The Titan and the City

The City once had a singular protector. A bronze-gleaming, orichalcum titan who watched, unsleeping, from atop the highest spire, and sped through the streets in pursuit of evil-doers. He was the greatest gift of the City’s greatest artificer, a wizard of science and thaumaturgy, who built the son fate had denied him. A son with an intellect and moral code as superhuman as his impregnable body.

The father and his City watched his son and creation with pride. The titan woke the somnambulist army of an insurgent nightmare, helped raze the hellish Charnel Gardens, smashed the Reds' war-behemoth nest, and nearly lost his life incinerating the Damnation Photo in the primal fire of his own alchemical heart.

It was all over five years ago. It was then the old wizard died.

The titan has barely been seen since. City-dwellers glance upward, and see the lights on the 86th floor of the Imperial Building that never go dark, but whatever the titan does in his creator-father’s laboratory, he doesn’t share with the world. People ask, “can a construct grieve?”

But the titan still goes out into the City, using all his resources to make sure he’s unseen. He goes to where he can't help but be reminded of a time where his strength and intellect were not enough.  He watches a lovely woman in eternal sleep.  A woman whose life he saved, but whose spirit he could not. He recalls with absolute clarity every detail of the brief time he knew her. He watches her with eyes that don’t blink, but dim a little with something that might approximate longing, and regret.

Perhaps the question people should ask is: “Can a construct love?”

Warlord Wednesday: The Feast of Agravar

For the last time in 2010, 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 Feast of Agravar"

Warlord (vol. 1) #39 (November 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Travis Morgan bids faithful Aton farewell. He says that he may have fallen short of the dream who gave his former army, but Aton has done well. As Morgan departs on the back of his winged horse, Firewing, Aton tells him that he hopes he finds what he’s looking for.

Once they're airborne, the black cat accompanying Morgan transforms back into Shakira. After meeting his daughter she had never heard of, Shakira wonders aloud what other secrets he’s hiding. Morgan retorts that he’ll spill his secret when she tells him hers.

Their banter is cut short as a flock of pink pteranodons attack!

Morgan and Firewing manage to out-maneuver the winged reptiles. As the companions continue on their way, a man watching them from the ground below talks to a mysterious wooden box bound in bronze. He calls it “Master” and agrees that--despite the pteranodon’s failure--they shall yet triumph over the Warlord.

Miles away, Morgan sights yet another ancient ruin and wants to explore. Shakira (predictably) is entirely incurious about the past. As Morgan prepares to enter the ruins,she notices talon scratches on Firewing's flanks. She scolds Morgan, telling him he should treat the horse better, that he should stop treating him like a possession. Morgan asserts that Firewing does belong to him. He enters the ruins, leaving Shakira to tend the animal.

Even in the darkness inside, Morgan can make out Atlantean machinery. He hears a hum, and knows some of it must still be active. He inadvertently trips a sensor, and the lights come on, and the facility comes to life.

Shakira joins him inside.  She asks what this place is. Morgan explains what he knows of the history of the Atlanteans in Skartaris: how they civilized war to the point of it being as easy as pushing a button--and how that was their undoing.

The two enter a living area and are suprised to come face to face with a robot, who greets them. The robot bows, and introduces himself as “Bogg.”

Bogg says his function is to serve. He was built by the Atlanteans, but over the years he has had the oppurtunity to serve the representatives of the many cultures who have passed through since the Atlanteans destroyed themselves.

Bogg offers the two drinks. Shakira laps at hers like a cat. As Morgan sips his, he asks if Bogg gets many other visitors. Bogg says "no," as the locals fear and shun this place. He was beginning to get concerned; the Feast of Agravar is at hand, and its been a long time since there have been celebrants.

Before Morgan can ask what the robot means, he notices Shakira is out cold. The wine is drugged! Morgan moves to attack Bogg barehanded, but succumbs to the drug’s effect himself.

Bogg drags our unconscious heroes from the room, and the robotic housekeeping unit tidies up behind them, removing all signs of what has transpired.

Morgan and Shakira wake up bound to a stone table in front of a pit. Bogg explains why he brought them here. The Atlanteans built their complex over the lair of Agravar. Long after their passing, Agravar was able to break free from his prison. The Feast of Agravar was a rite observed by the primitive tribe who took refugee in the complex. They saw Agravar as a god.

Morgan can’t believe that Bogg buys that primitive superstition. Bogg replies that he does not, but periodic feasts do seem to keep Agravar from wrecking more of the complex. In this way, Bogg fulfills his primary function--that of custodian.

Shakira doesn’t want to participate in any feast. She turns back into a cat, slips her bonds, and bounds away. Bogg goes after her.

At that moment, Agravar emerges from the pit:

Meanwhile, Bogg searches the complex for Shakira..and finds her, as she (now back in human form) blasts him with an Atlantean weapon she and Morgan saw earlier.

Back in the feast chamber, Morgan bursts his bonds to fight for his life. He hurls a piece of machinery at Agravar, but the device is destroyed by contact. Morgan realizes its body must be made of a “molecular acid”--which also explains how it burrows through solid rock. Knowing he can’t fight it, Morgan makes a hasty retreat.

Agravar is faster, and is almost upon him. Luckily, Shakira comes to the rescue with the blaster. She shoots Agravar through the head, killing it. The two leave the facility, as automated housekeeper goes about cleaning up the monster’s body.

Outside, they find Firewing’s saddle, but no Firewing. Shakira tells Morgan she set him free. Morgan couldn’t own him, he could only enslave him. She returned him to the skies. He has more important things to do, she says--and somewhere in the skies we see Firewing flying close to a winged mare...

Elsewhere, Aton is worried as he comes upon the grounded and damaged Lady J--the ship that carried Jennifer Morgan--on some Skartarian shore...

Things to Notice:

• There's an almost literal "Chekhov's gun" in this issue.
• The housekeeping robots in the complex are almost Jetson-like in their comic efficiency.

Where It Comes From:
This issue seems to combine elements of two previous issues.  We've got the ancient robot gone bad from "The City in the Sky" (issue 8)--the names of the two robots (Bogg and Tragg) are even similar--and the sacrifice to a snake creature in ancient ruins from "War Gods of Skartaris" (issue 3).

Bogg is even closer than Tragg to their likely inspiration: the robot Box from the film Logan's Run (1976).  Box is a former servant (his job was to freeze sea food and store it) whose interpretation of his programming has drifted a bit list like Bogg.  Box also has an expansive and gregarious personality like Bogg.

Not long after his appearance in the story, Bogg says his function is "to serve man."  This wordplay on the duplicitous robot's part is a reference to the 1962 Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man," based on a short-story by Damon Knight.  The story's famous twist is based on the same play on the meaning of "serve" as Bogg's comment.

Agravar is a Spanish verb meaning "to make worse."

One Year with the Sorcerer's Skull

Today is this blog’s first anniversary--or it will be, at exactly 1:22pm. That's one year and over 300 posts of the sorts of things my friend and first follower, Jim Shelley, was tired of hearing about over email, so he suggested a started blogging about them.

115 public followers (and about 60 shy folks on feed only) later, I’d like to think my ramblings have found some sort of audience.

Here are some interesting stats from the year:

Heaviest Traffic Day: May 3, 2010, with a bit over 5,000 unique visitors, riding off the popularity of my cousin’s Temple of Kazoth map, and my first AD&D character, after my friend Chris “Invicible Super-Blog” Sims twitted about it, and somebody linked to it on metafilter.

Most Popular Post Otherwise: My posting of the map of H.H. Holmes’ Murder Castle on May 16. It’s also the post with the most “legs”, still getting a fair number of hits to this day.

Most Commented Post: "The Old-School RPG Blogger Advancement Table" with 35, on September 17 (it’s good to know I didn’t totally peak in May!).

Media Inspiring the Most Post Titles: Song titles and lyrics apparently give me the most inspiration, as I’ve gone to that well for titles around two dozen times, with lines nicked from old spirituals, David Bowie, Steppenwolf, and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, among others.

Anyway, thanks to all of you commenters, followers, and linkers for giving me the encouragement to keep this going!

Time Gone By

I took in the Coen Brothers’ rendition of True Grit on Christmas day. My short review: It’s very good. It also got me to thinking about an element of Westerns and other historical genres that often seems neglected in fantasy and science fiction role-playing games.

An exchange between Texas Ranger LeBoeuf and Rooster Cogburn about where they served in the Civil War sets the events of True Grit in a specific time, or at least, a specific era. This is pretty common in Westerns, though there are, of course, ones that take place in the vague “Old West.” It seems to me, there are roughly five eras in the the Western genre:

• frontier era of buckskin clad mountain men and the wild places.
• Civil War and the Indian wars with blue versus gray as backdrop.
• The post-Civil War Indian warfare
• The classic gunfighter era of a mostly Indian-free West with range wars and gunfights in corrals
• The Dying West of aging heroes and outlaws whose time has past

Now, no one comment (please) to tell me this list is historically inaccurate!  I'm well aware that, in real history, these eras aren’t distinct and overlapped quite a bit.  I think this rough, somewhat fictionalized progression suits my purposes here. These eras aren't always important to what the heroes in Westerns are doing, but they define the world in which their exploits take place. The world of the 1840s frontier is very different from 1881 Tombstone, and even moreso from 1913 Mexico.

So I wonder how many people have exploited the march of history as backdrop in their fantasy games. True, Medieval sorts of societies changed quickly less than that of the nineteenth century, but they did change--and fantasy worlds maybe even more so. Is the adventuring experience for characters in one decade the same as the next? Has there been a revolution, or a new dynasty come to power? Maybe a plague, even collapse of a mighty empire?

Is history something happening in your games, or it only something that once happened in the remote past? Do progressive campaigns reflect the passage of time, or do they tend to all take place in a nebulous “now”?

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone has a great holiday....

...here are a couple of pin-ups to help spread the cheer.

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.