Living Fast

Art by Gregory Manchess

Quicklings are a clade found on numerous worlds in the Strange Stars outside the control of the hegemonic powers. They bear some resemblance to the fairies from the legends of Old Earth: they are approximately 8 cm tall humanoids with insect-like wings. They are actually bioroids (sapient despite their small size) who get their name from their short lifespans and their faster neural "clockspeed."

Quickling tribes or collectives live geographically close (even within) cities and habitats of other humanoids, but live apart due to the difficulty of interaction. Quicklings find other humanoids unbearably slow, while neural baselines have to use special devices for all but the most rudimentary communication. Quickling tribes can be hired for various purposes, and they care little for legalities, but given their attention spans, all plans must be relatively simple.

Their small size and necessarily low weights (for flight) mean their brains must be made of nonbiologic materials. Even still, they are less intelligent than the average baseline (Int 8). However, groups of quicklings form a partial neural composition and have some sharing of of cognition, so the more quicklings in close proximity, the smarter they are (+1 for every 2 additional quicklings, max. 20).

Art by Aaron Sidall

No. Appearing: 2-20 (up to 300 in swarm)
AC: 0
HD: 1-2 HP
Saving Throw: 16
Attack Bonus: +4
Damage: 1 point
Movement: 40’ fly
Morale: 8
Special Abilities: Quicklings move so quickly they appear as blur to unenhanced baselines. Attacks against them have a 20% chance to miss (roll before attack roll). Quicklings are never surprised by unenhanced individuals and always roll for initiative as normal, no matter the circumstance.

Remember the Titans

The Olympians wrested control of the Cosmos from its creators (and theirs), beings known as Titans. Though the name is often used for all pre-Olympian entities of power, it most accurately refers to the children/creations of the Primoridals (noumenal beings born from Chaos) Ouranos and Gaea. For reasons not fully known to anyone but himself, the titan Kronos sought to create a more permanent world of matter and time, something less mutable than the idea-space where the titans existed. Eleven of his peers were either dupes or co-conspirators in the creation.

The Titans were lessened by their participation in the Cosmos project. They were forced to embody and support fixed aspects of the architecture of Kronos's world: They entered as creators but became as much prisoners as those that came after them.

In the end, the dimunition and split attention forced upon them in the Cosmos led to their undoing. The much weaker Olympians and their allies were able to exploit flaws and weaknesses in the universe that the titans had been blinded to by their perspective. Those that opposed the Olympians' coup were imprisoned in the extradimensional realm within Tartarus.

The titans avatars (only a part of their vastness can be seen, even in their diminished state within the Cosmos) appear as humanoid giants. Their primary self-nodes often reside at other places in the universe: for instance, Hyperion's intellect resides in a quantum collective constructed in the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, while Theia's is distributed in the stellar nursery of the Orion Nebula.

Meet the Olympians

The Olympians are alien beings of great power and advanced technology worshipped by humans under a variety of different names. A group of them staged a coup against their creators/forebearers, the alien god-monsters called titans, and imprisoned those that did bow to their rule in the extradimensional prison, Tartarus.

While generally humanoid in appearance, Olympians were engineered with capabilities beyound those of earthly humanity and have a much greater resistance to damage and injory. Their technology also allows them to project the illusions and even to modify their physical forms. Olympians appear to be inter-fertile with humans, though this may be accomplished by their science. 

Olympians spend much of their time in a flying city shrouded in clouds. It can sometimes be found above Mount Olympos, but it isn’t limited to that location. Olympian theoretically allows surveillance of virtually anywhere in the world, though they seldom are paying attention to the information gathered.

Powers: All Olympians possess the equivalent of the Mutant Future powers of Regenerative Aility, and Ability Boost.They possess other abilities on an individual basis.

Technology: Using simply the capabilites of their home on Olympos they can access its library databanks for a vast array of information, communication with their fellow Olympians anywhere in the world, or teleport at will.

Fourth of July Freak Out

On this Independence Day, you can do worse than kick back with a beer, watching a cult or trashy movie (I'd suggest Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill, Harley Davidson and the Malboro Man, or Rolling Thunder) and ordering your copy of Jack Shear's psychotronic, post-apocalyptic Americana rpg setting Planet Motherf*cker. Freakout is optional.

Here's a mix of musical moods to get you in the right frame of mind:

"Psychobilly Freakout" by the Reverend Horton Heat:

"White Lightning" by Charles Bernstein: 

"Chase the Devil" The Eagles of Death Metal:

"Comanche" The Revels:

"Too Drunk to..." Nouvelle Vague:

Warlord Wednesday: The Worm of Heaven and Hell

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 Worm of Heaven and Hell"

Warlord #132 (November 1988)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Art by Jan Duursema

Synopsis: Khnathaiti rides a tentacle worm creature, Sesanaga the Lava-Serpent, and bids it to sing out so that its weirdling song can be magnified by the mystic “doom-crystal” and rouse Anu from the God-Plane to ravage the multiverse.

Another, even more huge tentacle worm-thing erupts through the ground in Skartaris near Morgan and Aoife. It writhes and reaches toward the sky and where it pierces it, alien beings and fragments of their worlds fall through. One of them is crying out in pain, part of his body fused into a piece of rock. Morgan reluctant thinks of drawing his pistol and putting the alien out of his misery. He’s beaten to it:

Aoife is futilely striking at the worm with her sword. She gets a vision of a future where everything was turned to stone. The vision worries the starfish-headed alien who flies up and uses his power to close the riff in the sky left by the worm's passing. He fears it will do little good if the cosmos ends.

Meanwhile, Jennifer has magically summoned Shakira to Shamballah. She hopes to enlist her aid in finding Morgan. She’s overheard some of the spells Khnathaiti was casting:

A serpent-haired Khnathaiti head emerges from the pages of the book to attack. Jennifer beats it back with her magic, but unfortunately destroys the book that might have helped in the process.

Elsewhere, Morgan sleep,s and the spirit of Tara tries to make contact with him, to warn him of Khnathaiti’s plan. Before she can, the sorceress shows up and banishes her. Morgan wakes up with a start to find himself alone.

In her lair, Khnathaiti barters Tara’s troublesome soul to extra-dimensional merchant. She’s led off in a coffle:

Starfish fills Aoife and Morgan in on a lot of cosmology. His name is Ishum, and before the advent of the cosmos, the great god Ea bade him sound his horn and summon the great worm Anu from the void. Anu’s writhing and undulations created the world. Tiamat, She-Dragon of Chaos, was upset about this state of affairs and killed Ea in his sleep. Then (since she couldn’t undo the cosmos) she decreed that the horn would be sounded again at so future point to call forth Anu to end it. Because he had failed to warn Ea, Ishum was confined to “a darksome realm” where only Anu dwelled. It was his job to make sure Anu stayed satisfied with an occasional tasty planetoid.

His life went on in that way until Khnathaiti found a way to fake the horn’s sounding and summon Anu. Now:

Meanwhile, somewhere amid the nine worlds, the caravan with Tara in it reaches its destination:

Things to Notice:

• This is the penultimate issue of Warlord.
• Jan Duursema is listed as "co-plotter."

Where It Comes From:
The cosmic deities in this issue have names borrowed from Mesopotamian mythologies. Ishum is the name of a minor Akkadian god, related to the sun but also a herald of war. Ea is a Akkadian and Babylonian deity who is god of creation and seawater. Tiamat (perhaps more famous from her Dungeon & Dragons namesake) is indeed a chaos dragon, and primordial goddess of the ocean.

There are several references to there being nine worlds or realms in this story. This is a new edition to the Warlord cosmology. It was probably an idea borrowed from Norse mythology.

Weird Pirate (Doomed) Romance

In my continuing WaRP Weird Adventures game last night, the PCs were tasked by the loathsome swamp witch (supposedly once a pirate queen, Eliza Bonney) with finding a way of freeing her from her ship turned prison, stuck incongruously in a lake deep in a Southron swamp. The gang went back to town for supplies and left poor Professor Pao as the witch's hostage.

Rue consults the spirits and discovers that the witch can be harmed by something that belonged to her lover and former partner--something that can "cut her flesh and pierce her heart." Luckily, the town has a small museum with a pirate history display and a lovelorn curator, Imogenia Frump, who falls for the charms of international man of mystery, Jacques.

Our heroes find out that two pirates came ashore to bury treasure here: Eliza Bonney and Red Marguerite. The two had a falling out over the loot, or so the story goes. In the museum's possession is an old cutlass and a small, wooden chest. Jacques uses his influence over Imogenia to "borrow" the items for study at a prestigious City university.

Fairly certain that Red Marguerite and Eliza were lovers, the PCs figure the cutlass will come in handy. Investigating the box reveals a secret compartment with a heart-shaped necklace of ruby and silver. So armed, they head back out to the swamp for a showdown.

Things don't go exactly as planned (when do they ever?) but the PCs manage to cut the locket--piercing the witch's heart--and making her vulnerable to their attacks. She appears to fall away into the depths, her bulk destroying the ship in her death throes.

Our heroes escaped but without the treasure some of them hoped for, other than the suggestion they had done a community service by destroying an ancient evil.

The Underworld

Few of the Olympians are as feared by humans as the gloomy and sardonic Hades, the Unseen One. They believe him to be the King of the Underworld, but their primitive worldview misunderstands his true roll: Hades is both archivist and warden for his people.

After the Olympian coup against the titans, they found it necessary to imprison some their defeated foes. They placed the titans outside the Cosmos, in the mindspace or thought-body of the primordial Tartarus; One of their progenitors was to be the titans' new prison. The Olympians built an underground fortress to protect the Tartarean Projector (the only means of entering the prison--or letting anything escape) against attack by any of the titans' allies.

The new rulers of the Cosmos also decided to create a library to commemorate their conquest and the world they ruled. It was placed in the same fortress to be kept safe for future generations. The artifice of Olympians and the titans before them had recorded the history of the Cosmos; they had even recorded the experiences and personalities of selected humans and peserved them. These artificial "spirits" were given realms (created in the archive's network) to inhabit: paradises for the favorites of the Olympians and eternal punishments for those that displeased them. These archived records can be accessed in holographic projection at any time; the archive (the Underworld, to the superstitious Greeks who have glimpsed it) is a place full of ghosts.

The saturnine Hades is content among the collection is his charge. He has a companion, Persephone, a pale and beautiful young woman, friendlier than her lord, but with the same dark interests. Hades is mostly annoyed by humans that blunder into his domain, but Persephone's influence tends to lead him to only frighten them, rather than kill them outright. That mercy doesn't extend to those who are disrespectful or interfere with his servitors.

Hades carriers a bident that appears to be made of a black metal, but is actually a sophisticated technological device made of a polymer. He can shoot a beam from it to destructively scan and record all the information about a target. The bident can download this information at a later time. He also wears a black metallic skullcap on occasion, through which me can neurally access the databanks of the archive.

HADES'S BIDENT: 4ft. long (but capable of collapsing to 2 ft.). Once an hour, as per the Mutant Future power disentigration (up to 300 lbs.), except a total digital record of the target is created.

Please Stand By

Work has been killing me, so the blog has had to take a back seat. More Strange Stars, science fantasy Greek mythology, and other stuff to come.

Stay tuned.

Warlord Wednesday: Growing Pains

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...

"Growing Pains"

Warlord #131 (September 1988) Bonus Book 6

Written by Steve Wilson; Pencils Rob Liefeld; Inks Jeff Albrecht

Synopsis: Jennifer sees an urchin on the streets of Shamballah steal a coin from the body of a dead man and decides to take him under her wing. She brings him back to the palace.

Masaq, palace soldier, believes she's wrong for trusting him. This makes Jennifer recall a stray kitten she took in as a girl. Her mother didn't want her to keep the cat, either. Jennifer tried to find the cat's owner, and she tries to find the boy's family, but only manages to tunr up and angry merchant that says the boy has been stealing from him. Jennifer defends the boy.

The cat tore up the furniture; the boy, Valdesar, steals a knife and disappears. Using her magic, Jennifer sees the past of the coin and sees that Valdesar had actually killed the man. Guessing what he might do next, she hurries to the merchant's dwelling.

The merchant's dead. Valdesar claims it was self-defense, but Jennifer doesn't believe him. The boy runs away just like the cat did. The cat run out in front of a car and the boy runs out in front of a team of horses. Both were killed.

Jennifer was sad as a girl and is sad now. Her father is gone, her mother is gone, and Tara is gone--and she's all alone.

Things to Notice:

• Valdesar looks an awful lot like Tinder, but nobody ever comments on that.
• This story makes the error of allowing DC's sliding timeline to seep into Warlord (which has previously been without it). Jennifer and a friend are shown watching a Mel Gibson film as preteen/early teen girls. According, to the established Warlord timeline, Jennifer was in her late teens/early twenties by the time Gibson was in feature films.

Where It Comes From:
DC's Bonus Books were a series of 16-page stories inserted in various comics that showcased new talent. A list of the various bonus books and their feature characters can be found here.

Kosmoniks

The Kosmoniks or Cosmoi are a clade of traders (and sometimes pirates) believed to be descended from space-adapted humans, now acclimated to hyperspace. Though they are most commonly found in their rune inscribed ships in or around the nodes or operating terminal stations near stars above the galactic plane (in the vicinity of Deshret, for instance), but they roam far into the Zuran Expanse.

Appearance and Biology: Kosmoniks are short (1.4 m tall on average), lean, and have arms almost as along as their legs. They have dexterous, four digited hands and their feet are prehensile. Their gray skin is a flexible membrane, engineered to afford some protection against hard vacuum. Their most unusual trait are their faces: they are flat and hidden behind smooth, glossy masks, featureless except for their dark, membrane-protected eyes. This mask is thought to nanotechological device, but no non-kosmonik has ever had a chance to examine one.

All kosmoniks are mute. They communicate with each other via sign language, but carry translator devices to interact with other cultures.

Psychology: Kosmoniks are friendly, but superstitious. They are given to finding hidden meanings and interpreting signs and portends from events. All kosmonik groups have a set of taboos, but each kosmonik is likely to idiosyncratic ones, as well.

Stats/Abilites: Kosmoniks have ability scores in the same range as humans. They are able to withstand exposure to vacuum for two rounds before they must begin to make saving throws (and get a +1 to those saving throws). They also get a +1 to saving throws against radiation.

In the Land of Arn

Continuing my reposting of Google+ of setting tidbits, here are some more pictures and more glimpses into a fantasy world:

At the Conclave of Sorcerers the haughty Mabdosir Turms made overtures to Vathluna Drox regarding the exchange of thaumaturgical research--and things more carnal.  Turms was only saved from more than a sharp rebuke by the gong announcing the start of the invocation ritual.

Hierodules perform in sexual rites within the temple of Meln itself, the oldest in the city, venerating the now nameless and distant gods of the city’s foundation. Hierodules come from all social classes and serve anonymously beneath masks that also seem to disguise their voices, lending them an otherworldy quality.  No one has ever noted a hierodule to age. It is presumed they do, as new initiates are selected from time to time, but no one knows what becomes of those that retire.  The inner sanctum of the temple holds a lingam with glyphs (worn and faded) that sages believe was a boundary marker of some pre-human civilization.

The Throne Room of Gaagmragog, sub-man bandit chieftain. His motley band of outlaw humans, sub-men, and degenerate species less identifiable, holes up in a series of caves inside a rock "island" deep in the Great Swamp

Down These Mean Streets

Shadowrun has never had a good source book on New York City. Mike "Wrathofthezomibe" Evans (that mad man of gaming and Hellboy tattoos) has rectified that problem and added Vornheim inspired urban adventuring tools to boot.   What's more this Shadowrun Complete City Kit and New York City Guide can be yours for the low, low price of free.

Download it here.

In the Dharwood

Last summer, I did some picture-based riffing on a setting on Google+. Since only part of that ever appeared on the blog (and without pictures), I thought it might be of interest to my readership here. I did more than these three. If there is interest, I might re-post more. I might even if there's not.

Golden Men of Haoun Dhar: The only inhabitants of the ruins which give the Dharwood its name. The men are seen on occasion amid the tall columns (engraved with demonic faces) performing odd, communal rituals or standing like statues on the central ziggurat for hours on end.  At night they are sometimes glimpsed on the ziggurat’s pinnacle, seeming to make observations of the heavens with unusual instruments. Few dare approach the ruins for fear of the strange men, despite the legends of a fabulous treasure within the ziggurat.

Kro One-Eye : Alcoholic (and possibly consumptive) swordmaster. He lost his left eye either to an insurgent in the Dharwood or to an angry whore, depending on how deep into the cups he his when he gets 'round to the tale. He's a fixture in dives along Wine and Tavern Streets, regaling fellow patrons with daring (and dubious) tales of his youthful adventures, and the occasional demonstration of his skills. For a cup of watered wine he'll give a few pointers on swordmanship. For a bottle of good Kael whiskey, he'll take on a student. For a small cask of vintage Trosian Red, he'll fight at your side--as long as it doesn't take him far from the River District for long.

Mystery cult snake priestess: One of many such agitators in the peasant uprising in the Dharwood.  Nobles have been burned alive in giant wicker statues in heretical rites. Lawlessness and banditry are common throughout the region and travelers should take care.

Cyclopes

By way of example of the sort of thing I was thinking of with the Greek mythology science fantasy setting riff I blogged about, here are some ideas for cyclopes. As any one familiar with Deities & Demigods (or Greek mythology) knows, cyclopes come in two varieities: lesser and greater. Use your system of choice's stats for them.

Art by Chris Lazzer

Lesser cyclopes are biomechanical creations of the Olympians. Perhaps they were weapons in the war with the titans, but now they are used as sentinels or are found roaming free in desolate places. Most are still playthings of one Olympian or another, so tampering with them may well invite a god's wrath.

Lesser cyclopes are giants (20 ft. tall) and have rather simple operating parameters--meaning they tend to regard humans as things to be exterminated. Their solitary sensor (or "eye") is overwhelmingly their primary means of gathering data on their surroundings so that (combined with their limited intelligence) makes them easy to "blind." Some lesser cyclopes may be able to unleash an electrical blast from their single eye.

Greater cyclopes resemble lesser ones in appearing to have one eye, but are actually very different creatures. These are intelligent servitors, created to aid Hephaestus in his efforts. These gleaming skinned giants (about 10 ft. tall) have a constantly moving eye of piercing light in their otherwise featureless faces. Their scanning sensor collects information in array of different modalities. They can fire highly destructive beams if they have the need. They are dispassionate, utterly logical beings, not given to wanton violence, but also utterly without mercy.

Warlord Wednesday: Vengeful Legacies

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...

"Vengeful Legacies"

Warlord #131 (September 1988)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Art by Jan Duursema

Synopsis: Maddox and Morgan are having a drink in Xur-Chemosh, reminiscing about old times. That is until Maddox reveals he was the one flying the MiG that Morgan shot down just before ending up in Skartaris. Morgan is drugged by the wine and when he wakes up he’s in a dungeon. Maddox plans to make him pay for those years he spent in the gulag.

Meanwhile, Aoife wakes up on the beach. She’s captured by soldiers and brought to the palace before Maddox and Mariah. Maddox is interested in her jeweled headband and wants to take it. Aoife realizes Maddox is evil and tries to attack him. He has her taken away. He backhands Mariah when she tries to intervene, then apologizes in typical abuser fashion.

Mariah asks about Morgan. Maddox tells her that he must have wandered off. In reality:

And that’s just the first torture he’s got planned!

Leaving that ugly scene gives us a chance to check in on the rest of Warlord’s cast. Jennifer’s spying on Khnathaiti’s spell casting. The evil sorcereress is calling on some ancient beings of darkness and it’s got Jennifer worried. Shakira is making out with two handsome shepherds when a bolt of energy strikes her and she disappears.

In Xur-Chemosh, a suspicious Mariah is armed and back in her old outfit, sneaking around:

Maddox is convinced Aoife’s headband activates the one mysterious machine in the ship he found. When he leaves to try it, Mariah sneaks in the free Morgan. Unfortunately, Maddox catches her in the act. He chains her up too, so she can watch Morgan die.

Before that though, Maddox tries out the headband and the weird device. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t the summoning of an angry eidolon of a long-dead Atlantean sorcerer—but that’s what he gets! It seems Garn Daanuth’s acolytes escaped the destruction of Atlantis in the ship to start anew in Skartaris. And the device?

Aoife begins to get images in her head. She sees a baby, found with the diadem in the crashed ship. The priests of Xur-Chemosh handed her over to an executioner, but the man couldn’t bring himself to kill a baby outright and set her adrift. She was found and raised by the people of Cuchulainn. The headband was passed down through the generations until it came to rest on Aoife’s brow. Aoife is a distant descendant of the acolytes of Garn.

Aoife manages to tap the devices power to allow her to free herself and Morgan. Just in time too, because the angry eidolon of Garn is beginning to shake Xur-Chemosh apart. They rush to the rescue, but Maddox won’t give up the headband without a fight. Morgan prevails, of course, and Aoife reclaims the diadem just in time to stop a massive wave from destroying everything. Being pure evil, Garn isn’t super-happy about this turn of events, but Aoife is of the proper bloodline, so he lets it pass.

Morgan and Aoife bid their good-byes. Mariah (amazingly) is going to stay with Maddox because he “in spite of everything” she knows he loves her. What’s a little attempt to boil her friend in oil and make her watch, right?  Morgan, prudently, has confiscated all Maddox’s guns.

Things to Notice:

• This is the final chapter of "Maddox's Revenge."
• This issue has a "Bonus Book" story that features the second professional publication of Rob Liefield.

Where It Comes From:
Garn Daanuth is a from Arion, Lord of Atlantis. He's Arion's twin brother and as such some sort of great-uncle to Power Girl.

Gods, Heroes & Super-Science

Reading Lob's and Pichard's comic book adaptation of Homer's Odyssey from the pages of Heavy Metal has got me thinking what a great setting science fantasy Greek myth might be. Not recasting the myths into a science fiction context or something like that, but bringing a little Jack Kirby twist to the proceedings. Maybe a fantasy world that's post-apocalyptic, but where the apocalypse was the Titanomachy.

The heroes (the PCs) would be hapless Bronze Age Achaeans who are playthings for high tech cultures (aliens or extradimensional beings) who are there gods. Guys that look sort of like this:

Art by Pichard

Beings descended (or created) by extradimensional monsters like this:

by Jack Kirby

It would be a world informed by Chariots of the Gods reinterpretation as well as the usual interpretatio graeca. Maybe Nereids are scaled (as Pliny tells) icthyohumanoids from another world. The cyclopes may well be robots.

In addition to Ulysses above, the Orphans of Chaos series (where universe creating Saturn is a rebel against his hyperdimensional species that stands outside of time--and wants to destroy it) by John C. Wright would be a could inspiration. Any of Jack Kirby's mythology related works are also essential, particularly The Eternals.

The Alliance

The Alliance is unique in the Strange Stars in representing interspecies cooperation on an interstellar scale. It was formed by seven peoples displaced by the Great Collapse. Initially distrustful of each other, they came to fear the lawlessness of the Zuran Expanse and religious strife in the center of the Radiant Polity more than sacrificing a bit of their own sovereignty.

Previously, we've touched on the smaragdines, the blesh and the gnomes.  Here's an overview of the other Alliance members:

The hyehoon are humanoids spliced from avian and hominid DNA. They have lighter frames than humans, but are strong for their weight. Hyehoon are a dynamic and inquisitive culture, producing explorers, scientists, diplomats and traders. They face internal strife from conflict with the minority religious faction known as the Eden Seekers.

The neshekk banking and investment clans are the financial backbone of the Alliance. Neshekk are greatly concerned (possibly obsessed) with security and privacy. They never go into public without their elaborate privacy screeens/firewalls called nizara in place. Off-worlders are restricted to certain areas of Kuznuh, the neshekk homeworld, and it is a misdemeanor to view any public space unfiltered by the metascape.

The Alliance's greatest warriors are the thrax. A clone race, created for war, they still structure their society along martial lines. They are known for their elaborate battle armor and their enthusiasm for hand to hand weapons.

The winged deva are the most mysterious of the Alliance's members. They can survive in hard vacuum unprotected and through space under their own power (at least for short distances). In their home system of Altair, they're repairing damaged moon-sized brains.

The Man of Steel

I have a couple of friends whose primary request for a new Superman movie is that "Superman punch stuff" (action of that sort being in short supply in Singer's Superman Returns and Donner's Superman, too). I can unequivocally say the Man of Steel delivers in that department, that's not the only thing to like here. This new origin story for Superman follows on the heels of Nolan's Dark Knight films are delivers a pretty well-crafted film that just happens to be about a superhero rather than  working primarily on spectacle to disguise a lacking script--not that there isn't a lot of spectacle.

The film starts on Krypton. It's take has little references to several recent versions: Byrne's Man of Steel, Silver Age stories, and stuff more recent. There's also a bit of Russian cosmism and post-Alien techno-organic look. The headgear of the ruling council of Krypton reminds me a lot of Aelita.

When we get to Earth. Baby Kal-El is grown into an adult Clark Kent, set apart from the rest of humanity and drifting like Hugo Danner in Wylie's Gladiator. His growing up in Smallville is delivered in flashbacks interspersed throughout. Some reviewers have felt this made the film feel disjointed but I wasn't bothered by it. Lois Lane and Phantom Zone criminals appear in short order, making this film feel like it has a shorter ramp up than a lot of other origin stories to me.

There are some changes to the Superman mythos (as if there was one unified version) that may bother some people. Jonathan Kent's portrayal, for instance, seems to be the many thing people have a problem with--though I don't think that's the biggest change.

The film is very serious; it's definitely in a different vein than the Marvel films. It works, but it could have had a few more bits of levity without much changing the weightiness they seemed to be going for. The film's palette is muted: from Krypton to Kansas there isn't anything colorful here. Several reviewers have said the action sequences sometimes go on a bit too long, and I can see that (though I really wasn't bothered by it), but what really got to me was how many bystanders were probably killed off-screen in all the destruction. This breezy attitude toward mass destruction is a trend in summer (uh, spring) blockbusters in general, so it's not flaw of Man of Steel alone, but I still feel like it's a flaw.

So anyway, that's my take. Check it out.

The Torturers

Art by Brom

There are a lot of bad things that can happen to travelers in the Zuran Expanse, not the least of them is falling into the hands of the people of Algos. They're often called "algophilists," and though the ancient term was originally synonymous with masochist, the Algosians are not as particular about whose pain they enjoy.

Algosians are disciplined in their pleasure-seeking. There is an almost monastic structure to their society and a purity (if such a word applies) of purpose. They worship the historic torture cult of the Faceless Ones like gods. It's thought that they may in fact be the bioroid creations of those ancient sadists, designed to satisfy their creators' need for playthings who were durable, resilient--and even appreciative. The Algosians learned much from their masters and now apply that knowledge to those that fall into their hands.

Not usually given to direct attacks on vessels, the Algosians rely on kidnappings to get most of their victims. They operate clubs or brothels in some spaceports, though their involvment is usually secret. Some physicians and medical researchers seek them out in an attempt to gain access to their extensive observations  on the physiology of various in regard to pain tolerance or pleasure responses.

 The Algosians appear as pallid, thin humanoids. They are physiologically similar to baseline humans in most respects but have higher than average constitutions (minimum 12) and resistances to pain. Their natural recovery of hit points is at twice the normal rate, though medical care or biopsionics effect them the same as they would anyone else.

Warlord Wednesday: Past Lives

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 Vision Quest"

Warlord #130 (July 1988)

Written by Michael Fleisher; Art by Jan Duursema

Synopsis: Morgan is bathing in a pool when he thinks he hears a voice calling his name from behind a waterfall. A vision of Tara emerges from the falls; she seems to be trying to tell him something. Then, the vision’s gone. Aoife tries to comfort him. Morgan’s still too caught up in grief to see the woman right in front of him.

Meanwhile on Xur-Chemosh, Maddox has practically become a god, using the alien spacecraft (apparently designed to be an all-purpose colonization tool) to plant crops and even build a city. There’s just one machine in the craft he can’t figure out; the helmet won’t tell him about it. The craft does, however seem to take control of his arm to make him fire a weapon when the ship is attacked by a plant creature.

The evil sorceress Khnathaiti has retrieved the amulet Jennifer gave Tara from the volcano and is trying to control its magic herself. Her use of it forces Jennifer to constantly guard against her opening a conduit between the two of them.

Morgan and Aoife are almost at the Tourmaline Sea. Aoife has another vision:

She is convinced her destiny awaits her on the island.

They’ve reached the coast but how do they get to the island? Aoife’s got that covered.

Over the open ocean, they run into a storm. The lightning does something weird to Aoife. She faints and the carpet plummets from the sky. Morgan loses Aoife in the waves.

In Xur-Chemosh, Maddox and Mariah are getting close. A sneak attack by a group of priests spoils their good time. Danny handles it with brutal efficiency:

Morgan washes up on a beach. He makes his way to a city where he chances to encounter his old friend Mariah in a lizard drawn carriage.  Unfortunately, she’s also with his old nemesis, Danny Maddox:

Things to Notice:

• This is the second chapter of Maddox's Revenge.
• Shakira (in her brief freelance exterminator appearrance) is a lot beefier than usually drawn.

Where It Comes From:
This issue references explicitly Morgan's previous relationship with Maddox as mentioned before.

Magic carpets are a fairly common fantasy trope, but this is the first one in Warlord.

The Weird Town: Investigative Sandbox

Watching the 2012 Dark Shadows move this weekend got me thinking about the original show and just how many unusual things happened in that sleepy little Maine town. (True, some of them required time travel and even visits to parallel timelines, but still the same town.) It occurs to me that it would interesting to do a campaign set in a town with weird secrets like Collinsport, Twin Peaks, Crystal Cove from Scooby-Doo, Mystery Inc., or the titular Happy Town (in a show that died too young). A sufficiently large single edifice would do, too--like maybe Gormenghast.

The difference between these settings and larger settings is that investigation not exploration is the order of the day. They differ from traditional investigative settings in that the locale itself is mysterious, unlike New York City in any police procedural or Arkham in Lovecraftiana. This kind of campaign may be better suited to a game that has more of an investigative focus like GUMSHOE or even good ol' Call of Cthulhu. The PCs are probably new in town to heighten the mystery, but some may well have past connections to it: A connection that should give them a reason to investigate.

If you want to do more action-adventure stuff, you probably need something like more of a mysterious island like in Lost or--well--Mysterious Island. There, exploration and investigation can go hand in hand. Just make sure to play up the uncovering as much as the discovering.

Wanderers

The Wanderers are named for their habit of roaming the Zuran Expanse. While this might not be a remarkable activity for more common sophont types, the Wanderers are figures of mystery and wonder because they are posthuman minds the size of asteroids or small moons.

No one knows much about them. It's speculated that their former homeworld is some devastated planet or habitat within the Expanse. The popular belief is that, as they watched their civilization dying in the Great Collapse, they uploaded their minds and rejected humanity.

Whatever their origins, the Wanderers are currently hypersophonts whose minds reside in vast honeycombs of computronium, covered by a protective crust of rock or diamondoid. They vary in size from 15 to 20 km in diameter. Its unclear how many exist, but there are thought to be no more than a hundred. They are occasionally encountered in a group of as many in five, but such meetings are rarely observed as they tend to take place in the outer edges of solar systems.

The Wanderers don't seem to leave the Expanse; whether this is due to their leisurely sub-light speeds or some attachment to the area is uncertain. They rarely engage in communication with other sophonts, but sometimes they send a remote (varied forms, but mostly humanoids) to trade with other beings. The things they seek are sometimes necessary supplies but other times artifacts of no apparent value.

Occasionally, thieves get the idea that Wanderers have valuables in their interior--or at the very least, they can be relieved of their computronium. If this has ever actually been tried, it doesn't seem that it has ever been successful. The Wanderers zealously guard their privacy.

[Check out the Strange Stars Index page link in the sidebar for more on the setting.]

The Strange Stars

With nearly 40 posts in the Strange Stars setting, the sagacious Robert over at Rogues & Reavers suggested it might be time for an overview post to make it easier for people to see how these far-ranging elements sort of fit together. I’m not sure the best way of doing that (one might want to start with the inspirations here), but I’ll sort of summarize what’s been presented so far:

The Strange Stars is the sphere of the human phyle in the far future, a time millennia after the first human expansion and the rise (and fall) of builders of the hyperspace nodes, the Archaic Oikumene. In the current era, the Strange Stars are fragmented into smaller cultures and civilizations.

The former cradle of the Archaic Oikumene is a depopulated area without a central authority known as the Zuran Expanse. The Expanse is home to dangers like the inhuman ssraad (in three colors), and ruined worlds that entice treasure-seekers like Tenebrae and the Library of Atoz-Theln. It’s also home to unusual cultures like the invertebrate zhmun of Aygo and the self-improvement cult of Aurogov.

Art by Peter Elson

Spinward from the Expanse is the Alliance, a union of species allied for protection and trade. Members of the Alliance include the green-skinned psionicists of Smaragdoz, the privacy obsessed neshekk of Kuznuh, the avian-humanoid splice hyehoon of Omu, the human-alien blended cyborg Blesh, the gnomes of Dzrrn, and the angel-like deva of Altair.

Bordering the Alliance is the expansionistic and theocratic Instrumentality of Aom.

On the other side of the Expanse is the Vokun Empire. Besides the decadent vokun, the empire contains several client species. The cybernetic crustacean-like Engineers build much of Vokun technology. The yellow-skinned ibglibdishpan are their biologic computers. The kuath are bioarmored child-soldiers.

There are a number of other interesting cultures and worlds: the oneirochemist Phantasists, the ancient mind excavators of Deshret, and the warrior-poet moravecs of Eridanus, among others. The major galactic powers are at least openingly cordial (whatever may go on behind the scenes) and trade takes place between the two “civilized” portions of the galaxy that must pass through hyperspace nodes in the “wilder” areas (not just the Expanse, but the Rim and Coreward Reach, as well). New cultures, lost since the Great Collapse are discovered from time to time, and their are number of ruined worlds with treasures to loot.