The Blackmailer and the Baboon

In last night's Weird Adventures game, Creskin and Don Diabolico set out to help poor, wayward deb Sue Ann Wilde who'd been taken advantage of by her ex-boyfriend--the now deceased ghoul, Dean.  Dean had taken her to a antiquarian book dealer, Leland Throne, who dabbled in photography--specifically, compromising photos he could presumably sell to private collectors or use as blackmail.

Diabolico got to show off his gentleman thief skills by getting them into Throne's book shop in the middle of the night.  A hidden ledger and a stray picture of Sue Ann let the boys know they were on the right track.  They confirmed Throne was planning to call Sue Ann's wealthy father for blackmail.

The two paid a visit to Throne's residence on the Upper Eld Side. They discovered that Throne had gaudy tastes in home furnishings--and had a pet baboon!

Not wanting to tangle with a baboon and Throne in the middle of the night, our heroes returned rested (and spell replenished) the next day when Throne was at work.

A quick sleep spell put the the baboon down.  Rummaging through Throne's stuff turned up a lot of risque photos--including the ones of poor Sue Ann.  They also found the vial with the potion Throne had used to drug her and another with potion of bull's vigor--which the local pharmacist implied was a sexual enhancement. 

So they don't come off as too altruistic, I should point out that Creskin and Diabolico robbed both Throne's backroom safe at work and his strongbox at home.  They even stole his camera and the decorative (maybe) scimitar hanging on the wall over his bed.  Maybe we can file that all under "getting what he deserved?"

Warlord Wednesday: Full Circle (Part 4)

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: Daamon has absconded with a saucer timeship—and Shakira. Morgan isn’t about to let a “second rate Deimos” get away from him. He and Krystovar pursue on skysleds.

The saucer begins to malfunction. Morgan flies alongside and tells Shakira to jump. When she does, he grabs her with the tractor beam. Daamon manages to bring the ship down in one piece, but then he disappears in flash of chronal radiation into the space between time and no-time (wherever that is). And then there’s the Red Moon:

Back in the Atlantean city our heroes attend a celebration in their honor. Reno can’t enjoy it, because he still hasn’t found a way to free the other timeships from the void. Shakira and Morgan take him over to Daamon's Red Moon-tech sanctum, and Reno’s mood begins to improve. In a few days, he’s got the machines rigged up and is able to pull the other ships from the timestream. The problem now is that they still are leaking chronal radiation and will need to be stored somewhere.

Atlantean guards bring Daamon’s wife and child to Morgan so he can decide their fate. Morgan knows that to let the child live will lead to Deimos being born—and all the pain that the demon priest caused in his life. Still, Morgan can’t kill an innocent. He tells the men to let them go.

Reno calls Morgan over. Morgan turns to see…himself and his friends from back at the beginning of this whole storyline! This time, our heroes experience what they only observed last time.

The chronal fog rolls in and they're transported back to the underground weapons cache they started from. Morgan is reunited with Tara.  He realizes this cave is the perfect place to store the saucerships, because—well, that’s where they found them to begin with.

For those at following at home, Krystovar and Morgan summarize what we’ve learned in this arc:

Things to Notice:

• Morgan and Shakira seem to specially put back on their future clothes just to make sure their dressed correctly to meet their past selves.
• Daamon's disappearance into the time void leaves open the option of him returning at some point.

Where It Comes From:

At last, we get back to the paradoxical meeting this storyline started out with back in issue #79. Morgan's refusal to kill Daamon's wife and infant son of course forms a poignant counterpoint to Deimos (their descendant) forcing Morgan to kill his own infant (albeit cloned and rapid-aged) son.

Waxy

Here's some new art by Loston Wallace for a little Weird Adventures project for Gen Con.  This is Waxy Moldoon. His story illustrates how fortune and failure can sometimes go hand and hand in the City. Waxy was a sadsack wiseguy wannabe, until an chance meeting with Mr. Scratch (if there's such a thing) left him something more--and less--than human.  Waxy's flesh seems to be melting--slowly.  A touch of his uncovered flesh can pass his condition on to others, in a more acute form. Anybody touched by Waxy who fails a saving throw will find his or her flesh beginning to liquify.  Success at a second saving throw means the liquification stops a point where the victim is still alive, though not much more than a lumpen mass.  Failure means the victim dies leaving only a puddle.  The process takes d100 hours.

Waxy's power has gotten him closer to being the big shot he always wanted to be.  He's got soldiers behind him, and he's an up and comer in the City's underworld, but he still isn't happy.  Everybody Waxy's touch sends oozing into oblivion is another reminder just what maybe waiting for him one day.

Titans, Wrathful and Otherwise

 

Based on the previews I was hoping Wrath of the Titans would be a bit better than its predecessor, the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans. Unfortunately, it largely has the virtues and flaws of the first film. It has a couple of interesting locales (a forest filled with traps and cyclopes, and Tartarus as an ever-shifting labyrinth), but overall it has less spectacle than the "similar in plot but more visually interesting in a stagey way" Immortals (2011).

If you’re looking for rpg inspiration in the area of titans (clashing or wrathful), I’d suggest forgoing all these films and checking out John C. Wright’s fantasy trilogy, "The Chronicles of Chaos" (Orphans of Chaos (2005), Fugitives of Chaos (2006), Titans of Chaos (2007). The series tells the story of five unusual orphans, who have lived their lives as the sole attendees at a British boarding school. It turns out that the five teens aren’t orphans at all, but hostages, securing a truce in the primal war between the Prelapsarian Titans and the Cosmos created by the renegade Cronus. Of course, the teens escape.

The five titan children each wield a different magical paradigm: Quentin practices sorcery and treats with spirits, Colin has the psychic ability to make reality conform to his will, Victor can manipulate matter on a molecular level, Amelia can perceive and tweak higher order dimensions, and Vanity can create doors and has a magic boat. The paradigms (and the paradigms of their foes, the Olympians) act in a “rock, paper, scissors” fashion that is not only clever but eminently gameable.

Wright’s modern world of hidden mythological beings has some resemblance to similar media, but he works with things in fresh ways. Grendel’s mother is the “mother of monsters” Echidna. The master artificer Telchines are more or less robots. The Laegystronians are literally Martians.

While the series seems ready made for something like White Wolf’s Scion (though Wright initially came up with the idea for a campaign in the Amber rpg), there are rich details that could be swiped for almost any game.

Rarebit Fiends

Try as they might, the Dream Lord and his gnomish Sandmen can’t keep all nightmares quarantined in Slumberland. And perhaps they don’t always try; there are always rumors of rogue Sandmen taking bribes to smuggle oneiric nasties. In any case, some nightmares do escape and return to the Material Plane. Bugbears are a common example, but there are lesser (and lesser known) nightmare forms collectively called “rarebit fiends,” as they seemed to have emerged from the sort of strange dreams that seem to follow an evening's indulgence in a too-rich meal. Here are a few examples:

Hebephrenic Stag: Sometimes it’s known as simply “The Gump,” a name of unknown derivation. The mounted stag’s head appears on a wall and begins to laugh madly and incessantly at anything the homeowner does. It will appear as a normal taxidermied specimen when anyone else is present to see it, but its raucous noise can be heard by others--and is almost invariably attributed to the home owner. It can be appeased and moved to silence by placing an opened can of dog food made from horse meat beneath it on the night of the new moon.

Voluptua Lilies: Lascivious plants that seek to seduce the receiver (generally a woman) into heedless pleasure. Those failing a saving throw are enthralled (as per spell) by the delicate caress of the flowers. Victims have, on rare occasions, been so enraptured that they allowed themselves to die of dehydration rather than give up the lilies' embrace.

Moonface: Scholars disagree on whether this fiend actually inhabits the moon (or its image) or merely the mind of the victim perceiving it. In any case, a mostly grinning, perhaps inebriated-appearing face appears on the moon (or it’s image.or in the perceiver’s mind). In a vague but definitely foreign accent the moon rambles on almost incoherently, yet the victim will be convinced the monologue is a mocking commentary on his or her actions. Men have been driven to desperate acts including suicide and murder under the moonface’s unforgiving glare.

"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?"