My Labors

Happy Labor Day everybody.

 After the InDesign chewed up the last round of major edits, Lester was forced to reconstruct them, causing some delays, but John Till's Strange Stars Fate is back on track with just some record sheets and a last bit of clean up to go.

Here's another sample page, featuring art by David Lewis Johnson:

Speaking of Dave, he's done a great job on a painted cover illustration for another project I'm working on: an adventure set in the Land of Azurth:

Masters of War

Mars is an old world; the gardens of its youth are now deserts. Its once great seas have desiccated to brackish morass. The Martians are an equally old culture. Their technology is in advance of any others in the Cosmos, save the angels and spirits. They care nothing for the pursuits of art or love that move and vex younger races. The Martian spirit and their entire society is bent toward the only thing they deem of value: the perfection of the arts of war.

The inhospitable nature of the Martian surface is made worse by the eternal war among the Martian factions. Thick, war-miasmas creep across the surface, stirred by something other than the thin Martian wind. Living war machines and vat-born monstrosities roam the wasters To avoid these horrors, Martian live in domed complexes with bunkers running deep underground. Few genuine Martians are left (though they are all but immortal, many die in war, and infertility is high among them), but all that are raised in common, in military-style barracks in a manner similar to ancient Sparta.

Martian war efforts are directed by the War Minds, electric brains built from the synthesis of the most brilliant Martians who have passed before. The direct Martian society in the most efficient way they can calculate. The Martians themselves form the officer corps of their armies. The common soldiers and servants come from the ranks of the vat-grown, near humans made from Martian science.

On the peak of Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the known Cosmos, dwells the Oyarses spirit of Mars, Phaleg. Phaleg is said to be a war mind to dwarf the combined intellects of all the other Martian brains together. He sends giant, copper-color automaton, dressed in the manner of the hoplites of the ancient Greeks as observers to all the great Martian battles. His palace is said to be a Valhalla where replica soliders replay battles from across all of time.

A Most Thoroughly Pernicious Pamphlet

Mateo Diaz Torres has released his hopefully first compilation of material related to his old school D&D campaign, Pernicious Albion: A Thoroughly Pernicious Pamphlet. Don't let the title fool you. The setting may be pernicious, but the pamphlet is like a rejuvenating tonic.

The setting itself is one of the most interesting ones to come out of the blogosphere in the past few years. In brief, it's author describes it as: "Austenian body horror fairy tale role-playing." To much of a tease? Well, perhaps this more expansive quote will elucidate: "It’s all insane angel conspiracies, occult aristocracy, revenant Romans, tennis with vampires, evil couture, Ars Goetia, royal spawning pits, realpolitik, light homoeroticism, and lakes of human teeth." Having had the pleasure of playing in Mat's game, I can personally attest to the vampires and tennis--and a lot of sort of "comedy of manners" interactions with frightening entities of great power, punctuated with discrete episodes of killing things and/or taking their stuff.

So the pamphlet: It's an introduction--just a taste to leave you wanting more, but in 17 pages it manages to convey a lot of the flavor of the setting. It's got two new old schoolish classes: the vampire and the warlock (a nice streamlining and refining of the 5e warlock), and has setting-based modifications of the cleric and magic-user. Three supernatural entities are detailed (patrons for warlocks or whoever) with there own goals and granted abilities. Then, there's armor, coinage, and languages: the mundanities or worldbuilding rendered interesting and evocative here.

As that description suggests, it's really a nice player's manual for the setting, which I suspect means the more expansive "GM's book" is to follow.

A Thoroughly Pernicious Pamphlet is available in pdf and hardcopy. Check out the ordering details here.

Different Takes on Clerics

While on my vacation I did have a could of ideas of different ways to approach clerics. Nothing that would change there mechanics really, but changes to their "fiction" within D&D-like implied settings.

A God for Every Cleric
D&D talks a lot about clerics acquiring followers and whatnot, but only level titles hint at them being in a hierarchy from the outset. Maybe that's because every one of them adds a new god/Avatar/Saint/interpretation? They're struggles are the beginning of something at least partially new. Each cleric is the founder of a new cult, if not a whole new religion, and their deeds are its founding legends.

Saints & Madmen
Maybe clerics aren't priests with orders and heirarchies at all? Maybe they're crazy hermits and empowered saints? I've thought along these lines before, but there clerics were evangelists of a new apocalyptic cult. This way, they have always existed, but they're holy and special. Not all priests have spells.

Wednesday Comics:The Coming of the Slayer

"The Coming of the Slayer"

Weirdworld #3 (October 2015), Written by Jason Aaron; Art by Michael Del Mondo

Synopsis: Arkon and Warbow manage to fight their way free of the magma men that had them surrounded last issue. They drop into a conveniently waiting boat in the lava below. They make good their escape, but not before Warbow yells their names defiantly to the magma men.

Once they are in a place of safety, Arkon is eager to take his leave of the obviously somewhat mad Warbow. He asks for the map he was promised before he goes:

While just has crazy, the map doesn't at all resemble what Arkon had on his map. Warbow explains the land is called Weirdworld for a reason--it's everchanging.

Meanwhile, the magma men report to Morgan Le Fay the two heroes escape--and their names. She decides to send an assassin after Arkon, a man named Skull the Slayer. Skull is busy slaying elves when he gets the message.

He and Arkon meet up at a tavern. After an exchange of vague grimness, the fight commences. The Slayer seems to have the better of him, until Arkon causes them both to plummet from the mountain into a jungle below.

Commentary:
Another obscure Marvel character makes his appearance: James "Skull" Scully.

What I Did (and Didn't Do) on My Vacation

Very little rpg-related, is the short answer, but I'm back and ready to resume my usual blogging schedule. I figure the best place to start is with a product update.

On the Strange Stars front: the good news first. Work on the old school gamebook is going to accelerate, thanks to the Fate book being (mostly) put to bed, vacation behind me, and Robert "Savage World of Krul" Parker's help.

Now the bad news. I had hoped to be announcing this week that the Fate book would be released in a another few days to a week, but alas, that is not to be. A file crash (which I'm told is a known issue with large InDesign files) caused us to lose the most of the last edits. B. Portly is having to put those back in a second time. My hope is that that won't take too long, but I can't give a specific timeframe.

Beyond Strange Stars, I've been planning to devote my energies next to doing a couple of adventures. In Doom's Wake is a piratical thing that I've already talked about the first playtest of here. The other is set in the Land of Azurth, my current 5e game world, and will be called The Cloud Castle of Azurth. You'll be heairng more about these on the blog, but Strange Stars will be done before either of these sees the light of day.

A Catalog of Baroque Space

Too John Dee and Paracelsus to be Spelljammer, too antiquated and weird to be Space: 1899. Here's all the posts I've written on Baroque Space in one place:

Baroque Space: The Argument.
The Planetary Spheres: A cosmos in one place.
The Fae Moon: Is an eldritch mistress
The Inner Planets: Mercurians and Venerians.
Among the Asteroids: Random asteroids.
Death & Time: Saturn is a gloom place.
Famous Pirates of Baroque Space: Dashing villains all, I'm sure.
Social Classes: Life on Earth.

In Doom's Wake Again

This weekend the expedition into the weird weed sea around the Doom's Wake continued. After the unexpected assault last time (for the pirates, but also the PC's actions for surprisingly effective to me as the GM). The pirate's get on a little better footing. Good rolls and strategy (involving a druid transformed into a bear and a cloud of daggers in front of a door) let the PCs the prevailed against lieutenants shark-faced Squalo and starfish-headed sorcerer Astero, as well as a dozen nameless pirates. It did not, however, prevent the pirates from informing their compatriots the PCs were coming.

By luck as much as design, the player's avoided a confrontation with the grim matriarch of the pirates, which very likely would have resulted in their deaths--and probably unhappiness with the adventure. This was not an old school crowd inured to the total party kill. The warnings by NPCs made them more curious than afraid, but in the end the learning the prisoners they sought were actually held elsewhere made them move on.

On the next assault, the pirates had the high ground and a warning the PCs were coming. There was even an ambush by the lamprey-faced lieutenant Handsome Blut with a wight's drain attack! In the end though fate left Blut with really bad rolls and the superior numbers of the PCs forced him to flee, badly injured.

The victory at the prison ship was more attributable to good player tactics. They had an approach over the weeds that left them easy targets for pirate crossbows, but they used an obscuring mist and minor illusions to improve their odds. The pirates were also beginning to feel the loss in their numbers.

In the end, the prisoners were rescued, but by negotiation, not force. Some pirates were left alive to continue their raids, and the source of the pirate queen's particular interest in Ligeia Marsh, adopted daughter of Clegg Hobtree, major of the Raedel, remained a background mystery.

One of the player's (an experienced GM of other games) suggested weakening the mook pirates, and increasing the power of the more colorful lieutenants. Uping the lieutenants power is probably a good idea, though the pirates were probably about as weak as they can get. The difficult with them is just a nature of their number and the D&D system. It may be I need to think about the staging of the encounters though, so perhaps fewer mook pirates might be necessary.

Consult the Dictionary

I've updated the Dictionary of Azurth with a few new entries, reflecting things from more recent blog posts and adventures in the ongoing campaign. Read it here.

Sirens

Art by Diane Özdamar

In the first part of my pirate-Sargasso adventure "In Doom's Wake" the PCs encountered three unusual, but alluring creatures in a half-submerged wreck. There were 3 Cecalian (thanks, internet!) mermaids: Giddy, Sheela, and Pru. In place of legs, or a traditional mermaids fish tail, they had squid-like tentacles--a vampire squid's webbed tentacles in this case, making them look like they wore long skirts. They also had a color change and light-producing ability like a cuttlefish. In 5e, I statted them pretty much like Merfolk with a few special features. Here are their abbreviated stats:

AC 11, HP: 16
STR: 10, DEX:13 (+1), CON: 12 (+1), INT: 11, WIS 11, CHA 13 (+1)

Tentacles. Melee Weapon Attack +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2 (1d4) piercing damage. Hit creature is grappled (escape DC 12).

Mesmerizing Light Display. As the spell Hypnotic Pattern. Wisdom save or be charmed (incapacitated, speed of 0). DC 11 to resist.

In all other respects they had the abilities of Merfolk.

Wednesday Comics: The Spire #2

The Spire #2 (August 2015); Written by Simon Spurrier, Art by Jeff Stokely

The Spire is a tower city in the middle of a desert. A desert (we discover in this issue) that has air toxic to humans, at least with repeated exposure. This also ties in to the origin of "the Skews," the strange, near humans that suffer prejudice within the city. They were apparently made in the "Antiki" times to live places and do things humans could not. Watch Commander Shå is a Skew. She's also trying to solve a series of murders.

There's a serial killer in the lower city who has ties to the high class upper part of town, according to a couple of tracker animals. Then there's an apparent attempt on the life of the Marchioness, the mother of the newly ascended Baroness that instead takes the life of her nursemaid.

Meanwhile, religious zealots in the deserts are massing, and a messanger sent at the death of the old baron is returning to the Spire with a mysterious group of Sculpted (the polite name for Skews).

I suspect all these things tie in together and to the history of the Spire. Still a lot of worldbuilding in this issue (which isn't bad, but any means) but the mystery seems to be picking up steam, even if the main characters don't seem to know it yet.

Castle in the Clouds

The Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night, with the party returning from crystalline Mount Geegaw on just one of the flying swanboats. After stopping for the night to rest (and heal), they are perhaps only half a day from Riverton when their vessel is buffeted by an unnatural wind. A whirlwind grips Waylon the Frogling, and a leering face forms out of mists to taunt him. The group manages to free Waylon, but a fierce gust tosses Dagmar, Shae, and Kairon from the boat. The wind seems to catch them, and its voice extorts their cooperation in return for not letting them drop.

The living gale introduces himself as Zykloon. He carries their ship even higher into the air to a cloud with a strange castle on it (something more like a sci-fi amalgam of futurism and brutalism than anything the PCs have seen before). He demands the crystal they took from Mortzengersturm--the magical Whim Wham stone. They reluctantly agree, but do manage to capture its reflection in the magic mirror the Princess Viola gave them before turning it over.

The dishonorable Zykloon smashes the front of their boat, stranding them, and flies off laughing. Luckily, the party finds the cloud is spongy but solid enough to walk on, so they go looking for another way back to the surface.

They find a dock with a giant-sized airship, and a number of man-sized, blue-skinned Cloud Folk. The leader of the Cloud Folk (Prince Thunderhead) explains that the Zykloon, a sorcerous giant, has been forcing them to raid the surface for captives and riches while holding their king, Cumulo, and other important Cloud Folk hostage. The Prince and his people are honor-bound not to attack Zykloon, but if the party could free their people they would share the wealth of Zykloon's castle with them and return them to the surface.

The party agrees. Thunderhead gives them healing gels and a medallion which will show the other Cloud Folk they are working together. They also are provided with a guide they meet at the gates of the castle: a young and feckless Cloud Boy named Nimbus.

Nimbus leads them through the castle's first floor to the dungeon where they free a number of prisoners: five Cloud Folk including the king, a frogling thief named Woggin, two merchants and a peasant farmer.

The poor farmer is killed during their escape by a bestial boggle (as the Cloud Folk call them) guard. Soon, the party is locked in a pitch battle with more of the creatures...

Baroque Space: Social Classes

In the Age of Space Exploration, humankind is freed from most toil. Automata perform most agrarian, mechanical, and domestic labor. These servitors are often called "Mechanicals" whatever the actual nature of their task.

With no menial work to do, the unskilled poor rely on the charity of their betters or the government. They dwell in large tenements where ideally they go about their days sequestered from the eyes of the more sensitive members of the upper classes. The exception is those living in preserves where the local lords have sought to present an entertaining tableau vivant of antique times. Sumptuary laws dictate the clothing and hair length of those on the dole. The most basic and ill-tailored of garments are provided, as is a relatively bland but basically nourishing provender. The intoxicants available to them are likewise of the meanest sort. Is it any wonder so many become outcasts: beggars, criminals, itinerant and adventurers.

Peasants dubiously costumed supposed in the manner of an Antediluvian Age

Owing to tradition and prejudice, merchants and artisans tend to be human, though often they are no more than the human face on automaton labor. The members of this class most closely follow societal trends and the whims of higher class taste makers.This is particularly true of those dealing in fashion, cuisine, or intoxicants.

Besides governmental, social, or ceremonial functions (war being included among these) and artistic pursuits, the lives of the upper classes of the gentry and nobility are spent mostly in the pursuit of pleasure.

Fashions among the youth of the upper classes runs to the ridiculous

Metal Earth Has Got Maps for You

If you thought Aos had gone dark over at Metal Earth, you were wrong. He was just getting his second wind. Check out these maps from his last post:

This is my favorite but check out the others he's got over at his blog.

Draconic Correspondences

This comes from a productive accidental brainstorming with Richard and Mateo on G+ yesterday. Something formed will hopefully come from this.

Chromatic Dragon Colors & Alchemical Associations:
Black: lead, vitriol (sulfuric acid), fire, the smell of sulfur, putrefation, phelgmatic.
Blue: tin, rust, water, acrid smell, dissolution, melancholic.
Green: copper, earth, saltpeter, chlorine smell, amalgamation, sanguine.
Red: iron, air, sodium carbonate, rotten egg smell, separation, choleric.
White: silver, alchemical mercury, after a rain smell, unemotional.

Wednesday Comics: Crom the Barbarian

Comics' first Swords & Sorcery hero was Gardner Fox's Crom. The name might suggest he was heavily Conan inspired, but no--oh, I can't even... Yes, he was pretty much a blond, Comics Code approved, Conan knockoff.

But hey, now you can read these 65 year-old, four-color, fantasy epics through the miracle of the modern internet.:

Crom's first appearance was Out of This World Comics #1, which doesn't appear to be only, but it was reprinted in the pulp magazine Out of This World #1 which is. He next shows up in the tale "The Spider God of Akka" in Strange Worlds #1. His third, and final swing of the sword in in Strange Worlds #2 in "The Giant from Beyond."

The Search

While I wouldn't call it a holy grail or anything, Aaron Allston's Lands of Mystery (1985) is a gaming book I have been looking for for a while--at a price that wasn't exorbitant. I finally snagged a copy this weekend, but I haven't got a chance to read it yet.

We live in an age where the internet makes obscure or forgotten bits of gaming literature easier to find than every before (though it still isn't always easy), and the same internet makes chance of finding a gem for a steal at some local used book store or comic book store is actually less than it used to be. There still a small since of achievement when you check one of the wishlist.

Anybody out there got any lost bit's of gaming history they've been looking to acquire for ages?

In Doom's Wake Autopsy

Art by Jez Gordon

This weekend, I ran the piratical/Sargasso Sea adventure I've been going on about for a group I've never really gamed with: my girlfriend's regular group and a friend of her's from work. This was most of the group's first time playing 5e--indeed, several's first time playing D&D in years.

In brief, it was a large (7 members) and eclectic party, with two gnome spellcasters, a human cleric, a dragonborn fighter, a human fighter, a halfling thief, and a aquatic elf bard. They were drawn into the adventure by the promise of reward and the desire to save kidnapped children after a pirate assault on the coastal town of Raedel.

While overall, I intended to play the pirate's and their layer for a degree of horror, the broadly played miserliness and cowardice of Raedel's town fathers probably started things off on a humorous tone, as did the Rabelaisian portrayal of the alcoholic sea dog, Saltus Crimm, who took care of the sailing in the PC's borrowed pursuit ship.

Pretty much what Saltus Crimm looked like

Some of the player's were inclined to sympathy with the pirates, after hearing the legends regarding Ylantha and meeting the townsfolk. I had expected either a murderhobo indifference to morality but keen interest in treasure or a heroic desire to save innocents (or a mixture of the two) to motivate, but hadn't counted on the PC's possibly wanting to reach a settlement with the pirates. Of course, this sympathy didn't stop them from slaughtering pirates at every opportunity, so I don't know if an alliance was ever a real concern.

The crowd coming from mostly a non-D&D background had at least one interesting effect. There was no real dungeoncrawling-style investigation motivated by greed. They wisely avoided places where the danger to reward ratio seemed too high, but thorough searching for hidden treasure wasn't typically on their minds. I probably should have dangled some relatively easy to find items in front of them to condition them to look rather than assuming seeking out material reward would be a goal.

Something I noticed in my regular 5e game was well on display here: the 5e blaster cantrips make magic-using classes pretty tough in ranged combat. An encounter where the ranges were a hindrance to both the pirates and the fighters with light crossbows was like a shooting gallery for the warlock with an eldritch bolt. The large size of the party meant the opponents were never really able to concentrate their fire on the wizards, either. If I run the adventure again (or complete it with that crew), I thing a few more pirate spellcasters are in order to make it a more even fight.

Overall, I think the group enjoyed it and I know I did. It was both a fun session and a good test-drive of the scenario.

A Strange Sargasso Sea Appendix N

How's that for narrow focus? I've done a nautical fantasy inspiration list before, but that's no reason not to focus on a particularly weird subgenre.

Literature:
William Hope Hodgson has got a whole series of Sargasso Sea stories beyond his famous novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig."  Here's "The Thing in the Weeds," "The Finding of The Graiken," and "From the Tideless Sea" online.
Kenneth Robeson. The Adventures of Doc Savage: The Sargasso Ogre.

Film:
The Lost Continent (1968).

TV:
Jonny Quest (1964), "The Mystery of the Lizard Men."

Roleplaying Game Stuff:
Dungeon #141, "The Sea Wyvern's Wake."
Islands of Terror (1992) for the Ravenloft campaign setting.

All in the Family

The monstrous crone that was once a pirate queen broods beneath the decks of her decaying flagship, Doom's Wake. Her many descendants, mutated by demonic taint, carry on their grandam's murderous trade:

Art by David Lewis Johnson

Perdita

Daring and cunning, she would also be beautiful if not for her green-scaled skin and the barbels drooping from the edges of her upper lip. Stats: As Bandit (Pirate) Captain, with the  +1 AC in light armor and swimming and climbing rates of the Mariner Fighting Style.

Squalo

His broad nose, gray skin, and finned head recall a shark--but no more so than his wide mouth full of serrated, triangular teeth. He is vicious, but is not as smart as Perdita and knows it. Stats: As a Sahaugin, but without shark telepathy or claws. Besides his bite, he wields a cutlass as a weapon.

"Handsome" Blut

Scarred, pale, hulking brute in a featureless wood mask, beneath the mask his mouth is a lamprey-like sucker with a circular array of teeth. Stats: As Berserker but with a bite attack like a Vampire Spawn, but necrotic damage and drain like a Wight's life drain attack.

Wednesday Comics: Escape from Apelantis

"Escape from Apelantis"

Weirdworld #2 (September 2015), Written by Jason Aaron; Art by Michael Del Mondo

Synopsis: Arkon, Lord of Warlords, has been captured by sea-dwelling ape-men and imprisoned in their underwater city of Apelantis. They've taken his dragon and his map. Arkon vows to escape, but it isn't clear how he's going to accomplish that.

Then, he finds there's another prisoner in the adjoining cave. The other prisoner knows a way to get out, but he can't do it alone. Arkon is in. The other prisoner introduces himself by breaking down the wal between the cells:

The two manage to bust out of the underwater city, but lose Arkon's map in the process. Warbow tells him not to worry. He's got a map. If Arkon helps him free his Prince he will give it to him.

Meanwhile, the dragon Arkon was riding has been delivered to Baroness Morgan le Fay is her castle. She plans to break the beast to saddle:

It's going to be a challenge.

When she flies out, Warbow and Arkon sneak into the castle by crossing a lava moat. They make it into the treasure room, where they discover Warbow's Prince Crystar.

Arkon realizes Warbow is completely insane. And then, they're surrounded by magma men.

Commentary:
The presence of Warbow is an unexpected surprise. He was one of the characters in Marvel's short-lived  1983 comic tied in with a Remco toyline, The Saga of Crystar, Crystal Warrior. Unlike most Marvel tie-in comics, this series was created and owned by Marvel.

The Crystar link connects the magma men here with that world as well, rather than Marvel's pre-existing lava men.

The Legend of the Pirate Queen

Art by Jez Gordon

Across the towns and villages of the Snarr Marsh they celebrate the death of the Pirate Queen Ylantha. From Grymchurch-On-Sea to Hobbsend, they commemorate the day when the folk of Old Raedel ended her reign of terror. They tried the dread pirate and burnt her at the stake for her crimes as she, unrepentant, spat curses at them. They left what charred remains their were of her for crabs to fight over on Perdition Reef. Never again would any pirate be so brazen nor as daring she.

There are other stories, not much repeated in Snarr Marsh, which tell a somewhat different version. They say that Ylantha only fell into the hands of the Raedel-folk through treachery. She was betrayed by the very town which had once fenced her plunder and grown prosperous, thereby. These stories say the pirate queen called out to ever dark god she could name for vengeance as she died, and one ancient sea demon was roused by her call.

The ancient goddess pulled the burned and mutilate body of the pirate queen down to the Demon Sea, where she lovingly remade her. And when she was done, she sent the pirate queen back into the world to again menace the seas with demonic powers at her command. That is the other tale. The one you will seldom hear in Snarr Marsh and never in the new town of Raedel that grew up after the ocean claimed the Old.


A little set up for the piratical adventure I'm running this weekend for a group that's never played 5e and wanted to give it a try.

Aquatic Elves for 5e

One of the player's in my opcoming 5e oneshot high seas based game requested to play an aquatic elf. Here's my version of them. These traits are in addition to the base elf traits in the Player's Handbook.

Aquatic Elf Traits
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score by 1.
Amphibious. You can breath both air and water.
At Home in the Sea. You can swim at your full movement rate and rough waters only cost you 1 extra foot for each foot of movement.
Moisture Dependent. You require twice as much water as most races. However, submerging most of their body in water for 30 minutes or more daily reduces their requirement to standard levels.
Aquatic Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the short sword, trident, light crossbow, heavy crossbow, and net.

Dungeon of Solitude

I've suggested turning Krypton into a locale for a weird hexcrawl. In that vein, it seems only natural to utilize that little bit of Krypton on Earth, Superman's Fortress of Solitude as the site of a dungeon. It's a bit high tech, true, so it would work best in post-apocalyptic or science fantasy games. Here are the floor plans.

Overview.

Level 1 (note the "save or die" disintegration pit):

Level 2:

Level 3's exact floorplan is unrevealed. You'll have to work that one out yourself.

The image at the top of the post is a conceptualization of the Fortress from a later era, but it gives some nice imagery for various rooms or areas.

Vampire Under Glass

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued this past Sunday with the wizard turned manticore, Mortzengersturm, giving the party a tour of his palace—really a series of caverns carved into the crystalline Geegaw Mountain. What Mortzengersturm has devoted his energies to is impressive, if a bit disturbing. He’s made a lot of hippogriffs (an “impossible animal” he keeps telling the PCs, since griffins like to eat horses) and other stuff like a horsefly (exactly what you think) and an ant-lion (that too). He’s also managed to “civilize” a goblinic slime pit to make proper goblin servants (blue, as a consequence).

Some of the party are a bit angered by slavery, even of goblins, but they’ve got a job to do. They need to capture some of the light from his wild magic crystal (“The Whim-Wham Stone,” he calls it) to repair the laterna magica they found a week or so ago.

Mortzengersturm without his cigarettes and magic hands

With the tour over, Mortzengersturm agrees to help, but instead springs a trapdoor. Nimble and suspicious Shae the Ranger evades it, but the rest are caught. She fights the manticore alone while the party tries to find a way out of a sheer, crystal-walled pit. It seems being a manticore has given the former wizard a powerful hunger for human flesh, and he wants the party on the menu. Then he throws a cloudkill at them! A well placed arrow spoils his concentration and ends the spell, but takes several tries before anyone gets out of the pit.

Ultimately, Mortzengersturm is taken down by force of numbers—about the time some of his loyal hippogriffs show up. Wounded and low on spells, the party retreats to a handy, hard to notice passage, too small for a hippogriff or Mortzengersturm. They’re too glad to be out of danger to question that.

After a little bit of healing, they decide to explore the rest of the tunnel. They find it leads out to an opening in the cliff face on the side of the mountain, about 40 ft. below the plateau where their flying swan boats (and only means of escape) are. They backtrack in the tunnel and take a passage to the left. There they find a velvet curtain and hear odd sounds beyond. A peek inside reveals a woman that they soon discover is a vampire when she drains Kairon the Warlock to unconsciousness.

Driving her back with lucky rolls and a bardic ability (shocking!), they manage to retreat into the sunlight. Climbing looks like a better option, now. Erkose climbs up and sneaks past the hippogriffs to retrieve one boat. Not wanting to press their luck, they all cram into that one and take off for Rivertown. Luckly, Waylon the Frogling had snagged the Whim-Wham Stone in their escape, so mission accomplished but no extra treasure.

Wednesday Comics: Cursed Pirate Girl

Cursed Pirate Girl written and illustrated by Jeremy Bastian starts in Port Elizabeth, Jamaica, in 1728 but quickly moves to the Omerta Sea, which is something like a marine Wonderland, where all manner of fantastical and eccentric people and creatures are encountered. The heroine apparent heroine is the titular Cursed Pirate Girl, who appears to be a plucky orphan living in a beachside shanty, but is actually (or additionally) the lost daughter of an infamous pirate captain. The only problem is figuring out which one. And so, the quest begins.

Bastain's whimsical and sometimes grotesque art is old school illustration in style and reminiscent of 18th century political cartoons, complete with period appropriate and hand-lettered word balloons. He often decorates the borders with banners and all sort of business.

Like Alice, Cursed Pirate Girl never seems particularly in peril, but there's a lot of fun in seeing the cheeky attitude with which she faces (and overcomes) all sorts of strange threats.

Strange Stars Without Number: Ibglibdishpan

Here's the ibglibdishpan presented in the general format that I'm using in the Strange Stars OSR gamebook:

Physical Characteristics: Biologic humanoid with little sexual dimorphism. Tall with gracile build. Skulls are somewhat ovoid vertically, though this appearance is accentuated by a shield-shaped "mask" of osteoderm.
Psychological Characteristics: Restrained in emotional responses and lacking in empathy in comparison to other humanoids. Viewed by others as pedantic and over-precise. Most are adverse to violence. They consider discussion of gender or sex as rude.
Names: Names of the ibglibdishpan are composed on two, monosyllabic elements that end in a vowel, n, ng, m, l, r, sh or more rarely b. Among themselves they employ numerical family designation that is placed before the personal name, but they rarely use these when dealing day to day with other cultures, except in formal situations. Examples: Chun Ri, Gan Yul, Ro Nar, Ang Tu, Tan Em, Ib Kan, Li Pan.
Backgrounds: Adventurer, Astrogator's Mate, Researcher, Scholar
Classes: Expert is the most likely class for an ibglibdishpan. Warriors would be rare and Psychics nonexistent.
Attributes: Intelligence of at least 14. Charisma and Strength no higher than 10.
Special Abilities:
Humanoid Computer: Ibglibdishpan gain an additional +1 to Skill checks based on Intelligence. They also have the power of Hypercognition; Once per session, the PC can ask the GM for a useful conclusion regarding a topic, and the GM will tell them what he or she considers the most useful fact the character could have concluded from analysis of the available data.

Mental Breakdown: Ibglibdishpan mental structure always has a chance of a cognitive glitch or breakdown. Any time an ibgliddishpan has to make an Intelligence related skill check of difficult of 11 or 13, fails an Intelligence related check of any difficulty, or uses the Hypercognition ability, a save vs. Mental Effects must be made. On a failed roll, a  negative effect occurs. The following table offers some examples:
1 Catatonic state, repeating the last statement made for d100 minutes. Hypercognition ability (if unused) is not available the rest of the session.
2 Screams for d100 seconds, then returns to previous activity as if nothing happened. Intelligence-related skill checks are at -1 for 24 hours.
3 Develops a severe phobia which lasts for 2d12 weeks. Every week, the character may make another Mental Effects save. 3 successful saves in a row means the phobia abates early.
4 Develops a reaction akin to Stendhal Syndrome (dizziness, confusion, possible fainting) for d4/2 hours. -2 to Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom for the duration.
5 Suffers a seizure lasting 1d4 min. -1 to all rolls until a period of rest of at least 8 hours.
6 Lose 1-2 points of intelligence for 2d10 days. Every 2 days, another Mental Effects save can be attempted. 3 successes means the return of the lost points early. Each failure adds an extra day.

Go to the Ants

Ant-Man opened this weekend and likely Marvel has another hit a hero, despite the wisdom repeated in even mostly positive review that the whole concept is ridiculously. Because you know, science fantasy Norse Gods speaking Renfair is gritty realism.

What a guy who shrinks and talks to ant is fantasy in a way super-soldiers, and capitalists in powered armor may not be. It's a a child-like fantasy; one where everyday items become hazards and improvised weapons. A running bath tube creates a tidal wave; a flying ant becomes a steed. It's ridiculous only in the way that Alice in Wonderland or the Wizard of Oz is ridiculous. Ant-Man is just a hero it's hard to grittify credibly. It's stuff too much fun.

if you like the Marvel films, you will like Ant-Man. Marvel Entertainment has their formula (for both better and worse) down to a science. The beats are similar and the humor is there. The review talking points (Perhaps passed out by the production company. They've done it before.) highlight how comedic it is, but I don't think it's really any more comedic than say Iron Man III. It certainly isn't a superhero comedy like The Green Hornet.  Likewise, reviewers will say it's different from the other Marvel films because it isn't about "saving the world"--which ignores Pym and Lang saying that's exactly what they're out to accomplish.

So ignore all that stuff and just enjoy. For the Marvel Comics fan, you get a hint of Hank Pym's Cold War secret hero career. You get to see the Wasp's finest hour. You get a glimpse of the Microverse--excuse me, Quantum Realm. A decade ago, it would have been hard to imagine any of that on the big screen.

The best stuff is the shrinking stuff, though. The special effects look really good and there are a couple of nice set-piece battles between shrunken combatants. The ants have character, too, even if the mix of species is a strange one for the film's location.

It's not perfect. There are some nonsensical bits in the script, that may have come from different versions being stitched together. Is Lang a recidivist criminal cat burglar or a mechanical engineer that burgled a dishonest company just once for revenge? Is Darren Cross made crazy by Pym particle exposure as everybody keeps saying even though we haven't seen him have any particular exposure until late in the film? And there is other stuff.

Fridge Logic, for the most part. These things won't bother you when you're watching one inch tall guys hurl toy trains at each other--and that's really for the best.

Azurthite Bestiary: Bad Seeds

Bad Seeds are made by evil magicians and the like out to undermind Good Azulina and the rightful order of the Land of Azurth. They are made from combination of a Green Man root, a moonless night, and an unwholesome ritual whose full details are regrettably quite easy to find in magical tomes. Depending on certain details of the rite and the place of planting, different types of Bad Seed are cultivated. 

 Twig Bad Seeds have the form of crude stick dolls or effigies. They wait at the side of lonely woodland trails or guard the abodes of witches in haphazard clusters. You must be very cunning and quick to see them move before they strike. There are stores of giant twig seeds that stride through the forest like wicker giants and throw victims in the cages of their chest. 

 Thorn Bad Seeds can stand upright if they wish, but mostly they roll like bramble bush tumbleweeds making rasping noises like the growl of a dog. The spilling of blood greatly excites them. They seem to be able to taste it on the air.

Vine Bad Seeds usually take the form of slithery masses and like to hide in dark places. Other than the susurrus of their movement, they make no other sound. They will often stalk prey, stealing small items and causing confusion before finally striking.

 Bad Seeds are statted like the comparable Blight in the Monster Manual.

Not a Bad Seed, but another plant creature: a Heap as rendered by David Lewis Johnson: