An Alternate Spelljammer Setting

In 1898, the people of Earth discovered they weren’t alone when a brutal invasion was launched from Mars. Luckily, the mauve, squid-headed Invaders were unprepared for the perils of Earth’s biosphere.  No one believed the human race would be so luck should they try again. Scientist went to work studying the Martian technology left behind. Their conclusions were that some sort of psychic power was needed to operate many of the devices. Men from the Society for Psychical Research were co-opted by the British government and were put to the task. Soon, seeking to broaden their knowledge base, they would actively recruit members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well.

The conclusion the research group had come to was that Martian technology had at its base a science previously known to humanity as magic. Soon, the researchers were beginning their first cautious experimentation with operating the devices themselves.

As a new century dawned, the discoveries of Carter from Egypt suggested this science wasn't new, but had only been lost. The occult secrets supposedly uncovered by Blavatsky and others were looked at in a different light. By the second decade of the twentieth century, a space age was underway, brought into being by alien technology and the wisdom of the ancients.

Soon humankind discovered there were other species in the solar system besides the beings they thought of as Martians--a race they realized was actually from a trans-Neptunian world. Nearly every world in the solar system held intelligent life of some sort, a disparate group of species with varying degrees of mastery of the psychic sciences. What’s more, most worlds contained ruins of an even more advanced ancient race. The ruins often contained material riches as well as ancient knowledge.

The nations of earth now had a solar system to fight over. World Wars would become Multi-World Wars with powerful new sciences changing the way they would be fought.

VHS Swords & Sorcery

These days, kids getting into fantasy rpgs have a number of film and TV influences to draw from should our increasingly post-literate world make Appendix N unpalatable. There have even been D&D movies! If we want to stick with quality examples we’ve had the Lord of the Rings films and the D&D-without-the-name Record of Lodoss War, not to mention things like Harry Potter that (while not Medieval) have plenty of magic.

Such was not the case back the eighties. We had to savor what sword and spell films we had, however dubious their merits. Sure, we had several great films from Harryhausen, various Arthurian adaptations, and Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings and Fire and Ice. The quality tended drop off pretty precipitously after the top tier, though, but even those films were invested with extra magic due to their spotty availability on home video.

Some of those fantasy not quite classics that inspired my friends and I back in the day are still rare. I only got one chance to watch Archer: Fugitive from the Empire when it aired in 1981. I’ve been forced to rely only on my dim childhood memories of this sub-Hawk the Slayer “gem” about a young hero with a magic bow who teams up with thief and the daughter of a goddess to seek revenge on an evil wizard. It used to be on youtube (though now its been removed), but I suspect it still lurks out their on the internet in all its made for TV glory.

The Warrior and the Sorceress has David Carradine and plentiful bare breasts going for it--though admittedly only one of those things was uncommon in the post-Conan barbarian invasion. This film makes the provocative proposal that Yojimbo and Fist Full of Dollars would be improved with a four-breasted stripper assassin. I’ll let you judge for yourself whether it makes its case.

Staying in the realm of Boris Vallejo posters and bare breasts (which seems to Argentina, based on where these movies were made) we come to Barbarian Queen. I don’t think it actually provided much gaming inspiration for us, really--and its lack of magic and ancient Rome setting make it technically not a fantasy--but it had other charms that made these deficits easy to overlook in that early gaming era.

It looks like later this month we'll all get the change to revisit these Argentine/American epics in the company of the first two Deathstalker films when Roger Corman's Cult Classics brings them to DVD.

In the Shelving Queue

I’m occasionally accused of having too many books. It is true the number sometimes means shelving requires some planning--sometimes they stack on top of a bookcase until their proper home can be discerned. Here are three awaiting shelving that might have some value as game inspiration:

Yesterday’s Faces Volume 6: Violent Lives is the last of Robert Sampson’s volumes examining the early pulp heroes. Like it usually goes with drugs, the first one was free. My friend Chris gave me Volume 1 as a Christmas gift, after querying Jess Nevins to find a pulp-related tome obscure enough that I probably wouldn’t already have it. After reading the first, I had to order the others--but at least I have someone else to blame. Sampson’s literate prose elevates the material he reviews without ever losing perspective on. This last volume covers the likes of Zorro, Bulldog Drummond, and Khlit the Cossack.

The first of two Comi-Con purchases appearing here is the complete comic adaptation of Robert Lynn Asprin's Another Fine Myth.  Myth Adventures is illustrated by Phil Foglio (whose art is perfect for Asprin’s material). I remember reading some of these original issues back in the day, but it was nice to be able to get it all--and in color--in one place. And for one third price!  Which is probably because you can read it as a webcomic here.

Finally, from Eric Shanower’s table at Comi-Con, I picked up Who’s Who in Oz on an impulse. It’s nicely illustrated by classic Oz illustrators Neill, Kramer, and “Dirk” Gringhuis. It’s slopping over with all the whimsy one expects from Ozian stuff, and really, who doesn’t like whimsy?

Meet at the Morgue

The City Police Department faces a number of magical threats, but it has also managed to turn the arcane to its advantage. It has pioneered the use of forensic thaumaturgy in solving crimes. Perhaps the most essential of these applied magical arts is forensic necromancy.

The unsavory reputation of necromancers led the police to only use them as occasional consultants in the early days. As the obvious utility of the arts became more apparent the department decided to recruit and develop necromantic practitioners.

Forensic necromancers prefer to begin their work at the crime scene. Fresh bodies are easier to work with than ones that have been autopsied or moved to a more sterile location. Speak with the Dead is the most common spell utilized--its often the only spell many practitioners use day to day. Gentle Repose is also useful in preserving bodies for various sorts of evaluation back at the morgue.

It is true that the reputation of necromancers is at least partially earned. Long term exposure to negative energies can lead to a sort of cancer of the soul. First, the afflict develop a morbid fascination and seek out every opportunity to be around the dead or dying. Experimentation with illicit necromantic rituals and spells soon follows.  From that point, escalation to various perversions and depraved criminality is regrettably common.

Police necromancers undergo psychological evaluation to watch for any signs of developing deviancy, but this doesn’t stop them from experiencing some prejudice from their fellow officers based on the popular view of their art.

Warlord Wednesday: The Kaash'Ban

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...

"The Kaash'Ban"

Warlord (vol. 1) #63 (November 1982)

Written by Mike Grell (Sharon Grell); Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Mike DeCarlo

Synopsis: Morgan and Rostov ride to Castle Deimos to see if Jennifer’s sorcerous abilities are capable of freeing Rostov from the curse of lycanthropy. Rostov also suggests that she might be able to send him back to the Age of Wizard Kings so that he can be reunited with Mariah. Morgan is noncommittal on that point--he doesn’t want to let Rostov know just yet that Mariah is with Machiste now.

A little distance up trail, Morgan climbs a tree to get his bearings. He can see the spires of Kaambuka where they can sleep in beds, relying on the hospitality of Morgan’s old friend, thief turned king, Ashir. It’s also where he left Shakira.

Just within the palace gates of Kaambuka, people in tents with a veritable menagerie of animals catch Morgan’s eye. And here they find Ashir--drinking.

After Morgan fills Ashir in on their mission, he asks about the people camped out in his courtyard. Ashir tells him they are the Kaash’Ban:

Periodically, they go on a search for youngsters who share the same gift at animal communication. It’s considered a great honor to a parent for the Kaash’Ban to request their child be allowed to join them. They’re going to be demonstrating their abilities soon. Morgan and Rostov are curious.

Morgan asks Ashir how he and Shakira have been getting along. Ashir says she left shortly after Morgan did--he doesn’t realize the black cat in his lap is Shakira. She scratches Morgan but he still doesn’t reveal her.

Later, in the quarters Rostov and Morgan share, Shakira sits in their window in cat form. Morgan tells her to explain herself. Shakira turns into her human form--to Rostov’s surprise. Shakira explains herself by saying she got tired of Ashir’s constant advances--but she stayed...

Morgan introduces Rostov and explains his changeling like herself. Then, I know on the door tells them the Kaash’Ban are about to begin.

A large crowd is gathered, and they’ve brought their various animals. The Kaash’Ban act as translators between the two. Then, they demonstrate their rapport with their own animals.

While all this is going on, they take a special, surreptitious interest in Rostov. After the show, three of the Kaash’Ban converse, wondering if Rostov’s “the one.” They send young Calef to sneak into the palace while most are asleep and investigate. The boy chants softly, waking Rostov alone by talking to the beast within the man. They share what seems to be telepathic communication.

The Kaash’Ban are convinced he is the one they seek. They must go to a place nearby.

Shakira awakens Morgan. She tells him the Kaash’Ban took Rostov—or actually, he seemed to go willing. She saw them moving through the woods outside the city. The two mount up and give chase.

In the forest, Shakira’s cat senses detect the Kaash’Ban before they can see them. They climb into a tree to take a look. They see Rostov standing amidst a ruin; four Kaash’Ban form a circle around him with their hands linked. He’s surrounded by a strange energy.

Suddenly, Rostov is gone, and a strange vista of mountains and monuments can be glimpsed through the simmering portal.

Things to Notice:

• This is Dan Jurgens debut as Warlord's penciller.
• Given that Ashir's a pretty egalitarian king: he hosts the Kaash'Ban in his palace walls, and allows the commoners to come see them there.

Where It Comes From:
The title of this issue (and the name of the people to which it refers) may come from the name of a geographic feature in Saudi Arabia, Jabal Kashbān (jabal means "hill" or "mountain").  Some of the Kaash'Ban seem to have Arabic inspired names.

Besides their Doctor Doolittle-ish ability to talk with animals.  The Kaash'Ban seemed to be sort of a loose, fantasy Romani or similar group of nomadic people.  Rostov explicitly draws this comparison in the story.

Crackpot Demonology

The Pandemonicon is a treatise on demonology widely known in the City. All extant copies of the work are amateur printings; the original copies were reproduced from a typed and hand-notated manuscript via jellygraph (hectograph)--in fact, the original gel, imbued with a malign (and murderous) life of its own, has been encountered in the City. The work’s author is given as “Secundus Rune,” but that appears to be a pen name of Alpert Sturne, an unemployed bug powder junkie.

Sturne’s work would be easy to dismiss, if it weren’t for the lengths certain powers go to obtain a copy. Wealthy infernalists have been known to pay handsomely for copies; Hell Syndicate bosses have killed for them. The Unknown have urged their destruction.

The Pandemonicon contains demons not mentioned in older works. Scholars are divided as to whether these new forms are merely different interpretations of older beings or if they represent evolution in the abyssal chaos. A couple of the demons described by Sturne are given as example, exactly in the way he describes them in the text:

Lepidopterist: These are of the Collectors. Defined things are a novelty to them. Pin souls to cards and arrange them by taxonomies of suffering. The pretty colors! You shall know them by their glowing red eyes in featureless faces and their wings like rainbows in oil slicks that beat and stutter like pictures in a flip book. Careful of their pins.

Misericordians: Sometimes they make you think they are succubuses and sometimes angels but they are neither. They look like that pin-up nurse I saw in that gas station calendar, but they don’t have her smile. No faces. Only scars. Only scar tissue. There are small scars too if you get close but you don’t want to get that close. They assisant a certain surgeon who it is not good to look upon. They know secrets of the flesh, how it can be twist and remade, but you have to be careful and avoid their mersy [sic] to learn them.

All the entries are number, though they are presented seemingly at random. The lowest is “1” and the highest “616.” The text has some illustrations which seem to have been cut or traced from older texts, sometimes with crude revisions by the author.

Apes on the Rise

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is, of course, a prequel (or a prequel to a reboot) of Planet of the Apes. It ignores (or perhaps replaces is a better word--there are a lot of sly references) the history of the end of the world of man and the rise of the--well, you know--given in Conquest and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Anyone who knows me (and maybe anybody who reads this blog) knows I’m a fan of the original film series, so prequels or reboots of it attract my interest. The Burton remake had good ape effects, a similar sly humor to the original, and a soundtrack by Elfman that had some nice elements of homage to Goldsmith’s brilliant, experimental score for the first film. Unfortunately, beyond that, there wasn’t much to like. It wasn’t horrible; it was just flat.

Rise is not that. While on the surface it's a different sort of story than the original Planet of the Apes, it’s events parallel the first film's in interesting ways. Heston’s Taylor was a man trapped in a world not his own; so is the genetically enhanced Caesar of this film. His response--sometimes horrified, sometimes pissed off--is pretty much the same.

Caesar shares the spotlight with scientist Will Rodman played by James Franco. Franco is a more convincing stoner than researcher, but he’s competent enough. The apes are the real stars, after all.

And those CGI primates are great. There are some scenes where you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between them and the real thing. When they rampage though, they’re not as violent as real chimps--likely both a plot concession to ensure sympathy and a practical calculation to secure a PG-13 rating. Still, it’s cool to see the apes engage in a little guerilla (heh) warfare against the law, culminating in a battle on the Gold Gate Bridge.

Rise replaces the nuclear spectre of the Cold War with the modern bêtes noires of genetic engineering and global pandemics. Just like in the original film series, the protagonists are pretty much responsible for the destruction of the world, yet they remain sympathetic. That’s no mean feat.

So if you like the ape films, or like movies sympathetic to animals over cruel humans, or just like a good near-future sci-fi yarn, check Rise of the Planet of the Apes out.

If only they'd found a way to work in apes with coonskin hats. Maybe in the sequel?

Catching Up on a Friday

If (unlike Bingo here) you want some rpg related readings for your Friday, I've got a few suggestions:

Over at Fame & Fortune, Satyre offers a free pdf of his always interesting taverns--these having the added twist of being cave-based.

R.W. Chandler reaches into the Black Hole Diaries and produces a cool, steampunkian pocket rpg--Gaslite.

In the realm of four-color adventure, I did a guest post for Jim at the Flashback Universe--part 1 of the untold history of the Fantastic Four from a perspective within the Marvel Universe.  It might be inspirational for some supers games.

Weird Adventures: Drawing Closer

I figure it's time for another Weird Adventures progress report--and a couple of cool pieces of art by Johnathan Bingham and Felt.  We have here the mugshot of a Hit-Fiend, one of the notorious assassins of the Hell Syndicate, and below, traveler in the astral plane.

I'm diligently at work on "City Confidential," the section overviewing the City itself, hitting the highlights of its neighborhoods and districts.  This includes a lot of things hopefully of pratical use to adventurers: the Cuthbert Bannerman weaponry museum and gun emporium, the exotic Appothecary of Dr. Lao in Yiantown, and the charity hospital of St. Valiant in Grimalkin.  Then there are the tantalizing hints at adventure itself: the strange fogs (and frogs) in the Corund Tunnel, the underground Fate Exchange, and the mysterious Monolith of Monolith Square, among others.

All the other sections have been finished.  Most of them I've discussed in previous updates other than "Weird Menaces" (the monster section)--including the Hit-Fiend and 29 others from "Blackdust Monsters" to "Zombie, Cujiatepecan."

My writing I plan on completing by before the end of the summer.  Relying on the charity of good folks to proofread my back-of-cocktail napkin scrawl so it can be turned into quality layouts means depending on their availability, so I can't predict things with absolute certainty, but the end is in sight now, my friends.

Warlord Wednesday: Cry Wolf

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...

"Cry Wolf"

Warlord (vol. 1) #62 (October 1982)

Written by Mike Grell (Sharon Grell); Penciled by Jan Duursema; Inked by Tom Mandrake

Synopsis:  In the vicinity of Shamballah, a young cowherd goes looking for a few stragglers of his flock and finds a pack of wolves devouring them. Surprisingly, they’re accompanied by a shirt-less man wearing jodhpurs and a fencing sword! It’s a man we know: Rostov.

Meanwhile, in the Shamballan palace, Morgan breaks up a fight between three soldiers. They claim the fight started over a gambling debt unpaid. Morgan tells the alleged loser to pay up and lets them go. Broody Graemore, watching from atop the palace walls, seems troubled by this exchange.

Back in his quarters, Morgan enlists Tara’s aide to help him get undress before he falls into a bath. Tara tells him he should be recuperating from his confinement rather than drilling with the troops--but he’s not called “the Warlord” for nothing. Tara leaves him to his bath wondering when his wanderlust will strike and he’ll leave her again.

Tara heads out into the garden and has barely had time to smell a flower when Graemore (still on the palace walls) shows up.  Tara and Graemore engage in some small talk and longing glances, before Graemore asks if she’s told Moran what happened between them.

No. She wouldn’t burden him with knowledge of something that only occurred in very unusual circumstances. Graemore tells her about the two soldiers quarrelling today--and he knows what it was really about.  One soldier made a comment about her and Graemore and the other soldier was defending her honor. The palace is full gossip.

Tara is confident Morgan is unaware--but he has been restless of late. He wants action. Graemore knows just the thing. He’s heard about a wolfpack terrorizing outlying farms...

And so, a royal hunt is organized. Asking around at farmhouses, Morgan finds what he thinks may be the site of the latest attack. They do pick up the wolves trail. The pack has split and they find human tracks with the smaller group. Morgan thinks he’s running with them.

Tara doesn’t understand. Morgan says its just a hunch, but he’ll follow the smaller group and Tara can lead the soldiers after the larger pack. Morgan plans to take “the entertainer” Graemore with him.

Morgan and Graemore track them, but find themselves in an ambush. While the wolves trouble Graemore, Rostov the werewolf knocks Morgan from his horse.

The crazed Russian gets the better of Morgan. Fighting for his life, Morgan yells the name of the woman Rostov followed to Skartaris: “Mariah!”

Morgan never gets to find out if that works, because Graemore knocks Rostov out with the butt of his spear. Morgan asks him why he did that? It was his opportunity to get rid of his rival for Tara! Graemore doesn’t reply.

Later, Morgan and an apparently recovered Rostov sit in the palace. Rostov says its gotten harder and harder for him to free his mind from the influence of the beast after each change to wolf form. Morgan suggests that his daughter has become quite a “magicker”--maybe she can remove the curse? Rostov has gone to magicians before with no success, but he’s willing to give anything a try. Morgan says they’ll leave immediately.

Tara follows him, and asks if he’s leaving. Morgan explains the plan. Tara wonders why he doesn’t consult magicians in Shamballah first, but Morgan thinks its better to get out of the city so as not to create a werewolf panic. He asks Tara if she wants to come along. Tara asks him who he thinks he’s fooling.

Tara says she didn’t want to be a queen, but she is one. She has responsibilities. She tells him to go and almost says “don’t come back,” but Morgan preempts her with an embrace. Morgan leaves, promising to be back.

Things to Notice:

• Rostov's jodhpurs remain mysteriously undamaged despite the time he's spent running with the pack through the Skartarian jungle.
• Graemore's pretty handy with a spear for a minstrel.

Where It Comes From:
The title of this issue, of course, references the expression meaning "to raise a false alarm," derived from the fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."  In this case, though, the wolf is real. 

Rostov was last seen in issue #47.

In Place of a Dark Lord...A Queen

In the tradition of the Moon Men and the Brain Parasite, here’s a another mechanically-unaltered monsters with a new look. This one gets a sexy makeover...

A strange excitement seemed to pass through the loathsome little folk. They paused in tormenting the surviving townspeople and looting the dead and turned to gaze with adoration in the direction of their approaching mistress. Bowing and genuflecting, they crept from her path as she moved, languid and insolent, into the midst of the captive folk. Her lips curled in a cruel smile as she regard one frightened stable boy, lifting his chin with a finger to look into his eyes.

The strange dark creepers need master to serve, but perhaps the dark stalker can be replaced by a dread queen--a Goblin Queene? The Queen is more likely to lead from the rear, preferring to use her darkness abilities to escape should the need arise, but she still have poison to fall back on if necessary.

Where do the goblin queens come from? There existence may suggest that dark creeper society (and biology) resembles eusocial insects--or more likely mammals like the naked mole rat.  Another possibility is the the queens are humans kidnapped as children and raised for their role among the creepers.  Or maybe they're not human at all, despite appearances, and have some supernatural origin?

Of course, one could use the dark creepers with my humanoid swarm as a manifestation of the onset of puberty idea, too.

Stone Walls; Iron Bars

The Black Iron Prison is the Plane of Confinement. Despite it’s name, the prison is not always as apparent as iron bars and stone walls (though it has plenty of that, carved as it was from ancient bones of some demonic titan)--its evil is more subtle than that. Restriction and imprisonment of various forms permeate it.

Portals to the plane are sometimes found on the Material Plane in the form palm-sized, rusted, black iron boxes, heavier than they appear.  Visitors to the plane describe an "outer" desert of squalid intern camps, stretched arond and inner, three (or more) dimensional Escher maze of cell-blocks, isolation chambers, and interrogation rooms.

The plane is the home (and the prison) of the deodands, a vile race sentenced to serve as the guards and administrators of the apotheosis prison as punishment for ancient crime. Demonologists have cataloged three primary castes or species of these creatures (though there are undoubtably more):

The lowest caste of deodands are tall, emaciated, scabrous creatures with frog-like mouths. Their bare skins weep a tarry ichor from numerous injection sites. They're junkies and dealers; they mix the astral excreta of despair, callousness, and resignation that oozes from the souls that fall into their hands with the bile of arthropodals that make their homes in the prison’s substructure and inject it beneath their skin. The tarry substance--and a brief respite from their paranoia in a cold, sneering high--are the result. The tar is packaged and sold (to the prisoners to be smoked or injected) in exchange for pleasant memories or dreams, or hopes--anything that defines the former self-hood of the soul. When not engaged in commerce, these tar demodands are the menials of the prison.  On the Material Plane, their shadows have the same viscous consistence as their tar, but no psychoactive properties.

The middle caste are the color of a fresh bruise.  Their limbs are swollen like blood sausages, and their tick-like bellies appear filled to near bursting, sloshing loathesomely as they waddle or fly drunkenly on ridiculously small wings. Their bloated faces are unpleasantly human-like and wear expressions of volutuous satiety, complete with drool running from the corners of their mouths and down their double (or triple) chins. Always their skins appear to glisten as if oiled; this is due to a slime they secrete.  They sweat even more when they eat, and they eat almost constantly. They fancy themselves gourmets, and there is nothing they consider so refined as dining on astral substance of souls. They prefer fatted souls, though and first expose victims to their slime.  Under the slimes influence, they become grossly corpulent. At that point, they're ready for the slime deodands who drain them to emaciation and let the process begin again. Slime deodands are torturers and interrogators in the deodand hierarchy.

The highest caste are strutting, sadistic martinets--the wardens and senior guards of the prison. They’re vaguely human-like in form, but with pale, wrinkled skin that seems ill-fitted to their bodies. They’re androgynous with bald heads and unfeminine faces, but pendulous breasts and high-pitched voices. They have a penchant for dressing in uniforms, the more elaborate the better. Sagging deodands (as they’re called) are found of searches, interrrogations, and tortures. They foster paranoid not as a hobby, or even a vocation, but simply due to their natures. Infractions are always found, and prisoners are encouraged to inform on others--but only after they themselves are questioned to the breaking point.

It’s a good thing for Prime Material Plane that deodands seldom arrive on it unbidden. Sadistic sorcerers have been known to arrange “renditions” for enemies, though the price for such a service is rumored to be steep.

Collect Call from the Outer Dark

The City is awash with weird rumors, but one of the weirdest is about thaumaturgic artifact said to be in the possession of (or perhaps possessing) the City Telephone Company. In some inner corporate sanctum (so it goes) a secret order of technician-priests performs rituals in the service of a mummified severed head.

The rumors vary as to whether the head is housed in the City Telephone Company Skyscraper (a ziggurat-like structure that’s highest tower is topped by a Tesla coil-like spire--could it be more that decoration?) or a few blocks away in the research laboratories of its parent company, Reade Telephone (confirmed to be working on advances like etheric image transmission and trans-mortem communication). Wherever its housed, the head is said to be studded with electrodes attached to the glass sphere surrounding it. Beyond the dome, the “altar” upon when the head sits is surrounded by magic wards and electrical equipment like rune inscribed van de Graaff generators. Despite the sealed vacuum that surrounds the head, the room is always filled with its sonorous babbling.

What’s the heads purpose? That’s the question, isn't it? Some think its pronouncements are coded prophecies dutifully collected and decoded by the scientists. Others believe it's some sort of extradimensional computation device; it’s vocalizations are sonic representations of binary code, ultimately describing the entire multiverse and giving thaumaturgic mastery of reality itself. Still others are sure the head's a demon from the depths of the Pit and the sounds that hold its acolytes in such thrall are a slow working spell to breakdown the walls of the material world and overturn Creation.

Some adventures have gone looking for the head. Most have found nothing but stiff security at the telephone company offices. If anyone’s ever found the head, it doesn't seem they've lived to tell about it.

The Weird Shadow Under the El

A strange and hungry shadow lurks in the City beneath the 7th Avenue El near the Grimalkin Street station. How long Has it been there?  No one can recall. Train riders prefer not to see it. They will themselves not to notice the too-complete darkness beneath the slats of the platform, insensitive to the movement of the sun or light sources.

Sometimes people go missing. Bums stumble after the glint of a forgotten bottle of whiskey in the edge to the railway’s shadow. Children follow a wayward toy that seems strangely drawn into the dark. Sometimes, lone travelers, late at night, think they here the voice of someone calling for help. or someone crying softly. People go missing, and they’re not seen again.

The Weird Shadow can be treated as a Greater Shadow with a few differences. It isn’t undead, and can’t be turned. It doesn’t travel, but instead stays beneath the El. It can mimic the voice of anyone it has heard, and reach out tendrils of darkness to grab small objects. It’s sometimes stores these in its formless substance to use as lures.

Warlord Wednesday: Savage Empire

This week, let’s take a look at Warlord’s prehistory--not the Atlantean origins of Skartarian civilization, but the origins of the series itself. Before there was the hollow world, the eternal sun, and Travis Morgan, Grell conceived of an archeologist transported back to ancient Atlantis to become ruler of a Savage Empire.

While attending the Chicago Academy of Fine Art, Grell created a comic strip called Savage Empire, born of his admiration for Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant and Burne Hogarth’s rendition of Tarzan. In 1973, Grell went to New York to try to sell the strip to a syndicate editor, but was unable to even get an interview to present it. He was told: “Adventure strips are dead.”

During that trip, he also went to New York Comicon. He left with a job at DC Comics, but Savage Empire was still in limbo. While working at DC, he pitched the idea to Atlas Comics. When DC publisher Carmine Infantino found out from Jeff Rovin about the meeting with Atlas, he wanted to hear Grell’s idea. While Infantino took a phone call, Grell had a few minutes to rethink things, and so when he pitched what came out was Warlord.

The two strips had a lot of similarities. The heroes looked something alike, and the female leads do too--they both look like Raquel Welch. In fact, the love interest of Savage Empire was named Tahnee (which happens to be the name of Welch’s daughter, also an actress, born in 1961). This Tahnee was “a lovely savage from the jungle kingdom of Valka” (perhaps showing some Robert E. Howard influence as “Valka” is the name of the favorite deity of his Atlantean savage turned king, Kull).


Raquel, "Tahnee," and Tahnee



Jason Cord, archeologist, was exploring a tomb on the isle of Kalliste (Santorini) when he was caught in the “laser-like light of a mystic jewel” and transport to the fabled lost continent. He was just in time to save Tahnee from sacrifice by the priest...Deimos. Obviously, the genetic relationship between Savage Empire and the Warlord of First Issue Special #8 is clear.

Grell relates this history and more in Back Issue #46 from TwoMorrows. Check it out and see more great Grell art.

Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield

I managed to pull myself away from SDCC to see Captain America: The First Avenger while I was out there.  My verdict: Best superhero film of the year.  It doesn't really do anything surprising, but it does what you expect it to do very well.

The film follows familiar lines, as telegraphed by the trailer.  "The formula that made a man out of Steve Rogers!'  with bits from the Ultimate Universe and the 1991 limited series The Adventures of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty.  A few new twists have Bucky being the senior partner in their duo (at first) and Cap as a war bonds sales performer before becoming a real soldier.

The World War II period is pretty well evoked (at least for a film like this)--it was certainly more convincing that X-Men: First Class' 1960s.  True, its Hydra seemed less Nazi and more Cobra at times (in fact, Nazis seemed to have been oddly verboten in this WWII film), but by the time they're playing a major role, the story was moving along too fast for me to care.

This film had to carry the weight of all Marvel references from the previous films to get them to the upcoming Avengers movie.  It could have easily collapsed under their weight, but the script handles the cosmic cube, the Howling Mad Commandos (if not in name), and Howard (father of Tony) Stark as if they were all there naturally and not as fan service.  As always, stay through the credits for the inevitable link to the next film.

After the (slight) dissappointment (or maybe just weariness of the genre) with Thor, The First Avenger has renewed my excitement to see the team get together.

SDCC 2011: The Curtain Falls

This is my buddy Brandon in the shot he orchestrated to commemorate his Comic Con experience.  It wasn't easy to get--mainly because the ladies got a lot of attention and were difficult to get to.

I managed to make it over to the few gaming related booths (Chessex and Steve Jackson Games for rpgs).  There was also a "Cthulhu Library" booth right next to SJG which had Lovecraftian merchandise of all sorts, including games.  I picked up Kenneth Hite's Bookhounds of London, and let myself get talked into a purchase of Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity on the grounds that the hardcover limited edition is hard to come by.  This delving into Yog-Sothothery led to the stunning revelation that Brandon had never heard of Cthulhu or HPL!

Needing to patch this gap in his geek education, I encouraged Brandon to buy one of Penguin's Lovecraft collections.  Later this afforded me the opportunity to mock him, by dramatizing his discovering HPL for the first time.  He took a picture of it:

Our luck with panels wasn't very good (all the ones we wanted to attend were had too long lines), but we did get into the Immortal panel by inadvertently breaking in line.  After hearing Tarsem Singh talk about his artistic goals, and seeing more footage from the film.  I'm a bit more interested in this than I was before.

That's the Con highlights.  It was interesting comparing this year to last.  The crowds seemed less on Thursday and Friday than the previous year, and the convention floor seemed less busy, whereas the panels seemed moreso. One thing that doesn't change is that it remains quite a spectacle.  Where else can you see four slave-girl Leias crossing the street in a loose approximation of the Beatles on Abbey Road?  Alas, I was too slow to photograph that bit of quintessential con, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Comic Con-fidential

I'm in San Deigo for Comic Con International, and again this year, the first bit of excitement centers around getting my pass.  This time, I get a text from a man who identifies himself as "Aric" who wants me to meet him in the lobby of a hotel in the gaslamp district.  After I final locate the hotel in question (which was much harder than it should have been owing to hotels and streets with almost identical names) Aric passes on the badges for myself and my friend Brandon (who always arranges these exchanges that somehow get left to me to carry out) marking us as "Professional Guests" (which amuses me to think we've somehow elevated the art of "guesting" to a degree as to actually be professional at it) and our oversized and gaudy souvenir bags that are the mark of SDCC attendance.

I thank Aric and make my way over to the covention through the crowds--and in the shadow of a giant inflatable Smurf.  Beyond that, the overwhelming message of the San Deigo streets is that I shoud play this Arkham City game because billboards are everywhere, including on the backs of moving vehicles.

Anyway, inside the convention center its the usual mixture of fairies, steampunks, and cardboard Daleks--though my impression so far is that there are fewer costumes than last year.  Ignoring the cosplay, I buy myself an $8 personal pizza and $4 bottled water and set out to do some shopping.  Several major genre book publishers are there, but they mostly disappoint me by serving up a plate of Star Wars or video game tie-in novels or fantasy with smoldering covers hinting at romance undertones.

I do see that The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities is out, though I resist buying one at that momemt.  Also Grant Morrison's history of/meditation on comics Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human is out, so that I quickly download it to my Kindle.  I've only read a couple of chapters, but its great. Morrison's insights into the iconic comic characters are at once exactly what everybody says, but at the same time delivered in such a way as to seem fresh and insightful.  Maybe I'll do a fuller review at some point.

Back at the Con, Heavy Metal tempts me with the latest of Jodorowsky's and Mannara's Borgia and 2000AD woos me with a Nemesis the Warlock collection, but both lose me to the wonder of an almost 3 foot long shark swimming stately through the air above our heads, its tail moving sinuously as it goes.

I'm told these are called "Air Swimmers" amd will soon be available at a toy store near you.

After that I try to go to a Batman panel.  Too long a line.  I don't even try A Game of Thrones as its line already stretches into infinite.

Maybe I'll have more patience for standing in line on Day 2...

A Map of Reality I Drew While I was Waiting...

...for my car to get repaired.

It's a bit incomplete--and not up to the standards of the illustration my posts usually have--but it summarizes what I've discovered so far about the multiverse of the Strange New World.

For instance, the Positive Energy Plane is just the beginning of the Prime Material--or the etheric echo of that beginning.  The Negative Energy Plane is the other bookend.

The highest Heaven is the domain of the Creator(s).  Most dead don't make it to the highest Heaven but maybe some lesser "heavenly" realm--like maybe the Elysian Fields (also called Summerland or the Fiddler's Green).  It's the counter-plane to the Wasteland, embodying "hope."  There are more of these heavenly realms.

At the "bottom" of reality is the Pit, the Abyss.  It's the place that fell the farthest in the Fall.  The place of beings with no place in creation who want nothing more than to tear it all down--the demons.  "Circling the drain" of the Pit, falling into it at different velocities, are hellish realms of various sorts.  Hell (appropriately) where the fallen angels hope to stage a coup in creation and then forestall its slide into the Pit.  Closer to the ultimate nullity are the Wasteland and the grim Black Iron Prison (which I left off the my map!) where the odious Deodands (named, interestingly, for an archaic legal term for a thing "forfeit onto God for causing a death") imprison, punish, and re-educate souls caged in their Escher maze prison hell.

Between Heaven and the Pit are planes more neutral to "good" and "evil"--or more accurately, they're places where the struggle between angels and demons is seen as beside the point.  The denizens of Machina (polyhedral nanomachines, forming the distributive conscious of their Singular god(dess), and other worshippers like the Mantid Warrior-Nuns) believe that only absolute order can restore creation to an unfallen state.  In constrast the formless, fluid intelligences of the Gyre (who often send technicolor clowns as their emissaries) believe that endless change is the only hope to recreate the conditions of the original Singularity of All and lead to the multiverse's reunion with the Godhead--or at least that's one of their myriad ideas.

Warlord Wednesday: The Path Branches Ahead

Though we’re not quite at that point yet, there are some branches ahead in the trail, Warlord fans. Issue #71 is the last that bears the name of the series’ creator Mike Grell--though as I’ve noted before, since issue #53 it was actually written in part or in whole by Grell’s then wife Sharon Wright. Given that Grell returns to the character in a 1992 mini-series and then in a 16 issue on-going in 2009 (which brings an end of sorts to the saga), it would be reasonable to jump to reviewing those series after #71 on Warlord Wednesdays and view the remainder of the first series as apocrypha.

On the other hand, Dan Jurgens starts as regular penciller when the Grell’s are still writing it (#63) and continues through #93. If Grell is the Warlord’s father, Jurgens is at least an uncle. He’s responsible for a number of Morgan’s appearances in other DC Comics after the end of the series, and he drew the Grell written appearances of Morgan in Green Arrow (and apparently was instrumental in them occurring in the first place). Also, Cary Burketts stories in the near post-Grell period deal with important plot threads like the secret of Tinder’s origins and Tara’s relationship with Graemore, and introduce some cool new characters like Scarheart and Krystovar that seem to “fit.” Plus, I just think the "Time Paradox" and "New Atlantis War" storylines are cool.  Finishing all that would take us to issue #100.

The third option is to follow the series until its actual end. The last writer Michael Fleischer does have a Sword & Sorcery bent (giving a nod to the Clark Ashton Smith story “Isle of the Torturers”), but overall, the issues after 100 and until its end feel different that what came before. Part of it is more crossovers with the mainstream DCU, but also it just seems more like "generic fantasy comic" than Warlord. It’s not bad (mostly) and some of its pretty good, but its a new direction and less “of a part” with what went before.  But it is a part of the "official" series.

So it’s time for the mostly reticent Warlord Wednesday readership to make itself heard--if it exists, which the number hits I get on Wednesday’s suggest it does. I’ll probably put up a poll at some point, but I wanted to go ahead and throw the question out for comment. After #71, where does Warlord Wednesday go next?

Wonders from the Planes

Besides the gray dust, other outer planar artifacts sometimes turn up in the more thaumaturgically-oriented private markets of the City, or end up in some structure of the Ancients to be found be adventurers. Here are a few of them:

Skeletal key: A minor artifact of the demonic gaolers from the plane called the Black Iron Prison. It’s a six inch long key that does indeed appear to be made out of bone. It can open any non-magical earthly lock, and a specific cell block within the plane of confinement, though it will be impossible to find out which one without magical or extraplanar aide.

Madness record: Condensed from the substance of their realm by the polychromatic clowns of the Plane of Chaos, these appear to be mundane 78rpm phonograph records. If the record is played, all those who are able to hear the strange and indescribable sounds on it will be affected as per the confusion spell.

Fabrication fog: A swarm of minuscule, polyhedral automatons from the Tesseract of Machina, the Plane of Order. These beings are packed into a small square box of some light, but extremely durable alien metal with cautionary text in several different scripts (but no earthly ones) engraved on it.  When the box is open the automata appear as a glittering swarm of fly-sized bronze shapes. They will be bound to the one who opens the box and serve him for one year (their power runs out then without recharge), until he is dead, or he gives them to someone else. They act like the fabricate spell, making whatever the owner desires within the restrictions of the spell (other than the need for the craft skill--the automata can manufacture anything non-magical item with a model or reference image). There are rumored to be versions of these which perform healing functions.

Strange Encounters

Fiction isn't the only place to get inspiration for events tinged with the supernatural, horror, or just the weird.  Peruse any book or website on unexplained phenomena and you ought to able to turn up quite a bit of usable material, depending on the genre you're gaming in.  Here are a few choice proportedly true vignettes I found on this UFO-oriented website.  There are hundreds more where these came from:

Location. Spike Island, Cork Harbor, Ireland
Date: June 1914
Time: afternoon
The 6-year old witness was walking along a path next to the sea with her eyes mostly on the ground. She happened to look up when she was about five yards away from the wall of local doctor's house and saw something bizarre. A strange figure was looking over the wall across the harbor to Cobh. She walked a few more steps nearer before she realized that what it was--and then she became rooted to the ground with fear. It was not ten paces away and she could see it only too clearly. It must have been a very tall creature, because she could almost see it to its waist---and the wall was at least five feet high. It was in the rough shape of a human being---that is, it had a head and shoulders and arms---though she didn't see its hands, which were behind the wall. Except for two dark caverns where its eyes should be, the whole thing was of one color, a sort of glistening yellow. As the wall was parallel to the road and on her left, the thing was looking past her---across the little road and straight across to Cobh. As the witness stood petrified, the thing began to turn its head very slowly toward her. At this point the young witness heard a voice in her ear: "If it looks straight at you, Eileen, you will die." Her feet seemed to be anchored to the ground by heavy weights, but somehow she managed to turn and run. She ran into a nearby cottage about 15 yards away. Her next memory was of Mrs. Reilly (the owner of the cottage) sponging her face with water, as she shook all over with shock and terror. She told Mrs. Reilly that she had seen something dreadful in the Doctor's garden. Mrs. Reilly told the young witness that she was not the first to see it and would not be the last.

Location. Linaalv Lappland Sweden
Date: 1919
Time: daytime
9-year old Ragnar Byrlind and his brothers & sisters were inside the family's house playing games when their mother called for them to come to the window and look. About 400 meters away some sort of object was coming along the road. It was a dark gray object, longer than the timber lorries of the present day. On what appeared to be a coach box at the middle sat a figure and two others were running in front of it carrying flashlight like implements in their hands. The entities looked like human beings and wore some kind of headgear but it was impossible to discern any details at the distance. When the object was at some distance from the observers it suddenly released a light smoke and disappeared on the spot. The family investigated the area but found no traces.

Location. Camperville, Manitoba, Canada
Date: winter 1930
Time: late night
On a cold winter night as the whole family slept they were suddenly awakened by the keen howling and frenzied barking of their dogs. Several family members quickly rushed out after getting quickly dressed. The dogs acted as if they were rabid but never approached the figure of a strange man that was standing by the fence next to the road. He was not wearing proper clothing. In the dead of winter with temperatures below 30, this figure wore a black tailed tuxedo and a white shirt. He stood there watching the dogs, and then he looked at the family. They walked towards him to see what he wanted but he backed up to the dirt road. Two of the men walked towards him. He watched them approach him and then walked backwards down the road. No matter how fast the men walked they could not get close to him. He seemed to be walking backward one step at the time but no matter how fast they ran they could not reach him. The men gave up and returned home. They never saw the stranger again.

Location. Northwest of Stewart, British Columbia, Canada
Date: 1938
Time: unknown
While searching for a missing trapper in a remote glacial area near the Alaskan border, constable Larry Requa entered a cave and discovered 5 “alien skeletons” which had extended craniums. One of the entities had a metal medallion on, imprinted with star symbols. All 5 entities were facing a stone altar and it was Requa’s impression that these beings had been “stranded” as they could not leave the earth. The cave had unusual characteristics as it appears to wind in a vertical configuration and the walls were extremely smooth as if these beings had used a “boring device” to make the tunnels within the cave. Apparently as of July 2000 the skeletons were still in the cave. It is not known what the present status is.

Location. Sonoma County, California
Date: 1950
Time: afternoon
Two men and one 17-year old boy were exploring some old mine shafts when they started hearing clicking noises. They could smell a fire so they were curious as to what was on fire all the way down in a mineshaft. They went further down and they started to see a weird substance on the walls of the mine. Then they saw the fire farther down and they noticed that there was something near it, but they could not make out what it was. Upon closer inspection they realized that it was some sort of hideous beast that resembled a boar with human features. It had hands and patches of red hair on its body. It appeared to be bashing an animal skull of some sort against a rock to be cracked open. As soon as the creature saw the witnesses it charged after them. One of them suffered a deep gash on his back as he crawled out of the shaft.

Location. Oracle Arizona
Date: 1950
Time: daytime
Juan Urrea was playing in the yard when suddenly the door of the outhouse creaked open. There, to his surprise, lurked a tall, kangaroo-like creature with blazing red eyes. It peered out around the edge of the door, and then beckoned him to come forward. Urrea believed the creature meant to do him harm. He ran and never saw it again.

Nautical Fantasy Inspirations

The maritime musings over at the Hill Cantons got me to thinking about inspirations for nautical fantasy games.  What follows is pretty much off the top of my head and it sticks to nautical or sea- themed fantasy (so no Horatio Hornblower or Treasure Island here), but I figure its a backbone to start with.

Classical Literature:
The Odyssey
One Thousand and One Nights. Particularly the Sinbad stories, of course.

Modern Literature:
Alan Cole and Chris Bunch. The Anteros series.
Leigh Brackett. The Sword of Rhiannon, “The Enchantress of Venus,” and “The Moon that Vanished.” These last two are on (or under) the strange gaseous seas of Venus, but I think that only adds to their exotic inspiration value.
Robert E. Howard. Conan stories: “Pool of the Black One,” “Queen of the Black Coast,” and “The Black Stranger.”
William Hope Hodgson. The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" and other nautical horror stories. "The Derelict" and "The Voice in the Night" are probably my favorites.
Ursula K. LeGuin. A Wizard of Earthsea.
Fritz Leiber. From the tales of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser: “Their Mistress, the Sea,” “When the Sea-King’s Away,” “Trapped in the Sea of Stars,” and “The Frost Mostreme.”
C.S. Lewis. The Voyage of the Dawn-Treader.
Abraham Merritt. The Ship of Ishtar.
China Mieville. The Scar.
Tim Powers. On Stranger Tides.
Cherie Priest. Fathom.
Karl Edward Wagner. “In the Wake of Night.” Okay, only a fragment of this exists, but the idea of the story is great.

Movies:
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). The original novel might be inspirational, too, but its this films visuals that really capture the imagination.
Jason and the Argonauts (1963).
King Kong (the 1933 and 2005).
The Lost Continent (1968).
Pirates of the Caribbean series.
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977).

Animation:
Pirates of Dark Water (1991).
One Piece. Which is also a manga.

In the Gloom

This is a follow-up to my discussion of the gray dust earlier this week. Experienced astral projectionists and other sorts of planar travelers from the City know that all the outer planes between the unassailable heights of Heaven on high, and the abyssal depths of the Pit where the qliphothic things dwell, are conceptual places--and the prevailing concept of the Wasteland is gloom.

The Wasteland, Plane of Despair, is an expanse of cinereous, dessicated land and sunless, graveyard skies, but its not entirely featureless. An arthritic creaking might announce the appearance of corroded and broken playground equipment from the mists. One might stumble into a mire of quicksand ash or find a burned out and derelict house from either a recent or historical era.

Then there are the human forms coated in hardened ash, like the victims of a volcanic eruption, dotting the landscape at intervals like anguished sculptures. These are said to be the final remains of souls given over to an afterlife of despondency.  They arrive in the Wasteland as filmy shadows and over time petrify to immobile, tortured forms.

The inhabitants of the Wasteland are just as grim. The Faceless Mourners appear as women dressed in funeral veils and black dresses of a century ago. Sometimes they carry straight razors and sometimes ink black ichor drips from underneath their long sleeves and runs down the creases of their ashen hands. Sometimes they can be glimpsed in mirrors by a person contemplating suicide. It’s said that their appearance unsummoned on the Material Plane harbingers death.  Their keening causes stillbirth.

Particularly loathsome are the Lonely Husks. These creatures appear as androgynous human skins, as if the skin was shed whole like a snake’s. They attach themselves to sentients and slowly drain the life from them. They lie in bed. holding the victim close like a lover, whispering in the person’s ear of their undying devotion and begging--pleading--for the victim never to leave them, and to love them in return. First, the victim is weakened and fatigue, then over days, paralyzed. Finally they die in a period of 4-8 weeks as their lungs or heart gives out.

There are also fiends, likely relatives of demons or devils, which have adapted to life in the Gray Gloom. These entities claim rulership, but no one truly rules the Wasteland; It’s sufferings domain.

Hassled by the Man

My Strange Trails download is nonfunctional for the second time in two months.  Suspended.

It appears all anyone has to do is say to Mediafire "take that down" and it goes down.  Last time it was a film company saying I was violating their IP related to a film of their's I had happened to review (favorable) on my blog.  The fact that there was absolutely nothing in Strange Trails relating to their IP made no difference--since of course nobody actually read the file.  I'm sure if was just an internet search then seeing a download and the assumption was dread piracy.

So this time, I don't even know what the complaint is--just the name of the company that made it (which is a non-American media company I've never heard of).  At least this time I'm given the oppurtunity of rebuttal--which would be great if I knew what I was rebutting.

I suppose its time to go looking for a new host.  It's just frustrating it doesn't even require an actual allegation, just the suggestion of one.