Warlord Wednesday: The City in the Sky

Let's 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...

"The City In The Sky"

Warlord (vol. 1) #8 (August-September 1977)

Written and Illustrated by Mike Grell

Synopsis: Morgan, Machiste, and Mariah are loungingin Kiro, admiring Machiste's new mace-head prosthetic, when their attention is called to a flock of pteranodons descending on the city.  The three do battle with the flying reptiles, unil one snatches Mariah in its talons and flies off with her.

For a moment, Morgan thinks he's lost her, but he notices a pteranodon that hasn't taken flight yet.  Morgan jumps on its back, hoping he can ride it to their roost and find Mariah.  While cursing Morgan for a fool, Machiste nonetheless follows.

Their perilous flight takes them over the jungles of Skartaris to a city floating in the sky.  Dismounting before the pteranodon reaches its perch, Morgan and Machiste discover that despite the wondrous nature of the city, its in fact decaying with age.  They set off in search for Mariah, but are themselves discovered by a squad of security robots.  The two warriors make short work of them.  Feeling a greater urgency than ever to find Mariah, they run through the city streets with weapons drawn.

Hearing voices from one buidling, they charge in to find Mariah engaged in relaxed converstation with a bald stranger.  The stranger welcomes them to the city of Skyra and offers them wine.

Morgan remains suspicious despite their host's friendly demeanor and demands answers.  The stranger gives his name as Tragg, and explains that the pteranodons are trained to hunt meat for him to supplement his synthetic food supplies.  They picked up Mariah by mistake.

Skyra was built by the Atlanteans before the Great War as a defense station.  The task of running it was beyond the capacity of the human mind, so Tragg--a cyborg--was created.  The computer interfaces in his brain allow him to control every function of the city with his thoughts--which he demonstrates by having an energy weapon blast a carnosaur in the jungles below.

After that display, Morgan is ready to leave the sky city, but Mariah (ever the archeologist) wants to see Tragg's collection.  Morgan agrees to a quick look around, and he and Machiste step forward into a dark--and strangely cold--room.  Unseen, Tragg grabs Mariah and pulls her away.

The doors shut behind Morgan and Machiste, and they find themselves in a meat-locker full of frozen humans.  The leering voice of Tragg suggests they "stay for dinner."  Morgan realizes that this is what became of the inhabitants of Skyra--the supplies stopped coming and Tragg turned to humans as a source of food. 

Jets of cold liquid began coating the pair, feezing them to human ice-sculptures.  With great effort, Machiste manages to use his mace hand to break free Morgan's right hand--and his gun.  Morgan shoots the freezing device.  That gives Machiste time to smash through the ice and free them.  Before hunting for Mariah, they quickly improvise gliders so they're sure they can make good their escape.

Meanwhile, Tragg offers Mariah the choice to become his bride--or die.  Before he can carry out his threat, he's interrupted by Morgan who has a gun to his head.  Tragg still controls the city, however, and activates jets of flame that trap Morgan and Machiste, and make Morgan drop his pistol.  While Tragg gloats, Mariah dives for Morgan's pistol.  Before the cyborg can react, she's put a bullet through his skull.  

The instant of Tragg's death, Skyra begins to quake.  The three run for the gliders.  They fly away as the sky city crashes into a snowy mountainside.

Things to Notice:

• This is the first appearance of Machiste's mace hand.
• Tragg's hunting pteranodons weren't able to find any easier picking that plucking Mariah from the palace of Kiro?
• Atlantean robots are built from sub-standard materials--Morgan is able to tear 'em apart barehanded.
• The Atlanteans made Tragg with scary-sharp teeth for some reason.

Where It Comes From:
The idea of a floating city is a common one in science fiction and fantasy. It goes back at least to Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) and the flying island of Laputa. Once such floating city Grell no doubt encounterd was Stratos in the 1969 Star Trek episode "The Cloud Minders."

Tragg's appearance recalls (albeit with a different color scheme) the Silver Age appearance of the Superman villian, Brainiac--who was also an artificial being (at least after a 1964 retcon):

Tragg's plot and freezing modus operandi are clearly inspired by Box, a robot in the 1976 film adaption of Logan's Run. Box operates a freezing facility for foodstuffs ("Fish, plankton, sea greens... protein from the sea!"), but when the food stopped coming he began freezing and storing escaping runners instead:

Interestingly, though the movie Box is a robot, in the original Nolan and Johnson novel he's a cyborg like Tragg.

The Gonne-Slinger

"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed."

- Stephen King, The Gunslinger

A gaunt revenant stalks the wastes of the world of Arn.

No one knows what sorcerer summoned this entity from some alternate material plane, nor what sorts of strange magics animate his deathless form, nor what blasphemies are held back by his rawhide-sown lips. Perhaps he was called forth with the sepulchral sorceries of the Tomb-Lords of Amenti, or perhaps he's wandered since the days of the God Makers, themselves.

Whatever the case, the grim walker may be encountered randomly in sparsely inhabited deserts and badlands across the world. He is a tall, almost skeletally thin man.  His weathered skin has the corpse-pallor of the undead. Beneath the wide brim of his hat, his eyes glow with blue-white witch-fire. His dust-colored long-coat flaps in the breeze--even when there isn't one. 'Round his waist is a low-slung leather belt, and odd scabbards--holding even odder weapons--hang on either side, strapped to his thighs.

The sole weapons of the man are cunningly wrought gonnes in miniature. These weapons fire fast, and they never need to be reloaded. Those who don't die on the battlefield from their eldritch shot typically succumb later to a wasting sickness, unless clerical magic is used to cure the disease.

This bounty-killer from the Outer Dark may be hired by leaving a piece of paper, with the likeness of the person to be killed drawn upon it, in a ruined (and so unconsecrated) church of a lawful good deity in a ghost-town in the wilderness, or at the edge of a desert or waste. He will only accept a commission from a person once in their life. The price for the killing is variable, but always includes gold--and ages the would-be employer in the bargain.

Mechanics: The Gonne-Slinger can be tailored to fit the needs of the campaign. Warriors & Warlocks stats for my current game aren't as easy, but here's some Old School-ish guidelines: I'd suggest a rough level of say the AD&D Fiend Folio Death Knight (AC 0, HD 9, Magic Resistance: 75%) though with a number of attacks reflecting the RoF of his guns (3 shots/round, maybe?). The cost of the killing should be based on the hit dice of the target, and perhaps the aging should, as well. Despite his undeadish nature (and the resistances/immunities that might imply) the Gonne-Slinger can't be turned, commanded, or destroyed, and is immune to the effects of holy/unholy symbols, holy water or the like.

The Peoples of Arn: The Kael

The Kael hold sway over the wilds in the northern reaches of Arn. These ethnically Ilsdaanan (mostly fair-skinned and -haired) tribesmen once held all of Arn, only allowing the Hazandi gypsy-folk--with whom they have an ancient blood-pact--to pass unchallenged. The coming of the forces of the Thystaran Empire changed all that, leading to years of warfare. Whole tribes of Kael were lost, and their names are no longer spoken. Gradually, the tribes were pushed further and further into the less hospitable hills and broken lands of the north.

While they still claim all of Arn as their ancestral right, the Kael only control the areas of the Ael-Uthaidd Plateau, Shielddome, the Delanoch Hills, and the Chailéadhain Highlands. The loss of the south is an ever bitter draught, and the young and disaffected tribesmen still launch raids against those they consider interlopers.

There are seven tribes of the Kael. These tribes are divided into bands, which are in turn divided into local groups composed primarily of families in of one matrilineal clan. Marriage within clan is not permitted.

Kael are predominantly pastoralists, though some live a completely nomadic lifestyle following auroch herds. Though war and raiding is generally considered the province of men, both boys and girls are trained to ride, and in the use of the bow and spear. A Battle Woman (seen as being imbued with the spirit of the war goddess) accompanies war-parties and gives counsel to the male leader on the treatment of prisoners and the division of spoils.

Inspired by the random tables originating in Aaron Kesher's "The Devil's in the Details" in Fight On!, here are a couple of tables to flesh out cultural/personality quirks of Kael characters:

MANY KAEL (1d20 3 times):
1. Dislike cities.
2. Prefer to sleep in stables near their horse.
3. Take trophies (scalps, ears) from defeated foes.
4. Treat elves with deference--and wariness.
5. Sing tribal war-chants before battle.
6. Have tattoos in geometric patterns.
7. Have tattoos of stylized animals.
8. Think battle-scars make them more attractive.
9. Name their favorite weapon.
10. Try to interpret their dreams to divine the future.
11. Have a mohawk haircut.
12. Spike their hair to look fierce.
13. Are afraid of ghosts.
14. Have an idiosyncratic taboo placed on them at birth.
15. Are illiterate.
16. Talk to the stars as if they're family elders.
17. Are mistrustful of magic-users and call them witches
18. Believe having a dwarf in a party is a auspicious omen.
19. Believe weapons have spirits.
20. Take new names to reflect noteworthy deeds.

SOME KAEL (1d10 once):
1. Are hiding from an arranged marriage.
2. Call all non-Kael or Hazandi humans "Thystari."
3. Smoke djesha-leaf immoderately
4. Have a feud with another Kael clan.
5. Have a totem animal they won't kill.
6. Attach feathers to their spears.
7. Think halflings are funny--even the anthrophagous kind!
8. Find non-Kael exotically attractive.
9. Speak the common tongue without an accent.
10. Are fascinated by civilization.