Talislanta: In Zandu

Art by P.D. Breeding-Black

The land Zandu and it's people are relatives of the Aamanians, but the opposite side of the coin. Tamerlin tells us they are "eccentric and uninhibited" and "enhance their features with vividly colored pigments, adorn their hair with silver bands and dress in flamboyant apparel" to express their individuality. Where Aamanian society is uniform except for class, several factions of Zandir are described.

The entries on Zandu are no help with the Aamanian skin-color dilemma, however. The archetype descriptions across most editions say they have "topaz skin" (as they do for the Aamanians), but the setting text only says they "bear a marked physical resemblance to the Aamanians, both being descended from the copper-skinned Phaedrans." As mentioned before, the 4th edition attempts to resolve this by given the Zandir "copper or cinnabar" skin, and the 5th edition just says copper for everybody.

"I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue." - The Dying Earth, Jack Vance

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Zandu is its state religion, Paradoxism (or Paradoxy, as Tamerlin would have it). The Paradoxists  "profess to be mystified by their own existence." The central text  of the faith is "The Great Mysteries (author unknown), a lengthy book filled with over 100,000 questions, and no answers." The Paradoxist writ is named The Book of Mysteries from the Cyclopedia vol. 4 on. There are no Paradoxist priests, but wizards serve as seers for the faith. Outside of Zandu, these wizards "are largely thought of as frauds and impostors."

French Talislanta art

Paradoxy gets most detail in CTv4. It may contradict Tamerlin's original account by naming the founder of the philosophy as Zand, though this is ambiguous. I suppose he might not have been the author of the foundational text. While Paradoxy has no central deity or Pantheon, CTv4 introduces the idea of the Ten Thousand, which is the poetic name (there number is unspecified and ever changing) of the syncretized "saints, heroes, and deities" incorporated into Paradoxist practice.

"No fear of that. Cath has no laws, only customs, which seems to suit the Yao well enough."
- Servants of the Wankh, Jack Vance

All of that is the good stuff in the noncanonical CTv4, but it also has a tendency to present Zandu as the good guys with Aaman as the villains. There are hints of this in other Talislanta products, but it is the most present here. I think this is a mistake. Zandu is certainly more into personal freedom than Aaman, but it's ruled be an absolute despot and a capricious one to boot! It's a place where disagreements are often handled with duels.

I think Zandu works best if it is as frightening as Aaman in its own way. The culture of the Yao as presented in Vance's Planet of Adventure series would certainly be a strong inspiration. The libertarian, but baroque culture bound society of Sirene in Vance's "The Moon Moth" would be an influence here, too.

Paradoxy is, in many ways, more interesting than Orthodoxy, because it seems like it could come in so many flavors from absurd ascetism (not very popular) to lampoon's of New Age-y faddishness. I imagine variants of Paradoxy rise and fall like gods in Lankhmar (see "Lean Times in Lankhmar.") As to its seers being charlatans, well, I mostly take that to mean they have no more spiritual connection than anybody else, but their wizardry is likely real.

Talislanta: The Iron of Arim

"...a suspicious folk, who flourish their knives at a harsh word. At night they strike without provocation."
- The Dirdir, Jack Vance

Arim in the West of Talislanta is described in The Chronicles as "a grey and windy realm" of "rough and irregular hills." The Handbook (1987) tells us it's people are: "a dour and moody folk who find no joy in song, dance or revelry. They drink heavily, favoring chakos, a bitter and metallic tasting liquor." They're neither lookers nor snappy dressers, as Tamerlin observes:

They are swarthy of complexion, with long black hair and dark, deep-set eyes. The men tend to be gaunt and wiry, with glaring countenances and hatchet-like features; the women, heavy-set and lacking in charm. The customary mode of dress in this region defies all concept of fashion, and consists primarily of sackcloth garments, animal hide boots, bulky fur vests, and wristbands, knives, and ear-rings made of dull, black iron.

This description is largely ignored in later editions where they tend to present Arimites as well-muscled, relatively attractive folk.

Arimites are mostly miners, but this is usually only mentioned in passing to get to the more interesting stuff: Arimites' fame as skilled knife-fighters and their secret Revenant cult. The Chronicle describes the Revenants  as "members of a secret society who specialize in carrying out acts of vengeance for their clients." Tamerlin reports that they have subspecialties in various "forms of revenge from delivering insults and threats to arson, coercion, muggings and murder-for-hire." Later editions tend to emphasize their roll as assassins, implying that that's all they do.

The deuterocanonical Cyclopedia Talislanta vol. IV gives information on the structure of Revenant Cult's cells and mentions a mysterious High Revenant that rules them all. Third edition says this leader is an assassin-mage who lives in a mountain top sanctum, which seems unlikely given the preponderance of evidence indicating the Arimites are poor mages. All editions agree that the Revenants are the de facto rulers of Arim, in that the nominal ruler, the Exarch, refuses to leave the Forbidden City of Ahrazahd out of fear of them. The Exarch, for what it's worth, is not very popular among his people.

The Cyclopedia holds that Arimites worship or perhaps revere Destiny, or have a few of cults that do. Fourth edition says they are agnostics.

The Arimites have the gloomy environment of Robert E. Howard's Cimmerians and elements of a number of hill or mountain folk. They've got a thing for knives like the Afghans of pulp tradition with their Khyber knives, though the Arimites mostly use throwing knives. They're miners, and prone to feuding and substance abuse, traits often associated with Appalachian folk. I say play up that stuff and add a bit from the Khors of Vance's Tshcai--see the quote at the start, and here's another: "they consider garrulity a crime against nature."

The Revenants at times seem to be trying to draw on the Persian Order of Assassins and maybe even the ninja. I'm okay with that, as long as a hillbilly element is played up. I also like the Vancian absurdity of them doing acts of vengeance besides murdering people.

Exarch as the title of Arim's ruler is interesting. Since it's a Byzantine title for a governor of a territory, it suggests to me that the earliest exarchs were perhaps barbarian stoogies of the Phaedran Empire. A "Forbidden City" is an odd detail for hillfolk, but I assume it's more a fortified town and the Exarch is more a chieftain or tribal leader with delusions of grandeur.

Talislanta: The Purity of Aaman

Art by P.D. Breeding-Black

In The Chronicles of Talislanta (1987), our narrator the wizard Tamerlin starts his journey across the continent with Aaman in the Westernlands. The introduction of Aaman was actually in the Talislanta Handbook published a month before. This, in summary, is what we are told about the Aamanians, and what holds true across every edition:

• Aaman is a remnant of the Phaedran Empire and a theocracy, ruled by conservative Orthodoxist faith, worshiping Aa the Omniscient (Or Omnipotent. Or Omnificent.)
• Aamanians are high conformist and dressing simply and conservatively, and removing all their facial and body hair. 
• All Aamanians desire to attain mana, "so that they may rise in status and piety." 

The Aamanians' skin color is the subject of some disagreement across publications. Character archetype descriptions in the 1st-3rd editions hold that they have "topaz skin and green eyes." The text of The Chronicles, however, describes them as having "skin the color of cinnabar," as does the Talislanta Worldbook of the 2nd edition. The 4th edition is the first to be internally consistent is this regard and goes with "cinnabar." With the 5th we are back to some discrepancy, with Hotan's History saying "cinnabar" and the Player's Guide saying "copper-colored."

Art from the French edition of Talislanta

But that's a minor issue. What's more interesting is mana. The 1st edition Handbook tells us mana is accumulated by good works: "pilgrimages to officially sanctioned holy sites, donations to the church, service to the Hierophant, and so on." By gaining sufficient "mana points" one can advance in status. The Chronicles expands on this by telling us mana is "spiritual purity," and defines the hierarchy with the Hierophant with unlimited mana at the top, and the district-ruling (and mana awarding or deducting) Monitors beneath him having at least 1000 mana points. Slaves and infidels have 0 mana points, naturally, and between the extremes are ten ranks of Aspirants.  Advancement in status by this measure is a "preoccupation" of Aamanians because position in the worldly Orthodox "caste system" corresponds to position in the after life in some unspecified way.

Material wealth enters into this as we are told the easiest way to obtain mana points is to enter into the priesthood and study to become an archimage--but tuition is high. In addition to the other means mentioned in the Handbook, buying statues, medallions, and relics is also a possibility.

The 2nd edition (in the Worldbook) tells us that "aalms" are the unit of mana (presumably the mana points mentioned). Reading all the texts, I am confused as to whether mana is a state or a thing to be accumulated. I suppose like the word sin, it might be employed both ways, though the analogy isn't perfect because counted sins are discrete entities, not a continuum that needs units to measure it, like say force or electric current.

The Cyclopedia Talislanta vol. 4 (1989) is now considered "noncanonical" for reasons various and not entirely clear, but it does have some interesting, detailed information on Aaman. It emphasizes the importance of wealth in determining status, presumably indirectly by the purchase power it allows to buy aalms. (Confusingly, it calls mana "the mystical unit of a person's worth.") It notes a requirement to buy a different symbol of Aa at each level of the Hierarchy. 

The Cyclopedia is the first to address gender roles and places women as second class citizens in the hierarchy, making them always one status level below their husband or father. 

Art by Jason Sholtis

The oppressive theocracy is a genre staple, though Aaman never seems to dip into the "decadent or hypocritical theocracy." Instead, it seems to go in the direction of more secular totalitarian societies in science fiction. The aalms economy and rank system is interesting, too. It seems to have parallels to Scientology as well as the obvious ones to the indulgences of the Middle Ages.

I would leave out the sexism of the Cyclopedia; Aaman should be equal opportunity in its oppression. I would play up the extreme conformity and societal control, borrowing from Vance's The Pnume, and the speaking in aphorisms and quotations of liturgy mentioned in the text, almost to a degree that resembles the Ascians of Wolfe's The Book of New Sun. While material wealth would afford some advantages in maintaining one's position Aamanian society, I figure high mana is the key to getting wealth in the first place by leading to the award of lucrative positions, titles, and contracts, and some high mana individuals might wield considerable power without a lot of wealth.

Finally, despite what is possibly implied in The Chronicles, I lean toward the idea that Orthodoxy is aniconistic with regard to its deity--other than the eye. There is no commentary literature regarding the holy Omnival. The word means what the Hierophant says it means. Doctrine does change with time, but devout Orthodoxists will not admit a revision has ever occurred, indeed they may be strongly conditioned not to see it, even it it is pointed out to them.

Wednesday Comics: Hill House

Hill House is a horror imprint of DC Comics curated by horror writer, Joe Hill. He writes a number of comics himself, as well as presumably selecting the other creators. I have read at least the first issues of three of the four current titles and while it's difficult to draw definitively conclusions in this age of decompression each is off to a promising start.

The Dollhouse Family
Six year-old Alice is left a Victorian dollhouse by a great-aunt or something, and soon finds she can visit the house's inhabitants. and can even escape the domestic violence of her home to live their all the time. There's a price, I'm sure. This one is written by Mike Carey and his art by Peter Gross.

Low, Low Woods
Described as "coming of age body horror" it tells the story of two outsider teenage women in a dying mining town with a cold seam fire beneath it. There's also a mysterious plague that causes people to lose their memory and the girls already have one night they can't remember in a movie theater. Then there are the skinless bodies (undead maybe?) they show up sometimes in the woods. Unlike The Dollhouse Family, it's harder to see where this one is going. It's written by Shirley Jackson Award winner Carmen Maria Machado and features art by Dani, fresh from Coffin Bound.

Daphne Byrne
In Victoria era New York, Daphne Byrne has recently lost her father and her grief-stricken mother is an easy mark for spiritualist hucksters. In dreams, Daphne is contacted by her presence who claims to be her brother and promises help for her situation. It's writer by television writer and playright Laura Marks, and features artwork by the great Kelley Jones.

Getting Out of Rivertown

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the "Masters of Mayhem" in the midst of a robbery. Using a Blades in the Dark-esque opportunity to retcon planned events (at the price of a greater chance of a complication), the players attempt to establish that they bribed the vault guards to look the other way prior to the robbery. They are successful with the pertinent rolls and the retcon is established. The approaching guards are ready to be knocked out with a sleep spell, if necessary.

But the angry invisible stalker has not been bought off. It attacks the party again, and Bellmorae (disguised as the vault manager Wotko) is unable to get it to stand down. The party eventually kills it with magic and stolen energy weapons.

The party decides to get out while the gettings good, but their only choice is to leave their Armoire of Holding behind with the hope of regaining it later. On the way through the lobby, "Wotko" (the disguised Bell) is accousted by a customer demanding her attention. She manages to talk her way out of it and they leave the vault with Gladhand's gold.

The party becomes concerned that when the real Wotko and his associate awaken, they may well draw attention to the Armoire, leading to the heist being discovered. They figure they have to get out of town. But they also want to get the Armoire back. They make the mistake of letting Gladhand know this before negotiating for a higher fee, and he offers to both help them get out of town and retrieve the Armoire in lieu of further payment. 

Ultimately, though, they decide not to take his offer of getting them jobs and cover identities with a caravan heading across the Dragonspine Mountains to the Country of Sang. Instead, they plan to make their own way to the Sapphire City along the Wizard's Road, and from there to Virid to meet Queen Desira.

Talislanta: The Continent and Magic

This is a follow-up to this post, and the beginning of my examination of the setting throughout its publication history. First up, the big picture.

Talislanta the setting is named for the continent which is its central focus. Though other, semi-legendary lands are mentioned in passing, The Chronicles of Talislanta (1987) makes a pitch for dropping the continent into any fantasy setting:

As to the land of Talislanta: those scholars who do not dismiss the topic out of hand disagree as to the origins of this otherwise forgotten realm. Some claim that Talislanta existed long ago, perhaps during the legendary First Age of Atlantis. Others, lending even broader scope to their imaginations, cite Tamerlin’s chronicles as proof of the existence of parallel worlds or alternate realities. Proponents of the hollow earth theory, avid readers of Charles Fort, and others of similar bent may formulate even more intriguing explanations for the Talislantan texts.

This vagueness regarding the wider world doesn't last. In 1988's Sorcerer's Guide, Talislanta's world is placed on the plane of Primus within the wider Omniverse, not utterly unlike D&D's planar setup, but much less complicated. With the 2nd edition and The Talislanta Worldbook (1990), Talislanta's planet gets a name: Archaeus. Archaeus has seven continents in total:

The origin of magic in the Talislantan milieu is revealed for the first time. A tribe of "Sub-Men" (Talislanta's name for the primitive humanoid inhabitants of much of the continent) discover the wreckage of a ship of some kind and find a crystal orb that contains "the secrets of a lost and forgotten art—magic." Learning magic, these Sub-Men develop into the race known as the Archaeans (simply called "Men" in the 1st edition).

The 3rd edition largely follows the Worldbook's details, but demotes Archaeus from the center of its system to being a planet orbiting binary stars. This star system is just one of many within the material plane. The Sub-Men tribe uplifted by magic from a wrecked "strange vessel," now become known as Archaens.

Archaeus' solar system is de-emphasized in the last two editions, but the origin of the Archaens is now firmly established. In the 4th edition, Sub-Men is a derogatory term for the "Wild Folk" and the crashed ship is called out as "alien" and called an "ark." The 5th edition, affirms the ship was alien and states that it is believed to be of extra-dimensional origin. There are parts of it still in existence, recognizable by the rainbow color they emanate. The Sub-Men are again Sub-Men.

Why does the stuff about the Archaens matter? Talislanta was established from the beginning as a post-apocalyptic setting with frequent references to a Great Disaster. The Archaens were not only the ancestors of the "human" races of Talislanta, but the source of most of its magic, and also (perhaps) the cause of the destruction of their own civilization.

The idea of magic, or at least the advanced practice of magic, being alien in origin is a nice little detail to me, and one I don't think Talislanta has ever explored to its fullest. There is a lot that could be done with that in a campaign.

The vacillation between extraplanetary aliens and extradimensional ones, seems to coincide with some ambivalence about whether Archaeus is a planet in a science fiction conception or a "world" in a fantasy conception. I like a view of "outer space" more metaphysical than strictly physical, like in Medieval cosmology or pulp fiction like Howard's "Tower of the Elephant" or Lovecraft's Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, for Talislanta. I favor a more fantastic Archaeus, as well. One where you could sail across an ocean and into another world, perhaps.

Those preferences are in general. For the Sword & Planet thing I'm planning, I'm go with a much more realistic world around a realistic star.

Return of the Bronze Age Book Club

First episode of 2020!

Listen to "Episode 12: CONAN THE BARBARIAN #127" on Spreaker.

Through A Veil of Blue Mist Did I First Behold Talislanta

I've mentioned my appreciation for Stephan Michael Sechi's Talislanta setting. Since I'm contemplating running a Sword & Planet game that uses Talislanta as the "planet," I though it was a good time to revisit the setting, and it's publication history in a series of posts, as I think about what I'm going to use and what I might do differently.

Historically, Talislanta is both a setting and a game. It's core, however, has always been the systemless Chronicles of Talislanta, first published by Bard Games in 1987. Chronicles is the narrative of Tamerlin, a wizard from another world, as he explores the continent of Talislanta. Sechi's imaginative setting is made more compelling by P.D. Breeding-Black's distinctive illustrations.

When I first encountered Talislanta, I didn't have much experience with Sechi's inspirations: the works of Jack Vance, Marco Polo's Travels, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and the comics of Philippe Druillet. To me, it seemed more daring than the implied setting of D&D, and at once goofier and more lurid than the likes of Middle-Earth. It reminded me of Star Wars and comic books. I liked it instantly.

My appreciation has only grown over the years. So, I'm going to trace Tamerlin's journey and the places it visits across editions and think about how I might make it my own, influenced by my understanding of Sechi's stated influences and influences of my own.

More to come.

Weird Revisited: In the Twilight

The original version of this post appeared in 2016...

At least ten empires rose and fell during the Meridian of Earth. Each was glorious and wrested such secrets from the universe as to enable it to bend laws of nature, obdurate to earlier cultures, to its whim. Each in time fell into decadence, dwindled, and died, but at the end of the Meridian Time, the Earth had been transformed by their works; it had become the abode of beings other than Man.

As the Twilight fell and the sun grew bloated and sanguine, those Outsiders and abhuman things encroached ever closer on the nations of Man. By and by, they gained greater dominion over the Earth. In the early centuries, the technologies of the elder Meridian still functioned, and Man comprehended enough to build great walls as a defense against the inhuman. As Twilight deepened, many of these redoubts fell, but a few stood fast and managed even to throw back their foe. The Coming Night was held in abeyance for so long that generations passed and many began to doubt it would ever fall.

But beyond the walls, the Great Beasts crouched and waited with patience inhuman but not infinity, and abhuman armies gathered in the deepening in gloom...

Here's the pitch: Take the early modern bleakness, occasional black humor, and body-warping chaos of Warhammer Fantasy and put it in a Dying Earth gone weird like Hodgson's The Night Land, making sure to filter the Watchers (Great Beasts in this case) through Lovecraftiania, a hint of kaiju, and good old fashion goetic demonology. Wrap it all in "points of light" surrounded by walls out of Attack on Titan.

A Campaign Idea in Pictures

A scout ship crashes on a distant planet.

A world teeming with life, some of which mysteriouslt shows ties to Earth, and primitive civilization.

Things are not what they seem.

But what can explain the apparent examples of magic?

The short pitch summary: A Planetary Romance short of sandbox, inspired by Vance's Planet of Adventure series with Talislanta (modified to taste) used as a base.

Setting History Should Do Something

If setting books for rpgs sometimes get a bad rap, history sections of setting books are probably even more widely reviled. There are reasons for this, but I don't think the solution is that history should be banned from rpg books entirely. I do think it's worth thinking about why we have history (particularly deep history) in rpg setting books, when it's useful and maybe when it isn't.

My thesis is that history in rpg books is most useful/good when it does something. Possible somethings are:

1. Helps to orient the reader (mostly the GM) to the themes/mood/flavor of the setting.
2. Directly establishes parameters that impact the player's adventures.
3. Provides "toys" or obstacles.

It is unhelpful when it does the following:

1. Describes events that have little to no impact on the present.
2. Describes events which are repetitive in nature or easy to confuse.
3. Provides few "toys," or ones that are not unique/distinctive.

Now, I am not talking specifically here about number of words or page counts, which I think a lot of people might feel is the main offender. Those are sort of dependent on the style/marketing position of the publication. Bona fide rpg company books tend to be written more densely and presumably read more straight for pleasure. DIY works are linear and more practical. My biases are toward the latter, but I am more concerned with content here. I do think in general that economy of words makes good things better, and verbosity exacerbates the bad things.

Let's get into an example from Jack Shear's Krevborna:

Gods were once reverenced throughout Krevborna, but in ages past they withdrew their influence from the world. Some say that the gods abandoned mankind to its dark fate due to unforgivable sins. Others believe that the gods retreated after they were betrayed by the rebellious angels who became demons and devils. Some even claim that the gods were killed and consumed by cosmic forces of darkness known as the Elder Evils.

Looking at my list of "good things" it hits most of them. It helps orient to mood and theme (lack of gods, dark fate, unforgivable sins), it sets parameters for the adventurers (cosmic forces of darkness, no gods), and provides obstacles (demons and devils, rebellious angels, elder evils).

That's pretty brief, though. What about a wordier example? Indulge me in an example from my own stuff:

So, the good stuff: orienting to theme, mood. etc. (deep history, memeplexes, super-science, transcendence as old hat, names suggesting a multicultural melange), setting parameters (a fallen age compared to the past, psychic powers, vast distances), and toys and obstacles (psybernetics and a host of other advance tech, Zurr masks, Faceless Ones!)

But wait, have I done one of the "bad things?" I've got two fallen previous civilizations? Isn't that repetitive and potentially confusing? I would say no.  The Archaic Oikueme is the distant past (it's in the name!). It's the "a wizard did it" answer for any weird stuff the GM wishes to throw in, and the source of McGuffins aplenty. The Radiant Polity is the recent past. Its collapse is still reverberating. It is the shining example (again, in the name) that would-be civilizer (and tyrants) namecheck.

Weird Revisited: The Planetary Picaresque

This post is of relatively recent vintage (2017), but I've been thinking about this sort of thing again...

We're all familiar with the Planetary Romance or Sword and Planet stories of the Burroughsian ilk, where a stranger (typically a person of earth) has adventures of a lost world or derring-do sort of variety on an alien world. I'd like to suggest that their is a subgenre or closely related genre that could be termed the Planetary Picaresque.

The idea came to me while revisiting the novels in Vance's Planet of Adventure sequence. The first novel, City of the Chasch, is pretty typical of the Planetary Romance form, albeit more science fiction-ish than Burroughs and wittier than most of his imitators. By the second novel, Servant of the Wankh (or Wanek), however, Vance's hero is spending more time getting the better of would be swindlers or out maneuvering his social superiors amid the risible and baroque societies of Tschai than engaging in acts of swordplay or derring-do. One could argue the stalwart Adam Reith is not himself a picaro, but the ways he is forced to get by on Tschai certainly resemble the sort of situations a genuine picaro might get into.

These sort of elements are not wholly absent from Vance's sword and planet progenitors (Burroughs has some of that, probably borrowed from Dumas), but Vance makes it the centerpiece rather than the comedy relief. Some of L. Sprague de Camp's Krishna seem to be in a similar vein.

The roleplaying applications of this ought to be obvious. You get to combine the best parts of Burroughs with the best parts of Leiber. I think that's a pretty appealing combination.

Weird Revisited: Map of the Azuran System

This post is from 2015. I revisited in in 2018, but with the demise of G+ the image is now gone, so it bore reposting...

This is a "work in progress map of the Azuran System, location of the Star Warriors setting I've done a couple of posts about. Some of these worlds have been mentioned in other posts, but here are the thumbnail descriptions of the others:

Yvern: Humans share this tropical world with sauroid giants! They have learned how to domestic these creatures as beasts of burdens and engines of feudal warfare. Some Yvernians are able to telepathically communicate with their beasts.

Vrume: The desert hardpan and canyons of Vrume wouldn’t attract many visitors if it weren’t for the races—the most famous of these being the annual Draco Canyon Rally.

Zephyrado: Isolated by its “cactus patch” of killer satellites, Zephyrado is home to hard-bitten ranchers and homesteader colonists—and the desperadoes that prey on them!

Geludon: A windswept, frozen world, Geludon is home to mysterious “ice castles” built by a long vanished civilization and the shaggy, antennaed, anthropoid Meego.

Robomachia: A world at war! An all-female civilization is under constant assault from robots that carry captives away to hidden, underground bases--never to be seen again.

Darrklon: Covered by jagged peaks and volcanic badlands shrouded in perpetual twilight, Darrklon is a forbidding place, made even more so by its history as the power base of the Demons of the Dark. Few of the Demons remain, though their fane to Anti-Source of the Abyss still stands, and through it, they direct the Dark Star Knights and other cultists.

Computronia: A gigantic computer that managed the bureaucracy of the Old Alliance and served as its headquarters. It is now under the control of the Authority, and its vast computational powers are used to surveil the system.

Elysia: Elysia was once a near paradise. Technology and nature were held in balance, and its gleaming cities are as beautiful as its unspoiled wilderness. Elysia’s highest mountain was site of the training center of the Star Knights. Now, the Star Knights have been outlawed and the people of Elysia live in a police state imposed by the Authority.

Authority Prime: This hollowed out asteroid holds not only the central headquarters of Authority High Command, but its training academy and interrogation and detention center, as well. 

More on Clerics

It is no secret that clerics have always held a bit of an uneasy place in D&D. They were supposedly inspired by the vampire hunters of Hammer Horror with some further borrowings from Crusader orders. Even if later editions with variable domains, weapons, and powers have ameliorated there implicitly Christian, monotheistic origins, we are still left with them serving pantheons drawn from modern imposed-systemization on characters from later versions of myth, a systemization alien to actually polytheistic religions. But still, it's only a game, we can run with that, right?

Well, we're still left with unanswered questions regarding how the cleric class fits into the structure of religious organizations. Do all priests have spells? If so, where do they get the experience to go up in level?

Here are some possibilities drawn from real world examples that are potential answers, though of course not the only answers, to these questions. Most of these assume clerics adventure because they are "called" to in some way. Whether this is a legitimate belief on the part of the cleric and society or a mistaken one would depend on the setting.

Lay Brothers 
Clerics are not ordained priests but warrior lay brethren, like the sohei of Japan or the military orders of Europe. They would overlap a bit with paladins, but that's real just a matter of whether they were stronger in faith or battle. In this version, priests might or might not have spells, but if they did it would strictly be at the dispensation of their deity.

Prophets/Evangelists
This is more or less the idea I proposed in this post. Clerics are outside the church hierarchy, though they may or may not have started there. They were chosen by their deity for a special purpose. They may be reformers of a church that has been corrupted or lost it's way, founders of a heretical sect with a new interpretation, or the first in ages to hear the voice of a new god. Priests here may have no magic or may be powerful indeed but false in their theology.

Mystics
Similar to my "Saints and Madmen" ideas before, mystics are either heretics or at the very least esotericists with a different take on their religion than the mainstream one. The difference between this and the Prophet above is that they have no interest in reforming the church or overturning it, they are either hermits or cult leaders who isolate themselves from the wider world to pursue their revelations. John the Baptist as portrayed in The Last Temptation of Christ would fit here, as would perhaps the Yamabushi of Japan, or certain Daoist sects/practitioners in China. They might be not at all scholarly (with all spells/powers being "gifts of grace" unavailable to less fanatical priests) or very scholarly with powers/spells coming from intense study or mediation which even more mainstream priests cannot master.

Special Orders
Clerics are members of special orders within the church hierarchy dedicated to recovering the wealth and lost knowledge of dungeons for the the glory of their deity and the betterment of their church. Not all  priests have spells. Clerics are priests chosen for their aptitude or particular relationship with the divine or whatever. These orders may be quite influential within the church hierarchy, but their mission thin their ranks and keeps them in the wilderness and away from centers of power--perhaps by divine will or by design of church leaders.

Weird Revisited: Different Takes on Clerics

I was thinking of writing a post on different approaches to clerics in D&D--then I discovered I had already written one in 2015! I plan to expand on this in an upcoming post..

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: My Favorites of 2019

In no particular order, here are my favorite comic book series of 2019. This only counts series that started with a 2019 cover date.

Spider-Man: Life Story: The life of Peter Parker as if he aged in real time. Sometimes the reconfiguring on famous storylines of each decade is tedious, but in the chapters where it works, it works well.

Coffin Bound: Izzy Tyburn, chased by an unstoppable killer unleashed by an ex-lover, vows that if the world won't have her in it, it will have nothing of her at all. Reminiscent of the classic days of Vertigo.

House of X/Powers of X: The X-Men as a science fiction. It's main flaw is that it leads into ongoing X titles that have thus far failed to live up to it.

Jimmy Olsen: a humorous homage to the Jimmy Olsen comics of the Silver Age from Matt Fraction and Steve Leiber. No collection as yet.

Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt: Forget Doomsday Clock, this is the comic book follow-up to Watchmen worth reading. By Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard.

The Outer Dark of Space

There are rpg publications out there combining the Cthulhu Mythos with science fiction, and maybe even some combining transhuman science fiction with it, but I don't know if any of them have combined the mythos with hard science fiction with a bleaker edge like Reynolds's Revelation Space or Blindsight by Peter Watts, or maybe a hard science fiction Prometheus.

The magic and occultism of Lovecraft's (and other's) stories are just the primitive misunderstandings of extremely advanced technology. The many of the so-called deities of the mythos are entities predating the current universe, somehow intertwined with its structure.

The Great Old Ones and other Elder Races have been fighting to control these entities or the knowledge they possess for billions of years. In their long war, they go quiescent or hibernate for extended periods to build their energies and plan their strategies for the next titanic battle. Many of these beings are no longer conscious or sophont by our standards, but rather post-intelligence. Other species are nearly powerless in the face of these titans, and so they hide when they are awake, and the try not to wake them when they are sleeping--though some are not above attempting to "hack" them or exploit their advance technology. This is the solution to the Fermi Paradox.

I figure human civilization would resemble something like Revelation Space. AI probably exists, but there are not yet hypersophont AI (at least not widely known) like in the work of Karl Schroeder or Hannu Rajaniemi, because their existence might make the mythos races less special.

Against the Weasels

The occupation of Toad Hall in Wind in the Willows by the weasels, ferrets, and stoats would make a good setup for an adventure of anthropomorphic animal characters in a low-level D&Dish fashion. In fact, if you make Toad Hall more of a castle and put a village around it, you'd have a nice setting for a Beyond the Wall sort of things focused on exploring the dangers of the Wild Wood.

5e Santa Claus

'Tis the season for 5e interpretations of that jolly old elf, Saint Nick. Several different versions are already wrapped and under the tree:

HO
HO
HO

Skywalker is Risen

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has not exactly been embraced by critics, though this is unlikely to blunt its box office draw much. Stars Wars fandom is ever hopefully that the dark times are over and what they love above Star Wars will finally be restored (when the fall from grace occurred, depends on who you ask, and probably what point in their life you ask them).

Like Abrams' first Star Wars film, RoS feels like it's trying to jam several movies into one, though the finale draws mostly from Return of the Jedi. It all moves very fast, and largely that's to its benefit, though that means no location develops a sense of place beyond set-dressing and character development is pretty shallow. (This film and the short run-time of the Mandalorian episodes, which are like hour dramas with most of the non-action excised, make me wonder if perhaps SW works best as a modern serial. Certainly the Clone Wars animated series played to those tropes as well to good effect.) It's fine, but it has the upshot of only occasionally (for me) wringing any real feeling from the proceedings, even failing to evoke any appreciation of it on a toyetic level. I saw nothing in this one that makes me want to buy the art book to delve into the design.

None of this is to say I didn't like it. It was a pleasing experience, though the enjoyment was pretty shallow. Only in a couple of places did it evoke any nostalgic feelings for the series' passing (I won't say which scenes for the sake of spoilers), and then only on the level of say the recent finale of The Deuce. Nothing on the level of the death of Spock (to evoke it's closest cultural competitor).

I am curious about the future of Star Wars, which will  probably get me in a theater to see at least one more.

Wednesday Comics: Bronze Age Book Club Holiday Special

Check out the last episode of 2019:

Listen to "Episode 11: DC SPECIAL SERIES #21: Super Star Holiday Special" on Spreaker.

Weird Revisted: Fiend Folio...In Space!

If your looking for some alien monsters for any traditional science fiction game you could do a lot worse than starting with the original Fiend Folio, I think. I'm not even talking about things like reskinning undead as nanotech animates or victims of exotic plagues (though you can certainly do that); I think there are a lot of creatures in there that are just straight up science fiction.

The first creature listed are aarokocra, which are just straight up birdmen--like the Skorr of the Star Trek Animated Series and a bunch of other places. The algoid is a psionic algae colony; the CIFAL a colonial insectoid intelligence. (It even has an acronym name!) Osquips are pretty much ulsios from ERB's Barsoom stories. The grell already looks like a pulp sci-fi monster: I think there was one in Prometheus, wasn't there?

Yeah, there it is.

Anyway, demon, devils, and elemental princes are out without substantial overall, but some less interesting monsters for fantasy purposes might be made a bit more interesting in a science fiction context. Lava children might be a silicon-based lifeform that (like the horta) needs to be contacted rather than killed. Yellow musk creepers and zombies (undead also-rans) would work great in a horror scenario on a deadly jungle world. Even the much maligned flumph is less silly when it's a weird alien (maybe).

Kung Fu Dark Sun

art by Eric Belisle

Still on a wuxia kick and thinking about the arid lands of Northern China, it occurs to me that Dark Sun might be an interesting mashup with kung fu action. It is true that the default 80s barbarian film meets Mad Max aesthetic of Dark Sun doesn’t scream Crouching Tiger or Hidden Dragon, but that aside, I think it’s actually not a bad fit. Let me run the list:

• The downgrading of weaponry due to the scarcity of metal in the setting leaves space for bare-handed martial arts.
• The Elemental clerics thing can easily spun in a wuxia direction (as seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender).
• The "fighting oppression" angle of Dark Sun dovetails nicely with with the "fighting corrupt authority" aspect of some wuxia.

• There are Thri-Kreen who are praying mantis people, essentially, who would be natural practitioners of praying mantis kung fu. 
• Athasian Dragons aren't common monsters but beings of immense power, like the Chinese conception of the creature (though Athas's is certainly not benevolent). 

Wednesday Comics: DC Special Series #21

We're going to be reviewing this issue on the upcoming Bronze Age Book Club podcast, so it seemed like a good time to revisit it here...

Super-Star Holiday Special

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

Synopsis: Len Wein tells it like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The holiday spirit moves us again, next week.

In Sly Took's Vault

Our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night with the party revising, then attempting there plan to break into the criminal vault of Sly Took (brother to Mapache Took of the Racoon Thieves Guild) to steal back the ill-gotten gold of former Mayor Gladhand. They decide on a classic "Trojan Horse" plan using the Armoire of Holding they acquired long ago as the horse.

Waylon and Kully play at delivering their presumably magic item stuffed armoire for safekeeping at the vault. The two meet with the vault manager Wotko (a red panda person, oddly) and everything goes smoothly at first. After depositing the armoire in their assigned vault, they get the moment they've been waiting for and attack Wotko and his subordinate to get their keycharms.

What they hadn't prepared for was the invisible stalker that guarded the vault. As soon as they attack Wotko, it attacks them. After a couple of rounds, Dagmar recalls she can abjure elemental spirits, and she turns it.

The party quickly grabs the keys. They take Gladhand's gold from another strongbox (all 600 lbs. of it!) and close up the armoire. Bell magically disguises herself as Wotko, just as a group of guards approach them...

Pai Mei and Ringlerun

Reading book one of Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong, I've been reminded that D&D shares perhaps unexpected similarities with wuxia, the Chinese genre of martial arts adventures:

Advancement is important. adventurers go on adventures, martial artists train, but the desired result is the same.
High level characters can perform superhuman feats that are not necessarily viewed as superhuman within the fiction. D&D characters get extra hit points to shrug off attacks or various other special abilities (particularly in editions after 2nd). Wulin heroes get to fly around and do things with focused internal energies.
The protagonists are a class apart from regular folks. Adventurers on one hand, members of the wulin on the other.
Characters tend to have the their own thing. Call it "niche protection" or special techniques, the heroes of D&D and Wulin tend to be distinctive from other members of their party.
Special abilities tend to have names. Wuxia's are tend to be more flowery, admittedly.

There are some elements of wuxia that D&D doesn't tend to emphasize--but there isn't any reason it couldn't:

Mentors are important. How many D&D characters seek out a sifu or mention one they had in the past? No reason they couldn't though.
Named organizations. D&D characters used to join guilds (though that's less of a thing in later editions), but D&D could use more of the societies, sects, and schools of wuxia. Also, PC groups with names.
A world with its own rules. Adventurers are separated from normal folk by their abilities and activities but members of the wulin or jianghu are expected to adhere to certain codes, and compete with each other, almost like a large, loose organization.

Cool Stuff I Read Recently

Well, technically I listened to these as audiobooks while doing a lot of drving for work. All three of these fantasy novels have pretty interesting settings.

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht. In a cold, decaying city besides a bay that births horrors thanks to an ancient, magical cataclysm, a monster from streets falls into the thrall of a practitioner of forbidden magic bent on revenge against his city's occupiers. An interesting setting (something like a late 18th Century Lankhmar crossed with Halifax) with immoral protagonists hatching a diabolical plot.

The Ingenious by Darius Hinks. The flying city of Athanor travels between worlds (I assume, it's a bit unclear), guided by the priest-alchemists known as the Curious Men. The Curious Men care little from for the teeming masses of the underclass who inhabit their city, many unwilling refugees from Athanor's conquest of their homelands. The Exiles are political dissidents from some distant land, forced to become a criminal gang to survive. The young woman who they look to to lead them back home and to victory is now a drug addict. When she becomes embroiled in the forbidden experiments of a Curious Man she gets a taste of something even more addictive: the forces wielded by the alchemists.

The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang. An ancient China-like empire owes its power to  "slackcraft," the ability to manipulate the elemental "natures" flowing through all things. The most able practitioners of slackcraft are trained in the order known as the Tensorate. Twins born to the Empress are destined to play a role in the growing Machinist rebellion, which wants to use technology to free common folk from dependence on the Tensors. Another interesting facet of the world is that children are genderless and sexual maturity is staved off until an individual "confirms" their adult gender and undergoes a ceremony.