Spirits of the Age

As I mentioned earlier, despite the professed monotheism of most of the people of the City and its world, there are beings or powers, bearing some resemblance to the pagan gods of old. Scholars call them eikones, whereas the common man doesn’t even officially recognize their existence--despite often evoking them in a variety of ways. Some mages, however, are aware, and treat with these entities to gain their aid.

The exact number of eikones is unknown, mainly because there’s no consensus on where the line between these beings and lesser spirits or thoughtforms should be drawn, if at all. Here are a sampling of the most commonly recognized, and recognizably powerful ones:

Management
Is the personification of government, bureaucracy, order, law, and the status quo. He’s also known by such names as High Muckamuck, Final Authority, and the Chief Bureaucrat. It’s his acolytes people unknowing condemn when they disparage “city hall” or complain about “pencil-pushers.” His authority is called upon every time a “proper procedure” is quoted, a regulation cited, or a problem referred to a superior.

Management can be call upon to lend false authority to a request and thus cut through red-tape or bureaucratic delay, or his power invoked for spells that lend the power of doublespeak for obfuscation. Unwanted attention from Management can lead one to bureaucratic entanglements, imprisonment, or even execution in extreme cases.

Some hold that Management is an avatar of the actual creator of the universe--a harried. bureaucratic demiurge, that his the true creator of even the god venerated by the monotheists. Manifestations of Management ignore this question unless submitted through the proper channels--a feat no one has yet to accomplish, as far as is known.

Management is often depicted in the garb of a wealthy gentleman of the end of the last century, though his depictions are as various as his rolls.


Phile
Is the spirit of solidarity, and fraternalism. He is invoked when people unite in common cause, and, more darkly, when they turn on the outsider. His power is felt in armies marshalling for war, and workers trying to unionize, but also in the anti-minority raids of the white-hooded Knights-Templar of Purity.

Invoking Phile can help create a feeling of solidarity in a group, bolstering moral. His influence can also be used to sway mobs and move to or from a particular course of action.

Phile always appears as a stereotypical (one might say exemplar) member of whatever group is gathering at the moment.

Doll
Is the spirit of sex, sexual attraction, and to a lesser extent feminine beauty. She resembles ancient fertility goddesses in some ways--though she has no association or role with fertility or procreation. Doll is invoked by those looking to impress or seduce, or in any way gain power over another through the use of sexual attraction. Her energy is felt in performances of dancing girl revues, and her regard can be felt in the smoldering gaze of Heliotrope “it” girls, or the coquettish glances of “spicy” magazine models.

Doll’s depictions are legion, but her pose and expression always suggest more than they show.

Maker
Is the builder, the planner, and the engineer--the spirit of progress from science applied. Blueprints are his scrolls, schematics his sigils. His hymns are the hum of machinery.

Maker is invoked by those involved in any task of engineering or industry.  His influence can be used to solve mechanical or engineering problems. His power can coax “a little extra” from engines, or get something working at a critical moment.

Maker is depicted as a steely-gazed man in a hardhat, or as a anthropomorphic piece of machinery.

The Power of Faith

In response to my discussion of the predominant faiths of the City and its continent, Tom, chronicler of Middenmurk, asked about the role of clerics in the world--a topic I’ll take up today.

Many Oecumenical priests and monks, and Old Time Religion preachers and evangelists, have no magical powers whatsoever. The Good Book cautions against sorcery and witchcraft, and at various times and places throughout history its adherents have persecuted magical practitioners. Given the demonstrable reality of magic, and its obvious utility, this prohibition has had about as much success as the condemnation of prostitution or sexual promiscuity by religions of the world we know.

In fact, folk have continued to practice apotropaic magic to ward off evil through history. Even churches have been built with such workings placed on them. Folk-grimoires of Good Book-inspired magic have been used by rural magical practitioners and wise-folk for centuries. This has only sporadically been seen as “sorcery”, and seldom persecuted. The spells and rituals found in these grimoires are of protection for human or livestock from harmful magics or other sorts or harm, magical aide for everyday activities (agriculture, cooking, etc.), or the provision of luck. Many pious followers of the Old Time Religion, particularly in rural areas, are practitioners of this type of magic to this day.

The more centralized Oecumenical Hierarchate discourages this folk use (with only the mildest success) but has established certain religious orders whose goal has been the acquisition and mastery of magic for the greater glory of the Church and God. They tend to prefer the term theurgy ("divine-working"), and disparage the godless (and potentially soul-imperilling) thaumaturgy ("wonder-working"). These orders (both priestly and monastic) wield magics as powerful as any thaumaturgist, though their spells and rituals are somewhat different, having arisen by parallel development.

Despite the philosophical differences between these religious magic-users and their more secular rivals, there is no real functional difference between their two styles of magical practice.

There is a third type of religious magic-wielder who is fundamentally different. There are many names for such individuals but they're often called “gifted” or “miracle-workers.” Some thaumatological scholars have suggested that these individuals are actually mystics of some sort, but the gifted themselves believe their powers are granted by their Deity, or by their faith in the same.

Gifted manifest powers like speaking in tongues, healing, turning/destruction of undead, protection from evil, or supernatural strength or vitality. Some gifted have even been said to be able to appear in multiple places at once, or to fly. The gifted only have these powers when they are acting in congruence with the dictates of their god, or, as some scholars have pointed out, when the gifted person believes himself to be acting in accordance with his god’s will. These abilities tend to be activated by prayer, or song, or in some cases more extreme acts like self-flagellation, or ingestion of poison--any religious ritual to focus the mind and the spirit. These are idiosyncratic, varying from person to person.

Interestingly, the phenomena of those with gifts of faith is more common in rural areas than in urban ones, and more common among followers of more ecstatic sects than mainstream ones. It’s also in no way confined to those who actually have religious ordination or authority.

So those are the “faith-based” magical types of the City and its world. Exact game mechanics are yet to be determined (and open to suggestions), but I hope this provides the general idea.

Warlord Wednesday: Wolves of the Steppes

Due to blogger malfunction let's re-enter the lost world with a late installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Wolves of the Steppes"

Warlord (vol. 1) #19 (March 1979)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: With the sky-sleds they picked up last issue, Morgan and Tara have taken their search for Joshua and Deimos to “the far corners” of Skartaris. Morgan says there’s only one place they haven’t looked that fits Saaba description of “half light, half shadow”--the polar opening where Skartaris meets the outer world.

In his lair, Deimos watches our heroes in a large crystal ball, Ashiya attending him, and oblivious baby Joshua playing nearby. Ashiya indugles her maternal instincts by playing wiht Joshua, but Demios reminds her the boy serves but one purpose--to allow him to enact his revenge upon Morgan, who destroyed his empire, killed him, and condemned him to a life in darkness.

Deimos’s inhuman servant brings him a goblet of fresh blood and he gulps it down before railing against his current state. His sorcerous vitality is only sustained by fresh blood, the decay of his body only slowed by remaining in darkness. And Travis Morgan is responsible.

Deimos summons his magical powers and directs them into the crystal ball, calling forth a storm to torment Morgan and Tara. A lightning bolt strikes Tara’s sled causing her to crash, separating her from Morgan.

Tara awakens under the lecherous gaze of Torgash, the leader of a group of horsemen. He claims her as his own, but soon finds no man touches Tara without her consent, as the first hand he lays upon her is cut off cleanly at the wrist. Before the rest of the surprised tribesmen can respond, Morgan and Shadow attack.

In a few minutes, the horsemen are ready to retreat before the fury of the strangers, but fate intervenes. The flaming wreckage of Tara’s flyer explodes, knocking the heroes (conveniently) unconscious. Torgash wants to slit their throats, but his comrade Nikola reminds him that for slaying their brothers the whole tribe should decide their fates.

Tara and Morgan awaken in the horseman’s hall tied to a wooden pillar, amid feasting and revelry. Torgash tells them their fates have been decided, and offers a demonstration of what’s in store for them, by ordering Shadow, suspended in a net, lowered into a pit with two bears.

Morgan goes into one his berserker rages and bursts his bonds to fight for justice, and his wife’s dog. He goes for Torgash, but winds up tackling one of their other captors, sending them both into the pit. Morgan grabs the hapless man’s sword and tosses him into the waiting jaws of a bear.

Torgash tosses Tara into the pit, but Morgan catches her. The bears have finished off the other man, and are now eyeing them. Morgan and Tara share a tender moment, thinking that there deaths are near. Then Morgan, brandishing the sword, yells a challenge at the bears--then drop kicks one. Neither that, or any of his sword-slashes do any good. The bear swats him a aside, then moves in for the kill.

Just in time, A spear thrown from above kills the bear, then a rope drops down. Climbing up, our heroes are greeted by Mariah and Machiste, who it turns out have just returned--and are the leaders of the tribesmen.

As Morgan punches Torgash into the pit to settle the score, Deimos still watches through his crystal ball. He smiles as he proclaims the stage set for his final triumph.

Things to Notice:

• This issue isn't designated as part of "The Quest" like the last three.
• The strange color of Skartarian fauna is again on display with a lemon yellow stegosaurus and green bears.
• Ashiya, Deimos’s hag-disguised-as-hottie crony from #10, makes a return appearance.
• Deimos leaves human bones laying around his abode for little Joshua to play with.

Where It Comes From:
The title of this issue refers to the Cossack-like horseman--Morgan specifically calls them such in the story. It may have been directly taken from an older work with Cossack characters. Khlit the Cossack, star of several adventure stories by Harold Lamb, was often referred to as “the Wolf of the Steppes.” Robert E. Howard used the same phrase as this issue's title to describe his Hyborian Age kozaki.

After last issue's science fiction infused story, and the prior issue’s fantasy flourishes, this issue rounds out the review of Warlord’s influences with more a straight-on adventure yarn, if we ignore Deimos’s scenes.