Can Willow be Redeemed by Moebius? Let's Take A Look

George Lucas's Willow is no Star Wars. Even though its made from the same sort of stock characters and the same sort borrowings from early sources, but it doesn't quite come together in the same way. At least it didn't seem to to my fifteen year-old self, and it doesn't seem to to me today.

Moebius's concept work, which I first glimpse in a magazine at the time, has only grown in my estimation since. Perhaps it doesn't suggest a weird fantasy Willow or anything that radical, but it does at least suggest to me a decent Studio Ghibli-esque film might have come from the material. Let's take a look and (re-)imagine:

Here's the titular hero and (I believe) one of his Nelwyn fellows. Nothing of the pastoral gentility of a Baggins, nor the too literal "small folk" of the film. These guys make me think of Howard's diminutive and declining Picts in "The Lost Race," but also aboriginal peoples like the Emishi (in Princess Mononoke) or Ainu. A sense of the Nelwyn threatned by humanity (or Daikini) would have been nice. I like the long earlobes, too.

Madmartigan is the rogue with the heart of gold Han Solo type, but with a bit more wastrelness, he could have been a wuxia sort of character, or Sanjuro from Yojimbo, or Mugen from Samurai Champloo--both of which are great swordsman, too. Moebius gives us a design that completely fits with those characters, suggests a world of ronin or wandering swordsmen of some sort.

So at this point, you might be thinking, "basically he's just going to say Willow should have been more Asian?" So now I'm going to throw you off:

King Kael here (General Kael in the film) is described as "bestial" in the third draft of the script, which he obviously is here. Perhaps he is a lover of Bavmorda transferred by her magic? A reverse Beauty and the Beast (there's maybe a bit of Cocteau's beast about him. Maybe)? Or is he the captain of the flying monkeys, so to speak? Anyway, he fulfills a bit of a Witch-King of Angmar role, so fleshing out his badass villainy would have been good.

Now, it's back to the Asian stylings. The mask suggests (to me) childhood mindwarping courtesy of Bavmorda for the warrior woman Sorsha. Maybe she's just go a slight blemish, but has been convinced its a horrible disfigurement a la (some accounts of) Doctor Doom? Maybe her inhuman beauty as a daughter of the Tuatha de Danaan-esque folk of Tir Asleen is her disfigurement to her witch queen mother? Note that the mask isn't just a human mask, it's go that single Oni horn. Probably means something.

Lastly, I believe this is one of two fairly divergent designs Moebius did for the brownies--but in an earlier script draft Willow and baby get captured by elves who are described as wearing "samurai-type outfits and angry little haircuts." These are guys who (in the script) collect baby tears as part of their gig. Now think of these sinister little guys, like a mashup of the Indian in the Cupboard and the evil faerie of del Toro's Don't be Afraid of the Dark remake. I think we could do without the French accent Lucas specifies for their leader, though.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Creeping Death

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Creeping Death (1982) (part 5)
(Dutch: De Sluimerende Dood)
Art & script by Don Lawrence

While Storm and Huatl are going through their travails, Ember has been left hanging without food or water for two days to weaken her resolve. When he think she might be ready to give in, Kai has her brought to him. He offers her a drink to toast their future as man and wife:

Ember is suspended over hot coals. Kai gloats that by the time the gods appear tomorrow, she will be charred to bone.

The next day, everyone is assembled and the missiles they call gods rise as usual--but with them are Storm and Huatl!

Storm demands Kai honor his father's agreement. Kai refuses and orders Ember's ropes cut so that she will fall into the pit, but Storm has a trick up his sleeve. He pushes the button on a remote control he had kept hidden, launching one of the god missiles.

The townsfolk fall prostrate with superstitious awe. Kai snatches up the axe to do the job himself, but Storm braces the falling Ember. Still, both are left defenseless against another attack from Kai.

At that moment Huatl challenges Kai and quickly kills him before he can react. Storm declares that by their law, Huatl is now leader of both tribes, and a new age of peace can be ushered in.

After a week of festivities where Storm and Ember are the guests of honor, the two set out again to see what unknown lands lie beyond the horizon.

THE END

Strange Stars Comic Inspiration

With Strange Stars OSR drawing near, I figure it was worth a look at some comic books/graphic novels that would make good fodder for a Strange Stars game. There are no Strange Stars comic per se, but the decades of comics reading influenced the setting--and their are new comics coming out all the time that continue to inspire. Here's a list of a few things currently in print:

Prophet: I've mentioned my admiration for this series before, so I won't dwell on it here. It's sci-fi superheroes, but much more Dune than Legion of Super-Heroes. It's finished now, and I believe all the issues have been collected.

Habitat: Is about life in an isolated orbital habitat, a bit like Starlost but with cannibalism. It's by Simon Roy, co-creator and sometime artist on Prophet. Roy has also done a number of other science fiction sorts that are suitable, some collected in Jan's Atomic Heart and Other Stories.

Dreadstar: This is another one I've mentioned before. Starlin's space opera is a science fantasy, but its visual style (and its Instrumentality!) influenced Strange Stars greatly.

Descender: While the aesthetics aren't the same, Lemire's tale of genocidal super-machines and the adventures of artificial intelligence is great inspiration.

Colonial 5e Fighting Men

This continues my look at adopting 5e for a "low/slightly-secret(maybe)" magic Colonial North America game:

Fighting Man (Fighter)
The 5e Fighter works pretty well were representing your standard warrior types from any of the cultures, though the Eldritch Knight will be out as an option. Maybe Adventure in Middle Earth's Weapons Master might be an archetype option.

Ranger (Wanderer)
The AiME Wanderer class can represent the historical units known as Rangers, but also the general wilderness scout type. The Hunter of Shadows Archetype is out, but the much maligned Beast Master archetype of the 5e Ranger will work. I might also replace Trackless Step with the Ranger's Land's Stride, but this isn't a big issue. Interesting historical tidbit: the terms for skilled firearms marksmen: "crack shot" and "sharp shooter" (the latter a calque from German) are both attested to from only the 1790s.

art by Tim Truman

Slayer (Barbarian)
Though the name is borrowed from the Adventures of Middle-Earth class, I think 5e's Barbarian works better. This will represent the fierce, rustic warrior, including some Native American warriors, but also some of the frontiersmen or proto-Mountain Men with which they contended. Weapons would be similar for both: muskets, tomahawks/hand axes, and knives, though some Natives might still employ the bow.

Colonial Era 5e Class Musings

On breaks from getting other projects done, I've been working adapting some of the classes in Adventures in Middle-Earth (due to their low magic setup) for a hypothetical 5e game set in a game in the America Colonies just before the Revolution War. Thinking the fighter classes will (hopefully) but pretty straight forward. I've started with the (quasi-)magc-using classes.

AiME has the Scholar, which is mostly a healer. While conceptually, I might have wished for a nonhealing scholar, the rules sort of require some healing, and this class can reasonable reskinned as the Enlightment version of a sort of Paracelsus alchemist-physician type, possibly with a little of the faith healing aspect of a Valentine Greatrakes, or pseudoscience theorists the likes of Mesmer. I plan to make the two different specialties of the class Master Healer and Master Alchemist (or something similar), which would require a bit of a change.

The Scholar's abilities are easy enough to reskin. "Hands of the Healer" becomes "Curative Arts," "News from Afar" becomes "The Republic of Letters," and "Tongues of Many Peoples" becomes "Able Linguister."

The only class that may need to be largely made from whole cloth is a sort of magic-user to represent the esoteric magic tradition, likely taking advantage of 5e's ritual magic rules, the Magus. These guys will probably have Lodges or Societies to join.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Creeping Death

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Creeping Death (1982) (part 4)
(Dutch: De Sluimerende Dood)
Art & script by Don Lawrence

Storm and Huatl, back in the hands of the Manatecs, will be forced to face someone named Kuadro in the duel. At the appointed time, they are led into an arena where ancient missiles risen--worshipped as gods by these people too.

Kuadro awaits the two prisoners on the opposite end of a narrow walkway across a pit filled with mordillos. It's time for the fight to begin, and Kuadro drops his poncho:

Storm is overmatched by a foe with four arms. He's knocked from the walkway but manages to hang on until Kuadro stabs him in the hand. Storm's other hand reaches for something to save him. He grabs a metal bar--which turns out to be a lever. The platform begins to turn. Kuadro is thrown off balance and falls into the pit.

Storm is declared the victor and the new leader. Storm demures from the office, offering Huatl in his place--after he returns. Before the Manatec people can respond, the two race into the tunnel the god-missiles emerge from. The two jump on the transports that carry the missiles along a track through the subterranean tunnel. Huatl thinks this all is the work of the gods, but Storm explains that ancient humans made this (though he wonders at what the power source must be).

The two reach an area where the air is thick. Vegetation has grown over the ventilation. The two lose consciousness. When Storm awakens, the transports have stopped in a massive assembly hall, and a horror is in front of them:

The spider grabs Huatl and begins to enrapt him in webbing. Thinking quickly, Storm wipes grease from the transport's axle so he can climb over the web without sticking. He manages to do that without drawing the attention of the spider and free Huatl.

No sooner is that done than the two have to sprint after the transport, which has began moving again.

TO BE CONTINUED

TPK for the In-laws

We spent New Year's with my wife's parents, and she really wanted to introduce them to D&D. They are avid gamers of the Catan/Carcassone/Pandemic sort but had never played an rpg. On the way to their place, we bought the 5e Starter Set (mainly to get ahold of the Lost Mines of Phandelver intro adventure), but also for the sample characters.

I'm sorry to say Squire Bill the Dwarf Cleric, Maggie the Elf Wizard, and Sara Longstreet the Fighter, were all lost in a goblin den. It was the first TPK of the new year. Hell, it's my first one as a DM in decades, perhaps.

While this was sort of on the fly and an introductory game not the start of a campaign, I did reskin a few thinks to make them more in line with my sensibilities, taking some suggestions from Gus L's critique of the adventure here. The PCs started in media res walking along the road from Knarr to Fandlin, where they know there is to be a festival honoring St. Frithona. I vaguely had in mind a Canterbury Tales riff, and I may differ a bit from Gus in my stance on funny names (I want them to be consistent in a way that suggest culture and interesting, but I do not necessarily see facility of player use as primary concern. If they can't remember them, they can take notes.) so I actually added more than are in the adventure while I altered the ones they were there. So the PCs soon encounter the gruff dwarven outfitter with a secret, Rockseeker Gev, and his associate, Silfer, and soon after, a pilgrim camp with Maudrey (a corpulent merchant), Eilmer (a used car salesman-esque relic seller), Bregwin (a taciturn female fighter with a hatred of goblins), and Karthusa (a nervous tinkerwoman).

After Gev and Silfer are apparently kidnapped in a goblin attack--and the player's find a tantalizing but unreadable map to the ruins--they track the goblins back to their lair.

In the end, it was mostly bad rolls that took them down and even then it was a close thing: the last PCs was felled by the last goblin in a room who was himself hanging on only by 1 HP. I suppose I should have had the goblin flee at that point to raise alarm (and give the PCs time to maybe attempt escape), but it happened relatively fast and the contest was so close. In any case, the player's seemed to enjoy the game, despite feeling they had "lost" in the end. Being more conformable with boardgames with role-playing the combat was more to their liking than the NPC interaction, so this introductory thing suited them better than one of my adventures might have.

Happy New Year--And Remember the Hydra Sale!

A happy 2017 to everyone! Remember there are just four more days of the 12 Days of Hydra Sale.

I'm looking forward to release of Strange Stars OSR early in 2017 and Mortzengersturm, the Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak a bit later.

On Rune, in the Strange Stars

Final (hopefully) edits continue on Strange Stars OSR and the commission of a few additional pieces of art to fill some layout gaps. Above is a chapter header by ever-amazing Jason Sholtis showing an encounter with a Runic dragon. Here's the Stars Without Number style description of Rune from the upcoming book:

RUNE

SSGSB p. 15

Tags  Out of Contact, Rigid Society

Enemies  Necromancer Mauldazard, Rampaging dragon

Friends  Young dragon Thussumbraan, Benevolent sorceress Jaronel

Compl.  Feudal warfare, Dragon attack

Things  Dragon’s treasure horde, Downed spacecraft from a “civilized world”

Places  Wizard’s tower, Dragon’s cave

Also, remember the 12 Days of Hydra sale is still ongoing. This would be a good time to pick up the Strange Stars Setting Book on the cheap before the release of the OSR Rulebook.

Colonial Adventures

A latter day Emirikol?

Over the holiday I've been reading The Dark Side of the Enlightenment: Wizards, Alchemists, and Spiritual Seekers in the Age of Reason, and it got me thinking (though not for the first time) about a game set in a slightly alternate history/fantasy version of Colonial America as the Revolutionary War approaches. Such a setting offers plenty of wilderness to be tamed in performance of the Gygaxian ritual, but also political intrigues, mystic cults, and a clash cultures.

Though something like Warhammer Fantasy would work for this, it strikes me that the Adventures in Middle-Earth implementation of D&D 5e would also fit the bill. The de-emphasis of magic better fits a hidden magic or mildly fantastic historical setting. The idea of replacing races with cultures works well. Its Scholar class could probably be a good template for how to implement a Rosicrucian Hermetic Magi, Cabbalist, or Alchemist. The Wanderer could form the basis of a magic-free Frontier Ranger. There would still be some bases to be covered: Some sort of depowered Warlock would be useful for hidden New England witches and a less magically Bard raconteur/agitator (though maybe better handled as a thief?).

Of course this territory has been somewhat mined by game systems to some degree before (Colonial Gothic and Northern Crown, I'm aware of), so there are other places to steal ideas.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Creeping Death

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Creeping Death (1982) (part 3)
(Dutch: De Sluimerende Dood)
Art & script by Don Lawrence

Traveling through the jungle on the way to the place of the Manatecs, Storm comes to a gorge beneath an ancient dam. He makes a crude glider to fly across. It works more or less, but an attack by a giant condor brings him down into the reservoir--and into the hands of the Manatecs. They throw him in a cell with Yukan's son Huatl.

Meanwhile, Yukan's other son is still pining for Ember, despite his father forbidding him to marry her. Yukan has another bride in mind for his son, though Kai isn't interested. That night, Kai sneaks into his father's room to steal the amulet with the cure for Ember, but Yukan awakens and soon Kai is clapped in irons, Yukan plans to keep Kai that way until after the wedding.

Before the wedding, the "gods" rise and another challenge is issued against Yukan. He easily bests the first challenger, but then Kai chooses to challenge his father. Angry with his son, Yukan agrees. Kai is unable to stand against him, but before Yukan can deliver the killing blow he is distracted by Kai's wife to be begging for her groom's life. That distraction is enough for Kai to stab his father and kill him! Now he is the ruler and has the amulet--and Ember.

Back in the Manatec city, Storm has (incredibly) discovered a disassembled ancient laser pistol in a compartment behind a loose tile. He rebuilds it, but needs a piece of metal to make it active. Luckily, the guard that delivers their food as a silver amulet and Storm is able to scam it off him.

With the gun, Storm and Huatl are able to break out, though the gun doesn't have too many shots before it burns out. The escape into the forest, but they are pursued using reptillian creatures called mordillos:

They're treed by the creatures then the guards use a ram-horned mount called a battarax to knock them out of the tree. Storm manages to fight his way free again, but when Huatl is taken, he surrenders rather than leave him behind.

Elsewhere, Kai uses the antidote to cure Ember. As soon as she is awake, he demands she marry him. Her answer is predictable:

Kai's response is equally typical of villains like himself:

TO BE CONTINUED

12 Days of Hydra

Have you been speculating about the goodness of Strange Stars? Wondering if Weird Adventures is worth a look? Or maybe you've been ruminating on getting Ruins & Ronin or fretting a Fever-Dreaming Marlinko purchase? Fret no more! The 12 Days of Hydra Sale is here to help ease those hard decisions!

All digital titles are 40% and print 40% until January 5.

Christmas Adventures Left Undone

I managed to do three "Christmas Specials" in my two Weird Adventures campaigns: "Twas the Fight Before Yule," and it's sequel, and "Another Weird Yule." This year, there was a holiday related cameo in my Land of Azurth game.

I still have gotten around to doing the reskin of Slumbering Ursine Dunes involving the Weird Adventures version of the Tunguska Event, the mysterious Siberian cauldrons, a captive Father Yule, and talking bears. Maybe one day!

More Covers That Weren't

Here are some counterfactual covers I did a while back for some AD&D classics:

A Players Handbook using the art of Gideon Brugman.

A Dungeon Masters Guide with a Jesse Santos cover.

and a well-used Monster Manual with a Sanjulian cover.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Creeping Death

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Creeping Death (1982) (part 2)
(Dutch: De Sluimerende Dood)
Art & script by Don Lawrence

Storm is brought before the warrior's leader, Yucan. Yucan boasts he is the only one who knows the antidote for Ember, but he won't divulge it, even after Storm roughs him up a bit. He wants to make Storm a trade. Yucan's son Huatl has been taken captive by the Manatecs that live in a city beyond a vast wall. If Storm will recue him, Yucan will give him the antidote. Storm agrees.

Suddenly, there is a call that the gods are coming. The populous runs in the square and kneel before great steel doors. The door rises and:

The ancient, automated missiles rise to point in the direction to launch at enemies long dead. A horn sounds. Yucan explains that when the gods come, it is time for a ritual challenge for rulership. If no challenger appears, a prisoner is sacrificed. Yucan makes short work of the sacrifice:

The missiles retract and the spectacle is over. Storm goes to tend Ember. Yucan tells him she will die in 10 days and introduces his son, Kai. He outlines the obstacles to reaching the Manatecs to Storm, but he only has eyes for Ember.

After Storm leaves, Yucan visits his father and asks to be allowed to marry Ember when Storm fails, and dies. Yucan refuses to allow it, citing tradition against marrying outsiders. Besides, Yucan points out, she will die without the antidote he keeps in his amulet--and no one will get that while he is alive. Kai agrees: While his father is alive.

TO BE CONTINUED

Escape from the Den of the Dragonettes

Last time in our Land of Azurth 5e campaign, the group was stranded on a weird mesa after having been attacked by wooden gargoyle puppets. After noticing the gargoyle corpses were still held a bit off the ground by the strings, the party thought they might use those to climb down, but the strings were too thin. However, they serendipitously discover that the gargoyle wings still have some lift to them; enough that they are able to ride gargoyle corpses to the ground like gliders.

Using the stage deocration-like trees and bushes they cut down as camoflage, the party tried to make their way around another mesa, skirting the wooden gargoyle town and getting to the mountain on the opposite side they believe might hold a way out. When they're spotted, they just make a break for it, and it's a spell-slinging, bow-firing chase to mountain. Luckily, there is a cave entrance.

Once inside (where the gargoyle's can't go because of their strings), our heroes follow the twisting trail up inside the mountain until they reach a larger cave. There's a whispering in the darkness, and the party is greeted by:

The Dragomen: Humans dressed in bad dragon costumes who serve someone called "the Dragonettes" and believe by sacrifice they will be reborn as those creatures and after many cycles, dragons. The Dragonettes live in the next cave over and come for a sacrifice every week.

Not wanting to linger long among these idiots, the party moves on to the next cave. There they are stopped by diminutive reptilian creatures with spears:

These are the Dragonettes. They can barely disguise their snickering at how they've gulled the Dragomen, whom (it is fairly obvious) they are using as a food source. They refuse to let the party pass, but Kully puts them to sleep. Investigating the adjacent caves uncovers a great hall (which the party avoids), a garbage pit filled with human bones, and a kitchen. There Erekose kills a fleeing Dragonette, so the party begins to move with more urgency.

They uncover a shrine where a winged Dragonette priest and his acolytes are raising a sacrificial platform (pilled with human parts and a Dragonette corpse) up into an aperture in the ceiling to the "Mother Dragon."

Several party members want to kill the priests and take the platform to the aperture, but Shade convinces them to parlay. When the priest hears they want to willing take the platform up, he's more than happy to let them go meet the Mother. He's sure such a sacrifice will prime him for dragon evolution for sure!

The party ascends into darkness. Those with dark vision see a cave littered with bones and overfilled with a very old, sleeping dragon. Stealthy investigation reveals a manhole-size opening in the ceiling that goes up through rock to reveal the night sky. There are no other exits.

With few options, the party sends the frogling Waylon climbing up to investigate. He finds himself on a cold and wind-swept mountain peak. Then, he hears the sound of bells! He lights his lantern and to his wondering eyes appears a flying sleigh pulled by deer!

Art by GENZOMAN

Father Yule knows him by name, and acquiesces to Waylon's request for rope. His friends quickly scramble up out of the dragon's den, and since Father Yule is on his way to the Land of Azurth, he gives them a ride.

He deposits the party in Rivertown, with a gift each.

This entire series of adventures was liberally adapted from Frank L. Baum's Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz.

I Didn't see the new Stars Wars but I did see new Strange Stars

Yesterday, Lester B. Portly sent me the rough layout for Strange Stars OSR. There is still proofing and some other edits to be done, but I wanted to show off some sample pages:

This is a page from the beginning of the chapter on Worlds, containing 22 planets/habitats described in the Stars Without Number style and random generators for orbital habitats.

This is a page from the chapter on clades. There are 20 clades in all and general guidelines for adding additional clades in the various sophont categories.

Games I've Played Recently

After something of a hiatus with gaming as a player, I 've been in two ongoing campaigns of late that I've really enjoyed. There are a lot of differences between them in terms of ruleset and campaign style, but a lot of similarities in terms of what I think are good GM practices, too.

Art by Guy Davis

Jack Shear's Krevborna is on a break now for the holidays but will hopefully return in the new year. Not surprisingly, it's sort of a Gothic setting (Ravenloft, but better realized, perhaps). We use 5e, and there was as much a focus on mystery and investigation of conspiracies as there was traditional exploration and monster-slaying.

Art by Jason Sholtis

Jason Sholtis's Bewilderlands, run in Swords & Wizardry, is perhaps a more "traditional" wilderness hexcrawl--if your definition of traditional isn't so much mainstream stuff, but the sort of weirdness produced by the OSR DIY crowd. There are mysterious things in the Bewilderlands, too, but the effect is more "what will we stumble into this time?" than planfully considering our next move. (This likely is as due to our approach as players, but Jason's semi-gonzo world seems to invite improvisation.)

The mechanics, other than be flavors of D&D, produce slightly different play styles in an of themselves, on top of the differing focuses. Character motivations and backstories are more important in Jack's game, while humor and farce (not absent from either) comes more to the for in Jason's. Still, I think their are a lot of similarities. Both Jack and Jason are experienced gamemasters with a strong sense of their own style and a handle on the world's they are presenting. Both of them present an intricate backdrop with factions, locales, and other bits of depth, but they sit back and let the player's choose what they want to approach.

Of course, the enjoyment I get out of these two games doesn't come solely from the GMs. Both of them have a good, involved group of players (which seems to be the exception rather than the rule when drawing from the player/gm/creators of the G+ community). The give and take between the two is probably as important as anything else.

Wednesday Comics: Storm: The Creeping Death

My exploration of the long-running euro-comic Storm, continues. Earlier installments can be found here.

Storm: The Creeping Death (1982)
(Dutch: The Dormant Death )
Art & script by Don Lawrence

Storm and Ember are racing along over water on hover-bike type things. They've been exploring the world since they left Antarctica. Suddenly, a sort of giant slug creature rises from the water, knocking Ember from her vehicle. Storm swoops down to help her, but the creature smashes into him.

When Ember surfaces, she sees Storm unconscious in the roots of a tree near the water's edge. Their bikes were destroyed. When Storm comes to, they decide to climb a tree to survey their surroundings. All around them is an immense jungle, but they also see what may be buildings at the horizon. With no place else to go, they head off in that direction.

It's tough going. They have to climb treacherous rocks and cut through dense vegetation. Then:

Hit by the dart, Ember first swoons, then wakes up in a violent rage. Storm manages to avoid her attacks then restrain her until she passes out. Storm carries her on then makes camp for the night. The next day, she is still out. Storm moves on, hoping somehow to find an antidote for the poison.

He makes it to the buildings, but they appear long deserted. Then:

The men reveal they've been following him all day, and they are the ones that shot Ember with the dart. The plan to take Storm to their leader. He isn't having it:

Once he beats them all, he tells them that now he's ready to be taken to their leader. And they do.

TO BE CONTINUED

Pointcrawl the Green Hell

This map is is by Harold Wilkins and found in his book Secret Cities in Old South America. All it needs is some of these locations written up and it's ready to go:

A lot of cool stuff going on there. Some highlights:

• Unknown Mountains of Gold and Mystery - They had me at "gold."
• Unexplored Dangerous Territory - Obviously, explored enough to know its dangerous.
• Atlantean Hy-Brazilian Dead City - If Dead City weren’t adventure fodder enough, Atlantean ought to sweeten the mix, to say nothing of Hy-Brazilian.
• Strange “Cold” Light in Tower - Again the Hy-Brazilian Atlanteans are invoked for probably the most intriguing place on the map. And why is cold in quotation marks--so-called cold, perhaps? The mind boggles...

Random Images from Baroque Space

Art by Mel Birnkrant

A winged Devil from the Tartarean dark beyond Saturn.

Art by Bailey Henderson

Leviathan rises from the thick clouds of Jupiter.

A fop seen in a Jovian gaming house.

Pirates of the Belt in debauchery.

Bandits on the Planet of the Apes

"WHITE SANDS" 

Player Characters:
Jeff Call as Brock Irving
Lester B. Portly as Eddy Woodward
Jason Sholtis as Francis La Cava

Nonplayer Characters:
Ted Cassidy as Eezaya
Alfonso Arau as Lope
Wardude
Broh
Dan-Nee
Stev
Bonobo Banditos

Synopsis: After repelling the Kreeg attack, the astronauts push the human tribes to get better organized. When theyy set out on their own raid against the mutant's hideout, they have to contend with an unexpected foe.

Commentary: This adventure featured the first appearance of a hereto unknown intelligent ape species: bonobos. The group captures a wounded bandito, Lope, and gently interrogate him. They get further confirmation that ape society is not homogeneous.

The astronauts also picked up a ground of Tehi warriors as henchmen associates. These guys look like the "White Feather Warriors" (the human ones) from 2nd Edition Gamma World module "The Cleansing War of Garik Blackhand":

The name "Wardude" is an homage to a hireling in Chris Kutalik's Hill Cantons campaign.

The group also found out that the warwheel apparently came from a Kreeg installation in White Sands, though their main base is somewhere farther to the West, and are also "deadly gunmen" in that direction.