Images from the City

More weird things from the City...

The wizard was rich, eccentric--and dead.  His house awaited adventurers' brave enough to try to seize what treasure he had left behind.  The fresh bodies decorating the facade were only a mild deterrant.

The Hissmen sort of resembled gatormen, but they were much smarter and more dangerous. The attacks ended as mysteriously as they started. What they did with the humans they took back to their subterranean world, no one every discovered.

No one would have guessed the unassuming old lady was a witch. That’s before her dollhouses with their ritual dioramas--each room replicating (and causing) a recent murder--were found.

City officials were never happy with the public danger the monster trade represented, but of course, mail order businesses presented a question of jurisdiction.

The Bestiary and Bill

Tim’s post about monster manuals over at Gothridge Manor got me to thinking about an interesting monster book from back in the day: The Bestiary (1986) from Bard Games. It was part of the “Atlantean Trilogy” which included The Lexicon (a setting book) and The Arcanum (a rule book). The Bestiary was co-written by Stephan Michael Sechi (creator of Talislanta) and, most interestingly, featured art by then popular comics artist Bill Sienkiewicz:


The stats were for the Arcanum system but that was close enough to AD&D at a glance that conversion wasn’t too difficult.

The Bestiary separated the stats and fluff--and it gave quite a bit of fluff, which was written “in world.” While this isn’t fashionable in some circles these days, it did allow most of the book to perhaps function as a reference for players.  Kind of a unique approach.

Warlord Wednesday: Gateway to Doom

Before we move into the post-Grell issues of DC Comic's Warlord, let's re-enter the lost world of... 1982, and examine Warlord's first annual. The earlier installments of my issue by issue review can be found here...

"Gateway to Doom"

Warlord Annual #1 (1982)

Written & Pencilled by Mike Grell; Inked by Rodin Rodriguez

Synopsis: 
Morgan and Shakira rescue a haughty Princess Alisandre and a well-meaning, but inept minstrel, Tristan, from savage sub-men. The princess and her entourage was on the way from Kalabas to Groniko where she is to wed King Marselus.

Morgan points out the sub-men didn’t attack for no reason, but because the group blundered into a holy site. He shows the two the ancient Atlantean ruins and the remnants of the technology wielded by the sub-men’s ancestors.

Alisandre is utterly uninterested in the lesson in humility Morgan’s trying to teach. She does, however, recognize a minstrel doesn’t cut it as a guard, and offers to pay Morgan to help them. Morgan agrees, but tells them he’s up for no nonsense:

Offended, Alisandre pulls a dagger to stick in Morgan’s back, but that just gets her a scratching from Shakira’s claws. The princess gets even more indignant when Morgan tells her she’s got to leave most of her belongings behind so they can travel light. Before they go, Shakira (in human form) gets into a little scuffle with the princess:

The group begins their travels, Alisandre with a sore behind, and lovestruck Tristan doting on her. Shakira and Morgan decide to help poor Tristan out. They throw a small lizard into the pool where Alisandre is bathing so Tristan can rescue her from it. That doesn’t turn out so well:

While Morgan’s killing the bigger reptile, soldiers in horned helms are kidnapping Alisandre to give her to “Tarantis.” Our heroes track her to the fortress city of Doomgate, but Shakira doesn’t think the chances of a rescue are good:

Despite that dire prediction, the three sneak in as entertainers. While Shakira and Tristan perform, Morgan goes looking for Alisandre. He finds her, but in trying to find their way out of the maze of tunnels, they take the wrong one:

They manage to get by the spider Tarantis, but it gives chase. Morgan manages to eventually make it follow him through the narrow space between two stone columns. It’s bulk breaks them and the giant statue they supported seems to stomp Tarantis as it topples.

The group is reunited and make their escape. Outside the city, Morgan can’t take it anymore and gives Alisandre a lecture on how she treats Tristan. She’s touched, but explains to Tristan the realities of the world:

The group arrives in Groniko, and Alisandre gets to meet her betrothed for the first time:

Things to Notice:

• This is the first annual, but an editorial at the end tries to make the case that "annual events" have been occuring in Warlord since the beginning.
• Tristan is so smitten with Princess Alisandre he misses Shakira's flirting.

Notes:

It's hard to know where this issue occurs specifically in the Warlord chronology.  The unofficial Warlord Index places it between issue #54 and #55, but I'm unable to find anything in the issue that argues for specific placement there.  All we can say is that it probably occurs sometime during Morgan's second wanderings with Shakira, before he is reunited (again) with Tara and saves Jennifer from Deimos.

Hobogoblin Garbage Kings

The City generates a lot of garbage, and most of it goes to the expansive Klaw Island landfill. Marshy Klaw Island has always had a sparse human population, but the coming of the landfill with its hills of garbage and pits of refuse has drawn gangs of hobogoblins.

The hobogoblins have divided up into tribes with zealously guarded territories. They mine the garbage for usable (and saleable) items. Hobogoblin “alchemists” have become adepted and making various minor potions with the most dubious of alchemical wastes, and can distill hooch from virtually anything organic.

The hobogoblins must defend their holdings from monsters of various sorts, attracted to the waste. They’ve been able to train giant rats as guard animals to protect their settlements from giant insects, aggressive fungi, or hungry otyughs. In years past, inbred wererat clans sometimes contested the hobogoblin hegemony, but periodic eradication and vaccination campaigns by City sanitation officials seemed to have sharply curtailed (if not eradicated) nyfitsanthropy on the island.

Hobogoblin legends tell of the first and greatest of the landfill kingdoms, Wastenot, a scrap Atlantis now sunk beneath the brackish waters of Lake Zathogua. Hubris of the swells in Wastenot led to neglect of due tribute to the beast of the lake, and all of Wastenot’s “grandeur” was pulled down by pale and vengeful tentacles in a single night.

Gormenghast...with Pictures

I got home Friday to find the months-delayed Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy from Overlook Press waiting at my front door.  For you Mervyn Peake fans out there (and I know there are some of you!): It was worth the wait.  It's a handsome hardcover volume with an introduction by Michael Moorcock and illustrations by the author himself.  Like Swelter here:

One might wish for more professional illustrations, I suppose (Charles Vess, or the like, maybe) but seeing Peake's concepts of his own characters is great. 

For those unfamiliar with Peake or Gormenghast, here's bit of tease from the publisher:

"Enter the world of Gormenghast. The vast crumbling castle to which the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, is Lord and heir. Titus is expected to rule this Gothic labyrinth of turrets and dungeons, cloisters and corridors as well as the eccentric and wayward subjects. Over the course of these three novels--Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone --Titus must contend with a kingdom about to implode beneath the weight of centuries of intrigue, treachery, manipulation and murder."

There's also an official Mervyn Peake website here with more insights into the author and his works, including Gormenghast.

Two-Fisted Monsters

White Wolf gave us monsters as protagonists, but they wound up being so angsty. For the more pulp minded gamer--who likes they’re vampires more Dracula Lives! than Interview with the Vampire--here are some monstrous inspirations:

A bruiser made from dead bodies is pretty pulpy already, but Mark Wheatley combined Mary Shelley’s brainchild with crime fiction, creating Frankenstein Mobster. Grant Morrison’s version of the monster is sort of a pulp adventurer in Seven Soldiers of Victory and now appearing monthly in Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. In the 1977 novelette "Black as Pit, From Pole to Pole" Waldrop and Utley have the monster wandering into a Pellucidar-esque Hollow Earth.

Werewolves have shown up as bikers and Nazis. Dan Brereton’s Nocturnals gives us a two-fisted scientist who suffers from werewolfism (as the Comics Code would have it) leading a team of monsters. Marvel’s Man-Wolf winds up a modern wolf-man in a Medieval fantasy world as Stargod.

Dracula gets into all sorts of historical adventures in the aforementioned Dracula Lives! reprinted in Essential Tomb of Dracula, vol. 4 (tragically, without the two encounters with Solomon Kane!). Forever Knight gave us a vampire police detective. Nancy Collins’s Sam Hell, the Dark Ranger, is an Old West vampire fighting supernatural menaces in “Hell Come Sundown.” Of course, Kate Beckinsale as a werewolf-hunting vampire (in tight leather) in a sort of action riff on Romeo and Juliet still might be a little angsty, but I'll mention it anyway.  Mainly for the tight leather.

I bet with a little digging I could think of something for the mummy--but start with those and the get those creatures on the loose.

Warlord Wednesday: The Journey Back

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 Journey Back"

Warlord (vol. 1) #71 (July 1983)

Written by Mike Grell (Sharon Grell); Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Bob Smith

Synopsis:  In Castle Deimos in the Skartaris we know, Jennifer Morgan keeps a vigil at her magic mirror, holding open the portal in the hopes that her father and Shakira will make it home. We see a crystal ball among decorations in her sorcerous laboratory (which may be important later).

In future Australia, Morgan and Shakira make their way on horseback across the Outback to the southern coast. Morgan figures the best way back to their time is in the inner earth, even though the colonized and heavily populated Skartaris of this age isn’t the one they know. He thinks they’ll need a boat to Antarctica, but when they get there they find a connecting bridge has been built, leading right to the inner earth. They head down to a trading post to book passage.

When Morgan pays in gold coins, the clerk gets suspicious he might be a “mutie” and calls the law. Morgan shoplifts a few things off the shelves and takes off before the cops arrive. On horseback, our heroes race through the town and onto the bridge. Morgan knows the authorities will just be waiting on the other side. He formulates a plan…

On the distal end of the causeway, two border guards in a flier have already been alerted to our heroes’ presence. They swoop in to arrest them. With a little transformation trick, Shakira and Morgan get the drop on them:

They commandeer the flier:

Morgan flies okay, but they hadn’t counted on defenses. Other fliers come after them and they’re shot down. They try to make a run for it, but the guards shoot Morgan, knocking him unconscious.

He awakens, still groggy, to find himself with Shakira behind a dumpster near a house. The guards are still out looking for them. Shakira climbs through an open window and—finding the owner inside—threatens him with Morgan’s pistol.

Luckily, the guy speaks Skartarian, and even more luckily, he’s a medic. He’s able to bandage Morgan’s wound and give him a transfusion. He tells them his name is Gyre, and mistakes them for members of some militant Skartarian faction.

They tell Gyre they need to get to Castle Deimos to meet someone and (surprisingly) he knows the place! But is Morgan well enough for travel?

They hail a flying taxi and take it through the streets of an utterly transformed Skartaris to Castle Deimos…

The old castle has been turned into a troop outpost and all the equipment inside removed. Feeling defeated, Morgan thinks they might as well go in and have a drink. About “4 Bourbons later” Shakira notices something—a crystal ball just like the one in Jennifer’s sanctum. Gyre tells them it’s from the actually Castle Deimos, like of the decorations.

At that moment, the television news report declares Morgan a mutant fugitive. The bar crowd starts to get ugly. Then, Shakira notices something else:

The mirror over the bar is Jennifer’s magic mirror! Our heroes leap through and arrive back in their own time.

Things to Notice:

• This is the first issue with a cover by someone other than Grell.
• The letter column of this issue features a letter by a Matt Brandal who says he's a Dungeon Master in "Dungeons and Dragons" and he's used Morgan's adventures as adventures in his game, because his player's don't read Warlord.
• Amazingly the magic mirror portal stayed open over centuries.  They just don't build them like that anymore.

Notes:
This is the last Grell penned issue of Warlord of this volume.  It would be nearly a decade before he writes the character again.