Ideas I Wish I'd Had First

Recent travel and conference attendance has impaired my post writing and general blogosphere presence, but has given me time to read other stuff while in hotel rooms and airplanes. In finally getting around to reading China Mieville’s latest fantasy novel Kraken, I’ve found it has several cool ideas to steal for gaming.

Kraken is set in modern London and concerns a curators descent into the city’s occult underbelly after the theft of a specimen of giant squid. It’s a Tim Power-ish set up and story (in a way, so was Mieville’s last modern novel, The City and the City), I think, but written in Mieville’s distinct prose style.

Anyway, there are several good ideas in here that I wish I had thought of first. There is a general strike amongst magical familiars, being lead by the spirit of an ancient Egyptian shabti, who took part in an uprising against the dead they were meant to toil for in the after-life. There's the menacing duo (there are a lot of menacing duos in fiction, aren’t there?) Goss and Subby, who get into a magically protected house by having themselves folded up and mailed in a box.

Best so far, though, is Mieville’s description of the “memory angels” which guard various London museums:

“In the Museum of Childhood were three toys that came remorselessly for intruders--a hoop, a top, a broken video-game console--with stuttering creeping as if in stop-motion. With the wingbeat noise of cloth, the Victoria and Albert was patrolled by something like a chic predatory face of crumpled linen. In Tooting Bec, the London Sewing Machine Museum was kept safe by a dreadful angel made of tangles and bobbins and jouncing needles...”

If there's anything the City needs its genius loci like that!

Gloves of Gold

The gloves of gold appear like a set of modern boxing gloves, red in color, but with a golden glimmer, which appears as a bright glow to those with magical sight. Some scholars believe they are items of great antiquity and have changed their appearance with time, originally being only simple leather straps of the kind worn by ancient Ealderdish pugilists.

The gloves are often found in gyms or boxing training centers. They will appear as normal items until “activated”, though it is unclear what is necessary for this process to occur. Some claim they reveal themselves when they know they’re needed.

There are some legendary previous uses of the gloves. Most recenlty, in 5880, Basher Brant went ninety-nine rounds with Death’s champion in a match refereed by an avatar (or senior representative) of Management for the lives of his adventuring companions.

Once activated, the gloves are usable by anyone. They imbue the wearer with pugilistic skill, whether the individual possessed it before or not. Gloves allow the wearer to strike creatures who can only be harmed by magical weapons. Further, they enhance a wearers ability to “K.O.” even magical opponents.

Benefits: The gloves are a +3 magical weapon. On a a natural twenty, the opponent gets a saving throw. Success means they are stunned for a round and unable to act. Failure means they are knocked unconscious for 2-20 rounds.

Weapons of Choice

[Article by H.L. Candor, reprinted (with permission) from True Adventure magazine, month of Pluvial, 5887.]

The general public of the New World sometimes finds it amusing to see adventurers, delvers, and other sorts of modern soldiers of fortune, decked out with an array of improvised weapons. Even more puzzling, and usually viewed as colorful eccentricity, are the publicity and autograph photos of such characters brandishing ancient weapons in this age of the machine gun.

These practices are not mere affectations, but rather coldly practical and pragmatic choices made by professionals (mostly) who know their business.

Consider the assort pick-axes, wrecking-bars, truncheons, and over-sized knives the City’s adventurers are wont to carry when bound for the wilderness or some subterranean ruin. These implements are tools as well as weapons--handy for the spelunking, entry-breaking, cracking treasure chests, and other utilitarian tasks facing them. If they can also be used to break the skull of a man-eating troglodyte, or dissuade an inebriated hillbilly giant, so much the better. Bullets are, of course, effective in these sorts of situations, but the prudent--and therefore long-lived--adventurer is always prepared.

In the case of delvers equiped like Medieval men-at-arms, we must look to history. The union of the ars thamaturgica and the practical sciences is uneasy at best, and of recent vintage. Mankind has possessed gunpowder for centuries, but only rarely in all that time have the sorcerer’s talents been used to enhanced these sorts of weapons. Rarer still are they in the ruins and crypts of the New World, where the Ancients never deployed mundane weaponry that advanced. This sort of aid is essential; hard won experience has taught generations of adventurers that there are some creatures which prove resistant--or indeed impervious--to all but magical weapons, whatever the weapon’s deadliness otherwise.

For this reason, adventurers looking to improve their odds of survival and material reward have had occasion to take up the use of weapons found in some tomb or trove which would otherwise be considered archaic. Swords, battle-axes, and assorted pole-arms are found in the arsenals of modern professionals. For some, the use these weapons is merely as adjuncts to their use of firearms; for others, the magical archaic weapon becomes their signature.

So, next time you see a photo of one of the City’s famous adventurers sporting a weapon that looks more at home in a museum or even the tool-yard, remember: these may not be just weapons of choice--they maybe be weapons of necessity!

Ruby Ring - Adventuress, pin-up girl, and sometime actress, posing with her magic scimitar 

Behind the Blurry Veil

...Or, “The Creation of a Petty Goddess”

Yesteryday, James Maliszewski of Grognardia gave me the good news that my Petty Gods submission, Drasheeng of the Blurry Veil was accepted, and he posted a great depiction of the deity in question by Mark Allen.

Drasheeng was conceived as the godling of misperception due to intoxication--and deception utilizing that misperception. She aides the aging harlot who relies on her client’s drink-blurred eyes to enhance her beauty, the roguish youth plying the reluctant maid with wine, and the confidence man who supplies intoxicants to muddle his marks’ better judgement.

The inspiration for this goddess came from the term “beer goggles” and musing on what that concept's patron diety would be like. How might she best exemplify it?  I surmised she’d probably have a body like a Frazetta babe, and behind her blurry veil, a face like:

But of course, nobody ever sees that until the next morning...

Warlord Wednesday: Interlude

Another Wednesday in Skartaris.  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...

"Interlude"
Warlord (vol. 1) #36 (August 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Shakira and Morgan are walking through the bustling markets of Bandakhar. Shakira is offended by the stench of so much humanity. Morgan is no more fond of the city than her, but they’ve heard anything can be bought their, and they need horses.

Their shopping is interrupted when Morgan hears a girl scream and rushes to help, heedless of Shakira’s warning (and his own previous experiences in Skartaris!) not to get involved. Morgan starts cutting down the uniformly dressed, bald men who seem to be trying to take the comely girl captive. Soon, all but two have fallen before the hellfire sword--and those two beat a haste retreat.

Shakira quips that they’ve barely arrived in town and Morgan is already making enemies. Morgan ignores her, noting the distinct tattoos on the men’s chests. The girl says its the “mark of the bat--the sign of the demon.” She gives her name has Karelle, but refuses to reveal why the men were after her. When pressed, she runs off saying that to be involved with her further would only put Morgan in danger.

Despite the girl's protests, and further sarcasm from Shakira, Morgan follows after her, leaving Shakira to seek the company of a feline companion.

Morgan’s “jungle-honed” tracking skills put him on the girl’s trail. He catches a whiff of her haunting, lotus blossom perfume, and knows she’s near by. He sees her running into the gate of a building's courtyard--and sees her followed by a hulking, satyr-like figure. He pulls his sword.

Morgan charges into the courtyard. He finds the creature attempting to strangle Karelle. He attacks, but with amazing speed, the creature slashes him with its claws. Morgan falls back, his own reflexes the only thing saving him from disembowelment. Clutching his wounded chest, Morgan tosses his sword at the creature’s throat. It strikes home, and the beast dies.

Karelle is unharmed. As Morgan retrieves his sword he again asks who’s after her. She’s still reluctant to say, but when its obvious Morgan doesn’t intend to drop the issue, she tells him she has the attention of a powerful, and unwanted, suitor. When her father refused him, the man--an evil wizard--decided that if he couldn’t have her, he would kill her. Karelle agrees that death is preferrable to being with him.  She has a poisoned dagger to end her own life, before she would submit to the monster.

Morgan won't allow it to come to that. Karelle asks why he would help her. Morgan replies: “You’re the first beautiful and gentle thing that’s heppened to me in longer than I can remember.” Karelle senses that Morgan is a tortured man, but she also senses gentleness beneath his tough exterior. Morgan warns her not to get too close, but Karelle replies she’s not afraid, and impetuously kisses him.

At that moment, Morgan final succumbs to his wound and passes out.

Karelle tends him in his delirium, and Morgan is unaware. Instead, he's lost in the dark past; he recalls being forced to kill his son, his wife’s anguish, and the man responsible--the devil-priest, Deimos.

Morgan awakens from his nightmare to find Karelle absent. He hears her scream from the next room, and stumbles after her, sword in hand. There he finds Karelle, dangling from her tied wrists, being whipped by Deimos!

Seeing his hated nemesis, Morgan goes into a berserker fury. Deimos tries to drive him back with magic, but the hellfire sword repels his sorcery. Morgan dismembers him with the blade, shouting the names of those he cares for whom Deimos has harmed. Even when Deimos has fallen, Morgan doesn’t stop. He hacks the priest into pieces as a horrified Karelle looks on.

Morgan cuts her free, but she pushes him away:

Later, Shakira finds him sitting in the rain. She’s got horses and in ready to live the city. She asks how Morgan made out. Morgan isn’t sure. His life was briefly touched by something special, and for that he should feel lucky, but instead he feels empty. He realizes that he’s been blaming Deimos for destroying everything beautiful in his life, but that really he’s the destroyer.

Shakira replies: “That girl...She must have been very special.” Morgan agrees that she was.

He and Shakira ride away, while Karelle watches them go with tears in her eyes.

Things to Notice:

• The seventies gives way to the eighties: Skartarian cutie Karelle has ditched the raccoon eye make-up of previous issues in favor of a fringed bikini top.
• There's something a little suggestive about a panel with a caption "the great sword hellfire throbs with power" over a close-up of Karelle with her lips parted.
• Deimos' third death is gruesome, but sort of anti-climatic.

Where It Comes From:
The mark of the bat chest tattoo sported by Deimos' cronies is clearly an homage to Batman's chest symbol.

The Weird Frontier

This cover deserves to be the basis of an rpg setting.

Well, maybe not just this cover all on its own, but the crazy idea it and the series (Tomahawk) it's a part of suggests (at least to me)--namely, combining the James Fenimore Cooper-style frontier tale with fantasy. Transplanting the whole civilization-against-the-wilderness thing to a colonial pseudo-America.

It’s almost completely unmined territory. It’s only been sort of attempted once, as far as I know--Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series does early nineteenth century fantasy in an alternate North America. Sure, one could point to novels (and even an rpg or two) with a kind of “Illuminati/Masonic magic behind the revolution” or a “Ben Franklin cavorts with the Hellfire Club” sort of deal, but all of that pseudo-historical “hidden magic” speculation fails to deliver a moment of rpg inspiration Zen like:

Wilderness adventures wouldn’t be the only way to go. Surely things like Mystery Hill, and the rampant speculation such sites inspired (even at the time) ought to suggest plenty of ancient American civilization to provide honest to goodness dungeons. There might not be demi-humans (though there could be), but all the other standard D&D ingredients are easy to find.

Maybe I’ll work on something like this once I’ve got Weird Adventures out of the way. Heck, the Strange New World was probably something like this, about a century and a half earlier then then the period I've been chronicling.

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.