Open All Night

Philmon's is an all-night diner in the City's downtown wich is a meeting place for adventurer-types. As such, it's seen its share of unusual late-night visitors. Here are a few possibilities:

1. Well-known loanshark Arman "The Brain" Rothwald looks none too happy--and neither do his two out-sized friends. Someone owes him dough and hasn't kicked it back, and The Brain's outsized friends tend to resent that sort of thing.

2. A beautiful, dark-haired dame in a blood red evening-dress walks by and everybody takes notice. There's a whiff of brimstone as she passes.

3. A police prowl car creeps by outside the window. There's no one inside.

4. Two dirty hobogoblins try take a seat, but are tossed out by the staff. One shakes his fist and warns that the King in Tatters is coming to deal with all you swells.

5. A torch-singer is trying to look inconspicuous as she seems to be waiting for someone. The cloth-wrapped parcel sitting on the counter next to her may have just moved.

6. Professor Wickenwyre, a prominent inventor recognizable from the papers, sits nervously at a booth with two strangely-accented bruisers in trench-coats and fedoras.

7. A wizened hermit from the Far East, proclaims loudly that he is looking for the student to whom he is fated to teach all his secrets. The signs say he is to meet that student tonight.

8. A pale, blank-expressioned little girl carrying a teddy bear walks up and silently holds out a black envelope.

9. The well-known moll of a murderous gangster talks in whispers with a known newshound, only the moll's corpse was pulled from the Eldritch five days ago.

10. A shabby, Vaudevillian ventriloquist and his dummy have an argument that gets increasingly heated--until the ventriloquist lies stabbed and bleeding, and the dummy is nowhere to be seen.

11. A Hilly-billy giantess (8ft. tall) in a gingham dress sits crying, a battered suitcase hugged tightly to her.

12. A disheveled tough guy with nervous, darting eyes, holds his right hand in his left, like he's protecting it. He keeps whispering conspiratorially into an large, antique ring he's wearing.

13. In the street outside, a procession of ten or so showgirls in full costume bop along glassy-eyed behind a satyr blowing a crazy tune on a set of bone pipes.

14. A natty stage magician in tux and tails takes a seat. He's amnestic..and he has a fist-sized hole in the center of his chest to--elsewhere. There's no blood, but tendrils of smoke rise from it, and raspy, malevolent whispers can be heard from within the darkness.

15. An ugly and dwarfish professor-type walks in carrying a large jar full of a yellowish liquid and dragon-like animal. He asks if anyone has seen "M'Gurk."

16. For a minute and a half, a static-y, but intelligible, firebrand sermon from a radio evangelist can be heard. There is no radio.

17. A blonde in a khaki explorers outfit, carrying an over-sized rifle, sticks her head in the door and asks (out of breath) if anyone's got fifty-foot of rope.

18. A police detective named Faulke, flanked by five uniforms, comes in and arrests someone.

19. A veiled, exotically dressed woman and her stern, bearded and turban protector ask for directions to an infamous opium den.

20. An imp in a tux, spats, and monocle appears in mid-air with an audible "pop" and issues a challenge in a supercilious tone.

We Can be Happy Underground...in Cappadocia

There are real dungeons in Turkey.  Or at least, there are the sort of underground environments gamers would call "dungeons"--over 200 underground cities, containing a minimum of two levels, known to exist in the Eastern Anatolian region of Cappadocia. 

The cities have had a series of residents, apparently, but the delving got started with the Phrygians (they of the Smurfish caps) in the Bronze Age.  They were later expanded by persecuted Christians hiding out from the Romans.

The largest of the cities is Derinkuyu ("Deep Well") which has 11 levels, extending to a depth of 85 m.  The city covers an area of 4 sq. km and was able to house 20,000.  Here's a cross sectional map in true old school style (with bonus indecipherable writing in the ancient tongue known as German):

The other prominent site is Kaymakli.  It's smaller, and differs in structure from Denrinkuyu.  It's tunnels are narrower, lower, and have a steeper incline.  The overall layout is more labyrinthine--with a number of deadend tunnels--possibly to confound intruders.  It has seven levels, though only four are now open. 

In preparing this post, I found an article from Dragon #201 by Allen Varney on these cities on his website. He gives some great description from actually visiting there.

Acolytes of Misrule

"Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."

- H.P. Lovecraft, "Call of Cthulhu"

Almost as feared by the denizens of the City as the Reds, are the Anarchists. Before the War, they were probably even more feared. Yet the Anarchists are even less understood, if possible. Few have guessed at the true motives of the forces behind the mad bombers of popular imagination.

"Anarchist" is actually a term used for a wide variety of groups. Some are largely peaceable groups, philosophically opposed government. Others are absurdist or surrealist artists dedicated to breaking down authority in a variety of ways. The ones that get the most sensationalistic media are terrorists attempting to destabilize governments by destroying the populous' faith in said government's ability to protect them. All of these groups are fertile recruiting grounds for the most insidious and dangerous faction.

The truth is that anarchist philosophy and action are secretly promoted and supported by extraplanar forces. Anarchists claim communion with beings of raw chaos, crippled and lobotomized by the irruption of crude matter and banal casuality into their realm. These ultimately formless beings, are often portrayed (or disguised) in anarchist works as vaguely unsettling frog-like creatures, or sometimes seemingly innocuous cartoon characters of various sorts. These beings want nothing so much as to destroy the irritant that is the Prime Material Plane.

Why would any intelligent person choose to serve these nihilistic creatures? First, since the chaos null-gods have no concept of time, their victory may be temporally remote enough for anarchists to enjoy the benefits of their service for quite some time. Second, a lot of anarchists have been driven utterly insane by their brushes with their master's alien minds.

Part of this madness may be caused by the alien code called aklo, which is learned by all anarchists during their initiation into the secret doctrine. Aklo allows them to decode the messages from their fellows and from their null-gods--often found in nonsensical graffiti, banal but odd posted signs, and surrealist/absurdist comic strips. The mental restructuring it causes is also the source of the ability of advanced adepts to manipulate magical energies with frightening power.

Anarchist initiates and potential recruits may serve or aid anarchist masterminds in their various schemes, which are often ill-conceived and needless complicated, but always promote fear and sow discord. Masterminds are a diverse lot (their masters place no premium on conformity, after all)--some appear as scientists others masquerade as normal criminals, while still others dress and act like sorcerers out of old legends.

Anarchism is more popular in Ealderde, particularly in the east, but Anarchists have been known to effect outrageous accents, regardless of their true origins.

Symbol: A featureless black flag, or a stylized eye.

Special Benefits: The induction into true anarchism is the learning of aklo--which allows interpretation of anarchist messages and communication with the chaotic null-gods (Aklo can't be learned without becoming an adherent of the chaos beings, attempts to do so will lead to conversion). More advanced followers may develop boons, which are magical powers which often take on an unwholesome or disturbing manifestation. Anarchist magic-users essentially become something like 3e sorcerers--they don't require memorization or spell components. However, every spell casts requires the caster to make a saving throw, with every failure resulting in some sort of physical manifestation (a skin lesion, tic, change in color of one eye, etc.). Every two failed saving throws in a row deal 1d4 points of damage. One of these manifestations will "heal" for every 24 hours without magic use. Any game effects of the manifestations are at DM discretion.

Warlord Wednesday: Citadel of Death

After a week off, 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 Quest, Part 2: Citadel of Death"

Warlord (vol. 1) #17 (January 1979)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Morgan and Tara cross "500 kilometers of trackless, blistering, desert waste" in their search for their infant son, Joshua, kidnapped by Deimos, the "devil priest." Morgan is worrying about what will happen if they don't get water soon, when serendipitously, Tara sights a city in the distance.

Arriving at the city, they find it deserted. When Tara sees a golden statue of giant, grasping hand, she realizes that they've stumbled into Timgad, The Citadel of the Sorcerer Kings. She remembers the legends that tell of the city so evil that "the vultures shunned it." A city from a forgotten age before man, when Skartaris was a place of wizard, ogres, and elves, divided into warring city-states.

Paralleling Morgan and Tara's explorations of the city, we see Ogir Falconeye, a sorcerer, arrive at the city of Timgad in the sorcerous past Tara described. He's on a mission to acquire power. To that end, he sneaks into the palace, and steals a small cask radiating a mystical light. Before he can escape with his booty, he hears someone approach and has to run--which results in him falling through a trapdoor into a pit. Though he's dazed after the fall, he senses something in the darkness around him...

In the present, Morgan and Tara find water, but are set upon by leonine (or perhaps baboonoid?) humanoids. The beasts are too many, and Morgan and Tara are forced to flee, unknowingly following the path taken by Ogir ages past. A pounce from a creature, sends Morgan through the same trapdoor and into the darkness below. Above, Tara fights on against worsening odds.

In the pit, the glow of the small cask dropped by Ogir attracts Morgan's attention. Using the cask as a torch, Morgan tries to find a way out of the pit. Instead, he comes across a skeleton he can't know is that of Ogir inside a mystical symbol drawn on the floor. Morgan guesses that whoever he was, he drew the circle to protect himself, preferring to starve than fall prey to whatever dwelled in the pit.

Morgan continues to search for a way out, but when he hears a wet, slithering sound behind him, he realizes that something still dwells there. He soon finds himself facing a tendriled, ameboid creature, unfazed by his sword.

Morgan runs back to the mystic symbol, and finds it still holds the creature at bay. Examining the cask, he notices the glyphs on it match some of those inscribed in the symbol around him. He opens the box and finds an emerald fragment complementing the one hanging on a chain around the neck of the skeleton. On a hunch, he puts the two fragments together. There's a blast of searing radiance from the gem, and the creature is burnt to nothing, but Morgan is unharmed.

He resumes his frantic search for an exit, and soon finds a stairway. Morgan bursts through a doorway, and finds Tara still holding her own against the beasts. Holding the gem aloft, he again uses its magical radiance, this time to send the beasts running.

He and Tara are free to contine on their quest, now with a powerful artifact that may be of use against Deimos.

Things to Notice:

• This is the first glimpse we get of Skartaris's "Wizard World" past.
• Despite everything he's seen is Skartaris, Morgan seems to find the former existence of elves and goblins difficult to believe.
• The Hellfire Gem is named in a caption, but the story's characters never learn it.

Where It Comes From:
Timgad is the name of a North African city founded by the Roman Emperor Trajan circa 100 AD. It was finally abandoned after being sacked by the Berbers in the 7th Century, and was swallowed over the centuries that followed by the encroaching Sahara. It had been forgotten by history until it was excavated in 1881.

The name "Ogir" perhaps derives from "Ogier the Dane" a legendary character from the French chanson de geste, or it may have just been suggested by the word "ogre." Except for his red skin, Ogir Falconeye's appearance is informed by traditional portrayals of elves (Santa's elves, Keebler elves, Marvel's Elf with a Gun), pre-Tolkien influence.

Degrees of Separation and Perspective

Not only have I never played with anyone that had read all of the famous Appendix N, but in my gaming history spanning over twenty-five years, I've played with very few who were particularly avid readers of fantasy, period. In my high school gaming group, a couple of the guys read some of the Gord books and other early D&D fiction, and maybe one of them read some Raymond Feist stuff. In my current gaming group, one of the guys is a big Tolkien fan, and another read a bit of fantasy in his youth including Conan and Elric, though that was years ago. The third guy I don't think has read any fantasy--unless maybe the Harry Potter series.

Anyway, maybe my experiences are atypical, but if the people I've played with are in any way representative, I was suspect most gamers don't come to rpgs with a strong background or even particularly strong interest in fantasy literature of any sort, much less many of the more obscure writers in the Appendix. Perhaps this is due to changing entertainment patterns compared to Gygax's day--certainly studies show that reading in general has decreased in every age group compared to 30 years ago, but I've noticed the phenomena before that trend.

So what gets gamers into gaming? Well mostly their friends, I'd guess. But why fantasy gaming, then? I assume this is tradition--"rpg" has mostly meant "D&D" over the years, so people had little choice. Many, perhaps most, peoples touchstones for how to conceptualize fantasy worlds and characters, then, has come largely from the game itself.

I should add here that I'm not placing any value judgement on this. There's no "wrong way" in my mind for people to enjoy rpgs, or to get into gaming, nor is there any purity test for inspirations.

But I find it interesting--particularly this: Do player's who've never read a fantasy novel, but came to tabletop rpgs from say, computer games, have different expectations or approaches to gaming, than those weened on Howard, Moorcock, and Leiber? How about those who got there from He-Man cartoons, or BOC albums, or those whose sole source of knowledge for fantasy is what they gleaned from the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual?

My gut reaction is that the conventions and culture of the game are the great leveller here, but I wonder what others have observed in this regard.

Dust to Dust

"The nightmare is deepest during the storms. But on the occasional bright day and the usual gray day we cannot shake from it. We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it, watch it strip us of possessions and the hope of possessions. It is becoming Real."

- Avis D. Carlson

The past decade has seen the Western prairies between the cities of the Steel League and the the Stoney Mountains become choked by dust. Over-farming and relentless drought left the topsoil with nothing to hold it in place, and so it blows across the land in large, dark clouds, giving the area its nickname, the Dustlands. The blighted land has given rise to twisted and wrathful elementals--malign spirits in the form of dust devils, and even cyclones. They crisscross the land, warring with each other, the strong consuming the weak and adding the substance of the vanquished to their own, growing larger in the process.

The big storms terrorize the isolated dirt-farmers and small communities that remain. They demand tribute or sacrifices, and sometimes even worship, in the manner of ancient gods. Would-be adventurers, and often opportunistic grifters, roam the Dustlands offering to free the oppressed folk from the yolk of the tornado tyrants. Sometimes these champions meet their deaths in the howling winds that scour flesh and fill lungs.  When they succeed, the farmer-folk often just exchange one overlord for another.

Even the cyclone bosses go to ground when the black blizzards come. These are elementals, too, but tainted. The thaumaturgic horrors unleashed in the Great War, had an unforseen backlash.  The primal elements were partially corrupted by entropic energies. The birth-trauma of the creation of these black-dust elementals has driven them hopelessly insane and caused them to lose all power of reason. They live only to destroy, descending on living things and blinding, then suffocating them--but only after a period of terror. Their energies being inherently unstable, they don't survive long on this plane--usually only a matter of hours, at most days--but that's more than long enough to bring death to the unwary.

After the black blizzard itself dissipates, their evil lives on in the form of black-dust "undead." There is a 20 percent chance that the suffocation of a person by by the storm will cause a remnant of the black-dust elemental's substance to absorb a portion of dying person's soul, and become a black-dust ghost, which is essentially a small elemental that believes itself to be the spirit of the person slain. [Similar to a air elemental, but only HD 4. They also have the knowledge, skills, and personality of the person emulated, albeit with distorted by anger at the living. They are not actually undead, and so have no undead traits.]

For those the storms don't kill immediately, but nevertheless succumb to the choking dust, there is the risk (30% chance) that they will become black-dust zombies. These unfortunates are indeed dead, but their bodies are animated by the particulate malevolence that's spread through them. They shamble across the Dustlands with a hunger that can never be satiated. But they try--with the flesh of the living. [Use the stats for zombies, though the bite of a black-dust zombie is contagious--anyone who dies of bites from a black-dust zombie, but isn't consumed, will become one. As they aren't really undead, they don't have the usual vulnerabilities and can't be turned.]

Real Dungeons, American Style: Coral Castle

A mysterious stranger arrives in town. Only working at night, and with no apparent help, he constructs a structure of megalithic stones. The stones are often carved in odd designs, some perhaps with arcane significance. When asked how he moved and worked the stones, the stranger only made veiled references to ancient secrets. The construction lasts nearly thirty years, until the stranger succumbs to a wasting sickness.

Sounds like the background fluff for an adventure, doesn't it?  But it happens to be true. While not technically a dungeon, Coral Castle has enough mystery to be the inspiration for a interesting game adventure locale.

Edward Leeskalnin (1887-1951) was a Latvian emigrant who arrived in south Florida in 1919. He purchased a small parcel of land, and spent the next 28 years building a structure of megalithic stones (mostly limestone formed from coral) in homage to his "Sweet Sixteen." How he cut and placed the 1000 tons of stones that make up the structure is mystery. He never let anyone watch him work (he supposedly did much of the work at night, by lantern light), and never had any help or used any heavy machinery that was seen. This secrecy has, of course, allowed a lot of speculation about his methods over the years. Leedskalnin supposedly told people that he "understood the laws of weight and leverage well", and more enigmatically, that he had discovered "the secrets of the pyramids." He also supposedly spoke of using a "perpetual motion holder."

Wikipedia relates the story that a few teenagers reported spying on Leedskalnin and seeing him make blocks of coral to move like "hydrogen balloons." The fact that Leedskalnin published pamphlets on his own theories on magnetism and electricity have helped fuel the wild-eyed speculation. Still, photos exist of Leedskalnin on the work-site with his tools--which are tripods and block and tackle. Of course, maybe that was just to throw people off...

However he did it, Coral Castle is an impressive accomplishment. Almost all the stones are single pieces weighing about 14 tons each. There's a revolving stone door so well balanced that a child can make it turn (or at least could--it stopped working in 1986 and had to be repaired, and now doesn't turn as well) that is made of a 8.2 ton rock. Wikipedia lists its other features:

"...a two-story castle tower that served as Leedskalnin's living quarters, walls consisting entirely of 8-foot high pieces of stone, an accurate sundial, a Polaris telescope, an obelisk, a barbecue, a water well, a fountain, celestial stars and planets, and numerous pieces of furniture. The furniture pieces included are a heart-shaped table, a table in the shape of Florida, twenty-five rocking chairs, chairs resembling crescent moons, a bathtub, beds and a royal throne."

In a game setting, the strange stone structure could be the remains of an ancient pre-human culture, or a gate built by a wizard to another world, or the only visible part of a Brigadoon-like city that only appears in this dimension every so many years. Of course, in a pulp setting, one could use the real coral castle for adventure fodder--and perhaps have a run in with its real-life mysterious and reclusive wizard.