Green Hell

 

The jungles of Asciana’s Grand Cinnamon River basin are a popular setting for pulp adventure mags found on any newsstand in the City. The stories may be fiction, but the adventures are real. The continent of Asciana was once home to an advanced civilization, perhaps a culture related to either Mu or Meropis. Tales say that ancient cities--and ancient treasures--may have been swallowed by the jungle and await rediscovery. More than one would-be adventurer has been lost in this “green hell” searching for these legends.

It’s a place of exotic dangers. Natural dangers include giant snakes, river sharks, piranhas, and even carnivorous plants. Then there are the intelligent threats. The hostile (sometimes headhunting) Native tribes, and the reptilian caimen-- somewhat smaller and more nimble relatives of the northern gatormen--are well known.

There are also more mysterious, lesser understood threats. Forrester and Randon’s 5877 expedition reported the existence of xenophobic mushroom people, dubbed myconids, which zealously defend their territory against intruders. The mutated plants and animals they used in their defense were viewed by the expedition as examples of powerful thaumaturgy, but later scientists reviewing their accounts have suggested that the myconids may actually employ an advanced biological technology. The expedition was lucky to escape with their lives, and were unable to bring back any specimens for study.

Even more enigmatic are the creatures hinted at by the tragic Wilmarth expedition. The information is fragmented, gathered as it was by necromantic communication undertaken by Wilmarth’s widow--a process hindered by the manner of his death. In any case, if the murmurings of Wilmarth’s traumatized and shrunken head are to be believed, there are intelligent (and malevolent) stingrays found in remote tributaries of the Cinnamon which exert a supernatural influence over nearby human tribes.

Whatever the reality of these rumors, the ultimate truth is clear--the Ascianan jungle is a dangerous place, indeed.

Warlord Wednesday: Land of the Titans

It's Hump Day in Skartaris! Time to re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Land of the Titans"
Warlord (vol. 1) #32 (April 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: We find our hero just where we left him last issue: on a beach, awakening to find himself at the feet of two menacing-looking, ruddy-skinned, giants (roughly twice Morgan’s height) in hoplite-ish sort of garb. They grab an astonished Morgan by the arms to take him captive, but Morgan executes a remarkable gymnastic kick and gives his captor two boots to the eyes.

The first giant drops Morgan, giving him time to pull his sword. As the second moves in with a spear, Morgan throws his sword through the giant’s jugular, killing him. Morgan’s turned his back on the first though, who uses that opportunity to incapacitate our hero with a “crackling bolt of sinister energy” from a futuristic device.

The giant dumps Morgan onto a disc-shaped flying platform and takes him to a nearby city. He uses the futuristic device again at a different setting to “stimulate” Morgan to consciousness. He awakens to an audience with the beautiful (and giant), Queen Amarant of the Titans, who’s none too pleased that he’s killed one of their race:

Morgan starts to protest, but a blow to the back of his head stifles his rebuttal. The queen has him taken away until she decides how to kill him.

Morgan wakes up to a pretty face looking down at him. The face goes with a pretty (and non-giant) fur-clad female form. This is Shakira. She came to help Morgan because she heard he killed one of the titans, and she could use a warrior like him to help her escape. She thinks that they can get around the few traitorous slaves that act as guards and steal one of the titan’s flying discs.

Morgan’s wary, but Shakira seems to offering the only available option. After overpowering one guard, the two make their way stealthily to where the titans manufacture their weapons. As they steal across the room on a catwalk, they’re discovered by another slave who calls out in alarm. The titans begin firing their weapons at the two. One stands in their path at the end of the walk. Morgan delivers a flying kick to the titan’s chest, knocking him over the railing, and into the machinery on the manufacturing floor.

Slaves are coming at them from the other end of the catwalk. Morgan picks up the axe of the fallen titan, and kills them all, but the melee has given time for a titan to draw a bead on Morgan with his weapon. Lightning fast, Morgan pivots and throws the axe. The blade strikes home--but too late to keep the titan from pulling the trigger.

Bound and defeated, Morgan and Shakira are brought before Queen Amarant. She plans to execute Morgan for the murder of half her race. Morgan gives her a lecture on how her kind are unjustly subjugating the humans, but she backhands him and orders him to silence.

Shakira begs the queen to leave Morgan alone. The queen says Shakira was always her favorite, but since she’s chosen to side with Morgan she can share his fate. The two are sent to the arena.

Their weapons are returned, and they need them, because they find themselves facing an angry woolly rhinoceros. The two battle the beast, but Morgan is injured, and becomes an easy target for a charge. Shakira interposes herself, distracting the animal and leading it to charge the arena wall. She vaults over the beast on her spear, and its charge destroys the wall, just under where Amarant sits. Queen and beast are both dead.

Morgan and Shakira use the ensuing chaos to make their escape. The two remaining titans try to stop them, and their race is consigned to extinction. The now-freed slaves flee in terror. In the wake of the battle, Morgan and Shakira stop to consider the fallen Amarant.

Morgan points out the titans might have done great things, if they hadn’t tried to be gods. Shakira replies that people will make what gods they will. She will mourn the death of Amarant a bit. She was always well cared for, but the queen tried to bend Shakira to her will, and that she couldn’t tolerate. “It’s my nature to be independent,” she tells Morgan--and startles him by transforming into a cat.

The two newly minted travelling companions fly away on one of the discs.

Things to Notice:

• The titans are given a pinkish skin-tone sometimes used for Native Americans in old comics--and sometimes for Barsoomians, too.
• Morgan gets knocked unconscious.  Again.
• Shakira, as is her wont, wears furry ankle socks.

Where It Comes From:
This issue is very pulpy with its lost island with dying race of giants with advanced technology, but I'm unsure of any specific inspirations.

Amarant, queen of the Titans, derives her name from the herb amaranth, or amarant, meaning "unwithering" in Greek.  Mythology associates amarant with immortality--an ironic association for the queen given the events of this issue.

The real importance of this issue is in it being the first appearance of Shakira, who becomes Morgan's long time companion.  Shakira is an Arabic name meaning "thankful."  The character was inspired by Isis, the woman and cat, who is a companion to Gary Seven in the 1968 Star Trek original series episode (and backdoor pilot) "Assignment Earth."

In cat form, Isis was shown perched on Gary Seven's shoulders much in the same way Shakira will later ride Morgan's.

Note the collar motif, too, just like Shakira.

Isis was played by Victoria Vetri, who also starred in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970).  Despite the hair and costume color difference, one wonders if Vetri's appearance here combined with her roll as Isis were influential on the look of Shakira.  She's even got the spear Shakira also sports on the issue's cover.

Not quite from when dinosaurs ruled the earth, but still prehistoric, the creature Morgan and Shakira encounter in the titans' arena appears to be a Pleistocene native, Coelodonta antiquitatis, otherwise known as the woolly rhinocerous.

15 Games with Annotations

I rarely participate in these blogosphere trends (mainly because I tend to come to them too late), but here are the fifteen most meaningful games to me, not necessarily in order.  I've provided a little explanation for some of them, as well:

1. D&D (mostly AD&D 1e, but also Moldavy/Cook, Mentzer, and 2e)
2. Marvel Super-Heroes (probably the game I've played the most after D&D)
3. GURPS (the game I've played the 3rd most, probably, considered all the different settings)
4. Mayfair's DC Heroes
5. Villains & Vigilantes (my first non-D&D game, and a frequently played one)
6. FASA Star Trek
7. Shadowrun (1st ed.)
8. Talislanta (not much played, but always a favorite setting to read)
9. Star Frontiers
10. Empire of the Petal Throne (never played, but a setting I've always enjoyed and own virtually ever published supplement for)
11. Gamma World (the third non-D&D game I played)
12. HERO System (mostly, Champions)
13. Call of Cthulhu (only played a few times, but it stoked my burdgeoning interest in pulp fiction)
14. Doom (time was, I enjoyed a good 1st person shooter)
15. Pool of Radiance (the only crpg I ever played for any amount of time--which wasn't much)

The Art of Tuesday

WWWD - What Would Warduke Do?

Save vs. Petrification... Now.

So that's where elves come from!

Undeath Rides A Horse

Hell's Hoods

The times change in the infernal realms, just like on the material planes. For the modern denizens of the City and the New World, devils have shed their medieval image, and appear as members of the extraplanar organized crime group called the Hell Syndicate. 

In the City, human crime is ultimately controlled by the Hell Syndicate, though many criminals may never actually meet a devil--until, perhaps, they go to their ultimate reward. In other places, Hell’s influence is less direct, coming mainly in the form of consultation or aid to individual criminals. Make no mistake, though, anything that prays upon the moral weaknesses of mankind, enriches the Syndicate’s accounts.

Since the disappearance of Morningstar, there hasn’t been a “boss of bosses” of the Hell Syndicate, but the chairman of its board of directors is Asmodeus, of the Nessus family. Through a combination of persuasion and intimidation, he keeps the other bosses in line. Mostly.

The remaining eight infernal families, and their current bosses, are:

• Avernus family - Led by Andras “The Owl.” This family specialty is "murder for hire."

• Dis family - Run by Dispater. The Dis family is linked to the illegal arms trade worldwide.

• Minauros family - Led by Mammon. This family corrupts via greed, and keeps the Syndicate’s books, making sure the bosses of Hell get their proper percentages.

• Phlegehthos family - Their boss is Belial. They’re reported to run underground torture clubs, and gambling bloodsports.

• Stygia family - Run by Geryon. This family is extensively involved in counterfeiting, and also in various sorts of fraud.

• Malbolge family - Led by Moloch “The Bull.” Involved in extortion and protection rackets, and armed robbery.

• Maladomini family - Their boss is Baalzebub. Baalzebub’s proboscis is in prostitution, pornography, and the narcotics trade.

• Caina family - Led by Mephistopheles. Focuses on influence-peddling, and the corruption of government and corporate officials.

It's Adventure Time!

Is everyone watching this?

For those of you that aren’t, Adventure Time is a animated series on Cartoon Network created by Pendleton Ward. It relates the adventures of Finn, a 12 year-old boy; and Jake, a 28 year-old dog with size-changing and stretching powers, who right wrongs (or try) in a loopy, post-apocalyptic world with the whimsy of Oz, the intoxication amenability of H.R. Pufnstuf, and the utilitarian illogic of eighties video games.

There are quite a few D&D-related references, too. In one episode, Finn frets over imprisoning his nemesis the Ice King when he has done anything wrong (at the moment) because it’s against his “alignment.” The Ice King, in an earlier episode, wonders to himself why he’s not liked, musing: “Is it because I’m a magic-user?”

Then there are nice, humorous plays on traditional fantasy tropes. Our heroes visit a City of Thieves, which has the property of turning everyone with its walls into a thief. There are princesses a plenty to be rescued--though most are far from beauteous. Inhabitants of the land can engage in magical summoning of dire beings from other planes, like when Finn inadvertently summons the business-suited, sole-sucking, Evil Lord from the Nightosphere.

Like any good fantasy, Adventure Time boasts and array of interesting creatures. There are the werewolf-like why-wolves--”possessed of a spirit of inquiry and bloodlust.” The vapid,  valley-girlish Lumpy Space Princess, is representative of the extraplanar cloud-realm of Lumpy Space. Then there’s the wizardry-teaching Bufo, which are tadpole-like things in wizard hats, floating in the throat sac of a anthropomorphic frog.

Yes, its pretty weird.  But also very cool. Check it out.

Beasts in the East

The Demon Isles is an archipelago to the east of Yian. In the ancient writings of the Yianese, it is known as “The Barbaric Eastern Land of Ugly and Ill-tempered Dwarfs.” Today’s unlucky visitor to the Demon Isles might quibble with the “dwarf” part, but would probably otherwise agree with those ancient scholars’ characterization.

The thousands of islands that make up the chain are mountainous and mostly volcanic. Prevailing archaeological theory holds that they are remnants of ancient Mu, or some other, nameless, lost continent. Some sunken, ancient structures have been found in the surrounding waters, though no ruins are catalogued on the islands themselves. The Demon Islanders don’t permit archaeologists--or indeed, anyone else--to visit unmolested.

The dominant species of the isles are humanoids with bright red skins, small horns, and somewhat bestial features. They are called “Demon-folk” in rough translation from Yianese--not as a reference to any presumed extraplanar origin, but to their temperament. Some scholars believe them to be distant relatives of the now extinct Ealderdish goblin. Others contend that they are an artificial race, synthesized by some elder culture, or perhaps the sorcerous (and sinister) Ku’en-Yuinn of Yian.

Whatever their origins, the Demon-folk are a race bred to violence and warfare. A warrior caste rules their society. It’s young are raised under harsh discipline and allowed to practice their war-skills upon members of the lesser castes with impunity. In adulthood, these skills are put to use against their caste-equals in other clans or tribes. Or, when the opportunity presents itself, against foreigners--whom they universally regard as inferior.

At its most organized, the Demon Isles are a military dictatorship under the iron fist of a warlord. It’s at these times the Demon Islanders are most dangerous to their neighbors, as they may coordinate raids by sea--though at best they are mediocre sailors. Luckily, their typical state is one of feudal warfare with various chieftains and their bannermen vying for supremacy. The swords of the Demon-folk are most often raised against their own kind.

The Demon-Islanders have a level of technology barely beyond the medieval. They have acquired flintlock gunpowder weapons from captured foreigners centuries ago, but even these are not widespread. Wisely, care is taken by their neighbors to ensure no more advanced weapon technology falls into their ever-belligerent hands.

Apocalypse Clown

“You’ve heard of the Clown?”

“Yes, well, we discounted the stories at first, too.  Who wouldn't?  But the rumors persisted.  Of course, we were skeptical, but we sent agents, nonetheless. Can never be to careful.”

"I should add, these agents did not return."

“At any rate this..clown simply appeared among the deep jungles tribes. Somehow he won them over. Make-up, motley, and false nose, yet he won over cannibal tribes. Miraculous acts were performed, supposedly. This was months ago. Now the natives worship the man like a god, and follow his every command, no matter how...ridiculous.”

“His people only emerge from the jungle to raid neighboring tribes. Peaceful tribes.  Tribes with whom we do business. They take heads.  We hear they kill all the men, and take the women and children back with them into the jungle for who knows what. Human sacrifice, perhaps? Nothing would surprise me now.”

“He’s a threat to our interests in the entire region. Is this a problem we can count on you to solve?”


(With apologies to Conrad and Coppola.  And Bozo.)

Warlord Wednesday: Wings Over Shamballah

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Wings Over Shamballah"

Warlord (vol. 1) #31 (March 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Morgan, wounded and exhausted, sits atop a step pyramid in the ruins of Shaban D’Aba. Around him are the slain bodies of his foes--fifty or more wild dogs. Three times they’ve come at him, and three times Morgan has beaten them back. He looks worn down and all but defeated, but as still more dogs approach, his eyes blaze anew with a savage gleam. Again, the battle is joined.

Morgan was barely 100 leagues from his destination, Shamballah, when the first wild dog pack attacked him. The assault had sent Morgan into a rushing river, and he was swept several miles downstream. As he emerged from the water, he heard the dogs in the distance, still on his trail. He ran into the nearby ruins. There he made his stand on the low, step-pyramid.

Now, the pack is down to three, and with a few strokes of Morgan's sword, one. The last dog pounces. Morgan skewers the animal, but as he leans against an ornate monolith in exhaustion, he accidentally triggers a trap door. He plummets into the inside of the pyramid.

By the light coming through the trapdoor, Morgan sees he’s landed in a room full of treasure--piled gold coins, overflowing chests, and gleaming weapons. Even marvelling at the riches around him, Morgan’s keen senses tell him he’s being watched.

He turns to see two hunched and monstrous trolls standing like statues in twin alcoves. Morgan realizes these ruins must date to the Age of the Wizard Kings, as such creatures have been extinct for eons.

Morgan is able to roughly parse the glyphs around the alcoves.  They tell him that this vault holds the combined wealth of the Wizard Kings of the Seven Cities. They placed it here, guarded by powerful magics, against the greed of the Evil One who had brought strife to their land. The spells could only be broken by drenching the steps of the temple in blood. The writer, Mungo Ironhand, hoped that the race of Man, new to the inner earth, would fair better against the Evil One than they had.

Morgan realizes the blood of the dogs he killed must have broken the spell. He wants none of the wealth around him, calling it “goblin’s gold.” But a finely made shield catches his eye, one with a hawk blazon not unlike his own. He picks it up to replace the one he lost. As he’s looking for a way out, he hears “a dry creaking sound, like the crackling of dead leaves.”

He turns round just in time to avoid a troll's axe:

Morgan swiftly counterattacks, skewering one of the trolls on his blade--to absolutely no effect. He slices clean through one’s calf, again to no effect. Pressed back, Morgan pulls his pistol, and blows gaping wholes in their undead flesh. Still, they keep coming.

One of the creatures catches Morgan’s arm in its grasp. Then, surprisingly, the thing’s hand bursts into flame as its caught in the shaft of sunlight coming through the open trapdoor. The sun burns then!

Thinking quickly, Morgan uses his new, highly burnished shield to reflect the light from above in the direction of the trolls. The two go up like “dry leaves in a forest fire”; their moldering bodies reduced to ashes.

Morgan grabs one of their spears and uses it to hoist himself up through the trapdoor. He closes the entrance, thinking that it might be better to keep the gold hidden, in case there might be a use for it in the future. He sets out again for Shamballah, and his wife, Tara.

But the curse of the Wizard King’s isn't done yet. The hawk emblazoned on his shield pulls itself free, and grows into a giant, black, bird of prey! It grabs Morgan in its talons and takes to the air.

Morgan’s sword has no effect on the bird. He carries him over the jungles, then over the golden towers of Shamballah. Morgan passes helplessly over his destination, and his wife picking roses in her palace garden, then out to sea.

A sudden storm comes up, slowing the hawk’s flight. Suddenly, the bird is struck by a bolt of lighting. It drops Morgan into the storm-churned waters below.

When the storm has passed, Morgan awakens to find himself washed up on a beach. He raises his head from the sand to see the armored legs of what must be a giant warrior before him...

Things to Notice:

• At some point, Morgan learned how to read Ashtari (whatever that is).
• The cursed shield Morgan's finds is emblazoned with a symbol (coincidentally, one presumes) almost identical to his own banner.
• This is the first mention of the Evil One who will appear later in these pages.

Where It Comes From:
Though the coloring doesn't support this, Morgan's characterization of the wild dogs chasing him and the way Grell has drawn their ears suggest they are suppose to be African wild dogs.

The trolls in this issue have the weakness to sunlight often attributed to them in Scandinavian folklore, though the more typical trope is for them to turn to stone (this also happens in The Hobbit, of course).  Perhaps undead trolls respond differently?

The cruel twist of fate taking the hero away from his beloved when he's so closse seems to be the sort of complication one would find in Edgar Rice Burroughs' adventure novels.

Weird Adventures Update: Monsters

Art by Seth Frail

With Halloween approaching, I’ve been thinking about monsters and the monster chapter of Weird Adventures.

“Thinking” only, because I’m currently writing the section on the Strange New World (from whence the Borea post--just in time for yesterday’s Canadian Thanksgiving). That is, when I’m not working on upcoming presentations and research projects. or getting ready for community forums, and all the other things required in a demi-academic, public sector career--which all seem to have fallen in the current month...

Where was I? Oh,yeah. Monsters. So, in addition to the hobogoblins (ably rendered above by Seth Frail), we’ll feature the black-dust elementals, nightmarish bugbears, theatrical ghouls, and two varieties of zombies I’ve discussed here. There will also be monsters I haven’t touched on yet: hit-fiends from the Hell Syndicate, the mischievous, electric elemental gremlins; goons (of the non-human variety), and (perhaps soon to appear here) the militaristic Demon-folk of the far eastern Demon Isles.  All statted for use in your old school rpg, but adaptable to whatever game you fancy, of course.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Nothing Like the Mighty Samson

The first post-apocalyptic series in comics was DC’s Atomic Knights (which I’ve discussed previously), which was released in a collection earlier this year. The second series showcasing post-nuclear holocaust heroics was Gold Key’s The Mighty Samson debuting a year after the fall of the Atomic Knights. Dark Horse has started releasing the series in archive editions, and its full of plenty of post-apocalyptic weirdness for gaming inspiration.

The Mighty Samson was the creation of Otto (Captain Marvel) Binder and Frank (Ghita of Alizarr) Thorne. Samson lived in a devastated, fallen world, but The Road this was not. In fact, the amount of undecayed detritus of civilization laying around puts this firmly in the “junkyard future” camp of the likes of Thundarr the Barbarian.

Samson is mutant, born with superhuman strength and resilience. Even in his youth, he’s a hero to his primitive tribe in the land of N’Yark, where the jungle overgrows the ruin of Manhattan. Samson teams up with a wannabe scientist and his daughter who are trying to rediscover the technology of the ancients. He battles a lot of portmanteau monsters like the liobear, and this guy:

Besides monsters, Samson contends with the evil of man. And of women, too--particularly the technology-seeking, choker-wearing, Terra of Jerz, whose’s always trying to invade N’Yark and woo Samson to her side.

The Might Samson stories are certainly of their era, which means they're not as action-packed as modern comics, nor are the characters terribly deep. Still, there’s a lot of crazy invention in these tales making them worth looking into for anybody playing Gamma World or any other science fantasy, post-apocalyptic game.

Way Up North

Borea is the sprawling land north of the City and the Union as a whole. It's more sparsely populated than its Southern neighbor, owing to a more frigid climate. Most of its cities and towns are clustered around either the Inland Sea, or the West Sea and the Strait of Anian--which form the Northwest Passage allowing westward travel from Ealderde to the Far East.

There are those who choose to live in the Borean wilderness or more isolated towns. Hunters and trappers still eke out a living as they have for over two hundred years; there’s still a market for the meat of dwindling mammoth herds, or the golden pelts of the aurumvorax. The vast northern forests still support a thriving timber industry. Then there are the aboriginal peoples who follow the ways of their ancestors, some of them living in the ice-bound wastes where few “civilized” folk ever care to go.

Borea’s cold owes to more than its latitude. Some strong northern winds are actually born from the confluence of elemental water and air, forming elemental ice. The preternatural cold of these winds can freeze unprotected animals or people in their tracks, cause trees to explode with quick-frozen sap, or even coat whole villages in ice. Boreans try their best to avoid these death-ice winds, and experienced woodsfolk know the signs that mean such a wind is coming.

Over the vast wilds of Borea, the Boreal Mounted Police are responsible for keeping the peace and enforcing justice. These intrepid lawmen contend with human criminals, and monstrous menaces (like the wendigo), as well. Like the Freedonian Rangers far to the south, the mounted police are a special breed, inured to life on the fringe of civilization. As such, they're figures romanticized in fiction and film in Borea, and famed in even more southern lands.

The North has its share of mysteries, too. Shimmering, phantom cities sometimes are seen in its skies, which may be ghostly glimpses of the distant past, psychic projections of the fabled paradise of Hyperborea, or something else. Then there are legends of an Arctic island warmed by volcanos or hot springs, which may be the ancestral home of the all the natives of the New World. Other legends, or sea tales, speak of ancient longships from the Old World emerging from the icy mists, manned by undead raiders, and laden with centuries of plunder.

The Weird Fiend Folio

The AD&D Fiend Folio is weird. I don’t mean that in the sense of it being odd (though it’s maybe that, too) I mean in the sense that a lot of its monsters evoke a weird fiction feel, at least to me. Sure, its easy to make fun of the Folio--there are a number of misfires there. Any time you talk about it someone always goes and mentions the flumph, so its got that to live down.

But I think there are a number of creatures that would be at home in the works of Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, or any other weird writer you could think of. All they need is the proper context. Let’s take a look:

algoid: Ok, the picture doesn’t help us here, and I’m not sure what this thing's about really, but the basic concept of a sentient algae colony seems reasonably Lovecraftian.  He gave us space fungi, after all.

apparition: like the coffer corpse, the crypt thing, and the revenant, these are exactly the sort of undead that show up in weird tales. Admittedly, though, there’s nothing special about them other than the Russ Nicholson art that really gives them a lurid feel.  Still, the raw materials are there for building a weird atmosphere, absolutely.

bullywug: Things you can describe as batrachian tend to be sort of weird (this would apply to the slaad as well--which remind me a bit of Smith's Tsathaggua, anyway). I could definitely see the bullywugs in the Dreamlands, but I guess that’s about it.

crabman: Here’s a case where the picture does not help, but crustacean sentients actually appear in a Robert E. Howard tale (“People of the Black Coast”) though their whole deal is a little more aboleth-like there, appearances aside.

dark creeper: these guys have always reminded me a bit of Howard’s portrayal of the Little People.  You could always give them a little of the whispery evillness of the lil' demons in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. This time, the illustration really helps.

Cryonax: a yeti with tentacles for arms doesn’t seem like Lovecraft, but does seem exactly the sort of thing one of Lovecraft’s lesser disciples would have created.

gibberlings: have a name like something out of a weird tale, but I suspect they’d just be a brief, colorful mention in passing in Dunsany or the like.

Githyanki and Githzerai: with their whole feud thing seem like something that could come out of a more science fantasy weird story, and again, the visuals help.

Kuo-toa: or should I say, Deep Ones?

shadow demon: are not too far removed from the menace of the CAS story “The Double Shadow.”

yellow musk creeper and yellow musk zombies: fairly weird fiction-esque at face.  It's got the "yellow" thing going on in the name, too.

And that’s just off a quick flip through. I’m sure there are plenty of others sandwiched between the needle men, and thorks--and of course, flumphs.

Most Wanted

The Investigation Division of  the City’s Metropolitan Police Department maintains two lists of their “most wanted” criminals: one of mundane lawbreakers, and one of “special” cases--which usually means magical malefactors.  Here's a selection from that list, from late in the 5888:

TSAN CHAN

Rumored to be a Yianese nobleman, operates a criminal cult called the Five-Headed Dragon Society. This group is based in San Tiburon where they are involved in white slavery and the narcotic trade. Tsan Chan has operatives in the Yiantown district, and he is suspected of murder by malign summoning, and occult conspiracy within this jurisdiction.

AMBROSIO SUSURRUS

AKA the Mad Monk. Ambrosio Susurrus is the primary figure behind the “Coffin Girl Ring” which is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of at least fifteen young women to create zombies for criminal purposes. Distinguishing Features: tends to dress in a friar’s cassock, and wears his hear in tonsure.

THE GRIN

Real name unknown. The Grin is an anarchist wanted for a variety of nonsensical but serious crimes against persons and property. Notably, an attempted forcible transfer of a public official to another plane, assault and battery via sorcery, and unlawful thaumaturgic animation of large machinery with malicious intent. Note: The scissors the Grin habitually carries are a magical weapon and should be treated as a lethal threat.

MOIRA DEMILUNE

AKA fantôme. Possibly Ealderdish cat-burglar. Moira Demilune uses thaumaturgical aid in gaining entry and incapacitating victims.  She specializes in the theft of magical items. She is believed to be in possession of a supply of oneiric dust which in itself is a felony.

ILLUSTRATION #23a

Pictured above at 1/2 actual size. Illustration #23a may appear in any printed work and has murdered five persons with the past year, and caused serious harm to seven others, who have viewed it. Thaumaturgical investigation has confirmed Illustration #23a’s willful and malicious intent in these crimes. Any work in which Illustration #23a appears should be destroyed immediately, by fire if possible. Distinguishing Features: Monochrome illustration with a present, but illegible, signature.

Warlord Wednesday: Warpath

It's Wednesday, so let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Warpath"

Warlord (vol. 1) #30 (February 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Morgan is riding to Shamballah through the borderlands between it and Thera, when he hears sounds suggestive of soldiers on the march. Knowing well the enmity between Thera and his wife’s city, he climbs into a tall tree to get a look. What he sees must be nearly the entire Theran garrison on the march--with their only possible destination Shamballah.

That’s when Morgan notices a more immediate danger--a jaguar on the branch next to him, ready to pounce. Morgan draws his knife and lunges first! He and the jaguar battle until they fall from the tree, with the cat getting the worst of it.

Morgan’s got to beat the army to Shamballah, but his horse has run off. He runs, hoping to cut across a swamp to save five miles. He dives into the water...right on top of a big aquatic reptile. He fights the creature, and almost escapes, but then it swallows him whole!

The Warlord’s not an easy meal. He cuts his way out of the creature with his sword. He looks back from the shore to see piranha devouring the corpse. He made it out just in time.

Morgan's not done with the derring-do yet. He starts racing along tree branches and swinging by vines, Tarzan-style. Ahead are the outlying settlements of Shamballah. Morgan has to warn them so they can mount someresistance to the coming attack.

His vine-swinging comes to a halt when the tree in front of him falls. He looks down to see a woodsman with an axe wondering what it is he’s doing. Morgan tells him about the approaching army. He says they have to raise an alarm among the outpost settlements.

The woodsman’s first thought is to warn his family, but Morgan says there isn’t time. The Therans won’t bother with one cottage. He promises to go back to his home with the woodsman once they’ve warned the outposts. The two split up, the woodsman going east and Morgan west. The man reminds Morgan that if anything happens to him, Morgan must warn his family.

After they warn the settlements, the two meet at the bridge across the great gorge, beyond which is the woodsman’s cottage--and the Theran army is upon them. Morgan tells the woodsman to go to his family, but leave him the axe. The woodsman says that Morgan’s either “a great fool or a great hero” as he leaves him to hold the bridge alone.

What Morgan can’t know is that family the woodsman is saving includes a little boy who is actually Joshua--Morgan’s own lost son, taken away by Deimos. Morgan unknowingly saves his own child as he fights an apparently doomed battle against an army.

His family safe, the woodsman releases logs into the river hoping to help Morgan. The logs tumble over the falls. Morgan leaps to safety as they smash the bridge, and take many of the Therans into the gorge.

They’ve beaten the Therans for now, but Morgan knows they’ll soon regroup. He has to get to the garrison at Shamballah to prepare them for total war.

Things to Notice:

• Morgan goes full on Tarzan, in what's possibly the most dangerous 5 miles his ever crossed.
• The peasant family raising Joshua hasn't sold the one-of-a-kind artifact (a wrist watch) the baby sports as an ornament.

Where It Comes From:

The first portion of this issue seems to be an homage to Tarzan.  Morgan engages in a lot of stereotypical Tarzan-esque activities: he fights a big cat with only a knife, fights a crocodile stand-in underwater, and swings on vines.  Morgan even references Johnny Weissmuller, probably the man most associated with the film version of Tarzan. 

The set piece of the issue, Morgan's stand on a narrow bridge armed with an axe was no doubt inspired by an event legend holds occurred at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066.  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that a giant Norse axemen held the narrow bridge for a time against the entire Saxon army.  He's said to have killed 40 Englishmen single-handed before he was brought down.

Cry of the Wendigo

Hunters and woodsmen in northern countries whisper fearful tales, and move closer to their campfires, when the night is strangely quiet and the snows are deep. It’s as true in Borea, the cold land far the north of the City, as it is in our world, and perhaps others...

The wendigo is a magical creature out of Native legend; a being born of a crime, and a horrible curse. When a human resorts to cannibalism (for whatever reason) in the wild places of the north, they open themselves to possession by a ravenous demonic entity from the outer dark. An entity with a hunger that can never be satiated.

It should be noted that some thaumatological scholars discount the “demon hypothesis” as primitive superstition. They suggest that those under the wendigo curse are the victims of a magical contagion, possibly from another world or plane. Some have suggested that ghouls (and perhaps ogres) have adapted over generations to a similar malady, but as with all such speculation, it only serves to irritate ghouls.

Whatever its origins, the wendigo curse transforms the victim into a large and powerful humanoid creature, covered with white fur. It's afflicted by a terrible hunger, and it will attempt to devour any living thing it encounters, but it particularly has an appetite for (and will actually hunt) humans.

A wendigo is immune to cold and regenerates rapidly from wounds. It moves surprisingly fast for its size. The curse on a wendigo may be removed, but doing so leads to the death of the one so cursed, which is the only true release the afflicted individual can find.

No. Enc.: 1
Movement: 150’ (50’)
Armor Class: 4
Hit Dice: 6
Attacks: 3 (2 claws, bite)
Damage: 1d6/1d6/1d10
Save: F6
Morale: 11
Special Abilities: immune to cold; Wendigo regenerate like trolls, except that that they are not vulnerable acid, but fire damage is not regenerated. They are not able to reattach severed liimbs, but instead regrow them if they survive.

Attack of the Soviet Ape-Men!

The story goes like this: Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin wanted to create a super-soldier, a “new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat.” To this end, he tasked the USSR’s preeminent biologist Ilya Ivanov (the man who had pioneered the use of artificial insemination the obtain interspecies hybrids) with making half-man, half-chimpanzee super-warriors.

The truth seems to be that Stalin was never particularly interested in Ivanov’s experiments--that was the biologist’s own mad scientist leanings. Nevertheless, the experiments did take place. First, in 1927, he tried to artificially inseminate female chimps with human sperm. When that didn’t work, he began to plan to cross human females with male chimpanzees. In 1929, with the support of the Society of Material Biologists, Ivanov made plans to inseminate volunteer women in the Soviet human, but his last male ape (an orangutan) died. The wait to obtain new apes slowed things down long enough for the political winds to shift, and his experiments were ended.

This may not have been the first time such mad science antics were tried. According to the Discovery Channel, psychologist/eugenicist/primatology pioneer Robert Yerkes or his team supposedly created a human/chimpanzee hybrid in Florida in the 1920s. The rumor goes the hybrid was later destroyed--or did it did escape into the skunk-ape haunted swamps?

Anyway, I find all of these doings great fodder for pulpish or superhero gaming--and possibly post-apocalyptic gaming, too. Maybe the hidden Gorilla City in darkest Africa is a Marxist-Lenninist worker’s paradise? Or maybe the the far future ape city (the one near what used to be New York) reveres Yerkes as they’re Lawgiver; he did give them language after all?

It Gets Inside Your Head

Here’s a monster found in the world of the City and perhaps elsewhere...

Mind Worms are creatures of unassuming appearance, but insidious natures. They largely resemble plump, 2-3 inch long caterpillars, but have human-level (or greater) intellects. Though there is no clear proof, the statements of mind worms themselves suggest they are of extraterrestrial origin, and perhaps alien criminals or political dissidents of some sort.

All mind worms encountered have been the equivalent of megalomaniacs who desire to acquire power by the domination of others. Mind worms are telepathic and can forcibly read the minds of others for usual information. Ultimately, they use their powers to mentally dominate (similar to the Charm Person/Monster except that the worm actually controls the victim's actions, saving throw at -2, with penalties or bonus for Intelligence), or cause Hold Person (as spell). They can only attempt to dominate one person at a time, but can maintain their domination of multiple victims (perhaps 5) without particular effort.  A previous failure to dominate a victim removes their penalty to save on the mind worm's next attempt.  None of their powers are magical, and cannot be dispelled, but serious distraction to a mind worm will give victims a chance at escaping their control (another save), and forcing a victim to do something extremely alien to their nature may provoke another save at GM discretion.

Mind worms typically pick one choice victim to dominate and stay with that person at all times, perhaps hiding in a pocket or nestling under their collar.  One of the greatest weapons mind worms have is there small size and ability to hide.

It’s a lucky for humanity that the mind worms are rivals, and would rather try to kill other than work together.

No. Enc: 1-2
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 1
Attacks: 1
Damage: Mind control, mind reading (see above)
Save: F2
Morale: 8

Inscrutable Yian

The people of Yian are considered a mysterious and alien presence in the City, and the New World in general. Much of this prejudice and fear is borne of misunderstanding. Still, the stereotypes are accurate in one respect--the Yianese are an ancient people with ancient secrets.

The misunderstanding of Yian begins with its name. This empire of the ancient East is not actually called Yian in its own tongue.  Yian is actually the name of the mystical and secluded city only sometimes accessible on this plane, where the dread (and perhaps inhuman) rulers of the country dwell. These are the Ku’en-Yuinn, “the Deathless,” undying sorcerers thought to be lich lords surviving from prehistoric Lemuria.  Most feared of all is the August Personage of the Black Jade Mask, the one whom Westerners call the Emperor of Yian. 

The common folk of Yian are humans like any other who, despite the stereotypes in the West, are not “yellow-skinned.” The high folk of the City of Yian do indeed have skin-tones ranging from lemon to saffron. These folk also tend to be tall, whereas the common Yianese are shorter than most westerners. Also, the high folk of the purest ancient bloodlines often have a slight inhuman, sometimes even bestial, cast to their features.

The common folk of Yian began immigrating to the New World in the last century, looking for economic opportunity and freedom from the yolk of the often oppressive rule of the Deathless lords and the high folk. They have unfortunately met with distrust and oppression from the Ealderdish majority in the New World, too. Despite this, large and thriving “Yiantowns” have grown up in the City, and the metropolises of Hesperia.

The high folk of Yian seldom immigrate. When they are found outside of their native land, it is almost always a single individual encountered. Yianese criminal societies and occult groups are often run by such expatriates, though of course seldom publicly. There is some truth to the pulp novel image of the sinister and secretive Yianese crime lord, but its regrettable that all Yianese suffer for the actions of an ancient and often wicked few.

Your Character's Old Job

Following up on my earlier post, here are the are some of the background occupations for adventurers I plan on using in my own upcoming Weird Adventures game. These backgrounds suggest the broad, noncombat skills character’s will have. For skill checks, I plan to use a "Target20" sort of mechanic, wherein d20 plus appropriate modifiers must be greater then or equal to “20” to succeed. Using a skill within the purview of the the background will garner an additional +1 in addition to the pertinent ability score bonus on the skill check.

All of this will require a good deal of GM discretion. I will probably allow two background occupations if a player had a real good concept. Bonuses in that context wouldn’t “stack” though, if they happened to have similar skill sets.

It should also be noted that, with a few exceptions, I view any class as able to take any background occupation (though some would be a better "fit" for one or another), though that will modify the nature of that occupation somewhat. A Tough Guy scientist is a “Two-Fist Scientist” while a Magic Man amateur detective becomes a “Occult Detective.”

Anyway, here are a few examples:

Academician [requires Int 12+]

The Ivory Halls of Academia didn’t hold enough excitement for you--or perhaps your hunger for knowledge ran to topics not considered appropriate by those in your department. When you’ve proved your theories, they’ll have to listen.

Skills: Academicians will have a primary field of study, and some knowledge of related fields. They’re probably just well-read in general.

Big Game Hunter
You’ve tracked tigers through Lemurian ruins, and bagged woolly mammoths in the snow-bound wastes of Borea, but some of the biggest, deadliest beasts can be found closer to home...
Skills: A hunter will know the habits and characteristics of animals he follows, and be able to follow their tracks and sign.

Dilettante
There’s only so many hours you can spend at the club or charity events before the ennui becomes unbearable. It’s adventure you crave! That and another glass of single malt.
Skills: Etiquette and savior faire. The dillettante (unlike the socialite) has dabbled in various subjects and has a good chance of having a superficial knowledge about an array of topics.

Gangster
There are guys who are good to have around in the event there is a need to get physical, but guys like that are apt to get other guys sore at them. And when those other type of guys get sore, morticians get busy. Sometimes, guys of the aforementioned first type maybe oughta decide a change of career is in order. You, my friend, are a guy of the first type.
Skills: Gangsters are likely to known the prominent criminals in town, and locales related to criminal activity.

Warlord Wednesday: Return of the Gladiator

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"Return of the Gladiator" and "Hound from Hell"
Warlord (vol. 1) #29 (January 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta (first story)

Synopsis: Travis Morgan spots a Theran outpost set ablaze. Entering the fortification, he’s amazed at the amount of slaughter he finds. Suddenly, a woman with dagger jumps at him, knocking him from his horse.

Morgan is only surprised for a moment. He punches the woman, knocking her aside. The woman doesn’t believe his assurances that he means no harm. She's seen the insignia of his shield, and she says that the raiders who attacked her village carried a banner with that same sign.

“So its come down to this,” Morgan says. He remembers when he and the other escaped gladiators raised that banner in the name of freedom. Now, they’ve forgotten the dream, or squandered it.

He picks up his helm and prepares to go. He tells the questioning girl he has unfinished business to attend to.

Morgan tracks the rogue army into difficult terrain. He out-foxes a sentry, and finds that its a former comrade, Daedelus. Gun drawn, he tells the warrior to take him to the camp.

Morgan is surprised by how few of his old band are left. Daedelus tells him times have been hard, but now they have a new leader--whose appearance interrupts there conversation. Morgan recognizes him.

The leader is Ghedron, former soldier of Kiro. He still bears the cursed axe he had been tasked by Machiste, his king, with destroying. Morgan warns him that the curse of the axe won’t allow him to put it down, but Ghedron demonstrates that he can--because he chooses to pick it up again.

He tells Morgan he now leads the Warlord’s former army, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Morgan replies there’s one thing--and challenges Ghedron to one on one combat, gladiator-style.

The two square off in an arena improvised in a volcano’s caldera. Morgan avoids Ghedrons blows, then lands one of this own, only to find Ghedron has cheated by wearing armor. He delivers a savage kick that sprawls Morgan out. Ghedron swings his axe to deliver the coup de grace, but Morgan slices upward with his sword, removing Ghedron’s axe-hand at the wrist.

The hand and axe tumble into the still open part of the volcano. Ghedron, screaming, stumbles back into the volcano himself, just as there is a brief eruption of fire. The demon which had inhabited the weapon is visible for a moment in its death throes.

Daedelus asks Morgan to lead them again, but he declines. He tells them that they must start taking responsibility for their own actions. That’s what freedoms about.

“Hound from Hell”
In Wizard World, Mungo Ironhand has summoned the three-headed dog he wanted, but now he, Mariah, and Machiste are menaced by the creature.

Machiste tells him to send the dog back, but Mungo hasn’t gotten to that chapter in his magic scrolls yet, as doesn't know how. As the dog leaps at Mariah, Machiste must take matters into his own hands. He grapples the beast, riding it around the room until it manages to buck him off.

Machiste’s helpless as the dog leaps. Mungo’s managed to think of a spell that might help. He casts it, and what lands on Machiste is not a three-headed dog, but a three-headed bunny!

The danger over, Mariah and Machiste demand that Mungo send them home. The sorcerer agrees, but “forty’leven” hours later, he still hasn’t managed to cast a spell that will do so. Mungo suggests that Wralf the Wretched, the head wizard around there, might be able to help them--but Wralf’s a “nasty fellow,” and the price may be steep.

The three mount up on diatrymas (horse’s not having evolved yet) and head off to seek Wralf.

Things to Notice:

• The seventies super-heroine, technicolor racoon-eye make-up sported previous amongst Skartarian women appears again
• Ghedron wears more clothes than the usual Skartarian, but does garb himself in purple, the traditional color of comic book villainy.
• forty-'leven?

Where It Comes From:
This story is a sequel to Warlord #7, which showed Ghedron not disposing of the axe as instructed.

The title of this issue's main story likely comes from the 1971 Italian sword and sandals film of the same name.

Diatryma (now called gastornis) was a large, flightless bird living in the Eocene (56-34 million years ago).  It did overlap with eohippus the horse relative (once thought to be a horse ancestor) also mentioned by Mungo in this issue.

Something I'd Like...

art by Chaz Truog

...Is a game set in a retro-future along the lines of Leigh Brackett’s Eric John Stark stories or C.L. Moore’s tales of Northwest Smith.  A setting with a dessicated and dangerous Mars, a fecund and mist-choked Venus, and a colonial Earth trying to exploit the both of them. A setting where outlaws of the spaceways have to contend with the remnants of prehuman civilizations, outré natives, and of course, the Patrol.  The (relatively) grittier worlds of Brackett and Moore were an interesting corrective to the shiny rocket science fantasies of the likes of Captain Future (by Brackett’s husband-to-be, Edmund Hamilton) and the like.

I’m such a fan of that brand of now-outdated pulp sci-fi, that I did my own version, PLANET X, for Zuda Comics. Zuda’s now gone, a victim of reshuffling at DC and its parent Time-Warner, so I can no longer link to it, but briefly: it was a sci-fi/spy-fi story set in an alternate timeline where a habitable solar system saw the Cold War play out on an interplanetary scale in the swinging sixties. Burroughs meets Bond, more or less.

Anyway, I suppose since it doesn’t look like anyone's going to give me a Brackett/Moore-esque game anytime soon, I may have to do my own at some point.

If I ever make it out of the City...

Weird Adventures: A Touch of Class

art by Shipeng Li

After some consideration, and advice from others, I think I’ve decided on the classes for my upcoming Weird Adventures campaign. I’m  to keep the basic classes simple and use occupations/concepts similar to Akratic Wizardry’s backgrounds to “pulp-ify” them.

Here are the classes I have in mind, with the classic D&D classes they'll be based on:

Tough Guy (Fighter): The muscle.  Those who make their living through force of arms.

Man of Faith (Cleric): Miracle-workers--“The Gifted” I’ve mentioned before. Individuals who derive magical like abilities from their faith alone and don’t cast traditional spells.  Unlike the traditional cleric,the Man of Faith is not necessarily part of a church hierarchy.

Magic Man (Magic-User): These are scholars, experts in the magical arts. Some are thaumaturgists, who approach magic as a science, while others use their learning in the furtherance of their religious order--though the way these two groups cast spells is identical. Also included here are the mystics, who are more intuitive than “scientific” spell-casters.

Ace of Agility (Thief): Individuals who stand apart because of their nimbleness and skill. Some are indeed thieves in inclination and vocation, but others are circus acrobats, escape artists, or even film actors adept at physical comedy.

The above are given “male” names but that should in no way be construed to mean their strictly male.  A tough guy can just as easily be a “tough gal.”

Soon, I’ll present the occupations which will put a lot a flesh on the class bones and allow for pulp stand-bys like the private eye, or the two-fisted scientist.