Mysterious Trinkets

I realized we had a Land of Azurth 5e session weeks ago I didn't blog about. Here's the belated news from Azurth...

The party finally reached the eastern border of the Country of Virid. Immediately, the fae influence became apparent in the more fanciful foliage. As evening approached, they decided to seek lodging for the night in the town of Carabas, nestled at the feet of the Crooked Hills. It turned out there was a fair going on.

Our heroes joined the celebration and took part in various contests to win what the townsfolk call "trinkets." Erekose wins a dueling competition. Kully takes a storytelling prize. Shae won in dancing, showing off her Elven moves. Kairon managed to pull out a victory in kite-fighting. Dagmar, however, only succeeded in getting drunk in the drinking competition.

They still took the trinkets they were awarded, even after seeing a man with too many of them explode (the townsfolk didn't seem over-bothered by this). 

The party was confounded by the strange devices. Each was unique and their use was not obvious. Also, while the items appeared to have spell-like effects in some cases, they did not register as magical.

With no rooms available, the party rented a pavilion on the edge of the fair grounds near the hills. That night, after a strange, shared dream, they were attacked by sallow-skinned, nonhuman somnambulists with strange, branch-like, metallic golden growths out of their foreheads.

The party managed to kill a couple of the creatures and drive off the others, but they are left with the idea that the things were after the trinkets.

Savage Swords of Middle-earth: Magic

Re-reading those old posts got me thinking about the "Middle-earth in the style of Robert E. Howard" idea, and with some time to read in travel, I was thinking about the similarities and differences in Tolkien's and Howard's approaches to magic.  The comparisons are interesting, and I don't think they would be difficult to fuse to a degree.

Compared to modern fantasy literature or rpg fantasy, both the Hyborian Age and Middle-earth are decidedly what we might term "low magic," which is not to say there is little magic in them. In fact, both worlds are full of things we would consider magical in the real world sense. There are any number of specially wrought items and substances that in D&D would be "magic items." Magic-users are not necessarily less powerful either, but they tend to use magic less and in less flashy--and certainly less "zappy" ways--than the D&D standard.

In Howard, you could say spellcasters are thinner on the ground. In Tolkien, that's true to an even greater degree; there are only like 6 wizards! But that's ignoring the special (magical) abilities so many people seem to evidence: the abilities of elves and dwarves to craft magical items, Bard and other Men of Dale having the ability to speak with thrushes, etc.

In an unsent letter, Tolkien addressed magic in LotR, drawing a distinction between magia (physical magic) and goeteia (charms, enchantments). For elves and spirits both of these are entirely naturally parts of the world, it's only the mortal races that view them as magic. Tolkien notes there do not rely on spells or "lore," and that humans can't perform them. This letter was unsent, though, and this last part contradicts elements of published works. The Hobbit speaks of dwarves casting spells (though maybe this is just superstition on their part and doesn't work), and even in the margins of the letter Tolkien reminds himself about Numenoreans using spells in making swords.

While Howard has the trappings of classic Sword & Sorcery spellcraft with summoned demons and dark, magical tomes, there is also an element of the psychic to his portrayal. In "People of the Black Circle" it's implied that belief plays a role in susceptibility to magic, even when it seems to be manifesting as physical phenomena, and that a lot of it's effect is hypnotism. Both Thoth-Amon and Xaltotun seem to accomplish a lot merely by directing mental energy without spell or obvious ritual.

For a more Sword & Sorcery Middle-earth, it goes without saying that Morgoth and Sauron, at least, taught sorcery to mankind. Sorcery that arises from evil and risks corruptions fits in well with a Howardian vibe (though, as I've mentioned before, not all spellcasters in Howard are evil. Just most of them!) Also, I would also have evil magic-users (Sauron, Saruman, etc.) perform more magic and more visual magic than in LOTR as written, more along the lines of things we see in Hour of the Dragon--where interestingly, keeping a magic item of power out of the hands of an ancient, awakened evil out to conquer the world is the key to that evil's defeat.

Pulp Middle-earth

Listening to the audiobook of The Hobbit got me thinking about this couple of posts I did about giving Middle-earth the Robert E. Howard touch. I won't repost them in their entirety, as I did that last year, but you can read the first here and the second here.

Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1980 (wk 1, pt 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm continuing my look at the comics at newsstands on the week of August 14, 1980. 

Justice League of America #184: The second part of the JSA/JLA journey to Apokolips opens with a bang as the return of Darkseid from the dead is revealed. In time honored crossover fashion, the heroes have been divided into smaller groups to have their own adventures. Orion, Firestorm, and Power Girl discover the Injustice Society is behind this, but they prove unable to stop them. Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, and Oberon find and free Himon, when Superman, Wonder Woman, and Big Barda bring some hope to the kids in Granny Goodness' school. Huntress, Mr, Miracle, and Batman discover Darkseid's sinister plan: to transport Apokolips into Earth-2's universe, destroying Earth-2 in the process!

A good story here from Conway. Perez's art under McLaughlin's inks is more "70s" looking in a way I probably can't define than in the Teen Titans, but still looks good.

New Teen Titans #1: This series looms large in DC's (and comic's in general) emergence from the Bronze Age, and it starts out feeling a bit different from many of the other comics this month at its start. Perez's art (perhaps aided by Tanghal) and layout seem more sophisticated here than in other places he's turned up at DC. Wolfman's story and characterization is "of the era" but doesn't seem of the DC 70s. In many ways, this is a "Marvel style" story with occasionally bickering characters with "issues." He packs a lot of story in this issue, too. 

A couple of things I noticed: for one, it's hard for me to buy the original Titans as still "teens." I know, comic time and all that, but Perez doesn't really make them look like teens, and Robin has been in college a while. That's only going to get worse, I know. The riff between Batman and Robin over Robin dropping out of college is created here. That hasn't shown up in Batman stories as yet (even one's written by Wolfman!) Also, Robin comments something to the effect that it's great to be in a team where he isn't second fiddle, but it's not like he's only been Batman's partner all this time. It feels like Wolfman wants you to ignore most everything that happened with Robin over the 70s. Continuity quibbles aside, it's a solid, if a bit overstuffed first issue.

Secrets of Haunted House #30: The first story here is weird, but I think the best of the three playing as it does (indirectly) off the fear of clowns. In the Middle Ages, a Court Jester rudely mocks a wizard who lays a course on him. Krokla is now unable to remove his make-up. Only death "at the hands of another" will bring him peace. He works as a clown down through the ages until a jealous circus co-worker, Marco, accidentally kills him in a confrontation. The two men exchange faces, and the other clowns think Krokla murdered Marco. They pursue him, and he falls off a cliff--then they all get Krokla's grease-painted face! In the next story by "Ms. Charlie Seegar" and Don Newton, a witch seeks to find a new body for her dead lover to inhabit. She finds a guy, but when she realized he's wearing a toupee, he just won't do. She marries a wealthy silver fox, but as she starts her ritual, the man calls out for his house keeper, who turns out to be a witch herself. The last tale by Kupperberg and Jodloman has kind of a Hitchcock Presents vibe. A projectionist and film buff wants to acquire the gun used in an obscure but celebrated suspense film, but it's in the hands of a rival. He tries to use a Russian Roulette trick just like the film to get it, but the other collector is on to him. When he calls him later as "a voice from the dead" the projectionist has a heart attack and dies.

Superman #353: Bates is back this issue for another of his very Silver Age stories. An alien keeps showing up and committing crimes, and Superman finds himself on an alien world just as these things are occurring, so it looks to the people of Metropolis like he has become a coward. In fact, the alien is just using his science to switch places. It seems his world has effectively wiped out crime and antisocial behavior with brain modification, but this guy is immune. Superman, in Silver Age fashion, has to use trickery to defeat a foe he never actually meets in person--and he improves their brain modification tech so this never happens again! The backup story by Rozakis and Swan is an imaginary tale of a infant Kal-El found on the outskirts of Gotham by beat cop, Jim Gordon, and raised by Thomas and Martha Wayne. Same basic concept as the 1993 Elseworlds, Superman: Speeding Bullets, but here the story is less tragic because young Bruce Wayne uses his powers to keep his parents from being murdered. 

Superman Family #204: In the lead story by Harris and Mortimer, Linda "Supergirl" Danvers returns to her job at the New Athens Experimental school. It has apparently gotten really experimental and hired "an expert in sorcery," June Moone. Suddenly, unnatural earthquakes start occurring, and Supergirl finds herself in conflict with the Enchantress, which I met originally in the 80s Suicide Squad, but first appeared in 1966 and hadn't been around much since. The Enchantress hasn't done a full heel turn yet, but she's looking to complete a ritual to give her power to defeat evil and doesn't care who gets harmed in the process. Supergirl kicks the moon slightly out of orbit to spoil her plans, then kicks it right back. With June Moone, the Enchantress, still around, it's not over...

Rozakis and Calman give us a very un-Marvel and certainly not "New DC" story: Clark Kent goes to the super-market for double coupon day for his elderly neighbor with limited mobility. We are "treated" to a number of overzealous shopper gags of the sort you saw in 80s daytime tv commercials and Superman foils a pickpocket. In the Bridwell/Schaffenberger "Mr. & Mrs. Superman" feature, Thunderbolt shows up to fill us in on what has happened to Johnny Thunder. It's very Silver Age-y as you might expect form those creators. Then we get into the modern (well, 70s TV style) action and suspension of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, whose storylines appear about to interweave. Lois still doesn't have her full memory back but, dodging guys trying to kill her, she makes it to a memory expert who at least restores enough for her to remember who did this to her. She confronts the crooked deprogrammer, but his machinery catches fire, and Lois may not make it out alive! Jimmy is also on the run from dumb thugs, but he finally manages to figure out that politician, Al Diamond, is crooked. This one includes an escape from a car crusher. Most of this stuff is fine, but it clearly isn't what most comics fans were looking for in 1980.

Weird War Tales #93: The lead here is the first appearance of the Creature Commandos by deMatteis and Broderick. I really liked these characters as a kid, though this first yarn isn't great. The concept is solid: the U.S. Army decides to combine psychological warfare with covert action (not completely unlike Aldo Raine's speech in Inglourious Basterds), and creates a team of horrors. The problem is the script wants them to be supernatural creatures in a Universal horror mode, when their stated origins are different, and none of them have nailed down characterizations. Still, the promise is clear, and this isn't the last we'll see of them. 

Everything else in this issue pales in comparison. Kashdan and Denys Cowan give us the tale of the search for a superweapon in a neo-caveman post-apocalypse. That weapon is the wheel! Barr and Zamora deal with the U.S. internment of the Japanese Americans and have the sun itself punish a sadistic guard who's actually a spy for the Japanese. The last story, by Wessler and Alcazar, is a curious one, apparently affirming the superstitions of wartime pilots. All the pilots carry a "lucky charm," and a new kid (whose charm is a teddy bear) is a bit embarrassed by it and doesn't fully believe it. When his bear is getting patched up by a friendly nurse, one of his squad-mates doesn't want to let him fly, and punches him out. When the young pilot comes two, he rushes to join his squad, only to see his friend shot down--and his friends good luck charm, a death's head key medallion--hanging in his own plane.

Wonder Woman #273: Wonder Woman tangles with Angle Man in some sort of weird dimension, but mostly this issue is Conway establishing her new status quo in her secret identity. She also goes out on date with Steve Trevor as Wonder Woman. She just accessorizes her costume with a blue, Dracula-style cape, and they go to a disco. In the back-up story, Huntress is put in a golden cage by Solomon Grundy while Gotham's DA supports a crackdown on costumed vigilantes. Staton draws a neat Grundy, I think.

The Weirderlands of Zyrd

Once there was a archimage or demiurge, and one day under the influence of potent, mind-altering substances from higher planes of reality, he made a world. Pleased with his work (and himself in general), he named his creation for himself: Zyrd (not to be confused with this one or this one. Maybe). Soon, he got distracted by the music of distant spheres and forget about his world for a long time.

When he discovered it again, completely by accident, he found it had become infested with mortals. For the hell of it, he started teaching the mortals (they were called "humans") magic. His greatest pupils used their power to rule the land, becoming Wizard-Kings. Zyrd, a being of elevated consciousness, hadn't taken into account the power trip these humans might go on. It was a complete surprise when the Wizard-Kings stormed his own private realm in an attempt to wrest the ultimate secrets of the cosmos from him. 

Zyrd was pretty angry about all that, but the Wizard-Kings, being humans, were really good at waging war. The magical conflict blew up part the world, and warped more of it--and seemed to destroy Zyrd and kill a number of the Wizard-Kings. 

Humans mostly fled the damaged parts of the world--the weirderlands, they called them--and went to safer, saner places. They started shunning magic, and built factories, machines, and the like. In the Weirderlands, though, other mortals moved in, ones that couldn't give up magic as easily, because it was a part of them: dwarfs and elves.

by John Buscema

The dwarfs set about rebuilding civilization while trying to hold the goblins, monsters, and lunatic wizards from the worst parts of the Weirderlands at bay. The elves have little use for the dwarfish establishment. They drift around, taking what nature provides, and throwing parties whenever they can. Somehow, they tend to elude the most horrific monsters, and yet all manage to find the best sources of weird mushrooms.

There are those of both kins that, through fate or inclination, become adventures. Outcasts that purposely face the dangers of the Weirderlands for great cause or great reward. 

by Wally Wood

The Wild Wild West Rides On

I have posted about it here in a while, but Jim Shelley and I are still working our way through The Wild Wild West (nearing the end of season 3!) over on his blog. Check it out here.

The Future in the Past

Star Trek: Designing the Final Frontier by Dan Chavkin and Brian McGuire came out this week. It catalogs the use of Mid-Century Modern and Brutalist artifacts (furniture, decorative elements, household items, and architecture) but informed and served as the building blocks of the future as presented in Star Trek the original series.

The authors go season by season, detailing the items of Mid-century design that appear on screen. Costuming is not covered really, presumably because there is already a book on the costume design of Star Trek. in between the season by season rundown, their are short chapters on various topics like architecture, matte paintings, and Brutalism.

The only flaw I find in the book is that it is all too short. A mere 166 pages!

Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1980 (wk 1, pt 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of  August 14, 1980. 

Batman #329: The Two-Face story continues from last issue. He tries twice to kill Batman, first with a bomb, then with a fire, as the Dark Knight works to get the goods on Karoselle's murderer. Batman has figured out that the killer is Two-Face, but doesn't have the proof or motive yet. He enlists Gilda, Harvey Dent's ex, to trap her current boyfriend, who Batman now reveals to be Two-Face in disguise. It turns out Karoselle was really Moroni, the mobster responsible for Dent's disfigurement, with a new face. Two-Face thought he had killed him before, but Moroni escaped albeit now without the use of his legs. Batman disguises himself as Moroni to draw Two-Face out. He appeals to his former ally to turn himself in, but in the end, it's Gilda's appeal that gets Two-Face to surrender. A solid effort from Wolfman and Novick, but not memorable. 

The backup story features more of Barr's take on the Dynamic Duo, and the Rich Buckler art is welcome, but this story is nothing special. There's a mobster awaiting a heart transplant, but someone steals it. Batman and Robin recover it and find out it was the mobster's own daughter behind the theft. This story has continuity with the main feature with a subplot involving a doctor thinking Batman is too uncaring to visit his sometime informant who is in the hospital (since last issue), but it turns out he's wrong. 

DC Comics Presents #27: Starlin's back, this time with Wein, and we get the first appearance of Mongul. He wants Superman to get an artifact for him from a crypt on a distance world that turns out to be the new home world of the Martians. This leads to conflict with Martian Manhunter who's trying to specifically keep Mongul from getting the key to planet-sized, super weapon, the Death Star War World! Superman wins the fight, but plans to not to turn over the key once Mongul frees his friends. He fails to keep Mongul from it, and Martian Manhunter rightly takes the Man of Steel to task over his over-confidence. Superman vows to get back that key or die trying! Best story this week. The backup, though, is "Whatever Happened to...Congo Bill" by Rozakis and Tanghal where Congo Bill takes on... a guy in a gorilla suit. I feel like this feature is being under-used so far.

Flash #291: The Barry Allen lookalike gangster tries to kill Fiona again, but is foiled by her neighbor's kid who thinks the guy is Barry Allen, too. Allen has had about enough of this and calls in King Faraday to explain the truth. To his neighbor. Because that's what matters. There is a scene of the Flash running up a searchlight beam just before this that is the sort of stuff tiresome Marvel fanboys claim DC characters always do but doesn't really happen that often. Anyway, the mobster has allowed himself to be captured because while all this was going, as he tried to hit the international assassin Sabre-tooth from last issue and is scared. Sabre-Tooth escapes from prison for revenge. He's wearing a costume now like the Flintstone's version of Hobgoblin's outfit (all shaggy fur) except it has tusks. Barry Allen uses his resemblance to the mobster to draw Sabre-Tooth out, and the Flash quickly dispatches him, because he's the sort of guy that can run up beams of light, and what can a guy with a gun and a furry suit do against that?

The Firestorm backup by Conway, Perez and Smith, is mostly Raymond and Stein dealing with personal issues. Stein has a job interview and is trying to stay sober. Ronnie gets bullied by that nerd Carmichael, then has to go with his girlfriend to pick up her sister from the airport. She has had some sort of unspecified "sickness." We end on a cliffhanger with an attack by the Hyena. 

Ghosts #94: Holding steady with mediocrity from last month, I think. The first story by Mimai Kin and Win Mortimer is a cautionary tale about genealogical research. James Fitzroy discovers in old documents that his family's original name was Muldoon, and they were from Ballybrooke not Galway. He returns to the old sod and discovers his ancestor was a hanging judge and had a man executed that later proved innocent. A man whose new bride cursed the judge's family. Then, he meets up with a beautiful, spectral woman in a wedding dress. He's found dead the next day. In the next story by Wessler and Sparling, a blind man (who looks kind of like a young Joe Walsh) is caught in a shoot out between gangsters and his service dog is shot and killed. The dog's ghost continues to be the man's companion. The gangsters, not realizing the dog is dead already, plan to kill him so he, uh, can't pick them out of a line-up, I suppose. Anyway, the ghost dog has his revenge. 

In a yarn by Kashdan and Newton a surgeon in a Latin American country takes a bribe to murder a pro-democracy agitator on the operating table. The man's ghost haunts the operating room, and gets his revenge when the surgeon is brought in after being in serious car crash. The last story, again written by Kin with art by Barretto and Colletta, has a wrongdoer dying in perhaps the dumbest fashion. After killing a man for his poker winnings, Bailey plans to brick up his body behind a wall in an old mill. Before he's done the guy's ghost emerges, and they tussle. Bailey is knocked out, but when he comes to the ghost is gone. He just has to finish the wall, which he does. Only then does he realize he's now on the other side and can't get out!

G.I. Combat #223: I couldn't get ahold of this issue, so the cover is all I have to offer.

Jonah Hex #42: Scalphunter is absent from this issue, so the main story gets 8 more pages. Fleisher and Forton need them as they set up a 3-parter. Jonah Hex has been trying to take down the Sugar Wallace gang who has been stealing sheep and running homesteaders off their land. Eventually, Hex kills them all with some dynamite in his hotel room and a shoot out in the streets. What Hex doesn't know is that Wallace has been acting on the orders of the Mayor and a cabal of wealth businessmen in town who know a new railroad spur is to be built and want the sheepherders' land to profit from it. With Wallace done in, they contrive to get the law to take care of Hex, specifically Marshall Jeremiah Hart. Hart gets a fair among of "screentime" this issue, to set him up as the stalwart, traditional Western lawman, with a fast gun and sure aim. Meanwhile, Hex meets up again with Mei Ling who he wants to marry, but she'll only agree if he gives up his guns. The cabal of businessmen murder one of their number, then tell Hex it was one of Wallace's gang that did it, and tell Hart it was Hex, setting up the confrontation. I can't say Forton's art is stellar, but it will be interesting to see where the story is going.

Weird Revisited: Gnomes: Magical Mystery Tour

The original version of this post appeared in 2010, the first full year of this blog. It relates to the setting I briefly ran (and wrote about) prior to launching into the City and Weird Adventures. I late stole ideas from this setting for other stuff.

 

As mentioned before, there are two types of beings called "gnomes" in the world of Arn. One is a scholarly group akin to halflings, inhabiting and maintaining the Library of Tharkad-Keln. The other are ultraterrestrials--extraplanar beings--who have been characterized as an annoying group of pilgrims, or even less charitably, as an infection of the Prime Material Plane. It is this second type of gnome that will concern us here.

Gnomes usually appear as diminutive men with nut-brown skin and large, amber eyes. There are reports of green-skinned gnomes, and youthful females, but these are more rare. No one knows if these different forms reflect real differences within the gnomish race, or are only affectations.

Their demeanor is often perplexing, as well. They often project a knowing amusement in their interactions with other intelligent species, but can at times view even the simplest and commonplace things with child-like wonder. Unless directly threatened, they often seem blissfully unaware of dangerous situations.

No one knows on what plane the gnomes arose. Some hold that it was the elemental plane of earth itself, given their connection with that element. Others hold that they hail from an alternate material plane with a higher concentration of elemental earth. Wherever they came from, they're now a race of travelers--though the purpose of their travels is mysterious.

Gnomes go anywhere there is elemental earth. They somehow dwell within--and move and communicate through--something they refer to as "tesseract networks" within the elemental particles of earth (which as all natural philosophers know are cubic in nature). Gnomes occasionally invite other sapients into their "networks," but those who return are unable to give coherent descriptions of what they have seen.

Certain species of mushrooms represent "nodes" in the gnomish network, and are places from which gnomes emerge into our plane. Consumption of these mushrooms expands the consciousness in unpredictable ways--sometimes allowing experiences of the areas around other nodes in the gnomish network, perhaps in other time periods, or allowing direct mental communication with the intellects of the gnomes themselves. The minds of other species don't always recover from these experiences.

Despite their alien nature, gnomes are generally friendly toward other intelligent races. They will often trade gems or precious stones, though the items they desire in exchange can't be predicted. They are often skilled mages and have been known to join adventuring parties for a time, when they can find one willing to put up with their eccentricities. They go and come as they please with no explanation.  Mostly, they observe with interest, as if the world was a play put on for their amusement.

DC, October 1980 ( wk 2, pt 3)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This continues my look at the comics at newsstands around July 24, 1980.

Sgt. Rock #345: In the lead story, Kanigher and Frank Redondo almost make you feel sorry for the Iron Major. He's constantly losing to Rock (and presumably other Allied forces) and seems to keenly feel his men's deaths. At one point, Rock stops him from killing himself! It's an interesting tack to take, not because it strives to portray a German officer with some positive traits (that's not uncommon in Kanigher's war books that often focus on how bad war is for everyone), but that this supposed arch-nemesis of Sgt. Rock is portrayed as kind of a sad sack.

The next story is set in Korea and is written by its protagonist Sgt. Major Richard J. Bissette, who I assume is the father of the artist, Steve R. Bissette. Bissette's group is ordered to stay back and clear the way for a brigade to cross a bridge before it is blown. Bissette's team has to hold on until after the bridge is blown and swim the river. Pretty harrowing stuff! "The Bridge" (creators aren't credited) is the story of a selfless GI trying to get a group of Japanese civilians, including women and children, to surrender rather than commit suicide after the U.S. takes an island. He succeeds but only at the cost of his own life. In the last story (also uncredited, but maybe the same artist) a doughboy in the trenches of WWI thinks the pilots have it easy until he's forced to witness the mercy killing of one who is burning alive in his crashed plane. 

Super Friends #37: The main story has that comic book trope of the villain who is barely a match for one hero in a solo hero book becomes a challenge for an entire team in a team book. In this case, it's the Weather Wizard who's up to some nonsense, but the real story is about Supergirl being jealous that Linda Danver's students lavishing so much attention on the Justice League while Supergirl does most of the issue's heroics. It all works out in the end, of course. The backup story by Bridwell and Tanghal presents the origin of the Global Guardians member, Jack o' Lantern. It backs a lot of Irish cliches into one story.

Unexpected #203: The horror host Judge Gallows returns courtesy of Seeger and Patricio who offer up a penal theme horror story, which is unsettling in 2021 for reasons the author didn't intend. Murderer Joe Mundy gets his mother to plead for leniency at his trial, so he gets life in prison rather than the electric chair, which the guards assigned to him think is a complete travesty. So do the ghosts of his victims who torment him in his cell. The horrific part is the guards standby and watch him do this in response to unseen entities only thinking maybe they should intervene when it's too late. One of them quips upon finding that Mundy is indeed dead that maybe he was just "energy conscious" in avoiding the chair. 

The second story by Wessler and Patricio is a kind of Frankenstein movie riff only with the twist that the corpses are reanimated by clone tissue and there's a good one and a bad one. The final tale, also be Wessler, opens with a well-rendered scene by Malgapo where a Gadwin, about to be burned at the stake defends himself by claiming he's a sorcerer not a necromancer (he might have wanted to consult a lawyer there). Anyway, he burns, but not before cursing Joshua Xerxes Tabor, his accuser, and vowing to destroy his family 300 years from that day. Why he waits so long to enact his vengeance and allow generations of Tabor's to live and die in great wealth is beyond me, but eventually a Tabor is in line to be President, only the other baby, Lester Colt, saved from a fire in the hospital years ago and supported by the Tabor family is his challenger. When Colt seems to be winning the Tabor patriarch decides to shoot him. As he gets the electric chair, the ghost of Gadwin reveals that the man he shot and killed was his real son and the man about to win the presidency was the real Lester Colt. Revenge! This issue is a big step down from last month, I think.

Unknown Soldier #244: Haney and Ayers pit the Soldier against a Japanese "ghost sub" and throw in Captain Storm of The Losers as a guest star. The solution to this one is pretty convoluted: a German sub crew is pretending to be Americans and actually impersonating a Japanese sub. Haney's  approach to his book is very different from Kanigher's over at Sgt. Rock. We get to compare the two side by side, because the lead story is followed up by a Kanigher/Yeates story told from the point of view of an American bomber that flies on after it's crew is dead to crash into the intended target. The Dateline: Frontline feature by Burkett and Estrada continues to be not on the frontlines. Instead, this installment looks at the jobs women took over on the homefront for the war effort as the correspondent Clifford meets a woman mail carrier who wants to join the WAC.

Tolkien in Blacklight

It's well known that hippies were into Tolkien's work. Some of it's themes appealed to them, certainly, but like with Ditko's Dr. Strange comics, there was also the idea that the works might somehow be drug-influenced. That the author might be taking the same trip as them. This was, of course, a false belief, but it was one that existed.

I feel like this appreciation of Tolkien filtered through 60s countercultural and mixed with the prevalent cultural representations of fairytale fantasy led to a a subgenre or movement within fantasy, most prevalent in the late 70s and early 80s, before D&D derived fantasy came to ascendancy. While this subgenre likely finds expression in literature and music to a degree, I think it's most obvious and definable in visual media. It's evident in works like the Bakshi's film Wizards and the comic Weirdworld ( both in 1977), and in the Wizard World sequences (starting in 1979) of Mike Grell's Warlord. Elfquest (1978) shows the influence to a degree. Bodē's Cheech Wizard (1966) and Wally Wood's Wizard King (introduced 1968 but significantly presented in 1978) are either the oldest examples or it's direct progenitors.

Essentially, the subgenre eschews the serious world-building of LotR for a more drug-influenced riff on The Hobbit, often with greater use of anachronism, camp, and sexiness, and often with a degree of psychedelia. Beyond the Tolkien influence, these works tend to share a number of common features:  a "traditional" visualization of elves and dwarfs as "little people," arising in folklore and classic illustration, but coming more directly from Disney animation and the fairytale comics of Walt Kelly; the influence of Denslow's Oz illustrations or design aesthetic of The Wizard of Oz (1939); more unreal and visually alien settings informed by Sword & Sorcery comics rather than the historical or mythic sources of Tolkien.

Given they were contemporaries, why didn't D&D borrow more from this? I think in some of the less than serious aspects of classic D&D, it did. It may have influences some of the visuals as well. But as a game that arose from wargaming there was always a thread of verisimilitude or equipment fixation that runs counter to this freewheeling psychedelic adventure vibe.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1980 (wk 2 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around July 24, 1980. Other obligations kept me from getting through all the comics by Wednesday, so look for a follow-up later in the week with the rest.

Legion of Super-Heroes #268: I like the Perez/Austin cover on this, but the story is rough. DeMatteis introduces perhaps one of the goofiest villains to ever appear in a comic, and I don't mean goofy-charming like sometimes happens. Having Ditko on art chores doesn't do the story any favors either; he's a poor fit for the LSH. Anyway, Dr. Mayavale appears as a handle-bar moustachioed guy with hair something like a white guy's afro, a cowboy hat, a "Like Ike" medallion, a chainmail skirt, and 6 extra, noodly, green arms. He's a bit like Marvel's Stranger, I suppose, but with worse fashion sense. And more arms. Anyway, he's an alien mystic who's aware of all his past lives, retaining the knowledge of them. After being virtuous for so long he decides to be evil for a bit. He bedevils the Legion members that fall into his grasp by sending then back to their supposed past lives including being Native Americans of the Great Plains and the assassins of Julius Caesar. He plans to sacrifice Dream Girl for, well, I don't really know what. It turns out all those "past lives" really aren't and the characters they meet are robots. The Legion prevails against them and Mayavale withdraws to contemplate his next move. Hopefully it takes him a long time. 

Mystery in Space #112: The first story by Barr and Sutton is that old standby: a tale of prejudice. The starship U.S.S. Liberty assumes the humanoid race on an alien world to be the virtuous defenders and the reptilians the aggressors--a perception the humanoids foster until they've had human help to eliminate their foes. Then they turn on the humans. In "Howl!" by DeMatteis and Wise, the United Earth ship Lenin rescues a young ensign, Luanna Helstrumm adrift in a lifeboat following an attack by alien warships. Captain Karamozova is uneasy about the Helstrumm, and gets even more so when her crew starts turning up dead. Helstrumm is revealed to be a vampire and Karamozova tries to kill her in a star, but has to settle for entombing her forever in a starship made of silver. It's a bit silly, I guess, but I feel like DeMatteis redeems himself (a bit) for that Legion story.

In the next story by Kasdan/von Eeden, an emblezzer injured in a spaceship crash gets rebuilt in the image of his stepson's reptilian toy by helpful aliens. The final story by Kashdan and Bingham sees a ham radio operator in a loveless marriage accidentally transporting a beautiful alien to earth in a radio beam. They develop a relationship over a number of nightly encounters. When his wife discovers them she attacks the alien only to to killed by an equally alien pet. The radio ham is arrested for her murder. When convicted he gets the electric chair, which transports him to the realm of his alien lover when he's shot full of electricity. Overall, this issue was a cut above what we previously got in Timewarp, I think.

New Adventures of Superboy #10: Superboy travels to the 52nd Century where he finds a replica of Smallville and an android ("humatron") version of himself in a futuristic theme park. He subs in for a malfunctioning humatron and gets nabbed by a rival of the park's owner who wants to improve his own alien replica androids. Superboy teaches the thief a lesson while never revealing he's the real article, then slips back to his own time. Bates' and Schaffenberger's story could reasonably be said to have "Silver Age charm," though it probably wouldn't have interested me in the 1980, and honestly isn't the sort of thing I would seek out now. The Rozakis, Calnan, and De Mulder backup is sort of a day in the life of Krypto and has a similar feel to the main story. The only break with Silver Age tradition is that this Bronze Age Krypto thinks in full sentences.

Warlord #38: Read more about it here. In the backup, Starlin's continuation of OMAC rolls on with the GPA destroyed and the U.S. now in the hands of corporations. We are told by the corporate representative Wiley Quixote that IC&C control's one half and Verner Bros. controls the other. Given the similarity of those names to the corporate owners of the Big Two at the time (Cadence Industries Corporation and Warner Bros.) I can't help but think Starlin was making doing some allegory for the comics industry here.

On Fantasy Naming

Since I read Lin Carter's worldbuilding advice in Imaginary Worlds, at least, I've had an interest in names and neologisms in settings. I certainly have an interest in the "conlang" end of things--the world of Professors Barker and Tolkien appeal to me--but I don't think it's necessary to invent a language or even partial devise one to have character and place names that seem plausibly like they might arise from a an actual language.

Carter points out in his essay, names need to have an appropriateness to them. He uses the example of Stonehenge (the location), and asks the reader to imagine it was named Piccadilly. Stonehenge seems a much more appropriate name for the place, not the least because it has "stone" as a component. Obviously, the "fit" of a name depends on preconceptions arising from one's native language, but also one's personal preferences. There are people that feel Clark Ashton Smith was horrible at invented names, and plenty (Carter included) who think he was a master of them.

In coming up with names I try to first consider this aspect of appropriateness: What vibe do I want the name or names to convey? The second thing I try to do is give them a sense of linguistic cohesiveness, as if they might come from the same language. 

For the imperial Vokun in Strange Stars, I wanted them to have names that suggested a tradition-bound, decadent, warrior culture. I thought longer names with some "heavier" (to the English speaker) sounds would fit the bill. I wound up using a list of Old Avestan names as my base, adding in some names from other sources, mixing and matching syllables and selecting mostly longer ones that I further tweaked to taste. Online name generators that accept a list of words as an input are good for inspiration, but they seldom provide a lot of "keepers" without tweaking. I wound up with names like this: Artazosthra, Ishramis, Jannaxa, Valakasta, Vahupareshta, Zrayangashamesh.

For my as yet unnamed science fantasy setting, I wanted most of the human names to have an easy and obvious rhythm and length for English speakers, but not generally be actual (or at least common) English names. the naming styles of Edmond Hamilton and Jack Vance were particular influences here, leading to names like: Glattis Malva, Godo Shrune, Yreul Dahut, and Festeu Harfo. The place names similarly were devised to be like English place names, but not actually be English place names.

The names of the nonhumans in this setting (like the various clades in the Strange Stars) had names suggesting they came from different languages:  hohmmkudhuk, ythlaxu, and hwaopt are "weird" in some way for English speakers, but trell and ieldra are much easier. Not every alien should have a name like something out of Marc Okrand's Klingon!

Of course, there are a lot of other things to consider. Carter's essay suggests things like trying to spread them out over the alphabet to make them distinct. 

Paleomythic, Ewoks and Rats

 

by Michael Whelan

I recently picked up Paleomythic by Graham Rose, and it's a relatively simply but definitely flavorful "Stone Age" rpg--or "Stone and Sorcery" as the subtitle would have it. It's perhaps a little less Jean Auel and a little more Robert E. Howard than say Würm, but really I think you could do pretty much the same stuff with each system depending on your preferences.

One thing I've been thinking about this past week though is using Paleomythic for a setting where the characters are primitive, but not necessarily human. 

Without their toyetic, teddy bear looks, the story of the Ewoks is one of a "primitive" culture in a world of magic and exotic creatures (if we consider the cartoon and tv movies)--and then it's invaded by murderous aliens. Plenty of game fodder to be found in that, I think.

Simon Roy's Habitat and other Metamorphosis Alpha-adjacent stories feature post-technological primitive humans. Betram Chandler's "Giant Killer" is in no sense post-apocalyptic, but has a bit of the vibe of those settings--only with nonhuman protagonists. There are mutated rat tribes making their caves in the walls of a spacecraft and their "giant" antagonists are the human crew. The rat(ish) scale would make the sizes of generation ships more vast and add some interesting detail to those sorts of settings.

Weird Revisited: The Like You for Your Brains

The original version of this post appeared in 2011...

Bored with the standard monsters? Tired of the same old thing? Here’s a couple of mechanically-unchanged stalwarts with a shiny new finish:

Moon Men
Mysterious beings that appear by night and move silently to feed upon the minds of humans. Moon Men appear as tall humanoids whose heads are hidden beneath gleaming, featureless domes. These scientist-sadists rarely make any attempt to communicate, and treat other sentients with clinical detachment, as if they were mere cattle.

These are good ol’ mind flayers--because tentacles are so last year. The only change would be to dispense with the tentacle attack--or maybe keep it and have pseudopods emerge from a Moon Man’s liquid metal head. With that option, they might literally eat brains, but otherwise its the mind they’re after, not the meat.

Though the picture is Mysterio, the name was inspired by a pulp hero with a similar look.

Brain Parasite
“The brain was in a serious state of liquefaction. Only the brain-stem had any discernable structure. A puncture in the back of the skull likely indicates where the creature insert its venom...Yes, that’s the thing in the preservative vat there. It was completely invisible--or more precisely, simply, unseen--on the victims back until it was killed.  And by then it was too late.”

These reskinned intellect devourers look like the zanti from the Outer Limits and act sort of like the mutant spiders from Metebelis 3, the titular Planet of the Spiders in Doctor Who. I imagine they inject some sort of a toxin into the skull, dissolve the brain slowly, and suck out the sweet, sweet juice over time. 

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1980 (wk 2, pt 1)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around July 24, 1980.

Action Comics #512: I have to hand it to Bates and Swan on this one. Here's one of the Bates "conundrum" plots where the ending works just as well as set-up. In fact, I think this is the sort of story (in basic concept) I could see someone like Grant Morrison doing (in their more Silver Age homaging moments), though the execution would have been different in their hands. Anyway, Luthor's reform is a ruse, as we knew all along. When Luthor's new bride asks to give Superman a kiss at the wedding, Luthor's robots show up and whisk him away. They take him back to the Nefarium where they remind him of the plan he made himself forget: Luthor cloned a dying woman in an overly elaborate plot trap Superman forever in the Phantom Zone. He even excised his own memories of the plot to pass any test Superman applied. Callously, he "disposed of" the young woman and cured her clone of the disease. Luthor sits impassively as these memories are returned to him and the robots explain to the reader. We do not see his expression.

Superman comes busting in, of course. He had seen through Luthor's plot when he noted the cells encoding Luthor's memories of his marriage to Ardora of Lexor were severed (so Luthor's a bigamist too!). Supes played along in the hopes that the young woman might still be alive, but when he heard she wasn't, it's time to end Luthor's game. In the end, we find that Luthor played himself. When we finally see Luthor's expression, he is in tears as he watches his clone bride forever trapped in the Phantom Zone--his sacrifice to trap Superman. He's forever separated from the woman he tricked himself into falling in love with.

Adventure Comics #476: DeMatteis and Giordano have not yet hit their stride (I'm being optimistic that they have one). Aquaman is still, I guess, on a quest to find Mera but he continues to he get sidetracked. This time he tangles with Neptune-or as he insists, Poseidon--merely so DeMatteis can give the story a clever title. It turns out that Poseidon's power to control sea creatures comes from his trident. When it's destroyed, he disappears without us finding out whether he was really Poseidon on not. The point of this story seems to be contrast Poseidon's manipulative control of sea life (including Aquaman) with our heroes friendship and cooperation. Considering the last two issues, the point of these stories seems to be rehabilitating the idea of Aquaman. A laudable goal, but it would be nice to have a better story as its vehicle.

In the Starman feature we reach a sort of climax with our hero confronting the throne-usurping Oswin. He's in a bit of a bind, though, because if he wins his sister the Empress (unaware of his identity) wants to marry him. When he reveals his identity, she might order his death as a threat to her throne. Starman makes a shrewd move and fakes his death after defeating Oswin. Plastic Man's goofy adventures from Pasko and Staton continues as he tangles with Cheeseface who has been killing execs in companies that manufacture nondairy creamers for revenge. 

Brave & the Bold #167: Wolfman teams up with Cockrum for what the splash page calls a tale of the "Golden Age Batman," which means a tale of a Batman active in WWII, because he meets the Blackhawks. It's interesting they say "Golden Age" instead of the diegetic "Earth-2." Is this indicative of Wolfman's dissatisfaction with the multiple Earths idea he'll get rid of in Crisis, or merely him not wanting to pin himself down since the most commonly appearing Blackhawks are the Earth-1 version? Regardless, the story is fun with Batman entering a boxing match as it's being broadcast over the radio to ruff up and interrogate a German boxer. There's also an appearance by the Hidalgo Trading Company of Doc Savage lore. Cockrum draws a good Golden Age Batman and Bruce Wayne that pays homage to Sprang's without aping the style. He also is good with the Blackhawk planes.

Detective Comics #495: The Crime Doctor story by Fleisher and Newton continues, picking up with Thorne realizing that Batman is Bruce Wayne. Batman gets knocked out by one of the thugs, but Thorne keeps them from killing him because "he's still a doctor." The cops are on the way, so they all run out, leaving Batman to wake up and rescue a doctor before a bomb goes off. Later, the thugs fill in crime boss Sterling Silversmith that the Crime Doctor may know Batman's identity and Sterling decides to have a chat with the doctor. Thorne is in disguise and trying to get out of the country, but gives himself away when he can't help but save a woman's life. Silversmith forces Thorne to drink some mercury ("quicksilver"--it's thematic!) and won't get him to a hospital if he doesn't give up Batman's identity. Thorne won't break confidentiality. Batman shows up to save him, but not before Thorne's mind is completely destroyed by mercury poisoning. A good, solid story.

The "Tales of Gotham" feature by Rozakis and Spiegle has a numbers runner desperate to get his mattress full of money out of a burning building. It's sort of clever, but I wonder who the audience was for this sort of thing? Burkett and Delbo continue the adventures of Batgirl, or the "Darknight Damsel" as this story puts it. This storyline isn't bad, but it suffers a bit by comparison to the better stories around it, which include the DeMatteis/Forton Black Lightning yarn. "Animals" has Black Lightning trying to resolve a hostage situation with a teen gang within the school without any of the gang members loosing their lives. It's 70s heavy handed, sure, regarding life in the ghetto and how it shapes youth, but it works pretty well. In the last story, Robin takes down a drug ring that is shipping the drugs to the campus under the guise of being an academic book publisher in Gotham. I bet the pricing was ridiculous.

Green Lantern #133: Wolfman and Staton get Carol and Hal back together around their mutual desire to not see Ferris Aircraft go under after several mysterious plane crashes. Things are complicated by Dr. Polaris whisking Green Lantern to the North Pole to try and kill him. Based on the trouble Polaris gives GL and the dialogue about the ring's power and magnetism, Magneto would be a deadlier foe for Jordan than Sinestro! The backup story by Laurie Sutton and Rodin Rodriguez has Adam Strange and friends fighting to save Ranagar from Kaskor the Mad. There's a lot of action, but it still feels kind of dull.

House of Mystery #285: Great cover on this one courtesy of Joe Kubert. I don't think any of the stories live up to it. The cover story by Wessler and Henson (in that it has a clown, otherwise it's unrelated) is sort of a Murder on the Orient Express riff set in a circus where the clown arrested for stabbing the lousy circus owner was actually the only member of the circus that couldn't have killed him because she stabbed him after he was dead at the others' hands! Kupperberg's and Cruz's "Cold Storage" has a soldier freaking out due to isolation in the arctic and committing murder, only to wind up infected by a deadly disease careered by a quarantined astronaut that will keep him isolated and in the extreme cold. Barr and Patricio deliver a tale of an overzealous vampire hunter who, after the accidentally murder of a boy just pretending to be a vampire, has a curse put on him by the child's mother. It causes him to develop a phobia that leads to his death when it manifests at a crucial moment: a fear of pointed objects.  Barr takes another swing, this time with Garcia, in a slightly better story of a robber and who plays his boombox at an annoying volume. The music allows the woman he injured in a jewelry store robbery to guess his identity. The woman's husband ultimately traps him in a basement under debris--and turns up his radio so that no one can hear his cries for help.

Random Dying Earths

Here are a few random tables to create the barebones of your own Dying Earth setting.

What's happening?

1 The Sun is going dark

2 The Sun is becoming a red giant

3 The Earth is just worn out

4 The universe is ending (the Big Crunch)

5 The universe is just worn out

6 Reality has changed in some way

What's the environment like on Earth?

1 Ok for now

2 Desert or becoming desert

3 Frozen over in ice

4 Dark and mostly barren of life

5 heavily polluted

6 overrun by some new/mutant lifeform

Art by Darrell Sweet

Earthly civilization is:

1 Dependent on magic

2 Post-technological and primitive

3 Primitive

4 Utterly reliant on machines they don't understand

Prevailing mindset?

1-2 Decadent and cruel

3-4 Fatalistic and world-weary

5-6 Innocent and ignorant

Dark Sun: The Pristine Tower

"The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you."

- Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer

The Pristine Tower is a mysterious structure in the deserts of Athas. It is first mentioned in Denning's novel Amber Enchantress, but later figures into an adventure Dregoth Ascending. I'm going to ignore for this post what the Tower is and the roll it plays in the history of Athas, as that's something one might or might not want to use in there own campaign, but I think the Pristine Tower as enough interesting things about it, it's worth including even without the backstory.

Tower is at least mutagenic, perhaps reality-warping. While the novel is disappointingly bland in the description of its environs, I think you can easily borrow strange details from Annihilation (the film or the novel) or perhaps Roadside Picnic, though with more emphasis on the biological rather than the technological.

We are told that anything that bleeds within the zone around the tower (perhaps anything that is injury) begins getting remade as some other creature. This is the source of the "new races" of Athas--like the nikaal or the humanoid baazrag. Also it creates unique mutations like Magnus, who was born of elves but looks nothing like one, and the half-human, half-insectoid Prince Dhojakt.

The fact that mutation only seems to occur after bleeding (or perhaps injury) is interesting. Is the Tower exerting some sort out of control healing field? Or is it trying to produce lifeforms better suited to survival on Athas and just needs better access to genetic material than intact skin provides? Or perhaps it's just a mutagen changing everything in range slowly, and natural healing just gives a more rapid avenue for that process?

In the novel, the area around the Tower is inhabited by rather normal creatures, but I think the chimeric creatures of the Annihilation film are more appropriate. You could also use my Random Zonal Aberrations tables. Of course always keep in mind that "weird for Earth" isn't necessarily weird for Athas.