They Came From Inner Space

Spurred by my discussion of ‘80s toylines as gaming inspiration, Scott mentioned the Micronauts as another possibility, and set off a chain of enthusiastic agreement from just about everyone else. For me, the Micronauts of the Marvel comic are what I remember most fondly rather than the Mego toys than spawned it.

The cover to Micronauts # 1 (January 1979) shows the influence of Star Wars as much as the toyline. Particularly note black armored Darth--uh, Baron--Karza menacing the heroes. The similarities don’t end there. There are two droids (Biotron and Microtron), a princess (Marionette), and a hero who taps into an enigmatic, quasi-mystical force (The Enigma Force).

Despite those similarities, Micronauts has a lot of interesting ideas of its own, though the basic set-up is pure space opera: Commander Rann returns from a 1000 year (mostly suspended animation) exploration of molecular-model resembling worlds of the Microverse (a “sub-atomic” universe), to find his old teacher (Karza) has led an insurrection and become dictator of Homeworld. Rann teams up with the overthrown royals, Princess Mari (Marionette of the Farah Fawcett hair), and Acroyear (armored warrior of Spartak), and Bug, insectoid wisecracker.

A simple story, sure, but it's the details that really make it work. Baron Karza’s coup was supported by much of populace because he promised them immortality through the use of his DNA-altering Body Banks, which he also uses to make inhuman soldiers from political enemies. The Acroyear people of Spartak are the obligatory warrior race, and are never seen outside of their cool armor. They've also got slightly oversized mediveal weaponry sorrounded by energy and Kirby dots.  Unlike Darth Vader, Karza has a white armor-clad opposite number in the person of Prince Argon.

Micronauts had 57 issues of its original run. That was followed by a crossover limited series with the X-Men. The final series, Micronauts: The New Voyages, had writer Peter Gillis and artist Kelley Jones taking the team out of their familiar haunts and into unexplored regions of the Microverse. It’s a well written series, though strikes a different chord than the space operatic original, and serves to “finish” the Micronauts story.

So fan of the toys or no, those with an interest in, or looking for inspiration for, classic seventies cinematic space opera, ought to give Micronauts a look.

Inspiration from Weird Menace

"Weird menace" or "shudder" pulps featured lurid stories in the horror genre with bizarre villains hatching macabre plots, and graphic (for the era) scenes of torture and murder.

And they had some really great story titles.  Titles where thinking of the sort of adventure that might have said title is possibly better than reading the story.  Here, presented for your inspiration, are a few choice ones:

"Satan's Roadhouse" by Carl Jacobi, Terror Tales (Oct. 1934)

"Death Teaches School" by Nat Schachner, Terror Tales (April 1935)

"Devils in the Dust" by Arthur J. Burks, Dime Mystery (Dec. 1935)

"The Shriveling Murders" from Dr. Death (April 1935)

"Brides for the Swamp God" by J.G. Quinliven, Terror Tales (May 1936)

"The Molemen Want Your Eyes" by Frederick C. Davies, Horror Stories (April/May 1938)

"Girls for the Coffin Syndicate" by Russell Gray, Dime Mystery (April 1940)

"March of the Homeless Corpse" by Wayne Rogers from Terror Tales (March 1941)

Hell-Town

Signs on the side of the lonely, cracked roadways leading into Char Hill warn away would-be visitors. Even from the outskirts, the stench of burning is in the air, and there are faint tendrils of smoke. Char Hill is a ghost town, but was once a prosperous Steel League mining village built atop rich coal deposits. That was before the fire.

There is still argument over how the fire that made Char Hill uninhabitable got started. Whatever the cause, the coal seam fire that began a decade ago still smolders. As with previous such fires, the combustion of coal deposits either released (or spawned) mephiti--creatures sometimes called “imps”, but which are actually para-elementals of smoke (“airy fire”). Mephiti are cruel creatures, who delight in causing harm. They rose into the unsuspecting town on plumes of toxic gas.

Though some died with the emergence of the mephiti, rising temperatures, and clouds of poison gas, the fire grew slowly enough so that most townsfolk had ample warning. The town of Char Hill was quickly abandoned, and officially unincorporated.

Rumors persist, however, that some townspeople remain. Some are perhaps bootlegging alchemists seeking to derive valuable substances from the toxic vapors rising from underground. Others are cultists who believe an ancient god-thing was trapped in the coal-veins beneath the town and the fire is the means of the thing's phoenix-like resurrection. Experts dismiss this belief as baseless, and the product of brains perhaps already damaged by toxic inhalation.

Still, no thorough investigation of the town has been made since the fire began.

What's A Jeep?

Having recently gotten a couple of volumes of the E.C. Segar's Popeye by Fantagraphics books, I decided to stat up one of the series' most unusual creatures, Eugene the Jeep, who first appeared in the strip on August 9, 1936.

Jeep
# Appearing: 1d4
Alignment: Lawful
Movement: 120 (40)
AC: 5 (14)
Hit Dice: 1+1
Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 1d4
Save: E1
Morale: 7

Jeeps are strange hybrids of wild dogs and alien, fourth dimensional cells.  They're found in Africa or some other exotic locale.  The size of a small dog, they appear as somewhat bear-like (myabe), often bipedal creatures, with longish tails.  Jeeps are highly intelligent, though incapable of speech.  They tend to communicate via body language. Jeeps are able to teleport (without error) short distances--in a manner simpler to blink dogs.  The creatures are also able to pass through solid (nonmagical) objects, or walk on ceilings, or even levitate in midair.

Getting Class

art by "Reno" Maniquis

In planning for my own Weird Adventures game (that I’ll hopefully been kicking off soon), I’ve been thinking about classes. The standard D&D classes don’t map as well to a pulpy world. What’s are archetypal for traditional genre fantasy isn’t as archetypal here. 

Now, this is not to say the standard D&D classes couldn't be used straight in fantasy pulp setting--fighters being the various tough guys, clerics the evil battling priest, etc.--but I think down that run lies something more like Shadowrun, not Captain Easy, Sam Spade, or the Green Lama.  Which is not meant to be an insult to Shadowrun, nor to suggest I'm not doing a bit of incongruous genre mashup myself, here.  I just don't want to loose that cheap whiskey-esque pulp flavor.

I suppose there are two solutions. One would be to add several more classes--Private Eyes, Gangsters, Mystics, etc., but I’m concerned with what the sheer number of these might be, and (a perennial issue in class base systems) what gets to be a class and what doesn’t. Is an ex-soldier just a fighter, while a gangster’s something different? Or vice versa? Or none of the above?

D20 Modern uses an interesting system wherein the classes are mapped to ability scores. There’s the Strong hero, Fast hero, Smart hero, and so on. This strikes me as a potentially adaptable system as it distills the all the various character types found in different types of pulp fiction to archetypes as unadorned as (maybe) the D&D basic classes are for standard fantasy.

My only concern is, does that take away some of the “flavor” and immediate role-recognition that more delineated classes provide.  I suppose there's D20 Modern once again, and the addition of "occupations"--but then have I just exchanged classes for "things that are sorta classes-lite?"  Of course, Warhammer FRPG used a similar sort of system, and I liked that implementation there.

Anybody got any thoughts in this regard?

Warlord Wednesday: Warlord Sightings

I'll leave Morgan and Ashir in peril for another week, to delve into the Warlord crews appearances in other media...

Skartaris and its prominent citizens appeared in an episode of Cartoon Networks Justice League Unlimited.  Airing originally on September 24, 2005, "Chaos at the Earth's Core" features members of the JLU getting drawn into the inner earth by Jennifer Morgan's magic.  Morgan and his allies need help in the fight against Deimos, who has raised an army equiped with advanced technology, and seeks the mysterious "Great Stone"--which turns out to be kryptonite.  It's a well done episode where all the Warlord supporting cast make an appearance.  It can be found on the season 2 boxset.

In 1982, Remco released a line of action figures to cash in on the popularity of Masters of the Universe, and they chose Warlord as the center of this line.  Other figures were comic cast members like Deimos and Machiste.  Another figure called "Mikola" doesn't appear any any comic I'm aware off, but he resembles the Warlord character Rostov, a bit.  Rounding out the line were non-Warlord DC characters Arak and Hercules (Unbound).

Weird Adventures Update

art by Chris Huth

I thought it was time for a little update on the progress of my forthcoming Weird Adventures campaign supplement.  While it hasn't been coming along as fast as I'd like (curse you, full time job!),  at this point it's still on schedule. 

I thought I'd share part of the outline for the chapter on the (Strange) New World which is home to the City and several other locales I've mentioned here:

I.  The Union (The territories in the loose federation of which the City is a part)

• The City [detailed extensively in its own chapter]
• New Lludd (quaint, and decaying old Ealderish townships)
• The Smaragdine Mountains (place of hillbilly giants, bootlegging ogres, and conjure-men)
• The Steel League 
• The Dustlands
• The South (rural land stretching from the Smaragdines to vast swamps)
• Freedonia (maverick territory on the border with Zingaro)
• The Stoney Mountain West (vast expanses, and ancient ruins)
• Hesperia (the once-island land of Heliotrope and San Tiburon)

II.  Borea, The North (The mostly unsettled land to the north of the Union)

III. Zingaro (The Union's revolution-torn southern neighbor)

IV. Asciana (The torrid continent south of Zingaro.  Here be lizard men.)