Strange Stars Outtakes

There were some things that I wanted to include in the Strange Stars setting book, but had to cut because of the structure we ultimately went with or just plan space considerations. Here are a few of them:

Zhmun

While the zhmun get mentioned in the section on the Zuran Expanse, I had initially intended for one of them to be the character in that section, but decided to co with the cantina picture. While I think showing more of Expanse's inhabitants was the way to go, the loss of the zhmun did make all the featured characters strictly humanoid.

The Sisterhood of Morrgna

Similar to the zhmun, the Sisterhood gets mentioned in the Zuran Expanse section, but originally this was one of the characters on my list of those to include, I even already had a description/reference page made for the artist. Ultimately, an Amazon got ditched for the zhmun and then the zhmun got ditched.

Minga

I had originally wanted a Minga male dressed in an outfit like 70s Cosmic Boy above for this section, but ultimately I went with the Phantasist as the character for the Coreward Reach. The Minga slaves and their subtle manipulations had a bit too complicated a backstory for inclusion in the planet sections, so the poor Minga wind up not getting mentioned at all!

Random Adventures in the Strange Stars

Mike "Wrathofzombie" Evans had suggest a few months ago that I do some sort of adventure inspiration creator for Strange Stars for the setting book. It didn't make it into that book, but I'm going to refine something of that sort for one of the game system books. Here's what I've got so far:

Setups:
 The Heist
 The Gauntlet
 The Unexpected

The Heist: [A] wants the PCs to steal [B] from [C]
A: 1 A neshekk insurance exec  2 Vokun lord  3 A zhmu collector  4 An eccentric Smaragdine celebrity  5 An Orichalcosan optimate  6 The Pharesmid Syndicate
B: 1 A proprietary genetic code  2 An Old Earth artifact  3 A work of art  4 a high-grade mind emulation  5 A weapon from the Archaic Oikumene  6 A mysterious box of alien origin
C: 1 a high security vault station  2 the interior of a Wanderer  3 the isolated asteroid estate of a rival  4 a stateroom safe on a luxury starliner  5 A Zao Pirate stronghold  6 an armored spacehauler

The Guantlet: The PCs must get [A] [B] despite [C]
A: 1 A Deodand hacker  2 An ibglibdishpan defector  3 A diplomate from the League of Habitats  4 A jook band  5 A group of Minga  6 A Wanderer avatar
B: 1 across an Interzone favela  2 off a prison asteroid  3 out of Vokun space  4 to an Alliance cruiser  5 home  6 off Deshret
C: 1 irate smugglers  2 a traitor in their midst  3 pursuing bounty hunters  4 a squad of kuath  5 moravec supremacists  6 a deadly outbreak

The Unexpected: When [A], the PCs unexpectedly stumble onto [B]
A: 1 responding to a distress call  2 exploring a derelict ship  3 on a routine intersystem flight  4 making planetfall for repairs  5 visiting an isolated station for supplies  6 on vacation
B: 1 a dangerous xenospecies  2 a cache of outlawed bioweapons  3 a hidden ssraad raiding vessel  4 a relic of the Archaic Oikumene  5 a new hyperspace node  6 a cabal of psi cultists

Strange Stars Unleashed!

We interrupt our usual Wednesday Comics to report the release of Strange Stars in pdf via drivethrurpg/rpgnow. We regular readers have been hearing about this for sometime (and hopefully, anxious awaiting it).  If you're new (welcome!) you can "preview before you buy" with the index to all the posts I wrote on the setting.

The full-color, premium paper soft cover is coming soon--hopefully in the next couple of weeks. The system books for Fate and old school style gaming (Stars Without Number compatible) will be out later this year.

The Baleful Brothers

Art by Medhi

In the latest session of my 5e Land of Azurth game, the PCs were asked by their patron, Mayor Yrrol Gladhand, to look into the disappearance of the vagrant-ambassador of Lardafa the Beggar City and his pet monkey. Gladhand believes the ambassador is being held captive in the red-light district known as the Floating World, by an a new pair of crime lords: the baleful Burly Brothers.

Gladhand directs them to the queen of the Floating World, the mysterious Calico Bonny in her cabaret ship, Queen Azura. No one meets with Calico Bonny, apparently, but the group converses with Fleur, her poised-almost-to-the-point-of-apathy assistant. She confirms the Brothers' power has been increasing, but she doesn't know where they can be found. She suggests they check with one Saltus Tapper, owner of the flatboat gambling den, The Hazard. He's apparently just entered their employ, but owes Calico Bonny a favor.

Making their way across the Floating Worlds' rickety walkways, the PCs visit Tapper's establishment. He admits to entering the Burly Brothers' employ (not wholly voluntarily) and agrees to tell them more, but he's paranoid he's being watched and asks them to come back at closing. The group agrees.

When they return, Tapper tells them the Brothers have taken over a half-submerged prison hulk. He's about to tell them more when three seemingly drunken thugs in the service of the Brothers show up to get their portion of Saltus's take. Waylon the Frox attempts to buddy up to them and convince them that he and his companions are looking for work. Their leader agrees to let the PCs come along.

Walking out along a narrow plank path along the sandbar into the darkness toward the hulk, Erekose is not surprised when one of the thugs tries to sap him from behind. I fight breaks out, with the PCs ultimately leaving the thugs face down in the muck. They steal the money the thugs were carrying to the Brothers. Having taken damage and used some spells, they decide to rest for the evening and return in the morning.

Waylon stays behind to watch. In the night, he sees to large shapes leave the hulk and step numbly for their size down the planks to the floating world, chortling and snickering as they go. They enter The Hazard and soom their is a scream. Waylon realizes they are the Baleful Burly Brothers and they have killed Saltus Trapper.

The Floating World

In today's 5e Land of Azurth session, the PCs will likely venture into the ramshackle flotilla red-light district of Rivertown, known as "The Floating World." Without giving too much away, here's a few of the points they may crawl to:

Queen Azura: Probably the only true ship of the Floating World, it is a multiple level cabaret and the palace of the Floating World's mysterious queen, Calico Bonny. She seldoms gives audiences and most of her interactions with the outside world are mediated by a series of lissome, young representatives, all named "Fleur."

The Hazard: A open-decked flatboat (covered with tarps) that serves as a gambling den, offering mostly dice games and roulette. It's owner is a dwarf named Saltus Tapper, widely known as a cheat.

Rat's Alley: A ramshackle houseboat that serves as a dive bar, tucked close on the port side of the Queen Azura. It often goes unnoticed by visitors, which is probably to their benefit. It's proprietor and bartender is a large and misshapen man named Handsome Sclaug (treat as a half-ogre thief), who hides his face behind an ill-fitting, sack mask.

The Green Fairy: An absinthe den, appointed well enough that it's origins as three lashed together lifeboats topped with a wooden platform is hidden. The center-piece of its barroom is a large, gilded bird cage, wherein is kept an angry and abusive green fairy to whom the hollow-eyed and dissipated staff seem strangely deferential.

Bibliophilia: Often called "The Lamia's Library", this is a serpentine, enclosed structure of dark wood built across series of small watercraft, tightly linked. It is home to a lamia (a female vampire) and her book collection, which is said to contain every volume that exists, save one, and a number which do not exist. The trick of the library is finding a particular volume, as the lamia's shelving system is idiosyncratic in the way that only a mercurial, inhuman immortals could be. Then there is the usage fee. The Lamia long ago foreswore blood (too messy), but now subsists on the truest dreams and secret hopes of her patrons.

Hurly-Burly: An old hulk, half submerged in the river muck and only connected by one oft-flooded plank walkway to the rest of the Floating World. it serves as a prison of sorts, holding folk who transgress against Calico Bonny or the council of proprietors. it has been seldom used in recent years.

Weird Cosmoses

The Baroque Space setting I've been occasionally posting on of late draws inspiration from a number of different sources. Here are two I've come across recently that are well worth checking out for rpg inspiration:

I got Brass Sun: The Wheel of Worlds for Christmas. Edginton and Culbard bring us a science fantasy (originally appearing in 2000AD) set in a world that's essentially a giant orrery. It's brass sun starts to die and a young girl has to go on a quest across the worlds to find the key to restart it.

Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle is an alternate history hard science fiction novel--though the science is the science of Aristotle! A thousand years after Alexander, the super-powers of Greece and the Middle Kingdom of China are in a protracted war. A scientist from the Delian League commands a daring expedition to fly a spacecraft built from a piece of the Moon through the crystal spheres to get the ultimate weapon, a piece of the elemental fire of the Sun, to defeat the Taoists once and for all.

Famous Pirates of Baroque Space

Here are four aether pirate captains:

Gryff Scurlock of the Picaresque. He boasts (without providing substantiation) of having observed the secret rituals of the Venerian women. He wears a pegleg of Jovian air leviathan tusk since he lost his limb to the poison bolts of the clockwork savages of America Meridionalis.

Horst von Eschenbach, captain of the Black Hart and rogue alchemist. He is said to have once eluded an Angel of Death in the rings of Saturn.

Anya de Winter of the Fata Morgana, said to be the greatest swordswoman of her age. Her eyes are mismatched, one hazel and the other blue like comet ice, though this has not always been so.

Jesus Amarante Zoto, master of La Cazadora, scourge of the Mars-Earth tradeways. He keeps the still-living head of his brother Joaquin in a nutrient vat so he may consult him when needed.

Wednesday Comics: Ubermensch!

This post my be cheating a bit on the Wednesday Comics mission statement, but hopefully it will be of interest to the comics crowd.

I've generally found superhero prose lackluster, at best, and superhero themed prose anthologies are even more of a mixed bag that most anthologies. Even the Wild Cards series with its interesting alternate history universe has its share of clunkers. I can't vouch for the whole anthology, but Super Stories of Heroes & Villains includes one of my favorite superhero short-stories: Kim Newman's alternate fictional history story, "Ubermensch!"

As the name might suggest, "Ubermensch!" is the story of a German Superman, a Nazi Superman--and the Jewish Nazi hunter who comes to kill him. Along the way, it drops hints at an alternate history informed by German cinema and pulp fiction where Berlin is a futuristic city called Metropolis, and the Ubermensch's enemies are Graf Orlock, Dr. Mabuse, and Rotwang. There are annotations here--but read the short story first, lest you deprive yourself of the pleasure of discovering the easter eggs on your own.

There is also this award-winning short film based on it, though they remove a lot of the references that enrich the backstory:

Azurthite Bestiary: Moon Goon

Moon Goons get their name from their heads or masks, large, round, and faintly luminous like the Moon, and their vile behavior. The Moon Goons avoid the real moon, only striking when it is new. Their spindly, bone-white limbs are animated with odd gestures and faintly aglow despite the lack of moonlight. They are forever mumbling and conversing, but their lips never move and their speech is unintelligible.

They arrive in balloons--or what look like balloons--but their gondolas are slung from metal spheres with the appearance of lead. The spheres are hollow, and no one knows from where they derive their buoyancy nor what propels them forward. Perhaps the Moon Goons know, but they don't say. Each gondola carries 2-3 moon goons. They arrive in groups of 2-4 balloons.

They prey on small, isolated villages or farms. The items that interest them are often not particularly valuable at all--at least not in the strict monetary sense. Sentimental value seems the be the primary quality evident in the things they steal.

Moon goons try to put the humans they rob to sleep with the silvery metallic rods they carry. The slumber the rods produce sleep plaqued by weird nightmares. Humans that prove resistant to their rods or harm one of the moon goons raiders, may find themselves on sharp end of their scalpel-like knives.

MOON GOON
medium aberration, neutral evil
AC 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points: 22 (4d8+4)
Speed: 30 ft.
STR 11(+0) DEX 13(+1) CON 12(+1) INT 13(+1) WIS 12(+1) CHA10(+0)
Skills: Stealth +6
Senses Darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11.
Languages Understands any language but don't speak any of them

Magic Resistance. A Moon Goon has an advantage against spells and other magical effect.

Actions:
Rod. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, one target in a 30 foot range. Hit: On a failed DC 12 Constitution save, the target falls to sleep.
Scalpel-like Knife. Melee Weapon Attack. +4 to hit, 5 ft. reach, one target, Hit: 1d8.

The Planetary Spheres

I posted this on G+ a few days ago, but I thought I should share it here, as well...

There are seven spheres whose aetheric densities allow them to be reached by the technology of Man. With the Earth as our reference point, the planets can grouped thusly:

The Postlapsarian Worlds, thither went the Nephilim and the Atlanteans following the Deluge:

Saturn: Ringed with the petrified and crumbling corpses of titans and monsters. A rebellious demiurge imprisoned in its litharge-colored mists.

Jupiter: The peripatetic court of the most convivial of monarchs in continual celebration. Visitors glide down from the several moons on bat wings to hunt giant beasts in a sea of endless, variegated storm clouds.

Mars: Empires clash, and machine brains compute the scientific perfection of eternal war.

There was once another world between the spheres of Mars and Jupiter, but the iniquity of its people destroyed it.

The Prelapsarian Worlds, closer to the Sun and the Demiurge that dwells within:

Venus: Torrid jungles and vast, shallow oceans. Strange and beautiful plant women.

Mercury: Blazing court of the heliocephalic Emperor, a Philosopher-King.

Luna: The pallid, coralline gardens and laboratories of the Fair Folk. The fae themselves, ashen, luminous, and moth-winged, and their insectoid Selenite servants.

Have You Seen These Aliens?

I had hoped I wouldn't be doing another Strange Stars update because it would be in your hands by now, but at least I cane report the final round of proofreading is complete, and Lester is making the requisite changes as I write this.

Assuming the submission process to rpgnow goes smooth (and for pdf, at least, it usual does), it is very close.

Here's one last page to whet your appetite.

Wednesday Comics: A Bronze Age Alphabet

Back in 2009, I did a series of posts for the blog of my friend Jim Shelley called "A Bronze Age Alphabet." Inspired by articles like "A Secret History Alphabet" by Kenneth Hite, it actually didn't deal with any actual Bronze Age alphabet, but instead an alphabet of the Bronze Age of Comics.

I should warn you that it's still incomplete. One day, maybe.

Part 1: A to G

Part 2: H to L

Part 3: M to P

Part 4: Q to U

Death and Time

Saturn moves in the furthest sphere from the Sun reachable by the starships of Man. Beyond, the Cosmos is more chaotic and the laws of Nature are strange. Saturn and those more distant spheres are remnants of a renegade cosmos that was or perhaps might have been. In that world, Saturn would have been the sun and a source of life instead of a graveyard and place of death.

Unique among the planets are Saturn's great rings made of the petrified remains of titans and monsters and the dust and remain made from their collisions in the void. The greatest of these pre-Creation monsters form the moons of Saturn. Men sometimes find treasure among these cold, sepulchral bodies, but ancient and malefic intelligence still lives in some, and there are tales of the dead becoming animate in their influence.

Some seek riches within Saturn itself, but its sickly yellow vapors streaked with dull gray can only be safely penetrated in thick, lead diving spheres that afford voyagers protection by alchemical affinity from both the crushing pressures and the saturnine radiations. Without them, living things petrify then turn to dust and other metals and materials corrode or decay. Travelers have recounted hearing the voices of souls, and ancient and damned, raging or crying in the dark mists, but whether these things are real, no one can say.

At Saturn's north pole, there hangs a great cube of stone like black onyx. Inside, dwells the Oyarses spirit of Saturn, long-bearded Aratron. He has made a great study of time and death, and is to possess a laboratory where he grows new physical forms for himself that he transfers his intelligence to him the old one succumbs to death. As well as being Aratron's palace, laboratory, and treasure house, the cube is said to be the tomb of the rebellious titan that created this world--or at least what is left of him. Though his giant, apparently-dead form has been accreted with stone, he is still well bound and meant to be for eternity.

The Sea of Stars and A Free Adventure

Fellow blogger Sean Holland over at Sea of Stars RPG Design Journal has launched a Kickstarter for The Sea of Stars Campaign Sourcebook for Pathfinder. the Design Journal blog is always a good read with spells and magic items that come with interesting and flavorful backstories making them at once integrated into Sean's setting, but also eminently usable in any setting. He also does write-ups of his campaign sessions that always sound like a great time.

If you're not already a fan of the blog--you should probably rectify that by checking it out--but you can also get a taste of what Sean has in store for us in the sourcebook with this handy sheet of introductory facts and this free 1st level adventure.

Check out the Kickstarter page for the artists Sean has lined up. Also, you'll not that stretch goals include companion pieces written by folks like Benjamin Baugh and Brandes Stoddard--and somehow I slipped in there, too.

36 days to go, but don't wait around. Go check it out.

When Noom Comes

There is one holiday in the Land of Azurth that can never be scheduled because it comes when it will. Loonsday, it is called, and on Loonsday, Noom, the shy, hidden face of the Moon, turns toward Azurth. When the light of smiling Noom shines down, many strange things have been known to happen.

Here are ten strange visitations that have occurred on a Loonsday, under Noom's beaming face:

1. Street cobblestones are disturbed as by ripples in a pond.
2. A strange, scintillant mist attaches itself to a person and follows them around for sometime making a soft sobbing sound.
3. People don strange hats and spontaneous start a parade, winding through the streets of the city, as if in some ecstatic trance. At some point, they cease their marching. The participants throw their hats aside and return to their previous business. They profess no memory of the events.
4. Inanimate household objects have come to life and demanded their freedom from enslavement for perhaps an hour before returning to normal.
5. A rat-king and its retinue emerge from the sewers to hold court in a city square. He will answer 3 questions about the future, promising that at least one prediction will not be a lie.
6. Someone finds a kazoo whose sound will banish lesser devils.
7. Shadows take on weight and texture of a thin piece of felt and detach from their owners with a bit of tugging.
8. A rain of frogs occur over an area of the city, but each frog drifts down slowly under a tiny parasol.
9. A swarm of small, translucent portuguese man-of-war fly through like balloons in a strong wind. They strike anyone in their path like thrown boxing gloves.
10. Small groups of people in odd clothes with their heads replaced by glowing orbs are seen in the streets. If accosted or hindered in their obscure tasks, they will search their pockets or purses and produce a few alien coins and give them to the person confronting them. The coins hum and writhe gently in the hand.

Loonsday inserts itself into the more sensible and regular calendar of Azurth without warning. The appearance of Noom in the sky will always signal that it has begun. When Noom has set (and not in the normal way but by simply drifting away like a handful of sand blown on the wind) Loonsday is over and the normal precision of time resumes.

The Best of 2014

...Otherwise known as a lazy holiday post with no new material. Here's a selection of posts that you guys liked (based loosely on number of comments and G+ pluses) and posts that I liked. Sometimes they coincide; sometimes not. I stirred away mostly from Strange Stars art posts, though, to focus more on the text content. (A Strange Stars note, since I mentioned it: after holiday delays, the book is in the hands of the last proofreaders, with hopes of submitting the pdf very soon.)

So without further ado, here they my picks:

"Strange Stars Covered": 2014 was the year Strange Stars moved forward. Lester B. Portly's retro-cover designs with Eric Quigley's art made this post garner the most pluses of the year.
"Old Soldier": The lives and wars of Hannibal Tecumseh Early in the Strange Stars.
"In the Days of the Archaic Oikumene": Strange days, indeed. One of the "picture and description" posts that I did a lot in the early days with Weird Adventures, but this is the only one this year.

Moving away from Strange Stars, my current  "Oz by way of Dunsany and Smith" 5e setting, The Land of Azurth, got a number of posts:

"Witches of Ix": My most popular Azurth post, and I think one of my best.
"Azurthite Bestiary": Manhounds: This beastie was elevated above the others by Jeremy Duncan's great art.

Sometimes, my best (and most popular) posts are unrelated to my current setting obsession:

"Ruritanian Rogues": suggested picaresque adventure in faux Europe. People liked it. Jeremy Duncan has picked up the ball and really run with it.
"Baroque Space": I've made Spelljammer weird before, but this post gives it an age of sail and filigreed plate armor spacesuit weirdness.. More posts to come in this series, but this was the first.
"The Finer Points of Inner Planar Adventuring": Are the elemental planes boring? Not if you do something interesting with them.
"A Traveller's Life": Inspired by the Dumarest saga by E.C. Tubb, ideas about how you could run an interesting sci-fi game without FTL and limited to relativistic speeds.

Wednesday Comics: European Fantasy

I've done several posts on American fantasy comics, but haven't really touched on fantasy comics from across the Atlantic--with the exception of Thorgal. There's a good reason for this: Most of them are in French not English. There are some, though, that have gotten official English translations.  Here's a sampling:

Crusade
A somewhat gritty historical fantasy about a fictitious Crusade to reclaim Jerusalem that's manipulated by a demonic plot. The first 3 volumes (of 6) has been republished in English (even for Kindle) by Cinebook, but they are expurgated versions, removing some nudity.

Lanfeust of Troy
A longrunning series with several spinoffs and an rpg tie-in, the main series tells the story of Lanfeust and his companions on the planet Troy, a world of magic. Drawn in a bit of  a cartoony style, the Troy series has a fair amount of humor and a little bit of cheesecake.

Only the first two volumes of the first series are officially available in English from a South African publisher.

Millennium
In 1000 AD, a relic trafficker and his companions combat monsters and solve a mystery. Humanoids (the French and English publisher) says it's like Name of the Rose meets The X-Files, which I think is pretty reasonable. It's available in digital but a nice collected edition is coming from Humanoids in February.

Roxanna & the Quest for the Time Bird (La Quête de l'oiseau du temps)
From 80s (so out of print), a sword & sorcery-ish yarn about a young woman, Roxanna (Pelisse, in French) sent by a witch (her mother) to prevent to resurrection of an evil god. It's got great art by Régis Loisel. It was published by NBM in English in 3 volumes.

History, Real and Otherwise

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of this blog. it started all right here. I don't know that anyone has been reading that long, but how ever long you've been coming here: thanks for reading.

I've done a number of setting riffs related to alternate history over the years. In case you missed them or just forgot about them, here's the list:

"Alien Underground": In a 1981 other than our own, Centralia, Pennsylvania was where the world became aware of monsters underground. An alternate history, modern day, conspiracy dungeoncrawl.

"The Weird Frontier": Put Gygax's whole civilization versus strange wilderness theme back where he got it: the American frontier. A Colonial era, points of light fantasy.

"Gods, Heroes & Super-Science": What if the Greek myths were real? And by real, I mean tales of Bronze Age humans having contact with Kirby-esque science fantasy, Chariots of the Gods-style. This one got a number of posts. A Greek mythology science fantasy for Mutant Future.

"The Muvian-American War": In the aftermath of the Spanish American War, a more arcane threat looms. An alternate history, early 20th century, Guns & Sorcery setting.

Pulp Space: The War of the Worlds was only the beginning. By the 1930s, occultism and alien science have taken the empires of Earth to other planets--carrying their volatile politics with them.This one got multiple posts, too, but it started here. A science fantasy, alternate Spelljammer.

The Hanna-Barbera Superhero Universe

Art by Carlos Mota

I've played superhero rpg campaigns set in the Marvel and DC Universes and even considered one set in the Atlas-Seaboard Universe (that never happened, unfortunately). Recently, though I've given consideration (probably not seriously, though, but as a thought experiment) to a campaign set in the universe of Hanna-Barbera's superhero cartoons.

One notable thing about Hanna-Barbera's supers characters is that when you leave aside the licensed properties (Super Friends, The Fantastic Four) and the completely comedic ones (The Impossibles, Atom Ant), very few of the characters follow traditional superhero conventions. Few are set on modern day Earth or have a stable base of operations and supporting cast. The only one that does (Birdman) is a bit unsual because he's more of a superhuman agent of a governmental organization.

Despite this different in focus and presentation, I think many of them could be adapted to a more traditional superhero mold. Call it "Ultimate Hanna-Barbera," if you will.  Let's run the list:

Art by Alex Ross

Space Ghost: A very superhero-y and well realized character as-is. Perhaps like the Legion of Super-Heroes he is a futuristic character in the same universe. A future Phantom/Batman in the same way Captain Future is kind of a futuristic Doc Savage. The other option would be to make him sort of Green Lantern-like. A space cop assigned to protect earth. Or some combination of the two?

Young Samson: (Also known as Samson & Goliath) A teen with a Captain Marvel schtick who wanders around Route 66 or Incredible Hulk style, getting into adventures, works pretty well as-is. As suppose, it would be better to have him settled down and become more of a Peter Parker.

Shazzan: The cartoon has two kids transport to an Arabian Nights fantasy-land after finding their genie, but they could have just as easily stayed in the modern day. Two teens sharing a genie to fight evil would be an interesting concept.

Mightor: A Stone Age Thor, essentially. There isn't any reason a worthy successor couldn't find the magic club and become Mightor in the modern day. Of course, the character is a bit on the silly side and would probably work best for a Silver Age vibe rather than a Modern Age one.

Herculoids: In a comic book universe, the Herculoids could be sort of Ka-Zar type characters where their Savage Land is a world in another dimension, or they could be treated like a primitive Forever People and have them arrive on Earth to be super-powered fish-out-of-water.

Art by MarioPons

The Galaxy Trio: These teen heroes are probably better candidates for Forever People stand-ins. You can transport them to the modern day and have them be alien heroes stranded on Earth for some reason.

Cosmic Tales

Got a Bronze Age Itch Most Cosmic you need scratched? (And really, who doesn't?) Well, Michael "Aos" Gibbons has launched his new webomic on Tumblr: Cosmic Tales. It's got a bit of Legion of Super-Heroes in a Jim Starlin-with-a-dash-of-Grant Morrison Cosmic Crisis vibe, all given a generous coating of Kirby.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Have a great holiday!

Here's hoping you didn't stay up forlorning waiting for the man with the bag like Clara Bow here:

But you're with your loved ones happily opening presents like Carol Lombard:

Wednesday Comics: Star Light, Star Bright

This week, we conclude our look at the DC holiday anthology Super-Star Holiday Special from 1980:

Super-Star Holiday Special

DC Special Series #21 (Spring 1980). Cover by Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez

Synopsis: The next tale begins in a "realm we only visit in our darkest nightmares." A weird world, particularly on Christmas--the world of DC's horror anthology hosts, brought to us by Bob Rozakis with Romeo Tanghal and Dan Adkins on art.

The horror hosts are gathered for in the House of Secrets, waiting for Santa Claus to arrive and they (surprise) get into an argument about how can tell the best Christmas story: The Witches Three (from The Witching Hour) tell a story of a family saved from a shipwreck in the fog by the light of a star. Cain, caretaker of the House of Mystery, spins the next yarn where a greedy pawnbroker makes a deal with a mysterious stranger for all the goods in his shop for a diamond. The diamond turns into a lump of coal and the stranger is revealed to be Santa Claus. Finally, Destiny steps up to tell a shaggy dog story about a rocket pilot chasing a strange star in the future, only to break the time barrier as his own ship burns up...

Next we go to December 1941 to see if maybe Christmas is easy in Easy Company for Sgt. Rock and his boys. Turns out "no," as revealed in "The Longest Night" by Robert Kanigher with art by Dick Ayers and Romeo Tanghal. Easy is on its way to the Italian town of Santa Maria. When their compass is destroyed by a German, they have to rely on an unusually bright star to guide them. They meet a group of pilgrims with candles led by a nun on the way of to the Shrine of Saint Maria. Rock realizes:

They meet a kid who is living in the bombed out city who doesn't believe in miracles. Long story short, by the end of the story the kid does. Though it takes Easy Company killing a number of Germans and Rock blowing out the shrine's statute of Santa Maria first.

Finally, we head to 2979, where Superboy learns the meaning of the season from the Legion of Super-Heroes in a tale written by Paul Levitz with art by Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez and Dick Giordano. It's Christmas Eve and the Legionnaires are cheerful and celebratory, but Superboy just can't get into it.

Even after being shown various celebrations, Superboy still isn't satisfied, so the Legion heads out in space to find the Christmas star to mollify him. As you would expect by now, a phantom star leads them to a planet where aliens are in dire need of rescue. After do-gooding, they still have time for a little cheer:

The Witch of the Woods

Ursa the Witch, as rendered for a mini by Renee Calvert

My Land of Azurth 5th edition game continued last night. When last we left our heroes, they were preparing to return to the ceremony ring where they believed Ursa the Witch, servant of the Horned One, was turning men into manhounds so they could hunt talking animals in the Enchanted Wood.

Leaving the bard and the ranger (the player's were absent this session) to guard the still-ailing druid, Lailogan, the group returned to the Spouting Spring and then to the abandoned hermit's hut near by. Investigating it (like they hadn't done when they first passed), they found the door to be magically locked and noticed it to be unusually clean on the inside--and their was a spot under a wooden table Kairon the Warlock detected as magical.

After much dithering and some failed attempts to get in, the group finally got inside and discovered an invisible box of some sort. They were reluctant to try too hard to get it open when they couldn't see what they were dealing with, but they suspected (erroneously, it turns out) they it held the musical device they knew the witch had. They took it back to the druid's cabin for safe keeping and set up and ambush around the hut, thinking the witch would come there for the box.

At nightfall, they heard the music wafting up from the ceremonial ring and knew they were wrong. They headed toward the ring; there was now animal sounds coming from it. They hid beside the trail, and manged to get the drop on three manhounds. Erekosse the fighter fell pray to a number of bad rolls, but Waylon the frox thief more than took up the slack. Kairon took shots from cover, and Dagmar the Cleric delivered some coups de grace. They manhounds returned to human form when near death. They saved one to interrogate and tied him to a tree.

Ursa the Witch o' the Woods by Richard Svenssen

They made their way stealthily to the ring, where they found the witch. She was talking to the shadow of a horned man that flickered against the great oak, despite the fact their was no one there casting it. They also saw the music device:

They wasted no time, and their first attacks are really successful. They blast her from a distance and she reels from the assault. Still, she isn't down yet and her counter-attack puts the two spellcasters to sleep. Then she steps to the side and seem's to dissipate like mist. The party looks around the ring and finds six indentical robes that must belong to the manhounds. They detect magic on the phonograph and find that only thecylinder is magical.

The shadow watches them a bit then slides off the tree into the night sky, and its dark laugh is carried away on the wind.

The group confiscats the phonograph and the wax cylinder. They scoop up the naked former manhounds as they come wandering back to the ring, looking like drunks recovering from a binge. They quickly give up their cabal of libertine gourmands and tell how they paid the witch to transform them for the hunt. The one the group left tied to the tree has had his throat slit, though, and the boat and the hunchback henchman holding their clothes and waiting for their return is gone. Ursa has made good her escape.

The group takes the captured malefactors back to Rivertown to claim their reward and again be lauded by Mayor Gladhand. They also kept the invisible chest that turned out to be the gold the gourmands were paying Ursa.

Get it Started

Just in time for the holidays, my longtime blogging compadre, Tim Shorts, over at Gothridge Manor has released Starter Adventures in pdf on Drivethru/Rpgnow and pdf or print-on-demand on Lulu. This is what Tim says about it:

Starter Adventures is where you learn to fight, steal, cast spells and heal.  You'll have to use your wits to figure out puzzles.  Use a sword to murderize goblins.  And crumble the undead beneath the power of your god.
It's time to grab a weapon, memorize a spell and strap on some armor.  This is going to be fun.
Starter Adventures is targeted toward introduing a new player into RPGs.  Inside are four short adventures for each of the four main classes, a tavern to hangout in, and a full-fledged adventure when they've got enough blood encrusted on their blades. 

I have not had a chance to give it a good reading myself (being business with usual holiday prep and striving to get Strange Stars done), but I have been a reader of The Manor and a Patreon supporter of Tim's and he does good stuff, so pick it up to stuff your own stocking with.

Baroque Space: Among the Asteroids

I may do a more robust drop dice and random table thing for this that might be fairly applicable to weird islands, but for now here are some asteroid encounters for this setting.

1. A dwarf planet inhabited by naked, acephalous dwarfs. They are primitive of speech and manner and cannot be understood, nor do they understand any Earth language, though they do comprehend Enochian, the language of the angels. They zealously guard a crashed starship and their shamans perform crude rituals before it, including (perhaps) human sacrifice.

2. What appears to a solid asteroid at a distance, is only a loosely held pile of gravel, rocks, and sand. Any ship landing will likely sink to the core and become trapped. Debris from previous, unfortunate landings is buried within.

3. A peanut-shaped asteroid with a vertiginous, tumbling spin and the giant, vitrified skeleton of an angel embedded in the surface of one end. The crystalline bones would fetch a handsome price, if they could be mined.

4. A small world with great mounds at either end like giant anthills. Dome-headed, dwarfish creatures less than two feet tall dressed in skins and brandishing cudgels and spears swarm angrily from each if any vessel should land. The creatures from either mound are roughly identical, save that those from one are orange and the other purple. They will attempt to overwhelm any intruders they find and drag them back inside their respective mounds.

6. A rocky, desert world where lives a wretched hermit. He is along but for one-eyed, whimpering things he calls his "dear companions." Perhaps he has been driven made by his isolation, but his rants will frequently return to a great treasure who's location he alone knows.

7. A jagged. ice-streaked asteroid with a faintly luminous, ice gynosphinx, much larger than the sphinx of Egypt, in a gorge between peaks. There is rumored to be a great antediluvian treasure horde buried beneath it, but no one has found it. The sphinx emits a vibration that causes the space armor to thrum ominously, driving some mad who are exposed to it for too long.

Strange Stars, 5 Operations

Last time I gave a Strange Stars update, I had hoped it was going to be the last tease. Unfortunately, things have not gone quite as fast as I wanted. This is mostly for two good reasons: We're trying to turn out the best product we can and Lester was swamped with work doing a lot of cool stuff for Goodman Games. I am happy to report that the last pages (glossary and intro, essentially) are being laid out. leaving only our last proofing reviews and submission to Drivethru/r\Rpgnow. So it's close.

To tide you over, here's an excerpt from a page called "5 Operations 8 Iterations" which will be lists of 8 items in (hopefully) interesting topics: Valuable Artifacts, People Someone Wants Found, Contents of Spacehauler Container 49, Drugs in an Epic Stash, and Exotic Locales.

Here's one from each:

Gravid War Womb 38 cm diam. spheroid nanoassembler capable of replicating a Sisterhood of Morrgna hive.

Rhona Tam Captain of Moral Hazard, privateer/custom enforcement contractor out of Circus.

Bottles of “Burner” Cyberware [4, 200 count] When ingested, crudely anonymizes noospheric interface for up to 20 ks.

Bouncing Balls of High-Grade Chroma [7] Psychedelic and euphorigenic.

The Pampas of Taprobane Habitat On safari, hunting the sharp-beaked blushing shraik.

Wednesday Comics: Wanted: Santa Claus--Dead or Alive!

Super-Star Holiday Special

DC Special Series #21 (Spring 1980). Cover by Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez

Synopsis: Len Wein tells it like this:

Iffy history aside, it's a good enough intro for 4 seasonal tales in the DC universe.  First up, Jonah Hex:

"The Fawn and the Star" Written by Michael Fleisher, art by Dick Ayers & Romeo Tanghal

It's Christmas eve, and Jonah Hex is after the Tull brothers across the snowy wilderness. He comes across a little girl and her father fighting over whether to kill a fawn with a hurt leg. Uncharacteristically, Hex sides with the girl and even bandages the animal's wound. To mollify the father, Hex agrees to get him something else for the family's Christmas meal. Maybe Hex's show of softness is due to a similar episode in his childhood. He saves a raccoon from a trap and nursed it back to health in the family barn. When his father found it, it wound up on the families dinner table.

Hex follows the bright star in the south and comes to a cave. The Tull boys are hiding there. In a firefight, Hex blows them up with dynamite, but somehow manages not to mangle them too badly to collect his bounty or destroy their stuff--which includes a bunch of provisions for the trail he takes back to the relatively greatful family. We can only hope the Tull brothers learned the true meaning of Christmas before their deaths.

Next up, it's Christmas Eve in Gotham...

Written by Denny O'Neil, Art by Frank Miller & Steve Mitchell

Crime never takes the night off--someone even stole a star off the department store nativity scene-- but luckily neither does the Batman. He moves through the sleet-coated night to a party thrown by Matty Lasko. Lasko has a boat waiting in Gotham harbor and that's enough to raise Batman's suspicion.  After Batman roughs up some goons, Lasko tells him it was a favor for an old cell-mate: Boomer Katz.

At a soup kitchen in Crime Alley, one old timer asks another about Boomer Katz and finds out Katz has got a job as a Santa at Lee's department store. The old timer leaves an envelope surprisingly full of money, and sheds his disguise on the roof, revealing himself to be the Batman. He's certain the only reason Katz would have gotten a job at a department store is to case the joint, and Lasko must have arranged his escape. It's a shame , too; Even Batman believed Katz had finally gone straight.

At the department store, Lee is having second thoughts. When his boss praises his skill as a Santa, it brings a tear to his eye. Out by the nativity scene, he tells Fats (a bald guy that holds a cigarette holder like a German in a movie) he can't go through with it. Fats isn't cheered by this turn, and he and his goons pull guns then force Katz to get them in to the store's service entrance. They're after the store's daily receipts. When they've got them, they plan to kill Katz, but he throws a box of ornaments at the thug and runs away. He's shot in the shoulder but manages to escape.

Batman hears the shots. He bursts through the window and saves the store manager from Fats, taking him down with a small Christmas tree. The manager tells Batman how the thugs forced Katz to help them and are now trying to kill him.

Inbeknowst to Batman, the thug has his gun to Katz's head and his holding him somewhere near the nativity scene. Batman has been unable to find Katz, but ironically, he's nearby talking to a cop. Batman looks up and notices the star is back on the nativity scene and its light is shining on--Katz and his would-be killer!

Batman saves Katz and takes out the thug. And that star?

Batman is pretty unconcerned, but I guess in a world with Superman and Green Lantern and what have you, stuff happens.

The holiday spirit moves us again, next week.