	thought.'"
 		[ Conan the Rebel, by Poul Anderson ]
 # also gets 'pruning hook' aka guisarme
 *hook
 	But as for Queequeg -- why, Queequeg sat there among them --
 	at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an
 	icicle.  To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding.  His
 	greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his
 	bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it
 	there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to
 	the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the
 	beefsteaks towards him.
 		[ Moby Dick, by Herman Melville ]
 ~unicorn horn
 *horn
 	Roland hath set the Olifant to his mouth,
 	He grasps it well, and with great virtue sounds.
 	High are those peaks, afar it rings and loud,
 	Thirty great leagues they hear its echoes mount.
 	So Charles heard, and all his comrades round;
 	Then said that King: "Battle they do, our counts!"
 	And Guenelun answered, contrarious:
 	"That were a lie, in any other mouth."
 		[ The Song of Roland ]
 horn of plenty
 cornucopia
 	The infant Zeus was fed with goat's milk by Amalthea,
 	daughter of Melisseus, King of Crete.  Zeus, in gratitude,
 	broke off one of the goat's horns, and gave it to Amalthea,
 	promising that the possessor should always have in abundance
 	everything desired.
 		[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
 
 	When Amalthea's horn
 	O'er hill and dale the rose-crowned flora pours,
 	And scatters corn and wine, and fruits and flowers.
 		[ Os Lusiadas, by Luis Vaz de Camoes ]
 horned devil
 	Horned devils lack any real special abilities, though they
 	are quite difficult to kill.
 ~horsem*
 *horse
 	King Richard III: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
 	Catesby: Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.
 	King Richard III: Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
 	                  And I will stand the hazard of the die:
 	                  I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
 	                  Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
 	                  A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
 		[ King Richard III, by William Shakespeare ]
 *horsem*
 rider*
 death
 famine
 pestilence
 war
 hunger
 	[Pestilence:] And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals,
 	and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four
 	beasts saying, Come and see.  And I saw, and behold a white
 	horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given
 	unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
 
 	[War:] And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the
 	second beast say, Come and see.  And there went out another
 	horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon
 	to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one
 	another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
 
 	[Famine:] And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the
 	third beast say, Come and see.  And I beheld, and lo a black
 	horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his
 	hand.  And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say,
 	A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley
 	for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
 
 	[Death:] And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the
 	voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.  And I looked, and
 	behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death,
 	and Hell followed with him.  And power was given unto them over
 	the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with
 	hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
 		[ Revelations of John, 6:1-8 ]
 huan*ti
 	The first of five mythical Chinese emperors, Huan Ti is known
 	as the yellow emperor.  He rules the _moving_ heavens, as
 	opposed to the _dark_ heavens.  He is an inventor, said to
 	have given mankind among other things, the wheel, armour, and
 	the compass.  He is the god of fortune telling and war.
 hu*h*eto*l
 minion of huhetotl
 	Huehuetotl, or Huhetotl, which means Old God, was the Aztec
 	(classical Mesoamerican) god of fire.  He is generally
 	associated with paternalism and one of the group classed
 	as the Xiuhtecuhtli complex.  He is known to send his
 	minions to wreak havoc upon ordinary humans.
 	     [ after the Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
 humanoid
 	Humanoids are all approximately the size of a human, and may
 	be mistaken for one at a distance.  They are usually of a
 	tribal nature, and will fiercely defend their lairs.  Usually
 	hostile, they may even band together to raid and pillage
 	human settlements.
 # takes "human or elf or you" when specifying '@' as a dwarf, gnome, or orc
 human
 chieftain
 guard
 ninja
 nurse
 ronin
 student
 warrior
 *watch*
 human or elf*
 	These strange creatures live mostly on the surface of the
 	earth, gathering together in societies of various forms, but
 	occasionally a stray will descend into the depths and commit
 	mayhem among the dungeon residents who, naturally, often
 	resent the intrusion of such beasts.  They are capable of
 	using weapons and magic, and it is even rumored that the
 	Wizard of Yendor is a member of this species.
 hunter
 	What of the hunting, hunter bold?
 	Brother, the watch was long and cold.
 	What of the quarry ye went to kill?
 	Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
 	Where is the power that made your pride?
 	Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.
 	Where is the haste that ye hurry by?
 	Brother, I go to my lair to die.
 		[ The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling ]
 ice devil
 	Ice devils are large semi-insectoid creatures, who are
 	equally at home in the fires of Hell and the cold of Limbo,
 	and who can cause the traveller to feel the latter with just
 	a touch of their tail.
 idefix
 	Another clever translation [of the _Asterix_ character names]
 	is that of Idefix.  An _idee fixe_ is a "fixed idea", i.e.
 	an obsession, a dogma.  The translation, Dogmatix, manages to
 	conserve the "fixed idea" meaning and also include the syllable
 	dog -- perfect, given that the character is a dog who has very
 	strong views on the environment (he howls whenever he sees an
 	uprooted tree).
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 # takes "imp or minor demon" when specifying 'i'
 imp
 imp or minor demon
 	 ... imps ... little creatures of two feet high that could
 	gambol and jump prodigiously; ...
 		[ The Charwoman's Shadow, by Lord Dunsany ]
 
 	An 'imp' is an off-shoot or cutting.  Thus an 'ymp tree' was
 	a grafted tree, or one grown from a cutting, not from seed.
 	'Imp' properly means a small devil, an off-shoot of Satan,
 	but the distinction between goblins or bogles and imps from
 	hell is hard to make, and many in the Celtic countries as
 	well as the English Puritans regarded all fairies as devils.
 	The fairies of tradition often hover uneasily between the
 	ghostly and the diabolic state.
 		[ A Dictionary of Fairies, by Katharine Briggs ]
 incubus
 succubus
 	The incubus and succubus are male and female versions of the
 	same demon, one who lies with a human for its own purposes,
 	usually to the detriment of the mortals who are unwise in
 	their dealings with them.
 *insect
 *insects
 	A minute invertebrate animal; one of the class _Insecta_.
 	The true insects or hexapods have the body divided into a
 	head, a thorax of 3 segments, each of which bears a pair of
 	legs, and an abdomen of 7 to 11 segments, and in development
 	usually pass through a metamorphosis.  There are usually 2
 	pairs of wings, sometimes one pair or none.
 		[ Webster's Comprehensive International Dictionary
 		  of the English Language ]
 
 	Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to morrow
 	will I bring the locusts into thy coast:
 	And they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot
 	be able to see the earth:  and they shall eat the residue of
 	that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail,
 	and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field:
 	And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy
 	servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians; which neither
 	thy fathers, nor thy fathers' fathers have seen, since the day
 	that they were upon the earth unto this day.  And he turned
 	himself, and went out from Pharaoh.
 		[ Exodus, 10:4-6 ]
 *iron ball
 *iron chain
 	"You are fettered, " said Scrooge, trembling.  "Tell me why?"
 	"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.  "I
 	made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my
 	own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.  Is its
 	pattern strange to you?"
 	Scrooge trembled more and more.
 	"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and
 	length of the strong coil you bear yourself?  It was full as
 	heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.  You
 	have laboured on it, since.  It is a ponderous chain!"
 		[ A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens ]
 iron bars
 	Stone walls do not a prison make,
 	  Nor iron bars a cage;
 	Minds innocent and quiet take
 	  That for an hermitage;
 	If I have freedom in my love,
 	  And in my soul am free,
 	Angels alone that soar above
 	  Enjoy such liberty.
 		[ To Althea from Prison, by Richard Lovelace ]
 ishtar
 	Ishtar (the star of heaven) is the Mesopotamian goddess of
 	fertility and war.  She is usually depicted with wings and
 	weapon cases at her shoulders, carrying a ceremonial double-
 	headed mace-scimitar embellished with lion heads, frequently
 	being accompanied by a lion.  She is symbolized by an eight-
 	pointed star.
 		[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
 issek
 	Now Issek of the Jug, whom Fafhrd chose to serve, was once
 	of the most lowly and unsuccessful of the gods, godlets
 	rather, in Lankhmar.  He had dwelt there for about thirteen
 	years, during which time he had traveled only two squares up
 	the Street of the Gods and was now back again, ready for
 	oblivion.  He is not to be confused with Issek the Armless,
 	Issek of the Burnt Legs, Flayed Issek, or any other of the
 	numerous and colorfully mutilated divinities of that name.
 	Indeed, his unpopularity may have been due in part to the
 	fact that the manner of his death -- racking -- was not
 	deemed particularly spectacular. ... However, after Fafhrd
 	became his acolyte, things somehow began to change.
 		[ Swords In The Mist, by Fritz Leiber ]
 izchak
 	The shopkeeper of the lighting shop in the town level of the
 	gnomish mines is a tribute to Izchak Miller, a founding member
 	of the NetHack development team and a personal friend of a large
 	number of us.  Izchak contributed greatly to the game, coding a
 	large amount of the shopkeep logic (hence the nature of the tribute)
 	as well as a good part of the alignment system, the prayer code and
 	the rewrite of "hell" in the 3.1 release.  Izchak was a professor
 	of Philosophy, who taught at many respected institutions, including
 	MIT and Stanford, and who also worked, for a period of time, at
 	Xerox PARC.  Izchak was the first "librarian" of the NetHack project,
 	and was a founding member of the DevTeam, joining in 1986 while he
 	was working at the University of Pennsylvania (hence our former
 	mailing list address).  Until the 3.1.3 release, Izchak carefully
 	kept all of the code synchronized and arbitrated disputes between
 	members of the development teams.  Izchak Miller passed away at the
 	age of 58, in the early morning hours of April 1, 1994 from
 	complications due to cancer.  We then dedicated NetHack 3.2 in his
 	memory.
 			[ Mike Stephenson, for the NetHack DevTeam ]
 jabberwock
 vorpal*
 	"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
 	  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
 	Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
 	  The frumious Bandersnatch!"
 
 	He took his vorpal sword in hand;
 	  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
 	So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
 	  And stood awhile in thought.
 
 	And, as in uffish thought he stood,
 	  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
 	Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
 	  And burbled as it came!
 
 	One, two! One, two! And through and through
 	  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
 	He left it dead, and with its head
 	  He went galumphing back.
 				[ Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll ]
 jacinth*
 	Sweet in the rough weather
 	  The voice of the turtle-dove
 	'Beautiful altogether
 	  Is my Love.
 	  His Hands are open spread for love
 	And full of jacinth stones
 	  As the apple-tree among trees of the grove
 	Is He among the sons.'
 		[ The Beloved, by May Probyn ]
 jackal
 	In Asiatic folktale, jackal provides for the lion; he scares
 	up game, which the lion kills and eats, and receives what is
 	left as reward.  In stories from northern India he is
 	sometimes termed "minister to the king," i.e. to the lion.
 	From the legend that he does not kill his own food has arisen
 	the legend of his cowardice.  Jackal's heart must never be
 	eaten, for instance, in the belief of peoples indigenous to
 	the regions where the jackal abounds. ... In Hausa Negro
 	folktale Jackal plays the role of sagacious judge and is
 	called "O Learned One of the Forest."  The Bushmen say that
 	Jackal goes around behaving the way he does "because he is
 	Jackal".
 		[ Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore ]
 *jack*boot*
 	A large boot extending over the knee, acting as protective
 	armour for the leg, worn by troopers in the 17th and 18th
 	centuries and later.  It is still the type of boot worn by
 	the Household Cavalry and was adopted by fishermen and others
 	before the advent of gum boots.  Figuratively, _to be under the
 	jack-boot_ is to be controlled by a brutal military regime.
 		[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
 jade*
 	Nothing grew among the ruins of the city.  The streets were
 	broken and the walls of the houses had fallen, but there were
 	no weeds flowering in the cracks and it seemed that the city
 	had but recently been brought down by an earthquake.  Only
 	one thing still stood intact, towering over the ruins.  It
 	was a gigantic statue of white, gray and green jade - the
 	statue of a naked youth with a face of almost feminine beauty
 	that turned sightless eyes toward the north.
 	"The eyes!" Duke Avan Astran said.  "They're gone!"
 		[ The Jade Man's Eyes, by Michael Moorcock ]
 jaguar
 	Large, flesh-eating animal of the cat family, of Central and
 	South America.  This feline predator (_Panthera onca_) is
 	sometimes incorrectly called a panther.
 	    [ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
 jellyfish
 	I do not care to share the seas
 	With jellyfishes such as these;
 	Particularly Portuguese.
 	  [ Lines on Meeting a Portuguese Man-o'-war while Bathing,
 	      by Michael Flanders ]
 juiblex
 jubilex
 	Little is known about the Faceless Lord, even the correct
 	spelling of his name.  He does not have a physical form as
 	we know it, and those who have peered into his realm claim
 	he is a slime-like creature who swallows other creatures
 	alive, spits acidic secretions, and causes disease in his
 	victims which can be almost instantly fatal.
 k?ration
 	The K ration was the [ Quartermaster Subsistence Research
 	and Development Laboratory's ] answer to the demand for an
 	individual, easy-to-carry ration that could be used in
 	assault and combat operations.  It was noted for compactness
 	and superior packaging and was acknowledged as the ration
 	that provided the greatest variety of nutritionally balanced
 	components within the smallest space.
 		[ Special Rations for the Armed Forces, 1946-53,
 		  by Franz A. Koehler ]
 kabuto
 	The kabuto is the helmet worn by the samurai.  It was
 	characterized by a prominent beaked front which jutted out over
 	the brow to protect the wearer's face; a feature that gives
 	rise to their modern Japanese name of 'shokaku tsuki kabuto'
 	(battering-ram helmet).  Their main constructional element
 	was an oval plate, the shokaku bo, slightly domed for the
 	head with a narrow prolongation in front that curved forwards
 	and downwards where it developed a pronounced central
 	fold.  Two horizontal strips encircling the head were riveted
 	to this frontal strip:  the lower one, the koshimaki (hip
 	wrap), formed the lower edge of the helmet bowl; the other,
 	the do maki (body wrap), was set at about the level of the
 	temples.  Filling the gaps between these strips and the shokaku
 	bo were small plates, sometimes triangular but more commonly
 	rectangular in shape.  Because the front projected so
 	far from the head, the triangular gap beneath was filled by
 	a small plate, the shoshaku tei ita, whose rear edge bent
 	downwards into a flange that rested against the forehead.
 	   [ Arms & Armour of the Samurai, by Bottomley & Hopson ]
 katana
 	The katana is a long, single-edged samurai sword with a
 	slightly curved blade.  Its long handle is designed to allow
 	it to be wielded with either one or two hands.
 kelp*
 *frond
 	I noticed that all the plants were attached to the soil by
 	an almost imperceptible bond.  Devoid of roots, they seemed
 	not to require any nourishment from sand, soil, or pebble.
 	All they required was a point of support -- nothing else.
 	These plants are self-propagated, and their existence depends
 	entirely on the water that supports and nourishes them.
 	Most of them do not sprout leaves, but sprout blades of
 	various whimsical shapes, and their colors are limited to
 	pink, carmine, green, olive, fawn, and brown.  I had the
 	opportunity to observe once more -- not the dried specimens
 	I had studied on the _Nautilus_ -- but the fresh, living
 	specimens in their native setting.
 		[ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne ]
 ki-rin
 	The ki-rin is a strange-looking flying creature.  It has
 	scales, a mane like a lion, a tail, hooves, and a horn.  It
 	is brightly colored, and can usually be found flying in the
 	sky looking for good deeds to reward.
 king arthur
 *arthur
 	Ector took both his sons to the church before which the
 	anvil had been placed.  There, standing before the anvil, he
 	commanded Kay:  "Put the sword back into the steel if you
 	really think the throne is yours!"  But the sword glanced
 	off the steel.  "Now it is your turn", Ector said facing
 	Arthur.
 	The young man lifted the sword and thrust with both arms; the
 	blade whizzed through the air with a flash and drilled the
 	metal as if it were mere butter.  Ector and Kay dropped to
 	their knees before Arthur.
 	"Why, father and brother, do you bow before me?", Arthur asked
 	with wonder in his voice.
 	"Because now I know for sure that you are the king, not only
 	by birth but also by law", Ector said.  "You are no son of
 	mine nor are you Kay's brother.  Immediately after your birth,
 	Merlin the Wise brought you to me to be raised safely.  And
 	though it was me that named you Arthur when you were baptized,
 	you are really the son of brave king Uther Pendragon and queen
 	Igraine..."
 	And after these words, the lord rose and went to see the arch-
 	bishop to impart to him what had passed.
 	   [ Van Gouden Tijden Zingen de Harpen, by Vladimir Hulpach,
 		Emanuel Frynta, and Vackav Cibula ]
 knife
 stiletto
 	Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their
 	faces, the globetrotter went on adhering to his adventures.
 
 	-- And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap.
 	Knife in his back.  Knife like that.
 
 	Whilst speaking he produced a dangerous looking clasp knife,
 	quite in keeping with his character, and held it in the
 	striking position.
 
 	-- In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two
 	smugglers.  Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him.
 	Like that.  Prepare to meet your God, says he.  Chuck!  It
 	went into his back up to the butt.
 		[ Ulysses, by James Joyce ]
 knight
 * knight
 	Here lies the noble fearless knight,
 	Whose valour rose to such a height;
 	When Death at last had struck him down,
 	His was the victory and renown.
 	He reck'd the world of little prize,
 	And was a bugbear in men's eyes;
 	But had the fortune in his age
 	To live a fool and die a sage.
 	  [ Don Quixote of La Mancha, by Miquel de Cervantes Saavedra ]
 ~kobold ??m*
 *kobold*
 	The race of kobolds are reputed to be an artificial creation
 	of a master wizard (demi-god?).  They are about 3' tall with
 	a vaguely dog-like face.  They bear a violent dislike of the
 	Elven race, and will go out of their way to cause trouble
 	for Elves at any time.
 *kop*
 	The Kops are a brilliant concept.  To take a gaggle of inept
 	policemen and display them over and over again in a series of
 	riotously funny physical punishments plays equally well to the
 	peanut gallery and the expensive box seats.  People hate cops.
 	Even people who have never had anything to do with cops hate
 	them.  Of course, we count on them to keep order and to protect
 	us when we need protecting, and we love them on television shows
 	in which they have nerves of steel and hearts of gold, but in
 	the abstract, as a nation, collectively we hate them.  They are
 	too much like high school principals.  We're very happy to see
 	their pants fall down, and they look good to us with pie on
 	their faces.  The Keystone Kops turn up--and they get punished
 	for it, as they crash into each other, fall down, and suffer
 	indignity after indignity.  Here is pure movie satisfaction.
 
 	The Kops are very skillfully presented.  The comic originality
 	and timing in one of their chase scenes requires imagination
 	to think up, talent to execute, understanding of the medium,
 	and, of course, raw courage to perform.  The Kops are madmen
 	presented as incompetents, and they're madmen rushing around
 	in modern machines.  What's more, the machines they were operating
 	in their routines were newly invented and not yet experienced
 	by the average moviegoer.  (In the early days of automobiles,
 	it was reported that there were only two cars registered in all
 	of Kansas City, and they ran into each other.  There is both
 	poetry and philosophy in this fact, but most of all, there is
 	humor.  Sennett got the humor.)
 		[ Silent Stars, by Jeanine Basinger ]
 kos
 	"I am not a coward!" he cried.  "I'll dare Thieves' House
 	and fetch you Krovas' head and toss it with blood a-drip at
 	Vlana's feet.  I swear that, witness me, Kos the god of
 	dooms, by the brown bones of Nalgron my father and by his
 	sword Graywand here at my side!"
 	   [ Swords and Deviltry, by Fritz Leiber ]
 koto
 	A Japanese harp.
 kraken
 	Out from the water a long sinuous tentacle had crawled; it
 	was pale-green and luminous and wet.  Its fingered end had
 	hold of Frodo's foot, and was dragging him into the water.
 	Sam on his knees was now slashing at it with a knife.  The
 	arm let go of Frodo, and Sam pulled him away, crying out
 	for help.  Twenty other arms came rippling out.  The dark
 	water boiled, and there was a hideous stench.
 	   [ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 *lady
 offler
 	Blind Io took up the dice-box, which was a skull whose various
 	orifices had been stoppered with rubies, and with several of
 	his eyes on the Lady he rolled three fives.  She smiled.  This
 	was the nature of the Lady's eyes:  they were bright green,
 	lacking iris or pupil, and they glowed from within.
 
 	The room was silent as she scrabbled in her box of pieces and,
 	from the very bottom, produced a couple that she set down on
 	the board with two decisive clicks.  The rest of the players,
 	as one God, craned forward to peer at them.
 
 	"A wenegade wiffard and fome fort of clerk," said Offler the
 	Crocodile God, hindered as usual by his tusks.  "Well,
 	weally!"  With one claw he pushed a pile of bone-white tokens
 	into the centre of the table.
 
 	The Lady nodded slightly.  She picked up the dice-cup and held
 	it as steady as a rock, yet all the Gods could hear the three
 	cubes rattling about inside.  And then she sent them bouncing
 	across the table.
 
 	A six.  A three.  A five.
 
 	Something was happening to the five, however.  Battered by the
 	chance collision of several billion molecules, the die flipped
 	onto a point, spun gently and came down a seven.  Blind Io
 	picked up the cube and counted the sides.
 
 	"Come _on_," he said wearily, "Play fair."
 		[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 *lamp
 	When he came to himself he told his mother what had passed,
 	and showed her the lamp and the fruits he had gathered in the
 	garden, which were in reality precious stones.  He then asked
 	for some food.
 
 	"Alas! child," she said, "I have nothing in the house, but I
 	have spun a little cotton and will go and sell it."
 
 	Aladdin bade her keep her cotton, for he would sell the lamp
 	instead.  As it was very dirty she began to rub it, that it
 	might fetch a higher price.  Instantly a hideous genie
 	appeared, and asked what she would have.  She fainted away,
 	but Aladdin, snatching the lamp, said boldly:
 	"Fetch me something to eat!"
 		[ Aladdin, from The Arabian Nights, by Andrew Lang ]
 lance
 	With this the wind increased, and the mill sails began to turn
 	about; which Don Quixote espying, said, 'Although thou movest
 	more arms than the giant Briareus thou shalt stoop to me.'
 	And, after saying this, and commending himself most devoutly
 	to his Lady Dulcinea, desiring her to succor him in that trance,
 	covering himself well with his buckler, and setting his lance
 	on his rest, he spurred on Rozinante, and encountered with the
 	first mill that was before him, and, striking his lance into
 	the sail, the wind swung it about with such fury, that it broke
 	his lance into shivers, carrying him and his horse after it,
 	and finally tumbled him a good way off from it on the field in
 	evil plight.
 	  [ Don Quixote of La Mancha, by Miquel de Cervantes Saavedra ]
 land mine
 	Your heart is intact, your brain is not badly damaged, but the rest
 	of your injuries are comparable to stepping on a land mine.  You'd
 	never walk again, and you'd be in great pain.  You would come to
 	wish you had not survived.
 		[ Steel Beach, by John Varley ]
 *lantern
 	While pretending to be a fancy safety lamp, it is in fact
 	battery powered.  A discreet little switch is marked "on/off"
 	in elaborate lettering.
 		[ Adventure 770, by Mike Arnautov ]
 lava
 * lava
 	You are on the edge of a breath-taking view.  Far below you
 	is an active volcano, from which great gouts of molten lava
 	come surging out, cascading back down into the depths.  The
 	glowing rock fills the farthest reaches of the cavern with a
 	blood-red glare, giving everything an eerie, macabre appearance.
 	The air is filled with flickering sparks of ash and a heavy
 	smell of brimstone.  The walls are hot to the touch, and the
 	thundering of the volcano drowns out all other sounds.
 	Embedded in the jagged roof far overhead are myriad twisted
 	formations composed of pure white alabaster, which scatter the
 	murky light into sinister apparitions upon the walls.  To one
 	side is a deep gorge, filled with a bizarre chaos of tortured
 	rock which seems to have been crafted by the devil himself.
 	An immense river of fire crashes out from the depths of the
 	volcano, burns its way through the gorge, and plummets into a
 	bottomless pit far off to your left.  To the right, an immense
 	geyser of blistering steam erupts continuously from a barren
 	island in the center of a sulfurous lake, which bubbles
 	ominously.  The far right wall is aflame with an incandescence
 	of its own, which lends an additional infernal splendor to the
 	already hellish scene.  A dark, forboding passage exits to the
 	south.
 		[ Adventure, by Will Crowther and Don Woods. ]
 leash
 	They had splendid heads, fine shoulders, strong legs, and
 	straight tails.  The spots on their bodies were jet-black and
 	mostly the size of a two-shilling piece; they had smaller
 	spots on their heads, legs, and tails.  Their noses and eye-
 	rims were black.  Missis had a most winning expression.
 	Pongo, though a dog born to command, had a twinkle in his
 	eye.  They walked side by side with great dignity, only
 	putting the Dearlys on the leash to lead them over crossings.
 		[ The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith ]
 lembas*
 	In the morning, as they were beginning to pack their slender
 	goods, Elves that could speak their tongue came to them and
 	brought them many gifts of food and clothing for their
 	journey.  The food was mostly in the form of very thin cakes,
 	made of a meal that was baked a light brown on the outside,
 	and inside was the colour of cream.  Gimli took up one of the
 	cakes and looked at it with a doubtful eye.
 	'Cram,' he said under his breath, as he broke off a crisp
 	corner and nibbled at it.  His expression quickly changed,
 	and he ate all the rest of the cake with relish.
 	'No more, no more!' cried the Elves laughing.  'You have
 	eaten enough already for a long day's march.'
 	'I thought it was only a kind of cram, such as the Dalemen
 	make for journeys in the wild,' said the Dwarf.
 	'So it is,' they answered.  'But we call it lembas or
 	waybread, and it is more strengthening than any foods made by
 	Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.'
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 lemure
 larvae
 	The Larvae (Lemures) are Roman spirits of deceased family
 	members.  These malignant spirits dwell throughout the house
 	and frighten the inhabitants.  People tried to reconcile or
 	avert the Larvae with strange ceremonies which took place on
 	May 9, 11, and 13; this was called the "Feast of the Lemures".
 	The master of the house usually performed these ceremonies,
 	either by offering black beans to the spirits or chasing them
 	away by making a lot of noise.  Their counterparts are the
 	Lares, friendly and beneficent house spirits.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 leocrotta
 leu*otta
 	... the leucrocotta, a wild beast of extraordinary swiftness,
 	the size of the wild ass, with the legs of a Stag, the neck,
 	tail, and breast of a lion, the head of a badger, a cloven
 	hoof, the mouth slit up as far as the ears, and one continuous
 	bone instead of teeth; it is said, too, that this animal can
 	imitate the human voice.
 		[ Curious Creatures in Zoology, by John Ashton ]
 leprechaun
 	The Irish Leprechaun is the Faeries' shoemaker and is known
 	under various names in different parts of Ireland:
 	Cluricaune in Cork, Lurican in Kerry, Lurikeen in Kildare
 	and Lurigadaun in Tipperary.  Although he works for the
 	Faeries, the Leprechaun is not of the same species.  He is
 	small, has dark skin and wears strange clothes.  His nature
 	has something of the manic-depressive about it:  first he
 	is quite happy, whistling merrily as he nails a sole on to a
 	shoe; a few minutes later, he is sullen and morose, drunk
 	on his home-made heather ale.  The Leprechaun's two great
 	loves are tobacco and whiskey, and he is a first-rate con-man,
 	impossible to out-fox.  No one, no matter how clever, has ever
 	managed to cheat him out of his hidden pot of gold or his
 	magic shilling.  At the last minute he always thinks of some
 	way to divert his captor's attention and vanishes in the
 	twinkling of an eye.
 		[ A Field Guide to the Little People
 		    by Nancy Arrowsmith & George Moorse ]
 *lich
 	But on its heels ere the sunset faded, there came a second
 	apparition, striding with incredible strides and halting when
 	it loomed almost upon me in the red twilight-the monstrous mummy
 	of some ancient king still crowned with untarnished gold but
 	turning to my gaze a visage that more than time or the worm had
 	wasted. Broken swathings flapped about the skeleton legs, and
 	above the crown that was set with sapphires and orange rubies, a
 	black something swayed and nodded horribly; but, for an instant,
 	I did not dream what it was.  Then, in its middle, two oblique
 	and scarlet eyes opened and glowed like hellish coals, and two
 	ophidian fangs glittered in an ape-like mouth.  A squat, furless,
 	shapeless head on a neck of disproportionate extent leaned
 	unspeakably down and whispered in the mummy's ear. Then, with
 	one stride, the titanic lich took half the distance between us,
 	and from out the folds of the tattered sere-cloth a gaunt arm
 	arose, and fleshless, taloned fingers laden with glowering gems,
 	reached out and fumbled for my throat . . .
 		[ The Abominations of Yondo, by Clark Ashton Smith ]
 lichen
 	The chamber was of unhewn rock, round, as near as might
 	be, eighteen or twenty feet across, and gay with rich
 	variety of fern and moss and lichen.  The fern was in
 	its winter still, or coiling for the spring-tide; but
 	moss was in abundant life, some feathering, and some
 	gobleted, and some with fringe of red to it.
 		[ Lorna Doone, by R.D. Blackmore ]
 # takes "light" when specifying 'y'
 ~* of light
 * light
 light
 	Strange creatures formed from energy rather than matter,
 	lights are given to self-destructive behavior when battling
 	foes.
 gecko
 iguana
 lizard
 	Lizards, snakes and the burrowing amphisbaenids make up the
 	order Squamata, meaning the scaly ones.  The elongate, slim,
 	long-tailed bodies of lizards have become modified to enable
 	them to live in a wide range of habitats.  Lizards can be
 	expert burrowers, runners, swimmers and climbers, and a few
 	can manage crude, short-distance gliding on rib-supported
 	"wings".  Most are carnivores, feeding on invertebrate and
 	small vertebrate prey, but others feed on vegetation.
 		[ Macmillan Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia ]
 loki
 	Loki, or Lopt, is described in Snorri's _Edda_ as being
 	"pleasing and handsome in appearance, evil in character, and
 	very capricious in behaviour".  He is the son of the giant
 	Farbauti and of Laufey.
 	Loki is the Norse god of cunning, evil, thieves, and fire.
 	He hated the other gods and wanted to ruin them and overthrow
 	the universe.  He committed many murders.  As a thief, he
 	stole Freyja's necklace, Thor's belt and gauntlets of power,
 	and the apples of youth.  Able to shapechange at will, he is
 	said to have impersonated at various times a mare, flea, fly,
 	falcon, seal, and an old crone.  As a mare he gave birth to
 	Odin's horse Sleipnir.  He also allegedly sired the serpent
 	Midgard, the mistress of the netherworld, Hel, and the wolf
 	Fenrir, who will devour the sun at Ragnarok.
 *longbow of diana
 	This legendary bow grants ESP when carried and can reflect magical
 	attacks when wielded.  When invoked it provides a supply of arrows.
 # long worm -- see "worm"
 looking glass
 mirror
 	But as Snow White grew, she became more and more beautiful,
 	and by the time she was seven years old she was as beautiful
 	as the day and more beautiful than the queen herself.  One
 	day when the queen said to her mirror:
 
 		"Mirror, Mirror, here I stand.
 		Who is the fairest in the land?" -
 
 	the mirror replied:
 
 		"You, O Queen, are the fairest here,
 		But Snow White is a thousand times more fair."
 		[ Snow White, by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm ]
 lord carnarvon
 	Lord Carnarvon was a personality who could have been produced
 	nowhere but in England, a mixture of sportsman and collector,
 	gentleman and world traveler, a realist in action and a
 	romantic in feeling.  ...  In 1903 he went for the first time
 	to Egypt in search of a mild climate and while there visited
 	the excavation sites of several archaeological expeditions.
 	...  In 1906 he began his own excavations.
 		[ Gods, Graves, and Scholars, by C. W. Ceram ]
 lord sato
 	Lord Sato was the family head of the Taro Clan, and a mighty
 	daimyo.  He is a loyal servant of the Emperor, and will do
 	everything in his power to further the imperial cause.
 lord surt*
 	Yet first was the world in the southern region, which was
 	named Muspell; it is light and hot; that region is glowing
 	and burning, and impassable to such as are outlanders and
 	have not their holdings there.  He who sits there at the
 	land's-end, to defend the land, is called Surtr; he brandishes
 	a flaming sword, and at the end of the world he shall go forth
 	and harry, and overcome all the gods, and burn all the
 	world with fire.
 			[ The Prose Edda, by Snorri Sturluson ]
 # if a quote for good luck gets added, make this one exclusively bad luck
 luck
 bad luck
 	"[...]  We'll succeed and you'll get all the fortune you came
 	seeking."
 	Jack shook his head dismally.  "You'll be better off without
 	me," he said.  "I'm nothing but bad luck.  It's because I'm
 	cursed.  A farmer I met on the way to the city cursed me.  He
 	said, 'I curse you Jack.  May you never know wealth.  May all
 	that you wish for be denied you.'"
 	"What a horrid man," said Eddie.  "Why did he curse you like
 	that?"
 	Jack shrugged [...].  "Bad grace, I suppose.  Just because I
 	shot off his ear and made him jump into a pit full of spikes."
 		[ the hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse,
 		    by Robert Rankin ]
 #		[no relation... both cover and title page list this
 #		 book's title in all lower case; however, its sequel,
 #		 "the toyminator", refers to it using conventional
 #		 capitalization in a couple of early footnotes]
 lug*
 	Lugh, or Lug, was the sun god of the Irish Celts.  One of his
 	weapons was a rod-sling which worshippers sometimes saw in
 	the sky as a rainbow.  As a tribal god, he was particularly
 	skilled in the use of his massive, invincible spear, which
 	fought on its own accord.  One of his epithets is _lamfhada_
 	(of the long arm).  He was a young and apparently more
 	attractive deity than Dagda, the father of the gods.  Being
 	able to shapeshift, his name translates as lynx.
 lurker*
 	These dungeon scavengers are very adept at blending into the
 	surrounding walls and ceilings of the dungeon due to the
 	stone-like coloring of their skin.
 lycanthrope
 were*
 human were*
 *were
 	In 1573, the Parliament of Dole published a decree, permitting
 	the inhabitants of the Franche-Comte to pursue and kill a
 	were-wolf or loup-garou, which infested that province,
 	"notwithstanding the existing laws concerning the chase."
 	The people were empowered to "assemble with javelins,
 	halberds, pikes, arquebuses and clubs, to hunt and pursue the
 	said were-wolf in all places where they could find it, and to
 	take, burn, and kill it, without incurring any fine or other
 	penalty."  The hunt seems to have been successful, if we may
 	judge from the fact that the same tribunal in the following
 	year condemned to be burned a man named Giles Garnier, who
 	ran on all fours in the forest and fields and devoured little
 	children, "even on Friday."  The poor lycanthrope, it appears,
 	had as slight respect for ecclesiastical feasts as the French
 	pig, which was not restrained by any feeling of piety from
 	eating infants on a fast day.
 		[ The History of Vampires, by Dudley Wright ]
 lynx
 	To dream of seeing a lynx, enemies are undermining your
 	business and disrupting your home affairs.  For a woman,
 	this dream indicates that she has a wary woman rivaling her
 	in the affections of her lover. If she kills the lynx, she
 	will overcome her rival.
 		[ 10,000 Dreams Interpreted, by Gustavus Hindman Miller ]
 ~*sceptre of might
 mace
 sceptre
 	Originally a club armed with iron, and used in war; now a staff
 	of office pertaining to certain dignitaries, as the Speaker of
 	the House of Commons, Lord Mayors, Mayors etc.  Both sword and
 	mace are symbols of dignity, suited to the times when men went
 	about in armour, and sovereigns needed champions to vindicate
 	their rights.
 		[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
 magic marker
 	The pen is mightier than the sword.
 		[ Richelieu, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
 magic mirror of merlin
 	  [...] In Dehenbarth (that now South Wales is hight,
 	  What time King Ryence reigned, and dealed right)
 	  The great magician Merlin had devised,
 	  By his deep science, and hell-dreaded might,
 	  A looking-glass, right wondrously aguised,
 	Whose virtues through the wide world soon were solemnized.
 
 	It virtue had to show in perfect sight
 	  Whatever thing was in the world contained,
 	  Betwixt the lowest earth and heaven's height,
 	  So that it to the looker appertained;
 	  Whatever foe had wrought, or friend had fained,
 	  Therein discovered was, nor aught might pass,
 	  Nor aught in secret from the same remained;
 # we'll leave out the part about it being a crystal ball...
 #	  For-thy it round and hollow shaped was,
 #	Like the world itself, and seemed a world of glass.
 		[ The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spencer ]
 magicbane
 	A highly enchanted athame said to hold the power to channel
 	and direct magical energy.
 mail d*emon
 	It is rumoured that these strange creatures can be harmed by
 	domesticated canines only.
 ma*annan*
 	Normally called Manannan, Ler's son was the patron of
 	merchants and sailors.  Manannan had a sword which never
 	failed to slay, a boat which propelled itself wherever its
 	owner wished, a horse which was swifter than the wind, and
 	magic armour which no sword could pierce.  He later became
 	god of the sea, beneath which he lived in Tir na nOc, the
 	underworld.
 manes
 	Manes or Di Manes ("good ones") is the euphemistic description
 	of the souls of the deceased, worshipped as divinities.  The
 	formula D.M. (= Dis Manibus; "dedicated to the Manes-gods")
 	can often be found on tombstones.  Manes also means
 	metaphorically 'underworld' or 'realm of death'.  Festivals
 	in honor of the dead were the Parentalia and the Feralia,
 	celebrated in February.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 
 	The gnats of the dungeon, these swarming monsters are rarely
 	seen alone.
 marduk
 	First insisting on recognition as supreme commander, Marduk
 	defeated the Dragon, cut her body in two, and from it created
 	heaven and earth, peopling the world with human beings who not
 	unnaturally showed intense gratitude for their lives.  The
 	gods were also properly grateful, invested him with many
 	titles, and eventually permitted themselves to be embodied in
 	him, so that he became supreme god, plotting the whole course
 	of known life from the paths of the planets to the daily
 	events in the lives of men.
 		[ The Immortals, by Derek and Julia Parker ]
 marilith
 	The marilith has a torso shaped like that of a human female,
 	and the lower body of a great snake.  It has multiple arms,
 	and can freely attack with all of them.  Since it is
 	intelligent enough to use weapons, this means it can cause
 	great damage.
 mars
 	The god of war, and one of the most prominent and worshipped
 	gods.  In early Roman history he was a god of spring, growth in
 	nature, and fertility, and the protector of cattle.  Mars is
 	also mentioned as a chthonic god (earth-god) and this could
 	explain why he became a god of death and finally a god of war.
 	He is the son of Jupiter and Juno.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 martial arts
 unarmed combat
 bare*handed combat
 	"What else can we do? None of this is fast enough." "It will have
 	to be." He stood up, a tall, broad wall of a man.  "Why don't you
 	ask around, see if anyone in the neighborhoods knows anything
 	about martial arts.  You need more than a book or two to learn
 	good dependable unarmed combat."
 		[ Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler ]
 master assassin
 	He strolled down the stairs, followed by a number of assassins.
 	When he was directly in front of Ymor he said: "I've come for
 	the tourist." ...
 	"One step more and you'll leave here with fewer eyeballs than
 	you came with," said the thiefmaster.  "So sit down and have
 	a drink, Zlorf, and let's talk about this sensibly.  _I_
 	thought we had an agreement.  You don't rob -- I don't kill.
 	Not for payment, that is," he added after a pause.
 	Zlorf took the proffered beer.
 	"So?" he said.  "I'll kill him.  Then you rob him.  Is he that
 	funny looking one over there?"
 	"Yes."
 	Zlorf stared at Twoflower, who grinned at him.  He shrugged.
 	He seldom wasted time wondering why people wanted other people
 	dead.  It was just a living.
 	"Who is your client, may I ask?" said Ymor.
 	Zlorf held up a hand.  "Please!" he protested.  "Professional
 	etiquette."
 		[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 master key of thievery
 	This skeleton key was fashioned in ages past and imbued with
 	a powerful magic which allows it to open any lock.  When
 	carried, it grants its owner warning, teleport control, and
 	reduces all physical damage by half.  Finally, when invoked,
 	it has the ability to disarm any trapped lock.
 master of thieves
 	There was a flutter of wings at the window.  Ymor shifted his
 	bulk out of the chair and crossed the room, coming back with
 	a large raven.  After he'd unfastened the message capsule from
 	its leg it flew up to join its fellows lurking among the
 	rafters.  Withel regarded it without love.  Ymor's ravens were
 	notoriously loyal to their master, to the extent that Withel's
 	one attempt to promote himself to the rank of greatest thief
 	in Ankh-Morpork had cost their master's right hand man his
 	left eye.  But not his life, however.  Ymor never grudged a
 	man his ambitions.
 		[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 mastodon
 	Any large, elephantlike mammal of the genera Mammut, Mastodon,
 	etc., from the Oligocene and Pleistocene epochs, having
 	conical projections on the molar teeth.
 		[ Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary
 			of the English Language ]
 *mattock
 	A mattock is an agricultural tool similar to a mining pick.
 	It is distinguished by the head terminating in a broader blade
 	rather than a narrow spike, which makes it particularly suitable
 	for breaking up moderately hard ground. ... During the Middle
 	Ages of Europe, the mattock served as an improvised shafted
 	weapon for the poorer classes.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 meat*
 huge chunk of meat
 	Some hae meat and canna eat,
 	And some would eat that want it;
 	But we hae meat, and we can eat,
 	Sae let the Lord be thankit.
 		[ Grace Before Meat, by Robert Burns ]
 medusa
 perseus
 	Medusa, one of the three Gorgons or Graeae, is the only one
 	of her sisters to have assumed mortal form and inhabited the
 	dungeon world.
 
 	When Perseus was grown up Polydectes sent him to attempt the
 	conquest of Medusa, a terrible monster who had laid waste the
 	country.  She was once a beautiful maiden whose hair was her
 	chief glory, but as she dared to vie in beauty with Minerva,
 	the goddess deprived her of her charms and changed her
 	beautiful ringlets into hissing serpents.  She became a cruel
 	monster of so frightful an aspect that no living thing could
 	behold her without being turned into stone.  All around the
 	cavern where she dwelt might be seen the stony figures of men
 	and animals which had chanced to catch a glimpse of her and
 	had been petrified with the sight.  Perseus, favoured by
 	Minerva and Mercury, the former of whom lent him her shield
 	and the latter his winged shoes, approached Medusa while she
 	slept and taking care not to look directly at her, but guided
 	by her image reflected in the bright shield which he bore, he
 	cut off her head and gave it to Minerva, who fixed it in the
 	middle of her Aegis.
 		[ Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch ]
 melon
 	"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.
 	"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the
 	green thing.
 	Then I saw what he had got.  It was a melon.  We had hit upon
 	a patch of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
 	"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another
 	second he had his false teeth fixed in one.
 	I think we ate about six each before we had done, and, poor
 	fruit as they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
 		[ King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard ]
 mercury
 	Roman god of commerce, trade and travellers.  He is commonly
 	depicted carrying a caduceus (a staff with two snakes
 	intertwining around it) and a purse.
 *mimic
 	The ancestors of the modern day chameleon, these creatures can
 	assume the form of anything in their surroundings.  They may
 	assume the shape of objects or dungeon features.  Unlike the
 	chameleon though, which assumes the shape of another creature
 	and goes in hunt of food, the mimic waits patiently for its
 	meals to come in search of it.
 *mind flayer
 	This creature has a humanoid body, tentacles around its
 	covered mouth, and three long fingers on each hand.  Mind
 	flayers are telepathic, and love to devour intelligent beings,
 	especially humans.  If they hit their victim with a tentacle,
 	the mind flayer will slowly drain it of all intelligence,
 	eventually killing its victim.
 mine*
 gnomish mines
 	Made by Dwarfs.  The Rule here is that the Mine is either long
 	deserted or at most is inhabited by a few survivors who will
 	make confused claims to have been driven out/decimated by humans/
 	other Dwarfs/Minions of the Dark Lord.  Inhabited or not, this
 	Mine will be very complex, with many levels of galleries,
 	beautifully carved and engineered.  What was being mined here
 	is not always evident, but at least some of the time it will
 	appear to have been Jewels, since it is customary to find
 	unwanted emeralds, etc., still embedded in the rock of the
 	walls.  Metal will also be present, but only when made up into
 	armor and weapons (_wondrous_).
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 minotaur
 	The Minotaur was a monster, half bull, half human, the
 	offspring of Minos' wife Pasiphae and a wonderfully beautiful
 	bull. ...  When the Minotaur was born Minos did not kill him.
 	He had Daedalus, a great architect and inventor, construct a
 	place of confinement for him from which escape was impossible.
 	Daedalus built the Labyrinth, famous throughout the world.
 	Once inside, one would go endlessly along its twisting paths
 	without ever finding the exit.
 		[ Mythology, by Edith Hamilton ]
 mit*ra*
 	Originating in India (Mitra), Mithra is a god of light who
 	was translated into the attendant of the god Ahura Mazda in
 	the light religion of Persia; from this he was adopted as
 	the Roman deity Mithras.  He is not generally regarded as a
 	sky god but a personification of the fertilizing power of
 	warm, light air.  According to the _Avesta_, he possesses
 	10,000 eyes and ears and rides in a chariot drawn by white
 	horses.  Mithra, according to Zarathustra, is concerned with
 	the endless battle between light and dark forces:  he
 	represents truth.  He is responsible for the keeping of oaths
 	and contracts.  He is attributed with the creation of both
 	plants and animals.  His chief adversary is Ahriman, the
 	power of darkness.
 	    [ The Encyclopaedia of Myths and Legends of All Nations,
 		by Herbert Spencer Robinson and Knox Wilson ]
 *mithril*
 	_Mithril_!  All folk desired it.  It could be beaten like
 	copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make
 	of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel.
 	Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty
 	of _mithril_ did not tarnish or grow dim.
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 *mitre of holiness
 	This helm of brilliance performs all of the normal functions
 	of a helm of brilliance, but also has the ability to protect
 	anyone who carries it from fire.  When invoked, it boosts
 	the energy of the invoker, allowing them to cast more spells.
 mjollnir
 	Forged by the dwarves Eitri and Brokk, in response to Loki's
 	challenge, Mjollnir is an indestructible war hammer.  It has
 	two magical properties:  when thrown it always returned to
 	Thor's hand; and it could be made to shrink in size until it
 	could fit inside Thor's shirt.  Its only flaw is that it has
 	a short handle.  The other gods judged Mjollnir the winner of
 	the contest because, of all the treasures created, it alone had
 	the power to protect them from the giants.  As the legends
 	surrounding Mjollnir grew, it began to take on the quality of
 	"vigja", or consecration.  Thor used it to consecrate births,
 	weddings, and even to raise his goats from the dead.  In the
 	Norse mythologies Mjollnir is considered to represent Thor's
 	governance over the entire cycle of life - fertility, birth,
 	destruction, and resurrection.
 mog
 	Mog is known as the Spider God.  Mog resembles a four-limbed
 	spider with a handsome, if not entirely human, face.
 ~slime mold
 *mold
 	Mold, multicellular organism of the division Fungi, typified
 	by plant bodies composed of a network of cottony filaments.
 	The colors of molds are due to spores borne on the filaments.
 	Most molds are saprophytes.  Some species (e.g., penicillium)
 	are used in making cheese and antibiotics.
 		[ The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia ]
 mol?ch
 	And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
 	Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever
 	he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that
 	sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech;
 	he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall
 	stone him with stones.
 	And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off
 	from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto
 	Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.
 	And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes
 	from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill
 	him not:
 	Then I will set my face against that man, and against his
 	family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after
 	him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.
 		[ Leviticus 20:1-5 ]
 monk
 * monk
 grand master
 master kaen
 	One day, an army general invited the Buddhist monk I-Hsiu
 	(literally, "One Rest") to his military head office for a
 	dinner.  I-Hsiu was not accustomed to wearing luxurious
 	clothings and so he just put on an old ordinary casual
 	robe to go to the military base.  To him, "form is void".
 
 	As he approached the base, two soldiers appeared before him
 	and shouted, "Where does this beggar came from?  Identify
 	yourself!  You do not have permission to be around here!"
 
 	"My name is I-Hsiu Dharma Master.  I am invited by your
 	general for a supper."
 
 	The two soldiers examined the monk closely and said, "You
 	liar.  How come my general invites such a shabby monk to
 	dinner?  He invites the very solemn venerable I-Hsiu to our
 	base for a great ceremony today, not you.  Now, get out!"
 
 	I-Hsiu was unable to convince the soldiers that he was
 	indeed the invited guest, so he returned to the temple
 	and changed to a very formal solemn ceremonial robe for
 	the dinner.  And as he returned to the military base, the
 	soldiers observed that he was such a great Buddhist monk,
 	let him in with honour.
 
 	At the dinner, I-Hsiu sat in front of the table full of
 	food but, instead of putting the food into his mouth, he
 	picked up the food with his chopsticks and put it into
 	his sleeves.  The general was curious, and whispered to
 	him, "This is very embarrassing.  Do you want to take
 	some food back to the temple?  I will order the cook to
 	prepare some take out orders for you."  "No" replied the
 	monk.  "When I came here, I was not allowed into the
 	base by your soldiers until I wear this ceremonial robe.
 	You do not invite me for a dinner.  You invite my robe.
 	Therefore, my robe is eating the food, not me."
 		[ Dining with a General - a Zen Buddhism Koan,
 		  translation by Yiu-man Chan ]
 monkey
 	"Listen, man-cub," said the Bear, and his voice rumbled like
 	thunder on a hot night.  "I have taught thee all the Law of
 	the Jungle for all the peoples of the jungle--except the
 	Monkey-Folk who live in the trees.  They have no law.  They
 	are outcasts.  They have no speech of their own, but use the
 	stolen words which they overhear when they listen, and peep,
 	and wait up above in the branches.  Their way is not our way.
 	They are without leaders.  They have no remembrance.  They
 	boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people
 	about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of
 	a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten.
 	We of the jungle have no dealings with them.  We do not drink
 	where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go;
 	we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die...."
 		[ The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling ]
 morning star
 	The morning star was a medieval weapon resembling a mace, but
 	with a large spike on the end and smaller spikes around the
 	circumference.  It was also known as the goedendag (from the
 	Dutch word for "good day") and the holy water sprinkler (from
 	its resemblance to the aspergillum sometimes used in the
 	Catholic Mass).  It was used by both cavalry and infantry;
 	the horseman's weapon typically had a shorter haft than the
 	footman's, which might be up to six feet long.  It came into
 	use in the beginning of the 14th century.
 	The name "morning star" is often erroneously applied to the
 	military flail (also known as the therscol), a similar weapon,
 	but with the head attached by a short chain.
 		[ Dictionary of Medieval Knighthood and Chivalry,
 		  by Bradford Broughton ]
 mumak*
 	... the Mumak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and
 	the like of him does not walk now in Middle-Earth; his kin
 	that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth
 	and majesty.  On he came, ... his great legs like trees,
 	enormous sail-like ears spread out, long snout upraised like
 	a huge serpent about to strike, his small red eyes raging.
 	His upturned hornlike tusks ... dripped with blood.
 		[ The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 *mummy
 	But for an account of the manner in which the body was
 	bandaged, and a list of the unguents and other materials
 	employed in the process, and the words of power which were
 	spoken as each bandage was laid in its place, we must have
 	recourse to a very interesting papyrus which has been edited
 	and translated by M. Maspero under the title of Le Rituel de
 	l'Embaumement. ...
 	Everything that could be done to preserve the body was now
 	done, and every member of it was, by means of the words of
 	power which changed perishable substances into imperishable,
 	protected to all eternity; when the final covering of purple
 	or white linen had been fastened upon it, the body was ready
 	for the tomb.
 		[ Egyptian Magic, by E.A. Wallis Budge ]
 mummy wrapping
 	He held a white cloth -- it was a serviette he had brought
 	with him -- over the lower part of his face, so that his
 	mouth and jaws were completely hidden, and that was the
 	reason for his muffled voice.  But it was not that which
 	startled Mrs. Hall.  It was the fact that all his forehead
 	above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and
 	that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of his
 	face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose.  It was
 	bright, pink, and shiny just as it had been at first.  He
 	wore a dark-brown velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-
 	lined collar turned up about his neck.  The thick black
 	hair, escaping as it could below and between the cross
 	bandages, project in curious tails and horns, giving him
 	the strangest appearance conceivable.
 		[ The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells ]
 *naga*
 *naja*
 	The naga is a mystical creature with the body of a snake and
 	the head of a man or woman.  They will fiercely protect the
 	territory they consider their own.  Some nagas can be forced
 	to serve as guardians by a spellcaster of great power.
 naginata
 	A Japanese pole-arm, fitted with a curved single-edged blade.
 	The blades ranged in length from two to four feet, mounted on
 	shafts about four to five feet long.  The naginata were cut
 	with a series of short grooves near to the tang, above which
 	the back edge was thinned, but not sharpened, so that the
 	greater part of the blade was a flattened diamond shape in
 	section.  Seen in profile, the curve is slight or non-
 	existent near the tang, becoming more pronounced towards the
 	point.
 	    []
 
 	"With his naginata he killed five, but with the sixth it
 	snapped asunder in the midst and, flinging it away, he drew
 	his sword, wielding it in the zigzag style, the interlacing,
 	cross, reversed dragonfly, waterwheel, and eight-sides-at-
 	once styles of fencing and cutting down eight men; but as he
 	brought down the ninth with a mighty blow on the helmet, the
 	blade snapped at the hilt."
 	    [ Story of Tsutsui no Jomio Meishu from Tales of Heike ]
 nalfeshnee
 	Not only do these demons do physical damage with their claws
 	and bite, but they are capable of using magic as well.
 nalzok
 	Nalzok is Moloch's cunning and unfailingly loyal battle
 	lieutenant, to whom he trusts the command of warfare when he
 	does not wish to exercise it himself.  Nalzok is a major
 	demon, known to command the undead.  He is hungry for power,
 	and secretly covets Moloch's position.  Moloch doesn't trust
 	him, but, trusting his own power enough, chooses to allow
 	Nalzok his position because he is useful.
 neanderthal*
 	1.  Valley between Duesseldorf and Elberfeld in Germany,
 	where an ancient skull of a prehistoric ancestor to modern
 	man was found.  2.  Human(oid) of the race mentioned above.
 neferet
 neferet the green
 	Neferet the Green holds office in her hidden tower, only
 	reachable by magical means, where she teaches her apprentices
 	the enigmatic skills of occultism.  Despite her many years, she
 	continues to investigate new spells, especially those involving
 	translocation.  It is further rumored that when she was an
 	apprentice herself, she accidentally turned her skin green, and
 	has kept it that way ever since.
 newt
 	(kinds of) small animal, like a lizard, which spends most of
 	its time in the water.
 		[ Oxford's Student's Dictionary of Current English ]
 
 	"Fillet of a fenny snake,
 	In the cauldron boil and bake;
 	Eye of newt and toe of frog,
 	Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
 	Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
 	Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
 	For a charm of powerful trouble,
 	Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
 		[ Macbeth, by William Shakespeare ]
 ninja-to
 	A Japanese broadsword.
 *norn
 	The Norns were the three Norse Fates, or the goddesses of fate.
 	Female giants, they brought the wonderful Golden Age to an end.
 	They cast lots over the cradle of every child that was born,
 	and placed gifts in the cradle.  Their names were Urda,
 	Verdandi, and Skuld, representing the past, the present, and
 	the future.  Urda and Verdandi were kindly disposed, but Skuld
 	was cruel and savage.  Their tasks were to sew the web of
 	fate, to water the sacred ash, Yggdrasil, and to keep it in
 	good condition by placing fresh earth around it daily.  In her
 	fury, Skuld often spoiled the work of her sisters by tearing
 	the web to shreds.
 	    [ The Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends of All Nations
 		by Herbert Spencer Robinson and Knox Wilson ]
 nunchaku
 	A nunchaku is two sections of wood (or metal in modern
 	incarnations) connected by a cord or chain.  There is much
 	controversy over its origins; some say it was originally a
 	Chinese weapon, others say it evolved from a threshing flail;
 	one theory purports that it was developed from a horse's bit.
 	Chinese nunchaku tend to be rounded, whereas Japanese are
 	octagonal, and they were originally linked by horse hair.
 	There are many variations on the nunchaku, ranging from the
 	three sectional staff (san-setsu-kon nunchaku), to smaller
 	multi-section nunchaku.  The nunchaku was popularized by
 	Bruce Lee in a number of films, made in both Hollywood and
 	Hong Kong.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 *nymph
 naiad
 	A female creature from Roman and Greek mythology, the nymph
 	occupied rivers, forests, ponds, etc.  A nymph's beauty is
 	beyond words:  an ever-young woman with sleek figure and
 	long, thick hair, radiant skin and perfect teeth, full lips
 	and gentle eyes.  A nymph's scent is delightful, and her
 	long robe glows, hemmed with golden threads and embroidered
 	with rainbow hues of unearthly magnificence.  A nymph's
 	demeanour is graceful and charming, her mind quick and witty.
 		[]
 
 	Theseus felt her voice pulling him down into fathoms of
 	sleep.	The song was the skeleton of his dream, and the dream
 	was full of terror.  Demon girls were after him, and a bull-
 	man was goring him.  Everywhere there was blood.  There was
 	pain.  There was fear.	But his head was in the nymph's lap
 	and her musk was about him, her voice weaving the dream.  He
 	knew then that she had been sent to tell him of something
 	dreadful that was to happen to him later.  Her song was a
 	warning.  But she had brought him a new kind of joy, one that
 	made him see everything differently.  The boy, who was to
 	become a hero, suddenly knew then what most heroes learn
 	later -- and some too late -- that joy blots suffering and
 	that the road to nymphs is beset by monsters.
 		[ The Minotaur, by Bernard Evslin ]
 obsidian*
 	A volcanic glass, homogeneous in texture and having a low water
 	content, with a vitreous luster and a conchoidal fracture.  The
 	color is commonly black, but may be some shade of red or brown,
 	and cut sections sometimes appear to be green.  Like other
 	volcanic glasses, obsidian is a lava that has cooled too quickly
 	for the contained minerals to crystallize.  In chemical
 	composition it is rich in silica and similar to granite.  It is
 	favored by primitive peoples for knives, arrowheads, spearheads,
 	and other weapons and tools.
 		[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
 odin
 	Also called Sigtyr (god of Victory), Val-father (father of
 	the slain), One-Eyed, Hanga-god (god of the hanged), Farma-
 	god (god of cargoes), Hapta-god (god of prisoners), and
 	Othin.  He is the prime god of the Norsemen:  god of war and
 	victory, wisdom and prophecy, poetry, the dead, air and wind,
 	hospitality, and magic.
 	As the god of war and victory, Odin is ruler of the Valkyries,
 	warrior-maidens who lived in the halls of Valhalla in Asgard,
 	the hall of dead heroes where he held his court.
 	These chosen ones will defend the realm of the gods against
 	the Frost Giants on the final day of reckoning, Ragnarok.
 	As god of the wind, Odin rides through the air on his eight-
 	footed horse, Sleipnir, wielding Gungner, his spear, normally
 	accompanied by his ravens, Hugin and Munin, who he would also
 	use as his spies.
 	As a god of hospitality, he enjoys visiting the earth in
 	disguise to see how people were behaving and to see how they
 	would treat him, not knowing who he was.
 	Odin is usually represented as a one-eyed wise old man with a
 	long white beard and a wide-brimmed hat (he gave one of his
 	eyes to Mimir, the guardian of the well of wisdom in Hel, in
 	exchange for a draught of knowledge).
 ogre*
 	Anyone who has met a gluttonous, nude, angry ogre, will not
 	easily forget this encounter -- if he survives it at all.
 	Both male and female ogres can easily grow as tall as three
 	metres.  Build and facial expressions would remind one of a
 	Neanderthal.  Its small, pointy, keen teeth are striking.
 	Since ogres avoid direct sunlight, their ragged, unfurry
 	skin is as white as a sheet.  They enjoy coating their body
 	with lard and usually wear nothing but a loin-cloth.  An elf
 	would smell its rancid stench at ten metres distance.
 	Ogres are solitary creatures:  very rarely one may encounter
 	a female with two or three young.  They are the only real
 	carnivores among the humanoids, and its favourite meal is --
 	not surprisingly -- human flesh.  They sometimes ally with
 	orcs or goblins, but only when they anticipate a good meaty
 	meal.
 		[ het Boek van de Regels; Het Oog des Meesters ]
 oilskin cloak
 	During our watches below we overhauled our clothes, and made
 	and mended everything for bad weather.  Each of us had made
 	for himself a suit of oil-cloth or tarpaulin, and these we
 	got out, and gave thorough coatings of oil or tar, and hung
 	upon the stays to dry.  Our stout boots, too, we covered
 	over with a thick mixture of melted grease and tar.  Thus we
 	took advantage of the warm sun and fine weather of the
 	Pacific to prepare for its other face.
 		[ Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana ]
 oilskin sack
 	Summer passed all too quickly.  On the last day of camp, Mr.
 	Brickle called his counselors together and paid them what he
 	owed them.  Louis received one hundred dollars - the first
 	money he had ever earned.  He had no wallet and no pockets,
 	so Mr. Brickle placed the money in a waterproof bag that had
 	a drawstring.  He hung this moneybag around Louis' neck,
 	along with the trumpet, the slate, the chalk pencil, and the
 	lifesaving medal.
 		[ The Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White ]
 olog-hai
 	But at the end of the Third Age a troll-race not before seen
 	appeared in southern Mirkwood and in the mountain borders of
 	Mordor.  Olog-hai they were called in the Black Speech.  That
 	Sauron bred them none doubted, though from what stock was not
 	known.  Some held that they were not Trolls but giant Orcs;
 	but the Olog-hai were in fashion of body and mind quite unlike
 	even the largest of Orc-kind, whom they far surpassed in size
 	and power.  Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will
 	of their master:  a fell race, strong, agile, fierce and
 	cunning, but harder than stone.  Unlike the older race of the
 	Twilight they could endure the Sun....  They spoke little,
 	and the only tongue they knew was the Black Speech of Barad-dur.
 		[ The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 oracle
 delphi
 p*thia
 	Delphi under towering Parnassus, where Apollo's oracle was,
 	plays an important part in mythology.  Castalia was its
 	sacred spring; Cephissus its river.  It was held to be the
 	center of the world, so many pilgrims came to it, from
 	foreign countries as well as Greece.  No other shrine rivaled
 	it.  The answers to the questions asked by the anxious
 	seekers for Truth were delivered by a priestess who went into
 	a trance before she spoke.
 		[ Mythology, by Edith Hamilton ]
 orange
 pear
 	What was the fruit like?  Unfortunately, no one can describe
 	a taste.  All I can say is that, compared with those fruits,
 	the freshest grapefruit you've ever eaten was dull, and the
 	juiciest orange was dry, and the most melting pear was hard
 	and woody, and the sweetest wild strawberry was sour.  And
 	there were no seeds or stones, and no wasps.  If you had once
 	eaten that fruit, all the nicest things in this world would
 	taste like medicines after it.  But I can't describe it.  You
 	can't find out what it is like unless you can get to that
 	country and taste it for yourself.
 		[ The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis ]
 *orb of detection
 	This Orb is a crystal ball of exceptional powers.  When
 	carried, it grants ESP, limits damage done by spells, and
 	protects the carrier from magic missiles.  When invoked it
 	allows the carrier to become invisible.
 *orb of fate
 	Some say that Odin himself created this ancient crystal ball,
 	although others argue that Loki created it and forged Odin's
 	signature on the bottom.  In any case, it is a powerful
 	artifact.  Anyone who carries it is granted the gift of
 	warning, and damage, both spell and physical, is partially
 	absorbed by the orb itself.  When invoked it has the power
 	to teleport the invoker between levels.
 goblin king
 orcrist
 	The Great Goblin gave a truly awful howl of rage when he
 	looked at it, and all his soldiers gnashed their teeth,
 	clashed their shields, and stamped.  They knew the sword at
 	once.  It had killed hundreds of goblins in its time, when
 	the fair elves of Gondolin hunted them in the hills or did
 	battle before their walls.  They had called it Orcrist,
 	Goblin-cleaver, but the goblins called it simply Biter.
 	They hated it and hated worse any one that carried it.
 		[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 orcus
 	Orcus, Prince of the Undead, has a ram's head and a poison
 	stinger.  He is most feared, though, for his powerful magic
 	abilities.  His wand causes death to those he chooses.
 ~orc ??m*
 ~orcish barbarian
 ~orcish ranger
 ~orcish rogue
 ~orcish wizard
 orc*
 * orc
 uruk*hai
 	Orcs, bipeds with a humanoid appearance, are related to the
 	goblins, but much bigger and more dangerous.  The average orc
 	is only moderately intelligent, has broad, muscled shoulders,
 	a short neck, a sloping forehead and a thick, dark fur.
 	Their lower eye-teeth are pointing forward, like a boar's.
 	Female orcs are more lightly built and bare-chested.  Not
 	needing any clothing, they do like to dress in variegated
 	apparels.  Suspicious by nature, orcs live in tribes or
 	hordes.  They tend to live underground as well as above
 	ground (but they dislike sunlight).  Orcs can use all weapons,
 	tools and armours that are used by men.  Since they don't have
 	the talent to fashion these themselves, they are constantly
 	hunting for them.  There is nothing a horde of orcs cannot
 	use.
 		[ het Boek van de Regels; Het Oog des Meesters ]
 orion
 sirius
 	Orion was the son of Neptune. He was a handsome giant and a
 	mighty hunter. His father gave him the power of wading
 	through the depths of the sea, or, as others say, of
 	walking on its surface.
 
 	He dwelt as a hunter with Diana (Artemis), with whom he
 	was a favourite, and it is even said she was about to marry
 	him. Her brother was highly displeased and often chid her,
 	but to no purpose. One day, observing Orion wading through
 	the sea with his head just above the water, Apollo pointed
 	it out to his sister and maintained that she could not hit
 	that black thing on the sea. The archer-goddess discharged
 	a shaft with fatal aim. The waves rolled the dead body of
 	Orion to the land, and bewailing her fatal error with many
 	tears, Diana placed him among the stars, where he appears
 	as a giant, with a girdle, sword, lion's skin, and
 	club. Sirius, his dog, follows him, and the Pleiads fly
 	before him.
 		[ Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch ]
 osaku
 	The osaku is a small tool for picking locks.
 owlbear
 	Owlbears are probably the crossbreed creation of a demented
 	wizard; given the lethal nature of this creation, it is quite
 	likely the wizard who created them is no longer alive.  As
 	the name might already suggest, owlbears are a cross between
 	a giant owl and a bear.  They are covered with fur and
 	feathers.
 page
 	A male servant or attendant; specifically, in chivalry,
 	a lad or young man in training for knighthood, or a youth
 	of gentle parentage attending a royal or princely personage.
 		[ Webster's Comprehensive International Dictionary
 		  of the English Language ]
 *pall
 	_Pallium._  The Roman name for a square woollen cloak worn
 	by men in ancient Greece, especially by philosophers and
 	courtesans, corresponding to the Roman toga.  Hence the
 	Greeks called themselves _gens palliata,_ and the Romans
 	called themselves _gens togata._
 		[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
 panther
 	And lo! almost where the ascent began,
 	A panther light and swift exceedingly,
 	Which with a spotted skin was covered o'er!
 
 	And never moved she from before my face,
 	Nay, rather did impede so much my way,
 	That many times I to return had turned.
 		[ Dante's Inferno, as translated
 		    by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
 *paper
 	Some players, who unconsciously perceive Paper as weak or a
 	sign of surrender, will shy away from using it entirely or
 	drop it from their game when they are falling behind.  On the
 	other hand, Paper also connects with a player's perceptions
 	about writing.  There is a quiet power in the printed word.
 	It has the ability to lay off thousands of employees, declare
 	war against nations, spread scandal or confess love.  Paper,
 	in short, has power over masses.  The fate of the entire world
 	is determined by print.  As such, some players perceive Paper
 	as a subtle attack, the victory of modern culture over barbarism.
 	Such players may use Paper to assert their superiority and dignity.
 		[ The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide,
 			by Douglas and Graham Walker ]
 pelias
 	Conan cried out sharply and recoiled, thrusting his companion
 	back.  Before them rose the great shimmering white form of Satha,
 	an ageless hate in its eyes.  Conan tensed himself for one mad
 	berserker onslaught -- to thrust the glowing faggot into that
 	fiendish countenance and throw his life into the ripping sword-
 	stroke.  But the snake was not looking at him.  It was glaring
 	over his shoulder at the man called Pelias, who stood with his
 	arms folded, smiling.  And in the great, cold, yellow eyes
 	slowly the hate died out in a glitter of pure fear -- the only
 	time Conan ever saw such an expression in a reptile's eyes.
 	With a swirling rush like the sweep of a strong wind, the great
 	snake was gone.
 	"What did he see to frighten him?" asked Conan, eyeing his
 	companion uneasily.
 	"The scaled people see what escapes the mortal eye," answered
 	Pelias cryptically.  "You see my fleshy guise, he saw my naked
 	soul."
 	    [ Conan the Usurper, by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp ]
 pick*ax*
 broad pick
 	The mine is full of holes;
 	With the wound of pickaxes.
 	But look at the goldsmith's store.
 	There, there is gold everywhere.
 		[ Divan-i Kebir Meter 2, by Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi ]
 *piercer
 	Ye Piercer doth look like unto a stalactyte, and hangeth
 	from the roofs of caves and caverns.  Unto the height of a
 	man, and thicker than a man's thigh do they grow, and in
 	groups do they hang.  If a creature doth pass beneath them,
 	they will by its heat and noise perceive it, and fall upon
 	it to kill and devour it, though in any other way they move
 	but exceeding slow.
 		[ the Bestiary of Xygag ]
 piranha
 	They live in "schools." Many times they will wait for prey
 	to come to the shallow water of the river. Then the large
 	group of piranhas will attack. These large groups are able
 	to kill large animals... Their lower teeth fit perfectly
 	into the spaces of their upper teeth, creating a tremendous
 	vice-like bite... Piranhas are attracted to any disturbance
 	in the water.
 		[ http://www.animalsoftherainforest.com ]
 pit
 spiked pit
 	Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the
 	idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like balm.
 	I rushed to its deadly brink.  I threw my straining vision
 	below.  The glare from the enkindled roof illumined its inmost
 	recesses.  Yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to
 	comprehend the meaning of what I saw.  At length it forced --
 	it wrestled its way into my soul -- it burned itself in upon my
 	shuddering reason.  Oh! for a voice to speak! -- oh! horror! --
 	oh! any horror but this!
 		[ The Pit and the Pendulum, by Edgar Allan Poe ]
 pit fiend
 	Pit fiends are among the more powerful of devils, capable of
 	attacking twice with weapons as well as grabbing and crushing
 	the life out of those unwary enough to enter their
 	domains.
 platinum yendorian express card
 	This is an ancient artifact made of an unknown material.  It
 	is rectangular in shape, very thin, and inscribed with
 	unreadable ancient runes.  When carried, it grants the one
 	who carries it ESP, and reduces all spell induced damage done to
 	the carrier by half.  It also protects from magic missile
 	attacks.  Finally, its power is such that when invoked, it
 	can charge other objects.
 # playing style, rather vague topic but these quotes are too apt to pass up
 player
 play* style
 user
 	Be bold,
 	be bold,
 	but not too bold.
 	Or else your life's blood,
 	shall run cold.
 		[ The White Road, by Neil Gaiman ]
 
 	People think I'm crazy to worry all the time;
 	If you paid attention, you'd be worried too.
 	You better pay attention, or this world we love so much
 	Might just kill you.
 		[ It's a Jungle Out There, by Randy Newman ]
 #			[ theme song from "Monk" ]
 polearm
 * polearm
 partisan
 ranseur
 spetum
 glaive
 halberd
 bardiche
 angled poleaxe
 long poleaxe
 voulge
 pole cleaver
 fauchard
 pole sickle
 guisarme
 bill-guisarme
 lucern hammer
 bec de corbin
 	Many of the weapons of the Middle Ages were poled or long-shafted
 	arms.  Unlike the ancient spear or javelin, however, they were not
 	intended to be thrown.  Some were devices with simple single- or
 	double-edged blades and nothing more, while others combined
 	the pick, spear, and hammer or axe all in one weapon.
 		[ Heraldry and Armor of the Middle Ages, by Marvin H. Pakula ]
 polymorph trap
 	One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams,
 	he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous
 	verminous bug.  He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he
 	lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided
 	up into rigid bow-like sections.  From this height the blanket,
 	just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in
 	place.  His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the
 	rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.
 		[ The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka,
 			translated by Ian Johnston ]
 pony
 		Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander?
 		Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder?
 		Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin,
 		White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin!
 
 	[...]
 	Tom called them one by one and they climbed over the brow and
 	stood in a line.  Then Tom bowed to the hobbits.
 
 	"Here are your ponies, now!" he said.  "They've more sense (in some
 	ways) than you wandering hobbits have -- more sense in their noses.
 	For they sniff danger ahead which you walk right into; and if they
 	run to save themselves, then they run the right way."
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 *portal
 	Portals can be Mirrors, Pictures, Standing Stones, Stone
 	Circles, Windows, and special gates set up for the purpose.
 	You will travel through them both to distant parts of the
 	continent and to and from our own world.  The precise manner
 	of their working is a Management secret.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 poseido*n
 	Poseido(o)n, lord of the seas and father of rivers and
 	fountains, was the son of Chronos and Rhea, brother of Zeus,
 	Hades, Hera, Hestia and Demeter.  His rank of ruler of the
 	waves he received by lot at the Council Meeting of the Gods,
 	at which Zeus took the upper world for himself and gave
 	dominion over the lower world to Hades.
 	Poseidon is associated in many ways with horses and thus is
 	the god of horses.  He taught men how to ride and manage the
 	animal he invented and is looked upon as the originator and
 	guardian deity of horse races.
 	His symbol is the familiar trident or three-pronged spear
 	with which he can split rocks, cause or quell storms, and
 	shake the earth, a power which makes him the god of
 	earthquakes as well.  Physically, he is shown as a strong and
 	powerful ruler, every inch a king.
 	    [ The Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends of All Nations,
 		by Herbert Robinson and Knox Wilson ]
 ~*sleeping
 ~*booze
 *potion*
 	POTABLE, n.  Suitable for drinking.  Water is said to be
 	potable; indeed, some declare it our natural beverage,
 	although even they find it palatable only when suffering
 	from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it
 	is a medicine.  Upon nothing has so great and diligent
 	ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all
 	countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the
 	invention of substitutes for water.  To hold that this
 	general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the
 	preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific --
 	and without science we are as the snakes and toads.
 		[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ]
 
 	Jack Burton:  What's in the flask, Egg?  Magic potion?
 	   Egg Shen:  Yeah.
 	       Jack:  I thought so, good.  What do we do?  Drink it?
 	        Egg:  Yeah.
 	       Jack:  Good, I thought so.
 	     [later]
 	       Jack:  This does what again, exactly?
 	        Egg:  Huge buzz!  [drinks]  Oh good!  See things no
 	              one else can see, do things no one else can do.
 		[ Big Trouble in Little China, directed by
 		  John Carpenter, written by Gary Goldman &
 		  David Z. Weinstein, adaptation by W. D. Richter ]
 pray*
 	Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle.  Every
 	prayer reduces itself to this:  Great God, grant that twice
 	two be not four.
 		[ Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev ]
 priest*
 * priest*
 acolyte
 	[...]  For the two priests were talking exactly like priests,
 	piously, with learning and leisure, about the most aerial
 	enigmas of theology.  The little Essex priest spoke the more
 	simply, with his round face turned to the strengthening stars;
 	the other talked with his head bowed, as if he were not even
 	worthy to look at them.  But no more innocently clerical
 	conversation could have been heard in any white Italian cloister
 	or black Spanish cathedral.  The first he heard was the tail of
 	one of Father Brown's sentences, which ended:  "... what they
 	really meant in the Middle Ages by the heavens being
 	incorruptible."  The taller priest nodded his bowed head and
 	said:  "Ah, yes, these modern infidels appeal to their reason;
 	but who can look at those millions of worlds and not feel that
 	there may well be wonderful universes above us where reason is
 	utterly unreasonable?"
 		[ The Innocence of Father Brown, by G.K. Chesterton ]
 prisoner
 	Where am I?
 		In the Village.
 	What do you want?
 		Information.
 	Whose side are you on?
 		That would be telling.  We want information ...
 		information ...
 	You won't get it.
 		By hook or by crook, we will.
 	Who are you?
 		The new Number 2.
 	Who is Number 1?
 		You are Number 6.
 	I am not a number!  I am a free man!
 		[ The Prisoner, by Patrick McGoohan ]
 ptah
 	Known under various names (Nu, Neph, Cenubis, Amen-Kneph,
 	Khery-Bakef), Ptah is the creator god and god of craftsmen.
 	He is usually depicted as wearing a closely fitting robe
 	with only his hands free.  His most distinctive features are
 	the invariable skull-cap exposing only his face and ears,
 	and the _was_ or rod of domination which he holds,
 	consisting of a staff surmounted by the _ankh_ symbol of
 	life.  He is otherwise symbolized by his sacred animal, the
 	bull.
 *purple worm
 	A gargantuan version of the harmless rain-worm, the purple
 	worm poses a huge threat to the ordinary adventurer.  It is
 	known to swallow whole and digest its victims within only a
 	few minutes.  These worms are always on guard, sensitive
 	to the most minute vibrations in the earth, but may also
 	be awakened by a remote shriek.
 pyrolisk
 	At first glance around the corner, I thought it was another
 	cockatrice. I had encountered the wretched creatures two or
 	three times since leaving the open area. I quickly ducked my
 	head back and considered what to do next. My heart had begun
 	to thump audibly as I patted my pack to make sure I still had
 	the dead lizards at close reach. A check of my attire showed
 	no obvious holes or damage. I had to keep moving. One deep
 	breath, and a count of three, two, one, and around the corner
 	I bolted. But it was no cockatrice! I felt a sudden intense
 	searing of the skin around my face, and flames began to leap
 	from my pack. I tossed it to the ground, and quickly retreated
 	back, around that corner, desperately striving to get out of
 	its sight.
 python
 	A monstrous serpent in Greek mythology, and the child of Gaia,
 	the goddess earth.  It was produced from the slime and mud
 	that was left on the earth by the great flood of Deucalion.
 	It lived in a cave and guarded the oracle of Delphi on mount
 	Parnassus.
 
 	No man dared to approach the beast and the people asked Apollo
 	for help.  He came down from Mount Olympus with his silver bow
 	and golden arrows.  With using only one arrow he killed the
 	serpent and claimed the oracle for himself. ... The old name of
 	Delphi, Pytho, refers to the serpent.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 quadruped
 	The woodlands and other regions are inhabited by multitudes
 	of four-legged creatures which cannot be simply classified.
 	They might not have fiery breath or deadly stings, but
 	adventurers have nevertheless met their end numerous times
 	due to the claws, hooves, or bites of such animals.
 quantum mechanic
 	These creatures are not native to this universe; they seem
 	to have strangely derived powers, and unknown motives.
 		[]
 
 	_Uncertainty Principle_  The principle that it is not possible
 	to know with unlimited accuracy both the position and momentum
 	of a particle. ... An explanation of the uncertainty is that
 	in order to locate a particle exactly, an observer must be
 	able to bounce off it a photon of radiation; this act of
 	location itself alters the position of the particle
 	in an unpredictable way.  To locate the position accurately,
 	photons of short wavelength would have to be used.  The high
 	momentum of such photons would cause a large effect on the
 	position.  On the other hand, using photons of lower momenta
 	would have less effect on the particle's position, but would
 	be less accurate because of the lower wavelength.
 		[ A Concise Dictionary of Physics ]
 quasit
 	Quasits are small, evil creatures, related to imps.  Their
 	talons release a very toxic poison when used in an attack.
 *quest
 	Many, possibly most, Tours are organized as a Quest.  This
 	is like a large-scale treasure hunt, with clues scattered
 	all over the continent, a few false leads, Mystical Masters
 	as game-show hosts, and the Dark Lord and the Terrain to
 	make the Quest interestingly difficult.  [...]
 	In order to be assured of your future custom, the Management
 	has a further Rule:  Tourists, far from being rewarded for
 	achieving their Quest Object, must then go on to conquer
 	the Dark Lord or set about Saving the World, or both.  And
 	why not?  By then you will have had a lot of practice in
 	that sort of thing and, besides, the Quest Object is usually
 	designed to help you do it.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 quetzalcoatl
 	One of the principal Aztec-Toltec gods was the great and wise
 	Quetzalcoatl, who was called Kukumatz in Guatemala, and
 	Kukulcan in Yucatan.  His image, the plumed serpent, is found
 	on both the oldest and the most recent Indian edifices. ...
 	The legend tells how the Indian deity Quetzalcoatl came from
 	the "Land of the Rising Sun".  He wore a long white robe and
 	had a beard; he taught the people crafts and customs and laid
 	down wise laws.  He created an empire in which the ears of
 	corn were as long as men are tall, and caused bolls of colored
 	cotton to grow on cotton plants.  But for some reason or other
 	he had to leave his empire. ...  But all the legends of
 	Quetzalcoatl unanimously agree that he promised to come again.
 		[ Gods, Graves, and Scholars, by C. W. Ceram ]
 quit*
 	 Maltar:  [...]  I remembered a little saying I learned my
 	          first day at the academy.
 	Natalie:  Yeah, yeah, I know.  Winners never quit and quitters
 	          never win.
 	 Maltar:  What?  No!  Winners never quit and quitters should
 	          be cast into the Flaming Pit of Death.
 		[ Snow Day, directed by Chris Koch,
 		  written by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi ]
 raijin
 raiden
 	The Japanese god of thunder (rai) and lightning (den).  He
 	prevented the Mongols from invading Japan in 1274.  Sitting on
 	a cloud he sent forth a shower of lightning arrows upon the
 	invading fleet.  Only three men escaped.  Raiden is portrayed
 	as a red demon with sharp claws, carrying a large drum.  He is
 	fond of eating human navels.  The only protection against him
 	is to hide under a mosquito net.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 ranger
 * ranger
 	"Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters -- but hunters
 	ever of the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many
 	places, not in Mordor only.
 	If Gondor, Boromir, has been a stalwart tower, we have played
 	another part.  Many evil things there are that your strong walls
 	and bright swords do not stay.  You know little of the lands
 	beyond your bounds.  Peace and freedom, do you say?  The North
 	would have known them little but for us.  Fear would have
 	destroyed them.  But when dark things come from the houseless
 	hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us.  What
 	roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in
 	quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the
 	Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?"
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 rat
 * rat
 	Rats are long-tailed rodents.  They are aggressive,
 	omnivorous, and adaptable, often carrying diseases.
 		[]
 
 	"The rat," said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible
 	audience, "although a rodent, is carnivorous.  You are aware
 	of that.  You will have heard of the things that happen in
 	the poor quarters of this town.  In some streets a woman dare
 	not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes.
 	The rats are certain to attack it.  Within quite a small time
 	they will strip it to the bones.  They also attack sick or
 	dying people.  They show astonishing intelligence in knowing
 	when a human being is helpless."
 		[ 1984, by George Orwell ]
 raven
 	But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
 	That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
 	Nothing further then he uttered -- not a feather then he fluttered--
 	Till I scarcely more than muttered, 'other friends have flown before--
 	On the morrow *he* will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
 		Then the bird said, 'Nevermore.'
 				[ The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe ]
 ~*invisibility
 ring
 * ring
 ring of *
 	Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
 	Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
 	Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
 	One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
 	In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
 	One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
 	One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
 	In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 ring of invisibility
 	"When time came for the shepherds to hold their customary
 	assembly in order to prepare their monthly report to the king
 	about the state of the flocks, he came too, wearing this ring.
 	While he was sitting with the others, it chanced that he moved
 	the collet of the ring around toward himself into the inside of
 	his hand; having done this, he disappeared from the sight of
 	those who were sitting beside him, and they discussed of him as
 	of someone who had left.  And he wondered and once again feeling
 	for the ring, he turned the collet outwards and, by turning it,
 	reappeared.  Reflecting upon this, he put the ring to the test
 	to see if it indeed had such power, and he came to this
 	conclusion that, by turning the collet inwards, he became
 	invisible, outwards, visible.  Having perceived this, he at
 	once managed for himself to become one of the envoys to the
 	king; upon arrival, having seduced his wife, with her help,
 	he laid a hand on the king, murdered him and took hold of the
 	leadership."
 		[ The Republic, by Plato, translated by James Adam ]
 robe
 	Robes are the only garments, apart from Shirts, ever to have
 	sleeves.  They have three uses:
 	1.  As the official uniform of Priests, Priestesses, Monks,
 	Nuns (see Nunnery), and Wizards.  The OMT [ Official Management
 	Term ] prescribed for the Robes of Priests and Nuns is that
 	they _fall in severe folds_; of Priestesses that they _float_;
 	and of Wizards that they _swirl_.  You can thus see who you
 	are dealing with.
 	2.  For Kings.  The OMT here is _falling in stately folds_.
 	3.  As the garb of Desert Nomads.  [...]
 	    [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 rock
 	Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.
 	He could not get up at the brutes and he had nothing to shoot
 	with; but looking about he saw that in this place there were
 	many stones lying in what appeared to be a now dry little
 	watercourse.  Bilbo was a pretty fair shot with a stone, and
 	it did not take him long to find a nice smooth egg-shaped one
 	that fitted his hand cosily.  As a boy he used to practise
 	throwing stones at things, until rabbits and squirrels, and
 	even birds, got out of his way as quick as lightning if they
 	saw him stoop; and even grownup he had still spent a deal of
 	his time at quoits, dart-throwing, shooting at the wand,
 	bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and
 	throwing sort - indeed he could do lots of things, besides
 	blowing smoke-rings, asking riddles and cooking, that I
 	haven't time to tell you about.  There is no time now.  While
 	he was picking up stones, the spider had reached Bombur, and
 	soon he would have been dead.  At that moment Bilbo threw.
 	The stone struck the spider plunk on the head, and it dropped
 	senseless off the tree, flop to the ground, with all its legs
 	curled up.
 		[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 rock mole
 	A rock mole is a member of the rodent family.  They get their
 	name from their ability to tunnel through rock in the same
 	fashion that a mole tunnels through earth.  They are known to
 	eat anything they come across in their diggings, although it
 	is still unknown how they convert some of these things into
 	something of nutritional value.
 rodent*
 	A gnawing mammal (order _Rodentia_) having in each jaw two
 	(rarely four) incisors, growing continually from persistent
 	pulps, and no canine teeth, as a squirrel, beaver, or rat.
 		[ Webster's Comprehensive International Dictionary
 		  of the English Language ]
 rogue
 * rogue
 	I understand the business, I hear it: to have an open ear, a
 	quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cut-purse; a
 	good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for the other
 	senses.  I see this is the time that the unjust man doth
 	thrive.  ...  The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity,
 	stealing away from his father with his clog at his heels:  if
 	I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king
 	withal, I would not do't:  I hold it the more knavery to
 	conceal it; and therein am I constant to my profession.
 		[ Autolycus the Rogue, from The Winter's Tale by
 			William Shakespeare ]
 roshi
 	Roshi is a Japanese word, common in Zen Buddhism, meaning "old"
 	(ro) and "teacher" (shi).  Roshi can be used as a term of
 	respect, as in the Rinzai school; as a simple reference to
 	actual age, as in the Soto school; or it can mean a teacher who
 	has transmitted knowledge to, and thus "given birth" to, a new
 	teacher.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 rothe
 	The rothe (pronounced roth-AY) is a musk ox-like creature with
 	an aversion to light.  It prefers to live underground near
 	lichen and moss.
 *royal jelly
 	"'Royal Jelly,'" he read aloud, "'must be a substance of
 	tremendous nourishing power, for on this diet alone, the
 	honey-bee larva increases in weight fifteen hundred times in
 	five days!'"
 
 	"How much?"
 
 	"Fifteen hundred times, Mabel.  And you know what that means
 	if you put it in terms of a human being?  It means," he said,
 	lowering his voice, leaning forward, fixing her with those
 	small pale eyes, "it means that in five days a baby weighing
 	seven and a half pounds to start off with would increase in
 	weight to five tons!"
 		[ Royal Jelly, by Roald Dahl ]
 ruby
 sapphire
 	_Corundum._  Mineral, aluminum oxide, Al2O3.  The clear
 	varieties are used as gems and the opaque as abrasive materials.
 	Corundum occurs in crystals of the hexagonal system and in
 	masses.  It is transparent to opaque and has a vitreous to
 	adamantine luster. ... The chief corundum gems are the ruby
 	(red) and the sapphire (blue).
 		[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
 rust monster
 	These strange creatures live on a diet of metals.  They can
 	turn a suit of armour into so much useless rusted scrap in no
 	time at all.
 # takes "rust monster or disenchanter" when specifying 'R'
 rust monster or disenchanter
 	These ground-dwelling monsters are known to make short
 	work out of degrading adventurers' combat equipment.
 *saber
 *sabre
 	Flashed all their sabres bare,
 	Flashed as they turned in air,
 	Sab'ring the gunners there,
 	Charging an army, while
 	All the world wondered:
 	Plunged in the battery smoke,
 	Right through the line they broke;
 	Cossack and Russian
 	Reeled from the sabre-stroke
 	Shattered and sundered.
 	Then they rode back, but not--
 	Not the six hundred.
 		[ The Charge of the Light Brigade,
 		  by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ]
 saddle
 	The horseman serves the horse,
 	The neat-herd serves the neat,
 	The merchant serves the purse,
 	The eater serves his meat;
 	'Tis the day of the chattel,
 	Web to weave, and corn to grind,
 	Things are in the saddle,
 	And ride mankind.
 		[ Ode, by Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
 sake
 	Japanese rice wine.
 salamander
 	For hundreds of years, many people believed that salamanders
 	were magical.  In England in the Middle Ages, people thought
 	that fire created salamanders.  When they set fire to damp
 	logs, dozens of the slimy creatures scurried out.  The word
 	salamander, in fact, comes from a Greek word meaning "fire
 	animal".
 		[ Salamanders, by Cherie Winner ]
 samurai
 * samurai
 	By that time, Narahara had already slipped his arm from the
 	sleeve of his outer robe, drew out his two-and-a-half-foot
 	Fujiwara Tadahiro sword, and, brandishing it over his head,
 	began barreling toward the foreigners.  In less than a minute,
 	he had charged upon them and cut one of them through the torso.
 	The man fled, clutching his bulging guts, finally to fall from
 	his horse at the foot of a pine tree about a thousand yards
 	away.  Kaeda Takeji finished him off.  The other two Englishmen
 	were severely wounded as they tried to flee.  Only the woman
 	managed to escape virtually unscathed.
 		[ The Fox-horse, from Drunk as a Lord, by Ryotaro Shiba ]
 sandestin
 	Ildefonse left the terrace and almost immediately sounds
 	of contention came from the direction of the work-room.
 	Ildefonse presently returned to the terrace, followed by
 	Osherl and a second sandestin using the guise of a gaunt blue
 	bird-like creature, some six feet in height.
 
 	Ildefonse spoke in scathing tones:  "Behold these two
 	creatures!  They can roam the chronoplex as easily as you
 	or I can walk around the table; yet neither has the wit to
 	announce his presence upon arrival.  I found Osherl asleep
 	in his fulgurite and Sarsem perched in the rafters."
 		[...]
 	"No matter," said Rhialto.  "He has brought Sarsem, and this
 	was his requirement.  In the main, Osherl, you have done well!"
 
 	"And my indenture point?"
 
 	"Much depends upon Sarsem's testimony.  Sarsem, will you sit?"
 
 	"In this guise, I find it more convenient to stand."
 
 	"Then why not alter to human form and join us in comfort at
 	the table?"
 
 	"That is a good idea."  Sarsem became a naked young epicene
 	in an integument of lavender scales with puffs of purple hair
 	like pom-poms growing down his back.  He seated himself at
 	the table but declined refreshment.  "This human semblance,
 	though typical, is after all, only a guise.  If I were to put
 	such things inside myself, I might well become uneasy."
 		[ Rhialto the Marvellous, by Jack Vance ]
 sasquatch
 	The name _Sasquatch_ doesn't really become important in Canada
 	until the 1930s, when it appeared in the works of J. W. Burns,
 	a British Columbian writer who used a great deal of Indian
 	lore in his stories.  Burn's Sasquatch was a giant Indian who
 	lived in the wilderness.  He was hairy only in the sense that
 	he had long hair on his head, and while this Sasquatch lived a
 	wild and primitive life, he was fully human.
 	Burns's character proved to be quite popular.  There was a
 	Sasquatch Inn near the town of Harrison, British Columbia, and
 	Harrison even had a local celebration called "Sasquatch Days."
 	The celebration which had been dormant for years was revived
 	as part of British Columbia's centennial, and one of the
 	events was to be a Sasquatch hunt.  The hunt never took place,
 	perhaps it was never supposed to, but the publicity about it
 	did bring out a number of people who said they had encountered
 	a Sasquatch -- not Burns's giant Indian, but the hairy apelike
 	creature that we have all come to know.
 		[ The Encyclopedia of Monsters, by Daniel Cohen ]
 scalpel
 	A scalpel is a very sharp knife used for surgery ... Merely
 	touching a medical scalpel with bare hands to test it will
 	cut through the skin. ... Medical scalpel blades are gradually
 	curved for greater precision when cutting through tissue.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 *sceptre of might
 	This mace was created aeons ago in some unknown cave,
 	and has been passed down from generation to generation of
 	cave dwellers.  It is a very mighty mace indeed, and in
 	addition will protect anyone who wields it from magic
 	missile attacks.  When invoked, it causes conflict in the
 	area around it.
 scimitar
 	Oh, how handsome, how noble was the Vizier Ali Tebelin,
 	my father, as he stood there in the midst of the shot, his
 	scimitar in his hand, his face black with powder!  How his
 	enemies fled before him!
 		[ The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas ]
 scorpio*
 	A sub-species of the spider (_Scorpionidae_), the scorpion
 	distinguishes itself from them by having a lower body that
 	ends in a long, jointed tail tapering to a poisonous stinger.
 	They have eight legs and pincers.
 		[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
 scorpius
 	Since early times, the Scorpion has represented death, darkness,
 	and evil.  Scorpius is the reputed slayer of Orion the Hunter.
 	[...]  The gods put both scorpion and hunter among the stars, but
 	on opposite sides of the sky so they would never fight again.
 	As Scorpius rises in the east, Orion sets in the west.
 		[ 365 Starry Nights, by Chet Raymo ]
 *scroll
 scroll *
 	And I was gazing on the surges prone,
 	With many a scalding tear and many a groan,
 	When at my feet emerg'd an old man's hand,
 	Grasping this scroll, and this same slender wand.
 	I knelt with pain--reached out my hand--had grasp'd
 	Those treasures--touch'd the knuckles--they unclasp'd--
 	I caught a finger: but the downward weight
 	O'erpowered me--it sank. Then 'gan abate
 	The storm, and through chill aguish gloom outburst
 	The comfortable sun. I was athirst
 	To search the book, and in the warming air
 	Parted its dripping leaves with eager care.
 	Strange matters did it treat of, and drew on
 	My soul page after page, till well-nigh won
 	Into forgetfulness; when, stupefied,
 	I read these words, and read again, and tried
 	My eyes against the heavens, and read again.
 		[ Endymion, by John Keats ]
 set
 seth
 	The ancient Egyptian god of chaos (Set), the embodiment of
 	hostility and even of outright evil.  He is also a god of war,
 	deserts, storms, and foreign lands. ... In the Book of the
 	Dead, Seth is called "Lord of the Northern Sky" and is held
 	responsible for storms and cloudy weather. ... Seth was
 	portrayed as a man with the head of undeterminable origin,
 	although some see in it the head of an aardvark.  He had a
 	curved snout, erect square-tipped ears and a long forked tail.
 	He was sometimes entirely in animal form with the body similar
 	to that of a greyhound.  Animals sacred to this god were the
 	dog, the jackal, the gazelle, the donkey, the crocodile, the
 	hippopotamus, and the pig.
 		[ Encyclopedia Mythica, ed. M.F. Lindemans ]
 shad*
 	Shades are undead creatures.  They differ from zombies in
 	that a zombie is an undead animation of a corpse, while a
 	shade is an undead creature magically created by the use
 	of black magic.
 shaman karnov
 	Making his quarters in the Caves of the Ancestors, Shaman
 	Karnov unceasingly tries to shield his neanderthal people
 	from Tiamat's minions' harassments.
 shan*lai*ching
 	The Chinese god of Mountains and Seas, also the name of an
 	old book (also Shan Hai Tjing), the book of mountains and
 	seas - which deals with the monster Kung Kung trying to
 	seize power from Yao, the fourth emperor.
 		[ Spectrum Atlas van de Mythologie ]
 shark
 	As the shark moved, its dark top reflected virtually no
 	light.  The denticles on its skin muted the whoosh of its
 	movements as the shark rose, driven by the power of the
 	great tail sweeping from side to side, like a scythe.
 	The fish exploded upward.
 	Charles Bruder felt a slight vacuum tug in the motion of
 	the sea, noted it as a passing current, the pull of a wave,
 	the tickle of undertow.  He could not have heard the faint
 	sucking rush of water not far beneath him.  He couldn't
 	have seen or heard what was hurtling from the murk at
 	astonishing speed, jaws unhinging, widening, for the
 	enormous first bite.  It was the classic attack
 	that no other creature in nature could make -- a bomb from
 	the depths.
 		[ Close to Shore, by Michael Capuzzo ]
 shito
 	A Japanese stabbing knife.
 shopkeeper
 	There have been three general theories put forward to explain
 	the phenomenon of the wandering shops or, as they are
 	generically known, _tabernae vagantes._
 	The first postulates that many thousands of years ago there
 	evolved somewhere in the multiverse a race whose single talent
 	was to buy cheap and sell dear.  Soon they controlled a vast
 	galactic empire or, as they put it, Emporium, and the more
 	advanced members of the species found a way to equip their very
 	shops with unique propulsion units that could break the dark
 	walls of space itself and open up vast new markets.  And long
 	after the worlds of the Emporium perished in the heat death of
 	their particular universe, after one last defiant fire sale,
 	the wandering starshops still ply their trade, eating their way
 	through the pages of spacetime like a worm through a three-
 	volume novel.
 	The second is that they are the creation of a sympathetic Fate,
 	charged with the role of supplying exactly the right thing
 	at the right time.
 	The third is that they are simply a very clever way of getting
 	around the various Sunday Closing acts.
 	All these theories, diverse as they are, have two things in
 	common.  They explain the observed facts, and they are
 	completely and utterly wrong.
 		[ The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 shrieker
 	With a single, savage thrust of her spear, the warrior-woman
 	impaled the fungus, silencing it.  However, it was too late:
 	the alarm had been raised[...]
 	Suddenly, a large, dark shape rose from the abyss before them,
 	its fetid bulk looming overhead... The monster was some kind of
 	great dark worm, but that was about all they were sure of.
 		[ The Adventurers, Epic IV, by Thomas A. Miller ]
 throwing star
 shuriken
 	You know, that's what I hate most about fighting against magic:
 	you never know what they're trying to do to you until it hits.
 	The sorceress knew what hit her, however.  Two of the shuriken
 	got past whatever defenses she had.  One caught her just below
 	the throat, the other in the middle of her chest.  It wouldn't
 	kill her, but she wouldn't be fighting anyone for a while.
 		[ Jhereg, by Steven Brust ]
 skeleton
 	A skeleton is a magically animated undead creature.  Unlike
 	shades, only a humanoid creature can be used to create a
 	skeleton.  No one knows why this is true, but it has become
 	an accepted fact amongst the practitioners of the black arts.
 slasher
 	"That dog belonged to a settler who tried to build his cabin
 	on the bank of the river a few miles south of the fort,"
 	grunted Conan. ...  "We took him to the fort and dressed his
 	wounds, but after he recovered he took to the woods and turned
 	wild.  -- What now, Slasher, are you hunting the men who
 	killed your master?" ...  "Let him come," muttered Conan.
 	"He can smell the devils before we can see them." ...
 	Slasher cleared the timbers with a bound and leaped into the
 	bushes.  They were violently shaken and then the dog slunk
 	back to Balthus' side, his jaws crimson. ...  "He was a man,"
 	said Conan.  "I drink to his shade, and to the shade of the
 	dog, who knew no fear."  He quaffed part of the wine, then
 	emptied the rest upon the floor, with a curious heathen
 	gesture, and smashed the goblet.  "The heads of ten Picts
 	shall pay for this, and seven heads for the dog, who was a
 	better warrior than many a man."
 		[ Conan The Warrior, by Robert E Howard ]
 *sleep
 	Sleep is a death; oh, make me try
 	By sleeping, what it is to die,
 	And as gently lay my head
 	On my grave, as now my bed.
 		[ Religio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne ]
 slime mold
 	Science fiction did not invent the slime molds, but it has
 	borrowed from them in using the idea of sheets of liquid, flowing
 	cytoplasm engulfing and dissolving every living thing they touch.
 	What fiction can only imagine, nature has produced, and only their
 	small size and dependence on coolness, moisture, and darkness has
 	kept the slime molds from ordinary observation, for they are common
 	enough.
 		[ Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1977 ]
 sling
 	And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came and
 	drew nigh to meet David, that David hasted, and ran toward
 	the army to meet the Philistine.
 	And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone,
 	and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that
 	the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face
 	to the earth.
 	So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with
 	a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there
 	was no sword in the hand of David.
 		[ 1 Samuel 17:48-50 ]
 *snake
 serpent
 water moccasin
 pit viper
 	Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
 	which the Lord God had made.  And he said unto the woman, Yea,
 	hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
 	And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of
 	the trees of the garden:  but of the fruit of the tree which is
 	in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of
 	it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.  And the serpent
 	said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:  for God doth
 	know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
 	opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.  And
 	when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it
 	was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one
 	wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also
 	unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
 
 	And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou
 	hast done?  And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I
 	did eat.  And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou
 	hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above
 	every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and
 	dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:  And I will put
 	enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her
 	seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
 		[ Genesis 3:1-6,13-15 ]
 snickersnee
 	Ah, never shall I forget the cry,
 	    or the shriek that shrieked he,
 	As I gnashed my teeth, and from my sheath
 	    I drew my Snickersnee!
 	--Koko, Lord high executioner of Titipu
 		[ The Mikado, by Sir W.S. Gilbert ]
 sokoban
 	Sokoban (Japanese for "warehouse keeper") is a transport puzzle
 	in which the player pushes boxes around a maze, viewed from
 	above, and tries to put them in designated locations.  Only one
 	box may be pushed at a time, not two, and boxes cannot be pulled.
 	As the puzzle would be extremely difficult to create physically,
 	it is usually implemented as a video game.
 
 	Sokoban was created in 1982 by Hiroyuki Imabayashi, and was
 	published by Thinking Rabbit, a software house based in
 	Takarazuka, Japan.  Thinking Rabbit also released three sequels:
 	Boxxle, Sokoban Perfect and Sokoban Revenge.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 *soldier
 sergeant
 lieutenant
 captain
 	The soldiers of Yendor are well-trained in the art of war,
 	many trained by the Wizard himself.  Some say the soldiers
 	are explorers who were unfortunate enough to be captured,
 	and put under the Wizard's spell.  Those who have survived
 	encounters with soldiers say they travel together in platoons,
 	and are fierce fighters.  Because of the load of their combat
 	gear, however, one can usually run away from them, and doing
 	so is considered a wise thing.
 *spear
 javelin
 	- they come together with great random, and a spear is brast,
 	and one party brake his shield and the other one goes down,
 	horse and man, over his horse-tail and brake his neck, and
 	then the next candidate comes randoming in, and brast his
 	spear, and the other man brast his shield, and down he goes,
 	horse and man, over his horse-tail, and brake his neck, and
 	then there's another elected, and another and another and
 	still another, till the material is all used up; and when you
 	come to figure up results, you can't tell one fight from
 	another, nor who whipped; and as a picture of living, raging,
 	roaring battle, sho! why it's pale and noiseless - just
 	ghosts scuffling in a fog.  Dear me, what would this barren
 	vocabulary get out of the mightiest spectacle? - the burning
 	of Rome in Nero's time, for instance?  Why, it would merely
 	say 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy brast a window,
 	fireman brake his neck!'  Why, that ain't a picture!
 		[ A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,
 		    by Mark Twain ]
 *spellbook*
 	The Book of Three lay closed on the table.  Taran had never
 	been allowed to read the volume for himself; now he was sure
 	it held more than Dallben chose to tell him.  In the sun-
 	filled room, with Dallben still meditating and showing no
 	sign of stopping, Taran rose and moved through the shimmering
 	beams.  From the forest came the monotonous tick of a beetle.
 	His hands reached for the cover.  Taran gasped in pain and
 	snatched them away.  They smarted as if each of his fingers
 	had been stung by hornets.  He jumped back, stumbled against
 	the bench, and dropped to the floor, where he put his fingers
 	woefully into his mouth.
 	Dallben's eyes blinked open.  He peered at Taran and yawned
 	slowly.  "You had better see Coll about a lotion for those
 	hands," he advised.  "Otherwise, I shouldn't be surprised if
 	they blistered."
 		[ The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander ]
 *spider
 	Eight legged creature capable of spinning webs to trap prey.
 		[]
 
 	"You mean you eat flies?" gasped Wilbur.
 	"Certainly.  Flies, bugs, grasshoppers, choice beetles,
 	moths, butterflies, tasty cockroaches, gnats, midges, daddy
 	longlegs, centipedes, mosquitoes, crickets - anything that is
 	careless enough to get caught in my web.  I have to live,
 	don't I?"
 	"Why, yes, of course," said Wilbur.
 		[ Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White ]
 *spore
 *sphere
 	The attack by those who want to die -- this is the attack
 	against which you cannot prepare a perfect defense.
 					--Human aphorism
 		[ The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert ]
 squeaky board
 	A floorboard creaked.  Galder had spent many hours tuning them,
 	always a wise precaution with an ambitious assistant who walked
 	like a cat.
 	D flat.  That meant he was just to the right of the door.
 	"Ah, Trymon," he said, without turning, and noted with some
 	satisfaction the faint indrawing of breath behind him.  "Good
 	of you to come.  Shut the door, will you?"
 		[ The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 ~*aesculapius
 *staff
 	So they stood, each in his place, neither moving a finger's
 	breadth back, for one good hour, and many blows were given
 	and received by each in that time, till here and there were
 	sore bones and bumps, yet neither thought of crying "Enough,"
 	or seemed likely to fall from off the bridge.  Now and then
 	they stopped to rest, and each thought that he never had seen
 	in all his life before such a hand at quarterstaff.  At last
 	Robin gave the stranger a blow upon the ribs that made his
 	jacket smoke like a damp straw thatch in the sun.  So shrewd
 	was the stroke that the stranger came within a hair's breadth
 	of falling off the bridge; but he regained himself right
 	quickly, and, by a dexterous blow, gave Robin a crack on the
 	crown that caused the blood to flow.  Then Robin grew mad
 	with anger, and smote with all his might at the other; but
 	the stranger warded the blow, and once again thwacked Robin,
 	and this time so fairly that he fell heels over head into the
 	water, as the queen pin falls in a game of bowls.
 		[ The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle ]
 *staff of aesculapius
 	This staff is considered sacred to all healers, as it truly
 	holds the powers of life and death.  When wielded, it
 	protects its user from all life draining attacks, and
 	additionally gives the wielder the power of regeneration.
 	When invoked it performs healing magic.
 stair*
 	Up he went -- very quickly at first -- then more slowly -- then
 	in a little while even more slowly than that -- and finally,
 	after many minutes of climbing up the endless stairway, one
 	weary foot was barely able to follow the other.  Milo suddenly
 	realized that with all his effort he was no closer to the top
 	than when he began, and not a great deal further from the
 	bottom.  But he struggled on for a while longer, until at last,
 	completely exhausted, he collapsed onto one of the steps.
 	"I should have known it," he mumbled, resting his tired legs
 	and filling his lungs with air.  "This is just like the line
 	that goes on forever, and I'll never get there."
 	"You wouldn't like it much anyway," someone replied gently.
 	"Infinity is a dreadfully poor place.  They can never manage to
 	make ends meet."
 		[ The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster ]
 
 	   Dr. Ray Stantz:  Hey, where do those stairs go?
 	Dr. Peter Venkman:  They go up.
 		[ Ghostbusters, directed by Ivan Reitman,
 		  written by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis ]
 ~statue trap
 statue*
 	Then at last he began to wonder why the lion was standing so
 	still - for it hadn't moved one inch since he first set eyes
 	on it.  Edmund now ventured a little nearer, still keeping in
 	the shadow of the arch as much as he could.  He now saw from
 	the way the lion was standing that it couldn't have been
 	looking at him at all.  ("But supposing it turns its head?"
 	thought Edmund.)  In fact it was staring at something else -
 	namely a little dwarf who stood with his back to it about
 	four feet away.  "Aha!" thought Edmund.  "When it springs at
 	the dwarf then will be my chance to escape."  But still the
 	lion never moved, nor did the dwarf.  And now at last Edmund
 	remembered what the others had said about the White Witch
 	turning people into stone.  Perhaps this was only a stone
 	lion.  And as soon as he had thought of that he noticed that
 	the lion's back and the top of its head were covered with
 	snow.  Of course it must be only a statue!
 		[ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis ]
 sting
 	There was the usual dim grey light of the forest-day about
 	him when he came to his senses.  The spider lay dead beside
 	him, and his sword-blade was stained black.  Somehow the
 	killing of the giant spider, all alone and by himself in the
 	dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of
 	anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins.  He felt
 	a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of
 	an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put
 	it back into its sheath.
 	"I will give you a name," he said to it, "and I shall call
 	you Sting."
 		[ The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 stormbringer
 	There were sounds in the distance, incongruent with the
 	sounds of even this nameless, timeless sea: thin sounds,
 	agonized and terrible, for all that they remained remote -
 	yet the ship followed them, as if drawn by them; they grew
 	louder - pain and despair were there, but terror was
 	predominant.
 	Elric had heard such sounds echoing from his cousin Yyrkoon's
 	sardonically named 'Pleasure Chambers' in the days before he
 	had fled the responsibilities of ruling all that remained of
 	the old Melnibonean Empire.  These were the voices of men
 	whose very souls were under siege; men to whom death meant
 	not mere extinction, but a continuation of existence, forever
 	in thrall to some cruel and supernatural master.  He had
 	heard men cry so when his salvation and his nemesis, his
 	great black battle-blade Stormbringer, drank their souls.
 		[ The Lands Beyond the World, by Michael Moorcock ]
 *strange object
 	He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor
 	without finding any one and was just going to call out,
 	when suddenly in a dark corner between an old cupboard
 	and the door he caught sight of a strange object which
 	seemed to be alive.
 		[ Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky ]
 straw golem
 	Dorothy leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully
 	at the Scarecrow.  Its head was a small sack stuffed with
 	straw, with eyes, nose, and mouth painted on it to represent
 	a face.  An old, pointed blue hat, that had belonged to some
 	Munchkin, was perched on his head, and the rest of the figure
 	was a blue suit of clothes, worn and faded, which had also
 	been stuffed with straw.  On the feet were some old boots with
 	blue tops, such as every man wore in this country, and the
 	figure was raised above the stalks of corn by means of the
 	pole stuck up its back.
 		[ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum ]
 sunsword
 	What you seek is a blade of light,
 	a weapon for vengeance.
 		[ Expedition to Castle Ravenloft,
 			by Bruce Cordell and James Wyatt ]
 susano*o
 	The Shinto chthonic and weather god and brother of the sun
 	goddess Amaterasu, he was born from the nose of the
 	primordial creator god Izanagi and represents the physical,
 	material world.  He has been expelled from heaven and taken
 	up residence on earth.
 		[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
 tanko
 	Samurai plate armor of the Yamato period (AD 300 - 710).
 tengu
 	The tengu was the most troublesome creature of Japanese
 	legend.  Part bird and part man, with red beak for a nose
 	and flashing eyes, the tengu was notorious for stirring up
 	feuds and prolonging enmity between families.  Indeed, the
 	belligerent tengu were supposed to have been man's first
 	instructors in the use of arms.
 	  [ Mythical Beasts, by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library) ]
 thoth
 	The Egyptian god of the moon and wisdom, Thoth is the patron
 	deity of scribes and of knowledge, including scientific,
 	medical and mathematical writing, and is said to have given
 	mankind the art of hieroglyphic writing.  He is important as
 	a mediator and counsellor amongst the gods and is the scribe
 	of the Heliopolis Ennead pantheon.  According to mythology,
 	he was born from the head of the god Seth.  He may be
 	depicted in human form with the head of an ibis, wholly as an
 	ibis, or as a seated baboon sometimes with its torso covered
 	in feathers.  His attributes include a crown which consists
 	of a crescent moon surmounted by a moon disc.
 	Thoth is generally regarded as a benign deity.  He is also
 	scrupulously fair and is responsible not only for entering
 	in the record the souls who pass to afterlife, but of
 	adjudicating in the Hall of the Two Truths.  The Pyramid
 	Texts reveal a violent side of his nature by which he
 	decapitates the adversaries of truth and wrenches out their
 	hearts.
 		[ Encyclopedia of Gods, by Michael Jordan ]
 thoth*amon
 	Men say that he [Thutothmes] has opposed Thoth-Amon, who is
 	master of all priests of Set, and dwells in Luxor, and that
 	Thutothmes seeks hidden power [The Heart of Ahriman] to
 	overthrow the Great One.
 		[ Conan the Conqueror, by Robert E. Howard ]
 *throne
 	Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne
 	Which mists and vapours from mine eyes did shroud--
 	Nor view of who might sit thereon allowed;
 	But all the steps and ground about were strown
 	With sights the ruefullest that flesh and bone
 	Ever put on; a miserable crowd,
 	Sick, hale, old, young, who cried before that cloud,
 	"Thou art our king,
 	O Death! to thee we groan."
 	Those steps I clomb; the mists before me gave
 	Smooth way; and I beheld the face of one
 	Sleeping alone within a mossy cave,
 	With her face up to heaven; that seemed to have
 	Pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone;
 	A lovely Beauty in a summer grave!
 		[ Sonnet, by William Wordsworth ]
 thug
 	A worshipper of Kali, who practised _thuggee_, the strangling
 	of human victims in the name of the religion.  Robbery of the
 	victim provided the means of livelihood.  They were also
 	called _Phansigars_ (Noose operators) from the method employed.
 	Vigorous suppression was begun by Lord William Bentinck in
 	1828, but the fraternity did not become completely extinct
 	for another 50 years or so.
 	In common parlance the word is used for any violent "tough".
 		[ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ]
 tiger
 	1.  A well-known tropical predator (_Felis tigris_): a
 	feline.  It has a yellowish skin with darker spots or
 	stripes.  2.  Figurative: _a paper tiger_, something that is
 	meant to scare, but has no really scaring effect whatsoever,
 	(after a statement by Mao Ze Dong, August 1946).
 		[ Van Dale's Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal ]
 
 	Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
 	In the forests of the night,
 	What immortal hand or eye
 	Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
 		[ The Tyger, by William Blake ]
 tin
 tin of *
 tinning kit
 	"You know salmon, Sarge," said Nobby.
 	"It is a fish of which I am aware, yes."
 	"You know they sell kind of slices of it in tins..."
 	"So I am given to understand, yes."
 	"Weell...how come all the tins are the same size?  Salmon
 	gets thinner at both ends."
 	"Interesting point, Nobby.  I think-"
 		[ Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett ]
 tin opener
 	Less than thirty Cat tribes now survived, roaming the cargo
 	decks on their hind legs in a desperate search for food.
 	But the food had gone.
 	The supplies were finished.
 	Weak and ailing, they prayed at the supply hold's silver
 	mountains: huge towering acres of metal rocks which, in their
 	pagan way, the mutant Cats believed watched over them.
 	Amid the wailing and the screeching one Cat stood up and held
 	aloft the sacred icon.  The icon which had been passed down
 	as holy, and one day would make its use known.
 	It was a piece of V-shaped metal with a revolving handle on
 	its head.
 	He took down a silver rock from the silver mountain, while
 	the other Cats cowered and screamed at the blasphemy.
 	He placed the icon on the rim of the rock, and turned the
 	handle.
 	And the handle turned.
 	And the rock opened.
 	And inside the rock was Alphabetti spaghetti in tomato sauce.
 		[ Red Dwarf, by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor ]
 titan
 	Gaea, mother earth, arose from the Chaos and gave birth to
 	Uranus, heaven, who became her consort.  Uranus hated all
 	their children, because he feared they might challenge his
 	own authority.  Those children, the Titans, the Gigantes,
 	and the Cyclops, were banished to the nether world.  Their
 	enraged mother eventually released the youngest titan,
 	Chronos (time), and encouraged him to castrate his father and
 	rule in his place.  Later, he too was challenged by his own
 	son, Zeus, and he and his fellow titans were ousted from
 	Mount Olympus.
 		[ Greek Mythology, by Richard Patrick ]
 topaz
 	Aluminum silicate mineral with either hydroxyl radicals or
 	fluorine, Al2SiO4(F,OH)2, used as a gem.  It is commonly
 	colorless or some shade of pale yellow to wine-yellow;
 	... The stone is transparent with a vitreous luster.  It has
 	perfect cleavage on the basal pinacoid, but it is nevertheless
 	hard and durable.  The brilliant cut is commonly used.  Topaz
 	crystals, which are of the orthorhombic system, occur in highly
 	acid igneous rocks, e.g., granites and rhyolites, and in
 	metamorphic rocks, e.g., gneisses and schists.
 		[ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition ]
 touch*stone
 	"Gold is tried by a touchstone, men by gold."
 		[ Chilon (c. 560 BC) ]
 tourist
 * tourist
 	The road from Ankh-Morpork to Chrim is high, white and
 	winding, a thirty-league stretch of potholes and half-buried
 	rocks that spirals around mountains and dips into cool green
 	valleys of citrus trees, crosses liana-webbed gorges on
 	creaking rope bridges and is generally more picturesque than
 	useful.
 	Picturesque.  That was a new word to Rincewind the wizard
 	(BMgc, Unseen University [failed]).  It was one of a number
 	he had picked up since leaving the charred ruins of
 	Ankh-Morpork.  Quaint was another one.  Picturesque meant --
 	he decided after careful observation of the scenery that
 	inspired Twoflower to use the word -- that the landscape was
 	horribly precipitous.  Quaint, when used to describe the
 	occasional village through which they passed, meant fever-
 	ridden and tumbledown.
 	Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld.
 	Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant "idiot".
 		[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 towel
 wet towel
 moist towel
 	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say
 	on the subject of towels.
 	A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing
 	an interstellar hitchhiker can have.  Partly it has great
 	practical value.  You can wrap it around you for warmth as
 	you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie
 	on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus
 	V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it
 	beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world
 	of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy
 	River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it
 	round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze
 	of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly
 	stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't
 	see you - daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can
 	wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of
 	course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean
 	enough.
 	  [ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams ]
 *tower
 *tower of darkness
 	Towers (_brooding_, _dark_) stand alone in Waste Areas and
 	almost always belong to Wizards.  All are several stories high,
 	round, doorless, virtually windowless, and composed of smooth
 	blocks of masonry that make them very hard to climb. [...]
 	You will have to go to a Tower and then break into it at some
 	point towards the end of your Tour.
 	  [ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones ]
 trap*door
 	I knew my Erik too well to feel at all comfortable on jumping
 	into his house.  I knew what he had made of a certain palace at
 	Mazenderan.  From being the most honest building conceivable, he
 	soon turned it into a house of the very devil, where you could
 	not utter a word but it was overheard or repeated by an echo.
 	With his trap-doors the monster was responsible for endless
 	tragedies of all kinds.
 		[ The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux ]
 # takes "trapper or lurker above" when specifying 't'
 trapper
 trapper or lurker above
 	The trapper is a creature which has evolved a chameleon-like
 	ability to blend into the dungeon surroundings.  It captures
 	its prey by remaining very still and blending into the
 	surrounding dungeon features, until an unsuspecting creature
 	passes by.  It wraps itself around its prey and digests it.
 tree
 	I think that I shall never see
 	A poem lovely as a tree.
 	A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
 	Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
 	A tree that looks at God all day,
 	And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
 	A tree that may in Summer wear
 	A nest of robins in her hair;
 	Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
 	Who intimately lives with rain.
 	Poems are made by fools like me,
 	But only God can make a tree.
 		[ Trees, by Joyce Kilmer ]
 tripe
 tripe ration
 	If you start from scratch, cooking tripe is a long-drawn-out
 	affair.  Fresh whole tripe calls for a minimum of 12 hours of
 	cooking, some time-honored recipes demanding as much as 24.
 	To prepare fresh tripe, trim if necessary.  Wash it thoroughly,
 	soaking overnight, and blanch, for 1/2 hour in salted water.
 	Wash well again, drain and cut for cooking.  When cooked, the
 	texture of tripe should be like that of soft gristle.  More
 	often, alas, because the heat has not been kept low enough,
 	it has the consistency of wet shoe leather.
 		[ Joy of Cooking, by I Rombauer and M Becker ]
 *troll
 	The troll shambled closer.  He was perhaps eight feet tall,
 	perhaps more.  His forward stoop, with arms dangling past
 	thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell.
 	The hairless green skin moved upon his body.  His head was a
 	gash of a mouth, a yard-long nose, and two eyes which drank
 	the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam.
 	[...]
 	Like a huge green spider, the troll's severed hand ran on its
 	fingers.  Across the mounded floor, up onto a log with one
 	taloned forefinger to hook it over the bark, down again it
 	scrambled, until it found the cut wrist.  And there it grew
 	fast.  The troll's smashed head seethed and knit together.
 	He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them.  The
 	waning faggot cast red light over his fangs.
 		[ Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson ]
 *tsurugi of muramasa
 	This most ancient of swords has been passed down through the
 	leadership of the Samurai legions for hundreds of years.  It
 	is said to grant luck to its wielder, but its main power is
 	terrible to behold.  It has the capability to cut in half any
 	creature it is wielded against, instantly killing them.
 ~*muramasa
 tsurugi
 	The tsurugi, also known as the long samurai sword, is an
 	extremely sharp, two-handed blade favored by the samurai.
 	It is made of hardened steel, and is manufactured using a
 	special process, causing it to never rust.  The tsurugi is
 	rumored to be so sharp that it can occasionally cut
 	opponents in half!
 ~*spellbook
 turquoise*
 	TUBAL:  There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company
 	to Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.
 	SHYLOCK:  I am very glad of it; I'll plague him, I'll torture
 	him; I am glad of it.
 	TUBAL:  One of them showed me a ring that he had of your
 	daughter for a monkey.
 	SHYLOCK:  Out upon her!  Thou torturest me, Tubal.  It was my
 	turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would
 	not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
 		[ The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare ]
 twoflower
 guide
 	"Rincewind!"
 	Twoflower sprang off the bed.  The wizard jumped back,
 	wrenching his features into a smile.
 	"My dear chap, right on time!  We'll just have lunch, and
 	then I'm sure you've got a wonderful programme lined up for
 	this afternoon!"
 	"Er --"
 	"That's great!"
 	Rincewind took a deep breath.  "Look," he said desperately,
 	"let's eat somewhere else.  There's been a bit of a fight
 	down below."
 	"A tavern brawl?  Why didn't you wake me up?"
 	"Well, you see, I - _what_?"
 	"I thought I made myself clear this morning, Rincewind.  I
 	want to see genuine Morporkian life - the slave market, the
 	Whore Pits, the Temple of Small Gods, the Beggar's Guild...
 	and a genuine tavern brawl."  A faint note of suspicion
 	entered Twoflower's voice.  "You _do_ have them, don't you?
 	You know, people swinging on chandeliers, swordfights over
 	the table, the sort of thing Hrun the Barbarian and the
 	Weasel are always getting involved in.  You know --
 	_excitement_."
 		[ The Colour of Magic, by Terry Pratchett ]
 tyr
 	Yet remains that one of the Aesir who is called Tyr:
 	he is most daring, and best in stoutness of heart, and he
 	has much authority over victory in battle; it is good for
 	men of valor to invoke him.  It is a proverb, that he is
 	Tyr-valiant, who surpasses other men and does not waver.
 	He is wise, so that it is also said, that he that is wisest
 	is Tyr-prudent.  This is one token of his daring:  when the
 	Aesir enticed Fenris-Wolf to take upon him the fetter Gleipnir,
 	the wolf did not believe them, that they would loose him,
 	until they laid Tyr's hand into his mouth as a pledge.  But
 	when the Aesir would not loose him, then he bit off the hand
 	at the place now called 'the wolf's joint;' and Tyr is one-
 	handed, and is not called a reconciler of men.
 			[ The Prose Edda, by Snorri Sturluson ]
 *hulk
 	Umber hulks are powerful subterranean predators whose
 	iron-like claws allow them to burrow through solid stone in
 	search of prey.  They are tremendously strong; muscles bulge
 	beneath their thick, scaly hides and their powerful arms and
 	legs all end in great claws.
 *unicorn
 unicorn horn
 	Men have always sought the elusive unicorn, for the single
 	twisted horn which projected from its forehead was thought to
 	be a powerful talisman.  It was said that the unicorn had
 	simply to dip the tip of its horn in a muddy pool for the water
 	to become pure.  Men also believed that to drink from this horn
 	was a protection against all sickness, and that if the horn was
 	ground to a powder it would act as an antidote to all poisons.
 	Less than 200 years ago in France, the horn of a unicorn was
 	used in a ceremony to test the royal food for poison.
 
 	Although only the size of a small horse, the unicorn is a very
 	fierce beast, capable of killing an elephant with a single
 	thrust from its horn.  Its fleetness of foot also makes this
 	solitary creature difficult to capture.  However, it can be
 	tamed and captured by a maiden.  Made gentle by the sight of a
 	virgin, the unicorn can be lured to lay its head in her lap, and
 	in this docile mood, the maiden may secure it with a golden rope.
 	  [ Mythical Beasts, by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library) ]
 
 	Martin took a small sip of beer.  "Almost ready," he said.
 	"You hold your beer awfully well."
 	Tlingel laughed.  "A unicorn's horn is a detoxicant.  Its
 	possession is a universal remedy.  I wait until I reach the
 	warm glow stage, then I use my horn to burn off any excess and
 	keep me right there."
 		[ Unicorn Variations, by Roger Zelazny ]
 unreconnoitered
 	Area of map which is beyond limited perception range when
 	underwater or engulfed by a monster.
 valkyrie
 * valkyrie
 	The Valkyries were the thirteen choosers of the slain, the
 	beautiful warrior-maids of Odin who rode through the air and
 	over the sea.  They watched the progress of the battle and
 	selected the heroes who were to fall fighting.  After they
 	were dead, the maidens rewarded the heroes by kissing them
 	and then led their souls to Valhalla, where the warriors
 	lived happily in an ideal existence, drinking and eating
 	without restraint and fighting over again the battles in
 	which they died and in which they had won their deathless
 	fame.
 	    [ The Encyclopaedia of Myths and Legends of All Nations,
 		by Herbert Robinson and Knox Wilson ]
 vampire
 ~vampire bat
 vampire lord
 	The Oxford English Dictionary is quite unequivocal:
 	_vampire_ - "a preternatural being of a malignant nature (in
 	the original and usual form of the belief, a reanimated
 	corpse), supposed to seek nourishment, or do harm, by sucking
 	the blood of sleeping persons. ..."
 venus
 	Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, was the daughter of
 	Jupiter and Dione.  Others say that Venus sprang from the
 	foam of the sea.  The zephyr wafted her along the waves to
 	the Isle of Cyprus, where she was received and attired by
 	the Seasons, and then led to the assembly of the gods.  All
 	were charmed with her beauty, and each one demanded her
 	for his wife.  Jupiter gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for
 	the service he had rendered in forging thunderbolts.  So
 	the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the
 	most ill-favoured of gods.
 		[ Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch ]
 vlad*
 	Vlad Dracula the Impaler was a 15th-Century monarch of the
 	Birgau region of the Carpathian Mountains, in what is now
 	Romania.  In Romanian history he is best known for two things.
 	One was his skilled handling of the Ottoman Turks, which kept
 	them from making further inroads into Christian Europe.  The
 	other was the ruthless manner in which he ran his fiefdom.
 	He dealt with perceived challengers to his rule by impaling
 	them upright on wooden stakes.  Visiting dignitaries who
 	failed to doff their hats had them nailed to their head.
 *vortex
 vortices
 	Swirling clouds of pure elemental energies, the vortices are
 	thought to be related to the larger elementals.  Though the
 	vortices do no damage when touched, they are noted for being
 	able to envelop unwary travellers.  The hapless fool thus
 	swallowed by a vortex will soon perish from exposure to the
 	element the vortex is composed of.
 vrock
 	The vrock is one of the weaker forms of demon.  It resembles
 	a cross between a human being and a vulture and does physical
 	damage by biting and by using the claws on both its arms and
 	feet.
 wakizashi
 	A wakizashi was used as a samurai's weapon when the katana
 	was unavailable.  When entering a building, a samurai would
 	leave his katana on a rack near the entrance.  However, the
 	wakizashi would be worn at all times, and therefore, it made
 	a sidearm for the samurai (similar to a soldier's use of a
 	pistol).  The samurai would have worn it from the time they
 	awoke to the time they went to sleep.  In earlier periods,
 	and especially during times of civil wars, a tanto was worn
 	in place of a wakizashi.
 		[ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]
 # takes "wand or a wall" when specifying '/'
 ~*sleep
 wand *
 *wand
 	'Saruman!' he cried, and his voice grew in power and authority.
 	'Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed.  I am
 	Gandalf the White, who has returned from death.  You have no
 	colour now, and I cast you from the order and from the Council.'
 	He raised his hand, and spoke slowly in a clear cold voice.
 	'Saruman, your staff is broken.'  There was a crack, and the
 	staff split asunder in Saruman's hand, and the head of it
 	fell down at Gandalf's feet.  'Go!' said Gandalf.  With a cry
 	Saruman fell back and crawled away.
 		[ The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 warg
 	Suddenly Aragorn leapt to his feet.  "How the wind howls!"
 	he cried.  "It is howling with wolf-voices.  The Wargs have
 	come west of the Mountains!"
 	"Need we wait until morning then?" said Gandalf.  "It is as I
 	said.  The hunt is up!  Even if we live to see the dawn, who
 	now will wish to journey south by night with the wild wolves
 	on his trail?"
 	"How far is Moria?" asked Boromir.
 	"There was a door south-west of Caradhras, some fifteen miles
 	as the crow flies, and maybe twenty as the wolf runs,"
 	answered Gandalf grimly.
 	"Then let us start as soon as it is light tomorrow, if we can,"
 	said Boromir.  "The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc
 	that one fears."
 	"True!" said Aragorn, loosening his sword in its sheath.  "But
 	where the warg howls, there also the orc prowls."
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 ~mjollnir
 war*hammer
 	They had come together at the ford of the Trident while the
 	battle crashed around them, Robert with his warhammer and his
 	great antlered helm, the Targaryen prince armored all in
 	black.  On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his
 	House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the
 	sunlight.  The waters of the Trident ran red around the
 	hooves of their destriers as they circled and clashed, again
 	and again, until at last a crushing blow from Robert's hammer
 	stove in the dragon and the chest behind it.  When Ned had
 	finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream,
 	while men of both armies scrambled in the swirling waters for
 	rubies knocked free of his armor.
 		[ A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin ]
 water
 	Day after day, day after day,
 	We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
 	As idle as a painted ship
 	Upon a painted ocean.
 
 	Water, water, everywhere,
 	And all the boards did shrink;
 	Water, water, everywhere
 	Nor any drop to drink.
 	  [ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge ]
 water demon
 	[ The monkey king ] walked along the bank, around the pond.
 	He examined the footprints of the animals that had gone into
 	the water, and saw that none came out again!  So he realized
 	this pond must be possessed by a water demon.  He said to the
 	80,000 monkeys, "This pond is possessed by a water demon.  Do
 	not let anybody go into it."
 
 	After a little while, the water demon saw that none of the
 	monkeys went into the water to drink.  So he rose out of the
 	middle of the pond, taking the shape of a frightening monster.
 	He had a big blue belly, a white face with bulging green eyes,
 	and red claws and feet.  He said, "Why are you just sitting
 	around?  Come into the pond and drink at once!"
 
 	The monkey king said to the horrible monster, "Are you the
 	water demon who owns this pond?"  "Yes, I am," said he.  "Do
 	you eat whoever goes into the water?" asked the king.  "Yes,
 	I do," he answered, "including even birds.  I eat them all.
 	And when you are forced by your thirst to come into the pond
 	and drink, I will enjoy eating you, the biggest monkey, most
 	of all!"  He grinned, and saliva dripped down his hairy chin.
 		[ Buddhist Tales for Young and Old, Vol. 1 ]
 weapon
 	A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind.
 		[ The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold ]
 web
 	Oh what a tangled web we weave,
 	When first we practise to deceive!
 		[ Marmion, by Sir Walter Scott ]
 whistle
 	There were legends both on the front and on the back of the 
 	whistle. The one read thus:
 
 	FLA FUR BIS FLE The other: QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT 
 	'I ought to be able to make it out,' he thought; 
 	'but I suppose I am a little rusty in my Latin. 
 	When I come to think of it, I don't believe I even 
 	know the word for a whistle. The long one does seem 
 	simple enough. It ought to mean, "Who is this who is coming?" 
 
 	Well, the best way to find out is evidently to whistle 
 	for him.'
 
 		[Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, by Montague Rhodes James
 		 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You My Lad']
 # werecritter -- see "lycanthrope"
 *wight
 	When he came to himself again, for a moment he could recall
 	nothing except a sense of dread.  Then suddenly he knew that
 	he was imprisoned, caught hopelessly; he was in a barrow.  A
 	Barrow-wight had taken him, and he was probably already under
 	the dreadful spells of the Barrow-wights about which whispered
 	tales spoke.  He dared not move, but lay as he found himself:
 	flat on his back upon a cold stone with his hands on his
 	breast.
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 # note: need to convert player character "gnomish wizard" into just "wizard"
 # in the lookup code to avoid conflict with the monster of that same name
 ~gnomish wizard
 wizard
 * wizard
 apprentice
 	Ebenezum walked before me along the closest thing we could
 	find to a path in these overgrown woods.  Every few paces he
 	would pause, so that I, burdened with a pack stuffed with
 	arcane and heavy paraphernalia, could catch up with his
 	wizardly strides.  He, as usual, carried nothing, preferring,
 	as he often said, to keep his hands free for quick conjuring
 	and his mind free for the thoughts of a mage.
 		[ A Dealing with Demons, by Craig Shaw Gardner ]
 wizard of yendor
 	No one knows how old this mighty wizard is, or from whence he
 	came.  It is known that, having lived a span far greater than
 	any normal man's, he grew weary of lesser mortals; and so,
 	spurning all human company, he forsook the dwellings of men
 	and went to live in the depths of the Earth.  He took with
 	him a dreadful artifact, the Book of the Dead, which is said
 	to hold great power indeed.  Many have sought to find the
 	wizard and his treasure, but none have found him and lived to
 	tell the tale.  Woe be to the incautious adventurer who
 	disturbs this mighty sorcerer!
 wolf
 *wolf
 *wolf cub
 	The ancestors of the modern day domestic dog, wolves are
 	powerful muscular animals with bushy tails.  Intelligent,
 	social animals, wolves live in family groups or packs made
 	up of multiple family units.  These packs cooperate in hunting
 	down prey.
 *wolfsbane
 	1.  Any of various, usually poisonous perennial herbs of the
 	genus Aconitum, having tuberous roots, palmately lobed leaves,
 	blue or white flowers with large hoodlike upper sepals, and an
 	aggregate of follicles.  2.  The dried leaves and roots of
 	some of these plants, which yield a poisonous alkaloid that
 	was formerly used medicinally.  In both senses also called
 	monkshood.
 		[ The American Heritage Dictionary of
 		    the English Language, Fourth Edition. ]
 wood golem
 	Come, old broomstick, you are needed,
 	Take these rags and wrap them round you!
 	Long my orders you have heeded,
 	By my wishes now I've bound you.
 	Have two legs and stand,
 	And a head for you.
 	Run, and in your hand
 	Hold a bucket too.
 	...
 	See him, toward the shore he's racing
 	There, he's at the stream already,
 	Back like lightning he is chasing,
 	Pouring water fast and steady.
 	Once again he hastens!
 	How the water spills,
 	How the water basins
 	Brimming full he fills!
 	  [ The Sorcerer's Apprentice, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
 	      translation by Edwin Zeydel ]
 woodchuck
 	The Usenet Oracle requires an answer to this question!
 
 	> How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could
 	> chuck wood?
 
 	"Oh, heck!  I'll handle *this* one!"  The Oracle spun the terminal
 	back toward himself, unlocked the ZOT-guard lock, and slid the
 	glass guard away from the ZOT key.  "Ummmm....could you turn around
 	for a minute?  ZOTs are too graphic for the uninitiated.  Even *I*
 	get a little squeamish sometimes..."  The neophyte turned around,
 	and heard the Oracle slam his finger on a computer key, followed
 	by a loud ZZZZOTTTTT and the smell of ozone.
 		[ Excerpted from Internet Oracularity 576.6 ]
 *worm
 long worm tail
 worm tooth
 crysknife
 	[The crysknife] is manufactured in two forms from teeth taken
 	from dead sandworms.  The two forms are "fixed" and "unfixed".
 	An unfixed knife requires proximity to a human body's
 	electrical field to prevent disintegration.  Fixed knives
 	are treated for storage.  All are about 20 centimeters long.
 		[ Dune, by Frank Herbert ]
 wraith
 nazgul
 	Immediately, though everything else remained as before, dim
 	and dark, the shapes became terribly clear.  He was able to
 	see beneath their black wrappings.  There were five tall
 	figures:  two standing on the lip of the dell, three advancing.
 	In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under
 	their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs
 	were helms of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of
 	steel.  Their eyes fell on him and pierced him, as they
 	rushed towards him.  Desperate, he drew his own sword, and
 	it seemed to him that it flickered red, as if it was a
 	firebrand.  Two of the figures halted.  The third was taller
 	than the others:  his hair was long and gleaming and on his
 	helm was a crown.  In one hand he held a long sword, and in
 	the other a knife; both the knife and the hand that held it
 	glowed with a pale light.  He sprang forward and bore down
 	on Frodo.
 		[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]
 *wumpus
 	The Wumpus, by the way, is not bothered by the hazards since
 	he has sucker feet and is too big for a bat to lift.  If you
 	try to shoot him and miss, there's also a chance that he'll
 	up and move himself into another cave, though by nature the
 	Wumpus is a sedentary creature.
 		[ wump (6) -- "Hunt the Wumpus" ]
 
 	_Wumpus yobgregorii_, in the flesh...
 	Later, all you will be able to remember are its eyes.  They
 	are rich mud-brown, and they hold your own without effort.
 		[ Hunter, In Darkness, by Andrew Plotkin ]
 xan
 	They sent their friend the mosquito [xan] ahead of them to
 	find out what lay ahead.  "Since you are the one who sucks
 	the blood of men walking along paths," they told the mosquito,
 	"go and sting the men of Xibalba."  The mosquito flew
 	down the dark road to the Underworld.  Entering the house of
 	the Lords of Death, he stung the first person that he saw...
 
 	The mosquito stung this man as well, and when he yelled, the
 	man next to him asked, "Gathered Blood, what's wrong?"  So
 	he flew along the row stinging all the seated men until he
 	knew the names of all twelve.
 			[ Popul Vuh, as translated by Ralph Nelson ]
 xorn
 	A distant cousin of the earth elemental, the xorn has the
 	ability to shift the cells of its body around in such a way
 	that it becomes porous to inert material.  This gives it the
 	ability to pass through any obstacle that might be between it
 	and its next meal.
 ya
 	The arrow of choice of the samurai, ya are made of very
 	straight bamboo, and are tipped with hardened steel.
 yeenoghu
 	Yeenoghu, the demon lord of gnolls, still exists although
 	all his followers have been wiped off the face of the earth.
 	He casts magic projectiles at those close to him, and a mere
 	gaze into his piercing eyes may hopelessly confuse the
 	battle-weary adventurer.
 yeti
 	The Abominable Snowman, or yeti, is one of the truly great
 	unknown animals of the twentieth century.  It is a large hairy
 	biped that lives in the Himalayan region of Asia ... The story
 	of the Abominable Snowman is filled with mysteries great and
 	small, and one of the most difficult of all is how it got that
 	awful name.  The creature is neither particularly abominable,
 	nor does it necessarily live in the snows.  _Yeti_ is a Tibetan
 	word which may apply either to a real, but unknown animal of
 	the Himalayas, or to a mountain spirit or demon -- no one is
 	quite sure which.  And after nearly half a century in which
 	Westerners have trampled around looking for the yeti, and
 	asking all sorts of questions, the original native traditions
 	concerning the creature have become even more muddled and
 	confused.
 		[ The Encyclopedia of Monsters, by Daniel Cohen ]
 *yugake
 	Japanese leather archery gloves.  Gloves made for use while
 	practicing had thumbs reinforced with horn.  Those worn into
 	battle had thumbs reinforced with a double layer of leather.
 yumi
 	The samurai is highly trained with a special type of bow,
 	the yumi.  Like the ya, the yumi is made of bamboo.  With
 	the yumi-ya, the bow and arrow, the samurai is an extremely
 	accurate and deadly warrior.
 *zombi*
 	The zombi... is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but
 	taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a
 	mechanical semblance of life, -- it is a dead body which is
 	made to walk and act and move as if it were alive.
 		[ W. B. Seabrook ]
 zruty
 	The zruty are wild and gigantic beings, living in the
 	wildernesses of the Tatra mountains.