Hell's Hoods: Sin's Queen

The Phlegethon is a river of blood, formed from the runoff from infernal slaughterhouses and soul-rendering plants. Where it snakes through the city of Dis, one finds dens of depravity and vice run by the crime family that bears its name.  Belial is the boss here, and despite what you may have heard, Belial is a woman.

Or least, Belial is now.  Like all hell lords (ladies), Belial can take many forms. These days, Belial appears as a beautiful, dark-eyed woman, usually dressed in black. Her shadow is a deep red and tangible, like velvet.

The Phlegethon family runs brothels catering to unusual, often violent tastes, torture clubs, and brutal fight club gambling houses. Phlegethon’s entertainments draw hell denizens--both devil and damned--as well as visiting debauchees from all over the multiverse.

Combat: Belial uses a cat o’ nine tails when when she wishes to draw out the encounter.  She bleeds her foe tauntingly before the final kill. She carries a silver-plated infernal pocket pistol for those occasions when she can’t be bothered. It fires bullets specially crafted from truly depraved souls that cause lingering pain and disturbing nightmares even after they’re removed unless a their curse is removed.

Diabolical Abilities: Belial can know a mortal’s secret sins or secret desires of a carnal or violent nature at a glance. Her breath can cause an intoxicated delirium. Her slightest touch can cause intense pain or pleasure.

Pacts: Belial may be summoned with a drop of blood shed by a willing victim in either fear or ecstasy, caught in a silver chalice, and then boiled away over a small flame. Belial can reveal secret sins or desires of anyone (for a price) or provide instruction in techniques to prolong pain or pleasure.

The Winner is

The time has come to announce the winners of the Gimme Your Weird Adventures adventure seed contest. First, off let me start with the usual "it was a really hard decision."  Cliched maybe, but in this case it was, as there were a lot of good entries and comparing such a disparate group was hard.  Many of the entries are likely to make it into the Companion.

Next, I want to give recognize some notable disqualifications.  Two guys did awesome work, but did follow the contest rules, exactly.  B. Portly, Esq. gave a delightfully weird criminal gang in his "The Doors of Deception, or A Drug Quest of Unknown Zamora," but it was really a description of the gang and not an adventure seed.  Gustie LaRu's "The Hell Haunted Roads of Peril County" was likewise great stuff, but was more a locale and random encounters. Don't feel too bad, guys: Both of these will absolutely be used in the book in some form.

One of the best entries was done by my friend and sometimes collaborator, Jim Shelley.  His "The Monster Men of Bludd Manor" was pitch perfect in about every way, but given that Jim did layouts and whatnot on the original Weird Adventures and will most likely have a hand in the Companion, I thought handing him a prize might be a bit of a conflict of interests.  Still, he deserves recognition, and Bludd Manor will appear in the book.

Now to the winners, selected in haphazard conclave between myself and three of the players in my face-to-face Weird Adventures game:

Matthew Schmeer's "Flesh-eating Golems of the Pigeon King" is so off-kilter it took me a while to decide whether it works in the setting or not, but it drew comment and praise from our panel.  It's original--and that's a good thing.

Jack Shear's "Big Trouble in Yiantown" hit all the right pulp notes and pulled in some knowledge of the Weird Adventures setting--plus it struck the panel as being a lot of fun to play.

Congratulations, Jack and Matthew! Email me with your prize preference: gift card or Weird Adventures hard cover.

While I'm not going to name everybody that turned in a great adventure, I want to recognize a couple of standouts that made the final round of selections. Jeremy Duncan's "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!" teased with a tale of a radio evangelist gone reality-shakingly wrong. John Arendt's "Two Dames and A Diamond" was a a noirish yarn like Black Mask meets Weird Tales.  Steve Sigety's "Murder by Radio" was a compact murder mystery served up with a twist of fantasy.

To all I've mentioned, and those I haven't, thanks for your entries.  Many more than those mentioned here will be hearing from me about including your submission in the Weird Adventures Companion.

Wheels Turn in the Night

[Our Weird Adventures G+ game continued last night.  See this post for the first session.]

In last night's game, Diabolico (gentleman thief), Loone (mentalist and drug enthusiast), and Doyle (he brings 'em back alive) did a little old fashion detective work.  When Leonard (Diabolico's police contact) was unable to turn up anything on Olimpia Kapec, the missing fiancée, they decided to go down to the neighborhood of Carmody's lab and ask around.  A waitress's description of Olimpia's odd and reclusive behavior led Diabolico to jump to the conclusion that she was actually an automaton! 

A leap perhaps, but Doyle and Loone remembered the slim and disguised figure of the leader at the Eisenmenschen rally.  It could have be anyone. Even an artificial  girl.

Heading back to Greasy Lake to do a little more snooping, the gang avoided treasure-hunting rubes and got a sample of some strange black material--like graphite dust composed of tiny cogs and bits of machinery.  Was this the Machinery of Night people kept talking about?

Silas Atwill, automata engineer for Hew Hazzard and conspirator with the Eisenmenschen, knew about it.  He had a mimeographed document of weird symbols and drawings (that looked like the sample they found) and mentioned the Machinery of Night. They found this out by breaking into Atwill's house.  When the gang asked Carmody about them, he got about as agitated as a brain in a jar can get--but then pled amnesia (again).

A late night visit to Hazzard's Zephyrus Aerocraft turned up nothing except the fact that security on the geodesic dome housing the laboratories is very tight.  Whatever was there was hidden behind an aura-sensing lock even Diabolico couldn't crack.

But the team does know there's something beneath the surface of Greasy Lake.  Loone could sense it, pushing on his mind.  The quesiton is what was doing the pushing?

Warlord Wednesday: Moon Beast

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Moon Beast"

Warlord #103 (March 1986)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Penciled by Jerry Bingham, Inked by Pablo Marcos

Synopsis: Morgan rides through a town’s empty streets under unusual darkness—one of the rare eclipses of the Skartarian sun caused by its erratic moon.  Suddenly, a white tiger jumps at him, knocking him from his horse.  As he grapples with the beast, he notices something unusual about his eyes, but he doesn't really have much time to think about that with its jaws near his face. Morgan is saved from certain death when the moon moves away and daylight returns.  Somehow, the light drives the beast away, but Morgan has loses consciousness and can’t consider it further.

Elsewhere, Machiste and Mariah come upon a ferry at a river crossing. The ferryman seems curious about who they are and where they’re going.  Machiste (a little suspicious) says they’re horse traders.  He was right to be suspicious, because as our heroes sit unaware, men emerge from hiding:

In the brawl that follows, Mariah and Machiste are pitched overboard—after killing most of their attackers. The ferryman gleefully contemplates having the whole reward for himself.  Despite his prediction that they’ll drown in the current, Mariah and Machiste manage to cling to a dead tree, only to be swept over a waterfall.  They jump to safety, grabbing an overhanging branch.

Far away, a young woman named Tamara wakes up in her room in a manse.  She’s had that nightmare again—and she has dried blood under her fingernails.  She recalls there was a man…

Morgan awakens surrounded by townsfolk. As he staggers to his horse, one guy fills him in on what’s been going on:

Morgan’s got no time for a detour. He rides toward the citadel.

“Half a day” (whatever that means in Skartaris) later, N’Dosma the would-be usurper in Kiro, gets word that Machiste, the rightful king, is apparently dead. He sends word back that he needs proof before he pays. 

He and his conspirators can’t openly seize power until they are sure.

Meanwhile, Morgan has scaled the outside of the manse/citadel, and onto the balcony of what happens to be Tamara’s boudoir.  He notices she’s wearing the same sort of collar as the tiger than attack him.  She recognizes him, too.  When he tells her about the cat and the collar, she realizes what’s happened to her.  It turns out her uncle has some crazy and misogynistic ideas:

He used to kidnap women and subject them to his elixirs and philtres, turning them into various kinds of cats. The townsfolk didn’t take to well to this and stormed his mansion.  All the transformed victims got free, and Tamara and her uncle had to flee to this new residence.

Supposedly, his experiments ceased.  He did start putting Tamara in a trance and having her stare into a strange prism so he could study “fractionalizing moonlight.”  He even gave her a collar like he used to identify his previous subjects and she thought it was merely “an eccentric gift.”

Her uncle bursts in with some cronies and they capture Morgan.  He awakens chained to a wall. Her uncle’s going to try his prism experiment on a man. 

He begins the ritual to call out the beast in Morgan. Morgan pulls with all his strength and wrenches his shackles from the way. 

He beats the henchmen with the chains, but Tamara’s uncle has snatched up a crossbow.

Before he can fire, Tamar bursts in a tiger form (she exposed herself to moonlight to try to save Morgan) and leaps on her uncle.  They both topple through an open window.

The next day, Morgan meets Shakira on the trail. He notices how much her collar resembles the one Tamara wore.  He impulsively takes it off her and tosses it to the ground.

Things to Notice:   

• This issue is branded as a continuation of "Morgan's Quest."
• Poor Tamara seems far to trusting of her crazy uncle.

Where it Comes From:
The evil scientist (or sorcerer) trope goes back to The Island of Doctor Moreau. The title of this issue may have been inspired by the (horrible) 1976 film Track of the Moon Beast, but nothing else about the issue seems to have been.  The "hypnosis turns a woman into a monster" but may come from the 1956 film The She-Creature.

For the evil uncle's plan to work, Skartaris's wandering moon needs to be somewhat predictable.  This runs counter to its original presentation back in issue #47.

The possible origin presented for Shakira in this issue seems hard to square with hints we've got before. Particularly, her tears upon viewing ancient Atlantean civilization back in issue #44. 

What I Did Instead of Writing This Blog Post

Disclaimer: This Blogpost does not actually feature laudanum.

Yesterday, when I'd normally be writing today's post, I was instead gaming.

First off, I ran my face-to-face Weird Adventures game in WaRP. The gang met the mysterious Miss Snow then got into a gunfight with some Hell Syndicate heavies.  They're still trying to get ahold of the snowglobe belonging to deceased thaumaturgist Charles Urst that's supposedly the key to his mansion and its treasure stores.

Then, I got to play in Robert Parker's G+ Call of Cthulhu game.  We were a group of six rather colorful private detectives investigating the disappearance of an up-and-coming starlet in 1926 Hollywood.  It promises to be fun stuff.

In other news, look for the announcement of the Gimme Your Weird Adventures Contest winners later this week.

The Wild Frontier

Previously, we went back in time to take a look at the City roughly a hundred years prior to the default date of Weird Adventures.  Now, let's look back a bit further in time...

Over a century and a half ago, the City is barely worthy of the name. It's home to less than 20,000 people and occupies only the southern part of marshy Empire Island; The more northern parts of the island are a mix of small villages and a few lingering Native settlements. Beyond the band of colonies clustered along the Meropic coast, the Strange New World is wilderness.

The Smaragdines are a wild barrier to westward travel, populated mostly by Natives and monsters like the "rustic giants." Just plowing a field can turn up mysterious artifacts from the time of the Ancients. Wandering monsters can be encountered by travelers riding the lonely dirt trail through the countryside that will one day be Broad Boulevard passing through the bright lights of the Circus District.

Foes: tyrannical and corrupt colonial officals, monsters and wild animals, hostile Natives, Black folk conjure-men.

Media Inspirations: Film/TV: Brotherhood of the Wolf, Drums Across the Mohawk, Last of the Mohicans, Davy Crockett; Books: Those Who Went Remain There Still, "Wolves Beyond the Border" and "Beyond the Black River" by Robert E. Howard; the Leatherstocking Tales, the Alvin Maker novels; Comic Books: Tomahawk (either series).

Miscellaneous Inspirations: the Hellfire Club, Mystery Hill (America's Stonehenge), anything on forgotten civilizations or secret history of North America.

See also my post on "The Weird Frontier" back in 2010 and check out Wampus Country for a more whimsical take on the era.

Beowulf Will Blow Your Mind

“In a distant past shrouded in the mists of time;
When man lived savagely in the the shadow of all-mighty Wyrd, the God of Fate, and in terror of Satan, Dragon-Lord of the Underworld.”

Thus begins DC Comics’ Beowulf: Dragon-Slayer.  Not content with merely adapting the story of the Anglo-Saxon hero to a comic context, scribe Michael Uslan and artist Ricardo Villamonte drive the seventies comic book Sword & Sorcery muscle car straight over a cliff into Gonzo Gulch.

Everybody remembers the basic story from English class, right?  Prince of the Geats, Beowulf, does a solid for Hrothgar, King of the Danes, whose got a problem with a monster named Grendel.  In this version, Grendel is being explicitly egged on by his dead-beat dad, Satan.  Beowulf, for symmetry, is a tool in the hands of the Wyrd (who sometimes seems to be a stand-in for Yahweh, but other times more ambiguous in goodness).

Anyway, Beowulf also has a companion/love interest in the form of Swedish amazon Nan-Zee. He’s on his way to Daneland; She’s a siren-esque “slave-maid of Satan.” Once they do their “meet cute” it’s off to battle Grendel...only first they’ve got to contend with swamp-dwelling reptile men, dwarfish trolls, and a door to the underworld.  There Beowulf kills Satan’s three-headed sabertooth tiger watchdog and then busts right to Satan’s throne room.
 

That’s just the second issue.

What follows is a quest to gain magical “zumak fruit” to best Grendel.  Along the way, they’ll encounter pygmies, druids working for Sumerian space gods in flying saucers, Dracula menacing a lost tribe of Israel, and finally the Minotaur.

A pivotal point of the drama arrives with this scene:

That’s right: Grendel stabs Satan with a stalactite and seizes the throne of Hell because he’s mad his infernal majesty chose Dracula (literally Satan’s son) as heir instead of Grendel.

Tragically, the whole high-concept saga that would have made history and literature professors loose sanity points like a character in Call of Cthulhu (if they'd read it) only lasted six issues. Why, oh why, hasn’t DC collected this?