"Hello, Nurse!": Healing in the City

The adventurer's life in the City is made a little less convenient by the absence of readily available clerical healing.  True faith healing is rare (though claims of it are a bit more common), and priests that bother to learn thaumaturgy don't usually spend a lot of time on the simple healing arts.  Medical technology is, of course, more advanced than in your standard Medieval setting, but accessing it sometimes brings questions adventurer-types would rather avoid.

The corner drug store offers a solution. On its shelves, various alchemical tonics and medications can be found that offer restored energy and faster healing. Many of these function similarly to standard cure light or (less commonly) medium wounds potions found in other worlds, but with an important difference: They offer the equivalent healing of 8 hours of restorative sleep plus enhanced energy in the form of temporary hit points. These dissipate within 12 hours.

Further consumption can extend this time period, but at diminishing returns. Consuming another dosage within a 24 hour period confers only temporary hit points--and these last 6 hours.  Further doses do nothing--most of the time.  Sometimes they shock the system and act as a poison causing light wounds.

Though Union laws require drugs to be pure, no human or animal testing is required prior to marketing. Sometimes alchemical medications have unintended consequences, and there are rare and tragic instances where they are outright toxic.  It's probably best to consume them only as directed by a physician.

Warlord Wednesday: Full Circle (Part 3)

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...

"Full Circle"

Warlord Annual #3 (1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Mike DeCarlo.

Synopsis: Morgan is determined to use one of the saucer ships to go after Shakira over the objections of Reno, who warns of the damaged ship’s instability. Krystovar (perhaps noting he hasn’t had anything to do in several issues) is willing to take the risk with Morgan.

The two fly up toward the red moon which looks familiar to Morgan but he can’t remember where he might have seen it (perhaps too many blows to the head in previous issues?). Only when skysleds are flying at them shooting energy blasts does Morgan remember the Alces Shirasi and the Red Moon. Our heroes manage to land in the moon’s hangar. They fight their way through a group of aliens and hole up in a laboratory.

There they find the misshapen survivors of the Alces Shirasi experiments. Morgan recalls his brief stint as a Bull Man, leading Krystovar to realize that these aliens must have been the source of the Atlantean beast maker technology.

One of experimental subjects (one of the few who can talk) gets their attention and begs them to free him. The subject tells them where Shakira is most likely being held—and just in time, as the aliens manage to break into the lab. The subject quickly frees others of his kind. They lay into the aliens as our heroes escape.

The aliens plan to use their machines on Shakira, hoping to make her a brood mare for the continuation of their race.

Morgan and Krystovar bust in and demand Shakira be freed. Morgan punctuates his demand with a bullet through the head of one of the aliens. Unfortunately, the crafty aliens throw up a force-field and trap our heroes. The leader gloats about turning them into amebas, but then:

It’s revenge of the failed experiments! They start massacring the aliens and free Morgan and Krystovar to go after Daamon, who took off with Shakira thrown over his shoulder during the fracas. The enraged rejects manage to start a chain reaction in the moon’s reactor core.

To be concluded

Things to Notice:

• Morgan's got a bad memory--or maybe just a plot convenient one.
• Reactor cores are (strangely) one of the most under-protected things on spheroid spacecraft.

Where It Comes From:

The Red Moon-God is revealed to our protagonists to be the alien race the Alces Shirasi, last seen in issue #18--though astute readers knew this last issue.  This issue plugs what previously appeared to be a plot hole: "How did the Atlanteans get the same beastmaker device the aliens had?"

Dungeon Games

Like a whole lot of other people in America, I caught The Hunger Games this weekend. I’ve never read the book--I actually kind of avoided it as a young adult, Running Man/Battle Royale ripoff. Apparently, I was a little hasty in my judgement, because I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.

One of the author’s stated inspirations was the myth of Theseus. Young heroes, mazes, and monsters suggest a way that a sort of Hunger Games set-up could be adapted to a typical fantasy rpg set-up.

Sure X-Crawl does some of this, but it's set the in modern day, and seems to view its dungeoncrawlers as celebrity athletes, borrowing inspiration from Running Man to a degree. Things might go a bit differently when (Like The Hunger Games), one plays up more of a American Idol-esque reality show contest aspect. And of course, there’s the sacrifice-chosen-by-lottery part.

Say some great empire (possibly magical or even magitech) demands a tribute of youths from its conquered territories. These teens are given a bit of training then sent into the labyrinth--or dungeon. Other than perhaps multiple monsters, that's pretty much the Theseus set-up, but an empire with D&D-ish magic at its disposal can get a lot closer to the media saturated world of The Hunger Games. Maybe the empire keeps it’s citizens happy bread and circuses style with remote-viewed observation of the dungeon doings.

The set-up would raise some interesting questions. Did the decadent empire build the dungeons for this purpose (and magically create the monsters therein) or are they just exploiting them? Is there a way the young dungeon-crawlers can turn their new abilities and the skills they’ve gained to their advantage?

Scientia Potestas Est

[This relates to my previous "Apocalypse Under Ground" posts, so take a look.]

Wizardry is a curse on all mankind.

This is what the common folk say, and sages acknowledge the rise of arcane knowledge went hand in hand with the emergence of the underground--perhaps more than once in history. Wizards are aware of how they are viewed (and feared) and are unconcerned. When you’ve held the words that encapsulate the true forms of reality in your mind--when you’ve experienced true gnosis--you’re above petty concerns.

Practitioners of the arcane art have always existed. Mostly they’re solitary, exploring their art removed from the intrusion of the mundane world. The opening of the underground changed that. It's entrances glowed like an arcane beacon. Those who might have lived their whole lives without ever knowing they had the talent were transformed by what they encountered, reborn into a new world--if they survived their first delve.

The old wizards came out of seclusion to tutor these fledging sorcerers--and to use them them to grow their own power with secrets wrested from below. In time, the adventuring wizards came to surpass their masters, sometimes frighteningly so. These new grandmasters took apprentices of their own, for much the same reasons--though as wizards grow older and more steeped in the arcane, their thoughts and desires sometimes grow more alien, and their whims more capricious.

One question above all concerns the grandmasters, though they seldom speak of it, even in their rare conclaves of peers: Does the arcane have a life of it’s own? Does the symbolary that is Man’s closest approximation of the true description of the universe have its own agenda? If so, does it favor Man--or the Monsters?

Snake, Giant Constrictor

Science has validated this scene from Milius's Conan.  Titanoboa cerrejonensis is the largest snake every discovered at up to 50 feet long, 3 feet in diameter at the thickest part of its body, and weighing in at 2500 pounds.  The giant constrictor in the 2nd Edition Monster Manual would be puny in comparison at a mere 30 feet in length--though that would be about the size of Gigantophis, the second largest snake ever discovered

Because the size of anything becomes more relatable when compared to a city bus, here you go:

There's also this life sized model in Grand Central Station (there's a SyFy original in that), captured in mid-swallow:

Titanoboa slithered through the Paleocene, around 58-60 million years ago, but records from that period are spotty at best.  There were probably a few around in ancient Atlantis or Lemuria, or some other forgotten continent.

Brain-Eating Beatniks

Is how the wizard "Amazing" Kreskin described their foes in the graveyard of Barrow Island.  In last night's Weird Adventures game (in Lorefinder), Boris, Kreskin, and Don Diabolico were ambushed by ghoul hooligans out for dangerous kicks.  The punks got danger in a lethal dose: The fact that that were teenagers didn't spare them from the guns of our hardboiled adventurers.  Only one of the three attackers escaped with his life.

The trouble with ghouls didn't stop there.  The casket of John Vandemaur (what the guys had been hired to get) had already been removed from the family crypt.  A little investigation led them to another crypt with the sounds of jazz and poetry recitation coming from within.  Stealthy scouting by Diabolico revealed a number group of young ghouls who not only had the casket they were looking for, but were in the company of the missing debutante, Sue Ann Wylde.

Kreskin's pulled a little hypnotism on them allowed the casket and the girl to be extracted with a shot being fired.  The poetical rebel that led the band of miscreants didn't go down so easy, though.  He had a head full of aklo and was plugged into the dread outsider gods of the anarchists.  He pulled a switchblade made of swirling darkness.  Fortunately for our gang (and unfortunately for the kid) he wasn't impervious to bullets.

Retreiving the casket led to more surprises.  Inside wasn't the body of John Vandemaur, but instead the quite living (and angry), Indrid Bliss.  Bliss was bond and magically gagged by somebody.  He was evasive about how this happened, and who did it, but he seemed to blame John Vandemaur--who he said was still very much alive.

Bliss wasn't much inclined for conversation.  He tried to escape once by a dimenson door, only to be nabbed by Boris.  The group hoped that Heward Kane might be able to illuminate the situation more, but they were denied the opportunity to introduce him to Bliss by the intervention of a gargoyle who spirited Bliss away.

Checking in with Kane they find (unsurprisingly) that's he's at a loss to explain any of this--but he does tell them Viviane Vandemaur (the supposed widow) wants to meet with them.

To be continued.

Warlord Wednesday: Full Circle (Part 2)

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...

"Full Circle"

Warlord Annual #3 (1984)

Written by Cary Burkett; Penciled by Dan Jurgens; Inked by Mike DeCarlo.

Synopsis: After a short ride into a canyon, the hunting party (see Part 1) encounters...The Dragon-Lizard!

Daamon explains that the greatest honor goes to the hunter who rides closest to the beast—and he offers Morgan a shot at it. As Morgan urges his mount closer, an arrow flies into its flank. The creature goes down, taking Morgan with it. Worse yet, they’ve attracted the dragon-lizard’s attention.

Shakira rides in to help him, though Morgan warns her against getting too close. After she lands a spear in the monster’s neck, it turns on her.

Morgan jumps on to its back and:

The monster falls dead. Daamon rides up and expresses his relief that neither of them was seriously hurt. Morgan doesn’t buy it—nor the “accident” that caused his mount to fall.

When they get back to the palace, one of Daamon’s lackeys tells him he has an urgent message from the herald of the Red-Moon God. Morgan has Shakira change it cat form to do a little spying as Daamon heads off in a hurry.

Daamon enters a private chamber with a computer and screen. An image of one of the Alaces Shirasi aliens appears. The alien wants to know about the ships that recently landed near the city. Daamon stalls, apparently not wanting to turn the ships over to the aliens. He’s save when the alien detects Shakira’s presence in the room.

Daamon blasts the cat with magic. His power not only traps her but transforms her back into human form. The alien wants her for experimentation. Daamon tries to protest, but the alien reminds him that he owes the Red-Moon for the technology they provided.

Meanwhile, Morgan and the others are working on the timeships. Reno’s figured out a way to use the timeships they have to draw the others out of null-time.

Morgan begins to wander what Shakira’s up to. On his return to the palace, he looks up just in time to see Daamon flying toward the Red Moon on a skysled--with an unconscious Shakira in tow. Morgan grabs one of Daamon’s lackeys and demands to know about the Red Moon. The man tells him that’s where the god dwells—and where Lord Daamon takes the sacrifices. Morgan’s response:

“I’ll see him in hell first!”

To be continued.

Things to Notice:

• We finally get the origin of the swan-ships.  S.W.A.N. is "Strategic Warfare Alternative, Non-nuclear"
• The Alces Shirasi are revealed--surprising no one.

Where It Comes From:

Though again we get a hunt with a nonaccidental accident like in issue #40.  The Red Moon-God is revealed to be the alien race the Alces Shirasi, last seen in issue #18.