Warlord Wednesday: Clouds of War

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...

"Clouds of War"

Warlord #121 (September 1987)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Pencils by Art Thibert, Inks by Pablo Marcos

Synopsis: Two armies face each other across the Ebondar River. On one side is a contingent from Kaambuka led by General G’Barr, and on the other is a Shamballan force led by Travis Morgan, the Warlord. The armies engage and Morgan moves to avoid bloodshed. He goes straight for the general and defeats him in one on one combat.

Morgan demands to know why the Kaambukans have invaded Shamballan territory. The general accuses them of launching catapult attacks on their capital for 3 days--something Morgan knows they didn’t do. The Kaambukans retreat, leaving Morgan to puzzle over what the hell is going on.

Meanwhile, Kara and Jennifer can’t find the demon. They utilize the history tapes of the Atlanteans to try to find ways to locate the demon and combat him. Turns out:

Azmyrkon had a tripartite rod--”a weapon of unimaginable power.” He wrecked a lot of havoc until Arion showed up to throw a beat down on him and lock him in a prison. He split the demon’s rod into three pieces and hid them.

An earthquake interrupts the ladies’ history lesson and it appears to be an ominous sign.

Morgan is roaming around the desert looking for Tara. He comes across some guys in futuristic gold outfits doing some futuristic stuff with rocks and a launcher. They shoot at Morgan, and he returns fire, knocking one out before he gets knocked out by a rockslide himself.

That gives us a chance to check in on Morgan's CIA nemesis Redmond, who has now undergone full yeti transformation. He’s not about to wait around until the Atlantean snowmen have made enough depilatory for everybody. He stills the antidote and escapes after shooting two of the hairy folk that saved his ungrateful life.

In Kiro, Machiste is being pushed to war on Shamballah by continued reports of raids. He doesn’t buy it, but his ministers are instant. “Tara” is being no help--because she’s really chaos-sowing Y’Smalla disguised by Akolipsian tech.

The real Tara is being kept chained in a dungeon, about to be whipped by a sadistic thug, until:

She eaves him chained to the wall and escapes.

Kara and Jennifer find Azmyrkon causing the Mountain of Dragons volcano to erupt so he can get the first peice of his weapon. Our heroines take him on, but after a battle they’re only able to escape with their lives. Azmyrkon carries the day.

Morgan finally wakes up from his umpteenth concussion since the start of this series. The guys in the weird outfits are gone--except the one he had grazed. Morgan manages to wake the guy up. Before Morgan even thinks about harsh interrogation techniques, the guy begins to panic and warns Morgan to stay away

Elsewhere, a cackling Desaad watches the scene on a console. He presses a button and the man disintegrates before Morgan’s eyes.

Things to Notice:

• Unlike Morgan and Machiste, Ashir, King of Kaambuka, doesn't lead his armies from the front.
• Redmond (yet again) takes his quest for revenge too far. 
• Y'Smalla didn't have very good security on Tara.

Where it Comes From:
Here we have the first appearance in story in Warlord of Arion, Lord of Atlantis.

Jerry Bingham's cover for this issue recalls Frank Miller's cover for Daredevil #189 from 1982:

Tales from a Spacer's Bar

A Tale from a Spacer's Bar is a two hundred (at least) year-old work of fiction that has appeared in many different media. It's author and the world that it originated on has been lost to history--in fact several variant forms exist, so it is difficult even to determine what the original contents were. The work is an anthology of intertwining short stories and vignettes that the nameless narrator hears (and ultimately participates in) in several different bars catering to star pilots and crew on several different worlds. Here are a sampling of images appearing in various adaptations of  A Tale over the years:

"The Prospector's Tale" involves an encounter on an all but lifeless world between a determined misanthrope and a deva. The prospector is taken to the devas' diamondoid sphere habitat, where ironically, his dislike of his fellow man saves him from a demon sprung from the malfunctioning moon-size brain.

This scene is from a retro-psychedelic sim version of "The Clubber's Story." The club habitué (already high on chroma) takes a large dose of an experimental drug called "Proteus V" (a substance generally thought to be fictional). After a serious of comical mishaps, ve accidentally opens a forgotten spacetime oubliette and frees an angry contingent of amazons. Even worse, the amazon commander takes an amorous interest in ver.

"The Three Grifters and the Almost Aptheosis" involves the mysterious artifact known as the Apotheosis Maze. Two humans and a moravec in possession of a dubious map of the Maze set out in a stolen ship with the plan to walk the path and gain godhood. The ambiguous ending of the tale inspired the "Blue Shift" movement in the Gods and Devils neurosymphony by the composer collective Orm 7 Trang. 

A Cold War

The moon Boreas is covered by an ocean eternally sheathed in ice. Though this environment is harsh, a blue-skinned humanoid people called uldra have made the mood their own. With few exceptions, the uldra have built their settlements beneath the surface of the insulating ice, exploiting the sunless seas. At some point, the uldra city-states discovered they weren’t alone: there were monsters in the depths. That was when the war began.

Given the average thickness of the planetary ice sheet, the only source of energy in much of the ocean are deep sea volcanic vents. All sorts of life are found in the oases surrounding them, including a life form unique to Boreas: sapient organisms called “cold minds.” The cold minds are vaguely like colonies of coral, sometimes extending for miles. Their intelligence is adapted for their colder, less energetic environment; their thought processes are laboriously slow compared to humans. it took them decades to decide what to do about the invaders on their world and decades more  to formulate their counterstrike.

Decades ago, the uldra city-states warred against each other. They grew bioroid sea beasts as terror weapons. While not all of the warbeasts were accounted for at the end of the conflict, they had been built with a failsafe: They ceased function if they didn’t receive periodic treatments of certain chemicals. It came as a shock then, when warbeasts began attacking again-- and wouldn’t obey any of the emergency halt codes.

Tensions flared and there were accusations that one city-state or another was responsible. Only after after parasitic organisms were found in the nervous systems of the recently dead that rose to attack their horrified fellows, did the uldra suspect they had another enemy.

And so the war goes on. Uldra rangers are vigilant for attacks of war beasts or undead and exotic, weaponized sea life native to the Boreal ocean. They have destroyed cold minds at times, but the oceans are dark and deep, and the their enemies too dispersed and resilient.

Some uldra have suggested attempts at negotiation, but even if they could find a way to communicate with the slow cold minds, it could be generations before they reached any meaningful dialog.

The Emerald City of Smaragdoz

The capital and only city of the world of Smaragdoz is the green crystalline megacity of the same name, which is also the de facto capital of the Alliance and a nexus of trading routes. Smaragdoz has a unique form of government: a psydemocracy group-mind. The captured thoughts and desires of the citizens form a composite psionic entity that makes all the polis’s laws by decree. This civic mind often manifests as a giant disembodied head off-worlders sometimes refer to as “The Wizard.”

The land beyond the capital is divided into four bucolic prefectures: Smalt, Gules, Xanthic, and Purpure. Though pre-industrial in appearance and pace of life, these carefully controlled farmlands, orchards, and forests are more a sanitized, theme-park version than a replication of any historic rural environment. The farms and hamlets are  inhabited by Smaragdines disinclined ito city life, criminals sentenced to labor, and atavism tourists in animal bodies. The convicts aren’t under any restrictions--other than being forbidden from returning to the city until their sentence is up and being followed at all times by conscience wisps. The wisps provide escalating levels of admonishment and finally neurologic lockdown if the convict attempts to commit further offences.

The inhabitants of the prefectures are not part of the civic mind, but the mind monitors the prefectures and interacts with them through avatars. Scarecrows in fields are often criers announcing important events, and quaint clockwork robots help settle disputes among the rural folk.

The outer border of the province is formed by the Waste, or the Deadly Desert: a “no man’s land” made as lifeless and poisonous by the environmental nanites as the prefectures are fertile and inviting. The lands beyond the border are genuine wilderness.  These sparsely populated lands are home to political dissidents, radical nonconformists, and criminals.

The Instrumentality

Attributes: Force 8, Cunning 5, Wealth 7
Hit Points: 49
Assets: Space Marines/Force 7, Planetary Defenses/Force 6, Strike Fleet/Force 4, Zealots/Force 3, Pretech Manufacturers/Wealth 7, Marketeers/Wealth 5, Organization Moles/Cunning 5, Cyberninjas/Cunning 3
Tags: Theocratic, Planetary Government

The Instrumentality of Aom is a theocracy controlling several systems in the Orion Arm and providing spiritual guidance for the faithful scattered throughout many more. It aggressively seeks to expand its sphere of influence, primarily by peaceful conversion, but it’s not opposed to violent conquest.

“Aom” can be many things (depending on the context and the audience) but is generally described as both the godhead and the godhead-receptive spiritual being complex. Church liturgy often uses litanies of statements of opposites to analogize the ineffable Aom.

Church hierarchy has both an exoteric and esoteric version of its history--and the exoteric version is carefully crafted for a given audience and prone to revision with each doctrine update. The esoteric version conforms to known history in most respects. The faith had its origins in the early days of the Radiant Polity. Two memetic engineers working for a political action group became interested in ancient forms of spirituality and embarked on a private project. The Church views this as divine inspiration; whatever the case, the engineers set their ais to synthesizing a belief system from the commonalities of the “paleo-faiths” still extant within the human sphere: Trimurtitarianism, Prosperity Wicca, Mantrayana Hubbardism, Santerislam, Metaqabala, Ghost Dance Sufism, the Tao of the Taheb, veneration of the Mahdi Magdalene, various public domain forms of Corporate Confucianism, and others.

The first version spread rapidly after release into the Polity noosphere. Soon, various permutations of the faith were being practiced in different systems. Conflict between sects followed. The developers were both martyred in the first twenty years of the faith’s existence. The sectarian strife and clashes with other memes intensified over decades and eventually tore the Radiant Polity apart.

The Instrumentality was one of the entities to emerge from the four centuries of chaos that followed. The numerous sects had been winnowed down to a single orthodoxy with a rigid hierarchy. While the Instrumentality’s evangelists revise doctrine to best win converts, on the worlds already under church control it’s rule is uncompromising, even if it’s actual tenets are sometimes vague.

Warlord Wednesday: Vale of the Snowmen

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...

"Vale of the Snowmen"

Warlord #120 (August 1987)

Written by Michael Fleisher;  Pencils by Art Thibert; Inks by Pablo Marcos

Synopsis: Redmond (the CIA agent that came all the way to Skartaris just to prove Morgan was a commie spy) wound up in one of Skartaris’s icy valleys after his fall at the end of last issue. Succumbing to the cold, he falls face down into the snow. A group of yeti-ish guys come to his rescue.

Down in ol’ Castle Kraken Lake, Morgan is fighting his way through the balding, ponytail-wearing (actually they’re probably going for a samurai thing) kraken assassins. The whole time he’s thinking about what he overheard: that Machiste hired them to come after him. He doesn’t buy. He grabs one of the kraken guys and makes his escape out a window. The guy tells him they’ll never make it through the krakens, but Morgan figures the little whistles the guys wear do something.

Meanwhile, Jennifer is awakened by a searing, pervasive emanation of evil. She casts a spell to transport her to it’s source:

Jennifer throws up a magical shield, but Kara’s superhuman strength is rapidly wearing her down. Jennifer channels her magic into breaking the demon’s hold on Kara. She manages to do it, but while they’re busy the demon disappears.

Morgan gets back to Shamballah and finds it under attack by the forces of Kiro. In the midst of battle, Morgan does some more thinking. While Machiste may be angry with him, breaking his alliance with Shamballah would harm his city and his people. it doesn’t make sense.

Morgan may not have much time to figure it all out. The raiders are repulsed, but now the Shamballans are clamoring for war. How long will Morgan be able to hold their anger back?

Redmond wakes up in the high tech city of the yetis. They speak to him telepathically and tell him they are the descendants of an Atlantean colony. Some weird magic in this valley transformed their ancestors into hairy snowmen. They've recently discovered an element that will return them to human form, but they won’t use it until they've purified enough for all. Redmond thinks that’s all pretty unfortunate--until he sees the yeti hairs start sprouting on his own arms!

In Kiro, Machiste receives a report that Kiro’s outlands are being harried by raiders flying the Warlord’s banner. His ministers want war with Shamballah, but Machiste is unwilling to do so yet. The ministers are surprise to see Shamballah’s Queen Tara, cooling her feet in a fountain in the palace’s gardens. They’d be even more surprised if they knew she was a Vashek assassin using alien technology to disguise herself as the Shamballan Queen. The real Tara is locked away in a dungeon at that moment.

In another plane of existence, Desaad, Torturer of Apokolips, watches the machinations of his protege Y’Smalla with pleasure. Desaad has more plans for Skartaris, right now though, he’s got the New God Lightray to torture.

Things to Notice:

• Morgan's outfit seems somewhat different from last issue.
• The New Gods are back in Skartaris.

Where it Comes From:
The snowmen in this issue resemble the snowbeast from issue #9, but presumably there isn't any evidence of a relationship between the two (other than the first story probably inspired the latter).

The Slavers

Slavers (yssgalahl is an approximate rendering of their autonym) are aquatic sophonts who look vaguely like 4 m long mucus-covered catfish with tentacles. The Slavers are a psionic species who use their abilities to stun prey in their native oceans. They had never developed more than the most rudimentary tool use, until human explorers fell prey to their attacks. Off world organisms lacked the psionic resistance of native fauna; the explorers were mentally dominated rather than merely stunned.

The Slavers had acquired space travel.

Only the sheer size of galactic civilization, their aquatic nature, and the resistance of other psi-capable species kept them from establishing a vast empire. Instead, they resorted to becoming slave traders. They keep those they need to serve them on their world and in their ships and sell the rest on the galactic market. There are places where “naturally” grown sophonts are preferable to bioroids or robots. The Slavers are the primary suppliers of Minga slave women.

No. Appearing:1-4
AC: 4
Hit Dice: 8
Saving Throw: 11
Attack Bonus: +8
Damage: 4 tentacles (1d6 + slime)
Movement: 10’/60'
Skill Bonus: +1
Morale: 9

The slime coating the Slaver’s tentacles is a paralytic to life native to its world, but cause skin changes to humans which lead to 1d4 damage each interval the affected isn’t kept cool and damp (Toxicity 8, Virulence 3, Interval 5 minutes). Slavers can create realistic sensory experiences in the minds of biologic sapients if they fail of Mental Effect saving throw. The Slaver’s also possess an ability similar to Overpowering Will, which they can use 3 times a day. The power can be used on any single individual within 9 meters. If a being is dominated, they will serve the Slaver until some external force breaks the control. If the enslaved individual is separated from the Slaver by more than a kilometer, a new saving throw roll is made every day.

Never Trust the S'ta Zoku

The star folk or s’ta zoku are a nomadic, starfaring human culture found throughout the known galaxy. While star folk of all ages presumably exist, the ones most frequently encountered as visitors to other societies are in their teens twenties (or wear bodies that appear as such), so they’re sometimes called “star children.”

The star folk live in space, traveling between worlds in caravans of their living starships. They declare “festivals” on planets where they make landfall--sharing eclectic, primitivist music, non-fabricated wares, psychedelic drugs, and xenophilic sexual encounters. In passing, they impart facets of their quasi-religious philosophy (a mishmash of various aspects of ancient mysticism memes) that embraces the seemingly conflicting elements of radical individualism and universal interconnectedness. 

They also play practical jokes and minor confidence games meant as performance art or rituals on authority figures and those they consider too narrow-minded. They use no currency, so either barter for goods and services or rely on gratuity. Neither of these traits have endeared them to more controlled societies.

Despite their preference for “natural” or pre-nanofaber clothes and items, the s’ta zoku seems to have access to advanced technology. Some engage in radical body-shaping, modifying their baseline form or changing their sex on a temporary basis. Self-organized groups of star folk youths share box-like devices that may contain picotechnology and be the product of a long dead culture. The star folk have formed something of a “cargo cult” around them.  

The boxes are thought to be artificial intelligences. They are attuned to the mental state of their associated groups; they emit sounds and their surfaces display changing color patterns that act to reinforce group cohesion and mental well-being. Star folk groups seldom make significant decisions without consulting these devices.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Index

As an excuse for a lazy blog post, I thought I'd put all of my recent science fiction posts from the as yet unnamed setting in one place. If you missed any of them the first time, they'll be new to you:

A pictorial overview of a bit of galactic history. You have to know your Radiant Polity form your Archaic Oikumene!
Deshret: A desert planet where tomb-robbers steal digital souls.
Necromancers: Undead travelers trying to find the remnant of their ancient species and resurrect them.
The Phantasists: On a floating city, they'll sale you neurochemical dreams.
The Pharesmid Syndicate: A criminal organization where all the members are one guy.
The Vokun Empire: A brief look at these bad guys and their primary subservient species.
The Zao Pirates: and their shrouded asteroid homebase.
Zyanthion: A world where the people have a reputation economy and duel to protect their honor.

In upcoming posts we should get to the ichthyoid and psionic Slavers, the Star Folk (space hippies),  the Apotheosis Labyrinth, more on the species of the Vokun Empire, space amazons (of course), a pleasure planet, and maybe the weird (consensus) wizard-mind of Smaragdoz.

The Vokun Empire

In the far future, part of the Milky Galaxy is controlled by the decadent Vokun Empire. More to come on them later, but here’s an introduction to the vokun and their foederati. The information here comes from fragmentary reports of questionable accuracy. Any errors will corrected in future posts.

The vokun are once-fierce conquerors in decline. As vokun age, they become progressively more obese until they are immobile without use of their walker conveyances. The elder vokun direct the younger in administration of the empire, but increasingly they’re concerned only with political maneuvering and decadent games.

The vokun have a distrust of disembodied minds, so they employ “humanoid computers” in the form of ibglibishpan savants. Their neural structure and training makes them logical, dispassionate--and ideal accountants, administrators, and archivists. Some are trained in reading the emotions of other humanoids, while the ibglibdishpan themselves always have serene expressions. Their mental structure does make them prone to “halting states” and other sorts of madness.

The kuath are the fanatically conditioned shock troops of the empire. They are seldom seen outside of their 2.5 m tall bio-armor suits, but they are humanoids rarely older than their teens. The humanoids have a symbiotic relationship with ocean-dwelling god monsters they call the Dragon Mothers, who supply their biotechnology and battle drugs. The Dragon Mothers gave the service of the kuath to the vokun in exchange for sparing their world from bombardment with mass drivers.

The engineers of the empire are a humanoid species with crustacean like characteristics, including metallic carapace. All the engineers have cybernetic enhancements and host groups of nanites in their bodies.

Warlord Wednesday: Betrayal

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...

"Betrayal"

Warlord #119 (July 1987)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Art by Ron Randall

Synopsis: Morgan is in the palace in Shamballah in cape and purple shirt, worrying about where his wife might be. His worrying is cut short by would-be assassins with blue stars on their faces and green outfits with streamers. Just another day in Skartaris.

While Morgan’s dealing with the assassins, Machiste’s beating up a couple of guys in an arena. The gladiators comment on the ferocity their king has displayed since coming back from Shamballah. Machiste asserts the reason for his new vigor is his new lady:

Morgan’s old lady--Tara!

In New Atlantis, Kara (aka Power Girl) has found the tomb of her grandfather, Arion. Entering the tomb, she finds a room with a computer and a gem on a pedestal. She sits down at the computer console, but then feels strangely drawn to the gem. She feels compelled to shoot it with her heat vision. It shatters--and trouble emerges:

Meanwhile, Redmond’s also having a tough time. He finally reaches a Skartarian village, but gets chased out of town after he steals a piece of fruit. He climbs a cliff face to escape his pursuers, but them winds up falling.

Morgan follows one of the escaping assassins, to a lake with a fortress on a small island at its center. He plans to swim behind on of their coracles so they’ll think it slipped loose accidentally. but he’s attacked by a purple giant squid. It drags him beneath the surface, but he’s able to stab it in the eye and escape to the shore of the island.

Morgan sneaks into the fortress and overhears a startlingly conversation: this organization known as the Kraken Pentacle was apparently sent after him by the King of Kiro--his old friend, Machiste! Morgan is surprised by one of the assassins who discovered him in hiding. The two fight, and break through the floor, falling into the ceremonial chamber.

In Kiro, Machiste and Tara are attacked by assassin’s identically dressed to the one’s that went after Morgan. The assassin’s claim they have been sent by the Warlord. Machiste and Tara defeat them, but Machiste lets one live so that the man can return to Morgan (if he’s really the one who hired them) and tell him he’s gone to far.

Later, Tara descends into a dungeon beneath the castle where a prisoner is chained to wall. Tara pulls a device from beneath her cloak. She bathed in energy, then her true identity is revealed:

Things to Notice:

• Morgan sports a new outfit this issue. Machiste is the only one of the principles who has gotten new togs.
• Why hasn't anyone else in the castle noticed Tara chained in the basement?

Where it Comes From:
The demon inside the gem is reminiscent of the Evil One and is jewel in previous issues.

A Book Bundle Giveaway

The Happy Whisk, long-suffering (I kid--probably) spouse of Tim, the lord of Gothridge Manor is having a book bundle giveaway in honor of her 444 post. Check it out here. It includes the new issue of Tim's 'zine, The Manor.

One Man Mob

The Pharesmid Syndicate is criminal organization centered on the planet Smaragdoz. The members of the group are all bio-clones or mind copies of their founder, Smaragdine terrorist Uln Pharesm. Pharesm was a mole within the development group in the beta phase of the Smaragdine noospheric Consensus. With his access to the computing power of the noosphere, he was able to generate several copies of his mind, and abscond with governmental funds. Pharesm betrayed the members of his terrorist cell, keeping the money for himself, and hijacking their bodies with his copies. With his new mind-confederates, he embarked on a criminal enterprise that continues to this day.

Pharesmids all wear facial tattoos, though they may disguise them in the course of their criminal operations. Their progenitor has augmented his brain to give himself limited psi abilities, and it may be that some lieutenants have similar enhancements.

PHARESMID SYNDICATE
Attributes: Force 3, Cunning 6, Wealth 5
Hit Points: 29
Assets: Cyberninjas/Cunning 3, Smugglers/Cunning 1, Thugs/Force 1, Laboratory/Wealth 3

Treasure from the Desert

Deshret is a desert world, terraformed in a previous age, but now slowly sliding back into uninhabitability. Its forbidding red sands would have long ago been abandoned to its hostile indigenes and desert monsters, if it weren't for the treasure buried beneath its shifting dunes.

During the Archaic Oecumene, the desert world was the location of a floating metropolis. The city did a thriving business in the preparation and storage of uploaded mind copies in their secure databanks (referred to as “tombs”) buried beneath the planet’s surface. The Great Collapse lead to the city literally disintegrating to dust under assault by rogue disassembler swarms. The stored data facilities were left unguarded and ripe for tomb-robbers.

Shortly after the incorporation of the Radiant Polity, haphazard thievery on Deshret coalesced into a business supporting a new society. The tall, jade-skinned, ectomorphic Ogüptans controlled the exploitation of the past from their capital, the spaceport Moph. Some are sandminers, sifting the red dust for fragments of code and the rare whole artifact left from the Great Collapse. Others are tomb-robbers, wresting the minds of the long dead to sell into slavery, to toil in the infospheres of today. 

Tomb-robbing isn’t without risk. The data is secure, and getting at it often requires overcoming deadly physical and digital intrusion countermeasures. Perhaps even worse, strife around the Great Collapse or soon after, left the desert full of spirits and devils. Wild nanites haunt the wastes: malicious djinn and  body-thief dybbuks. Then there are the masked desert tribes, murderously resentful of intruders into their sacred places.

Despite these risks, there is no shortage of people willing to brave them for a chance at quick money.

Swords & Celebrity

The red-skinned humanoids of Zyanthion are known throughout the galaxy for their pursuit of pleasure and their peculiar, anarchic society. Popular media depicts them as passionate to a fault; as likely to be heedlessly pursuing a new romantic conquest as to be fighting a duel with archaic (but deadly) graphene-edged rapiers--and they do either in a very public way.

To visitors from other cultures, Zyann seem obsessed with status and celebrity. Virtually all their activities are public recorded in their noosphere [planet-wide internet and grid]. They live or die socially by the praise or disapproval they receive for their actions. Zyanthion operates on a reputation economy. There is no money; goods and services are given to others in hopes of enhancing one’s own prestige. This “currency” (awarded and tracked in the noosphere) is known as éclat. Zyann who have accumulated high éclat (whether from artistry, craftsmanship, bravery, or skill as a lover) can become a powerful in their society, able to occupy manors and estates, and assume self-chosen titles of nobility--as long as their éclat remains sufficiently high.

Current fashion is important to Zyann in all facets of their society. Religions and belief systems appear, flourish, and fall from favor almost as quickly as clothing fads. Only a few Zyann have cultivated the “right” sort of name to avoid having to chase styles to maintain their position.

Because of the supremacy of reputation, Zyann honor is easily offended. Off-world visitors can easily find themselves challenged to a duel. Consultation of a lawyer of at least moderate éclat is advised in such situations, as there are face-saving ways of avoiding the deadly art of Zyann swordsmanship in many cases.  Of course, visitors have to be mindful of their own graciously gifted éclat in such situations.

Inner City Blues

Weird Adventures presents the City and it’s world in the year 5888, an era of automobiles, machine guns, and jazz.  Of course, that’s not the only age when there’s adventure to be had:

About thirty-five years in the future, the City is again seeing hard times. A  grinding war continues with Red Lemuria. Political scandal and public corruption has eroded trust in institutions. The aging subway trains are covered with graffiti. Solace is full of abandoned buildings, crime, drugs, and poverty. The Circus, once the brightly lit crossroads of the world, is now the home of sleazy grindhouses and a haven for pimps, hookers, and drug pushers.

The reputation of thaumaturgy has suffered just like other traditional institutions. Murderous gurus, scandals involving sex rituals, and scam artists have led to the thaumaturgic arts being viewed unsavory and dangerous by the masses, and old-fashion and hokey by the counter-culture.

There are still adventurers, though--and more than ever they're quasi-outlaws sticking it to the Fat Cats and the Establishment. Most of the dungeons have been cleaned out, but there are plenty of treasures in the hands of the wealthy. And there are always monsters--just now some of them sit in positions of power.

Foes: thrill-kill cult gurus, street gangs, the decadent wealthy with secrets to hide, corrupt cops and politicians, the Hell Syndicate.

Media Inspirations: Film/TV: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Enter the Dragon, Kolchak: the Night-Stalker, Shaft, Sugar Hill (1974), To The Devil...A Daughter, The Warriors, Vanishing Point; Books: the works of Dennis Wheatley and Stephen King, the Doctor Orient novels, the Destroyer novels, exploitive seventies nonfiction about witches and the occult; Comic Books: Night Force, Swamp Thing, Vampire Tales and any of Marvel’s other black and white magazines; Music: Jimmy Page’s unused soundtrack for the film Lucifer Rising. The Shaft and Truck Turner soundtracks by Isaac Hayes, Superfly soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield;  any of Goblin’s music from Argento’s films.

Warlord Wednesday: The Times (and Costumes) Are A-Changin'

Let's take a break this week from the adventures of Morgan and the gang, and consider the changes that have come in the visual depictions of The Warlord's cast. Our canary in the fashion coal mine will be Mariah Romanova, Russian fencing champion and archaelogist. Mariah isn't in Skartaris long before she acquires a standard Skartarian outfit:

As impractical as it is improbable, Mariah's outfit nevertheless marks her as a hero: bit players in the saga tend to have more standard Conan comic attire. Note the Farrah Fawcett feathered hair and the colored eye patches that were sported by several comic characters in the era.

As the years go by, Mariah's hair changes a little bit--and when Ron Randall takes over, her costume gets a bit skimpier. Then after the "Morgan's Quest" saga, Randall gets into a bit of costume experimentation:

Here we see what must be Mariah's "lounging about the castle" outfit. (This is an idea with precedent: Tara and Morgan got them in previous issues.) It's a pretty 70s design despite the era; it recalls the duds of DC's first Starfire. Not that she's got kind of 80s hair, though, and the eye makeup has expanded beyond the old raccoon eyes look.

When next Randall has her back in her standard outfit, it's been subtly (or maybe not so subtly) altered. It's just as revealing, but more a more complicated design. She's now sporting hair and a headband borrowed from some aerobics instructor. Her eye makeup is asymmetric has gotten all Jem and the Holograms (which started around this same time--this stuff was just the zeitgeist).

What's next for Mariah?  Come back next Wednesday and find out.

Galactic History with Pictures

It's commonly accepted that most of the galaxy's sophonts are either descendants or creations of humanity who came into being on the fabled world of Earth. The location of this ur-world of the humanoid phyle is lost. 

The original civilization of humanity collapsed (perhaps multiple times) or perhaps it ascended. Whether the end was glorious or tragic, the true history of these times is only fragmented legend.

The Archaics rose with the aide of knowledge salvaged ruins of the past. They built crystalline cities that floated in the air, and connected the noospheres of their worlds with superluminal relays via wormwholes.  

Something happened. There was a Great Collapse and galactic civilization fractured into individual worlds, and some of them slid back into savagery.

The Radiant Polity, one of the successor states to the Archaic Oikumene, was torn asunder by conflict between toxic memes. The Instrumentality of the current age was born out of this struggle.

The planet Phobetor is home to monsters: Bandersnatches, kalidahs, cateblopases, and crocotta are among the deadly bio-art horrors released onto the world's surface by the artists living in the dilapiated floating city above it. This artists' colony became the Phantasists of today.

The Zao Corsairs

The Zao are an infamous group of space pirates. Their brazen crimes and theatrical flair have made them a favorite as villains and anti-heroes in sims and other popular entertainments. The truth is far from glamorous: the Zao are killers who capture ships, loot them, and hold their passengers for ransom or sell them into slavery--sometimes selling their bodies separately from their uploaded minds.

The Zao are a multi-bioform (perhaps even multi-species) association, but the original founding group was composed of perhaps a few hundred former prisoners of the Radiant Polity. As the polity was torn apart by meme wars, the prison asteroid Naraka was left understaffed.The prison was taken by a group of inmates (legend has it, after one of their rehabilitation programs was replaced by hackers with a sim mixing elements of various ancient adventure and crime narratives), and the asteroid has served as the pirates base of operations since. The asteroid is cloaked in a defensive dust that only allows authorized craft to pass unscathed.

Anyone may call themselves a Zao pirate, and some vessels operating under that title may have no connection to Naraka, but the actual Zao pirates react harshly to those “flying their flag” who don't obey their established codes governing the division of plunder, interactions between affiliate vessels, and the secrecy of their defense system keycodes.

No. Appearing:1-10

AC: 7

Saving Throw: 15+

Attack Bonus: +1

Damage: by weapon (1d8+1 monoblade, 2d6 void carbine)

Movement: 30'

Skill Bonus: +2

Morale: 9

The Zao have fondness for old-fashion appearing bladed weapons for close-quarters boarding, but are certainly not adverse to the use of ranged weaponry.

Science Fiction Inspirations

My appreciation for pulp science fiction is well known, but I haven’t recommended any non-pulp stuff in a while, so maybe it’s about time. These are not only good reads, but good gaming inspirations:

The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds by Scott Westerfield form a space opera duology about a struggle between two powers: an empire ruled by the immortal-after-death Risen and the Rix, cybernetic humans who worship planetary-size AIs. The opening battle is much more “hard science fiction” than anything in Star Wars or Star Trek--and all the more  fresh and inventive for it. The Rix, there abilities and goals, are much interesting than the Borg ever were, while filling a similar niche.

Diaspora by Greg Egan is less of an action narrative and not as immediately gameable, but has plenty of interesting elements. In the far future, when the solar system is inhabited by post-humans, a cosmic catastrophe endangers all life. The digital citizens of one polis hatch a plan to escape--to higher order dimensions! Probably the most gameable bits here are the different clades of post-humanity and their societies: the digital polis citizens, the robotic gleisners, the devolved dream-apes.

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi sits between these two. It’s got a bit of Diaspora’s heavy science flights of fancy and post-human setting, but more of the Succession duology’s action and conflict. Jean le Flambleur, the greatest thief in the solar system, is busted out of prison by an Oortian warrior and her intelligent ship. The Oortian’s master has a job for le Flambleur, but first the thief has to retreive his own memories from a moving city on Mars--and match wits with a young consulting detective to do so. The various societies of Rajaniemi’s future are exotic and the technologies presented are really evocative.