Warlord Wednesday: Full Circle

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...

"Full Circle"

Warlord Annual #3 (1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Mike DeCarlo.

Synopsis: When last we left our heroes, they had stopped a nuclear war and averted an apocalyptic future, only to get shunted outside of time. Hurtling out of control in the null-time limbo, two of their ships collide. Bouncing off each other, the two ships ricochet back into the timestream—at a point far from where they left it.

Morgan, Krystovar, Shakira, Reno, and the soldier Cole emerge relatively unscathed from their respective crashes only to be set upon by flying feathered reptiles. As our heroes do battle, they’re being watched by someone who looks familiar:

The Deimos lookalike sends his minions to get our heroes. They arrive on orange triceratops and call off the bird-things with whistles. The dinosaur riders tell our heroes: “Lord Daamon and the Red-Moon Gods invite you to the safety of the City of Challa-Bel-Nalla, jewel of Atlantis.”

Morgan and the gang go along. The Atlanteans use some sort levitation device given to them by the Red-Moon gods to bring the ships along, too. Reno figures these "gods" and their technology might be just what they need to free the rest of the ships from null-time.

When they reach the Atlantean city, Morgan sees the Deimos lookalike standing on a balcony and goes beserk. Sword-drawn, he leaps onto the balcony and is about to kill the man:

Shakira’s nose knows. The guy doesn’t smell like Deimos. It turns out he’s the aforementioned Lord Daamon, but he is descended from the Deimosian Dynasty. Morgan (somewhat hastily) assumes he must be an ancestor of Deimos.

Daamon sends our heroes off to refresh themselves. Hi wife Jezreen asks him why he didn’t kill Morgan for the affront. Daamon wants the ships (he intuits that they mean power) and he needs Morgan and the gang alive to understand them. Still, Morgan’s mistake intrigues him. He decides to consult the nether-spirits to find out what’s going on.

Later, in his ritual chamber, Daamon calls upon the nether-spirits. They tell him Morgan and his friends are from the far future—and that Morgan is an enemy of his and theis. They reveal how Morgan killed the last of the Deimosian line. They bid Daamon kill him.

At dinner, Reno tells Morgan they're stuck here. They dare not use the time ships again without repairs. Morgan thinks there may be something these “gods” they keep hearing about can do. Their conversation is interrupted when Jezreen arrives to give Daamon’s regrets and deliver his invitation to a hunt for the great dragon-lizard tomorrow. Morgan and Shakira accept.

At dawn, the three mount their hadrosaurish steeds. While Daamon has decided he’s unable to strike at Morgan directly, he’s planned on an “accident” befalling Morgan on the hunt.

Things to Notice:

• Atlantis here doesn't necessarily jive with the Atlantis seen elsewhere in the DC Universe (though admittedly, Warlord hasn't been explicitly placed in continuity at this point).
• This isn't the first time a hunt as a pretext to murder someone has shown up as a plot device in Warlord.  Ashir's enemies went after him the same way.
• Deimos's ancestor has the same fashion sense.

Where It Comes From:

Though not much has been revealed yet, this annual seems designed to tie up disparate plot threads.  It references old issues of Warlord more so than anything else  More on this as the review continues.

Games of Chance

The new HBO series Luck is about the world of horse-racing, from the owners and trainers to the jockeys and gamblers. While the show is interesting as a drama, I think I find it even more engrossing for its portrayal of the world of racetracks. It got me to thinking about gambling, whether at the races, with dice or whatever, within the world of a a role-playing game.

Gambling seems exactly the short of pleasure-seeking activity adventurers would engage in to blow off steam between brushes with danger. I’ve seen relatively few settings tackle unique or interesting games, though. The first chapter of the Pathfinder Adventure Path The Second Darkness, “Shadow in the Sky” featured a visit to a casino and opportunities for PCs to partake in several different games, but most of them seemed a bit silly to me.

While gambling appears in a lot of the source literature for fantasy role-playing games, most are only vaguely described as anything more than “dice” or “cards.” Off hand, I can’t think of any that are well detailed. There’s Dragon Poker in Asprin’s Little Myth Marker, but from what I can recall the details given are mostly for laughs a la fizzbin.

Anybody got any interesting forms of gambling making appearances in their settings?

Cities of the Red Martian Night

Drop the swords (or maybe keep the swords) and add a little spy pot-boiler paranoia enhanced by heavy use of strange drugs and you can get a Barsoom as envisioned by William S. Burroughs rather than Edgar Rice. Brackett’s Low Canal cities become even seedier as they blur with the hallucinatory Tangier, Interzone.

There’s plenty of material in the ERB corpus that needs only a slight twist: think of the rykors and kaldanes, the synthetic men, the planet men, or the realist and etherealist factions of Lothar. Ras Thavas might get along well with Dr. Benway.

No reason not to borrow from Burroughs’s spiritual descendants too: the atavistic drug shanga, Ramas’ mind-transference, or vampiric Shambleau hustlers. Living turbans from the Vaults of Yoh-Vombis would be all the rage.

You get the idea. It doesn’t take much and Mars gets a lot a more alien.

John Carter and a Princess of Mars

...Should have been the title of Disney's new film other than just John Carter.  I saw the film last night and recommend it.  It is good exactly in the way sci-fi spectacle adventure films generally are; in other words, its entertaining, but not something you're going to go see for sparkling dialog or deep characters.  If you've read the books, you'll like it.  If you haven't, but you enjoy the aforementioned sort of film, you probably will, too.

The film takes Burroughs's more rambling (if such a short novel can ramble) and episodic novel and weaves it into a more linear plot, which is largely to the good.  Likewise, the script-writers update of Dejah Thoris to an action and science heroine is well done.  She winds up definitely being the "smart one" in her relationship with Carter.  The Green Men (a term never used in the film; they only refer to themselves by their tribes, leading many reviewers to think they're race is called "Tharks") are pretty well-realized and surprisingly true to the books in terms of culture without the film be exposition-heavy (in this regard).

There are a lot of thinks I would have liked to see done different.  The opening prologue/introduction with convoluted layers of narrative, is the clunkiest part of the film.  It winds up having a flashback within a flashback/framing sequence.  They could have gotten all those elements in, but streamlined it.  Dialogue could always be a bit punchier in these sorts of things, and the mean of some terms could have been better conveyed to the uninitiated.  While the costume design or the design for the Green Men aren't exactly what I would have wanted, they turn out okay, and are really just different choices.  The design of the Martian cities, though, seems to be a bit of a misstep as it's rather plain and block, and exhibits no particular sense of wonder. Faithful woola hit the right notes, but the comedy doggishness of the character could have been dialed back from "11" to a "8-9."

Still, some of my quibbles can reasonably be seen as those of a fan who would never be completely happy with any adaptation.  My main point is, if your on the fence because of the negative press, you shouldn't be.

Updates to the Index

In just updated the Weird Adventures Index page with links to some unusual places.  Vacation in devastated Lumiere (pre-War capital of Neustrie) with mutant pigs, mushroom scientists, and a weird glowing blob. 

Or maybe the Planes Beyond are more to your liking? In that case, check out the entry on the idyllic realm of Arcadia, and the therianthropic juke-joints in the Land of Beasts next door.  On the somber side, there's the Plane of Despair.  Shopping opportunities present themselves in Interzone--at least to buy drugs like bug powder and gray dust.

If you'd rather stay home, there are also a couple of posts on guns.

Check those out and more.

Ants Marching

Some of the gray-suited and nondescript workers in the office buildings of the City aren’t as bland as they seem. Some of them, tireless behind typewriters or stacks of papers, aren’t just inhuman in their work ethic--but plain inhuman.

These insectoid ultraterrestrials in human disguise are called formians for their resemblance in appearance and social structure to terrestrial ants. Born from flaws of chaos amid the reality mechanisms of Machina, the formians live much like earthly ants on their home plane. Tunneling through the astral understructure, the foraging scouts of the formians found the Prime Material Plane and soon the nuptial flights followed.  Colonies were formed.

The ordered layout of modern buildings appealed to them. Their antennae attuned to the the frequencies of the eikone Management, the formians easily adapted to bureaucracy and regimentedness of office work. Their forms changed to accomodate to their new surroundings; only these with magical sight can perceive them as anything other than somewhat odd humans. Those in close proximity for extended periods, may notice a faint but distinct, vinegary smell.

The formians live in the etheric space coincident and between buildings. Generally, they are not threats to their human co-workers--except that their increasing numbers take more and more jobs, until whole offices are staffed by formians. One should be extremely careful in the basements or boiler rooms of such buildings. Formians will react violently if they feel improper deference is shown their queen, even inadvertently.

Art by Jason Godbout.

Warlord Wednesday: Cosplay?!

Here are the Best in Show Trophy winners at 1986's San Diego Comic Con Masquerade: the cast of Warlord!  From left to right we appear to have: Mariah, Shakira, Deimos, Tara, Morgan, Jennifer, Ashiya, Ashir, and Rostov.

More pictures of these costumes can be found here.

A Weird Adventures Review Grotesque

Jack, your host for Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque, takes a break from his excellent exploration of the Gothic and its use in fantasy gaming to review Weird Adventures.

Check it out.

Guns of the City

Here (for the players in my upcoming Weird Adventures game and anybody else who’s interested) are some common firearms from the City. The type references ("heavy revolver", etc.)  refer to Super Genius Games’ Anachronistic Adventurer: The Enforcer.  Prices are in Union dollars.

Fell Model 61: A semi-automatic pistol.  The official side arm of most of the Union militias and a common civilian weapon (heavy automatic pistol). Cost: $36.75.

Sturm & Linnorm Lawman Special: A six-cylinder revolver. The standard side arm of the City Police Department (heavy revolver). Cost: $32.

Mulciber Model 5876: Pump-action shotgun. One of several shotgun models in current use (light shotgun). Cost: $47.

Thornton Ordinance Auto-Carbine: A popular submachine gun associated with crime, particularly the gangsters of Lake City (submachine gun). $200.

The Devastated City Crawl

The idea of “city as dungeon” in the sense of exploring a city is well-established. But what if a city looked more like the ruins or dungeons that fantasy adventurers are more commonly crawling through?

History (and sometimes current events) provide examples of good urban environments for this sort of thing.  Other examples can be found in fiction: Stalingrad in the film Enemy at the Gates or (from fantasy) Ambergris from Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch and Seattle from Cherie Priest's Boneshaker. The only question is how “dungeon-like” versus how “functional” the city is.

Here’s how it could work: The city would be torn apart by internal factions. One or more of these could be an invader, but this is also a chance to inject some political strife. The key is that, however it started, the fighting has largely degenerated into a stalemate. Different factions (or species) hold different areas, and raids occur, but not full-on warfare. Areas in between might be occupied by neutral opportunists. Some of these would likely be monsters that roamed, smelling blood in the air.

This sort of “dungeon” doesn’t have to have just one level. In a world were magic might have allowed tall buildings, there may be areas stratified by height. If some form of bombs, aerial shelling, or gas attacks have been employed, there might well be a network of tunnels underground, too.

This sort of scenario suggests one big difference from the usual dungeon-delving set-up. It might very well be that the PCs are living in the "dungeon" themselves rather than just visiting it. The safe retreat for healing becomes a lot less safer, and the struggle with the city’s other denizens becomes more of an existential concern. The “points of light” are a little dimmer--and the stakes are higher.

Apocalypse Under Ground

He could barely remember a life before the refugee camp. His family had fled there like the others when their village had been overrun. They were without his two sisters; they had been carried away to fill monsters’ cookpots, perhaps. While he spent his days begging for food to feed his family, the monsters took his father, too. Maimed and in constant pain, his father had died with the beak of some leech-thing in his arm—a drug sold to those without hope by agents of the mind-flayers.

If the cleric was to be believed, the monsters took his mother as well. Even then, boy that he was, he knew enough to be skeptical. The wasting sickness that claimed her seemed all too common in the conditions of the camp—gods know he’d seen it enough. The cleric, evangelizing among the refugees, had claimed it was a magical disease sent by the monsters. The clerics always blamed the monsters. Their gods were as hungry for monster blood as the monsters seemed for the blood of man.

The boy didn’t care about the truth. He found a makeshift club, beat some scavenged nails into it, and joined the new crusade. Down he went, with a few veterans but many more hollow-eyed youths, into the lair of the foes of man, into the underground. The boy had survived. He had watched most of the others die in horrible ways: cut down, rended, chewed, dissolved. He had survived.

That was years ago. He barely remembered how young he had been—how weak he had been. Wounds that would have been fatal before now healed within days. He was strong and fast. The underground changed you. The trick was not to change too much. Some scholars thought that many of the tribes of monsters had once been men, in ages past.

Those same sages said it had always been like this. When a civilization mastered enough magic to discover the undergrounds, the war started. Who built them, no one could say. All the beings fighting for them now were like babes crawling through a grand temple in search of a toy. They understood so little. They knew only that there was treasure to be had: the doors in the depths through which the most ancient monsters traveled, the magic they fought over, and the gold that drew the poor and the greedy.

And no one—not goblins, not trolls, not dragons or men—was inclined to share.

Treasures from the Underground

Adventurers delve into the underground environments of the City and the Strange New World looking for treasure. This comes in the form of relatively mundane riches and more exotic items imbued with magical power. The Ancients are generally believed to have been the builders of the underground structures, but the treasure within them comes from various sources.

Many of the mundane objects of archaeological interest found in the underground do represent the material culture of the Ancients. It’s unclear why the Ancients built the underground structures in the first place. Some are certainly tombs and are filled with the usual valuable burial goods: objects of art (many of precious metal), coins, and jewelry. Some personal weapons or armor bearing enchantments are found. The mummies themselves, embalmed by magical means, are sometimes sought by unscrupulous thaumaturgists. They can be used to “fuel” spells--though they are sometimes cursed to prevent such desecration. A few aren’t dead, but instead undead and rise to wreck vengeance on would-be defilers.

The Ancients apparently didn’t produce many magical devices--at least not that still have power (it’s long been known that thaumaturgical infusion has a half-life in nonliving things). Scrolls are the most common. Potions and ointments are almost never found; the Ancients appear to have had no real understanding of the alchemical sciences.

The Natives seemed to have mostly avoided the places of the Ancients, perhaps out of superstitious dread. Few of their artifacts, magical or otherwise, are found in the underground. There are exceptions, of course, and in the West there are structures they may have been built by Native cultures influenced by the Ancients.

Ealderdish explorers and tomb-robbers of earlier eras left their mark on the underground. Coins from historical periods and magical armor and weapons are found--often next to the moldering remains of their previous owners. Most magic armor or clothing found will be related to the Ealderdish. Some have lost their potency over time; others have been spoiled by exposure to raw magical elements (or whatever killed their previous owners) and are now “cursed” or malfunctioning.

Finally, there are anomalous items. These are either products of nonhuman species or otherwordly intelligences. Many underground structures are built around “soft spots” in the material plane, more susceptible to irruption. Indeed, one theory regarding the structures is that they are large scale mandalas or sigils for the purpose of concentrating and controlling extraplanar energy. These anomalous items are often the most dangerous--their purpose can often only be guessed at.

Warlord Wednesday: The Price of Change

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 Price of Change"

Warlord #85 (September 1984)

Written by Cary Burkett with Deryl Reinhold; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Steve Mitchell.

Synopsis: In Skartaris, Jennifer Morgan, Ashir, and Faaldren call for Tinder around the entrance to the cave where they took refuge last issue. Tinder however, is crawling down a narrow passage after what he saw in the back of the cave. He comes into an opening an finds a gold-furred monkey-like creature trapped in a spider’s web.

Tinder cuts the monkey free with his dagger. Then he sees the creature that made the web:

Tinder and the monkey run, but Tinder trips over a skull in the dark cave and gets knocked out. The monkey (surprisingly) calls his name. The spider-thing approaches...

In 2303, Morgan is hot-dogging in one of the saucerships with Reno with him. The ship is inertialess due to its null-time drive. It does have its limits, however, as the controls start to blow when Morgan pushes it to Mach 95. He barely brings it into the hangar in one piece. The strange chronal energies almost cause one of the mechanics caught near the ship to start to slip away into the timestream. The others manage to pull him back.

Later, Morgan addresses the soldiers. It seems the scientists have told him that the nuclear war has destroyed the Earth’s ecology and will soon leave it uninhabitable. To travel back in time and prevent the war is their only chance. Morgan explains the plan:

Morgan has had a saucership cartridge key made with his rank of colonel on it rather than president. As he explains to Reno: “If this works, I won’t be President.”

Everyone climbs into the timeships and they fade away in the swirling eddies of time. In the hangar they left behind, something unforseen has occurred--a rift in spacetime itself has formed.

In the past, the saucers fly into the path of the Russian missiles that started the war. They use chronal rays to age the missiles into falling apart. Once that’s done, they fly over and do the same thing to the American missiles in the counter-attack. In the oval office, the president and his staff think aliens have intervened.

The Russians send futuristic fighters after them. Morgan has the others cloak themselves, while he distracts tha attackers. Unwilling to shoot them down, Morgan tries to outfly them. His craft is damaged and he crashes. He and Shakira briefly have to fight off Russian soldiers before rescue arrives.

Since both sides think aliens have attacked, they begin to join forces. Morgan decides to encourage that and has the saucers fly in formation around the globe to be seen by millions. With an outside “enemy” mankind will stop fighting each other.

An unforseen problem occurs. The ships flying so close cause a null time field too strong for their chronal dampeners. The ships are thrown wildly through non-space and non-time.

Things to Notice:

• The cave entrance seems smaller this issue than it did last.
• In this future the Cold War seems to have re-established itself.

Where It Comes From:

The fake alien invasion helping avert nuclear war occurs in a famous comic published a couple years after this one. The plot goes back to The Outer Limits episode "Architects of Fear." The saucerships flying on formation is reminiscent of similar scenes in the 1957 film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.

Weird Adventures at Gen Con

Weird Adventures will be on sale at Gen Con 2012.  I've joined up with the gang at the OSR booth headed up by Bill Barsh of Pacesetter Games.  So far, other participating groups include Expeditious Retreat Press, Black Blade Publishing, Faster Monkey Games, Center Stage Miniatures, Frog God Games, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and Henchmen Abuse.

In some form, I imagine there'll be some Gen Con exclusive Weird Adventures material, as well.  More on that to come.

Mention My Name in Wermspittle

Or maybe it’s better if you didn’t. I’m not sure I want my name on the twitching lips of a drug-addled veteran of the Sewer-Militia who has “seen the elephant” (and never recovered), or spoken in the harsh rasp of plague-ravaged refugee right before he chomps down on a gore worm sausage.

If you haven’t been following the fecund imagination evident in Hereticwerks then let Wermspittle be your first introduction to it. The titular Wermspittle is a dark fantasy city that burrows beneath the Dung Age right into a trippy world of parasites and pathogens--something like a Cronenberg film version of Warhammer Fantasy as written by William S. Burroughs. Oh, and build that decaying structure atop a foundation of public domain weird and scientifiction (fun and educational!).

If that sounds good to you, let me just say my high concept summary doesn’t do the depth of the setting justice. Check it out, and all the other cool stuff at Hereticwerks.

In Arcadia

Astral travelers sometimes finding themselves passing through a veil of mists and arriving in the apotheosis of sylvan settings, the realm of Arcadia. In this plane dwell forgotten woodland spirits and pastoral gods and creatures out of myth.

Arcadia is hyper-real; it seems more vibrant and alive than the material plane. Smells and tastes seem directly drawn from the most vivid examples in memory; everything is in technicolor and imbued with a faint glow. The world itself is alive--with potentially communicative spirits in everything. Night and day and shifts of weather are sentimental things, sensitive to the meaning of events or the mood of powerful beings.

Arcadia borders other related realms. The Land of Faerie emerges from it (though this realm also has tunnels linking it to the Lower Planes). There is also the Land of Beasts, where the iconic animal lords dwell, ruled over by King Lion.

Despite it’s ties to age-old fables, the Land of Beasts keeps up with the expectations of modern visitors. Adventures from the City have found there home mirrored there in a city of anthropomorphic animals who frequent nightclubs and drive cars. The Cat Lord can often be found here, in the swankest of night-spots.

Magical practitioners view Arcadia and its neighboring realms as places to salvage materials and items out of myth and legend, and to parley with powers that--though perhaps consciously forgotten--still retain great mythic resonance in Man's unconscious.  As with all extraplanar dealings, caution is warranted: These primal beings have agendas of their own.

Tagged

Mark, the self-styled evil DM, over at The DM's Screen (check it out) tagged me in one of these blog questionaire sort of things. I'm not going to tak part in the chain-letter part, but I will be a good sport and answer Mark's questions

1. What made you decide to write a blog?
A friend of mine who got tired of listening to my game-related ideas suggested it.

2. What would you say has been the highlight of your blogging career to date?
Publishing Weird Adventures. Get your copy today!

3. Name your favourite animal.
A liger. Ok, not really.  I don't know that I have a nonextinct one.

4. What has been the best thing to ever happen to you?
Answering the next question. Seriously though, I don't know how to compare various good things on the same scale.

5. You are in a lift with a Nun, a middle-aged business man, a Karl Marx look-alike, a twenty-something female charity worker and Stephen Hawking. The lift shudders to a stop, the lights go out. There is a high-pitched scream followed by a thud. The lights come on and the Nun is lying dead on the floor with a knife in her chest. Who did it and why?
Is she actually dead or does she just appear dead? If she's not faking, I would say they're all in on it together.  It will sound more plausible when I'm wearing a deerstalker cap and smoking a pipe.  Which, of course, I would be in the elevator.

6. Name your favourite colour.
To wear: gray.  Just as a color: orange.

7. What has been the scariest thing to ever happen to you?
Automobile accident.

8. You are about to break the world record for the tallest house of cards in front of a crowded room of onlookers and world press. All of a sudden, some idiot parent allows their errant child to charge over, knocking into your table, sending your world record beating attempt crashing around you. What do you do next?
Shake my fist in impotent rage and scream to the heavens.

9. If you had to spend a month on a tropical island, what four luxury items do you take with you?
Internet access.

10. Once on your tropical island you are allowed to have one person of your choice to stay with you. Now this can be anyone famous, living or dead, fictional and from any period of time/history - loved ones are not allowed - who do you choose and why?
Someone with the power of teleportation so I could leave the island when I wanted.

11. What has been the worst impulse purchase of a totally useless item (one you convinced yourself into believing you needed, but didn't)? What was it, and do you still have it?
About the worse impulse purchases I've ever made are books I probably won't read.  I guess I'm either pretty frugal or either I just don't regret much.

What'll It Be?

For a little brand name flash, here are some alcoholic beverages consumed by denizens of the City:

Spirits:

Albecoeurl: A moderately expensive brand of gin imported from Grand Lludd.  It's bottle is decorated with the image a panther.

Brown Jenkin: A whiskey brand from New Lludd.
Caballero: A tequilla imported from Zingaro.
Dyer Corbie: A brand of light overproof rum.
Gentleman Loser: A sour mash whiskey emblazoned with the image of a smiling "gentleman of the road." The brand is nearly a hundred years old, but was marketed in its native South as a "medicinal" for much of its history.
Storisende: A Poitêmien brandy. Expensive.

Beer:
Cold Iron: A light lager brewed in Yronburg.
Eschenbach: Another prominent beer from the Steel League.
Green Griffon Ale: Sometimes just called "Griffon."  It's symbol is (appropriately) a green griffon rampant.

Mushrooms, Pigs, and Cold Light

The thaumaturgic forces unleashed by the Great War have left much of Ealderde strange. For an example of just how weird this transformation can be, one need look no farther than Lumière,the former capital of Neustrie and the Gallian Alliance. Once Lumière’s lights were emblematic of a city that never slept, a place of art and culture. Today, Lumière is a bombed out ruin, and the amber luminescence that crawls or flows through its streets and buildings is something of another world.

The thing is alive; almost everyone agrees on that, but little they agree on little else. Is it matter? Some gelatinous substance similar to the strange denizens of the underground? Or is it pure energy, somehow thickened and held? If it’s the latter, it’s light with no heat.

In the day, it seems to hide in the skeletons of buildings, perhaps fearing the sun. At night it pours forth and spreads out over whole blocks. Rats and vermin flee it. Living things it touches develop strange tumors or growths. When it first rose, victims caught in its path were left rooted to the spot, transformed into masses of cancer.

The glowing touch of the thing seems to have created at least one mutant species. The wild swine that moved into the city to root and scavenge after the devastation of the war have been changed. They've grown large, and bloated and pale as grubs, with eyes that glow with a paler yellow that the thing. Though they can’t speak, they seem to have evolved an evil intelligence. They roam the streets in herds, seeming to take pleasure in spoiling what remains of the works of man, and looking (though they're hardly picky eaters) for their primary form of sustenance: fungal spores.

The Mushrooms, the swines' unrelenting foes, resent their progency being consumed by the swine with a displeasure that's more cold practicality than horror. These fungal sapients likely lived beneath the city even in previous times (certain legends hint at their presence) but when the humans fled they saw an opportunity. From their inhuman alchemical laboratories they create structures from fungal stock and weaponize molds to strike at the swine and keep humans away.

Looters and treasure seekers make forays into the ruin of Lumière, but it's a dangerous undertaking. Even if the poured-honey creeping of the luminescent thing can be avoided, there are the packs of hungry swine to be outwitted, and the silent and dispassionate Mushroom scientists to be dealt with.

Warlord Wednesday: Hail to the Chief

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...

"Hail to the Chief"

Warlord #84 (August 1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Dick Giordano.

Synopsis: Having just been told he’s been made president of what’s left of the U.S. in a post-apocalyptic 2303, Travis Morgan responses with the appropriate level of incredulity. The representative of Congress explains that Secretary Dubrow had every other official in line for the office killed. With the president’s suicide, Morgan (as leader of the revolution) is basically the only person everybody trusts.

Morgan doesn’t want the job. He’s a leader of men in battle, not in politicals. Shakira suggests he’s the only one who can do this job, otherwise the fighting will continue. Morgan reluctantly agrees.  He's sworn in in front of cheering crowds.

As soon as that’s done, Morgan goes to his office and he’s set upon by people wanting him to make decisions of various sorts. He quickly gets feed up with it and starts brandishing his sword to clear the room.

In Skartaris, Jennifer Morgan, Ashir, Faaldren, and Tinder are still walking toward Shamballah. They’re attack by a pack of bear-dog things. Since Jennifer hasn’t rested enough to use much magic, they’re forced to hide in a cave. Tinder notices a pair of eyes in the darkness. Soon, a strange stench chases the bear-thing from the opening of the cave—and our heroes out of it! But Tinder isn’t among them.

In the future, Morgan is getting feed up with being President:

He figures his only way out of this is to go back and time and make sure the war never occurs! (Now he thinks of that!) Luckly, he’s got a temporal scientist with him. Reno tells him it's theoretically possible to shift this timeline to an even more remote probability.

Reno reveals that despite his previous statements, there are already completed timeships. They’re kept in an ancient cavern miles beneath Reno’s complex in a military base that has no doubt been in the same sort of time-stasis. Leaving V.P. Duncan in charge, Morgan and Reno fly back to Utah.

After talking with the base's commanders, Morgan and Reno go below. Reno summons the elevator with a key card that looks eerily familiar---like the card that operated the timeship. When they arrive in the cavern, Morgan isn’t surprised to see that it’s the weapons cache he entered from the cave tunnel to New Atlantis!

After hearing Reno’s and Morgan’s story, the commander calls his men together for President Morgan to address them. Morgan’s plan is simple:

Things to Notice:

• Ashir and Jennifer saved by a bad smell.  That's heroic.
• The first concern of Morgan's staff after he's elected president is getting him some more clothes.

Where It Comes From:

This issue finally gives the origin of the mysterious weapons cache and hints at the reason there was a card with Morgan's name on it.  The bear creatures that menace Jennifer Morgan and friends are explicitly said to be giant varieties of Ursavus elmensis, a dog-like bear ancestor native to Europe during the Miocene. The "giant" part is important here, as U. elmensis is thought to have only been the size of a small dog.

Presidents That Would Never Get a Day

I'm off today for (U.S.) Presidents' Day, and I thought it was a good time to recognize a few U.S. Presidents who will never have a day to commemorate them.  Not so much because they're forgettable or non-noteworthy, but mainly because they're fictional--and in some cases evil.

Nelson Rockefeller was a real guy, though on our Earth he never became president.  In the Alternate Earth of Marvel's Squadron Supreme, he becomes an evil president.  Power corrupted Rockefeller--the power of the Serpent Crown, an artifact from ancient Lemuria.

Also on the world of the Squadron Supreme, a former superhero named Kyle Richmond also became president.  Richmond's crimefighting identity was Nighthawk; he was essentially the Batman of his world (I think I'd vote for Batman for president).  Anyway, he eventually got controlled by an alien called Overmind, so his administration couldn't be called a complete success.

In the regular Marvel Universe in the 70s, Captain America uncovered a veritable cancer on the presidency: a president who was also secretly the leader of a criminal organization planning a takeover of the U.S. government.  This president's identity is never revealed in the issue, but his suicide after a confrontation with Captain America leads to his replacement with a double so the public wouldn't know.  Suspiciously, this was all around the time of the Watergate scandal.

The president in the somewhat dystopian future (or was it present?) of Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns looks a lot like Ronald Reagan.  This President wraps himself (literally) in the flag and is unfailingly optimistic while invading Central American nations and ultimately leading the country into nuclear war.

So next time you're tempted to complain about the job a president is doing.  Just think of how bad it could have been.  They can't all be Kyle Richmond or Travis Morgan. Or Prez.

Stories from the South Seas

The South Seas is a vaguely defined area of the Tranquil Ocean extending from Pyronesia east and north to unnumbered islands extending south from Southeast Eura and south to the mysterious south polar continent of Australis. The area is a crossroads of trade and a meeting place of exotic cultures that has captured the popular culture imagination of people in the City.

Many of of the islands in the South Seas are inhabited by people called loosely grouped as Oceanians who are believed to be the descendants of ancient Mu. Though this continent long ago disappeared beneath the waves, mysterious ruins attributed to it are sometimes found on isolated isles.

Most Oceanians are friendly--but not all. There are still rumors of strange rites and even cannibalism. Exaggerated sailors’ tales, perhaps.

There are dangers other than humans in the South Seas. Utilizing primitive smoke-belching steamships, the Demon Islanders have claimed a territory in the wake of the Great War. Here it’s hoped they can be contained, but they remain a menace to the region. Also, the Crab-men, ancestral enemies of the Oceanians, still attack settlements and even unwary ships.

The Worlds of Leigh Brackett

Burroughs’s was there first, and C.L. Moore was there first with an anti-hero, but Leigh Brackett made Mars her own. I don’t know why it took me so long, but for my birthday, I treated myself to the second and third Haffner volumes collecting Brackett’s planetary fiction: Lorelei of the Mists: Planetary Romances and Shannach-The Last: Farewell to Mars (the first volume is titled Martian Quest: The Early Brackett in case you were wondering).

Brackett’s most famous creation is probably Eric John Stark--raised Tarzan-like among primitive nonhumans on Mercury.  As a man caught between two worlds, Stark gets caught up in various struggles on the Earth colony worlds of Mars and Venus. Often, like in Moore’s Northwest Smith stories, this involves ancient secrets. Unlike Smith (who just seems lucky to survive the weird horror he encounters), Stark is a more of man of heroic action.

The stories in these volumes take place in the same solar system, but feature protagonists generally less “larger than life” than Stark, though usual just as hard-boiled. Most have the tension of colonizers versus native cultures that underlie the Stark stories. Often the conflict changes both sides.

There's a lot of good game inspiration in Brackett's world-building. There are the colorfu.l gaseous seas of Venus that boats can sail, but in which humans can also breath.  The drug scourge of colonial Mars is shanga--radiation from certain jewels can cause a temporary atavistic transformation. A deep valley on Mercury holds the slowly pertrifiying last survivor of a psychic species.

That's just the beginning.  If you've never read Brackett or you only know her Stark novels and stories, you should check these out.

Art from original pulp magazine

Warlord Wednesday: All the President's Men...!

It's my birthday today--but it's still Wednesday and time for another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"All the President's Men...!"

Warlord #83 (July 1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Dan Adkins.

Synopsis: Separated by hundreds of years, Travis Morgan and his wife Tara each lead men into battle. In 2303, Morgan and a group of escaped slaves prepare to seize an aircraft hangar. In the present of Skartaris, Shakira and her band prepare to retake their ship from the New Atlanteans.

Husband and wife both achieve victory with some clever tactics. Morgan breaks into the aircraft and turns its guns on the troops guarding it. Tara utilizes some grenades (“strange eggs”) she took from the ancient weapons cache to sink the New Atlantean vessel.

Morgan plans to find Reno and Shakira and free the slaves from the other compounds. Looking over the complex’s floorplan, Duncan discovers that the whole place is dependent on the solar power center. A small band could seize it and control the whole place.

In occupied Shamballah, the people suffer under the cruel boot of the New Atlanteans. In the wilderness outside of town, forces gather that plan on changing that. Ashir, King of Kaambuka and second best thief in Skataris, meets Jennifer Morgan and Tinder.

In 2303, Morgan and his men continue to fight toward the power center. Morgan almost gets shot in the back of the head but a black cat saves him. It’s, of course, Shakira. She been prowling around and found a secret passage. Morgan asks how she asked the imprisonment:

At the end of the passage, the rebels are surprised to find a futuristic oval office replica--and the President of the United States behind the desk. The President is confused and doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on. Secretary Dubrow does, though—and he’s got a gun. In villainous fashion he lays things out for our heroes: The president had a mental breakdown over his guilt at triggering the war that killed millions. Dubrow has been running things ever since.

Morgan is mad as hell. He gives the President a “buck up” talk that seems to snap him back to reality a bit. Realizing what he’s done, the President makes an executive decision and whacks Dubrow with a big presidential seal. Morgan follows up with a punch to Dubrow’s jaw. He snatches the flag from Dubrow’s floundering grasp, and stands the pole upright.

The President gives a speech ending martial law and restoring the slaves to citizenship. Then he tells Morgan he wants some time alone in his office. Morgan hasn't gone far when he hears the gun blast. The President has committed suicide.

Later, Morgan is trying to repair his broken shoulder armor. Duncan and Shakira come to summon him to the Congressional Hall…

President Travis Morgan?!

Things to Notice:

• The President here looks a little bit like Bill Clinton to me--which is obviously coincendental since he wasn't elected until 1993.
• I guess in the post-Revolution U.S. of the future their a little loose with the Constitutional requirements for office--unless somewhere off-panel they checked Morgan's age and citizenship.

Where It Comes From:

The issue's title is a reference to the 1976 film All the President's Men based on the 1974 book of the same name about Woodward and Bernstein's investigation of the Watergate scandal. 

A Valentine from the Sorcerer's Skull

Happy Valentine's Day to all you folks in Internet Land.  I've got a lazy post--FtSS classic--for you today.  Last year's look at "Love (and Sex) in the City."  If you haven't read it, it's new to you!

Oh, and here's a little something from Enoch Bolles:

Afterlife During the Wartime

Explorers in the planes beyond have recorded two noumenal realms devoted to the concept of war, though from two different perspectives. One is a shining realm of trumpets sounding the call to glorious battle for a righteous cause. The other is a grim place of endless, grinding war of attrition, leading to an apocalypse they may never come.

The Halls of Valor or the Fields of Glory is the name given to the after-life for the heroic warrior dead of several pagan faiths. Its trappings are pre-modern, though never in history did swords and spears so gleam, or armor so shine. The warriors revel all night in feasting halls and walk out at dawn (strangely hangover free) to do battle with representatives arriving from places of evil and chaos (or at least the representations of such beings). Occasionally (if that word has much meaning in a timeless place) tourneys are held, and the warriors pit themselves against each other. While dire wounds are suffered, they heal quickly and wound and pain are forgotten in the face of glory.

There have been some warriors of the Oecumenical faith, or even soldiers from modern times, who fell in battle and were taken to Halls of Valor in some sort of cosmic error. Some warm to the place after a while, but others seek a way out by appeal to the pagan gods who rule there. Sometimes, angels try to recruit such misplaced warriors to serve in the Heavenly Hosts. This is considered by the eikone Management a tidy solution to the problem of a misplaced soul.

The other realm is a place of blood-red skies, where clouds of ash are buffeted by winds thick with the smell of death. This is the Plains of Armageddon, the Eternal Battlefield. Here, the souls of warriors damned by their actions in war are conscripted as soon as they arrive into the army of one faction or another. Weapons are supplied by agents of the Hell Syndicate or the demon lords of the Pits; They use the armies here as proxies for their own agendas. Warriors from infinite worlds and all of history do battle in bleak and blasted landscapes where no one is truly trustworthy and most hands are actively raised against every other.

Some of the damned delight in bloodlust and slaughter and give themselves over fully to their not entirely metaphorical demons. Others seek desperately to escape and sign faustian deals to return the the Material world as diabolic thralls. Others are lucky enough to make contact with the agents.of Heaven and make other deals for a chance at working off the stain on their souls.