Warlord Wednesday: A Horse of a Different Color

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...

"A Horse of a Different Color"

Warlord (vol. 1) #37 (September 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Beneath the eternal sun of Skartaris, Travis Morgan and Shakira share a whispered conversation, as they crouch in the jungle. Their discussing a wild horse drinking from a pond, which Morgan intends to try and capture. Shakira thinks he’s going to get his neck broken.

Morgan’s determined. He sneaks up and leaps on the stallion's back. As it begins to buck, we now see that it's no ordinary horse, but a winged one!

Shakira tells Morgan to jump, but he ignores her, confident he has the situation in hand. The horse takes flight and Morgan has no choice but to hang on until it lands again. The horse takes Morgan toward a fanciful and futuristic-looking castle atop a spire of rock. There the beast lands at what Morgan takes to be its home.

Meanwhile, an exasperated Shakira runs along, trying to follow Morgan’s path. She’s brought to a halt when a lasso slips over her. Acting quickly, she cuts it with her spear. She finds herself facing an unnaturally tall, broadly smiling man she first takes for a Titan. She takes off running. When the man gives chase, emerging fully from the foliage, she realizes he's actually a centaur.

She trips her pursuer with her spear, then holds him helpless at spear’s point. The centaur protests he meant her no harm, but Shakira points out that’s exactly what he would say in this situation. The centaur tries to bargain for his life with some sort of service. At first, Shakira isn’t interested in his perhaps lewd suggestions, but then she thinks of something he can do for her:

Offered little choice by Shakira, the centaur, who introduces himself as Arvak Thunderhoof, agrees reluctantly to give her a ride to Morgan’s location.

In the castle on the spire, Morgan marvels at the decor--amazing life-like statues representing all the ages of man in Skartaris, from the Age of the Wizard Kings to the present. While he’s examing the art, a beautiful green-haired woman enters, and asks if he likes her collection. She asks Morgan to forgive her for not greeting him earlier--she wasn’t expecting him until much later.

Morgan asks me she means, but she doesn’t reply. She gives her name as Astarte, but says his other questions will wait, and makes her point with a smoldering stare and her arms around his neck...

On the ground below, Arvak points out the castle to Shakira, naming it Grimfang. Shakira intends to climb the spire. Arvak tells her it's impossible; no one could attempt that climb and live. Shakira attends to try, regardless--Morgan would do no less for her. She can’t figure out why that moves her--she’s never been particularly loyal to anyone--but it does. She transforms into a cat and bounds off.

She begins the climb. It’s difficult even in her cat form. It becomes more so when a hawk swoops down to make a meal of her. Shakira finds a wide enough perch, then transforms back into a human. The diving hawk gets a surprise--and a punch in the head.

In the castle above, Morgan still has questions, but Astarte puts him off by offering him wine. Morgan refuses, bu Astarte insists, and something about her eyes seems to compel him....

Then, a snarling, black house cat leaps between the two, and buries its claws in Astarte’s face.The glass she was offering Morgan spills. Morgan recognizes Shakira but doesn’t know what’s going on.

Astarte finally succeeds in casting Shakira away, but only after accidentally knocking over one of her statues. Morgan reaches down and dips his fingers in the red liquid from the goblet. He realizes it isn’t wine, and he knows how Astarte came by her “art collection.”

Morgan pulls his hellfire sword. Within the glow of the hellfire’s mystic gem, he sees Astarte’s true form--a green-feathered, harpy-like creature.

She says she would have made Morgan immortal in stone, but now she’ll send him to the halls of death. Morgan offers her some wine first--and throws the remaining liquid from the goblet into her face. Astarte turns to stone in mid-lunge, then crashes to the ground, and shatters.

Shakira asks if Morgan’s noticed how bad his luck’s been with woman lately. Morgan declines to discuss it.

Morgan and Shakira fly out of Grimfang on the back of the winged horse, while below, lonely Arvak watches them--Shakira, actually--go.

Things to Notice:

• Grimfang is in sort of an isolated place to attract a lot of visitors, it seems.  The time it took to acquire her collection must matter less to someone apparently as long-lived as Astarte.
• How does Morgan instantly know where Astarte's statues came from just from figuring out the liquid isn't wine?

Where It Comes From:
This issue is largely Greek mythology inspired.  It's got a winged horse (pegasus), a centaur, and a women who turns things to stone--though admittedly, not with her gaze like a gorgon.  Like Circe, Astarte offers refreshment which will transform the consumer.

Arvak Thunderhoof seems to have a bit of the classical centaur lecherousness, though he plays more like a seventies ladies' man than the would-be abductors of myth.

"Astarte" is the Greek name of a goddess of the Eastern Mediterranean of Semitic origin.  Her purview was fertility and war.

Another Petty God: Noom the Ubiquitous

Symbol: A small statue, boundary marker, or herma with an head of an (often bearded) old man wth a bemused expression.
Alignment: Lawful

Noom the Ubiquitous, or Noom the Unlooked For, is the patron of the lost (both people and things), wanders, and things overlooked. For as long as there have been roads, streets, and trails, people have been placing crudely fashioned statuettes of this smiling godling along them. He oversees journeys that are not as planned. He brings the lost traveler to a place more interesting than where she intended to go, and insures that lost items wind up in the hands of those who might need them at a crucial moment.

In manifestation, Noom looks like a portly, aged, dwarf in bright clothing. The pockets on his clothes always look full, and he typically carries a peddler’s sack, fit to burst,on his back. He seldom appears though, preferring to act through his idols.

Noom has few if any worshippers. So ancient and forgotten is his cult, few even realize the small, roadside statues represent a god. Noom aides travelers not in exchange for their veneration, but out of whim. Anyone lost in the presence of a Noom statue has a 40% chance of attracting the godling’s attention. This increases to 60% if they sleep in close proximity to a statue.

Noom will not help a lost traveler find their destination, but will either subtly guide something interest their way, or guide the person to something of interest. “Interest” in this case, may be the threshold of adventure, but it will generally not be something immediately dangerous (like a wandering monster). Noom’s intercession will never be obvious. Events will always seem natural, if perhaps a little strange.

Other times, Noom’s influence will be felt in the finding of an innocuous, but ultimately useful item. These will seldom be magical, and will never appear to be particularly value at first (though they may actually be). These will be found in the dust or weeds around Noom idols. It will be strange in many cases that the item could have been lost where it is found.

Destroying a statue of Noom will bring the godling’s displeasure. Doing so may result (50%) in getting lost, at least for a time, in an unpleasant and possibly dangerous way.

Inception and D&D Cosmology

Rewatching Inception on blu-ray this weekend I thought of another way some of the film's concepts might inform an rpg setting. Its portrayal of descent through “levels" of dream got me thinking how that might be applied to the standard model of AD&D cosmology.

First, you’d have to take the occult/mystic view that the multiverse beyond the Prime Material is largely a conceptual or spiritual place. The macrocosm (all that is) is reflected, perhaps even encompassed, in the microcosm of a human being. This is hardly a new view, but a different from D&D’s more mechanistic approach.

If the planes aren’t necessarily physical places in the usual sense, but more like states of consciousness or spiritual planes, they’re probably mostly reachable by astral projection, mental/spirit travel, or the like. Travelers’ bodies are left behind in the semblance of sleep.

The first stop would be the astral plane. This area would be malleable (to a degree) to the mind of an experienced traveler. Maybe it also impinges on dreams so random dream stuff is here that can be utilized. The distance through here to any “outer” plane might be a factor of attunement to that planes dominant emotion/ethos/mind-set, or maybe it has to do with some other factor.

Like dream-levels in Inception, I think it would be cool if time ran different in each planar level. The further from the Prime Materal, the “slower” time runs. The astral is only a little slower than the Prime, but in Hell things seem to last forever.

Anyway, that might mean that while each outer plane has a particular theme or character, it will be filtered through the consciousness of the traveler. Everybody gets his own heaven and hell--and nirvana, or whatever. I don’t know how that would work for a party. Maybe the lead traveler would have the biggest influence, but if they split up, individuals would gradually find themselves in very different realms. Of course, maybe the planes are sentient too--iconic representatives, after a fashion, of certain ideas. Maybe they assert their own influence which establishes the broad strokes of their appearances.

Anyway, I think you can see where I’m going with this. I suppose this idea might work better in a modern occult game or something like that, but I see it as playable with traditional fantasy, too. Characters (or players) need not have a real understanding of how the planes operate for them to work this way. In fact, it might be more interesting if they didn’t.

The Night Mail

The New World depends on the timely delivery mail of over large distances. Unfortunately, large swathes of the continent are mostly unsettled, only cut by lone railways, or haphazard auto trails. Bandits, hostile Native tribes, and wandering monsters still harry travellers in much the West, while malevolent storms and ravenous zombies menace the Dustlands. The skies have often become the best option.

The Union has a postal service, but it relies on private contractors to carry air mail. Many of these companies are small operations, or even sole propietorships. The pilots are typically recruited from the ranks of barnstorming daredevils or veterans of the Great War. Their planes are often rickety and aging, held together by paint and wishful thinking.

The larger, or more reckless, operations run night and day. Coast-to-coast routes can be flown by most carriers in around 30 hours, pilots staying awake with black coffee and alchemical stimulants. Larger (and much more expensive) planes can make the trip in less than twenty. The smaller planes go from the City to San Tiburon in jumps--making deliveries in the Steel League, Lake City, and some Western cow-towns along the way.

That's assuming the planes make it safely. Aviation is a dangerous business in the best of conditions, and conditions are seldom the best. Thunderbirds hunt western skies, wings crackling with St. Elmo’s fire, riding the storms their presence invokes. Air-bandits strike from mountain hideouts, or (it’s rumored) cloud-hidden flying fortresses, to down and loot commercial planes. The whispered come-ons of slyphs seduce lonely aviators to their doom. Elemental storms smash aircraft out of spite.

Then there’s the strange fauna of the upper air. Eerily translucent, gelatinous predators, like something out the ocean depths, which drift downward in response to air vibrations, and almost certainly, magical energies.

Thamaturgical enhancements can, and have, improved aircraft engines and systems, but their use is limited for safety reasons. Magic energies tend to attract dangerous para-elementals of lightning (or electricity)--entities called gremlins or glitches by those in aviation. Their very nature disrupts electrical equipment; and their chaotic anti-potential can disrupt mechanical devices, and react with thamaturgical equipment in unpredictable ways.

Their presence interacts with the human mind, too. Pilots who have suffered gremlin attacks often report hallucinating outlandish, colorful, diminutive creatures--if they survive the encounter.

The Structures of Magical Revolutions

We’re all familiar with the advance of technology and the shifting--sometimes radically--of scientific ideas. The ether theory gave way to special relativity; the bow gave way to the gun. So why is it we seldom see any advancements in the technology of magic, or magical paradigm shifts, in rpg settings?

Not that magic isn’t shown as changing over time, but it's almost always a fall from a more advanced state, even a golden age, to its current one. Mostly, though, this seems to just a change from more magic to less. Sure, this gives a convenient rationale for ancient magical ruins and magical items laying around, but there are other explanations for that stuff, surely.

Why can’t magic missiles be more powerful today than 100 years ago? Maybe old spells have completely fallen by the wayside due to improve defenses (maybe, though, those defenses have been lost too?). Or how about old magical theories giving way to the radical new theories of a Magus Einstein? Different magical schools/styles need not be equally valid views that just add “color”, one could be more true than the other. What would that even mean: more powerful spells? shorter casting times? higher levels attainable? bragging rights in the outer planes?

Anyway, its something to think about: What are the structures of magical revolutions?

Crime & Amusement

A covert war is being fought along the boardwalk, and in the places of amusement, on Lapin Isle on the southeastern coast of the City. The war is between two lords (or one lord and one lady) of petty crime. The stakes are the illicit earnings from all the beach’s pick-pockets, quick-grab artists, petty confidence tricksters, and part-time prostitutes. Neither of these would-be kingpins are human, but are, in fact, coin-operated fortune telling machines.

In the middle of the boardwalk, a penny arcade is the domain of Mister Chax, the All-Knowing Homonculus. Inside his glass case, Mister Chax appears as a ventriloquists dummy in a natty suit with dead (yet still too-knowing) eyes and a leering, plastered grin beneath a pencil-thin moustache. His communications come on cards, neatly printed and filligreed. Chax’s gang is mostly scruffy urchins who seem innocuous when encountered singularly, but sinister in packs. They speak in a ridiculous child-argot never completely intelligible to adults, without magical aide. Some of them are very large for their age.

Chax also has been known to employ inky, spider-things the size of wharf rats with almost human faces and derisive, whispering voices. Their bites cause painful pustules and nightmares.

Mister Chax’s rival can be found in a novelty shop near the entrance to Lunar Rabbit Park. Her glass case gives her name as Grisselda, but her followers--her “ducklings”--call her “auntie” or “great aunt.” Grisselda appears as an old woman, like an Old World grandmother. She tells fortunes by the use of playing cards, and this is also the way she communicates with her followers. These are mostly young girls, either in their teens or early twenties, who dress like prim young ladies, perhaps on a church trip. Their dainty purses hide switchblades, maybe pocket revolvers, and nasty, back-alley magic items. The cryptic meanings of Grisselda’s cards are interpreted by an oracle. She's a girl a little older than Auntie's standard soldier, with eyes older still, and porcelain skin. She typically dresses like an aspiring torch-singer, and smokes a cigarette through a holder. Her name is always Esme.

Chax and Grisselda try to keep their war sotto voce. They have no wish to attract the authorities, but also no wish to draw the interest of the malign godling of Lapin Isle, the dark personification of the rabbit in the moon; the thing like a man in a bunny suit that is not a man.

Warlord Wednesday: The Back-Ups Are Back

For the majority of issues 29-88, Warlord featured a back-up story. Let's take a look at another couple of the series featured there in:

CLAW THE UNCONQUERED
First Appearance: Claw the Unconquered #1 (1975)
Last Pre-Warlord Appearance: Claw the Unconquered #10 (1978)
Featured as Back-up: Warlord #48-49
Next Seen: Wonder Woman #21 (2008)
His Story: Claw is a barbaric warrior from the world of Pytharia who has the right hand of a demon thanks to a curse.  Claw recently got a revival at Wildstorm and a crossover with Red Sonja.
How He's Like the Warlord: he's a sword-wielding tough-guy in a fantasy world.

THE BARREN EARTH
First Appearance: Warlord #63 (1982)
Featured as Back-up: Warlord #63-88
Next Seen: Conqueror of the Barren Earth #1 (1985)
Its Story: The Barren Earth is really just plain old Earth--only in the far future after the Sun has become a red giant.  Jinal Ne'Comarr (our heroine) is a human from intergalatic space on a mision to reclaim mankind's homeworld in her civilization's war with the alien Qlov.  The Barren Earth graduated from back-up status to a limited series...and then it was gone.
How She's Like the Warlord: Jinal swings a sword (well, an energy blade) and carries a gun.  She's from a more advanced culture hanging out in a primitive one amid the remnants of advanced technology.

Clipped in the City

Here, once again, are a few pictures from various periodicals published in the City, and their accompaning headlines:

ROGUE AUTOMATON MENACES CITY

A novelty automaton from a boardwalk attraction inexplicably began to rob patrons at gunpoint.  Where the automaton got the gun has yet to be discovered.

ARMED GIANT ON CRIME SPREE IN FREEDONIA

Across the plains of central Freedonia, authorities are chasing an armored giant (likely a hillybilly giant, but possible a golem) responisble for the robbery of several banks and at least one train.

SORCERER PREFERS BLONDES

A cadre of adventures rescued women kidnapped by a rogue thaumaturge before he could preform the ritual he presumably had planned.  Whatever their original hair color and style, all the women had been magical transformed to long-tressed, platinum blondes.  The women were unharmed by their fifteen hour ordeal, and in fact evidenced little emotion due to mesmerism.

Ideas I Wish I'd Had First

Recent travel and conference attendance has impaired my post writing and general blogosphere presence, but has given me time to read other stuff while in hotel rooms and airplanes. In finally getting around to reading China Mieville’s latest fantasy novel Kraken, I’ve found it has several cool ideas to steal for gaming.

Kraken is set in modern London and concerns a curators descent into the city’s occult underbelly after the theft of a specimen of giant squid. It’s a Tim Power-ish set up and story (in a way, so was Mieville’s last modern novel, The City and the City), I think, but written in Mieville’s distinct prose style.

Anyway, there are several good ideas in here that I wish I had thought of first. There is a general strike amongst magical familiars, being lead by the spirit of an ancient Egyptian shabti, who took part in an uprising against the dead they were meant to toil for in the after-life. There's the menacing duo (there are a lot of menacing duos in fiction, aren’t there?) Goss and Subby, who get into a magically protected house by having themselves folded up and mailed in a box.

Best so far, though, is Mieville’s description of the “memory angels” which guard various London museums:

“In the Museum of Childhood were three toys that came remorselessly for intruders--a hoop, a top, a broken video-game console--with stuttering creeping as if in stop-motion. With the wingbeat noise of cloth, the Victoria and Albert was patrolled by something like a chic predatory face of crumpled linen. In Tooting Bec, the London Sewing Machine Museum was kept safe by a dreadful angel made of tangles and bobbins and jouncing needles...”

If there's anything the City needs its genius loci like that!

Gloves of Gold

The gloves of gold appear like a set of modern boxing gloves, red in color, but with a golden glimmer, which appears as a bright glow to those with magical sight. Some scholars believe they are items of great antiquity and have changed their appearance with time, originally being only simple leather straps of the kind worn by ancient Ealderdish pugilists.

The gloves are often found in gyms or boxing training centers. They will appear as normal items until “activated”, though it is unclear what is necessary for this process to occur. Some claim they reveal themselves when they know they’re needed.

There are some legendary previous uses of the gloves. Most recenlty, in 5880, Basher Brant went ninety-nine rounds with Death’s champion in a match refereed by an avatar (or senior representative) of Management for the lives of his adventuring companions.

Once activated, the gloves are usable by anyone. They imbue the wearer with pugilistic skill, whether the individual possessed it before or not. Gloves allow the wearer to strike creatures who can only be harmed by magical weapons. Further, they enhance a wearers ability to “K.O.” even magical opponents.

Benefits: The gloves are a +3 magical weapon. On a a natural twenty, the opponent gets a saving throw. Success means they are stunned for a round and unable to act. Failure means they are knocked unconscious for 2-20 rounds.

Weapons of Choice

[Article by H.L. Candor, reprinted (with permission) from True Adventure magazine, month of Pluvial, 5887.]

The general public of the New World sometimes finds it amusing to see adventurers, delvers, and other sorts of modern soldiers of fortune, decked out with an array of improvised weapons. Even more puzzling, and usually viewed as colorful eccentricity, are the publicity and autograph photos of such characters brandishing ancient weapons in this age of the machine gun.

These practices are not mere affectations, but rather coldly practical and pragmatic choices made by professionals (mostly) who know their business.

Consider the assort pick-axes, wrecking-bars, truncheons, and over-sized knives the City’s adventurers are wont to carry when bound for the wilderness or some subterranean ruin. These implements are tools as well as weapons--handy for the spelunking, entry-breaking, cracking treasure chests, and other utilitarian tasks facing them. If they can also be used to break the skull of a man-eating troglodyte, or dissuade an inebriated hillbilly giant, so much the better. Bullets are, of course, effective in these sorts of situations, but the prudent--and therefore long-lived--adventurer is always prepared.

In the case of delvers equiped like Medieval men-at-arms, we must look to history. The union of the ars thamaturgica and the practical sciences is uneasy at best, and of recent vintage. Mankind has possessed gunpowder for centuries, but only rarely in all that time have the sorcerer’s talents been used to enhanced these sorts of weapons. Rarer still are they in the ruins and crypts of the New World, where the Ancients never deployed mundane weaponry that advanced. This sort of aid is essential; hard won experience has taught generations of adventurers that there are some creatures which prove resistant--or indeed impervious--to all but magical weapons, whatever the weapon’s deadliness otherwise.

For this reason, adventurers looking to improve their odds of survival and material reward have had occasion to take up the use of weapons found in some tomb or trove which would otherwise be considered archaic. Swords, battle-axes, and assorted pole-arms are found in the arsenals of modern professionals. For some, the use these weapons is merely as adjuncts to their use of firearms; for others, the magical archaic weapon becomes their signature.

So, next time you see a photo of one of the City’s famous adventurers sporting a weapon that looks more at home in a museum or even the tool-yard, remember: these may not be just weapons of choice--they maybe be weapons of necessity!

Ruby Ring - Adventuress, pin-up girl, and sometime actress, posing with her magic scimitar 

Behind the Blurry Veil

...Or, “The Creation of a Petty Goddess”

Yesteryday, James Maliszewski of Grognardia gave me the good news that my Petty Gods submission, Drasheeng of the Blurry Veil was accepted, and he posted a great depiction of the deity in question by Mark Allen.

Drasheeng was conceived as the godling of misperception due to intoxication--and deception utilizing that misperception. She aides the aging harlot who relies on her client’s drink-blurred eyes to enhance her beauty, the roguish youth plying the reluctant maid with wine, and the confidence man who supplies intoxicants to muddle his marks’ better judgement.

The inspiration for this goddess came from the term “beer goggles” and musing on what that concept's patron diety would be like. How might she best exemplify it?  I surmised she’d probably have a body like a Frazetta babe, and behind her blurry veil, a face like:

But of course, nobody ever sees that until the next morning...

Warlord Wednesday: Interlude

Another Wednesday in Skartaris.  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...

"Interlude"
Warlord (vol. 1) #36 (August 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Shakira and Morgan are walking through the bustling markets of Bandakhar. Shakira is offended by the stench of so much humanity. Morgan is no more fond of the city than her, but they’ve heard anything can be bought their, and they need horses.

Their shopping is interrupted when Morgan hears a girl scream and rushes to help, heedless of Shakira’s warning (and his own previous experiences in Skartaris!) not to get involved. Morgan starts cutting down the uniformly dressed, bald men who seem to be trying to take the comely girl captive. Soon, all but two have fallen before the hellfire sword--and those two beat a haste retreat.

Shakira quips that they’ve barely arrived in town and Morgan is already making enemies. Morgan ignores her, noting the distinct tattoos on the men’s chests. The girl says its the “mark of the bat--the sign of the demon.” She gives her name has Karelle, but refuses to reveal why the men were after her. When pressed, she runs off saying that to be involved with her further would only put Morgan in danger.

Despite the girl's protests, and further sarcasm from Shakira, Morgan follows after her, leaving Shakira to seek the company of a feline companion.

Morgan’s “jungle-honed” tracking skills put him on the girl’s trail. He catches a whiff of her haunting, lotus blossom perfume, and knows she’s near by. He sees her running into the gate of a building's courtyard--and sees her followed by a hulking, satyr-like figure. He pulls his sword.

Morgan charges into the courtyard. He finds the creature attempting to strangle Karelle. He attacks, but with amazing speed, the creature slashes him with its claws. Morgan falls back, his own reflexes the only thing saving him from disembowelment. Clutching his wounded chest, Morgan tosses his sword at the creature’s throat. It strikes home, and the beast dies.

Karelle is unharmed. As Morgan retrieves his sword he again asks who’s after her. She’s still reluctant to say, but when its obvious Morgan doesn’t intend to drop the issue, she tells him she has the attention of a powerful, and unwanted, suitor. When her father refused him, the man--an evil wizard--decided that if he couldn’t have her, he would kill her. Karelle agrees that death is preferrable to being with him.  She has a poisoned dagger to end her own life, before she would submit to the monster.

Morgan won't allow it to come to that. Karelle asks why he would help her. Morgan replies: “You’re the first beautiful and gentle thing that’s heppened to me in longer than I can remember.” Karelle senses that Morgan is a tortured man, but she also senses gentleness beneath his tough exterior. Morgan warns her not to get too close, but Karelle replies she’s not afraid, and impetuously kisses him.

At that moment, Morgan final succumbs to his wound and passes out.

Karelle tends him in his delirium, and Morgan is unaware. Instead, he's lost in the dark past; he recalls being forced to kill his son, his wife’s anguish, and the man responsible--the devil-priest, Deimos.

Morgan awakens from his nightmare to find Karelle absent. He hears her scream from the next room, and stumbles after her, sword in hand. There he finds Karelle, dangling from her tied wrists, being whipped by Deimos!

Seeing his hated nemesis, Morgan goes into a berserker fury. Deimos tries to drive him back with magic, but the hellfire sword repels his sorcery. Morgan dismembers him with the blade, shouting the names of those he cares for whom Deimos has harmed. Even when Deimos has fallen, Morgan doesn’t stop. He hacks the priest into pieces as a horrified Karelle looks on.

Morgan cuts her free, but she pushes him away:

Later, Shakira finds him sitting in the rain. She’s got horses and in ready to live the city. She asks how Morgan made out. Morgan isn’t sure. His life was briefly touched by something special, and for that he should feel lucky, but instead he feels empty. He realizes that he’s been blaming Deimos for destroying everything beautiful in his life, but that really he’s the destroyer.

Shakira replies: “That girl...She must have been very special.” Morgan agrees that she was.

He and Shakira ride away, while Karelle watches them go with tears in her eyes.

Things to Notice:

• The seventies gives way to the eighties: Skartarian cutie Karelle has ditched the raccoon eye make-up of previous issues in favor of a fringed bikini top.
• There's something a little suggestive about a panel with a caption "the great sword hellfire throbs with power" over a close-up of Karelle with her lips parted.
• Deimos' third death is gruesome, but sort of anti-climatic.

Where It Comes From:
The mark of the bat chest tattoo sported by Deimos' cronies is clearly an homage to Batman's chest symbol.

The Weird Frontier

This cover deserves to be the basis of an rpg setting.

Well, maybe not just this cover all on its own, but the crazy idea it and the series (Tomahawk) it's a part of suggests (at least to me)--namely, combining the James Fenimore Cooper-style frontier tale with fantasy. Transplanting the whole civilization-against-the-wilderness thing to a colonial pseudo-America.

It’s almost completely unmined territory. It’s only been sort of attempted once, as far as I know--Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series does early nineteenth century fantasy in an alternate North America. Sure, one could point to novels (and even an rpg or two) with a kind of “Illuminati/Masonic magic behind the revolution” or a “Ben Franklin cavorts with the Hellfire Club” sort of deal, but all of that pseudo-historical “hidden magic” speculation fails to deliver a moment of rpg inspiration Zen like:

Wilderness adventures wouldn’t be the only way to go. Surely things like Mystery Hill, and the rampant speculation such sites inspired (even at the time) ought to suggest plenty of ancient American civilization to provide honest to goodness dungeons. There might not be demi-humans (though there could be), but all the other standard D&D ingredients are easy to find.

Maybe I’ll work on something like this once I’ve got Weird Adventures out of the way. Heck, the Strange New World was probably something like this, about a century and a half earlier then then the period I've been chronicling.

Muto-Scope

The Muto-Scope appears as some version of kinetoscope or early motion picture device. In reality, it is a magical artifact created for unknown purposes. It is often found in aging, second-rate arcades, or in the hands of collectors, where it’s true nature will often not be recognized.

Looking through the viewer and turning the metal knobs (marked with arcane symbols and metrics which no one is able to decipher) will allow the operator to focus in on any individual within a twenty mile radius he or she thinks of. The operator need not be aware that it's his or her thoughts bringing the target into the viewer for the scope to work.

Once a target is the viewer, turning the crank will cause mutation. Nothing short of magical shielding can protect a target from the effects. If the crank is turned clockwise, the target will evolve to a form in some (teleological) way more suited for their current environment. For example, intelligence might increase if that is what’s needed at the current time.

Turning the crank counter-clockwise will lead to devolution to a more primitive, ancestral form. First, more bestial, protohuman characteristics will appear, then baser mammalian ones, followed by reptilan traits. Fifteen seconds of scope operation on a target will lead to some minor atavistic traits emerging. A full minute will total transform the target physically into a more primitive, humanoid form.

In either direction, the duration and degree of change are related to the duration of crank operation. A minute of operation leads to changes lasting 1-6 hours, whereas ten minutes leads to changes lasting 1-6 days, and possibly (if a saving throw is failed) permanent. Both directions of change are ultimately dangerous, with clockwise ultimately resulting in a coldly intellectual, sociopathic, post-human monster, and counter-clockwise leading to a primitive beast of some sort.

Inspection of the device will reveal nothing about how it operates. Even disassembly (an action with unpredictable repercussions) is unlikely to provide any useful information. A small brass plaque low on the machine's back suggests it was manufactured by “Coppelius Novelties”, but a corporation of that name has been difficult to locate.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hopefully nobody has to stalk their own turkey like this Pilgrim maiden...

Warlord Wednesday: Bring On the Back-Ups!

For the majority of issues 29-88, Warlord featured a back-up story. One of these short series, Wizard World, was connected to the action of the main title, but all of the others were completely independent. Let’s take this Warlord Wednesday to look at the first two.

OMAC
First Appearance: OMAC #1 (1974)
Last Pre-Warlord Appearance: Back-up in Kamandi #59 (1978)--also the last issue of Kamandi
Featured as Back-up: Warlord #37-39, #42-47
Next Seen: DC Comics Presents #61 (1983)
His Story: OMAC (One Man Army Corps) was a Jack Kirby creation, a mohawked super-cop in the near future (“The World That’s Coming”). The Warlord back-ups were by Jim Starlin who had also done the back-up in the last issue of Kamandi.
How He's Like the Warlord: he fights for justice; his fashion sense is perhaps questionable.

ARAK
First Appearance: Warlord #48 (1981)
Featured as Back-up: (technically an insert) Warlord #48
Next Seen: Arak, Son of Thunder #1 (1981)
His Story: Arak was a Native American taken by Vikings to Carolingian Europe where he interacted with characters from The Song of Roland, and mythological creatures, in a very Robert E. Howard-esque way--not surprising since Arak was the creation of Conan’s original comics scribe, Roy Thomas. Arak’s series lasted for 50 issues.
How He's Like the Warlord: he swings a mean sword; he romances a warrior lady.

Adventurers of Yesteryear

The City's seen its share of adventures over the decades.  Many of them, both world-renown and relatively obscure, are celebrated in Munsen's "Life of Fantastic Danger" Museum.  Here are a few examples:

Enok “The Axe” Bludgett
A celebrity adventurer of the late of ‘40s (3840s, that is). The above tintype was sold all over the city.  He's pictured here with his favorite weapon, and axe rested from hands of an undead Northman whose dragonship thawed from an iceberg in the City’s harbor in 3842. Bludgett died tragically of an eldritch venereal disease contracted from a succubus just twelve years later.

Violet M’Gee
Stenography school dropout, turned adventuress. She's pictured here in 3875, with her legendary pistols--magical items supposedly made by an ancient forge god she and her companions discovered trapped in a bricked-up sub-basement in Yronburg.  She spent two months in a sanatarium suffering from the psychic backlash of firing a bullet made from the materia of the Outer Dark at the dread lich aviator, the Bloody Baron.

Colonel Balthazar Hacksilver
Southron Thaumaturgist and sometime ally of Bludgett. Though the title of “colonel” was an affectation, Hacksilver was knighted by Lluddish Queen during her first decanting. He’s perhaps best known for the ability--learned from a postherd recovered from a tomb beneath a mound of the Ancients in Freedonia--to remove his head from his body. Reportedly, Hacksilver’s body would fight on with his saber, while his head cast spells from a safe distance.  Some thaumaturgical scholars believe the amazing spell Hacksilver uncovered was incomplete, and therefore completely misinterpreted, which led to Hacksilver's eventual descent into the mental illness known as Ackerlast's Schism.  There is some disagreement as to whether his death is better termed a murder or a suicide.

Winter is Coming: Pics Prove It

I know I'm not the only one excited about the upcoming HBO series Game of Thrones based on George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and the more set pictures I see, the more I feel like they're getting it right.  Entertainment Weekly's got a whole series of pics on their website.

I'm glad the armor and clothing have more of a historical feel than is generally the case for TV fantasy (like the recent Legend of the Seeker).

Here's Stark sons Bran and Jon Snow.  Barrington (Snow) isn't really how I pictured him, but that's to be expected.

I think Nikolaj Coste-Waldau is great choice for Jaime Lannister--and check out that armor.

Daenerys' costume does seem a little generic fantasy-ish, though Emilia Clarke wears it well.

The Unknown

The most feared thaumaturgists of the City are the cabal sometimes called the Inconnu, or the Unseen Lodge, but most often called simply the Unknown. In bars frequented by mages, or in thaumaturgical lodge houses, it's not uncommon to hear “friend of a friend” stories, or paranoid urban legends about them. The Thaumaturgical Society of the City refuses to publicly acknowledge the existence of this powerful group--but privately makes sure to stay out of there way, while trying to collect as much information on them as possible. If the conspiracy theorists are to be believed, even the Hell Syndicate tends to avoid confronting them directly.

Beyond their shadowy existence, little is known for certain about them, though there is a lot of speculation. No more than ten ever appear at one time, but it's unclear whether this represents their entire membership. None of the members names or faces are known as they tend to appear in carnival masks, and sometimes costumes, thought to have occult significance, but their meanings remain obscure. Powerful mages are believed to become members by invitation, and are only admitted after achieving some incredible feat of magical prowess.

The strangest rumors about the Unknown are related to their activities. Minor mages have found themselves given the formulae of new spells, which have led to spectacular results for good or ill at times, but at others have appeared to do absolutely nothing. Prominent businessmen or up-and-coming adventurers have been destroyed by invisible entities, and it has been rumored the Unknown were responsible, but no one knows why. However, town fathers generally consider them friends of the City, apparently for actions they have taken in the past, which are not discussed, and only recorded in the most secure of records, if at all.

A Life in Sorcery

In the City and the New World in general, thaumaturgical practice and education are not as finely developed as they were in Ealderde, the Old World, prior to the Great War. There are no equivalents to the grand, old thaumaturgical academies like Hoagworts (tragically destroyed by prismatic-bombs from Staarkish zeppelins) or Germelshausen (closed to new students after its previously periodic synchronicity with this plane became unpredictable).

The New World does have a few small, private academies which vary greatly in quality. Most were started by wealthy practitioners with a particular theoretical model they wished to promote. Such training leads to students highly skilled in illusions, for instance, but with little facility in other areas; or graduates all pledged by blood oath to some extraplanar power.

Most thaumaturgists are trained by means of an apprentice system. Old practitioners take on students and train them to a point they are able to safely (supposedly) carry on their own independent study. Just as with the academies, this tends to lead to students with highly varied skill-bases and theoretical orientations.

The upshot of this is that many thaumaturgist lead short careers---and possibly lives. Some die or are disabled in magical experimentation. Others become the plaything of malign entities. Most just find the extent of their talents really isn’t all that far, and wind up trying to eke out a livings as hedge-sorcerers in small towns, or find work as shabby carnival mentalists, or laboratory workers for unscrupulous, or fly-by-night alchemical companies.

Thaumaturgical societies, common in most large cities, have tried to ameliorate these problems by providing standards of proficiency, and a ranking system. Critics charge that such societies are at best trusts attempting to drive out competition, and at first cabals seeking to gain political power.

It’s these factors that lead to the common man’s frequent skepticism and distrust in regard to magical practice and practitioners. Lurid confessionals have stories of depraved, sex magic cults and newspapers carry reports of charlatan grifters.

Still, public opinion is schizophrenic when it comes to magic. Newspapers and newsreels are full of stories of celebrity sorcerers, and pulp magazines, radio dramas, and movie serials fictionalize their exploits. Confidence is also stronger in alchemistry and other sorts of applied thaumaturgical sciences.

Most sorcerers take the public’s love-hate in stride. For most, learning secrets beyond the kin of most mortals, and wielding, in whatever limited way, the primal forces of reality, tend to heady enough thrills to push other concerns aside, at least for a while.

Plugs

Why is this gorilla crying?  I have know idea, when there are so many cool things on the internet to salve his wounded soul.

For instance, Scott, pround owner of a Huge Ruined Pile, has constructed a like-named forum for the discussion of fantasy fiction of the classic and pulp varieties.  Come join us.

John Stater, blogging east of Eden in the Land of Nod, has released Pars Fortuna Basic as a free pdf.  I've only had time to give it the briefest perusal, but several cool bits caught my eye.  Check it out!

Looking for an alternative to bog-standard fantasy worlds?  Harald, in the pages of The Book of Worlds, is gradually unfolding a setting which uses liberal portions of White Wolf's Mage and the Cthulhu Mythos, seasoned with Dieselpunk, and served up epic fantasy-style.  See, Space Nazis!

Finally, somewhere out in the Hill Cantons of Texas, Ckutalik is masterminding a Pulp Fantasy Society to bring past masters back into print.  No James Branch Cabell yet, but surely that can be rectified...

Warlord Wednesday: Gambit

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...

"Gambit"

Warlord (vol. 1) #35 (July 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: We open where we left our heroes last time: Morgan is about to bid farewell to Mariah, Machiste, Mungo Ironhand, and the Age of Wizard Kings, and use the hellfire sword to return to Skartaris. Morgan is indeed transported out of Wizard World, but instead of Skartaris he finds himself in some body's 20th-Century Earth living room, in what he intuits to be (perhaps) New Jersey.

Morgan doesn’t have a lot of time to consider this strange development, because an armored woman named Agnes announces her presence and declares her intention to battle the mighty Warlord. Morgan is dubious, but Agnes attacks, so he’s forced to fight back. The two fight there way into a den. Morgan demands to know how he got here and how he can get back to Skartaris.

Agnes claims to know, but distracts him with thrown pool balls, and makes a dash for a gun cabinet. She snatches up a rifle, but in some higher realm someone cries “foul!”

Giant figures in shadow seem to be looking down at the combatants, discussing the events as if they’re part of some game. One declares Agnes a “Chaotic Good Primitive, without a knowledge of modern weaponry.” The other concedes the argument: “Point, Morgan!” he says.

Morgan quick-draws his pistol and fires at where Agnes was, as she fades out of existence. Morgan thinks he could use a drink right about now, and suddenly there’s a bar and bartender in the room to oblige. He pours Morgan a scotch, but also pours something else out of a small vial. Morgan drinks. By the time he’s realized he’s been slipped a Mickey, he’s sliding to the floor.

Red robed figures enter a door behind him. They bear Morgan away for “the sacrifice.” Morgan is placed on an altar--or table. The lead cultist raises an electric carving knife over him. In the other realm, two dice roll and one player decries “a lucky throw.”

Morgan suddenly awakens and grabs the leader. He tosses him into his fellows, then snatches up his sword. Morgan cuts into the cultists. The leader realizes the only way to keep Morgan from “winning” is to spill blood and release the demon--even if its his own! He stabs himself with the carving knife.  Elsewhere, a demon playing piece is placed on board, while Morgan faces a being of fire, emerging from the burners of the stove.

Morgan fights back, but he can’t cut what isn’t solid. The demon blasts him out a window and into the front yard. It comes charging out after him. He picks up a car off the curb, then tosses it at Morgan. Dice roll. Morgan dodges, and the car hits a hydrant. The torrent of water released reduces the demon to a cloud of smoke.

Morgan tries to lean against a tree--and it topples over. It’s not even real. A piece with two figures is placed on a board. The sound of a chainsaw starting gets Morgan’s attention. He turns to see Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, with a chainsaw and battle-axe, respectively.

Again, dice roll. Morgan fights the two, and discovers they aren't real either--they have no blood or internal organs. Morgan finally defeats them, but by that point the house is engulfed in flames from the demon.  Morgan fears he’s trapped in this lunatic world.

Elsewhere, gods (with familiar names) finish a game:

The gods box up their game of Devils & Demons, promising they have even more in store for Morgan.

The hero in question arrives back in Skartaris, where Shakira and the mayor of the dwarves have been waiting. Shakira asks where he’s been, but Morgan replies she wouldn’t believe him if he told her. Morgan accidentally cuts his thumb on the hellfire sword, and Mungo Ironhand’s admonition that the sword must always draw blood holds true.

Things to Notice:

• Dungeons & Dragons seems to have provided some inspiration for this issue.
• Morgan can somehow tell he's on the east coast, probably New Jersey.

Where It Comes From:
The last panel of this story gives its inspiration  as a nightmare:

Like most representations of these characters, Grell's renditions of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee seem informed by John C. Tenniel's illustrations.

"Agnes" may have been inspired by Robert E. Howard's swordswoman of the same name, Agnes de Chastillon.

The "gods" gaming with Morgan's life are Mike Grell, Jack C. Harris, and Joe Orlando.

Livin' on Marvel Time

Gary Gygax said: “You can not have a meaningful campaign if strict time records are not kept.”

I wonder if that applies to superhero games, too? If so, its a bit difficult to find that strict time-keeping in the source material--at least at Marvel and DC. Both companies long ago adopted de facto “sliding timelines,” and have since enshrined them in company policy, more or less.

For the uninitiated, in the Marvel Universe, this means that the current “heroic era" never gets more than about 10-15 (depending on who you ask) years-old. The Fantastic Four originally got their powers in the sixties. In the Lost Generation limited series in 2000, that event seems to have occurred in the late eighties-early nineties; now, it probably happened around 2000.

Now, the number of events between the beginning of the current age and the ever-advancing now keeps increasing, though the distance between those two points remains constant. Eventually, there'll be a major crossover everyday of Peter Parker’s life since he was 16.

It was not always thus. As George Olshevsky’s Marvel indices show, early Marvel, seemed to follow “real time”, more or less. The reason comics abandon it, like most serial media, was presumably to have evergreen brands.

A superhero rpg campaign doesn’t need brands. There’s no reason why heroes in a Marvel-inspired rpg campaign couldn’t grow old, have children, and retire and make way for the next generation. DC has toyed with this in comics themselves (safely placed on Earth-2, for the most part), but this would be fairly new territory for Marvel.

I’ve run a Mutants & Masterminds campaign based on that premise in the past, constructing a timeline from Olshevsky’s work, and my own collection of date references from comics. I could have saved myself some work, had I discovered the The Wastebasket blog and Tony’s chronology work on what he calls The Original Marvel Universe. Though my conclusions sometimes differ from Tony’s, the detail and analysis he puts into the OMU is great.

I suspect if I ever run that campaign or a similar one again, I’ll find the OMU indisplensible.

How About Masters of Fantasy?

Showtime’s Masters of Horror was in the grand tradition of TV horror anthologies and aired over two seasons from 2005-2007. It featured famous names in horror film (Argento, Gordon, Carpenter, Miike, and Hooper, among others) directing episodes, several of which were based on famous short-stories, or stories by famous authors, including Lovecraft, Barker, Bierce, Matheson, and Lansdale.

Masters of Science Fiction was a short-lived ABC show with a similar premise, though devoted, as the title suggests, to a different genre. It featured adaptations of stories by Robert Heinlein, Harlan Ellison, and Robert Sheckley among others.

It would seem to me that in the wake of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter films, and with A Game of Thrones on its way to HBO, the way might be paved for a fantasy anthology--a Masters of Fantasy, perhaps?

In thinking of stories to adapt, one would have to think of things that could be done justice in an hour time-frame, in the budgets it would likely have, and for the audience of cable TV. Like the anthologies mentioned above, a mixture of classics and new stories would probably be what we’d see.  Of course, while their would probably be a temptation to go with stories set in the modern era, what I'd want to see would be a mixture of settings, both mundane and fantastic. 

Here are some stories, off the top of my head, I think would work in those parameters:

• “The Charnel God” by Clark Ashton Smith
• “People of the Dark” by Robert E. Howard
• “Only the End of the World Again” by Neil Gaiman. (I would love to see “Murder Mysteries” but it might be a bit ambitious)
• “Undertow” Karl Edward Wagner
• “O Ugly Bird!” by Manly Wade Wellman
• “Mai-Kulala” by Charles R. Saunders
• “The Sustenance of Hoak” by Ramsey Campbell
• “The Cloud of Hate” by Fritz Leiber

What about you guys: What would you like to see? What would work?

Down South

art by Glenn Orbik

“...snake-charmers, phoney real-estate operators, and syphilitic evangelists.”
-H.L. Mencken

The region between the hegemony of the City, the Smaragdine Mountains, and the eastern coast of the New World is known generally as the South. Popular conception holds a dim view of the South, and its people are painted with various unflattering stereotypes. The poor are viewed as over-religious, unwashed dullards, and its would-be gentry as grandiose eccentrics living in the past.

It is true that the South has been slower to embrace the industrialization and engagement in the wider world that mark its neighbors like the City and the Steel League, and its folk are often hidebound and insular. These traits aside, there are many things which might draw adventurers here.

There is one industry the South excels at—bootlegging. Though the South’s tradition of fire and brimstone Old-Time Religion ensures that most counties are “dry”--and even more liberal localities prohibit alcohol sales on Godday--this hasn’t stopped the manufacture and smuggling of alcohol. The lowland moonshiner typically sticks to alcohol; he’s is less likely than his Smaragdine brethren to also be involved in bootleg alchemicals in general (though it may only be a matter of time). Southron bootleggers are famous for their skill behind the wheel of their suped-up automobiles (sometimes even magically enhanced) used to outrun authorities on rural highways and back-roads. Both sides of the moon-shining equation offer opportunities for people of action.

In addition to the highways, the lesser travelled waterways of the South are conduits for bootleggers, smugglers, and criminals on the lamb. Bayous and swamps can hide a multitude of sins, if one can deal with the hostile locals (including conjure-men or hoodoo doctors), skunk-apes, gator-men, and dangerous animal life. Outsiders should be cautious before choosing to follow a local fugitive into the interior. The largest of these swamps are the closest thing the Northern continent has to the Grand Cinnamon River basin in Asciana.

There is also perhaps a little money to be made, and a lot of justice do be done, in defending Black or Native communities from terrorizing by the Knights-Templar of Purity. This can be a dangerous proposition as Black-Folk are legally disenfranchised in much of the South, and the Knights-Templar wield more power here, so near there place of origin, than in most other places. Some whole towns are under their sway, so that knowing who is an enemy and who is not can be difficult to discern.

If adventuring, or perhaps just do-gooding, wears thin one can always visit one of the cities the South does have to offer. The old and decadent canal-city of New Ylourgne, largest city in the South, offers a respite from the rural. It also boasts a higher concentration of magical practitioners than even the City, and magic shops well-stocked with exotic material components.