Dirk steps forward, manacles in hand, but I stop him with a glance and a shake of my head. "The manacles will not be necessary," I quietly state to those surrounding me, "I shall not fight the judgement."

It will be a first, but then I plan to be the first at many things. I have had a long time to think about what I shall do with my new life.

A disapointed sigh can almost be felt from those gathered around me. I have witnessed this spectacle before. I did not like it then, and I shall not add to their enjoyment now.

I am better then all of you.

This I must believe so that I may continue to stay sane.

I do not need you. I do not need any of you...

I look to my mother. She is shaking, and I can hear a quiet keening beginning to rise, coming from the back of her throat. I will survive, but for her...

This ceremony must be killing her. He has had to go through this so many times.

Her rapist, Garrison, my... father.

Her brother, my uncle Pike, for daring to hunt down one of the outcast and break our greatest of taboos.

And now her only child.

But Thralls do not produce tears, as the weak ones do.

And that is a good thing.

I shake my head slowly, meeting her eyes. And the keening stops. Her shoulders come back, her chin rises, I can see that even now, she is proud of me, of the crime that I committed to deserve this, and how I face what is the end of many a Thrall. We give each other quick smiles, for the last time in our lives.

I will miss you, mother.

"Step forward," intones the Rite Master, bringing me back from my reverie. I turn and stride forward, stopping before the revered elder. His black, red, and blue tattoos, and the scars beneath them tell of his long and distinguished career, his accomplishments, his failures, even the births of his daughter and his two... well, those two names have been blotted out.

As I shall be from my mother's skin.

And the Rite Master's as well. I look down to see the tattoo adjacent to my mother's on his chest. The tattoo that matches the one on my forehead.

"Does Dayn, son of Tane and..." he pauses, very pointedly not mentioning Kane, my father, who took the name Garrison before his banishment. Before he became the greatest disgrace ever to befall the Thrall people. "...Have any final words?"

They all want to hear me beg. Well, not all of them. But I shall not give them the satisfaction.

"Not yet."

And I smile a smile I have long-practiced in my cell for just this moment. And it serves me well. His wary frown is just the reaction I wanted.

I draw my truesword from the scabbard at my back and pass it over to him, pommel-first. As he pulls it away, my fingertips linger as the blade slides out of reach.

This I shall regret.

The Rite Master places my truesword, the sword that he forged himself, between two ironwood posts. He walks around one of the posts, and faces me as he draws his own greatsword.

And brings it down once.

But once is enough. And I do not cringe. At least, visibly.

I am better than you...

Putting away his truesword, he picks up the two pieces and throws them at my feet and, falling to my knees before him, I tilt my head back, and look up into my grandsire's eyes. He cups his left hand behind the base of my skull and takes up the third scrimshawed bone needle, dips it into the small pot filled with blue ink resting on the iron post beside him, and begins to jab the skin of my forehead. He pauses from time to time to wipe the excess away with his thumb, an act that still draws startled gasps from the younglings.

Even the thought of touching Cal-Root ink is enough to bring shudders to the bravest Thrall warrior, something thought impossible to most of the inhabitants of Talislanta. However, to most of the inhabitants of Talislanta, their identity, that thing that tells people who they are is not based on the tattoos covering their bodies. For those of us who need tattoos to distinguish one from another, an ink that leeches all other colors from the skin is possibly the greatest thing to be feared.

The stuff of nightmares.

And my grandsire, known only to every one of us as the Rite Master, is the only member of the clan who is beyond all fear. His tattoos - in black, blue, and red - are unlike those of any other member of the clan. They have all been fashioned from the three possible colors of Cal-Root ink. And thus can never be lost to a stray droplet of the stuff.

I have a long time to think of such things as I stare up into the night sky at the tight blue crescent of Laeolis, signifying my crime. We have all waited many months for this night, that I may be properly marked as having grossly disobeyed orders.

I have a long time to think of the tight blue crescent of Laeolis which, when inscribed upon my forehead, will show the world my people's shame that I would dare to disobey an order, even one as foolish as the one that I was expected to obey. And I suddenly realize why mother is proud of me. I have done what she could never bring herself to do, recognize and aid one of the outcast. She must still feel guilty for not recognizing Pike as he went through this same ritual.

I have a long time to think of all these things as the crescent of Laeolis obliterates the name tattoo in the middle of my forehead, and I become one of the outcast.

The Rite Master releases me, stepping back. He looks to the two remnants of blade, no longer a truesword, at my feet.

Honor dictates that I pick them up and slit open my belly. Or throat.

Only cowards pick up the pieces and then slink away into the outer world, away from Taz, trying desperately to find a smith competent enough to forge their truesword anew.

Not I.

I stand, facing the Rite Master, staring into his eyes, long enough that I can feel those around me getting nervous. This has never been done.

Outcasts always take up the blade. It has always been their most prized possession, and who could part with it?

It means nothing to me, not anymore.

They expect me to grieve, to scream my rage at the moon, as so many others have done before me.

I continue to stare into the Rite Master's eyes.

This is not difficult for me. I know that I did the right thing. I still have my honor, this I know. I have followed in my uncle's footsteps, recognizing and dealing with an outcast. Pike's crime was to hunt down and kill my father. Mine was to give aid to an outcast in danger.

I feel no guilt, only disgust that my people still cling to banishment. It is a foolish form of judgement.

I am better than you...

The moment passes, as someone in the circle gasps. I look down to see my tattoos begin to fade. They look as if they are seeping away under my skin.

Which they are, in a way. My urine will be interesting looking for the next few days, to say the least.

The Rite Master turns away from me, murmuring the word...

"Forgotten."

Others begin to turn away from me as well, mumbling and whispering others, some repeating other clanmenber's words.

This last from my mother, who gives me one last glance as she turns, head lowered.

A roar erupts from her throat as she throws her head back, grieving for the two of us.

And I should go, I really should, but I am not done here.

I walk to the edge of the circle which nonchalantly parts to let me through as if they were planning to do just that for their own sake. As I begin to stalk around the members of the circle, eyes slide away from me. I stop before Stone, one of the greatest warriors of our clan, and am delighted to see him stare down at his sandals as if he were a youngling being punished for failure-to-commit in combat.

Oh, yes, this definitely has promise.

I begin to move around the circle again, slowing before the Rite Master as I begin my speech, long thought out in my time in the cell.

"You have always expected this of me. How many of you wondered if I would be the second coming of my father? I have seen your stares... and now I have let you down, have I not?

"Yes, my father was a reincarnator. And yes, I am different from all of you. Most likely because he was my sire. Perhaps I gained some intellect from him that most of you are lacking. Perhaps that is why I have studied, and traveled. And learned to read and write.

"But I am different from my sire.

"I have honor.

"Pulling that woman out of the hold was the right thing to do. She would have died if I hadn't broken the chains. And you would believe that the honorable thing to do would be to let her go down with the ship?

"Because she was an outcast.

"The honorable thing to do was to release her, give her a chance to die with a sword in her hand. She is a Thrall. She is a Thrall scout.

"As am I.

"Someday you shall realize that banishment is wrong. It takes some of you and makes them feel as if they are less than nothing. Did you hear me say 'some of you?'

"Because I am better than you."

At this, some heads snap in my direction before realizing what they are doing, so that they have to stare up at the sky or at the back of another clanmember's head.

"She told me that her name was Roen. That is all she wanted. For a Thrall to repeat her name back to her. It was not such an important thing... but it was to her.

"Do you realize that you have broken them? "But I expect that that is what you want. For us to have no identity at all.

"Her name is Roen.

"My name is Dayn.

"The Forgotten."

And I stalk to my mother's hut, retrieve my pack of clothing, my pouches, my bow, my mother had even placed my gwanga in its sheath for me. Scooping it up, I walk past them all and over to pull open the gate.

I stop, turn, and look at them all, but mostly my mother.

"You SHALL be hearing of me."

It all started with Elric. I had never even heard of an albino before him, even though my family had had a paperlady that was an albino back when I was about 6.

But when I discovered Elric, when I was a 7th grader, my obsession with albinos began. I have had probably more albino characters than... well, more than most of my GM's can stand.

So when I picked up the First Edition Talislanta book, and devoured it's contents that first night, I was definitely smilin' when I discovered that the Thrall were a an identical race of muscular, hairless albinos. So I knew that even though the rulebook didn't state it, Thralls would have red eyes (that is, if their blood was red. Cymrillians and Tanasians? That's a different story). So I thought,

These guys are the greatest! But yeah, those tattoos get in the way. Hey! What if a Thrall might have been raised by some other race, so he never had been tattooed?

YEAH!

Luckily I never went with that idea. Because the Second Edition book came out. And even though the Thrall on the cover looked like he had purple eyes, I ate it up. This was good stuff, Maynard. And then the Cyclopedias started coming out, and I would be at my bookstore (Wonderworld in Burien - not a plug, just wondering if anyone else has been there?) every Friday, asking if anything new for Talislanta had come in.

And then the Seven Kingdoms book arrived. I flipped through it before buying it (not that I was checking to see if I should buy it or not, but I just couldn't wait, y'see), and I came across a picture that just stopped me dead in my tracks. next to a kind of cool-looking Thrall with a bow, stood a pure white Thrall with a small crescent moon tattooed on his forehead, and carrying an axe. In the notes it said he was a Thrall Outcast.

I stood there for a few moments before tearing through the archetypes section, looking for the description of what must be the coolest of all Talislantan characters, the THRALL OUTCAST!

I don't even remember being disappointed that there was no description.

No big deal, I thought, I'll make them myself!

I went home, chewed through that book too (sorry, running out of eating analogies), and came across the text section that told about banishment and outcasts.

I decided right then and there that this was to be my contribution to Talislanta.

The Clanless.

Luckily, members of my gaming group have liked my ideas, and helped me out with some of their own. I figured that Thralls would always have the tattoo in the middle of their forehead be a picteogram representation of their name.

That way any Thrall could tell what another Thrall's name was just by looking at his face.

In an outcast, the crescent would take the place of a name-tattoo. Thus, all male outcasts would look exactly alike, and so would all female outcasts. They would be nameless, and have no real identity. Other Thralls would not look at them, and non-Thralls see them as being identical except for their tattoos. Take 'em away, and you've got... "Hey, isn't that the white Thrall that kicked through here a few months ago? That guy was a real bastard. Hey, waitaminute...didn't he break Elmot's jaw? Let's go get the sheriff!" I also had to come up with some kind of natural plant that would produce an ink that would leech the colors out of the tattoos, so they could look as cool as they did in the picture. Also, this would help the Thralls that spot some Thrall with bone-white skin walking near them so that they can quickly ignore him.

Just imagine your surprise if there was no pigment-leeching ink like this. You (a Thrall Warrior or Scout) walk up to a Thrall sitting with his back to you in a tavern. You see by the tattoos on his back that he's just gotten back from a campaign over in Ikarthis, and you want to know if he knows your sister. You order two fire ales and clap him on the back, only to discover to your horror... He's an OUTCAST!!!

Besides, this would mean that to them, and other Thralls, they would have no past, no present, and probably no future.

The reason that I went with a Blue crescent was that Laeolis was the moon of sorrow, and it just seemed to fit.

Plus, blue is my favorite color. It's Dayn's favorite too. (Yeah, of course he's my favorite character. What did you think?)

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