It's Yule-time in the City

In the City, the ancient Yule season is marked by visitation from two preternatural entities. During these twelve days--spanning the end of the month of Aforeyule and the beginning of Shiver--forces of light and dark, law and disorder, do symbolic (and sometimes actual) battle in the wintry night.

The first is of these entities is a beloved bringer of joy. Old Father Yule brings gifts to children--and rarely, adults in dire need. Not every act attributed to him is really his--tradition has gift-givers acting in his name--but the results of his actions have been seen, and the being himself encountered, too many times to be discounted. What exactly the red-robed, bearded presence is is matter of conjecture. Some hold he’s merely a powerful (and eccentric) thaumaturge, but most believe him to be an eikone, perhaps the transformed remnant of a forgotten, pagan deity, saved (Oecumenical Hierarchate averrs) by the power of the Redeemer.

Old Father Yule is a jovial fellow--unless someone tries to bar him from his rounds of gift-giving. Then, they find his mastery of the winter elements, and control over the flow of time, make him a formidable foe.

The second entity is neither beloved nor a bringer of joy. The Grumpf is a horned, furred, goat-legged humanoid, with a long and mobile tongue. The Grumpf punishes the wicked (it is supposed), but also generally creates mayhem and chaos. He runs or rides through the City, or jumps across roof-tops, frightening people and animals in the process. He damages property (particularly that of churches) in minor ways, and yells elaborate and improbable obscenities. Most seriously, he occasionally snatches up lone, and (it should be said) mostly ill-behaved, children and switches them in public view. He sometimes does the same to young ladies he finds alone--though he tends to threaten poor girls with this torment more than he actually follows through.

The ill-behavior of the young girls so menaced has never been definitively established.

Adventurers have occasion to interact with these two entities. Every year, some make a game of pursuing the Grumpf through the City. He’s occasionally been driven away for a night or two, but despite much swearing of solemn oaths (and much swearing, in general), he’s never been vanquished.

Father Yule, on the other hand, is a target of less noble interests, and sometimes comes to adventurers for aid. The Hell Syndicate never interferes with Yule, but some unbalanced, lone evil-doers seem to have a peculiar fixation on undoing the holiday. Often the adventurers Father Yule summons to his service are ones that others might say were in need of a moral lesson of some sort.  Father Yule's intentions in this regard remain mysterious.

Some have suggested that Old Father Yule and the Grumpf are actually twins--or perhaps even two sides of the same entity. A force of balance, briefly unyoking order and chaos to make a holiday more memorable-- and strange.

Warlord Wednesday: The Shape of Things Gone By

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 Shape of Things Gone By"

Warlord (vol. 1) #38 (October 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Travis Morgan and Shakira and flying long on their new winged steed, whom Morgan has decided to name “Firewing.” Morgan points out to her the Terminator--the point where the inner world of Skartaris folds back onto the outer world. There looking for the coast so they can follow it down to Shamballah, but Shakira spots something else on the sea below.

Men on board a ship--the Lady J--from the outer world, are in a battle with a aquatic reptile. Despite their guns, they seem to losing.

Never one to be overly cautious, Morgan leaps from his mount, sword in hand. He lands on the back of its neck, and drives the Hellfire sword into its skull. Its brain destroyed, the “loathsome leviathan” slips beneath the waves with Morgan in tow. The Hellfire sword seems to be stuck. Finally, Morgan pulls it free and rises to the surface, a trail of blood following him.

Climbing on board the ship, he asks after the injured man. The other man (surprised Morgan speaks English) gives his name as Pat Chambers, and says the injured man is the captain, Harry Grimes. At that point, Chambers is in for a further surprise, as Shakira flies down on Firewing. Morgan introduces the beautiful woman as “his cat,” but offers: “it’s a long story.”

Morgan asks how they got here. A voice behind him responds: “Through the North Pole opening...”

Morgan looks around--and now he’s the one in for a surprise:

It’s Jennifer, his daughter! She confronts him for abandoning her. Morgan’s explanation is that she was eight years-old when her mother was killed. The Air Force was no place for a little girl--then Vietnam happened. He sent her to live with her Aunt Marie, who he thought could better give her “the kind of things a girl should have.”

“Everything,” Jennifer replies, angrily, “but a father.”

Jennifer explains what happened after he left:

And now she finds him running around in a loincloth like some savage--(she gestures to Shakira): “and God knows what else!”

Perhaps eager to change the subject, Morgan asks how they found him. Chambers tells him it was because of Stryker. In his obsession with revenge against Morgan, he had tracked down Professor Lakely to force him to give up Morgan's location. Lakely heard how the press had hounded Jennifer, and came to her to tell her that her father was still alive, and in Skartaris. Chambers helped Jennifer organize the expedition.

Morgan has Shakira and Firewing go aloft and guide the ship to shore. Afterwards, Shakira flies oof, bored by their English conversation. Jennifer asks how a place like Skartaris can exist, but Morgan doesn’t really have any answers for her. He instead wants to know why just three of them came on the expedition. Jennifer says there were more, but the others died. Chambers reports their numbers are even fewer now: Captain Grimes is dead.

The three bury him, and Jennifer places flowers on his grave. No sooner are they done, than a group of armed men attack. Morgan tells Chambers to take Jennifer and run for the boat as he holds them off. Morgan drives off their first assault, but he suspects they’ll get reinforcements and come back.

In moments, his predictions are right. They return in greater numbers, and Morgan hears one cry: “Death to the Barachian raiders!” Morgan realizes the men think they’re pirates!

He begins to explain when a spear carrying a familiar banner flies in between the combatants. Morgan recognizes the banner as his own! The man on horseback that threw it is unfamiliar to him, though. The man replies that he’s Morgan’s herald. Morgan realizes it is young Aton, now grown to adulthood.

Aton tells his men that Morgan is the one he’s been telling them about. The Warlord who leads a fight for freedom. The men cheer. Jennifer can’t understand their words, but she senses they see her father as some sort of hero, and wonders if she’s misjudged him. Morgan replies, “No, I think you had me pegged about right.”

He suggests they talk and get to know each other better. He tells her the story of his time in Skartaris, of his companions and family, his successes and failures. In the end, Jennifer says he’s given her a lot to think about. Morgan tells her to take her time. He’ll have Aton look after her a minute while he takes care of something.

Back on the Lady J, Morgan confronts Chambers who holds an uzi. “I gather that’s for me.” Morgan says.

Chambers realizes Morgan knew all along. Morgan tells him it wasn’t hard. When he saw him shoot the sea creature with an uzi...well, he knew only the Israeli army and the secret service have those. Which is Chambers?

Chambers replies that Stryker was his friend. He blames Morgan for what happened to him. He was the one that proposed the idea of the expedition to Jennifer--all for a chance at revenge.

But he throws down the uzi. The one thing he didn’t count on was falling in love with Morgan’s daughter!

Morgan tells him not to take it so hard. He wouldn’t have killed him anyway. Chambers is confused until he looks behind himself--and sees Shakira poised to throw a spear in his back!

After repairing the Lady J, Chambers and Jennifer are ready to return to the outer world. They plan to keep the secret of the inner world--no point in Skartaris dying like the outer world is. Morgan asks if she thinks she can help that world. She responds she’s going to try.

They set sail, and Morgan bids farewell to his last link to outer Earth. Shakira complains she couldn’t understand a word they said, so she doesn’t know what happened. Morgan says he’ll tell her about it...sometime.

Things to Notice:

• This is the first appearance of Jennifer Morgan who, based on the dates given in the story, is 21 years-old at the time of this issues publication (and since Warlord seems to occur in pretty close to "real time," at the time of the story).
• Again the odd flow of time in Skartaris is reinforced as we're reintroduced to Aton as a grown man.
• Morgan assumes nothing has changed about the availability of uzis in the outer earth since he's been away. 

Where It Comes From:
The title of this issue is likely a play on The Shape of Things to Come--which is the title of a 1933 novel by H.G. Wells, among other things (including one song extant at the time of this issue was written).

"Barachians" probably comes from Baracha, a pirate haven in Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, but it could have been suggested by Barrachina, a Province of Spain--and also a restaurant in San Juan Viejo which opened in 1963.

The Uzi is a submachine gun officially adopted by the Israel Defense Force in 1951.  The U.S. Secret Service did indeed use the Uzi as their standard submachine gun from 1960s to the early 1990s.

Solstice

21 WYRDSDAY.  Winter Solstice * * * Four days before Yule * * *  Since colonial times, City-dwellers from the Northern Old World, including the Old Money Dwergen, pass a bribe to the constabulary so they can practice midwinter mummery by dressing like goblins and other bogies and capering around bonfires in public places.

- From the Almanac of the City 5888: “Accommodated to the Five Baronies But May Without Sensible Error Serve for the Entire Metropolitan District, the Greater Hegemony, and Even Points More Distant”

An ancient Winter Solstice legend among the people of Northern Ealderde holds that the night belongs to Bertha, Queen (also called “Grandmother”) of the White Women--the cast-out witches of the North. On this longest night of the year, the Dwerg-folk would huddle near their hearthfires, their windows shuttered tight, while Bertha and the White Women ruled the night, accompanied in their revelries by goblins, boggarts, and other malicious beings (now extinct). Woe came to any good-folk they caught outside. They either died of fright, or were torn apart by the celebrants in ecstatic frenzy.

The Northern folk developed an apotropaic ritual, wherein they disguised themselves as the various humanoids and malign spirits they feared so that they could pass among them without harm. Today, many people of Northern Ealderdish descent honor their ancestors on the Solstice by dressing up in costume, getting inebriated, and partying.

It was been noted once or twice--though not given much attention--that a somewhat higher number of disappearances and murders occur among the revelers on this night. The inevitable result of drunken foolishness surely, except that more than one shaken and haunted-eyed murder has claimed they had no control over their actions when they committed the deed--indeed many claim no memory of the event. Many of these assaults are committed against complete strangers, so that there is no discernible motive.

And then what are we to make of the few people every year who claim to have glimpsed a pale crone, clad in white, moving silently among the crowds? And the fact that many having this experience require brief hospitalization for inconsolable fear, boarding on hysteria, afterwards?

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

For a venerable holiday icon, Santa Claus sees a lot of action. Could the Easter Bunny conquer the Martians? I think not.

Not only does he best alien invaders, but he teams up with Merlin to whup Satan in this 1959 gem, which could only come from south of the border. Frank L. Baum (of Oz fame) retcons Claus into Oz lore, and has him Santa raised by a wood nymph, educated by a council of magical creatures, and gifted with immortality. The Japanese thought that was so cool they made an anime about it with the appropriately anime-ish title Young Santa’s Adventures (Shounen Santa no Daibôken).  In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Santa Claus (or Father Christmas across the pond) shows up in Narnia to give the Pevensie kids the magic items they need to beat the White Witch.

Claus isn’t always the good guy, though. The far future of Futurama has a Santa Claus robot who takes down the naughty with extreme prejudice. The DC Comics anti-hero, Lobo, under contract to the Easter Bunny, goes after a badass Santa who’s abusing his elves.

All this makes me wonder if Santa Claus makes many appearances in gaming. Sure, most of these appearances are somewhat comedic in nature--but too comedic for Encounter Critical, or even Old School D&D? I think not.

John Stater gives us cool yule magic items, and a certain red-clothed demigod in NOD #6. Has anybody else had Santa come down the metaphorical chimney of one of their games?

Armor Class: 9?

Descending.  And, of course, not taking into account any dexterity bonus.

Seeking Answers?

Occasionally, I've been asked questions about the City and the Strange New World (some in person, some via email) by the inquisitive among you.  Maybe the answers to some of these will be of interest to others...

Does the City have a name other than just “the City?”
I sort of dealt with this way back in my first post introducing the City. It does have an “official” name, which I’ll probably save to reveal in Weird Adventures--not that its anything spectacular, but I’ve got to retain some mystery, haven’t I?

This world’s history seems to closely parallel our worlds. How closely? Was there like a Revolution War in the City’s world?
The Strange New World, and its strange earth as a whole, are certainly pretty close in many historical details to the earth we know. In some ways, it resembles our world more as its seen through some popular media. The Old World of Earlderde is more of a crazy quilt of bellicose, small states--often with eccentric governmental systems--like something out of The Prisoner of Zenda or The Mad King, than it is historical Europe post-World War I.  In the West of the New World, desperadoes, and wild Indian (or Native) tribes exist side by side with automobiles and other "modern" conveniences, much like how our real world West was presented in some old time radio shows and movie serials.

To the specific question about the Revolutionary War: No, there wasn’t one. The Ealderdish colonizers were too involved in their own squabbles to ever really keep close tabs on their colonies. Eventually, they were just able to declare official independence. 

Are there vampires in this world?
Yep, and werewolves, and mummies. Vampires, I’ve talked about in this post, revealing them as the addicts they are.

When are you going to put some of this stuff in print?
When I get it ready. :)

I have, of late, considered putting together a free pdf with expanded versions (perhaps with annotations) of some of the topics I've posted on which won't see much coverage in Weird Adventures. 

Also, I have in mind a detailed adventure locale set in the Strange New World: the expansive estate of a wealthy, reclusive--and recently deceased--wizard.  Here's one hint: "Rosebud." 

Of course, Weird Adventures gets my creative energies first.

Anyway, else out there in Internet-land has any short asnwer questions like those above, you call always post 'em in the comments, and maybe I'll answer them. :)

Monster Canyon

In the West of the New World is one of the geographical wonder. Nearly 400 years ago, when Eadlerdish explorers were first making there way across the western desert, they came to a huge, steep-sided canyon they described in their writings as “a great abyss.” The Natives told them it was impassable, and the abode of monsters. Those early explorers only went far enough to determine the apparent truth of the Natives’ words, and turned back.

It would be 200 years before any Ealderdishman found a way across, and thus proved it was not impassable. The “abode of monsters” part remains true to this day.

The feature is today known as the Grand Chasm, or the Colossal Canyon--and sometimes, the Monster Canyon. It's around 500 miles long, up to 20 miles wide, and reaches a depth of nearly a mile and a half. The Red River runs through its depths, cutting deeper into rock in a time-frame of eons, though some thaumaturgists believe the scale of the chasm indicates something more than natural forces were involved in its making.

The canyon has tributaries--”lost valleys” which boast flora and fauna long extinct in other parts of the world. Procurers for circuses and zoos sometimes enter these regions to bring out beasts for public show, as do alchemists in search of exotic botanical materials. Scientists point to the unlikelihood of viable animal populations surviving in such small places and suggest that vast cave complexes must underlie the entire region, providing a wider habitat.

Other places in the canyon attract adventurers and other treasure-seekers. There are ruins and entrances to caves, some of them previously inhabited or even perhaps made by some human hands. Tombs of the Ancients or some allied culture promise treasure, and ancient magics.

Any treasure to be found there is never easy to acquire. Getting into the canyon is difficult--the easiest way is to come downriver--though there are precarious trails that wind downward from the rim, if you can find a guide. Guides come at a price, and may not be completely trustworthy.

Once a way is found, things only get more dangerous. Wayward flying reptiles from the lost valleys pluck travellers from boats or trails. Cavern crawlers, cave fishers, and other strange creatures (the results of ancient magical experimentation gone awry?) crawl forth from hidden recesses of the chasm when they sense a meal. Then, there are primitive human tribes--some too debased to be worthy of the name--descended from Natives or lost expeditions often fallen to superstitious worship of the canyon's monstrous inhabitants, and sometimes cannibalism.

Still, adventure and treasure calls, and there are always those brave or greedy enough to make the descent.

(My article on the lost cities of the Grand Canyon in the world we know would be instructive and inspirational here as well.)