Ok, Cats and Kitties, it's the moment you've all been waiting for!
THE WINNERS OF THE FIRST ANNUAL TEFLON BILLY POST-ENNIE TITANIC HAIKU ADVENTURE MODULE GIVEAWAY
Well, that was a lot longer title than I had planned for, but there you go
Anyway on to the Haikus themselves, and a great bunch of entries they were. I'm going to start with the lowest rung of honourable mentions.
THE POST-DEADLINE ENTRIES
If only you all had made it in under the deadline and written about a subject other than
Teflon Billy's Rank Laziness (Witness
Dr. Midnight's work)
Damn Teflon Billy's
flare for procrastination
and purple dress pants
or on the theme of
Get to Fricken Work Teflon Billy (Witness
Crothian's 10 billionth post)
Well, the time is now
past 12 on the eleventh
I am impatient
Or chose to wax philosophical on my judging methods (Witness everyone's favorite Clay-Spinner
Alsih20)
Teflon Billy reads
poems and beer now cojoined
which will make him sick?
The answer incidentally was moot as I don't drink beer and, alas, whiskey has two syllables
When the johnny-come-lately's all devolved into the Minutiae of Tom Petty lyrics is when I knew we had some manner of group Honourable Mention in the works (Witness
Drew, triggering the Avalanche)
As Tom Petty said,
or, rather, as he once sang:
the waiting is hard
Hardcore Petty fan
Nifft responded with...
I must correct you:
"The waiting is the hardest
part," sang Tom Petty.
With his decree, I
must agree, and wait, too late,
for my poetry
Drew came out swinging with...
Let me clarify.
I was just paraphrasing
when I quoted Tom
Drew then inexplicably decided to throw the match, by claiming that obviously incorrect lyrics were, in fact, correct...and he had the pedigree to prove it! (Witness
Drew, figuratively putting a nail in his own coffin)
Well, please understand
I work on the radio
playing classic rock.
Nifft at this point comes back at the groggy
Drewwith what can only be called the "Finishing Move", a criticism of terminology coupled with a clever play on words tossed in for good measure!
More petty than Tom,
I point out that you either
paraphrase or quote
Uppercut! Uppercut! Flurry to the Sternum! Right Cross and
Drew is
DOWN!
Unquestionably as entertaining a match of Tom Petty-related Duelling Haiku as I've ever seen, and certainly worthy of an honourable mention.
Sir Trent alone seemed to understand the basic realities of the situation and outlined them as well as I could imagine them being outlined in 17 syllables (Witness
Sir Trent, hurting the feelings of
Teflon Billy)
WITH-HOLDING RESULTS
PROVES TEFLON BILLY IS
A REAL MEAN PERSON
Kinda get's you right in the heart doesn't it folks?

)
In any event, all of the Entrants above, having made a concerted and impressive Haiku effort well past the stated deadline, receive the prize for
Honourable Mention: Second Grade.
Dr. Midnight ,
Crothian,
alsih20,
Drew ,
Nifft , and
Sir Trent; please each accept your copy of the esteemed
Monte Cook's
Ennie nominated adventure
Orc and Pie.
You may pick up your copy at
http://www.montecook.com/arch_lineos11.html
Enjoy, and in all seriousness, thanks for the fun Haikus, despite their being after the deadline.
Next up...
THE HONOURABLE MENTIONS
There were a
lot of entries that deserved some recognition, despite my not having a prize available for them. The following, in a perfect world, would have received some kind of recompense for their efforts, and more and more I regret having only made up three enormous packages rather than a bunch of smaller ones.
Nonetheless, the die is cast and I hope these worthies can be satisfied with simply the recognition of the value of their efforts.
Or, they can help themselves to a copy of the esteemed
Monte Cook¡¦s
Ennie nominated adventure
Orc and Pie.
http://www.montecook.com/arch_lineos11.html
Anyway...
It would seem that my suggested topic
Half-Orc Bard held the most resonance with folks
And every single one of them concerned the awfulness of the bard's performance (to one degree or another)! Is there no love for the Half-Orc Bard? (Witness
Maerdwyn's non-entry)
All my gold to he
Who smashes Kraag's lute and leads
Him down a new path.
Or
Herald, leading our poor protagonist on, then sucker-punching him in the last stanza...
Sing me a love song,
Winsome, Lonely Half-Orc Bard,
You make my ears bleed
Or
Tsyr, celebrating his death!
The sounds of rapture
A sea of tears shed in joy
The Half-Orc bard dies
I both pity and admire those of you out there who actually
play Half-Orc bards, it sounds like there is a lot more latent hostility out there than I may have, at first thought. Only
Agnostic Paladin had any respect for the Half-Orc Bard...envisioning him as some kind of speed metal monster.
Loud fast and angry
Music and musician both
Applaud loud or die
Now
that's more like it
There
was some dissent amongst the judges, I was tempted to give
Die_Kluge's following Haiku first place! But somehow, inexplicably, tastes differed enough that I was outvoted! Oh the unfairness of it all!
A damn handsome man
really generous to boot
see: Teflon Billy
Meepo the Mighty nearly made the cut with his entry...
Moonlight fills the room
A balor smiles at Eric
Love-child on the way
Until we realized the single glaring error. In
Chronosome's immortal "Eric Noah is my Half-Fiend Love Child", Eric in fact
is the half-fiend love child, not it's father. So near and yet so far Meepo. Good effort though.
I would
love to list more honourable mentions, but my typing skills (and endurance) are just not up to it. Suffice to say that we all greatly appreciated the efforts of all entrants. I think entrant
Meds said it best when he wrote...
Teflon Billy, how will you manage to pare the thousands of entries down to just 4 winners?
His Haiku
Celestial Shi-Tzu also got a vote, and all agreed it was funny as hell. The graphic attached to it is wonderful.
And, I don't have a really good answer for him. Thanks one final time to
everyone for participating.
At this point we are going to move into the
MEDAL ROUND!
FIFTH PLACE
5th place goes to EN World newcomer
Kubla Khan for his excellent piece involving D&D, comedy, and a thimble full of blasphemy!
Jesus wept, a trap,
But saints preserve! Jesus saves,
and takes half damage
Well done sir! And I hope you enjoy the collection of adventures from the good folks at
Guildhouse Games
FOURTH PLACE
4TH place goes to EN World stalwart
Geist, for his "Tale as Old as Time" Haiku of a doomed love destined never to be...
I love her fireballs,
and she loves my Lightning Bolt.
To bad she's married
We laughed ourselves sick at that one. Well done
Geist, and I hope you enjoy your brand new copy of
D20 Rokugan.
THIRD PLACE
Entrant
Radiating Gnome came closest to actually making us think . We, in our drunken state, read and re-read his/her entry and finally
got . Somehow the image of a Half-Orc bard tuning his Lute in such a fashion spoke to the majority of the judges...
Frets drip blood on snow
Critic said Half-orc bards suck.
Now My lute's in tune
Well, done
Radiating Gnome I hope your new pile of adventures (The third place package listed at the beginning of this thread) serve you and your group well.
SECOND PLACE
BAD-AXE games founder
Wulf Ratbane's ode to the EN Boards near-endless threads on munchkinism (and munchkins--Sorry
Henry) struck a chord with all of the judges (and, apparently, more than a few of his competitors)
Chaotic Neutral!
This alignment is so sweet--
Like twin scimitars!
Well done Wulf and I hope you and your group enjoy the adventures in Prize Package two (listed in the inaugural post)
FIRST PLACE
First place goes to none other than
Umbragia's own
KDLadage. On this the judges were unanimous. It had it all: cleverness of wordplay, D&D content, and a great twist ending on an old proverb.
Opportunity:
without combat reflexes,
knocks but once per round
Congratulations Kevin on being the first ever Haiku grand champion at the first ever
Teflon Billy Post-Ennie Haiku Contest (man, I've got to pare that name down a bit). I hope you enjoy the First place prize package listed at the beginning of this thread.
All prize winners please contact me by email and tell me how you would like to go about having your stuff sent to you. Keep in mind that I¡¦m Canadian, and
UPS has a legendarily bad history of getting anything to (or from) me in any reasonable time. I have had some luck with EN World poster
Quickbeam who sent me a big Fedex envelope (paid) and received his stuff in 2 days.
You might want to look into that.
In any event, thanks you all for participating, I thoroughly enjoyed the 7-odd pages of Haiku, and hope you did to.
Sayonara
Jeff "Teflon Billy" Ranger