The Holy Mountain and the Silver City

The Heavenly Mountain, rises majestically and alone from a tranquil sea, which itself is separated from the astral only by a thick, silvery mist. The deva of the Mountain, and possibly the Mountain itself, like others of the Wheel, are dedicated to the great work restoring oneness to the divided multiverse. The Mountain is the Path by which Unity may achieved by the abnegation of ego, one soul at a time.

The path isn't easy. Few are those that start upon it, and fewer still those that reach it. Only rumors return regarding the final trial: the pilgrim must gain admittance from the four Heavenly Archons, and then cross a bridge as narrow as the edge of a blade, beneath which yawns a chasm that extends to The Abyss. What lies beyond is even more uncertain and variegated in the telling.

The beginnings of the path in the first of the Seven Cities of Heaven is more certain. Many visits have crossed the Astral into the pearl-bright sea that laps against the white sand beach and the marble quays. Beyond, the Silver City climbs onto the foot of the mountain beneath a night that seems more like a velvet drapery decorated with bright jewels than the cold void.

The Silver City is a very hospitable place. Its pedestrian thoroughfares and atria are garlanded with paper lanterns and strings of glowing orbs with firefly light, are full of soirées. It's central garden is decorated with alabaster sculptures of heavenly bodies and magical symbols, inlaid with moonstone. It is here the ruler of the city, a silver sphinx, holds court. The wine shops and cafes are open all night, indeed there is never anything but night in the Silver City. Many a visitor intends to leave in the morning, to continue their ascent at first light of dawn. Few ever do. This is the Trial of the Silver City: it tests Resolve.

Only the stalwart few take the path out of the Silver City and continue their trek up the Mountain.

Wednesday Comics: DC, March 1981 (wk 2 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around December 23, 1980. 

Legion of Super-Heroes #273: Conway improves on his performance from last issue with a callback to a plotline started by Levtiz and Starlin in issue 239 where it appears Brainiac 5 murdered Ultra Boy's ex-girlfriend and framed Ultra Boy for it. It was all put down to "temporary insanity," and he got better, but the Federation's new President (Colossal Boy's mom) is having none of that. Brainy is out, or the Legion is done! The Legionnaires do a thorough investigation and discover it was Pulsar Stargrave that did the deed and drove Brainy insane. The issue ends with a showdown between Brainiac 5 and Stargrave that is pretty well done.

Mystery in Space #117: This is better than last issue. DeMatteis and Infantino open it with a sort of trippy space opera yarn of a space general willing to stop at nothing to resurrect the gentle, poet lover of her youth, only to find he doesn't recognize the woman she has become. Watson and Netwon paint a quick portrait of a dedicated DJ, still broadcasting in the post-apocalypse for an audience of one--himself. This one is interesting mainly for the real world songs it references, showing perhaps what the writer was listening to at the time. Bruce Jones with Veitch and Yeates have a ne'er-do-well murder an alien and steal his ship, but he discovers that sometimes dreams are the stuff spaceships are made of. 

The final story gets the cover. Barr and Tuska tell the somewhat obvious if kind of gruesome tale of a cold, misanthropic, robot pilot learning humanity after he's partially grafted to part of a gravely injured family man to keep both of them alive.

New Adventures of Superboy #15: The name story by Bates and Schaffenberger involves a wealthy, childless couple coming to Smallville to try to convince Superboy to be their son. It's the sort of forgettable Silver Age pastiches this title sometimes lapses into. The backup is mildly interesting in that it posits a meeting between a time traveling Superboy and a young Clark Kent of the 1930s. This story both re-establishing that this title takes place in the 1960s. It's unclear if this is a visit to Earth-2 or some other timeline yet, but there is suppose to be a part two.

Sgt. Rock #350: The main Sgt. Rock story by Kanigher and Redondo is a Christmas-themed tale of a new recruit in Easy so eager to get home by Christmas that he deserts. Rock, not wanting the kid to face a firing squad, tracks him down to a farm house where he's sharing Christmas with an Italian family. Rock brings him back and the kid learns they have to fight the war until they're done. The next story with art by DeMulder romanticizes the Confederacy, so moving on we find a story with no artist credited that relates the life and death of the Cheyenne chief, Roman Nose. Last up is another "Men of Easy" feature with art by Duursema that gives Bulldozer's perspective on Rock.

Super Friends #42: Bridwell and Tanghal present the story of a villain with a dangerous green thumb terrorizing Gotham. The Super-Friends get some help from Green Fury, the Brazilian superheroine who can shoot green flame out her nose and will eventually join the JLA as Fire. The Wonder Twins backup by the same creative team is Christmas themed. It has Jayna taking the form of a Krytonian deer, which of course can fly under a yellow sun to help Santa.

Unexpected #208: The stories in this issue are all weird, and not in the "Weird Tales" sort of way. The Barr/Sparling Jonny Peril story has him still tracking those mysterious star amulets. He's in the midwest at an almost deserted factory town, where he's set up by zombies or something and saved by a local woman. She explains that few of the townsfolk are left and no one knows what the factory does, but doesn't comment on the zombie guys. She takes Peril to the factory and is promptly captured by the zombies who serve the mysterious guy in the cloak (who somehow is able to watch Jonny on camera all the time and always has his hand in front of his face so we don't see his identity). Jonny chooses to make a move to save himself from being capture rather than to save the girl. He manages to set off some explosions and escape. He passes the woman who appears to be melting but either is revealed as one of the zombies or turning into one. She was part of the Master's plan to capture Jonny and she says he saw through her ruse, but there is no real indication that he did. It reads like he was just unconcerned for her safety. Anyway, now Peril is on the run in the woods.

The next story by Elliott Maggin and Murphy Anderson has a city in grip of weird, motiveless crimes by previously respectable citizens and the stressed police commissioner who goes into the place of business of an occultist that looks more like Aunt Bea than anything else, and getting so freaked out he leaves without his soul. Which is apparently what happened to the other former upstanding citizens. The story really doesn't make it clear whether this is by the woman's design or all just bumbling accident. The last story by Wessler and Sesarego opens with a guy carrying a woman away from rampaging giant beetles--a rampage each blames on the other. In the flashback, we see a UFO land, then the guy talking to beetles. When they complain about people stepping on them, he makes them giant so they can defend themselves. The woman, meanwhile, has the guy thrown off her land. She even has the area sprayed with special gas. The guy leads the beetles in attack, but saves the woman when they demolish her house. It's revealed in the end that their an alien couple who's just been having a spat.

Unknown Soldier #249: The story picks up from last issue with the Nazi agent Helga gloating about killing the Unknown Soldier and about to kill the man she believes to be his father. The old guy fights back, and defeats her. As she lays dying, he reveals he's the Unknown Soldier in disguise and gives his true origin--which really, isn't that different from the planted story she found out, other than it starts before the U.S. official entered the war and involves possible supernatural intervention. It's not clear why Haney thought that was better than what he gave last issue or why he didn't make it more different. 

The backup is a story of Mlle. Marie, mini-skirted, bereted, brunette Red Sonja of the Maquis (spelled Maqui throughout this story) by Kanigher and Ayers. Marie is caught in an explosion and has a face bandaged exactly like the Unknown Soldier during most of this issue, only in a sexist turn, she doesn't take potentially being disfigured near as well nor do the people around her (to be fair, she does take it better than most people would in real life). In the end, though her face heals completely with not even any scar. Whew!

Warlord #43:  Read more about it here.  The backup is more OMAC. He defeats the Vanguisher and confronts the Verner Brothers who look like clones of balding fat guys in early 19th Century coats and cravats. 

Star Trek Endeavour: Uzaveh the Infinite

Back from a hiatus for a couple more episodes, a campaign in Star Trek Adventures... 

Episode 6: "Uzaveh the Infinite"

Player Characters: 
The Crew of the USS Endeavour, NCC-1895, Constitution Class Starship (refit):
Andrea as Lt. Ona Greer, Engineer 
Bob as Capt. Robert Locke
Gina as Cmdr. Isabella Hale, Helm Chief
Jim as Lt. Ross Gordon, Science Officer

Tug as Dr. Azala Vex, Trill Chief Medical Officer

Supporting Cast:

Julie Cobb as Lt. Perez, Security Officer

Michael Zaslow as Lt. Nesmith, Geologist

Synopsis: Endeavour is surveying the 13th moon o Parjali II as a potential cite for an outpost when they discover a humanoid life sign that shouldn't be there. Investigating, they find a robed figure who appears to be a Rhaandarite and a small hut. The being declares himsef Uzaveh, once worshipped as a god by the primitive Rhaandarites, whose evolution he takes credit for. He offers to further "improve" the Endeavour's crew. Locke and his senior officers are suspicious. Locke particularly recalls what led to the Eugenics Wars, but Perez and Nesmith take Uzaveh up on his offer, and Perez is given superhuman strength, while Nesmith is freed from the need to take medication for a genetic condition.

But the crew is unable to contact their ship and they believe Uzaveh is responsible. Eventually, they confront him, and he reveals his true purpose: he needs to evolve them to transfer his consciousness to a suitable body, and he is wearing out the Rhaandarite he is in. A battle ensues with the enhanced crew under Uzaveh's control. A phaser blast eventually disrupts his energies, causing his body to rapidly decay. The crew who were controlled were freed, and their biologies gradually return to normal.

Commentary: This was a mission brief from Mission Briefs 1: Growing Pains, by Michael Dismuke. It was set during the Enterprise era, but easy enough to adapt to a later one. In the original, Uzaveh had an Andorian body.

Jim joined this game for the first time playing Lt. Gordon:

Where the Chaos Thing Fell

When the hordes of the Abyss surged toward the very borders of Hell, one of the mightest of that host was only brought down on the plains of Gehenna. Where the great worm fell, it created a gigantic crater, contributing to the broken nature of the plane to this day. It's in this crater that the corpse of the creature remains.

The shadow of its bulk is tangible, like a black, velvet fungus, it moves over time as if chased by a sun that Gehenna does not have. It is not good to touch the shadow, as it will grow on anything until it consumes it. The Ultroloths sacrificed any number of souls and simulacra in their experiments trying to find a way to bend it to their purposes but to no avail.

They found no use for the shadow, but the same can not be said for the carcass. The Yugoloth consider it a goldmine. The crater is held in the highest security; not even their diabolic allies and clients are allowed to visit their mining and rendering facilities. The dissolution of an abyssal monstrosity is not like the decay of some corpse on the Prime Material Plane. Freed of the monster's alien, but dominating sense of self, its flesh slowly sloughs free and becomes all sorts of smaller grotesqueries. The Ultroloth sorcerer-scientists have been ingenious in the applications they have found for these creatures, including using them as a substrate for the generation of new, lesser Yugoloth. The things also found their way into weapons and material for armor. 

The plague caused in Hell by an attempt to use the creatures' ichor as an enhancement for soldiers was, at best, a minor setback.

Wednesday Comics: DC, March 1981 (wk 2 pt 1)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around December 23, 1980.

Action Comics #517: Conway and Swan/Hunt give us a topical Christmas story (in contrast to the Green Lantern story that states its "1981," ignoring when the comic was actually published). Superman has to leave a Planet office party to help an alien get back a quasi-religious artifact given to his race by a messiah type, which has supposedly been stolen by another species. It turns out the first alien's race had actually stolen it back from the others and are now planning to launch a war of retaliation. Superman has to stop a war between these two factions with long religious enmity--and get back to Earth in time to kiss Lois under the mistletoe.

The Aquaman backup by DeMatteis and Heck reveals that the villain behind the bogus Black Manta (and maybe the Poseidon, too) is Ocean-Master. Aquaman fights with him on a rooftop in a pretty atypical move for these aqua-characters, but Ocean-Master escapes.

Adventure Comics #479: Adventure is back, and it's been turned over completely to Dial H for Hero. This is a reboot of a strip from the late '60s. The conceit of this one is that teens Chris and Vicki discover "dials" (resembling rotary phone dials if you kids remember those), which allow them to transform into a new superhero identity every time they dial H-E-R-O. These stories are by Wolfman and Infantino, but the superhero/villain designs are reader submissions and are credited in the stories. None of the stories are at all memorable, and I refuse to look them up as I have a super-sized issue of Detective to discuss below, but I do recall one of the characters this issue (the villain, Silver Fog), was created by Harlan Ellison, age 46, of Sherman Oaks, CA.

Brave & the Bold #172: Conway and Infantino/Mitchell bring Conway's Firestorm over for a visit. Jason Bard, detective from well, Detective Comics, is here too, and his presence reveals either Infantino or Mitchell or both can't draw a fedora that doesn't look like a travesty. Anyway, Stein and Raymond are having blackouts, and Batman does what any concerned teammate would do, he spies on Firestorm. He discovers that the Nuclear Man is under the control of a sentient nuclear reactor, somehow brought to that state by the accident that created Firestorm. It's now out for world conquest or something. Firestorm's power holds the key to its defeat, though, in a battle of fusion versus fission. Firestorm's able to absorb the probably-lethal dose of radiation Batman took, too.

Nemesis is back in the backup by Burkett and Spiegle. I like Spiegle's art, but I find these just don't hold my interest. This lowkey organized crime fighting is sort of bland. Maybe it would be more appealing not sandwiched at the end of a unremarkable superhero yarn, I don't know.

Detective Comics #500: This is an anniversary issues with a number of creators and at least one story that has gone on to be reprinted elsewhere. Brennert's and Giordano's "To Kill A Legend" is that one. The Phantom Stranger offers Batman (and Robin) a chance to go to another Earth and prevent the death of Wayne's parents on that world. They succeed, and the spoiled, young Bruce Wayne of that world is inspired to to change his life not by the loss of his parents but by the Dynamic Duo's heroic example. On this re-read, what's most interesting to me is the dates this story gives. It sets the death of the Waynes "20 years" before the present on Earth-1--all well and good. But the Phantom Stranger says there was another Bruce who's parents died "40 years before." The associated image looks like the Golden Age Batman, but 40 years from from the present would be the time period when Earth-2 Batman was an adult, not a kid.

Wein and Aparo bring us a fun one: "The Too Many Cooks Caper." Slam Bradley is ostensibly the lead, but it's all all-star jam of non-powered, non-costumed DC heroes: Mysto, Captain Compass, Jason Bard (again!), Roy Raymond, TV Detective, Pow-Wow Smith, and Christopher Chance, the Human Target. "Once Upon A Time" is a clever short by Wein and Simonson, where there is no dialogue but only well-placed, cliched literary lines. 

Barr and Garcia-Lopez set The Elongated Man and his wife to Sue to solving "The Final Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe" in their somewhat humorous style. Next up is a Batman prose piece by Walter Gibson, creator of the Shadow, with illustrations by Tom Yeates. Levitz and Adam Kubert present Hawkman and Hawkgirl discovering the truth behind "The Strange Death of Dr. Erdel." This is a bit weaker as a story than the previous ones, but it's a nice component to a anniversary collection like this. Bates, Infantino, and Smith provide an answer to "What Happens When A Batman Dies?" which is Deadman shows up and tries to keep him from going to the Afterlife, and the spirits of his parents tell him to get back down there and keep fighting. All and all, this is a really good issue, perhaps the best all around of the year.

Green Lantern #138: Maybe Wolfman is stretched too thin, because Thomas is brought on as scripter here. I can't say this issue is an improvement over the last two. In fact, returning to the Eclipso story from the future is a bit of a let down, but only a little since all of this feels like treading water. After a couple of skirmishes, Eclipso unleashes his master plan: a satellite launched from Ferris Aircraft that will create an eclipse. He also uses a beam from his diamond to bifurcate Jordan into good an evil. Meanwhile, there's just enough of the kidnapping of Carol to remind you its there without it actually going much of anywhere.

The Adam Strange backup by Sutton and Rodriquez gives Alanna a chance to come to Earth for once. The two visit New York and foil a terrorist plot at the Statue of Liberty.

House of Mystery #289: This issue introduces the "I...Vampire" strip by DeMatteis (listed as creator as well as writer) and Sutton. We are thrown in in media res with the vampire, Andrew Bennett, and his human companions taking on the vampiric minions of the Queen of the Blood Red Moon. Only a bit later do we get Bennett's origins and learn that his former love Elizabeth is that queen. A good start for the series. 

The rest of the issue isn't that great. Dennehy and Chan deliver a ironic tale of a killer getting run over by his own car (I guess? The art is unclear) when he goes back to gloat over a guy he left to die. Kashdan and Rubeny execute an idea by Don Glut, which sees an inventor get revenge on the guy who stole the credit and the money from his hologram projector by somehow putting the villain in a literal hell caught on film. 

Late Era Role-Aids

Photo by Needles

I've been revisiting some late era Role-Aids (90s) products recently, some purchased at my only Gen-Con experience to date, the others a gift from Hydra compadre, Robert Parker. While earlier Role-Aids products are hit or miss, these are quite good, I think. 

One thing that immediately caught my eye was art by some comic book illuminaries: Arch Magic has a cover by Dave McKean, Demons II has one by Glenn Fabry, and a couple of Demons supplements have art by Alex Niño. Beyond that they seem to borrow both from innovations at TSR (the loose leaf monster format) and White Wolf (some of the subject matter and design), and in some minor ways anticipate the aesthetic and subject matter of Planescape.

The Demons related products (Demons and its loose leaf spinoffs, Demons II, and Sentinels and Apocalypse) suggest use in a campaign setting that is more a battleground for the forces of good and evil in a Heaven versus Hell sort of way than the standard D&D setting. The descriptions of it's demons are somewhere between Monster Manual and demonology book, both in terms of their physical appearance and what sort of requirements they have for the making of pacts. All in all, it provides a push more in the roleplaying than combat encounter direction for these beings (not that they are full stated for combat).

Arch Magic gives a whole new class (the Archmage) for sort of ultra-high level magic-users and some new, powerful spells, but the interesting part is the adventuring locales: a city built in the bones of a monstrous skeleton, The Macrodome, where a game controlling the destiny of the universe is played out, and the Red Room of madness (probably inspired by Twin Peaks).

These products feel like the creators had much more free rein than AD&D products of the era. The are no better executed--perhaps at times a little worse--but the imagination involved seems less fettered,

Weird Revisited: Midnight in the House Tenebrous

This post first appeared in 2011...

 

There are places in Nla-Ogupta--that ancient, decadent, Venusian Venice--where Terrans do not go. The Street of Blue Vines was one of those. The buildings along it crowded close, as if trying to conceal some secret. The uncanny glow of bioluminescent lantern-jellies that cling to haphazard lines seem dimmer than elsewhere--as if they too were conspirators. It's said that in millennia past, when Sumer was young, the Street of Blue Vines was a place where cultists trafficked with inhuman gods. Old Venus-hands, deep in their cups, spin tales of cannibalism, and alien sexual rites. That's what the rumors say.  No Terran knows, and if any polite Venusian knows, they don't speak of it to off-worlders.

But on this night, a Terran does wind his way down the serpentine Street of Blue Vines. His stride is unhesitating--he hasn't come this way accidentally. He moves purposely to the darkened, leaning structure which bears no sign or legend, but nevertheless is known to the denizens of Nla-Ogupta's underworld as the House Tenebrous. He has come seeking this house, and the service it sells.  He's come to buy a man's death.

The Street of Blue Vines gets its name from the eerie, electric indigo vines and foliage that entwine 'round its most infamous denizen, the House Tenebrous. The House only permits entrance at night--in fact, it may be that it can only be located at night.

A seated, robed figured, appearing as a short and portly man, his features completely hidden in a cowl, asks any visitor who he or she might wished kill, and why. The figure’s voice sounds distant, and tinny, and seems to emanate from all around. The man never moves, even in the slightest.  Sometimes visitors get the impression that there are others in the room--the feeling of eyes upon them, or the hint of motion in the shadows of the audience chamber. Psychically sensitive individuals report “hearing” distant, unintelligible, whispers, and an unpleasant mental sensation not unlike smothering.

If the man chooses to accept the commission, the price is variable, and not always in money.  If a goal can be discerned from House's representative's payment demands, it is that they seem to be aimed at reducing Terran influence on Venus.

Eventually, though a space of week or months may pass, all victims of the House Tenebrous are found dead somewhere in Nla-Ogupta (or in one case, on a ship having recently departed there) without any apparent signs of violence or physical injury. Victims always appear to have died in their sleep, though often their face and bodies are contorted as if in fear or pain.