I wrote this about a month ago for a game I help run. It is not specifically a rationalist story, but its moral is about as rationalist as it gets. Hopefully it’ll stay reasonably accessible out of context.
The Fable of the Two Swords
Long ago, a band of the People grazed their herds on cursed and blighted land. With each season the plains withered, the blades of grass growing thin and crumpled like parchment cast into flames; and the band’s cattle ate the grass, and starved, and bore no calves. At last the elders of the band called together its greatest hunters and sent forth them in all directions, each seeking new lands as yet unfounded.
The youngest among them was Sarai, and she rode to the east, taking with her the herdswoman Tamar, her friend since childhood; and her sword and her bow; and two good horses. They crossed many miles of wasted land, and many more of good land grazed by other bands with whom they were at peace. They rode beside pillars of stone, and over cracked expanses of unsown earth, and through copses of green trees. Yet for many days they found nothing.
A score of nights and a night they traveled, and at last they came to the fires of another band of the People. As they broke bread with the newcomers, Sarai asked its Wayfinder if there was land to be settled: a question already growing weary to the travelers, for they had asked the same of the last band and the one before. The old man shook his quilled and silvered braids, a gesture well-worn to Sarai; yet the guise of sorrow and fear came over his face as he said:
“Not far to the east there is a low place in the plains, girdled round with hills and dotted with mounds of hollow earth. And from ridge to ridge there are no campfires of the People, and neither are the stars obscured by the smoke of burning dung; yet do not rejoice, little sisters, for it is a cursed place.
“A tribe of demons dwells in the hollow mounds, children of the world’s end of which our parents all have told, and they are without thought or mercy. Fire smolders in their hair and the manes of their horses; and hard and bony are their fanged faces; and fiery lashes they snap as they come ravening. Their chief carries a sword no man could wield, blazing with flames, and none dare stand against him.
“Ride no further, little ones. Even as close as we camp now, we are in danger; we dare not stray any closer, lest they rob us of our cattle and our children. So I have declared, for the safety of my band, and so do the elders agree.”
Sarai fell silent at this, and thanked the Wayfinder for his counsel, and chose a place near the fire to sleep. Yet she remained awake, and as the moon rose she crept to the edges of the camp to gather her thoughts.
There, as she gazed into the tall grass beyond, she for a moment glimpsed a face like a horse’s skull, limned in ruddy flame. Startled, she cried out, and a sentry hurried at her cry. But the specter was gone in the space of a breath, and when the man arrived nothing remained but bent grass and the smell of smoke.
She could not sleep for her fears, tossing and turning throughout the night. Yet the next morning, as the band gathered for the morning meal, she stood by the fire, and drew her sword, and spoke:
“Look at my sword.
“You do not see a warrior’s birthright, nor a blacksmith’s pride, nor a chieftain’s comfort. You see an edge, a tool made only for cutting. I could perhaps use a longer sword, or a thicker, or a finer, but it makes no difference; whatever the blade, I must think only of cutting my enemy, or I will surely die at her hands.
“Wield your mind as you would a sword. Do not think of fears or hopes, of what has been or what may be; think only of cutting to the heart of what lies before you.
“Come with me to the east, and we will drive out these demons. Any man or woman of you who stands with me stands to gain an honored place in my Thousand Cranes Band, and the first choice of spoils in the hunts to come.”
The Wayfinder turned away, making a sign against evil as he did so, and most of the band turned with him. But a scarce handful of hunters, the young or the foolish or the quick-thinking, raised their weapons and met Sarai’s gaze.
And when the sun set, the small band rode for the hollow mounds.
They did not have far to ride. Soon they crested the first of the hills of which the Wayfinder had spoken; and soon after they were among the hollow mounds, buzzing in the twilight with web-winged insects. The band slowed there, and closed tightly about each other, and the demons at once were upon them.
The spirits were as the Wayfinder had said. Their horses were black and gaunt, and their tattered manes flickered with fire. Their faces were the skulls of cattle, and horses, and buffalo, and fire glittered in their long, loose hair. They were robed in black, and raised lashes of fire as they closed with a shrill, warbling cry.
Their leader was more terrible still: tall as a horseman’s spear, swathed in darkness, his head was the pale skull of a crocodile. Flames blazed from his sword, long and heavy as a barge’s oar, as he held it aloft and howled.
Sarai’s band trembled, teetering for a moment on the verge of flight. Yet Sarai steeled herself and urged her horse forward, charging headlong at the fanged monstrosity.
Flames snapped at her from the demons’ lashes, but she was not daunted. Soon she had broken through the ring of evil spirits; and soon after she had met their chief, who raised his flaming sword like a lance to meet her.
Steel clashed, scattering motes of fire. Sarai’s coat charred, and her horse spooked and reared; yet she held firm, bringing her blade back to meet the cumbersome arc of the demon’s sword a second and a third time.
On the fourth, the demon blade shattered.
The demon recoiled. Dropping the broken hilt, he drew a long dagger; but Sarai pressed her attack, striking two blows for each of the spirit’s. At once the dagger spun to the ground with the demon’s fingers, and Sarai drove the point of her sword with all her strength through the bony mask and into the eye beyond.
For a mask it was, shaped to accommodate the human face beneath and trailing strips of thin-beaten copper, which glinted in the flames of the pitch-coated blade. The man’s height was true, yet his limbs were twisted and overgrown, and his baleful robe was but tattered cloth. And the sound he made as he died was not a demon’s ululation but a man’s mortal scream.
The false demons broke then, dropping their trickster’s masks and charlatan’s chains as they fled. And in the shadow of the hollow mounds the new hunters of Thousand Cranes Band slept for the first time; and that night each man and woman of them resolved forever to reason as with a blade.
The story doesn’t work terribly well for me because the “demons” turn out to be humans with a fairly clever means of holding their land who haven’t done anything wrong except scare people.
It also isn’t clear why they’re using that method when people generally seem to be living very peacefully with each other.
I’ve found that theft, when it comes to worldbuilding, is cheaper and more effective than making things up wholesale. Or at least less prone to producing apostrophe stew.
I wrote this about a month ago for a game I help run. It is not specifically a rationalist story, but its moral is about as rationalist as it gets. Hopefully it’ll stay reasonably accessible out of context.
The Fable of the Two Swords
Long ago, a band of the People grazed their herds on cursed and blighted land. With each season the plains withered, the blades of grass growing thin and crumpled like parchment cast into flames; and the band’s cattle ate the grass, and starved, and bore no calves. At last the elders of the band called together its greatest hunters and sent forth them in all directions, each seeking new lands as yet unfounded.
The youngest among them was Sarai, and she rode to the east, taking with her the herdswoman Tamar, her friend since childhood; and her sword and her bow; and two good horses. They crossed many miles of wasted land, and many more of good land grazed by other bands with whom they were at peace. They rode beside pillars of stone, and over cracked expanses of unsown earth, and through copses of green trees. Yet for many days they found nothing.
A score of nights and a night they traveled, and at last they came to the fires of another band of the People. As they broke bread with the newcomers, Sarai asked its Wayfinder if there was land to be settled: a question already growing weary to the travelers, for they had asked the same of the last band and the one before. The old man shook his quilled and silvered braids, a gesture well-worn to Sarai; yet the guise of sorrow and fear came over his face as he said:
“Not far to the east there is a low place in the plains, girdled round with hills and dotted with mounds of hollow earth. And from ridge to ridge there are no campfires of the People, and neither are the stars obscured by the smoke of burning dung; yet do not rejoice, little sisters, for it is a cursed place.
“A tribe of demons dwells in the hollow mounds, children of the world’s end of which our parents all have told, and they are without thought or mercy. Fire smolders in their hair and the manes of their horses; and hard and bony are their fanged faces; and fiery lashes they snap as they come ravening. Their chief carries a sword no man could wield, blazing with flames, and none dare stand against him.
“Ride no further, little ones. Even as close as we camp now, we are in danger; we dare not stray any closer, lest they rob us of our cattle and our children. So I have declared, for the safety of my band, and so do the elders agree.”
Sarai fell silent at this, and thanked the Wayfinder for his counsel, and chose a place near the fire to sleep. Yet she remained awake, and as the moon rose she crept to the edges of the camp to gather her thoughts.
There, as she gazed into the tall grass beyond, she for a moment glimpsed a face like a horse’s skull, limned in ruddy flame. Startled, she cried out, and a sentry hurried at her cry. But the specter was gone in the space of a breath, and when the man arrived nothing remained but bent grass and the smell of smoke.
She could not sleep for her fears, tossing and turning throughout the night. Yet the next morning, as the band gathered for the morning meal, she stood by the fire, and drew her sword, and spoke:
“Look at my sword.
“You do not see a warrior’s birthright, nor a blacksmith’s pride, nor a chieftain’s comfort. You see an edge, a tool made only for cutting. I could perhaps use a longer sword, or a thicker, or a finer, but it makes no difference; whatever the blade, I must think only of cutting my enemy, or I will surely die at her hands.
“Wield your mind as you would a sword. Do not think of fears or hopes, of what has been or what may be; think only of cutting to the heart of what lies before you.
“Come with me to the east, and we will drive out these demons. Any man or woman of you who stands with me stands to gain an honored place in my Thousand Cranes Band, and the first choice of spoils in the hunts to come.”
The Wayfinder turned away, making a sign against evil as he did so, and most of the band turned with him. But a scarce handful of hunters, the young or the foolish or the quick-thinking, raised their weapons and met Sarai’s gaze.
And when the sun set, the small band rode for the hollow mounds.
They did not have far to ride. Soon they crested the first of the hills of which the Wayfinder had spoken; and soon after they were among the hollow mounds, buzzing in the twilight with web-winged insects. The band slowed there, and closed tightly about each other, and the demons at once were upon them.
The spirits were as the Wayfinder had said. Their horses were black and gaunt, and their tattered manes flickered with fire. Their faces were the skulls of cattle, and horses, and buffalo, and fire glittered in their long, loose hair. They were robed in black, and raised lashes of fire as they closed with a shrill, warbling cry.
Their leader was more terrible still: tall as a horseman’s spear, swathed in darkness, his head was the pale skull of a crocodile. Flames blazed from his sword, long and heavy as a barge’s oar, as he held it aloft and howled.
Sarai’s band trembled, teetering for a moment on the verge of flight. Yet Sarai steeled herself and urged her horse forward, charging headlong at the fanged monstrosity.
Flames snapped at her from the demons’ lashes, but she was not daunted. Soon she had broken through the ring of evil spirits; and soon after she had met their chief, who raised his flaming sword like a lance to meet her.
Steel clashed, scattering motes of fire. Sarai’s coat charred, and her horse spooked and reared; yet she held firm, bringing her blade back to meet the cumbersome arc of the demon’s sword a second and a third time.
On the fourth, the demon blade shattered.
The demon recoiled. Dropping the broken hilt, he drew a long dagger; but Sarai pressed her attack, striking two blows for each of the spirit’s. At once the dagger spun to the ground with the demon’s fingers, and Sarai drove the point of her sword with all her strength through the bony mask and into the eye beyond.
For a mask it was, shaped to accommodate the human face beneath and trailing strips of thin-beaten copper, which glinted in the flames of the pitch-coated blade. The man’s height was true, yet his limbs were twisted and overgrown, and his baleful robe was but tattered cloth. And the sound he made as he died was not a demon’s ululation but a man’s mortal scream.
The false demons broke then, dropping their trickster’s masks and charlatan’s chains as they fled. And in the shadow of the hollow mounds the new hunters of Thousand Cranes Band slept for the first time; and that night each man and woman of them resolved forever to reason as with a blade.
The story doesn’t work terribly well for me because the “demons” turn out to be humans with a fairly clever means of holding their land who haven’t done anything wrong except scare people.
It also isn’t clear why they’re using that method when people generally seem to be living very peacefully with each other.
“Scooby-Doo Rationality” may form a subset of rationality stories, aimed primarily at young children.
Your campaign uses biblical Hebrew names? Neat!
I’ve found that theft, when it comes to worldbuilding, is cheaper and more effective than making things up wholesale. Or at least less prone to producing apostrophe stew.
And you had the good taste to steal something that doesn’t get stolen all that often.