FMXXXIII

There are still ancient, living men that can tell you stories that their grandfathers told them, about the last days of the America that once was. They jabber about unknown forces that destroyed the mechanisms of prosperity and liberty, using arcane and unknown terms like “ObamaCare”, “Quantitative Easing” and dozens of different types of “Reform”. But it is all irrelevant now. As they say, “the world has moved on.” All that is left of the Old People are dim memories, crumbling buildings, and the rusting machinery of the past.

Most places have degenerated into feudal states of various sizes, run by local thugs, warlords and petty tyrants. They enforce their whims, armed with whatever remnants of weapons remain from the past, as well as the sharp, pointy or heavy, blunt things that man has been killing man with for eons.

Leo Nidazz, the Reeve of Wide Island for a decade, counts himself lucky. Amidst this post-Apocalyptic landscape of violence and misery, Wide Island quietly remains a small pocket of relative freedom, liberty and prosperity, due to a great discovery two generations ago...

Leo’s grandfather still tells the tale of the day that the ancient, overturned cargo trailer was discovered. Crumbling documents indicate that it originated in some far off land, known as “Ilion, New York”. The treasure contained in this trailer has been the source of Wide Island’s freedom for all of these years: crates and crates of ancient death-dealing machinery, labeled with numbers like “870” and “11-87”, and cases of the shells that feed them, and equipment to reload those shells. Since then, Wide Island’s brightest alchemists have figured out how to manufacture the consumable components on their own.

The Reeve’s duties are to keep the peace, enforce the law, and maintain the training of his men, women and older children, in the use of those gifts from long forgotten Ilion. His time in office has been getting more and more exciting lately though, with incursions from the nearby Empire of Nooyaaawwk, ruled by the tyrant Tsar Mikkul Blumbeurk. He is said to be the 9^th of his name, dating back to the rulers of the Old People. Tsar Blumbeurk covets your arsenal of freedom, and would use it to further his tyranny.

Being a smart and suspicious leader, Reeve Nidazz maintains a network of informers inside the Empire, to keep him informed of anything that has an impact on your island. One day, breathless and rowing hard, one of his informers shows up with dire warning of a secret invasion from the evil Empire.

Tsar Blumbeurk has learned that his plans are no longer a secret, so he sends an envoy with the message, that if the citizens of Wide Island will lay down their arms, the citizens of Wide Island will be allowed to live, as serfs to the Empire. Otherwise, a full scale-invasion will be launched.

In the tales his grandfather tells him, one sticks in Leo’s mind. At the beginning of the end of the America that once was, a long dead ancestor of the Tsar convinced his people that if they turned in their weapons, they would enjoy government guaranteed peace, tranquility and prosperity. Knowing the consequences of that long ago acquiescence, Reeve Leo Nidaz pricks his finger, writing a response in his own blood:

COME AND TAKE THEM, BEEOTCHES!

Tee Shirt Details:

Front of shirt, rough lay-out (artist to produce gray-scale rendition and reproduce text in appropriate “hand-scrawled” text):

Back of shirt text (large):

(Ancient Greek, for “Come and take them”, the response of King Leonidas at Thermopylae, to Xerxes the Great of Persia, when a messenger told him the Spartans lives would be spared if they laid down their arms. Pronounced: mo-lone lah-veh. The inscription above is from the monument to King Leonidas, at Thermopylae in Greece)

Artist to re-produce text as close as possible, with changes to simplify printing.