More Images from the City

Where you’d never expect it.  The famous Ealderdish hit-man Anton Mocata--known as “the Ghost”--was responsible for 112 (known) murders before he was finally brought to justice.  His use of a magic ring conferring the power to open dimensional doorways allowed him to strike easily at even the most well-protected targets.

Adventurer prepares to enter the belly of the beast.  The preserved carcass of a great leviathan in a melting iceberg offers a challenge.  Groups of adventures raced to be the first make the treacherous descent into the creature's gullet to see what ship-bound treasures it might have swallowed in life.

Night of the Vermilion Butterfly.  A secret society among some of the joy-girls in brothels of both the City and San Tiburon Yiantowns rose up to challenge the Yianese criminal guilds.

A danger even to itself.  An Ebon-Land basilisk, petrified by its on gaze and a clever adventurer with a mirror, was put on display Empire Park.

Frontier Adventure.  A scene from a comic book adaptation of James Ynismore Drakeland’s beloved Buckskin Tales, depicting an encounter with a "rustic giant" out of the Smaragdines.

Veterans Day

It's Veterans Day, and I'd like to commemorate some of the lesser known--but no less brave--men and women who've served their country in uniform--however tattered or non-regulation those uniforms often seem to be...

What special forces squad would be daring enough to go after Hitler?  Well, the same one that served in every U.S. conflict from World War II to Vietnam--and did it their way.  I refer of course to Sargeant Nick Fury and his Howling Mad Commandos!

They say you can't pin a medal on a gorilla (see, they're doing it right there on the cover!), but I say: why not?  So what if he doesn't meet the grooming standard?

War's ugly and so were they--but they got results.  And their name's alliterative.

And of course, who could forget the Warlord, formerly Captain Travis Morgan, USAF.  He proves the old adage, "old soldiers never die, they just become Sword & Sorcery heroes in the hollow earth."

All frivolity aside, I'll put one nonfictional veteran on the list.  U.S. Army trauma surgeon, and my best friend from med school, T (née Tara):

Happy Veterans Day!

Warlord Wednesday: The Sword of the Sorcerer

Wednesday again.  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...

"Sword of the Sorcerer"
Warlord (vol. 1) #34 (June 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: The mayor of the dwarves declares Morgan a hero for his actions last issue. As such, he feels Morgan is worthy of treasure: a gleaming sword from the Age of Wizard Kings called “Hellfire.” Morgan notices an opening in the blade near its hilt. The mayor says that legend holds there was once a gemstone there, but it was shattered, then stolen, long ago. Recognition dawning, Morgan pulls out the pieces of the hellfire gem and fits it into the blade. The sword “seems to shimmer with new life.”

In the ancient past of the Age of Wizard Kings, Machiste, Mariah, and Mungo Ironhand ignore the posted warnings and enter the castle of Wralf the Wretched. They hope he can return Machiste and Mariah to the present of Skartaris.

Wralf appears before them and is unsympathetic to their plight. He tells them he can’t help them, but when challenged on this by Mariah, he amends that to say he won’t.

At that moment, energy leaps from the hellfire sword. Spacetime is split open, and Morgan is transported to the Age of Wizard Kings and in the middle of his friends’ encounter with Wralf.

Wralf doesn’t give the reunited companions time for pleasantries. He demands Morgan surrender the sword. When Morgan declines, Wralf presses opens up two trapdoors--one which Morgan falls through, and one that swallows the other three.

The trapdoor drops Morgan onto a slide. He manages to stop himself from a precipitous drop, by wedging his sword between the walls. He climbs up a distance, then goes looking for his friends.

Meanwhile, another slide has dropped his friends on to a pathway. Mungo casts a light spell and begins to lead them out of the darkness. Unfortunately, they encounter a furred monster with scythe-like hands.

Mungo’s response is to run, but Machiste grabs his cape and pulls him back. They need the light to fight by. Machiste and Mariah battle the monster--unaware they’re actually fighting Morgan disguised by Wralf’s magic!

Morgan tries to hold his friends off while not hurting them. Mungo realizes there’s magic at work. He casts a spell himself, which dispels Wralf’s illusion.

Mariah remarks that Wralf must have changed Morgan into a monster, but Mungo corrects her. The spell was on them; the hellfire sword makes its bearer immune to magic. Mungo adds that Morgan has the same sword Wralf wears.

The three explain to Morgan that only Wralf is able to return them to Skartaris. Obviously, he’s being uncooperative.

As if on cue, Wralf appears among them. He's is tired of toying with them, and wants the sword. Morgan replies he’ll have it over his dead body. Wralf replies “that can be arranged,” and pulls his sword. He also magicks a glass dome over the other three so they can’t interfere.

Morgan and Wralf fight, their twin swords giving off magical energy as they do. Finally, Morgan delivers a mighty blow right on the gem in Wralf’s sword--and splits it, knocking it from the blade! Morgan realizes (at last) that Wralf’s blade is the one he now wields, but in the past.

That sword now seems to move of its on accord, and thrusts into Wralf’s heart. Morgan is confused. 

With Wralf dead the other three are freed.  Mungo says he should have told Morgan about that characteristic of the sword before--once the hellfire sword is drawn it must always draw blood. This is the price one pays for the immunity to enchantment the blade confers.

Morgan’s eager to show Deimos that power, but with Wralf dead, how can they return to Skartaris? Mungo clarifies: the sword grants Morgan the power to return, it’s only Mariah and Machiste that can’t. If he sheathes the blade, it will return him whence he came.

Mariah and Machiste urge him to return. They say they’ll find a way back somehow--and until then, they have each other.

Morgan sheathes the sword, and bids his friends farewell, promising he’ll see them again.

Things to Notice:

• There's a hook horror beneath Wralf's castle (sort of).
• Mungo Ironhand is implied to be the ancestor of the dwarves of Skartaris.

Where It Comes From:
The title of this issue is the same as a 1976 Sword & Sorcery novel by Gardner Fox.  The whole sword "cursed to have to draw blood" is reminiscent of the folklore around the swords of Japanese swordsmith, Muramasa Sengo.

Again, the comedic elements, and some of the design elements, of The Age of the Wizard Kings seem reminiscent of Ralph Bakshi's 1977 animated feature, Wizards.

Even More Inspirational Nonfiction

Here are the latest acquisitions for my own nonfiction shelves, which you might find inspirational or isntructional in gaming, particularly world-building:

Intoxication in Mythology by Ernest L. Abel: This might be useful as you’re brainstorming for your submission for James Maliszewski’s Petty Gods. In encyclopedic fashion, Abel briefly describes deities, substances, locales, and myths from all over the world related to intoxicants. This is sort of broadly defined, so you’ll likely find some entries (like Orion’s story) you wouldn’t have thought of as “drug-related.” It’s an interesting read, which makes me think there should be more subject-focused mythology books like this.

Lost Cities & Ancient Mysteries of the Southwest by David Hatcher Childress: This is shouldn’t be confused with a rigorously scientific archaeological work, and the travelogue nature of it means some sifting is required to find the gold, but it covers just about every weird lost civilization legend of the American Southwest I’ve ever heard of. If you enjoyed my posts on Lost Cities of the Grand Canyon, then this will probably be a welcome edition to your library.

The Tarzan Novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs by David A. Ullery: This bills itself as an illustrated reader’s guide to ERB’s Tarzan series, and that’s exactly what it is--and as such it chock full of world-building goodness from a master who knew how to balance world detail and story. Included is an overview of the Mangani (ape) language, and others from the tales, a section on lost cities, civilizations, and peoples, and a biographical sketch of Tarzan. You don’t have to be a Tarzan fan to find this stuff inspirational. In fact, if you can’t find half a dozen adventure seeds or cool things to swipe for your setting, then you haven’t read it.

Adrift Amid the Random Isles

If your players find themselves, like Captain Bill Clanton and the two Javasuan maidens above, adrift in the South Seas, you might need to know that sort of island they ultimately wash up on. For just such an occasion, I present the Random Island Generator:

Island Type (d10):
01-02: Volcanic (extinct)
03-05: Volcanic (active)
06-07: Mountain top of a drowned continent
08-09: Coral atoll
  10:  Exotic (man-made, giant turtle, floating, etc.)

Island Size (these are all small in a general sense--that’s why they’re uncharted) (d6):
01: Very small (1-10 sq. mi.)
02-03: Small (11-49 sq. mi.)
04-05: Medium (50-200 sq. mi.)
06: Large (201-1000 sq. mi.)

Inhabitants (d6):
01: None
02-03: Animals
04-05: Intelligent Creatures (then see below)
06: Special

Intelligent Creatures (d12):
01-02: Crabmen
03: Lava Children (active volcanic only)
04-05: Sahuagin
06-08: Humanoid
08-10: Human
11-12: Exotic (tiny humans, giants, animal-headed, etc.)

Civilization (d100):
01-11: cannibal
12-15: peaceful
16-25: war-like women (50% man-hating, 50% man-hungry)
26-35: feuding tribes
36-45: Gender-split, feuding
46-55: Cargo cult
56-65: Lost colony, highly developed
66-75: Lost colony, devolved
76-80: Seeming utopia
81-91: Remnant of a great civilization
92-00: Other (monster-worshipping, alien, etc.)

Unique Monster (if desired) (d6):
01-03: Giant animal
04: Froghemoth
05: Living Statue(s)
06: Earth-bound god

Tombstones in Their Eyes

Sit down in any small-town diner in the West of the New World, and like as not, you’ll hear stories of ghost towns. These are minor trail-stops that wasted away when the course of the railroad or the highway took civilization elsewhere; or mining towns that went from boom to bust when the mines dried up. Most of the time, the stories say they’re haunted. Sometimes, the stories are true.

It’s not a rare thing to encounter a ghost--most human habitations of any size have their share of them. What makes the real ghost towns of West unusual is that they’re not places of single hauntings, or even a group of restless spirits. In other places, a dilapidated tavern may be full of ghostly revellers and staff. Ill-fated hotels may have multiple patrons who never leave. But visitors to some of these towns have recounted tales of almost entire, if small, populations of ghosts.

This is a misperception, or perhaps it’s better termed a trick. There are no ghosts in these towns. The towns themselves are the ghost.

For reasons unknown to modern thaumaturgical sciences, the West was fertile ground for the development of deranged genius loci--spirits of place. Maybe these lonely places grow mad with isolation, or maybe they’re born bad--a final curse of the Native shamans driven from their ancestral lands. Whatever the case, the spirits of these towns, either in madness or as an attempt to ease their loneliness, populate their streets and structures with the semblances of people from their memory. Essentially, they put on a phantasmagorial puppet show.

Some ghost towns are homicidal in their madness and seek to lure in living humans, then kill them in fiendish ways. Others are simply lonely, and will attempt to beguile or otherwise convince humans into staying with them.  Whatever their desires, they sit quietly in the high desert, the lonely praire, or snow-bound mountainside, forlorn and waiting.

GHOST TOWN
No. Enc.: 1
HD: 12
AC: see below
Abilities: Ghost towns may be destroyed, or at least weakened to the point where they can no longer manifest significantly on the prime material plane, only by destruction of most of the structures making up the town--so traditional hit points don’t apply. Eidolons created by the town act as ghosts, but of lower hit die, as the total number of its manifestations can have no more than 12 hit dice, total. The ghost town may produce more phantasms than this, but the rest are simply illusions with no substance. None of these sub-ghosts automatically cause aging and fear, but they can display a horrifying countenance which will do so. Ghost towns may also use telekinesis as per the spell, but must wait 1d4 rounds to do so again.

Living Tattoos

Living tattoos are two-dimensional, intelligent entities--parasites perhaps--which manifest as body art. The origin of living tattoos is mysterious, but they first appeared in the Orient in the dim past. They prefer to keep their existence a secret, hiding among mundane tattoos.

These beings can be place on human skin by means of a summoning ritual, and a magical ink known to the sorcerers of the High Lords of Yian, and perhaps others. Once they have been placed, however, unless they are magically bound, they may wander and pass to others by physical skin-to-skin contact for several seconds, at least.

Living tattoos have no magical ability to coerce bearers, but their constant presence and whispering influence tend to eventually lead all but the strongest willed to fall under their thrall. For every week a person bears a living tattoo, there is an additional -1 to his or her save against doing as the tattoo suggests (wisdom bonus, if any, adds to the save). Living tattoos have goals of their own, but in general, urge bearers acts of violence or depraved pleasures.

The tattoos can not be physically injured except by means that destroys the skin of the bearer, though a remove curse can cause them to flee to another bearer in available and failing that, cast them from this plane, and certain spells are able to affect them directly.

There are rumored to be factions among the living tattoos. They work at intrigues through the proxy of their bearers to get the upper hand on the others of their kind. The ultimate stakes in these games remains mysterious.

Living Shadow
No. Enc.: 1
Hit Dice: 6
Save: F6
Morale: 12

Gone to Texas

Which I have, on business--but the title as much refers to the phrase people in the 19th Century might find carved in the door--often in the abbreviation "G.T.T."--of the abandoned homes of friends or family.  "Gone to Texas" was used to describe folk who have found it expedient to leave their homes due to debt or other legal difficulties.   The phrase provides a title for the 1975 publication of Forrest Carter's novel, better know in its film adaptation--The Outlaw Josey Wales.

All this is by way of introduction of a little project I started a year or so ago which might be of interest to those playing (or planning) Western rpgs, or just those with an interest in the Western genre in film.  I present to you, the Western Film Timeline, which places the events described in various movies in a historical context.  It remains a work in progress, but covers events from 1836 (The Man from the Alamo) to 1917 (The Professionals).  Corrections are welcome.

Warlord Wednesday: Birds of Prey

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...

"Birds of Prey"

Warlord (vol. 1) #33 (May 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Morgan and Shakira are flying along on the disc they stole from the titans. Morgan broaches a subject with Shakira that’s been bothering him: is she a woman who turns into a cat, or a cat turns into woman? And how does she do it, anyway? Shakira refuses to answer the first question, only replying “I have to have some secrets.” She suggests that maybe her ability is “magic.”

Morgan has little faith in magic. He shows Shakira the burned-out remnant of the Hellfire Stone. Magic can’t bring back his son, and it can’t make him forget he caused his son's death. He keeps the stone as a reminder of magic’s limits.

The conversation is interrupted by the attack of winged, bald men Shakira identifies as “hawkmen.” Morgan and Shakira hold their own against the attackers until the hawkmen lasso Shakira and bear her off into the sky. Watching her abduction, Morgan lets his guard down for an instant and is hit from behind, knocking him from the disc.

Morgan’s quick reflexes allow him to save himself by grabbing the control cable, but supporting his wait shorts the controls. Morgan finds himself dangling in midair, being dragged behind a runaway flier. He travels that way for short distance, until the flier gives out, and plunges to the ground.

Morgan lies unconscious in the forest, where he's found by a group of dwarves. They debate what to do with him, worried he might be allied to the hawkmen.  Eventually they decide to take him to their village and let their mayor decide what to do.

In their quaint, tree village, they bring Morgan before the mayor. Before he can pass judgement, Morgan awakens, which causes all the dwarves to run away in fear. Morgan coaxes them out of hiding by convincing them he’s not with the hawkmen--in fact, he’s their enemy. The dwarves are pleased by this, as the hawkmen raid their village and steal their women. The mayor pronounces Morgan a friend and offers him a drink:

The strong dwarvish liquor brings tears to Morgan’s eyes and almost makes him fall over. The mayor opines that “it takes some getting used to.”

The mayor tells Morgan the hawkmen are away on a raid to the South. That gives Morgan the idea to prepare a surprise for them on their return. The mayor says Morgan will have to do it alone--the dwarves are too small to stand up to them. Besides, they’ve got know way to reach the hawkmen’s aerie. He shows it to Morgan, high atop a giant tree. There’s no way to climb up!

Morgan asks if they’ve ever tried, though he knows the answer.  He tells the mayor all he needs from the village is 100 feet of rope and goat-skin full of their dwarvish firewater.

Morgan begins climbing the tree. He’s surprised to find guards swooping down at him. After a precarious battle with Morgan swinging around the giant tree trunk on his rope, the hawkmen are defeated. He resumes his climb with more urgency. He has to reach the top before the rest of the hawkmen return.

Upon reaching the aerie, Morgan makes a grisly discovery. Scattered about are human (or dwarven) bones. No sooner has he found the fate of the hawkmen’s captives, than he sees them returning with Shakira. Morgan quickly spreads the liquor around their nest, then hides.

As soon as the raiders carrying Shakira are within the nest, Morgan attacks. He cuts Shakira free, then throws down a torch, igniting the liquor. Morgan grabs Shakira’s hand and says their only way out is to jump into the lake below.

Shakira balks with a feline dislike of water. She turns into a cat to run away, but Morgan snatches her up. He jumps from the tower with her cursing him.

Morgan and Shakira climb from the lake and look up at the aerie, now engulfed in flame. The mayor thanks Morgan for his help, and asks if he got his cat back. Morgan replies, “Yes..."

Things to Notice:

• Where are the hawkwomen?
• Shakira talks while in cat form.
• Dwarven females are taller and less comical looking than the dwarf males.

Where It Comes From:
The hawkmen are likely inspired (and named) for the hawkmen of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon comic strip, and related media.

The dwarves Morgan encounters seem to have a Munchikin-esque character, mode of dress, and appearance, though they live in tree homes more like the Keebler elves.  It's possible that The Wizard of Oz was the whole impetus for the story, with the dwarves inspired by the Munchikins and the hawkmen standing in for the evil flying monkeys.

The Tintype of Dark Wonder

The Tintype of Dark Wonder is a magical artifact, often discovered at a carnival photography booth or in the possession of a street photographer. The photographer will not have taken the picture himself, nor will he know how it has come to be among his wares. It’s usually sold cheaply.

The small cult who follows the picture's movements, and chronicles them in iterations of the mimeographed or photostatted tract known as The Menagerie Grotesque, holds that it has its origins in drowned Meropis. No serious scholars view the cult as anything more than a collection of crackpots, so this, like all their other claims, are doubted. What is not in doubt, however, is that the item gives the possessor control over three magical entities, but at a price.

The possessor may summon the three, frankly ludicrous, animal caricatures pictured by simply holding the tintype, looking at the desired creature, and willing said creature to act in accordance with his will. When a creature is summoned it disappears from the picture, returning only when its task is complete. The creatures will act in the following manner:

The gluttonous frog: When called the frog will follow any individual the possessor wills. It will be invisible to all with magically aided vision but the possessor. The victim will find themselves with a growing appetite for food, sex, and other pleasures. Over time, these appetites will grow increasingly bizarre. The victim will gain weight, whether eating excessively or not. Over a period of 2-12 months they will become immensely fat and virtually immobile, and entirely depraved. A saving throw will allow the victim to intuit that they are under a curse. Remove curse will chase the frog away.

The lanky hound: When called, the hound begins harrying a victim. It will only be visible to the victim, the photo’s possessor, and those with magical sight. The hound will always stay far enough away from the victim so that it is a vague shape in the distance, or perhaps a distorted figure in the fog, glimpsed by peripheral vision. The hound's presence will cause the victim increasing feelings of dread and paranoia. Within a week, they will be suffering the effects of poor sleep. Within two, they will be unable to perform in any critical situations and be essentially homebound by fear--only being able to leave with a successful Wisdom check. The victim seeking out the hound and chasing it, will drive it away for a time, but it will return in 1d4 days. Only remove curse or the like will drive it away permanently. After 1d4 months, only a saving throw will keep the victim from attempting to end their own life.

The twisted eel: The twisted eel causes the degeneration of the body of the victim, by progressive nerve death, and crippling arthritis. The victim will feel the eel's cold-blooded presence but only the possessor and the magically sighted see it. After a 1-6 days of the eel’s influence, pain will cause a -1 to all roles involving physical aptitude. After 2d4 weeks, dexterity and strength will begin to be reduced at a rate of 1 point a week. Healing magic will stave off loss for that week, but not halt the degeneration. When strength and dexterity are reduced to zero, constitution begins to decline at a rate of one point a day. Once again, remove curse or the like will drive away the eel.  If the eel is driven off before a score reaches zero, it will fully heal with time.

Death of the one who summoned the creature will also end its attack. If a remove curse drives the creature from its intended target, it will attempt to attack the possessor instead, unless a successful saving throw is made. Each possessor may only summon each creature once, after that the picture seems to be just a picture....except for the untoward attention it brings to the possessor from extraplanar entities, and sorcerous collectors eager to add the tintype to their collections.

Crossover

Crossovers are a time-honored tradition in media, going back to the ancient Greeks (remember the Argonauts?) at least. The intertwining of genre literature characters hit its high mark with the so-called Wold-Newton Universe. What Philip Jose Farmer created to give a give illustrious pedigrees to Tarzan and Doc Savage, others have turned into a grand unified theory of crossovers.

The appeal's obvious to any genre fan. If the Shadow meeting Doc Savage is good, throwing in the Cthulhu Mythos and Shaft might just make it better--particularly if a way to really explain all these characters existence in the same universe could be found.

“Anything (or almost anything) goes” crossovers can have a lot gaming appeal. Superman can join the Avengers in a supers game. Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade might cross paths with investigators in Call of Cthulhu. Or maybe its apes versus machine, as Escape from the Planet of the Apes meets the Terminator.

Crossovers can also be used on a smaller scale to create setting continuity. PCs from one game might show up as NPCs in another, or events from a previous game might be referenced. This can even work cross-game and cross-genre. The Hyborian Age of Conan was long part of the prehistorical past of the Marvel Universe, so there’s no reason one’s D&D game could be somehow related to the history of one’s superhero game, or even one’s modern occult game.

All this just scraps the surface. Anybody have any crossover examples from their own games?

Season of the Witch

The last day in the month of Redfall is known as Revenant Night. This is an old, pagan festival, never successfully extinguished by the coming of the Oecumenical Church. Folklore holds that the walls between the realms of the dead and the prime material plane thin, so that spirits who have not yet moved on to their plane of final reward can slip back into the living world. This seldom seems to occur in this modern age, but magical practitioners don’t rule it out entirely.

The time around Revenant Night is observed in interesting ways in different parts of the New World. In the City and other parts of the Union, many adults may go masked, and there is something of a superstition against using one’s real name lest it be overheard by malign spirits--though this is more observed in playful fashion today than a fearful one. Children dress in more elaborate costumes and in engage in ritual begging door-to-door.

Out in Heliotrope, witch cultists of the Black Mother are purported to have one of their most important sabbats on this night. Police often raid reported ritual sites, but usually only collar intoxicated young playboys, and naked, would-be starlet, cigarette or hat-check girls. The real power rituals and serious practitioners remain elusive--or either are smart enough to pay off the cops.

In some towns in the Steel League the evening before Revenant Night is called “Eve of Madness,” or the “Night of Misrule.” Some scholars believe this festive night of tomfoolery and petty vandalism has its historic origins in the mind-altering (and perhaps delirium inducing) effects of certain fungi which bloom on grain at this time of year in Ealderde. Others believe it is a psychic release, necessary due to the astrological influence of the Blood Red Moon--a full moon of large size and rust color which occurs around this time.

The Eve of Madness can turn ugly. Murders, sometimes gruesome and senseless ones, occur more often on this night, as does arson, and sometimes there's strange mob violence where the perpetrators seem to be in some sort of trance. This is most common in Motorton, the bustling manufacturing city built atop the mass plague-graves of Old Fort Narrows. Here the Red Dwarf holds sway. This mysterious harbinger of calamity once appeared as a redcap, but now is seen more often as a dwarf dressed dapperly in a crimson suit. It's said that the Dwarf has claimed the night as his own, and has been known to have his henchman bring random people off the street to his Room with Red Velvet Curtains (sometimes just the “Red Room”). Visitors describe the room as found in the basement of a ritzy old hotel--but no one has been able to relocated the building or provide directions to it later.

The Dwarf will sometimes tell his visitor’s future. Other times, he’ll ask them for a favor, or tell them how they can get their heart’s desire. However it starts, it always plays out badly. A meeting with the dwarf is an ill-omen however sharply its dressed.

Gill-Man vs. Wolf-Man

To finish off my Halloween review of all the non-vampiric Universal monsters, we come to the gill-man and the werewolf. Both are zoanthropes, and perhaps as such, both represent fears of nature or man’s own animalistic side, though at that point the similarity seems to end.

The gill-man is elusive. His appearances in media are more rarified, no doubt due to his proprietary, rather than folklorish, origins. In addition to the Creature trilogy, stand-ins make appearances in The Monster Squad, and Monsters vs. Aliens--where interestingly he’s grouped with decade-appropriate monster stand-in colleagues rather than the Universal monster old guard.

The proto-gill-men of Lovecraft’s "Shadow Over Innsmouth" have miscegenation fears in their DNA, which seem absent from Universal’s creature--unless his attraction to human females is a hint at this. In some ways, the Lovecraftian angst underlying the Deep Ones makes them more interesting than a fish King Kong. That’s part of the reason D&D’s Kuo-toa (more Deep One-ish in character) have always been more interesting to me than the other evil fishmen, the Sahuagin (Gill-Men).

I guess Dr. Who's Sea Devils and Silurians might be mined for gill-man inspiration. Anything might help. Gill-man’s got a good look, but little else to give him real monster memorability.

Neil Gaiman has a short-story called “Only the End of the World Again” where Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man, winds up in Innsmouth and tangles with Deep One cultists. This may be as close as media has given us to a Gill-man-Werewolf bout.

Werewolves seem to have what it takes for urban fantasy fiction. Werewolf sex probably seems even naughtier, I suppose, than lovin’ the living dead. In fact--Teen Wolf aside--there’s always been something a little “adult situations”--maybe even exploitation--about werewolves. They don’t just strangle like the mummy or Frankenstein, or give a killer kiss like a vampire--they rend and tear and chew. Werewolves are as much serial killer as wild beast.

Is it any wonder that werewolves are almost as likely as vampires to get the grindhouse treatment? I would suspect only “almost” because vampires maybe give more excuse for nudity, and blood effects are cheaper than wolf prosthetics. But the wolf man gets by, and whatever budget.  Paul Naschy’s got a whole series of werewolf movies where the werewolf's origin involves being bit by a Yeti, and he fights Templars--how’s that for game inspiration! Then we’ve got a werewolf biker film (Werewolves on Wheels), a werewolf women in prison effort (Werewolf in a Women’s Prison); and, if Rob Zombie had his way, a werewolf Nazi-ploitation film--Werewolf Women of the S.S.

Werewolves: the most gameable of monsters, whatever your genre.

Out of the Void

Salvaged photographs all show the same thing. Beings in strange suits, with face-plates empty but for the absolute black of the void. There’s an alien presence stalking the west of the New World...

In the summer of 5880, news of an approaching rogue planetoid swept the globe. The greatest scientists and thaumaturgists worried over charts and formulae, and made dire predictions. From the streets of the City, to the savannas of Ebon-Land, and across the half-ruined cities of Ealderde, people watched the skies, and faced the fearful prospect that the end of the world was near.

The world obviously didn’t end that summer, perhaps thanks to the actions of a renegade scientist and two less than willing companions. The scientist had constructed a rocket and planned to guide it into the planetoid, altering its course. This plan was doomed to failure, according to accepted theory. Thaumaturgists had long been aware that the alien, and hard to placate, elementals of vacuum and radiation were perturbed and driven to madness by the movement of large bodies like the planetoid. Also, astral projection had detected malign energies emanating from the planetoid.  Was this the psychic death-cry of world propagating backwards in time, or something else?

The scientist averred he had novel approach to thaumaturgic shielding. His rocket could run the gauntlet. In retrospect, it may be that his thoughts in this regard were not entirely his own.

The three man rocket blasted off one a summer night on an apparent suicide mission. The planetoid’s course altered and the world was spared. Those who knew of the rocket assumed it had succeeded in its mission, and would never be seen again.

That was before last year, the falling star on Revenant Night (when tradition holds the dead can walk), and the reports of three beings in singed pressure suits, proclaiming the dawn of a new world. That was before towns were found emptied but for shadow imprints burned into walls or sidewalks where their inhabitants had been disintegrated.

Union officials have plotted the course of the harbingers (as they have come to be called). Moving from the Stoney Mountains, they’ve passed through only small towns, some barely worthy of the name. They’ve passed into the Dustlands where strangely the tornado overlords have given them wide berth. Ahead, lies the heart of the Steel League, and beyond that, who knows?

The crater left by the falling star has since been examined. It was found to contain the remains of a rocket resembling the one launched by the renegade scientist eight years ago.

My Top Ten Horrors

In no particular order, here are what probably my favorite horror short stories (though I would imagine I've forgotten something)--just in time for Halloween.  Links to e-texts provided where available.

"The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen
"Who Goes There?" by John Campbell
"The Voice in the Night" by William Hope Hodgson
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"Into Whose Hands" by Karl Edward Wagner
"The Clown Puppet" by Thomas Ligotti
"Pigeons from Hell" by Robert E. Howard
"Don't Ask Jack" by Neil Gaiman
"Whisperer in the Darkness" by H.P. Lovecraft
"Born of Man and Woman" by Richard Matheson

Honorable mentions go to "Dread" by Clive Barker, "Dr. Locrian's Asylum" by Ligotti, "The River of Night's Dreaming" by Wagner, "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffman, "The Repairer of Reputations" by Robert W. Chambers, and "The Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick.  Maybe I should have done a top twenty!

Warlord Wednesday: A Monster Memorial

In keeping with the season, I'd like to honor the various creatures, subhumans, demons and god-things, that have met their final reward through the efforts of Travis Morgan and his friends.  Who could forget these favorites:

The lizard-men Morgan found worshipping his plane in #3:

The tragic werewolf in the tower from #22:

The punk snow giant Morgan ran across in the mountains in issue #25:

The fish-men who bedeviled his submarine paramour in #24:

And post-Grell, the vampire queen of a frozen valley from #108:

Famous Monsters: The Mummy

In 1932, The mummy was the third of the classic Universal monsters to appear, following Dracula and Frankenstein who had debuted the previous year. It was probably Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 that raised the public profile of mummies--particularly Egyptian mummies--enough to get a film made based on the concept. Universal’s run of mummy movies was followed by a Hammer franchise in the fifties, and a post-Indiana Jones re-imagining in 1999 kicked off another series at Universal.

Like Frankenstein, mummies don’t usually get to be sexy...Well, except Valerie Leon as Princess Tera in Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb:

But the above photo illustrates one of the interesting things about movie mummies. At some point in the story, they tend to regain a less dessicated form and don’t really look like a mummy anymore. The other take frequently seen is to have the mummy be some mute automaton doing the evil bidding of some wicked priest--in other words a classic (pre-brain-eating) zombie.

Maybe this is the big problem with mummies. They're either essentially what gaming would call liches, or they’re zombies. It’s really only a roll of bandages and Egyptian bling that make them stand out.  Shamble, moan, strangle.  Repeat.

I suppose some difference can be discerned in their origins. Liches are boot-strapping undead; they’re generally self-created, and so have to be evil individuals of esoteric knowledge. Classic zombies are either living people (and so not undead at all), or they have something unfortunate (and undeserved) done to them after death by an evil individual of esoteric knowledge. Mummies are either being punished (in most of the mummy films), or honored or accidentally created (like real life).

And of course, they need not be Egyptian. Mummies come from all over, and some of these other mummies have made it into fiction. The Aztec mummy got its on film series, which includes a fight with a robot.

Not psychotronic enough for you? Well South of the Border, they don’t stop at just Aztec mummies. They've got a whole museum full of natural occurring mummies in Guanajuato. In film, these guys wind up fighting superhero luchadores on more than one occasion. Again, the differentiation between them and zombies is largely semantic. Still, Guanajuato’s peculiar mummies can be good game fodder, even without the masked wrestlers.

No reason mummies should have be from historic eras. Howard’s titular mummy from the modern adventure yarn Skull-Face, is Kathulos, an undead sorcerer from Atlantis.  Now he's a mummy who doesn't just shamble and moan.

Famous Monsters: Frankenstein

With Halloween drawing nigh, I thought I’d take a look at the iconic Universal monsters and what inspiration can be found to freshen up their traditional protrayals in gaming. Since vampires (particularly Dracula) have gotten a lot of virtual ink in the blogosphere of late, I figured I’d with start with the vice-president of the monster club, Frankenstein’s monster. Frankenstein, to his friends.

I suppose you could call his type “a construct” or a “golem.” It’s not really an archetype that seems to fire people's imaginations to the degree the vampire does. No series of sexed up urban fantasies for the ladies about a hunky dude made from stitched together corpse pieces (at least not that I’m aware of).

Comics still seem to love Frankie, though. Mark Wheatley gave us Frankenstein’s Mobster, where a slain cop in a city overrun by crime becomes a “made man”--literally. Grant Morrison offered up a more over-the-top, pulpy adventurer Frankenstein as part of his Seven Soldiers line. Somewhat similar (though less over-the-top) was the Wachowski Brothers’ alt-history, Doc Frankenstein. 

I should point out combining Frankenstein with pulpy elements didn't start with these recent comics.  The Utley and Waldrop novellette "Black as Pit, From Pole to Pole" (1977) has Frankenstein wandering into the Pellucidar-esque Hollow Earth.  Dell comics made him a superhero back in the sixties.

Perhaps the best way to reimagine Frankenstein is in terms of what he's come to represent. Critics of genetic engineering and the like are always invoking his name. Splice is just the most recent riff on this sort of (post-)modern Prometheus.

How can this all be related to gaming? Well, the flesh golem of AD&D’s Monster Manual is the classic movie Frankenstein, and most sci-fi/conspiracy games do a riff on the more modern science-fear inspired Frankensteins. It would be cool, though, to see a more intelligent, villainous Frankie. Something along the lines of his original portrayal.  Something less "stand-in for fears of man overstepping his place," and more singular menace.

Jess Nevins argues in Fantastic Victoriana that Shelley’s protrayal of the monster has a tinge of Yellow Peril to it, and I think he’s right. Maybe Frankenstein with a Fu Manchu spin would be the way to go? Let’s let the guy with bolts in his head have some soliloquies instead of just grunts.

Addendum: Check out Jim Shelley's Flashback Universe blog for a couple of comics panels of Frankenstein fighting a dinosaur, and a pictorial overview of various comic versions of the monster.  Great minds think alike!

One Panel Adventure Seeds

Here are some vignettes clipped from Golden Age comics chosen for adventure inspiration.  I've contextualized in the world of the City, but they could take place almost anywhere...

An obsessed half-ogre strongman, a cold beauty...a recipe for more than big top drama?

As madmen go, at least he's polite.

The leader of the spider-folk talked a lot.  That was good.  It kept him from using his scalpel.

A ghoul on a spree, with a taste for beautiful dames.

When you're on the lamb, you take your chances with back-alley sawbones.

Geography That Wasn't

I've been doing a lot of reading lately on lost cities, phantom islands, and the like, and I've come across some "historical" maps that time has proven to be more like alternate history.  Maybe you'll find some inspirations from these examples of terra fabula, too:

First off, here's California back when it was an island.  It ddin't finally settle on the North American mainland for good until the 1770s.

Let's get rid off that pesky California (and all the Americas, for that matter), with Paolo Toscanelli's 1474 map which gets the the earth's circumference wrong and has Cathay and Cipangu (Japan) just a quick sail away.  Hey, this map was good enough for Columbus!  Helpfully, the real North America appears ghostly in the background of this reproduction.

And this is another projection.

Finally, here's an island of Taprobana, which may have become Ceylon, or Sumatra--or disappeared all together.  It was an important trading port between east and west.  Marco Polo thought Adam was buried there, on the top of Mount Serendib.