The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen Page 2

  With the publication of this game (which I here humbly dedicate to the two people most important in its writing, viz., myself and the Empress of Russia) I mean to provide those who would harass me with the means to tell astounding stories to each other without my presence. This, not solely a great boon to civilisation and a source of minor income to myself—reasons, I assure my diligent readers, that were hindmost in my mind during the composition of this work—will also mean that I am able to spend more time with those to whom my presence and charisma is more desirable: to wit, the ladies of the company. I believe that this may be the greatest innovation in game design since the Collectible Tarot Deck, which I invented while incarcerated in the Bastille on a spurious charge of importing quinces on a Sunday. But I digress.

  I shall begin to describe the game presently, but first I must remind my readers of one important matter. This is a game of telling stories, and many of those stories will be based on the astonishing adventures I have had—in their style, if not in their precise content. But while the stories you tell are fictions, my adventures are all true in every detail. To say otherwise is to call me a liar, and to pretend your fancies happened to me is to call me a charlatan, and sirrah, if you do either, I shall take you outside and give you a show of swordsmanship that will dazzle you so greatly you will be blinded by its sparks for a month. I am a nobleman, sir, and I am not to be trifled with.

  Now pass the cognac. No, clockwise, you oaf.

  THE PLAY OF THE GAME

  MY GAME is a simple one. The players sit around a table, preferably with a bottle of a decent wine or an interesting liqueur to moisten their throats, and each takes a turn to tell a story of an astonishing exploit or adventure. The subject of the tale is prompted by one of the others, and the rest of the company may interrupt with questions and observations, as they see fit, and which it is the task of the tale’s teller to rebut or avoid. When all are done, the one who has told the best story buys drinks for everyone else who participated, and the players being suitably re-fortified, the game may begin again.

  The inspiration for my en-gamification of this ancient and noble pursuit comes not from a ritual I witnessed among the tribes of the Amazon River, as I have claimed in the past (their game, I am reminded by several noted authorities, is more along the line of spillikins; in my defence, I confess that the tribesmen had forced me to consume a great quantity of sage and onion prior to roasting me, and my senses were confused), but instead from a memorable evening I spent in a coachinginn outside St Petersburg, in the late winter of 17—.

  Myself and several other travellers, many of us adventurers and soldiers of great renown, had been caught by a sudden blizzard and forced to spend the night in the same inn. However, being suddenly crowded, the inn had fewer beds than patrons. Having firstly allowed the ladies of the company to retire to sleep, the gentlemen agreed to a contest to see who would receive the remaining unoccupied rooms, and who would be forced to seek their repose in the stables or—worse—with the servants.

  Accordingly, we sat down to a contest or wager, and when it was discovered that none of the company had cards, dice, teetotums, or backgammon board about them, we agreed to a contest of stories. Each man among our number took a turn to ask the neighbour on his right hand to recount one of his most extraordinary adventures; the others of us then tested the tale on the wheels of veracity, credibility, and laudability.

  When all were done, a vote was taken and I, by sheer cunning, came fifth. This position exiled me to a tiny attic garret, the location of which allowed me to sneak out when the rest of the company was asleep, to spend the rest of the night warmed by the counterpane and company of the Duke of N—‘s daughter, whose beauty, interest, and proximate room number I had noted before the game began. Herein lies one of the central principles of the pastime I will shortly describe, and the core of its philosophy: it counts not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.

  This game itself follows in similar fashion, but without the presence of the noble Duke’s daughter. More is the pity.

  EQUIPMENT

  TO PLAY my game, you will require three or more stout friends, preferably of noble or at least gentle birth; a table; several chairs; a copious supply of drinks, preferably with a charming wench to serve them; and some coins to serve as stakes and to pay the reckoning when all is done. If you have such things to hand, then some parchment, pens, and ink; a cold night; a roaring fire; and a good supply of food are also advised, and it is always provident to have a manservant or two in attendance. You will need naught else, save for a few trifles such as I shall set forth hereto.

  STARTING THE GAME

  GATHER THE company and count its members. If it is late in the evening, then ask a manservant or pot-boy to do it for you. Make sure that each player has a PURSE of coins before him equal to the total number of players—do not ask a servant to do this, servants being by nature a shifty and feckless lot who will as soon rob a man blind as help him out of a ditch, and I have been robbed in enough ditches to know. If your company numbers less than five, then give each one five coins. If it numbers more than twenty, then think not of playing the game; instead, I advise you to pool your purses, hire some mercenaries, and plan an invasion of Belgium.

  The exact nature of the coin you use is not important, but I will make a few salient observations on the subject, drawn from my experiences of testing this game in the courts of the Orient, where, despite the fact that I spoke none of their language and they none of mine, it played tolerably well. First, all the coins should be of the same value, to save on arguments. Second, they need not actually be coins—I have played with coloured glass baubles in darkest Afrique, where the natives possess such things in abundance—they are given them by missionaries and, having sent the missionaries packing, have no more use for the beads. Third, anyone who proposes playing with paper money (fit for nothing more than wiping one’s a–e) is clearly no gentleman and should be drummed out of your company and your club forthwith.

  If the company are not too drunk, tired, or bored, then you should move to Character Generation on the page that follows. Otherwise you may omit it. Or omit it altogether.

  CHARACTER GENERATION

  MY PUBLISHER’S son, who serves me in the office of scribe and editor, claims that he has consulted with the greatest living authorities on such matters, and that it is essential for games such as this, in which one must “play” a “role,” to have a section of this ilk if they are to find any success with the educated reading public. I am hoping that these few lines will suffice, and that he will have been so far in his cups last night that he will recognise the heading above and will not notice, his senses still befuddled by cheap gin, that below it I have merely made a few pointed observations to my readers on the perils of dealing with such Grub Street types.

  No. It seems he has detected my subterfuge and has confiscated the second bottle of the excellent cognac which we had been enjoying. I am not accustomed to giving in to kidnapping, blackmail, and threats of ransom, but in this case it seems preferable to spilling my host’s son’s blood on his drawing-room carpet.

  To the matter then. In essaying the business of character generation, you will require a piece of parchment and a pen—I assume that, having received a proper education, you are able to read and write, in Latin at least. If not, it is my experience that passing priests will often agree to perform the service of writing your name for you. If no priest or clerk is handy, summon one. If one is not to be found, or you are unable to procure the services of one through pecuniary difficulties, say by having lost your purse in an ill-advised bet on the growth of an asparagus-spear with the King of the Moon, then I advise you to pass this section without a second thought.

  Write, or ask your companion (or a priest or clerk) to write, your name at the top of the paper, with the prefix “Baron”—or “Count,” “Lord,” “Duke,” “Archbishop,” or whatsoever honourific is appropriate. If your company includes those of foreig
n extraction, they may instead wish to use titles such as “Graaf,” “Don,” “Sultan,” “Sheikh,” “Amir,” or as I gather is the fashion in the Americas “Chief Executive Officer.” In this age of universal suffrage, now that women have finally won the right they have been gainsaid for generations, to own property, we must not forget the frailer sex: “Baroness,” “Countess,” “Empress,” and so forth are equally permissible, on the sole condition that they promise not to dot their “i”s with small love-hearts.

  If you were not born to such rank, then, since this is naught but a game, you may write whatever takes your fancy. But sirrah, I warn you that should I meet a man who claims to be of noble blood but who is not—and with my age, experience, and prodigious nose, together with the art of scent-scrying as taught to me by an Esquimau in reward for saving him from a herd of mad walruses, I can smell them, sirrah, I can smell them—then I shall so dizzy him with my rapier that he shall be unable to remember his own name and the direction he faces, much less the noble title he pretends to.

  Beneath this, write whatsoever takes your fancy. I have found it most useful for recording the calling-addresses and pedigrees of any especially charming ladies who catch my eye during the evening. This is the most important purpose of one’s “character sheet,” or with any so-named “character” thus created.

  For character, as the most oafish baronet’s son can tell you, is not generated but forged on the anvil of life. It is only when the blows of experience ring in our ears that we move another step on life’s path, becoming by stages more rounded or sharpened, our corners knocked off or our features more pointedly defined, and not by some artificial process of tossing teetotums or juggling figures like some ink-stained clerk in a windowless cellar hard by Threadneedle Street. Our souls are formed by first doing and then recollecting the experience of those deeds so that we and others might learn from them, and that is the very process which my game—nay, my life—describes. Character generation? {Here the Baron made an unpleasant noise in his throat.} I’ll none of it.

  BEGINNING THE PLAY

  ONCE ALL the company have either generated characters or discoursed themselves on the foolishness of such an undertaking, then you are ready to commence the play of the game proper.

  The player to start is the member of the company with the highest rank in society. Standard rules of etiquette apply: religious titles are always deemed greater than hereditary titles, and those higher than military titles; if of similar rank, then compare subsidiary titles, numbers of estates, or centuries that the titles have been in the players’ families; youth defers to age; when in doubt, the highest military decoration takes seniority; and for the rest, I refer you to the works of Messrs Debrett or Collins.

  If by some mischance of birth or the poor organisation of your host you are all commoners, then the first player shall be he who was wise enough to purchase the most recent edition of my game. If several have, then I thank them all; if none have, then I worry if you possess sufficient understanding of the nature and responsibilities of nobility to play a game such as this, relying as it does on good judgement; generosity of spirit; proper understanding of the necessity of the patronage of worthy artists, writers, and publishers; and not being a pinchpenny. If this manner of beginning is not agreeable, then the player to start should be he who was last to refill the company’s glasses.

  However you do so, once the person to start has been determined, he must begin the game. To do that, he must turn to the person sitting at his right hand and ask him to tell the company the tale of one of his famous adventures. By way of example, therefore: “Dear Baron, entertain us with your recollections of the war of 17—, which you fought single-handed against the French and won,”

  or: “Most honoured and noble Prince, if you could refrain momentarily from the gracious attentions you are paying to my sister, mayhap you might satisfy our curiosity on the matter of how it was that you escaped from the prison of Akkra after you had been burned at the stake there two days earlier?”

  For those unable to think of a sufficiently extraordinary and humorous topic for a story, I have included in an appendix some two hundred of the subjects drawn from my own exploits, a mere fraction of the total, which the less quick-witted player may use for inspiration. Whether you choose to use one of my completely factual examples or one out of your own imagination, remember at all times that the subject of the story to be told should only be revealed to the person who will tell it a few seconds before he must start his narrative. Through this surprise, much good humour may be gained.

  The player thus surprised must now recount the story that has been demanded—perhaps based upon a story of mine, perhaps on an adventure of his own, or perhaps from the whole cloth of his imaginings. He may, however, pause for a moment of thought, commencing his tale by exclaiming, “Ah!” and then perhaps adding, “Yes!” Any further procrastination is unseemly. Throw a bread-roll at any recondite fellows to hurry them along.

  Tales should be short, of around five minutes, and told at a good pace without hesitation or undue pausings for thought. Inflections, gestures, mimes, props, and strange voices may all be used, although the narrator is warned not to go too far: he is, after all, born to the aristocracy—or pretending to be so. I well remember playing this game with the Grand Seignior of Turkey while he held me for ransom in Constantinople. For one story he hired a troupe of actors, a band of tumblers, several conjurors, assorted dancing girls, and six elephants. The tale lasted three days and four nights, and when the company did not elect it the best, preferring my own anecdote on how I discovered the seedless grape, he had us all beheaded…but enough of that for now.

  WHAT IF THE STORYTELLER SHOULD PULL UP

  IF A PLAYER is unwilling to tell his story to the company, or falters in the recounting, then he may plead that his throat is too dry to tell the tale, and good manners demand that the company let him retire honourably. However, good manners also demand that he must then obtain a drink to wet his throat, and in doing so, it would be greatly impolite not to furnish the rest of the company with refreshment also. In short, a player may decline to tell a story, but must stand each member of the company a drink if he so does.

  Having so declined, and the drinks having been ordered, the player in question shall turn to the player on his right hand and, as is the form, propose the subject of a tale for him to tell.

  OBJECTIONS, CORRECTIONS, AND WAGERS

  FOR THE benefit of my duller readers, I should point out that this section on challenges and wagers is the cleverest part of my game—although due to the unnecessarily rigid structure imposed on me by my diligent but perhaps over-strict publisher, I must wait until later to explain exactly why this is so.

  The course of a narrative never shall run smooth, as the poet has it, for the other players of the game may at any point INTERRUPT the story-teller with an objection or a correction in the form of a wager. They may do this because they have spotted a flaw or inaccuracy in the teller’s tale, or because they wish to trip him up with spurious information, or to test his truthfulness and mettle, or because the fellow is drawing dull and needs spice.

  A WAGER is accomplished by the player’s pushing forward one (never more than one) of the coins in his purse—we shall call it the STAKE—and breaking into the flow of the tale. A wager would be cast in the manner of these examples:

  “Baron, I believe the King of the Moon at the time was Umbum-Mumbumbu and not, as you say, Louis XIV, who, as King of the Sun, was his mortal enemy.”

  or “You claim, my gentle friend, that the Earth travels around the Sun, but the Royal Society has proved comprehensively that the opposite is true and that Galileo’s publications on the subject were merely part of an Opus Dei disinformation plot.”

  or “But Count, it is well known that the Empress has had a hatred of giraffes ever since her lapdog was eaten by a mad one.”

  or “But Duchess, at the time of which you speak, the Colossus of Rhodes had been a falle
n ruin for fifty years, so you could not possibly have climbed it.”

  or “My dear Contessa, I have heard you avow that you have a mortal allergy to cats. How is it, then, that you say you married one?”

  or any of a thousand other possibilities or curious and relevant objections. A wager need not be strictly correct, vis-à-vis the bothersome matter of evidence or facts, but it must be amusing or interesting.

  If the matter of the interrupter’s insertion is correct—in other words, if the teller of the story decides to take the proffered detail and build it into his anecdote—then the teller must agree with his fellow and may keep the coin that was pushed forward. However, he must then perforce explain how the events introduced in his fellow’s interruption did not impede him in the adventure he is describing.

  If, however, the teller of the story does not wish to build the objection or correction into his story, then he may push the interrupter’s coin away along with a coin from his own purse, and inform the other that he is a dolt who knows nothing of what he speaks and gets his information from the tittle-tattle of old maids in gin-houses. In this latter case, if the one who interrupted is not prepared to stand this insult to his honour and veracity, he may add another coin to the pile and return it to the story-teller, making his case for the interruption more forcefully and returning the insult with interest. The story-teller may again turn the stake away by adding another coin and another insult, and so on until one side withdraws his objection and accepts the insult (thus keeping the pile of coins), or one party has exhausted his funds but will not stand down—in which case a duel must be fought. (See “Duelling” below, the writing of which section I am anticipating with not a little relish.)