It is a story of a man struggling with his fate, a man trying to escape his destiny. It is a story of Elric the Kinslayer, the last emperor of the ancient race of Melnibone. A story of the battles for his love, his empire and his sanity, a story of the many generations of tradition and the destruction of that tradition in a single stroke of a sword... but above everything else, it is a story of the tragedy faced by the albino prince when trying to make meaning out of his own existence.

You Have Killed Them.
You Have Dominated Them.
You Have Captured Their Flag.
You Have Assaulted Their Base.
You Know You Own Them.
Now Prove It.

-- excerpt from Associated Press archive, May 9, 2303 --
AP Houston - Long have the the battles raged in the Liandri death tournaments. Great is the fury with which combatants assail each other. In an effort to cash in on the rage of the warriors and the bloodthirst of the crowd, great advances in the science of devestation have been announced by the private think-tanks employed to further the profitability of the great sport. Many projects have questionable ethical practices, a fact officials at Liandri Mining Co. attempt to keep out of conversation, and far away from the press. Now, reports have come in that a group of experiments by OWC research labs, performed most recently on primates, have been completed. Initial reports claim that the company has successfully been able to rip the willing soul directly from a victim's body, and discovered that the weak shapeless mass that remains has no self worth, and will spend the rest of its days working only for whomever it considers it's master.

According to inside sources who prefer to not be mentioned by name, these enslaved beings are to be the core of a new series of tournament events - a terrible contest in which a player must be victorious just to retain his identity, and failure is too horrible a fate to contemplate. Welcome to Slave Master - a new game type of the Unreal Tournament. A field technician over-seeing testing has this to say about the game structure: "When one combatant kills another, the victim becomes a slave, owned by his killer. The only escape is if his master dies, or if he can win enough favor to earn his own freedom. The interesting part is that without the slave's help, the master will never be strong enough to win the match. A careful slave can enter a new life of freedom with great power." Says one Liandri executive, "We really shouldn't be discussing this until the press release [on Friday], but I'm very exicited about this. It's very chaotic. A lot of ups and downs. I can see fans really getting into this."

Most observers feel that Liandri has taken on this ambitious project as a way to increase viewer satisfaction without incurring a large upfront cost. The arenas used to hold tournament matches are vastly expensive, and difficult to maintain. Slave Master is able to use existing Death Match arenas, allowing the company to quickly expand into this new area.

Liandri, Unreal Tournament, and Slave Master are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Liandri Mining Corporation. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.