Reader's Choice: Images of the City

From time to time, blogging compatriots and readers thoughtfully send me images they think might have a place in the City and its Strange New World.  Today, I thought I'd present some of those, and to continue with the community theme, ask readers to comment on which caption they prefer for each image--and write-ins are welcome, too, should you be so moved.  You choose how it fits in:

 Supplied by John Stater

A. Thexter Gorch, adventurer and master of pogonomancy.  Also, jug-player for the Smaragdine Mountain Boys.

B.  Everyone was surprised when Ethyn chose the lich's beard as his share of the loot.  We were even more surprised when we saw it fixed to his face--and growing--a few weeks later.  No one was surprised when his personality began to change...

Suggested by Adam Nowak

A. When the killings started, they'd always say, "She's only a little girl," and "The beast is stuffed."  They never suspected her...and that's what made Little Emmie such a deadly assassin.

B. I must warn you: if you should ever chance to look at this photo and the alligator is not in it, you must act swiftly and decisively, but above all, you mustn't panic.  The alligator, you see, will be behind you...and it will be hungry.

Suggested by Sean at Sea of Stars RPG Design

A. After his misadventure in the Outer Planes, they were forced into a strange relationship.  They were lovers by night when he was whole, but in daylight she guarded his skeleton against etheric parasites and  unscrupulous collectors.

B. Even by the standards of ghouls, Eulalie was perverse.  She only consumed men whom she had first seduced into a torrid, but brief, affair.

Suggested by timid traveller

A. The fae blood manifests itself in the afflicted children of Grand Lludd in a variety of ways.

B.  He was raised as a normal boy in every way possible, save for his isolation.  The cultists wished him to be unaware of his origins until all was in readiness, and the stars were right.

Planes: Positives and Negatives

I had intended the venture into the astral when next I picked up the topic of the classic D&D planes, but there was a vexing issue I left undealt with in the “inner” planes.

First, though, a correction: I had said that the etheric body dissipates shortly after death. Further research reveals this is only true when the etheric body is separated from the physical body at the time of death. If both bodies are in close proximity, then it seems clear that the etheric body lasts much longer—it slowly sublimates as the physical body decays.

It’s this slow decay of the etheric body that makes possible the creation of corporeal undead. Recall that the etheric body is imbued with vital energy—well, morbid quickening (i.e. “undeading”) occurs when the life energy of the etheric body is replaced by the energies of unlife. And where do these opposed energies come from? The two energy planes.

Positive Energy Plane

The etheric echo of the moment of creation (what some wags call the "cosmic orgasm"), the positive energy plane is an explosion of raw energy that pushes the elemental forces to codense and combine into mundane matter, and vitalizes all living things. It’s said to be found at the center of the universe, though it may be that travelling to it requires travel backwards in time more than space. A character exposed unprotected to the energies of the plane will gain 1d6x10 hit points a round, their every cell exploding with life energy. When a character’s hit points reach double their original total, he explodes--the matter of his being propagating out in space and time to perhaps give rise to whole biospheres. A character saved from such a fate will lose the increased hit points at a rate of 2d10 a round, but has a 30% of being changed in some way indicative of evolution to a higher state (an ability score increase, developing psionics, a innate magical ability etc.).

Negative Energy Plane
The etheric shadow of the absolute end of all things, the negative energy plane is cold and dark, and the only motion is the inexorable fall into the final abyss. Negative energy manifests as entropy in the physical plane, but in the etheric realm it’s the energy of anti-life, propagating backwards in time, foreshadowing the death of the universe. Some philsophers believe the energy planes occupy the same space, but at opposite ends of time. Unprotected exposure to the negative plane results in the loss of 2d6 hit points and 1 level or hit die a minute, until the being shrivels and dies, becoming a mindless undead, unable to move in a place where time has lost meaning, doomed to circle downward for a subjective eternity into oblivion. A character saved before the end will not recover lost levels without the aid of magic, and may forever be haunted by what they have experienced—though there is a 30% chance that undead will now ignore him or her unless the character attacks them first.

Warlord Wednesday: Dragon of Ice

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...

"Dragon of Ice"

Warlord (vol. 1) #48 (August 1981)

Written and Illustrated by Mike Grell; inked by Bob Smith

Synopsis: In Shamballah, Aton reports to Queen Tara. He gives her a progress report on the search for Jennifer Morgan, and tells her that Travis Morgan has again entered the shadow land of the Terminator. Tara laments that Morgan’s destiny seems locked in that land. Until he has burned away the bitter memories of what happened there, he’s doomed to wander--and as his bride, she’s doomed too.

After their audience, Aton is surprised when Tara comes riding up to him with a fresh horse in tow. She tells him they ride to find her husband, to see if if they can end his torment, and win him back from the violence he loves so well. They ride out for the Terminator.

Meanwhile, in that twilight land, Morgan and Shakira are making their way along the mist-shrouded coast, following what Morgan believes to be his daughter’s most likely path. When they spy a village ahead, Morgan thinks they should look there. Shakira belives otherwise, expressing her usual disdain for the habitations of man. To prove her argument she points toward what transpires on the outskirts of town: a beauteous girl, posed like a model, is apparently about to be sacrificed:

Morgan, per usual, gets fired up to save the girl from the “bloody savages.” Shakira tells him not to interfere, these things have gone on forever, after all—and they're too far away for him to make a shot, anyway.

Morgan isn’t sure about that. He braces himself, and aims carefully, taking his time. When he fires, he takes the high priest right through the chest. Very pleased with himself, Morgan jumps astride his horse and rushes into battle, ignoring Shakira’s pleas for him to wait.

Morgan fights his way through the crowd to the stone sacrificial table. He cuts the girl free, all the while speechifying heroically, while Shakira looks on and provides commentary:

Felled by the girl he meant to rescue, Morgan can only listen, stunned, as she accuses him of blasphemy, and berates him for interrupting their ritual and putting their people at risk from the Ice Dragon. She commands the mob of cultists to take him. Soon, Morgan finds himself being tied on the stone table, being prepared to take the girl’s place as a sacrifice.

The girl raises the blade above his chest. No one notices the black cat that’s slinked up to Morgan’s gear. Everyone is caught by surprise when the cat transforms into a woman, who snatches up Morgan’s pistol, and leaps across the table to shoot the girl. With a cry of “eat lead!” Shakira puts bullets in several more cultists.

When they’ve been cowed, she twirls the gun on her finger, and tells an incredulous Morgan that using the gun isn’t nearly so hard as he makes out. She cuts Morgan free just as one of the cultists cries out that the Ice Dragon comes!

The cultists run away, and our heroes prepare to do the same—but Morgan wonders if it’s a real dragon. As they see a looming shape emerging from the mists, Morgan thinks Shakira’s right and they ought to make their retreat. Then, he sees something familiar about the emerging dragon.

A viking ship, frozen in a winter storm with all hands aboard, then dragged by currents into Skartaris, and past this point again and again on an endless circuit. In frustration at the senseless death, Morgan throws the stone table into the ocean. They watch the ship go, and Shakira reminds him that it won’t change things.

Elsewhere, Jennifer Morgan's guide (who she now know’s as Faaldren) has brought her to the house of his master. Jennifer (who’s learned some Skartarian now) is eager to meet him. Faaldren promises she'll so soon enough, but first he suggests she take advantage of the luxuries of the house. He sets his mysterious box down and goes to prepare their meal.

Jennifer undresses and settles into the bath, unaware that she's not alone. The box opens, and something inside is watching her. Perhaps sensing something, Jennifer turns to look behind her…

Things to Notice:

• For the second time, Shakira saves Morgan's life through the use of a gun of some sort.
• Morgan never seems to learn not to rush in.

Where It Comes From:
This issue repeats the cargo cult element previously seen in issue #3.  It also has Morgan completely misjudging a situation like we saw last issue, and more significantly in issue #23.

Tales of Earthsea

This weekend, I finally got a chance to see Studio Ghibli’s Tales of Earthsea on blu-ray. As the name implies, it's loosely based on characters and concepts from Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series. The plot, however, is not one found in any of her stories, rather it seems inspired by various incidents in the books.

My short review: it’s disappointing--though to say so feels a little unfair, even though its true. The animation is topnotch, though there isn’t really a moment where it soars (though maybe this is due to watching a film animated in 2006 in 2011--maybe standards have advanced). Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away had visual moments I hadn’t seen before, but I didn’t feel like that was true here. The story, likewise, was a serviceable fantasy tale, but felt generic and not particularly Earthsea-ish.

Indeed, Ursula Le Guin had some problems with it. Some of that’s to be expected--seeing your work taken apart and reconfigured in a form not of your making must be difficult. Then there’s the issue of the skin color of the characters which greatly bothered her in SyFy’s Earthsea mini, and bothers her a bit here.

I will say they tried more than SyFy did. The people of Earthsea still appear Caucasian (mostly) but largely in a sort of Mediterranean context (skintone and material culture), which I guess is better than making them all Nordic types. Also, there's the fact that most anime characters tend to look Caucasian to American/European eyes, even though the Japanese presumably don't see them that way.  Still, once the action moves away from the coast, touches like eyes painted on the bows of ships fade way, and we’re left with generic Fantasyland.

There are things to like, though. The characters are well-realized in the script (though the action of the script has a couple of problems), and the voice-acting is good. It shows the trait of Miyazaki’s best films in focusing (at least for a time) on the life of common folk, and it portrays quiet moments as effectively as it does action. There isn’t really anything that stands out that’s particularly “bad” about it.

It’s just that when I think of the studio that made Spirited Away and Nausicaa of the Winds, doing an adaptation of a series I remember fondly from my childhood, I guess I was hoping for something more.

Plane Talk About Ethereal Matters

In coming up with my own take on the classic planes--one that uses both AD&D cosmology and real world occult/esoteric beliefs as touchstones--I thought I’d start small with the microcosm of the individual. Coming as it does from relatively modern beliefs, the explanations in this model might not fit all campaigns, but the basic principles can probably be applied.

The body of an individual occupies multiple states of existence (or planes). The physical body, made of simple, everyday matter, is just the densest level of being. The subtle body of an individual, though not normally visible and made of “lighter” material, is no less integral. When the subtle body is separated from the physical for whatever reason, it’s tethered to its densest component by an umbilicus called a silver cord.

There are two parts of the subtle body. In order of decreasing density they are the etheric body, a being’s “shadow” in the substructure of the material planes; and the astral body, a being’s manifestation in the higher, noumenal worlds.

The Ether
The etheric body is generally invisible to the physical world, existing at a different vibrational frequency. It’s formed by the accretion of ether--the substance that is substrantum or medium supporting the material universe--or perhaps, as some theorist’s suggest, it would be more accurate to say it’s the area where the existence of a being deforms the geometry of the etheric plane.

It’s believed to be the etheric body that gives the spark of life to base chemical processes, and acts as the interface between mundane matter and higher states of being. To those able to see it, the etheric body appears as cloud-like aura vaguely in the shape of the being to whom it belongs; with sapient beings have thicker etheric bodies than nonsapient ones. The etheric body is just as mortal as the physical one. When a being dies it gradually disperses (usually over a matter of hours) until it is lost in the surrounding ether.

The etheric (or sometimes ethereal) plane is really the “canvas” on which the material world is painted--the matrix in which it crystallizes. The elemental forces are carried through the ether--or perhaps they excite it in certain frequencies. Some theorize that the etheric body is “vitalized” by the action of a positive energy. Undead might therefore be animated by negative energy. In this view, these forces cause flows or vortices in the ether in opposite directions.

The etheric body can be separated from their physical one via magical items or psionic discipline. Some spells or magical items allow the transformation of the physical body into an etheric form. Since the etheric is just part of a material world (only a different phase) there isn’t any such thing as the “deep ethereal”—at all points it is coexistence with the physical. However, sometimes this term can be appiled to the relatively less populated etheric regions coinciding with the vacuum of space.

Otherwise, this view of the etheric plane mostly conforms to the usual D&D traits and strictures. The plane appears as an all but featureless place of roiling grey and white mists (sorta like the Phantom Zone).  Entities inhabiting it are likewise ghostly and indistinct--though they sometimes possess translucent colors, particularly the bizarre etheric fauna which often resemble oversized microscope creatures or deep sea denizens.  The material plane can be observed from an etheric vantage, but it's as if its behind a veil of mist, or in soft focus.  Etheric beings can pass through nonmagical inanimate objects in the material plane, but living material beings are barriers.  While there is "up" and "down" in the ether, there is no gravity, and movement can be in any direction.  Physical beings fully converted to etherealness can move faster than their normal movement, but to do so causes vibrations in the ether that attract the attention.

When next I take up this subject, I’ll delve into the Astral.

Desolation Cabaret

In 5880, writer and Great War veteran, Geoffersen Turck, arrived in the Republic of Staark intending to write a travelogue of post-war Ealderde. What follows is from Turck’s journals...

Like home, the capital of Staark has an old name, which nobody bothers to use. It’s just “the Metropolis” these days.  I have to admit, it outdoes the City in some ways--giant skyscrapers are everywhere, with aircars flitting busily between them like insects, interrupted by the stately passage of the occasional zeppelin. Automata direct traffic in the streets, and there’s the ever-present hum and vibration of the underground factories and power plants. You could almost forget the country was flatten by war, then buried by debt--but of course, glittering towers and airplanes keep you looking up, instead of at the faces of the poor walking the low streets.

Then there’s the dark side--what they call “the half-world.” This is a town so full of prostitutes they actually publish guidebooks so the inquiring libetine can stay up on the shifting codes of clothing and color accessories that signal what sort of perversions a hire is game for! Below the elevated roads and railways, lurid neon decorates cabarets and clubs that offer all that's on the streets and more. These streets are all-night candy store for drug fiends--their narco-alchemists must work in shifts. Maybe they’ve got automata doing that, too. In the shadows on the periphery of this underworld are the poor, discarded veterans of the Great War. Those pressed into service by crime or poverty as Eisenmenschen--men thaumatosurgically reconstructed in the Imperial bodyworks with machine parts to be implements of war. The rising National Purity Party has been scapegoating these unfortunates in their rhetoric--blaming them for Staark’s humiliation and defeat.

The air’s starting to get to me. They say things about Metropolis’ air, like its some sort of intoxicant all its own. To me, it’s just the constant stench of stale cigarettes, diesel fumes, and sweat, poorly covered with cloying perfume.

I think I'll give the country a try.

There are areas of the Staarkish countryside posted with warnings. These are the desolation zones, places still tainted by the strange weapons used in the War. Mostly people heed the warnings--the signs aren’t even needed really, when you can see the sickly vegetation, or the pale glow on moonless nights, or hear the weird cries of things unseen. Locals sit in taverns and swap tales about things like gibbering mouths, dire worms, flabby men, or susurrous shamblers. They talk about the zones, but they stay out.

The fellows I’ve thrown in with have other ideas.

The government’s put a bounty on the malfunctioning constructs and golems from the war still stalking the countryside, still carrying out their orders. Menschenjäger--manhunters--they’re called. From the description of the frightened farmers, the leader of our band calls the one we're after a Betrachter, but when we finally see the thing, it looks like a cyclops to me.  Then it fires that disintegrating ray out of its eye and one of our group is seared to ash in its too-bright glow.

That night, after we’ve wrapped the head for transport, we’re sitting in the cold, and the tomb-stillness with the smell of burnt flesh still lingering unpleasantly, and eating iron rations, and I think--Maybe Metropolis isn’t so bad after all?

Wait & Resumption

One of the two groups I game with (the one I gamemaster, playing a Pathfinder module in Warriors & Warlocks) is going to be getting together Sunday for the first time since---I don’t even remember...December? Maybe its been even longer.

This is an unusually long break, but difficulties scheduling sessions is unfortunately quite common. Now this group contains three physicians with call and what not, but it isn’t just these players. The game I play in has been on a long hiatus, too, due to scheduling difficulties--though admittedly one of those involved our GM going to Manhattan to tap an appearance on the Daily Show, so I’d call that a reasonable excuse for a cancellation.

So, anyway, its hard. Hard to get busy adults together and hard to get back into the groove after a break. I wonder if these long breaks happen to other people? And if so, how do you guys recover after a break so long you’re lucky if players remember their characters’ names much less details of what was going on?