Sepulchral Choirboys

photo by mathyld Δ pyramids

A sepulchral choir, or spectral chorus, is an incorporeal manifestation summoned to drive a victim to madness and perhaps suicide. The choir is an apparition of skeletons of small children, only visible to the victim (unless the choir wishes otherwise) without the use of magic. Their beautiful, and intensely unnerving, singing is likewise heard by the victim alone--in fact, it specifically relates to the them, referencing their deepest fears, and darkest secrets.

The choir visitations will come mostly at night, but might also occur in the day when the victim is alone, even for a brief period. The haunting will so distract the victim they will suffer a -2 to all attack rolls and saving throws for a period of an hour after experiencing one, unless they make a saving throw. The psychic and emotional assault causes a progressive -1 per day to Wisdom, and an inability to get restful sleep or concentrate. The end result is insanity (as the options given in the confusion spell) or suicide. The choir may be turned (though this is only temporary), or banished by a remove curse.

Only one complete copy of the ritual needed to create a sepulchral choir is known to exist. It was found in the City, scrawled on the back of a handbill and left inside a hymnal in the Our Ladies of Sorrows Church.

Sepulchral Choir
Number: 1 with 1d4+2 in the choir
AC: 0
HD: (1+2)x number of choir members
Attacks: 1 (haunting singing, see above)
Special: have typical traits of incoporeal undead

Warlord Wednesday: Something Evil

Wednesday again.  Time to 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...

"Something Evil"

Warlord (vol. 1) #49 (September 1981)

Writing and art by Mike Grell; inks by Vince Colletta

Synopsis: Resting by a creek, watching Morgan clean his pistol, Shakira suggests that some of his brashness comes from knowing he can rely on the gun to save him. She proposes a wager: she bets he can’t go from where they are to the next camp without using the gun to get get himself out of trouble. Morgan takes the bet.

As if on cue, Shakira notices an ancient structure peeking over the forest behind him. Upon investigation, they find the massive structure covered with inscriptions. Most have been worn away, but what Shakira can make out is a warning: this place is sacred to the Evil One, whoever that might be. As they look into the entrance and find an impaled skeleton, it’s clear that whoever he was, he wasn't hospitalble to visitors.

Paralleling the story of Morgan and Shakira’s exploration, we get a tale of the Age of Wizard Kings. It begins in the Great Fire Mountain, where the lowly Craetur has secreted away the Necronomicon. He opens the tome and reads a spell, leading to him being consumed in hellfire and raising as the diabolic-appearing Evil One.

The Evil One subjugates Zarrgon Fire-Eye, his former master, and takes control of his castle. Desperate, Zarrgon secretly sends a message by bat to Mungo Ironhand and his friends---a message that is to affect the outcome of a battle fought thousands of years in the future.

In the Skartarian present, Shakira and Morgan make their way past traps, some already sprung on some would-be looters, and some still waiting. They press on, as Morgan’s sure there must be something here of value, given the number of people who've tried to get in. They’re unaware that their being stalked by a hungry leopard that entered the temple behind them.

They reach the main room where another skeletal treasure-hunter died at an altar with a crescent moon medallion in hand. Morgan places the golden crescent in the altar niche that fits it. A vibration begins in a large wall panel. Morgan barely has time to push Shakira out of the way before it explodes, to reveal:

The giant mummy attacks. Morgan dodges its blows, and cuts its arm with his sword, revealing the mummy’s insides are nothing but copious dust. Sword in one hand, dagger in the other, Morgan slashes furiously at the bandages holding the thing together until it collapses in a cloud of fifteen thousand year-old dust.

After pointing out to Shakira that he didn’t use his pistol, Morgan says its time to go. Shakira asks about all the treasure, but Morgan’s only interest is finding his daughter.

At that moment, the leopard leaps from the shadows. In one swift motion, Morgan turns and shoots. The beast falls dead. Shakira compliments his shot--and tells him he lost the bet. Morgan reminds her they never decided on the stakes, but Shakira replies, “Let’s just say you owe me one.”

Elsewhere, in Castle Deimos, Jennifer Morgan lies sleeping. Suddenly, she awakens.  Her eyes are wide with horror as she sees:

Things to Notice:

• This issue repeats the parallel story gimmick of issue #17.
• Zarrgon's name is misspelled Sarrgon this issue (as it was in his second appearance as well--so maybe his first appearance is wrong and his name is Sarrgon?)

Where It Comes From:

This issue's Age of the Wizard Kings story is a sequel to the back-up story in issues 40-41.  If Craetur was Gollum inspired, the Evil One is more of a Dark Lord like Sauron, though in appearance he resembles classic representations of the Devil. 

The Evil One of the Age of Wizard Kings was first mentioned in issue #31, which featured another booby-trapped tomb full of treasure.  A similar altar with niches for metal shapes appeared in issue #26.

Two Monster Tuesday

Vivisector
Vivisectors are members of a phylum of alien automata known as physickers. They are believed to have been created by a now extinct race for whom the constructs performed medical functions. Sometime in the ages since, they’re programming was corrupted, and they began stripping every world their swarm arrives at of life. The model called vivisectors, or scalpel-bugs, look something like a cross between a mantis and a firefly sculpted in brass, and about the size of a mouse. Their forelegs are razor-sharp surgical blades which they put to clinically precise, and deadly, purpose. Vivisectors will generally be encounter in a swarm.

Vivisector Swarm
AC: 2
HD: 4
Attacks: Swarm (3d6)
Save: MU4
Move: fly 120’(40’)
Special: would have most of the construct and swarm trait abilities.
Individual Vivisectors only have 1d4 HP, and do 1d2 points of damage.

Dungeon Chicken!

Amidst all the usual junk mail yesterday, I was suprised and pleased to received a The Hungry Bulette postcard from blogging compatriot, ze bulette.  It contained the stats for the dread dungeon chicken.  I got a laugh out of it, and I also have an old school monster card.  Thanks Bulette!

My Favorite Setting Book

In my early high school years, in the peak of my AD&D heyday, my favorite setting book wasn’t even a role-playing game supplement--or actually a book, I guess.  It was The Official Handbook of the Conan Universe. Marvel published this thirty-six page gem in 1986 as a reference to its various Conan comics. At the time, I thought it was just about perfect, and reconsidering it today in the light of the recent discussion of how to present setting material, I still think it’s pretty good.

Mostly it covered the various countries of the Hyborian Age, but it also had articles on Conan and other prominent characters, the gods and religion, magic, and (a bit unexpectedly) arms and armor. Of course, being a comic reference, it was well illustrated by John Buscema, and Michael Kaluta among others. The articles were short, amd to the point--most were half a page, and only a couple were two page spreads. Also, each featured a related quote from Howard’s work to give “the feel.” Here’s a typical example:

And another:

Since I wasn’t going to play in the actual Hyborian Age, but instead cribe for it for my own Howard/Leiber/Burroughs inspired setting, I found these to be nice bits of inspiration. I also found this presentation style really worked for my own setting write-ups (I had tried. but never quite been able to fit, the World of Greyhawk model--I couldn't come up with those imports and exports, and population percentages). Looking back at it now, I still think it would be useful for running a Conan campaign, at least if one was already pretty familiar with Howard’s stories.

Beyond the Wall

In 5880, prior to visiting Staark, writer and Great War veteran, Geoffersen Turck, stopped in the Lluddish Isles. What follows is adapted from Turck’s journals...

Around midnight, a soldier shakes me awake and points out over the parapet. The sluagh are massing; there are at least a hundred, maybe more. They moan wordlessly and stagger like drunks, but they move with purpose toward this old, stone wall we stand on. It’s seventy miles long, twenty feet tall, and about fifteen feet thick, and its the only thing holding back the hordes of reanimated dead ridden by alien creatures out destroy the world.

Some of the Queen’s Albanish soldiers have captured one of the slaugh so I can see what they’re up against. It’s a man--or was. They restrain it, and tell me to watch. When it's decapitated, and the body's stopped writhing, something even stranger happens. The thing’s jaw moves like its pushed open from the inside.  First there's a shimmering like heat haze, then it resolves into a fat, crawling thing that might be a toad, if toads were translucent to the point of near invisibility, and their bodies and organs were trace with red neon.

The army wizard, wearing gauntlets of cold iron, scoops it up awkwardly like he's wrestling with angry jam, and stuffs it, squirming, into a thick-walled glass jar inscribed with runes. He fusses over the jar, whispering harsh syllables that seem to vibrate in the night air like a taut metal line, plucked. The thing's the size of a bowling ball, but just like it fit inside the dead man’s skull, it fits in the jar, and stares at us with vacant malevolence.

The wizard says it's a soldier, too, one of thousands, part of an advanced force from a plane of unformed chaos. They’re irritable things, affronted by the constraints of physical laws, and appalled by the solidity of physical matter.  They've been here for a while, waging a guerilla war against reality, inciting witches and would-be diabolists, exchanging inhuman knowledge for transgression.  The thinning of the walls between worlds caused by the Great War allowed them to bring over a larger force. “They all volunteered for a suicide mission,” the wizard says. “They had to take form to come here, now they can never go home.  They're only chance is to break down the whole material plane and return everything to primal formlessness.”

I think they sound pretty unified for a bunch devoted to pure chaos, and say so.  The wizard just scowls, and tells me it's getting late.  I decide he's right, and so I go to bed, secure in the knowledge that the material world will be here in the morning.

BUFONOIDS FROM BEYOND (low caste)
HD 3 AC 6 Attacks: 1 (bite 1d4 plus save or be paralyzed for 1d4 rounds); Save: M4 Special: Meld: may enter and animate dead bodies, which will function as zombies. May also enter the bodies of living humans. Humans so invaded must save or be dominated. They seldom stay in living humans long.). The bufonoid has knowledge of spells equivalent to a 4th level magic-user, but likely has access to specific spells not generally available.

Sucker Punch Reviewed

I saw Sucker Punch last night with a group of friends. I had read a number of reviews before hand which were mostly negative--though some of the them were so hyperbolic and shrill it actually made me intrigued as to what had gotten their dander so up.

My advice: be not too dissuaded by the reviews--if it looks interesting to you go see it. I thought it was good, as did most of my friends. Even the ones who were cooler towards it found it compelling in many aspects and though it offered a lot to think about.  It's far from perfect, and Snyder's reach likely exceeded his grasp, but its also far from vapid.

The good: there are great visuals--things you really haven’t seen done before to this degree (particularly in the robot fight scene), there's good music, and sumptuous production design. There's a straight forward but serviceable plot that doesn't flinch from the likely unpleasant outcomes of certain realities, but doesn't wallow in them either.  The ultimate meaning of events is ambiguous, and the relationship of reality to dream in the film, offers things to think about and discuss, you like to think about and discuss film. Despite what some people would have you believe this is indeed a film where things are going on--and it isn’t necessarily killing dragons and shooting down zeppelins (though there is that).

You should see it if: you don’t mind a large wallop of artifice in your film (so you can groove with something like Moulin Rouge, 300, or Speed Racer--In fact, it might be helpful to think of it as a musical where the songs have replaced by fantasy action sequences), and if you like visual style-heavy, thematic, but not big on character exploration, media like many Heavy Metal-style euro-comic stories, films like El Topo, or some anime.

You probably shouldn’t see it if: somewhat “downer” material really bothers you (things like snakepit mental institutions, lobotomies, or women forced to work in brothels), if anything that seems similar to a video game incenses you, or purposeful anachronisms bug you, or club-ish covers of rock tunes are anathema, or if the things described in paragraph above this one sounded awful.

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.