Mystery House

It's most often found at the end of a stretch of dirt road, be it along a lonely bayou in the South, perched precariously on a ridge in the Smaragdines, or rising like a mirage out of the hardpan in the West. Those that seek it seldom find it without magic, but the lost are somehow drawn to it. However visitors arrive, few can forget the sprawling mansion known as the Mystery House.

One story says that Hulysses Mulciber, heir to the Mulciber Repeating Arms Company, was troubled by nightmares of a gaunt gunslinger riding ahead of an army of the ghosts of those who had died due to his family’s rifles. A medium told him that he should build a house designed to confuse and confound the spirits to escape the wrath of the Spectre of the Gun (as she named the gunslinger) and his vengeful army. Another story (more prosaically) holds he began the house as an elaborate gift to his wife who was angry over his philandering. Whatever the reason for its construction, records agree that building originally began in the Smaragdines.

The house even as conceived twisted and turned back on itself--it was almost a maze--and that was before it gained a life of its own. Hulysses didn’t live to see it; he died of blood poisoning following an accidental shooting in a hunting accident. The weapon that did the deed was, of course, one of his own company’s. His wife Ansonia, fervent believer in the reality of the grim Spectre, completed the project and paid numerous thaumaturgists (real and otherwise) to lay all sorts of protections on the house. And construction continued.

Whatever protection conferred to the house didn’t extend to Ansonia. She died of thirst, having gone mad and gotten lost in her own house. It was shortly after her death that the house disappeared from its original lot.

There are some stories of treasures in the house--mostly the mundane riches of the Mulcibers--but most who seek it do so out of curiosity. Most who find it, though, didn’t mean to. Those that have been there and survived report doors to nowhere, hallways that turn back on themselves, and rooms that shift. The stale air is filled with the low, arthritic creaks and groans of the house twisting and rearranging itself, and the distant sound of heavy footsteps--and jangling spurs.

Chronicle

Chronicle (now in theaters) tells the story of three teenagers that encounter something crystalline (maybe something from the movie version of Krypton given its appearance) that seems burrowed underground. This strange event leads them to developing super-powers--specifically telekinesis at a fairly powerful level.  After some exuberant experimentation and sophmoric goofing around, Lord Acton's aphorism plays out in the way expected by anyone who's familiar with "Where No Man Has Gone Before", The Korvac Saga, or Zapped!.

Chronicle is a found footage sort of film, but this is better handled than a lot of other films of this type.  While the movie would probably have worked just as well without it, it adds a first person immediacy to the display of super-powers that someone makes it seem more real.  The flight sequences in particular seem to capture a bit of what it would feel like to fly moreso maybe any other superhero film.  Chronicle's final battle (informed, I think, by Akira and possibly Alan Moore's Marvelman) isn't quite as flashy as what you see in more typical superhero films, but it has a visceralness they often lack.

So how might Chronicle inform gaming?  Well, it seems well-suited as fodder for a "super-powers in the real world" sort of supers game, like Mutants & Masterminds: Paragons or the more grounded mechanics of GURPS Supers. That would be the obvious inspiration.

I think Chronicle might give some inspiration for fantasy gaming, too.  A lot of the wonder and horror that surely would be evoked by the sort of power wielded by rpg mages is blunted by its ubiquity (Harry Potter) or drown out by the surrounding worldbuilding (The Lord of the Rings films).  It might be worth thinking about this some to see if there's a way the "more than motal"-ness of magic-users can be portrayed.  Also, the power corrupting trope is perhaps under-utlized in fantasy.  Maybe there are so many evil wizards because corruption is an occupational hazard?  If so, how would that effect how adventuring parties view their resident mage?

One Night in Thrangbek

(Transcript of the Exotic Ports O’Call travelogue newsreel on the city of Thrangbek):

Bustling and cosmopolitan Thrangbek is the exotic jewel of the Gulf of Khayam. This city of approximately one million is a city of canals: It’s so crisscrossed by waterways that many of it’s citizens choose to live on houseboats. As the capital of the Kingdom of Khayam, home to majestic temples, and a center of trade, Thrangbek gets its share of visitors. Once a year, though, it plays host to an unusual convention. Players, gamblers, and spectators descend on the city in the hopes of winning the prize of enlightenment.

Despite all the magnificent temples dedicated to long-lobed, smiling Bo, the real religion of Thrangbek seems to be shatrang. To call shatrang “chess-like” is to only scratch the surface of this game whose rules are modified by a dizzying array of conditions including the position of the planets and stars, and whose pieces are infused with thaumaturgy. Shatrang players beginning training in childhood and those that can’t memorize its rules nor master the psychic control of it’s willful pieces often wind up beggars along the canals, their minds broken.

It has been theorized by Western thaumatologists that shatrang's complicated rules are actually the formulae of series of spells, disguised.  Shatrang player-adepts are said to absorb psychic energy from their opponents when they defeat them--games are popularly thought to take place not just on the Material Plane, but the Astral, as well.  This accumulation of energy allows players to advance to the next level. Their ultimate goal is the achieve the highest rank possible--a title translated as “Grand Master of Flowers.”

The final match for the ultimate title occurs away from the public. At the endgame, a portal is said to open to a higher plane, and the winner steps through to greet the other Immortals of shatrang and gain the prize of heavenly knowledge and vistas beyond the mortal realm.

As far as Exotic Ports O'Call can determine, no Grand Master has ever returned to let anyone else in on any of those secrets of the universe.

Shadow of the Beast

Somewhere in the Steel League, 5889:

“So your town is cursed, you say?”

“A demon or god makes its burrow beneath our town. It rises once a year, and everywhere it’s shadow falls turns as cold as the bitterest winter. The Natives use to placate it, somehow.  We've been less successful."

“Have you tried to kill it before?”

“Several times--and failed. Other hired adventurers. The old meat locker was made into a makeshift tomb if you’ve like to see--”

“That won’t be necessary. Two questions, Mister Mayor: Do you have enough in the town treasury to cover our fee--and do you have any dynamite hereabouts?

Warlord Wednesday: Thief's Magic

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...

"Paradox"

Warlord #81 (May 1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Dan Adkins.

Synopsis: In a shaded spot in Skartaris, two travellers sleep around a cook fire. Young Tinder creeps up to steal from an open sack. But the travellers are not as unaware as they seem:

The robed clerics are actually Jennifer Morgan and faithful Faaldren. Jennifer demands Tinder tell her his story—cautioning that she’ll know if he’s lying. Tinder tells how, after leaving Shamballah, he’d worked with a merchant caravan (and supplemented his pay with a little pickpocketing) until the New Atlantean raiders attacked. Everyone else had been killed or captured, but Tinder escaped.

Jennifer senses something more about the boy—a kinship—but doesn’t wish to use her magic to pry further just now. And so, Jennifer misses the chance to discover that Tinder is actually her half-brother, Joshua.

Tinder also tells them that Shamballah has fallen. Jennifer casts a spell to find out what happened to her father.

She can’t locate him—which means he’s either vanished from the earth or dead. The former is actually correct; Morgan is imprisoned in the future and (coincidentally) having a nightmare about the day Deimos forced him to kill his own son. It was a trick, of course, and Joshua was raised in anonymity, unaware of his true identity.

Despite the dire news, Jennifer wants to go to Shamballah to pick up her father’s trail. As they’re breaking camp, they get some unwanted visitors…

Comely cow? So, anyway, Jennifer starts to sling a spell, but it’s cut short when she takes a crossbow bolt in the shoulder. Faaldren jumps in with a sword stab through the eye of a lizard mount and Jennifer casts a spell sending illusionary warriors running to his aid. Still, her power's weakening and the illusions don’t fool the New Atlanteans long. Jennifer enlists Tinder’s help casting a spell with one of her magic jewels. She has Tinder concentrate on the most fearsome thing he can thing of for fodder for a renewed illusion spell. Tinder recalls something from a story a man chained in a Shamballan dungeon told him; a man who was actually Travis Morgan, his real father…

He conjures what Jennifer recognizes as a demonic train! She wonders where a Skartarian boy might have found out about locomotives. She realizes there’s more to Tinder than there appears. And so, when the boy asks if Jennifer will teach him some magic, Jennifer agrees to do so and to let him accompany them to Shamballah.

Things to Notice:

• Tinder (Joshua) is back. He was last seen in issue #61.
• The title character, however, barely appears--and he's asleep in his only non-flashback panel.

Where It Comes From:

This issue spends a far amount of time recapping and summarizing Tinder's origin, related piecemeal in previous issues.  The bull-headed beastman recalls Travis Morgan's own transformation by the Alces Shirasi back in issue #18.

Perusing Pathfinder's Bestiary 3

Welcome to post 600.

I picked up the pdf of Pathfinder Bestiary 3 last week.  I had heard it had some Lovecraftian creatures in it, and I was curious, but in general, I like mining monster manuals for ideas.  Paizo's previous entries in the Bestiary series have been pretty good in this regard.

First off, there are a lot of mythological creatures repurposed in tried and true rpg fashion.  Quite a few of these are of Asian derivation making this suitable for a "Oriental Adventures" sort of game.  There are also creatures from the myths of Native Americans, Inuit, and Pacific Islanders as well.  The Fiend Folio and Filipino folklore veteran, the Berbalang, makes an appearance.

There are a lot of other Fiend Folio also-rans.  The dire corby, adherer and the flumph get entries, for reasons beyond my understanding.  There are some Monster Manual II refugees too.

There are the obligatory expansions to giants, dragons, demons and devils.  As is typical, the ranks of evil classes of creatures get expanded with the divs (evil genies) and asuras (philosophic devil sorts), and our old friends the demodands (who all look much more militant and badass in their illustration than the MM2 originals).

One of the things I like is the cryptid and more modern folklore entries.  There's the hodak and globster from North America and the kongamato, lukwata and popobala (which was changed for some reason from popobawa) from Africa.

The aforementioned Lovecraftian critters include the moon-beast, voonith, and Yithians.  There are other literary borrowings including the bandersnatch and the jubjub bird from Lewis Carroll and monsters likely inspired by other media: the hungry fog and the sargassum fiend.

There are a lot of original monsters, of course.  Some of these (like the bogeyman and the pale stranger) are interesting, but seem better suited to a non-Medieval game.  Then there's the cold rider, who's sort of a frosty Nazgul astride a demonic reindeer, and the deathweb--the husk of a giant spider animated by thousands of little spiders!   Both of these guys would make cool one shots, at least.

Overall, I think it's a decent selection of monsters.  More time is spent on more of particular, familiar clades of creatures than I would like (more giants, demons, devils, and variant dragons and dragon-like creatures), but I really like Paizo keeping alive the tendency to borrow entries from literature and modern folklore in addition to mythology.

The Way of the Gun

“...a gun isn’t a thing of miracles. It’s a mechanical contraption that is capable of just so much and no more.”
- “One Hour” Dashiell Hammett

In the world of the City, it was opined over a century ago that “Forces beyond Man’s kin make the wizard, but with his own hand Man makes the gun, and so makes himself the Wizard’s equal.” Firearms represent the triumph of scientific arts like alchemy over the arcane; A triumph which has shaped the modern world.

The oldest firearms utilized the chemical explosive now called black powder. Given these older weapons were made by individual smiths rather than factories, they are more likely to bear enchantments. There are still matchlock and flintlock weapons in use by adventurers for this reason. The Dwergen-made wonderbuss is an example of such a weapon.

Historical sources attest to another (rarer) explosive called red powder, which is now lost. This rust-colored explosive was a closely guarded secret of a cabal of alchemists. (This group is supposed to have been called the Brethren of Steropes and resided in a mobile flying monastery always hidden behind a thunderhead--or so legends say). The compound was activated by exposure to light. It was used in guns of a wheellock mechanism where the striking of two crystals caused a small flash of light. It was also used in ceramic grenades and even in “time delayed” explosives that were placed at night, to go off with the coming dawn.

The modern form of gunpowder is a so-called “smokeless propellant” as it produces negligible smoke compared to the older compounds. It’s made from the alchemical fixation of “smokeless fire,” the same para-elemental substance (airy fire) of which jinn are composed. Modern, mass-produced guns are seldom enchanted--not purposefully, at least--but being close to death and strife sometimes leaves an arcane imprint. Adventurers and special government agents do sometimes use custom ammunition of a magical material or mundane bullets enchanted for a specific effect.

The City has stricter gun control laws many localities in the Union--at least nominally. Ownership or carry of any firearm small enough to conceal requires a license. These are issued by the police department (and usually require a bribe or a friendly contact to acquire, in addition to the licensing fee). Loaded long arms are illegal to carry (and even carrying unloaded ones will invite police involvement unless one can convince them one is on the way to a shooting range or to a hunt), but their ownership is not restricted.

In the Union overall, cities and towns closer to the wilderness or to uncleared caves or ruins have fewer restrictions than safer areas.