Ruritanian Rogues

Watching Grand Budapest Hotel yesterday with its farcical criminal doings in a fictional Mitteleuropean country between the two wars got me thinking that such a setting was rife with gaming potential. I suppose "farcical criminal doings" and gaming is a no-brainer, but I mean more the "fictional modern European country in difficult times."

Ruritanian (or Graustarkian, if you prefer) Romance is a genre mostly of swashbuckling adventure set in a fictitious country in Central or Eastern Europe (including the Balkan region). The genre takes it's name from Ruritania, the setting of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), one of the most popular examples of it. (The less common name derives from titular setting of James Barr McCutheon's 1901 novel; Some people reserve "Graustarkian" for a Balkan setting only.) These tales are (mostly, though there are fuzzy borders) differentiated from ones set in your Averoignes, Poictesmes, and Lyonesses by being set in "modern" times (to when they were written--meaning 1880s-1930s, roughly), being in Central or Eastern European locales rather than Western, and being mostly adventure tales rather than fantasy.

Still, Ruritanian Romance is part of the DNA of science fiction and fantasy and by extension D&D and a lot of fantasy gaming. Burroughs's Barsoom tales are mostly Ruritanian Romances transplanted to Mars (and Burroughs wrote a couple of pure Ruritanians: The Mad King and The Rider). More than one fantasy or science fiction novel is a reworking of The Prisoner of Zenda. Dr. Doom's Latveria is totally a Ruritania.

I think what would make a Ruritanian type setting more interesting in gaming is to ditch most of the romance of nobles and hidden monarchs and veer toward the picaresque. Political turmoil and nonsensical locale customs would complicate the lives of the usual "murderhobo." There's also influence of the Ruritanian Romance on the "fantasy of manners" subgenre, which could reasonable be said to include many of Jack Vance's works. The loquacious thugs of Tarantino and Ritchie would seem to good models for adventuring types concerned with underworld manners rather than high society.

Here's what I would envision: A Central European microstate (with a few equally fictitious neighbors) somewhere between 1895-1930, where Vancian rogues burglarize Gormenghastian ruins, while avoiding Kafka-esque bueaucracy, ostentatiously uniformed gendarmerie, and fanatic revolutionaries.

For some fantasy in a Ruritanian sort of setting, check out the The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy by Avram Davidson, the Johannes Cabal stories and novels by Jonathan L. Howard, and the post-Cold War version in China Mieville's The City and the City.

Alien Inspirations

The Star Wars cantina scene has a lot of interesting looks for alien species, but doesn't present a lot of different alien psychology. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on what sort of science fiction setting you want to run, but there are some good inspirations for more varied, detailed aliens.

GURPS Uplift details David Brin's Uplift Universe in game terms and also presents a detailed random alien generation method. Also in the realm of GURPS books, GURPS Traveller: Alien Races 1-4 have some good stuff in them.

Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to the Uplift Universe actually details more species than the GURPS book, but doesn't give any game stats, obviously.

Chanur's Venture by C.J. Cherryh is worth picking up at a use bookstore for it's appendix on the species of the Compact alone. All of her aliens are detailed and well-realized.

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials is an overview of interesting aliens form a lot of science fiction with nice pictures.

Those are just a few, but one's I've found useful and inspirational.

Wings in the Vacuum

by David Lewis Johnson

The voidgliders are a clade once found in several systems in the Vokun Empire, but now confined to one. They are a people adapted to living much of their life in the vacuum of space.

Appearance & Biology: Voidgliders are sleek, elongated humanoids, like the melding of an ocean-adapted person with one raised in zero-g. Their black, solar radiation absorbing skin resembles the hide of a cetacean, and it has markings that glow and reflect ultraviolet light. From their backs they can unfurl giant, black dragonfly wings veined with silver--actually symbiotic "living" solar panels. From these wings, they are able to generate plasma sails, allowing them the locomotion through space that gives them their name.

Sunlight, food, and water are all that voidgliders need for extended stays in space. Radiation exposure is the only hazard that drives them to periodically take haven in cave homes they build in asteroids or dwarf planets. Their nostrils and  throat have membranes which can seal them off. Their eyes likewise have a nictitating membrane for protection.

Their chemical, acoustic, and tactile senses are human-equivalent. They have slightly better visual acuity and can see a wide area of the spectrum from microwaves to ultraviolet. They have specialized apparatus for communication with radio and UV lasers. Radio is used for general communication, particularly with non-voidgliders. They also sing via radio, songs like ancient spirituals, in sounds like a mixture of overtone singing and paleo-electronic music. 

Place in the Empire: The voidgliders were initially primitives of little use to the Empire. While they thrived in zero-g, they were indifferent workers for the most part; they flew off as soon as they got the chance and did not deal well with confinement. When it was determined they had an ability to find hyperspace nodes they became much more useful.

The vokun continue to let the voidgliders live in their clan groups, but they have confined all they could find to a reservation within the asteroid belt of one system. They take volunteers to serve as scouts for their star navy.

Stats: Voidgliders have a minimum Constitution of 9, but otherwise have abilities in the human range. They also naturally have the equivalent of vacc skin and are able to fly in zero-g and outside a strong magnetic field at 120' per round.

Wednesday Comics: Vanth

Here's the next installment of  Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

"Vanth (Metamorphosis Odyssey Chapter V)"

Epic Illustrated #3 (Fall 1980) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: On the icy world of Byfrexia (also known as Vega) a masked man spins around to find Aknaton behind him. He mistakes Aknaton for a Zygotean and fires, but the wizard blocks the blast with a shield and returns fire. When the man is at his mercy, Aknaton is finally able to convince the man he's friendly.

Aknaton explains he's been hanging out around the nearby Zygotean base hoping to come across a certain resistance fighter:

The man knows who Aknaton seeks: Vanth, the Cold Man. He refuses to take the Orisirosian to the Cold Man because he doesn't trust the offworlder. Regretfully (or so he says), Aknaton blasts him and takes control of the man's mind. He commands him to lead the way.

While they walk, he gets the man to tell him Vanth's story. Not only is a Vanth a great warrior and super-strong, but he upgraded their ships to photonic drive. The incident that made a man out of Vanth was the tragic death of his parents at the claws of snowbeasts. He went crazy for a bit and people would see him out on the snows naked. When, he finally returned to civilization, he loaded himself down with weapons and started killing snowbeasts. The people who lived on the snowbeasts didn't like him hunting them to near extinction, so Vanth slipped off-world.

After the Zygotean attack, he returned with off-world weapons. He single-handedly set the Zygoteans back months. He was made commander of all the defense forces.

Suddenly, the man is shot in the head, and Aknaton finds himself surrounded by just-teleported warriors:

Aknaton starts fighting, but there are just too many. Meanwhile, a hooded figure watches the melee from a nearby ridge...

Things to Notice:

• Aknaton doesn't just assert that he's Orsirosian but "of good stock."

Commentary: 
Starlin resists the urged to make the masked unknown Aknaton encounter be the very man he seeks.

Vanth's solution to the death of his parents at the hands of a snowbeast (attempting to drive a species to extinction) must appeal to Aknaton. It's not that far from the uncompromising approach his people took to their problem with the Zygoteans and the ruthless way Aknaton "ended" their invasion of earth. Could Vanth be exactly the sort of warrior Aknation is seeking?

Omniversal Access

Yesterday's post got me to thinking about other ways the Marvel Universe could inform the portrayal of the planes in D&D-type fantasy games. In the "standard model" the inner/outer planes are accessed by means of the transitive planes or direct portals.  In the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition, Mark Gruenwald cataloged other dimensions and alternate realities by a method he had initially present in A Treatise on Reality in Comic Book Literature in 1977. If we imagine a sort of random arrangement of planes (throwing out the Great Wheel or the Astral Sea), we can apply Gruenwald's various means of access (leaving out "magic" since all of the ways will be magical):

Vibrational Attunment: This assumes the plane in question is coterminous, but its matter vibrates at a different frequency. In D&D terms, this would mean going ethereal (like via an ethereal jaunt). Plane shift might also work.

Shrinking: Some planes might be microverses. Reaching them would be via spells or magic items that reduce a persons size below visibility by the naked eye.

Astral Projection: Some planes are physical places, but ectoplasmic ones. The spell of the same name comes in handy.

Portal: Some worlds are only accessible by permanent portals found in certain places or by Plane Shift.

Death: Probably the least attractive way of reaching an afterlife realm, but it works. Astral projection is the less permanent way.

Micro-elementals

If coterminous or external elemental planes don't appeal to you, here's another idea that takes them in a different direction than the standard view or my previous posts. If we take the classical view that the four elements are the fundamental consituents of all matter, then (as science fantasy has told us at least since Ray Cummings' The Girl in the Golden Atom in 1919) there may very well be worlds inside those tiny particles. Elemental worlds.

Like Microworld, yeah, except that unlike its organic chemistry model look, elemental microworlds look like the platonic solids just like Plato told us they would. 

Maybe the world is on the interior of these shapes or maybe on their strangely-angled surfaces. Either way, they would be pretty weird places. Of course, this also may mean that elementals are microscope--even atomic level things. An elemental summoning would actually be growing a fractional bit of element to macroscopic size. The fact that size creatures have (rudimentary) intelligence might suggest that these microplanes themselves are intelligent. The implications of that, I'll leave you to contemplate.

Brother to Dragons

by David Lewis Johnson

The kuath are a near baseline human people in the territory of the Vokun Empire. The kuath live at an essential neolithic level in coastal settlements. What is most interesting about them is the symbiotic relationship they have with marine invertebrate collective intelligences that the kuath know as Naga Ma--Dragon Mothers.

Vokun probes had suggested a primitive planet with little to offer beyond resources to be stripped away. When their attempts to move the small native population to reservations was resisted by humanoid monsters rising out of the seas, they realized their was something more going on. Destructive scanning of the brains of captive kuath revealed the existence of the Dragon Mothers.

Vokun submarine attacks proved unable to bring the Dragon Mothers to heel. Only the threat of mass driver bombardment finally effected their surrender. The terms of their capitulation was to be paid in slave warriors: bio-armored soldiers.

Appearance & Biology: The kuath are dark-skinned, typically dark-haired, humans with endosymbiotic projections of the Dragon Mothers. (Among other places, these appear to stimulate areas of the brain associated with religious awe.)

The Dragon Mothers themselves are self-organizing colonies (perhaps superorganisms) of single cellular organisms capable of differentiating into a variety of forms. Colonies may extend for kilometers. Their intelligence is vast, but their thought "slower" than humans', and alien. There are numerous "factories" within their mass where they experiment with independent drones and probes of various morphologies.

Place in the Empire: The kuath serve as shock troops for the vokun. The Dragon Mothers found adolescents were best both psychologically and neurologically for serving as soldiers in their armored suits. (The Dragon Mothers appear to care for the kuath deeply, if in an alien way, but do not conceptualize human life as much different than their other creations, except that human's are more independent and therefore interesting.) They reluctantly agreed to provide a quota of soldiers to the vokun to save their world and synthesized a mix of psychoative chemicals for the kuath, both to ensure they fulfilled their role and to minimize their physical and psychological suffering.

Stats: Kuath have ability scores in the human range. Their bio-armor is equivalent to assault armor, but can only be used as a vacuum suit for up to 2 hours, unless specially modified (in which case it increases to 6). The bio-armor requires a dip in a special nutrient bath for at least 2 hours out of every 24 to be at maximum efficiency.

Wednesday Comics: Whis'par

Here's the next installment of  Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

"Whis'par (Metamorphosis Odyssey Chapter IV)"

Epic Illustrated #2 (Summer 1980) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: In an alien forest, Whis'par's father calls to her. As the winged one most in harmony with their world, she has been chosen to fulfill their race's destiny and serve their god --who now waits at their village.

Whis'par has doubts. She knows what is to come, as do all her people. Her father reassures her, then sends her off to her destiny. Alone, he asks the great spirit to be with her and to forgive them all.

The god of these folk is Aknaton, who waits with Za and Juliet. He tells the uncertain Whis'par that they are there to: "herald the end of galactic madness and the birth of something never before seen under the stars." Each of those he has gathered plays a part:

Coupled with his Aknaton's magic, such a creation would be able to stop the Zygoteans. Whis'par wonders at the cost, and Aknaton realizes she knows his plan. He suggests that to do nothing would be worse.

Za wants to know what they're talking about. Aknaton responds:

Whis'par will join them. She has no choice, really.

Aknaton says he will take them to an out of the way planet to hide from the Zygoteans. He has to go find a man on Vega. Whis'par says she though they were to be a trio. Aknaton replies: "A trio that will need protection."

Things to Notice:

• The story shifts into color when Whis'par meets her creator.

Commentary: 
While we've seen several hints as to the lengths Aknaton will go to to end the Zygotean menace, this is the first hint we have that there may be something frightening about his plan. The reaction of Whis'par and his people certainly suggest it.

As far as executing his plan, Aknaton seems to be stacking the deck in favor of its acceptance in building his "coalition of the willing." He has two beings that almost worship him as a god and an adolescent he rescued from certain death.

Serpent in Paradise

The official vokun assessment of Yantra was that it had little to offer the Empire. It's natives were primitive (at best they had mastered iron) and demonstrated a pervasive culture of nonviolence so ingrained that they were insuitable for military conscription. The ibglibdishpan analysts verified that there had once by an advanced civilization on Yantra: the environment had been finely tuned, nanotechnology (though dormant) still permeated the biosphere, and seemingly primitive stone structures (shrines, mostly, for the superstitious Yantrans) actually showed complex femto-level engineering.

Obviously, the primitives had no knowledge of these technologies, and there was no indication they ever did. The vokun are an incurious species. They assumed some great pre-Collapse civilization had left its mark and moved on. Yantra was only usefully as a pleasure world; it's mostly tropical clime and pliant, simpleminded, and exotically attractive populace provided an ideal place of relaxation for vokun nobility.

The ibglibdishpan were vexed by the anomalies. It only took a few in the continuing series of seemingly random network and equipment failures that have plagued the Imperial conquest of Yantra for them to deduce the truth. They were not at all surprised when vokun junior officers began to disappear or have unusal accidents--never frequently enough to arouse suspicion on the part of the vokun, but a detectable statistical signal, nonetheless. For reasons known only to them, the ibglibdishpan have kept their conclusions to themselves.

Noah

Afronosky's Noah resembles the Biblical account of his life and exploits in a roughly analogous manner to how the original Clash of the Titans resemble the story of Perseus--and it's all the more gameable for it.

Like the Biblical narrative, the film takes place in a mythic Antediluvian past, though the film's is decidedly post-apocalyptic with barren landscapes thanks to rapaciousness of the descendants of Cain. All in that roughly made yet unusually modern-looking clothing seen in post-Apocalypse's from the Planet of the Apes TV show to Waterworld. Noah and his fellow descendants of Seth have been hunted and killed by bands of the more technologically advanced tribes of Cain. Noah is the last survivor, trust trying to hideout with his wife and kids, living a low-impact, vegetarian lifestyle.

Then the Creator decides he's had enough. He starts sending Noah prophetic dreams (Noah's gets a bit of help in interpreting these after (possibly) being slipped an entheogenic brew by his grand-dad, Methuselah). There's going be a world-killing flood, and he's got to build a boat.

Noah gets some help from the Watchers, imprisoned in giant, rocky forms, and a the last seed from the Garden of Eden, which grows an instant forest for lumber. Then the odd, not-quite-the-animals-we-know, start showing up in droves.

All does not go smooth though, as hordes of human refugees under the command of the warrior-king, Tubal-cain show up to try and storm the ark, and Noah's wifeless son begins to have second thoughts about this "only family left on earth" thing.

I won't spoil the ending, but I suspect you know how it turns out.

While a lot of this film is devoted to the sort of drama than Afronosky is typically known for, a lot of the elements the film adds to the tale seem like the sort of thing Jack Kirby would have done, even if they're not wrapped in typical Kirby presentation: fiery angels trapped in misshapen rock bodies, a post-Apocalyptic prehistory, zohar stones that provide light and fire.

If it's more your thing, there's also a graphic novel version.

First Strange Stars Art

As I've mentioned in comments, but I don't think I've explicitly said in a post, I'm putting together a book on my Strange Stars setting. This is the first (mostly) completed piece of artwork for it by the talented Waclaw Wysocki: This is Stella Starlight, captain of the Motherless Child, just one of many starship captains operating in the galaxy.

More to come.

Apotheosis Quest

Some adventurers are content to be earthly rulers, basking in the rewards of their past glories. But some yearn for a further challenge and the greatest of all rewards.

Like concentric spheres, the higher planes surround the Prime Material. Beyond them all is the Empyrean, where dwells the Increate Source. This supernal presence is said to bestow godhood on those who reach it.

Getting there is the hard part. The paths are hidden in the lower astral, where there are monsters, godlings, devils, and beings on the same quest to get in the way.

Andrew Ross MacLean

Beyond the astral are the ascending levels of the Outer Planes, iconic realms ruled by (or perhaps manifesting) gods. Each is a challenge, perhaps designed to cause seekers to falter and fail, and possibly even be cast into the Abyss for their audacity.

All of reality is a mega-dungeon that goes up.

Wednesday Comics: Juliet

Here's the next installment of  Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

"Juliet (Metamorphosis Odyssey Chapter III)"

Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: In Kansas, a family listens to reports of an alien invasion on the radio. Russia and China have fallen. The island of Japan may have been sunk by the onslaught. In the U.S., officials debate the use of nuclear weapons against the threat. Everything else the nations of the Earth have tried has been to no avail.

Juliet walks out into yard. Her mother worries about her, most of all: she's only 15. Juliet's grandfather reminds them all of Pearl Harbor. He's confident the U.S. can win this one, too. Besides, the aliens won't want anything in Kansas.

As if to mock him, an alien vessel flies overhead and blows up the farmhouse. On Juliet survives.

The craft lands and two Zygotean mercenaries emerge. They were scouting for locations to land the fuel fleet. The see Juliet and move to kill her. Suddenly, one of the mercenaries is disintegrated.

The other mercenary is quick and wounds Aknaton, but it doesn't do him much good. He's disintegrated by the Osirosan's next blast.

Aknaton builds a pyramid around them with his power to fly them off Earth. He explains to Juliet who they are. She feels bad about leaving her people. Aknaton explains that they are all going to die anyway. Her death would mean nothing here, but she has gifts that can help him stop the spread of Zygoteism.

He assures her that Earth is dead, but there are different kinds of death: Slow death under Zygotean enslavement--or a quick death that takes foe as well as friend. A death brought about by the simultaneous detonation of all the Earth's nuclear weapons:

Things to Notice:

• "Pulsar-sucking obstructionist!" is a alien insult.

Commentary: 
Starlin's opening with Juliet's grand-father and parents conversing contrasts the pessimism of the seventies with the post-World War II optimism. The story comes down on the side of pessimism. The dialogue doesn't allow Juliet to say much in her own story, though.

Aknaton's confrontation with the Zygotean mercenary serves to show him as vulnerable--and fallible. This is important because the first chapter portrayed him in a very mythic way and in the second he's in the role a god. His mortal fallibility gives us a different lens through which to see his declarations about what needs to be done.

Aknaton's destruction of Earth (and the rationale he gives Juliet) shows just what sort of conditions he's willing to count as victory and foreshadows events to come.

Elemental Planes Addendum

I would say I forgot the quasi- and para-elementals in yesterday's post, but I really didn't. I've never felt those were as conceptually pure as the primary elementals and so not as rich for turning into whole planes. Do we really need a whole Plane of Ooze?

After thinking about it a bit, I do think there is a little bit to be said. I do like the idea of elemental mixing; I mean, that is the source of the Prime Material Plane, after all. I just don't think we need whole plans of them. Maybe they're just the phase boundaries between the elements? I suppose you could still call them "planes" if you wanted, but they would really be the overlap between planes.

In any case, I'm pretty sure this is what the area of  Quasi-Elemental Mineral looks like:

I'm not convinced that currently list of para-elementals is complete either. It would seem to me that the more watery side of a water/earth mixing might be silt or sediment rather than ooze. The airy end of the air/water boundary would be mist (perhaps freezing mist) rather than ice.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about the Positive and Negative Planes that finish out the Inner Planes, check out this post from exactly 3 years ago.

The Finer Elements of Inner Planar Adventuring

It's not an uncommon complaint on the internet that the Elemental Planes are boring because they're featureless expanses of the same thingm, which is sort of like saying dungeons are boring because thy're just empty spaces underground, or wilderness adventures are dullsville because it's just a whole bunch of trees. Most environments are probably not in and of themselves terribly interesting. They're interesting because of (a) what you can put in them and (b) the additional challenges their nature presents to PCs. I would also say that the Elemental Planes can be an interesting cosmological element in a setting even if not viewed as a place to go adventuring, but it's "place for adventuring" I'm going to focus on here.

First off, the Elemental Planes as typically described are for the most part pretty hostile to human life. I don't think that's a bad thing, necessarily. High level adventurers have access to a lot of great technology (i.e. magic) to protect themselves. Guarding against equipment failure and avoiding changing conditions certainly creates a lot of tension in science fiction books and movies; there's no reason it can't be put to similar effect in gaming. It's resource management that's more than just counting.

Here are some brief ideas and inspirations for Elemental Plane adventures:

Air
This one's probably the easiest, with flying creatures, cities on clouds and the like. I would draw some inspiration from sci-fi imaginings of life in the atmosphere of gas giants. The plane of air should only be featureless like space is featureless: there should be pieces of stuff falling/tumbling through it. There should be air-dwelling Portuguese man o' war type things and air-whales like living zeppelins that one can travel or even live on. Reliance on the strongest air streams for travel would ensure that there were certain air caravan routes.
Inspirations: the Cloud City of Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back, the Star Trek episode "The Cloud-Miners," The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello, Castle in the Sky (1986), Last Exile.

Fire
Fire is like a really big star, though it's surface is much cool. There would be islands of rock (and by islands, I mean things bigger that continents) floating across it, or great metal craft drifting through it's smoke-choked corona. It would, of course, be populated (though perhaps not exclusively) by beings (jinn?) composed of Fire who did very similar stuff to Prime Material humans but were fiery while doing it.
Inspirations: Any Adventure Time episode dealing with the Fire Kingdom, the neutron star life of Forward's Dragon's Egg, parts of Sunshine (2007), Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt.

Earth
This plane is a huge sphere (or block or tesseract, or whatever) of rock, riddled with tunnels and chambers. In other words, it's a dungeon in three dimensions. It's sci-fi asteroid mining and molerat sapients, too.
Inspirations: Dig Dug, the Star Trek episode "Devil in the Dark," Derinkuyu.

Water
Like Air, it's fairly easy to see what to put into the Plane of Water, but maybe difficult to see why you wouldn't just do that stuff on a Prime Material ocean. I would say it's like an extraterrestrial ocean planet: You can make it far more exotic than you would the oceans of your main campaign world. Societies would have vertical and horizontal borders. Different depth layers would be like different levels of a dungeon, except (depending on how science fictional you got) adventurers might need increasing pressure protection to descend to the next level.
Inspirations: Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross, The Abyss (1989), Finding Nemo, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Blue Submarine No. 6, Sub-Mariner, Aquaman, and Abe Sapien comics.

Archiving...

The Strange Stars Index is newly updated. Here's your chance to catch up on any posts you might have missed.

Have a good weekend.

The Soft Conquest

The traffic in Minga slaves is illegal in many jurisdictions in the Strange Stars, but the owning a being of such a famous genotype--fragile, delicate and ephemeral as biosophonts generally are--is too much a status symbol for the wealthy in the Vokun Empire and other polities to ignore. What the Slavers who trade in them and the collectors who acquire them don't realize is that their slow dissemination across the galaxy and their meek servitude in places of wealth and power is all part of their plan. 

Appearance and Biology: Minga resemble the baseline human type, and are considered physically attractive by most of that clade. They are gracile of build and have pale skins, ranging from a pink-tinged porcelain to chalk white. Their hair and eyes are in a wide variety of pastel shades. They tend to have large, expressive eyes.

Psychology: For autonomous sophonts, Minga are very submissive and complaint beings. They do disagree from time to time, but always do so in an indirect way best calculated not to give offense. They are nonviolent, even against personal attack, but will defend themselves if absolutely necessary. They are incredibly intuitive beings who seem to anticipate (and then serve) the desires of those they spend any significant amount of time with. Most who try to read a Minga's expression will find exactly what they wish for; only the particularly empathetically adept will note that the Minga are in fact exceedingly hard to read and generally just reflect the wants and desires of others.

The Minga are exceptionally skilled at reading the microexpressions and kinesics of other humanoids. It may be this ability is enhanced by some level of psi empathy. In contrast, they have a fine degree of control of their own nonverbals. They are skilled at manipulation, both through voice, body language, and physical intimacy. This ability is likely pheromonally and psychically enhanced. 

Slavery & A Secret: Minga emerged from a world in the Coreward Reach. It's exact location is known only to the Slavers and their thralls. The Minga were immune to Slaver psionic control, but their allure to other humanoids was apparent, and so they were spared from destruction. Slaver's take away shipments of Minga youth (never too many, so as not to saturate the market). Though the Minga are relatively long-lived, the Slavers have certainly not bothered to introduce any of the anagathic therapies common to civilized worlds. The Minga elders seem to rule their society but meekly acquiesce to demands of the Slavers for more of their people.

The Minga don't enjoy subjugation or their world's occupation by the Slavers, but their ruling cultural belief is in nonviolence and the spiritual exploration of sensuality. The Slavers and their thralls opened the Minga's eyes to the deplorable and iniquitous state of the wider galaxy. It was decided they would use the Slavers as a conduit in their mission to convert all sophonts to their way. The Minga are patient; slowly each slave is bending their supposed master to their view of enlightenment.

Stats: Minga require a Charisma of at least 14. They natively have an ability that works like the psionic ability Empathy (though there's is not purely psionic). This only works on humanoids. Minga also have the ability exert effect similar to Charm Person on a humanoid who fails a Mental Effect save with whom they have had intimate or extended (over 48 hour) close contact.

Wednesday Comics: Za!

Here's the next installment of  Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

"Za! Metamorphosis Odyssey Chapter II"

Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: Za is a bestial Tyjorian on an inhospitable world around Alpha Centauri. He's not like his fellows, and as his knowledge and self-awareness grows, he's becoming less like them all the time.

Tyjorians are the only life on their planet and so are cannibals. Only their rapid rate of reproduction keeps them from killing off their species. Their brutal lifestyle never forced them to develop civilization or even empathy.

Za was born different. The meat of his own kind sickened him, so he had to subsist on his world's strange blue crystals. After his mother died, Za never joined a band. He lived alone, making him a target for groups of other Tyjorians:

He had the strength of 10 Tyjorian males thanks to his diet of blue crystals. None could harm him, but he was still alone.

One day, he met a female and that changed. He felt an emotion unlike the fleeting mating instincts of his species. He brought her meat and protected her. Then one day he couldn't. She was killed while he was away. Feeling a sadness his kind was never made to feel, he climbed high into the mountains intending to end his life. Instead, he met someon--and found it's purpose.

Aknaton apologized, for he was the cause of Za's pain. He had bestowed knowledge and given the ability to understand speech. Aknaton needs a monster with a mind and a soul. There is a darkness spreading across the stars, and it cannot be defeated, only destroyed.

So the two jump on the back of a giant, insect-like creature and head out to their next destination: Earth.

Things to Notice:

• Za looks a bit like a later Starlin creation, Skeeve.

Commentary: 
The hints dropped in Chapter I about Aknaton's activities when he was away from Aknaton begin to pay off. The next few chapters will follow the same pattern of character introduction

The improbability of Tyjoria's ecology just serves to accentuate its a symbolic nature. Tyjoria is the hostile universe in microcosm; it's literally dog eat dog. Za isn't just an everyman, he's all humankind, self-aware and adrift in a savage world, wondering why he suffers and why the world is the way it is. Only love makes it bearable for him, but then he loses that, too. Just when he's about to end it all, God shows up.

Za is a bit like Job, but at least the god Za encounters apologizes (somewhat perfunctorily) for the sufferinghe has caused and gives a reason for it. Still, Aknaton doesn't explain a lot; Za is forced to take things on faith. Given the world he was living in, it's really no wonder Za grabs hold to what Aknaton offers, however vague it may be.

When he does, we see the emergence of another sort of narrative, though one influenced by Biblical ones: the fantasy quest. 

The Futures of Howard Chaykin

Howard Chaykin has worked with a number of science fiction properties in comics over the years: Star Wars, a graphic novel adaptation of Bester's The Stars My Destination, and a Watchmen-ized DC science fiction characters with Twilight. He's also done a few original science fiction charatcers:

Ironwolf
The Hero: The tartan-wearing, outlawed lord of the planet Illium. The sort of guy willing to slap a Galactic Empress over a political disagreement.
Appearances: Weird Worlds #8-10 (1973), Ironwolf: Fires of Revolution (1992).
The Setting: The Empire Galactika in the 61st Century, a time of spaceships made out of anti-gravity wood, vampire legions, and swashbuckling. I talk about it more detail here.
The Look and Feel: probably Burroughs and Alex Raymond inspired. Futuristic guns and swords are in wide use. Most male characters dress a bit like Raymond characters, while the female ones seem to wear hippy or disco inspired outfits.

Cody Starbuck
The Hero: A space pirate. A guy who will charge a nobleman twice the ransom price to rescue his kidnapped bride-to-be then receive fellatio from the woman on the flight home.
Appearances: Star Reach #1,4 (1974, 1976), Cody Starbuck (1978), Heavy Metal (May-Sept., 1981).
The Setting: It seems to drift a little over time, but always a far future galactic society, where an empire has fallen to be replaced by feudalism. A corrupt future version of the Catholic Church is a frequent villain. The first story mentions wooden and crystalline spacecraft, but later stories show fairly standard sci-fi ships.

The Look and Feel: Initially this swashbuckling future is very Alex Raymond (probably by way of Al Williamson), but the later stories show the influence of Star Wars and probably other 70s science fiction film. The level of technology is increased in the later stories. Being in more adult publications, the series is more explicitly sexual.

Monark Starstalker
The Hero: A space vigilante, former rigger (a pilot with his nervous system linked to his ship), rebuilt by aliens and given a robot hawk that he's telepathically linked with. He's the sort of guy that's disliked by both sides in the war, but still manages to right wrongs and get the girl.
Appearance: Marvel Premiere #32 (1976).
The Setting: A space frontier in rebellion against the Federation that founded it. It has riggers that link with their ships and "terranizers" that are some sort of terraforming device.
The Look and Feel: It's sort of Western meets Science Fiction at a time of galactic civil war (a year before Star Wars and an over two decades before Firefly). The clothing and equipment is a bit like the Cody Starbuck stories this same year, but there aren't any swords.

Reuben Flagg
The Hero: An actor from Mars (who lost his job on Mark Thrust, Sexus Ranger to a CGI duplicate of himself) drafted into becoming a real-life lawman in Chicago. The sort of guy that likes to listen to jazz.
Appearance: American Flagg! #1 (1983).
The Setting: A somewhat dystopian, very 80s 2031, where the U.S. government and most major corporations fled to Mars during a crisis in 1996. A media-saturated, corrupted, and violent former America is controlled by the new corporate-governmental entity known as the Plex. Many cities have become arcologies called Plexmalls.
The Look and Feel: A vague hint of the pulp era (zeppelins, stockings and garters), filtered through a whole lot of 80s. Consumerism, pervasive media with subliminal messages, a bit of Judge Dredd-ian urban dystopia. A talking cat.

Cold Eggs

Ksaa are an aggressive and expansionist species native to a system on the Rim in the Strange Stars.

Appearance and Biology: Ksaa are oviparous humanoids with some reptile-like characteristics. They have three sexes with a great deal of phenotypic difference between them. Females are large, aggressive (particularly after egglaying) and territorial; males are smaller, more brightly colored, and less intelligent. The neuter sex has pale white coloration and is more intelligent than the others. It is born from eggs incubated at a cooler temperature, hence the name khii gan, meaning "cold egg" literally, but also "eunuch." It is used figuratively to connote something like "cunning bastard."

Psychology: Ksaa society is formed around family groups of related females. They control territory that is administered by cold eggs born of their clutch or another clutch from the same mother. Cold eggs play games of political intrigue for greater wealth and position. They view themselves as superior to the rest of their species and believe their species to be superior to all others. Ksaa are not an organized threat, except in the occasional period where a cold egg manages to unite a significant number of the great families. These periods are generally short-lived, as treachery takes its toll.

Ksaa still retain the predatory instincts of their evolutionary ancestors. They greatly enjoy hunts and take pleasure in toying with prey (and enemies) before killing them.

Stats: Male ksaa are cannon-fodder soldiers little smarter than animals (AC 7, HD 1, AB +2, bite 1d4 or melee weapon), female ksaa are less likely to be encountered but are more formidable (AC 6, HD 2, AB +2, bite 1d4, tail slap 1d6 or weapon), cold egg ksaa can be built like PCs have have attributes in the same range.

The Weird Adventure of the Anagrammist

I always enjoy hearing about (and sometimes playing in) other peoples Weird Adventures games. John Till has been blogging about a cool game he ran using Fate at Con of the North recently. Like Lester B. Portly, John has his own sort of interpretive spin, which I think is great.

Anyway, check out the set up here, and follow it up with part two and three.

Wednesday Comics: Metamorphosis Odyssey

Here's the first installment of a new Wednesday feature. Leaving Warlord behind, I'm branching out to other comics, starting with Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey...

"Metamorphosis Odyssey: Aknaton"

Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: An alien in pseudo-Egyptian garb flies through space via power of a mystic chance on a disc. This is Aknaton, and his mind is consumed not by the wonders of the cosmos he travels through, but by the past.

He remembers his world of Orsiros, an ancient civilization mixing magic and science, now gone. He thinks of the friends and loved ones he lost including his beloved Nieth. All of them gone now. Only the hated Zygoteans remain.

Even the Orsirosans didn't know the origins of the Zygoteans. They knew well the Zygoteans war of conquest though, as they watched horror befall world after world. The Zygoteans invaded, enslaved the people, then stripped the world of resources, and left their slaves to die on the withered husk.

The Orsirosans watched but didn't act. War was unknown to them, and though centuries were as hours to them, they feared death. Still, they knew that the Zygoteans would one day come for them, and so they watched and learned, and made ready. When the Zygoteans finally attacked, they met stiff Orsirosan resistance. The confrontation lasted 500 years, but Orsiros stood.

The Elders of Orsiros knew their victory wouldn't last. They considered many strategies for overcoming the Zygoteans, but ultimately came to realize that the outcome was inevitable. And so, they fixed their minds on the idea that Orsiros should not die alone.

All their facility for magic and technology went into making the Horn of Infinity; the universe's last resort, the end of the Zygoteans. One of the elders was chosen to be the Horn's guardian: Aknaton. He was granted great powers by his fellows, and these he used to look into the future. He saw the Zygotean triumph, the destruction of his homeworld, the sounding of the Horn and vengeance--and his own death.

Aknaton hid the Horn on a barren world. Then he laid the foundation for what he knew must be. He visited Earth and place a racial memory in emerging humanity. He visited a lush world in the Crab Nebula and released life of his own creation. In Alpha Centauri, he instilled in cannibalistic brutes the capacity for empathy, and on a gelid world in Vega, he hide "a sword of icy fire."

When he was done, he returned to Orsiros to await the end. Though it took 100,000 years, it came. As the Zygoteans attacked, Aknaton said his good-byes. Then he stepped on his helodisc and left his doomed world.

He tried not to watch, but in the end, he couldn't resist. He turned at the precise moment to see Orsiros ripped apart. And then:

Things to Notice:

• Aknaton has a pointy nose (and to a lesser extent, chin) that the other Orsirosans don't share. Maybe it's just Starlin deferentiating them, but I wonder...
• The Zygoteans are never clearly seen, only their "thralls."

Commentary: 
Metamorphosis Odyssey was serialized in Epic Illustrated, Marvel's answer to Heavy Metal, starting in it's first issue. Starlin had been working for DC just prior to this, but his return to Marvel (albeit in a creator owned environment) marked a return to the cosmic vistas and big themes of his work in Strange Tales and Captain Marvel. Starlin has said some things about the origins of this story, but I don't want to touch on them now as they might be a bit spoilery for what's to come.

The Orsiros clearly have an ancient Egypt vibe going on. Orsiros is derived from Osiris, the god of the afterlife. Orsiris was killed by his brother Set and then dismembered. Unlike Orsiros, Osiris gets reassembled and resurrected. The name Aknaton is reminiscent of Akhenaten, pharaoh of the 18th dynasty who forced the abandonment of Egyptian polytheism and the adoption of monotheism, in the form of the worship of Aten.

"Zygotean" is likely derived from zygote, the name for a cell formed by the union of a sperm and egg. The word is derived from a Greek term meaning "joined" or "yoked." Perhaps this choice of names represents the Zygoteans as a growing threat to the galaxy, its gestating doom?  

The Simple Art of Mystery

After this weekends Detectives & Daredevils game, I was talking with the game's creator and our GM, B. Portly, and the man from Kaijuville, Steve, about running mystery-based games. This is something I've put a bit of thought into as most of my Weird Adventures games are mysteries in one way or another. Here are some things I feel like help make a mystery genre game (as opposed to game that just happens to have mystery elements or a mystery setting) successful and enjoyable:

1. Get players' buy in. To create the feel of a specific genre, everybody needs to be on the same page about what you're doing--at least if it's going to be fun for all involved.
2. Plan, but leave some blank space. You need to know the "who," the cast of possible "whos," and at least have a good idea of the "why," if you're going to be able to effectively lay clues for the PCs to uncover. There needs to be some fuzzy areas though, as the player's are going to suggest interesting details either purposefully or through their actions during play. So long as you're not changing the fundamental facts of the mystery the PCs are trying to uncover, this only enhances things.
3. The PCs always find the important clue. This one is borrowed from Robin Laws' GUMSHOE, but it can be employed in any system. If the PCs look, there going to find the critical clues. If they don't look, be on the look out for alternate ways they can discover the information. There can always be some details players' might miss, but if it's really important, don't make it hard to get.
4. Repeated interviews yield new information. As Raymond Chandler pointed out in "The Simple Art of Murder," one of the "unrealistic" things about the murder mystery is that it features a close-knit group of people. Going back to those few NPCs with new questions will get new information, because they will have thought of things since last they were interviewed or new things will have occurred as the malefactor's "plot" precedes.
7. Keep things moving. To again quote Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder": "When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." If the PCs have hit a wall or their just not connecting the dots, they shouldn't flounder too long. Their investigative actions are going to make the villains react or (related individuals with something to hide), and the reaction will often be to try to kill the PCs or throw them off the trail. Maybe the villains don't come after the PCs, but after someone else they think might give the PCs information. Their actions shouldn't be random; they should make sense, but their exact timing can be when the game needs it.
8. Everybody has got secrets. Even when someone isn't the killer/primary criminal, they may have something to hide. Hints at these provide good red herrings and discovering them gives the PCs a feeling of accomplishment while they're slowly chipping away at the big case. Be careful not to let these overwhelm the main mystery or make them too hard to discover, lest the PCs spend too much time on a tangent.
9. It's not necessary to be Sherlock Holmes. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade does very little investigation. He mostly reacts to people coming after him; he thinks on his feet, keeps the other guy talking so they give up a lot of information for relatively few questions, and uses violence judiciously.

That's what I've got. Anybody else got any pearls of wisdom from their gaming table?