Radius - December 2006

Welcome to The Radius

Welcome, Members of the Inner Circle,

To this, the second ever issue of The Radius. December is a time for many things. For some it is the month to celebrate the assorted holidays of the various One True Religions, as everyone temporarily puts aside their deep-seated family issues and buys lots of things, American style. For others, it involves the sipping of steamy beverages near a toasty fire, looking for something else to burn, wishing only to keep the wolves at bay for but one more night.

For us in the Inner Circle, it is a time of pure Karma, straight off the boat, uncut and bagged by the kilo. With the Weather Icon here to keep the hypothermia away, and with Quests cascading in a karmalanche that will annihilate all cold weather boredom on December 16th, this is a truly powerful time.

Before we reveal all the frosty details, The Karmic Order of the Twilight Lords would like to personally thank the Inner Circle for the overwhelming response to the fist issue of The Radius. It is your contributions to The Radius that make the Inner Circle such an incredible organization to be a part of.

December Madness: A Mini-(Karmic) Gathering

Known to all ninjas at The Karmic Gathering: OctoberList, Inner Circle member Big Cheddar AKA Dan Morris is holding a Min-Karmic Gathering in his native Alaskan hood. This is the very ninja who brought hand blown glass vials of magically imbued glacier water for everyone in attendance, so you know his event will be legendary and positive.

What: December Madness - A Mini (Karmic) Gathering.
When: December 16th, 5pm 'til late
Where: Alaska's Select Inn, 3451 E Palmdale Dr, Wasilla, AK 99654

In his own words:

December Madness is going to flip your wig! We will be rolling as many times as possible to get the flavor going! We will have a short orientation for new players at 5pm and then at 6pm we will be rolling with people across the nation. Detroit, Florida, and Tennessee are all places in which people will be rolling at the same time as us! Prizes and giveaways, samples of merchandise for sale and naked people! Well, maybe but it won't be me. So if you're in Alaska get your ass off that worn in couch, suck on a icicle and come on over to experience the best and only game in this reality.

8th Annual Florida Mini-Gathering / Morton's List Event

High level and highly talented Inner Circle member RamGog AKA David Tamargo is again helping to put on one of the nation's largest independent Gathering events.

3 Quests will be rolled with the last Quest ending at 1am as the Inner Circles of South Florida unite for this year's Karmic Event featuring:

*Prizes & Giveaways
*Occult Rituals and Ceremonies
*A Morton's List Meal
*Celebrity Appearances
*And Much More...

Questing Across America

Long time Inner Circle member and speculated Twilight Lord candidate Mutant XIII AKA Brad Luttrell was inspired by the synchronicity of the simultaneous events of December 16th to host Questing Across America. Effectively linking the events in Miami, FL ad Wasilla, AK, Inner Circle members anywhere are invited to play Morton's List at the same time. The resultant Karmic surge is expected to be similar to everyone on one side of the planet jumping at the same time.

Questing for Shangri-La

The long awaited Psychopathic Records, Dark Carnival Games board game, The Quest for Shangri-La, is finished and on its way! Nationwide release through Hot Topic is scheduled for February 16th. Look for it on HatchetGear.com even sooner!

The brainchild of Twilight Lords Jumpsteady and R. Jesse AKA Tall Jess, and created by Jumpsteady, The Quest for Shangri-La is the latest collaborative effort of the Karmic Order of Twilight Lords, with major contributions from Twilight Lord R. Jesse (color illustrations) and Twilight Lord Nathaninja (editing, additional writing, graphic design). Other contributors include Europathic's Steve Gray (concept, writing, game design), Psychopathic Records' own Netmaster Gordon (graphic design), and Juggalette Lindsay Jenkins (additional writing).

The Quest for Shangri-La was designed by Dark Carnival Games for Psychopathic Records and is based entirely on the mythos of the Dark Carnival as presented by the lives and works of the Insane Clown Posse. Although a Juggalo game through and through, anyone who likes an action packed, involved, engaging board game will love The Quest for Shangri-La!

Without further ado - sneak peeks of the game's Morton's List references:

CLICK TO VIEW INSTRUCTION BOOKLET FRONT & BACK COVERS!
IMAGES NOT TO SCALE
Wait until you see the other 99% of the flavor, including the giant 26" x 26" board!

The Granddaddy of Dice

We are not alone. Usually this means we as humans are not alone in the universe, which is undoubtedly true. That's all pretty academic, though, until the crystal saucers from Planet XIII arrive. We're talking about something much more exciting and closer to home. So let's rephrase:

We the Inner Circle are not alone in the random reality revolution.

Some of you reading this now may have heard of Luke Rhinehart and/or George Cockcroft, read The Dice Man, or even experimented with Dice Living. For those of you who haven't, prepare for this bomb to drop. Ready? You didn't have time to duck and cover, but it's dropping anyway.

In 1969 George Cockcroft as Luke Rhinehart wrote a quasi-fictional, pseudo-autobiographical account of the life of Luke Rhinehart, a mental health professional living in New York City. This novel, The Dice Man, specifically follows Luke's loss of faith in psychiatry, discovery of Dice Living, and subsequent misadventures. Several other books followed.

So what's the big deal? Simply put, Dice Living is at its core the same fundamental concept behind all of Morton's List. Here's how Dice Living, as expounded upon in Luke Rhinehart's books works:

1. Write down a list of 6 (or 12) options. These could be anything from what clothes to wear, to what personality to act out for the next 10 minutes or 10 days.
2. Roll one or 2 six-diced to determine the option you will do.
3. Follow it through no matter what.

This is exactly like how Morton's List began! This is a most remarkable case of convergent evolution, that two very similar systems of random reality should spontaneously appear on the planet, less than 25 years and 600 miles apart. In geologic space/time that's practically the exact same place and moment.

Convergent evolution is the process whereby organisms independently evolve similar traits because they are adapting to similar environments. For example, the wings of bats, birds, and insects all serve the same purpose, but each somewhat differently. Morton's List and Dice Living are two sides of the same coin, two weapons in the random reality revolution. Let's explore some similarities and differences:

SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT

MORTON'S LIST

DICE LIVING

GOAL -
Immediate
Fun, ending boredom Making real life decisions

GOAL -
Long Term
Realization that your possibilities are endless, and adventure and excitement surround you because you are the source of endless Karma. Ending the tyranny of your dominant personality (ego) and reaching a Zen-like state of enlightenment where you flow with and embrace change and chance.

METHOD
Form a group and randomly choose a leader who randomly determines the group's activity. When faced with a decision, write a list of options. Each should be something that some part of you wants, even if other parts do not. The list should contain at least one option that is threatening to your dominant personality. Roll the die/dice, and follow through.

ACTIVITY RANGE
Focus on fun, inexpensive hour-long leisure activities, though some are only part or none of the above. Anything. Dice People are encouraged to push their own limits and comfort zones in order to challenge/destroy their dominant personalities/egos.

DICE
Six-sided dice are used to determine the group's leader. A 30-sided die is used to determine the group's activity. Six-sided dice are used exclusively. Usually just one. (In the '60s they didn't have high-tech 30-sided dice.)

PLAYERS
Usually 3-12, with about 6 being average, and 1 - 100+ not unheard of. Almost always one. Two is not uncommon, and is the norm for many related games played at Dice Centers.

ORGANIZATION
Center coordinates the activities of the Karmic Order of Twilight Lords, and all related organizations, Dark Carnival Games, etc. With focus on the individual, the only confirmed organization is the author himself. Dice Centers and communes have existed or continue to do so beneath the radar.

COMMUNITY
The Inner Circle comprises all those who have ever played Morton's List, from a core of committed life-long players to the estimated 50,000+ casual thrill seekers. A large fan base of curious readers climaxing in a few intrepid explorers who attempted Dice Living to a greater or lesser degree.

CHALLENGES
Morton's List is a sustainable hobby/lifestyle, especially through use of the supplement, 360 Degrees of the Inner Circle; however, making the leap from outward leisure activity to transformative inner experience can be challenging. Although the books are immensely enjoyable and popular, Dice Living is not a very sustainable lifestyle. It can quickly lead to burnout or an experience bad or dangerous enough to case a person to swear it off for life. It can a trial by fire - all or nothing.

Twilight Lord R. Jesse must be fully credited for discovering The Dice Man in 2005 and bringing it to the attention of the Karmic Order of Twilight Lords, who have since read all available literature on the topic. Much time and effort has already gone into contacting fans of The Dice Man and all known Dice Living enthusiasts to tell them of Morton's List and the Inner Circle.

The time has come to spread word of The Dice Man to the Inner Circle. It is time to acknowledge and honor Luke Rhinehart / George Cockcroft as a true pioneer of random reality. To all of us in the Inner Circle he is a new found grandfather who we never knew was lost.

We encourage you all to read The Dice Man, as we feel strongly that it will increase your Karma and add to your Morton's List experience. Dice Living is the closest known phenomenon to Morton's List. We who pray at the alter of chance, we who place our faith and fate in the roll of a die, we are not alone.

Pic of the Month

Starting this issue, The Radius will showcase YOUR Morton's List related photos! One photo each month will be selected for its exceptional flavor and Karma. Photos may be taken during and/or for a Quest, of Morton's List related art/graffiti, etc. Collages, altered images, and photo series are also allowed - get creative!

Images are accepted via email and must be at least 400px wide, 72dpi, not larger than 3Mb, and in RBG .jpg, .gif or .bmp.

December 2006 Pic of the Month

Karmic Checks

2006 by Twilight Lord Nathaninja, Detroit, MI

#1: Crystal Skull at Tulum, Mexico
#2: Ninja in Action VHS box cover
#3: "The Wolf" at Luxor, Egypt
(note shadows of impromptu photo shoot at bottom left)
#4: Dark Carnival Card from The Quest for Shangri-La board game

Virgin Quests

Thanks to everyone who submitted stories about your first time Morton's List experiences! We can not possibly publish them all, but did enjoy reading every one. Keep 'em coming!

TIP: To increase your chances of publication, please make sure to proofread and spell check before submitting. We edit all submissions for length and grammar, and are more likely to publish pieces that require less editing.

Now that we've kicked off the story corner of The Radius with First Times, the flood gates are open. Send in your stories on any subject matter: first times, best times, drunk and/or high times, old school, synchronicity, attaining Titles, rolling 13s or 30s, or even stories/poems you wrote because of a Quest or that are part of your life's creative work. Feel free to submit photos with your story (using the format guidelines for Photo of the Month). See the side bar for submission instructions and deadline.

Wack Snacks
2006 by Allison "Nessy" Lachan, Queens, NY

A first that comes to mind is the first time I ever rolled "Feeding Frenzy," the Quest of competitive eating. We had a particularly diabolical Table Master, and it was decided that our group of eight would split into two competing teams of four. My team had a proven powerhouse eater, a little lightweight, and a ninja who had spent the whole day drinking.

The other team had the aforementioned ruthless Table Master, a big slug boy, a middleweight eater, and my girlfriend at the time. Things, at the start, seemed evenly matched. After a detour to a late-night grocery store, we picked up what would be the ingredients of our undoing. Each team would compete by assigning a member to eat one of the following items:

1 pound of cheese curls (the no brand kind)
1 dozen donuts (powdered)
1 pound of ginger snaps (the slightly name brand kind)
1 box of Saltines with the four individually wrapped packages

Each team would also have one tiny glass of water to drink from during the course of the snacks. The teams would eat everything as fast as they could, and if one person finished their food, they could help the others. The first team to eat everything would enjoy the full benefits of not being the losing team.

As an extra incentive to eat to win, the losing team would have to eat (as a team, again) a big jar of the extra ludicrously hot Jalapeno peppers. So what would the prize of not being the losing team? Apparently the enjoyment of watching the losing team enjoy the further bone would make it all worthwhile. Or something. It was starting to seem like a contest where there were no winners. This particular Table Master seemed to like games like that.

The dry, salty, powdery snacks were gathered, and we reconvened to where we rolled this Quest. Our team decided that each person would each take one item, and eat that. I got the Saltines. Our heavyweight got the donuts, the drunkard got the cheese curls, and the lightweight got the ginger snaps.

After some trash talking we set upon our grim task. In an explosion of ingestion, our dozen donuts were gone. The cheese puffs were disappearing in a flurry of orange dust. The Ginger snaps were being extracted from the pack, daintily chewed, and swallowed, one by one. My own Saltines were going at a respectable rate, and getting less enjoyable with each bite.

The girlfriend had opted for the Saltines as well, and cracker for cracker, she was out eating me. That was the first sign that things were not going well for our team. About 2/3 of the way through the cheese curls, our drunken eater set his bag down and staggered to the kitchen sink. There, he unleashed an orange stream of chunky, fluorescent vomit.

Our star eater, his dozen donuts gone, declared that he was done, and that he couldn't eat another bite, although he would try to pick up the rest of our slack. About this time, the 6th or 7th ginger snap was being eaten by our guy. The other team was pulling ahead, spurred on by our cheese curl spew. All of their eaters were giving solid performances, led by the Table Master. Their ginger snaps were almost done, the cheese curls were melting away, and I was being out-Saltined hands down.

Our water was running low, and the dryness of our throats made it difficult to speak. The jar of jalapenos loomed large and threatening. Cheese curls had passed out. Ginger snaps was barely 1/4 through his bag (almost 4 entire ounces of cookies!), and Donuts was scarfing left and right, trying to help us keep pace. I has lagging almost 1/2 a pre-wrapped package when I vowed never to eat Saltines again.

The other team finished their donuts, finished their ginger snaps, and was almost done with their cheese curls. Our team had long finished our donuts, and was languishing amidst the unholy hors d'oeuvre tray of our own creation.

With a gulp and a cheer, they finished their last crunchy treat, and we faced our fate. The Jalape�os were opened, and eaten. From the first bite they totally sucked. My mouth burned, and I was starting to drool like crazy. Then, in a moment of Zen-like focus, I went into robot mode and ate almost all of the peppers. It didn't hit me until they were almost all eaten, when I started to froth and tear and sweat from my whole face.

I had been maced and tear-gassed before, and this was a lot like that. On top of the full belly of Saltines, it made for a combination of incredible suck that is kind of indescribable. And we still weren't allowed any water. What was this terrible game, this accursed List, that had brought us to this point? Had we gone to far? Had we crossed some line of masochism or common sense?

Years have since passed and some of the participants have moved on to entirely different lives, but the memories are burned forever into my taste buds. Maybe this was not so much a first of Feeding Frenzy, but a first of playing with a truly insane Table Master. No other game offers experiences such as this. Would I do it again? Give me the dice.

Homeless Hunting
2006 by Josh "Remix" Hanson, Los Angeles, CA

So check it out. I was in the basement, where my room was, playing video games when this kinda dorky ninja I knew from school, Tom, comes by. He's wearing his trademark beat up bomber jacket from WWII and a big 'ol stupid grin on his face. With both hands behind his back he says, "You'll never guess what I got from Jim!"

Jim was his asshole older brother. I guess he was cool, but he could be a prick to us kids a few years younger than him. I said, "What, a kiss on the lips? What you smilin' like a fool for?"

"Shut up, Josh - let me show you..." he said, slowly bringing his hands around front. In them, you guessed it, was a Morton's List box set, all yellow and black like a hornet. It looked a little dangerous.

"So," I said, "What's that?"

"Morton's List!" He was getting impatient. "Remember I told you I heard my brother talking to that guy, Rich, about it? The game where you do real shit?"

I remembered, but I wasn't going to let on that I thought he'd done something fresh for once. "Yeah, that sounds pretty sick," I said,

"How'd you get it?"

"You can't tell ANYBODY, got it?" Tom said seriously, "Swear on your left nut."

"Man, what'd you do, steal it from Jim? OK, OK, I swear. On my left nut and my taint - how'd you get it?"

"I heard Rich telling Jim he wanted his own copy, but he didn't have a way to buy it from the web site. So he paid my brother to order it for him. I just happened to get home from school first and find it. Wanna play?"

Screw it, I thought. It was his ass on the line. "Sure," I shrugged. "I'm bored off my ass today."

And that was it. I started down a road I'm still on that day. I saved my Halo game (which I still haven't finished to this day!) and we sat down to figure out the rules. We had it down pretty quick, but we must have spent an hour looking through all the Tables and finding the craziest Quests.

"Let's put this shit to the test, man," I said, "I'm ready for anything." Tom insisted he be the Table Master because it was his game, his stolen game. I let him have his way because I knew he'd cry otherwise.

"Just roll that 'Boulder,' man," I said. "Roll some of that Chaos!" The second I said it he rolled the Boulder and I shit you not it was a 20: the Chaos Table. We both looked at each other in amazement. Little did I know then that would be he first of MANY weird coincidences I'd see because of the List.

He rolled again: 26 - Derelicts of Dialogue. I was a little relieved. After reading that Table I knew I liked it, but I didn't know if I liked it with Tom. Hard Porno Pleasures and X-rated Games with Tom didn't sound boring; it sounded mentally scaring!

After a minute of thinking we got the idea to go try to talk to homeless ninjas at a nearby park. It was just turned into one of those days, you know?

We spent hours hunting for homeless people all over the place, getting into all kinds of places. The most exciting thing that happened was getting chased by a dog through an alley, and being yelled at and threatened by a crazy-ass homeless Grizzly Adams stunt double. We didn't really get to talk to any fresh homeless people with stories of hopping trains. Everyone we did talk to just wanted money, even though they probably had more than us!

We had a fun ass day, and I'll never forget it because that was the first time Tom and I really hung out for a long time. I thought he was a nerd back then, but he turned out to become one of my closest friends. We were the first ones in our Inner Circle and we've been through countless Quests together.

I gotta give him props for stealing that Morton's List, even he punked out and gave it back the next day, and it was weeks before we got out own copy. Shit, we even ended up playing with Jim and Rich a few times. They weren't such jerks to us when they found out we rolled the List, too.

Well, I guess my first time was like a lot of people's. It changed my life without me even realizing it at the time. All I knew was I wanted to play again and again. I was too busy playing to realize the effect the game was having on me. But now looking back a couple years I can't help but realize...

Damn, Tom was a retard before the List!

Got you, muthafacko! "Inflict the Diss!" How's it feel? This shit's gonna be in The Radius - top that! Who's the man, now, dog?