The Haunted Mansion

My WaRP Weird Adventures gaming group met for the first time since September last night. The PCs were still exploring Charles Ranulf Urst's estate, looking for treasure of some sort. After checking out the opulent pool house, they moved on to the grand main house. What they found only deepened the mystery.

First, there was a sound like an audible exhalation when they first entered the house that set the creepy mood. Then, the theater room had a film playing without the benefit of electricity--a film that appeared to be from the point of view of something waiting just outside the room. Professor Pao, stepping out side of the room, felt a cold chill that sent him to his knees and Rob glimpsed an errant shadow fleeing away from his stricken companion.

Rue tried again to contact spirits. She felt a pervasive presence, but nothing specific. Then a playing card drfited down from...somewhere. One with Urst's own monogram printed on back.

Things only got weirder from there. A visit to the refectory (a large dining room) had the gang intruding on a ghostly dinner with phantom food and diners who paid them no attention. There seemed to have been places set for the group, but they declined to partake.

In the large, social room, there is a young woman (her image sort of flickery, like a movie) playing cards. She offers to tell the PCs' fortunes by a draw from the deck. Only Rue takes her up on it. She draws a card with the image of the grim reaper on it! He swings his scythe and she drops dead.

The rest of the gang can't believe it at first. They question the woman who gives her name as Camille. She nonchalantly confirms that Rue is indeed dead--but adds enigmatically that the house is a collector and spirits are unable to leave it. When they try to question her further she flickers and disappears. Rob and Jacques start looking around for where Rue's spirit might be. The Professor stays behind to guard her body.

Meanwhile, Rue awakens in an overstuff leather chair in a library of some sort. She feels a bit less substantial physically, but is otherwise okay. A man with the head of a wolfhound is sitting across from her reading a book. He introduces himself as Claude and confirms that she's dead. He says he was Urst's dog, until the wizard uplifted him to sentience to serve as an assistant. He goes on to say that Urst purposely built this house on a borderland between dimensions. There are spirits here but also "termites" in the walls that came from elsewhere.

Rue bids him good-bye to try and find her friends. Before she goes, he warns her not to trust the cat-headed man in the fez.

To be continued...

Weird Mystery

The internet (at least part of it) has been a buzz with the references to Robert W. Chambers' King in Yellow, among other weird tale nods in the new HBO crime drama True Detective. While it remains to be seen if this is just flavoring or their is really something weird (in the supernatural sense) afoot on the show, there are a number of other works that can scratch the "weird mystery" itch. I should note, I'm making a difference between "an investigation intersects the supernatural" from the activities of "occult detectives" who frequently interact with the supernatural as a matter of course. The former is what I'm focusing on here.

These would be great inspiration for Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, or other horror games in that vein.

Film and TV:
Angel Heart: New York private detective Harry Angel heads to New Orleans to find a missing crooner for a mysterious client.
Twin Peaks: An FBI agent investigates the murder of the homecoming queen in a very strange Washington town.
"Cigarette Burns": The best episode of the Masters of Horror anthology series has a rare films dealer looking for a an obscure French film, La Fin Absolue du Monde, which is rumored to have sparked a deadly riot at its premiere.
The Ninth Gate: A rare book dealer is hired to find the three known copies of a rare occult tome and determine which is the real one and which are forgeries.

Fiction:
Kim Newman, "Big Fish": Innsmouth isn't the only place with a shadow over it. A California gumshoe finds out sunny Bay City has one, too.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Club Dumas: The book The Ninth Gate was based on, but with a lot more literary references and a different ending.

A Sorcerer's Skull Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day. Here's a couple of recycled classic posts with a theme of love. Or at least sex.

From the world of Weird Adventures, we've got 2011's "Love (and Sex) in the City." If that's too retro for you, you can always visit "The Pleasure Domes of Erato" in the far future of the Strange Stars.

Kuznuh Unveiled

Kuznuh is the primary world of the neshekk and a member of the Alliance. The neshekk aren't natives; they arrived there after being displaced by the Great Collapse. The neshekk have made their fortunes primarily through investment banking.They have a reputation for ethical behavior and conservative investment, but are sticklers for the letter of contracts and do not tend to offer easy terms.

Perhaps because of their wealth or perhaps due to a separate cultural quirk, the neshekk are greatly concerned with privacy. They go through the streets wrapped in a shroud of nizara, making them invisible or unrecognizable (depending on their settings) in the metascape of their world, unless they choose otherwise. It is a misdemeanor privacy violation to view public spaces of Kuznuh unfiltered by the metascape. All social interaction on Kuznuh is a process of negotiating the level and setting time parameters for permissions to access personal information. Even among family, neshekk may completely cloak themselves in nizara for privacy’s sake.

Their desire to protect their privacy and wealth (and the wealth of their clients) has led the neshekk to become security experts in both electronic and data security. Neshekk infosecurity firms are noted for their ruthlessness; they have been known to employ basilisk patterns and other forms of deadly intrusion countermeasures.

Neshekk society is divided into clans. The heads of these clans elect a Chief Executive Officer of Kuznuh. When the neshekk clan leaders lose confidence in a CEO, he or she is replaced--and memory-wiped to insure the protection of board secrets. This process is referred to as “beheading.”

Kuznuh City, the capital of their world, has a walled and checkpointed city center full of windowless, unadorned cylinders where the wealthy neshekk reside. Offworlders that work for them reside in partitioned areas around it. All visitors and offworlders are given rudimentary nizara shielding, but don’t have as many options with its use nor are theirs as opaque to legal inquiries as that of citizens.

(For those that are interested, FATE stats for the neshekk and other species can be found in a newly updated file here.)

Warlord Wednesday: Everything Changes

My issue by issue examination of DC Comics' Warlord continues. The earlier installments can be found here...

"Everything Changes"

Warlord (vol. 4) #15 (August 2010) Story & Art by Mike Grell.

Synopsis: Following the events of last issue, scientists are filling General Ketchum in on the signal that originated from 4 ancient sites (in Egypt, Mexico, Bolivia) and is directed at Orion. They give him a crash course in various fringe theories including the ancient astronauts--and the hollow earth. That's where the coordinates encoded in the signal are located. The "scientists" (you could doubt there credentials at this point) also tell him about the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 with its the annotation: "They Return."

In the hollow earth, Joshua and crew are making their way back to Shamballah. Joshua is worried about what the alien had said: "We expected you to be more civilized. More useful."

When they get home, our heroes find a pleasant surprise. Thanks to the weirdness of Shamballan time, Tara has given birth already:

Joshua realizes it was his link with his new sister that healed him after he was burned by the dragon's breath. Jennifer explains that Morgana is linked to her, as well. The baby isn't just destined to be a mage; she is somehow magic herself in a pure and powerful form as it hasn't exist since the beginning of the world.

Joshua carves a horse for his new sister (He doesn't see when it becomes a winged horse in her hands.), then he and Alsyha go off for some private time. Later, they see a black hippogriff in a pond. Alysha approaches it, but then:

Alysha grabs on to the net to try to save the animal. Joshua has no choice but to follow, and the two are taken aloft. They manage to cut the hippogriff free before the raiders have reeled them in, then ride away on the animal's back. They fly over the area of devastation where the dragon's ship crashed. Alysha notices the surrounding area looks like the Nazca lines: the alien was making a landing strip!

They return to the palace convinced that trouble is coming. Joshua retrieves one of his father's belonging from a box: it's Morgan's automag. Joshua suggests McBane better teach him how to use it.

Things to Notice:

• Those scientists apparently spent a lot of time watching In Search of...
• The "time works different here" thing is back in full force, after being officially abandoned by Grell's successors on the original series.

Where it comes from: 
After being absent for over a decade, the fringe theory is back in Warlord: ancient astronauts, ufos, and (of course) the Hollow Earth. The last bit is significant, because DC had repudiated the Hollow Earth explanation of Skartaris after Grell left.

The time Ewan McBane refers to in the Dark Ages was the dust veil of 535-536 AD.

While Morgana was presumably named for her father, the name is an obvious reference to Arthur's sorcererous half-sister Morgan (or Morgana) le Fay.

Like It; Haven't Played It

There are some published rpg settings that I'm really fond of, but I've never gotten around to playing and don't think I ever will. Not that (in most cases) I would be opposed to playing them, but--well, I'll have to explain that on a case by case basis:

Tekumel: I first heard about Tekumel in college and over the next ten years, accumulated as much as I could on it from trips to gaming stores in various cities and ordering things off ebay. Despite having most of the publish Tekumel material in my collection for almost another decade now, I've never played it. I love the richness and wealth of detail in Tekumel, and I like aspects of the world (I've even read all the novels!). I think the problem has been two fold: until the internet, I never really had a crowd that would be willing to play it, and I tend to like to put my own spin on the games I run. (A few licensed properties for brief games being the exception, perhaps.) I'm well aware I could make Tekumel my own but then it wouldn't be Tekumel to me.

Transhuman Space: GURPS puts out a lot of great supplements, and the Transhuman Space supplements are no exception. It's the most detailed and supported near future game that I've seen (post the cyberpunk 80s). And it's really good. I'm unlikely to run this one because my days of playing GURPS are likely passed--particularly for a complicated realistic science fiction game. I did utilize the TS books to play my own near future game--one that was more Transhuman Cowboy Bebop with a bit of Bruce Sterling thrown in.

Glorantha: Though I got into Glorantha later, but scratches a similar itch to Tekumel in that I appreciate the wealth of detail in it and certain aspects of the world. It's a bit more like Transhuman Space in that it hits me in a "what can I steal from this?" place rather than a "I should play this!" one.

Exalted: This one is a bit different from the others, in that I have mixed feelings about Creation, the setting of Exalted. A lot of things about it I find really cool (mainly the underlying concepts of the session), then there are a number of things that are okay, and a few things (like a lot of the place names) I do like very much. Still, the good things are good enough to me, that I have thought about running a game in the setting before--but only after adapting it to another game. The system just doesn't appeal to me, and adapting the system plus tweaking the setting has always teamed so large a tast when I had easier game oppurtunities elsewhere.

So that's my list. What's yours?

Species of the Alliance

I just uploaded a draft of a document Strange Stars: Sophonts of the Alliance. It's statted for FATE, and it's a product of my tinkering with that system to get to know it. Some of those species I've already statted for SWN on the blog, so I'm not even out the old school among you. The doc has some information that hasn't appeared on the blog. There's something for everybody.

Appendix N+1

In a discussion a few weeks ago, Aos said he was tired of the typical Appendix N and more interested in what creators specifically found inspirational in the works they cited. This is not at all a bad idea and something that I've seen in blog posts (and done some of myself), but there should probably be more if it.

To that end, here's a look behind of the curtain of some of my Strange Stars material. Since most of the posts are written vaguely "in world" maybe part of the fun is picking out the references, so if there is anyone who enjoys that, "spoilers" as the kids say. You can follow the links to the original post:

Smaragdoz
High Concept: A Jack Vance science fantasy riff on Oz as illustrated by Moebius
Important Bits: The "feel" of the world outside of Smaragdoz City is loosely in the mode of my vague (and possibly incorrect) recollections of Vance's Durdane trilogy, but not in any specific detail. The nature of the Wizard (an obvious Ozian veneer) was inspired by the Id monster of Forbidden Planet and the Uni-Mind of Kirby's Eternals.

Blesh
High Concept: A Greg Eganish take on posthuman insect men.
Important Bits: A myriad of science fiction insectoids underlie this (except, of course, they aren't really insect men, except visually) but the Vrusk made me want to put an insectoid in the setting, and the Hokun from Empire of the Petal Throne influenced the visual. The works of Egan (particularly Diaspora) influenced their post-humanness, and the Sturgeon novel More Than Human supplied the name and idea of blesh (from a portmanteau from "blend" and "mesh.").

Algosians
High Concept: A race of torture cultists
Important Bits: The primary inspiration was Uccastrog, the Isle of the Torturers, from Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique tales. There was a bit of Gene Wolfe influence with his Torturers Guild, too; Book of the New Sun was where I first encountered the term "algophilist." The appearance of the Torturers came from the Brom painting above, which probably reaches back to the Hellraiser films a bit.

Alright, that's enough secrets for one day. I hope it's interesting and not self-indulgent. If there's interest, I might do more of it at some point.

Worlds in the Ring

Circus is one of the Strange Stars' great wonders. No one knows who built the megastructure (it may even predate the Archaic Oikumene and be pre-human), but whoever it was had mastered technology beyond the reach of current civilization. It's gigantic ring has a radius of 1.9 million km and a width of about 1000 km, giving it a habitable surface area roughly 20 times that of Old Earth. It's rotational period is 24 hrs and it's tilted so that it's inhabitants experience roughly earth-like night and day. It's open to space, but centrifugal force and an upper "mesh" of radiation filtering nano hold a breathable atmosphere in.

In a system bordered by the Zuran Expanse, the Alliance, and the Instrumentality sphere, Circus has long been a center of trade. Its ruins attest to several stages of colonization by the human phyle. Modern, non-wilderness or waste sections of the great ring are a crazy quilt of petty kingdoms, communes, and experimental societies. These are the "zones"--or at least partial zones. The minimum size required of a political body for the term to be used is the subject of controversy. 

The most famous area of Circus is actually a free city--actually a megapolis or ecumenopolis--without a single name. It's most often called Interzone, though it's vast spaceport-adjacent tourist area is known as the Strip. Interzone's boundaries are vague, but including all of it's favelas and industrial parks, it covers an an area only a little less than the surface area of Sol IV (Mars). 

Spacers say there is no law in Interzone, but this is not strictly true. Rather it's a demarchy with minimalist government. The Wise Minds (a group of ancient infosophonts) select via lottery the anonymous rulers of the city--the Tsadikim--from among the populous. A Tsadik may serve for a few days or for a lifetime, based on the real-time evaluation of the Wise Minds. Every Tsadik (with the advice of the Minds) can create new laws at whim, though these must be approved by a majority of the other Tsadikim. Likewise, any Tsadik can supercede the decree of another with the same procedure. Tsadik can settle disputes among the populace themselves or a trial with a judge (this decision too is subject to review by the others).

The only immutable laws of Interzone are "property and self are sacred", "self-defense and common defense are a justification for violence", and "a contract is a contract."

Warlord Wednesday

My issue by issue retrospective will return next week. Today, take a look at these Grell covers for previous issues, without the text or logo:

Here's Travis Morgan's last issue:

And Joshua's first in full costume:

Plus, Morgan in the midst of battle:

As Seen on TV

Catching up on some DVR'ed shows I missed this past week reveals a number of gameable ideas in them without much effort. Here's what a got in a couple of hours yesterday afternoon:

Helix is a science fiction mystery/conspiracy show on SyFy about a team of scientists from the CDC sent to biotech research facility in the arctic to investigate a possible outbreak of a deadly virus. Of course, all is not what it seems: the virus (that sort of zombifies it's victims) is some sort of experimental bioweapon--and people are willing to kill to keep it secret. The setting and situation would work well for an even smaller than usual investigative sandbox. You could always move the base to the Antarctic and make the bioweapon recovered shoggoth material and you've got a great Delta Green/Call of Cthulhu scenario.

Keeping with the somewhat horrific, the last episode of American Horror Story: Coven (which I've mentioned before). The season didn't end as well as I would've liked, but it did have the interesting element of the contest to become supreme (leader of the coven) requiring the completing of the "Seven Wonders" displaying the seven arts of the witches. A competition like that and a series of miracles to perform would make a great guild advancement ritual about magic-users--or the skulduggery around it something for PCs to get drawn into.

For a complete change of tone, we have Space Dandy, an anime airing on Cartoon Network's Toonami.The titular Space Dandy is a pompadoured and none too bright alien hunter who tries (and usually fails) to bring in unknown alien species for cataloging by the government. What Space Dandy does for laughs could easily be done seriously. Hunting new sapient species in an ancient galactic civilization teeming with life (like Star Wars) is a pretty good conceit for a campaign.

Light-Years from Home

Well, not really, but I am traveling. I've updated the Strange Stars Index, though, so it's a could chance to catch up on a transmission you might have missed.

Regular updates to resume this week.

Every Picture Tells A Story

I think everyone would agree that evocative artwork is really helpful in setting the tone and conveying the feel of an rpg world and from the internet I know that a lot of people collect inspirational images in building a new setting, like I do.

It strikes me that given how much the images matter in conveying the setting, that picking new images could be used to give a setting a whole new vibe. A setting makeover, if you will.

Consider the following images:

Both of them are meant to illustrate the same literary work (Edgar Rice Burroughs's Gods of Mars), and they even include identifiable elements, but they have a very different feel. The first, by Manolo Prieto, is a bit phantasmagorical, perhaps even whimiscal. It suggests a Barsoom more akin to fairy tales or the works of Lord Dunsany, maybe. The second, by Michael Whelan, seems much more a place of serious, more sci-fi-ish adventure. I think both GMs and player's would approach a Mars illustrated in the first way somewhat different from the second.

Here's another example. Different versions of the dwarves from The Hobbit:

The first illustration is from a Russian edition of the book. These dwarves look like they've might sing "heigh ho" and hang out with Snow White. The later ones would be more at home in improbable  action sequences.

So next time you think your bored with your setting, maybe your just bored with how your conceiving your setting. New visuals maybe just help.

Warlord Wednesday: Dragon's Lair

The Warlord is dead! Long live The Warlord! This is my issue by issue examination of his adventures. The earlier installments can be found here...

"Dragon's Lair"

Warlord (vol. 4) #14 (July 2010) Story by Mike Grell; Pencils by Chad Hardin; Inks by Hardin & Wayne Faucher

Synopsis: The so-called dragon that Shakira assures them isn't, sends our heroes scrampling for cover after Joshua sticks an arrow in it. Joshua's hiding place isn't quite good enough, and his sword hand gets seared by a fiery blast. The beast retreats, but the new Warlord's hand looks pretty bad:

At the same time, Tara feels intense pain and wonders if something is going wrong with the pregnancy. Jennifer checks on her only to get pushed away by a mystic blast from the baby in Tara's womb! It appears Joshua's sister to be can feel his pain.

Joshua and friends return to the old blacksmith. Joshua needs a new sword forged: one that can stand the heat. He brought the large piece of metal that shielded him back in the cave for that purpose. McBane thinks it's something from meteorite.

Joshua collapses with his injuries. While Alysha tends him, McBane helps the blacksmith at his forge. Joshua's hand begins to heal at an incredible rate. Alysha and McBane can't believe. Shakira is more jaded and says: "It's just magic."

Back in Shamballah, Tara's pain is gone. Jennifer explains that her daughter is healing Joshua. Tara is suprised to learn it's a girl. Jennifer says that as her half-sister and Joshua's full sister she shares traits of both them. Then, Jennifer senses something that suprises her...

Meanwhile, Joshua's hand is almost completely healed, whcih is a good thing because the blacksmith has completed the sword:

He also had enough metal to make a gauntlet, greaves, and a shield. The blacksmith asks Joshua what he wants on his shield but we don't hear his answer. Meanwhile, Alysha has been kidnapped by the father of last issues sacrificial "victim." He's taking her to the dragon.

Joshua and McBane trail them to the cave. They go in: Joshua with his new sword and armor and McBane with an AK-47.  Going deeper than before into the "dragon's" lair, they find it isn't an asteroid at all, but a space ship. They also find Alysha and her kidnapper:

The man begs to be killed and Alysha obliges him--but the shot brings the alien running. Joshua puts an area through it's searchlight "eye" and McBane lobs a grenade at it. The creature keeps coming. Joshua sends his friends away, and goes into battle:

The two fight. Joshua manages to damage it's flamethrower mask. With the mask off, the alien reveals it can speak. It calls Joshua (and his people by extinction) primitive and makes an interesting claim:

Joshua promises what happens next won't be an accident. He vaults over the creature's head and delivers a blow to the back of his neck. At his friends' urging, Joshua runs out the door that is irising shut to meet them.

The alien is apparently dying, but wants to strike one last blow. He pushes some buttons on a console, that send a beam of energy up from a group of step pyramids out of the polar opening and into space. He also apparently sets his ship to self-destruct. Our heroes get our just in time.

On the outer world, a couple of astronomers track a signal leaving the earth and shooting out toward Orion. E.T. has just phoned home!

Things to Notice:

• Joshua adds some metal to his Warlord outfit.

Where it comes from: 
I would be surprised if alien visitors have never been mistaken for dragons before, much in the same way they've been mistaken for gods, but I don't know of a specific story. Marvel Comics' Makluans fit the bill, I suppose

Starships in the Strange Stars

Though the spacecraft of the Strange Stars vary a lot in appearance and use, most of their systems are fairly standardized. Some of this similarity is due to the exchange of technologies through trade, but there is another reason. The level of technology across the known galaxy is lower than in ages past; many ships currently in use are the products of previous civilizations or at least built from parts scavenged from ancient vessels.

One example of a lost technology is superluminal drives. The vast majority of modern craft are sublight vessels that utilize the hyperspace network to short-cut interstellar distances. The most advanced current civilizations have a rudimentary understanding of the science behind some FTL travel methods, but they are are currently unable to build them. Some researchers have noted that the ancients made use of these other methods rarely, suggesting there was something that made the hyperspace network preferable.

The salvage of ancient derelicts or wrecks is an important (and lucrative) activity. Gravity generators and inertial suppressors are only two of the important technologies than many civilizations are able to exploit, but not necessarily manufacture themselves. Intact data systems are a particularly spectacular find. There is always hope of engineering schematic files executable in modern nanofactories.

New or improved weapon systems always find an enthusiastic market. The holy grail for salvagers would be one of the twelve great battleships of the Archaic Oikumene. These vessels were the size of cities and all possessed of sophont minds. Some of these great ships (like Terrible Swift Sword and Leviathan Smiles) are known to have been destroyed. Others (notably Achilles' Last Stand, Fearful Symmetry, and Conspiracy of Ravens) have disappeared completely from history, possibly restructuring themselves into vessels of different types.

Gaean Reach

This weekend I found out that Pelgrane Press has a second rpg out based on the work of Jack Vance. (The first of course being The Dying Earth.) The Gaean Reach, written by Robin Laws with layout/art direction and cover by Chris Huth (who's work you've probably seen a lot of places--not the least of which being Weird Adventures!), takes its inspiration from Vance's science fiction tales and combines the Skullduggery system of the latest edition of The Dying Earth with GUMSHOE.

The Gaean Reach is a sub-setting of Vances connected science fiction universe. It's the setting of the Cadwal Chronicles and the Alastor Cluster trilogy, as well as several of his standalone stories. The Demon Princes series setting (the Oikumene) bears some resemblance to the Gaean Reach and the game assumes they are the same place (though wikipedia says this is inconclusive). In any case, it's a future future setting with the sort of flourishes you'd expect from the works of Vance.

I haven't got to fully digest the rules yet. I like GUMSHOE, but I don't know much about Skullduggery. Still, the setting information alone is well worth the price of the pdf.

Scenes from the Strange Stars

More images from around the galaxy...

A section of the Strip, a megapolis within a 3.8 million km diameter orbital ring habitat.

The sophont battleship Auspicious Thunder Resounding just before the so-called "Kilosec War" engagement during the collapse of the Radiant Polity.

A Smaragdine military contractor poses for a snapshot after a successful raid on a raid on a pirate asteroid hideout. The pirates were responsible for large scale personality theft and numerous mind-slavery related copyright violations.

Bomoth Revisited

In the midst of reading a few FATE games (Starblazer Adventures and Bulldogs! and informed by the SA supplement Mindjammer), I figured converting some of the species I've already created was a good way to try the system out. So here is a Starblazer Adventures version of Bomoth.

Suggested Aspects:
Caterpillar-like form
Invoke: to get into places a humanoid might not be able to go.
Compel: when trying to blend in to a crowd.
Cool, Man
Invoke: to be unfazed in a stressful situation.
Compel: to feel a real sense of danger when it might be imminent.
Hep
Invoke: to find the party or score the drug.
Compel: to fool Johnny Law or pass as a solid citizen.
Live for the Music
Invoke: to play a gig.
Compel: to focus on something else.

Special Abilities:
Extra Set of Hands [-1]: Additional limbs allow a supplementary action without the -1 penalty
Vocal Mimicry [-1]: Bomoth can flawlessly recreate voices or sounds.

Warlord Wednesday: Son Rise

The Warlord is dead! Long live The Warlord! This is my issue by issue examination of his adventures. The earlier installments can be found here...

"Son Rise"

Warlord (vol. 4) #13 (June 2010) Story by Mike Grell; Art by Chad Hardin

Synopsis: Ewan McBane and Jennifer Morgan are standing on a tower looking out over Skartaris. McBane still can't believe it. Jennifer says she can barely remember the outer world--but she does miss the moon and stars. McBane (ever the romantic) says these days most of what she sees would be space junk.

McBane's comments are prophetic as in orbit above the Earth, an asteroid collides with an old Soviet satellite, destroying it. The debris of both streaks earthward. The U.S. military tracking it anticipates an impact at the North Pole with a "Tunguska-type event."

The impact doesn't come. The asteroid disappears into Skartaris. Dinosaurs run in terror from the impact as a mushroom cloud rises. The Skartarian sky darkens.

Alysha and Joshua (Tinder) ride out to investigate. They meet fleeing refugees with a tale of a terrible beast ravaging the land who was either awakened or freed by the impact:

They describe the monster as a giant with a single, blazing eye in the middle of its forehead. They sent their best warriors against it, and they never returned. Their screams echoed across the mountains. The refugees further warn that now that all the food is gone in their lands, the beast will be on the move.

Thinking on this news, Joshua broods. He tells his mother: "I'm not my father." Her reply:

Shakira helps Joshua suit up. He tells her that he doesn't even know what he's doing. She replies that his father didn't either. But he tried. He made mistakes, but he tried.

"You knew him better than anyone," Joshua says. "Perhaps you can help me understand him."

"I doubt it." Shakira replies.

In any case, Joshua is ready:

Alysha and McBane are going with him. Alysha watches Shakira in cat form jump onto Joshua's shoulders. "Some things never change," she says.

Riding into the area of devastation, our heroes are surprised to find an old smith still at work at his forge. He tells them that not everyone has fled. The others that are left realized the beast came out to hunt. The old man offers to buy Joshua's armor as he doesn't expect them to survive. Joshua declines.

Our heroes ride on and come upon a sacrifice in progress: a young woman is tied a stone table. Before the sacrificial dagger can fall:

They free the woman and drive off the others, but they find the woman didn't want to be rescued. It was her lot. She runs toward the mouth of a nearby cave. Still, she doesn't intend to let it take her alive like the others. She puts the dagger to her throat.

A blast from the cave kills her!  And the beast comes forth:

Things to Notice:

• Joshua gets his own Warlord duds.
• Yet another beauteous maiden is offered up as a sacrifice. It happens a lot in Skartaris, apparently.

Where it comes from: 
The title of this issue is an obvious play on words and a fitting follow-up to last issues "Sunset."

Joshua's Warlord outfit is a bit more modest than his old man's. Actually, it harkens back to the original black outfit Travis Morgan wore up until issue #9. He retains the metal shoulder guard and winged helm, though. He doesn't have his father's pistol, though. Instead, he carries a bow.

The "willing sacrifice" is a trope Grell employed before back in issue #48. Ironically, the danger being placated there was from outside Skartaris, too.

Libram Mysterium

Pulp Mill Press just released the Libram Mysterium volume 1, an anthology of pulpy fantasy short-stories. Here's the blurb:

THIRTEEN TALES OF THE WEIRD AND FANTASTIC!

Join vengeance-seeking ghouls in Dylath-Leen; an expedition to the cursed ruins of an ancient city; and a mercenary company with only one criterion for recruits: they must already be dead.

This anthology recalls the pulp fantasy stories of the early- to mid-twentieth century: from pulse-pounding sword & sorcery adventure to chilling tales of the macabre, eldritch horrors, ruthless warriors, and fabulous treasures await within!

Sounds cool, right? I'd be bringing this to your attention even if I didn't have a short-story in it.

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A Traveller's Life

E.C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra novels are one of the primary inspirations for the game Traveller, though the game doesn't bother the central conceit of the novel. Tubb's protagonist Earl Dumarest other travellers are essentially space hobos: they book dangerous low passage in cryogenic berths from world to world. This contrasts with the wealthy in high passage, who take quick time drug to slow their perception and make time pass quicker to shorten the ennui of the voyage.

Though the Traveller mixes in other influences and gives PCs their own ship and faster FTL, Tubb's original set-up would make a good game all on its own. What's more, it strikes me Dumarest would be pretty easy to turn into a "hard" science fiction game. It would be trivial to dispense with artifical gravity (and antigravity), but I think you could even dispense with FTL.

Alastair Reynolds's novels in the so-called "Revelation Space universe" show how this could be done. Reynolds has no FTL, but does have interstellar travel via "lighthuggers" making voyages at close to light-speed with relativistic time dilation at play. Passengers on lighthuggers are put in cyrogenic freeze because of the length of the voyages. Just like in the Dumarest novels, cyrogenesis isn't without risks. Some passengers die and many have temporary amnesia.

In a modern, hard science fiction approach, low passage wouldn't just be cheap, it would be the only way for the middle class and poor to travel between worlds. Middle passage (the crew) might be more like the Ultras in Reynolds's books: transhuman space-mariners, living their lives on board ship and looking down on system-bound folk. High passage is still for the wealthy, but I don't think quicktime drugs alone would be enough the years (or even decade) long voyages. The wealthy (like the ship's crew) would no doubt have extended lifespans: perhaps into centuries, and possibly even into immortality, barring misadventure. Superlong lifespans,quicktime drugs, and brief periods in cryo-sleep would make it possible, though the the ships would have to have a lot of entertainment available, and be pretty large.

Obviously, you could do a lot a travel back and forth between worlds in this sort of set up, but if like Dumarest you mostly kept moving from one adventure to another that wouldn't really be necessary. Travellers would always be on the move to the next world, far away and years into the future.