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- YEAR 515

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STRANGER FROM A STRANGE LAND

Dateline: 18-10-517

Bereny has seen visitors from many strange lands over the years, but the Bugle has recently spoken to a traveller from a land more distant than any previously imagined. Capn' Brody Scabb comes from a land far to the east of Bereny known as the 'Golden Coast' and describes himself as a 'pirate'. Sporting a wooden leg as a result of a 'cannon accident', the grizzled sailor says he can still keep up with others while walking.

On the farthest edge of the known continent, beyond the jungles of the Frontier, beyond the deserts of Kyr, there lies a vast forbidding sea. Readers of the Bugle will know of the sea that has recently appeared in Bereny's far south-east. The Golden Coast, it would appear, borders an even greater expanse of sea - the Eastern Ocean Capn' Brody Scabb calls it - for league after league. The ocean, so far as he knows, goes on for ever.

"The sky be more blue than imagination can provide," says Capn' Brody Scabb of his homeland. "The air be as fresh as the first wind. The sands of the endless beach be as soft as a maiden's touch. Yet amid all this beauty, 'tis a fearsomely dangerous place. There be monsters there - lots of monsters."

A pirate, according to Capn' Brody Scabb, is a member of a fraternity of ocean-going nomads who travel around the coast trading with the settled communities there, although he was rather vague on the nature of the trade that takes place ("protection" was mentioned), and at times the pirates sounded to be little more than a gang of water-borne brigands.

These communities would seem to include both humans and elves, and according to Capn' Brody Scabb the sea-elves of the Golden Coast are unaffected by the 'elven curse' which afflicts Bereny's elves.

Capn' Brody Scabb also describes another race, the mysterious tentacle-faced Zeld, who dwell deep beneath the surface of the ocean. This strange and inscrutable people are said to have three sexes - male, female, and ... another one.

There is another culture who have a lot of influence in the Golden Coast, the Ninja. These people sound rather like an off-shoot of Bereny's monks, in that they prize skill in martial arts, emphasize discipline and mysticism, and are trained by mysterious masters who dwell in remote inland mountain top retreats. Capn' Brody Scabb got quite heated on the subject of the ninja, as there is a deep and long-standing emnity between pirates and ninja, although the Capn' couldn't quite recall how the feud originated. "We Pirates just hate those scurvy Ninja. Hate 'em. Something about those black pyjamas they wear bugs the hell out of a pirate. And all their sneakin' round."

It is curious therefore that Capn' Brody Scabb has on occasion been seen in the company of an inscrutable black pyjama-clad martial-artist who also seems to have come from the Golden Coast. "Arr, it be true that Rari be a ninja," said Capn' Brody Scabb, "but we two be the only intrepid wanderers from the Golden Coast that have ever travelled to this remote land of Bereny, and it would be powerful ungracious of me if I didn't acknowledge the only person here who shares me homeland. We be havin' a bit of a contest to see who kills more, and I be winning that wager so far."

Is it likely that anyone from Bereny will reach the Golden Coast anytime soon? Well Berenian explorers in Frontier have heard of the land to the east and some are believed to have set off to find a route there. Whether they will ever get there, and then return to tell of it, remains to be seen.