I can’t remember where I came from exactly. My only childhood memory is of a dusty attic with lots of old board games in it. I can’t remember my parents, either. Or my brothers or sisters, if I had any.

But I do remember my friends. Chess. Risk. Mah Jong. Stratego. And I remember how cold it was while I sat there playing these games against myself, sometimes for days. I wouldn’t say I was happy, because happy doesn’t quite fit. I was absorbed though, and even better I didn’t have to think about . . . about other things.

After I was taken it was clear that I’d developed a wonderful set of transferable skills in that cold attic. Instead of dice and cardboard abstractions I started playing for real, using contracts and the warriors of my Lord’s goblin hosts. And what happy days they were !

I found that I had a natural appreciation for the elegant economy of the severed artery. The straight path of the sliced tendon. The sweet snap of the separated vertebrae. Magnify that by the thousands my Lord’s minions dispatched at my instruction and you might understand how fulfilled I was, how content in the calm eye of an eternal storm of war.

To this day I don’t know what went wrong. Although, no. No that’s not quite true. I do know what went wrong, at least in a general sense.

What went wrong is that we lost.

When I realised it was all up I joined the exodus of my fallen Lord’s followers. We were a pitiable bunch, although it wasn’t pity that saved me from the vengeful glee of my pursuers. It was just that I chose to escape through the hedge rather than try to hide within it.

So here I am, looking for enough pieces to start a new game.

Interested ?