The land to which Dromo Rustlers expect to repair upon death. The streets are paved with gold. The beer flows like wine and the wine flows like beer. Great ham hocks grow on trees. All a rustler has to do is snap his fingers and ZAP! – a steak THIS BIG sizzling on a golden platter. He snaps his fingers again and ZAP! – a beautiful woman with breasts THIS BlG… sizzling on a golden platter. A Rustler’s passage to Keengdum Kuhm is usually booked by another Rustler.

Gone to Keengdum Kuhm

Manufactured and marketed by the Kinder Brut Anstalt, the Kinder Brut ® is a mechanical crèche, sold for the purpose of fertilizing a human egg, making genetic modifications on the resulting embryo (if so desired by the parent), gestating the fetus (providing womb-like protection and nutrition during those first nine months of its life), and monitoring the child’s health and wellbeing until age two (standard cycles), after which time it is up to the parent to keep it from killing itself before reaching adulthood. Translated from the extinct ancient Terran language known as Deutsches, its name means “Children Brood,” which pretty much says it all. In the Institute’s advertising holos, inventor of the Kinder Brut, Maximo Edmunds, explains that he was trying to fill a void (and the wombs of sterile humanoids) by giving the aging galactic population a better way to reproduce.

Kinder Brut

It seems that, after the Krystal Drive revolutionized space travel and more average Joes and Janes were spending more of their time blasting around the multiverse at near light speed (see: Thought Speed), their planet-bound pals and loved ones needed a way to level the playing field age-wise. No one wanted Mom to jet off to the system next door and return looking like his or her granddaughter! Once the term “Geezers” came into popular usage, referring to those who chose to remain in a “gravity-rich” environment, great minds began working on the problem of life extension and great pocketbooks funded them. And with great success! But while most popular means of life extension, such as the controversial Running In Place ®, could keep bodies youthful-looking and healthy indefinitely, they could not give a humanoid female any more than her natural allotment of eggs, or keep a tri-century-old male’s sperm swimming. And it was soon discovered that the use of artificial life-extension in a pregnant mother was dangerous to a developing fetus. The Kinder Brut, which could either incubate the parent’s own frozen embryos, or splice their genetic information into a donor egg, was just what the doctor ordered… literally.

Max Kloaka

1) A small-time conman and purveyor of tchotchkes and gewgaws in the Gutters of Rec 97; 2) The Hero primarily responsible for the survival of Harry Palmer, PCP (Priest Consort of Phoebus), during a deadly episode on Recreation Station 97, immediately prior to his becoming PCP. DISCLAIMER: The author of this book knows both Max Kloakas, personally.

The leading credit export of the Xychromo Zone, Krabian Slavegirls are spliced and bred to be “The ‘Insignificant Other’ for the Man Who Can’t Commit.” What this means is this: 1) They are built like the proverbial brick pagoda, 2) they have brains the size of pinto beans, and 3) though they live to mate, they only mate once and then immediately lay their eggs and die. (This is, according to one ad campaign, “The kind of planned obsolescence a guy can learn to love!”) Krabian young hatch quickly, but remain in the larval stage for 427 standard cycles. Krabians are spliced from a mix of human and Lacertian stock. Their sale has been banned in most of the civilized Multiverse (see: Multiverse, Civilized), though the ban has done little to slow the trade in Krabians and, in at least one case, was even used as a sales pitch: “Our Krabians Are So Darned Bad, They’re Banned in the Civilized Multiverse!”

Krabian Slavegirl

A gas extracted from the lymphatic fluid of the Shaking Chewboi, a parasitic animal found in the nerve tissue of the Krezonian Merchant Caste. While the host lives, the parasite is happy, humming, harmless, and all’s right with the multiverse. However, upon the death of its Krezonian host,  the Shaking Chewboi community becomes testy and disgruntled. It collectively shows its displeasure by belching an extremely potent nerve gas that causes muscle cramping, nausea, labored breathing, some light vomiting, and finally slow asphyxiation in its victims. In this case, “victim” is defined as any off-Krezon creature, sentient or non, within a 7,580,973-pace radius of the deceased Krezonite. Krezonians are the second least popular beings (see: Dromo Rustlers, Lyconian) in the known multiverse. One Krezonite sniffle can clear an entire planet within ten martrons. In Cycle 25 AnarchEra, a committee of wealthy and very lonely Krezonian merchants commissioned a team of Vercadian Andromedicones to find a cure for this very social disease. The Andromedicones found that they could coax the Shaking Chewboi from the Krezonian host by dangling a juicy, pulsing bit of Neurolinium tissue (developed by the Andromedicones for the high speed, controlled responses needed in their incredibly dangerous and incredibly expensive Vercadian Protector Androids) in front of the parasite’s sensing apparatus. The only payment asked for the operation was that the Andromedicones be allowed to keep the parasites they extracted. Today the planet Vercadia is virtually covered with warehouses containing bubbling, buzzing vats of humming Chewboi nestled in great nests of Neurolinium (Chewboi farms). By cutting off the current to the nests, every so often, the Vercadian Andromedicones are able to collect and bottle the very deadly Krezonian Nerve gas, their second largest source of income. A sad note: Krezonian Merchants soon found that they remained the second least popular beings in the known multiverse, even without the help of the Shaking Chewboi. Though the cause is unknown, it is suspected that centicycles spent as hosts for the death-dealing parasites has had a deleterious effect on the Krezonian Merchant Caste personality.

A slang term for a psychotic state brought on by many marbecs spent in close proximity to a large, naturally occuring deposit of Borinyum Krystals. The term came into popular usage among Krystal miners of the Mitochondrian Krystal belt, during the early cycles of IER-CO. (see: Light Deprivation)

To some a source of great wealth, to most a source of power, to still others, an inspiring bit of the manifest divine worthy of the most religious awe (see: Mood Rings), the Borinyum Crystal or Krystal is the pinnacle, rockwise. Borinyum Krystals differ from all other known types of crystal in that, whereas all other crystals are as different, one from the other, as the zillion and three snowflakes in a blizzard, Borinyum Krystals duplicate themselves exactly and come in only 47 flavors or varieties. They also differ in the fact that they don’t behave the way crystals are supposed to behave. Example: The first Borinyum Krystal to be marketed commercially was the well known Tone Kone Krystal ®.

Tone Kone Krystal

The small, faceted cone, nestled in a tiny bed of its native soil (see: Mitochondrian Krystal Belt), was first packaged and sold as a paperweight by the capsule industry, Krystals ’n Things ®. Shortly thereafter (thanks to the propensity of small sentients for putting shiny objects into their mouths), it was found that licking the top of a Tone Kone Krystal caused it to emit small, iridescent bubbles that rose contentedly ceilingward and, upon reaching their destination, popped with a pleasant-sounding “bip” that had a tranquilizing effect on the nervous systems of most carbon-based creatures. Another history-making Krystal is the Star of Ziham; named for marketing genius, Ziham Geђ Furtz, the man who set the small, star-shaped gems in pendants, diadems, and the infamous Mood Rings. Star of Ziham Krystals are now known to feed back emotions, intensifying whatever mood the wearer may be in. They are very dangerous and were much sought after during the Stagnation (peak experiences being somewhat rare during those cycles). In Cycle 143 IET, Ziham Geђ Furtz presented the Dread Dictator (see: Bajar, Ponious Augustus Henry Mohammed) with a platinum Mood Ring in the shape of a steel-taloned shreeguh clutching a Star of Ziham. It is said that when the Dread Dictator slipped the ring on his finger, the Krystal shrieked, turned dull brown and died. Bajar ordered Furtz executed and Mood Rings banned, the result being the nearly 12,000 religious cults built around Mood Rings and surviving to this malton unit. Finally, the K Krystal ®; In Cycle 150 IET, a maintenance worker at New Eden Multi Tech Labs, who went by the name of Lotti Bo Sugar, waddled into a laboratory where, only that up unit, Dr. Proserpina K. Dowd had been experimenting with a new type of Krystal, and changed, inadvertently, the course of our lives. Sugar (having the type of mind that becomes confused and disoriented in the presence of objects that are not positioned either in straight lines or at right angles to each other) picked up eight of the octagonal, fist-sized Krystals and placed them face-to-face in a small dish-drying rack at the back of the laboratory. Then, as if putting the period to the end of her Krystal statement, she switched on the radio at the end of the rack and “BOOM!” Hearing of the accident, Dowd shouted, “EUREKA!” and ran off to invent the Proserpina K Krystal Dowd Drive. After much digging and delving, Dowd found that, at the time of the explosion, channel 46 Valhala Beacon had been broadcasting the Amercadian Space Brigade Drum and Bugle Corps’ version of the Brigade Anthem, “Us Against the Void.” It would seem that this particular version of this particular anthem, when played into one end of a line of exactly eight K-Krystals, is converted by the Krystals into energy, which is then blown from the far end of the line. Dowd used the eight small crystals and a continuous loop recording of “Us Against the Void” to create the Krystal Drive, which replaced the standard plasma and ion drives in a matter of cycles and resulted in a fortune in royalties for the Brigade’s Drum and Bugle Corps.

One of the two most important of the 47 varieties of Borinyum Krystals, so named for the middle initial of Dr. Proserpina K. Dowd, inventor of the Krystal Drive (though the right to this title is still in litigation). It is thanks to the “K” in K Krystal that all varieties of what were formerly known as Borinyum crystals began to be referred to as Krystals.

An ego enhancing drug that takes hold of a normal (or hyper-normal) ego, foundering in the umbra of rational thought, id ridden, fumbling, and unaware of it or idself, and transforms it into a forged titanium fortress, housing a crystalline consciousness just dripping with highlights and bristling with juicily dangerous sharp edges. Upon consumption of the drug, the consumer remains calm, outwardly, while within burgeons a much larger and Oh-So-Very-Calmer calm… a waveless calm… a serene reposeful, halcyonian calm… a calm based on the sudden and irrefutable knowledge that one is really quite a nice guy… no, a great guy… a prince, in fact… Nay, a Lord! A GREAT LORD, STARK AND TERRIBLE, WHOSE NAME OR INTIMATION OF ONE’S NAME CONJURES OVERAWE AND SOLEMN VENERATION IN EACH MERE AND MORTAL CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN THE VAST BREADTH OF ONES OMNISCIENT GAZE! FAINT HEARTS QUAIL! ALL BOW – NAY, GENUFLECT – BEFORE THE ALL-KNOWING, ALL-SEEING, ALL-BEING BEING! Outwardly, as we’ve stated, one remains calm. One tipples a beverage, disturbs the nap of the rug with a languorous toe, flicks a speck of mortal coil from one’s cuff, sighs, stifles a well deserved yawn of nascent ennui, while one’s golden thoughts caress the dulcifluous knowledge that one’s oafish acquaintances, ne’er do well relatives, interfering in laws, insensible siblings, impaired parents, gross supplicants and servile hangers-on, the family dog and the whole fam-damnily of humanoid kind, along with their wives, husbands, sisters, cousins, drones, droids, pets and parasites and the countless rat-like embryos of the cosmos at large and their crawling, toady alien counterparts exist ONLY AT ONE’S WHIM, craving only a nod, a wink, a kick to feel elevated for but an instant above the meaningless morass of their own near lives. Kublacaine is the pinnacle, head-wise. Needless to say, it comes in mighty handy on an interstellar jaunt of any great distance. Puts it all in its proper perspective.