Rickett's and Toby's Guide

Rickett's and Toby's Guide is the most comprehensive encyclopedia in all of Battal. Several versions of the Guide are available: The classical, illustrated full version consists of thirty-seven volumes, each one two feet tall, six inches think and heavy enough to crush a fluffy white bunny with big brown eyes into an adorable red paste. The smaller editions are usually more popular, however, such as the "I can't believe it's not abridged" three-volume superfine print version with microdot illustrations, fold-out magnifying glass and migraine tablets. Few homes in the land are without at least the single-volume super-abridged copy of "The Very Best of Rickett's and Toby's".

The guide was started, and is still run, by Jeremiah Hoosawut Rickett and Diamanta Toby. The two met in a bar on New Year's Eve 18,999. Both being in high spirits and each drunk enough to think the other attractive, or at least vaguely symmetrical, one thing led inevitably to another. Or, to quote a statement made by both parties many years later, one thing led to "the worst fornicatory experience that any two humans and no goats have ever consensually engaged in". When they awoke the next morning, they took one look at each other and instantly swore a lifetime oath of celibacy. Surprisingly, they then went on to form a lasting and lucrative publishing partnership, albeit one completely devoid of eye contact.

While not a match made in heaven, it was definitely a match made somewhere quite pleasant, probably near a lake or something. Toby's uncle had recently passed away in his sheep, willing a small fortune to his only niece. Rickett was a licenced and experienced typesetter. Both were well read, unemployed and eager to make their mark in publishing. It was not long before they hit upon the idea of making the Guide.

Rickett and Toby were not the first in Battal to attempt to publish an encyclopedia of this scale, but they were the first to be successful (discounting Aardnarsh's Compendium, which is equally popular but not nearly as large). This was due largely to their innovative approach to recruiting writers: they bought a run down apartment, broke off the doorknob, furnished it with five filing cabinets, a desk and a chair, and posted a sign on the door which read, "ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES SUBMITTED HERE - FREE!!!". And waited one year.

"It was incredible," said Rickett in a subsequent interview, "by the time we came back, the original cabinets had already filled up, so someone had added three more. And all the entries in them were filed in perfect alphabetical order. And the apartment was cleaner than when we'd bought it."

The quality of the submissions proved just as surprising as the quantity. In most cases, initial inaccuracies in the submissions had been subsequently corrected by other entrants, who had taken it upon themselves to act as editors, said Toby. "Of course, there was still a good deal of stuff that was completely unusable. Some entries were illegible, some irretrievably innaccurate, some scarringly obscene. I don't want to talk about those, let's just say I'll never look at a horse the same way again. And there was one case where a guy just tied four chocolate bar wrappers together with a shoelace and filed it under "Marsupials of the higher planes"."

Over the next two months, the "slushpile" of submissions was carted away chunk by chunk, edited, typeset, and then (optimistically) returned to await the next edition. Things initially looked grim: In its first run, the Guide sold no better than any previous multi-volume encyclopedias. Fortunately, Rickett and Toby had saved so much money by not actually hiring anyone that they were able to afford a second run the following year, by which time the Guide had built up enough of a reputation to keep them firmly in the black for the rest of their lives.

Rickett's and Toby's Guide is currently in its seventeenth edition, and it remains the definitive source of information for anyone seeking to learn more about the lifeforms and locations of Battal. A carefully balanced copy left in the garden can also be a damn good way to stop your lettuce being nibbled.

This book recieved the More Aardnarsh Than Aardnarsh seal from Fromlem's Guide.