Skeleton warrior

An artist's impression of Phalanges Clavicle, the great Roman skeleton warrior who united the tribes to raise awareness of BoneAIDS.

Skeleton Warrior (Boneus Erectus) is a term typically used to describe the violent, marauding, magically reanimated skeletal remains of a once proud yet incompetent, humanoid soldier. It sometimes may or may not be a fairly ambiguous term, referring to either an un-dead skeletal system, or an anorexia nervosa suffering, knife-wielding supermodel. Skeleton Warriors are best known for their role in playing evil characters in video games, movies, books and osteoporosis awareness campaigns which has seen them typecast as evil, one-dimensional stereotypes. They are often ostracised by the wider community and subjected to callous bonist remarks, even by dirty rotten Mexicans. Despite the hardships of living in a community permeating with ignorance about their evilness, Skeleton Warriors live a rich and fulfilling life, merrily spent eating, drinking, dancing, and murdering would-be heroes that wander too deeply into their dimly lit and poorly ventilated dungeons.

Habitat

Historically, skeleton warriors have shunned civilization, choosing instead to dwell deep inside the murky and putrid depths of your friendly neighbourhood dungeonarium. In recent times however, more and more are choosing to do away with their dank abodes and integrate into normal society. Sadly, due to the high cost of living and spiralling rent costs, many skeleton warriors have chosen to take up residence in people’s closets. These ‘skeletons in the closet’ rarely pay rent; instead, they rely on blackmailing their landlords into giving them residence under the threat of revealing sensitive information that could cause them great embarrassment. Those with closet phobias have opted to reside in their place of work such as museums, hospitals and science class rooms and controversially, many have chosen to defile the graves of the dearly departed and have taken up residence in their coffins.

Equipment

A skeleton warrior wearing his favorite gimp suit.

Skeleton Warriors employ a rich assortment of weapons and armour in the battle against caped, muscle-bound heroes boasting flowing golden locks and pearly white teeth. This variety ranges from rusty broken swords and maces to rusty broken wooden shields and loin cloths (which also happen to be broken and rusty.) The only items skeleton warriors seem to have an aversion to in their armoury would be any remotely effective modern weapon or armour. Many skeleton warriors have needlessly died in the heat of battle attempting to attack a machine gun post while brandishing only a rusty broken cricket bat whilst tripping over their cumbersome and ligament deficient metatarsals without some sort of appropriate protective footwear.

When they're not parading around in their underwear and waving rusty pointy things around, skeleton warriors love to play dress ups. Many are ashamed of their muscular and organ inadequacies and feel the need to hide their shame by wearing full body modesty suits. These suits are usually pale beige in colour, feature golden hair and blue ocular spheres although a cheaper dark brown version is available. Much controversy surrounds the wearing of such modesty suits due to the growing socio-economic discrepancies and disharmony caused by fascist fashion followers who seek to eliminate certain textile colours from existence.

In popular culture

Video games

80's video games inaccurately depicted skeleton warriors as evil and somewhat competent killers.

Depending on the video game in question, skeleton warriors can have many varying designs and attributes. Most modern-day depictions consist of 206 individually textured bones (provided none have been dismantled to use as bludgeoning devices) along with highly detailed equipment. In the eighties, however, they were often depicted as a series of blocky letters combined to spell "Skeleton Warrior". Skeleton warriors can be easily bested in video games by using various cheats or by turning the game off and doing something productive with your life.

Music

To make the claim that “Skeleton warriors passion for music” would be an understatement, it would also be a sentence fragment. They are highly skilled, both as musicians and also as instruments, with their instrument of choice being the rib cage xylophone. The skeleton warrior’s influence on modern music is most pronounced in the "heavy metal" genre, with many poorly bathed and unkempt teenagers and adults brandishing popular apparel adorned with the skeletal likeness.

Theatre

Perhaps the most famous skeleton warrior to appear in legitimate theatre was Yorick "I’d lose my body if it wasn’t screwed on" DeJester, who appeared in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Despite becoming handicapped when he absent mindedly lost his body after forgetting to screw it on as his nick name suggested, Yorick was able to play a major role in what was generally regarded as Shakespeare’s eight most boring play. Although having received little in the way of formal training in the thespian arts, Yorick excelled in his portrayal of a skull representing Hamlets closeness to death and his realization of the true physical aspects of death; and also served as a reminder that skulls are disgusting.

Who'da thunk it?

A common misunderstanding is that the Grim Reaper is in fact a skeleton warrior. Whilst it’s true Mr Reaper possesses a bony hand and skull like facial features, he is in fact, a magical floating cloak and not an official skeleton warrior.

Sex

A scene from Pubic Bonation VII .

Although it is generally accepted that skeleton warriors are asexual, people who accept this as fact are generally idiots. There are many subtle differences between the male and female of the species. The most notable of these variations is that the female pelvis is flatter, more rounded and proportionally larger. Females also have a tendency to possess subtle skull fractures as a result of domestic disobedience related injuries.

Being the magical undead creatures that they are, skeleton warriors don’t need to perform the act of sexual intercourse to reproduce. However, skeleton warrior’s find it difficult to break some of the old habits performed by their humanoid forms. This can result in somewhat inappropriate behavior as the males of the species constantly try to bone anything with two leg bones and a heart beat, well, maybe not a heart beat.

Traditionally speaking, skeleton warriors were a very sexually conservative group. It wasn’t until the mid 1960’s that they starting to feel comfortable talking openly about sex and using excuses such as ‘free love’ and ‘finding oneself’ in order to bonk the crap out of each other. Sadly, what started as an idealistic movement based on love, quickly descended into hardcore smut. By the time the seventies was in full swing, hardcore skeleton pornography was widely and readily available with the more notable titles being deep cervical vertebrae, pelvis devastation and the prohibited skull fuckers XI.

Down at the pub

A skeleton warrior playing his favorite game: "Stay at home by yourself and get drunk".

Skeleton warriors work hard; they also play hard, and after a heavy day’s work of drinking, skeleton warriors like nothing more than to head on down to the local pub to start fights. Seemingly disregarding their distinct lack of digestive capabilities, they feverishly down beer after beer until their ribs are stained a pale amber colour and smell like week old stale piss. Once sufficiently boisterous, they love to play their favourite pub game, “pull my finger”. It must be said though; you should avoid doing so as they tend to get upset over the ease in which their fingers become dislocated. Care should be taken when venturing down to the local pub as one should avoid skeleton warriors like a bad smell. Make sure to steer clear of the darkest and mouldiest corner of the pub, (usually next to the karaoke machine) where they can often be found emitting a bad smell. While avoiding the well armed un-dead is generally considered a good idea, if you wish to start an all in brawl, simply make eye to eye socket contact and let the hay-makers and stabbing begin.

Skeletal rights movement

Having been cast as social pariahs for centuries due to their aesthetically nauseating appearance and lack of personal hygiene, it was due time for skeleton warriors to make a stand for human rights, discounting the obvious fact they are indeed, not human. The skeletal civil rights movement gained major momentum in the early the early nineties following the eighties bone power movement and was aimed at outlawing bonal discrimination and resulted in skeleton warriors having the right to vote for the first time, specifically, gossip magazine opinion polls.

The movement was kick started in 1997, when Ulna Sternum (the mother of civil rights and invention) refused to give up her seat on the Mickey Mouse roller coaster at Disneyland to make way for some small children. After pleas by the ride operator to get off the ride (after she was on it for several hours) fell on deaf ears, Ms Sternum was arrested and charged for disorderly conduct and violating a local ordinance. After news of this spread to the skeleton warrior community, large scale peaceful protests broke out across the country killing thousands. For the first time in history, humanoids and their political leaders were forced to recognize the special rights of skeleton warriors to ruin it for everyone else.

The sky's the limit now for skeleton warriors! Revered Republican candidate Skeletor hopes to one day become the first skeleton warrior to be elected Supreme Earth Overlord.