See Rock City...If You Dare!

You might rightly ask yourself: surely Trey isn't seriously going to suggest that Lookout Mt., Georgia's kitschy, but slightly trippy, roadside attraction might have an analog in the world of the City (and perhaps elsewhere) that could be an adventure local?

Well, not seriously. At least, not completely seriously...

There are stories from the Southern end of the Smaragdines about a strange place atop a mountain inhabited by extraplanar beings. It's become something of a legend across the rural South. Many barns or abandoned shacks along dusty roads and lonely highways are adorned with cryptic references to its wonders, or exhortations to "see the rock city."

The Natives of the land told stories of this place, and made visits to pay superstitious homage. Early explorers from Ealderde described a natural fortress of rock, with its components arranged so as to form the semblance "streets" and "alleyways"--and then there were oblique references to reclusive inhabitants. By the time the area had been well-settled, stories began to circulate of disappearances, and strange lights and music in the city of rock. Some Old World immigrants began to whisper about entrances to Fairyland.

Scientific thaumaturgical inquiry toward the end of the last century appears to have solved the mystery. In the heart of the rock city, reached only after passing through a maze of unusual rock formations, is a cave. The cave is the domain of clan of ultraterrestrial entities called gnomes.

Gnomes are elementals of earth. On the surface, they often appear as statues, as their experience of time isn't ours, and they sometimes stand immobile for long periods of time before springing to sudden action. They travel from the subterranean depths via veins of minerals. Their purposes are often inscrutable. In the rock city, they appear to be attempting art.

The gomes look like statues of bearded little men, with often comical expressions, and have shaped some of their substance to look like human clothing--brightly color through the expression of mineral pigments. This is not unusual gnomic behavior. What is, is that in the rock city, that have turned grottoes in their cave complex into dioramas, glowing with eerie, otherworldly light. These dioramas are scenes from Old World fairytales and nursery rhymes. The gnomes, it seems, have some knowledge of their audience.

It's for these strange and whimsical dioramas that people visit the rock city. But before making the trip yourself, consider where the non-gnomish statues in the dioramas come from. Some experts hold these are gnomes, just assuming different forms. Others point to the unusually high numbers of disappearances in the area and suggest the the gnomes may sometimes need human stock for their quaint designs.

Magic Men

As a companion to Tuesday's post, I wanted to give a couple of examples of magic-using character concepts from the world of the City.

First though, a word about magic in general. The divide in this world is not so much cleric vs. magic-user (though, a similar divide does exist, in a fashion) but thaumaturgy vs. mysticism. Thaumaturgy is the applied science of magic, the exploitation of forces and principles as real as physics or chemistry are in our world. There are many competing models as to the "hows" and "whys" of magic, but whatever their differences, they all typically involve spells/formulae, magical aides/tools, and experimentation. Mysticism, on the other hand, is less rational and more intuitive. It relies on idiosyncratic (or even lack of) explanations. It's tools are things like meditation, physical conditioning, and/or use of drugs to create altered states of consciousness to achieve sudden insight.

With that in mind, here are two men of magic from the streets of the City:

Jim Nightshade
Nightshade's got a one-room office with "Nightshade Investigations" stencilled on the door. He solves problems.  Particular sorts of problems.  Kinds the cops won't.

He used to be a cop himself, but that was before the War. Then he had uniform and a badge. Now he's got trouble sleeping nights--and magic. He used to think he was just lucky, but luck had nothing to do with it. The ageless man that visited him in that hospital overseas clued him in, and gave him a book--a grimoire--the first of many.

The upside of insomnia is a guy's got a lot of time to read.

Sikandar the Sorcerer

The so-called "Gentleman Mentalist" is a highly-paid performer and celebrity exposer of criminal mages. He dates starlets and popular songbirds, and appears in advertisements for pomade, cigarettes ("Djinn Cigarettes--your wish for flavor is granted!") and men's shirts.

This public persona doesn't tell the whole story. His real name is Alisander Welleran and, despite his image, he's taken an oath before the Nine Unknown Sages of Agarthala to defend this plane against the forces of evil. Time after time, he's put the mystic powers he mastered in Agharthala to this purpose--and if he can increase his celebrity thereby, so much the better. He's thwarted Anarchists trying to poison the City's water supply with flesh-warping alchemicals, and bested a murderous shade striving to re-enact its pre-death killing spree, among other exploits. And he's always looked good doing it.

Warlord Wednesday: Who's Who

Work obligations got me home late, so no issue review this week, but I thought I'd present the Warlord art from Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe. The Who's Who began publication in March 1985, and finished in April 1987.  It featured files of most of the major Warlord characters, most with art by Mike Grell.  Skarataris also got a two spread with a map.

Here are the pictures accompanying the entries of the characters that have appeared in my review so far.  All of them are by Grell, except Mariah, who was drawn by Ron Randall--a post-Grell artist on the series.

Here's Travis Morgan, the Warlord:

His wife, Tara:

Morgan's old Gladiator buddy, and king of Kiro, Machiste:

Russian archeologist and fencing champ, Mariah Romanova: