A Manticore Named Mortzengersturm

Last night saw another session in our 5e Land of Azurth game. The players: the sorcerer Kairon (Eric), the dwarf cleric Dagmar (Andrea), the elven ranger Shae (Gina), the bard Cully (Jim), the fighter Erkose (Bob), and Waylon the frox thief (Tug).

Interested in the strange device they found last adventure, the gang ultimately decided to take an illusionary image of it to the Clockwork Princess Viola to help them identify it. There's only so much she can tell without seeing the real thing, but she's able to tell them its a laterna magica of some sort. Finding no other option for discovering its nature, curiosity overcomes caution, and they take the item back to her. Using her devices she determines it is a projector to another plane. It was made using ancient, "wild magic" from the item before the creation of Azurth. It needs a "film" (an image on a piece of glass) to project, and it is currently damaged. Its lens has a small fracture.

There is a way to fix the lens: more wild magic. This that can get from the jewel in possession of the manticore lord of Geegaw Mountain, Mortzengersturm. Mortzengersturm is a wizard exiled by the Princess for his dabblings in wild magic that created many a combined monstrosity like owlbears, ant-lions, and hippogriffs. He dwells now on the Prismatic Peak of Geegaw where his experiments continue. The Princess suggests even the light from his crystal will be enough and loans them a magic hand mirror to capture it.

There's the matter of transport. The Princess also agrees to lend them a swan boat, like these, They find them in a grotto in one of the castle's sublevels. They have to fight a slimy covered creature to get them:

Them they sail the boat down the channel out of the grotto, down a waterfall, then into the sky. After half a days travel (through rain), they stop for a rest, and in the setting sun they can see the rainbow light refracted through the crystalline mountain that is their destination.

Arriving on the flat top of the moutain (like an angled, triangular prism set on one end), they pass through a garden with beds of sunflowers, each with a giant human eye at their center, and arrive at an angular castle guarded by hipogriffs. Through the jewels on the hipogriffs' barding, they are able to converse with Mortzengersturm, who bids them enter.

In a grand audience chamber, a goblin with a trump announces the entrance of a manticore with a monocle and a cigarette holder. Mortzengersturm!

The Mystery Terrarium

I don't mean the sort that might be investigated by Scooby-Doo and the gang, but rather a variant of the mystery sandbox, maybe one where player's don't even know it's a mystery sandbox to begin with. Or (to state in a more player-centric way), a setting where the level of mystery can be dialed up or down as desired.

What got me thinking about this is Wayward Pines wherein what appears to be a place again to the Village (from The Prisoner, I mean), is actually slightly more like the Village from The Village and is in fact [SPOILER] apparently a model 21st century town in a post-apocalyptic future.  So we get a setting where people are living in an artificial society where the reality of the world is hidden to one degree or another. It could just as easily be a faux-Medieval society as opposed to a modern one.

This differs from your standard post-apocalyptic fantasy setting like Tekumel in a few of ways. One, the nature of those settings isn't a secret from the inhabitants. There are details that don't know and things they don't understand, but most of time people are at least partially aware they are in a fallen world. Nor, generally, are there forces actively trying to hide the nature of the world from them. Lastly, the world is artificial to an extent--it was setup to to provide a certain environment and to fool people. It would be as if the quirky societies in the biospheres in The Starlost had been purposely created rather than be accidents of cultural drift. If the world of Anomalous Subsurface Environment were a big, crazy social experiment. Or a human ant farm.

The players' can run around the ant farm, blissfully unaware of their captivity--or they can take on the bigger mystery and try to break out.

It Came From the Trapper Keeper

A blue one, in a plastic cargo crate along with the contents of the Gamma World 3rd Edition box set, Advanced Marvel Super-Heroes character cards, Descent Into the Depths, and The Isle of Dread. I was looking for the G.I. Joe game my friends and I wrote, but instead I would the partial Transformers rpg.

The credits says the writers were myself and my friend, Al. My brother gets a "design consultant" credit. Most of my gaming group are credited as "playtesters", but that must have been aspirational as it was never played, as far as I can recall.

It was partially inspired by Marvel Super-Heroes--it used an action table, though it also seems to have had some sort of "action points" (called "Firepower") possibly borrowed from FASA Star Trek, I haven't compared the charts to know for sure. The abilities were inspired by the Tech Specs on the back of toy packages.

Games from the Crypt

Having returned from Texas with a 20+ year-old game (Wizards) I hear isn't very good (and I am unlikely to play in any case) and two 30+ year-old supplements for a game (Powers & Perils) I have never played, am unlikely to, and I don't known where I might have stored the core rules for, I am forced to ponder what is it about old games, anyway?

I am something of a collector, true and as Batman's Batcave and Superman's Fortress of Solitude have long demonstrated, it's cool to have a good collection on display. Still, books, comic books, movies--all of those I generally get the intended use out of as well as the collecting aspect. The games not as much.

There's a bit of nostalgia, sure. I remember seeing these things on shelves sometimes or I saw them advertised in Dragon and the like. I think it's also a bit of my love or history and archaeology. These products are a window into the past. They even smell old, whether through the smell of old paper only or musty rooms where cigarettes were smoked (and probably the less pungent Mountain Dew and snack foods consumed). They're a tangible connection to a hobby that, while relatively young, is older than I am.

How about you guys? Do you like old games even if you don't play them?

The Con Ends

I'm flying home today after a good time at NTrpgcon 2015. Had dinner with Justin of A Field Guide to Doomsday, and met the next generation of mutant chronicler. All the heads of Hydra (except Anothony) came together for some strategic planning about our upcoming endeavors. Chris Kutalik ran us through the Reavers of the Weird mini-game (made even more mini and cutthroat by a small selection of miniatures). I played a goatman bounty hunter named Valentine in a ASE-inspired, space station-crawl, Chris was a psyker cat named Miss Sassy, and my girlfriend, Andrea, played a bovinoid starship deck crew member with an Intelligence of 8. Hijinks ensued.

Saturday, the Hydra crew was together again as part of a indie rpg press panel put together by Richard LeBlanc (New Big Dragon Games Unlimited) and featuring a host of knowledgeable small press dudes.

And of course, there was some beer consumption and a good deal of far-ranging discussion along the way. If only the professional conventions I attend were as much fun.

NTRPGCon

I'm in Texas for the  North Texas Rpg Con once again, this time for a summit of the Hydra Publishing Collective as well as the usual gaming an debachery. I met up with the usual suspects last night: Chris Kutalik, Robert Parker, and Justin Davis, and met Mike Davison for the first time. I'm looking forward to meeting Jason Sholtis.

Oh, and I picked this up yesterday:

Some of us are in an indie publishing panel on Saturday morning which they closed registration up prematurely, so if you're at the con and can rouse yourself at 0800, you should come by regardless.

Wednesday Comics: Indie Apocalypses

Continuing my survey of post-apocalyptic comics (focused on those) in print. Previously, I reviewed Marvel's and DC's offerings, now it's time to look beyond the Big Two:

Hunter
What's the Apocalypse? A nuclear war, starting in 2001, whose radiation creates psionic mutants called "demons."
Who are the heroes? Demian Hunter, half-human, half-demon demon hunter.
Where can you read it? Eerie Presents: Hunter

Mighty Samson
What's the Apocalypse? Nuclear war.
Who are the heroes? The titular Samson, a super-strong barbarian adventurer.
Where can you read it? starting with The Mighty Samson Archives volume 1
.

Just A Pilgrim
What's the Apocalypse? "The Burn," a solar coronal expansion.
Who are the heroes? Pilgrim--a religious fanatic and reformed (maybe) cannibal--and other survivors.
Where can you read it? Just A Pilgrim Complete.

Sabre
What's the Apocalypse? Nuclear war.
Who are the heroes? Sabre, Melissa Siren, and other freedom fighters against a fascistic regime.
Where can you read it? Sabre 30th Anniversary Edition

Scout
What's the Apocalypse? Ecological damage and economic collapse after most nations have levied punitive sanctions against the U.S.
Who are the heroes? Emmanuel Santana aka Scout, an Apache ex-U.S. Army Ranger on a quest to destroy a supernatural evil
Where can you read it? start with Scout volume 1

Walking Dead
What's the Apocalypse? A zombie outbreak of unknown cause.
Who are the heroes? Rick Grimes and a a changing group of survivors, many of whom will die.
Where can you read it? start with Walking Dead Compendium One

Wasteland
What's the Apocalypse? "The Big Wet" that left "half the world covered by poisonous, rising oceans" and the remaining dry land is desiccated and broken.
Who are the heroes? Michael, a scavenger who finds a machine that talks in a forgotten language.
Where can you read it? start with Wasteland Book 1: Cities in Dust

Xenozoic Tales (aka Cadillacs and Dinosaurs)
What's the Apocalypse? Ecological upheaval, leading humans to abandon the surface for hundreds of years. They return to find dinosaurs.
Who are the heroes? Jack Tenrec and Hannah Dundee. They drive cadillacs and run away from dinosaurs. And other stuff.
Where can you read it? Xenozoic

The World of Tiger Lung

Tiger Lung series of stories by Simon Roy (Prophet), assisted at times by Jason Wordie, published in a collection by Dark Horse. The title character is a shaman in Eastern Europe in the late Paleolithic era, the mediator for people between the material world and the world of spirits--a world not that far away, but alien to most.

In its fundamentals it recalls Muktuk Wolfsbreath, Hard-boiled Shaman. The story "Song for the Dead" even follows the formula of the Wolfsbreath stories: a conflict with a spirit reveals a secret transgression in the human world. But where the Muktuk Wolfsbreath series wrings some humor from juxtapositioning the activities of a Siberian shaman with dialog in the style of hard-boiled fiction, Tiger Lung plays it straight

Roy is not trying to write a standard prehistoric comic in the Tor or Kong the Untamed vein (not that those aren't cool in their own right), but more resembles Shanower's Age of Bronze in his attempt to create a level of (pre-)historical verisimilitude. It's most definitely fantasy, though, with its realms of the dead, various spirits and even were-hyenas. The only fault in the collection is with only 3 stories, it's all too short.

Art by Simon Roy

Fury Rails

In the wastes of the old world, poisoned and drained of life, the first, true Barons built the railways between what settlements remained, taking the last scraps of the old industry in their grasps and empires. They are gone now, too, and only petty tyrants and poisoned-brained madmen remain. The deserts have grown even harsher and strange monsters lurk in their sands. The railways--those rusting few that remain--are the only way through. Civilization clings to them. Despite road agents, psychotic tribesmen, and giant beasts, the trains have got to keep rolling.

Take the post-apocalyptic cultures and aesthetic of Mad Max 2: Road Warrior and Mad Max: Fury, but make it a little less 1980s and a little more 1880s, and combined the burrowing monsters and extensive railways of Mieville's Railsea. Season to taste with The Hills Have Eyes and Spaghetti and Acid Westerns, and you've got a kickass campaign setting, I think.

More Strange Stars Art--And A Question

Here's another piece of art by the guy who has done more than anyone to define the look of the Strange Stars universe, David Lewis Johnson. We see Zao Pirates pursue a vessel, but finding that their prey-to-be has friends.

In other news, I've been thinking about doing some collections of back posts (like Jack did with his Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque books) and make them available as pdf and maybe POD. While they're all here on the blog, people seem to like compilations quite a bit and in fairness, with 1440 posts, finding things or reading a series of posts isn't always convenient.

So if you have any thoughts on that, let me know.

Back to the Strange Stone Age

Or maybe forward to a remote future? Whichever, it's a time where prehistoric humans do battle with monsters--both known to history and unknown--and with incursion of aliens or ultraterrestrials, part Kirby and part von Däniken. The actions of the aliens create sores in the skin of reality where the normal laws are warped and disrupted.

Some humans have benefited (or so they believe) from alien technology and even interbreeding. They view themselves as superior to the others and hunt them for slaves--or worse. But humans have allies, too: the gregarious Small-Folk (Halflings, pakuni, homo florensis), the hardy and aloof Stone Folk (dwarves, T'lan Imass, Neanderthals). And then there are the spirits, made stronger since the aliens rent holes in reality, with whom the shamans intercede through the use of sacred, hallucinogenic technologies--their "passkeys" into the operating system of the universe.

Inspirations:
Comics: Devil Dinosaur, Tor, Tragg and the Sky-Gods, Henga (Yor), Turok, anything New Gods by Kirby or Morrison (for the "magic as technology" aspect).
Fiction: Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories (mainly the implied pseudo-scientific background), Manly Wade Wellman's Hok, Roadside Picnic (the portrayal of zones and alien artifacts)
"Nonfiction": alien abduction stuff and forteana, "forbidden history" stuff, Chariots of the Gods.

Wednesday Comics: Marvel Apocalypses

Continuing my review of post-apocalyptic comics with Marvel's contributions to the genre:

Deathlok
What's the Apocalypse? Not entirely clear, but evidently a coup by Roxxon Oil followed by war.
Who are the heroes? Luther Manning aka Deathlok, a cyborg.
Where can you read it? Deathlok the Demolisher: The Complete Collection.

Killraven
What's the Apocalypse? An alien invasion (from Mars) in 2001.
Who are the heroes? Killraven and his companions, freedom fighters against Martian rule.
Where can you read it? Essential Killraven volume 1.

Planet of the Apes
What's the Apocalypse? A nuclear war.
Who are the heroes? Time-displayed astronauts, a human named Jason and an ape named Alexander.
Where can you read it? back issues only. Or here.

More Sample Strange Stars Pages

Lester B. Portly sent me several more chapters from John Till's Strange Stars Fate this weekend. Here's the first page of the draft for the "Threats" chapter featuring art by Adam Moore, where the usual suspects appear (the ssraad, ksaa, and the Vokun and the Zao Pirates), but also some you might not immediately think of: a modified clone of Hannibal Early, a renegade thrax, and a blesh master criminal.

Salem and Threefold Alignment

Salem season 2 is on now (subtitled, "Witch War" according to wikipedia, which fits the lurid tone perfectly, so I'm disappointed they don't use it in advertising). Watching the conflict between the forces of the oppressive, conformist Christian Orthodoxy and the ruthless witches, out to steal the new world for themselves (and their dark master), it's interesting how both sides are presented as having legitimate grievances and a legitimate point of view. Both sides are also guilty depravity, harming innocents, and using the end to justify the means.

Though neither God or Satan has directly opined on the actions of their supposed agents but if we take the obviously real nature of witchery and the claims of its adherents and enemies as fact, then the with-hunters and Christian majority map to the Lawful side of things and the witches map to Chaos. Both show evidence of behaviors we might call "evil" and (less commonly) "good", so those are largely not of concern to the factions, just like they aren't in old school D&D alignment.

There is also a Neutral faction. Petrus the Seer wields magically powers and is most often seen helping the witches but doesn't appear to be one of them. The Native Americans likewise have magical traditions with real power but they are opposed to the witches. The tribes and their beliefs are also condemned by by the Salem Christian establishment.

So, there you go. All and all, a good example of threefold alignment in action.

Strange Stars: Trouble with 'Bots

I figured it was time for another tease of the (limited) number of new pieces of art that will appear in the Strange Stars gamebooks. This one is by Adam Moore, who Weird Adventures fans may remember from this great illustration.

I hope you guys dig it as much as I do.

Wednesday Comics: Comics Apocalypses

There have been a lot of post-apocalyptic comics. (I've covered several before on this blog, in fact!) Over the next installments, I won't to point out the various post-apoc comics in print somewhere besides the back issue bin (and maybe a few that are only there). We'll start with DC:

Atomic Knights
What's the apocalypse? "The Hydrogen War," October 1986.
Who are the heroes? The Atomic Knights who wear armor from the Middle Ages and ride giant mutant Dalmatians to help rebuild society and right wrongs.
Where can you read it? Atomic Knights (hardcover), Showcase Presents: The Great Disaster (soft cover, b&w).

Kamandi
What's the Apocalypse? The Great Disaster, the nature of which is unspecified.
Who are the heroes? The Last Boy on Earth (Kamandi) and his friends and allies, who fight weird mutant animal cultures and other oddities.
Where can you read it? Kamandi Omnibus vol. One and Two

Hercules Unbound
What's the Apocalypse? A nuclear war
Who are the heroes? Hercules and his teen friends fighting Ares and his minions.
Where can you read it? Showcase Presents: The Great Disaster

Hex
What's the Apocalypse? A limited nuclear war ca. 2045.
Who are the heroes? Jonah Hex (the Old West anti-hero) brought to future.
Where can you read it? In back issues only, alas.

Hinterkind
What's the Apocalypse? "The Blight", an ecological disaster. Then the creatures of myth and magic return.
Who are the heroes? Prosper Monday and other human survivors in world overrun by creatures from myth and legend.
Where can you read it? Starting with Hinterkind vol 1: The Waking World

Y: The Last Man
What's the Apocalypse? A genetic plague that wipes out almost everyone with a Y chromosome in July of 2002.
Who are the heroes? Yorick Brown, the last man, and his monkey Ampersand.
Where can you read it? Starting with Y: The Last Man Book One

White Star

While I toil away at getting Strange Stars Fate ready to go, Mike aka Wrathofzombie continues to throw out quick adaptations of Strange Stars stuff to other systems. This time, he's statted some of the sophont clades for the new OSR sensation White Star .

Check out what Mike's done here!

Ursoid Mutant Dunes

Saw Mad Max: Fury Road this weekend and got a hankering for post-apocalyptic gaming? I've got just the thing for a Mutant Future or Gamma World mini-sandbox: do a bit of reskinning on Chris Kutalik's Slumbering Ursine Dunes (if you don't have copy--well, it's available now.)  Here's some thoughts on changing the basic setup.

Out in the desert, there's an ancient rune and a crashed alien spacecraft, slowly burning holes in reality itself.

The Background as Only the GM Knows It
Milt Grisley was an underground cartoonist who got his chance to sell out in the eighties. His Sleepy Bear^tm character went from counter-culture anti-hero to toyetic, afernoon cartoon pitch-man--and made Grisley rich in the process. Theme parks followed--the one outside of Las Vegas was the biggest, Once Grisley was well into Howard Hughes level eccentricity, he even had a futuristic, planned community built nearby. It was going to be a utopia in the desert run by a super-conputer and thoroughly Sleepy Bear-branded. Then the bombs dropped.

The super-computer has grown more self-aware over the centuries--and also crazier. It thinks it's the real Sleep Bear, now. Its public face is one of the old animatronic, amusement park bears. Somewhere along the way, a tribe of mutated ursoids found it (perhaps following the old signs emblazoned with Sleepy Bear^tm) and now worship it like a god, following the computer's every command no matter how ridiculous.

They bothered no one. They even allowed some humans to settle nearby. Everything was fine until the crash. A saucer full of Greys, sliding across dimensions, went down in the desert near the installation. Maybe it had something to do with a top secret military installation the government never officially acknowledged that was hidden near Bear Town, or maybe it was just a freak coincidence. Whatever the cause, crash it did, and its reality-shifting engines went critical, dumping their cosmomorphic fuel all over the landscape, turning everything weird...

So, hopefully the recastings are clear: Medved is the super-computer whose avatar is an animatronic cartoon bear. The Eld are Greys and their golden barge is a big saucer (don't worry about the different deckplans. It's weird on the inside.) The Weird is created by spaceship fuel. Ondrej is probably a mutant shark and cartoonish pirate, holed up in the pirate island in the middle of the brackish and radioactive artificial lake in the amusement park.

See, not so hard? I'll let you take it from there. Make your own adventure in the Mutants Dunes.

Zonal Aberrations

Aberrations (not to be confused with the D&D monster type) are a type of hazard encountered in zones. The resemble mobile anomalies in some ways, but they exhibit wider patterns of behavior, resembling (at least in limited observation) living things. They are abiologic, however; their tissues (if they have them at all) appear undifferentiated to close inspection, or they may have simulacra of organs that are clear nonfunctional. They do not appear to eat, grow, or reproduce, though they sometimes mimic behaviors associated with these activities. They can not be destroyed or driven off by "wounding" them (in most cases, it's unclear if they can be wounded) but must be completely destroyed.

Aberrations have a substance (similar to the manifestations of anomalies), a behavior pattern, and effects/abilities. A lot of D&D monsters would make good inspiration for aberrations. So are some paranormal or folkloric entities but keep in mind in their game usage they are more like obstacles or traps than monsters to be fought. Slimes and oozes are good models. You could destroy them, but it's generally more fruitful to just avoid them.

Unlike most anomalies, aberrations can spot/notice things approaching them as well as being noticed themselves--though the sensory modality by which they do this isn't clear. They are not usually as tied to as specific an area as anomalies, but most will have a specific territory, in the way an animal might.

Substance
1  Apparition
2  Construct
3  Crystalline/Mineral
4  Flesh
5  Fluid
6  Gas
7  Growth
8  Light
9  Ooze/Slime/Gelatinous
10 Shadow

Behavior
1  Ambusher. Lies in wait, sometimes in a dormant or indolent state, until approached.

2  Builder. Involved in some sort of construction project like a nest or nonrepresentational sculpture.

3  Chaser. After detecting target, follows targets at a high rate of speed.

4  Collector. Forages for particular objects or objects with particular characteristics.

5  Follower. Loosely joins with the target, following at a respectful distance without overt hostility.
6  Guard. Only active in a certain area. Patrols and menaces those who enter.

7  Harbinger. Appearance precedes some other event.

8  Lurker. Follows targets, but furtively, as if shy.

9  Mimic. Seems to repeat the actions or behaviors of a target.

10 Ritualist. Performs certain fairly complicated but perhaps mundane actions over and over.

11 Swarm. Smaller entities surround targets.

12 Snooper. Curious, possibly annoyingly and intrusively so, but not threatening.

13 Stalker. After detecting target, hunts it over distances.

14 Watcher. Stays in plan view, but at some remove as if only there to observe. No direct interaction.

Effects: Use the table for Zonal Anomalies--or borrow from a monster.

Examples:
chasing shadow: Too thick and deep black to be natural, the chasing shadow is nevertheless able to lurk unseen in normal darkness. It slides out of hiding when a living thing draws near, and if not stopped, attaches itself to them at their feet like a normal shadow--though does not also flow out in the same direction as the natural one. It slowly begins to crawl up the victims body and if not stopped, will cover a person complete in darkness in 20-30 hours. Over the next 30-45 minutes it will contort and collapse their body until only the flat shadow remains. What happens to the victim is unknown. If caught early, the shadow can be removed but only if the victim is surrounded by bright light and a small laser (like a laser pointer, for example) is used carefully "cut" away from the chasing shadow.

grim: Something like the featureless, white quadrupedal shape, surrounded by blotchy redness, like the silhouette of a large dog outlined in red spray paint. Grims simply appear on high ground, never approaching, and retreating if they are approached. They usual appear after someone has been seriously wounded, and Zone hunters fear them as a harbinger of death.

memory flashes: Groups of will-o'-the-wisp-like flashes of light with colorful after-images. They move quickly to swarm around a person, typically for no more than a minute. After the flashes pass, a person so caught will have one or more new memories of things that happened to someone else instead of them. They will also likely notice at some point that one or more of their own memories are missing--always small, discrete things, but perhaps important (like a telephone number of the location of something).

Brawl with the Burly Brothers

My group met with everyone present for the first time in several months this past weekend to revisit the Land of Azurth and deal with those blackguard Burly Brothers in their former prison hulk hideout. Skim the former posts to get up to speed.

So, the Burly Brothers are holed up on the lower deck. All their henchmen are dead or fled, but the Brothers still have the Lardafan Vagrant-Ambassador Lumpley Gritz and his monkey Mister Jip in their meaty grasp.

The Brothers want to negotiate the parties' withdrawal, but our heroes are having none of it. Cully, the bard, goes in to check the safety of the ambassador (and use a sleep spell to secure his release) but gets buffaloed by a Burly and the spell just puts the ambassador to sleep. Negotiations are over!

The odds aren't in the Burly Brothers' favor, but they're bruisers of ogrish size, so they can take a lot of punishment--and dish it out. The Erkose the Fighter and Waylon the Frogling join Cully the Bard in unconsciousness. Kairon the Warlock and Shae the Ranger keep the ranged attacks going, but for a while it doesn't seem like they're going to be able to hold out. Luckily, Dagmar the Cleric is able to sneak around and apply some healing spells and pass some healing berries. Waylon gets a surprise attack on Brother M'Gog and finishes him.

Brother Goofus goes into a killing frenzy and charges into melee range with Shae, he's put down too. After a long battle, the Burly Brothers and their organization are no more.

The gang scavenges the ship for treasure. Among a reasonable hall of silver, they find an usual item that appears magical:

They plan to visit the Queen Azura and let the Queen of the Floating World, Calico Bonny know they've taken out her rival, then see if they can get an audience with the Clockwork Princess Viola to find out about the mysterious item.

Warlord Wednesday: They Keep Killing Travis Morgan

Convergence #5 came out last week and it continues a story featuring Skartaris and a lot of the characters from the Warlord series--including Travis Morgan, who has you may recalled, died and was replaced by his son. Joshua the Warlord is no where in evidence here and Travis Morgan is quickly killed again by Deimos:

Machiste and Tara are also killed in what's either the eliminating of minor characters to artificially raise the stakes or clearing the dead wood of characters they aren't planning on using again. Either way, it's sloppily done not just because of the continuity flubs mentioned above, but because the writer doesn't seem to have read many (if any) Warlord comics. He has everybody (including his mate, Tara!) call him "Warlord" something that was rarely if ever done in the comics and certainly not his close friends or longterm enemy.

It's a nice looking book, though, with art by Kubert and Hope:

Random Zonal Anomalies

Anomalies are small, discrete areas of reality distortion within a Zone. There appear to be a finite number of stereotyped distortions so similar if not identical types of anomalies have been observed in different Zones. Inspired by the means of anomaly creation in the Stalker rpg, I created a series of random table to provide a sketch of an anomaly that can then be filled in with more detail.

Anomalies are described in broad terms by their mobility, manifestation, and effect. Mobility is whether the anomaly stays in one place or moves, though different anomalies might have different types of motion (blown by the wind, moves toward living things, etc.) that should be considered by the GM. Manifestation determines how the anomaly is detected--and hopefully avoided. The exact distance away from an anomaly at which it can be detected will obviously vary, but will always be soon enough it can be avoided, if the anomaly is stationary and the explorers are attentive. Finally, effect is what it does to someone unluck enough to enter the anomaly. Note that effect and manifestation are not necessarily linked, but often are (i.e. an anomaly detected by heat will probably burn, but this isn't an absolute).

Mobility (d6)
1-4    Stationary
5-6    Moving

Manifestation (d20)
1.  Air Movement: Detritus circling in a dust devil; an unusual breeze.
2.  Cold: Chill radiates or a frigid wind blows; things in the environment frost over or freeze.
3.  Color: Objects look like their photographic negatives; kaleidoscopic waves of color wash over surfaces.
4.  Crystal: Formations, accretions or boxwork on surfaces; a dust devil of shimmering and cutting tiny shards.
5.  Distortion: A shimmering like heat haze; like looking through someone else's glasses.
6.  Electric: static electricity in the air; St, Elmo's fire dancing on surfaces.
7.  Emotion: Most will be negative, but not always: a deep sadness washes over anyone near, accompanied by vivid, painful memories; a profound feeling of oneness with the universe, that leaves a sense of loss in its wake.
8.  Gas: an unusual cloud, mist, or fog.
9.  Growth: A material covering resembling grass, fungi, cobwebs, hair or even flesh.
10. Heat: A hot wind or the feeling of walking into an oven;  objects are hot, the grounded scorched.
11. Illusion: A mirage of a person or object; a vision of another place or time.
12. Intuition: The anomaly is invisible, but you know somehow that it's there. A gut feeling.
13. Light: Flickering, dancing sparks or flashes; odd illumination like an unseen spotlight.
14. Magic: Much like an Intuition manifestation, but only detectable by those mystically attuned.
15. Pain: The feeling of pinpricks up and down a limb; an intense headache.
16. Shadow: An unusual darkness; vague shapes flicker and dance as if in firelight.
17. Smell: The stench of wet hair burning; a hint of cinnamon in the air.
18. Sound: A loud clap of thunder; the scream of the last victim playing over and over.
19. Taste: A metallic sensation like blood; an intense sourness.
20. Transparency: An object or figure appears to be made of glass or a ghostly afterimage.

Note: It is possible for more than one manifestation to be associated with an anomaly.

Sample Effects (d100)
1-4:     Accelerating  Objects passing through have a tremendous increase in velocity.
5-8:     Aging
9-12:   Burning
13-16: Corrosive
17-20: Crippling  Causes damage to a particular organ or part of the body without physical signs: blindness, deafness, paralysis of a limb.
21-24: Crushing  Like drastically increased gravitation or an invisible force striking the object.
25- 28: Deccelerating  Objects, even sound, are decreased in velocity.
29-32: Dissolving  An object begins to liquify--either fast or slow, depending on the anomaly.
33-36: Disintegrating
37-40: Entrapping  An object is trapped/entangled in energy or some physical manifestation.
41-44: Freezing  Sudden, flash freeze.
45-48: Hallucinogenic
49-52: Halting  A stasis field of some sort causes object or people to be stopped  and held in place.
53-56: Magnetic  Ferromagnetic objects are pulled into the anomaly. Electrical devices may malfunction.
57-60: Mutagenic
61-64: Necrotizing  Living things develop dead areas in exposed skin; objects begin to decay or degrade.
65-69: Penetrating  High velocity projectiles or invisible force strike objects that enter.
70-73: Petrifying
74-76: Psychic  Has effects like a psionic attack, leading to neurologic disorder or development of mental illness.
77-78: Reanimating  Dead things are brought back to life--either as fully living beings or undead.
79-81: Restoring  Dysfunctional objects are or organisms are returned to normal function.
82-85: Suffocating
86-90: Lacerating
91-94: Levitating  Things float as if weightless at a height that varies with different anomalies.
95-97: Throwing  Things are hurled in one specific direction with force.
98-00: Transporting Teleports a person or object entering to a different location.