Geographic Highlights of Yanth

Computer issues stymied me in getting a new Land of Azurth monster post ready for you guys today, so instead let's revisit Gus's map of the Country of Yanth above and I'll elucidate a few locales:

Aldwode. A dense and ancient forest inhabited by wild Wood Elf tribes and dotted with the fey, hidden demesnes of the High Elf folk.

Apiaria. The Hive City of the Bee Folk and the center of the domain of their Queen, who is always named Melitta. Relations between the Bee Folk and the humans of Yanth have been pleasant but rather formal for some time. Wealthy Yanthians benefit from trade in the Bee Folk royal jelly from which an anti-aging tonic is made.

Enchanted Wood. A virgin forest  renowned for its plant and animal life, all of which are capable of speech. (Though admittedly, most remain silent as they have little to say.) This eldritch peculiarity owes to the waters of the Babbling Brook that runs through the forest and enhances the linguistic capabilities of all who drink from it. For adult animals, this effect is temporary, but creatures raised on it retain these characteristics perhaps indefinitely. The brook itself (as the name suggests) is vocal, and even at its susurrating volume, it can at times impair the concentration of spellcasters and unnerve those around it for long periods. The Spouting Spring that is its source is even worse. Its ceaseless chorus of nonsensical orations are taken as oracular glossolalia by some and tormenting, demonic cacophony by others.

Horologopolis. A subkingdom where many aspects of the lives of its citizenry are predetermined at birth by extensive application of the astrological and numerologic sciences. Horoscopes are prepared and zealously amended and consulted throughout a citizen’s lifetime by the great tabulating engines controlled by the Master Time Keeper, a giant, many-armed construct with a head like a clock face. Those who stray from their appointed role or seek to alter their fate in significant ways are corrected by his agents, the more humanoid, but likewise clockfaced, Watchmen.

Mount Geegaw. A mountain near or in the Dragon Spines. It is also known as the Prismatic Peak, as the upper perhaps two thirds of the mountain are an oblique triangular prism made of transparent crystal. The origins of Mount Geegaw are lost, but few serious scholars believe it to be an entirely natural formation. 

Wednesday Comics: Things You Might Have Missed

Two great sci-fi comic collections have come out this year that might have come in under the radar. That would be a shame, as they're both from accomplished writer/artists and both well worth checking out:

Star Slammers: The Complete Collection is a work by Walt Simonson, conceived and began before his time at Marvel and DC, but first officially published by Marvel, then later continued under Malibu's Bravura imprint and Dark Horse. This tale of interplanetary mercenaries has the feel of something that might have come out of 2000AD or maybe Heavy Metal but with a style that is all Simonson, even as it was developing.

The 6 Voyages of Lone Sloane was originally presented in Heavy Metal (or Metal Hurlant) and begins the weird and baroque science fantasy saga of Lone Sloane a man given strange powers after encountering a Lovecraftian cosmic entity and throwm into another dimension. He becomes a freebooter and Han Solo-esque rogue involved in various space opera struggles. Philippe Druillet (like Simonson) has his own distinct style. If there was something called Cosmic Acid Space Opera, this would be it.

A Weird Adventures Review

It's been a long time since we had one of these, but Corey Ryan Walden has done a review of Weird Adventures on his blog. Check out his other reviews, as well!

Tussle with the Tornado Tyrant!

Art by Richard Svensson

When we last left off in our 5e Land of Azurth game, the party had just triumphed over a group of hairy humanoids in the dungeon of a castle in the clouds. They are still stuck on a cloud island with no means off, and the magic stone they worked so hard to get in still in the hands of a evil giant wizard. Party roll call: Cully (the bard), Dagmar (the cleric), Erkose (the fighter), Kairon (the sorcerer), and Shae (the ranger).

One of the goons managed to summon the jailer: a two-headed, musclehead troll with the bombastic demeanor of a pro-wrestler. Unaware of the troll's regeneration  power, the group lucks up when and Kairon uses a flame attack. The bardic dissonant whispers sends the troll off to get a workout in.

King Cumulo (freed by the party last session) is marshaling his troops for an assault on the castle, hoping to drive Zykloon and his henchmen from it. He gives the party some healing pills and his people show them how to command the giant flying ship. Cumulo offers the party a roll in the glorious battle to come. They enquire about treasure; he tells them the biggest hall is guarded by a multiheaded Skydra in the lowest level of the dungeon, but that Zykloon is probably keeping the stone he stole from the party in his tower:

Though Cumulo also mentions Queen Desira of Virid's glass pegasus, Zephyr, is in the giant's terrarium--and she'll likely pay a reward--the party focuses on the Whim-Wham stone. When the Cloud Folk head off for the attack, the party heads over to the top of the tower in the flying ship.

They decide stealth is prudent. Kairon turns Shae and the flogling thief they rescued, Woggins, invisible and they sneak into the tower from the observation deck. Seeing a number of strange things, they soon find Zykloon's bed chamber--where he's still sleeping!

Something awakens the giant, but he doesn't see his tower's invisible infiltrators. After talking with his minions with some technological device, he leaves to join the battle. The party searches his quarters and finds and invisible object under his bed that radiates magic and a large chest in his closet that has magic objects inside it.

The party moves their loot to the ship and takes off for home, figuring they can deal with investigating the haul when they're out of harm's way.

Own Over the Garden Wall

The great  Cartoon Network mini-series by Patrick McHale (previoualy of Adventure Time!) is now available on DVD (no blu-ray, unfortunately). I wrote about it when it aired, but I'll give a pull-quote from that post here:

"It's part Grimms' fairy tales, part Wizard of Oz (and maybe a bit Sandberg's Rootabaga Stories), imbued with great deal of folksiness. Where Adventure Time has rap and chiptunes, OtGW has parlor music and ragtime. Where Adventure Time has non sequiturs and weirdness, Over the Garden Wall has whimsy (not that it isn't weird at times)."

Check it out.

The Stone Sages

by David Lewis Johnson

In the Country of Yanth in the Land of Azurth there is a circle of eight monolithic stone heads in which reside the intellects of great sages of  pasts eras. No one knows who constructed the stones or how the particular sages were chosen. These are questions the members of the circle are unable or unwilling to answer. The names of the sages and their scholarly specialties are:

Whindbog the Historian
Blathrur the Astronomer
Pomphus the Philologist
Laangvynd the Geographer
Eggedd the Scientist
Baombast the Physician
Drohninon the Mathematician
Nowhitaul the Theologian

These learned minds may be consulted by touching their respective stone, allowing telepathic communication as long as the contact is maintained. They will answer questions put to them, though they tend to do so with a degree of irritation and condescension.

Wednesday Comics: Star Trek

Yesterday was the 49th anniversary of Star Trek the Original Series, so today seemed like a good time to revisit one of my favorite Star trek comics: Who's Who in the Star Trek. The two issue limited series was released by DC Comics in 1987 at the time when they held the license for Star Trek comics. Done in a format similar to there Who's Who series in general, it contained entries on characters that had appeared in their comics and characters from the TV show and movies.

In an era before I owned all the episodes on blu-ray (or DVD or VHS) it was a window into parts of the ST universe syndication had yet to show me. Plus, it had famous comic artists doing Star Trek characters. Check out the cover above by Howard Chaykin. Or these Orions by Todd McFarlane:

How about Talosians by Bill Wray?

There's also stuff by Walt Simonson, Gray Morrow, John Byrne, and Ron Frenz there, among others. It's well-worth tracking down a copy.

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.