Manuals Monstrous

So what's your favorite monster book?

I like the the original AD&D Monster Manual. Besides nostalgia, it has an amateurish sort of charm for me. The much maligned Fiend Folio is good, too. Despite the lackluster nature of some of its critters (but be fair, the Monster Manual has its share of duds, too) the art lends it a darker, more weird fiction feel I appreciate.

My favorite bestiaries though, have the right combination of interesting creatures and evocative art. I even like ones for games I don't typically play if it contents are inspiring and the the artwork is good.

The various iterations of the Talislanta monster compendium are cool in this regard. The creatures are often interesting, and there's that P.D. Breeding-Black art. We never got a full Jorune monster manual, which is a shame, particularly if Miles Teves had illustrated it.

My favorite currently is probably the Malleus Monstrorum for Call of Cthulhu. It isn't the sort of thing that I steal a lot from for other games, but its just about a pitch-perfect presentation for the material. Instead of going with the typical cool illustration of a tentacled horror coming at you, it uses historical art work, vintage photos, and other pieces of "found art"--many of which are clever forgeries or manipulations. It can become a little "Where's Waldo" for the creature/entity, but that adds to the "realism" of the proceedings. It mimics exactly the "horror slowly unfolds and changes your world" ambience that Call of Cthulhu should have. Some highlights: the photo of the de Loys ape as a member of the Martenese family, a poster for the silent movie Der König in Gelb (by Fritz Lang, no less!), and the suggestiveness of the antique ink bottle photo next to the the Formless Spawn entry.

That trick wouldn't work for every monster manual, or for every game, but I wish every one would put that level of thought into it.

The Red Menace

No outside force, not even magical threats, seem to strike as much fear into the populace of the City and its world, as the so-called Reds. These agents of a technologically advanced underground civilization seek to transform the world in their society's image, wiping out free thought and individuality in the name of their perverse vision of equality and unity. Despite their aims, their tireless machinations often dupe innocent citizens and draw them to their cause.

The origins of the Red menace lie with an Old Worlder named Carisdall, who returned after being presumed lost at sea with a strange story of a hidden island civilization where private property was forbidden, and everyone worked for the good of the society as a whole. The rest of his life, Carisdall tried in vain to relocate his utopia. He also wrote a manifesto describing the islander's philosophy which he termed "Communalitarianism." His work found adherents, and spawned small-scale experimental communities and political parties in several countries.

The real danger came when Carisdall's philosophy began to infect the subterranean remnants of an underground civilization. Sometime during the upheaval of the Great War, the degenerate remnant of an advanced, subterranean civilization experienced a violent revolution based on these ideas. The idle, and intellectually diminished ruling class was slaughtered by the more bestial workers. The former workers sought to realize Carisdall's utopia, but in a "scientifically perfected" manner that would have likely horrified the man who inspired them. The workers began to alter themselves into different functional groups to better serve society. Then, using the thought-broadcasting machines of their ancestors, they began to subtlely influence the minds of unsuspecting surface-dwellers.

The Reds (so-called because of their fondness for symbols colored a deep red) seek to transform the whole world into their sterile ordered society with the egalitarianism of the ant hill. To this end, they subvert humans to their cause--either through bribery, deception, or mind-control. There are those evil humans join the Reds, cynically hoping to enrich themselves as long possible before inevitable Red transformation. Some humans under the influence of Red thought-machines become more carnal and depraved, before finally entering into emotionally vacant, automaton-like state that is the Red's end goal.

Symbol: A red clenched fist or a red five-pointed star.

Special Benefits: Reds see magic as the product of decadent superstition, and disbelieve it entirely. This disbelief provides them with a degree of magical resistance, as it does their human stooges in more advanced stages of Red mental conversion (+2 to saving throws vs. spells or direct magical effects). Human in earlier stages are sometimes given technological devices by their masters that duplicate the same effect. Agents might also be loaned other technological advanced items as well, though these will always be parcelled out in a limited, efficient fashion.

The Saragossa Manuscript

Last Friday, Amazon delivered me the 1965 Polish film The Saragossa Manuscript directed by Wojciech Has. The film comes well-recommended, having been praised by the likes of David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Neil Gaiman. Jerry Garcia supposedly helped supply funds to get a full cut of the film restored. Having not finished the film yet I can't give my own full review, but so far I've been impressed by some of the imagery, and the unusual use of music--sometimes its usual (if quirky) sixties film score, but it has touches of primitive electronica experimentalism reminscient of some sci-fi scores of the era.

I went looking for the film because of its source material, the novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Count Jan Potocki (1761-1815). The book bears some resemblance to works like the Arabian Nights or the Decameron. It's a fantasy (at least in part) describing the experiences and stories related to a young Walloon officer in the Sierra Morenas of Spain in 1739. It includes gypsies, cabbalists, Sapphic sister Moorish princesses, and hints at secret history. The stories are nested like Matryoshka dolls, with narrators of some stories showing up as characters in others. Neil Gaiman, a fan of the work, has called it "a labyrinth inside of a maze." It combines elements of the gothic and picaresque with eroticism and humor.

The book itself has an interesting history. It's so convoluted in fact that Potocki's authorship was at times doubted. The novel was written in French, and over an extended period in several stages. The first few "days" were published in 1805 in French. Later, the entire manuscript was translated and published in Polish, but then the original complete manuscript was lost, and had to be "back translated" into French for a complete French version. Wikipedia suggests that scholars now think their were two versions: an unfinished one from 1804, published in 1885, and a rewritten, tonal different complete 1810 version. Only the first of these versions has appeared in English.

Potocki himself is an interesting and character. He was served as a military officer, and was also for a time of novice of the Knights of Malta. He travelled and wrote scholarly studies on linguistics and ethnography. In 1790, he was among the first to fly in a hot air balloon. He also committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Allegedly, this was done with a silver bullet he fashioned himself and had had blessed by a chaplain!

Anyway the novel is well worth your time. I'll keep you posted on the film, but I'm anticipating good things.