Monsters on The Prowl

In the 1950s, superheroes dwindled away for a time. The Justice Society disbanded in 1951 after refusing to reveal their identities to HUAC. Sub-Mariner, Human Torch, and Captain America had disappeared by the middle of the decade.

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and a handful of others continued to operate, but increasingly they were faced with alien and monstrous menaces. They weren’t the only ones. Whether they came from outer space, under the earth or oceans, or were born of some misguided experiment, monsters were emerging everywhere, and regular humanity was having to face them. The authoritarian alien telepath, the Green Martian Gardner, may have been exerting a conformist influence over the minds of America, but creatures kept crawling forth from the collective unconscious.

The so-called Monster Hunters were an informal group of adventures dedicated to combating these monsters. They were led by Ulysses Bloodstone, who had the bloodgem embedded in his chest, an artifact of the ancient Empire of Tears. He was joined by Dr. Druid, psychiatrist turned mystic, the hero Hurricane, who was actually the Eternal Makkari; and Zawadi, a mysterious Wakandan exile. Later, they were joined by Namor’s cousin, Namora, and the aging adventure with a magic ring known as Congo Bill.

The Monster Hunters seem to have disbanded sometime around 1960 as a new age of superheroes dawned. Their legacy was a number of other teams dedicated to fighting weird menaces where they encountered them like the Challengers of the Unknown, who formed in 1957, the subterranean explorer Cave Carson and his associates, and the undersea adventurers known as the Sea Devils.

Teen Titans, Go!

It’s likely the British Invasion had almost as much to do with the formation of the Teen Titans as the existence of the Justice League. Robin (Bruce Wayne, Jr.), Aqualad (Garth) and Kid Flash (Wally West), wanted to be superheroes, certainly, but in 1964 the trio of teenage boys were transfixed by images of ecstatic girls in the grip of Beatlemania. They didn't know how to play instruments, but they knew how to superhero.

The kids’ ages varied more widely than the published version suggests. Garth was 17, Wally was 15, and Bruce was the tag-along at 13. At first they were just “The Junior Justice League,” but by the time 13 year-old Wonder Woman protégé Donna Troy joined them they had taken on the Teen Titans name. Their parents/mentors forbade heroics unsupervised—though things did happen. Mostly, though, the Teen Titans did public appearances and youth outreach.

The group disbanded by the late 60s, with several of the members going off to college, but the name Teen Titans would be periodically resurrected by other teenage superheroes over the next two decades. In the 80s, John Hughes made a highly fictionalized film about the original group, which today is considered a cult classic.

Leap Day

Both the original Captain Marvel and Superman celebrate birthdays on Leap Day, February 29th. Captain Marvel was, of course, not born in the conventional sense, but chose that day for celebration to mock Dr. Sivana who had wanted to make that day his rival’s “deathday."

Kal-El was born on 38 Eorx 9998, by Kryptonian reckoning, a date not easily translatable any Earth calendar. His friends in the Justice Society, and later the Justice League, chose those Leap day to celebrate it.

Superman would have one of his most memorable birthdays on that day in 1984, when Mongul exposed him to the alien plant called the Black Mercy. He had to be rescued by his friends from the Justice League, particularly the quick thinking of Robin, Jason Todd.

Weird Revisited: The Phantasmagoric Lantern of Kulu Tu

This post originally appeared in March of 2010. Kulu was the name of an NPC created by my cousin, who dungeonmastered my earliest games of D&D.

The exact number of these items in existence is unknown, but it's theorized to be less than seven. Tavern-tales attribute their creation to the infamous Kulu the Illusionist, but these devices are actually the products of an unknown--though no less malign--genius.

These devices appear like any other mundane example of the primitive slide-projectors known as magic lanterns, the only difference being there is no way to change the slide being projected. When activated by placing a candle inside, the device projects strange and unsettling images of distorted, ghost-like figures and beasts. The projected image is larger and more distinct when a magical light-source is used, like a hand of glory, for example.

The image projected is no static scene, but a glimpse of the Negative Material Plane. The longer the device is left on, the thinner the "skin" between worlds becomes until the beings, the phantoms, from that plane are able to enter the Prime Material. When seen in the wan light of the projector the phantoms are ghostly pale, but when they pass out of the projector's cone of light, they become deep, featureless shadow. Their touch drains living things, indeed their very presence can can cause the wilting of nearby plants.

When the phantoms first emerge into the Prime Material, they may be given the name of a single individual. This individual the phantoms will seek out and drain with their life-stealing touch until he is dead. The phantoms are able to travel at great speed, perhaps by traversing between points of mundane shadow, so distance is no obstacle, but it does take time for them to locate the individual (by what ever eldritch means they utilize) and this process seems to take longer for more distant targets.

If they are prevented from getting to the individual, they will continue to try to do so until they are destroyed, or they dissipate. Phantoms drawn forth by light from a normal candle or other mundane light-source can only hold coherent form for twenty-four hours in the Prime Material, and every moment spent in bright sunlight doubles the rate of dissipation. Phantoms drawn forth by a magical light-source in the lantern will last for a week, or perhaps more, depending on the potency of the magic used, but are still just as susceptible to bright sunlight.

The wise user never allows more than three phantoms to emerge before extinguishing the lantern. More than that number, and the phantoms become likely to act more willfully, killing the summoner and anyone else they find rather than heeding a command. If the lantern is left lit and unattended, phantoms will continue to emerge until the light-source burns itself out, and wander out into the world with undirected malevolence.

The lantern can be used to study the beings of the Negative Material Plane, but only if care is taken to limit the length of its usage so that no phantoms emerge.

Completely Unfathomable Covered

Jason Sholtis and the rest of Hydra are still at work on the various Operation Unfathomable stretch goals. Jason and I have been bandied about cover ideas. Here's the latest (and possibly final, but you never know) for the omnibus Completely Unfathomable based on classic bubblegum card packaging:

Exploration, Hold the Violence

It's a common reframe that old school games are less about killing that later D&D. This idea is supported by an experience system that favors treasure acquisition over killing. Still, the idea of killing something and taking its stuff, or the description of characters as "murderhobos" seems pretty ingrained.

A fair amount of fantasy fiction suggests a different approach. The characters in the short stories that make up Vance's Dying Earth are not adverse to employing violence, but it isn't their first resort, nor are an of them warriors by trade.The number of kills attributable to the protagonists in these stories is pretty low. A number of Clark Ashton Smith stories are similar, as is Lovecraft's Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, just to name a few.

I wonder if the sort of adventure found in these stories would be adventurous enough for players accustom to heavy monster slaying? I think it would be interesting to really focus on the exploration and social encounters (and a bit of treasure). It would challenge both players and DMs in a sort of different way. The XP system as currently constituted doesn't necessarily support this (5e has a variant that might, but it's fairly loose), but I think it's worth thinking about.

The Whisperer

While Police Commissioner James Gordon did not immediately embrace the vigilante known as the Bat-Man, he was quicker to do so than might be expected. It may well have something to do with a secret in Gordon's past.

At the age of thirty-five, before his move to Gotham, James "Wildcat" Gordon became the youngest police commissioner in New York City history. In early 1936, a mysterious and violent crimefighter was prowling the streets--The Whisperer. Gordon's department tried to catch the vigilante, but perhaps not too hard because Gordon was the Whisperer. The pulps continued with fictionalized exploits of the Whisperer long after Gordon had given up that identity and moved to Gotham to avoid scrutiny.

One wonders, on chilly Gotham nights standing next to the Bat-Signal, if James Gordon sometimes missed those days?

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Hounds of Marduk

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues with his adventures in the world of Pandarve. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Hounds of Marduk (1985) 
(Dutch: De Honden van Marduk) (part 2)
Art by Don Lawrence; script by Martin Lodewijk

With their way blocked in front and behind, Storm and his companions go to the side--through a bathhouse. Their pursuers plunge in after them, running into the already irate bathers. On the other side of the house, Nomad knocks done one of the wooden support pillars, purposely collapsing the front of the building.

It only buys our heroes a few minutes to make their escape through a sewer grate. Their pursuers note the grate has been disturbed saying the Anomaly has fled downwards into "the gullet." This means certain death!

Meanwhile, in the sewers. Ember is puzzled by the lack of rats. When the walls take on a flesh, pink appearance, Nomad realizes where they must be:

He explains to his friends that some coastal towns connect their sewer systems into the maws of giant, unmoving worms who feed on the cities' effluvia. They have entered such a gullet, if they don't go back, they will be digested in acid. It's already too late. The walls have pinched off behind them.

On the surface, the pursuers realize they can't go into the gullet after the Anomaly. Instead, there leader has the idea to find the sewer-doctor. This veternarian is responsible for the gullet's health. When asked, he reveals they sometimes flush indigestible things from the worm with water from a large sluice. The leader demands orders his men to open the sluice as wide as possible, over the doctor's protests that it might kill the gullet.

Within the gullet, Storm and friends trill cutting their way out to no avail. The water pressure sends gratings flying all over the city, then:

The worm's spasms and the blast of water send our heroes shooting out into the ocean. They barely escape drowning and luckily and picked up by a fisherman.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Unfathomable

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night with the party undertaking a journey to Subazurth and the uncharted region of chaotic, wild magic called "The Unfathomable." This was an adaptation of Jason Sholtis's Operation Unfathomable with a modification of backstory as presented yesterday.

The party journeyed via boat on an underground river from Rivertown in Yanth Country to Troglopolis in Subazurth. From there, they were guided to the entrance to the Unfathomable, separated the Troglopolitan region by a chasm spanned by a tongue bridge from the devil-visaged entrance. The took the admission for stealth and monster-avoidance to heart. They were also, pretty lucky with random encounter rolls.

The crossed the seemingly never-ending googlopede. Everyone but Waylon the Frogling demured from trying the fungal offerings of the mushroom folk, and he got a gray growth that made him decidely less charismatic until it healed. They met a strange, depressed cyclops, who they tried to counsel. Then, Kully the Bard and Shade the Ranger fought three brain-bats, but made quick work of them.

They found a strange floating vessel and soon discovered it belonged to Major Mungo Ursus, a werebear in Her Majesty's Special Bureau. He explained he was here in this alternate future or past to stop Doctor Hugo Zunbar Gorgomza, the self-styled Robot-Master, who planned to utilize the Null-Rod to create a magic-free future where his robots could rule. Ursus planned to destroy the rod so Gorgomza couldn't get his hands on it.

Not entirely trusting of what Princess Viola would do with the Null-Rod, the party agreed to let Ursus destroy it--if he would give them his gamma ray pistol. Ursus agreed, and the he joined the party in going toward the west where his instrument readings had said the rod might be.They found a cave with a minature ice-city, and tiny beings who were worshiping the Null-Rod.

The party stole it. The Major destroyed it with his pistol, then handed the pistol over to the party. He admitted he had permanently set the power setting low so they wouldn't destroy civilization. The party agreed this was probably wise. Then, the werebear left in his saucer, and the party returned to the surface, mission accomplished.

Operation Subazurth

My 5e Land of Azurth campaign will continue this afternoon and I'm playing on running the Knockspell version of "Operation Unfathomable"(with a few things borrowed from the Hydra version--now on sale!). This will require a few modifications to fit the campaign and will likely have a few more because, why not?

The set up is this: Viola, the Clockwork Princess of Yanth Country, asks the party to help out Indigon XI, Prince of Troglopolis and curator of the Museum of Eldritch Wonders. It seems his ne'er-do-well adventurer of a third son, Hokus, has stolen a device called the Null Rod and he and a group of mercenaries went into a prohibited underground zone, their to wrest new territory for Troglopolis to settle. This area has been prohibited due to its exceeding high levels of chaotic wild magic.

Hokus and his party appear to have been killed, but the Troglopolitans want the Null Rod returned, and Princess Viola (believing they are too incompetent to hold on to it) wants it brought back to the surface.

The bones (and most of the meat) of Jason's adventure will remain intact, because why change it? But many of the monsters and encounters will get an Azurthian veneer--by which I mean a veneer borrowed from cartoon model sheets, Silver Age comic books, and Oz stories.

Should be fun!

Uncovering Krevborna

Krevborna: A Gothic Blood Opera is a system agnostic setting book released this week by Jack Shear of the Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque blog. The world detailed is the sort of place Jack deals with in much of his rpg writing: an early modern setting with more than a hint of the Gothic.

Full disclosure before I delve into the review proper: I am listed in the credits of the book as I have been a player in Jack's online game (Tobias Rune, Scientific Occultist!), and Jack has done some editing for me on my stuff in the past. We have been blogosphere friends since long before that. My view, then, is perhaps biased.

Krevborna is 109 pages plus an index. In that space it vibrantly evokes a certain type of setting, and gives you locales, NPCs, organizations, and conflicts with which to populate it. It is fashionable in many circles to say setting books should always be short or deliver things very lightly. This is an understandable reaction given the bloat that has afflicted many a "major" rpg company setting book. My opinion is this: A setting book should have exactly as much verbiage as it needs to achieve its goal (and that goal should in part include usability). This will inevitably mean that no setting book is for everybody. some people will want the exotic cultural detail of the Empire of the Petal throne or Glorantha, and some want a setting heavy on new mechanical tidbits, but otherwise interchangeable with any number of faux-Medieval worlds. Having written a couple of setting books myself, I can say that there are always people that think you gave just the right amount of detail and then those who want more. (There are probably also those who think I wrote too much, but they don't send me emails.)

I don't think I'm off base when I say that Jack isn't concerned with you being able to replicate his Krevborna in  minute detail; he wants you to be able to create your own Gothic-tinged, dark fantasy setting that may happen to also be named Krevborna. He is light on many details, focusing his time on directly addressing theme, tone, and atmosphere, and how you leverage these things in a fantasy game as a DM. Jack is very good at delivering these elements flavorfully but briefly.  Maybe it's his college educator background, but he's able to bullet-point and not be at all dry!

I don't mean to suggest there is no setting detail, because there are plenty of Krevborna-specific information and tools, and plenty of stuff to help players get into the mood, too: sample names by region, appropriate backgrounds, tables of dark secrets, and NPCs to be patrons, acquaintances, or antagonists. The great supernatural powers are briefly described, allowing DM's and players to flesh out the details as they will.

The last section of the book is a brief summary of Jack's approach or "house rules" for running Krevborna in 5e. This is light enough that no OGL is required, but meaty enough that those versed in the 5e rules will know what he is doing. The strength of the system agnostic approach is this can be easily ported to old school simulacra or DungeonWorld or whatever.

In summary, I think this is a great setting, but also a great demonstration of a way to present a setting, and is well worth the price of purchase.

The Azurth Digest is back--for A Limited Time

The first issue of the Azurth Adventures Digest  print edition is back on sale! Twenty-eight full color pages at 5.5 in. x 7.75 in. with art by Jeff Call and Jason Sholtis. There are random tables for the generation of quirky Motley pirates, a survey of interesting and enigmatic islands, and a mini-adventure on the Candy Isle. Plus, there are NPCs and a couple of monsters, all straight from my Land of Azurth 5e campaign.

 Go here for the print(+pdf) edition, while supplies last. If you only want the pdf, well, that's always available here.

Wednesday Comics: Valentine's Day

Romance comics were a pretty big thing back in the day, and all the major publishers (including Marvel and DC) did them, but none of those have been collected, so far as I know--and they probably wouldn't appeal to the readers of my blog in any case. Here are a few comics with romance as an element that might.

Deadman: The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love puts DC's disembodied former aerialist in a gothic mystery with a hit of romance.

Scott Pilgrim In Toronto, slacker Scott Pilgrim tries to date a cool girl, but first he has to defeat league of her evil exs. You've seen the movie, now read the comic that inspired it.

Sex Criminals Suzanne and Jon bond over an unusual trait they both share--their orgasms stop time! They decide to use this unusual ability to rob banks...

Wonder Woman: The Golden Age Vol. 1 Wonder Woman lives Paradise Island to bring love and peace to Man's World with her beau Steve Trevor. She seems to get into a lot of predicaments involving bondage.

Justice is Like the Hawk

Looking for pawns in a contest with Kang the Conqueror, the Grandmaster decided to recreate members of the Crime Syndicate of America from an alternate Earth to fight the Avengers. He called his creations the Squadron Sinister. The current Owlman in the world of the Crime Syndicate was Bruce Wayne, the son of Thomas Wayne, jr., the eldest son of Thomas and Martha Wayne. This Bruce Wayne had no exact counterpart on the Earth of the Avengers, but privileged, scion of wealth, Kyle Richmond had the same mother (or technically, her alternate Earth counterpart) and the same arrogance and sense of entitlement.

The Grandmaster manipulated Richmond into assuming the identity of Owlman and partnered him with his Ultraman and Power Ring doubles. The Avengers defeated the Squadron, though Grandmaster ultimately out-maneuvered Kang. The game finished, the Grandmaster left the Squadron to their own devices. Owlman continued as a criminal for a time, but ultimately turned against his fellow Squadron members when they sought to aid the alien Nebulon in melting the polar ice caps. He alerted the Defenders and joined them in battle against his former allies.

Richmond’s heroic actions nearly cost him his life, but he was saved by the Defenders and granted “membership” in their (non-)team. Turning his back on his old life, he took the name Nighthawk after the masked crimefighter of the Old West, a hero of his youth. The road to reform wasn’t easy for Richmond, he faced legal troubles and the ghosts of his past. Ultimately, he died defeating a plot to precipitate World War III by a psychic attack on the Soviet Union.

Only a few years after his death, another young man would take up the identity of Nighthawk and form a new iteration of the Teen Titans. This was Dwayne Taylor, whose parents had been killed by white supremacists, whose group, ironically, was being supported by Richmond’s own company without his knowledge.

Weird Revisited: The Wonderbuss

This post originally appeared in February of 2011. It will show up in a couple more Weird Adventures posts after that...

Magical blunderbuss-type firearms were used by some wealthy Dwergen in their early conquest of the Strange New World. The weapons gave these sorcerously inept folk help against the shamans of the Natives and the thaumaturgists of rival Grand Lludd. Today, these antiques sometimes find their way into the hands of adventurers--in this world, and perhaps others.

Though they were manufactured in a variety of styles, they’re all muzzle-loading weapons with short, large caliber barrels and flared muzzles. They all can fire relatively normal projectiles of appropriate size (provided there is gun powder) , but their real power lies in specially designed spherical ammunition called “shells.” Interestingly, it appears likely that it was the prior existence of these magical shells which spurred the development of the gun, and not the other way around. No one knows who originally designed the shells, nor for what weapon.

Thaumaturgists (with alchemical aid) can manufacture new shells, but the process is tedious and expensive, so they tend to be rare. Sometimes, a supply is found in Ancient ruins or even other planes. The shells are classified by number, which denotes their effect. All shells of the same number historically tend to be of similar appearance, and modern manufacturers have kept with this tradition. Shells don’t not require gunpowder.

Magic Blunderbuss (Wonderbuss)
Dmg: 1d10 or special; Rof: 1/2 ; Range: 50’/100’/300’

Shells: (all spell references per the SRD)
#1: appears to be a lead ball, but too light for its apparently size. +1 weapon; Dmg. 1d12.  These are 80% of all shells found.
#2: brass-appearing. Casts two shadows, one distinct the other shimmering like heat-haze. Leaves a fiery streak when fired. 4d6 fire damage.
#3: appears to be a steel sphere etched with three 7-pointed stars. +2 to hit, 2d8 points of damage.  These are 5% of shells found.
#4: glass, containing a roiling green liquid. On a successful strike creates an Acid Fog as per spell.
#5: glass, faintly glowing and warm like the mantle of a lantern. Acts as the spell Sunburst, though it misfires on a roll of 1-2 on 1d6, and only does 1d10 damage.
#6: smoked glass. Faint moans can be heard within. Target’s soul is imprisoned on sucessful hit as per Magic Jar.
#7: silver and etched with glyphs which seem to shift when its not being watched. 1d10, deals double damage to lycanthropes, and extraplanar beings of evil. These are 5% of shells found.
#8: white, with the look of fine china, cool to the touch. Explodes for 5d6 damage in a 20 ft. radius.  Sleeping near (2 ft.) of one of these shells has a 75% chance of causing a ringing in the ears (leading to a penalty for rolls to detect things by hearing) lasting 1-4 days after removal of the shell from that distance.  Wrapping the shell in cloth will prevent this effect.
#9: appears as a flawless sphere of obsidian. Acts as a Sphere of Annihilation, though it can’t be moved, and exists only for 1 round before winking out.

Some scholars believe that more shell types are yet to be discovered.

Random Paths from the Crossroad of Worlds

In Incredible Hulk #300, Dr. Strange tried to get read of the menace of the Hulk (who was in one of his brutish menace periods) but banishing him to another dimension. The Hulk ended up at the Crossroad of Worlds in a trippy, Ditko-esque space. Throughout the next 313 issues, he went to a number of weird worlds. The details of these worlds would make interesting places to visit in a fantasy rpg, but the brief, descriptive names given to the them by the folks at the Marvel Universe Appendix are in many ways even better for just getting the creative juices flowing.

Here's the list made into d30 random table (I had to add one to the end to get 30):

1. Crossroad of Worlds (choose a path, roll again!)
2. Acid Rain World 
3. Barren World 
4. Burning World 
5. Daniel Decyst's World 
6. Demon World of the N'Garai 
7. Desert World
8. Devil World 
9. Frozen World 
10. Furry Blue People World 
11. Glob World of Floating Things 
12. Idol World 
13. Mist World 
14. Octopod World
15. Paradise and the City of Death 
16. Poisoned World of Spine Creatures
17. Purple Giant World
18. Quicksand World 
19. Radiation Monster World 
20. Robot World 
21. Sky Shark World 
22. Swamp World
23. Toad World 
24. Vacuum World 
25. War World 
26. Underwater World 
27. Wind World 
28. Yellow Dwarf World 
29. Purple World of Exile
30. Chiming Crystal World

Obscured Vision (Reprise)

In 1918, Alistair Crowley made contact with an entity he called “Lam.” Crowley drew a picture of Lam, and much has been had made of its passing resemblance to the popular image of the “Grey” extraterrestrial, but that vision of Crowley’s also resembles another Vision, the first super-being called by that name in the 1940s. Timely Comics gives us three different origins for this Vision, perhaps revealing three different occasions he made contact with our world. The only one of these that is verified is the assertion that, on at least one occasion, Dr. Enoch Mason’s “Dimension Smasher” brought him to Earth. We suspect this is true, because Dr. Saul Erdel, a one-time colleague of Mason’s, had a similar thing happen when operating a related device some fifteen years later.

With his “Dimension Smasher,” Mason was doing further work in the field pioneered by Tillinghast. Mason seems to have breached a place called “Smoke World” in older texts, which is otherwise known as the Still Zone ( and maybe the Phantom Zone. And/or Immortus’ Limbo). From this realm emerged a Martian from the distant past. A Green Martian, more precisely, a descendant of exiled Skrull Eternals. This Green Martian was a lawman named Roh’Kar.

Roh’Kar’s task was to monitor the White Martin criminal exiles in the Still Zone. He had noticed periodic “soft places” permeable to (from his perspective) future spacetime coordinates, localized to Thu’ulca’andra (Sol III). Roh’Kar, following protocol, made what contact was necessary to shore up the breaches, but did not reveal his true origins. Indeed, he cloaked himself in mysticism and altered his form for purposes of misinformation. (When actively pursuing a criminal decades later, he would be more forthcoming when enlisting the aid of Batman.) He was a lawman through and through, however, and could not resist helping to bring criminals to justice during his visits to earth.

Some accounts suggest Roh’Kar escaped the plague that killed most of his people, but was captured and held captive by the U.S. government.

Obscured Vision

Even allowing for the fact that he is prone to mental instability, Ultron’s plan regarding the Vision seems needlessly complicated and poorly thought out: he creates a super-powered android with uncontrollable human memories and sends him to destroy the Avengers, knowing he probably won’t do it, but instead lead the heroes back to Ultron, so he could destroy them? He never even seems to have considered the sudden betrayal that seems virtually inevitable between artificial beings and their creators (the unstated Finagle’s Law of Robotics), and he of all beings certainly should have! Still, it is quite possible that this plan wasn’t as inane as it seems, and that it wasn’t even Ultron’s.

At one time, it was believed that Vision was constructed from the damaged body of the original, android Human Torch. This origin was cast into doubt later, though Immortus revealed that he had created a temporal duplicate of the Human Torch, which became the Vision. Immortus’ general duplicitousness is enough reason to doubt his word--and in fact, he is lying, for inscrutable reasons of his own. The android body that the Mad Thinker directs Ultron to resembles the Human Torch, but is in fact a creation of the Manhunters.

The Manhunters were the first attempt by the Guardians of the Universe to create a cosmic police force. “Many light years away from possibility of corruption, grey and calm with inflexible authority,” the robotic Manhunters' narrow and pitiless view of justice came to trouble their creators. When the Guardians tried to rein in the Manhunters, the enforcers decided their masters were corrupt, too. The Manhunters' rebellion was put down, but they were never fully eradicated. They went underground, forming the Cult of the Manhunters to infiltrate and subvert other cultures, to build a secret army for their eventual coup attempt against the Guardians.

The Manhunters wanted an agent on the Avengers and Ultron was a convenient dupe. The Mad Thinker was either their agent or another unknowing instrument.

Vision served ably within the Avengers, until contact with another Manhunter agent, the AI ISAAC, led to the activation of his secret programming. The Vision was defeated, but the fact remained he had seized control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and SHIELD was taking no changes. Vision was kidnapped and dismantled, and his memories wiped clean.

His teammates on the West Coast Avengers were allowed to retrieved him, but it would be sometime before he regained anything resembling his former personality.

Incumbents are from Earth, Sivanas are from Venus

In September of 1936, all across America aircraft beginning dropping flyers proclaiming a new candidate for the highest office in the land. At the urging of her father, Beautia Sivana was running for President. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana planned to stage a coup once his daughter was in office. Hers was the most massive, multi-media, write-in campaign this country has ever seen. Her beautiful visage graced the covers of magazines and full page newspaper ads. Her captivating voice could be heard on radio addresses. Women were cool to her candidacy, but men were enthralled. Most men. Boy reporter, Billy Batson, wasn’t fooled one bit. His alter ego, Captain Marvel foiled the Sivanas’ plot and returned mad scientist and would-be president to Venus*, where Beautia would have to content herself with being Empress.

Ultimately, Beautia didn’t share her father’s devotion to evil and in fact pursued a career in social work upon her return to Earth, according to some accounts.

*Or what Sivana said was Venus. It is difficult to square the real planet with its depiction in this record.

Operation Unfathomable is Out

In case you missed it, Operation Unfathomable was released in pdf this week and is (as of this writing) number 1 on rpgnow. I can say that everybody in Hydra was excited to be involved in bringing this adventure out. I personally have played in the con game version, and it was a blast. I'm also honored that my somewhat Scooby-Doo homage logo made the cut and wound up gracing the final product.

The adventure has a great tone, like Shaver Mystery, 50s monster movies, and Jack Kirby Atlas monster comics. Get it now, before the rave reviews start rolling in, so you can have the satisfaction of knowing you got there before the crowd!

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Hounds of Marduk

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues with his adventures in the world of Pandarve. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Hounds of Marduk (1985) 
(Dutch: De Honden van Marduk)
Art by Don Lawrence; script by Martin Lodewijk

Marduk, the Theocrat of Pandarve, is in a rage because he has been unable to relocate the Anomaly (i.e. Storm). Storm and his companions escaped Marduk's clutches and he hasn't seen them since. His palace staff has suffered his foul mood.

Suddenly, the Pearl of Pandarve begins to turn, meaning one of Marduk's hounds (or sleuth-hounds, as he sometimes says) has located the Anomaly. Sure enough, one of the round screens which are the hounds' vision has Storm in it.

Storm, Ember, and Nomad are in a tavern thousands of miles away. They have just negotiated the sale of Renter's ship, making enough money to buy some new clothes and weapons.

Nomad is bothered by the strange, dog-like creature that keeps staring at them. He pays the blind old beggar who appears to be its master to take the beast away. Meanwhile, another man in the bar has secretly recognized Storm as the Anomaly and plans to warn his men, but keep the anomaly in sight.

Our heroes move out into the street, but the dog (straining at his leash) is still intent on them. he drags his master into a collision with a passing palanquin. It's occupants are dumped on the ground. The rich man responds harshly:

Storm and his friends notice the commotion at the waterside. The hound is paddling for dear life. The beggar is underwater. Storm jumps in to try to save them. He manages to get the dog to safety, but he can't find the beggar's body.

Marduk, watches through the dog's eyes, pleased that his hound was saved. Storm tries to befriend the animal but at that moment Marduk summons the dog back and it runs off.

The three companions continue on their shopping excursion. They buy new clothing and new weapons. Ember worries their clothes look too good; they might attract robbers who think they are rich. Her words seem prophetic when they head down a narrow street to find a group of men blocking their path--and another blocking their retreat!

TO BE CONTINUED

Weird Revisited: Apocalypse Under Ground

This post first appeared in March of 2012. It was the first of a series of 3 in this setting...

He could barely remember a life before the refugee camp. His family had fled there like the others when their village had been overrun. They were without his two sisters; they had been carried away to fill monsters’ cookpots, perhaps. While he spent his days begging for food to feed his family, the monsters took his father, too. Maimed and in constant pain, his father had died with the beak of some leech-thing in his arm—a drug sold to those without hope by agents of the mind-flayers.

If the cleric was to be believed, the monsters took his mother as well. Even then, boy that he was, he knew enough to be skeptical. The wasting sickness that claimed her seemed all too common in the conditions of the camp—gods know he’d seen it enough. The cleric, evangelizing among the refugees, had claimed it was a magical disease sent by the monsters. The clerics always blamed the monsters. Their gods were as hungry for monster blood as the monsters seemed for the blood of man.

The boy didn’t care about the truth. He found a makeshift club, beat some scavenged nails into it, and joined the new crusade. Down he went, with a few veterans but many more hollow-eyed youths, into the lair of the foes of man, into the underground. The boy had survived. He had watched most of the others die in horrible ways: cut down, rended, chewed, dissolved. He had survived.

That was years ago. He barely remembered how young he had been—how weak he had been. Wounds that would have been fatal before now healed within days. He was strong and fast. The underground changed you. The trick was not to change too much. Some scholars thought that many of the tribes of monsters had once been men, in ages past.

Those same sages said it had always been like this. When a civilization mastered enough magic to discover the undergrounds, the war started. Who built them, no one could say. All the beings fighting for them now were like babes crawling through a grand temple in search of a toy. They understood so little. They knew only that there was treasure to be had: the doors in the depths through which the most ancient monsters traveled, the magic they fought over, and the gold that drew the poor and the greedy.

And no one—not goblins, not trolls, not dragons or men—was inclined to share.

Babylon Berlin

I've been enjoying the German crime drama Babylon Berlin on Netflix. It's location and time period (the 1920s) is always one I've found interesting--and I have the old posts to prove it!

For some nonfiction recommends to make your cities even more decadent: Urban Decadence Made Easy.

Here's a post on the Weird Adventures analog of Weimar Berlin, Metropolis: Desolation Cabaret

Unfathomable Azurth

Following up on my Operation Unfathomable in other genres post, this was to be about how I would adapt Jason Sholtis' awesome adventure to my current setting, the Land of Azurth. But busy work week, baby, and all that... So instead, this is my brainstorming for what I what things the adventure makes me think would be good Azurth tweaks. I am thinking mostly of how I responded to it in play, which was a version in length like the Knockspell original, but with some elements closer to their final concept in the Hydra edition.

So, the Azurth version will muddy Jason's conception with Oz, Fleischer Studios cartoons (and possibly Cuphead), and different comic books than the ones that likely inspired Jason. The Operation Unfathomable Underworld will be a dangerous "wildernes" region of Subazurth.

First, off "Worm Sultan" makes me think of this guy from the The Yellow Knight of Oz, so he's in:

The final version has several types of dwarfs...

Then, there are some religious factions:



That's all I've got for now.

Operation Unfathomable Cover Aprocrypha

During the Operation Unfathomable Kickstarter and run-up to publication, I did a number of cover mockups, as brainstorming and placeholder images. Here are some of those, most of which are unlikely to grace a product. 

Remember these are mockups, not finished products. They were not complete in some cases.

First up, here's the Jason Sholtis artbook that was one of the stretch goals we didn't reach:

We thought about blacklight covers (or covers with the black vibe) for the DCC conversions:

Finally, here's an unused design for the Player's Guide recalling old Boy Scout merit badge pamphlets: