Descent in the (Real) Depths

Adventurers traveling to a remote jungles to enter a gigantic cave, inhabited by things like poisonous centipedes isn't just the stuff of table top fantasy.  The February issue of National Geographic has an profusely illustrated article about an epedition to Son Doong Cave in Vietnam.  The cave's at least 2.8 miles long and is some places as tall as 460 feet.  Check out all the pictures and an interactive map here.

Not enough for a jaded delver like yourself?  Well, marvel at the the crystal formations in Mexico's appropriately named Cave of Crystals.  If that's not an adventurous environment (minus, you know, the extreme heat of 136 F and 90-100% humidity) I don't know what is:

Note the size of the people in relation to the crystals!

Grip of the Octopus

Astral cehalopods or astral octopuses are extradimensional sentients, and either conquerors or gourmands, or some mixture of both. They are parasites feeding off the subtle emanations that radiate into the astral space from intense human emotion. They appear as large and admittedly somewhat fake looking octopuses when viewed under astral-sight, but are otherwise invisible.

Astral octopuses of different groups, or perhaps just different tastes, prefer different emotional spectra, which they dine on exclusively. Some have a taste for anger or fear, while others favor love or passion. Others of more exotic dietary preferences, like paranoia or religious ecstasy, have been encountered.

These creatures bind invisibly to a human being's astral body. By delicate, astral manipulations of their hosts’ consciousnesses, they are able to influence them to to actions or behaviors more likely to lead to the emotional flavors they favor. They do not control behaviors--at least at first--merely make their preferred course of action seem more reasonable. Over time, however, this influence grows and their favorite emotional diet becomes their hosts’ usual emotional state. This too often leads to an early death, mental hospitalization, or incarceration.  Though some hosts are able to resist for decades, magical intervention is the only way to free them from the creatures once and for all.

Mercifully, astral octopus infestation is rare. It is most commonly seen in adventurers who have had contact with the raw astral plane, those suffering certain curses, or mediums or spiritualists who have engaged in astral projection. However, those who have attended seances or engaged in the use of certain recreational alchemicals have been known to be afflicted.

Call for Cartography

In working on Weird Adventures, I’ve become aware that my mapmaking skills, while fine for my little gaming group, are not up to the standards I want for a commercially available product. With that in mind, I thought I’d summon the power of the web to help make up for that deficit.

I’m going to need at least two maps for the book. One of a sort of a standard “fantasy map” variety--a continental map. Another will be a little bit of a departure--a map of a “modern” urban center, of which this map of Gotham City would be a resemble example:

I’m willing to pay for said maps, of course, though obviously my budget isn’t extravagant.

So my question to the ether is: does anybody know where I can find a good rpg cartographer? Self-nominations are welcome, as are enquiries for more details. I can be reach at my blog email address: theinscrutabledr3[at]gmail[dot]com

Warlord Wednesday: Brotherhood of Death

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...

"Brotherhood of Death"

Warlord (vol. 1) #40 (December 1980)

Written and Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: In the royal palace of Kaambuka, Ashir complains to one if his minsters about the dreariness of kingly business. Suddenly, he sees someone interesting entering the palace--his friend Morgan, and Shakira. Ashir jumps down, sword drawn, to “settle an old score.”

Morgan and Ashir engage in a friendly duel. Morgan concedes that Ashir’s gotten better--now he’s a second rate swordsman rather than third. Guardsmen runs to their king’s rescue, but Ashir assures them everything is fine.

Morgan, mindful that the hellfire sword must always taste blood if drawn, gives it a little from his own thumb.

Later, Shakira reclines as she engages in conversation with Ashir. Ever the ladies’ man, he asks her why she stays with a savage like Morgan, contrasting the Warlord with himself. At that moment, Morgan enters in fancy duds similar to Ashir’s. Shakira’s verdict: they make him look ridiculous. Ashir’s serving girls have a different appraisal...

Ashir bemoans the boredom and drudgery of kingship compared to the excitement of a rogue’s life. The latest torment heaped open him: a political marriage to another head of state--a woman he has never even seen! He’s sure he’ll have to give up his harem for a fat wife.

Morgan suggests they do something reckless to celebrate his bachelorhood before it ends. Ashir suggests a royal hunt, and Morgan and Shakira agree.

In a dark chamber beneath the palace, conspirators watch our heroes in a crystal ball. Their robed and hooded leader wishes to assassinate Ashir before he can be married and solidify his place on the throne. The Guardsman Mustulous suggests a poisoned dagger, but his master silences him with a warning that he will obey or be food for the creature in the pit. The master raises a small charm made from an animal claw, and says he has a plan.

Later, in the forest, Ashir prepares to administer the killing blow to a charging, wounded stag with his dagger. He jumps across the beast’s back and drives the blade into its heart. Morgan and Shakira watch, and Shakira wonders why he takes such chances. Morgan replies, jokingly, that he has nothing to live for.

Morgan catches sight of a sabretooth stalking from the jungle toward Ashir. He cries out to his friend as the creature pounces. Ashir is too surprised to act, but Morgan lunges and meets the cat in midair!

He puts the beast in a full-Nelson, Tarzan-style, but it throws him. It moves forward to attack, until its distracted by Ashir, raising his bow. Again, the beast jumps at him. This time, Ashir is prepared, and his arrow takes it in the eye.

The cat’s dead. Shakira wonders why “her brother” attacked Ashir in the first place. Morgan finds the master plotter’s charm braided into the cat’s fur--and he points out the identical one dangling from Ashir’s belt. He realizes it was a set up.

Watching in his crystal ball, the master knows their stratagem has failed. He tells Mustulous that now they’ll do things his way. He cautions that this time there must be no mistakes--and the Warlord and his companion should die, too. Mustulous vows he will not fail. Looking down at tentacles writhing in a pit, the master reminds him of the consequences, otherwise.

Returning to the palace, Ashir is grousing about a return to boredom. It’s Shakira that first spots the masked assassins waiting to strike, and dispatches the first with her spear. Then Morgan and Ashir have their swords out, and the assassins quickly fall.

When the melee is over, they find the men are from among Ashir’s guard. Ashir realizes his political enemies have deeper resentments than he thought! Morgan suggests that he could abdicate, since that’s what he’s been wanting anyway.

Ashir’s had a change of heart. He’s finally found something that makes a king’s life interesting!

At that moment, trumpets sound the approach of his bride-to-be. Ashir’s new found joy evaporates. Morgan reminds him that it’s his duty, and suggests that he really doesn’t know that she’s going to be ugly.

Ashir is unconvinced, but goes to the window to look out at his intended. He exclaims in surprise at her beauty. Morgan, on the other hand, is dumbstruck.

Riding in his own on lost mate, Tara!

Things to Notice:

• Ashir wears the same outfit as in his previous appearance--either he was a well-dressed thief or he's a shabbily dressed king.
• Shakira's spear always seems to show up when she needs it, even when she doesn't seem to have had it with her in previous scenes.

Where It Comes From:
This issue shares its title with a 1976 blaxploitation action film, but its real inspiration seem to Ruritanian romance with its outsiders visiting a kingdom and becoming embroiled in political intrigues and assassination plots.

The name of the treacherous Mustulous, recalls the Latin word for "weasel-like", mustelus.

Murky Waters

“...haven’t much time. They’ll come for me soon, but I must record some fragment of what I’ve seen. The world must know what it is they’re plotting...They’re old--terribly old. From the muck they must have watched our ancestors crawl up onto land. Even from the beginning, their cold, alien intellects must have plotted our enslavement...”

-- Excerpt of transcript of audio tapes made by Professor Henery Gilmarth

The entire university was saddened by the news of the death of folklorist Henery Gilmarth. Gilmarth was found drowned in Mirky Creek, near a Southron town of the same name. Gilmarth had gone to record the peculiar hand-fishing techniques used by some rural Southrons to pull catfish from their dens.

Gilmarth had sent a cryptic message by wire to his research assistant in the City. It suggested these fishing activities were actually connected with some sort of cultic ritual related to the veneration of some unusually large, and up to now unknown to science, species of catfish.

When Gilmarth did not return on his scheduled train, inquires were made. His belonging were found in his hotel room, though the reel from his tape recorder had been removed and apparently hidden amid the clothes in his suitcase. No trace of Gilmarth was found, until children playing in the creek sighted his body a week later.

Local police have ruled his death accidental.

OLD ONE (intelligent catfish species)
# APP.: 1-4
AC: 4
MOVE: 90” (30”)
HD: 4
ATTACKS: 4 (1 bite 1d6, 2 feelers 1d4)
SPECIAL: dominate, slime
Old Ones are sentient fish resembling catfish. They are an ancient race, perhaps the oldest intelligent race in the world, and have an abiding contempt for other species. The Old Ones dominate and co-mingle their blood with isolated human communities along the rivers in which they dwell.

On a successful hit to an opponent, or if an opponent hits an Old One with bare skin, the slime which coats their skin gets may get transferred. A victim must make a save throwing or experience hallucinations, and perhaps paranoia, for 2-8 hours. Scrubbing the slime off with soap or an organic solvent will half the duration of effect. On a damaging bite, genetic material may be conveyed by some unknown means into the victims bloodstream. On a failed saving throw, the skin around the area begins to alter in appearace--to change into a an Old One/human hybrid form. On one short exposure, the effect is short-lived perhaps 2-16 days, but longer with lengthier, repeated exposures.

Three times per day, Old Ones can, with concentration, mentally enslave a person within 30 feet. This functions like the dominate person spell, and allows a saving throw every 24 hours to escape thralldom.

Foul Language

The Canadian film Pontypool presents a “zombie” outbreak with a novel twist. The zombifying vector is a neurolinguistic or perhaps memetic “virus.” Some sort of infectious agent that hijacks certain previously innocuous English words, and when understood, begins overtaking the minds of its victims. As William S. Burroughs would have it: “The word is now a virus.”

Fantasy or weird fiction already presents a kind of malevolent Stendahl Syndrome in the pages of Chamber’s The King in Yellow, and Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. And of course, there’s also already the idea that words themselves have magical potency--Vancian Magic, anyone? Power Word Kill?

Perhaps magical formulae could get infected like the English language does in Pontypool.

Or perhaps something more has been lurking there all along. Maybe magical words or ideas are a virus or a living thing of some sort already. Maybe they don’t turn the user into a zombie or kill them, but maybe they have goals all their own.

Could it be that people who become magic-users are the ones that magical language or symbology can’t destroy or transform into some mindless creature? Or maybe they survive exposure, but all mages are driven a bit mad.

Maybe a they can “fire,” but they can never truly “forget.”

In Deep, Crimson Shadows

Check out the great art above from Chris Hűth for the upcoming (I promise!) Weird Adventures setting. This is, of course, the Red Dwarf--the malign genius loci of Motorton in the Steel League.

Since the days when the site of Motorton was a plague-pit for Old Fort Narrows, the area has been the home of the dwarf. He’s a harbinger of calamity; doom in a dapper, red suit.

Rumor says that those unlucky enough to have an audience with the dwarf are brought to a Room with Red Velvet Curtains (sometimes just “The Red Room”). Visitors--survivors--describe the room as located in the basement of a ritzy old hotel, but no one has been able to relocated the building or provide directions to it later.

What comes from a meeting with the dwarf can’t be predicted. Sometimes, he’ll tell his visitor’s future. Other times, he’ll ask them for a favor, or tell them how they can get their heart’s desire. However it starts, it always plays out badly.

It’s worth noting that the infernal criminal organization known as the Hell Syndicate stays out of Motorton.  It’s the dwarf’s city.

Characters may have heard other rumors about the dwarf:

1. He can’t be hurt by anything but a magical weapons.
2. The tea he sometimes offers visitors can bring strange visions, and cause madness
3. He carries a pocket watch whose hands only move when someone dies--or maybe when someone particular dies.
4. Bones excavated from the old, mass plague graves can be used to ward against him.
5. He’s only dangerous because Motorton’s sick. If the city could be healed, the dwarf would be benevolent.
6. The dwarf is only a midget human sorcerer cashing in on an old legend. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
7. There’s a red leather journal of a young girl, who died in an asylum, that contains, in its ramblings, the red dwarf’s true name, and the ritual to bind him to service.
8. The dwarf is always accompanied by the same gang--a black-haired moll in a red dress with a silky voice, and twin bruisers with the same first name.
9. The Red Room is actually the lowest level of Hell. The dwarf is actually Morningstar in disguise.
10. The dwarf isn’t a real entity at all, just the physical representation of the death curse of a Native shaman on the Ealderdish invaders. Treating it like a real being only increases its power.