Westala and Villtin

Westala and Villtin are the eponymous heroes of "The Tale of Westala and Villtin", a tongue-in-cheek sword and sorcery story first serialised on the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett.

Based on the now stereotypical pairing of a big, strong warrior and a small, sly thief first established by Fritz Leiber's classic stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Westala and Villtin are mercenaries of dubious morality but a strong code of honour.

The "Tale", as it is sometimes known, was written by Örjan Westin and Marco Villalta, who appear as the storytellers in a framing story set in a generic fantasy inn, and started as a joke. The two authors alternated writing episodes, without talking to each other about the story, so only the person currently writing knew what was going to happen next. Seeing the need to figure out an ending, they did meet up in person for the first time almost two years after the story had begun to talk it over.

In all, "Tale" reached ninety thousand words and ran for two years and five months. After a somewhat shaky start it quickly became an amusing story written in a style inspired by the early "Discworld" books by Terry Pratchett. There are plenty of references, both to people and events of alt.fan.pratchett, films like "Star Wars", "The Terminator", and "Aliens", tv shows like "Star Trek" and "The Muppet Show", books by authors like Pratchett and J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as computer games, rock songs, classical poetry and Japanese fetishes. Like the early Discworld books, it also features many, and occasionally very long, footnotes.

Towards the end it was given the title "Ill in Anorankhmar", a reference to both Leiber's title "Ill Met in Lankhmar", and the a.f.p. Anorankh. This was the title used in the printed edition (ISBN 91-631-6186-9) produced by one of the authors. The book was illustrated by [http://www.catroll-art.co.uk Ann-Cathrine Loo] , and made available to order from the official website (see below).

A short prequel, "A Midwinter Tale", has been written since, as has fanfiction by other members of alt.fan.pratchett. A sequel, with more preparation, has begun, under the title "Return of the Striking Knights".

The original Tale has been collated, edited and put on the web by Elin Rosén and can be found - with extensive [http://tale.cunobaros.com/awvf/ annotations] - at [http://tale.cunobaros.com/ The Tale of Westala and Villtin] .