text:
Talk:Room 101

Orwell's use of "101"
I don't think that the use of the term "101" for a basic introduction to a topic has ANYTHING to do with Orwell's Room 101. I may be wrong, which is why I haven't changed the entry - but I have never understood the two to be at all related. 101 simply comes from conventional college course numbering, where the first topic of the first subject is 1.01. It could be that Orwell was making use of this when he chose 101 as the number of the room in which Winston Smith is tortured, but it seems a bit tenuous. Certainly the use of 101 for courses predates Orwell's use, not the other way around. Can anyone shed any light on this? GRAHAMUK 11:09 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Room 101 is supposedly named after a conference room at BBC Broadcasting House where Orwell used to sit through tedious meetings. -- The Anome

There is also a Room 101 in A Beautiful Mind (film) 91.50.192.54 (talk) 20:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

ANSWER: The number 101 in the name "room 101" is used in the book 1984 by George Orwell simply because the dial on the pain machine described in Part 3 of Chapter 3 only goes up to 100. "Room 101" is pain that cannot be tolerated. 101 being the numerical value above 100. Credit to Eatbokbok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.253.168.80 (talk) 03:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Within the BBC the consensus was that it was Room 101 at 200 Oxford Street, a BBC building where Orwell worked during the war. However, there's a BBC memo reproduced in George Orwell: A Life in Letters by George Orwell and Peter Davison (p 197) which describes a meeting of a committee that Orwell attended as being in Room 101 at 55 Portland Place. The meeting later moved to 200 Oxford Street where it took place in Room 314. The book suggests that 101 would have been on the ground floor but I suspect it was on the first floor (in the UK that means one floor up) as ground floor rooms in the BBC were usually designated with a G, eg G10. Delverie (talk) 16:51, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Page Order
I have reverted the edits by Samuel J. Howard whereby the page was re-ordered to move the spoiler section to the bottom. The change placed the least relevant information at the top, and the only real information (what is in Room 101) at the bottom and caused the article to make little sense. --HappyDog 19:40, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. At the top was a meta notice about a different topic. Then was information about Room 101 as a general term and then it's use in 1981. --Samuel J. Howard 19:42, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Ermm... you mean 1984? :)

The use as a 'general term' is derived from the book, so it makes no sense to explain that without having first explained where it comes from. You wouldn't start an article on Socrates with the paragraph 'Socrates appeared as a character in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure', would you? --HappyDog 20:04, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

About the fate of Julia
The article says it´s not clear in the book whether Julia had her face gnawed on by rats or not. Is this really true? Because I remember reading they meet after the tortures, their relationship all shaken up, and all. And that would be strange if Julia had been killed by ferocious rats. More than that, she says something like "they torture you with things you can´t resist", which never suggests she was tortured with the same thing that Winston had been. Did I get it all wrong? --Alvim.

 * That sentence could certainly be cleaned up a bit. I'd say it is reasonable to suppose she was tortured with her own worst fear, as the article states. ∴ here…♠ 23:25, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

 * I've gone ahead and changed it. It's certainly implied that Julia was sent to Room 101, and her worst nightmare definitely wasn't rats — she was quite calm when she and Winston discovered one in their room above the bookshop, while Winston nearly went into hysterics. Deadlock 15:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Now it says it was "never suggested" that she was tortured with rats. That's not true. Winston screams, "Do it to Julia!" and Julia has conspicuous scars where they would be if it had been done to her and it is "never suggested" that it was rats? Of course it's suggested by the text, whether or not Orwell meant it. It's not unreasonable either: if they wanted to destroy Julia's love for Winston likewise as they did for Winston, the Ministry of Love could've unleashed the rats on her explaining, "This is what your lover who promised to never betray you pleaded desperately for us to do." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.192.252.76 (talk) 08:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

 * That makes no sense- the Party doesn't need Winston's approval to sick rats on Julia, they would have done it anyway. Regardless, Winston had already been told Julia betrayed him. But the Party's lies don't matter. I was just voicing my opinion on something- I think it likely that Julia had a frontal lobotomy as her worst fear, because of two things- the scar on her forehead, and Orwell's choice of words while they were speaking- blandly, baldly (she hates him, but that's not so much of an emotion, more of an instinct). ... -Panther (talk) 03:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments on the article from 82.45.204.142
I am interested in the way a theoretical idea in a novel gets translated into a prime time TV program. The idea of ‘room 101’ is riveting. It was invented in George Orwell’s book, 1984. It was apparently named after a conference room at the BBC where George Orwell had to sit through tedious meetings.

In recent years it has featured in a BBC2 series, ‘Room 101’ where celebrities throw away their least favourite things. A telling quote from the book: ‘“You asked me once,” said O’Brien, “What was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world… "The worst thing in the world varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.” ’ - George Orwell, 1984 I would argue that Room 101 could never exist in reality. I prove my point by starting with Orwell’s argument: ‘Room 101’ is the worst thing in the world’. In our world, when a person sleeps, they can imagine things that are not physically possible. So, by Orwell’s definition, the worst thing in the world could be something that someone would imagine in nightmares (e.g. a monster). This itself is a paradox because someone could imagine a monster killing them, which is impossible physically in the real world. Therefore Orwell’s room 101 can never exist in reality while its definition is ‘Room 101 is the worst thing in the world’. Therefore my definition of Room 101 is: ‘Room 101 is the worst thing imaginable.’

 * The problem for your argument is for some people the worst thing in the world can be concrete/manifest in the waking/conscious/physical world. I.e. the worst thing in the world for some people may not be in a dream, but may be "real".
 * In any case, it seems reasonable to assume that Orwell meant the worst thing possible in the world as it is obvious that the worst thing in the world has to be possible.
 * Furthermore, what is to say that people's minds might not be contorllable in the world of 1984, such that they can experience their worse dream in R101?

Pronunciation

 * How is the "101" in "Room 101" pronounced? Is it "one-oh-one" or "one hundred and one?" 67.171.163.212 07:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * From any mention of it I have heard, it has always been one-oh-one.--Darth Fanboy 15:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Speculation

 * and the original intent of threatening Winston with the rats probably was not actually to go through with the act, but to force him into betraying the only person he loved and therefore break his spirit

This can go, IMO. It seems to be thinking that the miniluv officers were real, in order for them to have some sort of "intent". Of course, they were merely a made-uup story and not real at all. In any case, I'll bet that they were perfectly ready to go through with it. Paul Murray 03:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Cell Fourteen
I don't think that Orwell had any involvement with MI5 but one cell at Camp 020, where MI5 interrogated enemy spies, had a similar reputation to Room 101 even though it was a perfectly ordinary cell. "Often used as a last resort, the interrogator would say "you will now be taken to Cell Fourteen", at which point the prisoner would, more often than not, cave in". --jmb 11:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Origins of Room 101
I believe that room 101 was the room at the BBC where Orwell/Blair produced propaganda broadcasts for India/Burma during the second world war. I don't recall where I read this, but I suspect it was in a biography of Orwell which I no longer own. Can anyone else confirm this so it can be added to the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.220.163 (talk • contribs) 05:26, December 24, 2007

source for Mielke being an Orwell fan
[Copied from User talk:Jtir and User talk:Nanobot recurve to maintain context.] --Jtir (talk) 11:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Hiya Jtir! I've spotted the fact tag you left on the statement about Erich Mielke. I've just added a reference to, which includes the text below :

'The people of the GDR lived through their own private Nineteen Eighty-Four every single day. Funder describes Orwell's book as "like a manual for the GDR, right down to the most incredible detail". The party, if not the proles, knew that very well. She remembers that the much-dreaded Stasi chief Erich Mielke even managed to renumber the offices in the secret-service headquarters. "His office was on the second floor, so all the office numbers started with '2'. Orwell was banned in the GDR, but he would have had access to it. Because he so wanted the room number to be 101, he had the entire first floor renamed the mezzanine, and so his office was Room 101."'

Please contact me if you feel this needs further discussion, ok? :) Nanobot recurve (talk) 09:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Thanks! That's perfect (and bizarre, I might add). The para may need some minor copyediting to conform to the source (e.g. he didn't move his office, but had the floors renumbered). I'll do that. Thanks for your help with sourcing articles. --Jtir (talk) 10:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, again. After looking closer, ISTM that the source supports only the first sentence, and not the second. I did a search of Stasiland (ISBN 1862075808) at amazon.com and found Orwell mentioned, but not as a subject of Mielke's admiration. --Jtir (talk) 12:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I've had another little look at google, all the claims I can find of Erich Mielke being an Orwell fan (so far, I've yet to examine all of the german language text via google translate yet) seem based on this blog post, interpreting the quote from stasiland. I feel you'd have some issues with its usefulness as a font of academic knowledge. I'll see if I can find anything else over the next few days, but I suspect this is about as far as websearching is going to get on this subject. Oh well, at least there's a little new supporting material there, yes? Nanobot recurve (talk) 16:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * We can probably find a more authoritative source than the blog post, since there are several bios of Mielke (all of which are in German). This may require some library research. --Jtir (talk) 11:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed as unsourced since February 2008: "Mielke was a great admirer of Orwell's novel." --Jtir (talk) 20:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Cultural impact
The page list several references to popular culture where a room 101 is found. But I feel that these are relevant only if they can be shown in some way to have been based on 1984. For example it is entirely possible that Bill's apartment from Kill Bill 2 happened to be 101 and has nothing to do with Orwell and 1984. Some citation is needed to show that it indeed is a reference or else it should not be on this page. Catradar (talk) 01:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Also having completed Half Life 2, several times, I found no Room 101, and on a web search, the only refrence is this page, and a copy on wikimoble. Its essentially unsorced. --99.185.0.29 (talk) 11:43, 25 October 2008 (UTC)Superscript text

 * Right, I'll delete this as well. I didn't remember a specific Room 101 reference either (although I can see the parallel that's being drawn).  --P LUMBAGO  10:33, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

"In Fallout 3, the starting point is called Vault 101. Vault 101 is symbolic of the bleak future '1984' presents." Another explanation could be that Vault 101 is where the player goes trough the tutorial. In many schools and colleges, 101 is appended to the name of a subject to mean its and introductory course: for example, Astronomy 101. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.139.171.53 (talk) 20:22, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

It's an awful section. I've rearranged it so that it places emphasis on the real world impact of the idea and use in fictional works second. Additionally, I'm going to keep deleting things if they're simply named Room 101. Citations should show an intentional reference to 1984. Tegrenath (talk) 17:33, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Removed unreferenced edit
Have removed the following - and it stays out until suitably referenced - and even then am not sure it belongs here:

Conservative columnist Mark Steyn compares the world's view of America to Room 101:

Fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lapdancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too Godless, America is also too isolationist, except when it's too imperialist. Too Christian, too Godless, too isolationist, too imperialist, too seductive, too cretinous, America is George Orwell's Room 101: whatever your bugbear, you will find it therein - for the Continentals, excessive religiosity; for the Muslims, excessive decadence; for Harold Pinter, excessively bleeding rectums. --Technopat (talk) 16:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Neo's room
Shouldn't this page include a disambiguation link that lists Neo's Room 101 from The Matrix? ~ RayLast  « Talk! » 03:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Neo and where this fits in with 1984/reality
Room 101 is in the mind. It is how you torture yourself with the pre-conceived ideas that what you want is all that counts. As I am British, male and middle aged, I recognise that the psychology of the next man say from South America, will have been created differently by his state, and so his Nationalism, biases and needs are different to mine because his indoctrination is different. Neo wakes up from the fake world (is pulled out by Morpheus (reason)) and fights Agent Smith (his ego). He wins in the end and threatens to bring down the card-house. Take this principle and apply it to yourself. You will see it is true.81.155.214.186 (talk) 17:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier
The comic in question actually identifies Room 101 as being in MI5. Here's a direct quote: "The records of these various teams are rumoured to be gathered in a single file, the legendary BLACK DOSSIER, kept in MI5's impregnable H.Q. at Vauxhall Cross". The comic later depicts the titular Black Dossier being removed from room 101 of said building. While the identification of the building at Vauxhall Cross being MI5 is of course 'incorrect', so much as a work of fiction can be incorrect, that is never-the-less how it is identified, and the entry here should reflect that. 81.153.168.46 (talk) 08:09, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

title: Talk:Room 101


text: User:Fantasy/Images large

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Fantasy/Images large


text:
Tambaba

Tambaba is an official nudist beach in Brazil, located on the Atlantic coast 20 km south of João Pessoa and 115 km north of Recife, at -7.36583°N, -34.79722°W. In Tambaba, one must be nude in the family area (the main part of the beach). Around the periphery of the beach, nudism is optional.

Tambaba is a short beach, about 1 km. Until recently, the final access road was unpaved. However, as part of the regional infrastructure development, the Ministro Abelardo Jurema highway (PB-008) has been completed and the route is paved from João Pessoa to Tambaba. The beach sits in the municipality of Pitambui in the state of Paraiba and is considered one of the best beaches in Brazil. While famous for its nudist beach, it also has a public beach without nudism.

The area benefits from proximity of the recently expanded BR-101 route from Recife to Joao Pessoa to Natal, as well as to the other beaches of Tabatinga, Praia Bella and Coquerinho. This route is considered of high importance to the economy of Paiariba which is expanding due to the increase in tourism to the areas in and around Tambaba and the wider region including Joao Pessoa.

Tambaba Country Club Resort, a 150 hectare country club, is closely linked to the beach of Tambaba.

title: Tambaba


text:
List of newspapers in Belgium

Since the 1950s the newspaper market has been in decline in Belgium. The number of national daily newspapers in the country was 50 in 1950, whereas it was 30 in 1965. The number became 33 in 1980. There were 32 newspapers in the country in 1995. It was 23 in 2000.

Below is a partial list of newspapers published in Belgium:

Daily newspapers
* — La Capitale, La Meuse, La Nouvelle Gazette, La Province and Nord Eclair

Dutch language

 * Brugsch Handelsblad
 * Kortrijks Handelsblad

English language newspapers

 * The Brussels Times Belgium’s leading daily online English-language news media and bi-monthly print magazine.
 * Politico Europe better known for its mailing list and website but it also has a weekly paper edition. Politico Europe is based in Belgium, but its subject matter is EU politics and policymaking.
 * The Bulletin

Media groups in Belgium

 * Mediahuis
 * De Persgroep
 * Rossel
 * Roularta

title: List of newspapers in Belgium


text:
Knights of the Dinner Table

Knights of the Dinner Table (KoDT) is a comic book/strip created by Jolly R. Blackburn and published by Kenzer & Company. It primarily focuses on a group of role playing gamers and their actions at the gaming table, which often result in unfortunate, but humorous consequences in the game. The name is a parody of King Arthur's Round Table reinforced by the truism that roleplaying aficionados often end up sitting round their host's dinner table as it is the only one large enough to accommodate the party (4 to 8 people typically).

The comic
The panels are written by Blackburn, and given that he had no formal art training, the characters are drawn in simple caricatures which are scanned onto a computer and are continuously reused. Many of the stories presented in KoDT are based on actual in-game experiences of the developers or readers, who are encouraged to submit story ideas. Part of the comic's popularity stems from the reader's ability to relate to the characters and their experiences.

KoDT has won the Origins Awards for Best Professional Game Magazine of 1998 and 1999. It also won the Origins Award Gamer's Choice: Best Periodical of 2003. KoDT has also won the Origins Award for Best Game Accessory of 2009.

Publication history
Shadis editor Jolly Blackburn decided to draw a simple comic strip of his own to put on the last page of Shadis #2 (March/April 1990) which he called Knights of the Dinner Table, focusing on the comedic interactions of a role-playing game group. Blackburn published that initial Knights strip with the intention of just filling an otherwise blank page, but when he instead published more professional comic strips starting with Shadis #6, fans began an outcry that led to Blackburn bringing Knights back. Blackburn also published Knights of the Dinner Table as a comic book, with its first three issues published by his company Alderac Entertainment Group over the next year (1994-1995). Blackburn had other interests that were not shared by his partners, so he left Alderac in 1995 and took the rights to Knights of the Dinner Table with him, and Shadis #21 (December 1995) was his final issue. Blackburn formed his own company called KODT Enteractive Facktory, though which he intended to publish the monthly Knights of the Dinner Table comic book, and he was planning to continue the comic strip in Shadis. While setting up his new company, Blackburn got a call from the editor of Dragon to publish the Knights of the Dinner Table comic strip, which then first appeared in Dragon #226 (February, 1996). The run that lasted through issue #269 (March 2000), when it was replaced by an expanded Nodwick strip.

Blackburn was working on Knights of the Dinner Table #4 (1996) when he realized he did not want to do everything alone, and he was talking to David Kenzer and the staff at Kenzer & Company who wanted him to work for their company. David Kenzer and others were visiting with Blackburn in November 1996 during a local convention, when Blackburn decided that Kenzer had both the business sense and integrity that he wanted in a partner. Beginning with Knights of the Dinner Table #5 (February 1997) the comic book was the work of the "KoTD Development Team" which was made up of Jolly Blackburn, David Kenzer, Brian Jelke and Steve Johansson.

The Knights of the Dinner Table
The main group of characters are the members of a gaming group known as "The Knights of the Dinner Table" in a fictionalized version of Muncie, Indiana. The players' best-known and most often-used characters are the HackMaster characters known as the "Untouchable Trio (Plus One)" (abbreviated as "UT+1"). They consist of:

Boris Alphonzo "B.A." Felton
B.A. is the GM and current organizer of the Knights (although the group was founded, and GMed, by Brian). In his 30s, he lives with his mother due to a failed attempt at game design, and works at the local pizza shop known as the Pizza-A-Go-Go, as well as his father's dry cleaning shop. B.A. has a bad reputation among the Knights for being ruthlessly cunning, largely because the players tend to be paranoid and to react poorly to setbacks, and any attempt at normal gameplay usually ends in misery (or complete and utter disaster). He often finds his games thwarted or sabotaged by the antics of the other players, much to his dismay.

He is also a sucker for the local game-shop owner, "Weird Pete" Ashton (see "The Black Hands Gaming Society", below), who constantly finds ways to sell him new or over-stocked product, on the basis that it's just what B.A. needs to spice up his campaigns. B.A. was supposedly based on Jolly Blackburn himself. B.A. from late 2005 to early 2006 took a furlough from GMing, having seen too many of his hard-worked campaigns reduced to rubble, the last such disaster prior to his furlough being a difficult situation revolving around two self-aware swords. His place behind the GM screen was temporarily taken by Brian VanHoose. B.A.'s return to the gamemaster's seat was heralded by his acquisition of a copy of the infamously deadly Temple of Horrendous Doom HackMaster scenario created by "Weird Pete". Now he's taken up a more hardball approach in the hopes of reining in the power gaming that wrecked most of his previous adventures.

Robert Samuel "Bob" Herzog
Bob lives for gaming. He's a member of the "Old School" style of playing which revolves around killing people and breaking things. His short temper has led him into trouble on many occasions. He reacts to most encounters with "I waste him/her/it with my crossbow!". Bob is extremely protective of his large dice collection. At one point, Bob came into conflict with his father over gaming, given the option to straighten up and give up gaming, or move out. Being the true gamer, Bob did indeed move out, and is currently attempting to live on his own, but tends to spend his rent money on gaming paraphernalia. Bob's favourite character in fantasy campaigns is a dwarf named Knuckles (ranging from Knuckles, King of the Wall-climbers to Knuckles the Eighth), who rides a mule named "Little Mike" which he believes to be a "Dwarven Warhorse."

Bob is in a relationship with Sheila Horowitz, a member of another Muncie gaming group, the Dorm Troopers; recent issues have shown the two apparently living together. Bob currently works for Weird Pete at the till, getting paid in gaming stock each week, because Weird Pete cannot afford to pay him in actual money. Bob has little qualms with this arrangement, and has even made Sara compliment him on how enthusiastic he is.

David "Dave" Harcord Bozwell
The youngest of the Knights, Dave is a student at Ball State University, where he studies Cultural Anthropology and Dance Theory (the latter of the two for the purpose of meeting girls). He originally used to show up for the food, but really got into the game despite a bad first encounter with Johnny (a former Knight who gouged Dave out of a priceless gem). Dave is the typical "Hack-N-Slash" player, who becomes bored easily in non-action situations. When faced with talking things through (at which he is poor), or fighting, Dave chooses the latter. Dave, until recently, played a character by the name of El Ravager, wielding a coveted Hackmaster +12 sword named "Tremble". He lusts to own a god-level Magic Sword, but dreads the possibility of such a blade having its own ideas of what it is to be used for.

More recently (late 2006) in B.A.'s newest campaign, Dave has changed tactics (in part thanks to B.A.'s new hardball rules) and is playing a magic-user named El Mardico with, it must be said, some margin of success. Brian has therefore provided Dave with tutelage on how to properly run a mage – for a small fee. Dave was once involved with local Game Master Patty Gauzweiller; he later broke it off but she still had feelings for him, leaving him a target for her flirtatious tactics. This, however, seems to have disappeared with time.

Sara Ashlyn Felton
B.A.'s cousin Sara, the only female member of the group, prefers games with a focus on role playing rather than the pure action. Often, she tries to solve issues in-game through negotiation, while the others prefer violence. Exactly how she, playing a 'good' character, came to unleash upon the game-world a blood-thirsty pack of pit bulls to attack and devour anything alive they come across (and quite a few not-alive things as well) is an entirely different story, and one Sara would like the world to forget about (even if she never will). Usually the voice of reason, Sara has reflexes that would scare a striking cobra and has been known to have a hair-trigger temper on certain subjects (sexist remarks being perhaps the foremost); Bob, Dave and Brian have all had their shirt collars wrenched by a fuming Sara at least once.

Sara's trademark characters are generally (fully clothed) female barbarians, the most noteworthy of which are probably Zayre and Thorina. She also has the distinction of being the person that broke Brian's undefeated streak at Risque (a parody of Risk). Brian is not fond of being reminded of this. Sara was supposedly based on Jolly Blackburn's wife, Barbara Blackburn.

Brian Montgomery VanHoose
Brian is the rules lawyer and powergamer of the group. A web designer and miniature painter, he lives alone in a house inherited from his parents. He can quote rules and supplements down to page and paragraph/footnote numbers, and bend and abuse this knowledge to his advantage, at times at the expense of other players. He meticulously hands down notes of earlier adventures to his characters' descendants, thereby giving them in-game access to knowledge they otherwise would not possess, and has been known to tattoo his character's spells on fellow party-members backs as a contingency plan, making them into walking grimoires. Brian is another person said to keep a grudge so long he has a regular account at the taxidermists' shop. In addition, when he does get pushed too far (either by a carefully constructed plot falling apart or a bout of in-game backstabbing), he has been known to flip the table in a moment of rage.

His weaknesses include a miserly streak that makes him charge other players 15 cents apiece for character sheets (and non-KoDT affiliated gamers 25 cents), and a love for dogs that can lead to B.A. leading him by the nose towards traps and misfortunes. Brian's trademark characters are wizards, all bearing the name Lotus. His most well-known character is known as Teflon Billy, but this was a nickname given by the group to a character originally named Black Lotus (Black Lotus gives BL which gives Billy, and "Teflon" refers to the uncanny skill of the character at avoiding damage). Formerly a renowned Game-Master, he abandoned the GM's Screen after an unspecified incident at a convention, but has recently taken it up again (after B.A. was burned out by repeated trashings of his best efforts in GMing), to run a complex Cattlepunk campaign. This campaign terminated with the sudden reversal of Brian's meticulous plans, at the hands of an alliance between B.A. and Sara, and an unexpected role-reversal, (from cringing dupe to back-shooting plotter) on the part of Bob's character; Brian threw the reins back to B.A., returning to the role of player, saying that he had only GM'd in order to keep his HMPA-GM credentials fully valid.

Brian has also appeared as a tragic character more than once; in his youth, his parents were killed in a car crash, and his uncle managed his inheritance until he turned eighteen. Living on his own, he concocts elaborate fantasies which he narrates to the other players about being taken globetrotting by his uncle for Christmas, or having a girlfriend (see Alexis Marie below), sometimes even making bogus phone calls or actually booking hotel rooms to strengthen the illusion. In one extreme case, Brian has been portrayed as role-playing a date with a doll, which he referred to as "Sara"; in another, when the Knights had met for pizza and were drawing from a prop Deck of Many Things that Brian made and imagining what would happen if the deck was real and affected their real lives, Brian drew the card "the Void" ("Body functions, but soul is trapped elsewhere"), and responded with "That pretty much describes my life already." It has also been suggested Brian's state may be linked to the fact that Brian previously ran six separate campaigns every week, and was paid for GMing, and further that there may be links between this and "the incident" which caused Brian to give up GMing. Recent issues have not mentioned this aspect of the plot, and it may have been dropped, as a number of reader's letters suggested that readers found these developments too disturbing. On a number of occasions (such as the doll incident mentioned above), Brian has displayed evidence of a severe crush on Sara; he has not, however, ever openly acknowledged this to her.

The Black Hands Gaming Society
Usually represented as the "evil" counterpart to the Knights, as most of their games revolve around the PCs finding reasons to kill each other before completing the intended adventure. Their membership consists of players who have been rejected from all other local groups, and hence they remain together simply because none of them has anywhere else to go. They are far more results-oriented than the Knights, enforcing demerit policies when Weird Pete is behind the GM screen (often worked off by unpaid labor behind Weird Pete's counter), and holding extensive post-mortems on their game sessions, to see where things could have been done better (usually by the members of the group not slaughtering one another's characters for minor infractions of local "rules", to vent a real-life grudge, or to gain experience points needed to advance their own character a level or two). They are especially prone to do this to "new" characters—most all of them have a psychological "button" which triggers a desire to execute a character based solely on race, attitude or type of clothing (e.g. looking like the character might be an assassin).

 * Victor "Nitro" Fergueson – Former Marine and the current GM of the Black Hands; he resorts to increasingly contrived methods to keep the group in order, including using demerits, using incentives, and forcing players to wear "hubcaps of shame" if warranted. Supposedly earned his name after an incident taking part in the steam tunnels under the local University where Nitro attempted to run a "live action" session. For some reason yet to be fathomed, Nitro has a habit of using deceased celebrities of cult-like status as NPCs in most, if not all, of his games (Andy Warhol, his apparent favorite, springs up everywhere—in HackMaster, Nitro placed him as the primary deity of his campaign setting, Kraag Wurld). Has little tolerance for stupidity and sucking up (usually done at the same time by Newt), and can quickly slip into a drill sergeant-esque tirade that would make R. Lee Ermey proud. Nitro was supposedly based on a real person who Jolly met at a gaming club, who really was nicknamed Nitro.
 * Pete Ashton – known to the gaming community as "Weird Pete"; owner of the local game shop, the "Games Pit" (originally called the "Games Pit Stop"). A player in the Black Hands, although he has occasionally acted as GM for both them and other groups in the comic, usually running his trademark "never-completed" adventure The Temple Of Horrendous Doom (a reference of a pair of real D&D modules, Tomb Of Horrors and The Temple of Elemental Evil) which "no-one has ever completed without dying". In fact, the majority of the adventure requires players to take control of disembodied spirits; thus "dying" and being reborn is part and parcel of completing the adventure. Weird Pete generally forces players to sign a non-disclosure contract before playing as he enjoys the mystique that has evolved around the adventure. Weird Pete also devised a "demerit" system for penalizing players when he is GMing, which can be worked off with time running the front counter of the "Games Pit".

 * Weird Pete is a ruthless salesman and has no qualms about feeding his friends and customers a line of bull about the virtues of his wares; he has a particular talent for convincing B.A. that a given product or service is just what B.A. needs for his game. However, Pete is also a poor businessman, willing to shell out for whatever seems to be "the next big thing" and taking the fall when the product flops; he is often as vulnerable to the sales pitches of game manufacturers as his customers are to his own "salesmanship".

 * Newt Forager – a small and rather whiny and tricky player who invariably plays evil, mysterious loners with hidden agendas, all of whom are blood related so that he can share in-game information between them. The only child of a career military family, Newt bounced from base to base while he was young—perhaps the reason he has a hard time making friends. He has gravitated to the Black Hands because no other group will let him in (he played once with B.A. and the Knights when Bob was unable to game, and proceeded to try and rob everybody just to load up on treasure and experience for another GM's game he was aiming for). Since joining the Black Hands he has acquired an ongoing hatred of Stevil, mostly due to in-game interpersonal warfare and vendettas. Newt's first appearances with the Black Hands were initially believed to be examples of "newbie-bashing" (mistreatment of players who are new to a game or group, and are thus at a disadvantage) by several KODT readers; however, the creators behind the Knights point out that Newt's anti-social and selfish tendencies both in and out of character put him on an even footing with the Black Hands from the start, and that sooner or later, Newt invariably gives as good as he gets where his fellow players are concerned.
 * Gordo Sheckberry – a more roleplay focused player who usually plays female characters, most notably female pixie fairies who are dramatically underpowered compared to the other characters in the campaign. Gordo uses a wheelchair and has full lifetime disability, but considers this a bonus as it enables him to game almost daily with different groups. He is easily recognized by his Coke-bottle glasses and bad toupee. Gordo has a degree in Chemical Engineering, and is rumored to have cooked up the batch of C-4 used in an attempt to breach the steam tunnels (the incident that gave Nitro his nickname).
 * Stevil Van Hostle – also known as Stevil Van Hostile, Evil Stevil or Bitter Stevil, Stevil is a tech-support worker who commutes from Indianapolis to game sessions and is quick and vicious to jump on any grudge in the game (sometimes accompanied by his signature gripe, "I can't believe I drove forty-five frickin' miles for THIS!"). On occasions, he has been known to deliberately trash entire parties and campaigns simply because another player's character won over on him. He has an ongoing grudge against Newt which started when Newt first joined the group; Stevil's character challenged Newt's to "swing at him with a stick" to test his combat prowess (after Newt refused to describe his character in game-statistic terms). Newt's character knocked out Stevil's with his first blow and it was discovered that Stevil had assumed that a "stick" would be a small twig or similar, whereas the "stick" Newt's character had actually used was a full-length pole resembling a log. Outside the Black Hands' table, Newt merely brags he knocked Stevil out with an ordinary stick, which only serves to further annoy Stevil.

Hard Eight Enterprises
In the KODT world, Hard Eight Enterprises are the creators of the Hackmaster, Cattlepunk, Space Hack, and Scream of Kachooloo gaming systems. Well respected by all of Muncie's gaming groups (USUALLY anyway), they call the shots. Hard Eight Enterprises run the tournament-level Hackmaster games in the semi-finals, which one year resulted in the disqualification of the Black Hands, and the Untouchable Trio (Plus One) causing Timmy Jackson to cry. Hard Eight runs the annual Garycon game convention; there is now a real-world convention with this name, held in memory of Gary Gygax in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

 * Gary Jackson – President and founder of Hard Eight, Gary Jackson designed and created Hackmaster (a parody of Dungeons & Dragons). His name combines those of Gary Gygax and Steve Jackson, two noted RPG designers. Gary Jackson has always been two things—first and foremost a gamer, but second and not distantly behind that at all: a business man. Some of Hard 8's best and worst products were the design of Gary, including the One-Legged Dwarf Kits. Gary has a son by the name of Timmy (Timmy Jackson in full), who also is involved in the family business. However, Timmy is somewhat young, and a lot of the ideas he comes up with are met with spite and disgust. Gary Jackson allegedly died in issue #53 in a plane crash.  Because of controversy surrounding the new edition of Hackmaster, Brian and Bob got into a vehicle and drove up to Hard Eight to confirm. Despite their shock and horror at his "death," the two rubbed several of their dice on Gary (believed to endow good luck, they in fact cursed the dice).  Suddenly, in issue #149, Gary emerged from hiding (after having faked his own death to avoid gambling debts), and started his own game company, purchasing several of his game lines from Hard Eight, now controlled by Heidi. Eventually, he merges his new company with Hard Eight, recombining their old intellectual properties, but must work under Heidi, who still owns it.
 * Heidi Jackson – estranged wife of Gary Jackson and owner of a regular publishing company, Paperback Werks, and owner of Hard Eight since the (faked) death of Gary Jackson – although she rarely actually showed up at Hard Eight, instead holding telephone conferences with the staff. Heidi is a hard-nosed businesswoman who cares nothing for games or gamers, and imposed continuously harsher deadlines for Hard Eight to show greater and greater profit margins, having threatened to close down the company more than once if it fails to show sufficient growth. Many of the employees dislike Heidi, but Jo Jo (below) has accepted that her business attitude is only acknowledging and dealing with a weakness that was already there. Heidi began demanding changes in Hackmaster to the point it resembled one of the romance/adventure novels her company publishes. (Some changes suggested by Heidi appear to be not-so-subtle jabs at the then-recent, real-world alterations made to Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition.) After Heidi sold off several Hard Eight assets to have them purchased secretly by Gary, Gary found that his employees had signed Non-compete clause contracts with Heidi. Gary was able to "charm" Heidi into re-merging the companies.
 * Timmy Jackson – Son of Gary and Heidi Jackson. Over the years, Timmy earned the nickname of "Table Happy," because of his munchkin ways. He was also referred to on occasion as "Timmy the Rules Mangler." Timmy was intended to one day inherit Hard Eight. Timmy used to participate in the creation of gaming systems, including Cattlepunk. However, Timmy was a munchkin (i.e. power gamer) and his products had poor reputations. Following the return of Gary Jackson, it has been implied that Timmy has lost interest in role-playing games and has grown into a typical teen jock, more interested in football and girls.
 * Jo Jo Zeke – Jo Jo was (until his supposed demise) Gary Jackson's best friend and he assumed daily management of Hard Eight after Gary's "death." Jo Jo was once forced to accompany Timmy Jackson to host a Hackmaster tournament because Gary was busy. In the aftermath, Jo Jo grabbed a then-crying Timmy and retreated back to Hard Eight as fast as possible. Everyone found out why very quickly, for the prize of the tournament turned out to be a $1500 certificate for One-Legged Dwarf Kits and Spelljacked cards. This development enraged even those who had lost the tournament, and a riot broke out. Jo Jo was pressed by the Hard Eight staff to stand up to Heidi Jackson's more ridiculous changes to HackMaster. Jo Jo presented their case and was subsequently fired. He created his own gaming company, but was then brought back on board when Gary returned.

Patty's Perpetrators
Patty's Perpetrators (Patty's Perps for short) are one of the newest sanctioned groups in Muncie recognized by the HMPA. Patty's Perps have the stigma of being the very bottom of the barrel (i.e. they take in those who no one else will accept, like Crutch).

 * Patty Gauzweiller – currently teaches a Kindergarten class in Muncie. She used to belong to the Black Hands before forming Patty's Perpetrators (or more commonly "Patty's Perps"). She often brings her "teaching tools" from her classroom to the gaming table (time outs, for example). Patty used to be in a relationship with Dave. They dated for a number of months before Dave decided to break up with her. In more recent times, after a series of misunderstandings and an eventual co-GM arrangement with B.A. during a massive PvP war at the Knights' table, surprisingly, Patty and B.A. appear to be on the road to an actual relationship.
 * Leslie "Crutch" Humphries – Crutch is an ex-con who's gotten two "strikes" and been put on notice. If he commits a crime again, he goes to prison for good. He's often found at Hawg Wallers (though legally he is not allowed to be in bars by the terms of his probation, the police don't usually go to Hawg's). Despite his criminal record, it's apparent to those who know him that he mostly has a good heart. He is a very loyal friend—though he often gets in trouble for his loyalty. Crutch discovered role-playing by accident, when he mistook a game of Cattlepunk the Black Hands were playing in Hawg Wallers for an actual meeting to plan a heist; when he was told the truth, he decided he would like to see how the heist turned out in the game anyway and was hooked on Cattlepunk. However, Crutch also had a social stigma of being cutthroat and was rejected from the Knights, as well as from the Black Hands. He finally found a home with Patty's Perps, although he had to try hard to earn the acceptance and approval of the other players. He has learned much about fantasy role-playing and teamwork with fellow players in his time with the Perps, and in a recent Hackmaster Tournament/Grudge Match, Crutch was the only member of the group to advance to the finals. Moreover, it was his act of self-sacrifice that enabled Sara Felton (another finalist among the three teams that called the Grudge Match) to reach the final goal and win the game. Crutch eventually became an HMA certified gamemaster, drawing on his criminal background to run a surprisingly popular (and extremely lethal) Crime Nation campaign.
 * Mona "Mo" Wert – Mona has a lot of time to game since her children are grown up and she received a large inheritance from a great-uncle, as well as her husband's departure. She is proud of "answering to no one" and being a "free spirit". She is honest, blunt, and rather ruthless, but most people still consider her enjoyable to be around. In her spare time she does volunteer work and met Patty working at her kindergarten.
 * Eddie "Tank" Ramirez – Eddie acquired the nickname "Tank" in high school as the League Commissioner for his Fantasy Football League. He is very proud of his character – Kraven the Frost Giant thief. He believes he is the only player in the country playing a giant thief, although there are rumors that someone in Belize is playing a Hill Giant assassin. He has assumed the role of Crutch's "tutor", teaching him the intricacies of roleplaying and "playing well with others". As a child, Eddie was extremely shy, and Patty's Perps was the only group that accepted him. Patty has been working on "coaxing him out of his shell" and he started working out at Nitro's gym regularly after she offered in-game incentives for exercising.
 * Chad Aguilar – Chad is a graduate student as Ball State University, and working as a disc jockey to get needed money. He's known for having a short temper – he is often sent to Patty's time-out corner, and if he goes out prematurely, he'll lose a level. When he started playing Hackmaster, his age (13) made it difficult to find an accepting group, but he was accepted in Patty's group. He plays now with his love interest, Reese, who is a naive vegan peacenik completely unsuited for the brutal world of Hackmaster. After having a baby son ("Peeta...") they ended up sharing a pixie fairy character with multiple personalities.

Other groups
The Dorm Troopers, Logan's Heroes and Slacker's Hackers are part of some of the other local gaming groups across whom the Knights come at intervals, most notably in the incident of the Player Exchange Program (and resulting intergroup grudge match). In this, certain Game Masters conspired to arrange for the annihilation of competing groups' characters (so that their bodies could be looted for plunder) by switching players into other groups' games where, separated from their regular comrades, they could be killed off. The ultimate plan was to eliminate competition in an upcoming local HackMaster tournament, as well as use any magic items and other enhancements looted from other characters to win the tourney.

Other notable characters from the Muncie gaming community include

 * Bridgette Keating, a beautiful woman who wears skimpy costumes at conventions and delights in using her appearance to manipulate the "geeks" (not least by involving them in the LARP "Vampyres: Lords of Darkness" and then using them for manual labor).
 * Earl Slackmozer, an occasional freelancer for Hard Eight Enterprises and a one-time rival of B.A. B.A. didn't care for one of Earl's modules and the two butted heads for a while, but have since learned to respect each other (more or less).
 * Sheila Horowitz was introduced to gaming at the Knights' table (though never became an official member of the group) while dating Dave Bozwell, and once got in a fistfight with B.A. when he accused her of in-game cheating. She is currently a member of the Dorm Troopers, and is cohabitating with Bob Herzog. Sheila is arguably a vital part of Bob's maintaining his independence from his father, as she initially took something of a "mother hen" attitude with Bob. Since moving in together, it is clear that Sheila is the dominant personality in the relationship, limiting Bob's spending money and assigning him household chores (although, also, at the latest GaryCon, covertly arranging for Bob to fulfill his ambition to win a giant D20, even if she did then have to manipulate him into not displaying it on a table where she kept a family photograph). This relationship took a dramatic nosedive after Bob got suckered into a couple of Brian's schemes to 'get one over' on Hard 8, culminating in Bob losing Sheila's trust over rent money spent on Hacker-Snacks.
 * Hunter and Croix are Bob Herzog's nephew and niece (respectively), whom he has introduced to gaming. Hunter was part of Nitro's PeeWee team that competed in HackMaster tournaments, and later appeared in Wave 1 of Bob Herzog's intercampaign invasion during the PvP war against Carvin' Marvin, Brian, and Sara.

Two fictional groups that are frequently referenced in stories are the Hackmaster Association for gamemasters (HMA) and Hackmaster Players' Association for players (HMPA). They act as networking organizations for the two types of participant, perform lobbying activities on behalf of their groups to Hard Eight Enterprises (e.g., to advocate for rule changes that benefit their members), arbitrate disputes, and issue rulings that are binding on their members. The HMA also serves as an accreditation body for gamemasters. The HMA and HMPA are examples of the exaggerated level of organization of the RPG hobby in the comic; another is the fictional Gamer Temps company that provides, for a fee, drop-in temporary players for campaigns when a regular player is absent (minor character Ty Ferfel was introduced as a Gamer Temps employee).

Miscellaneous characters
Characters who are not part of a gaming group.

 * Squirrely – Weird Pete's pet chimpanzee, he can be considered a security measure. Squirrely is actually a hyper-intelligent experimental animal formerly of a U.S. Government research facility; how he escaped is somewhat of a mystery, and one Weird Pete will likely never solve- mainly because he doesn't know or even care. He works as sort of a gofer at the Games Pit, running errands on his scooter or sorting inventory. He has, on occasions, sat in at the Knights' table, substituting for one of the regulars (though never (so far) for Sara or Brian). He tends to do very well, because Weird Pete keeps his cage in the room he lets gamers hire for sessions, so Squirrely (who games as "Squire Lee", a name Pete had also used to apply for a credit card) has seen most of the commercial modules played already, and knows where the treasure, monsters and traps are. Squirrely is also a rather heavy smoker—something that can create friction at the Knights' table, due to Brian's bad reactions (either physically or psychosomatically allergic) to cigarette smoke.
 * Erik Bouchard – A Canadian gamer who showed up at Gary Jackson's funeral and rubbed dice on Gary, right in front of the entire Hard 8 Staff. He later appeared as a "hired gun" during the grudge match that resulted from the Player Exchange Program.

In-game (non-player) characters
The Knights themselves have encountered several recurring non-player characters in their (various) roleplaying campaigns. Among these are:

 * (Li'l) Knobby Foot, the Untouchable Trio (Plus One)'s one-time loyal halfling torch-bearer, who fled with certain of the UT+1's possessions, including Knuckles' "dwarven warhorse" and El Ravager's "magic cow," when the group was in dire straits and Knuckles, El Ravager, and Teflon Billy decided to use Knobby Foot as food. They also once shaved his head and branded "slacker" on his forehead for falling asleep on guard duty. He defected to Sergeant Barringer during the Bag Wars, and later inherited his position as lord of Barringer City. He eventually became a sort of lich and served a villainous role during a major campaign to destroy Bag World.
 * Lord Gilead, formerly the henchman of one of Sara's HackMaster characters who became a charismatic noble lord after an unknown, potentially dangerous magical helmet which the Knights insisted that he should be the one to try out turned out to be the legendary Helm of Lordship. He now rules the land of Faengerie and looks down on the propensity of Teflon Billy, Knuckles and El Ravager to burn and slaughter their way through whatever kingdom they happen to be in. Gilead is known to be a "favored NPC" by B.A., who uses him as to foil many of the players' more absurd large-scale plans and actions.
 * Chelsie the Magic Cow, once owned by El Ravager and subsequently eaten by Li'l Knobby Foot. Originally she was an ordinary cow, grazing by the side of the road as mere flavor text. El Ravager insisted on investigating, and B.A.'s attempts dissuade them were met with more fervor and suspicion ("there must be something really special about that cow if he's trying to keep us away from it"). When Teflon Billy used Detect Magic on the cow, B.A. sarcastically declared that it radiated a blinding magical aura. El Ravager laid claim to the cow, named her Chelsie, and over the course of several adventures sought to determine her supposed magic abilities; sadly, he never succeeded. Poor Chelsie met her end as a meal and warm clothing for Li'l Knobby Foot when he fled for his life from the Untouchable Trio. There is a similar story regarding Knuckles and a mule, though that was a case of deliberate trickery on the GM's part; B.A. convinced Knuckles (Bob's player) that "Little Mike" was actually a dwarven warhorse. Mike was also stolen by Knobby Foot, but was kept on as the former hireling's steed when Knobby Foot joined the Barringer rebellion. (Oddly enough, when KenzerCo published the actual rulebooks for HackMaster, the dwarven warhorse showed up on the equipment lists of the Player's Guide, along with a plethora of other items mentioned in the comic. However, it contains no references to magic cows, so Chelsie's special abilities remain a mystery.)
 * "Red" Gurdy Pickens, most often a bar-owner or piano player and nemesis of the Knights' Cattlepunk characters. From the players' perspective, the most feared of all of B.A.'s recurring NPCs; he is often recognized by description before being mentioned by name, eliciting a cry from the players (in unison) of "RED GURDY PICKENS?!". A Canadian descendant of Red even showed up in B.A.'s Hacknoia campaign to plague the Knights' agent characters. He was Resurrected yet again as the sheriff (and primary antagonist for the players) of the town of Lazarus, during Brian's Cattlepunk campaign. Red Gurdy Pickens appears as an NPC in Aces and Eights, the real-life analogue to Cattlepunk.
 * Alexis Marie (aka Lexie), supposedly Brian's girlfriend, but never seen by anyone else in the flesh. He talked about her larger-than-life adventures and careers for over two years before Bob and the other Knights decided the ruse was out of control; Brian had claimed they were engaged and even sent out wedding invitations. After a long, drawn-out intervention-type discussion, Brian was forced to admit that Alexis was not real. In a dramatic emotional outburst, he confessed he had created his own fantasy world, "Brian's Life", in order that he could feel loved (a sort of escape from the 'harsh edges' of the real world). Alexis is now a touchy subject among all the Knights, and any mention of her at the table tends to result in Brian unleashing a furious beatdown on the person who mentioned her.
 * Jonid Coincrawler, a gnomish thief and illusionist, who devises elaborate schemes to separate the Knights from their gold. In many cases, these schemes would not have worked as well as they did if it were not for the Knights simultaneously attempting an equally elaborate scheme to profit from a situation. In the "reality" of the comic strip, Jonid seems to be an established character from official HackMaster material rather than an original creation of B.A.'s, as he is mentioned in documents distributed by Hard Eight Enterprises.
 * Sergeant Barringer, the leader of a group of hirelings that the UT+1 placed inside a magical bag of holding in order to transport them more easily (in other words, less expensively than buying them all horses). After Teflon Billy, who was in charge of the bag, forgot to feed the hirelings or let them out of the bag for several months, he was shocked to discover that, rather than dying, they had created a fortress and society within "Bag World", living off the other resources that the Knights had stored there. This led to a conflict and eventually to several full-scale "Bag Wars" in which the Knights attempted to reclaim their items. In a more recent storyline, a campaign taking place generations after the end of the "Bag Wars" features the Knights' current characters entering Bag World and encountering societies descended from veterans of the wars; one of these settlements was "Barringer City," ruled by a corrupted Knobby Foot.
 * "Carvin' Marvin", an intelligent artifact-level magic sword who is completely insane and delights in having his wielder kill and maim anyone nearby and/or themselves. On occasion, however, he can be persuaded to pursue a more useful goal, and on those occasions serves as a very powerful and effective weapon. The last time Marvin was wielded resulted in a clash between him and Tremble, the Hackmaster +12 that (played by Nitro) had asserted control over Dave's character, with the result that every PC died and Marvin absorbed Tremble's power as his own. He waited centuries at 'Meatgrinder Rock,' luring in unsuspecting treasure hunters in and destroying them to create bodies for a mighty undead army. Eventually, the party returned to investigate the sword and Sara and Brian's characters got too close and became dominated by Marvin, who then used them to launch a campaign to conquer Garweeze World.
 * Pit bulls. The UT+1 discovered that the HackMaster rules allowed pit bulls to be purchased in large quantities from even the smallest village, making them a cheap but effective weapon en masse (though somewhat uncontrollable, since the cheap price was for untrained dogs). Unfortunately, when one of Sara's characters purchased a large group to run off guards transporting the other three player characters to justice, the dogs became feral and started gathering up every other pit bull in the country, one village at a time, until a vast pack of the dogs ('the Doomsday Pack') was killing everyone and every living thing which they came across, changing the face of Garweeze World.

Fictional games
Since the comic centers around a community of role-playing gamers, the characters are seen playing many games that are analogues of real-world games (some of which were then published as real-world games). They include:

 * Hackmaster, a fantasy role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons, but even more baroquely complex. Hackmaster games are typically set in Garweeze Wurld, a reference to Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk campaign setting. It is the game most often shown being played. Kenzer and Company has published multiple real-world versions of the game, including supplements with names taken from the comic (e.g. the Hacklopedia of Beasts guides to the monsters of Garweeze Wurld). In the very early Shadis scripts, the game the group plays is apparently called Dung & Dragons (although this is only seen on the back of B.A.'s GM screen). HackMaster is initially described as a home-brewed rule set by B.A., but was later declared to be a published product.
 * Spacehack, a science-fiction role-playing game like Traveller. Early strips implied this to be exactly the same game as HackMaster with different names, but it diverged later. One early storyline features the Knights' Spacehack characters traveling through a rift in space to Garweeze Wurld, where they encountered their Hackmaster characters. Several single-frame strips referring to SpaceHack were originally advertisement strips for the sci-fi RPG Fading Suns (which otherwise has no relationship to Hackmaster)
 * Scream of Kachooloo, a horror role-playing game closely modeled on Call of Cthulhu.
 * HackNoia, a modern-day espionage role-playing game like TSR's Top Secret.
 * Heroes and Zeroes, a superhero role-playing game like Champions.
 * Cattlepunk, a Western role-playing game like TSR's Boot Hill. The earliest strips call it Hackmaster: Cattlepunk, implying it may be a supplement or variation on that game. Kenzer and Company has published its own Western-themed game named Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier.
 * Crime Nation, a role-playing game where the characters are gang members in a crime-ridden city.
 * Dawg: The RPG, a role-playing game, designed by B.A. Felton, where the characters are dogs of various breeds, similar to Bunnies & Burrows, which featured rabbit characters. Was self-published by B.A. and was a disastrous failure; the one time the group played it, the session consisted almost entirely of making "saving throws versus Canine Compulsion" to avoid their character acting like an actual dog. Was later picked up by Hard Eight after an intellectual property dispute with Heidi and "tidied up" by Jo Jo Zeke.
 * Vampyres: Lords of Darkness, a live-action role-playing game like White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade.
 * World of Hackcraft, a massively multiplayer on-line role-playing game set in Garweeze Wurld, modeled on World of Warcraft.
 * Spelljacked, a fantasy-themed collectible card game like Magic: The Gathering and Spellfire. Spelljacked is depicted as Hard Eight's failed attempt to cash in on the CCG craze; they were later forced to practically give away their remaining stocks of cards.
 * Fairy Meat, a miniatures game designed by Pete Ashton about cannibalistic fairies. Later published as a real-world game.
 * Risque, a board game of world conquest modeled on Risk.
 * Island of Kataan, a board game of building and trading modeled on The Settlers of Catan. When the Knights play it, most of them are baffled by its complete lack of rules for combat.
 * "TreasonHackers", a RPG that mimics "Paranoia". It only shows up in the animated YouTube videos, and Brain thinks it's a joke due to the high lethality rate.
 * RoadHack, a post-apocalypse highway game of car-to-car combat a la The Road Warrior, clearly based on Car Wars.
 * The Great War, an extremely detailed simulation of the First World War, costing several hundred dollars. A number of Muncie gamers formed the "Guns of August Society" to purchase and play it; over the years, all except Weird Pete and Brian have dropped out, and those two have been playing the game, at the rate of one turn per month, for fifteen years. When Johnny Kizinski briefly returned to the Society, he found that Pete and Brian had stopped attacking each other and were continuing to play the game peacefully simply to keep it running: Johnny attacked, upsetting the balance. A reference to the "monster games" of wargaming's past, such as SPI's War in Europe or GDW's Europa Series.
 * Virulence: The Game of Biological Warfare, a boardgame with both cooperative and competitive elements, centered around keeping a patient alive as it is attacked by various diseases while engineering diseases to attack other teams' patients. Similarly themed to the cooperative board game Pandemic.

Live readings
An event held at the Origins Game Fair, and possibly other Gaming conventions, is the Knights Of The Dinner Table live reading. People in attendance will put their name into a random drawing. The "winners" go up on stage, sit around a table, and act out the comic book, with hilarious results.

Affiliated products
Several games based on the comic have been published:
 * The boardgame Orcs at the Gates, published in 1998, and an expansion Orcs: The Reckoning in 1999. The base game won the 1999 Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Boardgame.
 * The card game Knights of the Dinner Table: HACK!, published in 2001.
 * Four Lost Worlds gamebooks were published by Flying Buffalo based on the comic's famous "Untouchable Trio +1" (Bob's "Knuckles", Dave's "El Ravager", Sara's "Thorina", and Brian's "Teflon Billy").
 * HackMaster, a real-world realization of the game played in the comic, was published by Kenzer and Company. Based on the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (system used under license), it won the Origins Award for Game of the Year 2001.
 * In 2000, a monthly spin-off comic was created, titled Knights of the Dinner Table Illustrated, AKA K.ILL. The comic depicts many of the adventures described within KotDT; however, K.ILL shows the player characters' actions rather than those of the players behind them.
 * In 2018 a Kickstarted Live action show was produced. However, due to the mismanagement and misdoings of the Originator of the Kickstarter, Ken Whitman, now known as Whit Whitman, the 4TB harddrive with the footage was lost. Thankfully, a portion of the footage was recovered and Ben Dobyns of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment was able to make and send the backers a reconstructed version despite no obligation to do so.

title: Knights of the Dinner Table


text:
KDT

KDT may refer to:

 * Euro container, stackable containers termed Kleinladungsträger (KLT)
 * Knights of the Dinner Table, a comic book
 * Kamphaeng Saen Airport (IATA code: KDT), an airport serving Nakhon Pathom, in Thailand
 * Keyword-driven testing, a software testing methodology
 * KDT Nacional, an association football club from Callao, Peru
 * Kilusang Diwa ng Taguig, a political party of the Philippines

title: KDT


text:
Reinhard Mey

Reinhard Friedrich Michael Mey (born 21 December 1942) is a German Liedermacher (lit. 'songmaker', a German-style singer-songwriter). In France he is known as Frédérik Mey.

By 2009, Mey had released 27 German albums, and generally releases a new album approximately every two years; his first album was Ich wollte wie Orpheus singen (1967); the most recent studio album is Das Haus an der Ampel (2020). His biggest success to date was Mein Achtel Lorbeerblatt (1972). His most famous song by far is "Über den Wolken" (1974), which numerous German artists have covered. Mey is known to embark upon an extensive concert tour every two or three years, with a live album released from each tour.

Biography
Reinhard Mey was born on 21 December 1942, in Berlin, Germany, where he spent his childhood. At the age of 12, he had his first piano lesson, and at the age of 14 he got his first guitar. He taught himself how to play the trumpet. During his school years he gained performance experience by playing Skiffle music with friends. In 1965, Mey was offered the chance to perform at a Liedermacher festival at Waldeck Castle, a converted castle ruin. This led to his first recording contract. In 1961, he became part of the group Les Trois Affamés, with Schobert Schulz.

In 1963, Mey graduated from the French Gymnasium in Berlin, receiving the German Abitur as well as the French Baccalauréat, and thereafter began vocational training as an industrial trader at Schering AG Berlin. He broke off his university studies in economics to concentrate on songwriting and singing, and has been a successful performer in Germany, France, and in the Netherlands ever since. He has written songs in German, French, Dutch and English. He records his French material under the name of Frédérik Mey. In 1967, he married a French woman named Christine. Their marriage was dissolved in 1976.

Today, Mey lives in Berlin-Frohnau in his second marriage (since 1977) to Hella Hennies (born in Hanover), and had three children in the marriage: Frederik (born 20 November 1976), Maximilian (born 28 January 1982; died May 2014), and Victoria-Luise (born 19 November 1985).

His son Maximilian died in May 2014 after five years in a persistent vegetative state. Undiagnosed severe pneumonia had led to a cardio-pulmonary arrest, from which Maximilian was resuscitated after eight minutes of hypoxia.

Lyrics and political views
Mey writes both sensitive and humorous songs, with subject matter taken mostly from his everyday life and surroundings. His themes include life on the road, his hobbies (e.g., flying), childhood memories, his family life and surroundings, and occasionally politics.

Mey's politics tend to be moderate to left-leaning. He speaks out in particular for freedom and non-violence, not only in his songs (for example, he participated in a demonstration at the beginning of 2003 against the coming war in Iraq). Nevertheless, his Annabelle criticises female political correct deadly-serious non-serene activism; Mey is later said to have repented of it and wrote another song in response to himself. Strongly influenced by the French chanson, Mey's political songs were relatively scarce among his works at the beginning However, they have increased in quantity over time, such that there is usually at least one song on each new album about politics. His 2004 album, Nanga Parbat, for example, includes "Alles OK in Guantanamo Bay", a song critical of the U.S. detention facility in Cuba.

For years, Mey has been an avid vegetarian, and also has been active in the German chapter of the organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Several of his songs deal with the theme of prevention of cruelty to animals, the most famous one being "Die Würde des Schweins ist unantastbar" (roughly, "a pig's dignity is inviolable.", echoing the first sentence of the first article of the German constitution)

Theme music
The first bars of Reinhard Mey's Gute Nacht, Freunde have been used since 1976 as the beginning of the theme tune for the popular Dutch radio show Met het Oog op Morgen, broadcast every night from 23:00 until midnight on Radio 1. After the words "und ein letztes Glas im Steh'n", the Mey song fades away and an orchestra takes over.

Awards

 * 1968 Prix International de la Chanson française (the first non-French singer to receive this award)
 * 1972 Grand Prix du Disque
 * 1983 Verdienstkreuz am Bande (Cross of Merit on ribbon)
 * 2001 Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse (Cross of Merit, First class)

Studio albums

 * 1967 – Ich wollte wie Orpheus singen
 * 1968 – Ankomme Freitag, den 13.
 * 1970 – Aus meinem Tagebuch
 * 1971 – Ich bin aus jenem Holze
 * 1972 – Mein achtel Lorbeerblatt
 * 1974 – Wie vor Jahr und Tag
 * 1975 – Ikarus
 * 1977 – Menschenjunges
 * 1979 – Keine ruhige Minute
 * 1980 – Jahreszeiten
 * 1981 – Freundliche Gesichter
 * 1983 – Die Zwölfte
 * 1985 – Hergestellt in Berlin
 * 1986 – Alleingang
 * 1988 – Balladen
 * 1990 – Farben
 * 1992 – Alles geht
 * 1994 – Immer weiter
 * 1996 – Leuchtfeuer
 * 1998 – Flaschenpost
 * 2000 – Einhandsegler
 * 2002 – Rüm Hart
 * 2004 – Nanga Parbat
 * 2007 – Bunter Hund
 * 2010 – Mairegen
 * 2013 – Dann mach's gut
 * 2016 – Mr. Lee
 * 2020 – Das Haus an der Ampel
 * 2024 – Nach Haus

Live albums

 * 1971 – Reinhard Mey live
 * 1974 – 20.00 Uhr
 * 1978 – Unterwegs
 * 1981 – Tournee
 * 1984 – Live '84
 * 1987 – Die grosse Tournee '86
 * 1991 – Mit Lust und Liebe
 * 1995 – Zwischen Zürich und zu Haus
 * 1997 – Lebenszeichen
 * 1999 – Lampenfieber
 * 2002 – Solo – Die Einhandsegler Tournee
 * 2003 – Klaar Kiming
 * 2006 – !ich kann
 * 2009 – Danke Liebe Gute Fee
 * 2012 – Gib mir Musik!
 * 2015 – dann mach's gut Live
 * 2018 – Mr. Lee Live
 * 2023 – In Wien – The Song Maker

Compilation albums

 * 1973 – Mädchen in den Schänken (Compilation of 7" 45rpm singles)
 * 1973 – Alles was ich habe
 * 1977 – Starportrait
 * 1982 – Starportrait 2, Welch ein Geschenk ist ein Lied
 * 1987 – Die großen Erfolge
 * 1989 – Mein Apfelbäumchen
 * 1990 – Die Story (6-CD-Release Bertelsmann Buchclub)
 * 1993 – Ich liebe dich
 * 1997 – Du bist ein Riese ...
 * 2000 – Peter und der Wolf / Tierballaden
 * 2003 – Über den Wolken – Lieder aus 4 Jahrzehnten
 * 2005 – Frei!
 * 2013 – Jahreszeiten
 * 2015 – Lieder von Freunden

Singles

 * 1965 – Geh und fang den Wind / Drei Lilien (Debut single; German cover version of Donovans "Catch The Wind" under the pseudonym Rainer May)
 * 1966 – 25 00 30 Fred Kasulzke protestazki / Frau Pohl / Vertreterbesuch / Ballade / Bauer ich bitt euch (EP)
 * 1966 – Die drei Musketiere / Schuttabladeplatz der Zeit / Abgesang / Mein Kanapee (EP)
 * 1968 – Diplomatenjagd / Komm, giess mein Glas noch einmal ein
 * 1969 – Ich hab' nur Dich gekannt / Der Weg zurück
 * 1970 – Die Ballade vom Pfeifer / Ankomme, Freitag, den 13.
 * 1970 – In meinem Zimmer fällt leis' der Regen / Ein Krug aus Stein
 * 1971 – Die heisse Schlacht am kalten Buffet / Neun... und vorbei
 * 1971 – Der Mörder ist immer der Gärtner / Längst geschlossen sind die Läden
 * 1972 – Annabelle, ach Annabelle / Bevor ich mit den Wölfen heule
 * 1973 – Trilogie auf Frau Pohl / Das Geheimnis im Hefeteig oder der Schuss im Backofen
 * 1973 – Aber Deine Ruhe findest Du nicht mehr / Zwei Hühner auf dem Weg nach Vorgestern
 * 1974 – Mann aus Alemannia / Über den Wolken
 * 1974 – Gute Nacht Freunde / Musikanten sind in der Stadt
 * 1974 – Über den Wolken / Der alte Bär ist tot und sein Käfig leer
 * 1975 – Es gibt Tage, da wünscht' ich, ich wär' mein Hund / Es bleibt eine Narbe zurück
 * 1975 – Hab Erdöl im Garten / Ich bin Klempner von Beruf
 * 1977 – Ist mir das peinlich / Mein erstes graues Haar
 * 1977 – Einen Antrag auf Erteilung eines Antragsformulars / Menschenjunges
 * 1978 – Daddy Blue / Alles ist gut
 * 1979 – Keine ruhige Minute / Dieter Malinek, Ulla und ich
 * 1979 – Dr. Nahtlos, Dr. Sägeberg und Dr. Hein / Was weiss ich schon von Dir?
 * 1980 – Wir sind lauter arme, kleine Würstchen / Freunde, lasst uns trinken
 * 1980 – Sommermorgen / Bei Ilse und Willi auf'm Land
 * 1981 – Müllmänner-Blues / Das Leben ist ...
 * 1983 – Was in der Zeitung steht / Ich würde gern einmal in Dresden singen
 * 1983 – Hilf mir / Ich habe nie mehr Langeweile
 * 1984 – Rundfunkwerbung-Blues
 * 1984 – Frohe Weihnacht / Alles ist so schön verpackt
 * 1985 – Lasst sie reisen / Ich grüsse ...
 * 1990 – Alle Soldaten woll'n nach Haus '
 * 1986 – Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht
 * 1992 – Das Etikett (Promo-Single)
 * 1994 – 51er Kapitän
 * 1996 – Lilienthals Traum
 * 1998 – Die 12 Weihnachtstage (Adaptation of the British Christmas song "The Twelve Days of Christmas") / Willst Du Dein Herz mir schenken
 * 2000 – Einhandsegler
 * 2000 – Ich bring' Dich durch die Nacht (Promo-Single)

With other artists

 * 1986 – Ein Loch in der Kanne (Live with Rainhard Fendrich)
 * 1996 – Liebe, Schnaps & Tod (with Hannes Wader and Klaus Hoffmann)
 * 1999 – Einfach abhau'n, einfach geh'n (Maxi-CD, with Ina Deter)
 * 2003 – Mey, Wader, Wecker – Das Konzert (live with Hannes Wader and Konstantin Wecker)

DVDs

 * 2003 – Klaar Kiming
 * 2009 – Danke liebe gute Fee

British albums

 * 1970 – One Vote for tomorrow

Studio

 * 1968 – Frédérik Mey, Vol. 1
 * 1972 – Frédérik Mey, Vol. 2
 * 1974 – Frédérik Mey, Vol. 3
 * 1976 – Frédérik Mey, Vol. 4
 * 1979 – Frédérik Mey, Vol. 5
 * 1982 – Frédérik Mey, Vol. 6
 * 2005 – Frédérik Mey, Vol. 7 – douce France

Live

 * 1976 – Recital Frédérik Mey à l'Olympia
 * 1979 – Bobino

Dutch singles

 * 1975 – Als de dag van toen
 * 1976 – Vergeef me als je kunt

title: Reinhard Mey


text:
North German Confederation

The North German Confederation was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state (a de facto federal state) that existed from July 1867 to December 1870. A milestone of the German Unification, it was the earliest continual legal predecessor of the modern German nation-state known today as the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Confederation came into existence following the Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 over the lordship of two small Danish duchies (Schleswig-Holstein) resulting in the Peace of Prague, where Prussia pressured Austria and its allies into accepting the dissolution of the existing German Confederation (an association of German states under the leadership of the Austrian Empire), thus paving the way for the Lesser German version of German unification in the form of a federal state in Northern Germany. Construction of such state became a reality in August 1866, following the North German Confederation Treaty, initially as a military alliance only, while its first federal constitution establishing a constitutional monarchy with the Prussian king holding as the head of state the Bundespräsidium was adopted on 1 July 1867. Laws could only be enabled with the consent of the Reichstag (a parliament based on universal male suffrage) and the Federal Council (Bundesrat, a representation of the states). During the initial three and a half years of the Confederation, a conservative-liberal cooperation undertook important steps to unify (Northern) Germany with regard to law and infrastructure. The designed political system and the political parties remained essentially the same also after 1870.

Shortly after its inception, tensions emerged between the North German Confederation and the Second French Empire, which was ruled by the French Emperor Napoleon III. In Summer 1870, a dispute over a new king for Spain escalated into the Franco-Prussian War. At the time, the original Confederation had nearly 30 million inhabitants of whom 80% lived in Prussia, thus making up roughly 75% of the population of the future German Empire. Under these circumstances, the South German states of Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Württemberg and Bavaria previously opposed to the Confederation ultimately decided to join it. A new short-lived constitution subsequently entered into force on 1 January 1871 proclaiming in its preamble and article 11 the "German Empire" despite being titled as one of a new "German Confederation", but it lasted only four months. Following the victory in the war with France, the German princes and senior military commanders proclaimed Wilhelm "German Emperor" in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Transition from the Confederation to the Empire was completed when the Constitution of the German Empire which prevailed until the demise of the monarchy entered into force on 4 May 1871, while France recognised the empire on 10 May 1871 in the Treaty of Frankfurt.

Prelude
For most of 1815–1833, Austria and Prussia worked together and used the German Confederation as a tool to suppress liberal and national ambitions in the German population.

Zollverein
The first major step towards a Lesser German solution was the Zollverein, a customs union formed by the treaties of 1833, with Prussia being the primary driver behind the customs union. Although it was formally inaugurated on 1 January 1834, its origins may be traced to a variety of custom unions among the German states, formed beginning from 1818. The Zollverein was not subordinate to the Austrian-led German Confederation (1815–1866) and Austria itself was excluded because of its highly protectionist trade policy, the unwillingness to split its customs territory into the separate Austrian, Hungarian and Galician-Lodomerian ones, as well as due to opposition of Prince von Metternich to the idea. Nevertheless, the Zollverein managed to include by 1866 the majority of the German states.

Frankfurt Parliament and the Erfurt Union
In 1849, the National Assembly in Frankfurt elected the Prussian king as the Emperor of a Lesser Germany (a Germany without Austria). The king refused and tried to unite Germany with the Erfurt Union of 1849–1850. When the union parliament met in early 1850 to discuss the constitution, the participating states were mainly only those in Northern and Central Germany. Austria and the southern German states Württemberg and Bavaria forced Prussia to give up its union plans in late 1850.

In April and June 1866, Prussia proposed a Lesser Germany again. A corner stone of the proposal was the election of a German parliament based on universal male suffrage. The proposal explicitly mentioned the Frankfurt election law of 1849. Otto von Bismarck, the minister-president of Prussia, wanted to gain sympathy within the national and liberal movement of the time. Austria and its allies refused the proposal. In summer 1866 Austria and Prussia fought with their respective allies in the Austro-Prussian War.

Peace of Prague and dissolution of German Confederation
Prussia and Austria signed a Nikolsburg preliminary (26 July) and a final peace treaty of Prague (23 August). Austria accepted the Prussian demand for the German Confederation to be dissolved. Prussia was allowed to create instead a "closer federation" (ein engerer Bund) in Germany north of the river Main. Bismarck had already agreed on this limitation with the French emperor Napoleon III prior to the peace talks.

Military alliance
On 18 August 1866, Prussia and a larger number of North and Central German states signed the North German Confederation Treaty establishing a Bündnis (alliance). The treaty created a military alliance for one year. It also affirmed that the states wanted to form a federal state based on the Prussian proposals of June 1866. They agreed to have a parliament elected to discuss a draft constitution. At the same time, the original East Prussian cradle of the Prussian statehood as well as the Prussian-held Polish- or Kashubian-speaking territories of Province of Posen and West Prussia were formally ′annexed into Germany. Saxony and Hesse-Darmstadt, former enemies in the war of 1866, had to agree their accession to the new federation in their respective peace treaties (Hesse-Darmstadt only joined with its northern province, Upper Hesse). Later in 1866, other states joined the treaty. The liberals in the Prussian parliament favored a wholesale annexation of all North German territories by Prussia. In a similar way, Sardinia–Piedmont had created the Kingdom of Italy. But Bismarck chose a different approach. Prussia incorporated (in October 1866) only the former military opponents Hannover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, the free city of Frankfurt, and the Hesse-Homburg area of Hesse Darmstadt. These areas were combined into the two new Prussian provinces of Hannover and Hesse-Nassau. Schleswig and Holstein also became a Prussian province.

Towards a federal constitution
Bismarck sought advice from conservative and democratic politicians and finally presented a draft constitution to the other state governments. At the same time, in late 1866, Prussia and the other states prepared the election of a North German parliament. This konstituierender Reichstag was elected in February 1867 based on state laws. The konstituierender Reichstag gathered from February to April. In close talks with Bismarck, it altered the draft constitution in some significant points. The konstituierender Reichstag was not a parliament but only an organ to discuss and accept the draft constitution. After that, the state parliaments (June 1867) ratified it so that on 1 July the constitution was enabled. In August, the first Reichstag of the new federal state was elected.

A major factor in determining the form the new federal government would take was the aftermath of the recently concluded American Civil War, which had seen the southern states forcibly re-incorporated into the United States of America and slavery abolished. While few Germans were particularly sympathetic toward the precise institution (i.e., slavery) which had precipitated civil war in America, the prevailing viewpoint outside the U.S. at this time was that the slaves had only been emancipated as a reprisal for Southern secession from the American Union. With this in mind, many Catholics especially in Southern Germany feared that Prussia might one day might attempt to engineer a similar sort of secession crisis within a united Germany and use it as a pretext to launch a violent repression against Catholicism throughout Germany. Thus, it was Bismarck's intention to make the new federal state look like a confederation in the tradition of the German Confederation and explains the name of the country and several provisions in the draft constitution — Bismarck needed to make the federal state more attractive (or at least less repulsive) to southern German states which might later join.

Constructing the nation-state
During the roughly three and a half years of the North German Confederation its major action existed in legislation unifying Northern Germany. The Reichstag decided on laws concerning, for example:
 * free movement of citizens within the territory of the Confederation (1867)
 * a common postal system (1867–1868)
 * common passports (1867)
 * equal rights for the different religious denominations (1869)
 * unified measures and weights (with the obligatory introduction of the metric system)
 * penal code (1870)

The North German Confederation also became a member of the Zollverein, the German customs union of 1834.

Political system

The North German Constitution of 16 April 1867 created a national parliament with universal suffrage (for men above the age of 25), the Reichstag. Another important organ was the Bundesrat, the 'federal council' of the representatives of the state governments. To adopt a law, a majority in the Reichstag and in the Bundesrat was necessary. This gave the allied governments, meaning the states (and, depending on the state, their princes), an important veto.

Executive power was vested in a chancellor, being the only responsible federal minister of the country. There was no formal cabinet, and in the time of the North German Confederation there were only two government departments anyway: the Bundeskanzleramt as the general office of the chancellor, and, since early 1870, the foreign office.

The chancellor was installed and dismissed by the Bundespräsidium. This office belonged automatically to the Prussian king (art. 11). The holder was de facto the head of state of the North German Confederation. (Bismarck wanted to avoid the title Präsident with its republican air.)

For all intents and purposes, the Confederation was dominated by Prussia. It had four-fifths of the confederation's territory and population – more than the other 21 members combined. The Prussian king was a kind of head of state. Chancellor Bismarck was also prime minister and foreign minister of Prussia. In that role he instructed the Prussian votes in the Bundesrat. Prussia had 17 of 43 votes in the Bundesrat despite being by far the largest state but could easily get a majority by making alliances with the smaller states.

Customs union
In June 1867 a conference took place between Prussia and the south German states, who were not members of the North German Confederation. After pressure from Prussia, new Customs Union (Zollverein) treaties were signed the following month. Henceforth, the governing bodies of the Customs Union were the Bundesrat and Reichstag of the North German Confederation, augmented by representatives of the south German governments in the former and members from these states elected in the same way as the others in the latter. When augmented thus for customs matters, the institutions were known as the Federal Customs Council and the Customs Parliament (Zollparlament). On 1 January 1868, the new institutions came into force. Bismarck hoped that the Zollverein might become the vehicle of German unification. But in the 1868 Zollparlament election the South Germans voted mainly for anti-Prussian parties.

On the other hand, the two Mecklenburg duchies and three Hanseatic cities were initially not members of the Customs Union. The Mecklenburgs and Lübeck joined soon after the North German Confederation was formed. Eventually, after heavy Prussian pressure, Hamburg acceded to the Customs Union in 1888. Bremen joined at the same time. Despite this, all these states fully participated in the federal institutions, even while outside the Customs Union and not directly affected by their decisions in that regard.

Postage stamps

One of the functions of the confederation was to handle mail and issue postage stamps.

Transition to the German Empire
In mid-1870, a diplomatic crisis concerning the Spanish throne led eventually to the Franco-Prussian War. During the war, in November 1870, the south German states of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden (together with the parts of Hesse-Darmstadt that were left out of the Confederation) joined the North German Confederation. On this occasion, the country adopted a new constitution, and the name of the federal state was changed to Deutsches Reich (German Empire).

According to a minority among German experts, the North German Confederation and the southern states created a new federal state (the German Empire). Indeed, Bismarck allowed the south German states to save face and therefore used terminology suggesting a new creation. But Kotulla emphasizes that legally only accession of the southern states to the North German Confederation was possible; the legal basis for such an accession was art. 79 of the North German federal constitution.

On 10 December 1870 the Reichstag of the North German Confederation had adopted a new constitution, still titled as one of the Deutscher Bund (German Confederation) in spite of establishing for the state a new name Deutsches Reich (German Realm or German Empire) and granting the title of German Emperor to the King of Prussia holding the Bundespräsidium of the Confederation; it entered into force on 1 January 1871, but lasted only four months.

Following the victory in the war with France, the German princes and senior military commanders proclaimed Wilhelm "German Emperor" in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. This latter date was later customarily celebrated as the symbolic day of 'foundation of the German Empire' (Deutsche Reichsgründung), although it had no constitutional meaning.

After a new Reichstag was elected on 3 March 1871, the transition from the Confederation to the Empire was completed when the permanent Constitution of the German Empire prevailing until the demise of the monarchy entered into force on 4 May 1871, while France recognised the empire on 10 May 1871 in the Treaty of Frankfurt.

The three constitutions (1867, January 1871, and April 1871) were nearly identical. It took roughly a decade to develop the country into a fully grown federal state, with several governmental departments (a kind of ministries), responsible state secretaries (a kind of ministers, 1878), and an imperial court (Reichsgericht, 1879).

List of member states
All of the member states had already belonged to the German Confederation of 1815–66. Austria and the south German states Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Hesse-Darmstadt) remained outside of the North German Confederation. Though, the northern province Oberhessen of the Grand Duchy of Hesse did join.

In northern, central and eastern Germany, Prussia:
 * had gathered a number of allies that joined the North German Confederation via the August treaties (Augustverträge) of August 1866;
 * annexed four former enemy states (Hanover, Kurhessen, Nassau, Frankfurt) which became parts of Prussia (October 1866);
 * included its own territories formerly outside of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Confederation, namely the East Prussian cradle of its statehood as well as the Prussian-conquered Polish territories (Province of Posen, West Prussia) in the new state, thus formally annexing them into Germany
 * forced the remaining states into the North German Confederation via the peace treaties.

Lauenburg is sometimes mentioned as one of the member states, sometimes not. It was one of the three duchies that had earlier belong to Denmark. Lauenburg was a state with the Prussian king as duke until 1876, when it became a part of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein.

title: North German Confederation