Settings I'd Like to See

Hey, full games are fine--I'm not picky--but its these settings in particular that I'd like see:

Once Upon A Time in the West
I know we've had "elves and dwarves in the Old West" and "let's have a lot of fantastic things going on in an alternate history Old West", but I'd like to see something more like the post-Apocalyptic, sort of Arthurian, fantasy Old West of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I'd settle for the more-coherent-than-Deadlands alt-history fantasy of Mark Sumner's The Devil's Tower, or Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series, which is even better, but really pre-classical Western era.

Bedeviled Dinosaurs
Hairy primitives and their dinosaur companions (or vice versa) versus more belligerent hairy primitives, prehistoric monsters, and space aliens. In other word's Jack Kirby's Devil Dinosaur series exploding into rpg form.  It would be a lost world well worth finding.

Giants in the Earth
Take parts of Exalted, but emphasize the Biblical inspirations, and combine it with some wild-eyed von Daniken-esque fantasizing, preferably in the key of Kirby's (him again!) Eternals and put it all in a Sword & Sorcery prehistory.  Nephilim tread the jeweled thrones of the earth under their sandaled feet.

A Different (Head-)Space
I'd like an action/adventure space opera with a little bit more of the trippiness of Dune, particularly as it would have been adapted in Heavy Metal or Epic magazine. Star Wars informed less by Alex Raymond derring-do, than by Jim Starlin psychedelia. Something more like Dreadstar, Metamorphosis Odyssey, or European imports like The Incal, or Metabarons.

Warlord Wednesday: All Men Are Mine

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...

"All Men Are Mine"

Warlord (vol. 1) #14 (August-September 1978)

Written and Illustrated by Mike Grell

Synopsis: Machiste and Mariah keep a worried vigil at the side of an unconscious Morgan. The events of last issue left Morgan weak from loss of blood, and infection has set in. Despite her best efforts with Stryker's first aid get, Mariah worries that Morgan is dying.

Within the depths of his perhaps-fevered mind, Morgan finds himself falling through darkness. Then, in some sort of cave, he encounters a woman shrouded in shadow who calls to him in a sultry voice "with a touch of fire and ice." The woman calls him beloved and says she has been his companion since before he came to Skartaris--when he was hunting as a boy in Wyoming, and when he was flying missions over Vietnam. She says he has served well as her champion, but now she beckons him to her embrace, offering "the sweet blackness of eternal sleep."

She is Death.

Morgan, sword raised, snarls at her to stay away. Death, seemingly stung by his refusal, repeats that she offers him release from the suffering and give him a place in the Hall of Heroes. Though he acknowledges that life brings pain and anguish, he still refuses--violently--as he tries to run her through.

Death is unfazed, and calls him a fool. She can be tender or terrible, she reminds him. And life can be terrible, too. Her touch on his sword sends a chill through it that sends Morgan reeling. Her blasts of "nether energy" drop him into a realm of nightmare. He battles demonic creatures at overwhelming odds, but he still refuses to take her hand and the succor she offers.

Next, he finds himself hanging on a torture rack in a dungeon. Still Morgan rejects her embrace. Death asks why, and Morgan's only reply is to scream out the name "Tara." Spurned for another woman, Death tells him to go and suffer hardships and agony, but promises that one day he will cry for her kiss. Morgan denies that, and flippantly says he's got things to do other than think about that--but he'll see her around.

Death replies that indeed he will. "In the end," Death reminds him, "all men are mine."

No sooner is that admonition given, than Morgan awakens, much to relief of his two companions.

Things to Notice:

• Again, the cover bears little relationship to the events of the issue. It does look a lot like DC horror covers of the Bronze Age

Where It Comes From:
The conflict with Death in this issue seems part of the general Bronze Age comic tradition--compare Starlin's portrayal of Death in Captain Marvel, and numerous DC horror and war comics, which of course in influenced by a host of other media.

The physical appearance of Death is a bit of a depature from the usual. Despite the traditional Grim Reaper on the cover, death is a voluptuous Skartarian woman in the issue, with some Indian flourishes to her attire. In fact, given her belt of skulls, Grell may have been inspired the Indian goddess Kali, who often similarly accessorizes:

Post-Game Report: Tooth and Claw

This past Sunday, after a bit of a hiatus, we continued our Warriors & Warlock campaign, using a freely-adapted version of Paizo's Children of the Void in the Second Darkness adventure path. Our regular cast:

Brother Gannon - Good with knives.  Wishes he had more poison.
Renin - Uses his brains...to fry yours.
Zarac - Hopes you've got gold in your teeth.

Left on the dilapadated docks on the island of Devil's Elbow, our heroes had four days to find a haul of skymetal and return back here to meet Djosspur Kray, and his vessel The Flying Cloud, for their trip back to Raedelsport.  Also, there was the question of what sort of creature had decimated the dwarvish contingent, and what became of all the mages from the Esoteric Order of Cryptographers.  Since it was already dusk, the party checked out the old buildings around the dock.  Finding one of them in reasonably good condition, and free of any dangers, they made camp for the night.

The module has a robust wandering monster table, but I had inadvertently left the notebook wherein I had done the Pathfinder to Warriors & Warlocks conversion of the monsters at home.  I had to improvise.

The next morning, the group leaves the docks and heads up the step trail to the failed and abandoned settlement of Witchlight.  Wandering monster time!

Luckily (for me, perhaps not the players), the Warriors & Warlocks book provide me with some ready to use monster stats.  The party soon finds they're being followed by three utahraptors...

...One of which is shown here in silhouette with a man, Renin probably.  That's just the pose they were in right before the thing took a bite out of him.

Anyway, the raptors are upon them--all hissing, feathers, and wicked talons.  Unlucky rolls insure they hit the party hard, and all three are wounded before they hit the beasts.  By the end of the fight, all of the party have been stunned at least once, and Gannon has been disabled.  Most of the damage against the raptors comes courteousy of Renin's brain-frying mental blasts, but Gannon gets hits in, and Zarac rallies at the end to kill two of them with one mighty blow, utilizing a nifty feat.

The party spent the next couple of in-game hours trying to get enough good healing rolls to go on--and giving Gannon a couple of doses of the healing potions they had had the foresight to purchase before beginning the venture.

Limping on up toward the settlement of Witchlight, the party sees vultures circling ominously overhead, and a light flashing peridiodically high in one of the still-standing towers...

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.