(With apologies to Penny Arcade.)

Seen the other day on Oceanic World of Warcraft realm Nagrand:

“Efimovich: is recruiting now. We are a Christian guild dedicated to following Christ’s example and playing Warcraft as he would wish us to. We are looking for a Christian warlock and Christian shaman to join our 25 man Naxx group.“

I wish he’d said “Christian shaman” before “Christian warlock”: they’re both funny, but “warlock” makes for a better punchline. He continued to say that Anglicans, Protestants and Catholics were all welcome, before stating that:

“A letter of reference from your pastor, vicar or priest may be required.”

Veterans of WoW may remember a Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transsexual guild that was initially banned a few years ago by an unimaginative moderator, on the grounds that it violated their policy prohibiting sexual discrimination. A public furore ensued and the ban was overturned. I believe this guild’s required certification of one’s Christianity would violate the policy against discrimination on the grounds of creed.

To muddy matters somewhat, the guild’s name Maskirovka is a Russian word meaning ‘camouflage, concealment’, and is often used as a loanword by the West to denote  military deception or a ‘fog of war’. The name of the poster (and, presumably, guild master), “Efimovich”, is similarly mystifying, as it was Rasputin’s middle name. Was the poster’s tongue in his cheek? This seems unlikely, as a drawn-out debate proceeded apace in the Trade channel following the original post, and Efimovich staunchly defended his right to advertise his Christianity and form a guild based on it. It is, after all, a free country. The majority of his detractors simply said he was a pederast, or words to that effect.

That was the best pun-tacular headline I could come up with. The usual apologies to all.

Finnish Muslim social site Muxlim has created a virtual world, Muxlim Pal, which is currently in open beta. Muxlim chief executive Mohamed El-Fatatry said this world is primarily for Muslims in western countries, for whom expressing their religious selves is more of an issue than for those in primarily Muslim countries.

Only 98% of members (presumably of the Muxlim social networking site rather than the new Muxilm Pal world) were said to be Muslims, with the other 2% presumably friends and interested hangers-on.