Jianghu Dungeoncrawl

A few weeks ago over on Twitter, Erik Jensen of Wampus Country fame had the idea to run Temple of Elemental Evil in Shaw Brothers kung fu style. I think this is a very good idea So good, I'm going to do it myself. Well, maybe not the Temple of Elemental Evil, but some classic D&D module I'm going to reskin as a sort of wuxia adventure.

While I think you could use D&D for this, it does give me an excuse to try out another system. Perhaps Osprey's Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades? If not that, one of the other wuxia games I've got, but haven't played.

The only question is: what adventure to run?

Solar Wars: The Hutt Crime Family

The Hutt crime family was one of the most powerful criminal organizations of the Imperial era. Based on Mars, its reach extended throughout the system, owing to its connections to Nar Shadaa in the Jovian Trojans. It's most famous boss was Jaba, often called "Jaba the Hutt," who took control after a gang war in 3244. During Jaba's reign, the Hutt family was involved in smuggling, piracy, drug and weapons trafficking, and the slave trade, and well as various forms of cybercrime. 

Jaba's base of operations, his so-called Palace, was a former monastery of the Bomar sect, located in the Martian desert. Jaba's palace was in really a fortress, guarded by a compliment of his soldiers and any number of bounty hunters and contract killers vying for employment. Jaba was rumored to keep a unique, genetically engineered creature called "the Rancor" in a pit beneath the palace that he used to dispose of those that had displeased him.

This is a follow-up to this post.

Across the Solar System

This is a follow-up to this post about a hard(er) science fiction Star Wars confined to the Solar System.

Lando Calrissian reportedly became Baron-Administrator of Bespin, the largest cloud city and mining facility in the atmosphere of Saturn, after winning a high-stakes a card game. Largely Calrissian ignored the mining operation (except to collect his skim of corporate profits), instead focusing on running the entertainment facilities where the workers spent their credits.

The capital of the Solar Empire and largest city in the system was Coruscant, a Bishop Ring at Earth-Luna L4. 

The Kaminoans of Europa were known for their expertise in cloning and genetic engineering. Their techniques were disapproved of in the Republic and eventually outlawed under the Empire.

The Sand People of Mars represented a remnant of the first, genetically-engineered colonial population. They were hostile to later, post-complete terraforming colonists.

The Space War

Here's the idea inspired by Andor: It's the 33rd Century and the solar system is a powder keg ready to blow. Twenty years ago, a fascist regime toppled the ailing Solar Republic to establish the Empire. But on the colony worlds and orbital habitats resistance to the new government was never completely crushed. If these groups can get organized, there will be a full-scale rebellion.

Take the grittier turn on the Star Wars universe of Andor and Rogue One, filter it through The Expanse (with a bit more advance technology like terraforming, cloning, and AI) and set it all in the 33rd Century (just like Lucas did his original treatment for The Star Wars) and you've got a less pulp and perhaps more cyberpunk version of my Pulp Star Wars setting.

There would be no nonhumans (well, no alien species, perhaps robots or droids are still common--and clones), no jedi, and fewer worlds. But drawing on the dark shadows of the Star Wars universe, I think would translate pretty well.

Lost on Planet X

I've been thinking about an alien planet hexcrawl in the vein of my posts about somewhat goofy somewhat gonzo science fiction. The sort of thing that could sit on a shelf next to a Gold Key Star Trek collection:

Of course, a planet in big--particularly a planet (like Vance's Big Planet or Silverberg's Majipoor) that is substantially larger than Earth, but less dense. So I think the way to limit that is a shipwreck sort of scenario, so that travel would likely only be in a limited radius around the "home base" of the ship, at least at first.

The aforementioned Gold Key Star Trek comics would be an inspiration as would the 60s Lost in Space show, the 70s Logan's Run show, classic Dr. Who, the works of Jack Vance and assorted science fiction/science fantasy comics.

Wonders Beyond the Orbit of Old Earth

Few denizens of Old Earth or worlds of the Anadem that dance around it like myriad, glittering jewels, would think to brave the distances to visit the worlds of the solar system beyond. Let mariners with starlight in their blood make the journeys of weeks, months, or more to these distant and often uncivilized places!

Still, who can fail to wonder at these literally unearthly locales? Everyone enjoys the tales of the far roving spacers in the comfort of familiar surroundings.

The Giant and the Beanstalk

Growing up from one of the mountains of the Martian desert is a beanstalk grown from an alien seed, purchased on some distant world. At the top of it is a castle where a giant lives. Once this giant was a congenial host and servant of visitors, but now he is jealous of his prerogative of access to the castle and has been known to eat trespassers. Once travelers move frequently up and down the beanstalk, and ships docked at the castle, but no longer.

The Titans of the Belt

The legends say that long ago, Titans from the Outer Dark tried to conquer the solar system. They were defeated by Gaia and the Overminds of the other planets and somehow petrified into a state not living, but not fully dead. Their corpses floated in the wastes between Mars and Jupiter and over the centuries, rock accreted on them. their rock-encrusted corpses now often serve as the home bases of the notorious Gith pirate bands.

Plasmoids of the Anadem

These rubbery, elastic invertebrates are one of the most commonly encountered nonhumankin of the Anadem. They have few wordlets of their own but can been found on many multi-kin habitats. They are generally easy of disposition and gregarious. They can often be found among the ranks of entertainers. 

It is believed that the ancestors of the plasmoids were discovered on some distant world by ancient human explorers. This world has been lost or at least misplaced, so that none of the scant visitors Old Earth receives from the outer galaxy can recollect any details regarding it. The tale told on Old Earth is that the pre-sophont ancestors of the plasmoids were known as zhmoon and came from a pleasant world called (appropriately, if unimaginatively) the World of the Zhmoon. Earlier spacers happening upon the world noted the gelatinous species, with seemingly no fear of other creatures. They also noted the tastiness of zhmoo flesh if appropriately prepared. 

It is possible hungry visitors would have caused the extinction of the zhmoon had not conservationists noticed them beginning to exhibit signs of intelligence greater than that of an animal. These behaviors, curiously, seemed to increase over time. It was generally accepted that exposure to human behavior and culture had triggered an aptitude for evolutionary mimicry, though there were other opinions. A renowned scientist, noting the malleability of zhmoo structure, suggested the only mimicry had been in the reciprocal consumption of some hapless would-be zhmoo hunters. The zhmoon had thereby absorbed human knowledge and mental structures. The scientist, determined to prove his theory, disappeared in the wilds of the World of the Zhmoon.

Shortly thereafter the zhmoon present humanity with manikins, the vaguely human-shaped, living but nonsentient snacks still cultivated on Old Earth today, demonstrating a biochemical know-how heretofore unseen among them. The snacks enjoyed a brief period of faddish popularity, but they were the plasmoids entre to galactic society.

Travelers Tales at Bar in the Anadem

The blogging equivalent of a clip show this week, as I give you a chance to catch up on my posts in the Spelljammer-ish setting of the Anadem:

Lycaon, the Werewolf World

Those itinerant Earthshiners

The mysterious Toymaker

Howl at the Moon

Scholars disagree on whether remote Lycaon, the Wolf World, should be considered part of the Anadem proper or not, lying as it does on the far side of the Moon. That face of Luna, forever hidden from Earth, looms large and bright in Lycaon's sky, and that has a particular effect on the Wolf World's inhabitants.

It is said that in a previous age suffers of lycanthropy were deported to the Outer System in an effort to eradicate the curse forever from Old Earth. In the time sense, a tribe of werewolves were given leave by the Elven Queen to settle bring a worldlet into the orbit known by the ancient designation of El-Tu. Why the Queen of Elves should allow this is unclear, but the lycanthropes benefited greatly from close proximity to the celestial body that governs their malady.

The Wolf World is by all accounts beautiful with its old fashion castles and keeps and deep shadowed forests, but it is seldom visited. The werewolf lords are high-handed and capricious hosts. One might be the guest of honor at a lavish feast, or the quarry in a hunt under the bone pale moon.

Earthshiners

There are rustic folk that sometimes visit the Anadem from more remote asteroids. These insular people build ramshackle settlements on whatever tumbling rock or abandoned worldlet they can find, eking out a hardscrabble existence growing what crops they can and raising their weird livestock, but often staying only one season. Long enough to produce one good batch of their primary trade stuff and cultural artifact: earthshine.

Earthshine, so these rockhoppers aver, can only be distilled from the captured radiance of humanity's homeworld. It is collected in "pans," broad-rimmed, shallow dishes which are pointed at the Earth and somehow collect it's light, which then flows down coiling tubing to the heated processing apparatus. The end product is clear but tinged silvery-blue has a slight glow in darkness. It can be “poured” or contained, but moves more like a heavy fog than a liquid. It is bottled in opaque receptacles--sunlight will degrade it within others. After a day or two, it becomes more volatile, and can by used as an intoxicant by inhalation from bottles or from cloths on which some of the substance has been pored.  The earthshiners also use it some how to power their dubious vessels to cross the void, to the next convenient place to make their concoction.

The Earthshiners are clearly of human stock, but tend to be taller than Earthly humans, strapping and clean-limbed in youth. In old age, they can sometimes by gnarled, perhaps even dwarfish. It is believed the habitual use of earthshine takes its toll.

For obscure reasons, the fey empire of the Moon has no love for the Earthshiners. It's swift, silver-white patrol ships uproot them where they find them, deporting them beyond the bounds of the Anadem. 

The Toymaker

One of the most enigmatic figures of the Anadem and Old Earth is the Toymaker. Hailed as a genius, albeit an eccentric one, his smaller creations are sought by wealthy collectors and his larger recreational devices, benevolently gifted to communities are sources of civic pride. Each of these is marked with a modest, but never-tarnishing brass legend proclaiming it "A Gift of the Toymaker."

A list of known works of the Toymaker would run too long, but I will remind you of but a few you have likely heard of: The Clockwork Courtesan of Yejem, the Arcade Spatterlight in the Pleasure Garden of Oressund Major, the Leaping Lepidopterists in the possession of the Pajandrum of Gloorb, and of course the Merry-go-Round Tower of Ooth-Ithrain,

The Toymaker's most commonly encountered creation are the Wind-Up Gnomes. Most serve their generally wealthy owners as servants, but a few have experienced some sort of damage and become freewilled.  Some localities are fearful of freewilled wind-ups, but in most places they are accepted into society. There are persistent rumors of isolated wordlets of wind-up beings that have become quite mad and constitute a danger to flesh beings, but these are no doubt just old space-sailor tales. Probably.

No one knows where the Toymaker himself resides. Some people believe the Toymaker to not be an individual at all, but rather a brand. They suggest that it perpetuates itself by the kidnapping of promising artificers and forces them to work on its factory world, guarded by ever-smiling wind-up soldiers. If such a world existed (and really, it is ridiculous to believe it does), it might even lie beyond the Anadem, perhaps in the wilds of the Belt.

The Anadem

Millions of years hence, when the technology and magic have long ago become one, the center of human-descended civilization will have largely forgotten the quaint backwater of its birth. Still, there  is much to recommend Old Earth as a diverting, if rustic, tourist destination.

The still-blue (or once more blue) world is garlanded with a  swarm of habitats and microworlds, aggregated in orbit over millennia. This curious and eclectic mixes of cultures and species is known as the Anadem.

Upper class youths of Earth have the custom of a the Grand Tour, a rite of passage where they visit worlds of the Anadem in the ships of alien, antigravity wood, brought to Earth in previous ages from some distant world. 

This is a Spelljammer campaign idea. Inspirational media include any number of bande dessinée from Barbarella to the works of Moebius, Don Lawrence's Storm, the works of Jack Vance including The Dying Earth and Planet of Adventure; Matthew Hughes' Henghis Hapthorn stories, and Rob Chilson's Prime Mondeign stories.

The Challenge of Ysgard

Ysgard in some metaphysical sense is found between the pure (or what passes for it in the current multiverse) chaos of Limbo and the pursuit of sensation and individual freedom of Arborea. Indeed, it may well be the ferment from which the heady wine of Arborea was born. Ysgard embodies conflict and striving. It is both the wanting and the expression of the idea that achieving the thing wanted often comes at a price.

In the belief of adherents of Chaos (or at least some of them), Ysgard was differentiated and divided from pure Chaos when the moment the schism between Law and Chaos was recognized. The Ysgard of today, however, bears little resemblance to that primal conceptual realm as it has been shaped by the minds of beings since. It is a realm of archetypes and story, in a myriad variations. The trials it subjects souls to are often of a violent and dramatic cast, with bloody, heroic battles played out on an exaggerated terrain. They seldom have a clear beginning and ending; there is a reason that Ysgard is often associated with the serpent devouring its own tail. 

In keeping with this essential nature of the plane, participants may come to violent ends, but these endings are never permanent, merely transformative. There are some souls, however, that come to perceive their experiences as imbued with profundity beyond what is readily apparent in the events themselves, while others come realize they are mere shadows, lacking in substance. In the end, there may be little difference between the two positions, and souls of achieving either sort of enlightenment are not seen again in Ysgard.

Weird Revisted: Cold War Planescape

"Intelligence work has one moral law—it is justified by results."

- The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, John Le Carre

This is what came of seeing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2016) and Atomic Blonde in the same weekend back on 2017.

Take Planescape's Sigil and re-imagine it as vaguely post-World War (it really doesn't matter which one) in technology and sensibility. It's the center of fractious sometimes warring (but mostly cold warring) planes, but now it's more like Cold War Berlin or Allied-occupied Vienna.

Keep all the Planescape factions and conflict and you've got a perfect locale for metacosmic Cold War paranoia and spy shennanigans. You could play it up swinging 60s spy-fi or something darker.

There's always room for William S. Burroughs in something like this, and VanderMeer's Finch and Grant Morrison's The Filth might also be instructive. Mostly you could stick to the usual spy fiction suspects.

Weird Revisited: Graustarkian Karameikos

This post originally appeared in 2014. I think several Known World/Mystara nations could be fictional countries in the real world. I may do a further post on it.

The Grand Duchy of Karameikos is a small nation in the Balkans on the Adriatic Sea. It has a long history going back to ancient times when the Romans built a fort and founded a trading outpost at Specularum--now Karameikos's capital, Spekla. Since those days, Karameikos has been in the hands of a succession of empires: the Byzantine, the Serbian, the Ottoman, and briefly, the Austro-Hungarian.

The current ruler of Karameikos is Stefan III. He has retained the title of "Grand Duke" despite his nation's liberation from Austria-Hungary. Grand Duke Stefan and most of the nobility trace their families back to Byzantium, but rule over an ethnically mixed populace of Albanians and Serbs, as well as Greeks. The predominant religion is the Orthodox Church of Karameikos, though there are also Muslims and a small number of Roman Catholics.

Believed to be the only photo of the leader of the Black Eagle

One of the greatest threats to modern Karameikos is the terrorist group known as the Black Eagle. The group is vaguely related to Albanian nationalism, but its direct aims seem to be criminality and destabilization of the current government. It's leader is named either Ludwig or Henrich. As his name would suggest, he is said to be of Austrian descent. His primary advisor and bomb-maker is believed to be a former monk named Bargle.

The Mad Monk Bargle, while briefly in custody

This post relates to my previous Ruritanian ruminations--and of course to D&D's Known World.

The F.R.E.E. Lancers Cinematic Universe

"The idea was to bring together a group of of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could."

- Nick Fury, The Avengers

I figure at least some of you remember F.R.E.E. Lancers, the Top Secret/S.I. setting supplement from 1988. The game takes place in a fractured America of 1998 with where low-powered supers exist powered by cybertech, biotech, and psychic powers. It's the sort of idea that was kind of in the Zeitgeist of the era, with Marvel's New Universe, Misfits of Science, and some direct market comics offering up low-powered supers, realistic supers, or the like.

It's not an approach much in vogue today, but it isn't a bad one.

An interesting thing I noticed about F.R.E.E. Lancers the other day, the breakdown of the U.S. Federal government began when a politician tried to build a wall along the border with Mexico. In this case, it was a fictional governor of Texas and the year was 1994, but it got me thinking: one way to update F.R.E.E. Lancers would be to make it an alternate present. 

Of course, it would need an update in some ways. Computer tech, the internet, smartphones. Technological advances since that time would have made some of the "superhuman" characters seem all the more plausible:

Other things like psi powers would still remain in a more fantastical realm. I think it would be an interesting mix.

Of course uniforms/costumes would be updated to the current "realistic" style of superheroic movies and tv shows.

New Terra

New Terra is uncannily like humanity's world of origin in terms of size and atmospheric composition. Even the native plant and animal life proved mostly compatible with the biochemistry of organisms from Old Earth. It made an ideal new home for the refugees from across the stars.

The technology that allowed humankind to make the journey in great arks has now been lost. Humans may have left the Earth behind, but they could not flee the worst parts of their nature. Wars for territory began soon after their arrival and in them much knowledge was lost.

Something like two centuries have passed since that time. An international governing body was formed to ensure peace, and it did so for a time. Corruption and entanglements on other worlds led an economic depression. The previous government was ousted by popular vote in favor of the New Earth Order party under it's charismatic leader, Hastor Trask. 

New Earth Order blamed most of New Terra's woes on undue influence of aliens, and has proscribed the travel of nonhumans on Earth, while pursuing a military build-up and expansion of New Terran hegemony into the Belt and beyond.

The Belt

The Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Marva and Wanaxar is the remnant of an ancient, inhabited world shattered in some cataclysm. The nature of calamity is unknown, though an encounter with contraterrene matter is a possibility.

The mineral wealth of the asteroid belt has drawn prospectors from all over the System and the fragmentary remains of the progenitor planet's civilization have drawn scientists and researchers. Despite these visitors, the Belt remains a relatively lawless frontier. Zerene, the largest of the worldlets in the Belt, is famed as the raucous port of pirates and smugglers.

Art by Jordu Schell

A particularly rapacious group of outlaws are the mysterious Gith. A species of folk seemingly native to the Belt, these marauders are fearsome in appearance: skeletally thin, with parchment yellow skin, and emaciated, corpse-like faces. The Gith. seemingly materialize from nowhere, gutting ships and taking no prisoners, then vanish--sometimes while still in the scopes of pursuers.

There are rumors of a related group of beings, the so-called adepts of asteroids, who tend to remain hidden. They are less aggressive, but not much more friendly to outsiders.

It has been suggested that the Gith races are the descendants of the people of the lost progenitor world, but the iconography of large-craniumed, tentacle-mouthed beings found in the ruins on some asteroids is puzzling, if that's true.

Solar System Recap (So Far)

 

Stopping here to collate my pulpish sci-fi solar system for a game that I'm planning. 

In order from the sun (there are a lot of gaps here):
Merkuro

Verdis

Wanaxar

Vurania

Verdis

Verdis, second planet from the sun, is closest in many respects to New Terra (and Old Earth), but has a slightly thicker atmosphere, higher average temperatures, and more area covered by water. Its polar continents (without ice caps) are the most comfortable place for human visitors. Though there are reasons for humans to visit the marshy, equatorial islands (the collection of plants for sale to pharmaceutical companies being a major one), the climate and local lifeforms insure that few reside there longterm.

Though Verdis has at least two intelligent species, it is the hadozee humans think of as Verdisians. They are tall, thin humanoids who largely resemble earthly primates except for the flying squirrel-like patagia. The cradle of hadozee civilization is centered in the forests of massive trees on plateaus on the south polar continent. These trees dwarf the mighty redwoods of Old Earth. The the hadozee have built cities among there branches.

The hadozee were mostly pre-industrial at the time of first contact with humans but with some advanced knowledge they claimed to have acquired from the "Sky People" from New Terra, presumably the Precursors. The hadozee clans were frequently at war with each other, but gradually formed regional leagues to protect certain sites of significance. These leagues eventually coalesced into larger structures and eventually a council of leagues, loose enough to bring in more clans as time went on. The death of council leaders as a potential  a loss to all the clans of in a dissolution of the council has insured that any attempted violence on their persons is punished severely. Despite the volatile (from the human perspective) nature of hadozee, this system has worked.

The vast seas of Verdis are home to an aquatic species, called Mer-folk by humans and "Deep Hunters" by hadozee. Little about them is known, as they have mostly resisted communication, though some hadozee island dwellers have been known to trade with them.

Art by Tony Moore