Games
Bat and Ball:
Perhaps the most serious incident of the contests had occurred in one of the games of bat and ball; in this contest there are two men on each side, and the object is to keep the ball out of the hands of the other team; no one man may hold the ball form more than the referee's count of twenty; he may, however, throw it into the air, provided it is thrown over his head, and catch it again himself; the ball may be thrown to the partner, or struck to him with the bat; the bat, of course, drives the ball with incredible force; the bats are of heavy wood, rather broad, and the ball, about two inches in diameter, is also of wood, and extremely hard; this is something like a game of "keep away" with two men in the middle. I was pleased that I was not involved in the play. Shortly after the first "knock off," in which the ball is served to the enemy, Gorm, who was Ivar's partner, was struck cold with the ball, it driven from an opponent's bat; this, I gathered, is a common trick; it is very difficult to intercept or protect oneself from a ball struck at one with great speed from a short distance; it looked quite bad for Ivar at this point, until one of his opponents, fortunately, broke his leg, it coming into violent contack with Ivar' s bat. This contest was called a draw. Ivar then asked me to be his partner. I declined. "it is all right," said Ivar, "even the bravest of men may decline a contest of bat-and-ball."
Marauders of Gor, pg 140
Running the bola:
"Run," I said. She cried out angrily, as did Albrecht, and Kamchak laughed.
"Run, you little fool," shouted Conrad.
The girl had released the stirrup and her feet struck the ground. She was off balance but righted herself and with an angry cry she sped from the circle. By surprising her I had gained perhaps ten or fifteen yards.I took the binding thong from my belt and put it in my teeth.I began to swing the bola.To my amazement, as I swung the bola in ever faster circles, never taking my eyes off her, she broke the straight running pattern only about fifty yards for the whip circle, and began to dodge, moving always, however, toward the lance. This puzzled me. surely she has not miscounted, not dina of Turia. As the judge counted aloud I observed the pattern, two left, then along right to compensate, moving toward the lance; two left, then right; two left, then right.
"Fifteen!" called the judge, and I streaked on kaiila back from the circle of the boskhide whip.
I rode full speed, for there was not a beat to lose. Even if by good fortune I managed to tie Albrecht, Elizabeth would still belong to the Kassars, for Conrad had a clear win over Kamchak. It is dangerous, of course, to approach any but naive, straight-running, perhaps terrified, girl at full speed, for should she dodge or move to one side, one will have to slow the kaiila to turn it after her, lest one be carried past her to rapidly, even at the margins of bola range. But I could judge Dina's run, two left, one right, so I set the kaiila running at full speed for what would seem to be the unwilling point of rendezvous between Dina and the leather of the bola. I was surprised at the simplicity of her pattern. I wondered how it could be that such a girl had never been taken inless than thirty-two beats, that she had reached the lance forty times.I would release the bola in another beat as she took her second sprint to the left.Then I remembered the intelligence of her eyes, her thirty-two, that never had she been taken inless than thrity-two beats, that she had reached the lance forty times. Her skills mustbe subtle, her timing marvelous.I released the bola, risking all, hurling it not the the expected rendezvous of the second left but to a first right, unexpected, the first break in the two-left, one-right pattern. I heard her startled cry as the weighted leather straps flashed about her thighs, calves and ankles, in an instant lashing them together as tightly as though by binding fiber. Hardly slackening speed I swept past the girl, turned the kaiila t face her, and again kkicked itinto a full gallop I briefly saw a look of utter astonishment of her beautiful face. Her hands were out, trying instinctively to maintain her balance; the bola weights were still snapping about her ankles in tiny, angry circles; in an instant she would fall to the grass racing past I seized her by the hair and threw her over the saddle; scarcely did she comprehend what was happening before she found herself my prisoner, while yet the kaiila did still gallop, bound about the pommel of the saddle. I had nottaken even time to dismount. Only perhaps a beat or two before the kaiila leapt into the circle had I finished the knots that confined her. I threw her to the turf at the judges feet.The judge, and the crowd, seemed speechless."Time!" called Kamchak.The judge looked startled, as thought he could not believe what he had seen. He took his hand from the side of the standing kaiila."....the wench is secured,: he said.
Nomads of Gor; pgs 76-77
Bones:
Imnak and I sat across from one another, both cross-legged. He dropped a tiny bone to the fur mat between us. Each player, in turn, drops a bone, one of several in his supply. The bone Imnak had dropeed was carved in the shape of a small tabuk. Each of the bones is carved to resemble an animal, such as an arctic gant, a northern bosk, a lart, a tabuk or sleen, and so on. The bone which remains upright is the winner. If both bones do not remain upright there is no winner on that throw. Similarly, if both bones should remain upright, they are dropped again. A bone which does not remain upright, if its opposing bone does remain upright, is placed in the stock of him whose bone remained upright. The game is finished when one of the two players is cleaned out of bones.
Beasts of Gor, pg 184-185
Cards
Dice and cards and game boards and drinking goblets scattered to the rocky floors of the guard chambers as Whip Slaves and guardsmen looked up to find at their throats the blades of desperate and condemned men, now drunk with the taste of freedom and determined to free their fellows.
Outlaw of Gor, pg 167
Cats cradle:
Others faced one another, kneeling, and, with string and their fingers, played an intricate cat's-cradle game. Others played "Stones," where one player guesses the number of stones held in the other's hand. I tried the cat's-cradle game but I could not play it, I always became confused, trying to copy the intricate patterns. How beautifully they would suddenly, in all their complexity, appear. The other girls laughed at my clumsiness. The northern girls, incidentally, were very skilled at this game. They could beat us all.
Captive of Gor, pg 107
Dice:
A number of men crowded between the tables then and some dice, inked knucklebones of the verr, were soon rattling in a metal goblet. Sura knelt before the table of Cernus, her head down. One of her guards snapped a slave leash on her collar. The leash key was on a tiny loop of wire. The guard twisted this wire about the red-enameled steel of her collar. Behind her the men began crying out, watching the tumbling of the knucklebones on the stones of the floor. I understood to some extent what was taking place. It was merely another of the turnabouts of Kajuralia, but in it was perhaps more; Sura's pride and her position in the House, though she was slave, had been resented by many of the men and staff; perhaps even Cernus felt she had overstepped herself; surely he seemed pleased that she would now be humbled, now used as a common Red Silk Girl.
Assassin of Gor, pg 248
Kaissa:
A slave girl dares not touch the pieces of the game without permission without risking having her hands cut off, or being killed. -
Players of Gor, pg 235
"Game! Game!" I heard, and quickly shook my head, driving away the memories of Ar, and of the girl once known, always loved. The word actually cried was, "Kaissa," which is gorean for "Game." It is a general term, but when used without qualification, it stands for only one game, The man who called out wore a robe of checkered red and yellow squares, and the game board, of similar squares, with ten ranks and ten files, giving a hundred squares, hung over his back; slung over his left shoulder, as a warrior wears a sword, was a leather bag containing the pieces, twenty to a side, red and yellow, representing Spearmen, Tarnsmen, the Riders of the High Tharlarion, and so on. The object of the game is the capture of the opponent's Home Stone. Capturing of individual pieces and continuations take place much as in chess. The affinities of this game with chess are , I am confident more than incidental.
Assassins of Gor, pg 26
The Players are not a caste, nor a clan, but they tend to be a group apart, living their own lives. They are made up from men of various castes who often have little in common but the game, but that is more than enough. They are men who commonly have and extraordinary aptitude for the game but beyond this men who have become drunk on it, men lost in the subtle, abstract liquors of variation, pattern and victory, men who live for the game, who want it and need it as other men might want gold, or others power and women, of others the rolled, narcotic strings of toxic kanda. There are competitions of Players, with purses provided by amateur organizations, and sometimes by the city itself, and these purses are, upon occasion, enough to enrich a man, but most Players earn a miserable living by hawking their wares, a contest with a master, in the street. The odds are usually one to forty, one copper tarn disk against forty-piece, sometimes against an eighty-piece, and sometimes the amateur who would play the master insists on further limitations, such as the option to three consecutive moves at a point in the game of his choice, or that the master must remove from the board, before the game begins, his two tarnsmen, or his Riders of the High tharlarion. Further, in order to gain Players, the master, if wise, occasionally loses a game, which is expensive at normal odds; and the game must be lost subtly, that the amateur must believe he has won.
Assassins of Gor, pg 27
Red Hunter's Soccerlike Game: "You spoiled her kick," said a man to me, in Gorean. "I am sorry," I said. The girl, with the other youths, had been playing a soccerlike game with the leather ball, with goals drawn in the turf. I had not realized, until too late, that I had been traversing the field of play.
Beasts of Gor, pg 193
Stones:
At "Stones," however, I was genuinely pleased with myself. It has two players, who take alternate turns. Each player has the same number of "Stones," usually two to five per player. The "Stones" are usually pebbles or beads, but in the cities one can buy small polished, carved boxes containing ten "stones," the quality of which might vary from polished ovoid stones, with swirling patterns, to gems worth the ransom of a merchant's daughter. The object of the game is simple, to guess the number of stones held in he other's hand or hands. One point is scored for a correct guess, and the game is usually set for a predetermined number of paired guesses, usually fifty. Usually your opponent tries to outwit you, by either changing the number of stones held in his hand or, perhaps, keeping it the same. I was quite successful at this game, and I could beat most of the girls. I could even beat Inge, who was of the scribes.
Captive of Gor, pg 107
'Tal,' I said to two guardsmen who crouched at the side of a fire, playing Stones, a guessing game in which one person must guess whether the number of stones held in the fist of another is odd or even.
Outlaw of Gor, pg 186
The living wand:
"The living wand!" shouted Albrecht.Kamchak sucked in his breath.Several in the crowd shouted out, "The living wand!"I looked at Kamchak. I saw in his eyes that the challenge must be accepted. In this matter I must be Tuchuk.Save for armed combat, lance and tospit with the living wand is the most dangerous of the sports of the Wagon Peoples. In this sport, as might be expected, one's own slave must stand for one. It is essential the same sport as lancing the tospit from the wand, save that the fruit is held in the mouth of a girl, who is slain should she move or in any way withdraw from the lance.Needless to say many a slave girl has been injured in this cruel sport."I do not want to stand for him!" cried out Elizabeth Cardwell."Stand for him, Slave," snarled Kamchak.Elizabeth Cardwell took her position, standing sideways, to the tospit held delicately between her teeth. For some reason she did not seem afraid but rather, to my mind, incomprehensibly infuriated. She should have been shuddering with terror. Instead she seemed indignant.But she stood like a rock and when I thundered past her the tip of my lance had bee thrust through the tospit.The girl who had bitten the nick of the kaiila, and whose leg had been torn by its teeth, stood for Albrecht. With almost scornful ease he raced past her lifting the tospit from her mouth with the tip of his lance."Three points for each, " announced the judge."We are finished," I said to Albrecht. "it is a tie. There is no winner."He held his saddle on his rearing kaiila. "there will be a winner!" he cried. "Facing the lance!""I will not ride," I said."I claim victory and the woman!" shouted Albrecht. "it will be his, " said the judge, "if you do not ride." I would ride.Elizabeth stood facing me, not frightened, but seemingly rather put upon. Her fists were even clenched.I hoped that she would not be injured. When she had stood sideways I had favored the left, so that if the stroke was in error, the lance would miss the tospit altogether; but now, as she faced me, the stroke must be made for the center of the fruit; nothing else would do.The gait of the kaiila was swift and even.A cry went up from the sword as I passed Elizabeth, the tospit on the point of the lance.Warriors were pounding on the lacquered shields with there lances. Men shouted. I heard the thrilled cries of slave girls. I turned to see Elizabeth waver, and almost faint, but she did not do so.Albrecht the Kassar, angry, lowered his lance and set out for his girl.In an instant he had passed her, the tospit riding the lance tip. The girl was standing perfectly still, smiling.The crowd cheered as well for Albrecht.The they were quiet, for the judge was rushing to the lance of Albrecht, demanding it.Albrecht the Kassar, puzzled surrendered the weapon."There is blood on the weapon," said the judge."She was not touched!" cried Albrecht."I was not touched!" cried the girl.The judge showed the point of the lance. There was a tiny stain of blood at tis tip, and too there was a smear of blood on the skin of the small yellowish-white fruit."Open your mouth, slave," demanded the judge.The girl shook her head."do it," said Albrecht.She did so and the judge, holding her teeth apart roughly with his hands, peered within. There was blood in her mouth. The girl has been swallowing it, rather than show she had been struck.
Nomads of Gor, pgs 79-81
Zar:
A board game of the Tahari. The board is marked like a Kaissa board, but the pieces - 9 per player, and called 'pebbles', are placed at the intersections of the lines. Movement is somewhat like that of checkers, but without capturing of pieces. The object of the game is to effect a complete exchange of the original placement of the pieces