Wonders Beyond the Orbit of Old Earth

Few denizens of Old Earth or worlds of the Anadem that dance around it like myriad, glittering jewels, would think to brave the distances to visit the worlds of the solar system beyond. Let mariners with starlight in their blood make the journeys of weeks, months, or more to these distant and often uncivilized places!

Still, who can fail to wonder at these literally unearthly locales? Everyone enjoys the tales of the far roving spacers in the comfort of familiar surroundings.

The Giant and the Beanstalk

Growing up from one of the mountains of the Martian desert is a beanstalk grown from an alien seed, purchased on some distant world. At the top of it is a castle where a giant lives. Once this giant was a congenial host and servant of visitors, but now he is jealous of his prerogative of access to the castle and has been known to eat trespassers. Once travelers move frequently up and down the beanstalk, and ships docked at the castle, but no longer.

The Titans of the Belt

The legends say that long ago, Titans from the Outer Dark tried to conquer the solar system. They were defeated by Gaia and the Overminds of the other planets and somehow petrified into a state not living, but not fully dead. Their corpses floated in the wastes between Mars and Jupiter and over the centuries, rock accreted on them. their rock-encrusted corpses now often serve as the home bases of the notorious Gith pirate bands.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1982 (week 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 October 15, 1981.

Batman #343: The arrival of Colan on art suggests we are getting close to some issues I remember from my youth. We pick up shortly after last issue, as Batman is still looking for Man-Bat without success. Also, Poison Ivy is about to take over Wayne Enterprises and Bruce can't tell anybody as they tiresome storyline continues. But the "A-Plot" this issue features another of Conway's one-off villains: Dagger, who specializes in thrown edged-weapons. He manages to destroy a Batmobile (indirectly) before Batman strikes down the origin of his weapons to a Rennington Steel plant in the small town of Stokely. Turns out the owner is Dagger, and Batman defeats him on his home turf.

In the backup, Robin just can't catch a break. After taking the traumatized girl he saved last issue to a psychiatric clinic he just happened to pass in Virginia, Robin learns that the "staff" are actually stand-ins and drug smugglers! The crooks capture Robin and leave him tied to a bed to overdose on anesthesia. Seeing Robin brings the young woman out of her dissociation, and she saves him. Robin is able to capture the criminals and free the real staff of the clinic. When the cops arrive, they ask Robin if there is anything they can do to repay him. He asks for a bus ticket to Gotham City!

Flash #305: Bates and Infantino/Smith present a Silver Age throwback sort of issue with Barry tormented by a dream about the death of Joan Garrick, then journeying to Earth-Two to investigate. His worry increases when he finds out from Jay that she as disappeared! Their search involves Dr. Fate and leads them to the realm ruled by the Lord of Limbo Barry tangled with back in issue #284. Joan is saved and everyone goes home--except the Lord of Limbo, who's still trapped there.

G.I. Combat #237: In Kanigher's and Glanzman's first Haunted Tank yarn, the crew is tasked with meeting the Soviets at the Elbe, and a courageous war photographer is sent along with them. Trouble is that the crew think the photographer's a jinx as they notice he's the only survivor of all the incidents he takes pictures of. They try to leave him behind or thwart his picture-taking, but in the end, he saves them from a Nazi ambush, and his own death is the last thing he photographs.

Kanigher and Trinidad follow that up with story of a lone-surviving Marine tricking dug-in Japanese troops into revealing themselves on an island in the Pacific. Next up is the obligatory O.S.S. story. This one features Kana the Ninja so unlike a lot of O.S.S. tales, the protagonist survives. 

Kashdan reveals a rematch between two Olympic skiers, one a German officer and one an American. The American sacrifices himself to blow up a German train so this time "The Loser Takes All." Then, we're back to the Haunted Tank as the crew helps defends Dover from an invasion from Calais with a group of wounded Commonwealth soldiers.

Jonah Hex #56: Having shoved Jonah's wife and child aside, Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga can get Hex out of the domestic world and back to done-in-one adventuring. Here he discovers a damsel in distress in a somewhat improbable frontier mental asylum. Jonah's meets up with the woman's husband who reveals she was committed by her uncle in an effort get control of the future left to her by her father. Jonah manages to get her out, but then the husband reveals that he plans to kill her and get the fortune for himself. Jonah dispatches him with a knife.

Bates/Mishkin/Cohn and DeZuniga present a pretty good El Diablo backup. A young gun comes to town convinced that Lazarus Lane is just pretending his "locked-in Syndrome" state and his really notorious outlaw Del Corbett. After the gunman shoots the sheriff, El Diablo comes to bring him to justice, and it is revealed that the town preacher is actually Corbett, having become the peaceful, empathetic role he played for years.

New Teen Titans #15: Wolfman and Perez bring this Doom Patrol-related storyline to a close with nonstop action, and more than a little meditation on trauma. Zahl and Rouge put Robotman and the Titans in a "Devolving Pit" causing them to begin changing into "Neanderthals." The two villains continue their brutal invasion of Zandia, which is actually a haven for escaped criminals. Changeling teams up with the new Brotherhood of Evil to attack the villainous duo and their followers and to free his friends. In the battle, Zahl is killed when one of his bullets ricochets off Robotman's body, and Madame Rouge meets her death accidentally in a struggle with Changeling but ends up thanking him for it. The Titans and the Brotherhood escape from the villains' flying island before it explodes, and for their help, the Brotherhood is allowed to go free. The original Doom Patrol is avenged at last, and Changeling and Robotman are reunited with Mento.

Secrets of Haunted House #44: The first story by Cohn/Mishkin and Gonzales is appropriately Halloween themed. A farmer invites a writer on the paranormal to see the Halloween God that supposedly lives in the town pumpkin patch. The creature is harmless, but the writer finds to his horror that the goblins that it produces every 20 years demand a new Halloween God take its place--and the writer is it.

Next to futuristic scavenger hunters fall prey to aliens also on a scavenger hunt, the difference being their hunt ends with the humans' heads on their wall.  Finally, Mishkin and Cohn are back again with Carillo on art and a tale of colonialists as a sought-after artifact is the means of an Indian cult's supernatural vengeance.

The Perilous Road to Yai

 Our Land of Azurth game continued last night with our 8th Anniversary session!

The party emerged from Subazurth in the vicinity of the domed city of Yai. They followed a mountain trail and were forced to do battle with mindless, mutated and muscled beastmen:

Then, they scaled a precarious ledge to find an apparent entrance to the domed city guarded by a faceless, silver man. He first incapacitated all the party but Kairon with some sort of gas, but otherwise didn't seem particularly belligerent. 

Shade scouted into his cave invisibly and found him trying repeatedly to shut a great mechanical maw (perhaps a door) with a violet light emanating from his hand. 

With no other way to get around him, the party reluctantly attacked. He shot needles at them and was resistance to injury, but couldn't long hold up against them all. He died in a shower of sparks.

The group climbed between the half open "teeth" and entered the room beyond. 

Return to Planet Funhouse Dungeon

Back in 2016, I wrote a post suggesting that there had never really been a sci-fi rpg equivalent of old D&D in the sense there had never really been a gonzo, promiscuously borrowing from all sorts of media sci-fi game of exploration that is generic. I think that statement is still largely true, if we limit it to games that really capture the gaming zeitgeist. Currently, horror science fiction hybrids seem to the order of the day.

It's true that gonzo/less serious science fiction has never been its most popular form in other media, but I feel like it's as popular as it has ever been with Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok, and less popular but still big budget movies like Jupiter Ascending and Valerian.

The think, though, that the best model for a game of this sort is a show from nearly 60 years ago: the original Lost in Space. Sure it was aimed at kids and the amount of money spent on episodes left it with special effects like something from a decade earlier in comparison to Star Trek, but the mix of the lack of concern for serious science fiction (or logic at times) that came from making a kid-focused so combined with chasing the aesthetic of the popular Batman tv show, created encounters with the "unknown" that would be at home in any old school goofy dungeoncrawl.

A vending machine that can deliver androids to order--but then you have to pay for them. Faceless aliens in besparkled bowler hats. A space prospector that look like a miner forty-niner (complete with mule) but is blasting away to find an element that can create (or bestow) life. Space hillbillies. The Great Vegetable Rebllion.

Of course, Lost in Space has a bounded setting--and I think this is important. The Space Family Robinson are lost and marooned for most of the show on first one planet then another. This makes there adventures closer to a dungeoncrawl or at least wilderness crawl of a specific area. Of course, we never see the Robinson's methodically exploring, but there isn't a lot of ten foot pole poking around in Sword & Sorcery fiction either. If you want that sort of thing nothing stops you from doing it. 

In any case, I think the appeal of a science fiction campaign limited to one world, like Vance's Planet of Adventure or Lost in Space, but a world that is pretty gonzo as appeal.

Plasmoids of the Anadem

These rubbery, elastic invertebrates are one of the most commonly encountered nonhumankin of the Anadem. They have few wordlets of their own but can been found on many multi-kin habitats. They are generally easy of disposition and gregarious. They can often be found among the ranks of entertainers. 

It is believed that the ancestors of the plasmoids were discovered on some distant world by ancient human explorers. This world has been lost or at least misplaced, so that none of the scant visitors Old Earth receives from the outer galaxy can recollect any details regarding it. The tale told on Old Earth is that the pre-sophont ancestors of the plasmoids were known as zhmoon and came from a pleasant world called (appropriately, if unimaginatively) the World of the Zhmoon. Earlier spacers happening upon the world noted the gelatinous species, with seemingly no fear of other creatures. They also noted the tastiness of zhmoo flesh if appropriately prepared. 

It is possible hungry visitors would have caused the extinction of the zhmoon had not conservationists noticed them beginning to exhibit signs of intelligence greater than that of an animal. These behaviors, curiously, seemed to increase over time. It was generally accepted that exposure to human behavior and culture had triggered an aptitude for evolutionary mimicry, though there were other opinions. A renowned scientist, noting the malleability of zhmoo structure, suggested the only mimicry had been in the reciprocal consumption of some hapless would-be zhmoo hunters. The zhmoon had thereby absorbed human knowledge and mental structures. The scientist, determined to prove his theory, disappeared in the wilds of the World of the Zhmoon.

Shortly thereafter the zhmoon present humanity with manikins, the vaguely human-shaped, living but nonsentient snacks still cultivated on Old Earth today, demonstrating a biochemical know-how heretofore unseen among them. The snacks enjoyed a brief period of faddish popularity, but they were the plasmoids entre to galactic society.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1982 (week 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of  October 8, 1981. For the first time since I've been doing this series, DC has four weeks of releases with this cover date.

Arak Son of Thunder #5: Thomas and Colon/DeZuniga Carolus Magnus is holding a tourney and Angelica and family shows up. Arak wants to fight them, but he can't because of the tournament truce. The champion of White Cathay defeats Rinaldo with help from Angelica's sorcery, and they force him to accompany them back to their country. Arak and Maligigi follow to get proof of sorcery, but they are beset by monsters and defeated. Angelica wins this round!

DC Comics Presents #41: Clark, Perry, and Lois are headed off to Los Angeles, but so are the Joker and the Prankster. The two villains are temporarily working together to steal from a comedian-turned crime boss the two super-villains have a grudge against. When Prankster double-crosses the Joker and kidnaps Perry White, it's Superman and the Joker who must become uneasy allies. Pasko manages to take a number of digs on L.A. and Hollywood. I like how the script uses a the then-common not psychopathic but still potentially deadly Joker, and ups the menace of the Prankster, so the two are roughly as "serious." Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez art helps everything, though, and this is no exception.

There's a "A Bold New Direction for... Wonder Woman" insert by Thomas and Colan/Tanghal where Wonder Woman receives her new "double-W" halter from a feminist organization, and then returns to Paradise Island. There she has to best Hercules in a contest of strength and Hermes in a contest of speed to win freedom for the Amazons. Oh yeah, and Steve Trevor is dying--again. I've complained about Conway's wishy-washiness about how powerful Wonder Woman is. Thomas clearly comes down on the "very superhuman" side.

Ghosts #108: Squire Shade presents an unnecessary frame regarding a wrestler who has had three lifetimes to be tested. In the first story by Gill and Gonzales/Martin a treasure-seeking tender of his family gravesight is forced by his wealthy brother's ghost to pursue the bikers that took a metal, gargoyle-head ornament from his tomb. The man receives it and returns it, never noticing the jewels he had been seeking leaking from it. Snyder and Craig have a young man on vacation confronting a haunted house and defeating it's illusions with his refusal to believe. O'Flynn and Texiera/Celado reveal the hubris of a scientist who takes credit for his assistants discovery of a means to demonstrate the the soul leaving the body in a sensory deprivation take. When the scientist's eagerness to gain fame leads to his assistants death, the assistant's spirit seeks vengeance. 

The last story is another weird science fiction piece from Drake and Vicatan. Two criminals and their collaborating guard escape a future prison, discover a means to make their spirits leave their bodies after an alien encounter. They visit a utopian alien civilization who offer them the formulas for all sorts of societal improvements, but when they return to their own bodies the one them memorized the formula is left without a body. 

Justice League #198: Conway and Heck/Breeding break out a Old West crossover. In 1978 amnesiac Leaguers Green Lantern, Zatanna, Flash, and Elongated Man encounter and enlist the aid of Jonah Hex, Cinnamon, Scalphunter, and Bat Lash, respectively, all while under the watch of a shadowy, glowing-eyed figure.

Back in the present, Superman heads to the Grand Canyon where his colleagues disappeared but winds up being defeated by a Kryptonite-containing robot serving the Lord of Time. The villain explains that he is responsible for sending the League members back into the past. He knows that a cluster of antimatter energy is going to fall in the Arizona deserts in 1878, and he plans to use the League to collect the powerful energy source for him!

Weird War Tales #107: In a story by Newman/Carrillo a German commander must contend with the Furies of Greek myth who bring his plans to ruin and then get him arrested by his own people. Next Snyder and Trinidad present a non-weird non-actual war story about National Guard re-enactors in Oregon who change the result of the battle of Rappahanock Station. Newman is back with Rubeny for the story of a mercenary crew hired to terrorize and drive out indigenous peoples in Africa, find themselves in trouble when the people they are attacking hire a mercenary local sorcerer.

Barr and von Eeden/Smith present a presumably a fall of Skylab inspired story. The Wanderer satellite is going to fall to Earth and peoples fear leads to a political push that shuts down the space agency, effectively ending America's exploration program. However, a young boy sees the satellite falling like a shooting star and is inspired to one day go to outer space.

Wonder Woman #287: With the DC Comics Presents preview promising a "new direction" for Wonder Woman starting next issue, Wolfman and Heck are left to finish the lame duck "old direction" here--which means a Titans guest appearance. Wonder Girl and Starfire respond to a mysterious summons to a New York harbor dock and are attacked by costumed assailants, who manage to capture Wonder Girl. Starfire captures one of the gang, and contacts Robin, who in turn calls Diana Prince to get Wonder Woman's aid. Wonder Girl is being held prisoner by Dr. Cyber, who lures Wonder Woman to her hideout, intent on having Dr. Moon transplant her brain into Wonder Woman's body. Rather than risk Donna's life, Wonder Woman appears to agree to Cyber's terms. But the Teen Titans bust in to free their friends. Wonder Woman defeats Cyber, and Wonder Girl breaks herself out of the glass prison she had been held in. I feel like this one was better than most of the Conway issues that preceded it.

Travelers Tales at Bar in the Anadem

The blogging equivalent of a clip show this week, as I give you a chance to catch up on my posts in the Spelljammer-ish setting of the Anadem:

Lycaon, the Werewolf World

Those itinerant Earthshiners

The mysterious Toymaker

Weird Revisited: In the Blood

This post originally appeared almost 10 years ago to the day...

 

The element iron has a special status: it carries oxygen on our blood; it’s the most abundant element in the earth’s crust; and it has the most stable atomic nuclei. More to the point for fantasy gaming: "cold iron" is said to ward off or harm fairies, ghosts, and/or witches.

In the novel Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington, magical attitude is inversely related to iron in the blood. A necromancer explains it this way:

“Iron, as I’ve told you, is one of the only symbols that represents what it truly is, here and on the so-called Platonic level of reality...Because it is true material and not just a symbol of something else, iron restricts our ability to alter the world, be it talking to spirits or commanding symbols or however you put it.”

Not only does this nicely tie some of the real properties of iron with its folklore properties, but it would have some interesting implications in fantasy games. Prohibitions against metal armor and the working of magic make sense in this light. Even more interestingly, it might it explain why D&D mages tend to be physically sort of weak--they need to be somewhat less robust in order to work magic well. Maybe higher Constitution scores actually impairs magic, or impairs the “level” a mage can advance too? That might also example the traditional dwarven poor magic aptitude: they’re hardy, creatures of the earth (where iron’s abundant).

Howl at the Moon

Scholars disagree on whether remote Lycaon, the Wolf World, should be considered part of the Anadem proper or not, lying as it does on the far side of the Moon. That face of Luna, forever hidden from Earth, looms large and bright in Lycaon's sky, and that has a particular effect on the Wolf World's inhabitants.

It is said that in a previous age suffers of lycanthropy were deported to the Outer System in an effort to eradicate the curse forever from Old Earth. In the time sense, a tribe of werewolves were given leave by the Elven Queen to settle bring a worldlet into the orbit known by the ancient designation of El-Tu. Why the Queen of Elves should allow this is unclear, but the lycanthropes benefited greatly from close proximity to the celestial body that governs their malady.

The Wolf World is by all accounts beautiful with its old fashion castles and keeps and deep shadowed forests, but it is seldom visited. The werewolf lords are high-handed and capricious hosts. One might be the guest of honor at a lavish feast, or the quarry in a hunt under the bone pale moon.

Wednesday Comics: DC, December 1981 (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 September 24, 1981. 

Adventure Comics #488: Two Dial H stories here. In the first by Rozakis and Infantino, Jinx, a villain with bad luck powers is convinced that all the superheroic duos appearing in this one small city most be the same people, and he surveils them long enough to confirm his suspicions.  In the end, not even bad luck can stop the ring-throwing Captain Saturn and the cold-powered Snowball from taking him down.

The second story by Kashdan and von Eeden is weird because it's odd to see the Dial H stuff drawn by anybody but Infantino. Beyond that, it isn't memorable at all, as the kids take on the poison-wielding Belladona, "Princess of Potions." 

Detective Comics #509: Conway and Newton bring Catman sets a trap for Batman as he wants to retrieve the scrap of his cape Batman tore off last time they met. Catman is convinced his cape is magical, giving him nine lives, and the tearing of the cape ruined it's magic--and now Catman has a scarred face to prove the loss of his luck. He thinks the cape can heal it. He puts Batman in a rising tide death trap, but of course Batman escapes. He tracks Catman to where he has Selina Kyle captive and he has finally recovered the missing piece of his costume. His face isn't fixed, though, and Selina explains that perhaps the magical cloth has been used too many times and it doesn't work anymore. (She doesn't mention she might have used it to cure her illness.) Batman defeats Catman. Later, Selina tells Bruce she is leaving Gotham because her past is always in the way between the two. Meanwhile, Bruce, unaware that he is being watched closely by someone from his past, who is determined to find a connection between Bruce Wayne and Batman.

In the Batgirl backup, she is still trying to take down the Annihilator who has siphoned Supergirl's power. Batgirl manages to free her friend, but they are unable to defeat the Annihilator (who continues to mutate), and he teleports away. Annihilator decides he's going to repopulate Gotham (after he destroys it) with his own super-progeny, but he needs to mind the right mate. He starts building a ray to use on the woman he wants to carry his offspring. Batgirl and Supergirl have tracked him down, but with his precognitive powers he knows they are coming. He muses that Batgirl is a prime specimen for his mate.

Legion of Super-Heroes #282: I get the feeling Thomas fashioned this entire arc just to give an explanation for the Reflecto statue in the adult Legion story in Adventure Comics #354, and it shows. Anyway, we've got most the Legionnaires still imprisoned on Earth in the 60s as commies or something, and Superboy, Dawnstar, and Phantom Girl are in Bgztl. Luckily, Superboy regains his memory, and even more luckily, Dawnie is able to track down the not-dead Ultra Boy. Also, the Time Trapper is defeated, the other Legion members escape, and back in the 30th Century they change the statue of a dead Ultra Boy to Reflecto, 'cause he kinda died. Sure, Roy (and Paul).

New Adventures of Superboy #24: I had this issue as a kid. After the Curator strikes Superboy with a Red Kryptonite bomb, the Boy of Steel is blind without his Kryptonian glasses, imperiling either his effectiveness as a hero or his secret identity. A blind Superboy is still an effective one, though. In the Superbaby backup by Rozakis and Calnan, Superboy foils an alien invasion while being baby-sat.

Sgt. Rock #359: Kanigher and Redondo bring back the Iron Major, who manages to capture Rock and beat the hell of of him but doesn't kill him since Rock spared his life last time. The next story by Bill Kelley with amateurish art by Ron Randall has a young woman getting close to a Nazi officer to get travel papers for her husband. The Nazi double-crosses her and kills her husband but is killed accidentally by his subordinate, trying to shoot the woman. 

The Men of Easy feature has whistler Canary providing the wedding march for a couple whose church pipe organ was destroyed by a German attack. In the last story, a WWI pilot's cat, Blind Faith, helps him after a crash when he has been blinded. The cat jumps at a German sneaking up on him, allow the pilot to turn and shoot.

Unexpected #217: In the cover story by Sheldon Mayer, Lincoln is removed from the timestream moments before his assassination and brought to 2265 in order to run for president of the galaxy. The ol' Railsplitter figures out everything is not on the up and up, and turns the tables on the disguised aliens, foiling their plans. Next up, Sciacca and Carrillo give a slightly modified version of the Japanese Yuki-onna legend where a man marries a beautiful but mysterious wife and has kids, but loses it all when he asks too many questions about his wife's past.

Mishkin/Cohn and Speigle present the tail of a hat store owner who chooses not to ask too many questions when his business turns around with the patronage of an odd man and his equally odd friends--even after he discovers they all are hiding aliens under the hats they bought. Drake and Vince Perez/Vicatan present the sort of story you might have seen in an EC sci-fi book.  In the future, a criminal left adrift in space after she tried to steal from her partner crashes on a planet with deformed mutants, descendants of the victims of ancient Earth nuclear accidents. ("3 Mile Land," offer as example.) They want to breed with her to produce normal children, but she isn't having any of that. After poisoning the mutants, she escapes with a seeming "normal" human only to find he is another mutant concealing that all of his limbs are separate mutants, and all vying for her affection.

The closing page is another meta bit, signaling the 3 Witches will no longer be hosting the book. We see tombstones of other DC horror hosts like Destiny and Dr. Geist and features like Johnny Peril and Dr. Thirteen.

Unknown Soldier #258: Haney and Ayers/Talaoc love their dramatic set-pieces gets to battle a Nazi in the bell of the Notre Dame Cathedral on a mission in Paris to find the injured Allied spy, the Sparrow. In "Swan Song" by Mitchell and Spiegle a young pianist turned "demo man" plays his last to lure German soldiers toward a home before he blows up their artillery outside. 

The Captain Storm story has got a guest appearance by JFK, as Storm goes on a mission to find the missing PT-109, unfortunately, the story ends on a cliffhanger with it unclear if they all make it back home with a Japanese sub blocking their way. I'm guessing they do, but we'll see next issue!

World's Finest Comics #274: In the Burkett and Gonzales/Breeding pick up from last issue. With Batman now super-powered but dying thanks to the Power Charger, he rushes off to save Superman from the Weapon Master. Armed with futuristic weapons stolen from the Fortress of Solitude and maybe elsewhere, he's tough to handle, but even he can't stand up to the combined might of Superman and Super-Batman. In the end Weapon Master makes his escape, and Superman has to let him go to rush to save Batman. Using the Weapon Master's device to drain the powers from Batman, the Dark Knight is depowered but not dying. The Barr/von Eeden Green Arrow story plays on the plot of the reporter refusing to reveal his source after the police want to know how GA knew about a drug deal he busted. Ollie refuses to reveal his source and a judge gives him 24 hours to change his mind or go to jail. Ollie does some soul-searching, but ultimately decides to take the jail time for his ethics.

In a new Zatanna feature, Conway and Colon pit the the sorceress against a mystically empowered food critic who becomes The Shrieker on a fancy cruise. Rozakis and Saviuk have Hawkgirl live Hawkman and take the rocket so he can't follow. Katar tries to enlist his JLA friends to follow her, but they aren't willing to get involved in this marital drama. He goes home and let's himself go for a bit, but a serious of robberies at the museum get him to pull himself together and get back in action. In the Marvel Family story by Bridwell and Newton, Captain Marvel is stymied by a villain with the ability to create silence, which keeps Billy from turning into his heroic form. Billy's a smart kid, though and has a plan involving a telephone and a tape recorder.

Into The Phantom Jungle

 Last night, I got my other gaming group to try Broken Compass in one of our "not Azurth" off-weeks. I decided to run "The Phantom Jungle," which I found on One Shot Adventures. The group were headed up the Javary River in South America, inadvertently carrying and Inca artifact sought be a cult.

As we the other group, the part was impressed by the simplicity and cinematicness of Broken Compass' rules. I made some pregen's for them (well, adapted some from the basic rules) using some new images.

From the top left they are: Jake O'Donnell (Daredevil Action Hero), Gus Geraty (Old Cheater Wingman), Laura van der Woodsen (Explorer Professor), and Sam Stone (Hunk Soldier).

Earthshiners

There are rustic folk that sometimes visit the Anadem from more remote asteroids. These insular people build ramshackle settlements on whatever tumbling rock or abandoned worldlet they can find, eking out a hardscrabble existence growing what crops they can and raising their weird livestock, but often staying only one season. Long enough to produce one good batch of their primary trade stuff and cultural artifact: earthshine.

Earthshine, so these rockhoppers aver, can only be distilled from the captured radiance of humanity's homeworld. It is collected in "pans," broad-rimmed, shallow dishes which are pointed at the Earth and somehow collect it's light, which then flows down coiling tubing to the heated processing apparatus. The end product is clear but tinged silvery-blue has a slight glow in darkness. It can be “poured” or contained, but moves more like a heavy fog than a liquid. It is bottled in opaque receptacles--sunlight will degrade it within others. After a day or two, it becomes more volatile, and can by used as an intoxicant by inhalation from bottles or from cloths on which some of the substance has been pored.  The earthshiners also use it some how to power their dubious vessels to cross the void, to the next convenient place to make their concoction.

The Earthshiners are clearly of human stock, but tend to be taller than Earthly humans, strapping and clean-limbed in youth. In old age, they can sometimes by gnarled, perhaps even dwarfish. It is believed the habitual use of earthshine takes its toll.

For obscure reasons, the fey empire of the Moon has no love for the Earthshiners. It's swift, silver-white patrol ships uproot them where they find them, deporting them beyond the bounds of the Anadem. 

Wednesday Comics: DC, December 1981 (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 September 24, 1981.

Action Comics #526: Wolfman and Staton continue their Neutron story. Superman races against time to discover where Neutron has planted an atomic bomb which, if and when it goes off, will destroy Metropolis. He's hampered by the fact Neutron has planted decoys, and HIVE is involved. Ultimately, he discovers the bomb is the new Daily Planet globe. This is a real Marvel style story, I think, different that the "alien conundrum of the month" stories we often get with Superman.

In the Air Wave backup, Hal temporarily develops the power to read minds after receiving an electric shock.

Brave & the Bold #181: Brennert and Aparo team Batman up with Hawk and Dove, who haven't made an appearance since Showcase #100 in 1978. When Hawk accidentally causes the death of a drug kingpin's son, Batman and the Dove team up to try and get to him before the gangster can do so. Hawk and Dove have become "stuck" in personal/political ruts since the 60s, leading to both losing their way. In this story, Hawk and Dove reconcile as brothers, and regain the powers they (briefly) lost. I like that the story specifically places the two in their 60s context and appears to take place in the early 80s.

The Nemesis storyline comes to an end as he makes a final assault on Samuel Solomon, and manages to at least free himself of the device controlling his heart.

All-Star Squadron #4: Thomas debuts his explanation for who the existence of superheroes didn't alter the course of the war. After seeing the devastation at Pearl Harbor, the combined All-Star Squadron is ready to hunt down the Japanese fleet for some payback, despite FDR's desire that they protect the homefront. When they fly off toward Wake Island, the most powerful heroes fall under the sway of the Dragon King who with the help of the Germans and some mystic artifacts, has set-up of protective shield around Axis-controlled territory. The heroes barely make it out of the sphere of influence and are forced to return home.

Green Lantern #147: Wolfman and Staton threw Jordan in prison last issue, so now we get the fight with the inmates out for revenge. It's rendered a bit sillier because Jordan is jailed in his Green Lantern outfit--and put in a cell with Black Hand who is in his costume! Of course, we're also told Goldface has police on his payroll and bribed a judge, so maybe things were arranged. Anyway, it's a fairly tense issue with a powerless Jordan forced to take on one group of inmates after another, while elsewhere Tom races against time to find the power battery and recharge Jordan's ring. Of course, he does in the nick of time, and Green Lantern makes short work of his assailants.

However, they can't tie any of this to Goldface rather amazingly, so GL is forced to leave him alone or get in trouble with the law again. Also, the congressman out for revenge against Ferris Aircraft makes his move and accuses Ferris of treason. The next issue blurb promises a wrap-up of all this and a new creative team with a more cosmic approach. I think that's a good move.

In the Adam Strange backup by Sutton and Infantino, Adam and Alanna take the lost boy, Rad, to the place that he says is his home: a ruined city in the jungle. In turns out Rad was put in a thousand year stasis after a monster attacked the city. When the monster wakens, Strange and crew defeat it. They discover Rad's family have transported themselves 2000 years into the future, and Rad goes to join them.

House of Mystery #299: "I...Vampire" gets a new writer in Bruce Jones. This story smacks of "a new direction" sort of writing, as Bennett decides he's putting his companions too much in danger and heads off on his own (hitchhiking) for a show down with the cult of the Blood Red Moon. When the guy that gave him a ride is killed, Bennett sees it as an opportunity to fake his own (un)death.

Mishkin/Cohn and Matucenio have a great white hunter in India who meets his end when "thinking like a tiger" winds up putting him just where the maneater wants him. McKenzie and Spiegle present a nonhorror but interesting story of a future Earth where humanity is rich and moving off-world owing to the sale of the Sun to aliens. An elder couple (named Kuttner and Bradbury) and a robot wind up getting left behind, but wind up believing it's for the best. Kelley and Bissette sort of lampoon the excitement around a grunion run, as giant aliens use it as an opportunity to snag large groups of humans to snack on.

Superman Family #213: Pasko and Mortimer choose the title that was going to come up at some point with Blackrock as the heavy: "Bad Day with Blackrock." He and Supergirl fight to a standstill, but the Maid of Might ultimately triumphs due to trickery, enticing the villain to chase her into a tunnel where he can't get a radio signal and his power depletes. Also, the Lena Thorul subplot moves toward its conclusion as everyone finds out she is Lex Luthor's sister. 

In the Mr. and Mrs. Superman story, Lana Lang turns into an evil Insect Queen thanks to a scarab she got from her archeologist father and gives Superman trouble. To be continued. Rozakis and Calnan present a weird Private Life of Clark Kent, where Clark lies to another reporter about the circumstances of Superman interviewing him, so he has to stage Superman taking a photo of him to convince her the interview happened. They're the same guy, why would Clark spin a tale for the reporter that she could obviously know was made up because of Superman's verifiable whereabouts at the time? It's a weird slip. Levitz and Oksner have Lois helping out Inspector Henderson after his Sherlock Award is stolen during the award dinner. In the Pasko/Delbo Jimmy Olsen story, his old flame Lucy Lane shows up (and she has white hair, which I don't think she had before and it makes her look old) and tells him that her new airline pilot boyfriend, had a disastrous landing which killed the passengers in his plane, and thinks the crash was engineered by crooks. Jimmy investigates and finds up put in a slowly filling pool with weights holding him down by the crooks.

Warlord #52: I talked about the main story in this issue in detail here. In the Dragonsword backup by Levitz and Yeates Thiron is upset at having a talking dragonsword and attacks his masters because they won't explain. The Archmage Anna shows up to halt the fight and explains that Thiron wielding the dragonsword is the only chance the world has got against Emperor Quisel and his demonic axe. 

Choice of Primary Ability Score

While it's not the only reason, one of the primary motivations beyond removing racial ability bonuses in 5e (and D&D One) is so every race can be optimal at every class. Whether optimized race/class combos are a thing one feels like is necessary, it seems to me the unasked question here is my are classes still tied to specific abilities to begin with? Why can't you have a dexterity based fighter or even an intelligence based one? They'd be a bit different "in the fiction" from a strength-based fighter, but wouldn't that be part of the fun?

I know primary ability scores are still a thing for legacy reasons, but if you can given up racial ability bonuses (and penalties!) and broaden spellcasters to be able to use various ability scores for spellcasting, then I hardly think this is a bridge too far.

The Toymaker

One of the most enigmatic figures of the Anadem and Old Earth is the Toymaker. Hailed as a genius, albeit an eccentric one, his smaller creations are sought by wealthy collectors and his larger recreational devices, benevolently gifted to communities are sources of civic pride. Each of these is marked with a modest, but never-tarnishing brass legend proclaiming it "A Gift of the Toymaker."

A list of known works of the Toymaker would run too long, but I will remind you of but a few you have likely heard of: The Clockwork Courtesan of Yejem, the Arcade Spatterlight in the Pleasure Garden of Oressund Major, the Leaping Lepidopterists in the possession of the Pajandrum of Gloorb, and of course the Merry-go-Round Tower of Ooth-Ithrain,

The Toymaker's most commonly encountered creation are the Wind-Up Gnomes. Most serve their generally wealthy owners as servants, but a few have experienced some sort of damage and become freewilled.  Some localities are fearful of freewilled wind-ups, but in most places they are accepted into society. There are persistent rumors of isolated wordlets of wind-up beings that have become quite mad and constitute a danger to flesh beings, but these are no doubt just old space-sailor tales. Probably.

No one knows where the Toymaker himself resides. Some people believe the Toymaker to not be an individual at all, but rather a brand. They suggest that it perpetuates itself by the kidnapping of promising artificers and forces them to work on its factory world, guarded by ever-smiling wind-up soldiers. If such a world existed (and really, it is ridiculous to believe it does), it might even lie beyond the Anadem, perhaps in the wilds of the Belt.

The Anadem

Millions of years hence, when the technology and magic have long ago become one, the center of human-descended civilization will have largely forgotten the quaint backwater of its birth. Still, there  is much to recommend Old Earth as a diverting, if rustic, tourist destination.

The still-blue (or once more blue) world is garlanded with a  swarm of habitats and microworlds, aggregated in orbit over millennia. This curious and eclectic mixes of cultures and species is known as the Anadem.

Upper class youths of Earth have the custom of a the Grand Tour, a rite of passage where they visit worlds of the Anadem in the ships of alien, antigravity wood, brought to Earth in previous ages from some distant world. 

This is a Spelljammer campaign idea. Inspirational media include any number of bande dessinée from Barbarella to the works of Moebius, Don Lawrence's Storm, the works of Jack Vance including The Dying Earth and Planet of Adventure; Matthew Hughes' Henghis Hapthorn stories, and Rob Chilson's Prime Mondeign stories.

Wednesday Comics: DC, December 1981 (wk 1 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 September 10, 1981.

Jonah Hex #55: Hex and his pursuers, sent by Turnbull, are forced to work together to defend themselves against El Papagayo's men. One of the younger men begins to view Hex more positive after he saves the group's life more than once, but the leader can't let go of his hate, and in the a confrontation kills the younger man who is defending Hex. Hex then shoots him and is the only survivor.

In the Tejano backup, Mishkin/Cohn and Yeates have the ranger making his escape from the Mexican army and the Comanches, but his friend is killed by his own commander, and he has a show down with the Comanche chief he met in his youth.

New Teen Titans #14: Wolfman and Perez reunite the team. The whole group gets to hear the story of Steve Dayton--who proves to have been brainwashed by Madame Rouge. He attacks the Titans, but Raven manages to defeat him. The Titans track the villains' now-airborne headquarters to the island nation of Zandia,  The Titans are all defeated and captured and Changeling finds himself in the presence of the revived Brotherhood of Evil.

Secrets of Haunted House #44: Snyder and Rodriquez open this one with a topical tale of an unusually hardy plant found in the wake of the Mt. Saint Helen's eruption. A scientist hybridizes it, and it grows to control him, forcing him to feed it neighborhood children. The fire fighters discovering it set the house ablaze in horror, but the smoke only proves to spread the spores. The next story is a weird, sci-fi piece about a guy who's captured by the enemy and tormented by illusions, so even when he escaped he doesn't know truth from psychological warfare.

Kashdan and Henson present a future world desperate for energy whose problems get solved when explorers DNA gets altered on an energy exploration mission, and he and his wife produce an unhuman kid who generates energy. The final story is an EC-esque tale by Harris and Gonzales where a guy murders the owner of a wax museum and hides him in one of the displays. The perfect crime, until it melts the wax on the corpse and he drops his executioner's axe right on his murderer!

Superman #366: "Revenge, Superman-Style." Bates and Swan reveal that it is the alien Superman Revenge Squad responsible for the events of last issue. This issue makes it seem like that was revealed previously, but I took a look at last issue again, and it wasn't. Anyway, Superman says good-bye to everyone, then alters himself into a reptilian alien form to infiltrate the revenage squad. His plan works, and he's accepted as a member of the group. 

The the "In-Between Years" backup  Perry White proves that Superboy is in Metropolis when he secretly observes the Boy of Steel dealing with warring gangsters. He gets him to appear at the Daily Planet to prove to his editor, George Taylor, that the story is true.

Weird War Tales #106: Another War That Time Forgot yarn, another orange dinosaur. This time frogmen with a mission to sink a Japanese aircraft carrier wind up on an island, but one of them follows an alluring island woman to safety. Later he sees a mermaid, and the story never makes clear whether he is hallucinating or not. Barr and Cruz send a near catatonic German WWI vet on a mission to assassinate this Hitler guy that just became leader, but he's thwarted in the end. In a short by Kanigher and Talaoc a U.S. soldier is killed by the fixed bayonet of a dead Wehrmacht trooper. The final story by Kashdan and Ditko is some nonsense about Scottish clans with a feud lasting into modern day, and a witch's curse.

Wonder Woman #286: Kanigher and Delbo present an off-beat story, where it appears that Wonder Woman may be dying of cancer, but no, it's an aspiring actress going out for the part of Wonder Woman in a movie that is dying. Wonder Woman gives the chance to play her in real life, not knowing that the girl has only has a short time to live. Amazon science can't save her, but she dies accepted by them as one of their own.

In the Huntress backup, she tangles with a guy with the 90s name of Karnage who is trying to make a name for himself in the underworld by taking her down.

Star Child

Our Land of Azurth game continued last night, with the party trying to communicate with the child-like star being they had freed last session. The creature didn't know the language but was a quick study. Still, comprehension seemed to lag behind linguistic fluency. The being expressed and interest in a story, and Waylon decided to read from the Wizard of Azurth book.

Meanwhile, the void dragon is getting impatient and anxious for his meal. Kully tries to stall him.

As if they don't have enough problems, and amorphous shadow creature emerges from hiding. It's touch is necrotic and drains strength. The party defeats it, but is forced to take a short rest.

After that, they hatch a plan to make the star child invisible and create an illusion of it to fool the void dragon while they escape. The dragon sees through the illusion quickly, but is at first confused as to the whereabouts of the real creature. Waylon uses that opportunity to attack, and the party is in a fight they initially hoped to avoid.

Using the energy weapons they got in the future, the party gives as good as they get, though not before Waylon goes down. Still, Shade manages to revive him with goodberries while the others make the dragon beat a frustrated retreat to the heavens.

The star child is joined by friends: luminous fairy-type creatures from the stars. She asks for the story, and Wayon (somewhat reluctantly) gives her the book. All the star beings huddle around it, and a sphere of light seems to push the party away and back to their own time. They materialize in Lum-One's workshop.