# what the hell is a "strife specibus"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-strife-specibus/669404>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [September 22, 2013, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-strife-specibus/669404 "2013-09-22T01:38:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-strife-specibus/669404/1 "2013-09-22T01:38:45Z")

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I gather it has something to do with gaming. But I haven’t found any references that don’t presume you already know what it is.

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**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-strife-specibus/669404/2 "2013-09-22T01:56:38Z")

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It’s a reference to the webcomic Homestuck (MS Paint Adventures). It’s the type of weapon a character uses. Like everything else in Homestuck it’s needlessly obtuse and parodies how ridiculous the rules of certain video games are.

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**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-strife-specibus/669404/3 "2013-09-22T02:49:47Z")

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The Strife Specibus is one of the few mechanical things from the early days of HS that is pretty straightforward (despite not really making sense in context)…it’s just a silly name for weapon proficiencies and slots.

Now, CAPTCHALOGUES…_those_ are needlessly obtuse.

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**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-a-strife-specibus/669404/4 "2013-09-22T03:13:51Z")

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> [@Kamino\_Neko](#):
>
> The Strife Specibus is one of the few mechanical things from the early days of HS that is pretty straightforward (despite not really making sense in context)…it’s just a silly name for weapon proficiencies and slots.
> 
> Now, CAPTCHALOGUES…_those_ are needlessly obtuse.

Well, the Strife Specibus had the weird rules about how the first thing you pick up is bound to be your Strife Specibus forever, but other than that, yeah, it’s pretty straightforward.

Captchalogues are also really straightforward if you think about them. They’re just computer science data structures, which is pretty simple. The fact that they’re all different data structures is what makes them complicated.

I do like that he basically got rid of all that stuff because when you have children turning into gods by dying on stone beds and time travelling all over the place you don’t have time for this silly hash map shit anymore.