Muto-Scope

The Muto-Scope appears as some version of kinetoscope or early motion picture device. In reality, it is a magical artifact created for unknown purposes. It is often found in aging, second-rate arcades, or in the hands of collectors, where it’s true nature will often not be recognized.

Looking through the viewer and turning the metal knobs (marked with arcane symbols and metrics which no one is able to decipher) will allow the operator to focus in on any individual within a twenty mile radius he or she thinks of. The operator need not be aware that it's his or her thoughts bringing the target into the viewer for the scope to work.

Once a target is the viewer, turning the crank will cause mutation. Nothing short of magical shielding can protect a target from the effects. If the crank is turned clockwise, the target will evolve to a form in some (teleological) way more suited for their current environment. For example, intelligence might increase if that is what’s needed at the current time.

Turning the crank counter-clockwise will lead to devolution to a more primitive, ancestral form. First, more bestial, protohuman characteristics will appear, then baser mammalian ones, followed by reptilan traits. Fifteen seconds of scope operation on a target will lead to some minor atavistic traits emerging. A full minute will total transform the target physically into a more primitive, humanoid form.

In either direction, the duration and degree of change are related to the duration of crank operation. A minute of operation leads to changes lasting 1-6 hours, whereas ten minutes leads to changes lasting 1-6 days, and possibly (if a saving throw is failed) permanent. Both directions of change are ultimately dangerous, with clockwise ultimately resulting in a coldly intellectual, sociopathic, post-human monster, and counter-clockwise leading to a primitive beast of some sort.

Inspection of the device will reveal nothing about how it operates. Even disassembly (an action with unpredictable repercussions) is unlikely to provide any useful information. A small brass plaque low on the machine's back suggests it was manufactured by “Coppelius Novelties”, but a corporation of that name has been difficult to locate.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hopefully nobody has to stalk their own turkey like this Pilgrim maiden...

Warlord Wednesday: Bring On the Back-Ups!

For the majority of issues 29-88, Warlord featured a back-up story. One of these short series, Wizard World, was connected to the action of the main title, but all of the others were completely independent. Let’s take this Warlord Wednesday to look at the first two.

OMAC
First Appearance: OMAC #1 (1974)
Last Pre-Warlord Appearance: Back-up in Kamandi #59 (1978)--also the last issue of Kamandi
Featured as Back-up: Warlord #37-39, #42-47
Next Seen: DC Comics Presents #61 (1983)
His Story: OMAC (One Man Army Corps) was a Jack Kirby creation, a mohawked super-cop in the near future (“The World That’s Coming”). The Warlord back-ups were by Jim Starlin who had also done the back-up in the last issue of Kamandi.
How He's Like the Warlord: he fights for justice; his fashion sense is perhaps questionable.

ARAK
First Appearance: Warlord #48 (1981)
Featured as Back-up: (technically an insert) Warlord #48
Next Seen: Arak, Son of Thunder #1 (1981)
His Story: Arak was a Native American taken by Vikings to Carolingian Europe where he interacted with characters from The Song of Roland, and mythological creatures, in a very Robert E. Howard-esque way--not surprising since Arak was the creation of Conan’s original comics scribe, Roy Thomas. Arak’s series lasted for 50 issues.
How He's Like the Warlord: he swings a mean sword; he romances a warrior lady.

Adventurers of Yesteryear

The City's seen its share of adventures over the decades.  Many of them, both world-renown and relatively obscure, are celebrated in Munsen's "Life of Fantastic Danger" Museum.  Here are a few examples:

Enok “The Axe” Bludgett
A celebrity adventurer of the late of ‘40s (3840s, that is). The above tintype was sold all over the city.  He's pictured here with his favorite weapon, and axe rested from hands of an undead Northman whose dragonship thawed from an iceberg in the City’s harbor in 3842. Bludgett died tragically of an eldritch venereal disease contracted from a succubus just twelve years later.

Violet M’Gee
Stenography school dropout, turned adventuress. She's pictured here in 3875, with her legendary pistols--magical items supposedly made by an ancient forge god she and her companions discovered trapped in a bricked-up sub-basement in Yronburg.  She spent two months in a sanatarium suffering from the psychic backlash of firing a bullet made from the materia of the Outer Dark at the dread lich aviator, the Bloody Baron.

Colonel Balthazar Hacksilver
Southron Thaumaturgist and sometime ally of Bludgett. Though the title of “colonel” was an affectation, Hacksilver was knighted by Lluddish Queen during her first decanting. He’s perhaps best known for the ability--learned from a postherd recovered from a tomb beneath a mound of the Ancients in Freedonia--to remove his head from his body. Reportedly, Hacksilver’s body would fight on with his saber, while his head cast spells from a safe distance.  Some thaumaturgical scholars believe the amazing spell Hacksilver uncovered was incomplete, and therefore completely misinterpreted, which led to Hacksilver's eventual descent into the mental illness known as Ackerlast's Schism.  There is some disagreement as to whether his death is better termed a murder or a suicide.

Winter is Coming: Pics Prove It

I know I'm not the only one excited about the upcoming HBO series Game of Thrones based on George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and the more set pictures I see, the more I feel like they're getting it right.  Entertainment Weekly's got a whole series of pics on their website.

I'm glad the armor and clothing have more of a historical feel than is generally the case for TV fantasy (like the recent Legend of the Seeker).

Here's Stark sons Bran and Jon Snow.  Barrington (Snow) isn't really how I pictured him, but that's to be expected.

I think Nikolaj Coste-Waldau is great choice for Jaime Lannister--and check out that armor.

Daenerys' costume does seem a little generic fantasy-ish, though Emilia Clarke wears it well.

The Unknown

The most feared thaumaturgists of the City are the cabal sometimes called the Inconnu, or the Unseen Lodge, but most often called simply the Unknown. In bars frequented by mages, or in thaumaturgical lodge houses, it's not uncommon to hear “friend of a friend” stories, or paranoid urban legends about them. The Thaumaturgical Society of the City refuses to publicly acknowledge the existence of this powerful group--but privately makes sure to stay out of there way, while trying to collect as much information on them as possible. If the conspiracy theorists are to be believed, even the Hell Syndicate tends to avoid confronting them directly.

Beyond their shadowy existence, little is known for certain about them, though there is a lot of speculation. No more than ten ever appear at one time, but it's unclear whether this represents their entire membership. None of the members names or faces are known as they tend to appear in carnival masks, and sometimes costumes, thought to have occult significance, but their meanings remain obscure. Powerful mages are believed to become members by invitation, and are only admitted after achieving some incredible feat of magical prowess.

The strangest rumors about the Unknown are related to their activities. Minor mages have found themselves given the formulae of new spells, which have led to spectacular results for good or ill at times, but at others have appeared to do absolutely nothing. Prominent businessmen or up-and-coming adventurers have been destroyed by invisible entities, and it has been rumored the Unknown were responsible, but no one knows why. However, town fathers generally consider them friends of the City, apparently for actions they have taken in the past, which are not discussed, and only recorded in the most secure of records, if at all.

A Life in Sorcery

In the City and the New World in general, thaumaturgical practice and education are not as finely developed as they were in Ealderde, the Old World, prior to the Great War. There are no equivalents to the grand, old thaumaturgical academies like Hoagworts (tragically destroyed by prismatic-bombs from Staarkish zeppelins) or Germelshausen (closed to new students after its previously periodic synchronicity with this plane became unpredictable).

The New World does have a few small, private academies which vary greatly in quality. Most were started by wealthy practitioners with a particular theoretical model they wished to promote. Such training leads to students highly skilled in illusions, for instance, but with little facility in other areas; or graduates all pledged by blood oath to some extraplanar power.

Most thaumaturgists are trained by means of an apprentice system. Old practitioners take on students and train them to a point they are able to safely (supposedly) carry on their own independent study. Just as with the academies, this tends to lead to students with highly varied skill-bases and theoretical orientations.

The upshot of this is that many thaumaturgist lead short careers---and possibly lives. Some die or are disabled in magical experimentation. Others become the plaything of malign entities. Most just find the extent of their talents really isn’t all that far, and wind up trying to eke out a livings as hedge-sorcerers in small towns, or find work as shabby carnival mentalists, or laboratory workers for unscrupulous, or fly-by-night alchemical companies.

Thaumaturgical societies, common in most large cities, have tried to ameliorate these problems by providing standards of proficiency, and a ranking system. Critics charge that such societies are at best trusts attempting to drive out competition, and at first cabals seeking to gain political power.

It’s these factors that lead to the common man’s frequent skepticism and distrust in regard to magical practice and practitioners. Lurid confessionals have stories of depraved, sex magic cults and newspapers carry reports of charlatan grifters.

Still, public opinion is schizophrenic when it comes to magic. Newspapers and newsreels are full of stories of celebrity sorcerers, and pulp magazines, radio dramas, and movie serials fictionalize their exploits. Confidence is also stronger in alchemistry and other sorts of applied thaumaturgical sciences.

Most sorcerers take the public’s love-hate in stride. For most, learning secrets beyond the kin of most mortals, and wielding, in whatever limited way, the primal forces of reality, tend to heady enough thrills to push other concerns aside, at least for a while.