A Man of Wealth and Taste

"We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talent."
- Mark Twain

Mr. Scratch, or sometimes "Nick Scratch", is a mysterious fixture in the City. Scratch makes all the right parties, and can be seen in all the tony night-spots.  He might be glimpsed hobnobbing with the scions of old-money Dwerg families, rising-star city aldermen, or high-placed members of the Blefuscu crime family; or buddying up to the hippest entertainers, or even some of the more public supernatural denizens of the city. At the same time, more than one down-and-out hophead, or death-row loser, will spin you a tale of having met him outside some dive in Hell's Commot, or on a smuggler's dock obscured by midnight fog off the Eldritch.

Wherever he's met, Scratch is always stylishly and impeccably dressed. His handsome features are typically adorned with a sardonic grin. His moustache and beard are always neatly trimmed, and his hands well-manicured. Most people either don't notice--or are too polite to mention--the small horns on his forehead. He's usually flanked by "muscle" of almost preternatural quiet. This goons act more like well-dressed statues than men--unless Scratch needs them to make a point.  He maintains a well-appointed office in a skyscraper downtown (on the 66th Floor, naturally), though that's seldom where people first meet him.

The business he conducts is as eclectic as the people he conducts it with. Often he gives favors, some seemingly inconsequential, others of great importance, but doesn't always ask for anything in return. At least, not immediately. He provides tidbits of information at a price, but is just as likely to save someone's life gratis. It's not always hard to discern some pattern in his actions, but his ultimate goal remains elusive--if indeed there is one.  Still, more than one tale of woe in the City begins with a seemingly positive meeting with Scratch.

Scratch's physical appearance, and thedeals he sometimes offers, suggest a connection to the Hell Syndicate, though which of the eight infernal families he might work for is unclear. Some have suggested he might be the son of a hell-lord, given control of the city to "make a name" for himself.  Others think that for all his mysterious airs, he's just another sap working out the terms of a Faustian contract.  Still others point out that the diabolic boss of bosses hasn't been seen for sometime. It's been whispered, perhaps recklessly, that Scratch might be old Morningstar himself, in disguise. What a being of that kind of power would be doing in the role of middling operator in the City is a worrisome thought.

art by Seth Frail

Real Dungeons, American Style: Murder Castle

While not the first American serial killer--that infamy seems to be due the Harpe Brothers, Big and Little--Herman Webster Mudgett alias "Henry Howard (H.H.) Holmes" is certainly an early, prolific, example. After his arrest in 1894, Holmes confessed to 27 murders, but the actual number could be as high as 230. Most of these were committed during the World's Fair of 1893 in Chicago, in a structure that would become known as the Murder Castle--a real American dungeon.

Mudgett was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. He attended medical school but got expelled for stealing a cadaver. After that, he began to travel the Midwest, making a living by con games, insurance fraud, and multiple marriages for money. In 1886, he took up residence in the Chicago suburb of Englewood, and began working at a drugstore owned by a widow under the alias Dr. H.H. Holmes. The widow likely became one of his victims, and he took over ownership of the drugstore--and possibly sold the widow's skeleton to a medical school. Holmes bought the empty lot across from the store, and from 1888-1890 personally supervised the construction of a three-story, block-long, turretted structure, combination storefront, offices, hotel, and mansion, which neighbors dubbed "the Castle." There was a lot of turnover in the construction workers; Holmes fired people to avoid paying them, and to keep anyone from asking too many questions. It wasn't any good to have people wondering about the purpose of gas jets in the guest rooms, an elevator shaft sans elevator, soundproof vaults, alarm bells triggered by opening apartment doors, large kilns, quick-lime pits, and chemical laboratories--not to mention the more mundane stairs to no where, hidden passages, and peepholes. In this nightmarish edifice, Holmes tortured and killed a succession of wives, secretaries and office-girls, and paying guests to his hotel during the Exposition. Holmes dissected the bodies, performed chemical experimentation on them, them dissolved them in quick-lime or burned them in the furnaces, though some parts got saved in the vaults.

Wikipedia describes the gruesome doings, thus:

"Some were locked in soundproof bedrooms fitted with gas lines that let him asphyxiate them at any time. Some victims were locked in a huge soundproof bank vault near his office where they were left to suffocate. The victims' bodies went by secret chute to the basement, where some were meticulously dissected, stripped of flesh, crafted into skeleton models, and then sold to medical schools...Holmes had two giant furnaces as well as pits of acid, bottles of various poisons, and even a stretching rack. Through the connections he had gained in medical school, he sold skeletons and organs with little difficulty. Holmes picked one of the most remote rooms in the Castle to perform hundreds of illegal abortions. Some of his patients died as a result of his abortion procedure, and their corpses were also processed and the skeletons sold."

The Murder Castle could easily haunt a wild west or pulp setting, but I also think Holmes and his gruesome set-up could easily be transferred to a more typical fantasy setting. Perhaps Holmes's stand-in is an evil wizard? Certainly magic might add even more devilish traps to torment players. And luckily, The Chicago Tribune of Sunday, August 18, 1895, gave a diagram and supplementary drawing of the Murder Castle, suitable to get the gamemastering juices flowing:

Hither Came Conan, the Cimmerian...vol. 3

After ordering six months ago, I finally got my copy of Robert E. Howard's Complete Conan of Cimmeria Volume 3 in the signed limited edition, yesterday.  The wait wasn't all Bud Plant's fault--the book had been delayed from its original release date.  In fact, for a while, it looked like it wasn't going to come out at all.  Volume two of these deluxe Wandering Star editions came out in 2003, and only Book Palace stepping in seems to have got this volume to print in this format.

Thankfully, here it is, and its just as pretty as the two previous volumes--red slipcase, and color plates by Gregory Manchess, plus tonal illustrations.  The contents are the same as Del Rey's The Conquering Sword of Conan paperback from 2005, but getting it with color paintings, signed and numbered by the artist, and on that crisp, acid-free paper, with that new book smell, just makes it feel--I don't know--more important.

Anyway, its got Howard's original versions of the Conan stories from 1935-36, which include "Beyond the Black River" and "Red Nails."  It also includes some of his original synopses, letters, and a Howard-drawn Hyborian Age map.  I don't know if I like Manchess's art as well as that of Gianni in the last volume, or particularly Schultz's in the first, but it certainly isn't bad by any stretch. 

The only question is, how am I going to fit this volume in the "Howard Cabinet" with its peers?

Mind Flayer with Extra Pulp

"...across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. "
- H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds

"CREEPING HORROR...From the depths of time and space!"
- Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) poster

One of the possible origins for mind flayers has always been extraterrestrial (or maybe ultraterrestrial). Given that, its easy to give them more of a pulp sci-fi veneer--to add a little Amazing Stories chrome to the basic Weird Tales model. This is exactly what I've been playing with for my Strange New World fantasy pulp setting, so cue the theremin...

The horrific beings known as mind flayers came to earth after despoiling--and possibly destroying--their native world. They came seeking raw materials and rare elements needed in the manufacture of their star-faring saucer-ships, but these cold beings of intellect, evolved even beyond the need for speech, began to change unexpectedly upon exposure to humanity. After millennia, appetite was reawakened in them.

The subtle psychic flavors of human emotions are like nectar to their once utterly logical minds, particularly the various permutations of fear. But the greatest delicacy, beside which the purely mental morsels pale, is the visceral pleasure of consuming raw human brains. Preferably, fresh from the skull of a still-living victim.

Mind flayers typically descend on rural areas--isolated farmhouses, or sometimes even small towns. Acquisition parties of 1d6 mind flayers move forth and use their mental abilities to dominate the minds of their victims (those who fail a save vs. spell) and summon them from their homes. They lead their prey back to their saucer-ships where they may consume them at their leisure--after an aperitif of terror. On those who prove resistant to their psychic command, they use their ray-pistols to stun (on a failed save vs. paralysis) for 2d4 turns, or to kill, searing for 5d6 radiation damage.

Once victims are aboard the mind flayer vessel, rescue becomes more difficult. The vessels' silvery hulls are virtually impervious to normal weapons--conventional explosives and even many magical attacks are unable to penetrate them.

It has been suggested that mind flayers may have a preference for women captives.  A sinister connection has been drawn between this and the fact that all recorded mind flayer encouters have seemed to be with males--in so much as the sex of an alien being can be determined accurately.
Mind flayers can't be appealed to for mercy, or reasoned with. Humans are no more than cattle to them. It has been theorized that only magic, a force that seems beyond their understanding, limits their predations on man.

Art by Doug Stambaugh.

Warlord Wednesday: The Hunter

Let's re-enter the lost world with another installment of my issue by issue examination of DC Comic's Warlord, the earlier installments of which can be found here...

"The Hunter"

Warlord (vol. 1) #13 (June-July 1978)

Written and Illustrated by Mike Grell

Synopsis: Morgan, Mariah and Machiste trudge through knee-deep water in a swamp, pushed on by Morgan's desire to reach the Great Fire Mountain--and beyond that Shamballah, and his beloved Tara. Without warning, a long-necked saurian raises from the water and attacks. After a short battle, the beast is slain when Morgan puts his sword through its skull. As the three move on, Morgan muses that the creature was defeated easier than he expected. Mariah quips that maybe he has "a guardian angel."

A ways down the trail, Morgan finds proof of his suspicions.  A bullet casing shows his guardian angel has "traded his harp for a rifle."

As they discuss what this means, an unseen, would-be sniper gets them in his sights. Under fire, they flee--as the hunter expected. Morgan trips a wire, and a heavy log swings into them, knocking them unconscious.

When Morgan awakens, he's facing Stryker, the "Company" man who tried to take Mariah and him in back in Peru. Stryker lost an eye and his job in the wake of those events, and he wants revenge on the man he holds responsible. He coerced Professor Lockley into telling him the incredible truth of where Morgan and Mariah had gone, then spent a year looking for the entrance to Skartaris. Since arriving, he's been tracking Morgan.

Stryker's tied Machiste and Mariah to a tree and rigged it with C-4, and intends to play a game with Morgan for the three's lives. He's left the detonator, which is the only way of deactivating the bomb Mariah and Machiste are tied to, about a mile upriver. Detonation will take place in an hour. Morgan gets his sword, his knife, the promise his gun is somewhere along the way--and a five minute headstart. Stryker plans to hunt him, and the only way to save his friends is to play the game.

Morgan takes off running, and almost immediately triggers a snare. He cuts himself free, ignoring Stryker's taunts--but now he moves ahead more cautiously.

Mariah asks Stryker why he's doing this since he knows Morgan's no traitor. Stryker lists the injuries he suffered--which he blames on Morgan--and says that he had been told he would never walk without a cane again. What kept him going was hate.

Morgan encounters a series of cunning traps in the jungle. He avoids a large board full of spikes, but gets stuck in the thigh by a smaller one. His attention concentrated on man-made danger, he almost falls prey to a poisonous snake, but manages to cleave its head in two with his sword.

Finally, he reaches a clearing where he sees his gun atop a rock. Morgan knows its likely to be a trap, but he has no choice if he's to save his friends. Morgan dashes across the clearing under a hail of wooden darts, many piercing him. He lunges for his gun, but we see that it has been booby-trapped with C-4.

From a distance, Stryker sees the explosion and smiles. He makes his way to the detonator, thinking to go ahead and blow up Machiste and Mariah without waiting for the time to run out. He finds a grim-faced Morgan, stuck with darts and bleeding, holding the detonator. Morgan detected the trap because of the rubbery, unnatural smell of the C-4--very out of place in the jungle.

Morgan tells Stryker the first rule of Skartaris: "always expect the unexpected." Before Stryker can raise his rifle to fire, Morgan has drawn his pistol and killed him--putting a bullet through his eyepatch.

Things to Notice:

• Once again, the cover scene doesn't quite jive with events in the issue.
• The swamp seems a little shallow for the size of the saurian that attacks the heroes.
• Stryker is the first villian outside of Deimos to return for a rematch with Morgan.

Where It Comes From:
The protagonist being hunted like an animal is a common action/adventure plot, deriving from the 1924 short-story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. The story has been adapted, either directly or loosely, in a number of films and TV series, beginning with 1932 with the movie of the same name. Interestingly, a 1967 episode of Gilligan's Island that spoofs the trope shares the title of the "The Hunter" with this issue.

C-4 is a plastic explosive more powerful than TNT.  It apparently releases toxic fumes when burned, but nevertheless small amounts of it were supposedly used by troops in Vietnam to heat rations, as it burns slowly when lit by a flame.

Many of the traps employed by Stryker in this issue resemble those utilized by the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War.

Tall Tales

"There were giants in the earth in those days."
- Genesis 6:4

And not just in those days:

In 1884, a skeleton 7 feet 6 inches long was found in a massive stone structure likened to a "temple chamber" in a mound in Kanawha County, West Virginia.

In 1925, amateurs excavating an Indian mound at Walkerton, Indiana, uncovered the skeletons of eight ancient humans measuring from eight to almost nine feet in height. All eight had been buried in “substantial copper armor.”

The Lovelock Reviewer-Miner reported in June of 1931 that two large skeletons were found in the Humboldt lake bed near Lovelock, Nevada. The first of these found measured 8 1/2 feet tall and appeared to have been wrapped in a gum-covered fabric similar to "the Egyptian manner."

The San Diego Union (August 1947) reported that F. Bruce Russell, a retired Ohio physician, had discovered a caves underneath Death Valley containing the mummified remains of men 8-9 feet tall, clothed in gray material "taken from an animal unknown today" accompanied by hieroglyphics and depictions of prehistoric animals.

Regardless of the veracity of these stories, if real-world North America can have legends of giant-folk, then the Strange New World of the City, certainly has them for real.

"It is only within the last few years that most people have stopped thinking of the West as a new land. I suppose the idea gained ground because our own especial civilisation happens to be new there; but nowadays explorers are digging beneath the surface and bringing up whole chapters of life that rose and fell among these plains and mountains before recorded history began. . . . We hear rumours of still older things, too . . ."
- H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, "The Mound"

Before the arrival of the people considered by the explorers from the Old Countries to be the "natives" of the new continent, there was a more advanced civilization in the New World. Perhaps they were descedants of an even more ancient race from a land called Meropis, now vanished beneath the sea. Or maybe they came from another world. Whatever their origins, these Ancients, as they are now known, built the underground complexes explored by adventurers, and buried their dead in great mounds.

And they were giants. Or at least giantish, with males being perhaps eight feet tall--though their were some populations that were even taller. Their rumored degenerate descendants, the hill-billy giants of the Smaragdines, are taller still--brutish males being just shy of ten feet tall, and their statuesque females somewhat under nine.

But it's the Ancients that concern us here. They're considered extinct, but perhaps there are lost cavern-cities where they can still be found. They were rumored to be masters of great magic, as well.  Perhaps some found a way to preserve themselves in some sort of ageless sleep, waiting for the time when they could reclaim their rulership of this land.

ANCIENTS (GIANTISH MEN)
Ability Score Requirements: STR 9, CON 9
Ability Score Modifiers: STR +1, DEX -1
Ability Min/Max: STR 7/19 DEX 3/18 CON 7/18 INT 3/18 WIS 3/18 CHA 3/18
Allowed Classes: Fighter, Magic-User or Cleric (Unlimited), Thief (8th), Assassin (9th), Ranger (10th)

No Really, It's a Holiday!

As a state employee, I've got a holiday today for Confederate Memorial Day--not to be confused, of course, with regular Memorial Day.

So, in the spirit of the day, here are some former Confederate soldiers of note:

John Carter, Warlord of Mars

Jonah Hex, disfigured bounty-hunter

Ghost of J.E.B. Stuart, haunter of tanks