Glamorous

The City may the unofficial commercial capital of the New World, but Heliotrope is the center of its entertainment industry. The Heliotrope of the gossip rags and glitzy film premieres is only part of the story. Old and powerful magics lurk behind its sun-blinded streets and beneath the banner of the famous “HELIOTROPELAND” sign.

The first indication of its secret strangeness, is that Hesperia, the west coast territory encompassing Heliotrope, was once an island, separated from the mainland of the New World by a strait. Maps and accounts of Ealderdish explorers over two centuries are quite clear on this point. As one explorer’s narrative puts it:

“...there exists an island very close to a side of the Earthly Paradise; and it is populated by black women, without any man among them, because they lived in the way of the Amazons. They have beautiful and robust bodies, and are fierce and strong. Their island is the most formidable of the World, with its tall cliffs and rocky shores. Their weapons are of gold and so are the harnesses of the beasts that they domesticate and ride, because there is no other metal in the island."

Legend holds the Black Amazons had a queen and high-priestess named Kalifia, who was a demi-goddess, a daughter of a sun god, who was renown for her magical prowess. What became of the amazons and their queen is a mystery, because by the time the Ealderdish had reached the long-rumored island, it was no more. There was no civilization of warrior women. There wasn’t even an island!

These historic peculiarities might have been forgotten, if it weren’t for what the media has dubbed the “Heliotrope Witch Coven.” Sensationalistic confessional accounts by supposed defectors from the cult describe a secret society, dominated by women, who practice ancient rites and worship a “Black Mother” goddess with orgiastic rituals, and sometimes blood sacrifices. The goal of this cult is said to be a gynocratic magical revolution and an overthrow the the Ealderdish God. To this end, they conspire to gain wealth and political influence, aided by potent magics. These accounts always suggest that prominent citizens are involved in the cult, and that the prime movers of the film industry are either cult acolytes, or else under the glamour of the witches.

Hesperian government officials take the story seriously, and have sought to ferret out the cult.  Black-listing of suspected cult members has occurred (casting doubt on the idea that they control Heliotrope--unless it’s all an attempt at misdirection?)

It has been suggested that the Black Mother of the witch cult is no other than Queen Kalifia. The wise queen (it’s supposed) chose not to fight the invading Ealderish directly, but instead to remove her people to elsewhere, there to begin an occult guerrilla war to regain a continent.

True or not, the theory would probably make a good movie.

Tempted by the Fruit of Another

My gaming group is still in the midst of Pathfinder’s Second Darkness Adventure Path, modified for Warriors & Warlocks--something I find it difficult to generate a lot of GM-enthusiasm for as my interest has drifted over to the City, a place familiar to readers here. The difficulty comes in the fact that my player’s haven’t made that same mental leap.

This is a common problem for me, an expression of the oft-cited “Gamer ADD,” I suppose. I always seemed to be pining for the next game while sitting at the table with the current one. I'll be playing GURPS Fantasy while thinking about Transhuman Space, then half-heartedly exploring Transhuman Space while dreaming about Mutants & Masterminds.

A lot of it, I think, is the time-frame involved. As the GM and “game planner” I’ve spent a lot of quality time with the game-to-be before the player’s get there, and so I get burned out on it sooner. Also, our frequency of gaming as dictated by the difficulty of coordinating busy adult schedules, means weeks (sometimes even a month or more) between sessions, meaning there is no such thing as a “short” campaign, whatever occurs in-game.

Anybody else experience this problem? Any solutions?

Adventuring in the Time of Plague

A little light reading about the Plague of Justinian the other day (and the plague of no home internet access I continue to suffer) got me to thinking about the use of epidemics or even pandemics in gaming. Obviously, succumbing to infectious disease isn’t the most adventurous way to die, but plagues, particularly big ones, have a tendency to cause a great deal of social, economic, and religious upheaval, which is the perfect backdrop for an rpg campaign, or fodder for adventures.

First a few terms. An “epidemic” occurs when the outbreak of new cases of a particular disease exceeds the expected number for a given population. This is, as the definition suggests, somewhat subjective. A “pandemic” is when epidemic conditions exist over a wide geographic area--possibly even the whole world.

The most famous historical pandemic is probably the Black Death which affected Eurasia, and peaked in Europe around 1350. Low-end estimates have it killing a third of Europe’s population. The traditional culprit was thought to be bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, though their are some new theories.

The societal effects were profound. Depopulation meant fewer people to farm, and that coupled with livestock plagues, and climatic changes lead to famine and starvation. Fearful people blamed convenient scape-goats--often Jews--and Jewish communities were wiped out in some places. Fringe religious groups like the Brotherhood of Flagellants became more widespread.

The Plague of Justinian (541-542 CE) is also thought to have been caused by bubonic plague. This plague may have weakened Byzantium enough that Justinian I was unable to reconquer Italy, shattering any hopes of reconstitute a whole Roman Empire. It may have also weakened Byzantium for its coming face-off with the Arabs a century later.

Y. pestis isn’t the only malefactor out there. Smallpox, influenza, cholera, and typhus caused pandemics before the the 20th century. Measles, yellow fever, and dengue fever never had the same spread, but have caused localized epidemics. Of course, in a fantasy world plagues might be more exotic, even magical in nature.

I can think of three broad ways a plague could be used in gaming. The first is plague as background color. Carts of dead, or oddly dressed plague doctors might just be part of the general ambience of a setting--particularly one with a grubby, "real" Middle Ages feel. It could be treated seriously, or darkly humorous.

The second is plague as apocalypse. As its been pointed out before, there is a post-apocalyptic element to the implied setting of D&D. Perhaps the apocalypse isn’t just a remote event, but ongoing? This could cast the player’s not as pioneers on the frontier, but as defenders of the fire of civilization. This might or might not have implications on the sort of adventures had, or it might just influence the tone.

The third is plague as plot element. Maybe the point of the whole campaign is defeating the forces of evil behind the plague? It could be introduced early, as a minor background element, but as more people succumb to the disease it grows in importance. Eventually, finding a cure might become the PC’s central concern, but only after its grown “naturally”( or unnaturally).

Weird Adventures Art

Here's a sampling of some great art done for my Weird Adventures setting.  This post might also be titled "My Internet Was Out all Last Night and I Had to Improvise," but hopefully it will be of some interest...

"The Hard-Luck Hooligans Meet a Naga, Or Why You Should Stay Out of Mr. Lao's Curio-Shop"

by Doug Stambaugh

Un Pistolero Zombi de Zingaro

by Daniel Kopalek

Warlord Wednesday: The Beast in the Tower

It's time to 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 Beast in the Tower"

Warlord (vol. 1) #22 (June 1979)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: In a dive in one of the outposts along the Terminator, Travis Morgan tries to drink away his pain. He’s approached by an old man who offers to tell his fortune for a few coins. Morgan replies he doesn’t need anyone to tell him about his life; if the old man could manage to see beyond the bloodstains he’d see fire and steel, death and destruction, and loss. As the old man turns away, he offers that there is one more thing: destiny.

Later that night, Morgan is waylaid by four thieves. They find the warrior is not as drunk as they imagined. Morgan’s battle-instincts overcome his night of drinking, and he makes short work of three of them, but he doesn’t detect the fourth sneaking up behind him.

Before the last bravo can strike, he goes down with a crossbow bolt in his back. Morgan looks up to see his rescuer is a beautiful young woman. They lock eyes for a moment, and he is surprised to see something "nameless and unspeakable" there. Abruptly, the girl runs off.

Morgan notices that the crossbow bolt is solid silver. This makes him even more curious and he decides to pursue the girl.

He hasn't gotten far before he hears her scream. He rounds the corner and finds the girl being pulled into a tower by a group of soldiers. Two of them take her into the tower, while two stay to take care of Morgan. That proves to be a tactical error, and Morgan is soon using his pistol to shoot the lock so he can kick in the tower door.

He finds discovers the place to be larger on the inside than the outside, and full of crazily twisting stairways. And the door he came in is suddenly gone.

Then, there’s the large snake that comes slithering at him. It tries to squeeze the life from him.  Morgan stabs it through the skull, but its not dead yet. He snatches up a nearby brazier and shoves it’s contents down the serpent’s throat. Morgan’s left with what feels like a couple of cracked ribs, but he’s alive.

Morgan continues up into the tower along the surreal stair. As he notices the fire from the brazier beginning to spread, he thinks about turning back. Then he hears a scream, and that spurs him on.

At the end of a twisting catwalk he catches up to the other two soliders outside a door in the mouth of a giant skull. They don’t last any longer than their compatriots. Morgan kicks in the door...

And finds himself face to snarling face with a man-beast! It springs at him, catching him off guard. In an instant, he’s own his back striving to keep slavering jaws from his face. He’s dropped his sword, but he remembers the silver quarrel. In an act of desperation, he stabs it into the creatures side.

Before his eyes, the creature transforms into the girl he saw before. He realizes that she was a werewolf. The old man from the tavern is suddenly behind him, and adds that the girl was also his daughter. The old man apologizes for his deception.  This has all been a charade with the purpose of getting Morgan to kill his daughter to free her from her curse. He thanks Morgan and bids him goodbye.

Morgan worries the fire will soon consume them, but the old man replies he has no desire to leave, but Morgan must go to his destiny. In the space of a heartbeat, Morgan finds himself standing safely outside the tower as it goes up in flames.

He recalls the girl’s face which, in death, seemed to be smiling.

Things to Notice:

• Morgan gets his Sword & Sorcery dialogue on in his fight with the thieves.

Where It Comes From:
This issue is very much a classic Sword & Sorcery story--the hero goes into a magic tower and fights a monster for the sake of a beauty.  It even has a big snake.

The basic plot bears a good deal of similarity to that of "Mai-Kulala" by Charles Saunders, one of his Imaro short-stories appearing in the anthology Swords Against Darkness IV (1979).  While the settings are very different, both feature a hero duped by an old man into killing his daughter, who's cursed to be a were-creature.  Both stories appeared in 1979, so I don't know which came out first.  It's interesting though, that the old man and his daughter are African in appearance in this issue, just as the characters are the fantasy Africa setting of Saunders' story.

Death & Revolution

“Death revenges us against life, strips it of all its vanities and pretensions and converts it into what it truly is: a few neat bones and a dreadful grimace.”

- Octavio Paz

Death rules Zingaro in more ways than one.

This country of the New World, west and far to the south of the City, practices an unorthodox version of the Oecumenical faith that venerates the Barren Madonna, Our Lady of the Grave, “Sainted Mother Death” as its patron saint. This saint isn’t recognized officially by the church, and theological scholars speculate that she is either a syncretized pagan death goddess, or else an eikone of death dressed in an Oecumenical nun’s habit--or perhaps both. Her festival is the "Day of the Dead," where the people of Zingaro pay homage to the ghosts of their ancestors and offer gifts of skull-shaped sweets to any undead they encounter--which are not as uncommon there as in most of the New World, and no where so common as town of Cujiatepec.

Skulls are an important symbol to Mother Death, and the most powerful of the items connected with her veneration are the crystal skulls. Seven of are known to exist, but some thaumaturgical archaeologists believe there may be as many as thirteen in existence. These mysterious items predate the modern land of Zingaro, perhaps being artifacts of pre-historical New World civilization, or of drowned Meropis. Whatever their origin, the Lady of the Grave has claimed them as her own. Folklore holds they are the transformed skulls of men who so loved the Lady that she preserved a part of them forever--while taking their souls into her eternal embrace as God wills.

The skulls exhibit a variety of supernatural powers. An owner is able to focus a skull's power to strike an enemy in his sight dead once a day, and is able to raise one zombie a day to do his bidding. The skulls are also said to provide sporadic visions of the future. Most importantly, perhaps, brujos have predicted that the man who will rule Zingaro will possess one of the crystal skulls.

Death also rides Zingaro in the company of war. It began as a populist revolution over twenty years ago, but has become a bloody civil war with no end in sight. Various contenders for the presidency have bases of power in different parts of the country. They commit atrocities against other factions in the name of strategic advantage, and bleed their own people to fund their campaigns--which often require foreign mercenaries.

For the reason mentioned above, the various former generals, bandit chieftains, and populist leaders who via for control of Zingaro, also via for control of the crystal skulls. They are quit willing to pay adventurers to plunder Native ruins or old tombs in search of them, but probably just as willing to double-cross them when they have what they want.

The New Pulp

The sort of action-filled, lurid stories that populated the pulp magazines have never completely left us, but for a couple of decades have been relegated to horror and men’s adventure paperbacks to be found in racks at super-markets, drug stores, and truck-stops. These days, there’s been a resurgence of very pulp stuff in a more upscale market under the more acceptable guises of “thriller” or “horror.” They still may not be the most highbrow of literature, but their narrative verve, and wild ideas make them ideal gaming fodder.

Case in point: The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry. This is the second of his Joe Ledger novels, though I haven’t read the first, but I gather its sort of in the zombie genre. Mr. Ledger is a badass ex-cop who works for a secret government organization which is now on the outs with the current administration (whose being duped by the evil super-rich, who want to get their hands on Ledger’s boss’s super-computer). Those evil rich are personified in the beautiful, albino, sexually deviant, brother and sister, Jakoby twins, who wanted to sell transgenic monster soldiers to the highest bidder, and their ex-Nazi daddy who wants to unleash global ethnic cleansing. And that’s all just the set-up!

In comparison, David Wellington’s 13 Bullets is positively mundane. It’s only got a state-trooper and a federal agent going up against a nest of vampires. These vampires aren’t the brooding, sparkling variety, but rather low-level superhuman monsters with an appearance like Nosferatu’s ugly brother. Though Wellington’s tale has many modern, cinematic touches, he draws on older myths for some elements of his vampires--for example they don’t reproduce in the usual modern way.

Apparently, in a later novel in the series, Wellington has the protagonists find the remains of a Union vampire unit from the Civil War!

You get the idea. And those are just a couple of examples. More pulpy goodness no doubt awaits.