An odd digression

A few years ago I ran a Dungeons & Dragons came I called 'Ios: The Perfect Fantasy World' that was meant to happily use every cliche possible. Which included me making up title headings for sections in the style of bad fantasy novels .... this was the result. 

If this seems long, imagine how big the sections they covered were. Or don't. I'm trying not to.

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A hero is someone willing to die for a cause he doesn't believe in.

- Sen'giod the Cynic, The Little Book of Uncommon Wisdom, 2.iv

A true warrior knows that in the moment before you can die there is time enough in the world to do everything and nothing.

- Hadrien Dragonsbane

Expect nothing. Then you can be surprised when people succeed.
- Sen'giod the Cynic, The Little Book of Uncommon Wisdom, 8.ii

When the sun rises red the wise man fears cold water.
- Jan'el, Utterances of the Wise, 212.23.

The road seldom walked is filled with the corpses of the brave who walk it.
- Hadrien Dragonsbane, in conversation

"Heroes are good, I tell you! What's the use of a tragedy without one?"
- Gerlos, gnome bard, in conversation

There is nothing wrong with pejudice - it saves time.
- Harendriel, elven warrior

There is nothing wrong with pejudice - it saves time.
- Harendriel, elven warrior

The gods lead the willing - the unwilling they drag with chains of duty and guilt.
- Ural the pious, human cleric.

First impressions are often misconceptions. But it's amazing how often we wish for them again after we get to know people better.
- Wayland, human rogue, on kender

You cannot catch all the snowflakes that fall from the sky.
- Hermis the drunken, Barstool Philosophies For The Sober p. 34

There is nothing to be feared more than an honest man.
- Drake, according to legend

"In our city there are lots of ne'erdowells, ruffians and wanderers looking for adenture and glory. The few who are a notch above the rest we call heroes, in the hope that naming them such will help them act like heros."
- A member of the Aendar council, 2 years ago

When you stop to consider how many have to die in order to make someone a hero, you must wonder why the world wants them at all.
- Felris, gnome inventor

Heroes are terrible, boy. Striding the world with their dreamsof power, glory, adventure, renown - and thinking such things will come to them because they're heroes, as if they were gifts. They don't know the price the world pays for such dreams, even if they never come true.
- Brokash, orc shaman

When dogs mate they think of wolves.
- Kristal, kender philosopher

The one things that heroes are never warned about is the difficulty of saving the world. It can be done, but if you do it too often people come to expect it of you.
- Jiliehaolasien, Elven historian

Words are the only thing that are real.
- Omas, human sorcerer

True wisdom lies in knowing there is no True Wisdom to be found out there, in the hills, or beyond the woods. The only wisdom is within us all, and it's a truth for us, not a Truth for everyone, or the world.
The world is too old and has seen too much to be wise.
- Izayus, human druid.

A wise man always leads by example, except in the case of alchemy experiments.
- attributed to Avern, lich lord of the Tower of Bones, sometime in his youth

To be happy is to forget the past.
- Sai'Jer, gnome inventor and amateur elven historian.

Never make war. Dead men can't buy things from you - except in certain regrettable circumstances owing to a deep sleep and over-zealous relatives burying them alive, in which case you can sell them wake up alarm charms and insurance policies.
- Aendar Motto

It is an undisputable truth that the failures of the wise tend to long outlive their successes.
- Kral Orsh, half-orc fighter

It is an undisputable truth that the failures of the wise tend to long outlive their successes.
- Kral Orsh, half-orc fighter

A man's destiny is both his glory and his doom.
- from a famous oral Kobold book Sayings of The Chicken Slayer

All heroes must sacrifice themselves. It doesn't matter what do, as long as they pay, and they pay, and they pay.
- from the memoirs of Hadrien Dragonsbane

Pity the enchanters, for they can enchant all save themselves.
- Hami Grassblade, halfling thief

A posession is also a possessor.
-Sen'groid the Cynic, Aphorisms vii.2

"No! My armour is black because I’m poor. I’m not evil, I just can’t afford to polish i-"
- Last words of Bern the Black Knight

A real mage knows that the status quo is always in flux.
- Myasteriel, half-elven sorcerer

"Keep your prayers short - often, the gods will hear a moan over a chant and a plea over a scream."
- Redik, dwarven cleric

"What the world may bring, the world may take away. Give back to the world with your gift."
- Druid motto

"Be the place where the singer meets the song."
- Advice of Jeromal, human bard.

"It is said that when King Harowen the Absentminded of Elandai was going to die, Death came to came and the busy king said he had no time for an audience and bade his guest depart. Death was so embarrassed it did not return for another seven years."
- Legends of Elandai, Book 7

To be counted among the wise
Is a crime in a wise one's eyes.
- Saying of the Invisible College

"Believe in magic and it will believe in you."
- Ugram, half-orc sorcerer

"To help others you must be part of their lives, of the world. A wound can be judged from outside, but only healed from within, from being part of the wound you mean to mend."
- Kyrisil, elven healer

"The truth can hurt. We just keep it from hurting others."
- Motto of the Holders of Truth

"Wisdom is knowledge applied: and knowledge of something is not the capacity to choose between them."
- A member of the college.

Religions are the evils that turn the poetry that is the gods into the prose that is badly scanned sagas.
- Lurt the Unyielding, human barbarian

A man who has never lied is not a man who cannot lie.

- Or'wella, human druid

"Lies! It's all LIES!"
- Bern Harrowarm, dwarven historian, just before his suicide.

"Even the mightiest of warriors cower when madness wears the crown."
- Dwarf Saying

There are two kinds of anger, see? The wrongeous and the righteous. When you get mad, you kill. Kill with the righteous anger and you're a hero. Do it the other way and yer no barbarian, just some civilized fop who sniffs hankies and thinks that justifications 're more than excuses.
- Pairt the Pale, northern barbarian

Songs are as much discovery as they are invention.
- Splorrchahhh, Otyugh Bard

Power is not freedom, but the price of any power is a loss of freedom.
- Urien, human cleric

Nothing real is more real than anything else that's real.
- Merian, gnomish druid, shortly before being executed

Understand this, boy. Every time you kill, you die as well. Make sure what dies in you is something you can bear to part with.
- Hadrien Dragonsbane, to an apprentice

To understand the body you must respect it, live it, nurture it, meditate in and outside of it, be one. Being ale to catch arrows or beat people senseless are just side effects, nothing more. The body is trained to overcome ego, not glorify in what it can do.
- The Yellow King

I am here to die for the gods. I am their arms, their vengeance, their justice.
- Just about any paladin

To hunt an animal you must be an animal - the seeker must be the sought.
- Kami Leafsprout, halfling ranger

If you cannot keep it, you don't deserve to have it.
- Rogue Proverb

You can only be who you are.
- Jeram Kygul, half-orc sorcerer

Magic does not consist of drawing lines, but of erasing them.
- Avern, shortly before inventing the lich ritual.

"Circumstances don't make us what we are, they reveal what we are to others."
- Motto of the Brotherhood, circa the Age of Trade

No one can look inside themselves and find anything that isn't already there. Self-examination is like looking into a mirror and proclaiming you've found something new when it's just you reflected. Enlightenment is often nothing more than knowing you're already enlightened.
- Delta Mu