The Duchy: A History

Once upon a time there was a small but prosperous duchy nestled in a beautiful forested valley surrounded by towering mountains. The Duchy was ruled by Good King Hairboy and Good King Hairboy was ruled by a wise and trusty Band of duly elected Advisors. (Enough! Time for some truth in advertising. Small? Well, smaller than nearby Table Duchy in the Dead Bird metropolis. Prosperous? In a pig's eye! Beautiful? Forested? Get a grip! And Good Kind Hairboy and his advisors? Don't even get me started! However, the mountains are nice and do sort of tower especially on days when the sky is blue and the air is clear.) At first the Duchy was well pleased with King Hairboy. King Hairboy said the life of the Duchy was being choked by thickets of deadwood. So the Band of Advisors fashioned an Axe of Early Retirement and King Hairboy wielded it mightily. Very shortly the Band of Advisors noticed that King Hairboy was really only interested in a bigger allowance, a new highrise castle, and more hair products. They seized the Early Retirement Axe and used it on Hairboy. Hairboy was replaced by Duke Phfffr. The Duke had already run into the Early Retirement Axe but was willing to bind his wounds and reenter the fray. The Band of Advisors had learned their lesson about axes so they gave Duke Phfffr the Sword of RightSizing. At first the Duke used the Sword wisely. There had been many complaints about the Department of PlanningLearningThinkingReadingWritingControlling
and GeneralInterferenceInOtherPeople'sAffairs. (Mostly that their name was too long, but some people did say they wanted to do their own reading and thinking.) Duke Phfffr used the Sword on the Department of ... (I'm not doin' the full name again!) including the Black Dot Queen's household staff. (In retrospect, that was probably a mistake.) The Black Dot Queen had an absolute snit fit and has been sulking ever since. The Black Dot Queen has been skulking around attempting to seize the Sword of RightSizing and use it on someone else. Last year she managed to sneak the Sword out of the Castle to use on Dotland. Fortunately, she shared her plan with her friend GoG, long an enemy of Dotland. GoG couldn't resist an opportunity to crow and sent to Dotland "Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, you'll be gone tomorrow." Forewarned Dotland had time to prepare for the battle. They sent to their friends, the Guild of Librarians, who descended on the Castle and the White Queen in a cloud of pigeons. Dotland met the Black Dot Queen on the Field of Sneak armed with Shields of Statistics and the Queen was turned back but not vanquished. This year the Black Queen again "borrowed" the Sword of RightSizing and managed to lop off Navy Dot and Pink Dot before the Guild of Librarians and Dotland's other friends could be alerted. Learning of the Black Dot Queen's perfidy, the Guild of Librarians rallied the villages and the peasants in support of Dotland. The White Queen heard their pleas and created the D1 Summit to bring peace to the Duchy. The Black Queen was forced to sheathe the Sword and defend herself with only words. However, even without the Sword of RightSizing, the Black Dot Queen has a formidable array of weapons, possibly even WMD. In addition she has the Forces of Darkness, controlled by GoG, at her disposal. With the D1 Summit Proclamation the Black Dot Queen has committed to Continuing Committees of Continual Conversation which we can hope will keep her too busy to use the Sword of Rightsizing again. Dotland can use the reprieve to build up their defenses and search for the rumored arsenal of WMD.

For more about the great history of the Librarians, check out Warrior Librarian Weekly and The Lipstick Librarian.
And there's more on this link http://web.simmons.edu/~schwartz/lis-humour.html
Great Moments in the History of Technical Services is a favorite in Dotland