The Savage Sword of El Cid

Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the man called El Cid, famous war leader of Medieval Spain, got the comic book treatment from in Eerie Magazine in the mid-1970s--and now a collection from Dark Horse. Though not as gonzo as the history-be-damned romp that was DC's Beowulf (where, I will remind you, Grendel battled Dracula to see who would replace Satan), it kicks history and even legend to the curb to present El Cid as Prince Valiant by way of Conan and the Medieval world as something more akin to the Hyborian Age.

While this approach is not unique in comics (Arak: Son of Thunder did a similar thing--though Thomas borrowed more from myth and legend), The approach of writer Budd Lewis and artist Gonzalo Mayo is different. Lewis tends to write it caption-heavy like a latter day Prince Valiant, albeit with more sword & sorcery paperback prose. Mayo is one of a number of Spanish artists in the Warren Magazines that look somewhat similar (and this is by no means a criticism), so if you recall Esteban Maroto's illustrations in the Ace Conan volumes, then you have the basic idea of how the world of El Cid looks. He does "homage" some poses at at times: Frazetta's ghoul queen at one point, and Racquel Welch on the this page below:

It's pretty standard 70s Sword & Sorcery stuff, but if you like that--and I know a know a number of my readers do--you should check this collection out.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Secret of the Nitron Rays

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Secret of the Nitron Rays (1981) (part 2)
(Dutch: Het Geheim van de Nitronstralen)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Dick Matena

After the defeat of the Azurian fleet, the remaining Azurian colonists settle down to live together peacefully with humans. Human and Azurian children are educated together in some places. In one of these, Bitak, the girl found in the nitron caves, is at the center of some strange events. She's got telekinetic powers, apparently.

After he tells Storm, Modegai also reveals that she has a blood group rare among Azurians.He plans to visit the colony where she lives, but he is suddenly struck by a mysterious malady. Benjamin, Mordegai's assistant, is handily also a doctor. He blames it all on stress.

Storm and Ember head off the visit the colony for Mordegai, leaving the old man in Benjamin's hand, who makes some cryptic comments as they fly off.

Storm and Ember observe for themselves Bitak's powers. They plan to take her back with them so her abilities can to studied further. On the way back over the frozen sea, Bitak gets bored and decides she wants to see the moon again. Storm tells her that's impossible; the ship isn't made for that. Bitak doesn't take no for an answer:

Accelerating out the atmosphere, the three lose consciousness. Unguided, the ship is headed toward some asteroids at the Lagrange point. Luckily, they are spotted by an Azurian pirate ship hiding there. When the Storm and the others are brought aboard, Storm is recognized. The Azurians blame him for their current situation. One once to ransom him, but another decides to kill him--only to be stopped by Bitak's power:

The pirates decide Bitak is the real treasure. They put Storm and Ember back on the ship and send it toward Earth. When they try to contact Mordegai, they get Benjamin, He tells them Mordegai's condition has worsened--then tells his suboordinate an Azurian recon craft is approaching and it must be destroyed.

The fighters shoot down Storm and Ember's craft. They survive the crash, but have to walk a ways to civilization. There they are told that Benjamin had declared both of them dead, murdered by Azurian separatists, and was using that story to incite violence against Azurians.

Storm and Ember sneak into the strife-torn city by night.. They confront Benjamin who is in the act of administering poison to Mordegai. Once Balder finds the truth he's about the kill the traitor, but Benjamin bargains for his life and freedom in exchange for an antidote for Mordegai. Storm makes the deal.

Unfortunately, it's a trick. Benjamin escapes while Mordegai dies in agony after Storm administers the "antidote"--actually a fatal dose of poison.

Meanwhile,. Benjamin's craft has reached the Lagrange point. Suddenly, something pulls him off course...

TO BE CONTINUED

Jailbreak in the Etheric Zone

In the continuation of our 5e Land of Azurth campaign, the PCs arrived at the Carnelian Hypercube, a prison for those who have committed "crimes most cosmic" disguised as bounty hunters. They were there to rescue one of the two (known) surviving Super-Wizards at the behest of the other one, Zuren-Ar. He assures them they will able to get past security whereas someone of his vast powers would not be able to.

From the PCs perspective, the hypercube looks like a regular old cube--albeit a gigantic one made of red, semi-precious stone. Every face is patrolled by giant creatures that look like spheres, sectioned like an orange, but with eyes and mouths on the faces of each section that rotate, and ten tentacles in between. These were the Decaton guardians.There eyes shot scanning beams, but the documents the PCs stole and the story they gave got them by. Zuren-Ar had halted his approach at a safe distance so as not to meet these guys.

A pyramidal creature and its one-eyed spheroid flunkies took the prisoners from them. (Including the Lagomorfan the PCs had said they would set free!) When the guards were distracted, the PCs took an a doorway to Cell Block 7. The internal geometry of the hypercube was confusing as up and down shifted between so areas, but luck for the players, they didn't need to go far.

Zuren-Ar had given them a device to locate his beloved Xura, and it led them to her cell. They had to fast-talk some guards, but they remembered Zuren-Ar's admonition to speak with authority to them and keep things simple. Confused guards tended to stop and consult others in their beeping and blipping language, usually giving our heroes time to slip away. So they found her:

by ㅇㅇ JOO

Xura Kru-Ul. She's every bit as imperious as her lover and a bit more unpleasant. Still, a job's a job, so the PCs freed her., despite the warning of the mantid humanoid in the cage next door who claimed she was worse than he was. Of course, he did admit to wiping off all the mammals on his planet. Once Xura was sprung, the guards came running, but outside of her cell, her magic worked and she was able to mass teleport them too...

Well, right in the middle of the guard pyramid, thanks to the disorienting effects of the hypercube. They faced one of the supervisors:

And it called for backup. Our heroes were in battle with at least fifteen guards of various sorts. With the luck of the dice on their side, they were able to cut through them before more reinforcements arrived, though their bard go paralyzed briefly. The group broke away with more of the guards on their heels and managed to make it out through the exit (in a way, the location of the guard pyramid proved to be a lucky break). They caught a glimpse of what might be the warden, a giant being inside a panopticon sphere:

On the outside, the decaton was moving in slooowly. It did scan them with a blast that seemed to shiver the souls of at least a few but had no visible effect.

Zuren-Ar was reunited with Xura Kru-Ul. He teleported the party back to close to the portal to Azurth in gratitude, but announced just before he did, they he and Xura were going off the found an empire.

Mall Security 2020

Let's go back to the 80s when the Soviet Union was still a thing, indoor malls were at their height, and the dystopian near future wasn't usually full of zombies.  from that early 80s mindset, imagine the world of somewhere around 2020...

The environment isn't so good. In fact, there was probably a brief nuclear exchange some time in the past decades. And an economic crisis or two. Things aren't all that bad, though. Rampant consumerism still abounds, and this guy (or his clone) is still President:

Megacorporations helped America (the world actually) out of those crisis with a leveraged buyout--a sponsorship. The Soviet Union was bought out, too, only over there in USSR^tm, they offer consumers a planned community with a "Golden Age of Communism" theme. In the good ol' USA, some rednecks, religious cults, and survivalist nuts stick to the environmentally-damaged rural areas (think Mad Max meets Winter's Bone), and some wealthy folks can afford walled enclaves meant to replicate idyllic suburban life of the 20th Century with protection by real police, but most people huddle around the decaying industrial city cores in neon-lit arcologies that combine shopping and living in one. Malls.

These Malls need protecting and that's where the PCs come in as deputized corporate security officers safe guarding the 21st Century American Dream!^tm from all sorts of threats to peace and prosperity: trigger-happy poli-clubs, youth gangs, subversives, and consumer products run amuck. Think Shadowrun with less punk and less cyber. And presented as a Nagel painting.

So this is American Flagg! or Judge Dredd (with more of an MTV aesthetic), influenced by any number of 70s and 80s dystopian films like Rollerball or Robocop, mostly played with the black humor of the latter. Literary sources like Shockwave Rider and Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner or some later Cyberpunk works will also be informative.

Aboard Aureate Majestrix on the Occasion of the Panarch's Anniversary

The airship Aureate Majestrix is a wonder, even by the standards of airships. It was carved by ancient hands from a single, massive stone of an unknown variety. Fitted with mirrors which serve as sails, it is pushed to its destination by concentrated magical energy beamed at it. Long ago, it was claimed by the Panarch, and now it is operated mainly to transport those of means from Imbis to the Panarch's capital. Today, it carries various dignitaries, courtiers, and seekers of influence to the celebration for the anniversary of the Panarch:

by Jason Sholtis

A hohmmkudhuk stone-shaper whose name is actually Mmungmatukt but he is not offended when called "Mung Matuk." His clan wishes to send a new Princess to establish a descendant warren in wilderness controlled by Omunth-Ech and wishes the Panarch to support their settlement. Mung Matuk bears a tableau vivant in stone that enacts a fanciful version of the Panarch's victory over the Great M'gog and the Gog Horde as a gift.

Yreul Dahut, Galardinet Officer of the Daor Obdurate armed with customary punishment rods. Her presence suggests there is a defector from her city-state's tyranny among the celebrants, and one formerly highly placed, as the Obdurs are notoriously frugal with state funds and disdain public spectacle.

Pwi dwek Abth, hwaop senior scholar sent by the Library to record the events in that pedantic and overly detailed way hwaop are famous for. He wears heavy perfume to mask his odor in deference to the "simplistic and unrefined" olfactory preferences of humans, but it is not quite sufficient to the most sensitive noses.

Zira Si, ostensibly a demimondaine in the entourage of --well, one noble or another, depending on who you ask. She is actually a powerful Green sorceress and prized agent of secretive Yzordadreth, Mountain of Wizards. When her mission is done, her confederates will swoop in under cover of darkness and spirit her away on a swift-winged and silent thrykee, and no one will remember she was ever there.

(more from this world.)

Treasures from the Sectaurs

These are model sheets for the Sectaurs cartoon. The items depicted here should had a little post-apocalyptic strangeness to any treasure haul:

Find more here.

Wednesday Comics: The Secret of the Nitron Rays

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Secret of the Nitron Rays (1981)
(Dutch: Het Geheim van de Nitronstralen)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Dick Matena

The Azurian Armada makes its way toward Earth, but they find the human forces ready to meet them. After a pitch battle, the Armada is defeated and many Azurian troops are captured on the battlefield of the Moon.

One of the prisoners delivers a message to Solon: It says that his parents have been taken captive if he doesn't sabotage the Earth fleet and deliver Storm to the Azurian command. Solon feels he has no choice but to do what they want.

Solon sets a bomb that destroys the fleet based on the Moon. Only one fighter remains which Storm plans to take to the Earth for reinforcements--and Solon goes with him. They have only just left when an Azurian fighter contingent strikes the room.

Balder and his men are helpless before the onslaught. They are forced to take refugee in the old Azurian nitron mines; Nitron being a precious mineral that unfortunately admits a lethal radiation that causes "nitron fever." The Earth men will rely on their spacesuits to protect them from the radiation.

In the mines, they encounter an old Azurian that quickly dies from nitron radiation and the bodies of others who have succumbed, but also:

Meanwhile, Storm has returned with the remaining fleet to find their moon base destroyed. Before Storm can land, Solon pulls a gun and forces him to set course for the Azurian base. The Earth reinforcements enter the nitron mines and aid their trapped friends in defeating the Azurian troops. In the aftermath, they decide to send the young girl they found to Earth to try and discover how she was able to survive and then put her in a foster home.

On the way to the Azurian base, Solon forces Storm from the ship, then pilots it directly into the Azurian domed command center. Somehow, Storm jetpacks back to the moon where he finds the letter and realizes why Storm did what he did. His sacrifice was not in vain. After such a blow, the Earth forces are able to rout the remaining Azurians and drive them from the inner system. The fight for Earth is ended. It is free for the first time in centuries, and Storm is hailed as a hero.

TO BE CONTINUED

A Couple of Lexicons I Forgot

When I posted about the Jack Vance Lexicon last week, Baron Opal lamented there wasn't one for Gene Wolfe--which reminded me that there was. Or more precisely, there are a couple. I figure the one most of interest to people would be the Lexicon Urthus by Michael Andre-Driussi. (The same guy responsible for GURPS New Sun, by the way.

Not exactly a lexicon, but the Burroughs Cyclopedia (which Amazon knows as the Burroughs Encyclopedia despite the name being pretty clear in the cover image) covers a whole bunch of new terminology coined by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Tarzan, Mars, Venus, Pellucidar, etc. stories.

Four Nonhumans, Briefly Described

They are all inhabitants of the same distant world.

Art by Jason Sholtis

Ylthlaxu: There are few of them left, and for that, a great many are grateful. When they emerge from the shadows, tall and skeletally thin, too often it is to feed--and then they open the lower portion of their face that is not a face. Their tendrils snake out and devour the brains of humanoids. It is very unpleasant to see. They once commanded a vast star empire by mental domination, and they are accustom to being obeyed. They reproduce by turning other beings into more Ylthlaxu by introducing a mutagen into the bloodstream and nervous system of their victims.

Skarzg: Sometimes they run on four legs, sometimes on two. They are gaunt things, like greyhounds the size of men, if greyhounds had rubbery, scabrous hides, and beaked faces full of nightmare teeth. They are very hard to kill, and they will eat anything. They live like animals, but they have speech and are cunning and cruel.

Trell: Blueskinned, four-eyed giants from another world, the Trell came in great flying cities where the parties and symposia went on perpetually. They are now somewhat fallen and more decadent--sometimes more savage--than before. They can be hedonists or ascetics, but their personal desires tend to outweigh the desires of lesser creatures. Every non-Trell is certainly a lesser creature. In times past, they were often trendsetters and propagators of cult religions and faddish notions. Now, their dwindling race mostly keeps to their crumbling sky cities and celebrates the past.

by Ken Kelly

Ieldra: One of the native species of this world, they are now only a remnant of what they once when when their sacred groves dotted the forests and their queens fought Nest Wars for glory and territory. They remind humans of insects in many ways: antennae, large eyes, and peculiar movements.  Ieldra may be immortal, and their life stages are marked by instars named for the seasons. Summer wildings, their honey-colored adolescents, are savage things left to hunt and laugh and sometimes kill in what sacred groves and hidden grottoes are left to them. They seldom work stone or metal, but instead shape living things.

In the Vicinity of the Unthran Wood

The tents of the traveling Carnival Mirabilis are set up on the outskirts of Worroth town. Its owner, Slytus Ompt (known to authorities in various jurisdictions as Feldsphur Zwand and Archim Greff) purveys the usual shabby wonders: ailing chimerical beasts in cramped cages and faded eidolons from damaged ieldra crystals—but he also boasts a free plasmoid duelist who will engage in a nonlethal prizefight with any takers. The plasmoid (its name is a gurgling something like Gwoothl Ploorl) is a thane of a subterranean freehold captured by Ompt and drugged with injections of thrall slime so that it is too weak-willed to escape, though it yearns to be free. It will promise to reveal the location of underground treasures undercovered by its coalescence for aid in making its escape.

by Wayne Barlowe

A roadside shrine draws more pilgrims than might be expected due to its living statue of the Trell mystic, Agakamunath who is said to have physical ascended to a higher plane from that very spot. The full-size statue depicts the giant at the time of Schizopurgation, wherein he split from the primal chaos burdening his soul. Nonbelievers are more fascinated by the artifice of the  Hohmmkhudhuk craftsmen--and the persistent legend that the motions of the statue's limbs in the performance of the mystery provide a clue as to the location of the sky castle Agakamunath also renounced and its treasures.

Half-ruined Maggot Tower, deep in the forest, is avoided by most folk, and not merely because its rugose and twisted spire appears unpleasantly like its namesake. The tower is a relic of the power of a rogue Ieldri queen with an abiding hatred of humans. The tortures she inflicted on captives and the sacrifices to dark gods are said to have left her tower haunted. Some seekers after the magical secrets of the Ieldra and willing to risk phantom horrors for power.

These locales are in the same world as these two posts.

Wednesday Comics: Trigan Empire

Before jumping back into the next volume of Storm, I thought it was worth mentioning another long-running comic Don Lawrence was the artist on: Trigan Empire (or originally: The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire). The strip ran in British children's educational magazines Ranger and then Look and Learn from 1965 to 1982.

It tells the story of long ago events on the planet Elekton, focusing chiefly on the foundation and travails of the Trigan Empire who are essentially Flash Gordon Romans.

I haven't read it, but Don Lawrence's art always looks cool, as does this map:

The Many Words of Jack Vance

The first edition of the Jack Vance Lexicon came out in the early 90s and goes for a high price today, if you can find one. Luckily, Spatterlight Press has come out with an updated edition by Dan Temianka, now available in hardcopy  and ebook. This covers all of Vance's neologism and generic names, and where possible, suggests possible etymologies. You'll find things like:

archveult: A species of tall, powerful magician with blue-scaled skin and a plumed headress.

or

cackshaw: A species of loud bird.

This makes a good companion to Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon by Dan Clore, which I've mentioned before. It covers both Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith and deals with obscure, real words, as well as neologisms.

Strange Stars OSR Excerpt and Update

After a delay for important non-rpg stuff, I've really been putting the nose to the grindstone on Strange Stars OSR. The guys at Hydra made some good suggestions on additional content and clarification on the manuscript and I have responded to those and will have it back in their hands this week for another round of proofing. Then it will be on to layout.

Anyway, here's and excerpt (except for the photo) from the NPCs and Adversaries chapter:

ERATOAN ASSASSIN/BODYGUARD

No. Appearing: 1-3
AC: 3
HD: 2
Saving Throw: 14+
Attack Bonus: +3
Damage: 1d6+2 retractable cyberclaws or concealed monoblade 1d8+1
Skill Bonus: +1
Movement: 40’
Morale: 10
The bioroids of the pleasure world of Erato have a myriad of modifications to primary and secondary sexual characteristics, sexual performance, and biochemistry. Always seeking to expand their market share, the Eratoans have began to generate members of their clade with new purposes. Bioroids with idiopathic poison biochemistry or weaponized genitalia command a high price on the black market as assassins. The above stats represent a somewhat less exotic assassin or covert bodyguard type.

More Descriptions for Hypothetical Hexes

by George Barr

4. On a frozen pass on trail to Hleng, the wind carries the hypnotic, banshee song of the Fell Waeroo, that chills the blood and draws prey into its clutches.

5. A permanent fae mist overhangs a small forest in the vicinity of the village Trinell. It hides the remnant of an ieldrawood. A small pack of wildling ieldri make their homes there, harrying and possibly stalking and killing any non-ieldra who enter. By way of a taunt, they will allow themselves to be seen before they strike, their cherubic faces gleaming with feral cruelty amid the uncanny foliage.

6. A small carvanserai displays an unusual relic: the skull of an usually large skarzg. The innkeep, Gan Thrut, says that tracks (like four clawed human hands) show that a family of smaller but still deadly skarzg still haunt the area. The local Prefect is paying a bounty on any further skulls delivered.

Wednesday Comics: Master of Kung Fu

Last week, I picked on the first Master of Kung Fu Omnibus from Marvel. It was pricey, but it's some classic Bronze Age stuff, and given the rights issues involved, it is even less likely to see print again.

The series Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu was conceived out of necessity in 1972. The necessity being that Marvel was unable to obtain the rights to Kung Fu, the popular TV series. Marvel looked back to that pinnacle of Yellow Peril baddies, Fu Manchu, and crafted new character (a previously unknown son, Shang-Chi) and tied him into Sax Rohmer's stories.

The series is most written by Steve Englehart and has art by the like of Jim Starlin and Paul Gulacy. Stuff like this:

And this:

Stuff like that. Costly the collection may be, but you can't argue with the quality.

Three Descriptions in Need of Hexes

by Konstantin Komardin

1. An Amazon, Kai An Zura, is encamped beneath the boughs of an ancient tree grown from a seed brought from another world. She waits for something. A band of Gogs is desperate to remove her from  her camp, but so far they have had no success.

by juuhana

2. The tents of an itinerant mystery show are pitched in a clearing. Strange, half-working machines of the Ancients bring otherworldly sensory experiences or troubling, waking dreams. In one tent, a bored young medium smokes up wayward spirits with the polychromic fumes from a long-stemmed heka-pipe. Her turban hides a silvery tattoo of a third eye on her forehead. She will not speak of it nor of Hidden Ulumé, her home.

by P. Craig Russell

3. A small hilltop with frozen tableau: a courier in somewhat antiquated livery seems to pause from his journey to have a meal. What has held courier, mount, fire, and cookpot suspended in time for many years is unclear, but anyone who comes close enough to touch any of the above will fall prey to the same stasis.

Chances Are Walter Velez Has Illustrated Your Game

Sure, it's the Frazettas and Fabians, or Blanches and Buscemas--or even Elmores and Caldwells whose art fueled most of our gaming imaginations, but at least for my game, the works of George Velez hit a bit closer to what the reality is at the table.

Exhibit A. See that? That's a pudgy wizard running from a dragon that looks like it doesn't have a whole lot of hit points.

This is all the PCs trying to parley with the leader of the NPCs at once.

The fight didn't go exactly how you planned? Quelle suprise.

Hassled by annoying little people? It's been known to happen.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Battle for Earth

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Battle for Earth (1980) (part 5)
(Dutch: De Strijd om de Aarde)
Art by Don Lawrence & Script by Dick Matena

The Azurian ship arrives to take Storm to Mars for negotiations and exchange him for Ember. As soon as Storm is aboard the spaceship, "Ember" is revealed to be merely a projection.

Soon, the real Ember and Storm are brought before the Grand Council. They are offered the choice of having their minds erased--or death. They choose death rather than live as puppets under the alien yoke.

Meanwhile, Solon and Balder have traveled to Mars. They free the convicts working on the canal and incite them to revolt. In the chaos, the former Supervisor runs off with a plan to restore his position.

He is brought before the Grand Council and informs them of the army that's coming. He asks only for the right to kill Storm and Ember who brought about is discommendation. The Council grants his request:

The execution is broadcast to the rebels to get them to stop fighting. Storm and Ember appear to be blasted to nothingness. The Grand Council is confused by the lack of bodies. The Supervisor reveals his deception. Those two are useful to him and the Grand Council who humiliated him is not:

The Supervisor plans to complete his coup on another Azurian colony. He takes a spacecraft and forces Storm and Ember to go with him. Storm secretly programs a random coordinates in the dimension control, however, and they are dropped into the middle of a storm. The Supervisor, convinced the larger craft is doomed, abandons ship in a small vessel.

Storm manages to safe the ship and pilot it back to Mars. There they reunite with their friends and make plans for peaceful co-existence with the Azurian former convicts. Many other Azurian former colonists accept the treaty as well, but on the Moon, a new Grand Council of hardliners forms. An armada of ships sets out for Earth to purge the disloyal Azurians and kill Storm!

Into the Ether

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night with the party finally getting a demonstration from Princess Viola of the projector they found several sessions ago. The projector is an etheric viewer and if left on long enough, it can open a portal into the etheric realm. Within the glowing circle of light cast by projector the party sees the guy above trying desperately to get their attention!

When they can finally talk with him, he says he is a Super-Wizard named Zuren-Ar. He claims to have rebelled against his people for their crimes--the crimes that led to their destruction--and was made a political prisoner in the Etheric Zone for his trouble. His partner was also a dissident, and she is imprisoned somewhere "even worse." That worse place is the Carnelian Hypercube, a prison in the deep either where those who offend the gods (perpetrators of "Crimes Most Cosmic") are locked up.

Zuren-Ar would be detected due to his immense super-wizardry, but he reasons the weaker PCs could slip into the prison. And he has a plan to do it.

The players were not immediately trusting of Zuren-Ar, but no one from the Princess to the Abbot of the local shrine of the Handmaiden of Knowledge had a lot of information on the Super-Wizards or the Hypercube to refute his story. Eventually, their desire for adventure and their hope for treasure carried the day. They got the Princess to blast their weapons and armor with radiation to make them ethereal-ready, and off they went.

Zuren-Ar's plan was this: He knew of a bounty hunter transport of prisoners headed for the Hybercube. The party could take them out and use the bounty hunters' credentials to get past the ten-eyed giant security guardians on the outer surface of the Hypercube.

The bounty hunters and their caged captives were on the back of a giant eel-thing. The hunters were a motley bunch of "astral mutants." The leader, Maloclus:

And his compatriots, the warrior-monk Maarta and the very excitable, necro-blast wielding Drednar:

The hunters were tough, but six on three (Zuren-Ar sat back to gauge his allies' ability) wasn't a fair fight. Their strange weapons, alas, were not particularly lootable as Maarta's sputtering energy blades required psychic training and discipline, Drednar's wailing-ghost necrogun was powered by his personal connection to the Negative Energy Realm, and Maloclus's plate armor was cursed (according to Zuren-Ar).

The party talked with the other prisoners. Only two of the three were left as a negative energy being had escape during the melee. One was a rabbit-man named Jaka Oloap from the world of Lagomorfa who claimed his crime was offending the Bright Lady (Rabbit Folk goddess of the Moon) by flying a craft to the moon and crashing the rabbit godlings' lunar revelry. The other was an elderly sadsack who said his crime was instituting "excessive bureaucracy" when he was administrator of his world. Neither of them were going to rat the PCs out to the prison guards.

The lizard man piloting the eel just wanted to get home to his latest five hundred hatchlings, so he piloted on. To the Hypercube they went...