@~Three responses to James' article about dwarves last issue, from
@~Grimwold (not surprisingly), Jean Childs and BMK.

1.    Humans - All Long Legs Or Is There Something Else?

                   By Grimwold (a non-human)

I used to like James Judge, I thought he was a reasonable chap,
fairly well balanced and with a good eye for detail. Mostly
though, I liked him for his silly name.

However, his little article has disturbed me somewhat, attacking
Dwarves (note the capital, Mr Judge, note it well!) through the
luminous pages of Syntax. For he not only casts aspersions on my,
and every other Dwarf's, family tree, ancestors and the very core
of our existence, but he also challenged me to "explain" myself. I
will take up this challenge, the Dwarves' code of honour decrees
that we must meet all insults and kill the heathen dog in a flurry
of axe blows (though I will forsake this part, there is a limit as
to how far a Dwarf will travel). I will "explain myself" and my
kin, though I feel no need to, in order to illuminate Mr Judge and
other "pro-humans" that we do, in fact, exist. Although computers
are smart, a word processor has yet to be written that writes
letters, so someone must be doing the typing at this end (even if
he has to sit on a padded chair to reach the keyboard).

Yes, we are short. There is no getting away from that fact,
indeed, we feel no urge to try and hide our height. Why should we?
Height is a very relative thing. In a world of Dwarves, the five
foot human is a giant. In a world of imps, the three foot Dwarf is
a giant. We think 3'6" to be a comfortable height, after all, what
need have we to be any taller? Everything we need to function
properly manages to find a home in our body somewhere, it's just
that we don't waste body space like some classes.

It is only since we ventured forth into the daylight that we have
become an item for ridicule by Mr Judge and his like. Our normal
habitat is underground, originally in caves and deep fissures in
the earth, though later on most of us moved into the mining

industry, where our height and build made us ideally suitable for
hewing rock and ore.

Now let us go onto the main matter of Mr Judge's letter; ageing.
As he said, a 100 year old human would be "bent with age, shaking
and extremely wrinkled". I have no argument with that, living as I
do in a culture of humans, this is the accepted penalty for
getting "old". Though again, "old" is a relative term. For a
human, anything above 70 years is generally considered old. But
with Dwarves, being old proper doesn't begin until into the fourth
century. Even puberty doesn't begin until around three score years
have passed.  I am still a young Dwarf, being only 122 years old
and although I quite like human company, I find it difficult to
talk to someone who is so much younger than myself. Mr Judge
claims that Dwarves, by the age of 200 would be the same in
appearance to a human of 100 when in fact, we have hardly had time
to develop a middle-aged spread. Now while I recognise and follow
the argument that this human offers, I have thought of two
possible reasons why Dwarves should live twice as many years as
their human counterparts:

1. Dwarves count their years differently to humans.
                 (This is untrue, by the way.)

2. Humans are not as well designed or put together as they seem to
think.

It is well believed throughout the dungeon races that humans are
the third lowest class when it comes to longevity.  (The other
two, if you are interested, are Goblins and Orcs.) We Dwarves hold
the opinion that humans have a mutant gene that causes excessive
ageing, hence their apparently short lifespan.  This isn't helped
by their seemingly self-destructive urges for harmful drugs, be
they alcohol, nicotine or even more harmful substances. True,
Dwarves have been known to quaff the odd pint or two, but it's
very rare that you'll find one smoking.

I wouldn't class myself as 'mystical', it's a bit hard to be
mystical when you're burrowing through the earth in search of
yellow metal, with the mud and dust clinging to your beard.

It was an interesting article that Mr Judge wrote, and he showed
some insight to the problem. But he overlooked one thing, that the
human body isn't as perfect as it could be.  Perhaps this is to be
expected, no one likes to find out they are impaired in some way.

One thing that hasn't, as far as I am aware, been brought to
attention before. The human race must surely worship the Dwarves,
even if they do it subconsciously. How else can you explain the
plastic or concrete Dwarves some decorate their lawns with?
------------------------------------------------------------------
                 2. To Be Or Not To Be!

                     by Jean Childs

I read the article about dwarves in the previous issue of SynTax
with great interest and I thought that I would bore you all
with my view of the matter. Dwarves lived, and do live, for
hundreds of years. If you were to meet one, their enormous life
spans would be apparent from their vast intelligence. They do
have to cope with rather a lot of hair growth, that is true, but
then the profession of one in every five dwarves is that of a
barber, so keeping it under control is no problem. They are not
bent over with age for the simple reason that they are dwarves
and not humans. Humans do tend to bend with age, not due to
gravitational pull as was suggested in the previous article, but
for the same reason that babies crawl before they walk.
Retrogression to our primitive forefathers' ways. In fact, it
was in imitation of our dwarven friends that man first learned
to walk on two legs.  So where are they now? More on that later.

There was once a fine creature that walked this earth. The human
race was in awe of it, and at its mercy. What do I refer to? The
dragon! The dragon was no more of a myth than I am. Those poor
creatures suffered from dreadful digestive problems, caused by
a MANdatory change to their diet. A form of gas would build up
in their stomachs, which would be released with much discomfort.
Hence the accompanying roar.


Dragons soon learned to use this to their advantage, and would
carry small pieces of flint in the forks of their tongues with
which to ignite the gas. The abundance of gas in their stomachs
more than compensated for their relatively small wings when it
came to flying.  Where are they now? Where are the dwarves? Where
are the elves, and the giants, and the goblins?

Well, just like the gods of ancient Greece they are in a state of
limbo, put there by a lack of belief. They are fading fast, but
they are still there.  Unlike, however, the griffins. Their job is
to live amongst us, looking for signs that we believe. Waiting for
the return.

So why can't we see them? Well, we can if we look carefully.
Although they do have this annoying habit of turning to stone. Let
me tell you how they accomplish this feat. Well, first they ...

Oh I'm sorry, I've run out of time. Those men in white coats are
at the door.


BMK                                                            BMK
3.          A Little More Light on Dwarves and SA
                     by The Bitmap Kid

Huuuum. Our JJ's not just a pretty face - is he? His article on
dwarves and suspended animation really got me thinking (any jokes
on this are completely unfair!).

As an author, and also major reader of many of the best adventure
books from the excellent Dragonlance to the perfect Legends of
Lone Wolf (and also being a slight perfectionist), I have very
definite views on some (okay, all) of the points my mate JJ
brought up. Firstly, I'll directly tackle his two main points.

At the end of his article, JJ said that he had proved that Dwarves
are mystical, and "not the children of the earth they pretended to
be." He is quite right in this idea, and here are a few words to
support this.

Gully Dwarves (a filthy child-minded race), are one of my fave
mystical creatures and so I have studied them closely. My main
beliefs about these sorts of creatures are based on MANY years of
reading and writing. They are only my views, but this is how I
like to think of dwarves!

    I think that most people make the fatal mistake as likening
Dwarves like the short-humans of Earth to Dwarves of adventure
worlds. I believe that the only thing they have in common is that
they are both humanoid and short. When I see a sparrow in my back
garden, I don't think it's related (closely) to some fish, even
though they may be the same size. The example is going to
extremes, I know, but it proves my point.

    In my eyes dwarfs (adventure ones) are short, VERY well built,
eg strong, have big hands and feet, grow beards very fast indeed
when they are young until they become more older when it slows a
lot. They ARE wrinkled (here JJ and I disagree, it seems, but that
doesn't matter), always, almost from birth, but will probably live
to ages vastly over that of a modern human.

Earth dwarves, are short, humanoid, human, have SMALL hands and
feet, do not grow beards any differently from average people and
are not naturally strong (but, of course can get to be strong).

These points, that (adventure) Dwarves are more different that
human dwarves as we may first think, very much support JJ's idea
of adventure dwarves being more mystical than actual. One point,
that JJ made however I disagree with. Wrinkles. As far as I can
make out from many sources, wrinkles are caused by a changing in
the skin, death in fact or continual folding. If there were no
gravity, we would still have wrinkles, only they wouldn't be so
apparent and hang downwards.

Babies have wrinkles where their skin is folded - nothing to do
with gravity. Old people gain more wrinkles because the skin is
less healthy, taut etc etc. So if Dwarves DIDN'T have (many)
wrinkles and were 200 years old, say, it is because of the health
of their skin etc, the gravity having little affect on how wrinkly
they are.

Also, humans could live to 200, without wrinkles (many) OR being
blind etc. How? Because life is completely rejuvenational - it
could go on forever, there is no apparent reason why we should
grow old and die, we just do. Poor eyesight has nothing to do with
over-use, just death, and the onset of it.... (yergh!)

At the same time as disproving the existence of adventure dwarves
on earth, recent ideas on some of our most basic of legends have
hit the streets. The Vampire. Apparently there is a real disease
that causes some of the symptoms of any adventurer's sworn enemy,
the Vampire. It makes the teeth more visible and protrude (perhaps
explaining the ideas of the long fangs) and also affects the skin
so that severe burns can be obtained purely by exposure to
sunlight. In olden times darkness was connected with "the devil"
much more than it was now. A person who could only live in the
darkness (as a sufferer of this disease) could be thought of as
darkness itself in these times, and as a result many of a town's
problems could be blamed on such a "beast", after all it is always
easier to fight the defenceless. The Dracula mystery explained?
The symptoms of the Werewolf are also in line with a real-life
disease - so could the stories of Zombies and Undead be
explainable as well....? Ooo-er Mrs....!

In my own mind, I believe that dragons can fly more with an
automatic inherited magic that with rising on currents of air,
this helps me to believe in dragons more. Arrh - but magic! I
strongly believe there is magic on earth, here and now, that magic
is a part of existence and life. I just feel there are few who can
harness it or even understand it. (Okay, think I'm crazy then!)
The idea of Elves is different though, they can not only live to
great ages (nothing genetic there, probably something to do with
the gods if humans can't do it) and have a sort of infra-red
vision. This is also easy to fit in, since we know about infra-red
light and I'm sure there is some animal out there that can use it
naturally - so why not elves?

JJ was also quite right on the suspended animation thing. I feel
here, that JJ's points are quite true - muscles do waste with
time. But then again, so does every part of the human anatomy BUT
they don't in a suspended animation chamber - so why doesn't this
apply to muscles? If the theory behind suspended animation is that
you literally 'go to sleep' and your body is preserved, then there
are two possibilities. One is that EVERYTHING is PERFECTLY
preserved, even muscles (to the point of not even wasting),
without the need of exercise. And two the method that JJ put
forward, this could appear to be done through the air, rather than
wires and bits to fit in with the 'get up and walk away' idea of
SA. There is another theory that could be behind 'suspended
animation' though, which I must admit springs to my mind faster
than the other basic theory. It is that LITERALLY a time-vortex is
created, so as far as the 'sleeper' is concerned he HAS only been
asleep for a few mins, when actually years had passed, in that
case the muscles etc wouldn't waste.





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